Hoops Tonight - Reaction to LeBron James & Lakers collapse vs. Celtics, Westbrook falling apart

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dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. I gonna keep it nice and simple.

Today we're gonna break down yet another heartbreaking collapse for the Los Angeles Lakers at home against the Boston Celtics, and then the Sacramento Kings continue their struggles against the good teams in the league, getting their butt kicked in Philly, a couple of teams we haven't really touched on much lately, so I wanted to briefly touch on them. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of

our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt S, you guys don't miss any show announcements as well as any video breakdowns that I do. And then, last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops to Night. So that was a really impressive end to the road trip for Boston if you really factor in all of the different things at play.

So you drop a couple of really tough games to the Warriors and the Clippers, who are two really good Western Conference teams in my opinion, the two best teams in the Western Conference, and those two teams we're looking for signature wins on their home floor. You dropped those games. That's tough, but that happens. And then you have it back to back. So it's your third game and four nights on the road again against the Lakers team that's been playing pretty good basketball for about a month now.

I pointed this out, even with all of the collapses, even with everything in this last you know, sixteen game stretch, their nine and seven counting what happened to the Boston Celtics last night. So and they've been pretty good on both ends of the floor. So you this was a tougher game than it would appear on the schedule. You come in and you really dominate them for two and a half quarters. Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brown demonstrating all

sorts of high level shot making. That Lakers team is so small on the perimeter that these bigger guards are, these bigger wings that are good at hitting off the dribble jump shots are gonna be really difficult for the Lakers to guard. And Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brown right now are probably the best duo in the NBA. And they really controlled this game for the most part for

about two thirds of it. And then you know, and they were able to keep the Lakers in the half court, contain things defensively, They did a nice job for the most part on Lebron James and Anthony Davis. They're just really damn good players that are gonna find ways to score points anyway. But then the Lakers punch you in the mouth and they start forcing a bunch of turnovers and getting stops, and they start getting out in transition, and Lebron and Anthony Davis get engaged, and they just

go on this unbelievable run and on. At the same time, it kind of triggered some of those bad Boston Celtics tendencies, you know, holding the ball to late clock and then instead of driving and kicking or looking for those tough pull up jump shots, and it started to look a lot like the previous two games. At one point, the Lakers led by thirteen points with less than four minutes left in the fourth quarter of this game. Now part

of me, I feel really bad for Lakers fans. Again, for those of you who don't know, I am not a Lakers fan. I just covered the Lakers for a couple of years, um, so I have a lot of friends within the Lakers fan base. And then I've always been a big fan of Lebron James, so I do root for the Lakers. I've never hid from that specifically, but I root for a bunch of different teams around the league. Because I grew up in Tucson, Arizona not an NBA town. The Phoenix Suns never marketed to them.

I've always just been a fan of the game of basketball in general. The only real teams that I'm actively rooting for ore from a team standpoint, or the University of Arizona teams because I grew up in Tucson and this is a college town. But like, I'm a fan of the Lakers because I'm a fan of Lebron and I have a lot of friends who are Lakers fans, and so I root for them, But I don't have

any specific rooting interest for the Lakers. But I felt really bad um for my friends who are Laker fans, because this team has just time and time again just found a way to break their heart and the Laker fans heart. And I can't even think about how I again,

I didn't watch the game live. I watched it this morning because I was hanging out with my wife last night, and I just I just can only imagine what Lakers fans must have felt like, because you're up fourteen or a thirteen with less than four minutes left in that fourth quarter, and they choke it away again and it looks just like all of the other losses late game losses that they've had this season. But credit to the Celtics because they really locked in over that last four

minute stretch. They got a bunch of stops. They did a nice shop on Lebron James and Anthony Davis, containing them and keeping them out of the paint. Jayson Tatum once again just ridiculous shot making. He hit a tough, tough step back three over Anthony Davis on the left wing. During that final run, he hit that ridiculous turnaround jump shot over Lebron James to tied the game. With like fifteen seconds left in overtime, Jayson Tatum made another turnaround,

one legged fade away. Jalen Brown hit basically what ended up being the dagger in late ot. Those two guys when they're hitting shots over the top of the defense like that, you just got to tip the cap. But like, really really impressive two way run from those guys to steal that game from the Lakers. Again, if you're looking at it, last game of a road trip, you're exhausted, you're ready to be home, you don't have legs. Third game in four nights. I think of a sleep part

of that too. Like, none of us ever sleep as well and someone else's bed than we do in our own bed, right, And that goes for hotels and whether you're crashing at a buddy's house or whatever it is, you just don't sleep as well and sleep as how athletes recover and so over the course of a long road trip. That's why those final games are so so

tough on teams. You're fatigue, you haven't slept really well in a while, You've got your mind back at home, thinking you're gonna be thinking you're gonna be home soon.

