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Speaker 1: I picked Boston in six. I thought they would win.
Speaker 1: That was my draft Kings pick. I thought Jalen Brown
Speaker 1: would play well and the Boston Celtics would win, although
Speaker 1: Kyrie didn't offer much of anything, and I thought he'd
Speaker 1: have a decent assist night. You know, my takeaway is
Speaker 1: the small ball revolution in the NBA was really a
Speaker 1: bunch of nonsense. It was Steph Curry and Draymond Green
Speaker 1: who could play big. Everybody tried to duplicate it for
Speaker 1: about four years, and then everybody's like Houston got kind
Speaker 1: of close. Size matters, and Porzingis on both ends, altering shots.
Speaker 1: On the defensive end, he was the initial Unicorn seven
Speaker 1: to four dribble shoot. There's nothing you can do. It's
Speaker 1: why Wemby will take over the league next year at
Speaker 1: the All Star break. Is that this is a big
Speaker 1: man's game. You know, in the NFL, you know Bill
Speaker 1: parce Sells and the late great George Young was a
Speaker 1: general manager for the Giants, and his whole theory was
Speaker 1: went in doubt, just draft big guys like big beat small,
Speaker 1: and in the NBA, length and size is so important.
Speaker 1: And my takeaway, if that's the poor Zingis I get
Speaker 1: in the series, Dallas is in trouble. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the things I said, they have such a mature
Speaker 1: offensive team, and they're all a little different. I mean,
Speaker 1: Tatum tonight was more assist guy than he was score guy.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, Tatum can have a bad
Speaker 1: night in this series and they could win by fifteen.
Speaker 1: Kyriees an off tonight they get shelled, and that to
Speaker 1: me is the difference in the series. And I said
Speaker 1: that before I knew what I was getting with Porzingis,
Speaker 1: but I thought, you know, the size of Porzingis the
Speaker 1: matchup problem. You know, Dallas came into this thing, let's
Speaker 1: feel it out, and very quickly it's like, yeah, we've
Speaker 1: got We're gonna have to go back to the drawing
Speaker 1: board on this, and then Porzingis sits for a while.
Speaker 1: But I would start with that is that, you know,
Speaker 1: if I got six guys who could all drop twenty man,
Speaker 1: that's in a with the Apron. Now it's hard to
Speaker 1: get a third star. The league doesn't want it anymore.
Speaker 1: They want you to draft and develop. That's what the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Legal pay a lot of money. They don't
Speaker 1: want you going to cherry picking stars. Boston. This is
Speaker 1: an absurdly deep offensive roster. I mean, you go look
Speaker 1: at Porzingis last year. He was the guy for Washington.
Speaker 1: You're like that for a terrible team. That's an All
Speaker 1: Star level player. Derek k Wwhite's a five, Derek White's
Speaker 1: a two on probably thirty percent of the teams in
Speaker 1: the league. So I thought tonight was a little bit
Speaker 1: of what I thought is that Dallas cannot withstand a
Speaker 1: bad luker Kyrie Knight Boston, Boston. If you told me
Speaker 1: a Tatum and Derek White didn't play well, Boston could
Speaker 1: still win. And so I just start with that, is
Speaker 1: that Porzingis' size, He was the initial unicorn. It's it's
Speaker 1: a problem. There's not a lot you can do. It's
Speaker 1: a big problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I thought this game was a brilliant showcase of what
Speaker 3: makes chrisps Porzingis awesome and how he elevates the ceiling
Speaker 3: of this Boston team. First of all, he's their only
Speaker 3: legitimate rim protector. Like Al Horford's a really interesting player
Speaker 3: and does a lot to help this team on both
Speaker 3: ends of the floor. But chrisops Porzingis is just a
Speaker 3: mountain of a man that is really difficult to finish
Speaker 3: over at the rim. In addition to that, he brings
Speaker 3: this there. There are a lot of guys that can
Speaker 3: shoot in the NBA at the center position. There are
Speaker 3: very very few guys at the center position that are
Speaker 3: like lasers, like you just can't leave them open. And
Speaker 3: one of my biggest reasons why I picked Boston is
Speaker 3: Dallas's defense is very much geared up at the rim
Speaker 3: as like a rim protection team with Gafford and Lively.
Speaker 1: That's why they were good against Minnesota.
Speaker 3: Exactly you know they're big exactly, and they have some
Speaker 3: good perimeter defenders, but they don't have a bunch of
Speaker 3: good perimeter defenders, and so when you can really spread
Speaker 3: them out and Lively and Gafford can't solve problems at
Speaker 3: the rim as rim protectors. It just challenges the weak
Speaker 3: points of Dallas's offense. And then the second piece of
Speaker 3: it with porzingis that goes beyond the three point shooting.
Speaker 3: One of the easiest ways to counter a ball screen
Speaker 3: is to switch it, because the whole point of the
Speaker 3: ball screen is you can get downhill because the guy
Speaker 3: has to chase over the top of a screen. But
Speaker 3: if you switch it, it shuts it down. But what
Speaker 3: makes Porzingis such a valuable weapon is if you switch it,
Speaker 3: you're putting your smaller player onto Porzingis and he can
Speaker 3: just walk them down to fifteen feet from the basket
Speaker 3: and they can toss it back to him and he
Speaker 3: can go to work. He showed it all in that
Speaker 3: game one. He was protecting the rim. He was hitting
Speaker 3: trailing threes. In transition, he was hitting spot up threes
Speaker 3: and helped defense situations. He was hitting picking pop threes,
Speaker 3: he was beating switches, by posting up around the elbow.
Speaker 3: It was everything that makes Porzingis great. And I'm glad
Speaker 3: you pointed this out because everyone just accounted for Porzingis
Speaker 3: as like available and healthy. But like, it's really hard
Speaker 3: to go thirty something days without playing NBA basketball and
Speaker 3: then to walk in the NBA Finals, Like, I don't think,
Speaker 3: I don't think, we're like. It just was so impressive
Speaker 3: the way he immediately looked comfortable and immediately started thriving.
Speaker 3: But a big part of that is he is the guy.
Speaker 3: He's the key that solves all of the issues that
Speaker 3: Boston could have had against this Dallas defense. He unlocks
Speaker 3: it all. Was I was just completely blown away by him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The other thing that jumped out the big winner
Speaker 1: tonight too is Joe Mizzoula. So last year he looked
Speaker 1: a little over his skis, a little bit over his skis.
Speaker 1: You know, the Spolstra matchup, You're like, oh boy, this
Speaker 1: is a mismatch. So they strengthen his staff, Brad Stevens,
Speaker 1: you know, enhances the staff. Not only did he really
Speaker 1: target Dallas's liabilities defensively, like he went right after him.
