Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: Warriors BLOW OUT Bulls, Lakers DOMINATE, Nuggets & Mavericks BIG WINS

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deep dive breakdown on the Celtics Lakers game. You can find that a little bit further back on our feed. We're gonna hit a bunch of other stuff from the Thursday night slate today. We had a bunch of showdowns. We had the Nuggets versus the Kings. We're gonna lead off there after that. We're gonna talk a little bit about the Warriors. End of the bench guys couldn't post, and Gie Santos, who've been playing super well, talk about what that means for them and some of my big

picture thoughts for them. After they had a very impressive come from behind blowout against the Chicago Bulls, the Dallas Mavericks used a very interesting kind of like weird matchup double teaming zone against the Oklahoma City Thunder that led to their third victory against the Thunder this season. We're

gonna break that game down. I have an additional thought on the Lakers that I didn't get to this morning, and I want to briefly hit and then at the tail end of the show, like we do every single Friday, we have a mail bag where we're gonna be bouncing all around the league. I've got some Celtics stuff in there, some Calves stuff in there, some Philadelphia seventy six ers stuff in there, a couple of player comparisons. Just a jam packshow for you guys. You guys know the joke

before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and Night YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLT so you guys don't miss you announcements. Don't forget about our podcast few wherever eat your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful for you leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where we're releasing content throughout

the remainder of the season. Make sure you guys follow there and then keep dropping mailbag questions like we do always on Fridays. If you want to get questions into the mail bag, just drop him the YouTube comments under the full episodes and just put mail bag with a colon and then write your question and we'll get to them on Fridays throughout the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So another blowout win for the Denver Nuggets. I on the only one by nine, but the Nuggets

completely dominated that game. They led seventy to forty eight in the first half. They really outworked Sacramento in this one. In the first half, they had twelve offensive rebounds to Sacramento's six. Christian Brown was consistently making DeMar Derozen pay for kind of standing around and being lazy off ball by like cutting behind him, running past him on crashes for the offensive glass beating him up floor in transition. Michael Porter Junr was doing a great job of crashing

every single time as well. They were beating Sacramento down the floor with kick ahead passes and transition pushes, and Jamal Murray I thought was pretty badly out playing deeron Fox. Jamal did a wonderful job of executing his role in Denver's offense. He got multiple buckets off of inside seals where he kind of like he'll start under the basket ish and he'll kind of like run up and he'll

backscreen for some player that cuts to the basket. But then he'll backscreen almost with his hands on the guy so that he can keep him situated on his top side. And then he'll kind of hold that position until Jokic throws the ball in half and then he'll just give a little subtle shove and then turn and get the

basketball and now he's passed him. It accomplishes the same thing as dribble penetration, right, Like, if Jamal Murray were to beat his mate off the dribble, he's going to draw help or get a layup, right, But if he has an inside seal and the paskets over the top and he catches it clean and the defenders behind him. It accomplishes effectively the same thing. He got buckets off of that. He got great shots in the on ball action,

just like getting downhill hitting floaters. He rejected a screen against Aaron Fox and hit a little step back three, even had some nice transition pushes. He had a kind of like a lefty hook in the lane that he got off on Dearon Fox. I just thought he played a better floor game overall than Daron Fox did in this game, and the Nuggets defensively did a really good job on Fox in this game. It was a mix

of Christian Brown, Peyton Watson, and Aaron Gordon. Watson and Gordon in particular, they're so good at back pressuring because they have length, and all back pressuring is is if you chase over the top of a screen, if you're going to successfully funnel someone into the paint, they have to be scared that if they shoot a mid range

jump shot, they might get blocked from behind. And you can actually see that with Darren Fox, where like he was coming off and pulling up to shoot, but kind of like ducking his head and like leaning forward a little bit like changing his release because he's worried about

back pressure. And that's a product of what Peyton Watson and Aaron Gordon do and that's a great way to influence the shooting percentage of guards that are taking aggressive scoring shots in ball screens and not just the ugly releases. There's Darren Fox kind of over penetrating because like what ends up happening is if he doesn't think he can get up in that mid range area, he's gonna keep driving.

And if he keeps driving, he's gonna go into more traffic and that's where he can turn the ball over. Mislayups things along those lines. Russell Westbrook had another great game. He's seven for ten from the field. He was bullying the smaller King's guards under the rim. He had some threes, applied a ton of ball pressure or excuse me, rim pressure, and then Nikoliokich with the first thirty point, twenty rebound and fifteen assist game since Wilt Chamberlain did it over

a half a century ago. I thought he dominated some bonus by just shoving him around, getting wherever he wanted, scoring on him one on one in the post, getting offensive rebounds, on him. The assists came every which way. Kick aheads like threw one ahead to Peyton Watson for a donkey, hit one ahead to Russell Westbrook for a

runout layup, hitting cutters, hitting slippers. He was torching Demarta Rosen for again not paying attention off ball with Christian Brown, and Jokic was just rifling, you know, just line drive passes right into Christian Brown's shooting pockets so that he could take a nice, slow in rhythm jump shot to try to make Derosen pay for helping. And then he dominated the glass, obviously with twenty rebound game, especially on

the defensive end of the floor. He talked after the game about how he thinks he's playing the best basketball of his career, and he's right. I've talked a lot about how the jump shot was one of the big things that kind of held him back last year. We're halfway through the season and he's over two hundred attempts. He's a two hundred and nineteen jump shot attempts this season at one point three to two points per shot. That's just completely insane. Still shooting over sixty percent on

hooks and floaters. And the big thing is he's really stepped things up defensively. I don't want to get into that right now. We'll get into that in a minute. But it's been an absolute pleasure to watch Nikola Jokic this season as the best player in the world, at the absolute peak of his powers, just doing his thing every night, and yet another masterpiece from him last night.

