The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LeBron & Lakers win 4th straight, Kevin Durant goes off, Nuggets West Favorites?

Episode Date: January 7, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James and the Lakers winning their 4th straight game, Nikola Jokic improving his MVP case by taking down the Cleveland Cavaliers, Kevin Durant scoring 33 points to beat th...e New Orleans Pelicans and much more. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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.
Starting point is 00:00:23 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.
Starting point is 00:00:42 Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Kear Games.
Starting point is 00:01:10 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're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to. Listen and learn the hard way on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. The volume. It's Hoops Tonight presented by Fandual. The NBA season is kicking into gear and there's no better place to get in on the action than with Fandul.
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Starting point is 00:03:38 Congrats on making it to the weekend. Although I'm technically recording this late in the night on Friday. We had a jam-packed, highly entertaining NBA slate tonight, and I caught bits and pieces of eight different games tonight. So we're going to be touching on all of them. That's going to be Hawks-Lakers, Cavs Nuggets, Nets, Pelicans, Knicks, Raptors, Hornets, Bucks, Sixers, Bulls, Blazers, and Heat Suns. So a lot we're going to get into, just going to go rapid fire through all those games.
Starting point is 00:04:08 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't get back over to YouTube to finish, remember you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. And last but not least, January is going to be a jam-packed sports month. Obviously, we got the college football national championship game right around the corner.
Starting point is 00:04:33 The NFL playoffs are right around the corner. And then college basketball and the NBA are heating up as we head towards the tournament and the NBA playoffs, which I love so much. What does that mean? That means lots of good games for us to watch. Or better yet, how about we go to some of these games? And where's the best place to get tickets? I want you guys to check out Game Time.
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Starting point is 00:05:25 Download the GameTime app, create an account, and redeem code hoops for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and enter code hoops. That's H-O-O-P-S for $20 off. Download game time today. last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Starting point is 00:05:45 So the Lakers win again against the Hawks, 130 to 114. I believe that's their fourth consecutive win. Atlanta looked like they were just about ready to quit in the first half of this game. We'll get to them here in just a second. Then the Lakers kind of came out in that third quarter didn't play a whole lot of defense.
Starting point is 00:06:01 Atlanta kind of got back into it. I think they got as close as 10, but they were never truly threatened. Thomas Bryant was a monster again, 19 points and 13 rebounds. I wanted to shout out Dennis Schroeder, Patrick Beverly, and Russell Westbrook, because we talked about them briefly in our last show, but the job that those three are doing on the perimeter is massively alleviating the concerns
Starting point is 00:06:21 of losing Anthony Davis as a rim protector. All three of them, but I wanted to shout out specifically Russ tonight, who had one of his best games as a Laker in this particular game, just violently chasing over the top of screens and bothering guys like Trey Young and Boyan Bogdanovich and Dejante Boggner. Dunn-Bogne-Bondonovitch and Dejante Murray as they were coming over the top of these screens. Again, this is a steady pick-and-roll offense that Atlanta runs, and these guys love to feel comfortable in that mid-range. And you kind of saw the feel of that game. Early on,
Starting point is 00:06:51 first few possessions, Dejante Murray was comfortable coming off and he was hitting those shots. Then they got a little bit better with that back pressure, and they started to force some misses. All three of those guys also hit massive shots on the other end of the floor from three. So big-time game from the Lakers back court. Kendrick Nunn used the Trey Young. assignment to finally break out of his slump. He had a season high 23. And then LeBron was great again, 25, 7, and 10. You know, we all have our basketball philosophies, like our core basketball philosophies. And those of you guys who have been listening to the show for a long time have heard me kind of break down my specific philosophies. And one of the ones that I feel very passionately
Starting point is 00:07:29 about is slotting. You know, if you ask me, like, how is it that this Lakers supporting cast that is so undermanned, particularly on the wing? And then we find out that Lonnie Walker, is out for at least two weeks. And we find out that Austin Reeves is out for at least two weeks. And Troy Brown Jr. just had a quad strain. He'll probably be out for a little while. And they're still winning. And the reason why is because of what LeBron James brings to the table as a superstar.
Starting point is 00:07:53 Obviously in other settings, like you catch the heat in a game without LeBron and AD, not bringing their best effort, you get a win. This Atlanta Hawks team kind of has the vibe of a quitting basketball team. So it buys you a little extra margin for error there. But over the course of this stretch without Anthony Davis, they're seven and five, and they have some impressive wins, including beating that Denver Nuggets team that is so incredibly good. And so what I wanted to drive home here is that point about slotting. When you have a superstar, a true superstar like LeBron James, he removes so many responsibilities
Starting point is 00:08:25 from the table by generating quality shots, and then the stuff he does on the defensive end of the floor, particularly grabbing contested rebounds, which is something LeBron has been fantastic at over the course of this season or just general backline help. When you take all that stuff off the table, that creates small, achievable roles, that even limited players that aren't as good as other role players around the league, can thrive and succeed in those roles. And the Lakers have two of those guys between LeBron James and Anthony Davis. You're seeing the benefits of slotting right here with one superstar.