Speaker 1: That's that's game prep. But when Dallas made a surge
Speaker 1: in the third quarter, he calls a time out and
Speaker 1: Boston goes on like a fourteen to nothing run. That's coaching,
Speaker 1: that's Steve Kerr stuff.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The Warriors come out of halftime and there was going
Speaker 1: these crazy runs. That's that's where coaching matters. Spolstra late
Speaker 1: curer out side of halftime, and so I thought from
Speaker 1: the opening game plan to that time out, re energizing
Speaker 1: his team, making a couple of changes, and just putting
Speaker 1: it away because you start watching Luca hit a couple
Speaker 1: Boston had several really ugly, sloppy possessions. What you do
Speaker 1: when you get ahead by twenty five, you just mail
Speaker 1: in stuff. You know, you just don't. You can't stay
Speaker 1: engaged for two hours and forty five minut You just
Speaker 1: naturally get sloppy. Boston did. Luca gets them back in it,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, the timeout, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: that's the difference this year. I don't think Missoula calls
Speaker 1: a timeout. Last year they go on a fourteen to
Speaker 1: nothing run. First of all, that did n Ab Porzingis
Speaker 1: and Drew Holly. They're a better offensive team. Everybody feels
Speaker 1: just Jalen Brown just gets a little better every year.
Speaker 1: But that's a thing like that was one of the
Speaker 1: things I worried about this with Boston. I said, I
Speaker 1: don't know if Missoula is a good coach. I think
Speaker 1: he's confident in the East. Is he a good coach tonight?
Speaker 1: I was like, that's good coaching. That's noticeably good coaching
Speaker 1: because Jason Kid's a much better coach than four years ago.
Speaker 1: So that jumped out to me. You can respond to
Speaker 1: that if you want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I thought the time out, like, that's an
Speaker 3: important part of coaching that doesn't really get talked about much.
Speaker 3: We talked so much about personality management and tactical approach
Speaker 3: and all these different things, but like, actually managing basketball
Speaker 3: games is one of the most important parts of the
Speaker 3: coach's responsibility. You have to feel when things are teetering
Speaker 3: and time when you're going to kind of step in
Speaker 3: and try to right the ship, so to speak. And
Speaker 3: Boston just had a really ugly offensive stretch there that
Speaker 3: looked very similar to a lot of the nasty offensive
Speaker 3: stretches we've seen from Boston over the course of the season.
Speaker 3: They were settling for quick shots, quick threes, isolation threes.
Speaker 3: Immediately out of that time out, it was abundantly clear
Speaker 3: that Missoula was harping on the fact that they needed
Speaker 3: to get back to driving and kicking, because when they
Speaker 3: beat someone off the dribble and they passed two or
Speaker 3: three times and it's a wide open catch and shoot three,
Speaker 3: it's a really good shot with really high value. When
Speaker 3: they run up the floor in transition, and now Horford
Speaker 3: just throws a transition wing three off the side of
Speaker 3: the rim, like without running any sort of offense, that's
Speaker 3: when they can get carried away. And then I'm glad
Speaker 3: you mentioned the game plan because I thought Missoula's game
Speaker 3: plan was brilliant to start this game. One of the
Speaker 3: specific things he did was instead of putting Horford and
Speaker 3: Porzingis on to Gafford and Lively their centers, he put
Speaker 3: him on to PJ. Washington and Derek Jones Junior. So
Speaker 3: what that does, which is really fascinating it. By the way,
Speaker 3: this is a shout out to Jason Tatum, because Tatum's
Speaker 3: defensive versatility is what gives him the ability to guard centers.
Speaker 3: He's big enough to guard a center underneath the basket.
Speaker 3: But because of that, Derek Jones Junior and PJ Washington
Speaker 3: when they're setting screens for Luca and rolling to the basket,
Speaker 3: they're not the same type of vertical spacers that can
Speaker 3: catch lobs like Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively when they
Speaker 3: pop to the three point line. They aren't very good
Speaker 3: above the break three point shooters, and so I thought
Speaker 3: it really threw Dallas for a loop offensively that they
Speaker 3: didn't know how to attack, and then to add another
Speaker 3: layer to it, the spacing gets all janky because even
Speaker 3: when Luca and PJ are when Pj's rolling or Derek
Speaker 3: Jones is rolling or popping when Luca's getting downhill, now
Speaker 3: Tatum and Lively and Gafford and all those guys, they're
Speaker 3: just like congregated around the basket, just messing up the spacing.
Speaker 3: I thought it was a really smart defensive game plan
Speaker 3: from Mizula. I thought he managed the game really well.
Speaker 3: I thought that was a really good call out. What'd
Speaker 3: you think of Jalen Brown tonight? I thought he did
Speaker 3: an amazing job.
Speaker 1: I picked him to be m VP of the series.
Speaker 1: So I feel like Jalen Brown more than any Celtic.
Speaker 1: I know exactly what I get. I get tremendous athleticism,
Speaker 1: defensive pressure. He's always engaged, plays with a little chip
Speaker 1: like like he finished at the rim. He gives you
Speaker 1: about one of those a game, and I feel like
Speaker 1: every year his offensive game gets a little more refined.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's you know, maybe aesthetically as naturally
Speaker 1: as fluid as a Tatum uh, maybe not as dynamic
Speaker 1: as aunt uh doesn't have just the offensive uh skill
Speaker 1: level of a Luca. But what he is is he's
Speaker 1: just a really high IQ, intense, increasingly refined, energized player.
Speaker 1: He's strong, He's got like a d Wade body. He's strong,
Speaker 1: He'll he'll lean on you on the defensive end. I
Speaker 1: think Jalen's a classic sort of kind of quiet you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't get he doesn't get chatty. He'll always be
Speaker 1: underappreciated because he doesn't. He doesn't ask to be stared at.
Speaker 1: He does a lot of little stuff. He's really good
Speaker 1: with his body, really good at constantly like he knows
Speaker 1: he's in great shape. He knows he can wear you down,
Speaker 1: like Jalen in a seven game series is the kind
Speaker 1: of player that could get stronger. He like d Wade
Speaker 1: was like that. D Wade liked it. D Wade would
Speaker 1: be on the floor constantly and You're like, just didn't
Speaker 1: affect him. It's almost like a football player in basketball,
Speaker 1: like he liked the physicality a pitcher that's better sixth
Speaker 1: thenning on. And when I watch Jalen Brown, I just
Speaker 1: feel like I get the exact same guy, maybe in
Speaker 1: the best shape of the top three percent of the
Speaker 1: league in shape, physicality, and you know something, that's what
Speaker 1: I didn't get from because I want to pivot it
Speaker 1: to this. So I write notes during games, a handful
Speaker 1: of notes, and one of the notes I put in
Speaker 1: the first half is where are the assists? So when
Speaker 1: Kyrie's not hitting, okay, I need assists. Who gotta give.
Speaker 1: I felt like tonight was like Lucas Turn Kyrie's turn
Speaker 1: Lucas Turn. I thought there were I thought the crowd
Speaker 1: affected Kyrie. He got a little into his head. I
Speaker 1: didn't feel if he wasn't hitting his shots, he wasn't
Speaker 1: doing anything else Whereas when Jalen Brown's not hitting his shots,
Speaker 1: I still feel like get a complete player, a completely engaged,
Speaker 1: energized player. When you're a great offensive player and you're
Speaker 1: not hitting shots. I helped us feel like offensive players
Speaker 1: can get a little moody, you know, they can just
Speaker 1: kind of get out into their feels. I never feel
Speaker 1: that with Jalen, so I thought Kyrie and I just
Speaker 1: didn't get forget the shooting he was off. I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like got enough energy from Kyrie. That was my take.