I've been talking a lot this year about how I still see Denver as a legit second tier contender, but that they haven't really shown that extended stretch of their ceiling yet, like an extended stretch of dominance, and I think we're seeing that now. The Nugget have now won

eight consecutive games that Nicole Jokic has played in. Every single one of those eight games has been a game that they either won and blowout fashion or like the game last night against the Kings where they were up big and then maybe let go of the rope a little bit late. But they've been dominant in eight consecutive wins when NICOLEA. Jokic has played, and some quality wins in there too. That's a good Sacramento Kings team that's

been giving a lot of teams issues. Six of those eight wins were against teams that are currently in the playoff hunt in either conference. As a team, the Nuggets are twelve and three in their last fifteen games. They have the best record in the league and that's span tide for the best record in the league in that span. They have the best offense in the league. In that span, they have a one to twenty three offensive rating, which

is outstanding. And the big thing that's standing out to me on film there is everyone is really starting to slot nicely and fit really well in their respective roles on the offense. No one's getting out of character. Like Russ has a really good feel for when to be aggressive and what to do when he's off ball. I'll come back to Russ in a second. But there's this dynamic with this team where there's these kind of these three guards that can be somewhat aggressive. Michael Porter Junior

I think fits into this mix as well. But perimeter players that have the right to be aggressive in action or to have somewhat of a green light when they catch on the perimeter looking to score. And it's like Jamal, it used to be just be Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Junior, and like you know, Bruce Brown in the championship team, right, like that could bring the ball to the floor and be aggressive in action on the perimeter. But like as the years have gone by, it's kind of evolved a

little bit. Now it's kind of a smortgage Porter guys, right, Like Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Junior are still two guys that can do that, but like Russell Westbrook has a certain aggressiveness to him. He's over fifteen points per game in the last month or so. Julian Strawther has had moments where he's been super aggressive, and all four of those guys have kind of had to pick their spots more, but they've been doing a good job of it.

And so what you're getting is they're like, oh shit, Jamal Murray has this, you know, forty something point game, Like oh shit, Peyton Watts, excuse me. Julian Strather has this twenty something point game, like Russell Westbrook, this is his night tonight. Like Michael Porter Junior, this is his night tonight. They're feeling it out really really well and not stepping on each other's toes and staying in rhythm and then coming back to Russ like the off ball

stuff is incredible. We've talked a lot about his cutting, but it's like even the work on the offensive glass. There's a play last night, cuts to the basket, doesn't get it, the shot goes up, it's a miss, and so he just inside seals, gets the rebound and just goes right back up and finishes because he's so much

bigger and stronger than those Kings guards. And you combine that with Jokic playing the best basketball of his career and in my opinion, the highest level of offensive basketball we've ever seen, and we're just getting an incredibly efficient Nuggets offense. A one twenty three offensive rating is nothing to side eye at. That is a very very productive offense.

Remember we were talking about the Pacers offense at the beginning of last year is hitting like some sort of crazy high that we hadn't seen in a long time, and they were at like a one to twenty four offensive rating, and so like again, when you're in that area where you're substantially over one twenty's, that's a really really high level offense that you're seeing. But the defense

has been much better of late. They are seventh and defensive rating in this twelve and three stretch over the last fifteen games, and a big part of that has been Nicole Jokic's improved effort and intensity on that end of the floor. As we always talk about, Jokich is at his best defensively when he's reading plays, using his brain and being very active with his hands. He's got long arms, he's good at getting deflections and steals when

he's reading plays and reading that pick and roll ball handler. Right, He's averaging over two and a half steals per game over the last couple of weeks. He's just doing more on that end. And when you anchor that with athletic motor guys like Christian Brown, Peyton Watson, Russell Westbrook, Aaron Gordon, and you have Jokic doing the work that he does on the defensive glass, you can be a very good defense.

And you know, the Nuggets have been somewhat up and down this year for a variety of reasons, but this is the first stretch this season where I felt like they looked like a legit championship contender. They're being the best defense they can be with their personnel while also being a truly elite offense. That is the pathway that's the pathway that won them the title in twenty twenty three. It's the pathway that can win them the title this year. They are good enough to beat anyone in this league.

There's obviously, like when you look at the teams at the top, like there's a reason why the Cavs and the Thunder are like eight games up on Denver in the standings, right, and we know Boston is in a massive role with the championship, you know, kind of hangover. But I think it's fair to say that those teams have been more impressive in the aggregate this season. I think Denver can close that gap if they maintain this dominance.

But no matter what, regardless of what you've seen to this point, I think it's clear that Denver can beat any of these teams. They just need to keep building. There's a real chance there. It's not a tiny crack in the door. It's like a legitimate, partially open door that they can try to blow through. There's a real opportunity here that they are demonstrating. One last note on the Nuggets. The Nuggets are really starting to hold up well in the Jokic off groups, meaning when Yokic is

playing in the game, but he's on the bench. In the last eight games that Nikola Jokic has played in, the Nuggets are plus eighteen in the minutes when Jokic is off the floor. That is a major development for a team that was legit hemorrhaging leads without Jokic in the early part of the season. That part of that's ben Jamal Murray getting better. These groups have been defending better getting out in transition. Getting Aaron Gordon back has also been a really big help in that side of things.

The Nuggets are playing some special basketball right now. I'm excited to see if they can keep it up. A couple of notes on the Warriors. So they got off to a really tough start against the Bulls. They spotted them a twenty to six lead, just a total funk on both end. Looked kind of like just an extent of what happened to them in crunch time against the Kings. But then they went on a one fifteen to seventy run plus forty five in that span to blow them

off the floor. Quentin Post has a twenty point game, And this is where I want to dive into the concept of a pick and pop. I talk about picking and popping a lot because it is the one of the most difficult actions in the league to guard. It's difficult even with guards, like when you set ghost screens and they slip out of them, just anytime a shooter is like moving to a spot. It's difficult to guard,

especially as part of a screening action. But the bottom line is is that most teams don't want to switch actions that involve a center. The reason why is you don't want to have your center out on the perimeter guarding some guard for most teams, and you don't want to have your guard guarding a center for most teams. Right, So, like you try to keep yourself out of these precarious matchups,

and so you run these traditional coverages. Right. So, like in a traditional ball screen, what is going to happen is the set enter for the opposing team is going to come set a screen, and then the defensive center is going to either come all the way up to the level or sit way back as close to the rim as possible, or anywhere in between. Those are like

the cover that's the range of coverages there. You might see a guy blitz where he just comes way out to the level and they both attack the ball and they try to get him to get rid of it. You might see a hedge where he like lunges out to stop him from driving, but then recovers. You might see like a high drop. This is one of the

most common coverages you'll see in the league. This is where are a big comes all the way up to the level just to contest any guy who comes off to shoot a pull up jump shot, but he's still staying kind of lateral to the ball so that he can contain the ball as as they might try to drive downhill. And then there's like a drop where you like sit way back and you let the guy come over the top of the screen and drive into you. But all of those coverages involve the center engaging with

the ball handler. Right In a hedge, you stop the ball handler from driving. High drop. You can test any sort of pull up a shot or movement shot coming off the screen in a lower drop. In a lower drop, you're dealing with the ball handler and the roll man coming out to you. They call it no roller behind coverage. Your job is to keep both of them in front of you as you make that defensive read from the center position. None of those account for a big not rolling.

