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Speaker 2: welcome to tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Thursday, everybody,
Speaker 2: hopefull if you guys are having a great week. Got
Speaker 2: a jampackshow for you guys todaight. We decided to pivot
Speaker 2: around the end of the first half there as it
Speaker 2: turned into a complete and utter destruction as the Minnesota
Speaker 2: Timberwolves tie the series at three, sending us to a
Speaker 2: Game seven in Denver on Sunday, they are up by
Speaker 2: as much as fifty the most destructive blowout of this
Speaker 2: postseason to this point. So with that we're gonna bring
Speaker 2: in the guys from Nerd SESSH Logan and Carson, and
Speaker 2: we're going to take a deeper dive into this particular series,
Speaker 2: talk about what we saw tonight, talk about what we
Speaker 2: expect in Game seven. Then we're gonna use tonight as
Speaker 2: an opportunity to bounce around to the other two remaining
Speaker 2: semi final series that we have Mavericks, Thunder and Nick Pacers.
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Speaker 2: the rest of the postseason.
Speaker 3: All right, let's talk some basketball.
Speaker 2: So what's up, guys, Thanks for taking the time to
Speaker 2: come on short notice and hang out talk some hoops
Speaker 2: this game.
Speaker 3: You know, it's really hard to learn much.
Speaker 2: About a game where a team goes up by fifty
Speaker 2: points after they got out classed three times in a
Speaker 2: row right before that, right I said the same thing
Speaker 2: after the Knicks one game Game five at home, after
Speaker 2: the Pacers tied in game four, Like when you play
Speaker 2: in Indiana and the Knicks get killed, and then you
Speaker 2: go back to New York and the Pacers get killed,
Speaker 2: it's very clear that effort and energy and focus is
Speaker 2: the primary determining factor. I thought that was clear in
Speaker 2: this game from the opening tip. I'm gonna pitch it
Speaker 2: to you guys, to you first, Carson, and we're gonna
Speaker 2: go round. I want you guys to give your thoughts
Speaker 2: on what happens tonight. I'm gonna give you one stat
Speaker 2: before we start. Minnesota's defense tonight, another incredible performance. According
Speaker 2: to Cleaning the Glass, held the Nuggets to sixty five
Speaker 2: point two points per one hundred half court plays. They
Speaker 2: outscored them by forty one point one points per one
Speaker 2: hundred half court possessions.
Speaker 3: It was a complete and total destruction.
Speaker 4: What did you notice tonight, Carson, Well, I think you
Speaker 4: hit on the key point, which is that this was
Speaker 4: clearly going to be a bad Denver game, not from
Speaker 4: the jump right, because early they were actually getting out
Speaker 4: in transition and they got out to that nine to
Speaker 4: two lead.
Speaker 5: But pretty clearly thereafter once you see the twenty zhering run,
Speaker 5: and I think that we have to give a lot
Speaker 5: of credit to Minnesota for that, because this is a
Speaker 5: fantastic defense. I believe one of the best defenses that
Speaker 5: we've seen this century, and the last few games didn't
Speaker 5: change that. That was just an all time offense winning
Speaker 5: out against still a great defense, and in this game
Speaker 5: there was a reversal. To me, it immediately felt more
Speaker 5: like Game two. This was a very physical game from
Speaker 5: Minnesota defensively. The ball pressure actually had a substantial impact
Speaker 5: at a few points, which we've seen Denver has found
Speaker 5: ways to negate over these last few games. But like
Speaker 5: there's the bad Jamal Murray turnover early, and they were
Speaker 5: much more physical, and I thought they did a really
Speaker 5: good job on Jokic as well, super rac with their hands,
Speaker 5: they're getting those backtabs, they're poking balls out just like
Speaker 5: they were in Game two at a ridiculous level, and
Speaker 5: they did a really good job of forcing anybody other than.
Speaker 6: Yolkic to beat them.
Speaker 5: I thought last game's game plan was just shockingly bad
Speaker 5: from Minnesota in terms of how willing they were to
Speaker 5: allow Yolkish to work in single coverage. Now there came
Speaker 5: a point where he started specifically hunting that stuff.
Speaker 6: He was like, Okay, I'm not gonna let Rudy Rome.
Speaker 5: I'm going to force the switch here and then you're
Speaker 5: not gonna send help when I have go bear on me.
Speaker 5: But like he was just allowed to really toast them
Speaker 5: in that game. And they have seen by far their
Speaker 5: most success against him and the Snuggets offense in this
Speaker 5: series when they send doubles. In Game two, that was
Speaker 5: the single biggest thing. With Rudy off the floor. They
Speaker 5: didn't really have a choice, but they doubled the hell
Speaker 5: out of him, and they just have such an athletic advantage.
Speaker 5: Their rotations were so excellent in that game. They were
Speaker 5: running dudes off the line, they were forcing contested threes,
Speaker 5: and they just sped up that offense and they threw
Speaker 5: it into the chaos.
Speaker 6: And that's what happened in this game.
Speaker 5: Again, it felt like the Uggets completely lost their sense
Speaker 5: of self and they were just operating at this very
Speaker 5: hectic pace that was clearly to their disadvantage. Like you
Speaker 5: have early shot clock Aaron Gordon threes and I know
Speaker 5: that he shot the ball quite well from beyond the
Speaker 5: arc in this series. But you don't like those looks
Speaker 5: early shot clock Jolkic threes, with how he's been shooting
Speaker 5: over this postseason, you don't love, and you would just
Speaker 5: like for them to work to get a better shot
Speaker 5: off of these Jokic doubles. Oftentimes they're just taking like
Speaker 5: the first catch and shoot three that they get instead
Speaker 5: of trying to consistently swing that ball and put the
Speaker 5: defense further into rotation. And I just thought that things
Speaker 5: got worse and worse for them, and the issues compounded,
Speaker 5: and then you have like Aaron Gordon forcing an ISO
Speaker 5: on go Bare missing a turnaround he dribbles off his
Speaker 5: foot trying to attack Kat. The non Yolkic minutes were
Speaker 5: awful in the first half offensively and ultimately as well
Speaker 5: as Minnesota defended and as much as Denver was thrown
Speaker 5: off their rhythm, they also just couldn't make a shot,
Speaker 5: Like even when they got a good open look from deep,
Speaker 5: it didn't matter.
Speaker 6: They were four of.
Speaker 5: Twenty one from three in the first half, I believe,
Speaker 5: and Rudy also did an incredible job protecting the rim
Speaker 5: in this game, and I thought forced a number of
Speaker 5: tough misses in the paint where Jamal is just way
Speaker 5: off on a floater. Christian Brown doesn't even want to
Speaker 5: put up a shot.
Speaker 7: Like.
Speaker 5: His presence was monstrous in this game, and he really
Speaker 5: kept them from scoring in the paint. And when they're
Speaker 5: struggling to score from deep as they were in this game,
Speaker 5: that is obviously a massive factor. And Jamal was brutal
Speaker 5: one of ten in the first half. Really disappointing effort.
Speaker 5: I thought that Ant did a great job on him.
Speaker 5: I thought, again, this was a very physical performance and
Speaker 5: that threw him off his rhythm. He was also just
Speaker 5: missing open shots, so the offense broke down. But I
Speaker 5: was really disappointed by just the effort as well. They
Speaker 5: allow eleven offensive rebounds just in the first half. You
Speaker 5: have that sequence to end the half when yeah, they've
Speaker 5: been down big for the entire period, but they're finally
Speaker 5: building some semblance of momentum and Aaron Gordon throws the
Speaker 5: ball up into the air and then they just concede
Speaker 5: an easy offensive rebound to Jade McDaniel. And from that
Speaker 5: point forward it was like awful rotations. You get a
Speaker 5: jokicch lazy turnover. He wasn't protecting the ball like he
Speaker 5: has been just a really bad let down performance from
Speaker 5: them facing a team on the road that you know
Speaker 5: is first of all, gonna pride themselves on the defensive
Speaker 5: side of the ball, and they're going to start their
Speaker 5: effort there. They are going to bring the physicality if
Speaker 5: it is allowed, more so than anybody else in the league.
Speaker 5: They are more athletic than you, and so if they
Speaker 5: are giving a bunch of effort and you aren't, you
Speaker 5: can just get smacked in the mouth. And that very
Speaker 5: much happened in this game.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they did get smacked in the mouth. I do
Speaker 7: want to give a ton of credit to Minnesota. Man,
Speaker 7: it was a defensive masterclass in this one, and I
Speaker 7: think you.
Speaker 1: Hit on it, Carson.
Speaker 7: It's not really the consistency of this defense and how
Speaker 7: they can affect Denver, but it's the capability the fact
Speaker 7: that they can have games like this. Like everybody wanted
Speaker 7: to make big declarations about this series at every step
Speaker 7: of the lay, myself included. Wanted to write Denver off
Speaker 7: after the first two games, wanted to write Minnesota off
Speaker 7: after the last three games. But the bottom line is
Speaker 7: that nobody has been able to disrupt Denver. In the
Speaker 7: way that Minnesota has, and I think it is a
Speaker 7: testament to their defense at a game like this is possible,
Speaker 7: let alone that we get three in a single series.
Speaker 7: Like I think the big key is doubling nikoley Jokic,
Speaker 7: getting the ball out of his hands consistently and forcing
Speaker 7: other guys to kill you. They did a phenomenal job
Speaker 7: and recovering off doubles.
Speaker 1: Carson.
Speaker 7: You mentioned how they dominated the glass. Two eleven first
Speaker 7: half offensive rebounds. Guys, that's the most in the first
Speaker 7: half in the playoffs since two thousand and four. They
Speaker 7: also grabbed sixty one boards overall, that's the most in
Speaker 7: a game since the twenty twenty two Warriors. And they
Speaker 7: just forced the Nuggets to settle for so many jump shots.
Speaker 7: The Nuggets in the regular season were thirtieth and three
Speaker 7: pointers attempt under just under thirty two threes a game.
Speaker 7: They attempted twenty one in the first half. That's on
Speaker 7: the Boston Celtics pace for a single game. You guys
Speaker 7: know how I feel about the Boston Celtics, Like, that's
Speaker 7: not a great stat.
Speaker 1: You just got to get downhill.
Speaker 7: They finished this one seven to thirty six overall and
Speaker 7: they beat him in the paint forty six to thirty six,
Speaker 7: Like that's a huge key, man. They can't get anything
Speaker 7: else going. They can't hit the broad side of a
Speaker 7: barn on a jump shot, and their offense was just
Speaker 7: out of sorts. I thought the game plan was great.
Speaker 7: I thought the energy and the effort was great. And
Speaker 7: I want to give a big shout out too. You
Speaker 7: mentioned Rudy Gobert Karson. I want to give a big
Speaker 7: shout out to Kat and how he stood physically in
Speaker 7: the post two and Jaden McDaniels, like the will of him, dude,
Speaker 7: not even what he did offensively, He had a great
Speaker 7: offensive game to I too, But just that takes a
Speaker 7: toll man, that consistent effort and energy, and he didn't
Speaker 7: looked tired at all throughout this game. Man, kept applying
Speaker 7: ball pressure, kept getting after it. It was just a
Speaker 7: genius game plan, tremendous effort, tremendous energy, and something that
Speaker 7: you rarely see against this Denver team. Man, it is
Speaker 7: really amazing that Minnesota is able to pull off three
Speaker 7: games like this in a single series against maybe the
Speaker 7: best offense I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the talk after this game is going to be
Speaker 2: tactically focused around the double teaming, right, Like that's going
Speaker 2: to be the big thing. Is like, oh we double
Speaker 2: team jokicch it threw off Denver's offense. This is this
Speaker 2: is where things kind took off. And I think we're
Speaker 2: gonna learn a lot more about that adjustment in game seven.
