Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: Nuggets OUTDUEL Curry & Warriors, Grizzlies-Mavericks, Magic-Knicks

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guys are having a great week. On a fun show for you today, we're hitting three games from the n season tournaments late last night, the Golden State Warriors versus the Denver Nuggets, the Orlando Magic versus the New York Knicks, and the Memphis Grizzlies versus the Dallas Mavericks. Are going to be breaking down all three of those games from the perspective of all six teams before we get out of here for the day. You guys have the job

before we get started. Subscribed to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS. You guys, don't maske sho announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. Don't forget it's helpfulf you leave

a rating, interview review on that front. We also have new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for the Hoops Tonight channel, we're releasing more content as well as show announcements and show links and stuff like that. Make sure you guys follow those pages and then keep dropping mailback questions in the YouTube comments. We're going to be recording a new mail bag on Friday this week last sleep before we get started, I want to talk

to you guys for a second about game time. Now was a great time of the year to go see an event. We've got NFL in full swing, NBA in full swing, NHL in full swing, college football, college basketball concerts, and comedy shows. I just saw an announcement this morning that Dead End Company is coming back to the Sphere in Las Vegas next year in March, April, and May. I'm super super excited about that. You got to get

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works best for you. Take the guests work out of buying tickets with game Time Picks, download the game Time app, created an account, and use code Hoops for twenty dollars off your first purchase terms apply again, create account, redeem code hoops. That's Hops for twenty dollars off. Download Game time today? What time is it? Game time? All right, let's talk some basketball. So Golden State Denver. Golden State goes on a huge run in the late third quarter,

early fourth quarter that puts them up by eleven. All of the role players were making plays. Moses Moody was awesome in this stretch. Hit a bunch of key jump shots. Gary Payton was scoring on cuts. He had a couple of buckets on cuts. He had a huge corner three right in front of his bench there in the left corner. They forced turnovers, they got out in transition. Kyle Anderson had this like crazy nifty driving up and underfinish on the right side of the basket. Buddy Held hit a

big corner three out of the left corner. Brandon Pajemski hit a big pull up jump shot against Yokitchen a deep drop coverage. Like everybody was making plays. It was beautiful basketball. And by the way, for all the guys that have like had, you know, have wondered why I've been talking about needing a trade of bringing in a reliable secondary offensive player. This is really why the Warriors

are pretty fucking good when they score the basketball. When guys that are not Steph Curry can score the basketball, there are a lot of self created plays in that sequence. Moses Moody hit a three coming off of a dribble handoff out of the right corner where he just rows up on the move when his man kind of went underneath the screen and he rows up and knocked it down. That's more or less self created. Kyle Anderson snaking through the lane and going up and under and finishing a layup.

That's more or less self created. Brandon Pazemski hitting a jump shot against the drop coverage. That's self created. Gary Payton hit a shot coming out of a dribble handoff in the right corner in the fourth quarter. We hit like a left handed floater in the lane. That's a self created shot. When guys on the Warriors are capable of creating and making shots for themselves, it makes them look a lot better because they have such a great defense.

It allows him to cover for a night where Steph Curry doesn't necessarily have the most efficient scoring night right, but then they're very inconsistent, and when those players suddenly go cold, it becomes a problem. Like the final sequence of this game, when the Warriors were down two, Steph gets denied. Denver successfully denies him the basketball twice, and so it ends up being a kaminga drive that goes

nowhere and Andrew Wiggins drive that goes nowhere. It would be a luxury to have consistent self created baskets that come off of Steph Curry. That's why that concept has been something that myself and many others have been harping on all season because it's not always going to be the way it was at the start of the year. There are ups and downs, there are stretches where guys

go cold. Sometimes you do play bad basketball for a couple of weeks and you drop five games in a row, and you can make those stretches shorter, and you can extend your good stretches by bringing in more consistent offensive production.

That's why we've been harping on that. Right, but Denver was down by eleven, was six minutes left again in large part because of that consistent shot creation from other Warriors, and then Denver just started to methodically work their way back into the game through the strength of their superstar. To Kole Joki, it started with him right in the middle of the floor against Tray Jackson, Davis just hits a couple of easy face up jumpers right in his face.

