The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Steph Curry & Warriors fall to Suns, Draymond ejected, Lakers-Mavs, Kings-Clippers

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and the Golden State Warriors' 119-116 loss to Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns (4:35). Jason discusses Draymond Green's ejection for his interaction with Jusuf Nurkic (9:55) as well as what is wrong in Golden State. Later, Jason breaks down Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks' 127-125 win over LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers (20:17) as well as Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers' 119-99 routing of De'Aaron Fox and the Sacramento Kings (34:30). #volume #Herd (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com slash basketball terms. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having an incredible week. In case you missed it earlier today, Chris Mannix came on the show. We did a deep dive on the Boston Celtics as well as kind of league at large looking at the contenders,

and we did some talk on the in-season tournament. You can find that a little bit further back on the feeds. In this show, we're just going to be hitting the Tuesday night slate. I have brief thoughts on three different games. We're going to talk Warrior Suns. Lakers Mavs and Clippers Kings. And then I have a rant about officiating that I want to get to at the end of the show as well.

You guys know the joke before we get started, subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel. It mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. Don't forget about our podcast feeds wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss any show announcements or film threads.

And then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so we can hit them throughout the rest of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So we got to see Bradley Beale, again, looked a lot more spry in this particular game. Definitely took his time to get 100% healthy, which was important, I think. One of the things that stood out immediately, and we've seen this in the handful of appearances he's had this year, too, but it's a real different type of perimeter initiator than what you get from Devin Booker and Kevin Durand.

You know, Devin Booker is a good rim attacker for most guards, but he's not an excellent, you know, straight line athlete. He just does it by weaponizing his pull-up shooting, his incredible touch around the basket. It's more of like a skill-based rim attack. And then Kevin Durant, same thing, super efficient around the rim, but he doesn't go there a lot, right? Well, Bradley Beale is a real straight-line athlete. And, you know, they used him in a bunch of different way. You saw they kept running him off of that Nirkitch screen around the post where they tried to get him to curl around. And then if he didn't get a pass off that curl, then he would quick flow into another screen.

and so he's going into an action running full speed, and he's just such a great athlete at that position. Like, you know, Devin Booker is a top 10 player in this league, an incredible, not a top-tier athlete at his position. Bradley Beal is a top-tier athlete at his position, and, like, brings real downhill pressure. I thought he was awesome orchestrating the offense, particularly as the son started to pull away there in the early fourth quarter.

Then Devin Booker comes in and closes the deal. Frank Vogel talked to the other day, about how he wanted Devin Booker to shoot more pull-up threes. He made two more pull-up threes in the mid-fourth quarter as the sun's kind of built a little bit of margin there. And, you know, it's interesting because, like, to me, pull-up threes are a bad shot for mediocre shooters, but they're a great shot for great shooters.

You know, like you look at guys like Jason Tatum, for instance, who just take a lot of pull-up jump shots, but in terms of points per shot basis, it's not actually a very efficient shot and it feels like he's settling. And Jason Tatum is such a great athlete and he has such great physical tools that you're like leaving points on the table by settling for that type of shot. For Devin Booker, though, he's such an unbelievably gifted pull-up three-point shooter. Like you're going to get 1.2, 1.2 and a half points per shot on that kind of look, right?

And so I think it is important for him to hunt that type of shot. You know, you see this with like Steph Curry as well where like those really, good shooters that are also excellent ball handlers, we think of an off-the-dribble shot as a tougher shot, and don't get me wrong, it is tough in the sense that, like, it takes a lot of effort and energy and dedicated work to get to the point where you can knock it down at that rate. But when you're in rhythm, it actually is a very easy shot for a good shooter who's in rhythm. Like, when the ball feels good in your hands because you've been dribbling it, when you have that footwork down so well to where when you get into that footwork, it feels like a shot. You've practiced hundreds

of times. You can rise up and you can knock it down. And like Booker said something to that effect after he hit that game winner over the Knicks. Like when I get to my, you know, left right, going to the right and I can elevate, he's like I feel like I've got a really good chance to making that shot. And I do think it's a good idea for him to keep hunting that. The one other thing I wanted to shout out on the sons up front, Yusuf Nerkich, in his passing of is really starting to shine through here in the last couple of weeks. Yet another seven assists in this game. Specifically making plays out of the short roll,

you've got to keep in mind, like, whether it's Beale flying off of a dribble handoff or some sort of off-ball screen or Devin Booker coming off of a pick-and-roll or KD coming off of a wide pin down, the vast majority of defenses are going to use the screen defender to show high in some way, shape, or form, whether it's a blitz, a show, a hedge-and-recover, whatever it might be. They're going to bring that screen defender up.

