Hoops Tonight - Nuggets big win vs. Celtics, Lakers fall apart, Heat-Mavericks, Timberwolves-Pacers

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about that game from the perspective of both teams. After that, the Minnesota Timbrol's got a huge win on the road in Indiana. Absolutely monster night from Anthony Edward's first game without Karl Anthony Towns in the lineup. Some interesting stuff coming out of that side of things. At the end, I know I'm a little late to the party year, but I want to talk a little bit about the Lakers and their struggles against the Sacramento Kings and what I took away from that game that at the end

of the show. In the show last night, I had a bunch of questions around the league, but a lot of follow up questions from that Nuggets Celtics game. So I'm going to hit that at the tail end of the show. You guys know the drop before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels, or to i should say, to the Hoops Tonight channel so you don't miss any

more of our videos. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight and also is super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSONLTS. You guys, don't miss any film threads that I do from time to time or show announcements, and then, last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the

rest of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So there was a moment at the end of the game We're staying Van Gundy last night went on this rant about how Boston's one of the best three point shooting teams in the league and how they are going to shoot better eventually and that this is super encouraging. Now here's the thing. I actually was encouraged on the

Boston front last night. My major takeaway last night was that Denver solidified and proved that they deserve to be the favorite and that they would be the safest bet to win the title this season. But it also proved that Boston is capable of beating them. There is a pathway there that exists for Boston that doesn't exist for most of the teams in the NBA. So I did think there was a lot of reasons for optimism on

the Boston front after last night's game. That said, I do not think it comes down to making shots. As a matter of fact, I remember, as I was watching the game, I was like, I kind of felt like it was a classic rock fight game.

all the data together, right. And so here's a couple of pieces of information from last night's game that I thought were interesting. Boston took forty five jump shots, Denver took thirty one. That's just a difference in their shot profile. They get a lot of shots close to the rim Boston. Boston got one point zero two to two points per jump shots, so a little over a point per shot. Denver got zero point seven to seven to four, So they did not shoot well compared to Boston. Both teams

did eleven unguarded jump shots. According to Synergy, Boston got fifteen points on their eleven unguarded shots. Denver got six on their eleven unguarded shots over the course of the season. Boston's typically a little over one point three points per unguarded jump shot, Denver's usually a little over one point two.

So Boston is a better unguarded jump shooting team than Denver is by a small margin. But Boston actually shot above their perceived average on those types of shots, and Denver actually shot substantially below. As a matter of fact, for the two games that these two teams played against each other, Boston shot really well on unguarded jump shots in their first matchup, and they took eighteen of them

in Boston and scored thirty points on them unguarded. Again, that's not all the jump shots, it's just the ones that were high quality open jump shots. So in the two matchups between the two teams, Boston has scored one point five to five points per unguarded jumper, which is way above their season average, and Denver has scored zero point eight four points per unguarded jumper, which is way below their season average. So like that to me, is

not to what you lean on. If you're Boston, you're not going to shoot better against You might have a game in Boston or a couple games in Boston in an NBA Finals series where you just get crazy hot, like we know Boston can, and they might win by ten fifteen points in those games, but more or less in the knockdown, drag out fist fights of games that these teams are going to generally engage in if they meet in the finals, Boston shot better than Denver did,

so that to me isn't the swing factor there. Denver overcame their poor shooting because of their ability to consistently generate high quality shots around the rim, just like they did down the stretch with all those actions. The case for Boston is what Jalen Brown was able to do with Aaron Gordon, Because you know, it's interesting. I was talking with Adam Mars about this earlier today. I went on his show for about an hour and we talked about this game in a couple other games from last night.

