The West Play-In Race Is Crazy

The West Play-In Race Is Crazy

Okay guys let’s talk about the very close playin situation in the west right now where at the time of me doing this we have the Kings Mavs Lakers and Warriors in the playing tournament and we have the Suns a half game above the Kings for the sixth seed the Pelicans

Are two games above the Suns and they’ve also won four in a row so I’m just choosing to not put them in here if this is me jinxing them then my bad Lakers and Warriors are the 910 anyway let’s talk about these teams I started this a

Couple days ago so I don’t talk about the Lakers win over the bucks but just they beat the Bucks hooray and we are going to start with the Lakers who have had themselves an interesting set of games lately look as far as like big picture stuff with the Lakers at this

Point in the season now you would have liked to have seen them get a point of attack Defender at the deadline we would like to see Gabe Vincent healthy to see if he can help with you know all that at all Laker fans continue to be mad at

Darham with it seems like the Tori and Prince minutes became the big thing for a while after they shifted back to DLo and Reeves starting with LeBron and AD right V was there for a bit then he goes down it’s been ruy lately of course LeBron and AD are fantastic but around

That it feels like whatever game you might catch with the Lakers the temperature after that game is either the sky is falling or they’re about to go on a five game win streak uh you know that recent one against the Kings you had Fox and monk cooking on coming

Around a lot of sabonis dho actions and whether it was Reeves or deny or tan Prince or like Fox getting by Jackson Hayes on a switch one time or going at like Reeves for a three-point play in transition and this was with ad play and

Drop on these uh they were just kind of able to cook you know a couple plays where like sabonis would screen for one of them within the three-point line ad’s got to commit for a second becomes a roll for sabon as he scoring there and this was with the Lakers having a big

Lead to start the game out now in their one right before that against the Thunder they were just kind of physically overwhelming OKC like just general switching I thought kind of slowed down Jay dub on some of his plays you had some times where like ad would

Come up higher on the SGA screen like around the free throw line or just help off of like d if he ended up switched onto him and they were able to make SGA uncomfortable a couple times one time where ad’s like in a high drop on an SGA

Empty Corner action with Cam reddish like kind of trailing him from behind and then it’s Austin Reeves hard helping off a giddy to force a turnover and then you would have like LeBron musling Aaron Wiggins in transition or ad scoring through like Mike muscala and somebody else trying to help on him like

Underneath the rim one time where like a ruy and AD are switching a Chad jdub pick and roll and then it becomes like Chet trying to score on ruy but ru’s strong and that ad blocks him from behind so yeah and they also did a better job I thought of just like

Getting around screens against the Thunder as well but then you had the Nuggets loss where in the last five minutes it was the Nuggets just executing perfectly as they do it’s just like the Nuggets just kind of break the Lakers in the last five minutes of games

Every time they play man but then there was the Clipper game where I mean LeBron went god mode in the fourth quarter just making all those threes and everything and also like those couple of great passes where he like makes it look like he’s going to make the kick to like the

Wing and so kawhai commits but then it’s a skip to DLo in the corner DLo like doesn’t even dip the ball in the three like that was great but defensively I thought like they were putting two to the ball on Harden and then from there it’s like plumbley middle of the floor

Torian Prince helps to steal a Pasco and Norman Powell or Lebron is like hedging on the Powell kawhai screen to where they don’t want to give up the Reeves switch to Kawai and so that becomes Powell trying to make a tough three over Reeves who held up well in that

Possession and then within all this they beat the Wizards in overtime congrats and they lose to the Suns and they had like the least free throw attempts they’ve had in like what feels like three years and so yeah like I said it really just depends on what night you

Want to decide to watch the Lakers uh now I didn’t say it in that whole thing but uh they can sometimes fall into the worst habits on offense which is walking the ball up a little too slow and not getting into anything too specific I mean to me like my two favorite things

They do are LeBron ad empty Corner stuff and then LeBron screening for Reeves or dowlo now let’s talk about Dallas who did just score 140 against the Pistons that’s huge I feel like I might have Jinxed the Mavs a little bit because after they’re winning against the Suns

After they got PJ Washington and Gafford at the deadline I tweeted that it is fair to believe that Dallas is a spooky team and since then it’s been up and down I mean they’ve gotten blitzed by the Pacers twice they gave up nearly 140 points to the Celtics but they also had

A better defensive game and their last one against the Heat that I want to talk about too but like for those bacer games in one of them man whatever defense they were playing Miles Turner just kind of had the counter for it where it’s like you know Lively is dropping back on the

Screen and then miles is hitting like a mid-range jumper or Gafford is higher up on a halberton pick and roll and so then it’s it’s a roll to the rim for Turner and the size on the back line just wasn’t there enough to deal with it it felt like in both of the

Games halber was able to get a decent amount of like pretty comfortable pullup twos where um you know the Big’s dropping back maybe it’s like Josh Green chasing him from behind or he’s getting by like Hardway or kleo on a switch or whatever uh Ben Shepard went nuts from

Three in both of the games nard was cooking for mid-range in one of them you’d have like jayen Smith getting open off of a TJ McConnell action the whole defense is rotating what do we do uh in the Celtics game the biggest thing to me

