-Why Jayson Tatum & Jaylen Brown give Celtics the best duo in the NBA _ Chris Mannix.

Welcome back to Three Points, the show where we discuss the three biggest storylines in the NBA today. Joining me this week from USA Today, Jeff Zilgit, and another one of my colleagues from Sports Illustrated, Rohan Nedkarni. Guys, let's jump right in. The Los Angeles Lakers, 2-10 in mid-November, have won eight of its last 10 games to creep within a game of the play-in mix. Anthony Davis has scored 99 points in his last two games. Russell Westbrook is shooting 34% from three in his 18 games off the bench. In the last 10 games, LA has had a top-10 defense. Jeff, I'll start with you. Have the Lakers become a serious contender? The short answer to that, Chris, is no, they're not a contender right now. They're probably a player or two shy of moving up, but if you look at the muddled Western Conference standings, they're just a couple games out of those spots, 6-7, 8-9, but you're hitting on a couple good points. Their defense has been fairly solid, which really impressed me the past 10 games is their offensive improvement. You mentioned Anthony Davis. I was there for the double nickel against the Wizards. They need that kind of Anthony Davis, not to score 50 every night, but to be that kind of 30-point, 12-rebound-a-game guy. You know what you're going to get from LeBron. They're getting play from Lonnie Walker, Austin Reeves, but I think when we're talking about the Lakers, the big difference is staggering the minutes, bringing Russell Westbrook off the bench so that those three guys are not on the court at the same time, and that's helping LeBron and AD play their one-two, two-man game. I think the answer is they can be contenders. They're not there yet. If you look at some of the wins they've had over this eight-game stretch, they've beaten the San Antonio Spurs three times, a win over the Detroit Pistons, the Washington Wizards, I think missing Bradley Beal for a portion of that game, so not all of their wins have been great. They do have a nice one against Milwaukee in there. I think what Anthony Davis is doing is forcing their hand, right? I don't think the front office at this point in the season can sit back and afford to be stingy when it comes to trading those first-round picks. Whether or not that means you still want to move on from Russell Westbrook, who has had nice moments off the bench, I think that's up for debate. But I think what is not up for debate is this team has to make a move. They have to capitalize on the way Anthony Davis has been playing. You know, we did a big Sports Illustrated star on Anthony Davis coming out of the bubble. The big takeaway I got from that story was this team is at its best when Anthony Davis is kind of that lead scorer. I mean, if you think about the first season, he was in Los Angeles. He led the team in scoring. He was the best player both ways in the playoffs, and I think if they're getting this version of Anthony Davis for an extended period of time, they can be contenders, provided the front office follows through with the necessary moves. Yeah, I asked a few NBA coaches and executives this question over the weekend. I got back a lot of some version of, let's see what they look like in a couple of weeks. Because if you look at their schedule over the next two weeks, they've got road games at Cleveland, at Toronto, at Philadelphia all this week. They come home next week, and they get Boston and Denver. If they get through that stretch and have won like four out of six or something along those lines, then yes, I will consider the Lakers a real contender. Because you are getting some pretty positive things from this team over the last couple of weeks. You're having Anthony Davis look like the MVP candidate again. You're having Russell Westbrook, as I mentioned, really settle into that sixth man role and accept it and thrive in it. Since he was put in by Darvin Hamm early in the season, a guy like Lonnie Walker started to shoot the ball well. Everybody in the Lakers right now is shooting the ball particularly well. But I need to see it against someone other than San Antonio. I need to see it against someone other than the Bradley Bealist Wizards, which is what the Wizards were in that game for most of it the other night. So right now, no is my answer. But check back in with me in a couple of weeks. And if they're successful, then we should probably have a completely different conversation about the Lakers. All right. The praise for Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown continues to pour in. In October, ex-Celtic Paul Pierce called Tatum and Brown the NBA's best duo. Luka Doncic, he echoed that statement last month. When asked about it last week, Tatum said, quote, we want to win a championship. And if along the way, we're the best duo, we'll take it. Rohan, are Tatum and Brown the NBA's best twosome? I don't think that this is a debate, Chris. I think Tatum and Brown are definitively the best duo in the league, at least so far this season. Jalen Brown alone, I think you look at his last 10 games, he's playing at an all-NBA level. Tatum, Chris, you called it before the season that he was going to be an MVP candidate. I think you're looking at, if not a top five, possible a top three player in the NBA right now. There are other duos around the league that are talented, but I think in a lot of those duos, one guy's doing the heavy lifting, Giannis, and whoever else you want to take on the Bucs. Steph and Dre, Steph does the heavy lifting. I think the defensive, two-way mindset that the Celtics have in Tatum and Brown, what they can do on each end of the floor, the offensive variety, it's not close. And frankly, the way that they're running through the rest of the league right now is pretty scary to watch. Entertaining topic, Chris and Rohan, and when you look around the league, when you want to go to a game, whether you're a fan or to cover it, you're going to get two great players. So you think about some duos. Rohan mentioned a handful of them. But look, you have in New Orleans, how about Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. I love the one developing or has developed in Memphis with Desmond Bain and John Moran. And even if you want to take a next step and look maybe a couple of years down the road or next season, Tyrese Halliburton and Benedict Matherin in Indiana. A lot of great duos, and you go old school, LeBron and AD, which we have just mentioned. Without a doubt, though, I don't think we're going to get too much disagreement here that Jalen and Jason are the best two when it comes to being on the same team. Rohan mentioned so many things about what they do offensively, defensively. They are playmakers, shot creators. And I'll add this. People get worked up about their turnovers. I don't as much because they handle the ball so much. If you look at guys historically who have the ball in