Hoops Tonight - Why Devin Booker makes Suns best in West, surprising spark for LeBron & Lakers

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dot net in West Virginia. Alright, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fantel here at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. We have almost made it to the weekend. Gonna keep it nice and simple today. Three teams we're gonna be talking about the Phoenix Suns who are on a six game win streak, the Milwaukee Bucks who are on a three game win streak, and the Los Angeles Lakers, who have won six out of eight. Should be seven out

of eight, is all you Lakers fans. No, keep it simple on those three teams and the rest of the week. Tomorrow we're doing our quarter season awards, and then Saturday morning, we'll have a breakdown of the Friday night slate, which is jam packed. Do you guys know the drill? Before we get started, subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LT so you don't miss any

show announcements. I'm also going to once again reference too sets of clips that I put to other to demonstrate points that I'm making on today's show, So you're gonna want to follow me at Underscore Jason LT on Twitter to see those video clips. And then, last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. Remember you can find them wherever you get your podcasts

Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So the Phoenix Suns are in a six game winning streak. They are now first in the Western Conference at fifteen and six despite being without Chris Paul for the last what like month or so. Um their second in offense, sixth and defense for the season, second in net rating for the season, and then during this six game winning streak, Devin Booker puts up fifty one last night in just three quarters and just thirty one minutes and on just

twenty five shots with just five misses. In this six game winning streak, He's averaging thirty one, seven and five on six true shooting. He's a bona fide superstar. We're gonna spend a bunch of time talking about him here just a minute. And then DeAndre Ayton has also been outstanding during the stretch twenty two and fourteen during the six game streak, four offensive rebounds per game and true shooting.

Has also done a really nice job passing out of the short role um during the stretch of games as well. So I wanted to talk about Devin Booker for a little bit because you know, the uh, it's really hard in this league to shake your perception as a basketball player. I've even been dealing with this a little bit with Lakers fans were like, you know, your opinion about whether or not Russ deserves to be traded is one thing, but the Russ we're seeing this year is not the

same player as last year. Last year there was a lot less good and a lot a lot more bad, and this year there's a lot more good and a lot less bad. So he's gone from being a net negative player to a net positive player. And there are a lot of Lakers fans who are talking the same way about Russ now as they did last season. And you know, my my thing has been uh, you know, uh, that he's doing better in this bench role, and it's more a product of you wanting to use his salary

as a vehicle with which to improve the roster. Last year it was like Russia's isn't playing very well. But that perception is tough to shake. Sometimes it takes years

and years and years. And Devin Booker is a great example of this, because he scored a lot of points for really bad Sons teams for a while, and then he scored a lot of points on really good Sons teams for a while that flamed out in the playoffs year after year, including even in their most successful season, blowing a two oh lead to the Milwaukee Bucks in

the finals. And so there's kind of like this reputation that surrounds Devin Booker that he's just a score and it just could not be any further from the truth, especially this season. And I've been talking about this NonStop since since the first few weeks of the season. But Devon's improvements as a passer and as a defender have turned him into a a bona fide superstar. He's no longer a guy that you're lumping in with that tier of stars that fills between you know, number eleven in

the league and like number thirty in the league. He's not like that anymore. He's above that tier. He is now. Every bit is good as the players were talking about at the top of the league. And you know, even after nights like last night, people will once again focus like Devin Booker is a bucket. Look at him. He got he got fifty, you know, and that's gonna be the hyper focus. But he's been so good in those other details of game of the game I wanted to

take some time to highlight that right now. So first of all, the Sons are down Chris Paul, They're down Jay Crowder, and they're down Cam Johnson. That's two starters from this year and another starter from last year. So they're pretty thin on the wing. They're down one of

their most important ball handlers. And yet despite that, this season, when Devin Booker is off the floor, they're getting outscored by one point four points per one possession, and when he's on the floor there plus ten points per one hundred possessions. That's superstar level differential. The Sons have scored three hundred and sixty six points on threety four Devin Booker picking rolls this season, which is one point zero six points per possession, which is in the seventy percentile.