Was it was like if Dallas was going to choose to guard you know all the perimeter guys on the Celtics because pringus was playing gives them more spacing and all that stuff then it was going to be like Tatum going one-on-one against like Josh green or whatever and

Then if they were going to bring the help you know extra guys on porzingis then it’s like oh now somebody’s open it’s a swing to Derek white for a three like they were just completely out of sorts against of the Celtics and how to guard them there was also the Sixers

Loss where Tobias was doing a little bit of like a Carmelo any impression on some of those plays where he’s going at like Derrik Jones Jr in the post and then Maxi was just able to beat some guys off the dribble like if he’s getting like PJ Washington on a switch or whatever

Notice I’m not really talking about Dallas’s offense because we know it’s fantastic you know I’ve already said I think Luca has been the best player in the league this season whether that means you’re going to get MVP or not you know that depends on seedings and everything and Kyrie’s been great what

26 5 and five 62 shooting when he’s been healthy and depending on what game you might watch these guys it’s just like well the other team’s going to lose cuz these two just made every tough shot they attempted but anyway then they had that Heat game where like you’ve got

Luca taking a charge on yic I thought Dante exom pulled off some nice things defensively where he’s like fighting around like a bam screen for Rosier but then bam pops and so exam’s got to like go to Bam for a second but then he gets back to Rosier anyway this is all

Happening like kind of around the free throw line and in the last like three minutes of that Miami game we saw mostly a lively exom and kleba around Luca and Kyrie and exum’s just been solid across the board when he’s been healthy this year I mean late in that Miami game he

Screens for Luca and then gets to the middle of the floor makes a turnaround jumper and that basically sealed the game so yeah we’ll see Dallas fans are not happy with Jason kid right now let’s talk about the Suns now I just did a video on Phoenix so I don’t want to go

Super long here but basically they need KD book and Beal that is clear at this point with that said when KD and nerkish have been on the court together this season their defensive rebounding has been really good their defense overall has been really good with those two out

There and if you want to put Royce O’Neal with those two as well so O’Neal KD and nerk then their defensive rating is 100 now granted sample size not as large they just traded for O’Neal at the deadline point being is they’re a good team with signs that they can be a great

Team if they’re fully healthy but we just have not seen the big three together as much as we would like they’ve played 23 games together this season now book he’s been out for the last four games we could hopefully see the real team down the stretch here uh

And then the last thing is just don’t turn the ball over too much now let’s get to the Warriors so Steph has an ankle injury right now the language around it doesn’t suggest that they’re that concerned but okay he’ll be re-evaluated in like 2 days of course

The uh well they need step we all know that but also they have been featuring Draymond at Center lineups the most for a while now as Jackson Davis and Looney are coming off the bench although it should be said that Jackson Davis did start at Center in their last one

Against the Spurs and uh you know between Draymond Wiggins and hopefully wiggins’s personal stuff is okay he had a four-game absence because of that but he’s been back for the last three games but between Draymond Wiggins kaminga gp2 as well like the Warriors are able to just put more switchy athletic lineups

Out there and of course Draymond still great defensively can switch can guard the post he can he might be the best guy in the league at like closing out on Shooters when you feel like he can’t get there you know and he has not lost his mind on the basketball court for about

When did that suspension end mid January and in the last 15 games they’re 10th in defensive rating and so examples of this like in the Bucks game they recently had you got possessions where like Draymond is guarding Giannis and so then like they try to run the Dame Giannis action

And then On’s like really high up on the screen to where they can’t get that but then like he gets back to Giannis around the free throw line now to do that Wiggins had to help off of Malik Beasley but then he closes out pretty well to

Malik Beasley as well uh similar play where like Draymond and Wiggins double Giannis in the post and then Wiggins again has to close out to Malik Beasley like you are playing with fire with that type of a defense sometimes I mean the Warriors are among the league leaders in

Opponent three-point attempts per game and I mean the ugly version of that was the Celtics game where they got just torched by like 50 something points but you know then you had like the Raptors game where you’ve got like Klay starting a possession on yakob purle and then he

Switches with Moody to where now Klay is on emanu quickly and then they run another action to where kaminga now switches onto quickly and then kaminga later on switches onto RJ on the same possession or in that Suns game they had a little while ago now where they had to

Have the Steph buzzer beater at the end and you know book was cooking down the stretch of that game but like the play before the Steph buzzer beater the suns were trying really hard to get Steph switched onto book and so they were having Grayson Allen try to screen and

Kaminga and Steph doubled book and then that becomes like a swing over to the corner where Draymond manages to close out to Beal and then close out to Gordon who gets the swing pass for Beal to where then the other Warriors can get back to Beal and the player resets and

Steph hits the crazy shot in the other end like the defense is having some some good games no doubt they also did a good job of just pressuring KD in that game with all that said they did just lose to the Spurs with no Steph or no wemi it

Happens sometimes I guess they also got kind of cooked by D rozan and v in that Bulls game where it’s it’s all the d rozan shots you know what they look like and V was able to get a lot of jumpers to fall which has been a big swing thing

