First (3:00)Jason Timpf reacts to Luka Doncic and the struggling Dallas Mavericks taking down Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors 116-113. Laker (25:00), He also revisits the Lakers terrible loss on Monday to the Indiana Pacers. #volume #herd
The volume Hoops Tonight is presented by FanDuel. The NBA is back, and there's no better place to get in on the action than with fandel This is my favorite sports betting app that is out there. It is safe and easy to use, easy to get your money in and out. I love that cash out feature, So if you're in good shape with one of your bets and you don't want to risk garbage time, you can get your money out quickly. Use promo code Jason T and download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more This NBA Season twenty one plus in president Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana. Permitted parishes only, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia. First online real money wager only. Refund issued as non withdrawable site credit that expires in fourteen days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sports book dot FanDuel dot com. Gambling problem called one eight hundred, next step or tech next step to five three three four two in Arizona one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org slash chat in Connecticut one eight hundred Gambler or visit FanDuel dot com slash RG in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, In Virginia one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop in Louisiana one eight hundred to seven zero seven one one seven for confidential help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight Hope and why, or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In Tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee, visit www one eight dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Ban Duel here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. Gonna keep it nice and simple tonight. I want to talk about that incredible basketball game between the Dallas Mavericks and the Golden State Borders and then the Los Angeles Lakers, that another wild collapse last night. I have a lot to talk about there, particularly as it pertains to Lebron James, who had a pretty a pretty embarrassingly bad fourth orders in that game. We're gonna talk a little Indiana Pacers after that too, and then the last chunk of the show, Carl Anthony town took for a caf injury that's gonna keep him out for at least a month, probably closer to two. Um, So we're gonna do a little bit of a deep dive into some of Minnesota's struggles and what they've looked like without Carl Towns on the floor this year, and just kind of talk about how they can best float over the course of the next couple of months without one of their starts. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribed to the Volumes YouTube channels, you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. I'm also gonna be referencing, particularly on the Lebron front A demonstrates some of the the issues that I had with his play last night, So you're gonna want to follow me there. And then last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under hoops tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball, and I'm gonna break. I shouldn't say break, but I'm going. I usually have a rule that we don't talk about refs, and um, I'm not breaking the rules, so to speak, because I'm not gonna talk about it as it pertains to any team or or outcome. Tonight, However, it really annoyed me the incessant need for the rest tonight to step in and stop the flow of this game with really nitpicky calls. Now, I understand that generally speaking, uh, the refs have a process. Early in the season, they have what's called points of emphasis. Every year it's something different, and usually during the early chunks of the season they are really on top of those specific calls, and then always over the course of every year, they fade away back into the background and things kind of fall back to normal NBA officiating, peaking with the postseason, where for the most part they swallow their whistles and let both teams pay a play, which, for the record, I'm pretty sure is the way all of us want the game to be. We want the basketball to be decided by the players and not by the officials, and this stuff with the traveling, Like you know, here, here's the thing with traveling. There is a travel or a carry on just about every single possession of NBA basketball. That's the same for the college level, it's a same for the high school level. It's the same when you guys go up and you play pickup games. Right, But what's the general rule that you guys play by when you're playing pickup games, Like, if it's not egregious, you're not calling it. If it's not a blatant attention advantage by cheating, you're not gonna call it. Right because you went up to the gym to play basketball and you're trying to work on your game, and it was so annoying tonight to see, like Luca don chit's doing a normal driving gather dribble kick out to the corner, and