The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight -Warriors-Mavericks Reaction: Luka Doncic & Mavs take down Steph Curry & Golden State +Revisiting Lakers Collapse

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

First (3:00)Jason Timpf reacts to Luka Doncic and the struggling Dallas Mavericks taking down Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors 116-113. Laker (25:00), He also revisits the Lakers terrible loss on Monday to the Indiana Pacers. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I want to talk about that incredible basketball game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Golden State Warriors. And then the Los Angeles Lakers had another wild collapse last night. I've a lot to talk about there, particularly as it pertains to LeBron James, who had a pretty embarrassingly bad, quarter in that game. I'm going to talk a little Indiana Pacers after that, too. And then the last chunk of the show,

Carl Anthony Town suffered a cap injury that's going to keep him out for at least the month, probably closer to two. So we're going to do a little bit of a deep dive into some of Minnesota's struggles and what they've looked like without Carl Towns on the floor this year and just kind of talk about how they can best float over the course of the next couple of months without one of their stars. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels.

you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT, so you guys don't miss any show announcements. I'm also going to be referencing, particularly on the LeBron front, A, demonstrates some of the issues that I had with his play last night, so you're going to want to follow me there.

And last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball. And I'm going to break, I shouldn't say break, but I usually have a rule that we don't talk about refs. And I'm not breaking the rule, so to speak, because I'm not going to talk about it as it pertains to any team or outcome tonight.

However, it really annoyed me the incessant need for the refs tonight to step in and stop the flow of this game with really nitpicky calls. Now, I understand that generally speaking, the refs have a process. Early in the season, they have what's called points of emphasis. Every year it's something different. And usually during the early chunks of the season, they are really on top of those specific calls. And then always over the course of every year, they fade away back into the background and things kind of fall back to normal NBA officiating. Peaking with the postseason where for the most part, they swallow their whistle.

and let both teams play, which, for the record, I'm pretty sure is the way all of us want the game to be. We want the basketball to be decided by the players and not by the officials. And this stuff with the traveling, like, you know, here's the thing with traveling. There is a travel or a carry on just about every single possession of NBA basketball. That's the same for the college level. It's the same for the high school level. It's the same when you guys go up and you play pickup. games, right? But what's the general rule that you guys play by when you're playing pickup games?

Like, if it's not egregious, you're not calling it. If it's not a blatant attention advantage by cheating, you're not going to call it, right? Because you went up to the gym to play basketball and you're trying to work on your game. And it was so annoying tonight to see like Luke Donchich doing a normal driving gather dribble kick out to the corner. And you're calling a travel that was iffy at best and even when you slow it down at, you know, at, you know, at an extremely slow speed, you don't see anything definitive and the ref blows the whistle or on that last play with Steph when it's 115, 113. He does a step back. He does a jump stop where he lands both beat at the same time, which technically means you can establish either foot as your pivot foot. He picks up his left

foot twice. I get it looks a little awkward, but it certainly wasn't blatant. And what it did was it ruined a cool possession at the end of a very entertaining basketball game. And it robbed Steph of his chance to take a shot that could have given the Warriors the lead. And just in general, throughout this entire game, the carries, the travels, the knit picky officiating kind of ruined the flow. And I'm glad the crew for TNT was calling it out because it was really taking away from what was a really entertaining basketball game. The shot making from both teams was insane. That was one of Luca's best games of the season. Steph continues to play like he might be the best player in the world.

You had big games from bench players for the Warriors, big games for specific players on the Mavericks. It was a highly entertaining basketball game that kind of had a little bit of a funky feel thanks to the officiating. So obviously we probably don't have many refs that listen to the show. But word to the wise, we're there to play basketball. we're there to watch basketball, we're there to enjoy the basketball, we're not there to enjoy you. So maybe step back a little bit, and if it's not egregious, maybe hang on to that whistle.

So Dallas, you know, it's funny because this season has been disappointing for them, obviously. They're below 500. And after making it within three wins, you're hoping for, you know, better than what they've done so far this year. But as is kind of a common theme from NBA Twitter and NBA circles, NBA fan bases, NBA talk in the media as well, every time there's a player that we don't like for whatever reason, we kind of hone in on team issues and target the player as the object of our criticism. And it's happened to Luca this year, something that I kind of saw coming, but this is a team that was construed. in a way that required three primary shot creators and a bunch of three indie role players. They lost one of their primary shot creators and they didn't replace him. And so one of the things that's happened to this season is they've been really good with Luca Donchich on the floor.

