The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LeBron James & Lakers epic comeback vs. Kyrie & Mavs, Celtics beat 76ers, Bucks-Suns

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers' comeback win over Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and the Dallas Mavericks. Jason later discusses the Bucks win over the Suns, without Kevin Durant or Giannis Antetokounmpo active, Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics' 110-107 win over Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers, and Ja Morant and the Grizzlies' 112-94 win over Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Happy Sunday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great weekend. What an incredibly couple entertaining games that we had here on this Sunday, following up an incredible game last night between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Boston Celtics. We've got a ton of good basketball to talk about today. We're going to hit on all three of those major nationally televised games, as well as the Memphis Grizzlies, notching a signature win of sorts against the Denver Nuggets yesterday.

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for Lakers fans. The Mavs came out. I had a feeling that the Mavs would come out with a lot of fire in this particular game. You know, physical disadvantages will play out in theory over the long run. And you did over the course of that game. But a lot of times, especially in a smaller sample size, competing and playing hard, you can play a lot bigger than you actually are. And earlier in this game, the Mavs went to a couple of different things that I thought worked really well. First of all, they were switching everything. And when you do that, it stagnates offenses. And a lot of a lot of the Lakers offensive sets are like they have like an early offense flow. They'll get into their horns actions and they'll have, you know,

Anthony Davis and LeBron at the high post and they'll run a couple interchanges to flow into their pick and roll. And they've been getting a lot of good stuff out of that over the course of the previous four games in large part because they have more offensive skill than usual. But when you switch those sorts of things, it doesn't become an issue of what coverage you are like how you're going to contain that ball handling shooter coming over the top. or dealing with Anthony Davis in a drop coverage at the rim,

or excuse me, Dwight Powell and a drop coverage at the rim, it just turns into a switch. And now it's like, who's going to create the advantage? And in so many cases earlier in that first half, LeBron and Anthony Davis weren't very aggressive. They weren't trying to get to the basket. There was one LeBron ripped through where he got to the rim for a basket. Anthony Davis had a couple of shots.

But for the most part, they were passive. Those two guys were six for 16. in the first half. So as a result, what ended up happening is the Lakers were getting pretty poor shot quality. They were getting threes, but they weren't high quality threes, and they were missing them. And I think they started the game, 0 for 14 from three while the Mavericks were making a bunch of shots on the other end. And that kind of flow, I always talk about that cascading effect on the other end of the floor as the Lakers were not getting their defense set. And the, you know, Tim Hardaway Jr. is dribbling up the floor and just walking into easy threes as he's in.

rhythm when the defense isn't set. And it was a really interesting, you know, I always talk about the give and take of switching defenses. Like the Lakers did have like six offensive rebounds in that stretch when they were down 41 to 19 or whatever it was. They were down big, but they were getting a bunch of offensive rebounds, but that's the tradeoff. You're trading a little bit of a size disadvantage. You're going to give up some offensive rebounds. There's going to be some issues. But on the other side of things, you're stagnating their offense. You're turning them into an isolation team. And then you're loading up on LeBron and AD. They're not trying to force their way through traffic. So they're kicking to inferior shooters and they're not making shots.

And honestly, when you trade for two skill guards and DeAngelo Russell's unavailable with an ankle sprain and then Malik Beasley couldn't hit the side of a barn, especially in the first half, he did end up hitting a huge three in the fourth quarter out of the right corner. But just in general, the offensive skill wasn't there as a result of Beasley's rough night and DeAngela Russell just not being available. And so they dug themselves in a massive hole, and the game turned around on Jared Vanderbilt. Now, Lakers fans have been begging for a real wing for a long time,

for a lot of different reasons, but primarily for the defensive end of the floor. LeBron James and Anthony Davis are capable of that type of perimeter defense. We've seen that a lot over the course of these last four seasons, where especially in big moments, you can count on LeBron or Anthony Davis to switch on to the other team's best player and guard them and get stops. You guys might remember Anthony Davis blocking Tyrese Halliburton a few weeks ago. You might remember back in the bubble like LeBron James on back to

