The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Nikola Jokic makes STATEMENT with big win over Shai Gilgeous-Alexander | Nuggets-Thunder reaction

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Jason breaks down the Denver Nuggets bouncing back with a big win over the Oklahoma City Thunder including Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray's chemistry, Russell Westbrook's shotmaking, and the adjustment they made after Jalen Williams left with an injury. Then he discusses the bright future of the Atlanta Hawks behind improving role players such as Dyson Daniels and Zaccharie Risacher, and why they don't need to trade Trae Young. Finally he addresses the Los Angeles Lakers’ ugly loss to the Brooklyn Nets, JJ Redick ripping his team, and why he's not worried about it long term because of Luka Doncic's shot making ability alongside LeBron James. Timeline 4:00 - Start 5:15 - Nuggets bounce back 22:45 - Hawks bright future 31:00 - Lakers loss to Nets (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.) #Volume #Herd Follow Jason Timpf on social: https://twitter.com/_JasonLT https://www.instagram.com/jtimpf15/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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C-O-S-B-B-Ball. Hi, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your week. I have a jam-pack show for you today. The Nuggets got revenge on the Thunder and a very interesting rematch. Very interesting defensive adjustment from Michael Malone

in the second half as the Nuggets get a big win there. After that, I want to talk a little bit about the Atlanta Hawks who have won four out of five, and specifically a couple of things that are really exciting about the bright future that they have, even if we all can agree that they have a certain ceiling this year. Then at the tail end of the show, I just want to briefly talk about the Lakers just so I can tell everyone to take a deep breath and relax because I'm not too worried about their disaster in Brooklyn last night. You guys know the joke before we get started.

Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave us a rating and a review on that front. Don't forget about our new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We're releasing content throughout the year. And then last but at least, keep dropping mailbag questions in.

to the YouTube comments. We are recording a mailbag tomorrow that is going to run on Thursday. So this is the last episode for you guys to get questions into the comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So again, I talked about how in the Sunday game, it was obviously a very strong statement for Shagildos Alexander for MVP and in general, a sign of some weaknesses that the Denver Nuggets had. But I listed at the end of the show a couple of things that the nuggets could do better to try to flip the script in last night's game. And I talked a lot about on defense, the issues that they had containing the ball. And the solution that I presented, not really a solution, but the strategy that I would

recommend was just bring Yokic up to the level. I thought those were his best looks. Just make sure he gets there early enough that She can't, like, split him off the dribble or anything like that. And prey on Shay's inability to, like, really, really pass well out of traps and double teams and things along those lines. I did talk about how they should unleash that zone look again in the second half just as a rhythm disruptor. But Mike Malone ended up going with something way more aggressive.

He started with the exact same strategy from the Sunday game in the first half, a mix of at the level coverages with Yokic and deeper coverages, deeper drop coverages with Yokic. Actually, my guess is that the actual game plan is for Yokic to go up to the level, but that there's like kind of an understanding between him and Mike Malone that when he needs a break, when he's tired, that he runs a deeper drop as basically an opportunity for him to rest while he's on the court. That's my guess as to how that keeps manifesting as a mix between the two coverages. The game had a very similar feel to the first game to start. Denver had a little lead early. Oklahoma City really controlled the middle portion of the game, but they weren't really

able to pull away. And then in that third quarter, Mike Malone pulls the zone card. Except for one little wrinkle, he said, if we're going to be a team that has a team that has to exist in rotation, like we've talked about a lot over the last couple of weeks, we might as well exist in rotation on our terms in a way that we can plan for. So what he did is he just had the top two guys in the zone just double team Shea, as soon as he crossed half court. Then they basically set up their backline with Yokic just sitting right under the rim and the two bottom guys in the zone coming up and playing passing lanes.

