Heat Check

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ The mystery of the stolen ball that led to the big scuffle is very complicated but I got all the footage to show you exactly what happened. The chain of events starts even during the game, as there was a lot of chipiness, Giannis elbowing Haliburton, and a hard foul on Antetokounmpo himself that turned into a scuffle, and look at Thanasis with the all time hold me back moment. Dude is literally hooking his teammate’s arm, to hold him here. This is hilarious. Giannis then dunks the ball with 20 seconds to go and I guess this made the Pacers extra salty. So now we get to the key moment. Watch closely as Milwaukee’s equipment manager follows the shot and immediately goes to the ref to get the game ball. This ball is supposed to be given to Giannis for his career high 64 points. As he collects game balls from some more meaningful games. A newly leaked footage shows us that the Bucks team secures it. But just seconds later, we see a basketball in the hands of Indiana’s equipment manager to give it to their rookie for his first NBA points. The Greek freak sees what’s going on and comes in storming, saying “that’s the game ball”. Obviously he wants it. What Giannis doesn’t know is that the official game ball is with them, and this is the reserve ball that we see right here. You can see the Bucks staffer telling him “we got it we got it” but Antetokounmpo doesn’t listen. As the Pacers guy takes off towards the tunnel, Giannis starts chasing him. This is how we get to this chaos. Now because there is a bit of rivalry and chipiness stemming from the in season tournament already, now Indiana guys led by Miles Turner are adamant to not give the ball back.. Antetokounmpo comes out furious and starts berating Haliburton. This is almost like he’s ordering him to go get the ball. This back and forth lasts for almost an hour, and even tho eventually Giannis does get his ball, he doesn’t think it’s the one they played with. Don’t worry Giannis, it is the game ball that you have. To make matters even worse, all of this started because of the rookie, but he did already score his first points in the in-season tournament final. Now there are some technicalities here because the final game does not count towards the regular season so it’s not official- official. The entire situation got very hot, very quickly and it’s only going to get more interesting as these 2 teams have 2 upcoming games in January. Contrary to this, the Lakers and the Mavs were all hugs and smiles after the game, and Lebron had to give respect to Luka for what he did to him and the Lakers. Check it out right here. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Even Lebron himself had to give respect to Luka for what he did to the Lakers. Watch the chess game that went on on the court. In order to get the favorable matchup of Austin Reaves on Doncic, the Mavs use him as the screener. And Hardaway’s quickness forces Prince to switch and close down the lane. So Dallas get what they want, and now we got the easy blow-by here by Luka despite going 2 miles an hour, forcing the defense to close down on him. Even with 3 guys around Doncic doesn’t panic and finds Exum wide open in the corner for the 3. Right here we got 1 screen and a switch, and another one which the Lakers also switch. At this moment there is a lob threat, which both Lebron and Reddish are ready to intercept, Williams is open on the wing but Exum is right next to Luka all alone as well off because James helps down low off of him. And with all the time in the world to get set, Dante hits another three. This one needs no additional commentary. The way that Doncic makes these finds look so easy is unbelievable. Exum benefited a lot from all the attention that Luka attracted from the defense and there’s a reason why he shot 7 for 9 from downtown. He was wide open on all of these. Now this is where things get interesting with Exum. I guess the Lakers followed the scouting report saying that he was 8 for 28 from downtown coming into the game, but what they may not know is that Donte shot 42% from beyond the arc during his 2 seasons in Europe. And if you can knock it down in Serbia in this type of atmosphere, you know that this is legit. So why the slow start then? Well, due to limited playing time he couldn’t really get into a rhythm, and has a bunch of 0 for 1 and 0 for 2 games. That’s not enough shots and rhythm. So now in the last 3 games, with Kyrie, Josh Green and Derrick Jones Jr not playing- Dante has been getting 35 minutes per game and he’s been using that to the fullest. Going back to Luka tho, just watch what happens here. On the second consecutive screen, he gets in front of Reddish and it’s a 2 on 1 against Lebron. He does a good job initially of staying in the middle between Doncic and Lively on the potential lob, but did you catch that? Let me run it back to show you how Luka raises his arm faking out James for the pass, and that leaves the lane wide open for him on the layup. That type of patience in a split second situation is incredible, and he does it again here on the drive as he stays patient with 3 guys on him he just pump fakes- sending everyone flying, and puts it in. This is a similar situation like the Lebron example, with a double screen on Luka only this time AD doesn’t stay in the middle and attacks Doncic instead. So we got… Not only did he completely dissect the Lakers defense for the entire game, but he’s been on an absolute tear for the last 8 games scoring at least 30 everytime, he got 35 point triple doubles and a bunch of other crazy stats. He’s been on a rampage lately. But I gotta give a special shoutout to Tim Hardaway Jr for his effort. You see the 32 points on efficient shooting, and of course that’s phenomenal, but what you won’t see in the boxscore are sacrifices like this one right here getting the offensive foul. Then the same thing in the second quarter against Reaves. And in the fourth we got yet another charge for Hardaway forcing another turnover. He’s second in the league in this category actually, but despite that, I just love the role that he’s got with the team this year coming off the bench and being efficient. Almost 18 points per game on 39.0% from downtown, that’s how you help Luka and Kyrie and make this team dangerous in the west. With 4 wins in a row, the Mavs have been rolling lately, and contrary to them- the Pelicans have been up and down this season, and Zion heard the comments about him being fat and out of shape so here’s what he did. Check out the video right here. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Zion heard everything for the past few days and he got real mad. This is the number 1 defense in the league looking like a bunch of little kids against Williamson as he dropped 36 on Minnesota on phenomenal efficiency. This is both Gobert and Kat chest to chest against Zion and there’s nothing they could do about it once big Z went incredible hulk on them. So everything is fixed now I guess. We should all apologize to Zion and move on right? No, of course not. I’m not gonna flip flop game by game depending on how many points he scores. It’s about consistency and reaching his potential. You can’t look great for one game and be a complete non factor in the other one. I’m serious, that game against the Lakers was the worst that I’ve seen a superstar look on the court in a while. I’m not talking about a bad shooting game, going 0-10 from the field. This looked like they had him completely figured out. He had no moves that he could pull off to even fight against them. Somebody tried to defend him on twitter saying that Williamson is averaging more points than guys like Julius Randle, Demar Derozan and Jimmy Butler. But that’s not the point. None of these guys has the potential of being the best player in the NBA. None of them can be as dominant as Williamson can. This is part of the problem at the moment tho. That dominance is only displayed when the opposing team doesn’t have a guy strong enough to fight against him. If they have the personnel and the strategy to sustain Zion’s physicality, there’s really not much else there. And how could there be more, when the guy is even struggling to be in playing shape, how hard do you think he’s working on improving his skills? There’s zero improvement on his shot, he still can’t shoot, and he’s got no back to the basket game-nothing. I talked about this in my previous video, the only way you see him get buckets is this bullyball. Which looks great when the opposing big man is inferior in terms of physical abilities. But heck, I’m also dominant and playing bullyball against my 7 year old niece, but with the rest of the competition I suck. Jokes aside about my basketball skills, Gilbert Arenas actually stood behind Zion and defended him after he got heavily criticized by Shaq and Barkley on his conditioning. But how can you say all that when literally a few months ago, Zion admitted this to you: And he said he got all the wisdom and he would change but we are yet to see that. With all that being said tho, even with all the injuries that they had at the start, the Pelicans are just 1 and a half games out of the 6th spot that gets them straight into the playoffs. And look at their next stretch of games. Washington, Charlotte, San Antonio, Memphis, Cleveland, Houston, Memphis and Utah. This is a tremendous opportunity for them to build a nice winning streak, get some good momentum and hopefully change the narrative with some great play for Zion. But as we’ve all been saying, this has to be sustainable over the long run. For those of you that haven’t seen it, this is how the Lakers exposed him in the tournament. Check it out here. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Hold on, let’s play that again. On the rebound here Lebron is literally the last guy back. So how in the world did he zoom past the entire Pacer defense all the way for the layup. And it wasn’t just that. This is the exact same thing, last guy back but look at him flying down the court and he’s gonna be 39 in a few weeks. This is absolutely astonishing. James had a bunch of these coast to coast runs that ended either with a finish at the rim or with a foul, as it seemed like he wanted to leave everything on the floor, every ounce of energy in order to get that first in-season tournament title. Right here he is muscling inside, the double team comes but look at the pump fake here and even tho he misses the bunny, Lebron fights for the rebound and puts it back in. Now this is the will to win. 24 points and 11 rebounds along with phenomenal performances in the previous games made him the MVP of the tournament. Now this is something that MJ for sure doesn’t have over him. This finally makes Lebron the goat, am I right?! All jokes aside tho, in this game Anthony Davis was actually the top dog. And you can spell that D A W G because look at this face. This instantly reminded me of Lebron’s iconic look against Boston. Look at him flying outside to close out on the shot, then hustling right back to the paint and getting this rejection on Bruce Brown. Davis had 4 blocks in this game, but it was the offensive domination that got the win for the Lakers. Look at this lightning quick spin against Turner finishing it off with the nice flip shot. And the pick and roll with Lebron is unstoppable so you got this… It wasn’t just the assists that he took from Lebron, but there was some valuable advice as well from the mastermind. With how inconsistent he is, I feel like the Lakers were sooo lucky to catch him on one of his good days just in time for the championship. And it was a monster game. 41 points, 20 rebounds and 5 assists. With numbers like that, I guess you can say that you’re him. 41 points on 66% and everything was