you're calling a travel. That was if he at best and even when you slow it down at you know, at at you know, at an extremely slow speed, you don't see anything definitive and the ref blows the whistle. Or on that last play with Steph when it's one, he does a step back, he does a jump stop where he lands both beat at the same time, which technically means you can establish either foot as your pivot foot. He picks up his left foot twice. I get it looks a little awkward, but it certainly was im blatant. And what it did was it ruined a cool possession at the end of a very entertaining basketball game, and it robbed Steph of this chance to take a shot that could have given the Warriors the lead, and just in general throughout this entire game, to the the the the carries, the travels, the the nitpicky officiating kind of ruined the flow. And I'm glad the uh the the crew for T n T was calling it out because it was really taking away from what was a really entertaining basketball game. The shot making from both teams was insane. That was one of Luca's best games of the season. Steph continues to play like he might be the best player in the world. You had big, big player, big big games from bench players for the Warriors, big games for specific players on the Mavericks. It was a highly entertaining basketball game that kind of had a little bit of a funky feel thanks to the officiating. So obviously we probably don't have many refs that listened to the show, we're to the wise, we're there to play basketball. We're there to watch basketball. We're there to enjoy the basketball. We're not there to you and to enjoy you. So maybe step back a little bit and if it's not egregious, maybe hang onto that whistle. Um So, Dallas, you know, it's funny because the there this season has been disappointing for them. Obviously, they're below five hundred and after making it within three winnals, you're hoping for, you know, better than what they've done so far this year. But as is kind of a common theme from NBA Twitter and and NBA circles, NBA fan bases, NBA talk in the media as well, every time there's a player that we don't like for whatever reason, we kind of hone in on on team issues and target the player as the object of our criticism. Right, And it's happened to Luca this year, something that I kind of saw coming. But this is a team that was constructed in a way that required three primary shot creators and a bunch of three in D role players. They lost one of their primary shot creators and they didn't replace him, and so one of the things that's happened to this season is they've been really good with Luca don on the floor. They were amazing again tonight. Last night, or coming into tonight, they were about plus four points per one possessions with Luca on the floor, which is very good, and they were minus three per one hundred possessions with Luca off the floor, which is pretty bad and enough to cause you some problems, especially in a completely jam packed league where every night you're facing a pretty damn good opponent. And and it's funny because everybody's jumped on Luca, comparing him to James Harden and doing all of these things to try to detigrate him, when the reality is is that the Luca lineups are playing and that are causing problems, and it's a shortcoming of the roster Construction Warrior starting lineup. We talked about this yesterday. That's the best line up in the league by a mile. They're significantly better than the Bucks starting lineup, and the Buck starting lineup is significantly better than everyone else. They are damn good. I think coming into tonight they were plus twenty eight points per one possessions when they have Steph Draymond, Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and kevn Looney on the floor at the same time. That's how good that unit is into the starting line which, by the way, is really good if you're ranking the best lineups in the league that have played at least a hundred minutes. Golden States in first place, Milwaukee's in second place. Washington Wizards, believe it or not, when they're actually healthy and have all their guys, They're starting lineup is the third best lineup in the league to play at least a hundred minutes. Denver's fourth, Boston's fifth, the Dallas Mavericks are six. So even though the team in general has struggled, their lineup is the sixth best lineup in basketball right now. And so I hope, you know, I hope people stopped with the heart. In comparisons, there's some similarities in the way they control possessions, but James Harden historically has flamed out every single postseason that he's been in. Okay, Luca don Chech is progressing at an outrageous get in the postseason. The big difference between him and James Harden is shot variety. Luca done is scoring in so many different ways that you can't sit on moves and if you do, he'll beat you with a counter. And he's got so many different moves and counter moves that so many different spots on the floor that you don't progress in turn him the way that you do with James Hartett. Now he's a young kid. He's relief