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We have a jam pack show today. We're gonna be hitting King's Sons, Clippers, Warriors, and game from Monday night that we didn't hit, the Minnesota Timberwolves getting a big win on the road over the Dallas Mavericks. Also, in case you missed it, last night, I went on with the great Colin Coward and we hit a bunch of big picture topics around the NBA. You can find that on my podcast feed, his podcast feed, as well as on the Volumes YouTube channel. 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 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. Remember you can find them wherever you get your podcasts
Under Hoops Tonight. And lastly, before we talk about some basketball I've been, I always go through the YouTube comments because that's a good place for you guys to give feedback for the show as well as to offer your guys basketball takes, which I often learned things from. And I've seen a lot of feedback from you guys asking us to cover other teams other than the Lakers in the Warriors. So first of all, we do. They're just
typically in the back half of the show. But I wanted to take this example just kind of explain the format. So I've been out of town a lot the last couple of weeks on ski trips, and so when I'm on vacation, I'm not doing game breakdowns. I'm only working when we have like some sort of major basketball event like Kyrie Irving demanding a trade or Kyrie Irving actually getting traded. But I'm in town now. I have one other ski trip in mid April, but other than that,
I'm in town. Basically the rest of the season, so we're gonna have a much more normal cadence. Also, we just had the trade deadline, so obviously we're gonna be targeting the biggest trades of the deadline, and the biggest trades of the deadline were what the Suns did, but also what happened with the Warriors and the Gary Payton scandal with the Portland Trailblazers in the Los Angeles Lakers turning over their entire and their entire team, so obviously
that's going to affect things. And we're also heading into the All Star break right now, so like I've got this show, I've got one more show tomorrow, We're gonna be breaking down a bunch of games from Wednesday night, but then we don't have any basketball for a little over a week. So it's a little bit of a weird stretch, but our normal cadence, you know, on every show we're breaking down four or five games, and yes, I have to hit the Lakers and the Warriors. There
are biggest fan bases. This is we've got bills to pay, and obviously that's the best way for us to grow the show. We're going to continue to hit those teams but we're also going to hit all of the other playoff teams around the league, and our YouTube team works really hard to parse things out and to put in chapters. So if you're sick of hearing Lakers and more your stuff, just skip those chapters and you can get to the
other teams. And most importantly, during the playoffs, we will literally be covering every single game from every single team throughout the entire playoff runs. So I do appreciate the feedback, and I understand where you guys are coming from. I just wanted to clarify that stuff just so you guys know moving forward, UM, how to best get to the content that you guys want to see. All right, So let's talk some basketball today. We're starting with King's Sons.
So the Sons won one twenty to one on nine uh, Devin Booker and Down Drayton combined for sixty one points. They really took control of this game in the third or Sacramento hung tough for a half or so. Chris Paul and Devin Booker were both awesome in the third quarter. Chris Paul had five assists, Devin Booker had ten points, and what I thought was one of the big swing
factors in the third quarter. A third quarter of this game was josh a cog in his on ball defense on Deer and Fox did a really nice job containing him with physicality, so Dear and Fox couldn't turn the corner, which turned him into a jump shooter in that quarter, and he contested those jump shots really well and he missed most of them, which was a big part of
how Phoenix got going defensively. You know, when I was on with Colin Coward last night, I talked about how of all the serious playoff teams, Phoenix probably has the worst point of attack defense. Now, they have every other box checked extremely well, except for maybe some forward physicality stuff, but they they don't defend on the ball very well.
It's just a matter of personnel. And so when we're looking at their lineups, especially when you're looking at their core lineup of Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Katie and Andreyton Joshua coach, he makes a lot of sense to me in that fifth spot essentially as your lead point of
attack defender. Point of attack defense is super important and it's something that coaches play a pay a ton of attention to and the main reason why is whoever that team's primary ball handler is, whoever the opponent's primary ball handler, the guy who's gonna run the most pick and rolls, he's arguably the most important piece to that team's offense
over the course of that night. The reason why is if he can consistently warp the defense by getting downhill or pulling guys out with this pull up jump shooting, it puts your defense in rotation the entire night, which makes it a lot a lot easier for the other four offensive players on the floor. And it's an extremely difficult job, and so you don't want to ask your lead ball handlers on your team to take that job.