And so it's vitally important for Nerkich to be able to make plays out of the pass that comes from those actions. And he's been doing a really good job of that. He also had a really nice pass on a backdoor lob. I can't remember who it was he threw it to, but in that late game sequence where the warriors were throwing all that full court pressure to try to get back into the game, had a really nice read on a backdoor lob on the weak side. It got a little carried away when he threw that one rifle pass that led to the Jonathan Caminga dunk as things kind of got a little out of hand down the stretch. Things are coming together for Phoenix in a lot of ways. I also thought this was one of their better defensive efforts in the last couple of weeks.

I would love to see all three of them together. Hopefully we could see that soon. Apparently, KD. did a pregame workout, and he's still feeling a little bit of discomfort as he's trying to get to his spots with that ankle. So hopefully KD. can get it together quickly, and not too much longer after that, we'll get to see these three guys together. And then I guess Grayson Allen's dealing with some growing stuff as well. So got to see the sons get healthy before we can really judge what they're capable of.

On the Warriors front, they were up six when Dramon Green punched Yus of Nurkits in the face. And like, you know, my wife and I talk about this all the time. Like life has a tendency to throw curveballs at you, right? Like an unexpected expense, a medical issue, you know, some sort of family drama, some sort of friends drama, whatever it might be. There's all this stuff that can like be thrown your way that's out of your control. And so like don't expect, like don't make the problem worse by inflicting self-inflicted wounds, right? Like, so my wife and I have this like a talk that we have every once in a while.

It's like, you know, you don't text when you drive. You Uber instead of driving when you've had a few drinks. You do all these basic discipline things to prevent self-inflicted wounds so that you just deal with the curveballs that life throws you instead of having to deal with like, that plus all of this self-inflicted damage, right? And that's the thing that's tough with this Draymond situation is it's like, you've had so much stuff that's out of your control that's gone poorly for you guys this year. Like, guess what? Sons are another above 500 team that the Warriors had to play.

Did you guys know that the Warriors have played three games? All season, three games against teams that are below 500? they've been given a hellacious schedule to start the year. As a point of reference, the Sons have played 14 such games against below 500 teams. So, like, you've had a rough schedule. There have been injuries. Andrew Wiggins is, like, still completely, he was awful again tonight. He's, like, completely checked out right now.

You've had Kevin Lune's really struggling. All of these things that have been working against you, you drop a couple games because Steph's knee, flares up a few weeks back, like all of these things that are working against you that are out of your control. Like, there's literally nothing you can do about it as a franchise. Like, you just got to hope Andrew gets it together, right? You just got to, you got to hope you stay healthy. You know, you got to hope that, you know, when the schedule lightens up, you can rack up some wins and regain some ground in the standings. And like, here's the thing, Draymont, like he was, it was like a post-up

battle. It looked like Nurkut's right hand was on your hip a little bit. But like, that's, typical post contact that you're going to see down there. And he just spazzed out and punched him in the head. Like, what are you doing? You were up six or up five, I think it was 65, 60 when that happened. And you effectively took, now all of a sudden it's early fourth quarter. And there's Trace Jackson Davis out there on the floor by himself, getting posted up by Yusuf Nurkich, getting buried under the basket for Nguyen ones.

And it's like, this just shouldn't be the case. This shouldn't be happening. That is a self-inflicted wound. And like, you know, here's the thing with Draymond that's frustrating is he's shooting the ball so well this season. And he still is, I mean, there's issues with the Warriors starting lineup. And we're going to talk about that in the minute. But I still think the best version of this Warriors team includes Draymond Green and the way he's playing on that front line. But you've got to stay on the floor.

This team is desperate to get some continuity and to put some good basketball together. And it's very possible that we wake up. tomorrow and Draymond faces another suspension. And so I thought it was, I thought it was clear cut. He wasn't a benefit of a, he wasn't targeted by the officials in this one. He wound up and punched the guy in the face. And now, and now he's going to potentially take himself away from the team for a little while. It's a self-inflicted wound for a team that can't afford a self-inflicted wound right now. And honestly, like, you guys know how much I am a fan of Draymond green. I'm a huge fan. I'm such a huge believer in everything he does to help this team win

basketball games. Like just a flat out winner, a dude you want to have in the trenches with you in a real battle. And this season, he's just, he's, he's doing too much and it's hurting the team. And he's got to get it together because this whole dynasty is teetering on blow it up or invest in it and move forward. And when it's teetering, when he does stuff like that, it pushes weight on the other direction. And that's not what this team needs right now. The starting lineup. It's super interesting to see the difference between last year and this year. If you guys remember last year, the starting lineup was one of the best lineups in basketball. And one of the big things that you saw was like as the bench was struggling, Kerr was trying to tweak and stagger the

