The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LeBron James & Lakers beat Grizzlies, Russell Westbrook hero in Clippers-Suns

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers' 128-112 win over Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies. How impactful will Anthony Davis' injury prove to be? Later, he discusses Kawhi Leonard's dominant night and Russell Westbrook's game-winning play (but horrible shooting performance) in the Clippers' 115-110 upset win over Kevin Durant and Suns as well as Giannis Antetokounmpo's injury in the Bucks' 130-117 loss to Jimmy Butler's Miami Heat. #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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Listen and learn the hard way on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had a great weekend. Round one coverage of the NBA playoffs on Hoops Tonight is brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? We have a jam-packed show for you today.

We're going to be hitting the first three games from today's. slate, the Lakers Grizzlies, Heat Bucks, and Clippers Suns. For those of you guys looking for Wolves Nuggets, we're going to be hitting that tomorrow morning, as well as the little film session going over some of the things I learned from rewatching this weekend's games. 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 if for whatever reason you guys miss one of these videos and you can get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you can find them wherever you get

your podcasts under Hoops tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball. So we're going to start with Lakers Grizzlies. There is a formula that we are seeing kind of take shape with this Lakers team that really works. And it's LeBron James and Anthony Davis surrounded by a ton of offensive skill. This is where the value of rim pressure comes in. When you have guys that just relentlessly through size and strength and athleticism and skill push the ball closer and closer to the rim, it collapses things around them,

requires multiple bodies to take care of them, which leads all. all sorts leads to all sorts of advantage opportunities off the ball. And you saw that tonight, specifically with the core of three players around LeBron and AD, Austin Reeves, DeAngelo Russell, and Ruey Hachamura. And they all kind of did it in their own way. I thought DeAngelo Russell had a nice bounce back game from his rough playing performance. It was a little rough early on in that game, kind of forcing things a little bit, but he did eventually find his rhythm, and he had a bunch of monumentally important spot-up jump shots. Austin Reeves, again, Like, how much of a luxury is it that you can, with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, on your team,

run your late game offense through Austin Reeves. And this is where having multiple offensive threats can gift you with better matchup opportunities, right? Because Dylan Brooks, as he was expected to do, especially in a game one of his series, when LeBron's a little out of shape, still kind of feeling things out. He had some success guarding LeBron, giving him some trouble getting to his spots and feeling comfortable, right? Jaron Jackson Jr. He's going to have success guarding Anthony Davis, at least compared to some of the other players around the league. That doesn't mean if you have to go to LeBron and AD, it's a bad option. It just means that you might have better options elsewhere. And down the stretch of that game, Austin Reeves got a steady diet of Tyos Jones. They tried Desmond Bain, but then they would just run some off ball guard guard screen to try to get Tyos back onto him.

And Austin was able to get Tyos Jones trapped behind him on those screens, which gave him the opportunity to get downhill. and make plays with the basketball. Austin is a real basketball player, a very, very good player who's going to make a lot of money this summer. There's a lot of talk about him being kind of dependent on his ability to get to the foul line. That's simply not the case. All you've got to do is look at the numbers and look at how good he's been at every spot on the floor, converting actual basketball shots into points beyond the free throw line

to know that he is capable of being a primary ball handler on a good team. And then Rui Hachamura, this is where the advantage of position battles come in. Like, when Rui was originally traded for, it was kind of expected that he'd be that starting small forward, right? But then you trade for Jared Vanderbilt, and Dharvan Ham makes a tough call. He ends up moving Rui to the bench, specifically because he thinks that that bench lineup needs more offensive skill, and Jared Vanderbilt alongside all of that offensive skill, it's more important to have somebody who's a better defensive player, right?

So you slide Jared Vanderbilt into that position. And ever since then, it's been a battle based on who's playing better on any given night to see who's going to be the guy that ends up getting the minutes when it matters, right? And that actually, that position battle actually drives success on both fronts. If Rui's the only forward and he knows that if he misses that box out or if he doesn't sprint back in transition that one time or if he's not, you know, making the right reads offensively, that he just gets to stay in the game because there's no better option, that doesn't serve nearly as good of a purpose, right?

