The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Reaction to LeBron James & Russell Westbrook leading the Lakers over Nuggets

Episode Date: December 17, 2022

Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James & Russell Westbrook leading the Los Angeles Lakers over Nikola Jokic & the Denver Nuggets 126-108, despite Anthony Davis exiting the game due to a foot injury. He then breaks down Kyrie Irving's clutch 4th quarter in the Nets win over the Raptors, and Paolo Banchero leading the Orlando Magic to their 5th straight win, beating the Celtics 117-109. #Volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The Lakers, shockingly blow out the nuggets with Anthony Davis. missing the second half. We're going to be breaking down that game. Kyrie Irving hits the first buzzer-beater of his career in an incredibly entertaining matchup between the Raptors and the Nets. We're going to get into that game. And then the Orlando Magic have won five games in a row, all against teams that we consider to be higher-level playoff threats. And then they top it off with a road win over the Boston Celtics looking like a really interesting young basketball teams. We're going to talk about them as well towards the end. You guys know the drill before we get started.

subscribe to the volumes 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 any show announcements. And then last but not least, if for whatever reason you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I swear the Lakers are only capable of playing weird basketball games. It was a really uneven first half. Like Anthony Davis picks up his second foul on a questionable post-up call against Nicola Yoke. and then just stops playing defense at all whatsoever.

LeBron was playing with really low energy for the most part, with exception of a little burst there where he got going in transition. And then I thought Russ played his worst half of the season in the first half. He had four turnovers. He was taking all sorts of bad shots. He was kind of riding like a five-game streak before this too, where he was playing really poorly to the point where I was completely out on him and I thought he needed to go.

So it's kind of a really weird first half. Lakers weren't playing any transition defense. Anthony Davis tweaks his foot or his ankle. We're not actually sure. We'll find out more tomorrow. But fortunately for the Lakers, the Denver Nuggets are one of the worst defensive teams in the league. And so after all of that, it was 65-64 with the nuggets in front.

But then we find out that Anthony Davis is going to take the rest of the game off. And I was almost certain that LeBron James and Russell Westberg were just going to mail in the rest of the game there. It's just specifically the matchup with Anthony Davis out against Nicola Yokic. You're concerned about that. Both of them had had pretty rough. first halves in the aggregate when you factor in the way they were impacting the game on the defensive end and taking care of the basketball and all those different things. It just felt like a

game that they were going to mail in. But when you sub Anthony Davis out of the game, you've got to bring another center off the bench. And when you and Gabriel is still hurt. And Damian Jones had a rough season. So it ended up being Thomas Bryant. And Thomas Bryant came into the game in that second half and felt like it was trying, he felt like he was trying to send a message. You know, and you got to remember, he's a better and minimum contract who is pretty young. And because of that partial ACL tear in Washington, like his stock had dropped quite a bit. He ended up with the Los Angeles Lakers. His career is kind of hanging in the balance a little bit.

It's very much a contract year in a big way for him as a young player. He's trying to prove his spot in the league. And he has an opportunity against Nikola Yokic on national television to prove that. And he came out and played his damn ass off. It was just playing so incredibly hard on both ends of the floor. And you know, it's funny because I thought it was infectious, and I thought it really got LeBron James and Russell Westbrook to believe and to play hard. Because here's the thing.

You can't mail it in when your big man is working his ass off. It's like there's too many people watching on national TV, the people in the arena. Fans are kind of like truth serum for any basketball team, for any professional sports team. fans are a lot smarter than professional teams think. When you hear coaches talk and hear players talk, sometimes they denigrate fans and pretend like they don't know what they're seeing. And look, not everybody is as in the loop as to the X's and O's of what's happening on the court, but they can see when someone's playing hard and when someone is not.

