NBA Weekly Power Rankings and Insights

All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend. Got a jam-packed show for you today. We're doing our weekly edition of Power Rankings. We're going to hit on 10 teams, but I also have a couple of other teams that we're going to hit on kind of in the rankings as we talk about some of the games these guys play. We're going to be bouncing all around the league today. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JasonLT so you guys don't miss show. announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed, wherever you get your podcasts and our hoops tonight. Don't forget. It's helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for hoops tonight, where we're going to be releasing more content like reels and stuff like that over the course of the season. So make sure you follow those. And then we're doing another mail bag that I'm recording on this Thursday. And I'm going to be using the comments from the shows on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So make sure you drop mailbag questions in these. Uh, we're going to be trying to hit on some other teams that we haven't hit on yet in those mailbags. So any questions you guys have about anything around the league, make sure you drop them in those mailbag questions. And we will get to them in the show that's going to air on Friday. And then last but not least, before we get started, I want to talk to you guys about game time. I personally have used game time multiple times in the past. They have an incredible experience. 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So let's, before we get into the power rankings, I did have one crazy stat I wanted to show you guys as I was digging into the gap between the East and the West to start this year. So Oklahoma City has six wins against teams that are 500 or better. If you took the top five teams in the Eastern Conference, okay, so that's Cleveland, Boston, Orlando, New York, and Detroit. Those are the five best records. Shout out to the Detroit Pistons with the fifth best record in the East right now. But with those five teams, they have combined. to win six games against teams that are 500 or better. Oklahoma City has six by themselves. The four teams that I had ranked as the top teams in the East to start the year, that's Boston, New York, Milwaukee, and Philly. Those four teams are a combined one in 17 against teams that are 500 or better to start the year with the one win obviously being Boston beating up the Knicks on opening night. So like the East has always been a little weaker than the West. um but man does it feel like a giant chasm to start this season it's been such a strange uh year on that front i do think things will level out and i do think several teams will play better injuries are important context too obviously you've had injuries in philly you've had you know palo bancaro's been out for a while there's jimmy butler's already missed time there's a bunch of guys that have missed time so that's part of it and i do think things will even out but it is kind of crazy the gap between the east and the west that we've seen to start this year all right let's get started with our rankings number 10 the New York Knicks. They were a Josh Hart foul, kind of like a rear view contest on Kobe White away from having a 4-0 week, but it was a foul. Kobe White made all three free throws. Jalen Brunson's turnaround fadeaway over his left shoulder rimmed out, and the Knicks had a 3-1 week. Still impressive, still starting to gain some ground. They keep ending up in these super close games. The first Nets game was crazy too, like the Knicks were up six with a minute and 43 seconds left. And the Nets scored six consecutive points or seven consecutive points to get a one-point lead before Jalen Brunson hit that iso three on the left wing that ended up giving him the win. Every one of their games kind of seems to be following that path. Either they're falling down big and having to scram back into games or they have big leads that they're blowing late and they end up in these like one or two possession games. And those clutch situations have been where they've struggled. They're just two and five this season in games that have involved a clutch situation. They've been bad on both ends. The offensive rating in the clutch is at 91 to start this season. Mostly just missing shots there. Like Brunson is 5 for 15 in the clutch this year. That's going to get better. And he hit a big one against Brooklyn the other night, as you guys know. As a team, they're 2 for 14 from 3 in the clutch. And there's some good looks in there. Like Jalen Brunson, wide open catch and shoot threes. Campaign. wide open catch and shoot three mikhail bridges wide up catch and shoot three there's open looks in there that they're just missing it so like some of that i'm not as worried about when it comes to the offensive end of the floor they have too much talent they're third in offense overall for the season i think they're going to be able to score at the end of game so that i'm looking at is more as a fluke they have a 135 defensive rating in the clutch though that's the part that i'm really struggling about uh struggling with and like on tape they're really struggling to guard the ball Teams are just running down the floor and driving right around them and getting to the rim. Io DeSunmu multiple times in crunch time against the Bulls, just getting the ball, sometimes off of made baskets and just slashing down the lane and getting layups. Zach Levine just getting to his spot easily against Mikael Bridges and knocking down easy jump shots over the top. In the Nets game, it was everybody, but like Cam Johnson in crunch time, just driving to the rim and getting layups or just coming hard off of a screen and getting down into the lane and wrecking havoc for them. Like this was a team. that I thought would be better guarding the ball. Mikhail Bridges and OG Anadobi and Josh Hart are all guys that are kind of, in terms of their reputation, they're good defensive players, but they're just not playing good defense. And so the Knicks have really struggled to guard the ball all year. It's a big part of why they've been bottom 10. Again, if you want to be encouraged, this isn't like the Lakers. The Lakers are going to struggle to guard the ball until they make a roster move. You have the pieces. Guys just have to play better. And it's kind of funny how this comes down to this sort of thing where Like a lot of times we associate our belief system about a team or what they're capable of on reputation. And reputation doesn't mean anything in basketball. All that really matters is how well are you playing, right? Like so much about whether or not a team is playing well comes down to like whether or not guys are playing well, right? Like you have a couple of key role players that aren't playing well and a couple of key defenders that aren't defending as well as they typically do. And you're going to underachieve. But if you get a couple of guys that are playing above their pay grade and a couple of guys that are in good rhythm and everybody's locked in and doing their jobs, all of a sudden you can go on a run and you can win a bunch of games in a row. Right. And so like, that's, what's super fascinating about the talk about what a team looks like on paper before the year. And then it kind of starting to come to fruition. Like the Knicks have a ton of talent, but in some specific ways on the defensive end of the floor, they're not actually really utilizing that talent the way that they're capable of. And so that's the part that's weird. I'm watching these close games and it's like. I'm watching historically good defenders just not do a good job on the ball as they continue to get picked apart. Some of it is the weak points. Yeah, like Nikola Vucevic was going right at Karl-Anthony Towns in the Bulls game and was just giving him buckets down on the block. And some of that is like Vucevic is a good post player and Katz is a mediocre defensive player. So there's going to be some advantage that you're giving up there. But again, I've watched Karl-Anthony Towns do a really good job on Nikola Jokic before. So that kind of goes back to the point we made earlier where like a lot of it just has to do with how well your guys are playing. So like the answer here for the Knicks is on offense, when they get in these close games, they need their guys to hit shots that they're capable of hitting. And on defense, they need their good defensive players that have been good defensive players throughout their career to be good defensive players. And then that should turn around a lot of the issues that they've had to this point in the season. And then again, a lot of the concern about rim protection and stuff like that, like we're going to see a different look. when Mitchell Robinson comes back or if they end up making a move for center at some point in time like I'm not really worried about him in the big picture but there's no doubt that to start this season they're just not playing up to their potential and I you know again I had them in the top four and here they are after a little bit of a streak at three one still have them at 10 in the power rankings number nine the Denver Nuggets not going to spend too much time here they only had two games last week at New Orleans and at Memphis uh Jokic missed both games for the birth of his child just a reminder of how valuable Jokic is to this team. Like Jamal Murray still looks like a shell of himself. These young players, they're capable of winning within the context of Jokic when he can like provide the structure for them to be able to impact the game on offense. But like, obviously when Jokic isn't out there, they're just raw young players with some talent, right? Russell Westbrook has been good at times this year, but he wasn't able to bring much next week or last week and they ended up going 0-2. So the Nuggets through 12 games at this point. are 35.1 points better per 100 possessions with Jokic on the floor versus off the floor so in a weird way the two games out next week just or last week just shined a big flashlight on Nikola Jokic and how valuable he is to this particular team number eight the Minnesota Timberwolves it's such a weird week they dropped back-to-back games in in Portland like literally on the road in Portland back-to-back you lose the first one you think they bounce back and win the next night they end up losing again now again Portland is feisty. I think they're six and eight now. They've won three in a row. Shaden Sharp is averaging 27 points a game in this three-game winning streak, and they're getting really high-quality center play out of Robert Williams and Donovan Klingin. So they kind of have the depth situation at center. They probably are going to be a team that someone's going to target for center at some point before the deadline. So Portland's a little feisty, but Minnesota drops back-to-back games in Portland. Then they go into Sacramento and get a win. And then they end up beating Phoenix with that crazy Julius Randle game winner the other day. So what's interesting is if you talk to Minnesota fans, that's what they'll tell you is their biggest issue this season. Their biggest issue this season is their competitive edge. It's just not the same that it was last year. Their willingness to just get dirty on defense and physical and grind games down into the mud, the chip on their shoulder. Right. Like it's just not there. And it's it's showing up mostly with the fact that they seem to get up for the good teams and then play down to the competition against the bad teams. Like in that way, last week was a perfect example of it. Right. You drop two games against a team that we all view as a lottery team in Portland. And then you end up going to play to like legitimate Western Conference playoff teams and you beat them both. Right. On the season, the Timberwolves are four and two. against teams that are 500 or better, but they've lost four games to teams that are below 500. So like, there's definitely a little bit of like a chip on their shoulder issue. Like they just don't seem to be attacking the regular season the way they did last year. Now, some of this is the reality of the way these teams like kind of like progress through their goals of trying to get to, you know, winning a championship or at least in their attempts to win a championship. What I mean by that is like, there's always like that. First season where you end up getting into the playoffs and it's like a cool experience, right? And we've seen that with Minnesota over the last or the two previous years, right? With their series against Memphis and then their series against Denver. And then the next phase is like, wait, we're super talented and we can kick everybody's butt in the regular season. That was last year, right? Minnesota near the top of the standings all year as they were just consistently good. Their defense, I believe, was best in the league last year. They just kicked everybody's butt all year long. But then you end up going from there into usually a longer playoff run. That's what last year was, right? The longer playoff run. You have a first round series against Phoenix. You have a second round series against Denver that goes seven games. You're in the Western Conference Finals, right? Now as you go into the following season, you're in this weird position where now the guys understand how long of a journey this is. They started playing super hard in October last year. And they got eliminated in late May. And they played a long stretch of playoff games. They ended up playing what? That was 16 playoff games, right? And so what that does is that starts to creep into their minds. And now they're not going to attack the regular season with the same level of ferocity naturally that you would. The reason why they did last year is because they've never gone on a long playoff run. They've never had that feeling of what it's like to have that type of season. Once you start to have that type of season, you start