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Speaker 1: cable channel. All right here we go. Jason Timpf, podcaster
Speaker 1: the volume Hoops Tonight. Okay, so I picked the You know,
Speaker 1: it's really funny. I mean, the series is pretty predictable.
Speaker 1: One team can shoot, that's the Warriors.
Speaker 2: The other is.
Speaker 1: Big, long, athletic and struggles sometimes when you take away
Speaker 1: the transition baskets for the Rockets and you take their
Speaker 1: athleticism and you mute it to some degree in the
Speaker 1: playoffs because you're not going to get freebies. You know,
Speaker 1: you get them on a Tuesday night in Orlando, you're
Speaker 1: not getting them against the veteran NBA playoff team. The
Speaker 1: Warriors played really good defense and Houston couldn't shoot. So
Speaker 1: I know what the series is youth inexperienced athletic ability
Speaker 1: length against this old veteran team that's incredibly well coached
Speaker 1: with Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler. But I've got to
Speaker 1: be honest. Show to a stat at the end of
Speaker 1: the year where Jalen Green wasn't scoring. And Jalen Green's fascinating.
Speaker 1: He's almost a case study for me. So I think
Speaker 1: everybody should go to college at least for a year,
Speaker 1: probably two. But he goes to the G League. I
Speaker 1: watch his game. He can't play up your point, can't
Speaker 1: really shoot super athletic and long, but sometimes you kind
Speaker 1: of leans on that athletic ability around the basket and
Speaker 1: puts a wild shots. Was invisible in this game. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was just invisible. And they have more than enough
Speaker 1: size and athletic ability, and I'm looking at this guy's career.
Speaker 1: He's obviously an absolutely dynamic player. But I feel like
Speaker 1: when I watched him tonight, it's like, Okay, in playoff basketball,
Speaker 1: you have to sort of define your offense. You just
Speaker 1: can't come down and wing it right. You can't just
Speaker 1: have You see this in college basketball adjacent all the time,
Speaker 1: where you just have lost possessions. In college you'll have
Speaker 1: eight or nine in a row. And I felt a
Speaker 1: lot of times I didn't know what Houston was doing
Speaker 1: in the half court set when you took away the
Speaker 1: transition baskets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's half the battle.
Speaker 3: You gotta have a pet action or preferably multiple pet
Speaker 3: actions that you trust to at least either get you
Speaker 3: a good shot or get a close out for somebody,
Speaker 3: so you can start the tic tac toe of trying
Speaker 3: to break a defense down and Honestly, I'm glad you
Speaker 3: love Jalen Green, because I thought that was the difference
Speaker 3: in tonight's game. This has been a recurring theme for
Speaker 3: the Rockets throughout the season. It kind of stems around
Speaker 3: Fred and Jalen. When the two of them are both great,
Speaker 3: they're basically impossible to beat. When one of them is great,
Speaker 3: they almost always win. As a matter of fact, one
Speaker 3: of the craziest stats I encountered as I was prepping
Speaker 3: for the series is that when Jalen Green scores at
Speaker 3: least thirty points, the Rockets worth thirteen and one this season,
Speaker 3: Like they just win when they get scoring.
Speaker 2: So first of all, we should take that little.
Speaker 3: Note and just file it away in case the Rockets
Speaker 3: get Kevin Durant this summer, because that's where it could
Speaker 3: get really scary, is if they have that reliable type
Speaker 3: of scoring. But Jalen, as you put, is just so
Speaker 3: in consistent. He's just as likely to go for seven
Speaker 3: points in a game and be mostly ineffective as he
Speaker 3: is to be effective. As a matter of fact, it
Speaker 3: kind of comes down to he's very athletic getting to
Speaker 3: the basket, and he's a very capable pull up shooter. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but if those two things aren't going, it's gonna be
Speaker 3: a lot of him forcing the action. Yeah, looking really ugly. Honestly,
Speaker 3: Udoka has bailed on him often this year. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised if he bails on him over
Speaker 3: the course of this series. If you can't show.
Speaker 1: More, if you and I talked, if you and I,
Speaker 1: you know it's the closure eyes test. Jordan, Kobe, bird Yokich,
Speaker 1: Lebron take great offensive players.
Speaker 2: I'll go back to.
Speaker 1: My day of George Gervin Alex English. When you think
Speaker 1: of really profound scores, you can close your eyes and
Speaker 1: you can picture their best move. There's certain stock foundational
Speaker 1: moves Michael went to. He had about four, and you know,
Speaker 1: just like he could get to he six in his sleep.
Speaker 1: Kobe was more creative with fewer stock moves. He was
Speaker 1: more creative than Michael with better range. But there were
Speaker 1: certain things Kobe liked to do. Jalen Green's athletic, like
Speaker 1: I feel like he has to develop two or three
Speaker 1: foundational moves that he just uses and it's not a
Speaker 1: knock steph Chris Paul. I mean, like Chris Paul has
Speaker 1: just that behind the back through the leg, you know,
Speaker 1: right angle of the free throw line, and close my
Speaker 1: eyes and see it in my sleep. He scored eight
Speaker 1: thousand points on one move. And I just feel like
Speaker 1: with Jalen Green, I'm like, bro, it's not you got
Speaker 1: to get past athletic ability, like you have to create
Speaker 1: some absolute guarantees. The other thing here, listen, offensive rebounding,
Speaker 1: Houston's going to dominate. They're so damn big. I thought
Speaker 1: down the stretch the Warriors offensive rebounding, they were just
Speaker 1: getting second looks.
Speaker 2: A lot of it was effort.
Speaker 1: Down the stretch. I thought Houston looked like a beaten
Speaker 1: team with about four to five minutes left. Golden State
Speaker 1: the old guys outworked him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was super interesting to see the flow of
Speaker 3: the game as Steph, We've talked about Jalen and Fred
Speaker 3: weren't producing anything on offense, so that that was really
Speaker 3: the difference. Like you get seventeen combined points on thirty
Speaker 3: four shots from Fred and Jalen, so literally half of
Speaker 3: a point a shot. Right on the other side, you
Speaker 3: get thirty one from Steph on nineteen shots, and just
Speaker 3: I thought Steph was absolutely amazing tonight. I thought I'd
Speaker 3: have to really think and start ranking. But when you
Speaker 3: factor in the degree of difficulty, that was one of
Speaker 3: his more impressive playoff games that I've watched. He was
Speaker 3: really special. He was smothered all over the place and
Speaker 3: he kept making it work. But like, honestly, to bring
Speaker 3: it back to Jalen Green, Like, what I thought was
Speaker 3: fascinating was Steph found Jalen to be his favorite target.
Speaker 3: On the other end, that's really the issue with Jalen
Speaker 3: is that when he doesn't have anything going offensively, he's
Speaker 3: a weak defensive player when he should be better for
Speaker 3: being a great athlete, and then on offense he doesn't
Speaker 3: have the read and react game to make up for it.
Speaker 3: But it was funny seeing the flow the game. Steph
Speaker 3: is carrying the offense there, but you see Houston just
Speaker 3: slowly chip away and there's nothing else going for Golden State.