You're down thirteen four minutes left. You could have very easily just let go of a rope, and instead they fought back and really change the tone of the entire road trip with that type of comeback when you're Jalen Brown and Jayson Tatum both talking a lot after the game about how pleased and impressed they were with their guys forgetting that particular game in the manner in which

they got him. I wanted to shout out Jayson Tatum because he had a couple of really rough nights in a row against Golden State, against Golden State and the Clippers where he looked a lot like some of those issues we've seen last year, but he bounced back in a big way in this game. I liked how he started the game looking to get guys involved as a passer before he really turned it up as a shot

maker late in the game. And then remember we were talking about how his rim finishing and his finishing in the paint in general was a big part of his issue the last couple of games. Well, he was eight for fourteen in the paint against the Lakers and five or seven in the restricted area, so he got that back on track. And then that big shot over Lebron

at the inter regulation. That's kind of a big moment, you know, you know, uh, there're these like kind of like it gets cliche when people talk about like passing the baton and things along those lines, but when you really think about it confidently at the end of a game like that, to look, Lebron James the second best

basketball player of all time in my opinion. Who yes, he's older and he's not quite the athlete that he is that he used to be, but he's still a top ten player in this NBA and who's been playing really good basketball for the better part of a month now, Jayson Tatum looked him eye to eye and went and got a basket on him, and Lebron played good defense and forced him into one of his tougher shots, you know, that turnaround fade away over his right shoulder, and he

just knocked it down and knocked it down confidently. It was that, you know, just just long off the back room and in uh that that just you know, that's always a big indicator for jump shooters. When they're knocking to been off the back of the rim. That means they're not alligator armying or leaving them short. They're confidently

raising up and knocking the shot down. And you know, we've talked a lot over the last couple of days about the importance of superstar play and how it's the difference between the bad offenses and the good offenses in the league. We talked about this a lot with the Clippers yesterday, and you know, we talked about it for from the standpoint of warping the defense to create close out opportunities, but it's also about rescuing possessions and attacking matchups.

And when you have two guys and Jalen Brown and Jayson Tatum, that can consistently rise up and hit jump shots over the top of contests. That just shoots that little bit of extra juice into your offense and helps carry you in big moments. But yeah, I thought that was I thought that was kind of a cool moment for Jayson Tatum to go into l a and kind of outplay Lebron on his home floor to get a win. Moving on to the Lakers. You know, bad losses happen

to everyone. Blown leads happened to everyone. I mean even we were just talking a couple of days ago about the Golden State Warriors kind of blowing a game at the end. Um uh, when when Steph Curry and Draymond Green and and Andrew Wiggins and and and Clayton I think of just Clay Thompson and Jordan Pool played in this particular game when they were missing a bunch of guys and it's like heartbreak at the end of the game, um off of a couple of turnovers by Jordan Pool.

That sort of thing happens. It happens to everybody that's the most well coached and most experienced team in the league, albeit they were missing guys. It happens to everybody. The difference is for the good teams or for the players that are willing to learn. You learn from those mistakes and they become scar tissue. You guys have heard me talk about this a lot, the scar tissue that comes

from losing. It's a big part of what makes veteran players more valuable in big playoff moments than younger players. They've experienced painful losses enough times to remedy those issues, and this Lakers team refuses to learn. You know, some of the shot making stuff is unavoidable. Like again, if Jayson Tatum and Jalen Brown are going to hit big time shots over the top of the defense, you gotta tip your cap to them. But that's not the only

way they lost. There were plenty of avoidable mistakes. And I wanted to kind of break down the final sequence of the game just kind of show you what I'm talking about. So it's one of six, nine three with less than four minutes left. Lebron gets a wide open three on the left wing and he misses it. Good offense, good shot, just missed it. And Lebron, while he's struggling with pull up shooting this year, he's been actually pretty

good in catch and shoot situations this year. So on that very next possession, Boston dribbles up the floor and a D is back, but he's back to the paint and his matchup is Grant Williams, and Grant Williams is running along the left wing, and Grant Williams is a good shooter who has been lights out in spot up situations this year. A D was matched up with him

in this particular small ball Celtics grew. A D just concedes a three to Grant Williams, like saw him running the left wing, had an opportunity to close out, chose not to just conceded a basket, and he did. And a lot of these comebacks for the Lakers, these blown

leads for the Lakers, have started just like that. It's the lazy plays early in the comeback that turns a seventeen point lead into an eight point lead in a matter of seconds, you know, or or you know in this case, at thirteen point lead into something much less than that in a matter of seconds. And that's what happened here. A D concedes the three to Grant Williams. Then Lebron turns it over to Marcus Smart, on the inbounds pass like Grant hits the three Lebron turnover, Marcus

