Miami Heat: Does Jimmy Butler need to be better? | Five on the Floor

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Go to betteredge.com. Use the code 5RSN. It is legal in the state of Florida, as well as 43 other states, because you're using it against others who also have it. You're not betting against a bookie or anything like that, and you can find the line that you want. So join our contest. Get $20 to play if you go to betteredge.com, and use the code 5RSN. And now, today's episode. Welcome to Five on the Floor, a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA, featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sylvander, and Alex Toledo, plus others from the Five Reasons Sports Network. Welcome back to Five on the Floor. Here's today's floor plan. I'm Ethan Skolnick. You can follow me at EthanJSkolnick on Five Reasons Sports. I got Alex Toledo. You can follow him at Tropical Blanket. And Brady Hawk, you can follow at BradyHawk305. Just a couple of news updates here before we get to the topic of today's pod. Entering Monday's game in Charlotte, Miami Heat 12-10 now on the season. Still no Bam Adebayo. Still no Heywood Highsmith. Still no Tyler Hero. RJ Hampton and Nikola Jovic were sent to Sioux Falls. So a light roster again. Others we are anticipating to play. Duncan was probable in the last game he played. Jimmy is expected to play, et cetera. But again, still three starters or three projected starters not available. And honestly, we don't know when the three of them are going to be available. As we speak today, Tyler Hero has been out for four weeks and four days. And we thought that was a two- to four-week injury. So he's back on the court. There's video of him at practice today. But excuse me, still not ready to return. So we're going to focus on the guy who is playing their so-called big three. And it's Jimmy Butler. And when we were watching the game the other night, all three of us were at the game the other night. I'm curious for your guys' views on this before we get into his season. Because I thought if they just got a B performance from Jimmy, they win that game. They were up big in the first half against Cleveland. Cleveland went on a run to get back in it. They took a one-point lead at halftime and then came out. And Donovan Mitchell did what stars do. He came out of the third quarter and he took over the game. And Miami really could never get it back closer than about 10 the rest of the way. I kept waiting for Jimmy to get going. It didn't really happen. He had an OK stat line. But I thought he looked tentative near the basket, particularly after the first quarter. And that was not a front line that had Mobley in it. Allen was there, but it was Dean Wade next to him. So I was just curious for your guys' perception this year. Because we talked about Boston-Milwaukee earlier in the season, Alex. And those two games on the road, Jimmy was kind of working his way into it. We didn't know what this team was going to be. There were a bunch of other guys that were hurt at that point. Josh was just coming back. Caleb was out. They did have Tyler at that point. And they did have Bam. But I thought if he got a pretty decent performance against him in Boston, they'd probably win. If he got a pretty decent performance in Milwaukee, they'd probably win. And as great as he is and as great as he's been for this franchise, there have been a lot of those this year. So I'm just curious. We did the grades on him. Do you think they win that game against Cleveland the other night if he plays better? Absolutely. And we talked about this in our quick takes video that we dropped pretty much as soon as the game ended. And we get to the ground floor every time we do a home game on the YouTube channel. You guys should check that out. But that was kind of the main takeaway for me, just because I feel like, as we can talk about generally, without Bam, without Tyler, the margin for error gets so much smaller for the Heat. And I think they actually got just about enough from everybody else despite a bad shooting night. That was another thing that stood out. It's like you can get maybe a good Jimmy game to help balance out the losses, or you can get a nice shooting night. What they had was, I think, enough scoring from multiple guys on their team. Kevin Love had a good night. Lowry had a good night. Caleb, Josh, Hawkins, all these guys to different degrees. But I think they were all generally pretty good or good enough to give Jimmy some support there where he didn't just have to carry them. And I think because of that, it's like there's no excuses. I just think he didn't turn up. There's usually a point, I feel like, when he has games like this where he really turns it up. And that point never really came. And I just think it's been a couple of games. So I'm not going to say too much about his season right now. But as far as that game, absolutely. I feel like if he just kind of did what he usually does in fourth quarters like that and just really takes over the offense, I think he would have had a much better chance. And sometimes in the past, he can't do anything right when it comes to the fourth quarter stuff because sometimes he's doing too much in the fourth quarters. He's taking shots that