Spurs-Lakers Reaction: It’s time to take San Antonio SERIOUSLY | The Dime With Josh and Kwab

Spurs-Lakers Reaction: It’s time to take San Antonio SERIOUSLY | The Dime With Josh and Kwab

Quab, it’s time to have real conversations about the San Antonio Spurs. We’ve been having real conversations. Yeah, we’ve been having real conversations, but we’ve been having we haven’t had like real conversations. Like, okay, so now we about to have a real conversation. Yeah. I’m talking like we were like, “Oh, they’re good. They’re better than we thought they would be. They’re a playoff team. I’m talking real like real conversations.” Let’s like Let’s get down to business and like what are these guys? Because what this is it’s we’re we’re a quarter way through the season now. Yep. They’re playing without an alien. Yep. Without the alien. And they’re still kicking everyone’s butts. Yes, sir. So, let’s get to it. The Spurs beat the Lakers in Los Angeles 13219. Stefan Castle 310 and 60. Aaron Fox 20 points. Cin Johnson off the bench at 17-8. For the Lakers, Luca Donuch 358 and five. LeBron James 1915 and eight. and Mak is SM 26 points, eight of 14. He took 14 threes. We’ll get into it, but he had 26 points. Man, listen. I said before the game, Quab and I private conversation can back me up on this. I think the Spurs are a problem for the Lakers because the Lakers just do not do well against fast and athletic teams. I like this matchup. I said that I actually think that as currently constructed without WBY that they would actually give them more of a problem they did the last time they faced. Has nothing to do with Webby. I still think WBY is great. I just think that when you get a bunch of guards like Kron Fox who didn’t play last game, Stefon Castle aggressiveness fast. The Lakers are just not going to be able to keep up. And that’s pretty much the story of the game. They got whatever, and I mean whatever they wanted on the offensive end, driving kicks for threes. Dear Fox, Stefon Castle able to get by Austin Ree, Luka Donic at at will. Even Marcus Smart I thought didn’t play well defensively this game. you know, Marcus is supposed to be the guy they signed to kind of, you know, fix those holes on the perimeter. If Marcus can’t go back to what he was even close to being like when he was a defensive player of the year, and obviously that’s unrealistic. He’s had injuries since then. He’s older. But if he’s going to give this type of performance, and I’m not even blaming him because I think out of the three that I just mentioned, he was the best defender out of all of them. But if he’s not going to be this lock down defender, the Lakers are in trouble because I don’t know how they’re going to guard a Spurs team, a Thunder team, a Rockets team, there’s just no way you’re going to be able to keep up with teams that are more athletic than you. And today, the Spurs showed their youth, their athleticism, their shooting, their balance, their guard play. We’ve talked over and over again about how Stefon Castle, Dylan Harper, and De’Arren Fox, how is that going to look like? How are they going to coexist? Look great to me. Looks fine to me, you know. you know, in in a game where they’re missing Victor Webb and Yama. It’s not like Garren Fox had to come rescue them. Everybody did their part. I think Luke Cornett is also playing. I thought Lucette had the biggest play of the game when the tide was turning at the end of the first half. Things were going back and forth. He had a huge block on Austin Reeves that I think just pretty much silenced the crowd. Spurs quarter on the opposite end and that was pretty much it. The Lakers really never got too close after that. It was a double- digit lead at halftime and I don’t even think I think they got it to nine or something like that, but it it was it was all Spurs and it was just because the Lakers just did not have any answers on the defensive end on how to stop the Spurs. And you know, this is a San Antonio team that has beaten the Rockets. They’ve beaten the Nuggets. They’ve now beaten the Lakers. They’re going to play OKC on Saturday. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but even if they lose that game at some point, and I am at that point, I think Spurs fans have been at this point. They’ve been in our power ranking segment just kind of like little low here. Come on. They’re, you know, I I was hesitant to put them up there just because it’s new. You know what I mean? Like this team was below 500 last year. I know they’re better this year. They’re they’re getting healthier. Players seem to know their roles more, but you still kind of want to see more before you kind of just throw a stamp on them. I’m stamping them. this team is for real. Like for real for real. Like I think we’re going to be talking about this team late in May for sure. Yeah. And that’s that’s uh the way they played tonight and that’s like without without Wii. And I like you said before before uh uh this game started you you made the point was like um even though they have they don’t have WBY this is a bad matchup for the Lakers just because of how how uh fast these guards play and how slow and old the Lakers look at times and it kind of that was felt like the case of the game and um with the Spurs team we’ve been waiting for every all your guards to get healthy because we we’ve seen we’ve seen what Dylan Harper was doing at the start of the year uh off the bench and then he got hurt. We’ve seen what Castle was has been doing being scoring but also being a playmaker and then he