The volume. It's Oops Tonight, presented by FanDuel. The NBA season is kicking into gear, and there's no better place to get in on the action than with FanDuel. The app is safe and secure, getting your money out is super easy. You can jump into the action at any time during the game with live betting, and I love building those same game parlays. And FanDuel is now live in Ohio, So use promo code Jason T and download the FanDuel app today to start making every moment more twenty one plus. In select states, gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot com. Slash rg in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia, and Ohio called one eight hundred, next step or text next step to five three three four two In Arizona called one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven, or visit CCPG dot org. Slash chat in Connecticut called one eight hundred nine with it. In Indiana, visit KS gamblinghelp dot com. In Kansas call one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop. In La visit www dot MD gamblinghelp dot org. In Maryland, dial one eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York, call one eight hundred and five two two four seven zero zero in Wyoming, or visit www Dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a fantastic week. We have three great games to dive into today, an awesome early slate, a comeback win for the Sixers against the Memphis Grizzlies, and then the Denver Nuggets notching an impressive road win against the Cleveland Cavaliers. But we're gonna start with the Warriors and the Lakers, and the Lakers being a good, a legitimately good basketball team. They might not be great yet, We're gonna find out over the course of the next month or so. But the Lakers are good and that's good for us. Obviously, that's a team that I roote for, but it's also just good for the league when the Lakers are a functional basketball team rather than the disaster they were over the course the last couple of years. I had a lot of fun. Tonight, I gotta say I had a little bit of a moment this early evening when I was watching those two early games. I cannot tell you how incredibly excited I am for the stretch of this season. I think the league's wide open. There's a ton of interesting teams, a lot at stake. It's just gonna be a wild ride, and I'm super super excited for it. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So what I say after the Pelicans game when the Lakers beat the Pelicans on the eve of the All Star Break, I said, this was what margin for error looks like. They led by double digits throughout the game. They were able to weather a run from the Pelicans in the middle portion of the game, a run that put them in a position where the game was close, but not where they were in a big hole they had to dig out of. Lebron and Anthony Davis were able to keep their minutes down. I think Anthony Davis played the most minutes on the team, and it was fewer than thirty one minutes in that game, and they were able to get a comfortable victory against a good team, a good New Orleans Pelicans team. And that same thing happened tonight. Lebron James and Anthony Davis combined to go for go just for twenty five from the field. They combined for twenty five points. D'Angel Russell tweaked his ankle in the first half and had to leave the game. But now you have a balanced roster of complimentary players as opposed to an imbalanced roster of clunky fitting players, and so as a result, you can win without everything going perfectly right for you. There's a good balance of offensive and defensive talent on this team and they can win playing a bunch of different ways now, so that has given them a margin for air. Anthony Davis didn't even have to play in the fourth quarter. Lebron and Anthony Davis each only played twenty six minutes, and you win a game by double digits. This is so, this is obviously. We've had two games now of Lebron and ad playing together post Westburg trade, and both of them have been double digit victories. I went back and looked, because I just can't remember how many times that had happened, and it had just twice in the Westbrook era for a season and a half. For more than a season and a half, and three of those four wins or against teams that were actively tanking at that point, like the Orlando Magic or the Houston Rockets. Last year, the Lakers were able to get a couple double digit wins. Now, the Warriors were down a bunch of guys tonight, but still Jordan Poole, Draymond green John and than cominga Clay Thompson. Like that's a serious basketball team, right, Like again, no one's holding the Warriors accountable for that loss. You're down your two best players. But the point is is this is two good teams that the Lakers beat comfortably, and that's something that literally had not happened at all during the Russell Westbrook era. You know, it's funny. There was literally a quote, as I think it was, when the Lakers went up twenty four and Lebron is getting ready to check out of the game. You could literally see Anthony Davis telling Lebron on the sideline. You guys can find this quote off to retweet it out later. Actually I will, so just go to my Twitter feed and you'll find the actual video footage here. You can see Lebron saying to or Anthony Davis saying to Lebron, like, dude, I can't remember the last time we were up twenty four with this much time left. And you even see it in like the runs, the up and down runs of the game. Lakers were up thirteen or so in the second quarter and the Warriors went on a run because they're a good basketball team. Jordan Pool was making plays, Dramon Graam was making plays. Defensively, They've made a bunch of plays. The Lakers let their foot off the gas a little bit and they got it back to three. But instead of it being you know, the runs of the game taking place with you digging yourself a hole and then having to claw back before the other team grows that lead on you. Now the Lakers are on the other side of that equation, and now when they let their foot off the gas a little bit, when the dust settles on that, they're still up by three. So when they come out to start the third quarter and guys start making plays again, suddenly you're up double digits again. And I think that that I think that type of situation just makes everything so easy, so much easier for this particular core who has struggled. Lebron and a d have struggled staying on the court because of the fact that they've had to play high thirty minutes and do everything to give their team a chance to win. This is why I've been begging for this type of trade ever since. For those of you were listening to Lakers Tonight before it was Hoops Tonight, when I first started with the volume, like way back then, I was begging for this at last year's trade deadline, and it's because I've always been such a big believer in Lebron James and Anthony Davis, so surrounded by quality role players, and instead they flipped a bunch of those quality role players for a poor fit and it didn't go well. And but this is what I this is what I've been begging for. It's good to see the results taking place on the court now. Like I said, I think the Lakers are legitimately very good. Now are they great? Are they gonna be good enough to go on a playoff run? Are they gonna be good enough to contend with the teams like Denver and Boston in Milwaukee? I do not know yet. We're gonna find out because they have to hit the Jets to make up ground in the standings over the last month than half of the season, and we're gonna find out quickly whether or not this team is dead serious. But they used to be a bad team that could be good, and now they are a good team that could be great. And that's a hell of a lot better of a position to be in a couple of specific Lakers. I want to shout out Malik Beasley. I pointed out after the last Lakers win that even with as good as everything was going, that Malik Beasley had been missing some good shots and he started making them tonight, and you saw how that bought even more margin for error he has. You know, I'm always is a big believer in offensive skill around rim pressuring stars because the Lebron and a D types are gonna dictate defenses to pack the paint so aggressively