back possessions, like switching out onto Kauai Leonard and then switching out onto Paul George and getting a stop. And like they have that in them, but it's just too much to ask them to do that on a possession by possession basis, especially with everything that you need from them on the offensive end of the floor. And so the Lakers, Lakers fans in particular, especially in the Russell Westbrook trade, when they lost guys like Kyle Kuzma that they could deploy like that or Danny Green, who they could deploy like that, or Contavius Caldwell Pope, where they could deploy like that. They ended up in a situation where they were really, really undermanned on the perimeter, especially on the wing. And so when Jared Vanderbilt came in and he started playing really well, he had a great

performance against Brandon Ingram in his first game where he was like the first guy in the month of February to hold B.I. to under 50% shooting in a game. And then he did a pretty good job on Clay Thompson in the next game. And the question was, is like, who else can he guard? Who else can Laker, who else can Darwinham deploy him on? Because if they can deploy him on the other team's best player, regardless of circumstance, that's a huge weapon. And so Luca Dantzich became the next challenge. And it's a very different challenge. Brandon Ingram is an isolation score that has that likes to shoot over the top of the defense. And so Jared Vanderbilt's length is an advantage there.

But he's not overly strong, right? You know, guarding an off-ball shooter puts him in a situation where he has to navigate off-ball screens. And that's an entirely different situation. He did pretty well with that. Well, here comes Luca. He's this giant, big, strong point forward that is great at drawing fouls,

that destroys thin defenders in just about every single matchup that he has in the NBA, it's a completely different type of matchup. And I was really curious to see how he would do in it. And he did freaking incredible. He's got like, he's one of the advantages of him being thin, is that he can kind of make himself into a low profile physical frame, and he can slide up over the top of screens. He did a really nice job navigating those ball screens with Luca Donchich.

And then when he did get caught, instead of giving up on the play, all he did was just pursue as best as he can and use his length. to bother that next pass from Luca Donchich. And as a result, he forced a bunch of turnovers and got the Lakers going in that second quarter run. He also did it with all of his classic work that he's done in his entire career in the NBA, crashing the offensive glass. He was just an absolute wrecking ball on both ends of the floor and single-handedly

changed the outlook of that game. And at least got the Lakers to a position where they had a chance going into the second half, but I believe they were down 14 at that point. point. From there, you gave yourself a situation where LeBron and AD could kind of wash the hands of that first half and be like, we sucked. We didn't do our job. But we're going to focus in in the second half and we're going to get the job done. And that's exactly what they did. Like I said, they were six for 16 in the first half, which was unacceptable with all of the front court mismatches that Dallas presents for them. And despite that, you know, and again, like a lot of times what will

happen is they'll catch on the block and then, you know, guys will kind of dig down into the driving lanes, right? And so you'll have an opportunity where you have a size advantage over the guy in front of you, but there's two guys right there next to you. And a lot of times, you know, especially in that first half, they'd look at that and they would just pass out of it. Instead of understanding that, yes, it's going to be hard. Yes, you're going to have to go through contact. You might have to score over two or three guys, but it's two or three guys that are way, way smaller than you. And you will be able to finish through all of that congestion and traffic on the perimeter and in the post.

And so in that second half, they just didn't care who the hell was around them. They didn't care what the situation was. They were just dropping their shoulder and going to the rim. And they both were incredible in that second half. It's way too often over the course of the last few years, we've looked at other things. And there are other things that have gone wrong with the Lakers, but nothing matters if LeBron James and Anthony Davis don't play like superstars.