For him this year and his whole Bull’s tenure really as far as the other big picture stuff with the Warriors I mean clay he’s coming off the bench now for the sake of PODS and pods has been a little divisive amongst Warriors fans we’ll get to that in a second but as far

As clay I mean well first he has still started in the games where pods was not playing the theme of this video is basically like you don’t know what you’re going to get night and day with a lot of these teams it’s kind of the same

Thing with Clay he could drop 25 on really good shooting in all that one game and then the next game it’s like you know Clay we love you did you have to take that like leaning three right there you know as far as pods I mean okay pods provides the Warriors drive

And kick stuff he pushes the pace when he can get it in transition he also just grabs more rebounds than your average guard that said you wish he was a little more of a flamethrower from three I mean his percentages are good but the actual attempts come and go depending on the

Game and sometimes he can get a little to sort of like let me idle with the ball and figure out what I’m going to do next I guess now he can also flow within the Warriors offense but also sometimes it’s just like the ball might stick with

Him a little too much you know but at the same time you can find him throwing lobs to Jackson Davis or running these like improv screen actions with Gary P where he’s hitting him on a bounce pass or he’ll be setting screens off the ball

So what he’s done for them as a rookie I mean he’s like the plus minus God for them and all that um he’s still good like let’s not get it twisted with pods it’s just again Warriors fans have been arguing amongst themselves pretty hard

For the last week or so about pods and I think some of them have gone a little aggro obviously he’s not perfect like yeah now as far as kaminga I mean kaminga is a wrecking ball like we we get it it’s Cuts it’s anything in transition it’s a drive and kick it’s a

Sometimes having step screen for him anything that gets kaminga going downhill is good stuff and of course he’s also been doing work in the post this season what else we got I mean CP3 is back now Steve KR said that he’s going to be starting moving forward as

Long as Steph is out we love that for Chris and if the Warriors can just have a healthy Steph as well as just more time with these Draymond at Center lineups then it could be good stuff for them although again like I said their last one with no stff they had Jackson

Davis starting with Draymond so a more conventional lineup there now we get to the Sacramento Kings who I feel like have been the epitome of I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight for the whole season and we can just look at their recent games and it continues I

Mean I already talked about the Laker game that their guards were just cooking whe whether it was dhos whether it’s Fox just saying I’m going to go in a straight line and I don’t think Austin Reeves can deal with me in this transition play also by the way Darren

Fox still shooting 54% on jump shots that are in the paint so basically like right at the free throw line uh continues to be like a crazy number and then of course sabonis I mean it’s it’s rolls to the rim it’s in the post it’s put backs it’s bringing the ball up

Himself in transition sometimes it’s all the dhos all the plays off of the screens it’s sabonis is fantastic times where Malik Monk’s going to go off Off the Bench a lot of the time playing off of you know sabonis uh Keegan similar thing you know Keegan some Knights are

Quieter than others overall his overall improvements as a player are real you know I mean everybody was talking about the improvements he made defensively and all that and sure not every game is going to go off as a score but that’s fine Keegan Keegan’s good we all love

Keegan you’d love to put Kevin herder in a time machine to go back just one year but anyway recent games I mean you got like their one against the Clippers where I thought defensively they were pretty damn good now some of it was we’re not going to guard PJ Tucker

Basically but also I thought Fox’s like energy on some Harden possessions was good I mean Davon had a couple plays where he was like sort of hounding Harden fighting around screens a couple plays where sabonis would be like high on like a Harden screen or he would like

Double kawhai real quick and then kind of get out of there to either slow the Clippers down or force a few turnovers on on a couple of them as well so it’s like okay that’s cool but then they got torched by the heat with no Jimmy or no

Tyler hero now they did fall victim to a vintage Kevin Love performance where he’s making like behind the break threes and then he’s like doing work in the post versus like some of the king smaller Defenders and stuff but you also had some plays where like Duncan Robinson improved much improved Duncan

Robinson off the dribble and everything he’s uh throwing lobs to Bam on pick and roll with sabonis dropping back and like the resistance on the screen was like not really much and like sabonis is in the right spot but also there’s only so much he can do there hawz was able to

Just kind of body some of the king smaller Defenders too sometimes as then he’s like making a hook shot over Kevin herder on a drive that sort of thing I mean hakz you know he walked into the NBA just having an NBA game and body as

Well now they did make it interesting in the fourth but once bam made a couple of kind of tough mid-rangers that sort of sealed the game for him I do think if you want to have more of a big picture look at this team although quick I will

Just say the lineup numbers suggest that Trey ly and sabonis together is something that they should do more often anyway Harrison Barnes has been like cool but overall you would love to have a better four at that spot especially with his not like massive drop off from

Last season but he’s been a little worse than last year let’s just call it what it is so yeah look the kings are good okay let let’s not allow any sort of unpredictable n or weird energy this I’m not even using words at this point that

They might have on a night toight basis they’re a good team they’re probably not as fun as last year I will give you that but still the top two is really good Keegan’s good the kings are good

talking about the 6-10 seeds in the western conference
#lakers #warriors #lukadoncic