NBA Play-In reaction: Lakers beat Timberwolves w/ Schroder's play + Hawks win | Draymond Green Show

What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Draymond Green Show. Now, although these play-in games are technically not playoff games, they feel like playoff games. They are playoff games. Like, so by NBA standard, of course they're not. We get it, it's the play-in tournament. But if you want my opinion, to me, that's like a marketing thing. Like, that's like, when you're playing in these games, you feel that pressure, you feel that, And also when you're watching these games, you also see that pressure that some guys struggle with during the playoffs when you watch these play-in games. And so that is the play-in game. No one wants to be there, um, yet it's there. It's been thriving for the NBA and it is here to stay. I hope you all enjoy it because it's not going anywhere. As always, as you know, we are live on Amp. Something new we may do here today at the end, we may take a couple questions. So stick around to the end of the show if you'd like to ask some questions and maybe we get to your question. If not, maybe next time. But we're gonna do that at the end of this show. However, two fun games, the Lakers versus the Timberwolves and also the Atlanta Hawks versus the Miami Heat. We're gonna get into that Lakers game first. Nah, let's get into the Miami Heat game first. News broke today that, uh, Trae Young— what, that ownership had given the green light for Trae Young to be traded. Um, why would that break on the day of the play-in game is a little beyond me. Um, I think that's not very good. Um, uh, unless you know the player that you are dealing with, if that player has a chip on their shoulder like like a Draymond Green, then it could work. In this case, I think it did. Quite frankly, something like that should not leak on the day of a play-in game, essentially a playoff game. And then you, you know, you look at it and it's like, oh well, they had this group on an airplane and they're going here. And it's like, okay, so there definitely was a meeting with the owner. All right. So, there may be some merit to it, but that's not either here nor there. Quite frankly, I'm really not gonna get all off into that. What I do want to get off into though is how Trae Young responded, how Dejounte Murray responded, how Clint Capela responded. Those guys responded in a major way. Trae Young came out from the gate getting in the lane, putting pressure on the defense. And ultimately forcing the Miami Heat to have to adjust their pick and roll defense. They went into a switching 5, and with switching 5, trying to stop Trae Young from getting downhill became another issue. What was that issue? That issue was Clint Capella. Clint Capella had 8 offensive rebounds, 21 rebounds in total. He had 4 points. So of course most of you will say, oh, Clint Capella did nothing. He didn't score. He only had 4 points. 8 offensive rebounds were huge. That means when, when Draymond Green was getting downhill and kicking out or shooting the ball and missing, no problem. Their best offense was the missed shot. Clint Capella on the offensive boards. And so you gotta give Clint Capella a lot of credit. You gotta give the focus that Trae Young came out in that game with. He came out locked in and you can tell right away he was moving the ball, he was getting downhill, he got guys involved. Sadiq Bae was extremely aggressive. He was getting 'em up, he was aggressive, and he kept the defense honest. And I thought it was great. Dejounte Murray is always gonna be great in a setting like this and in playoff settings, in any setting. Number one, DeJounte is a hooper, but DeJounte have what a lot of guys don't have in this league today. And that is he gonna get to his spot. He know exactly where he gonna wanna get to and he getting to that. It's essentially a go-to move. Although, you know, DeJounte gonna get to it how he gets to it, but it acts as a go-to move. He get into his mid-range, he pulling up. He shot a few more threes today. And also that is something that Quinn Snyder, their new coach, is pushing. Quinn Snyder plays more of an up-tempo offense, plays more of a move-the-ball offense, plays more of a we-want-to-get-threes-up offense, play a lot faster. That's what Quinn Snyder does. That's what he did for years in Miami, although they had to, I mean, excuse me, in Utah, although they had to slow it down some because they did have bigs. Yeah. They're pushing the tempo and that's what they do. And he got a guy like Trae Young, another all-star point guard, and Dejounte Murray. He's trying to push the pace and those guys were getting him up. Like I said, we saw the pressure that Trae put on their defense by causing switches. And once you had Bam switching off Clint Capella onto Trae, nobody else could rebound. There were even a couple rebounds where Jimmy was boxing out and Clint Capella got the rebound. And we all know how tough and physical Jimmy is. And Jimmy makes winning plays. Jimmy was boxing out, but it's a little different boxing a big out under the rim and then trying to get up and get that rebound. That's an appreciation that most people don't have and don't understand. Not speaking of Jimmy, I'm actually speaking of you fans. You just don't really be appreciating that. However, that really hurt the Miami Heat. And so what we have now is the Boston Celtics meeting up with the Atlanta Hawks in a 2-7 matchup. Boston Celtics should handle this series pretty easily. They should. I think chance they will. But when you have two dynamic guards like Draymond Green and like Dejounte Murray, guys who can get to it, guys who can play make for other guys, defend like Dejounte Murray can, you'll always give yourself a chance. So I think Atlanta's gonna give themselves a chance, but ultimately I'm not sure if they're deep enough to stick with the Boston Celtics. So that's that. That's that series. That's how that's shaping up. The Heat will, on Friday, they will take on the winner of the 9:10 game. That is the Chicago Bulls versus Toronto Raptors. We'll have to wait and check that out and see who comes out of there. Now, the exciting part of the night, the more exciting game was the Lakers-Timberwolves. Timberwolves dominated the game for 36 minutes and then things went south. Some of the things that hampered the Timberwolves, as upsetting as it is, are the same things that hampered the Timberwolves last year in a series where they could have and probably should have beat the Memphis Grizzlies and gave away 3 games. Like just gift wrap Memphis 3 games. Here, take it. And Memphis did what they were supposed to do. They closed it out. Some of the same issues. You get these big games, you get these big time matchups. You cannot have Karl-Anthony Towns in foul trouble every time you have these games. It's just not gonna work. He's too important to your offense. They are very shorthanded at the big position, which is why we saw a lot of Kyle Anderson at the 5 today. Nas Reid is out with a hand injury and Rudy Gobert is obviously out with the suspension. So they were very limited in size and KAT ended up in foul trouble again. And you just can't keep having that every time you have these big games. Anthony Edwards really struggled, struggled bad. I was a little disappointed in— Yeah. His lack of aggressiveness on the offensive end. I thought he settled early on. I thought he settled for a lot of standstill jump shots, get the ball, face the guy, face the guy up, and then was just settling for the jump shot. And I thought in turn, in turn, it cost him his rhythm. So he was never able to find a rhythm in the game. And ultimately that hurt the Minnesota Timberwolves. Ant-Man, did some things that I really loved and thought when I saw them that it would propel him to having a great game, which is wanted the LeBron matchup, was matching up with LeBron James. He was taking that matchup and he stood up to the challenge. I respect that. I can appreciate that. That's a young guy with that mentality. Don't look past that. One of the reasons Anthony Edwards will be very special in this league, that thing that he has right there. Yes, he had a very forgettable game, game that I'm sure he would, he'd love to forget right now. Quite frankly, tomorrow he will, 'cause you gotta move on to that next game. But the settling did not help him. There was something else that Anthony Edwards did that makes you, that like, if it doesn't excite you, I don't know what you're watching. And that is—

