They beat the Clippers after beating the Lakers, and it was hardened and Kyrie that carried them, combining for 65 points.

Jalen, what do you think about this Net streak?

Shame on you when you step route to its terrific toe.

Watch how Kyrie Irvin.

I was watching him play basketball, and I came with a new nickname for him.

Kip Person.

When I'm watching him is like a combination of Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson.

That's how he's playing right now.

And when he goes to James Harden and says, I want you to be focused on the point guard responsibilities, what he's basically saying is you worry about keeping those other guys happy, including me.

Let me go out and score buckets, and that's what he's focused on doing.

And it's actually been a joy to watch both of those guys tag team with K D out.

It was, and it was with both Kyrie and Katie out that James Harden took over to beat the Phoenix team.

They beat the Warriors.

They beat the Sacramento Kings, They beat the Suns, They beat the Lakers, and now they beat the Clippers.

They're on a six game win streak and everyone criticized their defense.

Well, guess what?

After that game against your Pistons, because you know when you don't play well against the Pistons, you have to have some conversations with yourself.

In this game winning streak, you can see the opponents field goal percentages are about the same, but look at the point differential.

Look at the steals differential and it's Those are the numbers.

But the eye test really matches up to it to they've committed to defense.

They get key stops in the end of games.

And you know what?

I saw something I haven't seen a long time.

You know what I saw?

James Harden working on the defensive glass.

He doesn't always get the rebound, but he's pushing people around and he's getting taps.

They're putting a lot of energy under that end of the floor, and it's really paying off.

Do you agree?

I definitely agree.

And the one thing I still want to see that they're gonna have to iron out your Kobe is there still taking turns and it's two of the dynamic three.

When KD comes back, there's gonna be box scores when you look up at the end of the third, and one of those guys are gonna be hovering around 10 points.

That's what I want to see, how they're going to distribute the wealth per se offensively with each of those guys are in the lineup now.

Joe Harris is getting more shots.

You could put Brown in to play D.

You could have DeAndre Jordan catching lives like there's more opportunities for everybody.

But when the big dog returns to the yard, Kevin Durant, now all of a sudden we got to redistribute the wealth.

So that's what we're waiting to see.

How those numbers are gonna change once Katy returns to the lineup.

Well, Bruce Brown.

I'm glad you mentioned him, he adds.

So many things that they need does so much for them.

That is positive.

That doesn't end up in the box score.

But Jalen, you know there's only one number that really matters for this team and that is the score on the scoreboard.

So I think it'll be a problem if they start losing.

But if they keep winning, everything will be fine And there's something I really wanted to talk with you about specifically and that is Paul George being pulled at the end of the fourth quarter?

Now he was on a minutes restriction, but I have some questions about this.

Number one, if he's on minutes restriction, is it tie?

Lose job to make sure that he can finish the game and not play earlier in the game.

And number two, if he's on a minutes restriction, There's 11 seconds left and you need a bucket.

Can't you put him in for 11 seconds?

It's one of those things.

Jacoby.

I hate to tell this to media members and fans, but on some teams, most teams, the coach and or the player now have to tell the training, staff and or management that I wanna play anyway.

That's the only way that you certain what happened yesterday, Paul George has to go to the squad and say, I feel really good.

Allow me to manage my body.

And in situations like that, if I want to be in, I'm going to be in.

That may be a conversation or not be a conversation that they're having today, but the way it played out.

If you're the coaching staff, you have to manage this minutes knowing that it may be a four quarter game.

Now, if it goes into overtime and double overtime, you can't account for that.

But, you know, in a four quarter game, if he's gonna hover around 33 minutes, you probably want to make sure he's available the last four or five.

But again, especially when he's playing as well as he did, he had 34 points in just 33 minutes.

And if I was Tyler and I knew I only had 33 minutes of Paul George, I would take him out after he's played 28 put him back in with five minutes left in the game.

Jalen moving on to another big game, and that was the Celtics and the Pelicans.

This one was fascinating for so many talent reasons, but in the end, it was the combination of Zion and Brandon Ingram.

There were just too much for the Celtics defense.

There are a lot of things I took away from this game.

Kimball Walker's been struggling, basically all season.

Williams gave the Celtics quality minutes defensively at the five spot.

I don't anticipate you're gonna see a lot of Tristan Thompson after you saw Zion Williamson bowled him over like that, and he felt like a folding chair.

And Daniel Thise is doing what he can competitively, But he's just not as good as some of the people that he's gonna compete against.

But let's make this all about the Pelicans.

When Stan Van Gundy first took the job, people follow his track record.

Understand that he's gonna eventually get them to compete defensively, and they're not one of the best defensive teams in the league.

But the things that he thinks that he has done his features, I in when they want a tipped ball, they're giving the ball designing.

They're using him the way the books are using Yonas.

He's initiating the offense.

Everybody's spotting up and he's able to make a play.

And once he turns the corner, there's a reason why he scored 19 points per game in the paint and that leads the league.

He's virtually unstoppable, and when you cut him off, he has the handle.

He has the skills to kick it out.

The Ingram, who hit the dagger and still gave me a nice 33 points in the win.

Yes, I in had some really nice assistant.

I just love the way they're using him.

He's got the ball in his hand.

He's dribbling more than I've ever seen him dribble in his career thus far, and it worked out.

But it is worth mentioning.

Um, Celtics were up by 24 points in this game, and they were kind of cruise.

I kind of took my eye off the TV for a while.

That was gonna be a blowout.

Then they fell apart.

The Celtics certainly have some things that they need to address, as you mentioned earlier.

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