Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: Nuggets STUN Luka & Mavericks, Celtics-Bucks + Power Rankings

player props. Ready to place your first bet, try betting on something simple like picking how many points your favorite player will have. Go to the DraftKings Sportsbook app and make your pick. The current favorite to win the NBA Cup is Boston at plus four to twenty five, with the Cleveland Cavaliers in second place at plus eight point fifty. First time, here's something special just for you new DraftKings customers. Bet five dollars to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets.

Instantly score big with Draft Kings Sportsbook. Every point Counts. Download the Draft Kings Sportsbook gap and use code hoops that's code hoops hoops for new customers to get two hundred dollars in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one eight hundred Gambler, New York Call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and why to four six seven three sixty nine. Connecticut. Help is

available for problem gambling. Call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas twenty one plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkang dot co slash b ball. All right,

welcome to tonight. You're at the volume heavy Monday. Everybody, Oh bald guys, had a great weekend, got a jam pack show for you Today. We're gonna do two instant reactions off the top to a couple of major showdowns that we had last night, and bolt the East and the West. The Boston Celtics gotta win in Milwaukee against

the Bucks once again, just like last time. The Bucks kind of hang around keep it interesting, but it feels like they kind of let go of the rope late and lose control of things, dropping them to two and eight. So we're gonna be breaking that game down from the perspective of both teams. Then Nikole Jokich puts up just another completely absurd stat line last night as the Nuggets improved to seven and three, beating the Dallas Mavericks, who are now five and five and sitting at the eleven

seed in the Western Conference. Here through the first ten games of the season. After we break those two games down, like we do every Monday, we're gonna go over this week's power rankings, raking the teams through the first ten games from ten to one. You guys know the dripe before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore json lt so you guys

don't miss how announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight, don't forget. It's also helpful for you leave a rating and a review on that front. Don't forget about our show, Instagram feed and Facebook feed and Twitter feed for hoops tonight. We're also releasing much of like reels and stuff like that on those, so make sure you follow there and the last not at least keep dropping mailback questions in

the YouTube comments. We're gonna do another long mail bag on Friday this week to make sure you drop your questions there so we can get to them when we get to that point. All right, let's talk some basketball. So first game, Celtics Bucks. Interesting game. The Bucks jumped

them early. Kind of reminded me of the games that the Bucks played against the Celtics in Milwaukee last year, where they kind of jump them early and then kind of felt like in last year's games that the Celtics just were just too far behind ever really worked their way back into the game. Giannis was on an absolute tear. You're hitting jump shots. Giannis is shooting forty two percent on jump shots this year, which is actually the best

mark of his career. It's in large part because he's cutting way down on the number of threes he's taking. Actually hit a three early in this Boston game, but he's cutting way down on threes. He's only taking zero point seven three point attempts per game, which is his lowest three point volume since twenty fifteen, literally almost a

decade ago. But he's taking so many more of him at the elbows, easy hesitating, like sitting in the high hesitation dribble, when the guy's on his heels rising up into that shot at the elbow, And here's the thing, like it's it's just an easier shot for him there, ironically, even though again this is the this is the important detail. A three point shot is worth more than a two point shot, but it doesn't matter if you can't actually

make it. Jannis is taking more mid range jumpers than threes this year, but because he's shooting a significantly higher percentage on those twos, he's actually getting more points per jump shot this year than he did in the previous two seasons. He's at zero point eight six points per jump shot this year. He was below zero point eight points per shot in each of the previous two seasons, despite the fact that he was taking more threes. So

it's actually kind of like working for him. Over the top shots, Giannis has been more efficient than usual this year. He's on an absolute terror. We're gonna talk more about Gianni's here in a minute. But he jumped them early in this game. I think he had twenty seven points in the first half. Was just crushing the Celtics in the paint. The Bucks ended up going up sixteen to two. Again, it looked like those those games from last year, but

then the Celtics settled down. Peyton Pritchard had an incredible first half. He had seventeen points. The big thing. I talked about this in a radio hit in the Bay Area for the for Warriors fans that I did on I was, I think it was on Thursday or Friday last week, and I talked about how the skill development people and the Warriors are very clearly emphasizing the concept

of movement shooting. Basically like instead of just focusing on repping out, catch and shoot threes, let's, you know, still work on that, but let's work on the ability to shoot on the move for several different reasons. One like a good spacing shooter can relocate, meaning like when the help defender turns their head and isn't paying attention, you move from one pace to a place to another. Pivotal possession.

At the end of this game, where Tatum hits the dagger, three catches Giannis kind of ball watching, slides up the line and ends up taking a three closer to above

the break gets a better look there. Right. Relocating means moving while you're shooting right, getting your feet set while you're on the move, but also when you're running action, if you're coming off of a screening action and you're able to if you're a right handed shooter moving to your right, if you're able to plant that left foot and swing that right foot around and square up as you're running and rise up and take a shot, that is what causes teams to have to show on screens,

and that is what develops those four on threes when you can start hitting those pocket passes or floating the ball over the top while the screener rolls to the rim. Right like movement, shooting is a vitally important part of being a threat in any sort of screening action. And what did you see from Peyton Pritchard in that first half. He's flying off of screens, getting his feet set, turning on the move and rising up and knocking down shots.

