The Athletic NBA Daily
Jalen Green blasts Grizzlies for 42 | Cade Cunningham in the Garden
Tue, 14 Jan 2025
The Houston Rockets beat the Memphis Grizzlies thanks to 42 points from Jalen Green. Dave DuFour and Es Baraheni discuss the Rockets big win and their place in the West, the Warriors abysmal lost to the tanking Raptors, and the Knicks side of their loss to Detroit. Then, the Athletic’s Hunter Patterson joins the show to breakdown the Pistons path to success, Cade Cunningham’s growth, and Detroit’s trade deadline plans.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Es Baraheni & Hunter PattersonExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodySubmit your questions to The Athletic NBA Daily mailbag: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5939460/2024/11/25/nba-podcast-mailbag-athletic-daily/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What happened in the Rockets vs. Grizzlies game?
Hello and welcome to the NBA Daily for January 14th, 2025. Coming up, the Grizzlies and Rockets gave us another banger. The Warriors are really bad and I don't even know if they should make a trade. And the Knicks lost to our Pistons. How about that? Good morning, everybody. Good morning, S. We're going to dig into the Pistons being two games over 500.
Later on in the show with our guy Hunter Patterson. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny that you really got me thinking about the Pistons in our big preview before the season. And you've been on them this entire time. This is like a victory lap show for you. And it's amazing. They just went two games over 500. It's not like they're like first place.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Chapter 2: How did Jalen Green perform in the game?
They are just out of the playoffs. They are just out of the top six, which I think is very compelling. They're a fun team. They had a great game tonight, which we'll get to later on. But we got to start. I mean, I think the Houston Rockets right now probably feel like they own the Memphis Grizzlies. They pick up their third win of the season against the Grizzlies. They're now 3-0 in the season.
121-18 is a close game. The Rockets had to mount a comeback late. Jalen Green had a ridiculous game, putting up 42 points, and he almost had, if he had finished this dunk on Zach Giddey, it would have been the dunk of the year. And instead, he gets called for a foul on something that, I don't know, in my opinion, you just don't call those or it's an offensive foul.
But either way, another great game for the Rockets where they just show how tough they are, man. They just do not stop coming.
Chapter 3: What are the strengths of the Rockets' defense?
Yeah, they're, they're incredible defensively. And I loved what a man Thompson did against John Moran in that fourth quarter, making life hell for him. Like the point of attack defense, he was just taking on the assignment one-on-one. And so I thought that he had such a good game to Mount that comeback.
Like their defensive effort was so important him in the dunker spot, what he was able to do offensively to like, he connects together so many things for that rockets team. You think about the short roll area where Shang-Goon is so good. And so Shang-Goon will catch it in the short roll, throw it up to a man, a man's there for the lob.
Defensively, he's kind of quarterbacking their defense at the point of attack. So like he glues together so many things that they want to do. I want to highlight Jalen Green, though, because I feel like people are pretty hard on Jalen Green, right? We could agree on that. Yeah, I agree.
And so this is a guy that has tons of expectations because he's a high lottery pick, has had months where he's looked exactly like the star that people thought he would. March and April, Jalen Green is well-known in Rockets territory, but he's doing it right now. On a very good team. And he's been doing it for the last like 10, 15 games. He's been putting together a lot of great games.
I think he's been great as a decision maker, selecting his spots, picking and choosing when he wants to be a score versus a playmaker. all of this is coming together for him on a good team.
And so I just, I feel like we need to shout him out when he is playing well, because like he's a guy who gets dogged on a little bit too much when it comes to the Rockets and what potential they have to be good in the playoffs and whatnot.
And his defense gets overlooked. The guy makes plays defensively, whether it's, you know, getting a steal, getting a deflection, blocking shots, which actually is one of the things that he's sneakily good at. But speaking of a men Thompson, 19 points, 13 rebounds, four offensive rebounds, four assists, two steals, five blocks.
That guy is a Swiss army knife, you know, and we were watching, we were also watching Knicks and Pistons. We were talking about his brother, Asar. And I mentioned Asar might be able to be like a superpower, Josh Hart, right? More athletic, bigger, longer, faster, you know, maybe more skilled. I don't, I don't know. But just could he do that? And then I look at him in and it's like,
Well, I don't know. Is he Andre Kirilenko without a jump shot? He just opens up so much stuff for them. And you mentioned that little lob that Shingun likes to throw out of the short roll when a man is in the dunker spot. They do that in crunch time. Yeah, and Shingun almost lost it. That turnover, right?
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Chapter 4: How is Cade Cunningham developing for the Pistons?
So, I mean, they really – that has become like a nice go-to little bread and butter thing for them. If he ever – He doesn't he's not a guy that has to shoot the above the break three. Right. No. But if he ever becomes like if he could be Lou Dort from the corners. Right. And just let him fly. Hit him at thirty five to thirty six percent.