starting lineup differently to try to anchor those bench lineups better to give them a better chance of succeeding. It's been an entirely different deal this year. Like the Warriors have a positive point differential with Steph Curry off the floor, which is amazing. And it comes down to Chris Paul orchestrating those units, getting key defensive contributions from guys like Moses Moody. Like Brandon Pizemski has been like a revelation. He's awesome. Like that's a huge silver lining is like you've got a great bench and you found like a bona fide rotation player in Pizemski in that group. So it's like there's lots to be encouraged about, but that starting lineups not working anymore. And what we're seeing here is like when Wiggins is at the level he was at

in 2022 and Clay Thompson is at the level he was at in the 2022 playoffs and Steph Curry is at that level. When all three of those guys are at that level, then the Dremon Looney thing works because there's just so much offensive skill around there. But as you're seeing, as Clay Thompson has kind of tailed off a little bit, as Andrew Wiggins has tailed off a little bit over the course of last year and this year, it's put it to the point now where like the total amount of offensive skill on the floor just isn't enough. And now the Draymond Looney thing is becoming a problem. And what they're doing, again, like we saw the Lakers do, the book is out.

You ignore Draymond and Looney. You a top lock as best as you can to avoid them using the screens. but if you are in a lock and trail position, you just have to run like hell around these screens and funnel them into your interior where the guys who are ignoring Dremont Green and Kevin Luni are waiting. And so, again, I think it's, I do, we did see in closing time here by going with Pizemski instead,

by going with Kaminga instead, like you're seeing Steve Kerr start to kind of identify these things. But at the end of the day, like that, you know, one of the key kind of, talking points from this particular show that we're going to talk about is stubbornness in coaching and the willingness to make adjustments. And I think it's important to identify that that lineup's not working anymore. Didn't work in the playoffs last year, right?

You're probably going to have to go away from it again in the playoffs anyway, even if the lineup was playing well. It's time to start experimenting with that starting lineup and try to make something different happen. One other thing I wanted to hit on the Sun's front before we move on. with the Bradley Beal piece. So, like, diversity of shot creation is an important element to me, in my opinion, when it comes to playoff success. So, for instance, like the Indiana Pacers, they rely on Tyrese Halliburton to create

absolutely everything. So when the Lakers were able to come up with a defensive scheme that kind of removed a good amount of Tyrese Halliburton's effectiveness, there was no second punch there, right? Sacramento Kings got their ass kicked by the clippers tonight. They also got their ass kicked by the Pelicans three times. They also got their ass kicked by the rockets a few times. One of the things that's standing out to me about the Kings is like if you can contain them on the perimeter, they don't really have a counter punch.

Like if you can prevent Malik, Monk, and Deer and Fox from slicing and dicing you off the dribble, you can really slow down their offense. And so having a guy that's like, oh, like this team is quick and lanky on the perimeter, well, what if we have a different way to attack? So for instance, a guy like LeBron being able to bully his way to the basket as a post-up player, when the Austin Reeves pick and rolls are not working. That's a diversity of shot creation. That's kind of the way I feel about Bradley Beal.

Devin Booker and Kevin Durant are kind of redundant in a lot of ways. They're two, you know, Kevin Durant post-Aquillies is not a guy that's a dominant slasher, right? And Devin Booker, like we talked about earlier, not a top-tier athlete. So those guys are skill perimeter initiators that are going to work a lot in ISO and pick-and-roll and take a lot of pull-up jump shots, right? Brad Beale provides diversity in the sense that he's a real slasher. He's a top-tier athlete slasher that can make pull-up jump shots. And so I actually like the idea of him being out there essentially is just,

you know, because he'll have impact as an off-ball player running off actions and occupying help defenders. But in on-ball situations, and when he does get the ball running off-off-ball action, it's just going to provide a different type of offensive punch in another counter that the Sons can go to when certain things stop working. 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.

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Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of 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 Lakers Mavs. So I thought the Mavs did an excellent job in this game of making the Lakers pay for their game plan. So one of the things the Lakers did in the first half of this game is they were showing high, applying basically blitzing like a soft blitz on Luca Donschich to get the ball out of his hands. And the Lakers were bringing that low man over to tag the roller, wide open shooters on the weak side. That was where you were seeing guys like Dante XM and Grant Williams get wide open threes.