When you have real competition, real threat to your own playing time, It actually incentivizes you to do the little things really, really well on every single possession. And Rui is playing some of the best basketball. I'll just go out and say it. He's playing by far the best basketball of his career over the course the last couple of weeks, in large part because he's not just embracing the offensive skill stuff that made him tantalizing coming out of college. He's also embracing all of the little things, grabbing contested rebounds, defending at a high level, sprinting up and down the floor in transition,

making the right reads offensively, being part of a. team unit on both ends of the floor instead of just focusing on the offensive end of the floor. Anthony Davis was unbelievable in this game, obviously, notwithstanding a scare we had in the first half of a little stinger that he had with his right shoulder. Obviously, a freaky moment when A.D. saying he can't move his arm. I wasn't too worried about it right away just because on a replay, it didn't look like too much contact, didn't look like the kind of thing that would cause a dislocated shoulder. So I'm glad it ended up being something that he was able to play through. He was a monster in this game. Seven blocks. That's outrageous.

what he was doing in the passing lanes, bothering shots around the rim, scoring in the short role, scoring in isolation. He knocked down a couple of important jump shots. When Anthony Davis is playing at this level, this is damn near best player in the world type of basketball, that guy can carry this Lakers team to the championship.

They don't even need LeBron to be that good if AD is going to be that good. Obviously, you'd prefer to have LeBron play up to that level, but Anthony Davis is buying the Lakers' market, for error. And it's making it so that a lot of guys have less pressure on them, which allows them to kind of play loose and free. LeBron's a great example of this. All of the talent on this roster with how well Austin Reeves played tonight, with how well Rui Hachemura played tonight, with how well Anthony Davis played tonight, he didn't have

to have a great game. And LeBron had a pretty good game. I mean, if you look at the shooting numbers and you look at the timely shots he hit, he hit a massive three on the right wing in transition down the stretch of this game, I thought LeBron had a much, much better defensive game. in this game. I was very critical of him in the playing game for him losing track of shooters and not making extra efforts. All of that stuff was there tonight. And even though he didn't have the best offensive game in the world, he had five turnovers, was a little sloppy from time to time. He had a big winning impact because he didn't need to be the offensive engine throughout the game thanks to the additional margin for error purchased, or bought for the Lakers by all of that extra

talent on the floor. I thought the Lakers defended John Morant very well. He got out in transition a few times early in the game, hit a couple of threes there in that third quarter when the gris were playing well. But other than that, the Lakers defended him really well. They held him to 0.67 points per pick and roll. That's the most important metric for projecting forward in the series. You know, for three-point shooting, you kind of take it or leave it. He's going to make him or he's going to miss him.

Those transition opportunities, you can deal with that just by focusing on sprinting back and communicating. But in the half court, that's where it becomes about personnel. How can your personnel make things difficult on John Morant? And I thought they did a really nice job. I thought Jared Vanderbilt, whenever he was in the game, did a really nice job. Dennis Schroeder did a really nice job. They battled and they made John Morant play in a crowd in the half court. They forced him into a bunch of turnovers.

He missed some shots. It was a great defensive effort. I thought they guarded Desmond Bain really well. He was six for 18 from the field. Austin Reeves applying back pressure all night long, just fighting over those screens and contesting and making those shots more difficult. And then at the end of the game, he just, actually, the left wing, I think it was like middle fourth quarter, he actually chased Desmond Bain over the

top of the screen and got a block with a rearview contest, which is extremely impressive. All around, the matchups favored the Lakers, and that's concerning. Game one, again, you want to look at separating process from results, right? You know, if you're a, if you're a Sons fan, for instance, after tonight, we're going to talk about this in a little bit, you're thinking, hey, like, we miss a lot of shots that we normally make. KD is normally a lot more efficient. You could separate some process from results there and feel a little bit better about the way things went. But when the process also kind of mirrors the result, that's when it gets concerned. The Lakers got better shots in this game. They generated more