They were amazing again tonight. Last night or coming into tonight, they were about plus four points per 100 possessions with Luca on the floor, which is very good. and they were minus three per 100 possessions with Luca off the floor, which is pretty bad, and enough to cause you some problems, especially in a completely jam-packed league where every night you're facing a pretty damn good opponent. And it's funny because everybody's jumped on Luca, comparing him to James Hardin and doing all of these things to try to denigrate him, when the reality is is that the Luca lineups are playing.

And they're causing problems. And it's a shortcoming of the roster. construction. Warrior starting lineup. We talked about this yesterday. That's the best lineup in the league by a mile. They're significantly better than the Bucks starting lineup, and the Bucs starting lineup is significantly better than everyone else. They are damn good. I think coming into tonight, they were plus 28 points per 100 possessions when they have Steph, Dremond, Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, and Kevin Loney on the floor at the same time. That's how good that unit is. into the starting line, which, by the way, is really good. If you're ranking the best lineups in the league that have played at least 100 minutes,

Golden States in first place, Milwaukee's in second place, Washington Wizards, believe it or not, when they're actually healthy and have all their guys, their starting lineup is the third best lineup in the league to play at least 100 minutes. Denver's fourth, Boston's fifth, the Dallas Mavericks are sixth. So even though the team in general has struggled, their lineup is the sixth best lineup in basketball right now. And so I hope, you know, I hope people stop with the Hardin comparisons. There's some similarities in the way they control possessions,

but James Hardin historically has flamed out every single postseason that he's been in, okay? Luca Donchich is progressing at an outrageous in the postseason. The big difference between him and James Hardin is shot variety. Luca Donchich is scoring in so many different ways that you can't sit on moves. And if you do, he'll beat you with a counter. And he's got so many different moves and counter moves at so many different spots on the floor that you don't progress in terms of him the way that you do with James Hartford.

Now, he's a young kid. He's into a veteran experienced Golden State Warriors team with a guy that I think might be the best perimeter defender in basketball and Andrew Wiggins. And he had a rough series in the conference finals. and then he lost his second best player, and now they're struggling, and a lot of people have jumped on it. I just don't think that's fair. The reality is with Jalen Brunson.

Jalen Brunson's a good player. He's having a good season in New York. He's not the kind of guy you usually see as a second player on a championship team. He's not Kyra Irving on the 2016 Cavs. He's not Kevin Durand or Steph Curry on the Warriors or even a Draymond Green or a Clay Thompson. He's not that level of player.

And so I think we need expectations a little bit. And I hope in general we want to think a little bit fair when we're evaluating these stars, especially when they're as young as they are. Hopefully for Dallas's sake, hopefully Kimball Walker ends up becoming that guy. I thought it was an interesting gamble. It's a non-guaranteed contract. When he was at his peak, he was one of the best dribble penetrators and pull-up jump shooters in the league.

So he did that in a primary role when he was the focus of the scouting report and the focus of all the defensive attention. Now he's going to be doing it in what Spencer Dinwiddie's role was last year, which is primarily with bench units, primarily as the second creator on the floor. He's going to be facing better defensive matchups and less defensive attention. He has, you know, if there's anything left in Campbell Walker's gas tank, we're going to find out in this Dallas situation. Ironically, you know, tonight it was the Warriors bench groups. that really handled Dallas.

And that kind of highlights that specific problem that I was talking about. Some of that is, was Golden State staggering their starters, which we're going to talk about here in a minute. But I hope in general, instead of focusing on Luca in this era of Mavericks basketball, we focus on the obvious roster limitations. Is he perfect? No. He had a really bad defensive start to the season,

although he's been playing much better defense as of late. Does he take some bad shots at the end of games? Yes. does his strangle the pace style sometimes lead to runs for the other team when things get too stagnant? Yes, he's not a perfect player. I had him fourth best in the league, I think, or fifth best in the league coming into this season. I don't think he's the same guy as Steph Curry or Janice or any of those guys, but he's a damn good player and he's certainly well ahead of schedule for his age. And I think that a lot of the criticism directed his way this

