Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: SGA & Thunder "special," Bucks ARE BACK, Luka erupts, Grizzlies-Lakers

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there where. We will be releasing more content throughout this season and the last but not least, keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments so we can hit them in our Friday mail bags throughout the rest of the way. Here, all right, let's talk some basketball. So five big takeaways from the n Season Tournament semi final games. Number One, shay Giljes Alexander is playing some truly special basketball. He shook off a really rough shooting start in the

first half. Kind Of an interesting matchup between Houston and Oklahoma City because to elite perimeter defense groups with.

against other guards in the league. Right, But like, he just stayed with it after having a rough shooting start, really started to get going in that third quarter, hit some ridiculous isolation moves against a Men Thompson, who's one of the best perimeter defenders in the league. I trimmed an example of one where he dribbled really hard at a men's left shoulders or right handed drive and a men cut.

You just want to rip through like immediately on the catch and allow your first step and your strength to power through the defensive player and go right. But when you're in a matchup like this where it's kind of the opposite where the guy who's guarding you is maybe a little taller, maybe a little quicker, and a guy that you can't go through, then suddenly it becomes about misdirection, change of change of pace, counter moves, like getting that

defender out of position one way or another. Right, So Shae hits a hard dribble move to the right, a man cuts him off, takes the contact in the chest, and shape pulls back the dribble through his legs to

his left hand. But I had this coaching Juco that used to talk about this, and it's something that I've always tried to imprint on the kids that I train when I'm training my high school kids, and that is when you're in your dribble moves, it's more important to focus on hitting dribble moves in drills attached to an actual forward movement, something that's an attack, or in the

case of shooting, attaching it to a jump shot. So like when I do ball handling drills with the kids always like we're ball handling into an aggressive forward move or we're ball handling into a jump shot off the dribble. If you can't connect the move to what comes next, then the move is useless. There are a lot of guys in the league that if they get cut off, can pull back between their legs back to their left hand. Go to this clip that I posted on my Twitter

feed again at underscore json LT. You'll see as Shay takes that contact and pulls it back between his legs, he's immediately back forward and because he's able to do that, he's able to get an angle on a Men Thompson. Then a Men Thompson again because he's a men Thompson recovers with his lateral quickness to get back in front

of Shay. But as a man is taking that aggressive step to get back in front of him, that's when Shay lifts up off the dribble, catching him Men Thompson between steps and he's able to get enough separation to knock down the shots. Just super super elite dribble combination work footwork to get an opening against one of the best perimeter defenders in the league. And I've talked about this with Shay before, but he's one of the best

at connecting multiple dribble combinations in contact. It's one of the biggest things that players struggle with is they can when things are free, when it's like, oh, if I can hit a move to get a guy set up for a screen, and I can get him separated from me on a screen, then yeah, I can hit an in and out dribble into a step back, or I can cross over to snake the pick and roll or something when I'm in space. But it's very different when you're in a congested environment, when you have a lot

of bodies around you. We're gonna get a little bit further into this when we talk about Hartenstein, but this is the type of scoring that has more playoff resiliency when you can do it in contact, when you can do it in congestion. That is the type of shot making that inevitably rises to the surface when you get to the postseason. Defense is locked down all your pet actions, the easy opportunities are few and far between, and it becomes a lot about squeezing extra bits of offense out

of late clock situations. In situations where your offense doesn't work and you need somebody to rescue. And again, like just he'll dribble at you. It doesn't matter if you cut him off, He's always gonna chain it to the next counter move. Doesn't matter if you cut him off again, he'll chain it to the next counter move. Oh, you cut him off a few times, he'll get rid of the ball, pop right back out, get it and rip back.