Speaker 2: I do think that that's the best available route for them,
Speaker 2: mainly just because Michael Porter Junior is not shooting particularly
Speaker 2: well in this series, and so as a result of that,
Speaker 2: and Jamal Murray's not shooting particularly well either, So like
Speaker 2: you gotta go down by making these dudes that are
Speaker 2: out of rhythm make shots. So, like, I one hundred
Speaker 2: percent agree that that's the strategy, but I didn't think
Speaker 2: that that was the determining factor in tonight's game at all.
Speaker 2: It was just a complete physical, athletic bludgeoning. That's literally
Speaker 2: all it was to me. And you know, one of
Speaker 2: the things we noticed, and we saw this at the
Speaker 2: opening stretch in the first first quarter of Game one,
Speaker 2: pretty much throughout Game two, and then throughout the game tonight,
Speaker 2: Like one of the big things that Minnesota's defense has
Speaker 2: done to Denver for stretches is speed them up and
Speaker 2: Carson you specifically referenced this, but this really like kind
Speaker 2: of showed through for me at the end of the
Speaker 2: first quarter tonight, where it's like you just see them
Speaker 2: making uncharacteristic non Denver Nuggets types of plays, like you said,
Speaker 2: rushing a jump shot when there's an opportunity to get
Speaker 2: something better, you know, just not being as methodical with
Speaker 2: their execution. I think the best complement that you can
Speaker 2: play that you can pay a defense, or I should
Speaker 2: say that the best indicator of a defense really having
Speaker 2: an effect is when you make an offense or an
Speaker 2: offensive player play a different way than they typically do,
Speaker 2: meaning like if you get them out of their their
Speaker 2: kind of like tendencies and get them to start like rushing,
Speaker 2: making mistakes, taking shots they don't normally take anytime, you
Speaker 2: get them to like literally lose their head, so to speak.
Speaker 2: That's a testament to the defense. And again one of
Speaker 2: the things that regardless of what happens in Game seven,
Speaker 2: I think we can even say for sure that Denver
Speaker 2: has really struggled for stretches with this Minnesota defense. They
Speaker 2: have a way of kind of like holding up underneath
Speaker 2: that onslot, and to me, it comes down to being
Speaker 2: like really deliberate with their offensive execution. It kind of
Speaker 2: reminds me of Game Three, where it's like just being
Speaker 2: really good about handling ball, pressure, being patient to get
Speaker 2: the ball up the floor into your spots, setting really
Speaker 2: good screens, kind of executing from there.
Speaker 3: Honestly, like, there was a stretch early.
Speaker 2: Second quarter where Jokic stayed on the floor where he
Speaker 2: typically doesn't, and I think they did that. I think
Speaker 2: Michael Malone did that on purpose to try to kind
Speaker 2: of regain control of the situation before he put Jokic
Speaker 2: out because he knew thirty one fourteen or whatever the
Speaker 2: score was at the end of the first quarter. You
Speaker 2: bail on Jokic there, it could be a twenty seven
Speaker 2: point game in a matter of minutes, right And honestly,
Speaker 2: during that stretch, they generated multiple wide open threes off
Speaker 2: of the yokch doubles and they were missing them. But
Speaker 2: what happened was they got a few offensive rebounds and
Speaker 2: got a couple putbacks, and then they went down to
Speaker 2: the other end. They locked in, they got stops. They
Speaker 2: actually kind of methodically worked it down to eleven even
Speaker 2: though they weren't shooting well. And then as soon as
Speaker 2: Yo gets checked out of the game, it was nineteen
Speaker 2: and ninety seconds, like it was. It was over that fast,
Speaker 2: and so really like that, that to me is the
Speaker 2: is the is like the kind of like like the
Speaker 2: kind of ebb and flow of this series. Minnesota's defense
Speaker 2: is oppressive, but Denver is capable of executing against them
Speaker 2: and scoring. Carson, you had a tweet that you sent
Speaker 2: out after Game five that I thought was really really
Speaker 2: fascinating that Denver had a one to twenty seven offensive
Speaker 2: rating in those in those three games against this defense
Speaker 2: that we all think is the best, right, And what's
Speaker 2: crazy about that is Boston had the best offense in
Speaker 2: the league this year at a one to twenty two
Speaker 2: offensive rating, So just think about that. That's the level
Speaker 2: of production you were getting out of that Denver offense.
Speaker 2: We know that they're capable of scoring against them, they
Speaker 2: just have to be really deliberate with their execution as
Speaker 2: soon as they let go of the rope a little bit.
Speaker 2: The problem is Minnesota's way more athletic than them, and
Speaker 2: so as soon as they do let go the rope
Speaker 2: in terms of like their discipline and execution. It's not
Speaker 2: just that they lose, they run into a buzzsaw, and
Speaker 2: that's why we're seeing these like blowouts in Game two
Speaker 2: and in game in game six, where it's like when
Speaker 2: they let go, they just can't hang. But before we
Speaker 2: kind of move forward, I want to make sure that
Speaker 2: we appropriately kind of focus on Minnesota here, because Minnesota
Speaker 2: has their flaws, you and you two and us or
Speaker 2: my you two and myself. We've discussed that specific set
Speaker 2: of flaws all season long, having to do with some
Speaker 2: of their offensive limitations, especially if you can force Anthony
Speaker 2: Edwards to give up the basketball since he's playing like
Speaker 2: he's playing like prime Kobe and MJ these days, right, So,
Speaker 2: like there is obviously limitations there, but their defense is real.
Speaker 2: They're capable of shaking their opponent's foundation, and when they do,
Speaker 2: it doesn't really matter what their other flaws are. It's
Speaker 2: almost like confidence takes over and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: Jade McDaniels gets going offensively all of a sudden, like
Speaker 2: my Conley starts being super aggressive and hitting pull up
Speaker 2: threes and other pull up jump shots, and like, I
Speaker 2: just want to credit Minesota. I thought they played a
Speaker 2: hell of a game. I thought Anthony Edwards had an
Speaker 2: incredible bounce back after that rough Game five. Actually that
Speaker 2: there was a report that he went to one of
Speaker 2: the staffers for Denver. It was like, see you in
Speaker 2: game seven. That's right in the check and he had
Speaker 2: to cash it today and he did. And so I
Speaker 2: just want to shout those guys out. So here's the thing.
Speaker 2: I still think that Denver is capable of executing and
Speaker 2: beating this team in game seven. However, the problem with
Speaker 2: this is you now have put yourself in a situation
Speaker 2: where the variance of a single basketball game gets you eliminated,
Speaker 2: and so there's a considerable amount of risk here. As
Speaker 2: far as it pertains to game six, I don't really necessarily,
Speaker 2: and I said this to you guys before we actually
Speaker 2: went live, I don't really see tonight as a huge
Speaker 2: downmark for Denver in the sense it's just really hard
Speaker 2: to beat a team four times in a row under
Speaker 2: any circumstances, let alone a really good team.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The damage they did was the damage they did in
Speaker 2: the first two games. By dropping those first two games,
Speaker 2: they put themselves in a predict commit where they were
Speaker 2: almost certainly going to face the Game seven if they
Speaker 2: were to win the series. Now here we are I'm
Speaker 2: gonna toss it to you first s logan as we
Speaker 2: head into game seven, I'm assuming we all are sticking
Speaker 2: with our Denver pick. Do you still remain confident there
Speaker 2: or do you feel like Minnesota has him on the
Speaker 2: ropes and has a chance to win.
Speaker 7: Confiden's an interesting word. I wouldn't say confident. I'm hopeful.
Speaker 7: There's just still other things that need to swing back
Speaker 7: in Denver's way for them to win. I mean, I
Speaker 7: think the biggest thing is the supporting cast. Like this
Speaker 7: game is a complete indictment on the supporting cast and
Speaker 7: what they've done this series. And the first guy that
Speaker 7: you got to point the finger at is Jamal Murray.
Speaker 7: Like the thing with Jamal too, is he's a rhythm guy, right,
Speaker 7: and a lot of scorers and a lot of shooters
Speaker 7: in the NBA are like that.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 7: You get that first one to go through to nylon
Speaker 7: and it's like, all right, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Have a good game.
Speaker 7: And I felt like you could see the confidence kind
Speaker 7: of leave Jamal's body as this game went along, Like
Speaker 7: he starts out this game four to five and then
Speaker 7: he's getting these open mid range looks that he's he
Speaker 7: would put up without any hesitation if his.
Speaker 1: Shot was falling, and he starts being passive.
Speaker 7: It's like what you said, Jason's got a great defense
Speaker 7: getting you off of your game, and he missed enough
Speaker 7: early and they got him off his game where he
Speaker 7: was second guessing himself and being more passive and passing
Speaker 7: up open Looks like it's a broad blanket statement that
Speaker 7: you could make for almost any team. But like, the
Speaker 7: second guy's got to pull his weight, he's got to
Speaker 7: play so much better Game one, Game two and or
Speaker 7: receiving this is game one. In game two, thirteen points
Speaker 7: on thirty seven percent true shooting, and this one he's
Speaker 7: ten points on four of eighteen and two of seven
Speaker 7: from deep. Like he's got to be better. Michael Porter
Speaker 7: Junior has got to be better.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 7: In round one, he was probably Denver's second best player
Speaker 7: against LA like they needed him. Twenty three points in
Speaker 7: seventies percent true shooting, and this one. In this series overall,
Speaker 7: he's twelve points on.
Speaker 1: Fifty five percent true shooting.
Speaker 7: And a big thing here with Denver is the fact
Speaker 7: that they don't have a luxury of depth here. They
Speaker 7: don't have role players that they can turn to. Guys
Speaker 7: they're benching this game, and they've talked about the bench in
Speaker 7: this series a ton, and I think that's an interesting
Speaker 7: factor to look at. It is Holliday gonna hit his
Speaker 7: open looks. Is Christian Brawn gonna do brown? Excuse me?
Speaker 7: Is he gonna do something? And this one they shoot
Speaker 7: four of twenty eight. The bench does for Denver, like
Speaker 7: they don't really have margins offensively if MPJ and Jamal
Speaker 7: aren't pulling their weight, they don't have avenues to easy offense.
Speaker 7: Like you know, maybe the boring take. Denver's got to
Speaker 7: bring energy. They got to bring more effort, obviously, or
Speaker 7: Jamal and MPJ gonna hit a freaking shot.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 7: If they can't, it's wrapped like Minnesota's gonna steamroll them
Speaker 7: once more. And Jokic can make all the right reads, man,
Speaker 7: he can make all the right passes. If they're diverting,
Speaker 7: this kind of defensive attention to Jokic and the nugget
Speaker 7: supporting cast is not gonna make them pay.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna win.
Speaker 7: So it may be a boring answer, but like the
Speaker 7: number two and number three just have to hit open shots, man,
Speaker 7: They got to alleviate some of this pressure off of Jokic,
Speaker 7: because once they do, and you gotta stop doubling Yokic
Speaker 7: as much, it opens up the floor for him. Everything
Speaker 7: for Denver gets going. It's all those two guys to
Speaker 7: get it going.
Speaker 5: In Game seven, absolutely, those guys have to be way better.
Speaker 5: Aaron Gordon, who has been really good in this series,
Speaker 5: I thought just the decision making tonight again, he was
Speaker 5: just chaotic in the first half of this game, and
Speaker 5: I thought that that was costly.
Speaker 6: Where he has been so good. But I do expect
Speaker 6: Denver to win.