That's real value. Obviously, Peyton Pritchard has been incredible this year. He's the face. I believe he's the betting favorite right now to win sixth Man of the Year. He's providing excellent ball pressure. He's providing a lot of hustle plays, but he's also bringing really high level offense. He's been one of the best backup guards in league to start

this year. But the Bucks were able to hang onto the rope and kind of stiff arm the Celtics until about one minute left in the first half, and then the Celtics had one of their classic runs. The Bucks got a little sloppy, the Celtics started hitting shots. The Celtics turned a thirteen point deficit into a two point lead in four minutes. It's an insane turnaround in this game turned into kind of like a back and forth second half. Tatum was incredible in the second half. He

had twenty three points. He got to the foul line eleven times in that half, and you know, it's interesting.

This season has been a very interesting Jason Tatum season, and I think it should be kind of scary to a lot of people around the league because he's still not really hitting his touch shots at the level that I think he's going to over the course of this season, like Tatum is shooting only thirty seven percent on jump shots, and he's shooting only fifty seven percent on layups, and yet he's still, despite that, is averaging thirty one points

per game on sixty three percent true shooting. So couple of different angles to get into their okay. First of all, how is he this efficient despite the fact that his touch shooting hasn't been as good as he's capable of doing, or at least as good as I think he's going to in the long run of the season. First of all, huge increase in his three point rate. Last year forty three percent of his field goal attempts for threes, forty

three percent this year fifty seven percent. So he's gone from taking less than half of his shots as threes to more than half of his shots are threes. A significant increase in his three point volume. And then, secondly, a massive increase in his free throw rate how often he's getting to the foul line a career high nine free throw attempts per game. The way you calculate free throw rate is it's just the number of free throw

attempts per field goal attempt. Last year he was getting zero point three to five free throws per field goal attempt. This year it's zero point four to four free throws per field goal attempt, So massive increases on both fronts in three point volume and in free throw percentage. And this is why everyone harps on the ability to get to the line and the ability to make volume threes as one of the foundational elements to efficient scoring, because again,

like I think Tatum's going to shoot better. I think Tatum's going to probably get closer to sixty sixty two to sixty three percent on layups over the course of the season. I think He's going to get closer to forty percent on jump shots over the course of the season. But you can buy yourself a lot of leeway in the large sample if you just take the right kinds of shots and if you're able to draw fouls by

getting defenders out of position. Like this is crazy. Tatum had twenty three points in the second half despite going five to fourteen from the field. That is a great example of how you can manufacture efficiency through the right approach on the offensive end of the four. He got to the foul line eleven times in the second half of that game, but again he got eight threes up and he got eleven foul shots. That's going to make up for a five to fourteen five for fourteen day

of the week. He also hit the dagger in this game. Really beautiful possession of Celtics basketball. So it's like a horn set, if I remember correctly, his horn set. Jalen Brown's at the top of the key with Torrian Prince on him, and Derek White's on the left elbow, Drew Holidays on the right elbow on the right elbow, and

Jalen just wants to drive. So Derek White just kind of clears out to the dunker spot on the left side, and as he clears out, there's a little driving lane that opens up on the left side, and Jalen Brown just rips through hard and tries to get dribble penetration on Torrian Prince. And again this is a classic example of breaking down the defense in phases rather than trying to hit the home run right. So like Jalen Brown drives to the left, doesn't shatter the defense right, It's

not like he just blew by Torreum Prince. Tory Prince is riding him like flattening out the drive right and then as a result of him making that move, Damian Lillard, who's guarding Derek White, steps up and just kind of walls up on Jalen Brown. When he walls up on Jaylen Brown, that leaves Derek White wide open in the dunker spot. When they throw the ball out to Derek White in the dunker spot, Al Horford's man who's on

the in the right corner slides down to help. So now Derek White throws a swing pass out to Al Horford in the right corner. Al Horford swing pass up the wing to Drew Holiday. Drew Holliday now has a closeout. So all of that so the drive from from Jalen Brown to the drop off to Derek White, to the kickout pass to Al Horford to the swing pass, all of that is. All it did was generate one close out, a close out for Drew Holliday. But Drew Holliday beat the close out, and when he beat the close out,

he drew Jannis' attention. Jannis was staring at Drew. That allowed Jason Tatum to relocate up to the top of the to the wing. Kickout pass knocks down the three. Now the game is basically over, so again, it's like breaking down the defense and phases, even a limited defense like Milwaukee on a key possession at the end of a game, they are locked in. They're trying really hard, right, so stop trying to hit the home run and just play methodical Boston Celtics basket. That's what they did. Jalen

