Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - NBA West Squad: Lakers offense stalls, will JJ Redick Make DRASTIC Changes?

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

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On today's Lockdown NBA Squad Show West, which team in the Western Conference should feel most confident about their matchup and also their bracket? Let's talk about all that and more. Lockdown NBA Squad Show West. You are talking ball with the NBA West Squad Show, sponsored by game time. From the Warriors to the Lakers, the Mavericks to the Nuggets, and everyone else in the West. The local experts of the Lockdown podcast network bring you all the scoops, breakdowns, and the most comprehensive look at the Western Conference. Trash talk and big takes included. No holding back, we're giving the green light. It's time to talk NBA West.

And welcome. You're Lockdown to the NBA Squad Show West. My name is Nick Engzad, host of Lockdown Mavericks Podcast. This is the squad show where we take over the feet of your favorite Lockdown show. It's an open invite for any host to join and talk about anything they want in the NBA's Western Conference, especially in the playoffs. Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can get $250 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins.

Joining me today from Lockdown Thunder, the number one seed up 56. Rylund Stiles, locked on Nuggets, Ryan Blackburn, locked on Lakers, Ryan Kamenitsky, joining us right now from Lockdown Rockets, Jackson Gatlin, and a white wall, no, he's back. No, it was a wall, it was perfect, that you were just a wall. Dari and Viziri locked on Clippers, not from the wall and Intuit Dome, but from a wall in his house.

Gentlemen, we may go somewhere completely different, but let's start here, who after one game, we haven't seen Game 2 yet, we're recording this on Monday afternoon. who after game one should feel most confident about their matchup and about their bracket in the Western Conference. Maybe I'll start with Rylan. I don't know, for whatever reason. I think it should absolutely be the team that won by a whopping.

What was the final tally? What was the final score? Yeah, it's clearly the thunder. I mean, whenever you look at this first round matchup, it's a nothing burger. They beat Memphis 131 to 80 in game one on Sunday afternoon. And the Memphis Grizzlies just outright quit in the middle of game one. In the second quarter,

their body language was dejection. They were shell-shocked. This is going to be a short-order series, just like we all predicted. And then you look forward to the bracket and the Thunder have to win one tough matchup to get to the West Finals. Every other team is having to play at least two to get to the West Finals, a minimum. So the Thunder has had this set up really well for them in their quest for contention and their quest for a championship because the Grizzlies are no threat. Being at the Grizzlies play in game against the Mavericks, they, their body language was so completely different john moran in that first quarter was flying around

everywhere he had that insane put-back dunk and then they played whoop that trick and everybody in the arena was waving their towels around and like just the body language and the imagery of all that that compared to what happened against the thunder that gave one was insane which i don't know what that says about the mavericks i don't know if there's a transitive does the transitive property work in the nba but uh man that that that was just a stark difference anybody else i mean anybody going to pick the Grizzlies? Can we get, could get somebody in here? Anybody?

Nick, defense won a game. Let's do, can anybody, can the Grizzlies win a game? Sure. They can win a game. Sure. What's the path? They could win a game. A lot of things could happen, Nick. They play a game, though. They play Marvin Bagley, 40 minutes. Get Marvin Bagley some help.

It was the best way on the floor. He's good. He's been good. He was good in Detroit. He was good in Washington. Like, imagine giving the players that actually earned their way, as opposed to ninth picks who should have never been drafted to the team all this leeway and firing a good coach over it. I can't believe we found another way

to make this about Luca Dantich and just the guy that was drafted over him. I literally just came from the Nico Harrison Presser and everything will be made about Luca Dantzich in some way. I'm very curious because I know, did you guys talk about Clippers Nuggets? No, we're about to.

We are recording this Monday before game two. I'm so excited to hear from Daryan about how much he, can believe in the leadership that he's going to get from noted amazing leaders in a tough spot coming off the overtime game. Kawhi Leonard and James Hardin. Is there any two players that you'd rather have reading your team and the heart that you need to win a series in game like this than Kauai Leonard and James Hardin? Oh, I think that's insane. I think James Hardin and Kauai Leonard, James Hardin and Kauai Leonard are like honestly very polar opposite in ways to me.

