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one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkang dot co. Slash b ball. All right, well twin to hoops tonight you're at the ball. Youme happy Wednesday? Everybody, Oh ball. If you guys are having a great week. I'm coming to you from breck and Ridge for doing some ski in here. One last little getaway before we get ready for the
playoff grind. You got a jam pack show for you today as the Golden State Warriors get a signature win and the Jimmy Butler era going on the road to beat the New York Knicks. After that, we're going to talk about the Phoenix Suns and their epic comeback against the Clippers. And then we're gonna talk a little Indiana Pacers after they get a big win over the Houston Rockets last night. And then finally, just some brief thoughts on the Lakers getting another big win against the Pelicans
last night. You guys know the joke before you started. Subscribed to the Hoops to Night YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you gets your
podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if he leave a rating in a review on that front, and the last not at least keep dropping mail bag questions and those YouTube comments have been get to them throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So Warriors Nicks. The Warrior struggled a little early in this one. They defended well, but they couldn't score. They
were generating quality looks, but they were missing. Per Synergy, they missed eight of their last nine unguarded catch and shoot jump shots heading into halftime, which is on one note good because they generated eleven unguarded jump shots. It's a sign of quality offense. But they were just not knocking them down. And I've generally been of the belief
that variance does play a role in basketball games. But if you generate better shot quality, generally speaking, over the course of a game, over the course of getting additional reps, that will even out, and it did in the second half. They generated six unguarded catch and shoot jump shots in the second half and made all six of them as they exploded for sixty seven points. I thought Steve Kerr
had a very good defensive game plan. Without Karl Anthony Towns in the lineup, they didn't have to worry about the pick and pop, so they were able to keep their bigs around the basket, pack the paint. I thought they just did a really good job on Brunson two all night of playing him into tougher shots, particularly on
his threes. You could tell that he was rushing and he's really having to like get into those shots off the move and kick his legs and square up in mid air and all the things that just add to the level of difficulty that make it more likely that he might have a poor shooting night, and he did. And the one thing in the offense they were kind of allowing was that skip pass to og Ananobi, and he did some damage. Attacking with an advantage throughout the game.
You know how it goes with defensive game planning. He got a take some things away, and if you're taking some things away, you're going to allow some things. And og did some damage. But for the most part, the Warriors defense, which has been incredibly good all season long but has been especially good as of late, held them in check and ended up getting out of there with the win. They have had the number two defense in
the NBA since the Jimmy Butler trade. Brandon Pajemski and Moses Moody have seamlessly slided into their primary perimeter defense roles. Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green's defensive playmaking off the ball. I thought Steph was great on defense again last night. He's been really good on defense during this stretch. They continue to blow me away as one of the best
rotation teams in the NBA. Their ability to make teams rush at the three point line, it's so easy after a game like that to be like, oh, you know, the Knicks, we shot twenty five percent from three or whatever it is they ended up shooting in that game. But more often than not, that's a product of the feeling of being rushed on those catch and shoot attempts, which comes from the types of closeouts which have been
a hallmark of the Warriors defense the entire season. But I thought this was one of Jimmy but There's best offensive games since coming to the Warriors. He makes everything look so easy, and it's interesting because it's not like he's out there doing a bunch of superstar shit. Like it's not like he's knocking down crazy contested jump shots or throwing these mind blowing passes, the kind of stuff you see from like Luka Doncic or Nikola Jokicz. Right,
he's operating almost exclusively in the margins. But he's just so damn good at all of those things. Generated nine more free throw attempts in this game. He just has this natural ability to get defenders out of position and draw fouls. He does it through pump fakes. He's really good at changing the angle of his drives to force defenders to foul. He had a big one late in
the game. I think it was on Mitchell Robinson if I remember correctly, where he just kind of tweaked the angle of his drive into Mitchell's body so that when Mitch went to go block him at the rim, he ended up kind of getting too heavy onto his left shoulder and drawing a foul. It just slows the game down. It allows the Warriors to set their defense. It's just a big floor raiser for that team when things are getting tough. And then he's just really good at making
simple reads. There were two threes that Buddy Healed hit in the second half that were both off of passes from Jimmy Butler that didn't even require the Warriors to run any offense. All that happened was is Jimmy brought the ball up the floor in the middle of the floor and Buddy Heeld was on the wing, once on the left wing, once on the right wing. Both times og and Oby's guarding him, and both times Ojan and Obi is sinking in in what we call nail help. Right.
