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an incredible weekend. We're just gonna be hitting three games from last night today, the national television doubleheader between the Warriors and the Wolves and the Clippers and the Nuggets, and then Damian Lillard dropped seventy one points on Houston Rockets. I have some thoughts about Dame's loyalty to the Portland Trailblazers, as well as some thoughts on the overarching NBA theme of massive individual scoring outbursts, which I think is super interesting.
You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. Then if for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, All right, let's talk some basketball. So the Warriors were down ninety six eighty
seven about halfway through the fourth quarter. Nazreid in particular was killing them in the absence of Draymond. He had thirty points and nine rebounds in this game. His skill set kind of reminds me of Boogey Cousins in the sense that he's almost like a perimeter big, can handle the hell out of the basketball, can dribble it, and then he has that like natural scoring feel we've talked a lot about, which is like that creativity mixed with
the skill set and then an irrational confidence. Those are like all those ingredients that you need to be that natural type of score. I'm actually really interested to see how he factors into Minnesota's plans or if they end up attempting to move off of him at some point, and if so, where he ends up and where he can fit elsewhere in the league, because he's actually a
super interesting player. Who's had a super interesting season. But as a result, the Warriors were down ninety six eighty seven, and down the stretch of this game, they showed some vintage Golden State Warriors execution and then Klay Thompson flashed some really high level individual shot creation, which is something that hasn't exactly been a focal point of Klay Thompson's career, but he's had to lean on it a lot in this perticular season as the Warriors have needed him to
because of injuries. And so I want to go, we haven't done this in a while, but I want to kind of go play by play down the stretch of this game, and so I can highlight those two specific factors because I think they're super interesting and I think they factor big time into Golden State's eventual ceiling in a potential playoff run if they were to get healthy.
So from ninety six eighty seven, it started on the defensive end with the Warriors doing what a lot of teams do, ignoring a player that they don't view as a shooting threat. They started helping off of Austin Rivers in the right corner, so Jonathan Kamingo was guarding Austin Rivers and he was able to help down into the lane to shut down the other Timberwolves actions playing five on four defensively, and Austin Rivers missed back to back
wide open threes in the corners. I think that just kind of got them started, and on the first one, Dante DiVincenzo grabbed the miss and pushed the ball up the floor and found a semi transition opportunity. He was being guarded by Jordan McLaughlin and I talked about this all the time. When there's no when there's a transition situation, your help defense isn't set, and so there's opportunities to
attack the rim before the defense gets set. And that's a big part of why it's important to push in transition. There's no point in facing a set defense if you don't have to. He ends up hitting Jordan McLaughlin with a really nice behind the back dribble, gets down the lane and makes a little scoop shot in the lane. After the second Austin Rivers miss, Klay Thompson comes through
an elevator screen. Elevator screen basically involves two screeners kind of at the elbow, maybe a little bit higher than the elbow in the NBA, but the shooter will run through the screen and then the two guys will touch shoulders and shut the door. And they shut the door on Anthony Edwards and Klay Thompson knocked down to three. So that kind of got them back in the groove. They went from being down nine to down four. From
there after, they just got two stops. Steve Kerr switched to a zone defense, a two to three zone kind of extended out to the perimeter, and they had just gotten two stops. And that's what I like it is because it's about to me. I I look at these are execution elements of the game that you attribute to the coach. But I love it when you mix up coverages.
A lot of times coaches will mix up coverages just as a means of countering something that's killing them, right, Like, Okay, they're killing us in drop coverage, so we have to start switching. Okay, well they're killing our big and switches, so now we need to start double teaming or trapping the ball handler or offering help out of the weak side to play three on two in the pick and roll. Defensively, what you don't see often enough in the NBA is
mixing up coverages even when they are working. And the reason why I like that is it prevents ball handlers from seeing the same coverage enough time enough times to then solve that coverage. So, for instance, like Austin Rivers is a professional basketball player, if you keep running that same coverage helping off of him in the corner with Jonathan Kaminga, he might eventually derive the necessary amount of
confidence to knock that shot down. But by quickly switching to Owe, you fundamentally change the way the Wolves have to play off offense on the fly, and you prevent them from ever getting into that rhythm. Then you can go back to it a few possessions later and it's a completely different situation again at that point, so they go to zone and they end up getting a nase red contested three at the top of the key that he ends up missing. This is where Klay Thompson, the
on ball shot creator, kicks in a gear. And there's four players or four plays in particular that I want to highlight. And again, Klay Thompson, I've talked about this a lot. We just talked about it the other day. He's the second best shooter of all time in my opinion, but he's mostly been an off ball player in his career.
