The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Jimmy Butler wills the Heat to game 7, Lakers hire Darvin Ham

Episode Date: May 28, 2022

Jason reacts to Jimmy Butler's spectacular performance in Game 6, plus discusses the Lakers new head coach hire. #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I am incredibly frustrated with the Boston Celtics tonight. I have not actively rooted for a team at all in this playoff round. Obviously, I've had teams that I've had predictions about and teams that I've hoped would win for the sake of my predictions. But tonight was the first time I was actually rooting for a team to win. I was rooting for Boston to win because if they won, I would have gotten Saturday and Sunday off this weekend, which would have been my first weekend off and over a month. and I was very much looking forward to that.

They had enough talent to do so. It didn't go that way. I can't sit up here though and just say, oh, Boston didn't play hard or, you know, they let Miami get lucky. No, no, no. Miami came in here tonight and played an incredible basketball game on both ends of the floor. Every single one of their players showed up in some capacity,

except for maybe bam at a bio on the offensive end of the floor, which is a whole other story. And they came in here and they beat a team that has more talent than them on both ends of the floor. And I have to give them a resounding round of applause for that. I always talk about how there's a range of outcomes with a basketball team. It's the same thing for players too. It's kind of like the floor ceiling conversation, right? Like your best punch versus your worst punch. And Boston's best punch is not as good as, or excuse me, Miami's best punch is not as good as Boston's best punch. And Boston's worst punch might be better than Miami's worst punch, depending

on who you ask. I tend to think that Boston's floor is pretty low. But if you catch them on the right night and Miami throws their best punch and Boston throws a mediocre punch, they can win a huge road game in Boston to extend this series to seven. We're going to break this game

down in its entirety. We're going to talk Jimmy Butler. I want to talk about the rest of the Miami role players. We're going to talk about Boston and some of their late game execution and some of the issues I had with their process throughout this game. We're going to talk some Jason Tatum because I thought he was outplayed by Jimmy Butler in three of the six games of the series,

which is something that you can't allow to happen if you're Jason Tatum and you put yourself in that superstar class. And then we're going to talk a little bit about game seven and what I expect to see there. Before we get started, if you guys could take the time to like this video, I would sincerely appreciate that. It helps us a lot. Also, if you could subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel, so you don't miss any more of our videos.

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We're going to be doing a bunch of different video stuff as we go into the finals. That's where you're going to go to see that sort of video content. But let's start with Jimmy Butler. So we're going to get to everything. We're going to get to the late game stuff. here in a little bit, but Jimmy Butler was the hero of the night, and I think he deserves to be up first. A truly bizarre performance on a bunch of different levels. First of all, and I tweeted this out, and I sincerely mean it, this was an all-time great playoff performance from Jimmy Butler,

like Pantheon level stuff. If you saw this from a LeBron, if you saw this from a Kobe or a Kevin Durant or a Steph Curry, we would be making the same case. And I don't believe in moving goalposts for players. For Jimmy Butler, this is that type of performance. 47 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists, 50% from 3, efficient everywhere else on the floor, got to the foul line. He was unfreeking believable on defense. I'm going to spend some time talking about that here in just a minute because I think it's deeply impactful in a way that a lot of people don't see on first watch.

You almost have to go back on the tape to see the different ways that he can be so disruptive to another team in the way they run their offense. The thing that I wanted to start with that's so interesting about this is just the dynamic. Jimmy Butler, in the previous three games, averaged nine points, and two assists, two assists in nine points. 25% from the field, 14% from three. Now, was there knee stuff involved? Yes, but that same knee stuff applied today. Jimmy Butler said himself after the game.

My knee's banged up, but everybody's banged up and I'm not going to make the excuses. And that's the truth. Marcus Smart is banged up. You know, Jason Tatum's dealing with a shoulder dinger. You know, Jalen Brown in the first half tonight would knee to knee with somebody. If you've ever had that feeling, that lingers for a while. Everyone's banged up.

