The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight- LeBron's monster game lifts Lakers over Hawks + Jordan Poole, Klay Thompson lead Warriors to 4th straight win vs. Trail Blazers

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James' 47-point explosion on his 38th birthday to lift the Los Angeles Lakers to a 130-121 win over Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks. Then, Jason Timpf reacts to the Golden State Warriors beating Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers 118-112. He discusses how Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole have led the Warriors to 4 straight wins and whether they will continue their winning ways without Steph Curry. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

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.

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. A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok's podcast network on TikTok. The volume. It's Hoops Tonight, presented by Fanduel. 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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Dial 1-8778-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope N-Y to 467-369 in New York. Call 1-800-5-22-4-7-0 in Wyoming or visit www.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight presented by FanDuel here at the volume. Happy Saturday, everybody. Congrats on making it to the weekend. Today we're going to be shouting out Mr. LeBron James. He won his 38th birthday, put up a 47, 10, and 9 in his 20th season to win a game on the road against the Atlanta Hawks. We're going to do two videos today, this one, and then we're also going to do a video breaking down the Warriors winning their fourth consecutive game without step.

We were supposed to have today off, and then Monday we got big plans. We're going to be covering Clippers Celtics. We're going to be covering Celtics Nuggets, that MVP matchup between Tatum and Yokic, a bunch of other big games from this weekend. we're going to be getting to all that on Monday. Like I said, we were supposed to have today off, but Lakers and Warriors are two biggest fan bases, and they're both riding high off of a couple of big wins. So we wanted to touch on them today.

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 last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these episodes and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish.

You can find them wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight. All right, so LeBron, 47, 10, and 9 on the road to beat the Hawks. 18 for 27 shooting. Once again, they were plus 12 with him on the floor, minus 3 with him off. Since returning from the groin injury, in 18 games,

LeBron is averaging 31, 8, and 7, and the Lakers are plus 81 when he's on the floor, minus 86 when he's off. That is MVP level on-off production. In the nine games since Anthony Davis went down counting the Nuggets game, which he missed the majority of, they are four and five. But think about all of the roster limitations of this Lakers roster. There literally is not a guy on the team that can dribble with his head up that's at least six foot six, not named LeBron James. That's the type of roster limitations they're dealing with.

And they are nearly 500 since Anthony Davis went down. In that nine-game span, the Lakers are plus 44 with LeBron on the floor and minus 63 with him off. In that nine-game span, he's averaging 34 points per game on 58% shooting. This is all-time great special stuff that we're seeing from an all-time great player. And the degree of difficulty is completely off the charts. Teams are not guarding the spot-up shooters. They're packing the paint, sending multiple bodies at him. go look up the highlights from that Atlanta Hawks game and look at his shot profile in that fourth quarter.

It's long threes off the dribble that are contested. It's dunking in traffic. It's and one layups around the rim when he's surrounded by three defensive players. He hit multiple difficult drifting fadeaways along the baseline. Everything is an extremely high degree of difficulty right now. You know, forget about the highlights for a second. just winning his minutes the way he has been with this roster has been incredible. Like I said, not a single player on the roster is over 6'5 that can dribble.

That's not named LeBron because of the Anthony Davis injury. This is truly special stuff we're seeing. At a minimum, LeBron is the second best player of all time. Some people think he's first. I don't. I have him second. He's very clearly still near the peak of his powers if he's not completely there. He's lost some stuff, but he's still contributing to winning at a very high level.

and he's pouring his heart and soul every single night in this stretch of that AD to try to win these basketball games. Meanwhile, his front office and his ownership group are sitting on their damn hands, despite having the tools to give him a better chance. They've had those tools since the offseason and they've neglected to use them with the excuse that it's not worth it. They don't think this guy who's literally the second best player of all time who's playing at a top five MVP level right now, they don't think he's worth it.

I tweeted out the other day that, like, it's getting sad because every single night, LeBron comes out and plays well, and every single night it gets more and more depressing to watch him flounder with the team that doesn't really have a real opportunity to compete. You know, it's shameful because, you know, what Rob Polinka and Jeannie Bus have done shepherding this final phase of LeBron James career is really a dark chapter in NBA history. And I know LeBron has made some bad suggestions to the front office during that time, but what is the front office's job? It is their job to be completely up to speed on what works in the modern NBA.

Those of you who follow this show, you know how much film I watch. All of you guys as fans watch a great deal of NBA basketball games. Do you guys feel like you have a pretty solid idea of what works in the modern NBA? What are the things we've seen? We talk about five out spacing, right? We talk about the value of switching defenses versus drop coverage. And we talk about the value of players between 6-6 and 6-9 that can dribble shoot and pass and defend a little bit.