They didn't in the first half. They were down 14. They did in the second half. They came back and they won the game. LeBron's performance was a little uneven in that second half. I mean, I'm not even really blaming him. He's out of rhythm because he hasn't been on the floor much because of this foot injury. Then he hurts his right foot in this super bizarre situation where there's a non-contact injury

where he doesn't land on anybody, falls to the ground. He's telling all of his teammates that he heard it pop. Everyone's like, uh-oh, that's it. And then the dude comes back into the fourth quarter and just literally wills his team. while he's on the floor. Just I tweeted it out afterwards because I was so surprised. So far from where he needed to be physically. They couldn't use him on defense so that like Luke is calling him to run

constant ghost screens with Justin Holliday, trying to get LeBron to navigate those screens and he can barely move. But he's just doing the best he can. And then on the other end, he wasn't, sometimes it's better just to cut the crap and keep it simple. He had a huge size advantage. just getting it on that left block every single time and working his way into the lane for easy layups. Haneful of times you weaponize that pump bake and step through.

That's a big time move for players when they pursue up on your jump hook. You pump fake that and then you can step through and get all the way to the rim. He did that twice. He just threw sheer force of will and basketball IQ and better and savvy and size and strength on two bad wheels just wield his way to making an impact on that game. And then AD, obviously being in his late 20s and much more healthy, the way that he is, was just a complete two-way monster. He was making every defensive play in the second half, making those out-of-area plays that I talk

about so much that are so important. And then most importantly, he was hitting his jump shot. Not his three-point shot. His three-point shot is a disaster right now. But he was hitting his short jump shot, those short turnaround fadeaway jump shots. There's kind of like a range with Anthony Davis where his jump shot. Um shot falls apart and it's kind of like right around 15 feet. If you can stay inside of 15 feet in their short fadeaway jumpers, he's money on those. But once you get outside to that 17, 18 feet

and out, it just has really falling apart for him. But know your strengths and he stuck with that. And he made a huge game icing fadeaway on that left baseline in front of their bench that ended up being the biggest shot of the game. I thought that had to have been super encouraging because what if LeBron does have to miss some time? You could be in some trouble. But if Anthony Davis is the superstar that he is, you have the complimentary role players that you have, DeAngle Russell hopefully returns soon.

If AD plays like that, you can buy LeBron the time to nurse that foot as much as he needs. But I want to talk a little bit about the Lakers defense, because they were third in defensive rating over their previous four games compared to the rest of the league in their previous four games. Again, they were three and one in those games. They had that rough night in Portland where they just got their eyes shot out by the Portland Blazers, or by the Portland Trailblazers. But you've seen, especially after they were able to cool off that Dallas run,

they held them to just 47 points in that second half. This is like a real defensive team now. And I think it comes down to a couple of different things. First of all, getting Jared Vanderbilt and Anthony Davis together, Anthony Davis playing at the defensive player of the year level that he's capable of, but Jared Vanderbilt as that complementary forward that they can deploy on perimeter assignments, puts them in a great spot. Austin Reeves did a great job defensively in this game.

Dennis Schroeder, the job he did on Kyrie Irving, we're going to talk about that in just a little bit, but, like Dennis Rutter was in Kyrie Irving's shirt the entire game and did an amazing job in that point of attack role. When you put all of that together, and guys, like, LeBron James was a shell of himself because of the foot injury. There's a version of this that comes together where LeBron can be more impactful defensively, and it could go up another level from there. The Lakers have won four out of five since the trade pieces started playing.

Obviously, their one loss was a game up in Portland where LeBron James didn't even play. And they just got shot, they just got shot to pieces by that Portland Trailblazers team. And they are now just two and a half games back of the six seed. Now, one of my biggest fears, I told you guys, I said, the Lakers have the talent. They are capable of doing this. But they've got to hit the Jets from now to the end of the season. and that's just a lot to ask physically of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. LeBron suffered his first little setback today.

We don't know what the fallout of that's going to be. We'll see if he plays the rest of this road trip. But that was what my worry was. Yes, you got a better package. You got better players by some amount over Miles Turner and Buddy Heald and whatever else you could have gotten. You probably still can get Rui Hachamuri. You still can get Mo Obama.