This is gapping or the type of defense that you'll see from most of the good defenses in the league. Essentially, whoever has the ball, he'll have his on ball defender in front of him, shading him whichever direction the game plan wants, but usually on both sides. In the driving lanes, you'll have guys basically splitting the difference, playing about halfway between the ball and the spot up shooter because they feel like they can offer help, but they can also
get out and contest. Now, one of the ways you can beat nail help is just by making a swing pass. But you have to throw it quickly and you have to hit the guy right in the shooting pocket. Because again, why that guy is in that nail help position is because he feels like he can close out. He feels like he can get there and get rid of that advantage quick enough to where the guy might pump ake or the guy might not feel comfortable taking that shot.
You have to rifle the pass, it has to be right in the shooting pocket, and that shooter has to knock it down. That is the only way to really beat nail help is you got to show a willingness to beat it with swing passes and shooting and jimmy just both of them. The one on the left wing. The one on the right wing just rifle passes right into the shooting pocket and Buddy heel knocked him down. That's just found money. You didn't even have to run offense.
You didn't have to run pick and roll. You didn't have to get a switch that you like to generate an additional defender or an advantage. You just brought the ball to the floor and threw a swing pass. But because you rifled it hit him in the shooting pocket and the guy knocked it down, you're able to beat some nail help. He generated a wide open catch and shoot three for Steph on the right wing off of
a baseline drive caught it on the left wing. I think he was going against Brunson, if I remember correctly, like a transition cross match, and he just hard ripped through to the baseline drew. I think it was Moses Moody in the right corner. I can't remember exactly who was in the right corner, but Steph was on the right wing and he drove the baseline through the swing pass to the right corner. Mikale Bridges, who was guarding Steph,
had no choice but to drop in rotation. I'm pretty sure it was Moody to drop in rotation to Moody in the corner and then Steph gets a wide open catch and shoot three. In a half court set. You'll see Steph get wide open catch and shoot threes in chaos, like in transition or on an offensive rebound, or if he draws multiple defenders and the ball gets worked back
around to him while the defenses in rotation. It's so rare to see Steph get wide open catch and shoot looks in the flow of half court offense because of the simple fact that McHale Bridges is not going to help if he's already on Steph in a half court setting. But Jimmy generated that with just a simple baseline drive against the miss. He's such a natural fit in their read and react offense on ball with inverted screens with Steph.
He got to the foul line on a big one of those late in the game where just they didn't want to switch, so there was a little bit of a gap. The defender didn't pick him up until he's ten feet from the basket. He was already out of position. All of the off ball stuff, the slipping out of screens, the ceiling, he had a big one with Draymond in the second half where he spun out of a screen and Draymond just threw a perfect pass that hit him in stride for a layup. He's just a beautiful fit
on this team. I had like I was looking at the box score. It goes for nineteen points. It's fine, right, four rebounds, four assists, nothing special there, no steals, no blocks. It was a pedestrian stat line. And like for the most part, if you pull up Jimmy's numbers as a Warrior, there's nothing exceptional happening there statistically. Yet I thought he dominated the second half of that game just using his brain. He's such a beautiful fit on that basketball team. Steph
looked fantastic again. Twenty eight points to twenty one shots, seven rebounds, ninety sists. The degree of difficulty on the shots he's been hitting his outrageous. He's been good at getting separation in the mid range as of late, hit a couple more of those last night. He had the shot, the big one late that put him up was one of his ninety seven to ninety three and a big three along the right wing, sprinting off of a screening action. Catches on the move, plants his feet, squares up in
mid air, doesn't even touch the rim. Just an absurd degree of difficulty on that shot. In Steph's last thirteen games, he's averaging thirty points, four rebounds and five excuse me, four rebounds and seven assists on sixty four percent true shooting. Thirty points on sixty four percent true shooting. That's MVP steph numbers. That's the numbers he was putting up when he won the unanimous MVP. Those are the tip that's the type of production that Steph's been putting up in
his last thirteen games. I talked in the early part of the season about how I thought STEP's perceived decline with some combination of like age and frustrations or lack of belief in what the roster was capable of. And it's beginning to look a lot like it's more of the latter than the former, because ever since Intel has been coming down that the Warriors were going to make a deal, Steph's been hooping his ass off. Steve Kerr talked about how his body's in a great place, remember
