Hoops Tonight - Why Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, & Celtics will run away with the Eastern Conference

Denver Nuggets. In the last, but not least, Oklahoma City Thunder had an impressive performance against the Milwaukee Bucks led by Damian Lillard and Yannis, who look a little rusty right now. So we're gonna break down all three of those games from the perspective of all six teams. And then I have three mail back questions for the end of the show as well. You guys are the joke. Before we get started, subscribe to the YouTube channel. We're

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get started. The start of the NBA season is less than a week away, but we still have NFL in full swing, college football in full swing. The Major League Baseball playoffs are going on right now. My Arizona Diamondbacks just got the shit kicked out of them by the Phillies last night. But there's still concerting comedy shows that are touring around the country as well, and the best way to get tickets to any of these is on

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dollars off your first purchase. Terms apply again. Download the game Time app entercode Hoops. That's Hops for twenty dollars off. No matter where you live, get out and have some fun this week. Download the game Time app. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the dress Russal for the Celtics, they started their five best players like I've been begging for them to do all preseasons. They started Derek White and Drew Holliday alongside

Jason and Jalen and Chris tops Porzingis. All five guys played at least twenty four minutes stretching into the third quarter. They scored seventy eight points in the first half, and that was with a little dead stretch there. At the end of the second quarter, they were scoring at will, and it was classic pace in space basketball. Everybody was involved. The ball wasn't sticking anywhere. People were making quick decisions, and because everybody can dribble, shoot, and pass, it's borderline

impossible to guard all of these. Kristops. Porzingis picking Pops, he's just standing at the top of the key, wide open on these. They're gonna be able to get good looks out of there all the time they can. It was really like this simple. They dribble the ball up the floor, and if it wasn't Kristops, it'd be someone else, like a guard setting like a ghost screen or something.

But they get a closeout opportunity like this. The defense is in rotation and then that guy, let's just say Drew Holliday, comes and sets a ghost screen for Derek White and then pops the three point line. They throw the ball to Drew and Drew's got a guy closing out of him. It's like a pump fake and then like one dribble and then it's a wide open three

every single time. And like I think they made like sixteen or seventeen threes just in the first half and like, if you really zoom in on him from the standpoint of shot quality, these are good looks. Like these are

really really good looks. This is replicable offense. It's just a combination of Like it's funny because every team needs to have an offensive identity based on their talent, and the Celtics have a great combination of ball handling and shooting down the roster, right, Like, their core five guys are all extremely gifted offensive players, and so does it make sense to run heliocentric style offense with this group.

You don't want to go down and just have Derek White and Jalen Brown stand in the corners and Drew Holliday stand on the wing and just have chrisops Porzingis come run pick and rolls. That's not the right way to run this type of team. Whereas if you've got Brook Lopez and Malik Beasley and Chris Middleton, it might be a little different, right, Like in that case, you might want to space more and run more of the same actions over and over again again. Like I talk

about this with coaches all the time. You never want to gear your you never want to force your players to play your system. You want to gear your system to your players, and this is a pace in space, drive and kick team, and they can be really formidable offensively when they play like this. It's a big part of the reason why I feel like Boston's gonna run away with the conference. It's one of my biggest ta

for this year. I think the Celtics will be at least five games above everyone else in the league, let alone the rest of the conference in the regular season. Now we could talk about the playoffs obviously, Like the Knicks were able to stagnate them a little bit there in the late second early first quarter, there are going

to be stretches where rhythm becomes an issue. Like you can kind of see like because everybody can play, certain guys get squeezed a little bit, like Jaylen Brown in particular, kind of seemed out of rhythm in that first half. Started to get going in the second half, but like they were kind of force feeding him the basketball a little bit. So like they're gonna have moments where they don't look great in the postseason, it's still gonna come down to half court shot creation from guys like Jason

Tatum and somebody else out of that group. That's gonna have to rise to the occasion. But over the course of the regular season, they're gonna kick the shit out of a lot of people, because in a night in, night out, less scouting, more depth oriented basketball, they are going to thrive in that setting. Jason Tatum looks awesome.