But the point is, is you got something a little bit better. But you put yourself in a predicament where you've really got to hit the Jets now throughout the end of the season. And it'll be really interesting to see if those guys hold together physically. Dallas really quickly before we move on. This is a great example. Now, not every team they're going to play is going to be LeBron James and Anthony Davis, two of the better front court bully ball players in the league. But this is what it looks like when you have physical disadvantages at every single position. If you don't get otherworldly offensive performances from Kyrie and Luk Adanjic, which you did not in this game,

then you're just not going to be able to overcome giving up that kind of size and strength on the interior. So part of it you've got to tip the cap, right? Like Dennis Schroeder did an amazing job on Kyra Irving. Jared Vanderbilt did an amazing job on Luca Donchitz. But it's just going to be really hard for you to win games when you have to expect near perfection from your stars because you're giving up so much ground on the interior. I believe they're now one in three, or one in four since Kyrie and Lucas started playing together. Obviously Kyrie notched couple of wins by himself before that. But they're going to have to figure out some stuff in the front court this offseason, I think, to have any real chance of contending. Because if the Lakers could do

it to them, guess who else is going to do it to them? Memphis, that's a bully ball team. They're going to bully them. You know, that's, you know, you don't think Nicola Yoachich and Aaron Gordon are going to be able to have a ton of success on the interior against that Dallas Mavericks team. They're just giving up too much on that front line to contend within this season. All right, we're going to hit three games pretty quickly here. The Suns, Buck, Celtic Sixers, and Nuggets Grizzlies. So the Suns-Bucks game, I only caught the end of this one, but I was super impressed by Milwaukee's defense down the stretch. Phoenix scored just seven points over the final five minutes and change of the fourth quarter. Brooke Lopez had two massive blocks. He blocked Evan Booker at the rim,

and then he swatted DeAndre Aiton pull-up jump shot in the mid-range. He's been amazing for them all year on that end. But Drew Holliday. Devin Booker has made a lot of tough shots over the years in Drew Holliday's face, including a bunch in that 2021 NBA finals series. But that's going to happen with great scores. It happened again towards the end of this game. I think it was 100 to 98. Devin Booker forgets the ball screen, dribbles down to that left block,

and gets Drew on his hip and takes that patented fade away over his left shoulder and knocks it down. It's great defense. That's just an unbelievable player making an unbelievable shot. shot. But what you have to do as a defensive player in that situation is understand that that's not your job. Your job is not to get a stop every time. Your job is just to make it difficult and trust the results. And on that final possession, after Devin Booker ties it, the bucks go down and Chris Middleton comes off of a screen and draws a second defender, draws DeAndre Aten up out of his drop coverage. And Chris Middleton throws a really nice over-the-top pass to Brooke Lopez for

effectively the game winner. And on the other end, Devin Booker stares down Drew Holiday, fights through a ball screen, or Drew Holiday fights through a Jay Crowder screen to get back onto Devin Booker. Excuse me, it prevents the switch and stays on Devin Booker. Gosh, I'm getting my name's confused today. But Drew Holiday gets back to Devin Booker. Devin Booker gets a little bit of an angle on a dribble move and gets to his left hand and has a step. but I always talk about how there's a lot more physicality that takes place in NBA games than people realize. And you're actually allowed to do quite a bit in terms of grabbing and holding. And one of the things that you can pretty much get away with at every level of basketball is your inside hand.

So like if you're driving towards your left hand and I'm sliding to my right, if I hold that right hand up, I can do, I can get my left hand up in there as much as I want. I can kind of like give you a little bit of a forearm. I can hold my ground. I can try to bump you off of your line. You're going to get away with a lot of contact with that left hand. And as Devin Booker was going downhill, drew holiday, right hand up. So there's no foul call.