Brown did his job. He created the initial advantage. Drew Holliday and Al Horford did their job proper spacing, quick decisions on swing passes. Drew Holliday did his job attacking a closeout. Jason Tatum did his job relocating when he saw the help defender took his eye off of him. And then the final job, which is knocking down the open shot. That is Boston Celtics basketball advantage, creation, advantage, extending play, finishing with great spacing principles, guards in the

dunker spot, guys making quick decisions. That is the quintessential offensive style that Boston runs that has led them to a championship and a whole lot of success over the course of the last couple of seasons. I also thought the Celtics just did a great job on Damian Lillard. They held him to fourteen points on four for fifteen shooting. They have the combination of speed and length right so Dame can't be too fast to give too many issues

to their perimeter players. And then they they when Dame goes to his pull up jump shot game, they have the length to really close that gap and make him uncomfortable some of those pull up jump shots. Again, Dame had some bad misses in this one, and bad misses, to me are more likely to be a result of quality defense than anything that the offensive player is doing

on the Bucks front. Two silver linings if you're looking, if you're a Bucks fan and you're just looking for something to make you feel better about where you're at sitting here two and eight. Number one, Giannis is playing some of the best basketball of his career. We talked about his jump shot earlier. I won't go into that again, but he's averaging thirty two points, thirteen rebounds, and five assists sixty one percent from the field. His command of the game on offense is at an all time high.

His passing is better than ever, his assistant turnover ratio is higher than ever. He had a couple of these, like ridiculous left handed whip passes yesterday there was one in a ball screen that he whipped a left handed pass that went all the way to the weakside corner you. And another one where he drove on the baseline and like jumped and left his feet and had to make a decision in mid air and just whipped a left handed pass to the top of the key to Bobby Portis.

That was like right in the shooting pocket. His over the top shooting is better than ever. You're shooting forty two percent on jumpers, that's highest by far in his career, fifty six percent on hooks so far, although I'd like to see him take higher volume, but that's up about ten percent from where he was last year. Giannis is hooping. And if you're looking for a second silver lining, if you're a Bucks fan, their schedule lightens up in a

big waight. Now your home for Toronto and Detroit, then you're at Charlotte, Then you're home for Houston, Chicago, Indiana and Charlotte again. Then you're at Miami, then you're home for Washington, at Detroit, and home for Atlanta. So like, if you're a serious team, if you're a Milwaukee Bucks fan, if you're a serious team, you should go no worse

than seven and four in that stretch. Now you're looking at nine and twelve on December fifth, which should put you back in the Eastern Conference playing picture, and with a couple more good weeks after that, you could be sitting in a much better position. Right, And they're capable of doing even better than seven and four. They're capable of going nine and two in that stretch. They go nine to two in that stretch. Now you're back over

five hundred. You're eleven and ten on December fifth, Right, So, like all it takes is a couple of weeks of serious basketball here against a limited stretch of your schedule, and things should work out. One last note I wanted to hit on this game. This was a concept that I I wanted to mention earlier when we were talking about the final play. Not the final play, but the dagger three that Jason Tatum hit on the left side

of the floor. You know, I tweeted out an example of that play the video, So if you want to see the video, you can actually just go to my Twitter feed and you'll see it there. But on that play, a lot of Bucks fans were commenting underneath it or quoting it and saying things like, oh, Joannis just took Johnny's just made a mistake. He was watching the ball too much and he lost Jason Tatum. And what I When I see stuff like that, I think people are

missing the point. Like when an elite defense or any defense is like engaged, locked in and in really putting the attention to detail that is necessary to cover action. You can cover action. They're big. Like every action that any team runs there is a there is like a plan for it. Pro professional basketball teams have plans for action.

They know what to do. He supposed to watch man in ball and position himself in between so that he can be in better position to close out or to force some more of a looping pass in the in the like when that skip pass is actually made. Teams know what to do helping out of the strong side quarter versus the weak side corner. Teams know what to do when they're dealing with the ball screen at the top of the key versus on the sides. Teams know what to do with double drag. Teams know what to

do with stack. They have a plaan for everything. The point is is the more organized offense you run, the more action you run in each possession, the more times you get the ball going side to side, the more potential there is for mistakes. Milwaukee did everything right on that possession except for one thing. Johannis got caught ball watching, but it wasn't until the you know, fifth or sixth touch or fifth or sixth play of that singular possession.