he might not normally take throughout a game and he's forcing early jumpers that he might not take throughout a game. But this is like the opposite. It's like he's just he wasn't that engaged. And he has games like this throughout the season where it's like he wasn't bad, but he wasn't Jimmy Butler standard of very, very good. And I think if they would have got that, they would have had a much, much better chance of winning. Wasn't all on him, but it's hard not to come back to that. Brady, before we get to some of the shooting numbers, which I think are interesting, you and I were talking about them before the podcast started. There are different standards for Jimmy Butler. Like Alex is saying a Jimmy Butler game. We have a different standard for regular season Jimmy than we do for playoff. Jimmy, no one is saying he has to be playoff Jimmy right now, but I'm looking at the Eastern conference, right? And there are a lot of teams competing with them at the moment. And we can talk about the heat not being healthy, but the heat are never healthy. So that's again, you've said that we've all said that, right? That's just something to accept. But now not only do you have the Boston Milwaukee, which whatever issues they may be having, they're still near the top of the conference. You still have Philadelphia, which has the flexibility to make a move to supplement that roster. We just saw Cleveland. They're still competitive. I don't know that they're as good as people thought they were going to be, but they're competitive. The Knicks have been competitive. The nets have actually gotten themselves going here a little bit. I think as we're speaking here, they've won six straight. A couple of those were against Miami. One of them was a throwaway game, but the other was legitimate. They came back and they have McHale bridges playing honestly at a higher level than Jimmy Butler is at the moment. And then, so that's six. Okay. But now you throw in Orlando, which has exceeded expectations and you throw in Indiana, which just has exceeded expectations and just had this very enriching experience in the end season tournament, which should help them and maybe force them to make a move or compel them to make a move. That's eight teams. And as much as I have thought, well, the heat, if they're healthy, it could be a three seed this year. And I still believe that's possible. They also could be a nine C if, if, if they don't start to get guys, right. And if Jimmy doesn't, as Alex said, turn up on a more consistent basis. So what level of Jimmy Butler do you think we've gotten this season? Has it been to the level of regular season, Jimmy, that you're hoping for not playoff, Jimmy, at what level do they need so that they're not in a situation where they need a max streuselike performance to save them in a plan. So I'll say for number one, we live this cycle every single year. Like this is our annual podcast where we do the thing where we talk about as Jimmy hit the wall, what do they need from Jimmy? What are they like, what is his level compared to past years? And I look at it and it's even though we're going to talk about the numbers, we'll save that. It's pretty similar. Like it's in the ballpark of things pre all-star break in past years. So like, this is kind of a similar outlook, but the big difference as you hit on is the fact that they're not healthy and he's the one guy standing. And as much as I'm not worried about it from a Jimmy Butler perspective, because I do think he can hit that next gear. I have no doubts about that. You're just in a position where you need to win games because you, I just don't think anybody wants you to be in the position you were last year. You do not want to be sitting, trying to battle your way through through a gauntlet and saying, Jimmy, go do that again. But you also don't want to put Jimmy through the, the, the fire of doing it now to get yourself in a decent spot. And then he does nothing left by the time you get there. So that's this balance. And that's the issue with the injury thing. It's, I remember we did the podcast early in the season where we, we ranked who was the most important, like, who could you least afford to get injured? And I remember I had the surprising one where I put Jimmy third behind Tyler and Bam. And the reason is because if Jimmy's the one last only one playing, this is what happens. You have to basically put him out there and make him do this stuff that you don't want him doing in November, December that he's never really done in November, December in a heat uniform. So that's kind of the position they're in. So now it comes to the point of what can you expect from him moving forward without Bam and Tyler? It's like, you're going to have games where the role players could play. Well, like they did in Cleveland, like they can raise your ceiling when you, when you're clicking. But as I said, with, in the context of Tyler, not playing like Tyler raises your offensive ceiling or your offensive floor, excuse me. He raises your offensive floor that you have a fallback plan, but like when there's a night where maybe your role players are not clicking, where they're not hitting a ton of threes, where they're not just over a guy has 25, like Richardson or Hawkins has