Speaker 1: The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight. You're at
Speaker 1: the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. This NBA Finals Game four
Speaker 1: Instant Reaction is brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited.
Speaker 1: How do you cash back? Well, you can't fake desperation.
Speaker 1: The Boston Celtics run into an absolute buzz saw in
Speaker 1: Game four against the Dallas Mavericks. Here's the plan for tonight.
Speaker 1: I got about ten to fifteen minutes off the top,
Speaker 1: not too much to get into into a game like
Speaker 1: this that goes off the rails so quickly. So what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do at the tail end is just do
Speaker 1: a mailbag. So drop questions in the chat. Paul, our producer,
Speaker 1: is going to text them to me so we can
Speaker 1: hit them at the tail end of the show. Drop
Speaker 1: questions in the chat. We'll go for about ten minutes
Speaker 1: on the game, and then we'll get into the mailbag.
Speaker 1: You guys are the drop before we get started. Subscribed
Speaker 1: to the Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't
Speaker 1: miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at underscore JCNLTS. You guys, don't missow announcements. Don't forget
Speaker 1: about a podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast under
Speaker 1: Hoops tonight and then keep dropping mail back questions in
Speaker 1: those YouTube comments so that can keep hitting them over
Speaker 1: the course of the rest of the summer. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk some basketball, so storry. This game was obviously
Speaker 1: Dallas's improved defensive effort. Now, Dallas is defended pretty well
Speaker 1: in this series, not as well as they're capable of,
Speaker 1: not as well as the numbers would show. Either. There's
Speaker 1: a couple of pretty bad, like specifically inept Boston stretches,
Speaker 1: particularly spamming the second and third quarters of Game one,
Speaker 1: and then obviously that bad run in the middle of
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter in Game three, and then there's also
Speaker 1: some shooting variants there. But Dallas has done a decent job.
Speaker 1: But we all can agree that they are capable of
Speaker 1: doing a much much better job. And there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of focus on the dribble penetration element in containing
Speaker 1: the basketball, a lot of that on this show as well,
Speaker 1: and I want to make sure we call attention to that.
Speaker 1: But I thought that Dallas did an amazing job in
Speaker 1: all four phases of half court defense in this game.
Speaker 1: I would kind of delineate the roles of a defense
Speaker 1: or the four parts of the defensive job down to
Speaker 1: these things. First, containing the ball. Second, what you do
Speaker 1: in rotation, meaning like when you suffer some sort of
Speaker 1: defensive breakdown, whether it's a coverage related thing or some
Speaker 1: dribble penetration, how do you kind of, like on the fly,
Speaker 1: go from the next matchup to the next matchup in
Speaker 1: your rotation to try to regain control of the situation.
Speaker 1: It's like with the fire extinguisher, trying to put out
Speaker 1: whatever the problem is. Right, the third piece of it
Speaker 1: is contesting without fouling, and the fourth piece of it
Speaker 1: is the defensive rebound, and all of them are actually
Speaker 1: connected to each other. But that ball contained piece is
Speaker 1: what we're going to start with, because all of those
Speaker 1: other three become easier when you do a better job
Speaker 1: containing the basketball. So to put it simply, I talk
Speaker 1: a lot about on this show the concept of flattening
Speaker 1: out drives. What that means is there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: certain amount of dribble penetration that you can't control, whether
Speaker 1: it's pushing the pace in transition, whether it's you're just
Speaker 1: dealing with freaky athletes, Like you don't go into a
Speaker 1: series against Anthony Edwards thinking like, we're just gonna completely
Speaker 1: stop him from beating anybody off the dribble. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: that's not how it works, right. So at a certain point,