There was a really nice pass that Russell Westbrook through to Michael Porter Junior in that stretch too, where they ran a little off ball action. They rate it twice. The first time they ran it with Russ. Russ through a rifle pass Moses Spood. He had his back turn, hit Michael Porter right in the hands, goes up and dunks it. They tried running it out of the very next possession of Kyle Anderson kind of snuffed it out and got a block, but they got a big bucket there.

On the MPG curl off of the Russ pass, there was a Jokic giving Golf of a pump fake where he just kind of dribbled into like a shot like pump fake that the Tray Sackson Davis like jumps off of his feet, gives up the ball and then just cuts behind it, gets the ball right back and lays it up. And remember that's the threat of the jump shot,

which is so important for Jokic. Earlier in the same half, he had another pick and pop with Jamal Murray on the left wing, pops above the break pump fake tray Jackson Davis leaves his feet, just lumbers down the lane and gets a layup. That's such an important part of

his offense. And again, like last year when his jumper wasn't on, he got one point zero six points per spot up one point two eight points per roll or pop. This year one point three six points per spot up in one point three six points per roll in pop. So like significantly more off ball scoring in gravity from Jokic just by him getting that jump shot back on track. And again it's not always gonna manifest with him making

jump shots. It's gonna manifest with him getting easier opportunities around the basket to either score or playmate for his teammates off of the attention that his jumper can bring. So gets that give and go that cuts the lead to five with four minutes left. Then they go to this just right block post up and they ended up getting two buckets for Aaron Gordon out of this, but the first one just cuts right off of it. Yokic hits am, Aaron Gordon gets a dunk that cuts it

to four. Jamal Murray was getting hunted by Steph Curry down the stretch of this game. We're gonna talk about it in a minute. He gets a big block on Jonathan Kaminga at the rim, runs out to the other end,

draws a blocking foul that cuts it to two. Then Jokic gets Steph in a transition cross match on the right side of the floor, and as he dribbles into Steph, Steph wants to get scrammed out of the switch, so he turns in like runs to go guard somebody else and just hopes that another warrior will run over there and guard Jokic. No warrior goes in guards Jokic. Jokic just steps into the jumper by himself and ties the game. Then they go back to that exact same post up

on the right block. The very second Kyle Anderson comes over to double Jokic just feeds it over the top

to Aaron Gordon. Aaron Gordon gets another bucket. Now it's one seventeen to one fifteen, and again this is where I want to kind of switch gears over to the defensive end of the flour because one of the things the Nuggets did throughout the game, they were bringing Jokic up to the level of the screen and all the Steph Curry actions, and then they were running him in a deep drop against some of the lesser players, you know, like if he was defending a screening action with like

Gary Payton coming down the lane, or if he was defending a screening action against you know, Brandet Pazemski coming down the lane. But the Warriors were getting a lot of really good stuff just based on the fact that Steph was bringing Jokic out to the level. Even though Steph didn't have a great scoring game, he had a great playmaking game, and a big part of that was him bringing Yokic up to the level. So Denver starts switching everything down the stretch of this game, and so

Steph decides to start going at Jamal Murray. And this has been a recurring theme for Nuggets fans, like Jamal Murray's been getting cooked at the end of these games and it's been a huge problem for them. But he did a much much better job. Again, like a lot of times, when we talk about issues with these teams, it's like, Oh, this team needs this or this guy can't do that, and it's like a lot of times the solution is just do better. Like Jamal's getting killed

at the end of these games. I've seen them win the title where he holds up better in those situations where he can make defensive plays like that block on Jonathan Kaming got the rim. Sometimes you just gotta sit in a damn stance, slide those feet and make a damn play on the defensive end of the floor when

they're trying to go at you right. Such an important part of overcoming your weaknesses as a basketball team is just getting the guys that are the weakness in whatever that area is and just getting them to do better. And again, like Steph hit a little turnaround jump shot on him where he drove along the right lane line and spun over his right shoulder and hit a little

jump shot, but he got stops. The rest of the possessions, they went at Steph five times, or excuse me, Steph won at Jamal Murray five straight times down the stretch of that game, and they ended up generating one basket out of it. And then on the final two possessions they successfully denied Steph Ball entirely, which forced Jonathan came again Andrew Wiggins to try to make something happen, and

he couldn't make anything happen. So the Warrior offense stalled out in large part because Steph wasn't getting clean dribble penetration on Jamal Murray. Steph was settling for some tough pull up jump shots having to pick up his dribble in the mid range, and Jamal just did a good job got the stops that he needed. And that really was the story of the game for me last night as I watched that matchup, Like, we're talking about two teams here that have the same major weakness, which is

beyond their superstar, they don't have reliable shot creation. Now, obviously Denvers has higher profile players, right, guys that have better reputations than the secondary shot creators for the Warriors, but guys like Jamal Murray haven't been playing well this year. So like the same issue is there for Denver, which is like, if it's not Jokich, there's not a lot of like consistent offense that they have on this froster.