He almost prides himself on limiting dribbles, which is part of what makes him such a complimentary fit in the Warrior system when they are healthy, and it's a big part of why it works no matter who they brought in over the years, including Kevin Durant, but you never really think of him as that on ball creator, and that's an entirely different set of offensive responsibilities. You're not navigating, you're not using off ball actions. You're not taking advantage
of attention directed to Steph Curry. You're not running second side action when the defense is already rotating. No, everyone is loaded up on you. You are the focal point. You're drawing the other team's best defender. Down the stretch of this game, he drew a lot of Jaden McDaniels, and in that set defense situation, you have to create shots and Clay has been kind of great at this over the course of this season when guys have been out of the lineup, and I think it's been an
underplayed storyline within the season. So it's ninety six to ninety two after that elevator screen and nase Red misses the three. There's five and a half minutes left. Clay gets the ball in the corner in a broken possession and the clock is running out. Austin Rivers is on him and he ends up taking a rip through to his left and then quick spinning towards the baseline in the deep corner, and he knocks down a shot off
the glass. Got a little bit of the corner of the backboard, but when you're shooting out of the deep corner, there's just not a lot of space between the rim and the backboard. It kind of just barely grazed it and went in. But that's a great example of rescuing possessions, which is one of the core responsibilities of a primary ball handler. Not everything goes right, especially at the end of games, and you neque guys that can just take
and make extremely tough shots. And Klay Thompson started this self creation sequence with that spinning fade away in the right corner, and that's not the last time he's gonna do that in this game. So they go down to the other end. Nazrid ends up getting fouled under the basket and he misses both free throws, and Dante DiVincenzo goes down and makes a nice reverse layup to tide the game. Dante DiVincenzo was great down the stretch of this game, So Minnesota calls a timeout. It's ninety six
ninety six. Kyle Anderson goes down and he makes a really weird twisting fade away in the lane, gets fouled. Now it's ninety nine to ninety six. This is where we get to Clay's second bit of high level shot creation. So he's standing on the left wing and he's got Mike Conley on him and Anthony Lamb is standing over there with nos Red on him. Actually, I think Lay Thompson was at the top of the key and Anthony
Lamb was at the left wing. So he calls calls Anthony Lamb to come over and set the ball screen, knowing that he's probably going to draw nas Red and at least a show if not like a normal kind of drop coverage up at the level of the screen. Klay Thompson just dribbles off that pick, draws both Mike Conley and nas Reed towards him, floats the pass down to over the top to Anthony Lamb at the top
of the key. Jonathan Kamena does an ice job cutting through the lane, which pulls Jaden McDaniels down with him and gets Anthony Lamb a wide open three at the top of the key that he makes. That's a simple bit of on ball shot creation, just a quick ball screen. See if they're dumb enough to send both guys to you, you might be able to get your teammate a wide open shot. And he did. Now it's ninety nine to
ninety nine. This is where we're going to get into a little bit of Golden State's execution, this time on the defensive end of the flour. So at ninety nine ninety nine, Anthony Edwards has Jonathan Kamina in the left corner and he starts driving along the baseline and he gets an angle. And every single Golden State warrior involved in this play does their job defensively and forces a turnover. So, first of all, Jonathan Kamena, you get beat baseline, what's
your first responsibility. You're not trying to cut him off at that point because you're probably not gonna be able to. He's too good of an athlete. But if you can just push him behind the backboard, that takes away his ability to finish at least directly at the rim, because the backboard is in the way right, he's gonna have to go underneath the rim and try to finish a reverse. Jonathan Kaminga does his job. He slides his feet and
pushes Anthony Edwards towards the baseline. Then from there, Kyle Anderson's in the corner and Dante DiVincenzo helps down to stop Anthony Edwards from being able to regain leverage back towards the rim. He gets in there and basically traps Anthony Edwards along the baseline. Anthony Edwards tries to throw a left handed hook pass to the corner, and Jordan Poole, who's guarding Jaden McDaniels on the right wing, rotates down to the corner and picks off the Anthony Edwards pass.
