Hoops Tonight - Pascal Siakam Raptors-Pacers trade, Embiid dominates Nuggets-76ers, Clippers big win

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responsible gambling resources. All right, welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody, hop all if you guys are having an incredible week. We got another major NBA trade today, second one involving the Raptors as well as Pascal Siakam is headed to the Indiana Pacers. We're gonna bring that trade down from every angle, including some

of the teams who missed out on Pascal Siakam. Then we're gonna talk about Joe Lumbiid solidifying his first place position in the MVP race by out playing Yo Kitchen beating the Nuggets last night. Specifically, he was incredibly impressive on the defensive end of the floor. I want to kind of break that concept down a little bit, and then at the end of the show, like I said we would, because the Clippers have made it through the Timberwolves,

and thunder Games. We're gonna place them in our contender tiers. We're gonna do a deep dive on the Clippers and talk about where they fit among the list of contenders. Also, we did talk about doing a mail bag today, but we're gonna push that one more day because the Siacam trade kind of threw off my schedule today. So keep

dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. I'll look through all three shows this week and put together a nice mail bag for tomorrow's show, and then don't forget that. Later tonight, after the final buzzer of MAVs Lakers on ABC, will be going live on YouTube, so I hope to see you guys there as well. You guys are the joefore we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. It mean a lot to me if you guys will take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button.

Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And then, last but not out least, keep dropping mail bag questions. Also, if any of you guys had a bad ticket buying experience.

I remember one time I bought a ticket to go see Lebron when he was with the Cavs back when I was living in Charlotte, and when I got to my seat, it was the visibility was just terrible, and I remember being like, man, I wish I would have known what this is like, Like I probably wouldn't have bought the ticket right Like, it can be a frustrating process between hidden fees, not really knowing where your seat

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to the Indiana Pacers. Bruce Brown is the trade piece going back from the standpoint of salary filler. And then there's three first round picks in the deal. That said, I absolutely love this deal for Indiana on a couple of different fronts. First of all, the two first round picks that are coming from Indiana that were Indiana's own picks, Indiana is gonna be good, Like they're gonna be a mid to late round first laid to mid to late first round pick. Those are picks that have a significantly

high miss rate, right, So like that part. And then I guess the third pick is the worst out of OKC, the Clippers, the Jazz, and the Rockets, Like that's probably gonna end up being okac's pick. So that's another late first rounder. So basically three most likely mid to late

first rounders. And Bruce Brown, who's a good player. Bruce Brown's a good player, and we're gonna talk abou him a little because I wouldn't surprised if he gets traded again or if if they end up moving a different one of those guys, because the Raptors have a bunch of players at that position. But that was the position that the Pacers were, and they have so many guards Tyre Salliburt and Buddy Heald, Ben Mathren, TJ McConnell, Andrew Demhard, Aaron E. Smith kind of can function as a two

as well. It does a lot of the same stuff Bruce Brown does, so like literally, they just had a redundancy at that position. That's not to say Bruce Brown is not good or not valuable, but he's less valuable to the Pacers than Pascal Siakam is to the Pacers, right, Obviously, not to mention Pascal is just a much better player, But specifically, Pascal is an awesome basketball fit with the Pacers, and I want to dive into that concept for a

little bit. Let's start on the offensive end of the floor. So, as I've said so many times on the show, I think Tyr Saliburton is a transcendently great offensive engine. I think he's on that trajectory with the Steph curries. The Nikolajokich is the Luka. The Luka Dancic is the singularly transcendent offensive engines that you just put out on the floor and it's like a guaranteed great shot like ninety

percent of the possessions that he's on the floor. Right, Well, Pascal Siakam helps him both on and off the ball. I want to start on the ball first, and in this case, meaning when Pascal Siakam has the ball, he gives an additional type of offensive shot creation once you go past that. Like a lot of the guys on the pacers are good advantage extenders like Miles Turner can hit picking pop jump shots, and he can attack close

outs and things along those lines. But he's not a guy you're just gonna dump the ball to and have him be an offensive engine. Obi Toppin is almost entirely a transition runout guy and a back door cutter, right, That's pretty much what Obi Topin did in this offense. Buddy, healed a lot of ghost screens going to the three point line. He's expecting to get set up with high quality shots. So really isn't another guy on the roster who's a high level individual shot creator. Not only is