If you overplay, he'll backcut. That's the thing that Isaiah Hartenstein has helped unlock, right, Just a lot of really really high level offensive stuff out of Shake Gild justs Alexander really really impressive second half against the Houston Rockets. His last fifteen games, Shay's averaging thirty three points, five rebounds, and six assists on fifty two percent from the field, thirty eight percent from three, and eighty five percent from

the line. The pull up three point shot, that's something he was working on a lot in the early part of the season, has really been a boost to his offense. He's averaging seven three point attempts per game in that fifteen game stretch. Six of those seven three point attempts are off the dribble, and he's sitting him at thirty five percent over thirty five percent, which is going to get him over a point shot, which makes it a useful shot for him in half court situations. Again, and

we talked about this a lot. Him and Jalen Williams spent a lot of time this summer working on that pull up jump shot from the three point line rather than from the mid range area. And by the way, in that game, Oklahoma City trailing by one in the second half, Bang bang, a pull up three by Shae Yioss Alexander off the dribble, Another pull up three by Jalen Williams, kind of in a ball screen as a defender,

one underneath the pick, a couple pull up threes. All of a sudden, Oklahoma City's up five and they never look back. That's the type of thing that will be a ceiling razor for this Thunder team off the dribble, three point shooting, adding layers to the offense that weren't there last year. Number two, The Thunder in the big picture, need to start thinking of Isaiah Hartenstein as one of their core five players and not just a bench weapon or a player with which to facilitate a big look.

The Isaiah Hartenstein fit in Oklahoma City has been an absolute dream on both ends of the flour. In defense, he provides a credible option for power centers. Shane Gun has been cooking a lot of centers around the league, including some of the better defensive players at the center position in the league. He's playing really good basketball. He's

been Houston's best player this year. He's a huge like to be able to have a player that can hang with the Shane Goon the way that Hartenstein did in that game really given Shang Gun a lot of fits in that particular game, his ability to be a credible

weapon in that type of matchup. But then also a guy that you can throw at Jokich, a guy you can throw at Sabonis, a guy you can throw at use of Nurkic, a guy you can throw out Anthony Davis, a guy you can throw out Jaron Jackson, who's trying to hakeem everybody in the league at this point in time.

Zubas like whoever you run into in a Western Conference playoff series, there's a good chance if you're gonna win multiple playoff rounds that you'll have to go through multiple power centers, and power centers can.

Again when he's off the floor this year, when Hartenstein's off the floor, the Thunder are giving up an offensive rebound on thirty three percent of their opponent's missus. With Isaiah Hartenstein on the floor, that number decreases by five point six percent. So, again to clarify it, when Hartenstein is off the floor, the Thunder their defensive rebounding percentage is sixty seven percent, meaning opponents get thirty three percent back.

When Hartenstein is on the floor, their defensive rebound percentage rises all the way up to seventy two point six percent, So they're giving up an offensive rebound on just twenty seven point four percent of their opponent's missus. That's a gigantic difference. That's the difference between like untenably bad and

pretty good. And that's what Isaiah Hartenstein has done for this team in their physicality on the front line and then on the offense, just greasing the wheels, just connecting actions with his side to side, flowing handoffs, opening up actions with his screening, finishing plays with his scoring. He's generating four offensive rebounds per thirty six minutes.

all the time. There's gonna be a certain amount of like lineups that are gonna have one big on the floor. But my thing is, like when you're in a big spot, when you're in a big playoff series, again, there's some matchup flexibility, but there's such a gap between Isaiah Hartenstein and the sixth best player on the team, or I should say, Isai Hartenstein's more like the fourth best player on the team. But like if you go Shay Jay Dub Chet or Shaye Chet Jay Dub, however you want

to order it, then there's Dorton Hartenstein. If you take Hartenstein off the floor and replace him with a guy like an Isaiah Joe or a case On Wallace or Alex Cruzo, those are good players and there will be

matchups where that makes sense. But I think Isaiah Hartenstein is just that good, and I think they need a lean into as much opportunity and repetition as possible for Chet and Isaiah to play together, because inevitably, I think that will give them the best opportunity to leave all five of their best players on the floor when the chips are down. Side note, lou Dort was incredible in that Rockets game. He had five threes, including some really

