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restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. Terms at sportsbook dot DraftKings dot com slash Basketball terms. All right, okun hoops tonight here at the volume, Happy Friday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible week. We're gonna be breaking down three games in today's show. The Golden State Warriors got back
on track against the LA Clippers last night. The Oklahoma City Thunder, who have really struggled against big frontlines all year, finally got a win against one in the Los Angeles Lakers last night. And then lastly, the Miami Heat fourth quarter comeback beat the Indiana Pacers, who had controlled that entire game for the most part. We're gonna be breaking down the Heat, who are eleven and eight at this
point playing some good basketball. And then the Pacers are twenty ninth in defense, and I want to dive into some of the reasons behind that as well. You guys are the job for we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me if you scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast
under Hoops Tonight. Follow me on Twitter at underscore json lt for the film threads that I do every morning, as well as show announcements, and the last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. Not doing any mail bag today, but we're gonna be doing a few of them next week, so keep dropping them in the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So
Warriors really controlled the entire game against the Clippers. It's you know, this is kind of some of the stuff with the NBA regular season, right, Like the Kings win this crazy wild game on a game winner, on a wild comeback against the Warriors. Then they have to turn around and play the Clippers the next night. They get their butts kicked by the Clippers. You then have to turn around to play the Warriors the next night, and they obviously end up looking come out kind of flat
and get controlled throughout the game. A lot of this stuff is just kind of natural stuff that you see throughout the regular season, but you're not gonna hear any complaining about that from Warriors fans, who have played the toughest schedule in the league to this point could use a couple of schedule wins in the over the course of the next couple of weeks. Right, The Clippers did briefly get it back to five with about four and a half minutes left, but then the Warriors immediately executed
to perfection to put it away. It was one hundred and one oh five with about four and a half minutes left. Steph starts picking on James Harden and on the first one the Clippers end up doubling and Moses Moody slips to the basket. Really nice feed from Steph, and then Moody through a fake lob pass to to Draymond Green that just got Zubac to hesitate, which allowed
him to shoot that little floater over the top. On the other end of the floor, James Harden tries to pick on Steph, and Steph just like straight up locks him up, and Pozemski ended up coming kind of offering a token double team at the end of the possession, even though Steph didn't need it and they could get away with that because it was Russ on the floor. The ball just kind of got swung around to Russ
in the corner, who missed the three. He's been missing his jump shot for a while after getting off to a hot start this season. And then the next possession, Paul George does not want to concede that situation with James Harden where there's a double team. They don't want
to give away that pocket pass anymore. So Harden's going to hedge and recover, which is what most teams do and guard to guard screens when they're trying to protect a weak defender, and so right as Paul George is starting to try to get over the top of that screen, steph just whips it back between the legs to the left and goes over it, gets downhill just right down to the rim, gets into Zubox chest and takes this like crazy bump and then scoops it off the glass
with his right hand. They go down to the other end of the floor and Moses Moody gets a nice defensive sequence on James Harden, and then Stephan Moody kind of double team Paul George to contain him, and again you're able to kind of offer a lot more help with Russell Westbrook on the floor, and then it ends up in James Harden's hands on the right wing, but Zam scans up almost swiping the ball away. It's kind of a break rhythm situation and James Harden this is
the three. Then they go back down to the other end and Steph just dances on Paul Georgian and Iso right as he's hopping to the right, and again like that's a big no no with defense. You want to chop your feet, not hop, because if you hop, you don't have any ability to quickly plant. Steph hit him with the left or right crossover right as he hopped, and he was just downhill and then he just took a little pull up fifteen foot jump shot. PG was pursuing from the left and he ended up picking up
a foul, went to the foul line. Next thing you know, the Warriors are up ten and the games over right. But again a little bit of a schedule loss there for the Clippers coming off of a back to back. This is kind of stuff that happens over the course of the regular season. That said, like people have asked me not just about the Warriors, but about the Lakers
as well. Why I haven't reacted much to their regular season struggles, and to be honest, it's because both teams have dealt with unfortunate circumstances, and in spite of that, they've had key, you know, trends that I view as not just positive, but more important in the bigger picture than whatever's happening in this handful of regular season games. For instance, at the lay ones later when we talk Lakers, but for the Warriors, Draymond Green is shooting lights out.
He wants to shoot first possession of the game. He's kind of hanging out around the top of the key and you could see him. He's like clapping and asking for the ball. He wants to shoot the ball right now. Knocks down his first three at the top of the key. There's another one he took in the corner against Kawhi Leonard, like two possessions later. Kawi closes out hard at him and he just rises up and knocks down the shot.
