Lakers/Kings Postgame Spaces

I had a good feeling about tonight, Um, and I'll explain why in a minute, but I'm really glad that you and I Raj can for the most part talk about good things tonight and and talk about how this might be just an the second consecutive step in the right direction. How are you doing, buddy, how's your week going so far? Doing well? Yeah? I saw you and a bunch of other people tweeting positive about the Lakers earlier in the day, and and I just knew there was something bad at just a bad thing I felt

was going to happen. And we got the Lebron news right that he's going to be out. I think we'll see it's probably gonna be ten days or something. It just felt like this team can't build in any rhythm, and it's not an excuse to come in tonight and try and lose against the Kings. But I was a little bit worried about that, and then the game started and we started really slow. Frank again, when I went

with DeAndre Jordan's right, it was really ugly. I think we had like fourteen points for a lot of the first quarter, but that second half was huge, man. And we'll get into it, but you're right, it's probably the high point of the season, which is fascinating to say after we get the news that we lose Lebron for for a couple of days. But yeah, just a high point,

something we could build off of. I talked about it after the last game that they've lost the benefit of the doubt after the Detroit game that they would build off of off of that win, it was good to see it tonight. I thought it was just an incredible second half, an incredible third quarter from the Superstars and Dwight Howard as well being involved in that. But but yeah, man, just just a good win. It's nice to have a

good win. And everyone coming coming over from the Warrior Sons game, I bet a lot of people step to that one, but yeah, this was a good one, a fun game. Finally for us, the team was fun to watch tonight. One of one of the biggest things that I've been complaining about all years. Like, you know, the

Lakers had an unlikable basketball character. You know they you know if they if the if if you could sum up the entire Lakers personality and to someone that would show up to your gym and play pick up with you, he'd be the guy you don't want to play with, that has all the talent in the world, but it doesn't care and isn't willing to do the dirty work. It doesn't really value the win as much as you do, doesn't care if you lose and have to wait three

games to get back on. That was the Lakers this entire season really up until in my opinion, the last game. Even in the first chunk of the season, they would have stretches where they would put those things together, but they were just stretches. Even in the same game they'd be terrible. Like you look at the Cleveland game and you'd be like, man, Lebron was magnificent down the stretch.

They won by twelve. The defense was great. You know, that looked like Laker basketball, and you forget that, Like for most of that game, they were kind of coasting, you know, and that Lebron really wasn't good for most of that game. And and what stood out to me in the in the last game against Detroit was there was just a different energy around the team and it didn't manifest on the scoreboard because there were so many

old habits that they had to kick. There was the DeAndre Jordan's you know, kind of clunkiness in the in the offense, particularly in the first half, although they put together some good DeAndre Jordan minutes in the second half, there was the you know, there was the fact that the role players were not making shots. Actually kind of dug into the numbers a little bit today and coming into tonight, Malik Monk was below thirty on wide open threes. So I kind of felt like there was you know,

kind of a positive regression that was on regression. It was on the way there, you know, and tonight, like, you know, it's funny, that same energy carried over from the last game. The problem was that the Lakers were just like the theme of the first half was just self sabotage. They were just undercutting their own good process with some of turnovers. Th h T was really, really bad, so bad that Frank went back to Rondo, which was really interesting, but the the young fellow had to learn

a lesson and valuable lesson. We'll get into that later, but the point being is just to see that effort carry over. That was why I had a good feeling about tonight. I just felt like, for the first time all year against the Pistons, even though it was ugly, it seemed like the team kind of understood that they weren't good enough to not respect the game and that they had to take it more seriously. And you saw it down the roster, and then that carried over in tonight.

There were some obvious turnovers and things along those lines to undercut them, but that way you've caught in that second half. And when it caught in the second half, you saw the massive talent gap. And again, the Kings have a lot of talent. Shaun Holmes is good, the Aaron Fox is good, By Field is good, Tyrris Halliburton is good, and we have, even without Lebron, a lot more talent than them. We just weren't respecting the game

for this entire first chunk of the season. And so we'll get into more of the XS and oes details tonight, but foundationally, just in terms of their basketball character, there needed to be a change there. And I saw that change against Detroit. I thought it would continue tonight, and so far it's only two games, but I'm glad to see that that change appears to be happening. Yeah, and I feel like this team again kind of goes as Rust goes. And I've been thinking about this a lot.

We've talked about a lot over the summer when when they acquired Russ as that Russ is supposed to be the third option, right, Like he's supposed to be the third option on this team. But Jason, like, I don't know if you would agree, Like he hasn't been the third option. He's been like the first option. It's been like him trying to run the show and then Lebron and a D kind of coasting trying to go through it. And that's not really how this team is gonna work.

That's not the ceiling of this team. And about Detroit against the Pistons, I thought we saw what the ceiling of this team is, which is Lebron and a D playing at their their high level and Rust being able to pick his spots a little bit more attacking, attacking spots of the game, not comparing them, but to similarly to when I watched the Warriors, right when I watched Andrew Wiggins be able to just pick his spots, and now he's averaging like twenty on a super efficient level

that he's never done in his career. It is because he's playing as like a third fourth option on that team. And I get not comparing Russ to Andrew Wiggins in that way, it's just I think that's where this team is best. But man, in that third quarter, I think we can kind of move a little bit to why. Like I think the effort obviously was was big tonight. I thought, you know, they went down big in the first quarter, and I was a little bit worried about

the game getting out of hand. But the big shift obviously obviously at halftime was putting in Dwight Howard for for DeAndre Jordan's And again I don't think that was just the magic a licks that was a big part of it. But I thought the getting Russ going downhill I thought was huge. He needs to be involved in the game, and I thought, just early on, there's just no space for him to work putting him with th h T with A D and DeAndre it's just a

phone booth, and our defense was okay. We were still giving up a lot of lob Dunster Shawn Holmes when that third quarter that switched up is part of it. I think they play harder when they're in better lineups. Two right, they're kind of interconnected there. And I thought the Dwight, a D with Monk and Ellington in the corners for Russ just got him going. He got downhill. You saw him start to rock the baby, and it kind of energized the rest of the team. You saw

a defense pickup. Dwight was incredible again in that third quarter, A D and Dwight looked like D and Dwight. If you go check those numbers are great. Those two are forced um even when we go big with them too. But I thought that's what switched the game to be. Would you agree with that? I thought that's where the momentum changed. I thought when they went into that like just double screen at the top, Ellington the Monk in the corner, and Russ was able to go downhill. And