When the big rolls, all of those coverages have a plan for it. None of them account for what if the big just sets the screen and then just pops. Because you can imagine if you hedge, then that guy who pops is gonna be wide open. If you drop high, meaning like the center comes up to the level to contest a pull up jump shot, the big man's gonna be wide open. If you drop low, the big man's gonna be wide open. No matter what you do. If you pick and pop, it's going to be wide open.

Your only ways to guard it are to either have your big man stay home, in which case, if the guy sets a good screen, the guard's just gonna go right downhill and compromise your defense. Or you can rotate to the shooter from the weak side. If you rotate to the shooter from the weak side, you can have issues where you're in rotation now and you end up just giving up an open shot somewhere else on the floor. It is one of the hardest actions in the league

to guard. That's why for most teams, like there are certain guys like you know, Victor wen Minyama, You're probably not going to run a drop coverage against because or any sort of traditional coverage because Victor can really shoot the ball right. That's why the Lakers, for instance, when they played them, went back to switching one through five. They wanted to make sure they didn't give up easy pick and pop threes to Victor wem Minyama. Guys like

Chris Hoops porzingis same sort of thing. There are a handful of guys in the league that have earned a reputation that if they set a screen, it's gonna be a switch because you can't give up that pick and pop. But for the most part, like even guys like Miles Turner, for instance, guys that can shoot, teams will be like, we're just gonna let him shoot it, and if he makes a few, then we'll react, But we can't be building our defense around stopping Miles Turner from shooting threes.

Same thing goes for a guy like Quinton Post. With a guy like Quinton Post, teams are going to especially in action with Steph Curry, They're gonna leave him open on the pick and pot. How many times did you see a two man game sequence with Steph and Quinton Post last night where Steph came off the screen, both defenders went with him easy behind the back pass or kickback pass. Quinton Post just standing completely unguarded out by the three point line. It is an incredibly valuable thing

to have a center that can legitimately shoot. It is always open. It puts the defense in a real predicament. And I thought Quinn Post was setting good screens all night long. He was running side to side action where like he'd make himself available at the top of the key catch and then quickly turn into a dribble handoff going the other way. He even in garbage time ran an inverted ball screen and got all the way to the basket for a lamp where he had a guard

screen screen for him. So like, really really interesting development with what we've seen from Quinton Post in the last couple of games. And then Gi Santos, who's been playing a lot as of late, starts with the fact that he's got good size. He's just a big, strong dude. He moves well laterally, and he competes on the defensive end. Guys are shooting five for fourteen from the field. Excuse me against Ghi Santos in ISOs so far this year,

which is really good. He does a really good job in ball screens, like he fights and sidles up over the top when he can stay attached, but he's also big enough to peel off. Like one of the biggest jobs for a guard in ball screens is if you do get rocked by a screen and they have to switch, you got to get around and get on the inside of the big and try to box him out. It's a difficult job, but when you're as big as Gi Santos, it's something that is possible for him. And then he's

also just shot the ball really well. He's made eighteen threes and thirty nine attempts this year. That's one point three to eight points per shot. That's that's so good that he's making defenses pay for helping him. Steve Kerr talked after last night's game about how Gi Santo's and Quinton Post have earned his trust, but that he's not sure there are enough minutes for them when Jonathan Kaminga and Draymond Green get back. That is literally the problem.

You have a million really solid role players, but you are utterly devoid of top end talent beyond Steph Curry. Even Brandon Pajenski last night came back and looked great. Plus twenty two and twenty one minutes did a little bit of everything. Everyone looks at the Warriors record and how bad they've been at times this year through the lens of them just being a bad team. I don't see it that way at all. I see it as a team with a gaping weakness, one specific gaping weakness,

one that will make you look bad at times. In the modern NBA, no matter who you are, if you don't have guys that can create shots in the modern NBA, you will have games where your offense sucks and you look terrible. Right now, your secondary shot career is Andrew Wiggins, Buddy Held, and Dennis Schroeder by committee. None of those guys are consistent offensive threats. They'll look good some nights,

they'll look bad others. It's looked especially bad of late because Dennis Schroeder's been bad a lot of the time and Buddy Heield's been bad a lot of the time as of late. But none of those guys are even close to good enough to being a legit number two. They're being put into roles where they're needed to be consistently good offensively when that's not the thing. When you guys heard me talk about Dennis Schroder before the deal,

I never said he's a consistently great offensive player. I just said he's a really good player that does a lot of things that help the team, and he's freakishly competitive and compete and like in battles and a guy that you'd like to have in a foxhole with you. That doesn't mean he's your the second best shot creator on a championship team, I said. At the time of the deal, I said, I only liked the movie in the context of another trade for a wing or a

four that can really score. The trade made all the sense in the world. You traded an injured player with a torn acl for a player that could come help you right away. It was an upgrade. No matter how you look at it. Dennis just hasn't played well. Here's the thing. Dennis hasn't played well. That's a fact. But Dennis will play better in the long run. Right now, you're in one of the lolls. But this is kind

of the deal with Dennis. Dennis, you don't want to be in a position where you need him to score every single night. He's the kind of player that, like, this is what it was like for me when I was rooting for him with the Lakers. On the nights where he was on offensively, you just won or he'd get you twenty twenty five. You just on those nights

were great, but you never counted on those. Those were just when they happen, you're like, shit, we're getting a good Dennis offense game like this is gonna be really great. But then there's the other side of it, which is even when he's not having one of those offensive nights, he guards the ball really well. He's just overall a good competitor. He can do some advantage for a bench unit and make occasional plays to help your team win. It's been ugly because you're expecting this every night, but

you've been getting that instead. And so it's one of those things where like slotting could go a long way to putting Dennis in a position where you don't need him to be great every night. I bet you guys think Dennis is shooting really poorly this year, and he is on contested shots. He's actually shooting thirty nine percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. Since he joined the Warriors, but he only got twenty eight looks so far.