in the past. It's just a lot on Jimmy to kind of take over and put pressure on the rim and all of that stuff. So Cleveland, I think was a perfect example because there's always one or two games every year where he gets switched out with length and then he does not care about putting his head down and getting to the basket. And he takes weird long jumpers and everybody says, Oh, they figured out Jimmy Butler. There was the game against Dallas. I always bring up the game against Dallas. I don't even know if this was, it's been such a long seasons. I don't even know if it was last year or the year before, but there was the game against Dallas where they switched a bunch of length on him. He had an awful game. There was like, they figured them out that you just put length on them and he's kind of just, you can close them off and then the playoffs happens. And every year there's these games, the regular season where it happens. And I just think it's him basically saying, I'm not going to hit that second gear in a random Tuesday night because it keep putting my head down and drawing fouls. And then there's the nights where in Indiana, where he gets to the line 20 times and he's like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to hit that gear and I'm going to find my flow and getting the paint. So I'm not worried about it from his perspective, but I think the reason, and I think from a heat fan perspective is cause I don't think a lot of heat fans are worried about that either. I think it's more so about what is the limitation to Jimmy in terms of him saving himself for the playoffs and doing his usual season routine while also being mindful that this team is not healthy, probably will never be healthy this season, but they need to get into a top. I'm not even going to say top three, like a top six, just not in the plane. Like we said last year. Yeah. And I mentioned those eight teams where there's also, I mean, there's Atlanta, there there's other teams that are in the mix here. And there is a lot being asked, not just of Jimmy, but also Kyle Lowry. That wasn't supposed to be asked this season. If you look at his minute count and I think some of that's bleeding into each other, right? When we come back from the break here, I want to go to Alex on some of the numbers because there is, when I looked, when I looked at them before the podcast, I was surprised how much one thing sticks out here. So I want to get into why this is happening, but before we do, this should stick out to you. If you've ever got an issue with leaks, water damage, mold damage, anything like that, reach out to our friends, Michael Robert and the team over at Water Cleanup of Florida based in Boca Raton service, the entire area. You can find them at WCUFL.com. That's water cleanup, FL.com. So WCUFL.com, they can do the preventative maintenance for you, the leak detection, the damage assessment. They'll cover it every step of the way. We know the insurance companies don't always take care of everything after the fact. So the preventative stuff is really important. They'll inspect your house and tell you what you need before something happens. South Florida, just about anything can happen, especially if you live in a low-lying area, like for instance, downtown Fort Lauderdale, like I do. So reach out to Water Cleanup of Florida, WCUFL.com. If you've got the schmutz, they got the guts. Let me go through some of these numbers here, Alex, because I'm going to go over the, let me go over the macro numbers first and then break them down a little bit and we can talk about it. If you look at Jimmy's, just the basic number, okay, like the number that the average fan would just look at, his shooting percentage is now overall regular raw field goal percentage, 45.9%, which is basically where it was his first season in Miami. But if you look at his trajectory in Miami, it was LeBron-like until this season, where it kept improving every year. So it was basically, well, not every year, but it was pretty close. So 45.5%, 49.7%, 48%. And then last year, 53.9%, a lot of which was done after the all-star break. He shot about 60% from the field after the all-star break. Now he's back down at 45.9%, which is more his historical norm, but not where he was last season. And that comes with him shooting better from threes at 39% from three this year. His effective field goal percentage, which accounts for the three-point shooting, first year in Miami, 47.4%, 51.4%, 49.6%, 56% last year. Now he's at 49%, which is back at his career norm. Then if you break it down a little bit further, the true shooting percentage, which includes free throw shooting, that's also back down to his career norm, but way down from where it was last season. And then this is the big thing to me, and we can get into the percentage, a lot of this is found on basketball reference, but the percentage of field goals attempts by distance, okay, which is he's shooting less at the rim this year. By far the fewest, the lowest percentage, I'm not talking about makes, I'm talking about attempts of his Miami career. First season, 34, 33, 31, 31, 22% of his attempts this year at the rim. So that's a significant drop. He's gone a little bit over now from three to 10%, and he's about the same from