that you're going to get these super high quality spot up opportunities. And Malik Beasley was wide open most of the night, and that's what it's gonna be like for him playing with this core. I thought he flashed a good mix of aggressive spot up shooting, which is something we're gonna talk about later when we get to Michael Porter Jr. In the Nuggets, but a good mix of aggressive spot up shooting with playmaking in the in the mid range attacking closeouts. Anthony Davis, that was the best he's looked physically since coming back from the injury. There was a aggressiveness physically that just has not been there. I always talk about like out of area plays like Anthony Davis when he's good, can block shots when people come right at him right. But when Anthony Davis is right and he's locked in, he covers so much damn ground that he can block shots that you wouldn't even expect any NBA player to block. There was a play in this game where Jordan Poole attacked Anthony Davis along the baseline. And what you tell any offensive player as you're coaching them when they're younger, it's like, hey, when you're driving, if you have a rim protector or a shot blocker pursuing, you just go to the other side of the rim. You can use the rim basically as a shield from the rim protector. Anthony Davis somehow chase Jordan Poole all the way under the rim. Jordan Poole attempted a wild reverse layup on the like from two or three feet on the other side of the rim, and Anthony Davis swatted the hell out of it. That I always talk about the difference between like like, oh, Anthony Davis has you know, twenty two and eight, and you know, he made a couple of these specific plays and it's like, Okay, yeah, that's that's Anthony Davis's floor, But Anthony Davis's ceiling is best player in the league. Now. He didn't have it offensively tonight. A bunch of different reasons for that. He also wasn't just being very aggressive. He just was kind of letting the game come to him in the flow of the offense. I think he only attempted five shots, but defensively, that was AD's ceiling. That's what it looks like when he's truly engaged and effective on that side of the floor. Austin Reeves seventeen points on six for six shooting plus ten and nineteen minutes. I've talked a lot about him being that connective piece. I was a buddy of mine, Luke, the guy who recorded my Star Wars podcast with he's staying Him and his wife are staying with us temporarily because they're doing some remodeling at their house for the next couple of days. So I was watching the game with him tonight and he was kind of we were talking and I was explaining to him. I'm like, man, it's hard to explain but this, but Austin Reeves is that guy that when you have him as the fifth guy in any lineup with good players, he just ties it all together with his skill set. And it's impossible to explain because if you put Austin Reeves in a one on one battle against another average two guard in the NBA, he's probably gonna lose. But that's not his game. His game is five on five basketball and connecting everything together for good basketball players, and he's gonna have a long NBA career because of that. Lebron had a nightmare shooting night, but he was able to weaponize the other areas of his game defensive playmaking, pushing the pace in transition. Had a really nice shift there to start the fourth quarter, just making plays for his teammates. And you're already seeing like a little bit of a chemistry and connection between him and Ruey Hatchamura. That's super interesting. It just it's I will say, as someone who's been rooting for the Lakers, this is the most optimistic I've been about them in a very long time, and I'm very excited to see what else they can show us over the course of the next few months. The Warriors, I mean, you're down Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins on the road against a very good team that's desperate for wins. I'll be honest with you. I came into this game thinking the Warriors had a zero percent chance of winning, So I don't want to give them, you know, I don't want to hold them to some sort of ridiculous standard in this game. I thought there are a couple of specific goals. It's almost like a practice because you're coming back from All Star Break. I thought Steve Kurge did an ice job, like punting when he needed to punt and keeping the minutes down because you got to turn around and play Houston tomorrow night, and that's the game you have to win. That's you were if you were going to split this back to back, that was the way you had to manage it, and I think he managed it well. I do want to give one shout out though, to Cavan Looney, who I thought was the best warrior in this game. They were most competitive when he was on the floor. They were just minus one. In his minutes, he had seven offensive rebounds, and he's consistently given Anthony Davis problems with this. But there's a difference between. I always talk about, like, you know, when you have a athletic disadvantage, you have to disrupt someone's base. You know, like if if if I was trying to guard, you know, brandon ingram At shooting fadeaways over the top of me, I'm stupid. If I try to contest him up top, I'm just not gonna be able to bother him there. But if I push on his base and try to mess with his balance. I might be able to get him to miss shots. And Kevin Luney has figured out with Anthony Davis is he has a huge, like physical advantage on the ground against Anthony Davis to push him off of his spots, and he had a lot of success just crashing the offensive glass in this game. I think it's really interesting how he's carved out like a dead serious, successful, winning impact NBA career despite being one of the less physically skilled centers that we have in the league. But yeah, I'm not going to overthink anything from the Warriors in this game when I didn't really think it was a winnable game for them. They will be in a bunch of winnable games here down the stretch, especially as they start to get healthy. And I guess it's looking like early March, like March fifth ish first Deff to come back, So we're talking about another week and a half and then they're going to be a very similar position to the Warriors. They're going to have to hit the Jets and there's very little margin for error and they need to make up as much ground in the standings as they can. And we're gonna be covering that very closely. The NBA season is heating up, and now is the perfect time to download FanDuel America's number one sports book because new customers get a no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars. That's bonus bets back. If your first bet doesn't win, just download the FanDuel Sportsbook app. It's safe, secure, and super easy to use. Then you can bet on everything from the money line to point scores and three's drained. My favorite bet for this week is Friday Night, the Sun's at home against the Thunder. Thunder coming off a back to back a grueling overtime loss. Phoenix minus seven point five. That's my favorite bet for this weekend. So don't miss the chance to get your no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars in bonus bets when you go to FanDuel dot com slash Jason T. That's FanDuel dot com slash Jason to learn more. And if you're in Massachusetts, get ready because FanDuel is coming soon. Make sure you get to FanDuel dot com slash mass and take advantage of their great pre live offers. Make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. All Right, moving on to Kaz Nugget Nuggets. A very interesting game because Nicola Yokets really struggled in this game for three and a half quarters. I thought Cleveland did a really nice job disguising their double teams. There's a huge difference between like easy double teams that are easy to manage versus double teams that are hard demandaged. So, for instance, down the stretch in this game, there were two assists I believe that Yokas had in the fourth quarter where they doubled one pass away from a post up on the left block. So Yokas has that he's looking over his left shoulders, he's dribbling the basketball. They double from one pass away. His head is already looking in that direction, and if I remember correctly, the first