Hoops Tonight - Steph Curry drops 50, Warriors fall to 0-8 on the road, Kevin Durant sounds off

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in West Virginia. YEA, all right, welcome to Hoops tonight for CENTA by Fandel here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having an incredible week so far. We have a jam packed show tonight. The Phoenix Suns beat the crap out of the Warriors despite Steph Curry hanging a fifty piece on them. We're gonna break down that game, all the angles at play.

We're gonna talk a little bit about that very bizarre interview that Mr Kevin Durant gave where he burned his own starting lineup to the ground in a very interesting move, but just the inevitable progression of this wild saga that's

taking place in Brooklyn. And never're gonna break down four additional games from tonight, rapid fire style, the Celtics and the Hawks, the Calves in the Buck, the Heat and the Raptors, and then Shay Gil just Alexander went ahead and and and try to make me look good after I sung his praises for a solid ten minutes yesterday, um by going out and dropping forty two in a game winner in Washington to beat the Wizards. 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 so you guys don't miss any show announcements. 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 tonight. So the Sun's they had lost two in a row coming into tonight, and

three out of four they were down two starters. Cam Johnson tours Miniscus, so he's been out, Chris Paul has been dealing with some hell stuff, and then I mean, obviously Jay Crowder has been out all season. But when you kind of put all that together, you think like, oh, maybe there's the depth issue there. But this continues to be, in a very underrated way, one of the most talented rosters in the league because Damian Lee just kind of slotted right into one of those wings spots after Jake

Crowder has been gone and he's been fantastic. He was fantastic again tonight. You know, Chris Paul comes out and incomes Campaign. You know, Cam Johnson comes out, incomes Tory Craig, and it's all just seamless. The roster is insanely talented. Tori Craig played really well tonight, rebound in the basketball, knocking down threes on the back end of those Suns pick and rolls, and you know, Campaign is kind of

like the fastball to Chris Paul's change up. He's one of the quickest players in the league and he gets a ton of dribble penetration, which is another way to get to what the Suns are trying to get to. If you guys think about what the Sun's offense is and we talked about it a lot over the summer when we did our season preview for them, But they

are a high pick and roll, spamming offense. They're gonna spam Spain pick and roll where they have one of their shooters relocate to the top while booker Paul run, you know, screen and roll with aighton. Sometimes they do it with a cleared side with just two players. Sometimes they do it as a dribble handoff. Sometimes they do it as a wide screen with a passer at the top of the key. They do it a bunch of

different ways, but it's all functionally the same concept. It's a ball handler trying to get downhill while DeAndre Aden is rolling to the rim after setting a screen. And they'll sometimes they have a shooter relocating, other times they're just spacing the floor. But they're trying to make you make a decision. And that decision is are you going to guard it two on two in the case of their normal pick and roll or three on three in the case of their spain pick and roll, or are

you going to send additional help? And if you guard it two on two, you turn them into shot makers, right and you're gonna force DeAndre Aton to beat switches or to finish lobs around the rim, or you're gonna force Devin Booker Chris Paul to make tough contested twos, or you can send additional defenders, and then you're giving advance inage situations. Two really good players on the bank end and on their best night, that's Michael Bridges or

that's Cam Johnson, right, and those guys are incredible. But with Cam Johnson out, it's like Tory Craig stepped right in and did the exact same thing. Micael Bridge has made five more threes tonight and looked fantastic. He's one of the underrated close out attackers in the league. Is it's not just spot up shooting, it's high level close out attacking. He can make multiple counter moves on his way to the basket to knock down tougher shots. You know, kind of that are in the margins of the of

the offense. But you know that in this entire game, Uh, they just stuck to what they were good at. It was just Campaign and Devin Booker operating at a high pick and roll, making passes, not forcing shots. I don't think either of them took over twenty shots in this game. And you know, one of the most underrated parts of Devin Booker's development has been what he's done as a

passer in this league. You know, Devin Booker um is being considered by a lot of players, a lot of people as a top ten player in the league right now. He's unquestionably been one of the top ten players to start this season. But it's not because he's Devin Booker making Kobe shots. It's because of the improvements he's made as a passer and as a defender. And in this game, Campaign and Devin Booker both did an incredible job of of just making those reads as Golden State was sending