year has been unfair. I wanted to shout out the defensive effort for Dallas because I was really impressed with them early in this game. Early in the game, it was closeouts. The ferocity in which they would sprint and contest Warriors' threes were causing them to rush shots and to feel uncomfortable on those shots, which was causing them to miss. And then in the late part of the game, it was a lot of deflections, kind of like getting a good anticipation to get ahead of where those classic Warriors' reeds are, right? Like the classic Warriors' reeds you're always seeing is like the guy does a good job chasing over the top of the screen. So Clay Thompson or Stafford, Jordan Poole will curl around. And as you're curling around, the screen defenders there and

the defender's bracketing behind. So there's two of you. And now you're passing it back to the screener. And now the screener's going into a dribble handoff into the next guy. And like, you can kind of see the Warriors basketball progressing. And Dallas did a nice job, especially in that fourth quarter, getting ahead of those reads and getting deflections. And there were several sequences. We were like, oh, man, the ball's popping around. Golden's States got them in the blender and then nothing would come of it. And so ironically, as Dallas's offense has really struggled here over the course of the last month, their defense has carried them throughout this stretch and allowed them to stay competitive in these games. And I wanted to

shout out two guys in particular. First, Dwight Powell, who, you know, Mavericks fans will tell you is one of their worst defending bigs in the past. But I actually think he's become a really solid backline defender for them, and he did a really nice job defending around the rim tonight. And the other guy wanted to shout out was Josh Green. And if you guys remember, Josh Green came through the University of Arizona, so he came through Tucson. So I had a little bit of experience watching him in college. And he was really, it was missing a lot of polish at that specific phase in his career. But you knew he was a great athlete. And he's the type of wing that's not the tallest wing in the world, but he's very strong. And he's outstanding with his

quickness and his athleticism. But if you guys remember last year in the playoffs, there was kind of like, you know, they were expecting this particular role to be filled by Tim Hardaway Jr. last year, but he ended up having foot issues. And so there was this one rotation spot, which was like bench three and D wing, where they didn't know which direction to go. And they tried some Frank Nile Kina and they tried some Josh Green. And it didn't really work either way because Josh wasn't shooting well.

Frank wasn't shooting well. Both of them were defending fine, but they weren't doing enough. on the offensive end for those minutes to be really impactful. And so it's kind of really impressive over one off season for Josh Green to have made the improvements that he's made as a shooter. And I thought he made the biggest three of this game, which was on a ridiculous sidearm hook pass from Luca Donchitz to him in the left corner. He made a very slight relocation, just slightly up from the corner.

I think it was Clay Thompson that was closing out. And Clay closed as if he was going to be in the deep corner. And Josh made a slight relocation up the floor a little bit. and he had a little window where he was open and knocked down a shot. It's just a testament to his work ethic. You know, jump shooting and handling, the improvements are so little by little. Like, you've got to do, you have to, it's thousands and thousands of reps to go from being a 37% shooter to a 38% shooter. And then another thousand, thousands of reps to get to a 39% shooter.

And so you just can tell that he put in a ton of work this off season. So a lot of credit to him. Moving on to the Warriors. The starters, again, you know, it's funny. This has been, I don't want to go too negative on the Warriors tonight because the truth of the matter is, is they've been one of the best teams in basketball over the course the last, you know, three weeks or so. And the specific part of the game where they failed tonight is a part of the game that

they've succeeded all season, which is their starting lineup, and also was a lineup that gave the Mavericks a ton of problems last year in the postseason. So I think when push comes to shove, you kind of throw that out as an anomaly. So there's a lot more encouraging stuff when you get deeper into the rotation. But with the starters, the guy that seemed to be out of it for me on both ends was Clay Thompson. He had some good on ball defensive possessions, particularly on Luca. But he was getting lost in rotation a lot and just generally looked like the guy that was kind of floating through the game versus being really engaged.

But early in the season, Steve Kerr was going with these line shifts. So he would have the starters in, and then it'd be like all five would come out. And in would come, you know, Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kaminka, mostly whoever it was. And those bench lineups were getting destroyed. And if you remember, one of the things that I kept advocating for was just staggering the lineups a little bit better. And they actually did that starting, you know, a couple of weeks ago. And it was part of the line of thinking that turned this season around.

And particularly, you know, there was a nice stretch there to end the first quarter. And Dante DiVincenzo and Andrew Wiggins where they made some plays to keep the game regular. In the second quarter, I was really impressed with Draymond Green and Jonathan Kaminga. Draymond Green obviously is having an all-MBA level season, although he had a pretty rough offensive fourth quarter. A couple of plays. There was one where he had a three in the right corner where I thought he should have taken it. And instead he tried to drive and kick to Steph and ended up turning it over. which led to Luca, I think, shooting that pull-up three in transition.

