Speaker 1: The volume. Hi everybody, and welcome in. It is great
Speaker 1: to be back. I had a long siesta. I went
Speaker 1: with my son to Iceland. It was his dream trip.
Speaker 1: I asked him, I said, where do you want to go?
Speaker 1: Dad'll take you as you get ready for college. And
Speaker 1: he's picked Iceland and it was. It was absolutely wonderful,
Speaker 1: and we got about forty five minutes. Tonight, we're going
Speaker 1: to do thirty to thirty five minutes with Jason Timpf
Speaker 1: of hoops tonight. We're going to have a breakdown. He's fantastic.
Speaker 2: By the way.
Speaker 1: I will say this about because I don't take a
Speaker 1: lot of weak vacations. But I found as I've gotten older,
Speaker 1: I sort of prune my trees, my sports tree. You know.
Speaker 1: I have five things I love. I love the NFL.
Speaker 1: I love major college football. I love the NBA playoffs,
Speaker 1: I love the World Cup. And I love a great
Speaker 1: UFC fight. I'm going to go to early July. I'm
Speaker 1: going to go to a UFC card with friends. I
Speaker 1: love those five things. I like March Madness. I don't
Speaker 1: love it because I don't think the quality of college
Speaker 1: basketball is nearly as good as it was fifteen to
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, when the great players stayed for two,
Speaker 1: three and four years. I really like March madness. I
Speaker 1: really like a great baseball playoff game in October. But
Speaker 1: I'm not as invested in baseball or college basketball as
Speaker 1: I was ten fifteen years ago. And I've said this
Speaker 1: in my private life. In my personal life, I'm the
Speaker 1: same way I've pruned my tree. I love my family,
Speaker 1: I love my job, and I love international travel. And
Speaker 1: I've kind of made a commitment. My wife and I
Speaker 1: have made a commitment over the next last couple of
Speaker 1: years and going forward for the next ten that we
Speaker 1: want to do more international travel. And I'm just really
Speaker 1: into it. I've gone a mile deep in it. I've
Speaker 1: already booked my next two trips, one of them next year,
Speaker 1: one at the end of the summer. So it was
Speaker 1: just nice. This is if you have a chance. I
Speaker 1: ran into a lot of Americans, a lot of Europeans,
Speaker 1: and it's I always love how efficient Europe is. When
Speaker 1: you don't have a lot of money in Iceland, doesn't right,
Speaker 1: you don't think of it as a rich country. It's
Speaker 1: amazing how smart they are with their money. You know.
Speaker 1: I live in Los Angeles where we have a subway system,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it was a high minded idea, but
Speaker 1: I've never met anybody in Los Angeles that has used
Speaker 1: the subway system. Conversely, I've never met anybody that lives
Speaker 1: in New York or Chicago that hasn't used the subway system,
Speaker 1: because lots of people live in downtown Chicago. In downtown
Speaker 1: New York, not a lot of people. It's not as
Speaker 1: vibrant in downtown Los Angeles. It's a huge county, it's
Speaker 1: spread out. It just doesn't feel like a subway town.
Speaker 1: So when I even in the city, I live in
Speaker 1: lax Are, airport is going through. Who has put billions
Speaker 1: of dollars into this new tram and I think billions
Speaker 1: of dollars a lot of money. And I was dropping
Speaker 1: my wife off at the airport yesterday and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I have this feeling. I've never gone to
Speaker 1: the airport once in my life and thought, you know
Speaker 1: what I want to do is park further away. I'm like, Uber,
Speaker 1: just drop me off. I'm fine, I said, I have
Speaker 1: this feeling that this is going to be a billion
Speaker 1: dollar boondoggle that people just do not want to park
Speaker 1: further away and take a tram to the airport. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I could be wrong, but I appreciate when I
Speaker 1: go to Europe and I see these countries and these
Speaker 1: towns and how efficient they are and how thoughtful and
Speaker 1: smart they are with their funds, and Iceland qualified Rykovic
Speaker 1: is just a fantastic place. I highly recommend going. You know,
Speaker 1: I was as I was watching the Miami Heat even
Speaker 1: up the series. The NBA has always been a sport
Speaker 1: that and I've noted this before the NFL, it all
Speaker 1: kind of feels the same. There's intensity in the regular season,
Speaker 1: intensity in the playoffs. There's more of a sudden death feel, obviously,
Speaker 1: but you have to be when it comes to hockey
Speaker 1: or football and you have a regulated level of violence
Speaker 1: a UFC, You've got to take every minute seriously. You're
Speaker 1: going to get hurt. Basketball is different. There's playoff Jimmy Butler.
