The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Mike D'Antoni On Why Rebounding Discrepancy Is Overblown & Russ Updates

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

Mike D'Antoni On Why Rebounding Discrepancy Is Overblown & Russ Updates

On the trail, it's hard. And it drops it down with the left hand. This is Coach Dan Tonin. Matt Thomas is a great guy. And I always listen to the radio show. On mute. What a shot. I don't believe that Mike Dan Tony would ever say that about this radio show.

He did. I've known Mike for almost now four years. I've known his wife for a lot longer than that. I know she's a big fan of the show. There's no way, coach, that you would listen to my show on mute, is there? No, no way. Who is this? Who's good?

It's your buddy, Matt. How are you? Hey. Good, man. What's up? I want to ask you, how's your very talented guard? Russ Westbrook? Is he going to play tonight?

I think he's probably more than that. We'll look at it when he gets through it. We're not going to take any chances. And he just feels it's a slight little thing. So we just want to make sure he's 100%. That's probably the right thing to do, clearly. I'm really wrestling with this, and I think I've asked you this a couple of times already. Mike, how do you balance the, we want to win, we want to go in on a high note,

and maybe the seatings and finger at the bracket as compared to the end of the day, you're playing in a non-home court advantage. You're not traveling. There's no issues with, you know, I think the guys are going to have plenty of rest in between. So do you change your opinion about that, or have you been pretty consistent about how you feel about what to expect and how much standings watching you're doing at this time of year? Well, I'm not really standing in one of the team because, like you said, it doesn't really matter. The biggest thing is I think the number one priority to make sure that everybody is healthy as much as we can't, you know, plan for everything.

But get them healthy as much as they can go into the playoffs and two, playing as well as you can, knowing that there could be disruptions like if Ross doesn't play. Or Eric, we've got to work him back in. But try to get the team playing as well as they can going into the playoffs. but the number one thing is health and we're not going to risk things for sure and then after that you ask Fonda kind of watch

who's in third, fourth, first or whatever but at the end of the day you've got to beat three teams to get to the finals and you tell me which one's better and worse and first round, second round, third round

matchups doesn't mean a whole lot right now because of home court the band is not there. So, you know, other than just as a speculative to speculate, I worry about our health and how we're playing. And how would you describe it through the first three games?

I mean, very interesting matchups. Unfortunately, the rebound numbers have not gone the way you probably had won to or the discrepancy, but you're still two and one and very much had a chance to beat the Blazers dinner night. So how would you summarize your first three games? I mean, there's some good things we're doing and some things that we didn't do well against Portland

that gave us an opportunity to watch on film and talk about it and, you know, while I went that way. So, you know, hopefully we can learn from it. And so I'm good. I mean, I feel good about where we are, and guys are just getting their legs. And both things are tired on the third game. And after about two or three weeks of practice,

you kind of have a dead leg period for a little bit, but we've got to get over that. But one thing, man, I've got to caution you as all the old riders and pundits of basketball, just don't look at the rebounding as the total. And everybody does that. And I hear it all the time, all the time, you guys got killed on the boys. In reality, against Portland, who is a big team, they had four more second chance points than we did. So it really doesn't matter if they rebound all our misses or something.

They would have less rebounds if we just make shots. But because we haven't been shooting the ball well, a lot of teams rebound. And we're small. So we're going to give up some disparity in rebounds, especially total rebounds. But if you look second chance points, those are the ones that we want to keep as close to zero as possible. I don't think we'll ever win that battle. But then we need to make it up by creating turnovers, getting good threes up at the percentage and the amount, getting to the foul line, at the pace of the game. those are our advantages.

And we didn't do that against Portland. We took a lot of three, but kept us in the game. But our turnover's been way down, but we didn't create turnos, and we didn't create a pace that put them on their heels. So, you know, we'll talk about things like that and just try to get better at. Well, I appreciate you call me a pundit. That means a lot to me. And I don't care if you get outreibed by 40.

If Jeff Green and Daniel House are knocking down threes, you're going to be in pretty good shape here. Well, you know, you don't want to rely on shooting. And I agree with all that. But, you know, when we made this decision, it goes, well, we knew that rebounding could be a little bit of a problem. But it hasn't been that big of a problem that we can't overcome that if we take care of the ball and we create turnovers and we take good shots, wide open shots. I mean, obviously, if we don't shoot the ball really at all, then, you know, our chances go way down the wind. But we shot 39% as Milwaukee can beat them. you know that's you know even against Dallas I don't think we hit 40% against Dallas

so you know we need to shoot the ball better I think that'll come with legs and stuff rocket tech coach Mike Dan Tony here on the Matt Thomas show and coach just your thoughts it seems like defensively the other teams are well for James Hardin he's getting hunted by of course they were working on him donchit's the first game and Yonis Atentzanko the second game but looks like he's he's holding his own and doing a pretty good job defensively. How would you assess his defense so far? Oh, I think he's locked in there, and he's trying to.

I think he plays well, especially in the post, is really good. On the perimeter, he's good, you know. His hands comes up to a lot of steals. Everyone's why he gets blown by, but everybody gets blown by. You know, it's a league that it's tough to guard guys, especially not as you're talking about at the combo, one-on-one. I don't think anybody's going up one-on-one as they can't go to James one-on-one. just telling me any great defensive player in the league that James goes one-on-one with that

oh man he really plays a good deal with James will go buy him or get a three every time so that's not the case if you're going to pick those out you can pick anybody out so I think his defense has been good he's got to get it better like the whole team and that's a key for us that we've got to keep improving our defense level of concern for James getting in foul trouble There's been a feeling that the league is calling things a lot tighter in the bubble, and it may stay that way, they may loosen things up. But unfortunately, James has kind of run into some problems on that. What are you saying? And does he have to change much of his game to kind of get out of that?

