Hoops Tonight - Reaction to Luka Doncic’s BIG debut with Los Angeles Lakers after Mavericks trade

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to Hoops tonight here at the volume heavy Tuesday. Everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. In this episode, we're just going to be hitting Luca's debut with the Los Angeles Lakers. We're going to be doing two episodes today. There's a lot of Lakers excitement. I'm going to be covering a lot of Laker games throughout the rest of the season. Obviously as a fan, I'm gonna have a take. I'm gonna be watching all

those games. I want to get that content out there, but I don't want to inundate you guys with it. So I'm gonna be working on kind of separating Lakers content from the rest of our content as much as possible. Moving forward, we do have another episode coming out today. We're gonna do a deep dive on the Milwaukee Bucks. I've been really excited about Kyle Kuzma's early returns. We're gonna talk some Warriors in that one, couple other teams

as well. So we will have another episode coming out today, just Luca's debut with the Lakers. In this one, though, you guys are the job 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 json LTS. You guys don't miss any show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed, where we get your podcast un our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you

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All right, lealk some basketball. So Luca's debut with the Lakers a really weird game because the Jazz are just really bad, and the Jazz are also a legit like switch everything one through five no matter what type of team, and so all your ball screen actions are kind of shut down, and the only way you're really gonna get advantages is by like slipping out of switches ceiling switches or attacking one on one and drawing hell right, And the biggest thing that stood out to me in this

game was their ability to consistently get dribble penetration. There was good action too, JJ talked about in the postgame press or how they ran a three man horn set with Luca Lebron in Austin one time in the game and got a wide open shot for Rui Hachimura, and it was they made so Austin was at the top, Lebron and Luca were at the elbows. Luca's on the

left elbow. Austin makes a post entry to Luca and then cuts off of Lebron, And when he cuts off Lebron, Lebron sets a good screen that obviously triggers the switch. But Jordan clark was guarding Austin. Lebron just sealed him and created that over the top passing angle. Luca threw it to him. Now, all of a sudden, Jordan Clarkson's trapped on Lebron's backside, so there's nobody in front of him. If you don't step up, Lebron's gonna go to the rim.

Ruy Hachimura's man who was in the corner, steps over to help on Lebron. Lebron makes the kickout past to Ruey wide open three. That's the type of action that they'll have to run more frequently against some of the better teams in the league when it's just a little bit harder to break down individual defenders. But they did get good stuff out out of action. There were some

other examples, like Rui's first dunk, in the game. Along the baseline, Luca set a screen for Ruy Along the baseline, Isaiah Collier was guarding Luca and was really hesitant to switch off of Luca, and so he did it. John Collins got caught on the screen. Ruey Hachimura got a dunk, even the lob dunk that Jackson Hayes got to start the second half, same sort of concept, a little wide screen between Luca and Jackson Hayes. Isaiah Collier did not

want to switch off of Luca. He was kind of hesitant on that, but they did switch off of Jackson Hayes. So Luca just threw the lob right up to Jackson and he got it dunk. There were examples of them getting good stuff out of action, and especially against more traditional coverages, they're going to get a lot of stuff out of action. But again, by far, the biggest thing that stood out to me was their ability to get

drible penetration. Luca has this remarkable ability to turn any small gap or small angle into a full blown drive to the rim, and part of it is his incredible ability to use fakes. He just says he's really good at Like I talk about this all the time when he was in Dallas. But he will sell every part

of every move with every part of his body. So, like I talk about this all the time, instead of like doing a big sweeping crossover, it makes more sense just to face this way and then completely change direction. If you sell it with your eyes, and you sell it with your shoulders, and you sell it with your hips, the defender's going to react. Most good defenders don't watch the ball. They watch like your center of gravity to

see where your body's going. And you sell that direction chain and then you pull the ball back across right. Like It's more about those little head fakes and body fakes to get players out of position. He's great with he's great with pump fakes, he's great with pass fakes. He can do all these things to get guys out of position. And once he gets that tiny little angle,

that's where his strength takes over. He's just so big and so strong that he can turn a small gap into like a lumbering drive to the rim because he gets you caught on his shoulder or caught on his backside. And his drives have a tendency to bring in a ton of help because they are slow he like rumbles downhill and everybody reacts to it, And because he's such a threat to throw the lob pass, everyone kind of overreacts to stuff in the paint and that's what opens