He's doing a role player stuff. Fine, he's just struggling at the star stuff because you have him miscast right now as a secondary star. If you get a legitimate number two for Steph, it will slot everyone more properly, and then that will allow you to take advantage of the actual strength of this Warriors roster, a strength that puts them even above many of the other roster in the league, which is a depth of role player talent.

When you have role players all playing above their pay grade in terms of their responsibilities, they will look like they're inadequate players. When you have them playing in their pay grade, they will fulfill those expectations and look great. But you've got to get a guy up there next to Steph that can be a guy that you know is going to be good offensively every night, because that

will then slot everybody into more achievable goals. Dallas used a very interesting game plan to defeat the Yoklahoma City Thunder for the third time this season last night. Doubled sga a ton and they used kind of like a weird variation of a two three zone where they use the top two guys to kind of pick up SGA, like wherever he was on the floor and get the ball out of his hands. You guys have maybe heard of a defense called a box in one. It's a

very simple concept. You have two guys on the back line, two guys kind of around the elbows, and they zone up almost like a two to three, but without that third guy. So each guy's is each guy's area that they have to cover is just bigger. But then you take one guy and you just kind of deploy him on the other team's best player. We ran it in uh we ran it in college against Salt Lake Community College.

I remember they had they would have me chase around the other team's best player and then we would have like a the two two zone, right, And the idea is is it's just weird. It's super weird, it's super unusual, and the purpose it serves is to make the other team play a very different type of basketball than they're

used to playing. I think if it is like coaching to win individual games, and it's something that is underrated I think in the NBA regular season, because like, yeah, if you do something like that in the postseason, they probably find some sort of adjustment over the course of the series to counter that, which is why you don't see people running these gimmicky defenses all the time around the league, right, But when you look at when you look at it in the small sample, like oh, this

is a random Thursday night in January, it can win you a game. It can win you a game on the road against the runaway number one seed without your best player, which is what Dallas did in this game. So a box and one, as I talked about, is the zone with the two guys at the elbow and the two guys at the baseline, kind of covering those areas in one person chasing around the opposing best star. This was kind of like a line in two, meaning you had like a line along the baseline, like Daniel Gafford.

There two big athletes on either side of him. They're helping on drives. Gafford's still kind of coming up and showing up around the level, and they're cleaning up around the rim in terms of defensive rebounds. But the two guys at the top, just as soon as Shay got the ball, we're just bracketing in on him and forcing him to give it up and it worked. It forced the ball out of Shay's hands, It forced some discombobulated, weird shots. It got Oklahoma City out of rhythm, and

it got Dallas went. They ran twenty four possessions of zone in that game and held the Thunder to just zero point eighty eight points per possession on those plays. PJ. Washington put up a twenty two point nineteen rebound night. He was great with his slot drives. He can just

overpower most of the Oklahoma City perimeter players. He had a really nice driving kick play where he kind of curled around in action on the right wing, got into the paint, led to the kind of pass pass sequence that got Quentin Grimes the big three that iceed the game. Spencer Dinwood, he was incredible. He had twenty eight points on fourteen shots. It's one of his most efficient games

that you'll see. Absolutely toasted Aaron Wiggins on like a simple hesitation move, a nasty one where he like and again on the hesitation movie, he kind of looked to the left, came to a complete stop for just a brief second, and then shot like a cannon and just toasted Aaron Wiggins off the drip and just dunked it on the back line of Oklahoma City wasn't playing a center down the stretch, so there's no rim protection. He just dunked on everybody, and then Kyrie Irvin poured in

an efficient twenty four points of his own. I thought he just did a good job of advantage creation all night, just creating that initial advantage that everybody could play off. Again, a fun example of just coaching to win every single individual game from Jason Kidd. A huge part of how you stay afloat in a season where you're dealing with injuries, especially when you know, like, oh, well, we want to play a certain style that we're gonna use in the playoffs.

We're not gonna have these guys in the playoffs. You're going to probably run a much tighter rotation with better players because Lively and Luka Dancich'll be back right on the thunderfront. I think in general, they're going to struggle to match up with Dallas without Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. Like they couldn't play center down the stretch. That's how

that dunk happened. Like it's just one of those things where they physically are a mismatch without having that interior size before we get to our mailbag, one last note on the Lakers, and again, like I did a full breakdown of this in the video we did earlier this morning, but there's a reality with the Lakers that they don't have like a super high level offensive player at this point, right because of the decline of Lebron James, Anthony Davis

never really developing that way, and Austin Reeves, who's I think, you know, the kind of guy that like has a pretty like pretty like clear ceiling on who he is as an offensive player. But he's still a very good offensive player. It's he's not going to be an MVP like Shae Kios Alexander type of offensive player, right. And so it brought me to this concept that JJ Reddick was talking about last night, the concept of we score

versus I score. And I actually think this is an identity that the Lakers have to take on if they're going to win the title. They need to be like the Cavs, a team that plays with pace, great pace up and down the floor, that uses their variety of offensive talent to generate advantages instead of playing through one singular player. And then that capitalizes on those advantages with

good spacing and ball movement. No Lakers scored more than twenty five points last night, but they had six guys in double figures and they had a one to twenty five offensive rating against a great defense in Boston. Like that is the pathway for them. By the pace thing is important. I talked about this a little bit this morning with respect to like the difference between a static

drive versus like a movement drive. What I mean by that is like if I let's pretend we're playing King of the Court and I'm at the top of the key and you're guarding me, and you're straight up, and I have a live dribble. But I'm standing right in front of you at the top of the key, and I need to beat you off the dribble. It's gonna be pretty tough for me to do because any sort of move that I make you can pressure and effect a handle. It's just it's difficult to do in that

sort of setting. Now, let's put you still there at the top of the key, but let's take me all the way back to half court. But give me a live dribble. Okay, And so now you need to stop

me from driving past you. But I get to start running back at half court, I'm going to get ahead of steam and I'm going to hit a move right at the top of the key, and you're gonna have a much lower chance of stopping me in that situation because I already have ahead of steam and it's just really difficult to stop a player when he's got that type of momentum going downhill. That's why you play fast. That's why you don't walk the ball up the court