Siakam that, he's a very different version of that. Haliburton is very much like he can beat switches. He's a great ISO player, but he's very much like a manipulator of the defense to generate advantage situations for other players. That's his best trait. He's a great pull up shooter, really quick guard with an excellent floater, and great touch around the rim with his like scooping layups and things

like that. So I don't want to act like I'm I don't want you guys to think that I'm underplaying how good Tyres is as an on ball scorer, but his best trade is his ability to set up people with advantage situations right well, Pascal Siakam is much more of that classic mismatch attacking forward right posting up there are He's getting one point one to two points per

possession in post up situations including passes. Among all the players in the league who have done it at least one hundred and fifty times, only Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, and Anthony Davis have been better. So he's literally been one of the very best post up shot creators in the league this year, the best that's not one of the three Titan centers that we have in the league. Right isolation situation, Siakam gets one point zero eight points

per possession. That's twelve out of fifty players in the league who have run at least seventy five. And then a lot of talk about the jump shot with Pascal Siakam. And don't get me wrong, it's not good, but it's not really all that bad either. Like he's fifty five percent on in effective field goal percentage on unguarded catch and shoots. It's really not that bad. That's one point

zero nine points per shot. Like, so if some team decides to leave him open, like he's gonna be able to make him at a decent enough clip, right, that's not a shot that's gonna necessarily hurt your offense. And he's a solid closeout attacker. Gets one point zero one points per spot up possession. That's firmly in the middle. That's firmly average. So again it's it's appropriate to bring it up in the sense that he's not a flamethrower, but he's not a guy that's necessarily gonna hurt you

with his lack of shooting either. But where I'm most excited with Siakam on the Pacers is off the ball. Pascal Siakam is one of the very best transition players in the NBA. He's made seventy eight field goals this year in transition, that's the ninth most in the entire NBA. And like we all know, Tyree's is an excellent kick

ahead passer. He's constantly That's how Obi Toppin. Obi Toppin has basically made himself a functional starter for the Pacers based purely on the fact that he's a good cutter and a good good a guy that can run out and transition right and that he provides real vertical spacing right. That's something Ziakam is going to come in and do right away at a really high level. Also, a very good cutter. Scored on a cut thirty four times so

far the season. It's like the thirty second most in the NBA, I think, which is definitely a lot right, Like not one of the top cutters in the league, but a very good cutter. He's also set eighty second percentile for efficiency cutting and again with Tyre Saliburton running your lane in transition cut with real vertical spacing out of the weak side corner. These are things that are highly highly valuable alongside a passer of his caliber. It's

another form of spacing. When you combine that with the pretty solid, unguarded catch and shoot shooting, I don't think he's going to be a bad off player for them at all. That's it. We haven't even got to the defensive end of the flour. This is a team that severely lacked in interior physicality in defense. Right. Miles Turner is a really really good defensive player as like a shot blocker right, and he can do a little switching

as well. The thing with Miles, though, is what we've seen around the league is like it's no longer protecting the rim with your one guy, like it's that four

or five is so important. The main reason why is as pull up jump shooting has gotten become more and more prevalent in the league, your big man's had to come higher and higher up to the level of the screen, which creates an opening on that backside right, and that's where the lowman comes in, the guy that can tag the roller and pick and roll situations, help at the rim in the event that your big man has to step up and help elsewhere, right, cleaning up the defensive glass,

extra efforts. When a guy pump fakes and gets the big man off the ground, that second wave is typically the low man rotating back out to the perimeter. You need an athlete that can bother things on the inside and then do you know, two steps in a drop step and close out and get a good contest on a corner three point shooter. These are all things that Sam is going to be a massive, massive upgrade for this team. The entire physical profile of the team changes

with this move. I would presume there. I mean, they might stay with Buddy Heel that it could be Ben Matherin. But if it's Haliburton and it ends up being something along the lines of like a Aaron Nesmith Siakam Turner front line, that just becomes way more physically imposing than what we've seen elsewhere this season, right, So like it just adds a new dynam to the defensive physicality of the team. By the way, he's great rebounder to average

eight rebounds a game over the last five years. Pascal Siakam and the Pacers are a bottom five defensive rebounding team this year. Seacom's also a very good offensive rebounder, so that'll help them on that end of the floor

as well. But bottom line is like fundamentally increases your physical profile on both ends of the floor, improves your defensive rebounding, improves your rimp protection and overall defensive capability, gives you an additional shot creator that can add some variety to what you do offensively, not to mention just making tyrese Aliburton's job easier and then in off ball situations he is a seamless fit with Tyres Aliburton. Absolutely loved the move. Didn't really have to give up anything

of real consequence. Round of applause to the Pacers. Really really well done. Wouldn't be surprised if they're not done either. I wouldn't be surprised if they look to shore up that two or that three spot before the deadline as well, although salary matching is a little tough there, so we'll see how that goes. On the Raptors front, they already have RJ. Barrett and Gary Trent Junior, who both like r J. Barrett, can play the three, can play the two.

But to me from a size perspective, and he's actually a pretty good point of attack defender. I look at him more as a two. Gary Trent Junior is a decent point of attack defenders, a pretty solid offensive player as well. So different archetype. Bruce Brown obviously different than both of them, but very good point of attack defender, guy that can provide some rim pressure and transition, decent ball handler, really versatile, kind of Swiss army knife type

of player. But they all kind of play that two to three hybrid type of spot right. And so although Garry trans Junior is more of a two, So the question is is like, at that point, do you want to have, you know, two of those guys making twenty plus million, you know what I mean? And especially if you don't plan on playing both of them together. Bruce is having a little bit of a down shooting year, and so is RJ. Barrett. So although he's been shooting

really well with the Raptors, is RJ. Barret's been playing so well with the Raptors that they may kind of prioritize him. But point being, it might be that Bruce Brown is available now at the deadline in a way that he might not have been otherwise if he was just on the Pacers. Not sure the Pacers would have got rid of him, but they had to get rid of him to get Pascal Siakam. The Raptors might have more need for whatever they could get back from Bruce