one was a kick out one pass away for an easy three. And then the next one was a different rotation to KCP on the left wing, but are on the opposite wing. But like those are easy double teams to read because you're you're not having to really worry about your backside because you can see the entire floor. You already have the ball in your right hand where you can easily make passes. But Cleveland did a really nice job for most of the game coming at him when he would turn his back. So when Yokis would catch in the short roll and then start barreling down the rim and turning his head to kind of like work his angles into the lane, they would double immediately when he turned his head and shoot that gap and try to catch him off guard, and they actually had a lot of success. They forced him into seven turnovers in this game, which is very uncharacteristic for Nickela. Yokich I thought Yokis had one of his worst defensive games that I can remember him playing. He was really kind of just doing the bare minimum within coverages, super deep in his drop, not really impactful around the rim. Guys were just looking at him right in the face and scoring like Evan mobiley went right at him a bunch of times in this game. But three and a half bad quarters, Cleveland's up one O five, one oh one with six minutes left, and Yokis made three massive plays that won the game. There's a right when it was one of five one on one, it felt like the game was getting away from Denver pick and roll with Jamal Murray, pocket pass to Yoki, drops that shoulder into Jared Allen just moves him out of the way, easy left handed layup. Couple possessions later, he hits a deep three at the top of the key. He's been shooting the three. It's weird. He'll go like several games without taking one, but then he'll take a couple and he'll make him. But he's been shooting the three a lot better as of late. Hit a massive three to put him up one nine, one five, and then a couple possessions after that. One of those double teams I was talking about posting up on the left block. The double comes from one pass away off at Jamal Murray. Darius Garland rotates over to take away Jamal Murray, which leaves Contavious Cobble Pope is like that second level read on the opposite wing hits KCP. Isaac Accorra rotates out of the corner off of Michael Porter Jr. Extra pass to MPG wide open. Three games over. I got him up to one, fourteen, one or nine, and it was enough to win the game because the Calves couldn't score after that, which we'll get too later, but again, a nightmare night by Yokich's standards, But he made the big plays at the end of the game to win. And that's what makes the superstars different from the players that are off of that tier. They're off nights, they can make enough winning impact plays to win games. So we're gonna talk about this a little bit more, even when we get to Joel Embiid later tonight, who had an even worse game than Nicola Yokich did. But I thought it was an impressive night, because if your bad night is that, then you're gonna be pretty good most of the time. I want to spend some time talking about Michael Porter Junior because I thought this was a very interesting example of synergy between two players that can completely screw up an NBA defense. So Michael Porter Junior absolutely torched the Calves in this game on the backside of their defense. He made six threes, which, by the way, Michael Porter Junior is now averaging one point three one points per spot up possession. That's outrageously good. He's number one in the entire NBA out of fifty players who have logged at least two hundred spot up possessions, and there's a couple of specific things. He's very aggressive, like he will not he will not pass up shots, and he has a quick, high release, which means he doesn't need much space, which makes the defensive rotation harder. There are a lot of guys around the league who in that weekside corner, if they don't catch it right, if they don't have time to kind of get into their shooting pocket and load up their release, they're gonna pump, fake or not take the shot, and that buys lots of time for that defensive rotation to close out. But MPJ is going to quickly catch and rise and fire from a high release point, which makes that defensive rotation almost impossible. And if you don't get out there, he's converting those possessions at almost a point and a half. That's outrageous. And again, this combo, it's the combination of what Michael Porter Junior does and Yoki's together that completely screws up NBA defenses because most NBA defenses want to help out of the week side corner. And the reason why it's simple, if you can bring that guy out of that corner to help elsewhere, then you can have three guys contain the pick and roll, which suddenly makes it a lot easier for your drop coverage big or your guard chasing over the top of the screens when that third guy can tag the rollers so that your center can spend more time up at the level of the screen to dissuade that pull up, which then buys your guard time to get over the top of the screen. That's why defenses like to do that, and they do it because that cross court pass to the weak side corner is a very difficult pass to make. And if it's a difficult pass and you can make it be a looping deflected pass, then you have tons of time to rotate out of it. And that works pretty damn well on most nights against most teams. But Nicola Yokich is so damn good at extending the ball out and throwing those rifle passes right into the shooting pocket for Michael Porter Jr. And they always situate him on that side of the floor and he's converting those a's such an outrageous rate that you just can't do that anymore. You cannot help out of the week's side corner against Denver, and he just time and time again. Just Barbecued the Calves that one of the best defenses in the league with that specific dynamic, And I think it's super interesting because putting that those two guys together in that specific dynamic across the court will fundamentally make teams change the way they play defense in the playoffs. So, for instance, like if you're the Lakers and you end up getting the eighth seed and you've got Denver in round one, you will have to conceive an entirely new defensive scheme offering help out of different spots on the floor. And now, who knows, maybe the Lebron James Anthony Davis dynamic defensively will allow them some more leeway there. But the point is is, like, whoever that team is that gets that eight seed, they can't just run a traditional fundamental backside help NBA defense against the Nuggets. They will get killed. And it's because of that give and take between Michael Porter Jr. The best spot up player in the league, and Nickel Yokich, the guy who's gonna make the right read every single time. Evan Mobley was awesome in this game. He had thirty one points and nineteen shots. He was killing Yokich individually in this game. Now, Yokis had a bad defensive night, but knocking down three point shots and a lot of these like little pop shots and floaters going downhill. Now, this is where he reminds me of Anthony Davis, because you don't need to get overly creative when you have that type of physically physical advantage, like Anthony Davis kills teams when he's really right by catching in that ten to five feet range and instead of doing any sort of move or anything, just rolling kind of towards the rim and elevating and just kind of extending his arm out and shooting that little pop shot over the top. And when he Anthony Davis is such good touch on that shot that he'll when he's really good, he'll make three or four of those every game. And Evan Mobiley made a bunch of them in this game, and it was a big part of what made him so effective scoring. Again, he's young, he's raw. It's been an uneven season for him. He hasn't shot the ball well from three in the aggregate this season. But seeing games like that, you gotta feel good about yourself as a Cavs fan. Cavs late game offense became a big problem again. This is something I've talked about ad nauseum, and we're gonna talk about it again with Memphis here in a little bit. Cleveland and Memphis each had a chance tonight to beat a good team and prove everything that