The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - How Kevin Durant & Kyrie Irving saved Brooklyn Nets season

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

Jason Timpf reacts to Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets 125 -117 win over Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers. He then breaks down how the Brooklyn Nets have won 13 of their last 14 games, and discusses whether or not they will win the NBA Finals. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 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. 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 IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok's podcast network on TikTok. The volume. It's Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandul. The NBA season is kicking into gear, and there's no better place to get in on the action than with Fandul.

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MD gamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Dial 1-8778 Hope & Y or text Hope N.Y to 467-369 in New York. Call 1-800-5-22-470-470 in Wyoming or visit www.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fanduel here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a good start to your week. Today is Brooklyn Nets Day. As I said last night, we're going to start, now that we're in this point of the season

where we kind of know a lot more about the teams that we're covering, we're really going to hone in on the top 10, 15 or so teams in the league in focus on the winners. The Brooklyn Nets had been winning a lot of games lately, but we're desperate for some signature wins, some wins that add legitimacy to their dominance over the bottom of the league. And they got two of them back to back, dominating the Milwaukee Bucks at home. Last night, going into Cleveland against the Cavs, basically at full strength, and manhandling them in their own building. So today we're just going to be diving into everything that has made the Brooklyn Nets successful over the course of the last couple of months. You guys know the drill before we get started, subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel, so you don't miss any more of our videos.

Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT, so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And the last but not least, if for whatever reason you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, remember you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. So they beat the Cavs last night, 125 to 117. It wasn't even really that close. Every time that Cleveland made a run to get it close, the Nets would just smash him again to build the lead back up. At one point they got it late second quarter.

They got it back to like 46 to 45, and then the Nets immediately went on an 18 to 2 run, making it look easy to kind of put the game away at that point. KD and Kyrie, again, leading the way, 64 points on 37 shots with 10 assists. KD really has it going from three now. He started the year 32% from three over his first 20 games. He's 45% on five attempts per games in his last 13 games,

and 52% in his last six games. Kyrie's also shooting the laces off, 46% from three on nine attempts in his last six games. But after last night, and really after this last couple months of basketball, you can really see an identity starting to round out for the Brooklyn net. I always talk about a basketball identity or basketball character because to me that's what you lean on in a night in night in night out basis. There are a lot of teams out there that don't know who they are and they're kind of just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, you know, especially towards the bottom of the league. They're trying small lineups to try in big lineups to try in pairings that work, pairings that don't. Sometimes they run, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they defend. Sometimes they don't.

There's an inconsistency in their basketball character and that kind of fundamentally becomes who they are. They're a team that doesn't know who they are. And the teams that do know who they are, they come out and they play the same way every single night. They have a pretty consistent rotation, and the results tend to follow. And it's because they've seen results that come from the way that they play, and so they're bought in,

and they believe in what they're doing. The Nets have now won 13 out of 14 games, and we're going to do just like we did with all the other teams that we did these Zoom-in videos on. We're going to focus on the defensive end, and then the offensive end on the floor. We're going to start with defense with the nets, though. On the defensive end, they do a ton of switching.

They do occasionally run-drop coverage with guys like Nick Claxton, but even then Nick does a lot of switching. And he's defended really well, both at the rim and rim protection situations and out on switches. Nick Claxton in general has been awesome all year, just finding ways to impact winning on both ends of the fore. We just talked about the defense event. But even on the offensive end, he's such a good vertical spacer,

has good timing of when to cut along the front. the baseline for lob passes. And he's also one of the better offensive rebound putback guys in the league. Gets a lot of extra points just working, getting garbage baskets around the rim. And one of the best offensive rebounders, I think he's right around two and a half per game in offensive rebounds. Third in the league and blocks as well. Just, you know, one of the themes of today's show is going to be about how great Kevin