Hardin actually depends on how you define leadership. I think he's a pretty good vocal leader. No, I think he's a pretty good vocal leader. He actually gets the most out of the big man that he plays with. Every teammate seems to speak very highly of him. And he's really done a great job leading this team. The only thing I'll knock about Hardin's leadership is sometimes he can be lazy himself on like defense and stuff like that, which doesn't set a great tone. But in the first case,

game outside of the fourth quarter defensively, he was, he was pretty good. I mean, he, I don't, if you get, what was it, 29 and 11 from Hardin or 30, I forget exactly how many points he had, you're going to take your chances. Kauai, what, while he does lack vocal leadership, you're acting like he's some choke artist in the playoffs. This is the guy with the third highest winning percentage in NBA history. He had a bad game, but like, you're like writing him off. Like he's got no, I'm just, I'm saying that the other guys need leadership.

Like, Kauai does fine. His actual game seven record, his elimination record. for performance, not what you would expect. That's a lot of narrative that goes into how we talk about Kauai Lennar. It doesn't fit with the reality. I watched a couple of games where Quietlanders really good. Yeah, they're playing the maps. Come on.

Yeah, the maps only make fluke. They only made fluky runs that none of their runs are legitimate. And basically anybody that has won anything in the West has not been legitimate for Matt Moore. What about against Milwaukee? Was that team week two in 2019 conference finals when they won four straight games? Oh, no. Fred Van Bleet was great in that series. He was amazing. Oh, come on.

I'm off the Fred Van Bleet for being the difference maker in that series. I can't believe he was. Wait, wait. Fred Van Bleet can be a difference maker in a series? Sorry, I mean. But as far as, I mean, I guess you're insulting the Clippers' mental resilience. No, I don't know. This is the question.

Like, this is what's actually kind of fun is like, maybe I'm wrong. Because you mentioned the Hardin thing. I asked Tylo in preseason like, all right, PG's gone. Like, who's like, who's been the leader for you? And he was like, it's James. Harden. Like he's been the guy that you need to do that. And he's like, he leads by example. And I pressed him because I think that leading by example can oftentimes just mean like he's a good player and he doesn't actually do anything. And so I asked Ty Lou about it. And I was like,

is it important for it to be one of those guys? And he was like, it has to be. And I was like, you know, because Ty played and coach. I was like, why? And he was like, otherwise it's just talk. Like you have to step up and you got to do it. Because otherwise, you can say all those stuff that you want to, but you got to actually do the thing. And that Hardin's leadership there actually is Matt is important. Well, I think this season, and again, I'm not the first to defend James Hardin or about anything, but he has been great with the media. Zubots speaks so highly of him. Clearly, they've put in a lot of reps working in pick and roll. He's built, I mean, Zubots is playing the most confident basketball of his career, and there is a level of that's just his own improvement,

but having a guy that teams consistently have to go over the top of screens, and we know Hardin's a great pick and roll passer. Jackson could tell you that better than all of us here. So, So he's done a good job of getting, I mean, a lot of guys in the Clippers are having career years, and he's been running the show. So I do believe that there is some correlation there. Ryan, I mean, just so many great words to say about a team that choked a 15 point lead. They did, but I blame Kauai Leonard more for that than Hardin. And I believe Kauai Leonard will bounce back. But you're right.

It's going to test the mental resilience to this Clipper team. I think all season long, though they've shown that they're pretty tough minded and they haven't been, you know, soft like the two-on-three teams with Paul George. And I'm not totally putting that on Paul George, but I don't know, there's some kind of, I don't know, there's something he radiates that gives off loser energy. Just ask the Sixers. Well, while we're still talking about Nuggets Clippers, I just want to take a second. Hopefully, by the way, I hope the Clippers won this game by like a million. So Matt Moore. And now, look like it's idiot. Can we talk, though, about Darring.

I'm just going to let you ISO for a second. Game three is on NBA TV. Oh, my God. Nick, this is an actual disgrace to the NBA. Adam Silver, you know, we talk about we're not promoting this game enough. We're not promoting the NBA enough. Here you have an amazing first round matchup that should be a second round series. You got the best player in the world.