multiple defenders towards that pick and roll. They both had sixteen assists or the combined for sixteen assists in this game. So the point being, as we're talking about this Phoenix Suns offense, if you do not bring your best defensive effort, you'll get cut to pieces. And the Sun's absolutely cut them to pieces tonight. A really nice win for Phoenix with how sure, with how shorthanded they are. Now let's move on to the Warriors. The Warriors have a lot

of issues. Um, when you're six and nine, when you're at three games below five hundred, is the defending champion. It's not in all your guys are healthy like this Isn't you know Steph has missed a bunch of games or Draymond's missed a bunch of games. When you're healthy and your three games below five hundred is the defending champions, a bunch of stuff has to go wrong. It's like I was talking about with the Lakers last year. Everyone's like, Oh,

it's Russ's falter. Oh, it's Frank Vogel's falter. Oh it's Anthony Davis. No, no no, no, no. When you have Lebron James and Anthony Davis on your roster and you're losing a bunch of games, it means everything is going wrong. And there are definitely a lot of issues with the Warriors right now. We've talked a lot about their bench and the issues that they're having. Jordan Pool can't seem to put a string of more than a couple of

games where he plays well together in a row. Clay Thompson hasn't been making shots, and we're gonna talk about Clay Thompson here in a little bit. But the bottom line is, I don't care about any of that. If Steph scores fifty, you should win. That's If Steph scores fifty, you should win. That should cover for for Jordan's pool missing some shots, that should cover for Clay Thompson missing some shots. That should cover for your bench blowing a

lead here or they're right, But it wasn't. And it's because one of the bigger issues that's gone kind of under the surface during the season is after the start of the season when the Golden State starters defended extremely well, that group has not defended well ever since they went on that five game road trip to the East Coast. They've had a handful of good defensive performance before performances

in there, but it has not been consistent. I remember at the start of the season when we were really diving into those bench issues, I'd pull up the lineup data, and the line of data on the Warrior starters was pretty good. They were scoring around a hundred twenty five points per one hundred possessions, you know, and I'm talking Steph, Clay, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and Kevan lud And then on the defensive end, they were only given up about points

per one hundred possessions. And and I checked on the numbers earlier and before tonight, that numbers climbed all the way up from to one oh five, and it's gonna be considerably higher tomorrow morning when that data updates. The starting lineup for the Warriors is not defending the way they used to. And I get it, you know, with that championship malaise. It's one thing to to take a little bit off, you know, in terms of effort when you're trying to get through a season, especially when you

know that your eye is on the bigger prize. But the unfortunate reality of the Warrior situation right now is their bench isn't good enough and the non Steph offensive players on this team aren't shooting well enough for them to not defend. That's the one thing they can control. Jordan Pool is a young basketball player. He's going to have stretches where he is inconsistent offensively. Clay Thompson is

coming back from two very severe injuries. It's gonna be a while but where he really gets back consistently into a rythm. We're gonna talk more about Clay here in a minute. But there you can't control that. I you can't will Clay shots into the basket. You can't will Jordan Pool shots into the basket. And right now you don't have the personnel to be a great bench team.

But you absolutely can control Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green and come on lonely playing better defense, and they just have it against that Phoenix Suns team. If your point of attack defenders do a better job fighting over the top of screens so that Booker and Payne aren't getting downhill as easily, you don't have to help as much. If you don't have to help as much, those kickout opportunities aren't as good. The advantage situations for

Tory Craig and for Michael Bridges aren't as good. They don't have as good as a night and maybe you give yourself a fighting chance. Look like things are gonna turn around. I really do think Clay is gonna get it together. I really do think Jordan Pool will get it together. I think that they'll figure out a way to piece together a better bench than what they have. But right now those things are on the horizon still,

but you can control your defensive effort. And right now, those the Warrior starters, their core guys are not defending well enough, and and you know, and it it kind of is just degrading into a um an ugly brand of basketball. And some stretches, like there was a stretch there in that third quarter two where it felt like they were trying to hit home runs to get back into the game instead of understanding that their advantages. They are the more experienced team, they are the team that

can execute, they are the smarter team. Not only were they having defensive issues, but they're in that third quarter they were taking countless bad transition shots. You know, they get a stop finally and they throw one or two passes and jack something up in transition. Some of that was Clay Thompson, but like there was a there was a quick Andrew Wiggins three on the left wing that he actually made that I thought was a quick shot.

