Hoops Tonight - Steph Curry returns in Warriors loss vs. Suns + the big issue in Golden State

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Volume Happy Wednesday, everybody. We're going to be taking a break from our mid season week to zoom in on a couple of particular games from last night. We're gonna look at the Phoenix Suns going into Golden State down four of their five starters and beating up the Warriors. The Miami Heat coming back from down five with less than a minute left to pull out a win against Oklahoma City Thunder, and we're gonna do a little bit

of a deep dive into the Thunder. And then last but not least, the l A Clippers at home beating the Dallas Mavericks KWHI. Leonard was incredible in that game. So we're gonna zoom in do instant reactions to those three particular games. Then we'll get back to our mid season stuff. The rest of this week. We're gonna be doing our championship tears, just basically kind of putting the teams where I view them in terms of their ultimate

goals um at this halfway point of the season. And then later this week we've got five burning questions for the second half of the season. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribed to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore or Jason Lts. You guys don't miss any show announcements. And then, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. You can find them

wherever you get your podcasts Under Hoops tonight. So this one, this Sun's blow out of the Warriors was yet another really really bizarre NBA result. This was a Phoenix Suns team that was without their starting backcourt and Devin Booker and Chris Paul, without their starting center in DeAndre Ayton, and without Cam Johnson still with the knee injury, so they're down four of their five starters. This was also a Phoenix team that had lost nine out of ten games.

This was also a Phoenix team that had failed to score a hundred points in four consecutive games, and yet they went into Chase Center against the Warriors at full strength. I'll be a dealing with some stuff, but still at full strength and hung points on their head and won by double digits. Not to be clear, the Warriors are

also dealing with some struggles. They've lost three straight, their defense is not very good right now, and they're reincorporating Steph Curry, reincorporating Andrew Wiggins, and incorporating for the first time really this week, Andrea Gudala. And we'll get into all that in a little bit. But no matter what, there's no reason in the world why that Warrior's team, under any of those circumstances should have lost to the Suns.

But what did I tell you guys after Oklahoma City hung one fifty on the Celtics and kick their ass without Shay Gil just Alexander, What did I tell you guys after Charlotte went into Milwaukee and smacked the Milwaukee Bucks the other night? I said, this just happens a lot this time of year. Like I said, the initial excitement of the NBA season has passed and the standings are all jumbled, so everyone's kind of still in striking distance.

There's no real like uh insurmountable standings hole. And you know we're not to that March April time where teams really pick up steam before we had into the playoffs. Right, generally speaking, in my opinion, it's right after the All Star Eight that things really pick up steam. So from about mid December to about mid February, that two month period, you're just gonna see a lot of really strange basketball

results because you're going to see really uneven effort. And on any given night in this MBA, with how much talent there is, if you bring a poor effort and the other team brings a good effort, you've got a good chance to lose. Phoenix came in, and you know, I will spend some time talking about the basketball of it all. On a basketball level. Phoenix came in and

played with a lot of physical force. Michael Bridges and Michael Bridges and Joshua Cog in particular were applying a ton of ball pressure and they made Steph feel really uncomfortable and obviously he wasn't in shape or in rhythm to really handle it. Micail Bridges, Tory Craig Bismack, beyond Bo, Darios Arch and Jack Landale absolutely destroyed the Warriors on the glass. They out rebounded them fifty seven to forty five.

They had nineteen offensive rebounds that led to twenty five second chance points, and they were flying around the rim blocking seven shots. And on the offensive end, three guys in particular for the Sun's really stepped up into those creator roles and played really well and confidently. Um. Now, mind you, the Warriors weren't defending, but we'll get to that in a minute. But Kail Bridges put up twenty

six points and five assists. Wayne Washington came in and provided that all important pull up shooting that is, you know, like I always say, so important to beat specific NBA coverages. He had twenty one points and five assists. And then Damian Lee only made three shots, but it was just downhill all night long, drawing fouls. They He was fourteen for fourteen from the free throw line, finished with twenty