Speaker 5: And a big reason is that so much of what
Speaker 5: we've talked about has been an issue of focus and
Speaker 5: of effort and of consistency, which really has been the
Speaker 5: polar opposite of the done of the Denver team that
Speaker 5: we saw last year. Like that's what's so stunning to me,
Speaker 5: is where they really separated from the pack last year
Speaker 5: was just the consistency of their offensive process, taking care
Speaker 5: of the basketball, always engaged defensively. They didn't have like
Speaker 5: a bad game in all of last postseason. They didn't
Speaker 5: lose a game by double digits, whereas this year we've
Speaker 5: seen obviously all the slow starts and all the carelessness
Speaker 5: against the Lakers, and they pulled through because they're just
Speaker 5: that much better. But then you have this series, the
Speaker 5: bludgeoning that they take in Game two, which I thought
Speaker 5: was more about like an all time effort by Minnesota's defense,
Speaker 5: but of course, like they got sped up and thrown
Speaker 5: off their rhythm and they weren't ready for that battle
Speaker 5: in this game.
Speaker 6: They just don't have the focus.
Speaker 5: They went Jason from as you say, like three games
Speaker 5: of offensive perfection, posting an offensive rating of one to
Speaker 5: twenty seven against this defense. Jokics played two back to
Speaker 5: back masterpieces, and they were hitting forty five percent of
Speaker 5: their threes.
Speaker 6: Just everything was clicking.
Speaker 5: They figured out the ball pressure, they were playing so
Speaker 5: more methodically, making such great collective decisions. And then they're
Speaker 5: the first team tonight to score seventy points or fewer
Speaker 5: in a playoff game in eight years. So that's just
Speaker 5: completely bipolar. But to me, locked in Denver is still
Speaker 5: the best team in the league, and that's what they
Speaker 5: showed over these last three games. But as you say,
Speaker 5: like they leave themselves open now to the variance of
Speaker 5: one game against a really good basketball team that kicked
Speaker 5: their asses legitimately in the first two games of this series,
Speaker 5: and obviously again tonight. But again that was just sort
Speaker 5: of like you just throw your hands up and it's like,
Speaker 5: all right, that was never gonna happen. They obviously have
Speaker 5: to be focused from the jump, but I fully expect
Speaker 5: them to be. That is why I think doubling Yokic
Speaker 5: makes sense. Though, it's just the inconsistency of the supporting cast,
Speaker 5: and that's the trend that we've seen. The Lakers found
Speaker 5: their most success doubling against Yokich. The Timberwolves had by
Speaker 5: far their best defensive game doubling him aggressively.
Speaker 6: It's not a question of him making the right reads.
Speaker 5: Like we consistently see he can make those skip passes
Speaker 5: if you really pressure him with length, like sometimes they'll
Speaker 5: come out a little bit high, but generally he's gonna
Speaker 5: make the right read. It's just a question of, all right,
Speaker 5: can we contest them, can we rotate well, can we
Speaker 5: run them off the line? Can we force anybody else
Speaker 5: to make decisions and make shots? Michael Porter Junior over
Speaker 5: his last three games six points per game on thirty
Speaker 5: eight percent true shooting.
Speaker 6: This is one of the greatest pure jump.
Speaker 5: Shooters in NBA history, I legitimately believe, and he can't
Speaker 5: make anything right now. The shots that he's taking are
Speaker 5: out of rhythm, they're forced even for him. I give
Speaker 5: him leeway because he's such a crazy, contested shot maker,
Speaker 5: but these are not good shots that he's taking, and
Speaker 5: Jamal absolutely has to be better. So I do expect
Speaker 5: them to heavily double Jokic, but I also agree it's
Speaker 5: not like they figured things out, being like, hey, we
Speaker 5: can double Jokic if the Nuggets jump shooters are hitting well,
Speaker 5: then that's still a really really bad answer. But this year,
Speaker 5: when you leave yokicen single coverage on a post up,
Speaker 5: he's averaged one point twenty five points. When you double,
Speaker 5: the Nuggets average point nine to four points. So a
Speaker 5: lot of that is just the shot making of the teammates.
Speaker 5: But like there is a pretty clear answer, there's no
Speaker 5: good answer to Nicole Jolkic and specifically his post up offense.
Speaker 5: But the worst answer to me is clearly just letting
Speaker 5: him work in single coverage like they did in Game five.
Speaker 5: I do think that the bench minutes are certainly crucial
Speaker 5: for Denver. They have outperformed there, but this was a
Speaker 5: really night rough. This was a really rough performance tonight,
Speaker 5: and the Timberwolves were absolutely just better in this game,
Speaker 5: not just defensively, their offensive process was way better.
Speaker 6: Having Mike Conley back on the floor.
Speaker 5: You just had more shot making, You had more good
Speaker 5: decision making out there. That ball was moving, you saw
Speaker 5: it from the jump. Kat was being proactive as a playmaker.
Speaker 5: Jane McDaniels was outstanding, and he has been pretty rough
Speaker 5: offensively this series. He was two of twelve from deep
Speaker 5: coming in to tonight, and he was hitting his open threes,
Speaker 5: but he was also attacking closeouts. He was aggressive as
Speaker 5: a driver. So this Timberwolves offense has had some low lows,
Speaker 5: but tonight was a pretty high high. All of that
Speaker 5: to say, yes, this was a night that was all
Speaker 5: Minnesota and it was no Denver. But when it comes
Speaker 5: down to it, all the money on the line, I
Speaker 5: do think Denver can focus up. I do think they
Speaker 5: can dial in their offensive process. They have the best
Speaker 5: player on the floor. And even if Jamal and MPJ
Speaker 5: aren't shooting well right now, like those are really really
Speaker 5: good shooters of the basketball. This is an incredible offense.
Speaker 5: I believe one of the three best offenses we've seen
Speaker 5: this century, and I would bet that to win out
Speaker 5: on their home floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm picking Denver as well. I want to look
Speaker 2: at this from both perspectiveives. The Denver win on Sunday
Speaker 2: would look more or less I think like what Game
Speaker 2: three looked like in the sense that I do believe
Speaker 2: that Minnesota will go back to doubling a lot, and
Speaker 2: I think that Denver will counter that by going back
Speaker 2: to a more steady diet of pick and roll and
Speaker 2: using Yokic more as a screen and roll guy than
Speaker 2: as a post guy, just to try to kind of
Speaker 2: maintain some of that rhythm and flow. And again, we
Speaker 2: know what Denver is going to do to try to
Speaker 2: mitigate some of the ball pressure stuff. They're going to
Speaker 2: have Jokic and Gordon bring the ball up the floor more.
Speaker 2: Jokic is going to be setting monster screens from the
Speaker 2: opening tip of this game to really try to free
Speaker 2: up Jamal and help them get kind of free right
Speaker 2: from there. It's just about them kind of maintaining that
Speaker 2: methodical approach and then continuing the defensive game plan. Because
Speaker 2: one of the things we haven't talked a lot about
Speaker 2: tonight is Denver I thought had a really bad defensive game,
Speaker 2: and the dead giveaway was like a lot of the same,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of extra attention they throw it through
Speaker 2: at Anthony Edwards wasn't there from Game five. A big
Speaker 2: part of that is I thought they allowed Minnesota operate
Speaker 2: a lot in semi transition, and a big part of
Speaker 2: that is just not ever scoring and constantly being in
Speaker 2: transition cross matches and where you know, when you let
Speaker 2: Ant really kind of gallop up the floor with a
Speaker 2: head of steam into like that semi transition, it's just
Speaker 2: really difficult to kind of corral him and make him
Speaker 2: play passive basketball. And then I also want to credit Ant.
Speaker 2: I thought he had a really good playmaking game, even
Speaker 2: above and beyond just assist totals, just like getting the
Speaker 2: defense in rotation and making easy reads, which by the way,
Speaker 2: is contagious and it kind of sets everything else upright,
Speaker 2: So we know what a Denver win.
Speaker 3: Would look like.
Speaker 2: I think it would look a lot like Game three
Speaker 2: for Denver going into Game seven. Minnesota I do think
Speaker 2: has a legitimate path here though, and I think it
Speaker 2: kind of comes down to a couple of key things.
Speaker 2: First of all, you have to throw a hallacious defensive
Speaker 2: punch from the opening tip, like we talked about earlier,
Speaker 2: you can shake Denver's foundation, and when you do, they
Speaker 2: kind of let go of the rope mentally and they
Speaker 2: can kind of fall apart. Right, So, like you got
Speaker 2: to throw that sledgehammer at that at that foundation at
Speaker 2: the opening tip, and see if you can crack it
Speaker 2: a little bit. Right, That's a big piece of it.
Speaker 2: Just a lot of defensive intensity, which by the way,
Speaker 2: in Game three they very much did not bring. And
Speaker 2: that was a big part of what Anthony Everards talked
Speaker 2: about after the game.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Secondly, Anthony Edwards, in my opinion, is probably a top
Speaker 2: five player in the world and is flat out unguardable
Speaker 2: in the majority of situations. And so what if he
Speaker 2: just goes in and has a red hot pull up
Speaker 2: jump shooting game. You know, that's a factor that has
Speaker 2: to be kind of weighed in here. You mentioned Jada McDaniels.
Speaker 2: He got kind of going in a big way offensively tonight.
Speaker 2: Some of this stuff like Kat and nas Reed posting up.
Speaker 2: A big part of that I thought was Denver didn't
Speaker 2: really bring the physicality. I think they've demonstrated that they
Speaker 2: can flat out, flat flatten out Cat's post ups and
Speaker 2: turn him into more of an over the top shot
Speaker 2: maker and kind of limit his effectiveness. I do agree
Speaker 2: that Mike Conley just in a lot of ways. It's
Speaker 2: just kind of like blue guy is kind of like
Speaker 2: a cliche that we use in basketball, but he just
Speaker 2: kind of makes everything come together, especially with this decision
Speaker 2: making of that group.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So, like again, I'm picking Denver, but Minnesota absolutely has
Speaker 2: a chance to win this game. There's a pathway for
Speaker 2: them there. I wouldn't even say they have a chance.
Speaker 2: There is a version of this game that they will
Speaker 2: win if things go a certain way. They have they
Speaker 2: have that type of firepower. And so this, to me,
Speaker 2: I would put it roughly, we'll go we'll go around quickly.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna put it at at about like sixty five
Speaker 2: thirty five in favor of Denver.
Speaker 3: What do you think, Carson?
Speaker 5: That is exactly what I was gonna say, And I
Speaker 5: agree with everything that you laid out. But I do
Speaker 5: expect Denver to be much more prepared for the physicality
Speaker 5: of this game, to be prepared for that sort of
Speaker 5: relacious defensive effort like if you're not in game seven,
Speaker 5: and if you are, as you say, just giving the
Speaker 5: sort of lazy defensive effort that we saw tonight. I
Speaker 5: thought some of the rotations were really poor. That's not
Speaker 5: gonna happen in a game seven. So yeah, I think
Speaker 5: sixty five to thirty five is a good spot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the exact same number.
Speaker 7: I'd say, way, yeah, No, that's so weird.
Speaker 1: That's so weird. I was going to go seventy thirty.
Speaker 3: But that's for you guys, are coward good number.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: I wanted to see Carson.
Speaker 2: I wanted Carson to come out with like the ninety
Speaker 2: seven to three, like I wanted Carson just to just
Speaker 2: lean into his Jokic standum with the full fource.
Speaker 6: Minnesota is great.
Speaker 2: I think he's yeah, there teams, so okay. On that note,
Speaker 2: let's move around to the other two series real quick.