I've been saying about them against good teams wrong, and both of them succumbed to their usual problems tonight. They scored just four points over the final five minutes and forty eight seconds of the fourth quarter, and it was exactly as I expected. They closed up until they ended up subbing out a Choro. They ended up taking out a chor for Caress Laver with like a minute and a half left, but it was too late at that point, but they went with a coro, Evan Mobley and Jared Allen in the front court. The Nuggets just completely loaded up in the paint, and like I've been saying, the Calves guards have a choice there. It's do we pass out to guys who are probably gonna miss shots, or do we take extremely difficult pull up jump shots. And they opted for that, and the two of them combined for forty four points on forty two shots and down the stretch of the game couldn't make those shots. And it just comes down to a simple question of, like who's getting higher quality shots down the stretch, And it was Yokich actions for wide open looks on one end for good shooters, and on the other end, it was Cleveland's guards forcing up high difficulty shots that they're probably not gonna make on a lot occasions, at least not in a super efficient right right, So yeah, it's just something to keep an eye on. That's a similar thing with Grizzly Sixers, So let's move on to that game. The Grizzlies absolutely punked the Sixers early in this game, and Bead was nightmarishly bad. It looked like Joel Embid hadn't even touched a basketball at all over the All Star break. Dylan Brooks ended up getting into it with James Hardened on an early possession. Then he had like a post up play where he was guarding Joel Embiid and forced Joel Embid to travel, and then he's walking down the court like I'm locking both of you up, you know, talking shit, doing his normal thing. Jaren Jackson Jr. Was having a monster defensive game at the rim, Desmond Bain had a really nice offensive game. He's got this like running scoop shot lay up off the glass at full speed where he's not even going at the rim. He's going like parallel to the rim, and he can just he has this touch going off the backboard as he's flying out past the baseline. That is just ridiculous and it allows him to kind of use that off arm to create space and make that scoop shot. He was great in this game. They were up by seventeen, and I tweeted at one point while I was watching the game, I'm like, you know, Memphis is punching him in the mouth, Philly's slapping back. At a certain point, They're gonna have to fight in this game physically, and I'll admit I was not optimistic that they would. You know, both James Harden and Joel Embid have shown a little bit of a tendency to back down from that type of confrontation over the years, but both of them were absolutely fantastic leading the comeback. And it wasn't just then. There are a couple other guys. Tobias Harris was great and made some big offensive rebound plays. Had a hit a couple of crucial corner threes. Tyrese Maxie had a rough shooting night, but he made some plays in transition that like like quick runouts in transition that stemmed runs. So those guys helped obviously in a lot of ways. But James Harden just with his classic shot creation and Joel Embid just diverting his energy towards protecting the rim. They slowed the game down, executed on both ends of the floor, and won the game pretty comfortably. Like even when the game was close down the stretch, they were just getting better shots. And we're gonna get to that in a little bit when we get to the Grizzlies. But James Harden finished with thirty one, seven and seven on sixteen shots. Hit counts, make countless big plays. There's a assive corner three he hit in the fourth quarter to rescue a possession at the end of the shot clock that took away a big play from Memphis. He had a bunch of big plays driving to the rim, just getting his head downhill and beating people off the dribble. He's had a fantastic season. I've talked about that at nauseum Joel Embid couldn't make a shot to save his life, but he had some big ones down the stretch, including a big shot at the free throw line. But most importantly, like I said, he shut down the Rim as a Rim protector. There's a big play where he stepped over to help and then came back to the rim. I'm planking on his name, but the backup center for the backup center for Memphis, the one who has been playing off Steven Adams minutes, he came back in and blocked him at the rim. And then there was this ridiculous play where John Morand tried to elevate through the damn ceiling to dunk on Joel Embiid, and Joel Embead just completely palmed it and through John Morand to the ground. It was it was a remarkable defensive performance down the stretch from Joel Embid, and it was you know, that's a team Memphis that relentlessly attacks the rim and Joel Embid shutting down the Rims shut down their offense down the stretch of this game. I was really impressed by the fight that Philly showed, like the Grizzlies directly went at them mentally and tried to snatch their heart, and rather than laying there and taking it, they fought back and won. And it's funny because the Sixers have been the best team in the league since December six They're twenty seven and seven. That's a sixty five win pace. That's nearly a half season sample size, and the Nuggets are second during that span, a game and a half back of them. So the Sixers have been comfortably the best team in the league for a while. But my one concern was do Joel Embiid and James Harden and have what it takes to maintain that level of play in the postseason, which they've struggled with in the past, And to me, what I saw today demonstrates to me that they might be ready for that fight this time, because it's going to be a fight for two months and they've got the talent to do it. But they need those two guys to go down swinging, and I believe that they're showing us that they intend to, and that's exciting for the Sixers. The Grizzlies late game offense completely fell apart again. They were up twelve with eight minutes and thirty six seconds left, but down the stretch, it was just John more charging into a packed paint on one end of the floor, and on the other end of the floor it's James Harden, Joel Embide pick and roll consistently getting great shots. So of course, when the game slowed down and stuck in the half court late, Philly got better shots. They outscored them twenty one to fourteen over the last eight eight and a half minutes of the game, and they won. This is something I've talked about at like all season long with Cleveland and Memphis in the flow of the game, they can have a certain amount of success because of their defensive talent on both for both of the teams, and because their guards can make plays. John Morey, you know, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell, But outside of those three guys, both teams are just about devoid of offensive skill as it pertains to shot creation. Desmond Baine, to me, is an off ball player primarily, so as a result, when teams can slow them down and trap them in the half court, you've got small guards to attack when you're attacking them, and when they're coming at you, you can ignore most of their off ball players to pack the paint, and it's way too much pressure on their guards to make plays down the stretch. That is why they've struggled against winning teams all season long, and they're going to have to overcome that conundrum for me to take them seriously despite their really effective regular season records. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight's schedule for the rest of the week. Tomorrow Night's games, I'm covering on Saturday morning, and then we will have a show on Sunday afternoon after Maverick's Lakers, breaking down Saturday evenings games as well as the Sunday afternoon ABC Slate. It's gonna be a whole lot of this, guys for the next four months, just game breakdowns, reactions in the weeds of the footage. I am very, very excited. This is my favorite time of year. I'm excited to go on this journey with you guys. As always, I appreciate you rocking with me, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. The volume

