The Ringer NBA Show - The Lakers Are Missing a Piece. Plus: Ben Simmons Is Unleashed | The Mismatch

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

The Lakers got walloped by the Celtics last night—is there more to take away from this one game than meets the eye (5:56)? Plus, Ben Simmons has been unleashed by the open space on the floor since Joel Embiid has been out with injury. How will Embiid be reintroduced into the lineup, and will the Sixers pursue Pistons guard Derrick Rose (20:00)? Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. This week, to celebrate the 100th episode of The Rewatchables podcast, Quentin Tarrantino returns for the third and final movie in his three-part series with us. In the final episode, Bill Simmons and Sean Fennessey discussed with Quentin one of his favorite movies, the 1990 crime thriller King of New York. Make sure to check out this special episode and follow at the Rewatchables on Twitter for highlights of all 100 episodes. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. and joining me as he does every Tuesday from the ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, A.K., Kevin O'Bomber, A.K., Kevin O'Connor, A.K., Kevin O'Conflict, Kevin O'Candleand, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Connorne, Kevin O'Brien, Kevin O'Brien, there's not that many players in NBA history that have multiple 60-point games. He joins Will Chamberlain, who had, he did it 32 times.

Kobe Bryant did it six. Michael Jordan did it four. James Hardin did it four. Elgin Baylor did it three. And now Damian Lillard, who does it for a second time. He broke his own Blazers record for most points in a game,

which was 60 prior. Then he hits 11 threes. How about this one? This is one I like the most from Elias. He now has the two highest scoring marks in NBA history by a player 60. two or shorter. Oh my goodness.

I'm surprised that Iverson didn't do that. That would have been my guess. I would have guessed AI, too. Right? Scoring 6-2 or shorter? That's what Elias says. Yeah, no doubt about that. Crazy, right?

The two highest scoring marks in NBA history by a player 6-2 or shorter. What was AI's career eye? I got to look this up. I looked this up because Dame Lillard, of course, at the 61 points, which is great. But he only had six made twos. He also had 11 made threes, and he made 16 in free throws, and that seemed pretty abnormal.

The six made twos is the fewest ever of anybody that scored 60 points. Hardin did it with eight twos and with 10 twos, but those are the only three guys. And all of them happened within the past calendar year. Hardin did it on November 30th, 2019, and March 22nd, 2019. Lillard, of course, just last night. I wonder if with perimeter scorers like Lillard and Hardin, as more and more of these guys develop over the years, will we see like a Tray Young do this someday, scoring 60 plus on like five twos or seven two, something like that, is this going to be normal where it's just like a barrage of threes

and made free throws? This could be more normal. Absolutely. Well, I mean, you look, you think about the entire history of the NBA and where this falls into context-wise. I mean, we are now seeing, remember when I did that thing about you don't see 50s every now and at the beginning, was it last season, the beginning of the season, Blake Griffin had like 50 in a game. And I'm like, you don't see a lot of 50s. And this was even last season, it was like once a week, people would start tweeting me, you don't see a lot of 50s and there

be another guy that scored 50, right? They're mocking me because that was the case for, really the entirety of NBA history. You didn't see a lot of guys scoring 50 points. And then it started happening with much more regularity. And now we're to 60s. I just looked up Alan Iverson. His career high was against Dwight Howard and the Magic, and it was 60.

Wow. How about that? How many Tuesday have in that game? Do you have that number offhand from the box score? I'll pull it for you. Hold on. I'm curious. Because that was, it was 14, it was 15 years ago,

almost to the week. Almost to the week. I got the number for you. He had 15 two-pointers in that game. For the game, he was 17 of 36, 15 of 31 from two, only two of five from three, and 24 of 27 from the free throw line in that game. Wow, back in 05.

Geez. Let me tell you this. What kind of, you know, look, when you get 61 and you have this kind of NBA history, that's going to be the big story. What it covers up is they did go to overtime with the Warriors. You know what I mean? Hey, Warriors are playing pretty well.

And I mean, like, as a bad team, they're playing some solid overall basketball. I know they're one and nine in their last 10. They don't know what you're talking about. Like, they're running their offense. Oh, my God. This man just said, the Warriors are playing really well. They're one and nine in their last 10. just because they're losing games.

Look, they went to overtime with Denver too. Congratulations. They beat Orlando. Oh. The last week, they're not playing horrible. They're playing with each other. They're playing some solid team basketball. And it's nice to see a bad team play like that.

That's all. It's just nice to see. Come on. How about this? Come on, Chris. How about this? Can we substitute good for competitive at least? Okay.

I will not argue that. some competitive basketball. Yeah, yeah. How about that? That's fine. You just have better vocabulary than I do. Let's slow down on good with the one in nine record. All right.