Speaker 3: But ironically, it was everybody else in the starting lineup
Speaker 3: that kind of stepped up down the stretch.
Speaker 2: I thought Pods was fantastic. Yeah, I thought mood I
Speaker 2: thought Moody was fantastic.
Speaker 3: Moody hit two massive jump shots that step back shit
Speaker 3: at the end of the shot clock. That little mid ranger.
Speaker 3: That was a big shot, the huge shot he hit
Speaker 3: in the left corner right after Fred van Vliet hit
Speaker 3: his shot. They just had a response for everything. Jimmy
Speaker 3: Butler did some beautiful matchup attacking down the stretch. They
Speaker 3: were brilliant defensively. You saw a really cohesive Warrior starting
Speaker 3: unit down the stretch. And honestly, if there's one thing
Speaker 3: to take away from the Jimmy Butler trade, it really
Speaker 3: just lined up their best five perfectly. They know who
Speaker 3: their five is and it just crystallized all of that
Speaker 3: and it ended up working out. I actually thought it
Speaker 3: was interesting that they didn't try Kaminga tonight. Nope, especially
Speaker 3: considering how poorly they were rebounding for stretches. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, like you got steady, mistake free basketball
Speaker 3: down the roster, which I think is what Steve Kerr
Speaker 3: was shooting forward to avoid Houston getting out in transition.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could argue if you combine these two rosters,
Speaker 1: the most athletic guys are Jalen Green, i'm On Thompson,
Speaker 1: and Jonathan Kaminga. None of them did anything tonight because
Speaker 1: I mean, seriously, Jason, because that's playoff basketball. You don't
Speaker 1: get the easy transition transition baskets. You're gonna play the
Speaker 1: same team over and over. You get the best coaches,
Speaker 1: so you don't get cheap points. Which, listen, we always
Speaker 1: we've always known this. They were talking about this on
Speaker 1: the broadcast tonight, is that you're they're not gonna blow
Speaker 1: the whistle. It gets very physical. I mean you could
Speaker 1: see the Warriors late in the game, pushy Chippy and
Speaker 1: the three most athletic guys and these two you could
Speaker 1: argue the three most athletic guys didn't do anything tonight.
Speaker 1: I did think Pods. You know, again, he's not a kid,
Speaker 1: played a couple of years in college now this I
Speaker 1: think this is his second year in the NBA. So
Speaker 1: he's a class example where you know, he's not this
Speaker 1: five star recruit who they rushed through a g league
Speaker 1: of rushes And what does that mean? He really has
Speaker 1: a place. Pods really has a place in this offense
Speaker 1: from what I can see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was talking with my buddy Samus Fondiari about
Speaker 3: this over the course of the last week because we've
Speaker 3: been amazed to just see over the years how often
Speaker 3: Steve Kerr has been right about who is a winning
Speaker 3: basketball player, Like, for instance, like Ty Jerome, who was
Speaker 3: incredible today for the Calves. Like that was the guy
Speaker 3: that Steve Kerr had a lot of trust in Brandon Pajemski.
Speaker 3: There were some downs colin over the last couple of
Speaker 3: years where Warriors fans really wanted to bail on Brandon Pajemski,
Speaker 3: and Steve Kurg just never gave up on him because
Speaker 3: he believed in him as a winning player. The reverse
Speaker 3: happened with Kaminga. There were stretches where there's a stretch
Speaker 3: last year it was like a half dozen games in
Speaker 3: a row, Kminga went for twenty plus and it was like,
Speaker 3: oh man, we might have a future All Star in
Speaker 3: our hands. But Steve Kerr saw through it and was
Speaker 3: like this, there's not a lot of replicable winning basketball
Speaker 3: that I'm getting out of this. There's just so much
Speaker 3: there's so much emphasis in that organization. I'm bringing in
Speaker 3: like the right types of dudes and like pods. The
Speaker 3: way he impacted winning down the stretch was actually really
Speaker 3: fascinating because it wasn't through any sort of, you know,
Speaker 3: super talent based type of play. It was just smart basketball.
Speaker 3: He beats a close out against Jabari Smith on the
Speaker 3: left wing, traps him on his backside, baits Steven Adams
Speaker 3: into stepping up, and throws a perfect bounce pass to
Speaker 3: Gary Payton, who gets the easy layup under the basket.
Speaker 3: The player Jimmy Butler got the put back, or I
Speaker 3: think it was Draymond actually got to put back. Pods
Speaker 3: didn't even get the put back. He just came flying
Speaker 3: in and hit the basketball, but he kept it alive
Speaker 3: long enough for it to pop right into Draymond's hands
Speaker 3: and to go into the basket. He just does the
Speaker 3: right thing every single time, which creates an environment of
Speaker 3: factors that Steve Kirk can depend on to elevate the
Speaker 3: situation for his stars to carry him over the top.
Speaker 3: I think they just they just always seem to find
Speaker 3: these guys calling it's crazy. It's an organizational thing for them.
Speaker 1: Well, And you know, I was thinking about Jimmy Butler,
Speaker 1: who finished forty two minutes, twenty five points, forty two
Speaker 1: minutes frickin' and he plays both ends. And I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this watching Jimmy Butler, is that he's a
Speaker 1: very intentional basketball player, Like you remember his points and
Speaker 1: I always said this about Andrew Wiggins, like he'd score
Speaker 1: twenty six. I didn't remember a bucket, and like Jimmy
Speaker 1: Butler can score sixteen, I remember all of them. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like he's just an intentional player. And there were
Speaker 1: a couple of times tonight where you know they were
Speaker 1: in the control.
Speaker 2: Of the game.
Speaker 1: I mean this this well you could that's after that
Speaker 1: that second quarter of basketball, it's like, oh, Houston's in trouble,
Speaker 1: like they're they're they're completely out of rhythm, which the
Speaker 1: Lakers were. We'll get to in a few minutes. But
Speaker 1: the difference is the Lakers you kept thinking, well, I've
Speaker 1: seen them in rhythm, they'll be good in the half court.
Speaker 1: They never were, whereas with Houston you're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is this is a problem, Like they're just not they're young,
Speaker 1: they're long, Jalen Green is lost and now he's a
Speaker 1: little panicky. But Butler, you know, this is where I
Speaker 1: love analytics, but sometimes I us need a bucket. And
Speaker 1: there were about three to four times to night with
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler and it's like, no, he's not going to
Speaker 1: shoot a three, He's just gonna work a guy and
Speaker 1: give you that right angle, free throw, a line. He's
Speaker 1: just in playoff games. So much of it is the
Speaker 1: games are sold out, the crowds are lubricated and completely
Speaker 1: into it. This is not people arriving from work late
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday or Thursday. These are Saturday Sunday games.
Speaker 1: Everybody is there. It's almost like tailgate and the lounge.