And you can't sit there and be the guy who's mailing it in while the big man is working his ass off. And LeBron and Russ got swept up in it. And they started doing what they do best, which is create quality shots for three-point shooters, for big guys in the dunker spot, and for both running the floor in transition. You know, and you saw there towards the end of the third quarter and early fourth when the Lakers really went on their run,

you started to see guys knocked down shots. You saw Dennis Schroeder hit some corner threes. You saw Patrick Beverly hit a corner three. You saw Max Christie come in and hit a couple of threes. You saw Asher Reeves hit a three. Like when you have competent three-point shooting on the first, four, it makes shot creators like LeBron James and Russell Westbrook, it sends their value through the roof, which is precisely why Lakers fans have been so irritated with the team-building

process over the last few years. You've got two in LeBron and Russell Westbrook of the best players of all time at generating wide-open three-point shots. And you had the worst roster in the entire league at guys who could convert those three-point shots. And they still are, and that shooting performance in the second half is not something they can reliably count on, but this is why Lakers fans have been preaching that they need to go out and bring in professional shooters. Because what LeBron James and Russell Westbrook do best is feed professional shooters. And you saw that in that late third, fourth quarter, what happens when you add competent three-point shooting to what those two-shot creators do? And the Lakers rode that wave to an 18-point win and a really nice pallet course.

cleanser after their embarrassing loss of Boston. Again, I want to shout out LeBron and Russ. So, LeBron finished with 30 and 13, excuse me, finished with 30 on 13 for 20 shooting. He's sneaky been really good for about a month and a half now. So in his last 13 games since November 6th, LeBron is now averaging 28.3 points per game on 51.4% shooting. That's superstar level production,

like top 10 player in the world level production, maybe even top five. If you guys remember during his slump, everyone was writing the obituary on him. And what I said was, I had seen him in training camp and I had seen him in the early part of the season look great physically. My only concern was could he stay healthy long enough to get into a rhythm? Because when you add LeBron's basketball IQ to LeBron's skill set, he's automatically going to succeed as long as his body is able to move at a certain level. It's got to hit a certain level.

But then he got sick and he was dealing with the foot thing. And as a result, he wasn't getting as much separation. He wasn't getting as much downhill pressure. So guys were pushing up on his jump shot a little bit. Then his jump shot started like was just atrocious to start the year. And I told you guys if he could just get 10, 15 games in a row where he gets his rhythm, I saw him move well enough early in the year that I expected him to turn his season around, and that's exactly what's happened.

28.3 points per game on 51% shooting, over 51% shooting in a 13-game span. That's superstar level production. That's still in there for LeBron. He just had a banged-up start to the year. Part of that's him being old, and that might be the thing that eventually knocks him back off of this level of play at some point during the season. But if he stays healthy and he's going to be this good, and if AD stays healthy and he he's going to be as good as he's been, you absolutely have to invest in this team because those

two together are too damn good. Looking at Russell Westbrook, you know, again, I thought he played the best three-game stretch of his career, not his career, but his Lakers career a few weeks ago. That game against the Blazers where he was like four for 14, but he did an amazing job creating shots and playing defense and competing on the glass. And then he had the amazing game against the Milwaukee Bucks where he made the huge play at the end of the game, diving on the floor for the loose ball. Then he had another really nice game. Washington on Sunday. Then since then, he had played five games and had been horrifically bad.

He was minus 51 in his minutes, and the Lakers were like plus 16 when he was off the floor. It was going right back to everything that had screwed him up in the previous year, right? Like poor shot selection, turning the basketball over, making sloppy decisions on the defensive end of the floor, or just straight up going space case on total possessions. It was really bad. but in and then we got into the first half of this game and it was more of the same four turnovers in the first half took an early clock pull up three took another early clock bank shot which he actually made he was sloppy around the rim it just was a really really ugly half

it looked like things were trending in a really bad direction for us but in that second half he he pushed the pace in transition zero turnovers after four turnovers in the first half he was selective about when he shot the basketball he created open shots for his teammates they converted him and everything took off from there. And then one of the biggest things, you know, I talk about Russ. I've never just said, you know, Russ is terrible at everything. It's always just been the balance of his good impact versus his bad impact. And one of the things that he's been good at most of the year is his size in athleticism is a big factor on physical confrontations on the defensive end of the floor. That's, you know, isolation, defense in certain

situations when he comes over and help or double teams. And most, importantly contested rebound situations. The Lakers have to, because of their lack of perimeter size, compete on the defensive glass harder than just about any team in the league to make up for their lack of size. And Russ has just done an amazing job this entire season of securing defensive rebounds to push the pace and transition. He was amazing on the glass again tonight. If I could bottle up that second half, and by the way, it wasn't like, I mean, he had a triple double, but it wasn't like he was putting up massive numbers. It just the, just the, the tame decision making and doing his job, if I could bottle that up and get it every night, I would never want to trade Russell Westbro,