What?

Guy comes flying down the lane. If I'm not mistaken, I think it was Rui Hachimura. Anthony Edwards testing him at the rim. Really didn't have a chance to block it, but he just went for it. And because he just went for it, guess what he did? He blocked the shot. That's your star player. Your all-star guard at the rim challenging a power forward. Yeah. A power forward who's pretty bouncy, challenging him at the rim, blocks the shot. That's something you gotta feed off of. And I think Minnesota did feed off of at that point in the game, but eventually they also needed Ant-Man to turn it up offensively. And they never got that side of things. But if I'm a Timberwolves fan and I see some of those things that I saw from Anthony Edwards, I'm excited. I'm very excited because just the fact that he'll compete like that, the fact that he's will make those winning plays, that's something to hang your hat on. And that's something to build on if you're a franchise, that's something to build on if you're a coach. Like I know he got that thing. Now we need to teach him. I thought Ant-Man took some very young man shots in some of those threes that he was taking and settling for, which cost him his rhythm, like I said. Unfortunately they didn't win because if they did, everybody would be talking about this guy. Kyle Anderson was incredible. Kyle Anderson got a steal on LeBron. LeBron tried to throw it out of like the double— No, Anthony Davis, I'm sorry. Anthony Davis tried to throw it out of double team. Kyle Anderson, go-go gadget arm came outta nowhere and got the steal. And I started yelling like, see, I knew that wasn't me, man. If you remember back when we played the Timberwolves recently, maybe like a week and a half, 2 weeks ago, I turned the ball over at the end of the game. And I'm telling you, Kyle Anderson's arm was not there. Like, I can pass the ball. I'm getting the ball to Klay. We're about to shoot free throw. His arm was not there. Those go-go gadget arms come outta nowhere and he make a lot of plays. He get a lot of deflections, comes up with a lot of loose balls. That is one of his skills. He has a knack for that. It's incredible. And you'll always underestimate how long his arms are and they just come out within the blink of an eye. And so just here to tell y'all, yeah, we ended up losing that game and I know I turned the ball over, but it's Kyle Anderson. However, Kyle Anderson played an incredible game. He guarded AD as good as anyone has guarded AD. He stepped up to the challenge and did that with all the foul trouble that Cat was facing. And quite frankly, when he was on AD, he was much more effective than KAT was when KAT was on AD. Offensively, he kept getting to the floater. One thing that I was upset to see them get away from was the Ant and Kyle Anderson pick and roll because they just kept getting the drop off and Kyle Anderson kept getting a little same push shot and he was knocking it down. And that really had those guys rolling in the first half and they went away. They never came back to that in the second half. Also the mark of a young team and where, as he continued to grow and blossom into himself, he'll start to notice and pick up on those things. But as I said, you just needed a little more aggression. I also thought Minnesota's coach, who I am a huge fan of, huge fan of Finch. I think he does a great job. I think he's an incredible coach. I thought he could have got them into some more sets. A lot of that second half, they were coming down, not really getting in the sets, getting bad shots. And then late there in the game, they kept going to like this Carl Towns pick and roll, getting a switch and iso on KAT, but they weren't getting anything out of the iso. They were just loading up on KAT and he was taking tough shots. There was a couple times, you know, where—

