Hoops Tonight - Warriors-Lakers Reaction: Steph Curry goes for 31 in BIG WIN over LeBron James & LA

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here at the volume. Happy Sunday, everybody hopeful. If you guys are having a great weekend, We're gonna be hitting two games from the Saturday Night slate. The Golden State Warriors got a much needed win for the standings on the road in Los Angeles against the Lakers, and then the New York Knicks go on the road to Sacramento and a super intense and physical rock fight of a game and get a big win over the Kings. We're gonna be breaking down both of those games from the

perspective of both teams. Just you guys know, for the schedule for this week, We're going today and we're going every single day for the next seven days until next Sunday, when I leave for one last little trip. I'm going out of town with my wife to do some skiing in Lake Tahoe, a little rest before we get into the playoffs. As you guys know, when we get into the playoffs, we go live on YouTube after the final game every single night during the playoff run, so a

little bit of a calm before the storm. So we're gonna have a crazy week this week, going every single day. Then we're gonna take a break from Sunday through Wednesday next week, and I'll be back on that following Thursday. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. I mean a lot to me if you guys will take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight.

It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on the podcast feed. Don't forget about my Twitter feed out underscore JCNLT, where I put the film breakdowns from time to time, as well as show announcements in the last minute leaves. Keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments. No mailbag in this episode, but we will be doing several of them over the course of the next week. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So first quarter looked more or less like a lot of the Lakers games against the Warriors in the last couple of years, right, like the specifically just ad kind of sagging off of non shooters and causing some problems around the basket. Laker offense two has been cooking on all cylinders for a couple of months now, and they won that first quarter thirty six to thirty. Had good motion, good ball and player movement. Everything was looking good. Lebron

came out laser focused. He his first six shots in this game, bouncing back after a rough game on the road in Sacramento. Anthony Davis in the first quarter alone goes for eight points, four rebounds, two assists, a steal, and a block with no turnovers, playing really, really well. But then he gets hit in the eye and it swells up on him and it has to leave the game. And from there, you know, it's funny. There was a comment from jj H was actually in the early third quarter,

if I remember correctly, but he pointed out a truth, which is that, you know, Anthony Davis gives the Lakers a somewhat coherent defense. They've actually been a top fifteen half court defense most of the year and spent a good portion of the year in the top ten for half court defense. Their primary issues are what happens on the perimeter and in transition, which is why they can't

reach the level that they've been in years past. But like Anthony Davis really is the guy that anchors everything for the Laker defense, and when he goes out, JJ Reddick pointed out, he's like not a whole lot else in terms of defensive personnel. Right, Like you've got Lebron James, who when he's engaged, can be a deeply impactful defensive player, but especially in a game like this where he has to do so much offensively, you can pretty much count on him to, you know, save and conserve energy on

that end of the floor. They had a big defensive mistake late in this game where he lost Draamon Green on a fake dribble handoff to go to the basket, and it's because he has to save his legs, right, And then in general, he's thirty nine years old in a regular season game, like, you're not gonna get great defense, consistent defense out of him, right. The Angel Russell and Austin Reeves not great. You know, Ruy Hatcha Murray. He's a good low man and rebounder from time to time,

but he's not a good perimeter defensive player. Max Christie is a good perimeter defensive player, but he's young, a little helter skelter doesn't get a ton of minutes that frequently. Jared Vanderbilt is a really good defender, but he's hurt. So, like, they just don't really have great defensive personnel. After Anthony Davis's out, they promptly gave up seventy two points in the second and third quarters combined. The Lakers tried blitzing

with Jackson Hayes. That was basically the defensive strategy they went with to try to slow Golden State down and admit, the main rationale there is Jackson Hayes is not a good drop coverage big. He's he's a guy that like when he sits back in a coverage, he either is too passive and lets the guard get too comfortable or he gets too aggressive and he fouls a lot. And so you know, they one of the ways that the

Lakers have counter Dad is just uses athleticism. So they'll blitz and try to make things happen from there, but then they just got absolutly eviscerated in the paint. They gave up sixty two points in the paint in this game. Steph by himself made nine field goals in the paint, did a lot of damage on Austin Reeves on curls,

coming off of screens, slipping screens in backcuts. There's a big one late in the game where because like one of the things that the Lakers try to do with Steph as top locking, which what that means is position yourself between Steph and the screen so that he can't

come off. And there was one in the fourth quarter where he kind of went and set a pin down and then he was getting ready to come off his own pin down to go up to the top of the key, but Austin was on his high side trying to deny him the screen, and Draymond Green had the ball in the post, and Steph literally just noticed that Austin was on his high side and there was nobody behind him, and Steph just slipped to the basket and

