Hoops Tonight - NBA Reaction: Warriors BLOW OUT Hawks, LeBron & Lakers surging, 76ers-Grizzlies

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see dkang dot co. Slash b ball. All right, welcome to him tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all you guys are having a great week. On a jam pack show for you today. We finally got to see the Philadelphia seventy six ers Big three yesterday and kind of was a catastrophe for a bunch of different reasons, but we did get at least to look at what it looks like, so I want to talk about that off the top of the show. After that,

Tyrese Halliburton goes one for seven for four points. He's gone to twenty points just once in the last eight games. I want to talk a little bit about how different this Tyres Aliburton is compared to the Tyres that we saw at the beginning of last year, and what some of the reasons might be and whether or not we might get to see that version of Tyres Haliburton again

in the future. After that, we're going to do a game breakdown on the Warriors and the Hawks, talk a little bit about the Warriors dominant performance, but also do a check in on the Atlanta Hawks. That's a team we haven't talked about yet this year. They are seven and nine and tied for the sixth seed in the

Eastern Conference. Trying a fascinating look with the the Trey Young, Clint Capella one five COMBA, but with three really interesting wings that are starting alongside them, and I want to do deep dives into all three of those wings and talk about how they've been playing here to start the season. After that, we've got a film session. I've got a couple of clips that I want to go into the I have a specific clip of the Warriors blender offense and just how effective it can be that we'll get into.

I got some stuff on Zachary Resachet and his ability to attack cloth, which I think is fascinating in something that could be exciting for him in the future as he gets better. And then after that, I've got about fifteen clips that I want to go through that I

promised from the other day about the Laker offense. I'm gonna zoom in on the second half of the Pelicans game from a few nights ago, where I said that the Lakers put on an offensive masterclass, and I want to kind of just break down the way that they can be so dangerous offensively with their combination of overall basketball IQ, offball action, and their ability to consistently generate great shots, not like tough shot making, but generating great

shots with their action and with their basketball IQ. So deep dive into the Lakers offense with some film at the tail end of the show. You guys are the Joe before we started to subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore JCNLT so you guys don't missow announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight, keep dropping Mailbag

questions in those YouTube comments as well. I already have the mail bag for today that I'm recording that's going to air tomorrow.

in this league sooner than later. There's just a lot of offensive talent on the floor. And when you have a lot of offensive talent on the floor, that's when you have the ability to generate advantage situations for star level players. This is a concept that I'm going to talk about when we get into the film Deep Dive

on the Lakers later as well. But it's this idea that like normally, when you have a star or two and then a bunch of role players, it's incumbent on the stars to create advantages, and then the role players have to finish those advantages. But you really have to spoon feed him some pretty significant advantages because most of the role players around the league are like, can hit a spot up three, maybe a wonderable pull up, maybe a drive and kick type of situation, maybe a driving

finish if they have a clean enough lane. But you're not gonna get a lot of like super advanced shot creation and play finishing from role players. Once you put a bunch of high level offensive players on the floor together, that's when you start to generate advantage situations for guys like Paul George or guys like Jared McCain or Tyrese Maxi, and all of a sudden, that's when you start to see a really high level offensive player operating with an advantage.

That's when you can get extremely difficult to guard. And that star power was immediately evident Tyrese Maxey's first floater that he hit off the glass in his return from his hamstring injury. Jalen Wells was in the wide in the corner guarding Paul George, literally face guarding him, like just two feet away, barely paying attention to what's happening with the basketball, which Paul George doesn't have the basketball.

He's as far away from the basketball as you can be, and he's glued up to him because that's the type of threat that Paul George is. It was a ball screen. Maxi gets downhill, makes a floater. What are the vast majority of teams doing in ball screen situations like that? They're taking the guy that's guarding the week side corner

and they are bringing him in. The vast majority of teams are, if not openly tagging the roller, they're at least bringing that guy over into the paint to at least stunt and make the ball handler think that the lob is not available because he's down in the lane. Having Paul George on the weak side is going to generate a ton of space for this six Ers team.

There was a dunk that Jared McCain had in a double drag sequence up at the top of the key, which again that's where you have someone screen pops at the top of the key. I then Caleb Martin was the first screener, and then Embid sets the second screen and the McCain tries to go downhill as Embiid is rolling and Caleb Martin is popping right in that action,

Jared McCain gets up and gets a dunk. You want to know Whyaron Jackson, Jared Jackson Junior is guarding Embiid, and he literally turns his back to the guy with the ball, the guy with the ball that's been getting buckets for the last few weeks, totally ignoring him. Keyed in on Joel Embiid with his back turn and you

can actually see I think it was Brandon Clark. I can't remember exactly what was, but one of the Grizzlies players is like, dude, turn around, they're about to get a dunk here, right, Like that's the advantage when you've got so many players on the floor that have so much offensive skill that draws so much attention.