Make sure you guys check out the I think the YouTube channels called All In. It's the show that he does with Tim Legler, So go there if you guys want to see that. But I was talking with him about this earlier today. But like Aaron Gordon's an interesting defensive player because he's got the length to contest shots on the likes of Kevin Durant right, and he's got the strength to deal with the bully ball stuff that you see from guys like Jimmy Butler and Kawhi Leonard

and Lebron James. But it's the speed and strength of Jylen Brown that allowed him to consistently beat him off the dribble and finish around the rim on him. I thought that was an interesting matchup. That was a huge silver lining for Boston. If Jason Tatum can meet that aggression and help inflict his physicality on the game, that's the path It's not We're going to make more shots. That's not the pathway to beating Denver. You outshot them

in the two games and you lost both games. Denver is just as likely to have games where they shoot much better as you are. So to me, it most likely comes down to if Boston wins a series like this, it's taking advantage of their physical advantages on the perimeter. So those are just a couple of quick thoughts. We're gonna get more into Boston Denver at the end of the show when we get into our mailbag. All right, moving on to Dallas Miami. So this was a game

that Dallas desperately needed coming off. I think they had lost five of their previous six games. The got off to a rough start. They Luca was really disengaged defensively early, was getting taken advantage of by Nicole jovich by in helping recover situations on rolls to the basket.

Like for six games before that game against Miami, Dallas had a defensive rating of one twenty seven point three. That was five points per one hundred possessions, worse than anyone else in the league over that span. That's a substantial problem right there. They were giving up I've talked about it on the show before, but a lot of overhelping and bad off ball defense leaving shooters open. They were giving up twenty three wide open threes per game, again according to NBA dot com, and a wide open

three is a defender at least six feet away. They were giving up twenty three of those per game over that six game span, which was the third worst in the league over that span.

a rebound play. It was a miss three where Maxi Kleba kind of looped around the baseline and tapped it out and that got swung to Kyrie Irving in the left corner for a big three. I think it put him up one o nine, one oh four if I remember correctly. It was like the biggest shot of the game off of an offensive rebound. They dominated the game with their athleticism in the throughout the rest of the game. That is there that is one of their big advantages.

but also from Dante Exem Kyrie. We talked about the huge three off of the tap out from Maxi kleb but he also had a playoff of the right wing where he got bam Adebayo on the switch, hit him with a nasty hesitation, moved beating off the dribble, and then elevated for a tough floater over the top. And then Luca we talked about that step back three moving to his left a few weeks ago, another really nice drifting to the right. I should say step back to

his right. I meant to say, but over his left shoulder. That's where I always get that confused. So like when you're doing a movement shot, when you're moving to your right, you're shooting over your left shoulder as you're trying to square up in mid air.

He went with Maxi Kleba at the four next to Derek Lively, and then Dante Exam at the three instead of someone like a Josh Green right, and the mass started running these ball screen actions with Derek ly or with Dante Exum, and Xem was slipping out of him when they were blitzing Luca, and he slipped out to the left wing and knocked down a big three late

in the shot clock. And then one of the biggest shots in the game, that little turnaround jump shot he hit in the lane, a really well defended possession, Luca draws a blitz, hits Dante Exem on the slip, they stonewall him at the rim. Everything else is shut down. This is that high level. I sometimes refer to it as high level close out attacking, but really it's like

shot making from role players, right. It's like the ability to win a possession is really well defended, and you've been chased off the three point line, and the rim isn't there as an option, and there isn't an easy kickout pass for the next sequence, or maybe the shot clock is winding down and you need someone that can just take and make a difficult shot, and Dante Exem was able to pivot over his right shoulder and take a tough mid range pull up jump shot and make it,

and it was a huge possession in the game as they got out of there with the win. I really liked that lineup late, not just because Xum is just a little bit more high level in terms of some of his shot making ability off the bounce than a guy like Josh Green, which I think was an advantage as they were blitzing Luca, but also just the size of that lineup between Live League and Cleva and Exhum in that front court, they made it more difficult for Jimmy Butler in particular to kind of bully his way

to his spots. Timmy hit one step back jumper going to his right where he kind of a shouldered Maxi in the chest and got a little bit of separation and knocked down a shot. But they defended Jimmy Butler

really well in this game. I liked the combination of Luca and Kyrie as your shot creators with a lot of size and defensive personnel off of them, especially when you rely so much on Luca and Kyrie tough shot making anyway, and I thought that was an interesting group to go with at the end of the game, got a lot of stops, got a big win down the stretch on the Miami front. Terry Rozier by far his

best game since joining the Heat. He had twenty seven points and eleven assists, hit five threes, made a bunch of big plays in pick and roll at the end of the game. He's actually been pretty good in pick and roll in general since coming to Miami. Despite Terry Rozier shooting forty one percent from the field and thirty percent from three since coming to Miami, he's actually been a pretty good shot creator for them. He's run one hundred and seventy three pick and rolls in ISOs that