how his body was in a tough place early. He just is rejuvenated by the belief in his opportunity to try to win a championship this year. This year, the Warriors are nine to two in their last eleven games. Fifth in offense, second in defense, third and net rating tenth in rebounding. They just look much more like a well rounded, dead serious basketball team that has a real chance to make noise in the postseason. Just a couple
other shoutouts for the Warriors. Pajemski nineteen points, hit a big three on the right wing and transition during the second half. Run a lot of important scoring in the first half when the Warriors offense was kind of bogging down, and then lots of good ball pressure again on Brunson, just slowing down the Knicks getting into their offense. I thought he was great. Moses Moody continuing to do a phenomenal job in that primary wing defensive role. Gist Santos
plus fourteen and fifteen minutes. I thought he hit one of the biggest shots in this game. It was ninety four to ninety three in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks just didn't pick him up in transition on the right wing, and Draymond trusted him. Draymond threw the pass, trusted him to knock it down, and he knocked down that three. I thought that was big. Warriors are playing some great basketball on the Knicks front. It was just jarring to see the difference in their offensive geometry without
Karl Anthony Towns. It made Brunson and Bridges in particular play in so much more of a crowd and the paint than they're accustomed to. There was really difficult shots like Mikhale Bridges having to rely on one leg fadeaways in traffic, and Brunson just facing two to three defenders at any given point. Obviously, Karl Anthony Towns when he's out there, brings a different dynamic. But I just thought it was interesting in an example of just how important
a spacing five can be for an offense. Apparently Cat missed last night's game for personal reasons. There are some rumors flying around about what that might be. We're obviously not going to get into that on the show, but let's just wish Kat the best and hope that he can rejoin the team as soon as possible. All right, let's move on. Welcome to course correction brought to you by Microsoft. Just like Star Players, and teams navigating performance hurdles.
Business decision makers today are under immense pressure to get things right. They must rise to the occasion, turning challenges into opportunities. Microsoft empowers these visionaries with AI solutions, simplified cloud and data management and trustworthy responsible AI. When you're in the NBA, you have your own hurdles to face. This segment, we're gonna explore the challenges faced by teams or star players and how they can turn things around.
Whatever challenge you're facing, Microsoft empowers you with the expertise to say bring it on. This week, we're discussing Kevin Durant and the epic comeback he led the Suns on against the Clippers last night. It was looking bleak again for the Suns last night. The Clippers just methodically were kicking their ass for the first two and a half quarters. They built a twenty three point lead in the late third, the body language was bad. Bradley Beal went out of
the lineup again. Kevin Durant Mike Budenholzer get into it on camera, kind of a little bit of a physical altercation that got a little heated, and by the way, before we go any further, This is one of my biggest pet peeves is the way this kind of thing is covered. Losing sucks. Nobody looks like they're having fun when they're losing, and it's so annoying because if they looked like they were having fun when they were losing,
we call them a bunch of losers. Anyway, It's like, there's nothing you're actually allowed to do when you're losing that's not going to get you in trouble, and that's so stupid. And you can literally see KD after the initial confrontation, like seconds later, you can see it like dawned on him that like obviously that wasn't a good look, and he turned and like reapproached Bud and they had like a different conversation. And like, these are some of
the most competitive people in the world. Every single person in that jersey or on that coaching staff got there by being a savage competitor relative to their peers. You don't think they're going to be kicking and screaming a little bit when the shit hits the fan. That's normal, Okay, So like I feel like that gets a little bit overplayed. That said, things are looking bleak for the Suns not about their body language, was just strictly in the basketball
that they were playing. But Kevin Durant in the late third quarter started hitting shots and the Sun started to gain some life. Biggest thing that screamed off the screen was their overall commitment to the defensive end of the floor,
just them flying around in their rotations. Buddenholzer seemed to find seven guys that he trusted down the stretch, obviously Kevin Durant, Devin Booker for the centers, Mason Plumley and Nick richards On, the Wayne Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neil, and then Colin Gillespie, who was the role player hero of this game, basically providing what they hoped to receive from Tias Jones this season, which is like a little bit of ball handling, a little bit of spot up