He's shooting seventy percent in effective field goal percentage on catch and shoot jumpers this year, and he's the most confident I've seen him with that shot since the twenty sixteen season. I think that's a that is the type of trend that could be a real ceiling razer when
they get to the later rounds of the postseason. Don't forget what the Lakers did to the Warriors last year, just ignoring Kevon Looney and Draymond Green anytime they were at the three point line, right Like we remember in the twenty sixteen season in that playoff run, how important Draymond Green's three point shooting was, right Like, It's just it's just one of those things that's an important ceiling razer for this team, and that, to me is a
more encouraging trend than some of the other negative stuff that we've seen here in the early stretch of the season. And specifically taking contested shots like I talked about the one in the corner with Kwi or Kwi's closing out at him. He's seven for fourteen on contested catch and shoot jump shots this year. So really really encouraging trend
from Draymond Green. Klay Thompson, after not scoring twenty points at all in the verse fourteen games of the season, he's done it four times in the last five games. That's a really encouraging trend. Brandon Paziemski like straight up looks like a bona fide rotation piece that can hold up on both ends of the floor. I thought he played a great game against the Clippers last night. He
guarded Kwi a bunch and switches. Pazemski's like kind of bigger than you would think, especially for a rookie guard. He's pretty well built. He's got He's tall enough to hold his own and switches against some of the bigger, stronger perimeter players that you see in the league. He's a good rebounder. He fits perfectly in the offense. He's
a smart cutter. There was a play where he was kind of running along the left wing and he identified that PG was kind of trailing him in transition, and I can't remember who it was, but another Warrior kind of cut through along the baseline, and so there was an opening there and obviously Steph had the ball. Staff's a good passer. B Pod just immediately recognized it cut to the basket along the backside there on the left. Steph hit him in stride for a bucket. He's knocking
down his three point shot. He can pass the ball well, like the Pozemski thing is really exciting, not just in the short term with Gary Payton Junior being out, Gary Payton the second being out, but also just in the sense that he kind of, to me represents like a version of what of what Dante DiVincenzo was for this team, but like a little bit more stout in his ability to defend bigger wings, and I think that could be
a real asset to this team. I also think he's a better passer and a little bit better fit overall offensively within the Warriors. It's been a you know, little things like that can go a long way to making up for big mistakes like the James Wiseman pick, right, And obviously it's early. Obviously you hope for more even than Podzemski from a number two overall pick. But all you can do after you make a mistake is try to make up for it with wins after the fact.
And I look at the Jemsky pick and his early kind of popping with this Warriors team as a win in that regard. Moses Moody is playing well. Did you know Moses Moody is thirteen for seventeen on pull up jump shots this year, He's been a smart offensive player off the ball in the terms that he kind of just fits more in the flow of the offense than Jonathan Kaminga does. His jump shot is what He's well over one point one points per jump shot this year.
That's a really encouraging thing. Held up good on an island. Defensively, had a good defensive possession against James Harden late in the game, had a good defensive possession on Paul George late in the game. Moses Moody's playing well, and then
like Steph is still out his ceiling. I had a guy in the comments two or three days ago that was like, Steph isn't as good as he was at his peak, and like, I mean, I suppose it, like you might be able to convince me that he's a tiny percentage down from where he was in the twenty twenty two season, but I don't really see that. Like he's still just toasting everybody off the dribble, like Paul
George could not keep him in front last night. Had he finished the game off with an eye so of James Harden after they kind of briefly got it back to seven, where he just dribbled right around him to the right to his scoop shot. I would say that, like Steph is actually better at weaponizing his handle and jump shot to beat people off the dribble now than
he ever has been. And like when you factor that into like he's getting the defense and rotation in two ways, not just pulling two defenders out in terms of blitzes like that slip from Moses Moody, but also just getting downhill and drawing multiple defenders in rim pressure. Like I think Steph is every bit as good as he's ever been. And then Andrew Wiggins, like, I know he missed this game with his sore finger, and that's kind of weird.
I don't know what's going on there, but two of his last four games were like really great games, as best games of the season, and he just I thought he played extremely well in that Kings game. And we even got good news about Gary Payton's calf muscle, Like there was that weird report that he tore it, and then we heard that it was a strain and that he's probably gonna be reevaluated in a couple of weeks.
So that's great news as well. That kind of makes it so that you don't have to be as worried about the type of player you're attracting you're trying to go after in the draft, Like you don't necessarily have to get like this insane perimeter defender. You can look for more of a scoring forward there. That's why I still like the Lori marketing idea, the the Jeremy Grant idea. For that specific slot, you can be more patient towards the deadline. They have the sixth easiest remaining schedule in
the league. Good times are ahead for the Warriors, and this is why we don't overreact to regular season trends. Like I guarantee you there's gonna be a bunch of people listening to this video expecting me to talk about how the Lakers suck. And it's like, I'm not gonna talk about how the Lakers suck. When they played their fourth game on the road, the fourth game, their last game of a long road trip, tail end of a back to back, five key rotation players out, they had
seven rotation players in uniform. If you want to pretend like that's some sweeping representation of what the Lakers are, go ahead, I'm not gonna stop you but like you're not gonna get me on the show, you know, acting like the sky is falling over weird stuff that happens in the regular season. The Warriors had a really unfortunate start to the year. Still really good. They're not going anywhere.
