Hoops Tonight - NBA Weekend Reaction: Celtics big win vs. Suns, Lakers momentum, NBA Power Rankings

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I here at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. If both of you guys had an incredible weekend, we have a jam pack show for you today, our Classic Monday, So we will have power rankings at the tail end of

the show. Off the top, we're gonna be talking about a showdown between the Boston Celtics and the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night, and then after that the Last Angelis Lakers, after really disappointing, kind of somewhat foreseen loss against the Sacramento Kings, get back to back huge wins against the Milwaukee Bucks without Lebron James and then against the Minnesota

Timberwolves as well. So we're gonna talk a little bit about just how good the Lakers have been as of late, what is fueling that success as well as what is standing in the way of them having any sort of legitimate chance to make a deep playoff runt. So we're gonna talk some lakers there in the middle portion of the show, and then, like I said at the end, we're gonna get into our power rankings.

that's right around the corner. I don't know about you guys, if you've ever been to an NCAA tournament game, but they're like one of the coolest basketball experiences that I've

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buying tickets with game Time. Download the game Time app, Create an account and use code hoops for twenty dollars off your first purchase terms apply again. Create an account and redeem code hoops. That's hops for twenty dollars off. Download game Time Today, Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So really fun game between the Celtics and the Suns, just as a basketball fan. A really fun game to watch because Suns were obviously,

you know, without Devin Booker. It's just really hard for them to go into a matchup against the really staunched perimeter defense type of team like Boston. They found their advantages like Obviously, Chris Porzingis didn't play, and so they were trying to pick on Al Horford as much as they could. The Celtics were running a deeper drop coverage with Horford and trying to avoid switching him at all costs, although Katie got him onto some switches when he could.

And obviously the Suns have guys who can punish the deep drop in a lot of ways. Right we saw some Bradley Beal midrange pull up jump shots. Kevin Durant was amazing again. Kevin Durant's riding a streak of three consecutive thirty five plus point nights. He's been averaging thirty eight over that span. Katie's just been insane. He'd hit those shots against Denver and has just been riding that wave in all that confidence from that game into a

pretty absurd stretch. But the Celtics weathered it all and really was impressed with them. On the defensive end of the floor, held this high powered Suns offense to a one to ten offensive raigning first, forced a ton of turnovers, force fifteen of them got out in transition off of those turnovers, scored sixteen points on those fifteen turnovers. I really liked that they didn't overreact to the shots that

Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant were hitting. For the most part, they stayed in single coverage for the most part, they trusted their defense off the ball, which is, by the way, a big part of how they force turnovers. Again, this is a Sun's team that can can get a little sloppy making swing passes and skip passes and post entry passes and short roll passes and things along those lines,

and you can capitalize on it. Then on the other end of the floor, the Suns had their own success or their own issue in pick and roll defense with Drew u Banks specifically, they were just picking him to absolute shreads the Celtics were. I think u Banks was like a minus twenty in this game. Jalen Brown was picking on Bradley Beal in the post, was once again

being really aggressive. This has been a trend I've noticed with Jayalen Brown, Like, this is a guy who takes a lot of mid range kind of fadeaway jump shots out of the post, and he's very good at them. But as I say all the time on the show, like the best mid range pull up shooter is going to shoot in the mid fifties, you know, high fifties on those shots, and that's that's just not nearly as efficient as a hook shot or something that's really close

to the basket. And you know, Jalen Brown like bullied Bradley Beal on the left block and did a spin move towards the base, but instead of fading into a

tough right shoulder fade, he spun aggressively created space with that right shoulder and took a short, little bank shot that he's gonna make seventy seventy five percent of the time. Right he had a right handed hook over his left shoulder where he bodied Beal into the lane and went straight up and down instead of fading like he's gonna make that shot eighty eighty five percent of the time. That's like another level of efficiency above those fadaways. And

you want to have him again. Like I said, it's an important counter to have. It's an important shot to have in the bag, especially against the best defensive players in the league when you.