But the difference is Jokic is playing at the level of a top tier superstar, the best player in the league, and Steph Curry is not. Jokic was able to make stuff happen for his team anyway with no one else able to hit shots.

he outplayed Jason Tatum in a game. He's outplayed guys, and we've seen what it looks like. Golden State can beat the Thunder, Golden State can beat Boston, but it depends on that version of Steph. Like they didn't beat Boston or beat Okac with Steph, whereas averages this year at twenty two point six points per game, they beat those teams when Steph was able to reach that level.

And that's the thing. It's like, Steph has had really good games this year, but he's averaging twenty two point six points per game for the season, and he was right around that number for the tail end of last season. The scoring volume has been down for a really long time.

The teams are really loading up on him, and again in the past, teams are really loading up on him in twenty twenty one and he averaged, you know, thirty two points per game because he was playing like the best player in the world.

their athleticism on the perimeter, which the Warriors don't. But the Warriors have issues with shot creation off of Steph, which the Lakers don't. They have tons of guys that can run off this. Right We're gona talk about that later when we talk a little bit about Spencer Dinwiddie, because I find his success Dallas to be pretty fascinating as it pertains to where he kind of slotted as a shot creator compared to where he was with the Lakers.

I still believe these teams are worth investing in. But at this point, until whatever change is made, the only thing that can really remedy this is like STEP's got to get back to the point where he's averaging twenty eight twenty nine points per game on over sixty percent through shooting. And until he does that, it's gonna be really hard for this team to beat the good teams that are in the Western Conference, and they're dropping some

games right now. And again with Yokich, it'sct it's the exact opposite story, Like he's overcoming a lot of these issues because he's playing better basketball than anyone else in the world is at this point. He's methodically walking teams down at the end of games, getting whatever the hell he wants for even like he's cre makeable shots for players that have their issues. Yeah, I Varon Gordon's got to shoot spot up threes all night, it's gonna be

an issue. But if he's just catching and dunking off of cuts, it's gonna work.

they're playing better basketball right now. Again, Like that's when it almost always just comes down to, like how well is your are your stars playing? I don't really even think it's possible to properly evaluate the supporting cast of teams like this when their stars aren't playing well because supporting cast players depend on the advantages created by their stars, right, And so like it's it's just one of those things to keep an eye on. Like again, I don't think

it's over. I think both Steph and Lebron will have moments this year where they get back to form. But neither of these teams is accomplishing anything unless they get to April and they're playing at the level they need to be playing at as top tier superstars in this league. All right, Moving on to Magic Nicks. The Knicks did

a really nice job of containing the basketball in this game. Again, that's been one of their biggest issues throughout this entire this entire season, just not very good at the point of attack for a roster that should be given the

personnel that they have on board. They did a couple of specific things and a lot of matchup stuff, right, Like, Orlando's not a great pull up jump shooting team, so you can go underneath ball screens, you can give them space and ISOs and try to absorb contact rather than needing to pressure the ball. But they just as a team did a better job they were shrinking the floor

with nail help and stunting. They were in their ISOs like giving that space and kind of playing in that middle ground where you feel like you're baiting teams into tougher pull up jump shots. Their weak side rotations were really solid. They got a lot of steals with the wingman covering for the low man. Again, I always talk about the difference between like what I see when I see a bad team versus a good team, where like a lot of the bad teams, it's like you just

run a ball screen. You just kick to the corner and a guy gets a wide open three. But the good teams will have that windshield wiper rotation where the guy who's guarding the weak side wing will drop to the corner, and a lot of times if you time that right, you can get steals in those situations. And the Knicks got a couple of steals like that, and then Jalen Brunson really put this game away in the