The volume. It's Oops Tonight, presented by FanDuel. The NBA season is kicking into gear, and there's no better place to get in on the action than with FanDuel. The app is safe and secure, getting your money out is super easy. You can jump into the action at any time during the game with live betting, and I love building those same game parlays. And FanDuel is now live in Ohio, So use promo code Jason T and download the FanDuel app today to start making every moment more twenty one plus. In select states, gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot com. Slash rg in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia, and Ohio called one eight hundred, next step or text next step to five three three four two In Arizona called one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven, or visit CCPG dot org. Slash chat in Connecticut called one eight hundred nine with it. In Indiana, visit KS gamblinghelp dot com. In Kansas call one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop. In La visit www dot MD gamblinghelp dot org. In Maryland, dial one eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York, call one eight hundred and five two two four seven zero zero in Wyoming, or visit www Dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a fantastic week. We have three great games to dive into today, an awesome early slate, a comeback win for the Sixers against the Memphis Grizzlies, and then the Denver Nuggets notching an impressive road win against the Cleveland Cavaliers. But we're gonna start with the Warriors and the Lakers, and the Lakers being a good, a legitimately good basketball team. They might not be great yet, We're gonna find out over the course of the next month or so. But the Lakers are good and that's good for us. Obviously, that's a team that I roote for, but it's also just good for the league when the Lakers are a functional basketball team rather than the disaster they were over the course the last couple of years. I had a lot of fun. Tonight, I gotta say I had a little bit of a moment this early evening when I was watching those two early games. I cannot tell you how incredibly excited I am for the stretch of this season. I think the league's wide open. There's a ton of interesting teams, a lot at stake. It's just gonna be a wild ride, and I'm super super excited for it. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So what I say after the Pelicans game when the Lakers beat the Pelicans on the eve of the All Star Break, I said, this was what margin for error looks like. They led by double digits throughout the game. They were able to weather a run from the Pelicans in the middle portion of the game, a run that put them in a position where the game was close, but not where they were in a big hole they had to dig out of. Lebron and Anthony Davis were able to keep their minutes down. I think Anthony Davis played the most minutes on the team, and it was fewer than thirty one minutes in that game, and they were able to get a comfortable victory against a good team, a good New Orleans Pelicans team. And that same thing happened tonight. Lebron James and Anthony Davis combined to go for go just for twenty five from the field. They combined for twenty five points. D'Angel Russell tweaked his ankle in the first half and had to leave the game. But now you have a balanced roster of complimentary players as opposed to an imbalanced roster of clunky fitting players, and so as a result, you can win without everything going perfectly right for you. There's a good balance of offensive and defensive talent on this team and they can win playing a bunch of different ways now, so that has given them a margin for air. Anthony Davis didn't even have to play in the fourth quarter. Lebron and Anthony Davis each only played twenty six minutes, and you win a game by double digits. This is so, this is obviously. We've had two games now of Lebron and ad playing together post Westburg trade, and both of them have been double digit victories. I went back and looked, because I just can't remember how many times that had happened, and it had just twice in the Westbrook era for a season and a half. For more than a season and a half, and three of those four wins or against teams that were actively tanking at that point, like the Orlando Magic or the Houston Rockets. Last year, the Lakers were able to get a couple double digit wins. Now, the Warriors were down a bunch of guys tonight, but still Jordan Poole, Draymond green John and than cominga Clay Thompson. Like that's a serious basketball team, right, Like again, no one's holding the Warriors accountable for that loss. You're down your two best players. But the point is is this is two good teams that the Lakers beat comfortably, and that's something that literally had not happened at all during the Russell Westbrook era. You know, it's funny. There was literally a quote, as I think it was, when the Lakers went up twenty four and Lebron is getting ready to check out of the game. You could literally see Anthony Davis telling Lebron on the sideline. You guys can find this quote off to retweet it out later. Actually I will, so just go to my Twitter feed and you'll find the actual video footage here. You can see Lebron saying to or Anthony Davis saying to Lebron, like, dude, I can't remember the last time we were up twenty four with this much time left. And you even see it in like the runs, the up and down runs of the game. Lakers were up thirteen or so in the second quarter and the Warriors went on a run because they're a good basketball team. Jordan Pool was making plays, Dramon Graam was making plays. Defensively, They've made a bunch of plays. The Lakers let their foot off the gas a little bit and they got it back to three. But instead of it being you know, the runs of the game taking place with you digging yourself a hole and then having to claw back before the other team grows that lead on you. Now the Lakers are on the other side of that equation, and now when they let their foot off the gas a little bit, when the dust settles on that, they're still up by three. So when they come out to start the third quarter and guys start making plays again, suddenly you're up double digits again. And I think that that I think that type of situation just makes everything so easy, so much easier for this particular core who has struggled. Lebron and a d have struggled staying on the court because of the fact that they've had to play high thirty minutes and do everything to give their team a chance to win. This is why I've been begging for this type of trade ever since. For those of you were listening to Lakers Tonight before it was Hoops Tonight, when I first started with the volume, like way back then, I was begging for this at last year's trade deadline, and it's because I've always been such a big believer in Lebron James and Anthony Davis, so surrounded by quality role players, and instead they flipped a bunch of those quality role players for a poor fit and it didn't go well. And but this is what I this is what I've been begging for. It's good to see the results taking place on the court now. Like I said, I think the Lakers are legitimately very good. Now are they great? Are they gonna be good enough to go on a playoff run? Are they gonna be good enough to contend with the teams like Denver and Boston in Milwaukee? I do not know yet. We're gonna find out because they have to hit the Jets to make up ground in the standings over the last month than half of the season, and we're gonna find out quickly whether or not this team is dead serious. But they used to be a bad team that could be good, and now they are a good team that could be great. And that's a hell of a lot better of a position to be in a couple of specific Lakers. I want to shout out Malik Beasley. I pointed out after the last Lakers win that even with as good as everything was going, that Malik Beasley had been missing some good shots and he started making them tonight, and you saw how that bought even more margin for error he has. You know, I'm always is a big believer in offensive skill around rim pressuring stars because the Lebron and a D types are gonna dictate defenses to pack the paint so aggressively