The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Reaction to Trae Young-Hawks issue, LeBron & Lakers contenders? + Celtics-Nets

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

First (3:00), Jason Timpf reacts to the ongoing issues between Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks. Jason also discusses LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers' current win streak after their win over the Washington Wizards. Jason later recaps the all-star showdown between Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets against Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Celtics, and Zion Williamson and the New Orleans Pelicans' meteoric rise to prominence in the Western Conference. #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. On the Look Back at it podcast.

From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s.

84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. Hoops Tonight is presented by Fandual. The NBA is back and there's no better place to get in on the action than with Fandall. This is my favorite sports betting app that is out there.

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We're going to talk about this latest Tray Young drama. And then we're going to talk a little bit about the Brooklyn Nets Boston Celtics game yesterday and some of the stuff with recent Brooklyn Nets basketball because they've sneaky been one of the best teams in the league up until that butt-kicking at the hands of the Celtics yesterday, which seems to be a little bit of a recurring theme. We're going to talk some Lakers after Anthony Davis dropped a double nickel yesterday

to beat the Washington Wizards. He's been the best player in the world for the last three weeks, and I want to do a deep dive into that. And last but not least, a big shout out today to the New Orleans Pelicans after kicking the shit out of the Denver Nuggets yesterday. They are now up to second in the West. Zion Williamson's playing incredible,

but they're doing a lot of spreading the wealth. an equal opportunity offense over there. A lot of good Pelicans talk coming at the tail end of this show. 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 then last but not least,

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 Trey Young, he's dealing with a little bit of a shoulder injury. Basically, the gist of this drama is Nate McMillan wanted him to show up to shoot around if he wanted to play in the game that night. Trey decided just to completely no-show the shoot-round and the game.

And then Sham Sharania came out and reported that a couple of specific quotes from the report that I think colored the situation pretty well. Quote, the Hawks have held multiple team meetings early in the season to resolve various conflicts, sources with knowledge of the situation said. Clearly this is not the first time this has happened. For Young, whose strained relationship with former Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce played a large role in his firing in March 2021, it is the latest sensitive situation that has caused many people within the Hawks organization to question Young's leadership approach. Spicy.

And then lastly here, quote, key personnel around the team believe that Young simply must find a way to become a more productive and positive face of the Fran. One last note, this wasn't from his report, but Shams tweeted this out this morning from his show. He also said that from what he's hearing, the franchise is completely behind Nate McMillan and that his job is safe. So I don't really have a ton of thoughts here. I'm going to keep this really simple. I am pro player empowerment, as it pertains to the CBA, like negotiating with the owners, building brands and businesses off the court. Player movement, the ability to go wherever you want to go. I'm a pro player empowerment with all of that stuff. Why? Because at the end of the day, yes, this is a, you know, kind of an ecosystem where everyone is kind of playing apart.

The media plays a part. The fans play a part. The owners play a part. The players play a part. But the players obviously play the biggest part. So they probably should have more power than everyone else. And also it's kind of just like a product of the way that the league works, right? Because basketball is unique in the sense that your best player can single-handedly change the outcomes of games and your outlook for the whole season. Like look at Anthony Davis. The dude started playing like the best player in the world, and all of a sudden the Lakers went from one of the worst teams in the league

to they're playing as good on both ends of the floor as anybody right now. That's how much power one player has. And so I support that to a certain extent. The players are powerful for good reason. But as the cliche goes, with great power comes great responsibility. And there is a responsibility that comes with being the best basketball player on your team that involves leadership. This is why, in my opinion, Steph Curry is the best leader in the NBA. He probably hates this two timelines thing.

you think he enjoys playing basketball with James Wiseman? Don't you think he'd rather they flip some of those guys for a veteran player that gives Steph the best chance to win the title? I'm sure he's not happy about that. I would imagine he doesn't agree with everything Steve Kerr's done over the years. Stuff with the rotation. Stuff with playing style. Asking him to be off the ball,

probably more even than Steph wants to be. He probably has plenty of reasons to vent or to, lash out, but he never, ever, ever has. You haven't even heard the slightest inkling of the slightest bit of disgruntled behavior from Steph. He is an extension of the leadership of the franchise because he understands that that's important. The other players on the team will not fall in line unless he falls in line. And so he sets that example and everyone else follows him.

For instance, the shoot-around thing with Trey Young. guys like don't let the name fool you every one of you who's played basketball at any level knows this already but for those of you who don't shoot around is not just shoot around you don't you don't just go to the gym and shoot around okay when uh every single college that i played at you you would do some shooting usually typically we treat that as a warm-up so like we'd have an hour-long shoot around you'd go in and you'd do a bunch of shooting drills for maybe 20 minutes And you would get a lot of shots up. But then guess what would happen?