There's a lot that you can do playing passing lanes to prey on indecisiveness for the role player. So there's four on three, right? And when you make aggressive rotations, so like, let's say for instance, you double team Shay and he floats the ball over the top to, you know, whoever it is that's on the right wing, let's call it Aaron Wiggins, if Jamal Murray, who is, let's say on the bottom part of the zone where Alex Caruso is hiding in the corner, if he just sprints up and. guards Aaron Wiggins on the wing, then Aaron Wiggins can make a simple and easy swing pass to the corner,

and it's either a wide open three for Alex Crusoe, or you can drive the close out if you wants. But what the Nuggets were consistently doing in that zone is they were having those bottom guys like kind of half close out, but in the lane, in the passing lane. So that as Aaron Wiggins or whoever it was that would catch in that spot would look to read the floor, they'd have this kind of hesitancy because they're like,

I'm kind of open, but I'm not really open, and I'm sure that coach doesn't want me just shooting on the first pass out of the trap. But like, I'm also going to have to throw like a floating pass over the top to whoever it is that's in the corner because they're playing in the passing lane. And it just preyed on that indecisiveness and prayed on some of that lack of refined skill that you see from Oklahoma City's role players. And again, another important context here, Jalen Williams left the game with a hip strain. it ended up being the perfect strategy to really turn that game because they gave up 73 points in the first half. Like the Thunder defense eviscerated Denver again in the first half. But under the circumstances in that second half, with J. Dub being out, it made a lot of sense to basically force Shea to give up the basketball early in these possessions out by half court and then have a plan for how to rotate out of it. And by the way, the Thunder did get some buckets out of those sequences, but overall it worked really well. Oklahoma City

got 1.09 points per possession versus Denver's man-to-man looks. In 17 possessions in the second half against that double-teaming zone look, they allowed just 0.88 points per possession as they worked all the way back into a two-point lead heading into the fourth quarter. That's set up perfectly because in that middle portion of the game, OKC had led by as much as 12. That zone allowed them to kind of get back into a commanding position up by two. and then what happens in the fourth quarter if Shea Gilgis Alexander leaves the game

and J-dub's not in the game anymore. Well, now you have to throw out a bench look that doesn't have Shea or J-Dubb. All of a sudden, it's going to be a lot of these lesser role players, a lot of Cason-Wallis on the ball, a lot of Chet Holmgren taking tougher shots. It turned into a very limited offensive group for Oklahoma City and Denver just immediately blitzed them

to start the fourth quarter. They were up by double figures before Shea Gildes-Gildes-Alexander could get back. into the game. Lots of really impressive shot making from Denver in that run to start the fourth quarter. MPJ hit a tough movement three running to his left at the top of the key. Jamal Murray hit a tough off the dribble three on the left wing. Jalen Pickett confidently posting up and a really nice step-through move to get a bucket one-on-one. He had a step back three on the right wing in this stretch. Forget about just that run. The shot making for Denver all night long was amazing. They converted spot-up

possessions at 1.85 points per possession last night. It was 0.72 on Sunday. That's a giant chasm, more than twice as efficient. On catch and shoot looks, if you just refine it to catch and shoot jump shots, 0.91 points per shot on Sunday, 1.82 points per shot on Monday. That's double. Lots of key guys made shots. Westbrook, Peyton Watson, and Jalen Pickett combined to go 9 for 12 from 3. Watson and Westbrook in particular both hit multiple threes in the fourth quarters where OKC was basically daring them to shoot. I call these coverage beaters, right? Like if the coverage is, we're going to concede this.

If you don't show a willingness and ability to make that shot, then they're going to stay in that coverage and they beat that coverage consistently. Just Westbrook, one passaway, double teams on Yokic, skip passes in their ball screen action that ended up in Peyton Watson, his hands in the left corner. Those threes are way more important than even just the point value of that shot because they defeat a specific coverage. And Oklahoma City was never able to regain their footing in that fourth quarter, and Denver went on to win comfortably by 13 points. And this is the main reason why I haven't been able to quit the Denver Nuggets. Yokic is so damn good, and their ceiling on offense is outrageous.

That's the best defense in the league, and they hung 140 on them. Their defense is bad. Denver's defense is bad. They're down to 20th on the season. We talked earlier in a man-to-man half. They gave up 73 in the second game against Oklahoma City before that double-teaming zone. And again, it's important context that J-Dub was out of the game when they were able to shut them down in that second half. After last night, Denver is still just five and 13 this year, five wins and 13 losses against teams in the top 10 in point differential according to cleaning the glass. And I think that matters.

like who are the four other teams? Who's my inner circle of championship contenders? It's Denver, but it's the Lakers, it's the Thunder, it's the Cavs, and it's the Celtics. If you were to go to cleaning the glass and look at the teams with the best records against the teams in the top 10 in point differential, who do you think the top four are? It's the Cavs, the Thunder, the Celtics, and the Lakers. Like they have all year been consistently great against the top teams, and Denver has been terrible. Also, by the way, side note for Warriors fans, they rank sixth on that list in win percentage against teams in the top 10 in point differential.