Speaker 1: You go to your seat that are allowed, and those
Speaker 1: ten point lead go down to four really fast, and
Speaker 1: Butler just ends, he just gets you. He's got that
Speaker 1: Kawhi thing. It's not about three. Sometimes you just need
Speaker 1: a basket to quiet the crowd. And when I watch him,
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's just playoff basketball. He's just you know,
Speaker 1: he really senses oh shit, the crowd's back into it.
Speaker 1: This is a this is a really big possession. And
Speaker 1: I think Draymond does that and Steph feels that, and
Speaker 1: I saw the Warriors do that half a dozen times
Speaker 1: in the second half to night. You could just sense, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: this is a huge possession. Even though we leave by
Speaker 1: eight to your point.
Speaker 3: Every single time Houston got it to four, got it
Speaker 3: to three, the Warriors would go like stop bucket, stop bucket,
Speaker 3: and it would be back up to eight, like they
Speaker 3: just they always were able to regain control of the situation.
Speaker 3: You were talking about go to moves earlier with Jalen Green.
Speaker 3: That is, like Jimmy's patented go to move is the
Speaker 3: hard in and out dribble with the right hand to
Speaker 3: step back towards his right hand side. He added that
Speaker 3: back in Minnesota, and I remember that was the reason
Speaker 3: Philly traded for him. They were like, we need a
Speaker 3: guy to get us a bucket. And then like it
Speaker 3: was like the first or second game after he got
Speaker 3: traded there, he hit a game winner on that exact
Speaker 3: same move off the right wing. That's Jimmy's go to
Speaker 3: move is he can just do a hard in and
Speaker 3: out with that right hand to get some separation. And again,
Speaker 3: to your pointctice that shot so much. And then when
Speaker 3: you end up in these situations where it's like you've
Speaker 3: got to create something out of nothing, it's great to
Speaker 3: have a staple, something that you can depend on that's
Speaker 3: going to give you a decent shot at knocking something down.
Speaker 3: And you talked about the three versus mid range thing.
Speaker 3: You know, when you get into a large sample, that
Speaker 3: extra point matters because you're you know, over the course
Speaker 3: of one hundred shots. If you get an extra point,
Speaker 3: then you know that can make a huge difference, right,
Speaker 3: But at the end of a game, no one cares
Speaker 3: what your per one hundred efficiency is. It's about that possession.
Speaker 3: You got to get a bucket on that possession. And
Speaker 3: if Jimmy can hit that step back at fifty percent,
Speaker 3: that's actually a better shot in that situation then even
Speaker 3: like even a step three that's thirty nine percent, right,
Speaker 3: because there's a sixty one percent chance that it's going
Speaker 3: to miss. And so it's really nice to have a
Speaker 3: big forward for them that they can go to in
Speaker 3: those situations that can create a shot that has a
Speaker 3: little bit less variance closer to the basket.
Speaker 1: So I picked I picked the Rockets in seven in
Speaker 1: this one, and I don't want to overreact, but there
Speaker 1: were just were things I saw tonight, like Imoduko will obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the playoffs the Lakers. Obviously you're
Speaker 1: going to get a much more physical, intense Laker team
Speaker 1: in Game two. But there are some things I'm not
Speaker 1: sure they're correctable. I think I think the Rocket staff
Speaker 1: has lost confidence in Jalen Green, and that's a problem.
Speaker 1: Nobody in LA has lost confidence in Austin Reeves cause
Speaker 1: he didn't play particularly well. So I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just watched that game tonight and I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: Jalen Green is a non factor and is a little
Speaker 1: bit wild now, and like he had a couple open
Speaker 1: looks in the second half, You're like, oh, no, he
Speaker 1: didn't want to shoot, Like he didn't trust this at all.
Speaker 1: It's hard to snap out of that in a series.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm going to watch one more game. But
Speaker 1: I think I was on the wrong side of this.
Speaker 1: Do you still like the Warriors?
Speaker 3: I you know, if I still like the Warriors? To
Speaker 3: say this, though, Colin, I think if you're a Rockets fan,
Speaker 3: you could be sitting here and saying the Guard Battle
Speaker 3: could not have gone worse in our favor, Like Fred
Speaker 3: and Jalen laid absolute stinkers, and Steph played, like we
Speaker 3: talked about earlier, one of the better playoff games of
Speaker 3: his career, and it was a three point game with
Speaker 3: a few minutes left, And so there is a lot
Speaker 3: of potential for Steph to have a little bit more
Speaker 3: variance and have a poor shooting night. For Jalen Green
Speaker 3: to have those great nights. I talked about him going
Speaker 3: thirteen and one. He did that against a lot of
Speaker 3: good teams too. There were Knights in the regular season
Speaker 3: where Houston played a good team and Jalen was good
Speaker 3: and they won. So like, there's a lot of variance.
Speaker 3: So that's why I still think. I still think there's
Speaker 3: a good chance this series goes longer, like it goes
Speaker 3: a solid six games. But yeah, it's just it's really
Speaker 3: difficult for me to imagine a scenario where the Rockets
Speaker 3: out execute the Warriors in the half court or in
Speaker 3: the offense part of the part of their attack for
Speaker 3: four times and two weeks, like it just seems too
Speaker 3: unlikely to me.
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Speaker 1: All Right, the Lakers, let's talk about that laid in egg.
Speaker 1: This was a pretty easy game to watch. I kept
Speaker 1: waiting for them to snap out of it. Timberwolves were
Speaker 1: much more physical, and then they're a physical team, and
Speaker 1: you knew they were going to ugly it up. That
Speaker 1: was I mean, it was just like, guys, we're not
Speaker 1: winning our two to matchups with this team. We're not
Speaker 1: going to be pretty. And they have players who can
Speaker 1: play ugly. Nazrid, Julius Randall, Golbert, they can play that game.
Speaker 1: And I'll get to ant in the second because I
Speaker 1: think he's really getting to be a really refined, really
Speaker 1: smart player. But I was really shocked by the lack
Speaker 1: of energy, little criticism to jj Reddick. I kept thinking
Speaker 1: they played with a little bit more energy in the
Speaker 1: second half. I thought for spurts, but I mean this
Speaker 1: was in football terminology. This was kind of a butt
Speaker 1: kicking like physicality intensity. I mean, Minnesota took it to
Speaker 1: the Lakers. They just were a much more energized team.
Speaker 1: And little surprised the Lakers didn't shift into another gear.
Speaker 1: I really never felt they were the more physical team.
Speaker 1: Didn't even fake it. Were you surprised by that?
Speaker 2: I was super surprised.
Speaker 3: This Lakers team has always had a little bit of
Speaker 3: a tendency to have, you know, inconsistent intensity from game
Speaker 3: to game. But I've always felt like championship teams know
Speaker 3: when it's time to go. And I would be lying
Speaker 3: to you if I'm not if I said I wasn't
Speaker 3: super discouraged that, Like you look at a team like Oka,
Speaker 3: see that is just like we're going to come out
Speaker 3: and we're going to embarrass Memphis today because this is
Speaker 3: step one of this two month long journey where we're
Speaker 3: trying to.
Speaker 2: Get the trophy.