McCain wide open three. There was a post up hook shot that Joel Embiid hit over Santi al Damo where he's posting on the like left elbow area and Tyre Smaxi is one pass away in the left corner and Paul George is one pass away in the right on the right wing, and both of their defenders are locked in on those guys off the ball, there is so much space for Joel Embiid to operate. I took a screenshot of this play and I put it on my Twitter feed at Underscore Jason lt Go, look at it.

There's twenty feet of space on either side of Joel Embiid. He just methodically works down into the lane with a post up and hits a little left shoulder hook over Santi al dama Because there's so much offensive skill off of Joel Embiid that he has all of that space.

So like before we get into some of the negative stuff, I think it's important to acknowledge that when you have this type of talent, and again we're not just talking about the three Stars we're talking about absolutely nailing your first round draft, and between Jared mccainnon and Dalton connect, it's another great sign that like shooting, and not just like guys that can make shots at a decent rate, but like legitimate shooting talent, like knockdown three point shooters,

are still of so much value in this league and we're seeing so much of it. Look at Jordan Hawkins and some of the success that he's had in New Orleans with the Pelicans. Like these guys that can fly around and shoot, they bring a ton of value to

this league. But like you combine the three Stars with the legitimate hitting of that pick with Jared McCain this is an exciting team in terms of their offensive talent, and they are if they can ever get healthy and stay together on the floor for an extended span, they

are going to put up a lot of points. But in this game, they were just so abominably bad in transition defense in the first half that they still found themselves down by ten, despite Joel Embiid having a good half to start the game, and just in general, like we talked about, getting all the open looks that they got, they give up twenty one points in transition, just in the first half and it's everybody, but it starts with Embiid.

It was an embarrassing effort from Joel Embiid in transition defense. There's I've posted one clip on my tw feed you guys can see at underscore JSNLT. But there was probably like a half dozen different transition possessions where when Atlanta gets the defensive rebound, Embiid literally turns and jogs like the most leisurely jog you've ever seen, down the floor to get back in transition defense. And remember that big man. Usually they're the guy that's running from rim to rim.

They're very important in transition defense to get back and protect the rim. There was a specific play on the left wing. It's the one I posted or Joel Embiid airballs of three short whatever it happens make or miss leave even ugly misses or just missus right. But Jalen Wells is right there. They're side by side with each other, and yeah, Jalen Wells is faster than Joel Embid. I think he's gonna beat him down the floor if he

really wants to. But Embiid turned and jogged. Jalen Wells turned and ran the pass came right over the top. Paul George ended up having to step over to try to help. Jalen Wells just went right around him and reversed it on the other end of the basket. Paul George literally forced him to take an extra dribble and dribble and go round to the other side of the rim. And Embiid was still jogging, so he wasn't there to protect the rim. Literally, if he just runs, he takes

away a basket there. And again, I know this is like a very simple mathematical concept, but every time you do that, it takes away the time that you post up Santiel Dom and hit a left shoulder hook, or that you draw foul and a post up against Brandon Clark. Every single time that you don't run back in defense and give up an easy shot, you were undercutting your offensive impact. And again, it's an entire roster issue. There's

a bunch of guys that aren't running. There's even a case to be made that they should probably start playing some of their younger athletes, guys like Rickey Council or kJ Martin more minutes to try to get more athleticism on the floor so that they can hang and transition better. But like, if you give up twenty one transition points and a half, it doesn't matter how good your offense is in a half court, you're not going to be

able to hang with these teams. And then you get out in the second half and they give a better transition defense effort. But a couple possessions in Paul George hyper extends his knee again and now he's going to be out for a little while. And so this team has issues that extend well beyond injuries at this point, like injuries aren't his you we've talked about that three

star build, discounted players down the roster. You gotta have gotta have your stars healthy in order to make these roles small enough for some of these guys down the roster. But this team has issues that extend beyond that. They

don't behave like a serious basketball team. We talked yesterday about some of the stuff behind the scenes with Joel and Beach showing late two days ago, with Joel and b showing up late to all these team events, and some of the chemistry stuff, and the coaching staff being

critical about their level of seriousness and practice. If I have a coaching staff that's telling me, hey, the guys aren't serious in practice, and like, yeah, Joel, you need to show up on time to stuff, but like all of you guys just need to take practice more seriously. And then I see an un serious transition defense effort, Like what conclusion are we supposed to jump to there?

I'm going to probably jump to the conclusion that this is a team that's not serious and so they're not playing serious basketball.

in those matchups as well. There is time to write this ship, and there is firepower to make this work at a really high level, but it starts from the coaching staff and Joel Embiid bringing serious effort every single day and that attention to detail to crawl out of this hole. Not to mention you're not beaten Boston or Cleveland or any of these teams at the top of the East or anybody that comes out of the West. Unless you sharpen up in these specific details, you are skilled.

