The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LeBron and Lakers fall to 76ers, Bucks take down Mavericks, Zion dominates vs. Suns

Episode Date: December 10, 2022

First (3:00) Jason reacts to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook & the Los Angeles Lakers losing to Joel Embiid, James Harden & the Philadephia 76ers in overtime. He then (29:30) discusses Giannis Antetokounmpo & the Milwaukee Bucks beating Luka Doncic & the Dallas Mavericks 106-105. Later, he reacts to Zion Williamson's dominant 35 point performance in the New Orleans Pelicans' 128-117 win over the Phoenix Suns. #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.

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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. The Volume. Hoops Tonight is presented by Fandual. The NBA is back and there's no better place to get in on the action than with Fandall. This is my favorite sports betting app that is out there.

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We're covering the two nationally televised games from last night, so Lakers, Sixers, and then Bucks Mavericks. And then we're also going to talk about the New Orleans Pelicans who beat the Phoenix Suns last night. Underhanded, without Brandon Ingram or Irv Jones, an impressive win for the Pelicans who continue to look like potentially the best team in the West. And then tomorrow we're going to be breaking down the NBA finals rematch from tonight between the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors. Then we're taking Monday off before we come back on Tuesday.

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, video breakdowns, live tweeting through games, all that kind of stuff. And then last but not least, for whatever reason, you miss one of the, shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball. So that Lakers-Sixers game had probably at least at the top of my head the strangest ending I've ever seen. We've all seen

wild comebacks, whether that's a team coming down from, you know, 15, 20 points in a fourth quarter or even some late comebacks where you're up five, six points. with like a minute left and you blow it, something along those lines. I can't ever remember seeing a team have a nine-point lead with less than 30 seconds left, and then you blink and the other teams got an opportunity to win the game at the free throw line. It was one of the strangest things I've ever seen. The Sixers got really sloppy with the basketball, and the Lakers kept turning those turnovers into baskets,

and then there at that last sequence, you foul Austin Reeves, makes the first two, misses the third. Sixers turn it over again. Anthony Davis gets hacked underneath the rim, makes the first free throw, misses the second free throw, or going to OT. And how did the Lakers, who scored 10 points in that 30-second stretch, respond in OT?

They went scoreless for the first four minutes of overtime, and the Sixers win comfortably. It's just a truly bizarre basketball game. I thought the story of this game was Anthony Davis's foul trouble. Lakers fans were complaining about the officiating all night. Lakers fans in general have done a lot of complaining about officiating. I generally am frustrated with officiating around the league. Just, you know, the points of emphasis stuff, like this carrying and traveling thing.

I think that if you really look close on any NBA possession, you could call a carry, a travel, and a foul on just about every single NBA possession. That it's just that kind of stuff is happening way more frequently than people are willing to admit. And we've kind of just come to an acceptance as the NBA fan base that we're okay with that because we want a little bit of flow in the game. So I have been critical of officiating on that front. However, questionable foul calls, especially on, you know, like traditional foul calls, they're kind of part of the game, you know, like AD did have.

some questionable fouls called on him last night. I thought the first one when Joel and B got the offensive rebound and went up, I thought that was minimal contact. Should not have been a foul in an NBA game. I thought on AD's third foul when PJ Tucker was cutting along the baseline and AD kind of checked him a little bit. Checking cutters is part of NBA defense. It's what you're coached to do from the youngest levels. If you're in help side and an offensive player cuts in front of you or behind you, you're supposed to hit it. Just to slow down so whoever's guarding him has a little bit better chance to recover. It's part of NBA basketball. That should not be a foul call. And that kind of contact happens on once again just

about every NBA possession. So yeah, those are two really questionable calls. The thing is, is that's part of the game. And that's why you get six fouls, because you're not going to get removed from the game over two questionable foul calls. But that's precisely why you have to avoid the sloppy foul calls or the silly lazy fouls because those in combination with a couple of questionable calls will put you in foul trouble. So for instance, you know, early in the first quarter, Anthony Davis already has a foul, questionable call on that Embedat offensive rebound. Mbid's posting him up on the left block right in front of the ref, AD hacks at the basketball from behind with his left hand. That's going to get calls.

