Hoops Tonight - Nuggets-Lakers Reaction: LeBron James & LA survive, take down Jokic & Denver

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Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. Twenty one plus age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. See DKG dot co slash b ball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Saturday, everybody hopeful, if you guys are having an incredible weekend. Well, it turns out the Los Angeles Lakers are in fact capable of occasionally,

if rarely, beating the Denver Nuggets. They extend the series to five, which Game five will be on Monday night. We'll be going live on YouTube after the final buzzer of that one. I had a thing last night that kind of got in the way of my routine typically in the playoffs, So I had to cover those three games today, which got in the way of my ability of covering the other games. So we're just gonna hit Nuggets, Lakers and then Helicans Thunder today, so we're gonna have

to get to those other two series at a later date. Obviously, we've got a jam pack schedule tomorrow as well, so Nuggets, Lakers, Pelicans, Thunder for tonight's show. You guys are the joke before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jsonlt so you guys don't miss

any show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight, and then keep leaving mailback questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting a couple of mail bags a week over the course of the rest of the playoffs. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I'm gonna kind of mix

things up a little bit in this episode. Instead of going kind of into the weeds, I'm gonna start kind of big picture for I as a fan, as someone who obviously is rooting for the Los Angeles Lakers, I was proud of their effort tonight. These game fours, when you're down three to oho, they typically go the route of the suite. It did some digging It's hard to find some exact data, but it looks like in NBA history, a team down three to OHO loses that game about

sixty nine percent of the time. They went about thirty thirty one percent of the time. So typically what ends up happening is the better team, who demonstrated they were better by going up three to OHO is able to close the deal, right, So, and part of that is

not just the talent differential, it's a lack of belief. Right. So, like you when you lose two games on the road, especially as the underdog, when you come home for game three, you have this thought in the back of your mind, and it's it's they held serve right, It's like they did what they were supposed to do. There's all these cliches that's surrounded You may have heard the series doesn't start until someone wins on the road, right, Like, there's

all these cliches. So you go into game three with a certain amount of belief, like we still can do this, right. It's not until you drop that third game that it's like, oh, actually we can't, you know. And then typically that leads to kind of a cascading effect because if the team's better than you. You have to be perfect to beat them,

right in your game plan execution. You need role players to hit shots, You need a bunch of different variables to go your way in order to beat a team that's better than you, right, and so like there's a certain level of focus in belief you need to do that typically, and so that's why in game four it typically goes the other direction. And so I just want to shout out the Los Angeles Lakers for showing some pride, showing some fight, and extending this series. I now to

kind of tilt that back towards Denver. I Denver is going to approach Game five on Monday like a must win. They do not want to come back to the Crypto dot Com Arena for a game six right now. If they did have to do that, they would still rightfully be favored to win that game six, right, But they're gonna try to close this thing out in five. It's not just about avoiding a road game six that if the Lakers win, can force a game seven. It's also

about Minnesota. Minnesota is probably gonna close Phoenix out tomorrow if not in game five, right, So Minnesota is gonna be ready and waiting for you in round two. So Denver's gonna want to get this thing over with quickly. And so here's the thing, Like, I'm not gonna sit here and act like Denver hasn't been trying in this series. I do think that they gave up a relatively poor effort in the first half tonight, which is like to be expected. But for the most part in this series,

they've been kind of humming it around. You know, they're eighty five ninety percent like that typical like engaged but not desperate type of effort from Denver. I think we're going to get like a a just a freight train Denver performance on Monday. It's gonna be a really difficult game for the Lakers to stay competitive in, let alone to win. So I'll be picking Denver to win on Monday. I think they're gonna win convincingly. I wouldn't be surprised

if they won by double figures. That's just how much I believe in this Nuggets team, especially with urgency behind them in Game five. That said, I just wanted to compliment the Los Angeleskers again, like just most teams let go of the rope entirely in game four that that was not the case tonight. They showed a wire to wire, really really impressive performance they The big one is when Denver came with their inevitable second half run that they

always come with. Right when that run happened, the Lakers responded. They were able to hold up underneath that onslaught in a way they were not able to in the first three games. So from there, now let's get into the basketball. So how did the Lakers get it done? Which I

