Hoops Tonight - Reaction to JJ Redick naming Lakers starting 5, why LeBron & LA will be LOCKED IN + Power Rankings #9: Phoenix Suns

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Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG, dot co slash ft ball. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. If all of you guys have had a great week so far, we got a jam pack show for you today. JJ Reddick, head coach of the Los Angeles Likers, did his first

long form interview since taking the job. Was Zach low Over at ESPN. Got a lot of takeaways from that, so we're going to talk some Lakers off the top. After that, we're going to get back into our power Rankings season preview style with number ten the Phoenix Suns. And at the tail end of that, I've got nine clips of film that we're going to go over all from their first round series as we talked about some of the things that the Suns can improve on heading

into next year. So some Lakers off the top, a bunch of Suns after that, jam pack show for today. You guys are the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore

JCNLT so you guys don't misshow announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed where you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep getting to them over the course of the rest of the year. We had a mailbag on Monday with little light on questions, though I'm doing another mail bag on Friday. No mail bag today, but we're gonna be doing one on Friday, so make sure

you drop some questions in the comments. Underneath this video. Again, I'm looking for anything about any of the stuff on this list. If there's a ranking that you disagree with, if this is your favorite team, or if we talked about your favorite team at some point in the last couple of weeks, and there's a thought that you had about the team that we didn't get into in the season preview that you just want to get into in some more detail. Literally, anything's fair game. Drop those in

the YouTube comments. So we're going to get to a mail bag on Friday. All right, let's talk to basketball. So JJ Reddick's first interview with Zach Lobe again his first long form interview since taking the job, so essentially our first opportunity to learn about JJ's philosophy as a coach.

And so I have five major takeaways from that interview that I want to get into before we get to the Phoenix Sun. So number one, I think JJ is going to pretty quickly get buy in from the team, and it's going to be on the strength of his work ethic. I was on in ESPN LA radio last night with Andy Kimenenski, a friend of mine that covers the Lakers, and he asked me when I came on like, how is JJ going to get buy in, and then

answer to me is very simple. These guys are competitors, and the leader of this team, Lebron James, is one of the greatest competitors of all time, if not the greatest, right and that means winning is what drives them, and people like that are typically very keyed in on the people that are in their corner and whether or not they're doing their part to help the team win. I think this is actually a big part of how Darvin Ham lost the locker room in a lot of ways

over the course of the last year. I don't think the players, in particularly the Stars, felt like Darvin was pulling his weight. There were comments in postgame pressers about defensive game plan, a schematic things that they were doing, about some scouting report stuff that was off the kind of passive aggressive comments. I don't think that the Laker players felt like Darvin Ham was one of their foxhole guys, someone that they could count on to contribute to the

winning context of the team. If JJ comes in quickly and can make it clear to the players that he is working his ass off behind the scenes and with them to make them a better basketball team. I think there will be immediate buy in, and I think immediately the players will do whatever JJS asks them to do. I think that's literally all it takes. I don't think they care about the personality or the cachet, or whether what your resume looks like, or the fact that he

used to play in the league. As long as those guys feel like JJ's in their corner doing everything in his power to help them win games, I think they will buy in. There was an interesting quote from JJ in the interview where he talked about how it's very important for him and his staff to always be able

to explain the why they're doing anything. That to me is like where you can, as a coach demonstrate that you've done the work if you can go to your players and you can be like, hey, we're making a tweak to our defensive scheme, or we're gonna shift more of our the percentage of our possessions defensively to this coverage versus that coverage, or this concept versus that concept, or this little detail to that detail, and you can be like, hey, look like here's our defensive rating when

we you know, bring ad all the way up to the level versus here's our defensive rating when we sit ad back in a deep drop or when we hard help off the week side versus when we stay home off the ball, or we do this thing on the ball, or we do this different thing on the ball, whatever it is, if you can explain, like, hey, here's a bunch of video clips that clearly demonstrate why you know we need to do this, or here's some clear statistical

evidence of why we need to do this. Right on the offensive end, the same kind of thing, like, hey, I'm going to be pairing you with bench lineups with this group as opposed to this group, I'm going to have you play more like early second quarter instead of late first quarter, because if you look at these numbers, I can see that like when I pair you with these guys, you play really well and the lineup does really well, And when I pair you with these guys,

you seem to struggle a little bit and the numbers aren't as productive. If you can make it very clear to your players that you're making your decisions based off of work, off of research, off of data, if they can feel like you're pulling your weight, they're going to buy in even extending to individual game plans, they can feel like every single night JJ's doing his part to help them win individual regular season games with game planning. I think as long as JJ brings that element, the

buy in will be there. And that's just not something I'm worried about it. JJ is a psycho competitor who everything he's ever done with the game of basketball has always been about obsessive preparation, and so it's interesting, of all the things with JJ, I'm not worried about him getting buy in from the players. I think that there might be some personality dynamics that he runs into that

could be challenging. I think there might be some like lulls over the core so the eighty two game season that he has to deal with, But in terms of overall buy in from the team, I think he's going to earn it quickly by virtue of his work Ethic Number two. The second interesting thing that stood out to me from the interview. JJ seems pretty keen on establishing organizational basketball competence. This has been one of the downsides for the Lakers in recent years, with them constantly having

turnover at the head coaching position. Right like, there's kind of like two phases to an NBA team, Right, there's kind of like the ownership front office side, and then there's strictly the basketball side. The ownership front office side, there's a lot of business decisions being made. There's obviously payroll and roster decisions being made, and there is basketball philosophy there, and you do want to have connection between those two groups, and we're going to talk about that