And everyone in the league seems to see the value there and to be targeting those players. And Rob Polinka now two seasons in a row has completely neglected that position. It's gross levels of incompetence. And I don't care what LeBron suggests. The MBA GM's responsibility is to take in those bits of input and to make educated decisions based on his expertise with NBA personnel. And Rob Polinka has proven time and time again to be completely incompetent evaluating NBA personnel and building NBA rosters. Between that and Jeannie Bus's inability or unwillingness,

depending on whether it's the fact that she's poor compared to the other owners, or just unwilling to invest in this group, has left financial opportunities on the table, like letting Alex Crusoe go, refusing to make trades because of long-term money coming back, the fact that she might have to pay a luxury tax in the future. Again, it's a dark chapter in NBA history because this again is the second best player in NBA history

pouring his heart and soul out to try to carry this team while his leaders are not doing the same. He's doing everything he can to make it work and they are not doing everything they can. It's just sad. And so I hope he gets another chance before the end of his career to play for a good basketball team again. And honestly, if Robin Jeannie do leave him hanging

again this year. I hope LeBron makes them suffer the humiliation of him requesting a trade. And I hope Anthony Davis joins him. And for Lakers fans out there, and I know that's really kind of depressing to think about, but you're not going anywhere as long as these two are in control. And the only way things will change is if they get bad enough for even the yes men that are surrounding them to not have a leg to stand on. And I don't think Jeannie Bustle ever sell the team, and that will always handicap this franchise to some extent. But at the very least, there needs to be a change in the basketball operations department to find somebody that actually cares about getting to know what works in the modern NBA.

I feel like Rob Polinka looks at roster building from the standpoint of personality management. He's been more interested in catering to clutch sports in this partnership with clutch sports than finding basketball players that contribute to winning in the modern NBA. And that's the reality of that situation is there needs to, there might need to be an absolute catastrophe like LeBron James requesting the first trade of his career out of the Los Angeles Lakers. It might take that to see the change is necessary for the Lakers to have consistent success in the future because they will not have consistent,

a success in the future until they figure this out. And right now, Rob Polinka and Jeannie Bus are fumbling an era with one of the greatest athletes of all time for one of the greatest franchises of all time. It is an all-time fumbling of the bag. All right, I'm off my soapbox. Obviously, we're not going to dive too much into the Lakers from a team perspective because there's just not a lot to get into until Anthony Davis comes back or they make significant roster changes.

But I tip the cap to LeBron for at least trying to keep them afloat in the standings in the meantime. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care where you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clipper Taylor the 4th.

You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, the Clifford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, This is right what you need to be.

Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes.

Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of Ton Ton, and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to blow your mind on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The Golden State Warriors won again for the fourth consecutive time over a good Portland team at full strength behind Jordan Poole's big night. So we're going to be breaking that down in this video. Then we have one other video coming out today,

just a quick little shout out to LeBron James, who had, what, 47, 10, and 9 on his birthday in his 20th season is 38th birthday. So obviously a couple of our larger fan bases had some big moments. So we're going to do some quick videos today. Clippers Celtics was another big game that I wanted to get to, but we're going to do Celtics because they play Denver tomorrow night. So we're going to do that on Monday. So I'm just going to push that until Monday. So Monday we're going to cover Clipper Celtics, Nugget Celtics, and a bunch of the other teams around the league. As you guys can probably tell, we've been partitioning the shows out a little bit to target our specific fan bases.

So Lakers Warriors today, getting back to the rest of the league on Monday. 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. Then last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. So the Golden State Warriors beat Portland 118 to 112 at home. They jumped out to a huge lead in this game,

and then Portland kind of methodically worked their way back into the game and actually kind of took control. They were up 110 to 102 with less than five minutes left. But a bunch of warriors made big plays down the stretch. I thought one of the biggest plays was the one that started that run. At 110 to 102, Anthony Simons came over his screen and shot a pull-up jump shot, and Jordan Poole stripped him on the way up, which led to a turnover little semi-transition break,

and then Jordan Poole hit the Rondo fake, that fake behind the back to go up and make a layup. That got it to 110-10-10. Jonathan Caminga then got dunk on a backdoor cut to get it down to four-point lead. And then, you know, some high-level shot-making, which is going to be something we're going to talk about a lot here, because we're going to talk a lot about Jordan Poole today. But Jordan gets Dante Divenzo and kind of like a triple-thet, a triple threat situation on the right wing with his right foot as his pivot,

