Pacers/Lakers Postgame Spaces Part One

have known. It's a pretty bad omen when you get your best win of the year, right, even on the basketball courts, there were things you see that's positive. And the next day, none of the conversation was about basketball, right, it was about Frank Vogel. And you know, I'm sure he's the he might be even more of the star quote unquote star of the nine in terms of who's the main character of this game. But yeah, man, that was a frustrating one. Definitely one that will uh that's

gonna haunt the team. And I'm curious where we go from here. Uh, this is a bad Indiana team. Man. I think they're like fifteen games under five or something that we'll get into it. But yeah, it's a spirit killing one. Man, I feel like we had something to build on. I kept tweeting, keep building, man, and we didn't. We stopped building in that third quarter. How are you? How are you doing though? Man? How are you? I'm doing good? Good. I My high school team lost at

the Buzzer last night. Was pretty frustrating. But it's a couple of rough losses in a row. But anyway, our friend Jason Maples tweeted out that, uh that Indiana hasn't won a road game since before Thanksgiving, So you're absolutely right that it's a bad loss. They're missing their starting

center start Miles Turner. Man, it's a bad team. I So I came into tonight with the goal for you and me before we watched the game, you know, I was like, Hey, well, I think the Lakers are gonna beat the Pacers, and we'll talk a little bit about that, but it's not a super interesting games, so we'll probably spend the last half of the show talking about this

athletic article. Yeah, and everything centering around the flip Frank Vogel, uh, you know, potential firing that was allegedly in the works, and and you know, I defended Frank because I said you know, he hasn't been perfect. I don't agree with everything that he's done this year, But that said, in recent months, he's done a little bit of a better job of kind of adapting to some of the better elements of his roster. And most importantly, you know, I

was more concerned about buying than anything else. That's something I've consistently said here, like, no matter what, if, even if Frank has all of the best ideas, if the guys in the locker room don't listen to him, then it's worthless, right, you know, like even if it's just it's just it's just just untenable in those circumstances. But tonight was I thought Frank's worst game of the season in terms of rotation decision making, which is absolutely inexcusable

under the circumstances. So let's just let's just put it. Let's just make it real simple for everybody. If you didn't watch the Utah Jazz game, the Utah Jazz actually beat the ship out of us, with the exception of a fifteen minute stretch. In In this fifteen minute stretch, Russ was on the bench, Avery Bradley was on the bench, Carmelo Anthony wasn't even playing. Dwight Howard was on the bench.

It was Lebron James, an undrafted free agent rookie in Austin Reaves a failed lottery pick, and Stanley Johnson that was out of the league, another failed lottery pick. And Malik Monk who would have been out of the league had the Lakers not offered him a contract and Taylor Horton Tucker, a second round pick. But there was something unique about those four guys. They played their ass off and then big and they're big and athletic. Yeah with the you know, Malik isn't necessarily big, but he is

a very good athlete. And that group of five guys switched every screen completely. He shut down every one of Utah's actions, forced them to isolate. And on the other end, they ran a really smart, really hard to guard five out attack. Utah couldn't guard them. They were plus eighteen and fifteen minutes and the rest of the game, the

Lakers are minus twelve. And everyone talks so much about, you know, how good the Lakers looked in that game now for how they save Frank's john But you know, I was actually chatting privately with my buddy Sam from Laker Film Room or excuse me from Light Years with the Warriors guys, and I was talking to him about you know, I was like, hey, just you know, like, I don't know if you watched that game, but there was a lot of bad mixed in there. And it's

just the reality of this roster. There are good players, and they're bad players on this roster. And even the good players may not be good by the rest of the NBA standards, but they're a hell of a lot better than some of these other guys. And we came into this game once again starting three of our worst players, Dwight Howard, Trevor Reason, Avery Bradley. They're NBA players, but

their fringe NBA players, and we're starting them. So you're putting fringe NBA players next to your two best players and hoping for the best. And then, after everything good that happened in that Utah Jazz game with that lineup,