called 75% of the time, even if you hit the ball sometimes. The refs just equate that to lazy hacking defense, and they're going to call it. And what's the risk reward there? Like, you poke it away, you get a turnover. Okay, cool. Maybe you get a bucket on the other end. If you foul him, that's your second foul, and now you've changed the entire dynamic of the basketball game. The risk reward factor there was way too low to do that. Then he got himself removed from the game. Now we go forward to the third quarter. So, you know, we saw, the second half. Darvinham went zone in the second quarter. The Lakers had a, I think they outscored the Sixers 39 to 30 in that quarter. You get it back within two. You come out of the locker room

at a half time. It's 61.59. AD has three fouls. Clean slate, basically. If you play normal basketball from there, you should be okay. Joel Embed gets LeBron on a post up on the left block, rips through towards the middle and beats him off the dribble. And AD just steps up and hacks the hell out of him. And again, I don't understand the risk reward there. Like, if you let him go, he gets a dunk. If you foul him, he goes to the free throw line where he's a good free throw shooter and guess what he made both. But what you did is you got yourself your fourth foul and you checked out of the game again. So basically, for the first three quarters of this game, it wasn't the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Philadelphia 76ers. It was the Philadelphia 76ers versus LeBron

James at center with a bunch of small guards. which turned into exactly what you could have expected. A really janky zone that the Lakers had to stay in and the Sixers getting hot from three-point line. DeAnthony Melton went eight for 12 from three. He finished with 33 points. And Bied had a bunch of key offensive rebounds. Like it just, it went exactly how you'd expect

when the best player on the Lakers took himself out of the game with silly fouls. And you know, the thing with the zone, I'm glad that the Lakers have a zone look. They didn't use it at all, really, first, you know, month of the season or so. And I really like zone as a rhythm disruptor. Like, I like it when you randomly do go to a zone like two, three possessions in a row, just because it's like a change-up. It changes the flow of the game. If there's a score that's

in a rhythm, you kind of like Embed, like Embedd lit the world on fire in that first quarter. I think he had 20 points in that first quarter. You go zone a little bit in the second quarter, it kind of throws him out a rhythm a little bit. It gives you a chance to kind of regain control of the game. when you stay in a zone for a really long time, these are NBA players. And zone defenses are designed to capitalize on teams that are, one, not smart, or two, can't shoot. So it works a lot at lower levels. You can see zone defenses be really successful in high school and at the college level. Why? Because perimeter shooting is, you know,

when it comes to actual knock down perimeter shooting, there's just not a lot of it at those levels and the overall basketball cue is much lower. So you're not going to get the high level execution to pick zones apart for layups very often. But in the NBA, it's like DeAnthony Melton is shooting 43% on catching shoot threes this year. Like if you leave him open in a zone, the dude's going to get hot and he did. You know, Joelle Embed is a smart basketball player who understands, oh wait, none of these guys on this team are over six, nine. I'm just going to battle for offensive rebounds. You know, and that's just kind of the inevitable pathway with that sort of thing when you stay with the zone for too long.

So credit to the Sixers for taking advantage of it. But Anthony Davis, by getting himself in foul trouble, yes, some questionable calls. But by picking up the two silly fouls, he removed himself from the game. The Lakers had to play a janky style and the better team, especially with Anthony Davis out, was able to take advantage of it. And look, AD came out in that fourth quarter and played extremely well. I finished with 31 points or whatever it was, but it was just too late to really matter. I mean, at least until they were down nine with 30 seconds left

and then all hell broke loose. What a game from Joel NBee, 38 points and 19 shots, took full advantage of 80s absence, obliterating the undersized Lakers lineups. Shored really impressive perimeter shot making again in this game. He had a big shot in overtime. Right after LeBron missed the layup, he had a nice little pull-up jump shot over a double team

out of a jab step at the free throw line, made a bunch of perimeter shots early in the game. Overall in the game, I counted 8 for 13 outside of the restricted area. On the season, Joel Embed is 106 out of 236 outside of the restricted area. That means he's making more than six shots per game over the top of the defense at a 45% clip. If you guys remember when I talked about this off season, with Joel Embed's limitations as a passer, he has to be able to hit shots over the top of the defense. Same goes for Anthony Davis.