Speaker 1: In regular season Jimmy Butler. There's load management all through
Speaker 1: the regular season. There's no load management in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: They're just different. So, like to me, you define your
Speaker 1: career in the postseason. It's why I always keep a
Speaker 1: Carmelo Anthony or a Carl Malone they get dropped. They
Speaker 1: weren't as dominant. To me, they weren't as special in
Speaker 1: the postseason. I didn't think they I know Utah got
Speaker 1: to a couple of finals, but I feel like playoff
Speaker 1: basketball is where legacies are built, and I think we're
Speaker 1: seeing it right now. I wrote a list down who
Speaker 1: I think are the ten best players in the NBA,
Speaker 1: and I think there's like two groups. I think the
Speaker 1: four best players in the league right now are Jokic, Jannis, Luca,
Speaker 1: and Steph just And again, Luca hasn't had a ton
Speaker 1: of playoff success, but I think they're just different. I
Speaker 1: don't have any questions about their talent. Then there's six
Speaker 1: guys in the next group, and I have a question
Speaker 1: about all of them, somewhere Ad his health, Tatum his
Speaker 1: ability to close in big games, lebron Age, KD Brittle,
Speaker 1: embiid health, and then Jimmy Butler tends to play great
Speaker 1: in big spots but can be sometimes just a good
Speaker 1: regular season player. So I think there's I think and
Speaker 1: now I think, by the way, A Devin Booker, Jamal Murray,
Speaker 1: Deer and Fox are really really special players. But I
Speaker 1: kind of after watching these playoffs I think there's there's
Speaker 1: just ten guys that feel to me different in the
Speaker 1: league and Jokic, Giannis, Steph and Luca. Even though this
Speaker 1: was not a great ending to the season for Luca,
Speaker 1: He's going to end up being a top five score
Speaker 1: on league history.
Speaker 2: He's he is the best get a bucket guy currently
Speaker 2: in the NBA.
Speaker 1: I think Jokic is a fascinating player because there's a
Speaker 1: Bill Russell quality to him. If you really think about
Speaker 1: Bill Russell got to eleven finals, Magic got to nine,
Speaker 1: Lebron ten. That's thirty between those three. Michael Jordan got
Speaker 1: to six.
Speaker 2: Is that is that?
Speaker 1: I feel like with Russell, Lebron and Magic, what was
Speaker 1: really special about them and it's something I see with
Speaker 1: Jokic is the ability to not only be great, but
Speaker 1: to elevate others. And that's how you consistently get to
Speaker 1: the finals. Doesn't mean you're going to win a ball
Speaker 1: like Michael, but Michael didn't necessarily make other players better.
Speaker 1: Never forget when Michael left the Bulls, they went from
Speaker 1: fifty seven regular season wins to fifty five. If you
Speaker 1: took Jokic off, this Denver team, they're a borderline playoff
Speaker 1: team borderline. So I think Russell, Lebron magic, and Jokic
Speaker 1: feels like that a little. That his ability to take
Speaker 1: B guys and make them B plus guys and take
Speaker 1: a C plus guy and make him a B guy.
Speaker 1: It's a really special, special gift. And I didn't watch
Speaker 1: Bill Russell play, but you know, you watch the old highlights,
Speaker 1: you read about him, you go look at his defense
Speaker 1: and his scoring and his rebounding. He was worth so
Speaker 1: much more than just points. In fact, I thought Miami
Speaker 1: reduced Jokich basically tonight to just a score and he's
Speaker 1: not the same player. They're not the same team when
Speaker 1: he's just a score.
Speaker 2: And you know we.
Speaker 1: Reward that and credit that and give MVPs to great
Speaker 1: scorers James Harden, Russell Westbrook. I think it's the elevation
Speaker 1: of others. Magic, Lebron, Russell is really the difference maker.
Speaker 1: You will consistently get to more finals that way. So
Speaker 1: I know Denver feels like the world is disrespecting them.
Speaker 1: They've never won, they just lost home court advantage in
Speaker 1: the finals. They're not being disrespected. We're waiting to see
Speaker 1: if the Denver are very good or are they great?
Speaker 2: And right now.
Speaker 1: They're very good. Getting to the finals does not make
Speaker 1: you great. Miami got to the finals in the bubble.
Speaker 1: Wasn't a great team, It's very good. Boston got to
Speaker 1: the finals last year, very good team, not great. So
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any disrespect for Denver. But we
Speaker 1: have a precedent of young surging teams that they get close.
Speaker 1: Steve Nash's Sons, the early Sacramento Kings, early two thousand
Speaker 1: Sacramento Kings, the KD Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder got to
Speaker 1: a final. Very good teams. Great is winning that championship.
Speaker 1: I still like Denver, but you know, I have so
Speaker 1: much respect for how Miami does business that I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people are saying this is going to
Speaker 1: be a boring finals. I thought the game tonight was great.
Speaker 1: I thought it was fantastic. I don't know what you want.
Speaker 1: I thought it gave you everything you want. A close
Speaker 1: finish rallies. One team was doing twos, team was doing threes.
Speaker 1: I thought there was clever coaching on both ends. So
Speaker 1: I years and years ago, people thought the Chicago Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz Series would get low ratings, and the truth was
Speaker 1: it's the highest rated NBA Finals. I think ever, it
Speaker 1: was a great story. So Denver and Jokic going for
Speaker 1: their first title versus Miami's culture and precedence of history.
Speaker 1: I think it's a fascinating final. Let's bring on Jason
Speaker 1: Timpf at the Volume Hoops tonight podcaster does a marvelous
Speaker 1: job for us. Let's bring them on. Do you have
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Speaker 3: Colin, what is going on with the Miami Heat right now?
Speaker 1: Well, if you're a believer in analytics, this was great
Speaker 1: analytic basketball. They hit forty nine percent on threes, and
Speaker 1: despite Denver dominating points in the paint, where they had
Speaker 1: a fifty four to thirty two advantage, they dominated twos.
Speaker 1: The threes won the game. In fact, I would argue
Speaker 1: in Miami was down about eight to nine late, I thought,
Speaker 1: I thought Denver waited way too long to shoot threes.