Frank didn't even use it tonight. That's inexcusable. That is absolutely inexcusable to go into the fourth quarter with the lineup that won you the damn game two days ago, bringing a guy who's been out with a back injury, who can't guard, and who obviously isn't gonna shoot well. Why won't we shoot well? Because he hasn't played basketball in what a week? Insane? He played thirty minutes tonight tonight and Stanley Stanley was the m v P on Monday. He was the best player on the floor in the

fourth quarter minutes for Stanley tonight. By the way, I can't stand here anymore and defend Frank Vogel when you do that yourself apotaging my guy. If you are jobless tomorrow, it's your fault. I can't. I can't help you anymore. But come on, man, Like that was and that's that. That fourth quarter rotation is only a small part of the rotation mismanagement. Tonight, I thought it was completely inexcusable. And again, like I have absolutely no sympathy, absolutely no

sympathy for him anymore. So I've kind of been the bigger um, not apologist, but trying to, you know, bring context into everything Frank Vogel is trying to go through. And I guess you can start from the beginning of this year, right, and we have a roster that has flipped over twice now, right, Frank Vogel has gone into three separate training camps with three totally different type of rosters. I guess you can say the core came back from the title team, but this is a totally different team.

It's a totally different roster, and he hasn't adjusted in the lineup tonight were absolutely unforgivable. I think Carmelo again playing thirty minutes, and I think we're just too rigid, you know, we're trying to find this new identity of playing small ball, playing big. I thought, you know, Dwight didn't play as play as much as he should. But you're right, man, there's no forgiving this one, Like this is what you can't lose at home to an Indiana

team that's like fifteen games under five hundred. And I thought, you know, we learned nothing from that Utah game. Like I went back and rewatched that one, discarded everything that you know, what's crazy about that Jason, Like there's so much in there that work, and there was so much like, oh this is real, you know what I mean? And again, Stanley's on the ten day, but his you know, archetype fits. We should be switching everything, and instead we played Carmelo

Anthony out there. And I always said, you know, you can switch. You can cover for one guy defensively, like you can cover from from League Monk, Like you could do that if you have all the other guys can switch.

You want to switch to through five, that's fine. But you know we had you know, we had lineups out there tonight, Malik Monk, Avery Badly and Carmelo Anthony at center next to Stanley Johnson, which completely takes away the whole reasoning for small ball, right, Like the whole point if you're gonna go small, you have to be sized

at other positions. That's just the main point if you're to go small, And they just took it to the rim, you know, and again not to blame Carmel and Anthony, because this is kind of unfair to depend it on one guy. It's unfair as well to Avery Bradley. He's not the one telling, you know, the coach to play him. But we just he just doesn't fit into a switching scheme.

And you know, I think what stands out the most tonight, and we're both not people who think plus minus is the greatest barometer, right, but Lebron James tonight Lebron was eleven for twenty two, played thirty seven minutes in this one. Uh he had twelve rebounds, five assists, uh is, three turnovers, two steals. He was a minus twenty Jason minus twenty.

It was Lebron tonight in thirty seven minutes, and he had a heck of a game to me, and to me it is because the line of that we played him with, played him with every Bradley, a bunch of carmelo. I just don't understand the mellow at five. And you know, the sad part all about this is we played an okay game in that first half, Like we played a

pretty good game. We were up I believe fifteen. Yeah, And you know, our youth just jumps out the page, right, It just and I don't get why all like all our young guys have to play together or all our old guys have to play together, right, like we can mix we can kind of mix those, uh mix those together. And it's so rigid and like the Devil's Advocate obviously is Frank Vogel is a guy that's that wants to

keep lineups together. Right. It's why even if d White Howards was better than DeAndre Jordan's We started DeAndre Jordan to kind of keep Dwight hard in that uh, in that lineup that he's probably gonna be in if everyone was healthy, right, But we're not in position to do that. We're five hundred. We need to get wins. We are not at a position to be experimenting anymore. We're forty two, forty three games into this season. I think we know what we have, and I still feel like we're playing

experimental games here. The mellow at the five lineups have been destroyed, like they the numbers say that they've been absolutely killed. We went to that way too much, and we're just having basketball points of uh points of failure, right, and when you go small, you're gonna have a bunch of those. But I just feel like we're shooting ourselves in the foot man and Indiana just attacked us right to the pains. The Bonus got whatever he wanted, a