There were a couple of players were Steph him self, I thought, forced the action a little bit in transition against one or two defenders and end up getting blocked because he was trying to force it a little bit. Like you are the disciplined, experienced team, get stops, go down and run your stuff. Unless you have a wide open look in transition, they're kind of losing their identity a little bit. So they gotta they gotta rein that in because it may be a little while before the

before the front office decides to do anything. So on Clay Thompson and I talked about him last night for a little while. Um, you know, I'm not worried about Clay Thompson, nor should you be if you're a Warriors fan. There Uh, he's still being guarded like he's Klay Thompson, meaning functionally in the spacing of the offense and the way he warps the defense. There's a ton of value that comes from that that goes beyond shot result just for Clay himself. So that's that's the first part. Two.

He's not shooting as poorly as it looks coming into tonight. He was around thirty one pcent and catch and shoot threes. You could do some basic apt and realize that's over nine tenths of a point for per possession. So even as disastrous as it's been, it's not as bad as it could be. Right and specifically he's shooting below thirty on wide open threes. Do you guys think Clay Thompson

will eventually start making wide open threes? I do? Okay, Now, Clay hasn't defended as well as he should, neither has that entire starting unit, so I'm not going to really get on him specifically about that. But we saw him in the postseason last year lockdown Jalen Brown in a pivotal playoff moment, down to one in a series to get a trophy. So in the long run, you need Clay starting games. You need Clay out there. This is not a Clay issue as it pertains to what you

do with him. However, what do I always say about shooting slumps in general? Shooting is a total it's screws with your head because on your best night, you're gonna miss more than half of them. When it comes to jump shooting, I shouldn't say on your best right, but on average you're gonna miss more than half of them, and on most nights you'll miss more than half of them. So it can get in your head and you can get squirrelly, and it can get frustrating, you can lose

your confidence. So one of the best ways to get through a slump is not to stop shooting, but to hunt out, seek and search for and work hard for good shots. You know, it's funny because the first couple of shots that Clay gott in this game where good looks. You got a good little fifteen footer right at the free throw line. He had a wide open corner three

that he missed. But then that third one that he took on the left wing was like, oh, that's a little tough, that's a little bit contested there in that third quarter when he's trying to get going, he took you know, there was a wide open three that he took on I believe it was on a baseline out of bounds that one he made. Those tough transition threes

that he took, those didn't go in. And it's a very delicate balance because his audacity, his freakish confidence is part of what has made Thompson Clay Thompson over the years. So you don't want to go so far in this direction that you dissuade him from from having that kind of audacity. But there needs to be a little bit more of a balance, Like I'll give you an example there was a transition three, and that third quarter they get to stop Andrew Wiggins is running ahead of Clay.

Clay has it on the right wing. I think it was Damian Lee that was playing transition defense, but I'm not percent sure about that. But whoever that Son's defender was kind of positioned himself in between Clay and Andrew, and Clay kind of hesitated and ended up just rising up and shooting the shot. Because he hesitated, he didn't go up with good rhythm. Damian or whoever it was, was able to get a late contestant. He ended up missing the shot, and it was a really deflating shot.

That was when step ended up punching the basketball and getting the technical in the next possession. That's one of those plays where it's like, hey, you were in a slump, just pass it to Andrew. He one of two things is going to happen. That Son's defender is going to stay with you, and Andrew is gonna get a wide open shot in rhythm catching and shooting, or whoever that Son's defender is is going to close out and it's gonna come right back to you for a wide open

three on the right wing. That's that kind of play where it's like, when you're in the slump, the best way to get out of it is to make the extra pass a couple of times, knowing that in the Warrior system it's gonna get back to you. And then you make a couple of the open ones and you make it clear to Clay, hey, I want you take in the tough ones after you get your rhythm making

some of the easy ones. But right now he's kind of doing that trying to pound your head through the brick wall kind of thing, and it's just not working for it. Um. There was a little a clip during the time out that ESPN air where Steve Kerr was just saying, Hey, trust your teammates. All of you guys are trying to do this by yourself right now, And for the record, it really was everybody. Like I said, I didn't like some of the shots Steph took in the third quarter. I didn't like some of the shots