have led to one hundred and eighty three points. It's one point zero six points per possession, which is pretty damn solid shot creation. That's all including passes, by the way, And again, like when you factor in the fact that he hasn't even really started hitting shots yet up until last night, that's super encouraging because that means that there's another level that he can get to on that side of the floor. And then I thought one of the

biggest swing factors in this game was bam Adebayo. Again, this is something I've talked about all season. On the season, he is shooting below fifty percent on shots that are inside of five feet from the rim but aren't dunks, because he has like one hundred dunks this year. If you take the dunks out, the missus and the makes, and you just look at every shot he takes within five feet of the rim, he misses them more than

half the time. He was just five to twelve in this game against Dallas in the paint three times late he got stonewalled at the rim and wasn't able to make a sort of push shot or hook shot over the top. That is a huge difference maker. Like we talked about that with Jokic all night last night. But like when you're a big man, having that little pop shot or floater or hook shot or you know, kind of like in traffic type of layup to go to is such a huge part of shot making for the

center position. And that continues to be something that makes Miami easier to guard. If you just keep Bam from dunking, he'll probably miss, Like statistically, he's more likely to miss than he is to make, and it just allows teams to get away with things in a coverage element of defense that they shouldn't be able to get away with otherwise, and that's something to keep an eye on the BAM front. And then Jimmy just he's been.

ant miss free throw. One of the very best defensive plays I've ever seen that you know, Ant set after the game. He's jumped higher than he's ever jumped in his life. There is a level of desperation that you can get out of a block that you might not get out of a dunk in terms of jumping ability. Funny when I think back to the highest I've ever jumped in my life, the possession I think of is

a defensive play in particular. I won't get into the details, but it's funny because I remember it was a big possession where like I had to just I just was jumping as high as I possibly could to try to make a play. Right, And obviously Ant is like that, but one of the best athletes in the in the history of basketball, so like for him, it just looks completely outrageous. Hits his head on the rim, hits his

shoulder on the backboard. Every single time I open up my phone, I see a new angle of this Anthony Edwards block and it looks more ridiculous.

question becomes, what do you what do you? Where do you go from here? How do you put together lineups? And Carl Towns has been your four in your best groups all year long. And let's first talk about how bad the Kyle Anderson experience was, because I thought it was just a complete and total disaster. On the defensive end of the floor, Tyres Saliburton was picking on him on switches. First one I watched, the one where Tyres made like the kind of scoop shot off the glass.

I'm like, that's kind of well defended. It's a tough shot. Tyres is one of the best players in the league. Like that, that's tough. But then there was another switch a few possessions later where he got absolutely dusted and then Rudy Gobert had to foul him. Then they tried hedging and recovering with him, and he just lunged and reached in too hard and got himself way out of position, and then Siakam broke wide open on the slip Tyre's hit him and he ended up going up and dunking.

I can't remember who it was that he dunked on. I think it might have been. It wasn't Gobert, I can't remember. I might have been Jade McDaniels that he done, or might have been Ant actually that he had dunked on.

just not gonna cut it. And then on the offensive end of the floor, you can kind of put two and two together, like here comes down in transition. I clipped this play and put on my Twitter feed. You guys can see it at Underscore JSNLT. But the ant's coming down the floor in transition trying to drive the basket.

Kyle Anderson just kind of meanders into the dunker spot on the left side of the floor, and Rudy Gobert meanders into the dunker spot on the right side of the floor, and there's just a throng of bodies there and it's just there's no space to operate and he

ends up in trouble. In some traffic, there was a possession where Indy threw a hard double at Anthony Edwards and it just was no advantage because nobody needs to guard Kyle Anderson and as long as you've got somebody underneath the rim, he's not gonna hurt you there, right, And like it just it just was a big problem on the offensive end of the floor, and then you weren't getting the benefit of the defensive end of things.

So that's gonna be something they're gonna need to figure out, because my best guess is it's got to be matchup related.