Durant and Kyrie are. And we're going to talk a lot about Katie and Kyrie here in a little bit. But it's also a supporting cast that has a very important. really rounded out into one that is helping them in a very complimentary way on both ends of the floor. The nets and their aggressive switching kind of leads to a give and a take because they tend to disrupt offensive flow by switching a lot of actions. So that kind of shuts off a lot of the actions that teams run because they're getting ahead of it with switching. But they're also aggressive at the basketball. And during this 14-game stretch, they've been forcing a lot of turnovers and getting

out in transition as a result. They've been top 10 in turnover. forced during the span and second in fast break points scored over this 14 game stretch. That is obviously, I always talk about with offensive ratings, you know, you're always trying to find ways to supplement that. So Nick Claxton getting garbage buckets in putting them in, that's supplementary. You know, getting out in transition, that's supplementary. Obviously, the high-level shot making to rescue possessions and late clock situations from Katie and Kyrie, that's all supplementary.

And during this 14-game stretch, they have an awesome. offensive rating of 120, which has been best in the league. Obviously, there's a given take to switching on defense, especially when you're as thin as the nets are. They do give up a lot of points in the paint. They've been struggling to defend the paint during the streak. I think their 20th and opponent's points, opponent points in the paint allowed per 100 possessions. But they've been making up for it by defending the three-point line really well. They're allowing fewer threes than most of the teams in the league. And then, like I said, forcing a lot of turnovers. All of that's amounted to them being 11th in defensive rating over this 13-1 stretch, which is fine.

Again, like I talked about with the Nuggets last night, when you're scoring as effectively as these teams are, you don't necessarily need to be what Milwaukee was defensively or what the Lakers were defensively in 2020. You don't have to be that if you were this good on the offensive end of the floor. On the offensive end of the floor, it's a steady diet of ISO's pick-and-roll and post-ups for KD and Kairi in a little bit. But we're going to talk about Katie and Kari in a little bit because the two of them have been so unbelievably off-the-charts good with their shot creation.

But I want to start with the role players for a second because this is fundamentally what makes the Nets different than so many teams around the league. They have a lot of good basketball players that can capitalize on the attention that Katie and Kairi draw. You've heard me talk a lot about aggregate offensive skill. I've talked about this a lot with the, New York Knicks, and I've talked about this a lot with the Toronto Raptors, some of these teams that

struggle with scoring in the half court. And, you know, sometimes we, especially with the analytics movement, we become so focused on what does the guy shoot on catch and shoot threes and, you know, can he defend? We just, you know, the three and D role player that we always talk about. But the problem is, is as the league has gotten quicker and better defensively, there's a lot more improvisation in spotting up. You know, I refer to this as close out of But really, it's just that natural ability to turn a close-out or a rotation into a better shot or into a finish for yourself. And I want to use T.J. Warren as an example. So there was a play in this game against the Cavs where K.D. calls for a screen from T.J. Warren, I believe Lamar Stevens was guarding the ball. And Kevin Love was the player guarding T.J. Warren on this particular play. And so the Cavs did what is called a hedge-in recover, which is typically, you

you don't really see it too much in the NBA now the way you used to. Ten years ago, you'd see hedge and recover all the time. Now it's primarily only with weaker defensive players that you want to not get switched onto a good score. So what they do is when the screen comes, they run out hard to hedge and stop the player from moving laterally across the screen. That forces them to take retreat dribbles out towards half court, okay? That then buys you time to sprint back and recover to your man.

So on this play, T.J. Warren sets the screen. Kevin Love Hedges out. Kevin Durant has to take the retreat dribbles. T.J. Warren slips to the elbow, and K.D. hits him with the pass. On the slip, Donovan Mitchell comes out of the corner off of Royce O'Neill to help on T.J. Warren. T.J. Warren throws a pass fake towards Royce O'Neill. Donovan Mitchell stunts back to the three-point line. Then T.J. Warren takes a hard dribble down the middle of the floor, but Kevin Love is screaming back into the play to get in front of him. Kevin Love cuts him off going to the right, and T.J. Warren just does a really nifty and quick,