Andrew Wiggins took in the third quarter. And I didn't like some of the shots Clay Thompson took in the third quarter. So it's it's a team wide thing, but specifically for Clay, I think that's the easiest way for him to get back on tracks, targeting some easier shots, get his rhythm going. Dude, Like when you're missing your wide open shots, it might have a lot to do with the lack of confidence, which can stem from you

missing three or four tough shots in a row. So one last note on Steph Curry before we move on. So obviously I've said several times that he's been playing the best basketball of his career. I think this is the best version of Steph that we've ever seen. Uh In his unanimous m v P year, he averaged thirty

points on sixty seven percent true shooting. I haven't seen what the average is after tonight, but I'm pretty sure he's close to thirty three thirty four points per game, and he was at sixty nine percent true shooting coming into tonight. That's probably closer closer to seventy were set now, Steph is playing as good as any basketball player has ever played. That's the type of peak that we're seeing

from him right now. That that is precisely why I think it's so important for the Warriors to look hard and think hard about investing more in this group rather than staying married to this two timeline idea. As we've seen throughout NBA history, you just don't win an NBA title unless you got one of those guys. I've gone

over this before. Steph wanted last year, Johannest wanted the year before, Lebron wanted the year before that, Kauai wanted the year before that, Stephen Katie wanted to two years before that. Then it was Lebron, then it was Steph. You guys get the point. You need one of those guys. Jonathan Cominga, Moses Moody, James Wiseman, hell, even Jordan Pool, who I don't think the Warriors would ever trade. But those none of those guys are one of those guys

I just listed. None of them are. So the reality of this situation is you don't have two timelines. You've got one super duper duper all time great star timeline and you've got interesting young player timeline. That those two things are not the same. Don't murder the super duper star timeline for the sake of the I've got some interesting young players timeline. You're a very smart organization that drafts well, that develops players well, and is extremely well coached.

You you will find other interesting young players, those opportunities will come about. It will come around. I haven't even seen necessarily all star flare from any of those young players yet, except for Jordan Pool. So like Steph is demonstrating to us all time stuff here last year he was he didn't play nearly this well in the regular season and still put together enough good games to win an NBA championship. This is the best version of Steph. Ever,

it's worth investing in. And I'm sure a wait to the deadline, but when it comes to that point, if they're still struggling in the same ways that we've seen, I hope, for the sake of Steph and for the sake of NBA history, that they invest in it. All right, let's move on to this, uh, this Kevin Durant thing. So there were three articles that came out today that I saw. Ben Simmons did, one for Sham Sharrania u k D had two separate ones, one with Marcus Spears

and one with Chris Haynes from Yahoo Sports. And there's a there's a bunch of stuff in there, and we're not going to get to all of it because there's really only one thing I want to talk about Ben Simmons. Spent a lot of time explaining his injuries and kind of asking people to understand that he's a competitor and that he's doing the best that he can. I mean, I I don't I don't even know what to say there with the Ben Simmons thing. It's like I I

have a hard time believing it. Jip based on his actions that he genuinely wants to be on the basketball court, but I'm not going to dive any further into that. Um. In the k D stuff, he talked about why he requested a trade because of his frustrations with the lack of hard work at practice and he wanted to do more close out drills and more shell drills and stuff like that. He said that Jack Van has them doing

that stuff now. He told us about how happy he is, how happy he is playing the game, how happy he is being rich, how happy he is mentoring the younger players. He talked about how he doesn't care about his legacy and that his legacy is being a mentor two guys like Cam Thomas so teaching him how to be a great pro ten years from now and stuff like that. He said he didn't stand up to Kyrie because he's not about to tell a grown ass man what he can do and can't do with his own life. But

this is where it went completely off the rails. And I'm sure you guys saw these, uh these quotes going around on social media today. He said, quote, look at our starting lineup, Edmund Sumner, Royce, O'Neil, Joe Harris, Nick Claxton and me. It's not disrespect, but what are you expecting from that group? You expect us to win? Because I'm out there now. For the record, nothing he said was false on its head. I do believe he's happy.