thought was interesting. In the first quarter, they ran a lot of their early offense through Austin Reeves and this is something that I actually called for a lot at the beginning of the series, and they didn't do very much, and it's something I'd like to see them do more. In Game five, they didn't even really do it that much after after the first quarter. They went to him a couple times at the end of the fourth quarter and he came through. But in that first quarter in particular,

they were heavy attacking with Austin Reeves. Why does that matter because with the way that Denver has their defensive matchups configured right for the most part in this series, with exception of that run, the in Game two and a handful of other possessions here and there. They've had yokihn ad Gordon on Lebron, Right, those are your physical

matchups that make sense in the front court. Then they're putting KCP on D'Angelo Russell because they know, even though we've discussed this on the show before, Austin because his floor is higher than d Lo's and because he's more versatile, probably a better basketball player than dl. Right, But Delo has this really high ceiling, like, let Dlo get going, he can really get going, which, by the way, to his credit, big bounce back game tonight, hit four threes,

twenty one points, really nice game from D'Angelo Russell. That ceiling that Delo has. Denver wants to avoid that as much as possible, and so they're going to go with KCP on him as much as possible to try to mitigate his particular advantage that slots Jamal Murray onto Austin Reeves. And they just think in general, like Austin's the guy that's gonna run some action, he's gonna have some success, but he's not gonna torch us for thirty thirty five points.

That's the way that Denver's looking at it right. Well, again, that's a way for you to go at a specific advantage in the matchups by keeping Jamal in the action. Again, one of the most important parts of getting a defense in rotation and pick and roll is getting the guarden trail position, and it's a difficult thing to do against really good screen defenders. That was a big thing at

the end of Game two. If you guys remember Contavious callwell, Pope was navigating screens really well with Lebron and stopping him from turning the corner as cleanly as he was, and Aaron Gordon was on the ball right and they were bringing Jokic up to the screen with the Anthony Davis right and so going from KCP this like awesome screen navigator is one of the best perimeter defenders in

the league. But by the way, he's gonna have a hell of a challenge on his hands after if they win Game five, or if they get out of the series and they face Minnesota in the next round, He's gonna have a hell of a challenge on his hands with Anthony Edwards as we all know. But like going from him to Jamal Murray, even though Jamal Murray has done a good job as a team defender. He's kind of like a defensive playmaker, is what I look at

him as. Like. He's not necessarily great at any specific thing, but he's got good instincts and he can jump passing lanes smart help. He does things like that to like make plays on defense. Famously, if you guys remember, he had a big play like that at the end of Game four last year that actually led to the sweep when he tied up Lebron James on that drive, if you guys remember. But in general, Jamal Murray's not a fantastic screen navigator. He's not a guy that's going to

lock up a perimeter player, right. So getting Austin Reeves into those ball screens, he's able to get Jamal into trail position, which gets him going downhill, which actually collapses the defense, which creates all the openings that can get the defense in rotation. I thought that was a big part of the early offensive success that the Lakers had, and like I said, I'd like to see them do more of that in Game five. Lebron James full desperation mode.

We all know that Lebron, We've seen this time and time again. He did this in a big way in Game six against the against the Warriors last year, it's like back against the wall. I know I can't do this all the time because I'm too old, but I can just bully people. And he was constantly attacking mismatches against the smaller Denver players and taking them down into the post. And again it was all right at the

rim or short turnaround jumpers, short those mid range jumpers. Again, we talked about this a lot, but like mid range jumpers inside of twelve thirteen feet tend to be a much higher percentage than in that fifteen to eighteen feet area, right, Lebron did a lot of work in there. He was awesome.

He ended up with thirty points in this game. He's really been with exception of the defensive end in Game two and he didn't had a kind of uneven offensive game or excuse me, game three, I should say Game three was a rough one for Lebron, But for the most part through four games, he's been really, really good, in the hell of a lot better than he was last year. So shout out to Lebron delo big bounce back game. Again, it's not about his ceiling. We know

what dlo ceiling is. It's his floor that has made him such a frustrating player. To his credit, this is the eighth big game in a row for the Lakers, right, the Warriors game, the Timberwolves game, the Pelicans game, the Pelicans game again, and then four Nuggets games. And he was really bad against Golden State, really bad against Minnesota, really good against the Pelicans, good against the Pelicans again, and then he's been good in two of the four Denver games. Right the rub on de lo Is. It's