He's not just a scorer anymore. He is a bona fide offensive engine. Now what does that mean, now, uh, an offensive engine. He's different from a scorer in the sense that scores might feel comfortable in specific matchups or in specific spots on the floor, and if you can get him in those spots, they can make plays. I'll give you an example, like Kyle Kuzma. Kyle Kuzma, if you get him in the right matchup and he's feeling good, he can score the basketball. But you're not going to

use Kyle Kuzma as an offensive fulcrum. Right, Devin Booker is a play that you can run three hundred and forty four pick and rolls. That's incredibly high volume compared to a lot of the primary ball handlers in the league. You can run your entire offense through him. And that's why I wanted to point back to this what I believe was the most impressive game from the Sun's during this win streak, and that was their win up in Sacrato.

In Sacramento, Now, the Kings went up, I want to say it was like one fifteen to one, twelve later might have been one of five, one two about midway through the fourth quarter, and after that the Sun's just dominated down the stretch and there was a string of

eight consecutive possessions. After Damian Lee hit a nice little step back jump shot to bring it back to one of five on a four, there was a stretch of eight consecutive possessions or Devin Booker generated extremely high quality shots and the Suns went from down by one too up by ten like that to win a huge game on the road against a very good team. So I wanted to kind of break down the possessions because Devin Devin Booker only took two shots during that eight possession

stretch and generated these extremely high quality looks. That's why I wanted to highlight that stretch because it kind of points to that Um, that larger topic than that I'm trying to hit at here, which is Devin Booker is

not a score anymore. He's an offensive engine. So he started He started it off with a pick and roll with DeAndre Ayton, and on the possession, Davion Mitchell fought over the top of the screen and cut Devin Booker off, but all the King's defenders stayed back and help, and Devin Booker has a size advantage over Davion Mitchell, so he hit him with a hard dribble, hit him with his right shoulder, spun back towards the middle, and knocked

down a really nice turnaround jump shot. Then very next possession, another eighton pick and roll. This time he gets trapped and Kevin Herder helps out of the corner to tag DeAndre Ayton when he's rolling to the basket. So um, Devin Booker just throws a quick swing pass to Tory Craig, who makes a quick extra pass to Damien Lee in the corner knocks down at three. So that's an example of Devin Booker creating the initial advantage due to his ability to make plays out of picking roll and drawing

multiple defenders. Very next possession, same thing, pick and roll with eaton. This time he gets trapped again, hits eighton on the short roll the King's tag eight and on the short roll Damian Lee kind of loops around from the left from the right wing, gets another wide open three and knocks it down. Very next possession, same exact thing,

another trap. This time they tagged eight in a little bit sooner, So Devin Booker makes the adjustment and goes directly to Damian Lee instead of hitting the short roll first. It gets a pretty decent look. He just happens to miss it. Then on the very next possession they run a horn set, and on this horn set, Devin Booker comes over an eight and screen at the elbow and he sees so so uh, they're on opposite ends of

the elbows. On the horn set, eighton screens for Booker as he comes over the top, but Sabonus was hugged up to eight, and you could see Booker like staring right at Sabonus and he knows that because Davian Mitchell's behind him, because Sabonus is up at the elbow, that

there's nobody at the rim. Michail Bridges cuts off of him and like one of those spurs cuts off of that high post catch and just hands it to him because he knows Michael Bridges defender is trailing him and there's no help help at the rim because the bonus isn't there. It was a great read from Devin Booker. Michael Bridges goes right in and gets a dunk very next possession, another pick and roll with Ayton. Another trap.