Draymond hit him for an easy layup. And one of the consistent issues I saw in this game and it's something I'm going to talk about a lot, but like you know, when Steph is being the blender, that he can be off the ball running through all of these off ball screening actions and stuff, you have to find somewhere in the off the off the ball to help, right and like one of the big opportunities in this game because because Brandon Pazemski is not a super aggressive

score because he's a ball movement guy, he's more of like a like kind of like a connective tissue type of piece, and because he hasn't shot the three exceptionally well, Delo was the guy who could be in position to help on so many of these and he just did

absolutely nothing. I trimmed several examples of this and go onto my Twitter feed out underscore json LT and look in the replies, and you'll see where you're gonna see Austin Reeves just chasing like crazy, or Max Christy chasing like crazy, and then d Lo is just kind of standing upright, not doing anything to help and not not guarding Brandon Pazemski either, just kind of standing upright in

the lane and not doing anything. So the Warriors pretty quickly took control of the game after Anthony Davis went down, Lebron did keep it close. Lebron had another great night. He at forty points, eight rebounds, ninetases. Could have been forty three to two if that three point shot in the corner if he didn't put his heel on the line. He was really picking on Tray Jackson Davison switches and

having some success on that front. But the Lakers just tried to outscore Golden State and that their skill guards just weren't good enough, right, Like they didn't get a good enough type of offensive game to make that happen. Austin and Dil combined to go five for nineteen from three. I want to credit Brandon Pazemski and Andrew Wiggins on

this one. I thought Andrew Wiggins, and he's a specific type of guy that can give de Lo some issues, But I thought Wiggins did an incredible job on D'Angelo Russell and forced him into some really yanky shots and some ugly misses. It wasn't Likedlo was out there missing a ton of clean looks, like he missed a couple of open catch and shoot looks. But like I thought, Andrew Wiggins just did an amazing job on de Lo and then Brandon Pazemski. I thought he did an amazing

job on Reeves. Like you know the Lakers whenever Austin Reeves gets the ball and there's like six or seven seconds on the shot clock. He's a good ISO player. Coming into last night, he was up over a point per possession. And ISO's a guy that like has a good set of moves, encounters and can get to the

foul line. So like he's a guy that they can trust to kind of just rescue a possession by playing one on one basketball, right, And a lot of those possessions last night ended with him kind of going to work on Brandon Pazziemski, and Pizemski did just a really really good job and individual defense on him forced him into some tough misses, some ugly misses. So really good perimeter defense from Pezenski, Pazzemski and Wiggins, And like I said so many times this season, I really think that's

a strength of this Warriors roster. But the Laker the Warriors in general were really taking advantage of the Lakers back line defense. That's the piece that don't want to focus on here for a little bit. So primarily working looking at on the back line Jackson, Hayes, Rija Chama and Lebron James, but also Danzel Russell, like I talked about earlier, and essentially like when you bring a guy up to the level of the screen, he has a very specific job. He's got to make it difficult to

make that over the top pass. I talk a lot about, like how Dame sometimes will throw swing passes out of blitz, out of blitz situations. Jalen Brunson did this several times last night against the Kings, and it was it's because in many cases, when that screen defender does a good job getting active hands and taking away the passing angles, even though the short roleman is open, it can be

difficult to get the ball there. Now, Steph every once in a while will just make some like preposterous, really nice like kind of looping pass over the top against some good defense. But like the reality is is, like you have to make that really difficult. If you let them easily get that ball to the role man, you're in a tough spot because now it's four on three

and Draymond's just so good in that situation. How many times in this game did you see Draymond catching the role and kaminga cut out of the weak side corner for a dunk or Andrew Wiggins cut out of the weak side corner for the dunk. It's that classic tic tac toe of the Warriors offense. Steph gets a blitz pass to Draymond on the roll, Draymond draws in the help defender from the weak side corner instead of standing there waiting for a three point shot. They cut along

the baseline. The lob passes there and as long as it's timed perfectly, it's a bucket every single time. And

they just did a ton of damage there. In general, like a lot of those low possessions would end up being someone like a D'Angelo Russell and he would step up in like trace Jackson Davis would just go through him into the basket and finish, or the back door cut would be wide open for a layof there's even a possession where to Tray Jackson Davis's credit, he caught in the dunker spot and Jackson A's recovered and he just bodied him and hit a little left handed hook

over the top. Like as as Steph was doing his job of bringing that screen defender up to the level of the screen. In those four on three situations, the Lakers just did not get enough stops. And look, here's the thing. That's a precarious position for anybody, but like, you can't let him score every single time in those situations. And I really thought the Warriors took advantage of a

weakness in the Lakers roster. When you remove Anthony Davis from the equation, the Anthony Davis is just so much better at pressuring and making those passes to the roll man more difficult. And then in general, the Lakers weak side defensive personnel just doesn't do a good enough job. And the Warriors really took advantage of that. Three shoutouts on the Warrior that I wanted to hit before we get out of here. Klay Thompson is the secondary score.