up those kickout reads. Did you notice how much Lebron was pressuring the rim last night? A big part of that is because he doesn't have to create every single shot, he doesn't have to worry about burning himself out. He's also clearly very excited right now. That plays a role in it. But did you notice that he was, like

on those switches, being aggressive downhill, pressuring the rim. He kind of gets choppy with his feet and tries to get ahead of steam so that he gets his body weight going downhill, and guys just don't want to get in the way of him. Like, there's a certain amount of energy that Lebron can afford to expand on each individual iso, on each individual post up, on each individual ball screen, simply because he has less to do on the offensive end of the floor. I thought Lebron was

fantastic in this game. He's been great for a while. JJ Reddick talked after the game about how ever, since the Miami game, they had a talk and then if you guys remember the Miami game was when I had my meltown and I was like, what the hell is wrong with these guys? You know, and JJ sat down with Lebron, and ever since then, he's been fantastic. I

dug into the numbers. Since that Miami game, he's averaging twenty six point four points per game, eight rebounds per game, nine assists per game, fifty four percent from the field, forty three percent from three eight thirty point games, four triple doubles. He's playing at a top five level right now, which is what's so excited about partnering him with Lebron James, with the other talent on this roster, I thought Austin

was fantastic. Again, he had to lead a unit in the early second quarter with Lebron, excuse me, in the late first quarter with Lebron and Luca both off the floor because Luca was on a minute's restriction. Now, I would expect that it'll be like all three of them

to start games. Then Lebron will come out and it'll be Luca and Austin right in that like mid first quarter stretch, and then one of those guys will come out probably probably Luca, and it'll be Austin and Lebron to end the first quarter, and then they'll probably start the second quarter with Lebron and Luca. Then Lebron will come out in the middle of the second quarter, it'll be Luca and Austin, and then it'll be all three of them at the end. Right, that's probably going to

be the normal progression. You're probably always going to have to deal with two of those guys, right, And that's the exciting part about this in the big picture, And I was literally thinking about it last night, like there's been a lot of time over the course of the last couple of weeks where the Lakers have been playing really good basketball, but over the course of games, teams will ball pressure Austin and ball pressure Lebron and wear

them down. And Lebron is forty and Austin is a little bit susceptible to strength and athleticism from time and from time to time, and they will wear down. And they've been playing so great that they've still been winning, and Austin still made enough plays in the Pacers game to get the job done, and they do what they

need to do to get the win. But there's clearly like a little bit of like a Okay, we're running out of gas offensively here, where adding Luca just immediately doesn't just address that but turns you into the most

resilient shot creation team in the league. To just be dealing with waves of all three of them, and then Luca and Austin, and then Luca and Lebron and then Luca and then all three of them again, and it's just gonna be Lebron and Austin here and all these just these groups that have so much shot creation on the floor, they're just gonna have such a resilient offense. But again, because of Luca's minutes restriction, Austin had to

lead a unit by himself. And guess what, He's been doing that a lot this year, and he did it amazingly well again last night in that first quarter stretch. One of the biggest things, though, that I was excited about after this trade was the play finishing that is on this froster. Okay, like Luca's an indomitable force, there are a handful of guys in the league that can make him work harder than usual. I think of like lou Dort, I think of like Andrew Wiggins, who's not

even in the conference anymore. But even some of the best perimeter defenders in the league, guys like Jaden McDaniels right in the Western Conference finals, those guys can't keep him from getting to his spots. As a matter of fact, he kind of gets where he wants to easily against them. That is the superpower that will help this offense when things get really tough. But the other guys do have

some limitations. Right Lebron's forty. There's a couple times last night where he tried to turn the corner on Lourie Markinen and just couldn't get there. Laurie was like blocking him off the glass or forcing him into bad misses five years ago. He's dounking on his head. But he's forty, right, and he can wear down a little bit physically over the course of games. Although to Lebron's credit, he's been fantastic out of late. As of late, and that's the

optimism with this group. But Lebron is forty years old. Austin Reeves, for example, not a great athlete. He can struggle under ball pressure sometimes Ruey if it's not a dunk under the rim like he's shooting under fifty percent on layups right and his jumper under contests can get a little finicky sometimes. Point being they're awesome offensive players, but they have some limitations when they're in lead roles.

