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Speaker 1: Last minute tickets Loa's price is guaranteed. The NBA breathed
Speaker 1: a sigh of relief with the with the Knicks holding
Speaker 1: on to beat the Pistons, and the Warriors holding on
Speaker 1: to beat Houston. So I had picked Houston in seven.
Speaker 1: I thought their depth and athletic ability. I knew they
Speaker 1: weren't a great half court offense, and in the end,
Speaker 1: Jason timp hoops to night. In the end, they got
Speaker 1: so many bad, awful half court possessions. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny, just for all the Curry struggles in the
Speaker 1: first half cominga you can't have him on the floor
Speaker 1: in the end, I'll say this, And it wasn't a
Speaker 1: great night offensively. I mean it's one o three eighty nine.
Speaker 1: It was not a great night for the Dubs, and
Speaker 1: their defense was tremendous. But I did think Jason, on average,
Speaker 1: they just got more organized, better looks. Even when Curry
Speaker 1: was struggling, Buddy Heel was getting good looks, Pods was
Speaker 1: getting good looks. And in the end, it's just youth.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's like watching the most talented college basketball
Speaker 1: team of all time with Houston. You're like, could have
Speaker 1: could we run a play if not for a men
Speaker 1: Thompson in the first three quarters, I'm like, would they
Speaker 1: even be in the game. So again, just the experience
Speaker 1: those crucial second half possessions, Warriors looked more organized, they
Speaker 1: looked more experienced.
Speaker 2: To me, Yeah, you know, the Margins are pretty slim.
Speaker 2: Calling like it was here we were Houston Game seven,
Speaker 2: They're on a run. It's sixty three to sixty. As
Speaker 2: a men, Thompson starts taking over there in the third
Speaker 2: quarter and it's like literally could have gone either way
Speaker 2: at that point. But what happened at that point, which
Speaker 2: I thought was super fascinating, was that was really when
Speaker 2: Steph Curry started to assert himself. And as I came
Speaker 2: out of Game six, there were two main areas where
Speaker 2: I thought Golden State had obvious ability to just play better,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And it was one they had completely
Speaker 2: lost control of Fred van Vliet and Albern Shangoun defensively. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they have fifty points in game six. Those two guys
Speaker 2: both looked completely held under control into night's game. And
Speaker 2: so that was the first big one. Get control of Fred,
Speaker 2: get control of Shane gun. Shout out to Looney and Draymond.
Speaker 2: I thought those two guys just did an unbelove was huge.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. And then as all of their guards did
Speaker 2: a great job on Fred van Vliet throughout the game.
Speaker 2: A bunch of different guys got minutes on him. The
Speaker 2: second piece of it was there's a pretty strong correlation
Speaker 2: in this series. With exception of Game four, there was
Speaker 2: a pretty strong correlation in this series between Steph's shot
Speaker 2: making and the Warriors winning. When he was going offensively,
Speaker 2: they were in control, and when he would cool off,
Speaker 2: Houston was able to get enough stops to kind of
Speaker 2: get in transition and get going. And one of the
Speaker 2: things that Steph did in that second half was he
Speaker 2: just stopped running off ball and he just started bringing
Speaker 2: the ball to the floor, and he brought the ball
Speaker 2: to the floor and he just started spamming high ball
Speaker 2: screens and he got a bunch of good looks for
Speaker 2: himself and for his teammates out of that. That has
Speaker 2: been kind of the break last in case of emergency
Speaker 2: Warriors offense for years now is when things bogged down
Speaker 2: for them, they'll just let Steph run high, pick and
Speaker 2: roll and again, like he had. I think he finished
Speaker 2: with twenty or twenty something points. That's that's under selling
Speaker 2: his impact because he only had he had zero up
Speaker 2: until the very end of the first half, and so
Speaker 2: he scored at a top tier, superstar level during that
Speaker 2: second half stretch when they really pulled away. And the
Speaker 2: last piece I wanted to shout out was Buddy Heel.
Speaker 2: The numbers coming out of Game six were pretty strong
Speaker 2: that the Warriors were better with Buddy Healed on the
Speaker 2: floor versus Gary Payton. And this is not an anti
Speaker 2: Gary Payton take. I'm a big Gary Payton fan. It's
Speaker 2: just they don't need his upside as much in this
Speaker 2: particular matchup because they're not guarding, you know, really high
Speaker 2: level guards. Next round, they're gonna need him for Anthony Edwards,
Speaker 2: they're gonna need him in a big way. But in
Speaker 2: this series, with the way Houston was guarding, having that
Speaker 2: other shooter on the floor that could really compliment what
Speaker 2: Steph was doing, that was a big I thought Gary
Speaker 2: Payton getting sick almost helped Steve Kerr in that way
Speaker 2: because it don't almost forced him to lean into Buddy Moore,
Speaker 2: and Buddy was fantastic. But that was just Championship Warriors
Speaker 2: basketball when it mattered, and a lot of immature basketball
Speaker 2: from Houston, and that was the difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, shot making matters Buddy, I think finished
Speaker 1: was seven and threes. You know, it was an interesting
Speaker 1: game when Curry was struggling in the first half, Buddy
Speaker 1: was huge. I thought Pod toed a couple of big baskets.
Speaker 1: You know, there's gonna be a people that are just
Speaker 1: never gonna like Draymond Green, Like I get it. But
Speaker 1: he had a couple of big plays, just big baskets,
Speaker 1: and you know, then he was shooting back to back
Speaker 1: threes and that was the end of the clock. And
Speaker 1: it was bad Warrior possessions. But when when stead I mean,
Speaker 1: at one point, I'm looking up and I'm like, Warriors lead,
Speaker 1: and Steph it had like two points or four points.
Speaker 1: I'm like, God, they're in good shape. This is just incredible.
Speaker 1: And you know the thing about Curry when you watch
Speaker 1: him and Steph has these games, Steph has these halfs
Speaker 1: here where'd you go? And it's not that he needs
Speaker 1: the confidence, but Steph is not a He's such an
Speaker 1: collaborative force that if he's off, he's really good at decoy,
Speaker 1: he's really good at off ball stuff. And sometimes I
Speaker 1: almost feel like Kurs say, bro, this is your offense,
Speaker 1: Like we're not gonna do this you're gonna bring the
Speaker 1: ball up and make shots. And I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just I felt like the team knew Steph wasn't playing
Speaker 1: great and everybody else gonna And then did you notice
Speaker 1: when Steph was playing great, everybody finds their perfect role,
Speaker 1: you know. Butler's like, okay, now they need me late,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take He had like a little six nothing run.
Speaker 1: But I find that the team there's a harmony, especially
Speaker 1: with like Pods has it now like he knows Okay,
Speaker 1: Steph's on a heater, Steph's hot set screens for Steph.
Speaker 1: You can sense the team's senses. Okay, Steph's back, guys,
Speaker 1: everybody get the pitching staff order. Now everybody knows where
Speaker 1: they're spot on the floor, is right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, In general, you can tell that the team kind
Speaker 2: of senses whether or not Steph's in one of those zones.