to understand this is actually a really, really long journey. And so now you're in the phase where you have to self-motivate. Now you're in the phase where it's like, okay, yeah, you're right. We like, we're not going to go just crazy balls to the walls from October through April. But at the same time, we have to establish habits because NBA history does tell us that you don't win the title unless you attack the regular season from start to finish. So again, it's like I've seen this so many times with young teams. It's kind of like Memphis a couple of years ago, right? Where they just rack up a bunch of wins. Oklahoma City, I'm really curious to watch them this year. They had their first year last year where they kicked everybody's butt in the regular season, got a super high seed, had a somewhat long playoff run. I'm curious to see how they undergo the length of this 82-game regular season and whether or not they run into any lulls or they struggle. They're young enough that I don't think it'll matter as much. But... This Minnesota team is definitely dealing with a little bit of a motivational issue in the regular season. And all I would say is, as long as you end up with a good enough seed, it's okay to have your downs and your ups over the course of the season. But NBA history tells us, if you crawl into the playoffs somewhere in that 5-8 range, you're not getting anything done. NBA history tells us it's the teams that attack the regular season from start to finish and have fewer lulls and have more extended stretches of success. Those are the teams that end up going on long playoff runs. And so when it comes to Minnesota, I think like, I think it's important to understand that like, this is just part of the pathway that some of these teams take, but there need to be careful. They're playing with a little bit of fire with some of their lack of enthusiasm over the course of the season. Now, one thing on a positive note, they've proven extremely difficult to guard in the clutch. This is a very big difference from last year where Minnesota really, really struggled to score, especially at the end of games. They've been the fourth best clutch offense in the league to start the season. And mostly it comes down to the fact that they have two really difficult athletes to deal with. Yesterday, Julius Randle, just like a hard dribble towards his right into his step back. He's going to get plenty of separation. Julius is a really big... athlete. He's going to get good looks for himself in those situations. And you kind of just have to hope he misses. And fortunately he's been over his career, a pretty streaky jump shooters of most teams feel like they can get away with that, but he's been shooting the ball well this year. And he hit that step back three and the Timberwolves got to win the Kings game. I was watching that one. I actually watched that game live. Like Darren Fox is going for 60. He's like in the zone of all zones right now, like just completely locked in. No one can keep him in front off the dribble. He's making all of his jump shots. And Ant just kind of stays in the game. And then when we get to late regulation, he just takes over. And he gets these two crazy slaloming drives in the lane through all this traffic and gets a couple of and ones. And then he goes into overtime and he's hitting tough contested jump shots because he gets so much lift that he could just get to a jump shot whenever he wants. He makes two huge kickout reads to Julius Randle and Jaden McDaniels for catch and shoot threes that end up icing that game in overtime. And you survive a 60 piece. from Deere and Fox, like they are scoring really well in the clutch because Anthony Edwards has gone up a level in a real way to start this season. And Julius Randall is another guy that can consistently create his own shot, even at a higher level than Carl Anthony Towns did for this team. And so like, they're just hard to guard in the clutch and that's a huge positive sign there, but they're definitely going to have to get their defense back where it was last year. They're definitely going to have to get back into that level of effort and intensity. on a more consistent level throughout the regular season if they have any serious goals to win a championship this year. The Emirates NBA Cup is here. You can win big getting it on the action at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. All 30 teams split into six groups every Tuesday and Friday, playing for the right to advance in the single elimination in-season tourney, culminating in the NBA Cup championship in Vegas. We have a new favorite on DraftKings. The New York Knicks are actually favored to win the NBA Cup right now at plus 500. with the Cleveland Cavaliers with the second-best odds at plus 550. First time, here's something special just for you. 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The Suns have had a lot of lineups with Beal and Durant out where they've had multiple limited offensive players on the floor. And as a result of that, they've had some struggles. I mean, Yusuf Nurkic has been an absolute disaster. He's just three for 23 from the floor over the course of the five games since KD went down. I've never seen a big man who's this bad at making layups. He's 13 for 27 on layups this year. That's below 50%. But again, this is something I talked about last year too. Last year, he was only 53% on layups. It's the craziest thing. He's this big human who's stronger than everybody, but for some reason can't just make simple, easy touch shots around the basket. Now, if you're looking for a bright side, it's what we saw from Devin Booker against Minnesota yesterday. It was by far the best he's looked all season. He had 44 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists. He came into that game averaging just 22.5 points per game on the season on just 42% from the field and 34% from three. He had hit 30 points. just three times in his first 13 games. So Booker getting back into the form would be huge for them. And obviously last night against Minnesota was a big step in that direction. Number six, the Los Angeles Lakers. They've won five games in a row, although it's been against a very easy stretch of their schedule. The one game that I thought was impressive in the five-game win streak was the win in San Antonio. That was a game that I had marked as a loss. San Antonio had been 5-2 at home. going into that game and they'd beaten some good Western conference teams there, specifically Minnesota in Sacramento. And San Antonio jumped them early. They went up 11-0, but they just methodically got their way back into that game and got a good win on the road. Their offense just continues to be super impressive. Their fifth in offensive rating, their sixth and half court offense. They have just an incredible combination of skill, basketball IQ, and organization from the coaching staff on the offensive end. And it's just beautiful. I'm going to be doing a, I was watching the Pels game. The other night. And first of all, shout out to Joel Myers and Antonio Daniels. I was watching that game, and there was a really interesting chess match going on in the second half as the Pels were dealing with all the screening action that Dalton was getting to get open and the Lakers consistently attacking switching by trying to get Smalls onto Anthony Davis. And he was just doing a ton of damage in the post and in offensive rebound situations. And then the Pelicans were like struggling to get the ball to Brandon Ingram in spots where he could really do any work. And they were kind of ignoring some of the Pelicans non shooters in that sequence. It was like a really interesting kind of chess match. And like, I've watched a lot of broadcasts from a lot of groups around the league. And Joel Myers and Antonio Daniels, both of them were just completely on top of that chess match. The entire game calling out everything that was happening, talking about the different things they needed to do. I just really appreciated it. And I hope that we get more. broadcast duos like them over over time uh in the league because it just made watching that game so much more enjoyable and quite frankly i think it'd just be really good for the all the casual fans around the league to understand some of the the tactical battle that takes place live and it's really hard to do when it's happening live compared to um when you can watch film and take your sweet time with it over hours right so shout out to those guys anyway i was watching the pels game and the second half was just an offensive master class you The Lakers played with great pace. They got the ball up the floor quickly. They did like a good combination of like some freelance stuff in semi-transition where guards would just throw screens at Anthony Davis's man just to try to force quick switches like early in the shot clock at which point they would just then try to post up or maybe get a shot up on the rim where Anthony Davis could get an offensive rebound but they also did it through sets as well just like they were running sets to try to get Dalton Connect open and the Pelicans were attacking that by switching which was getting more. opportunities for Anthony Davis is Anthony Davis to attack mismatches, all of the guard guard screening that they were doing. And Antonio Daniels was doing a really nice job calling out how like the Pelicans kept botching guard guard screens. And like, we talk about this all the time, but like the more action you run, the more opportunity there is for the defense to make mistakes. And the Pelicans were just making a lot of mistakes on like basic kind of screening actions that they were running. And a bunch of guys were getting open or getting switches that were favorable for the Lakers. And then Austin and D'Lo, both of them are so good. at operating in five out inside the three-point line as like screeners slippers and his connective passers there was a play where like austin reeves kind of made himself available along the baseline catches right behind the backboard but he knows what's happening around him and he knows that dalton is open because dalton's man is rotating to austin he on the catch just blindly turns and whips it to the left corner dalton catches and shoots a three there again that's connective passing austin's the open guy even though he's not really in a position to score you but Austin understands the next pass in the chain, and he's able to generate a wide-open look for Dalton Connect, right? Or there was a play where Anthony Davis gets double-teamed in the post on the left block, and the Pels do a really nice job pressuring AD. And so they're pressuring AD so hard that he's not able to really turn and see the floor. And so D'Lo makes himself available up on the left wing, and AD has no choice but to throw it back out to D'Lo. Now there's a split second after D'Lo catches it. Where you can make a kill pass. And if you don't make the kill pass in that split second, New Orleans is going to rotate back out and the advantage is gone. It's Dalton connects cutting right down the lane and D'Lo right on the catch. One times it to Dalton and Dalton ends up getting a dunk in the lane. And it's like, that's just, those are the ways that Austin and D'Lo connect things with their passing without necessarily having to run a ball screen or drive a closeout or do something in a spot up situation. They're doing it. screening, slipping, cutting in the interior part of the floor. And they're taking advantage of double teams that other players are getting and making the connective passes to get to the player that can actually finish the play. They're kind of relentless with their execution. They have so many smart players who know how to play. When defenses make a mistake with a switch, everyone on the floor will immediately recognize it and start pointing to that guy. They're going to find a way to get the ball to that guy. They stay organized. They're freelancing less than ever. And they're killing teams in the clutch. They have the third best clutch offense in the league. LeBron James, Austin Reeves, and Anthony Davis are 17 for 27 from the field in the clutch this year. A lot of three man action. There was a game that they closed just running stack over and over again, where it's like LeBron coming off of the ball screen with ad as Austin is back screening the role, man, as he goes. And there was sequences there where Anthony Davis was popping and hitting threes out of stack. Then against the Pelicans, they were like spamming like a horn set where like they would just throw the ball to LeBron James on the left elbow with Austin Reeves at the top of the key. A.D.'s at the right elbow and Austin would cut down. And then as Austin was going off of a pin in flare with Dalton connect on the weak side in the right corner, then LeBron would come off of a ball screen with A.D. And because Austin and Dalton are running off ball action. And if you cut that off ball action, you have a good shooter over there. LeBron is able to turn the corner and get in the lane and make layups. And so they were able to spam that action and get a bunch of good stuff at it. They're relentless with their execution. They have so many different ways that they can attack. They have like everyone in their lineups is like a legitimately very good offensive player. You know, Austin has good two-man game chemistry with both LeBron and Anthony Davis. I'm loving Dalton Connect with the starters. I think I was talking with my friend Pete Zayas, who I think does the best team-specific podcast. I see no... in the entire basketball world. If you're a Laker fan and you're not listening to Laker Film Room and the work that Pete and Darius do, you're missing out. Those guys are literally the best at what they do. So I highly recommend you guys check that out if you haven't. But I was talking with Pete about it yesterday because I want Dalton to start. And this was Pete's original idea. He was on it early in the season, like a week or two into the season. He was like, I think Dalton could start for this team. It