Everyone did their job, even Dante, when he trapped down there on the baseline got a deflection. I talk about this all the time. When you double team or give up any sort of defensive advantage by sending multiple defenders to one player. One of the best ways to help your team rotate out of it is to pressure the ball so hard that you can tip the pass or force a looping pass as opposed to an on time,
on target pass. That deflection from Dante DiVincenzo allowed Jordan pule sprinted to the baseline and then actually had to recover back to the corner and he was able to get there in time because Dante deflected the pass. It was that kind of like sharp defensive execution. I'm sure Draymond Green was watching the game and he was super impressed.
But those are those little details that have been almost kind of missing from the Warriors this year, which is uncharacteristic of them, and that's going to be one of the things you have to watch from them down the stretch to see if they're a serious playoff contender this year. Sonet nine to ninety nine, we get to Klay Thompson's
third bit of high level shot creation. So he has the ball in a triple threat on the left wing against Jade McDaniels, and Jade McDaniels has been an outstanding wing defender all year this here, and he's pressed up on Klay Thompson taking away his shooting pocket. Clay kind of protects the basketball over on the right side, and what he does is he just pump fakes, kind of like an awkward out of his shooting pocket pump fake. And the only reason that works is Clay might take that.
Clay practices and takes a lot of funky jump shots from different gathers in different places in his shooting pocket, so it adds a credibility to that pump fake. Jade McDaniels leaves his feet and then Klay Thompson just rips through to the baseline, draws naseried and Anthony Edwards at the rim. Mike Conley drops down off of Dante DiVincenzo to try to dig and box Kevin Looney out of the lane, and Dante Divincenzo's wide open on the wing. Klay Thompson hits him right in the shooting pocket and
he knocks down the three. Now it's one O, two to ninety nine. Now from there we have a little back and forth. Mike Conley drives on Dante DiVincenzo and doesn't see Anthony Lamb helping out of the strong side corner. Lamb blocks the shot, but then Dante DiVincenzo goes down the other way, and he misses an easy layup in transition.
Then the Timberwolves go down in nas Reed misses another transition three, and then we get to Klay Thompson's fourth and final bit of high level shot creation, which effectively ended up being the dagger in this game. So all he does is run a dribble handoff with Kavon Loney
on the right wing. It's defended well, but he rises up over the contest and knocks down the shot, kind of like a go to move for Clay, which is just I know that when push comes to shove, if I can get my footwork right because of my height in the quickness of my release, I will be able to get this shot off. And he can't just count on beating guys off the dribble all game long. He got that pump fake on Jada McDaniels and made that play. He got Nasri to bite on a screen and roll
earlier in an earlier possession. But sometimes he's going to have to demonstrate that he's going to rise up and knock down the shot to maintain that threat to create shots for his teammates. He rises up and knocks down the three over the contests and puts up the Warriors one five to ninety nine, and that effectively ended up ending the game. And then you know, again there's two things specifically from the stretch that I want to hit.
Clay has done incredible work this season to float his team when guys have been out of the lineup, and by doing it doing something that he's genuinely uncomfortable doing, which is on ball creation, to me, that demonstrates a like a sheer force of will. I was talking about this yesterday with Lebron, Like, Okay, everything's not working because your foot's all messed up, So now you're gonna go just power your way to the rim every time because you just don't want to lose the game. That's the
way I look at it from Clay. Of course, he doesn't want to play like that. He wants to play the way he's been playing his entire career with the Warriors, navigating off ball actions. But you need to adapt as your team needs you to, and Clay has been able to slot himself into an on ball roll and be credible for the Warriors this year. And that's a part of why once again Clay uh Steph Curry has missed eight consecutive games and the Warriors are four and four.