For all three of those guys, right, but once you give them an advantage, if you let Lebron have someone sprinting at him and now he's playing driving kick basketball. If you let Lebron slip out of screens to where he can lead a four on three, if you put Austin on the perimeter with the guy sprinting at him where he can show the ball and drive left or right.

If you put Ruey wide open where he's shooting fifty three percent on unguarded catch and shoot jump shots this year field goal percentage, meaning he's making more than half of them with what he can do driving closeouts. Gabe has been playing super well again. He was a big part of that Austin solo unit that did so well.

Dorian Finney Smith can knock down and open three. Jackson Hayes, like I talked a lot after the Mark Williams trade went through or fell through about how like not having Mark as like a roleman threat could be a significant hit to this offense. After watching last night, like I thought, Jackson did just find capitalizing on all the vertical spacing opportunities.

I believe he was six for six from the field if I remember correctly, Like I think he's not as good as Mark Williams, but I think he's gonna do just fine unlocking that vertical spacing. The point is is there's just a ton of play finishing on this roster. So if you have Luca, who against the very best defenses in the league and against the very best defenders in the league, can still create advantages, and Lebron, who kind of looks like he's still doing it for whatever reason.

And let's say, let's even pretend for a second that Lebron eventually kind of wears down over the course of a playoff run and doesn't look like top five Lebron but looks like top ten Lebron. Even if that happens, Luca is there to create the sh'll advantage once he

creates that initial advantage. Lebron and Austin and Gabe and Dorian Finney Smith and Ruey, those guys are incredible at this driving kick thing, and They're just gonna take those advantages and either score out of them or drive them and draw another defender and create an even better shot. There were so many sequences last night where the Lakers continued to break down the defense and would get like a really good look with like two or three seconds

on the shot clock. It's like, oh, Lebron's driving on like the fourth driving kick of the possession and whipping a pass back across the court to Gabe Vincent who knocks it down. Or all of the possession is great defense from the Jazz and everything's covered. But Walker Kessler is on Austin In a switch on the left wing, and Austin just pump fakes on a close out. You get the end of the possession is you get a short close out for Austin on the left wing against

Walker Kessler. Austin shows the ball, Walker over pursues that pump fake, Austin drives and hits a little bank shot with like two on the shot clock. That is play finishing. I talk about this all the time when you go into lower levels. It's dramatic the difference at the high school level. If I let the guys play King of the Court, with a set defender versus a king of the court with a guy closing out at him. Their ability to score like quadruples. And when you give them

that advantage. Now again at the NBA level, it's a smaller advantage. It's more like maybe twenty to thirty percent more efficient per possession. But that's a substantial increase that you can benefit from because now you have the best set of advantage creators that are in the NBA. And I thought that was screaming off the screen yesterday. Ruey was fantastic finishing plays, Jackson, finishing plays Lebron and Austin

and the driving kick. Even Luca like catching in transition when he's got an opportunity and driving and just baiting everybody into him with his slow, lumbering drives and flipping the ball up to Jackson Hayes. I thought their transition pushes were really good. I thought they played with a lot of pace, and I thought they did a good job of just creating advantages just by playing fast on the defensive end of the floor. I didn't think they

really defended all that well last night. I thought Vando had his worst game since he came back the whole group wasn't particularly engaged, but Utah didn't shoot well and they turned the ball over a ton, so it didn't really matter. And I don't really care because they're playing a bad team. They're kicking the shit out of them, and the kind of the silver lining there, the point of optimism is the Lakers are eleven and two in their last thirteen games. That's the best record in the

league in that span. But it's the number one defense in the league over that span. For thirteen games now, no one's been getting stops better than the Los Angeles Lakers. Now, Do I think they're going to be that good with Luca, No, that's just the reality of having Luke on the floor. By the way, he looked kind of chubbying, kind of slow last night, but again he was kind of chubbying,

kind of slow in the playoffs last year too. I still think they're going to be pretty good on defense, though, I'll be looking at the game in Portland on the twentieth, So if you look at the schedule now, they play Utah again in Utah tomorrow, then they get a big break, and then on the nineteenth they play the Hornets and then they go to Portland on the twentieth. Portland's won six games in a row at home and they beat some good teams there. So that's gonna be a tough game.