Speaker 1: It's like, guys, we got a minute forty here threes only,
Speaker 1: and I mean they they Denver can give you threes,
Speaker 1: and certainly wasn't bad from beyond the arc. But this
Speaker 1: is this is the way to win. You can see
Speaker 1: in terms of length, Denver's gonna get points in the paint,
Speaker 1: Denver's gonna Denver's just long Gordon and Porter. But again,
Speaker 1: if Tyler Hero comes back and Duncan, you have elite
Speaker 1: three point shooters. So this is Miami's way to do it.
Speaker 1: They're built for analytics. They're Center Bama to Bay. You
Speaker 1: runs the floor. They're a classic analytic team. They're the
Speaker 1: Warriors East. They're not real big, a lot of grit,
Speaker 1: a lot of culture, can play really good defense, especially situationally,
Speaker 1: and when they hit threes, they're hard to beat. They
Speaker 1: really remind me I was watching them. Is that for
Speaker 1: years and years when I lived in Connecticut, I would
Speaker 1: watch New England and I rarely thought they had top
Speaker 1: two or three talent, but I was always like, they're
Speaker 1: so much smarter than everybody. Well, we found out that
Speaker 1: they had the rare combination of a brilliant defensive mind
Speaker 1: and the great offensive mind in Brady. When Brady left,
Speaker 1: they don't look nearly as smart. But Miami I always
Speaker 1: feel that, like, why can't anybody else find Caleb Martin
Speaker 1: and Max Struce and Duncan Robinson, Like why aren't these
Speaker 1: other teams doing that? The difference is when they're Tom
Speaker 1: Brady Dwayne Wade left, they're still great. So it's more
Speaker 1: truly about the coach and the culture, whereas you know,
Speaker 1: and that goes against the grain. We think basketball is
Speaker 1: the player sport. Football is the coaching sport. But New
Speaker 1: England really was more about the player Brady, than it
Speaker 1: was the coach. And I think Miami is more about
Speaker 1: the coach than the players. Is that they one would
Speaker 1: Wade there winning with Butler seven undrafted guys for playing
Speaker 1: so tonight. This was classic culture, This was classic analytics.
Speaker 1: We're not as big, we're going to surrender a lot
Speaker 1: of twos, We're gonna shoot a lot of threes. And
Speaker 1: on this night, Miami looked like they had much better
Speaker 1: energy for a team that plays at sea level. That
Speaker 1: extra day off, they looked energized late I had that
Speaker 1: extra day off really helped Miami.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you brought up New England because that's exactly
Speaker 3: where my brain went. There's the the belichickism, which is
Speaker 3: do your job. That to me is the embodiment of
Speaker 3: the way the Miami Heat played basketball. It's funny because
Speaker 3: a lot of times we talked about coverages and oh,
Speaker 3: they should do this coverage, they should do this one instead,
Speaker 3: And like every coverage in and of itself doesn't fail
Speaker 3: under its own tactical approach, it fails under execution. So,
Speaker 3: for instance, one of the most criticized coverages in the
Speaker 3: NBA's drop coverage, because a lot of dribble pull up
Speaker 3: shooters will get good looks as they're coming over the top.
Speaker 3: But if you do it right, like if the dude
Speaker 3: who's guarding the ball does his job and chases over
Speaker 3: the top, he'll funnel him to the big man, which
Speaker 3: allows the big man to stay in a position where
Speaker 3: he can guard the role man and the ball handler.
Speaker 3: If it's done properly, it does work. The problem is
Speaker 3: is ninety percent of the time it falls apart in
Speaker 3: execution the guard dies on the screen, or the big
Speaker 3: man can't dissuade the lob pass or whatever it is. Miami,
Speaker 3: And what's so fascinating to me is we saw the
Speaker 3: Lakers completely incapable of even making Denver work hard for baskets,
Speaker 3: which is wild considering how good they are defensively. They
Speaker 3: had a one twenty two offensive rating against Lakers, which
Speaker 3: means they scored one hundred and twenty two points per
Speaker 3: a hunt of possessions. They had extended stretches. The Mimi
Speaker 3: Heat did of good defense against Denver tonight. They have
Speaker 3: found two different schematic approaches that allow them to get stops.
Speaker 3: One moving Kevin Love into the lineup allowing him to
Speaker 3: guard Aaron Gordon so that Jimmy Butler can guard Jamal
Speaker 3: Murray and Jimmy Butler and bam at a Baio guarding
Speaker 3: the Jokic Murray action two on two so they don't
Speaker 3: have to send Hell, which is making it so Michael
Speaker 3: Porter Junior is not getting those wide open threes that
Speaker 3: he's used to getting, so that kcp's not getting those
Speaker 3: wide open threes, so they're their rhythms getting disrupted. And
Speaker 3: then the zone, which once again the exact same sort
Speaker 3: of thing. Zone requires such fantastic execution to work, which
Speaker 3: is why most NBA teams don't use it, and Miami's
Speaker 3: zone works against the team that it has no business
Speaker 3: working against with that kind of shooting, and with Jokic
Speaker 3: scoring from the high post, and you pointed out the
Speaker 3: two versus three thing, and that's a really interesting dynamic
Speaker 3: that took place down the stretch of this game. Jokic
Speaker 3: was scoring every damn time he caught it by the rim,
Speaker 3: but that was two. And on the other end of
Speaker 3: the floor, Denver's guarding Miami's actions three on two, so
Speaker 3: there's constant open looks on the backside that are worth three.
Speaker 3: And the math was working very heavily in Miami's favorite
Speaker 3: It just they're doing the impossible. I watched what I
Speaker 3: thought that Laker team I thought was the best defense
Speaker 3: in this playoff field. Miami's doing a much better job
Speaker 3: guard Denver than LA did. It's amazing to me. I'm
Speaker 3: blown away.