that you're going to get these super high quality spot up opportunities. And Malik Beasley was wide open most of the night, and that's what it's gonna be like for him playing with this core. I thought he flashed a good mix of aggressive spot up shooting, which is something we're gonna talk about later when we get to Michael Porter Jr. In the Nuggets, but a good mix of aggressive spot up shooting with playmaking in the in the mid range attacking closeouts. Anthony Davis, that was the best he's looked physically since coming back from the injury. There was a aggressiveness physically that just has not been there. I always talk about like out of area plays like Anthony Davis when he's good, can block shots when people come right at him right. But when Anthony Davis is right and he's locked in, he covers so much damn ground that he can block shots that you wouldn't even expect any NBA player to block. There was a play in this game where Jordan Poole attacked Anthony Davis along the baseline. And what you tell any offensive player as you're coaching them when they're younger, it's like, hey, when you're driving, if you have a rim protector or a shot blocker pursuing, you just go to the other side of the rim. You can use the rim basically as a shield from the rim protector. Anthony Davis somehow chase Jordan Poole all the way under the rim. Jordan Poole attempted a wild reverse layup on the like from two or three feet on the other side of the rim, and Anthony Davis swatted the hell out of it. That I always talk about the difference between like like, oh, Anthony Davis has you know, twenty two and eight, and you know, he made a couple of these specific plays and it's like, Okay, yeah, that's that's Anthony Davis's floor, But Anthony Davis's ceiling is best player in the league. Now. He didn't have it offensively tonight. A bunch of different reasons for that. He also wasn't just being very aggressive. He just was kind of letting the game come to him in the flow of the offense. I think he only attempted five shots, but defensively, that was AD's ceiling. That's what it looks like when he's truly engaged and effective on that side of the floor. Austin Reeves seventeen points on six for six shooting plus ten and nineteen minutes. I've talked a lot about him being that connective piece. I was a buddy of mine, Luke, the guy who recorded my Star Wars podcast with he's staying Him and his wife are staying with us temporarily because they're doing some remodeling at their house for the next couple of days. So I was watching the game with him tonight and he was kind of we were talking and I was explaining to him. I'm like, man, it's hard to explain but this, but Austin Reeves is that guy that when you have him as the fifth guy in any lineup with good players, he just ties it all together with his skill set. And it's impossible to explain because if you put Austin Reeves in a one on one battle against another average two guard in the NBA, he's probably gonna lose. But that's not his game. His game is five on five basketball and connecting everything together for good basketball players, and he's gonna have a long NBA career because of that. Lebron had a nightmare shooting night, but he was able to weaponize the other areas of his game defensive playmaking, pushing the pace in transition. Had a really nice shift there to start the fourth quarter, just making plays for his teammates. And you're already seeing like a little bit of a chemistry and connection between him and Ruey Hatchamura. That's super interesting. It just it's I will say, as someone who's been rooting for the Lakers, this is the most optimistic I've been about them in a very long time, and I'm very excited to see what else they can show us over the course of the next few months. The Warriors, I mean, you're down Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins on the road against a very good team that's desperate for wins. I'll be honest with you. I came into this game thinking the Warriors had a zero percent chance of winning, So I don't want to give them, you know, I don't want to hold them to some sort of ridiculous standard in this game. I thought there are a couple of specific goals. It's almost like a practice because you're coming back from All Star Break. I thought Steve Kurge did an ice job, like punting when he needed to punt and keeping the minutes down because you got to turn around and play Houston tomorrow night, and that's the game you have to win. That's you were if you were going to split this back to back, that was the way you had to manage it, and I think he managed it well. I do want to give one shout out though, to Cavan Looney, who I thought was the best warrior in this game. They were most competitive when he was on the floor. They were just minus one. In his minutes, he had seven offensive rebounds, and he's consistently given Anthony Davis problems with this. But there's a difference between. I always talk about, like, you know, when you have a athletic disadvantage, you have to disrupt someone's base. You know, like if if if I was trying to guard, you know, brandon ingram At shooting fadeaways over the top of me, I'm stupid. If I try to contest him up top, I'm just not gonna be able to bother him there. But if I push on his base and try to mess with his balance. I might be able to get him to miss shots. And Kevin Luney has figured out with Anthony Davis is he has a huge, like physical advantage on the ground against Anthony Davis to push him off of his spots, and he had a lot of success just crashing the offensive glass in this game. I think it's really interesting how he's carved out like a dead serious, successful, winning impact NBA career despite being one of the less physically skilled centers that we have in the league. But yeah, I'm not going to overthink anything from the Warriors in this game when I didn't really think it was a winnable game for them. They will be in a bunch of winnable games here down the stretch, especially as they start to get healthy. And I guess it's looking like early March, like March fifth ish first Deff to come back, So we're talking about another week and a half and then they're going to be a very similar position to the Warriors. They're going to have to hit the Jets and there's very little margin for error and they need to make up as much ground in the standings as they can. And we're gonna be covering that very closely. The NBA season is heating up, and now is the perfect time to download FanDuel America's number one sports book because new customers get a no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars. That's bonus bets back. If your first bet doesn't win, just download the FanDuel Sportsbook app. It's safe, secure, and super easy to use. Then you can bet on everything from the money line to point scores and three's drained. My favorite bet for this week is Friday Night, the Sun's at home against the Thunder. Thunder coming off a back to back a grueling overtime loss. Phoenix minus seven point five. That's my favorite bet for this weekend. So don't miss the chance to get your no sweat first bet up to one thousand dollars in bonus bets when you go to FanDuel dot com slash Jason T. That's FanDuel dot com slash Jason to learn more. And if you're in Massachusetts, get ready because FanDuel is coming soon. Make sure you get to FanDuel dot com slash mass and take advantage of their great pre live offers. Make every moment more with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. All Right, moving on to Kaz Nugget Nuggets. A very interesting game because Nicola Yokets really struggled in this game for three and a half quarters. I thought Cleveland did a really nice job disguising their double teams. There's a huge difference between like easy double teams that are easy to manage versus double teams that are hard demandaged. So, for instance, down the stretch in this game, there were two assists I believe that Yokas had in the fourth quarter where they doubled one pass away from a post up on the left block. So Yokas has that he's looking over his left shoulders, he's dribbling the basketball. They double from one pass away. His head is already looking in that direction, and if I remember correctly, the