Smart layup. Now it's an eight point game in a matter of seconds. Again, that's your stars. That's Anthony Davis and Lebron. That's Anthony Davison Lebron in a matter of seconds turning a thirteen point lead into an eight point lead by being lazy and unfocused. Then they go down the floor. Russ takes and misses a pull up jump shot at the right elbow. Russell Westbrook is shooting twenty on pull up jumpers this year. We're gonna talk a

lot about Russ here in a little bit. Eighty five players this year have taken at least eighty pull up jump shots. Russ ranks in percentages. Only Keldon Johnson has been worse. He has that he continues to take the shots that skilled guards take, even though he's not skilled the way that skilled guards are. So off of that Russell Westbrook. Miss Jayson Tatum has a really nice giving go tries to dunk on Lebron was pretty solid defense, to be honest. You just Tatum made a hell of

a play. Goes to the line, he makes two free throws. Then Anthony Davis hits a really tough turnaround jump shot. Then that's when Jayson Tatum goes down and hits the tough step back over Anthony Davis. Again, we're in the tough shot making face here. Lebron goes down hits a nice fall away in the lane, a really tough two point jump shot. So it's just superstars making superstar plays

on both ends of the floor. But then after Lebron hits that jump shot, Marcus Smart in transition attacks Austin Reeves. The Lakers are not back, They're not in their help side, so Austin is by himself and Marcus s markets an easy lay up. Everyone's hugged up to their man. Leave Austin on an island. That's bad defense. They go down to the other end. Anthony Davis misses turnaround jump shot, Celtics go down, Grant Williams misses the three, then Lebron

misses the three. Then we have Jalen Brown and Marcus Smart at the top of the key. Lebron is guarding Jalon Brown. Excuse me, Anthony Davis is guarding Jalon Brown and Lebron is guarding Marcus Smart. Marcus Smart sets a ghost screen, which is a super common action in the NBA where you have a perimeter player that can shoot, go set a fake screen. So he runs up like he's gonna set a screen, and then he just runs

out to the three point line. And for the most for the most part, when it's two perimeter players like that, like jay Len Brown and Marcus Smart, you switch that screen. Lebron clearly thinks it's a switch. Anthony Davis clearly does not. They botched that switch. They give Marcus Smart a wide open three, which he's going to make every single time. Now, fatigue might have played a role there, which we're gonna get to in a little bit, but regardless, Lebron and

a Dye botched the switch. That's under your control. Then Lebron and a d run the pick and roll on the other end of the floor, Anthony Davis gets fouled on the lob. Anthony Davis has a chance to go to the line one ten to one oh eight shot clock is off, opportunity to ice the basketball game, and he misses both free throws. That's under his control. Then Jayson Tatum goes down and hits that tough shot over Lebron, and Lebron goes down and misses the tough shot, and

we're headed to overtime. That's how you blow at thirteen point lead in four minutes. Again, there's some tough shots in there, but a d conceding a wide open transition three to Grant Williams. That's bad defense. Lebron turning it over to Marcus Smart giving up a free layup, that's unfocused basketball. Russ taking another pull up jump shot, which should literally Russ should literally never ever take one. That's how bad he is at it, and he continues to

do so. You know, like Lebron and uh, Anthony Davis botching a switch that's under your control. You can, by focus and effort contain that particular issue. Anthony Davis two free throws at the end. That's a fixable problem. So we can talk about the tough shot making, and you can tip the cap to a certain extent to the Celtics. But the bottom line is is every time the Lakers blow a big lead, it's a factor of bad offensive

decision making and lazy defense. And even though it happened against Indiana earlier this year, even though it happened against the Blazers earlier this year. No matter how many times it happens to them, they do not learn their lesson. They are not building the scar tissue. So if you ask me whether or not I expect the Lakers to do something like this again at a later point in

the season, the answers, yes, they've proven that. And then we go into overtime and Lebron James and Anthony Davis were completely out of gas because they've played a million minutes, which we'll talk about in a minute. So it turned into the Russell Westbrook Show, and that one about exactly

