Hoops Tonight - Steph Curry ejected, Warriors outplay Grizzlies, LeBron & Lakers win in AD's return

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I'm coming to you guys from North Star in California by Lake Tahoe for one of my favorite ski trips every single year. But we had some really entertaining basketball last night. So before I hit the slopes today, we're gonna talk about some hoops. Just gonna hit Grizzlies, Warriors, Lakers, Spurs, and Sixers nets. You guys know the drill before we

get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels so you don't miss any more of our videos, following me on Twitter and underscore Jason Lts, you guys don't miss any show announcements. And then, last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under hoops tonight. So the Warriors beat the GRIZZLIESE twenty, super weird game.

The Warriors were out playing the Grizzlies in a bunch of different phases of the game. Uh. The Grizzlies usually physically dominate teams, that's their m O. They defended an extremely high level. They grabbed a ship ton of rebounds, but the Warriors out rebounded them thirty six. They grabbed fourteen offensive rebounds, a bunch of key offensive rebounds late in the game. So big dry ever of their uh

come back there in that fourth quarter. They shot better from the field, they shot better from three, they shot better from the line. But a story that you Warriors fans probably remember many times over the years, they just couldn't take care of the basketball. They had twenty two turnovers. The Grizzlies scored twenty nine of their twenty points off of Warriors turnovers. Like I've always said with the Grizzlies

in particular, they're constantly trying to run. They're constantly trying to force turnovers and get out in the open floor because that's their best chance to score. This is not a good half court offense team. And then things slowed down there at the end of the game and it became time to execute, and the Warriors are a better execution team and they came back to win. Um. They were down ten midway through the fourth quarter, Classics flash Brothers from their Clay comes flying off the screen on

the left side to hit the three. Then he has a really nice bat cut off a feed from Draymond for reverse layup. Uh. Then Steph Curry comes flying off the screen. Steph had ten points out of twelve for the Warriors over a two minute and thirty second stretch to put the Warriors up three. But then we got to the bizarre ejection and this was a really weird sequence, so UM, I believe it was Clay Thompson. This is like a short, little like floater in the lane and

Dante DiVincenzo comes flying in and taps it out. And to keep an eye on that in particular, because Dante all game long was crashing the offensive glass with guys like Tius Jones and John Morant on him, guys that he has a big physical advantage over, and he was capable of tapping the ball out and saving some possessions. He only registered too offensive rebounds, but he got a bunch of contested like taps that effectively amounted to offensive rebounds even though it wasn't him. But the ball gets

tapped out, ends up in Jordan Pool's hands. Shot clock resets to fourteen. Um, Jordan's kind of open right like, It's not like he was um smothered or anything, but it's a thirty foot shot about a little over a minute left. You have an opportun need to run some more time off the clock. And he puts it up and misses it, and Steph just loses his mind and chucks the the mouthpiece out of bounds. And I mean, it really is this simple. I get. I understand where

Steff is coming from. You've lost a bunch of games this year in late game decision making. Jordan's Pool in particular, especially in the last month, has had some bad late game moments where he's made some poor decisions. So I understand the frustration. But Steph's You're the best shot creator on the team. You just scored ten points in two and a half minutes to get the Warriors in position

to win. They need you down the stretch. Gotta keep your emotions and check that said, like, I'm not worried about that, particularly with Steph. That's getting himself kicked out of games has not been an issue for him over the years. But it was just kind of a bizarre sequence and in the moment as I was watching it last night, it's definitely like, what one of the things you probably did not have on your bingo card last night as a Warriors fan was Steph gets ejected for

yelling at Jordan Pool and chucking a mouthpiece. But the encouraging part is the way Golden State responded, because John Murant really sees the momentum. After that play had a really nice driving scoop shot and pick and roll. Then he had another play where he drove and drew a foul and Draymond Green and he actually put the Grizzlies up one of what was it, one eighteen to one seventeen. But then the Warriors ran that like variation of Spain pick and roll that they've run a bunch of times

this year. I've talked about Spain pick and roll is usually where you have a shooter relocate from under the basket to the top of the key. But the Warriors have a variation of that that's kind of like a five outset where they'll have uh Steph start on the

left wing. In this case it was Jordan Pool, but they'll have Draymond Green set the first screen, then they'll have Clay set the second screen, and then they'll have the other two guys spotting in the opposite winging corner, and so the whole side is cleared on the left side, and as Jordan Pool comes over the screen, Clay Thompson