So like by virtue, like again, that's what I mean when I say, like you break these defenses down in waves, Like it's all about just playing offense and executing until they make a mistake. And then when they make a mistake, that's when you can capitalize on it and make something good happen. Right, And so, like, I think it's just an interesting kind of example of like of understanding why

we run action. You don't run action. That's why a lot of times at the end of games, running action doesn't work as well, and it becomes more about individual shot making because there are fewer mistakes. But you should still try to run action because what if they do make a mistake. Right, And again, for a team like Boston, the action is usually pretty simple at the beginning of the possession and then it comes to driving kick. But

even just simply within the realm of driving kick. If you close out properly, you funnel in the right direction, your help side's good, and your rotations are good. You can contain drive and kick too. But Boston, you know, when they get into their to their bag with their driving kick stuff, it's just so many interchanges. It's just really difficult to not make mistakes. And that's what happened to Gianness, who's one of the best defenders in the

league last night. At the tail end of that Bucks game. Moving on to Maps, Nuggets, wild finished to this one. The Dallas entire fourth quarter offense was basically just Kyrie Irving hitting tough, contested jump shots. He was unreal. He hit a deep three to break a Denver zone possession early in the corner. Early in the quarter, he had

three additional threes. He hit two tough contested mid rangers over Peyton Watson like a jab step from the elbow, and then this ridiculous turnaround bank shot that reminded me of the shots that Kyrie was hitting over Klay Thompson in the twenty sixteen finals. Just unbelievable. Kyrie had sixteen of Dallas's twenty six points, in the fourth quarter. Luca

still just isn't playing up to his standard. He hit a big catch and shoot three late in this one that he was two for five with two turnovers in the fourth quarter. Luca's numbers are way down across the board. He's averaging twenty eight points per game this year. It was thirty four points a game last year. Averaging eight rebounds a game this year. It was nine rebounds last year. He's averaging eight assisp game this year. It was ten assists per game last year. His steals and blocks are

both down. He's shooting forty one percent from the field. He shot forty nine percent from the field last year, thirty three percent from three. He shot thirty eight percent from three last year. He's getting to the foul line less. He's making a lower percentage when he gets to the foul line. His shot creation data is like abysmal by Lucas standards. He's run two hundred and seventy two pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups that have generated just

two hundred and fifty one points including passes. That's just zero point nine to two points per possession. Last year he was at one point one zero points per half court creation, possession, including passes. So like, if you're a MAVs fan and you're looking for a silver lining from this five and five start that has Dallas sitting in the eleven seed out West, it's the simple fact that Luca is basically guaranteed to play much much better than this in the long run. There's other elements to PJ.

Washington's hurt. You got the the Derek Lively injury, you have Klay Thompson still incorporating into the offense. There's there's a whole lot of Naji marshallized like, there's other elements at play, But the main thing is is that your guy, your guy, Luca, who when he's at his best is at least at the same tier as the top players in the league, is playing more like just another star right now. And as long as that's the case, it's going to be really tough to hang in a really

really difficult Western Conference. So if you're, again, if you're a MAVs fan and you're looking for silver lining, I think it's basically a guarantee that Luca is going to play much much much better in the long run. Clearly, that calf injury in training camp or contusion or whatever it was he had in training camp just kind of slowed down his start into the season, and it's affecting the team, and I think in the long run that will level out. But the Nuggets come out on top

of this one due to yet another Yokic masterpiece. He had eleven points in the fourth quarter. He scored multiple times on Gafford. One of the things I thought was fascinating is they went to Jokic in the post against Gafford and the first time and it was like a textbook repost. Right So like Michael Porter Junior is one pass away and Michael Porter Junior's man digs way down,

and so what is a repost? All that is is like, oh they're digging down, throw the pass back out, but instead of just jacking up a three right away, just repost. So like Jokic throws the pass out. As he throws the pass out, mpj's man hard closes out back to Michael Porter Junior. Jokic then gets deeper post position. Michael

Porter Junior makes the pass again. Now the double team is too far away and Jokic is right underneath the basket and he's able to go to a quick one on one move, gets to an easy hook shot right at the rit well. They post him up again on the next possession and Gafford actually gets Jokic to miss a shot. And so one of the things Mike Malone did that I thought was really smart is they go back to Jokic against Gafford, but this time they do

it more in a driving situation. So they have Peyton Watson just kind of set like a brush screen around the left elbow, and Yokic just cuts to the ball right at the elbow and catches and then immediately goes downhill. When he goes downhill, he takes those long, lumbering steps, waits to find his little opening and makes a layup. I think he actually missed the first light, but he

tapped it in. But it was kind of interesting because like they wanted to get him more momentum going downhill, so instead of just posting him, they got him more on like a flash cut towards the elbow so that he could quick look to drive. But he got a couple of buckets there. He had a huge pick and pop three. His shooting has been insane this year. We're going to talk about that in a minute when we

get big picture on Jokic. He also had a huge steal in pick and roll against Luca where he got his hands down, ran the floor Christian Brown Missi lay up, but he got an offensive rebound and put back. That was a huge sequence in the end of this game that put Denver up by two. And then Denver got two key stops down the tail end of this game.