But for whatever reason, the Jimmy Butler that we saw in the previous three games was replaced by a guy who was capable of putting out an absolute pantheon, all-time great NBA playoff performance. And it stole a game on the road to extend this series to seven. for those of you have been listening to my show for a while, I always talk about the problem with tricking off playoff games. There's certain stuff that's out of your control to some extent, right? Like Boston, what happened to them in game three of this series,

not trying when they came out the gate, it's very different than some of the issues they've had earlier in this playoff run. They've lost games because of execution, but execution in large part comes down to your decision makers. That's not something that, you know, you can focus really hard to take care of in the sense that, like, that's kind of in their nature as basketball players. They're finicky when they make decisions.

Some nights they are dialed in and they're doing it the right way. Some nights they're not, right? But when you trick off a game, the way you did in game three, which was very much in your control, when you came out in the first quarter and you weren't giving effort and you were being or even just the third quarter of game one when you were just persistently turning the ball over. Jason Tatum had six turnovers just in that quarter. quarter. That's, I don't care how much of a facilitating weakness you have. Six turnovers in a quarter is inexcusable. When you trick off games early in the series, you run the risk of an

outlier performance like Jimmy Butler going for 47, 9 and 8, Jimmy Butler transforming into prime LeBron James. You run the risk of that happening when you have a chance to close at a series in game six. And that's why it's so important to feel that urgency early in series. even when you're going against a team that you know you have an advantage against, a talent advantage. Because in a large sample size, talent wins. But in a short sample size, variance wins. In a short sample size, you can go cold.

In a short sample size, you can make a handful of mistakes at the end of a game, and it can cost you. In a short sample size, a player that averaged nine points in his previous three games can go for 47. Or Max Struce, a player who couldn't hit a shot in the last few games. can get hot and make a bunch of key three-pointers in this game. That is the problem with tricking off games. You run into this type of predicament.

But Jimmy Butler, you know, it's not, it's an outlier compared to the way he played in this series, and it's an outlier compared to his regular averages in the playoffs. Like Jimmy Butler's typically about a 20-point-per-game guy in the playoffs. That's just what he is. But we have seen tons of examples over the years of Jimmy Butler flashing this type of upside in the playoffs. You absolutely knew that was a risk. Is it shocking?

Yes. This might be his best playoff game ever. But you always knew there was a risk with Jimmy Buller. He dropped 40 in the finals twice against LeBron. That's always been one of the potential outcomes when you're playing against Jimmy Buller. Really quickly, I wanted to talk about his defense because I think, you know, I had people asking like, in my Twitter mentions, like, why don't people backdoor cut more? Why is it that Jimmy can recover so easily?

Why does it always feel like he's in the right spot? It's instincts. There's a lot of different things that go into defense, right? Like your physical tools play a certain role, your commitment physically, getting into shape in terms of your conditioning, also just your willingness to do the work. There's focus, right? Up here, a huge part of defense is that. I remember one time when I was playing basketball in college, one time I botched a coverage

in a key late game situation, chasing a shooter over the top of the screen. I was supposed to chase him over the top. I went underneath the screen, and I got pulled from the game. And I had to sit crunch time because my coach didn't trust me to finish that coverage for the rest of that game.

There's so many different elements that go into defense. That's one that constantly gets overlooked. Your focus on the game plan, your ability to execute that. And Jimmy Butler, his instincts, his ability to focus, his ability to do those things,

in conjunction with his physical tools, in conjunction with his conditioning and his commitment amounts to a guy that can be downright disruptive. All night tonight, I thought he did a really nice job of in the passing lanes, baiting players into thinking he wasn't a threat. That's with body language.

It's like you think of a no-look pass. It's like a no-look steal. Jimmy Butler being in a position where he tricks you with his body language into thinking he's in the passing lane but not paying attention or that he's a step too far away to get to a pass. But then as soon as you start your passing motion,

he's shooting like a dart into that lane. That's all instincts and focus. But that instinct part is another part of defense that frequently gets glossed over. Some of this is not coachable. This is something that you can't train someone into doing. Some people just have a nose for the ball. We talked about this a lot last night

when I was talking about Clay Thompson. And I was talking about Kvonne Luni. Great rebounders in NBA history have a knack for just knowing where the ball is going to come off the rim. Great shooters in NBA history just have a knack for where to relocate to give themselves their best opportunity to get an open shot. And great defensive players like Jimmy Butler have a knack for understanding how plays develop. They understand when the backdoor cuts coming. They understand when the swing pass is coming. They can see plays develop before they happen, which allows.