early third quarter. I mean, the Knicks were dominating throughout, they were up twenty at a half, but he really put the game away in the early third quarter just going at Kentavious Caldwell Pope, he kicked him. I did like a little low gather on a crossover where he got an and one. He put him in jail on a ball screen and bumped him off for an easy

mid range jumps out. He had another low gatherer on Wendell Carter JUNI you're on a little sliced through the lane, and both McHale bridges and OJ and Andobi hit movement threes in that run, just just coming off. McHale came off of a little Chicago action in the corner, knocked one down, Og hit one in transition when he was in and all of a sudden they were up by

thirty five and the game was over. And so the Knicks offense is really coming together kind of the way I was hoping it would when I saw the trades.

to do, right, I don't think it's a coincidence that Dallas ran into issues when they were able to just put Jason Tatum on the centers and shut down the ball screen attack, and all of a sudden it turned into like a lot of isolation jump shots, and Kyrie went cold and Luca wasn't hot enough, and then they couldn't get the stops that they needed and they ended

up losing that series. Right by adding the same thing goes with the Knicks, by the way, like when it's all Jalen Brunson and just a bunch of guys that are just passing the ball back to him, I feel like there's a certain limit that that offense can get to when they run into better defenses and things really grind to a halt. And so when you have more guys that can make plays, more guys that can capitalize

on advantage. It's one of the things that I've always thought about when it comes to the higher levels of the NBA playoffs, when you face truly elite defenses, they tend to they tend to be really.

you think. And like you see a skip pass and you're like, oh, that guy's open, but you throw the skip pass and the dude who's in the low man position is just insanely fast and he just can close

out really well and that opening is just gone. And so like when you're playing against the better defense is it's like you have to create a very slight advantage at the start of the possession by barely getting the defense to lean one way, and then you have to kick to a guy who's got a really good defender closing out at him, and he's got to turn that

close out into an even bigger advantage. And then that guy's got to come off of the next close out and do an even better job, and then maybe you'll get a moderately contested three or a moderately contested shot at the rim, or a matchup that you kind of like that you might be able to get an ISO

or post up shot against. But like when you're playing against the elite defenses, it's just really hard, and so having really high level offensive players all over the floor makes it easier for you to do that incremental breakdown of a defense. The Knicks have been the number one offense in the league this year. They have a one to twenty three offensive rating in their last eleven games. Last night against Orlando was their ninth game this season

scoring over one hundred and twenty points. And like again, when you uh like there's some specific dynamic accept play that make it more complicated, right, Like kat as a spacing big always causes issues for certain teams, But like a lot of teams are, you know, putting their center

on Josh Harten causing problems there. So it's like one of those things where it still comes down to, at the end of the day, your ability to capitalize and expand on advantages and then to finish plays at the end and then just having McHale Bridges on the Florida By the way, mckel Bridges is playing much better. That was a beautiful game against Orlando there. He's starting to hit some of those threes when he's running into the

corner on the mover relocating right. He's starting to make some of those classic mid range pull up jump shots that he used to make all the time when he was driving closeouts in Phoenix. By the way, mckel bridges his first ten games fifteen points per game, his last eleven games eighteen points per game. His three point shooting percentage has gone up from thirty one percent to thirty five percent over that span. So like getting more juice out of mckel bridges. Oh, Jannonobi went cold there for

a while, but he got back against Orlando. He's had stretches where he's been really good. Karl Anthony Towns has been amazing all season. He's averaging twenty five points per game on sixty five percent through shooting. That's just outrageous, right, I mean, Jalen Brunson looks as comfortable as ever. He gets to pick his spots more than ever, He has more space to work with than ever. His usage has dropped.