into a a veteran experienced Golden State Warriors team with the guy that I think might be the best perimeter defender in basketball, and Andrew Wiggins. And he had a rough series in the conference finals, and and and then he lost his second best player, and now they're strug going, and a lot of people have jumped on it. I just don't think that's fair. The reality is, you know, with Jalen Brunson, Jalen Brunson is a good player. He's having a good season in in New York. He's not the kind of guy you usually see as Seclayer on a championship team. He's not Kyrie Irving on the two thousand sixteen Calves. He's not Kevin Durander Steph Curry on the Warriors, or or even a Draymond Green or at Clay Thompson, He's not that level of player, and so so I think the expectations a little bit and I hope in general would think a little bit fair when we're evaluating these stars, especially when they are as young as they are, and hopefully, for Dallas's sake, hopefully Kemba Walker ends up becoming that guy. I thought it was an interesting gamble. It's a non guaranteed contract. When he was at his peak, he was one of the best dribble penetrators and pull up jump shooters in the league. So he did that in a primary role when he was the focus of the scouting report and the focus of all the defensive attention. Now he's going to be doing it in what Spencer didn't what his role was last year, which is primarily with bench units, primarily is the second creator on the floor. He's gonna be facing better defensive matchups and less defensive attention. He has, you know, is if there's anything left in Kemba Walker's gas tank, We're going to find out in this Dallas situation. Ironically, you know, tonight it was the Warriors bench groups that really handled Dallas, and that that kind of highlights that specific problem that I was talking about some of that is is was Golden States staggering their starters, which we're gonna talk about here in a minute. But and just I hope in general, instead of focusing on Luca in this era of Mavericks basketball, we focus on the obvious roster limitations. Is he perfect? No, he had a really bad defensive start to the season, although he's been playing much better defense as of late. Does he take some bad shots at the end of games. Yes. Does his strangle the pay style sometimes lead to runs for the other team when when things get too stagnant. Yes, He's not a perfect player. I had him fourth fest in the league. I think of Atfest in the league coming into this season, like, I don't think he's the same guy as Steph Curry or Janice or any of those guys. But he's a damn good player, and he's certainly well ahead a schedule for his age. And I think that a lot of the criticism directed his way this year has been unfair. I wanted to shout out the defensive effort for Dallas because I was really impressed with them early in this game. Uh and early in the game it was closeouts the um the ferocity in which they would sprint and contest Warriors threes were causing them to rush shots and to feel uncomfortable on those shots, which was causing them to miss. And then in the late part of the game is a lot of deflections kind of like getting good anticipation to get ahead of where those classic Warriors reads are. Right, Like the classic Warriors reids you're always seeing is like the guy does a good job chasing over the top of the screen. So Clay Thompson or Steph or Jordan Pool will curl around. And as you're curling around the screen defenders there and the defenders acting behind, so there's two of you, and now you're passing it back to the screener and now the screeners going into a dribble handoff and then the next guy, and like you can kind of see the Warriors basketball progressing. And Dallas did a nice job, especially in that fourth quarter, of getting ahead of those raids and getting deflections. And there were several sequences we were like, oh man, the balls popping around Golden States and got them in the blender and then nothing would come of it. And so ironically, as as Dallas's offense has really struggled here over the course of the last month. Their defense has carried them throughout this stretch and allowed them to stay competitive in these games. And I wanted to shout out two guys in particular. First, Dwight Powell, who, uh, you know, Mavericks fans will tell you was one of their worst defending bigs in the past, but I actually think he's become a really solid back line defender for them, and he did a really nice job defending around the room tonight. And the other guy wanted shout out was Josh Green. And if you guys remember, Josh Green came through the University of Arizona, so he came through tucsons. I had a little bit of experience watching him and college and and uh, he was really it was missing a lot of polish at that specific phase in his career, but you knew he was a great athlete. And he's the type of wing that's not the tallest wing in the world, but he's very strong and he's outstanding with his quickness and his athleticism. Um, but if you guys remember last year in the playoffs, there was