LeBron & Co. Overcome Injuries to Doncic & Reaves

You were at the Lakers Rockets game, uh, on, uh, I guess Tuesday night.

I my days are blended together, um.

2-0 Lakers right now.

Luka Doncic, Austin Reeves has not, have not played a minute.

Kevin Durant did play in the game two, was effective in the first half to a degree.

Uh, 3 points in the second half, more turnovers than points in the second.

The defensive strategy by JJ Reddick was excellent.

They blitzed Kevin Durant every possession.

Somebody new is stepping up around the Lakers every single game.

Luke Kinnard goes for 27 in game one.

Marcus.

Smart 25 and playing like Defensive Player of the Year type defense on Durant in that second half.

Uh, how surprised are you that we're talking about the Lakers being up 2-0 on Houston?

I'm gonna say medium surprised.

I'm not going to pretend that I predicted this would happen, um, but I'm not shocked.

This is a team in Houston that has struggled in a million different ways.

And I think the fact that they had a good closing kick to the season was kind of fool's gold for a lot of people because I think 6 of the teams that they won against were either tanking or didn't make the playoffs.

This is a team that since day one of not having Fred VanVleet there, has not had.

Any luck sort of looking organized, especially in the clutch, especially when things get tight.

They all sort of look like they're chickens running around without their heads.

And then also, specifically, you got to give so much credit to JJ Reddick here, who if any coach could game plan their way out of having their two stars down.

I think it's him.

I'm not going to say JJ Reddick is the greatest coach of all time.

He's got a long way to go before he gets there.

But his ability to look at a situation and figure out the little corners and the in and sort of how do I take advantage of this and how do I take advantage of that really reflects his personality on the court.

We watched him do that as a player over and over again.

We know after listening to him on podcasts and on TV how analytics heavy he is.

He is and how much he's like, great, this is what happens when you do this.

Let's do this.

Um, and I give him a ton of credit.

You know, it's funny.

I don't know how much of himself he sees in Luke Kinnard, but he is certainly giving Luke Kinnard opportunities to do things that is Luke Kinnard's previous coaches largely haven't done, certainly in the NBA.

Um, I, I, I just think that the coaching job here has been great.

And then, you know, look, LeBron James.

I know we're used to it.

I know we are, but like, come on, what he's doing right now, when he made that dunk, I was just sort of.

I was sitting next to one of the NBA photographers at the game actually.

And he, he sort of follows, you know, with the camera, a lot of these guys do video now and follows the camera and some of those great social media shots that you see the NBA put out.

And he does it and he put his, he normally has one hand on the camera as he's going, and he put, because it's on a tripod, he put his second hand on the lens as LeBron sort of went to the basket.

Because everybody in the building knew, oh, this is about to be something.

I need to make sure I get the shot.

I, I, he's been exceptional.

And I wonder how much that is a reminder to himself, most of all, to the Lakers, to any other team that might pursue him.

Hey, if he's on a team with a more balanced roster, with more defense on the team so that his, You know, defense at age 41, 42 is not as much of a liability on a team without so many guys who do basically what he does or need the ball in their hands.

What can he be?

And I think he's showing that in this series so far, and also just the sort of expansiveness of his game.

Because one thing that was patently obvious, whether you're watching on TV and certainly in the building, Kevin Durant does not like to be double teamed.

He doesn't like it.

He's never liked it.

This has been a thing about Kevin Durant, one of the books on Kevin Durant for a while, does not like it.

And especially right now, it seems pretty clear that I'm trying to think of the right way to phrase this.

I hate saying he doesn't trust his teammates, because that implies there's a rift, and I don't know how much of a rift there is, vis a vis burner, etc.

He doesn't seem to think his teammates are going to be able to get things done.

And by the way, last night he was correct.

When he passed the ball, they did not, they did not pay those passes.

Their three-point shooting has been not good.

I, I just, as I said, I'm not, oh man, I predicted they'd be up.

Lakers would be up 2-0, but I'm not shocked.

And now, I don't know, man.

It seems to be, do you think that the Rockets can dig out of this?

Winning 4 out of 5 against a Laker team that may also get one or both of Austin Reeves and Luka Doncic back before this series is over seems improbable, especially this Rockets team that has so many fundamental flaws, and LeBron's the most rested he's been going into a playoffs, and this is where I was gonna go with like LeBron, like Kinnard, awesome, Marcus Smart, awesome.