just relocates across the top. It's like a hybrid of Spain pick and roll where instead of your relocating relocating from the basket to the top, he's relocating from the wing to the opposite wing. And essentially what you're trying to do there is in that screening action, you're trying to get Clay's defender to lag a little bit to help on that screen and roll action so that Clay

can find an opening on the weak side. And what was really smart about this particular play was Draymond re screened so Clay had Clay comes off the screen and he's not entirely open, but Jordan takes his retreat dribble and looks back that way, and Draymond reverses the screen and screens back for Clay coming back towards the top of the key and gets tons of separation, gets a good look at three and knocks it down. Clay Thompson

was unbelievable in the fourth quarter of this game. But you go down the other end and John Moran, who I said, like the Grizzlies half court offense issues are not because of John Moran, It's because they don't have nearly enough ball handling and shooting. After John Morand and John makes really nice isolation move, draws the help from Draymond Green makes a really nice wrap around past to

Brandon Clark and we're tied. We called time out. Go down the other end and on the baseline, uh uh, Clay Thompson shoots a quick little fifteen foot or he misses it once again. Dante DiVincenzo with a little bit of help of him Anthony Lamb. They go after that contested rebound, trying to tap at it. John Morand hits it out of bounce. Warrior stick with the ball, and this is where it gets really interesting because where they're gonna run a baseline out of balance play and John

Murant is guarding the inbounder. Now, uh, everybody who has a coaching doctor and I coach a little bit high school basketball here in Tucson. You have a specific ideology when it comes to certain situations. Whether that's like, oh, like I like to foul when we're down or up three, or no, I like to play defense when we're up three,

or whatever, it is your specific ideology. My audio ideology for guarding baseline out of bounds is I always take the guy who's guarding the inbounder and I put him directly under the basket, no matter what, and his one job is to prevent any sort of pass, an entry pass underneath the basket. And the main reason why is because, especially in a situation like that, like, yes, the inbounder relocating out is a threat, but you can switch that.

So for instance, if the inbounder throws the pass and then flares out to the three point line, the guy he's throwing the past two to get the ball back, his defender can jump out there. But no matter what, I need to protect the basket at all costs if I'm going to lose in a situation like that, I want to lose on a jump shot. I don't want to lose on an easy layup under the basket. And even more strange than that was so John rand Instead of guarding the basket, John around John morand lunges out

and guards the three point line. So no one's protecting the rim. Zaire Williams is guarding Jordan Pool and in all of the chaos, he's shading onto Jordan Pool's right hand as if he's gonna run out to the sideline to get a jump shot. And to Jordan's credit for the poor decision he made on that three, he made a really smart read. He saw that Iyer Williams was overplaying him and he just bat cuts him to the rim. Now that doesn't work if John Morant is protecting the rim,

but he wasn't. So he saw the read. He saw John Morant lunge out, he saw Zaire Williams shading on his right hand towards the sideline, and everything was wide open under the basket. Jordan went quick. He didn't try to get cute with the layup. He just went right to the front of the rim. He caught Zayre Williams sleeping and he won the game. And you know, once again, here we go late game situation. It's close. Execution is what wins games. It's one of the biggest reasons why

I have the Warriors as my championship favorite. Two plays at the end of the game, that hybrid Spain pick and roll for Clay Thompson and then that baseline out of bounds. They executed it properly, got wide open looks and won the game. I've just seen way too many basketball games over the years be decided by execution. That's why I value that the most, and that's why I trust Golden State the most, even though they've had so many issues this year um in other areas of the game,

so kind of zooming out a little bit. The Warriors have alternated between wins and losses since Steph returned. But they have the Raptors at home on Friday to break that trend. But the Rattors just wanted to sacramental last night kind of main handled them. So they're playing some decent basketball right now, and they present a bunch of specific physical issues, uh at that, especially with perimeter size,

that might give the Warriors some issues. It's gonna be a tough challenge on Friday, but that's a good chance to break that trend. Memphis followed up their eleven game winning streak with a four game losing streak. In addition to the general lack of ball handling and shooting that causes their half court issues, I also excuse me. I also just don't think they're disciplined enough to win a seven game series against a great team, so I still