because that's a winning basketball player, but it's just too inconsistent. And the bad has outweighed the good this year, which is precisely why on the scoreboard, they've been so much better when he's off the floor in the aggregate this season. But again, kudos to Russ for a great second half, and I hope sincerely, because I love, I love watching him when he's playing like that. I hope sincerely that he's able to keep that up. Quickly on the nuggets, Nicola Yokic completely fell apart after that. He had an and one against Thomas Bryant,

where he was posting up at like kind of the, just above the free throw line, spun back, did a drop step into Thomas Bryant's chest. Got called for foul, which I didn't think it was even a good call, but he went to like a fade away off of that and he knocked it down.

And from there, he just completely fell apart. Like it was one of the worst quarter and a half of basketball, I've seen him play. Him and Jamal Murray were way too careless with the basketball tonight. They combined for 10 turnovers, which just led to that Lakers transition avalanche. More importantly, the entire Denver Nuggets roster once again just put in an embarrassing defensive effort.

They simply cannot compete for an NBA championship if they're going to be a bottom five defense. And right now I'm pretty sure they're a bottom two defense or bottom three defense. It's just not possible. Throughout NBA history, we've just never seen anything like it. They have the personnel to be much better than they are. They just have to be committed to the work

and they just simply aren't. because they've been sitting, you know, well above 500 just by outscoring teams, but when you actually look at it closely, they're bad against good teams and they're good against bad teams, which is precisely the kind of thing that will get you beat in the postseason. 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 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 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 gas. galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tontons 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 podcasts. All right, moving on to Nets Raptors. So super entertaining game. Kyrie Irving just tossed Fred Van, Fred Van, uh, Fred Van Vlead aside with that pullback

dribble for a game winner. It's his first buzzer beater of his career. All the highlight is going to be surrounding that Kyrie game winner as it should. It was nasty. It was ridiculous. It was entertaining. It was everything. But I thought Kyrie was magnificent that entire fourth quarter.

And I wanted to take some time to highlight just how effective he was, particularly in all the pivotal possessions at the end of the game. So first of all, he had seven made field goals in the fourth quarter. Every variety. It had some pull-up twos against Fred Van Vlead. He had a step-back jumper with his foot on the line against Scotty Barnes. They ran an after-time outplay where he back cut from. the elbow and caught the ball and just elevated in the air, took the contact, and hung and then finished with his right hand. You know, Kyrie Irving is an incredible athlete. That's something

that commonly gets, you know, kind of looked over with him because he doesn't dunk the basketball often. But that's where the hang time comes from. He's an incredible athlete. You guys can find this on YouTube, but there's a pre-draft video of Kyrie Irving doing a workout before the draft, and he's running from the three-point line on the baseline to the three-point line on the other base, or the other three-point line along the same baseline, and he's got a guy just passing in the basketball, and he's just elevating and dunking with his left hand, and then elevating and dunking with his right hand, left hand, right hand, just 10 times in a row, and he's getting way above the rim. It's a great example of how, like, NBA athleticism is so

much greater than people even realize. You know, I'm 6-6 with 610 wingspan, and I can dunk the basketball really, really well, and I have people come up to me in gyms and be like, oh, why didn't you try to play? They don't understand that I am a good athlete, and NBA athletes are way, way, way more athletic than me. Like there's just an entire other level to this. And Kyrie Irving's a great example of that. Doesn't ever dunk the basketball, doesn't ever do your

crazy athleticism type things that we grow accustomed to seeing. But if you put him in a gym by himself, he's putting his elbow above the rim. So that's why you've got to remember that the level of athleticism we're dealing with at the NBA level is just insane. But then in crunch time, every single big play

on the offensive end of the floor. So the Raptors get it back to 109, 108, and he isos Malachi Flynn from the top of the key, just kind of gets him on his right hip, takes a hard dribble to get to the free throw line, elevates, and knocks the shot down. Now they're back up three. Then the Raptors go on a four-point run to take the lead 112 to 111. Kyrie gets the imbounds pass, catches the Raptors sleeping in transition, gets Fred Van Vleek, stuck on his left shoulder, works all the way down the lane, and hits another acrobatic