allows them to be in the right spot to blow plays up. Just an unbelievable, masterful, two-way performance. When you factor in the degree of difficulty on some of the shots he was making, when you factor in the timeliness of the shots and the impact they had on the game, when you factor in the quality of his supporting cast, he does not have as much talent on his team as Boston does. And when you factor in the stakes down 3-2 on the road in Boston, that is an all-time great playoff performance from,

Jimmy Butler. So tip of the cap to him. If he does it one more time and closes this out in game seven, that's one of the all-time great NBA accomplishments for a superstar to beat a team. Again, like everything's more complicated than it looks on the surface. But Janus couldn't push his team over the top. If Jimmy could pull that off, that'd be a remarkable accomplishment because I thought that Bucks team was better than this Miami Heat team, depending on who you ask, obviously. I wanted to talk about some of the Miami role players because I thought shot making was a very important part of tonight's game. Now, what is the difference between shooting and shot making?

Shooting, to me, has to do with your ability to finish plays that are created by people elsewhere on the floor, right? So, like, if Jimmy Butler drives and kicks to Max Drew's wide open in the corner with seven seconds on the shot clock, that's a shooting opportunity, right? To me, shot making is off script. To me, shot making is bailing out possessions, making tough shots, over contests. The shots that are on the margins of these half court sets that are not great opportunities. You know, over the course of a game, you expect your offense to generate a certain amount of

open shots, and then you expect, you know, you have to have possessions that go south, right? And when those possessions go south, one of two things can happen. You can either have guys bail you out with shot making, or you can miss and run back the other way on defense. In Miami's, I think Miami's biggest weakness in their roster construction is shot making. Because most of the guys on this roster require being open to make shots. Guys like Kyle Lowry and Tyler Harrow and Duncan Robinson and Max Trues, they are guys that typically succeed only when the offense generates them open looks. Maybe the best guy of that bunch is a guy like Tyler Harrow,

but again, he likes to come off triple handoffs and high ball screens to get to a spot where he can elevate when he has an opening to operate in. Jimmy Butler really is the only guy on the roster who's a great shotmaker, a guy who can rescue possessions. But I thought Max Struce and Kyle Lowry both helped Jimmy Butler tonight with massive shot making and end of shot clock situations. Max Truce made a huge three on the right wing in the late third quarter that kind of stem the tide of a Boston run. And then I thought Kyle Lowry hit one of the biggest shots of the night. After Derek White makes a three in the right corner to give Boston a 97-94 lead, Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry, run some janky little dribble handoff sequence on the right, on the right wing.

It's defended really well. Marcus Smart kind of anticipates it and gets a late close out on Kyle Lowry, and he just sticks it like a 26-foot contested three. That's not just shooting within the flow of your offense. That's shot making. That's creating something out of nothing. And I think you need a certain amount of that, especially in the playoffs because of the fact that the easy opportunities are few and far between.

and having guys that can rescue possessions brings a ton of value. So Miami's role players, I thought all came through in a big way tonight. The only guy, again, that I could be critical of is Bamadabio, who for whatever reason just seems content to basically be Kavanaughan Luni for this team. I've never seen anything like it. For a guy who dictates a max contract with his impact on both ends of the four, typically. Truly bizarre on that front. but a massive performance from the Miami role players,

a massive performance from Jimmy Butler, and I am working Sunday night. And we're going to be covering Game 7 immediately after the final buzzer on Sunday night. I wanted to talk about Boston for a minute, because their execution has been my biggest personal issue with them in this postseason run. Again, I talk about them being the Jekyll and Hyde team of this playoff run. And what that means to me is they have the lowest floor on the highest ceiling, or the biggest gap.

between their ceiling and their floor. But it's not typically related to effort. Game three was the outlier. That game was the first time I can remember in this playoff run where they really came out flat and arrogant, underestimating their opponent. Which, again, if that doesn't happen, this series would already be over.

They would have won this series in five games had they not done that. And they damn near won that game anyway. They had it within one within a couple minutes left. But more often than not, their issue has not been effort, it's been execution. We talk about their decision-making. Boston's defense is so good in the half-court.