Left hand in the pocket. And then as soon as he looked down, he saw he had just a second where Devin Booker had kind of like tucked the ball as he was going to go up to the rim. And he just pushed that left hand through and knocked the ball out and got a huge steal. So again, to have the mental fortitude to just get, you know, Devin Booker scoring over the top of you in a clutch moment like that and to turn around and get a stop on the next possession, I thought was a big time play from Drew Holiday,

in addition to all the scoring work that he did in this game. Now, Buck's defensive trio is super interesting. I talk a lot about how I really like it when the core all-stars of an NBA team are guys who like to do it on both ends of the floor. And, you know, Janice is one of the five best offensive players in the league. Drew Holliday is a really good skill guard. a good pull-up shooter. Chris Middleton's kind of your classic three-level score, pull-up, shoot-over-the-top type of guy. But on the other end of the floor,

they represent the three most important defensive archetypes that we have in the NBA. Drew Holliday is a point-of-attack guard that is great at navigating over the top of ball screens and pressuring all of the great guards in this league, while at the same time having the positional versatility to guard up a position. Yannis Santinacompo, the exact opposite, is your classic rim protector that has the versatility to contend in perimeter matchups, including guarding other teams' wings. And then Chris Middleton is more of your classic wing defender. He's not some sort of all-defense caliber guy, but he is a very good wing defender

when he's locked in. And then you pair that with Brooke Lopez, just a classic NBA rim protector. They just have arguably the best perimeter, they have arguably the best defensive personnel in the league. And that's a big part of why they've been able to lead to, to, grind out wins even with guys in and out of the lineup throughout the year. That's a huge win streak. What's that 14 games in a row now?

We're expecting Kevin Durant to make his debut on Wednesday, and we will be covering that game here on AMP. All right, moving on to Celtic Sixers. This is a huge moment for Jason Tatum knocking down that game-winning shot. One of my favorite things about star players as they grow into the prime of their careers is unwavering confidence. And I've always, you know, we talked about this a little bit with Nicola Yoke. Kitch the other day in the Cleveland game. But I'm always impressed when star players have

rough games and are able to bounce back and make big plays down the stretch of a game. We talked about that a little bit with LeBron James and Anthony Davis earlier. Tatum was not having an especially good game against the Sixers. But he rose into that final shot with the same confidence that he does when he's having a great game. Got great lift and he knocked it down. I love to play design. Apparently that's originally a Brad Stevens special, but it's a great counter to ball pressure and ball denial because a lot of teams are going to opt to pressure the ball with Jason Tatum because he's kind of not known as being the best ball handler in the league. But most importantly, especially in late game situations when there's not very much time left, a lot of coaches think if I pressure you

and make it difficult for you to get to your spot, then I might be able to eat enough clock to where it won't be easy for you to get to a spot that you want and a shot that you want all in that short period of time. So they're pressing up on Jason Tatum all the way out at back court. And then since Tatum doesn't have the ball, he can just focus on making a really hard cut. And that's what he did after Marcus Smart got the ball, just a hard cut towards the top of the key.

Marcus Smart throws a beautiful pass that leads Jason Tatum right, right to where he's running, and then just immediately hits the break. and steps back, it's all kinds of separation, go straight up and down, no fade, no anything special, just went to his bread and butter, jump shot, and knocked it down. Big time moment for Jason Tatum. Jalen Brown was also fantastic at the end of this game. Once again, just using his otherworldly athleticism to pressure the rim and his creative shot making. He had like a just a disgusting step back jump shot at the free throw line in the fourth quarter of this

game where he created like a solid 10 feet of separation. It's been really interesting to see how that combination of his athleticism and creativity has made him one of their better fourth quarter players. And his point per game average in fourth quarters is right there with Tatum. But he's been more efficient. He's shooting 52% from the field and 40% from three in fourth quarters this year. But I wanted to talk about Boston's guards for a minute because they're the unsung heroes of this Celtics team. Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown get a lot of credit and they deserve it. But Boston is a ridiculously talented guard core. And during that big run, because like as you watch that game, right, James Hardin hits a three, puts them up 15 in like