Starting point is 00:09:00 You can imagine what it looks like when LeBron and AD are together playing at that level. I know we haven't seen a lot of it over the last two years, but in the two years before that, we did see it, and you saw the way that that trickled down the roster to achievable roles for role players. This is why I've been hammering home the idea of the Lakers trying to go after a legit tall wing, like a Kyle Kuzma or a boy on Big Donovich, because that even further slots some of the role players into even smaller roles. And you're seeing right now, I mean, the Lakers are, guys, this is insane. The Lakers are now two games back. of the six seat. Two games back from being out of the playing. Two. That's how good of a position
Starting point is 00:09:42 they're in despite the horrific start to the season. I truly believe that with LeBron playing at this level and with Anthony Davis coming back and hopefully getting back to the level he was at before, that this team is one legit move away, one legit wing, away from being a legit contender in the Western conference. Again, I would say that the only do in the league that is certainly better than LeBron James and Anthony Davis in terms of consistency and availability is Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. And I would argue when LeBron and AD are available, they're actually better than those guys. That's the advantage the Lakers have over the rest of the league. Their big disadvantage is the supporting players, particularly on the wing. When you actually
Starting point is 00:10:22 look at the roster, because of Thomas Bryant coming out as such a viable weapon for the Lakers, they're great at center, they're great at the power forward with LeBron's minutes, and they're pretty solid in the back court because of how well Dennis Schroeder's playing. Patrick Beverly is starting to hit shot. So his defensive presence is starting to be more noticeable. And then Austin Reeves and Lonnie Walker, those are two decent shooting guards in this league. So the area of weakness is the wing. That's the one spot on the roster that desperately needs attention. And if they address that, suddenly this is a well-rounded basketball team that will have potentially the two best players on the floor in most playoff series against everybody but a handful of teams
Starting point is 00:11:03 around the league. There's real reason for optimism there. And then lastly on the Hawks, you know, we've been talking, there's been a theme of the show over the last couple of weeks. You either fight for your season or you don't. And Atlanta looks like a team that's not fighting for their season. I would not be surprised if we hear about Nick McMillan, either stepping down or being fired in the next couple of days. They need a new voice in the locker. And they're not even coming out with an intensity like they believe they can win games. All right, moving on to Cleveland, Denver. We're going to start to kind of move a little quicker here. Denver wins 121 to 108. Donovan Mitchell missed this game. Yokic finished with 28, 15, and 10.
Starting point is 00:11:39 He's averaging 29, 12, and 10 in his last 15 games. Denver is playing very much like the best team in the league right now. They're 12 and 3 in their last 15 games. They completely embarrassed the Clippers last night. Like one of the most embarrassing beatdowns I can remember seeing from a real marquee matchup of two, you know, heavyweights in any conference. At one point, the Nuggets were beating the Clippers 84 to 41. And one note on the clippers, they lost again tonight to Minnesota. Kauai and Paul George left the game at halftime in that Denver game and then skipped the back end of the back-to-back against Minnesota tonight. Those guys are just never available.
Starting point is 00:12:15 I don't even know what's a make of it. It makes them extremely difficult to evaluate, which is precisely why I dropped the clippers off of my top tier of contenders. Denver's racking up some impressive wins. Just in the last 10 games, they've beat the calves, the clippers, the Celtics, The heat, the kings, the suns, the blazers, and the grizzlies. That's all super impressive wins. I don't necessarily trust their defense enough.
Starting point is 00:12:38 I think there's still 22nd in defense or something like that. I don't trust their defense enough to put them in the top tier of contenders, but I'd have them at the top of that second tier right below that top tier of contenders. All right, moving on to Brooklyn and the New Orleans Pelicans. This was a super fun game. I watched most of this one. The Pelicans were without Zion and Brandon Ingram, but they really battled in this game.
Starting point is 00:13:01 And both KD and Kairi had uncharacteristic bad shooting nights on pretty high shot quality. Like they were missing some easy looks. You know, KD. I think, started 0 for 5. And four of his first five shots that he missed were pretty damn good looks that you are accustomed to seeing KD knocked down. So between the competing Pelicans at home and KD and Kyrie kind of having a rough night, you ended up having a close game. Najee Marshall was really good in this game, kind of stepping into a more aggressive role. He had 23 points.