Speaker 1: Well, and they also what Miami did is Denver's only
Speaker 1: three and seven this year in the ten games, where
Speaker 1: Jokic had fewer than seven assists.
Speaker 2: So what they made Jokic.
Speaker 1: Was was a score, all right. And and by the way,
Speaker 1: he's a very good score. He's not a great score.
Speaker 1: He's not Jordan, you know, he's not Kareem, He's not
Speaker 1: even Karl Malone. On a good Jokic night, you get
Speaker 1: about twenty three points and then you get eleven assists,
Speaker 1: twelve assists. Well, tonight he only had I think like
Speaker 1: four or five assists, So they made him just into
Speaker 1: a score. So by the way he was and they
Speaker 1: were really trailing late, it felt like it was an
Speaker 1: eight to a night. I mean it closed at the end.
Speaker 1: It felt like Miami was in total control the last
Speaker 1: five minutes of the game and he's dropping forty. So
Speaker 1: you know, I was watching Yokic and I really like
Speaker 1: watching him play. Such a pain in the butt to guard.
Speaker 1: If you'd never watched Larry if you were born, you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of Larry Bird's reign you'd never really
Speaker 1: seen him play, you would say he's like a forward.
Speaker 1: If Jokic was a forward. That's what he played like
Speaker 1: because his passing is brilliant. But a big part of
Speaker 1: what made Larry Bird was Larry Bird is one of
Speaker 1: those Bill Russell Lebron magic stars. Jokic is too that
Speaker 1: they elevate others. So magic could give you forty two.
Speaker 1: But the secret sauce with Magic and Lebron is they
Speaker 1: make j R. Smith viable as hell in an NBA finals.
Speaker 1: Matthew della Vdova can play like like there was a
Speaker 1: time Tristan Thompson became valuable, you know in the finals.
Speaker 1: That's the secret sauce to Jokich. It's not the points,
Speaker 1: it's the elevation. He turns C plus guys into B players,
Speaker 1: B guys into B plus players. You know, there were
Speaker 1: people that were just out on Jamal Murray, like after
Speaker 1: the the ACL injury, and like he looks like one
Speaker 1: of the best players in the world. So I thought
Speaker 1: they reduced it's a weird way to say it. They
Speaker 1: reduced Jokics to just a great score tonight and Denver's
Speaker 1: not as effective. They're really not. He's going to dominate twos.
Speaker 1: They'll take their chances on that. And I will say
Speaker 1: this though, what you're seeing is really good coaches. I
Speaker 1: saw so many people because I watched Game one. I
Speaker 1: watched the full game YouTube highlights because I was overseas,
Speaker 1: and you know the idea. People were saying, Oh, this
Speaker 1: series is over and I'm time out. Miami just got
Speaker 1: out of a highly emotional seven game series. They're going
Speaker 1: as a sea level team to the mountains. They got
Speaker 1: no chance in Game one, they got no shot. It's like, everybody,
Speaker 1: take a deep breath. This is a six or seven
Speaker 1: game series. I think Denver's better. They'll now adjust. But tonight,
Speaker 1: in that fourth quarter, it was analytic basketball threes versus
Speaker 1: twos and Miami spoe you know, chess match edge Miami tonight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because I fell for the same gambit
Speaker 3: that you're referring to, the oh the series is overgambit.
Speaker 3: And you know it's funny because I was. It was
Speaker 3: just as much about Denver as it was about Miami. Like,
Speaker 3: I don't think people realize how dominant Denver has been
Speaker 3: to this point.
Speaker 4: They swept the Lakers, the.
Speaker 3: Phoenix series went to six, but did you know their
Speaker 3: average margin of victory and the wins was over seventeen
Speaker 3: points in that series, like they kicked Phoenix's ass like
Speaker 3: it was one and't close.
Speaker 4: So they they killed.
Speaker 3: Devin Booker and Kevin Durant and then they killed Lebron
Speaker 3: James and Anthony Davis like that. That's why I'm so
Speaker 3: high on what Denver does. And then specifically the what
Speaker 3: was happening in the Eastern Conference was a lot of
Speaker 3: capitalizing on weaknesses like Boston's weaknesses and offensive decision making
Speaker 3: New York's like literally, Julius Randall kind of crumbled, Jalen
Speaker 3: Brunson was the only guy who looked comfortable all their
Speaker 3: spot up shooters when cold Milwaukee obviously has a bunch
Speaker 3: of half court offense issues. So it felt kind of
Speaker 3: like Spolstro was like just capitalizing on major weaknesses. And
Speaker 3: then you look at this Denver team and you don't
Speaker 3: kind of see them as a team that has a weakness.
Speaker 3: But this is where the genius of leaving Yokic on
Speaker 3: an island comes into play, and you broke it down perfectly.
Speaker 3: The ideal Yokic game is twenty three points per game,
Speaker 3: bunch of assists. That's when everyone's flowing rhythm is a
Speaker 3: real thing in basketball. If you leave a guy on
Speaker 3: an island, and you stay home off the ball. Then
Speaker 3: guys that are used to touching the basketball a certain
Speaker 3: number of times over the course of the game suddenly
Speaker 3: go extended stretches where they don't touch the basketball. And
Speaker 3: so then when KCP gets a wide open look off
Speaker 3: of a Jamal Murray handoff at the end of the
Speaker 3: game from the top of the key, he bricks it
Speaker 3: long because he hasn't been getting shots. He hasn't even
Speaker 3: been he's barely been touching the basketball. And so that's
Speaker 3: the genius in it is Yokic is so damn good.