Speaker 3: And there were three teams I watched yesterday or I
Speaker 3: should say over the weekend that looked like really unprepared
Speaker 3: for playoff intensity, and it was the Bucks the Grizzlies
Speaker 3: and the Lakers. They looked just really unprepared for the intensity,
Speaker 3: stretching even down to Lebron in Austin. And so I
Speaker 3: want to start here. I want to give credit to Minnesota.
Speaker 3: I thought they threw an incredible punch yesterday. I thought
Speaker 3: Aunt was super measured and didn't play into the game
Speaker 3: plan making stupid forced decisions around the rim. He took
Speaker 3: the kickout opportunities that were there. Everyone defended. Julius Randall
Speaker 3: did a wonderful job defending both Luca and Lebron. The
Speaker 3: bigs did really good on switches against everybody but Luca.
Speaker 3: I thought they they're spot up shooters, shot really confidently
Speaker 3: from all over the floor. As things got tighter late,
Speaker 3: Julius Randall and Ant both showed really high level tough
Speaker 3: shot making. Minnesota threw a great punch. But when I
Speaker 3: went to watch the film this morning, and for anybody listening,
Speaker 3: there's a film session on our YouTube channel that you
Speaker 3: guys can check out. In that film session, I came
Speaker 3: away feeling a little better in the sense that there
Speaker 3: were just so many obvious things that the Lakers could
Speaker 3: do better. That said, I also think there's a version
Speaker 3: of this colin where the Lakers bring a more intense
Speaker 3: effort and it's not enough. And so that's what I'm
Speaker 3: really curious about with Game two. I feel relatively certain
Speaker 3: that they're going to come out on Tuesday ready to fight,
Speaker 3: and they're going to be ready, and I'll have my
Speaker 3: eyes on that first quarter because if the Lakers come
Speaker 3: out and they control things and it's like, here we go,
Speaker 3: this is our team, this is what we look like
Speaker 3: when we're engaged, and we're better than these guys and
Speaker 3: we can show it, I'll feel better about kind of
Speaker 3: chalking up what happens Saturday night is a lack of intensity,
Speaker 3: a lack of being ready. But if it's halftime calling
Speaker 3: and Minnesota is up by like three and Lebron and
Speaker 3: Austin are still struggling, That's where I'm going to be
Speaker 3: sitting there, like the Lakers are in a world of
Speaker 3: trouble because this is as we saw in the Denver
Speaker 3: series last year. The Minnesota physicality never lets up. It
Speaker 3: just keeps coming until the end of Game seven, and
Speaker 3: you have to find a way to survive it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, listen, Denver didn't have a good first
Speaker 1: half Boston didn't have a good first half. The Knicks
Speaker 1: did not have a good first half, like it happens
Speaker 1: where the favorite comes in or a team that's you know,
Speaker 1: got a ring and Denver comes in, and you know,
Speaker 1: the Clippers outplayed them, and the Pistons outplayed the Knicks
Speaker 1: early in Orlando. You know, Ben.
Speaker 2: Carrol's a great player.
Speaker 1: Oh, just a great player. Now. He by the way,
Speaker 1: has a couple of stock moves like you. There are
Speaker 1: things he does consistently every time I watch him play
Speaker 1: and half court. He's a really good player. Also went
Speaker 1: to Duke, had great coaching, you know, briefly, but great coaching.
Speaker 1: But I just kept waiting for the Lakers. And let's
Speaker 1: throw this out there, JJ Reddick's first playoff coaching game.
Speaker 1: And Chris Finch is a veteran, and Chris Finch is
Speaker 1: a really smart guy. And I said this yesterday on
Speaker 1: my postgame that Minnesota is a highly functional and well
Speaker 1: coached Memphis where you've got a defensive presence at the
Speaker 1: rim zach Edie and Gobert, you have a hyper athletic
Speaker 1: star in John Morant and an aunt Ant now is separated.
Speaker 1: I think of the two players much more sure. Then
Speaker 1: you have kind of a physicality with length, you have
Speaker 1: kind of a tough guy and Julius Randall, you know,
Speaker 1: Memphis has a couple of tough guys Bane, you know,
Speaker 1: so a physical presence. And the difference is Minnesota's more
Speaker 1: mature and they're better coached. And I think Ant really
Speaker 1: become a refined player. Like you know, it was funny
Speaker 1: they led by eleven and half he had eight, and
Speaker 1: it was just like I thought, the word you used,
Speaker 1: he let the game come to him. He's a very
Speaker 1: measured player now. And it's like, and I think that's
Speaker 1: really hard. I think that's hard when you're in that
Speaker 1: you know, you're in those prime, early show off years
Speaker 1: where you can do a lot of things. Your energy
Speaker 1: is through the roof compared to half the guys, the
Speaker 1: veterans you play. And I think that comes down to
Speaker 1: a kid. Every time I watch AUNT every year, Jason,
Speaker 1: I see a better player, and I don't with Ja
Speaker 1: Morant like a Ja Moran, I'm like, Okay, I know
Speaker 1: you're athletic, bro, but your shooting's getting worse. I think
Speaker 1: Ant's really becoming I guess this is the way I
Speaker 1: would put it. I can see the work Ant puts
Speaker 1: into his game, and I can see what the staff
Speaker 1: the work they put into Ant in the offense. I
Speaker 1: can see it.
Speaker 3: To your point, these two guys faced off in a
Speaker 3: playoff series in twenty twenty two where Jaw looked like
Speaker 3: the better player, and what has happened since then. Aunt
Speaker 3: has demonstrably massively improved year over year, and Joe, i'd argue,
Speaker 3: is worse than the player he was in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: He's not able to inflict himself on the game the
Speaker 3: way he used to it. Again, the Grizzlies are a
Speaker 3: whole other thing. I have so many thoughts there calling
Speaker 3: we could have a fun conversation about them at some
Speaker 3: point in the future. But like with Aunt, I want
Speaker 3: to credit him for pushing through some of the reps
Speaker 3: that he had to work through. Like I don't know
Speaker 3: if you know this, Colin, but Ant was the most
Speaker 3: blitzed player in the NBA this year, and what that
Speaker 3: means is every time he went into pick and roll,
Speaker 3: the guy who was screening him, his defender would double
Speaker 3: team Ant as he was coming off of the screen.
Speaker 3: So one of the reasons why they're not blitzing him
Speaker 3: for the reason you blit Steph Curry. You blit Steph
Speaker 3: Curry because you don't want Steph to get a three
Speaker 3: coming off the screen. They're blitzing Ant because they don't
Speaker 3: think he can pass Colin. They're double teaming Aunt at
Speaker 3: the end of games because they don't think he can pass.
Speaker 3: It was the narrative all season coming into this series.
Speaker 3: It was all everybody would talk about. And so I
Speaker 3: want to I want to give Chris Finch some credit
Speaker 3: here too, because I think him and his staff literally
Speaker 3: went up to Aunt and they were like, you cannot
Speaker 3: shoot your way through this series. You have to pass
Speaker 3: your way through the series. And I thought he did
Speaker 3: a wonderful job letting the game come to him. He like,
Speaker 3: wouldn't take a three early in the game. He was
Speaker 3: like letting the game come to him. But then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, in that second quarter run, he starts.
