The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Christmas Reaction: Nuggets take down Curry & Warriors, Celtics roll past LeBron & Lakers

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and the Golden State Warriors' 120-114 Christmas Day loss to Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets (01:56). Later, Jason breaks down Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics' 126-115 win over LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers (18:47). (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements) #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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with your loved ones hanging out, hopefully not working, having some good food and relaxation time. We're going to be doing two live shows today, breaking down the Denver Nuggets win over the Golden State Warriors. And then we're going to be coming back in a couple of hours for Lakers Celtics, which hopefully will be as good as this game was. And this game, went a lot like a bunch of other Denver games recently. I was fortunate enough to get to watch a lot of Nuggets hoops this week. I watched them come back and beat the Brooklyn Nets a few nights back and then they had a similar one against Charlotte,

a kind of idea where no matter what happens to Denver throughout a game, there's this trend that takes place down the stretch, which is the nuggets are just going to get better shots than you down the stretch of games. And there's so many different ways that they can go. and there's a variety there. And no matter what you do defensively to try to take stuff away, you end up causing problems somewhere else.

And it's been interesting because I've noticed, especially in this game and in the Brooklyn Nets game in particular, one of the things that teams are conceding in effort to take other things away for Denver is, hey, we're just going to give Jamal Murray tough pull-up jump shots off the dribble. And the problem is he's still making them because that's what makes this Denver Nuggets team so difficult to guard.

Now, from a schematic standpoint, let's kind of piece it all together here. So obviously off ball, you have Michael Porter Jr. and Contavius Caldwell Pope. And in those situations, you're not going to be digging down off of those guys to any great extent because they're both deadly in catch and shoot situations, right? Now with Aaron Gordon, you have the ability to help off of him in one way or another. Obviously, he's a guy that's not a super confident jump shooter. But did you know the Denver Nuggets grabbed 35% of their own misses in crunch time this year? In large part, because of opportunities to help off of Aaron Gordon that leave him underneath the basket with a good rebounding advantage.

Once again, one of the stops that the Warriors got down the stretch in this game, Aaron Gordon just grabs the offensive rebound, goes back up, draws a foul. And even if he misses one out of two free throws, that's still a point for Denver on one possession. which in crunch time is certainly not a bad thing, right? And what you're seeing a lot of teams do, and Golden State did this tonight and Brooklyn did the same thing the other night, but the screen defender, the guy who's guarding Nicole Yokic, is just staying glued up to him in those situations.

And they're basically just hoping their on-ball guy can stay as close to Jamal Murray as they can and force him into tough shots. And there were a couple in there where Andrew Wiggins, and we'll talk about him in a little bit because he had an amazing game tonight or today relative to what you. what he's looked like for the last year or so. But with exception of a handful of possessions where they got good contests on Jamal Murray, he was breaking free.

One of the last jump shot, the three-pointer that he hit there at the top of the key, it was a double screening action and they kind of confused the switching that the Warriors were doing. And he found a little soft spot right there at the top of the key extended out to take and make a shot. And that's the thing. You know, like we talk about with coverages. Obviously, when coverages are executed perfectly, they take away open.

But it's very difficult to execute a coverage perfectly, especially when you have a team like Denver that can do something and be like, oh, they're having some success with Andrew Wiggins chasing over the top of this dribble handoff or this ball screen. So let's just bring a third guy into the action and confuse the hell out of them and one of them will make a mistake and somebody will get open. But it's just very difficult because there's no, you know, it's like, okay, we're going to try to leave Looney on an island. And it's like, Yokic just drives right by him to the left and makes that little left-handed a hook shot. in the lane. There's no good option there. And it's funny because no matter what's happened this season, no matter how

lethargic Denver has looked from time to time, no matter how many wins teams were able to get against them when Jamal Murray was out, when push comes to shove, when you find yourself in a close game against this team, and it's Jamal Murray and it's Contavius Cabo Pope, and it's Aaron Gordon,

and it's Michael Porter Jr., and it's Nicole Yokic all on the floor together. They're probably going to get better shots than you. And on the other end of the floor, like, you know, Golden State had a lot of success in this game attacking Jamal Murray in the post, which we'll talk about in a minute. But like, I thought they did an outstanding job on Steph Curry. And when Steph kind of tried to regain control of the offense late, he wouldn't even get in good looks. There was a key drop coverage stop that Nicole Yokic got in pick and roll where Steph went for one of his little scoop out layups that

he tends to make a lot. And it ended up in an ugly miss in large part because of an excellent possession of rim protection from Nicola Yokic. Contavius Covell Pope did an awesome job on Steph Curry all night. You can always tell the dead giveaway for when a star looks comfortable versus when he's not is the difference between like when he's getting clean, balanced looks that more or less look like the shots that you see the guy get against the rest of the teams in the league versus kind of chucking stuff up. And like I thought it was interesting when look at those last few shots Steph got.