Really had his movement three off the catch working. There were some ones too where he was in a phone booth where he was coming off and there was a hedge and he just found that little tiny bit of space and rose up. He was four for seven on threes that he took flying off of screening actions. Overall, he scored fourteen points in nine off screen possessions Tray Jackson Davis figuring out some of the specific details of

the two man game. So one of the things that you guys may or may not have heard about as you follow other basketball content out there, something we haven't talked a ton about on this show is the idea of a gortat screen. So what a go tot screen is is essentially like, the big man will set a screen on the ball right, and as he sets a screen on the ball, the on ball defenders chasing over the top, and so there's a driving lane there right.

So the ball handler now is working downhill the screen defender right, the guy defending the screener is trying to get back into the play to to guard the ball handler coming downhill. But what will happen in a lot of these cases is literally the big man that is the screener for a gor tot screen will actually position himself to box out the screen defender instead of rolling hard to the rim to try to make himself available for a dunk or finding a sweet spot in the

middle to catch the ball for a finish. Instead, the one thing he'll focus on is just boxing that help defender out of the lane and So essentially, imagine Steph coming off of a ball screen and a Max Christie or an Austin Reeves trailing Steph over the top, and then essentially Tray Jackson Davis, instead of rolling to the rim, is just gonna get into Tray Jackson or excuse me, into Jackson Hayes's way, or get into ruy Hacha Mura's way and just kind of form a wall and now

Steph just meanders into the lane for an easy layup. He had two examples of that that worked really well. There was one in the first half where he boxed Ruey out as Steph was driving and he got a lay up. And then there was a second a second one in the fourth quarter a ball screen with Chris Paul. So the way the action worked in this case, Max Christy was guarding Chris, and Chris had the ball in his right hand kind of on the left wing extended.

So here comes Tray Jackson Davis to set the screen, and he sets it like he's gonna get Chris towards his right hand side, and so as a result of that, Max jumps up onto the high side to try to get over the screen. Trace quickly flips the angle turns around and screens the other side of Max, and Chris

crosses over and goes left instead. Now that rescreening thing is a really important piece of screening angles because like a lot of times, they're really good on ball defenders that are quick, they will find a way to navigate the first screen. But when you've navigated the first screen, many times you're out of position to then quickly navigate another screen. And so as the screener, if you can quickly flip the angle on him, you can catch him

out of position. So it starts with that. Now Max Christie is on the high side on the if you're facing the basket on the right side, Tray Jackson is screening and Chris Paul is driving towards the left, but he snakes back across to get back to his right

hand side. Now Max Christie is going to try to recover back into the play, but Tray Jackson Davis is literally in his way, and Trace does this like really slow roll to the basket, and on the slow roll to the basket, he stays in Max's way for another like two or three steps, and that allowed Chris Paul to get a big opening at the right elbow tons

of space and rose up and knocked it down. So between the gor Tot screen in the first half that got stephed, the wide open layup, the flipping screening angle thing on to get Chris Paul open, and then kind of dragging his role into Max Christie's way to create that opening. Those are just like higher level pick and roll concepts that are so vitally important to like finding openings against good defense. And that's the thing, Like, that's the one guy in that game for the Lakers that's

a good defensive player. Is Max Christie the one guy that, like that's what he does. He's in the league because he does that well. And like, those are the kinds of guys where you have to be more diligent about the details to find openings. And I just thought it was really encouraging to see Trey Trace kind of showing some of that higher level stuff. And look, he struggled with Lebron on switches in this game, so do most centers in the NBA. I thought it was a good

a good performance. And then Jonathan Kminga he had he's ripping off another streak of twenty point games. That's his fourth in a row. He had four assists with one turnover. A really smart play in the first half where he's posting up Spencer Dinwiddie. I've talked a lot about how teams are starting to throw late help after he puts the ball on the ground to his left hand side, and there was just an example of that in this game where posting Dinwoody makes a move towards the middle.

Jackson Hayes hard helps on his left hand side and he just makes the drop off pass to the guy in the dunker spot. Easy stuff that is that is going to make the game easier for Jonathan KAMINGA long run. Last twenty nine games for Jonathan kaminga twenty one points per game, six rebounds, and three assists on fifty five percent from the field, forty one percent from three, and seventy nine percent from the line. Think about how crazy that is. Twenty nine games, so literally like over a

third of the season, right or yeah? Right? Am I right about that? Yeah? Over the third of the season and then over twenty one points per game, legitimate defensive rebounding, three assists with only I think two I think he's it's I want to say he's got about a one point five assist to turn over ratio in that in that span. I should have put it in my notes,

but I did it. But and he's also shooting really efficiently from from the various spots on the four rain needs to work, so really really encouraging stretch from Jonathan kaminga that it like, regardless of what happens with the Warriors this year, that that to me is is like just something you take into the future as a massive

success from this particular campaign on the Lakers front. When Ad goes down, they basically just have no shot to beat any serious team unless they shoot the lights off, shoot the lights out, and they just didn't in this particular game. I Uh, one of the things, I have two other things that I wanted to quickly hit one.