two points on only three made field goals. Um, you know, so that was enough for them on the offensive end of the floor. And then you know, Steph was clearly out of rhythm and out of shape. That's to be expected, guys, like I could have told you, and I'm sure most of you Warriors fans would admit that you probably didn't expect Steph to play well last night. Almost every single player in NBA history, whether it's Lebron, whether it's Steph,

whether it's Kobe, they all are rhythm players. They need to get lift on their jump shots, they need to have feel on their finishes around the rim, and on their pull up jump shots, and and all of that is takes rhythm and reps to get your legs underneath you and to tune in that handle in that jumper. Really, in my time watching basketball, the only player that I've ever seen that seems immune to rhythm stuff is Kevin Durant. And he's just a really weird, uh you know, kind

of exception that almost proves the rule. Like it was bizarre to me that he was able to step into an NBA Finals game after being out all that time with a cash strain and then just walk in and I think he had like eleven points in the first quarter before he tore his achilles like and was just hitting everything, you know, and then you know, you he'll go, you know, two months without playing with a knee injury or one month without playing with with the knee injury,

with this recent mcl scare, he'll come back in his first game and he'll shoot well. But that's like he's the alien and when it comes to rhythm, every other one of the greatest players of all time has that issue. That's to be expected. Then there's also the reincorporating um element, like getting Andrew Wiggins in. Like Andrew was hunting his shot in that first half. He was taking a lot of bad shots, but it's because he's just trying to

get his rhythm back. So if you got Steph taken twenty two shots trying to get his rhythm back, Andrew Wiggins I think took sixteen, he's trying to get his rhythm back. That kind of disrupts the offensive flow. An offensive flow that the Warriors had with Jordan Pool and Clay Thompson being the primary shot creators, So that obviously was going to throw a big wrench into their offensive organization.

They looked really clunky. There was a stretch there in the second quarter where the Warriors like bobbled the ball just out of bounds or to the other team. I think on three different occasions in the second quarter, just giving you know, just clunky giving the ball away. That's all you really need to get an upset like this. Them playing as hard as they can, killing you on the glass. A couple of guys get hot offensively, you're

sloppy offensively because you're reincorporating guys. That's what you get. The Warriors defense, though, is the big driving force behind their recent lo sing streak. They've lost three in a row. Now. The Detroit Pistons are a bottom five offense, the Orlando Magic are a bottom ten offense. Now, the Sons are a top ten offense, but not with this group of players.

They literally couldn't score a hundred points for a week and a half before this, and Golden State in this three game stretches, allowing a hundred and eighteen point three points per one hundred possessions. It's not a scheme issue. It's not a personnel issue. We've seen this group defend at a higher level, even just during this phase with the injuries, even without Andrew Wiggins. They just simply aren't

playing hard enough. There's one guy in particular, I wanted to get on here because um he said after the end, this is Jordan Pool. Jordan Pool said after the game that the Warriors need to flip the switch, and I mean, he's right, but we're halfway through the season. Now we're halfway through the season and the Warriors are below five hundred, it's bend time for them to flip the switch. And Jordan Pool in particular has been one of the biggest

links on the defensive end of the floor. Last night, his point of attack defense, both on ball and in close out situations was really bad, like embarrassingly bad, getting beat off the dribble by guys. He has no business getting beat off the dribble by. Now, to be clear, it's not just him. I'm just going after him because he was the one who brought it up after the game. The entire team is not bringing that requisite defensive effort.

But you know, like one of the reasons why I look at defensive rating, and defensive rating is not necessarily the best indicator of what a defense can do. But what defensive rating is a good indicator of is it's an average of your defensive effort over an eight two games slate. What defensive rating is is a great way for me to look at what your basketball character is as a team and if you have that top ten defense.

One of the big reasons why that's such an interesting hallmark for NBA history having a top ten defense is because that shows that over the course of an eight two games slate, you proved that on a night and night out basis, you played harder, more frequently. That means you have better habits. And when you get into the postseason, when all the stakes are higher than they've been during the regular season, you fall back on your habits. We

talked about that all the time, like handling adversity. We talked about that in our regular life. Like if you have a lot of adversity in your personal life. Let's just say you're to do list is exceptionally long, and you feel very behind on stuff and you're overly stressed out. What's going to determine your ability to manage that your habits.