in the paint. In fact, this was the case for LA as a team. They scored 86 points in the paint against Indiana. This is not a typo, 86 out of the 123 points total were inside, close to the basket. There was no messing around with fancy long range shots as the Lakers only shot 13 times from downtown. Seriously winning a game in today’s NBA by going 2 for 13 from beyond the arc is mind blowing. But it was something they did on defense that won’em them game. Follow Haliburton who’s being chased by Vanderbilt way out here. As soon as he runs away from him, it’s Max Christie right in front. On the screen now we got a trap with Anthony Davis. And let me stop it right here for you to see this. 4 Lakers defenders surrounding Tyrese. But as we let it roll, I am shocked by LA’s recovery and getting back to their man, as they get the steal right here. Amazing. In this situation they got 3 guys all over Hali. The Lakers just wanted to get the ball out of his hands, and make somebody else beat them. Just look at this trap right at half court. It’s extremely rare you see a team trapping this high up. The Lakers did it consistently in this game, and with good reason because it really paid off for them. Granted, there were a few situations where Myles Turner would make a shot, or Bruce Brown would hit one of his floaters, but that was LA’s point. Force the other guys consistently make the right decisions in a split second and knock down a shot with the rotation guy coming over at them. So ultimately it turned out that they weren’t able to sustain that. The defensive plan was obvious as soon as the game started but even before tipoff D’Angello Russell sort of hinted at it in the pre-game interview. Tyrese had gone 76 minutes without a turnover, and the Lakers forced him into 2 right at the start of the game in the first 3 minutes. Obviously this had an impact on him and I believe that other teams will look at this game and will try to implement things for their matchups against Haliburton and Indiana. So look. In the quarterfinals this team exposed Phoenix’s lack of athletic bigs, punishing them time and time again. I made a video about it explaining everything. Then in the semis, the Lakers absolutely exposed Zion’s offensive shortcomings as Lebron guarded him like he would guard Ben Simmons. I made a video about that as well and it took off. I’ll make sure to link it at the end. And now in the finals, LA went after the head of the snake for Indiana and won the game by blitzing Tyrese. You see how they are methodical and how they look to exploit different teams in different ways. The Lakers had a phenomenal tournament run and they deservedly take home the money bag. Damn coach I don’t know how exactly you celebrate christmas but hopefully this half a million will help you survive the holiday season.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ This is how Lebron disrespectfully exposed Zion’s limitations. Look at him parked all the way under the basket waiting for Williamson and baiting him to shoot any kind of shot. Just look at this, Zion has the ball but he doesn’t know what to do with it. Valanciunas comes over to set a screen but they’re all too deep and now it’s just crowded. Eventually you got this awkward barreling right into Lebron and this is an offensive foul. Seriously, look at him going left and right without any idea of what to do. The terrible spacing here doesn’t help him either, so he just has to flip it back to Ingram who forces up a contested jumper. Awful possession. The game plan was simple. James goes under on all screens and waits for him at the rim, while Davis meets him right here just to not allow Zion to get a head of steam. And all of these blunders where he runs over people for the offensive foul is based on the fact that he doesn’t have a back to the basket game, no baby jumper, no hooks or a fadeaway shot. His main and only weapon in the half court is to get a head of steam, take off and adjust midair for the layup or the dunk. And you can see that it was the exact same scenario in the second half as well, only this time he knows a charge is coming so he tries to avoid it and thus misses the layup. Williamson was also a complete no show on defense. This type of jogging back while his guy is wide open, and knocks down a three pointer is inexcusable. Check out this freeze frame of all 5 of his teammates pointing where he should be, and where he actually is-all the way on the other side, and of course Prince hits this one from downtown. And then right here, he just watches D’Angello Russell go by him all the way to the rim for the layup without any kind of effort to stop him. The inside the NBA crew criticized him heavily first of all for the shape he’s in, but then also for his overall mentality and lack of aggression. And how can you not criticize him, when he only shot 8 times for 13 points. 8 shots from your franchise cornerstone in an elimination game like this is unacceptable. So now compare all of this, along with his postgame comments saying that he’s gotta be more aggressive and look- compare that to the intensity of almost a 39 year old Lebron. Not only did he come ready to fight from the very first possession, he kept the intensity throughout the entire time, and not just on offense, but look at him doing the little things grabbing Zion on the boxout not allowing him to even see the basketball. Check out the energy here on this rebound and tell me did this game mean to him or not. And this is possibly the best example. Watch where Lebron is and where Zion is, and notice the contrast of one guy going full speed and the other acting like this is a scrimmage. And when you display this kind of passion throughout the entire game, then the basketball gods award you and here come the heat checks. Lebron and the Lakers deserve to be in the finals as they expose another western contender. They did the same thing to Phoenix the last game and I explained exactly what they did. Check it out here. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ The Pacers made 19 threes on 47.5% from downtown, and you could make an excuse for Boston saying that this doesn’t happen often. But they made a catastrophic mistake against Indiana that ended up costing them the tournament. Let me explain. Coming into the game, they had the winning gameplan. Attack Tyrese Haliburton on defense whenever possible. Tatum has him on an island here, so he just takes his time and look at the beautiful spin here finishing with the dunk. Again, there is absolutely nothing that Tyrese can do defensively against Tatum on this drive as this is too easy for him and the Celtics. Boston actually targeted Haliburton a bunch of times. And sometimes it ended with a roll at the rim, and sometimes there was a full on switch and Boston guys tortured him in isolations. But whatever it was, these were all easy and high percentage points for the Celtics. Even if it wasn’t against Tyrese, you see that the dribble penetration by Boston was unstoppable for the Pacers. Jaylen Brown took everyone off the dribble, blew right past them and finished at the rim. This is too easy. So you notice how all of these possessions are slow and methodical, searching for the right opportunity, and exploiting the weaknesses of the defense. if I’m seeing what’s working, I’m running that over and over the entire game right? Well funny enough, for whatever reason, the Celtics fell into the trap of racing against Indiana, the team with the fastest pace in the league. This is what they do. Look at this lightning quick possession starting with the rebound and the quick pass to Tyrese and he takes off the other way. The defense is scrambling to get set, and Haliburton just flips it back to Buddy Hield and he launches it from way downtown, hitting nothing but the bottom of the net. Again, the rebound by Topin and the Pacers are storming down in transition, Brown gets caught up in the paint and that’s all that Bruce Brown needs to let it fly and knock it down. So falling into this chaos, the Celtics started jacking up 3 pointers with a lot of them being completely forced up and unnecessary. Tatum has the much smaller Nembhard on him, with everyone spread out and the paint wide open. Why in the world is he chucking this up and bailing out the defense. Again this is Halliburton on him in the clutch. Why settle for the contested jumper instead of driving inside and either finishing or if a double team comes, he’d create a much better wide open look. This possession was a straight up mess right from the beginning, but Jrue Holiday really seals the deal with this contested 3 pointer that of course misses. So naturally, launching these types of shots, the Celtics were 12 for 41, that 29% from downtown. The difference in how easy and nice those drives looked, and how disorganized all of this seems, is night and day. Trying to outpace Indiana, Boston finished the game with 17 turnovers, and you can see that again the reason for a lot of those was that they were rushing. The Pacers got them right where they wanted them, and in a single elimination game like this, that’s all they needed. A hot shooting night, and just like that, they’re in the semi finals. And speaking of that let me eat my words and completely take back what I said in a previous video about the tournament. Maaan this is great. The arena was rocking, the competitiveness was just like a playoff game, so Adam Silver, I’m sorry for what I said. Actually, I still think that nobody cares about the group stage, and the courts are still hideous, and an injury hazard for the players, that’s still a fact. But the final day of the groups, and the elimination is absolutely phenomenal. Here’s a reminder of the chaos that took place on the final day of the group stage. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ In just a few days Golden State lost 2 games where they led by more than 20 points. First, the Kings came back from down 24 to eliminate them in the tournament. And then, last game they were up by 22 on the Clippers but then… This is only the tip of the iceberg for this team’s real problems. And people around the league are starting to talk about the downfall, the end of the Warriors as we know them. As a powerhouse in the NBA. Golden State has a miserable 3-9 record in the last 12 games. Only the Wizards, the Pistons and the Spurs who have been worse than them in that span. 2 of these teams are a complete joke as we’ve seen so far, and the Spurs are actively trying to lose every game. That’s how bad the Warriors are. But what makes people say that this is the beginning of the end for them? It starts off with Steve Kerr, who at the moment seems like he’s losing control of things. The fans are still mad about this sequence where Moses Moody hit back to back huge threes and played some phenomenal defense in that stretch. But just moments later, Kerr takes out the hottest guy on the floor and things kind of spiraled down for the Warriors. But possibly the biggest issue is taking minutes away from a promising rookie like Brandin Podziemski who’s been extremely solid so far, and randomly playing Cory Joseph who’s at the end of his career, and look at his numbers. 