just hit him with a perfect lob pass. He brought physical ball pressure on Bradley Beal just in general, Jan Brown continues this stretch of just awesome basketball that he's playing. They killed the Suns on the offensive glass. They had thirteen offensive rebounds. Again, that's a big one for me. That has been kind of a recent trend for the Celtics. And just another great paint scoring game. They have sixty

points in the paint in this matchup. They're averaging fifty seven points in the paint over their last seven games. That ranks third in the NBA. So we're now on like a hefty like half of a month here where the Celtics are suddenly like a dominant paint scoring offense. And this is a team that for the entire first chunk of the season was like, I guess we're at what like two thirds of the or about three four so the way through the season at this point getting

close there. This is a ten percent chunk of the season here where they've gone from being before that one of the worst paint scoring teams in the league to

a team that's consistently scoring in the paint. So it's very clear from the top down that there is an effort being made to get these guys to play with more physical aggression, to bring that that more diversity to their offensive approach instead of just relying on whether or not their jump shots are going to go in, and that to me is just going to give them more margin for error when they get later into the playoffs.

And then Jason Tatum closed the deal in the fourth quarter Monster fourth quarter hit a three on the right wing where the Sons just didn't even match up with him. In transition, he had a pull up three on a soft switch between Royce O'Neil and Bull Bull. We've talked to a lot about the difference between aggressive switching and

soft switching. Again, aggressive switch as you come off the screen and the dude almost like hedges at first and then squares up so that you can essentially force the guy to almost like face ball pressure immediately when he comes off the screen versus a soft switch when you hang back. And on this particular play where Tatum hit the pull up three, Royce O'Neil's on him. Here comes the ball screen. As he comes off the ball screen.

Bowl Bull is the guy that's supposed to be switching onto him, but he just Roy O'Neil kind of ducks under and takes the screener, and then Bull Bull hangs back in a soft switch, and Tatum found a gap in there to rise up and knock down or jump or Bull. Bowl got a late contest, but it wasn't enough.

Should he be more physically aggressive, absolutely, but he was also a bad pull up shooter for you know, basically three years before this stretch and now we haven't extended two month and change stretch where he's gone from being bad at it to above average. Add it's still not as good as you want. Like you the best pull up jump shooters in the league are closer to like one point one five points per possession. The guys that should be hunting that shot as like a huge part

of their shot diet are in another tier. But he's at the very least now an effective pull up jump shooter over a substantial sample size, which I think is encouraging because again, for all to talk about physical bullying and playing in the paint and bringing offensive versatility, they're going to need Tatum to hit pull up jump shots to win in the playoffs. They're going to need Jalen Brown to hit pull up jump shots to win in

the playoffs. That's never what it was about. It was always about balance, And I thought that was a really good bounce back game for Boston going into Phoenix against the Phoenix team that really wants to continue their momentum after the win against Denver against the red hot Kevin Durant right, and you go in there and you and you control the game, and every single time Boss or every single time Phoenix makes a run, like Phoenix made a run there in the middle third quarter, Kevin Durant

hit like a crossover three against in transition against Drew Holliday to get it back to three. And then if I remember correctly, right after that, Drew Holiday made a couple of plays himself and they just bounce bouncer right back up to nine points like that, Like they just they never let it linger in in in range for Phoenix to make any real sort of push, and they just dif armed them and they got to win. On

the Suns front. Random role player minutes continue to hurt them, I thought again, Drew Eubanks was awful and pick and roll defense evenly at a rough stretch in the first half. He's minus four and four minutes. Wasn't getting guarded. They went with David Roddy in the second half and they started ignoring him on the right wing and he got two just completely unguarded right wing threes, and both of them were like bad misses. He was minus six and

six minutes. So just not having Devin Booker out there has caused them to have to dip into the parts of their roster where they can you know, have some guys or they can really help off of, you know, and that's where it causes some issues. But again, big bright side, Devin Booker's coming back and Kevin Durant is hooping his ass off thirty five plus and three straight games.

He's averaging thirty eight points, seven rebounds, and four assists in that span, fifty four percent from the field in forty five percent from three I just one last note on the sun side of thing, on the KD side of things, just for the young basketball players out there, something that I thought was really interesting and something I think that a lot of kids could kind of pick up some little, uh, you know, tips and tricks of

the game from KD. In this case, one of the things he was beaten Drew Holliday with in this particular game was like quick aggressive rip moves on the catch. And so just imagine a situation where like Katie's coming off of a dribble hand off and he would like step up into where the ball is and as soon as he catches it instead of like putting the ball on the floor and like trying to mix up off

the dribble. He'd make his first aggressive change of direction move without having to put the ball on the floor right away with a rip through. So essentially he would like catch the ball squared up this way and then he kind of leaned back to create some space and he'd aggressively rip through to the right so that when he's putting the ball down. When he's putting the ball down,

it's way on his right side. After he got kind of facing towards the left, and he'll do the same thing going to the left, or he'll catch it moving to the right and then it'll rip through to the left. Dwayne Wade used to do this move all the time.