Do they need to make a trade to like truly contend at the highest highest levels against people like Denver and Boston. Yeah, But I could say the same thing about the Milwaukee Bucks. I could say the same thing about the Lakers, like that. That's the pretty That's a pretty typical problem in the NBA. Only one team gets
to hoist the trophy. There's usually a group of teams that are ahead of everybody else, right, And I just I just think that, I just think that the Warriors are more or less in a typical stretch of what happens during the regular season. There's just happened at the beginning of the year, and it could just be so much worse. And so I never really understood the negativity that I was seeing on the Clippers front. Still a
ton of issues. They're defending pretty well since the hard and trade one twelve point four defensive rating that ranks ninth in the NBA. But it completely falls apart in crunch time and steph attacking James Harden here, This isn't the first team to do that. He's been getting attacked in crunch time consistently here as of late, their defensive rating falls to one to nineteen point one when the in clutch situa, which remembers when the game's within five
with less than five minutes left. They're also not rebounding well. Since the hard And trade, which we talked about, they lost a lot of their four depth and so they suddenly have become a pretty damn small team. They are twenty first in defensive rebounding percentage since the Harden trade, and even though they've gone small a ton over the years, pre hard And trade, they were a great rebounding team. So I think that's pretty concerning. In clutch situations, in particular,
they're getting murdered on the glass. This is an insane stat. Forty five point eight percent of opponents misses in crunch time against the Clippers are getting offensive rebounded. That's almost half. So they have to get like one point five stops per stop. It's completely insane, Like it's that's a huge problem. And then the weird. One of the weirder trends too, is their clutch offense has been horrific, which is like the reason why you made this trend to give you
guys some perspective. Last year they were the fourth best clutch offense in the league, up over one sixteen offensive rating in two games before the hard and trade. They had a one to twenty two offensive rating in crunch time the two crunch time games that they played, and then so far through eight clutch games a ninety one
offensive rating. And the main thing that's standing out to me is like it's a lot of just standing and watching, like they'll have hardened run a ball screen with you know, with anybody but Kawhi for whatever stupid reason, and then they'll like, you know, James Harden will make a kickout pass to Terrence Man or to Russell Westbrook being unguarded in the corner, and the play will die. Because that's the thing, is like Terrence Man's getting treated a lot
like Russell Westbrook in these situations. And then occasionally they'll be like, okay, fine, let's throw it to Kawhi Leonard for a possession and he'll take some post up jump shot but like there's no flow, they can't decide who they want to go through at the end of these games.
One of the things that was nice about Crunch Time pre hard in trade is is pretty simple as a classic your turn my turned basketball with Paul Georgia Kauai with a with a heavier usage for the guy that's having a better night, and it's just become a more complicated process after that. They are five and eight since the trade. I know Clipper fans are going to be saying, hey, they just beat up the Kings last night or two
nights ago. I'm not trying to undercut that by any stretch of the imagination, but the Kings were just coming off of this crazy emotional comeback win with a game winner from leak month to night before against the Warriors in an n season tournament game. Now, that doesn't delegitimize the win. My point is is like you're five and eight and that one win against the Kings was followed up by you guys losing on your version of a
back to back to the Warriors. So if you want that same leniency that you gotta give it to the same thing to the Kings, which is why we don't look at any one game, single sample sized result, as any sort of sweeping declaration of any sort of team. We're looking at trends, and the trends are you're five and eight since the hard and trade. You can't rebound, You really can't rebound in the clunch, in the clutch, your defense has taken a step back, and it's really
really bad in the clutch. And it's just a bootload of issues. And I don't really necessarily see I think that the offense has to come around. It's just a simple I just refuse to believe that Harden, PG and Kwi and Norman Powell can struggle to score like this. I just refuse to believe it like that. They're gonna find ways to score. But the rebounding and defense stuff that you're seeing with those particular lineups, I don't necessarily
see the personnel to turn that around. They're gonna keep attacking Harden at the end of games, you're gonna continue to struggle because you don't have the size to rebound. So those are things that I find legitimately concerning. All right, moving on a Lakers thunder. So Lakers jumped the thunder
early in this game. We're gonna talk about it in a little bit because I'm gonna wait on the Lakers, But a couple two things in particular, I thought turned the game around for the Thunder after they fell down fourteen. It was like thirty five to twenty one at one point in the two thirds of the way through the first quarter. First of all, when Max Christi left the game, and Max Christy did a really nice job on shake
Gil as Alexander and his first shift. And We've talked about this a lot with the Lakers about the slotting of their perimeter defenders, because Torre and Prince started the game on Jalen Williams and actually did a decent job. And Jalen Wims is a good player, but Chay's better, right, excuse me? And Shay's obviously much harder to guard. Late first quarter, Shay just started taking torim prints the task,
scoring on him easily get into the foul line. That was a big kind of like you know, Steimy, It just it slowed down the momentum that the Lakers had. Right then we start the second quarter, Shay's not even out there. It's that Lebron led group for the for the Lakers, and Mark Dagenel goes with this three to two zone, which I thought was a really smart move.
I've talked about this a lot on the show, but like, the Lakers were in a really good offensive rhythm in that first half, and there are a lot of different things you can do to try to disrupt rhythm, Like you can call timeouts. You know Mark Daganel, it's a coach that's really good at calling timeouts to stemy runs right, And there's different approaches to that. There are certain coaches that believe you're actually better off letting your players kind
of figure it out on the fly. I tend to disagree, but there are really smart coaches that are not in the NBA that I trust, that that do that and that I respect, and so I don't necessarily think there's a right or wrong answer there. But one of the other ways you can disrupt rhythm is to throw a schematic change into the equation. And they went out with this three two zone. And what I specifically like about the three two zone is it's very different to attack
a three two zone than a two three zone. So a two three zone, you got a guy standing underneath the basket, he's got to kind of like step in
and out of the paint. Obviously in the NBA because of the defensive three second rule, but you got guys in the corners, and you have two guys at the top right, and so the easy way to attack a two three zone is to set up an odd front and try to get the ball to the high post, which is gonna make one of those guys have to make a decision, and then ye's where you get your easy kickout passes and cutters along the baseline right. But
in a three two zone, it's entirely different. You have to set up in four corners with a player in the middle of the floor. And the Lakers were literally running an odd front against their odd front zone, and so they ended up just kind of passing the ball around the perimeter and then somebody would jack up a contested three. And that's the thing is like, could you run a three two zone against the Lakers in a playoff series? You know, for in large doses, no, they're
too smart. And Anthony Davis in particular as his zone buster in a lot of different ways, but in a regular season sample size, if you can just throw a wrench into the situation you might be able to throw them off. And they ran that zone for six possessions in the early second quarter and it completely turned the game around and completely disrupted the offensive rhythm of the Lakers.