2 points per game on 24% from the field and 22% from downtown. This is atrocious. Why is he getting those 11 minutes instead of increasing Podziemski’s playing time or Moody or the other young guys? Kerr has also completely lost control over Draymond Green who’s been a total distraction in some games. Even after getting suspended for you know what, Green is still raging on the court, getting technicals- at times during key moments of the game. And he continues to tackle people on a nightly basis. With a bunch of guys in and out with injuries, the least they need right now is another suspension of their best defender. Speaking of guys being in and out- CP3 is having his annual injury moment early in the season so how are we supposed to think that this won’t happen again come playoff time. This is another part of the issue. With the core group of players getting way up there in age, Golden State did not make a significant upgrade, and for the second season in a row they’re hoping that Kuminga or Moody will become so good that they will help this team win another championship. But while these guys are solid, they are nowhere near replacing Klay Thompson or Andrew Wiggins, who are both having a horrible season so far. For Wiggins, this is by far the worst year in Golden State. An all around drop in minutes, points, field goal percentage and especially 3 point percentage where it seems like he forgot how to shoot. And Thompson has been a trending topic. He seemingly forces up shots more than ever, and sometimes shoots the Warriors out of games. But the issue is just as big with him defensively. The age and injuries have caught up to him. In his prime Klay was one of the best on ball defenders but now he looks flat out slow, so quicker and shiftier guys are even looking to hunt matchups against him. Thompson has been a huge reason for Golden State’s plummeting numbers on both ends. It seems like the entire team is falling apart, but Golden State still has 1 piece functioning as good as ever. And it just so happens that it’s the most important piece of the puzzle. Steph Curry has single handedly kept this team afloat going God mode at age 35. Curry’s unreal season signals the Warriors front office that they can still at least hope for another title run. But to do that, some trades need to be made. Kevin O’Connor from the Ringer mentions that this team needs to be active at the trade deadline. Whether it’s guys like Siakam or Anunoby, or Alex Caruso, even Kyle Kuzma who could provide a scoring punch. And he mentions some less possible scenarios as well like Kawhi, PG or Lauri Markannen. But for any of these moves, 1 thing is certain. They would most likely need to move on from Klay Thompson. And yeah, the 3 guys that put this team on the map would all like to finish off their careers playing together for the Warriors, but Klay is in his last year of the contract, and giving him another big one would mean a few more seasons of the same thing that’s happening right now. And without a lot of room for upgrades of improvement- this would certainly mean the end of the Golden State glory days, the end of an era. So if the front office wants to bridge the past with the future, and continue that success, they’ll need to make some difficult decisions. Let’s see if they do it. 1 guy that could also be on the trading block is Donovan Mitchell and I recently made a video about the Cavaliers issues with him.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Against Chicago, the Celtics went for a hack-a-Drummond while being up by almost 30. Running up the score on a 30 point lead is insane, but Boston had a good reason for it. You see, these were the standings on the final game of the in-season tournament group stage. So in order for them to get that final 4th spot and advance in the quarterfinals, the Celtics needed to catch up to the +18 point differential of New York. And this is where the chaos begins. The 2 games were played at the same time and right at this moment in the third quarter, with the Knicks up by only 1 and Boston up by 31, the Celtics caught up to the point differential and even had a 12 point advantage on New York. If the games ended like this, they would advance to the quarterfinals. But the thing is you could see that both of these teams were playing with a sense of urgency and had the in-season tournament score in the back of their minds. So the Knicks really ramped it up in the fourth, especially Emanuel Quickley who scored 16 in the final period and helped his team get a huge 24 point win. These 24 plus the 18 that they had on the Celtics, meant that Boston would have to win by more than 42 points. And they actually tried and kept their starters up until the very end on a 30 point blowout, but it was just too much for them. The chaos didn’t end there however because here are the quarterfinal matchups and you see that the Celtics actually advanced and will play against the Pacers. But the calculations about how they got there were something like this legendary clip from inside the NBA. I’ll break down what happened with Boston at the end of this video, because now we gotta move on to another wild ending. Playing without Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro the Heat had a 3 point lead late in the game against the Bucks. And winning it meant that they would advance in the quarterfinals potentially knocking the Bucks out of the tournament. Bam had a monster game but maaan if Milwaukee goes out to a big night from a 37 year old Kyle Lowry and Josh Richardson who bounced around 6 different teams in the last 4 years, that would have been crazy. But this was just as crazy:, Moments later we got this: And then: So the Bucks survived and will face off against the Knicks. In the west, Houston decided for their own destiny and with a win against Dallas who were out of it anyways, the Rockets would advance so Jalen Green and company were fired up for this one. But so were the Mavs as they had an answer to every Rocket point. And there was even some chippynes and trash talk. But at the end a 41 point game from Luka capped off by this hook shot at the end, killed the dreams of this young roster for the Rockets. However the chaos is nowhere near ending. Follow Gobert here for the entire possession at the end of the game against the Thunder. Look at his incredible defensive intensity. Rudy was so hyped that he fist pumped here in the middle of the play. And he stays with it, contesting one final time on this shot that ends up being an airball. Unbelievable defense, and the rumors are true, he is absolutely back to his defensive player of the year level from a couple of years ago. This game also went down to the wire, but Anthony Edwards got injured and left the game so Minnesota needed another hero. And they found it in Troy Brown Jr. OKC didn’t give up tho and played the foul game till the very end, eventually securing an opportunity to send the game into overtime. But the Timberwolves hold on to win this game that ended up being meaningless for both teams but set up the ultimate showdown between Sacramento and Golden State. Golden State has to win by 12 points or more to advance over Sacramento. The Kings had an 11 point cushion here but right out of the gate that was gone, as the Warriors came out swinging and quickly built a 24 point lead. The Kings were fighting for their tournament chances first and foremost trying to get the lead down to 11, but D’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and the rest of the Kings got so hot on the comeback run, that they came all the way back and actually took over the lead. Still, despite all that effort, Sacramento was down by 4 with 50 seconds to go and the Dubs had the ball. So then, the real madness starts unfolding. The arena is about to explode and under that pressure, Draymond commits a turnover. Setting the stage for this incredible play at the end. Unbelievable! All the gotta do now is watch out for Steph Curry at the end. The Kings win and advance to the quarterfinals while the Warriors are out of the tournament in the most improbable ending. This is how things look in the West: Lakers vs Phoenix and Sacramento vs the Pelicans. Amazing. Now I haven’t forgotten that I gotta explain just how the Celtics found themselves here.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ What kind of offense is this? With 3 of his teammates in the back Russell takes off against the entire Philly defense in a hilarious display of hero mode basketball that ends horribly. This one is even worse as all the offensive game plan goes out the window and instead he dives head first in the middle of this box created by 4 Sixers and to top things off, D-Lo challenges one of the best rim protectors in the league and of course is unsuccessful. This 44 point loss, may have been the most disgraceful Laker performance that I’ve seen. And I gotta show you some of the preposterous things that they were doing. The Lakers are near the bottom of the league in turnovers and boy we could see that in this game. Watch this possession. Davis is sealing off Covington under the basket but Reaves is too busy messing around here in the corner, going nowhere, then he dribbles right into AD, gets double teamed still not getting rid of the ball, and ultimately falls out of bounds. To add insult to injury, Pat Bev then goes and bumps him right here as obviously he’s feeling himself after the good defensive sequence he had. Again, look- there is no play call here. Reaves just puts his head down and tries to twist and turn his way but instead gets stuck and loses the ball. Absolutely nothing happened on that possession. And what is Davis even trying to do here, with a wall of 3 Philly defenders in front, he wanted to dribble his way inside I guess, but this move feels like something we could see in the amateur leagues and not from an NBA superstar. This is also without any concept- Davis is acting like a point guard as he spins at half court here, and then he goes right at Embiid who’s already set and waiting for him at the rim. AD even drifts to the side making it tougher on himself and Joel swats it away for a monster block. LA ended the game with 17 turnovers and Philadelphia had 5. And you’re definitely not winning the game like that. The turnovers and the overall bad offense has been on brand for them as they are 25th in offensive rating. Near the bottom of the league in this category as well. Worst of all, these 3 point looks that they missed are open for a reason. This team is 28th in the NBA in 3 point percentage. Third worst. Even with that in mind however, 7 for 28 from downtown is just terrible. On top of that, they let their opponent grab 15 offensive rebounds, and on some of these, the Lakers were flat out bird watching while the Sixers were rebounding the ball and putting it back in. This must be the easiest offensive rebound that Covington ever got as not only nobody puts a body on him, but they don’t even touch him as he gets this ball. And then Tobias Harris just walks his way inside for the layup. And watch Batum here as he again just walks inside and gets this board and the putback. Speaking of that, it happened again for him right here. No communication, no rotation by the Lakers, nothing. Just a guy jogging inside and dunking it. And I don’t even know what to say about this as they literally moved out the way for Maxey to score here. Playing it again, Prince sees that Maxey is in front but I guess he thinks somebody is there on the back line, which Lebron should come out and help but there’s no effort from anyone and Tyrese just lays it in. This is embarrassing honestly. Speaking of embarrassing, Embiid has a 6 game winning streak on Davis, and in this game he completely dominated him. I know that the Lakers were missing some players, and sure- Philadelphia hit a bunch of threes, but the overall lack of effort and some of the inexplicably bad possessions both on offense and defense were disgusting if you’re a fan of this team. So, Laker fans I’m sorry that you had to watch this. But you’re not alone as Spurs fans feel a bit of pressure as well, with the entire basketball world turning against Victor Wembanyama- so you can watch that right here. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ What’s going on with Victor Wembanyama? He generated more hype than the NBA's biggest superstars in the first few games. But with 20% of the season now being played, not only has the buzz died down, but some NBA fans are actually starting to turn on him. But why would you turn on a 19 year old rookie who btw is averaging 19 points, 9 and a half rebounds plus a steal and 2 and a half blocks per game. These are monster numbers. Sure, he’s not shooting well, but Paolo Banchero won rookie of the year with similar offensive numbers last year, and he was nowhere near Victor when it comes to defense. So what’s going on here? Well, there are 2 guys to blame for what’s going on. And as shocking as it may sound, 1 is Gregg Popovich, and the other is Chet Holmgren. Before diving deeper into the weird dynamics of the San Antonio Spurs, we need to address the Chet Holmgren situation. Both him and Wemby were mentioned in the conversation of the future of the NBA, but it’s clear that Wembanyama got all the shine, and Holmgren was in his shadow at the start. But being the second best scorer on the second best team in the west, you cannot ignore that, and people are seeing just how good Chet is, and how big of a factor he is to OKC’s explosion. Comparing the raw numbers side by side, Wembanyama has him beat by an inch, but there is absolutely no comparison when it comes to efficiency. 56 and a half percent from the field for Homlgren and almost 44% from downtown. That is elite. The pick and pop game with Shai is absolutely deadly, and as a defender you can pick your poison between these 2 guys. But again, we’re talking about a 7 foot center shooting 44% from downtown. Then you get to his game off the dribble. This kind of fluidity is unbelievable. Look at him going full speed into a spin for the finish. Or what I like even more are these half spins into a fadeaway jumper that’s seemingly money every single time. So, you know that phrase: underpromise and overdeliver right. I feel like that is the case with these 2 players. The media underpromised with Holmgren not hyping him up as much so this seems like he over delivered. At the same time because all the attention was on Wembanyama, it’s almost like people expected him to be a 28 point per game scorer right out the gate. So the 19 per game on not so great shooting percentages almost looks kind of disappointing. If you’re a Spurs fan I bet that you don’t like this shift in narrative, but I’m sure that Gregg Popovich is more than ok with it. And this is how we get to him. Why did I say that he can be blamed for why people are turning on Victor. Well, if you’ve watched a few San Antonio games, you know that the starting point guard for this team is Jeremy Sochan. And while he’s a nice hustle player there’s no way why he should be the starting point guard for a generational talent like Wemby. Sochan is a forward first of all, but then, he’s slow and doesn’t have the instincts nor the ball handling required for a point guard. Sometimes it looks like he’s even struggling to just bring the ball up the court. The Grizzlies pickpocketed him twice while doing this. On the fast break here, this is a 2 on 1 with Wembanyama, but he passes out to the three. So then thankfully Tre Jones is a real point guard and he immediately lobs it up to Victor. But they’ve lost 12 games in a row and Popovich of course sees all of this. But the thing is, all of this is by design. It’s on purpose. Sochan will either learn to play the point or if not- they’ll lose a ton of games at least and get another high draft pick to pair him with Wemby. They weren’t going to make the playoffs this year anyways so why not go all out with losing. Jeremy doesn’t get criticized for his mistakes and that’s the same reason why Wembanyama is shooting badly as well. He’s allowed to take all kinds of shots to find what works best for him, to try things out. This is an experiment both for him and for the Spurs, to see how they can best use him going forward. So yeah, Wembanyama's hype died down and if all numbers stay the same he’ll lose the rookie of the year race to Chet. But guys like Curry, Giannis, Jokic and Tatum, also didn’t win it and are now the face of the league. And as soon as the team around him gets shaped up Victor will play that role as well and will be one of the greats in this league. Along with Chet. But for now, he has to go through the highs and lows of a superstar. He has to stay focused with all the noise around him. Whether it’s because another rookie is playing great, or because the coach and the organization want to set him up for the future and not for the present.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ This play is the reason why some overreacting Cavs fans want him traded. You see that nobody else touches this ball as Mitchell fires away from way downtown and misses. This is equally as bad, as Donovan doesn’t involve anyone on his team, goes right at Wiggins who’s a terrific defender and throws up a perfectly contested one hander. Nothing happened on this possession. Now Cleveland fans take situations like these and compare them to what happened in the last 4 games that he missed due to injury where the ball just flew all over the court. Let me show you how Cleveland plays with and without Mitchell and what’s the good and the bad in his game. With Donovan handling the ball, a lot of times it becomes screening to get him a switch and a favorable matchup. And from there it’s standing around and watching him do his thing. Right here the play is designed strictly so that he gets Curry on him, a matchup that they want to exploit. So none of his teammates will make a play here. Everyone is looking up top. And Mitchell shakes and bakes for the 3, sooo good possession?! Umm let’s move on. Right here again, we got Donovan with the ball, nobody else touches it or does anything here, he gets Curry again on him, raises up and knocks down another 3. Hey the guy is averaging 29 points on 48 and a half percent from the field and 39 percent from downtown. That’s a monster season. Cleveland fans, what are you complaining about? Well I guess at least some of them are complaining because the team was 5-6 before he got injured. And even if you’re close to 50% from the field as he is, that means that for every shot like this that goes in, there’s one like this that doesn’t. And the team doesn’t get involved, doesn’t feel the ball, doesn’t have a nice rhythm. They just stand around and watch him. Not having Mitchell for these last few games meant that every other guy had a bigger responsibility to contribute but also more freedom to move and to just play. On this play, we got literally everyone moving, engaging and spreading out the defense, and the Cavs go for one of the craziest plays you’ll see which is a big to big pick and roll. And there’s no stopping this. In crunch time against Philly there’s no hero shots here, instead we got a high pick for Garland, and a great reaction by Allen on the short roll as he sees Embiid rotating, and finds Mobley for another big man connection. Whatever the frequency of plays like this is, the Cavs need to increase it. Like literally go all out on Allen and Mobley connections. And here’s the type of shot that Cleveland would get with Mitchell, at the end of a close game. This is literally 1 on 5 here with the rest of the Cavs watching. The very next play it’s the same thing. Isolation for Spida. This time he makes it. So that’s 1 make and 1 miss. 50% But nobody else touched the ball. You see my point? One thing that Donovan definitely doesn’t do is play off the ball. Follow Garland here as he’s going to curl inside then right back out to set a back screen for Niang who is almost surprised at how wide open he is. Instead of trying to take Harris here off the dribble, look at what Darius does. A little bump on the handoff like a quasi screen that completely opens up Struss outside. Now the defense is overreacting to that and Struss just bounces it to Allen for the easy finish.When you watch the offense without Mitchell, there seems to be more spontaneity, more free flowing movement, back screening for other guys, or random cuts to the basket, just simple intuitive plays off the ball. That’s the key here. Off the ball. Cleveland fans are mostly complaining because everything with Donovan comes with him having full control of the basketball. Otherwise, you gotta be crazy to think that having an efficient 30 point per game scorer on your team is a bad thing. Plus, he’s been the scariest transition weapon in the league this season. Check out the numbers here provided by NBA university, a great follow on twitter btw. Number 1 in points, meaning that there is a high volume of transition opportunities but also in the 99th percentile in efficiency. Both effective field goal percentage and points per possession. This is the perfect combination. And if you want easy points, this is a great way to get them. Also, he’s a great shot maker, and you always need a guy like that. Cleveland fans were loud after the first 3 wins without him, but then Miami caught the Cavs on a back to back game and used the opportunity to absolutely destroy them. I’m sure a guy like Mitchell would’ve been nice to have for that game. Look, there is no way that this team has a higher ceiling without him, but I get the idea that he does need to improve in some aspects off the ball, and focus more on the team overall and how all the other players would perform with him on the court.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ On a wild night in the NBA, the Lakers made a furious 20 point comeback in the 4th, and even took the lead with a minute to go. But then, Lebron started making some questionable decisions. The Lakers had a chance to even make it a 2 possession game but look at how disorganized they are. LA spent 15 seconds doing absolutely nothing. Lebron did however get a favorable mismatch against Kyrie and an empty side for him to cook. But check out what he does settling for the hero ball bailing out the Mavs. And the punishment came just moments later as Luka Doncic takes matters into his own hands, drives and attracts the attention of the entire defense, which left Kyrie wide open at the 3 point line. The kickout, the shot, and just like that Dallas is back in front. James then inexplicably walks the ball down the court wasting time for a potential second chance in case of a missed shot. Look at how nonchalant he is. The Lakers get the same switch once again, and the big man has to be ready to help on a potential drive. Lebron sees that Luka is on AD and tries a lob pass, but a great reaction by both Doncic and Ruchaun Holmes to intercept it and the Lakers have to foul. Kyrie makes them both and LA still has 1 final shot to tie the game but James is short on the fadeaway. This was one of the rare occasions where he made many bad decisions in the clutch. Moving on, Boston had a 17 point lead on the Bucks with 5:40 to go. But then Giannis, Dame and company showed just how dangerous they can be, and that no lead is safe when they’re on the court. Dame Dolla started to heat up with a three from way downtown, moments later with a blow by all the way to the rim and the layup. This was still a 9 point game with less than 90 seconds to go, but on the Giannis penetration you gotta help out, and Antetokounmpo flips it back to Middleton for an open 3 and he knocks it down. The Bucks get a stop and then you know it’s Dame Time in the clutch as he steps back for the three and buries it. All of a sudden it’s only a 3 point game. The entire arena is in disbelief. Thankfully for them, Tatum does the right thing and attacks the basket forcing contact and the refs call a foul. Milwaukee still has a lot of time left, and they go to Lillard once again who blows by White and is all alone for the dunk but he gets rejected by the rim. Unbelievable. That right there was the nail in the coffin and even