Speaker 3: In the third quarter run, he starts letting it fly.
Speaker 3: In transition, as the momentum is going, he gets started
Speaker 3: to get aggressive when the game called for it. But
Speaker 3: he just took what was coming to him there in
Speaker 3: the first half, and I just thought, he's you know,
Speaker 3: we've talked a lot about where aunt rakes in the league,
Speaker 3: and at the beginning of the season I put him
Speaker 3: at number five, and that might have been too high
Speaker 3: at the time, but really, Colin, is he not the
Speaker 3: fifth best player in the league now? I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: Tatum and Giannis and Luca or Tatum and Yiannis.
Speaker 2: And Sga and Yokis are the top four.
Speaker 3: Luca hasn't really been able to regain his footing since
Speaker 3: he got hurt earlier this year. I don't know of
Speaker 3: a player who's playing better basketball other than a maybe
Speaker 3: Steph Like like that, there's ants crawled right back up
Speaker 3: that list after getting kind of like, you know, criticized
Speaker 3: all year for not managing those double teams very well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was such a strange game because
Speaker 1: you know, it just lacked. You know, you watch and
Speaker 1: let's talk about the Nuggets and Clippers. That game was great,
Speaker 1: and I mean the intensity of that game from the
Speaker 1: first minute was just insane. And I really thought the Clippers.
Speaker 1: I picked the Clippers, I think in six or seven
Speaker 1: games in this series. Better coach, better defense, I thought
Speaker 1: they'd and by the way, I think I still like
Speaker 1: the Clippers, but I thought the last. You know, it's
Speaker 1: funny about Jokic. He's not a very good defender. But
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this. I went on a long
Speaker 1: walk today and I was thinking about that series in
Speaker 1: the game. Is that historically it's not just that he scores,
Speaker 1: he rebounds. He's got the ball in his hands. You
Speaker 1: cannot ask a seven foot guy that's two sixty five
Speaker 1: to honestly carry the offense, including the ball handling in
Speaker 1: the passing. You know, Kareem could score thirty, wasn't handling
Speaker 1: the ball right, And so it's like Joki isn't. He
Speaker 1: doesn't put a lot of effort. I mean, Harden blew
Speaker 1: past him about six times in the first half. But
Speaker 1: I will say this, in the last five minutes he
Speaker 1: does lock in. He's not a great defender, but the
Speaker 1: last five minutes the game, everybody on the Nuggets was
Speaker 1: playing real defense. They were locking in. He was putting
Speaker 1: bodies on people.
Speaker 2: But as I watched.
Speaker 1: Jokis, I'm like, listen, man, look at the size of him.
Speaker 1: Nobody asked Kareem or Shack or a Keem to bring
Speaker 1: the ball up, set the screens, direct traffic. I almost
Speaker 1: give him a pass. Defensively, because I do think late
Speaker 1: in games he's much more engaged on that end.
Speaker 3: I thought he was pretty great on defense for the
Speaker 3: entire second half of that game and most of the
Speaker 3: second part of the second quarter. There was a timeout
Speaker 3: right when the Clippers went up I think fifty one
Speaker 3: to thirty six, and Jokic came out right out of
Speaker 3: the timeout and just started pressuring the heck out of
Speaker 3: Zoo and was just flying around making extra efforts. And
Speaker 3: he was brilliant in his pick and roll defense in
Speaker 3: the second half, getting deflections, forcing turnovers. And while I
Speaker 3: agree with you Colin that it's ridiculous task Nicole Jokic
Speaker 3: to be the most high usage player that we've seen,
Speaker 3: really in recent NBA history, while also having to be
Speaker 3: such an important part of their defense. It is a
Speaker 3: lot to ask, and I totally agree with you, but
Speaker 3: the Nuggets need him to be if they're going to win,
Speaker 3: and to his credit, that's what he was. It's what
Speaker 3: he became in the second half of that game. And
Speaker 3: I also thought he did a really nice job of
Speaker 3: just taking what the defense was giving him at late
Speaker 3: in the game, like he was trusting Russell Westbrook repeatedly
Speaker 3: over and over again on these kickouts and on these
Speaker 3: cuts to be the guy that can make the defense
Speaker 3: pay for ignoring him. And I just thought, I just
Speaker 3: thought was amazing. And honestly, Colin, like, I will never
Speaker 3: change my pick after one game. I'm with you, you
Speaker 3: need to get two games worth of evidence. But I
Speaker 3: was really disappointed in the Clippers and their overall just
Speaker 3: kind of like connective playmaking. You know, Kawhi Leonard, as
Speaker 3: amazing as he is, it can be a robotically efficient scorer,
Speaker 3: but he's never been good at managing double teams.
Speaker 2: He's never been a very good passer.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I remember for the first decade of his career or
Speaker 3: not quite, it was like the first like seven or
Speaker 3: eight years of his career, he never logged a single
Speaker 3: game with seven assists.
Speaker 2: Like he just struggled to degenerate shots.
Speaker 1: First team averaged one or two for several years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, he's never been a great playmaker. The connective
Speaker 3: playmakers like Chris Dunn, an elite defensive player, a guy
Speaker 3: that can knock down those shots in the corner, but
Speaker 3: you start making him make decisions that could get tough.
Speaker 3: There was plays where Nick Patum was fumbling the ball
Speaker 3: around even Zoo a little bit. The read and react
Speaker 3: stuff can slow down. And so, honestly, like Denver, I
Speaker 3: think has a more realistic pathway to win this series
Speaker 3: than people think, because I don't think they have to
Speaker 3: be that great defensively to slow down this Clippers team.
Speaker 3: They just have to be good enough to pray on
Speaker 3: that indecision that they have to prey on those mistakes,
Speaker 3: like you can double Kawhi Colin, you can double Kawhi
Speaker 3: and he's gonna make some mistakes. And so I do
Speaker 3: think they have some advantages here. And I came away
Speaker 3: from that game feeling like Denver had a better chance
Speaker 3: to win the series than I thought beforehand.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really interesting. So I've never been a
Speaker 1: huge fan of Westbrook, and I say this, I'm not
Speaker 1: a huge fan of basketball players that are hyper athletic
Speaker 1: six four and under and can't shoot because without the
Speaker 1: hand check, they will get to the basket and eventually
Speaker 1: get hurt. Derek Rose, John Wall, John Morant like, it's
Speaker 1: just a cliche. You can't get You can't stand in
Speaker 1: front of these guys. They get to the basket and
Speaker 1: just get clobbed. And that's why guys like Steve Nash
Speaker 1: or Curry can last longer because they can up and
Speaker 1: they don't have to oways finish at the rim. And
Speaker 1: Westbrook when they put him in late in the game
Speaker 1: with the announcer said, you know it's you get it.
Speaker 1: It's the full experience with Russell Westbrook. And he did
Speaker 1: not shoot well. He hit a big three. But I
Speaker 1: got to tell you something. His the one thing I
Speaker 1: will defend him forever. When he's on the floor. You
Speaker 1: know he's on the floor, he jumps. His energy is profound.