was kind of when D'Lo was struggling. And there were some concerns about whether or not he was ready for it. But my thing is, I think Dalton's athletic. and like how much am I going to be harping on athleticism today? I've already done it a little bit earlier. I'm going to be doing it again here in a minute with Houston. We're going to do it again with Golden State later. Like athleticism is huge. And like LeBron and AD are the only two plus athletes in the starting lineup when you have Rui, Austin, and D'Lo out there, right? And so like Dalton is a very good athlete. He literally had a poster dunk yesterday and, or was it two days ago? Yeah, two days ago. He had a poster dunk two days ago. He had like a play on a curl where he got downhill and got a dunk. Like he's athletic. The way I see it is I want Austin, Dalton, Vando when he's healthy, then LeBron and AD because you can use Vando as the primary point of attack defender and is more of a screening fulcrum. And then Austin, LeBron, and Dalton become your ball handling fulcrums and AD and Vando become your screening fulcrums. You've got tons of athleticism in that lineup because Dalton, good athlete. Vando, good athlete. LeBron, good athlete. AD, good athlete. Austin is now the least athletic player in the lineup. That is something that I think works from an athleticism standpoint. And I love Dalton with the starters because he's an off-ball scorer, which is key. Off-ball scoring is key. When I feel like a guy's going to give me 20-25 a night, and I'm not actually putting the ball in his hands, I'm actually putting the ball in Austin's hands or LeBron's hands while Dalton's running around, I like that. Because that's really complementary scoring. It's scoring that doesn't... yank on the rope and actually cause another player to get out of rhythm, if that makes sense. And then also, it's so much high IQ in that lineup. If you had Vando, Austin, Vando, LeBron, and AD, that's a lot of really smart defenders. And so with that, you could craft a really achievable defensive role for Dalton that I think makes a lot of sense. And then for a team that struggled with bench scoring, now you have D'Lo and Rui as guys that can come in as bench scorers, and you can play them with your athletes. Christian Coloco has been a really interesting defensive fit. as a backup center. If you put them out there with Gabe, you know, if you go Gabe D'Lo, and then you go like Cam Rui, uh, Christian, you've got two really high level offensive players around guys that are pretty solid defensive players. Right. And then you can make a lot happen there. Maybe it ends up being max instead of Gabe or something like that. Max, by the way, had a couple of really nice games over the weekend as he kind of got an opportunity with Cam Reddish being out and he capitalized in a big way. I'm still deeply concerned about the Lakers athleticism in the big picture. um and that will always be something that prevents me from considering them one of the top tier contenders but the offense is real and it's going to keep getting better as they continue to build out that continuity and find ways to uh to kind of piece together lineups that that complement each other really well and i still do think that if they hit on the right trade in terms of bringing in athleticism and evando can get healthy they do have that upside it's just kind of like a sliver of an upside because there's a lot of personnel upgrades that they need number five houston rockets A five-game winning streak, up to 10-4, and third in the Western Conference. Most of it is their perimeter athleticism. You guys have probably heard me on my soapbox about this all season, and I'm about to get even more aggressive with it because I have a rant involving speed and transition when we get to the Golden State Warriors here in a little bit. But that's Houston's formula. They're just super athletic on the perimeter. Jalen Green is lightning fast. Jabari Smith and Dylan Brooks are two... good athletes who defend super well on the perimeter Fred Van Vliet's not a great athlete but he's a good defender and then the bench is loaded with athletes like a man Thompson is an a-plus athlete Tari Eason great athlete Reed Shepard great athlete Cam Whitmore great athlete they've just waves and waves and waves of athleticism and I mean Cam's hurt right now like they're gonna get uh they're gonna they're they're just a super super athletic team and they're super fascinating they're uh third in defensive rating they're first in rebounding They're second in offensive rebounding. They're constantly winning that corner crash battle. Like one of the big battles that you see in the modern NBA is like shot goes up, dudes crash out of the corners. And the guys that are guarding the guys out of the corners are also kind of what they like cracking down to get defensive rebounds. And it's who's going to win that race to the ball, right? It's a huge, it's a huge part of that battle. And they're winning that battle consistently as they, as they get a ton of offensive rebounds. They're allowing the third fewest three-point attempts. per 100 possessions in the league. They're allowing the eighth best three-point percentage. And a lot of people will think that's luck. All the analytics nerds think that's luck. I disagree. They're just closing out better than everybody. They're allowing just 16.9 wide open threes per game, meaning the defender's at least six feet away. That's the third fewest in the entire NBA. They're forcing you to take contested threes. And then they're forcing a lot of turnovers with their athleticism getting out now. In transition, they have the fourth most points off of turnovers per game in the NBA. But that's the thing. That's all a concept that I've been hammering home all season. If you can guard the ball, if you can have Dylan Brooks pressure, pick up full court, Jabari Smith length on big scoring wings. When you have guys that can guard the ball and pressure the ball and get guys out of their comfort zone when they're trying to get into their sets. And then when you get in rotation, if you have the speed to cover ground, And then in transition, if you have the speed to cover ground, you have a really, really high floor in the modern NBA. You just have to have the appropriate amount of athleticism to make that happen. But the surprising thing for Houston, though, has been their offense. Like, I knew Houston would be a great defensive team to start the year. I said that before the season in our season preview with them. It's not exactly a brave prediction. They just have lots of good defensive players. I'm not worried about Houston's ability to guard. I just didn't think they'd be able to score this well. I didn't think they'd be able to score the ball well enough for it to matter. And they have. They're 11th in offensive rating overall. There's several factors at play. It's a lot of transition. They're 22nd in half-court offense, according to Cleaning the Glass. But they're the 8th best transition offense per Cleaning the Glass's transition metric, which is points added per 100 possessions. They're the 8th best transition offense in the league. They're also generating 24 points per game overall in transition, according to Synergy, which I think was 9. in the NBA. But they're still getting timely half-court production from several guys. Fred Van Vliet and Alperen Shangun have really nice two-man game chemistry. They had a sequence against the Bulls last night where they were scoring so consistently with Fred just coming off and hitting pull-up jump shots or hitting Shangun in the pocket for driving dunks or driving plays that they started having to load up. And then Fred just started spraying out to shooters on the weak side. They were getting great looks. Shangun was off to a slow start. in the post to start the season but he was like flat out just frying Nikola Vucevic last night just like torching him one-on-one in the post so they're starting to get that going a little bit uh Jalen Green has increased his three-point volume now he's cooled off a little bit of as of late but he hit several huge threes to start the year and then Jabari Smith and Dylan Brooks both you know they're inconsistent but they both bring some valuable like just little bits of offense like a good closeout attack here like oh Jabari Smith catches on the left wing and rips left and then spins into a left shoulder fade and knocks it down. Or like Dylan Brooks, we're going to, he's got a small guy on him. Let's just throw it to him on the block real quick. And like, he's big and strong. It can make a quick post move and go get a bucket. And they're like getting a little bit of stuff there. They're 11th in offense. That's going to win you a lot of games when your defense is this good. And it's going to get a little tougher. But if they, if they beat Milwaukee tonight, then they have Indiana at home. And I think they're going to beat Indiana. Then they have Portland at home twice. So after that, the schedule gets tough, but we could be looking at a 14-4 Rockets team if they get that win in Milwaukee tonight. Number four, the Boston Celtics. They dropped an in-season tournament game on Tuesday to Atlanta where they looked incredibly sloppy throughout. They got burned on a tap-in offensive rebound. They then barely scraped out an overtime win against Toronto the other night. where jason tatum hit a it's this crazy play where like jalen brown's coming off an off-ball action and just gets just so clearly and blatantly fouled that he just gets knocked over but no call and so tatum had no choice but to try to make something out of nothing in a split second and he just went to his like little kind of step back three or like pull back three and he knocked it down got the win as tatum continues to shoot the ball super well uh to start this year but I'm not worried about the Celtics at all, even though they're playing some sloppy basketball, because this team is just a victim of their schedule. Like last year, it was different. They had like a much tougher schedule to start the year and things kind of eased up later. This year, they've had a super easy schedule to start the year and things will get tougher later. And so like the Knicks game on opening night was their only win this season against a team that is 500 or better. Their opponent win percentage so far is 45.1%. That's the second lowest in the entire league. Only the Atlanta Hawks. have played an easier schedule. So like, I don't care that the Celtics are playing a little sloppy. It's really hard to play your best basketball against that level of competition. I've seen a lot of Celtics fans that are like worried about their defense and wondering if they don't have the edge that they did last year. I'm not worried about them at all. They're going to be there when the time comes. This is... You already have the trophy. You already know you can rise to the level that you need to rise to when the time comes. And you're routinely playing some of the lower tier teams in this NBA. So I think they're just kind of caught in that monotony right now. They have Cleveland tomorrow night. That's a big game. And then in their next 10, they actually have Cleveland twice in their next 10 games. Then they have Minnesota. They have Miami in that run. They have Milwaukee in that run. Even some of these Western Conference teams that are injured. Guys like... the Clippers without Kawhi or the Grizzlies without John Morant, those teams are tougher than a lot of these Eastern Conference teams that they're playing, and they have those in their next 10 games. So I think we're going to see Boston really engage themselves over the course of the next three weeks or so, and I think we're going to see some of that championship-level basketball that we've been expecting them to show. And here's the thing, they're still right where they need to be in the standings. There's no issue there. As far as the Cavs game tomorrow night, follow me on Twitter at underscore JasonLT. I'm going to be going on watch playback. with my friend Mike to break that game down live as it's going on. And then we're also going to do a Hoops Tonight live show after. So Cavs-Celtics, biggest game of the early stretch here in the regular season. Super, super excited to cover it. Watch it live with me on Watch Playback. And then I'll also have an instant reaction live on YouTube after the final buzzer of that game. That would be a big one for me. If the Celtics could just go in there and send a big message, that would be a big one for me. That would be a quick reminder that all these, you know, kind of early season games don't really mean that much. Number three, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Excuse me. They won their first three games without Chet when they had to play small ball. They've been giving up an offensive rebound on over 40% of their opponents'misses over this span. So like some of that is to be expected with the lineup, but it hasn't mattered. The Pelicans had a 21-5 offensive rebound advantage in one of the games, and the Thunder still won by 18. They're kind of like leaning into their speed, which I think is really smart. And Mark Dagenold is basically going with this process, which is like, we're going to get blitzed on the glass, but what if we just force a million turnovers and completely dominate the game in transition? And then maybe it won't matter. Like the Pels game is a perfect example. They forced 24 turnovers and converted them into 29 points. And they won the fast break point battle with the Pelicans 34-2. Like, that's margin. In this four-game span since Chet went down, they are first in points off of turnovers with 24 a game, while also giving up the fewest points off of turnovers, 11 per game. So they're creating 13 points of margin just right there. They're getting 18 fast break points per game. They're only allowing 5.5 fast break points per game, which is the best in the league over that four game span. That's another 12.5 points of margin. So they're generating significant amounts of margin just by