hang time finish with his right hand. then the Raptors go down and take the lead again. KD gets doubled. It's 114, 113, 113. They run like that classic one-three pick and roll with Kyrie and KD. KD gets doubled. KD throws an awful pass to Kyrie in the short role that's contested. Malachi Flynn and Fred Van Vleet are like sandwiching him. Somehow he rises up and just gets the rebound or gets the pass in that traffic, orientes himself, beats Fred Van Vliet to the middle of the floor,

draws the help from Scotty Barnes, out to Yuta Watanabe in the left corner, knocks down the three. Just an incredible basketball play that just goes down as an assist in the box score, but really was impactful to the end of that game. Then the Raptors tie on two free throws from Scotty Barnes, gets Fran Vleet in isolation after they take a foul with like three and a half seconds left, and just takes two hard dribbles to his right, snatch back. Fred Van Vleet shuffles one step too far, and he sticks a three. You know, Kyrie's been a whirlwind of drama ever since he came. came to Brooklyn. He was a world-winner drama in Boston, and he was kind of dramatic there

that last year in Cleveland. But teams keep having him in their rotation to, you know, obviously teams are leaning on him as secondary shot creators. That's why. Because when it comes down to it, when Kyrie Irving is healthy and engaged, when it comes to set situations against elite defenses, he's still one of the 10 best guys in the entire league at creating shots. That's what he does better than just about everybody else in the entire world. And as long as he can do that, there will always be NBA teams that think the Kyrie Irving experience is worth it. Kevin Rayt was also incredible.

The Raptors were doubling him basically the entire game. He had 28 points on just 15 shots. And I don't even know how he does that because, like, rhythm is such a delicate thing in basketball. You see a guy get in foul trouble. Rhythm just goes to hell. You know, a guy doesn't get the normal touches he usually gets. His rhythm goes to hell. and he can't make shots anymore.

For him to take 15 shots in a game where he had all those touches where he's navigating those double teams and to make 10 of them, resulting in 28 points, it's alien behavior. I don't understand it. I really just don't know how he doesn't.

His ability to put the ball in the basket efficiently is unparalleled in NBA history. There are guys that'll have higher true shooting percentages like a guy like Steph Curry, but it's because he's taking a ton of threes. When it comes to just straight up on a shot-by-shot basis, the ability to put the ball on the basket with difficult shot making. I don't know that anybody's ever been better than KD.

Fred Van Vleet played a second great game in a row, 39. The Raptors really controlled the first half of that game. So it's kind of encouraging to see Fred starting to play pretty well because he had been having a like a meh season up to that point. The Raptors took a big lead in that first half, but then in that third quarter, the Nets just locked in on the defensive end of the floor, held him to 22 points.

Kyrie and KD did their thing on the other end, and they kind of took control the game from there. You know, when you look at the Nets roster and you see Ben Simmons and you see Nick Clackson, you see Kevin Durand, you see Royce O'Neill, and you see all those guys, they actually have a lot of defensive talent, which is kind of, you know, what made the Steve Nash thing so lame. Like the Nets players were literally just not playing hard for him because they wanted to get their coach fired, which, by the way, was why I condoned the firing. Sometimes players tune out their coaches and you just need to have a change of a voice.

one last thing with the raptors that I wanted to hit before we move on Scotty Barnes was just ridiculous in that fourth quarter he's attacking the rim relentlessly he went at KD twice including dunking on him and then just went right up into his face and started talking shit then they switched Ben Simmons on and Ben Simmons pressuring him out to half court just he's really good at protecting the basketball with his back turned which is imperative for bigger players because shorter players they're so low to the ground they can protect the basketball with their handle right but taller players the ball has to

travel further to the ground, so you have to learn to protect the ball with your body. And Scotty Barnes does an incredible job of that. Ben Simmons is pressuring him, trying to reach, he leans a little bit too far to the right. Scottie spins back the other way, goes all the way to the rim, he gets an and one. He had another huge clutch basket in isolation against Uta Watanabi, where you to play great defense, contained him all the way to the rim, and he just hung over the top of him and knocked down a bank shot. Then he drives to the basket, gets fouled, and makes two clutch free throws to tie the game with eight

seconds left. He's one of the most exciting young players in the league. I just love the confidence to step to one of the best players in NBA history and then to back it up in a big setting like that against a really good team. I mean, obviously the Raptors have had a really disappointing season. There's some encouragement to take from tonight with Fred Van Vleek getting better and Scotty Barnes obviously having that moment. But, you know, even if this season doesn't work out the way you hope it does, Scotty Barnes is one hell of a prospect to have in the chamber. It was a fun game between two teams, made working on Friday night fun. I would argue it was better than the sushi my wife had, but that's up for her to decide, I suppose.