And it's like, okay, here's this like jab step kind of lean to the right jumper over Contavius Calvo Pope that kind of looks like he's just throwing the ball up at the rim. Or here's, you know, okay, I'm switching to my left hand and I'm just throwing it up there. Now, obviously that was in garbage time at the end of the game. But the point is, is like Contagius Caldwell Pope was legitimately doing a good job on Steph Curry in this game, making him uncomfortable. It wasn't, there were a couple shots that Steph missed where you were like, wow, I can't believe you missed that.

There was a wide open three on the right wing where he had like 10 feet of, separation from everybody else on the floor. And you're like, man, you expect Steph Curry to make that shot. And there's no doubt that there was some variance in there. But for the most part, I thought they did a really nice job defensively on Steph Curry as well. And like when it comes to evaluating the other teams around the league and they all have flaws in one way or another, right? Like Milwaukee, again, this morning, just was incapable of making Jalen Brunson feel uncomfortable because they have some of the worst point of attack defenders that you'll find in the NBA, right? That's a significant flaw in that roster. We talk about the Lakers and some of their issues with half court offense

and effort during the regular season and how that can cause problems. Boston Celtics and late game execution, right? Phoenix is struggling a lot because they are, they ironically can't score the ball. There's all these issues going on around with all of these teams. And when I try to target something, one specific thing that I trust when the shit hits the fan. Right now it's Denver's offense. In any sort of slow down environment, I just trust them to get better shots. And I think it's going to lead to them in any sort of substantial, you know, because it's one thing in a close game, five minutes left. Each team gets, you know, 15 possessions or whatever, or 10 possessions that, you know, like maybe you can out execute them once. But over the course,

of a seven game series to do that to them four times out of seven just feels like a long shot to me. I don't think they're some sort of runaway favorite, but I think what we've seen from Denver in their closing offense over the last couple of weeks is just the latest and a long line of examples of why they are the safest bet out of that group. Now, on the Golden State side, a couple of really interesting things. I thought Brandon Pajamski was incredible in this game, but most importantly, he was drawing more high, a high level defensive assignments, right? You're looking at these lineups,

and it's like, because of what Steph and Clay and Pazemski provide as perimeter talent, you kept ending up with guys like Jamal Murray on a Jonathan Caminga or on an Andrew Wiggins. And you know what I've said often, and for the record, because this is the thing, you know, the winner always ends up controlling the narrative of that particular game, right? And it ends up being what everybody talks about.

about after, but this was a game that Golden State played very well. And they did expose some things in Denver's defense, specifically a topic that I've hit on several times with Denver's defense, which is that they have entry points, but you have to have the ability to touch those entry points. So, for instance, if they can hide Jamal Murray and if they can hide Jamal Murray on some sort of perimeter weapon that is more passive with the basketball, they can get away with it because they can hedge and recover with him if you pull him into ball screens in any sort of situation where he ends up in a switch. You can help off of that guy, right?

Like, you can hide him. Same thing goes for Michael Porter Jr., although I thought he had a couple of really big defensive plays in this game, particularly on Clay Thompson, right? But when you have those guys, when they're able to hide, you can get away with it. But when you have four legitimate offensive weapons out there at the same time, if it's Steph, Clay, Pizzymsky, and let's say Andrew Wiggins, for instance, and Andrew Wiggins had a big bounceback game in this particular game, all of a sudden, Andrew Wiggins is drawing Jamal Murray on an island.