winning the turnover battle and the transition battle. And that undoes any damage that happens to them on the offensive glass and then some. Now, Dallas finally got them last night. Huge win for Dallas, by the way. Like, P.J. Washington had the best game of his career statistically at a 27-17. A... bunch of really impressive shot making like it just was like it's like oh you got a couple of stops well here comes jayden hardy hitting another like tough alan iverson-esque fadeaway in the lane or like oh here's spencer dinwiddie who's like kind of sneaky always been really good at creating his own shot just like hitting a step back three on the right wing when right when you're making a run to kind of like spencer had like a hit two back-to-back threes to like turn a five-point game and do 11-point game like change the complexion of the game like that bunch of guys hit some big shots and like There's a lot of people that are like, oh, you know, Luca's out. They're finally getting a win. It's like, I look at that as just like, it's an optimistic, it's an optimistic thing because Luca clearly didn't look right physically. And so you got to win while allowing Luca to get some rest for his balcony. So like huge win for Dallas, by the way, but Dallas finally got Oklahoma city and showed some of the limitations of that build, right? Cause like Dallas pummeled Oklahoma city on the offensive glass, but they also held Oklahoma city to only six fast break points. And Dallas only committed 16 turnovers, which is not low, but it's low for Oklahoma City. Right. So like they were able to control Oklahoma City's margins while also dominating their margins. And they got a big win. And so that's why, like when I always talk about the difference between like the expression styles make fights, it's like which style is going to win the fight. If a big guy and a small guy get in a fight, one of two things is going to happen. The big guy is either going to maul him with his size or the small guy is going to beat him with his quickness. Like. Either can happen. A lot of times we see that and we go like, oh, mismatch. And it's like, it's a mismatch both ways. And so it's really just about how well you play. You have to, in that battle against Dallas, Oklahoma City was not able to weaponize their speed as much as Dallas was able to weaponize their size. and they were able to get a win. And then obviously, in a game like that, when you're giving up that much size, you have to win the shot-making battle. And Dallas just kind of kept them toe-to-toe on the shot-making battle, and that made it so that their physical limitations ended up getting them beat. But shout-out to Shea and J-Dub. Over the course of this four-game stretch, they're averaging 60 points per game and combining to be well over 50-40-90 splits between the two of them, just cooking teams with the amount of space that they're creating. Number two, the Golden State Warriors. Light schedule week for them. Only two games. They won them both. They beat Dallas in a game that we covered live on YouTube. That was the game where every single time their offense bogged down, Dallas went on a run. But then Steph went on these crazy superstar runs at various points to regain control of the game. They ended up stealing a game when they were down by seven with, I think, what, four minutes left? Big win there. Then they ended up getting a big win against the Grizzlies at home. I think that was Desmond Bain's return as well. But I wanted to, since they only had two games last week, I wanted to kind of use this as an opportunity to talk about the, uh, some of the stuff that I'm starting to learn more about this game. I was talking with, uh, my friend Sam is Fondi. Are you covers the warriors? Um, I'm going to be doing a watch playback with him at some point in the next couple of weeks. And then I'd like to have him on this show too, at some point. So we can talk, um, some warriors, but I was talking to him, uh, just texting with him last night about, uh, cause he had sent out a tweet I think yesterday or two days ago talking about how like speed and perimeter defense is like one of the most, uh, like basically the market inefficiency in the NBA right now, which is very similar to some of the stuff that I've been saying. It's like a lot of the smart basketball minds around the league that I listened to have been picking up on this sort of thing too. And you know, I, one of the things I did, I just, after him and I were texting and I just, I just pulled up cleaning the glass and I was like, you know what, I'm just going to look at where all these teams are in transition. And the reason why I did that is because like my, I used to have this worldview. Those of you guys who follow this show over the last few years will know what I'm talking about here. I have always like over indexed on half court offense and half court defense. And the reason why is I've always been like, well, things are going to slow down. You know, you're going to get stuck in the half court. How are you going to do when you get stuck in the half court? But as I'm watching these games, I'm like, teams are hunting transition opportunities more than ever. They're a huge chunk of the game is taking place in transition. And then I was like, All the good teams are transition teams. Like Cleveland took off by dominating in transition. Golden State took off by swapping out two of their slower rotation players with faster rotation players. And now they're cooking teams in transition. Boston always been a good transition team. Oklahoma City, like their entire identity is like playing in transition. So I'm like, this is super interesting. So let me dig into this a little bit. And so I pulled up the cleaning the glass stat, which is like their catch all transition stat is transition points added. per 100 possessions. What stands out to you about these lists? This is the top 10 in offensive points added per 100 possessions in transition. Memphis, Boston, the Los Angeles Clippers, Miami, Cleveland, Washington, Phoenix, Houston, Oklahoma City, Denver. Here's the top 10 transition defenses. What stands out to you? Golden State, number one. OKC, number two. Charlotte, three. Boston, number four. New York Knicks, number five. Cleveland Cavaliers, number six. Orlando Magic, number seven. And then Toronto Phoenix and Dallas. So the top teams in the league are heavily represented in both lists. Boston, OKC, and Cleveland are top 10 in both. They have three of the four best records in the league right now. Golden State is 10-2. They're the best transition defense in the league, according to Cleaning the Glass. Houston, Phoenix, Denver, and Orlando. all have top 10 records in the league and are all represented, all represented on that list. So like, it's, it's been super interesting is like, again, like I, this, this job has been super fascinating for me because again, I came into this with a lot of basketball experience, but on a different level, right? Like I was an NBA fan and I was aspiring to do this for a living. And so I was watching a lot of NBA basketball, but I had a job. And so I didn't have as much time to watch as much film as I do now. And And a lot of my exposure to the game came at different levels. Right. And so coming into this job now and I know like February 1st will be three years since I started working at the volume. In three years, I've watched way, way, way more NBA basketball than I ever watched before. Obviously, just because now it's my job. It's what I do for a living. And I've learned so much. And it's been super fascinating to like watch my view of the game change. As I've been exposed to more and more NBA basketball. And I think it's a combination of both. I think it's a combination of that. And then the NBA is actually changing quite a bit. As the league becomes faster and over indexes on certain traits, right? But like one of the things that I think has been super fascinating is I think my emphasis on half court offense and defense is a little short sighted. I think that the transition battle is now a real significant part of this of this process to becoming an elite NBA team. And like as I look at it and I'm like, all of the really good teams are just excellent in transition. I don't think that's a coincidence. Speed is the pathway to handling modern basketball problems. You need to generate more threes? Then you need athletes who can pressure the rim to collapse the defense. You need to guard the three-point line better? Well, then you need athletes who can cover ground in rotation and throw good closeouts. Sam had a thought when I was texting him yesterday that I thought was super interesting. He goes, having a guy that can close out on the perimeter and turn a 40% three-point shooter into a 30% three-point shooter is just as valuable. as a rim protector who can turn a 60% layup into a 50% layup. And I thought that was a super, super interesting concept. And to his point, you can actually argue it's more valuable because a 10% dip in three-point percentage is actually impactful more in the scoreboard than a 10% difference in layup percentage. But he has a really interesting point there. When I watch the Warriors, their closeouts are insane. They fly to the three-point line. They have their point. Then... multiple plays from guys like Gary Payton and Draymond Green this year, where they have feet in the paint in help, kick out pass, and they're sprinting out and blocking dudes at the three point line. Your ability to cover ground in rotation and chase guys off the three point line is a speed trait. Do you need to generate easier offense in transition? Then you need athletes that can get up and down the floor. Do you need to get back better in transition and defend better in transition? Then you need athletes who can get back. If you need to win battles on the glass, there's more long rebounds than ever with all these jump shots. You need athletes who can track them down. That corner crash battle, it's dudes standing in the corner with the guys that are helping off of them. Those guys are winning and losing foot races to long rebounds all game long. There are still teams that are winning with skill over athleticism. The two in our power rankings this week are Phoenix and the Lakers, right? Those are two teams that they... It's half-court execution for Phoenix, mainly in the clutch, for the Lakers in the clutch too, but throughout the entire game, they're not overly athletic or fast, but they're just dominating teams with their overall amount of offensive skill. Dominating is the wrong word either. They're two. They're good. They're able to be good without being super athletic through all their offensive skill, but they are the exceptions. If you look at the other teams, Cleveland, super athletic. Golden State, super athletic. Boston, super athletic. Oklahoma City, super athletic. Houston, super athletic. All of the top five records in the league are super athletic on the perimeter. Denver, part of their turnaround this season before Jokic took some time off this last week. Peyton Watson, Christian Brown, Russell Westbrook, Julian Strother, they've gone more athletic this year. And so they've been a top 10 transition offense. They're winning one of those margins, right? Orlando, super athletic. Minnesota. Super athletic, Memphis, super athletic, Sacramento, super athletic, 10 of the top 12 teams in the league and all of the top five are super athletic on the perimeter. And so like in a lot of ways, Golden State's roster to me is the perfect example of this trait, because with Golden State, if you were ranking players based on like overall talent level, they don't have a lot of guys that people have ranked super high in the league. And yet they've been one of the best teams in the league this year because the specific strengths of that roster line up with what you actually need to thrive in the modern NBA, which is spaced out and super transition-based. And you need to cover ground. And the only way you're going to cover ground with athletes, say what you want about Golden State's roster, they have a ton of athletes. And that has come to fruition in a big way for them this season. Number one, the Cleveland Cavaliers. 4-0 week, but a really light schedule. They had two wins against a Bulls team that's cratering. The Bulls are now 2-7 in their last nine after getting embarrassed by Houston last night. They beat the Sixers without all three of their stars, and then they beat the Hornets. So not a whole lot to get into there. Donovan Mitchell is red hot. Darius Garland is too. Those two are averaging 56 points per game since our last rankings. They also have seven guys averaging double figures since our last rankings. But Celtics game tomorrow. Remember, I'm going to be covering that game on Watch Playbacks. Pay attention to my Twitter feed if you want to watch. Me and Mike break down that game live. I also will be doing an instant reaction to that game on YouTube live after the final buzzer. And then don't forget last week on Wednesday, we had Carter Rodriguez from the Chase Down podcast on and we did an hour of Cavs. breakdown in that video so if you haven't checked that one out yet head back and check that one out all right guys that's all i have for today that's our power rankings for the week of monday november 18th we'll be back tomorrow morning with uh i want to do a tim's tape session on some of the laker offense stuff i've talked about and then i'm gonna hit a couple of games from tonight's slate as well and i'll add whatever clips from those games um to the tim's tape segment uh tuesday night like i talked about watch playback as well as calves celtics instant reaction on youtube Wednesday morning, I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, but we'll do something that covers around the league. And then back to our normal schedule after that. Don't forget we have our mailbag that I'm recording on Thursday. So drop questions in the YouTube comments. All right, guys. That is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. I will see you tomorrow.

