The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - 5 NBA Reactions: Tatum makes Celtics CONTENDERS, Lakers need more Reaves less LeBron, Rockets ISSUES

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

Jason reacts to a fun weekend of NBA games and gives five big takeaways including how Jayson Tatum makes the Boston Celtics title contenders immediately; the Los Angeles Lakers need Austin Reaves to be their second option after Luka Doncic, not LeBron James; how the Cleveland Cavaliers and James Harden have a Celtics problem; the Houston Rockets’ issue with Alperen Sengun's defense; and how Cade Cunningham's Detroit Pistons have slipped. All lines presented by Hard Rock Bet.  #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you.

you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the ice. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Kunky, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 Podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The story I've told myself can then shape my behavior, and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast deeply well with Debbie Brown. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to Deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The Volume. Welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend.

We have a quick show today. I'm just going to go over five big takeaways from a jam-pack weekend of NBA basketball. You guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Make sure you like this video and sign up for post-notifications. That helps us a lot. And last minute at least, if you guys want to get mailbag questions into our mailbag for Friday, drop them in the comments underneath their full episodes on YouTube,

and we'll get to them in our weekly mailbags throughout the rest of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. First big takeaway from the weekend, Jason Tatum is going to make Boston so much better against the best teams in the league. First of all, it was great just to see Jason Tatum back out on the court. starting with Friday, I watched both of his games from this past weekend. It just a truly remarkable feat. I did read that there's been a lot of great advancements in Achilles

surgery over the course of the last few years, and it's not terribly uncommon for guys to come back relatively quickly, but still less than 10 months after a devastating injury like that for him to make it back the way that he did. I just thought was a testament to just the type of guy that Jason Tatum is, that he wasn't going to be derailed by something like this. But I was talking about this concept like Boston against the best teams with Colin Coward last week. Boston has had a remarkable season. They've had incredible metrics. They're the second best net rating team in the league behind Oklahoma City.

They are the fourth best record in the league. But they've had some losses this year against the better teams in the league that haven't looked good. Just in the last month, they've been blown out at home by the Knicks, blown out at home by the Hornets. they are one in three versus the pistons this year. They're 0 and two versus the Nuggets. They're one and two versus the Knicks. Overall against teams in the top 10 in point differential, they've been okay, but not great. They've been nine in 10.

So one game below 500 in a negative 1.4 point differential in those games. Again, not to take away anything from the season, but it's been clear that it's been a very strong culture with continuity and a group that's very bought into their coach, some specific guys playing some really good basketball this year that has, helped keep them where they've been statistically and in the standings, but there's been some more mixed results against the better teams in the league. Jason Tatum coming back into the fold isn't going to lead to some sort of

massive improvement for the team statistically. I mean, that's basically impossible with where they've been to this point, right? They've been so good to this point, it'd be unrealistic to expect them to experience some sort of dramatic improvement. but you can already tell from his first two games worth of tape that he's going to help them in several key areas. First of all, defensive rebounding. The Celtics look fundamentally different

when Jason Tatum is on the floor in terms of the physical profile of their lineups. One of the things with, even with the rise of Jordan Walsh, even with the rise of Baylor-Shireman, we have not seen a traditional, like, big power forward type of player in these lineups for the most part. For the most part, it's been like your kind of stereotypical swing forwards,

maybe some more athletic, wiry forwards, but you don't have this like big, 610, very strong, switchable kind of power forward. Look, they haven't had that archetype. And putting Jason Tatum out there makes the Celtics look dramatically, more physically imposing, especially on the glass. The Celtics with Jason Tatum so far on the floor, just through two games, but they're grabbing 81.2% of their opponent's misses when Jason Tatum's on the floor. That's an insane number. That's outstanding defensive defensive rebounding. Now, as we've talked about, there's a defensive versatility element to this. There's going to be times where we see Jason Tatum, you know, guarding opposing centers. And we see Jason Tatum deployed in more creative ways defensively to help the Celtics reach a higher level on that end of the floor. We haven't really seen that part yet.

for the most part at this point, Joe Missoula has been tucking Tatum away on like role player wings. That makes a lot of sense to me as he's working his way back into shape and kind of building more resilience with his body. You know, one of the big things when we talk about Tatum guarding centers is there's a lot of battles that are being fought there on the ground. There's a lot of like having someone lean on him in those sorts of situations.