tightly contested ones. You know the classic lou Dort like doesn't even look like he's that open, but he just shoots that skyball that just goes like thirty feet in the air and just falls right through the rim. He also had three steals, a couple of crazy ones too. He had one where he was denying Fred van Vliet almost out at half court and then disengaged from Fred to steal a tree pass to a different player that

was flashing around the right wing. Just an unbelievable player who's incredibly useful and fills a very important role for that Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City team number three. Houston is a really talented team, but their development as a team will be stunted until they can get a legitimate, high level perimeter shot creator and no Albern Shangun is not enough. Houston did periodically cause problems for Oklahoma City in transition in that game, but they got absolutely bludgeoned in the

half court. Oklahoma City outscored Houston in the half court by forty points per one hundred possessions. Houston managed just a sixty three offensive rating per cleaning the glass in the half court in that game against Oklahoma City. That's completely untenable. Once again, just complete duds from Jalen Green and Fred Van Vliet that combined to go two for nineteen from three. A lot of really bad off the

dribble ones too. They were kind of telegraphing him It kind of felt like anytime you gave them the ball, they'd call for the ball screen and they would both just like dribble as hard as they could to get to the other side of the screen and just rise up and shoot, sometimes without even making a read. There's a play where Fred van vliet came off of a screen and got blocked on a pull up three, and I just don't even know what he saw. The big was up at the level, it wasn't open. I just

I just didn't know what he was doing. It was a really, really weird game from those guys. Houston's half court offense on the season now is managing just ninety point five points per one hundred possessions. That ranks twenty fifth. These are three teams that have more efficient half court offenses than the Houston Rockets, the Toronto Raptors, the Utah Jazz,

and the Detroit Pistons. Again, that is completely untenable. So this story just eventually ends with them packaging one or two of their young players in draft compensation, with Fred van Vlietz expiring forty three million dollars deal to bring in a star. They just to find the right guy. I was kind of poking around this morning, because like, I think they're the kind of team that needs to

wait for the right guy. But so much of it depends on how much they want to manage their cap situation, because like you have Shanegon and Jalen Green's contracts, their extensions kicking next year, so you've got all that money, but you don't have to pay guys like a Men Thompson or Jabari Smith Junior. I think Jabari Smith you have to pay like the year after next, and then a Men Thompson and even a year further into the future.

So because they're not going to have to do any sort of significant extension or new deal for somebody in the next couple of years, I wonder if they're the team that makes sense for zach Lavine. Like I wonder if they're the team that should just call up Chicago and be like, we'll give you Fred van Vliet for

zach Lavine straight up the boy. It benefits both teams as Chicago gets off of zach Lavine's money because it's two additional years at that number, right, but Houston in the short term gets a much better offensive player in Zach Lavine to hopefully unlock something in the half court with how good this Houston defense is, and at the end of the day, it passes the buck for the superstar trade down the line. I just wonder if they're to end up letting Fred go because they just don't

want to deal with the money element of it. And we'll see there's obviously cap ramifications as it pertains to the second apron, and it could affect some of their decision making down the roster. But like you know, it's one of those things where it's like, are they gonna jump on a Jimmy Butler, Well, it's like, I don't know if that's the right move. Are they gonna jump on a Brandon Ingram I don't think he's the right type of guy for them to go for.

money right now for this season. So if you could turn Fred van Vliet into a much, much, much better offensive player overnight, that could be the kind of thing that gives this Houston team a more formidable two way attack as opposed to just the defense that can't score when they could strangle in a half court. Number three, It's time to go back to viewing the Bucks as a legitimate second tier championship contender. After the rough start they had this season. I know it felt like it

was impossible. They've really turned it around and played some really good basketball, another really impressive win over a good Atlanta Hi team in the NBA Cup semi final. They're twelve and three in their last fifteen games. That's tied for the best record in the league over that span. Eleventh in offense, tenth in defense, eighth the net rating.