But so he had a little bit of a rough fourth quarter. But for the most part of the season, he's been excellent. And putting him with that second unit that's starting the second quarters is leading to a lot of success. But shout out to Jonathan Caminga, because Moses Moody, for the most part, has fallen out of the rotation. And James Wiseman is literally in the G-League. And coming into this season, Jonathan Camingo is the player that I was actually least

high on, not in terms of long-term potential, but in terms of the long-term potential. of ability to impact this particular season. And the main reason why I thought that was his offensive decision making was so erratic that I didn't think you could trust him in the Warriors system to make the right decisions. But I always said he was the best defensive wing that they had. And, you know, what's funny is he still had some sloppy possessions tonight when he tried to do something with the basketball, like in terms of isolation postups or over dribbling and things along those lines. But when he was in the dunker spot, and when he was just trying to make plays

crashing the offensive glass, he was fine on the offensive end. And it was enough to be functional in that role. And there's a way that they can do it to run their sets on the opposite side of the floor, which naturally slots Jonathan Kaminga in that weak side corner so that he can be the guy that kind of cuts to the rim as they're running that action. I thought that was smart. And then he was excellent defensively tonight, both grabbing contested defensive rebounds, on ball, defense on Luca. He did a really nice job. And so that's got to be encouraging to see, and that Dremont Kaminga lineup had a lot of success tonight. That's got to be encouraging for Warriors fans, because you were begging for somebody to kind of rise from that pack. And Jonathan Kameg is playing some pretty

solid basketball right now. I thought Dante Divencenzzo had some stretches of really good ball pressure that threw Dallas out of whack. And then Anthony Lamb knocked down some big shots. He's starting to look like one of the more like higher floor, low ceiling players that they can go to. off the bench. And then Steph, you know, he had a rough start. He missed some open looks. He had a sloppy turnover on like a swing pass, but then he settled down and played like an MVP again. He's playing a level of basketball that very few players that I've ever seen have ever reached. And when we do our player rankings on Thursday, I haven't decided yet. And obviously, there's still some basketball left. But I'm strongly considering him putting him at the top of that

list because Janus has had a couple of bad games recently. And Steph is just playing some of the best basketball that I've ever seen. And, you know, it's the combination now of the strength and rim finishing that has added an element to his game. That in combination with just his overall, like, command of the game as he's grown older and more experienced and confident, that has turned him into, I think, a much better player than even he was in 2016. But it really bothered me because like I thought in a in a back and forth highly entertaining shot making contest it really bothered me that the ref stepped in and took away his opportunity to make a play to take that game away and what I thought was a questionable call at best on that on that travel call 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 superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream,

this is right 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-tapped 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 J. 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 Correct. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you finishing that sentence. Yes.

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 move on to the Lakers and LeBron. So they were up 17 last night with nine minutes.

left in the fourth quarter and ended up blowing it on a wild sequence where the paces were down by two with one possession left. And Dennis Schroeder committed a pointless foul along the right wing that led to a sideline out of bounds that allowed Rick Carlisle to drop a play. And when he drew up the play, Miles Turner got a wide open three at the top of the key that he missed because the Lakers missed a bunch of defensive rebounds in that fourth quarter. And next thing, you know, Tyrese Halliburton starts kind of dribbling along. the right wing. And you could literally hear on the Pacers broadcasts,

the Pacers' announcers like going, oh, no, he took too long. And you're thinking that too. You're like there's like a second, you know, one and a half seconds on the shot clock. LeBron abandons, I'm forgetting, of course, I'm blanking on the young player's name for the Pacers. But LeBron abandoned his matchup to kind of help in the paint because he didn't think Tyrese Halliburton had enough time to make the pass. And Tyrese got the ball back into his left hand.

He's a right-handed player. and just rifled a left-handed pass to the shooter on the left wing and knocked it down at the buzzer. But it was a classic like basketball gods type of moment because I'm a big believer that those kinds of things tend to go the way of the team that's playing more respectable basketball. Now, there's absolutely no proof to that. As a matter of fact, usually I'm a skeptic and I would think that's ridiculous. But hey, for the sake of my love of the game of basketball, I'm going to pretend like that kind of stuff matters.