bunch of offensive rebounds. We'll get into Russell Westbrook later. I think it's shocking that we bench Russell Westbrook tonight. I think that's something really interesting. Uh. He didn't play for the final four minutes, which is the first the first time Frank Vogel. You know sat Russell Westbrook, I thought you brought him Leek Monk and Austin Reeves too late. Um and again Reeves twenty four minutes. I probably could

have been higher. I can't complain, but Stanley at sixteen is just inexcusable man after the game he just had. And you know, I would understand playing Carmelo thirty minutes when we had no wings. We have everyone back now, Jason, other than Anthony Davis. You have THHD available. You know you you have Austin Reavesonville like you can go to other lineups and I don't want to blame it just on him. This team has a there's a lot of other bigger issues here. But you know, the lineups were awful,

Like there's no forgiving that. And I don't know where we go from here. I wouldn't be surprised if we wake up with a new coach tomorrow. Like, would you know you better get ready for ros You're all season all season long've you've been Mr. I'm not there yet And I don't blame you because you're you're much more

reserved than I am. However, like he's gone rog this is happening, like this is we we we need to enter into the acceptance space here because that was there's just no way, there's no way, how how could you possibly bring him back after everything that came out this week and tea in both parties privately trading jabs through through articles and reporters like it's over, it's over, It's over, dude, dude.

There was a stretch there in the middle. So I tweeted, right at the end of the third quarter, I'm like, okay, the fourth the fourth quarter lineup that one year the game last week was you know, teach Team Monk Reeves and the lebronic Stanley Johnson, So he's obviously going to go to that group to start the fourth, right, And no, he takes out Stanley Johnson and goes to Carmelo Anthony, which is just completely inn mentally changes the athleticism and

versatility of the lineup and keeping keeping old with old, right, like we're just thirty four year olds with like thirty six year olds, Like I just don't get that, but yet keep going. So then then right around like the seven seven and a half minute mark, he takes Carmelo out, puts back in Stanley Johnson, but he also brings in Avery Bradley ononhe he can't switch, so then he starts calling for his same stupid ass drop coverage that he likes to use, when literally everything we did against the

Jazz was switching something. Guys, for all of you who are new, we've never listened to us before. ROJ and I have been all over this stupid ditch. The bigs play five out, but play your bigger wings, switch everything. But Frank is obsessive with drop coverage because he's obsessed with ball pressure and he's obsessed with chasing ball handlers over screens and trying to funnel them to ring protection. It's like his fetish. It's the most absurd thing in

the entire world. And literally, in this game tonight, while Carris Lavert is actively on fire, like literally burning alive on the court making everything he's throwing up, We're watching him run a drop coverage with Stanley Johnson, and I'm literally like, that has to be a switch. That has to be a switch. As LeVert comfortably walks into a sixteen foot or that doesn't even touch the rim, like literally it was it was complete malpractice. And then again

this was. This was thing I pointed out about the Jazz game. You know, the start of the starting lineup was like minus nine or something in that game, and and Lebron and Russell Westbrook made a bunch of pull up jump shots. Like literally, if it wasn't for pull up jump shots going in with with which with Russ is just an absolute disaster, which we're gonna get to later in the show. But like, if it wasn't for that,

it would have been even worse. We probably would have lost to the Jazz had Russell Westbrook not made his first like three pull up jump shots. And then tonight the same thing. It's fool's gold. Yeah, your lineup is performing okay with the Reason and Dwight, but it's because Russ made three threes. How often is that going to happen? Like like like come on, like it's just it's absolutely asinine.

It's it's the there's an obvious, Like Raj, you consistently talked about how there is a good team in here somewhere it's at you think you're and I think you're right. You're absolutely right. But the good version of this team is a five out, switch everything modern basketball team. It's the l A Clippers, but playing with you know, purple and gold on that like the last year, is LA Clippers type of identity. And every time we've gone to

that this year and played hard, we've been good. Every time every time we've done that and we've played hard, we've been good. And every time we've tried to run Frank's traditional schemes and coverages and all of his base basketball philosophies that he loves so much, every time we've tried to do that with this group, it's failed. And once again, one of my biggest pet peeves with coaches, and this is just something that I've seen in all my time around the game. Coaches that have a belief