But then later in the game, the Lakers went bigger. They brought Rui Hachamura into the lineup, and they started switching everything. And the Lakers actually had some success in that stretch where they were forcing Luka into really tough shots and long isos, meaning like he's isoing from 26, 27 feet from the basket, and the Lakers were able to kind of help and rotate out of it, force him into tough shots, and it was working. Well, one of the things they did, and I'm not sure if it was Jason Kidd's adjustment or if it was Luca Donchitz adjustment. But what they started doing is having Luca run his ISOs, get the switch, and then basically

give him the ball on the elbow. And so just to kind of draw the geometry of it for you, imagine Luca on the right elbow with, you know, somebody on him, whether it's Ruehachamura, whether it's Austin Reeves, whoever it might be, right? And then what they did is they took Derek lively and they moved him a few steps outside the dunker spot. So not really right in that dunker spot right outside the block, but a few steps outside. Why does that matter?

Because if Derek Lively is standing right outside the block, like on the dunker spot area, then Anthony Davis can sit right under the basket and help without getting a defensive three seconds because he's technically guarding Derek Lively. As soon as Derek Lively took those extra few steps further out towards the corner, now Anthony Davis is in a bind because he has two options at that point. He can either step all the way outside that outside block and kind of step in and out and in and out to try to avoid a defensive three seconds call, where Luca could easily just wait for him while he's taking that step out and then drive by,

or Anthony Davis would have to full zone up, meaning ignore Derek Lively and go to the opposite end of the block and basically wait for the drive there. Here's the problem with that. You now have a two-on-one on the weak side with a shooter in the corner and Derek Lively in the dunker spot, and if the guy guarding the shooter in the corner wants to get in front of Derek Lively and box him out to prevent the lob, it's a skip pass to a wide open shooter every single time. If that guy's not there and he's on the backside of Derek lively, Luca just has to go right up to the front of the rim,

and Derek lively is going to go up and he's going to dunk it in, right? It's a really smart setup. And again, talking about capitalizing on Darvinham's game plan, one of the things the Lakers were doing is they did not want Luca Donchich to take pull-up jump shots. Now, Luca's shooting his pull-up jump shot extremely well this year, right? But they were pressing up on Luca, and Luca is so big, and he's one of the best.

When I'm talking to my young kids, as you guys know, I coach high school ball here in town, and I primarily work with skills development because I work so much at night, so I do these morning workouts with the kids where we do skills development. And when I'm talking about ball handling, I always point to Luca as the best example to follow because he's not flashy with the basketball in terms of like the way he dribbles. Like he's not doing giant sweeping crossovers and wild dribble combinations. it's really basic stuff. It's push crosses.

It's between the legs dribbles. It's using spin moves. It's all real basic, but what he does is he sells things really well with his eyes. So, like, if he's planning on crossing over to the left, he'll have his full body position this way and the ball kind of in a push cross position like this. And as his whole body is facing the other way,

he'll then cross over. And he's not doing anything dramatic with the basketball, but when he opens up like that, the defender opens up. And so then when he crosses over, he gets a tiny bit of an angle, and now he's using his size to beat you through that tiny little bit of an angle. It's the same thing with this between the legs dribble. He's going to set you up like he's going left, and then he's going to basically scissor cross through back to the right, and he does it in such an efficient way without having to move the ball very far, and he just buys those tiny angles, and he shoots through those gaps.

And then essentially, when his triple threat situations there at the elbow, it's just a rip-through, basically. but they were pressing so far up on him to stop him from taking those pull-up jump shots that he was able to just rip right through. From there, he's either getting to those little short floaters that he can make at a high rate or making those skip passes out to the outside. He just, there wasn't a soul on that team that could guard him. I think for this particular matchup, the Lakers really missed Jared Vanderbilt. I did think that they, we'll talk about the Lakers in a little bit,

but without Jared Vanderbilt, they're just wanting a guy on the team other than maybe LeBron and Anthony Davis that could do a decent. job guarding Luca. But even in the switches with AD, Ham had AD way up, taking away the jump shot, and Luca was just going right around AD. And when he go around AD, there's no help. There's no real athleticism on the weak side without Jared Vanderbilt out there. They were running, they were running Delo and Austin for a good chunk of this game, too.