Speaker 1: I mean he he is a tremendous rebounder for his size,
Speaker 1: like a tram. He plays way bigger than his size.
Speaker 2: And I was judge.
Speaker 1: I came out of that and I'm like, listen, man,
Speaker 1: he didn't shoot well. He had one big three. He
Speaker 1: was a big deal down the stretch. It's he just
Speaker 1: he's just going so fast. You know, he didn't have
Speaker 1: a ton of self awareness. I mean he's kind of
Speaker 1: like blinders on going to the basket and you're like, Russ, no, no, no, no. No. Situationally,
Speaker 1: some times he can drive me crazy. I thought he
Speaker 1: was so important down the stretch for them.
Speaker 3: The biggest weakness that Russ has had in his career
Speaker 3: is he only has one speed and that's like just
Speaker 3: balls to the walls, like at like one hundred percent intensity.
Speaker 3: He doesn't know how to play any other way, and
Speaker 3: so that just manifests and a lot of mistake making.
Speaker 3: But it also can manifest in a lot of playmaking. Yes, Like,
Speaker 3: like I thought, like you know, there's always this scale
Speaker 3: with Russ where it's like, well, the damaging plays out
Speaker 3: weigh the good plays acts and last, that game yesterday
Speaker 3: was such a perfect example of what happens when the
Speaker 3: good badly or greatly outweighs the bad. Like he was
Speaker 3: fantastic down the stretch of that game. He like straight
Speaker 3: up bullied Kawhi Leonard one on one and got an
Speaker 3: offensive rebound put back. He had the big steal at
Speaker 3: the end when the Clippers cut it to three and
Speaker 3: they had a chance to tie the game. At the end,
Speaker 3: hits the big three in the left corner, repeatedly found
Speaker 3: himself available as a cutter under the basket with Jokic.
Speaker 3: He you mentioned the rebounding like, I think Russ is
Speaker 3: one of the better defensive plays in the NBA. He
Speaker 3: is not a disciplined defender. He will make a lot
Speaker 3: of mistakes and he'll gamble a lot, but if he
Speaker 3: gambles and gets right a couple times in a row,
Speaker 3: they can be massive momentum swings and dating all the
Speaker 3: way back. I mean colin that first year that he
Speaker 3: went from the Lakers to the Clippers before Kawhi got hurt.
Speaker 3: If you remember, in that first couple of games, the
Speaker 3: Clippers looked really good against the Suns. Kawhi was like
Speaker 3: kicking Kadi's butt head to head, and Russ was amazing.
Speaker 3: He was a wrecking ball in the early part of
Speaker 3: that series. Did an amazing job defending Devin Booker because
Speaker 3: he's just this big athlete that just never has an
Speaker 3: off button, and he can be a devastating playmaker. The
Speaker 3: key is keeping him in a very small role. And
Speaker 3: that's the beauty of what the Nuggets can do with him,
Speaker 3: is they can keep him in a very small role.
Speaker 3: They could even be like, hey, Russ's head is not
Speaker 3: in it, tonight sit him, bring in Michael Porter Junior.
Speaker 2: Like they can.
Speaker 3: They have the ability to play Russ when he's hot
Speaker 3: and to pull him when he's not. And that's the
Speaker 3: flexibilit What do you need to benefit from that? Playmaking
Speaker 3: all right?
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Speaker 1: the things that was great about that game, there were
Speaker 1: so many years in the NBA, I mean Harden and Kawhi,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean that center for the Clippers ten years,
Speaker 1: I think, isn't it for Zoo Bouts?
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, it's ten years for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lakers, Clippers. You know, Jamal Murray, Jokic, Michael Porter's
Speaker 1: been around. I mean, Christian Brown's a young guy obviously,
Speaker 1: but Toomb's been around forever. And it was it was
Speaker 1: really cool. It was a it was a veteran NBA
Speaker 1: tuggle war. Both rosters knew they're gonna let us play.
Speaker 1: They're gonna let us play, you know, like some of
Speaker 1: these young teams, like they're like, whoa, there's no there's
Speaker 1: no whistles like these. I mean, it's just a whole
Speaker 1: different ballgame. And I mean you and I have discussed this,
Speaker 1: like they're just gonna let guys play and the further
Speaker 1: you go. But it was like the Clippers and the
Speaker 1: Nuggets was like, that was grown up men's basketball. First,
Speaker 1: everybody knew they could push a little more and they
Speaker 1: could lean on you a little bit more, and the
Speaker 1: physicality just I was just sitting there. I didn't miss
Speaker 1: a second. I thought, this is great basketball. And I
Speaker 1: said this, I don't you have to understand and football
Speaker 1: or hockey you can't take. You can't take a playoff,
Speaker 1: you can get hurt. In baseball, it's pitcher against batter.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to be embarrassed. There's an intensity that's guaranteed
Speaker 1: between the pitcher and the batter. But in basketball, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of games and these are big bodies. And
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen a retired six foot ten NBA player,
Speaker 1: you know they look like they got tackled. I mean
Speaker 1: they're just walking.
Speaker 2: They have bad.
Speaker 1: Backs, and it's like, you cannot expect these guys to
Speaker 1: play thirty eight to forty four minutes eighty two games
Speaker 1: in the regular season and play this kind of intensity.
Speaker 1: They're traveling constantly, But you get into the playoffs and
Speaker 1: Denver and the Clippers was like, oh, snap, first possession,
Speaker 1: and it's like, I think it has the makings of
Speaker 1: a an incredible series. Just all these veteran players. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just sat there and I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: this is great basketball.
Speaker 3: We know how everybody plays, like we know Kawhi's games
Speaker 3: so well. Now we know James Harden's game so well.
Speaker 3: Now we know what the Murray Jo Kitch two man
Speaker 3: game looks like. Aaron Gordon, what he can do, like
Speaker 3: I think the most fascinating chess match so to speak
Speaker 3: of this series, or or like kind of subplot of
Speaker 3: this series. I do think the Clippers are more talented.
Speaker 3: I think they're top four when you factor in all
Speaker 3: that stuff. I think that the Nuggets looked like the
Speaker 3: smarter team in that game. Now, this is an interesting
Speaker 3: example of how can come down to the players. Because
Speaker 3: David Adelman obviously a rookie a coach his first opportunity.
Speaker 3: We have ty lu who's a championship winning coach, is
Speaker 3: well respected as a top five coach in this league.
Speaker 3: But you get into the game and it's like Aaron
Speaker 3: Gordon has James Harden on him and he just knows
Speaker 3: all these little ways to punish James Harden for not
Speaker 3: having the size, and the Nuggets know when Aaron Gordon
Speaker 3: has that type of matchup, how they can capitalize on
Speaker 3: it with his offensive rebounding or in two man game
Speaker 3: with Yokich, they know, Like even Jamal Murray, it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: his mid range jump shot was just terrible in that game.
Speaker 3: He could not buy a mid ranger right in clutch time,
Speaker 3: he just switches to taking threes and hits two massive
Speaker 3: threes down the stretch. The two man game with Yokich
Speaker 3: and Murray was so effective down the stretch that the
Speaker 3: Clippers started triple teaming it. They brought a third defender
Speaker 3: over every single time. They knew how to get the
Speaker 3: ball to Christian Brown, they knew how to get the
Speaker 3: ball to Russell Westbrook. The Nuggets are just so sure
Speaker 3: of how they want to play every single possession. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like they are just more reliably going to get to
Speaker 3: their ceiling than the Clippers, who I think can suffer
Speaker 3: from a little bit of inconsistent basketball like you on
Speaker 3: the right, and they can have more variants in their performance,
Speaker 3: and there will be games where the Clippers just look
Speaker 3: like they outgun him, because it's like Zoo has twenty
Speaker 3: five hard in his twenty seven. Kawhi is thirty in
Speaker 3: Norman Powell Portson eighteen or you know, six for six
Speaker 3: from three. They'll have games like that, but I think
Speaker 3: that they'll have more variants throughout the series because the Nuggets,
Speaker 3: I think are a little bit smarter.
Speaker 1: Well. I also think there's an advantage Jason, Like when
Speaker 1: you have an elite score Yokich sga Jason Tatum this year,
Speaker 1: like Luca. The advantage is if a play gets loose,
Speaker 1: if it's possession, the ball gets kicked around, you know
Speaker 1: who get the ball, you know who to get the
Speaker 1: ball to. Like the Warriors had a couple of bad possessions,
Speaker 1: you know, and here comes Houston back. It's like okay,
Speaker 1: every guy running up the court, like, let's get it
Speaker 1: to Steph Let's get it to Jimmy, And like Houston
Speaker 1: is just athletic, and it's like, well, Fred van Viet
Speaker 1: it's not playing well. And Jalen Green's lost. Now obviously
Speaker 1: they're big. He from Turkey is just a fantastic player.
Speaker 1: Sengoon is a fascinating player to me because first of all,
Speaker 1: very highly skilled. He's got a beautiful touch. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just crazy how easy he makes the game look
Speaker 1: from like eight feet in it just both hands. It's like, God,
Speaker 1: damn that guy. And he was like the sixteenth pick
Speaker 1: or something. He was like middle of the first round.
Speaker 1: But I guess going back to the point is that
Speaker 1: I think the reason Denver when you have Jokic or
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City with SGA, it's like anytime you're kind of sputtering,
Speaker 1: it's just okay. Everybody walking the ball up the floor
Speaker 1: knows where you're going. And I thought Houston was kind
Speaker 1: of paralyzed by they didn't trust their backcourt, like who's
Speaker 1: taking shots and you just watch it's almost a panic.
Speaker 1: When I watch Houston late in this game, it's like
Speaker 1: they're not sure who to go to. And I thought
Speaker 1: Denver down the stretch really knew who to run the
Speaker 1: offense through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's been steady for them forever. And you know
Speaker 3: to your point that that's the organizational you know, uh
Speaker 3: thing that Houston is missing. It's just that overall decision
Speaker 3: making IQ. You cut the lead down to four and
Speaker 3: then Jalen Green tries to shoot a lay up through
Speaker 3: five guys, which goes exactly how you would have expected
Speaker 3: it would go. A men Thompson shot a layup into
Speaker 3: the bottom of the rim, like literally threw it up
Speaker 3: into the bottom of the rim. Like the like there's
Speaker 3: there's a there's this ruthless execution you get with the
Speaker 3: good teams where it's like, if you're gonna beat the Warriors,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have to hope that Jimmy and Steph miss
Speaker 3: basically like they're they're gonna make sure that they get
Speaker 3: the ball to their best players and that they get
Speaker 3: stuff that they like, Like they're not gonna they're not
Speaker 3: gonna bail a possession where a men Thompson's looking around,
Speaker 3: it's like, no one wants the ball.
Speaker 2: Wait, so you guys want me to do it? Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, okay, then I'll go do it, you know.
Speaker 3: And it's like there was a bunch of those he
Speaker 3: took a shot over Steph that he made a little
Speaker 3: post up shot like there's no like rhyme or reason
Speaker 3: to the offensive process for you see. And by the way,
Speaker 3: Cotton Newdy does play a role there. Denver's been playing
Speaker 3: with roughly the same group of guys forever. They just
Speaker 3: know how they want to play. Now, there's no there's
Speaker 3: no indecision in that organization.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that's perfectly put. You just forget
Speaker 1: how many possessions in the fourth quarter with four minutes
Speaker 1: to go Denver has had over the last eight years
Speaker 1: with Stephen Draymond on the floor, and now Moody's got
Speaker 1: a lot of games involved in it. Like you've got
Speaker 1: your new guys. You've got Jimmy and Post and there's
Speaker 1: some new guys, but it's you're just watching them, and
Speaker 1: it's like you watched I mean, the Knicks, you know,
Speaker 1: and you've got veteran players Jalen Brunson and kat They
Speaker 1: had a really good last eight minutes the Celtics in
Speaker 1: the second half. There's a lot of guests, like guys,
Speaker 1: they've had a lot of practices and a lot of reps.
Speaker 1: They know where the ball's going. By the way, Jason
Speaker 1: Tatum kind of fell on his wrist when he came
Speaker 1: back and played. They're gonna win this series. They're probably
Speaker 1: gonna sweep the series. Okay, see, looks like they'll definitely
Speaker 1: probably sweep the series. I watched the Orlando and I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, there, they're the kind of team that
Speaker 1: athletically like they've got a couple of players where they
Speaker 1: come down, they get really good looks they got. They
Speaker 1: get in that game a couple of times. I'm like, like,
Speaker 1: they may not be as long or as athletic as Houston,
Speaker 1: but I felt Orlando came down and got really good
Speaker 1: looks against a very good Boston team. Is it coaching?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just Ben Carrol w Ogner, But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I look at Orlando and I'm like, it feels like
Speaker 1: they're just missing a piece. You think they win a
Speaker 1: game in this series, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I came away.
Speaker 3: I picked a sweep in that one because it's like
Speaker 3: exactly like the Rockets or your series where Orlando. Orlando
Speaker 3: has been so far and away the worst jump shooting
Speaker 3: team in the league that out of one hundred Orlando
Speaker 3: Magic jump shots, they are five points worse than the
Speaker 3: twenty ninth ranked team, Like they are five percent worse
Speaker 3: jump shooting than the worst team in the league above them.
Speaker 2: Like they cannot shoot.