Speaker 3: No, one hundred percent agree. I thought in the second
Speaker 3: half he was missing shots, but in the first half,
Speaker 3: like he was taking bad shots, like he was kind
Speaker 3: of forcing the issue. He had some bad misses in
Speaker 3: that first half. He shot one off the side of
Speaker 3: the backboard, like he got blocked, Like, yeah, he got
Speaker 3: blocked in at ball screen, Like it was just he
Speaker 3: was just kind of forcing the issue. I agree with you.
Speaker 3: I think some of the situation with the booze and
Speaker 3: just the intensity of the moment got to him a
Speaker 3: little bit. Yeah, And you're right, like that's the thing,
Speaker 3: like one of the to bring it back to Jalen
Speaker 3: Brown like that, to me is what's fascinating about Boston's
Speaker 3: roster build. You don't have Derek White, but before the
Speaker 3: halfway point of twenty twenty two, you don't have Drew
Speaker 3: Holliday before this year, you don't have Porzingis. Suddenly you
Speaker 3: need him to be like an offensive engine next to Tatum,
Speaker 3: and that'll shine a light on some of his shortcomings
Speaker 3: as as an offensive initiator. But because there's so much
Speaker 3: offensive talent on this team, he can be kind of
Speaker 3: like pointed and shot in a very specific area where
Speaker 3: he's great, and like I thought, he he ripped Luca
Speaker 3: in the back court twice at in the first half
Speaker 3: just with ball pressure. I thought in general, just him
Speaker 3: being a pest on Luca was just a huge pain.
Speaker 3: He was in help side, making blocks at the rim. Defensively,
Speaker 3: he's just he's the one guy on the roster that's
Speaker 3: actually like a true top tier athlete, like Tatum's really big, yes,
Speaker 3: and he's also like a good athlete, but like Jylen
Speaker 3: Brown is like an actual top tier NBA athlete. So
Speaker 3: when he's allowed to focus on just being a wrecking ball,
Speaker 3: it allows him to kind of channel his strengths in
Speaker 3: his best areas and he can have success. Whereas with Kyrie,
Speaker 3: they desperately need him to be great offensively in order
Speaker 3: for him to bring the level of impact that they
Speaker 3: need from him. And as far as the Assisco that
Speaker 3: you brought up, I do think a big part of
Speaker 3: that was Boston's defensive game plan. You could tell the
Speaker 3: fact that they were not allowed to they were not
Speaker 3: able to bring Lively and Gafford into ball screens as easily.
Speaker 3: You can tell that kind of through them for a loop.
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna dig into the film and try to
Speaker 3: find some answers, but I'm really curious to see how
Speaker 3: Dallas tries to counter that over the course of the series,
Speaker 3: because You're right, it did turn into kind of your turn,
Speaker 3: my turn type of basketball with Luca and Kyrie, and
Speaker 3: they're gonna have to find a way to loosen that up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember seeing Jalen Brown at Cal when the
Speaker 1: PAC twelve was a conference, and my takeaway was cut
Speaker 1: he you know PAC twelve, he's like an athlete. You're like,
Speaker 1: this guy is he playing the football team? Like this
Speaker 1: guy is just cut?
Speaker 3: And he was.
Speaker 1: It was he felt a little stiff, and then Brad Stevens,
Speaker 1: you know, the college coach, gets him and he just
Speaker 1: gets more fluid and more fluid, And same thing with Missoula.
Speaker 1: I just feel like there's certain guys in the NBA
Speaker 1: that have made themselves into great players. I don't think
Speaker 1: coming out of col I would have thought he would
Speaker 1: be this good offensively. He just makes himself like I
Speaker 1: don't know the numbers in front of me. I feel
Speaker 1: like the first several years he was just like two
Speaker 1: and a half three points better every year, and he
Speaker 1: just you can see the work he put into it.
Speaker 1: You can see it from his you know, his cardio,
Speaker 1: his his build. Yeah, and you know a little bit
Speaker 1: like d Wade. He's not a naturally brilliant shooter, but
Speaker 1: he ends up with twenty five a lot and he's
Speaker 1: playing on you know what I mean. Some guys just
Speaker 1: they just end up they the points, like Jalen's points
Speaker 1: are memorable. If he has twenty seven, you remember the points.
Speaker 1: They're big points, they're points at the rim, they're steals
Speaker 1: and dunks. Something else that jumped out to me that
Speaker 1: I wrote down is that, you know, over the course
Speaker 1: of a series, obviously Dallas will come out and have
Speaker 1: huge energy in the first quarter of Game two. They're
Speaker 1: going to come out with their hair on fire, and
Speaker 1: Dallas is going to have to match that. But there
Speaker 1: are some things like where does Lively fit in this series? Like,
Speaker 1: I think Boston players will all take turns fitting wonderfully
Speaker 1: in this series. They'll all get their shots. Tatum will
Speaker 1: score more points in Game two. But there are a
Speaker 1: couple of Dallas players that I think. You don't want
Speaker 1: to play a series and you're reacting to Boston. You
Speaker 1: want to make Boston try to react to you. And
Speaker 1: I watched a couple of times to night. I scribbled
Speaker 1: down like Dallas is just reacting, but Boston's setting the tempo,
Speaker 1: Boston's doing what they want. Boston is dictating all the terms.
Speaker 1: Dallas is just kind of reacting counter punching. And if
Speaker 1: Kyrie's not hitting shots when you're counterpunching, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: blown out. So there are some matchups in this series.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, Luca and Kyrie both have to play well.
Speaker 1: I don't know what is Lively gonna be an offensive player? Like,
Speaker 1: you know Lively can be a great rim defender. Well,
Speaker 1: if Porzingis is gonna go to the perimeter and Horford's
Speaker 1: on the bench much of the series, what is Lively's role, Like,
Speaker 1: what is he gonna do? So I in my notes,
Speaker 1: I just kept feeling like Dallas just reacted all night.
Speaker 1: Only in that brief third quarter run when the when
Speaker 1: the Salticus got sloppy, did I feel like Dallas sees
Speaker 1: control and it was just sort of Luca.
Speaker 3: Well, to put it simply, the reason why they're in
Speaker 3: that reacting position is because Boston's like core set game
Speaker 3: plan is clearly better than Dallas's kind of core set
Speaker 3: game plan. Like they're the natural way they wanted to
Speaker 3: come into this series playing heavily favors Boston, and so
Speaker 3: Dallas is gonna have to figure out a way to
Speaker 3: adjust now. I actually think Lively is a super valuable
Speaker 3: piece for them on the defensive end because of his
Speaker 3: ability to switch out onto the perimeter and guard a
Speaker 3: little bit. He picked up some fouls in the second
Speaker 3: half where he's just basic fundamental stuff. He didn't keep
Speaker 3: his hands vertical, he kept like kind of coming down
Speaker 3: on the player that was attacking him. But on the
Speaker 3: offensive end, you're right, one of the things that gets
Speaker 3: tricky is if he can come set a ball screen
Speaker 3: and then roll hard to the rim and catch lobs,
Speaker 3: then he's a real threat. But if you can't bring
Speaker 3: him into a ball screen, because he's got Tatum on
Speaker 3: him and they're switching, then suddenly he's just standing in
Speaker 3: the dunker spot, and they're gonna have to find some
Speaker 3: ways to counter that. I think an easy one is
Speaker 3: to just incorporate him in the action. There's a way,
Speaker 3: There are ways to run ball screens with three players,
Speaker 3: So I would have Lively set the screen, and then
Speaker 3: as soon as they switch, I would just backscreen for
Speaker 3: Lively and try to see if you can get him
Speaker 3: cutting downhill. That way, they're gonna have to find ways
Speaker 3: to get those bigs moving towards the rim, because if
Speaker 3: they're just standing there in the dunker spot, they're not
Speaker 3: getting enough offensive rebounds, they're not cleaning up enough lobs
Speaker 3: underneath the basket, they're not getting enough offensively out of
Speaker 3: that position. You saw a little bit in this game too,
Speaker 3: where they just went to Kliba because Kleiba can shoot,
Speaker 3: and so they go to kleebet the five, so at
Speaker 3: least they can space the floor a little bit. Maybe
Speaker 3: that's the direction this goes. If they can't figure out,
Speaker 3: if they can't figure out how to use Lively in Gafford,
Speaker 3: then they go to and they have to lean into
Speaker 3: Cleba and play small. That would be a really big
Speaker 3: issue because now you're taking one of the foundational parts
Speaker 3: of Dallas's offense, which is their rim running bigs and
Speaker 3: their lob game, and you're just sidelining it, right, So
Speaker 3: it's tricky, But again, this is what Boston does to you.