All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys had an incredible weekend.

Got a jam-packed show for you today. We're doing our weekly edition of Power Rankings. We're going to hit on 10 teams, but I also have a couple of other teams that we're going to hit on kind of in the rankings as we talk about some of the games these guys play.

We're going to be bouncing all around the league today. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JasonLT so you guys don't miss show. announcements.

Don't forget about our podcast feed, wherever you get your podcasts and our hoops tonight. Don't forget. It's helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have brand new social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for hoops tonight, where we're going to be releasing more content like reels and stuff like that over the course of the season. So make sure you follow those.

And then we're doing another mail bag that I'm recording on this Thursday. And I'm going to be using the comments from the shows on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So make sure you drop mailbag questions in these. Uh, we're going to be trying to hit on some other teams that we haven't hit on yet in those mailbags.

So any questions you guys have about anything around the league, make sure you drop them in those mailbag questions. And we will get to them in the show that's going to air on Friday. And then last but not least, before we get started, I want to talk to you guys about game time.

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GameTime. All right, let's talk some basketball. So let's, before we get into the power rankings, I did have one crazy stat I wanted to show you guys as I was digging into the gap between the East and the West to start this year.

So Oklahoma City has six wins against teams that are 500 or better. If you took the top five teams in the Eastern Conference, okay, so that's Cleveland, Boston, Orlando, New York, and Detroit. Those are the five best records. Shout out to the Detroit Pistons with the fifth best record in the East right now. But with those five teams, they have combined.

to win six games against teams that are 500 or better. Oklahoma City has six by themselves. The four teams that I had ranked as the top teams in the East to start the year, that's Boston, New York, Milwaukee, and Philly.

Those four teams are a combined one in 17 against teams that are 500 or better to start the year with the one win obviously being Boston beating up the Knicks on opening night. So like the East has always been a little weaker than the West. um but man does it feel like a giant chasm to start this season it's been such a strange uh year on that front i do think things will level out and i do think several teams will play better injuries are important context too obviously you've had injuries in philly you've had you know palo bancaro's been out for a while there's jimmy butler's already missed time there's a bunch of guys that have missed time so that's part of it and i do think things will even out but it is kind of crazy the gap between the east and the west that we've seen to start this year all right let's get started with our rankings number 10 the New York Knicks. They were a Josh Hart foul, kind of like a rear view contest on Kobe White away from having a 4-0 week, but it was a foul.

Kobe White made all three free throws. Jalen Brunson's turnaround fadeaway over his left shoulder rimmed out, and the Knicks had a 3-1 week. Still impressive, still starting to gain some ground. They keep ending up in these super close games.

The first Nets game was crazy too, like the Knicks were up six with a minute and 43 seconds left. And the Nets scored six consecutive points or seven consecutive points to get a one-point lead before Jalen Brunson hit that iso three on the left wing that ended up giving him the win. Every one of their games kind of seems to be following that path.

Either they're falling down big and having to scram back into games or they have big leads that they're blowing late and they end up in these like one or two possession games. And those clutch situations have been where they've struggled. They're just two and five this season in games that have involved a clutch situation. They've been bad on both ends.

The offensive rating in the clutch is at 91 to start this season. Mostly just missing shots there. Like Brunson is 5 for 15 in the clutch this year. That's going to get better.

And he hit a big one against Brooklyn the other night, as you guys know. As a team, they're 2 for 14 from 3 in the clutch. And there's some good looks in there. Like Jalen Brunson, wide open catch and shoot threes.

Campaign. wide open catch and shoot three mikhail bridges wide up catch and shoot three there's open looks in there that they're just missing it so like some of that i'm not as worried about when it comes to the offensive end of the floor they have too much talent they're third in offense overall for the season i think they're going to be able to score at the end of game so that i'm looking at is more as a fluke they have a 135 defensive rating in the clutch though that's the part that i'm really struggling about uh struggling with and like on tape they're really struggling to guard the ball Teams are just running down the floor and driving right around them and getting to the rim. Io DeSunmu multiple times in crunch time against the Bulls, just getting the ball, sometimes off of made baskets and just slashing down the lane and getting layups. Zach Levine just getting to his spot easily against Mikael Bridges and knocking down easy jump shots over the top. In the Nets game, it was everybody, but like Cam Johnson in crunch time, just driving to the rim and getting layups or just coming hard off of a screen and getting down into the lane and wrecking havoc for them.

Like this was a team. that I thought would be better guarding the ball. Mikhail Bridges and OG Anadobi and Josh Hart are all guys that are kind of, in terms of their reputation, they're good defensive players, but they're just not playing good defense.

And so the Knicks have really struggled to guard the ball all year. It's a big part of why they've been bottom 10. Again, if you want to be encouraged, this isn't like the Lakers. The Lakers are going to struggle to guard the ball until they make a roster move. You have the pieces. Guys just have to play better.

And it's kind of funny how this comes down to this sort of thing where Like a lot of times we associate our belief system about a team or what they're capable of on reputation. And reputation doesn't mean anything in basketball. All that really matters is how well are you playing, right?

Like so much about whether or not a team is playing well comes down to like whether or not guys are playing well, right? Like you have a couple of key role players that aren't playing well and a couple of key defenders that aren't defending as well as they typically do. And you're going to underachieve. But if you get a couple of guys that are playing above their pay grade and a couple of guys that are in good rhythm and everybody's locked in and doing their jobs, all of a sudden you can go on a run and you can win a bunch of games in a row. Right.

And so like, that's, what's super fascinating about the talk about what a team looks like on paper before the year. And then it kind of starting to come to fruition. Like the Knicks have a ton of talent, but in some specific ways on the defensive end of the floor, they're not actually really utilizing that talent the way that they're capable of. And so that's the part that's weird. I'm watching these close games and it's like.

I'm watching historically good defenders just not do a good job on the ball as they continue to get picked apart. Some of it is the weak points. Yeah, like Nikola Vucevic was going right at Karl-Anthony Towns in the Bulls game and was just giving him buckets down on the block.

And some of that is like Vucevic is a good post player and Katz is a mediocre defensive player. So there's going to be some advantage that you're giving up there. But again, I've watched Karl-Anthony Towns do a really good job on Nikola Jokic before.

So that kind of goes back to the point we made earlier where like a lot of it just has to do with how well your guys are playing. So like the answer here for the Knicks is on offense, when they get in these close games, they need their guys to hit shots that they're capable of hitting. And on defense, they need their good defensive players that have been good defensive players throughout their career to be good defensive players. And then that should turn around a lot of the issues that they've had to this point in the season. And then again, a lot of the concern about rim protection and stuff like that, like we're going to see a different look.

when Mitchell Robinson comes back or if they end up making a move for center at some point in time like I'm not really worried about him in the big picture but there's no doubt that to start this season they're just not playing up to their potential and I you know again I had them in the top four and here they are after a little bit of a streak at three one still have them at 10 in the power rankings number nine the Denver Nuggets not going to spend too much time here they only had two games last week at New Orleans and at Memphis uh Jokic missed both games for the birth of his child just a reminder of how valuable Jokic is to this team. Like Jamal Murray still looks like a shell of himself. These young players, they're capable of winning within the context of Jokic when he can like provide the structure for them to be able to impact the game on offense. But like, obviously when Jokic isn't out there, they're just raw young players with some talent, right? Russell Westbrook has been good at times this year, but he wasn't able to bring much next week or last week and they ended up going 0-2.

So the Nuggets through 12 games at this point. are 35.1 points better per 100 possessions with Jokic on the floor versus off the floor so in a weird way the two games out next week just or last week just shined a big flashlight on Nikola Jokic and how valuable he is to this particular team number eight the Minnesota Timberwolves it's such a weird week they dropped back-to-back games in in Portland like literally on the road in Portland back-to-back you lose the first one you think they bounce back and win the next night they end up losing again now again Portland is feisty. I think they're six and eight now. They've won three in a row. Shaden Sharp is averaging 27 points a game in this three-game winning streak, and they're getting really high-quality center play out of Robert Williams and Donovan Klingin.

So they kind of have the depth situation at center. They probably are going to be a team that someone's going to target for center at some point before the deadline. So Portland's a little feisty, but Minnesota drops back-to-back games in Portland. Then they go into Sacramento and get a win.

And then they end up beating Phoenix with that crazy Julius Randle game winner the other day. So what's interesting is if you talk to Minnesota fans, that's what they'll tell you is their biggest issue this season. Their biggest issue this season is their competitive edge.

It's just not the same that it was last year. Their willingness to just get dirty on defense and physical and grind games down into the mud, the chip on their shoulder. Right.

Like it's just not there. And it's it's showing up mostly with the fact that they seem to get up for the good teams and then play down to the competition against the bad teams. Like in that way, last week was a perfect example of it.

Right. You drop two games against a team that we all view as a lottery team in Portland. And then you end up going to play to like legitimate Western Conference playoff teams and you beat them both.

Right. On the season, the Timberwolves are four and two. against teams that are 500 or better, but they've lost four games to teams that are below 500. So like, there's definitely a little bit of like a chip on their shoulder issue.

Like they just don't seem to be attacking the regular season the way they did last year. Now, some of this is the reality of the way these teams like kind of like progress through their goals of trying to get to, you know, winning a championship or at least in their attempts to win a championship. What I mean by that is like, there's always like that.

First season where you end up getting into the playoffs and it's like a cool experience, right? And we've seen that with Minnesota over the last or the two previous years, right? With their series against Memphis and then their series against Denver. And then the next phase is like, wait, we're super talented and we can kick everybody's butt in the regular season. That was last year, right?

Minnesota near the top of the standings all year as they were just consistently good. Their defense, I believe, was best in the league last year. They just kicked everybody's butt all year long.

But then you end up going from there into usually a longer playoff run. That's what last year was, right? The longer playoff run. You have a first round series against Phoenix. You have a second round series against Denver that goes seven games.

You're in the Western Conference Finals, right? Now as you go into the following season, you're in this weird position where now the guys understand how long of a journey this is. They started playing super hard in October last year. And they got eliminated in late May. And they played a long stretch of playoff games.

They ended up playing what? That was 16 playoff games, right? And so what that does is that starts to creep into their minds. And now they're not going to attack the regular season with the same level of ferocity naturally that you would. The reason why they did last year is because they've never gone on a long playoff run.

They've never had that feeling of what it's like to have that type of season. Once you start to have that type of season, you start to understand this is actually a really, really long journey. And so now you're in the phase where you have to self-motivate.

Now you're in the phase where it's like, okay, yeah, you're right. We like, we're not going to go just crazy balls to the walls from October through April. But at the same time, we have to establish habits because NBA history does tell us that you don't win the title unless you attack the regular season from start to finish. So again, it's like I've seen this so many times with young teams.

It's kind of like Memphis a couple of years ago, right? Where they just rack up a bunch of wins. Oklahoma City, I'm really curious to watch them this year.