That's a big part of why I have my eye on them as a team that could potentially join my inner circle of contenders before the end of the season. But these are major red flags. 20th in defense and can't beat good teams or not beating good teams often. There are not many teams in NBA history who have postseason success when they suck on defense and they struggle to beat the good teams. But the Nuggets have three things going for them. that keep them in the inner circle for me. One, you don't have to go any further than Nicola Yolkich. He's the best basketball player on Planet Earth.

He had 35, 18, and 8 last night. This is how insane this is. I was looking at his game log this morning, just like a list of all the games he's played this season. And I was like, I wonder where this game ranks among all of the games and all the individual performances he's had this year. I don't think it even registers in the top 10, probably not even in the top 15.

He has four 35 point triple doubles this year. countless 40-point games, a 50-point game. He had a 35, 18, and 8, and it's kind of just like a whatever Yokic game this season. And that's just the insane talent level and consistency that Yokic brings to the table. The second piece of it is continuity. The Jamal-Murie connection with Yokic is at such a high level of comfortability at this point. He dropped a smooth 34 last night. Everyone off of those two knows where to be a threat.

They know how to be a threat off of Yokic post-ups, but they also know how to be a threat off of the Yokich-Murray 2-Man. As much as I've talked about Denver's defense this year, they're the second best offense in the NBA ahead of even the Boston Celtics. So, like, it's important context that we bring into the picture that they are one of the truly elite offenses in this league. And the third piece of it, and this is where the real optimism comes from, I don't think this Nuggets team can be good defensively.

They don't have the personnel, but they can be better than they are. And there is a whole lot of, like, kind of reality. Zep plays here. They're an older veteran team that's been playing together forever and that doesn't really care about the regular season. Think about how many times Michael Porter Jr., Jamal Murray, and Nicole

Yokich have gone through the 82 game regular season together, just as a unit themselves. And they know all their opponents really well. They're not going to bring a level of night-to-night commitment that other teams around the league break. So like there's a certain amount of scalability for them in the postseason, especially when we've seen.

We have seen Yokic, Gordon, Murray, Jamal, an athletic guard play good defense and be able to get stops in the postseason. Now, they're older and a little slower now, so I don't think they'll be able to get to the level they were in 2023. But they've been, at times this year, even better offensively than they were in 2020. Yokic said last night, I'm playing the best basketball of my career, right? So, like, if they can scale up defensively and they're one of the top tier offenses in the NBA, there's absolutely a version of this where it can all come together. You can kind of imagine this scenario, right? They lock in in April.

They defend at basically an average level. Yokich Murray and Michael Porter Jr. have like flamethrower postseason runs. And what if Gordon, Westbrook, Brown, and Watson all just shoot super well from three? And by the way, before you tell me, they're going to miss 15 games now. Christian Brown, 41% from three. Aaron Gordon, 51% from three. Brooke, 36% from three.

He's confidently stepping into catch and shoot threes last night off of Yokich double teams. Peyton Watson, 64% from three, hit some big ones last night. Like the idea is you help off those guys, and they just keep hitting shots. Now, they might not in the postseason, and that'll be the big challenge. For the record, all those things will have to come together. Yokich and Murray are going to have to average damn near 30 on high efficiency if they're going to get where they want to go. Michael Porter Jr. is going to have to have a great playoff run.

All of those guys are going to have to shoot super well from three. And they're going to have to get to an average level defensively at minimum. But I think all of those things are possible. And so point being, I can't quit the nuggets. They have some stuff they absolutely must get better at, but there are enough ingredients there to win the title. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. And guess what?

We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to our time. people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there.

But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this.

We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast. We call in and say, hey Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman helped make you funnier.

This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, 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 I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis,

and I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on Clay. Jen she went. I mean, she went down at three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay.

Listen, Lena Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any surface. Because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your courtside seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. 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. All right, let's move on to the Atlanta Hawks. They beat the Sixers last night without Trey Young or Caras Lever, and I had watched both of their games against the Indiana Pacers.