Brown than Bruce Brown himself. I personally, as someone who roots for the Lakers, would absolutely love to have Bruce Brown. D'Angelo Russell is a redundancy on the Lakers, but he's actually a good basketball player. He makes an affordable salary, makes less than twenty million a year, excellent passer, excellent off ball shooter. He's a guy that could actually kind of connect provide some connectivity and leadership for that Raptors team. I think he's a I think Delo is very much

a middle of the ground asset. Like he's a guy that, like some teams would view as a negative asset and some teams have view as a positive asset, but only slightly so in either direction. And no one would really complain if he was in the trade if they were getting something else that that's more of like the sweetener, right, So, like, what if the Lakers were to give him, like you know,

D'Angelo Russell and Jalen Hood Schafino and Maxwell Lewis. That's like literally a first round pick from last year who hasn't been able to play for the Lakers, right, And then Maxwell lewis an interesting little undrafted guy, although I think you might have been a second round pick if

I remember correctly. And then d Lo a veteran that could help, and maybe they throw in some second round picks or something like that, or maybe maybe if it push comes to shove and the Lakers really want him, they could throw in a first round pick because they have one that they could trade. But Bruce Brown, to me is a guy that like is a really useful

playoff weapon. Specifically, the reason why I'd be so excited with him on the Lakers is he would just add an entire physical element to this team that they haven't

had since Alex Crusoe was on the roster. You can imagine a lineup that hasn't engaged Lebron James in his playoff mode with Anthony Davis and Bruce Brown on the floor just being so much more physically imposing than some of these lineups that we've seen from the Lakers this year, although his shooting has been a little bit of an issue, which I you know, obviously would be worried about a little bit for the lakers sake, But he did make a lot of threes in the postseason last year. But

Lakers aren't the only team. There are a bunch of other teams that could potentially look at Bruce Brown as an option. He's going to be a little bit tough to match salaries into a Ford, especially if the Raptors want draft compensation. So it'll be interesting to see if

any team gets in on that race. But he's a guy keep an eye on the other team I wanted to look at here is the Golden State Warriors, because the Golden State Warriors kind of felt like the clubhouse favorite for Siakam at least that's what it seemed like a couple of weeks ago. And now he's off the table, right and I don't think they can afford Lori Markinen and I've Jeremy Grant. I'm not even sure if he's going to be available, not even sure if he wants to go play for a winning team. I'm not even

sure he wants to leave Portland. Under any circumstances. So I'm not really sure what the deal is there, and so the options are getting loose. But at the end of the day, like what I look at with Golden State, We've talked about this issue before, but to me, you're trying to make one last run at this thing with Steph and Draymond as your brackets at the one in five. I think Clay at the two is fine as long as you're three and four are really good basketball players.

And so I was actually looking at this today and I wonder, because there's a specific guy that I have my eye on here from the Brooklyn Nets. What I would do is I call Brooklyn and I'd offer them Andrew Wiggins, and I'd offer them Jonathan Kaminga, and I'd offer them Moses Moody, and i'd offer them draft compensation, and I'd ask for mckal bridges and Dorian Finney Smith.

And I know that that we haven't really heard much about mckail bridges being available, but he's now in his late twenties, and the Brooklyn Nets thing has been a pretty clear, you know, description of the fact that mckail bridges is not going to be like a foundational, franchise altering type of talent. He's a really, really, really good role player who makes a lot of money, because really

really good role players cost a lot of money. Jonathan Kaminga has the potential to be a franchise altering player right and certainly has a higher ceiling than what we That's not to say he will reach that secene, but certainly has a higher ceiling than what McHale Bridges has been able to reach here heading into his late twenties. This is a guy that if you've got those two guys, that's two guys that can both defend on the perimeter at a really high level, that can both shoot the basketball.

McKale Bridges provides some legitimate second side creation. He's not an excellent passer, but he's a good pull up jump shooter. He's a guy that can score when you put him on an island a little bit. Now we're looking at a lineup with you're foregoing your future, right, You're moving on from Moses Moody and Jonathan Kaminga. That's obviously a significant loss. I think the team is probably done with

Andrew Wiggins at this point. With everything that's gone down since he left the team last year, he'd be basically functioning as salary filler in that situation. If you're Brooklyn, you're getting a legitimate potential future All Star in Jonathan Kaminga and Andrew Wiggins, who's a starting level NBA wing. Right, So you're turning two wings into two wings except for one that you don't really have much use for, but

Jonathan Kaminga, who has legitimate long term potential. It's just a more of a forward thinking move in terms of Brooklyn's perspective. Then I'm working out there with Stephan Clay with two excellent perimeter defenders, an additional shot creator in Michale Bridges slots, Klay Thompson on easier achievable perimeter defense roles, and Draymond Grain anchoring things in the front court. That to me, is an example of a type of deal that I would make. But I think the Warriors need

to be aggressive. I think they need to make something significant change here. One of the nice things about that specific deal too, is it keeps Chris Paul in the fold, which allows you to kind of maintain your offensive organization and just kind of steadiness in those non steph minutes when he gets back from his injury, obviously, But yeah, that's an example of a ne move that I'd be looking for. But the options are running out. OG's off

the board, Pascal Siakam's off the board. Options are running out. The Warriors got to find something, all right. Moving on to Sixers Nuggets, So weird game because neither guy wanted to guard each other until the very end. In terms of jokicen Embiid, I want to start on the defensive end of the floor though, because really, like I think if these two teams were to happen to meet in an NBA Finals series, they would go down guarding each other.

They would that keeping them off each other for the most part was very much a regular season innings eating type of thing. And what do you know, push comes to shoves, tie game late, they both start guarding each other, right. But I want to start on the defensive end for Philly because the Sixers made the Nuggets do something last night that you don't see the Nuggets do very often. They made them rush and they made them make mistakes.

The Nuggets played seven and a half minutes excuse me with Jokic on the fourth quarter last night and amounted a sixty two point five offensive rating, about half worthy. You'd like to see them be in that situation, right, force them into five turnovers in the fourth quarter, And it all comes down to, in my opinion, the job they did, specifically Patrick Beverley and Joel Embiid guarding the

Jokich Murray actions two on two really quickly. On Patrick Beverley just did an awesome job on Jamal Murray, specifically

with back pressure. Early in the fourth quarter. He had a block on Jamal Murray late clock situation where he kind of stripped him from behind, and that's one of those plays where like it was a late clock situation too, Like Jamal probably misses that shot just because it's a really tough shot, but Pat makes an extra effort and most importantly plants a seed up here, plants a seed that says like, you can't see me, but I'm right behind you and I'm coming. I'm gonna be swiping at

the basketball. I'm gonna be contesting your shot from behind. I'd like it gets in the ball handler's head. And what ended up happening is when Jamal was coming off those ball screens, He's typically a very He's typically a very methodical shot creator, right, He's typically a guy that's gonna put you in jail uses size, get to spots that are like fifteen feet away from the basket. But in his two man game the end of the game,

he was just going downhill. The reason being he's terrified that Patrick Beverly's coming from behind, right, because he's just such a scrappy player with the way that he competes over the top of screens and can provide that rear view, you know, that back pressure, right, And he ended up turning the ball over twice on these bounce passes where he's just going one hundred miles an hour and just throwing like a super quick bounce pass at the guy's

knees and like that. That's that. I want to give Patrick Beverly credit for that, because I just haven't seen many players kind of speed up Jamal Murray like that, especially in a high profile game like that. And then on the embied front, one of the things he was doing in the fourth quarter that I thought was really really smart was he was denying him his usual spots where he catches the ball. We talked about this when the Clippers played the Lakers a few weeks ago when

Lebron did the same thing to Kawhi Leonard. A lot of these super strong players, they are really good at creating easy passing windows. Right Like, if you asked me, and I'm a relatively big guy, if you asked me to try to deny Nicole Jokic to basketball, I would have no chance. I've try to get in front of him and just push down in my back. He'd create an easy over the top angle, right like. Or he'd swim move around and create another angle, and like a

two hundred and thirty pounds right like. He's just so damn big that he makes other big humans look small. But the thing is is Joel Embiid's one of the few guys in the league who's actually big enough to contend with Jokic physically, and so he was able to get in front and make it so that there was no passing angle when he was denying those entries like to the elbow or on the post. He basically threw the Nuggets offense off and they bailed out of those

plays and tried to do other things. There was a play where Jokic was trying to catch the ball at the elbow and Be denies him, and so Reggie Jackson goes, oh shit, I gotta do something, and he tries to drive downhill and ends up and then e Be. This is the crazy part about it. He would be able to deny Jokic and then recover to the rint. He didn't. I Jokic at the elbow, Reggie decides to drive, he just swim moves off. Jokic gets back and meets him at the rint, blocks the shot or forces a really

ugly miss. There's another one. He's fronting Jokic in the post, denies the post entry ball gets worked around. Jokic runs up to the perimeter and beat just makes an impromptu switch back onto Aaron Gordon Patrick Beverly rotates back out to Michael Porter Junior and then he's back at the rim. And that was one of the ones where Jamal Murray ended up forcing one of those rushed bounce passes, even though Jamal turned the corner simply because Embiid was waiting

at the rim. Again. So that concept of denying Jokic's normal touches and his normal spots on the floor and then also getting back and protecting the rim that literally

just threw Denver's offense for a loop. And so again we can talk about the offense and we're going to, but like, to me, the end of that game came down to Joel Embiid, specifically with Patrick Beverly's help, just single handedly throwing a giant wrench into Denver's offensive process, and that allowed the other three guys to kind of just like gap and recover, right, so like play kind of in that middle ground where they feel comfortable closing out to a shooter while also you know, digging down

and kind of disrupting things inside, and again held the Nuggets to a sixty two point five offensive rating with Yokic on the floor over the final seven and a half minutes of the game. On the other end, continues to handle doubles really well. Another tennisis night. That's his third time this year that he's had at least ten assists. Last year, Joel Embiid had just nine games with at

least seven assists. He already has thirteen this year. Just halfway through the year, Denver was doubling one pass away and a lot of Embiid's like face up situations, which we'll talk about a minute because it's a strategy I don't necessarily agree with. But he was just taking what the defense was given him, throwing those quick one handed passes to the guy one passed away, and they were playing off of that. And then it really came down to the face up game. Nuggets down the stretch with

these like face up jab step jumpers. It's a specific shot. He's been making it a really high clip this year. He's thirty five for sixty five, so well over fifty percent on face up no dribble jump shots this year. And like he just just just absolutely picked him apart at the end of the game, was doing it there and Gordon was doing it to nicolea Jokic from three. It was incredibly dominant. Had a big euro step in transition around Nikole Jokic for a layup. It was just

an unbelievably dominant game from Joel Embiid. And here's the thing, like he said after the game to Nicole Jokic, and I appreciated this because it's a respect to the banner. You know, you guys know here shout out logan swam had a content here at the volume. He calls me a loyalist the banner, but like Embiid was being a loyalist to the banner, he goes, Jokic is the best player, and then he said something like I'll see you in a couple of weeks, which was awesome. It's gonna be

excited to see that matchup in Denver. But here's the thing. He's by far the best regular season player in the league, and it's not particularly close. There's nobody in the league right now impacting winning on a night to night basis the way that Joel Embiide is over the course of the eighty two He is far and away the MVP front runner right now. The next step is go beat the allegations. He has a reputation of being a playoff underperformer.

It's a combination of two things, in my opinion, injuries in his jump shot failing him. They probably are connected to some extent, right and Sixers fans are constantly pointing that out, like give him a healthy playoff run. He just hasn't really had a chance to show what he can do when he's healthy in that phase and that may or may not be true, but that's the reputation.

The allegations are that he's a playoff underperformer. Go beat them, Go show everybody that they're wrong, and everything will flip like that. Go show everyone that they're wrong. It's all he needs to do. And if it is as simple as him being injured, take care of yourself. Who cares about the MVP this year. Do what you gotta do

to make sure you're healthy in April. And then when he gets there, it's that jump shot because he's shooting extremely well on those jab step jumpers or the no dribble jumpers, but the jumper is basically where it was last year. Overall, last year zero point nine to seven points per Joel emb jump shot. This year zero point nine to eight, so he's one percent better than he

was last year. The difference is last year he went from zero point nine to seven points per jump shot in the regular season down to zero point five to nine points per jump shot in the playoffs. This has been a consistent theme on and Beats longer playoff runs. Doesn't shoot the jump shot as well as he did in the regular season, which becomes a cascading effect. Guys no longer have to stunt and deal with that shot makes them be able to beat him to the spot better.

When he makes his post moves, it just causes things to fall apart for him offensively, and that's why he goes from looking like the MVP to looking like something significantly worse than that when he gets to that point. And again, injuries play a big role, but get there, get their healthy, beat the allegations. That's the next step for Joel Embid. I thought Tyree s Maxy had another

big night for a high profile game. I always want to keep an eye on these kinds of games for the for the young up and coming stars, because they're, you know, reasonable fac similes of what playoff games look like. He went for twenty five points and nine assists with just one turnover, had a big driving layup to tie the game in the in the fourth quarter when they weren't matched up in transition. Good showing. And then Tyrese

excuse me, Tobias Harris. The Nuggets without Nikole Jokis were making a little run there in the early fourth quarter, and Tobias Harris literally single handedly kept the Sixers in the game just by attacking the smaller Nuggets players in the post and hitting little short jump shots and shots

around the rim. That matchup attacking forward is such an important role in the NBA for that reason, because there are so many guys on these floor on these courts most of the time, especially in those like kind of bridge moments like end of the third, early fourth, end of the first, early second quarter, where there's like bench players on the floor, there's lots of these smaller players on the floor that you can attack if you have a matchup, a matchup attacking forward that can get a

high quality shot close to the rim or draw double team and allow you to play out of that. I thought Tobias Harris did a really, really nice job of that in the early fourth quarter on the Nuggets front a lot of really uncharacteristic mistakes that Reggie Jackson drivery challenged Joel Embiid at the rim. There are twelve seconds on the shot clock, and when he missed it and fell on the floor, the Sixers ran out. That was

when Embiid had the euro step for the layup. And specifically, like I think I saw what Reggie was thinking on that play, because so think of it like this, if I'm in a drop coverage, I know even if I get off of the screen, if they're in a drop coverage. If I get off the screen, I know this guy waiting for me. But I think he saw Embiid denying and was like, oh shit, if I can get around this screen and beats down at the rim, he's denying, So all I have to do is get over the

top of the screen and then I'll be at the rim. Well, well, he underestimated I think Embiid's speed. And what was crazy is as he kind of turned the corner, Embid was already there and then he still decided to go into

him with so much time on the shot clock. So I thought that was bad process, right, he should have just pulled it out, not to mention it ended in a switch and Tyree Smacksy was on Jokic, so he could have just you know, Yokic should have probably crashed there too, because he probably could have got offensive rebound put back or you know that how Jamal Murray always does that thing where he kind of gets really deep into the lane and then just kind of floats it

up in front of the rim and Yogic will go grab it and then shoot his little pop shot. Right, So that was kind of a challenging possession Jamal threw two really bad bounce passes on plays where Patrick Beverley was rushing him from behind. On the second one, it was the play where Embiid was denying yokicch in the post and the ball got worked around and ended up

in a Jamal Murray Aaron Gordon ball screen. But Joel Embiid made an impromptu switch back onto Aaron Gordon at the last second and Patrick Beverly had to rotate out to Michael Porter Jr. There was like a two second indo there where they ran to jokicch at the top of the key and Michael Porter Jr. Was wide open on the right wing and Jamal Murray just missed him before he ran in and turned it over. Jokic transitioned possession.

There was a play where Jamal Murray tried to backcut on I think Tyree s Maxi and Jokic just threw a really bad bounce pass. First of all, the back cut wasn't open, and then he also threw a bad pass and so it just went out of bound. So that was sloppy again. Five turnovers for the Nuggets in the fourth quarter, and then the defense wasn't very good they had two possessions where they didn't get matched up in transition the first one, Like I clipped both of

these plays. I took this entire stretch run by the Way and did a clip by clip analysis of it on my Twitter feed at underscore json lts. You guys can find that there. But like, because I've had a lot of people in the comment say, you know, hey, ja's gonna be really nice if we had video underneath the clips, and this is what I'm gonna say, I know that I'd love to have that right now, We're not set up for that. That's just the reality. So my counter is every morning when I'm doing a film session,

I catalog this. Not every morning, but most of the mornings that I do a film session, I'm cataloging these plays in threads on the feed, and so there you can go to try to see some more visual examples of the things I'm talking about. I really hope and I believe that in the long run, we will be able to do that on the show. We're just not at that point right now. So I appreciate the feedback. I promise you guys, it's something that I really want

to do. It's just a question of logistics at this point, and we'll see when we get to that point. Anyway, though, you can see on this particular transition possession, you can see Yokic screaming to Reggie Jackson, like go pick up Tyres Maxie, what are you doing? Go pick him up? And he just didn't get there in time. Reggie Jackson or Tyris Maxy just shot down the lane and got a right in a lamp. That was the one that Michael Porter Junior goaltended. Then there was another one where

this one was Jokic's fault running out in transition. It was the it was after the Reggie Jackson forced layup that he missed. Jokic in transition defense is supposed to run to the rim. Instead he ran out to Patrick Beverley in the corner and when no one was at the rim, and so then he had to sprint back into the play when he saw Embiid coming and it was like a close out situation in transition. It's just there's no chance. If he's waiting there, he can probably

force him Bead to pull it out. He wasn't waiting there, he was sprinting there. That was when embiad hit him with that eurostep and got to the basket. So two bad transition defense possessions led to led to easy layups. It just again and then the jumpers you got to live with. But like there was, they were just sloppy on both ends of the floor. It was an uncharacteristic

Nuggets performance. That said, I do want to credit the Sixers because I thought they kind of played the Nuggets into those bad tendencies with really really good defense, especially by Joel Embiid. Here's the reality. The Sixers are a little bit of a tough matchup for Denver. Embiid is big enough to challenge Jokic physically, like we mentioned earlier,

in a way that most NBA centers aren't. There were only two possessions in the game where Yokic actually posted up Joel Embiid individually, and he got good looks on both. There's a up and under where he had a left handed layup that he missed, and then there was a right handed hook shot that he got that was relatively easily So hard to say exactly how that matchup would look in a bigger picture of this phase of their

careers because they didn't guard each other that much. That said, like, there's no doubt that mb does match up better with Jokic than most of these centers around the league. And then on the other end of the floor, there's just nobody on Denver that can guard Joel Embiid. But the question is that doesn't matter if Philly's not good enough to get out of the Eastern Conference, because right now

I would pick Boston and Milwaukee over Philly. So like, yeah, it's a bad matchup for Denver, but unless Philly makes some sort of trade to provide some more perimeter talent, I just don't necessarily think they're good or or unless Joel emb just goes transcendently great in the postseason, I don't necessarily see them making the finals, which puts them in a situation where where Denver might not even have

to see that specific matchup. And outside of that, there's just like, he doesn't have any problems with Anthony Davis. I mean, maybe we'll see if Anthony Davis can reverse that trend this year, but he didn't have any problems with Anthony Davis, doesn't have any problems with any of these other centers out West. It's the one guy who's kind of big enough to kind of challenge him in that sense. Hopefully we'll get to see more examples of them on each other one on one when they play

in a couple of weeks. A playoff series would be fun to see between those two, wouldn't it. They would get nasty. I think they would end up guarding each other for the most part. That's a series i'd love to see. One other note with Denver, if there was one kind of crack in the armor that's worth calling attention to, it's Jokic's jump shot down the stretch of the game. Nicola had I think two wide open threes. There was at least one in the corner, one at

the top, and then maybe one more. But like he had some wide open looks and he missed him both. And here's the thing. Last year, in the regular season, a Jokic jumper was worth one point one to seven points per shot. In the playoffs, it was worth one point two to one points per shot. And as I've talked so much about on the show, over the Top, shot making was a huge part of Denver winning, like the Lakers were in every single game of that Western

