The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LeBron James & Lakers eliminate Ja Morant & Grizzlies, Steph Curry & Warriors stunned by De'Aaron Fox & Kings to force Game 7

Episode Date: April 29, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to Game 6 of the Western Conference first round featuring LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers vs. Ja Morant, Dillon Brooks, and the Memphis Grizzlies. Jason breaks down how the Lakers were able to blow out the Grizzlies in an elimination game and how they match up against Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors or De'Aaron Fox and the Sacramento Kings in the next round. Plus, Jason reacts to Game 6 of the Western Conference first round featuring Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and the Golden State Warriors vs. De'Aaron Fox and the Sacramento Kings. Jason breaks down how the Kings were able to force Game 7 and who he thinks will come out on top. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? Well, the Los Angeles Lakers, after being a dominant defense throughout the entire series, get a legendary performance from Anthony Davis and they finally break out offensively after being stuck in the mud all series long and get a monster win over the Memphis Grizzlies to advance to the second round. I have a bunch of different angles I want to hit from this game and looking forward for the Lakers into the rest of the postseason. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels 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 shows and you can't get back over to YouTube finish. Don't forget, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. So I want to go into every single player who played in the core rotation for the Lakers for at least a minute. And I want to talk about some crucial adjustments that Darvin Ham made that I thought swung the tie to this game early. But I can't say another word without getting to who I thought had one of the most dominant performances I've ever seen from an individual basketball player to dominate a game on both ends of the floor in the playoffs, Anthony Davis,

had a similar performance strictly on the defensive end in 2020 in game six of the NBA finals. Kind of a similar situation. Disappointing game five. Defense all around on the team wasn't quite where it needed to be. And in game six, AD left nothing to doubt and single-handedly crushed the Miami Heat offense on his way to his first NBA championship. Similar type of vibe in this game. Just a level of effort and energy that started with AD but flowed through the entire roster and we're going to hit on everybody. But you know, here's the thing. Anthony Davis has never won a defensive player of the year award. When I talk about who the best defender in basketball is, I usually say Janus. And the main reason why is he has a lot of the similar tools and versatility to

Anthony Davis. But his big thing is he just, he's healthy all the time and he plays incredibly hard all the time. So in terms of actually building a defense around a player for an entire season, you can't do much better than a guy like Yanus Santanacumpo. Anthony Davis has a impact on the game with his length and his defensive IQ and his mobility that I believe nobody else in the league has. Everything with him is health and effort. He can fade in and out of games at times. He can have some games where he shows up and you're like, man, like, where's Anthony Davis? What is he doing? And obviously health keeps him off the floor from time to time. But when he's like that, when he's healthy and locked in, there's nobody who can do what he can do. Not Rudy Gobert,

not Draymond Green, not Janus and Tenacumpo, not Brooke Lopez, none of these guys are close to as good as what he can do around the rim. All of those guys are amazing. But when Anthony Davis is right, he's another level above that. Just clearly, he probably had, what, five or six blocks in this game? I didn't even look at the box score. I'm sure he changed at least 15, 16 shots. I can't tell you how many times the Lakers would make a catastrophic mistake. You know, like a, there's a play LeBron just throws the ball away on a fast break.

Just turns it over. And there's a Tyos Jones runout. And Anthony Davis is like, no, I'm just going to force you to the other side of the rim, make you take an impossible reverse layup. You're going to miss it. Oh, and Jaron Jackson's trail in the play, I'm just going to grab it before he can get there either and just blow up a two-on-one fast break by myself. Or somebody will gamble out of position and give up a driving lane, and Anthony Davis is just there. You know, Jaron Jackson posting up and, uh, uh, or I think it was actually John Morant, like kind of working in an ISO, didn't even see Anthony Davis just swoops him from behind,

just takes the ball away. Now we're going the other direction. But what was unique about this performance that made it different, in my opinion, than the one in the 2020 finals, was he also absolutely torched Memphis in their switching attack on the other end of the floor. And this is why I tweeted out,

like, there are only a small handful of players in the entire NBA that can impact a game as much as Anthony Davis did in that first half. Because in addition to everything he was doing defensively, just like otherworldly impact on the defense event. On the other end of the floor, Memphis was switching pick and rolls. They started doing this in the middle of the series, and it was a problem when LeBron had the ball

because they were switching, you know, Brooks and Jaron Jackson or Xavier Tillman and Jaron Jackson, and they weren't really gaining much of an advantage. But I disagreed with this strategy from Taylor Jenkins, but he started switching pick and rolls with the guards. So now all of a sudden you're ending up with John Morant or, you know, someone like John Contr or Desmond Bain guarding Anthony Davis rolling to the rim on a switch. And I thought the Lakers did a really nice. First of all, credit to Anthony Davis.