Like it might be one of those things where it's like, Okay, this team is smaller, more perimeter oriented, let's go with Nikkeil Alexander Walker and just goes small and and now I've got Jaden McDaniels in, Nikkeil Alexander Walker and ant out there, and I can really defend on the perimeter, right or against a more bruising team that doesn't have as much perimeter speed, you know, now, like against the Lakers, for instance, maybe it's better to go with nas Reed

in the Sunday night. I think it's on Sunday, but in the in the game on Sunday or the next game that they have against the Lakers in a Crypto dot com arena, that might be a game where you go with nas Reid at the power forward spot. But like, you gotta go with either speed and quickness or shooting. I don't think you can go with the guy and Kyle who's not good enough at either right and so and so that that's gonna be something that they're gonna have to figure out as the as the season progresses.

And then finally, like once again and again, we can blame Kyle Anderson all we want for this, but this

has been an issue all season. They won the game because they made four straight pull up jump shots. Mike Conley made one out of left corner and made a pull up three and pick and roll, and he made two tough step back jump shots in the lane. Like at the end of the day, that's really what it depends on for Minnesota, which is why their late game

offense is so concerning. It really comes down to cant Ant and Mike Conley make tough pull up jump shots because of the fact that Rudy Gobert is not good enough at either beating switches or catching and finishing around the rim in traffic to make teams pay for helping. You know, Jada McDaniels is not a guy you have

to guard super closely. Now that Carl Towns is in the group, it's even harder to do this because you're gonna have someone out there that, in all likelihood that's a little bit less of a threat from the three point line. And so this has been an issue all season for Minnesota, and again, like last night, it worked because the shots went in. But like it's a lot to ask for Anthony Edwards to make tough pull up jump shots time and time again, you know it, it

can work in a one game sample. But again, like among the high volume pull up shooters in the league, Anthony Edwards falls more in line with the Jason Tatum types, which guys that take a lot of them that aren't efficient then compared to the guys that are super efficient, you know, the James Hardens and the Jalen Williams and the Steph Curries and those kinds of guys. Right, He's just not on that level as a pull up shooter. And so that's where it gets a little bit concerning,

all right, moving on to Lakers Kings. This was a game that happened on Wednesday night. I was texting with Sam Vessini after Lakers thunder, and I told you, guys, I was having like a little bit of fun at his expense because I think there's like at least a coin flip chance that the Lakers don't even get out of the play in tournament, let alone make noise in the playoffs. They're not a team I believe in anymore ever since they didn't make a trade at the deadline.

That said, like, that match up, specifically against the Thunder is one I've always liked for the Lakers, And so I texted Sam and I was having some fun at his expense, and you know, haven't taken a little victory lap. But I texted him right after that and I was like, but I think. I was like, I'm nearly one hundred percent sure they're going to get smashed by the Kings and that their defense is going to get absolutely shredded. And the reason for that is something that I've talked

about a lot on the show. I talked about it after the Warriors Bucks game. Matchups. Matchups, to me, are the main determining factor for wins and losses for basically

every team outside of that Boston and Denver teer. Once you get below those two, every single team you run into has a certain strength and a certain weakness and multiple strengths and multiple weaknesses, and really it just depends on how those strengths and weaknesses kind of link with their opponent, right, and like that's the thing, Like, there's a reason why the Lakers have had success against the Thunder, There's a reason why the Lakers have had success against

the Clippers. There's a reason why the Lakers have had success against the Suns this season. It's because in those particular matchups, those are teams that have guys that have shifty approach to offense and take a lot of pull up jump shots. And the Lakers do have a lot of length, they don't have a lot of perimeter speed. But Austin is a guy that he's not short by any stretch of the imagination. Dangela Russell's not short by any stretch of the imagination.

They have speed guards. It is it is like we're coming at you like this all game long, and like I was impressed that the Lakers even jumped out to

the lead, that they jumped out out too. But then like as soon as that, right around the end of the first quarter and heading into that second quarter run, they brought in Tourian Prince and put him on Malik Monk, and then they started running action where basically like a version of Spain pick and roll where they'd have like Deer and Fox come off a ball screen and then they'd have Malik Monk backscreen for the big man is Alex Landez, He's rolling to the basket, and they were

just putting the Lakers in the blender. Jackson hayeses on the floor in this group and they kind of got into a rhythm a little bit, and then from there, Malik Monk and Deer and Fox are both playing with confidence. And when they're playing with confidence, they see tissue paper.