Speaker 2: We'll just spend at about ten minutes on each of them.
Speaker 2: So I want to start with uh, let's start with
Speaker 2: New York Indiana Game four and five. Kind of similar
Speaker 2: to what we talked about tonight. Not really a whole
Speaker 2: lot for you to learn about, in the sense that
Speaker 2: you know, we have this bizarre Game four where the
Speaker 2: Knicks just let go the rope basically for the first
Speaker 2: time all postseason. It seems like every other time they've
Speaker 2: been up against it and they find themselves in a
Speaker 2: ten twelve point deficit, they would just somehow nix their
Speaker 2: way back into the game.
Speaker 3: You know, and they let go the rope.
Speaker 2: Right then we go back to Game five in Indie
Speaker 2: or Game five back in in MSG, and it kind
Speaker 2: of it was like a little bit of like Game
Speaker 2: one where Tyre's Halliburton's weirdly super passive, but at the
Speaker 2: same time, the Knicks just bring this hillacious, desperate effort
Speaker 2: and they pull out to win. Rick Carlisle super pissed
Speaker 2: off after the game about their effort level. It will
Speaker 2: start with you, Logan, how are you guys feeling about
Speaker 2: Game six back in Indiana tomorrow night.
Speaker 7: You have to be po at Indiana's effort level. Man,
Speaker 7: that's the biggest thing. I was, Oh, Jason, I don't
Speaker 7: know if you saw, man. I was all in on
Speaker 7: the Pacers. I said, they're gonna mop the Knicks last
Speaker 7: two games and next a retired, they're depleted. They're gonna
Speaker 7: run these boys.
Speaker 1: And I bet on.
Speaker 7: The girl that doesn't play defense, and I bet against
Speaker 7: the team that plays really hard most nights, and I
Speaker 7: feel quite foolish for it. Like New York just has
Speaker 7: bankable things that are consistently going to show up night
Speaker 7: tonight in the way that the Pacers don't. The first
Speaker 7: bedrock of this team is Jaylen Brunson, and the Indiana
Speaker 7: Pacers have no idea how to contain or how to
Speaker 7: defend him. Last game Game five, forty four points, seven
Speaker 7: assists on fifty eight percent true shooting. These numbers were
Speaker 7: midway through game five, so they're probably there's a few
Speaker 7: more shot attempts on them for sure, so they're not
Speaker 7: fully right. This is about in the third quarter. Brunson
Speaker 7: was fourteen to twenty one on them hard in the series,
Speaker 7: eleven to twenty eight on Nie Smith, and three of
Speaker 7: eleven versus McConnell. So I think a big thing for
Speaker 7: the Pacers is you just got to match the Smith's minutes.
Speaker 7: You have to have him on Brunton as.
Speaker 1: Much as possible. He just gives you.
Speaker 7: The best route to maybe winning against him. I don't
Speaker 7: think it's gonna work. Like I think Brunson has been
Speaker 7: dissecting doubles. He's been getting everything that he wants and
Speaker 7: so again, again that's just something that you can bank
Speaker 7: on with New York. Jalen Brunston's gonna show up. The
Speaker 7: other thing that you can bank on is just how
Speaker 7: New York has crushed the glass and the effort.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: You mentioned it, Jason.
Speaker 7: They're plus thirty two in total boards in this series,
Speaker 7: they're plus eighteen in offensive boards, and in Game five
Speaker 7: they they win fifty three to twenty nine. Overall, they
Speaker 7: win twenty to five on the offensive glass, and they
Speaker 7: dominate second chance points twenty six to nine.
Speaker 1: Like, that's the scary thing about Indiana.
Speaker 7: Man, is it feels like, sure New York does not
Speaker 7: have many quality basketball players. They are playing their like
Speaker 7: eighth to ninth men as starters. It's ridiculous how many
Speaker 7: bodies and how many guys they're out. But I expect
Speaker 7: this team to play hard, really hard. I expect the
Speaker 7: role players to do their jobs to a great level.
Speaker 7: I expect Jalen Brunson to put the team on his back.
Speaker 7: And the Pacers scare me, like, are the Pacers gonna
Speaker 7: play defense? Is Tyre's Halliburton gonna shoot more than ten shots.
Speaker 7: That's the biggest question mark to me too, dude, as
Speaker 7: a superstar player. The Pacers were scoreless for six minutes
Speaker 7: in the third quarter of Game five, and it's like,
Speaker 7: where is Halliburton?
Speaker 1: Where what are we doing? You gotta take a shot.
Speaker 7: So Indiana just scares me to bet on after I
Speaker 7: put all my chips in on them. Man, are they
Speaker 7: gonna play defense? Are they gonna give me effort? Is
Speaker 7: Halliburton gonna shoot enough shots? And the other guy that
Speaker 7: I point the f his Pascal Siakam. I've just been
Speaker 7: consistently disappointed at him not succeeding in attacking mismatches, and like,
Speaker 7: this is a small Knicks team that are routinely trotting
Speaker 7: out four guards in Hartenstein. That's a scenario that Siakam's
Speaker 7: just got to dominate. So when I look at these
Speaker 7: two teams, I just think New York has more bankable
Speaker 7: and consistent things that they're gonna do on a nightly basis.
Speaker 1: I think the Pacers can get hot.
Speaker 7: I expect them to match that effort and energy, but
Speaker 7: they burn me man, And I'm scared about betting on
Speaker 7: Indiana again. They just have way more red flags than
Speaker 7: me than New York. New York maybe lacking quality basketball players,
Speaker 7: but I know Brunson and the boys are gonna bring
Speaker 7: it hard.
Speaker 5: Pivot from Logan from where he was at after Day.
Speaker 5: I expect Indiana to win Game six. I would take
Speaker 5: the Knicks to win this series in seven. I don't
Speaker 5: necessarily disagree with a ton that you said, Logan, like.
Speaker 5: The reason that I ultimately have a little bit more
Speaker 5: faith in a Knicks team that is so shorthanded is
Speaker 5: because Brunson has much more consistently played up to the
Speaker 5: superstar or friend, superstar, top fifteen guy, whatever you want
Speaker 5: to call him, level that he has earned recognition for,
Speaker 5: whereas Hallie, although he had an amazing stretch in games
Speaker 5: three and four of this series, has been much less
Speaker 5: consistent with the aggression. And so I absolutely would bet
Speaker 5: on them having the best player on the floor in
Speaker 5: the biggest game. I would bet on them winning the
Speaker 5: effort category. And then I think they've gotten enough in
Speaker 5: terms of spot up shooting. I still think there are
Speaker 5: some really good connective playmakers there, guys who make really
Speaker 5: instinctual plays. Defensively, they still have more of a defensive
Speaker 5: foundation even without Og in a do or guy spot.
Speaker 6: I would lean the.
Speaker 5: Next But for Game six, it's just tough for me
Speaker 5: to see the Knicks going into Indiana and I know
Speaker 5: that they have this ability to summon this superhuman effort
Speaker 5: within themselves, but they didn't in game four. Game four
Speaker 5: was finally the spot where they were like, ah, man,
Speaker 5: that was the one to steal Game three, where we
Speaker 5: shoot fifty something ver from three, Dante gives us thirty five.
Speaker 5: They couldn't get up for that specific game, and obviously
Speaker 5: we saw tonight like when you are the team up
Speaker 5: three to two going on the road, it's tough to
Speaker 5: summon the same level of effort that the home team has.
Speaker 5: And Indiana has been really good at home. They haven't
Speaker 5: lost a home game in these playoffs. And that's where
Speaker 5: it's like, Okay, now they have clear basketball advantages. They
Speaker 5: have nine real quality basketball players. They have two stars
Speaker 5: on the floor of the Knicks. One they play super
Speaker 5: fast and can just build those leads, especially at home.
Speaker 5: I'm with you on like Siakam has to play those
Speaker 5: small ball looks off the floor. He has to be
Speaker 5: better as a mismatch attacker, and that goes from Ales
Speaker 5: Turner as well. And those guys have to rebound better
Speaker 5: because there's no reason for the Knicks to beat you
Speaker 5: on the glass when they are playing this super small
Speaker 5: ball look. And that's a win for them because Deuce
Speaker 5: McBride is just better than precious, and it allows them
Speaker 5: to match your pace more effectively and bring ball pressure,
Speaker 5: and they have more shooting, all these things that were
Speaker 5: big in Game five. But with the home crowd behind them,
Speaker 5: knowing that they have to bring that sort of energy
Speaker 5: and ultimately having more weapons, I do think Indiana probably
Speaker 5: takes Game six.
Speaker 2: So I'm actually a little bit more optimistic about the
Speaker 2: Knicks winning Game six. I think I leaned slightly towards
Speaker 2: Indiana in that game. It's probably like a fifty five
Speaker 2: to forty five for me. I think it's gonna be
Speaker 2: a really close game. I think the underrated part of
Speaker 2: Game four that people are forgetting is it was like
Speaker 2: a really quick turnaround. It was basically a day and
Speaker 2: a half after Game three. In Game three was very
Speaker 2: much a heartbreaking end to that game, right, So I
Speaker 2: think that plays a role the especially with Jalen Brunson
Speaker 2: dealing with his foot injury. We're not just talking about
Speaker 2: not having a quick turnaround. We have an extra day
Speaker 2: in here. The Nicks and Pacers played two days ago
Speaker 2: and they don't play again until tomorrow, and so you
Speaker 2: got two full days off. That's big on a big
Speaker 2: for Jalen Brunson's foot. I think one of the things
Speaker 2: that Tom dibdou figured out, and he figured it out
Speaker 2: earlier in the series, but he did it with the
Speaker 2: starting lineup in game five is just kind of understanding
Speaker 2: that Duce McBride is one of his five best players
Speaker 2: and there's just way too much presses. There was a
Speaker 2: playing game, I think it was in Game five that
Speaker 2: to me like perfectly encapsulated the problem with precious to Chua.
Speaker 2: He catches in the left corner wide open for three,
Speaker 2: doesn't take the shot, drives the baseline, and shoots a
Speaker 2: floater short off the front of the rim, and you're like,
Speaker 2: oh man, yeah, so like and one of the specific
Speaker 2: things from a matchup standpoint with Deuce McBride on the
Speaker 2: floor that becomes a problem for the Pacers is they
Speaker 2: can't stash Haliburton on Josh Hart because Josh Hart's just
Speaker 2: a wrecking ball in the offensive glass, and it becomes
Speaker 2: a problem. I still think i'd put ty Reese on
Speaker 2: Josh Hart. I just don't think they'll do it. The
Speaker 2: main reason why I'd put Tyree on Josh Hart is
Speaker 2: I think you could hedge and recover and get away
Speaker 2: with a late close out on Josh Hart when he
Speaker 2: slips to the three point line. And then again, I
Speaker 2: would confront the rebounding issue more as a team. But
Speaker 2: they're not going to put him on Josh Hart. I
Speaker 2: just I don't think Rick Carlisle wants that physical mismatch.
Speaker 2: Don Died Evencenzo on Miles McBride can both hit picking
Speaker 2: pop threes at a pretty high level, and Duce McBride
Speaker 2: did an amazing job in Game five of just kind
Speaker 2: of making the next read in line to kind of
Speaker 2: get the the defense in rotation and kind of take
Speaker 2: advantage of it really when it comes down to it
Speaker 2: for me, Even though Indiana actually has won the half
Speaker 2: court battle so far through five games, they're at one
Speaker 2: hundred point eight points per one hundred half court plays.
Speaker 2: The Knicks are at one hundred flat in the series.