He was rolling hard quickly and quickly sealing and getting position. Why is that important? Getting there quickly makes it so that you're there before the defense can load up on you. Memphis was trying to do a lot of work fronting Anthony Davis in the post and bracketing from behind. It's a coverage I talk about a lot on this show. Like when you front, you offer backside help. it makes that over-the-top pot pass extremely difficult, right? But if you go quickly and seal before they even react, you can beat them there. All of the Laker guards did an amazing job getting Anthony Davis quick feeds up high

where only he could get them and he could quickly turn around and finish. Just unbelievable dominant basketball from Anthony Davis. Again, everything I've said about Anthony Davis from the moment he put on a Laker jersey has had nothing to do with what he's capable of. I have consistently insisted that when he is right, he is every bit as good as Nicola Yokic and Joel Embed. I very passionately feel that way. He's not the same franchise cornerstone

because you're not going to get it for 82 or over the course of 82 to the same extent you're going to get from Embed and Yokic. But for any playoff series or any small sample size, as long as Anthony Davis is playing at his best and is healthy, he's every bit as good as those guys because he's on a different stratosphere defensively. And he dominated that game tonight.

I want to talk about LeBron for a second, too, because he had a rough game in game five. I wasn't particularly worried about it. LeBron's one of those guys, like, he's much more susceptible to poor shooting nights. He has had stretches of sloppiness. But for as long as I can remember with LeBron James, at least since, probably since 2012,

I'd say. If there's a big game and his team has a real chance to win, you can depend on him to play great and to impact winning to a great extent. It's the only player that I can think of in my time following the NBA, who's that dependable. Even guys who are considered his peers around the league, guys like Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, they're a little susceptible to shot result. Shots aren't going in, not as much impact. LeBron James was struggling on the ball in this series because a couple different reasons. It's a very physical series.

Dylan Brooks is one of the best perimeter defenders in basketball. And Memphis in general was loading up on driving lanes. But LeBron James is a very smart basketball player. It was very versatile. I did an episode with Colin Coward months ago where I pointed out when we were having a conversation around Kevin Durant and I said like, you know, LeBron James is underrated as a plug-in play player because of all the different roles that he can fill on both ends of the floor.

So, game six, he can tell early, early in the game, oh, DeAngelo Russell has it going. Austin's playing better. AD's locked in. They're winning on these switches. I don't need to have the basketball in my hands. Let me just be a stereotypical NBA big. and he just started screening and roll into the basket, crashing the glass, working in spot-up situations,

just getting out in transition, doing all of these other things to impact the game on the offensive end of the floor alongside an offense that was running through everybody else. So much of the ball was in DeAngelo Russell and Osser-Reed's hands tonight. And a big part of that is just the way the series shook out from a matchup perspective. The Laker Guards had the better matchups in the series. It made sense to flow through them. at least when they were playing well. DeAngelo Russell had some rough stretches,

but in this particular game, it paid off. But LeBron completely altered his approach on the offensive end of the floor, and as a result, had one of his more efficient and productive offensive games in the series. And then on the defensive end of the floor, he did exactly what you ask of him, which is just stay engaged, hard closeouts on shooters, active around the rim, playing passing lanes and getting out in transition. Before we get to some of the Laker role players, I wanted to talk about a couple of specific adjustments that Darvinham made that I thought were really smart.

Again, I was critical of Darvinham earlier in the series for a couple of specific reasons, namely just like being a little bit too hesitant to call timeouts when Desmond Bain was getting going in the second half of game four, I believe, if I remember correctly. Guess what happened in this game? Desmond Bain finally hits a three. I believe it was in a transition situation. If I remember correctly, his turnover, quick run out, just ribbled into a pull-up three on the left wing. Darwin Ham, boop, immediately calls a timeout.