here in a minute. But then there's just the strict basketball side, which is like, what does practice look like, what does player development look like? What is the standards in practice? What are these and in practices of your basketball organization? Is it consistent down the line? Is it something that the G League team does and the main

team does. Is it the same expectation and offseason workout that you get in a morning shoot around somewhere during the season In terms of just professionalism and overall basketball philosophy. I want to see JJ bring that consistency to that organization in a way that hasn't been there in recent years. And he was specifically talking about that in this interview, talking about having consistency with the G League and consistency

with player development. I think having a basketball culture get established from the top down will help him squeeze more out of the sponge. And I think one of the big ways that you're going to see that is after the top guys on the roster, right, like having Lebron James and Anthony Davis on the floor with Austin Reeves and Dangela Russell is going to go a long way

to winning basketball games, regardless of the surrounding context. Darvin Ham got fired after the Lakers looked pretty awesome over the last more than half the season, right, That wasn't why. There was a lot of reasons why Darvin got fired. I got a big one that I'm gonna share with you guys here in a minute. But like the team

was winning in spite of that. Where you will see real advantage and organizational culture getting set properly by JJ is after those guys, So like in the time after Lebron is retired in the short term, when guys are in and out of the lineup, like that was a big problem over the last couple of years. Anytime the Lakers lost core rotation pieces, they struggled, and a big part of that was down the organization. There wasn't the

same quality of like just basketball approach. And if you have those consistent standards in practices, then there's a better expectation for players to step in from lower levels of the organization into bigger roles and to have some success. And I was really by that in the interview Number three. I do think that JJ will be a useful basketball

voice in the front office. This is a front office that is very it's like a mom and pop shot, right like Roblinka is a player agent, it's not necessarily what I would call a basketball expert, right Like, there's a lot of people that are in Genie Buss's ear that are making basketball you know, kind of like providing basketball council, so to speak, that aren't necessarily people that are down grinding NBA film and metrics and trying to learn as much as they can about the modern NBA game.

And you know, there's Joey and Jesse have done a really nice job and they've been a little boost in that department. But like having JJ Reddick as just a guy that is deeply and profoundly involved in the in the modern game and is nerdy about it and wants to talk about it. And is willing to be a

pillar for that front office. I think that will go a long way towards helping them continue in you that basketball philosophy and culture that we talked about, in bridging that over to the front office, because again, there's a style of play, there's a general expectation on the basketball

front that extends down the organization. You need to bring in players that fit into that, and there's been a lot of decision making by the front office that has been a lot more about agency politics than about actually

fitting a basketball culture in philosophy. As a matter of fact, it's been abundantly clear over the last few years that the Lakers don't really have an organizational basketball philosophy, right Like, they just keep going after different types of players every summer, and that's a clear sign that you don't really have a baseline foundation a basketball belief that you're making these

decisions based off of. So that's kind of a combo with the second point that I was making in terms of establishing organizational competence, but it extends over to the front office where I just think JJ is going to help establish a better basketball culture within the Los Angeles Lakers. Number four JJ already seems to have a philosophy for how to get more out of this team. He talked about off ball movement. He talks specifically about Lebron being

more active offball as a screener. He talks a lot about generating more three point shots. Now that's a little delicate. I'm not going to get too much further into that right now, because I want to talk more about the overarching concept of like hunting three point shots when we get into the Phoenix Suns thing, because they were a very low three point volume team last year, and so we're going to be talking a lot about the three

point shot here later on in the show. Well, one of the big ones that stood out to me, he talked about generating margins, and he mentioned the obvious fact that one of the good margins for the Lakers last year was the free throw line. Right, Lakers are a team that doesn't foul and gets to the foul line a lot, and so they constantly have large free throw margins. I know that every conspiracy theorist out there thinks it's because the league is force feeding the Lakers free throws,

but that's just not actually what's happening. It's a basketball strength of that team. But as JJ pointed out, that's pretty much their only margin right now. It's the only like little thing that is outside of like typical half court scoring in defense that the Lakers are squeezing extra points out of. Right. And one of the things he talked about was increasing their offensive rebound output. So the Lakers were twenty ninth in offensive rebound percentage last year,

and there's a reason for that. The large part had to do with the fact that they were a bad transition defense the previous year, and I think a lot of it was like, if we stop crashing the offensive glass and we just all get back on defense, then we'll stop getting bludgeoned in transition. And like that was just you know, kind of like unplugging one hole to plug another, right, And so that doesn't necessarily move your basketball team forward. One of the specific things he talked

about was corner crashes. That is exactly what it sounds like, right, So when the shot goes up, the guys out of the corner will sprint in to try to get an offensive rebound before they go back on defense. That can work and drive additional possessions and can still maintain a quality transition defense as long as you have attention to

detail with your floor balance. So, for instance, like if you crash out of the corners and you have a ball screen where Lebron's going downhill and AD's rolling downhill, and there's one guy above the break and he's kind of like fading off to the wing to try to create more space, and you have a missed layup and Ad goes to the offensive glass and both guys crash out of the corner. You could pretty quickly have d lo or Austin be the only guy back as they're

sprinting the other way. But if you have your floor balance set up properly, like, oh hey, like Lebron and Ad are both barreling down towards the rim, and Lebron's driving on this left side, so I'm going to relocate out of the corner too, above the break, so that we constantly have two guys that are above the break to be able to get back in transition defense, then you crash with your other three because as long as those guys can stop the ball, that gives you time