And it's like, there's just not enough athleticism on that weak side to rotate out of it, right? I thought Luca was unbelievable in this game. I know he took 28 shots, but again, like down Kyrie Irving, he needs to be more aggressive and take more bailout shots and things like that. I thought he was fantastic. A couple of other shoutouts. They did a really good job, especially in the first half,

of running off of Lakers' turnovers and misses at the rim. Tim Hardaway got going in transition in this way, which I thought paid dividends down the line. And then Derek lively had a clutch situation late in the game. He had a huge offensive rebound over Anthony Davis. that was a pivotal play in this game that led to a bucket. And then he had three blocks, bothered a lot of shots at the rim. And then he just does a basic thing that a lot of big struggle with,

which is set good screens, roll hard to the rim. Like, roll hard every single time. You know, because when the Lakers are bringing multiple defenders to the ball, you guys remember that ridiculous, like Dwight Howard-esque lob that he had like way back here out from the top. Luca came off of the right wing into a ball screen. Lakers sent two to the ball. AD was out showing.

And so the only way Luca could get the pass over was to take the ball way out wide and basically throw a hook pass, which, again, was just an absurdly difficult pass that Luke could just put on the money because he's incredible.

But the only way it was going to work is if Lively bailed out of the screen quickly and rolled hard to the rim and has the athleticism to get up that high, which he was able to do and finish. I mean, for a rookie, you could not be more happy with how Derek Lively's been playing

this year. On the Lakers front, again, I understand the game plan where I disagree is the lack of the adjustment. So, for instance, all the Laker fans are like, oh my gosh, Dante X-M was 28% from three this year. Why is, why are the, why is he making all of these threes? Now, you guys know how I feel about this kind of thing. Like, you can play the numbers with that kind of thing and ignore a shooter, but you need to identify one. that shooter is now confident versus when he's not. So this can go both ways. So for instance, I talked about before the Pacers game,

I was like, the Lakers are almost certainly going to ignore Miles Turner on his pick and pops until he makes a couple. He didn't make them. You went one for five or whatever. So it worked out okay. And there are versions of that where you ignore that guy and he misses a couple and then you can see he's in his head and then it's over, right? But there are also versions of that where it goes in.

Like, I'm a much better shooter now than when I was in college. I have a coach that I used to work with who would say you're either a shooter or a maker. And I've worked really hard in my lifetime to become a good shooter. When I was in college, I was a very streaky shooter. Like I had a season where I shot 50% in conference play. And then I had like another season where I missed 22 threes in a row and like literally couldn't make a damn shot to save my life. I was super, super streaky.

And like, what is it with a streaky shooter that makes them streaky? What it is is like when they are confident, when they're feeling good, they get really good lift and they trust their mechanics and the shots go in. But then they can also spiral out of control. And when they start missing, they start tinkering with their mechanics and they don't trust their form. And then the bottom can fall out. But here's the thing. Back in college, if you just gave me a bunch of wide open looks, like eventually I could get hot. And then there were stretches where I'd get hot and make a bunch of threes.

And then there'd be stretches where I'd miss them, right? I was one of those guys. I was one of those guys in college that, like, you probably, especially by last year in NAA when I was playing so much off the ball, like you would concede the shot to me. You know what I mean? And like, I understand that from a game plan perspective, but the point is, is like at a certain point you have to adjust to what's taking place. So for instance, Luca Danshich, he hit some tough pull-up jump shots in this game.

Not a lot of them. And Dante Exum was feeling great. Made seven threes. Grant Williams was feeling great. Made five threes. Tim Hardaway Jr. was feeling great. Made five threes. So at what point do you look at the situation and go like, hey, you know, Dante feels good right now.

This is going in. Why don't we maybe try making Luca into a pull-up jump shooter by giving more space on these switch isos and baiting him into taking step-back jump shots and then maybe if Luca makes two or three more in a row, then you can react at that point. And so that's my thing. Like, I understand the game plan. But at a certain point, you've got to adjust to the first. back that Dante's a pro who's now on fire. You know what I mean? And for whatever it's worth, he was 42% last year in Europe on catch and shoot jump shots. The year before that,

playing in Spain, 54% on catch and shoot jump shots. And he's been shooting well for the Australian national team. And this year now, after tonight, he's up to 41% on catch and shoot jumpers. And so, like, again, like, I don't think it's that surprising. Now, I'm not super irritated on the Lakers front because I had a feeling this kind of thing was going to happen, meaning like you win the in-season tournament championship and then you play on Tuesday, you know, and like you're on the road against a team that's decimated by injuries, like they're literally playing all these guys that are not usually in their rotation, and they just laid an egg for lack of a better term. I thought it was their worst defensive

effort in a couple of weeks, especially in that first half. And then the Lakers turned it up defensively in that second half, but this is another thing that I've seen a lot in my time playing the game, coaching the game, covering the game. Like, when you let guys get comfortable early, they'll be confident late. So for instance, there were a couple of those threes that Dante Exam made that were contested. Tim Hardaway Jr. made some contested shots. Tim Hardaway Jr. and Dante Exum both made really nice right-handed scoop shots high off the glass that were like heavily contested. A big part of that is early in the game, you weren't rotating, you weren't contesting threes. These guys were taking practice shots. And so now imagine you're