The Celtics killed the Lakers yesterday and Jalen Brown downright disrespected LeBron James by dunking on his head and then staring at him and receiving a technical foul. Of course, he said he crossed that off of his bucket. list. That was a bucket list item. And, you know, of course, his buddy Jason Tatum had already done it in a playoff series. But I think that everybody watching that game thought,

oh boy, you've done it now, right? This is where you must pay for your transgressions. If you're going to be dunking on him and staring and staring down LeBron. And then oddly, LeBron James and frankly, the rest of the Lakers team

just packed it in. He's not our night. right, right? And then end up getting mopped by the Celtics. I don't think it means a lot towards what's going to happen with the Lakers. Or I don't think there's any kind of big story that comes out of this. Outside of, you know, it will be interesting to see if we can draw a line from this game to the Celtics, gaining a lot of confidence from that.

While I don't think it will have some kind of lasting negative impact on the Lakers, maybe it does have a lasting positive impact on the Celtics because that was a great win to feel great about yourself. Sure, of course. And especially there was a story this morning, a couple Celtics writers had about how the Celtics really this started on their day off in the film room where they were critiquing each other, really just being honest with each other about where they were as a team

and how they were playing. And we talked about this last week, just how the offense did not seem to have the same crispness and their actions or the same amount of movement off ball. And in last night's game, it didn't seem like they had a lot more of that. It's nice to see that team get back on track at least for one night. It's just one game. But for this team, they are better than they have performed. And the one thing that's, I think, worth keeping in mind with Boston is they're not a top-end finals contending team.

They're a good team, a very good team. and good teams and very good teams often go through bad stretches. That happens. And I think it would be a bit much to overreact to whenever a team like Boston or Philadelphia or Denver, some of these second tier or third tier contenders go through some rough patches because that's what happens to those teams. Not every team is going to be Milwaukee right now, right? And I think for Boston, this is just a sign of what they can be when they are actually

are clicking on all cylinders. Well, and we have talked about the importance of in the Eastern Conference, how important it is to be able to stay away from that four or five matchup if you can. And there's been a bunch of teams in a dog fight in the top six. You know, they're all within, you know, from the heat down to the Pacers, those teams are all within two and a half games of each other. Because if you're in that four or five game, you're feeding right into playing Milwaukee with home court advantage before you can

get to the East Finals. Whereas the matchup becomes, I mean, look, in first place right now is the Bucks. They got like a plus 13 point differential. And then the next one down, the best point differential is the Celtics at plus 6.6. But in second place right now is the heat. And we know there's a drastic difference. So staying out of that 4 or 5, actually winning a lot of regular season games, I think does matter quite a bit when it comes to the Eastern Conference standings.

And on the flip side of that game, one of my buddies Laker Film Room on Twitter has been critical all season long of the Lakers' physicality in games against bigs that are playing tough, hard-nosed physical big men and saw that on Christmas Day and their loss to the Clippers, saw that last night with the way Ennis Cantor was performing against the Lakers.

And, you know, one of his critiques all year has been about like this team when they get punched in the mouth. sometimes I don't get punched back when it's physical. They've had comebacks, of course. But when it's physical, sometimes they just kind of, yeah, you know what? They just kind of fade away, which did happen last night. I guess I'm curious for you when you witnessed that from the Lakers, despite all the talent they have and how great they've been, 34 or 9, it goes without saying.

When you see that happen, is that something that you're concerned about as a characteristic of this team? Or are you looking at it like, it's just a regular season and they can, they can, you know, rumble if they need to. They just don't earn the regular season. I think they could, I think they would be well served if they can by supplementing with some tough guys on that team, especially because I look at their greatest competition being the clippers. And the clippers will get tough.

And the clippers are tough, yeah. They are tough. That's a tough team. And so that's why in order to combat that, I do think that they would do well by supplementing themselves. I mean, that's why these names have come up throughout the, the year, whether it's a Crowder or Iguodala or, you know, these guys that are coming, these guys that are out there that can get in the game, the guys that you would

consider junkyard dogs. They are light on those. That being said, guess what? When push comes to shove and it gets to the playoffs, we know LeBron turns into that. Yeah. He just does. You know, like he's not, he's not a, he's not a whimpering Willow when it comes to fighting for rebounds, you know, when it comes playoff time.

He may wind up with 17 rebounds in a playoff game. I mean, he's going to get in the mix, and he cranks it up. And that's not, you do get a different LeBron in the playoffs than what you get during the regular season. And when it comes to matching toughness, look, man, we're going all the way back to very young in his career. He was scratching and clawing against the damn pistons, and you didn't get rougher than that. I'm 100% with you.

You're right. But the thing is, it's not like LeBron isn't being physical now. He's playing really good defense compared to what everybody thought he was going to be this season. He was solid last year defensively, despite the reputation that he had. And this year, he's been pretty good on the defensive end of the floor. He has been hustling hard, taking charges. He's playing tough. It's just, I think it's the other guys in that team.

They don't have a lot of tough, hard-nosed wings. I agree. You know, Kuzma is a talented offensive scorer, and he's shot well on spot-up threes, which is what you want from him. But he's not really that physical defensive player in one-on-one situations or crashing the boards. And a lot of their other guys are smaller, whether it's an Avery Bradley or Danny Green. These guys at the wing position aren't that physical presence, which is why for them it's so interesting to think about what they could or maybe should think about doing. Because you threw Covington's name out there.