There's a couple wins that they got in the last week. They've won four out of five. They have a 123 offensive rating in that span. starts with Trey and Karras Levert. The two of them has just been playing at a really high level during this stretch. I was watching Trey versus the Pacers in those two games. And I was just amazed. Every time I watch Trey, I'm amazed by his ability to throw passes on time and on target with his left hand. I talked a lot about this concept when we were talking about Steph Curry yesterday, but the difficulties for right-handed shooters going either direction as they have to square up in mid-air. Right. So you're

run into the left. It's easier because you can plant your right foot first and you're already kind of naturally squared up to the basket. But if you're running to your right hand, to your strong hand, you have to like kind of square up in midair by getting more lift. And all of those things combine in ball handling situations to make things complicated, right? So like if you're a right-handed player, where is it easiest to throw passes? It's easiest to throw passes by swinging that right-hand around with like baseball passes, right? We've all, since we were little kids, thrown things. with our right hand, if we're right-handed, it's easy enough to make those passes. Similarly with ball handling, most right-handed players are much stronger ball-handling with

their right-hand. So when they go to the right, they're better drivers and passers, but they can sometimes struggle to shoot. When they're going left, they can be better shooters, but they can sometimes struggle to drive because they don't dribble as well with their left hand, and it's really hard to throw those passes with their left hand, right? But ironically, a lot of the passing reads are most available going to your left because you're a more deadly jump shooter, and so the coverages will be more aggressive to try to take away that jump shot. And so the ability to actually throw these cross-court passes and these on-time, on-target, bullet passes right into the shooting pocket with your left hand is such an incredibly

valuable trait for a ball handler. And I was watching Trey just pick the pacer's apart with his left hand as a passer in those games. One of the other things that really stands out to me when I watch Trey is just his relentless screening attack. He never really lets you off the hook until the end of the shot clock. He'll run a ball screen and then he'll rescreen if he doesn't get the separation he wants. If he doesn't get the separation he wants on that one, he'll swing it to the wing and he'll like cut through the lane and he'll end up under the basket and he'll kind of slow down and then all of a sudden he'll come sprinting off of another dribble handoff. And it's like another kind of ball screen concept built out of that DHO. And you might have

to deal with Trey four or five times on a single possession in a ball screen action. And as all of that's happening, if you make a single mistake anywhere along the way, you give a shooter too much space, you let a guy cut behind you, you leave the roll man, a runway towards the front of the rim, he just makes you pay every single time with those passes. Tray's averaging 13 assists per game over this 4-1 stretch. He's really having a brilliant offensive season that I think has been underrated by a lot of folks as he's been setting up a lot of high-quality these shots for his young athlete core around him. Lavert's been very good in this stretch.

He's averaging 17 points per game since joining the Hawks, 20 per game in this five-game stretch for their 4-1. But I want to focus on Dyson Daniels here for a minute. Dyson has a reputation for being one of the best defensive players in the league, which is well-deserved. But he's also blossoming into a very good offensive player as of late. He's scored double figures in 17 straight games. That's pretty wild consistency.

He's averaging 16 points per game over that span. 54% from the field, 55% from 3, 6 rebounds a game, and this crazy part, 5.4 assists per game with only two turnovers. Basically over a 2 and a half assist to turnover ratio. He's got this lightning quick first step. He's really good at disguising it too. He'll move slowly with like change of pace where he'll kind of like lull the defender to sleep and then he'll just extrading it.

explode forward. He can get dribble penetration on just about anyone. He's got really good counter move footwork in the short range. These are like the, he gets downhill and then he can like Euro back to the opposite side with either foot. He's got a good spin move. He gets separation after he gets downhill in that short range. And then he ties it all together with a floater, which is flat out deadly. He's made 96 of them this year. Here's a crazy stat for you guys. Dyson Daniels has made the fourth most floaters in the entire NBA this year. More than Darius Garland, more than Ty Jerome. He's deadly with it. He's at 46% on the season and efficiency, but that's been trending way up. I was digging back through all the floaters he's been

taken as of late. I have him for 18 of his last 33 on floaters. That's 55%. He's becoming a really dynamic shot maker or shot maker in that short range area in the middle of the floor. And he's still just barely scratching the surface of what he can do. The jump shots coming along like we talked about. He's over 50% from three in this range. There's real playmaking potential. He can become one of the better two-way guards in this league if he continues to develop his offensive game.