But really when you look to their success in the postseason last year when they won games against Golden State and this year, they win when they win with defense. Like when you look at their opponent point totals, it's when they keep teams below that threshold. I think it's like a one hundred and fifteen points or whatever. When they hold teams down, their win percentage is gigantically better than what it is when they give up large scoring games.

They have not outscored teams very well, but they have been able to when they really lock in get stops. They again it's I talked about this last night with Jylen Brown about like discovering your superpower that extends to the team level as well. Understand what your superpower is as a team. And for for Sacramento, it's speed on the offensive end. We discovered last year. It's not Kevin Herder and Keegan Murray coming off of ball screens. It's

not the bonus bowllying his way of the basket. It's no one can keep Malik Monk and Deer and Fox in front off the dribble, that is their superpower. And then on the defensive end of the floor, they have a ton of speed. And like when you add in when you add in Keon and you add in Davion Mitchell, like, they they have speed at the guard spot on the

defensive end, five guys deep and so like. And what's crazy is like you could see it because they had a really bad defensive quarter to start in the first quarter, and then when Fox and Monk got going, like you could tell it energized the team and they started defending. They held the Lakers to twenty points in that second quarter,

and it was like a runaway freight train, one of the craziest runs I've ever seen to go from being down eighteen or whatever to basically blowing out the Lakers like it was like a reverse blowout. It was. It was completely insane. But again, this is why I talk about matchups so much, the reason why I wanted the Lakers to go out and get guard athleticism, which was the number one thing I talked about after the Denver

Nuggets series last year. They need someone at the guard spot that is athletic, enough but not too small to deal with the likes of like a Jamal Murray, a big, strong athlete. It's why I wanted Bruce Brown this summer. It's why I said at the deadline, I'd rather have Bruce Brown than de Jonte Murray. That specific archetype is a specific type of player that the Lakers just do not have. And so because of that, it was like,

that's the thing. The Lakers went to the Western Conference Finals last year as currently constructed, more or less obviously without Dennis Schroeder and with some other role players in the group. They beat the Warriors relatively easily. They beat the Grizzlies relatively easily, right like, they won in the same exact fashion throughout, never lost a game at home

in those two series. The reason why is because those teams were not able to capitalize on the weaknesses that the Lakers have, right and so as we go into as we go into the Denver matchup, they run into a team that you desperately need size and athleticism at the guard position to defend in those Jokich Murray actions. It was a huge problem. And it was one thing against the Grizzlies when the Grizzlies don't shoot enough, shoot the ball well enough off the ball, and they were

able to just completely pack the paint. It was one thing against the Warriors when everybody not named Stent Stephan went cold and they were able to just pack the paint and throw the kitchen sink at Steph. But as soon as they ran into a team that brought real shot creation, the guard spot with Jamal Murray obviously, the two man game with Jokic and the off ball spacing to punish them for helping it exposed their inability to guard actions one on one and two on two. That

is why I've preached about that NonStop. I've never been I've never been of the belief that the Lakers can't beat certain teams is currently constructed. It's like I talked about with the Thunder. I've just that's a matchup that works really well for the Lakers. They are a shifty, shot making perimeter group, and they're too small on the interior and they're too inexperienced. The Lakers would eat those

guys up in a playoff series in my opinion. But these really fast teams that also have the spacing off the ball can cause problems for them, and we haven't even got to the center position. Sabonis kicked Anthony Davis's ass in that game. Anthony Davis has consistently struggled against the big, bruising centers, guys like Sabonis, guys like Zubac, guys like Nurkic, guys like Jokic. Because he's got a high center of gravity, they can shove him off of

his spot. Sabonis was finishing through Anthony Davis at will. He was bullying him, bullying him on the offensive glass. It was a huge problem in that game. That is so the Kings just in general are really bad matchup for the Lakers because the bonus is a bad matchup for ad in their guards, Like the Lakers guards are just absolutely hopeless to guard them.

would have gotten your butt kicked. I mean, I shouldn't say your best play is but your best tactical punch, because from a personnel standpoint, the Kings just have significant advantages over the Lakers. And that's what that's the group that the Lakers fall into. Now, everything's gonna be about matchups for them. Whatever tiny sliver of a hope they have is gonna be about catching the right types of

teams along the way. If they end up in a playing game on the road in Sacramento, I would be stunned if.