Speaker 2: And I mean Steph will send his own signals, like
Speaker 2: there are stretches. There were stretches over the entire second
Speaker 2: half of the series where you could tell Steph was
Speaker 2: like in this part of the game, I'm not really
Speaker 2: looking to be aggressive, I'm looking to save energy. And
Speaker 2: I thought it was really interesting. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you notice as Colin, but whenever he would in the
Speaker 2: second half, he was doing this to save energy. He
Speaker 2: would come off the high ball screen and if they
Speaker 2: ever if Houston ever defended it, well like if they
Speaker 2: didn't get anything out of that first action, he would
Speaker 2: like take whoever was guarding him, whether it was Dylan
Speaker 2: Brooks or Men Thompson or whatever. He goes stand out
Speaker 2: by almost half court and just let them faceguard him
Speaker 2: out there so the other guys could play four on four.
Speaker 2: And it's just part of the energy conservation piece of
Speaker 2: it that you could tell Steph was finding little parts.
Speaker 2: The point is is like with Steph, it's flurries. It's
Speaker 2: these six or seven possessions where he makes four or
Speaker 2: five shots and it blows a five point lead to
Speaker 2: a seventeen point lead. Steph is very much an avalanche
Speaker 2: type of player, and that's the entire team is built
Speaker 2: around that. And to your point, like I mentioned off
Speaker 2: the top, when we were talking about the defensive end,
Speaker 2: the two things they had to fix where they needed
Speaker 2: to get Steph going and they needed to get Fred
Speaker 2: and Shangoon under control. You want to know why the
Speaker 2: Warriors had a lead. Despite Steph not playing so well.
Speaker 2: They completely shut down Shangouon and Fred to start the game,
Speaker 2: and look, Draymond had a really bad offensive series. There
Speaker 2: were some very specific reasons for that. The Rockets put
Speaker 2: Fred van Vliet on him so that they could switch
Speaker 2: ball screens. One of the biggest pieces of offensive utility
Speaker 2: for Draymond on this team is him running ball screens
Speaker 2: with Steph and getting to make the decisions as the
Speaker 2: guy leading the four on three on the other side
Speaker 2: of the team, blitzing Steph Curry. As soon as they
Speaker 2: put Fred van Vliet on him, it kind of neutralizes
Speaker 2: Draymond offensively and turns him into a spot up shooter,
Speaker 2: which by the way, he did hit a couple threes
Speaker 2: to start this game. But that puts Draymond in a
Speaker 2: predicament where he has to be fantastic defensively to really
Speaker 2: be valuable, and I thought Draymond was amazing defensively in
Speaker 2: this game. He was the one who stonewalled Shane Gun
Speaker 2: was not getting to his short hook in this game.
Speaker 2: He kept having to turn over his right shoulder and
Speaker 2: take one like fadeaways along the baseline. Draymon had Shane
Speaker 2: Gun in jail tonight, and so like you always have
Speaker 2: to look beyond just the box score with him, he's
Speaker 2: the foundational piece of everything that makes them great.
Speaker 1: Defensively, It's gonna be interesting for Houston because, like a men,
Speaker 1: Thompson was so valuable to them tonight when especially when
Speaker 1: Van Vliet, I mean Jalen Green to me, I'd move
Speaker 1: him tomorrow. He's a little like Coamingo, where I know
Speaker 1: I'm getting a world class athlete, but Jonathan just doesn't naturally.
Speaker 1: He doesn't feel natural Offensively, he doesn't. Sometimes he's like
Speaker 1: a lost kid at the park, like he's just kind
Speaker 1: of like I'm not sure where I fit and you're like, dude,
Speaker 1: you are long an athletic, get near the rim, something
Speaker 1: good will happen, and he's hovering on the outside.
Speaker 2: A men.
Speaker 1: Thompson makes himself so it's so useful. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what it is. It's keeping a ball active, it's on
Speaker 1: the floor, it's being a defender, Like the dude is
Speaker 1: just a classic an annoyance. And then offensively, he's just
Speaker 1: so aggressive. It's it's not Westbrook, but it's some guys
Speaker 1: in this league that are so aggressive they just players
Speaker 1: don't want to face them, they don't want to guard them,
Speaker 1: they don't want to be in their space. Butler's got
Speaker 1: a little bit of that, but he's a much better
Speaker 1: offensive player. But I was thinking, as I watch Houston,
Speaker 1: I would keep Shangoon who Milwaukee would want to be
Speaker 1: on at trade. Anybody would, And I would keep Aman Thompson.
Speaker 1: But I was talking to an NFLGM years and years ago.
Speaker 1: He goes, when you make a big trade, everybody thinks
Speaker 1: we want draft picks, but I don't want nine draft picks.
Speaker 1: Your team gets too young, and like veteran coaches get
Speaker 1: really frustrated with twenty two year olds, Houston is literally
Speaker 1: too young. Like they go to the bench and it's
Speaker 1: a twenty two year old and there's and I and
Speaker 1: I said, I keep Shangoon young, I keep Amen Thompson.
Speaker 1: I would move some of those young players. I felt like,
Speaker 1: I mean, Van Vliet's great, doesn't he really knows his role.
Speaker 1: But I think sometimes they need to develop these offensive players.
Speaker 1: These young guys, they're dependent. If Fred's not hitting, they
Speaker 1: can really struggle Jason at half court, and I mean
Speaker 1: just getting good looks if he's struggling.
Speaker 2: There were points in this game where I was like, man,
Speaker 2: I kind of think a Men Thompson or Jabari Smith
Speaker 2: Junior going one on one is a better option than
Speaker 2: Shangun and Fred because of how in jail those two
Speaker 2: guys were. You know, I was thinking about it tonight
Speaker 2: as we were watching these crazy Amen Thompson like wing
Speaker 2: drives where they kind of just let him if he
Speaker 2: brings the ball up in transition and he comes up
Speaker 2: the left wing and he likes the matchup in front
Speaker 2: of him, they'll kind of just space and let him
Speaker 2: go one on one. And it actually reminds me a
Speaker 2: little bit as Ion Williamson in the sense that like
Speaker 2: no one can keep him in front off the dribble,
Speaker 2: and then he just pops up off the ground just
Speaker 2: short of the rim, and he could shoot little floors,
Speaker 2: short jump shots and little scoops all over the place.
Speaker 2: He had an insane move tonight where he had a
Speaker 2: behind the back dribble into like a crazy up and
Speaker 2: under on the other side of the rim, and I
Speaker 2: was like, good God, this is like an NBA Superstar
Speaker 2: type of play. But Amn Thompson to me is completely untouchable.
