Lakers-Warriors Reaction: LeBron James & LA survive Curry & Golden State in 2OT | Hoops Tonight

Jason Timpf reacts to LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers’ 145-144 double overtime win over Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and the Golden State Warriors. Jason breaks down the biggest highlights from the game and shares his takeaways for each team moving forward.

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All right welcome to Hoops tonight here at the volume happy Saturday everybody hope all of you guys are having a great weekend so far uh well we had uh what was already a pretty bizarre NBA day around the league for rivalry week or whatever the NBA is branding it as we

Had the we had Joel LBI duck Nicole yic on the road in Denver again we had the uh nuggets end up in a weird dog fight with the Sixers down their three best players we had the Clippers on a tail end of a backto back go into Boston and

And beat the hell out of the Celtics and then the end of the night ended up being weirder than all of it as we had this truly bizarre Lakers Warriors game where the Warriors come out in the third quarter and just Blitz the Lakers and

Then ad goes down with what looks like a bad injury as he’s limping incredibly slowly back to the locker room then the Lakers somehow come all the way back without Anthony Davis then Anthony Davis returns to the game then we have the Lakers blow the lead right before the

End of regulation and then they do it again in double overtime we have this weird D’Angelo Russell stretch where he turns the ball over like three times in a row and then takes a pull-up transition three that gives the Lakers the lead then on the final possession we

Have Steve Kerr substitute Cory Joseph into the game in double overtime for a defensive sub and then to tie it all together we have LeBron James who’s been consistently criticized by some specific people that we won’t mention here uh for not wanting to drive the basketball down

The stretch of games and uh he does so gets a call goes to the line knocks down both free throws and wins it so just truly bizarre uh it was like it was I had all these different notes that I had written down and I could go on about

This game for like 45 minutes but it’s pretty late and so I want to kind of focus on some of the big things so what I’m going to do instead is I I’m going to give you guys my three biggest takeaways from this particular game and

Then I’m going to talk a little bit about the Celtics and the Clippers and then after that I have some thoughts regarding the scoring outbursts we’ve seen around the league and some of the negative energy directed towards that which I don’t understand and quite frankly I think is just wrong and uh a

Lot of misremembering how NBA history used to look you guys know the drill before we get started subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button don’t forget about our podcast

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Really appreciate that don’t forget about my Twitter feed _ jlt that’s where I leave the film threads uh most mornings and then last but not least keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so that we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the season all right let’s talk some

Basketball so my three biggest takeaways from that completely absurd Lakers Warriors game number number one this is why I keep saying invest in Lebron and Steph there’s been a lot of you know a takes flying around the NBA surrounding the Lakers and the Warriors and for the

Record and I think you kind of saw that in this game tonight both of these teams have been dealing with some stuff in uh playing some really inconsistent basketball right like the the Warriors have had a lot of nights where they’ve looked particularly good this year they

Beat the Celtics this year right and like they’ve also had a lot of weird circumstances between the Draymond suspension and a lot of lineup stuff going on with Steve cerr and then on the Lakers front they’re like the the hot cold team of the NBA they win the

Inseason tournament they have all these massive wins they beat the Clippers twice they have they beat the Suns three times and and then they just look awful on other nights they lose to a Spurs team that had like three wins all season and had lost like a dozen games in a row

And they go in and lose to the Spurs the Brooklyn Nets lose you know they they win like two games in a month and then they go into LA and beat the Lakers so it’s like both of these teams kind of our dealing with Seasons that look a lot

Like that game where for stretches they look great and then other stretches they don’t but what I’ve said throughout is that at the end of the day LeBron James and Steph Curry in my opinion are still at least when you’re ranking playoff players like strictly within the aspect of the NBA playoffs

They’re still in that short list of guys that can lead a team to an NBA championship and so even though even though like I’m not in the interest of trading good players just for the sake of it I know Jonathan kaminga has got star potential at a lot of big moments

Again tonight another 20 plus I think that’s his sixth consecutive time going for 20 plus but like what I keep thinking is like but that’s Steph Curry and once again down the stretch of the game while LeBron was getting these contributions from Austin Reeves with transition pushes and D’Angelo Russell