On paper, a Coosma for Covington trade construct. There could be more pieces around those two, but the meat of the deal was Kuzma for Covington. That deal on paper, in a vacuum, may not look great for the Lakers because Kuzma is so much younger, because Covington's older, because, you know, he's not as dynamic offensively. But for, with the context for the Lakers, Covington is a hard-nose defender. He is a, he has a better contract in the sense that he is locked up at a lower dollar value, whereas Kuzma's restricted free agency is going to come up soon and he's going to want to get paid. That is a factor as well.

On the court, though, Covington can contribute without really needing to have the ball in his possession as a spot-up shooter. But he also doesn't, he can be somebody who can just make the simple play attacking a close-out. Kuzma has those explosive plays, but I'm not sure it's going to matter as much as the postseason when you're going to have LeBron and AD just absorbing most of the offense. I'd rather have the guy that's a more reliable defensive player like Covington. I don't know what the pieces around a deal like that would look like, but it's from a philosophical standpoint for the Lakers, I think finding somebody like that, whether it's Inguodala,

whether it's a Covington, whoever else it may be, is of the utmost importance because if you do get in a physical, tough playoff series, which you probably will, having as many of those guys as you possibly can is important in actually getting through that series. You know what?

The more I think about this, more. I tend, I agree with you in the sense that you get to the playoffs, you feel like the Lakers are going to be winning games 109 to 101, right? They're not playing you in the 120s and the 130s. They're not going to outgun you. I mean, they've

been an outstanding defensive team this year. And that's the kind of game. We got to make that clear. They have been outstanding by the numbers defensively. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. These are just like very specific situation sometimes. Against the highest level teams, there has been a bit of Achilles

heal in some of the games, which is totally understandable. And that's what you have to worry about when you're thinking about winning a title. You know, what happens when these games slow down and their games are going to slow down more? There's some of these teams that are going to be more than happy to play a game, you know, 126 to 122. That's not what the Lakers are going to be doing. And so that's why I'm saying there's only X amount of points that you got to get in order to win these games. And so which is it better to have?

somebody that's the hard-nosed defender that helps you get out even more transition baskets or having another guy that can get you buckets. It may come down to, Kevin. It may come down to LeBron's getting you 25 and 80s getting you 35. You are still going to have to find, you know, 50 other points. I don't know which is the answer. I don't know which is the answer, right? You know, supersized this thing and make it even more amazing defensively,

a team that you just can't score on and makes you mega uncomfortable? Or are we going to look up and say, damn, man, they need another scorer, you know? Well, they do. And that's the other part. There were moments in last science game

where LeBron is off the court and you're like, what's happening to their offense right now? Lack of movement, stagnant. And with Vrondo, yes, he's still a good individual passer. He can make some brilliant passes off the dribble. But something happens to their offense when LeBron is off the dribble. court, they need to find another ball handling presence that's better than Rondo.

And Rondo has importance to that team as a figure in the locker room, as a vocal leader, as an example, you know, as really an extension from the coaching staff. That's important to have. However, on the court, he's not the guy. And whether it's Darren Carlson Free Agency or whether it's if Equal Dollar were to get bought out, which I still don't think he is from the people I've talked or around the league, I would expect the trade there from Memphis at some point if he gets done. at all, but I wouldn't expect to buy out.

So like for the Lakers, where are your options? Of course, there's the Derek Rose rumor too from Chris Haynes of Yahoo's sports. Rose would be an interesting fit considering how well he's played. He's improved at least the last two seasons as a spot-up shooter. So you can feel a little bit more comfortable with him over Rondo, who is a worse, you know, spot-up shooter does not get the respect to the defense. Rose is a better player right now than Rondo.

I'm not sure he's exactly the answer, though, to their ball movement issues when LeBron's off the court, though. No, but I don't know if, look, you get Derek Rose, that's a guy that can get you dirty. I mean, and if you want your offense, if you want your offense to be okay with him off the court, he is the kind of guy, especially come playoff time. If we're saying, I got a healthy Derek Rose.

I mean, I don't know people have noticed. Derek Rose has been fantastic these last, it's two years now running. He's been great. I mean, that, to me, that would be. an unbelievable get if they could somehow finagle Derek Rose away from Detroit. If let's say the Lakers were to get

Derek Rose, if you do get Rose as your spark plug off the bench, I think you would then feel a bit more comfortable trading Kuzma. Yep, for whatever else you could get for him as a hard nose wing defender. Just quarter, sort of reconfiguring the parts around LeBron and AD. I mean, I picked this

team to win the finals before the season began. I would still pick them now to win the finals, despite everything we're saying, But that doesn't mean there's no guarantee here. You want to always increase your odds. And when Boston and the Clippers and there's been other instances have punched this team in the mouth, and they haven't exactly punched back, you do want to improve that characteristic of your roster in some way, shape, or form. Yeah, I wonder if Kuzma, you know, there are some.