And again like Kyrie had been hitting these crazy contested jump shots right like he had two on Peyton wattson that jab step around the elbow and then the turnaround left shoulder fade away that he banked in off the glass, incredibly difficult high Like Kyrie is a specialist at making those, but it's an incredibly difficult shot and you really can't do any better than that, and it's easy to get discouraged, but you have to remember those are tough shots and

what were you getting on the other end. Jokic lamps so like then after those two shots that Kyrie made, the next three attempts that Dallas took were all heavily contested jump shots. Kyrie heavily contested jump shot over Peyton Watson on the left wing finally misses one Luka Doncic heavily contested deep three. I wasn't that contested, but it was really deep. It was like a twenty eight to twenty nine footer from the top of the key. That's

a low percentage shot. And then Kyrie's last shot against Christian Brown, that's a low percented shot. That's a smothered three along the left wing. Now we know Kyrie can make those, right, we know Luca can make that shot. But by the way, they got five of them down the tail end of the game and they made too So they shot forty percent on these really difficult ISO

jump shots. That's what you expect, right, The best ISO jump shooters in the world are gonna make about forty percent of these tough, heavily contested one on one jump shots.

There are rare examples of guys like Kawhi and kd who can shoot in that like fifty five percent range around the elbow, but like those are generally speaking shots, especially when you get out to the three point line like Kyrie's last two shots were, they're just lower percentage shots and so really like you could get discouraged while Kyrie's making these shots. But if you zoom out for a second, it's like Denver had one tough shot in there.

There was a really nice floater that Michael Porter Junior made when he drove a close out on the right wing. It was a tougher shot, but even then I would argue that was an easier shot than any of the shots that Dallas was getting. But other than that, Michael Porter Junior shot, Like, it's a lot of Jokic right

at the rim. And so if I zoom out in a clutch time situation and one team is getting Jokic at the rim again and again and again, and the other team is, like, Kyrie is taking these incredibly difficult off the dribble jump shots like in the larger As soon as you kind of zoom out a little bit, it's gonna work in your favor. And yeah, Kyrie made too,

But after that they missed their last three. Denver got shots right at the rim and one tough shot for Michael Porter Junior shot out to Mike, and then you end up getting a win, right. So it's kind of an interesting example of like trusting the process, right, Like you trust the process, you force them to take tough, contested shots. That's what you want. You get closer shots at the rim that are more reliable, you end up getting a win. Young guys keep stepping up for Denver.

Christian Brown just continues to show wonderful chemistry with Nicole Jokic. He had nine points in the third quarter. Christian Brown is averaging sixteen points a game on sixty seven percent you shooting. Here's a crazy stat for you. If you took KCPS points per game last year in Denver and you added it to kcp's points per game in Orlando this year, he's at seventeen points per game. Christian Brown's giving you sixteen points per game on sixty seven percent

through shooting this year. Massive win for the front office. Clearly just a shoe and fit at that two spot in Payne Watson. Here's the thing. He's not Aaron Gordon. Aaron Gordon is just a lot more defensively versatile, brings a post up element as a better cutter, finisher around the rim, better rebounder. Right. But Payne Watson is a very good functional athlete. And one of the things that Peyton Watson has been bringing is he's been shooting the

ball pretty well. He's hit eight threes in the last four games. He's shooting sixty three percent on corner threes so far this year, shooting thirty nine percent on three overall. So like he's not Aaron Gordon, but but through his shooting ability, he's closing the gap a little bit and allowing Denver to be functional while giving Aaron Gordon the opportunity to get healthy. Julian Strather again, like it's not like really popping in a major box score way yet,

but it's just making plays. It's like, oh, here's this huge driving layup against the Toronto Raptors, or like last night it's like, wow, did he just block Klay Thompson on a closeout on a wing three on the right side. He had another big help side block against I think it was Dwight Powell in the first half. Providing just

key buckets and key spots. Like again, it's he's not providing the same type of impact that Christian Brown and Payton Watson are, but he's providing some pretty decent impact. He's making some plays. He's getting better again. He was a Strather was like an absolute disaster on defense to start the year, and he's been a little bit better.

Hey had, Like, like there was a close out on Jayden Hardy in the third quarter where like Jade Hardy's aeron the third recorder closes out, forces him to drive, beats him to the spot, forces him into like a tough contested shot around the kind of short corner area and he misses it. And I was like, hey, like, you've got some real length and athleticism here, Like these

are real tools. It just just through hard work, good coaching, and better attention to detail, he can become a functional defender. And here's the thing. The young guys are playing better. Denver's won five in a row. Throw up to the four spot in the conference. Nikole Jokich is the clear MVP choice to meet through the first ten games of the season. He had thirty seven points, eighteen rebounds, and fifteen assists last night on only twenty one shots. That

is absolutely outrageous. I didn't even watch the game last night. I watched it this morning. I that is an outrageous stat line. I can't believe what I'm looking at. For the season, He's averaging thirty points, fourteen rebounds on twelve assists on sixty seven percent true shooting and per cleaning

the glass. This is insane. The Nuggets are forty four points better per one hundred possessions when Nikolejokic is on the floor versus one he's off the big thing again, Like, I've been keyed in on this for the last several years, but the jump shot is such an important part of what makes NICOLEA. Jokic the like the just the far

and away best player in the world. Like even when he's not shooting well, like last year, when teams are able to just concede picking pop threes to him the way that like Team USA did in the semi final game or the way that Minnesota did in the conference semi finals. When he's that player, I still think he's the best player in the league. But in that point,