have them a level below Denver and Golden State out West. Alright, net Sixers, this was a really fun game. I'm gonna move pretty quickly here. Wife's actually waiting on me. We got we gotta get up to the slopes here soon. Um. Really valiant effort from Kyrie and Seth Curry, particularly in that fourth quarter to keep this game close. Seth Curry had a little heater in the middle of the fourth quarter and then and then Kyrie had a heater towards

the end. But James Harden was just unbelievable in that fourth quarter. He hit back to back step back threes to undo the damage from Seth's big fourth quarter push, and then he had a really nice driving lay up to his left. He had U I want to say, all five of his makes before that shot were threes, and then he finally got all the way to the room and made a layup that effectively ice to the game.

After Kyrie kept his a little heater. What I wanted to talk about was Philly's late game offense for a minute. So the Sixers of now won six games in a row, which was a uh something I predicted back in December, and I didn't think it was that ballsy of a prediction. Literally, all I was thinking was, this is one of the most talented teams in the league. They're starting to get healthy.

You know, James Harden is playing really good basketball, joe lymbeats playing like an m v P tyvers, maxis starting to get his rhythm back. Uh. They were already having a ton of success in half court defense. I had a feeling that when their offense started to because they were kind That was the weird thing with the Sixers throughout that first half of the season, as their offense was kind of hovering in that round fifteen in the

league range. They're all the way up to fifth in offense now because how much they've been cooking on that end of the floor and they have an offensive rating of one hundred and twenty five and fourth quarters during the six game win streak. And it really is this simple.

There's just no easy way to guard them. If you have if you leave James Harden in an ice so he's well over a point per possession and pick and roll, you've got a bracket James Harden, which is getting Joel embiid all these super high quality touches right at the foul line that he's converting at a high rate. Joel Embi post ups are present their whole set of problems.

And then it's like Tyree s Maxie and Tobias Harris on the week side with either you know, Georges kneeang or Shake Milton as that like knockdown shooter in that fifth spot. There's just there's just a high quality shot every time down the floor. And you know, basketball is a maker mislead to a certain extent, but at the same time, like chances are if your shot quality is better than the other team, it's more likely that you're gonna make the shots, and that's gonna be the difference

at the end of the day. Um I I think that like this again, everything comes down to hardening and beat in the playoffs and whether or not they're gonna be able to maintain their level of play. But they they they're gonna get high quality shots in late game situations, and they're gonna have an outstanding half court defense. They're gonna be tough to beat. And the same goes for

the nets. I mean, look no k D last night, and you saw on display from Seth and Kyrie just the absurd level of offensive skill that those two guys have. And again, their biggest weakness is gonna be physicality, and that's why I'm worried about them specifically in a Celtics matchup. But if they can hold up in the physicality better than they did last year, they're gonna be really tough to beat as well. The the n B a uh top tier of teams this year is so much better

than last year. It's gonna be this year is going to be so much fun when we get to the playoffs. I can't wait. I'm so excited. Tip off the new year with fan Duel, America's number one sports book. New customers get one hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first five dollar bet. Just download the Fandel sports Book app. It's safe, secure, and super easy to use. Then you can bet on everything from the money line to point scores too. Three's drained.

My favorite bet for this week is Tuesday Night the l A Clippers in crypto against the Lakers minus four. The Lakers are gonna probably be integrating Ruey Hatchemura in that game, and it's gonna dramatically shift the Lakers rotation around, which I think is gonna make it a very weird game, and a lot of guys are gonna be out of rhythm. So I like the Clippers in that game. Plus fand will even lets you combine your bets for a chance at a bigger payout with a same game parlay. So

don't miss out. Place your first five dollar bet to get one hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets, win or lose with promo co Jason t make every moment more with fan Duel, the official sports book partner of the NBA Alright Spurs Lakers. I'm not gonna spend two long on this game. I just have four quick thoughts. So first of all, Ruey had to Murray's debut. He makes the Lakers look big. He bothered a half dozen shots just by having his hands up. Again, He's six

ft eight with a seven two wingspan. Um. He grabbed six rebounds in twenty two minutes, which is great, several contested rebounds. It's like seeing a real big forward fly in to grab a rebound for the Lakers not named Lebron and Anthony Davis. Is kind of bizarre to watch because we just haven't seen that in a few years. Um. He gives them a legit NBA front court with Lebron on the bench, and that's vitally important for a couple of reasons we're gonna talk about here in a second.

