Luka & the Mavs are ROLLING! 🔥 + LA Clippers need to get ‘uncomfortable’! – Perk | NBA Today

Luka & the Mavs are ROLLING! 🔥 + LA Clippers need to get ‘uncomfortable’! – Perk | NBA Today

No matter who’s the Batman though who’s the robin the maps are rolling Kyrie and Luca when they’re in the lineup the team has won nine of their last 10 games they’re undefeated in the nine games that Lucas played during that stretch the guru of the breakdown Tim legler has

More on how Dallas has turned the corner well Malika there is no doubt the Mavericks are rolling right now in large part to the chemistry that has developed between Luca donic and Kyrie Irving and sometimes that action involves the two of them but more often than not they’re

Independent of each other in the way that they can dominate a def defense give you a couple examples of this last night and why this team can be so special offensively this is where Luca is just I think on a level of his own as he comes up the floor you’re going to

See what he is looking at and his eyes right now are scanning the floor at these four Defenders the first he wants to see is who is going to be the defender in the slot right here going to be guarding Gaff as runs down the floor

He wants to know who’s going to be guarding him and picking up the balls you can see over here it’s going to be Keegan Murray he wants to know if there’s going to be a strong side defender on the shooter and he wants to know who the backline defender is is it

A guard or a big believe it or not he is processing all of this right now knowing that his action will elicit the reaction that he is looking for and lead to something easy so as he gets downhill he gets to about right here and he already

Knows where he’s going to go with this basketball because you can see defensively unwilling to leave the corner shooter certainly if this backline Defender dearon Fox commits too soon this basketball is going to be thrown in a rope to the opposite corner for a wide open three so you see de fox

Has to sort of hang back and by doing that that tells Luca it’s all he needs to know gafford’s going to run to the rim and let’s just throw this thing up there and have fun because he knows with a guard back there unwilling to commit

There’s no way he’s going to be able to deter at The Rim as a result you get an easy flush now take a look at Kyrie Irving he’s looking at it a little differently he’s looking at it as a raw scorer and as he comes up there’s really

Nowhere to go you’ve got this sealed off pretty good at the top defensively you should be able to contain the basketball but k Irving he’s just special in that way so he’s going to come right here with a little crossover get the split and then immediately look at these back

Two Defenders and they’re going to have to make decisions on the backs side so as he makes the split he gets to right here what’s the read going to be if you come off the corner too early the ball’s going to be thrown on a rope to the

Corner for a three conversely if you commit too early from the back side you’re going to have a lob at The Rim so instead as a result you’re going to see both Defenders hang back with their respective man and that lets Kyrie Irving take this thing all the way to

The rim so their ability to win the point of attack and then engage second and third Defenders to make the right read that is why the Mavericks offense right now is humming and why I believe malga this team has a legitimate shot to get to the Conference Finals at

Least Tim thank you so the Mavs they’re among the teams that are in that scramble between the fourth and 11th in the west but they feel kind of firmly cemented in a positive direction after that win over the Kings remember these two teams they meet again on Friday that

Could help decide which team avoids the play in there’s so much movement that’s going to happen over the final 10 games I know it’s hard to project who is going to be best positioned to make a deep postseason run without knowing the exact matchup so let’s frame it this way perk

Outside of Denver who do you think is the most dangerous team in the west you know I got the Pelicans as my sleepers my sleeper to come out the west but Brandon Ingram is hurt I don’t know when he’s going to come back or if he’s going

To come back we don’t know but it’s so refreshing watching legs break down that film because it’s Luca outside of yic Luca is the most dangerous player in the Western Conference what team is Luca on the Dallas Mavericks and then who is his Batman that’s what he said right his

Batman is Kyrie Irving Kyrie Irving is averaging the similar numbers up to Anthony Edwards and look watching Kyrie play I haven’t seen Kyrie play with this much joy since he wanted Championship with Cleveland he’s dunking the basketball he’s showing emotions he’s engaged he’s talking defensively I’m looking at this Dallas Maverick team and

The pieces that they added I’m like this team is together right now these last few weeks first you talk to a coach and you talk to an executive then a scout on the ground and they start saying you know we just played Dallas I just saw

Dallas I was watching Dallas wow wow oh man they’re big and that’s the thing that teams are are noticing the additions they made the trade trade deadline and getting some guys healthy have made them one of the biggest teams in the Western Conference in size it’s going to be so important in these

Playoff matchups so you look at a team that can bring multiple seven-footers Off the Bench with Derrik Lively and Maxi CBA and then has Gafford and PJ Washington right they PJ Washington was a power forward in Charlotte he can play small forward for them they are a very

Very intriguing team going forward Tim if there is one thing that I know about Philadelphia fans is that they are so warm fuzzy and loving when a former player comes back into Wells Fargo Center I’m completely kidding of course what are the expectations that James Harden and the Clippers have for

Starting off this four game Road Trip well I’m sure it’s going to be a festive atmosphere as you pointed out Malik as it always is at the Wells Fargo Center here in South Philly but I also think it’s going to be kind of a weird vibe for this game right obviously