for the other three guys to recover back spread out too, because again you're taking away the ball first, then you're taking away the basket, and then you're spreading out to shooters. And so as long as you have your first two transition defense players that can take away the ball in the basket, then your guys that crash out of the corner, whoever it is that slashing to the basket can sprint

back and spray out to shooters. And so it is possible to be a good offensive rebounding team and a good transition defense as long as you have attention to detail. And so it's like, don't just recklessly crash for the sake of crashing. Those corner crashes they can be part of your sprint back. Right, you're sprinting into the like kind of into that foul line area to see if a long rebound comes off if it's not, their sprint back in defense, right, and just paying more attention to

the floor balance piece. A lot of possessions last year where the Lakers had an empty above the break area because they didn't have anybody that likes to pick and pop, and so because Ad doesn't shoot anymore, and so in Jackson Hayes's rolling and Christian Wood was hurt all year, So like they just had a lot of situations where their floor balance was off, and that can cause issues if you're crashing the offensive glass. But if you have that floor balance and you are crashing out of the

right spots, you can generate extra margin there. And again, like these games are close a lot at the time, and squeezing an extra three to four possessions out of the game can go a long way towards helping you win. The Lebron off ballpiece, it's interesting because there is value there and Lebron's been an off all a lot, and I like Lebron off the ball. He's a very good screener.

He's kind of like souped up Draymond when he rolls into the basket, and he can make plays, you know, with Austin Reeves two man game, and he's got good chemistry with d Angela Russell as well. There's all sorts of stuff that you can do with Lebron as a screener, and obviously having a real movement shooter like Dalton connect can add even another element to that, right, But I actually want Lebron on the ball more. I think it's just about finding ways to use Lebron on the ball

in a way that accentuates his regular season strengths. This is another thing I was talking about with the Indy

Kamenski last night. Like the Lebron as we know is I'm not going to leverage his athletic gifts very often in the regular season, and that manifested on the ball sometimes on offense, where like I used to complain about this all the time in the last couple of years, where like Lebron will come off of a ball screen and not really look to turn the corner because he's kind of conserving energy, and then he'll just try to jam a pocket pass in that's just not open because

he hasn't engaged the screen defender the way you're supposed to by getting downhill, and so it'll be a turnover. AD will catch in a bunch of traffic and AD

will turn it over or something like that. And those were just ending some ugly possessions or some of that in the Denver series in Game two, if I remember correctly, that part of that second half run was Lebron getting a little lazy in his pick and roll decisions there in that third quarter stretch, just because like he's fatigued, right, and so if you can find a way for Lebron to weaponize his brain, which is something that is always going to be there for him, then I like the

idea of the ball being in Lebron's hands more. What does that mean? That means it's got to be a situation where Lebron is being used the way he was being used with Team USA, which is have Lebron operate as a decision maker from the top of the key while you're running off ball action. That way, it's not about Lebron pressuring the rim. Obviously, he can look to turn and score every once in a while if he's got the like strength and the wherewithal to do it.

But if you're running off ball action like a wide pin down with Anthony Davis and Dalton connector Anthony Davis and Austin Reeves, and Lebron can just kind of sit at the top of the key and just kind of look to make those passes, just like he was doing with Team USA. Lebron can do a lot of damage there and he did. You saw it with Tim USA.

He can pick defenses apart, catching them slipping in their switches or in whatever screen coverage they're running, he can catch team slipping and he doesn't have to move a muscle with his legs. I mean, he doesn't have to run or try to bully his way downhill or post a guy up. He can just sit there and make a pass fake and get the ball where he needs

to get it. And so again, I do want to see Lebron off ball, but I think that the the best way to use Lebron at this phase of his career is to have him be a decision maker, and that in a lot of cases kind of calls for him to be on the ball, just in a way that doesn't also require him to pressure the wrint. We all know Lebron can't big moments, clutch or when he's

just feeling good. In a big national TV game, Lebron is going to be able to pressure the rim and do all those things on ball that you want, but we also know that he's going to conserve some energy in that department, and so setting him up as the fulkroum of off ball action as opposed to actually being off the ball to go a long way towards weaponizing that strike and then fit the final takeaway that I had from the presser was the big news drop, which

is that JJ is going to keep the starting lineup from the end of last year austinvesd Angela, Russell, Ruey, Hatchamura, Lebron James and Anthony Davis. Was no hesitation from JJ when he was asked by Zach Low. Here's a crazy stat for you, guys. This is the Darvin Ham point that I was gonna make from earlier. That lineup Austin Dilo, Rui, Lebron, Anthony Davis did not play a single minute in the first forty three games of the season. They went twenty

three and ten when those guys started. That's a seventy percent win percentage, which would have been higher than everyone in the league last year except for Boston, and Darvin did not use them for more than half the season. That's the kind of like straight up sabotage that Darvin Ham was doing to this team last year. Not a single minute, guys, not like, oh he didn't start him, Not a single minute did he put his five best

players on the floor together. It's truly confounding stuff. But anyways, some encouraging numbers, right, twenty three and ten when those guys started, so that makes sense that JJ would lean on that as his starting group to start the year unlock a lot of stuff on offense. When Darvin did finally make the lineup change on January twenty first, the Lakers from that point forward had the fifth best record in all of basketball and an offensive rating of one