And I don't know where I fall on this, that think he is a very good opportunity as an overpay candidate. and you look and you see what the Lakers are going to be doing, you're not paying him anyway. He's not for long. Like, I mean, are you really going to pay Calygoosman when it comes time? It's very, very doubtful that the Lakers are in a position that they're going to pay him.

Therefore, right, getting something for him is not the worst idea. In the last year of his rookie contract is next season. So in 2021, that's when he'll be a restricted free agent. And of course, as the Lakers, there could be incentive to keeping him and doing a sign and trade in 2021. But look, like, there's no guarantees of that. It may turn out that he gets an offer sheet that's so high from a team in which there will be a lot of cap space.

You just lose them. You don't match it. And I think these next two seats, the next year and a half, the rest of this year and next season, there's better fits than Kuzma. And, you know, you talk to people around the league and there's people who hate Kuzma. There's people who think that he's waiting to be unleashed in a new role with more opportunity as an on-ball scorer. It's all over the place in terms of how people value him.

For the Lakers specifically, I do think there's better fits out there. And it would be wise for them to try, at least attempt to reconfigure this bench. All right. One of the other teams that is rumored for that Derek Rose thing, if we jump to them, is a team that's won now four in a row and has stayed in this race in the Easter Conference standards. That is Philadelphia. And Ben Simmons must be listening to you recently because he's going on a tear.

I mean, he's had 20, 11 and 6. These are the last four games. 20, 11, and 6, 21, 7, and 8. And then last night, his masterpiece, 34, a career high, to go along with five steals, two blocks, 12 assists, 12 rebounds. It's shot 86% for the field. Now, in fairness, the last four games have been Brooklyn, Chicago, New York, Brooklyn. Right? So it's not like they played a murderer's row of teams.

Simmons has been absolutely awesome for them recently. And it is always odd when we see him without Embed. And you see, he is so effective down in the paint, right? And the amount of space, you know, it's a catch-22. Embed is, of course, best, you know, from whatever, 10 feet in. Yet Brett Brown will put him out at the three-point line quite a bit. And Simmons, look, we know where he's best. You got two players who are best suited to be 10 feet in.

And it feels like there's a lot more space a lot of these games when you watch Simmons when Embed's not out there. They're clearly not a better team. But it's better for Ben Simmons production. Sure, especially. I mean, that might have been the best basketball he's played in a single game of his career, what he did against the Nets yesterday. Because you mentioned all the numbers, 34, 12 and 12, 5 steals, 2, 2 blocks.

Forget the numbers, though. Just watch the individual defensive play with the effort. that he was giving with the, just the timely rotations and just really locking down that Brooklyn offense down the stretch of the game. Look, with Ben, we know he's an all defensive player. I've said that before

and offensively he's supremely talented. I thought, and last night's game, the adjustment Brett Brown made was playing Netto as the point guard and Ben Simmons's center with the backup units. And we saw the value in using Ben Simmons

as an on-ball screener. with a point guard who's willing to pass or the point guard who can create like Netto can. And we're talking about Netto here, right? Netto. He's not a great point guard. He's a career backup. And yet, the value that he brought to Ben as a screener was significant because Simmons, unless I counted six or seven on-ball screens that Simmons set for Netto as the ball handler,

but Netto found him. Ben was on the roll. He rolled hard, set good, strong screens. and I imagine a situation, well, what if I, we talked about this before, what if they were to trade for a Chris Paul with the Al Horford contract and what Paul could mean for Ben Simmons as a half court screener on the short role, picking apart defense of the pass or rolling hard to the room and finishing? Because we saw the glimpse of what it could look like with Netto of all players. Could Derek Rose be a nice addition for them to unleash that area of Ben Simmons game? Of course, with Rose, he's not a good shooter off the dribble. So defenses are probably going to go under all those screens or maybe even switch.

But when Brooklyn did switch against Simmons last night, he did a good job beating those switches using his size and power over the smaller defender that was initially on Netto. I think Brett Brown should use more Netto in the rotation because of what we saw in last night's game. You're going to continue to experiment with this because that's what can unleash Ben Simmons in the half court, even without a 3.5.4. point shot. The three point shot is important in many situations, but when Embedde is off the courts, especially, having that point guard in there can help use Ben just by as a screener, man. He can bring value that way, and it was nice to see that happen last night. Are you a fan? Do you, which is Rose a better fit for?

Philly or the Lakers, the two teams that both came up? I prefer him for Philadelphia. Interesting. I think, I mean, it's not a perfect fit because of the shooting aspect. I mentioned earlier that he's 37% on spot-up threes. That's only since last season on a pretty small sample. The defense has still not respect him significantly, but he's at least a non-liability as a spot-up shooter.