and try to attack a static defense. It is so much easier to get the defense in rotation by attacking with speed. Austin all night last night was so great at like every transition push, just trying to get dribble penetration and attacking with a head of steam to break down the defense and generate those kickout opportunities. I thought, I just thought he was great and like that sort

of concept. If it translates down the line again, for a team that can struggle sometimes to score, the more they push the ball, the more they play fast, the more they start to try to run action with a head of steam versus static against an elite defense, the more successful have in those situations. But again, if you want more Lakers stuff, go to the video that we made earlier this afternoon. All right, get to our mailbag, Hey, Jason, love the show. Love the quantity and quality keeps my

screen time unfortunately high. The Celtics have had these lulls all season that are almost always followed up with a thirty to forty point dominating win. Is that a sign that they truly can just turn it on or do you think it's just inconsistency. I think it's a sign that they can turn it on. Don't get me wrong. Like there's some mental demons here in terms of like decision making demons. I talked a lot about that this morning.

The idea of settling basically, like, to me, settling is just attacking a mismatch with a jump shot versus attacking a mismatch with physical aggression. And the way I kind of laid it out in the show this morning is like, if you attack with physical aggression, you're gonna get easy twos. If you get easy twos, it's untenable for the defense,

So they're gonna have to help. As soon as they start helping, that's where you start getting those kickout opportunities, which is the the you know, the meat and table of the Boston offense when they were at their best, which is wide open catch and shoot threes. Right, But if you take, if you settle for jump shots in isolation situations or in post up situations, you're gonna be less efficient. And when you're less efficient, the defense is

more willing to live with it. And if the defense is more willing to live with it, they're not gonna help as much. If they're not gonna help as much, you're gonna get stagnant, you're not gonna get those kick out three opportunities. And again like that, again, what makes the Celtics the best is their ability to generate easy layups and wide open catch and shoot threes. Yeah, Jalen

Brown and Jason Tatum can make tough shots. Yeah, Porzingis can hit face up jump shots around the elbow, but that's not what gets them the elite offense that won them the title. They do it through physical aggression against mismatches. How do they beat Dallas? It was Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum consistently getting Luka Doncic on a switch and taking step back threes no, that's not it. They drove past them every damn time, and then they kicked the

ball out and generated wide open threes. You guys get the points. So like to me, what ends up happening in these thirty forty point dominating wins. They leverage themselves defensively, which allows them to get out and transition more, and then when they're in the half court they play more physically aggressive, they get better shots, and they blow teams out. It is absolutely just an effort and energy thing. I also think this five games and seven nights thing really

affected then. We talked about that this morning. But again, I think the dominant wins that have been mixed in have been a clear signal that they have that upside and that they're just struggling with dealing with the dregs of the regular season at this point. Hey, Jason, I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like no one is talking about how disappointing the seventy six ers season has been thus far. This is a team that came into the season coming off the acquisition of

Paul George, ready to be a top contender in the East. However, they're sitting at the eleventh seed and at the halfway point of the season. I know injuries have played a factor, but I believe they still have enough talent to be more competitive than they are. With that being said, what are your thoughts on the seventy six ers this season? So, in the interest of full disclosure, I haven't watched a ton of them this year. I might have seen like

maybe five or six six Ers games. The main thing is just how I like divvy up the amount of time that I watch film. I want to have a really good grasp on the teams that are in the upper tiers, like the top tier championship contenders, the second

tier championship contenders, in a long shot championship contenders. I want to have like a really good feel for all of them because they're the teams that we're going to be coming covering very closely when we get into the postseason, which is basically like a two month saga that we have at the tail end of all of this, right, and so like when I see teams that just are crumbled, like Philly's just crumbled, so I haven't put too much

effort and energy into following them this year. That said, I'm aware of what's going on, and I have watched enough of them to see that, Yeah, Paul George just hasn't been very good. And it's kind of like a tough thing because on the one hand, you almost feel like they had to do it right, like you have to.

There's an order of operations, operation number one, or the first action there is like, well, we're committing to EMBIID, right, you like and Beats had all his end, his playoff issues and his injury issues, but as an organization, they said, we're still going to try with them. Okay, I you're still gonna try with EMBIID. You needed a talent upgrade. What was the best way to upgrade the team's talent

this summer signing Paul George. Yeah, you're right. If you turn Paul George away, you stay away from what could be the worst contract in NBA history. I'm not disagreeing with that. But the alternative was you don't sign him

and then you're still bad. So it's like it's the kind of the same thing that we talk about, like with these I have a question later as a respect as that has to do with respect to like these sons, with Kevin Durant, and them going all in or like well we've talked about NonStop at the Warriors or the Lakers going all in, Like if you're in the Lebron James business, if you're in the Kevin Durant business, if you're in the Steph Curry business, and Joel Embiid even

though he's younger because of his body breaking down, I kind of view it as a similar type of urgent timeline. If you decide I want to be in the Embiid, KD,

Steph Lebron business. There's a certain amount of like irresponsible decision making that comes hand in hand with that because there are super high risk options, so you kind of have to play high risk ball there, right, And so that's the thing is like you're right, you didn't have to sign Paul George, but he was the easiest way to add a really talented player in a tight window where you felt an urgent need to try to win a title, and so you kind of had to take

that risk. And also, like it's kind of like the Cavs thing. It's always really funny to me when people are like, oh, well, you didn't have the calves doing this, and it's like none of you guys had the Cavs doing this, Like, come on, guys, like the Calves are greatly exceeding expectations, This is unusual. Same thing goes in reverse for a guy like Paul George, right, Like, yeah, I thought it was really dangerous to sign Paul George to that extensive of a deal at that big of

a number, at this phase of his career. Obviously that was a risk. None of us thought he'd be this bad, Like none of us had this. Dude's gonna routinely put up eleven or twelve points in a game, like none of us had. None of us had that as our potential outcome for Paul George. So like, some of this is like Paul George just has to get his shit

together and hold up his end of the bargain. But at this point things are just so off the rails with Embiad's health and everything, like this season is kind of a lost cause no matter what. So you're almost better off. Like I wouldn't play anybody who's hurt. If MAXI has some sort of discomfort in a foot, sit is asked down. If Paul George is playing like shit

