5 BIGGEST Lessons Learned From The NBA Christmas Games This Year…

5 BIGGEST Lessons Learned From The NBA Christmas Games This Year…

Christmas day is a huge day in the basketball world because every year the league gives us five star studded matchups between some of the best teams in the league throughout the entire day and for many average fans of the sport Christmas is the time when a lot of

People start to really tune in it’s also a good checkpoint for teams to Showcase what they’re capable of and figure out where they need to improve when the stage is brightest which brings us to today’s video today I have five lessons to discuss that we learned from this

Year’s Christmas games one from each of the games that I believe were both pretty notable in the matchup and have been a recurring theme worth monitoring moving forward before we start though it turns out a good amount of you watching right now aren’t even subscribed to the

Channel so if you enjoy the content consider hitting the Subscribe Button as not only does it help out a ton but it also very much appreciated now with that being said let’s begin the first lesson learned from the Christmas NBA slate of games is that the Milwaukee Bucks still

Have a a lot of trouble defending skilled guards this has been a talking point that has been hammered home relentlessly since the off season so I know you’ve all heard it a million times already but when the Bucs traded for Damen Lillard this off season they essentially swapped defensive help for

Offensive help in that regard specifically Lillard has been a massive boost to their previously mediocre offense as they went from being the 15th ranked offense in the league last season to now being the fourth best offense in the League this season on the side though their defensive identity that

They worked so hard to establish in the janisan dumo era has completely dissolved as they are now just the 20th ranked defense in the league and in particular guards seem to torch them regularly because of how porous their perimeter defense is from the opening tip to the final buzzer Jaylen Brunson

Dominated the game against the Bucks the entire time finishing with 38 points getting wherever he wanted to to go on the floor he was attacking off the dribble with ease he was getting to the mid-range without much resistance where he thrives and he was able to finish

Plenty of shots around the rim through the late contests of big men because his Defender couldn’t keep him in front of them even Emanuel quickly subbed in Off the Bench for a lot of the non Brunson minutes and chipped in with 20 points of his own in just 22 minutes of play time

The Bucks are obviously still one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference but this has been an issue that has plagued them all year and is definitely worth noting the next lesson from the Christmas slate we’ll be discussing is that Brandon pimpy of the Golden State

Warriors is a Hidden Gem because of the fact that the Warrior season has been teetering on disaster for most of the Year there hasn’t been that much positivity shined on this group but despite the Warriors losing to Denver in the game their 20-year-old rookie stood out as someone who could fit into every

Single NBA team and make an impact he he’s flying pretty under the radar because he’s just not someone who has been in the public eye very much as a midir round draft pick picked out of a mid- major Santa Clara and he wasn’t necessarily expected to be making an

Immediate impact like this either he was actually selected one pick after haime hakz of the Miami Heat who has been Sensational and been getting the rightful attention and credit for it but Brandon is going to start turning some heads soon too he’s really just an incredibly solid highly skilled

Competitor who works his butt off on both ends of the floor and contributes across the board he’s an efficient shooter who gets his looks within the flow of the offense shooting 46% from the field and 41% from three he crashes the glass pretty hard for a wing player

Grabbing a ton of rebounds nightly he’s a smart passer whose assists have progressively been going up as the season has gone on and his energy has been a breath of fresh air to the point where the Warriors have benched Andrew Wiggins in in his favor and the team has

Been much better for it in his minutes the Warriors are 13.4 points better per 100 possessions with him on the court than they are with him off the court which is a substantial swing for a rookie to be making and if the Warriors want to turn their season around they

Need him more involved the next lesson learned from the Christmas slate is that the Lakers have an identity crisis on their hands when the Lakers won the inseason tournament things were looking good for the group that made the Conference Finals last season but since then things have started to go downhill

They’ve won just two of their last eight games since that point they’re now in ninth place in the Western Conference standings and they’re tinkering with their lineups to the point where they’re trying to plug holes with pieces that don’t fit coach ham is trying to build their identity on the defensive end and