I thought this was a game that kind of demonstrated some of the ugly side of what comes with the D'Angelo Russell experience, not just this game, but the three of their last four games, so the two losses to Sacramento and then this game, like just struggling to be a productive and effective offensive player against length and athleticism on the perimeter that applies real ball pressure and how that can kind of get under his skin a little bit, and then secondly, just not doing enough off the ball

defensively to make it so that he is a positive in the net, meaning like his offensive production supersedes whatever downsides come in other areas of the game, Like just way too much standing around. It just is not acceptable for a guy that like has had struggles in the playoffs and you're trying to get to a point where he's a usable player in that setting, and it's like, those are the kinds of things that kind of rear

their ugly head with him. And again, it's only a four game stretch, and he was really good for months before that, So I don't want to like like hyper focus on the negative here, but this last stretch of games from Dlo has felt a little bit like a backslide,

so to speak. And so I hope that Dlo can kind of snap out of it, because, like, the Lakers just desperately need him to be the offensive player he was over the last couple of months while also being a usable defensive player, which we know he's capable of being. I've seen games this year where Dlo has been a useful off ball defensive player and it's it's just a matter of commitment at this point. Lastly, the Lakers, you know, this is the kind of thing that happens. I don't

know what happens if Ad doesn't get hurt. I would imagine the Lakers probably win that game sixty percent of the time if AD's healthy, right, at least, if not more. The Lakers are a good home team. They played well when Ad was on the floor in the same ways that they typically do. That's not to say the Warriors couldn't win that game. They certainly could. I'm not trying to be like, oh, Ady got hurt, the Lakers should have won. I'm just saying like, yeah, you're right, you

probably win that game if Ad is healthy. But he didn't get he didn't finish the game. He hurt his eye. And sometimes in the eighty two game season, your star gets hurt and you just lose. And normally that would be something you could live with over the course of an eighty two game season, But the Lakers tricked off their margin for error this year. That three to ten stretch after the n season tournament win removed their ability

to be able to withstand that sort of thing. Yesterday, Ady gets hit in the eye, misses the rest of the game. They drop a game to the Warriors. Now it's a catastrophe. You've dropped down to the ten seed, and you absolutely have to beat the Warriors. I'm not even sure if that will help them get the There's a matchup with the Warriors in April. I'm not even sure if that would be enough for them to get the tiebreaker because I'm not sure what the other details

of the tiebreaker are. But you're now down to one and two against the Warriors, which could end up hurting you in the tiebreaker situation. If you win this game and you win in April, you win the tiebreaker. Right, you've removed that from the equation. It's a huge like, it's a huge catastrophe for the Lakers, the situation that they're in. Whereas, let's just take a look at a couple of games on their schedule if they would have

gone differently, how different it would have looked. Like, I think they've lost at least a half dozen games this year that they had no business losing. But let's just look at a couple of specifics. They lost to the Spurs the week after winning the Ncason Tournament. The Spurs were on an eighteen game losing streak. Guys, they had lost eighteen games in a row, and they beat the Lakers literally a week after they beat less than a week after they beat the Pacers to win the ncas

And Tournament. After kicking the shit out of the Pelicans and beating the Suns, they were playing excellent basketball, and then they just relaxed. They lost to a Dallas Mavericks team that was completely injury riddled. I'll accept that one, but the one to the Spurs, like that's completely unacceptable. They lost to the Miami Heat at home without Jimmy Butler in a game that the Lakers came completely lifeless

out of the locker room. And then they lost to that terrible Grizzlies team that was eleven and twenty three going into the game. Flip just those three games. Forget about everything else. Flip just those three games. And now Anthony Davis gets a corneil abrasion and misses the rest of the game, and you drop a game and you're still thirty nine and twenty nine and a half game out of the sixth seed. That's your situation. If you just don't trick off those games in the middle of

the year. Add a couple more now, they lost at home to the Brooklyn Nets and a game that they jumped them early and then just quit in the second half. Lost to the Brooklyn Nets, inexcusable at home. Then they got their ass kicked, and back to back games against the Rockets and Hawks in games they didn't play hard. They gave up two hundred and seventy three points in