There’s going to be some emotion about James Harden coming back here to Philadelphia where he’ve spent most of the last two seasons resulting in a couple more second rounde exits from the playoffs but this is a matchup that just happened on Sunday in Los Angeles where

The Sixers came away with a big win every bit win without Joel embiid right now is big and this is also coming five months after the trade so there’s been a lot of time for sort of everything to settle in for the departure to take place there’s also the fact that Joel

Embiid is still not playing and the Sixers are really just desperately trying to get out of the playing mix in the Eastern Conference standings and this isn’t the kind of Titanic battle between the Clippers and a team with a healthy Joel embiid that we thought it might have been when the schedule came

Out so all that’s to say that I’m sure it will be a frosty reception for James Harden but I don’t anticipate this being anything like for example when Ben Simmons came back here a couple years ago for the first time just don’t think it’s going to be that same level of

Animosity for all these reasons involved it’s just kind of a weird atmosphere and uh you know setting for this game to come so long after the trade happen absolutely well put let’s dive into Joel embiid a little bit more because it’s been about 7 weeks since his surgery and

There’s only 10 games is left in the regular season so where is he at in terms of his recovery well things have been in a bit of a stasis with Joel embiid for a couple weeks now Malika where as Nick Nur said before the Sixers went on the

West coast trip which Joel embi did not go on with the team that he’s on the court doing some working out but has not been in any full contact situations has not been in a full practice yet with the team and so we’re still in a bit of a

Holding pattern where as you said there’s 10 games left in the regular season 3 weeks from today we’ll be talking about the playin tournament in the Eastern Conference right now Philadelphia is sitting in what would be a pretty juicy matchup in a 78 situation with the Miami Heat with the winner of

That game likely going on to play the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round and the loser potentially having to win an8 n game just to get the right to play the team with the League’s best record the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs but certainly the first order

Of business for Philly is to get Joel embiid back on the court and now that they’re back around him for a couple of days I think we’ll get a little bit more of a sense of just how long it’s going to take to get him back out there but

Even if ID does get out on the court Malik I think it’s safe to assume there’s going to need some time for him to ramp himself up and get his conditioning back anywhere near where it was before when he was leading the league at scoring for a third straight

Year and playing at an MVP caliber level for the Sixers well as he continues to ramp up in the hopes of returning we will continue to update everybody at home Tim bontems thank you so very much enjoy tonight’s game but as Tim knows all too well even without Joel MD do not

Count out the 76ers tonight after all they went into Los Angeles they got a wire to wire win over the Clippers over the weekend and Los Angeles followed that up with a blowout loss to Indiana which caused tyo Kendrick Perkins to label this team as soft he didn’t lie so

What do you need to see from Harden and the Clippers starting tonight well first of all they need to get uncomfortable right especially day yeah because James Harden is too comfortable and he’s still auditioning right he’s auditioning for this team he wants a a contract with

This team well this is the time of year going into the postseason where all eyes are on James Harden and with Russell Westbook coming back I think tou has some leverage to have some competition within the locker room a lot of people look at it as it’s as if it’s a negative

When it’s actually not you actually love competition in the locker room because it holds guys accountable and I wouldn’t be surprised if James Harden doesn’t Elevate his game and pick his play up that if tou wouldn’t roll with Russell Westbrook a lot more as that starting as

That point guard that they need to get Paul George and kawh Leonard going like they need to get going offensively look I don’t care if this is a Harden return game I don’t care if they’re playing the Washington generals at Rucker Park the Clippers have to win this game this is a

Must-win game because they’ve got to stem the tide they’ve got to start this road trip off on a bright spot they got lucky last night that the Pelicans couldn’t take advantage of the Thunder uh playing at home and the Pelicans uh took a loss and so the Clippers got back

Into fourth place but they’re still way too close to the play in than they should be they should be fighting to get out of the four seed into the three so they don’t have to potentially face the Nuggets of the second round instead they got to be looking in their rear view

Look at how close they are to the play in and not only that Beyond just where the standings are these recent losses that they’ve had are unacceptable they got to get a win tonight forget about what happens with Harden forget about the crowd they got to put together 48

Minutes of quality basketball to build some momentum they got way way bigger goals being the four seed or getting James Harden get back game they got to start turning it around [Applause] [Applause] now

Tim Legler joins Malika Andrews on NBA Today to break down how Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving are complementing each other so efficiently within the Dallas Mavericks’ offense before Kendrick Perkins and Brian Windhorst speak on the Mavs making a run in the postseason and James Harden’s Philadelphia return with the LA Clippers.

✔️Subscribe to ESPN+ http://espnplus.com/youtube
✔️ Get the ESPN App: http://www.espn.com/espn/apps/espn
✔️Subscribe to ESPN on YouTube: http://es.pn/SUBSCRIBEtoYOUTUBE
✔️ Subscribe to NBA on ESPN on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SUBSCRIBEtoNBAonESPN
✔️ Watch ESPN on YouTube TV: http://es.pn/YouTubeTV