a back and forth thing. It's like you're getting feast or famine with him, and when he's not hitting shots, he doesn't do enough else to impact the game. But there's no doubt his ceiling is very important, especially to this particular Lakers team. It's been a big part of their offensive surge that they've had over the last forty six games or so of the season since the beginning of January, and so shout out to Delo for the

bounce back Again. It's been a frustrating experience rooting for him over the course of the last couple of playoff runs. But there's no doubt that the highs are really really high with Delo, but we got to make our way to Anthony Davis. I talked before the series. If you guys remember that I was really disappointed with Anthony Davis in the playoff series last year against Jokic. I actually specifically said in the series preview that I have high

expectations for Anthony Davis in this series. Why because Jokic's is peer Right, Like, when you're lumping in all these players, you look at Lebron, it's like you're ranking him against like Kevin Durant, Giannison, Tenna Kumpo, Jason Tatum, Kawhi Leonard, right, Like you're looking at him with that group of guys.

When you're looking Anthony Davis, you're looking at him with Nikole Jokicic, joe El Embiid, Right, maybe you Blumpiannis in there, depending on who you ask, right, But like over the course of the last few years, Jokichen and Embiid have kind of won that battle over the course of the regular seasons, and a lot of that had to do

with health. But then over the tail end of last year, Ad won on this crazy defensive run, and I was really advocating for him going into that series last year as an opportunity for him to kind of put his stamp on everything, and he was pretty good in Game one, struggled to start the game but scored a bunch of points in ball screens, and then he was just not very good in the last three games of the series

and got his butt kicked by Nikole Jokic. And specifically in Game four last year, I thought he let go of the rope and quits a hard word to use, but I thought he stopped really truly giving the urgent and desperate effort. And so I was disappointed because like rom was on a bad foot and he was getting outplayed by Jamal Murray and AD was the guy who kind of like needed to carry the weight, and he struggled.

And so that's why I kind of said coming into this series that I was really hoping for a dominant Anthony Davis performance, and he has been incredible. Specifically in the series preview, I said he needed to close the gap. Eighty is not better than Nikola Jokic. Nikola Jokic is. Nikol Jokic is playing at a level that is dominant compared to other all time greats. Let alone the rest of the league right now. I think there's like a significant distance between him and the second best player in

the league. So like you're not asking Ad to be better than Jokic, but he needed to close the gap and he has done that in a really, really significant way in this series. Really controlled the glass tonight. That was the story of the game. The Lakers actually won the battle, the rebounding battle. I think it was forty six to forty, yeah, forty six to forty and rebounds, and they held up on the offensive glass better. They they had eight offensive rebounds they allowed nine to Denver eighty.

Actually finished the game with twenty three rebounds, twenty five points, twenty three rebounds, and six assists with one turnover. He has been the steady force for the Lakers in this series. He's done a lot of damage in one on one to Nikole Jokich. If you remember last year, the eighty ISOs and post ups against Jokich were so bad that the Lakers had to bail on him. I want to say, I can't remember the exact numbers, but he missed on his first like six tries or something like that, and

then the Lakers just bailed on it. They were like, you can't score on Jokic one on one. We can't go to that anymore. It's actually been one of the most effective plays for the Lakers in this series is going to Anthony Davis against Jokic on the low block. And so I just like, who knows where the Lakers will go from here after the season. Again, I still think it's an incredibly small chance that the Lakers somehow

come back and win the series. Hell, it never has happened before an NBA history, right, But like, moving forward from this series, like Anthony Davis has answered the call. He's been unbelievable. You know, I said coming into this series that Lebron James was playing at the third best level in the league behind Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic. Lebron hasn't quite lived up to that in this postseason series. Although I think Lebron's been very good, but Anthony Davis

has outplayed him in this series. Anthony Davis has been one of the five best playoff players to start this playoff run around the NBA, and I just can't I just can't say enough about how incredible he's been in this series. He has answered the call. It is not his fault that the Lakers are in the position that they're in. I want to shout out the Lakers for weathering that Denver run. Again, that was just inevitably going

to come in the third quarter, and they did. I think they got it down to seven at one point, but they never let it get any closer than that. On the defensive end, just more doubling of Jokic. That was a big one in this game. A lot of doubling, really sharp rotations, and Denver's role guys weren't as good. Right. Jamal Murray had another poor shooting night. The Lakers have done a really good job on Jamal Murray in this series, but they just in general did a better job defensively

all over the floor. And and again you can that's something you can kind of count on, like on the road role players that that is an advantage that typically tilts towards the home. Uh the home, the role players will typically play better when they're at home. And so that didn't quite happen in Game three, happened in a big way in Game four, and then again controlling the glass. Before we move on from this game, I did want to just showed out. Shout out Nicole Jokic because you know,

he has this thing. It kind of reminds me of Lebron when he was in his prime, where like he's basically incapable of playing a bad game. Like I can't even remember which game it was, but Jokic had a bad game. Was it the Sun's game? I can't remember where it was, but it's in the last third of

the regular season where he had a bad game. And I remember coming on the show and being like, hey, this is weird, you know, like Jokic had a bad game, you know, and I remember that was what it was like with Lebron, where like I remember it was in the twenty seventeen playoffs in the Eastern Conference Finals. Lebron had like literally hen consecutive dominant games and then he had a really bad game at home against the Celtics.

It was the one where Avery Bradley hit the game winner coming around that curl and like shot that shot off the front of the rim that went in, and then he and Lebron was bad and it was just

so bizarre that Lebron was bad. And then he came back in game five and like utterly dominated the Celtics as they as they moved on in went to the NBA Finals, right, And like that's what it kind of reminds me of with Jokic, but even within like the normal scale, right, Like, Jokics didn't dominate the game this game the way that he is capable of, right, And he had thirty three points, fourteen rebounds in fourteen assists.

That's preposterous, man, that that's insane. Thirty three, fourteen and fourteen. And it was like an ify game for him compared to where his ceiling is typically at. And again, I just can't say enough about Like again, we are we are witnessing an all time I'm great in his upward trajectory, and I just I hope you don't take it for granted, because like, again, these things end quicker than you think. Not everybody stays in the league as long as Lebron, did,

you know what I mean? And like we're in the middle of something really special here from Nicole jokicch And I'm enjoying every minute of it as a basketball fan. Again, I expect Denver to go home and win convincingly in Game five. I believe they'll win by double figures. But again, if you're if you're the Lakers, this is what you're telling yourself in the locker room. Hey, guys, we have been in the lead for the vast majority of this series.

They were shown the stat on the score on the broadcast tonight, But I think the Lakers have led the Nuggets twice as often in the series as the Nuggets have led the Lakers. Doesn't mean the Nuggets are or the Lakers are better than the Nuggets. The Nuggets have clearly demonstrated that, But the Lakers have played a lot of good basketball in this series. Right, So, if you're a Lakers fan, if you're in that Lakers locker room, what you're telling yourself is we have demonstrated that we

can beat these guys. We feel like we should have one game too. Denver just got crazy hot at the and beat us, right, and like you know, maybe Darvin Ham makes us a smart challenge call on the Jamal Murray bump, and maybe we get out of there with the win. We've played well enough to beat them twice in the four times we've played. All we gotta do is go into Denver and beat them once. It is a just think of it one game at a time.

You beat Denver in game five, then you come home, and that's the buzzsaw game, right that's the game where it's like, now it's three to two, we have all the momentum, we're at home, let's run these dudes out of the gym. Then game seven, anything can happen. If you win, you move on, and you don't have to look any further than Lebron James. He's literally done that

before right now. Obviously he was a much better. That was the best three game stretch he's ever played in his career, obviously, So like it's a lot to ask for an age thirty nine Lebron, But like, again, there are things to target for optimism if you're a Lakers fan. I just personally think that that Denver is not quite pushed the pedal to the metal all the way yet in this series. I think they will on Monday, and

I think it's gonna be jarring. I have a feeling we're gonna be coming on this broadcast after that game going like, holy shit, the Nuggets went to their ceiling. That was scary. These dudes are gonna repeat like that. That's kind of the way I feel like Monday Night's gonna go all right. Moving on, I wanted to hit Oklahoma City, New or New Orleans again. I didn't have

time today just because of what happened last night. I just I had to hit the other three games this morning and it just kind of got away from me in terms of time. So I wanted to hit Oklahoma City, New Orleans because we did hit game two of Miami Boston, and we did hit Game three of Orlando of Orlando Cleveland, but we had not yet hit Oklahoma City New Orleans since Game one. We only hit Game Onen. We didn't hit Game two, so I wanted to get back to them.