He's won three of the last four MVP. This is a guy that is front and center in your league. You got James Hardin and Russell Westbrook and Kauai Leonard, who are some of the biggest stars of the last decade of the NBA. They have cult fan bases. Just asked me, I have to deal with them in the comments all the time and in Twitter. I mean, and we saw that first game. It's the best basketball matchup.

It's the best basketball matchup. That Rockets Warriors series, I was very excited for it, but that was some nasty ball being played for stretches of that game. And I like those kind of barn burner games, but the Nuggets Clippers just clearly from game one passed my prediction of the best basketball. And then on top of that, the newest stadium in your entire league, amazing stadium. fans are fired up.

First game at the stadium, NBA TV. For what matchup? Not the Warriors Rockets. Not the Lakers Timberwolves. For the most lopsided matchup of this first round, we'll get plenty of OKC flowers and attention in the second round and further, if they make it past the second round. But it's just, I can't even fathom it.

On NBA TV, for the first playoff given into it, I had a vision, Nick, of checking my phone during commercial breaks on Twitter and seeing everybody go crazy watching the TNT or ESPN broadcast of how amazing this crowd is. And now people are going to be searching on, you know, Stream East for a link of the game. Didn't they show that down?

I got to be honest, you had me up to the point where you get to the arena. Because you're going to say it's not important. I'm not going to say that's important. I'm going to say that nobody cares. At least for that arena, they have the wall, which is like some kind of novelty oddity that like,

it's actually like a cool. It's like a cool arena as opposed to Staples Center, which is just like. Staples, I agree. Staples is not a great arena, but the Lakers aren't on national television because the arena's cool.

Like nobody, you don't broadcast the arena. You broadcast the game. I happen to agree with Dari and though that the game should be broadcast on a big, because you have, you know, a really intriguing and very good Clippers team playing the best player on the planet. I disagree.

I tune in exclusively to see what's going on in the crypt. Okay, that's all I do. I'll tell you though. You won't be able to. basketball. Won't be able to miss the crowd. If it goes the way, I think it's going to go.

I mean, this is going to be awesome. Coming up, let's get into the other series. Let's talk about that ugly basketball for the, for the rockets and the warriors. Let's talk about Lakers, Timberwolves. Everybody on the squad show picked the Lakers, the Timberwolves one game once. Talk about all that and more. Coming up, Lockton, MBA Squad Show West. Today's episode of Locked on Bay Squad Show West, brought to you by Fanduel.

Fantas World's all kinds of props on ads you can use to get in on the action, check it out. Put down $5. You can get $250 in bonus. bets if your first $5 bet wins. I'm looking at the series odds. And right now, my favorite one on Fanduel is Oklahoma City Thunder to win the series minus 10,000.

You have to bet $10,000 to win $100 for the fund to get money on the Thunder to win the series, which is absolutely wild to me. Love it. We were just talking about Clippers and Nuggets. Nuggets minus 138. Clippers plus 118 to win the series. You can go check out those odds and all kinds of other stuff at Fanduel. again, put down $5 if you're first $5 bet

and you win, you'll get $250 if that bet wins. Check it out fanduel.com again, fanduel.com. Thanks for hanging out this on Locked on B, Squad Show West. Darien was so upset. He became a wall. He became a wall again. He's now embodying the wallet into a dome. We've got a great show that covers every single one of your

favorite teams. Go check it out. Locked on Nuggets, locked on rockets, Thunder, Lakers, Clippers, all playoff teams here except for yours, truly. You guys are still in the intro. Just it's a testament to your pull around the network. The Mavericks are part of the graphics package. Tough.

People were definitely talking about the Mavericks more than they were talking about the Timberwolves before the playoffs, but for the worst reasons. Every single person on the squad show last week, picked the Lakers to win the series. The Timberwolves win game one. Anybody faltering on their pick of the Lakers or some of you weren't here last week? Do you feel differently than everybody last week? Everybody's still confident about the Lakers? Brian. Brian, you're still confident about the Lakers?