You would prefer to have somebody that's in a smaller role offensively that can devote their resources to containing the basketball on the defensive end of the floor. Now I
expect them to go with Tory Craig. Uh. It's just been the guy that they've gone to in that spot for the most part of the season, and he does a lot of things for them, uh as a spot up player and also crashing the offensive glass, but not as good of a point of attack defender as josh A cog So I'd be really interested to see if, even if they don't start with him, if they end up going with him in their crunch time lineups as
the guy that they put on the basketball. Um. The other thing that really stood out to me in this game is just in terms of the energy of the team. They look reinvigorated by the Kevin Durant trade. Both Devin Booker and Chris Paul looked like they had a newfound energy. Chris Paul in particular, was playing with a ton of energy and when when that that that just like, especially in the middle of the slogs of the NBA season, that sort of thing can really help you lead to wins.
And even DeAndre Ayton is playing some of his best basketball this season right now. He's averaging twenty four points and eight rebounds with two blocks per game over the course of his last two games. He was really really good over his last three games, I should say, Um, he's been really really good in the last two against Indiana and Sacramento, and just watching them last night, I continue to be super intrigued by the potential, the basketball
potential of the Kevin Durant fit. In that third quarter against uh in that third quarter against Sacramento, Phoenix was running a ton of cleared side pick and roll, so that means they get the shooter out of the strong side corner and they'll have Chris Paul start lower, usually down like almost by the free throw line extended, and then they'll have eighton comes set the screen so that if Aton does roll to the rim or they ice the coverage and forced Chris Paul towards the baseline, he's
got more room to operate there. And Uh, Sacramento was having a lot of trouble containing Chris Paul and Eton in that action, and so they started bringing a third defender over. They're essentially using what's called a catch hedge on Chris Paul as he was coming off the ball screen.
What that means is the big is not trapping, he's not showing, but he's ignoring the rollman to come high enough that he he's essentially a soft double team on the ball while whoever's guarding Chris Paul is chasing over the top. Then they bring that third defender over to tag the rollman, and as a result, that weak side a kick pass to Tory Craig was wide open. The
entire third quarter. And so the way I look at it is if you it kind of triggers a four on three, right, Like, let's say k D's out there, Uh, they'll probably in that case ignore Tory craig or or josh A Cojy, whoever that fifth guy is. But as soon as that kick passes made, you know that whoever that fifth guy is has an opportunity to quickly start a four on three, either by doing a quick, drible handoff to whoever else is on that wing, or by
driving the clothes out and making another kick out. I get super excited about those four on three situations with Kevin Durant in the mix, because now if Chris Paul and DeAndre Ayton are running that action and it gets to that kick out, the guys running that four on three are literally, uh Kevin Durant with um Devin Booker and josh A Cogi with DeAndre Ayton pinned on a smaller defender under the baskets, They're gonna be able to get a lot of really good stuff about out of that.
And then I'm also excited to see Kevin Durayant actually have the ball in his hands starting these pick and rolls with that same dynamic with Chris Paul and Devin Booker on the back end. We're not gonna have to wait much longer to see it, because the Suns have one more matchup with the Clippers on Thursday before we get into the All Star break, and Kevin Durant is reportedly going to return at that point. All right, moving on to Warriors Clippers, this is a nice win for
the Clippers over an undermanned Warriors team. Staff and Andrew Wiggins both took uh, we're both out. Andrew Wiggins took the night off for personal reasons, and obviously Steff is still rehabing the knee injury. But that's arguably there two best players, and the core Warriors guys actually hung really tough in this game. But you gotta you got to see a great example of the gap in bench talent
between these two teams. So the Warriors ended up taking a brief lead in the third quarter after Steff or excuse me, after Clay Thompson and Jordan Pool caught a heater. Clay had a really nice is so one like fade away against Paul George at the free throw line. Then Jordan Pool got down on hill and drew a foul drive into the rim um. Then Jordan Pool hit back to back threes, and then Clay Thompson hit a transition three he got a lucky balance off of the right wing.