I don't know if you mind. Heat fans might remember back when Dwayne Wade was younger, where he'd come out of like the corner and he'd come off like he's gonna go on a dribble handoff, and then as soon as he catch it, he'd kind of like do a high hesitation and then he just rip back to the left and extend out and do that push dribble to kind of cover some ground. You know, it's funny with Kevin Durant. We think of him as one of the most skilled players in the NBA and all this tough

shot making. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of that, but KD is incredibly fundamentally sound, like little things like that. Those rip through moves are just really efficient. Like a lot of times, so many young players over dribble these days, and like a quick rip through move is a move that covers a ton of ground that is easy to control. It protects the basketball because as you're doing the rip

you have two hands on the ball. So even if Drew Holliday gets in there, reaches and attacks the basketball, if you're holding it strong and do a strong rip through move, you can get through that first reach and cover ground with that first dribble. Another big one that Kd's great at is setting his man up for screens,

like he won't just run off the screen. He's great at like getting up into the defender's body, pushing him down to where like the block is, and then giving him like a little shove before he cuts off the screen and cuts shoulder to shoulder with the player and curls immediately to try to create a better screening angle. Like Kevin Durant is incredibly fundamentally sound. And again, like when you get to the higher levels of basketball, it's not just them learning how to do more advanced shit,

it's them being incredibly fundamentally sound. And then the advanced shit is what kind of pushes them over the top into like specific things like rescue possessions, Oh, three to two to one on the shot clock, I need to make a play, or like you know, I'm in a heat check here and I'm already in rhythm, and now I'm going to more of my advanced stuff. Like again, the game of basketball is best played when it's made easy, and it's the best basketball players in the world aren't

the guys that can do all the hard shit. They're the guys that relentlessly target and get all the low hanging fruit in basketball.

going it. They ended up going three and two, which was somewhat disappointing, but giving the competition was really good. I was hoping, as a fan of the team, something closer to four and one, mainly because the Lakers were a really good home team coming into this stretch. They were twenty one and nine at home and now they're twenty four and eleven, which is one of the better home records in the league.

huge win over the Thunder. Then you have that really disappointing ass kicking at the hand of the Kings, but you bounce back by beating the Bucks without Lebron and then beating the Minnesota Timberwolves allbit shorthanded on Sunday, So like a couple of big wins and all of a sudden it's three and two with wins against the Wolves,

the Thunder, and the Bucks all really really impressive. So starting with the Bucks game, Ad bounced back from the King's disaster by putting up twenty two and thirteen with two blocks. Austin Reeves eighteen five and seven, another well rounded performance from him. Ruyhatchamurns Dinwood. He both make two massive defensive plays at the end of the game. Ruey Hachimura on the play before the final play, there's a

possession where they run a Damianis pick and roll. He tags the roller on Giannis then gets out of the lane back to his man in the corner, but he switches with Cam Reddish and has Cam reddis guard the cornerman and he guards Giannis as the low man so that he can help on the drive. So they had been so Ad switches like he does a lot at the end. A lot of times the Lakers, they'll switch with Ad at the very end of the game. So it's like, last few possessions, you don't want to do

this for the whole game. Let's just throw Ad on the ball for these last Like famously Game four against the Warriors last year, they were running all these coverages in pick and roll, these like high drop coverages where Adi's coming up to the level and then dropping back. But then final two possessions, ad just switches on to

Steph and gets stopped. So same type of thing switches on to Dame and Ady does a good job taking away the pull jumper, Like Dame kind of beats him to the left hand side off the dribble, but he's a little off balance. He's gonna have throw up a

really difficult scoop shot. But instead of Cam reddish in help because Ruy hatcha Mura saw that play developing and understood like, okay, now that the shooter's in the corner and Yannis is in the dunker spot, it's actually because of the switch, because cam Rad has switched off of Dame and switched on to Jannis on the ball screen.

Now it's more important to get Cam off into the corner and have Ruy take Janis so that he can be the guy that steps up to help right that first defender, that lowman, the guy guarding the guy in the dunker spot, is the first line of defense after the ball handler gets beat, and so Ruy's just a bigger better athlete than Cam. He makes that smart switch.