Speaker 2: But I do think a big part of that was
Speaker 2: the blowout in Game four, kind of poisoning the.
Speaker 3: Data a little bit.
Speaker 2: I think I think I trust New York's half court
Speaker 2: offense a little bit better, And so think of it
Speaker 2: like this, from the standpoint of the odds, I think
Speaker 2: the Pacers, I give them like a fifty five to
Speaker 2: forty five chance to win Game six, right, but I
Speaker 2: think I give it like eighty twenty in favor of
Speaker 2: the Knicks in Game seven. So for me, just from
Speaker 2: the standpoint of like a basic statistical analysis, the Knicks
Speaker 2: have a pretty good chance to win Game six and
Speaker 2: a really good chance to win Game seven, And to me,
Speaker 2: that makes them the clear favorite. I don't want to
Speaker 2: write them off entirely, but yeah, I think Jalen Bruns
Speaker 2: is the best player. I think that they're just a
Speaker 2: little bit more distant with their effort and energy on
Speaker 2: both ends of the floor. I just think they're a
Speaker 2: better basketball team. You know the Haliburton piece, and you
Speaker 2: got Logan, you broke it down beautifully. But like one
Speaker 2: of the things with Taliburton is like he was taking
Speaker 2: eleven three is a game and hitting over forty percent
Speaker 2: of them for a few weeks before that game five,
Speaker 2: and then he goes out and takes four of them,
Speaker 2: and like I did, I did this bit on my
Speaker 2: show after that game. You know, I think every single
Speaker 2: player archetype has a downside. I think Jocic has a
Speaker 2: little bit of this too with his playmaking, where it's like,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden in game two, he's passing a
Speaker 2: sick but he's he's passing out a single coverage, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like, dude, your team's falling apart. You got
Speaker 2: to be aggressive, you know what I mean? And like that,
Speaker 2: by the way, Lebron had that a lot over the years,
Speaker 2: where it's like he's just continuing to make the right
Speaker 2: play and it's like, yeah, but we need you to
Speaker 2: kind of take over the game here. And so some
Speaker 2: of that is kind of a natural side effect of
Speaker 2: his personality as a basketball player, but I think it
Speaker 2: gets exacerbated with his age and some of the stakes
Speaker 2: at play here because this is this first time being
Speaker 2: the best player on a chain tam best player on
Speaker 2: a playoff team, Yeah exactly, I misspoke. The best player
Speaker 2: on a team that's actually making a playoff run. It's
Speaker 2: a different vibe entirely than than being in a supporting role. Right,
Speaker 2: So I lean, I lean New York. I probably lean
Speaker 2: in that sixty sixty five to thirty five for them
Speaker 2: to win the series at this point, feeling pretty comfortable
Speaker 2: about that, So let's move on to Let's move on
Speaker 2: to the Mavericks Thunder series. This to me has been
Speaker 2: a really fascinating exhibition of the downsides of having a
Speaker 2: really young team. And one of the main things that
Speaker 2: I point to there is, like, you know, around the league,
Speaker 2: we're seeing youth actually win, but not youth in the
Speaker 2: early twenties. We're seeing youth in the late twenties win.
Speaker 2: It's the it's the prime guys. It's the guys in
Speaker 2: that twenty five to twenty nine range that have kicked
Speaker 2: the shit out of the thirty to thirty five guys, right,
Speaker 2: and that that has been kind of the big story
Speaker 2: of this postseason And one of the things that's really
Speaker 2: noticed that I've really noticed in this series for the
Speaker 2: between the thought under in the MAVs is just the
Speaker 2: Thunder have been unable to reach their ceiling through a
Speaker 2: lot of young guy decision making mistakes, and the MAVs
Speaker 2: have had issues with their stars being consistent, but in
Speaker 2: terms of overall process, they've been more diligent about getting
Speaker 2: the right shots and playing for each other and playing
Speaker 2: to their strengths, which I think is manifested every single
Speaker 2: time that they've really put their foot on the gas.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, the two losses to me
Speaker 2: primarily came down to Luca just sucking like in game one,
Speaker 2: in game four, and as long as Luca reaches a
Speaker 2: certain floor, I think they're gonna win. And so we're
Speaker 2: headed back to Dallas for Game six, which I believe
Speaker 2: is on Saturday. We'll start with you, Carson, where are
Speaker 2: you at with this series?
Speaker 3: Right now?
Speaker 5: I'm confident in Dallas and I would pick them to
Speaker 5: close it out at home. This should have been over
Speaker 5: in five, like, if not for an absolute Luca disaster
Speaker 5: class in game four and of course Shay coming through
Speaker 5: huge clutch in the well as well, but even Kyrie
Speaker 5: couldn't make shots in the fourth quarter of that game
Speaker 5: like that was just such a collective meltdown.
Speaker 6: Clearly, we are seeing a.
Speaker 5: More consistent level from this Dallas team, because it's exactly
Speaker 5: like you say, not only has this not been a
Speaker 5: good Lucas series.
Speaker 6: Last game he was really good Kyrie.
Speaker 5: A lot of it to me has just been so
Speaker 5: consistently seeing two defenders, and he's playmaking well. But also
Speaker 5: I would have liked to see him assert himself more
Speaker 5: in some of these spots and maybe even go away
Speaker 5: from pick and roll and just go to work in isolation.
Speaker 5: He's such a great shot maker, like heats, to me,
Speaker 5: hasn't quite had the offensive impact you would like to see.
Speaker 5: Neither of them have had like the sort of collective
Speaker 5: big night that we know that they're capable of, partly
Speaker 5: as a product of scheme, but also just as a
Speaker 5: product of their performance, the level that they're playing at.
Speaker 5: And still they're up three to two, and again this
Speaker 5: series should have been over by now, so I have
Speaker 5: a lot more confidence in Dallas's role players right now.
Speaker 6: I think that PJ.
Speaker 5: Washington and Derek Jones are kind of running circles around
Speaker 5: what you're seeing from the OKC Wings in terms of
Speaker 5: shot making from PJ, but also just in terms of
Speaker 5: the physicality, the athleticism, how they're making plays. They are
Speaker 5: consistently getting the ball to those corners when you're seeing
Speaker 5: two guys Senate Hyrie and Lucan, they're making shots. And
Speaker 5: on the flip side, I just think Okac's offense is
Speaker 5: kind of broken down. Both these teams are having to
Speaker 5: deal with awesome rim protection. Like the efficiency in the
Speaker 5: restricted area for both these teams is just brutal. It's
Speaker 5: like way below the rest of the field in this series,
Speaker 5: and you got to give props to Check there, and
Speaker 5: you got to give props to Gafford Lively there. But
Speaker 5: one team is still producing, one team is still getting
Speaker 5: good open looks in the corners, and the other team
Speaker 5: is just really struggling to move the ball. They're at
Speaker 5: times forcing finishes, which is just not going to work
Speaker 5: out when you're dealing with this level of rimp protection,
Speaker 5: and they're forcing some shots from beyond the arc as well,
Speaker 5: like where you make an extra swing pass and you
Speaker 5: can get a better look. And they also just aren't
Speaker 5: really knocking down even the decent looks that they're getting
Speaker 5: from three to oka.
Speaker 6: See.
Speaker 5: I do think it's more a product of just not
Speaker 5: having very good shot quality though.
Speaker 3: So you can.
Speaker 5: Start Isaiah Joe like last game, and then you can't
Speaker 5: roam off of Josh Giddy super easily. But Isaiah Joe
Speaker 5: wasn't on as a three point shooter last game, nor
Speaker 5: was Caseon Wallace, nor was Aaron Wiggins those guys have
Speaker 5: to make shots to ultimately figure things out.
Speaker 6: For Okasee and Jadab has just been really, really rough.
Speaker 5: Has not been nearly the second shot creator that they've needed,
Speaker 5: hasn't been able to consistently create advantages. Also, just has
Speaker 5: struggled as a shooter, Like he's just off. So when
Speaker 5: I think about where Dallas is at without getting like
Speaker 5: really good Lucan Kyrie consistently, they're just checking more boxes.
Speaker 5: They're physical, the defensive foundation is so strong. I think
Speaker 5: they can win even more convincingly on the glass than
Speaker 5: they have in some of these games. So I would
Speaker 5: confidently expect them to finish out this series.
Speaker 6: I'm with you. I just think Oka see they're incredible
Speaker 6: what they've done for being so young.
Speaker 5: They're the youngest one seed in NBA history. That is awesome,
Speaker 5: What an accomplishment. But up and down this roster, the
Speaker 5: dudes other than Shay just aren't ready for this moment yet.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the supporting cast has really let Oklahoma City down.
Speaker 7: And so when you couple in the other factors, like
Speaker 7: you know, Sga has been pulling his weight, like he's
Speaker 7: thirty points last game this series, he's thirty two ten
Speaker 7: and seven on fifty nine percent true shooting. I know
Speaker 7: you mentioned this last episode, Carson. When you're facing this
Speaker 7: kind of defensive intensity and pressure and these kind of
Speaker 7: packed lanes and all this defensive attention, it really is
Speaker 7: remarkable that Sga has been this effective and he's playmaked well,
Speaker 7: like he's seven assists of this series. He'd have way
Speaker 7: more if his boys could hit a shot, like they're
Speaker 7: really letting him down. J dub is the guy that
Speaker 7: I point the finger at the most. Game Forty's fourteen
Speaker 7: points on five to nineteen from the field, Game five,
Speaker 7: he's twelve points on six to thirteen. And you can't
Speaker 7: overstate like how important three point shooting is to this team.
Speaker 7: They were number one and three point percentage in the
Speaker 7: regular season. Game five, they shoot ten of five already
Speaker 7: this series, they've been at thirty five percent against Dallas,
Speaker 7: and outside of Game one, they've shot thirty five percent
Speaker 7: from below thirty five percent excuse me from deep in
Speaker 7: four consecutive games against Dallas. So you couple the fact
Speaker 7: that Oklahoma City has consistently gotten very little from their
Speaker 7: supporting cast, Dallas has gotten everything, and then you get
Speaker 7: to the physicality department, which is why I really give
Speaker 7: the edge to Dallas. They've won every game on the
Speaker 7: glass outside of Game one, either plus twelve in defensive
Speaker 7: rebounds or excuse me, total rebounds or plus nine in
Speaker 7: offensive rebounds, Like those are just things.
Speaker 1: That don't change.
Speaker 7: Like, I trust Dallas's defense, I trust them on the glass.
Speaker 7: If Luca can shut up and stop crying too the
Speaker 7: reffs and do what he did in Game five, Like,
Speaker 7: I'm very confident that the Dallas is gonna come through
Speaker 7: and handle business. But it really comes down to Oklahoma
Speaker 7: City supporting cast, and I just don't think they have.
Speaker 1: Done enough to propel Shae.
Speaker 7: Shae has done everything you could have asked for him
Speaker 7: in this series, Like he has gone above and beyond,
Speaker 7: and I'm really disappointed at how the supporting cast has
Speaker 7: let him down in this series.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the stat that I gave to just kind of
Speaker 2: demonstrate the bad process is they're actually shooting forty two
Speaker 2: percent on a wide open threes in the series. They're
Speaker 2: making them. The problem is they're only generating sixteen of them.
Speaker 2: They generated twenty three of them per game in the
Speaker 2: regular season. They were just so much more diligent.
Speaker 3: About that.