Still struggling a bit with their athleticism deficiencies in a couple of areas, namely the glass and then in transition, but they're really competing night in and night out to build better habits and attention to detail. They found an orientation on defense that is working by leaning more into Andre Jackson and AJ Green than they were into Pat Connaton and delonn Right. That's been working. And then on offense, the return of Chris Middleton has brought this influx of

ball handling, which they've really needed. He's had twenty three assists and just six turnovers in his four games since returning. They'll have games where teams are showing at the level against Chris and Dame and they'll just rep Giannis as a roller all night long, and he'll crush teams as a roller. Then they'll face teams like Atlanta who do a lot more switching, and then they'll start going to Giannis attacking mismatches in the post, or Dame attacking forwards

from the perimeter. There's a sequence at the end of the Hawks game where it's like, Jalen Johnson's on Giannis, Dyson Daniels is on Dame. They run a ball screen, there's a switch. Jiannis takes Dyson Daniels down to the block, promptly draws a double team, makes a beautiful pass Brook Lopez. He gets a layup. Okay, you run the same ball screen. It's a switch now. Jalen Johnson is on Dame, Dyson Daniels on Giannis. Dame takes Jalen Johnson off the drubble,

gets right into the lane. Because Jalen Johnson, even as good of an athlete as he is, Dame is just really small and quick. He gets past him, sinks a floater, and it ice is the game, right, Like, they have different ways that they can attack based on the different matchups that they're going against. And again, they were in a bad funk to start this year. They didn't look serious about their goals or committed to the work. But their process has been really good over the last month

and they have completely turned around their fortunes. They are rightfully underdogs against Oklahoma City right now. Draft Kings has them as a four and a half point underdog, But if they can go into Vegas tomorrow night and get a win, that would be a huge statement about their potential within this season. Giannis will have speed and size

mismatches against everybody sickly on the thunder roster. If you can dominate that game, they get enough stops, they keep Oklahoma City attitude, transition, they don't turn the basketball over too much. Again, that's a game that could get ugly for Milwaukee. We've seen that type of game get ugly for Milwaukee. The younger, faster, more athletic team gets a bunch of steals and runs it down their throat and transition.

If they can avoid that and kind of trap things and have Giannis dominate, they got a shot and if they can win that game, it'd be a big statement about their potential. We're going to talk more about the Hawks game here in a second as part of this next question. Lastly, number five, the top five players are putting on a show as they jockey for position at the top of this league. Yiannis was just absolutely unreal

down the stretch of the Atlanta game. Obviously had the huge block against Clint Capella and help at the rim. That's a just deja vu vu from the twenty twenty one NBA Finals, Giannis blocking a alley up dunk in a really important, you know, high stakes situation like that. But he also did some of the most surgical half court work I've ever seen Jiannis do in the NBA.

He had a beautiful cross court pass to Andre Jackson in crunch time for three in the in the in the right corner, just beautiful pass, beautiful read in a ball screen. He had like a left hand a left shoulder fade away that he hit on the left block in clutch time where he like, like for a right handed shooter to turn and fade over your left shoulder is the hardest shot because you have to swing your

entire body around to get squared up. Really high level bit of shot making from Jannis is like over a double team. He just like elevated like Kobe Bryant over his left shoulder to knock down a mid range jump shot. Then he had this beautiful post up feed where he got that switch I was talking about this earlier where gets Dyson Daniels in a switch off of the Dame action, backs him down, draws Clint Capella, and help feeds brook Lopez nicely right in front of the rim for that

little layup. Just really nice surgical work from Jannis. And here's the thing, Like Yo Kich is still the best player in the world and I haven't seen anything that's changed my opinion on that. But all of these top tier stars are playing some unbelievable basketball. We talked about shake Yil just Alexander off the top of the show. Giannis is averaging thirty four eleven and seven in his last thirteen games. Luca's been kicking, but since he came

back from his injury. He just dropped a forty five eleven and thirteen to beat the Warriors in Golden State last night. Tatum's numbers have taken a little dip in the last few weeks. His last nine games, he's at twenty nine ten and five, or excuse me, twenty five, ten and five on just forty four percent from the field. In twenty nine percent from three, but he was playing some of the best basketball of his career before that, and he had a little bit of a knee injury.