Every time this year that STEP's gone down, the Warriors have been able to float the ship. And it's not just Clay. A lot of other guys have stepped up today. I'm just highlighting Clay in particular, but I think that that again, Clay has always been one of my favorite competitors in the league. And you saw that again last night when he went up to the war Uh, when he went up to the Wolves bench and talked all the talked all that shit after he hit the dagger
to put him up one oh five ninety nine. But that he just has a competitive fire inside of him that is way underplayed. When we talk about these championship teams. There's just there's we We're way too quick to just be like, oh they're too they have all the talent, or oh it's this matchup, or oh it's this, or oh it's that, and we don't properly factor in the fact that, like the real psychopath, competitors tend to find a way to be at the top of the hill
when the dust settles. So tip of the cap to Clay and then the second thing again, was just that execution. It's just specifically for Golden State. You know, there's there's kind of like three things that you look at as the primary driving forces behind their struggles this year. And it's like primary players missing games, which we talked about earlier. And it's like bench depth, too many young guys in
the rotation coming off the bench. But that third piece has been even the Warrior starters in particular have struggled a little bit with execution at the end of games, not just on the offensive end, but also on the defensive end, and so it was encouraging to see the Warriors execute out execute in Minnesota Timberwolves team to get
a win down their three best players. The NBA season is heating up, and now is the perfect time to download FanDuel America's number one sportsbook because new customers get a no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars. That's bonus BET's back. If your first bet doesn't win, just download the fandals sports Book gap. It's safe, secure, and super easy to use. Then you can bet on everything from the money line to points scores to threes dranked.
My favorite bet this week is Tomorrow Night the Lakers on the road in Memphis. Without Lebron James, Memphis is a six point favorite, but they are a buzzsaw on their home floor and they're gonna be able to defend really well against the Lakers without their two best shot creators. So I would be on Memphis minus six. So don't miss the chance to get your no Sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars in bonus bets when you go to FanDuel dot com slash Jason T. That's FanDuel
dot com slash Jason T to learn more. And if you're in Massachusetts, get ready because FanDuel is coming soon. Make sure you check out FanDuel dot com slash mass and take advantage of their great pre live offers. Make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Minnesota has now lost seven out of
eleven games, and they're having two primary issues. First of all, they can't score their twenty second in offense over that span, but they are not executing in the details of the game, which is what points me in the direction of coaching. Usually they're giving up over fifty six points in the paint per game, which is twenty eighth in the league. Over that span, they're giving up fifteen fast break points a game over that span, that's nineteenth in the league.
They are twenty fourth and REEB eighteenth and second chance points A second chance points allowed, twenty fourth in points allowed off of turnovers. They're just shooting themselves in the foot in the details of the game, which is making it so that they're losing a bunch of games that they should win. This is a game they should have won. They should have beat Charlotte the other night. Those details will cost you basketball games. And again, there's a lot
of other issues with the Wolves. The fit is funky with Rudy Gobert. We've talked about that. I don't know where the hell Carl Anthony Towns fits and all of this. Mike Conley, you're getting kind of more or less what
you'd expect. Like he's really struggling to put the ball in the basket, but he still is like that really sound and secure ball handler that's not gonna turn it over, and he's gonna get guys in their spots, and he's gonna hit cutters when they move, and it's just overall what it is is He's just a league average point guard or worse at this point as he's declined, So it's not enough to really solve any of their problems. I just I look at this primarily as just reps
for Anthony Edwards. He's gonna get more opportunity this season to have the ball in his hands and learn how to close games, learn how to not settle for his jump shot as much as he has been, to learn how to not turn the basketball over when he over penetrates into the lane. This is just valuable experience for Anthony Edwards. But this, this Timberwolves team in particular, this isn't sharp enough in the details to string together some wins.