They put the ball in his hands a ton last night against the Sixers with Tray Young and Caris LaVird out. He went for 25, 6, and 9 of the game. assists on 10 for 14 from the field. They gave him the ball and said, hey, can you be a star for us tonight? And he was a star. He's a special young player. He's not even 22 years old yet. What a huge swing in the franchise history of the Atlanta Hawks that they were able to turn Dejante Murray into draft compensation and a player that has the potential to be better than Dejante within a year or two. And then the last guy that I wanted to shout out was Zachary Rissachet. He's coming on super

strong as of late. In his last 18 games, he's averaging 14 points per game on 52% from the field and 47% from 3. I've been talking a lot about this particular archetype, and this is the kind of guy that I think the Detroit Pistons should be hunting in the draft. I've been talking about this quite a bit, but there are different types of talents that you can go for to try to kind of influence your offense, right? There's ball handling, but one of the most common archetypes that I'm seeing kind of rise to the surface in the NBA is the idea of this like weak side, forward. This is the guy that's catching the ball on the skip pass because this guy's man is so frequently tagging rollers. So you situate this guy in the weak side corner. There's a

bunch of the examples of this in the league. So for the Hawks, it's Zachary Rissachet, right? For the for the Nuggets Forever, it was like Michael Porter Jr. For the Lakers, it's Rui Hachemura. And now with Luca, it's LeBron James too. This idea of DeAndre Hunter does a lot of this for the Cleveland Cavaliers. There's a bunch of these types of guys that are like three, four, like the hybrid types of forwards who you're not going to run a ton of action for, but they get so many closeout opportunities. They are professional closeout attackers. And all it requires is like a good catch and shoot jump shot and then a couple of basic scoring moves, the ability, like a like a rip through or a jab step, and then a couple of basic counter moves,

Euros, spin moves, being able to finish with both hands. Zachary Rishay is like excellent with his left hand, like little lefty hooks and lefty floaters. That is the set of traits you need in order to put it all together. And it was a little rough to start the year. It was a little rough with the shooting. It was a little rough with some of the scoring touch. But in his last 18 games, he's really starting to put it together as a reliable weakside score.

And here's the thing, the Hawks aren't going to make any noise this year. But the rise of Dyson and Daniels and Jalen Johnson, who obviously is hurt right now, that gives the Hawks a super bright future. And where it looked like last summer, like, oh man, they might have to trade, Trey Young, just getting a couple of these guys to pan out as young prospects has gone a long way to changing the perspective on the Atlanta Hawks future. All right, before we get out of here tonight, today I should say. I wanted to just very briefly talk about the Lakers and their loss in Brooklyn last night.

I'm not worried about it at all. There's not much margin for error with the injuries. Like, you have no LeBron, no Ruehachamura, no Jackson Hayes, and no Dorian Finney Smith, that's four of your core eight playoff rotation players. LeBron's your second best player. Ruiz's probably your fourth best player. So, like, you don't have much margin for error when you're down that many guys. So if Austin Reeves and Luca Donchich are also going to shoot 11 for 40 from the field, you're going to have a hard time beating anyone, right?

It's just, there's too much going against you in that sort of situation. And so some of this, like, honestly, it's just a really bad confluence of events. So LeBron happens to suffer his first injury of the year when you're already down to forwards and your starting center, right? Luca happens to be having one of the worst shot-making stretches of his career, which we'll get to in a second. And Austin Reeves has always been a guy that takes a little bit of time to get his rhythm when he's been out of the lineup for a little bit. And so Austin's really struggling because he's been out of the lineup and he's been out of rhythm.