I think it's up for debate. I think Giannis and Luca and Schay are closer to him at that point, and you could understand why players from other teams are fans from other teams might feel like those guys are better, even though I think Jokic is better. But when Jokic is shooting the three the way that he's shooting it this year, or the way that he shot it in the title year. It unlocks an entirely different part of his game, the spacing element in terms of like literally

guys have to chase him off the line now. And not only is he going to hit shots. He had a huge pick and pop three last night. He was three for three on those threes. On the season, he's getting one point five to three points per shot. That's insane. But beyond the actual making of the shots, he's drawing closeouts again in the conference finals or conference semis. Last year in the Team USA game in the semis, it was like, oh, Yo kich is popping go ahead shoot

it will let you because he wasn't making him. But like a huge part of Yokich's game is when he gets a tiny bit of leverage on you. He's so strong and he's so good at using that leverage to get an angle that like when he draws a close out, he gets great dribble penetration. When he gets dribble penetration, he starts lumbering downhill. When he's lumbering downhill, he's either going to get to the basket for something easy or he's the best passer in the league. So like that's

that that is the piece that separates him. When yokich is shooting and drawing closeouts and making plays driving to the basket because of the drible penetration he gets from the from the threat of his shot, it takes him from the best player in the league to far and away the best player in the league. No one's even close. Thirty points, it's fourteen rebounds and twelve assists on sixty

seven percent through shooting. He's off to arguably the best offensive start in the history of the league, albe it in only ten games. It's unbelievable stuff that we're seeing

from NIKOLEA. Jokic, And like, again, like this is a team, but when you look at how Jamal Murray started the year, when you look at how Michael Porter Junior started the year, when you look at the Aaron Gordon injury, when you look at all the young guys they're relying on, Jokic has literally just scaled up his own greatness and now they're seven to three in two weeks. They completely turned their season around. Unbelievable stuff from Nicole Yokic. I can't

I literally can't say enough. All right, let's move on to our power rankings. So again, once again, this is for the because this is not a representation of how I viewed the tender list. To be clear, I have to say that every single week because there are a lot of people that jump on that weren't there the first time. But basically, the power rankings are intended to be just who's playing the best basketball within the regular season,

with a special emphasis on recency. Although here in the early part of the season, I'm kind of looking at the big picture because we're not even a month into this thing, all right. Number ten, the Los Angeles Lakers throw off to a six and four start. They are the fifth best offense in the league, but they are the fifth worst defense in the league. It's been a tale of two teams this year. The Lakers are five and zero at home and they are one in four

on the road. And that's because, in my opinion, their main weakness is perimeter athleticism. Their transition defense has been bad all around, but it's been especially bad on the road.

It seems to me as though when they're at home they can ride the crowd to play hard enough to compensate for some of their perimeter athleticism issues, But when they're on the road, it just feels like they're It just feels like the other teams are runaway freight train right now, here's the same start to demonstrate that, yes, the Lakers are the fifth worst defense in the league, but they're actually the thirteenth best half court defense. It

is strictly off in transition where they're getting killed. I expect them to continue to have pretty wild home road splits until either Jared Vanderbilt comes back bringing some athleticism or if they make some sort of trade just because they're so unathletic on the perimeter and they need to have some more juice in that department. But I think we'll see some pretty hefty home road splits with them

this season. But off to a good start for the Lakers, again, with the schedule that they played to get to be off to six and four start is impressive. Number nine the Memphis Grizzlies. They won three in a row to get to seven and four despite being without Desmond Baine and Marcus Martin for a while and without John Morant for the last two games, Jared Jackson has been hooping his ass off, providing the volume scoring that they've needed.

Scottie Pippen Junior has slotted in nicely in jaws absent at the point guard's body at a triple double the other night. Really has been one of the better backup guards in the league to start the year. This year. Jalen Wells again is just just shooting the seams off the basketball, just really aggressive catch and shoot three point shooting. Jay huff is s hoooping. He had a nice revenge game against the Lakers the other day, a run in the third quarter that was outrageous. They're just super deep

with a lot of quality young talent. The only reason I don't have Memphis higher on this list is they've played a favorable schedule. Of their seven wins, only one of them is against a team that has a record over five hundred so far. Number eight the Minnesota Timberwolves. They dropped the game to the Miami Heat last night in classic Heat fashion. It's funny. I saw the final score, and I think it was like ninety eight to ninety four or something. It was a really low final score.