And I think they're just trying to avoid that dynamic at this early phase, but I do think in the long run, that will be a bigger part of it. But right away off the top, you can tell physically the lineups look different. There is an element of defensive rebounding with Jason Tatum out there that is different than what it was before. And that's helped a lot. Secondly, the natural feel for playmaking. I don't mean this in any way as a slight towards Jalen Brown because he's had an amazing season. And the best version of the Celtics team obviously needs Jalen Brown to be great. We're going to talk about it more here in a it, but in that Cavs game in particular, Jalen Brown and his ability to continually attack the

smaller guards like Keon Ellis and Dennis Schroeder, like he had a lot of success at Dean Wade's expense yesterday. Jalen Brown is so important to this team. So this is not meant to be a slight at him at all whatsoever. But I do think Tatum is a far more like complete offensive player. What I mean by that is like there is a lot of these like reads or, playmaking sequences that come very naturally to Jason Tatum that have been kind of missing from this offense this year. And you could see that immediately in the first couple of games, just like whether it's, you know, him like hitting the pocket pass three times in a row to at the beginning of that Dallas Mavericks game or like there was a very simple little bounce

pass that he threw to Derek White in yesterday's game as he was coming off of a flare screen from Kada on the left side of the floor. It's Derek White on a bounce and Derek White kind of cuts into the lane and and gets an easy little two-handed dunk. And as I'm watching, I'm like, there are just these passing sequences, these playmaking sequences that seem to come very naturally to Jason Tatum. And like, you know, I would argue when it comes to the matchup hunting element, like strictly the goal of like, okay, I've got Dennis Schroeder on me and I'm going to go get a bucket on him.

Like Jalen Brown brings the level of athleticism and he's become so surgically efficient on that little mid-range pull-up that like, Yeah, you could tell me that Jalen Brown's better at that. And I wouldn't necessarily argue with you. But when there's when everything is going for Jason Tatum, by the way, he's not shooting the ball super well right now. That's to be expected. He's getting his legs underneath him. He's adjusting to the speed of the NBA again. But like when Jason Tatum has all of the elements of his game put together, there's an element of like he can do this for us on offense. He can do that for us on offense. He can run these inverted actions with Derek White. He's very good at making the ensuing reads that come out of these situations. He's just a very complete offensive player. And what that means is he's

going to be able to essentially cater his game to fit into gaps where Boston needs him on that end of the floor. The offensive rating with Jason Tatum on the floor so far has been just below 115. We have discussed extensively like that was always going to happen. This was not going to be something where you just plug him in and it automatically looks amazing because you're adding a high usage player. You're adding a guy who's going to be working on his conditioning and his rhythm in the moment rather than behind the scenes. So like there's going to be some lumps along the way. But overall, Jason Tatum is going to bring a lot of elements to this offense, especially as a playmaker that really haven't been there this season. And I think that that's going to make them better

when they go up against the better teams. And so again, when I look at the big, picture, I look at a Celtics team that was really strong statistically, but that had some specific flaws. And Jason Tatum's going to step in and he's going to address some of these flaws, addressing defensive rebounding, addressing defensive versatility, addressing offensive versatility, meaning just the different ways that you can look to attack and break down a defense. Again, like, you know, when we talk about a potential playoff series against a team like Cleveland, which we're going to dive into here in a minute, there's a certain amount of of like having Jason Tatum as another guy who can attack your size mismatches and another guy who

can maintain 48 minutes of pressure against a Cleveland defense that struggles against some of these bigger forwards. I think that there's real value add there for Boston. So I think he looks better than expected physically. You can tell his conditioning still is a long way to go, but he's trying explosive moves. He had a missed dunk against the Mavs, which that was a good sign of him just trusting his body to move explosively. By the way, the Boston Celtics right now on Hard Rock Bed are plus 550 to win the title. That is tied with Denver for the second best odds

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Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news. we created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it.

We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down?

Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, Hey, Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What's up, fam, Ms. Isaiah Thomas. And I'm CJ Toll. Ludano in our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game.