to nineteen, which ranked third in the NBA over that span. Now, hard to figure out why you're partnering Lebron and Ad too incredibly versatile offensive forwards who can play both on and off the ball with two really good skill guards. Austin and Di Lo are very different, but they are both really effective skill guards that benefit from the rim

pressure that Lebron and Ad bring to the table. And then what kind of tied it all together was Ruy Hotchimura figuring out his role, just becoming a really reliable catch and shoot guy on the weak side, and also understanding when to cut along the baseline. It's very simple decision for a baseline cutter, for a spacer from the corner, it's if they're running a ball screen. The Lakers run a ton of ball screens, and the roleman comes downhill

and Ruy's man goes over to tag the roller. Ruey needs to cut along the baseline so that ad or Lebron, who ever came on the roll, can drop it off to Rui and he can dunk it along the baseline. It's a higher percentage play than the corner three. Now, it's a tough decision because you have to make the read based on how much the lowman commits. If the lowman just kind of steps over but he's still on the baseline, it might end up being too much traffic.

Although Rui's still got some good cuts off of that where he cut behind the guy and come around on the other side of the basket. That's how where we got all those reverse dunks. But like a lot of times, you have to make that read where it's like, eh, it's still a little clogged in there. I'm going to stay out here in the corner, or oh man, this is wide open. I got to make that baseline cut. Ruy got really good at that. All those five guys

kind of fit together perfectly. They really took off offensively. So I do think JJ is making the right decision here. In the short term, they can win enough regular season games with that group, provided they stay healthy. They will stay afloat in the regular season. I believe in that group. Don't fix what is in broke is basically the ethos there. But I want to be clear, I do not think that that starting lineup can win four or playoff rounds. It has some glaring issues on the defensive end. Now

what's interesting this is like really fascinating to me. They had a really solid defensive rating in the large sample. That lineup had a one to ten point five defensive rating last year in almost four hundred minutes. That's a higher defensive rating than any team in the league had last year except for Minnesota. So they were a good defense with that group, but it was mostly because they were really big and because Anthony Davis cleans up a lot of messes. In the large sample, they were very

vulnerable to specific matchups. Like Austin was their best point of attack defender in that lineup, and he competed did the best he could. It was admirable, but he was only okay at it for obvious reasons. That is a role that is typically filled by a professional defender. Just go down the Western Conference standings. Who's the guy doing that job for the Oklahoma City thunder Lou Dort a professional defender. Who's the guy doing that for Denver? Well

was CACP last year? Right, that is a guy that maybe isn't a professional defender, but is a professional two way player and is a very good guard defender and a very good athlete, right Denver. Now, Christian Brown professional defender right Minnesota? Who's doing that job? Jad McDaniel's professional defender. Who's doing that job for the Los Angeles Clippers? Terrence Mann professional defender who's doing that for the MAVs last year?

Derek Jones Junior, that's a professional defender right for the Pels, Herb Jones for the Kings, Kean Ellis for the Warriors, Andrew Wiggins. You guys get the point. Aside from like the Sons, who were another team that leaned entirely into offense and also lost in the first round, like you have professional defenders doing that job. Austin is a skill guard. Deploying him as your best permitter defender is a misallocation of resources. Now, you have to right now because you

don't have any options. But that is something that I think needs to get addressed in the long run. The reason why they don't have any options is because de Lo can't do it, sure as how can't do it, and Ruey is specifically terrible at tracking offensive players around screens. Now here's the thing that again, it's fascinating that they were good in the large sample They even defended Denver well. In the first round series. They held Denver to a

one to thirteen point four offensive rating. That's really good for against that Denver offense. It's nine points better than they did last year. The previous year when they got Sweat, they had like a one to twenty two offensive rating, So like they did pretty good. Austin did a really nice job on Jamal Murray throughout the series, held him well below his normal amount of his normal like efficiency.

But Ruey Hatchi Mura got like absolutely worked by Michael Porter Junior, constantly losing him off screens for easy three point looks, including in massive moments when they couldn't afford to make mistakes and at the end of games. Regardless of how good Jamal Murray did in the short in the large sample size, in terms of Austin holding him in check at the end of games, Jamal Murray was able to get to his spot's relative hively comfortably against

Austin because Austin has certain physical limitations. Right, So even though they got plenty of stops in the large sample, again, good defensive rating in the regular season, good defensive rating for the entire series against Denver, but in clutch situations against Denver, they allowed a one sixty two point five offensive rating that is like abysmally bat Remember I can't remember the exact stat off the top of my head, but in Game two, Jamal's first game winner, the Lakers

got one stop down the stretch. It was the play where Lebron kind of like got that tipped pass on Jamal Murray and then went out for a dunk. But I want to say, Denver scored on nine of their last ten possessions with that one stop being the Lebron stop. So, like, it doesn't matter how good your defense was in the

large sample. If Michael Porter Junior keeps getting free from Ruey because Rui doesn't know how to track shooters around screens, and if Austin isn't really capable of making the best guards in the league feel uncomfortable when he's trying to chase them around, no fault of Austin. It's just not a job that he should be doing right. And so even though I think that lineup is JJ's best path for the start of the regular season, I still think the Lakers inevitably need to convert one of d Lo

or Rui into a legitimate two way athlete. If Austin is the second best perimeter defender on your team, next to a real athlete, then I think they can reach the necessary level of defense to win four rounds in the playoffs. But if they just run it back, I

do not think they have a championship ceiling. We are going to be getting to the Lakers very soon in our power rankings, and when we get to them, there they're in this tier that if things go right tier, and for them, the main thing that needs to go right is they need to hit on a trade. They have two first round picks that they have access to, some talented young players, some mid level salaries. They've got the means with which to do it. They just need