Like when you are a dominant individual score, defenses are going to collapse the paint, especially if your rim-pressuring type of player, like most of the big, strong athletes in the league, like Janus, Joel and B, Anthony Davis, so on and so forth, LeBron James. When that's the case, you have one of two options. You either need to be able to pass to beat the defense to make them pay for helping, or you need to be able to consistently hit shots over the top of the defense when they're packing the paint. Now for a guy like LeBron, he's doing it with passing. For a guy like Nicola Yokic, he's doing it with passing.

For a guy like Yannis, he's doing it with passing. But for guys like Embed and Anthony Davis that struggled to pass at a high level, although both of them have shown a little bit of an improvement there this year, you have to be able to hit shots over the top of the defense. And Joel Embed is having his best perimeter shooting season of his career. And I'm really interested to see if it translates to the playoffs. year because that's been something that has failed him in the past. James Harding contributed with 28 points and 12 assists. A couple of huge plays in OT, a driving and one on Austin Reeves where he got

into his chest, and then he hit another pull-up mid-range jumper over Austin Reeves later in the overtime period. That's such an important tool to have, especially when you're going up against undersized defensive players. Like the, you know, long-distance jump shots require a great deal of lift. And so as games get going and you fatigue, it's hard to get the necessary lift on those shots to knock them down. But if you're working closer, 10 to 15 feet and you're taller than your defender, you don't need to get as much lift. It's a much higher percentage shot. It's such an important shot to have in your bag, and it wasn't in James Hardin's bag for basically this last massive chunk of his career. He hit four pull-up mid-range jump shots yesterday.

This season he's made 17. Last year he combined in all of the games to make four for the Philadelphia 76ers. So he made just as many pull-up mid-range jump shots last night as he did the entire regular season in a Sixers uniform last year. So that's the difference that we're seeing from James Harden there. And I think that's a big part of him coming back. I predicted a revenge season from him this year. I thought he played pretty damn well until his injury. It's been a mixed bag since he's come back from his injury.

I'd like to see him stay on the court for a little while to see if he can prove me right. We'll see what happens. Nice win, though, for the Sixers to stop the three-game skid and get back above 500. I want to talk about Darwin Ham for a minute because there's been a lot of criticism thrown his way by Lakers fans for his lineup decisions. And a lot of it I don't think is fair. Like, for instance, with the starters. A lot of people are complaining, why are they starting?

Patrick Beverly and Dennis Schroeder. Let's look at Patrick Beverly really quick. It's, I don't like Monday morning quarterbacking. Like, I've seen some Russ fans be like, aha, look at this. You know, the Lakers were smart to keep Russ. It's like, or you're playing the result because everything we saw from a massive sample size last year was that Russ was bad. And he is playing better this year.

And that's great. but it was a risk that Rob Polinka took by not trading Russ, by keeping him on the roster. If you play that scenario out a bunch of different times, the vast majority of the times it goes poorly. Just because it went well doesn't mean it was the right decision. But that goes both ways. So for instance, it's not fair to be like, man, that Patrick Beverly trade, that was stupid. I'd rather have Talen Horton Tucker and Stanley Johnson.

I don't agree with that. Because in the moment, Patrick Beverly was coming off of a great season with Minnesota. Coming into last night, Patrick Beverly was shooting 20% on catch-and-shoot-3s. You know what he shot last year? 38% on catch-and-shoot-threes. He's been around 40% on catch-and-shoot threes for a half a decade. So Patrick Beverly was Player A. That was the information that was available during the time of the trade.