We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson,

we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers while he got the ball. After you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court,

and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the, iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Second big takeaway from last weekend. The Cavs might have shot the ball uncharacteristically poor against the Celtics, and I definitely think it affected them, but that doesn't mean they don't still have a Celtics problem. The Celtics got 1.5 points per catch-and-shoot jump shot attempt last night, and the Cavs got 0.94. That's a 66 point gap over 100 shot sample.

So yeah, there was definitely a bit of shooting variance in this game. In the second quarter in particular, you could tell the calves were getting super discouraged by the misses, some really good looks for really good shooters that weren't going in. And there's a, like, you know, there's a combination of like confidence and rhythm that I always think gets underdiscust in basketball where like, you know, you run good offense and you miss a wide open shot. and then somebody goes down to the other end and hits a more contested shot of some kind. It can kind of have this mental effect where you kind of start to feel, especially if that piles up. Like you miss three in a sequence where the other team goes on a run and they go up by 16, 17 points.

And in that sequence, you miss like three wide open threes. And then on the other end of the floor, you make this mistake, make that mistake. Maybe there's a matchup where you're continuing to foul Jalen Brown or something. something like that, it can pile up on you and actually lead to a confidence issue. And like, there were, there were times during last night's game or yesterday's game, I should say, where I thought the calves didn't look particularly confident. And I think that that is kind of more of a manifestation of that, that, that, that shooting variance that happened. However, the bigger issue, which is that Boston's ball handlers look way more comfortable versus Cleveland's perimeter

defenders, then Cleveland's ball handlers look versus Boston's perimeter defenders, that dynamic is not going away. We talked a lot after Dennis Schroeder and Keon Ellis were signed, that there's a lot of guys in the Eastern Conference that they're going to be very useful against, right? Like, whether it's Tyrese Maxine, Vijay Edgecombe on the Philadelphia 76ers, whether it's Jalen Brunson and Jose Alvarado and Deuce McBride on the New York Knicks, we can go on and on all of these quick guards on all of these teams out east, there's a lot of guys like that that Keon Ellis and Dennis Schroeder are going to be very useful against. But I said this right after the trade. If you guys remember, neither of those guys are even remotely big and strong enough to be disruptive versus some of

the bigger, stronger wing, like wing slash forward offensive players in the league. And like, that was the part that kind of took out like a sore thumb yesterday. It just felt like Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum in particular, they could just pick on whoever they want. wanted. And then it extended to like different parts of the roster like Dean Wade, a guy that, you know, stands taller than both Tatum and Brown. You'd think he'd be more comfortable in those matchups. Nope. Jalen Brown was specifically going out of his way to hunt him over and over and over again in the second half yesterday. Like there's just a level of comfort that those guys have in that matchup that makes it very complicated. This is kind of the benefit of Boston and the way that

their roster is put together, right? Like say what you want about their center rotation. And obviously, Vucevich has this finger injury that's going to keep him out a little bit. And each one of their centers has strengths and weaknesses. And none of those guys are going to be, you know, perfect basketball players by any means. But if you look at their one through four and the vast majority of their lineups, it's a very simple dynamic. There's always in every single Celtics lineup, a is now with the return of Jason Tatum,

a big forward that can hunt matchups, a guard that can run. and roll and or inverted action and or one three action with that forward and just a ton of shooting. That's a dynamic that every Celtics lineup has. How many times yesterday did we see the calves react to some sort of interior sequence where Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum are getting into the basket doing damage in the short range and maybe getting an offensive rebound or maybe drawing two or three defenders? And then there's Sam Hauser again at the top of the key wide open. Hamhauser again wide open because there is the ability to consistently compromise the defense at the point of attack by having these big ball handlers that are comfortable against Cleveland's

perimeter defenders. That's really a dynamic that's not going away. They're going to be able to hunt a matchup while also spacing the floor with quality shooting. And that's one of those things that I think, you know, when you're looking at matchups and we in general, when we start talking about the postseason. As you guys know, this is always one of the most important parts of whether or not a team advances or they don't. We tend to think about the big picture. Here's this team's strengths and their weaknesses. Here's the metrics they put up this season. Here's where they landed in the standings. And really it comes down to like, well, how do they match up against this team? It doesn't matter how good your defense is if they can't get stops