Then you'd get together and you'd start to rehearse the game plan. Like shootarounds are more dress rehearsal for game plan stuff than they are shooting the basketball. You know, whether it's a specific defensive scheme that you have for that specific opponent, whether it's some new offensive sets that you've gone through in practice, but maybe they aren't sharp enough yet and you want to wrap them out a few more times. maybe it's just strictly implementing a new set, especially in the NBA regular season

where you don't get much practice time. Those shootarounds are the time they have to implement stuff. They are monumentally important. Asking Trey Young, hey dude, if you're going to play in the game tonight during which we are going to have a game plan, you need to be there for the game plan. I don't think that's a ridiculous thing to ask.

Now, some teams are more relaxed about it, and that's fine. but clearly Nate McMillan is not relaxed about it, and that's also fine. Generally speaking, when I hear about guys missing shoot-around, it's usually like flu-like symptoms, where it's like, hey, dude, stay in bed so that maybe you can play tonight. That's not the case with Tray.

And I get it, he was doing treatment, but you could have taken an hour out of the day to go sit and learn about the game plan before you go and get your treatment. So, you know, it kind of reminds me of like, you know, Colin Cowher, used to have this take about divorce where he'd say like, you know, if it happens to you once, no one's going to say a thing. It happens to you twice, you know, maybe someone might be like,

hmm, that's interesting. But it happens to you three times. Maybe people are just going to start saying like, ooh, something's, that person might just be difficult. You know what I mean? That was one of Collins' old takes that always resonated with me. And this particularly seems like one of those situations. You run Lloyd Pierce out of town? Maybe people just think, okay, bad fit. Or maybe Lord Pierce just wasn't the guy. Now you're running Nate McMillan out of town. If that happens, people, you know,

it's going to start to look like Tray Young might be the issue here. Now, Trey Young is not my favorite player, but he's a hell of a player. He's once again one of the best pick and roll ball handlers in the league this year. He's generating 1.04 points per possession when he passes out of pick and roll, which is one of the better numbers in the league. But he's got to grow up. and he's got to accept the responsibility that comes with his power as one of the best players in the league and has the best player on his team.

The team's investing in him. They went out of their way to get you to Jante Murray. They've drafted really well. You've got wings. You've got athletes all over the place. You've got shooting. Nate McMillan's not going anywhere. And they're not going to trade Trey Young.

So the only thing to do is make it work. So, you know, Trey's not the first super talented basketball player to struggle with some, you know, attitude stuff early in his career. You know, even famously LeBron James had some stuff like that when he was younger. But we're getting to that point now, Trey. You've been in the league long enough. You've got to figure out. Like, it's for every star in the league,

just like with Steph and what he's dealing with with the young players and what he's dealing with the rotation and some of the responsibilities that he has, no one's in absolute paradise. Everyone's got good and bad things that they're dealing with. You can't use those bad things as an excuse to rock the boat. that's not what that that that goes beyond what your responsibilities are as a leader all right let's move on to the celtics and the nets so the nets had been the second best team in the entire NBA after their one in five start believe it or not they were 12 and 6 from

october 31st to december to december 2nd which was the before this last game and only the celtics had a better record they were 10th in offense fourth in defense over that span and kd was playing like a straight-up MVP not just on the offensive end, but he's also having one of his best defensive seasons of his career. In this span, he's averaging 29, 7, and 6, 68% true shooting. He's 12th in the league and blocks over that span. And his creation stats for the season are off the charts. He's in the 95th percentile in pick and roll, 223 points on 181 possessions,

80th percentile in ISO, 210 points, and 189 possessions, 87th percentile in post-ups, 119 points on 101 possessions, all including passes. he is playing incredibly well-rounded basketball for what had been over that stretch the second best team in the league. They'd figured out a lot of stuff, you know, getting Seth Curry back in the mix and what he brought offensively.

Udwantnabi is turned into like a pretty damn interesting three-and-d player and one of the best lower volume three-point shooters that we have in the league this year. Five other nets were averaging double figures over this 12 and 6 span. You don't want Nabi is shooting 57% from three, which leads the entire league for players attempting at least three, three-pointers per game. Now, I will say Utah and Ben Simmons were both out for this Boston Celtics game.

But this Boston Celtics game was kind of an interesting, like, benchmark test for the Nets to see if some of that legitimate basketball they'd been playing for the previous month was real, and it went just like it usually does when the Nets played Celtics. The Celtics played stifling physical defense, making everything difficult. Kyrie and Kady combined for 10 turnovers. They wore them down to the point where all those longer jump shots stopped falling. A lot of times people pay attention to shot quality, and they go like, oh, I just missed my shots today. A lot of times those things are related to defensive pressure.