All right, let's move up to Clippers Nuggets. So we capped off an incredible weekend of hoops with a one thirty four to one twenty four overtime win for the Denver Nuggets over the Clippers. It was a wild game. The Nuggets jumped out to a massive lead, and then the Clippers kind of worked their way back. There's a couple of things in particular that was really helping the Clippers as they worked their way back. They went small and started switching everything and then they did that Miami
heat post defense thing that I always talked about. They were bracketing the post, so whoever got switched onto Jokic would just fight to front Yokics, which is again you get in, you get out in front of him, and you squat as low as you can and you push back on his body so we can't jump, and you force them to throw a lob pass over the top. And if they don't get the lob pass high enough, you can rise up and contest, like Russell Westbrook did
when he got that steal. But if the pass does get over the top, if they throw it higher, you've got backside help coming that makes that pass extremely difficult. They did a really nice job swarming Jokic in those front and back bracketing situations. And then Russell Westbrook had an outstanding third quarter shift. I thought it was one of his best shifts of this entire NBA season for him. He had a battle against Nikola Jokic in the post
where he fronted him and got his steel. There was another one where he got switched on to Jokic and a different shot went up and he won a box out rebound battle against Jokic. Those are those little things with Russ that always got glossed over by some of the more negative Laker fans. He steal is one of the most switchable guards in the league because of his size and his strength and his athleticism and his competitiveness. The guy just doesn't like to lose one on one battles.
It kind of snaps him into focus and makes him He's won a lot of battles against NBA Stars this season in the post. And then he just had an incredible offensive shift under control, pressuring the rim, pushing the pace, taking smart jump shots, like he took a little ten foot pull up jump shot that was really easy and
open that he knocked down. He had one other pull up jump shot that he missed, but it was a late clock situation where there was no other opportunity to get a shot on the rim, so we had to shoot it. The three that he took on the right wing was like he passed up a three to swing to someone else and then it got back to him and it was the right shot in that particular possession.
He just had an unbelievable shift and made a lot of plays and again it just for me as a basketball fan, it's been really fun to watch Russ play in a complimentary situation because he has strengths and he has weaknesses, and way too often we focus on the weaknesses and don't acknowledge that he has strengths. He still is one of the most switchable guards in the league. He still is incredible at pressuring the rim, pushing pace. He's still one of the best passers in the league.
So if you can put him in a situation where teams cannot target his weaknesses as much, then his strengths will come to the forefront and he'll be a major positive impact. And I thought Russ was a major positive impact in this game. And then Tylu did what I've been saying that every team needs to do, just don't play him in crunch time so that you don't have to deal with the issues there, and they did it.
Of course, the Clippers had their other issues in crunch time, having to do with Paul George, which we'll get to here in just a second. But I did think that that Russell Westbrook third quarter shift, and then just in general, the Clippers swarming and bracketing Jokic helped them get back into the game. Then down the stretch, you know, Mason Plumley comes into the game for the Clippers, and he actually makes a pretty big impact, showing some switchability out
onto guards. He got a really nice stop on Jamal Murray. He was flying around on the glass, making plays on both then securing defensive rebounds and offensive rebounds. But then down the stretch, Jokic just started attacking Plumbley, and Plumbley couldn't hold him. One on one big shock he had like a drop step, and one he had like a nasty one like fade away over his left shoulder. On
the other end of the floor. Kawhi Leonards it just keeps talking, targeting Jamal Murray on switches and hitting post up fadeaways. It was a really fun finish to this game. And then bad luck striked struck for the Clippers. Kawhi knocks the ball away from Jamal Murray. He ends up heaving up a half court shot at the end of
the shot clock. But Mason Plumley, who was great rebounding the entire fourth quarter, missed one box out and lost a contested rebound battle to Condavius Caldwell Pope, which led to Michael Porter junior hitting the three that put them up to and then Paul George tied it at the foul line. Interesting play. At the end of regulation, they were gapping Jokic off of off of Bruce Brown and
leaving him kind of open on the right wing. But I thought there was still plenty of opportunity to Jokic for Jokic to try to make a play, and he did something that Lebron's been criticized a lot for over the years. He just made the right play, swung it to Bruce Brown. He missed the three, But same thing
I used to always say about Lebron. There are times where you're better off as the best player forcing up a tough shot than passing to a teammate that might have a much lesser chance, or might not being a rhythm and might not feel confident in that particular situation. I would have liked to have seen Yokic be a little more aggressive there, but that's neither here more there,
neither here nor there, And the Jokics Lebron archetypes. They're wired that way for a reason, and that sort of thing tends to play out positive in the long run as they continue to feed their teammates for great shots over the course of the game. OT is where it got really interesting, because Kawhi was unbelievable down the stretch of this game, and then Paul George just took control randomly.