Speaker 2: Shane Goon, It's one of those things where you barter
Speaker 2: with him. But if if Milwaukee goes we're hanging up
Speaker 2: the phone, but push in the table, I'll call it
Speaker 2: in right, then you make that sort of deal. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: like there's a Men Thompson succeeding in this series and
Speaker 2: guys of Kaminga and Jalen Green not succeeding in this series,
Speaker 2: I actually think is a very interesting kind of storyline
Speaker 2: in the sense that they're all freaky athletes. But there's
Speaker 2: two things with the men Thompson that separates him from
Speaker 2: the other two athletes. Amen Thompson is an elite on
Speaker 2: ball defender, yes Kaminga and Jalen Green are not. And
Speaker 2: then a Men Thompson is elite processor in the middle
Speaker 2: of the floor. He is he makes quick decisions, and
Speaker 2: he gets the ball where it needs to go. Those
Speaker 2: are both the specific reasons why Jalen Green and Kaminga
Speaker 2: struggles so much on offense. Amen Thompson is useful athleticism
Speaker 2: because he has a really high basketball IQ and he's
Speaker 2: great at one thing on defense already, which is what
Speaker 2: he can do on the ball. Kaminga and Green, they're
Speaker 2: not great at anything, and they're both poor processors, which
Speaker 2: is kind of a death sentence for an athlete, especially
Speaker 2: when you get in the postseason and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden like quickly reading the forlor and making decisions is
Speaker 2: the difference between success and failure in many cases.
Speaker 1: I think the Warriors could struggle against Minnesota because Minnesota
Speaker 1: offers you size, but with veteran half court experience, so
Speaker 1: you like it. Sometimes with Houston, you know when the
Speaker 1: Golden State waive the white flag and that Game five,
Speaker 1: they were telling you this theme's not beating us back.
Speaker 1: We feel really good about this series. You can't give
Speaker 1: games to Minnesota. You're not giving anything to Minnesota. I
Speaker 1: think I think Minnesota size. I think they're coaching staff.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Ant won't have as many great
Speaker 1: looks as needed against the Lakers. They're gonna throw more
Speaker 1: bodies at him. I think, you know, I think Draymond Green.
Speaker 1: I mean, they'll just throw different looks and bodies. So
Speaker 1: I don't think Ant will have Maybe he will, but
Speaker 1: I don't think. I think sometimes Ant saw Lucas straddle
Speaker 1: over to him and thought, Okay, this is a bucket.
Speaker 1: Which way do I want to take him? But I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is it doesn't feel like a
Speaker 1: great matchup for Golden State here.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's interesting, Colin. I came away from
Speaker 2: the first round feeling like Golden State has no chance
Speaker 2: against OKAC, but I actually think that they have a
Speaker 2: pretty decent chance against Minnesota. Let me let me give
Speaker 2: my two cents here because it's it's kind of a
Speaker 2: basketball matchup piece. So one of the reasons why Houston
Speaker 2: guarded Steph so well is they have a bunch of
Speaker 2: really quick players and that quickness was very attentive to
Speaker 2: the detail and they didn't let Steph get easy ones
Speaker 2: off ball. Oklahoma City is Leyden. Their roster is Layden
Speaker 2: with players like that, super fast, super smart. Minnesota is
Speaker 2: a little bit more upright and big. And one of
Speaker 2: the things that stood out to me in this series
Speaker 2: was Steph felt really comfortable one on one against Jabari Smith.
Speaker 2: We had a late iso against him in this game
Speaker 2: and against Dylan Brooks. They're bigger wings that struggle to
Speaker 2: shift their weight from side to side. That's the first
Speaker 2: piece of it. I think Steph is gonna like his
Speaker 2: matchups against nas Reed, Julius Randall, even Jada McDaniels a
Speaker 2: little bit as a taller wing. The second piece of
Speaker 2: it is, I spent this last week watching a bunch
Speaker 2: of Minnesota Golden State film because I just assumed they
Speaker 2: would close it out, which took to this point. But
Speaker 2: they did end up closing it out, and Golden State
Speaker 2: won three straight games against Minnesota, and in the last
Speaker 2: two games in particular, they were clutch time games and
Speaker 2: nos Reed, Anthony Edwards, and Julius Randall multiple times lost
Speaker 2: focus off ball when Steph was running around and they
Speaker 2: left him wide open and he burned them. Here's why
Speaker 2: that matters. The Lakers series was very different. You have
Speaker 2: these two really big forwards and Luca and Lebron. There
Speaker 2: are these big, strong forwards that are playing one on
Speaker 2: one basketball. There's no fancy approach other than I'm better
Speaker 2: than you one on one trying to score because I'm
Speaker 2: bigger and stronger. That fed right into the strength of
Speaker 2: Minnesota's defense, which is they have a bunch of big, strong,
Speaker 2: perimeter afletes. Golden State presents an entirely different challenge. It's
Speaker 2: a mental challenge, not a physical challenge. It's he's running
Speaker 2: in circles. There's all this ball in player movement, and
Speaker 2: you've got to be paying attention. And we even have
Speaker 2: a recent example with Anthony Edwards in the Conference finals
Speaker 2: last year where he got cooked by Kyrie Irving because
Speaker 2: Dallas was running him through a bunch of off ball
Speaker 2: screening actions. Yes, I remember, so one of the things
Speaker 2: that I'm looking at in this series. And by the way,
Speaker 2: for the record, Colin, I think Minnesota probably will be favored,
Speaker 2: and I'm not saying I'm gonna pick Golden State, but
Speaker 2: I've seen enough from the specific ways that Minnesota guards
Speaker 2: Golden State in the way that Steph can succeed against bigger,
Speaker 2: taller players because he's just so much faster. I do
Speaker 2: think Golden State's gonna present some problems for them, and
Speaker 2: that's not even before we even get to the fact
Speaker 2: that Golden State is a flat out substantially better defense
Speaker 2: than the Lakers were, and it will be a very
Speaker 2: different challenge. They're more athletic on the perimeter, and they're
Speaker 2: much better on the back line. They have the best
Speaker 2: defensive player of our era there, so I do think
Speaker 2: it'll be a closer and more competitive series than people realize.
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Speaker 1: I want to talk Cleveland getting beat in Game one
Speaker 1: against Indiana. So this won't get as much publicity as
Speaker 1: a Warriors game. But the first thing is Darius Garland's out,
Speaker 1: so your point person's out, and again Donovan Mitchell's a score.
Speaker 1: They have scoring guards, but it's like losing your quarterback.
Speaker 1: Whereas Indiana. I think Indiana plays esthetically as pleasing a
Speaker 1: game to watch as anybody in the league. They play
Speaker 1: with pace. They can shoot threes, but don't rely on them.
Speaker 1: They're young, they're athletic, they have length, don't depend on it.
Speaker 1: And Halliburton just doesn't turn the ball over. He's an
Speaker 1: incredibly smart player who they're pacing their ball movement. They
Speaker 1: get good shots, they're not they they rarely are sloppy.
Speaker 1: They're rarely out of control, which for a team that
Speaker 1: plays with pace, often you get out of control. And
Speaker 1: I'm and some of this, I'm just like, Okay, Cleveland
Speaker 1: doesn't have their their setup guy in the back court.
Speaker 1: Like some of this is great backcourt missing their missing
Speaker 1: their guy. But another part of this is when I
Speaker 1: watched it, I just thought, Oh, the Pacers are playing
Speaker 1: their game. This is what they look like when they're
Speaker 1: playing their best basketball. Good pace, good shots. Halliburton's controlling
Speaker 1: all of it. And I'm like this this could be
Speaker 1: a problem. Like, I mean, Cleveland can really defend rim wing,
Speaker 1: like they're really good and we all know this, but boy,
Speaker 1: they there were there were pacing things today where I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: Cleveland just looks out of sorts. That's what it looked
Speaker 1: like to me, just visually. Cleveland was not in sync today.