And I mean, this guy all of a sudden becomes even more dangerous. I mean, the numbers he's putting up with no jumper. When they're packing the paint every time he has the ball, it's super impressive to me. For a young guy, especially, to not, you know, he gets knocked down, he gets right back up. I don't know, man. That team is just full of dogs. And then, you know, Fred Van Vliet.
late in this game, I keep saying that the Houston Rockets offense and crunch shot, it seems to be, Hey, somebody throw the ball to Van Vliet with about two seconds left on the clock. And he's going to throw up a moonshot and he hits it in this game, but he's, he's taken the third most shots this season with less than four seconds left on the shot clock.
And he's not their number one option, which is usually what you expect. Jason Tatum leads the league in that, but The thing about this team, we talk about the youth, and we talked with Kelly Yuko last week about Shingun being their best player. And I think Jalen Green is second. But, man, Fred VanVleet's their most important player.
Chapter 5: What are the Knicks’ struggles against the Pistons?
Yeah, I mean, they need a table setter. He had nine assists tonight just off of those short roll actions that I mentioned with Shingun. And I think that him being a – I've covered Fred for basically his entire career now from Toronto to Houston. Watching him grow as a guy who was first off ball.
catch and shoot guy working next to Kyle Lowry, and then really learning from Kyle, how to be a ball handler and playmaker developing that to the point where he's like leading and table setting for a really, really good Rockets team. It's funny because that number you put out the grenade number of him kind of having to kill these possessions at the end for the Rockets.
That is eerily similar to his last year with the Raptors where they're offense, their half-court offense was just so bad that they had to pass it to Van Vliet at the end. And like his field goal percentage suffers because of it, but his importance is unquestionable to this Rockets team and what they do, especially as a playmaker.
Yeah. He's only shooting like 28% on those shots. I mean, it's tough. It's, it's literally, yeah. I mean, he's always having to take a step back. Or just shoot, like I said, a moonshot over some guy that's 6'7". The Warriors somehow last night, S, they lost to your Raptors. I'm thinking, let's do a deep dive on what the Raptors... Hey, look, Chris Boucher.
We could do nine minutes on Chris Boucher right now, who scored 17 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter. That would be my...
My main Raptors take away from this. They're doing a little bit of a pump and dump with Chris Boucher's trade value, I think. First round pick to the highest bidder. The Warriors made it easy, right? So no Draymond for the Warriors last night. No Jonathan Kaminga either, obviously. But still, the Raptors are so sad. They're not even trying to win games.
And so for the Warriors to lose this, and they've been struggling for a while now. Yeah. I just, I don't know. I'm picking up on some... I'm not going to say loser vibes, but there's some, I would say, non-winning vibes around the team. Draymond Green came out in an interview the other day, and he talked about, you know, the need to think about the future and this team being flexible. Yeah.
And then post-game... After the Raptors, Steph kind of says the same thing, man. And this is just, these aren't the champions I'm used to listening to.
Yeah, Steph said that, you know, prioritizing the future after us is just as important. Leaving the organization.
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Chapter 6: What's going wrong with the Warriors this season?
They're not mailing it in. It's a weird vibe to hear from them because these guys are killers. I mean, Steph Curry literally put the world to sleep over the summer. And, you know, we came into the season. I had these very high expectations that you did clearly were way off base.
But, you know, I really I thought with the start that they had, this was a team that was going to be maybe maybe they're looking to improve at the deadline. And I'm guessing that they are. But these comments kind of give me a little bit of pause, man. I'm just not used to hearing that. Steph Curry, you know, like think about the two timeline stuff.
I mean, he just said a few days ago, it seems, on a podcast with Andre Iguodala that the two timelines thing was garbage. So I don't know. Maybe this is them kind of back – You know, backpedaling a little bit from those.
Maybe this is reverse psychology. This is like we know the Warriors are not going to make a move. So we're going to say, hey, you know what? It's not a big deal to us. No problem. We understand. I don't know, man.
They're using the media to negotiate a little bit here where they're just saying, you know what? Yeah, that's fine. We'll worry about the future. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
I don't know. I mean, I think – For what it's worth, I don't know if a trade or two saves this Warriors team this season. They've been 25th in offense over the last 10 games. Steph does not have any help. And I know Kaminga is gone. No Draymond in this one. But like... Schroeder, that trade has not necessarily worked out in their favor.
He's working in a shoebox in terms of spacing and just it hasn't worked out. It really does not look good for the Warriors outside of Steph Curry. And he's also dealing with this knee tendinitis thing, which is looming over all of this. So you're looking at a roster that. has a clear flaw outside of Steph on the offensive end to create any sort of shot.
And then you're looking at a team that defensively without Draymond craters. So it just, they're relying on these two old guys.
The wild thing is that they're offense craters too, without Draymond, especially when Steph's not out there, they, they lack organization. Right. And, but they're not just one guy away in a trade. This isn't like trade for Jimmy Butler. And all of a sudden they're, Yeah, or trade for Levine and you're good, right?
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