kind of does a little jab step to the left and then rises up and knocks down a three to get it back to one. But there's an angle, if you guys saw on the broadcast, the camera behind Jordan Pool, and it's kind of an interesting little skill set thing for young players to pay attention to as well. When defenders have to prepare to chase somebody over a screen, there's a lot of prep work there. You need to have good awareness of what's happening around you, the screens are coming from. Obviously, when the screen is coming, you need to be prepared to have

your hands ready to fight through the contact. There's a footwork, a big, long step you have to take over the top of the screen. There's a lot of prep work to fight over the top of screens. And so on this play, I can't remember who it was. It was either Dremont or Luni, but a warrior was coming up to set a screen on either side of Jordan Poole. And Josh Hart is looking around like this, trying to identify where the screen is coming from right as Jordan Poole is rising. up. And so that's why rejecting screens works really well because that guard is getting ready to fight over the top of that screen, and that's a great time to catch him off balance. Or in general, in a situation like that, rising up to shoot when the defender's getting ready to chase over the

top of the screen. Those are great ways to find little opportunities to either drive to the basket or to take pull-up jump shots. Jonathan Camiga gets another runout transition dunk to make it 11-1-10, and then Clay Thompson flying off of a dribble handoff on the right, wing just a high audacity pull up three to put them up 114 to 1.10. And then the final play of the game was a little go-screen action with Jordan Poole and Dante DiVincenzo. He comes up, fake setting the screen, slips out to the three-point line. Damian Lillard, not a great defensive player, doesn't stay attached to Dante Devencenzzo. Easy swing pass, knocks down the three. And from there, the game is basically over.

But there's a lot of defensive plays in that sequence, too. I talked about the Jordan Poole strip that triggered the beginning of the run. There was a play where Dante DiVinchenzo was applying back pressure on Damien Lillard in pick and roll, worked him across the floor, and Dame had to take a really difficult fade away, kind of near the left elbow that he ended up leaving short, really good defense from Dante Devencezo. We had another one of those, Draymond Green. Those of you guys who remember when we were talking about the Utah Jazz game, Draymond Green blowing up two-on-one pick-and-roll situations. Damian Lillard coming downhill. There's a guy, cutting out of the, I think it was Eubanks,

cutting out of the dunker spot there for a lob. Dremont just attacks the basketball forward, up on Dame, and blocks his lot pass. The third time in the last two games where Dremont Green just blows up a clear layup or dunk opportunity in a two-on-one situation with an outrageous defensive play. And then there at the end of the game, right before the Dante D'Evincenzo goes screen, Damien Liller trying to protect the basketball, exposes it for just a second,

it in a triple threat, Dante Divencenzzo just reaches over the top and pokes the ball away for a steal. You know, when Steph went down, it was obvious that they were going to need to defend at a really high level. And for the record, during this four-game winning streak, during the win streak, meaning literally have not lost in four games, they are 27th in offense. Think about that, winning every single one of those games while scoring at a rate that is at the bottom of the league. And that's to be expected. Steph Curry, I've called him on the show many times one of the best offensive engines in NBA history, if not the best offensive engine in NBA history. You can't replace that. That's out of your control. But if you're going to try to manufacture

wins without Steph, there's got to be something you can control, and the defensive end is a huge part of that. They are 27th in offense during this four-game winning streak, but they are first in defense. No one is allowing fewer points over their last four games than the Golden State Warriors. It's a lot of Draymond Green. We talked about him a lot. Jonathan Camingo, who's been a great wing defender. There are a bunch of guys are contributing as well. The other one I wanted to shout out, though, is Dante DiVincenzo.

Like to be able to throw him on Damian Lillard, one of the best offensive guards in the league, and have him do a really good job as a bench player filling in for an injured team. Super, super impressive stuff. But the guy we got a shout out tonight, or today I should say, is Jordan Poole. He's in eight games since Steph's injury, he's now averaging 29 points per game, 46% from the field, 30% from 3, and 88% from the line on 8.1 attempts per game. That's a 60% true shooting percentage. So this is a efficient 29 point per game scoring.

And then again, that 8.1 free throw attempts per game is super impressive. I talked about this a little bit the other night. But those free throws are such a great way to kind of give your defense an opportunity to get set. You're far more likely to get a stop out of a static free throw situation than you are in an open floor situation. He's playing some really, really good basketball. And for the season now, in pick and roll, he's only averaging 0.97 points per possession on 334 pick and rolls, which is only slightly above average. But he's having an outstanding ISO season.