So if Embed or Simmons are carrying the ball, he can still stand in the corner or above the break. See, I like the Laker fit just because of what we're talking about earlier, that those minutes that LeBron's not out on the court, how do you not get killed? And, boy, if you throw Rose and Davis out there, that can be pretty devastating. And it certainly not only gets you by, they may be able to run you out. I mean, I'm also, I mean, maybe like it's just worse for both because I'm thinking about for Philadelphia with, if you're going with a unit of Simmons and Horford in the front court when a beat is off the court and you have Rose with two shooters on the court, say, Thibble and Thibble and Harris.

Shooter wings. Don't they, typele's a shooter. I mean, he shot well this season. He was 0 for 5 yesterday. You don't trust it. You don't trust him being the... Let's consider just what they have. Just two wings.

Let's just say it's Fibald and Harris, Simmons, Horford. Corkma's. Corkmaz. Sure. Whoever it might be plug and play whatever wing you want there. It would be interesting with Derek Rose as a downhill pick and all player because you don't need to use Simmons as the screener necessarily. You could have Simmons in the dunker spot with Horford pick and popping.

with a downhill presence like Derek Rose. I think he would fit in either situation. It's just a matter of how much Detroit would want for him and whether considering all the off-court stuff, if Philadelphia or Los Angeles would find it worth actually trading for him. All right. Let's speak on a couple other things that have happened since we last spoke. I bet the Houston locker room was not a fun place to be last night

after Chris Paul exact revenge. He's got to be just absolutely loving this stuff. Paul and Dennis Schrooter and the group like look they have they have they've had a bunch of comebacks and certainly you don't want to be in a close game with five minutes to go with the thunder that is what we have learned because you need you need to be up big on them and sometimes really really big and Houston was up really really big they blew another huge lead last night and Hardin's numbers of course made headlines because he's one of 17 from three but that's just a that was the worst of what has been a very strange month.

Harden now for the month of January, Kevin, is 36% from the field and 26% from three. So far this month. Like, you know, the counting numbers are still there. But the efficiency is just down so much lower than what we have been accustomed to. And you wonder if this is just, I mean, at some point, that's now, I think, think eight games that they've played in the month of January. So people can cry small sample size, and he may come back and next game, he's 20 for 30 for 60 points.

It's totally possible. But something has been off. And I don't know if it's just the shot because you got more Mike Dantoni quotes about the team. Like something just feels a little off, and certainly for January, Westbrook had gotten it going after the first six weeks where Westbrook was, you know, utter crap. He's been great. And now it's Hardin that has fallen off a lot. And so you do kind of wonder, can they both be amazing simultaneously?

Because it's kind of fallen in line where Hardin was amazing and Westbrook was crappy. And now Westbrook's been pretty amazing and Hardin's been crappy. With Hardin, though, the month and a half prior to this, he was having an all-time stretch in terms of his scoring efficiency and his scoring volume after having a slow start to the season. He did not shoot well early in the year over the first two or three weeks of the year. So it went from struggles with efficiency to all-time great efficiency to struggles with scoring efficiency again. I want to read too much into it with Hardin specifically. This just might be a poor streak for him. maybe there's some fatigue involved as well.

That could be a portion of it. It's hard to say for sure. But I got to say this. Like yesterday I did not watch much basketball live. It was a busy day with like family stuff. But like with that game, I didn't see the Houston Oklahoma City game live. I just checked the box score in the fourth quarter. It was like Houston was up by like 15.

17. Yeah, whatever it was in the moment that I checked, it might have been 17. And then like I sort of had to take care of. some stuff and then I went back and saw OKC1. Can you explain to me and some listeners who did not see this comeback happened live?

What the heck happened? What happened? I still haven't had a chance to rewatch the game this morning. I was thinking about some other stuff. No, I just caught up. I just cut up on it yesterday by watching those full recaps that they have of all the games. I just did because I was

doing Grizzlies Pelicans yesterday. Okay. But You had an interesting game yourself. For sure. And I was, so I was score watching. And, you know, we've talked about, geez, you get, you get either Rocker, I mean, Rockets Clippers has got a bunch of drama with it. But this is a possible, you know, first round matchup with all it said had done,

or second round matchup between these two. And Chris Paul has certainly exacted revenge against Houston so far. I would, a series with Chris Paul's revenge, I mean, after Daryl trades him for Russell Westbrook, that would be rather unbelievable. Trades him and a whole bunch of picks. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But, you know, Rusillo mentioned to me on the show I was on with him last week,

how in today's day and age in the league with the amount of three-pointers, no lead is safe. I mean, like, you see teams come back from down 15, down 20 all the time. and I look forward to rewatching this this entire fourth quarter, especially at some point later today, because my goodness, it's a, it's a good example of how no lead truly is safe in the fourth quarter. Houston was one for 11 from three in that quarter. And OKC only made four threes in the fourth quarter. But fact is is that if you have a long slump like Houston did through a stretch, you can come back. And no, no game is ever over until it's like it's nice to have that. I think personally. It's like when you're watching. It's like when you're watching these football games and you've got the team that's got the pass heavy offense. And, you know, now they've got to hold on to a lead. But then they're taking like, you know, 46 seconds in a possession. Right. And then they're punting again.