Then the trade was made. This year he's been worse. that's playing the results. That's not fair. It's not a realistic way to, you know, to critique decision-making because it's not Rob Polink's fault that Patrick Beverly came to Los Angeles and has been a much lesser basketball player. And that's the thing. It's easier to Monday morning quarterback than it is to take advantage of the information

that you have actually is available at the time that you're making the decision. I liked the Patrick Beverly trade because you turned, what was a pretty much useless player in Talenorton Tucker and a wing, but a wing that you would have struggled to find the rotation this year because of how well Lonnie Walker and Troy Brown Jr. are playing. You turned those two guys into Patrick Beverly who fit a specific need at the point guard position of on-ball defense, and that was a good spot-up shooter. I liked the trade. It just so happens that through this early fourth of the season hasn't worked out. And I think when we look at the starting lineup, that's what Darwin Ham is counting on there.

He's counting on Dennis Schroeder and Patrick Beverly, pressuring ball handlers and making people feel uncomfortable to start games, and eventually Pat's going to get it together. That's what they're banking on. They're thinking, this is clearly an anomaly. He's making half as many catch-and-shoot threes as he did last year. That should turn around. I respect that.

And then in general, like when you're talking about the lineup functionality of the entire rotation for the game, this is a really limited roster. So there's going to be janky lineups. Like I see, you know, Lakers fans being like, got to start Austin Reeves. Yeah, that's great. But Austin Reeves is a really important ball handler with the bench group. So if you put Patrick Beverly, the guy you're begging to take out of the starting lineup, in with the bench group, maybe the starters get a little bit better.

But now Patrick Beverly is not getting the same level of shots because there's less ball handling in that group and he's not getting the wide open looks. He's getting with LeBron and Anthony Davis. And maybe he does struggle to get going that way. The point there is there's just not a lot of good decisions. The roster is limited and there's bound to be janky lineups with like Russ and Wenian Gabriel, you know, or Thomas Bryant and three other small guards.

Like that kind of thing's just going to happen until they make a trade. That brings in some more functional wings because functional wings are what make NBA lineups work. So I want to defend him in the grand scheme with the lineups. But if we zoom in on crunch time, I've been really confused by his decision-making. As much as the roster itself doesn't make a ton of sense for 48 minutes, they do have enough good players to run a really solid crunch time lineup.

LeBron and AD got to be out there for size. You know, like, LeBron's your only real wing, so you got to play him alongside Anthony Davis to make AAD at the 5 functional. Lonnie Walker has played well enough to close every game. He's been their third best player. Oster Reed should close every game. He's been their fourth best player. Those two are completely unassailable.

And then right now, Patrick Beverly, for all of the things you guys want to criticize him for, he is a good defensive player that grabs, makes winning plays, like grabs key defensive rebounds, key offensive rebounds, and they can just count on him to not do anything stupid, typically, in late game situations. So I like that. LeBron Anthony Davis, Osse Reeves, and Lonnie Walker and Patrick Beverly. Maybe Troy Brown Jr. for Patrick Beverly if he's having a bad night. But way too often this year, Ham has gone with Dennis Schroves.

Trotter or Russell Westbrook in closing groups, and that's handicap the team. Russ is having a good year, but that's because of his role. What he's doing, attacking bench groups, going against bench guards during the phases of the game when it's more up and down and free flowing and there's less defense being played, he's doing a really nice job generating high-quality shots for his teammates in those stretches. However, as we've always known, in clutch situations, the game's slows down, it turns into a half-court chess match, and schematically, teams will try to make you do what you don't want to do. So what happened last night? We got into overtime. Russ ran two

pick and rolls, one with Anthony Davis on the left wing, one with LeBron James on the right wing. What did the Sixers do? Both defenders went with the roll man. Literally, Russ's man ran into the screen and rolled with AD to the basket. He ran into LeBron James and rolled with LeBron to the basket. And so Russ had two wide open pull-up jump shots. That is by design. They're making the Lakers turn Russ into a jump shooter. And guess what? Russ is shooting 28.6% on pull-up jumpers this year,

so he missed the two pull-up jumpers. He took an OT. Okay, so you can't put Russ on ball in clutch situations because they're going to do stuff like that, or what they did earlier this season where they just put the center on Russ and have him sit back into the paint. So let's put him off ball.