He was in last year he was a thirty three percent usage guy, which is like closer to Luca than you'd like to be, right, But in this season he's down to thirty percent, which is pretty standard for a superstar in this league when you're in a normal equal opportunity offense.

brings a lot of downhill force. He had ten assists against the Magic, and now after watching the game, some of those were just like swing passes to dudes who made one on one shots that probably shouldn't have counted as assists. But he still gets like three or four assists a game where he's just bringing downhill force with a transition drive or even just an offensive rebound for a kickout. It's like he makes plays or creates advantages

for his teammates using his downhill force he's got. He's like a little bowling ball that's really difficult to stop when he gets going with the full head of steam, and so they just have all of this offensive talent. It's been super resilient too. Like in the five games that the Knicks have played against top ten defenses according to Cleaning the Glass, they have a one to seventeen

offensive rating, which ranks fifth in the NBA. So their offense has continued to function even when they've played the higher level defenses in the league. During the eight and two stretch that they are in in their last ten games, their defense has been a little bit better too. They have a one to thirteen point eight defensive rating, which is seventeenth in the league over that span.

forty five points. But like, the only reason I'm really concerned there, and the only reason I'm harping on that all season is because I think in the big picture, you've got to think about everything through the lens of Boston. You won't be able to outscore Boston. I think they'll be able to outscore basically any other team in the league if they need to in a series. I feel like that's an option, which is like, we can just score crazy well and give ourselves a chance to beat

this team. I feel like they can do that to get to just about anybody, but Boston is a completely different story, and you're going to have to find a way to slow down Boston's offense if you're gonna have any chance to win that conference. So like really encouraging stuff on the offensive end of the floor, everything coming together with the vision that you would have expected when make with making a deal for a guy like Michal Bridges with making a deal for a guy like Karl

Anthony Towns. The two man game with Karl Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunston continues to be devastating all sorts of encouraging stuff there, but I'm gonna keep harping on in the defense all season because it's just something that they need to polish up if they're gonna contend with the team like Boston. On the Orlando front, I thought this was really fascinating. They're second in defensive rating on the season, but this was yet another example of their defense getting

lit up by an elite offense. The Knicks are number one in offense. They put a one to seventeen offensive rating on the Magic. Memphis is number five in offense. They put a one to eighteen offensive rating on the Magic. The Cavs are second in offense. They put a one to seventeen offensive rating on the Magic. The Lakers or a top five offense at the time of their matchup. They've slipped to ten now, but they're still top ten. They hung a one to twenty one offensive rating on

the Orlando Magic. In fact, according to Cleaning the Glass, despite the Magic being second in defense overall, they're just fourteenth in defense against the ten best offenses in the league, so it's not a very resilient defense. The top five most resilient defenses, by the way, for those wondering. This is just a little side note. Memphis, Houston, OKC, the Clippers, and Golden State all teams with just an absurd amount

of speed. Now what's causing the problem? When I watched the Magic, the consistent theme is they get spread out and lit up from three in those games. So like when they can play teams and they can really pack the paint, their size becomes a big problem. And they do have speed at the guard position, but without Paalo, they're not as mobile on the front line as they could be at times, and they can get a little

bit reckless with their gambling. And this team is third best in the league at forcing turnovers, second best at blocking shots, but when they leave their feet or when they lunge for the ball against smart teams, they can end up in rotation. And when they're in rotation, some of their bigger, slower guys can be an issue there.

It's again, it's not a huge deal, and I do think Palo is a major help there because like going just adding another guy who's six ' ten and pretty damn fast is going to go a long way to helping them cover ground in rotation. But it's just something interesting to keep an eye and eye on in terms of a trend, which is that the Orlando Magic are getting stops against everybody except the best offenses in the league, and in those games, they're getting lit up from three

and getting kind of burned in rotation a lot. Just something to keep an eye as we progress through this season. All before we get out of here, let's move on to Memphis Dallas kind of a wild game. Memphis completely dominated most of the second half. John Morant was like annihilating them. He's just getting to wherever he wanted on the floor. He had twenty six points just in the second half, and Dallas kind of felt like they were

on their heels most of the game. And by the way, Memphis has been a top five offense this year, and it starts with John. No one can really guard this guy. He's playmaking at an extremely high level. He's just slicing and dicing teams in the middle of the lane. He hasn't been shooting very well this year, but he's got such a repertoire of counter moves and over the top shots that he can hit in the short to mid range, like he's over fifty two percent on floaters and hooks

this year. So even though he's shooting like a super low twenty nine percent on off the dribble jump shots, he's still getting enough over the top shot creation as an option for him in the short to mid range, and his playmaking has been so good there it's just been a problem for a lot of teams in this league, as Memphis has been a really good offense. But Dallas walked him down in that fourth quarter.