Although he made some mistakes hitting big pullup jump shots Anthony Davis attacking around the rib like Steph Curry’s out there trying to do everything and he got a couple of big shots particularly from Klay Thompson but other than that it was a lot of just Steph Curry having to do everything and

I keep thinking like it doesn’t have to look like this you you can potentially try to reinforce that and so that’s what drives that opinion and I’m not saying I I’m not saying I’ve changed my mind or anything like that as it pertains to Jonathan kaminga I’m just saying this is

What makes it complicated he just had 463 in seven Steph did he was cooking Anthony Davis in switches just absolutely barbecuing him down the stretch of that game now to ad’s defense he’s a little hobbled with that hip injury that he had but even with that hip injury he’s one of the best

Defensive players in the world and Steph was cooking him so that’s why I keep saying like oh you have one of those guys you can’t win the title without one of those guys so who gives a about some first round draft pick in a few years you know who gives a about

What a guy can be when you have this right now like there look at look around the league and look at look at how many teams have absolutely no chance to win the title because they don’t have one of those guys but they have a bunch of interesting young Talent right there are

A lot of teams like that out there in the NBA that’s what makes this complicated same thing with LeBron like yeah I get it this team has a weird basketball character they’ve gone up and down all year but you have LeBron James and Anthony Davis on your

Team that that is such an incredible Foundation within the NBA Playoffs to make a play play off ront that that is why I keep saying like you got to go all in with these guys you got to try to make something happen these are the unique talents that are capable of

Getting you to the Larry O’Brien trophy they’ve won eight of them since 2015 guys it is two they’ve won eight of them like like that that is why I feel this way um about these two guys LeBron James 36 points 20 rebounds and 12 assists completely absurd the overthe Toop shot

Making once again in overtime and in double overtime just like confidently stepping into these tough pull-up jump shots is another one of the reasons why like as the Lakers have been kind of up and down all year I’ve been like H like Anthony Davis looks better than he has

Since 2020 I know he’s not making all the same pullup jump shots but his passing is just at a complete other level from what it used to be and so just as like an offensive fulcrum he’s just so much more versatile and then I look at LeBron James and I’m like he’s

Clearly better than he was last year year and he’s just stepping into these jump shots was so that was a huge problem last year the over theop shot making and the lack thereof for the Lakers was literally why they lost last year they battled the Nuggets close

Every single game and then at the end Jamal Murray and Nicole yic made shots when LeBron James couldn’t and when Anthony Davis couldn’t and so like yeah there’s stuff they got to work out and we’re going to talk about it in a minute as we talk about the Lakers but like the

Bottom line is is like I I think this version of LeBron is worth investing in and like down the stretch of that game driving to the basket drawing a foul confidently going to the line and making both like he’s just in he’s just in that type of position where he looks he looks

Keyed up and ready for this type of run and I I just I just think that’s worth investing in my second biggest takeaway you can see what the Lakers are supposed to look like we’ve been dealing with this issue with the Lakers starting lineup forever and one of the main

Reasons why is I I’ve kept saying like even as the offense has looked great and the Laker offense has taken Leaps and Bounds over the course of the last month which is super encouraging for their big picture potential but what I kept saying is you can’t play LeBron or excuse me uh

Uh torian Prince Austin Reeves and D’Angelo Russell as your one two3 against serious basketball teams and the main reason why is they’re just way too slow and unathletic at those three spots and in a very perimeter oriented League that’s vitally important that speed and that athleticism that

Power and force from the perimeter and so one of the things I’ve been talking about is we’ve been talking about different versions of how to build a starting lineup if you’re going to play Austin Reeves and D’Angelo Russell you have to play Jared Vanderbilt if you’re going to

Play torian Prince at the three you have to play one of your athletic guys like a Max chrisy or a cam reddish at the two strictly because you need to have somebody to throw at a Steph Curry or at of Jamaal Murray at a at a shay gildas