Well, Russ is shooting 28. on catch-and-shoot jumpers this year. And he's registered just 14 cut possessions, meaning that 95% of NBA players have cut to the basket more frequently than Russ during his minutes. So if he's not going to cut to the basket and he can't make a catch-and-shoe jumper,

you can't have him off ball. If defensive coverages are just going to dare him to take pull-up jump shots, if he's on ball, that makes him impossible to play in crunch time. but guess who has played in more crunch time games this year than any other Laker Russell Westbrook at 10. I think Austin Reeves has played in 10 as well, but no Laker has played in more crunch time games. So any sort of conversation that's been out there about benching Russ, it hasn't happened.

They're not benching Russ. They're playing him every time the game is close. And it's going poorly. At a certain point, Darvin Am has to make that adjustment. Really quick before we move on, I want to talk about LeBron Anthony Davis. LeBron hit some bright spots in the first half. He battled and beat in the post after AD got in foul trouble. He did a nice job fronting him and got hot offensively in the second quarter for a little bit. But once again, at the end of the game, settling for jumpers on a night when his jumper's not going in and then sloppy turnovers.

I see a lot of people complaining like, oh, it's because of the spacing. It's becoming the spacing. Is the spacing the reason why LeBron keeps throwing swing passes directly into defender's arms? Or just pointlessly throwing skip passes to guys that aren't open? like his decision making hasn't been good. Wasn't good last night at least. That's just sloppiness. Again, like I don't care about the missed shots.

Like that's bound to happen. It's part of the night in and night out process of the NBA. I don't think it's fair to be like on a five for 20 night to be like, oh, that guy sucks. And then on the 15 for 20 night, be like, oh, that guy's great. That's the natural flow of an NBA season. What I look at is, are you committed on the defensive end? How is your decision making bent?

How is your shot selection bet? those are things that are under your control, and it was a really sloppy game from LeBron. And then looking at Anthony Davis, like, yeah, look, AD's been way better than LeBron this year. LeBron's been pretty bad in like six or seven of the Lakers losses. I'd probably have Anthony Davis first team all NBA this year. I have him as my defensive player of the year. You know, AD's been great. But this was the third game that I can think of that the Lakers probably win if Anthony Davis brings the requisite effort.

and play smart basketball. They lost the game in Denver because Anthony Davis just refused to run back in transition defense. I did a whole video about it. They lost the Clippers earlier this year because he just wouldn't battle with Zubat physically and got bullied underneath the basket

on a bunch of post-ups and offensive rebounds. And then last night, he removed himself from the filly game with bad decision-making and two stupid fouls. You know, and so I tweeted this last night, and I mean it. The Lakers are 10 and 15, but they'd be 15 and 10 if LeBron and AD actually were more consistent with their impact. How many times this year of LeBron and AD both played great in the same game?

Two times maybe, three times? In the 2020 season, that was two-thirds and nights. The two of them were great. You know, even if they were 15 and 10 right now instead of 10 and 15, we'd still be talking about the roster. We'd still be talking about how they need to make a trade to get to the ultimate championship ceiling. But at least they'd be a flow in the standings.

So like there's two problems for the Lakers this year. Roster-related problems. In LeBron and Anthony Davis are too inconsistent. When LeBron and Anthony Davis were playing well, they won eight out of ten, they beat the bucks, they beat the Wizards, they beat the Pacers, they beat the Blazers, they had some quality wins in there. Then Anthony Davis missed two games and they lost, and then LeBron and AD played poorly in Philly and they lost.

Like at the end of the day, those two guys cannot afford to have bad games. games, especially against good teams. Maybe you get a little bit more margin for error if they make a good trade, but that's going to be an issue all season no matter what. Looking to get more out of this NBA season? Well, now is the perfect time to download Fandul, America's number one sportsbook, because new customers get a no-swet-first bet up to $1,000. That's free bets back if your first bet doesn't win.