This time they were too slow to tag Eaton because they had been leaving shooters open, and Ayton gets a reverse layup. Next possession, horn set again, Donovan Mitchell gets caught a little bit, excuse me, Davion Mitchell gets caught a little bit on the switch and so Devin Booker just elevates. Davan Mitchell recovers too aggressively and fouls Devin Booker. He goes to the foul line and then the last possession they blitz Steven Booker on a pick and roll

along the right wing. He drags the double out to about thirty ft. Kevin Herder leaves Michail Bridges to tag Aton once again, swings to to Tory Craig. Tory Craig extra pass to mc hale bridges in the corner Knox Standard three. Now it's a ten point game, so again, and I put all eight of those possessions on Twitter, so you're gonna want to go there so you can actually see the footage, because that's gonna do it's gonna

do more justice than me talking about it. But I thought it was a really impressive stretch of high level, surgical half court offensive creation from a guy who has the reputation of being just a score. Took two shots, a couple of pull up jump shots, both of them in situations where it was the right read. On the first one there was no help, he had a good matchup, and on the second one, Davian Mitchell got caught on the screen and he had a good look at it.

So that that's a superstar. That's not a score, that's not a empty stats guy. That's a superstar. And that's why the Sons are the best team in the West right now, despite some awful injury luck to start the year. You know, Devin Booker's leap has to change the way we evaluate the Suns because originally I talked about the Sons as a team that was incredibly deep with talent, Michail Bridges is so good, do you and Rayton is so good. Cam Johnson will be back at some point

this season. He's so good. Tory Craig has been playing pretty well for them. Campaign can get great dribble penetration. You know, They've got Landrew sham It, you know, is a good bench guard that can make plays defensively and knockdown shots. They've got a lot of talent, but we

were worried about their top end talent. And Devin Booker going from guy who can score, play a little bit of defense, and do a little bit of playmaking too, really well rounded superstar makes it so that the Suns can hang in with the top teams in the league in terms of top end talent. If you have Booker with that type of supporting cast, he can hang with

any of the stars in the league. So that a really impressive stretch of basketball from the Suns, and I'm I wanted to take some time to shout out Devin Booker all right. Moving on to the Bucks. So they've won three in a row, including a couple of really impressive wins against Dallas and Cleveland. They're up to fifteen and five, just two games back of Boston, who's been running away with everything this uh this season their seventeenth and offense still first in defense and fit the net rating.

Pat Connaughton has been back for about a week almost two weeks now. Uh, that definitely looks a little rusty and out of rhythm, but that's to be expected. That will come around once you get into real basketball shape, all of a sudden, you get better lift on those jumpers. Um. Chris Middleton, it's been reported, is coming back on Friday against the Lakers. I think that's the perfect game for him to come back, um and kind of and kind

of get eased back into NBA basketball. The Lakers offer a ton of strong side help and they're absolutely going to pack the paint on Janice, So Janice is going to generate a lot of good looks for him on kickouts. And then the Laker wings are all shorter than me. So, um, Chris Middleton is gonna have a lot of really good matchups to shoot over the top of smaller Laker defenders. UM. So, I think that Friday game is gonna be a really good opportunity for for Chris to kind of get his uh,

get his feet dirty playing NBA basketball again. They're playing great basketball even without those guys, though. Javon Carter and Grayson Allen can't miss a damn three to save their lives, and they're both the fending really well. Brook Lopez is utterly wrecking teams with his rim protection in his three point shooting in our mid season awards that we're gonna do tomorrow, excuse me, our quarter season awards that we're

gonna do tomorrow. I haven't decided yet because I'm considering a couple other guys, but I'm strongly considering making brook Lopez my defensive Player of the Year so far. And then Joannice Like. There was a nine game stretch in early November where he was clearly banged up. He was dealing with the stuff. He only played in six out of the nine games. He shot under fifty. In all six games, he only average eleven and six on forty

two percent shooting. Although it kind of reminds me of Lebron were like the bad stretches of Janice eleven and six, like, that's just completely absurd. But he's completely back in his groove now. In his last five games, he scored thirty plus every single one of them. Thirty six, ten and six is his average during that stretch on fifty nine percent shooting, So whatever was going on is gone. Um it looked like it was almost personal last night between

him and Julius Randall. He was really physically aggressive with him on both ends of the floor. You know, one of the one of the reasons why I have Janice is the best player in the world is even though I consider him just a top tier offensive player and not like the best offensive player, like I think Steph Curry is a much better offensive player than Johannis Antenna Coomball. I think it's a big part of why, um the