Speaker 3: So I thought for sure they would have just a
Speaker 3: really hard time scoring in this series. But what Orlando
Speaker 3: presents to Boston that makes things really difficult for them
Speaker 3: is they can switch their screening actions and they're really
Speaker 3: big and physical, So Tatum and Brown can't just bully
Speaker 3: their way to the basket against them like they can
Speaker 3: against some other teams, and so they can keep the
Speaker 3: ball in front and bait Tatum and Brown into really
Speaker 3: tough shot making, which they more or less did. It
Speaker 3: was Derek White that kind of blew the lay off
Speaker 3: of the arena, and Peyton Pritchard and all those Derek
Speaker 3: White threes were so difficult too. It's like, I don't
Speaker 3: they got to feel like a shotgun blast to the
Speaker 3: chest when you're an Orlando Magic fan with Derek White
Speaker 3: just hits a contested twenty seven footer at the end
Speaker 3: of the shot clock. But you know, honestly con like
Speaker 3: they have a bright future because Franz and Pallo are
Speaker 3: getting better and better every year. Jalen Suggs is out
Speaker 3: of the lineup right now with an injury. Jalen Suggs
Speaker 3: when healthy is the best guard defender in the league
Speaker 3: and a guy that is a very effective two man
Speaker 3: game partner with Palo and Caro, setting inverted ball screens
Speaker 3: and slipping out of it. Imagine him as like a
Speaker 3: combination of KCP and Christian Brown, like a really really
Speaker 3: good movement shooter, but also like a big, strong athlete
Speaker 3: at the position, and he's the guy that ties it
Speaker 3: all together for them because when you put him and
Speaker 3: Jonathan Isaac and Franz and Paalo with Wendell Carter out there,
Speaker 3: they can switch one through five. They're massive, They've got
Speaker 3: plenty of offensive talent. That's the group where like I
Speaker 3: could see in a year or two being a major
Speaker 3: upset threat for some of these top teams in the
Speaker 3: Eastern corriger Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: How I felt. I just watched them and I thought,
Speaker 1: this is a real team. These guys have. They're big,
Speaker 1: they're strong. Ben Caro's a tremendous player. He is. He's
Speaker 1: just gonna get you buckets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really quick calling you. We talked about this on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: If you remember, the big dudes who have some skill
Speaker 3: are really crushing in the modern NBA. Shane Goon's a
Speaker 3: great example. Pallo's a great example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Shangon is God. It's just watching him. And he
Speaker 1: was an All Star this year.
Speaker 2: Wasn't he? I believe so?
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, he was an All Star. And it's
Speaker 1: like when you watch him, you're like, his game can
Speaker 1: be pretty I mean he can bounce. He and Draymond
Speaker 1: are bouncing back and forth, and he wouldn't play into
Speaker 1: Draymond's green. Draymond was huking him and just trying to
Speaker 1: irritate him, and he was just like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: But man, there is something you know, these international bigs man,
Speaker 1: they're pretty. He's got a beautiful touch around the basket,
Speaker 1: and he's not jumping over people. He's nut. He's just
Speaker 1: I watch his game and I'm like, it's just he's
Speaker 1: a He's the classic guy that you luck up and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, he had he had twenty three points.
Speaker 1: It's just pretty. And again with guard play being awful,
Speaker 1: like he was really the offense for most of the
Speaker 1: game for Houston, like he was it so.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a really fun first weekend. I'm
Speaker 1: going to watch one more Rockets Warriors game, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that was an eye opener. Holy crap, was that an
Speaker 1: eye opener. Sometimes you see things and you're like, like
Speaker 1: the Lakers, You're like, they'll make adjustments, they'll be more physical.
Speaker 1: They kind of were lost. And it was JJ Reddick's
Speaker 1: first playoff game against a really good coach and Chris
Speaker 1: Finch and Chris you know, they had a more obvious
Speaker 1: game plan. I'm not sure what the gear is because
Speaker 1: I don't think in a half court offense. I don't
Speaker 1: know what I get from Houston, but I'll tell you athletes,
Speaker 1: Like again, they could get Kadi easily. I mean, they
Speaker 1: could move off guys and with draft picks easily and
Speaker 1: not lose a lot of their athleticism. Seriously, I mean,
Speaker 1: they've got so many, so much length and athleticism. If
Speaker 1: you know, if the Knicks make a move, what do
Speaker 1: the Knicks have that Phoenix wants? What they have is
Speaker 1: what the Knicks don't want to surrender. But god, I
Speaker 1: mean Houston is just I mean, like one through nine,
Speaker 1: they're just dudes, athletes everywhere. That Katie to Houston feels
Speaker 1: like a real thing when you and when you watch
Speaker 1: them in this game, you're like, dude, they got to
Speaker 1: have a bucket. They need a second bucket on this offense,
Speaker 1: and uh and when and so you can't rely on
Speaker 1: Jalen Green. So as I'm watching this game, I'm thinking, yeah, KD,
Speaker 1: Miami could use him and Houston could use him. That's
Speaker 1: what it feels like to me.
Speaker 3: I hope that KD has learned from what happened in
Speaker 3: Brooklyn and what happened in Phoenix, which is that he
Speaker 3: does not need to surround himself with guys like him.
Speaker 3: He needs to surround himself with guys that do the
Speaker 3: stuff that helps you win games and allows his greatness
Speaker 3: to lift them over the top. And so honestly, that's
Speaker 3: why I'm hoping that KD looks at the situation in
Speaker 3: Houston and goes, this is the place where I can
Speaker 3: have a renaissance in my career because frankly, they have
Speaker 3: the setup to do it. They've got the assets. Jalen
Speaker 3: Green is a perfect little salary filler piece to try
Speaker 3: to make that sort of deal happen. And he would
Speaker 3: be a force multiplier for their defense because as you
Speaker 3: saw Jabari Smith Jr. He's the guy that has the
Speaker 3: length for them on the wing. KD is a guy
Speaker 3: that could be a guy next to Shangoon that makes
Speaker 3: him better defensively. He's a guy that is an underrated playmaker.
Speaker 3: Over the years, dating back to his Brooklyn days, KDI
Speaker 3: was really good at just generating offense by coming off
Speaker 3: of ball screens and making passes out of it. I
Speaker 3: think KD is like the obvious ceiling raising move for Houston,
Speaker 3: and I think the numbers pretty clearly state that they
Speaker 3: can like call it like there's a lot of basketball
Speaker 3: left in this series. Houston's athleticism does travel. They're not
Speaker 3: a team that's going to go on the road and
Speaker 3: come out flat because they're older veterans, Like they're gonna
Speaker 3: come out in Game three, even if they're down two
Speaker 3: oh and be like we're beating the Warriors tonight, like
Speaker 3: that that's gonna be their attitude. This is gonna be
Speaker 3: a long chore of a series. And can you just
Speaker 3: imagine that leveraged to another level with the player as
Speaker 3: polished offensively as Kevin Durant and talk about like having
Speaker 3: no ifens or butts about where the ball is gonna go.
Speaker 3: You give it to him every damn time you get
Speaker 3: the hell out of the way. So, like, I think
Speaker 3: it's the kind of thing that I think would be
Speaker 3: really exciting for that team.
Speaker 1: Jason Timpf hoops tonight. He's gonna be all over these playoffs.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: That's a good first Sunday under playoff action. I had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun watching it. I'll still take the
Speaker 1: Clippers over the Nuggets, but I need to watch Game
Speaker 1: two Warriors and the Rockets. Good talking to you, Bud.
Speaker 2: Good to see you Colin. Until next time, the volume