Suddenly the Warriors had a lead. But then from there, both teams went to their bench and these were literally the lineup. So the Clippers were going with Bones Island, Norman Powell, Kawhi, Leonard, Marcus Morris, and Mason Plumlely, and the Warriors went with Ty Jerome, Anthony Lamb, Moses Moody, Jonathan Cominga and Jamichael Green, three of those guys you'd
hope to not have in your playoff rotation. And you know, Jonathan Cominga is going to be more of a matchup dependent guy when they get to the postseason, right, So just from a personnel standpoint, they were completely overmatched. That group did okay in the first half, really struggled in the third quarter, and next thing you know, early fourth quarter,
they're already down eighteen points in the game was over. Now, part of this is a regular season problem, Like the Clippers have always had a ton of depth, and that's the kind of thing that's bought them the margin for error to be able to rest Kawhi Leonard and to rest Paul George when the dealing with nagging injuries. But you know, uh, during those regular season stretches that depth can help. But then you get to the postseason and
the dynamic changes. Right like, it's Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins are available, and everybody in the core Warriors groups is playing thirty six plus minutes. There's gonna be a lot more overlap with the bench groups. You know, Ty Jerome is not gonna play. You know, Anthony Lamb and Jonathan Cominga might play based on you know what the matchup is and which guy Steve Kerr trust. But um, you know, Ty Jerome is not gonna play. Gary Payton is gonna be getting in there for a bunch of
those minutes. So then all of a sudden it works out. Okay, But what you see is that in mid February, when guys are out of the lineup for injuries and for personal reasons, that depth is gonna be a problem. And the Clippers won a game off of that last night. So credits to the Clippers for building a roster that buys them a lot of margin for error during these stretches of the season. One last quick note on the
Warriors before we move on. Uh, there was a quote from Draymond Green that was going around yesterday talking about defense, and he said, quote, it has to come from within. Defense is all about will a want to defend. Defense is not fun. You've just got to do it if you want to win, and we haven't and quote, So, first of all, he's absolutely right fundamentally about defense. The Warriors are actually my favorite example in this modern era of NBA history of the fact that defense is about
will and about caring and wanting to do so. Just look at their core lineups, Like the Warriors have had outstanding you know, at defensive talents over the years, right, Like Andrea Guadala has been one of the best wing defenders in the league for a long time. Um, you know, Kevin Durayant obviously brought a huge element of of of
physical tools to the defensive end of the floor. But the other core guys in that group there, they're really examples of not having those physical tools but becoming great defensive players by the strength of their will. Like Draymond Green is the best example of it like Draymond Green is my height. He's six ft six. Now, he does have a really good wing span and he's very strong, but he the the way that he impacts games defensively
is up here. He's got an outstanding basketball like Q and his ability to sift out plays, but also he has poured his heart and soul into that side of the floor every single day and carved out not just a place in the league, but a place, you know,
a place in the higher echelons of the league. And Draymond Green has made a second team All n b A in his career, and he's in my opinion, one of the top three defensive players in the league without being Rudy Gobert or Anthony Davis or bam at a bio guys that have significantly better physical tools at that position. Clay Thompson not the best athlete in the world. Decent size, six ft seven, He's got some tools, right, He's six
ft seven, He's big and strong. You need a baseline of physical tools, like even Staff at six ft three. It's not like he's John Morant, you know, a hundred and seventy five pounds and just can get shoved around everywhere on the floor. They have a baseline of physical tools, but compared to other NBA athletes, they don't have that type of physicality. Clay is not as athletic as most six seven wings in the league, but he once again
commitment to the details high basketball. I you putting in the effort in focus, sliding his feet really well, anticipating changes of direction and taking contact in the chest and contesting shots. Same thing with Steph and even with Kevon Looney, who compared to most centers in the NBA, isn't the best athlete or the biggest center that they have in
the league. So the Warriors kind of represent that take that Draymond has, that that you know, defense is about heart and that defense is about uh commitment to those details. There's a lot of guys in the league to have similar physical tools that never panned out. How many times have we seen guys who tried to be Draymond or I should say gms who draft guys. Remember Guerresan, you boost a life from from the Celtics. They used to
call him French Draymond. It's like, actually, it turns out that just because you're stocky in six six and and uh, you know, a decent athlete. That doesn't mean that you can suddenly be a great defensive player. You need to you need to be what Draymond is, which is an anomaly at that position. Um. But the reality is, and the reason why Draymond said this is a lot of
that fire has been missing this season. Not to be clear, the starters have been outstanding, so we talked about this last night, but the best start, the best five man lineup in the league is still Kevon Looney, Draymond Green, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins. That team, that group is outscoring teams by twenty two points per one hundred possessions. They've been really good defensively. They have a defensive rating of a hundred and six, which is really good.