Bucks struggle to score in the half court. But the combination of Jannice being a very very good offensive player and the best defensive player in the world is why I think he's the best player in the world. And the reason why I think he's the best defensive player in the world is like when we look at you know, the traditional great rim protectors like even Brooke. Like Brooke, I'm considering him for defensive player the year through quarter of the season. You know, it's a lot of scheme

stuff with him. They're keeping him by the paint and at that specific thing, he's one of the very best in the league. Brook Lopez is just an outstanding rim protector, but you know, they don't have Johannis in that spot. Janice can do that, and they slot him in there when Brooks off the floor. Like is kind of the way they dealt with Julius Randall last night when Brooke

was out there, Janice was on Julius Randall. When Brooke would go off, they'd slide Janice to the five and they put, you know, Bobby Portois on Julius Randall, have Janice hang out around the rim. That type of versatile, That type of versatility is the key because obviously we know what Janice can do as a back line rim protector,

but it's what he can do on ball. He was navigating screens as the Knicks tried to free Julius Randall up, legitimately, bothering Julius with his length held him to as a team, they held him to eight shooting. But in those isolation possessions or individual defense possessions on Julius, I thought he really did a nice job bothering him, not just forcing mrs, but some bad misses, some airballs and and hard bricks off the glass. That that's the part of it that

is um. That's a separator for me with Janice is like he has the ability to do p emitter defense stuff as well as most of the big wings that we have in the league. And he can be a foundational rim protector for you if you need him to. I am really excited for this game on Sunday or

excuse me, on Friday. Milwaukee is going to get the Lakers best punch because the Lakers want to prove that they're legit um and it's a it's it's just a super interesting matchup, right because like Milwaukee's twenty feet and half court offense and the Lakers are second in half court defense, you know, so uh, they should struggle to score.

But then on the other end of the court, Milwaukee is first in half court defense and the Lakers are eighteenth and half court offense, so you know, both teams are gonna be desperate to get out in transition as much as possible. In the half court, It's going to be an absolute slug fest. Chris Middleton should have advantages

all night. Like I was talking about shooting over the top of smaller Laker wings and then Lebron and Anthony Davis are two of the best bodies that you can possibly throw in Janna, so um, it'll be really interesting to see how much help they send. My guest is Darvin Hamill over help. So it'll come down to Bucks

role players making shots and at home. There's a really interesting thing just in general going on around the league right now, where all of the really good teams are thriving at home and struggling on the road, like like even the Suns we talked about earlier really struggling on the road. So um, my, my prediction for Friday night is that the Bucks role players hit a bunch of threes and they end up winning by ten fifteen points.

But it should be a very very interesting game. Bucks fans that are listening, you're gonna want to come back tomorrow for our mid season Awards because the Bucks will be heavily featured. And then also on Saturday morning when we do a game breakdown from that Friday night game. All right, onto the Lakers. So really nice bounce back

win last night, um against the Portland Trailblazers. First of all, they were down Lonnie Walker, who has been their third best player this year, and they were down Troy Brown Jr. Who has been arguably their best defensive wing this year. So from a personnel standpoint, they were really limited. It was basically Lebron and Anthony Davison a bunch of small guards. Um. And they also had a really, really sushing loss on Monday,