All of a sudden, he jumps up and gets a great contest on Dame's shot, dam ends up missing it, and then to Darvinham's credit again like Darvin Haam has not been, in my opinion, one of the best coaches in the league this year, but he's had his moments again, Like I'm a big believer in the show. Like we don't just shine the light on the negative. We want to call it the negative and the positive. We want to try to give as well rounded a coverage as

we can. And one of the things that Darvin is on this late possession, he brought Jackson Hayes into the game just for a defensive sub. They weren't using him outside of that. They brought him in for the big possession of the game. He had two timeouts left at this point, the Lakers were down by one. All you got to do is get a stop and you use a timeout, you go down, you get a bucket. Then

you just have to get one more stop. And if you go down and you don't get a stop or you don't get a bucket, you have an extra timeout if you should need it. Right, So, Darvin Ham takes a timeout, gets Jackson Hayes on the floor Jackson Hayes's weak side, and when Ruy goes up for the block, ad is trailing the play and Rui's going in for the block, so both of them are basically effectively occupied by Dame. So Giannis is under the basket by himself,

basically to clean up the offensive glass. But Jackson Hayes comes crashing in from the wing and he tips it and it ends up in Anthony Davis's hands. So huge defensive play from Ruy. Obviously, big adjustment from Darvin Ham to bring Jackson Hayes in as a defensive stubf. He also brought Cam Reddish in on that specific possession. They

call timeout. They go down to the other end. D'Angelo Russell, who is the hero the game, scores twenty one points in the fourth quarter, hit several huge threes off the dribble and off the catch, but h's the game winner on Dame. Interesting play starts to play. He's got Malik Beasley on him, calls Spencer Dinwoody to come up and set the screen. Spencer Dinwoody sets a good screen and drags the screen out so he actually tried to roll in the direction Malik was in.

Delo takes an advanced dribble while Dame is recovering, and that gets him on his backside. And now here's the thing. Like Austin and dil he talks about on the show, they're not particularly big or they're not particularly fast guards, but they are decently sized, like what six ' five and has a decent amount of muscle mass to him. So once he got Dame pinned on his backside, there's really nothing Dame can do to bother him.

gets the block. So massive win for the Lakers without Lebron James, and then following that up last night against the Timberwolves, Lebron came back.

That another driving dunk attacking a close out off of an ad double team. Last night, the eighty draws second defender passed I think was Austin Reeves. One passed away, Austin swings to Lebron Lebron pump fakes, beats his man off the dribble, rises up and dunks it like he's just finding those little angles to attack in like a downhill situation out of advantages, which there's so many of him in this offense, which we're about to get to in a few minutes. But Lebron was great. He at

twenty nine points, eight rebounds and nine assists. Remember before that again, twenty nine to eight to nine. Before that starts to sound common for you, only four players in the NBA this year are averaging at least twenty five points, six rebounds and six assists. It's Luka Doncic, Johannison, Tenna Kompo,

Nicole Jokic, and Lebron James. So like as crazy like, I don't think he's had as good a regular season as the numbers would say, just simply because he's been saving a lot of energy on the defensive side of the ball throughout this year, which is totally to be expected. But on the offensive end of the floor, he's been producing at like a top six or seven level in

the league. He still play at that level on that end, and when he engages himself defensively he can actually compete like one of the best playoff players in the league, which is just gonna be a question of whether or not he can stay healthy enough to do that in the postseason. And then Anthony Davis, the Wolves front line was injured. Obviously, Carl Towns went down with his meniscus injury last week, but Rudy Gobert was out for this one.

Eighty just obliterated the Wolves front line, killed Nasri, killed Luca garz A ten offensive rebounds. Seemingly, anytime the Lakers missed a shot in the second half, eighty was cleaning it up. Finished with twenty seven points, twenty seven rebounds, five assists, seven steals, and three blocks, first player ever in NBA history to record those numbers in a game, the fourteenth ten steals plus blocks game of AD's career,

which Draymond is second among active players with four. When Minyam is also tied for second, he already has four. That'll be a record he probably breaks. But Anthony Davis has been basically the best blocks and steels guy of the among active NBA players by a mile. But the Lakers ended up winning this game with defense. We talked about Ad earlier with the seven steals and three blocks.