You are talented, but you are not so overwhelmingly talented that you can get away with playing bad basketball. Moving on to the Pacers. So the Rockets blew out the Pacers last night. Who talked about the Rockets twice already this week, so I'm not gonna spend too much time on them. They're just an elite defense to transition team and they logged thirty seven transition possessions last night, which is completely insane. They forced twenty three Pacers turnovers. They

scored thirty points off of them. Classic Rockets basketball, right, But Tyres Aliburton goes for just four points on one for seven shooting. He's gone over twenty points in a game just once in the last eight games on the season. He is now averaging just fifteen points and nine rebounds on thirty eight percent from the field and twenty eight percent from three. He's just been bad, and the Pacers have been bad. They're six and nine and ninth in

the Eastern Conference right now. That's a huge step back for a team that made it to the conference finals last year. This is what makes it weird. He was on a truly special trajectory and Tyre's Aliburn's first thirty one games last year, he averaged twenty four points thirteen assists on fifty percent from the field forty one percent from three to eighty six percent from the line. The

Pacers at the time were a historically great offense. At the time of Halliburton's injury, their offensive rating was like one hundred and twenty four.

end of that game. Right then in the court semi final against the Milwaukee Bucks, twenty seven points, seven rebounds and fifteen assists, just barbecuing the Bucks in the open floor and in ball streets, and again had I had some people on Twitter this morning saying like, oh, you know, Tyrese has never been good. This is just he was just good for a short period of time, and everyone overreacted to it or this is just a insanity run.

He in the previous season, for an entire season, averaged twenty one points in ten assists on sixty two percent turre shooting, and made an All Star team. He was on a great trajectory. He was the next great superstar in this league, and somehow he's been derailed.

And like there are also some details with James Harden and just like the lifestyle he was living behind the scenes, and how like he kind of he's a little bit closer to the Alan Iverson of this generation than the Lebron James in terms of caring for his body. Right, So,

like some of that was to be expected. Like James Harden was never a guy we all thought would have some like super super long prime with the way that he was taking care of his body, but tyrs Haliburtn at his age should be a to recover from something like that. I've heard talk of a back injury that's been bothering him. Mean, when he goes to the bench, he's doing a lot of like wraps and heat and stuff like that on his back to try to keep it loose. So I'm sure help is part of it.

But like again, this is an extended stretch where he's been a tiny fraction of the player that he used to be. And again, what I think, if I had to guess, it's a combination of two factors. There's an athletic burst that's missing for sure, and that comes from the injuries, But a big part of it is he's just not hitting shots. And like when when Tyreese was at his best last year, there was a very specific pathway in his success. Right, it was basic stuff at

the beginning of possession. So every single time there was an opportunity for a kick, head pass and transition, he hit it. He was a deadly transition initiator, right, But then when he got into half court, it was just a simple combination of being able to make every single

read in ball screens. Okay, so like a ghost screen action with Buddy Healed, which by the way, is an action they don't have right now because they don't really have a great movement shooter like they did with Buddy Heeld And that's something to keep in mind with this team in terms of their construct moving forward, especially since

Buddy Heelds looked pretty good right in Golden State. But like in the book, ghost screen action, simple reads right, Buddy Heelds man Hedges, he's pitching it back to Buddy heeld Now defenses in rotation, they can make stuff happen. No Hedge, He's turning the corner and getting downhill, drawing a second defender and making the kickout reads right in regular ball screens like with Miles Turner, same exact sort of thing. Oh you went underneath the screen, He's hitting

the pull up three. You die on the screen. He's hitting the pull up three, You're too loosely attached, chasing over the top. Really effective mid range shooter with a great floater as well. Right like he had a kind of a nice little like drifting scoop shot that he could hit with his right hand when he come across the lane and feed it up high off of the glass. But then he was just absolutely deadly with the passing reads.

Like turned over top In into a usable offensive player because of his ability to hit him on baseline cuts. Just like every single time the low man stepped over to hell up in a ball screen, it was a lob to obe topping along the baseline for a dunk. All of that is predicated though, on his ability to get to his spots and make shots. The passing reads are still there, The ability to make the passes is still there, but you don't. All of that comes with a give and a take.

like Tyrese Haliburton. Looked like he could be a better version of that, like Steve Nash, with a little bit more size and a little bit more athletic burst. That's what he looked like he was about to do. And so I hope that this is just injury related and that he can get right and he can get back on his feet. But this is one of the most bizarre, Like this guy was on a sky rocketing trajectory and he's a fraction of the player that he used to be.

of runout dunks. In transition, he was attacking the rim at the rim out of dribble handoffs and ball screens. He's kind of looking a little bit more like the twenty twenty two Wiggins in terms of some of his scoring pop off the bounce. He had two blocks, including a big one on Clickapella and a help side defense possession and a ball screen where he blocked the shot, hit it so hard that it kind of like sprung a transition possession, sprinted the floor and ended up getting

a bucket. Like just a really dominant athletic game for him. It was his fourth twenty plus point game of the season. He's averaging sixteen points per game on fifty eight percent true shooting. Fifty eight percent true shooting is Wiggins's highest true shooting percentage since he joined the Golden State Warriors.