And they have no choice. But to either let Andrew Wiggins cook one-on-one against Jamal or to send that second defender over. And I think, you know, it's hard to overstate how much Brandon Pizemski and him popping like this this early has helped to make a lot of things easy. for Golden State. He's surprisingly big and strong for a guard. He's had no trouble hanging athletically. He competes in all the dirty work areas of the game. He can shoot. He can dribble. He can pass. And so it just makes him, we talk about all those responsibilities on the floor. He fills a lot

of those responsibilities on the floor. And it just makes everyone's job easier. If that's not Pazamski, if that's, if that's, let's reconfigure the matchups here. And it's Loonie and Dremont. then chances are Jamal Murray can get away with hiding. That's kind of the way that those matchups change by having one of those particular players hits. Now, we saw Jonathan Kaming and Andrew Wiggins have a lot of success in the post, but specifically that was what Andrew Wiggins

brought to the table in the championship run, if you guys remember in 2022. He was getting you 18 to 20 a night attacking matchups because of his ability to draw quality matchups because of the perimeter talent that Stefan Clay bring to the table and needing to occupy those players with perimeter defenders, right? You know, it's funny because Steve Kerr had some comments the other day where he talked about the reticence or the hesitancy to change the starting lineup. And I saw the tweet and it had a lot of negativity from some Warrior fans underneath it about how it was the wrong decision to wait as long as he did. And I 1,000% agree with Steve Kerr.

And I said this with Samus Fondiari the other day when he came on the show, but I would much rather be late to that party than early. And the reason why is, to Steve Kerr's point, these veterans have earned a certain amount of leash, right? By being great on big stages. I had a bunch of comments in the last week for Warriors fans saying, why does Jason keep talking about trading Jonathan Kaminga? That's ridiculous.

Why does Jonathan Kaminga have to, you know, be removed from the rotation for Andrew Wiggins to have his starting spot back like, blah, blah, all of this stuff. And the reason why is pretty simple. First of all, Andrew Wiggins right now doesn't have a ton of trade value. Jonathan Kaminga does because he's young and has all the potential in the world, right? Andrew Wiggins was one of the best perimeter defenders on the planet in 2022. He did what I've never seen a perimeter defender do, which is make Luca Donchich feel uncomfortable in a playoff series.

No one's done it. Andrew Wiggins did. And he had all these big scoring games. So the point is, that's why you don't give up on the vets. Because Andrew Wiggins is still very much capable of what he showed you tonight. and if you're going to hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy this year, you need Steph playing like MVP Steph, you need Clay Thompson playing like Clay Thompson,

you need Draymond Green to get back, you need to find lineups that work, and you need Andrew Wiggins to play like he did in 2022. And if you, Steve Kerr had a certain obligation to try to give him time to figure his stuff out. Now eventually he got to a point where he had to make a move. And that's where we tweaked the starting lineup. Now Andrew Wiggins is coming off the best.

bench and Andrew Wiggins as a professional is trying to find a way to earn his way back into that rotation, right, or into that starting group if he wants to, right? But again, like, you've got guys in-house that are capable of these responsibilities. When I've been talking about Kaminga, it has, it's a very simple conversation. Right now, do the Warriors look like a championship contender? They look like they're on that second tier, right? Jonathan Kaminga is an incredible basketball player with a ton of potential. He's also your biggest trade piece from an asset standpoint. You can't turn Wiggins into a better player.

Like you can't turn Wiggins into Pascal Seacom. The Raptors went hang up the phone. So you can't have Seacom and Kaminga. But you might be able to have Seacom and Wiggins. And if you get that and you get the Andrew Wiggins from today, now let's reevaluate it. I've got Steph Curry, top five player in the world.

I've got Andrew Wiggins from the 2022, or from the, yeah, from the championship team, if he can get back to form, right? I've got a veteran forward in Pascal Seaccom with a ton of playoff experience and all of the tools that you need to be a successful NBA playoff team.

And I've got Draymond Green returning. Now I'm talking about a team that's a top tier contender. It is nothing to do with not valuing Jonathan Kamiga. The dude a beast. He had another one of those, he has this move that he makes from the high post extended on the right side where he just kind of hits a jab and then goes middle. And then he takes off right left takeoff and just dunks on everybody with two hands. He like obliterated Jalen Brown with that move the other day. Jonathan Kamiga can play. He can flat out hoop. This is not a

take about whether Jonathan Kaminga can play or not. It's 100% about asset management and recognizing the opportunity you have right now with Steph, current. Because guess what? As soon as Steph is gone, championship ceiling is gone until you have another top five, top six player in the league. And unless you're 1,000 percent certain that Kaminga's going to be that, which by the way, as much potential as Kaminga has, I'm not a thousand percent certain that he's going to be that. As a matter of fact, if you're setting it, it's more likely that Jonathan Kaminga turns into a Jalen Brown level star than a Jason Tatum level star. It's possible that it becomes a Jason Tatum level star, but it's somewhat unlikely, right?