No, I didn't have changing. I think that comes from a product of him really trying to, you know, box out and get in there. He's got a lot of foul that he won't necessarily pick up as we go fall. A lot of his dead legs, you know, when you get a little tired, you start reaching a lot more. that's not going to be. He's too smart for that to be a problem that will continue. Coach, offensively been getting double-teamed on James Hardens side

a lot, of course, as you would expect. I'd notice, or can you just tell me, when did you guys start having the Russell Westbrook there available at the free throw line? And what is the aim, and what are you guys trying to do with the offense there? Well, when James gets double, we're just trying to get Russell the ball,

and then you have a four-round-three situation, and either muscle gets to the rim or we get a wide open three and we'll take either one of them. So, you know, again, I've never been really bothered about double teams with James. It just, the only thing I worry about might take him out of his rhythm a little bit down the stretch that he's got to find out. But I think we do that by a better pace. We walked the ball up way too much and left him double team and didn't attack before the double team came on. So those are things we talk about, how to get it better. But if they want to jump up the defense or whatever,

a little bit like Milwaukee does, which we get 61-3s, and a little bit like Portland did, we got 50-some threes. You know, we should be able to make it enough of a sense where we went both those games. And we won one, and we had a chance to win the other one. But, you know, again, I think the guys are smart, they figure things out. And our offense is not going to bother us.

making sure our defense is good enough to win. Mike Dan, Tony, with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Coach, I know it is a little bit of a challenge to be down in Orlando, but the fact the NBA continues to announce zero positive tests after zero positive tests. I told the audience many weeks ago that once you guys got down there, you'd be on the safest place on Earth, and it's turned out that way. That has to be a tremendous amount of relief for all of you, that everybody's basically following the rules for the most part,

and those tests are coming back negative. for sure. I think the NBA has done a terrific job of making it safe. They're very safe, very well-guarded, very well, everybody knows the rules and protocols. And so far, you know, some guys have, you know, by just being nonchalant, as if you're going around the protocols, they get caught, which they should. And then it's going to be closer to get the playoffs, that's going to cost the team a lot. So I would say 99% of people are following the rules exactly, and then the ones that aren't will pay for it.

But they're doing great. I feel like a better job. Be hard-pressed to find somebody to do a better job. The NBA is done. Now, I heard, there's a story, I think, in ESPN, about there are thousands of bottles of wine being delivered. Have you gotten any of that? And what's your favorite blend at this point? No.

No, it hasn't. No, no, no. I haven't seen that. I don't know that. I have no idea where the story comes from. Because I don't hang out over the players' lounge. So I don't know. I have no idea.

Well, can I send you a bottle of wine? Might be. It might be. Might be just the pops room, too. But I can be. Oh, my God. Have you ever gone? Have you ever had a wine night with him?

I'm sure the answer is yes to that, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I spent time with him in Italy, when they had the McDonald's open, which used to be. And we went to Milan.

And I was kind of a kind of, kind of just with them, lays on a little scound moving away. But, yeah, we go out there. And, yeah, Bob loves his wine, and he's really smart about it. Hanging around him, you drink some good wine, that's for sure.

Oh, it sounds like you're going to get a Laker team that's not at full strength tonight. So when you and I always talk about opponents, it's never usually about what they're doing. It's about what you want. So what would you like to see tonight from your squad, especially if Russ doesn't go and how do you... Well, who's not a full, who's not a full strength.

Well, let's just say... Let's just say he's one of the greatest players of all time. The boss not playing? Well, that's too bad. I was given an injury report, and so that's what I'm going off of. I mean, I don't know sources. See, look at that. You know more than I do.

I really don't care who we're playing. I'm just worried about us. I know you never care who you're playing. It's always about what. So let's say if Russ doesn't go tonight, and you've said kind of you don't know how do you distribute his minutes and do you want to see a little bit deeper in your bench tonight because of that? Well, you know, yeah, if Russell and play, he's definitely going deeper in the bench.

And if he plays it, he's either going to be able to go 100% or not play. So if I walk over there and there's like, well, you've got to limit his bed, he probably won't play. I know he's taking a chance. So not all, we'll be all over that. But, you know, that's another thing. Like, or crash, maybe go deeper. You know, I don't need to, I'm Austin Rivers played 15 minutes the other night.

To go deeper in the bench means, he'll play 30 in the night. That's deeper in the bench. you know, it's like they crack me out by numbers. It's like, well, you only play eight guys. Well, because I had three guys playing in the low 20s. I'll just up Jeff Green to 31. I'll be in the 30 and Austin to 30. Then that's all I need to do.

You know, that takes minutes off everybody else. So it's a matter of James right now that average about 34 minutes a game. I'll do the first game. First game over time, okay, I get it. You know, kind of screwed us up statistically. But that's two games. He had 34, 33 minutes. PJ last game at about 30 minutes.

Russ was at 35, just a couple minutes too high. Everybody else in the end of the 30s, you know, 30. They need that, get in shape, get in rhythm. They got to get tired so they can get on the other side of it. You don't get in shape by not pushing yourself. We have to push these guys to wear a playoff time. You can't get in shape when the playoffs start. You better be in shape when you get there.

So we're a modern internet, and if it, you know, Russell sets out today, which if that happens, we'll add one more to the next. And I think we'll leave it at that. Coach, thank you very much for the time. Good luck tonight. And you and I will talk this weekend when you take on the Kings. We appreciate the visit as always. Sounds good, Matt.

We'll see you, man. All right, it's good. Mike Dan Tony, one of our favorite people on Earth.