mid third quarter. And the Celtics go on some ridiculous run. It was like 22 to 2 or something like that. And for the most part, it was their guards that did the work. That trio of Marcus Smart, Derek White, and Malcolm Brogden, that's as good a guard core, at least in the top three that you'll find. And where else around the league. All three of those guys are up over a point per possession in pick and roll this year, specifically Marcus Smart and Derek White have been amazing in pick and roll this year. So they can be excellent creating that initial advantage to get Boston into their driving kick. I really thought this game swung on perimeter defense. Boston's guards getting dribble penetration while on the other end containing Tyreys Maxie

and James Hardin making them take tough shots because defenders, did not have to help because they were not giving straight line drives. Defenders don't have to help unless you get dusted. And so that perimeter defense dynamic, I always compared to like offensive line, defensive line dynamic in football. That push or pull on either side is going to have a lot to do with how tough your job is elsewhere on the floor. And if you're constantly in rotation because you're getting beat off the dribble,

it's going to be really hard to play defense. But if the guy who's guarding the ball is keeping him in front, you don't have to help. now all of a sudden things get way more difficult for the offense. They had a huge impact on Boston's comeback before the Jays ended up closing the deal there in the fourth quarter. I've had a lot of Celtics fans tell me this year, when will you trust Boston's ability to close games? And I wanted to answer that a little bit here. To be clear, I do trust them a lot more than last year. You could see that based on the way they've played.

They've demonstrated better late game execution than they did. last year. Last year, the Celtics were one of the worst clutch teams in the league. They were 13 and 22 when a game was within five with less than five minutes left. This year, they're 20 and 8. So they've been much, much better, to be clear. But you guys know the drill, I've always valued the postseason more. And I just, you know, especially when I'm comparing them to other teams at the top of the league, like Milwaukee has demonstrated that on that stage, whereas Boston struggled with that a little bit last year. And here's the thing. The Celtics are 20,

and 20 and 8 in clutch situations this year. That's second best in the league. Guess who's first? The Milwaukee Bucks. They're 23 and 6 in games that evolved clutch situations. So I feel better about Boston. They've had a damn good season. But before the season, I picked Milwaukee to win the Eastern Conference by a hair.

If you look at this season in totality and the way that both teams have played, do you think that there's been enough from both teams, bad bucks, good Celtics, for me to swap them? I don't think so. I have not seen enough from either team, good or bad, to justify switching my preseason pick. That does not mean that I don't think the Celtics can win. I absolutely think they can win.

I think they have a great chance. I did championship tiers again last week for our Snapchat show. Yes, we actually have a Snapchat show as well. It goes once a week that's under hoops tonight. And I only had two teams on my top tier. The Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks. not Denver, not Philly, no one else, just those two. So I think Boston has a damn good chance to win the title.

But only one of the 30 NBA teams gets to win. And I think that Milwaukee has shown just a little bit more in terms of my ability to trust them on that stage. And I believe they have the best player. So again, it's not a slight at Boston fans. It's just I haven't seen enough bad Milwaukee to make a flip in that particular pick. One final note on the Philly side of things, I continue to be super impressed by Joel Embed,

specifically with the fight that he has as things start to go poorly for him. I mean, the wheels were really coming off last night, and he fought like hell to get the Sixers a chance to win that game. At the end of this game, he made every single offensive play. Bullying, I'll offer it on the baseline to get two free throws. It's kind of inevitable when he puts his head down like that that he's going to get a bucket or a foul. He had a nasty step back two on the left elbow over a double team. I've always talked about like Joel Embed is almost better off shooting over double teams than he is passing over double teams. And he did struggle quite a bit with double teams in this game again.