shooting and scoring, and then attention to detail on defense, which has been an area that Tias has struggled in all year. Not singling out Tias, like just about every Sun has struggled in that department. But Colin was just doing his job and that group was guarding. They had some limitations, like Gillespie had to guard Harden and pick and roll a bunch, and Carl Harden got free and got some good looks because he's much bigger and stronger
and there's obviously some advantages there. Zubach did some damage because of his massive size advantage on the front line. They gave up some offensive boards because they're a bad rebounding team. They had some limitations that were still on display. But Kevin Durant did an incredible job on Kawhi Leonard, basically erased him from the game down the stretch like he's always been one of the better Kawhi Leonard defenders because of his length. But he put together some incredible
reps on Kawhi last night. And then the whole group was just committed to the job of rotating contesting shots, fighting for every loose ball, and that allowed them to compete at least well enough on that end for their offensive gifts to carry them over the top. We talked about Kd's unbelievable shot making, and then Gillespie had a bunch of big shots. He had a beautiful scoop shot driving a close out off the left wing over rim protection,
just put it high and soft off the glass. He had a trailing three in transition off of pass from Devin Booker, and then the shot of the game, Katie runs a little ball screen off of the right wing and in the process, Gillespie's man had to tag the roller and Katie just threw a beautiful pass across his body to Gillespie who kind of relocated up to the right wing and he knocked it down. It's a huge shot that ended up being the dagger in that one.
A nice palate cleansing win for the Suns. Stan Van Gundy was harping throughout the entire broadcast about the Sun's effort and just their overall willingness to compete. This is something I've been hitting on the show NonStop. Like playing winning basketball is actually a giant pain in the ass. It requires so much running, so much physicality. You have to be so locked in mentally all the time on
what you're supposed to do. There just has to be this top down commitment to the details to be a good defensive team, to be a good rebounding team, to be a team that can win on the margins, Like in transition, It's difficult, and it's a job that they haven't been committed to doing and stanmn Gandhi's right when they do it all of a sudden, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker feels like enough now, I'm pessimistic about the Suns actually generating real momentum in that area because it's not
a natural part of their basketball personality. And this is why I've been advocating for a change in approach this summer in terms of the roster build. They need to bring in certain types of players that kind of have that as a natural baseline. The Lakers have been such a perfect example of this to me this year, with them being such a bad defense to start the year in such a good defense as of late, all you did is flip the character of the team by changing
a few personalities. Oh, we're gonna bring in Dorian Finney Smith instead of Delo. Delo is a very good player, but Delo has always left a lot to be desired in terms of his attention to detail. DFAs is in the league because of his attention to detail. Jared Vanderbilt when he's healthy, he's one of the best defensive players in the league. It brought a level of engagement out of Lebron, even little stuff like instead of playing you know two way guys that are or like and like
guys like Jalen Hoochafino or something like that. It's here's we're gonna play Jordan Goodwin just an ass kicking guard who competes and plays hard. And so as a result, you flip some of these personalities and suddenly the Laker roster has like a lot more natural motor. And when you surround offensive superstars with natural motor, it allows the offensive superstars to overcome a makeup like a gap that is achievable to do because they're getting so much contribution
in the details down the line. Again, like, I think that's the move here, It's not gonna happen. I think they're gonna trade KD. There was another report yesterday that they viewed Devin Booker as a foundational piece. I genuinely believe that another off season of some worthwhile switches in terms of the types of role players down the roster and just their character, their basketball character, will go a long way towards making Kevin Durant and Devin Booker a
viable foundation. It just has to be something that is an organizational goal to bring in ass kickers that do their job everywhere on the floor. It was an impressive demonstration of resilience by the Suns last night. You can either lay down and get your butt kicked, or you can choose to fight, and the Suns chose to fight
last night. That's it for this week's course correction. Remember Microsoft's AI solutions empower you to take bold steps and make informed decisions, sparking new ideas to help drive your business forward. With Microsoft has your trusted partner, you can navigate your journey with confidence, finding innovative solutions and reaching new possibilities. Visit Microsoft dot com Slash Challengers to learn more.