I thought we were doing democracy here for a second. Says democracy. One single person gets to decide for everybody else. I thought at some point Minnesota was going to win a game at the crypt with the passionless building that Matt hates, you know, driving the Lakers to a loss. So, I mean, I'm not surprised. I didn't think the Lakers played very well. I mean, that part of it was undeniable.

and obviously if it happens again in game two, I think we'll all be rethinking our evaluations here. But Minnesota is really good. And the Lakers picked a bad night to oddly, it's not even so much they were completely outperformed schematically or, you know, execute. Like they just didn't play as hard. Like Minnesota, like all the stuff that the Lakers need to do

to fix what went wrong in game one starts with just moving with more purpose, moving with more physicality, setting better screens, cutting quicker, cutting harder, picking up defensively. I'm not saying that's all going to work. But like step one is like you have to meet the requisite level of intensity and physicality. The Lakers didn't draw a foul in that, or didn't commit a foul in that game until the four minutes left in the second quarter in the second quarter. And it was aunt essentially sort of going through Reeves in the post.

who was trying to body him up as best as he could. It wasn't like some sort of super aggressive physical foul that Reeves laid on there. Like that can't happen in the playoffs. You're not playing defense at a high enough level. If you can go, you know, 18 minutes in the first half without drawing a foul. I mean, come on. Was this just the LeBron game one feel-out game? Luca has those as well.

They lost every single game one. I don't like attributing stuff to like, oh, this is just how LeBron does. Lakers played like booty. They played very poor, poorly in this game. They were not, you know, LeBron wasn't intended. He has won game ones before. It's very common for him to lose game one.

It's also very common for him to win game one. So they weren't intentionally just feeling this thing out and throwing it away. But his track record after losing game one and Lucas and all that makes me feel like it's not quite over yet. There's a lot, you know, there's a lot of the Lakers can. do better, even notwithstanding changes Minnesota can make. It does kind of feel. Letting Jade McDaniels hit every shot under the sun, right? Like that's probably adjustment number one, just stop him from hitting everything.

Isn't Jade McDaniels just going to, I mean, like to some degree, if he shoots 85% again, like, he's only, he's only scored 20 plus 12 times this season. Right. So you just sort of to some degree assume that's going to dial back again. Yeah. It does also just feel kind of like economy of effort for this Lakers team. that has played, they post-all-Star break, one of the big factors for them and the way that they were guarding was that they were playing harder and then having to scramble as often as

they were with as small as they were. I think it was Jada McDaniels who was talking about, yeah, I might be the tallest guy on both sides because they don't have a center that they are willing to play more than eight minutes. And it's also the only thing that Jared Vanderbilt, 14 minutes. And so we were talking about this in the show for today for for Monday. I, let's assume that it is a long series. If the Lakers can't develop some confidence to play Jackson Hayes, to play Jared Vanderbilt or whatever, not only are they're going to be really small in terms of, you know, just overall height. The Lakers are a long team and they're big, but you're playing without a center,

you know, you become sort of at least, to some degree small. You're also playing with like six and a half guys against the team that's featuring like eight and a half. And over the course of a series, I don't think that that could be problematic. You know, just that the Lakers depth can be overrated in the playoffs. You know, who you are five to nine doesn't necessarily matter as much as who you are one to four. But, you know, you got to play some dudes. And the Lakers are threatening to play such a short rotation that it could become problematic later on. Hey, join the club.

There's often said that the culture of a team takes on the identity of their best player. so a team that gave no effort and didn't work hard and just kind of ran around and got points that's just saying that might track a little bit there you know anything nice to say about anyone do i mean austin rase austin i have a lot of nice things about rylans team i have a lot of nice things and marvin bagley and marvin bagley yeah those are your two guys listen all you guys do is be a team by 50 and man more's gonna come around do you that's how you get the matmore stamp of approval you have a 50 plus deficit So nobody's wavering, though.

Everyone just thinks it was one game. I was about to say, I, my excuses, I've been through a lot this year, and I haven't watched Minnesota playing months, and I had a bad pick. It was rash. And I didn't think this matchup through. The Lakers don't have nearly enough resistance to their best player compared to what the wolves have. I mean, they have great defenders all over the board.

