Ben DuBose

There's that 13-4 start in October and November when they had, as you mentioned, Paolo, at the time, one of the best net ratings in NBA history, and they were just dominant.

And I think, you know, it's no coincidence that's when Reed Shepard was at his best as well.

So it's becoming more and more clear that Reed Shepard is the variable for this team.

So you had that 17-game stretch, and they were at their best.

Then you had that weird December where the defensive intensity just fell off a cliff, and they had all these ridiculous losses to teams like, you know, the Kings and Pelicans when they had big leads.

They also lost on the road to the Mavs, the Jazz, teams they had no business losing to.

The effort was sloppy.

The defensive rating was bottom half of the league.

And then from January 1st onward, they've largely cleaned up the defense a

But the offense has been bottom 10.

And some of that's been, you know, I mentioned the fatigue issues, but also, you know, rotation choices for Imei Udoka.

After Reed Shepard played about 26 and a half minutes per game in calendar year 25, this season's portion of it, he played just 22 minutes per game in January.

And Imei leaned on those defensive role player types, you know, Josh Okogie, even at times Jayshon Tate, Aaron Holiday, even though he's been, you know, relegated to the shadow realm at the moment.

So some of it could be fatigue.

Some of it's also choices.

But the bottom line is that since January, the defense has been a lot better.

But the offense has fallen off a cliff.

We mentioned the three-point shooting slump, the turnovers.

And so in theory, like we've had six weeks of pretty good defensive play.

You know, there was a stat after that win over the Clippers, which if you're looking for a silver lining, Dorian Finney-Smith, I thought, looked very good.