first one was a kick out one pass away for an easy three. And then the next one was a different rotation to KCP on the left wing, but are on the opposite wing. But like those are easy double teams to read because you're you're not having to really worry about your backside because you can see the entire floor. You already have the ball in your right hand where you can easily make passes. But Cleveland did a really nice job for most of the game coming at him when he would turn his back. So when Yokis would catch in the short roll and then start barreling down the rim and turning his head to kind of like work his angles into the lane, they would double immediately when he turned his head and shoot that gap and try to catch him off guard, and they actually had a lot of success. They forced him into seven turnovers in this game, which is very uncharacteristic for Nickela. Yokich I thought Yokis had one of his worst defensive games that I can remember him playing. He was really kind of just doing the bare minimum within coverages, super deep in his drop, not really impactful around the rim. Guys were just looking at him right in the face and scoring like Evan mobiley went right at him a bunch of times in this game. But three and a half bad quarters, Cleveland's up one O five, one oh one with six minutes left, and Yokis made three massive plays that won the game. There's a right when it was one of five one on one, it felt like the game was getting away from Denver pick and roll with Jamal Murray, pocket pass to Yoki, drops that shoulder into Jared Allen just moves him out of the way, easy left handed layup. Couple possessions later, he hits a deep three at the top of the key. He's been shooting the three. It's weird. He'll go like several games without taking one, but then he'll take a couple and he'll make him. But he's been shooting the three a lot better as of late. Hit a massive three to put him up one nine, one five, and then a couple possessions after that. One of those double teams I was talking about posting up on the left block. The double comes from one pass away off at Jamal Murray. Darius Garland rotates over to take away Jamal Murray, which leaves Contavious Cobble Pope is like that second level read on the opposite wing hits KCP. Isaac Accorra rotates out of the corner off of Michael Porter Jr. Extra pass to MPG wide open. Three games over. I got him up to one, fourteen, one or nine, and it was enough to win the game because the Calves couldn't score after that, which we'll get too later, but again, a nightmare night by Yokich's standards, But he made the big plays at the end of the game to win. And that's what makes the superstars different from the players that are off of that tier. They're off nights, they can make enough winning impact plays to win games. So we're gonna talk about this a little bit more, even when we get to Joel Embiid later tonight, who had an even worse game than Nicola Yokich did. But I thought it was an impressive night, because if your bad night is that, then you're gonna be pretty good most of the time. I want to spend some time talking about Michael Porter Junior because I thought this was a very interesting example of synergy between two players that can completely screw up an NBA defense. So Michael Porter Junior absolutely torched the Calves in this game on the backside of their defense. He made six threes, which, by the way, Michael Porter Junior is now averaging one point three one points per spot up possession. That's outrageously good. He's number one in the entire NBA out of fifty players who have logged at least two hundred spot up possessions, and there's a couple of specific things. He's very aggressive, like he will not he will not pass up shots, and he has a quick, high release, which means he doesn't need much space, which makes the defensive rotation harder. There are a lot of guys around the league who in that weekside corner, if they don't catch it right, if they don't have time to kind of get into their shooting pocket and load up their release, they're gonna pump, fake or not take the shot, and that buys lots of time for that defensive rotation to close out. But MPJ is going to quickly catch and rise and fire from a high release point, which makes that defensive rotation almost impossible. And if you don't get out there, he's converting those possessions at almost a point and a half. That's outrageous. And again, this combo, it's the combination of what Michael Porter Junior does and Yoki's together that completely screws up NBA defenses because most NBA defenses want to help out of the week side corner. And the reason why it's simple, if you can bring that guy out of that corner to help elsewhere, then you can have three guys contain the pick and roll, which suddenly makes it a lot easier for your drop coverage big or your guard chasing over the top of the screens when that third guy can tag the rollers so that your center can spend more time up at the level of the screen to dissuade that pull up, which then buys your guard time to get over the top of the screen. That's why defenses like to do that, and they do it because that cross court pass to the weak side corner is a very difficult pass to make. And if it's a difficult pass and you can make it be a looping deflected pass, then you have tons of time to rotate out of it. And that works pretty damn well on most nights against most teams. But Nicola Yokich is so damn good at extending the ball out and throwing those rifle passes right into the shooting pocket for Michael Porter Jr. And they always situate him on that side of the floor and he's converting those a's such an outrageous rate that you just can't do that anymore. You cannot help out of the week's side corner against Denver, and he just time and time again. Just Barbecued the Calves that one of the best defenses in the league with that specific dynamic, And I think it's super interesting because putting that those two guys together in that specific dynamic across the court will fundamentally make teams change the way they play defense in the playoffs. So, for instance, like if you're the Lakers and you end up getting the eighth seed and you've got Denver in round one, you will have to conceive an entirely new defensive scheme offering help out of different spots on the floor. And now, who knows, maybe the Lebron James Anthony Davis dynamic defensively will allow them some more leeway there. But the point is is, like, whoever that team is that gets that eight seed, they can't just run a traditional fundamental backside help NBA defense against the Nuggets. They will get killed. And it's because of that give and take between Michael Porter Jr. The best spot up player in the league, and Nickel Yokich, the guy who's gonna make the right read every single time. Evan Mobley was awesome in this game. He had thirty one points and nineteen shots. He was killing Yokich individually in this game. Now, Yokis had a bad defensive night, but knocking down three point shots and a lot of these like little pop shots and floaters going downhill. Now, this is where he reminds me of Anthony Davis, because you don't need to get overly creative when you have that type of physically physical advantage, like Anthony Davis kills teams when he's really right by catching in that ten to five feet range and instead of doing any sort of move or anything, just rolling kind of towards the rim and elevating and just kind of extending his arm out and shooting that little pop shot over the top. And when he Anthony Davis is such good touch on that shot that he'll when he's really good, he'll make three or four of those every game. And Evan Mobiley made a bunch of them in this game, and it was a big part of what made him so effective scoring. Again, he's young, he's raw. It's been an uneven season for him. He hasn't shot the ball well from three in the aggregate this season. But seeing games like that, you gotta feel good about yourself as a Cavs fan. Cavs late game offense became a big problem again. This is something I've talked about ad nauseum, and we're gonna talk about it again with Memphis here in a little bit. Cleveland and Memphis each had a chance tonight to beat a good team and prove everything