Then when Anthony Davis checked back in the game, they went back into man right and from there they started aggressively doubling Ad, which we'll talk about, but again, like the Lakers. Overall, they ran eleven possessions of their three to two zone against the Lakers, and they held them
to zero point five to five points per possession. What's that six points and eleven possessions, So like, that's a not only was it effective on a per possession basis, but it also threw off the rhythm of the game. Then the other the two guys that I want to shout out on the OKC front during that run on the offensive end of the four are Aaron Wiggins and Jalen Williams. Aaron Wiggins made three plays that I thought
were really important during that run. Austin Reeves had just hit this crazy bailout shot on the right wing, and then the very next possession, the thunderfind themselves in a late clock situation and Aaron Wiggins hits a right shoulder fade, a tough shot at the buzzer, and you could tell that gave him confidence because a couple possessions later, he's got Lebron James in the corner and Lebron's doing one of these, you know, one of these like where you're
the camera is the offensive player, where he's kind of like daring him to shoot, and so he just kind of like hits a little jab and rises up and knocks down a three point shot in Lebron's face. Then he's got his confidence going, you know, a full tilt, and he gets downhill and draws a foul. I thought it was a really good shift from Aaron Wigs. Didn't didn't play to a ton last night, but it was a short shift that I thought was really impactful in
the game. And then Jalen Williams was just cooking everybody on the Lakers, specifically Austin Reeves, who, as Austin has been pretty good defensively over the last like two three weeks, but I didn't think he had a very good defensive game against the Thunder and Jalen's just got like this, first of all, he's making his jump shot at a high rate, which is super important. But he's just got the strength element, like he can really get to his
spots and deal with contact really well. And then from there, like the Lakers kind of let go of the rope there in that late second quarter stretch, they were swarming Anthony Davis and forcing turnovers and rotating out of those double teams really well, and they were running down the floor the other way. They're such a good transition game. They scored thirty three points in transition team I should say they scored thirty three points in transition in this game.
And then it basically the wheels came off and it turned into a blowout. The other guy I wanted to quickly shut out before we talk some big picture of stuff with the thunder was Chet. I thought that he did a really nice shot running the floor in this game,
which is so important against the Lakers. And then the shot making, like Anthony Davis is seeing that juxtaposition of like Chet ready and willing to take threes, and he missed a couple great looks, but he ended up making one I think in the second half if I remember correctly, and then he hit that crazy left shoulder fade over Anthony Davis like he's a ready and willing perimeter shooter, and like Anthony Davis just has no interest in taking that shot, which is, like I thought, there was an
interesting juxtaposition last night and a good indicator of like, hey, like, watch out for this young generation of basketball players. Man, Like, they're all so damn good, and there a lot of them are good at some of the things that these veteran guys are not good at, And I think it's a good indicator of just how fun this next era
of basketball is gonna be. So as we've talked about the every time we've talked to Thunder on the show, they struggle with big teams, and I mean just recently, they had another game against the Timberwolves, who obviously have a big front line. They gave them all sorts of issues. Go Baar gave Chet all sorts of issues, right, And so I was interested in this particular team. Now, I didn't have high hopes for the Lakers in this game because they're severely undermanned and they were at the tail
end of a long road trip. We'll talk about that in a minute. But I still was like, hey, like there're one chance here is that this is the kind of matchup that the Thunder struggle with. And they gave them some issues early, right, Anthony Davis got chet into big in early foul trouble that Anthony Davis post ups were working early and often as they kind of blew the game open in that first quarter. But a couple of things they use your speed, Like a huge part
of basketball is understand what your advantages. Like what is I was literally working on we were doing with my kids, the kids that I coached in high school here in town.
We were working on this this morning. Like we were doing some of the court stuff at the end after we did our skill work, and I was working with the post players, and like there were two kids in that group that are like smaller and more athletic, and then there were two kids kids in that group that were like bigger and stronger, right, And I was trying to tell them like, hey, like if you're trying to turn your back to the basket as a small player
and trying to like like play back down basketball against a bigger player, it's just not gonna work for you, right, Like you need to catch a little further away and you need to turn and face and you need to use your speed. That's your advantage in this situation. Identify he's big and slow, you're athletic and fast. Take him to where you have an opportunity to use your advantage. Right, Whereas if you're the big player, then you've got the
smaller player buried on you. The last thing you want to do is take anything far away from the basket. You're doing him a favor. You want to back him down, bury him deep post position, and catch and quick finish around the basket. Right, Like, the same thing goes in the big picture of a basketball team. You can't play slow down, methodical half court basketball with the Lakers. They're too big. They're gonna bully you in a lot of
those situations. Right, But you had a not only did you have a and rest advantage, but just in general, you're a super young, fast team. They average twenty six transition points per game, that's second in the entire NBA, and they push that to an even higher level in this game, getting it up to thirty three points. And that's kind of my point is like, identify, here's our advantage. These dudes don't want to run if we keep running,
We're going to succeed. And like it was kind of like it was like they kept kind of beating up against that barrier, and then eventually the barrier fell over there in that late second quarter, and then it was just run out after run out after runout, and the game was over. And so I think that might be kind of the the the method of method for Oka see to try to attack these big front lines like double and rotate. That is a way to weaponize your speed and then get out and transition as much as
possible against those teams, hunt those possessions. Even if you lose in the short term, like that game, you fell down fourteen points, but you just keep pushing, You keep pushing, you keep pushing. Eventually the dam will break on the Lakers front. I don't want to be overly critical, like I said, because it's it's a confluence of a ton of negative factors. Last game of a four game road trip, tail end of a back to back, Lakers only had