I believe he's happy playing basketball. I believe he's happy in his personal life, and actually do think he's happy with his legacy. I think Lebron, I think Katie kind of has like almost like a defeatist attitude on that front, where he just realizes he can't win with the public and he can't win with the media. So I don't I think he's just kind of numb to it all. I disagreed to with his approach to Kyrie. I think it's okay to ask your friend, Hey, dude, you're my buddy.

We partnered on this together. We agreed to come to Brooklyn together on a basketball mission, and your behavior is sabotaging that. I think it's okay to sit down with Kyrie and be like, what the heck, dude, can you please just come in here and help me do what we promised to do when we embarks down this path. Originally, I think that's fair, but Katie disagrees, and I genuinely believe that he believes he did the right thing. Even

with the roster. He's right, Yeah, they're great on paper, but Seth Curry has only played in six of their fifteen games. Kyrie has only played in eight of their fifteen games. Ben Simmons is only played in ten games and hasn't looked like Ben Simmons, and then t J. Warren is what scrimmaging against the coaches right now. God knows how far he is away from playing. So there's

some legitimate roster limitations right now because of injuries. The on paper roster, the dunder Mifflin roster, Zach Low calls it has not panned out, that's for sure. But despite all of that, you can't, under any circumstances ever publicly diminish your teammates like that, even if it's true, it undercuts their confidence, which directly affects their performance. It puts them in the awkward position of having to face questioning.

There will probably be a reporter that sits down and goes, hey, what was it like hearing Kevin Durant say that about you? And then it's just a bad look in general. It's m Even though I'm sure there are lots of stars around the league that privately complained about their teammates, when you do it in public, it's objectively unlikable and it's going to turn a lot of people off from you. But Katie knows that he's a hundred percent aware of the ramifications that come with what he said. He knows

he's too smart, and he did it anyway. So what does that mean? That to me means that this was effectively passive, aggressively a trade request. Katie may be very happy in life in general, and he may be happy playing basketball, but he's obviously not happy with his current basketball situation playing with the Brooklyn Nets. And I don't blame him. He's way too damn good to waste prime years of his career playing on a team that doesn't

really have a chance. I don't blame him. I feel the same way about Lebron as a fan of the game, as a fan of NBA history, you should hate that. I hated it when it happened to Step for a couple of years there after the Clay Thompson injury and after Katie left. I hated watching him put up massive numbers and floundering on a team that had no chance when he missed the playoffs twice in a row. And I hate seeing it with Lebron now, and I hate seeing it with Kad now. I hate it. I do.

But this should be the thing that finally convinces Joe Sigh to pull the plug on all of this. I say that, but they should have done it after all the Kyrie stuff this summer and then they did it. They should have done it after the Katie trade request and then they did it. They should have done it after Katie threw the coach and the GM under the bus, and then they did it. They should have done it after the team came out and didn't defend a rebound for the first eight games of the season, and they

did it. They should have done it when all this Kyrie stuff went down and then they did it. So conventional wisdom tells us that Katie burning the starting lineup to the ground should be the time that they finally do it. But I just I can't make that prediction anymore. My guess is that what they're looking at it is they're they're thinking, Hey, Kyrie's coming back this Sunday. We

got t J. Warren coming back. Ben Simmons is gonna get it together, you know, Seth Curry is gonna start playing every night when he gets a hundred back back into shape, and then they're all just gonna compete with Jacque Vaughan and then they're just gonna rip off a bunch of wins and we're gonna go compete for a title. That's my guess as to what they're thinking internally. That would be completely insane, obviously, But like I said, conventional

wisdom has to go out the window. There's been a half dozen reasons, significant real reasons to blow this thing up over the course of the last six months, and they just have refused to do so. So I don't know what to make of it. But that's bizarre. I I mean, k d In the last few months has publicly called out the coach, publicly called out the GM, and publicly called out the roster. This is the most transparent attempt to get out of a basketball team that