When a team wears you down with physicality, you get a wide open look, and you don't quite get the necessary lift, and you leave it short. Katie and Kyrie were two for ten from three. Kyrie was three for ten overall and pull up jump shots. And meanwhile, Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown got everything they wanted in the Celtics one comfortably. You know, we talked a lot about Boston's defensive ceiling last week. and how their numbers don't look that great. They're actually 14th in defense this year, even after that defensive performance they put on against Brooklyn.

But they have these stretches where they look really good. Maybe it's a quarter here, maybe it's a crunch time there. They mess around for 30 minutes or so, and then they put together like a four or five minutes stretch where they lock in, the other team can't score. They score 10, 15 points, and the game is over. And last night's game was just one giant example of that switch flipping that they've done. Now, from a schematic standpoint, they did a ton of switching.

And this is the advantage of having Robert Williams out of the lineup. You know, when Robert Williams is in there and really all their backup bigs as well, they run drop coverage. And I hate drop coverage, as you guys know, for those of you have been following the show for a while. And I thought it was a big mistake that they ran drop even with Al Horford so much during the finals last year. But in this particular game, they just did a boatload of switching, including the Al-Horford actions, which really took Brooklyn and turned them into an isolation team, and KD did an okay job in ISO,

and Kyrie did a tough, did a bad job in ISO, and then their offense fell apart. And there were two things in particular that Boston was doing that, I thought were really interesting that kind of helped lead to this bad night for the Nets. They were denying the easy passes. So like swing passes along the perimeter and entry passes to like the high post or the low post. They were, you know, if Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum was on Kevin Durant or Grant, or Grant Williams is on Kevin Durant.

They're like Kevin Durant's ceiling and calling for the basketball, right? And what's happening is Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum are leaning on Katie and doing a three-quarter front, extending their right arm as far out into the passing lane as they can, making it so that you have to throw that pass further away from Katie, Katie has to almost like push off a little bit to go get it. Now he's catching the ball further away from the basket than he wants to. Same thing on, it wasn't even just post-ups. It was like if Katie was on the wing and Joe Harris has to,

the ball. And Katie's just calling for the ball because there's 12 on the shot clock and he wants to try to make a play. He'd have to like V-cut or fight for post position just to get the basketball. Those little details, that helps wear out the legs. That helps lead to the team feeling generally uncomfortable and their shots missing. That helps lead to turnovers and sloppiness and things like that. And then the other big thing I thought was impactful in this game was mixing up their helps and doubles. So like sometimes on Katie, they double on the catch, but not very often. often. Sometimes they would double as soon as he started dribbling. That was the most frequent one that I'd see. Katie would put them all on the floor to kind of go towards the middle and then

they would collapse on him. And then sometimes it'd be like right as you hit his counter move. So he dribble left, hit like a behind the back dribble and start going right and then someone would sneak from behind to come in and disrupt him. They mix that up a lot and then other times they just wouldn't throw a double. And so by keeping that, you know, inconsistent, it made it so that the reeds were inconsistent. And as a result, you know, it was more reaction. from KD, and he really struggled with it. He kept KD and Kairi off balance all night long, which again led to most of those turnovers. KD had eight of those turnovers, which is becoming a problem in this specific

matchup. And I don't necessarily think KD has a handle issue. It's more of a difficult matchup because Boston attacks the basketball and plays passing lanes well, has their hands up all the time. So from a dribbling standpoint, Katie is so damn tall that the ball just has to cover more distance as it's going down to the ground and back, so it's a little bit more susceptible there. And then they're just a really good doubling, stunting, gambling team. And they made Katie pay for a lot of sloppy passing in this game as well. I still think Boston has the best

half-court defensive ceiling I've ever seen. Goes a lot deeper than that. Their decision-making on offense can throw them into bad transition situations, and they were a bad transition defense in last year's playoffs, which is different than some of the best defenses we've ever seen. But when they're in the half court and they're locked in and they're switching everything and they've got the right lineup out there, it's the best half court defense I've ever seen. So Jalen Brown, 34 and 10 last night with four blocks. And by the way, if you don't think the Celtics take extra pleasure in beating the Brooklyn Nets, how's this first at? Jalen Brown didn't have a single blocked shot for 17 games before last night. And he had four blocks last night. A little extra

adrenaline for that matchup. Jalen Brown's last six games, 32 points, eight rebounds, and four assists. 57% from the field, 40% from 3 and 89% from the free throw line. That's a 69% for shooting percentage. And he's one of the best pick and roll creators in the league this year. He's generated 149 points on 130 possessions, which is in the 89th percentile. It's made a lot of improvements as a passer. Averaging three and a half assists per game this year, which ties his career high. when he's passed out of pick and roll this year, 56 times he's generated 57 points, which is in the 65th percentile, which is above average. He used to be a well below average passer.