Alexander Austin Reeves got the Steph Curry match up before this at the beginning of this game before Jared Vanderbilt entered and like he was getting cooked that’s not an Austin problem that’s a lineup problem like like like Toran would have got cooked too like like that’s the thing like when

You’re structuring these lineups I always talk about this like you got to have the the responsibilities of a basketball team fulfilled on the basketball court you have to have somebody that can guard at the point of attack you have you have to have somebody that can protect the rim you

Have to have somebody that can take that Lowman role that can help under the basket in a defensive rebounding situations uh tan Prince was minus 22 in this game and Jared Vanderbilt was plus 30 it’s not that hard to figure out like when Jared Vanderbilt is out

There next to Austin Reeves and D’Angelo Russell there is a a better fulfilling of the basketball responsibilities toori toian Prince is a bad defensive rebounder Jared Vanderbilt is an excellent defensive rebounder toian Prince is an average point of attack Defender Jared Vanderbilt is an excellent point of attack Defender toan

Prince his motor runs hot and cold Jared Vanderbilt’s motor is going 100% 100% of the time and so just from a simple concept of lineup construction If You’re Gonna Play the two skill guards you got to play Jared Vanderbilt end of story it’s just what you have to do and like it was

So bizarre because like darham has been Galaxy braining the starting lineup all season long and when this lineup was a lineup that worked at least during the regular season all year I have concerns about that lineup in the playoffs I’ve talked about him all year but like with with this from the

Standpoint of the regular season that’s just the the way you have to construct lineups you know last game there was a run in the final couple of minutes of the first half where they went with Vanderbilt D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reeves and they promptly went on a run

And then they went into the second half and dingham didn’t play them at all in the second half like he he was out there he watched it happen he watched it work and then he didn’t do it and then in this particular game like they go out to start the game it’s an

Issue they go out to start the second half it’s a massive issue it they call a timeout early second half and they stay with Toran Prince and the lead grows like you know it’s funny I I tweeted this earlier talked a lot about uh potential Laker trades they’re the one

Of the most common refrains that that is that I’ve come across in my conversations with people behind the scenes about the Lakers trade deadline across the board is like yeah but what if Darin ham just plays Toran Prince 30 minutes anyway like toan Prince is a good bench

Wing he can shoot the ball he’s really offensively skilled he’s just not a great athlete and so you need him playing against lower level NBA players on the perimeter but like the like it just doesn’t matter if they trade for Deonte Murray if they trade for Dorian finny

Smith doesn’t matter if those guys aren’t actually on the floor like and and that’s where the issue is like there are better guys ruy hamura Jared Vanderbilt there are better players than torian Prince right now that are buried behind him on the bench and so I thought

Tonight was just a resounding example a 52o swing but between those two guys I thought that was a resounding I shouldn’t say 52 points in what was it plus 33 to minus 20 whatever it was but just a completely a a completely flipped dynamic in the basketball game based on

The difference between having a high motor athlete that can slot everybody properly so now Austin Reeves isn’t chasing Steph around he’s chasing clay around it just slots everything properly and makes everything make more sense so that’s my second biggest takeaway you can see what the Lakers are supposed to

Look like and that by the way is why I keep talking about how getting a a version of V that is a high motor athlete that can defend on the perimeter and also be a plus offensive player is the dream outcome that’s why I keep

Saying even though I I I like the Deonte Murray trade idea but that’s why I prefer the Bruce brown one that what what you’re seeing Bruce Brown is Jared Vanderbilt at the two- guard position and that having him there actually makes a Jared aoran Prince more feasible at the three because he’ll be

Playing in more achievable defensive assignments because as a lineup you’ll still hold up better at the point of attack because of Bruce Brown because then Tan’s offensive strengths can kind of rise to the surface I’m not even sure I’d I’d probably still try to play if it were if

It were up to me I’d probably still play ruy at the three but my point is is like if Darin is just obsessed with playing torian Prince at the three you got to have some other type of athlete out there I thought tonight was a great example of that my third biggest

Takeaway you can see what the Warriors are supposed to look like I I put three things down three a list of three keys for the Warriors to look like the Warriors number one Steph has to play like a superstar a lot of the time over the course of these

