Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: Tatum DOMINANT, Celtics beat Timberwolves, Warriors blast 76ers

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show for today. We're gonna talk about Celtics Wolves for the most part, really entertaining a really interesting game on that front. I want to talk about the Celtics and the way Jason Tatum is playing. I want to talk about the Jason Tatum Anthony Edwards debate, which largely centers

around my player rankings from last summer. And then I want to talk about Anthony Edwards in the world, some of their issues from the season, and the two part reality of their path forward, which is how do you fix this problem in the big picture and how do you make the most out of this particular season. And at the very end of the show, I just want to briefly touch on the Sixers Warriors game before we get out of here. You guys know the trip before

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you continue to get content throughout the year. Last but not at least, keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments mailbag on Friday this week because our schedule is a little different because I'm leaving to go on my first ski trip of the year on Sunday, so the mail bag is going to come out on either Saturday, Sunday, Monday sometime in that stretch, and then next week will actually start for us on Wednesday. But still plenty of time to drop mail bag questions, so get those in

the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So Celtics Wolves. I thought Jason Tatum just played an absolutely beautiful game. He had all these like different phases in the way that he was attacking at different points in the game, Like in the early first quarter, he was just playing advantage creation basketball, just kind of floating around

taking the easy reads that are available. That's such an important part of this Boston offense, right, because the real differentiator from a talent standpoint between like Boston supporting cast and a lot of the other supporting casts around the league is their ability, via the coaching staff all the way down through the roster to generate space and then to capitalize on extra attention that is devoted towards the guys that have the ball, right, and it's so much

more complicated than shooting. It was actually really interesting because there's a lot of discussions surrounding Minnesota's shooting, and we're going to talk about that today, but it goes deeper than that because there's a lot of like different things that happen when you watch other teams play, where like, for instance, I have a couple of clips that I posted to demonstrate some of these differences on my Twitter feed.

We're like when Tatum's driving, there's always like shooter left corner, shooter right corner, guard in the dunker spot, and shooter opposite wing, and so he's just got all of this space to work with. And it's not just the shooting. Yeah, those guys have to be accounted for in terms of their ability to knock down shots, but it's also floor placement. It's also like having the right guys in the right spot. You want to guard in the dunker spot. Why because

he's usually being guarded by a smaller player. So the guy that's helping out the rim, you would prefer to be a smaller player. So if you're gonna have somebody in the dunker spot, if you have a center in the dunker spot, you're probably gonna have a center helping at the rim. But if you have a guard at the dunker spot, you're gonna have a smaller player helping at the rim. Right. And then if your corners are

occupied and your wing opposite wing is occupied. You have the distance between the right corner and the opposite wing, that whole stretch of three point line to work off the dribble and make things happen. I can't tell you how many times in that Wolves game it's it goes deeper than just Jaden McDaniel's can't shoot, or Julius Randall's not a great spot up shooter, or you know, Rudy Gobert's stonehands around the basket. It extends deeper into floor placement.

Times where Julius Randall and Rudy Gobert are both standing directly underneath the basket. Or you have a guy that's in the opposite wing, but he's standing ten feet away from the guy that's in the corner, so you can effectively guard with two guys, or instead of one guy cutting, you have two guys cut to the exact same spot make themselves easy to guard. There's a lot of stuff

that goes deeper than that. And I'm saying that mainly to compliment the Celtics as an organization from the top down, because it's not just having it goes it's a thing from the front office in terms of the types of players that they're targeting, the coaching staff in terms of organization on the floor, but the players not just shooting but also basketball IQ and like the natural understanding and

feel of space. There's all these As you're off the ball, you're constantly reading what's the ball handler doing, what are the other off ball players doing. So, for instance, if a guy drives into the lane and makes a kickout pass, where he decides to relocate is going to directly affect where you have to relocate. Right There's a lot of like different decisions that you make in those spacing situations.