So from that standpoint, you have to make a decision. Do you want to take a risk on what Jonathan Kaminga is capable of in the long run? Or do you want to invest in having a top five player right now that could potentially push you over the top? Because like, what Steph did to the Celtics the other night, there's not a lot of guys in the league that can do that. You have that right now. But you've got this weird mix of like young guys with a ton of.

the potential, you know, some young guys that can play right away, like Brandon Pazamski looks like a vet right now. But you've got this kind of like mixed set of like current assets, future assets, and some sort of urgency surrounding Steph in his age. And so I hope that clarifies that because like I've had a lot of Warriors fans going like, why do you want to trade Kamega? Why do you want to trade Kamega? Has nothing to do with what Jonathan Kamega is capable of. It's just a simple question of what they have in-house right now. What they need to be able to beat a team like Denver or to beat a team like the Lakers

or to beat a team like Minnesota to beat a team like Boston to beat a team like Milwaukee and what they need to do to get to that point. And so I hope that makes a little bit more sense. But I had no problem at all with Steve Kerr waiting as long as he did. He's 100% right. When a dude plays really damn good in May and June, you buy him 25 games of leeway

in November and December. That's just how it works. Basketball's weird like that. Sometimes you just don't play well. Steph didn't play well tonight. That happens. It's part of basketball. Sometimes guys go into slumps.

And you've got to give them some of that leeway, especially when they've done work on the biggest stages. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. Yep, that's me. Clipper Taylor the 4th.

You might have seen the skisks. hits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music.

The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with a little camp?

Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack.

I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so you're just so you're not. But just so you all know. I mean, at this point, this is the second episode where we've discussed correct. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just going to be breaking down Lakers Celtics in this video. We're going to be covering the rest of the games from today's slate in tomorrow's show, as well as doing our power rankings. So that's on the docket for tomorrow, just Lakers Celtics tonight.

And, you know, I thought the story of the game was the Celtics getting Christop's Porzengis back and all the many ways that he changes fundamentally what this team is. Because without Christop's Porzengis, it's a lot of the same kind of stuff we've seen over the last couple of years, where really high highs, really low lows, moments where they look outstanding offensively, moments where they look really stagnant offensively. And Christophe's forezingis rounds out a couple of very specific areas of the Celtics roster, making them a lot more consistently good on both ends of the floor. The first part of it I was looking at was matchup attacking.

So the Lakers starting lineup right now is an entirely other issue that we need to get into. We're going to hit that later in the show. But one of the things that that lineup does have is a whole lot of length and athleticism. But the thing is, is when you're big like Christopher's, stops Porzingis is big. Even the other forwards and wings in the league are way too small to guard him. So big part of it is just the ability to attack matchups. One of the things that I like about Porzingis is when he looks to attack these smaller wings, he makes very simple and basic moves. He's not going to try to put the ball on the floor where you can reach down and smack at it. He's not going to try to

do too much in terms of a move to get any sort of separation. It's just I'm bigger than you. And I'm going to turn and face and shoot a little bank shot over the top. Or I'm just going to turn over my left shoulder and take a little hook shot. Christop Sporzingis has been, went from being already one of the best matchup attacking post-up players in the league last year to even going up to an even crazier level this season. He's been one of the most efficient post-up players in the league. It allows them, we're going to talk a lot about this here in a minute,

but the idea of this Boston Celtics group taking great shots instead of good shots. It's something I've been harping on all season. And to put it simply, it's just, easier for the Celtics to find great shots when Christop's Porzingis is on the floor. Beyond the matchup attacking, it's also the spacing element. There's a difference between a catch and shoot three from Al Horford or a catch and shoot three from Christop's Porzengis. When it comes through to Al Horford, teams are going to be a little bit more willing to concede that type of shot. Christop's Porzingis is just a far more dangerous shooter from out there. Not just from the

three point line, he could push it out a few feet beyond that mark. Why does something like that matter? when you're talking about a wing shooter on the, let's just say the actions being run on the left wing and Christops is on the right wing, if he's at 27 feet instead of three feet, that's another four feet. That whoever that defender on Christop's Forzingis is that they have to account for. If they want to sit down at the nail and be ready to contain that action as it runs into him, that's an impossible rotation now back out to the perimeter. If he actually wants to be in a position to contest that shot on the wing, he's got to leave that nail area open,