seven available rotation players. No Ruya Chimura, No Jared Vanderbilt. That's two of your top five or six players. No Gay Vincent, that's three your top seven players, right, No Cam Reddish no Jackson Hayes, like literally they like they had to play Jalen ud Chaffino in that second quarter shift and he can't make a jump shot right now, which gave Okac all sort of leniency to help off of him, right and you're playing a super young team that runs for forty eight minutes, right, So, like, I
didn't really have high hopes for them in this game. Again, I thought they had a chance with the with the Okase struggling with the front lines, and you saw that at the beginning of the game, right, like Anthony Davis torching chet the Lakers went up by fourteen, that the zone adjustment was what kind of turned the game around. But you know, it was just what ended up happening after that point, to me, was kind of what you
would expect in that specific situation. But I do want to talk about the post up offense for a little bit because in the second quarter, when Anthony Davis came back, the Lakers, I had to go back to what they did in the first quarter, which was forced feed Anthony Davis in the post or at least some of the possessions they did. I wish they would have done it
more but it is what it is. And there was all this debate among Laker fans last night about whose fault is it that the Lakers can't keep punishing the Thunder inside in the post. And I remember sitting there thinking my in the live watch and like every time I watch a game live, like, I can pick up on some things, but it's a lot easier for me to pick up on real details in a film session
because I can watch one possession at a time. I can watch each individual player on a possession, rewatch the play three four times, like Synergy has like these these keys that I can press to like go back two seconds or five seconds, or four two seconds or five seconds, so I can like really quickly like cycle through a play and watch it a bunch of different ways and
pick up all the pieces of information. Right And so what I wanted to do for Lakers fans right now is just kind of do a breakdown of what I think went wrong for the Lakers in their post attack offense against the Thunder in that second quarter stretch where they lost control of the game. So, first of all, what they did at the beginning of the game was spam cleared side post ups for Anthony Davis on the left side of the floor where he was able to
just work downhill to his strong hand. That's how he got Chet into foul trouble. That's where the Lakers got control of the game early. And I've been begging a lot for this all season, right, Like, I think the Lakers are a brute force team. I've called them that for years. I think that means they need to run a lot of spread pick and roll, which means pick and roll out high where you're setting the screen like twenty five thirty feet away from the basket and trying
to buy room for guys to get downhill. A lot of cleared side pick and roll. That's where you put all the shooters on the weak side and you might interchange with them or something, or have them flash if they see an opening, but they're pretty much out of the play and you're running two man game on the cleared side of the floor, and it's less far from the basket, but there's more space to operate east, west, right, and then lastly more cleared side post ups right. And
that's same exact concept. But I like Lebron on the right side of the floor where he can dribble with his left hand and play make and get to that right shoulder fade. And I like Anthony Davis on the left side of the floor where he can get to his right handed hooks shot and he can simplify his reads because he needs a little bit more help with
the pass. That's kind of the way I think they should run their offense transition and then clear side post ups, spread pick and roll, and cleared side pick and roll. That's kind of to me in terms of the brute force approach. That doesn't mean they shouldn't run action. That doesn't mean they shouldn't run five out occasionally. I just think they should lean more on that stuff. The five out thing hasn't really worked all that well, and for
it's just not a good personnelfit for that group. They don't have enough downhill athleticism and they don't have enough shooting to run a five out offense. In my opinion, in the first quarter of that game, they were spamming cleared side post ups and it was working. When Ad came back in the second that was where it fell apart. So let's dive into that specifically, Why do I want them to run Anthony Davis on a cleared side, it's an easier post entry right. Ad can straight up give
a good wide target. You can even throw the pass like two three feet away from his hand where he can like and then go get the basketball and then turn and face sort of back down from there right, and then it's easier reads. Ad can see the floor like this, He's got the ball in his right hand, which is dominant hand, and he can see every player on the floor, even the guy kind of sneaking along the baseline he can see, and then he can make easy reads from there. And you saw that in that
second quarter shift when the Thunder were doubling. There was a play where they hard doubled Anthony Davis on a left block, cleared side, post up rifle, right hand passed to a wide open Austin Reeves on the right wing. A wide open three for a guy who was one of your best shooters last year and he's just been broke this year. He misses it right. There was another one where Austin Reeves cuts down the middle, clear side, post up, left block, methodically working. Here comes the double
dumps it off to Austin down the lane. Austin smokes a wide open floater in the lane, easy floater in the lane that was like six or seven feet uncondested. He just missed it. And there was another one cleared side posts up left block, hard double. D'Angelo Russell flashes to the high post. Anthony Davis makes the right pass on on time, on target to de Lo Delo, throws a one timer to Max Christie, but throws a terrible pass, just throws like a like there was no speed on it.
It was almost like it slipped out of his hands and as a result, the thunder were able to rotate out of it. Had he just made the pass on target to Max Christie, it's a wide open catch and shoot three. So here's the thing. Clear side post ops. I thought Anthony Davis was fantastic, and for the record, he's been fantastic all season. It really came down to the guys off the ball, skilled offensive players not doing
their job. Like we talk about this a lot in UH in the NBA, but like getting two to the ball is like half the battle. Once you can do that, if you can make simple reads out of it, there it's just you play basketball, and if you have offensive skill on the floor, you should be able to capitalize on it. But as has been a consistent theme throughout this season, inconsistent play from D'Angelo Russell and Austin Reeves has hampered this offense in a lot of different ways.