That's an adjustment. We let Desmond Bain get going by letting the game run for too long. He's killed us for two games after that. Not doing that tonight. He hits one three. We are calling a timeout. Overall, in the coverage, he made two specific adjustments. One adjustment that he started to make in the second half a game,

and then that had you do with Anthony Davis just coming way higher out of his screen, doing one of two things. He was mixing up like a high show to take away the pull-up, and then Anthony Davis would sprint back to Xavier Tillman to get back in the lane. And then in other situations, he would straight up blitz and drag Desmond Bain out to 40 feet on a live dribble, and then as soon as he picked up his dribble, then he would sprint back. But that was an adjustment they started in the second half of game five. But they continued that into game six, which was smart,

because that's when they slowed Desmond Bain down for the first time, which was in the second half of Game 5. But secondly, and this was the most important one I thought. Early, I think if I remember correctly, it was the very first play in Game 5. In Memphis, Desmond Bain had just played a great game. He had 36 points in Game 4. They run a complicated, like, screen-to-screener action

underneath the basket, and Desmond Bain comes flying off to the elbow wide open because Austin Reeves gets caught on the screen. And throughout that game, Austin Reeves was really struggling with the complicated screening actions that Taylor Jenkins was running. Again, lock and trail position,

it's a lot easier said than done, especially even in a single screen situation, it's easier said than done. But as soon as it gets to the point where there's multiple interchanges, it gets really difficult to do. And Austin, look, like, obviously he's not the most athletic dude in the world,

But it was more about just the actual action itself and the fact that it was too much to ask one player to navigate all of that than it was about his athletic tools. I thought it was a schematic thing. So I wanted to see if Darvin Ham would make an adjustment. One of the early plays in this game in the first quarter, Desmond Bay is coming off in action. I believe it started on the left wing and he's coming off towards the top of the key. And Austin Reeves gets caught. It was a double screen. Austin Reeves gets caught on the first screen.

And rather than asking Austin to just keep fighting through and let Desmond Bayne come off wide open, DeAngelo Russell, who is guarding one of the screeners, jumps in and takes Desmond Bain. Again, like, that's a simple idea. In a single screening action with the big, you just have Anthony Davis show and you ask Austin to chase. But if it's a multiple screening action,

where Anthony Davis is at the end of the screen, but there's another guard involved, Have the other guard fight through one of the screens. Because then he only has to fight through one. Austin gets caught on one. He can jump in and catch him on the second one, right? They were just much more willing to have Austin peel off onto his screener rather than just leaving him on an island to chase Desmond Bain around.

And as a result, finally, after for two straight games, Desmond Bain looked like the best player on the floor. The guy consistently getting to his spots and the only guy in the series who was comfortable knocking down jump shots, I think they held him to 5 of 16 tonight. shot him down when they needed to. So, you know, a lot of Laker fans were critical of Dardenham all season. I was critical of him earlier in the series for being slower to make some of these adjustments.

But here's the bottom line. The Lakers are moving on to the second round because in large part they were able to slow down things that were beating them earlier in the series. That's coaching and that's making adjustments. So shout out to D'Arvonham. And honestly, like, between that and Taylor Jenkins foolishly switching the guard, Anthony Davis screens to allow Anthony Davis to get switched onto smaller defenders. I thought Darwinham just flat out out-coached Taylor Jenkins in this game. And at the end of the day, that ended up playing a significant role.

So shout out to Darvinham. I want to talk about Austin Reeves and DeAngelo Russell for a minute. I thought it got a little carried away at certain points in the series before tonight in particular, in large part because Austin and Delo just played really well tonight. At certain points in the series, it felt like the Laker guards were co-opting the offensive. too much, but it's a matter of matchups. And we've talked about this a lot on this show over the course of this season, but it's about staggering, right?

So if Anthony Davis is drawing Jaron Jackson and he has great role gravity, because look at how many lobs he caught tonight, just because you could just throw it up anywhere around the rim. And because LeBron James is dragging their best perimeter defender and Dylan Brooks away, and the other players on the floor are John Morant, bad defensive player Desmond Bain, average defensive player Xavier Tillman, average defensive player

they went small a lot, played a lot of guys like Tyos Jones and Santiago Aldama. Those guys are, both of them are average to below average defensive players. So there's better matchups out there for other players. Rui Hachamura got off a lot in this series in the Santiago matchup matchup. DeAngelo Russell and Austin Reeves attacking the other Memphis guards had quite a bit of success. success. Danzel Russell was given John Morant serious problems in this game. So matchups allowed those