against the team you're playing in the first round. It doesn't matter how good their offense is if they can't score against the team they're playing in the first round, right? So matchups end up playing a bigger part than just about anything else in this regard. So what are some of the things like, so for instance, Jared Allen was out last night. Jared Allen, if he is in the lineup, maybe you can deploy Evan Mobley more on the wing. That can put you in a situation where you have fewer small defenders to attack, right? Certain matchups like, you know, that might be a series where if you're healthy, you lean more on some of your stockier wings, guys like Max Trues, if you can get healthy,

or Jalen Tyson. James Hardin has to be much more attentive in his off ball defense. This is something we talked about after the Hardin trade. Hardin is a much better one-on-one defender than a guy like, than a guy like Darius Garland, but he's more prone to defensive mistakes. There was a play where Jalen Brown was attacking out of the post in the first half on the right block. And Evan Mobley's right there in help. Like he's there ready to offer assistance and handle the J.L.M. Brown,

problem. But James Harden, who's guarding Sam Houser, sinks way in below the foul line kind of unnecessarily. And it just gets swinged out and Samhouser hits a three. Those are the kinds of mistakes that are every bit is damaging as you getting attacked one on one. Right. So like, there are certainly ways they can play better. As we talked about like the jump shot result was not going Cleveland's way, Jared Allen out of the lineup. So I'm not going to sit here and pretend like the calves can't beat Boston. But the fundamental issue, which is that Boston's perimeter defenders seem to do more to make Hardin and Mitchell uncomfortable than the Cavs perimeter defenders can do against Boston's big forwards.

I don't think that dynamic is going away. And so with that being the case, you know, I'm very high on this Cavs team. I'm not going to bail on them because of one bad performance on national television. But we got to like be honest about what our eyes were telling us yesterday. and it was that the Celtics looked like they match up pretty well with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Number three, no, the Lakers are not better without LeBron, but I do think Austin needs to be the second option on this Lakers team. Lakers Nix was somewhat similar to Cavs Celtics in that I thought the Lakers clearly played a better game and they deserved to win, but the Nix also had some really poor jump shooting

that exacerbated the result. The Nicks were two for 12 on unguarded catch-and-shoot threes yesterday. every time they had a chance to hit a big shot and make things more competitive, they just missed. Brunson is also in a little bit of a slump. He's shooting just 32% from the field and averaging just 16 points over his last three games. But the Lakers got their first big win against a legit title contending team in a very long time. They announced this in the broadcast. We had been talking about this stat on the Lakers Collective pod last week. Yovon brought it up if you guys remember. But in the last 13 games of the Lakers had played against teams with a six, 60% win percentage or better, they had been one in 12.

So they had been like brutally bad against the upper level competition in the league before that big win against the Knicks. It really came down to three things. One, both of their stars played well. Both Austin and Luca played well. I think they combined for about 60 points. They were relatively efficient. Luca didn't shoot the ball super well and he had some turnover issues.

But overall, I thought his shot making, especially in key parts of the game, was impactful and help them continue to stiff arm the next. I thought Luca played pretty well. Austin, I thought, uh, had his best game since he came back from his calf injury in terms of all around two way basketball. He obviously puts up 25. He has five assists with just one turnover. He has three steals. But I thought his pick and roll playmaking was huge as well. He just did a brilliant job of, of skipping the ball across the court as the Knicks would load up on his ball screens. Austin just played really well. So your starters play well. Roll players hit shots. That's a big one. The Lakers have been very up and down with their

role player shot making, but like you get a made three from Jared Vanderbilt. Luke Kinnard. It's just bizarre having a guy in the Lakers where like, oh, you leave him open. It's going in. Like that's a huge asset on a team like this, right? So role players hit shots. And then lastly, the team played to their individual defensive ceiling. They mixed in some zone in the early part of the game overall. I thought their man to man looks for really strong. Just little details, right? like there's certain personnel things that just are what they are. But if the Lakers just do little things like sit down in a stance and gap off the ball so that their one-on-ones are a little bit tougher to score on when teams are hunting specific

matchups, the connectivity and rotation, the efforts on the defensive glass, those are things where it's like no one's expecting the Lakers to go be a top 10 defense. They quite literally do not have the personnel to do that. But they do have enough high IQ personnel that if they just do their jobs, their scheme, play hard, talk to each other, help the helper in rotation sequences, all those like little things, they can at least be an okay defense. Again, like, no one's going to give them a ton of credit for holding the Knicks to, what it was? They held the Knicks to like 98 or something like that with how poorly they shot because obviously there's a version of that game where the