So for him to make that type of improvement is big, his ascension has made that Tatum Brown pairing the best duo in the NBA, in my opinion. 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 what you're 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 where 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.

Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with a little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it.

Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's talk some Lakers. So solid road win in Washington. The Wizards had been eight and four at home before yesterday's. game. The Lakers have now won eight out of ten, should be nine out of ten. They are fourth in

offense, eighth in defense, fourth in net rating. LeBron and Russ are both playing really good basketball. Russ is probably in his best three, four game stretch, three game stretch since he came to the Lakers. LeBron's best two game stretch of this entire season. The Lakers are good. Let's just get right to it. I know it sounds crazy. And if you look at the standings and all the slander that's been thrown their way over the years, it sounds ridiculous to say. But the Lakers are good. All three of their stars will have to maintain this level of play to stay good. And they'll definitely need to make a trade if they want to really compete for a title.

But they defend really, really well, especially in the half court. All three of their stars are playing really well. So they're scoring the ball really well, as well as anybody in the NBA. They took that Bucks defense in their home arena, the best defense in the NBA, the best half-court defense in the NBA. a 133 on them. The catalyst for everything is AD. It's been a weird few years for AD.

So I wanted to take some time to talk about how AD has gone from being what he was in 2020 to what he was the last couple years to what he's become this season. Because I think it's kind of an interesting path and it kind of is a lesson to a lot of young basketball players on just how important it is to keep your foot on the gas as you're rising through the league.

So in 2020, almost immediately when he came in, he was an impact defensive player, really started holding LeBron James accountable. He finished second and defensive player the year that year, but he should have been first. Kind of similar to the LeBron MVP case. Janus and the Bucks just had a preposterously easy schedule in the Eastern Conference that year. So all of their metrics were just completely off the charts because like the bottom seven teams in the East were all tanking. And the Bucks just beat the living shit out of them every single time they'd. played them, which inflated everything. The Lakers were a better defense. They were the best defense

in the Western Conference, which was by far the better conference. And AD just simply was a better defensive player that year. He should have been defensive player of the year. LeBron should have been MVP that year. It's actually the only MVP that I think LeBron got robbed of, and Anthony Davis damn sure deserved to get that defensive player the year award. But it was kind of a weird offensive season. To start the year, they were really force-feeding him in the post. He was taking all of these like weird jump shots, like difficult jump shots, tough turnaround, fade away, stepbacks and things along those lines. Laker fans were all like, what's going on?

AD's like trying to be like KD. He's never been KD. That's so strange. What's up with this? And he wasn't making any of them. From the beginning of the season through New Year's Day, he shot just 35% from mid-range and 29% from three. And then all of a sudden, everything started going it.

I remember joking at the time. It almost reminded me of like that pathway. to implementing high-level offense. If you have a move you're working on, a step back, for instance, or a fade-away out of the post. Step one, work on it in the gym by yourself. Step two, work on it in practice.

Step three, work on it in games. And all three of those phases come with a stretch where you're missing them. And it kind of seemed like AD was working on how to build out that high-post, low-post, jump-shot scoring game, and he was just missing them, but then it clicked. And when it clicked, he was making everything. after New Year's Day, he shot 41% from mid-range and 41% from 3, and then he destroyed everyone in the bubble.

These numbers are insane. 50% from mid-range in the playoffs, 38% from 3. He was deadly in ISO and in post-up. He ran 68 ISOs in that playoff run for 75 points, which was in the 93rd percentile, and he ran 130 post-ups for 142 points, which was in the 92nd percentile. So top, top-top-tier ISO and post-player in that post-season run. And then it was arguably the best-deafes. offensive playoff run from any player ever, culminating with the utter destruction of the Miami Heat

in game six of the finals when they had no idea what to do with him hanging around the rim. I thought he was clearly in the conversation for the best player in the world at that point. I ended up ranking him fourth behind LeBron, Steph, and KD. But then he came into camp in 2021, completely out of shape. You know, it's funny, at the time, no one really thought much of it. the Lakers had a really quick turnaround. If I remember correctly, it was something bizarre, like a month and a half. Like they had like 45 days between, because I think they started just before Christmas,

if I remember correctly, and then it was like early October when they won the trophy. So it was like a month and a half. So, you know, Lakers quick turnaround. He had a heavy workload in the finals, or through that whole playoff run. He was dealing with kind of like an ankle thing at that point during the playoffs. So like it was defensible that he would show up to camp out of shape. but it hurt him in a lot of different ways. He looked heavy.