And then that classic little free throw line jumper that he gets off those James Harden pick and rolls, he made one of those at the end of the game too. They need a massive block defensively at the room. Remember, that was the big impact that he had in that Memphis game. When he hits the jets, he's just an absolute force of nature. And his season is being overshadowed by Janice and Nicola Yokic a bit, but he's every bit as good as those guys. It was fun to watch.

And to be honest, if he plays like that, the Sixers have a real chance to win it all. All right, before we get out of here, Nuggets Grizzlies, just really quickly. The Grizzlies finally got a signature winner, at least for the first time in a while. They beat the hell out of the Nuggets yesterday, 112 to 94. Although the Nuggets have been on a road trip for a little while. There were a couple of specific factors that really swung this game, in my opinion.

Xavier Tillman did an actually. excellent job in isolation defense or one-on-one defense with Nicoliochch. Got a big, strong body, low center of gravity, place, physical. A couple of specific things that he did really well. First of all, navigating ball screens. So one of the main things that Denver will do in their early offense before they run their sets is a lot of times they'll just have Nicolaiyokich if he gets a rebound and everyone runs the floor, Yokic will just bring the ball up the floor and then just come off of a guard screen or maybe even two with the intent on just getting a switch because big guys typically struggle to navigate those screens because they're just big bodies they're easy targets

and you can get a lot of switches that way and then yokch has just been absolutely barbecuing switches and post-ups all season long but zavier tilman was just navigating those and not giving up the switch then a lot of times yokch will default to turning his back to the basket at that point and then he will try to post up whoever the center is but he just wasn't giving ground and because he wasn't giving ground, the Grizzlies did not have to dig as much off ball. It's a very similar concept to what we were talking about, that driving kick stuff with the Boston Guards. When you don't have to bail out to help a guy and you can kind of stay in that in-between zone where you're ready to help, but you're also back with the shooter, it just makes it so that those kickout opportunities

and Yokic was still making those kickouts. But now you have a fighting chance to rotate. And so now those open shots are now less open. And so now Contavius Caldwell Pope who's been dead eye all season is missing these shots because they're not great looks, they're just okay looks. And then as a result, Denver couldn't set their defense because they couldn't score and Memphis killed them in transition. In this game, according to Synergy, Denver was outscored in transition 32 to 14. Denver starters shot just 36% from the field. So big shout out to Xavier Tillman. I thought he I thought I did it again. It's, is Yokic has even solved?

No, gives Yokic a seven-gamer against Tillman. I'm sure he'd figure it out. But in a one-game sample size, when the Grizzlies really needed to win, I thought Xavier did a really nice job. Memphis also did the things they usually do. They dominated points in the pain. I think it was 60 to 42, and then they out-rebounded their opponent. But most importantly, and this is the key detail,

when you win big, you don't have to play the slow-down half, court execution game in the fourth quarter. Memphis has been a god-awful fourth-quarter team this year. They're getting outscored by seven points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter, which is third worst in the entire NBA. What's a great way to avoid that situation? Beat the hell out of your opponent. And, you know, that's what they did. And this is where I keep coming back every time Grizzlies fans will be like, hey, well, if you don't think they have the amount of offensive of skill, what's their chance? What's their fighting chance to win?

I keep telling you, just like the 2020 Lakers and the 2021 bucks. Now, they had better players. They had LeBron and Janus. They had Anthony Davis and everyone else who played for the bucks. But both of those teams struggled with half-court offense in the regular season because of a general lack of perimeter shooting, both of them. But they leaned on their defense to get transition opportunities throughout their postseason runs, and it was not a problem.

problem. A great way for Memphis to mitigate their half court offense problems is to be a better defensive team than they are. And they've been a good defensive team in the aggregate of the regular season, but they've struggled, especially in late game situations. If they can solve their defense in those situations, get better at hiding John Morant, get better at springing those transition opportunities. They do have a fighting chance. I just think at this point it's a very, very small fighting chance. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I'll see you guys next time. The volume.

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

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