All right, let's move on to Rockets Pacers. This was a game that the Pacers controlled for the most part. They struggled with Shangoon early. This is a consistent theme I've seen with a lot of teams when they run into the Rockets and they haven't played them before, they haven't played them in a long time. Shaneguon is just a huge pain in the ass and he literally will just back dudes down and use a bunch of shoulder fakes to get shots close to the rim where he
can do some damage. And he just ripped through Miles Turner and Thomas Bryant early in this game, but the pacer settled in nicely. Houston runs a lot of drop coverage with Alprin Shang Nun, And one of the things I talked about with drop coverage is it's really an advance advantageous coverage for non athletic perimeter like skill oriented
shot creators. Right, these guys that are like, not the dudes that are just gonna straight up beat you off the dribble with supreme athleticism, but rather they use their brains and their their skill set to get their game off. Because against drop coverage, there's baked in dribble penetration. When you're going against switches, you gotta beat the band in front of you, and it's just a much tougher job.
Whereas against drop coverage, as long as you do a decent man a job setting your man up for the screen, you're gonna get him trailing you. And once he's trailing you, you're gonna get downhill. Once you get downhill, there's an opening in front of you, which is your advantage in that situation. Right, But in order to beat that coverage, you have to hit drop coverage shots, so you have to make the mid rangers, you have to drive and
hit a scoop shot. When the big stays too far back, you might have to hit a pull up three when the guard dies on the screen. There's a level of shot making you have to show against drop coverage in order to engage the screen defender to open up other
opportunities to make it. To put it simply, if you allow the other team to defend the drop coverage with drop coverage two on two, meaning the screen defender can keep the ball handler and the roller in front, then they're gonna feel comfortable there and you're never gonna get the defense in rotation, and you're gonna have to take a bunch of bad shots. But if you can make enough of them, then you can start to force a
team to react. And this was super fascinating in this game because Halliburton was fantastic in the first half beating their drop coverage. You hit a bunch of threes in the first hit a couple mid range shots of driving scoop shot over Thomas Bryant at their rim like he got a bunch of buckets in that drop coverage. That ended up being a big part of their second half run, which we'll get to in just a second. They were
also beating some sloppy switches. Houston will switch just about anything that doesn't involve their centers, but Indy just kept finding openings in botch switches or in lazy switches. Jalen Green in particular, was brutal on that end for Houston, just leaving guys open by either not communicating or not staying attached, not doing his job. Indy was involving him in the action as much as possible, and he's also
very good at beating ball watching with cuts. They did a lot of damage to Jalen Green Anti Jabari Smith Junior with just batcuts in the second quarter, in particular, they logged five of them. And Halliburton has always just been so good at making teams pay for that sort of thing. And then undefense, Miles Turner rebounded after his tough first shift and just did a much better job on Shanegun. I thought Miles Turner completely dominated the game in the second half with his rim protection. He had
a few blocks on Shangoon and Iso. He had a huge one late where he blocked Shangun on a hook shot that led to a runout to the other end. He had a play where he helped Amen Thompson or helped on a men Thompson at the rim forced him to drop it off to Steven Adams, and he recovered in time to get a piece of a Steven Adams dunk and force a stop. Like he was just unreal on defense at the end of that game. But perhaps the most important thing that happened in that game was
Tyrese hit a couple of threes. He had like, I think three or four threes in the first half, and that forced emy Udoka because again because he was scoring against the drop coverage, it forced emy Udoka to make an adjustment at halftime. Instead of sitting Shangun back into drop coverage, he started blitzing with Shangoon. Haliburton is so good at getting the ball out against blitzes because he's
very good with his passing. And the Pacers just operated in four on three for most of the third quarter and got great looks and they ended up pulling away and they ended up going up by seventeen. Now Eton made the game weird and ended up going on a run. They brought out a too big look with both Steven Adams and Shane Goun on the floor and they started running his zone and it like completely flummised to play the Pacers for a long time. Houston started getting out
in transition. They actually briefly took the lead in the early fourth quarter, but the Pacers did eventually recover. They hit a few shots to break the zone, like you gotta break the zone shooting, and Ben Sheppard hit one at the top of the key. Miles Turner hit one
on the right wing. Then the Rockets ended up going back to their man demand and so they went drop coverage with Steven Adams and Tyris Haliburton promptly beat the drop coverage with a little bank shot off the glass, and then he ended up hitting his fifth three of the night, a nice step back along the left wing. I think it was against Pascal Siakam if I remember, might have been Obi Toppin, but hit a shot against a switch against the right wing that ended up icing
the game. I think it was a thirteen to ozero run at that point that ended up putting it away. Nice win for the Pacers. We talked about them on defense to earlier. As part of that run, just Miles Turner just really controlling the game with this rim protection. They've won six out of eight some impressive wins in there against Houston, Memphis, and the Clippers. They're fourth in offense in that span and tenth in defense. The only
real area of concern has been the offensive glass. They're twenty eighth in defensive rebounding percentage in that eight game span. They gave up eighteen additional second chance points to Houston yesterday. They've been twentieth on the season in defensive rebound percentage, so that's definitely been a little bit of an issue. So much for this team, though, hinges on Halliburton's shot creation.