If you have good habits in terms of waking up at the same time every day, good time management, blocking off time in a way that makes sure that you keep peak productiveness, not wasting time on social media or doing nothing. If you are good with your time management, if you have good habits, then you will attack that list item by item, and eventually you will regain control

of the situation. That's kind of the deal. If you're down ten on the road in Memphis in a one one series, you're it's stacked against shoot, what's the one thing that's going to get you back into that game to make it a two one lead in the series versus a one to deficit. It's going to be leaning on your defensive habits, leaning on your rebounding habits, leaning on your execution habits. That's why I pay such close

attention to that stuff. The Warriors have flashed the same ceiling several times this year that they have last year. That's why I still have them as a top tier contender. It will take somebody beating them in a playoff series for me to take that off their plate, because it just hasn't been that long since the same core group of guys played that level of basketball. But what's concerning

now is their habits have shifted. If they are no longer a team that consistently brings the requisite effort on the defensive end, it's inconsistent and they will need to rectify that before the end of the season. I believe they will. My guess is that Golden State finishes the season with a top ten defense because they I expect them to go on a run. I think eventually. The things that I'm saying are things that Draymond is already thinking.

That Steph is already thinking that, Clay is already thinking that, Andrea Goodala is already thinking that Steve Kerr is already thinking. And I think they'll address these things, and I think they'll figure it out. But make no mistake, through half of this thing, it hasn't been good enough alright. Moving on to Oklahoma City, Miami, this is a wild finished the Thunder up one eleven to one oh six with

less than a minute left. Um after Josh Kitty attacked close out through really nice bounce past to Aaron Wiggins on the baseline for dunk. Victor Oladipo runs down the floor and shoots a step back three and it goes in. Then they go down the other way. It's one eleven, one o nine. Ken Ridge Williams is posting up in the middle of the floor and it takes a little fade away over his right shoulder and they come up into his landing area and they draw out. They review it.

I I have thoughts about the landing area thing. I think it kind of makes defense borderline impossible in the NBA. I'm not going to talk about that right now, regardless of how you feel the call stood. But then Kendrick Williams goes to the free throw line and misses both free throws. Aaron Wiggins comes fly in, gets an offensive rebound, but trips and kind of fumbles the ball right into Victor Oladipo's hands, and he goes streaking down the right sideline.

Jimmy Butler drops everything and sprints to the rim for deep seal. This is one of my favorite things to see from big athletic fowards. You see Lebron James do this all the time. You see Anthony Davis Janice, you see a lot of these like big fast forwards do this a lot. But in transition sometimes is your best opportunity for a quick post up because the defense is not set, so you don't have help defenders digging down into your post space. Guys are still sprinting back. Everything

is disheveled even when you are sprinting back. The first thing you do is sprint back to a player and then once you get matched up, then you'll get into your help side. There's like a little brief window there, like a five second window of chaos. Another thing I would refer to that to is semi transition or it's kind of like it's not like a runout dunk, but it's a runout action. Whether that's a quick runout post

up or a quick runout pick and roll. It's taking advantage of that five second disheveled period between the run and out. In the half court set, and Jimmy Butler ends up catching Jalen Williams deep under the basket, does a quick pivot drop step towards the baseline and pump fakes. Jalen Williams leaves his feet, goes up into his body. Jalen Williams should have just grabbed him and taken the foul, at least send him to the line and make him make two, but instead he turns his body to the

side to try to avoid the foul call. So Jimmy just jumps up into his shoulder, draws the foul and makes the layout. Now it's one twelve, one eleven. After he makes the free throw, go down to the other end. Shade Gils's Alexander takes another step back jump shot when he's made several times this year to win games, and he missed it and the game was over. There's a really impressive win from Miami considering they had no Tyler Harrow,

no Kyle Lowry, no bam At a Bio. So a team that already is so thin in the front court that um lost, you know, one of the most important front court physical presences. There was a whole thing with Dwayne Deadman getting into an argument with the coach and and uh, it looked like he might have been kicked out of the game. But you know, they gut it out and win with veteran players and Victor Oladipo and Jimmy Butler making debt or in plays at the end