It's like, wait, you didn't even take any time off the clock. And that is what happens. I mean, these teams continue to play. So everything happens so fast. You can get multiple possessions in a minute. And in conjunction with that yesterday, the Pelicans were drilling the Grizzlies the entire game, the entire game. And they hit 21 threes in the game.

They hit 15 in the first half. And Holiday was out of control, awesome. And then it gets to the fourth quarter. They're up by, I think, 21 going into the fourth. With about two minutes left to go, the grizzlies cut it to five, Kevin. Just because, again, and you're talking two, three minutes span. It's just three, three, steel, you know, and one. next thing you know, you're back in the game because the game is played so fast.

And, and of course, the Pelicans were able to come out on top. I will say this, seeing them in person for the first time this year, and I got there early so that I could watch Zion Williamson in warm-ups. The expectation is that he's going to make his debut tomorrow night. Yeah. And let me tell you, so I'm watching him out there. Of course, he's springy as all ever. you know, this is what stood out to me.

I know you've been around him some. I know that the only time other time I've been around him in person was at Summer League. He walks with a very pronounced limp. Like, and it's just how he walks all the time, right? Because he's walking around there very slow, like gingerly, and he walks with this huge limp and I'm sitting there and I'm like, it's a waddle like like kind of like a fan. And I'm like,

I mean, yeah, and he walks with this pronounced limp and I'm like, geez, man, he's limping around everywhere. And the guy next to me was like, that's just how he walks all the time.

And I said, what the hell? He just walks like that like all the time. Like he's not favoring anything. And one of the guy said, I was at the draft and he was with his dad and his dad walks the same way. It's like like a wrestler or something. But for a guy that's coming off knee surgery, when you see him out there, I'm like, damn, man.

Like, as he's walking from drill to drill, anybody that sees him in person, you'll see what I'm talking about. He's constantly like, if you didn't know anything about it, if you just saw him and I, you know, like, let's say you, you had never heard of Zion Williamson and you don't even watch basketball and you watch that guy out on the court in warm-ups, you'd go, that guy is hurt bad. right but evidently just how he walks so i don't think i can draw anything from how's he going to be when he first comes back health-wise because even when he is evidently perfectly healthy he looks like he's in pain and so well you know you mentioned that but there's an outstanding couple of videos that my buddy brian suitorer i believe that's how he pronounces last name brian suitorer Brian, DM me if I'm mispronouncing your last name. Brian,

Brian Souterer has made multiple videos about Zion's walk and about how the Pelicans might be reprogramming his gate and his load and unloading. Yeah, and Brian does. He's done videos on the walk? Yes, he's done outstanding videos of this. And there's certain types of alignments that human beings have when they walk.

and Zion has what's called, I think, a Valchus alignment where his knees bend inward, which might be one of the reasons why he has the type of walk he does. And when you have that type of alignment, it does put you at risk for certain injuries. And that's just something to keep in mind for him, you know, with his career. Like, look, man, I'm excited about this guy. And I think he's going to make a significant positive impact on this roster, especially with their half-court offense. We hit it last week.

with what he does to this team and what he can become as a player in this NBA. But the fact is is that the injury concern is not going to go away for a guy this explosive, this heavy, nearly 300 pounds. It's scary. And especially with the way his body is just physically made. Oh, I tell you. That's the type of gate he has. So it's just something worth monitoring.

That's the other thing, Kev, being up close in person with him yesterday. He's big. Oh, my God. He's big. absolute mammoth and he is bigger than he was. I don't care what article says what. I don't care what I'm telling you. I saw the kid at Summer League, right?

And I just saw him yesterday and, I mean, to be that size and be able and that level of athlete is just so freaky. I can't wait to see his debut tomorrow night. I can't wait. It's really remarkable. I mean, I mean, like the NBA is filled with so many unbelievable athletes.

but most of them have just proportional-sized bodies that just happen to be taller, right? No, when you see with him, it suits. He is one that when you see him in person, it is jarring, how wide he is. He's just a monster. And let me tell you this, seeing them in person yesterday, and I saw them play as good as they can play. Because, I mean, they knocked down 15 threes and a half and then 21 for the game. They had it going yesterday. True Holiday as well looking at.

Drew Holiday was great. Spectacular. Yes. This was old school. Drew Holiday, the scorer. And Ingram, look, he played like a superstar in the fourth quarter when it matters most. And so seeing Ingram in person, and I thought to myself as I'm watching that team, I'm like, my God, they add Zion to this. And there is a reason for all of these projections.

And I don't know if you saw this, but upon Zion returning tomorrow night, the way. Western Conference from 8th to the 14th place by games back of the final playoff spot, remaining strength of schedule, rank, and playoff odds. And so they kind of list them on 538. And this is just their one metric, right, that they use, their formula they use. But the Pelicans, the rest of the way, have the 29th ranked strength of schedule and 538 gives the Pelicans upon Zion returning a 61% chance to make the playoffs. The next highest is the Blazers with a 22% chance.

