Hoops Tonight - Warriors-Lakers Reaction: Steph Curry & Golden State LIGHT UP LeBron James & LA

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varies by jurisdiction, Voyden, Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. See dkang dot com slash b ball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all you guys are having an incredible week. Well, the Red Sea parted for the Lakers to make their move up in the standings. I was watching the ESPN applicant at all of the

results from the earlier games tonight. I'm seeing the Clippers kicking the shit out of the Suns, and I see the Kings drop a game in Oklahoma City against the Thunder and I'm like, oh, man, here it is. It's

there to be had. And then Lebron James shows up to the game late with the flu and Anthony Davis is a no go because of a headache and nausea from an injury he suffered originally against the Warriors a little while back that he aggravated against the Minnesota Timberwolves and an ass kicking ensues, and the Warriors shot really well. But I also thought there was a reality of the

talent difference in this game. Without Anthony Davis, I thought the Warriors would have found a way to win it anyways, even if they didn't shoot as well as they did. So now the entire fortune has been reversed in the Warriors are in the driver's seat to get that nine seat, and the Lakers are staring down back to back on the road in a single elimination games to even have a chance to get the eighth seed to maybe get

a chance in the postseason. So what a reversal of fortune within a few hours there, we're gonna break down this game from the perspective of both teams, and then we'll get out of here for the night. You guys know the joefore we could started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jsonnlts. You guys don't miss anyhow announcements, as well as the film

threads I do from time to time. Don't forget about the podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight, it's also super helpful you leave a rating and a review on that front. And last, but not least, keep believing mailback questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the remainder of the host season run. All right, let's talk some basketball. So obviously I was frustrated, but I want to credit the Golden State Warriors. I

thought they've played a hell of a game. You know, there was an interview of Steve Kerr at the end of the first quarter where Chris Haines basically pointed out the obvious fact that Anthony Davis wasn't present, and Steve Kurz had something that is true, and it's something that has become more true as the NBA has made it further along in the skilled development of the league and just the absurd amount of talent in the league. Steve

Kurtz right, everybody can play. And yeah, the Lakers without Anthony Davis are not as good as the Golden State Warriors, but they're still good. They sell have a lot of firepower, they still are a threat and Golden State left no doubt in this one. Again, there's gonna be a lot of talk about the shooting result, and it truly was confounding. Like the Warriors shot just preposterously well in this game. The shot over sixty three percent from three. Here's the

dead giveaway. Draymond Green five for seven from three, Andrew Wiggins three for five from three, Gary Payton two for three from three. That's ten for fifteen from three from

the guys. You kind of have to leave open right like, and by the way, this is part of the risk of what and why you try to avoid the play in if you can, I mean like, you can control shot result to a certain extent with your defensive effort as it pertains to the shooters, right like, you can stay more attached to Steph, stay more attached to Clay. You can do a better job at communicating switches and hedges and all the different things that you need to do.

That's true. But generally speaking, to ever have a chance to guard the likes of Steph and Clay flying off of screen means you have to ignore Draymond, you have to ignore Gary Payton, you have to duck under picks on Andrew Wiggins and just offer a late contest with him and kind of hope he misses. Right. That's a that's not even a Lakers issue, that's in every defense

around the league issue. If you want to stop the Warriors, you kind of have to leave those guys open, right, And in any sort of single game sample size, Yeah, over the course of careers, Wiggins and Draymond and Gary Payton are not good shooters, and more often than not that's going to work out in your favor. But in any single game sample, it is possible that they can knock down those shots, which is why the play in

is such a dangerous predicament to be in. But I want to hold off on the Lakers because in their specific situation, because I want to save that for the end of the show. I have some thoughts about the real reason why they are in the situation that they're in. Within the context of this game, though, even if Wiggins had shot closer to his percentage, Let's say Wiggins goes, you know, two for five from three instead of three

for five. Raymond shooting the ball, well, let's say he goes three for seven, and let's say that Gary Payton goes one for three, Okay, I still felt like anytime the Lakers made any sort of substantial run in this game to get it close to five six points, Golden State was able to immediately re engage and gain control