which creates a lot of space for that action to operate. It's like it's the difference between like a guy who can make a shout out there and a guy who's aggressively looking to shoot out there and from even greater distance. He just makes them a much more dynamic offense. And then the rim protection element. Here's the thing. Like I'll just use one example because Chris I was thinking

has had a few blocks tonight. But how many times have you seen LeBron barreling downhill on the left side of the rim and he does that thing where he turns his back and just kind of shoots a backhanded, right-handed layup. I've seen him do that for more than a decade now, and no one can block the damn shot, except for Chris Sphs-Porszenga's got him with it today because that's the level of rim protection that he brings to the table.

It's the kind of rim protection you actually have to think about. It's the kind of rim protection that I thought played a big factor in LeBron James having a really, really rough game. Now, there are some other factors that play, namely that starting lineup, which we'll get into, But Chris Hops-Sverzingis just brings an entirely different element to the Celtics team. It changes them for being the same damn Celtics team we've seen for two years to a geometrically different team. Everything about that team changes when he's on the floor.

And it's why him being healthy in the long run is actually one of the most important swing factors for the Celtics in this season, which has been a little bit of an issue to this point. And hopefully he can stay healthy so we can see this team at full strength down the line. Second thing I wanted to talk about, there were a couple of possessions. in the fourth quarter of this game, when the Lakers have been a very good fourth quarter team this season. LeBron comes out, guns blazing. He's been, he was sixth in the league and fourth quarter scoring,

coming into tonight. And they turn it up defensively. The Lakers have been a bad effort and energy team throughout the season. And in the fourth quarter is usually where they turn it on and try to get it going. And, you know, that's an area where we've seen the Celtics struggle a little bit in terms of their shot selection, and especially in specific moments, particularly big national TV games like this. And so I'm looking for more examples of them handling a situation like that by looking for the great shots instead of the good shots.

Now, to explain this to you guys, and those of you guys who have played the game will know what I'm talking about here. But, you know, there was this thing that would happen when I was younger where like I'd go off and I'd play in college, right? So I'd be off in Utah or Phoenix or something like that. And I'd come home for winter break or for the summer. And you'd link up with some of your buddies who also play. And now you've got this five-man group of all these dudes who played in college and you pull up on the pickup basketball run and you're just way more talented than everybody else in the gym or at least every other team in the gym because you've got five really good players that just got out of season. They're all in shape. They all know how to play, right?

And sometimes when I was young, when I was in my early 20s, those groups would underachieve. And a big part of it was is every one of those guys has a certain, you know, basketball ego, if you want to call it that. And meaning like, it's like, yeah, I can make this shot. Like I've got, I like my matchup here. I've got a defender on me that I feel like I can score against. I'm going to go back down and get to that right shoulder fade that I like to take. Or like this guy's going to take a step back three that he likes to take.

Or this guy's going to try to drive past his man and get into the lane and try to make a play. And, you know, that specific issue becomes a problem in a setting like that. if the other team has one or two good players and those one or two good players are making better decisions and hunting down better shots. Because at the end of the day, the basketball team that wins

is the team that gets better shots over 48, the vast majority of the time. Now, there are all these factors that go into that. Shot creation, shot finishing, right? What kind of defensive impact you can have on an offense in terms of length and athleticism and rotations and scheme to make them, feel uncomfortable. All these factors go into what causes that shot quality. But like,

generally speaking, if I get better shots than you for 48 minutes, I'm going to win. And there are games where the Boston Celtics, despite having an overwhelming talent advantage, don't get better shots than the other team because they don't hunt the right shots. There are a couple of key examples that I'm talking about. There was a play where Jalen Brown gets Jackson. Jackson Hayes on a switch on the left side of the floor. It's in the fourth quarter when they went on their run to go up to like 13. I think they went up by like 13 or something in the middle of the quarter. And he drives in the middle and Jackson's kind of off balance and he has an opportunity to take a fade away over his right shoulder.