Speaker 2: Why this was a really fascinating game. One, I think
Speaker 2: you're hitting the nail on the head in the sense
Speaker 2: that I thought today was mostly that the Pacers, just
Speaker 2: the Pacers just send a message to the basketball world,
Speaker 2: like this is what they look like when they're at
Speaker 2: their best. I thought you put that perfectly. They did it.
Speaker 2: First of all, they defended Donovan Mitchell extremely well, pressured
Speaker 2: him all over the place, played him into a really
Speaker 2: inefficient game. I want to get to that in a second,
Speaker 2: because that's Donovan Mitchell tried to conquer his demons today
Speaker 2: by scoring, and I thought that that was a mistake.
Speaker 2: That's something to keep in mind. But specifically with Indian offense,
Speaker 2: they do such an amazing job of taking every single
Speaker 2: easy opportunity that ever presents itself in the game. If
Speaker 2: you're running up the floor and Tyree sees you, he's
Speaker 2: throwing the kick ahead pass. If he's just dribbling on
Speaker 2: the wing and you're on the opposite wing and your
Speaker 2: man kind of sinks in towards the top of the key,
Speaker 2: he's just gonna swing it to you every single time.
Speaker 2: And if you're on the opposite corner and your man's
Speaker 2: got a foot in the paint because he's trying to help,
Speaker 2: Tyresee is gonna throw it over the top and he's
Speaker 2: gonna hit you every single time. And there is very
Speaker 2: much an empowerment from Rick Carlisle goes down the roster. Yes,
Speaker 2: everyone is encouraged to be aggressive on the catch every
Speaker 2: single time, and so Tyresee is the relentless advantage hunter.
Speaker 2: And I thought the Cavs were entirely caught off guard
Speaker 2: by that. Today. They were really sloppy off ball, left
Speaker 2: a ton of easy openings that they can clean up
Speaker 2: in game two, and I'm sure Kenny Atkinson will be
Speaker 2: all over that. But Tyresee was hunting those advantages and
Speaker 2: then everybody was just in a groove playing off of him,
Speaker 2: attacking every single time time Tyree hits them. And Tyrese also,
Speaker 2: this is the subplot here. Tyres is what's bringing the
Speaker 2: real ceiling here where they look like they can actually
Speaker 2: beat anybody, and it's because Tyres is playing like he
Speaker 2: did to start last year. There was this thing that
Speaker 2: happened at the start of last year before he heard
Speaker 2: his hamstring, where he was killing everybody Colin. Remember he won,
Speaker 2: Remember he won the n season tournament Eastern Conference and
Speaker 2: ended up losing it.
Speaker 1: Then he disappeared like then he just he got injured
Speaker 1: and he just got hurt. Everybody went what happened to him?
Speaker 2: That hamstring piece is his downhill ability to beat bigs
Speaker 2: and switches, because the key with Tyree Salliburton is he's
Speaker 2: such a gifted passer that if you run traditional ball
Speaker 2: screen coverages against him, he'll pick you apart. So what
Speaker 2: you have to do is you have to switch against him.
Speaker 2: He scored or generated a basket in a switch against
Speaker 2: Jared Allen six times today. Literally five of five of
Speaker 2: his nine made baskets were directly against Jared Allen in switches.
Speaker 2: And what that is is it's the explosiveness. You saw
Speaker 2: that step through bank shot he hit on Jared Allen late,
Speaker 2: he was driving past Dean Wade on switches like ty
Speaker 2: Reese when he's explosive, is a bigger, more athletic Steve Nash.
Speaker 2: He just needs to have that extra bit of explosion,
Speaker 2: which has been inconsistent since he heard his hamstring. But
Speaker 2: The subtle thing that makes Indiana like a legitimate puncher's
Speaker 2: chance threat to win the conference is just how high
Speaker 2: of a level Tyrese is playing on the other side
Speaker 2: of the floor. Like Donovan Mitchell, I was watching the
Speaker 2: I rewatched the game during the commercial breaks of that
Speaker 2: Houston game, and I just it was almost like a
Speaker 2: dude trying to ram his head through a brick wall.
Speaker 1: It was like, no questions, two guys took yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's like what made Cleveland so great all year
Speaker 2: the drive in kick game, Max Strus hitting catch and
Speaker 2: shoot threes, Sam Merril hitting catch and shoot threes, DeAndre
Speaker 2: Hunter hitting catch and shoot threes. That's their game in
Speaker 2: the game calling. Indiana generated seventeen unguarded catch and shoot
Speaker 2: jump shots. Cleveland generated ten. That's the difference in the approach.
Speaker 2: Donovan Mitchell four assists, thirty shot attempts. He tried, He
Speaker 2: tried to win this game playing hero ball, and it
Speaker 2: got the entire team out of rhythm. And so even
Speaker 2: if Darius Garland is hurt and not at one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: just having him back out there to help the flow
Speaker 2: of the offense I think will go a long way.
Speaker 2: And Cleveland does have a lot to clean up on defense.
Speaker 2: Andy threw a great punch. I do think this is
Speaker 2: gonna be a long series.
Speaker 1: Though, Okay, I gotta pay respect to Denver, so I
Speaker 1: took you know, it's really interesting for those listenings. So
Speaker 1: the Clippers go into a Game seven, and you think,
Speaker 1: to your I said before the series, I said, Tyler
Speaker 1: is worth a game because generally Denver's playing badly. At
Speaker 1: the end of the year, they replace their coach, like
Speaker 1: everything just spells trouble. Then they play an experienced Clippers
Speaker 1: team with an excellent coaching staff, and I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is bad news. And yet the late game execution, the
Speaker 1: adjustments my Denver. It's like, all right, maybe it's the players,
Speaker 1: maybe it's the staff, but I felt late in games
Speaker 1: first credit to Westbrook who I Westbrook has found some
Speaker 1: sort of self awareness in the last month. He's had
Speaker 1: these quotes. It goes to the podium and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, my game doesn't look like everybody else's. He goes,
Speaker 1: but I know what I am. I bring a lot
Speaker 1: of energy. Now sometimes that energy is a turnover, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, who unlocked this? Who unlocked this? Westbrook.
Speaker 1: But it's like, I have no problem with that game
Speaker 1: if you know it. And he was for years he
Speaker 1: get very defensive, and now he's like, hey man, my
Speaker 1: game doesn't look like everybody. So it's like, that's right, Russell,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. He's such a tone setter, he's so relentless,
Speaker 1: and now he's already come to terms with me. Hey listen, man,
Speaker 1: it's a different game. It's not always great. He like
Speaker 1: almost laughs at it. He's like, it just doesn't look
Speaker 1: like yours. But I got to tell you, Denver, considering,
Speaker 1: I mean, you would predict. I thought, who's playing poorly
Speaker 1: at the end of the year. Fires a respected coach
Speaker 1: plays a veteran team that's well coached and win. I
Speaker 1: don't know why the reason was, but some of it
Speaker 1: is Yokich, some of it's Westbrook. Is more of a
Speaker 1: just disappointment from the Clippers.