Struggles Steph is not this season he’s been down across the board by almost any measure and I don’t blame him necessarily for that because it’s been a show for lack of a better term he’s playing with a lot of young players I’m sure just in terms of his own belief in

The team’s ability to succeed he’s had some struggles there but like what you saw tonight because here’s the thing like I I know the Lakers don’t I know the Lakers have a lot of pessimism outside of the Laker fan base uh but I actually think they’re a really good

Team when they try hard and the Warriors held up really well against them tonight and very easily could have won that game if a couple of different things go differently and like that a a big part of that is just having Steph Curry playing like Steph Curry number two they have to

Defend this is something that uh Steve Curry talked about in the fourth quarter interview I I tweeted about it in the third quarter Andrew Wiggins on the ball they switched Andrew Wiggins onto D’Angelo Russell at some point in the first half I can’t remember exactly when but they switched him on to D’angelo

Russell in the first half and he just started ball pressuring the hell out of DLo and causing the Laker offense to stall and then on the back side of it Draymond Green just blowing up these rolls and drives from Anthony Davis and LeBron James and the Lakers are like

Something like 19th or 20th if I remember correctly according to cleaning the glass and transition defense but they’re a good halfcourt defense even with their trash effort all year they’re still 11th in halfcourt defense this year according to cleaning the glass so like if you want to attack the Lakers

Get out and run as much as you can and when they went on that third quarter run it was a steady diet of Wiggins and Draymond kind of defensive playmaking leading to these run out opportunities for the Warriors to avoid the Laker half court defense because in the Laker half

Court defense they had a hard time getting anything unless Steph Curry was going off so like again like the Warriors we forget a lot of times when we talk about the Warriors historically we go we we we we emphasize things like oh it’s the Splash Brothers oh it’s

Kevin Durant oh it’s the death lineup this or that they won with defense first and foremost they were an excellent defensive team every year they won the title the warriors were 30th in defensive rating in January before tonight now obviously Draymond was out for most of that but that’s my

Point that has to be the driving force of this team’s success is if you get stuck in the half court it’s going to be a lot of Steph Curry facing multiple Defenders and hedges and traps trying to make something happen and he’s a freaking magician and so he’s going to make some stuff

Happen but it’s just a really difficult way to win if you’re not getting out into the flow that you can get into off of your defense and then third you have to get offensive support for step in 2022 it was Jordan P it was Andrew Wiggins it was Klay Thompson and Jordan

P kind of fell off and then you traded him and Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson have been really really hot and cold since the title Wiggins mostly cold uh but I thought you saw tonight and a big part of how they were able to compete like this was getting that type

Of scoring support you got 20 points each from kaminga from Wiggins and from Klay Thompson and I think Jonathan kaminga kind of sliding into that Jordan pool role as like the young guy that kind of gives them microwave scoring has gone a long way to helping him in that

Regard but you have to have all three of those things to win you have to have Steph playing like a star you have to defend and you have to get some kind of scoring support you did get all three of those today and you had a good chance to

Beat a really good team especially a really good team that the Warriors match up poorly with as we saw at the end of the regular season last year and in the playoffs couple other quick things the starting lineup um when you’re in a predicament like what the Warriors are

In right now which is you’re a couple of games out of the play in tournament you can’t afford to BS around so for instance the one of the big reasons the Warriors lost to the Kings the other night is they started the game with Dario sarich and cavon Looney on the

Floor and I I was talking with Samus fonari from Lighty years after that game we did a postgame show that night and that I was telling him I’m like that’s the slowest front court for a serious basketball team that I can remember seeing in almost a decade we got to go

Way back to like old school Eastern Conference teams to try to try to find Team bam Gasol type stuff like you know ilus and Gooden right like you got to go way back to find that type of slow-footed front court because it just doesn’t work in

The modern NBA with the way teams can spread you out and the kings are like a five out basketball team that plays a wing at the four and a kind of more of a perimeter oriented kind of skill big in deas sabonis and like they got ran in