as you would expect. He got to the rim a couple of times and made a couple of layups, but then Boston started packing the paint and daring him to shoot, and he missed back to back to back wide open jump shots because he's arguably the worst volume jump shooter in the NBA. In the Boston Celtics win, I wanted to talk about Rust for a second because we're reaching a little bit of a crisis point because he's been

so horrifically bad in his last five games. So if you remember after that Blazers game, the Bucks game in the Wizards game. I said that was his best three game stretch since his time coming of the Lakers. Generated a boatload of quality shots for the Lakers bench units. He was limiting his mistakes like taking fewer bad shots and turning over the basketball less, and he was playing solid defense. And in that stretch, his shifts were positive in all three games, and he was plus sixteen overall

in a three games. Fan immediately he regressed, don't look at the stats. Yeah, I know he's averaging fifteen, eight and five or whatever it is over his last five games, but he's had four or more turnovers, and four of the five games he's taking a boatload of bad jump shots. Again, I don't understand what the green like there. He's playing like he has a green light. I was watching the

film from Lakers Celtics this morning. He took two early clock, tough three point shots that both one was an airball and the other was like two ft long and barely grazed the back of the room, Like he's shooting like he's got a green light. It literally doesn't make sense because of how bad he isn't making jump shots. He's making a lot of defensive mistakes, and he's been a negative every single game. Russell Westbrook is minus fifty one in the last fifty in the last five games. The

Leakers are plus sixteen when he's off the floor. And this is, you know, this is what makes Russ so polarizing. You know, there's there's such an up and down volatility to his play. He makes so many huge momentum plays, and he made a ton of momentum plays in that game against Boston. Where's whether it's a steel and a

runout dunk or another runout transition layoup. It just he can make these momentous plays and and a lot of Russ fans will cling to those, but they don't pay attention to the damaging mistakes that he makes that undercut that success. For instance, there was a sequence in that fourth quarter, I think the Lakers were up to ninety and Russ gets out in transition and just gets all the way to the rim and explodes and makes a right handed lay up, and you're like, man, what a

play from Russell Westbrook. And then two possessions later he does the exact same thing, but the Celtics do a better job of getting back and building a wall in front of the room and he tries to stupid drop off past Anthony Davis who's not open and standing like

eighteen inches away from him. Leads to a turnover and they go the other way in the Celtics get an and one on adjacent on adjacent Tatum layup, So Russell Russ west Russell Westbrook fans will cling to that play that he made, the transition play, but they'll completely ignore

the one he made two possessions later. In the aggregate, it's plus two for the Lakers on the transition play, and then it's a mistransition opportunity, which is about a point per possession and three points the other way because of the transition live ball turnover. In the aggregate, that's like negative two points in a two possession sequence. That's why I can't look at the box score with Russell Westbrook to get a feel for his impact on the game.

And that's what makes him so polarizing. You have the Russell Westbrook fans that only cling to the good, and then you have a lot of Russell Westbrook haters that only cling to the negative. Now I get frequently lumped in with that group, which I don't think is fair because I constantly point out when he does play well or the good things he does in terms of his shot creation and rim pressure and the way he's been

performing with the Lakers bench groups. I try my best to try to play the middle ground, and too often I get called, you know, looped in with all the haters. But then, like you get into overtime, there was a play um it was the one where it was when they were up one fourteen to one twelve, and Russell

Westbrook takes another pull up jump shot. Again, like we talked about, worst eight four out of eighty five pull up jump shooters in the league at that volume, takes a pull up jump shot, jogs back in transition and guards nobody. Marcus Smart drives past Lebron James on the right wing. Bad defense from Lebron there again, I thought Lebron and A d in particular were completely wiped out. At the end of this game, Marcus Smart gets down

to the middle, Anthony Davis contains Marcus Smart. Grant Williams is wide open on the right wing. If Russell Westbrook was in normal defensive position, that would have been his rotation. He's not even in the play. In fact, he's guarding nobody On this play, he loses a side of man and ball and he's drifting out to the left wing, completely unaware of anything that's going around him. Grant Williams

makes it three, the Celtics are up by one. That's the that's the up and down nature of the Russell Westbrook experience, and Russ fans only see the positive and they refuse to see the negative. As we zoom out on Russ's season, now, he's had a lot of good games. He's probably had ten or so good games where he's been like a significant positive. But the bad plays are starting to outweigh the good plays again, and the bad games are starting to outplay outweigh the good games. So