between the leg dribble to the center of the floor right at the semicircle and rises up and knocks down a 10-foot jump shot. That is an extremely high-level basketball play. If you throw that to Lamar Stevens, for instance, for the calves, that's the exact same sequence. A hedge-out, Lamar Stevens slips. He's a good player, an NBA player, but he's not that high-level offensive talent that T.J. Warren is. He's not going to see the floor and make that read quick enough to make that pass fake to get Donovan Mitchell to get off of him, and then the counter move to beat Kevin Love coming back towards the middle. In all likelihood, he ends up making some sort of mistake or struggles to convert that into something that is worth points. That's

the difference between a D and three or three and D player in Lamar Stevens and a really well-rounded basketball player in T.J. Warren, and how that allows you to squeeze out offensive points from attention that your stars gather. You know, when players struggle to capitalize on that, that gives them the ability to hedge and recover or hard trap without having to worry about giving up points on the back end. There's another play later in that first half. T.J. Warren, just because of a transition cross-match,

guys, in transition, you just grab somebody. Defensive principles change in those situations. Darius Garland ends up on T.J. Warren. Katie and Kyrie are out front. No reason to waste energy on a pick and roll. No reason to waste energy on an ISO to try to draw multiple defenders. T.J. Warren just raises his hand. They dump the ball into him on Darius Garland on the left block.

He uses a pound dribble to get a little closer, spins back towards the baseline, pump fakes. Darius Garland leaves his feet, and T.J. Warren, who's a gifted score, just elevates into Darius Garland's body, draws the contact and hits a little 10-foot jump shot for the and one. That is an example of matchup attacking from the forward position that we talk about. That is another way to generate offense without having to fatigue your stars. That's the difference between a higher level offensive skilled player and their ability to play alongside stars versus just the traditional 3&D concept.

And, you know, that scorning fluidity, we've talked about this a lot on that show, it's kind of just a natural feel. It's hard to explain. Like, any of you guys who have played basketball a great deal, whether it's in college or in high school, you've probably met guys that can shoot the ball well and can do ball handling drills well, but for some reason they lack that like natural feel of when to dribble and when to shoot for the purposes of scoring the basketball.

They're just a little too rigid, and when they get out into the improvisation of scoring, they struggle. There's such a natural instinct to good scores that goes even beyond their actual tangible skill set when it comes to ball handling and shooting to create shots. And T.J. Warren, I think it's just a perfect encapsulation of that. That's why I wanted to spend some time there. But as we zoom out, the rest of the roster kind of fits that same mold. Seth Curry, T.J. Warren, Royce O'Neill, Ben Simmons, Uta-Want-Nobie.

All of these guys amount to an enormous amount of ball handling, shooting, and passing that are surrounding two of the best shot creators in the world. Looking to get more out of the NFL this season? Well, now is the perfect time to download Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. Because new customers can get a no-swet first bet up to $1,000. That's free bets back. if your first bet doesn't win. Just download the Fanduil Sportsbook app.

It's safe, secure, and super easy to use. Then you can bet on everything, from the money line to touchdown scores to over-under yards. My two favorite bets this week are the Buccaneers and the Packers at home, two teams that desperately need wins at home led by two of the great quarterbacks of all time.

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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. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, 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. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, and so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of taun tons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to blow your mind on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. And that aggregate, aggregate offensive skill leads to absurdly effective half-court offense with Katie and Kyrie on the floor this year, the Nets are scoring 105 points per 100 half-court possessions. To give you some perspective, Dallas has the best half-court offense in the league at 104 offensive ready. That's how effectively Brooklyn scores with Katie and Kyrie on the floor. Overall, regardless of lineup for the whole season,

the Nets are third in half-court offense. I wanted a quick touch on a couple of the guys. Royce O'Neill, it cost a first-round pick. With everything that was happening this summer, that was kind of just a throw-in move that a lot of people were confused by. First-round pick. Think about how many times fan bases around the league have been like, that guy's not worth the first, that guy's not worth the first.