Speaker 1: what you're trying to do is turn a straight line
Speaker 1: drive into a rounded off drive. You're trying to turn
Speaker 1: a straight line drive into something where there's contact that
Speaker 1: he has to fight through or he has to make
Speaker 1: a counter move, so it's easier for that next help
Speaker 1: defender to get into place. And when you do a
Speaker 1: better job of that, when you flatten out drives, suddenly
Speaker 1: what could be a hard help turns into maybe a
Speaker 1: dig down. So for instance, like let's imagine that a
Speaker 1: guy is dribbling on the left wing and he makes
Speaker 1: an aggressive move towards the let's just say towards the
Speaker 1: left side, towards the sideline because the defender's kind of
Speaker 1: funneling him that way, and he gets just absolutely toasted
Speaker 1: off the dribble. Then the next guy, the low man
Speaker 1: out of that weakside corner, has to come all the
Speaker 1: way over in hard help and it turns into like
Speaker 1: a super easy kickout pass to the corner, or if
Speaker 1: they rotate, it's an easy kickout pass to the wing. Right,
Speaker 1: But if you flatten out the drive, then instead of
Speaker 1: that guy having to hard help, maybe he sinks in
Speaker 1: a little bit, maybe he stunts, but he's in a
Speaker 1: better position to rotate. All of a sudden, that closeout
Speaker 1: is a little bit easier, right, Or the next guy
Speaker 1: who's up on the wing doesn't have to sink all
Speaker 1: the way down to the corner, and maybe he's just
Speaker 1: kind of stunting down, right, Like, that job gets easier
Speaker 1: the contesting without fouling piece when you actually contain the
Speaker 1: ball and then do a good job in rotation. The
Speaker 1: last piece of it is eventually someone's gonna be looking
Speaker 1: up at the clock and it's like we just tried
Speaker 1: this drive and this drive and this drive and this drive,
Speaker 1: and oh shit, there's four seconds on the shot clock.
Speaker 1: One of us has to shoot. From there. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be in a position where that guy's probably gonna have
Speaker 1: to take a tough contested either shot at the rim,
Speaker 1: shot in mid raine, or catch and shoot three. Right,
Speaker 1: That contesting without fouling piece is easier when you do
Speaker 1: a better job containing the ball throughout the possession and
Speaker 1: then finally the defensive rebound. I was looking at the
Speaker 1: stats at the end of the third quarter when we
Speaker 1: started getting ready for the show. When I checked, I
Speaker 1: think Boston only had two offensive rebounds. They only had
Speaker 1: like eleven free throw attempts. So that's a clear sign
Speaker 1: of you contesting without fouling and getting the defensive rebound. Now,
Speaker 1: think of it like this. If you get toasted off
Speaker 1: the dribble and somebody has to hard help, and now
Speaker 1: everyone's in rotation, nobody's matched up. If nobody's matched up,
Speaker 1: then when the shot goes up, it gets that much
Speaker 1: harder to box out because now everyone's caught in that
Speaker 1: blender and no one has a clear matchup to box out.
Speaker 1: But if you flatten out the drive and you make
Speaker 1: your rotations easier, and you do a good job in
Speaker 1: those rotations, and you work deep into the clock and
Speaker 1: the guy has to settle for some tougher contested jump shot,
Speaker 1: everyone is now all of a sudden, there aren't these
Speaker 1: like free runs to the rim from a wide open
Speaker 1: guy because his defender got pulled into rotation. Elsewhere, everything
Speaker 1: waterfalls down from containing the basketball. But I want to
Speaker 1: be clear, they did an amazing job in all four
Speaker 1: of those areas. I want to turn my attention to
Speaker 1: Luca for just a minute, because I want to be clear,
Speaker 1: because like, there's been a lot of criticism directed towards
Speaker 1: Luca in this series, including from myself, and I believe
Speaker 1: it's fair. I believe the criticism of some of the
Speaker 1: whining at the officials, the stuff with his effort, focus
Speaker 1: and energy on the defensive end is completely fair criticism.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you want to know why, ask
Speaker 1: a Dallas Mavericks fan what do you think of Luca?