more distance, but the percentages also reflect this. So I don't know if he's shooting less at the rim because he's been less effective, so he's shying away for it, or what the cause and effect is at the rim in Miami. Again, it's according to basketball reference, 66%, 72%, 70%, 70% this year, 63%, three to 10 feet. He's down from 49% in terms of accuracy to 42% this year, 10 to 16 feet. He's down from 50% last season, which is really high, to 38% this year, which is actually lower than his career, which is 41%. And he's actually up from 16 feet to the three point line from 41% to 54%. He's been good from there. And three points, he's up from 35 to 39%. So what the overall numbers speak to is he's shooting less at the rim. He's making a lower percentage of his shots at the rim. He's making a lower percentage of his shots up to 10 feet. And then he's shooting really well from 16 feet out towards the three point line. What do you make of that? Because I feel like some people would say, well, he's an aging player who is stepping out more like sort of like Dwayne did to a certain degree. But I don't think that's what he fans wanted to see this season. And I'm not sure it's what he fans need. So what do you think? What do you think it is? It's funny, man. It's funny that you say that because it feels like he's almost like giving the people who've been wanting him to shoot a little bit more, right? Like what they wanted in that sense, where like everything confirms what you're saying as far as, you know, he's taking more jumpers and a little bit less at the rim, you know, taking as far as rim attempts per 75, the lowest since the first year in Miami. And I think the thing that kind of redeems himself and the fact that he still has like a kind of true to form true shooting percentage is the fact that he's shooting better on those long jumpers in the threes and taking a little bit more from three. And I just think that probably, you know, since true shooting accounts for the three a little bit more than like a field goal percentage that I think that's what that's what's keeping him up there. But I don't think that's the tradeoff that you wanted. You just wanted him to add that to his game. But it's like it's I don't think I don't know if it's like you like to say, I don't even know which one's right anymore of its correlation or causation. I don't think it's necessarily that because he's taking a three or more per game or whatever it is, a couple more threes a game that it's taken away from his overall game, because I think it's still it's a positive shot when he's just taking wide open ones. I think it's like the early clock jump jump shots, whether it's, you know, a long midi or a three and they're semi contested, which he's kind of like all over the place with it. So I don't mind it. Like, you know, in the playoffs when he's really turned up and locked in, he's not like, you know, doing making a lot of questionable decisions. But right now, it's like, no, you don't want him going further away from the rim. The good news is that like the free throw rate is right about where it's been, you know, for throughout his career. So that's good. The other thing I know, looking at some of the stats here is shout out junction threes.com. By the way, I use them all the time. lowest assist percentage by far in his heat tenure, it's kind of back down to where it was in the pre heat years where it was like good, but not nearly as high like, just to give you a little bit more context there like the past, let's just look at the heat years here. I'm going to just tell you percentile and assist percentage that Jimmy's been in 90th percentile the first year, 97, the second year, 89, the third year, 89 last year, 72nd this year. And it's a it's a pretty like the turnover percentage is pretty much where it's been. But yeah, the assist percentage, despite the usage still being pretty much where it's been, it's just down. And like you said, the rim attempts are down for 75 as well. Now that we have a we have different numbers as far as the percentages, but I think it's because dunks and threes and basketball references doing classifies the rim and the mid range stuff a little bit differently because the rim percentage for me like on dunks and threes that I'm looking at here is a lot worse than what you said. And it's by far the worst in his heat tenure. And honestly, just taking a look at it now, it's the second worst in his career behind only his rookie year. When you look at it's just under 53% at the rim, according to dunks and threes. So I'm sure it has to do with like how far out distance wise the websites are classifying it out to. But the theme is the same. Like he's not playing his game as much. He's not he's not playing the high impact game that he usually does in the regular season. Not even talking about anything is like how he plays in the playoffs. As far as his regular season baseline, he's not there. And when you talk about the defense, the steel percentage is way, way down easily the lowest of his heat tenure. And now just looking at that another funny enough, second lowest since his rookie year. Like these are not good indicators. I'm not panicking about Jimmy Butler. That's not what I'm trying to say here at all. Like