of the game. But I want I want to actually, because we just talked Miami last week, I want to a zoom in on Okay see for a minute, because we haven't really talked much about them this season. So I'm doing a video that I'll be recording later today

that's gonna be coming out. I don't know if it's coming out tonight or the next day, but we're gonna take all the thirty teams in the NBA, I'm gonna split them into tears, and uh like it'll be like the top tier contenders all the way down to the tanking teams and everything in between kind of associated with where they are in their development period, and you know, there's kind of like a process. The first phase of

the development period is like the tanking period. It's like you're just terrible and you're accumulating draft assets and taking on bad contracts, doing whatever it takes to build your asset trove and try to develop young players. But then there's this other tier that's right above that that I call the young and scrappy, interesting and scrappy tier. These are teams like, you know, like the Indiana Pacers or the Utah Jazz or the Oklahoma City Thunder where it's

like they're kind of hovering right around five hundred. They're not obviously going to make some sort of run in the playoffs. Nobody in their front office thinks they're gonna

win the championship. But what they are is a team that has a clear identity, that's forming a trajectory, that's trending in the right direction, and at some point in the future, they'll make some sort of all in trade, whether or move, whether that's signing a veteran player, getting a specific need on the roster, and that's when they'll start to view themselves as a legitimate contender. That's where

Oklahoma City is right now. But what's crazy is I think they're at the top of that tier and I think they're poised sooner than later to take a leap

into that, you know, fringe contention tier. I think they're the next, the candidate, the best candidate to be the next like Memphis, what Memphis was last year when they made their playoff run, that young team that has a super talented roster, a bona fide star leading the way, And I want, I wanted to look at the roster because, like you know, when I when I really think about what makes a team a contending basketball team, there are specific things that I'm targeting, right, Like do they have

high high end shot creation? Yes, they do. Shake gild just Alexander, he's literally one of the ten best players in the league in my opinion, or right around there, right around that ten to twelve line, right, He's a bona fide star. So check, Okay, do they have backup ball handling guys that can create a shot when s G is not on the floor. Yes, Josh Kiddy at a triple double last night eighteen points, fifteen rebounds. Tennis is. I watched him play in Summer League. It's a little

funky because he can be inefficient at times. It's it's it can be a little clunky, but he can run high pick and roll, and he can generate high quality shots. He can attack close out to make high quality shots. He can do stuff on the second side. He is a perfectly fine secondary ball handler. Do they have a guy that can guard the other team's best player, Yes, Lou dort I think he's a top tier three and D player. Luca don literally said earlier this year that

he's the best defensive player in the league. Kind of an interesting archetype that lu dort Is is, which is like that a little bit shorter wing, like not the six eight six nine, But he's so strong that he can defend up several positions, and that lower center of gravity with all that strength makes him really difficult to knock off of his spot, and so he's really good at disrupting the base of pull up shooters, which is

what makes him such a good player. To put on the best perimeter stars in the league, you need to have modern bigs, biggs that can thrive on the offensive end, creating spacing and being able to do things with the basketball, and on the defensive end, the ability to run the floor and transition and protect the ring. They've got two of those guys that I really like, Chet Homegren and

Alexei Polkaszewski. They're both stretch bigs that open things up spacing wise for shake gilas Alexander and their other guards to get downhill. They can both dribble and pass the ball really well for centers. And Chet should in theory be a top tier rim protector when he gets into the league and gets into NBA shape and and and establishes himself. So check, they've got the star, they've got the guy who can guard the star. They've got the

modern bigs. What's that last box if you guys had to guess, I like having lots of athletic players with size and strength on the wing who can do dirty work for you. That's defending multiple positions and switching, that's grabbing contested rebounds on both ends. Of the floor, that's running up and down the floor in a high paced transition game. That's everything associated with the roles that take place around your stars. And the Thunder have tons of

these guys, not just lu Dort. They got Jalen Williams. I watched him play a summer league and I was blown away with his athleticism. I was tweeting all these videos of him getting all these uh really like high level double pump underneath the rim, reverse dunks and things along those lines. He can do a lot of stuff with the basketball in his hands to putting it on the floor, knocking down jump shots. It's super interesting. Young wing.