He had twenty eight points on fifteen shots. A lot of the usual stuff we're accustomed to seeing from Jayson Tatum, but I liked the aggressiveness I saw out of him in the post, like you'd see him get you know, like you'd see him get Quentin Grimes on the left block and just immediately his eyes would light up and back him down and just bully his way to the basket. Did it to Evan Fournier in the second quarter. He

did it to Taikwon Jeffery's in the second quarter. You know, it's funny because we think of Jason Tatum as like a scoring wing, but the dude's gotten huge over the years. He's legitimately a very big and strong basketball player. And I've been begging over the course of the last year for Tatum to maintain his shot variety, not just everything out of a face up or live dribble from the three point line into a step back three or driving

into the paint. When you limit yourself, if you shut off the middle of the floor, you make it so that the defense is not even worried about eighty percent of the shots that normal players could take. Right they know they can press up on you in the three point line and offer help at the rim and slow you down. You need to show a willingness to work in the middle of the floor. And again, it doesn't have to be a bunch of step back nineteen footers

and really tough turnaround jump shots. Sometimes it's as simple as just turn your back and bully your way to the basket and maybe take like a short fade away that's closer to the rim, or go all the way to try to draw a foul. He's looked really good in the post so far in preseason. He's run eight post ups that have led to fifteen points. It's one point eight eight points per possession. An exciting start for Jason Tatum in the post this preseason. Boston's defense, so

the Knicks shot really really well in this game. They made nineteen threes themselves. They came out guns blazing and Dante de Vincenzo hit a long three at the start, Quinton Grime hit a bunch of threes right at the start. They shot the ball well, but they also played extremely hard and they're very athletic, so they kept it close throughout. It was actually really impressed by the Knicks and just their overall, you know, competitiveness in this particular game. But

the Celtics did have some stretches of frightening defense. Joe Miszula had them running this like two two one press off of made baskets in the first half, where like occasionally they catch the Knicks off guard and they wouldn't set up a press break and it would just be like Duce McBride in the backcourt just getting trapped and the Knicks through some kick ahead passes to try to beat the press, where like Al Horford was playing center

field and was able to make a play. Like they actually kind of caused some issues for the Knicks in their press press defense. But I like it for a couple of different reasons. It really just establishes the defensive end as something they're schematically trying to do, which will keep a mental focus down the roster. That will help them to be more focused on the defensive end of the floor. Right. And then again, to me, it's an

aggressive mentality as well. This is not a team that has a dominant defensive front line, right like christ Tops Porzingis is a good rim protector, but he's not a great rim protector. Al Horford and is you know, a good defensive player on the back line, but he's certainly not a great defensive player on the back line. They're not a team like you know, Jannis and Brook Lopez, where it's actually better for them to kind of sit back in the paint and try to funnel guys into them.

This is a Celtics team that needs to play aggressive defense. This is a team that has defense down the roster. They're a perimeter defense team. They have a lot of guys that can play passing lanes and get aggressive in ball pressure, and like's the that's the defensive identity that

this particular team needs to have. So I like the overall attitude that I've seen from the Celtics so far in preseason looks a lot more close to that twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two season rather than last year where I thought they went down a level defensively, and again like this, if you're a playmaking defense, that means you're up in passing lanes and you're applying ball pressure.

That's what ignites you going the other way. In transition, on the Knicks front, a bunch of key guys sat out, So I'm not gonna spend too much time on the Knicks, but a couple of guys that I want to shout out. Duce mcbridey didn't shoot particularly well, But it's always funny to me in these games when the stars are out, because you find out pretty quickly which one of your

role players actually is comfortable getting to his spots. And again, duson and shoot particularly well, but he was like the one Nick that seemed like he was comfortable kind of like getting over the top of ball screens, getting the defender and jail on his backside and getting to his spots where he could get a quality look like you saw Dante Devincenzo for instance, kind of struggle with that in this particular game, which is not a big thing

because obviously Dante de Vincenzo's more of a role player and not a guy that you're gonna have on the ball a ton, but I think Duce McBride kind of flashed a little bit of his on ball, you know, comfortable miss or comfort or whatever you wanna call it against that Boston defense. Quinn Grimes came out guns blazing from three, made a couple of nice driving kick passes

attacking closeouts as well. Dante de Vincenzo, like I said, struggled on offense, but I thought you saw a lot of his defensive upside, particularly in the late second quarter and then in the early third quarter with what he can do on the perimeter disrupting ball handlers. And then, last but not least, Jericho Simms ten rebounds in three blocks in thirty two minutes, had some nice isolation defense possessions against Jalen Brown where you could see his athleticism