of the situation in the half court. I honestly thought it was a lot of Warriors just kind of relaxing and making mistakes that allowed the Lakers to stay close in this game to be to begin with that, and a little bit of Lebron just being Lebron. But outside of that, like, I honestly thought the Warriors brought an incredible effort on both ends of the floor. I thought on defense they were flying around, putting length on D'Angelo Russell and making him feel uncomfortable. Extra efforts at the

rim are insane. I think they have eleven blocks in this game. I'm double checking the numbers right now, but yeah, eleven twelve blocks excuse me, in three steels, So fifteen stocks in a single game. That's a huge indicator of those waves and waves of athleticism that Golden State brings

to the table that I talked about so well. You know, honestly, bringing Trace Jackson Davis into the starting lineup has brought a kind of a level of physical imposition with that group that you're not familiar with seeing from Golden State, at least not in a long time. They have a lot of length on the floor. Now, Tray Jackson Davis had three blocks of his own. I thought just the story of the game though, was just dominating individual matchups

up and down the roster. So, for instance, let's look at the the kind of like secondary scoring forwards, So Andrew Wiggins versus Ruby Hatchimura individual matchups. Wiggins is just taking Ruy off the dribble and straight iso and spinning around him and getting shots at the basket, hitting hooks over the top of him. Andrew Wiggins seventeen points on twelve shots and was flying around doing everything defensively at

three blocks of his own. Ruey Hatchimura twenty points on twenty one shots, and more often than not being in the wrong place or a step late defensively. There was this just unbelievable a block from Andrew Wiggins in the first half of this game where Lebron is barreling down on the right side of the floor in transition and Wiggins was containing him and had dropped all the way back to within like six or seven feet from the rim. Lebron throws a kickout pass to Ruy Hatchramura, and Andrew

Wiggins just dropped steps into a jump. It kind of reminded me of one of the blocks that Zion had back in the day at Duke, where he just gets so preposterously high that even though he's out of position, he's able to block a three point shot. Wiggins, who's been playing great by the way as of late, completely

dominated the Ruey Hat Tramurro lineup. Also on the Rui front, this is a great example of why, like you know, I talked about this when I did the Lakers offense video yesterday, but Ruy has benefited a lot from favorable matchups. And yeah, if Lebron, James and Anthony Davis are out there, he generally speaking is getting a smaller player in better

matchups throughout the course of the game. Maybe not in the starting group with the Warriors because of how much size they play in their starting group, but like for the most part, he's gonna get favorable matchups. Take Ad out of the lineup all of a sudden, your second best defensive forward instead of going to Lebron James is going to ruiyachra Mura. It's a different type of challenge, right. I thought Tray Jackson Davis, Draymond Green not exactly a

leap that this would happen. But I thought they dominated Jackson Hayes. I thought Jackson Hayes looked lost most of the night committing silly fouls. He has this issue when people are barreling towards him, he has his arms out instead of up, and it just he puts himself in a situation where like there's a play where Tray Jackson Davis caught the ball on a slip to the rim, kind of dropped his shoulder to try to go through Hayes to the basket. And if he's just stands there

like this, no foul. Trace has to take a tough shot over the top, probably a better chance of him missing. Instead he's got his hands out to absorb that contact. That's just a foul. I mean, like rests are generally gonna let you get away with one hand, two hands are almost always going to be called a foul. I thought Jackson Hayes was just kind of overmatched, which is to be expected. He's a bench big that had to play big minutes at the starting center position in a

must win type of game. Right then at the guard position, I thought Steph like Steph obviously didn't have to do much tonight, but he was super accurate six for six from the three point line, eight assists, didn't make too many mistakes, had a very under control type of game. I thought it was one of Dlo's worst games of the season, three for eleven from the field, but forget about the offensive end for a second. Delo was getting it was one of Delo's worst defensive efforts of the season.