They have an elite transition attack. They've been one of the best transition offenses in the league again this year. They have enough perimeter defense talent with guys of games and m hard, with guys like TJ. McConnell aaron Nie Smith. They've got guys that can guard on the perimeter, and they've got enough athletes underneath the basket that they can actually string together stops from time to time when they need to. They're not an elite defense, but they can
string together some stops. But they need Tyre's Halliburton to be like in order for them to score enough in the half court for them to get the job done. And a lot of that comes down to his ability to get the defense in rotation. And again, if, like, if you allow Haliburton to be guarded two on two because he's not making the defense pay in those ball screens, then they don't get the defense in rotation. Then some of their more limited offensive players start to show their
limitations as they can't generate shots. I thought it was really fascinating last night that when Halliburton shot email Udoka into blitzing him, that Indiana's offense promptly exploded and they blew the game open. So I dug into the numbers because I was curious. This year, when Tyre's Halliburton makes at least four to threes in a game, he have five. Last night, When Tyre's hits at least four to threes in a game, the Pacers are nineteen and seven or
a sixty win pace. When he fails to hit four threes, they're below five hundred. They're sixteen and eighteen. His aggression, specifically shooting, is so vitally important to this team and this has been an issue I've seen a lot over the years with different types of players, Right, Like, you always find stars that are either excellent scorers, but they struggle to read the defense, trust their teammates, and make
teams pay for loading up on them. And then you have this other kind of star and this is like Tyrese Haliburton has fallen into this mold. Better players than Tyreese, Guys like Jokic, guys like Lebron over the years have fallen into this mold where it's like they're these incredible playmakers and they always make the right play, but they can sometimes be a little too unselfish and fail to make the defense pay for leaving them in some pretty
passive coverages. And like that's the thing. We've seen Tyres go entire games, playoff games where he doesn't seem much interested in shooting, and like time and time again, the evidence has shown that Tyres, when he's scored the basketball is what actually unlocks his top tier playmaking, which is his greatest trait and the thing that he rode to, like that wild run to start the season last year where we all thought he might be the next great superstar,
and like here's the thing, his hamstring. I'm not sure if you'll ever get back to the first step start stop quickness that he had back then, but the shooting can go a long way to make up for that. And I just think it's an interesting trend over the course of the season to see how much better they are when Tyresee is aggressive. All Right, before we get out of here, Tonash, let's talk some Pelicans Lakers briefly
on this one. It was an interesting game. The Pels have one of the worst records in the league, but they're playing some good basketball. They've actually won four out of five coming in, and they've been really good on both ends of the flour. They've shown some really good ball pressure and some good rotations on defense, and then Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy and CJ. McCollum are just hooping
on offense. They even great on both ends of the floor during that five five game span, and Zion Williamson was the first Star player to like truly rip the Laker defense to shreds. The Lakers could not guard him. He just ripped through them over and over again, even against some pretty excessive coverages like the Lakers were zoning up the strong sides, so like straight up double teaming him,
like soft double teaming him when he would drive. Some of those times he was scoring on triple teams where he would just like hop step through a crowd and just rip up through everybody with his strong arms and just finish over the top, like he just demolished them. He had thirty seven points on only six missed shots. The Pelicans were actually plus thirteen when he was on
the floor last night. Now, there are some bigger picture concerns for the Lakers on this front, with certain types of athletes that can kind of just rip through their defense with downhill athleticism. Milwaukee, for instance, would be a team as a finals opponent that would present a threat with Giannis. I thought Anthony Edwards showed some of that in his matchup, where like they were doing a lot of strong side zone and loading up and he was like still finding a way to get into the paint
and cut their defense up a little bit. Just something to keep an eye on. Again, this is when you're number one defense for this long. It's not like, oh, their defense is secretly bad, but there are gonna be times that teams find a way to score on the Lakers, and it appears these bigger, stronger athletes are the ones that are giving them some problems here in the early returns. That said, I wasn't actually particularly worried about this game for the Lakers because the Pels just don't have the