there's some things where where it ends up just making me feel like he's not giving his all. I'm not trying to make it a criticism because I think there's just some games where he looks great, some games he doesn't. And that's just kind of the Jimmy experience. Now, I just think we're seeing it in a different way now where it's a little bit more jumpers, a little bit less the rim. The finishing has been quite as good. I'm not panicking. If you know this happens throughout the whole season and maybe you worry about that heading into the playoffs. I think it's OK. I think Jimmy's still a great player. But yeah, like the numbers absolutely back up some of the stats. And if you just look at like the three full games they've played since Bam got hurt. So not counting that the first Pacers game, just, you know, raw plus minus negative 17 in those three games. And that's, you know, putting them all together there. So it just it could be better. Like he's had a couple of great he had a couple of great games against the Pacers in the past two against, you know, some better defenses didn't look great. I'm not panicking yet, but he's got to be better, especially like in this time without their second and third best player. I mean, he needs to be the best player on the floor first for stretches. I mean, if they're going to win without two of their three best players, that's just the reality of it. That's why I want to do the podcast. It's not that we're panicking, but the numbers are saying something here that the eye test has already said. And overall good news, by the way, I forgot to say this one. Sorry to interrupt Jimmy without Bam this year. Net rating of plus four point fifty nine. So that was a trend that was that was happening throughout the season before Bam got hurt. I'm not necessarily sure what that net rating would be since Bam's got hurt. Right. Because it's obviously a very different team. But I think like that part overall, it's like it's been very, very positive. Like they found I think I think that's not the case of Bam, by the way, like Bam without Jimmy, it's absolutely not been the same. It's actually a negative eleven point eighty three net rating. But, you know, that's why it's like there's good and bad to the way that Jimmy's playing. Well, I think some of that may be the Kevin Love minutes he's had, but we'll get into that in a little bit more depth. But I think they found some answers there. But ultimately it comes down to this. Your best player needs to be the best player on the floor some nights. And I don't know that he's done that a lot. The Indiana game where he went nuts in the second half, he was. And, you know, but it wasn't enough. But to dive into the numbers a little bit more here, Brady, before we close the the other number that jumped out to me was his percentage of field goals that are assisted is way up. So in other words, the number of him, which which plays into what Alex is talking about with his own assist percentage being down, those things do tend correlation, not causation. Got it in the right order this time. But there does seem to be some correlation here where we can identify some trends, right? Shooting further away from the basket more consistently, less effective around the rim, whether, again, he's staying away from the rim because he's not as effective or he's not as effective. So, well, what it is, I don't know. But also defensively, that's an energy thing, the steals thing. And some of this does sort of speak to energy level, right? Or give a bleep level, because if a steel percentage is down, if the rim attempts are down, those are things that require a lot of energy. So he could be conserving himself. Which of the trends concerns you, Brady? That would be my question. The one that would concern me would be the pure percentage around the rim, just in terms of the efficiency, because I think that that's shown to be problematic at times, just because that's been a trend over the couple of years that that could happen. So that would be number one. The defensive one, they do like they need it really badly. And that's why I even asked about it last game. We're about kind of what he thought of the rim pressure in general, because like they need him to get there. But he'll seem to convert, especially when you're playing these fast teams that they've been playing lately. Like if you have like a bad miss below the rim and now Jimmy's lagging behind, that seems out. They are going the other direction. Now you're taking the ball to their basket. So it's like it could just like turn so quickly. The defensive one, I'll say, I think the only reason I'm not worried about that one specifically is I was noting kind of early in the season, he was guarding a lot of team's best players where he's played the kind of a little bit of a different defensive role this year where he's not playing that weak side safety as much it feels like to me, where now he's kind of guarding at the point of attack. It's on especially now without Haywood Highsmith. And then there was kind of points where the guys were in and out, as we know, guys have been in outside, they had to move him around defensively a little bit. So I think that could play into it a little bit. But I'd say the efficiency is