kind of like, you know that they were expecting this particular role to be filled by Tim Hardaway Junior last year, but he ended up having foot issues, and so there was this one rotation spot which was like bench three and D wing where they didn't know which direction to go, and they tried some Frank niel Keena and they tried some Josh Green and it didn't really work either way because Josh wasn't shooting well, Frank wasn't shooting well. Both of them were defending fine, but they weren't doing enough on the offensive end for those minutes to be really impactful. And so it's kind of really impressive over one off season for Josh Green to have made the improvements that he's made as a shooter. And I thought he made the biggest three of this game, which was on a ridiculous side arm hook pass from Luca don Ships to him in the left corner. He made a very slight relocation just slightly up from the corner. I think it was Clay Thompson that was closing out, and Clay closed as if he was going to be in the deep corner, and Josh made a slight relocation up the floor a little bit and he had a little window where he was open and knocked down a shot. It's just a testament to his work ethic, you know, jump shooting and handling. The improvements are so little by a little, like you've got to do you have to It's thousands and thousands of reps to go from being a thirty seven percent shooter to a thirty eight percent shooter, and then another thousand thousands of reps to get to a thirty nine percent shooter. And so you just can tell that he put in a ton of work this offseason. So a lot of credit to him. Uh, moving on to the Warriors, the starters again. You know, it's funny this has been I don't want to I don't want to go to negative on the Warriors tonight, because the truth of the matter is they've been one of the best teams in basketball over the course the last you know, three weeks or so, um and the specific part of the game where they failed tonight is a part of the game that they've succeeded all season, which is their starting lineup and also was a line up that gave the Mavericks a ton of problems last year in the postseason. So I think when push comes to shove. You kind of throw that out as an anomaly. So there's a lot more encouraging stuff when you get deeper into the rotation. But on the with the starters, the guy that seemed to be out of it for me on both ends was Clay Thompson. He had some good on ball defensive possessions, particularly on Luca, but he's getting lost in rotation a lot, and and just and just generally looked like the guy that was kind of floating through the game versus being really engaged. But you know, early in the season, uh, Steve Kerr was going with these like line shifts, so he would have the starters in and then it'd be like all five would come out, and in would come you know, Jordan Pool, Jonathan Comia, most with me, whoever it was, And those bench lineups are getting destroyed. And if you were remember one of the things that I kept advocating for was just staggering the lineups a little bit better. And they actually did that starting you know, a couple of weeks ago, and it was part of part of the line of thinking that turned this season around, and particularly you know, there was a nice stretch there to end the first quarter f and Dante DiVincenzo and Andrew Wiggins where they made some plays to keep the game regularly. Uh was in the second quarter. UM, I was really impressed with Draymond Green and Jonathan Cominga. Draymond Green obviously is having an all NBA level season, although he had a pretty rough offensive fourth quarter a couple of plays where there was one where he had a three in the right corner where I thought he should have taken it and Insteady tried to drive and kick the steff and ended up turning it over which led to Luca I think shooting that pull up three in transition. UM. But so, he had a little bit of a rough fourth quarter, but for the most most part of the season, he's been excellent, and putting him with that second unit that's starting the second quarters is leading to a lot of success. But shout out to Jonathan Cominga because is Moses Movie for the most part has fallen out of the rotation and James Wiseman is literally in the G League and coming into this season. Jonathan Comingo is the player that I was actually least high on, not in terms of long term potential, but in terms of ability to impact this particular season, and the main reason why I thought that um was his offensive decision making was so erratic that I didn't think you could trust him in the Warriors system to make the right decisions. But I always said he was the best defensive wing that they had. And you know what's funny is he still had some sloppy possessions tonight when he tried to do something with the basketball, like in terms of isolation, post ups are over dribbling and things along those lines. But when he was in the dunker spot and when he was just trying to make plays crashing the offensive glass, he was fine on the offensive end, and it was enough to be functional in that role. And