When Jordan Poole shoots or passes out of ISO this year, the Warriors are averaging 1.13 points per possession, which is ninth in the entire league among players who have run at least 50 of them. That's super impressive stuff. And the driving force behind this is that Jordan is fast. Extremely fast. And that's what kind of makes him different and unique compared to Steph and Clay. because Clay's obviously second-grade-shooter ever. Not really much of a downhill threat,

but has a good mid-range game. He does a bunch of other things, and obviously we're going to talk about him in a minute because he also had a great game tonight. But Steph Curry gets to the rim a lot, but Steph Curry's rim presence is primarily a factor of the threat of his shot, excuse me, the threat of his shot, his quickness, he's got very quick feet,

and he can handle the basketball extremely well. He weaponizes those things to get to the rim. But what Steph is not is a lightning quick athlete in terms of straight-line speed. Steph is getting to the rim, but it's not like he's blazing past people at 100 miles an hour. That's where Jordan Poole brings a super unique dynamic to this offense. It gets a ton of straight-line drives just by beating people off the dribble. That engages help defenders, which makes high-quality kick-out opportunities for shooters. When Jordan Poole passes out of ISO, the Golden State Warriors average 1.33 points per possession,

which is second in the league among players who have done it at least 20 times this year, behind Joe L. Embed. That's a huge part of that 1.13 points per possession on ISO's in totality. And again, that quickness, that speed, that downhill linear speed, just brings a dynamic to this offense that the Warriors really haven't had. I mean, even Landre Barbosa, not so much. you got to go back to because Landra Barbosa was older when he was playing for the Warriors. You really got to go back to like Monta Ellis to find a player that was as fast downhill as Jordan Poole has been. And then lastly on Jordan Poole, he's got that classic audacity.

You know, you guys probably remember a play in crunch time of this game where there was a play in, I think it was in the Charlotte game where he tried like this nasty like fake spin behind the back dribble. that got all the way to the rim. And I think it was Mason Plumley that was guarding him, and he just completely buckled him. And he tried that exact same move in crunch time. Again, I think it was with less than a minute left in a two-point game, and dribbled it out of bounce.

It was a big mistake. And obviously, that's a big mistake. Probably reminds you a lot of Stefan Curry trying a behind-the-back pass to Clay Thompson in game seven of the 2016 finals. But only a psychopath would try something like that in a moment like. that. And obviously you saw the downside, the turnovers from Stefan with Jordan, but there's a ton of upside to having that level of audacity, to having the confidence to try things like that in those big situations. Because when things really slow down at the end of basketball games and

defenses lock in and they get in front of your actions and all the open stuff isn't there anymore, you need a guy who's crazy enough and confident enough and skilled enough to rise up and knock down tough shots. Like that jab step three against Josh Hart, the one that we talked about earlier where he was looking to navigate the screens, that shot is a difficult shot in a late game situation against a locked-in half-court defense. To win at the highest levels, you need guys who are confident enough to take it and skilled enough to knock it down. And Jordan Poole is one of those guys. He's still young. You guys know I've been critical of him sometimes this year for being a little too tunnel vision.

and defensively he's still a real mixed bag. But with Steph out, the only hope the Warriors had was if Draymond Green and Jordan Pool played like All-Stars, and both of them have done exactly that. And as a result, they've been, what, two games above 500 since the Steph injury? That's really impressive.

The last thing, Clay Thompson, 31 of his own points, that huge shot on the dribble handoff to put the Warriors up for, defended really great. There was a big play at the end of the game where Jeremy Grant tried to take him off the dribble towards the baseline and Clay Thompson just kind of pushed him and funneled him below the behind the backboard to where he couldn't do anything. That's kind of becoming a theme too with Clay Thompson is he's not quite the defensive player he was when he was younger, but he's still really good particularly against big power wings. He's very good at anticipating which direction that they're going to drive,

beating them to spots, riding their hips, and then he's deceptively strong and really difficult to push off of his spots defensively, and more often than not, he's cutting people off or moving them off of their driving lanes. Some really high-level basketball from Clay. Since December 2nd, 23 points per game on 53% true shooting. Last three games, 28 points per game, on 39% from 3, on 13 attempts per game. So it's got to be really encouraging for Warriors fans. After everything that happened to start the season, for them to be finding their identity as a team

that's really grinding out games on the defensive end of the floor without Steph Curry. And when Steph comes back and that offense takes off from there, they're going to go on a run. All right, guys. All right, guys, like I said, we're taking the rest of this weekend off and we will be back to our normal cadence on Monday.

All of you guys who are sick of the Lakers Warriors stuff, don't worry. We're going to get back into the rest of the league on Monday. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support, and I will see you guys then. 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, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with. Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media.

Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but the show. celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed human.