Going into the Bucks game tonight, it's gonna be interesting because obviously that Dame matchup is a little bit tough on the perimeter, but they don't have the depth of shot creation on the perimeter that a team like Sacramento had with Malik Monk and Deer and Fox, and so I think they might be able to piece together a better group for that matchup. And obviously they have the interior presence to kind of hang with Johannison brook Lopez.

So that's gonna be really interesting one against the bucksley tonight. But again, matchups are going to be everything for this Lakers team. All right, moving on to the mailbag and then we'll get out of here for the day. First question, you should collab with Adam Montas from DMVR. You two are so knowledgeable about the game of basketball. First of all, thanks for the kind words about myself and also for Adam as well. I really really enjoyed working with Adam today.

It was super easy to talk basketball, was super super smart guy, had a ton of fun, went for an hour talked about basically a lot of the same games that we talked about today.

an excuse to talk about it for a second. I never considered Tatum legitimately for him, and the main reason why is because, like to me, if you're not actually in that top tier of superstars in the league, you just don't qualify for the MVP conversation. And like that's the thing. Like Tatum is the best player on the best regular season team in the league. But there's a couple of pieces of context. One he's playing for, in

my opinion, the most talented starting five in the league. Two, Boston is playing in an Eastern conference that is really weak at the bottom and has a lot of opportunities to just rake up, like to rack up like massive wins that inflate stats and inflate advanced metrics. For instance, I'm sure you guys saw this stat after the game after last night. Boston is thirty three and seven against

the Eastern Conference. They are fifteen and seven against the Western Conference because the Western Conference top to bottom just has significantly more talent down the East top is very talented, but the bottom of the East has a lot of like you know, automatic wins, so to speak.

for that MVP spot. Next question, Hi, Jason loved the content from Australia watching the Luka Kyrie pairing Cook defenses is great viewing, but it also got me wondering about the future of pairing two star guards as building blocks.

We've seen Fox and Halliburton thrive separately, questions about the Trey Murray and Mitchell Garland combo as a long term solution, and even a young potential superstar duo like Cad and Ivy raise the issue whether they can thrive together down the line, if you were coaching two young star guards in the making, what skills would you prioritize them to

focus on to maximize their own team success? And what potential red flags would you look out for should they success that would suggest they're better off on separate team. Having followed you for a bit, I'll guess pull up shooting is right there. Thanks for these shows, always learning

something new every episode. Thanks for supporting the show. Here's the thing, as it comes down to the two guards thing, it really just comes down to, like, if you're the expression like you are who you can guard like, you can have two star guards as long as they're different archetypes. So for instance, like if you have a skill guard, let's say that you had Steph Curry, but let's say You're two was like prime Dwayne Wade, who's like one of the best defensive players in the league and a

real downhill athlete. That I think is a pairing of star guards that would work because they have a lack of redundancy. They don't step on each other's toes. They bring different things to the table. That is a defensive backcourt that can fly. Does that make sense? So, like in general, when I'm looking at any star duo, I want one of them to be really good at different

stuff than the other guy. Take Jamal Murray and to Kola Jokis for example, Like Jamal Murray is this perimeter shot making piece and Nicole Jokich is this physical imposition around the rim piece and playmaking piece. Right, they perfectly compliment each other. If you wanted a star next to Jokic, it would ideally be a guy that can run two man game with him and hit tough over the top pull up jump shots.

shoot three now and then. But Kyrie Irving can just run the offense for a brief stretch and be that skill guard right Like that to me is the big piece is you want to have a lack of redundancy. So for instance, like let's take Deer and Fox and Tyree saliburn. I do think that could have worked in the long run, but it would have required Deer and Fox to basically become one of the best two way guards in the league to really focus on the defensive

end of the floor. But like, there's no doubt that that that could have worked in the long run because I view Tyreese as the skill guard and Dearon Fox to me is like the athlete guard in that in that pairing. It just would it Just Dearon Fox has always been a little bit of an inconsistent defensive player, although I think he's capable of being an awesome defensive player. Next question, Lol, I'm not letting MPJ shoot, but I

get your point. You close out late and make him drive so that he can finish, but he doesn't handle well again. I h This was in reference to a point I made at the end of last night's show about how I would guard if I was Boston. Basically, I said I wouldn't want to live with Jokicchen and