At the end of regulation he took a really tough pull up jump shot that he missed, and then in OT he took over the offense and made back to back pretty critical mistakes in my opinion. First of all, he had he had Bruce Brown on the right wing and took like a behind the back dribble step back three to his right with like ten seconds on the shot clock. And again there's a there's a time and place for tough shots, because I do think they're in
an important part of NBA games. When you're in rhythm, meaning like I've made a couple in a row, my release is dialed in, I'm confident I'm gonna take this tough shot even with ten seconds on the shot clock. And then which which Paul George was absolutely not in that situation. He was not in a groove. Kawhi was the one who was in the groove. Kawhi was the guy it made sense to take and make tough shots. Paul George co opted the game from Kawhi and took
an impossible shot when he was out of rhythm. They go down, they don't get matched up. We had back to back situations here in this overtime period where Marcus Morris and Kawhi Leentard botched their matchups in transition because they weren't talking. Nobody picks up Jamal Murray. He walks in and knocks down a three, and the Nuggets are up four. Very next possession, Paul George goes down and throws some garbage lob to Mason Plumley that's like two
feet too high and Karen's off the backboard. And in the ensuing transition possession, Marcus Morris and Kawhi again don't communicate. They don't get matched up with Michael Porter Junior. He hits a three on the left wing, and then the game is over. So kind of anti climactic, very similarly to that Clippers Kings game where there's all of this good Clippers stuff happening, but down the stretch, just execution
on both ends of the floor falling apart. And you know, Paul George is in general, if you talk to Clippers fans, they'll tell you one of their biggest complaints with him this year has been his shot selection, just too frequently taking impossible shots rather than easing into the game with easy shots and then taking those tougher shots as the game progresses. But then that and like you know, the
Clippers have great defensive personnel. They've been vaunted as a defensive team over the course of this Kawhi Paul George era. But you know what, it doesn't matter if you have all the switchable wings in the world if you guys can't communicate and transition and get matched up. And for Kawhi Leonard and Marcus Morris, they they've been playing together
for too long. They've been in the league too long to not know that you have to communicate and transition about who you're matched up with, and those little mistakes end up costing you games, especially against teams like the Nuggets that are extremely sharp in their execution. The Clippers have now lost eight out of nine games against Denver since the bubble collapse. It's kind of starting to look
like a mental disadvantage as well as a mismatch. One of the disadvantages of having a very wing heavy team is you can't physically match up with Nikola Jokic, and that puts you in a position where you have to constantly you do janky stuff with your defense to load up on him, and then he can punish you with his IQ and hitting open men, just like he did in that Bubble series when they came back and win one.