He looks great, and that's the exciting part. Like I mean, when we talk about trades and stuff with the Warriors, I don't think you can give up Wiggins in a deal unless you're getting back a player at his position that is a substantial upgrade, because what he does is so valuable for this team as their primary point of attack defender, as their main athletics score at this point, in the same way that like Jonathan Kmica kind kind

of was that for Steph last year. It's looked like Wiggins this year is like the more reliable athletics score at the forward position and a lot of that inverted stuff that we talked about with him and Steph that works so well. Shooting the three well again, Like remember it was just that twenty twenty season. Twenty twenty two season, he was like just under forty percent on pretty decent volume.

Pretty close to that again this year. And so Wiggins is not quite at the level he was in twenty twenty two, but he's close, and he's been kind of trending upwards in the last week or so. And so with that being the case, I don't think you could even consider trading Wiggins unless like if you're getting like if it's like Miami and they're like, we'll give you Jimmy Butler, but we have to get Andrew Wiggins back, and like you have an opportunity to turn him into Jimmy Butler.

Steph just throwing great kick ahead passes. We talked about this a little bit earlier with Tyres Halliburton, but again, transition is a far more efficient brand of offense and half court offense. That's why you have to hunt transition opportunities whenever you can. On a real basic level. Just imagine a roughly twenty percent ish increase in your average efficiency when you run the floor versus when you play

in the half court. Okay, but in order to have success in transition in terms of your actual efficiency, guy's got to run their lanes, and then every time someone botches something in transition defense, you got to throw those kickhead passes. So just imagine defensive rebound, everyone's running, someone's running the left wing, someone's running the right wing, someone's running down the middle. There's two players trailing to play right.

In your transition defense, there's the two guards that are up at the top of the key that are usually getting back, usually one stopping the ball, one's going to the rim until the other guys get back. But a lot of times you'll see like three on twos where someone's back at the rim and someone's back above the brake but no one's or like someone's back about the break, but there's only one guy there, and there's two guys

running lanes. And so if one guy's running down the middle and the guy at the rims kind of waiting for him, and then another guy's running up the left wing and the second transition defender stops him, but there's a person running up the right wing, you throw that ball to him, and if it's Andrew Wiggins and he catches with the head of steam, he's just gonna catch and rack and go right to the rim, and he's gonna have a pretty good chance of finishing in a

situation like that. And then in the situations where the defense does their job, that's when the trailers get open. Right throw that kick ahead pass that dude rips and drives to the rim. The rim protector steps up, another guy drops down to the rim to help the guy

that the rim protector helped off of swing swing. Now Steph Curry is catching the ball at the top of the key with an opportunity to attack a closeout right Like, that's where you can get into your advantage basketball and into your driving kick without having to run a set, just by making those kickhead passes when they're there, when they're available. Just that first half in particular, Steph had like a half dozen awesome transition kickhead passes that ignited

things for the Warriors offense. Another big win for them, another blowout win for them, continuing that trajectory that I expected from the Warriors after I saw them in the early part of the season, in the sense that their defense into transition is such a reliably great night to night thing that I think this team's going to win a lot of regular season games, regardless of what their playoff limitations might be or what the final form of

this roster would look like. D Anthony Melton we Hurd is going to get an ACL repair, so he's out for the rest of the year. So now your thirteen man rotation kind of thirteen playable players kind of cuts down to twelve. It's a little bit more precarious, but hey, that's the value of having depth, right, and like Lindy Waters again just as a guy that has been a functional rotation piece for Golden.

Trey Young isn't shooting the ball as well as you would hope, but he's been the high level playmaker that he's always been. He's averaging a career high twelve assist per game. He's surrounded by athletes, which is a really functional kind of like use of him in the sense that he's got Dyson Daniel Zacharyrisaschet and Jalen Johnson. With Clincapelle, he's got a clean ballscreen partner. He can also run ball screens with Jalen Johnson, who's been good on the

roll again this year. But it's a lot of transition passing because of all those athletes and then generating close out opportunities for athletes and guys to kind of slash

into the lane in their driving kit game. So like it's kind of similar to what we saw with the Clippers in the sense that, like you just put a bunch of athletes with a good shot creator and there's a pretty high floor there, right, And like the Hawks don't have the talent that the other teams in the league have, but they're hovering around five hundred because of that baseline scheme. We've got athletes, We've got Trey Young that's going to give us a certain high floor.

he's having an insane defensive year. Fits the mold of my favorite type of perimeter athlete, which is like that instead of like the six eight six ' nine lanky dude think like to McDaniels, I prefer the like six ' five to six seven, kind of like lower center of gravity, bulkier, harder to dislodge. They tend to be a little quicker laterally as well. Dyson Daniels fits right into that mold. He's super active with his hands. He's very good at attacking the pocket. This is a concept that I talk

about a lot on the show. Like really good shooters they don't see your hand on a contest, like they're just they've their entire lives, they've been making tough, contested jump shots, right, But every jump shot starts the same way. Right, if I'm going to shoot up here, at some point in time, I'm going to have the ball down here. And if I have the ball down here, I have

to expose it at some point. Even if I try to gather out here, it's gonna mess up my rhythm, or if I gather way out to the side, it can mess up my rhythm. And yeah, the best shooters in the world they have the ability to do that sort of thing at a certain level. But those are tougher shots for the most part in the ball is going to be exposed at some point in time out in front of the shooter. Dyson's really good at waiting

for that exposure and attacking the basketball. Deer and Fox play they're down one with on that final transition push, the Kings have an opportunity to win, and Dyson Daniel steps over and help and and Dearn Fox, who's been just lights out good as of late, exposes the ball for just a fraction of a second as he rises up for his left handed little pull up jumper on the baseline, and Dyson reaches out and catches him right when he has it in the gather zone, right in front of him.