Speaker 3: This is why it's such a tough matchup, and like
Speaker 3: it it's super fascinating to me because this has been
Speaker 3: kind of the theme of this playoff run, is like
Speaker 3: how different teams match up with each other, and Boston
Speaker 3: is uniquely equipped because of Tatum to neutralize the lob game,
Speaker 3: and then on the other end of the floor, they're
Speaker 3: uniquely equipped to attack the weak points in Dallas's offense.
Speaker 3: How many a defense? How many times tonight did you
Speaker 3: see Tata or like Luca end up on a switch
Speaker 3: on one of the guys and then the boss player
Speaker 3: would just drive right around Luca and then bring another
Speaker 3: guy in and pass pass wide open three. Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's an issue. Like in the last round, when Luca
Speaker 3: would get switched on to Anthony Edwards, he'd have an
Speaker 3: easy job, like just play up on him because if
Speaker 3: he beats you off the dribble. No one's scared to
Speaker 3: go bear, so Lively and Gafford are just waiting underneath
Speaker 3: the basket to help you on the backside. That's not
Speaker 3: how it's gonna be in this series. Luca's gonna have
Speaker 3: to contain the basketball. It's gonna be a challenge for him.
Speaker 3: And so I'm really really fascinated to see how the
Speaker 3: matchups kind of shake out. I will say this and
Speaker 3: I want to kick it to you just kind of
Speaker 3: moving forward in the series. I there were a lot
Speaker 3: of things that went Boston's way tonight. They came out
Speaker 3: hair on fire and shot extremely well. A Dallas shot
Speaker 3: very poortally. Luca and Kyrie both really struggled for the
Speaker 3: most part. I thought Luca put up his points, but
Speaker 3: he always does, but like he I thought, in the
Speaker 3: key portions of the game, he struggled. And so there
Speaker 3: is a very good chance that in Game two Boston
Speaker 3: doesn't shoot as well and that Dallas shoots better. Kyrie
Speaker 3: Luca played better. So I think Game two is gonna
Speaker 3: be a really close game, and I think it's gonna
Speaker 3: come down to crunch time, and I think it's gonna
Speaker 3: be one of the first pivot points of this series.
Speaker 1: M I think this is gonna be an offensive series.
Speaker 1: I just you know, again, the NBA would prefer you
Speaker 1: don't have four or five veteran offensive pieces. Like think
Speaker 1: about this, Tatum's a one, Porzingis on bad teams is
Speaker 1: a one or a one. A Jalen Brown on lesser
Speaker 1: teams is a one or one. A Derek White's a
Speaker 1: two on lesser teams. And if you look at Drew
Speaker 1: Holliday when Chris Middleton was hurt, he was a two
Speaker 1: last year for Milwaukee. Okay, that's like five guys that
Speaker 1: could be a two or a one. We may not
Speaker 1: see a lot of that, even even if on a
Speaker 1: Denver Gordon's really any defensive guy who can score, but
Speaker 1: you don't view him in that role. I like KCP,
Speaker 1: He's not a two on any team in the league,
Speaker 1: even the bad teams. So you get to a point
Speaker 1: with Boston where I'm like the league is trying to
Speaker 1: avoid that. They like the OKC model, get draft picks,
Speaker 1: bill develop, you know, just that's what the NBA wants.
Speaker 1: They want. They don't want you to go and cherry
Speaker 1: pick people. I think the NBA loves the Knicks. You know,
Speaker 1: if you have to move a Randall to get a
Speaker 1: Paul George whatever, that's fine, but they don't want this
Speaker 1: accumulation of like five guys. Like I watched tonight and
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, Dallas played old Clippers, figured it
Speaker 1: out quickly young OKC. I didn't pick them to win
Speaker 1: good series. But Oklahoma City's got a little Boston in it.
Speaker 1: They can spread you out. You know. They're difficult young,
Speaker 1: not as refined Boston. And I start watching this tonight
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you gotta kind of pick your poison
Speaker 1: with Boston. You're really like, you know, I kept saying
Speaker 1: Indiana is so terrible defensively, Yeah, but Boston's really good offensively,
Speaker 1: and you're just like, come on, you got five guys
Speaker 1: that could be a two. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 1: most if you're a casual people don't understand how good
Speaker 1: Derek White is. He's like all NBA defense. He's long,
Speaker 1: he's smart, he can shoot, you know, his plus minus
Speaker 1: his net rating. It's like I think Boston, I think
Speaker 1: Dallas is gonna have their hands full. I just think
Speaker 1: you gotta just a little bit when you play Boston,
Speaker 1: you gotta cross your fingers a little. I mean tonight
Speaker 1: Tatum wasn't scoring a lot, Porzingis was unstoppable. I just
Speaker 1: I don't want to overreact, but god, when's the last
Speaker 1: I mean, Boston has just rolled through the league since October?
Speaker 1: I mean, at some point, how many times have I
Speaker 1: seen them win by like twenty two this year? I
Speaker 1: just I don't overreact, but it's like when they're Poorzingis
Speaker 1: is hitting, Okay, I'm kind of screwed a little bit.
Speaker 1: There's matchup issues everywhere.
Speaker 3: No, You're you're absolutely hanging on and hoping that one
Speaker 3: they miss shots and two they play stupid basketball, Like
Speaker 3: you're you're actively hoping that they do that, because I
Speaker 3: think we always they.
Speaker 1: Did for about three minutes in the third court they did.
Speaker 3: To start the third quarter, and then we got to
Speaker 3: the time out, and like to that point, like that's
Speaker 3: what's what's what's kind of fascinating, Like I don't think
Speaker 3: anybody disagrees that Boston's ceiling is higher than everybody's. It
Speaker 3: was always just about their kind of like maturity and
Speaker 3: their ability to consistently reach that ceiling. What you brought up,
Speaker 3: I think is really fascinating and I've been thinking about
Speaker 3: this a lot over the course of the last week.