Torrian Prints made three mass only scored six points in this game, but he made three massive defensive plays in the fourth quarter run. I actually clipped all three of them and put him into a Twitter video, so you can find that on my Twitter feed at underscore Jason lt. But there's a skip pass to the weak side where there was a wide open shooter in the corner and the wing, and Torrion did a textbook passing lane close out. So this is what you teach young players to do.

When there's a skip pass and there's two shooters. You don't close out to the shooter. You close out to the passing lane because if you do that well, you might be able to bait the guy that's the shooter into thinking you're closing out at him and his automatic reaction is to throw a swing pass and you might get him to throw it right to you if you

close out to the passing lane. So if the pass goes to the wing, you're closing out between the wing and the corner opened up towards the shooter with your hand in the passing lane, and then if he shoots, you respond with the late contest. If the pass goes to the corner, it's the exact opposite. You close out to the passing lane and you the difference. He ended up the pass ended up going to the corner, He jumped the passing link, got a deflection, they ran out

the other end. I think it was Austin Reeves got a layup on this particular one. Then there was a dribble handoff action that the Wolves ran that got Mike Conley going downhill off the out of the top of the key, and Torrian Prince came over and helped walled up Mike Conley and got a stop, and then a couple possessions later, he blocked Jaden McDaniels at the rim in a transition possession. All three of those plays from Torrian Prince led to runouts the other way that the

Lakers scored on. So like just huge swings in the game for Torrian Prince. Only six points scored, but all three of those essentially amounted to pick sixes that helped the Lakers build their fourth quarter lead. Again, just like I was talking about Darvin Ham, Do I agree with how often Torrian Prince has played this year?

Lakers are really starting to pick up some steam. I talked a lot about how I wanted to see if the Lakers were gonna have any sort of legitimate chance to get anything done. I wanted to see like a twenty five game span where they were like eighteen and seven or seventeen and eight, something along those lines. Right, we're not quite there, but we're heading in that direction. They are twelve and five since the start of February. That's a really dominant stretch, just not a long enough span.

I want to see them again. You've got some big games on the rise, and they play the Kings on Wednesday night, they play the Warriors on Saturday night, Like those are getting a couple of wins there would put you at fourteen and five now we're talking about a more serious, longer stretch, right, But in that twelve and five stretch starts since or twelve and five stretch since the start of February, they have the fifth best record in the NBA over that span, the second best offense

in the league over that span, wins over the Celtics, the Knicks, Pulikins, the Clippers, the Thunder, the Bucks, and the Timberwolves. Eight or seven really quality wins over that span. When you extend it back to January seventh, the larger sample, Now this is a thirty game sample size. This is about forty percent of the season. In that span, they are nineteen and eleven. That is the seventh best record

in the league. In addition to the wins I just mentioned, we're adding wins there to the against the Clippers again, the Thunder again, the Mavericks, and the Warriors. So like eleven quality wins in a nineteen and eleven stretch. This is this is a good stretch of basketball that the Lakers are playing. Now let's talk about what specifically is working for them. Here's some metrics since January seventh. So again these are all since in their last thirty games

they're just demolishing teams in the paint. Fifty six point five points in the paint per one hundred possessions. That's first in the NBA over that span, and when you factor in that doesn't include free throws, like this is also the team that is number one in free throw rate. I think they're the number one in free throw attempts allowed if I'm not mistaken, but I think they're still top ten in free throw rate during that time. I can't remember the exact numbers, but they're getting to the

foul line a lot, is my point. And so to be the number one points in the paint team while also being a team that's getting to the foul line a lot, they're getting a lot of easy, replicable baskets right around the basket. That is super, super encouraging as it pertains to the postseason. They're sixth in offensive rating overall since January seventh, so again second since February, first in the smaller sample seventh since or excuse me, sixth

since January seventh. Really is their five out offense kicking at high gear there's sixth, and assists over that span fifth in the assist to turnover ratio over that span. Everyone's involved. We've talked about it before, but every guy in this lineup can both initiate offense and finished plays.