But when you gift Miami 22 points off of turnovers, that's a fifth of their production in this game. That's a huge swing. You're gifting them a fifth of their offense by gifting them transition opportunities. That all comes down to execution. There was a play early in the game. This to me encapsulates the Boston decision-making issue that they have from their perimeter initiators.

It's 19 to 9. Miami has a big early lead. There's a nice little betting opportunity. I think you could have gotten Miami at like plus 185 to win the first quarter. Thought about it, but I ended up passing on it. It's 19 to 9. Miami's on a run. Typical start to a close-out game, right?

And Jalen Brown comes down. After Boston or Miami just scored to put them up 10. and your offense is not functioning. He came down the right wing and just shot a pull-up three off the dribble. That was moderately contested by Jimmy Butler early in the shot clock. And it went in.

That's the wild part. It went in, brought the game to 1912. But I'm sitting there watching on the couch and I'm like, why did he take that shot? Your offense is struggling. You desperately need to get something easy to get you going. Miami's on a run. Those are the moments when you have

to rein it in with your decision-making, not continue to fan out wildly. And it was a bizarre shot. Again, he made it. But to me, it's a great indicator of bad process. The Boston Celtics lack a floor general. I know the Celtics fans think Mark as smart as a floor general. He is not.

He had a possession in the fourth quarter where he just dribbled the ball around on the perimeter, literally until the shot clock ran out and jacked up a three at the end of the buzzer and hit the barely grazed the front of the rent. Didn't even throw a pass on the possession. like Marcus Smart's not a floor general. But because nobody on the team has that instinct,

they walk down the floor, 19 to 9, and there's nobody to say, give me the ball, let's run our sets, let's get a good shot, let's start executing so we can get this game back under control. It's something actively missing from the roster. It's 9999, and Jalen Brown draws a foul. Goes to the line.

this is literally how the next six possessions for both teams went. Ceylon Brown misses both free throws, which, again, it's unfortunate. It happens, though. Like, you can't, I mean, if you're 75% three-point, a free-throw shooter, is a good chance you'll miss one out of two, which means there's always a possibility that you'll miss both. They come right down on defense, and Jimmy Butler's been persistently trying to attack Derek White because he's small, so Boston's been doing what Golden State in Miami

and a lot of these guys have been doing to avoid switches, they're doing a hedge and recover. We've broke that down several times over the course of the last couple nights. Essentially, when the screen is coming, whoever it is that you do not want switching onto the offensive player has to hard hedge. Because if you hard hedge, then Jimmy Butler has to dribble around you. And if he has to dribble around you, he, by the workings of the coverage, should have to retreat. Because if you actually set a good hard hedge, he has to go outside of you to. turn around. And so if you do it right, it forces you to go around and it buys time for Jalen

Brown to get underneath the screen and recover. I think it was actually Marcus Smart guarding Jimmy Butler on this play. But what happens? They run up to set the screen and Derek White doesn't hedge or goes to hedge, but he's way too late. And as a result, Jimmy Butler goes flying downhill and gets an A&1 over Al Horford. So it's a botched defensive coverage. Again, off of a free throw situation. Now he missed it, but it's a free throw situation. You should have your defense set. That is poor execution. That is Jimmy Butler capitalizing on you not being sharp. Boston goes down. Now it's not 101 to 99, or 102 to 99. Boston goes down. Tatum is posting on the right, and PJ Tucker is guarding Derek White, and PJ Tucker just simply goes to double Jason

Tatum. Jason Tatum rips through to the baseline, gets cut off and spins back and somehow just was completely unaware of the fact that PJ Tucker was coming. Mind you, before Jason Tatum even started the move, P.J. Tucker was already coming with the double. He had to have known that was coming. He spun back into PJ Tucker and immediately turned it over. Jason Tatum turned the ball over seven times in this game. Dan, Boston, okay, so you turned it over. That sucks. Miami's out executed you three possessions in a row. It's really unfortunate. They got a three-point lead. But sit down and get a stop.