So the point is is, like the top of this league is just in an absolutely crazy place right now. It actually reminds me of about six or seven years ago when like Lebron was still at the top of his league, like at the top of his game, in

the top of the league. Stephan kd Are both like hot on his tail, like getting their shit together of winning those titles in Golden State, James Harden's coming up right like that was right around the time Jiannis and Yanna started to get his kind of like momentum as a number one player in the league. Like a lot of talent at the top of the league right now, it just feels like there's a lot of guys competing for that time, which is again a credit to Joki because I still think he has a hold on it

at this point. All right, let's get into our power rankings. It's going to be quick hitters on a lot of these. Most of the teams in the NBA have only played once or twice since our last rankings, so We're not going to get too deep into those, but all of our odds are provided by our partner at DraftKings. Again, after every single team, I will give you guys their conference odds and their title odds.

I think it's a good idea. This is a team that is starting to play some good basketball. They've won four in a row against some good teams and Tyler Harrow and bam Adebayo really taking off. That partnership is working. So it's as good a time as any to try to turn Jimmy Butler into assets that will help the Heat kind of propel themselves into the next era. Right now, the Miami Heater, plus fourteen hundred to win the Eastern Conference and plus thirty five hundred to win the title.

Number nine the Denver Nuggets just one game last week, a blowout of the Clippers on Friday Night. A weird game with a lot of turnovers and a lot of the game being played in transition, but they were able to win comfortably without needing a superhero game from Jokic. She went for just sixteen, seven and two in that game. Six guys in double figures for the Nuggets, including both Julian Strawther and Peyton Watson off the bench, so a

nice little bounce back. They had lost five out of eight, and they had back to back blowout wins after that to get back on track. The Nuggets right now are plus six fifty to win the Western Conference plus fourteen hundred to win the NBA Championship. Number eight the New York Knicks disappointing loss in the n Season Tournament quarterfly quarterfinal game. Completely they lost control of Atlanta in the

third quarter. They got going in transition, they got going on the offensive glass, The momentum just like completely shifted. Then Trey just started picking them apart in the half court in ball screens, and then the Knicks entered a funk on offense, missed a bunch of open shots, and they never regained control. They really struggled to keep them off the offensive glass. In that fourth quarter stretch when they were trying to make a run, they gave up

nine offensive rebounds. It was a really interesting example of basketball momentum. Synergy has this graph where they just basically show like a bar graph that kind of works across from the start to the finish of the game, and as the lead shifts, the bar, like if you know, if New York's up five, to the bar will be a little five point bar up top, but if if they go down five, it'll be, you know, a five

point bar on the bottom. To the colors of those teams, And it was such an interesting visual example of the shift in momentum because like, the Knicks just completely had control of the game for two and a half quarters, like it was all blue, and then suddenly it was just like a hard shift to red and then it

was all read the rest of the way. It was like really bizarre to see just that visual representation of the gigantic shift in momentum the Knicks were playing really good basketball, but just a couple of plays like that's the thing.

came back to earth. On offense, the Knicks are eleven and four in their last fifteen games. They're still the number one offense in the league. Over that span, they're up to fifteenth in defense. The defensive rebounding issues that came up in the Atlanta game are a bit of a trend. They were seventh in defensive rebounding in their first eleven games. They're twentieth in defensive rebounding in their last fifth team games. So just something to keep an

eye on there. They're not competing on the glass as well as they did the knickstar plus four point fifty to win the Eastern Conference plus one thousand to win the NBA Championship. Number seven the Memphis Grizzlies just two games last week. They beat the Brooklyn Nets and talked a bunch of shit while doing it. That was the Jordi Fernandez Ja Moran show.