tho the Bucks fell short, they showed us that you can never fall asleep on them, no matter how big the lead is. Things got insane in Indiana where they had a 1 point lead in the final minute and on this possession, they could have had full control with this shot by Buddy Hieeeld but he misses and the drama continues as the Raptors go the other way. And fighting for position, we got a foul on Haliburton against Siakam. Now I personally thought that this was a weak foul to be called in a situation like this, but it is what it is Paskal Siakam gets 2 free throws with a chance to put his team back up by 1. And he makes them both. Out of the time out the Pacers decide to go 2 for 1 having Tyrese racing inside. He stops fakes the defender in the air, steps through and double clutches this shot in. Phenomenal display of composure by Haliburton. But watch what happens on the other end. A great play design by Toronto tricking the Pacers with this fake as Barnes dunks it and he gets the foul. Things went from great to horrible for Indiana in just 3 seconds. Down by 2, Haliburton drives and feels a bit of contact so he throws it up expecting a foul call but he doesn’t get it. And all of a sudden they’re in a tough spot having to play the foul game now. After a back and forth fouls, ultimately Gary Trent Jr goes to the line up by one and he misses the first free throw. Shoots the second one and misses again, and now it’s chaos, the Pacers have a chance to win it. Watch Buddy Hield as he slips this screen and the Raptors leave him open. So now it’s Buddy with the shot for the wiiiiin but he misses. Maaan the entire arena would have exploded had this gone in. Toronto escape Indiana with a victory. OK so get this. I know nobody is on here to watch the Wizards and the Hornets, but I gotta show you some hilarious brainfarts in the clutch. Down by 4, Kuzma does a good job of penetrating and finishing with this nice layup, and look at the clock: there is almost 6 second difference here so all they gotta do is play defense, but of course Kuzma fouls right away leaving his team in shock. I’m sure the I didn’t hear you was a good excuse for him.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ There is not a single person in the NBA world that could have predicted this type of a turnaround for the Timberwolves. From a trade that they dropped everything for Rudy Gobert into a fiasco of a season where they ended up in the play-in and a disappointing first round exit. Fast forward just a few months and Minnesota is at the top of the western conference in a shocking turn of events. Right now it looks like Gobert was the perfect fit for this team all along. The Timberwolves are tied for the best defense in the league and this is a big part of their early success. But although everybody is talking about how Rudy is back to the defensive player of the year that he was, it’s not just him. In fact, it all starts on the perimeter. To me, the duo of Anthony Edwards and Jaden Mcdaniels is the best backcourt defense in the league. And boy, it has to feel great having your franchise player be such a dog defensively taking on every challenge and locking people up. Also, after struggling a lot in the first 7 games, Karl Towns is back as well and in the last 5- he’s been on fire shooting the ball. So when this team is playing at full capacity we now see what they’re capable of. But next up, I gotta show you what the Indiana Pacers are capable of. This is literally the most fun team to watch on league pass. The Pacers have the best offense in the league and it’s all around great. Tyrese Haliburton has emerged as a top 5 point guard in my opinion. He’s leading the NBA in assists per game and is orchestrating everything for Indiana. Just watch all the traffic here, of Pat Bev chasing him, Embiid in line, and Harris in front. But the unbelievable vision by Tyrese to see Toppin all the way on the other side as he throws a phenomenal lob and the dunk. Just watch all the movement in their plays and it’s easy to understand why they have the best offensive rating in the NBA. It should be no surprise that Indiana is leading the league in assists per game as a team. You see the ball flying side to side and generating open looks. They are in playoff contention and although it’s early we’re definitely seeing what they’re made of and how this will translate throughout the rest of the season. Now, the team that’s just like Indi for me but in the west is the OKC Thunder. But way more talented and dangerous. Tho even with all that upside I don’t know if anyone saw them in the top 3 of the west after the first month of the season. Chet Holmgren is showing that he is a stud, and deserves all the recognition that Wembanyama is getting. 17 points per game on 56% from the field and 46% from downtown. Dude is shooting 50-40-90 right now and a few days ago showed us that he is clutch as well. Of course Shai is the top gun, and he’s been unstoppable this season but this team is covered with some great players at every position. OKC has the 4th best defense in the league which is another pleasant surprise. But the biggest one to me was the fact that they have the best 3 point percentage in the NBA right now. They are sizzling hot from downtown at 41% And a big chunk of those shots come in transition as the Thunder love to run up the court and are the leaders in that category with 27 points per game. While nobody predicted this for OKC, I don’t think anyone could have even imagined that the Golden State Warriors will literally forget how to shoot the ball. Just listen to this: They are 15th in the league in 3 point percentage, but if you take away Steph Curry- the rest of the Warriors as a team would be second to last. That’s how much Steph is carrying this team. And if he doesn’t score, there’s only been 4 times in 15 games that another player has scored over 20 points. Just think about that for a second. How can you even win a game like that?! Klay Thompson is in his usual horrific slumps that he seemingly goes through every single season. And Andrew Wiggins is 25% from downtown which is astonishingly bad. Similar to Golden State of course nobody expected this stacked roster of the Clippers to be in this desperate situation but we’ve already talked enough about them. On a positive note I gotta mention the Orlando Magic who are not only in the playoff hunt, but also tied with Minnesota for the best defense in the entire league. Now that’s unexpected. But let me know what one thing that you didn’t expect this season. Subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Download the Gametime app (https://gametime.co/) and redeem code HEATCHECK for $20 off your first purchase (terms apply) Lebron James spent a lot of time testing out the grip on virtually every inch of the Lakers court. And rightfully so, as he surely didn’t want to risk potentially injuring himself like some other NBA superstars. Tyrese Haliburton almost does the full splits here and kind of tweaks his groin on the opening day of the in-season tournament. Donovan Mitchell also fell down and that game looked more like it was played on an ice skating rink than a basketball court. This is literally an injury waiting to happen. The league, and the media are trying to push it as a spectacle, but this project has a dark and ugly side. And players are starting to talk about it. Similar thing happened to Jaylen Brown as well and it came at the end of a close game against the Raptors, after which he was hobbling to the bench. Brown is the latest of a long list of players who fell and almost injured themselves on these new courts. And after the game, he felt that he had to speak up. The real problem gets exposed when you ask how could the NBA allow this? Wasn’t there any quality control testing during this process? And the shocking answer is no, there wasn’t. Wait, what? Well, ESPN published an article on October 30th detailing that 2 of the courts were still not finished. With the tournament being just 4 days away from officially kicking off, the league still had not completed every court. And the finished ones were done just days before that. The entire process was so rushed and chaotic, that there was literally no time for any testing or even fixing any issues. So naturally, the next question is why did they have to do all of that, why rush it like this, and risk injuring the players. And this is how we get to the spiciest part of the story. The money. Speaking of money, when buying tickets I wanna get what I pay for and not get ripped off by paying for a nice seat and ending up in the nosebleeds which happened to me one time. Now, here’s the background behind the in-season tournament that most people don’t realize. The NBA is at the tail end of the TV rights deal that was signed back in 2014. Back then the broadcasters led by ESPN and TNT agreed to pay a whopping 2 billion dollars for the games. But as much as it sounds, there are rumors that the next one which would come 2 years from now, could reach close to 8 billion. A 4 time increase. It’s going to be the first major deal after the widespread emergence of streaming, as more and more people move away from traditional cable TV. There’s going to be a lot of bidding between major streaming services and a lot of money on the table. Now all of that is great but in order to be able to command such a high price, you need to deliver on viewership, and the fact of the matter is that the league is struggling during some periods of the year. Sure, the playoffs and the finals are the top of the top. There is also excitement during the start of the season, and peak moments Christmas day or the All Star. But there are big chunks of November, January or March, where the NBA is heavily outperformed in terms of TV ratings by the NFL, college football or college basketball, especially during March madness. Also, besides the big marquee games, the younger generation won’t sit in front of the TV for almost 3 hours to watch Orlando vs Utah on a random Tuesday. 82 games is a lot so the average fan doesn’t have time to catch every single one of those. And this is ultimately what the league is trying to mitigate. Create more competitiveness, more drama and storylines and more reasons for the fans to tune in during times when they otherwise wouldn’t. A random game between Orlando and Utah could become the quarterfinal matchup of the in-season tournament. Whoa, who’s gonna reach the semis. Find out tonight on TNT. Or the deciding game of the group stage, such and such has to win tonight if they wanna advance to the knockouts. Tune in tonight on ESPN. That’s why they painted the courts in all those bright colors that give you headaches. 1, to appeal to the younger audience where the viewership is slipping and declining the most. And 2, for you to instantly recognize while flipping channels that this is a quote special game, and hopefully you stay tuned and watch the game. The league has 2 seasons to prove that this fancy new tournament generates more interest, and to sell it at a premium during the new TV deal. They made the decision to go ahead with it during the summer, and it was way too quickly for all the court designs and logistics to be sorted properly, so this is why they rushed it, and couldn’t properly test it. This is why we see players slipping and sliding all over the floor. Worst of all is that it doesn’t seem to generate any added buzz besides the backlash on twitter about the aggressive paint job. And truthfully this is borderline unwatchable.