Right as soon as I saw that, I didn't even watch the game last night. As soon as I saw that, I was like, bet you the Heat ran a ton of zone. As soon as I saw that, I was like, this just looks like Eric Spolstra janked up this game with like a bunch of defensive scheming. And so then when I went back and checked on it this morning, the Heat ran eighteen possessions of zone in the fourth quarter,

completely wigged out Minnesota's offense. Was up by eight with four minutes left, and blew a Minnesota bade two crucial mistakes late. Conley drove baseline against the zone and shoveled a pass to Julius Randall cutting down the middle, but he put too much juice on it and the pass one threw his hands and Miami went out and got a bucket on it. And then on the final possession, when they were up by two and they just needed to contain on the inbound, they somehow, I honest to God,

don't know what the hell they were doing. They lost Nikola Jovich in the front court with no help as they were trying to deny on the inbounds, and he got a layup with an and one, and suddenly Miami gets out of there with a win. So definitely a classic kind of Miami Heat. Eric Spolsterfest to get a win there on the road in Minnesota, but Minnesota had won six out of eight before that. They have wins

against Denver in there, wins against Sacramento in there. Their top ten in both offense and defense to start the year. Their eighth in offense and eighth in defense. An It's jump shot, this has been the big thing, you know. I put it as the fifth best player in the world coming into the season. A lot of people disagreed with me. My main the main foundation of that opinion was I think Ant's jump shot is real. I thought we had a large sample in last year's playoffs into

Team USA this summer. We're on one hundred and forty two attempts to start this year, and Ant's getting one point twenty five points per jump shot. He's an apex athlete that is adding an apex jump shot to his game. Again. Obviously, the zone caused some problems from Minnesota last night, but I think Ants off to an incredible star. Julius Randall is also averaging a very efficient twenty one points per game to start the year. I think Minnesota is only

going to go up from here. Number seven the Los Angeles Clippers. They won four to a row, including wins

against Dallas and Sacramento, and they are fourth in defense. Again, as I said before the season, one of the reasons why I was so high on the Clippers, not as like a championship threat, but as just a team that would win a lot of regular season games is that they are just loaded with a lot of perimeter speed, specifically guys that can guard multiple positions, and I thought that would give them such a high defensive floor that James Harden would be able to at least do enough

offensively to win some games and for them to be six and four without getting anything from Kawhi Leonard. To this point, I think they have three wins against teams that are five hundred are better already. Like, even if you were to say to me, oh, this Norman Powell stretch is unsustainable, and Norman Pale's playing really well. He's averaging twenty six points per game on sixty seven percent sure shooting. He's probably gonna be a pretty significant trade

target at some point this season. But even if you were to tell me that that's not sustainable, I feel like James Harden hasn't been nearly as good as he's capable of. And so even if Norman Powell kind of comes back down to earth a little bit, James Harden should continue to get better. Kawhi Leonard will eventually rejoin this team. Got a lot of young guys playing well, a mere coffee over the win streak, shooting fifty nine percent from three on four point three attempts per game.

Like this was a team that I've like every year. I kind of get like key to keyed in on different basketball concepts that I think are really driving the league. And anybody who's been listening to my show to start this year or even extending back into the playoffs last year, I'm obsessed with the concept of perimeter speed. I think you have to be fast on the premier. Like look at the top defenses in the league. If you look at the top like seven or eight defenses in the league,

it's like, I think I listed them down here. Yeah, Like if you're Oklahoma City, Orlando, Golden State, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Grizzlies, the Celtics, the Rockets, the Timberwolves, all super fast. Okahoma City just a ton of fast dudes on the perimeter. Orlando Jalen Suggs, you know, Contavious Callwell, Pope, you're looking at like they just have like they're just so they're so damn fast. Anthony black is fast that

they're just uh, they're just fast, right. The Golden State Warriors just waves and waves of guards, the Clippers, waves and waves of speed, the Grizzlies, waves and waves of speed, the Celtics, waves and waves of speed, the Rockets, just so many young athletic players, the Timberwolves, so many young athletic players. It's just you have to be fast on

the perimeter to guard these modern NBA offenses. And it just I think, I think it's been one of the biggest lessons I've learned about the pro game here over the course the last couple of years. But yeah, that was why going into the season I was so high on the Clippers. Right now I have them at number seven, number six. The Denver Nuggets, they completely stabilize their season in two weeks. They won five in a row. They're now seven to three, up to the four seed in

the Western Conference. They're sixth in offense, eighteenth in defense. Nikola Jokic has an absolute stranglehold on the best player in the World Title. The young players are starting to pop. Peyton Watson, Christian Brown, and Julian Straw. The are all playing good basketball. They're starting to look more and more like the team that I thought they would look like

before the season. Number five, the Oklahoma City Thunder. They've lost two of their last three to Golden State and Denver, although they did lose chet Holmger into a hip injury early in the Warriors game. The next few months are going to come down to their small ball looks. This is going to be really interesting with Isaiah Hartenstein and

chet Holmger in both out. But this year they've run three hundred and seventy nine possessions without either of chet Obviously, Hartenstein's missed the entire year, but with Chet and with their bigs off the floor, they're actually plus twelve per one hundred possessions and three hundred and seventy nine possessions.