Yeah.

You know, you're like isoing him against LeBron or getting a switch. They gotta switch a couple times at the top of the key, like at the free throw line and a little bit above the free throw line, top of the key with like Austin Reeves on him. But they're so loaded up, like there's nowhere to go. And they kept going back to that. Like the last 5, 6, 5 minutes of the game, they went to that every time. And like at some point I wanted to see Anze, man, move out the way, let me go. Let me go handle what I can handle. Let me get downhill. Those last couple possessions, he got to the hole a couple times, and that's what you needed to see more of. And they kept running the pick and roll, getting the iso switch, and I just didn't like that. The Lakers are a very lengthy team. You're isoing, they're in gaps, they're closing those gaps, they're making the floor look super crowded, and it was not beneficial. And they got nothing from it and just kept going to it, and I did not understand that. Yeah. And ultimately it ended up costing them the game. A lot of credit to Darvin Ham. Why does Darvin Ham get a lot of credit? Darvin Ham gets a lot of credit because the X factor in tonight's game for the Los Angeles Lakers was none other than Dennis Schroder. And Schroder, what Dennis, Dennis is back with the Lakers because Dennis has a relationship with Darvin Ham. Who was Dennis's assistant coach when Dennis was thriving in Atlanta. If you remember how Dennis left, there was the news of the contract that he didn't accept and you know, so on and so forth. He left and went to the Boston Celtics once the market went dry. Didn't work out there, got traded to Houston. Season over pretty quickly. And then he ends up in— Miami. Back with the Lakers after having an incredible EuroBasket last year, which also probably helped Dennis end up back with the Lakers. Um, and because of his relationship with Darvin Ham, he comes back with the Lakers. The Lakers take another chance on him. And not only was he the X factor tonight, but he's been quite an X factor for much, if not longer than the second half of this season. Yeah. He's been a real key guy for the Lakers and tonight he was huge. He was huge. He made every big shot. He made big buckets. He guarded extremely well. Like you have to give a lot of credit to Dennis Schroder and what he did. Yeah, LeBron was great. LeBron had 30, 11, and 6. AD made some huge plays down the stretch defensively and offensively. But Dennis Schroder, It was the reason that the Lakers was able to pull that game out. So I give a lot of credit to Schroder. I give a lot of credit to D Ham for seeing and knowing and understanding and trusting your gut and knowing that this guy will eventually be able to help our team on a night where D'Angelo Russell struggled, 1 for 9 from the field. Austin Reeves was okay. He was okay. But Dennis Schroder, Got it done. And ultimately was the reason that the Lakers was able to take that game. Now the Lakers are facing up with the Memphis Grizzlies. I think this is a tough matchup for Memphis. Number one, the Lakers have been a very hot team. And number two, they match up well with Memphis. LeBron, it's LeBron, Draymond Green, AD and Jaren Jackson, two great shot blockers, rim protectors. Jaren Jackson will be able to pull AD from the rim. AD doesn't really like to guard a 3-point shooter. So I think something to watch there is Jaren Jackson trailing into the 3. AD will usually retreat back to the paint. And that's something that he's gonna have to be aware of when he's guarding, when he's matched up with Jaren Jackson, if he's retreating to the paint, Jaren Jackson loves the step-in 3. He loves the trail 3 and he knocks it down. That could hamper them. On the flip side, Ja Morant loves to get to the paint. You got a shot blocker like AD at the rim. You got Jared Vanderbilt mucking stuff up. LeBron's mucking stuff up. The Lakers is absolutely great at guarding the paint with the length that they have on their team. That can make things a little tough. For the Grizzlies. As far as, you know, I'm sure Grizzlies, the Grizzlies will probably match Dylan Brooks up with LeBron James. Like I said, Bron is Bron. Bron's gonna do what Bron does. X factors in this series, they'll need a better D-Lo.