Speaker 3: Anybody could have traded for Porzingis anybody could have traded
Speaker 3: for Drew Holliday, Boston Kyrie or Kyrie. Boston already had
Speaker 3: the most talented roster in the league last year. That
Speaker 3: was something I said consistently. Now they didn't live up
Speaker 3: to that potential, but like they were all well, Derek White,
Speaker 3: Jason Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Al Horford and Marcus Smart that
Speaker 3: was already, in my opinion, an incredible top five. And
Speaker 3: Brad Stevens looked at this and was like, Nope, not enough.
Speaker 3: And what's crazy here is like if they end up
Speaker 3: hoisting the trophy, which you and I both believe they will,
Speaker 3: like I think a good portion of the credit has
Speaker 3: to go to Brad Stevens for basically being like, I've
Speaker 3: got a couple of flawed stars. These guys need a
Speaker 3: ton of support. Obviously, we're about to head into the CBA,
Speaker 3: We're gonna have all these new restrictions. Let's put it
Speaker 3: all in this year and let's see if we can
Speaker 3: make a little bit of a run and like that,
Speaker 3: like that's the thing, Like Boston outbid everybody for Christops.
Speaker 3: They outbid everybody for Drew Holliday. And I can't help
Speaker 3: but think about your kind of overarching philosophy, which is
Speaker 3: like teams that take risks, you know, they're the ones
Speaker 3: that usually end up at the end of the day
Speaker 3: with the trophy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, if you can go to the trade deadline,
Speaker 1: the Kyrie move, those are big swings. Those are big
Speaker 1: swings by Dallas. And you know poor zing Is. You know,
Speaker 1: basketball is really interesting because it's are the players come
Speaker 1: into the league much younger and generally much less mature,
Speaker 1: and so if you get into the wrong team or
Speaker 1: the wrong spot, you can get kind of a bad reputation.
Speaker 1: Porzingiss reputation. I mean, his game's different now, he's much
Speaker 1: more perimeter than early when he would pound the ball,
Speaker 1: and so Porzingi's got a reputation like bad guy, bad
Speaker 1: locker room guy.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Then he goes to Washington and he gets a fresh start.
Speaker 1: He moves outside, shoots more or less pounding the ball.
Speaker 1: The league becomes more analytic. People can show him real
Speaker 1: data and you're like, oh, okay, that's a little bit.
Speaker 1: That's a little bit of the unicorn and then Boston
Speaker 1: Brad Stevens seizes on it and says, you know what,
Speaker 1: with our really good room, he didn't have to be
Speaker 1: a one or two here he can on nights. And
Speaker 1: so I think sometimes in the NFL, if if you
Speaker 1: come into the league at twenty three and by twenty
Speaker 1: six you're kind of an idiot, like you just can't
Speaker 1: figure stuff out, I'm kind of done with you. You
Speaker 1: gotta be careful. In the NBA, basketball is a very
Speaker 1: individual culture AAU. It's sort of about getting yours, showing off,
Speaker 1: letting the world see how much talent you have. If
Speaker 1: you get a bad opening locker room Washington for twenty years,
Speaker 1: you get labeled. You know, bad guy doesn't compete, you know,
Speaker 1: because an NBA locker room is so small, a really
Speaker 1: talented guy that's distracted can really ruin a locker room. Hell,
Speaker 1: in baseball, if you're a schmuck and you go to
Speaker 1: the bullpen, you don't even said that dugout Like in football,
Speaker 1: you splinter off at halftime or at practice with your unit.
Speaker 1: So I think, like Kyrie's reputation earned Dallas took a
Speaker 1: shot ad when he was in New Orleans. It was
Speaker 1: like Dad bod Lazy doesn't want to play hurt. I
Speaker 1: thought he was sensational the last year and a half.
Speaker 1: So these NBA guys, if you just make a judgment
Speaker 1: based on their first like three years, you can leave
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff on the editing room floor. Like
Speaker 1: you can't watch Porzingis tonight. It's almost a revelation. It's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what he was. This is what people
Speaker 1: thought he would be. He was the pre wemb pre
Speaker 1: home groun. This is what people said. You can't stop him.
Speaker 1: So you know, and I guess back to your initial
Speaker 1: point is that these two gms took big swings on guys,
Speaker 1: and Porzingis was thought of as a bad locker room
Speaker 1: guy that was his rep four years in the league. Well,
Speaker 1: he has an effected this locker room at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can see the way the players, the Celtic players
Speaker 1: treat him. They like him, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And it's just part of their kind of unified effort.
Speaker 1: So basketball football cultures are very different. There's a a
Speaker 1: lot of things about the football culture I like, but
Speaker 1: you have to be very you can't be as judgmental
Speaker 1: in basketball. You're getting nineteen year old kids. Jesus. The
Speaker 1: difference between nineteen and twenty four is a human being.
Speaker 1: You know, once you get into your forty one to
Speaker 1: forty seven, is the same guy nineteen to twenty three.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of kids. It's a different human
Speaker 1: And Porzingis now is like team guy, I mean, engaged
Speaker 1: defensively guy cheering on teammate guy. So I you know,
Speaker 1: Brad Stevens saw that, and Brad knows it because he
Speaker 1: was a college coach. He sees these guys mature. He
Speaker 1: knows they change my take.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's quite literally been zero complaint about Porzingis and
Speaker 3: the entire exerience in Boston. You know, it's funny. I
Speaker 3: went out with Grant and Paulsen in DC on radio
Speaker 3: earlier today and he asked me just some questions about
Speaker 3: the Wizards going into the offseason, and one of the
Speaker 3: big things I kind of feel passionately about is this
Speaker 3: specific thing you're bringing up, which is I feel like
Speaker 3: a lot of people are out on Jordan Pool right
Speaker 3: now and it's like he's young, and then he won
Speaker 3: a championship when he was really young, so of course
Speaker 3: it went to his head. He got a little bit
Speaker 3: off the rails over the following couple of seasons, I
Speaker 3: have a feeling that Jordan Poole when he's twenty seven
Speaker 3: is going to be a really good basketball player, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean? And to your point, like it's
Speaker 3: like it's like before I did this for a living,
Speaker 3: I worked in real estate and I was on the
Speaker 3: investment side, and you just completely change the way you
Speaker 3: look at homes more towards what they could be rather
Speaker 3: than what they are. And I think that's a really
Speaker 3: interesting kind of like approach for gms, especially in these
Speaker 3: big market teams that are typically operating above the cap,
Speaker 3: because from there you're not going to get a top
Speaker 3: seven draft pick, right, So, like how do you find
Speaker 3: talent beyond that? And like a big one is look
Speaker 3: for guys who were in the lottery that failed at
Speaker 3: previous destinations because they were in the lottery because they
Speaker 3: were viewed to have exceptional base line talent, right, but
Speaker 3: they failed in those original destinations because of any number
Speaker 3: of factors, immaturity, circumstance, leadership, you know, anything, right, even
Speaker 3: an injury potentially right. And that's the thing is like
Speaker 3: those are the guys that you can that you can
Speaker 3: kind of find real opportunity. I feel like Ruy Hachamurro
Speaker 3: is that for the Lakers. A guy kind of in
Speaker 3: a bad organization in Washington, and then they find a
Speaker 3: role for him in LA and suddenly it works. Like
Speaker 3: these PJ Washington playing for a terrible Charlotte Hornets team.