They had their first year last year where they kicked everybody's butt in the regular season, got a super high seed, had a somewhat long playoff run. I'm curious to see how they undergo the length of this 82-game regular season and whether or not they run into any lulls or they struggle. They're young enough that I don't think it'll matter as much. But... This Minnesota team is definitely dealing with a little bit of a motivational issue in the regular season.

And all I would say is, as long as you end up with a good enough seed, it's okay to have your downs and your ups over the course of the season. But NBA history tells us, if you crawl into the playoffs somewhere in that 5-8 range, you're not getting anything done. NBA history tells us it's the teams that attack the regular season from start to finish and have fewer lulls and have more extended stretches of success. Those are the teams that end up going on long playoff runs. And so when it comes to Minnesota, I think like, I think it's important to understand that like, this is just part of the pathway that some of these teams take, but there need to be careful.

They're playing with a little bit of fire with some of their lack of enthusiasm over the course of the season. Now, one thing on a positive note, they've proven extremely difficult to guard in the clutch. This is a very big difference from last year where Minnesota really, really struggled to score, especially at the end of games.

They've been the fourth best clutch offense in the league to start the season. And mostly it comes down to the fact that they have two really difficult athletes to deal with. Yesterday, Julius Randle, just like a hard dribble towards his right into his step back.

He's going to get plenty of separation. Julius is a really big... athlete.

He's going to get good looks for himself in those situations. And you kind of just have to hope he misses. And fortunately he's been over his career, a pretty streaky jump shooters of most teams feel like they can get away with that, but he's been shooting the ball well this year.

And he hit that step back three and the Timberwolves got to win the Kings game. I was watching that one. I actually watched that game live.

Like Darren Fox is going for 60. He's like in the zone of all zones right now, like just completely locked in. No one can keep him in front off the dribble. He's making all of his jump shots. And Ant just kind of stays in the game.

And then when we get to late regulation, he just takes over. And he gets these two crazy slaloming drives in the lane through all this traffic and gets a couple of and ones. And then he goes into overtime and he's hitting tough contested jump shots because he gets so much lift that he could just get to a jump shot whenever he wants. He makes two huge kickout reads to Julius Randle and Jaden McDaniels for catch and shoot threes that end up icing that game in overtime.

And you survive a 60 piece. from Deere and Fox, like they are scoring really well in the clutch because Anthony Edwards has gone up a level in a real way to start this season. And Julius Randall is another guy that can consistently create his own shot, even at a higher level than Carl Anthony Towns did for this team. And so like, they're just hard to guard in the clutch and that's a huge positive sign there, but they're definitely going to have to get their defense back where it was last year. They're definitely going to have to get back into that level of effort and intensity.

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Number seven, the Phoenix Suns. They are one in four in the five games since Kevin Durant went down with his calf injury. They've been bad on both ends of the floor, which is no surprise. KD's been vitally important to them on both ends of the floor. Bradley Beal has missed the last three games, too.

So teams have really been able to load up on Devin Booker. The Oklahoma City game in particular, they were just putting two on the ball every single time he got screened. Every ISO or post up, they're hard helping off the ball like he's just getting the kitchen sink thrown at him. Kevin. The Suns have had a lot of lineups with Beal and Durant out where they've had multiple limited offensive players on the floor.

And as a result of that, they've had some struggles. I mean, Yusuf Nurkic has been an absolute disaster. He's just three for 23 from the floor over the course of the five games since KD went down. I've never seen a big man who's this bad at making layups.

He's 13 for 27 on layups this year. That's below 50%. But again, this is something I talked about last year too. Last year, he was only 53% on layups.

It's the craziest thing. He's this big human who's stronger than everybody, but for some reason can't just make simple, easy touch shots around the basket. Now, if you're looking for a bright side, it's what we saw from Devin Booker against Minnesota yesterday. It was by far the best he's looked all season.

He had 44 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists. He came into that game averaging just 22.5 points per game on the season on just 42% from the field and 34% from three. He had hit 30 points. just three times in his first 13 games.

So Booker getting back into the form would be huge for them. And obviously last night against Minnesota was a big step in that direction. Number six, the Los Angeles Lakers. They've won five games in a row, although it's been against a very easy stretch of their schedule.

The one game that I thought was impressive in the five-game win streak was the win in San Antonio. That was a game that I had marked as a loss. San Antonio had been 5-2 at home. going into that game and they'd beaten some good Western conference teams there, specifically Minnesota in Sacramento. And San Antonio jumped them early.

They went up 11-0, but they just methodically got their way back into that game and got a good win on the road. Their offense just continues to be super impressive. Their fifth in offensive rating, their sixth and half court offense. They have just an incredible combination of skill, basketball IQ, and organization from the coaching staff on the offensive end. And it's just beautiful.

I'm going to be doing a, I was watching the Pels game. The other night. And first of all, shout out to Joel Myers and Antonio Daniels.

I was watching that game, and there was a really interesting chess match going on in the second half as the Pels were dealing with all the screening action that Dalton was getting to get open and the Lakers consistently attacking switching by trying to get Smalls onto Anthony Davis. And he was just doing a ton of damage in the post and in offensive rebound situations. And then the Pelicans were like struggling to get the ball to Brandon Ingram in spots where he could really do any work. And they were kind of ignoring some of the Pelicans non shooters in that sequence.

It was like a really interesting kind of chess match. And like, I've watched a lot of broadcasts from a lot of groups around the league. And Joel Myers and Antonio Daniels, both of them were just completely on top of that chess match. The entire game calling out everything that was happening, talking about the different things they needed to do.

I just really appreciated it. And I hope that we get more. broadcast duos like them over over time uh in the league because it just made watching that game so much more enjoyable and quite frankly i think it'd just be really good for the all the casual fans around the league to understand some of the the tactical battle that takes place live and it's really hard to do when it's happening live compared to um when you can watch film and take your sweet time with it over hours right so shout out to those guys anyway i was watching the pels game and the second half was just an offensive master class you The Lakers played with great pace. They got the ball up the floor quickly. They did like a good combination of like some freelance stuff in semi-transition where guards would just throw screens at Anthony Davis's man just to try to force quick switches like early in the shot clock at which point they would just then try to post up or maybe get a shot up on the rim where Anthony Davis could get an offensive rebound but they also did it through sets as well just like they were running sets to try to get Dalton Connect open and the Pelicans were attacking that by switching which was getting more.

opportunities for Anthony Davis is Anthony Davis to attack mismatches, all of the guard guard screening that they were doing. And Antonio Daniels was doing a really nice job calling out how like the Pelicans kept botching guard guard screens. And like, we talk about this all the time, but like the more action you run, the more opportunity there is for the defense to make mistakes. And the Pelicans were just making a lot of mistakes on like basic kind of screening actions that they were running.

And a bunch of guys were getting open or getting switches that were favorable for the Lakers. And then Austin and D'Lo, both of them are so good. at operating in five out inside the three-point line as like screeners slippers and his connective passers there was a play where like austin reeves kind of made himself available along the baseline catches right behind the backboard but he knows what's happening around him and he knows that dalton is open because dalton's man is rotating to austin he on the catch just blindly turns and whips it to the left corner dalton catches and shoots a three there again that's connective passing austin's the open guy even though he's not really in a position to score you but Austin understands the next pass in the chain, and he's able to generate a wide-open look for Dalton Connect, right?

Or there was a play where Anthony Davis gets double-teamed in the post on the left block, and the Pels do a really nice job pressuring AD. And so they're pressuring AD so hard that he's not able to really turn and see the floor. And so D'Lo makes himself available up on the left wing, and AD has no choice but to throw it back out to D'Lo. Now there's a split second after D'Lo catches it. Where you can make a kill pass.

And if you don't make the kill pass in that split second, New Orleans is going to rotate back out and the advantage is gone. It's Dalton connects cutting right down the lane and D'Lo right on the catch. One times it to Dalton and Dalton ends up getting a dunk in the lane. And it's like, that's just, those are the ways that Austin and D'Lo connect things with their passing without necessarily having to run a ball screen or drive a closeout or do something in a spot up situation.

They're doing it. screening, slipping, cutting in the interior part of the floor. And they're taking advantage of double teams that other players are getting and making the connective passes to get to the player that can actually finish the play.

They're kind of relentless with their execution. They have so many smart players who know how to play. When defenses make a mistake with a switch, everyone on the floor will immediately recognize it and start pointing to that guy.

They're going to find a way to get the ball to that guy. They stay organized. They're freelancing less than ever.

And they're killing teams in the clutch. They have the third best clutch offense in the league. LeBron James, Austin Reeves, and Anthony Davis are 17 for 27 from the field in the clutch this year. A lot of three man action.

There was a game that they closed just running stack over and over again, where it's like LeBron coming off of the ball screen with ad as Austin is back screening the role, man, as he goes. And there was sequences there where Anthony Davis was popping and hitting threes out of stack. Then against the Pelicans, they were like spamming like a horn set where like they would just throw the ball to LeBron James on the left elbow with Austin Reeves at the top of the key. A.D.'s at the right elbow and Austin would cut down. And then as Austin was going off of a pin in flare with Dalton connect on the weak side in the right corner, then LeBron would come off of a ball screen with A.D.

And because Austin and Dalton are running off ball action. And if you cut that off ball action, you have a good shooter over there. LeBron is able to turn the corner and get in the lane and make layups. And so they were able to spam that action and get a bunch of good stuff at it.

They're relentless with their execution. They have so many different ways that they can attack. They have like everyone in their lineups is like a legitimately very good offensive player. You know, Austin has good two-man game chemistry with both LeBron and Anthony Davis.

I'm loving Dalton Connect with the starters. I think I was talking with my friend Pete Zayas, who I think does the best team-specific podcast. I see no...

in the entire basketball world. If you're a Laker fan and you're not listening to Laker Film Room and the work that Pete and Darius do, you're missing out. Those guys are literally the best at what they do. So I highly recommend you guys check that out if you haven't. But I was talking with Pete about it yesterday because I want Dalton to start.

And this was Pete's original idea. He was on it early in the season, like a week or two into the season. He was like, I think Dalton could start for this team.

It was kind of when D'Lo was struggling. And there were some concerns about whether or not he was ready for it. But my thing is, I think Dalton's athletic. and like how much am I going to be harping on athleticism today?

I've already done it a little bit earlier. I'm going to be doing it again here in a minute with Houston. We're going to do it again with Golden State later.

Like athleticism is huge. And like LeBron and AD are the only two plus athletes in the starting lineup when you have Rui, Austin, and D'Lo out there, right? And so like Dalton is a very good athlete. He literally had a poster dunk yesterday and, or was it two days ago? Yeah, two days ago.

He had a poster dunk two days ago. He had like a play on a curl where he got downhill and got a dunk. Like he's athletic.

The way I see it is I want Austin, Dalton, Vando when he's healthy, then LeBron and AD because you can use Vando as the primary point of attack defender and is more of a screening fulcrum. And then Austin, LeBron, and Dalton become your ball handling fulcrums and AD and Vando become your screening fulcrums. You've got tons of athleticism in that lineup because Dalton, good athlete.

Vando, good athlete. LeBron, good athlete. AD, good athlete.

Austin is now the least athletic player in the lineup. That is something that I think works from an athleticism standpoint. And I love Dalton with the starters because he's an off-ball scorer, which is key.

Off-ball scoring is key. When I feel like a guy's going to give me 20-25 a night, and I'm not actually putting the ball in his hands, I'm actually putting the ball in Austin's hands or LeBron's hands while Dalton's running around, I like that. Because that's really complementary scoring. It's scoring that doesn't...

yank on the rope and actually cause another player to get out of rhythm, if that makes sense. And then also, it's so much high IQ in that lineup. If you had Vando, Austin, Vando, LeBron, and AD, that's a lot of really smart defenders. And so with that, you could craft a really achievable defensive role for Dalton that I think makes a lot of sense. And then for a team that struggled with bench scoring, now you have D'Lo and Rui as guys that can come in as bench scorers, and you can play them with your athletes.

Christian Coloco has been a really interesting defensive fit. as a backup center. If you put them out there with Gabe, you know, if you go Gabe D'Lo, and then you go like Cam Rui, uh, Christian, you've got two really high level offensive players around guys that are pretty solid defensive players. Right.

And then you can make a lot happen there. Maybe it ends up being max instead of Gabe or something like that. Max, by the way, had a couple of really nice games over the weekend as he kind of got an opportunity with Cam Reddish being out and he capitalized in a big way.

I'm still deeply concerned about the Lakers athleticism in the big picture. um and that will always be something that prevents me from considering them one of the top tier contenders but the offense is real and it's going to keep getting better as they continue to build out that continuity and find ways to uh to kind of piece together lineups that that complement each other really well and i still do think that if they hit on the right trade in terms of bringing in athleticism and evando can get healthy they do have that upside it's just kind of like a sliver of an upside because there's a lot of personnel upgrades that they need number five houston rockets A five-game winning streak, up to 10-4, and third in the Western Conference. Most of it is their perimeter athleticism. You guys have probably heard me on my soapbox about this all season, and I'm about to get even more aggressive with it because I have a rant involving speed and transition when we get to the Golden State Warriors here in a little bit.

But that's Houston's formula. They're just super athletic on the perimeter. Jalen Green is lightning fast.

Jabari Smith and Dylan Brooks are two... good athletes who defend super well on the perimeter Fred Van Vliet's not a great athlete but he's a good defender and then the bench is loaded with athletes like a man Thompson is an a-plus athlete Tari Eason great athlete Reed Shepard great athlete Cam Whitmore great athlete they've just waves and waves and waves of athleticism and I mean Cam's hurt right now like they're gonna get uh they're gonna they're they're just a super super athletic team and they're super fascinating they're uh third in defensive rating they're first in rebounding They're second in offensive rebounding. They're constantly winning that corner crash battle.

Like one of the big battles that you see in the modern NBA is like shot goes up, dudes crash out of the corners. And the guys that are guarding the guys out of the corners are also kind of what they like cracking down to get defensive rebounds. And it's who's going to win that race to the ball, right? It's a huge, it's a huge part of that battle.

And they're winning that battle consistently as they, as they get a ton of offensive rebounds. They're allowing the third fewest three-point attempts. per 100 possessions in the league. They're allowing the eighth best three-point percentage. And a lot of people will think that's luck.

All the analytics nerds think that's luck. I disagree. They're just closing out better than everybody. They're allowing just 16.9 wide open threes per game, meaning the defender's at least six feet away.

That's the third fewest in the entire NBA. They're forcing you to take contested threes. And then they're forcing a lot of turnovers with their athleticism getting out now.

In transition, they have the fourth most points off of turnovers per game in the NBA. But that's the thing. That's all a concept that I've been hammering home all season. If you can guard the ball, if you can have Dylan Brooks pressure, pick up full court, Jabari Smith length on big scoring wings.

When you have guys that can guard the ball and pressure the ball and get guys out of their comfort zone when they're trying to get into their sets. And then when you get in rotation, if you have the speed to cover ground, And then in transition, if you have the speed to cover ground, you have a really, really high floor in the modern NBA. You just have to have the appropriate amount of athleticism to make that happen. But the surprising thing for Houston, though, has been their offense. Like, I knew Houston would be a great defensive team to start the year.

I said that before the season in our season preview with them. It's not exactly a brave prediction. They just have lots of good defensive players.

I'm not worried about Houston's ability to guard. I just didn't think they'd be able to score this well. I didn't think they'd be able to score the ball well enough for it to matter. And they have. They're 11th in offensive rating overall.

There's several factors at play. It's a lot of transition. They're 22nd in half-court offense, according to Cleaning the Glass. But they're the 8th best transition offense per Cleaning the Glass's transition metric, which is points added per 100 possessions. They're the 8th best transition offense in the league.

They're also generating 24 points per game overall in transition, according to Synergy, which I think was 9. in the NBA. But they're still getting timely half-court production from several guys. Fred Van Vliet and Alperen Shangun have really nice two-man game chemistry. They had a sequence against the Bulls last night where they were scoring so consistently with Fred just coming off and hitting pull-up jump shots or hitting Shangun in the pocket for driving dunks or driving plays that they started having to load up. And then Fred just started spraying out to shooters on the weak side.

They were getting great looks. Shangun was off to a slow start. in the post to start the season but he was like flat out just frying Nikola Vucevic last night just like torching him one-on-one in the post so they're starting to get that going a little bit uh Jalen Green has increased his three-point volume now he's cooled off a little bit of as of late but he hit several huge threes to start the year and then Jabari Smith and Dylan Brooks both you know they're inconsistent but they both bring some valuable like just little bits of offense like a good closeout attack here like oh Jabari Smith catches on the left wing and rips left and then spins into a left shoulder fade and knocks it down. Or like Dylan Brooks, we're going to, he's got a small guy on him.

Let's just throw it to him on the block real quick. And like, he's big and strong. It can make a quick post move and go get a bucket.

And they're like getting a little bit of stuff there. They're 11th in offense. That's going to win you a lot of games when your defense is this good.

And it's going to get a little tougher. But if they, if they beat Milwaukee tonight, then they have Indiana at home. And I think they're going to beat Indiana. Then they have Portland at home twice.

So after that, the schedule gets tough, but we could be looking at a 14-4 Rockets team if they get that win in Milwaukee tonight. Number four, the Boston Celtics. They dropped an in-season tournament game on Tuesday to Atlanta where they looked incredibly sloppy throughout. They got burned on a tap-in offensive rebound. They then barely scraped out an overtime win against Toronto the other night.

where jason tatum hit a it's this crazy play where like jalen brown's coming off an off-ball action and just gets just so clearly and blatantly fouled that he just gets knocked over but no call and so tatum had no choice but to try to make something out of nothing in a split second and he just went to his like little kind of step back three or like pull back three and he knocked it down got the win as tatum continues to shoot the ball super well uh to start this year but I'm not worried about the Celtics at all, even though they're playing some sloppy basketball, because this team is just a victim of their schedule. Like last year, it was different. They had like a much tougher schedule to start the year and things kind of eased up later. This year, they've had a super easy schedule to start the year and things will get tougher later. And so like the Knicks game on opening night was their only win this season against a team that is 500 or better.

Their opponent win percentage so far is 45.1%. That's the second lowest in the entire league. Only the Atlanta Hawks.

have played an easier schedule. So like, I don't care that the Celtics are playing a little sloppy. It's really hard to play your best basketball against that level of competition.

I've seen a lot of Celtics fans that are like worried about their defense and wondering if they don't have the edge that they did last year. I'm not worried about them at all. They're going to be there when the time comes. This is...

You already have the trophy. You already know you can rise to the level that you need to rise to when the time comes. And you're routinely playing some of the lower tier teams in this NBA.

So I think they're just kind of caught in that monotony right now. They have Cleveland tomorrow night. That's a big game.

And then in their next 10, they actually have Cleveland twice in their next 10 games. Then they have Minnesota. They have Miami in that run. They have Milwaukee in that run. Even some of these Western Conference teams that are injured.

Guys like... the Clippers without Kawhi or the Grizzlies without John Morant, those teams are tougher than a lot of these Eastern Conference teams that they're playing, and they have those in their next 10 games. So I think we're going to see Boston really engage themselves over the course of the next three weeks or so, and I think we're going to see some of that championship-level basketball that we've been expecting them to show.

And here's the thing, they're still right where they need to be in the standings. There's no issue there. As far as the Cavs game tomorrow night, follow me on Twitter at underscore JasonLT.

I'm going to be going on watch playback. with my friend Mike to break that game down live as it's going on. And then we're also going to do a Hoops Tonight live show after.

So Cavs-Celtics, biggest game of the early stretch here in the regular season. Super, super excited to cover it. Watch it live with me on Watch Playback. And then I'll also have an instant reaction live on YouTube after the final buzzer of that game. That would be a big one for me.

If the Celtics could just go in there and send a big message, that would be a big one for me. That would be a quick reminder that all these, you know, kind of early season games don't really mean that much. Number three, the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Excuse me. They won their first three games without Chet when they had to play small ball. They've been giving up an offensive rebound on over 40% of their opponents'misses over this span. So like some of that is to be expected with the lineup, but it hasn't mattered.

The Pelicans had a 21-5 offensive rebound advantage in one of the games, and the Thunder still won by 18. They're kind of like leaning into their speed, which I think is really smart. And Mark Dagenold is basically going with this process, which is like, we're going to get blitzed on the glass, but what if we just force a million turnovers and completely dominate the game in transition? And then maybe it won't matter.

Like the Pels game is a perfect example. They forced 24 turnovers and converted them into 29 points. And they won the fast break point battle with the Pelicans 34-2. Like, that's margin. In this four-game span since Chet went down, they are first in points off of turnovers with 24 a game, while also giving up the fewest points off of turnovers, 11 per game.

So they're creating 13 points of margin just right there. They're getting 18 fast break points per game. They're only allowing 5.5 fast break points per game, which is the best in the league over that four game span. That's another 12.5 points of margin. So they're generating significant amounts of margin just by winning the turnover battle and the transition battle.

And that undoes any damage that happens to them on the offensive glass and then some. Now, Dallas finally got them last night. Huge win for Dallas, by the way.