Like you gotta think about how crushing that was. They had won five out of six before that game, and then they were up seventeen in the fourth quarter, so they could that was their opportunity to really strain together a stretch of good basketball, and they let their foot off the gas and the basketball gods made them pay

for it. Um. But I don't think it's indicative of who they are as a team because the you know, the real team is the team that you've seen over the course of the last couple of weeks, which is a team that competes like crazy, and they've got some old veteran players that have to learn the hard way

that they can't let their foot off the gas. And they've let their foot off the gas twice this year, ironically against the Blazers the first time and then on Monday night, And so as long as they've learned their lesson there, they should be okay. But they came back, and like, when you make a catastrophic mistake like that, there's only one thing you can do, and it's just put one foot right from right back in front of the other and go out and play good basketball the

next time out the floor. You know's there's an old cliche winning cures everything. That's the truth. Like, if you win against the Blazers on Wednesday night and you go into Milwaukee and you beat the Bucks on Friday, not only does that completely erase the painfulness of that Monday loss, Now you've won seven out of your last nine games and you beat you know, the second or third best

team in the league on the road. So that's the type of potential that's there for the Lakers on Friday, and that's the only way you can recover from that type of devastating loss. So I want to talk about Lebron for a second, so that we're gonna hit on three Lakers, Lebron, Russell Westbrook, and Austin Reeves. So Lebron had a really tough first shift. You know, one of the big reasons why Russell Westbrook has been so good for the Lakers this year is he just brings energy.

He brings like a verve. He changes the pace of the game, and he gets a ton of dribble penetration, which gets the Lakers into their driving kick and that's when they start getting good stuff. And Lebron too often this year has been to pass, which is kind of slowly and methodically bringing the ball up the floor. There

is a time in place for that. There are times when that methodical approach will actually disrupt the opponent as long as you're getting good shots and knocking them down, as long as Lebrons, especially when he's shoting the way that he is, like, there's versions of that that can work, but you need to bring some verve to get the team uh, you know, playing at a pace that that keeps them free and generating quality shots. And in that

first shift, he just wasn't doing it. And then Russ came in and change the pace of this game and the uh uh in the early first quarter, and when Lebron came back in his entire demeanor was different. And

this is a credit to Russell Westbrook. I think I think Russell Westbrook opening up that game with pace clicked for Lebron that he needed to do the same thing, and when he came out in that second quarter or in the second shift, excuse me, he had a completely different level of energy and ended up playing his best game of the season, did a really nice job Defendingjeremy Grant. This was the second set of video clips that I put together that you're gonna want to find on Twitter

at Underscore. Jason lt I clipped all fifteen of these possessions, but there were fifteen possessions that Jeremy Grant attempted to make a play with Lebron James as a primary defender. Not only was it fifteen possessions, it was fifteen complicated possessions. Almost every single time, they were either bringing Jeremy Grant out of the corner and making Lebron chase him over the top of a wide pin down, or they were

doing like an ex dribble handoff. A lot in the fourth quarter, they did this but like a ex dribble handoff at the top of the key to try to get Jeremy Grant an advantage as Lebron had to navigate

a screen. So Lebron was always having to navigate a screen to then get into place to defend Jeremy Grant, and on those fifteen possessions, he held Jeremy Grant to four out of fourteen shooting from the field with an assist, a really nice job navigating screens, defending UH, pressing up on Jeremy Grant's shot, giving up a couple of layups on drives from Jeremy Grant. Knowing that over the grand scheme the game with his help defense by pressing up on his jump shot, he would get him to have

a rough shooting night. That's what ended up happening. UM forced Jeremy into a lot of contested pull up jump shots that he ended up missing. You know, I talked about this a lot in our Wednesday Tuesday's show that was disastrous with the UH, with the technical difficulties. Apologies Again, I was really irritated that night, as you guys could

probably imagine. But anyway, when we were talking that night, I was talking about how, you know, when Lebron's going through offensive slumps, which is a natural part of coming back from injuries. Like we talked about that on Tuesday night. It was like his third game in twenty days, so obviously he wasn't gonna be in rhythm to look like