I thought a lot of his turnovers early honestly was overpassing. Uh, he would drive and there was no help created. He didn't create any advantage. So he'd come off the screen and it's like Alex Land waiting for him, and he gets in the air and passes. He got a lot of turnovers early, and I thought that shifted the game. And the third quarter Restcott downhill, he scored, He saw his confidence pick up, his speed, his bursts was there. He started to finish at the rim. D you see

that as well. I thought that's what shifted the game tonight, just putting him with spacing and even if even though it was two big they were both screening at the top, and it got him just downhill and being able to get to the basket a little bit more. And I thought that opened everything up for the team. Yeah. No, Dwight Howard was, you know, one of the biggest heroes

of the game in my opinion. Which was so interesting, this this this white thing is kind of hilarious because I was unaware of the fact that he was that it was intentional to rest him last game against Detroit. I thought, I thought it might have been associated with injury or something like that. When I found out today and yes, today that that that was intentional, like it like a planned rest in order in order to see

Lebron as the center. With the bench lineups, I nearly lost my ship because I'm literally sitting there thinking, I'm like, I'm like, then why are we playing DeAndre like? Like Dwight is five times the player of DeAndre, Like at least, I'm probably under selling it there, like he's there's not a single thing that DeAndre does on the basketball court

as well as Dwight doesn't. And so I get it. Look, if you want to lean into, you know, playing big and then also playing really small with Lebron at the center, that's cool. I can actually get behind that philosophically. But then why in the world will we playing DeAndre like it? You know? And like I've told you so many times, like I actually don't mind when the Lakers go big and small doses when it's Dwight, because the the Dwight A D pairing is so devastating defensively on teams, it

can be physically overwhelming. And I think we saw at in the second it was actually really interesting Dwight game. Because as much as I didn't actually come out and say those things that I just said by planned on doing it later tonight. And then Dwight came out and really really got exposed as someone who was slow footed against Rashaun Holmes, and he really struggled with him in the second quarter on the glass, and really really struggled

with him in pick and roll. But at a certain point, Dwight kind of I don't know if he just caught a second wind or if he just started to just play harder and play better. But they're in the in the third quarter, Dwights, Dwight became the person who was winning that matchup and and Sacramento really couldn't do anything with him. Um, But like the bottom line is just like strategically, it never makes any sense to drop a center and have Dwight be the one you drop and

leave DeAndre in the lineup. That was so incredibly confusing. But again and bringing it back to Russ with his rim pressure, you know, Darius Sorriana pointed this out, and I thought it was super interesting. He goes Russ is a really interesting player to watch his rhythm build because he kind of just tries to plow through the wall and it doesn't work, and it doesn't work, and it doesn't work, and it doesn't work, and then it works. And you know the reason why it does is it's

physical wear and tear. It's it's you know, it's it's like it's it's no different than over the course of a football game. If you if you, if you're the physically superior person, even if they managed to block you on the line once or twice or three times at four times, eventually you're gonna break through. Eventually you're gonna wear them down. And that was such an interesting effect from Russ tonight, just continuing to just almost be reckless

with his attacks of the basket. But eventually those small, slight guards that Sacramento had eventually just couldn't handle it anymore, and even with the big Laker lineups, he was able to get into the paint and then from there it was simple. Malik Monk missed a couple of really easy, wide open shots to start the game, immediately reminding me of those numbers that I looked up earlier today, and then they started going in and then Ellington's Ellington missed

his first couple of shots a wide open. His first at the first look that I saw that he got was wide open, and I'm like, man, some of these gotta start going in. And then they did in the second half, and what you saw is it invigorated their defense. And when it invigorated their defense, that looked like the Lakers there in the second half, flying around a D and DWIGHTE block and everything everywhere, getting into passing lanes,

Guys making extra efforts, guys boxing out. It just became contagious. And you know, I always believed this was in there. I thought it was trapped and hidden under their shitty basketball character that they had to kick. But once they kicked that, they had to kick some bad habits. But it was inevitable that they would start to have some runs like this because that talent is there. I I've always believed that was the case, and so I thought

it was really really exciting to watch that tonight. They won the second half, and I think I have my numbers correctly, sixty to thirty three, Like that's a real that's a real thing that happened tonight. And the King's you know, they're not a great team. They were missing Harrison bon Bonns tonight, but like you said, they have

real NBA talent. Buddy Hell Jaron Foxx, you named in Rashaun Holmes sixty seven to thirty three, there was some shift at halftime there where like that's not nothing to me. And I thought tonight was was very important, Like it could have it was really easy in that first quarter. They could have just laid down, right, like you talked about their basketball character or whatever. They could have easily just laid down. The King's played well to start, they

went up like seventeen to ten. They had a double digit lead. I believe after after the first quarter, could have been very easy to just lie down to just quit, quit on this game. We don't have Lebron. We'll just move on to go home. And I thought it was big to see them come back and roar back the way they did, especially in that second half. Lak Monk hitting the halftime heave before halftime believed to put us a huge shot. Yeah, to put us I believe by nine a half time. And then they just came out

and shut them down. And you talked about them not being able to get to get a shot up. I thought link Monk and Ellington's defense was a big part of that. Uh. The whole reason again not to blabor Vogel again. But the only reason Vogel doesn't go to these small lineups or these guard heavy lineups is his defensive He's worried about the defense right, the defensive issues that it can bring. And I thought Ellington, especially tonight,