there's a way that they can do it to run their sets on the opposite side of the floor, which naturally slots Jonathan Comingo in a week side corner, so that he can be the guy that kind of cuts to the rim as they're running that action. I thought that was smart. And then he was excellent defensively tonight, both grabbing contested defensive rebounds, on ball defense on Luca. He did a really nice job. And so that's gotta be encouraging to see, and that Draymond coming to line up had a lot of success tonight. That's got to be encouraging for Warriors fans because you were begging for somebody to kind of rise from that pack, and Jonathan Coming is playing some pretty solid basketball right now. About Dante DiVincenzo had some stretches of really good ball pressure that that threw Dallas out of whack, and then Anthony Lamb not knocked down some big shots. He's starting to look like one of the more like like higher floor, low ceiling players that they can go to off the bench. And then Steph you know, he had a roughst already miss some open looks. He had a sloppy turnover on like a swing pass, but then he settled down and played like an m v P again. He's playing a level of basketball that very few players that I've ever seen have ever reached. And uh, when we do our player rankings on Thursday, I haven't decided yet, and obviously there's still some basketball left, but I'm strongly considering and putting him at the top of that list because Janice has had a couple of bad games recently and Steff is just playing some of the best basketball that I've ever seen, And you know, it's the combination now of the strength and rim finishing that has added an element to his game that in combination with just his overall like command of the game as he's grown older and more experienced and confident, that that has turned him into UH, I think, a much better player than even he was in two thousand sixteen. UM. But it really bothered me because, like I thought, in a in a back and forth, highly entertaining shot making contest, it really bothered me that the ref stepped in and took away his opportunity to make a play to take that game away. And what I thought was a questionable call at best on that on that travel call. Alright, let's move on to the Lakers in Lebron. So they were up seventeen last night with nine minutes left in the fourth quarter and UH ended up blowing it on a wild sequence where UH the Pacers were down by two with one possession left and Dennis Shooter committed a a pointless foul along the right wing that led to a sideline at a balance that allowed Rick Carlisle to drop a play, and when he drew up the play, Miles Turner got a wide open three at the top of the key that he missed because the Lakers missed a bunch of defensive rebounds in that fourth quarter, and next to you know, Tyrrias Albert starts kind of dribbling along the right wing, and you can literally hear on the Pacers broadcast the Pacers announcers like going, oh, no, he took too long, and you're thinking that too. You're like, there's like a second, you know, one and a half seconds on the shot clock. Lebron abandons, I'm forgetting. Of course, I'm blanking on the young player's name for the Pacers. But Lebron abandon his his matchup to kind of help in the paint because he didn't think Tyrese Aliberton had enough time to make the pass. And Tyres got the ball back into his left hand he's a right handed player, and just rifle the left handed passed the shooter on the left wing and knocked it down at the buzzer. But it was a classic, like uh like basketball gods type of moment, because I'm a big believer that those kinds of things tend to go the way of the team that's playing more respectable basketball. Now, there's absolutely no proof to that. As a matter of fact. As the usually I'm a skeptic and I would think that's ridiculous. But hey, for the sake of my love of the game of basketball, I'm gonna pretend like that kind of stuff matters. But when they were up seventeen, the Lakers played really good basketball last night all the way up through that nine minute mark of the fourth quarter, like damn good basketball. They had won five out of six games. They're coming up on um a really tough December, They've got some real momentum, and they just quit. They quit playing on both ends of the floor, specifically on on the boards, defensive boards, grabbing contested defensive rebounds, and then also in transition defense, which are two things that Anthony Davis came out and was pretty um passion it about in his postgame pressure. And then on the offensive end of the floor is about pace. You know, this Lakers team is at their best offensively when they bring the ball up quickly and try to get quick rim pressure that gets the defense into rotation so they can play off of that advantage. They're just so bad shooting the basketball that if they play a half court game when they get stuck in those half court environments, everyone sagging into the paint, and you've got guys like Russ and Lebron, a Dennis Short or Anthony Davis who rely on rim pressure and in set half court set