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Duncan Robinson went from averaging a career low 6 and a half points per game last season to a career high 14 and a half per game at the moment. He completely resurrected his career and went from the most overpaid player in the league, to nearly untouchable for trade- according to some Heat fans. So what changed? Well, a lot. And it’s more than his 3 point shooting. This was Duncan Robinson in the past few seasons on the rare occasion when he drove the ball to the basket. Whether it was a shaky handle or indecisiveness on the finish, it always looked bad. Now compare all of that awkwardness, to this crazy move that he pulled off on Victor Wembanyama. It’s a night and day difference. And he finished the game with 26 points. This season, not only does he go to the basket much more often, but he looks comfortable as well. Just look at the numbers. This season he’s taking 32% of his shots in the paint. More than double compared to last season, and there’s not even a debate when looking at the years past. And he’s finishing these slightly above league average, further solidifying the inside game as a new weapon in his arsenal. In fact, despite being known solely as a 3 point specialist, so far this year Duncan has made 35 threes and 27 shots inside the paint. That’s a 56 to 44% split. That’s incredibly well balanced for a guy that everyone knew he couldn't put the ball on the floor and wouldn’t do anything else besides shooting. And speaking of that, Robinson is back to being a dangerous shooter. 38.9% from downtown is still below the 2 seasons where he was an elite sniper, but he’s doing a bit more as well than just the regular catch and shoot. Just look at what he did to Jeremy Sochan here. The pump fake that Sochan really bites on and then we got the step back and a second pump fake that literally sent Jeremy flying out of bounds. You see how much more comfortable Duncan looks with the ball in his hands. He even got Wembanyama with it as well as he calmly relocates fires away and knocks it down. The rushing and hesitation are out of his system, and Robinson looks great on the floor with each and every game. After the 26 against the Spurs, he dropped another 26 last night as well on 6 for 10 from long range. And in the last 7 games, he’s averaging 17.1 points per game on 41.1% from downtown. Now that’s what I call an increase in confidence. And it directly correlates with the Heat record as well. Miami is the hottest team in the league at the moment riding a 7 game winning streak. BTW here’s a fun bit of trivia for you guys. The last time that the Heat had a 7 game winning streak it was with this roster believe it or not. All in all it seems like Duncan Robinson is back, and with his help, Miami will once again be a very dangerous team come playoff time. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Russell Westbrook was lights out before the arrival of Harden and now he’s miserable. So it’s gotta be because of him right? Aaa take a close look here. Harden himself penetrates and flips it back out to Russ who’s completely wide open, but he misses. Again, on the drive, you see how the defense shrinks around the Beard and he makes the right pass to Westbrook with nobody near him and all the time in the world but he misses again. This is from the same game, Harden would have dribbled back and forth here for who knows how much, but he sees his buddy in the corner open again. And another miss. In transition against the Knicks, it’s the same exact thing. A large majority of his 3 for 14 from downtown with Harden on the team were clean looks like this. So you already know that the difference in percentages is most likely a statistical anomaly from a bad shooter like Westbrook. Look at PG and Kawhi’s numbers and you see the same drop in percentages, but even Paul George took similar type of shots that he always does if you actually dive deep into his shot attempts. So as much as he’s become the punching bag ever since the trade, Harden is not the only problem. James himself offered a potential solution: I GOTTA SHOOT THE CATCH AND SHOOT And yeah, these are a few examples where you see him hesitating, but in terms of the efficiency, he’s actually ok. The problem with him however is this: Look at the amount of dunks and layups going down for Harden each and every year. From 12, now to only 3 per 100 possessions. A 4 time decrease. Fans might remember his killer stepbacks, but his bread and butter and what made him unstoppable was in fact getting to the rim. And from there he either scored or got fouled. The decrease in free throw attempts per game is also huge. 11 attempts from the line in 2018-19, to 6.2 last year in a full season with Phily to 3.4 in limited sample size right now with the Clippers. Right here you see that the speed and the explosiveness is absolutely gone. And while teams used to guard him from behind a few years ago because they knew he would blow by defenders anyway, right now it’s a way tighter contest on the shots, because opponents know that he doesn’t have the same speed. This happened to Allen Iverson, to Carmelo Anthony, to many other superstars. It’s no big deal to get older and lose the quickness. But when you still wanna be the same ball dominant player, and not adjust, not move without the ball, never set any screens, nothing…Then you’re basically a net negative type of player. And funny enough, it was the same scenario for AI, Melo and now for Harden. This is exactly why Philly got much better by just getting rid of him, and exactly why the Clippers are where they are at the moment. Let me know what you think. Subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ This is complete domination by the Wizards on both ends of the court. Block, fast break and a layup to go up by 23 points. And at this moment, at the end of the third quarter Washington is shooting lights out from the field and from downtown. And meanwhile Toronto is clueless, and they look like they couldn’t hit the ocean if they were standing on a boat. And in the middle of the fourth, with a 16 point lead, Kuzma, Poole and company probably chalked this one as a win already. What followed however was one of the most furious comebacks in the history of the Raptors franchise, and nobody was ready for it. It all started with this pick and roll. Kuzma and Jones don’t communicate and bump into each other. No help defense and an easy bucket. Next trip down, it’s Kuzma again on defense, and despite giving Siakam a big cushion, once Paskal attacks, Kyle is slow to react and Toronto gets another bucket plus the foul. Toronto is starting to believe that they can make a run here, and the Wizards are making it easier for them on the other end with a couple of unnecessary quick triggers, and some nonchalant finishes like this one. But nothing compares to what Kuzma did. On this scramble just watch what he does as he completely abandons the play, running all the way to his bench to signal for a replay. And in the meantime, the play continues, so he just inexplicably allowed for a 5 on 4 possession for the Raptors and Scottie Barnes gets an easy finish. So now all of a sudden it’s just an 8 point game with a lot left. The crowd gets into it now, and the defense is suffocating. Possession after possession Toronto clamped down their opponents, and there was no way the Wizards could score. The Raptors used some of those misses to storm out in transition and get the crowd even more hyped. Then Jordan Poole started doing Jordan Poole things, attempting this layup as if he’s in an all star game and not in the middle of a close game. And moments later we got this defense from him and his teammates. Seriously, what is this? The lack of sense of urgency here is astonishing. They just watched Barnes get all the way to the rim and finish. Only a 2 possession game, and right now it’s chaos. The Raptors are flying all over the court defensively, getting the steal and this is yet another fast break. Once they came all the way back, there was no letting up for Toronto as they execute another suffocating defensive possession securing the miss and going the other way with the chance for the lead. From the brink of the abyss, Toronto completed the comeback and now they need just 1 stop to do the unthinkable. Thing is, Washington made it easy for them, as Kuzma steps out of bounds and it looked like they gave up right there as you can see how reluctantly Poole is chasing here as he needs to foul and stop the clock. Nevertheless, Schroder calmly knocks down both free throws, to secure the win for Toronto as this team shows once again why you should never celebrate too early in the NBA. That’s it for now, subscribe for daily recaps and analysis.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ The Celtics put Jrue Holiday on Embiid, and the defensive matchups were pretty interesting so let’s break down why they did it. They would need to double Joel anyways, so, right here Jrue battles him and we got Porzingis as the roamer ready to come down and help. And look how Philly responds. Oubre slides down low to take Brown with him and now he’s unable to split the difference if the pass goes over to that side. Instead- now the entire wing is clear for Harris. Although Porzingis overcommitted here and on the swing pass we got an open shot for Tobias, the Celtics chose to live with that, and in this situation they got lucky with a miss. You see that they were comfortable to just let Holiday fight with Embiid and Kristaps comes later on as help, but this time he’s just a step late and his punishment is this poster dunk right in his face. Like, look at this, Jrue is literally in the paint pushing and shoving with a guy double his size. And having Harris up top makes it more difficult for Porzingis as he’s all the way out here. He commits to doing it on the dribble, and this could have been a pass to the cutter, instead it’s a tough 1 hander over 2 guys and Embiid misses. That’s a battle won for the Celtics. And the task was slightly easier whenever Joel got the ball further out. Holiday is a master when it comes to the perimeter, so any time you start further out that’s just playing to his strengths, and the Celtics won a lot of those possessions. But they lost a lot of them as well. Right here we got another David vs Goliath fight, and Horford doubles 1 pass away. And it’s off of Maxey, a 40% 3 point sniper. So we got an easy bounce pass, Brown is late on the rotation here and Tyrese knocks it down. And things got worse when Jrue was out for a breather and Horford was matched up with Embiid. Not that he can’t guard him anymore, but Joel was focused on scoring against big Al and in this game shots were falling for him. He finished the game with 27 points on 50% from the field. On the contrary, when Boston guarded him with Holiday plus a second guy, Embiid knew that he would probably look to find one of his teammates. The Celtics didn’t lose this game because of a big night for Joel or because the Sixers hit a bunch of threes off of his passes. In fact, the Sixers were 9 for 34, a horrific 26.5% from downtown. But having 13 more rebounds and 16 more points in the paint makes things a lot easier. If they were going to give this up, Boston needed to shoot lights out and they didn’t. In fact they were horrible from the field- 39.6%. And there’s no way you’re going to win a game like this. But even with all of that- they still got a chance to tie it at the end so I guess they can feel ok even in a loss. And this creative defensive strategy that Joe Mazzula tried out against Minnesota as well looks pretty interesting, although in my opinion Porzingis has some work to do in terms of timing his doubles, and making better decisions when he’s in that position as a roamer. Something that Robert Williams was extremely good at these past few years. On the contrary the Bucks defense at the start is horrible, and I talked about that plus a bunch more shocking things at the start of this season, so check out this video. Talk to you in the next one, peace out.