Speaker 1: Ninety nine percent of them are going to tell you
Speaker 1: he's the best player in the world. Ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of them are going to tell you he's an all
Speaker 1: time great in the making. Ninety nine percent of them
Speaker 1: are going to tell you he's better than this guy,
Speaker 1: that guy, and this guy and that guy at that
Speaker 1: phase of their careers. What that means is he's held
Speaker 1: to a different standards, not held to the standard of
Speaker 1: you know, let's say forty year old Lebron James, who's
Speaker 1: on the tail end of his prime, and it's like
Speaker 1: he's not being held to that best player in the
Speaker 1: world standard. You understand, when forty year old Lebron takes
Speaker 1: a random possession off here or there. You understand when
Speaker 1: you see a player that's not considered one of the
Speaker 1: top tier apex predators in the league, making him a
Speaker 1: lackadaisical effort or something like that, you just kind of
Speaker 1: just allow it, right, You don't even think that much
Speaker 1: about it. Luca has put himself through the by virtue
Speaker 1: of his greatness under a microscope. That's just that's the
Speaker 1: it's the it's at all. It's that old expression. Right,
Speaker 1: heavy looks like heavy is the head that wears the crown,
Speaker 1: right Like there is a there is a pressure and
Speaker 1: an expectation that comes from his individual greatness. I want
Speaker 1: to be clear, He's not why they're down for one
Speaker 1: in this series. He is the reason why they're here,
Speaker 1: as so many have been saying. That is that that
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. He his indomitable offensive greatness,
Speaker 1: got them to this point. However, it is unquestionable that
Speaker 1: this series had a better chance to be competitive had
Speaker 1: Luca given a better effort to this point. And again,
Speaker 1: as I talked about, like there was so much focus
Speaker 1: on the blowbys, and he still got beat off the
Speaker 1: dribble a couple of times tonight. But as I said,
Speaker 1: like that is nowhere near as damaging as not doing
Speaker 1: your job. When the highlight clip was going around, If
Speaker 1: you guys remember after I think it was after Game two,
Speaker 1: the highlight clip that was going around of Luca getting
Speaker 1: blown by and it was like the most blowbys in
Speaker 1: over ten years of NBA Finals history, right, If you
Speaker 1: guys remember that video, a lot of Mavericks fans were
Speaker 1: saying things like, this is by design, this is what
Speaker 1: we do. We funnel with Luca's job is to funnel
Speaker 1: guys into the paint. Now, that's obviously ridiculous. However, I
Speaker 1: guarantee you that Jason Kidd is prepared for that. Luca's
Speaker 1: job is to do a better job containing the basketball.
Speaker 1: He needs to compete better on the perimeter. That goes
Speaker 1: without saying, but there is some truth to the fact
Speaker 1: that when Jason Kidd is sitting down with his assistant
Speaker 1: coaching staff and they're coming up with the game plan,
Speaker 1: they're sitting there like, Luca's gonna give up a certain
Speaker 1: amount of dribble penetration. How do we deal with this? Well,
Speaker 1: there's obviously the back line element that's the other four players,
Speaker 1: but they've crafted a job for Luca. His job after
Speaker 1: he gets beat off the dribble is to make the
Speaker 1: next rotation. That was something that was missing in the
Speaker 1: first three games of this series. There was a specific
Speaker 1: play tonight that I thought encapsulated Luca doing that job
Speaker 1: a much better in a much better way. Luca gets
Speaker 1: beat off the dribble by Jason Tatum in the left corner,
Speaker 1: and in the sequence the ball gets worked, driven and
Speaker 1: kicked over to the right corner. There's another drive. There's
Speaker 1: a drop off to Jason Tatum in the dunker spot
Speaker 1: in the right side. Luca had gotten thrown into the
Speaker 1: blender with everybody else, but he made an extra rotation.
Speaker 1: He came across the lane at the last second, jumped
Speaker 1: up with verticality, contested Tatum at the rim, enforced to miss.