because he's hurt, Sit is asked down. If Joel Embiid can't do a workout without his knees swelling, sit is ass down and have the number one priority between now in October for those guys to get healthy. And then when you get to October, you say, let's try this thing one more time, and you try it and if it goes off the fucking rails again, then maybe you consider trying to pivot off of everything in the best way that you can, and maybe that ends up you

having to trade Tyree Maxey, which would really suck. But if that's what you have to do, that's what you have to do. But you gotta do what you gotta do to make this work up until at least until you get one full season with these guys at least having some health to see what they're capable of on the court. Is it just me or have the timp's tape segments been canceled? Did you say something about that or was it just too complicated to keep doing? I

planed on still doing Tim's tape. It's just the holidays were weird because we kept having a bunch of days off in the middle of the week and then we had another day off. This week Monday with the Martin Luther King Day, and then I've also been doing more trade deadline content, so like when I have a Tuesday or a Thursday when I want to do something different than game reactions, I've been doing a lot of like let's cover three teams at the trade deadline instead of

Tim's tape. But like post trade deadline, we will absolutely get back into Tim's tape as we start to like dive deeper into these teams. Like Tim's tape is in a very important segment to me in terms of like providing visual representations for the show. It is something that I'm still very committed to. We're just in a kind of a weird, funky spot in the season where we're not using it as much. Love your work. Watching from New Zealand trying to settle a debate with my friend

who's a Heat fan. Who do you think is a better player, Desmond Bain or Tyler Harrow. Last year I would have said Desmond Bain. This year, I'd say Tyler Harrow for the few Sure, it's all going to depend on whether or not the shooting from Tyler Harrow is legitimate. The big thing with Desmond Bain is. I actually think Desmond Bain is a pretty damn good defensive player. He's good, He's physically fights guys off of spots, good ball pressure guy.

Like I like Desmond Baine on the defensive end of much much more than Tyler Harrow, and like his kind of lower, trunky build makes it a little bit easier for him to get to spots, and I think that's made him just a more useful player as the intensity

goes up a level. But Tyler Harrow's just been shooting the ball so damn well this year and doing such a good job passing the basketball this year that he's gone up a level in terms of just overall offensive upside where he's been better than Desmond Baine this season. That said, every time I see a guy that has an outlier shooting season like this, it's like you kind of just want to see the sample size grow and

grow and grow. It's like it's kind of like the Anthony Edwards shit, Like he shot really well in the postseason, shot really well with Team USA. Now I was shooting really well again this season. Like now I'm kind of like, hey, guys, Anthony Edwards is a really good shooter, Like, that's kind of what we want to see with Tyler Harrows, just to see him put together a more extended sample of that. Why has the Dennis Schroeder trade worked out for the Warriors?

They needed additional ball handling. He was playing so well in Brooklyn. What happened is the Warriors offense really that hard to play in, is definitely that hard to adapt to. Again, I talked about this a little bit earlier on in the show. It's just all and I'm not gonna get too much deeper in it. Just go listen to the Warriors segment that we did earlier in the show. But the gist of it is, like I've never thought of Dennis as like a primary shot creator or even as

a secondary shot creator. He needs to be your third, fourth, fifth best offensive player in order for it to make sense. His value is in that in specific matchups he can be absolutely deadly as a speed guard who can beat switches and pressure the ball and do all these different things. But like there are other matchups where he can struggle the teams that can do a better job of packing the paint, teams that have a good enough athlete to bother his kind of slow pull up jump shot release.

But at the end of the day, like I said that when the trade was made, like he only really makes sense for this team, or he makes sense for this team no matter what as a trade for d Anthony Melton. But the only way he really brings upside to this team is if he's not depended on to be a great score and right now he is. And for the record, guys, like this is the bottom end of the Dennis Schroeder experience. He's not making any contested shots right now, so like that is the main issue.

Like Dennis will play better, but the bigger picture issue is that you don't need to be depending on Dennis. That's a roster problem that they need to address. Hey, Jason love the show, big Suns fan, and even bigger Kevin Durant fan. As I watched the Sun in some of these other kind of upper middle teams Lakers, Kings, t Wolves, I'm asking myself, specifically as a Suns fan, why are we not blowing this thing up. I don't think to fit with Beal and Book and Katie is

the problem. Maybe you disagree. I more think it's the money that's the problem with building a roster out of veteran minimums and how that's not a sustainable way to build a contender team. But my question is do you think some of these upper middle teams should pull the trigger on bigger trades sooner or if they should just blow it up and rebuild, because a lot of these teams run it back kind of hoping something change when

clearly there's there's level. They are levels below the top teams whenever year we are talking about championships with these teams, but there just clearly is not that upside. I'm sure you feel like this with the Lakers and their two first round picks. Thanks for the he said, thanks, Sorry for the long question. No worries at all. I was having a little trouble with that one of myself, but that's just me. My brain is completely fried. We've been

going all day. Now here's the thing. I talked about this a little bit earlier, but I want to get a little bit deeper into this concept. Now. There's no doubt that the builds that these teams have are flawed. That building a team around a fifty million dollar, forty year old Lebron is going to handcuff you in some ways or fifty million dollar old KD fifty million dollar old Steph. My thing is that, like you can't be in that business and then be thinking about the future

like that. They just don't go hand in hand. Like to your point, the way you supplement a roster that has to overspend on stars because of their just salary slots because they're all, you know, ten plus years of NBA experience, you have to compensate that by getting really high level players at every single other salary that you have, And the only way you're gonna do that is by using your draft compensation. And so it's one of those

things where I'm like, I get it. I get why Lakers fans some Lakers fans or not even Lakers fans, but the Laker front office might be like, man, this team doesn't look that good. Why would we spend these two first round picks and handcuff our future? Or the Warriors? Man,

this team has looked bad at stretches this year. How do we reconcile spending two first round picks to or spending you know, a talented young player in draft compensation to upgrade this team or the Oh, Like, I'm sure if you're a Suns fan, You're like, oh my gosh, Like we were already all in with this Bradley Beal Kevin Durant thing. We're gonna take our twenty thirty one pick and we're gonna turn it into three first and trade all of those two like we're just gonna mortgage