I was realizing that LeBron, they're going to be okay switching Nas Reid and Rudy Gobert out to LeBron one-on-one. And it's going to come down to him getting to. down him like really because he didn't really create that many offensive advantages like normal and it just felt like Austin Reeves if he's not going to be able to get by these guys I mean because the Lakers have nobody for Anthony Edwards they have no one that can stay in front of him at all go ahead I don't know what to expect from the defense man like every time I'm like oh they're going to be like they'd make the trade I'm like oh they're going to be terrible on defense

and then JJ schemes up like a perfect weak side zone system right like against the nuggets I compensate like they're just terrific and then then they go through a stretch where it's like, no, no, they're actually terrible. I'm like, oh, okay, so like that was just a blip. And then they went back to being really good. Like, why are we, why are we not overthinking the clippers or the Timberwell just shot 50% from three and made 21? Because there was so, oh, the quality of looks were so good. It's like, and especially if the Lakers aren't making shots because the wolves defense is getting stops,

their transition defense is horrid. And it's been terrible all season. So if the wolf have a bunch of athletes, that's part of why I think McDaniel is like, he, he's not going to have 25 point games. But if they're not going to run with him in transition, he's going to get a lot of putbacks and he's just going to be getting lobs. Like it's a rougher matchup than I thought. I'm not wavering on the Lakers winning the series,

but Lakers in six, I think if the Lakers win, it's going to be in seven, in my opinion. I think Daryan's point, it's like, I know that so much attention has been paid to the, you know,

the defense and the open shots and all that kind of stuff. I think the Lakers lost that game. They scored 95 points. And it was an ugly 95. You know, like they, Minnesota, I'm assuming, if I'm interpreting what JJ was saying, surprise them by essentially playing straight on everything.

And they, I think we talked about this last week, like go make the Lakers into a one-on-one team. Make LeBron play one-on-one, make Luca play one-on-one, make Reeves play. They might beat you. But, you know, you get one pass that way. And then the ball's not flipping around. The minute you start to send extra players to Luca, and Luca is throwing the ball to LeBron, you're done.

And I think Minnesota understands that. And so the Lakers needed the offense was so stagnant that I don't think they gave their transition defense a chance. I don't think they gave their, you know, half court defense a chance. They were, you know, Minnesota never had to take the ball out of their own net. And, you know, they have to figure out how to get much more intention and movement and stuff into their offense. And that's sort of what I was talking about before.

They got to move hard, move more, play hard. harder, get, you know, JJ talked about this at practice on Monday, get organized faster. Just everything needs to have more urgency with what they're doing. So they're not starting an action at 17 seconds into the shot clock. And they're doing it at 11. And I think that'll make a big difference. I thought you and Andy did a really good job on the postgame show of talking about like, essentially what you're talking about here is validating kind of JJ's point because

JJ's taking heat for kind of saying like, well, you just didn't play very far. And everyone being like, oh, so it's not your fault. and it's one of those things where if if jay j screws up something i feel like jay is going to own it he's going to be like yeah no i got i had a very very bad strategy tonight uh i think so generally yeah versus like e me o doka who's just i don't know what he's going to do cut a wrestling promo or something but like i thought you made it you and andy made a really good point about how like it really is about effort like they get a hit first if you don't hit the wolves first they will run over you i will say though don't forget the last year the wolves went up two-o in denver and

we were like, well, this thing's a wrap. And then they lost the next two. They wound up winning the series. But I think that's like something interesting about Minnesota that they're able to go on. Like they punch first. The question is like what happens when you punch back. Yeah, that said, I think if the Lakers don't win game two, I don't want to say they're cooked because, you know, you got to win four out of five with three of those coming in Minnesota. That's, that's a taller order.

Luca did win both two, both game one and two on the road. The Western Congress finals last year against. Just say that. Different, different, different team. definitely different. Good patient and traded that guy. He's pretty good. Probably should not have.

He's a decent little player. That guy is still employed. Let's get into the Warriors versus the rockets. What do the rockets do? How do they score points? How do they score points? I'm talking about that anymore. Coming up.