he's not ever gonna be great. But I thought he did his job like, he did his role right, and he didn't get back cut Kings tried to do these backpasses and he I think he got a bunch of deflections there. He fought over screens pretty nicely. I thought Leek Monk fought down low like you saw him, go for rebounds, go for defensive rebounds, jump jump in the air, get dirty Austin Reeves again as part of that. I thought he played well. His box out, his toughness was

part of it. But I thought the guards played well. To me, this is the lineup that I'd like to see, I guess start the game. I think it's clear like Taylan isn't fit for that lineup yet, especially without Lebron. I don't think you can fit Tailan, especially if Vogel is gonna start another center. I would love to see Russ Ellington, Monk and Dwight and a D start because I feel like we're going to continue the two bigs. But that was just something that really ran the Kings

off the floor. They had no answer for it. They had no answer for it offensively or defensively, and it was it was cool to see us build something and hopefully they can continue to build on this even without Lebron. But I thought that was just another good process thing. It was an accent that Russ played well in the third to me, like, I know his effort and all that, and he's and he plays hard, but but we have

to fit him in these lineups. That makes sense, and I just think he needs at least that type of sheeting on the floor when you have when you have Ellington and Monk in the corners, it's hard to cheat off of right, That's just a lot tougher for him to for the for the guys to help and zone off, and we when we put a D and Dwight at the top, it just gives him a runway with these guards going so far into the screens, it just gets him to the basket. I thought that's something we can

use going forward. But yeah, a goodwin. Hopefully this is something that they build off of, I believe. On Friday, yeah, I agree. I wanted to move on to Anthony Davis for a second, you know, coming into tonight after I heard the news about Lebron, and we're not going to talk too much about the Lebron thing. I mean, here,

here's the gist of it. He's we don't I I still don't really fully understand how the protocols work in terms of like how many days he's out and how many blah blah here ten days, But then I hear what if he gets too negative tests within twenty four hours? The bottom line is, even if it is ten days, it looks like, thankfully, because the Lakers schedule is so randomly stressed stretched out here, it looks like he might

only miss like three or four games. So that in terms of what this terrible news is, this is like the best version of that terrible news, you know what I mean, Um, it's unfortunate because I don't know that they have enough talent to win against the Clippers. We're

going to find out. But that said, like, it's one of those things where it is what it is at this point, and coming into this evening, I wanted to have one of our goals for tonight's pod to be like, Okay, if you're the Lakers and you're starting to build some positive momentum, what should your goal be in this Lebron is down moment here? You know, because it's it's different from when he went down the last couple of times, because when he went down the last couple of times,

it was it was injury. You know, there was internal discussions. They made a plan like we Lebron probably could play through this, but we're planning to rest him because it's early in the season. We believe that the whatever damage in the standings can be done, we can make up for it. They even thought in that second rest stretch that that they'd be able to win a bunch of those games, which obviously they were unable to. But this was a complete shock here. So as a team, how

do you read, how do you reorganize? How do you move forward? And one of the top item on my list was Anthony Davis has to play like an m v P. You know. I we talked a lot in the last part about how we hold Anthony Davis to the standard of the best players in the league. That is why we nitpick him. We don't nitpick him to be jerks. We nitpick him because we think he should be closer to Janice than he is to go there, you know what I mean. And by two of that standard,

we nit pick him, you know what I mean. And to this team without Lebron needs him to play like he's in the conversation for the best player of the world. What does that mean. That means he needs to play like the defensive player of the year. That means he can't float around the perimeter on offense. That means he has to be a physically aggressive offensive player who attempts to inflict his physical will on everybody on the other team.

And from the opening tip tonight, he did that. He was bullying his way into the paint to take advantage of his size dispatches to get shots in the around the rim. He was flying around on defense, not just in his area, but outside of his area. He looked like a guy who was a bona fide best Player in the World candidate tonight, and that needs to be what he is every single night, especially in this stretch

with Lebron out. But I was thankful to see that because I coming into tonight, thought that was going to be the most important thing for to get out of this team over the course of these next ten days. And to see that was encouraging. And then Russ, who has been so good for the last couple of weeks, kind of got off to a crappy start tonight, um,

and it was good to see that. You know that we used to see this a lot with Lebron and maybe where you know, a D would get off to kind of a funky start in the game, but Lebron would be spectacular. And it almost like that type of your competitive nature brings it out of you. You can't sit there and watch your buddy selling his soul for wins and not get caught up in it and try to do the same thing. And so to me, it was inevitable that Russ would inevitably join a D at

that level, and he did tonight. And so that's the key moving forward, in addition to all the other little details that we'll talk about later, because I do want to talk about the defense tonight. I do want to talk about the little details that make a good basketball team later on in the in the show, but at the top, it had to start with Anthony Davis playing like an MVP candidate and Russ trying to meet him at that level. And Russ may not be able to

meet him at that level all the time. That's too unfair to expect from him at this point in his career. But he was able to do it tonight. And when you combine that with Anthony Davis, you get a team that's capable of beating the Kings on the road by twenty plus. And I thought it was another really, really good positive step in that direction. Yeah, I thought his

overall aggression throughout the game was great. There's a lot of post ups still early and again, the offense is never gonna look pretty, but I thought he took it. I believe it was meant to who was guarding him early took him to the basket. His jumper also looks good, looks better, It looks like it's trending upward. I thought the mid range looked good again tonight. Twelve fur I

believe he was twelve. The numbers always look at with a D steals the stocks, so steals blocks, two steals, two blocks, two offensive rebounds, like that's the stuff I look at. See that he's engaged and I thought again, he us tonight when we went through that two big lineup, he was able to roam, got a lot of steals. Uh. It just looked like the old Anthony Davis right engaged, looked like the best defense player in the world. He was taking away anything the Kings had taken away on switches.