be a problem. Again, he's only twenty four years old. It's pretty exciting what Jericho Sims could be in the big picture as well. I'd like to give you guys an update kind of big picture on the Knicks in the preseason, but Jalen Brunson and Julius Randall have barely played. I think they've combined to play twenty eight minutes total combined in this entire preseason. So it's hard to say at this point, but the Knicks are gonna be one of the teams that we cover very closely during the

regular season. All right, moving on to the Clippers and the Nuggets. So Paul George twenty three points in the first half on nine of thirteen shooting, did a really nice job attacking and getting downhill. Again, that's a huge thing for Paul George. He can be one of those guys that like it's funny because he's renowned around the league as one of the better, you know, skill guys in the league. But this is a guy that was below fifty percent in effective field goal percentage on pull

up jump shots last year. And a big part of it is he has a tendency to just take extremely difficult pull up jump shots. And so I like Paul George when he's more aggressive getting closer to the rim. And he made five shots in the pint in this game, including three shots at the rim. But he's getting closer shots. If you look at Paul George's shot chart, it's not

a bunch of nineteen plus foot jump shots. It's a lot of stuff closer to the rim, which I think is a direct indicator of his ability to be efficient the way that he was. But he looks healthy and he looks locked in in a good spot coming into the season. Twenty five pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups so far in preseason leading to thirty two points. It's one point two to eight points per possession, which

is awesome. I want to spend a minute talking about Russell Westbrook, who had another great game in a Clipper jersey last night. I just love his fit with the Clippers, and again, fit is everything. I talk about this concept all the time on the show. But the list of responsibilities on a basketball court, and your stars are good

at taking big chunks of those responsibilities away. But if you have guys that feel the same chunks of responsibilities, so for instance, like rim pressure playmaking, like well, Lebron's two best qualities are rim pressure and playmaking. So if you put him on the same team as Lebron, all of a sudden, like he's kind of trying to do

the same things that Lebron is doing. But like Lebron's weaknesses at this phase in his careers, he hasn't been as good of a perimeter shooter, right, and like, like obviously he's trying to conserve energy over the course of games, like on the defensive end of the floor and stuff like that. And like Russell Westbrook at this point, he can't shoot, and he struggles with some of the off ball stuff, at least he did with the Clippers, which

we're gonna talk about today. So again, it's not a big shock that he struggled to impact winning within the Lakers system when the things that he was great at were things that they didn't need from him, right. And then we look at the the Clippers in their situation and they the two biggest weaknesses in their offense are rim pressure and playmaking. So you absolutely need the things that he's great at. And you know, he's been better in a lot of the things on the periphery, which

we're gonna talk about here in a minute. But like, I also think that kind of stuff is connected. If he's able to impact winning within the two things that he's best at, that's going to naturally make him feel more confident, more bought into the system, just generally happier, and it's easier to be good at your job when

you're happy. How often do you go into a relationship, and if you're in a bad mood, it's harder to be nice, it's harder to keep a good attitude about stuff if you're upset because you're hungry, tired, fatigued, annoid, whatever it is. And the same thing stretches into every

single relationship, every single job you have. Right, Russell Westbrook was deeply unhappy in a Lakers jersey, and so I'm not surprised that he was less committed to make better decisions, cut back on pull up jump shots, be more committed on the defensive end of the four. Now he's happy with the Clippers and he's more willing to do that stuff. And again, I don't think anybody's blame free from the

Lakers situation. It's all of their faults. Russ is to blame Lebron and a dear to blame, the Laker fan bases to blame, the coaches, are everybody's to blame for that situation going south. But at the same time, it was doomed on arrival. So I don't really hold it against anybody involved, including Russ, including the Lakers themselves, And so I'm just happy to see him in a role that makes a lot more sense with the Clippers to talk about a couple of specific ways that he's really

helping this team. First of all, in transition. The Clippers made just six hundred and fifteen field goals in transition last year. That was bottom ten in the league. And remember, transition possessions are again you want to talk about your personnel. We talked about this earlier when we were talking Celtics Knicks, but like it's all about your personnel. Like, if you don't have transition personnel, then it's unrealistic to make them

run if they're not gonna be good at it. You need athletes, guys that like to run, high motor guys, guys that are more like read and reacting quick as opposed to like slow down in methodical right. PG and CHOI are a little more slow down and methodical, right.