No, they commit a foul. As we're working down in transition, a pointless foul in the penalty that accomplished nothing for your defense and just set Miami to the line. They make both free throws now. It's a five-point game. Then you go down and you execute well

and you get a wide-open three for Al Horford on the left wing. Wide open. And he missed it. That happens, right? But that's the only possession where you executed properly to get a good look down the stretch.

and after he missed it, both Jason Tatum and Derek White and Marcus Smart all just started hacking like crazy at PJ Tucker, may or may not have gotten all ball. I think on the one that they called the foul was all ball, but the one before that was a foul. And typically when refs see guys just hacking like crazy on a rebound like that, they're going to call a foul.

And guess what happened? They called a foul, and PJ Tucker got to go down and shoot two free throws. And then the game's over. That 99-99. Games right there for the taking. and methodically down the stretch you made mistakes while the other team executed. That is the biggest weakness of this Boston team.

They are a bad execution team. Now, I've had people say, you know, Jason, if Boston is the most talented team on both ends, if they can't execute, doesn't that mean they're a bad team? If they're unfocused, doesn't that mean they're a bad team? If they're too volatile and their spread between their good side and their bad side, doesn't mean that mean they're a bad team? Well, I think bad's not the right word, but that's a very fair point. If a team is persistently showing you they are inconsistent, then you can't evaluate them by

their upside. You have to evaluate them by kind of the average between the two. And so here's the thing. If Miami goes home in game seven and wins, Miami is the better team. Not in talent, but they're the better basketball. team. Because the best basketball teams in the world do execute on both ends of the floor. The best basketball teams in the world do try hard every single night. The best basketball teams in the world are sharp. And Boston is not. That's why, even though I said Boston is the most

talented team in the league, when the series was tied to two, what did I tell you guys? They're not out of the woods yet because they're just as likely to blow this as they are to win it. When I was making my prediction about the Golden State Boston finals potentially when I was breaking that down last night. What did I say? I'm siding with Golden State because I trust them more to execute their game plan and to reach their individual ceilings and their team ceiling. Boston has tried, look, it's an old, you know, little life philosophy. When someone tries again and again to show you who they are, believe them. Boston has shown us they're untrustworthy. So it doesn't make sense.

to trust them. I mean, looking forward to game seven, Boston should win, right? They're more talented on both ends of the floor. That's what happened in Milwaukee, right? They toasted off game five at home, and then they went into Milwaukee, and even when they were trailing a little bit late,

they just put it all together finally and hit their ceiling and beat that Milwaukee team. That's very possible in game seven. My thing is like, I'm a big believer in the basketball gods. I'm a big believer in basketball karma. I don't know what you want to call it. But this has to burn them eventually. This volatility has to eventually burn this team.

And it might be in game seven against Miami, or it might be against Golden State in the finals. We'll see. But I just, I can't imagine a team that is this volatile and that executes this poorly hoisting up the Larry O'Brien trophy. I would be shocked at this point. Obviously, it's still a possibility.

My predictions have been all over the place in this playoff run, as many incensed Warriors fans have been kind enough to let me know. But, I mean, I don't know what to expect from this Boston team. Predicting with them feels like a fool's errand. Last thing I wanted to talk about tonight was Jason Tatum. Again, he had 30. He was efficient. I think he only took like 12 shots.

Did a really nice job kind of navigating as a decoy throughout the night, but too many mistakes. Seven turnovers. And when Miami scores 22 points off of turnovers in the game, again, you're spoon-feeding them offense when they're a team that struggles to score in the half-court. I can't happen. Now, Jason Tatum is a player that I look at as, you know,

in that tier of superstars, right? We've talked about that a lot in this playoff run. 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 beings. potential. Either way, the podcast, 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 what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clipper 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 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 podcasts. But here's the thing. Jimmy Butler's not that guy, and he's outplayed you three times in this series. And all three times, it led to a win. So at a certain point, like, if you're Jason Tatum and you are that superstar, you have to come through.