guys to have better opportunities. And again, like in a series where because of the physicality, Anthony Davis and LeBron James just could not make a jump shot. Although credit to LeBron, he made a couple of big ones in the first half of this game, I thought, that kind of softened things up a little bit on the offensive end of the floor. Austin and DeLo made jump shots and made pull-up jump shots in the mid-range, and that was a huge part of how this, again, like, I've been preaching the Laker defense ever since the trade deadline. There was a stretch where Anthony Davis played without LeBron, and there were some stretches with LeBron, but like throughout it all, up and down, regardless of what happened, there

was one consistent thing through it all, it was their defense. And they had several stretches where their defense was absolutely stifling. But never really did they, like, really click offensively against a game. good defense. And tonight that happened. And that's the most encouraging part. Because that defense is good enough to beat the Grizzlies. That defense with that offense, that's good enough to win the trophy. And it's the total package. It's Anthony Davis and LeBron James applying legitimate rim pressure. It's their defense allowing them to get out and transition consistently. It's Rui Hachamura's matchup attacking on the wing that pressures

the rim, and it's three guards that bring completely different punches. DeAngelo Russell, this super slow, methodical, you know, kind of like finesse game. And then it's Austin Reeves with this, like, he has an underrated handle. Like, Austin Reeves legitimately might have a top 20 handle in the NBA, which is insane for a player as young as he is. But he's really good at setting up his man in ball screens and great at getting. getting downhill and engaging screen defenders, drawing fouls, and is such a great passer in those situations.

Had another wild behind the back pass in this game to Jared Vanderbilt in the corner. And then Dennis Schroeder, just your stereotypical dribble drive guard. And then on the other end of the floor, guys like Dennis at the point of attack, LeBron and Anthony Davis on the back line, Jared Vanderbilt and Rui Hachamura taking perimeter defensive assignments. Like, Rui Hachamura did an excellent job defending Desmond Bain in this game. Like, what a luxury. Let's just put Rui, like, another random little diamond in the rough.

Like, we were able to discover, you know, for Darwin Ham's perspective, he was able to discover that he had another defender that could do a significant job who I thought was the best player on Memphis in this series, and that was Desmond Bain. All of it was really impressive. A couple of specific things I wanted to shout out. DeAngelo Russell, you know, this is a guy that has not had a successful playoff career. And I think what makes it work in this particular situation is he's finally slotted properly.

He's basically the fourth option. Austin and Anthony Davis and LeBron are better offensive players in drawing better defenders. Desmond Bain is guarding Austin Reeves. And he got DeAngela Russell drew the worst defender on Memphis, which is John Moran. which helped him to get going. And most importantly, like, getting him off the ball. This was a revelation early in the season with Minnesota, but DeAngelo Russell is legitimately like a really good spot-up shooter.

And so putting him in that situation off of LeBron James and Anthony Davis really, really helped. Brewy, I thought, had a great series, did a lot of things on the glass defensively and offensively. Jared Vanderbilt, I think he made three-threes tonight, did a great job defensively on John. John Morant, made a bunch of big plays in the passing lanes as well. Dennis Schroeder had a stretch there in the second quarter where his point of attack

defense was frightening. And I actually think that he's going to play a massive role in the next round regardless of who they play, whether it's Sacramento or Golden State, just because of the job he can do at the perimeter, which is going to be so much more important against that particular team. And then Wenian Gabriel came in, when he played like a three and a half minute stretch there to start the second quarter and just did enough. to float the ship and that unit was plus one with Anthony Davis off the floor. Little things that can help you win an NBA championship or a playoff series at least.

Just, I'm glad I'm glad we had some time tonight to actually get to every single one of those players because every single one of them deserves a massive shout out in a team performance in what I thought was the most dominant performance in the first round from any NBA team, which we'll talk a little bit more about in a minute. The Lakers are in great shape right now. Because in the early game tonight, the Golden State Warriors brought a lackadaisical effort at home. My friend Samus Fondiari who covers the Warriors for the Light Years podcast. He had a really interesting point in his opening rant.

And basically what he said was like, he said, he was like, I wished so, I wanted so badly after game five to think that's last year's team. But he said the regular season is the regular season. and, you know, one team was hungry and tough all year in Sacramento, and one team was kind of complacent all year, and that was Golden State. And I agree with him. That doesn't mean Golden State's not going to win the series. They very well might. I have that game seven on Sunday as a total coin flip.

But I love that Sam pointed that out because it's a super interesting example of something I've talked about a lot over the years, which is like the regular season doesn't matter, but it does matter. It doesn't matter in the standings. This year has been the resounding example of that. Like, there's too many good teams. So regardless of where you're situated in the standings, it's really more about home court advantage than anything else.