The first shift of both halves of that game you can’t afford to kind of spot teams points with foolish at this point and that’s on Steve Kerr and to his credit finally tonight he goes with the Wiggins kaminga Draymond starting lineup which if to put it simply that’s your five best

Players that’s your five best players how do you not start the game with your five best players got to have him out there and I so I think I think this is in a weird way even in a loss a sign of a positive progression the defense look

Better for stretches tonight even though they got cooked in in other stretches you started the right lineup you got Steph kind of at a higher level than he’s been at in a long time and you got some offensive support off of him not even just from kaminga uh last thing on the Warriors

They’ve lost 17 games in clutch situations that’s where the game is within five with less than five minutes left that is the second worst Mark in the NBA that is despite the fact that Steph has been completely outrageously good in the clutch I uh I looked up the numbers the

Other day because one of the callers on the on the Lightyear pod came on and was saying that the Steph was struggling at the end of games and I looked him up and he’s like 5040 90 it’s it’s like 5050 90 or something like that in shooting percentages in clutch situations so the

Bottom line is is you’re just not getting enough support outside of Steph Curry in clutch situation that’s been one of their biggest issues to this point uh but yeah again I could go on about that game for like 45 minutes but but I think I think for right now uh

That’s enough from that completely Wild game we know what the Warriors are supposed to look like we know what the Lakers are supposed to look like in man Steph Curry and LeBron James like there’s a reason why I think there’s an emotional attachment there’s a reason

Why I think so many people are like hey man let’s give it one more shot and it’s because they can do stuff like that all right two more topics before we get out of here Clippers Celtics so I’ve kind of talked in my Contender tiers and stuff about these like different archetypes of

Teams right and specifically among the contenders to me there’s two archetypes there’s the big traditional playoff teams right these teams have huge front courts they kind of like play Like a Rock fight style of basketball right like this is your Milwaukee Bucks this is kind of Philly kind of falls into

This uh this mold as well this is the Denver Nuggets this is the Minnesota Timberwolves this is the Los Angeles Lakers right these big bruising front lines that are built more around the traditional uh basketball build right and then we have like these perimeter oriented teams these are the teams that

Like they don’t really have excellent Rim protection but they just have a boatload of guys that are that are you know uh a multi-level scores that can mix people up off the dribble that can attack Closeouts that can play driving kick basketball and they’re typically a little more thin and they’re typically

Smaller but they’re typically a hell of a lot more skilled and generally speaking like either team can beat the other if they exploit their advantage if they control like again Styles make fights but it’s whichever style wins the fight right like it doesn’t really like quickness versus size well if the big

Guy weaponizes his size more than the quick guy can weaponize his quickness the big guy’s going to win or vice versa right but like this was an interesting example of the two top teams that I have in that perimeter oriented archetype I did my uh I kind of redid my Contender

Rankings last weekend with the nerd sesh guys and I had the nuggets at one the Celtics at two the bucks at three and I had the Clippers at four and so this is the two teams in that top four that are of that archetype competing against each

Other and then again like the Clippers too like they uh they’ve won a lot of games but a lot of the there have been some games where like kawai’s been out for Major matchups against uh against kind of like higher profile teams this was a good example of an opportunity for

Them to to add just another layer of legitimacy to their success and it could not have come at a worse time because they just played it back toback in Toronto the night before I texted my buddy law Murray who covers the clippers for the athletic and I’m

Like are they all playing tonight and they’re like he told me that Paul George was coming off of kind of like an ankle issue and that he was questionable for the Toronto game and that he ended up still playing and I was like man like I

I that’s so lame that that this game is going to be kind of like a little bit uh clouded by the back-to-back thing we also have Chris Ops porzingis out with the uh with the ankle injury right and that for the record that’s the one big difference between the Celtics and those

Other kind of perimeter oriented teams is they have chrisop porzingis he’s the one thing that kind of like changes everything about what about what that team does it’s the it’s the true Difference Maker and it’s one of the big reasons why I have them in my top tier

Of contenders alongside Denver it’s not the same Boston team from years past it’s that Boston team with a legit stretch big that he’s their second best onoff guy on the team and that became a big theme in this particular game the Clippers particularly in that third quarter run were relentlessly attacking Al Horford