So that group has been doing fine, but every other line up that they have is struggling defensively, especially when Draymond is off the floor and Draymonds off the floor, they're giving up a hundred and twenty one points per one hund possessions. And that's a big part of why
they're nineteen and defense through fifty eight games. Now, remember my rules, as it pertains to contenders if you don't have an overwhelming talent advantage, and if you don't have a you know, a significant injury that impacts your defense. So for instance, if like Draymond misses a bunch of time, or if Anthony Davis misses a bunch of time, I'm not gonna hold your team to that defensive rating standard.
But if unless unless you're missing a defensive player for a significant, significant chunk, or you're the Katie Staph Warriors or the shot Kobe Lakers, unless you're one of those types of teams, you have to be a top ten defense in the regular season by defensive rating to have a chance to contend for a title. Now, the Warriors have twenty four games left to demonstrate that they have that ceiling, and they need to shave about two points off their defensive rating to get into the top ten.
What that means is they're going to need to defend at an extremely high level over the final stretch of the season to prove that they still have that gear that they can get to. Alright, moving on to Wolves maps before we get out of here today. So the Wolves, this was on Monday night. The I just covered a bunch of other games at night, so I didn't get around to this one, and at the time that I was prepping for the show, the Wolves were big and it was a blowout, so I wasn't gonna get into it.
But the Wolves it up winning one and and the Mavericks actually had a chance to tie this tie this game with a three at the end, and Minnesota opted not to foul and just played straight up defense, and they played outstanding defense and actually forced to turn over and Dallas couldn't even get a shot up um. This was first of all, this was the first example of the MAVs really struggling with a big, physical team, which was something that I figured would be a problem for
them immediately after the trade. You know, they they're hurt on the front line with Maxi Clei, but being out, they gave up their best three and d wing and you know, contested a rebound guy from the perimeter and in Dorian Phinney Smith, and you saw a lot of that kind of come home to russ last on Monday night. They got man handled on the glass, they got man handled in the paint. They could not guard Anthony Edwards at the point of attack when the Wolves went big
with Rudy Gobert. They were plus seventeen in this game, so there were there were a lot of issues that they had there. But then what happened was is Kyrie Irving just went absolutely berserk in the fourth quarter, had twenty four points and got them back to within having a chance is to win. And then obviously the Wolves got the big stop. So there's two things that I want to hit on here versus Anthony Edwards. So before the season, in my player rankings, I had him at
twenty one, the twenty first best player in the league. Now, that was higher than most folks, and there were a couple of people who disagreed because I had him ahead of some, you know, more established guys like Chris Middleton
or Bradley Beale, things like that. Um, I think I had him ahead of Donovan Mitchell as well, But you know, I was super high on him after last year's plaoffs, Like I love the size that downhill, physical power going towards the rim, and when you mix that with the way that he was shooting his pull up jump shot at the end of the season last year, and his on ball defense, which we're gonna talk about here, in
a minute, I get really excited about that. UM. And obviously Donovan Mitchell was coming off of a super disappointing playoff run. As you know, Bradley Be'll missed the playoffs, Chris Middleton was hurt. There's a lot of reasons why I had him up as high as I did, UM, But like I was just really bullish general on Anthony Edwards in his skill set, But then he got off
to a rough start this year. And I don't want to put too much of the blame on him because it was a really clunky lineup, and I was critical of that Minnesota timber Wolves offseason from the start, but putting him alongside D'Angelo Russell and Carl Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert just was a really clunky fit. A lot of guys you want to have the ball, funky spacing. There were just a lot of reasons why that didn't
work super well. UM. But in Anthony Edwards his last thirty one games, he's averaging twenty seven points, six rebounds, and five assists on fifty eight percent true shooting. That is like legit second tier, superstar level production. His pull up jump shots coming around two In his last ten games, he's shooting on nine pull up jump shots per game. But his defense is where I'm most excited. You know.