He looked like he had lost a significant chunk of mobility, and he completely lost his jump shot. He was back down to 35% from the midrange for the season, down to 26% from three. And he kind of just declined into a defensive anger that wasn't as good as he was the previous year, who could vertically space and do some of the usual AD stuff, but, you know, he wasn't even nearly,

the same player that he was in 2020. He was also constantly dealing with nagging injuries, including this weird Achilles tendonosis thing, which is a wear and tear injury, not a, you know, it's not a bad luck type of injury. And that can be associated with your conditioning. He ended up playing a couple of really good playoff games against Phoenix in game two and game three, and then he broke down, pulled his groin, and the Lakers were eliminated. So his big follow-up season to securing a top, a spot in the top tier of the league was a clunky, banged up, out of shape, injury-plagued season where he lost a huge portion of his offensive skill set and finished the season averaging 22 and 8.

Not the same player. And so how did he follow that up? How did he follow up that tough campaign? It was widely reported that he showed up in 2020, in the 2021 training camp out of shape again. and there was no excuse this time the Lakers had six months off and he couldn't shoot again he had one of his worst defensive seasons of his entire career he was plagued with injuries again

finished the year averaging 23 and 10 37% from midrange 19% from 3 had turned into literally one of the worst jump shooters in the league at volume compared to what he had done in the bubble which is insane and the Lakers were terrible they got outscored with Anthony Davis on the court. The lineups in the previous season when LeBron James and Anthony Davis were off the

floor performed better than the LeBron and AD together lineups during last season. The AD of old felt like a distant memory. So how did we go from there to what it was to back to what we have now? And I attribute it to three things. First of all, he's returned to that defensive player of the year form. He showed up in shape to train. camp this year and completely committed on the defensive end of the floor. He leads the entire league in stocks, which is steals plus blocks. You know, one of the most underrated things about Anthony Davis' defense is what he does with interior passing. We always think of drop coverages in like funneling to the basket

and trying to block layups or contest mid-range pull-ups or defend the role man, right? One of Anthony Davis's biggest gift is the disruption of interior passing. Drop-off passes, pocket passes, skip passes, swing. passes. Anthony Davis is just getting deflections and blowing up plays constantly that are open for other teams in the league. It's one of the biggest things that separates him from your traditional defensive anchors like a Brooke Lopez or a Rudy Gobert. It's also the same thing that makes Draymond Green so great despite being less of a physical presence around the rim is what he does disrupting interior passing. This year Anthony Davis is anchoring the fourth best half-court defense

in the entire NBA despite having one. legit wing defender. LeBron, who until recently was giving really inconsistent defensive effort. These legit 6-8 athletic wings with long arms that can move and that have good instincts, those guys are arguably the most important defensive weapon in the NBA these days. And the Lakers have one of them who's 37 years old and on a lot of nights doesn't care to do it. That's what he's been set up with. It's a lot of short guys that are scrappy and compete. in the aggregate, it's a below-average defensive set of role players. And he's got them at the fourth best half-court defense in the NBA.

He's not flanked by Janus and Drew Holiday. He's doing it with some pretty average personnel. He got back to what he does best, and I think he's the defensive player of the year at this point. I think that was the first catalyst. And then that, in a lot of ways, drives confidence. When you're messing up other teams with what you're doing on defense, You start to feel good about who you are as a basketball player,

which fuels your ability to do things on the offensive end of the floor. The second biggest thing that got this Anthony Davis train back on the tracks was the high-quality shots that he was able to get in pick and roll as a product of LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. So LeBron was pretty good last year, but AD was never available. Russell Westbrook had an atrocious season last year. This year, both LeBron James and Anthony Davis are available alongside Anthony Davis and both of them are having much better seasons as pick and roll creators.

LeBron had a rough start to this season, but in the last few games he's been very, very good. And it's so important because, you know, I refer to this as supplementary offense. So, you know, you have your offensive skill set, what you do as a basketball player. Maybe that's creating shots and pick and roll. Maybe that's isolation. Maybe that's pick and pop. Maybe that's, you know, posting up. Whatever that is, you've got all these different things that are your fundamental basketball abilities.

But you can supplement that in a bunch of different ways. Maybe that's getting to the foul line. Maybe that's offensive rebounds. Maybe that's running the floor in transition for layups and threes. For Anthony Davis, one of his big pieces of supplementary offense is finishing as the roll man in pick and roll. He's scored 151 points in 108 role man possessions this year, which is in the 86th percentile.