Speaker 2: Something I've noticed for a long time. I work with
Speaker 2: a lot of young basketball players, obviously through a bunch
Speaker 2: of different avenues. I work with the college kids that
Speaker 2: come back to town. I work with my high school
Speaker 2: team that I coach. And one of the most frequent
Speaker 2: things I noticed, and I've used this kind of like
Speaker 2: this story on the show before, but like young basketball
Speaker 2: players struggle to identify what's working and repeat it and
Speaker 2: then identify what's not working and like trim that fat
Speaker 2: out of whatever they're doing, is they have a tendency
Speaker 2: to kind of bounce back and forth and not really
Speaker 2: be aware of the value of what every possession is.
Speaker 2: And I think the dead giveaway there is like, look
Speaker 2: at how Dallas is, Like PJ. Washington has it going,
Speaker 2: so they're just like hunting him with skip passes every
Speaker 2: single time he's being left open. You can literally see
Speaker 2: Kyrie and Luca like like just trying to find reasons
Speaker 2: to give him the basketball, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And with Oklahoma City, it's kind of just they're just
Speaker 2: playing so read and react, but not like not with
Speaker 2: any sort of diligence and bigger picture sense of what's
Speaker 2: happening in the game.
Speaker 3: Everyone's just kind of playing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And I'll see that with young players where it's like
Speaker 2: you'll you'll run a basic action, maybe it's a ball
Speaker 2: screen where you're attacking a specific mismatch and this one
Speaker 2: guy can't guard when a guy's going downhill at him,
Speaker 2: and you'll get an easy layup. And then you'll go
Speaker 2: down the floor the next time, and I'll be sitting
Speaker 2: there thinking like, let's do the same thing again, and
Speaker 2: then someone will just go off script and take a
Speaker 2: random pull up jumper and You're like, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: We just got an easy layup doing this, So how
Speaker 2: about we do that until they figure out how to
Speaker 2: stop it, and then we figure out what we're gonna
Speaker 2: do next. Right, Like basketball doesn't need to be as
Speaker 2: difficult it is as it is sometimes And like, honestly,
Speaker 2: like one of the big things that's dawned to me
Speaker 2: in this series, I actually do think Oklahoma City has
Speaker 2: more offensive talent than Dallas, and I think they've demonstrated
Speaker 2: that throughout the throughout the season.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The problem is is like Dallas is just playing better basketball.
Speaker 2: They're just playing a more diligent and smart brand of basketball.
Speaker 2: I do think one of the things that has stood
Speaker 2: out in a big way is Dallas's defense is for real,
Speaker 2: particularly at the perimeter and at the rim. And this
Speaker 2: is one of those things. I remember after the trade deadline,
Speaker 2: they went on an East Coast road trip and that
Speaker 2: was the game where Maxtrus hit the that was the
Speaker 2: trip where extras It beat him on a on the
Speaker 2: full court game winner, if you guys remember. But their
Speaker 2: defense was just straight ass on that road trip, Like
Speaker 2: it was so bad. And I remember sitting there thinking like,
Speaker 2: man like, I don't know if this team is capable
Speaker 2: of really locking in on that in the way that
Speaker 2: they need to, but they did down the stretch of
Speaker 2: the season, and like, I legitimately have been super i
Speaker 2: by them in this playoff run. And one of the
Speaker 2: things too, that I want to say before we move
Speaker 2: on Tyrie, there are some funky box scores in there,
Speaker 2: and and like I get it. I know I'm a
Speaker 2: Kyrie fan, but like, I think he's been pretty damn
Speaker 2: good in this series. Like Kyrie is just a basketball player,
Speaker 2: man Like, he just does all of these little things
Speaker 2: really well and and just kind of has a feel
Speaker 2: for like the timeliness of what's happening in a game
Speaker 2: like he didn't have I can't even remember how many
Speaker 2: points he scored in Game five, on't much, but he
Speaker 2: hit this like huge pull up three I want to
Speaker 2: say it was in the early fourth quarter that put
Speaker 2: them up fourteen, and like he hadn't even been being aggressive,
Speaker 2: but he was aggressive on that possession, and it almost
Speaker 2: felt like he was like, I can hit the shot.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna hit it right here. It's just gonna change
Speaker 2: the mental dynamic of the game because fourteen just feels
Speaker 2: insurmountable in a lot of ways. And so yeah, like
Speaker 2: I just want to shout out Dallas. I've been really
Speaker 2: really impressed with them. They flipped me in the last
Speaker 2: month of the season. I had to considerably lower in
Speaker 2: my contender rankings, and I ended up moving them up
Speaker 2: to third behind Denver and Boston at the very end
Speaker 2: of the season after watching that latch that last stretch,
Speaker 2: just because I thought they were peaking at the right
Speaker 2: time and I really thought they were figuring some things
Speaker 2: out defensively, and like it's been cool to kind of
Speaker 2: see that come to fruition, and I've just been really
Speaker 2: really impressed by them and Honestly, I think Dallas. If
Speaker 2: Dallas and Denver both escape, I think that would be
Speaker 2: a really really fun Western Conference Finals And to me,
Speaker 2: that does feel like a proper conference finals type of matchup.
Speaker 3: Before we get out.
Speaker 2: Of here tonight, I've decided, I've made an executive decision.
Speaker 2: We're going to We're going to do an additional segment,
Speaker 2: not gonna be a long one. We're going to rank
Speaker 2: the top five remaining players in the NBA playoffs. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it as a
Speaker 2: group effort and get into a little bit of a debate. Okay,
Speaker 2: so let's just start with this. We all agree that
Speaker 2: that Nicole Yoki is at number one?
Speaker 3: Correct? Does anybody want to argue that at all? Whatsoever?
Speaker 6: No agreed?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I've Nicole Jokic at number one. Who's number two?
Speaker 2: And let's start with you, Carson, who's the second best
Speaker 2: player remaining in the playoffs?
Speaker 3: Right now?
Speaker 5: This is in terms of who would I want for
Speaker 5: the remainder of these playoffs, like based on the level
Speaker 5: they've been playing.
Speaker 2: At purely in a vacuum, playing at this level in
Speaker 2: a vacuum, but within the scope of this playoff run. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, I want you to evaluate Anthony Edwards and
Speaker 2: guys like guys like Jalen Brunston. I want you to
Speaker 2: evaluate them within the lens of how they're playing in
Speaker 2: this postseason run.
Speaker 5: So that's what makes this tricky, because I do think
Speaker 5: that Luca is the second best player remaining big picture,
Speaker 5: I also think Luca has been the second best player
Speaker 5: on his own team in this playoff run.
Speaker 6: And even though he figured a lot.
Speaker 5: Of things out last game and got his attitude together,
Speaker 5: and the pull up jumpers were following in a way
Speaker 5: they just haven't been, and his decision making was great,
Speaker 5: and he was getting down hillmore, he was engaged defensively,
Speaker 5: he's been so so uh, I don't.
Speaker 6: Even know if I would say up and down.
Speaker 5: It's been more bad than good, considerably more bad than
Speaker 5: good for Luca considering the standard that we hold him to.
Speaker 5: To me, ant's been the top two guy in this
Speaker 5: playoff run. And part of that is like, yeah, he's
Speaker 5: been unbelievable as a pull up shooter, and he finally
Speaker 5: had a clunker in Game five where those shots just
Speaker 5: weren't following, and that was rough. But also like I
Speaker 5: really like a lot of the shots that he's getting
Speaker 5: as a pull up shooter. I don't think it's always
Speaker 5: gonna be this good, but I also do think it's
Speaker 5: legitimately better than it was in the regular season, and
Speaker 5: he has taken a jump in every postseason.
Speaker 6: He's defending at a high level.
Speaker 5: The athleticism just does not stop his willingness to dominate
Speaker 5: a game.
Speaker 6: I feel like.
Speaker 5: He's earned two right now, and that's not big picture,
Speaker 5: Like I would still have Luca and I would have
Speaker 5: Sga higher on my player rankings, but An's been It's
Speaker 5: in these playoffs so far.
Speaker 7: Ants number two for me as well, Like when the
Speaker 7: difference I would make is I think Luca's ceiling is higher,
Speaker 7: but I think Ant's floor has consistently been higher in
Speaker 7: these playoffs. Like you know, Ants strong all these double
Speaker 7: teams too, when his pull up jump shooting isn't hitting
Speaker 7: and he's making good decisions. But what we were talking
Speaker 7: about on our show too, is the fact that you know,
Speaker 7: when Ann gets a double, he's not really gonna make you.
Speaker 7: He's not gonna punish you for the worst part, Like
Speaker 7: he's not ever gonna kick week side to the corner
Speaker 7: like that nail in the Coffin type pass that's gonna
Speaker 7: He's gonna make the right decision. And so that's why
Speaker 7: I say on like it is ceiling when Luca's drawing
Speaker 7: those kind of coverages and he's on and he's strong
Speaker 7: and he's getting downhill. Luca, I think is definitively number two.
Speaker 7: But like the floor that we've gotten from Man has
Speaker 7: been so phenomenal, And I mean, Jason, you say he's unguardable,
Speaker 7: like already I do. Man, nobody can stay in front
Speaker 7: of the kid. And yeah, the level he's been at,
Speaker 7: I think he's number two. And almost spoil it a
Speaker 7: little bit, guys, I think i'd have Luca maybe four
Speaker 7: or five out of the remaining guys, Like, just with
Speaker 7: where he's been.
Speaker 1: At, where his floor has been at, and where.
Speaker 7: He's been at consistently, Luca's probably lower than I would
Speaker 7: have him at full health.
Speaker 2: So I think it's unquestionable that Ant has been the
Speaker 2: second best player in this postseason run based solely on results,
Speaker 2: Based on how he's played to this point, I am
Speaker 2: going to bump him to three for Luca, though, in
Speaker 2: the sense that even though Luca has had some really
Speaker 2: bad moments, Like if I was picking players that i'd
Speaker 2: want to lead my team going into the conference finals,
Speaker 2: for instance, I just trust Luca a little bit more
Speaker 2: with his experience and a little bit more of his
Speaker 2: like half court surgery type of stuff, to be a
Speaker 2: little bit more resilient to adjustments and things along those
Speaker 2: lines over the course.
Speaker 3: Of the series.
Speaker 2: And it's just a respect to the fact that I
Speaker 2: do believe Luca is the second best player in the
Speaker 2: world right now. So I'm gonna go with Luca at
Speaker 2: two on my list, but I would put Aunt at three.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming Carson you would put it, or you'd put
Speaker 2: Luke at three as well, right I would, although I have.
Speaker 5: Been concerned by a lot of what we've seen, and
Speaker 5: I think, like even as his jumpers start falling more,
Speaker 5: just the fact that he hasn't been getting downhill consistently,
Speaker 5: and I think the knee is definitely a component in that,
Speaker 5: Like we are definitely not seeing the Luca that we're
Speaker 5: used to. So I don't want to be overly encouraged
Speaker 5: just because Game five was really good, but I do
Speaker 5: just think he's earned the recognition just because of how
Speaker 5: great of a basketball player he is and the offensive mastery.
Speaker 5: Long story short, Yes, I would still have him at three,
Speaker 5: even though I definitely don't think he's been at that
Speaker 5: level consistently in these playoffs.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Logan, since you think Luca's at seventeen and
Speaker 2: he's a bum, who do you have at three?
Speaker 1: He's not a bum? Thank you for putting those words
Speaker 1: in my mouth, Jason.
Speaker 6: Luca.
Speaker 7: I'm not super encouraged consistency wise, and I agree with
Speaker 7: you guys, like at full strength, I think Luca's definitively
Speaker 7: number two. But I think they gave him somebody that
Speaker 7: good good before Game five, some of that that big
Speaker 7: Ben's special in his leg, something like that. I think
Speaker 7: they gave him, you know, some of that you ain't
Speaker 7: gonna feel it during the game, and I think it
Speaker 7: was able to get him to lock.