the one thing. And here's the other thing, because we talked about the combo between him and Tyler in a negative fashion all the time, for some reason, even though I just don't really see it as that. I think the Tyler thing coming back could really help him just in terms of like the what we're talking about in terms of efficiency, getting easier shots below the rim instead of taking kind of long shots that he's forcing late in the clock or stuff. Having a guy that is going to draw that much more attention to open up Jimmy's lanes, I feel like he's going to do wonders because as much as we talk about how great Duncan has been, how great Jaime has been, they're not drawing the attention of Tyler, even Duncan, who sees a ton, and I've noted the amount of gravity that he continues to have. There's just another thing to be able to run past half court and run a high pick and roll and be able to kind of move and rotate an entire defense. That's what Tyler can potentially do. And that opens up Jimmy a ton that opens up his you know, you talk about the assist percentage stuff that opens up him in the back lines, but it also opens up when when he gets the ball next to him. There's just it's just a different flow. So as much as we look at it like that, and I was just looking about actually last year, not this could be a whole other topic. But last year, Jimmy and Tyler's lineups was at a 15.3 offensive rating last year when when they both were on the floor, which was actually one of their best offensive rating two man lineups in terms of just high number of minutes. So I think that could do wonders for him. But we can't expect health as I keep saying like we can't just expect like for a player to come back and help Jimmy in that way or this player to slot in and help him defensively like that is not what this heat team has ever been about. It's about who's ever in is in they kind of have to flow with the punches a little bit. But the efficiency is kind of the one thing that I feel like kind of needs to shift. But I will say, because we're talking about aggressiveness, I'm glad Alex pointed out the free throw attempts thing, because he's still right there at the top of the league and free throw attempts. He's still exactly where he's been every year in Miami Uniform free throw attempts. So that's a good trend to say he could still get there when he feels like it, but he has to convert a little bit more. Well, you made the key point there when he feels like it, there feels like there's a certain point of the game where he's like, okay, fine, fine. I mean, nobody else is going to do it. I'm going to put my head down and get to the rim and the officials are going to call some fouls. And, and I'm just like, well, okay, why not do that? A couple other times, a couple other pockets of the game, a couple of things that have stood out to me here. One is I'd be curious and we don't have a lot of time to get in the depth of it, but we do more of a Hawkeyes episode. Again, it seems like Hawkeyes is finishing at the ramp, right? I mean, I, his rim numbers are better than Jimmy's in much lower value, obviously. Right. So some of that rim pressure that we talked about, I, what you mentioned, Alex is totally what I see happen all the time. Jimmy throws up like some flailing layup or whatever amongst the trees. And all of a sudden it's transition the other way because of how, how deep he is, you know, down there and he's already trailing. And this is one of the things that's been deflating for this team. But I'm just curious if what you guys think about this, we've talked so much about how they don't have a point guard, right? I mean, they have Kyle, but they don't have somebody that they can rely on to be effective night after night. Jimmy's assist percentages down. He's not an elite passer, but he's been a good passer in Miami. I mean, would you look at putting the ball in his hands at the top more often instead of, and having him set other guys up instead of what seems like again, him either, you know, trying to get, you know, being basically camped out near the paint or, you know, and I mentioned the percentage of his shots that are assisted him kind of spotting up for others or flailing out to the corner or something like that. I mean, is it because people are talking about Jimmy could be a four eventually. I saw that in the ask Iris, but he was saying that meant Jimmy on the four on this team feels more like he could be the one than the four, right. Or am I missing? So what are your guys' thoughts on that? Or does it even matter as far as that part of it? Um, like I completely get it. I think he's, he's shown himself to be a fantastic playmaker, not necessarily like, you know, elite Halliburton, Jokic, LeBron, you know, Luca level, but in terms of just being a very, very good one, he, he, he can do that. And I think in times like this without your, um, two other best players, I think it makes sense to scale up that playmaking a bit. And I think like Kyle's done a pretty good job scaling up his usage a bit, you know, again, relative to expectations. I think he's been pretty good. Like he's given you, I bet if you look up like double digit, you know, points, you know, or games with Kyle Lowry, double digit points, just through