In pick and roll he’s just a little too slow just a little too small and it’s not a shot at Al Horford it’s just the phase of his career that he’s in right like and it just goes to show you how different the Celtics look when porzingis is not out there just how

Important he is and for the record like that’s that’s the case with all these teams right like if Denver loses one of their starters I I I think that fundamentally changes their title chance is in a big way regardless of which starter it is same thing goes for

Milwaukee same thing goes for Boston same thing goes for the Clippers the Lakers all these teams nobody in this this field is good enough to be able to afford losing an important player but I thought you saw it tonight just exactly how important chrisop poras is like Al Horford actually this season

That has a negative onoff rating for the Celtics and it just goes to show you the difference between those two and what they can do first of all porzingis is a type of pick and pop player that actually draws attention from the defense there are a lot of like pick and

Pop bigs that teams will concede jumpers to Al Horford is one of those guys when Al Horford picks and Pops you just kind of live with the results porzingis between his ability to uh actually attack mismatches in the post successfully and his a skill just as a

Pick and pop big just kind of fundamentally changes their defense and it it because of the difference in size between him and a typical perimeter player it’s going to lead to more traditional coverages meaning they won’t switch which will force an overthe toop uh uh you know Pursuit from a player

That was one of the big themes in this game was the Clippers switching stagnated a lot of the screening actions that Boston was running which specifically baits Boston into their worst Tendencies which is when they get to that point they have a tendency to take a lot of really tough either quick

Catch and shoot threes that aren’t that open or tough pullup jump shots they they lack the the kind of discipline to be like they’re switching we got to find the smallest guy we got to get Rim pressure to try to get the defense into rotation so that we can play drive and

Kick basketball right porzingis because of the difference in size you’re not going to switch that most of the time it’s going to be more like what the Clippers were doing with the uh um uh with actions that involved Horford they’re running a drop they’re they’re they’re chasing over the top right and

So that’s that kind of goes to show you with porzingis he just gives you the ability to make the Clippers play a different type of Defense right but like that went a long way in this particular game porzingis being out attacking Horford in pick and roll as

Much as they did the switching to stagnate Boston um and then honestly like if you really start to get down to it I think the the Celtics are the most talented team in the league I think that’s pretty clear and I think the Celtics down the roster are more

Talented than the Clippers are but if you look at the top guys it’s like is kawh Leonard better than Jason Tatum yeah he just is he just is is Paul better than Jaylen Brown yeah I think so and it just goes to show you like especially in higher leverage

Environments the top guys matter more that’s been one of the biggest problems for the Celtics over the years is like just Tatum runs into Steph and then kind of stalls out Tatum runs into Jimmy Butler and then kind of stalls out and like specifically in a playoff environment Whoever has the best player

On the floor does actually matter quite a bit and it’s one of the biggest question marks surrounding the Celtics in general will they have the best player in a series against the Bucks h no they won’t will they have the best Ser player in a series against the

Sixers yeah tatums outplayed Joe embiid pretty consistently I I think we can state that unequivocally would uh Jason Tatum be the best player in a series against the Miami Heat like it’s a tossup some years he outplays Jimmy Butler some years he doesn’t say he gets

Out of the conference and goes into the West is he the best player in the series with Denver no is he the best player in the series with the Clippers no is he the best player in the series with the Lakers I don’t know like I think Tatum’s

A better regular season player than both LeBron and AD but in a playoff setting I think you’re you may very well take both of them right so like it just goes to show you like how that can how they can play a bigger role down the line in a

Game like this that it like Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are just better two-way basketball players than Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown and and that goes a long way towards that Dynamic the Clippers have arguably been the best team in the league after the Harden trade not by record but just in

Terms of the the the amount of impressive wins that they’ve been putting up this Daniel Tai signing has been a home run like like obviously he came in as a result of an injury but like his ability to pick and pop once again the same kind of concept that we

Talked about earlier involving the coverages like his ability to pick and pop just opens things up in terms of the driving Lanes especially with James Harden in pick and roll but I thought when I was watching that game today like I thought it was a textbook example of two teams that play