We've talked about these seven teams in a blood war to get that eighth seed. I was, that is high, man, because I mean, they're what? They're back. They're still back after yesterday's win against the Grizzlies. You still got to go down the, they are three and a half out of the eight seed, and yet 538 gives them the 61% chance of making the playoffs. It's insane. And I think there's reason for that hype. I remember during preseason, I said if the pelicans were in the east, they'd be projected as like the third or fourth best team in the east.

And by projection, I meant projection because of what Zion was doing in the preseason and averaging 31 points. on 71% shooting per 36 minutes and projections. Again, projections. But the fact is that this guy dominated college basketball by scoring in the paint with Yonis like numbers, dominated in preseason again with Yonis like numbers. And he did it against some top caliber players. He really played well against the Utah Jazz, specifically against Rudy Gobert in his third preseason game.

If he's able to carry that over to what this New Orleans team has already become, they damn right should be a serious, serious threat to grab that eight seed from Memphis right now or from a team that maybe on paper you would think is the favorite in San Antonio or Portland. But this team, if Zion continues to be what he was in college and what he wasn't preseason,

this team should be the favorite for that eight spot because that guy was spectacular. With all due respect to fans of all the other teams, and I mean that. I mean, with all due respect, like everybody's probably getting beat by the Lakers, The Grizzlies are the Pelicans, at least seeing Morant on that stage or Zion and all those Laker kids that were traded away for Anthony Davis and Anthony Davis having to go back into the Lions Den. I mean, look, either the Grizzlies or the Pelicans at eight playing the Lakers in that first round, like, that makes it way more fun than seeing the Spurs do it. I mean, come on.

I mean, again, or you know what I mean? And like, hey, look, I like the Blazers. And the Blazers might be able to at least win a game or two just on the back of Lillard. But, I mean, if we're just talking about entertainment level, there's a lot of, there's a lot of matchups that you don't, you certainly don't feel like you'd need to be in front of the TV to watch the Lakers or the Clippers or whoever gets thrown. Assume it's the Lakers. The Lakers playing that is an eight seed.

But there's two of these teams, which probably have the top two rookies that have. have, it would be fun to see them in that environment. And even just winning a game against the Lakers would be an achievement. I think the Pelicans, it would be more than winning a game that would, right? Like, that would be, that would certainly, I think people would expect like, hey, they might be able to win a game or two. But for the most part, most of these teams are probably going to get, you know, they're going to get wiped all over the place against the Lakers.

But at least we got some fun options. And 538 says it's a pelican. We do. And just want to point this out, last day of the regular season, Pelicans at Spurs. Oh, my God. That could be one of those types of one game playoff playing type of atmospheres like we had with Denver versus Minnesota a couple years back. And what the NBA wants to do with the playoff play in tournament between the seven and ten seeds. Like that's what we could have in the Western Conference at the end of the season.

I hope we do because that's damn fun. All right, Kevin. We'll get right back to it. I want to remind everybody today's show brought to you by Ladder. Do you have enough life insurance? It's this thing we all know we need, but keep putting it off because it sounds like a pain to deal with. Ladder has made getting life insurance easy.

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A couple quick things before we get out of here. I do want to mention that the Clippers play one of the, the only game that's going on tonight is the Clippers Dallas. And while we talked about the Lakers and I was very interested in reading, Brian Winhorse wrote about the trials of being a super team being put together for the Clippers and the troubles that they've kind of had with chemistry and locker room, et cetera, and Doc Rivers' frustration on and on. And juxtapose that against when you go to that same arena,

the Lakers, like, it's the best mood anybody's been in in a long, long time. The locker room's great. They're beating the hell out of people. And like, that is just, it's just a happy place. And then the Clippers, it just doesn't feel like that. But he had a couple of numbers in the article that he wrote, which I was stunned by. Paul George and Kauai Leonard

have only played in 18 games together. That's amazing. I was stunned. 18 games. 461 minutes. That's how long they have played on the court together.

The whole season. And how about this one? Their best lineup, which is probably what you close with, which is Pat Bev, Lou Will, Paul George, Kauai and Montrez. That it's been, of course, spectacular defensively. It's only given up 81 points per 100 possessions.

They have only played a total, the whole season, Kevin, of 46 minutes on the court together. Wow. Is that insane? We're halfway through the season. Their best lineup has been on the court for 46 minutes, which is you know that's what they're going to close with in playoff games. Well, and this is the thing with the clippers. We hit this before the year, and I feel like we're entering the point of the season

where it's actually happening now. The clippers, like most new super teams, you know, or teams with stars joining together, they go through moments like this. We saw it with the heat. We saw it with Katie joining the Warriors. It's hard to put all these guys together. And I thought that before the year,

there would be a point where people are like, are the clippers as good as we thought they would be? are they actually finals contenders? And we're at that point where those questions are being asked because something's a little off with this team because of the injuries that they've had and all that. But this team is still worth taking very, very, very, very seriously as a contender. And I think in that Wind Horse article, Kauai nailed it.