Knicks make more threes and they score a lot more points. But ultimately, that's what a mediocre defense can do. They can play towards certain types of shots that have more variance. And on any given night, they can have a strong defensive performance because they take away the super easy stuff and maybe you get some lucky shooting variance. Right. So like this Lakers team is capable of playing a good average defensive game. And they're capable of their role players hitting shots. And they're capable of their stars playing well. The biggest issue has been throughout the season against the best teams, they haven't been able to put all three of those things together. they'll have a game where their stars play well, but the role players can't hit shots and they

don't play defense. They've had a lot of games against the big teams where their defenses actually looked pretty good. They've competed. They've played hard. They've defended well. But Luca Austin and LeBron will all be mediocre and the role players won't hit shots. Right. Like those three things they've struggled to kind of put them all together in the same spot. I actually had a mailbag question in that Lakers Collective pod last week or someone said like, hey, what would it take for the Lakers to actually start beating the good teams again? Today's show is brought to you by a presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet, Florida's Sportsbook. March is here, and that means college basketball takes center stage.

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We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? We created our own podcast. called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts.

Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember.

Remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, Hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam, Isaiah Thomas.

And I'm CJ Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about Define the Odds. like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs.

I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything. everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too.

Steve Nass would get that thing. That man, hell get to flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball.

So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And it really is just that. That was what I said on the show last week. Just they need to put it together to where they have games where their stars play well, role players hit shots and the team plays to their individual defensive ceiling. If they do that, they have a shot to at least be competitive.

That's kind of the thing that I've really been keyed in on with the Lakers. It's not so much about them winning the title this year. That's kind of out of reach with how flawed this team is. It's not just kind of out of reach. It's very out of reach. However, going into this off season, winning a first round series or looking very competitive in a first round series

would go a long way towards establishing the culture that they're trying to build for the future. I'm interested in that. I'm interested in them being competitive. I'm interested in them having a shot to win a first round series. These are the steps they need to cross to get to that point. And one of the big subplots of the game was that Austin Reeves finally looked like Austin Reeves again. 25 points, very efficient, four stocks just played really well.

The Lakers playing really well, beating a good team, and Austin looking good. Of course started the Lakers are better without LeBron discourse again. Now, I think that take is completely ridiculous for obvious reasons. The team sorely needs talent. So they very obviously need LeBron. They're not very good. So like like the idea that you would take a player that's capable of all the things that LeBron's capable of and just think that you're better without him is foolishness to me. Also, there's some strong metrics and key areas like the Marcus Smart, LeBron, Austin, Luca, for some, the starting lineup minus Aiton, basically. That group has been crushing teams as of late and is up to plus 13 per 100 possessions this season. So LeBron's

part of their best lineups. He's been able to hold down these units without Luca and Austin. There are plus seven per 100 possessions when LeBron's on the floor by himself. That allows JJ Reddick to continue to lean into that Luca Austin pairing that works so well. But that doesn't mean I think the LeBron experience with this iteration of the Lakers has been perfect or that I don't think tweaks need to be made. I think Austin at this point very clearly is a better shot creator than LeBron. Not prime LeBron, but 41-year-old LeBron. Yeah, I want Austin with the basketball in his hands. When Austin is in rhythm, he's become one of the very best pick and roll players in the league. He just was very out of rhythm since coming back from his calf injury. Now, as I

talked about last week, I think Austin would have found his footing naturally. There's this idea that like, oh, like they're like he's not getting the touches that he would normally get. And like that gets complicated because when you dig into the individual games, Austin wasn't playing well. Like I talked about this last week. It's like if Austin goes into the, the Nuggets game and hits those first two mid range jump shots that he takes instead of missing them both, he probably gets two or three more shot attempts in the first quarter because these things tend to work themselves out naturally. Oh, this guy's in rhythm. The ball kind of finds his way towards this guy and he has more opportunity to work, right? Austin just wasn't playing well since he

came back. Having LeBron out of the lineup for a game helped accelerate that process because now he has a lot more touches in a situation where he has to have a lot more touches because you're down one of your primary shot creators. It accelerates