And some of it is dunks, right? 80 is probably the best vertical spacer in the league. He's probably the best lob catcher and dunker in the entire league. But it's not just that. this little like pop shot where he just kind of holds it's almost like a floater but like the big man version of a floater where he catches turns and just puts the ball up as high as he can and just kind of flips his wrist a little bit and puts it in i always got to be careful when i'm trying to demonstrate my shots and i end up knocking the microphone uh but that that's such a huge thing

because like what'll end up happening is lebron and russell westbrook will get downhill and that downhill piece is so important you've got to engage the screen defender you've got to get the big man to step up and help in order to drop the ball off to Anthony Davis for one of those shots. But it's not always a dunk. Sometimes they send a little guard or wing out of the weak side corner to help on Anthony Davis there. He's not going to dunk that. But what he can do is he can quick catch it and finish pretty much anywhere within five to seven feet from the basket. And that's what separates him as a roll man from your usual vertical spaces that we have around the league. That's that supplementary offense that gets you to 37 points per game.

or whatever it is, that he scores on any given night. And then last but not least, he's making his perimeter shot. In this nine-game stretch, in this nine-game stretch, Anthony Davis is 50% from mid-range, 46% from three, and it's helping in two particular ways. Some of it is just spacing. There was a specific play last night against the Washington Wizards in the fourth, third or fourth quarter, I can't remember. I think it was fourth. But Kyle Cusma and Daniel Gafford were running an,

ice coverage on LeBron and AD on the left side of the floor. So an ice coverage is a typical pick and roll coverage that's used in the NBA and at all levels that involves usually the sides of the floor. You usually don't run it in the middle. You run it on the sides. And the idea is the screen is coming to try to get the ball handler towards the middle. And so the on-ball defender will essentially force the offensive player to reject the screen. So he'll get way up high.

So he's on the left side. he's going to get way up on his right shoulder so that LeBron has no choice but to go towards the baseline. Then Daniel Gafford will drop right in front of the block to basically corral that there. And they're basically saying you're not going to use the screen,

you're going to drive into Daniel Gafford, we've got all this help to deal with Anthony Davis and Elaine. Good luck. There is one thing that beats an ice coverage consistently and that's a pick and pop. Because if the ball handler is being full, funneled towards the baseline by the on-ball defender, and the screen defender is waiting at the block, nobody is there to guard Anthony Davis or the screener if he pops. And there was a play in

this game, and I'm sitting there, and I'm like, oh, they're icing it, they're icing it. And LeBron and AD kind of looked at each other for a second, but then AD simply just popped the three-point line. LeBron took a hard dribble towards the baseline, passed it back to Anthony Davis, and he nailed a three. You sometimes need perimeter shooting to beat specific coverages. And then look at those big threes that he made against Milwaukee in the fourth quarter. He made two of them, I think. There was one in the right corner, and then I think the other one was on the left wing. But hey, guess what Brooke Lopez is doing?

He's sitting at the basket. Sometimes just to keep him honest, you've got to demonstrate your ability to knock that shot down. But the second big important part of this shot making piece is the ISO release valve factor. So the best versions of LeBron James teams ever have had a player that LeBron can just throw the ball to and he can go get a basket. Think Dwayne Wade, think Kyrie Irving, think Anthony Davis in the bubble. LeBron controls so much. Now he can share some of those responsibilities with Russ, but he controls so much. There's a fatigue element to it.

And so when you have the ability, not just to rescue possessions in late shot clock situations or to attack the occasional mismatch that might pop up, but also just to throw the ball to Anthony Davis and know, hey, I'm going to get a point per possession here because he's just going to create his own shot. In order for him to do that, he has to be able to make the jump shot. Because a lot of teams have started to put big, strong centers on him knowing that he can't bully them towards the basket. This Chrisaps Porzingis and Brooke Lopez matchups are great examples of that. And AD lit those guys on fire with stepbacks and turnarounds and pull up jump shot.

And it was that release valve. And that's what's the difference between the Lakers being an average offense and then being the fourth best offense in the league over the last 10 games, getting some shot making in those isolation situations. So with all that coming together, him locking in on the defensive end, getting high-quality shots and pick and roll from LeBron and Russ, and him finally getting his perimeter shot going, what do we have as a result in this 10-game stretch?

80s played nine of them. He's averaging 35 and 16. on 72% true shooting, and he's been the best defensive player in the world. Nobody in the world is playing better basketball right now than Anthony Davis in these last two weeks or three weeks. If you combine that guy with a top 10 version of LeBron James, doesn't even have to be what LeBron James was in 2020. If he's just a top 10 player and you get them quality role players,

you can win a championship with that group. Now, Lonnie Walker has turned out to be a solid signing. Austin Reeves from last year has been a solid role player for this team, and Troy Brown Jr. has been a solid role player for this team. Even Russell Westbrook has won me over this season with what he's done in that bench roll. My only concern with Russ, really, is the occasional bad night that can be, you know, downright sabotage. But then also crunch time lineups.