But when they were up 17, the Lakers played really good basketball. basketball last night all the way up through that nine minute mark of the fourth quarter. Like damn good basketball. They had won five out of six games. They're coming up on a really tough December. They've got some real momentum. And they just quit. They quit playing on both ends of the floor, specifically on the boards, defensive boards, grabbing contested defensive rebounds. And then also in transition defense, which are two things that Anthony Davis came out and was pretty passionate about in his post-game presser. And then on the offensive end of the floor is about pace.

You know, this Lakers team is at their best offensively when they bring the ball up quickly and try to get quick rim pressure that gets the defense into rotation so they can play off that advantage. They're just so bad shooting the basketball that if they play a half-court game, when they get stuck in those half-court environments, everyone's sagging into the paint. And you've got guys like Russ and LeBron and Dennis Schroeder and Anthony Davis who rely on rim pressure. and in half court set environments,

it's just really tough for them to get that dribble penetration that they need. And, you know, I thought it really started with LeBron. And I, you know, I did a video on this, and you can find it on my Twitter feed at underscore Jason LT, where I broke down specifically what I was talking about. But basically from the moment that the Lakers were up 17 with nine minutes left, over the next two minutes, the Lakers gave up a 10-0 run. That turned it from a 17-point game to a 7-point.

But not only that, at that point, the Pacers had all the momentum, were playing with ridiculous energy, and the Lakers engine was off. And it's really hard to restart that engine after you shut it off the way that you did. And the guy who was almost single-handedly responsible for that 10-0 run for the Pacers was LeBron James. So on the first possession, he's guarding Aaron Neesmith on the left wing. And the Pacers run like a double screen with a dribble handoff. at the end. And LeBron just literally concedes the three to Aaron Neesmith.

Not only dies on the screen, makes absolutely no attempt to fight over it, doesn't signal or talk to any Laker to switch. He just walks into the screen and concedes the three to Aaron Neesmith. Aaron Neesmith is a professional basketball player. If you give him a wide open shot, he's probably going to make it. And he did. And then next possession, LeBron's got the ball on offense. He's posting up against T.J. McConnell on the right block. there's 16 seconds on the shot clock. Now, Pacers are packing the paint, but LeBron could have gotten to one of his more traditional two-foot fadeaways

or maybe tried to back him down towards the baseline where there was left help to try to take a hook shot. Instead, he takes a ridiculous... So he's posting up on T.J. McConnell on the right block, and there's 16 seconds on the shot clock. And instead of trying to work for something a little bit better, LeBron just kind of throws up a throwaway shot, like a one-legged fadeaway, which the one-like fade-away is

probably the toughest pull-up jump shot that any player can take, mainly because for the guys who made it really successful, guys like Dirk Novitsky and Kevin Durant, they're so damn tall that they don't really need to fade all that much. So their one-legged fade-away is more of a footwork thing that gets them a little tiny bit of separation, but they're mostly going straight up and down. But for almost every other player,

especially guys like Russ and LeBron, who both took one-leg fade-ways at the end of that game, for those guys, those one-legged fade-aways, are you have to really fall backwards, and you're giving up your entire base, and you're losing all of that momentum, and he ended up missing that shot. So he misses the one-league fade away against T.J. McConnell, and then I shit you not. The entire play is progressing down the other way. There's a little bit of a scrum, but the Pacers have control over the basketball. And LeBron doesn't just not run back on defense. He runs the other way. He was literally backing away

towards the right corner on the opposite end of the floor. And Benedict Mathuron ended up getting a layup. I'm literally watching. I couldn't believe what I was seen. And then two possessions later, he's doing a similar thing. He's posting up Aaron East Smith on the left block. Benedict Mathrin comes over and double teams him. And instead of making the kickout pass to Troy Brown Jr., who was wide open on the left wing,

he takes a one leg fade away, misses it. Aaron Neesmith is right next to him. Aaron Neesmith was guarding him. everyone goes down in transition. Everyone's matched up. Austin Reeves is guarding Tyrese Halliburton on the ball. Dennis Schroeder is matched up on one wing. Troy Brown Jr. is matched up on the other wing.

One of Gabriel's matched up on the center. I think it was Jalen Smith at that point. And LeBron's matched up on Aaron Neesmith. And he's just aimlessly jogging back. Aaron Neesmith is relocating over to the left side of the floor. LeBron is on the right side of the floor, just not even paying attention. Next thing you know, there's a quick screen. LeBron doesn't see it nearly in time.