Speaker 3: He's going to get forty on efficient shooting because that's
Speaker 3: how good he is. But if you make them play
Speaker 3: that style, it just puts everybody else out of rhythm.
Speaker 3: And there's one last thing I wanted to shout out,
Speaker 3: and actually, Colin, I think this is a really interesting
Speaker 3: kind of way to look at team building in the NBA.
Speaker 3: Jimmy Butler and bam Adebayo are the two stars of
Speaker 3: this Miami Heat team. They have taken on all of
Speaker 3: the dirty work. Like it's crazy to me. They are
Speaker 3: completely and utterly bought into doing all of the hard
Speaker 3: things that so many stars around the league don't do
Speaker 3: like Jimmy Butler and bam Adebayo are what kind of
Speaker 3: shut down Denver's offense tonight? Like that's crazy for your star,
Speaker 3: for Jimmy Butler, the guy who's been the guy who's
Speaker 3: been helio centric doing all the work offensively to then
Speaker 3: just be like I'm gonna guard Jamal Murray and chase
Speaker 3: them over screens all night long. And I think it's
Speaker 3: a really good indicator when we look at team building
Speaker 3: moving forward, like you gotta if your foundational players. And
Speaker 3: Eric Spolzer said something to this effect after Game one,
Speaker 3: I think, or before the finals. He's like, if your
Speaker 3: two best players don't want to defend, I don't know
Speaker 3: how you can build a good defense. And that's the truth,
Speaker 3: Like you've got they are built. It's not just the
Speaker 3: execution from the coaching staff. It's the stars and them
Speaker 3: being utterly bought into the dirty work. And then all
Speaker 3: those role players are naturally bought in because everybody above
Speaker 3: them in it is and it just leads to that
Speaker 3: well oiled machine.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, this has been something I've been on
Speaker 1: for years, is that Carmelo Anthony never wanted to defend.
Speaker 1: You can't build your franchise around a guy that won't defend.
Speaker 1: Just not a knock on Carmelo, but it's like Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant's a willing defender, so Steph Curry he's just not
Speaker 1: a great defender. So they protect him with Draymond and
Speaker 1: Andrea Gudall in his prime off the bench, and Klay Thompson,
Speaker 1: you know, pre injuries, you protect him and that there's
Speaker 1: a handful of players.
Speaker 2: We do this in the NBA.
Speaker 1: We fall for the dynamic offensive player. And it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Years ago, when I was a kid, I always used
Speaker 1: the example of World B Free or George Gerbin. They
Speaker 1: weren't classified as great players. World B Free was this
Speaker 1: guy who averaged like twenty ninety game, twenty eighty game
Speaker 1: for like that. I think it was the Sixers.
Speaker 2: He was. He was an oddity. He had you know,
Speaker 2: the crazy name, unique name, unique game. He was a gunner.
Speaker 2: It wasn't an All star.
Speaker 1: It was okay, just saying he's just a really fun
Speaker 1: offensive player. What's happened in basketball? We now give MVPs
Speaker 1: to guys like James Harden, who gives you no effort
Speaker 1: on the defensive end. James Harden's a great score. That's
Speaker 1: what we would have called him in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: He's a great score. You don't really classify him as
Speaker 1: an MVP level player. And to your point is, it's
Speaker 1: hard to find to me an all time great player
Speaker 1: Kobe MJ that either was a great defensive player in
Speaker 1: his prime Kareem, or it was at least a willing defender,
Speaker 1: Steph KD willing defenders, John Stockton, Isaiah they're willing defenders.
Speaker 1: This is where I don't know if Isaiah was Stockton
Speaker 1: was a willing defender. So to your point is, you know,
Speaker 1: I always think about it if I was Miami. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of things you could sell players on because
Speaker 1: they do practice. You know, they work you, They really
Speaker 1: demand a lot of you. But it's such an easy sell.
Speaker 1: You can say, listen, guys, it's the best weather in
Speaker 1: the entire Eastern Conference. Yeah, the bluest water, no state tax,
Speaker 1: no chaos in the building. This is a great organization.
Speaker 1: What we're going to ask of you is to play
Speaker 1: your ass off on both ends. That's the ask, and
Speaker 1: I think Golden State's been able to do that, Like
Speaker 1: we will outspend the salary cap. We don't care. New
Speaker 1: arena coming. We'll pay everybody. But you got to play
Speaker 1: on the defensive end. It's not about you. It's got
Speaker 1: to be Greg Popovich once said, you got to get
Speaker 1: over yourself. If you want to be part of a dynasty,
Speaker 1: at some point, you have to get over yourself. And
Speaker 1: this is not just a shot at mellow, but this
Speaker 1: idea that we just worship these and I love the NBA,
Speaker 1: but we worship these players who just don't give you
Speaker 1: an effort on the defensive end. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Those are non championship players. They're fun. I loved World
Speaker 1: Be Free. I love George Gervin. You got to give
Speaker 1: me something. And when I watch Miami play, I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's if you told me somebody just dived on the
Speaker 1: floor for the heat. I'd be like, why Jimmy Butler.
Speaker 1: Larry Bird, by the way, I would guess, oh, Larry Bird.
Speaker 1: I love that style of basketball, I really do.
Speaker 3: I was literally thinking about that when I was watching
Speaker 3: bam ade Bio in that fourth quarter, and and how
Speaker 3: I want to work on with my coverage of the league,
Speaker 3: doing a better job of crediting players who.