Thanks for hanging out of this on Lockton, NBA Squad Show West. We have a newsletter that covers your favorite team. LockdownDaily.com to find all those newsletters. You can subscribe to as many as you want, honestly. Clippers, Thunder, Nuggets, Lakers, Mabs. We have nothing, we have nothing to talk about also.

And you could also subscribe to the Rockets. And if you subscribe to the Rockets, expect them to be very defensive. Jackson, you came on the squad show last week, defending your boys to the top. And everything that we kind of said came true or did it. It did to some degree. Absolutely.

It kind of manifested itself in honestly the worst way possible, which was Jalen Green and Fred Van Bly, both coinciding to have like a pair of the stinkiest games you'll ever witness in the post-season. season. It was bad. Seven of 34 combined shooting for those two guys, which unfortunately for Rockets fans means 27 missed shots and that number is going to curse our franchise for foreseeable future. Yeah, it's killer. I saw that number and I about lost it. I straight up walked away from my computer for a minute. All right. So look, 27. Yeah, the right. Look, the Rockets half court offense has been

an issue all season long. It's been a problem. But generally throughout the season, they've gotten enough out of their offense, be it with Shingun's consistency in the middle, and then contributions from other guys up and down the roster to be able to win some games, right? And the nights where they do lose, the losses they get really ugly in Houston are the ones where this, the exact thing happens. Alper and Shingun played out of his mind, had a phenomenal game, and nobody else decided to show up to help them out until it was a little bit too late in the fourth quarter. By then, they didn't have enough juice after getting into a 23-point deficit to come back out on top but the likelihood of fred and jalen both having this bad of a pair of stinkers

again in the series i kind of feel like they just got it out of the way i don't say any way it happens again i do that's okay that's my no jinx co-host ryan blackburn i don't know man like i well jackson my big one for you is like is jayling arena 16 gamer i don't know yet game one doesn't look great so we'll see look I want to get I want to be genuine here and saying I'm going to give these guys the benefit of the doubt right they deserve at least one playoff series

for better or for worse right let's see what these guys have this is their first taste of postseason basketball for pretty much every major guy up and down the roster outside of the handful of vets that they have chalk it up to game one jitters chock it up to hat tip to the warriors their defense was incredible they pressured they blitzed a lot they made jalen and Fred uncomfortable

and then Fred decided to go hero ball at the end and really he was praying that any one of those threes would drop in and and none of them were falling at the end of the game one of five shooting in that fourth quarter like I want to see what they do over the course of the whole series I'm not going to write jalen green off after one bad game now if he has a second bad game if he has three bad games four bad games and he's the achilles heel of this rocket's team in the postseason then yeah we'll label him hey you know until you come back and prove it next year right now for jackson's wifi over jackson The other one frozen, Nick.

Yeah, Nick, you're frozen. Everybody frozen? Nick, why shouldn't you be fired? Huh? There we go. The only one frozen. Jackson, how did that? I was over here cooking, Nick.

What did you learn? Jackson, how do you think Amin Thompson did on step? Because the stat line looks really good. But like, if he's going to, if he's going to get 31 on 19 shots, it's going to be tough. He really struggled early on in the game. He kind of settled in as the game went on and felt a little bit more comfortable there in the close in the fourth quarter. But early on, he was overplaying Steph. Steph was getting backdoor, some easier opportunities there.

Rocket's whole defense was just kind of a mess in that first half. Eme O'Dokin deploying the double big lineup with Steph out there was dangerous. And that was a major gamble. And then Warriors made him pay. They kind of cut through the zone like Swiss cheese and then got buckets right at the rim. The defense tightened up there in the second half after going. down 23 and be able to kind of force your way back into it. But again, offensively, like it just kind of felt like a perfect storm of different things. Six of 29, three point

shooting overall now. Yeah, a large portion that is Fred and Jalen, but it also feels like something that they can look back on film and try and diversify the shot profile a little bit. You know, on a night where Jalen and Fred are struggling that much, Fred doesn't need to take 19 shots. Jalen doesn't need to take 15. Dylan Brooks, who's been the best shooter on the team this season, should have gotten more attempts. Jabaris Mujr should have gotten more attempts. Hell, even a men Thompson just getting downhill gives them a little bit of a different offensive profile than Jalen and Fred continuing to chuck.