Like, there are seven great teams in the West. Seven of them. Six, if you take out the clippers who lost Kawhi Leonard, but with Kawhi, they looked like a pretty damn good team. You know, so like you're not going to get a good matchup in the first round. Even Minnesota, like, look, like Denver beat them in five. but Minnesota is in those games. Like every one of them.

At least three of the five. So like, again, seeding doesn't matter as much. But what the regular season is, is it's a great time to build habits, to build continuity, and to set the foundation for what you need to be as a basketball team in the playoffs. And one thing I'll say about this Laker team,

this is a continuation of a regular season trend. Yes, they were bad in the aggregate for the whole year. 42 or 41 and I don't even remember what their record was, 43 and 39. But post-edline, they were what? The second best defense in the entire league. Oh, big shock. Now they're defending at a high level.

They won most of their games. Oh, big shock. They're four and two or five and two so far in postseason games. Like, it's a continuation of a regular season trend. But most importantly, with the Warriors tricking that game off, it buys the Lakers two points of optimism. First of all, extra time off. The Lakers just finished an extremely physical series

against that Memphis Grizzlies team. And now, because of Golden State losing, they are guaranteed all day Saturday, all day Sunday, all day Monday off, and they'll play game one on Tuesday. So that buys LeBron James and Anthony Davis in particular some time to rest their bodies, vitally important. Secondly, I have no idea who I'd pick in a Lakers Warriors series. Those two teams are kind of uniquely equipped to give each other problems.

but I know for a fact that I would pick the Lakers over to the Kings. It's a terrible matchup for them. Like Harrison Barnes and DeMontas Sabonis and Trey Liles having to navigate LeBron James and Anthony Davis for seven games is a disaster waiting to happen. You know, I pointed this out to a couple of my buddies while I was texting during the game. But if you guys remember last year, Golden State just... ends up in this like physical war with Memphis, right? And Memphis beats the shit out of them in game five. Even game six, even though the Warriors won comfortably at the end,

like they lingered. Memphis lingered throughout most of the game. Like it was a battle. And Golden State did not look overly impressive in that series. And then they went and played Dallas, a finesse team that was undersized at most positions on the floor. And the Warriors just ripped through them like tissue paper. went up 3-0, and aside from mailing in game 4,

dominated that series, right? That's kind of how I see a Lakers King series going. Them dealing with just this bloodbath of a Memphis physical defense, and then going to, like, it would be like if LeBron James and Anthony Davis played an entire series with a 20-pound weight vest on, and then for the second round, they just took the weight vest off. That's what it's going to feel like for those guys. for LeBron James to go from a low center of gravity, super physical defender,

to a defender in Harrison Barnes that LeBron James has torched his entire career with a high center of gravity that he's going to be able to move off of his spot all the time, to a defensive center in DeMontosabonis, who is literally hopeless to guard Anthony Davis. It's going to be such a breath of fresh air for those guys. And then as part of that process, it's going to draw multiple defenders all series long. And the strength of the king's defense is their guards. And I don't think it's going to be as much of an Austin Reeves and DeAngelo Russell series. But if all those guards have to double and shade over to LeBron James and Anthony Davis,

they're going to get a bunch of offball opportunities. So again, like that game seven, Golden State, Sacramento is a total toss-up. Even though I agree with Sam's overall point about your regular season identity, I think that has more to do with the Warriors just bringing a lackadaisical effort in a closeout game. But at the end of the day, I do think the Warriors are a better team than Sacramento. Sacramento has home court advantage. So, easy little trade off there. I think that evens out.

I think it's a total coin flip. And in a huge, stressful game, the Warriors are going to feel a lot more comfortable in that setting than Sacramento. So I will not stop betting the Warriors just because I refuse to, look, I'd rather go down betting on the people who have been there before and then have been in these moments. and that I trust. I'd rather lose that bet and come back and be like, man, like, I guess this was the end of the rope than to put my energy and effort behind that Sacramento

Kings team who's just never been there before. So I definitely believe Sacramento can win. I believe there'll be a slight favorite, but I can't go off of my Warriors pick. That said, if Sacramento wins, what an amazing matchup for the Lakers. And no matter what, getting that little bit of extra rest is huge. Last note, I want to hit before we get out of here.