In terms of initiating, Anthony Davis can initiate through the post and through ISO, Lebron can do it through post, ISO and in pick and roll, Austin and DL do it through pick and roll, and then Ruey can do it through the ISO, through ISO and through the post. But all five of those guys can also play off the ball, Like Ruey is shooting forty five percent from three since January seven. That's a big part of him working off ball in their five out system. Also, we

talked about Ruey initiating offense in the post. Rui's been a great post up player this year. He's averaging one point one to four points per posted up possession, including passes. That rings ninth out of fifty seven players to run at least seventy post ups this year. So like in their five out offense, when they get a mismatch for Rui, they throw it down to him on the block and he's consistently generating quality shots. He's personally shooting fifty four

percent in those situations. But he's also shooting forty five percent from three during this stretch since January seventh, which has been a huge part of him working both on and off the ball. Obviously, we know d Lo is a dead eye shooter, also a guy who can cut and attack closeouts extremely well. He's a big release voul for them. Whenever double teams come, he just kind of flashes to the middle of the floor and makes plays.

Austin obviously is an excellent off ball player, great at attacking closeouts, and then Lebron has been He's always been underrated as an off ball player just because he's had some teams that he's been on where he's had to be on be on the ball so much. But one point two to three points per catch and shoot jump shot, he's been one of the best catch and shoot players

in the league this year. That ranks twentieth out of seventy nine players this year to log at least two hundred catch and shoot jump shots, so he's been an upper fourth catch and shoot guy among guys that reached that specific volume. A cutoff, He's made eighty two shots this year on cuts and rolls to the rim on sixty seven percent shooting. It's a huge chunk of his offense now and then, so with Lebron being so great off the ball, we also have Anthony Davis as the hub.

He's one of only three players in the league this year to log at least two hundred and fifty roll man possessions and still get over one point one points per possession on them. It's just him, Miles Turner and Elpur and Shane Goon that are the three high volume, efficient role man guys. He's personally shooting fifty six percent on rolls to the rim in fifty eight percent on floaters, which is a big part of what's making that work.

So again, like the defense, the offense is just absolutely humming. Everyone can score, everyone can pass. Ruey doesn't pass super well, but he could score out of the post and he can knock down the threes, so it's working right. The offense is absolutely humming, second best over the last seventeen games and sixth best over the last thirty games. But that has come at the expense of their defense and their rebounding. They have not been a good defensive and

rebounding team over the stretch. They've been bottom ten in both categories that is where if there's because like that, that's the next step here, right nineteen to eleven over thirty game span, twelve and five over seventeen game span, tons of quality wins, But we know they can't beat Denver right now, and we might not even find out if they can't get through the postseason, if they can't get into the postseason through the play in and then teams like with a ton of guard speed in particular,

so like they struggled a little bit against Golden State with it, but really badly against Sacramento. They're starting to expose their lack of perimeter defense. And so again, how do we connect this what's working for the Lakers now with the gaping holes that will inevitably get them beat in the postseason involving the rebounding and perimeter defense piece.

And the answer to all of that is Jared Vanderbilt since January seventh, So that span that I'm talking about because I talk about the Lakers season in thirds, right, they go what fifteen to nine through the N Season tournament win counting the win in the tournament game, right, so fifteen to nine you win the N Season Tournament back to back to back big wins against the Pelicans, the Suns, and the Pacers. Right, they finally they actually

slow down that Pacers team, really defensive minded team. Then they go three and ten in the thirteen games after the Ncason Tournament, completely let go of the rope. Some really bad losses to bad teams. That was when Darvin was fucking around with the lineup too much, all sorts of issues there. Then we get to this recent stretch where they've been really good. So if I have a nineteen and eleven and a fifteen and nine sandwiching this bad stretch, there is like some really good basketball in

there from the Lakers. So how do you connect that with the blatant issues that they have with teams like Denver and Sacramento teams that well, with Denver, it's a bunch of things that caused the Lakers problem. But with Sacramento in particular speed guards. Well, what if you put

Jared Vanderbilt in there at the three. Now you have a defender to throw out a deer and fox, so that you kind of only have to figure out what you're doing with the Malik Monk spot, right, which is like a little bit easier to handle than deeron Fox obviously, and just in general, like Denver, that's the guy you're

putting on Jamal Murray. And again, one of the issues in the postseason last year, the Lakers were running a four out one in offense, a lot of high volume pick and roll and post up stuff with clear side, you know, really brute force type of offense. So Jared Vanderbilt was just standing in the corner, just spotting up most of the time, which was a huge problem when

teams would ignore him. In the five out offense, Jared Vanderbilt would operate as a screener and roller more frequently, and the Lakers demonstrated in that late January stretch that they can succeed offensively with Jared Vanderbilt on the floor. As a matter of fact, Jared Vanderbilt is the second best net rating guy since January seventh, behind Spencer Dinwiddie.