So I'm not that worried about it because it took really, really strong games from Steph and Jimmy. And yeah, you can sit here and say, yeah, they're capable of doing that three more times. They probably are. But I also think that their potential for faltering and not both having strong games is not,

I don't know, I think it's a possibility with how hard the Rockets evens played. They held the worst 95 points. That's a winning final score if your offense doesn't just completely bottom out on you. Do you have enough shot good shot creators on the perimeter offensively, you think, Jackson? Because it feels like Jalen Green was taking some rough shots. There's no one that consistently, because if you don't, if the answer is no, then the Rock has just got to really play through Shangoon.

Like he's the clear-cut number one option and there's a real gap with the next guy and just throw him the ball almost every time down the floor. No, you're, Daryan, you're absolutely right. And this has been the issue with that mantra that the Rockets have had this season. Sometimes you, sometimes me, always us. There isn't really a clear hierarchy. And that is a problem. And that's kind of an indictment of the coaching staff.

And Emeo Doka needs to be able to like kind of iron that out and be like, all right, look, so-and-so has the hot hand. You got to feed him, right? Alper and Shingoon was feasting, getting pretty much whatever he wanted against this warrior's defense. Maybe a little bit by design. They elected Garderman's single coverage most of the night. But he only got one shot attempt in the fourth quarter. Nine and a half minutes, only one shot attempt.

Jalen had five attempts. Fred had five attempts and they both went one for five in that final quarter. That can't happen. You can't lose sight of who the best player is in a given matchup. And because the Rockets on any given night, one guy might be the best player. You've got to be able to identify in a given game. Hey, this guy's got the hot hand. We got to keep feeding him.

And they didn't do that in the fourth quarter. I thought the men was really good in the fourth quarter in terms of like it looked like he was ready to take like the step up to the moment and make some plays. Like your lineup needs to be Fred who like Fred had a bad shooting game. But Fred's a veteran and like at least knows how to run offense and can make big time shots. I heard he's a leader someone can, can rely on too. Yeah. Like Fred, Amen, Jabari, Adams, Shangoon needs to be your starters and closers. And Jalen Green can check up some shots in the middle. Like that needs to be your, that needs to be the structure. The problem is even with Fred out there and like this is the the, the rockets are reliant on Jalen Green. They need a version of Jalen

Green that can self-create to an extent. They do because unfortunately, like watching Fred in the, in the non-Shingun minutes is painful because he doesn't have any ability to get downhill. He doesn't have an ability to really generate great offense without the rockets playing throughout Phrin-Singun. And those moments got really sticky without Shingun on the floor. So Jalen is the only other guy that can reliably self-create on this team outside of Shingun and maybe a little bit of Men Thompson if he can get downhill. But that's it.

And so the team is unfortunately for better or for worse built around that. They need him to give at least a little bit of production or they're going to have games like this where the offense just isn't enough. That's what you get when you're two highest build, well, I guess Fred's the highest build player, but your two star players have to produce. And one star player did produce, but he didn't have somebody show up

with them to be able to put them over the hump in this game. Amen and Shengun had a better offensive rating than the three of them together. Amen and Shengen without Jalen. That's not surprising. Well, let me ask you this, Jackson, do you think, you know, even with the concerns, the offensive struggles that Jalen has, can the Rockets, even Benjamin

in crunch time. Is that even, you know what I'm saying? He's the second pick in the draft. He's the Rockets have put so much into him. Like, is that even been a thing like that's ever happened this season? Yeah, they can and they should. He may show a, he may shown a willingness to bench anybody at the end of games. If they're struggling, if they're hurting the team, if they're holding the guys back. I almost wonder if there was a level of here in game one, not wanting to use that as the resort like resorting to benching Jalen here in game one from a confidence factor right it's game one get the playoff jitters out of the way your first taste postseason basketball you don't want to screw up his confidence by benching and be like hey okay you struggle you're not going to be

in there to close the game i got to go with another another option um maybe that's babying maybe that's not the mentality it was at all maybe he really did think jalen was going to be one of his best five guys to close out that game but i agree with matt like the closing lineup shouldn't have included jalen green in this game and for the other reasons even though fred van bleat was absolutely struggling to hit shots too he brings hard-nosed defense he brings he brings brings the ability to set the floor, he or set the table offensively, and he can spoon-feed Alperin-Shingun assist to get easy buckets underneath

because he's the only guy that can hit LP on a seal down low when he's got good post position. So for all those reasons, Fred's got to be out there, men's got to be out there's your best defender, and pick your poison between two of the other three wings, or if you want to go with the double a big lineup, have Adams out there. But Jalen Green was killing the rockets in this game.