Mm-hmm.

But they've shown you tonight that they can win without D-Lo playing well. As long as Dennis can play well, and I think Dennis will continue to play well. He's been playing well. X factors. Malik Beasley has to show up. The Lakers will need some outside shooting. The Memphis Grizzlies are very good at protecting the paint as well. The Lakers will need outside shooting. Malik Beasley, this is why you were brought here. It is very important that Malik Beasley shows up.

Yeah.

And have a good series. That'll be huge for the Lakers. As I said, they'll need the 3-point shooting. They'll need him to step up and they'll need one of either Jarred Vanderbilt or Rui Hachimura to step up. Jarred Vanderbilt is not much of an outside threat, but he uses that to his advantage and get offensive rebounds and backdoor cuts and works the dunker. Rui has been shooting the ball a little better outside. If I had to guess, the Grizzlies are going to force him to make those shots and beat them. But yeah, I think this will be a good matchup starting off Sunday in Memphis. I expect LeBron to get the tempo of the game where he think they should have the tempo and not just try to get up and down with that young Memphis team. I can't foresee them doing that.

Yeah.

I could see Bron being very methodical about his approach and what he's always done against young teams. Even dating back to his Cleveland days. If you wanna think back to that Boston, I know Jackson here remembers it very well where Boston was up 3-2 going into game 6 and 7 and Bron played 47 minutes in or 46 minutes in game 6 and 48 minutes in game 7 and walked them down very methodically. And so I expect to see some more of that from Bron to try to slow down the young, fast Memphis Grizzlies. But it's gonna be a very, very, very, very tough series for both teams. Like it won't just be tough for Memphis. As far as the Lakers going, it won't be easy for the Lakers. Like it'll be tough for them as well. So I think it's a very tough series. I probably should be careful with giving someone some bulletin board material because this will be our next opponent. When we go ahead and take care of our business. But if you need bullets and board material at this point, then so be it. But I think the Lakers, I think the Lakers will take this series. I think it'll be an upset. Won't be easy. It would not be easy. But I think the Lakers may take this series. Just because they'll understand it and they'll slow it down. Now, Bron made some very uncharacteristic passes tonight and he looked gassed at times. I was very shocked at that. A couple of those passes Bron made. So we'll see how that plays out. Again, this is another young team that's getting up and down and ultimately you never gotta question whether Bron is in shape or not, but he did look a little tired tonight.

Yeah.

Also a quick turnaround from a Sunday game that they had to win, an emotional game that they had to win on Sunday. But Minnesota also had an emotional game that they had to win on Sunday and they had to fly. So what you make of that is what you make of it. I don't know. But I think this is gonna be a very tough series, but I got the Lakers ultimately edging the Grizzlies out. Okay. I think they'll be able to capitalize on some of the mistakes. It'll also be interesting to see if the Grizzlies have grown. We remember some of the mistakes that they were making in the playoffs last year, especially in that Minnesota series where Minnesota was just making the mistakes and giving them the games right back. But we'll see if they've grown. If they have grown, it's gonna be very tough on the Lakers and my opinion will be wrong. But that's yet to be seen. So we shall see. Jackson, can you help us take a few callers before we get outta here?

Let's do it. First time taking callers live on Amazon AMP. I have opened up the phone lines. Let's see who we got. Okay, first caller. Here we go.

You mentioned obviously Ant had a rough night in this one in a pretty big spot that you hope he can bounce back from, turn into a positive. Was there a game or a moment for you early in your career that didn't go how you hoped, that showed you a specific area you could improve on, or that really brought your motivation up to another level that you can think of?

Well, I mean, me, different than Anthony Edwards, I was a second-round pick. I didn't play much in my first two years. In saying that, we did go to the playoffs my first year, and I played some pretty meaningful minutes. Ultimately, beating the Denver Nuggets in the first round. David Lee got hurt. And so I was able to play a little more minutes in that series and then losing to the San Antonio Spurs in the second round. And what that taught me in that series with the Spurs were like just how to work on your weaknesses because they just plotted on every weakness that we had. And whatever your weaknesses were, Bill Belichick has this saying of making guys play left-handed. And they, the Spurs, once you got to them in the playoffs, they made you play left-handed. And so I think for me, it was just really understanding at that point, like first round, it's tough, you know, and teams are scouting you in and they take things away. You get to the second round, the two best things that you have are taken away. And now what are you going to next? And so it really taught me to expand my game. And work on the things that I was weak at early on in my career.