rim pressure and generated higher quality opportunities for more skilled offensive players. It's going to be really hard to flip that script. LeBron didn't play very well offensively. Over the course of the series, he's the chess master kind of guy. He's going to figure out things and solve things over the course of the series and get better and better and better. And then here's the thing. As far as dealing with Austin Reeves and DeAngelo Russell, if you throw more attention to those guys, if you bring the screen defender up higher to deal with an Austin Reeves pullup, that opens up Anthony Davis rolling to the basket. If you stay close to your spot-up shooters off the ball, if you're close to DeAngelo Russell and close to Austin Reeves off the ball, that leaves

more room for LeBron James and Anthony Davis to get going in the paint. So there's a lot of tradeoffs there that don't bode well for Memphis. And then plain and simple, this John Morant injury. It's so important for him, especially with how much he struggled to score and pick and roll. It's going to be very important for him to have his touch. And if his right hand is bothering him that much, that could be an issue. The one big silver lining, I should say, for the grizzly, something that should make them feel optimistic about their chances to make a run here towards the end of the series. It's the simple fact that nobody on the Lakers could guard Jaron Jackson, not named LeBron James. That's a very, very encouraging trend in the series.

He, like, like, he was just going right at LeBron and getting high quality shots. Like, he's really good at going to turn like he's going to go to his left-handed hook and waiting for the defender to get out of position to try to contest and then continue to pivot in through the basket to get higher quality attempts at the basket as opposed to just going to his hook shot, but then he can still make the hook shot when he needs it. So great start for the Lakers. The John Moran injury is very concerning. Again, I do expect this to be a longer series.

The Lakers are famous for letting their foot off the gas when they tend to feel comfortable in any sort of situation. They played with a desperation today that got them to win. I would not be the least bit surprised if we got a lackadaisical defensive effort from the Lakers in game two in a grizzlies tied the series. But very, very good start for the Lakers. All right, let's move on to Clippers Sons. So, you know, specifically with the Sons, there's a lot to like when you're looking at their roster, right? tons of offensive skill, three dudes who can run pick and roll at an extremely high level, all of which can succeed off the ball, an excellent screen and roll big and D'Andre Aton,

a lot to like. But one of the things that concerns me is none of those core four players actually likes to or is good at doing the dirty work. They're all guys that kind of primarily focus on what they do on the offensive end of the floor. They'll make defensive plays, right? You'll see Kevin Durant, excuse me, get a big block around the rim or a big block contesting a three-point shot, you'll see Devin Booker slide his feet and take a charge. You'll see Chris Paul do something grifty to save a possession here or there. They all do little things here or there, but it's not a part of their basketball identity. It's kind of supplemental stuff to them as opposed to a core part of their identity. And say what you want about Kawhi Leonard and Russell Westbrook, like

Kawhi Leonard, a core part of his identity is the way he competes on the defensive end of the floor. And he did a masterful job on Kevin Durant in this game, particularly down the stretch. say what you want about Russell Westbrook, and he's got a lot of limitations, but he played his ass off tonight and devoted all of his energy to the little things. And despite a nightmare offensive game, I think he was three for 19 or three for 18 from the field. Despite that, he was able to have a massive winning impact simply because he devoted his effort and energy towards something he knew he could accomplish, which is what he did on the defensive end of the floor. If he did that for his entire career, he might even be another echelon above the way we regard him.

right now. It's an interesting decision from Tyloo to close with him because the Clippers actually went on a big run late third quarter and this is something that I think they might have to go to in the long run, especially if Ross's impact kind of tails off. But they had a lot of success with that lineup with Bones Highland, Terrence Mann, with Norman

Powell, Kauai Leonard, and Mason Plumley, right? With that group, they just had a ton of offensive skill around Kauai. And Kauai was able to play a little bit more off ball. You guys might remember a Kaui Leonard three in the left corner is one that got it back to one, I think, towards the end of the third, where Norman Powell is creating that dribble penetration, drawing the help, and then kicking to

Kauai. That's another look that they can go to. But then they can also go with that group they went with at the end where it's like Eric Gordon, Kauai, Russell Westbrook, they're switching a lot of stuff and just locking in defensively. Ball denial was a huge role down the stretch of this game. Just Russ and Kauai just playing really physical denial defense on Devin Buker and Kevin Durant, which really got them out of their sets. And they struggled to even get clean looks down the end of the game. And then there at the end, Russ, one-on-one with Devin Booker. Devin Booker tries to take him to the basket.