They're outscoring teams by over eight points per one hundred possessions with Jared Vanderbilt on the floor, and they have been very good defensively one oh eight point two defensive

rating in that span. That's really good. So again, if they can connect the defensive element, that they've shown, not just at the beginning of the year, but even in this January stretch with Jared Vanderbilt on the floor, with the offensive success that they're having, and Jared Vanderbilt can properly slot everybody better, and Jared Vanderbilt is a great rebounder who's vitally important to the Lakers on that side

of the floor or that element of the game. That's where the playoff the pathway towards some sort of playoff successes. They need to connect to the success they're having right now, especially on the offensive end to the floor with what

Jared Vanderbilt brings to the table. If he can come back and he can get to that level that he was at before the injury as a perimeter defender and where he was fitting offensively, that's a Lakers path if there's again I feel really comfortable about where I have him in my contender rankings.

Lebron and AD have to play at an absolute superstar level, like bona Fide top six or seven player in the world level on both ends of the floor for four rounds, and I think they need to catch some matchup lucks. So it's a very very thin window, but the window is there, and I do think it's worth mentioning and acknowledging for this Laker team. Big, big, big, big game on Wednesday against Sacramento. Anthony Davis got kind of embarrassed by Demana Sabonis, so that's going to be a big

one for AD to potentially get some revenge in. And if they can win that game, and if they can beat Golden State on Saturday, I think I think that is the will be a good hallmark for the Lakers. They can handle some perimeter speed stuff, that'll be a good hallmark for the Lakers. And if I'm not mistaken, I haven't seen the particulars, but had some encouraging injury updates on Jared Vanderbilt and gave Vincent today as well. All right, let's move on to our power rankings before

we get out of here for the day. So two teams dropped out from last week, the Heat and the Magic. The Heat lost three straight games to the MAVs, the Thunder, and the Wizards, and then the Magic lost back to back games against the Knicks and the Pacers, so they're out for right now. New in at number ten is the Phoenix Suns. Massively impressed by their win against the Nuggets in Denver. Really showed that they can defend when

they want to. Nurkic is a good, big, physical body to be able to show to throw out Nicole Jokic. They have a lot of length off the ball when Kevin duran is defending the way that he has. They were flying around in rotation. I thought Bradley Beal digging down off KCP and playing passing lanes and playing the role man was really impactful for them defensively.

both averaging like twenty one and seven efficiently. But every single time I believe in the Pelicans, they immediately fall apart, So hopefully this will be something that they can actually sustain. Number eight the New York Knicks. They had another one in two week. They lost a rock fight to the seventy six ers throwback style game both teams in the seventies.

But they had a big win against the Red Hot Magic on Friday, and most importantly, in that game, Jalen Brunson more or less looked like himself, which was encouraging after the knee contusion that he had still just floating the ship while all these guys are out with injury. Number seven the Cleveland Cavaliers a two and two week two really impressive wins against the Celtics and the Timberwolves.

Big comeback against the Celtics fueled by Dean Wade shooting a clutch win overtime win against the Minnesota Timberwolves, but then two ugly losses against the Hawks and the Nets. They finally got their defense back on track, which was an issue a few weeks ago, but now they're having major issues on offense. They had just a one oh nine offensive rating last week. They really need to get

Donovan Mitchell back to tie all of this together. Number six the Minnesota Timberwolves also a two and two week big win over the Pacers. Red Hot Lake game shot making from from Anthony Edwards made three straight pull up jump shots at the end of the game might calmly made a big one two, so they finally made some shots late and closed out a game, but then they lost another clutch game to the Cavs, and then they

lost to the Lakers last night. Still experimenting with lineups since Carl Towns went out, They've tried Kyle Anderson the first couple of games that came. With the boatload of issues, they obviously would go bear out. They brought Naz red in at the center spot, but they ended up going smaller with Nikkeile Alexander Walker against the Lakers, and that

might be another option they could go with. Is if they don't want to start Nas next to Rudy Gobert, just go with Nikkeile Alexander Walker against especially against speed teams. I'm not sure if you want to do that against the Lakers necessarily, but against speedier teams like because that was obviously a big issue, but they just were so shorthanded with both Gobert and cat out. But like against teams like the Lakers, I'd probably go with Gobert at center and Naz Reid, but I don't hate the idea