And you know, we'll talk about more about it in a minute, but like I thought that was a significant factor in that in that specific sequence, about half the time during that second quarter run, they tried to feed Anthony Davis in the middle of the floor, and I really disagreed with this strategy. It's a much harder post entry because now you've got a tighter window as guys are digging down from both sides. It's much harder for Anthony Davis to see all of the floor as he's
having to kind of navigate everything working around him. And then it was easier for Oklahoma City to force him to his left hand. And like there was a there was a play where he where Lebron made a post entry to him in the middle of the floor and he looked and he saw a defender on that strong hand side, and he wanted to go to that strong hand and he ended up having to go to a
left handed hook. That ad can make a left handed hook made a huge one against Jared Allen in the Cavs game, but it's not as high percentage a shot for him or as comfortable a shot for him as that right handed hook which he's been killing everybody with this season. It's to like a near Yokic esque extent right And like there was another play where they tried to force that post entry in the middle of the
floor and like all three bodies came in. It turned into a turnover and they ran the other way for a bucket, and it's like, why are you doing that? Like, do what's working for you? You're getting like you gotta separate process from results. Those clear side post ups, you're
getting great stuff out of them. They went zero for three in the second quarter, but you were getting great stuff out of him, So you need to keep spamming that right Whereas like Ad did manage to make one righty hook on a center post up, but the other two didn't go so well and they were bad process, right, And so like a lot of times, you have to
separate process from results. There there was a play where Ad caught and scored in the post, and then the very next possession, Max Christy decided he wanted to take a pull up jump shot and pick and roll, and it's like, why are you going away from what's working? Like like Max, his best offensive game of the season in my opinion, was the Cleveland game, and it was because he only ever really tried to do something with the basketball when it was a late clock situation and
he had to rescue possession. Everything else was in the flow of the offense. There was another transition possession in the second quarter where he overpenetrated and turned the ball over underneath the basket. So like just a lot of bad offense process. In my opinion, the clear side post ups are working. You almost need to keep running that stuff so that your guys can get reps. It's a nice methodical way to slow down the pace of the game.
As you get better shot attempts and you have better floor balance, you have a better chance of defending in transition. I just thought they were doing a lot of self inflicted damage, and so keys to keep an eye on moving forward, keep the side cleared, put him on the left block rate, and go to his right hand, and
guys have to do their part off the ball. It really is that simple to me and Ad has been so dominant there that he's consistently drawing multiple defenders, and so I think that to me is half the battle, and that's a great foundation, but you have to be able to build on that. A couple of specific quick hitters on the Lakers before we move on Austin Reeves struggles. Basketball players struggle. Sometimes it's really that simple. Stars struggle. Sometimes.
There was like a seven or eight game stretch after the hard and trade where Kawhi and Paul George were playing like crap, like like that's just part of basketball. I still think at this point it's way too early to act like people have solved Austin Reeves or that he that he's nowhere near as good as his contract would would lead you to believe, or or or as good as he was at Foeba, or as good as
he was in the playoffs. Like at the end of the day, guys, especially with how good he's been in crunch time, because he's been so good in clutch situations,
like I'm just not worried about it. Like he's been defending a lot better lately up until last night, which again, like the entire team sucked on defense last night because it was the tail end of a long road trip and the tail end of a back to back, So like, I just think I've seen a lot of Lakers fans starting to turn on Austin and like, I think that's crazy.
Like eight twenty point playoff games and was excellent at FOEBA and was great after the deadline, like literally over seventy percent true shooting after the Russell Westbrook trade, and people are ready if people are ready to sell the dude down the river over a over a like a month and a half of mediocre regular season basketball where he really hasn't even been that bad. He's just been bad compared to what he was last year. Like, I
just think that's ridiculous. The slotting of perimeter defenders. I thought it was really interesting how Max Christy did a good job on Shae Kills with Alexander, but then when Torrian Prince got on him, things fell apart. I think that's it. I think that's an indicator of that slotting concept that I was talking about and why it's so important to have Cam Reddish and Jared Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent on the roster so that you can keep Torrian
Prince in defensive assignments that he can handle. Whenever he's the best perimeter defender on the floor, the Lakers offense or defense tanks. When he's the second best perimeter to flayer player on the on the floor, things actually look pretty good for them defensively. So that's the thing to keep an eye on offensive struggles leading to bad everything else.
When when the Lakers are missing shots and not and not you know, scoring easily on offense, you can see the demeanor and like the overall just motivation level of the team tank and then it hurts them everywhere else. And so I think them solving some of these offensive problems could go a long way to helping them in the other areas of the game as well. And then here are a couple of reasons why I'm still super
optimistic about this Lakers team. Lebron is shooting sixty five percent in effective field goal percentage on jumpers and he's like confidently hunting them. He's shooting forty percent from three on the season. It's been like a real encouraging trend that bodes well for them down the line. And we've we've already talked about it on the show before but he's been really good in clutch situations as well. Anthony
Davis has been so good in the post. I have other concerns about Anthony Davis, like him abandoning his jump shot after all that narrative in the early part of the of training camp. I just simply don't understand, Like, why is it that like Max Christy, who probably is in your rotation but like a bench dude, when your whole rosters put together, why is it that Max Christie is allowed to take pull up jump shots and pick
and roll or floaters in ISO? And by the way, don't have any problem with those shots like in the grand scheme of things, like they're not that big a deal, Like obviously I'd prefer better offensive process. But I'm not trying to pick on Max Chrissy. He's been so good defensively over the course of the last couple of weeks. But my point is, why is it that you can bake into your offense random bullshit like that, but Anthony Davis can't take a pick and pop three every once
in a while, Like what are we doing? Like, honestly, I don't understand. I simply do not get it. That said, he's been so damn good in the post, and like I said, all those post up issues that took place in that second quarter run were not Anthony Davis's fault.