And Russ played a good physical brand of defense, something you can get away with in the playoffs. And he got a key block at the end of the game. Most importantly for the Sons, they're going to have to compete more physically in this game. I know it's in this series. I know it's not a core tenant kind of their basketball identity and their basketball character, but in order to win, they're going to have to. They've got advantages everywhere else. They're going to have to compete with the clippers physically. They got out rebounded on the offensive class 15 to 6 in this game, including that stretch at the end where the sun's got like

three stops in a row, but just could not secure a defensive rebound. Again, this was my first major thing that I've been wrong about in this postseason. It won't be the last. I'm sure there will be people in the comments having their fun. And look, I can live with it. I'm going to make predictions. I'm to be right sometimes. I'm going to be wrong sometimes. I thought the Sons would sweet the series. It's certainly not over. One thing I'll say kind of in the sun's defense is they played a really rough, easy schedule to end the season. And so kind of like the Lakers heading into the playing game, they're just not accustomed to this intense level of basketball. So I wouldn't write the Sons off. I wouldn't take a victory lap or anything like that. But this is going to be a little bit more of

a battle than they were expecting, particularly because the Clippers have some matchups to make Devin Boker and KD work and the clippers seem very, very focused on embracing the dirty work, which means the sons are going to have to match them at some point. All right, before we get out of here, let's talk a little bit about heat bucks. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on it simply because the injuries kind of changed the learning, the lessons we can learn from the game, right? Like, Yonis doesn't play. I mean, what are we even going to get into here?

I pick the bucks to win the title. They're not winning the title without Yonis. Like Tyler Harrow, big win for the heat, but if Tyler Harrow broke his hand and he can't play again. Like, that's a huge problem for a team that already kind of lacks offensive initiation, which can be a problem. But there were a couple of specific things that the heat did really well that I think are indicators of why the heat have given the bucks, the bucks issues over the years. First of all, they do a lot of switching. So that stagnates their high pick and roll attack and forces them to create in isolation, to create advantages in isolation. And with Baymete Abio being a pretty

solid defender to throw at Janice and Spolstra being really good at digging down into driving lanes to capitalize on some hesitant shooting on the perimeter, they can get stagnant offensively. And then from there, the heat know they're going to struggle to score in the half court against the Bucks defense. So they were just pushing out and transition and getting all sorts of good looks there. Getting the ball to the right shooters in their driving kick attack. Max Struis is locked in right now. Gabe Vincent is locked in. Kevin Love hit a big three. They ended up shooting 60% from three as a team. So that's why the heat. give the Bucks issues.

They know how to stagnate them. They know how to get out and transition to avoid their half-court sets. It won't be enough without Tyler Harrow. But, you know, that's why I've rooted for, I told you guys in the playing game, I was rooting for Miami to win because I knew they'd give the Bucks a little bit better of a battle. On the Bucks front, if they should have to play a little bit of time without Yannis, the most encouraging thing is their advantage in perimeter size. Like, the heat just have a lot of smaller, like, undrafted type guys that are playing on the wing,

right? And when you have big guys that can play perimeter-style basketball, guys like Bobby Portis and Chris Middleton, you don't even have to run any sort of sophisticated offense. Just dump the ball down to one of your big forwards that's going to bully his way into the lane against a smaller heat player, either get a great shot or start things into rotation where they can get open shots on the back end. Chris Middleton and Bobby Portis combined for 54 points in this game. So good start for the heat, but I don't know how they're going to be able to sustain this without Tyler Harrow, especially with their lack of offensive It's easy to see how they give the buck some issues, but I think they've got some advantages they can ride out. And quite frankly, if Janus comes back, that changes fundamentally what we watched in just their approach in the second half of that game.

All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. Like I said, we're going to be hitting Nuggets, Wolves, as well as our kind of film rewatch stuff in tomorrow morning. So as always, I appreciate you guys, and I'll see you tomorrow. Volume. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy. 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? 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,

encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human 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. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening and learn the hard way with your favorite therapists and hosts care games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations

that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to, listen to learn the hard way on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.