But the beautiful thing is is you can do it even when those guys are trailing the play, Like Russ can grab an offensive or grab a defensive rebound, or grab an inbound pass and sprint up the floor, and Kawhi and Paul George can kind of work up at their own pace and as long as Russ makes good decisions, it'll work out right. Like if he goes piling into three three dudes in the paint and turns it over

or misses a layup, obviously that's bad. But if he dribbles up the floor and backs down into a quick post up and then identifies that nothing's open and then dribbles it out and they run offense, it can work right. And again, like there were some specific possessions that I saw where where he's just generating really high quality opportunities

for guys like Kawhi and Paul George. In transition, there was a play where Russ pushed the ball in transition, turns his back at the right block and starts backing down and Zeke Naji he's guarding Kawhi, who's trailing to play again because Kawhi is not a guy who likes to play with a ton of pace. He's kind of jogging up the left sideline. He gets to the left wing right, Russ is backing down and Zeke Naji sinks down below the foul line. Russ throws it to Kawhi.

Naji closes out to Kawhi but closes out short and Kawai just shoots like a standstill, pretty damn open three that he makes, Like that's a really easy shot for a guy who went healthy is a top five player in the entire world. And you can generate those types of open shots through rim pressure, through transition pushes, which were things they were not getting until Russell Westbrook was in the system. There was another Kawhi Leonard transition three in the corner, same type of thing is off a

made basket. Julian Strawther hits a pull up three against a bad pick and roll coverage from the Clippers. Russ gets the inbound pass on a make and just runs like crazy down the floor, does like a over the head rip through like that Dwayne Wade over the head pullover dribble against Reggie Jackson, gets all the way to the rim, pulls in a health defender and throws a kick pass to Kawhi Leonard, another completely uncontested three. There's a little a point where you pause right as Russ

is throwing the pass to the corner. All five Denver nuggets were in the paint. This is the value of rim pressure, which you can generate in transition as well as you can in the half court shot in the half court as well, like Russ can like really cause problems for smaller guards in the post. Aalen Pickett is a big, strong guard who just got drafted for the Nuggets. Russ like just buried him in the post, and as a result, DeAndre Jordan had to come over and help

at the front of the rim. As a result, Justin Holiday had to kind of sink down to help on Zubac and he just throws the kickout pass to Paul George on the right wing. Now, Paul George one of the fifteen best player twenty best players in the world. Pump fake, you know, I can't remember who was I think it was Justin Holliday runs by him on the pump fake, just one easy dribble into about nineteen feet and rising up for basically a practice jump shot for

one of the best players in the world. And again, these are things that they absolutely weren't getting before he was in town. And that's I shouldn't say in town because they stayed in the same town, but in a Clippers jersey. I think there are very specific ways that Russ compliments this specific roster. And again, like I've talked about this all the time. One of the most valuable elements of NBA offense is rim pressure. That is what

compresses the defense. It is what generates offensive rebound opportunity and close out opportunities when the defense is in rotation or then your aggregate ball handling and guys attacking closeouts and things like that can get great shots. He fills a need. Now. The key to Russ making a winning impact even in this role comes down to three things in my opinion, the fit, which we just talked about,

but defensive commitment. We saw him play defense of one of the highest levels of his career in the first two games of that Phoenix Sun series. If he continues to do that, that's something that can push the ceiling of this Clippers team even higher. And again that kind of brings me back to the happiness element element. I think he could be more committed on those details simply because he's happier in a Clippers jersey than he was

in a Lakers jersey. And then, last but not least, limiting mistakes taking away bad shots, Like here's the stat for you, Russell Westbrook has not attempted a single pull up jump shot this entire preseason in like thirty something in like thirty seven to thirty eight minutes. That's a significant stat. Last year in the preseason for the Lakers, Russ took six pl jumpers. It was still something that was in his diet back then. Here's some crazy stats

for you. A pull up jump shot from Russell Westbrook in the twenty twenty two season. His full season with the Lakers was worth zero point eight points. Last year with the Lakers, it was worth zero points seven to seven points last year with the Clippers, and the regular season in the playoffs it was worth zero point eighty three points. So it's just been a bad shot for years now for the Clippers, and it appears that he might finally have made the adjustment just to take it

out of his game entirely. Again, he's taken zero of them, and this is a guy who loves to take those jump shots. That's a significant move towards limiting his mistakes, limiting turnovers. That's something he's gonna have to get a little better at. He's been turning it over at a