the two games. Those are the games right before they went in and beat Boston without Lebron James and Anthony Davis in a game they did bring holacious effort from start to finish. So just take those three games. Win those three. Then if ad gets poked in the eye and you drop a game to Golden State, you're still the five seed. You're the five seed. That's what this is. That's what this has meant like, cause here's the thing, Like,

the Lakers are not a top tier championship contender. They did not address their biggest weakness at the deadline or over the summer, and so they do not have the matchup versatility they need to win four playoff rounds. Like I don't think they're in that tier they can. It's just like such an incredible long shot, right, And it's

because they didn't address their biggest weakness. But they are a good NBA team, But because for extended stretches of the season they just came out and played bad basketball against teams they had no business losing to, they are in a horrible predicament in the play in Tournament when they should be. What this team actually is is a middle of the West type of team. They should be in that four to five range. That's how good they are. When you look at the talent on their roster, they

should be in that four to five range. That's the quality of that basketball team. But they are instead down in the play in Tournament at thirty six and thirty two and will likely have to win two road games to even get a chance to play a team for a best of seven. One last stat to drive this point home. I saw this two days ago from Alex Regla, a guy does an amazing job covering the Lakers Frespian Nation.

I highly recommend you guys check him out. He tweeted this out the other day and I thought it was super interesting. The Lakers are sixteen and twelve against teams that are in the top ten in point differential. In those games, they have the sixth best net rating in the league. So when it comes to the Lakers playing against really good teams, they are one of the very best teams in the league. Sixteen wins, comfortably above five hundred six best net rating in the league. And that's

despite their personal limitations. That's despite the fact that they don't have a guard or wing that is a starting caliber player, that is a plus offensive player and a

plus defensive player. They do not have one on the roster, and they're still sixteen and twelve against the top ten teams in the league by point differential, against the middle ten teams, against teams eleven through twenty in point differential, they are five and fifteen after last night's lost to the Warriors, five and fifteen, and they have the sixth worst net rating out of that group. What does that tell you? That's what I've been preaching all year with

this team, like, are they Boston or Denver? No, they needed a trade and they needed a lot of things to go right this year to ever get into that tier. They were unable to crack into that tier. But are they the ten seed in the West. Are they that bad? They shouldn't be. And it all comes down to three things. Those personnel limitations I talked about, two complete coaching incompetence from Darbnham, and then three a consistent lack of effort

and focus. I talk all about the time about basketball character, the willingness to do the things that you have to do to get to the trophy. It is from day one of training camp, throughout all of preseason, to every stretch of the season, from the slow points in January to the busy points around the deadline or right after the start of the season in October, to the race at the end of the season to jockey around for

position in the standings. You have to hit these checkpoints in terms of effort and focus and energy in the paying your dues. You have to pay in blood, sweat and tears to get to the Larry O'Brien Trophy. It is not easy. You don't get to chill. It's a big part of why I'm starting to get off the Clippers set. The Clippers went from being a team that would looked like a dominant two way basketball team. Now they haven't played defense in several months, and now they

look pretty mediocre. That's a big one for me. They're skipping a checkpoint. That checkpoint is you have to keep your foot on the gap. Yes, and when there are tiny points in the season when you start to lose your focus and a couple things don't go your way. The good teams, the teams that hoist hilario'brian, those teams end up quickly digging out of those holes. I remember even the twenty twenty Lakers because obviously they covered that team very closely. They lost four games in a row

around Christmas. They started, I want to say, they started twenty four and three, so they started like crazy good, right, they lost four games in a row. Like I'm not trying to sit here and pretend like bad stretches don't happen. Of course they do. But for the really good teams, you don't have extended bad stretches. You don't have a three and ten stretch. You can't get away with it. And again to pointing back to basketball character, a team

with good basketball character doesn't do that. A team with good basketball character doesn't have you know, forty percent of the nights over the course of the eighty two game regular season where they just come out lifeless. That to me is showing an unwillingness to do the work, because there is work from day one of training camp to the point where you hoist that trophy. It sucks like that there. I'm a huge believer that that that is a prerequisite to getting to the trophy. You have to

attack the regular season from start to finish. All right, I'm done venting about the Lakers, moving on to Nick Kings super fun physical game. A lot of guys had nightmare shooting nights. And this is super typical. This is something I talk about a lot on the show Rock Fight. Basketball games like a lot of times like that can cause teams to fall apart in their skill areas of

their game. And mainly the idea behind that is is like you become accustomed in your shooting workouts and everything to a certain muscle memory that that you go to when you're going into your skill skill shots and skill

footwork and dribble combinations and all that kind of stuff. Right, So what happens is is like in a really physical game, there's a level of fatigue and like a kind of like a pain, like a like you kind of get beat up a little bit, like everything hurts from like you bumping shoulders and knees and hips and every like that, and all of a sudden you've got like sixteen bruises