JJ Reddick.

I, after having one of the worst coaching weeks I can remember towards the end of the season, JJ Reddick has.

Uh, salvage that he's erased that with the job he's done in this series, but LeBron is remarkable.

Like, and I wrote about this in SI.

com, but like we can have a debate over the GOAT.

It's, it's a reasonable debate.

You like Jordan.

You like, I mean, it depends on what you're looking for, right?

Like were Jordan's best years better than LeBron's best.

I, I don't know.

I just think the debate itself.

But there, there is no debate over which player has had the greatest career of all time.

LeBron James had the greatest career of all time.

He is 41 years old and he's going up against guys that, uh, well, look, let's go down the list.

Ahman Thompson is almost half his age, 22, 23 years old.

Jabari Smith Jr.

LeBron played against his dad.

Like that his first game.

LeBron is the dad.

He's playing with Bronnie.

I mean, the whole, I looked at on that court at one point and Jabari was on the court and Bronnie was on the court at the same time, and I'm like, this is insane.

But like Houston's game plan clearly is to be physical with LeBron.

Jashaun Tate's trying it.

Josh Okogi tried it.

Tyre Easton is trying it.

Alman Thompson is trying it.

Like they're trying to be physical with him.

He is brushing these guys off like they're waves on the wall.

He's just powering through them, and you talked about that dunky ad in the, in the 3.

Quarter, I think it was when he blew by Durant and had to reverse.

How about the one at the end of the game where it's like you, Marcus Smart pulls the ball out.

You know, LeBron's kind of moseying over halfcourt.

Tarry Easton's kind of standing there and LeBron turns the afterburners off on, gets by Tarre Easton, who's like 1012 years younger than him, get, gets a bounce back from pass from Smart and puts a two-handed dunk down.

Remarkable.

Like what this guy is doing at age 41.

I'm confident that we will never see again on a basketball court ever.

Other sports maybe, could we have a quarterback?

does in football.

We've seen it.

Uh, Ovechkin in hockey, still doing his thing.

Maybe you got guys like that, but a basketball player on the court, 41 years old, still being the most athletic guy on the floor, the most physical guy on the floor, and at times on a skill level, the still the most skilled skilled guy on a basketball floor is something we will never see again.

He was the best passer on the floor last night.

And also as Kevin Durant had all these double team problems, it's not like the Rockets never doubled LeBron.

They did at certain.

Points of the game.

And he was just like, oh yeah, by the way, I'm also a point forward, and I'm going to make all the right reads, make all the smart plays.

He's one of, always been one of the better passers in the game.

It just, you got to see all the things that you know he can do.

And I don't think he can be like that every night.

I don't think his defense is what it used to be.

I think as you go through the grind of the playoffs, he's going to get tired even with the rest he's had going into the, from this season.

This week, these two weeks, I wouldn't bet against him.

And I've been just super impressed, and I think that Houston has just some deep fissures that are not going to get solved in, as you said, 4 out of the next 5 days.

Nothing's working.

Nothing's working for them.

Like the offense has been uninspired.

The 3-point shooting hasn't been there.

Kevin Durant.

Um, give him credit for playing through an injury that sounds like if, if he wasn't playing in a playoff game, he wouldn't be playing in these types of games.

Shengoon, uh, you've got to be an all-star, man.

You can't be leaving five-footers short at the rim.

You, you can't be making the kind of bad decisions that you're making out there on so many possessions.

He has not been the number 2 guy that Kevin Durant needs this team to be successful.

Look, I think it's interesting, like, you know, now if you're JJ Reddick, You don't have to push Doncic back.

You don't have to push Reeves back.

You can cross your fingers, hope that both are ready for a second-round matchup against Oklahoma City.

They will still be massive underdogs against Oklahoma City.

The two games they played in Oklahoma that I remember, I think there's only 2 in Oklahoma.

They got boat raced in those games, like, not, and I bet Donci still has some PTSD from that last game that he played there, but it's just now intriguing to have.

LeBron at this level, Don is coming back, Reeve's coming back.

Some of these other guys that Ayton has played pretty well in some of these games, Marcus Smart, Kinnard making shots, got a whole lot interesting in that second round.

That's, that's for sure.