to hit on that deal. They need a legitimate upgrade at one of those starting spots, the starting two or the starting three, in a way that's slow everybody into more achievable Roles defensively, but overall, I want to be clear, I liked the interview. I'm generally very encouraged by J. J. Reddick, and I think he's going to do a good job for the Lakers. All right, let's move on to our

power rankings. Number ten, the Phoenix Suns. They lost Drew Eubanks, Eric Gordon Nase, your Little David Roddy, and Thaddius Young. They added Ryan Dunn, a late first round pick who's looked pretty solid in his summer workouts. Kind of an interesting young player, Tys Jones and Monte Morris. The much talked about point guard upgrades that the Sons have been clamoring for, We're going to talk a lot about that

concept today. And then they upgraded their backup center position, obviously turning Drew you Banks into Mason Plumley's just bigger, better athletes, just a better backup center than Drew you Banks was. So let's start with the point guard concept. How much do the Suns need a point guard? It's a complicated topic because Devin Booker and Kevin Durant are both really high level playmakers in my opinion, but playing point guard goes a lot further than just play man.

The Suns were specifically struggling with ball pressure in the World Series, so they averaged over fourteen turnovers per game, that was the third worst mark among playoff teams. They gave up twenty points per game off of turnovers, that was the worst among playoff teams. And even on possessions where they didn't actually lose control of the basketball, they often struggled to get into their sets until laid into

the clock. They constantly looked rushed, they constantly looked out of sorts, and then all you got to do is look at the offensive rating and realize that they were really struggling to score the ball against Minnesota. Right, So, having a professional point guard who has spent every day of his life navigating ball pressure and getting a basketball team into their offense, that would certainly help things. Right.

Those types of players, the Ties Jones types, the Monty Moores types, they've just been facing physical ball pressure since they were kids. It's all they've ever done. Whereas Devin Booker and Kevin Durant are scorers that have also learned to play on the ball and have also faced a good amount of ball pressure. But that's not necessarily like what they've grown up doing as basketball players, right, Guys like Monti Morris, guys like Tias Jones, they don't get rushed.

That's their superpower as point guards. They're going to methodically navigate ball pressure and get you into the half court and get you into your stuff. Here's where that gets tricky, though. That's kind of the only benefit the Sun's need from a point guard. Once they actually get into their stuff. You want kd and Devin Booker with the ball. They're incredible playmakers. You want them running your ball screens, you

want them coming off of your dribble handoff. So it's tricky, and the thing is is that Tias Jones is probably going to start. In his press release, he specifically used the phrase starting point guard. He also said, quote, the Sun's opportunity is where I can best maximize my value for a return to free agency next year. It's very clear Tis picked Phoenix because he thinks he's gonna win a lot of games and go on a playoff run, but also have a large role as the starting point guard.

That's part of the agreement that was made to get him to take a veteran minimum deal to go to Phoenix, so he's probably going to start and play a lot. And that is a large role to give to a player that essentially ties you into a three guard look simply so that you can handle ball pressure better. And here's the thing. I do believe in three guard looks as long as you have a very physical, imposing front line.

We were just talking about this with Memphis. I think Jaw and Marcus Smart and Desmond Band can all play together because you're playing Jaron Jackson at the four next to another massive center that can kind of offset some of the size limitations of that backcourt. Team USA is a great example. You're playing Steph Curry, Devin Booker, and Drew Holliday. It's three guards, but you have Lebron James and Joel Embiid or Lebron James and Anthony Davis as

the front line. That offsets the three guard concept to a certain extent, right, especially in the small sample when Lebron's actually playing hard. Kevin ur and Musef Nurkic are not that type of frontline. They're gonna have a lot of pressure on them here to play big, to be big and physical, to battle on the glass, to do a lot of work on that frontline. It's just a lot to ask. I do think Tias will really help

on the offensive end. A lot of possessions in the Minnesota series died in the hands of Roy O'Neil, or died in the hands of Eric Gordon, died in the hands of Josha Kog. They'd bring him into the action as they were constantly trying to hunt, like Carl Towns or Mike Conley, and those guys would hedge and recover. There'd be a little delay in the switch and they'd swing it over to one of those guys in the possession just would fall apart from there because they couldn't

capitalize on it right. Tias Jones will get them up the floor into their stuff, and he will be better at taking advantage of the openings that come his way after he gives away the basketball. He shot forty nine percent on unguarded catch and shoot threes last year forty nine percent field goals, so he makes half of his open threes. He has a nasty floater that he hits over fifty percent. He finishes well at the rim for a guard. All that's good. He's not the deadly high

volume three point shooter that Grayson Allen is. But I think the ball handling improvement is enough to make it an offensive upgrade. Maybe not a massive offensive upgrade, but it will be somewhat of an offensive upgrade. But it's just also possible that this shift in the way you're deploying your resources opens up a bunch of other issues. Tyas is not a good rebounder. He's not a guy that's gonna move the needle for you on the defensive end.