And they go three. Oh, they blow out the Pelicans in New Orleans today. This was a big test. I thought the Pels were gonna give them some issues. If you guys remember in the series preview, I thought they had some matchup advantages that kind of played into their strengths. And like they did in game one, Game one, they hung around, gave a good fight. But like the thunder have dominated this series since then, and they have passed that test with flying colors. And Algoma City's defense has

been the story of that first round matchup. They have a ninety four point seven defensive rating, which is the best among playoff teams so far in the first round. Again, that means they allow ninety four point seven points per one hundred possessions. They're defending the three point line really well. They're allowing just nine point four to three pointers made per game from New Orleans. Although New Orleans takes a lot of mid range jump shots, so that's part of

it from process standpoint. But they're doing a good job getting physical up on the ball and taking away easy threes. They're allowing just twenty eight percent from three from New Orleans. Big one on the perimeter here is just like, and this is what's so exciting about the future of the of the Thunder. You know, we talk about Minnesota a lot. Minnesota one of the big reasons why I like their

their roster construct. And I've been talking about this for years with Minnesota, but it's like, it's it's Jaden, it's Rudy, and it's what I call a bracket. The reason why I refer to it as a bracket is like, in individual defense situations, you got a guy that's pressuring the ball and then you have this guy that's waiting on the back line, right, So if he gets over a ball screen and my my on ball defender is in pursuit from behind, he's back pressuring while chet's waiting on

the other end. And there is a certain that bracket gets spread out when it's a lesser perimeter defender and a lesser rim protector, right, And there's just so much more that can be done in that space in between. Not to mention, the lack of rim protection entirely can

allow a guy to get to the rim consistently. But when you have a legitimate rim protector with length that not only can protect the rim but can also bother shots and floater in mid range, and you've got a real long defender that can pressure from behind and disrupt the base, that's that where that bracket can get terrifying defensively, and that's what makes you know the Jade McDaniel's Anthony Everage Rudy Go Bear trio so devastating right Well, Cloma

City kind of has their own version of that. Now it's a little different. It's less based on length because Jade McDaniels is more of a length based defender. Lou Dort is more of like a fire hydrant, low center of gravity, beats you to spots, disrupt your base, make you shoot over the top kind of guy. Right, and he's done just an unbelievable job on brandon Ingram, physical ball pressure, chasing him over the top of screens, beating him literally beating him over the top of screens and

cutting him off, disrupting that base again. When you're going up against a pull up shooter, think of it like this.

If I'm CJ mccollin around brandon Ingram and I'm in the summertime, right, You're going through dribble combinations and footwork, and you're use you're kind of building a muscle memory based on a certain level of freedom of movement, right, and then you get when you get a really good on ball defender who stays physically attached and messes with all of the movement while you're getting to your spot

and disrupts the base. Suddenly the muscle memory at the end of that shot doesn't look the saint as it does when you're in your shooting drills, right, And like with dort On brandon Ingram and Jalen Williams on CJ. McCollum, and then the guy guy's coming off the bench too, like Hassan Wallace and and UH and Aaron Wiggins have

both done a really good job. They just have disrupted the perimeter players that initiate everything for New Orleans and now the one thing for New Orleans obviously without Zion being in the game, it just changes everything, right, Like if Zion's in, Dort's probably guarding him, that moves Jalen Williams over to UH to that moves Jalen Williams over to brandon Ingram, which is probably gonna put Shay on CJ, which is like a better matchup, right, And so like

obviously Pelicans fans, I'm aware Zion being out is a is a significant you know factor here. But within the context of this perimeter battle that we're seeing in this series, the Pelicans, the Pelicans are just getting their askied and and that that's a credit to those thunder perimeter defenders. But again, the other side of that bracket is chat. He had four blocks today. He got Trey Murphy driving closeouts twice when he tried to dunk on and like

cleanly blocked him on dunks twice. The first one like Tray brought it back like this while he was flying down the lane. I honestly, God don't know how Check got to it without fouling him. It was an incredible defensive play. He got both CJ Andbi in ball screens. And again that's that bracket on the CJ one. It's

like he finally he snakes the ball screen. It kind of gets over and gets over to his left hand side and he just doesn't even see Check coming and Chat just spikes it into the ground like a volleyball player, right Like It's just it's another it's another layer of that defense that makes it difficult. They are forcing nineteen turnovers per game in this series. That's the most among playoff teams. Remember they led that category in the regular