But I mean, I'm looking at this now as like, if the Clippers face Denver, whether it's in the first round or second round, does anybody think the Clippers have a chance to win that series. I mean, it's a bad matchup and Denver just has kind of a mental advantage over them. They better hope that someone else beats Denver for them or they have no chance of getting out of this conference. All right, So let's talk about Dami Loler for just a few minutes before we get
out of here. So he lit up the Blazers for seventy one points last night. I don't want to talk too much about the actual specifics of the basketball. The Rockets are terrible, so is Portland. And Dame is one of the best pull up jump shooters in the league, and he's gonna get hot. There's two things in particular, I wanted to hit though, starting with that pull up
jump shooting thing. So one of my buddies, Eddie Gonzalez, he is the guy who's the co host with Kevin Durant in that the ETC's podcast, and he tweeted this out last night and I thought it was an interesting question. He said, quote, what is your theory regarding the uptick and individual scoring this season? He just kind of presented
that to everybody on Twitter. And when I saw that, I've been thinking a lot about it last night in this morning, and to me, it really I have one prevailing theory that keeps coming to mind, and it reminds me of when the Blazers beat the Lakers a couple like a week ago and they lit the Lakers on fire in their drop coverage, and Darvin Ham said after the game basically that the team felt like they conceded the right types of shots and that they were just
a victim of variance. And there is some truth to that, Like I think they played the Oklahoma City Thunder two nights later and lost because they missed all the same shots. But I believe that there is a disconnect at this point between what coaches think is a bad shot and what actually is a bad shot for these players, And I think a lot of NBA coverages are designed to
concede pull up jump shots for obvious reasons. You'd rather have a pull up jump shot taken by a player than an easy driving layup or a kickout to a wide open shooter on the wing. So in theory, it sounds great, but the problem is is that these players. I think the skill set of these players has reached a point now where what coaches think is a bad shot actually isn't that bad of a shot for these guys. Like I've seen Andrew Nemhart, a rookie for the Indiana Pacers,
get hot and just barbecue drop coverage. They had a game against the Warriors earlier this year where he ran like thirty five pick and rolls for like fifty two points or something like that. It doesn't matter whether or not you're a star. We have so many good skill guards in this league that on any given night, if
a guy gets hot, it just renders everything useless. And it's starting to happen more and more frequently, and I do think we're gonna reach a breaking point here where the coaches of the NBA are gonna have to sit down with their stabs and look at each other and go like, I don't know that we can force Steph Curry to take pull up jump shots for an entire NBA Finals series anymore. That's gonna beat us. I don't know if we can be like, oh, we won because
we made Dame Lillard take tough shots. I don't know if we can be like, oh, we won because we made Jamal Murray tough shots. I don't think that that's gonna work anymore. And I think it's gonna continue to get worse over the course of the next couple of years for these defenses until somebody adjusts. And now that's what the NBA does. If you look throughout NBA history,
offensive ratings go up and down. The at league average offensive rating right now is like one hundred and fourteen for any given team, right and that's the highest it's ever been in NBA history. Now there's a big wrinkle there in the just the math of the three point shot. Like I was, I was talking about this the other day on my Twitter feed, But the NBA teams are attempting twenty nine more threes per game now than they
were in nineteen eighty eight. So when you consider those shots are worth one point five points for every one point of a different basket, you're going to obviously see an uptick in offensive ratings from the math. But even from this point, I do think we'll see things tick back down eventually, and it will happen when NBA defenses finally understand that they can't continue to run coverages that concede pull up jump shots. NBA skill guards are just
simply too good anymore. So that's obviously there's gonna be a lot of factors at play, but I do think that that's my leading candidate for the main reason why we've seen a scoring uptick. You'll see a lot of old heads say that, oh, teams don't play defense anymore, there's no hand checking. I disagree with that. I think the game is a lot more physical than people realize.
I'm on the Jj Redick side of things where I think the overall increase in athleticism and just schematic intelligence from these teams and switchability that I actually think defenses are better now than they've ever been. You know, think of it this way, like teams are averaging six points more per one hundred possessions than they did in nineteen eighty eight, despite taking twenty nine more threes per game.