pretty high rate in the Clippers jersey. He's over five turnovers per one hundred possessions, and last year's regular season, in the playoffs, and in this year's preseason, So he'll need to kind of tone back that a little bit. And then last but not least the or lastly the off ball mistake, so like losing a shooter off the ball or missing box. But if he can limit mistakes and commit on the defensive end, he I'm not talking

about he can be. He can impact winning. He can impact winning at a top thirty level in the NBA, like legitimately at a fringe star level if he does, if he checks those boxes on the defensive end and in terms of limiting mistakes, that's how valuable he is pressuring the rim and as a playmaker within this type of system, within this roster where they need what he brings to the table. That's how strong his strengths are. And again, like there's been a lot of like misconceptions

surrounding Russ over the last couple of years. Like I saw another I can't remember who it was. It might

have been, Was it Gilbert Arenas? I think it might have been Gilbert, but somebody was Like I can't believe Russ is ranked eighty nine in the play ESPN player rankings, Like how in the world is Russ this low, And it's like there is a huge kind of like disparity between what most people think about Russ and like a lot of like specific player like full players and fans think of him right, And Russ does have a very loyal fan base of people that are extremely defensive of him.

And the reason why that big chasm of opinion exists is because of the highs and the lows. Russ's highs are not quite at the level it was when he

was an MVP, but they're pretty close. Like he can still be like downright destructive to the opponent and for stretches of basketball games because of how gifted he is athletically at his position still, but it's an up and down experience with Russ because he can be very mistake prone and in the past the highs outweighed that, but it became a more convoluted story in recent seasons, and

that's where that kind of gap in opinion exists. But to be clear, the high end of that opinion, all of Russ's fans, the former players that defend him so staunchly, that stems from how high his highs are and they have still been there over the years and he is still capable of reaching those highs. But overall, just say is a basketball I have very, very much enjoyed watching Russell Westbrook in a Clippers jersey in a way that I haven't in recent years. One last note on the

Clippers before we move on. The Clippers went to a an all wings like switching lineup at the end of the second quarter. It was Paul George Kawhi Leonard with Russell Westbrook, Kenyan Martin Junior, and Nick Patoom and they went on a run. They were switching everything. There were multiple possession where the Nuggets literally didn't even get the

ball inside the three point line. Again, like, switching is a great way to shut off two man game and three man game situations when you communicate well, right, Because like if a guy comes off a dribble handoff or off of a ball screen and he just runs into a new defender and then his defender has switched onto the screener, that action has been shut down. There's no opening, right, And that's a great way to like stagnate your opponent. And they had a lot of success there and they

went on a little run. There were some downsides, like they gave up an offensive rebound as Ignagy, where Russell Westbrook was a little overmatched from a size standpoint underneath the basket. There are always downsides to switching, but again it's about the give and take, and as long as you take more than you give back, it can be

a big positive. And you know, they've they've played a lot of switching groups in the past, but they didn't have guys like Russ or Kenyon Martin or even this version of Terrence Man who are like guards but that can guard like Fords but also have like real speed

and quickness. Like a lot of their old switching groups would be like Marcus Morris with Robert Covington and Nick Batom, and it's like, Okay, it's a lot of tall, thin guys, a lot of guys that aren't super super mobile, right, Whereas like now I've got a switching line up here with Kawhi Leonard or excuse me, with Russell Westbrook and Kenyon Martin Jr. Who are two freaky athletes that are

just super fast on the perimeter. Like there's a version of that where you take Nick Patuma out for Terrence May and then they could be even faster right, and then when you combine that with the Russell Westbrook like or the Russell Westbrook like rim pressure element, because that was the other thing is on the other end of the floor, they weren't as effective offensively as they could have been in those situations. That's where you get the

Russell Westbrook rim pressure element too. I think the small ball lineups for the Clippers could actually be more devastating this year than they have in recent seasons of this era. On the Nuggets front, I liked what I saw it from Julian Strather. Again, he only went three for eleven, but there was some pops of high level stuff, especially in his first shift because he was getting guarded by Kawhi Leonard and still kind of getting to his spots.