Tim Hardaway Jr. And you've got the ball on the wing. And it's like, dude, I've got 25 points tonight. I'm an NBA player with 25 points. Like, you need me to create a bucket with five seconds on the shot clock? You bet your ass I'm going to. Tonight's my night. And that's how they feel when they drive to the rim and they make those shots. Right. Like it's all part of that, that like, in my opinion, when people start talking about shot result, is there some luck involved? Yes, but if I'll always preach that it's more process than luck, you will get better shots when you play better basketball than the other team, and then usually you will make more of them. The Lakers have been, they've been shooting the ball a lot better as of late.

They've been, I want to say they were 13th and 3-point percentage over their previous 15 games before tonight. A big part of that, in my opinion, was defending better, and then, playing with more force offensively, getting higher quality catch and shoot looks. Like, I do tend to think these things are connected. And so, like, I think it's lazy to come out of that game and be like, oh, the maps just made all their shots. Like, you know, they got us tonight.

It's like, no, no, no, they played better basketball than you. And as a result of that, they were feeling better down the stretch and they made some of the tougher shots that you didn't make. Doesn't mean anything to me in the big picture as it pertains to the Lakers. I expect a lot of this. Like, Laker fans, I've been saying this all season, if they're not going to bring consistent effort every night, they're going to be a team that wins, you know, 46, 47 games. Like, that's what they're going to be because the NBA is too deep.

Before tonight, there were 19 NBA teams that were over 500. So, like, at the end of the day, like, this team effort is going to be a huge indicator for their regular season success. but I'm always going to feel confident that they're going to be able to hit a two-way ceiling like they did in the in-season tournament. That's going to keep them in my championship contender tier. And quite frankly, when guys like Jared Vanderbilt are out, those are going to be the nights when you're going to see their defense suffer. Because the Lakers don't have a lot of natural motor guys, right? Like, LeBron's not a natural motor guy. A.D. is not a natural motor guy.

Austin Reeves is not a natural motor guy. Neither is DeAngel Russell. Neither is Tori and Prince. Like it's pretty much like Max Christie, Jackson Hayes, who fouls all the time, and Jared Vanderbilt. Like even Ruizmur is not really a natural motor guy. They don't have a guy, a lot of guys that part of their basketball DNA is like they play hard all the time. And so when their high motor guys are out, they're going to struggle. It's pretty much like Cam Radish plays hard, Jared Vanderbilt plays hard, Max Christie plays hard.

And like when those three guys are heavily involved in the rotation, you're going to see them have more. a higher baseline in their night-to-night effort. And I thought Jared Vanderbilt being out was a big factor and just the overall lethargy that they played with in this particular game. All right, moving on to the Clippers. I only passively watched this game because I was primarily focusing on Suns Warriors,

but I did catch a good chunk of it, just paying attention. I don't want to talk too much Clippers tonight because I want to do a deep dive on them soon. I have a friend of mine who works for the athletic that I met in Vegas, playing basketball, actually, this past July. I'm going to have him come on the show. Law Murray, you guys may or may not know who he is if you guys are Clippers fans.

I'm going to have him come on the show. I'm going to reach out to him and see if we can get him on and break down the Clippers in depth because I want to get him talk about them in a bigger picture. But they are 10 and 3 in their last 13 games. These metrics are not including tonight, but in their previous 12 games, fourth in defense and fifth in net rating.

18th in defensive rebounding, is better than they had been doing at the beginning of the trade, but not great. But the defense is really coming around. Now, and the offense is starting to pick up. They were really bad at first, but they're up to 14th now over their last 12 games. And I do believe it will continue to get better. But the big thing that stood out to me right away is, like, the basic geometry of what makes this team work is their excellent defensive team.

They are one of the best athletic perimeter teams that you'll see around the league. When you've got Norman Powell, Russell Westbrook, and Terrence Mann at the guard position, which are all excellent athletes at the guard position, right? And then you've got Kauai Leonard and Paul George, two of the best wing athletes that we have in this league. That is like the perimeter foundation. Now, what the clippers do defensively is they switch everything except for when Zubox's on the floor, then they run a drop coverage, right? And like I've always talked about with drop coverages, drop coverages are not doomed to fail on their face.