Speaker 2: It's all of it, Colin, because I mean, to your point,
Speaker 2: you want to know how a team that is, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, more talented. I think the Clippers have more talent,
Speaker 2: and they were playing substantially better, better, more experienced game.
Speaker 1: They're on fire for the last forty days.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and they were in commanding position to win
Speaker 2: the series call and they were up two to one,
Speaker 2: like they should have that series. Like there's a whole
Speaker 2: there's a whole other conversation to have about the Clippers
Speaker 2: being in the position that they're being in. But I
Speaker 2: want to credit Nicole Jokic. He's the main one that
Speaker 2: stood out to me. What happened after Game three when
Speaker 2: the Clippers bloom really blew them out and took control
Speaker 2: of the series. Jokic got on his guys in the
Speaker 2: huddle and was like, this is this is not good enough?
Speaker 2: In Game three though in the third quarter, or excuse me,
Speaker 2: in Game four, So Clippers up to one in Game four,
Speaker 2: it was close at the half. In that third quarter,
Speaker 2: Jokic played one of his best offensive quarters of the
Speaker 2: of the series to that point and built that first
Speaker 2: bit of margin. And really since that point, for the
Speaker 2: entire second half of the series, the Nuggets scored the
Speaker 2: ball extremely well. They had like a one to twenty
Speaker 2: seven something offensive rating with Yokic on the floor, like
Speaker 2: they they were excellent offensively after that third that Game
Speaker 2: three kind of blow up that they had, and I
Speaker 2: thought jokicch in his overall intensity really led the way.
Speaker 2: Jamal Murray obviously was fantastic. Aaron Gordon was amazing in
Speaker 2: Game seven.
Speaker 1: Christian Brown to start Game seven was really good.
Speaker 2: And he was yes, and he was the guy who
Speaker 2: did the great job on James Harden throughout the series.
Speaker 2: In general, throughout the tail end of the series, I
Speaker 2: just thought Denver was in control. I never really was.
Speaker 2: Once we got to that point, I felt pretty sure
Speaker 2: that Denver was going to close the deal. I picked
Speaker 2: the Clippers to win the series at the start of
Speaker 2: the series, but once we got to once we got
Speaker 2: to Game four, I picked Denver. I just felt like
Speaker 2: I felt like Jokic was just so much more in
Speaker 2: control of the half court dynamic, and you know, then
Speaker 2: to take it over to the Clippers side, you know,
Speaker 2: with James Harden and Kawhi Leonard, the two of them,
Speaker 2: they just aren't they just aren't good enough right now
Speaker 2: to be able to compete in the Western Conference with
Speaker 2: their shot creation. Kawhi Leonard struggled to handle double teams
Speaker 2: all series and just wasn't aggressive enough. James Harden, it
Speaker 2: was like feast or famine with him. I mean, he
Speaker 2: has eleven in game five. He has seven in game seven,
Speaker 2: and one last thing to before I kick it back
Speaker 2: to you about Westbrook. One of the things I loved
Speaker 2: about his quote and he used the same phrase that
Speaker 2: you used when we did the pop on Wednesday. You
Speaker 2: said a force of nature, and he was like, I'm
Speaker 2: a force of nature. This is what I do. And
Speaker 2: the way I interpreted it, it was almost like he
Speaker 2: was saying, like, my style is to not think but
Speaker 2: just to just act. Yeah, which is funny because in
Speaker 2: the quote he was like, I definitely think, like I'm
Speaker 2: a smart player, and I know he is, and that's
Speaker 2: not what I mean, but like, he's definitely an instinct player,
Speaker 2: like he follows his gut and he doesn't second guess himself,
Speaker 2: and that comes with mistakes naturally. But when you combine
Speaker 2: that like audacity and confidence with his overwhelming athletic traits,
Speaker 2: it makes him a wrecking ball in like the best
Speaker 2: possible way, and he can god like that stretch towards
Speaker 2: the end of the game where he's just getting steals
Speaker 2: and going out and transition and dunking everything like that
Speaker 2: is force of nature basketball, and yeah, comes laid in
Speaker 2: with mistakes. But I would argue the thing that's put
Speaker 2: him over the top is one his ability to operate
Speaker 2: as a cutter around Jokic, and two just him becoming
Speaker 2: a better three point shooter. Him becoming a better three
Speaker 2: point shooter has gotten rid of all the claimings that
Speaker 2: were part of those bad plays and mistakes that were
Speaker 2: really causing him to hurt his impact.
Speaker 1: He's also a momentum player, so you notice this in
Speaker 1: this series. If he hit a three, he hit another.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes, I mean, he's obviously a very
Speaker 1: confident guy. The way he dresses and his attitude, he's
Speaker 1: a very confident guy. But even the most confident Alex
Speaker 1: Rodriguez got dropped to eighth in a batting order once
Speaker 1: for the Yankee. I don't care how confident you are.
Speaker 1: Everybody struggles, right, Like basketball is so much of basketball,
Speaker 1: more than any sport, is a confidence game. Like even
Speaker 1: Steph Curry will have these zero for six stretches. You're like,
Speaker 1: this is just not a good steff and he'll go
Speaker 1: off ball and move around, and so Westbrook can have
Speaker 1: these bad stretches. But the truth is when I watch him,
Speaker 1: and like a Men Thompson, a Men Thompson has so
Speaker 1: much value because he's so relentless and so aggressive that guys,
Speaker 1: he's a pain in the ass to guard. He's you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like he's Westbrook's hard. He's hard
Speaker 1: to guard. He's in your face. He's physical and by
Speaker 1: the way, like a running back that's five to eight
Speaker 1: with leverage, Russell's got those this trunk and like he's
Speaker 1: really strong. And so you're a six seven guy and
Speaker 1: Westbrook's got leverage on you and he's banging you around.
Speaker 1: He rebounds exceedingly well for his size. And so there
Speaker 1: are these basketball players and they're very rare that there.
Speaker 1: It's just like a genetic, like a they're just relentless
Speaker 1: athletes and it's and so I love that Westbrook's like listen, man,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like everybody else's game, but I know
Speaker 1: what I bring and it's like, that's exactly what you do.
Speaker 1: And like a lot of times, like Jalen Green doesn't
Speaker 1: know what he is and I don't think he even
Speaker 1: has a pathway to it. Like Westbrook's come full circle
Speaker 1: to being a guy that I always thought lack of
Speaker 1: self awareness, having total self awareness. It's like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I'm going to a thousand miles an hour. I know
Speaker 1: what I'm doing in this series, so I think when
Speaker 1: you do what we do for a living, and I'm
Speaker 1: critical of people, you also have to be fair. I
Speaker 1: don't care if it's Baker Mayfield or Russell Westbrook. I
Speaker 1: watched him in this series, and Yokich is obviously the
Speaker 1: best player in the world I thought. I thought Westbrook
Speaker 1: was really valuable to the Nuggets. Do they match up
Speaker 1: with OKC at all?
Speaker 2: This is a matchup I was hoping for. As much
Speaker 2: as I thought the Clippers would beat Denver, I didn't
Speaker 2: think the Clippers had nearly the playmaking talent to beat
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City plays very aggressively up in passing
Speaker 2: lanes and on the ball and ball pressure to try
Speaker 2: to force turnovers and get out in transition. That's like
Speaker 2: one of their foundational traits. They're the best defense in
Speaker 2: the league and they get out and transition and run
Speaker 2: on you like crazy. Denver is an elite, like top
Speaker 2: tier passing team. They passed the ball extremely well. They're
Speaker 2: also a great screen setting team, which is very important
Speaker 2: because that's how the get free. Guys like Jamal Murray
Speaker 2: are gonna be go by lou Dort. You've got to
Speaker 2: get lou Dort off of Jamal Murray. The main thing, though,
Speaker 2: is Jokich is a superpower. Okay See cannot guard him.
Speaker 2: He posted up sixty two times against Oklahoma City this year.
Speaker 2: That's over fifteen times per game. He averaged only ten
Speaker 2: against everyone else. This is a matchup that he loves
Speaker 2: to post up again against a lot they successfully can
Speaker 2: set screens to get Jamal Murray open. He had a
Speaker 2: big game in this matchup this year. They each one
Speaker 2: on each other's floor once it was two and two
Speaker 2: in the season series. Denver's gonna be able to score though,
Speaker 2: and that's the main reason why I think it'll be
Speaker 2: a longer, more interesting series. In their last matchup, they
Speaker 2: hung one hundred and forty points on him. The Jokich machine,
Speaker 2: the Jokich Murray machine. They're gonna score against ok See
Speaker 2: now in theory on the other side of the floor.
Speaker 2: This is a type of matchup that favors Denver in
Speaker 2: the sense that they can load up and it's not
Speaker 2: a real like space you out type of team. Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City can get cold from three. Sometimes they can be,
Speaker 2: you know, a little bit sloppy with their passings sometimes.
Speaker 2: But that said, Oklahoma City's a lot older than they
Speaker 2: were last year, more mature than they were last year,
Speaker 2: more experienced than they were last year. I was really
Speaker 2: impressed with them in their first round series because Memphis
Speaker 2: actually plays a similar style of defense to Denver in
Speaker 2: terms of loading up the strong side, and I thought
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City passed through Memphis really well, so okay Se
Speaker 2: should be favored. I was stunned at how much they
Speaker 2: were favored by. They were like minus seven hundred to
Speaker 2: win the series, which I thought was crazy on DraftKings,
Speaker 2: like I would have thought more like a minus three
Speaker 2: hundred minus three fifty kind of favorite. Like I think
Speaker 2: Okayse should be favored, but Vegas is saying Denver doesn't
Speaker 2: have a chance. I think Denver's going to score, and
Speaker 2: that is just more than enough to make this a
Speaker 2: competitive series in my opinion.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the.
Speaker 1: You know, it's let's go back to the Warriors and
Speaker 1: we can finish it with this. Jason timf obviously hoops tonight.
Speaker 1: A lot of the old teams lost. The Clippers were
Speaker 1: an old team they lost. The Lakers were an old
Speaker 1: team they lost. Milwaukee was an old team they lost.
Speaker 1: You know, Golden State's an old team and they won.
Speaker 1: Some of that is because they were playing a young
Speaker 1: team that feels like they're a year or two bind okase,
Speaker 1: Like they're just not like Cleveland was three years ago. Okay,
Speaker 1: see was last year. Some of it's just the baby
Speaker 1: step nature of this league. Houston wasn't ready to win
Speaker 1: a series and even though they had some clear athletic
Speaker 1: length and depth advantages. But there is something to be
Speaker 1: said about Kerr was really I mean, Peyton's sick cominge
Speaker 1: he doesn't want. Basically, they had five guys and then
Speaker 1: like a Looney that was the lineup. It's like five
Speaker 1: guys Looney. There is something to be said for Steve Kerr.
Speaker 1: He was a great broadcaster, smart executive, really good player.
Speaker 1: He did a lot of coaching tonight, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of I mean, when Curry's struggling, he is going
Speaker 1: through lineups. I mean, in Cominga's off the floor, Loony's in.
Speaker 1: I'm keeping Looney in. I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about Kerr. All these old teams lost. It would
Speaker 1: have been very easy on a night if I'd have
Speaker 1: said to you didn't watch the game. Yeah, Curry was
Speaker 1: awful in the first half, and it was just Warriors
Speaker 1: really struggled offensively and they won. I think some of
Speaker 1: it is I think Kerr has such a heartbeat. I
Speaker 1: mean we said into this series, Jason, oh, they have
Speaker 1: to play Cominga, and they really didn't and it worked.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I've got have told you, yeah, Comingo
Speaker 1: won't play much. What he does he clearly frustrates the
Speaker 1: hell out of Kerr. Oh yeah, Game seven, Peyton, They'll
Speaker 1: be sick as a dog. There was a million reasons
Speaker 1: why they should have lost this series. I mean, wasn't there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I texted our mutual friend Logan Swain in the
Speaker 2: middle of this game and I said, man, because you
Speaker 2: know he's a fellow Lakers fan, as we've been lamenting
Speaker 2: the disappointing end of the season, and I said to him, like,
Speaker 2: I still think Kerr and the Warriors are just miles
Speaker 2: smarter than the Lakers, And it just drives me crazy
Speaker 2: when I'm watching him, because Kurr just played every button
Speaker 2: right tonight. Now, obviously there was the illness to GP two,
Speaker 2: but it was right. Buddy was the guy. He needed
Speaker 2: to lean his buddy. That was the right move. Quick
Speaker 2: hooks with Kaminga. He got two quick shifts. He made
Speaker 2: a bunch of mistakes right away and he was They
Speaker 2: called it. He called the time out to get him
Speaker 2: out in one of them. So like like like, so
Speaker 2: he had quick hooks on Kaminga going towards Kevon Looney
Speaker 2: in this game instead of Quinton Post. He understood this
Speaker 2: is going to be a bloodpath. This game is going
Speaker 2: to be about rebounding, not about spacing, So we're going
Speaker 2: to go towards Kevan Luney. I thought that was smart.
Speaker 2: The the against the zone. I won't get into the
Speaker 2: the intricacies on here because it just would take too long.
Speaker 2: But there were a couple of specific things that they
Speaker 2: tried right away and got really good looks against the zone,
Speaker 2: which was the big story because in Game six when
Speaker 2: they lost control, Houston zoned them eighteen times in the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter and they scored three times in eighteen possessions.
Speaker 2: So that was a huge storyline coming into game seven.
Speaker 2: Would Kurr and the guys be able to solve the zone.
Speaker 2: They did a much better job against it tonight. Every
Speaker 2: single little button that needed to get pushed got pushed,
Speaker 2: and it was the difference. I mean, this game was
Speaker 2: a three point game in the second half. I think
Speaker 2: we underestimate how much these series come down to pretty
Speaker 2: tight margins. Like if you really look at Denver, look
Speaker 2: at Denver versus the Clippers, You've got an overtime game.
Speaker 2: You've got Aaron Gordon dunking at the buzzer to win
Speaker 2: one of the games. Look at Detroit versus New York.
Speaker 2: All those games swung on crunch time sequences. Lakers Minnesota
Speaker 2: Game three in Game four were where the series were decided.