He was just a problem tonight and we need that every single night. Especially it was Lebron out here and again this time, this kind of a D makes Russ the second option, Like he's not the third option, which is the ideal ceiling of this team, but puts Russ at the second option. And if Russ is your second option on every other night, you have a pretty you should have a pretty darned good team like night tonight.

Not against the best teams, but again, like you said, against the Kings on the road, if Russ is your is your absolute second option, and a D can be the full one option, like that's that's a good enough team to win. And I thought we saw that tonight. A D was aggressive early on post ups, jumpers, uh, keeping the team in it a lot with his offense in the first half, and then Russ took over in the third and a D kind of joined him and

they went on the defensive run together. But some other numbers I thought before we get into the super super deep details, Malik Malik Monka plus thirty three, uh, Wayne Ellington, Wayne Ellington, Tonight I believe was plus thirteen. Dwight Howard a plus twenty seven. So that lineup just absolutely destroyed the Kings that you know that a Monk Russ, Monk Russ, Ellington, Dwight and a D line up absolutely just destroyed them, something that hopefully Vocal uses going forward. But that's a

good process thing. Another good game from a D back to back at least twenty four point games on the season. And the Clippers, Uh, Clippers aren't playing great right now, so that's another game you can get. Like they're they're not playing well. I think they just lost to the Pelicans at home, so it's a it's another game we can get. Was that the line up that you were talking about that you would want as the starting one? It? Yeah, I think that's that, or if you want, you could

put Reeves I guess in there. But I just think that's the lineup that we need to to go to, uh, just to just to open things up. But I think these slow starts are again. It was great tonight to come back and get another comeback win, but slow starts are really hurding and and I think Dwight at least will start the next game. We'll see about if did you see that altercation between Frank and DeAndre? I just saw it on Twitter. You catch that, go to pick up Hoops Twitter feed and you'll get to see it.

But it's interesting because the I, you know, Frank had hinted at at potentially starting Dwight instead of DJ, just to kind of see what it would look like. I've shocked that he didn't go there tonight and then had the quick hook with DJ, which makes you wonder, Okay, if you were leaning that direction to begin with, why

isn't that the way you started? You know what I mean? Um, But you know, it's it's an interesting conundrum because when you go big with Dwight, there's a couple of reasons why it's different than when you go big with DeAndre. When you go big with Dwight. First of all, yes, as it hurt the spacing absolutely. However, there's a couple of differences. Dwight actively fights the negatives of the way

it hurts the spacing by being an active offensive rebounder. Okay, that's a big deal that he recovers if you wanna, Okay, if you want to attribute a points per possession type of number to that lack of spacing, he offsets part of that by generating additional possessions. DeAndre Jordan's does not do that, at least not nearly at the same the same level. And then Dwight is so much better defensively that you can at least advocate for the tradeoff. Right,

the idea of going big is there's a tradeoff. That's what That's what Frank would tell you, right, like, Okay, I'm looking at this, like if I go big, I'm getting this and I'm giving this. Right. But the problem was with DeAndre is it was illogical from the beginning because all you were doing was giving You're giving away offense and you're giving away defense. It was hurting you on both ends of the floor. It never made sense

to begin with. It was It's probably the biggest red mark on Frank's coaching job this season has been the DeAndre. I think we we can argue that his case for Avery Bradley made perfect sense to me. Hey, dude, it's not in the numbers, but we like the way his effort is contagious. We think it will eventually bear out. You know that that's totally logical to me, because Avery Bradley does make sense, as in in a in a vacuum as a basketball fit with those guys. The DeAndre

thing made absolutely no sense from the beginning. And so it's interesting to see Dwight have this, have this moment, have this success, and hopefully with this Lebron You know, if there's a silver lining to the Lebron thing, you're gonna get to see a lot of Dwight next to a d over the course of the next ten days.

And I think you'll see that with this group dialed in the way that they're supposed to be, dialed in the way that they haven't been most of most of the season, I think you're going to see them be a really, really good defensive team over the course of the next week. They're gonna play big a lot without Lebron, I expect to see a lot of Dwight And as long as everyone continues this this momentum on that front, and in terms of the willingness to do the job.

I think you'll I think you'll see it work. You know, uh, early in the game, you know, you saw that this is where I wanted to get into a little bit of the details having to do with um, you know, the little things that make basketball teams good. You know, when you kicked on the effort, it was always going to take a couple of games, like I said, to to establish the good habits in Frank's system. He still

likes to run drop. You're probably gonna see a lot of drop with Dwight in the lineup right, because they're not gonna want to do as much switching with Dwight out there, so that puts a lot on the other

guys on the floor. You're asking. The first play of the game, if you remember, they ran a pick and roll and both both DJ and whoever it was on the ball, whether it was th Ht or Russ, went with the ball handler little pocket pass to Rashawn Holmes, and Ellington was there, but he was like a solid two seconds late, and he basically just two hand padded the dude on the chest and gifted him a free free throw. Just for poops and giggles, you know, and

those are those little details, right. It's not like anybody wasn't playing hard on that possession. It's just the team on a string does not have the habit instilled yet of helping when that kind of thing happens, and it's it was going to take time for that to get fixed.

In the third quarter, when they were everyone was flying around Anthony Davis off the ball in those pick and roll coverages, Dwight Howard was more active in the drop, coming up higher and actually bothering the past rather than kind of sitting in that no man's land where you could just throw it over the top. Those details started to shape and over the course of this game, and

the key there is consistent consistency. If they continue to develop and practice those details over the course of this next week and with Lebron eventually coming back to they have the talent to be a very, very very good defensive team, especially with Anthony Davis playing this way. You know, one of my favorite possessions was the one that I shared out with Austin Reaves. It's freaking hard to do what he did on that possession. You'd go on my

twitterf each stroll down. It's one of the last like two or three things. I tweeted. It's really hard to do what Austin Reads did on that possession too. He's he's stepped into help on the pick and roll, which forced the skip pass. When the skip fast came, he sprinted out and took away the shot from Tyrese Haliburton.