And again, Golden State's a really bad matchup for them in that context because they have the speed to really contain on the perimeter and so, like, I'm not overly keyed in on that game from last night, but we're gonna see a much larger sample size now of Oklahoma City and their small ball looks, and this does leave the door cracked open for a Western Conference team to take the one seed from them if someone plays well well enough here over the next couple of months. Number

four the Boston Celtics. And again, before you Celtics fans freak out, obviously, I think that the Celtics are the clear championship favorite to this point in the season. The only reason I have them down at four is because they're nine to zero against teams that are below five hundred, and they are zero and two against teams that are five hundred or better. Do I think that's a real representation of the Celtics and what they're capable of. No,

I just think that's small sample size noise. But for the purpose of these weekly lists, I'm going to give some other teams the nod in these power rankings for contender rankings. To me, the Celtics are basically in cement at number one, and I don't know what I'd see this year that would change my mind. They would have to be a very large sample size of another team looking like a better basketball team. They dropped a game

to Golden State last week without Jalen Brown. But they did have an impressive come from behind win against the Bucks yesterday. We covered that game at the beginning part of the show. Peyton Richard Pritchard looks like the clear sixth man of the year. I helped them bring back come back from a deficit in the first half yesterday with seventeen first half points. Tatum is having another one of his classic seasons where he's up over thirty points

a game on over sixty percentury shooting. They're getting really good production at animus Quoita, like a legit backup center prospect who continues to get a lot of trust in a lot of minutes from Joe Miszula. Celtics are fine. Just have them down at four for the purposes of this list. Number three the Golden State Warriors. They got smacked by the Calves, but the Calves are the NBA's great enigma right now. We'll get more to them in

a minute. They went four to one on the road trip, and yes, I know that Chet and Jalen Brown were out for Boston and Oklahoma City, but I thought the road trip was a nice proof of concept for what this Warriors team build is, which is like waves and waves of speed like we were talking about earlier with the Clippers, Like you just have to be fast and able to cover ground on the perimeter to pressure the basketball,

to make teams uncomfortable. And then they have all sorts of guys that can come off of screening actions looking to score, which has allowed their offense to function at a really high level. And then the final piece of it all was Steph. Right, I talked about it going

into the season. Steph didn't look like a top ten player to end last year, but my prediction was that he would return to that level this year because I thought it was just a slump to end last year, and two games against two elite defenses in big time road situations at Oklahoma City in Boston, he had thirty six, five and seven against Oklahoma City twenty seven to seven and nine against Boston. That's two high leverage games where

Steph played like an absolute top tier superstar. And so if you piece that together with this team with all this depth, with their rock solid foundation in terms of their scheme on both ends of the floor, well who they have at the head coach, they have a deal to make at some point this season if they want to bring a legitimate number two next to Steph. Hard not to be just incredibly excited if you're a Golden

State Warriors fan number two. The Phoenix Suns KD is out for a bit and they dropped a game to the Kings in overtime last night. But they're eight and two. They're tied for the one seed in the West, and even though they haven't been dominating games start to finish, they've been methodically walking teams down at the end of games. Kdi has been the driving force on both ends of the floor. The Suns are thirteenth and offense, thirteenth in defense,

but they're seven to one in clutch games. Elite on both ends of the floor, same sort of thing. Kadi just flying around protecting the rim in rotation, defending on They consistently will put him on the ball and end game situations when they need to if there's a specific

guy that has it going. And then he's just walking teams down at the end of game, at the end of games with ball screen action with one of the Sun's guards to get a smaller defender on him, and then just going to the elbow and he's just getting easy shots all night long, making good passing reads out of it. Son's been playing great basketball to start the year, and the number one the Cleveland Cavaliers, the biggest surprise of the NBA this season, just beat the living shit

out of a good Warriors team the other night. We talked about the key factors earlier last week, like the fact that they're switching more, which is forcing more turnovers. They're getting out and running in transition more, there's a lot more mobilely on the ball. But to take it to an even simpler level, it felt like last year that Donovan Mitchell and Jared Allen were the only, like, really rock solid guys in the starting lineup, and it felt like Darius Garland and Evan Mobley was like any

given night, you didn't know what you were getting. Sometimes Darius looked great, sometimes he looked terrible. Sometimes Evan looked great, sometimes he looked terrible. This year just feels like both of those guys have been way more consistently great, and so they went from having two guys who were consistently great in their starting lineup to four guys who are consistently great in their starting lineup, and it just made them feel like they're a different tier of team than

they were last year on Wednesday. I'm recording it on Tuesday, but we're airing it on Wednesday. Carter Rodriguez, half of the Chase Down podcast that covers the Cleveland Cavaliers, is

coming on the show. We're going to do a deep dive in the Cleveland Cavaliers, looking forward to a Carter's I am still a little skeptical about Cleveland within the championship context, and I really just want to get Carter's opinion and just have him, obviously as someone who's very very very closely following that team through every single possession this year, just kind of get his take on things, so you guys can look forward to that on Wednesday.

All right, guys, that is all I have for today is always that sincerely appreciate you for suporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with a bunch of game reactions and a bunch of film. I'll see you guys then the volume. What's up? Guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take

a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.