It's just about execution. As long as the guy on the ball can do a good job of navigating that screen and staying attached on the backside and offer a good rearview contest or back pressure, whatever you want to call it, it'll work. As long as you've got a big man that's got enough size to be somewhat of a rim deterrent and has enough instinct and athleticism to step up and contest floaters and pull up mid-range jump shots and things along those lines, right? And you see that in this King's game in particular where it's like, okay, here comes Keegan Murray. of a dribble handoff and Sabonis is rolling to the rim after. Except for it's Kawhi Leonard. And Kawhi Leonard does a good job navigating the screen. And he's attached on the backside and he's pressuring Kegan Murray.

And now he's rushing the floater and he's shooting it hard and it bricks off the glass. Right? It's just different than if you've got a guy who dies on the screen or can't stay attached or doesn't have the size to really bother with back pressure. And now he can settle into a calm, easy floater. that he practices when he's doing his shooting drills, right? That's a fundamental difference, right? There is a play where Deer and Fox is going off of a dribble handoff with Subonis,

and Paul George is attached on the backside. And as Subonis is rolling down, there's Zubak waiting because Paul George is attached. Deer and Fox can't slow down and operate in the mid-range, so he's going barreling downhill. Paul is funneling him into Zubak at the rim, right? and Paul George is also athletic enough that when Zubak contests that shot and forces the miss, PG can bury Subonis underneath the basket and get the defensive rebound.

That's the other piece of it too is like in these coverages, often that on-ball guy has to peel off and box out the big man, which is something that their wings, even their guards are capable of doing. And so it starts on the defense event. This is an excellent defensive team because of their perimeter defense. I'm still worried about them in terms of the big,

bigger teams in the conference teams like Denver, Lakers, Minnesota Timberwolves, like teams that could really punish them on the glass. Those are the things that would concern me. But in terms of the regular season, you know, they're going to get enough stops. And like, as I said during the losing streak, like, I didn't look at the Clippers as really any sort of regular season issue because I view them more. I just, there's just no way that those guys weren't going to figure it out offensively, and they still have so much better that they can get.

it's more like physical limitations in a seven game series against the top tier opponents in the league, which is a separate conversation, and we'll get into that when we do our Clippers deep dive. But within the context of like these regular season games, when they can contain most of these teams on the perimeter, and then you're seeing the natural offensive fit, like James Hardin's doing an excellent job kind of orchestrating things while still making sure that Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are the featured offensive players. they've got Paul George running on a lot of offball actions right now and he's getting a lot of really clean catch-and-shoot looks. And then like Russell Westbrook and his fit,

he's getting ignored in the weakside corner, but he's doing a really nice job crashing out of that weekside corner. I have multiple offensive rebounds, including a tip-dunk against Sacramento coming out of that weak-side corner. They're going to get better and better on that end. I do think this Clippers team is going to win a lot of regular season games, especially with the motor that they're playing with. Their stars are competing.

I think that was one of the good things about, that 0-and-5 or 0-6 stressed is it just brought real urgency to the situation. And they're playing really hard every night and they're having a lot of success because of it. But again, we will do a deep dive on the clipper soon. I'll probably try to get to them next week. On the Kings front, again, just like I talked about with Houston, just like I talked about with New Orleans, these elite perimeter defense teams that can turn these screening actions that they run into really high difficulty plays, high difficulty shots, they're offense

tanks in these situations. And like what we're seeing, because I talked about their 0-and-5 against New Orleans and against Houston, well, in three of those five games, they got held underneath 100 points. Well, here we go. Another elite perimeter defense team, and the clippers hold them under 100 points. And this is a team that lives and breathes on the offensive end of the floor. And so what's concerning to me about that is because Sabonis has not been a good enough,

consistent, you know, matchup attacker down low, they just just don't really have another offensive punch they can go to when teams can contain Fox and Monk and Hurtor and Murray, right? And like, that's where you're seeing these problems. It's something to keep in mind as we look forward. It's a matchup thing. Like, again, like when you're really, really good, when you're one of those top tier contenders, you can win in different types of matchups and have success even when things don't go your way. But in that tier below that, it's very matchup based. If the Kings face the Warriors, do I think they can beat them? Sure.

But if they run into these excellent perimeter defense teams, teams like the Clippers, for instance, teams like the Lakers, for instance, I think the Kings are going to have a lot of problems. And it's just something to keep in mind. I know the Kings won a couple of games against the Lakers earlier this season, but you know how the Lakers were playing earlier this season. But it's just something to keep in mind from a matchup standpoint. When we get to the postseason, as we're trying to make predictions, who are the King's playing? Are they playing a team that has good matchups for their perimeter initiators? Because if they do, their offense could stall out and it could be a death sentence for them. All right, before we get out of here, I want to bitch and moan about officials for a couple seconds.