I can remember seeing. So for the sake of k D, for the sake of all of us basketball fans, just pull the plug already, Joe. Send k D somewhere to play meaningful basketball. It'll be more fun for us watching him, and then we don't have to worry about all this drama anymore. I think that's what we all want, and I, for some reason, Joe's the only one who doesn't get it. Alright, So we're gonna head into this rapid fire segment. I'm gonna hit on four games really quickly, and then we'll

get out of here for the night. So the Celtics beat the Hawks. One Grant Williams was falling. He had a nasty step back three on the left wing. Um. You know, it's funny because he kind of bet on himself this summer, hoping to get a bigger deal, and with how well he shot the ball, how well he's defended in some of the higher level shop making that he showed this year, he might be one of the guys where that pays off for It's gonna be the

opposite of the Dennis Schroder type of situation. How about Luke Cornett fifteen points and eight rebounds with four blocks. With the Rob Williams injury, they desperately needed somebody to kind of pick things up for them as a bench big, and he's done a really nice job. He's also got a knack for these like reverse dunks, which is sneaky, one of my favorite ways to try to dunk because your back actually acts as like a battering ram and

people can't actually get through you. Um. I did a whole thing on the Celtics yesterday if you guys want to see a deeper dive. But they came into tonight nineteen and defense. But I had seen plenty of examples of them hitting the switch right. They hit the switch for a few minutes, Beat the Grizzlies, hit the switch for a few minutes, beat the Nuggets, hit the switch for a few minutes, beat the thunder Right. This game was just one giant switch flipping. They had defensive rating

in this game. They dominated from the start that held the Hawks to twenty five or fewer and three of the four quarters all Right Bucks, Calves, Bucks Win Bucks were down three starters because Drew Holidays dealing with an ankle thing. The Caves were down Jared Allen, and this was Donovan Mitchell's first game back from his ankle injury, so he kind of looked out of rhythm, to be honest, Um, Janice had eight assists. Brook Lopez made seven threes and

at three blocks. He's been by far the best spacing rim protecting big in the league, an archetype that doesn't have a lot of players in it. And uh, there's a certain Mr Victor women Yama who I think will very quickly become the best player who does that when he gets into the league. And then Jordan Wara finally got going. He made five threes, scored twenty one points. Um,

talking a little bit of Calves. You know, I'm not overly concerned about this specific game, because you're gonna need Jared Allen to pack the paint to beat a Janice led team, and obviously you're gonna need Donovan Mitchell at

the top of his game, which he was not. But I went on to local radio in Cleveland on Monday night, and I just talked a little bit about how I had some concerns about the idea of potentially playing two small guards that can't defend, just because fundamentally, throughout NBA history, we know that that's a flawed concept and that they usually will get you beat, not just because of the defensive mistakes that they make, but also matchup attacking and the way that that kind of that court can just

be victimized, especially by bigger teams that have lots of wings that can punish you, teams like the Celtics, right and I all I said to the guys on the on the on the radio, there was like, wait till the deadline, but we've seen lots of examples of how the Garland thing isn't quite working. Alongside Donovan Mitchell, give him, you know, a few more months to try to figure it out, but don't be prideful about it, like you've

got a ton of talent here. Donovan Mitchell has been one of the best five or six players in the league to start the season. Evan Mobile and Jared Allen make this incredible defensive front court. You need another wing, really, right, Harris Lavert's playing pretty damn well maybe maybe it's it'd be worthwhile to send a Darius Garland to a someone like Toronto and exchange for like an O g and Obi and the guys on the local radio. We're like, we don't even want to consider of that until we

see them in the playoffs. And you know what came to my mind there is like I get it. I do. He's homegrown, he's super likable, the fans love him, he is super talented. But you've gotta learn from NBA history a little bit. Like I mean, when you when you don't, when you have two undersized guards that can't defend in your back court, it's damn near impossible to win in the playoffs against the best teams. That's just a fact. It's like trying to win in the NFL when you

have two bad tackles. Like we all saw what happened to Patrick Mahomes two Super Bowls ago when he couldn't when they couldn't block for it. Right, it's just a it's like a trenches thing with football that makes it, you know, impractical. Same thing goes with basketball, Like it's a trenches thing in basketball. Physically, you're just going to have way too many problems that you can't fix personnel wise. When you have two small guards that can't defend on

the floor. Again, you give him to the deadline. You try to get Darius Garland and maybe front the post a little bit. You work on Donovan Mitchell's off ball defense. You put scheme in place like pre switching and bracketing in the post and things like that to try to cover for them, but don't be probably ful about it.