that they imprint on their players almost always failed. Coaches that build a belief around their players and their strengths, they always succeed. And that has been Frank's biggest problem this entire time, is he's so stubborn and so intent on trying to get these guys to play his way when that's not what they're good at. That this is why we are. It's not the only reason why we are we are. I want to be clear, there's a whole lot of other factors why the Lakers are a

below five A team right now. But Frank is very much a part of that. He's very much a part of that. And you know, you talked about the drop coverage scheme, and again that's something that Frank Vogel obviously loves. And we'll never know how much. You know, starting two bigs is Anthony Davis's preference, who's he's been very public about that, or is if that's just something Frank Vogel work. Frank Bogel likes to do. But you know, I think that drop coverage works if you have the personnel to

do it. The problem to me again, if you have Carmelo running Carmelo just naturally right, that's how he plays. He's gonna back up. He doesn't have the speed advantage, so on any screen, on any screen action that he's involved in, he's gonna back up. And he and again Trevor Reesa does that as well, but he can switch a little bit better. But again, like you're right, Frank

has to adjust to this team. It's been a slow adjustment and to me, like how he feels it is like, hey, I don't have my team right, I don't have Anthony Davis. I'm gonna do what I know works, what I've won with. Right, Jason, he won a title fifteen months ago with philosophies that he's been imprinted with, right that he obviously eaves in his his Bible of basketball, like this is how basketball

should work. Obviously, small ball is something that I don't think he really vies in like fully into right, even Lebron at center lineup, So obviously I think that's not something you would like to do consistently. But it's interesting,

like you're seeing. And that's why this all kind of ties together as well from the beginning of this year, because it feels like we've built a roster that, you know, goes against everything our coach believes in, and a good you know, organization not to attack, you know, because I think there's enough fingers the point and everybody that's blamed

to go around. But usually organization walks in unison, right, Like you have a coach and star player and front office working and walking in unison, and I feel like that's a disconnect that's happened, and you're seeing that struggle back and forth. Right. That's why when you see these lineups that come out vocals like, Okay, I'm gonna play Carmelo, but I'm also gonna keep Avery Bradley out there to give me that defensive intensity that I want or you know,

that baseline level of effort defensively. You know. So you're seeing these mixes of like having a foot in each kind of side, right, you have a foot in the pool and a foot out, and you really haven't decided anything, and you're seeing Lebron go berserk to kind of win us games. So there's a there's a breaking point here that's going to happen. I feel like tonight's the game for that. And it stucks again because I know, you know, Jason Mabel's tweeted us like, you know, the Utah game

was fake. But you know, I feel like we did find stuff, a little bit of stuff in there that you know that could have been Well, we didn't do any of the same things that we did in the game, That's what I mean. So and again no that, but we did though that small ball in that in that in that second quarter, that small ball team want got us a lead. That's what got us that fifteen point lead. Th h T Austin Reeves leek monk that the exerbiance

experience of youth, right, just jumps off the page. You take thirty seven year olds out in a regular January game. Who cares how we feel about it, right, it's a January game to them. You take them out, you put in these twenty year olds who are flying around defensively switching everything a good defender in aust rooms Like it jumps off the page, and it's just such a stark difference, and I get wanting to keep lineups together, like that's totally makes sense. A lot of coaches like to do that.

But we're on a we're on in a position to do that, and we're running defense. We're running different defensive principles with different lineup, so like we're switching everything with this lineup than like one person subs in and all of a sudden you're like, oh, ship, we can't switch any everything. Yeah, we gotta changed everything we're doing, and

it just gets super confusing. And then Indiana, once the avalanche came, which we've seen a lot this year, Right, once a little avalanche comes, all of a sudden, we're like way under all of a sudden, like a five point lead that should have been, you know, changed like we Jason, I was looking at the third quarter, right, I was like, oh man, we cannot score, like we just we cannot score. Seven and a half minutes went by, we took a time out. The only substitution was Carmelo.