Speaker 4: Do that, because I like bam at a Bio.
Speaker 3: Is nowhere near his gifted as Anthony Davis, and he's
Speaker 3: through two games done such a better job on both
Speaker 3: ends of the floor. And a huge part of that
Speaker 3: is he's just fighting with more physicality of in position
Speaker 3: battles and he's sprinting his ass off up and down
Speaker 3: the floor every single possession. One of the biggest ways
Speaker 3: that Joki killed Anthony Davis was just in transition, just
Speaker 3: running and and it's again, it gives you the ability
Speaker 3: to demand perfection from the rest of the roster. I
Speaker 3: think about this a lot with the with the Last
Speaker 3: Dance and some of the stuff from Michael Jordan and
Speaker 3: and like, and there's a huge movement, especially from Lebron fans,
Speaker 3: to try to paint Michael as this prick who just
Speaker 3: was just treat everybody off, and it's like, I look
Speaker 3: at it completely differently. Michael demanded perfection from his teammates
Speaker 3: because he was in pursuit of that same thing on
Speaker 3: both ends of the floor, and so it carries more
Speaker 3: weight down the roster. You can ask a bunch of
Speaker 3: undrafted guys and guys that are that don't have the
Speaker 3: necessary level of athleticism and skill that your top players have.
Speaker 3: You can ask them to do a little job perfectly
Speaker 3: when Jimmy and Bam are not taking any possessions off
Speaker 3: and they're fighting through all that stuff. Again, like fundamentally,
Speaker 3: the two of them guarding Murray and yok It's changed
Speaker 3: the way that Denver was able to generate shots. And
Speaker 3: so I think I just think it's a super interesting
Speaker 3: thing to look at when when we're looking at team
Speaker 3: development is you've got to have guys at the top
Speaker 3: that are willing to embrace the dirty work because that's
Speaker 3: the only thing that's going to allow you to demand
Speaker 3: from the rest of the roster. And you're like you
Speaker 3: you mentioned Miami bringing in players, Like that's the next
Speaker 3: thing out of all this, because I still believe Denver
Speaker 3: will win this series, although I've seen enough from tonight
Speaker 3: to know that Miami has a real chance, which I
Speaker 3: didn't think before tonight. However, like one of the big
Speaker 3: things to take away from this series if Denver does
Speaker 3: win is what if Miami got some players, Like what
Speaker 3: if they got some players, Because if they get some
Speaker 3: players in there, with what Jimmy and Bam can do,
Speaker 3: and with what Eric Spolser can do. That's where it
Speaker 3: gets really scary, because they have all of the other
Speaker 3: odds and ends tied off so perfectly that they maximize
Speaker 3: talent so well that it could it could it could
Speaker 3: really be devastating for the rest of the leader.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, I think there's this natural Let's
Speaker 1: get Dame down to Miami. But Dame doesn't. So I
Speaker 1: mean because Bam is a willing defender, Jimmy Butler's excellent defender.
Speaker 1: Lowry's got limitations due to aid Duncan, Robbinson, Tyler Harroll
Speaker 1: are not going to defend. Adding another player that doesn't
Speaker 1: defend is not necessarily it. That's why, you know, That's
Speaker 1: why when I threw the name out with the Celtics,
Speaker 1: but I'll throw it out with Miami. Andrew Wiggins is
Speaker 1: a very interesting piece. A twitchy, willing defender doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be the leader, could be the second or third
Speaker 1: best player in your team. Super smart, gets gets the
Speaker 1: intelligence of the Miami culture. That's the kind of guy,
Speaker 1: A willing wing defender. So you can have Tyler Harrow
Speaker 1: on the floor and it's not and I and I
Speaker 1: and then I look at at the Warriors and I think, oh,
Speaker 1: what could you get?
Speaker 2: Well, they they they love to shoot. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so Miami to your point, I think they could
Speaker 1: add a piece, but they don't need a flashy piece, right,
Speaker 1: they don't. The culture fit is somebody who is willing,
Speaker 1: doesn't need headlines, experienced, smart, and and a guy that
Speaker 1: on the on the wing is a willing defender. So
Speaker 1: it's like, I'm not saying Andrew Wiggins is the piece,
Speaker 1: but we tend to go, oh, let's put this guy
Speaker 1: who jacks up. That's not really what Miami is. That's
Speaker 1: not their thing.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: Miami has done a really good job through the years
Speaker 1: of assessing what they are and also assessing what they're not.
Speaker 1: And I think I've always been told this in the
Speaker 1: broadcasting biz when you're building a network, like you have
Speaker 1: to know your own talent before you can go out
Speaker 1: and find talent, Like who are our best pieces? And
Speaker 1: it's sometimes I think ESPN went through a stretch where
Speaker 1: they didn't recognize some of their own pieces as they
Speaker 1: were trying to assemble, you know, kind of as George
Speaker 1: Bodenheimer left, John Skipper came in, there was a c
Speaker 1: change at the company. And I didn't think they assessed
Speaker 1: their own talent very well as they were trying to
Speaker 1: pursue other talent. And I think when I look at Miami,
Speaker 1: I think Miami totally understands what they are get sort
Speaker 1: of right now, what they're not, what they need. I mean,
Speaker 1: Tyler Hero is not exactly a perfect fit for Miami.
Speaker 1: Little flaky, little immature, not a defender, doesn't really fit.
Speaker 2: I could see them. I could see them moving him.