And so again, like it might be a marginal offensive upgrade. Again, don't don't underestimate Grayson Allen in this role here, because like what he was doing setting ghost screens and just being a fucking laser from three was a huge part of their offense last year, right, And Tyas Jones is a guy that can knock down wide open catches you threes, but he's not a guy that's going to be sliding his feet and quickly getting He's not a movement shooter

the way that Grayson Allen can be. Right, So, like, I do think it's an upgrade overall, but like it's just a big role to devote to a player that gives you a marginal offensive improvement while not solving the real issue. So what is the real issue? What went wrong? Versus Minnesota? Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, Grayson Allen, Kevin Durant Yusuf Nurkic was a great lineup all year. There were twenty one lineups in the NBA that played at least

three hundred minutes. Those guys, at plus eleven point one points per one hundred posessions ranked fourth out of twenty one lineups. They had a one to twenty five offensive rating, but they got absolutely thrashed by Minnesota. So what happened? It mostly came down to physical domination. Some of it was the ball pressure stuff we were talking about, right, Like, just that same lineup had a ninety three offensive rating versus Minnesota couldn't score one twenty five in the regular season,

ninety three in the playoffs. Too many turnovers, too many possessions that started too late in the stock clock. It just wasn't working. But the physical domination went way deeper than that. They gave up an offensive rebound on thirty nine point two percent of Minnesota's missus. Almost forty percent of Minnesota's misses ended up back with Minnesota that was dead last

among playoff teams. They also only rebounded twenty one percent of their own misses, that was third worst among playoff teams, so they weren't getting any of it back on the offensive glass. On the other end, they got thrashed in the paint. They gave up fifty one points in the paint per game, that was the second worst mark among playoff teams. Then we talked about turnovers earlier, just they gave up the most points off of turnovers out of any of the playoff teams per game. And the real

damaging piece was their defense was just awful. They allowed Minnesota, by the way, who was seventeenth in offense in the regular season, who consistently looked terrible on offense against both Denver and Dallas Phoenix, allowed those guys to score one hundred and twenty three points per one under possessions. It was by far the worst defensive rating among playoff teams. Guys were constantly getting worked off the ball, they were getting back cut, getting ran by for offensive rebounds. They

weren't picking up and transition at all. I'm gonnahow you guys. A sequence from Game four an elimination game where they just straight up forgot to guard their man three times in four possessions and gave up a bucket on every single one of them. And again, this was a bad

Minnesota offense and they shredded Phoenix. So we can talk about point guards, and we can talk about ball pressure and offensive talent and all those things all we want, but they lost to Minnesota because they got bullied physically. And the concerning part is all year long, I talked about Phoenix as a team that was thin and that would struggle to win rock fights in the postseason, and

that ended up being their downfall. They ran into a bigger, stronger team, got punched in the mouth, and they wilt it underneath that, And I don't see how anything that they did over the summer can address that issue. They will inevitably run into a team, even if it's not Minnesota, they will inevitably run into a big, physical team that pushes them on that level, and they're gonna have to rise to that equation at that occasion. So how does

Phoenix unlock their full potential relative to their talent? To me, it comes down to two things. One, they have to be willing to do the work to win ugly. The Sun's played some of the prettiest basketball in the league

last year when they had it going. If so much offensive skill on the floor, some beautiful advantage basketball, some beautiful drive and kick possessions, right, but inevitably they're gonna run into a Minnesota or Denver or a different Western Conference team that will drag them down into the mud. They have to be able to win games like that. That means taking the defensive end of the floor seriously

from day one. You can't be making elementary school defensive mistakes in an elimination game because you're not serious on that end of the floor. Some of these mistakes I'm gonna show you are laughable. Like all I talked about them not picking up in transition, those are on made baskets. Wait till you guys see these clips are crazy. You can't be getting sliced and diced by a mediocre offense like Minnesota. The second piece of that is winning fifty balls.

You were twentieth in defensive rebounding in the regular season, so I'm not surprised that you struggled the defensive rebound. You couldn't defensive rebound all year, so of course you struggled against Minnesota, and all of that is going to take a buy in down the roster, all the stars, all the role players, actively pursuing the basketball whenever it's available, being willing to get down and get dirty. That's number one really comes down to. They have to be willing

to do the work to win ugly. Secondly, on the offensive end, they got to play advantage basketball. The Sons were at their best when they were moving the ball around. Their assists rate, this was a crazy stat. Their assist rate was six percent higher in wins compared with losses. It's one of the largest disparities in the league. I looked around. Most of the teams are like one or two percent different, six percent higher in wins than losses.

When they hunted advantages and played drive and kick, they looked better. There's an interesting conversation to have about the running of sets. This was something that we heard from KD after the Serbia game, right He talked about how like, oh, you know, it was really fascinating. We didn't really run anything down the end of that game. We just trusted each other and we just played basketball. And here's the thing that Serbia team that was real, high leverage basketball,

and that Serbia team was legit. They punched Tusa in the mouth and brought the absolute best out of them in that fourth quarter. They're not Minnesota on defense, and against that Serbian team, playing kind of freelance basketball was enough because they were able to consistently get enough advantages just by playing basketball. But when you're playing against really, really really dominant, athletic, massive defenses, you're going to have

a harder time finding those advantages. And so to Katie's point, like I agree with him that, like you don't necessarily have to call plays or run intricate five man action to run quality offense as long as you're able to get an advantage. But against teams that are not giving much in the way of advantages, that have the talent to make things harder on you, you have to find a

way to make things harder on them. And the way to do that is to run more three man action, to run more side to side, getting multiple interchanges on the same possession, running off ball action, making it at least harder for the defense to do what they're doing. And so to Katie's point, it's about balance and about understanding time and situation. Okay, we're playing really good in the flow right now, let's stick with it. Or hey, guys, we're playing in the flow and we're really struggling to

get advantages. This isn't working. This is where we have to settle down and run our stuff right and kind of feeling that out is a big part of what makes a successful basketball team. Generating more quality three point looks. These suns were twenty fifth and three point volume. This is also a delicate topic because you can't just take threes for the sake of taking threes. They need to be quality threes. I tweeted this stat out this morning.