These two guys aren't worth two first or whatever it is. We've been dealing with that with the Laker fans for a while, right? This is such a great example of how draft picks and the value can't be looked at in a vacuum. Because Royce O'Neill, especially coming off of what he did with the jazz, you're not sitting there thinking like, oh, he's worth a first-round pick. That seems steep, right? But what you're seeing is in a small role with the Nets, alongside two superstars, he has been monumentally valuable to everything that Brooklyn does.

First of all, he's an outstanding perimeter defender. He's super physical on the ball. He did a number on Donovan Mitchell last night from the start, made him feel super uncomfortable, was cutting off the rim from him, so Donovan Mitchell had to settle early in the game for a lot of really high difficulty pull-up jump shots that he missed just about all of, and it kind of set the tone for the rest of his night. He also does little things dirty work on the glass. He crashes the glass while you average just five rebounds a game.

And then on the offensive end, he doesn't have that scoring fluidity that T.J. Warren has, but he's shooting the damn laces off the basketball from three, and he makes good close-out reads. So it's not him trying to score when he's driving the ball to the basket, but he always makes that right kickout pass to the next shooter or the drop-off pass to the dunker spot or things along those lines. It's been a very important piece of connective tissue for the nets on the offensive end of the four. cost the first round pick, and a vacuum sounds crazy,

but you put a guy that's got that particular skill set alongside Kevin Freakin Durant and Kyrie Irving, he smashes that role out of the park, and suddenly he's deeply impactful with a limited skill set. And that's why, like, again, role players are so incredibly valuable in the modern NBA with the way that defense has worked to try to take the ball out of your star's hands. You don't want knobby.

Same type of thing. Not a super fluid score, but he's, He makes good closeout reads. He's a solid defender with tons of length, and he shoots the shit out of the basketball. He's shooting 54% from three at a rate of six attempts per 36 minutes. Ben Simmons, offensively, it's kind of a mixed bag. He had a bunch of ugly misses around the rim against Cleveland, but he's probably their best transition passer.

He's really good at just getting downhill and applying rim pressure and finding shooters. He's also been doing this thing lately where he throws these cross-court bounce passes in transition that are absurdly high difficulty. They're covering like 40 to 50 feet of court on the bounce while everyone is sprinting. He had one against the Cavs, I think, to Royce O'Neill for three. And then he had another one against the Bucks the other night to Kyrie across the court. Super impressive stuff there. And then he's still capable of doing so much damage on the defensive end of the floor.

I kind of dominated that game against the Cavs, just getting deflections and steals and triggering those transition opportunities. But I do want to spend a great deal of time talking about Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, because at the end of the day, they are the two guys that make this whole thing work. So obviously, Katie's averaging 30 points per game, which is the third highest mark of his career, and he's shooting a career high, 67% in true shooting percentage. A lot of this is driven by his pull-up shooting. He is shooting 55% on pull-up jumpers.

There are 83 players that have attempted at least 100 pull-up jump shots this year. Katie is in first place with 55%. No other player in the league is over 50%. And then Russell Westbrook is 82nd out of 83 with 28%. If you ever covered Russell Westbrook, you would understand why I had to slip that in there. He's in a class by himself, to give you an idea, some other little perspective. Jason Tatum, who's been unbelievably good this year, is shooting 21% worse on pull-up jumpers than Kevin Durant, shooting just 34%.

LeBron James, 22% worse, shooting just 33%. So even, like, compared to what other pull-up, like, because a lot of the other pull-up shooters around the league that are good are guards, like little guards. It's like Kevin Durant is outperforming all of them and then like vastly outperforming all of the small forward pull-up shooters that we see in the league. He's in a class by himself as a pull-up shooter. And then he's been outstanding defensively

ever since the Nash firing. I received a couple of people reaching out in DMs and messages over the last couple of weeks like talking shit about me saying that the Nash firing was a scapegoat. and I think it's funny because, like, I never said that Nash shouldn't be fired. In fact, I recommended that the Nets fired Nash. All I said was they're not playing hard for him, which is a fact. That is an unassailable fact.