can do all sorts of stuff with his hands. But I think, I think that attacking the pocket is a specific thing that a lot of really good defenders are doing right now. He leads the NBA with three point one steals per game. He had four games in a row last week or so where he had at least six steals, and again four games in a ruts and saying he had a game in there he had seven steals. He's the perfect type of athlete to have at the two next to Trey Young. He's shown some playmaking chops too,

like simple driving kick reads. He's done well this year, short role passing and some of the Trey Young, Dyson Daniel's two man game where like in most cases they'll just put two on Trey and Dison can kind of slip into the open floor and make passes there.

a good shooter in the long run. Moving on to Jalen Johnson doing a ton of damage as an athlete this year, a lot of stuff in transition, a lot of stuff as a cutter and as a roller, doing really well as a rebounder. Overall, he's averaging two point six stocks per game, So like all the athleticism stuff is poss just like you expect with Jalen Johnson. But problem is he needs to be set up for basically everything at this point. This is a crazy jump shooting

stat for Jalen Johnson. He's shooting eleven for twenty, so over fifty percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. So when he's standing still and he has an opportunity to load up into his shot, it's going in. But he's shooting just twenty nine percent on all other types of jump shots, so he's not hitting the shots that are involved, like self creation or when he's contested and someone can disrupt his rhythm. He's also well below a point per possession on all self created sets. So like

ISO's pick and rolls and post ups. He clearly has decent touch, as evident by how well he's shooting when he's wide open. He's a pretty solid free throw shooter. He just needs to add a bunch more offensive polish if he's going to become a more reliable secondary option for the Hawks, which we'll talk about in the big picture here In a second Zacharysachet, he's also shooting the ball very poorly, shooting just twenty six percent on all jump shots in only thirty three percent when he's unguarded.

I do like his release. He looks compt when he's shooting the ball. When he's in a tight close out situation, he'll take a shorter dip or shorter gather and get rid of the ball quicker in a way that looks smooth. He's just not making him yet. And last year overseas he was one point one to two points per catch and shoot jump shots, so I do think that that'll prove in the long run. The exciting part is he's

showing some flashes as a high level closeout attacker. So he's only getting zero point eight nine points per spot at possession so far to start this year, which is actually kind of in line with where he was last year overseas, but most of that has been his jump shooting that has been an issue. He's shown some flashes

as a high level closeout attacker. He's got a lot of like pivot foot stuff, like the Jokic thing, where like he'll drive and then spin but then immediately spin back around and go back the same way he was originally going. He's got a really nice left handed finish, sometimes like floater, sometimes more like a hook, but he can get to that left hand in the lane and

hit like tough shots in that mid range. If he can add the jumper to the level that it needs to get, I think he could become a really effective off ball score because of some of his footwork and finishing ability in the short to mid range. He's also shown a lot of that good off ball defense that made him an exciting prospect coming into the draft last year, like playing passing lanes and helping at the Raymond stuff. He's just under two stocks per game here in the

early going of the season. I have I think like five or six clips of zacharysse Risache's close out attacking in the film session. So hang out here for an extra few minutes and you guys will get to see that interesting mold though. For Atlanta, right, Trey Jung and a bunch of these long, athletic wings that can do some stuff on defense and that have some play finishing potential,

but it's a lot of potential at this point. None of them are shooting the ball particularly well, and none of them look ready to be legit secondary shot creators yet, And so the trajectory of this team in the long run is going to come down to will one of those guys, Like I like that that two three four is a grouping that makes a lot of sense in the world of modern basketball as long as they develop.

But one of them has to develop into a guy that can create offense out of a like a against a set defense when Trey Young doesn't initiate things for them. That's something that's going to have to develop in that group. I'm not sure who has the best chance. I mean, am I like, I feel like Dyson has some playmaking chops, but I don't think he has the touch. Dalen Johnson, I think has the touch, but he's just not as

polished as he needs to be yet. Zachary Rosa Che kind of feels more of an off ball score for me, which there's real value there, But like one of those guys is gonna have to pop as a shot creator for this whole situation to work because it can't be tray in a center and then three guys that need everything spoon fed for them. That's gonna be something that they're gonna have to pay attention to in the long run.