In my opinion, He's been so good in the post that to me alleviates like a lot of my concerns in the big picture, just because like that was a weapon they didn't have last year in the postseason, like the on ball Anthony Davis stuff was useless in the Denver Nuggets series, and I think that that's something they might be able to go to more frequently this year. I do believe Austin Reeves will play better, and then when all those other guys get healthy, it's just a
simple matter of talent. Hotchimr is a really good basketball player. Gabe Vincent is two. Is he a starter? Is he not? I don't know, but he's a good NBA player. And then Jared Vanderbilt is one of the second or first tier perimeter defenders in the league and an excellent rebounder. Averaged seven rebounds a game last year in not all that massive a minute allotment. So like I just I
look again, I'll say it again. If you want to act like this guy is falling with the Lakers after they lose to the Thunder and all of the shit that's been going wrong with them in terms of injuries in their schedule. Be my guests, but like it's gonna take a lot more bad basketball for me to feel that way as well. Pacers Heat, so Bam leaves the game early with a hip issue and apparently that's been
something that's kind of lingering. So hopefully Bam can get healthy because that obviously is a massively important piece for this Miami Heat team. Indiana controlled most of this game. Tyrey's Haliburton is outrageously good forty four points in tennis sists with just two turnovers. Jimmy Butler had some success guarding him at the end of the game, but he torched everyone else but Jimi Hawkez takes over in the
fourth quarter. Basically, the Pacers ran a ghost screen with Buddy held that where he hit a three that made it one h three ninety seven if I remember correctly, in the early fourth quarter, and then the Heat just basically took over the game from them, and Hawkez did
it with primary shock creation. There was a play with Bruce Brown where he's on the right wing and he runs a pick and roll and he kind of gets the ball into his left hand and right as Bruce Brown tries to jump the screen, he just whips into his spin move off of it toast. Bruce Brown gets downhill, gets his body into Miles Turner and finishes with his right hand at the basket. I'm like, WHOA, that's really
high level. By the way, He's at one point zero eight points per possession and pick and roll this year, which is in the seventy fourth percentile for his volume. Then there was a play where he bullies androwm Nmpard in the post and takes like a little right shoulder fade in the lane, which is like my favorite big guard move when you have an advantage against small guards. I use that move like almost I use it move
religiously when I have a smaller defender on me. He's one point three to six points per possession and post ups this year. That's in the ninety second percentile. He's a really smart cutter. There were two critical possessions in the fourth quarter. One where he's in the right slot and Bruce Brown's ball watching and he cuts behind and makes the left handed layup on the left side of the rim. Another play where a Benedict Mathern He's in the right corner and Ben Mathurin's not keeping an eye
on him. He cuts along the baseline makes a little right handed shot on the other side of the rim. He was awesome in that fourth quarter stretch, and like, he's just a really good basketball player. Like I don't think he's particularly great at anything, but he's just good at everything. And that's a really useful player, especially in really well coached situations like the like the Heat, like the Warriors. It's like why Brandon Paziemski's succeeding with the Warriors.
When you're like a really well rounded basketball player and you're playing around other smart basketball players and you have a smart coach that empowers you and puts you in a position to succeed, You're gonna see guys like this succeed. And I think it's why Francis, like a franchises like that keep hunting players like that. And then he wasn't making his jumper early in the season, and now he is.
He's had fifty seven percent in effective field goal percentage on catch and shoot jumpers this year, so far a couple other guys I want to shout out. Duncan Robinson is like just really good now he can He's a gifted passer. He's having his best assist and assistant turnover season of his career. He's putting the ball on the floor better than he ever has before. He had a huge close out attack down the stretch where he pumped, baked and ripped to the left and got all the
way to the basket. He's converting spot of possessions at one point twenty seven points per possession, which is like top tier in the league. That's like Michael Porter junior territory. And then he's become a really smart help defender. There was a critical play like he just he's got all the little fundamental things down in terms of help side defense, Like he's got good length in height, which allows him to work as a low man in help side situations
when he's rotating to the weak side. He's always like when one of the things you'll learn one of the things you talk about with young like school players in particular, because the's you know, when it comes to the younger teams, everything you focus on is fundamentals because that's literally what wins at that level, right, And like one of the things you teach is like when there's when you have to bring a third defender over and pick and roll, you leave two shooters open on the weak side for
one defender right, and so you always are trying to like split that difference. And one of the smart things to do is like close out into a passing lane. And so essentially, if the ball gets kicked out to one of those two guys on the wing, you don't close out at that guy. You close out to the passing lane because what it does is it tricks the guy with the ball into thinking or closing out at him and causes him to hesitate, and then it also
takes away that swing pass. There's a play that he took away in the late fourth quarter, big play during their run where Buddy Heald caught the pass on a kickout from Tyres Halliburton if I remember correctly, and he closed out to the passing lane and he, like Buddy, He'll pump faked into Duncan Robinson and he ended up getting like a kind of a side view contest on on Healed who missed the shot. And it was funny because Andrew Nempard was all pissed off after the player
or not Andrew mpard excuse me. And aaron Ne Smith was all pissed off after the plan And I'm like, that was I don't know what you wanted him to do. If he would throw the pass to you, he would because he was the shooter in the corner. I was like, it would have just been a turnover. But I Duncan Robinson.