Starting point is 00:13:28 you know, with what I do for a living, like I'm always watching these games, and I'm watching them on a clip-by-clip basis, and I'm really diving in to try to see specifics about like how one guy does chasing over screens or how one guy does attacking closeouts or how one big does pick and roll coverage. I'm always trying to evaluate players, and Najee Marshall's one of those guys all season when I've watched the Pelicans, where I've always felt like he's had a little bit more in his dribble package than what he's needed to do with the Pelicans on a game-by-game basis. You know, we have roles that stack up on a basketball court. And when you're playing for a team like the Pelicans, and it's like Brandon Ingram's out
Starting point is 00:14:07 there, and Zion Williamson's out there, and C.J. McCollum's out there. And Jose Alvarado's out there. Like, they have a lot of ball handling. And so you're not going to get a lot of on-ball touches if you're in a supporting role on that team. But a lot of guys in the NBA slot into roles like that, despite having skill sets that go above and beyond. And one of the things I noticed I actually tweeted out a clip the other day from a different Pelicans game
Starting point is 00:14:30 where Najee Marshall hit Dylan Brooks with a double crossover and like buckled him over at a random possession at the top of the key just to beat some ball pressure. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, whoa, that's a highly advanced dribble move from a guy that we think of as just kind of like a dirty work role player on the wing. And you saw tonight what it looks like when you have an opportunity to fill in in a more aggressive role. Brandon Ingram's out. Zion's out. You need somebody that's going to be more aggressive. and Najee Marshall stepped right up into that role. In the second half, though, the Nets really just locked in on defense.
Starting point is 00:15:03 They held the Pelicans at just 38 points. And then Kyrie, after a rough shooting night, made a bunch of big plays in the fourth quarter, including hitting the dagger on a swing pass from KD at the top of the key. And the Nets are back on track. They are now 17 and 2 in their last 19 games. All right, moving on to the Knicks and the Raptors. The Nicks win 112 to 108.
Starting point is 00:15:23 Julius Randall came out guns blazing from three in the first quarter of this game. off a bit, but he finished with 32 and 11. Toronto had several stretches where they sped the game up and got out in transition and got it close. They had a 19 to 3 fast break point advantage. You can kind of see as over the season we start to really familiarize ourselves with these teams. There's a consistent way that each team likes to win, and then there's a consistent weakness that most of these teams have. And for Toronto, it's always when they can get up and down, they can thrive, but when they get trapped in the half court, they can really struggle to score. And that's what happened. Every single they got the game close, the Knicks would strangle the pace again, keep them in the half court,
Starting point is 00:16:00 and close the deal. The Knicks have won four straight. I cursed them, unfortunately, during their eight-game winning streak, right at the end, I did back-to-back deep-dive videos on them, and then they immediately lost five straight. But so, but then they've won four straight since. So it's been this weird stretch where they won eight in a row, then they lost five in a row, then they won four in a row, complete roller coaster. But still, like I said, in our deep-dive breakdowns, it's the good teams that give them trouble. They're 15 and 5 against below 500 teams and 7 and 13 against teams that are 500 or better. At the end of the day, they just don't have the top tier shot creators to consistently score in the half court against the best teams in the league.
Starting point is 00:16:40 Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the apps. athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win.
Starting point is 00:17:11 A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became. bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite
Starting point is 00:17:34 athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart
Starting point is 00:18:03 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the look
Starting point is 00:18:25 I'm Sam Jett. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but yeah, yeah, literally. But just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack.
Starting point is 00:18:49 So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me,
Starting point is 00:19:02 it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, moving on to Charlotte, Milwaukee. Charlotte came in and hung 51 points on the bucks in the first quarter and just completely blew them out in their own building in Milwaukee. Terry Rozier, La Mella Ball, and PJ Washington combined for 18 made threes and 86 points. And all I have to say about this game, because I didn't see much of it, is this just happens sometimes.