Consistently lost, not paying attention, getting back cut late, chasing guys around screens, just not making the appropriate level of defensive focus and effort that you need to be able to hold up defensively against a team that puts you in the blunder the way that Golden State can. Steph dominated that matchup. And then when we go to the bench, the Warriors bench, led by Chris Paul, Brandon pit Zemski and Gary Payton second completely and utterly dominated the Lakers bench.

Spencer didn't when he hit a few shots, but they didn't get anything out of Gay Vincentareon Prince was an absolute nightmare in this one. Cam Reddish. There were some ugly cam Reddish minutes there in that first half. I don't even understand why he's in the rotation. I think Max Chrissy is just a better basketball player than him, but it it just was an ass kicking on that bench s grew. Chris Paul just continues to be super, super steady and just under control and leading execution runs

for Golden State in their bench groups. He was eleven points and nine assists and was plus twenty one in just twenty five minutes. Iw that Brandon pitt Ziemski came out the gates in this game, firing hit a big three in transition along the left wing, was getting into was getting physical going towards the basket to get buckets, had a huge offensive rebound that led to a three

in that second half run. He was incredible. And then Gary Payton hitting two big three point shots above the break, playing excellent defense, big block on Ruyachimura in the fourth quarter run. Really, the only actual matchups that kind of stayed relatively even for the Lakers was Lebron was really good to counter a lot of what Steph was doing. And obviously Austin Reeves and Klay Thompson kind of played each other. Clay outscored him, but Austin was really good

in this one as well. They ended up more or less having similar life of impact in this game. But outside of those two matchups, it was just an absolute

and total outclassic. And you know, again, I want to cut some of those Laker guys slacked because they're being slotted up into roles that they otherwise would not be in as virtue as kind of a side effect of Anthony Davis being out of the lineup, like ruy Hetch Murder is not taking twenty one shots when they go play their single elimination game up in Golden State next week, that's not going to happen, right, Like, there's a lot of guys that got slotted up into roles that were

above their pay grade. But at the same time, like got to hand it to the Warriors. They took care of business. They went in there and didn't give the Lakers any chance for the upset win without Anthony Davis playing really really good basketball here at the right time. And honestly, like I went from thinking, you know them being in that ten spot. Let's just put it this way.

I right now, as someone who roots for the Lakers, feel like there's roughly a coin flip chance, if not worse, that the Lakers are just they're just not gonna get it. That's the reality of their predicament right here. And the Warriors would have been in that predicament had they lost that game. It's just a lot to ask to win back to back single elimination games on the road, and so a huge win for Golden State to get out

of that situation. Now on the Lakers front, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like I wasn't irritated. Of course I was irritated, Like it just was a golden opportunity for the Lakers and it fizzled up like that because of this particular injury. But here's the reality. There are certain things that are outside of your control.

You know what happens sometimes in the NBA regular season, Sometimes a guy comes down on your head with an elbow and you get a little bit of a concussion or whatever it is that Anthony Davis has been dealing with. That is a thing that happens when you play basketball. Games. I have one concussion in my life came playing basketball. Was a screen that I didn't see coming, and it was weird. I didn't even get hit that hard, but it like threw me for a loop. Like that's basketball.

That can happen. You know what else can happen? Sometimes by virtue of the scheme, you have to leave a bunch of non shooters open. Although a Draymond Green's been shooting the ball really well as late, Andrew Wiggins is certainly capable, Like you leave a bunch of if he shooters open and sometimes they make all those shots. That's a real thing that happens in the NBA regular season,

which is why you play eighty two games. You play eighty two games so that when your superstar gets elbowed in the head, he could afford to take a couple of nights off and it's not a big deal. It's so that if you run into a fake shooting performance or an uncharacteristic shooting performance, you can survive that and you can live to fight another day. The problem is is in the middle of this season. I was going over this in our Lakers contender rankings situation earlier. Today,

the Lakers started the season fourteen and nine. They were the eighth best record in the league fifteen to nine if you count the N Season Tournament win. They were playing really good basketball since January seventh. Before tonight they were what twenty eight and fifteen, top five record in basketball, a bunch of quality wins. The Lakers have been one of the best teams in the league this year against the best teams in the league. They have been a

team that has shown real ceiling there. But for a month long period right after the N Season Tournament, they went three to ten, a period in time where everybody's got blood on their hands. The players were really unfocused

and brought really inconsistent effort. Darvin Ham just completely galaxy brained the entire coaching job for the Lakers this year middle of January, halfway through the season, and benched three of the three of their top five highest plaid players, the three highest paid players that aren't Lebron James and Anthony Davis. Bench the ball and leaned heavily into lineups with players that would not crack the rotation for any serious player and any serious team in the league. Cam