Gordon hitting shots right around the rim. I would want to bring help either from the baseline, but then bring that weak side corner guy to get inside position on Gordon and boxing mountain, force Ciokich to make a skip pass, or I double from the front side to Forciokich to make kickouts to the perimeter. But the main point there is like, yeah, I don't want I don't want MPG to shoot, but like MPJ. You know, I've talked about the difference between shot value and the large sample size

versushot value in the individual possession. So, for instance, an MPG catching shoot three, Just to make the math easy, if Mpj's wide open, let's just say he makes fifty percent of them, right, that's one point five points per shot.

That's a really high percentage shot, right. I would have to shoot seventy five percent at the rim to be on or on a hook shot or something on any other type of shot to be as efficient as Michael Porter junior on a catch and shoot three, right, But on the individual possession, it's only a fifty percent shot.

It's a lower value shot by points per possession than a Michael Porter junior wide open catch and shoot three. But on the individual possession, the Micael Porter shot he's gonna miss half the time, whereas the Yoka shot around the basket, he's gonna miss it one out of three times. And probably if you get him to miss, you brought baseline help and Aaron Gordon's gonna get an extra possession about half.

a lesser of two evils kind of thing. Thanks, question, how would you rank this version of the Nuggets among the championship winning teams of the last ten to fifteen years. As you have said, Denver is built in year perfect roster around Jokic, who is by far the best player in the world today. However, at what point does accumulating

elite talent just outpower everything else. For instance, as good as the Nuggets are, most people wouldn't give them much of a chance against the Warriors of twenty seventeen eighteen, who sacrificed roster depth to bring in Kitty. So I do think the Nuggets are on the same tier. I shouldn't say I'm the same tier. Like, let me put it this way, the only two teams of the last fifteen years that are better than Denver are the Miami Heat team that repeated and the KDI Steph Warriors that repeated.

Those are the only two teams that are on their level, right, Denver's not. I don't think they deserve to be put on that level because it's hard to win two championships in a row. And here's the thing. I think the Nuggets. I'm way higher on them than I was to start the season. I told you I'd be surprised that they didn't win the title.

I'm picking Denver. I think Denver is the safe bet, but there's there's always it's really difficult to win NBA championship, So like I don't want to jump the gun, and I don't think I'd ever put them above the twenty seventeen twenty eighteen Warriors, because like, they literally were just

so so much better than everybody. To give you an idea, going into the twenty eighteen season, off of the twenty seventeen championship, when they won fifteen straight playoff games, the Warriors had negative odds to win the title in preseason, meaning if you bet one hundred dollars to pick the Warriors to win the title in twenty eighteen and they won, you would get less than one hundred dollars in winnings. That's how That's how dominant that Golden Stag team won

Denver before last night's game. I haven't looked at the odds since before last night's game, even as good as they've looked this year are they were plus four point

fifty to win the title on DraftKings. So that just goes to show you the difference in just the level of talent that that team had, But it was more because of like they had two of the top three players in the league, and they had Klay Thompson, who was an awesome defensive player and the second best shooter of all time, and they and Andre Gudala, who's the best wing defender in the league at that time, and they had Draymond Green, who was arguably the best defensive

player overall in the league at that time. So like there's kind of another level there. However, there will be an interesting conversation to have about this team and the twenty twelve twenty thirteen Miami Heat teams if Denver can win the title this year. And I'm inclined to pick Denver in that specific matchup because Miami just because of Dwayne Wade's decline, because Chris Bosh got hurt in the

twenty twelve run. Like, I've seen a lot of talk about there's so much talk about the the use a you, Donnis Haslam, and Norris Cole coming out talking about Lebron in the Heat, And it's so funny to me because it's just it's just something I think people are writing some revisionist history on on a bunch of different fronts.