that I've been saying about them against good teams wrong, and both of them succumbed to their usual problems tonight. They scored just four points over the final five minutes and forty eight seconds of the fourth quarter, and it was exactly as I expected. They closed up until they ended up subbing out a Choro. They ended up taking out a chor for Caress Laver with like a minute and a half left, but it was too late at that point, but they went with a coro, Evan Mobley and Jared Allen in the front court. The Nuggets just completely loaded up in the paint, and like I've been saying, the Calves guards have a choice there. It's do we pass out to guys who are probably gonna miss shots, or do we take extremely difficult pull up jump shots. And they opted for that, and the two of them combined for forty four points on forty two shots and down the stretch of the game couldn't make those shots. And it just comes down to a simple question of, like who's getting higher quality shots down the stretch, And it was Yokich actions for wide open looks on one end for good shooters, and on the other end, it was Cleveland's guards forcing up high difficulty shots that they're probably not gonna make on a lot occasions, at least not in a super efficient right right, So yeah, it's just something to keep an eye on. That's a similar thing with Grizzly Sixers, So let's move on to that game. The Grizzlies absolutely punked the Sixers early in this game, and Bead was nightmarishly bad. It looked like Joel Embid hadn't even touched a basketball at all over the All Star break. Dylan Brooks ended up getting into it with James Hardened on an early possession. Then he had like a post up play where he was guarding Joel Embiid and forced Joel Embid to travel, and then he's walking down the court like I'm locking both of you up, you know, talking shit, doing his normal thing. Jaren Jackson Jr. Was having a monster defensive game at the rim, Desmond Bain had a really nice offensive game. He's got this like running scoop shot lay up off the glass at full speed where he's not even going at the rim. He's going like parallel to the rim, and he can just he has this touch going off the backboard as he's flying out past the baseline. That is just ridiculous and it allows him to kind of use that off arm to create space and make that scoop shot. He was great in this game. They were up by seventeen, and I tweeted at one point while I was watching the game, I'm like, you know, Memphis is punching him in the mouth, Philly's slapping back. At a certain point, They're gonna have to fight in this game physically, and I'll admit I was not optimistic that they would. You know, both James Harden and Joel Embid have shown a little bit of a tendency to back down from that type of confrontation over the years, but both of them were absolutely fantastic leading the comeback. And it wasn't just then. There are a couple other guys. Tobias Harris was great and made some big offensive rebound plays. Had a hit a couple of crucial corner threes. Tyrese Maxie had a rough shooting night, but he made some plays in transition that like like quick runouts in transition that stemmed runs. So those guys helped obviously in a lot of ways. But James Harden just with his classic shot creation and Joel Embid just diverting his energy towards protecting the rim. They slowed the game down, executed on both ends of the floor, and won the game pretty comfortably. Like even when the game was close down the stretch, they were just getting better shots. And we're gonna get to that in a little bit when we get to the Grizzlies. But James Harden finished with thirty one, seven and seven on sixteen shots. Hit counts, make countless big plays. There's a assive corner three he hit in the fourth quarter to rescue a possession at the end of the shot clock that took away a big play from Memphis. He had a bunch of big plays driving to the rim, just getting his head downhill and beating people off the dribble. He's had a fantastic season. I've talked about that at nauseum Joel Embid couldn't make a shot to save his life, but he had some big ones down the stretch, including a big shot at the free throw line. But most importantly, like I said, he shut down the Rim as a Rim protector. There's a big play where he stepped over to help and then came back to the rim. I'm planking on his name, but the backup center for the backup center for Memphis, the one who has been playing off Steven Adams minutes, he came back in and blocked him at the rim. And then there was this ridiculous play where John Morand tried to elevate through the damn ceiling to dunk on Joel Embiid, and Joel Embead just completely palmed it and through John Morand to the ground. It was it was a remarkable defensive performance down the stretch from Joel Embid, and it was you know, that's a team Memphis that relentlessly attacks the rim and Joel Embid shutting down the Rims shut down their offense down the stretch of this game. I was really impressed by the fight that Philly showed, like the Grizzlies directly went at them mentally and tried to snatch their heart, and rather than laying there and taking it, they fought back and won. And it's funny because the Sixers have been the best team in the league since December six They're twenty seven and seven. That's a sixty five win pace. That's nearly a half season sample size, and the Nuggets are second during that span, a game and a half back of them. So the Sixers have been comfortably the best team in the league for a while. But my one concern was do Joel Embiid and James Harden and have what it takes to maintain that level of play in the postseason, which they've struggled with in the past, And to me, what I saw today demonstrates to me that they might be ready for that fight this time, because it's going to be a fight for two months and they've got the talent to do it. But they need those two guys to go down swinging, and I believe that they're showing us that they intend to, and that's exciting for the Sixers. The Grizzlies late game offense completely fell apart again. They were up twelve with eight minutes and thirty six seconds left, but down the stretch, it was just John more charging into a packed paint on one end of the floor, and on the other end of the floor it's James Harden, Joel Embide pick and roll consistently getting great shots. So of course, when the game slowed down and stuck in the half court late, Philly got better shots. They outscored them twenty one to fourteen over the last eight eight and a half minutes of the game, and they won. This is something I've talked about at like all season long with Cleveland and Memphis in the flow of the game, they can have a certain amount of success because of their defensive talent on both for both of the teams, and because their guards can make plays. John Morey, you know, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell, But outside of those three guys, both teams are just about devoid of offensive skill as it pertains to shot creation. Desmond Baine, to me, is an off ball player primarily, so as a result, when teams can slow them down and trap them in the half court, you've got small guards to attack when you're attacking them, and when they're coming at you, you can ignore most of their off ball players to pack the paint, and it's way too much pressure on their guards to make plays down the stretch. That is why they've struggled against winning teams all season long, and they're going to have to overcome that conundrum for me to take them seriously despite their really effective regular season records. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight's schedule for the rest of the week. Tomorrow Night's games, I'm covering on Saturday morning, and then we will have a show on Sunday afternoon after Maverick's Lakers, breaking down Saturday evenings games as well as the Sunday afternoon ABC Slate. It's gonna be a whole lot of this, guys for the next four months, just game breakdowns, reactions in the weeds of the footage. I am very, very excited. This is my favorite time of year. I'm excited to go on this journey with you guys. As always, I appreciate you rocking with me, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. The volume