They ran twenty three possessions last night with a d and Ruey had to Murray at the four with no Lebron, and they were plus nineteen net rating. And those twenty three possessions, again very small sample size against a bad team, but it allows them to stagger Lebron and Anthony Davis effectively, which is immensely important if they do decide to trade Russell Westbrook, because Russ is on a like and he

was really good in the previous ten games. I want to be clear, but he's been nightmariagely bad in his last three games. The Lakers are minus thirty four in the last three games when Russ plays uh and even when he's off the floor. Last night he was minus ten and a nine point win. But it goes even beyond the box score to just one. He can't make it three to save his life. I think he's like

one for his last thirteen or something like that. Um in his body language is weird, and his decision making has fallen off after being really good in the previous ten games. So I wonder if he's hearing things from his agent or just in general from Rob if they're hinting at him that it's likely that he gets moved or something, because the shift in his body language has been really strange in the last couple of of games.

But here's the thing. If they do trade Russ, you need to be effective with Lebron off the floor, because that's one of the ways Russ has been great this

year's running those bench units. So I wonder if he's hearing something um because but then again, but but again, with Russ off the floor and Lebron off the floor, having Ruey Hot tomorrow with Anthony Davis gives you a real traditional NBA front court to build a defensive foundation on, and Ruby flash some of the high level shot creation last night which helps you score in the half court in those situations. Um offensively, Ruey showed a little bit

of everything. He had two buckets in transition to transition run out in the first half. Then he had a trailing three in the second half that he made. Remember what I was saying in my deep dive with Ruey the other day, He's actually shooting the three much much better in transition than he is in the half court. And I think a big part of that is his

momentum is already heading towards the rim. He's got a little bit of a hitch in his shot, and so because his footing and balance is better in transition, because his forward momentum, I think he's hitting those shots at a higher clip as a result. But he had a little transition three that's gonna be big when the Lakers are running. Then he had two buckets in the half court. There was a broken possession in the first half. Nothing

was really open. Max Christie swings in the ball on the right wing and he just breaks his man down off the dribble and hits a pull up fifteen foot or that's gonna be big time, especially when they get into the playoffs. Uh, those you guys who listen to the dray On Green Show. He specifically talked about that a little bit in his last episode. Um and then the second bucket was a post up play. A d actually joked after the game that they called one of

a d s plays for Ruey. Um and then he and then he said he went up to Ruey and was like, hey, if they don't double team that shot, better go up. And he took a post up fade away over his right shoulder. Great footwork, knocked that thing down. And uh, again that's super encouraging. It's bad team, small sample size, need to see a lot more, but having that functional, real NBA forward next to Lebron James and Anthony Davis just adds a dimension to this team that

they haven't had since they won the title. Anthony Davis was a little out of rhythm, which is to be expected, but he blocked four shots. It's it's truly amazing how much he changes the physical profile of the Lakers. When a D was out almost every single game. The Lakers were physically outmatched. Um, they were fast, Like I said, their advantage was their speed as they went small, and they had some really good downhill players that were difficult

to deal with, like Dennis, Lebron and Russ. But in the aggregate, if you factored all of the physical elements of the game, the Lakers were outmatched every single night. And they basically just made up for that with Lebron's greatness, a bunch of guys in the on the bench playing well in relentless effort. They've been a team that just doesn't quit over the course of the last couple of months. Um. But when you watch them last night with a D

back and especially with Ruby out there, they're huge. They're a huge NBA team now. When they play Ruey and Lebron and a D together, they're gonna be bigger than just about every single team they play. That's three seven foot wingspans in the front court. That's Orlando Magic stuff, that's Cleveland Cavaliers stuff. That is high level defensive length

on the front court. And you saw some sequences last night where the Lakers were swarming on defense and it was kind of frightening to see the long arms everywhere as they were making defensive plays. You probably remember that play there, uh in late fourth quarter for Dennis Schroder flies over and blocks the three point shot on the wing, which gets saved in bounds. And then uh, they drive on Ruey and Ruey swallows up the drive and and

it gets swung too. Uh. I think it was Zach Collins in the middle of the lane and Anthony Davis comes over and blocks it like that type of frightening defensive rotation. Those are the physical advantages that were missing before this trade and before Anthony Davis came back from the injury. You want to have multiple advantages so that you can win multiple ways. The Lakers have shown that they can win with speed, but now they have the ability to win with size, and that last missing piece

is the ability to win with skill. And there's a couple of specific ways that will help their one Lebron getting his jump shot back to where it was the last few years, he has been shooting better, and really what they need to do is make a trade for a real shooter, a professional jump shooter, because as you can imagine, if you got to line up with lebron and Anthony Davis with Ruby Hotchmer and Dennis Schroeder and a real shooter, whether that's someone like a Gary Trent Jr.