Speaker 3: It's like, let's bring you into this winning circumstance and
Speaker 3: give you a job that is more suited to your talents,
Speaker 3: and let's see what you can do. And so in general,
Speaker 3: I think it's really fascinating how these above the cap
Speaker 3: teams have to kind of look for the investment type
Speaker 3: of NBA players that kind of more fit within their
Speaker 3: specific scheme.
Speaker 1: Well, think about a lot of the guys that come
Speaker 1: in and they're mature. A lot of them have stayed
Speaker 1: in Villanova guys okay, because they're three star guys, so
Speaker 1: they stay in college there, hard coached. They come in
Speaker 1: more mature. But a lot of the AAU stars and
Speaker 1: the G League guys that their NBA coach is their
Speaker 1: first real grown up Like, so like the kid that
Speaker 1: Houston got, is it Jalen Green? Like when you first
Speaker 1: watched him, you're like, he got a lot of talent,
Speaker 1: but he's all over the place. He didn't want to
Speaker 1: play basketball. And then in year two you're like, oh
Speaker 1: he's being coached. Yeah, like he may he's off ball,
Speaker 1: he can actually help the team. Well, what would he know?
Speaker 1: You know, It's like you just you don't know what
Speaker 1: you don't know. So I think a lot of when
Speaker 1: you watch these teams that do the little things, well,
Speaker 1: the Knicks, they have a lot of guys that played
Speaker 1: a lot of college basketball, so they're just like they're
Speaker 1: twenty seven going on thirty four. And then you get
Speaker 1: these guys that are super talented, lottery picks one and
Speaker 1: done at twenty seven, they're twenty three, Like they just
Speaker 1: they just haven't been coached. They haven't had an Izzo,
Speaker 1: they haven't had a Jay Wright. And that I always
Speaker 1: said that's the value of college coaching is, and now
Speaker 1: there's nil. There's value in saying I want to stay
Speaker 1: for a sophomore year of college in a really good program.
Speaker 1: Somebody is really on my ass and I can make
Speaker 1: decent money here. I can make it at the G
Speaker 1: League and you're part of something. If you're part of
Speaker 1: Villanova or Kansas, you're really part of a community, You're
Speaker 1: part of a campus, and that's that's a real that's
Speaker 1: I mean, that's different people, different races, religions, different classes.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's hard, it's challenging, and so I think
Speaker 1: I just think the NBA is different. You have to
Speaker 1: be careful about labeling and judging. Now there are players
Speaker 1: like D'Angelo Russell. This is what he is, right like
Speaker 1: it's been established. Okay, I'm done trying to figure out
Speaker 1: the Rubik's cube, like this is what he is. But
Speaker 1: I think porzingis is God. You know, it was almost
Speaker 1: tonight watching him play like he had that kind of
Speaker 1: that devilish Grinnich smile. You guys aren't stopping me. I'm good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's uh, you know, that's basketball. You could do it.
Speaker 1: There are times when when when you get at hot
Speaker 1: and you just and you have size advantages and matchup advantages.
Speaker 1: I think Game two will be really close and really
Speaker 1: really competitive. I think it will be uh. I think
Speaker 1: Dallas will come out and play much better. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I'm Dallas, my takeaway is we got to get physical.
Speaker 1: We got to put bodies on people. We have got
Speaker 1: to and I think the officials tend to I don't
Speaker 1: think they favor teams. I think they they favor even
Speaker 1: They're gonna give Dallas some physicality in Game two. They're
Speaker 1: going to allow Dallas to be physical. The officials will
Speaker 1: do that. Now, by the way, Boston will be allowed
Speaker 1: to be physical too, will they take advantage of it,
Speaker 1: But I think Boston. I think my take is if
Speaker 1: I was a coach of Dallas, I'd be like, guys,
Speaker 1: we've got to win possessions on the defensive end. We
Speaker 1: may not match up offensively. We have to win the
Speaker 1: defensive end. We have to we have to move the
Speaker 1: ball better. We had very few assists early. We've got
Speaker 1: to win the defensive end. I think Game two will
Speaker 1: be a different It looks like a different basketball game.
Speaker 1: That's my guess.
Speaker 3: No, I one hundred percent agree that. And you bring
Speaker 3: that physicality, you take an early lead, You add fresh
Speaker 3: sure to Boston, which changes the free feeling that you
Speaker 3: have when you shoot the basketball. Maybe they have a
Speaker 3: lesser shooting night, and you give yourself a chance to win.
Speaker 3: Before we get out of here, I wanted to ask
Speaker 3: you about Dan Hurly, so I obviously, as someone who
Speaker 3: roots for the Lakers. I actually was very excited about
Speaker 3: this today. But what was your kind of takeaway from
Speaker 3: that that big reveal this morning?
Speaker 1: Well, I saw it like four thirty five, a Woje
Speaker 1: palm starting my day. And my take was, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, because I founded the volume, so I tend
Speaker 1: to look at things from a managerial position. And so
Speaker 1: I said, if I was Rob Polinka and Genie Buss,
Speaker 1: and Minnesota's got Ant and Okac's got Chet and Sga,
Speaker 1: and then there's Lucas twenty five, and you start looking
Speaker 1: up and down, and you know, Jokic is still nice prime,
Speaker 1: Boston's two guys in their prime, and you start looking
Speaker 1: around and San Antonio and Houston this year I think
Speaker 1: will pop, like it'll be different teams, and you start
Speaker 1: looking around and thinking, listen, man, we got to start
Speaker 1: drafting and developing here, like this is what the league.
Speaker 1: If you start looking at the second apron, what the
Speaker 1: CBA is in the NBA, We're not going to get
Speaker 1: a third huge star here with Lebron and Ad. We're
Speaker 1: just this is not gonna work. So we have got
Speaker 1: to draft and develop. And so you can't watch these
Speaker 1: playoffs and not come to this conclusion the NBA has
Speaker 1: pivoted to young stars Katie Lebron's staff. It's over like that.
Speaker 1: They're not running the league anymore. Like Tatum now is
Speaker 1: one of the veterans. And I think my takeaway is, Okay,
Speaker 1: who does that, Who drafts, who builds culture, who's tough?
Speaker 1: It wasn't a pivot away from Lebron. It was a
Speaker 1: pivot toward the league. The league now is a draft
Speaker 1: and developed league. That's these players are going to get rich.
Speaker 1: But the league watched what Golden State did with KD
Speaker 1: and they didn't like it, and the owners didn't like it,
Speaker 1: and the league didn't like it. I can remember talking
Speaker 1: to fans of the NBA being like, I hate this.
Speaker 1: This is just not fair. And I think the league
Speaker 1: heard that Adam Silver did not like that move at all.
Speaker 1: And so I think the Lakers, Rob and Jeanie look
Speaker 1: at this and think there's a change. We don't want
Speaker 1: to be the Clippers old, dysfunctional. You know one guy,
Speaker 1: Terrence Man that feels like he's young. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of names and great on the marque. It's
Speaker 1: a great movie poster. It's not really a championship team.
Speaker 1: And I think the Lakers don't feel like it, and
Speaker 1: you know, I just I that's my takeaways. They are
Speaker 1: looking at this and stepping back and going we like
Speaker 1: JJ Reddick, but he has no history in drafting and developing.
Speaker 1: This is not what he does. By the way, there's
Speaker 1: Connecticut players in this draft, you know, there's just and
Speaker 1: also early the last three years he's recruited almost probably
Speaker 1: every good domestic player in the first round he's recruited
Speaker 1: or seen them. So I think they're gonna be active.