here's where we're at in totality this season. The Lakers are plus twenty eight when Russ is off the floor. They are minus seventy one when he's on, which is dead last on the team. Even if we account for possessions, he's minus three point seven per one possessions, which is the worst among the Lakers rotation players. The Lakers are thirteen points better with a D on versus a D off. They are one point two points better with Lebron on versus Lebron off, they are seven points worse with Russ

on versus Russ off. So the bottom line is is that things have probably gone as good as they possibly could have gone for us this season, and it's still

has been a complete disaster in the aggregate. And he's undercutting which what has been a pretty dominant stretch from Lebron James and Anthony Davis since November six, Anthony Davis thirty points and thirteen rebounds a game on six shooting Lebron James since November six, eight and six on from the field and from three, and yet the Lakers are dropping winnable games in large part because they have the

majority of their salary resources their most expensive player. The majority of those resources are tied up in a player that actually hurts the team but makes enough momentum plays to fool the staff in front office into thinking that he's been a positive when he clearly is not, and there's this narrative surrounding him that he's been the sixth

man of the year this year. Oh, we moved russ to the bench and everything has been better, and there have been good moments in good games with Russ on the bench, But the reality is in the aggregate they're getting destroyed when he's on the floor, and they're positive when he's off. He and when he's alongside Lebron James, there's too many rogue possessions of pull up threes. There's two little activity off the basketball to remain a threat,

and he makes too many defensive mistakes. But the problem is that narrative of him being the sixth man of the Year, that's gonna be enough to trick the Lakers into thinking that that's where he should be and they're gonna keep him. I will be shocked if the Lakers actually decided to move Russ, and it's a shame because it's gonna undercut any chance that Lebron James and Anthony Davis have to make a run this year. Last thing I wanted touch on with the Lakers is Lebron James

anything to us with fatigue. So part of the issue with Russ taking up this kind of salary resources with him being the most expensive player on the team, the Lakers have a severe depth problem. They don't have enough good basketball players to run lineups with the two of them staggered more frequently playing fewer minutes. So Lebron played forty two minutes, played the entire fourth quarter, in overtime,

took just one brief rest in the third quarter. Anthony Davis played forty six minutes and played the entire second half and overtime. So when we look at things like that botched switch where Anthony Davis and Lebron should have switched the Jalon Brown Marcus Smart action, when we look at Lebron getting beat to the basket by Marcus Smart in overtime, you know, on the Grant Williams shot, which ended up being the lead changer. I'm I can't get

super upset at those two guys because they're tired. It's just natural. Now. I would hope that, especially when you factor in the gravity of that particular game, that they'd be able to lock in and get those stops. But I'm not gonna be over really critical of them when it's clear that they're tired. And you know, I talked before the season, I said, if Rob Polinka and Genie Buss are patient with the trades, they might be able to get something better. I admitted that before training camp.

I get it, there is upside there but there was an obvious downside by skipping the opportunity to give your team a full training camp to integrate players, by burying yourself in the standings because the Lakers, they knew they had a difficult schedule to start the year. By digging that hole in the standings and by losing that continuity, now in the process, you're running your stars into the ground and you're digging yourself a massive hole in the standings.

Is that worth it to potentially have something ten better in the trade market? I don't think so, because this group I don't think has the stamin unnecessary to go on an incredibly difficult playoff run. It was a stratg G that I thought was clearly flawed from the start, and big shock, he came back to bite the Lakers in the butt alright, moving on to King's sixers. So this was a dominant win for Philly. They led by twenty five for most of the game. Really good balance

for Philly. They had six players and double figures. Joel Embiad at thirty one and seven on sixteen shots. Joel Embiad is averaging thirty seven points per game in his last ten games. He's not really there's you know, it's funny because there's been a lot of talk like, oh, why isn't it be getting enough as much attention for this recent play as Anthony Davis has been getting. And I think that's silly because Anthony Davis has been better.