Speaker 2: Both of those games were tied in the final minutes,
Speaker 2: in Minnesota pulled away. Like, the margins are slim, and
Speaker 2: if you haven't advanced in the strategic side of things,
Speaker 2: with your coaching staff. It makes a massive difference.
Speaker 1: Hey, so we all make mistakes, but owning up to
Speaker 1: them is the right thing to do. So you know
Speaker 1: Degree cool Rush deodorant right, Well, last year they changed
Speaker 1: the formula and it did not go over well with
Speaker 1: their fans. So Degrees the whole thing is it turns
Speaker 1: up the sweat and odor protection when you turn up
Speaker 1: the effort, and good thing it does, because cool Rush
Speaker 1: fans really turned up the effort to bring the original
Speaker 1: formula back. One guy even started an online petition and
Speaker 1: Degree listened. They admitted they ft up. They're bringing back
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Speaker 1: back in Walmart, Target and other stores now for under
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Speaker 1: men's anti persprint for the last decade. It's the same
Speaker 1: reason why people were not happy when it changed. So
Speaker 1: if you've never tried it, it might be a good
Speaker 1: time to see what the fuss is about. Head to
Speaker 1: your local Walmart, Target and try the og degree cool
Speaker 1: Rush for yourself. Well, I do want to talk about
Speaker 1: this obviously, JJ Reddick. I didn't think JJ had a
Speaker 1: great last couple of games in the series, okay, And
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this. I wanted a walk this
Speaker 1: morning in Chicago, and I thought about this. So when
Speaker 1: Matt Lafleur got the Green Bay Packers job, he'd never
Speaker 1: been good looking, smart guy and Tennessee coordinator, but had
Speaker 1: never been a head coach, had never owned the room.
Speaker 1: So he goes to this iconic organization, replaces a super
Speaker 1: Bowl winning coach, Mike McCarthy. And the first thing I
Speaker 1: noticed is they became a very good first quarter team,
Speaker 1: much like JJ Reddick, very intentional, you know, classic coordinator,
Speaker 1: becomes a head coach the Packers offense first quarter. It
Speaker 1: was clearly that he was a great in the film
Speaker 1: room coach. That's why he got the Packer job. But
Speaker 1: I didn't love his halftime adjustments because as a coordinator,
Speaker 1: the coach is doing a lot of the half. He's
Speaker 1: doing the talking at half, right, so you're doing a
Speaker 1: lot of what the coach wants at half. And then
Speaker 1: I thought by year two, Matt Lafleur became a really
Speaker 1: good full coach. He came in his first year, he
Speaker 1: was a great They took leads that you win seventy
Speaker 1: percent of your games in the NFL if you take
Speaker 1: a lead, But he wasn't a great adjustment coach he
Speaker 1: was year two. Similarly, JJ Reddick Lakers were a very
Speaker 1: good first quarter team many times this year that have
Speaker 1: these great stretches, very intentional, very good in the film room,
Speaker 1: very smart guy. But I do think adjustments take time
Speaker 1: to be a great adjuster. Kerr is a great adjuster,
Speaker 1: I think Joe. I think Missoula and Boston's gotten much
Speaker 1: better at that. It's the you know, playoffs series have
Speaker 1: four and five adjustments. Chris Finch's team very good at layering,
Speaker 1: and I just think JJ, I think it's just part
Speaker 1: of being a rookie head coach. Jason Kidd his first
Speaker 1: go around. You know, you're good in the film room,
Speaker 1: you're intentional, you come out this is what we do well,
Speaker 1: and they don't so much to this league is second half,
Speaker 1: last four minutes out of a timeout, and it is
Speaker 1: a fair criticism on the film you watch to say
Speaker 1: that JJ will become a better overall coach, that there
Speaker 1: were times this year that he wasn't. Now maybe I'm
Speaker 1: the opposite, is true? But I just didn't think he
Speaker 1: was always the greatest adjuster.
Speaker 2: I thought he was a little slow to adjust at times.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I think in general with JJ,
Speaker 2: I have had no big picture concern just simply because
Speaker 2: I think he's smart, and I think he's hyper competitive
Speaker 2: and like kind of obsessive, which I think is what
Speaker 2: you just need to be to be good at that job.
Speaker 2: Is I think he'll I think he'll have some issues
Speaker 2: over over his career with just how hot tempered he
Speaker 2: is and how that can rub people the wrong way.
Speaker 2: I mean, we saw that with Mike Malone. You can
Speaker 2: wear out the room pretty quick, sure if you're a
Speaker 2: great coach, and I think those will be things that
Speaker 2: he'll have to work out. The perfect example of that
Speaker 2: to me was the Warriors Lakers regular season game towards
Speaker 2: the end of the year, where like Steve Kerr comes
Speaker 2: out for his little interview at the end of the
Speaker 2: first quarter, and he's just so calm and cool and collected,
Speaker 2: and then they go to JJ for his interview and
Speaker 2: he's like clearly mad and angry and agitated, and it's
Speaker 2: like it's like you learned too that, like your players
Speaker 2: start to I actually learned this from the high school
Speaker 2: coach that I coached with. Like you, your players take
Speaker 2: on your personality in a lot of cases, and which
Speaker 2: is why it's so important for you to kind of
Speaker 2: stay as even keeled as you can, because if you
Speaker 2: get super emotional and worked up, your players will get
Speaker 2: emotional and worked up and stuff like that. But over
Speaker 2: the course of the series, I thought he made several mistakes.
Speaker 2: There was the at the beginning of the series, the
Speaker 2: Lakers just came out looking flat out unprepared for Game
Speaker 2: one in terms of the intensity. JJ admitted after the
Speaker 2: fact that he thought he made a mistake by not
Speaker 2: scrimmaging at all in that week before the game, which
Speaker 2: I when I heard that, I was like, wait, you
Speaker 2: guys didn't play basketball for a week. I'm like, you're
Speaker 2: about to play the Timberwolves. It's going to be a war.
Speaker 2: You need to be ready. But to JJ's credit, he
Speaker 2: acknowledged it. He understood that there was a mistake there. Offensively,
Speaker 2: I thought the team made a key mistake in the
Speaker 2: series by not attacking Minnesota's smalls at any point at
Speaker 2: any At any point in the series, there was no
Speaker 2: extended stretch where Lebron or Luca attempted to post up
Speaker 2: in that series. Lebron shot call, This is a crazy
Speaker 2: post Lebron. Lebron shot out of the post in that
Speaker 2: entire series five times, five times in five games. This
Speaker 2: is like literally what he's done in his career, as
Speaker 2: like the thing he goes to when his back is
Speaker 2: against the ball. He was just unwilling to do it.
Speaker 2: But it also goes to Luca. Luca was in attacking smalls.
Speaker 2: They were only attacking bigs. There was the substitution pattern
Speaker 2: at late in game four, which I think again is
Speaker 2: a little bit more convoluted, because you know they win
Speaker 2: that game. You're playing Monday morning quarterback in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways. But Game five, though, in particular, he switched
Speaker 2: his scheme towards double teaming, and they looked completely unprepared,
Speaker 2: meaning like they were giving up wide open layups and
Speaker 2: dunks to where like if they were a little bit
Speaker 2: more schematically prepared for that, they should have been able
Speaker 2: to at least tilt that towards the three point line
Speaker 2: in certain guys shooting. They looked like an unprepared team
Speaker 2: for that scheme, which I think reflects poorly on JJ
Speaker 2: but at the end of the day, like I thought,
Speaker 2: JJ overwhelmingly in his first year exceeded expectations. Same same,
Speaker 2: I don't think JJ is the reason they lost to Minnesota.
Speaker 2: I think the reason they lost to Minnesota is Austin
Speaker 2: Reeves was awful for the majority of the series and
Speaker 2: like literally the Minnesota took him out and Luca when
Speaker 2: whenever the series was hanging in the balance, late in
Speaker 2: game five, late in game four, late in game three,
Speaker 2: Luca was bad and that really was the series. And
Speaker 2: like I will, I will always kind of look at
Speaker 2: the stars before I look at coaches. But there's no
Speaker 2: doubt that JJ's got a lot of room to grow.
Speaker 2: I'm just not worried about it because of how competitive,
Speaker 2: how smart he is. That stuff will come in time.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I do think they have to consider there's some duplication
Speaker 1: with Austin Reeves, and they just need somebody's gonna want
Speaker 1: Austin Reeves and somebody's gonna be looking to get rid
Speaker 1: of a big And it's nothing against Austin. I think
Speaker 1: he has value. That wasn't a great series for him, Well,
Speaker 1: wasn't a great matchup. I mean, the truth is Minnesota's
Speaker 1: athletic and strong and physical, and they pounced on it
Speaker 1: and he just couldn't get to the free throw line.
Speaker 1: But I look at it and I think he has
Speaker 1: served his purpose. He's an unranked player. Use him as
Speaker 1: a trade piece. But if you're not going to play
Speaker 1: Jackson Hayes against the team with Ruby Gobert, you need
Speaker 1: some size. You got to get a legitimate big in here.
Speaker 2: Austin Reeves is one of my favorite players, and so
Speaker 2: it hurts me to say this because rooting for him
Speaker 2: has been and watching him go from like literally an
Speaker 2: undrafted guy to like a legitimate player probably deserves thirty
Speaker 2: million dollars a year in this league, like he's so good.
Speaker 2: And by the way, Colin, this is the first time
Speaker 2: in several playoff series that I've watched Austin and thought
Speaker 2: that he was overwhelmed, Like he's been very good in
Speaker 2: four previous playoff series. So, like Austin, this was a
Speaker 2: really bad matchup for him. They're just so athletic. He
Speaker 2: caught the Anthony Edwards matchup most of the series and
Speaker 2: ant Yeah put him in jail, and Dante DiVincenzo defended
Speaker 2: him really well. My thing is it's more just about
Speaker 2: roster construction. I don't think you can build a lineup
Speaker 2: that succeeds in the modern NBA with two inferior perimeter athletes.
Speaker 2: I think that's where you're you're reaching. You're reaching kind
Speaker 2: of like below the like mandatory minimum level of athleticism
Speaker 2: that you try. And so even though even though like
Speaker 2: it makes some sense in the context of Lebron, when
Speaker 2: Lebron retires, you're now building around Austin and Luca, and
Speaker 2: you would need the other three guys in that lineup
Speaker 2: to be like absolute peak athletes for that to work. Yep,
Speaker 2: And that's just difficult to do in terms of roster allocation.
Speaker 2: And so honestly, when I look at it this summer,
Speaker 2: you know, that doesn't mean you get rid of Austin
Speaker 2: for nothing, but I begin to look at Austin as
Speaker 2: a key asset with which to return somebody that actually
Speaker 2: fits this timeline better. And there's the second piece of it,
Speaker 2: which is, if you get rid of Austin, you better
Speaker 2: have a plan for another ball handler because Lebron is forty,
Speaker 2: so like there's got to be a this is this
Speaker 2: is gonna be a really fine line that they're walking
Speaker 2: this offseason because they need to walk the win now
Speaker 2: line alongside Lebron, but they also need to have some
Speaker 2: sort of plan post Lebron, and so that's where it
Speaker 2: gets tricky. I look at like, you know, if you
Speaker 2: could call a Brooklyn and see if you can't package
Speaker 2: together Austin and another salary and get like a Cam
Speaker 2: Johnson and a Nick Claxton, so you get like a
Speaker 2: legit three and D guy and a real center to
Speaker 2: put next to Luca and Lebron. But even then you
Speaker 2: better be calling behind the scenes to stars and be like, hey,
Speaker 2: we're gonna need somebody to come in here and be
Speaker 2: Luca's number two pretty soon. And you know, maybe it
Speaker 2: ends up being a Kyrie after his injury or something
Speaker 2: like that. Who knows, But there's there's definitely a fine
Speaker 2: line here that they have to walk in a lot
Speaker 2: of different pieces gotta go right. But I left the
Speaker 2: series thinking the same way you did, Colin. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I love Austin, I'm not sure if he makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense here.
Speaker 1: In the Big Listener, Nico Harrison gave you a little
Speaker 1: bit of a roadmap when he had Kyrie and Luca
Speaker 1: and like, okay, I need size and rim protection.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And they were really good and got to the finals.
Speaker 1: And I just think that's the reality. It was the
Speaker 1: reality with Carmelo Anthon, who wasn't a willing defender. It
Speaker 1: was James Harden. There are just players in this league
Speaker 1: who are so gifted offensively you overlook stuff. If if
Speaker 1: Lebron is old and Luca is your star, you're gonna
Speaker 1: need some elite defenders. You need rem protection. That's just
Speaker 1: the way it is. It's okay, and you can get it.
Speaker 1: I mean they almost pulled off that deal for was
Speaker 1: that Mark Williams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't think I don't think he's the
Speaker 2: answer either. Colin.
Speaker 1: No, he's always hurt.
Speaker 2: Uh, He's not a good defender.
Speaker 1: Oh so, he's just a big guy.
Speaker 2: He's just a big guy. He's got a little bit
Speaker 2: of Charlotte Hornets itis, so there's always a little bit
Speaker 2: of that. Like maybe maybe he bring him in and
Speaker 2: make him better. But I didn't love the film that
Speaker 2: I saw with him playing defense at Charlotte.
Speaker 1: All Right, so we get ready for some more unbelievable
Speaker 1: NBA playoffs have been so damn fun, just so great
Speaker 1: and I could not wait for this game to start,
Speaker 1: and I was so too.
Speaker 2: This was one of the biggest games I can remember
Speaker 2: in recent history. The ramifications of Golden State.
Speaker 1: The number is going to be huge. The number is
Speaker 1: going to be huge for this. And by the way,
Speaker 1: let's give credit to the Pacers. Fun watch. If you're
Speaker 1: a casual NBA fan, they're just a great pacing, really
Speaker 1: smart Halliburton's a tremendous playmaker and passer. They've got well coached,
Speaker 1: they've got physicality, they can shoot it. To me, they
Speaker 1: don't depend on it. Just a really nice pacing and easy, fun,
Speaker 1: smart basketball watch. And they're going to give Cleveland some trouble.
Speaker 1: So as always, Jason, this was great.
Speaker 2: As good to see Youconnell, See you next week.
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