First of all, I think that when Lebron, like I saw Jeff t quote something about how like everyone thought that shit was weak when Lebron went to Miami for the record at the time, it kind of was like what Lebron did going to Miami was supposed to be more or less like what KD did going to the Warriors. What saved Lebron's ass was he got humiliated the first year, which made him a better basketball player, and so he went up a crazy level.

a third tier superstar in twenty fourteen. And so as a result, Lebron's intended dominant team turned into just another one of the best teams in the league, which forced Lebron to play heroic basketball to win two championships. So now when we look back at the Miami Heat runs, we look at it as like, man, that was some unbelievable basketball from Lebron. However, Kevin Durant went to the

Golden State Warriors. They stayed healthy, they absolutely murdered everybody, and so everyone looks at it differently because it we never had to see KD play desperate. We never had to see KD like, holy shit, like we're down three to two on the road here, we gotta make this happen. Holy shit Game seven against Indiana, Holy shit Game seven against San Antonio, Like we never saw that because Golden State was just so much better than everybody.

to close the deal. They gotta win another title this year. Three more questions than we're out of here. Hey, Jason, love the show, Keep up the great work. I was wondering what you think the issue is with Boston's bad habits. Is it a coach or a lack of IQ. Feels like they've had the move or less. They've had more or less the same issues under three different coaches. Granted lots of personnel changes and player growth, but still feels

like the same glaring issues throughout. So Joe Mazoula in particular, I actually talked about this a lot with Adamatters today, but to me, the freedom has almost gone too far. So when you have five really good shot creators on the same floor together, it gets a little tough because

there's not a clear hierarchy. So like for Denver, for instance, everything runs through Murray and Jokic late, even those like early second quarter early fourth quarter stretches, it's like Murray's just dribbling the air out of the basketball looking for his own shot.

and they are more deliberate. In my opinion, KCP and Drew Holliday are nowhere near the same players. And the fact that the Celtics have so much talent in their five main unit, I think their offense has to be free flowing so they can maximize each player one hundred percent agree throughout, like certain chunks of the game, right like outside of your starting groups late second quarter, early or excuse me, late first quarter, early second quarter, late

third quarter, early fourth quarter. You want to be free flowing. You want everybody playing your game. However, you run the risk when you play equal opportunity basketball of either everybody being in a rhythm or nobody being in a rhythm and that is part of what makes Boston so hot

and cold. And yeah, they've been mostly hot against the Eastern Conference, but like that's what makes them so hot and cold is they have these stretches where all of them go out of rhythm because there isn't a clear hierarchy. So like, to me an easy solution there is. I would have pet actions for your best players that I'd run at the end of the games. If that's Tatum Porzingis pick and roll, that's Derek White Porzingi's pick and roll, if it's Jalen Brown Tatum, two man game, whatever it

is that you decide to do. I don't think you could do that because Teas would probably just switch it.

does make sense. You're right, Drew Holliday is not the same type of player as KCP and like, he is a guy that can create a shot off the bounce at a higher level, but he's not as good as at creating a shot off the bounce as Jason Tatum or Jaylen Brown.

Last question, with Kat's injury, how do you think Minnesota should structure their rotation. They went with Kyle Anderson, but that is a spacing nightmare for me. I would start and close with Nasried and then try to keep one of him or go bear on at all time. So I talked about this a little bit in the Timberwolve segment that we did, so in case you missed that if you're just watching the mail bag episode Timberwolves fans, we did a whole breakdown. But I would do it matchup.

Related would not go with Kyle Anderson, though I thought that was a disaster on both ends of the floor. I don't think he's good enough defensively or offensively to make up for it. Kind of was disappointed because Kyle Anderson is a guy that is capable of being very good defensively, but he just hasn't been good enough. But

I would just base it on the matchup. I think there's versions of this against smaller teams where you could go with Nikile Alexander Walker and go with like aunt con Lee naw and Jada McDaniels alongside Gobert and just defend the hell out of the basketball at least you you know, because Nikail is just a better offensive player than Kyle Anderson off the ball, and he can defend in space. But then they're going to be matchup that

are too big and you need to go bigger. The Lakers game that's coming up on Sunday's actually a good example of this. I would go to Nasri because at least you had the physical imposition. He's kind of like actually a reasonable facsimile of Carltown's, although he's not as good because he could shoot the three and he can attack close outs. So like that would be what I would do. I'd base it on the matchups, but the reality is is like it is flawed options now that

Carltown's is out of the picture, which is unfortunate. All right, guys, that is all I have for today and for the rest of the weekend. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys. Tons of good games Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but we're gonna take those days off. On Monday, we will be breaking down the big games from the weekend as well as power rankings.