Like, P.J. Washington had the best game of his career statistically at a 27-17. A... bunch of really impressive shot making like it just was like it's like oh you got a couple of stops well here comes jayden hardy hitting another like tough alan iverson-esque fadeaway in the lane or like oh here's spencer dinwiddie who's like kind of sneaky always been really good at creating his own shot just like hitting a step back three on the right wing when right when you're making a run to kind of like spencer had like a hit two back-to-back threes to like turn a five-point game and do 11-point game like change the complexion of the game like that bunch of guys hit some big shots and like There's a lot of people that are like, oh, you know, Luca's out. They're finally getting a win.

It's like, I look at that as just like, it's an optimistic, it's an optimistic thing because Luca clearly didn't look right physically. And so you got to win while allowing Luca to get some rest for his balcony. So like huge win for Dallas, by the way, but Dallas finally got Oklahoma city and showed some of the limitations of that build, right?

Cause like Dallas pummeled Oklahoma city on the offensive glass, but they also held Oklahoma city to only six fast break points. And Dallas only committed 16 turnovers, which is not low, but it's low for Oklahoma City. Right. So like they were able to control Oklahoma City's margins while also dominating their margins. And they got a big win.

And so that's why, like when I always talk about the difference between like the expression styles make fights, it's like which style is going to win the fight. If a big guy and a small guy get in a fight, one of two things is going to happen. The big guy is either going to maul him with his size or the small guy is going to beat him with his quickness.

Like. Either can happen. A lot of times we see that and we go like, oh, mismatch. And it's like, it's a mismatch both ways.

And so it's really just about how well you play. You have to, in that battle against Dallas, Oklahoma City was not able to weaponize their speed as much as Dallas was able to weaponize their size. and they were able to get a win. And then obviously, in a game like that, when you're giving up that much size, you have to win the shot-making battle. And Dallas just kind of kept them toe-to-toe on the shot-making battle, and that made it so that their physical limitations ended up getting them beat.

But shout-out to Shea and J-Dub. Over the course of this four-game stretch, they're averaging 60 points per game and combining to be well over 50-40-90 splits between the two of them, just cooking teams with the amount of space that they're creating. Number two, the Golden State Warriors.

Light schedule week for them. Only two games. They won them both.

They beat Dallas in a game that we covered live on YouTube. That was the game where every single time their offense bogged down, Dallas went on a run. But then Steph went on these crazy superstar runs at various points to regain control of the game. They ended up stealing a game when they were down by seven with, I think, what, four minutes left? Big win there.

Then they ended up getting a big win against the Grizzlies at home. I think that was Desmond Bain's return as well. But I wanted to, since they only had two games last week, I wanted to kind of use this as an opportunity to talk about the, uh, some of the stuff that I'm starting to learn more about this game.

I was talking with, uh, my friend Sam is Fondi. Are you covers the warriors? Um, I'm going to be doing a watch playback with him at some point in the next couple of weeks. And then I'd like to have him on this show too, at some point. So we can talk, um, some warriors, but I was talking to him, uh, just texting with him last night about, uh, cause he had sent out a tweet I think yesterday or two days ago talking about how like speed and perimeter defense is like one of the most, uh, like basically the market inefficiency in the NBA right now, which is very similar to some of the stuff that I've been saying.

It's like a lot of the smart basketball minds around the league that I listened to have been picking up on this sort of thing too. And you know, I, one of the things I did, I just, after him and I were texting and I just, I just pulled up cleaning the glass and I was like, you know what, I'm just going to look at where all these teams are in transition. And the reason why I did that is because like my, I used to have this worldview.

Those of you guys who follow this show over the last few years will know what I'm talking about here. I have always like over indexed on half court offense and half court defense. And the reason why is I've always been like, well, things are going to slow down. You know, you're going to get stuck in the half court. How are you going to do when you get stuck in the half court?

But as I'm watching these games, I'm like, teams are hunting transition opportunities more than ever. They're a huge chunk of the game is taking place in transition. And then I was like, All the good teams are transition teams. Like Cleveland took off by dominating in transition.

Golden State took off by swapping out two of their slower rotation players with faster rotation players. And now they're cooking teams in transition. Boston always been a good transition team. Oklahoma City, like their entire identity is like playing in transition.

So I'm like, this is super interesting. So let me dig into this a little bit. And so I pulled up the cleaning the glass stat, which is like their catch all transition stat is transition points added. per 100 possessions. What stands out to you about these lists?

This is the top 10 in offensive points added per 100 possessions in transition. Memphis, Boston, the Los Angeles Clippers, Miami, Cleveland, Washington, Phoenix, Houston, Oklahoma City, Denver. Here's the top 10 transition defenses.

What stands out to you? Golden State, number one. OKC, number two. Charlotte, three.

Boston, number four. New York Knicks, number five. Cleveland Cavaliers, number six. Orlando Magic, number seven.

And then Toronto Phoenix and Dallas. So the top teams in the league are heavily represented in both lists. Boston, OKC, and Cleveland are top 10 in both.

They have three of the four best records in the league right now. Golden State is 10-2. They're the best transition defense in the league, according to Cleaning the Glass. Houston, Phoenix, Denver, and Orlando.

all have top 10 records in the league and are all represented, all represented on that list. So like, it's, it's been super interesting is like, again, like I, this, this job has been super fascinating for me because again, I came into this with a lot of basketball experience, but on a different level, right? Like I was an NBA fan and I was aspiring to do this for a living.

And so I was watching a lot of NBA basketball, but I had a job. And so I didn't have as much time to watch as much film as I do now. And And a lot of my exposure to the game came at different levels. Right.

And so coming into this job now and I know like February 1st will be three years since I started working at the volume. In three years, I've watched way, way, way more NBA basketball than I ever watched before. Obviously, just because now it's my job.

It's what I do for a living. And I've learned so much. And it's been super fascinating to like watch my view of the game change. As I've been exposed to more and more NBA basketball.

And I think it's a combination of both. I think it's a combination of that. And then the NBA is actually changing quite a bit.

As the league becomes faster and over indexes on certain traits, right? But like one of the things that I think has been super fascinating is I think my emphasis on half court offense and defense is a little short sighted. I think that the transition battle is now a real significant part of this of this process to becoming an elite NBA team. And like as I look at it and I'm like, all of the really good teams are just excellent in transition.

I don't think that's a coincidence. Speed is the pathway to handling modern basketball problems. You need to generate more threes? Then you need athletes who can pressure the rim to collapse the defense.

You need to guard the three-point line better? Well, then you need athletes who can cover ground in rotation and throw good closeouts. Sam had a thought when I was texting him yesterday that I thought was super interesting.

He goes, having a guy that can close out on the perimeter and turn a 40% three-point shooter into a 30% three-point shooter is just as valuable. as a rim protector who can turn a 60% layup into a 50% layup. And I thought that was a super, super interesting concept.

And to his point, you can actually argue it's more valuable because a 10% dip in three-point percentage is actually impactful more in the scoreboard than a 10% difference in layup percentage. But he has a really interesting point there. When I watch the Warriors, their closeouts are insane.

They fly to the three-point line. They have their point. Then... multiple plays from guys like Gary Payton and Draymond Green this year, where they have feet in the paint in help, kick out pass, and they're sprinting out and blocking dudes at the three point line. Your ability to cover ground in rotation and chase guys off the three point line is a speed trait.

Do you need to generate easier offense in transition? Then you need athletes that can get up and down the floor. Do you need to get back better in transition and defend better in transition?

Then you need athletes who can get back. If you need to win battles on the glass, there's more long rebounds than ever with all these jump shots. You need athletes who can track them down.

That corner crash battle, it's dudes standing in the corner with the guys that are helping off of them. Those guys are winning and losing foot races to long rebounds all game long. There are still teams that are winning with skill over athleticism.

The two in our power rankings this week are Phoenix and the Lakers, right? Those are two teams that they... It's half-court execution for Phoenix, mainly in the clutch, for the Lakers in the clutch too, but throughout the entire game, they're not overly athletic or fast, but they're just dominating teams with their overall amount of offensive skill. Dominating is the wrong word either.

They're two. They're good. They're able to be good without being super athletic through all their offensive skill, but they are the exceptions. If you look at the other teams, Cleveland, super athletic. Golden State, super athletic.

Boston, super athletic. Oklahoma City, super athletic. Houston, super athletic. All of the top five records in the league are super athletic on the perimeter. Denver, part of their turnaround this season before Jokic took some time off this last week.

Peyton Watson, Christian Brown, Russell Westbrook, Julian Strother, they've gone more athletic this year. And so they've been a top 10 transition offense. They're winning one of those margins, right? Orlando, super athletic. Minnesota.

Super athletic, Memphis, super athletic, Sacramento, super athletic, 10 of the top 12 teams in the league and all of the top five are super athletic on the perimeter. And so like in a lot of ways, Golden State's roster to me is the perfect example of this trait, because with Golden State, if you were ranking players based on like overall talent level, they don't have a lot of guys that people have ranked super high in the league. And yet they've been one of the best teams in the league this year because the specific strengths of that roster line up with what you actually need to thrive in the modern NBA, which is spaced out and super transition-based. And you need to cover ground. And the only way you're going to cover ground with athletes, say what you want about Golden State's roster, they have a ton of athletes.

And that has come to fruition in a big way for them this season. Number one, the Cleveland Cavaliers. 4-0 week, but a really light schedule.

They had two wins against a Bulls team that's cratering. The Bulls are now 2-7 in their last nine after getting embarrassed by Houston last night. They beat the Sixers without all three of their stars, and then they beat the Hornets. So not a whole lot to get into there. Donovan Mitchell is red hot.

Darius Garland is too. Those two are averaging 56 points per game since our last rankings. They also have seven guys averaging double figures since our last rankings.

But Celtics game tomorrow. Remember, I'm going to be covering that game on Watch Playbacks. Pay attention to my Twitter feed if you want to watch.

Me and Mike break down that game live. I also will be doing an instant reaction to that game on YouTube live after the final buzzer. And then don't forget last week on Wednesday, we had Carter Rodriguez from the Chase Down podcast on and we did an hour of Cavs.

breakdown in that video so if you haven't checked that one out yet head back and check that one out all right guys that's all i have for today that's our power rankings for the week of monday november 18th we'll be back tomorrow morning with uh i want to do a tim's tape session on some of the laker offense stuff i've talked about and then i'm gonna hit a couple of games from tonight's slate as well and i'll add whatever clips from those games um to the tim's tape segment uh tuesday night like i talked about watch playback as well as calves celtics instant reaction on youtube Wednesday morning, I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, but we'll do something that covers around the league. And then back to our normal schedule after that. Don't forget we have our mailbag that I'm recording on Thursday.

So drop questions in the YouTube comments. All right, guys. That is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.

I will see you tomorrow.

Transcript for:NBA Weekly Power Rankings and Insights

Transcript for:
NBA Weekly Power Rankings and Insights