I wish I could say that I feel confident that he's going to go into Miami and game seven and close the deal, but I just don't know. He should have closed the deal tonight. I mean, he's seen the traps often in this series. He's seen Tatum playing passing lanes nonstop in the season. series, or excuse me, Jimmy Butler playing passing lanes nonstop in the series, he knew tonight and still turned the ball over seven times. It was a bizarre performance. So lots on stake, at stake for him too going into game seven to close this deal. That's the nature of the

expectations that come with being a superstar. Gun to my head, if I had to pick a team in game seven, I'd pick Boston, but I damn sure don't feel good about it. And if anything, I'll be rooting for Miami because Boston took away my weekend. All right, so the Lakers have a new head coach. I wanted to take a couple of minutes tonight to break down why I think D'Arvinham is such a good hire. Talk a little bit about the Lakers' front office and what's next for them, as well as just what I expect moving forward as they're rounding out the rest of the coaching staff. So, you know, they narrowed it down to Terry Stott's and Kenny Atkinson and Darnham. There were some rumors out there about Doc Rivers. We'll get to those in just.

a few minutes. The Kenny Atkinson and Terry Stott's examples, I didn't think they were bad options necessarily. I think both of them have a little bit more experience in terms of offensive organization as head coaches, and they've demonstrated in their personal experience, better offensive organization. And I do think offensive organization is vitally important to this Lakers team to a certain extent, but I think there's something far more important to this Lakers team. And that's restoring their identity that they built in the 2020. season, which was as a defensive team. And as you're seeing routinely in this

playoff run, it is the teams that hang their hat on the defensive end that end up having the most success, especially as you get later into the postseason. So first of all, schematically, I think it's a seamless transition for Darbinham with what he brings over from Milwaukee to the Lakers. The Bucks ran a twin rim protector system. They used Janus and Brooke Lopez at the same time. Typically, Janus navigating the screen and roll coverage because he's more mobile, and Brooke Lopez on the backline as a rim protector. But there was some interchangeability there, although Brooke wasn't as good in his drop coverage as Janice was. As you can see, Janice is capable of some things in drop coverage that are, you know, no other NBA player

can do, like his block that he had on DeAndre Aten in the NBA finals last year. But what I like about that coverage is I think it's a good example of a coverage that can help the Lakers eat innings in the regular season. I prefer switching defenses. I've laid this out in detail on the show. I think it baits teams into isolation basketball. I think it's easier on teams physically because they don't have to fight through screens as often. It takes the strain of defense off of the physical elements and puts it on your brain. As long as you're focused and paying attention and you're communicating with your teammates, you can run a successful switching scheme without having to battle through a ton of physicality, right? But a couple of things. First of all,

teams don't like to switch too much in the regular season because those physical mismatches lead to wear and tear. Also, it requires a certain type of personnel. You can't run a successful switching scheme unless you have at least three or four really solid perimeter defenders on the team. You can do what you've seen Miami and Golden State do where you have your weaker defenders do hedges and basically do a hedge and recover to avoid a switch, but you can't do that when everyone on the floor is a defensive liability. You need a certain amount of overall defensive talent on the roster in order to make that work. A lot is up in the air in that department for the Lakers.

We don't know what they're going to be able to accomplish this offseason. They don't have a ton of options. So much comes down to what they can get back for Russ. So much comes down to what they can find in the veteran minimum market, changing their priorities from the types of players that they targeted last off season, which obviously did not pan out. If I hope that they can target enough bigger, stronger perimeter players that defend well that they can do more switching, but chances are that they won't be able to do that

as much. And they'll have to be a team like Milwaukee that relies heavily on drop coverage as they go into the postseason. So because of that, I like the idea of taking Darwin Ham's twin rim protector scheme that he helped run with Milwaukee and bringing that into LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Plus, LeBron James and Anthony Davis for all of their issues with being engaged and caring on the defensive end, when they care, they're actually a better. defensive duo than Brooke Lopez and Yanis. So you could see a version of that working extremely well. So I love the schematic transition coming from Milwaukee to L.A. for Darwin. But that buy-in, that trying on defense part that I just hinted at is the second big element here and arguably

the most important. You know, for everything that we can talk about with the Lakers over the course of the last two seasons, there were two consistent issues. One, LeBron James and Anthony Davis weren't on the floor together enough. Over the course of the last two seasons, it just was an incessant line of injury to one guy or the other. It was incredibly discouraging, and it never seemed like they could get a consistent stretch of games