and bumps and stuff from the game. But all of that takes place, and then all of a sudden, you find yourself in a catch and shoot situation or a pull up jump shot situation, and it just doesn't feel the same physically because you're exhausted, because you're fatigued, because you're beat up. Right, And so Josh Hart goes two for seven in this game. Oh Jannobi goes one for eight, Dante Devencenzo goes one for sixteen, Dearon Fox goes five

for nineteen, Keegan Murray goes three for twelve. Aarizon Bars goes five for thirteen. The nick shot forty three percent from the field, and one the Kings shot just thirty five percent from the field. Now, first of all, before we go any further, I love this new brand of officiating we're seeing from the NBA for three primary reasons. One, it gives the defense as a fighting chance. NBA offenses had literally become too hard to guard without allowing some

sort of physicality. When you give them the amount of skill and athleticism that NBA teams have and give them so much freedom of movement, it's a lost cause and no one's gonna be able to get stopped. So it just gives the defensive fighting chance. Second of all, it will really help us with evaluating playoff teams because this looks more like playoff basketball, and so it'll just help us to sort through the nonsense. Again, I love playoff officiating.

We all do. That's what we want it to be. Like, why are we ever allowing a regular season to just be different basketball? That should just never be the case. And every single year it was freedom of movement and tons of scoring and free throws, and then we get to the postseason and the game fundamentally changes and that doesn't make any sense. It makes more sense for it to be the same throughout. So to me, it'll help us evaluate, but in general, it's just better for the

league to have a consistency of play style. And then three deep down, this is what the players want. It's funny.

I've been in in like probably a few dozen different like men's league things that I've played in in my life, since I got done playing in college, and no matter where I have been, whether I was in Charlotte, whether I was in Phoenix, whether I was in Tucson, I remember several times where like multiple players have gone up to the officials at certain points in the game or before the game had been like hey, like we'd prefer it if you guys don't call that much and just

let us play. Like that's what players want. Basketball players want freedom, like freedom to play without the whistle. That's what they want. If they had to choose, if players had to choose between everything's a foul by the book or like discretion and if it's blatant, call it, but like keep the flow of the game, every single basketball player will choose the latter. That's what they want. It's

it's a better television product, it's more fun. There's gonna be some complaining, Like I've seen a lot of guys in the last couple of weeks like driving and missing layups and complaining that that's a natural part of it. And as a competitor, you want points, so like I get it for your team because that's your job, right, But like, deep down, this is what the players want. It'll help us evaluate the teams better. And it's just it gives the defense as a fighting chance more balanced

to the equation. That's it. The Knicks are just better at rockfight basketball than Sacramento is, even without Julius Randall and Mitchell Robinson. Their guards are stocky in physical whereas the King's guards are more speed oriented. Right, and there was not much available at the rim in this game because both teams were aggressively helping and digging down and just packing the paint. There were one hundred and seventy

one field goal attempts in this game. Only thirty three of them were in the restricted area, and only nineteen of those thirty three went in. We had fourteen misses in the restricted area. In this game, it became about jump shooting, but specifically jump shooting while being tired and beat up, which again is a fundamentally different type of jump shooting type of game, and the Knicks are just

better built for that sort of thing. The Knicks took fifty five jump shots and got zero point eighty six points per shot. The Kings took fifty and they got zero point seven to six points per shot. That really was the difference of the game. Saw that in the pull up shooting two like the two main creators, right, Jalen Brunson eight for fifteen on pull up jump shots, four for seven on pull up threes. Darren Fox two for twelve on pull up jump shots, one for six

on pull up threes. Huge difference in this game. By

the way, that's a season long trin. Jalen Brunson's a better pull up shooter than Daron Fox has been forever, and Darren Fox has taken a leap this year. Best pull up shooting a season of his career. Not as good as Jalen Brunson, right, Like, that's what you kind of expect in that situation. Oh, Jannobi brings a certain physicality. Isaiah Hartenstein is a big guy that I wanted to

spend some time on today. Only had seven points in this game, but he had four blocks in his steal, fourteen rebounds, including four offensive rebounds, and I thought he was a substantially better defensive player in this game than Sabonis. It's one of those weird games where like, if you look at the box score, Sabonis gets his twenty point double double and obviously like it looks like Sibonis was the better player. I thought Isaiah Hartenstein like flat out

outplayed Sabonis in this game. First of all, held Sabonis two, just one for five from the field with four turnovers in the second half. Had some huge offensive plays at the end of the game that curl to that curl to Jalen Brunson where he got the and one. I put that clip on Twitter, and then he just there's big play late where Kings got it to four and Hartenstein just drove right through Sabonis's chest and got all the way to the rim and made an and one