their hands so much, LeBron sometimes four turnovers per game at the height of his powers. That stuff happens. You don't want eight like Jason was bellyaching about the other night. However, they are so good together that not only Jalen being a All-NBA candidate, I think Jason is the frontrunner for MVP as we stand today. You mentioned some good names there, Jeff. A good group of twosomes. Way to dig deep, by the way, for Halliburton and Matherin, by the way. That was solid. I do agree with you guys, though. I think Tatum and Brown are at the top of the list. Tatum is playing like a guy that got that Finals pop. Took that Finals experience and used it in the right way this summer. I spent some time talking to Tatum in the offseason about what he locked in on, being more physical, getting to the free throw line more. You're seeing that play out during the regular season. Finishing at the rim. That's something Tatum and his longtime trainer, Drew Hanlon, worked on in the offseason. He's a lot better at that this season. So he has taken his offensive game to another level and is probably going to average, I think, over 30 points per game this season and defensively continues to grow. He's not an elite defensive player yet, but he is improving and using all his physical tools to his advantage in that defensive end. Jalen Brown, if you kind of throw out the first half of last season, this has been a steady arc upward for Jalen Brown. He had to deal with injuries, COVID issues in the first half of last season, so it was kind of a mixed bag. But really, since the All-Star break, his numbers got back into that close to 40% three-point shooting, well above 40% from the floor and being arguably the best Celtics player during the NBA Finals. And look, you can tell that Jalen Brown is that one guy that's comfortable playing alongside Jason Tatum because he's not obsessed with getting his numbers when Tatum's on the floor. And when Tatum's off the floor, you look at those numbers, he's playing like Tatum. He's averaging more than 30 points per game in the games that Tatum has missed. So when you have two guys playing at that level, one an MVP candidate, surefire All-NBA first team, the other at certain All-Star lock at this point of the season, and someone that's a candidate for an All-NBA team, you have to say they are the best twosome in the NBA. All right, the Atlanta Hawks are off to a 13-10 start, but not all is right in Georgia. The Athletic reported this week that Nate McMillan and Trey Young had a disagreement that resulted in Young, who has been out with an injury, not showing up for the Hawks' win over Denver. Jeff, let's start with you. Is there problems in Atlanta right now? It seems like when we have seen this movie before, we know the outcome. This isn't good for Trey Young, but I would certainly say this is not good for Nate McMillan. We know what's going to happen. Are you getting rid of your star player, or are you going to make a coaching decision? And the easier route for any executive in the league. I don't like this at all. And I also didn't really care for Trey Young's response that he seemed a little bit more bothered that a private situation became public. This is the NBA. Just about everything becomes public after a little while. So it's a little naive on his part to wonder why the best player on the team isn't showing up and then a story to develop. But if you're looking at this Atlanta Hawks team, they had the down year. Nate did a great job getting them to the conference finals. That was just a couple of years ago when he took over for Lloyd Pierce. Last year, a really down season. I don't think they're playing horrible basketball right now, but there's clear that there's problems in Atlanta, and that probably spells a larger issue for Nate McMillan than it does Trey Young. I don't know how you can say there isn't a problem in Atlanta at the moment. When was the last time you heard a team star player just skipping a game because of a disagreement? This is a pretty shocking story to me, to be honest. I think Atlanta, you'd like to see them playing better this season considering the moves they made in the summer, going out and getting DeJounte Murray. You look at what a team like Cleveland has done, for example, they added an all star. They've looked like one of the better teams in the East. The Hawks have had some nice moments, but whatever metric you want to use, net ratings, standings, et cetera, haven't looked like a particularly special team. They got pretty thoroughly defeated in the first round last year. I think there's a problem. You have to wonder, what is it going to take for this team to kind of recapture the form that they had when they made the Eastern Conference Finals? Was that a run that you can build off on, or does it look a little fluky right now considering what's happened since? I think there are serious problems there, questions to be answered because they're committed to Trey Young, as Jeff outlined. They don't have a lot of avenues to move around here right now, so they need to figure this out. And when you put it in the context of Trey Young having already had one strained relationship with the coach. I'm with Jeff. Unfortunately, it doesn't look good for Nate McMillan, but I don't think this is as simple as just changing the coach for Atlanta. So I'm not going to overreact to a disagreement between Nate and Trey, regardless of how it played out, because I feel like over the last 10, 15 years, a lot more of this stuff is getting out and finding its way on social media and being hyper-scrutinized than what it used to be. I'm quite sure that there were plenty of disagreements that happened in the 80s and 90s that if they happened in today's age would be completely crazy. It talked about ad nauseum. I do agree with you guys that Nate McMillan is probably not going to win a head-to-head with Trey Young, but at this point of the season, I feel like you have to put the spotlight on Trey Young because, look, Trey Young is not playing good basketball right now. He's averaging more attempts than he has in his career, and he's shooting career lows from the floor and from three-point range. Look at some of his numbers. He's shooting 30% from three-point range this season. He's shooting 41% from the field. He's a high usage rate player, and he's not playing well. So I look at this as being something to keep your eye on, but more importantly, I think Trey Young has to play better. If he is going to be involved in these kinds of butting of heads with a coach, he has got to get this team to that next level. He's the franchise guy in Atlanta. He's the man down there, and he can't be playing at the level he's playing and expect to get the benefit of the doubt. I think a lot of this right now should be focused on Trey Young and the way he's playing and the improvements he needs to make to get Atlanta a little bit higher up in the standings.