In doing so has benched D’Angelo Russell in order to trot out a starting five of LeBron James Anthony Davis torian Prince cam reddish and Jared Vanderbilt this is supposed to be a group that locks down on defense but on the flip side this is a lineup with absolutely horrific

Spacing around LeBron and AD and it showed early on in the Christmas matchup with the Celtics when they immediately went down 12 nothing which then led to a 30 to2 first quarter deficit that proved to be too big to overcome Jared Vanderbilt has not made a three yet this

Season cam reddish is shooting just 30% from Deep And while Tori and Prince is shooting a solid 39% from the outside he’s not enough of a volume shooter for that to overcome the woes D’Angelo Russell’s defensive woes currently have him in the dogghouse and Austin Reeves inability to take the next step towards

Becoming a star has really inhibited the Lakers from playing at the level they were hoping to be at this season and their role players are way too one-dimensional in their lineup around their two star players the next lesson learned from the Christmas slate is that Joel embiid plugged a lot of holes with

This 76ers roster the Philadelphia 76ers have Far and Away exceeded all expectations up to this point thanks in very large part to Joel embiid once again playing like the MVP of the league having an even better season than he had last year they’re in third place in the Eastern Conference they’re ranked top

Three in the league on both offense and defense this season and they have gotten some very impressive wins under their belt with the most recent example being a comfortable win against the Minnesota Timberwolves thanks to Joel embiid dropping 51 points on Christmas however embiid was nursing a sprained ankle so

The team had to play without him against an also hobbled Miami Heat Squad missing Jimmy Butler and it was a struggle they managed to keep it close for a bit before Miami pulled away at the end but Tyrese Maxi was terrible in the game he simply could not get anything going at

All and he is definitely a player who benefits from embiid’s presence being able to attack defenses as a second option the Sixers are now 0 and4 in games that Joel em beat has missed this year and what it really shows is that Joel cannot afford to even have a

Mediocre game if the Sixers want to make any real noise they’re a team constantly in trade rumors with some of the biggest names available on the trade market as the trade deadline approaches and if they want to put themselves in that top tier of contenders they’re going to have

To add at least one more piece to the puzzle that could come by way of a two-way Wing player like ogan noi or Alex Caruso it could come by way of a bench scorer like Jordan Clarkson or it could even come by way of a star like

Zack LaVine or Pascal cakam but one more piece is definitely needed in Philadelphia and finally the last lesson learned from the Christmas slate of games was that the Phoenix Suns defensive issues outweigh their star power the Suns entered the year with title or bust expectations after making

Big moves in the off season that landed them Bradley Beal the move is is already looking a bit questionable due to Beal’s inability to stay healthy and besides that they have a lot of issues on the defensive end that makes the rest of the game difficult for them the Suns this

Season are the 19th ranked defense one spot above the Milwaukee Bucks but unlike the Bucks who have been fantastic on offense the Suns rank only 16th offensively despite having stars like Kevin Durant and Devin Booker leading the way because the roster around them just is not going to cut it Kevin Durant

No longer provides the kind of defensive resistance that he provided in his Thunder and warriors days Devon Booker has always only ever been a mediocre Defender at best Eric Gordon’s defensive issues have continually gotten worse as he’s aged Yousef nurkic isn’t a very good rim protector and they don’t have

Enough guys in their rotation besides Josh aogi that really competes that hard on that end Luca donic did anything he wanted on the court on Christmas and even before that the sons losses have been piling up now losing nine of their last 12 games bringing them to 11th Place in the Western Conference

Standings with a losing record they look nothing like a title Contender right now and I’m not even completely sure if a healthy Bradley Beal changes that and with that being said that’s all I have for you today make sure to like the video subscribe to the channel and

Comment down below what stood out to you the most from the Christmas games thanks for watching and I’ll see you all next time

In this video we discuss the four things that stood out most from the NBA’s Christmas day games! LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid and more discussed

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