layup to put the Knicks back up seven. Like thought, I thought he was awesome in this particular game. Held up much better defensively in pick and roll too, and that's the key, because the Knicks on the other end were really torching Sabonis. They got one point three points per pick and roll for the entire game, including passes that's like off the charts good, that's a one to thirty offensive rating, and ball screens. They were torching Sabonis,

hitting pull ups against him and drop coverage. Obviously Brunson, who we've talked a lot about, but even Alec Burks got him twice in the fourth quarter, once with a floater and once with a pull up jumper, where Sabonis was just hanging too far back and not doing enough to bother the ball handler. On the other end, Hart and segn was just better, had some huge defensive plays

down the stretch. Held the Knicks as a team held Sacramento to zero point nine to six points per ball screen and zero point four points per handoff, which is obviously a huge part of the King's offense. So like, they just did a much better job guarding screening actions than the Knicks did. And I want to before we put all of it on Sabonis. In Hertenstein, it was more diligent work from the guards too. Like, this was

a good defensive performance from both teams. To be clear, all you have to do is look at the box score. But the Knicks did make fewer mistakes. There were some big late game mistakes from the King's guards defensively. There's a big one late where the Kings were up by four in the fourth quarter and Boy and Bogdanovitch came off of like a pin down and knocked down a three,

and it was just bad defense from Dearreon Fox. Darren Fox was guarding Miles McBride and Malik Monk was guarding boy and Bogdanovich, and literally McBride just goes and sets a basic little pin screen for Bogdanovich. Bogdanovic comes off to the top of the key, Darren Fox is literally just standing just standing like right around the foul line,

not even in a defensive stance. And so when McBride's in trail position and kind of gets hit on the screen a little bit, the uh, excuse me, When Malik Monk is in trail position and kind of gets hit on the screen a little bit, boy and mcgdanovitch just breaks wide open and knocks down the shot, and it's

like that's a key mistake in the game. Like that the like like cause again in that group, with that bench group, especially when it's got Alec Berkson and Boyd mcgdanovic, and to Alec Burks and Boyn mcdonovitch's credit, they made some plays in that fourth quarter stretch that each had a little scoring burst that they went on that helped kind of keep things afloat, But like they a lot of it was defensive breakdowns. So bonus and drop like sitting too far low on that guard guard screening action

by Darren Fox. Then the late game possession, so there was a sequence late where the Kings played really good defense on a series of scoring So this was after the Knicks one up seven, they got a bunch of stops in a row against Jalen Brunson. They were running guard guard screens to try to get Kean Ellis, switched off of Jalen Brunson to try to get Malik Monk, and then occasionally they'd bring Hartenstein in to try to get him to go out some bonus where they'd run

more of a drop. But basically Brunson was operating at the top of the key and they were running these screening actions. They defended all of them really well, except for one, the one where Kean Ellis was going like this looking around and Jalen Brunson just waited for him to turn his head and then he went off the dribble and like I get it, Like Kean Ellis, they had been screening him from both sides and so he's really just trying to get ahead of whatever that action

is coming from. But like the ball is the number one priority in that situation. So it's like you do a really good job most of the game, but just some critical mistakes defensively, And like that, by the way, is kind of a theme for the Kinks this year. They're a team that, as I've talked about all season, they're a team that is capable of being very good defensively, but it's not their habit, it's not their identity, and so too often they slip back into their worst tendencies.

Biggest sequence of the game it was actually before this play. It was eighty four to eighty two, and Nick's got the ball and Jalen Brunson curls off of an Isaiah Hartenstein dribble handoff and fakes the handoff, and then on the back cut there's a tiny, tiny window and Hartenstein throws this beautiful bounce pass that hits Brunton instride. He gets an and one. They go down to the other end and there's a ball screen action for Harrison Barnes and Hartenstein blocks him at the rim. So two massive

plays from Hartenstein. They go down to the other end. The Kings play good defense, switch a guard guard screen, they get a great contest on a Brunson pull up three and he misses it. But right after that Demonas Sabonis gets the rebound and throws the ball way too far up the floor to Keon. Allison turns it over, Nicks bring the ball in bounds. And this is the really weird play. Most of the second half on Brunson ball screens, they'd been blitzing with Sabonis and it was working.