environments, it's just really tough for them to get that dribble penetration that they need. And you know, I thought it really started with Lebron and uh I I you know, I did a video on this and you can find out my Twitter feed at underscore json LT where I broke down specifically what I was talking about, but basically, from the moment that the Lakers were up seven team and nine minutes left over the next two minutes, the Lakers gave up a ten oh run that turned it from a seventeen point game to a seven point game. But not only that, at that point, the Pacers had all the momentum. We're playing with ridiculous energy, and the Lakers engine was off and it's really hard to restart that engine after you've shut it off the way that you did. And the guy who was almost singlehandedly responsible for that ten oh run for the Pacers was Lebron James. So on the first possession, he's guarding aaron Nie Smith on the left wing, and um the uh. The Pacers run like a double screen with a dribble handoff at the end, and Lebron just literally concedes the three to aaron Nie Smith. Not only dies on the screen, makes absolutely no attempt to fight over it, doesn't signal or talk to any Laker to switch. He just walks into the screen and concedes the three to Aaronnie Smith. Aaronnie Smith is a professional basketball player. If you give him a wide open shot, he's probably gonna make it. And he did. And then next possession, Lebron's got the ball. On offense, he's posting up against t J McConnell on the on the right block. Okay, there's sixteen seconds on the shot clock. Now Pacers are packing the ain't but Lebron could have gotten to one of his more traditional two foot fade aways, or maybe tried to back him down towards the baseline where there was left help to try to take a hook shot. Instead, he takes a ridiculous So he's posting up on t J McConnell on the right block and their sixteen seconds on the shot clock, and instead of trying to work for something a little bit better. Lebron just kind of throws up a throwaway shot, like a one leg fade away, which the one like fade away is probably the toughest pull up jump shot that any player can take, mainly because you know, for the guys who made it really successful, guys like Uh, Dirk Novitski and Kevin Durant, they're so damn tall that they don't really need to fade all that much, so they're one leg. It fade away is more of a footwork thing that gets them a little tiny bit of separation, but they're mostly going straight up and down. But for almost every other player, especially guys like Russ and Lebron, who both took one like fade aways at the end of that game. For those for those guys, those one like fade aways are you have to really fall backwards and you're giving up your entire base and you're losing all of that momentum and uh and he ended up missing that shot, but so so he misses the one leg fade away against t J McConnell and then I I shoot you not the entire play is progressing down the other way. There's a little bit of a scrum, but the Pacers have control over the basketball in Lebron and doesn't just not run back on defense, he runs the other way. He was literally backing away towards the right corner on the opposite end of the floor, and uh, Bennedict mather ended up getting a layup. I'm literally watching. I couldn't believe what I was seen. And then two possessions later, he's doing a similar thing. He's posting up Aaronnie Smith on the left block. Bennedict mather In comes over and double teams him, and instead of making the kickout past to Troy Brown Jr. Who was wide open on the left wing, he takes a one leg fade away misses it. Aaron Knie Smith is right next to him. Aaronnie Smith was guarding him. Everyone goes down in transition, Everyone's matched up. Austin Reeves is guarding Tyler Tyrese Haliburton on the ball, Dennis shooters matched up on one wing, Troy Brown Jr. Is matched up on the other wing. When you Gabriel's matched up on on the center. I think it was Jalen Smith at that point, and Lebron's matched up on Aaronnie Smith and he's just aimlessly jogging back. Aaronnie Smith is relocating over to the left side of the floor. Lebron is on the right side of the loor, just not even paying attention. Next thing you know, there's a quick screen. Lebron doesn't see it. Nearly in time, Aaronnie Smith gets another wide open three, and guess what happens. It goes in partially because he got his rhythm on a wide open three that Lebron conceded to him a couple of possessions prior. Now, all of a sudden, that seventeen point lead is a seven point lead. Not only that, Indiana has all the momentum, everything's going their way, and now you're trying to regain momentum in a game where the Pacers are playing with a lot of fire, and then down the stretch, you could have gone either way. Like the Pacers came out with this like kind of half court pressure that forced a couple of turnovers and rushed the Lakers out of their offense and you know, some of its shot making. Lebron had a wide open catching shoot three at one point that he missed. He had a wide open pull up jumper along the