Conference Finals. And then Jokic and Murray shot them out of it at the end. That was a big part of it. There's a highlight rail going around of Jokic just bombing crazy jumpers over the top on their way to winning the title. That was a big part of one, the only part so much more that Denver does well, but that is one of the things that helped them get over the top this year. Or Yokiics jump shot is worth just one point zero four points per jump shot.

That's in that like Lebron James territory, right for the record, that's seventeen percent down from where it was last year in the postseason. Not seventeen percent shooting, but seventeen percent relative to where it was last year, from one point two to one down to one point oh four. That's

roughly seventeen percent, right. So there's a significant decline in Yokic's jump shot, and we saw that the year before last two, and so I would like to see Jokic have an extended stretch of hot shooting before the postseason just to demonstrate that he still has that in his bag, because I do think it's a very very important thing to kind of add to that margin and margin of error that Denver has all right, before we get out here,

it's hot Clippers. Big win against Oklahoma City last night, as I expected, As I told you guys after this Minnesota Timberwolves win, my initial kind of interpretation interpretation of the Clippers is they're kind of matchup dependent, and they're going to struggle a lot with a lot of these bigger teams that can kind of bully them. And then they're going to especially the ones that have good perimeter defenders, that can make long perimeter defenders that can challenge Paul

George and Qui pull up jump shots. And then I thought they would kind of throttle the other perimeter teams, the other finesse teams right, and they kind of handled Okay. See last night, albeit okay, see on the tail end of a back to back Paul George was absolutely magnificent down the stretch. Hit a huge pull up jump shot over Jaln Williams, a couple of nasty, tough, tight windows, short opening catch and shoot jump shots at a big reverse dunk and transition at the end of it. Was

crazy Paul George performance. But as I said before the Minnesota game, after these two games, I want to add the Clippers to my contender list, and I just wanted to see those two games before we got there. In those two game, Sames kind of legitimize most of my beliefs about this team at this point in the season. So let's talk Clippers big picture first, and let's start with the good. They have diversity of shot creation. That's a major thing for me. They have a finesse wing,

a power wing, and a pick and roll maestro. Right. Paul George is your you know, a dribble dribble drible dribble pull up shooter guy. Kawhi Leonard is your fight for short range pull up jump shots close to the basket that are a little more high percentage, super super efficient. Right. I think James Harden is a guy that can set them up in advantage situations out of pick and roll.

They also are an excellent shooting team. They get one point one to two points per spot up possession, which is the fifth best in the league, and they shoot thirty nine point six percent from three, which is the best in the league. And play types, they are the fourth most efficient post up team in the league. They are the second most efficient ISO team in the league, and they are the seventh most efficient pick and roll team in the league. On the defensive end, they are

fourteenth in defensive rating. But it's kind of confusing because they're the fourth best half court defense according to Cleaning the Glass, but they're the third worst transition defense according to Cleaning and the Glass. So there are a good half court defense an atrocious transition defense, which combines to make for an average defense. That said, typically the transition defense is something that can get cleaned up in the postseason.

They're excellent on the perimeter, they're excellent on help recover situations. They're just not great in rim protection, but they do protect the paint reasonably well. They are eleventh in points in the paint allowed. They are also twelfth and three pointers made allowed. And again, there are a lot of noise

there in terms of transition defense. Here's the beat. I have three main concerns, and before we go any further, every team I have major concerns for except for Denver, and even with them, I have the Yokics jump shot thing, which I talked about earlier, which is a little bit of a concern. Like Boston and Denver, I have little concerns. I'm a little concerned about Boston's late game decision making

and just overall offensive process. I'm a little bit concerned about Denver as it pertains to Jokic's jump shooting and whether or not he can reach the level he did last year in the postseason. But all the other teams have major concerns. Like Milwaukee's not as good offensively in my opinion, as they need to be in order to make up for their defensive deficiencies, and their pick and roll or their point of attack defense stuff is a

real problem. The Lakers are just lifeless right now, so it's hard to even tell what they're good and bad at. They look terrible one night, awesome the next, and they certainly need to make a trade. They're weak in overall offensive skill, They're weak in kind of perimeter speed. They've got a lot of stuff they got to address at the deadline right Like the Phoenix Suns, physicality is a major issue. They fall apart offensively in the fourth quarter