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And he's the best player in the world and he hasn't won an MVP in a couple of seasons. To me, that's a no-brainer. Plus, Fanduel even lets you combine your bets for a chance at a bigger payout with the same game parlight. Fanduel is now also live in Maryland. Marylanders, make sure you get in on the action also with great offers and boosts just for you. So don't miss out on your chance to get a no-swet-first bet up to $1,000 in free bets when you join Fanduil with promo code Jason T. Make every moment more with Fanduel an official sports betting partner of the NBA. 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. I don't care which I'm 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. 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 Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we picket 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. y'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 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. All right, let's move on to that second nationally televised game, the Bucks. winning in Dallas against the Mavericks. This was a completely wild fourth quarter. The maps were up double digits at one point early in the fourth. Christian Wood was scoring in the post, doing a nice job attacking George Hill, but he was getting absolutely obliterated by Janus on the

other end. Yonis had 15 in the quarter to get the bucks back into it. George Hill also hit two massive corner threes on just like basic possessions where Drew Holliday dribbled the ball at the floor, just passed the ball into the corner and the Dallas was sucked in too far into help. Spencer Dinwiddie dunked all over Janice and dunked all over Brooke Lopez on two separate plays. Like two really, really nasty dunks. Dwight Powell was grabbing a million offensive rebounds. The Mavs missed at least a half dozen wide open threes. They went 0 for eight overall in the quarter.

The Mavs also missed eight free throws in the fourth quarter, including Tim Hardaway Jr. missing all three free throws when he was fouled on a three-point shot by Yonis. And then Doreon Fennie Smith with a chance to put the Mavs up three missed both free throws on a late take foul. By the way, Dallas is, was 10 for 24 from the free throw line last night.

They are now down to 29th in the league in free throw percentage. But after all that, we got to, after basically came down to a sequence where the, the bucks were up 104-103 after Spencer Dinwoodie dunked all over Brooke Lopez. And the maps go down,

they get a stop, and they come down. And Luca does a really nice job. navigating a couple of different screening actions to get Brooke Lopez on a switch. And then from a skill development standpoint, did a really nice job turning his entire body to the left and tipping Lopez to think he was going to go to his stepback and then crossing back over to get Lopez out of position up on his left side beats Lopez to the basket for a layup. Mavericks are up by one. From there, we had two out-of-time-out plays.

And both plays were drawn up by the head coach. One team executed. the other team did it. Defensively, I should say. So the Bucks, they just run a simple backscreen action. As a matter of fact, it was such a simple backscreen action that I'm pretty sure that wasn't even the target of the play originally. Maxi Cleaver's guarding Brooke Lopez, and they're in kind of like a box set out up high. And Chris Middleton is being guarded by Dorian Finney Smith.

Chris Middleton just walks up and sets a back screen on Maxie Kleber. Maxi Cleba gets caught on the screen. Brooke Lopez rolls to the basket. Nobody's there. Lob goes up. They laid it up. Bucks by one. Now, what you're supposed to do on that play?

Because guys are going to get caught on screens often, especially when you don't know what play is coming. It's just a classic concept of checking a cutter, like we were talking about earlier with PJ Tucker. So if I'm Dorian Finney Smith and I see Chris Middleton backscream Maxi Cleba, and I see that he's caught, and I see Lopez barreling down towards the rim. It is my job to run up and chuck Brooke Lopez.

Hit him, literally. Stop the cut. When you do that, that buys Kleba enough time to get out from the screen and to recover back to Brooke Lopez. Now, typically what happens there is Middleton will have an opportunity to break free because you're offering help on the Brooke Lopez back cut. But you continue that process down the line and you can recover. cover, right? If Middleton runs out, he's probably running off of another screen at that point to go out and get a catch and shoot jumper or to initiate an action. Your teammate will run out to grab Chris Middleton.

You now recover to your teammates' man. That is a classic help-the-helper type of situation. When you see a man get caught on a screen, the first thing you do is you help him. Then once you've done your job, you look to see who needs help because one of your teammates probably had to help you there. It's like a chain that goes down the line in defensive rotation. But there was one weak link in that chain. Dore and Finney Smith did not check Brooke Lopez. So Cleba got caught on the screen. Brooke Lopez got a wide open layup.