right baseline at one point that he missed. There was a lot of stuff that just didn't go the Lakers way. But again, it's it called basketball, God's called karma college, just you know, momentum, call it whatever you want to call it. At that point, the Pacers were going to get those breaks, and they did, and they made the key plays to win that game. Now, as we're talking about Lebron, his struggles are expected. You know, I said this when he when he came back against the Spurs. I thought that he would. I thought he would, uh, you know, knock down some three point shots because he had an opportunity to work on his three point shot during the injury. Um. But I knew, I knew his legs weren't underneath them. His handle isn't as sharp as it could be. His pull up jumpers not as sharp as it could be. Because he's played three basketball games in the last twenty days. He's played three NBA basketball games in twenty days. So at the end of the day, like like, you're not expecting him to come out and play great right away. But he needs to identify that and understand that at this particular point in time, he doesn't have it, and he might need to lean on his other skills that are not dependent on his rhythm, in his conditioning and his life strength. So, for instance, Lebron is one of the best decision makers in the history of basketball that doesn't depend on his rhythm or his conditioning or anything like that. That's just paying attention to what's happening. And then little things like not jogging back in transition defense or not even making an attempt to chase a shooter over the top of his screen. That stuff that's completely under your control. Not only that you are the leader, the best player in the leader on a team that is seven and eleven, has a ravenous fan base and title expectations. You're supposed to be the one guy they can count on, and you let go of the rope in some of the details of the game in a pivotal game of winnable game against the Pacers, and you blew a seventeen point lead down to seven, and you ended up ended up caution you at the end of the day, and so and it's one of those things where you know, you know, when I talked a lot about this with Russ undercutting your success with sloppy mistakes or laziness. The thing is is Russ has always done that stuff, and in the past he was so damn good as a nuclear athlete that the scale was so heavily in his favor. And it's the same kind of thing with Lebron. Lebron's had bad stretches of transition defense ever since he went to Cleveland. Lebron said, stretches of poor decision making as he takes bad shots and plays with poor pace ever since he went to Cleveland. The differences is from two thousand fifteen to two thousand twenty one and even a little bit. Last year he was one of the five best players in the world, and so he did so much good that you didn't hyper focus on that stuff. This season, Lebron has not played like a top ten player, and so all of a sudden, those mistakes they're not undercutting dominant nights, they're undercutting only okay nights. And now all of a sudden, that scale starting to tip into the negative for him. You know, you know, it's just in this I think that as he gets more games under his belt, he will play better. My big thing is I don't think Lebron has declined. I think he's been injured so much that he can't find his rhythm. I think if he can stay on the court for a month, he'll get it back. I was I was talking um just some Laker fans this morning about this specifically, and my target numbers fifteen games. I want to see Lebron get fifteen games in a row. Last time he played fifteen games in a row is last year. He played twenty five in a row. Over the last seventeen games. In that stretch, he averaged thirty three points, nine rebounds, and six assists on fifty pcent shooting. I think it's still in there, But the question is can he stay healthy long enough for him to get to that point? And I don't know, we're gonna find out. But in the meantime, if he if he knows deep down that he doesn't have that top tier shot making, that he doesn't have his pull up jump shot where it needs to be, he needs to lean on his decision making and his basketball i Q and his ability to make plays as an athlete on the defensive end and on the offensive end of the floor. Maybe work a little bit more out of face up, Maybe work a little bit more out of the post and force feed Anthony Davis as much as possible and lean on him to carry you during those stretches of the game. Um, everything depends on him being great. He needs time to get there, so in the meantime he just needs to play smarter and more discipline basketball. Alright, guys, I I really appreciate all of you for sticking around. I apologize for the technical difficulties. I'm not sure what's going on. We will try to figure that out. We were going to get to the Pacers, and we were gonna get to the Timberwolves, but we'll figure out a different way to get that to you. Guys. We're gonna wrap it right now. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and I'll see you guys next time. The volume