If it's not gonna work, it's not gonna work. If if if February comes and they're still having issues with two small defensive guards, they need to consider moving that moving moving on from Darius, Speaking of o G Nnobe, the Raptors beat the Heat one twelve to one of four. O G had thirty two and ten and close this game by just abusing Gabe Vincent, driving to the basket,

drawing doubles in the post, things along those lines. The Raptors also did a really great job on Jimmy Butler in this game, holding him to just eight shot attempts. Good win for the Raptors. Last, but not least, the Thunder beat the Wizards one to one twenty. Brad Beal had a really nice step back jump shot on lu Dort in the in the short corner on the right side with about seven seconds left, pushed him off. Lu Dort kind of fell over and brad just rose up

and knocked it down. And as I was watching it live, I was I was sitting there thinking like, hmm, I wonder if s G. A is crazy enough to go for the kill here as the Wizards were up by two and he was. I started on Bradley Beal and got switched on to Monty Morris and and took a really nice step back three and won the game. And he's been shooting like forty seven percent and like ten pull of jump shots per game, So you know that's a shot that that that's not a fluke. That's something

he's been knocking down all season. He had forty two, six and seven on only twenty one shots. I love it when I go out of my way to talk about something and then then somebody goes out makes me look right because I'm wrong plenty, and it's it's good for my confidence when I occasionally hit the bell on something.

I spent about ten minutes talking about how I thought s G. A was a top ten player in the world yesterday, talked about all the things that he does well defensively, getting to the rim, pull up, jump shooting, catch and shoot, jump shooting, you know, passing the basketball, the change of pace, the shiftiness, the start and stop, the the the ability to place the old man game but also hit the jets and make freak athletic plays. He's one of my favorite young players in the league.

And I got roasted last night for saying that I thought he was better than John Morant on Twitter, and Grizzlies fans got on me to a great extent. But man, like that was just that. That might have been the best game that s g A ever played. And if you have not checked out The Thunder yet this year, I highly recommend that you do. Um. They're they're really fun watch. They spaced the floor really well because their biggs can shoot and um, and they've got a lot

of young interesting wings and guys that can defend. And just wait till chat Holmegren gets in there and maybe they get one more draft pick as well. But s g A, you know, one last note on the s c A thing. There's a lot of stuff going around like, oh, you know, this was the worst trade ever when the Thunder sent s g A two, or when the Clippers

sent SGA to the Thunder for Paul George. That's where I draw the line, because you can't operate based on information in two that wasn't available in Sorry, like that's just that's just not how it works. Or I guess it was the summer of nineteen right, like in you had to get Paul George to get Kauai, so really you were trading s g A and all those picks

for Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Also at the time, that overnight made then the championship favorite, right and it didn't payan out in the Clippers era has been a disaster. But if that same scenario plays out multiple times, they probably get one. Like they've had some bad luck, They've had injury luck. They had a nightmare performance in the Bubble when they lost to the Nuggets with they which

they had no business losing that series. Even in the three games they lost at the end, they had big leads late in each of them, Like you make that deal every single time to try to win the title. S g A over this same span is only now really blossoming into the superstar that he is, and that's

just kind of how it goes. Sometimes you send brandon Ingram off with Kyle Kuzma or brandon Ingram off with Josh Hard and Lonzo Ball and you win a title like the Lakers did with the A d. And sometimes you send him off and you don't win the title. But in both cases, brandon Ingram's a superstar and s g A is a superstar. That's just the name of the game. You gotta push your chips and sometimes to win, and when you do so, sometimes you're gonna send off

a great prospect. You might thrive somewhere else. But at the end of the day, like you can't win unless you do, you can't win unless you play. You have you have to push your chips in the middle um to put a roster together that's capable of winning an NBA title. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. Here's the game plan for the rest of

the week. Tomorrow, we're gonna do our bi weekly power rankings, so we'll be diving into the ten best teams in the league as of right now, and then Friday, we'll do one last film breakdown before we get into the weekend and then we'll be done until Monday. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I will see you guys tomorrow. The volume