John Wilmes
speaker
42 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
John Wilmes’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. Coming up, John Wilmes from Real GM is here. We're going to talk about the Lakers dominating the Thunder and a couple of MVPs in purgatory as we head to the playoffs. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, John. John Wilmes, my good buddy who writes over at Real GM, filling in for Zena and S, who are both off.
I mean, Zena is not even off, to be honest with you. I mean, she's working like women's national championship game, which she's probably recording like right now. John, thanks for joining me. We just got done watching the Los Angeles Lakers. handily beat the Oklahoma City Thunder thanks to an amazing shooting performance.
I mean, I'm pretty sure they just hit another three-pointer in postgame that they're going to count. What's your big takeaway? I think that this is game one. They've got another matchup Tuesday night, so it's a back-to-back for them. What's your big takeaway from round one of the new look Lakers versus the Thunder?
Yeah, listen, the Thunder have a reputation for being extremely physical. And I thought that the Lakers, whatever their game plan was, was on point. Number one, they came out just as physical as the Thunder. I thought they kind of raised the level of what a foul call was going to be pretty early on, which is good. Because usually I think the Thunder does this to other teams.
And by matching that intensity, I think it really, they punched the Thunder in the mouth a little bit. And it helps that, look, they wound up going 22 of 40 from three. So we can throw the results out to a certain degree because that is an aberrational shooting performance. But there were big takeaways.
I thought on the defensive end in the half court, the way that the Lakers were both willing to switch a big Jackson Hayes out onto Shea Gildas Alexander. And then they were pre-rotating behind Jackson. the action to cut off the driving lanes. And part of that is that's what took away some of the free throws for Shea because there was just no one coming in with bad fouls.
I thought that the discipline that the Lakers showed, again, they seem like the veteran team that they are.
This was supposed to be Jalen Williams. His time to shine, he puts up 16 points in the game, 4 of 14 from the field. You just really didn't feel him, and it reminds me a little bit of last year in the playoffs, right? They went down the stretch of last season, and they do this down the stretch of games.
A little bit back and forth, where, hey, Shea, you're going until they turn that water off, and now, Jalen, you go while the defense is just keyed in on Shea not touching the ball. And again, That's what we saw. Only Jalen Williams wasn't able to raise the level of play. I mean, I just don't know. You know, again, this is a title contender. I think they're the favorites in the West.
I'm not going to take away too much from this one. But, you know, I'm going to put you on the spot to make a bold take off this game. And if I was going to do it, I would say... Jalen Williams has to step up if this team is going to not just win the finals, but make it to the finals. I mean, the playoffs in the West, it's so much closer than it maybe looks with the standings.
And I know like Oklahoma City has had just an incredible run. The playoffs just being a different beast. You need that second guy to be able to get a bucket.
Okay. So if I, if I'm putting you on the spot, bold take for the thunder coming out of this game.
I'll be honest here. Turn it off.
Two minutes left. Duke up sixty four fifty five. I was like, oh, this is done. So it wasn't.
All right, so let's swing it to the Lakers side of this. Number one, if you're a Mavericks fan, just turn it off. Just turn off the podcast. Go do something else. Luka Doncic really changes things for them. Number one, it has completely revitalized LeBron at both ends. And him being a play finisher, I think, has just been huge. We've been hitting this for weeks now on that.
But the Austin Reeves component of this and what it has done for him, where he's essentially become the second playmaker, but to a different degree than he was behind LeBron when LeBron was the primary guy. Like it really does feel like oftentimes Luka is handing the keys to Austin Reeves for multiple possessions in a row.
And I really think that that's allowed them to have like it's a fastball and then a bit of a curveball with Luka.
I mean, maybe never legitimately, maybe never. I mean, and with the fun thing for me, you know, when you see a guy like LeBron and you, you can see that he's actually having fun offensively. He looks re-energized in a, in a way as this facilitator, which is funny because we've been talking so much about his play finishing.
But I do think like him being able to get the hot, like to be the middle man, And to get the assist instead of be the hockey assist guy, I think is I don't know. He seems to have woken up quite a bit in that role. Bold takeaway for the Lakers for me is J.J. Redick has this team ready to play every single big game.
Every big game, they come out with a game plan that is it is very clear what they're trying to accomplish. And I think that nine times out of 10, like they're getting it done. I got to I got to tip the cap because I was one of the people that was I was skeptical guys come in. You know, he was a player and a good player, but he was coming off never coaching.
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