On the same action, Drew Holiday kind of goes in towards the lane. I think he had DeAngel Russell on him at this point, if I remember correctly. And he's actually just looking for rebound position, but he's making himself available as a bailout for Jalen Brown. Now, there are moments where Jalen takes that shot. And it's a low percentage shot. It's got, you know, but Jalen's good. Jailen's a really good player. Probably going to make that 37, 38% of the time

because he's worked really hard on that right shoulder fade, right? But instead of forcing the right-handed right-shoulder fade over Jackson Hays, he makes a drop-off pass to Drew Holiday, who's got a deep seal on DeAngelo Russell who makes a left-handed shot on the left side of the rim. Now, it's a 100% shot with like a, I don't know, there's like a 20% chance that that pass doesn't get completed because Delo gets around and deflects it or something, but let's call it an 80% success rate. And that's the example of a decision that could be the difference between Jalen doesn't

make that pass, he forces it, rebound, Lakers go down and score. It's a totally different dynamic in a one possession setting. And then when that decision making extrapolates over a larger sample size, that's when the Celtics talent can really shine through. There was another play in that fourth quarter where Drew Holliday. drove into traffic. Had an opportunity to shoot. I think he was driving along the right baseline,

out of the right corner towards the baseline. Al Horford's wide open on the left wing, left wing kind of corner area. And instead of forcing up a layup in traffic, which Drew Holiday has a tendency to do from time to time, he makes a kickout pass to Al Horford. And again, as we've talked about so much on the show, Al Horford stands still catch and shoot jumpers

when he's got his body squared up to the basket. High percentage shot. Al Horford, gunning, taking transition threes for whatever reason, low percentage shot, right? That's the difference for this group. And it's really this simple to me. If they do that, if they hunt great shots instead of good shots, they will win the trophy.

They will. No team has this kind of talent. No team in the NBA has the offensive firepower that Boston has, not even Denver. Denver just gets way better shots than Boston because they are relentless in their pursuit of those great shots. It's that simple to me. How many teams where it's like, oh, look,

like Tatum's got this guy on him, Jalen's got this guy on him, Derek White's got this guy on him, Porzengis has got this guy on him, but like, hey, look, Drew Hollidays, just got a great matchup over there. And Drew Hollidays can get buckets. He just can't. there are there are there are teams that have you know really smart roster construction and great role players in each spot and they have an offensive system that produces better shots than boston which is a big part of why up until this recent stretch the bot like when we did the uh i think it was right around the in season tournament loss they were like eighth in offense at that point if i remember correctly that's underachieving for this group because of that specific process i thought this was a huge step forward to this

against a defense that I believe is the best defense in basketball when they're engaged in playing hard in the Lakers. They consistently down the stretch prevented the inevitable Laker onslaught in the fourth quarter through offensive execution. And like we're seeing, we're not just seeing wins from the Celtics team. We're seeing dominance. We go back. They, since the in-season tournament loss to the Pacers, they beat the Knicks, that's a good

team. They beat the Cavs twice. that was a good team at the time, although they've been dealing with some injuries and still playing decent. The Orlando Magic twice, that's a really good team. Then they have that bad loss

to the Warriors in the National Televised game. They go out after that to Sacramento without Jason Tatum and beat the living shit out of them. They demolished them. Without Jason Tatum, there aren't a lot of teams like that in the league

right now that can drop their best player and beat the shit out of one of the best teams in the league on the road. Those of you have been following the show, you guys know how highly I think, how high I think of the Kings. They're a team that has been doing that to people all year. They have like,

the Kings have one of the most impressive lists of quality wins this year that you'll see. And the Celtics utterly humiliated them on their home floor without Jason Tatum. That Red Hot Clippers team, albeit without Kauai, that Red Hot Clippers team, just absolutely demolished them. And then the Lakers off of a really impressive win,

that same Lakers team just went into Oklahoma City who's been playing some of the best basketball in the league and dominated them. And they were at home an opportunity to beat the Celtics and completely changed the complexion of their season to this point. And it never even felt like the Celtics were truly threatened. That's what this group is capable of. And it's all going to come down to,

I think it's vitally important for Porzingis to be healthy. and it's got to come down to that type of late game execution. They have to get the right shots. They have to reach their own individual offensive ceiling, not something less than that. They have to reach their ceiling. On the Lakers front. Here's the thing.

As far as the playoffs go, the Lakers aren't beating the Celtics in the playoffs until they make some sort of trait. They have to nail the deadline. I've said this on the show before. The way I see it, it's Boston and Denver at the top of the league is like real, real top, top, top tier contenders.