Speaker 1: And that was my take is that you can't watch
Speaker 1: these playoffs and not see this gigantic pivot. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like when Manning, Brady and big Ben got old
Speaker 1: and you're watching Mahomes and Lamar and Allen. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, we got ourselves a new league. As soon
Speaker 1: as soon as Tom leaves, we got a new league.
Speaker 1: It's a brand new league. And that that was my
Speaker 1: take on it.
Speaker 3: Yours, Yeah, So I I there were three reasons that
Speaker 3: I was excited about it. The first one is exactly
Speaker 3: what you said, the draft and development piece. I think
Speaker 3: a big part of it too, like you mentioned, with
Speaker 3: the cat rules changing, it's gonna be really difficult to
Speaker 3: have more than two stars.
Speaker 1: And it's almost impossible, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Exactly, And I think he specifically is gonna excel at
Speaker 3: finding role players that are great connective pieces next to stars,
Speaker 3: because the Laker brand is gonna continue to bring in
Speaker 3: star talent in one way or another, whether it's to
Speaker 3: the trademarket, whether it's through free agency. They're gonna get stars,
Speaker 3: but because of the new rules, you're not going to
Speaker 3: get three of them, so you're probably gonna have to
Speaker 3: and it's going to be about working on the margins
Speaker 3: and finding discounted valuable players, which I think is something
Speaker 3: that he's going to excel with the second two piece.
Speaker 3: Two pieces of it. One, he's an offensive genius, like
Speaker 3: literally an offensive genius. And specifically, what I find fascinating
Speaker 3: is he was capable of generating space for his offense
Speaker 3: with multiple non shooters on the floor, which I think
Speaker 3: is super fascinating on a Laker team that has an
Speaker 3: Anthony Davis that can struggle to shoot the basketball, that
Speaker 3: is going to probably play a Jared Vanderbilt that struggles
Speaker 3: to shoot the basketball. And he's he has all these
Speaker 3: interesting concepts, like he's really good at disguising his sets.
Speaker 3: He's a big believer in weak side action, which basically
Speaker 3: occupies help defenders by making them think about what they're
Speaker 3: doing on the weak side while your stars are running
Speaker 3: ball screens on the other side. He's super creative as
Speaker 3: a tactician, especially on the offense the end of the floor,
Speaker 3: which I think is going to be work wonders for
Speaker 3: a Laker offense that can get stagnant sometimes. And then
Speaker 3: the third piece of it is he's just a psycho.
Speaker 3: He's a psycho, he's competitive, and then I think he's
Speaker 3: gonna bring enough cachet because that's the fear, right, Like,
Speaker 3: if you're gonna play Devil's advocate, you're like David Blatt
Speaker 3: comes over championship coach from Europe, Lebron scoffs at him
Speaker 3: and says, I want the assistant instead, right, So like
Speaker 3: that's what you're scared of. But I actually think Lebron
Speaker 3: has a lot more respect for Dan Hurley. I mean,
Speaker 3: especially seeing as he's been kind of like watching as
Speaker 3: a fan as he's had his success over the last
Speaker 3: couple of years. I think he'll have some success there.
Speaker 3: And then I complained that you NonStop this season about
Speaker 3: Darvin Ham not holding players accountable and then becoming and
Speaker 3: then becoming a team that was really sloppy for stretches
Speaker 3: because they didn't value individual possessions. They weren't good at
Speaker 3: attention to detail. That will not fly under Dan Hurley.
Speaker 3: He will be on those guys and I think it'll
Speaker 3: help a lot well.
Speaker 1: I try to defend Darvin Ham, but he is a
Speaker 1: defensive minded coach. And you see this in the NFL.
Speaker 1: Offense comes easier. The attention to detail from offensive coaches
Speaker 1: is better. So like when you watch offensive like Steve Kerr,
Speaker 1: like his he if you ever when they Mike Steve Kerr,
Speaker 1: he picks on stuff, stuff up so quickly, like like
Speaker 1: I'm not seeing it, I'm watching the game. He is
Speaker 1: a possession to possession coach. Steve Kerr, he watches every
Speaker 1: little mistake. Mark Jackson defensive coach. I always viewed him
Speaker 1: as more of a defensive coach. The offense could never
Speaker 1: quite get in sync. Now, Mark did a good job
Speaker 1: on the defensive end, but I thought with Darvin Ham
Speaker 1: is he could get players. I thought Anthony Davis was
Speaker 1: absolutely sensational defensively this year. I thought he was the
Speaker 1: defensive player of the Year, but his offense was inconsistent.
Speaker 1: Darvin's not going to help you a lot there. Darvin
Speaker 1: was a very limited offensive player. And so I think,
Speaker 1: just like in football, I think coaches have a vote
Speaker 1: goals good with Bigs, Dan Tony's doesn't like Biggs. Coaches
Speaker 1: all have strengths and weaknesses, and Darvin, I thought, was
Speaker 1: not as detailed. Offensively allowed sloppy possessions. What didn't hold
Speaker 1: players offensively accountable. They'll make it up on the defensive end.
Speaker 1: That's not the league. That's just not the league. You
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna shoot your way. I mean, you
Speaker 1: start looking at teams. Dallas was a better offensive team
Speaker 1: than Minnesota. They won the series. You know it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, it is as as hard as New York played.
Speaker 1: You start look Indiana. It was more consistently a higher tempo, healthier,
Speaker 1: better offensive team with them offense is winning these series.
Speaker 1: Like effort's great, but like that's that's why Boston's favored
Speaker 1: in this series. They got five six guys that can
Speaker 1: score twenty. And so I think Darvin doesn't necessarily fit
Speaker 1: what's happening to the league, which is increasingly skilled, increasingly
Speaker 1: unstoppable for players of size, And I think Hurley's good
Speaker 1: with that. He understands what the what the sport is becoming.
Speaker 1: That you play hard, play with urgency, get the details
Speaker 1: down offensively, don't give up sloppy possessions. Lakers would have
Speaker 1: bad quarters offensively, like just I mean, there are times
Speaker 1: if you didn't have Lebron on the floor and Austin
Speaker 1: Reeves was in foul trouble, you were done. They just
Speaker 1: were a bad offensive unit. So yeah, I think to
Speaker 1: your point is I tried to defend Darvin Ham, but
Speaker 1: I'm seeing some of the same stuff in the NFL
Speaker 1: where the skill now in the NBA is just too
Speaker 1: damn good. It's just too good. There's just if you're
Speaker 1: not equipped offensively, possession after possession, you'll just get run
Speaker 1: out of this sport really quickly.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure. Like look at this particular matchup here
Speaker 3: for Dallas versus Boston, Like a big part you mentioned
Speaker 3: it at the start of the show, like the stagnation,
Speaker 3: the lack of the ball in player movement, the Luca
Speaker 3: Kyrie kind of your turn, my turns bad. That is,
Speaker 3: it works for Dallas because Lucas so damn good, and
Speaker 3: he might be the best player in the world. But
Speaker 3: like I do believe there's a reason why the league
Speaker 3: has shifted towards more ball in player movement. That's why
Speaker 3: we're seeing teams like Denver succeed in Golden State succeed
Speaker 3: Golden State kind of really revolutionized five out offense and
Speaker 3: brought it to where it is today. And like, I
Speaker 3: just think, I think Dan Hurley is in touch with
Speaker 3: what works in modern basketball, which I think is going
Speaker 3: to help a ton. I think he's I think he
Speaker 3: understands the complications of the transition to the NBA, which
Speaker 3: I think will be his probably his biggest challenge. But
Speaker 3: he knows he's gonna have to talk differently to professional
Speaker 3: athletes than to college players. He knows that there's going
Speaker 3: to be more, you know, media pressure with that LA
Speaker 3: job on a day to day basis. Like we talked
Speaker 3: about Darvin Ham all the time this season because it's
Speaker 3: like that's if you were ranking high like high high
Speaker 3: pressure coaching jobs in America, Lakers head coach is pretty
Speaker 3: high up on that list, especially when Lebron James is
Speaker 3: on the roster. And so I think he's up for it.