As soon as that happened, they threw a pass back into the post and he kind of got back into his defensive position, and then Tyrese Haliburton shot off a dribble handoff and he had to chase the dude over the top of the dribble handoff, and he kind of got beat a little bit, but he he knew as soon as he got beat, He's like, I have to box out Alex Lamn. That's my job. Now I failed at this job, but it's okay. My teammate helped me.

I now have to cover for my teammate. And he dove and he pushed Alex land Damn near out of bounds and they were able to secure the rebound. Now, ironically, Malik Monk immediately dribbled it off his foot at the bounds, which was the which was the theme of the first half. My point is is like it, like I said a couple of pods ago, it is hard to play winning basketball. It is not. The fun isn't in the job. The

fun is in the result. The Lakers looked like they were having a hell of a good time there in that second half run, but the work they were doing to generate that run was hard. It was hard work, and and I just in general, it's good to see them get rewarded for that hard work because that will continue to encourage them to do it moving forward. I love that play you you signal out about Austin Reeves

because I had that one down too. That's instinctual for him though, right like that, Like he didn't even have to like think like, oh should I go box out Alex Land, Oh this is gonna hurt. It's just like boom, shot goes up, I'm finding a body, right, And that's just instinctual for him, And that's not what no Monk

and Ellington are And it was gonna take time. But you point out that first play of the game they ran, they actually got a bunch of lob dunks off of the Haliburton and Holmes pick and roll, right it just felt like Halibern Holmes pick and roll, lob dunk. But in the second half, I thought they really took those away. Ellington was starting to tag their Milik Monk. He's not gonna bother it as much, but he was tagging. And that's all you can ask that do your job, do

your role, and I thought they did. I thought the guards did their job in the second half. And I thought Dwight it was incredible his energy taking away with Shan Holmes. I believe like punked our team for a lot of that first half, like just a lot of offensive rebounds, finishing, finishing at the rim. So it's good to see that again. Like you talked about with Austin Reeves,

just his instinctual way to play defense. I wanted to kind of ask you because we got some like Trevor reason News right and and you were higher on him kind of in the summer. I've been saying that, you know, putting your hopes in a thirty six year old wing is is probably misplaced. But it's obviously the team feels this way too. And Vogel has been gaining a lot

of crap this year. But he came out and said he needs to find lineups until Trevor Reasa gets back and say that he might be a week or two out. That was what he said on the local, which was insane. Yeah, so him and Lebron could hope, like, could you know, theoretically come back at the same time, which would be in an awesome kind of way to get the get those back. But I was just thinking about that in terms of this team, because it's very clear Vocal is searching.

I mean, you can say what you want about the Avery Bradley. Avery Bradley was out tonight with the spraying thumb. We'll see how long he's out, but you can tell he's searching. He had a quick quick pull for DeAndre Jordan's and we'll see if Trevor Reason just fits right into that, because I think he does. Like I talked about with Austin Reeves, Trevor Reasons made a career out of doing that, right, doing the dirty work, not even have to think about it. He goes and boxes out.

There's no like, oh should I go No, no, no no, it's a shot goes up. I have to get myself on a body, I have to box out. He does the dirty things. This team doesn't have a lot of players that do the dirty work, and I think that's what they're missing. And that's why Austin Reeves to me just stands out on the film so much because he does that instinctually. It's not even you don't have to tell him to go do it. And that's where I think, uh,

Trevor Reason can fix. So I just wanted to kind of get your thoughts on that because I thought it was huge. Trevor Reason spoke with the media, um and he's not close in terms of like a few days, but you talked about David McManaman said maybe ten to twelve days like that would be a huge addition to a team with no wings at least with Baysmore, especially just out of the rotation as well. I think that would be a huge addition to to a to a

defense that looks like it's it's hopefully trending upwards. Well, I think a reason unlocks your ability to ditch some of these kind of archaic defensive schemes. You know, like you and I. You and I are way anti drop coverage under any circumstances. That's something that you and I have complained about about other teams and our team. Um, the Lakers got away with it in because they were

so so so good everywhere else on the floor. But the truth of the matter is when push came to shove against the best teams in the league in the playoffs, they did a lot of switching um, and they just can't do that right now. They have to play Dwight in order to cover for the lack of Lebron that therefore, you can't just run around with a D and Dwight

switching everything. It's just too funky of a lineup group for that type of defensive style, and so you have to you have to run drop coverage, just kind of like an unfortunate side effect of their personnel circumstance right now. But giving Trevor reason, it's just that obvious plug in that raises the the you know, aggregate length and athleticism of any lineup um from having, especially with how many small guards the Lakers play, and that just inherently gives

you more flexibility defensively with your scheming. UM. So obviously a reason is gonna be huge in that regard UM. But like as far as like you know I I you have to figure out how to make it work with this group for this stretch of time, because the reason is a week and half out, at least a week or two out according to make that mean that

to me feels way overly optimistic. I heard that he just started running, so like the idea of going from just running to you know, playing NBA basketball, that feels like a little bit further out, especially when you factor in Frank's insistence on getting lots of practice reps with

the with the group. I mean, obviously I'll be thrilled if he comes back sooner, but you know, in the meantime, in this in this period of time, to try to grind out a win against the Clippers and to try to grind out a win against the Celtics, it needs

to be like what you saw tonight. Lots of bigger lineups, either a D at the five or a D and Dwight, lots of or obviously you're gonna have to rest a these so you're gonna see some Dwight in there as well, but just lots of lots of flying around, lots of feeding off. You know, this is something that they just sent us a message. I don't know if you've noticed

that rage. But he uh pointed out that the fact that the Lakers in general seem to feed off of their own offensive success in order to find the motivation to do what they're supposed to do defensively. And that's this human nature, especially when you've got players like this where their basketball character gears them more towards the things that they enjoy to do, which are the things that