He's been the best defensive player in basketball during that stretch, and he's been the best rebounder in basketball. He's averaging fourteen rebounds per game in this recent stretch. So like, yes, and Beat is scoring the way that Anthony Davis has been even a little bit better, but he's not having the overall impact the way that Anthony Davis has had. That said, Joel Embiid is having a really impressive run

as a score. He had fifty three against Charlotte the other night, averaging thirty seven points per game in his last ten games, really really impressive night. I just want to draw a line between him and what Anthony Davis is doing, which is like, like, there's a reason why Anthony Davis has been being called one of the best players in the world in the last month or a

month and a half or so. It's because he's literally been the best defensive player in basketball, the best rebounder in basketball, and he's scoring at a Joel and Be type of rate. UM, But kudos and Joel and B because like he's on a ridiculous scoring run right now. Uh. James Harden twenty one and fifteen assists on thirteen shots. He had three more mid range shots in this game. We talked a lot last week about James Harden and his mid range scoring um, and then Tobias Harris pitched

in twenty one and seven. But I thought they won this game on the defensive end of the floor. Batiste, heybel It's interesting because he's been kind of like a polarizing player within Sixers Twitter because a lot of Sixers fans wanted to play more, but then a lot of other Sixers fans are like, no, he's too bad offensively, and he kind of goes in and out of the rotation based on what you know. DC Rivers thinks they need on the offensive end of the floor. But he

is so damn good defensively. Um. And he did such a good job in this game, in particular now vigating screens, having a good idea of one to go under versus one to go over when he thought he had a chance to recover and using his length to bother Dear and Fox in his pull up jump shooting, which is such an important part of his scoring out of pick

and roll. And then when you have Joel and Beat at the rim, especially with a guy like Sabonis who will take perimeter jump shots but doesn't like to take them at volume, it really allowed Philly to continue to contain Deer and Fox and give him a really tough night. Um. The Sixers have now won three in a row to get back up to fifteen and twelve. They're the fifth seed in the East right now since Phillies five and seven start, So since November twelve, they are ten and five,

which is the fourth best record in basketball. They are thirteenth and offense and fourth and defense, and they've been missing a bunch of guys over that span. They're actually starting to get healthy now, which kind of leads you to the conclusion of why their offense has been a

little uneven. Um, So keep an eye in the Sixers because if Tyrese Maxie comes back, which I think they're planning around Christmas, if Tyrese Maxie comes back, they've kind of established themselves on the defensive end, in a way that they didn't early in the year. I would be I'd be surprised if the Sixers don't go on a run to start next year in January. So the Sacramento

Kings continue to struggle against good teams. They are seven and one this season when they're playing against teams that are below five hundred, and they are seven and eleven this season when playing against teams that are five hundred

are better. The realities, they just can't. I talked a lot about this before the season, like, you have to be able to play defense to beat the good teams in the league, because you know, there's kind of like a baseline level of what you can accomplish um defensively in a game with a miniscule level of effort that

bad teams won't be able to exploit. So, for instance, if you play lazy defense where you just chase guys out the three point line and funnel them into the paint, and you know, teams that aren't willing to make the extra passes to get high quality shots so they don't test your defensive rotations, you'll be able to get enough stops to win games, especially when on the other end you're playing against a bad defense, and your offense can

light them on fire. But when you're playing against a good team, there's a certain level of shot making and offensive you know, um organization with extra passes and and and cutting and things like that that squeeze out extra points on the offensive end of the floor, and then on the other end of the floor, your offense will be less effective because you're going up against a great defensive team. You need to be able to lock in and get stops to beat the good teams in the league.

According to Cleaning the Glass, when the Sacramento Kings play a top ten team in the league by point differential, they have a defensive rating of one seventeen, which ranks in the league, and you can see it in the results if you start to look at their schedule. They lost to Atlanta, they lost to Boston, they lost to Phoenix. Then they beat the Pacers. Then they beat the Clippers without Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Then they beat the Chicago Bulls team, which is kind of spiraling. Then they

lose something to the Milwaukee Bucks. Then they beat the Calves without Donovan Mitchell. Then they lose to the Knicks and the Sixers. So the reality is of the Sacramento Kings is they're just a fun, mediocre team that will probably lose in the playing tournament or get swept in the first round. I really am interested in a bunch of specific players is on their team. I like Dearon Fox. I made a lot of improvements as a jump shooter this year. I liked him. Honesta Bonus is that bullyball

post player that passes the ball really well. I think he had five more sists in this game. Um. I really like Kegan Murray as a future kind of three and D player that has more of like a lightning quick Clay Thompson asked, type of release you know, dave On Mitchell is starting to add some offense to offset, you know, to to add to what he brings on

the defensive end of the four. There's a lot of good to like with the Sacramento Kings, but at this point it's just an interesting team, not a good team. All right, guys, That is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. We're gonna be back tomorrow with our with the power rankings, I believe is the plan at this point. So we're gonna get to hit on a bunch of teams tomorrow. Um. As always,

I sincerely appreciate your guys to support. Keep an eye on the Twitter feeds, you guys can see show announcement. So I'll let you know when the show is coming out and I'll see you guys. Then the volume