m v P Lebron. But there are things that are under your control, your decision making and your effort, and Lebron made some pretty inexcusable effort mistakes and decision making mistakes during that that Monday game, and in this game, he devoted a great deal of energy to getting back in transition defense, defending the best player, second best player depending on how you feel about Anthony Simon's defending the

other teams, you know, best scoring wing. And then he also had to great an offensive game, which is great. But the Lakers win that game even if Lebron doesn't shoot as well as he did, because he took care of the stuff that he needed to control, which is what he does on the defensive end of the floor. Um. I wanted to talk about the importance of Lebron's jumper for a second, because you know, I always talk about

drible penetration. Drible penetration is a combination of your ability to athletically beat people with your first step and your ability to knock down jump shots to force the defender to be more on his toes rather than on his heels. Right those those That dynamic is a really delicate balance, and you know your you can make up for a lot of physical limitations if you're making shots. You know, for instance, Steph Curry is an underrated athlete, and we've

talked about that a lot. You know, is conditioning as ridiculous. He's pretty quick with his feet, and he's surprisingly big, even though a lot of people think of him as a small guard. Um, but he he's one of the best rim finishers in basketball, and a big part of that is he weaponizes his shot to get clean driving lanes. And clean driving lanes give you the versatility to go to all your different finishing moves and things like that.

And you know, Lebron doesn't look athletically what he was early in the season and uh in last season, and that will probably come over the course of the next couple of weeks. But he manufactured a bunch of dribble penetration last night by hitting shots. You know, you saw the clear one where um where he pumped faked and Jeremy Grant came out and he threw that rifle pass too. I think it was when you and Gabriel I can't remember.

Was some blaker that was in the block and then he cut immediately after the past and got a dunk. So that's a driving dunk generated by the threat of his shot. There was another one in the late fourth quarter, uh where he pump faked, got a got a step on the defender. Because of the pump fake, the defender left his feet and he threw a no look past Austin Reeves in the right corner for a three point shot.

And then there was a third one. I can't remember the exact details, but there were three plays in that game where Lebron created dribble penetration with the threat of his jump shot. And so you know, his legs will come around and his athleticism will allow him to manufacture even more drible penetration, but him making those three point shots is so important for him to be successful in

the meantime. And like we talked about with Russell Westbrook and we're gonna talk about more in a minute, that dribble penetration in in pace is so important for the Lakers to avoid that stagnant half court environment where they can't score because they don't have enough shooting. And so it's it's good to see Lebron um uh, you know, uh, making some shots to buy him some leeway on that front. You know, I was really critical of Lebron on Monday. Um,

he's my favorite player of all time. But you know this is the stay and or that I hold him to. You are the leader of this team, you know I will if you have a game where you go out and you struggle to make shots because you're out of shape because you're coming back from injury, I will never say a damn word. Um, I'll call it what it is,

which is a basketball player rebuilding his rhythm. But when you don't run back on defense and you make poor decisions as one of the best decision makers in the history of the league, to me, that's the leader of the Lakers not doing his job. And he and he didn't do his job on Monday. But again, just like we talked about from a team wide scale, the only thing you can do in that situation is continue to put one foot in front of the other and go out and play a good basketball game on Wednesday. And

that's what he did. You know, he also happen to have a great offensive night, but he went out and he defended really really well. He competed on the glass, he competed in transition, took care of the things that were in his control, and then some of the variant stuff also went his way, and he had a superstar level performance. I want to talk about Russ for a second, because you know, you look at the box core, he

has ten points on fourteen shots. He's four for fourteen from the field only as four assists didn't close the game. I thought it was one of his best games of as a Laker. He completely changed the pace of the game when he came in in that second quarter. Obviously, he hit those two massive shots at the end of the second quarter, at the right four halftime and right at the end of the third quarter, but even without those, he just did an outstanding job getting dribble penetration, playing

with pace, generating high quality shots. There were some funky lineups, especially that one that I think he I think it was the one he ended the third quarter with where he was legitimately out there without Lebron, without Anthony Davis, without Austin Reeves, and just a bunch of guys, and he his ability to consistently beat his man off the dribble and get into the paint, get generated high quality