Like he summed it up with a quote. He said, quote, don't be in a rush to win these games. Enjoy every moment of this. Enjoy the process. Use it as a learning tool when we get down in the trenches. We just can't be in a rush. Be patient. It's hard to win a championship.

The pressure isn't even on us now, end quote. And with Kauai, like, that's where I fall with this team, that this team has not leaned on their best lineups. Kauai and Paul George have not played a ton together. But by April and May and May hope June, this team, that's when things are going to get really serious. And we'll see what this team can actually be. Right now, it's just the coasting, man. Unsurprising during an 82 game season, especially now as you get close. and closer to the All-Star break.

I will alert people, our buddy Jonathan, Charks at the ringer wrote about Montres Harrell, possibly being, you know, key to the title hopes of the Clippers. And he kind of contrasted with Draymond. He is key. Dremont's saying, you know, Dremont's the defensive guy that gets by on offense.

Montres is the offensive guy that still plays defense, but they're both these undersized guys that you can play at your big position. And how about this for a number? Chark said six, he's averaging. Harold is one of seven centers this season averaging more than 18 points a game and the only one that does not start.

Anthony Davis, Joel M.B., Nicola Yokic, Carl Anthony Towns, Lamarcus Aldridge, and Nicola Vucevic. And Harold has a higher field goal percentage, 58% than all of them. How about that? Harold's going to get paid by somebody. Man, is he ever? Is he ever? We're talking about Bulldogs earlier.

He is captain. Yeah. And then tonight, it could be the return of Chris Saps Porzingis for the Dallas Mavericks. I had heard that he was supposed to return against Sacramento over the weekend. That didn't happen. He got scratched not long before the game started. I hope he's been dealing with his right knee soreness. Just another leg injury of a long, long, long, scary list of knee injuries.

and leg injuries that he's had, hopefully he's able to get back and be healthy for this Dallas Mavericks roster because they need him as that defensive anchor on the court. They have not been quite as good without him, but then on offense as well, just the spacing he provides. KP, it's

really hard to rely on him as that second start because of his durability issues, but they got to have him on the court to maximize what they can be this season and in the future. Yeah, and two things I want to close with, and these are both on these are both somber news items. And it's disappointing when you hear about them on social media and then people, you know, crack jokes a lot. And you know that's not representative of the greater good and most people out there.

But there were two stories yesterday. The first is Chandler Parsons getting hit by a drunk driver and very nearly could have died and had horrible injuries from this car wreck. Now, everybody knows. I know. I know. Chandler well he was here in Memphis he became the butt of every joke and and the subject of many people's ire and his knees were they failed him completely and he had signed a huge contract and so he he ended up becoming that subject of ire but i would tell any of you out there if you ever had the opportunity to be around him for any extended amount of time you would love him as a person he is a good dude and he

he wanted nothing more than to be able to play basketball and his career was torn away from him and then yesterday he almost had his life ended or I guess we found out yesterday but hit by a drunk driver in the middle of the day no less

and so thoughts and prayers with Chandler and his family and the other one is one thing on Chandler though like a lot of people listen to our podcasts in the car there's no never been an excuse for drunk driving. There's definitely not an excuse now with the technology

that we have. We have computers in our pockets. You can call a friend. We can call an Uber or a lift. You can call family. You can get a hotel from your phone. There's literally no excuse in today's day and age for drunk driving. And it's just so awful that something like this happened at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. It's awful any time it happens. But for Chandler and his family, sending our best to him and the family. It's such sad. And the other one was the absolutely heartbreaking video of Delante West, who is clearly in a very bad place in his life. And there were so many people that were saying, hey, we need to find a way to get this guy. Serious help. Because it's gone tragically the wrong way for Delante to the point where

there's this video being passed around yesterday. It's so heartbreaking. And so here's hoping that this is one of those times where social media can create the good, you know, and that it does. And that hopefully this this rock bottom moment, as it seems, would then turn into an opportunity and people being called to action. I mean, I even saw other athletes saying this cannot be. Like, we've got to help this guy.

Yeah. I saw Des Bryant's tweeted yesterday that he was reading all the shitty things people were saying about Delante West in that video and he said I'm trying to figure out a way he can help Delante get him in rehab or whatever and other players had said the same

Jamir Nelson mentioned how sad it was for him to see college teammates together and Phil Martelli and yeah I just hope there's solutions that are found but just sad to see that Kevin I want you to have a great week we've got this good Clippers Mavericks game that's going on tonight and a bunch of stuff going on, including Zion's return before we return for another pod on Friday.

I'll talk to you then, brother. Talk to you then, Chris. See you. Thanks to Bobby Wagner for producing once again. If you dig what you're hearing, go give us a rating and review on iTunes, five stars, five stars. It really helps. And we will talk to you on Friday.