One of the biggest things that excited me about Aunt towards and the last year is like he'd getting these on ball defense possessions, and he's so big and strong that when he would be a little bit handsy and physical, and he slides his feet so well that the refs would give him the benefit of the doubt on a lot of those plays, like guards would just be trapped in place and really struggled to get separation from him.
And I'm that's where I start to think, like, man, like this guy has real two way potential, especially in a Western conference that has so many great guards. But you saw it on display at its absolute peak on Monday night against Kyrie Irving. So in the first eight and a half minutes of the fourth quarter, Kyrie is twenty one points. He was as hot as I've ever seen him, and then over the last three and a
half minutes Anthony Edwards completely locked him down. Now, there was one weird play where Frank Nilikina missed the three and Josh Green got an offensive rebound and Anthony Edwards was leaking into the to try to get a rebound. As long rebound uh Josh Green shoveled it back to
Kyrie Irving and he made a wide open three. But aside from that play, he literally could not even get separation from Anthony Edwards, and it basically like and it culminated with that final possession where Kyrie couldn't even get a shot off. But before that, there were a couple of possessions where Kyrie tried to get separation from and
just couldn't get to the middle of the floor. Pump fakes, all this stuff and ants just got him completely swallowed up with his size and his strength in his physicality, and that allen ball defense helped Minnesota win a game that they probably lose otherwise with the way that Kyrie was playing, and we've seen him ride those hot streaks to making big shots down the stretch and beating teams.
He's pump faking at ghosts, I said, goes. He was here in the footsteps of Anthony Edwards and pump baking at shots that he normally would take on that final possession, and that's a big part of why I'm so excited about Ant's ceiling and why I think he's gonna be a mega star in this league for a long time at some point in the near future. The last thing I want to talk about was the MAVs um defense
is obviously in a big issue. Uh physical limitations will be a problem for this team throughout the rest of the season. They're gonna have to address that in the off season. But every time I've watched them play since the Kyrie trade, it's amazing how much of a breath of fresh air he is for that offense. Um. Luca plays a very slow style, and you need to play that style. For the record, that's how you win in the playoffs. The game slows down, you need half court surgeons.
So I don't want to undercut what Luca is doing. That's an important part of their eventual playoffs ceiling. Um. But there is a lot of advantages that come with pushing the pace. First of all, it helps you get easier shots before the defense gets set. We talked about this all the time on the show. But it also gets the crowd going. It's a fun brand of basketball, and when that when the crowd starts to feel that
push of that transition up and down style. It in turn reinvigorates the players because they're feeding off the crowd, and that breathes life into a basketball team. Like I think Kyrie single handedly gave them as a chance to win this game with the change of pace that he brought in that fourth quarter. Now, they're gonna need to figure some stuff out, especially with their give and take
at the end of games. I didn't like that Luca took the game tying shot in their previous game against Sacramento. I thought Iyree had it going it should have been in his hands, and then there were some overpassing on that final possession. Uh. Luca also didn't do a very good job ceiling j Jadae McDaniels on that entry pass, which caused the whole play to break down from the start because Jade McDaniels got a deflection. Luca needs to seal him so that it's a lot easier for that
past to come. Um. But they're gonna figure that stuff out and it's gonna be fine. And obviously, like I said, they've got a bolster of the front court. But I love the natural basketball fit and the give and take and the and the way that their differences complement each other, and I'm looking forward to watching them over a playoff run. Alright, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I
sincerely appreciate your support. We will be back tomorrow morning for one final show before the All Star Game, and that's gonna be breaking down Wednesday nights games. I'm not sure if we'll cover the All Star Game. It depends if it's interesting the All Star Games a total coin flip. It's either gonna be close and the e l am ending is great and it'll be super interesting, in which case we'll do a show. If not, then we'll probably take the rest of the weekend off next week before
we get two games. Returning on Thursday, Carson and myself will be linking up to do uh an NBA Draft preview, going over the top prospects and this year's coming NBA Draft. I'm gonna be doing a lot of film study over the course of this weekend on those players, prepping for that. I just think here at the All Star breaks a good chance, a good opportunity for us to dive into that.
And we'll probably have one other video before Thursday where we just kind of do one last final kind of like zoom out look at all of our contender tears before we go into the stretch. Runt um. All right, thanks, thanks so much for supporting the show. Guys, Let's see tomorrow. Volume