A lot of the shots he missed in this game were kind of on rotations, like catch and shoot situations and good looks that I expect him to make in the long run. He made another tough floater on a back cut against Nick Patum that where he was being smothered from behind and he still made the floater. He got fouled on another floater by Kawhi Leonard. He was five of six on floaters before this game in preseason,

so that's turned into a devastating weapon for him. And then he had some really nice feeds on rolls to the rim for DeAndre Jordan where he come off with ball screen, get two defenders, pump fake high, pull that arm way out to the right, and throw that swing bounce pass into the post. He's up to nineteen points on nine pick and rolls in preseason. That's over two points per possession, which is unbelievable. And then Peyton Watson. I have two other guys two o the Nuggets. I

want to shout out. Peyton Watson. Still can't make a jump shot and is still missing way too many shots at the rim, but his athletic pop off the dribble is something that really popped off the screen for me. In this game, I talked about that switching lineup for the Clippers again. What happens when a team switches. They

shut down your actions from there. You have to find a way to get them in rotation in a one on one matchup right, and two of their good offensive possessions against the zone were literally Peyton Watson driving closeouts and he had one on Paul George and another on Kawhi Leonard and again like he's obviously super raw and he's gonna have to polish up the skill stuff. But Peyton Watson's like slashing ability is a real exciting talent

that could amount to something in the big picture. And then the last guy I wanted to shout out was Hunter Tyson, a player haven't had a chance to watch at. He's big, and he can score the basketball. He hasn't shot well in previous preseason games, but when I watched him in the game against the Clippers, he looked like an NBA player. He had a nice jumper and pick and roll around like ten feet from the basket. He had a transition possession where he bodied Robert Covington at

the rim for a finish. He had a couple of nice threes on the move, getting his feet set quickly. He had a powerful transition dunk. Again, he just looks like an NBA player. I'm not sure if he'll make the Nuggets roster, but he just looks like a guy that i'd see in the NBA somewhere. He's tall, can shoot, mobile, smart kid. I think he's someone that can play in the league, all right, Thunderbucks. Chet Holmgren struggled a little

bit with Robin Lopez's physicality. You could tell Robin was going out of his way to just shove him under the basket and shove him out of position on box outs, and jam him on screens and do everything in his power to make him feel uncomfortable. You could tell Chet was getting a little frustrated and a little fatigu in particular. But I don't think that's going to be an issue in the big picture, because Chet also had a good

game in this game overall, I thought. But I thought that was an example of some of the struggles he'll have in his first season just by being finn which is something that is not unique to him. There are a lot of thin big men in the NBA, but that's something he'll run into. I thought. You saw some of his defensive upside against Damian Lillard. We all saw the clip on social media of Dame coming off against a switch and hitting that hard step back to his

right and check blocking him. But there were also a couple possessions in that first quarter where Chet really bothered Dame on pull up jump shots and pick and roll just by having his length up to contest. There's one in particular at the top of the key where Dame changed his release a little bit and shot it higher and ended up leaving it short in a large part because Check got a good contest, and if you look at the replay, Check didn't even come out that far.

He didn't even come out above the level of the screen. And that's the unique thing with his physical tools, with how long he can be, he can just cause problems without having to go all the way out, which is a real weapon. Josh Giddy had a nice game. He had nineteen points on twelve shots, generated a lot of good close out opportunities with skip passes. That's his unique talent, right.

He's big, and he could see over the floor and he sees the floor well, so he can make those skip passes in a way a lot of smaller players can't. He's been an important connective piece for them over the course of the last couple of seasons. He's at one point three six points per pick and roll and one point sixty seven points per ISO in preseason nice game from Josh Gitty. Jannis just obliterated the Thunder front line when he was out there. It was actually kind of funny.

There were several possessions where he was posting up Jalen Williams and it honestly looked like a man amongst boys, Like I don't know, that phrase gets used all the time, but this was like the literal version of that. There was a play where like he posted up Jalen Williams on the left block and like spun baseline and just dunked over chet Holmgrin like Jannis is in prime shape obviously. Damian Lillard though a little out of shape in my opinion, he left a lot of jump shots short on the

front of the rim in this game. It really just he just seems like he's just not quite in that mid season groove. Yet He's just three for sixteen on jump shots in preseason. That's his best skill as an NBA player, right, so obviously he's gonna make those shots. I wouldn't overreact to it. To me, it's more important that he gets guarded like Dame, and he's still very

much is getting guarded like Dame. There was a stretch in the early second quarter where Dame was out there without Giannis and it was all reserves with him, and in that lineup, like the thunder were just double teaming and whenever he had the basketball and there wasn't enough skill on the floor around him to make them pay. But like, teams are still guarding Dame like Dame, and that will met obviously, and to win the title, they're gonna need Dame to make shots, which, by the way,