He was. Rylan, what team after this game won? are you most confident can take two games off of the Thunder? I would say I would say I still would hold strong that like Minnesota could do it, the Lakers could do it, and do more than that for the Lakers and the Timberwolves. And I still think that Denver would be no pushover and neither would the Clippers. I think that the Thunder would win the second round matchup between whoever wins that first round game. But it wouldn't be in a sweep.

It wouldn't be in five games. I think that there's too much respect for what is capable of happening with those two teams against okay C. But so for for two games it would be, you know, the four or five seed, Minnesota and the Lakers. Rylan, how dare you? Rockets took two games off the Thunder. Okay, they had an extra game because of the NBA Cup. I mean, the four real regular season games, they won once. On the friend Van Fleet 38 ball, congratulations. That's not going to happen. The Rockets aren't going to make it out of the first round. So who cares? Jackson, the Mavs beat the three times this year without Lucas. So I don't know if that's a little.

They're looking at their regular season losses is a great indicator. The Rockets have zero hope against the Thunder. They have zero. They have one percent hope against like the Warriors. Like who's going to score the ball? You got what you wanted. You got a 95 point total from Golden State. And that's what happened.

Nobody could score. There's no offense. Good luck. Are the warriors going to, I mean, I know we're talking about the rockets in the year of our Lord, 2025, holding a team to 95 points and losing by double digits? Yeah, like, what are we talking about? Congratulations, you've executed your perfect game plan.

And, like, I agree with you. That's probably not likely to happen again. Like, teams just accidentally score 95 in the NBA now. But are we sure that the Rockets can keep a lid on Golden State to where they're only scoring 95, and that doesn't go up to 105 or 110 over the course of the series? Because I think there is, like, you know, can Houston win a game where they need to score 118 points to do it. They can. And actually for the last like two months of the regular season, once they're

shooting percentages started trending up and they were kind of hovering around like 38% or so for the last like month, month and a half of the season. They their scoring totals went up. They looked like a much better offensive team. Some of it just boils down to knocking down shots in the half court because they do actually generate some wide open looks off of the how defense is guard Alper and Shingoon, how they sometimes blitz and trap Jalen Green. But there's just bad shooters up and down the roster.

And again, a lot of credit with the Golden State Warriors defense in this game. They made the rocket shooters uncomfortable. They ran them off the three point line. And they really put a lid on the basket as far as just collapsing in the paint. Rockets played in the crowd too much. They turned the ball over way too much in the second quarter. That was there. That was the quarter that killed them.

They only put up 13 points in the second quarter. Seven turnovers, only 13 points. Only two rockets scored. Shingoon was perfect four, four from the floor. And then Dylan Brooks hit a three and had a bucket somewhere else in there. That's all you got. I believe you, but they're going to make memes out of Nick's face for the first like 18 seconds of that answer because he was not buying what you were selling. I love it.

I'll take all the memes. My confidence hasn't wavered. Maybe it's irrational. We'll see how it goes. Come back to come back to me after six or seven games. If you can't score the ball against anyone in general and then face the thunder's defense, it's not a good recipe. No, but look, here's the thing. Alperin Schengun was scoring the ball just fine.

They just need to go back and realize that he needs to get 25 plus shot at tips. That's all. That's the recipe. Cut down on the threes from Jalen and Fred. Give out Pemore touches. Don't ice out your best player in the fourth quarter. It's that simple. Sure. It's that simple.

I'm sure. Jumping into Schengen. Are the Houston Rockets one Marvin Bagley away from a title? I think that's the question. We'll talk about that. I'm locked on Rockets later today. Go check it out. Great shows all the time.

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