Speaker 1: In a little more.
Speaker 7: I am just skeptical at how healthy he's gonna be,
Speaker 7: how much he's moaning at the rest, how much he's
Speaker 7: concerned with that aspect of the game. Mister consistent has
Speaker 7: been SGA and like I just bank on it, Like
Speaker 7: I think that he might be the most consistent scorer
Speaker 7: in basketball. If I need thirty man Like, No, I
Speaker 7: wouldn't put him over Yokics, but I might put him too.
Speaker 7: Sga just has an unstoppable skill set, and I think
Speaker 7: his playmaking numbers would look better if his teammates were hidden.
Speaker 7: Looks like he's been so good as a decision maker,
Speaker 7: he's been so great at dealing with doubles, he's gotten
Speaker 7: any bucket that he's wanted, and in the fourth quarter
Speaker 7: of these games, like he.
Speaker 1: Stepped his game up.
Speaker 7: It's a It's been about the consistency for me in
Speaker 7: these playoffs, and Luca has just consistently played below his means.
Speaker 7: Is that still a really good freaking basketball player. Yeah,
Speaker 7: but I'd rather take the guy that has been consistently
Speaker 7: great and great in almost every single game in these playoffs,
Speaker 7: and that's been Sga. And so again, this is nothing
Speaker 7: against Luca. I think Luca at full strength is number two,
Speaker 7: but I wouldn't put him. I wouldn't put him over
Speaker 7: SGA in these playoffs thus far.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I have Carson at Jokic aunt Luca, and
Speaker 2: I have Logan at Jokic aunt SGA. Correct, I am
Speaker 2: gonna tweak mine because I made a mistake this was
Speaker 2: something I intended to do, but I made a mistake.
Speaker 2: I'm moving Aunt down to four, and I'm putting Jason
Speaker 2: Tatum at three. And here's the reason why I'm a
Speaker 2: huge believer in Aunt. I think he might actually be
Speaker 2: my favorite player. And I think that Ant is going
Speaker 2: to be better than Jason Tatum within within eighteen months.
Speaker 2: Like I think that's how highly I think of Ant.
Speaker 2: Aunt right now, though, is just a little bit volatile
Speaker 2: like any other twenty two year old in terms of
Speaker 2: his like just ability to handle the random kind of
Speaker 2: curve balls that the NBA Playoffs can throw at you,
Speaker 2: kind of like him just getting completely, like just completely
Speaker 2: blindsided by the double teaming in Game five, for instance.
Speaker 2: I also think has had some really bad defensive moments
Speaker 2: in this postseason, and he's one of those guys that's
Speaker 2: like devastating on the ball. And I thought he had
Speaker 2: his best defensive game of the postseason tonight against Jamal Murray,
Speaker 2: much better screen navigation, just stayed attached to him a
Speaker 2: lot better. But a big part of what happened that
Speaker 2: kind of hurt the team in Game three. In Game
Speaker 2: four was and just kept losing Jamal on screens and
Speaker 2: that's a big weakness in his game at this point.
Speaker 2: Jason Tatum can be a frustrating basketball player. God knows that.
Speaker 2: I've gone into that in excruciating detail over the course
Speaker 2: of the last few years. And there are things that
Speaker 2: I despise about his approach, and then I wish that
Speaker 2: he could get better at in terms of his scoring resiliency,
Speaker 2: in terms of his ability to be efficient, Like he
Speaker 2: shot over fifty percent for the first time all postseason
Speaker 2: last night. Yeah, like he's not having a good scoring
Speaker 2: playoff front. That said, I think Jason Tatum has been
Speaker 2: underrated in a bunch of key areas in this playoff run.
Speaker 2: First of all, I think he's been unbelievable defensively. He's
Speaker 2: arguably their smartest and most impactful team defender in terms
Speaker 2: of like just his versatility's ability to switch everything, like, oh,
Speaker 2: let's put him on Evan Mobley or like to let's
Speaker 2: put him on Evan Mobley to start a playoff series
Speaker 2: so that we can switch ball screens and we know
Speaker 2: we're not giving up anything there rebounding or imp protection
Speaker 2: even like there's just a lot of upside there. He's
Speaker 2: an excellent rebounder, in a way that I think is
Speaker 2: really underrated at his position. He's averaging over ten rebounds
Speaker 2: in the Cavs series. Another big piece of it, too,
Speaker 2: for me, is like he's uniquely kind of like a
Speaker 2: nice fit with this group because his passivity and is willing,
Speaker 2: willingness to just make the right play kind of allows
Speaker 2: a lot of the other guys to kind of stay
Speaker 2: to be more impactful. I think the big weakness of
Speaker 2: his is like identifying when to be like, no, give
Speaker 2: me the damn ball and get out of my way.
Speaker 2: And that's why I don't have him higher on this list.
Speaker 2: That's why I think that Jokich and Luca are clearly
Speaker 2: better basketball players than him. Think they just are better
Speaker 2: at identifying that balance between playing in the flow of
Speaker 2: the game versus being really aggressive. So I just think
Speaker 2: I think right now Tatum's floor is so much higher
Speaker 2: than Ants, just because he's a more experienced, better kind
Speaker 2: of like all around basketball player that I'm putting him
Speaker 2: at three. But to be clear to Ant, I think
Speaker 2: he's been the second best player in this playoff run
Speaker 2: to this point. I'm just saying, like if I was
Speaker 2: peaking players for a seven game series, that started tomorrow
Speaker 2: in a vacuum. I think Tatum is just a little
Speaker 2: bit more reliable in all of the other areas of
Speaker 2: the game. Where would you guys have Tatum? Would guys
Speaker 2: have Tatum in your top five?
Speaker 5: So I feel very confident about Aunt above him. To me,
Speaker 5: the gap in defensive consistency does not offset the fact
Speaker 5: that at the end of the day, I don't think
Speaker 5: there's any world in which Jason Tatum could have done
Speaker 5: could be doing what Anthony Edwards has consistently done. Just
Speaker 5: as that takeover offensive number one thirty a night on
Speaker 5: sixty six percent for shooting, and yes hasn't been great
Speaker 5: as a playmaker, has been mostly good enough when we
Speaker 5: are talking about projecting this, as I mentioned, like he
Speaker 5: has an effective field goal percentage of fifty seven and
Speaker 5: a half on pull up jumpers in the playoffs versus
Speaker 5: forty four percent in the regular season.
Speaker 6: That is not going to be sustained. That is like.
Speaker 5: Better than any single pull up jump shooter in basketball
Speaker 5: this year. But he is in a rhythm right now,
Speaker 5: and like that rhythm has been pretty consistent over the
Speaker 5: course of these ten games. I just think Ann is
Speaker 5: a significantly better score of the basketball. At the end
Speaker 5: of the day, I think his unrelenting downhill pressure, combined
Speaker 5: with the fact that right now he is just way
Speaker 5: better as a pull up shooter.
Speaker 6: I just don't think Tatum could do what he's doing
Speaker 6: right now.
Speaker 5: And I don't agree that Tatum is in some ways
Speaker 5: like a very good connective number one. But also, when
Speaker 5: you're in Boston, you get to have the luxury of
Speaker 5: doing that because you can have offensive explosions from Derek
Speaker 5: White for a series, you can have Jalen Brown be
Speaker 5: your best offensive player, which I would argue up until
Speaker 5: last game, like, well, he's been their best score throughout
Speaker 5: this playoffs. I would say Jalen Brown has been, so
Speaker 5: I would have Tatum at five.
Speaker 6: I would have Sga confidently at four.
Speaker 5: I think his floor is a score is just outstanding,
Speaker 5: and again I think he is capable of providing a
Speaker 5: consistency there that I don't get from Tatum. SGA shooting
Speaker 5: fifty three percent from the mid range and even facing
Speaker 5: as we've talked about, a great defense with great athletes
Speaker 5: on the perimeter, Derek Jones Junior is a tough draw
Speaker 5: pack paints. He's the best downhill guard in the league,
Speaker 5: and he can't get all the way downhill right now,
Speaker 5: and he is still killing you with great volume and efficiency.
Speaker 5: He's still making the right reads, and he's having a
Speaker 5: real defensive impact. I think Sga is a better basketball
Speaker 5: player than Jason Tatum, both within the context of this
Speaker 5: run and outside of it. Five is tough because I
Speaker 5: really have so much respect for Jalen Brunson and what
Speaker 5: he's done as an offensive number one. But I do
Speaker 5: think that is the threshold at which, like the all
Speaker 5: around value of Tatum does surpass the singular shot making
Speaker 5: value that you get from Jalen Brunson and playmaking because
Speaker 5: he's drawing such obscene amounts of offensive attention. Like, I
Speaker 5: do think Brunson is clearly a better offensive player, but
Speaker 5: I do think Tatum is the better all around basketball player,
Speaker 5: and I would take him going forward. But that's even
Speaker 5: close to me, So I'd have Tatum five.
Speaker 2: Okay, hold on, hold on for a second. Logan, So
Speaker 2: I've got, I've got. I'm actually putting Jalen Brunson at five.
Speaker 2: I think that in Wow when you cut, when you
Speaker 2: kind of yeah, well.
Speaker 3: Again, we're splitting hairs here. This is a tier of players.
Speaker 2: That's probably six long, not five long, but we're forcing
Speaker 2: it to five for the sake of some good debate,
Speaker 2: So I'd have sgah six. And I certainly don't see
Speaker 2: much of a gap really between three and six, really
Speaker 2: between two and six, I don't see much of a
Speaker 2: gap there. Like Joki is kind of on a tier
Speaker 2: on his own. So don't take this as an insult
Speaker 2: thunder fans. I just am kind of giving this as
Speaker 2: a as a an opportunity to shout out Jalen Brunson.
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunston, to me, has had kind of a similar
Speaker 2: job to Shay in this postseason, and I just think
Speaker 2: he's done a better job of it. In fact, I
Speaker 2: would argue that, like there's more pressure on Jalen Brunston
Speaker 2: to produce every single game, Like to put it simply,
Speaker 2: like we just talked about how we think the Knicks
Speaker 2: are gonna beat the Pacers, and it requires Brunson to
Speaker 2: go score seventy points in those two games or thirty
Speaker 2: five to forty in a one game if they close
Speaker 2: it out, Like it is an absolute necessity for Jalen
Speaker 2: Brunson to just completely tattoo those guys a score as
Speaker 2: a score the entirety of one or both of those games,
Speaker 2: and he just continually shows up every single time they
Speaker 2: need him to. I think he's one of those guys too,
Speaker 2: where his like lack of physical imposition on the game
Speaker 2: kind of makes people think what he's doing is fluky.
Speaker 2: And look, I need to really really dive into the
Speaker 2: tape to kind of and I plan on doing that
Speaker 2: this summer to kind of get like a better feel
Speaker 2: for what makes Jalen Brunson such dominant score on the
Speaker 2: surface kind of take on it is like kind of
Speaker 2: thirty thousand feet is just he's the ultimate. It reminds
Speaker 2: me of Kyrie in the sense that, like he literally
Speaker 2: has every move in the book. Yeah, he can shoot
Speaker 2: step back threes, he can hit forward moving threes off
Speaker 2: of ball screens. He can do it going both directions.
Speaker 2: He can hit pull up mid range jump shots in
Speaker 2: ball screens. He can hit turn your back to the
Speaker 2: basket fade away jump shots in ISO and post up situations.