I thought that was the most impressive performance as a team in the first round. In terms of, like, most shocking, of course, it's going to be Miami over Milwaukee. But if you really dig into it, it's like Janus doesn't play the first three games, essentially. And in the last two games, the Bucks outplayed the Miami Heat pretty thoroughly for three and a half quarters. I mean, they were up 16 in the fourth quarter of Game 5. And then at the end of the games, Miami stole the games with, like, amazing execution. and shopmaking and defense coaching, all those different things. Like, they stole that series, which impressive is not even the right word.

Miami's probably the most impressive win. But in terms of dominance, nothing trumps what the Lakers did to the two-seat in the Western Conference. The Memphis Grizzlies had the fifth best record in all of basketball this year, and the Lakers beat the shit out of them. That's not the same as Philly sweeping the trade filler from the Kevin Durant deal. and it's it's it's it's just that that to me is the best any team has looked in the first round is the Lakers to end that series against Memphis winning three of their last four games so look I'm not about to make him my championship favorite I think by default

looking at the easy path going out of the western conference with Joel and Bede being hurt and James Hardin not playing well going into like Boston's in really good shape there and then in the conference finals, they're going to face an undermanned Knicks or Heat team, undermined relative to Boston. I think Boston now becomes the safest bet to win the title. But man, like, if you're a Lakers fan, you should be feeling great. Because in that tier right below Boston, I pretty much have Warriors Lakers, Nuggett, Sons, all kind of on the same level. And whichever one of those teams comes out is going to have a great chance to beat that Boston team too. I want to give some credits to Sacramento first, most importantly just for their approach to this game.

They were 0 and 4 in Chase Center this season. They lost there twice early in the regular season, and then they lost there twice during this series. Once a blowout in game 3, and then game 4, I know Harrison Barnes had that look at the end, but, I mean, really when we dive into it, there was that weird Steph timeout, there was some turnovers. like the Warriors were several possessions ahead of them and just happened to trick that game into position where Harrison Barnes had a look. So they've pretty much dominated the series

ever since that 2-0 deficit. Now, essentially what got them beat in the first two games, if you guys remember when I would do the breakdowns from those games, I talked a lot about perimeter defense and dribble penetration leading to shot quality. Shot quality is a tough thing to focus too heavily on, with the Warriors because they specialize in making tough shots. They've got two of the best pull-up jump shooters in the history of the league and Clay Thompson and Steph Curry. Clay, a little bit more

of a movement shooter, but you hit some stuff off the bounce as well. Steph is probably the best pull-up jump shooter to ever play in the history of the league, and they just would go over drop coverage and knock down crazy shots. They won a championship doing it last year. Game four, down two-one against Boston. Steph just made difficult shot after difficult shot after difficult shot. That's what they do. So you can't focus too much on shot quality for the Warriors. If they just get a bunch of wide open looks, you're just going to lose. Like, you're going to lose by 40 if you just give Steph Clay and all them driving kick looks all game long, right? Like you expect them to take and make tough shots. But on the other end of the floor, the Warriors do have to force teams into difficult

shots. And in the first two games, I told you guys, I thought the Kings were getting higher quality shots because of triple penetration. There's a huge difference between flattening out drives and straight line drive. So when you have a straight line drive, it engages the help defense in a way that goes above and beyond the way that a flattened out drive will engage help defense. When you are, when Malik Monk goes flying down the lane, it forces a guy like Steph to come out of the corner to help, which is going to leave Deere and Fox wide open on the wing, right? However, if you flatten out that Malik Monk drive and make him kind of take a banana route and you're kind of engaged on his hip, Now Steph can maybe just dig at the ball or stay home entirely, right?

And that forces Malik Monk to either take a contested shot over the top or to try to throw a pass to a player that's being guarded, which can lead to turnovers. Perimeter defense is not only the best form of rim protection that there is, but it is the best way to force turnovers because it allows your other defenders to stay in passing lanes. In the first half, it was very effort-related. I thought the Warriors brought an incredibly poor level of effort and execution in the first half.

And they'd get a basket, and Deeran Fox would just dribble all around them all the way down the floor and lay the ball in. And just easy transition pushes with no resistance for easy baskets at the rim. Then in the second half, the Warriors did pick up the effort a little bit, but they just couldn't contain Malik Monk. And again, like, it's really hard to get that engine running that late in the game. It's like you kind of set a tone, and especially once you've given the other team hope, they're going to bring their engine, they're going to be running at a high level that's going to be difficult to match. That's why it's so important to crush hope with teams like this.