of using Nikhil Alexander Walker, especially against speed teams. Again, a lot of times in situations like this, I can sympathize with this problem with the Lakers because of their issues at the three spot. Like I want them to play Ruie not because he's a natural fit at the three, but just because he's their fifth best player. And at this point, you're better off just playing your best basketball if you don't have a clear obvious positional fit, play

your best players. And that's the thing is, like nas Reid to me, playing next to Rudy Gobert might be a little bit of an issue, but he's just a really good basketball player, and so having him out there might just be a better option than some of the others. And at the other the best player in your perimeter core that doesn't start is probably Nikil Alexander Walker, and so that's why I'd go with him if you wanted to lean more towards into a more perimeter oriented team.

They're just seven and seven in their last fourteen games, seventeenth in offense and twenty third in defense over that span.

So the Clippers hitting a little bit of a mid season speed bump.

getting wherever they wanted. Again, like teams that like teams that thrive in that like kind of mid range, kind of shifty guard type of offense, they're going to have success against the Bucks with the deep drop coverage that they run big silver lining though for the Bucks. I thought in the Lakers game in particular, we saw some of the best Dame Giannis pick and roll reps that

I've seen this season. There's specific timing stuff that they're starting to figure out, or like timing the role of the screen is so pivotal, right because you want to hold the screen long enough to get the defender to get caught up on you so that the ball handler can get some separation, but not so much, especially when they're blitzing, that you're not available when the pass comes,

and so timing is so absolutely critical. But they're really starting to get their one two down with that, where like Dame is coming off and throwing the pass right as Giannis is turning and hitting him in stride. They're really starting to get high quality role opportunities out of that. They're starting to clear the side more, I would imagine,

is another thing that Doc Rivers is brought in. They're starting again that's just where you don't have a defender in the corner so that when Giannis rolls, he sees the entire floor in front of him instead of having to account for something that's kind of behind him to his left or behind.

and seven. So like, for as dominant as those two teams again been against the East, the bottom of the East is so weak. You can really rack up wins against the bottom of that conference. The Western Conference is tough. It's not easy to get wins on a West coast trip, and it's more important, like again to just look at in the bigger picture. You need to get your defense

where it needs to get. But you also need to have the Damianis pick and roll humming at the absolute peak level, and they're getting closer to that every single day. Number Three, the Yokahoma City Thunder really tough loss in that matchup with the Lakers just a really bad matchup for them. Lebron and ad just eat up their front line every single time they play. But then they went

into an easier stretch of their schedule. They got two easy wins against Portland in Memphis, and then Shay just went absolutely crazy in a big win against the Miami Heat. They are ten to two in their last twelve games, so they've moved up to three in our power rankings. Number two the Boston Celtics back to back losses for

the first time since November. They blew their lead against Cleveland where they could make a jump shot for nine minutes and struggled to score in the paint, and then they lost to Denver, which we've broken down in excruciating detail on the show over the past week. But they did bounce back with an impressive win against the Suns

on Saturday. In case you missed it, we broke that game down at the top of this show, so you want to if you're watching the breakout clip, you want to go watch the full episode for the detail breakdown of their win against the Against the Suns, they have been the third best points in the paint for one hundred possessions team in the last seven games. Jalen Brown is absolutely hooping, playing the best basketball of his career.

In Jason Tatum pull up jump shot coming around since January first one point zero seven excuse me, points per pull up jumper number one umber one for the first time in what seems like two months. The Denver Nuggets obviously a tough loss to Phoenix. I was weirdly impressed by Denver in that game because Phoenix like punched him in the mouth and was really out playing them for

like two and a half quarters. But Denver hit the jets there in the middle of that third quarter, and Phoenix was just holding on for dear life, and they worked their way all the way back into the game, and then Phoenix made a short little run to get it back up to a nine point lead, and then Denver just executed like the most perfect twelve oho run I've ever seen, But Kad made a huge pull up jump shot to send it to OT and then he made a few more in OT and they just kind

of lost to a KD shot making performance. So like a lot of encouraging nugget stuff out of that, And I also thought it was Nicole Yoakis was one of his worst games of the season, but he bounced back and they were magnificent against Boston. Their half court execution was unbelievable. I really think, I really think they have some room for improvement in that matchup to a really

encouraging week for Denver. Again, I still think they're the best team in the league, and after the winn against Boston and with Boston coming off two losses, I thought they deserved the top spot for this week.