Buddy heeled or a like a boy On Bugdanovich, and I'd probably order them. I'd probably go boy On one,

Gary Trent Jr. Two Buddy, He'll three. I prefer boy On as like a uh that that keeps Ruey is more of like a we can go big, but we can use them off the bench, or I can sco more skilled and go Dennis Austin Reeves boy and Baganovitch lebron A d or I can go huge with like Dennis boy On Ruey lebron A d do more switching and yeah, you give up a lot of foot speed and give up some driving lanes, but you have so much length and athleticism on the court you can recover it.

You get a bunch of different looks there. I don't hate the idea of Gary Trent Jr. I think he fits really well as well. I just think Boyan is a better player, and and he so lights out as a spot up shooter that I think I think that he gives them real intimidating shooting off the ball in those late game situations to score in the half court. But at the end of the day, they need to be able to score in slow down half court games, and having a real shooter along those guys is that

one missing piece. Lebron, he had eleven assists last night. Spear headed the biggest run of the game there in that early fourth quarter put the Lakers up ten. He did it by picking them apart with the pass. Uh. There was a sequence there were three straight assists. He had a transition play where dribbles up the floor and he fakes like he's gonna pull up at the top of the key, gets the man to jump at him, and swings it over to Dennis Shuder knocks down three.

Next possession, they run a pick and roll from the right wing, Lebron works his way into the middle and makes an awesome back pass back to the week's or back to the corner he just came out of across his body that hits Max Christie in the shooting pocket for three and then sid know by the way, Max Christie has been awesome. He's already one of the lakers best defensive players and he's shooting on catching shoot threes this year. Again, like, there's this difference between the Lakers

front office and their scouting department. The front office is dictating NBA players, whether that's you know, uh, this guy for this free agent that we're targeting, or this trade that we're trying to make. But their scouting department, which is actually made up of of members of the Bus family, they have a consistent track record of success and Max Christie appears to be another huge home run for them.

That the work that the scouting department is done to cover for the weaknesses of the Lakers front office is not talked about enough um. But then finally, on the last possession in that sequence, Lebron in transition just patiently waited for Thomas Bryant to break open in the middle of the floor, hit him in stride for dunk, and

the Lakers were up ten. Uh. You guys know, Lebron's my favorite player, But those kinds of sequences are my favorite Lebron sequences where they are locked in on defense and they're getting stops and Lebron is just attacking the other way in transition and making passes two guys. He's always been one of the best surgeons in basketball. It's always been one of the most underrated parts of his game.

And uh, that like seeing that kind of vintage sequence last night was definitely a lot of fun, especially for me as a Lebron fan. Um one last note and then we'll be done for the day, Darvin Ham. Uh, he basically removed when you in Gabriel from the rotation last night. He only played one minute in garbage time. He was basically the only forward that was playing for the Lakers before the Ruby hatcha Mura trade. And so I get it, it's tough. It was a weird day.

You bring it back a D and Ruey, you have weird rotations because a D and Ruey are coming off the bench. So I get that it was weird. But when Ian is too good to not play, he needs to be out there in some capacity. So I'd like to see them cut back a bit, maybe on Patrick Beverley's minutes and maybe a little bit on Russ's minutes, to try to find at least one shift each half for when you in to play. Because again, like especially with what the work he's been doing on the offensive glass,

and he's actually one of their better defensive players. I think they need to find a way for him to play. All right, guys, That is all I have for today. Uh. Saturday night is when I get back from this trip, and we're going to be covering a bunch of games from Saturday night, including Lakers Celtics on Sunday morning, So keep an eye on it feeds on Sunday. As always, they sincerely appreciate your supports, your support. I'm gonna go hit the slopes and I will see you guys in

a couple of days. The volume