And that's what I'm gonna have my eye on as like a test for the Lakers defenses because they have a lot of speed and they're gonna put the Lakers in some predicaments in terms of their defensive personnel, and that'll be a good test for them. But again, as I look at the Lakers defensively, I don't see them as like a group that's gonna be some elite top three defense, even though they've been playing great defense as

of late. The idea here is have achieved peak unguardability on offense like Denver did in twenty twenty three, and find a way to be good enough on defense somewhere in that ten to fifteen range, like ideally in the five to in they're like six to ten range, right like just outside of that top five. If they can get up into that range consistently defensively, that's where this group has some championship potential. Again, as long as they can catch some favorable matchups and as long as they

get the type of center that they need. Right. But again, like I'm not reading too much into the defense last night, just because they were playing the Jazz. A couple other things before we get out of here. Jordan Goodwin, he in the last two games with the Lakers, seemingly has gotten a million loose balls, grabbing offensive rebounds. Every time there's a scrum, he just somehow ends up with it.

There was one last night, I think it was John Collins, I can't remember exactly, but it looked like a Jazz player had the rebound and next thing you know, Jordan Goodwin has it and is laying it up underneath the basket. And it's like there's a gift that some players have. And I see this with Jimmy Butler with the Warriors too.

It's been screaming off the screen for me. But like Jordan good there are certain players that just have a knack for scrapping for the ball, like they have a nose for the ball, they have ability to they just have an ability to get to the ball somehow, whether it's an instinct to be able to understand where it's going, whether it's a scrappiness and a fight, whether it's just

hand eye coordination. I don't know what it is, but Jordan Couldwin has been really really good just by scrapping and creating extra possessions, and like ironically in garbage time he got in there and just got a crazy heater from the mid range as a jump shooter and ended up hitting the three as well. Like Jordan showed a little off the dribble pop last night as well. But like that scrappiness, if you look at the Lakers guards right now, it's Gabe who's small, and Austin who's thin.

Jordan's kind of like an interesting option there. Makes me wonder if he keeps playing like this, if the Lakers will consider waving Shake Milton and converting him into a standard contract to see if he can get onto the playoff roster. But I've been really impressed by Jordan Goodwin. And as far as that like knows for the ball thing, that's another thing that stands out to me every time I watch Luca, and really this really comes to the

surface with his defensive rebounding. Luca has a knack for seeing where the ball is gonna come off of the rim by just watching the shooter, and he just kind of finds that gap and gets in there, and he gets a ton of defensive rebounds, And I think that's gonna be huge, especially for the Lakers small ball groups who could struggle with rebounding from time to time depending on the matchup. But the last thing I was gonna talk about with the Lakers was the Alex Lenn news.

So Alex Lenn ended up backing out of his commitment to the Indiana Pacers. I think he's gonna end up signing with the Lakers. You know, as I look at it, if you were gonna if you're gonna look at vetmin type of dudes, right you've got You've already got Christian KloCo on the roster as kind of like a raw

prospect who's a defensive mold. You have Jackson Hayes on the roster as your starter right now, is like the rim running role man kind of thing, right, Well, you don't have in terms of like a real contracted player. Is a big, strong kind of guy. And Alex Llne's two hundred and fifty pounds, which is at least an option to put out there for some of the bigger centers. Now, you might argue that Trey Jamison or Trey Jemison is every bit is good an option there. If not better,

we'll see. But like I do have a feeling it's going to end up being Alex lenn that signs with the Lakers. If you just look at it, it's like, why would he back out of the Indiana Pacers commitment?

That obviously has ramifications for his agency in terms of his credibility for backing out of like a verbal commitment, So like there's there's obviously downsides there, And the only reason I could think of him doing that is if he thought he was going to slot right into the Lakers starting lineup or into the Lakers rotation in a

significant context. So I have a feeling it's going to end up being Alex lenn hadn't played him a ton in the last couple of years, and I don't hate the idea of having a big, big seven footers two hundred and fifty pounds in that type of spot. But I still think in the big picture, Alex Lenz still still lends this team towards being primarily a small ball group, a group that's going to be operating without a center on the floor. In the majority of these situations when

the when the chips are down in the playoffs. All right, guys, that is all I have for today, or excuse me, all I have for this morning. I'm going to have another video coming out this afternoon with a bunch of others up around the league. Again, I appreciate you guys for rocking with me and I will see you later today the volume What's Up? Guys. As always, I appreciate

you for listening to and supporting hoops 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.