A similar Style but the Clippers are disciplined and deliberate about getting the right shots in the Celtics or not now before we go too negative on the Celtics because I I’m not changing my Contender ranking based on this particular game porzingis being out is a

Huge deal they need him to win the title they just do he is the differenc maker between the the the Celtics and these other teams at the top of the league Boston was also really sloppy they were really sloppy in transition defense that kept getting beat down the floor they

Were turning the basketball over I thought also like it was a textbook example of a game where the scoreboard doesn’t really properly reflect the difference between the two teams because I thought the Celtics kind of lost Spirit a little bit and a lot of times when that happens it can be a landslide

When one team is playing with confidence and another team is playing utterly without it it can the Gap can build pretty wide and then like you could play again and the confidence Dynamic can you know flip and then it could be completely different right um but yeah really really interesting game shout out

To Clippers that was how many times have you seen teams in the NBA this year be like oh we’re onun a back toback on the road against a really good team ah screw it let’s just go home you know let’s just let’s float through this game and

Get out of here and that’s not what happened they showed up and they kicked the Celtics ass I thought it was really impressive all right before we get out of here I wanted to talk for a minute about the scoring bursts around the NBA so uh I actually watched the end of that

Maverick’s Hawks game last night it was hilarious as Luca was just torching the Hawks in single coverage and the Hawks were putting forth one of the more embarrassing defensive efforts I’ve ever seen and then suddenly when Luca gets into these like mid 60s the Hawks are like okay now we’re going to play

Defense and like they’re sitting in a stance and they’re making extra rotations and they’re doing all this stuff and I’m like I’m like okay this is kind of embarrassing like like when it came to winning the game you weren’t overly interested in competing uh but now that it’s about stopping Luca from

Getting a record now now you’re all you know deeply invested but it wasn’t just that we had Devin Booker uh go for 60 plus I had a I saw saw a stat that was completely Bonkers I can’t remember the exact number but it was like 23 times

Devin Booker made six threes in a game and not made a seventh like that’s legitimately crazy like think about that like that would have been weird after the 10th time and it’s happened 20 plus times and then he ended up uh missing a tough pullup three at the buzzer um in

The loss of the Pacers but like we also had a 70 piece from Joel embiid a few uh what was that like a week ago or so but here’s the thing what was bothering me the most as we were watching that was everyone talking about how scoring is

Overinflated in the NBA and you know people talking about how it’s bad television and all this different stuff a lot of like negative stuff which is weird to me because like my first instinct is is to say how about we just have some fun it’s January guy it’s

January we are halfway through this thing not even halfway when you factor in the playoffs like can we just have some fun fun can we just sit there and enjoy it I enjoyed watching that game last night like the second piece of it is so much of

This so much of this revisionist history as it pertains to what NBA basketball used to be like drives me crazy and I’ve been dealing with this my entire life because obviously I grew up around the game and uh over the years I’ve played with a lot of older basketball players

You know just you know um uh like just at pickup runs I’d be chatting with them on the sideline and we’d talk NBA Hoops and a consistent thing is like oh these guys back then were way better uh you know the officiating was it was more

Pure for the game like the the the ball movement was better The this was better like everything used to be better which fundamentally I just disagree with I mean you don’t have to look around very hard to find out that all professional sports are evolving in a positive way

Right like like do you remember what NFL offenses used to look like like 15 years ago and then you look at it today and in the different packages they use and the different like motion Concepts and shovel passes and all this like the route Concepts and all these like like

Like incredibly complex ways that that NFL offenses can work right and you’ve got guys like Shanahan and McVey out there that are like transcendently uh that are Transcendent offensive Minds that are that are changing the game as we know it right you watch Major League Baseball and it

Used to be like when a guy threw 100 miles an hour it was a big deal and now like every team has like four relievers that can throw 100 miles hour and like two of them have a nasty two seamer that dives off to the right like

12 inches and nobody can hit it you know what I mean like like like big shock we’ve worked on biomechanics and we know how to pitch better now than we used to like and then NBA offenses like everything about guarding in the NBA right now is so much more