We're about to go check out Lakers Grizzlies here in a minute, and like I think it's imperative for the Lakers to get an early lead to sap some of the energy from the Grizzlies. If they allow it to stay close, it's a one-point game in the third quarter, that's where Memphis's youthful energy and athleticism and physicality is going to become an advantage for them. And in the second half, just from, and it's been like this the whole series, but in games three, four, and five, the Warriors did a much better job containing dribble penetration from Dierrin Fox and Malik Munk. We, you know, we talk a lot about schemes on this show, not as much as some of the other shows. There are guys that like really heavily focus on sets and counters and

all that sort of thing. And I think that can get a little in the weeds for the way that we do it here. prefer to focus a little bit more on a balance between personnel, other basketball concepts, and then some scheme stuff. And one of the big reasons why is that because I think that at the end of the day, regardless of what sets you run or how complicated your counters are, your personnel has to execute. So it doesn't matter if you run the perfect set if a guy doesn't set a solid screen. Or you can blow a play up defensively just by not allowing yourself to get screen. More often than anything having to do with the sets, it does come down to personnel, sheer force,

of force of will in combination with your athletic tools and the skill set you have that you can use in conjunction with those athletic tools. And in this game, that push and pool, that, that tug of war that takes place in dribble penetration, that was a battle the Kings won in game one and two, and then the warriors got control of it, and then they let go of the rope tonight. And then they ended up getting their ass kicked at home. This series is not over. I believe the Kings will probably be a slight favorite in Game 7, probably a one point favorite, but the Warriors have a very good chance to win that game because in large part, I did think effort and energy played a huge role in game seven. Sacramento was in a

similar motivation, it was in an even better motivational position in game five coming off of two losses and the Warriors went into Sacramento and just soundly outplayed them. So it's not over, but a very disappointing effort from the Warriors. I want to give a bunch of guys specific credit on the Kings. Dier and Fox in that first half, his transition rim pressure. sure was incredible. Malik Munk in the second half. I covered him with the Lakers last year. He was one of my favorite players on that team. Rob Polinkin was incapable of retaining him because the only offer he could make without hard capping the team was that Lonnie Walker contract at about $6 million a year, and the Kings were able to give him 10 million a year. So it just, it wasn't realistic that they were

going to be able to keep him. But he was one of my favorite players that season. He had great chemistry with LeBron James. He was a reliable score. He was one of their best plus minus guys. And watching his game manifest really well at this level has been impressive. And honestly, like, it's the latest example of if you have one elite skill, like truly elite skill, you can be an impact player in the NBA playoffs. In Malik Monk, it's just impossible to keep him in front off the dribble because of his combination of quickness, athleticism and pull-up shooting that forces you to play up on him. Subonis has been struggling a lot in this particular series. He struggled a lot in in the later portions of this game.

He actually got off to a good start in this game. It's actually one of the wildest subplots of this series is that the Kings are tied 3-3, basically getting nothing out of Sabonis. But Trey Lyles is a different type of perimeter-oriented player, a little more comfortable off the dribble, a little more comfortable from the three-point line. It holds up well enough defensively to not be a huge drop-off from Sabonis,

who's not a great defender either. And he actually helps them a lot on the offensive end of the floor. I thought he played pretty well. haven't heard her, hit a bunch of big shots after struggling throughout the series. I am so impressed by this King's team. Oh, and four here in Chase Center through this point in the season. And it'd been so easy to just let go of the rope and be like, I don't believe we can win this game.

No, they came in confident and flat out punked the Warriors on their home floor. But that said, the Warriors are defending champs for a reason. They're four-time champs. I expect them to bounce back and bring a great effort in game seven. I expect that to come down to the wire and be an incredible basketball game. I'm very, very excited for that. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. I have a series preview for Sixers Celtics that's coming out tomorrow morning. I've already recorded it. I believe it's going up at about like 8.30 something Pacific time. It might even be up

earlier than that. So when you wake up tomorrow, that series preview should be on the feeds. And then tomorrow, like I said, we're celebrating my wife's birthday. So not covering game one and Nuggett's sons until Sunday morning. But then on Sunday afternoon. I'm sure we're going to have something big plan for Kings Warriors. It'll either be me or me and Colin, something along those lines. So keep an eye on the feeds and I'll keep you guys posted. All right, thanks, guys.

See you tomorrow. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

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