Speaker 1: I mean they're winning, They're in the finals without him,
Speaker 1: I could see them moving him and adding a little
Speaker 1: toughness and better wing defense. Then how good would Miami
Speaker 1: be You had a seventeen point game wing guy that defends.
Speaker 2: But then what are they?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because with Tyler Harrow in particular, I
Speaker 3: think Spolstra and I'm not sure if he was actually
Speaker 3: ruled as available to tonight or not, or if it
Speaker 3: was just like a DNP coach's decision, but like it is,
Speaker 3: our colleague Draymond Green actually did a really good job
Speaker 3: of breaking this down on his show. Just the general
Speaker 3: idea that like there's a rhythm in a flow to
Speaker 3: what Miami is doing right now, and to throw a
Speaker 3: new guy into that who has a lot of usage,
Speaker 3: meaning like he's going to control a lot of possessions.
Speaker 4: It just has a lot We just have a lot of.
Speaker 3: Opportunity for that to bump the train off the track,
Speaker 3: so to speak. I do think that in the long run,
Speaker 3: like they will have to come up with some sort
Speaker 3: of secondary shot creator, and I think that's why they've
Speaker 3: been so hesitant to give up Tyler Harra over the years.
Speaker 4: But like you're right.
Speaker 3: I mean, regardless of whether it's Wiggins or it's a
Speaker 3: bigger fish, whoever that guy is has to be someone
Speaker 3: who's bought in. And for the record, this is something
Speaker 3: that I think Spolsture has done a really good job of,
Speaker 3: and I should say pat Riley too. They've been very
Speaker 3: picky about who they bring in. Have you noticed that,
Speaker 3: Like they know they can identify pretty like, no, you're
Speaker 3: not about what we're about, you.
Speaker 2: Know, a great example of what they're about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, And so when you get the you get
Speaker 3: the right guys. Like the Heat culture thing has been
Speaker 3: said so many times, it's kind of lost some of
Speaker 3: its meaning, but there is a reality to it in
Speaker 3: the sense that it's like it's kind of like that
Speaker 3: epic rant from MJ at the at the Last Dance.
Speaker 3: It's like, if this is not the way you want
Speaker 3: to play, go somewhere else, but this is the way
Speaker 3: we're going to play here. And that's kind of the
Speaker 3: Miami Heat ideologies. It's like, if you come here, you're
Speaker 3: going to defend every possession like it's your last, because that's.
Speaker 4: How we play.
Speaker 3: And guess what, it helps you beat better teams in
Speaker 3: the NBA Playoffs, and that's why we do it. We're
Speaker 3: about winning trophies here and I love that whole idea.
Speaker 3: So as we go into Miami, Miami's a two point
Speaker 3: underdog by the way at home.
Speaker 1: I think they'll split. I think they'll will come back
Speaker 1: to too. Yeah, I think they're I think these teams.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a coaching chess match.
Speaker 1: I think Denver's better, but not significantly better. And they've
Speaker 1: never won this thing and this is new territory. I
Speaker 1: thought tonight Spoe chess match. I thought Spoe was worth
Speaker 1: three games in the Boston series. I thought he won tonight.
Speaker 1: I thought he did the tweaking late as Denver's offense
Speaker 1: dried up. So I don't think Spoe is going to
Speaker 1: be worth two or three wins in this series because
Speaker 1: I think Malone's more than capable. I thought Missoula was
Speaker 1: a little over his head. Maybe I think Joe Missoula.
Speaker 1: It's a learning experiences. It just happened to be on
Speaker 1: national TV. It's the worst place for one, but it
Speaker 1: is what it is. But I think Spo stole one tonight,
Speaker 1: and I think I think, I think they'll go to
Speaker 1: Miami split and they'll come back. And that's exactly what
Speaker 1: this series is. I think Denver's gonna eventually win close.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't be surprised if Miami won. I don't buy into
Speaker 1: the Miami. It's gonna get overwhelmed. I think Denver's longer,
Speaker 1: they're going to get more free, cheap baskets. And by
Speaker 1: the way, when you live on that three like Miami
Speaker 1: did tonight, they're going to have longer droughts like Denver's
Speaker 1: fourth quarter was rare. I wrote some notes down tonight.
Speaker 1: You know, their droughts are a six nothing run. They
Speaker 1: had two droughts. They started the game in a drought
Speaker 1: and they ended the game in a drought. Like Denver
Speaker 1: really struggled early and really struggled late. So that's that's
Speaker 1: chess match. That's that's spose opening adjustments and closing adjustments
Speaker 1: in the in the in the eighty percent of the game.
Speaker 1: Inside of that, Denver was the better team, but early
Speaker 1: and late. And that's coaching, right. Like if you go
Speaker 1: to NFL games, the opening drive you score first in
Speaker 1: the NFL, you win seventy percent of your games. That
Speaker 1: was Bill Walsh, take the lead opening drive, in the NFL,
Speaker 1: and how do you close with two minutes left? That's coaching.
Speaker 1: That's the great coaches. Poorly coach teams never finished strong
Speaker 1: like over the course of an NFL season. Poorly coached
Speaker 1: teams unravel late. It's like a golden rule. They just
Speaker 1: unravel late. So I thought Spoe stole one tonight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as we move towards Miami, I kind of see
Speaker 3: it the same way. I could see a split there.
Speaker 3: There's going to be a couple of specific adjustments that
Speaker 3: I expect from Denver One. They just have to defend better.
Speaker 3: Mike Malone's going to be all over them about their
Speaker 3: defensive effort in this particular game because it wasn't great.