All right, let's get into our film. If you're listening on the podcast Fece and you're gonna want to head over to YouTube to see that part to actually get the visual representations of what we're talking about. So our first clip here, this is that Golden State Warriors blender

possession I was talking about. So it starts with the DHO out here on the right side of the floor with Wiggins, but right after that it gets swung to Gary Payton and then Steph Curry sets a backscreen for Andrew Wiggins on DeAndre Hunter.

That makes for an easy drop off read to Gary Payton, and again, these guys are just DeAndre Hunter was watching Andrew Wiggins because of the fake post up.

pace that Golden State plays within the half court. Again, watch this in full speed, hand off backscreen, fake pass, weak side screen, slip layup. That's the blender that Golden State puts you in, and it just takes one mistake for you to give up something open. Here's some close out attacks that Zachary Rissache has, just to demonstrate some of the footwork that he has. This is one of those jokics like double spin moves. Watch like spin boom,

see that like step through. Beautiful work there, excellent footwork. Here's another one. Look at his left hand. Beautiful high off the glass, super nice touch with left hand rip, behind the back, move, pivot, pivot, left, he finish.

thing that I want you guys to focus on. Here is the way that this team can generate easy shots. Like, we know that there's a tough shot making piece. I know that Lebron James can hit pull up threes at a high rate this year. I know that Anthony Davis can catch the ball in the block and go to his left shoulder hook and make it a good percentage. I know that Austin Reeves can snake a ball screen and get into the mid range and try to grift his way to the line or knock down a tough

contested mid range jump shot. I know they can get a matchup for ruey Hata Murray and can go to work on the block and try to create something off the dribble. I know D'Angelo Russell can score in the mid range in some of these situations. I know Dalton Connects can hit smothered catch and shoot shots as he's flying off of an off ball action. That stuff to me, though, as I've talked about so much on the show, those

are ceiling raising shots. Those are the shots you go to against great defense when they shut down the easy action that you run at the beginning of plays. But the better sharper action you run, and the higher Basketball IQ aggregate in your lineups, the more easy shots you will generate that make it so you don't have to rely as much on those tougher shots going in and in this second half against the Pelicans, and again, every single one of these clips is coming from one half

of basketball. Watch how many easy shots the Lakers generate with their five out attack and just all of their aggregate offensive talent. A lot of specific things that I want you to keep an eye on off ball action, So like when they're running action, you're gonna see a lot of like exit screens on the week side where it's like Austin Reeves coming off of Max Christi in

the corner. Dalton Connect's coming off of Austin Reeves in the corner as they're running action to try to occupy the help defenders, right, that's.

in the here as well. A lot of early screens for Anthony Davis, whether that's an off ball screen in transition or a quick inverted ball screen when AD's dribbling or just just something early in the possession with a guarden AD to try to force a switch, and when they force the switch, then Anthony Davis goes down to the block and either scores and a quick post up

or in an offensive rebound situation. You'll see some stuff like that, a lot of like a lot of like quick slips in screens and connective playmaking from Austin Reeves and D'Angelo Russell. So imagine Lebron James or Anthony Davis drawing a second defender in a d lo or Austin catching the first pass and not being open to score, but making the pass that beats the defense to the like the hockey assist for Ad. Because of those guys' ability to make quick reads when they catch the ball

and quickly process what's happening on the floor. A lot of really high level stuff here on the offensive end. I want you guys to pay attention to. Let's start with this screen with Lebron and Ad at ballscreen. So what they're doing is Max is setting a quick screen here on Green, which is going to get him into a little bit more of trail position. That's going to make it easier for Lebron as he comes off to

get him caught on this screen. Then when he comes downhill, Lebron's next job is to engage Eve's Missy in the ball screen by getting downhill pressure. But watch here on the weak side on the week side, to occupy these two defenders, Austin Reeves is going to set an exit screen. All it is is just a screen for Dalton connect to run out to the corner. So if you watch here as Lebron's going downhill, he's engaging the screen defender.

Austin is setting that off ball action which is occupying these and as a result of that, Missy steps up. There's just a little bit of loose help here and Lebron's able to get the lobb to Anthony Davis. And again you could see how this play develops because Lebron gets so far downhill. If Brandon Ingram takes this lob away, Lebron's throwing a kickout pass to a guy who's been a forty percent catch and shoot shooter for most of his career in Max Christy all right, next one, this

was the connective pass from Austin Reeves here. So we got an AD post up. Right on the AD post up, they're gonna want to the Pelicans are gonna want to throw a double. Austin is cutting through. As Austin cuts through, he sees Brandon not paying attention, and so he slips into this area right here, down by the baseline. Watch right there, boom, So now he's behind brandon Ingram. Right, so brandon Ingram is now in no man's land. This forces Green to step over and tag Austin. Right, Ady

hits Austin. But now we have our week side two on one. Right, Jeremiah Robinson Earl is responsible for Connect and Max Christy in this case, right, he's splitting the difference. He's pointing them both out. He knows what he's doing. But watch how quickly Austin processes this. Austin knows I just cut brandon Ingram is my man. Green is Dalton's man. So Austin has already done the processing in his head. He knows I caught the ball here. I know Dalton's

wide open. Watch how quickly he just turns and fires boom bucket. So even though Jeremiah Robinson Earl's in the right place and makes the right rotation. The speed of the processing from Austin, Reeves gets the open shot. Oh I'm behind Brandon. They had to tag me from the weak side. Dalton's going to be open. Boom, easy quick processing, easy shot. Here's one of those early guard screens that got Anthony Davison switch. So watch his AD's running the floor.