And like, again, Boston just does such an amazing job organizationally of keeping guys on the floor in the right spots and putting the types of guys out there that are good with their instincts in their placement off the ball while also having the ability to knock down shots. And it's just start contrast between the two teams that were watching last night. But again, Jason Tatum's within that,

within that ecosystem. One of the things that he does better than most is he'll just call for a guard screen, get a inside seal for you know, one of the the guy who's setting the screen will get an inside seal, and he's big and tall enough and quick enough with the decision making to float the ball over the top so that'll hands right in the guy's hands so that he has a four run three, or making a skip pass when Anthony Edwards is leaking into the lane off

of Derek White in the left corner. Like those are the kinds of like little things that Jason Tatum does that just greases the wheels for this offense. But then he had these two massive jump shooting runs in a late second quarter. He had a jump shooting run where he hit a bunch of shots that gave the Celtics their initial large separation that put them up by fourteen.

And then the Wolves, after playing some more desperate basketball to start the third quarter, they cut the lead down to four right around the mid third quarter mark, and he had another jump shooting run in that late third quarter that put the Celtics back up by thirteen. I thought Tatum was fantastic in this game. The Wolves played really well in the fourth quarter. In that early fourth

quarter stretch they went to their spacing group. It's kind of like this interesting concept with the way the Wolves play basketball. So you have these two stars, and they're both stars that like are at their best when they're going downhill, right. But Anthony Edwards is one of the best jump shooters in the league, particularly off the dribble, right he gets, He's up at like one point one zero points per jump shot this season, very very good

jump shooter, especially off the dribble. Julius Randall not so much. Right. So one of the things that they're doing is like the bench groups are always staggered versions of starters and bench players, right. So one of the things that we're seeing is like when Anthony Edwards is carrying a bench group without Julius Randall, they'll put him out there with Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert, And they do that because

they know the spacing is shit. But ant is a guy that's capable of knocking down shots over the top, so we'll put him with that group. But then what they'll do with the Julius Randall groups is they know he's not as good shooting over the top, so they'll put all the spacers with him. So he was playing with a group that had Dante DiVincenzo Nikhil Alexander Walker nasried at center, and then Josh miy Not I believe was the fifth in that group, and he was incredible

in that fourth quarter run. He was blocking shots at the rim, driving closeouts and dunking on everybody, hitting corner threes like he was incredible too. But it kind of is like the best way for them to make use of that situation the record. I agree with Chris Finch in the overall kind of ethos of that or thought process behind that decision making process. There are things that disagree with Chris Finch with as it pertains to like specific lineup groups that I'd like to see them use

more in big spots. We'll talk about that in a minute. But that's kind of the give and take with the Wolves bench groups. It's like Aunt with Jaden and Rudy Julius with all the shooters, well Julius with all the shooters in that early fourth quarter group. They go on a big run and they actually end up briefly taking a lead, but then Derek White goes absolutely berserk in the fourth quarter, hit several tough, heavily contested shots and it ends up being enough to stiff arm the Wolves

and they get out of Minnesota with a win. So now I want to There's so much big picture stuff I want to get into, but before we get into that, I want to shout out a couple more Celtics. Sam Hauser. I thought his shooting was huge AllGame. He was the guy that was paying off the chaos situations that Boston was generating, so like transition pushes where he would end up with the ball, knocking down a three, threes off of offensive rebounds, threes off of mistakes that Minnesota was

making in their help side defense. He was just paying it off a lot. And then the Bigs. I thought, specifically Nimi Kuoita just did an amazing job in his bench. In his bench shifts as at that backup center spot is touched around the basket was important. I thought he won some offensive rebound battles, especially on switches where he'd get inside position on like Julius Randall and get a big tap out rebound or an offensive rebound. I just

thought he gave really good minutes. It was an impressive win for the Celtics again, down Jaylen Brown and down Christops Porzingis on the road in Minnesota and again, like it was a kind of a showcase of a bunch of different things. Like I thought it was a showcase of the fact that Jason Tatum right now is just a more complete all around basketball player than Anthony Edwards, something that I've thought most of this season after I was wrong over the summer. We're going to talk about

that in a minute. But I also thought it was a demonstration of the gap in organizational competence between Minnesota and Boston, like we talked about earlier, in terms of their spacing principles and just the way they make things easier for their stars. So let's talk about this Aunt Tatum debate. So this is something I've been getting absolutely shredded for all season. And the funniest thing about it is we're talking about two spots. I had Tatum at seven,

and most Celtics fans have him at five. There are a few more intense Celtics fans that have him higher at like three or four. But like the point is, we're talking about just a couple of spots. I had Tatum down at seven. It was a just something that Celtics fans got really upset about. I no longer feel that way I would now have Tatum at five, and then i'd probably have Ant even lower than seven. Now i'd probably have him closer to the bottom of the top ten. But no, it is not because Jason Tatum