the whole future. And it's like, I get it, I get why that seems freaky. I get why that seems irresponsible. But you're not in the normal NBA business like teams like Cleveland and Oklahoma City, teams like Detroit that are on the rise. Those teams have real big picture potential that they have to worry about. The Suns are gonna be in the shitter after this era, no matter what. The Lakers are gonna be in the shitter after this era, no matter what. The Warriors are gonna be in the

shitter after this are era. No matter what, you're in the Lebron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant business. These are all old guys that have a lot of upside that's probably not gonna show as often in the regular season, but that is absolutely still there in the postseason. There's no way you can supplement them with the amount of talent they need without making these kinds of more aggressive decisions. And I always just say the exact same thing, you're

tanking no matter what. After all this, there is a proven process to successfully doing that. You take all those useful role players you trade for and you turn around and trade them to that year's contenders for draft compensation. You freely take on bad money from anybody who's looking to get rid of it, because you can carry bad

money while you're paying draft picks. Draft picks don't make much money, so you can actually play all the guys on the low salaries and take on all these big salaries and sit them on the bench or barely use

them and take on draft compensation. There is a proven pathway to asset accumulation in these kind of like transitions between championship windows and so like, my thing is like, if you're gun shy and you don't want to spend draft compensation to anchor these groups, why did you get in the Kevin Ramp business, Why did you get in the Lebron James business, why'd you get into the Steph

Curry business? You did that as an aggressive kind of all in type of move right, and so from that same point, that's why I advocate for those types of moves. And for the record, like the Jimmy Butler trade for the Suns, I would do it. You're screwed no matter what. Why not be screwed with Kevin Ran, Jimmy Butler and Devin Booker and see if those guys can't go win.

Jimmy Butler is just a much better basketball player than Bradley Beal on both ends of the floor, and is a much more natural fit alongside Devin Booker and Kevin Durant in the closing five. It immediately makes you way better. I saw a video on Twitter of them talking about the number one guy in the twenty thirty one class, and it was a little kid you want you want to put Jimmy next to Lebron in or excuse me, put Jimmy next to Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, or

do you want that little kid? Like? Like, come on, guys, what are we even doing here? Like I want to see what it looks like. Give it a shot. Otherwise, get out of the Kevin Rat business. Is there a scenario where Yokic finishes with the greatest statistical season analytically speaking of all time finishes top three and scoring, rebounding, assists, and potential steals and potential I think that means potential assists. I don't think there's such a thing as a potential steal.

The Nuggets have a top three or two seed and SGA still wins MVP. If that happens, what would SGA need to do to in the playoffs to avoid what happened to Joel Embiid after his MVP win. Couple things like, there's always a complicated process to this. Shay had become a pretty substantial favorite because his team is way, way way ahead in the standings. There's something crazy like eight games up. But Yo Kicch is just two damn good

to let this not be a race. Jokicch is not capable of playing lower than the level he's playing at, Like if he's going to keep putting up thirty, twenty and fifteen at a certain point, you kind of have to just acknowledge that he's a better basketball player. I

think everybody does. But Shae has played at an extremely high level this year, and his team is clearly the best team in the regular season right now, and it just makes a lot of sense that he's a very traditional surefire MVP candidate, But I do still think that Yokich can steal it from him. He's two damn good, and you know, especially in this stretch here where the thunder Or without their centers and they could could putotentially

drop some games. Like it's absolutely still there for the taking. But I think Shade, if he finishes eight, nine, ten games ahead of the Nuggets and the standings, it's just going to be too much to justify the relative. Like I think Yokich is clearly better than SBA, but SJA has been playing at an extremely high level this year. Jason

Love the show Man Laker's related trade question. I'm with you that Plan A should be Kessler, Sexton and Bruce Brown, but I was listening to Pete and Darius on the LFAR pod and they made a compelling case for Nikola Vusovich. He can space the four like Rui, but he's a much better rebounder. Offensively, he can operate in the post or elbow run, pick and roll with Austin Reeves and Braun, play alongside Anthony Davis and a Marcus al type role.

Or be an innings eater. When Anthony Davis sits on the other end, Anthony Davis or Anthony Smith and Vando in an engaged Lebron can help him defensively. What are your thoughts on the Lakers flipping RUI for Nicola Vusovich. Keep up the great work. Pete and Darius to my absolute favorites. Highly recommend you guys check out. If you're a Lakers fan and you're looking for Lakers specific work, make sure you guys check out the Laker film ro podcasts.

I've told this to Pete directly, but you know, I learned a lot about the game of basketball for my college coaches. The specific guy that I'd like to shout out as Jeff Rudder. He just ran our Naia program like a professional program, and we just had incredibly advanced a schematic approach on both ends of the floor. We used analytics, We used high We used Synergy for scouting, which allowed me I was the guy who always had

to guard the other team's best players. It was like something that really helped, and I learned all of these things about basketball and coming into this, you know, to covering the NBA. You know, there's a lot of things that do translate, and then there are things that are different.

You know, they're like, the offensive talent is at such an insanely high level in the NBA that there are some defensive schematic things that you would do there that you would never do at the college level, right, And like when I was really learning about NBA basketball technically, meaning like the more advanced schematic stuff on both ends of the flour, Pete and Darius were a huge part of me learning that side of the game years ago when I was younger and I was really ambitious about

trying to get into this space. So like, I highly recommend you guys check check those guys out. If you're a Lakers fan and you're looking for more Lakers content, definitely get over and check out Pete and Darius. They do a lot of very similar stuff to this show where they just stay in the weeds and talk tactical stuff.

Just love those guys. Can't say enough. Pete also has been a personal mentor to me on a bunch of levels, especially when I was first getting into the business and I was really confused about some of the business side of stuff. So just shout out to Pete and Darius. But I have seen the Vusovich piece and I am intrigued by it. I thought Pete made a compelling case. His case was basically like, this team needs offense and this team needs rebounding, and Vusovich is the guy that

does both, and I agree in that respect. My only real pushback would be I keep thinking that the Lakers need to be great at something if they're going to win the title, Like, they can be good at a lot of things, but they need to be truly great at something. And I just don't think Vouch brings enough physical in position to the equation to make it worthwhile for the Lakers to become specifically great at being big.