Anthony came into the game. I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh man, and Indiana continue to push and eventually took the lead. So this is super frustrating as a guy who's been you know, let's look at process. Let's you know, let's try to look at things from a when the team is healthy. I want to. I don't know how much. Look, Anthony Davis fixes a lot, but there's a lot of internal issues here that you know, you don't just throw Anthony Davids into it and it

just solves and plugs every hole. Right, there's a bunch of you know, leaks coming out right now, and Anthony Davids will fix a few of them. But we have like inner issues that we have to kind of deal with. I think, you know, the Russell Westbrook thing is a whole another one that will definitely we're about to get there. Yeah, but yeah, man, Frank, you know, and I don't know if you saw the quote. I'm sure. I'm sure you've been tagged in it as well. I think Frank, oh

you did. Yeah, I'm not even didn't even look up there. Yeah, Frank Voglan, Benji Russ playing the guys I thought would win the game, Like, oh man, that is if that's not a locker? First of all, have you heard Frank talk like that ever? He's Well, it's because as a super diplomatic dude, that is one of the most like, forget passive aggressive, that's the most aggressive things I've seen him say in the post post presser. But yeah, it's

gonna be tough. I don't think you survised this one, honestly, And as a guy who's been a Frank not apologist again, but as a guy has supported him, as a guy who understands the context of the season starting with no wings, right, you know, starting with Lebron going out and then a d going out, Like, I understand the context, but I would totally get the other side as well. If he's gone, I just man, the replacement is just my worry, right, because if you take him out, you have to put

someone in. Jason, I don't that's where the that's the gray area. To me, you sub a coach in halfway through the year, Like, that's again, that's pulling a fire alarm, I said, trading Russ is burning the house down, firing Frank is pulling the fire alarm. And maybe this team needs a fire alarm. But that that's what it would be well and that's what's going to happen. And you know,

I don't. I don't think there's really any precedent for bringing somebody completely new to the franchise in in the middle of the season, So chances are it's gonna end up being Fizdale. And my big thing with Fizdale is like, hey, man, like, I don't think you're nearly as schematically competent as Vogel. I think I think Vogel is probably the best defensive coach in the league. I think he deserves that sort of honor, even if he's stubborn in his approach. That

is his big strength. But he does not he what the problem with Frank And this is what Avery Bradley is the best example of this. The reason why Avery Bradley plays so much despite not being nearly as good as some of the other guards off the bench is because he is the best at one very specific skill, and that's chasing guys over the top of ball screens, which is fundamental to Frank's defensive scheme. So that's the problem here. He will make his rotation decisions based on that,

ignoring everything else that's wrong with the situation. So, for instance, why do you not switch and Avery Bradley, Stanley Johnson, UH, pick and roll with UH, with Sabonis and Lavert? You don't switch it because Frank is paranoid about defensive rebounding. You know, even though the whole philosophy of small ball is like we're gonna give up a few, there's gonna be some offensive rebounds in there, but there's a huge positive trade off. We're going to force you to play

isolation basketball all day long. You're gonna have to shoot over the top of a contest all day long. There's so much good that comes with it, and Frank ignores all of that because he'll look at a guy like a just a better basketball player like Austin Reeves, and he'll be like, hmm, you know, Austin is better at this, this, this, this, and this, but you know he's not quite as good at chasing over the top of ball screens as Avery Bradley. So I gotta go with Avery like that philosophy is

literally how he dug his own grave here. And I mean, and this quote is just the lazy. He's basically the dude and the boardroom at that you know in the corporate ladder who just gets up and stands on the on the table and just peas on the table before he says I quit and runs out of the room like that's basically what he's doing right now, and as he should because you know, like like dude, you're on your way out, like it's over. This is this was

the last straw. Hey, guys, So we ended up if for those of you who are in the spaces, we had almost four thousand people in the app ended up crashing, which was really unfortunate. It crashed right after this Westbrook rant that I was about to do. So what I'm doing to try to make it work best for the podcast because we did restart the spaces and get to the rest of the topics, I'm keeping this as part one.

Part two tomorrow will be Roger and I discussing Russell Westbrook and then diving back into Frank and doing a eulogy on Frank of sorts. But then at the same time, the end of the show is us reacting to the news that Frank is in fact going to keep his job at least for the time being in fly to Orlando. So very interesting. Part two coming that will air let's say, at five pm Mountain Standard time on Thursday. Thank you guys as always for your support. We will see you after the game on Friday.