They were not playing hard for Steve Nash, and then they did play hard for Jacques Vaughn. So, like, is Jacques Vaughn a better coach than Steve Nash? Maybe. But how the hell would we know when one guy had a scheme that the team bought into and worked hard at, and the other one, they mailed it in. Like, I think they were dead last in defense and second to last in rebounding for the first chunk of the season when Steve Nash was coached. That's just not trying.

I don't really know what else to tell you. But that said, I recommended firing Nash because I thought it would reinvigorate the team under a new voice, and it did. And since that coaching change, they've been outstanding defensively, and Kevin Durant's been one of the best defensive players in the world. And I believe he'll make an all defense team this year. But what I want to focus on with Katie, because we can talk about Katie scoring. I've done videos on Katie's scoring in the past.

It's a mix. It's pull-up jump shooting. It's improvisational shooting everywhere on the floor. It's setting up his man for easy shots. He's really good at working off the ball for easy catch-and-shoe opportunities. Kevin Durant, his efficiency is a product of tough shot-making, but also his ability to work hard for easy shots. And we can talk about that all day long.

But what we haven't done enough lately, I think, in general with the NBA media covering the league, Kevin Durant's passing has become his most underrated skill. And the reason why is because he had a tough series against the Boston Celtics. First of all, we never really thought of KD as much of a passer. He's had big passing moments. I think he's always been a little underrated in that area.

But then after the Boston series, you know, everyone just thought he was a tunnel vision score that when a shot is going in, you know, he can't impact the game. And the truth of the matter is, is he actually, we have to look at the games to see what's happening. Because as we look at the numbers, he's averaging 5.3 assists per game, which is good, not great, right?

He's also giving you three and a half turnovers per game. So when you look at assist to turnover ratio and total assist points created, there's a lot of stuff there that doesn't look good. And again, in the Boston series, as I said, it was more his pull-up jump shooting that failed him. He was like a 50% pull-up jump shooter all season, and then suddenly he shot in the low 30s against the Celtics.

that's just not good enough or in the mid-30s or something like that. So too many turnovers and too many missed jump shots were what killed Kevin Durant. But at the end of the day, like Kevin Durant's job when he's dictating double teams or drawing double teams is just to make the right read. And more often than not, those lead to four-on-three situations, kind of similar to the Steph Curry thing, you know, back in like the 2015 finals where he's just getting blitzed on the pick and roll, hitting Draymond Green on the short roll. Draymond Green's making plays.

And so Draymond Green's racking up assists and Andre Godal is racking up corner threes, but the actual play itself was initiated by Steph's ability to draw the double team. So that's what I want to focus on here for a minute because Katie again, 5.3 assists for game, nothing to really get excited about. But when you watch what's happening on the floor, there's a lot of high quality shots that are being created. So when Katie has the ball and passes out of pick and roll, it's happened 145 times this year.

the nets have scored 167 points. That's 1.15 points per possession, which is in the 92nd percentile. What that amounts to is he's been the very best pick and roll ball handler in the league. Overall, Kevin Durant pick and rolls, including shots and passes, have led to 1.26 points per possession, which is by far the best in the league for players who run at least five a game. Steph is in second place at about 1.2 points per possession. You know, and this is the latest in a long line of examples of box scores not really being revealing about what's happening on the court. But for the most part, Katie's getting doubled on picks.

He's hitting the short roller. The short roller is making decisions and it's ending in shot attempts for other players. Katie's getting hockey assists there. One of the things that Brooklyn's been doing really well is putting a good playmaker in that position. Like lately it's been a lot of Kyrie Irving. Have Kyrie Irving set the screen? We saw this against the Raptors and heavy doses in the fourth quarter the other night, where it's like Kai resets the screen, catches the ball in the short roll,

gets downhill into the paint and makes a kickout pass to you to want Navi in the corner for three. Like that kind of thing we're seeing a lot. But between Katie's playmaking, which has been off the charts, his pick and roll ball handling off the charts, is scoring off the charts, his defense amazing. This year's MVP race is absolutely stacked. Because obviously you've got Jason Tatum, you've got Janus and Yokic, all guys that have great cases.