Reddish really exciting young prospect coming out of Duke. Was really impressed by his ability to slide his feet and absorbed contact. Showed some defensive potential has not manifest did at any point during his time in the NBA. Continue once again tonight, must win game ten minutes in the first half like that. That's the reality of the camera reddish experience. That was what Darvin Ham went to when

push came to shove. Torian Prince once again started more games this season than he did in the previous three game the three seasons combined. That's lean. That is playing lesser players on your roster instead of the best players that are available. And again I'm not talking about is the team capable of beating Boston. They were losing to the Spurs, they were losing to Chicago, they were losing to Brooklyn. They were losing to bad teams during that

stretch because they weren't playing their best players. And again, I don't want to put it all on the coach. The actual players themselves relaxed in a big way after getting the Ncason Tournament win, something I talked about literally right after they won the n Season tournament. Hope they don't relax because the problem is is the Lake are

not Denver. They're not a veteran team that is so unbelievably talented that even if they give kind of inconsistent effort throughout the season, they're gonna win their fifty five to sixty games. That's not what they are. They were very firmly from the start of the season in that mix, the mix with the Clippers, the mix with the Suns, the mix with the MAVs, the mix with the Pelicans, and all of the other great teams in the Western Conference. They're all separated by just a few games. It there

was very little margin for error this year. Already, even in the eighty two. Golden State's a victim of this as well, because Draymond took himself out of the lineup for a little bit with his behavior. Now they're in a play in situation, right, Like, that's the thing the Western Conference. If you're not one of the very best teams, which again it's like young athletic Minnesota, Oklahoma City, which

is typical. Young athletic teams tend to dominate the regular season when they have a lot of time, and then your one veteran powerhouse at the top, everyone else is scrunched up there, and they all were neck and neck all season, and you punted a month and you went three to ten. And so as a result, it doesn't matter how good you were to start the season, doesn't

matter how good you were to end the season. All of a sudden, you went from beating the Calves on Saturday and being in the driver's seat to get up to the seven seed to one singular event, Anthony Davis getting hit in the face, costing you a couple of games, and now all of a sudden, you're looking at the ten seed. That would not be your predicament if you didn't make the mistakes you made earlier in the season. And I mean, it's just frustrating because, like I legitimate,

like guys, I know, I'm a fan. I will never lie to you guys about that. I'm just gonna be honest with you. I'm a fan. I root for the Lakers. Lebron's my favorite player. That that's what I root for as a fan. It's the one like remaining little like kind of like remnant of the fan experience for me. When Lebron James retires, I'm gonna be a very I'm gonna be the probably the most unbiased NBA analyst there is out there. Because I'm from Tucson, Arizona, I don't

have a team. I have my players that I like and I dislike. But as an adult, growing to like players has been a different experience for me than it was when I was a kid. Lebron's the guy who got me to fall in love with basketball. I owe everything I have to the game of basketball, which I

fell in love with because of Lebron James. So obviously there's a reason why I root for that specific team, but it's just like to see them in this specific situation where like, I know that I have that bias, but I truly believe this team is good when they're healthy. They've shown it's like they're like the Warriors with their posts, their second half run, except for they've been one of the best teams in the league this year against the best teams. They've held up really well on that level,

which is why I had some optimism. I had them six in my contender lists. I had them six in my contender's list, and there's a better than fifty percent chance they just missed the playoffs. It's staggering incompetence staggering to me and like we all knew it in the moment, like they were seventeen and nineteen at one point this season, guys starting games with Jared Vanderbilt, Torrian Prince and Cam