Starting point is 00:19:33 You know, I've been watching the NBA for a long time, and one of the things that I've consistently seen over the years is right around from mid-December to the All-Star break, which I believe is mid-February. But during that two-month period, there's this heavy malaise that kind of sets in. across the league because that initial excitement of the first month of basketball passes, you know, during that first month, everyone's playing hard every night because everyone thinks they're going to make a deep playoff run and everyone's so excited. But then you get to the point where you've played 20, 30 games and everyone just kind of falls into that funk. And you start to see some truly bizarre outcomes. And, you know, in the modern NBA, I remember at the beginning of the season when I called it an unforgiving league, like Terry Rozier and LaMella Ball are two really skilled guards. And so if you
Starting point is 00:20:22 come into a game and you don't bring it defensively and they get going from three, like you can get your butt kicked. And that's what happened. I mean, the Bucks basically had everyone in their rotation available except for Chris Middleton. They had won three of their last four games. Yannis was averaging 39 and 15 in his last eight games and he just had nine points tonight. So again, don't try to make any sense of it. We'll see a half dozen more games like this before the trade deadline where you're like, what in the world? The Detroit Pistons went into golden state and beat the Warriors? You know, you're going to see stuff. stuff like that just nonstop over the course of the next month or a month and a half or so
Starting point is 00:20:57 until we get to the to the all-star break. So for the bucks, you just got to kind of flush it away and move on. All right, Bulls, Sixers. How about the Bulls, man? 126 to 116 in Philly over the Sixers, although they did not have Joel Embed. Zach Levine was awesome in this game, 11 for 13 from three, finished with 41. The Bulls have now won seven out of ten games. Some impressive wins in that stretch. They beat the heat. They beat the Knicks back when they were red hot. They beat the Milwaukee Bucks in that crazy comeback game. They beat the Nets to bust their 12-game winning streak, and now they beat the Sixers. They're now just this recent run to save their season, so to speak,
Starting point is 00:21:33 has put them just three and a half games out of the six-seed, so not entirely lost. The one guy I wanted to specifically shout out here was Patrick Williams. He had 18 against an idea 22, two nights ago in Brooklyn. He's made at least two threes and four of the last five games for the Bulls. He kind of brings that three-and-d element that they so desperately, need because this is a team that doesn't have a lot of shooting and that their stars don't really like to play defense. And so having a guy that's kind of thriving in that role is so vitally important to them. But the big thing that I've noticed in the last few games and something that I've been
Starting point is 00:22:04 keeping my eye on with Patrick Williams ever since this summer is the stuff that he's able to do off the dribble. And again, it's not, you know, high level creation. It's, it's all low volume. But this is a guy that has clearly put in a lot of time over the offseason to build out his ball handling and shooting. And you could see it. I noticed it a lot in his summer workouts in some of the videos he was sharing. There's real fluidity in his ability to dribble the basketball, which only comes through relentless hard work. So it's cool to see him have a couple of big scoring games. Again, we'll see if any of this last for Chicago. Nothing is super encouraging. Like, they're still 22nd in defense over this 10-game stretch. So they're basically just outscoring teams. Their fourth
Starting point is 00:22:45 in offense. And their stars are super hot, especially with their jump shots. So, you know, I don't want to rain on the parade, but obviously they're going to need to defend better to have any chance of having consistent success. But here's the glass-a-full way of looking at it. Winning games leads to buy-in, and you've won seven out of ten. When you guys have buy-in, guys get committed to all of the details, because that's part of what buy-in entails, is doing what the coaching staff asks you to do. And when you have buy-in and then you have commitment to details, that's when the defense could follow. and if the defense follows with the way they're scoring the ball, they could really go on a run.
Starting point is 00:23:23 All right, Portland, Indiana. The Pacers won 108 to 99. This was tied at 99 late. And then Aaron Neesmith broke the tie. And then Buddy Heel picked off Anthony Simons for a pick six that put him up four. And then Tyrese Halliburton hit his step back three that was basically the dagger. The Pacers closed this game on a 9-0 run. What I wanted to focus on with the Pacers is their four-guard lineups.
Starting point is 00:23:42 So tonight they closed with Halliburton, healed, Andrew Nebhardt, Miles Turner, and Aaron Neesmith. against the Sixers, they went with a similar lineup, but they swapped out Kneesmith for Ben Matherin. But they've been doing a lot, and Neesmith's a little bit bigger. He's like 6'5, but they've been doing a lot of this over the course the last few weeks where it's like four guards in Miles Turner. And it's fun to watch because they have tons and tons of speed
Starting point is 00:24:05 and they're competing on defense. So they're getting up into ball handlers and pressuring, switching a lot of screens, but at the same time flying around in rotation with all the foot speed they have. And then they have Miles Turner protecting the rim. and then on the other end of the floor, it's so much ball handling and shooting with the four guards. And then Miles Turner is a guy that can knock down shots
Starting point is 00:24:24 and make plays off the dribble. So they just have a really unselfish, you know, move the ball around, that extra drive-and-kick, that extra pass to get high-quality shots. They're honestly really, really fun to watch. And Pacers fans should be very excited. I wanted to go through some lineup data with you guys really quick. So when they have Buddy Healed, Ben Matherin,
Starting point is 00:24:45 excuse me, Buddy Heald, Tyrese Halliburton, Andrew Nemhard, Miles Turner, and Aaron Neesmith. That lineup they closed with tonight. Not great so far this season, minus 10 net and 413 possessions, but they went really well tonight. So we'll see how that skews the data a little bit. And then in the Sixers game, they closed with Matherin. That lineup, so Tyrus Halliburton, Buddy Heald, Andrew Nemhard, Ben Matherin, and Miles Turner. That group is plus 14 net in 208 possession. So the four-guard lineups, particularly with Ben Matherin, are really working.