they do on the offensive end of the floor. Um, that's this is another reason why that's starting lineup in the vacuum is so frustrating, going with DeAndre because it's hard to ask a group to do a dirty job when the result isn't showing on the scoreboard. When you look on the scoreboard and you're down eighteen to twelve

again and your offense looks clunky as hell. Why do you believe Frank when he says, oh, if you fight over the top of the screen and apply back pressure and know if you get lost, if you dive to the big and box amount out of bounds and you get elbowed in the face and all this stuff, it's gonna help us win. You're gonna think he's crazy because it's not helping you win. And so that's why there

has to be a delicate balance there. It's it's gonna be easier with limited lineups in terms of defensive personnel, but that can score the hell out of the basketball, to try to get them to buy into some of those dirty work concepts, because then if they do that and they're shot, they're falling, and they feel that you know, motor revn and it leads to them doing that work and they go back to the huddle and they're up seven or they're up nine, It kind of it kind

of adds legitimacy to the game plan, you know what I mean, And that that's where that's where, that's where you and I have been preaching a all year long about leaning into your offensive identity. It's going to be easier to convince in this particular group, with this particular kind of roster construction, it's gonna be easier to convince this unelite offensive team to buy in enough on defense to win then vice versa. I mean, we basically learned

that with the Brooklyn Nets last year. Like they realized like they were scoring the hell out of the basketball, and so Steve Nash and the staff was able to convince them to put in enough effort on that end to get to close the deal. The differences with this team when they're healthy is you got Lebron and a d on the back line. So guess what You're gonna be able to hit an offense or defensive ceiling even with limited personnel that that Brooklyn Nets team never could.

And that's would make me so excited about this roster coming into the season, and so I hope to see kind of more of that momentum building. And I thought tonight was the first night that we saw that nuclear potential that this team has, ironically without Lebron that two way, here's our suffocating defense and oh, by the way, you just gave Wayne Ellington a wide open three. But what

the hell were you gonna do? Russ put his head down and did this vicious spin move into the lane and if you didn't collapse the entire defense on him, he was going to get a layup. So that that that that's that's what's so cool about this dynamic and to watch that momentum build is this is what I

envisioned this Laker identity to be. No, they weren't going to be as suffocating as they were with Alex Crusoe on the wing and with with the k C P on the wing, but they could get reasonably close to that with an infinitely higher offensive ceiling because of all the shooting around them. And so it's good to see that kind of developed. Yeah, and you talked about this team gets its you know, energy offensive from their offensive success.

That's Russell Westbrook right. Like you can tell Russell Westbrook gets all of his energy when he starts scoring. When he started getting in the basket, starting to go to the free throw line. You see him start to rock the baby. Right even though we were like down eight, he gets his first like post up score, he starts to rock the baby. Going to time out. You can

tell the whole energy just shifted. And that's what I think, like we've been talking about all year of leading into not just in an offensive identity, which is what this team is leaning into, the Russell Westbrook identity, because that's what this team basically needs to be, especially with Lebron. Now, this team is gonna go any Davis maybe the best player, but this team is going to go as Russell Westbrook

kind of goes. You had like five points, I think close to halftime, like they need his production, they need him engaged. Tell you can tell his defense just turns up right. His energy defensively, he starts fighting over screens, he starts using his physicality to his advantage defensively. It's just stuff he doesn't and it's just part of him as a basketball player. When he's disengaged, he just he

disengages on both ends. Defensively, you know, he ball watches a lot, he gets laws, but you can tell when he starts to score and he can feel the game turning, he turns it on on both ends. And I thought on defense, we saw that as well on the third quarter. He's a chaotic defender, right Like he he wants to create chaos and he wants to create turnovers. That gets him going. And I think his scoring lends into that, and that's what this team needs to do. You're at.

These slow starts are just so lethargic. It's so counterintuitive to the way the team needs to play. We started Wayne Ellington, but he couldn't get any shots, right. We ran no actions before him either, And we have like four non spacing guys and so they can just stay at home on Wayne Ellington and he saw that third quarter, things open up and you're right. When Russ gets to the rim, and now he gets two guys in the corner, you make his make his reads a little bit more automatic.

He's throwing two spaces instead of players. He's still he's doing so he's throwing two corners right instead of who's in the corner. You see him do this a lot, and this is how he gets a lot of turnovers. But like you'll drive, so like you'll drive and get in the paint and then expect like the big to already be at the three point line, but like our biggest jogging back right, so like the ball goes to half court. But he does this in the half court setting to like he loves to find the corners and

he wants a guy in the corner there. And it's just really tough when you have, uh no spacing, no actual shooters there where there's no spacing around him. So I just think there's stuff that we have to play into us. And I think you saw that in the third quarter. Again. I think it's no accident. Again, we won the third quarter of thirty seven to fifteen, and we've won the second half sixty seven and thirty three, Like that's that's no, that's no coincidence to me, And

DeAndre Jordan is not all at fault for that. It's not all that blame. I think. Also, the th HD sub was real, and it's not th HD s fall. He's just a ball hamlet that wants to get to the rim next to three other guys who aren't shooters, who aren't spacers, and he's not a good enough space spacing shooter yet. So what do you make of the th HT thing moving forward? Because this has been a pretty extended, nasty stretch of basketball for him. I mean again, like I try to keep it in contact. He's a

guy who just turned twenty one. He's a guy that needs the ball in his hands. He needs on ball reps, and I think that has to come with Russ off the floor, maybe next to a D and shooting. And I don't know if those lineups are viable, uh, if those lineups survival defensively, But that's kind of where he's

at right now. He's in this middle ground place and this is kind of he's in a winning situation, so he's gonna have to earn every minute he gets, right Like these are these aren't given minutes at all of Malik Monk is out playing him. He's not going to play like that's just how it's going to go on

this team. On another team, he would average minutes a game, get all the high ball screen reps that he wants, could probably average seventeen five on a on a you know, on a great on a great efficishty or whatever on another team. But on this team, he's gonna have to defend. He's gonna have to be at least somewhat of a respectable spot up shooter. I know he loves to attack closeouts, and he's great at attacking closeouts, but teams have scouted him.