that process a little bit. But even if LeBron had never gotten hurt, if LeBron had not had this foot arthritis that's caused him to miss the last couple of games, Austin would have eventually found his rhythm. It just might have taken longer because it would have taken longer to get the number of reps that he needed. But getting LeBron out

of there for a couple of games had the added benefit of just forcing a bunch of usage on to Austin, which allowed him to work his way back into a rhythm quicker. Now, what should this look like when all three guys are healthy and in rhythm? This is where I think there is some valid criticism. Not criticism is the wrong word because I'm not sure it's anybody's particular fault, but I think there's some valid points being made about the direction this offense should go. LeBron had to absorb more usage when Austin had his calf injury. Why? Very simply, Austin was out. You had no ball handling on the team. You needed someone to function as Lucas secondary ball handler. LeBron slotted into that role and especially during the first chunk of that time

after Austin was out, he was actually pretty good. He cooled off a little bit later, but he had some stretches where he was pretty good. But now that Austin's back, I do think LeBron's role offensively should be paired back in a way that accentuates your best shot creators while also putting LeBron in a position that's going to most closely mimic what he's going to be doing in the postseason. So I think LeBron, unless he's out there by himself, if he's in there by himself without Austin and Luca, you know, he can continue to play the way that he wants to play on the ball. But in units that have Austin or units that have Austin and Luca. LeBron should just be functioning as a screener and as a play finisher off the ball, whether that's shooting or attacking, close outs and

or cutting off of the weak side or screening and rolling out of the horn sets at the top of the key or inverted action, any sort of action that he's running with Austin two-man game style. LeBron should be functioning as a screener unless he gets a favorable post matchup. if LeBron gets a small guy on him, give it to him in the post because that's going to give you a great shot. That is a legitimate vehicle with which for the Lakers to break down defenses. But I don't think LeBron needs to be running ball screens if Austin's on the floor. I don't think LeBron needs to be running ball screens if Luca's on the floor. If those guys are on the floor and LeBron does not get a favorable post mismatch,

he should be screening for them or spotting up off the ball. ball. I think that is the best version of this team. Luca and Austin in full rhythm as pick and roll shot creators. LeBron is like this Swiss army knife off ball that's making connective playmaking sequences and attacking off of the weak side. And then, oh, we got this switch. Let's throw the ball into LeBron because he's got a six four dude who's 195 pounds on him. Let's go down to the block. Those are the times when we should we should be trying to get the ball to LeBron in a one-on-one situation. So again,

as I mentioned earlier, the Lakers need talent, which means they need LeBron. The idea that you should just be like punting him off into the abyss is ridiculous. You need LeBron. I just think they should adjust the way that they use him. LeBron had to play more

on ball when Austin was out. That's no longer the case. Austin is starting to build his rhythm. He's looked better in the last couple of games. I would lean more on Austin as an on-ball player at this point, essentially as the second option for this Lakers team. Number four, the Uson Rockets have an Alperin-Shangoon problem. So the Spurs put up 145 points on the Rockets yesterday. A lot of their players play really well.

Victor Wemianama's had a couple of big offensive explosions as of late as his jump shot has started to fall at a higher clip. So Victor's playing really well. Steph Castle had a big night. Darren Fox had a big night. Kelton Johnson had a big night. He's continuing to show the ability to make teams pay for hanging off of him at the three-point line, very, very strong around the across-the-board performance from the San Antonio Spurs offense

and a big win versus Rockets yesterday. But one of the big things that stood out to me on film was how successfully and relentlessly the Spurs were attacking Alper and Shangoon in various different types of actions. he spent time guarding Steph Castle as well as ending up on the San Antonio guards in switches, whether it was Dearon Fox in a switch or Steph Castle in his switch. And his defense in space just wasn't good. There were times where he was like getting out of position and opening up his stance and like lunging out towards the perimeter, which like, again, I understand the idea behind

wanting to stunt towards jump shots, but he was doing it in a very technically unsound way, which was getting himself out of position and giving. up drives. He was getting killed in drop coverage. He got absolutely dunked on by Luke Cornette on this one rep that was a pretty nasty drop coverage rep from him. Really bad transition defense sequences. Like, like, there was a sequence where they gave up a wide open three to Julian Champany in the left corner to start the second half where like Sangoon's running back to somebody that's already guarded and then suddenly realizes at the last second that Champennies his matchup. And by the time he gets out there, it's too late. There was another one. I think it was Steph Castle.

is dribbling up the middle of the floor. And he runs back to like stop the ball. No other rocket is stopping the ball. But he like runs back and gets behind the ball. But instead of actually trying to get in front of the ball, he just kind of like runs behind him. And then no other Rockets player picked up the ball. So he just goes right downhill and ends up drawing a foul.