Perfect. Let's do another question or two. Let's go @SeddyDavis. Invite coming your way. Remember to join and unmute your mic.

Okay. Draymond Green, how do y'all think, how do you think y'all match up well with the Kings in this upcoming series? Well, I think, I think number one, we're two very fast-paced playing teams. Both teams get up and down. This is a coaching staff that knows us very well. Also a coaching staff that we know very well. We definitely run some similar actions. They play a little more through Sabonis maybe than the Warriors play through me, you know, because we do run, I think more pick and rolls than they run. They're not a very pick and roll heavy team at all. And then you got the NorCal, you know, the battle for NorCal. It's been a long time since this game has mattered. And when I say this game, I mean Dubs versus the Kings, other than for little bragging rights out here in the Bay Area or, you know, in NorCal. It's been a long time since it matters. So I think that, that will also play a difference. Play, make a difference, play a role in how this series goes. Crowd's gonna be really loud. And then just from a pure matchup standpoint, you know, I think for the most part we match up pretty good. Like I said, they, you know, they play Sabonis a lot on the wing, myself and Looney, and J-Mike being accustomed to guard, like we can guard out on the wing, so.

Yeah.

So, you know, I think that's an upper hand that we have is that we're not your typical team where bigs can't step out on the wing. I think, you know, with us being able to step out and guard, Sabonis out there, he's a great playmaker out there. I think, you know, that's a benefit for us. Just not having that worry of your bigs can't step out and check. You know, but they're, I think for them, they got pieces all over the board. Harrison Barnes has been really good for them. Keegan Murray shot the lights out of the ball. Kevin Huerter has shot the lights out. Fox, we all know what Fox is doing. He gets to his mid-range, he gets to his spots. He's, you know, a one-man fast break, pushing the tempo, one of the fastest guys in the league. So, you know, it'll be a tough matchup, very tough matchup. And saying that, I think, you know, we go out there and we play Dubs basketball, compete on both ends of the floor, how we know we need to compete in order to win games at this time of year and at this level. I think we'll be just fine and we match up well.

Last question's actually gonna be for me.

I'm curious about this because Kings' first time in the playoffs, they got this Light the Beam thing going. Every time I watch their games on TV, the crowd, it's like, it feels like Oracle and like your guys' early years. How does playing in Sacramento this year, their environment, where does it rank in terms of, at least they haven't, not in the playoffs yet obviously, but in terms of toughest environments to play in so far?

Well, honestly, a tough environment to play in the regular season isn't a real thing to me. I've played in some of the biggest environments in sports. And so I don't really view, but what I will say is this, you know it's gonna be a crazy environment because when we just played them the other day and their starters weren't playing anything, it was loud as hell. When the game first started, the starting lineups, they were super loud. And so I expect it to be crazy electric in there. This is a team that hasn't been to the playoffs since 16 years, but has always had a fan base that will support, you know, and this is a very eager fan base. I know it's gonna be super loud in there, but you know, we are an hour and 10 minutes away from home. So I expect Dub Nation to be thick in there as well. I don't know if everyone has read, but this is the— the SAC has the most expensive ticket ever, which is absolutely crazy. But yeah, I think as far as the environment goes, there's no regular season that can prepare you for what a playoff environment is gonna look like. But just by us playing them the other day, I think it's gonna be absolutely insane.

Yeah.

And that's what you live for. And I'm looking forward to it because like, that's why you play the game, man. Like you go through this 82-game season, getting beat all up to ultimately get here. And we here now. So you look forward to thriving in those type of environments. That's where you gotta, that's where you make your money.

That'll conclude the call-in section today. Thank you to everyone who called in. This was a fun first attempt at this. If you want the pod on your normal pod platforms, it will be out in a little bit. It'll be out on the Volumes YouTube channel in a little bit. But Dray, the next time people might hear from us might be after a playoff game.

We definitely tapping in Saturday. It's absolutely necessary that we chop it up after the game on Saturday to make those mad who's gonna say, he just played a game and he should be in his hotel room looking at some film or something. You gonna look at this pod or something. Till next time, that's a wrap. The Draymond Green Show. Peace. What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward.