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Speaker 2: co slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoops and I
Speaker 2: here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all of
Speaker 2: you guys are having a great week well. As promised, today,
Speaker 2: we're going to go through the top five storylines of
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty five NBA Finals. We've talked a lot
Speaker 2: of basketball over the last couple of days. We're gonna
Speaker 2: get into some of the narratives that are surrounding this series,
Speaker 2: some of the debates, and some things to keep an
Speaker 2: eye on in terms of stories to follow in this series.
Speaker 2: You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe
Speaker 2: to the Hoops and Not YouTube channels. You don't miss
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Speaker 2: underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss ShW announcements. Don't
Speaker 2: forget about our podcast few wherever you get your podcast
Speaker 2: under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave
Speaker 2: a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing
Speaker 2: great work on our social media feeds Twitter, Instagram, Facebook
Speaker 2: and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there and
Speaker 2: then keep dropping mailback question in our YouTube comments so
Speaker 2: we can get to them in our mail bags throughout
Speaker 2: the remainder of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 2: So the first storyline that I think we've already seen
Speaker 2: quite a bit of talk surrounding in the week leading
Speaker 2: up to the finals, just people complaining about small markets
Speaker 2: and the ratings. Right like I saw, there's kind of
Speaker 2: already a theme heading into the conference finals, as we
Speaker 2: had the Knicks alongside a Minnesota Timberwolves team, in Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City thunder team and an Indiana Pacers team. But this
Speaker 2: to me is the inevitable part of the NBA cycle.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of talk about like having small markets
Speaker 2: and that being the driving force behind low ratings, when
Speaker 2: that simply is not the case. We've seen so many
Speaker 2: examples of teams in every sport be able to overcome
Speaker 2: whatever perceived limitations sit on in their market to become
Speaker 2: a very like, a very resonant team in among NBA fans.
Speaker 2: Classic examples we talked about recently, Golden State wasn't viewed
Speaker 2: as that type of team. Steph made them into that
Speaker 2: type of team. Cleveland wasn't viewed as that type of team.
Speaker 2: Cleveland was one of the biggest rating draws in the
Speaker 2: league for a while because of Lebron James. You build
Speaker 2: that sort of ratings monster in the NFL teams like
Speaker 2: the Kansas City Chiefs. You think the Kansas City Chiefs
Speaker 2: were major ratings draws ten years ago. This is something
Speaker 2: that you build through exposure in high stakes moments like this.
Speaker 2: Very similarly, we remember after MJ retired, there's a phase
Speaker 2: there where it's like, oh, man, like, who's gonna be
Speaker 2: the next guy, Who's gonna be the next face of
Speaker 2: the league. But then it just builds in momentum and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it's okay, here comes Kobe, here
Speaker 2: comes Shack, Here comes Tim Duncan, here comes Lebron, And
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, we have a very healthy trove
Speaker 2: of stars to drive the league forward. Right. It's all
Speaker 2: part of that natural kind of ebb and flow. We're
Speaker 2: in a weird spot here. Lebron and Steph are aging out.
Speaker 2: Some of these younger stars like Tyre's Halliburton and shake
Speaker 2: yel Just Alexander don't have a ton of exposure to
Speaker 2: casual basketball fans. Yet this is their opportunity. It is
Speaker 2: through play style and resonating with people and being the
Speaker 2: type of culturally resonant basketball force that Steph was that
Speaker 2: Lebron was combined with sustained success in late May in June.
Speaker 2: That actually provides them foundation to have a strong set
Speaker 2: of ratings moving forward for the league again ultimately the
Speaker 2: NBA Finals. The goal of them is to showcase the
Speaker 2: two best teams in the NBA. This series may only
Speaker 2: have one Top five player, maybe only three Top twenty
Speaker 2: five players between Siakam and SGA and Tyres Halliburton, depending
Speaker 2: on how you feel about chatter Jdubb. I haven't done
Speaker 2: my player rankings yet. Maybe JDub lands in the top
Speaker 2: twenty five, but like maybe as few as three players
Speaker 2: in top twenty five. But it does showcase the best
Speaker 2: basketball that has been played this season and specifically within
Speaker 2: the realm of what works in the modern game. As
Speaker 2: we've talked about so much, you can increase your offensive
Speaker 2: efficiency by like roughly twenty percent every time you push
Speaker 2: the ball in transition. Pushing the ball in transition is
Speaker 2: low hanging fruit that exists in basketball for you to
Speaker 2: take advantage of. It is there for everybody, and the
Speaker 2: pacers in the Thunder have been two of the best
Speaker 2: to do that. Ball pressure is a simple market inefficiency
Speaker 2: that makes ball handlers uncomfortable, forces them to work later
Speaker 2: into the shot clock. On offense, potentially forces turnovers by
Speaker 2: speeding up those players, and can lead to easier transition
Speaker 2: opportunities going the other way. This is low hanging fruit
Speaker 2: that is available to everybody in the league, and the
Speaker 2: Pacers in the Thunder have just been the two best
Speaker 2: teams at actually taking advantage of it. This is a
Speaker 2: showcase of the right way to play basketball in the
Speaker 2: modern NBA, regardless of who is on your roster, and
Speaker 2: if you have the ability to replicate these things, you
Speaker 2: can actually drive more success for your team. And in
Speaker 2: that case, I find it to be a very series.
Speaker 2: It's not going to crush in the ratings. It never
Speaker 2: was going to, but that doesn't mean that teams like
Speaker 2: this and that players like this can't eventually drive ratings.
Speaker 2: There's a version. If I would have told you in
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight that in the twenty seventeen NBA
Speaker 2: Finals we were going to see the Golden State Warriors
Speaker 2: and the Cleveland Cavaliers, all of you would have been
Speaker 2: bitching at the time about how it was going to
Speaker 2: be a low ratings type of situation. That's not the case.
Speaker 2: These guys can build juggernauts in the ratings with their
Speaker 2: presence and their ability to capture their hearts and minds
Speaker 2: of basketball fans. Number two, Tyres Halliburton, in the line
Speaker 2: of embarrassment perpetuated by this Oklahoma City defense. I've talked
Speaker 2: a little bit about this on the show over the
Speaker 2: course of the last couple of weeks, but Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: has done some serious damage to some really good players
Speaker 2: in this postseason run. So I wanted to actually give
Speaker 2: you guys a rundown of just some of the specific,
Speaker 2: truly damaging performances their defense has done to some respected
Speaker 2: players around this league. In the first round, Desmond Bain
Speaker 2: had a game where he went three for twelve with
Speaker 2: four turnovers, another game where he went three for fourteen
Speaker 2: with five turnovers. Jaron Jackson had a game where he
Speaker 2: went two for thirteen with just four points four points
Speaker 2: on thirteen shots as a power forward in the NBA.
Speaker 2: In the sweep game, he went just three for twelve
Speaker 2: from the field. I talked about Nikole Jokics playing three
Speaker 2: of the worst games of his career in rapid secession
Speaker 2: in that second round series. In that series, in Game two,
Speaker 2: three and four, Nikole Jokic shot just thirty three percent
Speaker 2: from the field just eighteen percent from three and had
Speaker 2: sixteen turnovers to just fifteen assists. How often have we
Speaker 2: thought of Nikole Jokich as a guy who only makes
Speaker 2: a third of his shots over a week of basketball games,
Speaker 2: or as a player that has more turnovers than assists.
Speaker 2: That was the type of damage that Oklahoma City did
Speaker 2: too Jokic during a stretch where they won two out
Speaker 2: of three games in regame control of the series. That
Speaker 2: is the damage they were able to do to the
Speaker 2: best player in the world. Julius Randall had almost entirely
Speaker 2: rehabbed his playoff image through what he did through the
Speaker 2: first two rounds, like on both ends of the floor
Speaker 2: against the Lakers, and then just successfully breaking down Golden
Speaker 2: State's defense over and over again the way that he did.
Speaker 2: He had a two for eleven game for just six
Speaker 2: points in Game two against Oklahoma City, and then in
Speaker 2: Game four, a pivotal game at home where they desperately
Speaker 2: needed him to be good, he was just one for
Speaker 2: seven with five points. So this is a long list
Speaker 2: of really good players that Oklahoma City hasn't just had
Speaker 2: success against, but has flat out embarrassed, like even with
Speaker 2: Jokich in those games, relative to what we usually see
Speaker 2: from him. That is quite literally the lowest end of
Speaker 2: the Jokich spectrum that Oklahoma City's defense showed us. Tyres
Speaker 2: Haliburton at various points in his career, especially in the postseason,
Speaker 2: has shown when things get really intense in terms of
Speaker 2: ball pressure and physicality, he can have a problem with
Speaker 2: maintaining his aggression and engagement in the game. And I
Speaker 2: think it's very possible in this series that Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: could bring out some of those really embarrassing stat lines
Speaker 2: for Tyrese Haliburt. He's susceptible to those under any circumstances
Speaker 2: against this particular defense. I think we could be walking
Speaker 2: away from this series talking very differently about Tyrese Haliburton
Speaker 2: than we did after the first three series. That is
Speaker 2: a storyline that we have to keep an eye on.
Speaker 2: Number three shake Giljes Alexander. If he can finish this
Speaker 2: off by winning this series and winning finals, MVP is
Speaker 2: putting together one of the best guard seasons in NBA history.
Speaker 2: Even if you want to take that guard part and
Speaker 2: set it aside. To win at least sixty eight games,
Speaker 2: to make the All Star team, to win the scoring title,
Speaker 2: to make first Team All NBA, to win MVP of
Speaker 2: the League, and to tie it off with the Finals MVP.
Speaker 2: He would be just the second player in NBA history
Speaker 2: to accomplish all of those things in a single season,
Speaker 2: with just Michael Jordan in nineteen ninety six being the
Speaker 2: other one. Now, there's always a natural pushback to this
Speaker 2: sort of thing, and I totally understand it. It's just
Speaker 2: human nature. We start talking about it, it's like, holy shit,
Speaker 2: this is one of the best seasons in NBA history,
Speaker 2: and then we all immediately want to start bringing other
Speaker 2: guys up. And I totally get that. It was like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a Lebron fan. It was like that
Speaker 2: with Lebron. I remember it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: he just won a second title, and the jump shots
Speaker 2: he was hitting against the Spurs in Game seven, and
Speaker 2: just the way he played down the stretch of Game six,
Speaker 2: and everyone's like, is this the greatest basketball player ever?
Speaker 2: And what did we see? We saw this like natural
Speaker 2: pushback from everybody as it became like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: make him learn it. Michael Jordan did this, Kobe Bryant
Speaker 2: did that, and it just becomes part of that natural pushback.
Speaker 2: I understand that that's part of the deal, but that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean we can't acknowledge what we're seeing in the moment.
Speaker 2: Shay has an extremely talented roster this year. He has
Speaker 2: one of the more talented rosters in recent NBA history.
Speaker 2: This would not be as difficult as some other championships
Speaker 2: that other stars have won. That goes without saying, but
Speaker 2: over the course of his career, those circumstances will shift.
Speaker 2: I don't think any player in NBA history has had
Speaker 2: a more talented roster than Steph Curry did in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: But he had another opportunity in twenty twenty three or
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty two, excuse me to demonstrate that he
Speaker 2: was capable of leading a championship team that had less talent,
Speaker 2: that was actually operating at a talent deficit in the
Speaker 2: NBA Finals. And so over the course of Shay's career,
Speaker 2: we'll see more of those challenges that arise. Maybe as
Speaker 2: this Oklahoma City roster gets more expensive, Maybe if he
Speaker 2: forces his way out to some other team hoping for
Speaker 2: green or pastors. One day he ends up on a
Speaker 2: more limited team that's maybe too star Layden and doesn't
Speaker 2: have the necessary depth. There's so many different ways that
Speaker 2: Shay's career can go and this is just one part
Speaker 2: of the story. And yeah, like if he wins the
Speaker 2: finals this year and has this incredible season put together,
Speaker 2: but over the course of the rest of his career
Speaker 2: is underwhelming, then he's not gonna be remembered with MJ
Speaker 2: And he's not gonna be remembered with Steph and Lebron
Speaker 2: and Kobe and the greatest guards that have played this league.
Speaker 2: It's all about sustaining and it's all about putting all
Speaker 2: of those feathers in the cap of your story. I
Speaker 2: talk about this with with Steph just a minute ago. Like,
Speaker 2: if Steph only won the two Kevin Durant titles, probably
Speaker 2: gets remembered differently, but he didn't. He won two others, right, Lebron,
Speaker 2: same thing. If he only won the twenty twenty title
Speaker 2: alongside Anthony Davis, you know, different type of story if
Speaker 2: you only won the two titles with the heat. But
Speaker 2: that's not what happened. We saw in twenty sixteen him
Speaker 2: overcoming adversity in a different way. In twenty thirteen, a
Speaker 2: couple of seven game series down the stretch of the postseason.
Speaker 2: That twenty twenty title clearly his easiest one. It's not
Speaker 2: the one everyone goes and tells the story about when
Speaker 2: they're talking about how great Lebron James is. But in
Speaker 2: the part of the in the journey of being a
Speaker 2: basketball player, there are gonna be years when things kind
Speaker 2: of pan out for you and it goes easier than
Speaker 2: you're expecting. There're gonna be years when things don't go
Speaker 2: your way and you face more adversity and you have
Speaker 2: to dig deeper and you have to reach a different
Speaker 2: level as a player. In the season, things have gone
Speaker 2: pretty smoothly for Oklahoma City, but even in that context,
Speaker 2: Shays had one of the greatest seasons in NBA history,
Speaker 2: and he deserves credit for it based solely on the
Speaker 2: fact that no one's ever done it other than Michael
Speaker 2: Jordan in nineteen ninety six, and it would be an
Speaker 2: excellent first feather in his cap. No one's gonna put
Speaker 2: him as the second or third best player of all
Speaker 2: time unless he sustains this for the better part of
Speaker 2: the next decade, but this is the first step in
Speaker 2: that direction, and it's been an incredibly impressive season from
Speaker 2: shake Kyos as Alexander obviously pending him finishing the deal.
Speaker 2: Number four is Oklahoma City an all time great team. Now,
Speaker 2: as I've said multiple times, you do not earn that status,
Speaker 2: at least not in my book, unless you win multiple
Speaker 2: championships for all the reasons that I just said. Circumstances change.
Speaker 2: It's like Boston this year. Boston this year, have a
Speaker 2: couple guys get injured, don't play as well as they
Speaker 2: typically do. Right Porzingis is dealing with an illness, Jalen
Speaker 2: Brown's knee isn't quite where it used to be, and
Speaker 2: you run into a tough matchup. What we didn't think
Speaker 2: would be a tough matchup, but what ended up being
Speaker 2: a tough matchup in the second round, and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden things were a little tighter. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: we had some close games. We didn't have to see
Speaker 2: Tatum and Brown super surgical clutch time decisions last year
Speaker 2: in the postseason, in high stakes situations. This year we did.
Speaker 2: They didn't do the job. New York actually beat them right.
Speaker 2: It is through multiple seasons that we see teams overcome adversity.
Speaker 2: It is through multiple seasons that teams can attain that
Speaker 2: status of being an all time great team in NBA history,
Speaker 2: But in this single season, would we consider this to
Speaker 2: be an all time great single season in NBA history. Well,
Speaker 2: they right now are eighty and eighteen. If they won
Speaker 2: this series in five games, let's call it, they'd be
Speaker 2: eighty four and nineteen in that particular case. That puts
Speaker 2: them pretty far up the list in terms of best
Speaker 2: records in single seasons. This postseason run has been pretty
Speaker 2: impressive for them. We talked about the Western Conference being
Speaker 2: an absolute blood bath, and it was. They were the
Speaker 2: one team who got a favorable first round matchup. They
Speaker 2: earned it by all of the regular season games that
Speaker 2: they did. I thought there were seven good Western Conference
Speaker 2: playoff teams, and obviously Oklahoma City got to play the eighth.
Speaker 2: But after that, they beat the twenty twenty three champs,
Speaker 2: the best player in the world, a team that I
Speaker 2: viewed specifically as a tough matchup for them, and guess what,
Speaker 2: they brought some adversity to the equation and we got
Speaker 2: to see Oklahoma City overcome that adversity. They were down
Speaker 2: to one in the series and trailing by eight in
Speaker 2: the early fourth quarter of Game four. They're trailing by
Speaker 2: nine early in the fourth quarter of Game five. They
Speaker 2: overcame that that Timberwolves team is a very very good
Speaker 2: team that has beat a lot of really good teams.
Speaker 2: That Timberwolves team beat Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal.
Speaker 2: They beat Nikola Jokics last year, they beat Luca and
Speaker 2: Lebron this year. That is a team that has done
Speaker 2: some damage and Oklahoma City survived them. And if they
Speaker 2: beat this Pacers team, that's a Pacers team that just
Speaker 2: won an Eastern Conference that had two sixty win teams
Speaker 2: in it. So Jackson and I were having some fun
Speaker 2: before the show. We were trying to figure out how
Speaker 2: we would rank the top five teams since twenty ten.
Speaker 2: So I'm calling that like kind of the end of
Speaker 2: that era when Kobe won his last title in twenty ten.
Speaker 2: So I'm going from the twenty eleven MAVs all the
Speaker 2: way through to this theoretical twenty twenty five championship of
Speaker 2: ok I'm a city team. If they were to win,
Speaker 2: where would they rank? I thought the twenty seventeen Warriors
Speaker 2: were the obvious number one. That is the most talented
Speaker 2: roster ever assembled in the history of the NBA. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's particularly close. They had the second and
Speaker 2: third best players in the league playing on the same team.
Speaker 2: They had Klay Thompson, who at the time was one
Speaker 2: of the highest level starters in the league, an elite
Speaker 2: defensive player, the second best shooter to ever play the game.
Speaker 2: That was a phase of his career as well, when
Speaker 2: he was really starting to come together as a more
Speaker 2: consistent playoff performer. Klay Thompson was ridiculous. Draymond Green the
Speaker 2: best defensive player of our era, Andre Gudala one of
Speaker 2: the most gifted role players of our era. Seventeen one
Speaker 2: Warriors clear the field. In my opinion, I think they're
Speaker 2: the greatest basketball team ever assembled, even counting the nineties Bulls,
Speaker 2: even counting the eighties Celtics and Lakers. I don't think
Speaker 2: anyone's come close. I just think they're far and away
Speaker 2: the best team in NBA history. Simple way to put it.
Speaker 2: They were in that blood bath of a Western conference
Speaker 2: and they literally swept them. They swept the entire West.
Speaker 2: They won fifteen straight playoff games before the Cavs finally
Speaker 2: were able to beat them once in a game in
Speaker 2: Cleveland in game four of that NBA Finals run. The
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen Warriors clear the field. I think there's actually
Speaker 2: a gap between them and everyone else. Number two for
Speaker 2: me the twenty twenty five Thunder with Land right there,
Speaker 2: sixty eight wins, beating the types of teams they would
Speaker 2: beat on the way. To me, that clears the other
Speaker 2: teams that are on this list. Where it gets interesting
Speaker 2: is starting to talk about those teams. Number three for
Speaker 2: me was the twenty thirteen Heat. They won sixty six games.
Speaker 2: They were defending champ which is another layer to add
Speaker 2: to this as well, and beating that San Antonio Spurs.
Speaker 2: They have back to back seven game series in the
Speaker 2: playoff run. They beat that Indiana Pacers team in seven
Speaker 2: in the Conference finals, and then they beat that San
Speaker 2: Antonio Spurs team in seven in the NBA Finals. That's
Speaker 2: San Antonio Spurs team is also on this list as
Speaker 2: the twenty fourteen Spurs. I have them at number four.
Speaker 2: They beat Dirk's MAVs in the first round. They beat
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant's Thunder in the Conference finals, and they beat
Speaker 2: Lebron and Dwayne Wade in the Miami Heat in the
Speaker 2: NBA Finals. Not as successful as a regular season, I
Speaker 2: think they only won sixty two games, but a more
Speaker 2: impressive playoff run, so I put them on that list,
Speaker 2: and then the fifth best team since twenty eleven. The
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four Celtics kind of a weak playoff field.
Speaker 2: They kind of just coasted through and beat everyone. I
Speaker 2: thought the only real tough teams they played were the
Speaker 2: Pacers in the MAVs, but they handled both of those
Speaker 2: teams in four and five games, respectively. But they had
Speaker 2: an incredibly dominant regular season, especially statistically, which put them
Speaker 2: on this list at number five. So in short, among
Speaker 2: the last fifteen champions, if Oklahoma City closes this deal,
Speaker 2: I'd put them in second place behind the twenty seventeen
Speaker 2: Golden State Warriors. Then our last storyline to follow in
Speaker 2: this series. Is this series a sign that you need
Speaker 2: to win with depth in the modern NBA? Yes and no.
Speaker 2: There is more than one way to win a championship.
Speaker 2: We were talking about this the other night on playback.
Speaker 2: There's a bunch of different ways to win any singular
Speaker 2: basketball game. Don't underestimate star impact. Yes, these are deep teams,
Speaker 2: but Jay GISs Alexander forty points in the pivotal Game
Speaker 2: four against Minnesota, multiple games where he was very good
Speaker 2: in clutch time against the Denver Nuggets, Tyres Halliburton, three
Speaker 2: games that he straight up stole with game winners of
Speaker 2: one of them that ended up sending the game to overtime.
Speaker 2: These guys, their singular talent is a big part of
Speaker 2: why they are where they are. The depth, to me,
Speaker 2: is all about that low hanging fruit. In order to
Speaker 2: ball pressure full court for an entire game, in order
Speaker 2: to push in transition as much as these teams do,
Speaker 2: in order to capitalize on every little detail in every
Speaker 2: single possession over the course of a sixteen game playoff run,
Speaker 2: you do need depth. And so if you have less depth,
Speaker 2: you can't capitalize on as much low hanging fruit. That
Speaker 2: puts more pressure on your stars. But we have seen
Speaker 2: stars carry the load on teams that have, you know,
Speaker 2: six or seven players that they trust in their rotation
Speaker 2: and get it done. So yes, to me, what it's
Speaker 2: proven is that depth certainly is very valuable in the
Speaker 2: modern NBA. It's not the end all be all. I
Speaker 2: don't think the thunder make the finals without Shay. I
Speaker 2: don't think the Pacers make the finals without Tighliburn if
Speaker 2: you replace them with like like kind of like league
Speaker 2: average types of players at their position. Let's just say,
Speaker 2: you know, like if we're looking for a kind of
Speaker 2: like a playmaking guard to fill in for Tyrees Haliburt,
Speaker 2: and like if you take like Chris Paul at this
Speaker 2: point in his career, that's not even close to the
Speaker 2: same team. If you take Shay Gills as Alexander and
Speaker 2: turn him into just a scoring guard, like call it,
Speaker 2: Devin Booker, I don't think the thunder are nearly as
Speaker 2: good as they are with Shake Gils just Alexander right now, right, So, like,
Speaker 2: don't underestimate the star power and the way that those
Speaker 2: guys elevate these teams. The low hanging fruit just helps
Speaker 2: you win basketball games. And if you have depth, you
Speaker 2: have a better chance to capitalize on that low hanging
Speaker 2: fruit throughout each season in postseason. All right, guys, that's
Speaker 2: all I have for the show today. As always, I
Speaker 2: sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us. In supporting the show,
Speaker 2: we have Colin Coward coming on with us live after
Speaker 2: every game in this NBA Finals run. We will be
Speaker 2: live after game one tomorrow night. After the final buzzer
Speaker 2: on you Tube. I hope to see you guys then