Now we go to the other end. The Bucks run in action where they have a screener at the top of the key. Luca's underneath the basket. They run a guy off the wing kind of towards the basket. And then that guy screens down for Luca. It's a play that the Mavs have run a lot in crunch time this year. and the bucks do a really nice job of hedging out on Luca to give Drew Holiday a chance to recover. Luca ends up catching it out at like 30 feet with two seconds left and he takes a garbage step back

three that has almost no chance of going in and the game is over. So as you can see, like the difference there is from a scouting perspective. The Mavericks clearly did not know what was coming, got caught off guard, botched a defensive rotation, gave up a basket. other end, Dallas, Gibson Piper, who coaches college basketball somewhere here in the U.S. I'm not actually sure. But he did a really nice video breakdown last night. I think his Twitter handle is at half-court hoops, if I remember correctly. He did a really nice Twitter breakdown, video breakdown on Twitter last night that just kind of explained how the Bucks got

ahead of that coverage or that play because they knew it was coming. And then Luca was having like a connipion fit on the court before and after the play because he knew the Bucks knew the play. But again, that's scouting and execution, determining a game at the end. Late game situations almost always come down to execution. Shotmaking is part of it. Like, it's a make or miss league. We always hear that, right? And I do believe that making and missing is a big part of the game of basketball.

I'll never try to minimize that. However, shot making has a big defensive element. The best way to influence shot making for your team is to, on the offensive end, run smart offense, set good screens, be sharp with the basketball to generate quality looks. Typically, that involves either screening actions that are executed well to get an opening or dribble penetration, whether that's off the dribble or curling over the top of the screens.

Someone's got to get downhill to draw help, and if you do that and you're smart with your passing on the back end, you will get open shots. On defense, if you execute your defensive coverage as well enough to force the opponent to take difficult shots over the top of the defense, they are less likely to make their shots. So yes, it's a make or miss league, but execution is a big part of it.

The Bucks executed and forced Luca into a tough step back three. The Mavericks did not execute defensively, while the Bucks executed their play properly, a good screen from Chris Middleton, and they got a wide open layup out of it. The Bucks are a better execution team, which is why they're eight and three in games that involve clutch situations this year.

and the Mavericks are 9 in games that involve clutch situations this year. So they've lost three times as many games that were close as Milwaukee has. Chris Middleton, this was his fourth game back. He's averaging just 14 points per game on 36% shooting in his first four games, which seems bad, but I've always thought that it looked good on tape, and the shot creation metrics have been excellent overall. He's got 23 assists to four turnovers. I said the other day, and this may or may not be the case,

but he might be the best playmaker on the team. It's either him or Janice, but getting a legit off-ball, or non-Yonis playmaker has been big time for them. In the fourth quarter, he had a really nice, like, left-handed feed to Pat Connetton, who was sneaking along the baseline as a cutter in the fourth quarter. He's run 27 pick and roll so far since he came back for 31 points. That's 1.15 points per possession, which is in the 95th percentile.

And then he's scored nine points on eight post-ups, which is 1.13 points per possession. And he had a really nice little, baseline hook shot off the glass over Dore Anthony Smith late in the fourth quarter. Really impressive game from Yannis. You know, one of my favorite things about Yonis is dependable fight and energy. You never have to worry about Yonis caring enough to try to impact the game. And down 10 in the fourth quarter, I can't tell you how many times I've seen stars go out there

and maybe jack a few shots up and if they miss, they just kind of mail things in. Yonis always has that like big run. And it's typically third or fourth quarter of a game that's close or where their team is losing where it's like, Yonis is basically saying, I'm going to put my head down and go to the rim every single time. And if it works, great, if not, hey, I went down fighting. And he did that in that early fourth quarter. Through three quarters, he was five for 14 from the field. Dallas was swarming him in the paint.

But there was that weird Mavs lineup that they went to a couple times last night where they have Kleba and Christian Wood out there together. just by pushing the ball in transition, Janice kept catching Christian Wood in cross-matches, and he just bulldozed him to the basket for layups time and time again. It really was responsible for getting the Bucks back into that game. All right, moving on to that Suns' Pelicans game. So the Suns, this was another back-and-forth game. The Suns kept it close in the first half.