All right, Magic Celtics. So the Orlando Magic have won five games in a row, and all against good teams. They beat the Clippers, they beat the Raptors twice, they beat the Hawks, and now they have their signature win on the road in Boston against the Celtics. You know, this team, and I'm only going to talk about them for a couple minutes tonight, so I did a huge deep dive on the Memphis Grizzlies that you can find on our YouTube channel right now, did about 25 minutes really diving into that team. I plan on doing something similar with the Orlando Magic at some point over the course

of the next couple of weeks. We'll dive deeper into them, but I want to just briefly touch on them right now. The story of this team being good is about perimeter size. You know, I've talked a lot about how in the modern NBA, as bigger players have become proficient as ball handlers and shooters, perimeter size is more important than ever. Because if you have big guys that can do that stuff and the other guy has short guys that do that stuff, they're just going to be shooting over the top of them all game. long. This is just part of the way the game of basketball has changed over the last few decades

as big guys are practicing ball handling and shooting a lot more as they're growing up. Between the Wagner brothers and Palo Boncaro, they've got three, well, Bull Bull, too. Bull Bull is another guy that's like this, but the thing with Bull Bull, and I've been a little pessimistic about him, and I know that's kind of raining on the parade, but he, some of it is kind of like fast and loose, open court basketball where he can succeed, but then when he plays against a really good defense that attacks his handle, Boston really attacked his handle tonight and kind of exposed him as someone that can't put the ball on the floor in traffic. But between the Wagner brothers and Palo Boncaro, they just have huge players that are all

610 and bigger that can all dribble and shoot. And as a result, they're like, they're bigger than even the prototypical NBA wing. Like, they're bigger than Tatum and Brown. And so as a result, you know, when those guys have it going the way they did tonight, they can bully a good NBA team. And they bullied Boston tonight specifically on the glass. They attacked the basket relentlessly, got to the free throw line a bunch. And then the last guy I wanted to shout out was Franz Wagner. So, you know, he spammed pick and roll most of the night tonight and did a really nice job making reads. I talked about this when we talked about the magic a few weeks ago, but Franz Wagner, he's a 21-year-old 6-10 wing who's run over 300 pick-and-roll this year and is scoring

0.98 points per possession in pick-and-roll, which is really good. So think about how insane that is. a 21-year-old 6-10 wing, who is a high-volume pick-and-roll player who's scoring at an above-average, or generating points on an above-average rate, including passes in pick-and-roll. That's really exciting. Because I've got Palo Moncaro, who's the walking mismatch that can bully just about any player in the league, and Franz Wagner, the shot creator. That's a natural, you know, complementary set of skill sets. Franz Vagr, you know, we always think of Mo Wagner as like a shooter, right?

But he did it all power play today, just bullying his way to the basket, getting offensive rebounds, finishing in the short role, and attacking in transition, making defensive plays as well. And then again, if Bull Bull even amounts to anything, and if they can get Jonathan Isaac back, there are versions of the, because like, you know, they played a lot of Mo Obama tonight. Mobamba was really, really good as well. But there's a version of this where you put in a, like, a, like a, a, Jonathan Isaac as well. And you can go like real small ball five out, switch everything ridiculous, like a much more skilled version of what the Toronto Raptors have. They're a very exciting team.

And again, they were the worst team in the league there for a while. I think they were five and 20 at one point. Now they're 10 and 20. They beat five good teams in a row. Obviously, young teams just struggle to replicate success, so I don't expect them to make a playoff run or anything this year. But what they're showing you is what this could look like in a couple years when it all comes together. And again, we will do a deeper dive on the magic later on. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. I'm going to take the next couple of days off. But we will be back on Monday with the show, as always. I appreciate you guys. And I'll see you next time.

The volume. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smyl 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 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. 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. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way 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 him with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing.

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