Watch the quick guard screen to force a switch.

Dalton connect in the corner. So all of that happened because of just a quick screen by Austin on Ad to bring essentially two defenders to Ad.

So here's a baseline action, a baseline out of bounds play. This is something that JJ is drawing up to try to get Dalton a wide open look, right. So it starts with this screen, which is a switch right guard guard screen. Jalen Noel switches, he grabs Dalton, he points over. Now Dalton's original defender switching out onto Austin.

for the catch and shoot three. So couple things. First of all more guard AD screening, which is causing huge problems for Eves Missy right and then two Dalton's now hit three threes in a row and the Pelicans are not switching Ad Dalton action yet. Keep that in mind for later on. Here's another early screen for Ad at the beginning of a possession. This one is from d LO, and this is just an inverted ball screen because Ad has the balls. Now Eves Missy's guarding AD and the

open floor. Dlo sets the screen and again, Eve's not a lot of experience navigating screens. Jalen Noel doesn't really know what to do here. As a result, now Ad is able to get ahead of Steam. So now by the time Eves recovers, he's dead to rights. Here as eighties, a bigger, stronger player with the angle, with more momentum, and he just goes right through Eves and gets a layup. So more guard screens on AD early in possessions. Here's

another one not switching the the Ad Dalton screens yet. Okay, so AD sets the screen not switching, so he's chasing now he's in this full chase position. And what ends up happening here Delo's man is running this way, Dalton's man is running this way, and all Dalton does is throw a little fake dribble hand off, and on the fake dribble handoff, Dalton's defender kind of hesitates for a second. On d LO, Delo's defender hesitates for a second, and

Dalton's able to turn the corner. And again look at the spacing here, Max good shooter, Austin Goods shoot in the corners. Those guys don't want to help. Hard AD's man ends up lingering back with him, and Dalton's able to get a dunk and he brings that. And we've seen this a lot around the league this year. But like some of the more athletic players are starting to lean on shooting more and there's just a lot of downhill force that can come off of the weaponized fear

of your shooting. Right now, this time we just talked about it. We've seen multiple actions where the Lakers have gotten buckets for Dalton connect because they have not been switching the Dalton ad ball screens. Right So how about we run another one ad screen for dl d LO screen for Dalton, and then Dalton is going to backscreen for ad watch Dalton. Okay, so this is the same exact thing that they ran out of the baseline out

of bounds. So in theory, if they can get brand into Linger and for him to chase, then Dalton should be able to flash high and get open. But Dalton's been killing them, so they don't want to switch it, are they? So excuse me? Dalton's been killing them, so now they're going to decide to switch it. So now we have to switch right. All you gotta do pull it out to create a passing angle. And this is a beautiful post entry from Austin Reeves. Watch how perfectly

he threads this pass over the top. Brandon's fronting ad is ceiling and creating the passing angle. Great pass over the top. Now we got ourselves an and one. So again the Pells are dead to rights here because this is just the problem that the Lakers can present because the sheer amount of offensive talent that they have on the floor. You don't switch Dalton's getting open. You do

switch ads getting a favorable matchup. This next one is something that I've been talking about for several years now, but the simple concept of eighty popping in ball screens, which is always open. In a ball screen that involves a traditional drop coverage, the pick and pop is always open. It's a basic basketball rule of thumb that I wish teams would lean on more. But some of these big guys just don't feel comfortable doing it.

So Dalton clears out to the right. Ad clears a little bit to the left, wide open, Three knocks it down. That pick and pop has been a huge addition to eighties game this year. Here's another switch, this time on a double drag. Watch how quickly d Loo identifies the switch right, So again Dalton sets the first boom boom switch switch. Okay, now AD's got a guard on him. Dlo is going to pass the ball over to Dalton and watch d Loo immediately point to Ad. Throw it,

throw it, throw it. Now Dalton doesn't throw it, which is the right call. Dalton's making the right decision here because brandon Ingram is now basically bracketing and it's a complicated skip pass to get to Max. But all Dalton has to do here is get something up on the rim, and Ad has a massive offensive rebounding advantage. None of these guys is getting the ball over a d This is the only guy on the floor who has a

chance to hang with Ad under the rim. So all Dalton has to do is get something up on the rim. Drives gets it up Ad over all of them offensive rebound put back. So the switch is causing just as many problems. This is an example of setting your man up for a screen and another one of those decoy actions. So again Dlo is setting his man up by working him down with physicality to the elbow, and it looks

like it's gonna be something with Austin and Dilo. But watch how quickly I'm gonna play this one from full speed. Watch how quickly Dlo goes from his setup to his cut into the handoff. Watch boom, now he's got all this separation, and now it's so easy for him to catch this.