was out. We we we seen what Fox was doing when he came back and he’s been the clutch player that he’s he’s been even though people some people made a big deal after that first game when he took that one shot, but we know how good Fox is and how well he plays. Having those three guards in your rotation is crazy because at any time you you’re gonna have at least two of them on the floor at the same time and your pace is going to be ridiculous offensively and defensively. And the point made, they got whatever they wanted. And it wasn’t only it only wasn’t them because uh when Kell Johnson checked in the game, I think he scored um I think 13 points or something something like that like ear early on. on it was like on a ridicul ridiculous run and he’s been he’s been playing really well because he’s just kind of fallen into his role as a bench player right now off the and being being impactful and they uh Jeremy Shan didn’t play. No. Yeah. like this person have a wealth abundance of talent and you you see this game when you see the way these young players are playing, these guards are playing, um the shots they’re hitting and you like you were talking about the uh the big play Cornet made and little things like that when you when you have a team that has all these different pieces and you’re getting big spark plays from uh quoteunquote role players, it makes a huge difference. Um, also like solid game by Harrison Barnes. Always I was about to mention him in a second. Yeah, the K the KG vet like um I saw somebody uh there was somebody had a tweet before it’s like uh starting lineup of like it was like Michael Jordan, Kobe, LeBron, Sha, and um somebody else like u like Tim Duncan who would be able to stop this? Somebody was like five five Harrison Barnes. by by Harrison Barnes because you you know what you’re going to get from him cons like consistency from him um whatever position he’s playing however he’s playing throughout the course of a game and like great game great game by the Spurs man um I feel like I’m missing somebody uh Julian Julian Champany uh another yeah he had a big M1 too in the fourth quarter too caught the ball behind him reverse layup M1 that was that stopped the run as well and he could shoot his ass off I mean the Spurs just have a lot of talent we talk a lot about the Thunder being deep. This is me not saying that the Spurs are deeper, but what I am saying is that the Spurs are deep, too. Yes. Like they have players off the bench. Uh Devin Belle, we haven’t even talked about. He’s been having a a good year. They just they are stacked. The Spurs team is stacked with young talent and over the past two or three years, they’ve developed this talent to a accept and learn their roles and learn how to win. You bring in an alien and you bring in one of the fastest dudes in the league who can run point guard and look what you got. you got a contender all of a sudden. So, shout out to the San Antonio Spurs organization. They play the game the right way. They play fast. They play smart. They play defense. Just just overall, it was a game that I’ve watched. And you know, the Lakers are a team where I don’t think I would have picked them to go to the finals or go to the Western Conference Finals. But currently, they’re sitting at number two in our power rankings a lot because of their record. Yeah. And I knew this was a big game. They’ve also beat the Spurs in the past, but just seeing San Antonio go in there without Web and Yama and just they they kic they beat the crap out of them. Like this wasn’t like hands down. Hands down. It was it was very close to being a damn It was It was close. It was close. It was close. It was close. um just clearly being the better team. I like and I know like game to game that like things change and you know they could play tomorrow and like the the Spurs could lose by 10 to the Lakers. But like right now I I am very confident that if these teams these two teams played a playoff series, a seven game series, Spurs win in five, six max. They’re too fast or too quick. And you you can’t you can’t teach that. And that’s the thing that’s bothers me about the Lakers. You can’t teach foot speed and guarding the perimeter. You can’t. Sometimes it’s not even about effort. Austin Reeves is not a good perimeter defender. He’s not. Yeah. Luca’s slow and he gets lazy. He just is what it is. And Marcus, he’s not You just don’t have the bodies to keep up with a Spurs team. You just can’t. You could say effort all you want. You can draw off these, you know, exotic defensive schemes, go zone, whatever. At the end of the day, you got to be able to stay in front of your man. And the Spurs are just way quicker and younger and more athletic than the Lakers. And I think that’s going to be Lakers undoing no matter who they lose to in the playoffs, but especially against the Spurs. To me, I mean, Quab, you say it all the time, stuff’s about matchups. These two teams played in the playoffs. I’m thinking the Spurs just because I think it’s a horrible matchup for the Lakers. Styles. Styles. What does Styles make fights, right? Styles make fights. And um I mean, from the Lakers, watching like uh LeBron had that uh the dunk and even then it was like I was like, “Oh, I remember I was like, “Oh, snap.” Like he he caught one. Um it didn’t matter just cuz it felt like anytime the Lakers would make a little bit of a run, a little bit of like headway into the into the uh into the lead, disperse would come right back and Yeah. The next play was that block next next time down the