I believe he will make shots. But in the big picture, especially in the early part of the regular season, while Dame's playing his way into shape, it's more important that he's guarded like he's Damian Lillard. And he is very

much still being guarded like Damian Lillard. And he did end up coming out for the start of the second half and playing an extra shift there in the third quarter, and he had a driving left handed layup, and he hit a pull up jump shot in pick and roll where he didn't have much separation and he rose up and knocked it down and was like just inside the three point line. So I'm not worried about Dame in

the big picture. Last Bucks player I wanted to shout out was Malik Beasley, got super hot, made six threes. Something to keep in mind because I talked a lot about how I view Beasley moore as a bench player in the big picture, and I think Pat Connaton can start. This is something he's capable of doing though, Like he played really really poorly with the Lakers last year, but he still had four games where he hit six plus threes.

Like when he gets hot, he can get unconsciously hot, and that's just kind of part of the Malik Beasley experience. It comes in waves with him, and I think that's an interesting way for them to approach the rotation, especially when it comes to the Pat Connatan Malik Beasley kind of decision making process is like you can go with

whichever one of them is hot. You know, I think Pat Connaton's got a higher floor, but there's no doubt that Malik Beasley has a higher singling and you can kind of make that read as the coach based on which one of them is playing better in that moment. All right, let's move on to the mailbag. First question is from Teddy. You mentioned in the Bucks video that they were a team that were honest with themselves and

about their weaknesses and then they made a move. Are there any other teams in the league that need to do that and make a trade I know you've mentioned the Calves, but anyone else I put down three teams the Bulls. I just think it's amazing that they've been running it back despite basically being a below five hundred non playoff team, while being fully healthy last year, with that kind of star talent on the roster that all has trade value, got like Demarta, rozen's on an expiring

deal and brings real like like playmaking and scoring. You have to think that he's valuable to a contending team that can take a chance on him to give them an up, you know, like a like a potential upside during this season and then cap space in the big picture, right And then obviously Zach Lavine is another guy that a lot of teams have been linked to over the years. So it's just kind of weird to me that they've

continued to run it back that way. I still think the Bulls end up blowing it up at the deadline, but we'll see the Miami heat like, you just don't have enough talent? How many times are you gonna keep running it back with Jimmy and Bam and Spoe And obviously I think that group needs to stay, but I wish they'd get more aggressive on the peripher to try to bring in some talent. I'd love to see them go after James Harden, even though it's a risk, just

because there is a window here. Jimmy is getting older, right like, and you just simply don't have enough talent. So I'd like to see them get aggressive. And then lastly the Clippers if they can't be healthy in the playoffs this year, Again, at a certain point, it's your fault if you keep running it back right and like, maybe it all works out and they win the title

this year. And I'm not saying they should do it now, but if they get to the end of the season and someone else has the trophy again and Koir Paul George, we're unable to finish the season, at what point do you just acknowledge that that's the reality of the predicament with those two as your foundational stars and make a move at that point. Next mail back question, D'Angelo Russell said that he wants to shift his game into playing

like Derek White. If you could give d lo an NBA player to study and replicate, who would it be? My answer would be Mike Conley. So I actually think the Derek White comp makes a lot of sense on a couple of levels. Derek White is definitely a better athlete. He's a little more slender, a little quicker, a little bit longer, has longer arms, better shot blocker, things like that. But he's also a very very smart team defender, and

that's something that Dangel Russell's capable of being. D'angela Russell's big, he actually has a decent amount of size and so playing passing lanes and switching systems, and he actually has been competing a lot in ball screens this year, getting

over the top and back pressuring. But like in general, just by being in the right spot where you're supposed to be in the scheme while having a decent set of physical tools like he does, you can be an impactful defender and then on the offensive end of the floor.

It's kind of a very similar role in the sense that, like you know, a lot of times the Celtics, even though they're a Tatum and Brown led team, they would use Derek White to get the defense in rotation because of his ability to get dribble penetration, and you know, D'Angel Russell is just it's less about dribble penetration with him, and more about his ability to methodically work and pick and roll and make the right reads which generate those

close out opportunities, which is kind of a similar type of impact, right, Like, if you generate a close out opportunity for an athlete on the wing, that's every bit as good as you slashing by your man. Right, It's just who can draw multiple defenders and make the right reads, which is something I think D'angela Russell can do at a high level. Still, I think Derek White is the perfect comp for him, and I'm not surprised at all

that he said. So last mailback question from Luke. You talk a lot about injury luck and luck in general being necessary for a championship. Do you think that is part of the reason that pat Riley did not throw the kitchen sink in for Dame because he can reasonably convince himself that injury luck had bounced the other way in any of the past four years, the heat would have won the chip Bam and Drodgits in twenty twenty, Harrow and Jimmy in twenty twenty two, and Harrow in

twenty three. So and then there's a second question from Luke also, will Hoops Tonight be getting exclusive content on

the channel throughout the season or mostly just reposts. I'll answer that in a second, but the gist of it is is like I tend to think you need both, Like, yeah, you do need injury luck to win the title, But have you noticed I don't have the Mini Heat listed as a top tier contender, Like, I don't have them listed there because as of right now, they simply do not have enough talent to go toe to toe with

the very best teams in the league. They're usually good at exposing the flawed teams that are above them, but every year they do eventually run into a team that just simply brings too much firepower to bear. And so like again like, yeah, you need luck. Yeah, Dame is a particularly risky pick as a guard who's thirty three years old or whatever. But at the end of the day, you just simply don't have enough talent right now. So luck is even a factor for you because you don't

have the firepower. So I think they should be aggressive anyway. And the second part of his question, will Hoops tonight be getting exclusive content on that channel throughout the season or mostly just reposts. My shows with Colin Cowhard will be on the Volumes feed, but everything else is going to be on the Hoops to Night channel. Just imagine the way last year went from the same point of our content being on the Volumes channel, all of that

will just be on the Hoops Tonight channel. Now. The only thing that's gonna be different this year compared to last year is we're using breakout clips. Now, what that means is every day I'm gonna do a show like this.

This show is gonna be right around forty minutes. Most of them are gonna be around the same length, maybe a little shorter during the season, right, Like that thirty forty fifty minute clip is actually gonna have four or five topics, right, And what ends up happening is the YouTube thumbnail is limited in how much we can market, and the title is limited in how much we can market. It's why half of you guys think all I talk about is the Warriors and Lakers, even though I talk

about every team in the league. Right, And so what we do, what we're going to do this season is we'll have the full show, but then we're gonna do breakout clips for every segment. So if you're a Celtics fan and you only want to listen to the segments that are about the Celtics, all you gotta do is go to the YouTube channel and look for a Celtics thumbnail and it'll be in there somewhere. If you're an

Oklahoma City Thunder fan, just go look for that, right. So, like when we're doing our game breakdowns during the season, if I cover five games on a Thursday morning after a jam packed Wednesday night slate, it'll be one big show, but there will be you know, like you know, it'll be like Lakers Nuggets for one of them, and it'll be like, you know, Warriors Kings for another one, and there will be individual breakout clips in the channel. So

you can see. Now we are going to try to change the marketing so that there's like a very clear distinction between the two. So like the thumbnails for the full shows will look one way, then the breakout clips will look a little different, just so it's easier for you guys to see. But it's going to be the same coverage. It's just going to be parsed out into more videos, just so that people that are from the smaller fan bases can still see their content and look, I get it. I am a Lakers fan, so I

talk a lot of Lakers. They're also the largest fan base in the NBA, so I talk a lot of Lakers. I also talk a lot of Warriors. Right, I'm going to talk about a lot of the bigger teams in the league a lot, but I also talk about the rest of the teams, and if you get sick of hearing that stuff, I want to have you, guys be able to easily access the content that you're looking for. But we have big plans for that YouTube channel this year. It's going to be more active than we have been

in previous year. So just keep an eye on that feed over the course of the season. All Right, guys, that's all I have for today, where we have one more show this week. You're gonna go tomorrow. I think I'm gonna do rookies. I think I'm gonna go deep dive on like a men Thompson and a Sorry Thompson and chat who's technically gonna be playing his first full season in Victor Wemban Yama and Brandon Miller's a guy

I haven't talked about yet. Scoot Anderson's the guy I haven't talked about yet, So I think I'm gonna do rookies tomorrow, and then Monday we're gonna do like kind of a big picture of season preview, just talking about some predictions, and then Tuesday night instant reaction videos to both of the games before we head into the groove. All Right, guys, I appreciate you, and I will see you tomorrow. The volume