this point in the season, I would guess that this is probably like the most he's had, right. As far as through this point, I don't know if I'm right on that. It just feels like you had more games where Kyle is giving you, um, you know, pretty good production and it doesn't just feel like he's floating. And we know that he always steps up when their best players come out. So yes, even with that, I still think it makes sense to scale up Jimmy's playmaking. And the fourth thing, like he kind of just did that last year while Caleb was starting right until they made that change and got Kevin love. So we've seen him before. And I think this team has enough when it comes to like some of these roles we're talking about for him. Like, that's why you don't necessarily see him guarding the point of attack too much because you have Caleb, you have, you know, Highsmith who's been out, but just in general, like, I mean, you have Josh as well in general, I think like they have other guys who can play, who can like, um, make things happen. And when you look at Haka is right, I was just, you know, you mentioned comparing him at the rim to Jimmy. Of course, they're playing very different roles. Jimmy is kind of like the main focus of, you know, the scouting, you know, the team and the scouting report coming in and you got to deal with the foul grifting and, you know, it's, it's part of the game. But, um, Haka is at the rim. Like when you look at per 75 possessions, it's taking about one less shot at the rim than Jimmy in that same amount of time. And again, very different role. Like Haka has, um, a higher percentage of assisted buckets than Jimmy. We know that they're not in the same, you know, the higher, the hierarchy is what it is, but the fact that Haka is, is taking a similar amount, you know, in the times that they're playing. And the fact that Haka is, is just converting at a much, much, much better percentage. Um, then Jimmy, it tells you like, you know, they have more this year. Caleb is a great finisher. Um, like bam is obviously has gotten better this year. I think Tyler had shown that he, he had gotten better this year. I think in general, like all of this. And then when you include what you mentioned before, which was a great point by you, Ethan, as far as the percentage of, um, assisted buckets for Jimmy being down, I think points to him just being like, look, I'm going to be a ball mover. I don't need to hold the ball out for this team. And, uh, I'm somebody who's just, you know, even though I'm the best player, I'm one of the many weapons. And I, and I, I get that because this team is very deep and they have a lot of guys who can do different things. The problem is when you're missing bam and Tyler, that kind of goes out the window. It's like, you need him to, to just do more. It is what it is, even if you are deeper and like you had consistent games again, I'm going back to like the simplest stuff, like points, right? Double digit points. You'll see Josh, Caleb, uh, Kyle. I mean, love did it last game too. And like, they have multiple guys who are, you know, putting it in. So I, I kind of get the overall, like zooming out the big picture of it. It's like, they have enough guys to get them throughout a season where Jimmy doesn't need to, you know, put the Cape on as Tiffany shout out to her, um, always likes to say. And I think it's just points where, you know, points throughout a game where he's, where he has to do it. And when he doesn't, it's like, Oh man, you look at the stat line. I was just like, Oh, 17 points, five of 15 shooting. Like that's what a lot of these games would look like if he didn't have those points where he really turns up. Cause it's not like he's doing throughout the game. That's the thing. I'm just not used to seeing all these sub 40% games from him. And, and I think, I mean, you mentioned it, they have more options. They're more variable. I mean, Duncan's a better finisher than he was also. I mean, you're talking about there's, there's got, they've added finishers and some of their players have become better finishers. And I, I just keep looking and saying, well, if you just got, I keep coming back to this be Jimmy tonight. Like, and by that, I mean, the letter grade, just get, get, you know, be regular season, Jimmy. I think they close some of these games easier and I'm not in Brady. I'll let you close here. I'm not looking at it anymore. Like I used to where we were like, okay, when's he getting it back in, in the fourth quarter? Like why is Spell waiting until the six minute Mark, instead of the nine minute Mark or the eight minute Mark, like the game of the other night against Cleveland, I was like, you know what the ball's moving better. There's a better flow. There's more energy when it's been Hawkins, Richardson and Caleb, even as bad as Duncan was the other night, which is really his first awful game of the season. Then it was when Jimmy was in there, like I, it just, it fell off the whole night. And I'm not accustomed to saying that. So I'm not panicked about it, but you cannot be in a situation where you let too many of these games go right now. I mean, this, this week, they got to clean up this week. I mean, I, you know, they got, they got a Chicago in there. They got