The Pelicans completely dominated the third quarter. Then the Suns went on a run and took a brief lead in the fourth quarter, and then Zion Williamson just closed the game with three gigantic plays, one of which was a steal on a post entry where he ran out and got a dunk with his left hand. Then there was a play where late in the game, because he was just torching, Tori Craig and Mikhail Bridges all game long, which we'll get to in a minute. But late in the game, he got D'Andre Aten on a switch because they wanted to try to put something bigger on him so that he couldn't bully them.

But one of the problems with Zion is he's too fast for guys like that. And they ran like kind of like an inverted screen in Roe where Jose Alvarado set a screen and reversed it. So like he was on one side and then switched and set the screen. on the other side and Zion got to the baseline and just threw down a nasty left-handed dunk. And then we all saw the cherry on top, which was the leakout dunk in the final seconds where he did the 360 windmill. By the way, all year, Zion's been good, but he's always looked a little less athletic than we remember him from when he was younger. Last night was like the most springy I've seen Zion. I wonder if he's starting to really catch his conditioning and really get his

body into a good groove. Because that 360 windmill was. was very hoop-mix tape-esque from his time when he was in high school. Overall, I thought that was one of the best two-way games I've seen Zion play. He was being guarded by Tori Craig for the most part, but he also got a bunch of Mikhail Bridges. And he just ripped right through those guys, like tissue paper time and time again, finished with 35 on 17 shots. You know, the dynamic that Zion presents reminds me of the dynamic that Janus presents,

which is that mismatch problem specifically targeting NBA defenses, modern NBA defenses. So back in the day, you'd have a center that was typically slow in plotting because the pace of the game was slow. But you'd also have a legit power forward, like a big, strong guy. I Drew Gooden, a Kenyon Martin, a dude who's between 6-9 and 6-10 who's like a solid 250 pounds of muscle that just was like a bulldozer of a player. That guy is out of the league now. And now that bulldozer power forward is just another wing. You know, like a guy like Tori Craig who had literally no chance guarding Zion yesterday. Bridges, one of the best defensive wings in the NBA.

And he was tissue paper against Zion. That's the predicament that Zion and Janus puts you in. The most valuable defensive piece in the league right now is a player between 6-8, or 6-6-6-9, you know, who's got long arms and is super fast and can guard multiple positions. That's like the bread and butter of NBA defense these days. And a lot of lineups have two or three of those guys. on the floor at any given moment. And that works really well against just about every type of player in the NBA.

But these Janus Zion possessions, these wings just have no chance. He's just going right through him. And so then you switch a bigger guy onto him and they're just too fast for him, like what they did with DeAndre Aten there on that last possession. Zion's ISOs are up to 129 points on 105 possessions, which is in the 90s. second percentile. That's insane for a young player. Jose Alvarado continued his great season. He pitched in 20 points. Naji Marshall at 14, but, you know, a bunch of sneaky good, like, there's always like these role players that you see. Austin Reeves is kind of like this for the Lakers, where they don't really

get a ton of on-ball reps, but you can tell they have really natural passing feel. Naji Marshall's one of those guys. He's one of the sneaky good passers in the league right now. He had 50 assists at just 21 turnovers to this point in the season, had 14 points again last night. Devin Booker finished with 14 points and 17 shots. He's now averaging 15 and a half on 35% shooting in his last four games. So I cursed him apparently when I did that whole video about how I thought he was a superstar because he has not played well since then. Chris Paul had 24. Looks like he still has New Orleans's number a little bit. Sons have lost four out of five. Lots of bad body language. Not looking good right now.

All right, guys, that is all I have for today. So here's the plan. We're going to be going live, or not live. We're going to have a video tomorrow morning, breaking down Celtics, Warriors. And then we're going to take Monday off, and then we'll be back Tuesday night with game breakdowns. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys as support, and I will see you next time. The Volume.

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