but I think overall, when I set aside everything and I just focus on who's playing the best basketball in the league this year with who's been the best player and the best team, the Nets are only two games back of the best record in basketball, and an overall value brought to the team. I actually think if the season ended right now today that Kevin Durant would be my MVP pick. Moving on to Kyrie Irving, obviously he's also scoring the ball really well, 26 points per game, fourth best mark of his career, 60%. true shooting, third best mark of his career. He's always been very good in pick and roll, and he's been very good in pick and roll again this year, 1.1,2 points per possession, including passes, which is in the 89th percentile, 11th in the league among players who run at least five per game. So they got two of the top 11 pick and roll players in the league, including the best. But he's been the very best ISO player in the league this year. So when Kyrie

Irving shoots out of isolation, 1.26 points per possession, which is just completely outrageous. best in the league among players who attempt at least three ISOs per game. DeMarden is a close second. A big part of this is Kyrie Irving is shooting 64% at the rim. We've always thought about Kyrie is a great rim finisher. But as we look at it, you know, most of the guards in the league are hovering in the mid-50s, right? And then bad rim finishers, guys like Russell Westbrook, they're hovering in the low 50s. And some of the better, like good rim finishers for guards are around 60%.

And Kyrie is just completely off the charts in the mid-60s at 64%. You usually don't see that unless you're dealing with big athletic wings. So as we zoom out, the Nets have the very best pick and roll ball handler in the league and the very best isolation player in the league. And each is great at the other. Kyrie is 11th in pick and roll ball handling, at least five run per game. KD is ninth in ISO's points per possession to run at least three a game. So you've got to kind of round it out, you've got two of the top ten shot creators

when it comes to just creating shots for teammates or for themselves. you've got two of the 10 best shot creators in the entire world, and you've got a ton of offensive skills surrounding them, like we talked about earlier with the likes of you to want Nabi, T.J. Warren, Royce O'Neill, Seth Curry. You know, we talked about that earlier. All of that amounts to 120 offensive rating in this 13-1 stretch, which is the very best in the league,

and then they're committing enough on the defensive end to get enough stops to be a damn good basketball team. And you know how it goes with these win streaks. I always talk about inferior competition. You need that signature win to legitimize it, And, you know, when they lost to Boston, which is their one loss during this 14 game streak, you know, it can be discouraging because that makes you feel like you're not quite to that level. But then these last two wins have been really impressive. That's a dominant win over the bucks and a dominant win on the road over the calves. My only concern with this particular team right now is the Boston matchup.

Specifically, Boston's ability to mix up coverages to switch and force KD and Kyrie to ISO against much better defense players or to try. trap and rotate out of it, which is the aggregate athleticism that they have on the floor. They get really physical on the ball. Katie and Kyrie last year, as I mentioned earlier, really fell apart with their pull-up shooting. Both of them tanked and pull-up shooting percentage, and then both of them turned the basketball over way too much. So the reality is, is Katie and Kyrie are just going to have to play a lot better against Boston this year than they did last year. They are better. They have better role players around them this year than they did last year, but I think Boston's better than they were last year with the Malcolm

Brogden acquisition, with Jason Tatum's improvements, with Jalen Brown's improvements, you know, just in general that they are a deeper, they have more continuity than they did last year, and they've learned some valuable lessons from their playoff failures. So that Boston matchup is the one that freaks me out, but if they can somehow get through Boston, I'd like their chances. I wouldn't pick them necessarily, but I'd like their chances against just about any other team in the league. So what does that amount to? It means they have a real chance to win an NBA championship this year,

which sounds crazy after everything that happened to begin the season. But I had them sixth in my power rankings to start the year in that, you know, if things go right contender list and things didn't go right to start the season, but things are starting to go right now. And you're seeing all of that talent on the roster start to materialize into a damn good basketball team. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. We will be back on Thursday covering the games.

from Wednesday night. As always, I appreciate your support, and I'll see you guys then. The Volume. 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.

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 IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s.

84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.