They close out short to him all all the time. Now, Like if you watch, if you watch, teams close out to him to close out to him short. They're expecting the drive he goes in. He's trying to he's trying to kick it back out. It just looks ugly, and I think he'll get there. He has enough talent um, he's shown enough on ball skill. It's just on this

team he's not gonna get those type of reps. It'll be interesting to see, especially when we get healthy Kendrick Nunn is still not close, which I don't know what that means. But when he gets back, obviously Trevor Reason, we'll see where the minutes come from. I think defensively, THHD can still be great. Did you see that block he had tonight? I think every game. Yes, that was absolutely he got beat off the dribble and still caught up and painted off the backboard. I was just like, Wow,

that is that's special. That's that's that's there's some special deep sense there. But offensively, it's just ugly right now. But he's young. It's it's not gonna be pretty. He's not. And I we talked about it when he was averaging points of game or whatever for his three first three games, like, he's probably not that player. He's also not the player that you know, goes scoreless in three straight games. He somewhere in between there. But just on this team, he

doesn't get the rips that that he would. Yeah, the t HT thing was one of the more interesting phenomena of the game in my opinion, because he was completely disheveled by ball pressure from davy On Mitchell, and you know, you see a lot of ball pressure in the NBA, but it's usually pretty relaxed, you know, because NBA ball handlers are so good and guys don't really believe in

devoting that much energy to it. But davidan Mitchell like just that he knows that that's his elite skill um that he brings to the table, so he leans very heavily into it. And you know, ball pressure rushes rushes a ball handler, makes them make a decision before they

want to. Most ball handlers like to comfortably dribble away from the basketball to play the belt ups and either make their entry pass into the offense wherever it is, or if they have to start at the top of the key to if their initiation is some sort of pick and roll, they like to comfortably work their way into it so that they can make a read. And when you apply ball pressure, it accelerates that process and makes every and especially it's especially tests your ability to

control the pace of the game. Um and what was really it's it's a It's a big reason why with my high school kids on such a believer in ball pressure, because high school kids are terrible at controlling the pace of the game offensively, and they're terrible at adapting to that kind of thing. So if you can apply really good ball pressure at the high school level, you can cripple an offense. UM. It's just kind of like a

basketball philosophy that that I believe in. UM. But it was interesting because davy On Mitchell really really rushed th HT to the point where he fell apart and it was bad decision after bad decision after bad decision. Now you're not gonna face ball pressure like Davie On Mitchell on a nightly basis, so you don't want to overrapped to it in terms of his UM, you know, projecting him as a player moving forward, but it does point out a reality of the situation with him on this roster.

Like you said, this is a team that has championship aspirations, but also a team that has a lot of guys who can make decisions off the dribble, a lot of guys that can do what they're asking th HT to do, whether that's Molik Monk, Russell Westbrook, Lebron James, even a little bit of a d even a little bit of

Malik Monk, and then obviously Kendrick Nunn's coming back. So this isn't a team that can afford to toss th h T twenty reps a night as a primary initiator, uh and sacrifice whatever you know, comes from that like tonight. You know, he was a big part of the reason why the Lakers were in such a hole to begin with was that that sequence that he went on early in the game, when he kept turning the ball over.

So that's where it gets tricky, because I still think he's good enough defensively and good enough at attacking closeouts that you can play him. And I still think he should play uh, you know, even with this this type of struggle. But I think putting the ball in his hands as a primary initiator on this team, I think

is a risk the Lakers can't afford to take. Um. You know, maybe if you're higher up in the standings and you had a little bit more of a of a buffer zone there, you could get away with it. But in this situation, I think you got to take the ball out of his hands and and try to lean into him as an off ball player offensively, because we've seen him have some success there. And then you're right, he's got to start making shots. Guys are closing out

short blah blah, blah. But I like him, you know, attacking a short clothes out more than I like him bringing the ball up the floor against pressure and trying to dissect the defense. And you can see that really really getting his head tonight. So I'm interested to see

moving forward. Obviously, Frank me at the mid games adjustment of just taking him out, but I'd be interested to see moving forward if they take the ball out of his hands a little bit more in terms as a primary initiator and just to play like I guess Devil's advocate for THD because I think there are two trains of thought with him. So we have a team full of we have three stars, and then we have a team full of minimum guys. Right the only other guys are Kendrick Nunn and t H T, which are on

mid mid mid level contracts. T H T. T HD to me has the biggest gap between what he is now and what he could be in a few months, right when it comes to the playoffs. So I think there is some some level of if you want to develop THHD, and I think it can be worth it. So I don't think he's a guy you just throw out of the rotation either, and I think that's a tough kind of game you play here because there is enough talent there. You see it with his on ball skills,

even when the three doesn't go in. He's obviously a guy that likes to put the ball on the ground before he shoots, so he does these like beautiful step back almost James Harden like you know three he's even when the defenders not there, he still likes to step back, uh and take like thirty five footers. But I think there's there's something to that because all these other guys you kind of know who they are. I mean, Lake Monk, he's still a young guy, but you kind of know

he's a microwave score who's he's been playing great. But again Carmelo, Anthony, Wayne Ellington, you know he's gonna be you know what he does on a night at night basis t HD is still you can still look at th HD as this like ball of clay, right and you can still mold it too to be something more than what he is right now. And I think there is a Devil's actvid there to where I think they're the reps that he gets have to be uh controlled, Like I think there has to be process put into it.