where the two guys were playing. But then last season, Anthony Davis had a bad defensive season by his standards in terms of his overall engagement. And then this last season, LeBron James and Anthony Davis had bad defensive seasons by their personal standards. And I think a lot of that has to do, with just their egos and them having a hard time buying into these established kind of traditional

types of coaches, these guys that have been around the league for a long time, the guys that aren't former players that don't really resonate with them when they're trying to look at them in the face and be like, hey, man, I need you to play some defense. I saw LeBron James tune out Frank Vogel. I saw Anthony Davis tune out Frank Vogel. I saw LeBron James tune out David Blatt back in 2016, it's been a pretty consistent theme for those guys. But I don't think it's a coincidence that you're seeing a lot of former players, guys like Jason Kidd, guys like Tai Liu, guys like IMEU-Doka, guys that were not just former NBA players, but former NBA players that played relatively recently in the league in a way that they can, you know, have some common

ground with these players. And also players that had a persona that was tough. Players that the impact that they had on the locker room as players was infectious toughness. I think that specific archetype of coach is having a lot of success these days resonating with some of the egotistical players around the league. Like I said before, you guys have seen Boston under EMA Udoka go from a team that was notoriously soft to a team that was remarkably tough and has won some huge playoff games with their back against the wall in this playoff run, right? You've seen Ty Loo and all the success he's at with the clippers.

You saw Jason Kidd finally get the Dallas Mavericks to play defense. Luca Donchitz for all of his issues on defense, had a better season on that end than he's had in years past. That's the example of a tough former player having an impact on big egos in the locker room and getting them to commit to that end of the floor. So I love the example that Darvin Ham kind of fits into in the way that I believe he will resonate with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, getting them not just on the floor, which is out of his control, but dialed in and bought in when they are on the floor, which is arguably the most important detail. And the last but not least tonight,

you know, I've been incredibly critical of the Lakers' front office and ownership group over the course of the last couple of years. And for good reason. I don't need to get into the details again, but they have burnt so many bridges for me as someone who covered the franchise over the course of the last couple of years. I don't trust them at all.

and all that criticism that at levity on them, I believe, was fair. And criticism is an important part of this job, but I also believe fairness is an important part of this job. If I'm going to be critical of you, it's incumbent on me to also call out your successes. You know, I don't agree with everything they did during this coaching search. I didn't believe it was necessary to continue to consult with, you know, coaches and personalities that aren't involved in the NBA anymore, guys like Magic Johnson, guys like Phil Jackson.

I disagreed with that approach personally. But in terms of the candidates they interviewed, the things that they prioritized, I loved their list of finalists, and then they picked the guy that I liked the most, the guy that I thought was best equipped for this job. So, you know, for a team that in an ownership group and a front office that has had a pretty ugly history, I got to tip the cap to him this time. They did, they did what I believe was a very, a very procedural, smart, patient, and, you know, properly motivated coaching search. So hats off to them. But this is the thing. As is always the case, you know, the best indicator of future performance is past performance. And I'm worried about the future steps after this point.

Now we have to round out the coaching staff with qualified candidates that compliment Darwin Ham's persona, right? It'd be great to have a guy who's a specialist in offensive organization, spacing concepts, things that I believe are vitally important in the playoff run. And then they have to round out the roster. You've got to give Darwin Ham the tools necessary. to succeed. One of the things that I'm personally worried about for Darvinham is that this team is so poorly run that he's going to end up being the next scapegoat for issues that are brought on by Rob Polinka

and Jeannie Bus. I sincerely hope that's not the case. This is the first step in a right direction. They've got a lot more to do, but I'm very excited for Darvinham. This is the first step in restoring the Lakers to where they were in 2020. But anyway, that's all I have for tonight, guys. I sincerely appreciate your support as always. Again, if you guys could take the time to like this video. I would sincerely appreciate that. It helps us a lot. If you could subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel, follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT, so you guys can see my video content and then subscribe to our podcast feeds that are under Lakers tonight. We will be going live. Actually, I don't think we're going live because I believe my producer is still out of town.

So we're going to be doing a video reaction just like this after game seven on Sunday night, and I'll see you guys then. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite On Humor Me with Robert Smygel and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

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In 1979, there was a big moment for me. 84 is 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.

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Amen.