Speaker 3: I think he can do it. Go ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the things I've talked about today kind
Speaker 1: of ad nauseum on my show, as I said, the
Speaker 1: Lakers had twenty years in the second biggest city in
Speaker 1: the country with no NFL teams in the NFL eventually
Speaker 1: gobbles up every city. And now you've got Harbaugh, Herbert
Speaker 1: and McVeigh and Stafford and the second richest owner in
Speaker 1: Stan Cronk, and the Dodgers look like they're one hundred
Speaker 1: and ten win team. Here comes usc to the big ten.
Speaker 1: Balmer's got a new arena. The key in this is
Speaker 1: are you okay now? Being the third biggest story in
Speaker 1: La fourth on some weekends like because this city has
Speaker 1: got star coaches and star teams and star players, and
Speaker 1: it could be a you know, Wagner Rhode Island, Yukon.
Speaker 1: He had a losing record each year. He's a culture guy.
Speaker 1: He's an oven guy. He's not a microwave guy. It's
Speaker 1: none of this fake bullshit like this is a this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a slow roast, okay, and Lebron and
Speaker 1: Anthony Davis if he signs a five year, sixty million
Speaker 1: dollar deal, the Laker Genie Buss doesn't have the financial wherewithal,
Speaker 1: she's not Balmer. That's not a rounding air for her.
Speaker 1: So this is a real commitment. So I think everybody's
Speaker 1: just got to take a deep breath. The Lakers had
Speaker 1: this la. They were winning titles with no NFL team.
Speaker 1: The Dodgers were good but not winning World Series. They
Speaker 1: owned this city for twenty years, and they got real
Speaker 1: use to leaking stuff to the media on a slop
Speaker 1: and just stealing thunder. Well, if you're thirty eight and
Speaker 1: forty four in this city next year and Herbert and
Speaker 1: Harbaugh and here come the Clippers in their new arena,
Speaker 1: you're going to be the fourth story really quickly. So
Speaker 1: I think that's the key to me. It's not Hurley,
Speaker 1: it's is the organization ready to take a deep breath,
Speaker 1: make tough decisions, get a little younger, give up some players,
Speaker 1: get some draft picks. I think they'll be I think
Speaker 1: they'll be fine. Dan Dan's intents, you know, Spolster's way more.
Speaker 1: I mean, Steve Kerrz intense, Tyleruson, but goods are I
Speaker 1: mean Dan, Tony's not, you know, right Malone in Denver,
Speaker 1: He's like a fistfight waiting to happen. I'm I'm okay
Speaker 1: with intense. I think players respect it. I think you
Speaker 1: can get run over very quickly in this league. I
Speaker 1: think this is a moment in time where Lebron's probably
Speaker 1: got two years left, maybe three. Lebron knows, like this
Speaker 1: is no longer like running through him. I think he
Speaker 1: knows it. I think he understands his value merchandising, tickets, production,
Speaker 1: He sees his value. But Lebron knows, you know, this
Speaker 1: is this is. This isn't Mahomes and his prime. This
Speaker 1: is not what this is anymore. This is not this
Speaker 1: is not the bubble year. This is not Cleveland or Miami.
Speaker 1: This is a different time. So I'm excited for it.
Speaker 1: Plus it just let's be honest, it's interesting. That's a
Speaker 1: bigger one.
Speaker 3: That's interesting to your point, if they have another stretch
Speaker 3: like they did post the late Jerry Buss passing away
Speaker 3: where they suck for a decade, like that could cost
Speaker 3: them their they.
Speaker 1: Had no they didn't have a direction, then exactly, Curly
Speaker 1: will guarantee you a direction exactly.
Speaker 3: That's my point is like I like that type of
Speaker 3: aggression because He's the kind of guy that can establish
Speaker 3: a culture that lasts. And you know, one of the
Speaker 3: other things too, as far as like the money goes,
Speaker 3: I think it's crazy all the hand ringing about the
Speaker 3: amount of money these coaches are making. Like if you
Speaker 3: had to pay Dan fifteen million a year, Like, what
Speaker 3: is that in the grand scheme of the salary cap?
Speaker 3: What is that in the grand scheme of this new
Speaker 3: media rights deal? What is that in the grand scheme of.
Speaker 1: All the league's making seven and a half billion a year? Like?
Speaker 1: Who cares? Another thing is you have to empower a coach.
Speaker 1: You can't pay your coach five and your seventh guy
Speaker 1: is making twenty eight million a year. You just can't.
Speaker 1: You can't do that. You have to empower these guys.
Speaker 1: So I've said it. I would pay him twelve million
Speaker 1: a year, twelve twelve and a half. His wife's a
Speaker 1: Jersey girl, He runs the best program in college. You
Speaker 1: just you know it's I like the new NBA. I
Speaker 1: like the European players. I like the mobility is one
Speaker 1: of those like small ball. Small ball is a lot
Speaker 1: of nonsense. It was the Warriors mobility. It worked with
Speaker 1: Lebron and KD for three years. Like the truth is
Speaker 1: most of this league, most of the stories. You know,
Speaker 1: Boston figured it out with KG, but Pierce was a
Speaker 1: Celtic and by and large mobility. It hasn't worked for Kdie.
Speaker 1: It worked for three years. It Lebron made it work everywhere.
Speaker 1: So this is the league. Embrace it. Go get the
Speaker 1: guy who does it better than anybody in college. And
Speaker 1: by the way, he does it with big personalities. It's
Speaker 1: the Northeast. He takes five star guys, he takes three
Speaker 1: star guys like Yukon's a big program, high expectations, you know,
Speaker 1: they get they get high profile players, high profile transfers.
Speaker 1: They're going to be favored to win another national championship.
Speaker 1: So it's not like he's dealing with a bunch of
Speaker 1: two star guys the runs over. These are great players.
Speaker 3: These are guys with egos. Yeah, we we just need
Speaker 3: to get you on the on a zoom call with
Speaker 3: the Hurley family so you can sell them on how
Speaker 3: great Los Angeles is and then then we can get
Speaker 3: you to close the deal. All right, Colin, this was fun.
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to Game two this NBA Finals. Game
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Speaker 3: All right, guys, that is all we have for tonight.
Speaker 3: I will have a film session at some point up
Speaker 3: on the YouTube channel tomorrow. As always, I appreciate you guys,
Speaker 3: and we will see you again live after Game two
Speaker 3: on Sunday night.
Speaker 1: The volume. Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed
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