I think the Lakers can be very big. I think if you get the right kind of backup center, someone like a Walker Kessler, someone like a Robert Williams, the guy who's a very good defensive like just Verstle defensive player and rim protector and rebounder. If you have that kind of guy and you play him next to Lebron and Ad, suddenly you become an absolutely massive, incredibly difficult team to deal with physically. That's why I'm so high

on that idea. Vouch. I don't think brings enough of that athletic and position, but I do think it's a viable option. Again, you have to remember, like when we're laying these things out, like I'd love to have Walker Kessler, Colin Sexton, and Bruce Brown, but there's a very small chance that Utah trades Walker Kessler to the Lakers. So when you acknowledge that reality, it starts to look more

like okay, you might have to look at other options. Well, there are a bunch of viable ways for you to go. Like for a simple viable like, here's a viable way. What if you got Robert Williams and Josh Green. So you got a center that you could play alongside Lebron and ad a center like an anchor bench units, a center that can play that can start in games when Anthony Davis is out. And Josh Green to me, is

a higher floor version of Max Christy. I think Max Christy has a higher ceiling than Josh Green because of his offensive the capabilities. But Josh Green is like a high four option. That's an option. It's not a perfect option. I don't think it's enough of a talent upgrade, but that's an option, just like Vussovich is an option. All these different options are there. There's just my favorite option, which happens to be the long shot, which is that Jazz in Raptors trades, the pair of trades that I

talked about. Enjoy the show and hearing you bring your personal experience to it. As a near forty year old still trying to get into my get better in my men's league, I've had some decent luck watching Caid's game, how he gets the spots without superior athleticism. As you get older, are there players you watch to learn the game better. Kaid's a good example for me. All the power guys, Kawhi was a big one for me, Luca

has been a big one for me. Caid. I just I'm bigger and stronger than most perimeter players that I play against, and so i've especially as I've gotten older. And it's not even just about mobility, because I still move pretty well at my age. It's a lot about energy conservation. Like I've just figured out it's an easier way to play basketball to use my size, and so like the big One, there is just like using physical

leverage to get to spots. So like in screening actions, getting angles, and then once you've got a guy trapped on your shoulder, you can just kind of methodically work to where you want to go or fighting for post position. I play out of the post so much more now than I did when I was younger. In general, I instead of just slashing and trying to dunk on everybody, I'm more slowly driving to the basket and using my size.

Like I agree with you, like find things that fit, find a player that has some similar physical traits than to you, and then try to pick up little traits like that. Two more questions and then we're done. Hey, Jason, I asked a similar question about a month ago about Detroit. I think they are a piece of two away, and I was just wondering what pieces you think they'd need to get them into the next tier. Personally, I feel another twenty point per game shot creator and a stretch

big would help. But just want your thoughts. Since I asked, Kaid has to be elevated. Since I asked, Kaid has elevated again without Ivy and the Pistons are now the sixth seed. Love the show. You've helped me truly understand what I'm watching from Australia. Thank you so much for the kind words and for supporting us. It's precarious spot

for Detroit. It talked about this in another mailbag. I think last week where we talked, I think someone pitched the idea of like trading for Cam Johnson and like, don't get me wrong, if you can get a great deal on somebody, because there's just not a much of a market, make a move, right. But like my thing is, like Kate getting awesome is exactly why you don't want to do something stupid. Kate has been awesome. He's alpha dogging dudes. He's winning huge games against good teams, looking

like the best player on the floor. It's like Luca, but there's like a slashing element to him that he's been had going on. He's he's just hooping his ass off. Kate is playing an incredibly high level basketball. That's exactly why you don't want to do something stupid that compromises this window. Jade and Ivy will get back. Jada and Ivy was playing well this year. You will have opportunities in the draft to supplement this team with talent. I

do think that a stretch big would help. I do think that finding a guy in the draft who's like an off ball scorer that can kind of slot into the Tim Hardaway Junior and Malik Beasley. Because here's the thing. Eventually, you have to pay everybody, and when you have to pay everybody, you can't ever, you can't go back to paying Tobias Harris and Malik Beasley and Tim Hardway Junie

or what you pay them. Those guys are all going to be smaller deals, right, and so this is the time where you have to maintain flexibility and then start looking for that type of talent in the draft now because ideally, if Kaid's not good enough to be the best player in a championship team now, but he will be in three four years, that's when you need to be like, all the stuff is coming together at the right time for us to make a run. And so that's why you just can't get a little ahead of

yourself and do something stupid and affect that window. Last question, Jason, appreciate your work. Donovan Mitchell is shooting thirty nine point eight percent on two pointers outside of sixteen feet, which is a career low and is way below his career forty three point four percent. He's also shooting a career low fifty six point nine percent at the rim. He shot seventy percent in each of the last three seasons.

Why do you think this is? This is super concerning for their ceiling in my opinion, if he doesn't turn the corner at some point this season. I think the change in the way the team has played in terms of pushing the ball more in transition, Darius Garland just being a really good player that they've played through a lot, and then Evin Mobley doing more initiating has just affected

Donovan Mitchell's rhythm. But again, like as long as you figure out that balance, it's like it's kind of like we talked about with the Lakers earlier, Like I don't think Donovan Mitchell is a good enough shot creator to be just some alpha dog heliocentric guy, just like I don't think Lebron is anymore, just like I don't think Anthony Davis is so like I talked about with the Lakers, like they almost need to have a we score mentality,

and that's the mentality for the Calves as well. Donovan Mitchell has been out of rhythm as of late and generally this season has been down, but the Calves offense has been substantially better. And I have just I know, I've seen Donovan Mitchell just like be able to leverage that. It's like the Celtics game where they the one where they beat the Celtics in Cleveland, Like Donovan hit all

the big shots he needed in that game. I still feel like Donovan is like he hit that huge corner three and that step back three in the Thunder game late right in a game where he couldn't make a damn shot, he made two massive ones down the stretch. Like to me, Donovan Mitchell's upside is that he can create his own shot and that you don't need him to And so yeah, like, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend it's not concerning that he's down in these areas.

But the offense is better, the defense is better, the team is better. I don't see any way to interpret that other than as a good thing, especially when you factor in the fact that it's rhythm related and that Donovan Mitchell is probably going to slowly get better at seeing his spot in this offense as the season progresses. All right, guys, It's all I have for today is always a sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We're done for the weekend, but we'll

be back on Monday with our usual power rankings. I'll see you guys then the volume. So 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.