Bucks vs. Spurs should be advertisement for the league! – Brian Windhorst | NBA Today

Bucks vs. Spurs should be advertisement for the league! – Brian Windhorst | NBA Today

I just I love that both Giannis and wemi they put up insane numbers in their first match up Thursday Giannis he went for 44 and 14 wemi went for 27 n and five blocks but look at the minutes wemi played 14 fewer minutes and averaged nearly as many points and rebounds per

Minute as a tent kmo did so Brian what was your first impression of last night this was an epic I don’t I could go the rest of the show on this game this game should be the advertisement for the NBA of why you want to watch the NBA the

Second night of a backtack in January y puts up that performance Victor wants all the smoke he’s upset that he was eighth in the All-Star voting so he’s going to come out there and play a good game goes back and forth wants it all wants to be great wants this matchup and

Then after the game one of the things that made an impression on people in the Spurs organization Trey Jones misses a shot at the end of the game the first guy to him is Victor wanyama to cons him he is he is 20 years old yesterday now

You tell me and by the way he’s 75 I don’t know why he’s saying he’s 73 in France last year he told me he was 75 five I don’t know but I got now Giannis on my side on that one you watch this game you watch what Victor wants the

Reason Giannis is blown away by this is because Giannis remembers what he was when he was 20 Giannis remembers what he was when he came to the United States as a 20-year-old for the first time and where he was now look at where Giannis is Giannis is thinking about where

Victory is going to be in seven or eight years and that’s what this is about this isn’t about what’s what’s happening now which was awesome this is about also where this guy is going and by the way Chad holgren is a stud too and Joel embiid is going to play tonight on ESPN

And we’re going to see that guy put on a show we’ve never seen big men this talented and this great in the NBA and it’s great every single night and here we going to go again tonight watch Joel tonight Brian you you brought up a good point of the context of what Yannis

Senta Kuma was like when he came in the NBA and I remember spending a couple days with him in Milwaukee his rookie year the little apartment he had and he was lonely his family was still in Greece he was about 170 lbs he was just starting to get in the lineup averaging

Five six points a game that was how he entered the NBA this is a player who went toe-to-toe with him last night uh at 20 years old who against a two-time MVP how many MVPs is Victor wanyama going to win and how soon is he going to start right exactly it the question

Though for Victor and I’m glad that you pointed out consoling Jones because no one wants to win more than Victor wama does right all of us sitting up there know it w Brian we’ve all talked to him about that very thing but despite sort of the flashes of Stellar play that

We’ve seen from Victor it just hasn’t translated to wins quite yet and that’s okay but take a look at this the San Antonio Spurs their win percentage that dropped to 047 last night on Pace to be the worst by a team that picked the number one overall pick in the draft prior so

Obviously there’s some restrictions on playing Victor this early in his career woe but what is the Spurs thought process on how they’re trying to use him you know he had that ankle injury they’re just trying to be cautious with him they have a history of that his

Minute he’s down about five six minutes a game uh over this stretch I’m told that will probably start to change and he’ll start to tick back up to where he was but they want to understand his body and they want to understand uh how he’s reacting to the long season to the

Minutes he’s 7’5 and he moves on the court in a way that we’ve never seen a player of that size move and they’re just going to make sure that they’re in sync and that you know you’re building up the stamina of an NBA season but you

Are going to see his minutes go up again and per minute he’s doing things that we we’ve not seen many players do right and we as fans we want to see him play more right but the Spurs are doing right think about the Yao me situation Yao

Mean career was cut short because of his workload at 76 when he was playing for the Rockets real quick Yannis just real quick they probably got in from Indiana uh the other night at about other morning at about 3:00 in the morning for him to go and do that people don’t know

The mindset the treatment that you have to put in to your body to go out there and perform the way that he did on the backto back last night and put on that type of performance I expected it from Giannis but seeing Victor go Toe totoe with him that’s what impressed me so

Very much over the next month and we’ve talked about it as a make or break one what what actually do they need to do the here is there a record they need to hit what are you looking at first off they need to get some momentum I know

That sounds pretty basic but they need to get some momentum particularly defensively when this team was at its best last year and when it won the n Season tournament it did it on the defensive end and that’s what Darin ham has been trying to find and it’s been

Frustrating I think as he’s put out sort of lineups that they’ve been more defensive based than shooting based he knows when they’re at their best that they are great defensive team they’ve just been okay defensively with the way LeBron and AD have been playing if this

Team defends at the level it can it can get back to where it needs to be but that’s where they can they’re not all of a sudden going to become a better shooting team overnight they may have a good shooting game or two they got to

Get their defense back there’s a lot of games in there yeah where they should be able to be good on the defensive end of the courner there are but there are also some games in there that you can easily see them dropping Zach do you agree

Actually haven’t had a chance to talk to you about this do you think their season is sort of hanging in the balance and this kind of turn it one way or another I mean probably not because they’ll probably win about half of these games and be where they are today when this is

Over but you’re right there’s not a lot of picnics on that upcoming schedule and I think what they need to do is just commit to a starting five and I think it should be the starting five with Austin Reeves in it because defensively Brian nailed it they’ve been okay they’ve got

To be good to great and I think they’ll get there the way ad is playing this team’s problem is that it cannot score and at some point they’re just just going to have to put their best offensive players on the floor and hope that they can find some two-way balance

So if I’m Darin ham I’m finally putting Austin Reeves in the starting five he did it last game I’m keeping him there and I’m going to see what that feels like if I can find like an average offense at least if I put all those pieces together is the criticism that

Darham is facing Fair um that’s what happens when you when you’re the coach of the Lakers and you underachieve so I mean he took the job he knew that was going to come with it but I think his track record in job he’s done pretty well I mean it is fair

I mean we’re talking about you’re giving some of it yeah I am because we’re talking about like one of the most historical franchises right they’re built on winning championships they built they’re built on winning games like the culture has been there for since the beginning of time but when I

Think about the Lakers when I think about the Lakers like they got to have those guys that that are they got to find those two players whether it’s Jared vanderbild or whether it’s going to be you know Austin Reeves and that’s asking a much but they got to go down

And get it like in the mud a little bit we need to see some diving on the floor for loose balls somebody with a high motor that’s going to set the tone like Alex Caruso did for them like somebody got to do the little thing important tonight let’s watch LeBron’s

Disposition he’s he was sick and tired and maybe sick and tired the last few games didn’t talk to me the other night I want to see his mindset in this game tonight it’ll tell me a lot about where they are well you you were mentioning the lineup that they went with it for

Much of their Journey to the Western Conference Finals last year’s Zach they’ve only played that lineup for what you said three minutes this entire season how much of an issue is that in your eyes I mean I’ve been surprised by it and and they’re going to just need

More from all the guys who helped them last year RI Murray’s got to get healthy and help them but you know well I expect LeBron to come out to win Tonight he

NBA Today’s Malika Andrews, Brian Windhorst, Kendrick Perkins, Adrian Wojnarowski and Zach Lowe give their impressions of the first matchup between Giannis Antetokunmpo and Victor Wembanyama as the Bucks defeated the Spurs, 125-121. They also discuss the Los Angeles Lakers’ current struggles and what they need to do over the next 10 games.

0:00 Bucks vs. Spurs takeaways
2:47 Wemby’s minutes
4:35 How do Lakers right the ship?

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