Download the Gametime app (https://gametime.co/) and redeem code HEATCHECK for $20 off your first purchase (terms apply) Out of these 2 players, who are you picking? Player A has a slight advantage in points, and more rebounds but has a lot more playing time to get all of his stats. While player B, is still there in scoring despite playing less, and much more efficient at getting his numbers. 56, 46 and 93%. I’m sure you’ll be shocked as I was to find out that A is one of the franchise cornerstones for Minnesota- Karl Anthony Towns, and B is none other than his backup. Naz Reid, who’s doing all of this off the bench playing behind both KAT and Gobert. This is an astonishing stat, and this next one might be even crazier. I’m not gonna make you pick here, but instead I’m just gonna compare Dillon Brooks and Kyrie Irving. Brooks is known as a below average shooter and one that often takes horrific shots when he should have passed the ball. While Kyrie is widely regarded as one of the best shot makers that this game has seen. Going from inside the paint- with his magical layups, to the killer midrange, and of course a 39% shooter from downtown. Well, things are flipped at the start of this season as Dillon is having an unbelievably efficient opening. 59% from the field and 56 and a half percent from the three point line, meanwhile Irving is struggling especially from outside, shooting a measly 24%. Of course this is 7 games into the season and I expect things to come back to normal, but I do believe that Brooks will have a nice season shooting the ball. Speaking of having a nice season- Lebron is going god mode game after game just to keep the Lakers afloat. Ever since that first game where Darvin Ham said he’s going to keep him at 29 minutes per game, James is averaging 37 minutes per game from then on. And look at the numbers with, and without him on the floor. With him they have the equivalent of the 7th best offense in the league and with Lebron on the bench, the Lakers are playing like a G-League team. That’s the best comparison that I can make. The story is similar on defense as well. 5th best defense when James is playing, and by far the worst defensive rating when he’s not. The responsibility that a 39 year old guy has on his shoulders to drag an entire team yet again in his 21st season in the league is unfathomable. But he does it anyways, and always in style- giving the fans exactly what they paid to see. Moving on to another guy that’s doing the unthinkable. At age 35, not only is Steph Curry showing no signs of slowing down, but he’s shooting a mind blowing 47.5% from downtown and at the moment, he’s actually on pace to break his own record of 402 three pointers made by nearly 80. Wait what? Yeah well it is still very early to make predictions, but this post on reddit breaks down just how that could become a reality. If he plays all 82 games, he's on pace to make 481.75 3's this season. But if he wanted to break his record of 402 3's in this season, he would need to average 4.81 3's a game for the remainder and not miss a single game. In the season that he broke the record, he missed just three games and averaged 5.1 3PM a game. And the games played seem like the toughest assignment here for Steph. Other than that, I believe that he’s capable of knocking down around 5 threes per game, which would make this an absurd accomplishment at age 35. Moving on to my fellow lefty Mike Conley, who had a turnover just 43 seconds into game 1 of the season. And if you thought that this would be that kind of a year for Conley you’re way wrong because Mike has not had a single turnover since that point. Entire 5 games without a turnover, and you can say 6 if you take away those 43 seconds at the start of the first one. And just to go crazy with the small sample size numbers here- right now Mike has 26 to 1 assist to turnover ratio which is impossible and will definitely not hold of course, but this has been a phenomenal stretch for him at the start. The same can not be said for the Bucks however who look horrible on defense. Last season they had the 4th best defense in the league while now they’re 24th. Near the bottom of the NBA. The drop in rebounding is even more glaring. 48 and a half rebounds per game last year that made them the best team in this category. Going from that to 40 and a half per game at the moment which makes them second to last. Unbelievable. It’s still early but Giannis, Dame and company have some work to do to improve. A guy that’s improved a lot is Tyrese Haliburton, who is generating 56 points per game this season. With an average of 24 points and 11 and a half rebounds on insane shooting percentages. By doing this, Tyrese is the leader of the best offense in the league at the start of the season with an offensive rating of 120 for the Indiana Pacers.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Look at how easy this looks. Harden gets the ball up top and obviously you gotta have a guy next to him. Also you gotta cover Kawhi in the corner, PG of course, and the big man down low, so the spacing is great. Russ sets a screen for Leonard to curl down the middle, and as we let it roll, Brunson is indecisive and doesnt switch, the help is late and we got the dunk. Again, on the high screen, Robinson has to come out because of the shooting threat from James, so you know that Harden is gonna blow by him forcing the help to step in. And that’s exactly what happens here as the beard finds Kawhi in the corner all alone and he knocks it down. But despite everything looking so simple and unstoppable for LA, they still lost the game. And there were some issues that we need to point out. First, the good things. Harden is a master in the pick and roll. He already has the chemistry with Zubac. Early on in the game, James finds him with this sick pass between Robinson’s legs, and the Clippers get some free throws out of it. Seeing that this works fine, moments later he goes for it again, and this time it ends with a bucket. Harden had a solid game as he didn’t try to force anything. 17 and 6 on 66% from the field. You see all the attention that he draws on the pick and roll, kind of making the defense fall asleep here and completely overlook Norman Powell who just slides along the three point line and is wide open for this shot which of course goes down. James actually spent a lot of time with some of the bench guys, which to me was a surprise since I thought that the best thing for the Clippers would be to have Westbrook out with the second unit. And this is how we get to some of the issues in that starting lineup. At times things just looked too stagnant with Russ and Harden taking turns 1 after the other on who has the ball in his hands. And there are possessions where Kawhi and PG, literally the 2 best shot makers and scorers for this team, are on the side just watching them dribble. Paul George was 2 for 11 in this game and some of it was because of forced up shots looking like PG was saying- okay it’s my turn to shoot now. There was some movement on like 2-3 plays where Westbrook set some screens, but before you even try to tell me that this looks good, just listen: The stagnant play when either guy is off the ball has been an issue ever since their time in Houston, so I’m afraid that it’s going to be the case here as well. These 4 guys spent just 19 minutes together, and scored just 37 points on 39 possessions. Their offensive rating of 95 points per 100 possessions would be dead last. On defense they gave up 47 points on 39 possessions with a defensive rating that would also be dead last. And I get it, I shouldn’t be overreacting after just 1 game, but seeing the same issues coming back to bite them is telling, and the Clippers have some work to do if they want to be a contender, instead of just relying on the big names that they’ve acquired. I actually warned you guys about this, and predicted all the good stuff that it could open up for Philly. It’s all in this video so check it out. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Watch this cheat code of a play. As Wemby hands it off, Collins sets a back screen and you already see the clear lane and the much smaller Eric Gordon who has to switch this. Tre Jones has an easy job of just throwing the lob anywhere near the basket and Victor just goes up for it and dunks it. If you thought that was easy let me show you this: First of all this is a 7 '6'’ point guard here initiating the play which is crazy, but then he just flips it to Vassell and goes to his spot and look, he doesn’t even see Gordon’s contest here. This is like playing against a little kid, and reminds me of this hilarious moment. Speaking of this, Wemby kinda does it right here. You see that on the roll, this is a 4 on 3. And Victor doesn’t rush here knowing that if he keeps the ball high nobody can get it. So he’s like this guy is covered so no, I could technically go behind, but this guy is wide open I’ll pass it here. Having the luxury to decide this calmly is absolutely insane. His teammates have the same luxury as well as the Spurs get Gordon on the switch again, and even tho Eubanks is pressuring Johnson here, he just flings it over his head in the general direction of the basket and Wembanyama gets it yet again. And watch Keldon afterwards he’s like, hey this is too easy all I gotta do is throw the ball over to him. You see in these clips that a lot of the points just come easy for Wemby. Everything is nice and smooth. I mean, he’s so smooth with his moves, that he completely faked out Eubanks without even taking a dribble. A no dribble shimmy fake into a three that swishes from a 7 '6'’ guy is unbelievable. Victor came up huge with his offense, but I wanna break down a situation from the other end as well. First play of the game, the Suns run a screen for Booker to curl inside and get the pass. Now ideally, Wembanyama should be closer to the shooter but instead he’s 1 foot in the paint as he knows that there’s no way the pass travels all the way over there without him being able to recover or even intercept it. So Booker does get it on the drive but this ends with a block, just because of Wemby’s unique combination of size and speed. Same thing on this play as Phoenix runs a nice action and they get a diving Eubanks, or if Victor closes the lane, then a corner shot right here. But Wembanyama just waits to see where the pass goes, as knows it takes him just 1 step to get to the rim and to the corner. And as you can see Eubanks gets it, Wemby is there in time for the contest and saves what should have been easy 2 points. This is some prime Anthony Davis type of defensive instincts, and athleticism so teams better watch out. And Davis himself is looking like a beast in the last few games, so you gotta check out what he does on defense. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Look at the insane defense here by AD. He’s overlooking the entire floor going side to side between his man and the ball. And as Eubanks dives inside and KD goes up for a pass, Davis is aware of both the big man, and Okogie who’s behind. Durant lobs it and AD reads this phenomenally, goes up and intercepts it like a free safety. Watch him at full speed to really appreciate the incredible defensive reactions. And when was the last time you saw someone block Kawhi’s jumper this cleanly? When Kawhi decides to shoot there’s all this space between them which Davis is able to cover to get the block. Ever since that debacle in the first game against Denver, check out AD’s numbers. An average of 28 points, 14 rebounds, on 57% from the field, along with some defensive player of the year performances getting 3 blocks and 2 steals per game in that span. KD scored 39 against the Lakers but he was only 2 for 7 against Davis. And you see exactly why. Watch this sequence where AD is all over Durant starting out at the three point line, then moving his feet on the drive and staying with him all the way for a great contest on the jumper. Against the Clippers last night, you could see him switched onto everyone from Zubac of course, to Kawhi, Paul George to whoever else he needed to guard to help the Lakers secure the win in overtime. So, are we gonna get a different tone now than this? Or, do we just burn these tapes with good performances? Especially on offense. Last night he was simply too quick for Zubac blowing by him and finishing. And when the Clippers tried to cheat and switched a smaller guy on him…aa yeah that was hilarious. PG got the same treatment as well down low and there was nothing he could do about it. Easy money. As you watch him obliterate the defense in these clips, I wanna point out that almost 80% of his shot attempts come from inside the paint. Davis is not messing around with silly fadeaways or unnecessary 3 pointers or trying to do too much on offense. It’s simple, get the ball and dominate inside. So I guess Lebron was right when he said this: With the Lakers just getting into a nice groove, check out their next 10 games: Very winnable matchups against Orlando, a struggling Miami, 2 games against Houston and 2 against Portland, and then they got Memphis and Utah. This is a great opportunity both for Davis and for the Lakers to build on what they got going right now. Let me know what’s their score in the next 10. That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out. 73 od 92 vkupno obidi mu se vo Paint (79.3%)

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ Through the first week of the NBA, the leading scorers are Luka, Steph and Cam Thomas. Wait what?! Thomas has started the season with 3 straight 30 point games and more impressively, shooting a blistering 61.4% from the field. Cam actually forced Jacque Vaugn to put him in the starting lineup after going crazy off the bench in the season opener. As you look at some of these crazy buckets, you already know that he’s never seen a shot he didn’t like, so he’s letting it fly from everywhere and so far he’s hitting it at a high rate. And now that he has the green light, it won’t be strange to see a 50 piece from him this season. Next up we got maybe my favorite guy on this list and that is Naz Reid. He moves extremely well around the basket, finishes strong and on top of that has an incredibly soft touch for a big man, both inside the paint, but also outside the 3 point line. Minnesota ran this screen the screener action where Naz sets the pick, then gets one himself getting an open look and knocking it down. The 16 points and 4 Rebounds so far come in only 25 minutes per game playing behind 2 starting centers in Kat and Gobert. I’ve been saying it since last season Naz Reid needs more space to showcase his game. So check him out when you watch the Timberwolves. Now we got an underrated rookie who’s being overshadowed by all the hype about Wembanyama and Chet Homlgren. The 12th pick in the draft Dereck Lively, had an impressive debut against Wemby in the season opener and Jason Kidd immediately inserted him in the starting lineup. The high flying big man is a good screener and quick roller to the bucket so he’s always in a position for something like this. The Mavs’ ceiling with Powell or Kleber as the starting center is definitely not high, so I’m glad that the rookie got the opportunity early on to gain experience. Moving on to a guy that’s putting himself in the most improved player conversation. Through these first 4 games Jalen Johnson is going from 5 and a half to 14 and a half points per game. A huge jump both in numbers but also in his overall fluidity on the court. Jalen is terrific at attacking the basket, and can finish through contact as you can see. His speed on the break allows him a bunch of easy ones as well, and opportunities like these are a big reason why at the moment he’s 66% from the field. With 7 rebounds, 1 block and 1 and a half steals per game, Johnson is showing that he’s growing into an all around guy that the Atlanta Hawks can count on. Next up, I already know that nobody watches the Pistons but Jalen Duren has been bulldozing through everyone in these first few games. Him and Cade Cunningham look great in the pick and roll, and I gotta imagine that Cade’s development will definitely help Duren as well. This is another guy who might show up in the most improved category. So far he’s jumping from 9 to 15 and a half points, and from 9 to 13 and a half rebounds per game. I know it’s very early in the season but this is promising. Alperen Sengun is another guy that won’t get a lot of screen time except from Rockets fans, but he definitely deserves it. Sengun is balling out at the start of the season, and if can keep up these numbers, he will be a phenomenal player. Alperen’s touch around the basket is silky smooth. He’s got the back to the basket game, he can turn around and flip it in, and can shoot the ball as well. I love his style. He even seems to be trying out this half Dirk-half Jokic shot which is kinda funny. One of the best passing big men in the league constantly finds his teammates at the right time, putting them in a great position to score. The Rockets won’t win a lot of games, but you need to follow Sengun’s development. Now, I had to get another personal favorite in here. That is Devin Vassell. His game is just incredibly attractive to watch, reminding me of Demar Derozan a little. He can drive to the rim and has one of the prettiest mid range pull up jumpers. I mean seriously, this is a beautiful shot right here. Vassell did sign a monster contract this summer so the expectations will be high on him, but I think he’ll definitely deliver. The way the spurs are building this team, and of course if Wemby develops, I think that they can be in the playoff mix in 2-3 years. Let me know who you will be following closely this season. Subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

Support by buying my NBA T-Shirts: https://heatcheck.info/ James Harden is a Clipper and things got really interesting but not only for them. Nobody mentions the Philadelphia side of this trade, so let’s go deep on this deal. First of all, we gotta look at this depth for the Clippers right now. You got a stacked starting 5 of Westbrook, Harden, PG, Kawhi and Zubac. And a legitimate bench unit of Bones Hyland, Norman Powell, Terance Mann who LA was able to keep in this deal, then PJ Tucker and Mason Plumlee. Now on paper or if you’re playing 2k this is interesting but we know that Harden is the one who is more efficient with the ball and will probably be the point guard which leaves Russ off the ball on a lot of possessions. Similar to how these 2 were operating in Houston. But having Westbrook out on the perimeter like this is not an option. This is in no way ideal for spacing, defenders sagged off of him in Houston clogging down the paint, and will do that again. So I guess that the Clippers will stagger their minutes having them both play the point as much as possible. Now if Ty Lue is brave enough to move Russ to the bench, now you could have this starting lineup of Harden at the point with PG at the 2, Terrance Mann and Kawhi as the forwards and Zubac, which first of all seems like a great fit. But also this would give Westbrook a great opportunity to lead the second unit and really be in attack mode doing what he does best- providing both scoring and playmaking for the others that are with him on the court. The lineups and the fit will be interesting to follow but 1 thing is obvious and we gotta mention it- this would have been a superteam like 6 years ago, now you got 2 guys that are way past their prime, and 2 that are always on the injury list. This team looks more like this Brooklyn Nets team, rather than the Celtics championship team. So we’ll see how far they can go. But if we move on to the Sixers, things got better for them in a very sneaky way. First of all, if you asked Philly fans this summer, they would tell you that they want to see Tyrese Maxey unleashed. He was playing in Harden’s shadow here, while everyone saw his rise. Look at his numbers. Not only is he extremely efficient, and a crazy good three point shooter, but right now in the 3 games playing without the beard this season Maxey is averaging a staggering 30 points per game on 56% from downtown. Now of course this is miniscule sample size, but you already see it in his game, and the Sixers offense under Nick Nurse that allows him to go all out. This stat from Kevin O’Connor shows just how big of a change they’ve made. Philly went from being second to last in handoffs per game, to number 2 right now. And from a pick and roll heavy offense to one of the teams that uses it the least. And you see how that translates. The offense is much faster, Maxey can use his quickness, and defenders have to be flying around the court, providing more space for Embiid inside. Ok so this is good for right now, but the messaging is clear that the Sixers will use these picks to get some guys right now. There are teams going nowhere that should blow it up and rebuild with those picks. The Raptors and the Bulls immediately come to mind and with that you got guys like Zach Lavine and Pascal Siakam as really interesting pieces who Daryl Morey could go after. And you know that he will be aggressive to get somebody. Morey has always been a win now type of GM. He knows that this roster by itself is not enough against the juggernauts that are the Celtics and the Bucks. So the moves for Philadelphia are not done yet. And that needs to be emphasized more when talking about this trade. For this team the fun part is yet to come. But I wanna hear what you think. Who do you think that this move benefits more? Let me know in the comments. Talk to you in the next one. Peace out.

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