Reddish like it. I I can't believe it. I can't believe that this is what it's all come to for them. It's it's unfortunate too, because like Lebron's playing really good basketball, better basketball than he did last year, and like there's a lot of reason to feel like this might be his last great chance and it might literally end next week on Tuesday. It's crazy. I can't believe it. But again, don't blame tonight. It's not about Wiggins and Dre and

Gary Payton hitting a bunch of threes. That's not what it's about. It's not about Anthony Davis getting elbowed in the head. It's about a whole month where from the top down, no one did their jobs, and you go three and ten. The Spurs had not won a game in months. In the Lakers loss to the Spurs had not won a game in months. The Brooklyn Nets were terrible, and the Lakers were smacking them in the first half

and they blew that game. Those are the ones you look at, not Oh my gosh, I can't believe Gary Payton made another wide open three. See what I'm saying. So yeah, I'm I'll get off my soapbox now. But like when it comes time, if there's no obituary here and who knows, you can't write off the Lakers. They go on the road with Lebron, James and ad and they win in Golden State, and then they go on the road and they beat Sacramento or New Orleans, whoever it is. In that seven eight game. They still have

their shot. It's not over over, you know, who knows, maybe like the Lakers. If the Lakers went out and the Warriors lose that game to the Pelicans, the Lakers could get the nine seeds. So it's not like over over. But if we end up writing the obituary, let's remember where it went wrong. It didn't go wrong here. It didn't go wrong really at any point this season other than that three and ten stretch, that thirteen game stretch right after the n Season tournament when they immediately just

completely fell to pieces. And I put that on the coach because like, like guys, weren't playing well. But this is the last thing I'll say about it. I said I was getting off my soapbox. I'm hopping right back on it. Basketball's hard. Sometimes you work really hard on your shot and you go to the gym and you miss, and you miss in the game. NBA talent is insane. There's all these different reasons why, like it's difficult to

play basketball as a role player. I can speak to this personally because when I played in Juco, I was an All conference player, score balls in my hands a lot. Transferred to Naia all of a sudden, I was a stand in the corner shooter, guarded the other team's best player because my best the only gift I had at that level was I could defend that was a big athlete. That was what I did. And it was really hard figuring out how to play with inconsistent minutes. Not that

wasn't even the coach's fault. I had inconsistent minutes because I wasn't a very good basketball player at that point in time. I started like half the season, came off the bench like half the season. Sometimes I played twenty five minutes, some games I played fifteen minutes, like it was difficult, right, Darvin Ham has been doing that to the best players on the Lakers this year. Okay, Deelo and Austin, you're both starting. Okay, Actually, Austin, you're gonna

come off the bench. Never mind, Dlo, You're gonna come off the bench. Fuck it. Both of you guys are on the bench. Actually, no, you're both back in the laneup now. It's like, actually, we think Torrian's better than Ruey. Torriyan's gonna play all the minutes. Oh, never mind, Actually, Ruby, it's your turn. No, no, we're going back to Torrin. Like the ridiculous just galaxy braining and over tinkering with the

rotation threw all those guys out of rhythm. We get mad as fans sometimes like oh, d Loo's inconsistent, Austin's inconsistent, Ruey's inconsistent. Their opportunities are inconsistent, and they're not getting the guy that I was fighting for minutes with when I was playing in AIA won All Conference the year before I came in and took his starting spot. He took my starting spot. We were in it, like I

there was real competition there. Torrian Prince has no business taking a starting spot away from a guy like Ruya Chimura, who had half what he have four to twenty point games in the playoffs last year. He was one of their four best players. There was no reason in the world to do the things that Darvin hamming, Darvin ham was doing, Darvin was hamming Darvin was doing at that point in the season. All right, now I'm officially getting off of my soapbox. That's all I have for tonight, guys.

We'll be back tomorrow. We're gonna do a little bit of film study and cover some of the other games from tonight's slate, and then we'll be out of there. So we'll see you guys tomorrow. Don't forget to drop some mailback questions. Probably do a mail back at the end of the show. The volume