season as well. They're going twenty one points per game off of turnovers as well. And then on the offensive end of the floor, like Shay, again, this is a lesser opponent, and we're gonna get into that minute, but Shay has had no slowdown from the regular season twenty eight points, five rebounds, and six assists per game on fifty nine percent true shooting. So just a tiny dip in volume inefficiency which again the Pelicans have really good

piminter defenders. Give some credit to Herb Jones, right, and then Jaln Williams. His playoff debut has been awesome. Twenty point seven rebounds and five assists per game, fifty three percent from the field and forty two percent from three. I am full. I'm I've said this before, like, I think Jalen's so damn good. I think he could be

better than SGA one day. I've said this on the show before, but I look at him as like the best combination of playmaking, downhill force and pull up shooting that I've seen from a wing player in a very very long time. And I am not the least bit surprised that he is just completely kicking ass in the playoffs.

There was a stretch in the second quarter today where the Pelicans put Jose Alvarado on him and he just immediately bullied him twice, once on the post and once on the low post, once on the high post, and they just immediately had to pull him off and put Naji Marshall on him. He hit a couple of these like crazy, like hanging double pump shots in the second quarter, which just are indicator of just how insane of an

athlete he is. And then Josh Gitty, Like Josh Kitty had a really rough Game one, and obviously all these teams around the league are gonna be leaving him open just to give him a better chance of containing elsewhere. And he's been great since struggling in Game one. He's been hitting his spot up threes more frequently, had a couple of nice transition pushes today. He had this one against CJ McCollum in the first half where he did this like nice behind the back dribble into a eurostep floater.

Hit twenty one points today. I actually we do a here at the volume. We do like a little playoff points league, and Josh Gitty was one of the players. I picked one because I thought the Thunder would win at least the first round. And then also, like Josh Gitty is just a guy that's gonna get opportunities, and he capitalized on those in a big way today. So I was a little concerned about that pick in Game one.

But Josh has been making me look good over the last couple of games, but now kind of zooming out a little bit. This is by far the easiest matchup in the West that goes without saying, right like, they're playing the eight seed without their best player. I was thinking about this earlier too. They're the only team in the West playoffs without a top ten player. Like Oklahoma City as Shay clearly a top ten player, Denver Jokic clearly a top ten player. Minnesota Anthony Edwards, I think

he might be a top ten player. Now we might just have like I's certainly playing at that level. I mean, whether he can sustain, we'll see, but he's playing at that level. The Clippers Kawhi Leonard when he's healthy, obviously top ten player. He's out, so I guess, or he's obviously unhealthy, so I guess you can kind of factor that in. But the Mavericks have Luca that's a top ten player, the sons of Kevin Durant that's a top ten player. The Lakers of Lebron and Anthony Davis. I

think both of them are top ten players. So like, no, there's just so much talent in the league. We might have to zoom out and actually make a list and see who might get cut from that list. But the point is is, like when you're talking about stars like the Pelicans are the one team that just doesn't have that level of firepower, right, so obviously you have to

beat who's in front of you. You earned this matchup by getting the number one overall, the number one seed in the Western Conference, So credit the Thunder for getting that done right. But I am excited to see round two, and I think they've passed the first round test with

flying colors. Round two, whether it's Clippers or MAVs, that's going to be a really really interesting and exciting series running into some real firepower, running into some real like multiple high level shot creators that are every shot creator on both of those teams better than CJ and Brandon. So it's just gonna be an entirely different level that they're gonna be going up against, and then much better

frontlines that they're gonna have to deal with. Zubach is just a really, really a much higher level center than a Jonas Valanciunas, even just even if you look at some of these small ball front lines that Dallas can throw out there, Daniel Gafford even bring some size to the table. So it's gonna be a big challenge for them in round two. But they've played really well in the first round and again at the Defense event is where I've been most impressed by them. All right, guys,

that is all I have for tonight. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. A quick breakdown for tomorrow. The plan as of right now is we're going after Clippers MAVs and that's just gonna be uploaded to YouTube that won't be live. And then Monday morning we have the nerd SESSH guys coming on the show and we're gonna bounce around the entire first round and go through and hear what Carson and Logan have to say about everything. Again, I appreciate you guys for

rocking with me. I will see you tomorrow. The volume