And it kind of brought me back to that discussion that we've had so many times over the course of this season and last season, the difference between being a athletically limited defender and a mistake prone defender. And that's the thing that I'm noticing with Shang-goon. I've been disappointed him defensively because I actually think he has pretty decent athletic tools for a big. Now, every big is going to have a certain amount of, okay, this guy's too fast for me kind of thing going on. But compared to most slow-footed bigs, Shang-goon actually moves pretty well. He's got good vertical athleticism, good lateral athleticism. The guy can move. The problem is that Scheng-Goon is so, so-fund

weak as a defensive player and so prone to mistakes within the defensive scheme that it's causing way more problems than anything having to do with his athleticism specifically. And that's one of those things. Like there are certain things with the rockets that are like team-wide issues. Like, you know, San Antonio did a lot of like random blitzing and double teaming of Kevin Durant last yesterday that so many of those sequences were continuing to lead to the kinds of botched four on threes that have been a problem for Houston all season. Although, I thought Houston actually scored the ball okay yesterday. But they're going to have certain issues on offense that are team-wide issues that come down to IMA,

Udoca and floor spacing and certain role players finding a way to be impactful offensively. But the defense thing to me is like 90% in Alper and Shangoon problem. And until he figures out how to trim the mistakes and improve fundamentally as a defensive player, they're always going to have a lower ceiling on that end of the floor than they're capable of having. All right, lastly, before we get out of here today, number five, if the pistons don't dominate on the margins, they are screwed. Pistons lost again yesterday to Miami Heat. They are now 0 in their last four games.

And one of the things that we talked about over the course of the season was that the pistons were winning on the margins. If you dig into their actual half court numbers, while their half court defense is very strong, their half court offense is very weak. And so in that environment, they're not going to, to win in any sort of large sample. How hard to figure out why Kate Cunningham is developing into one of the best

shot creators in the league, but he still has some significant weaknesses, particularly with this perimeter scoring. And they do not have a secondary shot creator by any stretch, not a legitimate secondary shot creator, just guys who can step in and do something. Dennis Jenkins can do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Tobias Harris can do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. but they don't have your stereotypical, okay, this is my number two, a guy who can absorb large usage and help me out in the half court, right? So the Pistons, if they, if they don't dominate on the margins, they're screwed. Over this four game span, they're getting outscored in points off of turnovers by 1.8 per game. They're getting outscored in second chance points by 3.8 per game. And they're getting outscored in overall fast break points by 4.5 per game. So we're seeing the literal, uh, example of this dynamic that I'm talking about. Over the course of the last four games,

instead of the pistons winning on the margins, they're actually getting consistently beat on the margins. And that is causing this dynamic that we're seeing where their half-court offense is not anywhere near capable of flipping that dynamic back in their favor as they've lost four games in a row. What concerns me about that is when you get to the postseason, I don't know who it is going to be.

It might be Boston. It might be Cleveland. it might be New York. Like who knows who it's going to be. But one of these teams that's in that top tier in the east is going to have the ability to stare eye to eye with the Pistons for two weeks and generally keep them off the offensive glass, generally keep them out of transition. Whoever that is that does that to the Pistons is going to have a massive advantage in the half court and they're going to beat them.

So again, as good as this Pistons team has been, that is why it's been really hard for me to jump on them as a top tier contender rather than just a second team. your contender. If they don't dominate on the margins, they're screwed. And I don't think they're going to dominate on the margins for four playoff rounds. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. I've been feeling a little bit under the weather. So I, I'm sorry that we didn't get to power rankings today, but we'll get back to them next Monday. Again, as always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We have a jam-pack slate again tonight, so we'll have some more games to react to in tomorrow morning show. I will see you guys.

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