And then there's like a gap. And then it's like Lakers bucks in there. As in like if they make the right trade, they can enter into that conversation or they're upset threats, but they're significant underdogs, right? I probably put the Timberwolves in that tier as well. And then we get into like the Phoenix Golden State or it's like, I don't even think they have a puncher's chance unless they rectify some things.

Right. And Phoenix is spiraling right now as a whole other story, but we won't get into it. But like the reality is, like, I'm not here expecting the Lakers to, as currently constructed to beat the Celtics. I don't think they have the talent for it. But they're sure as hell not going to be able to beat them in the regular season with LeBron James playing that poorly. And again, like, this is, that's one of the things that is unique about a seven-game series,

right, is you can weather those types of bad performances. And if this was game one of a playoff series and game two is on, you know, Wednesday, I'd expect LeBron to come back and play well. But like, you're not going to beat the Celtics in a one game sample. like this when LeBron plays as poorly as he did. And he also just had his best game of the season a couple nights ago against Oklahoma City. Some of that is just like the variance you're going to experience as a 39-year-old. I mean, he's about to turn 39 here in a couple of days.

So some of that's to be expected. That said, if we look at this as a trade deadline issue for the Lakers, meaning like, I don't know, maybe they go after Levine before then. I think December, I think that they're actually capable of making the trade sooner. but let's say that they wait until the deadline to make the deal, which is usually what happens because what ends up happening is most sellers will wait to see what develops in the market. No reason to sell right now when you might be able to get three or four other bidders

involved down the line, which could push the price up, right? And if your team like Chicago, for instance, there's literally no rush to make a trade because this season's basically over for them, right? But if we accept the reality that it's December 25th and you've got a month and a half or so, or let's just call it 20 games until the trade deadline, you've got to give yourself your best chance of winning games until then, right? And this is where I want to look into the starting lineup. Now, we have not worked since the Thunder Lakers game the other night,

which was a very impressive win for the Lakers, one of the most impressive wins this season. But in that game, we had another starting lineup change from Darvin Hand. He removed DeAngela Russell and put Jared Vanderbilt into the starting lineup, ran out a lineup with Cam Reddish, Jared Vanderbilt, Tori and Prince, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis. Latest in a long line of bizarre kind of rotation decisions from Darvin Ham. He, as the Lakers invested in Jared Vanderbilt and Rui Hachamura and contract extensions this summer, those two guys have been like combining to play as many minutes as Tori and Prince.

It was a bianual exception guy this year. Cam Reddish on a veteran minimum contract has this super long leash and is playing these super long minutes. There was this bizarre quote, even though going into the Thunder game, Austin Reeves had been averaging 25 and 6 on 65% true shooting over his previous nine games. Literally,

Darwin Ham was like, oh, I like Austin in the 26 to 28 minute range. I feel like that's when he's most successful. So it's been a string of bizarre kind of, of rotation stuff surrounding the Lakers. It's been one of the few. You guys know me.

I don't complain about the coach. It's just not a thing that I do. That said, it's been a little bizarre watching some of these rotation decisions from Darwin Ham. I will say personally, in my time covering the league, the decision to keep Austin Reeves out of the starting lineup and to put another non-shooter in the lineup is one of the most bizarre coaching decisions I have ever seen in my time covering. in the league. And I go back to one of my baseline kind of like basketball theories that I talk

about on the show all the time. The list of responsibilities a basketball team has to fulfill on the court on the offense event, shot creation, right? Good screening. Offball finishing, both in spotting up, attacking closeouts, screen and roll guys that can finish above the rim. All of these different things kind of combine into what makes successful NBA offense. So when we see teams like the Denver Nuggets and it's like elite post player, elite on ball guard, elite off ball guard, elite weak side shooter, elite athlete on the back line as a cutter out of the dunker spot and running in transition. It's like, oh, all of that combines to be the most inevitable and unguardable offense. Why? Because all those guys do different things, right? It's all of the

the individual pieces filling out that bar. Right. And then there's the defense side of it. And you need on-ball defense. You need lock and trail guys. You need guys that can defend in ball screens. You need guys that can handle low-man responsibilities, like helping at the rim and controlling the defense of glass. There's a bunch of different responsibilities there.