personnel to make the Lakers offense even remotely uncomfortable. Basically everyone on that roster is a target. And aside from a few good possessions of ball pressure and they had a few good blitzes where they forced turnovers that led you sloppy pocket passes or just Lebron and Luca just being lazy leading to pick six is going the other way. But other than that, the Lakers basically picked them the shreds. They almost put up a one forty offensive rating in
this game. Luca was absolutely unbelievable for the second game in a row. He's clearly starting to get in a good rhythm. We talked about his poor jump shooting earlier. He's taken twenty nine jump shots in the last two games and it has made fourteen of them, like many of which were threes. He's got the three point shot going,
he's got the mid range going. He's demonstrating like these crazy scoring runs where he'll hit a bunch of jumpers in a row and then the opponent will just recklessly blitz him, and then the Lakers will get dunks or open threes off of it. He had another stretch like that in the first half yesterday where he hit three threes in a row, some bombs, some really tough ones, and then they blitzed him and he just threw a behind the head pass to the role man that ended up.
I think that was a shake Milton open three in the left corner if I remember correctly. He just makes everything so easy for the Lakers. You can generate a quality shot whenever he wants. He takes flawed players and turns them into very useful players. So, for instance, like Jared Vainderbilt is really experience and seeing some offensive success next to Luca. He's twenty points in the last two games.
An update on the on the the third update on our debate between whether or not Jared Vanderbilt is better off spotting up in the corner hanging out in the dunker spot. He had two more threes last night, so like he's actually it's not even really a question of which he should be doing. He's just playing really good basketball right now. But it's because he's getting these like open dunks now too, Like he's not going up in
traffic around the basket. That's Vanderbilt's weakness catching and finishing in traffic. But Luca's compromising the defense so extensively that he's getting like easy runways to get his one two down and to jump up and get a lob dunk. He's turning him into a really useful two way player, which is, you know, never something that you would consider
when you're talking about Jared Vanderbilt. Now, again, some of that's matchup dependent, I do I don't think it's a coincidence that, you know, you go up against these rim protection teams, that teams that have guys that can park under the basket and like Utah for instance, and you see some issues with Vanderbilt, whereas you put him against some inferior rim protection teams led by Kelly Olnik and Zubachhu's actually an underrated rim protector, but he's not like
an incredibly vertical athlete obviously. Like I'm curious to see how much of that Jared Vanderbilt success is attached to the rim protection piece for the defense for the defense. For a good example, that would be like on Saturday when they play, actually Thursday to play Nicks Mitchell Robinson, if he plays, that's a legitimate rim protector. Saturday, if
Porzingis plays. I'm not sure if Porzingis is playing, but I would be shocked if they didn't put Porzingis on Jared Vanderbilt and just let him sit underneath the basket. So we'll get some other examples of that over the course of the rest of this week. Similar sort of thing with Jackson Hayes, Like I've been talking about this, like he's just such an obvious vertical spacing release valve for Lebron and Luca. He was eight for eight for
nineteen points last night. That's a player who has a lot more offensive utility in this construct than he would even in just previous constructs of this team. And then even Lebron, Like I thought, Lebron's first shift without Luca yesterday was rough. He was kind of struggling to find a rhythm, struggling to get some advantages. But when Luca checked in for his second shift, it kind of overlapped with the tail end of Lebron's second shift, Lebron got a bunch of easy ones in a row, like a
good off ball three. You're starting to get the second best defender now because the best defenders on Luca, and Lebron got his rhythm, and then Lebron was much sharper the rest of the way, including his second shift when Luca was off the floor. And so like, Lebron just had a great game last night, thirty four points, and it got off to a rough start. He got in rhythm in large part because of the advantages that Luca created for him. He's just insanely good and I still
cannot believe he's a Laker. A couple other quick notes. I wanted to talk about Luca in the defensive end of the floor. I've seen a lot of Laker fans talking about, oh, Luca's finally playing defense with the Lakers. He wasn't doing that in Dallas, and like, this is just completely false. Luca was mostly good on defense last year and had many big defensive moments, including in that Minnesota Timberwolf series. Had a lot of really good moments