Speaker 2: He's got all of the floaters and hooks from the
Speaker 2: short range, and he can finish at the rim. And
Speaker 2: he's a great playmaker, and so like he literally can
Speaker 2: do it all and that in and of itself, I
Speaker 2: think kind of gives him a level of versatility that
Speaker 2: he can always kind of throw a change up at
Speaker 2: whatever defender is guarding him, and that makes him kind
Speaker 2: of super resilient in these situations. And so even though, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: in a vacuum, I would take Shay to run a
Speaker 2: franchise because I think he's younger and more physically gifted
Speaker 2: and obviously like there's a lot of upside there. But
Speaker 2: to me, like Jalen Brunson deserves his flowers for this
Speaker 2: playoff run, and I think he's just done a better
Speaker 2: job of what Shay's doing on a nightly basis and
Speaker 2: a higher pressure situation for a team who needs it more.
Speaker 2: And so I put Jalen Brunson at five. So Logan,
Speaker 2: I have you at So that puts my list at
Speaker 2: jok Luca, Tatum at Brunson, Carson's at Jokic Aunt Luca,
Speaker 2: Sga Tatum, Logan, I have you at jokic ant Sga,
Speaker 2: and we need your four and five.
Speaker 7: Luca, and then Brunston, I just want to ask real quick, Jason,
Speaker 7: what do you mean about by his lack of physical imposition?
Speaker 1: Like on the game. Like, I think Brunson's a pretty
Speaker 1: physical guy.
Speaker 3: No, he plays a physical brand.
Speaker 2: When I say what I mean is he's not particularly fast,
Speaker 2: he's not particularly strong. Well, he is a strong player
Speaker 2: for his size, but he's not like particularly big. He's
Speaker 2: not particularly tall or athletic like. He just he's straight
Speaker 2: up beating these dudes with with skill development and and
Speaker 2: just IQ and savvy and audacity and just like Alpha Dog,
Speaker 2: you can't guard me like that, He's.
Speaker 3: Just doing it. I'll tell you that the Baldon stop
Speaker 3: would love him.
Speaker 2: He's just just straight hooping these guys into the dirt.
Speaker 6: But he's no Jamal Crawford.
Speaker 7: Tell you that the reason I would go with Brunson
Speaker 7: and like SGA over Tatum.
Speaker 1: You make a great argument, I think, Jason.
Speaker 3: About what you have Tatum outside the top five entirely, wouldn't.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm I'm the resident Boston Celtics and Jason
Speaker 7: Tatum hater. I will wear that hat. I will wear
Speaker 7: the hat. I will be the spokesperson for the campaign.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Like, I think you make a great case for Tatum
Speaker 7: with what he brings defensively, with how great he has
Speaker 7: been on the boards and how imperative that is to
Speaker 7: Boston's winning formula, Like without Christoph Sporzingis, Boston is kind
Speaker 7: of at a significant size and interior disadvantage with Horford,
Speaker 7: Like you need Tatum to play that role. And so
Speaker 7: I think he's great at those things and all the
Speaker 7: extra things, but I just don't think Jason Tatum could
Speaker 7: do what Jaylen Brunston is doing right now. I don't
Speaker 7: think Jason Tatum could do what shake Gilges Alexander is
Speaker 7: doing right now. Like Saston, Tatum has such a high
Speaker 7: ceiling when his pull up jumper is going, and that's great,
Speaker 7: but I've also seen Jason Tatum's offensive floor.
Speaker 1: And it's a pit man, it is a big hole.
Speaker 7: Like I just Tatum brings such a lack of offensive
Speaker 7: consistency that I would always take Brunton and Sga over
Speaker 7: them because I can just count on these guys to
Speaker 7: consistently deliver. I don't trust Jason Tatum consistent to consistently deliver.
Speaker 7: Like he's got all the tools, he's got all the traits,
Speaker 7: but it's about putting it together. And SGA and Brunson
Speaker 7: to me clear him as number one scorers and number
Speaker 7: one playmakers and I just value their offensive skill sets
Speaker 7: more than Tatum. I don't know why you guys are surprised,
Speaker 7: Like I had Tatum outside of my top ten players playoffs.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like I'm not.
Speaker 5: Tatum is hotly, It's not a big gap for me.
Speaker 5: Like I do view Tatum more highly as an overall
Speaker 5: basketball player. However, what Brunson is doing right now is
Speaker 5: ridiculous and there's nothing.
Speaker 6: Fluky about it. I compare them, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Six weeks ago maybe, or really he and this whole
Speaker 5: next team to being very iverson and early two thousand
Speaker 5: and six ers esque, and that you have this team
Speaker 5: that is built on high effort, defensive minded guys. It's different,
Speaker 5: of course, because now it's twenty twenty four and most
Speaker 5: of these dudes can shoot, but you have no other
Speaker 5: shot creators, and you have this small guard who has
Speaker 5: to bear a ridiculous offensive burden, and it's not possible
Speaker 5: to be super efficient under those circumstances. Like Jalen, Brunson's
Speaker 5: true shooting percentage is fifty four in these playoffs, well
Speaker 5: below the average. There's no question he has been one
Speaker 5: of the best offensive engines because he is the only
Speaker 5: reliable shot creator.
Speaker 6: And my gun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, none of them are shots of offense. Yeah, none
Speaker 3: of them are bad shots because they literally need hit.
Speaker 2: Like if he takes a tough traundateaway, You're like, that's
Speaker 2: the highest value shot they can get on this possession.
Speaker 2: And then honestly, like most of one of the things
Speaker 2: that you're hitting there too, with the fifty four percent
Speaker 2: for shooting percentage, it's being amplified by offensive rebounding because
Speaker 2: he's just getting so many additional attempts.
Speaker 6: That's true.
Speaker 5: So what I think is really interesting about the Brunton
Speaker 5: Tatum dynamic is like there's no question that both of
Speaker 5: them is very much engineered for their current situation. Like
Speaker 5: Jason Tatum is never going to need to carry the
Speaker 5: offensive burden that Jalen Brunson does as a scorer, as
Speaker 5: a creator, him being such a strong part of that
Speaker 5: connected elite when they're dialed in defense, that's what the
Speaker 5: Boston Celtics need. Whereas I think if Jason Tatum were
Speaker 5: on the New York Knicks, like you would not be
Speaker 5: seeing the level of offensive production that you're getting from
Speaker 5: Jalen Brunson. So that one is legitimately tough to me
Speaker 5: but when I think about the ceiling of configuring a
Speaker 5: team around either one of them, I do think it's
Speaker 5: a little bit higher with Tatum, just marginally so, because
Speaker 5: of course Brunson's doing this under difficult circumstances, but he's
Speaker 5: never going to be like the most efficient offensive number
Speaker 5: one because of some of his size limitations.
Speaker 6: He's incredible.
Speaker 5: And then it is like the gap in the two
Speaker 5: way impact and Jason Tatum being one of the best
Speaker 5: rebounders in these playoffs. And by the way, that's part
Speaker 5: of the reason that I go SGA over Bruntson. It's
Speaker 5: not purely about the offensive impact. It's not to say
Speaker 5: that Brunton is bad defensively. We all know he's a
Speaker 5: champion charge taker, but like SGA is making impactful plays
Speaker 5: as a help or he's averaging like over three stocks
Speaker 5: a game, like he's not all world there, but he's
Speaker 5: legitimately quite good. And I think that that's where the
Speaker 5: gap is as much as anything.
Speaker 3: This was fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one last thing I want to hit just on
Speaker 2: the Tatum thing, Like, I let's not forget it that
Speaker 2: he does play one of the most important positions athletically
Speaker 2: in the league, which is like that big forward, Like,
Speaker 2: this is the guy that's responsible for low man responsibilities
Speaker 2: a lot of the time. This is the guy that
Speaker 2: has to clean up the defensive glass a lot of
Speaker 2: the time. This is the guy that has to usually
Speaker 2: staying with a larger post player. Yeah, exactly, And so
Speaker 2: like I think that like we again, I believe. I
Speaker 2: think I believe truly everything I said about as it
Speaker 2: pertains to Tatum. I think that ants ceiling is a
Speaker 2: pull up jump shooter in his first step are just
Speaker 2: gonna be what a to enter into conversations both currently
Speaker 2: and all time that Tatum is kind of incapable of
Speaker 2: entering into that said, like, focusing on the scoring is
Speaker 2: just one small part of what Jason Tatum does. And
Speaker 2: as much as he's been frustrating and plateauing as a
Speaker 2: pull up shooter and as an efficient scorer, especially in
Speaker 2: the postsetting or in the postseason setting, his overall impact
Speaker 2: has been ascending. In my opinion, I thought the end
Speaker 2: of that game against Cleveland last night was one of
Speaker 2: his best moments as an NBA player in the sense
Speaker 2: that like he just looked like the old savvy like
Speaker 2: it reminded me of like Lebron where it's like he's
Speaker 2: not doing anything stupid other than just looking the direction
Speaker 2: the defense is leaning and throwing basic swing and skip
Speaker 2: passes that set guys up for success. And so I
Speaker 2: just want to make sure that Tatum gets the appropriate
Speaker 2: level of respect that he deserves that goes beyond just
Speaker 2: the scoring piece. All right, before we get out of here, guys,
Speaker 2: why don't you tell me a little bit about what
Speaker 2: you're working on over at the nerd Sets channel. Everybody
Speaker 2: who's tuned in tonight, make sure you guys head over
Speaker 2: there and hit that subscribe button for them. They're doing
Speaker 2: a bunch of really cool stuff. Carson's going to tell
Speaker 2: you about it right now.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So we are at nerd Sash.
Speaker 5: First of all, of course, appreciate you having us on
Speaker 5: as always, Jason, a bunch of fun. Very glad that
Speaker 5: you added that segment. Also the top five players that
Speaker 5: was fun fun. I thought that was great. So yeah,
Speaker 5: follow us at nerd Sash on YouTube. We are doing
Speaker 5: almost nightly shows. We're reacting to a bunch of these games.
Speaker 5: We're actually gonna take tomorrow night off, but then we'll
Speaker 5: be back on Saturday. On top of that, you can
Speaker 5: watch all of our shows on our YouTube page. We
Speaker 5: also are doing some in depth video breakdown film driven content.
Speaker 5: I just made a video about why Yoki is the
Speaker 5: best score on the planet right before they lost by
Speaker 5: forty five, so go check that one out.
Speaker 6: Beautiful timing by me, O, my, and Yeah.
Speaker 5: You can follow us across social media if you want,
Speaker 5: Instagram and TikTok at Nerd, sash, Twitter, at nerd, Underscore, sesh.
Speaker 5: We do a bunch of trivia content there on top
Speaker 5: of posting some clips from the show to get more
Speaker 5: of our analysis, so that pretty much covers it.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys seriously for taking the time tonight. I know,
Speaker 2: short notice, but when we get a team losing by
Speaker 2: fifty in the playoffs, it's no longer no longer makes
Speaker 2: sense for me to get up here and talk to
Speaker 2: x's and o's about what's going on. So I appreciate
Speaker 2: you guys taking the time out of your night to
Speaker 2: make this happen. All of you guys supporting the show obviously,
Speaker 2: it means the world to me that you guys keep
Speaker 2: rocking with us as we get through this playoff run. Again,
Speaker 2: it means a lot to me as well. If you
Speaker 2: guys head over to nerd Session and subscribe and support
Speaker 2: those guys are doing great work over there. That's all
Speaker 2: we have for tonight. I may or may not do
Speaker 2: something with film in the morning. We'll see how I
Speaker 2: feel when I wake up. And then we're for sure
Speaker 2: going live after the final buzzer of Nick Pacers Game six,
Speaker 2: so I will see you guys.
Speaker 1: Then the volume