shots on the back end. You know, if that's his job, his job, And again it's like the the important thing for Russell Westbrook to figure out is it's not about box score results. It's not eight nine and seven. What it is is play with play with pace and energy, get consistent dribble penetration, and limit your mistakes. And that's what he did. There were maybe two or three shots that he took that I didn't like, a quick transition, like like a couple of the early shots he took

in his first quarter shift were tough. There was like a quick pull up three that I didn't like. He rushed to layoup that he missed. But you know, there's two or three mistakes in there. But he also had zero turnovers, so in general, it was a low mistake RUSS game where yeah he was four for fourteen, but he generated a ton of dribble penetration, changed the field and pace of the game. That's his job. That's Russell

Westbrooks job. Now. I know a lot of RUSS fans get concerned when he doesn't get to close, but the reality is is he's he becomes redundant at that point and a lot of it has to do with how well Lebron's playing. When Lebron is playing like an m v P, which he did last night, you don't need Russ out there in crunch time because what you would rather have his good off ball players who are edern

off all situations on both ends of the floor. That way, you don't have that redundancy, which kind of led to the problem on Monday night when he had Schroeder and Lebron and in Russ all in at the same time and the offense just went to hell um really quickly. But a really nice performance from Russ, and I thought it was a perfect example of what the Lakers need from him in ways that go beyond the box score. Austin Reeves career high twenty two points on ten shots.

He is really good at getting defenders out of position with pump fix. I was watching last night and I'm like, man, I swear he gets to the line so often, and so I did some research today. He leads the entire n B a Austin Reeves does and free throws made per game by players that are tempting fewer than seven

shots per game, So just you know, it's funny. Uh. Somebody of my buddy Ralph, another Lakers fan that I talked to on Twitter sometimes um Uh mentioned that he was really good at drawing fouls when he was in college, and it just he just he just has a really natural feel for scoring and passing the basketball, and in general feeling the floor, understanding where defenders are when he

needs to pump fake when he doesn't. It's funny. He pump fakes so frequently, and he gets defenders off of their out of there, like jumping out of their shoes and out of position so frequently that he can actually get shots off in traffic because guys become paranoid about jumping. He's turned himself into a damn good two way guard in this league. His on ball creation is pretty legit.

He's generated sixty eight points and sixty eight pick and rolls this year, which is in the sixty second percentile, so he's already an above average pick and roll creator. He's generated thirteen points on nine is so so really good, albeit slow, low volume. And then he's an excellent spot up threat. He's scored eighty two points and sixty two spot up possessions percent on two point jump shots on three point jump shots. So shout out to Austin Reeves.

He's been playing some really good basketball lately. Lakers have one six out of eight. Yes it should be seven out of eight, but it is what it is. During this eight game stretch, they are sixth and offense, fourth in defense, and fifth and and net rating. The schedule has been light, but they're also playing good basketball during this Uh. For the season, they are now up to the second and best half court defense in the league.

Like we mentioned earlier, um, they are dead last in transition defense though, so again their stars making good decisions, you know, uh, when they missed shots around the rim, that's fine, but sprinting back instead of complaining at the refs, just in general, jogging back in transition instead of sprinting. When their stars are on top of their transition defense stuff, they can trap other teams in the half court and then they can win games because of how good their

half court defense is. Really is about the stars. When the stars are sharp, the Lakers win. Everyone's gonna point to the schedule, and yes it's been really weak, as they should. You should point to the schedule, but you have Milwaukee on Friday and then December is full of games that are opportunities to prove to everyone that the Lakers are for real. So go do it. You know, if you don't want anybody to pull out the schedule as an excuse, go beat the Bucks on Friday, and

that's gonna be a fun game. I'm looking forward to covering it all right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I will see you guys tomorrow for our quarter season awards. The Volume