Starting point is 00:25:20 And it's just a really fun to watch brand of basketball. They're becoming one of my favorite league pass teams. All right. Lastly, before we get out of here, Miami Phoenix. Miami wins 104 to 96. This was my bet of the week for Fanduel, for those of guys who listen on the podcast feed where you see the Fandual ads. Miami was favored by one and a half, but they had just lost a disappointing game to the Lakers
Starting point is 00:25:40 and the Sons really can't score without Devin Booker. so I had a feeling that he would win, which they did. The Suns, this stuff with them not being able to score without Booker is pretty insane. This was their third straight game where they failed to score 100 points. They're averaging just 104.5 points in their last six games, which is dead last in the NBA. And their schedule doesn't get any easier from here. This is crazy. Check out, check this out.
Starting point is 00:26:07 Next eight games. Caves, Warriors, Nuggets. The Timberwolves is the easiest game in this stretch, and the Timberwolves of One three games in a row because they're starting to defend like crazy and Anthony Edwards is getting going. Then they play the Grizzlies. Then they play the Brooklyn Nets. Then they play that Pacers team we just talked about. Then they play the Memphis Grizzlies again. So, you know, they're already on a, what's that, a five game losing streak. A 13 game losing streak is legitimately on the table here. Like they're going to be underdogs in all eight of those games. Now, I expect them
Starting point is 00:26:37 to win one or two of them, but things are looking really bleak for Phoenix. And I expect them to consider completely blowing things up at the deadline. I mean, they've got some stuff to really cling to. Like, I really like Devin Booker. You know, Mikhail Bridges is a great foundational piece. I like Cam Johnson a lot. DeAndreighton needs to go because he doesn't even like being there. And their defense as a team has fallen off a cliff as well. And obviously, DeAndreaten hasn't been good enough to carry that. So I would expect potentially them to consider being super aggressive with like Chris Paul and DeAndreighton and, you know, Jay Crowder and just try to get back as much as they can to just kind of shuffle the deck
Starting point is 00:27:16 and reset the culture in that locker room. The Miami Heat are now nine and four in their last 13 games. They're now just one game back of sixth in the east to get out of the playing. And Bamadabio was awesome again tonight, 21 and 11. Eight of those 21 points were on postups or ISOs. Like we talked about in our last show, he's on a 10-game stretch where he's averaging about five additional points per game in post-ups and ISOs. So hit that mark again tonight with eight. It's really cool, honestly, as a basketball fan, to see Bam starting to get his confidence as a score because it's really a thing that builds momentum. He's always had the talent.
Starting point is 00:27:52 Now that you're seeing the confidence come with it, he's starting to hunt his shot more. And now he's taking and making higher difficulty shots, which just continues to feed that confidence. And again, having Bam as that sort of legit high volume score is the thing that could be the ultimate ceiling razor for the Miami Heat. Wow. Okay, that was intense. That was fun. But that's all I have for tonight. Here's the plan. We're taking the rest of the weekend off. And next week's going to be really interesting. We're only going to take a break from instant reactions or game breakdowns. And we're going to do one game breakdown next week. That's going to be on Thursday night. I can't remember exactly what the matchup is off the top of my head. But there's a big time nationally televised game on Thursday that will break down. But the rest of the week, we're going to do our midseason grades. So my plan for that is I'm going to try to do. We'll see how it works out because I'm actually leaving for my first ski trip on Friday of next week. But we're going to do, I think we're going to do four or five videos and we're going to hit on four or five teams per video. But we're basically going to do
Starting point is 00:28:56 deep dives into each of those teams as basically just like a, you know, establishing the state of the pistons or the state of the warriors, the state of the Lakers. And we're going to just kind of recap the first half of their season for each of those teams. So it's going to be a little bit more of a zoom out week. next week before we get back into our groove the following week. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys' support, and I will see you on Monday. The Volume. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy,
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Starting point is 00:30:30 Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hardweight with your favorite therapist and host Kear 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 and learn the hard way on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
Starting point is 00:31:07 This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed human.

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