He's shooting just twenty nine percent this year off the dribble on jump shots, which is making it a lot easier for teams to not have to come up to the level or have to worry about him. The Lakers did a lot of work at the level with him last night, but you don't have to worry about Jaw knocking down shots at balls in ball screens from the perimeter and that is allowed, showing teams more defensive flexibility with their scheme again shooting just twenty nine percent this

year on off the dribble jump shots. The Lakers have their roster limitations, but they did a good job of keeping either Max or Cam Reddish or gave Vincent on him all night with either Anthony Davis or Christian Caloco waiting on him at the rim. And the Grizzly still have some spacing issues there are just twenty fifth overall on the season and spot up efficiency. Last night they had thirty two spot up opportunities against the Lakers and

they converted them to just nineteen points. So that's the one big red flag with Memphis right now is they can still bog down a little bit on offense from time to time when teams packed the paint because of their inability to convert spot up possessions. That game against the Lakers last night was a good example of that.

The Grizzlies right now plus fourteen hundred to win the Western Conference, plus three thousand to win an NBA title, And for Lakers fans who are listening and wondering where I'm at with the Lakers after last night, good win. They'll have any more good wins this year. They may even have some streaks of good wins. But for this team, it's not about what they can be when they're at

their best. It's about their commitment to the work on a daily basis over the months it would take to build the habits necessary for this roster to be a great team, and I just don't think that this group is up to the task mentally. For example, their next six games they're at Sacramento, at Sacramento again, home for Detroit at Golden State, and then home for Sacramento and home for Cleveland. If they commit to the work, they

might be okay. Last night was another one of those two or three games I've seen from the Lakers this year where they look super connected and committed on defense. They've also been running some more traditional at the level coverages in ball screens instead of switching, which is a

good idea. I don't think this roster is really the right type of roster for switching, but more often than not this year, they have not been willing to do that work on the defensive end of the floor, and I don't think they'll do it in the next few weeks. These are some tough matchups on the road against some teams that are a lot more athletic on the perimeter, which is a specific weakness for the A serious and committed Lakers team would probably go four and two in

this stretch. They probably split the Sacramento games on the road, and they'd probably win all of the home games. I think it's more likely that they go two and four in the six game stretch. My guess is that they drop both games in Sacramento. My guess is they lose in Golden State. My guess is they lose at home to Cleveland. Maybe they get Sacramento at home, and then

they probably will get Detroit at home. But like that's just how I feel because in order to go win all of these games on the road against tough, fast, perimeter teams like that, they need to be sharp and committed on defense. And it's just something I haven't seen

this year, but we'll see. My belief in this team is completely lost, you know, Like you watched last night and it's like Ad is kicking the shit out of Jaron Jackson and Lebron is engaged in flying around making plays on both ends, and Austin Reeves is back and he's out playing Desmond Baane like straight up. It all looks good, but I'm not falling for it again. Number six The Houston Rockets. We hit them in the opening segment,

so I won't hit them again. But the Rockets right now are plus twenty two hundred to win the Western Conference, plus sixty five hundred to win the NBA title. The Milwaukee Bucks, we also hit them in the opening segment, so I won't hit them again. The Bucks are plus eight hundred to win the Eastern Conference, plus eighteen hundred to win the NBA Finals.

game where I went into extensive detail. But I thought Dallas handled Oklahoma City's blitzes and their doubles really well.

twenty three points off of turnovers per game. They gave up seventeen offensive rebounds and thirty six points off of turnovers per game. So you clean that up. I'm not saying you're gonna hold him to zero and zero, but you clean that up a little bit. You have a bigger lead in the first half, you're more well positioned to withstand a scoring onslot like what you saw from Shay to start that third quarter, and.

only for Dallas to immediately pull away. I still think that's the second best team in the Western Conference, if you agree with me. The Mavericks right now are plus five point fifty to win the conference and plus eleven hundred to win the NBA title. Number three the Boston Celtics. Just two games last week, blowouts of the Wizards and the Pistons, all really balanced. They had six guys in double figures against Detroit, seven guys in double figures against Washington.

Peyton Pritchard had a really nice game against the Troy. He went for twenty seven, just cruising through kind of an easy stretch of their schedule. The only weird thing is is that Jason Tatum's jumpers cooled way off again, and his last nine games he's twenty five points, ten rebounds, five assists, forty four percent from the field twenty nine percent from three. On the season. Now he's down to zero point nine to five points per pull up jump

shot one point zero two points per jump shot. Overall, those are both just barely up from where he was last year, but important context, he was dealing with a knee injury missed some games. When your knees aren't right, it affects your ability to Like a jump shot is not just a flip of the wrist. A jump shot is a transfer of energy from the floor starting with your feet all the way through the snap of your wrist.

And if your knees bothering you and you're not getting the same level of lyft on your jump shot, it throws the entire equation at a whack. And I personally feel like, whenever I don't have my legs underneath me,

it's harder to shoot. Everybody who's ever played basketball knows exactly what I'm talking about, So like I more of the opinion that this is mostly having to do with the knee, and then over the next couple of weeks here Tatum will probably just go back to being blazing hot and get his numbers back up where they were. But just kind of a weird trend again in the power rankings, I've had the Celtics lower, but to me,

I still think they're a clear cut number one. I was watching Okay see Houston yesterday and then I've watched a bit of it yesterday and a bit of it this morning. The the Thunder still takes so many stupid shots. They still do. There's still just a lot of young players. They have a lot of guys on the floor like j dub Is still a little like this, Lou dort

is a little like this. They have some guys that will just go off script and just take a bad shot from time to time, especially when the situation doesn't call for it. I still think I trust Boston's execution

better in a playoff series. That is why, despite the fact that I think the Thunder had been playing some really really good basketball, potentially even better basketball than Boston within the context of the regular season, I still think that Boston is the safest bet to win the title by a pretty decent margin if you agree with me. The Celtics right now are plus one oh five to win the conference and plus two forty to win the NBA title. Number two the Cleveland Cavaliers just one game

last week, a win over the Wizards at home. Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, and Jared Allen all go for twenty plus points. There has been some slippage for the Cavs on offense as of late. So the Calves are just five and three in their last eight games, eleventh in offense over that span. Remember they're in the number one offense in the league over the large sample. They're getting beat pretty good on the glass over that span. They're twenty fourth

in rebounding. Remember that was an issue that popped up periodically in the past, especially in the playoffs. Just something to keep an eye on. They have the Bucks this week and then a really fun road trip at the end of the month that I've had my eye on for a while as an opportunity to learn more about the Calves, Like I really want to learn more about the Calves, not as to whether or not they're good.

I know the Calves are good. I want to learn about how close they are to Boston, and in order to see that, we need to see them play a consistent stretch of tough opponents. And they've had the third easiest schedule in the league to start the season. At the end of this month, they go to Denver, to Golden State, to the Lakers, into the Mavericks in a

four game set. That's going to be a great opportunity for us to see the Calves in a bunch of disadvantageous situations in terms of travel and rest and crowd obviously with being on the road, That'll be a great opportunity for us to give a better evaluation to this roster. The Caves right now are plus seven hundred to win the Eastern Conference and plus seventeen hundred to win the NBA Finals.

Just a really, really impressive stretch of hoops. Right now, the thunder are plus one eighty to win the conference, plus three sixty to win the NBA title. Boston and Oklahoma City really starting to separate themselves from the rest of the league. Again, all of these odds are provided by our partner DraftKings. As always, I sincerely appreciate you

guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow, really fun slate tonight, So we'll be back tomorrow with some game reactions as well as some film and then we'll be out of here and then we'll

be out of there for that. So I think this this week, the schedule is a little weird because I don't think there's any games on Wednesday, So we're gonna get together with the Nerd Sash guys and we'll cover basically basically, the plan for this week is we're gonna go Tomorrow covering the Monday slate, Wednesday covering the INN Season Tournament championship game, and then I'm gonna record with the Nerds and we'll run that at the tail end of the week because of the again, only one game

total between Tuesday and Wednesday night, so it's gonna get a little funky with the schedule, but we'll have plenty of content coming out again. So all I have for today, as always, sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.