as well. Minnesota is a terrible half court offense, so they're an excellent defensive team, but they can really struggle in the chess match stuff at the end of game. So like or in slow down environments. So like every team has major issues. So when I talk about these major issues for the Clippers, don't take it as like me trying to pick them apart. I'm trying to pick everybody apart. That's the point. I'm trying to get to the point where I can have a better understanding of

this when we get to April. Here are my three concerns for the Clippers. One, they take the second most pull up jump shots in the league. Two, they're a bottom ten defensive rebounding team. They give up an offensive rebound on forty three point three percent of their opponents misses in clutch situations too, that's second worst in the league. So there are a bad defensive rebounding team who's incredibly bad in close game situations late. And Then three, they

do not score in the paint. They're seventeenth in points in the paint per game. Now, let's elaborate that on that a little bit. Number one, they take the second most pull up jump shots in the league. Why does that matter Because they hunt and depend on difficult shot making and that's just a tough way to win in

the playoffs. We've seen that with Phoenix, We've seen that with the nets teams, right, like when you rely on difficult shot making, not as a counter, not like late clock situations, you know, being really picky about when you take pull up jump shots based on the coverage, but like you lean on interior shot making and advantage creation and the shots close to the rim and wide open

catch and shoot situations and stuff like that. It should be the other way around, Like you should rely on that stuff and then have the pull up shooting be a counter or something you're more selective with. That, to me, is the best shot profile for a playoff team. The

Clippers are the other way around. They depend and lean into and hunt and rely on difficult shot making, and just what ends up happening a lot of times is like guys that you see make tough shots in the regular season gets more physical, guys start to wear down, the grind of the playoffs takes a toll over two to three series, and then suddenly it's like he's just not quite getting as much lyft on that pull up jump shot and he starts to miss him. Right. So

that's something that's not unique to the Clippers. That's something I talk about around the league. For example, four of the five champions since Kevin Durant and Steph Curry were playing together for the Warriors in one in twenty eighteen, four of the five champions were low volume pull up shooting teams. The one high volume pull up shooting team was Milwaukee, and they had Giannis bulldozing to the rim throughout the entire playoff run. It was Chris and Drew

taking all the pull up jump shots. So, like NBA history tells us, typically high volume jump shooting teams aren't going to be the ones who hoisted the trophy at the end of the day. Also, Milwaukee wasn't second in the league in attempts there. Secondly, rebounding, four of the five teams that won the title since Kevin Durant Steph hoisted the trophy in twenty eighteen were eleventh or better in defensive rebounding percentage, and the Clippers are bottom ten

and absolutely atrocious and clutch situations. Like we talked about the one exception, the one team out of that five was Toronto with Kawhi Leonard. They were eighteenth in defensive rebounding and they were a much better defensive rebounding team than this particular Clippers team. Is. Lastly, lack of paint scoring is pretty simple. They don't get a lot of easy shots close to the rim. They depend on guys

making jump shots. There's more variance in jump shooting. You can control jump shooting for the most part, but there is a variance element to it. And that variance element is not there with a round the rim shooting, or at least to a much much smaller extent. So NBA history tells us that this kind of team construct typically doesn't win. That doesn't mean they won't win, doesn't mean

they can't win, just means it's less likely. Right as far as like the you know, the the other narrative stuff, like everyone's saying James Harden isn't just called a playoff choker, you know, as as some sort of caricature of himself like it's it's a basketball thing. He at this phase of his career struggles to be people off the dribble and finish around the rim in a playoff setting when

the intensity and physicality goes up a level. Last year outside of two games, was downright atrocious in the in the playoffs. And so that doesn't mean it can't happen. And again, Philly fans will tell you he was hurt coming off of an achilles thing that was bothering him during the regular season. I don't want to deny that, but we have a long extended sample that when we get to that level, James's efficacy drops a level it's worth mentioning. Doesn't not the end all be all, but

it's worth mentioning. So the question is where do they go in my list of contenders. So right now I've Denver at one, Boston at two, Milwaukee at three. I've decided that the teams below that have bigger question marks. The Lakers have to nail their trade, have to rebuy in. By tricking off the regular season, they put themselves in a situation where if Lebron or Anthony Davisucker suffer a significant injury, they will miss the playoffs, so they've removed

their margin for air. The Warriors same thing, have to nail a bunch of trades. Minnesota's half court offense, I think is a real issue. I think they're gonna run into some problems where they get absolutely shut down at some phases of the playoffs. So I'm putting the Clippers in at number four. Also, I want to add Oklahoma City and Philly to this list eventually, but I want to do some deep dives on film and some numbers with them, so I'm gonna wait until further down the

line to do so. But I will be adding Oklahoma City and Philly to that as well. But Clippers right now my fourth leading championship contender. All right, guys, that is all I have for today is always. I sincerely appreciate you supporting the show. Don't forget. Tonight after Mavericks, Lakers will be going live on YouTube and then tomorrow

will pick like one or two. But I think I'm gonna hit I think it's a Bucks Calves tonight too on ESPN, So I'll hit like Bucks Calves tomorrow and we'll do a mail bag as well, so I will see you guys. Then. I appreciate you guys, See you tomorrow. The volume