Sabonis was applying good ball pressure with his hands, Brunson wasn't able to get the ball to the pocket. So who's having to throw swing passes. I was actually talking about this earlier, like when you apply really good pressure and blitzes, the pocket pass isn't open because that they just can't get to pass through. And so they were forcing Brunson to make swing passes and they were rotating

out of it pretty well. The blitz was working, and then randomly, on this play, Sabonis just sits way back in a drop coverage and Brunson just walks right into a pull up three and knocks it down. Huge sequence in the game, it's a two point game. Hartenstein makes a couple of big plays on both ends of the floor. Sabonis makes a couple of critical mistakes and suddenly it's

a seven point game. Also another example of how I thought Hartenstein out played Sabonus despite the box score numbers, Like just when it came to the big moments of the game, the big swing possessions, it was Hartenstein making plays and Sabonis making mistakes. That's why I was calling that specifically out. Anyway, that run put the Knicks up seven, and then they were able to with stand a handful of additional shots like Malik Monket a big three in

the corner that kind of got it close. Biggest takeaways from the game, though, shot making and these kinds of games is just different. And Darren Fox has become a good shot maker, but his advantage is speed, and I thought he got a little bit carried away with trying to match Jalen Brunson with pull up shooting when Brunson's

just better than him at that. And so that takes me to my second biggest takeaway, which was Fox's shot selection, Like he took some really tough pull up twos early in the clock when he clearly didn't have that shot working for him in this particular game, Like again he was two for twelve. I pull up jumpers in this game, So like early clock pull up twos that are heavily contested, they just don't make sense unless you already are in rhythm,

which he was not at this point. So the two in particular that I wanted to highlight there was a spinning jumper on Alec Burks. He had a clear side io on the right side of the floor, but tons of time, and he just goes into this wild spinning

jump shot that Alec Burks defends perfectly. And I'm looking down and there's fourteen seconds on the shot clock, and it's like, why are you taking such a difficult, low value pull up two when you haven't been making it tonight with fourteen on the shot clock, Like, work for something easier first, and then take that if it gets into a late clock situation. Later on in the game, he takes a step back twenty foot jump shot against Jalen Brunson with eighteen seconds on the shot clock, once

again not in rhythm. Haven't made any attempts to try to find something easier already a really tough shot off of a dribble combination and some tough footwork. Brunson's right there wasn't even great separation and literally you just you just took the ball six seconds earlier. And so some of that is like it's hard to win games when your best player is getting so soundly out executed by his counterpart in Jalen Brunson. And that was something that

really stood up, stood out off the screen yesterday. There was a play early in the fourth quarter too, where the Kings had no numbers in transition. It was a three on five break and Darren Fox drove right into boy On mcdonovitch at the rim and just threw up a left handed layup that literally missed by several feet. It wasn't even close, and it's like it was just

a tough decision making game from Darren Fox. And honestly, like, when I look at Darren Fox this season, and there's so much good in terms of his improvement as a jump shooter and his confidence in his jump shot, But that next step for him is like really identifying what the low hanging fruit is for him and capitalizing on that stuff to increase his efficiency in treating more of this tough shot making thing as a counter rescue possessions.

When I'm in rhythm kind of thing rather than just like a regular part of his shot diet, if that makes sense. And then two last two final takeaways, Isaiah Hartenstein is just a really good basketball player. And like, obviously you want Mitchell Robinson back, but even if they just get Julius Randall back and Mitchell Robinson's not able to come back, like that is still a deeply talented

and deeply physically imposing frontline. And I'm really excited to see what the Knicks can do in a postseason series. And then lastly, like I mentioned earlier, the Kings being capable of defending, but it not being their habit. One of the reasons why I harp on habits is like when games get close late and when the shit hits the fan, like when things start to not go right for you, you tend to fall back on your habits. Your

habits are what carry you in those situations. Right. It's kind of like if you're if you run into a stretch in your personal life, where like you just have a ton of stuff going on, like busy calendar with work, busy social calendar, and maybe one or two outside circumstances that have thrown a ranch into everything. If you are,

in your daily habits a very efficient time manager. You will get through it because you just have these habits where it's like, Okay, the shit's hitting the fanel around me, but I'm just gonna put my head down and I'm gonna work and I'm going to come out on the other side of this. Right. But if all that shit happens and you have bad time management and efficiency habits, that could be what breaks you in a lot of ways, right, And like that's kind of the way I feel about

basketball too. Like when you are the kind of person where it is your habit to do these little things well, then in a big possession late or in a situation where a couple things have gone wrong, your habit will be to continue to do those things and it will help you regain control of the situation. It is not a habit for deer and Fox to be in all dee defensive minded player. It is something he can do.

If I trimmed a dozen clips, I could show you a highlight film that shows that Dearon Fox is an all defense caliber defender, but in a critical fourth quarter possession he can fall asleep. And like that, that, to me is is not just a Fox problem. It's a down the roster problem for the Kings. They are capable

of it, but it is not in their identity. It is not a habit for them, and so they have a tendency to slip back into some of their worst tendencies when the shit hits the fan, and I thought that game against the Knicks was a big example of that. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. We'll be back tomorrow. We've got a jam packed Sunday slate, so we got a lot of fun games to break down tomorrow as well as power rankings. I will see you guys then the volume