off the ball on defense in that series. What happened to him against Boston is still my major concern for what this Laker team can eventually accomplish. One of the things they're doing with Luca is with all these teams, whether it's Chris Dunn that they're helping off of, or it's you know, Zion Williamson when he's off the ball, or Eve's Missy or some of these other guys that they don't feel threatened by as jump shooters, they're able to offer a lot of help behind Luca, which makes
his on ball responsibilities easier. And Luca's always been a good off ball defensive playmaker, like That's not something I'm worried about with him at all. I'm specifically, big picture concerned about Luca on defense against teams that can truly space the Lakers out. And I'm not even necessarily concerned about Okay See in this regard because they don't space
the floor as well, but specifically Boston. If they put Luca in a position where he had to guard Tatum or Brown with not as much nail help on either side of him, with not as much help in the paint behind him, that's where what you saw last year came to fruition. Luca was pretty good on defense for most of that playoff run. He had a couple bad games against the Clippers, but he had a couple of
good games against the Clippers. Defensively, he ran into Boston and they exposed his specific weakness of containing the ball in space. And so again, guys like Luca is an underrated defensive player for the eighty two game and for most matchups in the playoffs, but that was the case even before he went to LA. I still have concerns
about him against specific matchups. The one thing I'll say is the big difference between a Boston matchup now versus a Boston matchup this year versus the Boston matchup last year when he was with Dallas, is the real problem that Boston caused for Dallas. Is it shut down Dallas's offense. They played Kyrie into a really bad series, and they were able to use a game plan that forced a bunch of above the break threes for PJ. Washington and
for Derek Jones Junior that they were missing. And so even though there were these defensive runs where the Dallas defense would fall apart because of Luca, they would have been much more competitive in that series if they could score the basketball, and this Laker team is just gonna have a much better chance to score the basketball in that matchup. That said, I do think it's worth bringing up that I still have some concerns about Luca in
that particular matchup. A couple of quick things before we get out, finding offense. When you're missing players, like with Ruy and Austin out, you need guys to step up and make shots. Dalton connect and Shake Milton poured in twenty five points off the bench. I thought that was a big Shake's threes in particular, I thought were so valuable because they came off of blitzes. I call these coverage beaters. A shot that is a defense is basically conceding as part of a coverage. You have to make
that in order for the coverage to be untenable. And Shake it two threes in the corner out of Luca blitzes, which basically punished the Pelicans for their game plan. I'm just really impressed by this Lakers team. They continue to beat up on everyone even without Austin and RUI that's not anything to take lightly there. This is basically it is Lebron and Luca, but it's Lebron and Lucas surrounded by a bunch of discounted role players. And this way,
I want to give Rob Plink some credit. I think what happened at the deadline with him is more than a little bit overrated because that deal fell into his lap and then he failed to bring in center depth. So I think his job at the deadline's a bit overrated. But I've been begging him for years to surround Lebron with high motor athletes to make his life easier during the regular season, and he's done that and it's paying dividends. And I also think it's a credit to JJ Reddick.
To me, when you see a team succeed with lineup turmoil, with guys in and out of the lineup. And by the way, it's not just Austin and RUI. When Lebron and Luca both missed a game, Austin got to win. Every time Lucas missed game, Lebron and Austin have been able to pull it out. So when you have that kind of lineup turmoil, in order to succeed, you got to have consistency in your effort in education, execution. It's
got to be like a basketball culture thing. I think that's a credit to JJ Reddick, and I also think a defensive game planning night tonight continues to be excellent. This is a special team that has a real opportunity to do something great. We're going to be breaking down another Laker game tomorrow night. After the final buzzer of their game against the Knicks, were breaking that game down. I hope to see you guys there. That's all we
have for tonight is always. Sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show, and I'll see you tomorrow night. The volume What's Up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.