euro steps, spins. He hit Klay Thompson with a disgusting spin move in that fourth quarter that just left him like glued to the floor, and like he just has all these counter moves in that range, so you have to like absorb contact by beating him to the spot. Then you have to recover to that secondary move, and he got a great contest on a John Morant little mid range shot where he forced him to really fade and have to shoot it higher than he typically does and forced a mist. It was a huge stop in

that game. Luka Dancic hit a huge three. John Murray hit a three that put him up eight. He had a huge three a step back over Marcus Smart that pulled them back within five and kept the game close. Derek Lively had two huge offensive rebounds, and then Spencer Dinwoodie hit the biggest shots of the game and running transition three on the right wing that kind of was a little bit of an iffy shot, but like he got his legs into it and he shot it up in the air and he knocked it down and then

a couple of possessions two. I think it was the very next possession. Actually, he ends up hitting the dagger on the right wing that puts the Mavericks up five

and they get out of there for the game. Now, before we move on to some of the big picture stuff, a lot of talk for coming out of that game about free throw differential and like oh my god, the refs just gave Dallas so many free throws in that fourth quarter, and blah blah, blah blah, And like, you guys know how I feel about this sort of thing, Like I am consistent across the board, regardless of team,

regardless of who it is. I think complaining about free free throw differential is the lamest, the lamest shit in the world. It's a loser mentality. Even when I see pros and pro coaches do it, I'm like, ugh, Like that's just such a bad look because like once again, when you go on the road, you expect that you're gonna probably be on the wrong end of a couple of calls. It's part of your mental toughness going into

that situation. You have to be ready for it, prepared for it, and be willing to play through it.

that sort of thing. And like I watched that game, like, yeah, there were a couple of calls. I didn't like the offensive rebound with the one that got reviewed where they ended up reversing it and giving Derek Lively to free throws,

Like yeah, I disagree with that. I think it should have just been Dallas side out of bounds or based on out of bounds, like if you're it just as ridiculous to just reward somebody with free throws for contact that happens all the time in the end of these games, and guys are fighting for rebounds, so like, yeah, I thought that was a bad call.

So he fell. The ref's not gonna just let it go and you're in the penalty and again that's a pick forty five feet from the basket. Luca's not gonna pull up that shot, just go under by. By physically fighting over the top of that screen, you put the ref in a position where he could make a call, and he did. There was another play. It was a three point game, like with like two minutes left, and Luca gets a defensive rebound and Marcus Smart just runs in and hacks him on both arms, like right in

front of the ref. If you watch the replay that, you can see the ref like blow the whistle and kind of shake his head a little bit as if like, dude, you're making me make the call, like what the hell are you doing?

play basketball, especially when you go on the road. It's always a part of the game. It could happen to you at home too. It's a variable. You go into games knowing the refs are gonna make mistakes, just like we are going to make mistakes. That is part of basketball. And again, like I'm not trying to harp on Memphis fans here because I've seen Dallas fans do it. Hell

Lakers fans. The Lakers have the best free throw differential in the league over the last couple of years, and I've seen Laker fans say Lebron gets the worst whistle and oh ad got hacked on that one, like everyone does it. I personally think it's lame. I think it's completely I think it's a huge waste of time to

even focus on. I have big picture concerns about officiating in the NBA, but I think talking about it within the scale of within the scope of competition is a big waste of time, and I think it's a loser mentality. And again, like this has been a consistent theme from Memphis. They have struggled with execution and decision making at the end of games they're two and six and clutch situations.

was a bad shot. Him committing those two bad fouls, those three mistakes get wiped out, that could be a very different game, right, Like, it's just more often than not, it just comes down to your decision making and execution in those situations, not something out of your control like

the refs or something along those lines. And bottom line is John Moran, after slicing and dicing them all night, really couldn't get anything for himself except for that three point shot that he hit from above the break during crunch time. So like that was the issue at the end of that game. Luca was able to consistently generate some pretty high quality shots, and Memphis was it. They ended up getting the win and of key offensive rebounds

for Dallas. Things along those lines. I was thinking about this while I was watching the game last night. I think Dallas is the third best team in the entire NBA. I landed here in a different way than I did last year. Like last year, I had Dallas as third as well. Going into the playoffs, I had Boston and Denver and then a end of a tier, and then I had Dallas as the top of the second tier of championship teams. This year, I came in with Dallas