Aaron Eismith gets another wide open three. And guess what happens? It goes in partially because he got his rhythm on a wide open three that LeBron conceded to him a couple possessions prior. Now all of a sudden, that 17 point lead is a seven point lead. Not only that, Indiana has all the momentum. Everything's going their way. And now you're trying to regain momentum in a game where the paces are playing with a lot of fire.

And then down the stretch, it could have gone either way. Like the Pacers came out with this kind of half court pressure that forced a couple of turnovers and rushed the Lakers out of their offense. And, you know, some of it's shot making. LeBron had a wide open catch and shoot three at one point that he missed. He had a wide open pull-up jumper along the right baseline at one point that he missed. There was a lot of stuff that just didn't go the Lakers way. But again, it's a basketball gods, call it karma, call it just, you know, momentum.

Call it whatever you want to call it. at that point the pacer's were going to get those breaks and they did and they made the the key plays to win that game. Now, as we're talking about LeBron, his struggles are expected. You know, I said this when he came back against the spurs. I thought that he would, I thought he would, you know, knock down some three point shots because he had an opportunity to work on his three point shot during the injury. But I knew I knew his legs weren't underneath him. His handle is in his sharp. as it could be. His pull-up jumpers, not as sharp as it could be, because he's played three basketball games in the last 20 days. He's played three NBA basketball games in 20 days. So at the end of the day, like, you're not expecting him to come out and play great right away. But he needs

to identify that and understand that at this particular point in time, he doesn't have it. And he might need to lean on his other skills that are not dependent on his rhythm and his conditioning and his leg strength. So for instance, LeBron is one of the best decision makers in the history of basketball. That doesn't depend on his rhythm or his conditioning or anything like that. That's just paying attention to what's happening. And then little things like not jogging back in transition defense or not even making an attempt to chase a shooter over the top of a screen, that's stuff that's completely under your control. Not only that, you are the leader, the best player in the leader on a team that is seven and 11 has a ravenous fan base and title expectations. You're supposed to be the one guy

they can count on. And you let go with a rope in some of the details of the game in a pivotal game, a winnable game against the Pacers, and you blew a 17-point lead down to seven, and you ended up caution you at the end of the day. And so it's one of those things where, you know, when I talked a lot about this with Russ, undercutting your success with sloppy mistakes or laziness. The thing is, is Russ has always done that stuff. And in the past, he was so damn good as a nuclear athlete that the scale was so heavily in his favor.

And it's the same kind of thing with LeBron. LeBron's had bad stretches of transition defense ever since he went to Cleveland. LeBron has had stretches of poor decision-making as he takes bad shots and plays with poor pace ever since he went to Cleveland. The difference is, is from 2015 to 2021, and even a little bit last year, he was one of the five best players in the world. And so he did so much good that you didn't hyper-focus on that stuff. This season, LeBron has not played like a top-10 player. And so all of a sudden, those mistakes, they're not undercutting dominant nights.

They're undercutting only okay nights. And now all of a sudden that scale is starting to tip into the negative for him. You know, it's just in this, I think that as he gets more games under his belt, he will play better. My big thing is I don't think LeBron has declined. I think he's been injured so much that he can't find his rhythm. I think if he can stay on the court for a month, he'll get it back. I was talking to some Laker fans this morning about this specifically, and my target number is 15 games.

I want to see LeBron get 15 games in a row. Last time he played 15 games in a row was last year. He played 25 in a row. Over the last 17 games in that stretch, he averaged 33 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists on 54% shooting. I think it's still in there. But the question is, can he stay healthy? long enough for him to get to that point.

And I don't know. We're going to find out. But in the meantime, if he knows deep down that he doesn't have that top-tier shot making, that he doesn't have his pull-up jump shot where it needs to be, he needs to lean on his decision-making and his basketball IQ and his ability to make plays as an athlete on the defensive end and on the offensive end of the floor, maybe work a little bit more out of face-up, maybe work a little bit more out of the post, and force-feed Anthony Davis as much. as possible and lean on him to carry you during those stretches of the game.

Everything depends on him being great. He needs time to get there. So in the meantime, he just needs to play smarter and more disciplined basketball. All right, guys, I really appreciate all of you for sticking around. I apologize for the technical difficulties. I'm not sure what's going on. We will try to figure that out. We were going to get to the Pacers and we were going to get to the Timberwolves,

but we'll figure out a different way to get that to you guys. We're going to wrap it right now. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. and I'll see you guys next time. The volume. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On The Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam Jay. 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. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.