When you put him out there with LeBron James, it's just kind of a clunky fit. It's almost better when they're staggered. But overall, he's been very good this season. And I'm not even sure they can afford to lose him, especially with LeBron in some of his injury history. But no matter what, they need one more really good role player, preferably a wing, because I think, you know, with what you're getting from Wenyon Gabriel and Thomas Bryant

and with how well Anthony Davis is playing at the five, I don't think you need another big necessarily. I think it'd be ideal to find a – they could get Kyle Kuzma. Could you imagine? That's the type of player that would just round. out this roster perfectly. But they just need one more really good role player.

I would say packaged Kendrick Nunn, Patrick Beverly, and another minimum contractor, too, with both picks for a wing, and you let the chips fall where they may. Give these guys a chance to win the title. All right. The New Orleans Pelicans, long time since we talked about them, but they deserve a good shout out here. So they had some early trouble with Denver yesterday, but then they completely dominated them in the second half.

The Pelicans are nine and two in their last 11 games. They're tied with Boston for the best record in the league during that span. They are sixth in offense and second in defense over that span, despite having a lot of guys miss a lot of games. Brandon Ingram's missed four of those 11 games. Zion's missed three of them. CJ's missed four of them. They're just so deep with talent that guys just kind of slot into the roles that they need to

and they just keep winning. I want to talk about Zion for a second. So in the span, he's only averaging 24-7 and 4, but it's very efficient, 64% true shooting. And again, even though the scoring might seem low, you've got to look at the way that this team is actually put together. Because New Orleans as a unit has a ton of ball handling. There are a lot of guys on this team that can make decisions.

Like Brandon Ingram, C.J. McCollum and Jose Alvarado are literally, or Alvarado, are literally three of the best pick and roll ball handlers in the league on a per possession basis this year. So you've got three outstanding creators. Zion is the one who's primarily featured. So those responsibilities are getting shared a lot. So I wouldn't look so much at volume with any individual player on this team. Like Brandon Ingram's individual stats don't look amazing, but he's playing great basketball right now.

And so it's just one of those things where you've got to look beyond that. Zion, CJ, B.I, and Jose are all averaging between four and six assists. Nobody on the team in this span is taking more than 15 shots per game. Zion has been one of the best ISO players in the entire league this year. Zion has scored 119 points on 96 ISOs, which is in the 94th percentile. And a big part of it is passing, which we're going to get to at a second. And then posting up, same type of deal, 130 points on 119 possessions, which is in the 73rd percentile. One of his most impressive offensive traits right now is passing.

You know, start from the foundation piece, which is that he gets to the rim as much as anybody in the league not named Giannis. He averages eight restricted area per game, which is second in the league to Yanis. So teams are treating him like Janus. When he's bringing the ball at the floor or when he gets the ball in one of his spots gets ready to attack, they are packing the paint like crazy. Even like good shooters, like Trey Murphy,

they're digging four or five feet off of him into the lane to try to contain Zion. That's how much trouble he's causing teams in the paint. You know, specifically what makes Zion a great path, It's part of it's the reeds, and he makes a lot of high-level reads. There was a specific play where, I want to say it was against, it was either against Denver, it was against the Spurs. I can't remember.

It was last week. But Trey Murphy was on the right wing, and Zion wanted to go to work, but he didn't like the spacing there because they were digging off of him. So he had to relocate to the corner. And then Larry Nance ended up sending like a flare screen, and Zion just kind of like took a stutter, step, dribble, and elevated it and threw a rifle pass to the corner to Trey Murphy. and he knocked down a three.

And I'm sitting there and I'm like, that's really high-level passing that we're seeing from this kid. But it's not just the reads. It's also, you know, there's a cliche in basketball, on time, on target. It's not even just in basketball.

It's in all sports. But, you know, a big part of passing is if there's a read, so say, for instance, the paint is packed and you have a shooter that's clearly open in the weak side corner or on the right wing or whatever it is. when you make the pass, the defense will rotate, right? Someone's going to close out on the shooter.

The entire defense is going to shift because the ball has crossed the midline. New guys are going to be in different spots and help. Everything kind of shifts, right? There is a contingency in the defense for how to handle that skip pass. So, essentially, there is a fine line between how much space that person has and what his individual skill set is. You know, certain shooters need more time. you know, because they have a slow gather,

and then other shooters have a lightning quick release. You know, some shooters have no drive threat. Other shooters, if you chase them off the line, they'll dunk on your head, you know. So that's a delicate balance. But one of the ways that you can buy every single one of your role players a better opportunity to capitalize on that is to get the ball to them quickly

and in a spot where they don't have to waste time gathering the basketball. And Zion just throws these rifle passes. He's so damn strong, And it's not just like, you know, because a lot of players can throw slingshot pass as hard because it's like a baseball pass. You can generate a lot of power and torque there. But Zion will like throw like flip of the wrist over his head passes on a dime to somebody, on a rope, bounce passes, chess passes that got like some pace to them that are hitting these shooters in the shooting pocket accurately where they can either quickly rise up or they can make a play.