This is the the Delo slip on a post split cut. Okay, so a post split again it is a post entry and then usually some sort of two man game with guards that are right off of the post up. Watch out, Dlo sets a screen. Now they're gonna switch, right, so Delo screens. This is gonna be a switch. Watch a Delo's man jump out on Austin and and now Austin's man is on Delo. But what do we always talk about for beating switching schemes? Screen the lower half and

get an inside seal. Watch Delo set the screen, get the inside seal and slip. Now as he's open, Christian Kaloco's man, the big man has to step over on d Lo. So that even though Delo misses this shot, who's gonna get the rebound? Kloco's got inside position with a small player on him, it's an easy offensive rebound put back for him. This is a just some two man game between Dalton and a D. But Dalton's been really good at making these. He's athletic enough to jump

and get the pass over the top relatively easily. Watch this like just easy, simple little pitch back to AD. So they're throwing it to Dalton. Here's the ball screen. We watch his easy pass over the top, easy little short jump shot. Here's another one of those release valve possessions with d Lo. So it starts with an offensive rebound. We're gonna go to a D on the left block, okay, but on the on the post up.

a kickout even though he's guarded. But on the kickout, watch, so d Loo catches the ball from Ad. How does Dalton and Austin attack this two on one? Dalton cuts? This is only open because Dalton has already started his cut and DLO doesn't have the ball left. And there's four point seven on the shot clock right, So if Dlo doesn't make this read lightning fast, this likely turns into a bad contested three at the end of the

clock that has almost no chance of going in. Watch how quickly Delo processes it.

processing from de Lo. Here's an example of it being defended, a stack pick and roll being defended extremely well, but it just generating a little bit of a close out that Delo is able to beat.

open over here in the corner. Dalton, Okay, doesn't feel comfortable throwing that pass because of the pressure. Okay, so who's open Delo? Delo's catching not in a position to shoot, but Jalen Noel is sprinting at him, so Dlo is able to beat that with just a quick rip to the left. Again, this is that baked in driving lane. This is important for non athletes. The best athletes in

the world, they don't need baked in driving lanes. They can just do a hard rip through and they can get where they want to go.

is getting a lob dunk. So again, even when it's defended as well as you possibly can defend it, it still is just a high level offensive player with a guy chasing him off the line, he's going to be able to get a good shot. Here's another one of those exit screens week side, so it's a horn set. We got Lebron ad two man game. AD back screens for Austin, and then while Lebron and ad are running their ball screen, watch Max Christie's screen for Austin on

the weak side to occupy the help defenders. See they're pointing their occupied It's just making this guy be a little hesitant to fully step in. And by the way, if he does, if he fully steps in to stop Lebron, Austin Reeves is wide open because Max Christy has this backscreen here. But he's hesitant and so he doesn't cut Lebron off, and so Lebron's able to get all the way to the rim in Layden. That's the value of weak side action. This is a huge play in the game,

Lakers down two. All it is is simple, easy advantage creation basketball. Lebron's dribbling at the top of the key, but he sees Dalton connecting the corner who's made a bunch of threes in this half, and Jalen Nowel is playing off of him closer to the lane. So Lebron throws a simple kickout pass. Look, he stepped, takes another step higher and throws the pass. Now watch what did

we just talk about with baked in driving lanes. He's closing out at Dalton's right shoulder if he just throws a because of the threat of the shot, Jalen Noel cannot afford to throw a passive close out that locks the lane down. He has to chase him off the

line because Dalton's shooting well, Dalton just racks left. Boom, there's that baked in driving lane brandon Ingram steps up, Austin reeves his man slides down for the corner pass, and Dalton throws a really nice kickout pass to Austin here at the top of the key, extra pass to Lebron. Now he gets a wide open three. So again no need to run action. Just hey, this guy's sinking off of Dalton. Connect a little bit. How about he drives a close out. Now we get ourselves a wide open shot.

And then this was the dagger for Lebron, just for good measure. It's a ball screen with ad that forces the switch onto Eves, missy and out of the switch. Lebron watched the hard dribble at the basket before the pull up jump shot to keep Eves on his heels. Watch the hard move. That hard move just keeps him on his heels. Big time shot.

twenty twenty one. So twenty two easy shots in one half, twenty two like easy buckets in one half of basketball, just by running quality offense with a bunch of high IQ players that make quick decisions, processing the breakdown in the defense fast enough to make it a layup or a three that's wide open instead of a bad shot at the end of the clock. It's just it's a simple concept that's hard to deal with. You put a bunch of really smart basketball players that compliment each other

really well on the court. At the same time, they're going to be really difficult to guard. Add some organization to it, and the sky is the limit for this Lakers offense. All right, guys, that is all I have for today is always to sincerely appreciate you for supporting me and supporting the show. I am recording a mail bag later this afternoon that will air on on Friday, and then we'll be back on Monday with our usual power rankings.