And one of the things Darwin Ham did in that lineup is there's actually a redundancy there. Now you've got Tori and Prince, Cambridge, and Jared Vanderbilt. The vast majority of teams aren't running three on-ball creators. a lot of times guys are working off the ball. So now you're getting a diminishing return on some of that perimeter defense that you're throwing all out in one lineup. And then on the other end of the floor,

you have very little ball handling and shoot it. And it was one thing against the thunder when you're just so much bigger than them that you can control the possession battle by dominating the glass. This is a different team. What have I said about the thunder all season? They're too small.

That's their big limitation. that's not a realistic matchup for you to win the championship. Notice I still don't have the thunder in my list of top tier contenders. They're too small. They're not going to win the Western Conference that small. Boston is a big athletic team. So they don't get scared when they see Jared Vanderbilt and Tori and Prince and Cam Reddish. And what do you know?

They come out in the opening off of the opening tip tonight and just kick the living shit out of them and the Lakers can't score. that Lakers starting lineup group, thanks to Anthony Davis scoring out of the post every single time, still was only a minus 10, but it looked worse than that. They were not getting any quality offense with that group. Those Christopps Porzingis blocks on LeBron helping off of Jared Vanderbilt. And so again, like, it doesn't make sense to then lean all into your perimeter defense and get diminishing returns on both ends of the floor to then have your two skill guards come in together with a bench group,

that doesn't make any sense either. And so like, it's such an obvious and clear solution for me. Austin Reeves has to start at the one. End of story. Austin Reeves, it could be Cam or Max at the two. I could go either way. I'd probably say Cam. And then at the three, I mean, Tori and Prince,

as long as he's making shots is one thing, but that's where I would consider using someone like Jared Vanderbilt. That's where I consider trying to find minutes for someone like Rui Hachemura. But right now, this idea of just leaning on all these point of attack guys that can't shoot, what you're doing is you're creating lineups that are crossing too many of the same box and not enough of all of the boxes. So now you've got all these groups that can defend but can't score, and then groups that can score but can't defend.

When you can balance those groups out and create functionality there. it's definitely been a frustrating thing because it doesn't have to be like that. There were times last year where I saw Laker fans complaining about the rotation and I'm sitting there thinking like there's not personnel that could fix this problem. It's like, oh, we need to see more Troy Brown Jr.

And it's like, I like Troy, but he's not your saving grace. He's not going to turn all of this around. We need more Lonnie Walker. Again, I like Lonnie Walker, not really going to make that big of a difference. This team has solutions. They've got a lot of good players.

Ruby's a good player. Austin Reed is a good player. Jared Vanderbilt, when he's in the right role, good player. DeAngelo Russell is a bench guy who can run a bench unit offensively. Good player. But if you don't piece the guys together into lineups that actually check the boxes of what a basketball lineup needs to do, you're going to get diminishing returns. And this team already has an issue with effort.

This team already is an issue with struggling to be engaged for regular season games. So this is not a team that can afford to leave meat on the bone in terms of basic rotation decisions. And again, it's flat out roster and balances as well. If you have a coach that doesn't trust any of these options and is overplaying some of these other options, you need to simplify that for him by making a consolidation trade. They need to find a way to turn two of the guys that Darwin Ham doesn't like to play. into one guy that Darwin Ham will like to play. That's what I keep talking about with DeAngelo Russell and Rui Hacham Ruh.

Like, Darwin just doesn't like to play him that much. Even in this recent stretch, Ruy's been playing like 25 minutes a game or so. Like, that's a dude who should be playing 30, 32 minutes a game somewhere. So if you're not going to use him and if you're not going to use Dilo, except for these brief stints, turn those two guys into a player that he will use. Then that should help out in some of those rotation situations.

And again, like, the margin for error is really small here. In order to beat Boston, the Lakers have to get better. It's more than even cleaning up in balance is they have to get better. And the only way they're going to get better is by making an upgrade at those two and three positions. Because again, you're asking me to build a lineup and it's like Cammer Max, I don't know. Torian, Vando, you know, Rui. It's just, it's a lot of like, yeah, this guy's good at this, but he's not good at that.

And it'd be better if they could turn a couple of those guys into one of those guys that's good at all those things. And that could go a long way towards helping the Lakers reach their sailing. All right, guys. That is all I have for today. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your holiday. I'll be back tomorrow with the breakdown of the rest of the Christmas Day games and power rankings.

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