So we had Nicole Yokic get kicked out for arguing with an official and all these people that paid all this money in Chicago to go see Nicola Yokic had to watch other people play basketball, which is really frustrating. I saw in the Dallas Mavericks game, we had, I think it was Tim Hardaway, Jr. on a fast break, a basic two-hand dunk where he did a basic dismount, and he got teed up for hanging on the rim. Between that championship game, which I didn't even complain about because I was trying to keep it focused on the Lakers, but, excuse me, that in-season tournament championship game was literally one of the worst officiated games I've ever seen. there were there was there was no flow to the game at all whatsoever and I think there was like 28 foul calls just in the first half

so we're talking about over one foul call per minute think about that 24 minutes and a half we had 28 foul calls in the first half of that Pacers Lakers game there are two major issues with officiating right now that I think are a big problem league-wide one the ego of these dudes they are so wrapped up

in their stature as MPS B.A officials and everything associated with that, that they are allowing that to bleed over into the television product. That's a problem. No one's there to see you. They're there to see Yokic. There has to be a better way for you to rectify whatever issue there is there. I don't know if you have to work with it, the league behind the scenes to levy you fine if there's a player that is disrespectful or what the deal is. But you getting all worked up and getting up in your feelings and kicking the best player in the world out of a game early on because he's complaining about a foul call. By the way, I watched the play. He got fouled. He got fouled on the

play. He's always irritated. A competitor got in your face and yelled at you because you missed a call and you kicked him out of the damn game. When everybody in that arena, 20,000 people paid money to see him. Not you, him. And so like, that's a big problem. The rim technicals are completely out of control. And then in the basketball element of it, it really comes down to this for me. There is, to me, referees play a very specific role in NBA games. They facilitate basketball games, meaning like they are a tool with which we get through basketball games smoothly. But at the end of the day, the NBA is an entertainment product. What that means is it's not their job to hyper-analyze the rules and buy the book, go through every single possession.

It's your job to make sure this NBA game goes on, and it feels like two teams competing against each other, not gamesmanship, and not an officiating contest. See what I'm saying? Now, specifically, there are two things that I look at. One, really nitpicky stuff. So, like, little bits of contacts when guys are moving around the floor that are super normal in a basketball game,

that, like, yeah, buy the book that might be a hand check or that might be a blocking foul. But, dude, like, let the game go on. You're stopping an NBA game, you're ruining the flow. And then the second piece of it is they have absolutely no control over this non-basketball play thing. What they'll do, there's like a dozen different variations of this.

The big one I've been complaining about is the like hard dribble to the right guy kind of meets him at a spot. They lightly bump into each other. The guy just throws the ball up at the room and gets a bucket. Here's what I would do. It's the easiest fix in the entire world. Never ever, ever reward a non-basket play with a foul, even if it's clearly a foul. So if the dude goes and throws up some bullshit foul grifty shot and gets clearly hacked across the arm, let it go.

Don't reward bad basketball. Reward good basketball. At the end of the day, we're trying to facilitate the highest quality basketball games that we can for the health of the league. And it's frustrating because talent is at an all-time high. The entertainment product when the game is flowing is extremely high. This is one of the major problems. the refs have too much ego, and they can't stop, they can't quit stopping the flow of these games because they have no control over the non-basketball play thing.

And again, I promise you, if you look at, I'm not going to say any specific player, but if you look at a specific player and you're like, yeah, you're right, you did get fouled, but that's not a real basketball play, and I'm not calling that anymore. If you did that around the league for like two weeks, they'd all stop. They'd all stop. None of them would do it anymore. they do it because it gets rewarded. End of story.

And it's just like, it's just such a shit show right now. And it's like, you know, I have a friend Ben Dowsett, who's done a lot of work to research behind the scenes, how they do, the officials do their process, and the casebook and all the different things they do to try to tweak interpretations. And, like, I have no doubt that the refs try. But sometimes there's an entity that's trying.

and it's not good enough. And right now, the officials are trying, but it's not good enough. And it's ruining a game, the game. And I'm fucking sick of it, man. It's driving me crazy. And I hope they can get control of it. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight.

I appreciate your guys' support. We're taking tomorrow off. We'll be back for two more film sessions on Thursday and Friday breaking down games from Wednesday and Thursday night. I will see you guys then. The volume. Another podcast from some of

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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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

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