I don't think you can just throw him a bunch of on ball, you know, responsibilities. But I think putting him next to lineups where he's he gets to playoff ball, where he gets to have the ball in his hands some like. We surround this action for KCP a lot, and I would like to see it, uh this year, I don't see it as much where he just KCP would start in the corner, he'd come off a little dribble handoff with Dwight Howard. It would be a double screen usually and and he gets to come off and

to be a easy read. KCP either takes the mid range jumper or even easy either gets it to the rolling man or he swings it to the wing for the open three. And like t HT in those spots, it's just too much like Russ th HD at the top of the key trying to decide who attacks on a possession. It hasn't looked pretty when those two share it. But yeah, that's like the devil Advocate, I guess because PhD has the biggest gap of what he is now and what he will become. These other guys are kind

of minimum players and veterans. Who are who you know, shown what they are in their career. Yeah, no, I

get that. And you know my thing is like getting reps, but getting reps that look like what they're going to look like in the highest leverage moments, like exactly like t HD should run pick and roll for us in the playoffs, but it will probably be as a second side creator, meaning like it will be the action that you run after the first action fails and for the record, that alleviates there's a reason why you put the lesser

player in that position. It's a it's an easier job in a lot of ways, like like, for instance, like if if Davean Mitchell is ball pressuring the ship out of you. As soon as you get the ball and bounds all the way up the floor, you're you're you're just you're wearing yourself out for no reason. But like let's say Lebron brings the ball at the floor, runs a pick and roll. In the pick and roll, Davian Mitchell has to tag into the lane to help on the rollman. As a result, Lebron skips it to th HD.

Now Davion Mitchell's closing out on you, so you have room to breathe. When you catch, you're not having to bring the ball up the floor against him with a live dribble. Now you're catching it in a triple threat, you have an opportunity to correct and protect the ball, either a tact close out or protectible ball. Wait for the screen to come, and you're already in your position that you want to be in in order to run

that action. That kind of that kind of thing, to me, looks a lot more like what it's going to look like for th HT in the highest leverage moments. So get him, get him a ton of reps like that, you know, Like I again, I'm with you. Don't take him out of the rotation because that's an investment. You need to invest in th HT as a guy that can be a talent boon at the highest left us. You know, like Phoenix freaking beat Golden State tonight literally

without Devin Booker in the second half. They're really really good. Phoenix is really good, Golden States really good. Like you're gonna you're gonna find yourself in a situation where Lebron and a d might not be enough in a vacuum, or maybe one of them is a little hampered or one of them is not playing well, or maybe a D is still not shooting the ball particularly well. We're gonna need a lot from Russ. We're gonna need a

lot from somebody. We're gonna need somebody to be our Michal Bridges, you know, We're gonna need somebody to be our Jordan Pool, somebody who can make big plays outside of our star power. And maybe that's th h T, and maybe that investment starts today. I just don't think it will look like hair. We're in bounding to th h T and Lebron and Russ are just running the wings and spotting up while we while we let th HD run action. I just don't think that's what it's

gonna look like. And so that's the next key is kind of finding out how to you know, kind of invest in th HT while also, you know, making it look like it's actually gonna look like exactly. That's the conjundrum you have when you have a young talent on a good team. The Warriors, I think they're going to go through it when they get wise men. And you see how they're deploying kamina as well in the rotation. They're not just giving comina a bunch of a bunch

of minutes, right. He has to earn every minute he gets, so he gets in, he plays hard, plays defense, and then that's how he gets minutes. And I think, uh, it's not the same thing with th h two is now in your your three, but similar kind of thing. He has to earn every minie he gets. He has to defend and uh, play the right way playoff ball, and it's not perfect. Dylan obviously wants a ball in his hands, but it's just not the role he's in right now. But I think he'll get there. I think

he's good enough. I think he works hard enough to tell um you could tell the way he works. I think that and a shot to me is better than he's shown. And I wish you would shoot more, honestly, Like, I think he has a better shot than he he he puts up in terms of volume, So I just like him to shoot a little bit more. Teams are closing out short. I think he's too good of a shooter to to keep seeing those up to try to drive in a clog lane. But but Tylon will get there.

It's a he's still young, it's he's early. Just durned twenty one, So you have to be patient with with those kind of players, for sure. Did you have anything else you wanted to hit on tonight? Minutes? So it's a good stopping point. Uh No, I think that was pretty much. It something to kind of build off of. Oh, I think I saw something here somebody was sharing with me. I'm not I'm not sure if you saw it. Um Harrison tweeted out. And I can kind of summarize it.

I guess why Howard was told he wasn't gonna play tonight either, um by by Frank Vogel before the yeah and so crazy and so he said he was kind of down, but he says he stayed ready, and so I guess he. I guess DeAndre Jordan wasn't living up to Frank Vogel's expectation tonight and and Dwight Howard got the minutes. But yeah, that was a postgame from Harrison. Well what's hilarious about that is DeAndre Jordan looked exactly the same tonight as he did every other time. Like,

I don't know what happened. I guess the honey moon phase just final tonight, but tonight is the night whatever it is what is it? November thirty one tonight November three tonight is the night guys that the rose colored glasses the honeymoon phase between Frank Vogel and DeAndre Jordan's ended because he was playing the same damn basketball he

had been playing all season. That is hilarious. Al Right, guys, So it's gonna be a little bit of a funky rest of the week because the Lakers don't play much. I think they play once before next Tuesday. So, um, we're gonna do Rod is pretty busy with works. I might do some kind of solo pot either Wednesday or Thursday, just on some League at Large type stuff. Um. And then we will have a postgame show obviously on Friday

after the Clipper game. Um. And then Rog and I will probably do like some sort of film deep dive something along those lines in a traditional podcast format on either Saturday or Sunday. We'll figure that part out, um. But obviously, yeah, like the we're used to going every other night and we're heading into a little bit of a gap here. But um, we're definitely going to keep the content coming as always. We really appreciate you guys and your support and rocking with us through through this

whole last couple of seasons. Um, this is gonna air on Dash Radios in Long morning at seven am Pacific Standard time, and we'll be on our podcast feed here in about thirty minutes. Thank you guys so much and we will see you in a couple of days. Appreciate it. Thanks everyone,