Yeah. Yeah. It was like it it just happened. I don’t know if like the point you’re making is um your lack of defenders, maybe it might be time to put Jar Vanderbilt back in the rotation just for for the sake of that. But I like we we’ve we me and you when we previewed the Lakers, we were like, “Yeah, they have LeBron. Yes, they have they have Luca.” Um we didn’t envision Austin Reeds having this as amazing of a year he’s been having. But we’re like, “This team comes with a lot of question marks.” Yeah. A lot of if they need like if DeAndre Aiden is playing the right way, if like it was just so many question marks and this is this is what it looks like. Um, I don’t know if um I don’t know how many games you’re going to be able to win if you don’t have like the type of production you were getting previous games from Luca and Austin Reeves. Whereas like they’re both putting up like 30 balls with multiple assist and then you do that with then maybe LeBron being it’s crazy to say like just a third all-around option just to kind of fill in the gaps. That’s that’s their to me that’s the vision I see for them winning. But as constructed now against like you said against teams like as Spurs the Dodger just going to run and beyond and even with WBY back it still creates mismatch problems. A Thunder team and we all know what they look like on the Houston Rockets. It’s just you the West is too tough when it comes down to it. Yeah. And the Lakers like their role players aren’t even that good either. You know, we talk a lot about like, you know, them being old and slow and LeBron and Luca and all like a lot of the conversation goes to that, but at the end of the day, Marcus Smart had eight threes today. You’re not going to get that. You’re just not. And the reason why they got that was because they were like just straight up doubling Luca 30 ft from the basket and they were like, “Here, Marcus, you take 14 threes.” But Rory Hatchimore is inconsistent. Vanderbilt doesn’t really put the ball on the hoop. DeAndre’s having a good year, but at the end of the day, he’s not someone you can really rely on. Gabe Vincent is not in Miami anymore. You know there it’s just they don’t have role players like a Kelvin, like a Vel, you know, like a Dylan Harour, like a hundred out of a hundred times. Give me the Spurs role players over whatever the Lakers have. They they just they don’t have it. They Jake Levivia, he was a nice pickup, I guess, but he’s he doesn’t have an impact every game. You have teams in this league whose role players make an impact every single game. Every game without question. And if you know one or two of them don’t, they have others that can. Like the Spurs have like four or five players who are role players, six players who are role players who can literally win the game just by their by their play. The Spurs have a couple. The Lakers who outside of LeBron, Luca, and Austin Reeves can genuinely win you a game. Maybe Marcus with his effort one game. Maybe a might 20 in a game. A Rury gamewinner. That’s Yeah, but he wasn’t even that. That’s I’m joking. That’s that’s that’s a joke. That’s my point. But he wasn’t even that good that game. He wasn’t even that good that game. Yeah. Like for I’m a Nick fan. Josh Hart will wins the Knicks at least five, six, seven games a year just by his being a role player. Psychotic role player. Yeah. Like wave. Yeah. Yeah. Lou Dort wins. Lud Dort, Isaiah Hartenstein, they win Thunder games. Yeah. By themselves. Dylan Harper has won Spurs games coming off the bench and being don’t have that. And the Spurs have that in abundance. And I think going into this season, I was kind of underrating, not so much the talent on the roster, but their ability to understand their roles and just how seamlessly it would work this year. They are way ahead of schedule. I thought they’d be good. I didn’t think they’d be this good. So, Spurs fans, I get an apology. And it’ll come during the power rankings. Yeah. And this is like it come this what happens. You draft well and and you develop well, man. And Yeah. do being able to do this without without uh Jeremy Jeremy playing without WY playing. I also like the other rookie um what’s his name from Arizona? Carter Bryant. Carter Bryant. He doesn’t get he doesn’t get in the game. He doesn’t get like he barely gets in the game and he’s a defensive menace like and that’s another person that’s that’s developing like they like you said that’s a deep that’s a deep team man. That’s a deep team. So yeah we’ll again uh Wii get healthy soon man because I can’t wait. I need to see I need to see what this team looks like healthy right now. Spurs playoff series will break the internet. Oh man, it would be beautiful. Break the internet. But we’ll we’ll talk about that another time. The Spurs beat the Lakers 13219. They go to 17 and seven. The Lakers are all 17 and seven. More importantly, the Spurs are going to Vegas to take on the OKC Thunderb. That’s be a great game. It’s way better than Nick Magic. I’m excited about that. I’m excited about that. Yeah, man. I’m excited about that. You can follow Diamond right at the DBA. I’m Josh. He’s Quab. It’s not his birthday anymore, but we’re still celebrating it. Yes, sir. [Music]

Josh and Kwab react to Stephon Castle, De’Aaron Fox and the San Antonio Spurs upsetting LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and the Los Angeles Lakers to advance to play Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder in the semis of the NBA Cup.

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