beat Anthony Edwards last night. It is not because the Boston Celtics swept the Timberwolves this season. It is not because the Boston Celtics are clearly a much much better basketball team overall, including the Stars, than the Minnesota Timberlves. That is not why I feel that way. The reason why I now have Tatum at five when I had him at seven this summer is last year, Jason Tatum was not a very good jump shooter, especially in the playoffs, and then he completely fell apart as a jump shooter

with Team USA. In the playoffs, Tatum, when he took a jump shot, it was worth zero point eight points per tempt. That's really really bad. And then he was zero for sixteen on jump shots with Team USA. So when I was thinking about Tatum in the context of the other stars in the league, I liked his versatility. I thought he was integral to the Celtics defense in

that playoff run, specifically his ability to guard centers. But also to be able to switch ball screens, which was like the primary foundation of the Boston defensive scheme that caused so many problems for people in the postseason run. Huge testament to Tatum's versatility. I also thought he he just did a wonderful job of initial advantage creation, like we talked about earlier, creating those tic tac toe situations

that Boston was so good at turning into points. Jason Tatum is a Swiss army knife of a basketball player, which has always been something I'm drawn to because I'm a Lebron fan and Lebron was a Swiss army knife of a basketball player still is to this day. But because of his jump shooting issues, I had him down at seven instead of five. I had a feeling he

was just in a bad slump. I talked about it all summer that I expected Tatum to shoot better this year, but as I factored all of that in, I landed with him at seven. This season, Tatum is having the best jump shooting season he's had in five years. He's at one point zero seven points per jump shot, he's at one point zero two points per off the dribble jump shot, and he's at one point two to one

points per jumper off the catch. He hasn't even come close to those numbers as a jump shooter since twenty twenty. It's been almost five years, and back then he wasn't nearly the all around player that he is now. Right, So, like, yeah, when I combine the Swiss army knife that Jason Tatum has been the last few years with the jump shooter that Jason Tatum was in the early part of his career, now, I do think he is the fifth best player in

the league. I wanted to cover that separately because too much of this has turned into Anthony Edwards versus Jason Tatum.

I get that. I had a rant in the postseason that you guys have been pulling back all the time, where I said I thought Anthony Edwards was better than Jason Tatum at the time when Jason Tatum, or when Anthony Edwards averaging twenty eight seven and seven on sixty percent through shooting, dragging that flawed Minnesota roster to the Western Conference Finals, at that specific point in time, I

thought Ant was better than Tatum. I no longer feel that way, but we need to remove Ant from this discussion for a second, because Ant's a separate issue, and we'll talk about him in a minute. I just wanted to talk about Tatum in a vacuum. The reason why I had Tatum lower was because of his jump shooting issues. He has now rectified that, and when you combine that with his all around ability, he is such a deeply

impactful basketball player. And that's what we've been seeing this year, and that's why he is the fringe MVP candidate that he is this year. I wanted to cover Tatum separately than Ant because they aren't actually connected. So on that note, now let's get into Ant. What's going on in Minnesota right now is so much deeper than just Anthony Edwards development.

Ant is struggling right now. We talked about it earlier, but the Wolves are having these spacing issues and they're confronting them by putting Ant with nonspacers and Julius with spacers. So ann is playing the majority of the game with a bunch of non shooters on the floor that teams

can help help off of and send aggressive help. Now at other points in the season, when his jump shot is following at a super high rate, it's something that has worked to a certain extent, but teams are now starting to send more doubles, more aggressive ball screen coverages late help all the stuff that Anthony Edwards was talking about in his post presser last night. And to make matters worse, Ant is now in a little bit of

a shooting slope. He's at thirty five point four percent from three over his last ten games, which isn't terrible, but it's far below where he was to start the year. Now here's the thing. There are two ways to look at this solution. There's the big picture, which is confronting the obvious reality that this is a flawed roster construct and something needs to be changed for the future of Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves. But then there's the

short term reality. And the short term reality is that the Wolves are a second Apron team, meaning they are heavily handicapped with their ability to make trades this season and they may not be able to do much before they get to this summer. So we have to focus on the short term reality. Because the short term reality is this season. You gotta find something you can do to make the most out of this season. Then you can confront all the issues with the roster when you

get to June. In July, Ant has been comeling a lot about double teams. The reality is that the best way for this team to continue is probably to let Julius keep leading those spacing groups, and Ant has to try to make the non spacing groups work. If you put Ant with the spacing groups, those groups will be better. But if you put Julius with the non spacing groups,

those groups will be a disaster. I actually think Ant has been making pretty solid passing leads in terms of like identifying that there's a double team, throwing those skip passes, getting rid of the ball quickly. I actually think he's been doing a pretty decent job there. There are two things, though, that I think are holding him back right now, beyond the obvious slump which he's going to make shots in the big picture. One his past location the sharpness of

those passes. There are a lot of times where Ant is getting double teamed or they're loading up in ball screens and Ant is throwing a swing pass, throwing a pocket pass, throwing a drop off pass, throwing a skip pass, but it's not hitting the ball handler or the shooter in the post. What happens there is anytime there is a slight fumble, a slight guy loses his balance when he's trying to catch the ball. Anytime there's anything involving the pass being off target, it gives the defense an

opportunity to rotate. Specifically, it buys them more time to rotate, and so then what happens in those situations is the advantage disappears. There were a bunch of examples last night in that Celtics game where Aunt saw the right read, made the pass but threw it off target and Boston was able to rotate. It's a big part. I think he only had like three or four assists despite the fact that Boston was double teaming them all all night.

Some of that is guy's not making shots, I want to be clear, But a big part of it too is he could do himself a favor by being a little bit more precise with those kickout raads. That is a big part of how he can try to make the most out of this season is being better attention to detail in those passes to make sure they get where they need to be on time, on target. And then two on defense. Ant is an incredible on ball defender, but he has a tendency on ball occasionally to die

on screens. He lost Jason Tatum on the like where he just died on a screen in the It was like the early second half if I remember correctly. And then off ball in particular, he stands upright and he doesn't track man in ball and he can lose shooters. How do you make the most out of those lineups by virtue of making sharper passes, so at least the guys that are limited shooters have a little bit more time to knock the shot down or to make a uh you know, an advantage extending play like driving a

close out. And then two, you have to win with defense in those groups. If you're gonna have Rudy Gobert Jada McDaniels on the floor, you better be locking teams up, and you can't be giving up easy buckets because Ant's

falling asleep off ball, leaving shooters. It's so funny because I saw so much discussion last night surrounding Ant as a player maker, and there's no doubt that Ant needs to improve in some of those areas, Like I talked about just little details like past location, but I just think they're so far down the list of the other things that Minnesota could improve, and even that Aunt can improve, and I just think that we're we're kind of missing the boat to a certain extent. The Wolf starting three

four five currently makes one hundred million dollars. Jada McDaniels, Julius Randall, and Rudy Gobert makes one hundred million dollars. That is how much of their cap they're taking up this season. Those guys are combining to make two point nine threes per game on thirty three percent. That's a much bigger issue than some of the stuff were nitpicking Anthony Edwards about before. I talk a little bit more

about that big picture reality though. The one last thing that I think that Chris Finch has to consider to try to make the most out of this season is to be a little bit more willing to go away from Rudy Gobert. This is a concept that I've been talking about a lot on this show and with regards to other teams as well, specifically teams like teams like Denver in the early in the past. New York is a big team. I've been talking about it this year

with Karl Anthony Towns at center. You can be a good defense without an elite rim protector if you have athletes that compete on the perimeter, both containing the ball and flying around in rotation. And so this idea that and again I understand Gobert is a huge regular season floor racer, but there are limitations there. I just wanted to think as a thought exercise, I was like, what would be the ideal lineup for the Wolves to go

down with in a big spot? The lineup that I think has the most sensical basketball talent within this group in the in house, meaning you can't go make a trade Anthony Evergs and Julius got to have your two best ball handlers. But then nas Reid at center. And then I was like, how about the two best three and d guys on the roster? And what I came up with was Dante de Vincenzo and Nikhil Alexander Walker.

That group, those five guys, Aunt and Julius nos Rat at center flanked by Dante and Nikiel two hundred and twenty two possessions is here, according to Cleaning the Glass, a one thirty one offensive rating, a one to ten defensive rating, plus twenty one points per one hundred possessions.

That is a lineup that I think Chris Finch should explore more and maybe cut Rudy Gobert's minutes down and give that group more opportunity to run because it'll feed confidence they'll get going on offense, it'll cause them to thrive on defense. And again, a one ten defensive rating

is a good defensive rating. It's not elite, but it's a good defensive rating, and it's because you've got a lot of athletes on the perimeter that compete and rotate and it helps support a weaker rim protector in nas Reed. So that's another thing I would do again. AT's got to be more sharp with this passing in terms of location, and it's got to be more competent off balld defender. And I think Chris Finch needs to explore going away from Rudy Gobert more, especially when in big spots when

they need to get more out of their offense. Now about the long term reality, as I mentioned, you're starting front court makes one hundred million dollars. Jaden McDaniels makes twenty three million, and he's literally shooting thirty one point five percent on catch and shoot jump shots. Teams just don't guard him. That is too much money to pay a guy, too much room in your cap being taken up by a guy who's a near zero on offense.

Rudy Gobert again one of the best regular season four raizers in the league, but in the context of this roster, he's a huge part of the spacing problem, and I personally think he has a ceiling problem when we get too late playoff rounds against elite defenses that can protect the rim ie what happened with Dallas and then Julius Randall, who can't score off the ball and is really poor off ball instincts in general in terms of spacing and cutting,

is a big part of the problem. Against Boston last night, that's one hundred million dollars all for play who make it harder on Anthony Edwards when he has the basketball. That's a flawed roster construct. And to top it all off, you're in the second apron, so you can't aggregate salaries and trades. There's a million different restrictions on their ability to tweak this roster. They can't even trade him straight up for Cam Johnson. They can't even trade Julius Randall

straight up for Cam Johnson. I'm having a hard time even finding trades that makes sense. They almost just have to get through this season and then let Julius Randall walk to have any real chance to tweak the roster. But again, that was the primary purpose of them trading Karl Anthony Towns this summer. They deliberately took a risk.

As I said to the summer, I said, this has much lower of a floor, But yeah, there's a ceiling play, which is like, what if Julius Randall has an All NBA season and your defense is great and aunt and Julius just out execute everybody. That was a possibility. That was the upside. Hell, it's still the upside. But there was a huge downside to this deal, which is that you're spacing is dog sit. It makes life harder on Ant, but hey, at least you get some cap flexibility moving forward.

The real problem is you have sixty seven million dollars and Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert invested in two guys that have to play big minutes because they feel big salary slots, but they only play one side of the floor and that's too much. It's a flawed way to build a basketball team, and they have to find a

way to fix it. It's not over for the Wolves this year, but their window of opportunity is incredibly slim, and it's just kind of disappointing because you feel like you could grow off of that Western Conference Finals run last year, and all you did was tweak things and

take a gigantic step backwards. All right, quickly, before we get out of here, I wanted to talk about Warriors Sixers at least for one night, build and say Warriors broke out of their slumt Remember I talked about how in the Cleveland game, there's all this gloom and doom, and it was like they were just clearly, just miserably cold from the perimeter. They had fourteen unguarded catch and

shoot jump shots against Cleveland, they made zero. They went eleven for twenty one against the Sixers' that's gonna help a lot. Steph Curry eight for eight from three. Dennis Schroeder was a huge part of the first quarter run. He had three threes just right away, came out guns blazing. I'm a huge Dennis Schrueder believer. A lot of Warriors fans were annoyed with him and how he started anytime

he changed teams. It takes time to kind of figure out your role and get your confidence, get your rhythm. I think you guys are gonna love that guy. He's a really, really good basketball player. I also thought he just like brought some dribble penetration and made some things happen. As a team, the Warriors hit twenty two threes and shot fifty six percent from behind the three point line.

And then they followed the game plan that you're supposed to follow against Philly, which is like run the floor every single damn time you can, because and beat his slow and in general, they've got some older, slower guys. They're not gonna run the floor. The Warriors had thirty eight points in transition. This game was their third highest total of the season. Their highest, I want to say,

was Portland. It was like forty something in the early part of the season, and they had another forty something in a loss against the Brooklyn Nets earlier this season. But that's their third highest transition total this year. And they just ran Philly off the floor, controlled it throughout. Philly never let in this game I really didn't like Philly's offensive approach in this game. They didn't go to

embid in the post at all with the starters. They were just like kind of playing some freelance basketball and jacking up bad shots. And then finally when Gershon Yabuseli's checked into the game, that's when they started going to embat in the post, and they were getting good stuff every single time. Yeabucelli was setting up on the opposite wing and he was just cutting hard and making himself available in the lane and drawing extra attention, getting catches

there and finishes there. Philly post ups were really good. But it's interesting because like Philly's offense this season, when Embiid, Paul George, and Maxie are all on the floor together, is only generating one hundred and seven points per one hundred possessions. And I think there's almost a little you know, there are certain teams that I think need to be more of a you know, keep the ball moving side to side, let's play five out, let's keep everybody involved,

types of teams. And then there are teams where I'm like, you should spam the same damn thing every single damn every single time, damn down the floor kind of teams, right, like earlier Dallas Mavericks teams before they added all this ball handling, Like it was made sense for them to play that way, right, Like this Philly team, Like I don't want Caleb Martin run in action. I don't want Kelly Ubray running action. I don't even want Kyle Lowry

running action. Like what I would like for this team to do is to steady diet of and beat pep post ups. When Paul George and Maxie are on the floor, I want maximba two man game. You know, when you're staggering, you can mix it up. That's one thing. But like there's way too much dicking around from this Sixers team that doesn't play into the talent that they have, and

it just kind of feels like a wasted opportunity. But anyway, Golden State took a big lead early on and they just started feeding off the crowd and they got going in transition like we talked about, and again it's a really bad matchup for the Sixers because when they have the Golden State, it's like a blender, not even just in transition, but also in the half court. It's just all these guys moving and cutting and screening, and it's

just it's just a lot to deal with. And that's a specific thing that Philly has always struggled with, which is just basically covering in space, whether that's transition or in the half court. Goldenzan ends up pulling away and winning by thirty four. Good win too. That six Ers team had just recently gone through stretch where they had won ten out of thirteen games. I thought Draymond Green

and Steph Curry were both amazing last night. Steph Curry, of course eight for eight for three, but I also thought he just did a brilliant job of advantage creation, drawing that second defender up at the top of the key, a lot of inverted action with Kaminga and Wiggins that he was getting good stuff out of. I thought Draymond played a brilliant two way game. He had three blocks, He was disruptive all night. It was a great playmaking

game from him. His transition kick add passes were a big part of what got Golden State going in transition again. Kick adad passes are a vitally important part of transition basketball because it forces the defense to turn their head So imagine, like in a transition defense situation, all the guys that are running back, they're looking back towards the basket they're trying to score on right, Like they're looking up the floor right, but they're back pedaling back in

transition defense. So they're running back while looking up the floor right. But as soon as you throw a kick ahead pass, it forces everyone to turn around and start looking at the basket they're defending because the ball is now on the other side of them. That is what opens up opportunities for the guys that are filling in lanes behind them to find openings. And that's where you

start to get into rotation basketball in transition. And again, like if the entire goal of playing offense is to generate an advantage, meaning whether that's a four on three or even just beating a guy off a dribble and it's five on four. When you have that advantage, it's much easier to play basketball, right, especially when you have the spacing principles like we talked about earlier with the

Boston Celtics. So once we're in those driving kick situations, if you've got decent talent on the floor, that guy's gonna drive, he's gonna kick, he's gonna find the next open guy. That guy's gonna drive, he's gonna kick, he's gonna find the next open guy in then event, you're going to get a wide open three or something at their end, right. But the hardest part is getting that initial advantage, and if you get into the half court,

it's much much harder to get that initial advantage. But if you can get that advantage just by throwing the ball up the floor in transition, like Draymond, just as soon as he gets that rebound or as soon as he gets that outlet pass, he's immediately firing it up to the first opening that he sees among the guys running their lanes, because he knows that will get the defense in rotation. Then they don't have to play crazy half court basketball. They can just play off of that

advantage until they get something that they like. They literally can feed into almost like a semi transition sequence attacking in rotation. I thought Draymond was great on that front. He also did some surgical work in the half court as well. Just like you know, high low feeds to guys cutting along the baseline. Things along those lines point is Stephan Draymond. These are two guys that have been slumping,

just as the whole team has been slumping. Draymond and Steph have had some truly ugly games over the course of the last month. We're not going to beat around the bush and pretend that wasn't the case. Memphis game in particular was the bottom of the barrel, right, But these guys still have a really high ceiling when they are right. And I believe that what causes a basketball player to reach their individual ceiling is a combination of a bunch of factors. It's not just on the player.

The player is going to do the work behind the scenes to take care of their body, to polish up their skills, to try to be ready. The coaching staff is going to do the best they can to get them in rhythm through the way they're organized. But it also comes down to the way that the team is playing as a whole unit, meaning how well they're defending, how well they're running up and down the floor in transition, how well guys are capitalizing on the advantages to start

create and it all feeds on each other. Right, So, for instance, like if you defend and you get a stop, and then you push the ball up in transition, and in the transition chaos, Steph draws three defenders and throws a kickback pass to Buddy Yield at the top of the key and he knocks down at three or to Kaminga cutting along the baseline and he gets a dunk. All of a sudden, when you run back on defense, your team feels good because they just got to stop,

so they know that works. Your offense just got a bucket. Kaminga's feeling more confident, or Buddy Heels feeling more confident. Whoever hits the shot. Steph is feeling good because he

just made a play for a teammate. Now everyone's sitting back down in a defensive stance, and they're invigorated by that, which causes them to play better defense, which causes them to be more likely to get another stop, which causes them to be more likely to get out and transition again, which causes them to be more likely to score again. And it's like this feeding machine, right. It's momentum in a lot of ways. But the same thing can happen

in reverse. If you don't get a stop and then you slowly dribble up the floor and you're in the half court and Steph is having a little bit of trouble breaking free off of a screening action. But let's say he still does and you get a little four on three and it ends in a kickout pass and the ball ends up in Andrew Wiggins's hand after you kicked to Kaminga in the corner, makes an extra pass to Wiggins up on the right wing, and he misses

the three. Uh or like you get an offensive rebound and it goes right to Stephanie's wide open and he misses the three like he did against the Caps. Steph was over four on unguarded catch and shoot threes against the Cavs. It's discouraging. Everyone slumps their shoulders a bit.

You're unback on defense. Yeah, you're still trying because you're a team that's an engaged professional basketball team, but there's just not quite that oomph on the defensive end on that possession because you're a little discouraged, which makes it statistically more likely that they'll score, which makes it statistically less likely that you'll get out and transition again, which makes it statistically less likely that you'll get a good advantage,

which makes it statistically less likely that your role players or your stars will be able to capitalize on that advantage. And it can feed on itself and it can become this draining thing and it's like, oh, like this is just isn't working, And then it gets more discouraging and more discouraging, and now guy, they're saying things in press conferences and now there's Steve Kurz bitching about shot selection and all like it turns into this like momentous thing.

So that's why I've always been such a big believer in like how small tweaks can lead to big results. If you go get a player, let's just say Cam Johnson for instance. If you were able to go get Cam Johnson and he just was able to convert a few more of those plays, which fights that momentum more in the positive direction more often, then it's more likely that you'll be the best version of yourselves when you need to be. And we've seen that from what we

saw from Stephan Draymond last night. Again, that's good Eastern Conference team that should beat I know they're out of the play in now, but we all know the reasons why Philly's in the position they're in. They've been doing a lot of winning lately. That's not to say there's some top tier contender, but that's a decent win for Golden State last night. The point is when Steph and Draymond are at their best and everyone else can feed

off of that, this is still a real machine. And like I talked about in the show yesterday, it's about this like kind of loser, which is like, do you guys want to punt? Do you want to punt and just give up on this thing, or do you want to go for it? And if you're going to go for it, then go for it, no half measures you need like that, You'll you will not have a player as good as Steph Curry is for a very very

long time. Statistically, it's very improbable in the next decade that you'll have a player as good as Steph Curry is. And that's why I'm such a big believer in trying to make it work to the best that you're capable of in this situation. All right, guys, that's all I have for today is always as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow breaking down. I think Nick Thunder is the big game that I want to watch tonight. That will be

covering in tomorrow's show. And then again, I'll keep dropping mail back questions. We'll do that either on Sunday or Monday. I'll let you guys know, all right, see guys tomorrow the volume. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It 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.