a Charlotte in there. Like they, a couple charts, they need to clean up this week and he needs to make sure of it. Like, that's the thing, like do it twice during a game instead of once. Okay. And finish these because otherwise you don't want those last two, three weeks of the season, like Alex said to be, and I'll let Brady finish to be a scramble. Okay. Where you're, you're trying to beat out the nets or the Knicks for the six spot. Like that's not where you want to be this year. Definitely not. And I'll say the fact that we're not looking down at the scores table is a, is a probably a good thing because I think it's probably because those lineups have been really good to start the fourth quarter. Like you mentioned, like they've actually been some of their better lineups. So you mentioned with Caleb Hawkins, Jay, rich Duncan, and used to be banned, but now it was Orlando Robinson or Kevin Love the other night. I think now you're, you're trying to find like any mentally, like we've talked about the basketball first part of it. You're trying to find any mental edge to see if Jimmy's going to get up for a game where I think after the two Charlotte games, I think it's three games in a row against his old teams. Is that any added incentive? And then you fast forward a couple days and then it's Philly at home is a fourth game. So maybe there's just going to be an added push here toward the end of December, but this is the time to do it. Cause I feel like they, they might be, it's hard to say because I almost feel like you're you'd say to Jimmy, if you're the heat, well, let's make this push now because if BAM and Tyler get healthy, then maybe you could take some games off at the start of the new year. But they can't promise that. Like they literally can't because as much as we're saying, yeah, you need to go on a win winning streak now because it could get bad. We don't know what January is going to look like. We don't know what February is going to look like. So you cannot promise anything to tell them to play a certain style. So that's kind of the weird part. And that's why I keep saying it's a balance, but they do need to kind of turn it up a notch because as I keep saying, there's some great storylines here. There's some great player developments here that we keep noting, but like at a certain point, they're going to hit a minor wall where they can only get you to a certain point. Like we've seen that three guys off the bench in that Cleveland game, Jay rich, Kevin love, and Jaime Hawkins played exceptional in that last game. Like they had well above their season averages in that game and they lost by double digits. Like you're in a situation now where you need that level of Jimmy to win these games other than these kind of counter punches from the other guys. So I think they're kind of going to have to recognize that eventually. And they're going to need him to set a tone because as much as it's about the numbers and everything like that, like he needs to be the guy, the energy, the enforcer, the guy that's like there was the game where he was more of an enforcer when he wasn't playing. Cause there was the game against Milwaukee where he was like yelling at everybody on the bench and telling them to go here, this person to go here. He's like, and everybody's here. Like they need him to be the energizer in that way where he, you know, it could be a run, but it has to be consistent because that is the name of this team. Like I I've noted the, the defensive rating and offensive rating in the second halves have been atrocious. Like they just have to have some form of consistency and whether that's three point shooting, whether that's Jimmy being a certain type of style and playing with a certain type of energy, like it has to be something. So aside from the numbers, the side from the lineup side, from all of that, they need Jimmy just to like be himself because that is literally who he is. He isn't a ball of energy that could kind of get them in a certain direction. So I just feel like more than anything, they need that in this upcoming stretch. I'm glad you mentioned the way he's been on the bench because he hasn't been disengaged. It hasn't been that it has just seemed like he's been preserving himself too much on the court. It doesn't feel like he's tuned out on this team. He seems to like the guys he's playing with. You see the interactions with Josh. We never played with before the season was traded for him. You see the interactions with Jaime. Again, he has a good relationship with Caleb. He loves Kevin love. Like it's not that it's, it's not, I don't think that he's upset about the roster they put together. It just seems like he's saving himself for a rainy day sometimes. And the problem is sometimes you'll get a flood at that point. You cannot be in a situation where you're forcing him. It's raining right now. It is raining right now. Exactly. It's 12 and 10. So let's, let's get them to get an umbrella and start to get going. All right. Thanks to Brady. Thanks to Alex. Uh, thanks to better edge. Our sponsor use the code five RSN water cleanup in Florida, sign up for the discord off the floor. You can find it right here in the description. Have a good day, everybody. Someone needs to listen to my dad.