Speaker 3: Jamal Murray in particular was just biting at every single
Speaker 3: pump fake and giving up a ton of driving lanes.
Speaker 3: That was leading them to be in rotation a lot. Offensively,
Speaker 3: I think they need to do a lot more Yokic
Speaker 3: stuff with casep and Michael Porter Junior to keep them
Speaker 3: in rhythm during the game while they're leaving Yokic on
Speaker 3: an island a lot. Sometimes they run too much two
Speaker 3: man game with just Jamal Murray and Jokic and then
Speaker 3: it'll be Yokics post up, Yokis post up, Yokis post up,
Speaker 3: and then it'll be Murray Jokic Burry Jokic, and like,
Speaker 3: one of the ways to keep KCP and Michael Porter
Speaker 3: Junior in rhythm is just to give them more touches
Speaker 3: throughout the game in dribblehndoff situations. Before we get out
Speaker 3: of here, I did want to ask you one thing, though,
Speaker 3: So I thought Jokicic was unbelievable tonight, like just absolutely unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Where do you are our guy Carson from nerd Sash
Speaker 3: tweeted this out and it got me thinking. He said
Speaker 3: it's a Tier one playoff run of all time, meaning
Speaker 3: he views it on the same level as all the
Speaker 3: all time great playoff runs from the all time great players.
Speaker 3: I tend to agree, and I wanted to ask you,
Speaker 3: just because you have so much more experience watching the
Speaker 3: NBA over the years, does this feel like all time
Speaker 3: great pantheon level stuff that we're seeing from Nikola Jokic
Speaker 3: to you?
Speaker 1: Well, I think his consistency, I mean, people forget, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like Michael Jordan, you never see the bad games
Speaker 1: Michael had Michael had some really tough shooting matchups against
Speaker 1: the Utah Jazz in those finals. More than one Michael
Speaker 1: had bad games. He had a bad one against I
Speaker 1: think Phoenix. He had a couple bad ones against. He
Speaker 1: had a bad one against I think Seattle in a
Speaker 1: closeout game. Michael wasn't perfect. I think with Jokic, it's
Speaker 1: the consistency. I feel like you can just write down,
Speaker 1: like tonight he had very few assists. You can just
Speaker 1: write down twenty four to eleven twelve.
Speaker 2: Like that's really that's rare. The consistency.
Speaker 1: I think, what were you know? It's very like like
Speaker 1: you could probably don't have Bill Russell's numbers obviously in
Speaker 1: front of me, But I feel like with Bill Russell,
Speaker 1: you would get the same defense every night when they
Speaker 1: were playing and winning the championships, it was Bill could
Speaker 1: run the floor. Bill give you defense. Bill, I gave
Speaker 1: you eighteen to twenty points. Had I watched Bill Russell,
Speaker 1: I feel like that would be Jokics, Like I knew
Speaker 1: exactly what I was getting. Magic Johnson would have great
Speaker 1: nights and then then Kareem would score and Magic would
Speaker 1: be back. So Lebron to me feels like even different
Speaker 1: than Michael. Lebron went a decade. I didn't think he
Speaker 1: had a bad playoff game. I remember when Dan Gilbert
Speaker 1: I think I told you this once when he left Cleveland,
Speaker 1: and they said Dan Gilbert claimed that Lebron quit in
Speaker 1: a playoff game against like Boston and the numbers were
Speaker 1: like thirty to eleven.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that's his quit game, Okay, I get it.
Speaker 1: Like Lebron to me, is even greater than Michael in
Speaker 1: terms of it's hard to find in his prime an
Speaker 1: off night in the playoffs. I mean, like a they're
Speaker 1: all good. So I don't think it. I don't think
Speaker 1: it rises to that. But I do think there's a
Speaker 1: consistency to his game, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: it is because he's such an elevator of others. Because
Speaker 1: of his size almost seven feet, he's going to get rebounds,
Speaker 1: because of his girth and his body, he's going to
Speaker 1: give you twenty four a night. Even if he doesn't
Speaker 1: play brilliantly. He just gets points. Tonight they reduced him
Speaker 1: to justice score. He generally gives you ten to eleven assists.
Speaker 1: You can almost just bank it, like you kind of
Speaker 1: know what you're getting and that's kind of a Bill
Speaker 1: Russell Lebroun thing. Now again, I'm not knocking Michael. Michael
Speaker 1: mostly gave you that, but Michael had Michael was never
Speaker 1: a great long distant shooter. You know, Michael had two
Speaker 1: great ears shooting the three. That's when they moved it in.
Speaker 1: Then they moved it out and Michael went back to
Speaker 1: not being able to hit threes. Like, so I don't
Speaker 1: consider all time stuff.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's funny listening to Denver complain about their media coverage
Speaker 1: and I'm like, would you guys win a title first?
Speaker 4: And all this whole thing.
Speaker 1: They're like, they're so upset without it being treated. It's like,
Speaker 1: do you guys have a ring? Like you have one
Speaker 1: win in the finals. Like it's a really good team.
Speaker 1: Let's wait before we call them great. Let's wait before
Speaker 1: we call Jokic great. It's a very very impressive playoff run.
Speaker 1: They're tied. They just lost at home, right, Miami now
Speaker 1: has home court advantage. Nobody's disrespecting you. There's nothing. I
Speaker 1: don't have any trophies to talk about. The Bucks have
Speaker 1: a trophy, Dirk got a trophy.
Speaker 2: You don't have anything yet.
Speaker 1: The volume