Eight of the top twelve three point attempts teams per game missed the playoffs last year, eight out of the top twelve, So there's no proof that if you just take a ton of threes you're gonna win games. Now.

Interestingly enough, the top two teams in three point volume were Boston in Dallas, and they actually went to the finals, right, But just go back one previous year and it was like Miami was tenth and Denver I think was twenty fifth, So there's no real correlation there necessarily, but there's a

mandatory minimum. Right, Like, just because you don't want to be jacking up threes for the take of for the sake of jacking up threes, doesn't mean you shouldn't be looking for opportunities to try to generate more quality threes. Because again, if we're looking at shot diet, quality rim attempts are by far the most valuable shot in basketball. It's not close. That's that will always be the best shot in the game quality rim attempts, But the next

best thing is a quality three point attempt. And so if you can find a way to turn some of the other things contested rim attempts, contested threes, mid range shots, post moves, anything that is not one of those two things, if you can find a way to convert some of those possessions into more high quality rim attempts or more high quality three point attempts, you improve the efficiency of your offense. Right. So, again, it's not about just hunting

threes for the sake of hunting threes. It's about hunting the best possible shot on every possession. Like so, for instance, if I'm looking for more catch and shoot opportunities for Katie, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, who shot over forty percent from three last year. If I'm looking to hunt more three point shots for them, I need to get into drive and kick more often, right, Because if I'm running two man game and I'm taking a lot of pull up jump shots, I'm not going to get into that

driving kick very much. Right. So that is a concerted effort from the team to identify when you see an opportunity to for a closeout. Right, Okay, I'm running this action. They're sinking in a little bit off of Bradley Beal on the left wing. Swing it to Bradley Beal. He rips to the left. He's got that baked in driving lane because that defensive player is closing out on his right shoulder. He gets into the lane, draws another defender, throws a kickout pass. Now Devin Booker has a close out.

He beats that dude off the dribble. Now KD is standing wide open at the top of the key. Throw it to KD. He knocks down the three point shot. Right, you generate a high quality catch and shoot three for KD. By turning maybe a handful of those pull up jump shot possessions into more driving kick possessions. Now, to be clear, you got to take a certain amount of pull up jump shots to keep the defense honest, right, because that's

how Phoenix gets teams into rotation. They're not a rim pressure team, they're not driving to the basket a lot. They get defenses into rotation because you're terrified of Devin Booker, Kevin Durant coming off of these screens and shooting. So the Big comes up to the level. You're gonna see some examples of that in the film, right. And the only way you're gonna get the Big to come up to the level is if you demonstrate that you can knock down that pull up jump shot. But it's about balance.

If I can't remember exactly how many they take off the top of my head, it's something like twenty three twenty four pull up jump shots a game. If you're taking twenty three twenty four pull up jump shots a game and you cut that down to twenty nineteen and those all become high quality rim attempts and high quality catch and shoot threes, that's a way to squeeze a few more points per one hundred possessions out of your offense.

So again, like it really just comes down to playing the right brand of offense, trusting each other, making those kickoutastic passes, playing drive and kick which generates more catch and shoot three point shot opportunities, which is going to increase your overall shot volume right, and then lastly, looking to run sets, especially against the elite defenses when your freelance attack isn't working as well. Those are the main

driving forces, but behind improving Phoenix's offensive resilience. We know in the large sample they can score, but we got to find a way to avoid those really ugly stretches like they had against Minnesota. So again have to find a way to do the work and playing advantage basketball, playing better and more efficiently on the offensive end of the floor. I have the Suns as another one of

the middle of the pack teams out West. I think they'll probably stay above the plan, but they will generally be a part of that race, kind of like they were last year. So think of them. I have them in like that five to eight range, and they'll have to have a lot of things go right for them to win the title, right, Like, they'll need to get

some favorable matchups. They might have to have a couple of other contenders get knocked out, either by injuries or by upsets, and they're going to need to shoot the ball really well. They've got some gaping holes that can get them beat but so does everyone else around the league except the top four teams. So that's kind of the definition of this tier, and it's going to be the same for every team until we get to number four.

They're all teams that are capable of winning the title, but they need some things to go right, they need some luck, and they are very beatable, if that makes sense. All right, let's get into some film. Only nine clips today, not gonna go too crazy. So this first clip, it's an example of some five out action to just give you an example of how you can make yourself harder to guard by shifting from side to side and by

running multiple interchanges in the same possession. So we're gonna start by Bradley Bill handing it off to Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant's gonna run into like a dribble pitch with Devin Booker. Okay, here's the the dribble pitch. Devin Booker generates just a tiny bit of separation between Jada McDaniels and Devin Booker. Right now, Devin Booker sees use of Nurkics flashing this is all part of the set. He's

gonna throw the ball to use of jerkicsh okay. Now, at this point, Nurkic is gonna look at Beal to basically fake like he's gonna run a dribble hand off there, But then Beal is actually gonna fake and cut back in to screen Jaden McDaniels. He screens Jada McDaniels, which puts Jayden into a chase position, which allows him to get a little bit more separation into the dribble hand off with use of Nurkic. This forces go Bear to come out to the level. If Jaden is attached, Gobart

can sit back. Because Jaden is not attached, Gobar has to come up. Gobart has to contain Devin Booker. Now, Anthony Edwards has a decision to make. He can either stay out on Bradley Bal or he can watch use if Nurkic. He stays out on Bradley Beal. There's the pass from Booker to use off Nurkic wide open dunk. Now, obviously Carl Anthony Towns could in theory come over and tag.