That's like a pretty uneven balanced there. That kind of increase in shot value should lead to a commensurate increase at least half of that, right, like, at least like a fifteen to sixteen point increase in offensive ratings, just based on the fact that at thirty more of those field goal attempts are worth an extra half point every time they go in, right, and just teams are hitting him at a league average, you know, thirty six, thirty
seven percent. There's just no reason in the world why we shouldn't be seeing a higher increase in offensive ratings except for the fact that defenses have gotten better. I think all of that wing athleticism and guys frighteningly covering ground in rotations has made it harder to score it in a lot of different ways. And I think that's the point that JJ Redick's been trying to make, and so many times people look at it as a slight against the older generation. I don't see it like that
at all. The way I look at it is just like with any industry, there is a perpetual increase in competence as people learn from who came before. Okay, this doesn't work, We're gonna do something different. Okay, this worked, We're gonna replicate it. You know, like, I'm gonna try like hell to not be the guy who's twenty years from now going like, oh, you know, back twenty twenty three, they were playing the game the right way. You know, this this garbage basketball now it is just not gonna
cut it compared to who was playing back. I'm just I don't want to be that guy. And I and I do think that there's a lot of insecurity from older basketball players who take it as a slight against them when it's like, no, you guys paved the way. Learning lessons from the way you guys played is the reason we play the game the way that we play today. The last thing I wanted to hit was Dame's loyalty because it's been kind of it's been kind of a
part of Dame's brand. He's really leaning into it. He had another interview the other day where he leaned into it pretty heavy. And I just don't get it because I don't look at I don't understand the idea of having loyalty to a franchise just because to me, you have I look at it as a partnership, you know, like I don't look at Dame as an employee of the Blazers. I look at him as a partner of
the Blazers. I think that players in general view it that way, Like that's the whole point of the collective bargaining agreement. The players Association and all the owners meet in the middle and it's like, hey, let's do this together. And while Dame has some contractual obligations of the Blazers, those I don't think that that you have some sort of like employee type of loyalty to that specific organization. Yes, they drafted you, but to be clear, it's an arrangement
that's worked really well for them. You worked hard and became a superstar. Had you not, they would have traded you, just like they did ce J McCollum. Like there's no loyalty on their front. If you, Dame Lillard was the thirty seventh best player in the league instead of the eleventh or twelfth best player in the league, they would have been done with your ass a long time ago.
That's just the harsh reality of this business. So the way I look at it is if I was Dame, I'd be looking at the situation as I am, this freak competitor that has worked so hard in my career that I have become one of the twelve best basketball players in the world. On the other end of the spectrum, I've been playing at this level for almost a decade now, and Portland has been incapable of providing me with the
necessary pieces to truly contend for a title. They've never gotten brought in a competent defensive front court, which is like a prerequisite to compete in the NBA. In fact, they've been weak defensively in the front court the entirety of this tenure. They've never brought him a legitimate co star that could consistently meet him at his level, especially in a playoff environment, in that large sample size of time, through good asset management and good scouting, they should have
been able to do that for you. So in the same way that they would have dumped your ass had you not played well over the course of your career, I think Dame should be looking for a different partnership, a partnership with a franchise that is competent enough to provide him with the resources he needs to contend at the highest level. That's the reason why I'd be looking
to go elsewhere. I think that we're missing the plot a little bit when we focus on loyalty to the franchise, Like I understand if you have a little bit of loyalty to the fan base, but that sort of thing can be cultivated off the court too. You know, those fans in Portland are forever going to love you, and I would venture to guess that many of them kind
of would understand if you wanted to go elsewhere. But once again, at this deadline, the front office made you worse and we don't really know what the plan is. You turned a really good rotation player Josh Hart, into a long term project in cam Reddish and a player that's pretty offensively limited in matis thible, Like, what direction are they going? Where's the light at the end of the tunnel. That's why I think Dame should be looking to go elsewhere. All right, guys, that is all I
have for today. Here's the plan. We're gonna be going live tomorrow night after I believe it's Memphis Grizzlies versus the Los Angeles Lakers will be live on AMP for that Wednesday night. We're going late, going live after the late games. That should be Kevin Durant's debut with the Phoenix Suns as well as reported. We'll see, but we'll be live on AMP in the evenings the next two nights. As always, I appreciate you guys' support and I'll see you guys tomorrow. The volume