Luke is having this like brutal shot making stretch where he can't make any of the jump shots that he typically makes in his, throughout the rest of his career. And you're just absolutely brutalized by injuries in the front court. It's just a rough spot, right? And I actually kind of view it as a blessing in disguise because the team had been winning a lot, obviously. They'd been the best team in the league for almost two months. So like it's one of those things where you had a little bit of slippage in your execution against Boston. right and so JJ was able to use the Brooklyn

loss last night to just basically rip his team a new one and essentially like use it as a motivator to refocus the team like it's not a big deal that they lost to the nets it's not going to be some sort of dramatic issue with where they're at in the standings like I don't necessarily

think getting any specific seed other than staying out of the play in matters I think getting to their getting to April healthy is really all that matters and so it's more important for you to be sharp. And so if you drop a game against the nets that is just a confluence of events and you lose against the defending champions on their home floor in a game where a bunch of down two starters and a bunch of other things don't go your way, it's really

nothing to overreact to. But JJ can package that as a message to put in front of the Lakers to be like, we have to be better at this stuff. Because guess what? If they want to win the trophy, they do kind of have to be better at that stuff. And it's just a perfect excuse to use as a motivator for this team. The part that I want to keep an eye on those, Luca's shot making, because this is the part that has me most excited about the ultimate potential of this team.

Austin's been out. He'll eventually get it back. That will go a long way towards helping this team. But we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of how good the Lakers can be when Luca is Luca. Here's a crazy stat to demonstrate for you guys the gap

in shot making ability between this version of Luca Don. in the version of Luca Donchich that took the Dallas Mavericks to the finals last year. In 12 games with the Lakers, Luca has managed to make at least 10 field goals twice in 12 games. Last year with the Dallas Mavericks, in 70 games, he made at least 10 shots 50 times, 50 of the 70 games. That's the level of shot making that Luca can still get to relative to where he's been

with the Lakers. That's where the excitement comes. Do I think the Lakers are actually the best defense in the NBA? No, they've been defending like that, but I don't actually think they're the best defense in the NBA. My guess is there's somewhere in the five to 10 range, given the type of personnel that they have. But they can be so, so, so much better on offense. That is the side of the floor that they can make dramatic improvements through simplifying some of their spacing principles. JJ's been talking a lot about this. I'm not going to get into it today, but one of our next few Laker videos, I'll do a deeper dive into just like how spacing is supposed to work and why JJ's been harping on that so much. It mostly has to do with putting guys in the right

spots so that you're tilting the offense to get the kinds of shots you want from the players that you want. That's basically the main purpose of spacing, right? There's a lot of improvement that they can still make on that end, but just Luca getting back to where he can be as a shotmaker, while LeBron and Austin are both healthy and in rhythm will go a long way towards lifting this team to a more elite level on the offensive end of the floor. And that's why I'm not really concerned. Like, I saw enough in the Boston game to think that they can beat Boston.

I'm going to pick Boston. I think everybody should pick Boston against everyone. They're just the safer bet. But I saw enough in that game from Luca and LeBron attacking the Boston Smalls to go like, oh, like, I think they can win that series. When I was scouting the Dallas Boston series last year, I literally

came on the show in my series preview and said, I think Boston's going to blow them out. I didn't see a pathway because of some specific issues with the matchups and the inability that Dallas had to create space because of their non-shooters on the floor, they're poor above the brake shooters in the way that they could sit rim protection

under the basket. The difference with the Lakers is when they're healthy and they have Rui Hachamura in the lineup and Dorian Finney Smith, they don't have a single player in that five-man grouping that you can help off of. And so they should be able to create more space. LeBron and Lucas should be able to punish the smalls. Again, it was a loss.

There was a lot of disappointment there. I didn't think they played well. Luca looked bad for most of that game. There's a lot of negatives, but I saw enough out of that to be like, oh, I think they can beat Boston. That was an encouraging thing for me. The Nets game was literally a confluence of events. I'm not worried about it, but it's a nice opportunity for JJ to refocus the team.

and it's a reminder for you guys that Luca can still come so, so, so far as a shot maker. That brutal from Austin and Luca last night, 11 for 40 from the field. They're not going to shoot like that very often. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys

for supporting me and supporting the show. We will be back tomorrow in the evening. We're going live on YouTube at the end. I think it's Denver, Minnesota. If I remember correctly, then I think, is it Celtics Thunder? I think it's Celtics Thunder in the first game. So jam-packed.

ESPN Slate tomorrow that we're covering on YouTube live. I'm recording a mailbag tomorrow that will air on Thursday as well. But again, as always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show, and I will see you tomorrow night. What's up, guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review.

As always, I appreciate you guys, I appreciate you guys, I appreciate you guys. If you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it. Hey, guys, it's us and the Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast?

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We don't care where you hear it. 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.

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