But if he comes over and tags, that's where use of Nurkic could either make the extra passed Booker or to Durant excuse me, or Booker can throw a over the top like a two handed over the top pass that hits Kevin Durant. Now he's got a wide open three. So again you get a wide open dunk out of a complicated interchange. This is an elite defense that makes freelance basketball pretty damn hard. And by running a set, you made more things that Minnesota could mess up, more

opportunities for mistakes. They made a mistake, you end up getting a dunk out of it. Here is two possessions later and Bradley Beal, off of a made free throw, is just going to dribble up the floor and take a impossible, contested step back jump shot over Rudy Gobert. That's the kind of thing that has to be kind of like taken out of this Phoenix offense. You need to take a certain amount of pullup jump shots. They keep the defense honest, but they need to be part

of the larger goal that you're trying to accomplish. So if you take a pull up jump shot coming off of a ball screen because Rudy Gobert is not up high enough. Now, if you take and make that jump shot, you're making Rudy Gobert think about what he needs to do in that coverage. You're not making anybody think about anything. When you take a transition step back jump shot along the baseline with a bunch of time on the shot

clock for no reason. That's the type of opportunity that needs to be turned into a quality offensive possession for Phoenix. Here's another example of I put this clip in here just because I wanted to show the kind of setting of the stage of how you can create openings on the back line or openings for pull up jump shots by targeting the whatever coverage they're using. So, as we saw in the first clip, Rudy Gobert came up to show on Devin Booker and Nurkic slipped behind. Right. Here's

another example off ball screen. Right, we have Nurkic screening down on Carl Towns. Kd comes up, go Beart shows, so does Kat slips. Nurkic gets another layup, another dunk, right, Okay, So that is the setup for this next play. Gobar has now gotten burned twice for coming up to the level. So on this possession, watch Gobert. Nurkic sets the ball screen. I'm gonna slow it down a little bit. Nurkic sets

the ball screen and dies on it. Go Beart's up, but now he's seen Nurkic beat them on this slip twice. Watch go Beart take a hop back. He's like, oh shit, I gotta get back. The reason why he's got to get back is those two dunks that Nurkic just had. That is what develops this opening for Devin Booker to take a wide open pull up three off the dribble. Again, that's the type of pull up jump shot that you

want to take. You want to take it as a coverage beater so that you can consistently pull Gobert up to the level, so that you can get the defense in rotation and generate openings. That is the order of operations you need in order to maximize this offense. All right, the here's I'm gonna show you guys some examples of the bad defense that I talked about. So here we go. Made basket son zev I think Katie just hit a corner three transition possession. No one's matched up. Jaden's up

the floor. No one's guarding my Conley. Jaden grabs it now. Nurkic is sinking back, throws to Conley. Conley pump fakes, gets into the lane, drops it off to go bear easy lap. You just gave up an easy rotation situation off of a made basket that cannot happen. That is an inefficiency that needs to be closed up very next possession. This is a made basket. No one's back in the paint. Remember when you're in transition defense, you stop the ball, you stop the basket. No one's back in the paint.

Ant just takes a hard right hand driving move by Bradley Beal. The defense isn't loaded up. He gets a layup. That's bad defense. Two possessions later, on a make, No one is guarding Anthony Everards Phoenix just scored. No one is guarding the best player on the other team who just steps into an easy three. This is all in an elimination game consecutively like that's just setting yourself up for failure. That's how you give up a one to

twenty three offensive rating to a bad offense. And so that's the again, that's the level of seriousness and discipline that Phoenix needs to address at the start of this season. And had just hit a three to two before that, Oh, I think this is a This is a different bad transition defense possession. Ant had just hit a three on the previous possession, a corner three. Look at this jogging. No one's getting matched up, and they just let Ant walk into an easy three just to hit one. It

just like it doesn't make any sense to me. This is a man to man. Look look at this possession. Mando. Man, we're dribbling over his ball screen. Bradley Beal's doing this weird thing where he's like not double teaming Ant, but he's kind of like just standing in the passing lane. And uh and sorry, guys, still a little rusty on the film front. We're gonna get a little better at it. What's Roy soon Hill doing up here? They're just like basically like soft triple teaming Ant. No one communicates a

Katie starts pointing through to nas Red. Now Katie decides to run through this weird triple team of aunt is there now, Jada McDaniels is going to get a wide open dunk. I watched this possession a bunch of times because I'm like, is that a zone? Look? I'm trying to figure it out. Is that a zone? Look? I don't think it's a zone. Why would Nurkics be up top and they're following cutters through. This is just like, I don't know what principles you're following here. This is

just bad defense. So yeah, as you guys can see, it wasn't pretty. And so we can talk about the offensive end and getting a point guard and all those things. But until Phoenix becomes a serious basketball team in those details, they're not gonna be able to win four playoff rounds. But they have the talent in house. It's just got to be something that they embrace from day one of the regular season. This team has to get a nasty streak. This team has to get a willingness to do the

dirty work necessary to win basketball games. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We will be back on Friday with another Power Rankings video as well as a mailbag. I'll see you guys. Then the volume. What's up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second

and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.