Aaron Wiggans completely functional young wing, Ken Rich Williams completely functional young wing. So as we zoom out of this, they've got all the boxes checked. Really, if I had to say one need would be another trible creator, preferably a veteran guard that could come in and run second side stuff in the occasional bench group and just provide some veteran experience when it comes to organizing players and helping them feel comfortable and confident in big environments, particularly

high stakes environments in the playoffs. Guys that I'd be looking at if I were, then would be like Chris Paul or Kyle Lowry, an older guard. That's their lack of athleticism won't be a problem surrounded by the all the aggregate athleticism on the roster providing other additional shot creation and veteran presence. But if they do that, they

will have an extremely well rounded roster. And when you combine that with another year of development for all these young players, bringing in chet home, going to anchor the interior, I think we could be looking up this time next year and being like, man, the Oklahoma City Thunder have the three seed right now, Like, are they gonna beat somebody in the playoffs this year? Kind of the same way we did with Memphis last year. So really exciting

time to be an Oklahoma City Thunder fan. Alright, last game before we call it today, Dallas and the l A Clippers. Clippers really blew this game open in the second quarter. It was thirty five to thirty three at one point, and then suddenly you look up and the Clippers were up by twenty two. Really killed him on the offensive glass. Robert Covington played really well in this game, crashing the offensive glass and then he had like a couple of big strips on Jaden Hardy driving to the basket.

Always has been a good help defender, really good at using his hands to disrupt players, particularly in the shooting pocket. He always attacks you down low rather than attacking up high, and which is another thing you can do with long arms, and arguably with the best players in the league, that's the best way to bother them because most of the best players are good at finishing over upper contests above you know, back where they're shooting and they're pull up

jump shots are layups at the rim um. Norman Powell was also incredible during this run. He rescued possession with a side step three on the left wing, he had a pull up three and pick and roll at the top of the key. Then he scored a bunch of times in spot up possessions. He had a three out of the right corner um, He had a really nice close out attack on the left wing where he hit a banking floater, another closed out attack on the left wing where he got to the middle and got an

and one lay up. Out of a hundred and thirty eight players this year in the NBA that have logged at least a hundred spot up possessions. Norman Pals really solid forty four at one point one one points per possession, so he's roughly an upper third spot up guy that

we have in the league this year. And really those numbers are convoluted by the fact that, like Norman Pale is terrible for the first ten games of the season, in his last twenty three games, Norman pal is averaging eighteen points per game on fifty percent from the field from three and eight percent from the line, So that nice little influx of talent for them. Quiet Leonard masterful night, thirty three points on twelve shots, just nine for twelve

from the field. Eight of his nine makes were jumpers. You know, I tweeted this out earlier today and it always blows me away. Kevin Durant qwhile Leonard have the weirdest stat lines because they'll have like these games where will have between thirty and thirty five points on like less than fifteen shots, and then you'll look at the shot chart and they'll all be jumpers. It's kind of unbelievable the way that Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant can

be that efficient on that incredibly difficult shot diet. But everything with the Clippers comes down to health. When Kawhi Leonard and Paul Georgia on the floor together this year, they are plus nine points per one hund possessions. That's great, but the problem is that those two guys have only played seven hundred and two possessions together this year, which is less than seven games worth essentially if you wanted

some sort of equivalency there. So, I mean, it's just really hard to evaluate the Clippers because we can't ever see their top end because they can't keep their players on the floor long enough to build any real rhythm um. And then the Mavericks, now I've lost three out of four games because they aren't defending. They're giving up a hundred two points per one hundred possessions over this four game stretch, which is twenty nine in the league over that span. Al right, guys, that is all I have

for right now. Like I said, keep an eye on the feeds. We've got our contender tears coming out, and then we also have our five burning questions for the second half of the season. As always, I appreciate your support and I'll see you guys next time. The volume