Difficult than it used to be Doris Burke was doing a bit about it in the first half of the Lakers Warriors game tonight like to start with the sheer amount of offensive skill on on the floor is way way way above what it used to be and

This is something that slowly took place especially as a result of guys like Steph Curry and Damen Lillard in that in that mid 2010s stretch when they were kind of like changing the way guards played between Luca or Luca well Luca’s later but like LeBron bringing in kind of heliocentric basketball when LeBron

Came into the league he was running along the Baseline off of off of floppy action which is like like just running off of Baseline screens as like a two guard looking for catch and shoot jump shots that’s not now Luca gets drafted and it’s like here’s the keys to the

Offense Luca we’re going to put two Shooters in the weak side corner or in the in the two corners we’re going to put another shooter on the weak side wing and we’re going to have a a a rim runner for you and we’re just going to construct an offense around around your

Strengths it’s just different now it used to be that you had big bruising power forwards that were primarily in the game just to beat the hell out of people and now it’s like Harrison Barnes plays the four right now it’s like Pascal sakam plays the four it’s just

Different now Jonathan Kingz plays the four you’re getting high-powered offensive players at at least four position groups and then now we’re seeing the rise of these offensive fulm centers from the perimeter sabonis and Anthony Davis and Nicole yic and Joel embi and like it is you it is

Just it is so much harder now and then to top it all off you give anybody any space these days and they’re hitting a pull-up jump shot in your grill you die on a screen for a second the dude’s rising from 27 feet and hitting a tough

Pullup jump shot it it is just objectively harder than it used to be and then when defenses get into rotation when a when one guy gets beat off the dribble it just turns into this chaos situation and everyone can shoot so you’re trying to chase a guy off the

Line and you’re trying to do all this stuff like it is just hard to play defense now so between how difficult it is to guard between the way offenses are set up to actually accentuate your best player strengths because guess what we’re just better at it now we are

Better at coaching NBA offense now than we used to be and then the the last piece of it that I wanted to hit like when it comes to these scoring totals this is kind of what January basketball can be like sometimes I don’t see dudes putting up 70 in the

Playoffs schematically they’ll take it away I if a guy like look at the Lakers Warriors series last year look at all the defensive adjustments that took place just simply because the Lakers were struggling to guard Steph Curry and pick and roll every single adjustment for both teams was like the Lakers

Trying to figure out how to deal with Steph the Warriors trying to figure out how to deal with Anthony Davis and you’re all making these adjustments and you would never let a guy just just torch you for 60 65 points this is January basketball Joe andb did it

Wasn’t it against the San Antonio Spurs the the uh Luca did it against the Atlanta Hawks Devin Booker did it against one of the worst defensive teams in the league in the Indiana Pacers like a big part of this is just January Hoops like good scores going off against Bad

Defensive teams that don’t have a lot to play for which by the way also happened 20 years ago this is not a new trend this has been a consistent theme throughout NBA history so like to kind of put a bow on it like how about when

This happens we just sit back and be basketball fans instead of trying to rewrite NBA history like I have my issues with the NBA I don’t like the way it’s officiated like that I think officiating is a massive problem in the NBA just at the end of regulation there were like

Three atrocious bad calls in that Lakers Warriors game that Anthony Davis rebound foul was really bad the inadvertent whistle Draymond Green clubs Anthony Davis in the face a clear flagrant doesn’t doesn’t get called for like like officiating in the NBA is just it’s just it’s it’s an

Abomination but like as a as a matter of the game the The Players the coaching the schemes everything’s getting better it’s always getting better so stop being the angry old man on your front porch talking about how basketball’s not the same anymore because I promise you if

You go back 15 years and just pick five random January games they’re going to be ugly as all hell like I promise you it wasn’t Utopia basketball back then all right I’m off my Soap Box all right guys we’re gonna get out of here for tonight as always I

Sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show we will be back on Monday to do our power rankings and some game breakdowns I will see you guys then enjoy your Sunday enjoy the title games over at the n fell