It's been really fun just as a basketball fan watching him go from like a limited shooter who seemed overpaid and had to be taking off the floor in any sort of serious situation to like now just like a really good player. He's Michael Porter junior for this team. And I think he's even a better playmaker than Michael
Porter junior. And I think that that just kind of and he's not as good as Michael Porter junior because he's not as tall, he's not as athletic, he's not as good as a help defender, but like he's providing that type of value for this particular team in my opinion. And then down the stretch, like you know, because India has all sorts of small guards on the floor, I thought Josh Richardson and Jimmy Butler did a really nice job bullying the smaller Pacers guards to get them into
rotation to get easy shots around the rim. Jimmy had a big back cut late in the game where he got a bucket out of it. It was a really impressive win from Miami against a good Indiana Pacers team. I think they play him again tomorrow if I'm not mistaken. But Miami's up to eleven and eight. They're thirteenth in offense, ninth and defense. This is their fifth win against the five hundred better team this year. I think there's just
one trade away. They're like the Lakers. They have the same kind of splits in their standings, Like they're six and one against losing teams and five and seven against teams that are five hundred are better. The Lakers are exactly that except for their if I'm not mistaken, there seven and zero against losing or six and oh against losing teams. But they're five and eight if I'm not mistaken, against winning teams. But like that's the type of deal there.
It's like they need more firepower, or the heat need more like offensive firepower. The Lakers need more athleticism and shooting. But like my point is is like they're in that tier there. That's like they're just one smart move away from being in that conversation and you struggling against good teams. They're at five and seven to me as an indicator of you needing that high end firepower. Indiana, it's easy to see why they're twenty ninth in defense. All of
their guards are defending poorly. Even Bruce Brown, who was a great defensive player for the Nugge last year, made several key mistakes late in this game guarding Himyakz Tyre's Halliburton's amazing. He's a joy to watch. I've talked a lot about how great he is, Like I mean, he's entered into conversations with the best shooters in the league.
He's he's made half of his catch and shoot jump shots this year half and he's shooting forty six percent on pull up jump shots waited for threes at Tyre's Haliburton jump shot is worth one point three points this year. That's outrageous. He's one of the best shooters in the league, and he's like so good at beating switches and he's got this thing where like there's this there's this like
like progression that you see with Tyres Haliburton techs. It's like, beat the first dude off the dribble, high gather over the uh over the digging defender. That's where you do that high dribble to kind of like avoid that dude is swinging down at the basketball, and then on the gather he takes that little floater in the lane, which, by the way, he's making fifty seven percent of the time this year, and he's making every read every single time.
Alburn's amazing. We've talked about him in the past, but he's got so far to go on the defensive end of the floor, and he's a big part of what's going wrong for them defensively right now. And like, like I clipped several possessions in h in my film thread this morning that kind of demonstrates specific things he's in guard. Guard screens are trying to get him to hedge and recover, which is what you do, which is what you do
with every single guard that struggles to defend. The Warriors do with Steph Curry the war the Nuggets will do it with Jamal Murray. It's it's a it's a very typical defensive strategy. But like he'll just like run out there like he's gonna hedge and then not do anything, and then guys will like split him or like uh or or just go right around him, or he'll foul. Like it just it's really sloppy on that front. He's
not when he's getting peeled off on ball screens. He's not boxing out the big man when he's rolling down to the basket. He's sloppy in rotation and everybody, like Buddy Healed is awful in all those details. Ben Matherin had a possession, the one where Hima Heck has back cut out of the corner in the fourth quarter where like there was nobody on the left wing. The left wing was vacated, Okay, Hakeuz is in the left corner,
Ben Matherin was playing. The ball was on the right block, opposite end of the floor, low down by the baseline, and Ben Mathern was playing like like if if I'm if I'm Ben Matherin. The uh Literally, Hawkeuz was behind me into my right so he's up here like this where he can't see how may or the ball and he just gets cut right behind, Whereas where you're supposed to be is like his butt should be on the baseline where he can see how may and he can be in position to help at the rim if he
needs to. And like, literally, I'm just looking at the defensive positioning, I'm like, what is he doing? I simply don't understand it, Like as I'm watching the game, like the Indiana Guards are basically freelancing on defense every single possession, and so it's it's not hard to see why they're twenty ninth in defense. And then the rebounding is a
huge problem too. They're twenty seventh and rebounding, And the problem I have with it is like they're so damn fast, Like bad defensive teams are usually small and slow, Like the Pacers have a legitimate rim protector and Miles Turner one of the better ones in the league, and they have amazing perimeter speed. They should be better than what
they are defensively, and it's just gonna be. It comes down to two things, caring enough to do it, building good habits, And until they do, then the defense is gonna suck as bad as it has and it's gonna keep them from reaching their potential in terms of like you've got one of the best offensive players in the league on your team in Tyres Aliburton, like that, that
is a real asset. If you can figure out how to guard, that'll go a long way to you allow allowing your team to make some noise in the playoffs. All right, guys, it's all I have for today and for the week. Good. Uh there's a really good game on tonight's six or Celtics, but it looks like potentially both uh Tyree Smacks and Joel and Pied are gonna miss it, so if they both end up playing, will end up covering it on Monday. But there'll be some
good basketball weekend. We're gonna be back next week. In Season tournament is next week too, so it's gonna be a weird week in the sense that we'll be working. I will take probably one of the random days during the week off and then we'll end up working Saturday for the n Season Tournament championship. But it should be a fun week of basketball next week. I'm looking forward to it. I'll see you guys. Then. The volume