at number five. I had Denver and New York above them. But from what I've seen from all three of those teams this year, I think Dallas is better than both of them. They just have so many good players, and some of last year's guys have gotten better. Luke and Kyrie or Luke and Kyrie. I'm not going to get too far into them. Like Luca's numbers are down this year and everyone's freaking out. I couldn't care less. I expect Luca to be a better player than and he

was last year. By the time he gets to the postseason, as long as he says healthy. So I'm just not worried about Luca. And by the way, in his last two games, he's averaging thirty seven points, ten rebounds, nine assists on fifty seven percent from the field in forty seven percent from three with seven steals. By the way, as he continues to play passing lanes really well, like Lucas, seems to be getting back to form, I'm not worried about him.

that could be key for the Boston matchup. As we know, in the Boston matchup with Darre Jones out of the equation, that's likely going to be a center on PJ Washington and him needing to hit pick and pop jump shots. If they were to get back into that matchup. Those above the break threes are vitally important for them in that specific matchup. He's also just a really good functional athlete.

Like he got that key stop against Jaw, He gets contested defense, rebounds, he brings real downhill force driving close outs, he can beat mismatches in the post. He's just a really really good player. Dereklively is just awesome. He had six offensive rebounds last night. Last year, Derek Lively was basically a one to one assist to turnover guy. This year he's a two to one assist to turnover guy. Like I talked about guys getting better, Derek Lively and PJ.

Washington are just better basketball players now than they were last year. That's an ad of talent to this team.

are on the floor together. Dallas has not been a good defensive rebounding team this year, but they get seventy five percent of their defensive rebounds that are available when PJ and Derek Glively are on the floor together. They both can switch in ball screens and guard perimeter players. They run the floor super well. Dallas has a ninety six percentile transition defense when those two are on the floor together, and they provide spacing in their own ways,

with PJ. Washington knocking down shots and driving closeouts, and with Derek Lively as a vertical spacer and a guy who can make plays in the four on three when he gets ignored in blitzes and stuff like that.

defense option in that lineup. And you know, I actually find this really fascinating because I wanted the Lakers to bring Spencer Dinwoody back. I thought he was a good player, but he did not have a good offensive season the brief time that he was in LA And a big part of that was where he was in the pecking order. Like Austin was getting more touches than Spencer. De loo is getting more touches in Spencer. Lebron's getting more touches

than Spencer. Hell Ruey's getting more touches than Spencer. Anthony Davis is getting more touches than Spencer. Spencer was like the sixth option on that team, as he'd come in as.

and PJ. Washington, we can assume that those five are more or less or those four are more or less going to be the closing four for any matchup.

can bring in extra size for that matchup. Oh, we're guarding Boston and we just need another guy who can guard on the perimeter really well. Well, you can go with Naji Marshall at the three or Spencer Dinwoodie with as well as he's playing. Spencer's a good defender and he's not a great defender, but he's a good defender and he can really do the job. He's got long arms,

good size, good strength. It can move pretty well. Right, Let's say you're playing like a team like in Orlando or another team that has a lot of size that likes to match upon a team like the Lakers, for instance, like Klay Thompson is one of the best options in the league for like defending players in the post and shooting the three, and so you could put Clay at

the three for matchups like that. They have a lot of versatility for different types of matchups in the conference, and it didn't feel like that last year because they didn't have, you know, guys like Spencer, didn't Winn Narget, Nauji Marshall, they didn't have guys like Klay Thompson to have for those types of looks. Right, they're deep enough

to stay high in the standings all season. We just saw them whether the loss of Luca for a little while, and I think they match up better than with Boston than they did last year. Do I think they'd beat Boston. I wouldn't pick them, but it's an easier path to see, Like PJ Washington making above the break threes would really help in that matchup. I think Luca will be in better shape and defend better in that series after he

got embarrassed last year. Spencer at the three gives them another mobile perimeter player to have as an option in those situations. Kyrie was really cold in that series last year. It's easy to see a pathway where he would be

better this year. Right, So, like they're a long shot still because it feels like there's a gap between them in Boston, but I feel like they've closed that gap some amount, and so all it takes is certain variables to go their way for them to be able to potentially get it done in like a puncher's chance type of sense, and if you believe in that again, all ads. All odds provided by DraftKings.