And that kind of opens up so much more for them, not just passing it to ice or passing it post he's also been pretty solid passing out of pick and roll this year. In the last week or so, he's also been much more active defensively. That was the rub on him for a long time. He's averaging 5.5 stocks, steals plus blocks per game in his last four games, which is incredible. A couple of the guys I wanted to shout out, Trey Murphy, who was one of my favorite rookies in the league last year, just classic, big long athlete with like a really nice jump shot. And I love his form.

He's got one of my favorite jump shot forms that I've seen in the league this year, or in this last few years. There's no wasted movement. His body doesn't have any like weird, janky hitch going on. It's compact. It's quick. It's high and soft. He shoots the ball with plenty of arc. And he's also comfortable out to like 30, 35 feet, which I've always said is a huge deal. When you're comfortable to shoot a few feet behind the line or even five, ten feet behind the line, it extends spacing further out. And it, like, generally speaking, the further you're willing to shoot, the less the defender is willing to go out there. Excuse me, you get higher shot quality. So like, yeah, if you were in a gym by yourself, you'll shoot better at 23 feet than you would at 27 feet. That's a fact.

But in a game setting, if all the 23 footers are mildly contested and all the 27 footers are barely contested, you know, it might be a shot that you make it a higher rate. Trey's averaging 15 points per game in this span on 48% from the field, 40% from 3, 95% from the line. And in the last few games, he's been demonstrating a lot of really high-level close-out attacking. I'm sure you guys saw that play in the Denver game where he did that like double pump dunk attacking a closeout. But he had a similar play against San Antonio,

same type of thing. Pump fake, drove towards the middle, elevated it off two feet and just cocked it back with two hands and dunked it. That's that like next level stuff and spotting up that'll get, because his actual spot up numbers are not great this year. He's in like the 65th percentile or something like that.

You'll get higher as he gets even better in that closing out, their close out attacking. But he's been demonstrating a lot of that to a high level. during this span. David Griffin has done an outstanding job of loading this team up at the wing position. Brandon Ingram, the unsung hero here. You know, it's funny because his numbers don't look as good. He's a player that has a lot of, he's a player that has a lot of negative energy surrounding

him from like the weird debate between Pelicans and Lakers fans about the trade that happened forever ago, which who cares. And then anybody who's ever been a Laker always gets slandered anytime they go anywhere else. so it took forever for people to realize that Kyle Kuzmo was a good basketball player, for instance. I had Brandon Ingram up at like 12th in my player rankings this year, because that's how much I value what Brandon Ingram does on both ends of the floor. But he's quietly doing just an outstanding job, initiating offense for them in the lower volume in this equal opportunity offense.

He's always been an underrated passer. I think he's above and beyond what you typically see from wings. Like he's among the best wing passers that we have in the league. When he passes out of pick and roll this year, the Pelicans have scored 79 points on 69 possessions, which is in the 91st percentile. He's 94th percentile overall in pick and roll creation. Brandon Ingram is a damn good basketball player.

And then C.J. McCollum and Jose Alvarado have both also been great. The Pelicans are for real. They have a ton of ball handling. All of their ball handlers are above average passers. They have a ton of spot-up shooting. They're seventh in the league and three-point percentage this year. they completely dominate the painted area, their fourth in paint points per 100 possessions,

and they're an elite defensive team with a ton of lanky wings that pressures the ball and makes you feel uncomfortable all night long. They're up to third in defensive rating for the season. And then they have an awesome bench. This is crazy. Listen to this. Three of the top 15 lineups in the entire league that have played at least 20 minutes are Pelicans bench groups. Larry Nance, Devante Graham, Zion Williamson,

Najee Marshall, Jose Alvarado plus 70 net rating in 21 minutes. C.J. McCollum, Larry Nance, Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy, Jose Alvarado, plus 59 in 26 minutes. C.J. McCollum, Larry Nance, Devante Graham, Naji Marshall, Trey Murphy, plus 68 in 20 minutes. Overall this year, when Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson, Jonas Valenciunis, and Erb Jones are all off the floor,

the team is plus 4.3 per 100 possessions in 187 possessions. That's insane. they're deep and they're good at everything. I trust them more than I trust the Clippers right now. I'd put them right with Phoenix and Denver as the three teams that are the biggest threat to Golden State to get out of the West. All right, guys, that is all I have for today.

As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. We will be back tomorrow, breaking down tonight's slate of games, 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

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