Speaker 1: That is the important part of the defense. As I
Speaker 1: said in the mailbag episode yesterday, the blowbys are the
Speaker 1: least concerning thing with Luca. You want him to do better,
Speaker 1: and he did a much better job of containing the
Speaker 1: basketball tonight, forced a bunch of turnovers by just applying
Speaker 1: some physical ball pressure. Luca was much better on the ball.
Speaker 1: But the more important piece is making sure he's back
Speaker 1: in transition defense. After giving up any sort of dribble penetration,
Speaker 1: or if a teammate gives up dribble penetration, being in
Speaker 1: the right spot in the rotation, and then making those
Speaker 1: efforts on the defensive glass. That is what it takes
Speaker 1: to run a functional defense. Every single offensively limited star
Speaker 1: or excuse me, I should say defensively limited star, whether
Speaker 1: it's Steph Curry in the mid twenty tens or it's
Speaker 1: Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic in this era, they are
Speaker 1: still just asked to do a job. Okay, Jokic, you
Speaker 1: struggle to protect the rim. Here's what we need you
Speaker 1: to do. We need you to come up to the
Speaker 1: level of the screen, be active with your hands, and
Speaker 1: be more of a disruptor. We'll put more of the
Speaker 1: rim protection responsibility of on Aaron Gordon. As long as
Speaker 1: you do those things up at the level and you
Speaker 1: get back into the lane to grab defensive rebounds, we
Speaker 1: can as a team put together a functional defense. And again,
Speaker 1: that was all that we were asking for from Luca.
Speaker 1: We know he's the reason why they're here. We know
Speaker 1: he's an APEX superstar. We know he's on an all
Speaker 1: time great trajectory. That shit he did in the first
Speaker 1: three games was not good enough. It was not good enough,
Speaker 1: did it wasn't befitting of his reputation in the league.
Speaker 1: And what you saw tonight was much more in line
Speaker 1: with what he's capable of, which is, yeah, he's gonna
Speaker 1: get beat off the dribble sometimes, but he can do
Speaker 1: his job within the defensive scheme, and I thought he
Speaker 1: did a beautiful job of that tonight. In addition to
Speaker 1: him and Kyrie completely dominating the game offensively, they pour
Speaker 1: in fifty points through the first three quarters, shot fifty
Speaker 1: percent from the field, only two turnovers between the two
Speaker 1: of them. Come, you've got their best and most efficient
Speaker 1: offensive game of the series. By far their best defensive
Speaker 1: game of the series. They soundly outplay Jason Tatum and
Speaker 1: Jaylen Brown. And by the way, like I want to
Speaker 1: be clear about something else, from the beginning of this game,
Speaker 1: this was there was an effort element, and we're going
Speaker 1: to get into that that You'd be foolish to not
Speaker 1: pretend that's not a factor here. However, I did think,
Speaker 1: especially early in the game, Tatum and Brown were trying
Speaker 1: to get downhill. There were several plays where Mavericks made
Speaker 1: defensive slides to cut off driving angles, and Tatum and
Speaker 1: Brown were being really persistent about trying to beat that
Speaker 1: guy off the dribble. Dallas was just doing doing a
Speaker 1: good job of flattening them out, so like it wasn't
Speaker 1: for It wasn't like Boston was just passing the ball
Speaker 1: around the perimeter and just trying to jack up threes.
Speaker 1: Boston was trying to get dribble penetration in this game.
Speaker 1: It was the desperate effort from Dallas that rejected those attempts.
Speaker 1: And again, it starts from your superstar, it trickles down.
Speaker 1: Another guy I really want to shout out tonight is
Speaker 1: Derek Lively. At the end the third quarter, get eleven
Speaker 1: points and twelve rebounds in just twenty two minutes of play.
Speaker 1: He had seven offensive rebounds, just an athletic wrecking ball
Speaker 1: in this game. Was really intrigued by that corner three
Speaker 1: he hit early on. One of the things with Lively.
Speaker 1: I tweeted this out during the game, but like the
Speaker 1: when I look at Dallas's potential and like, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Do I think They're going to be back in the
Speaker 1: finals next year? Probably not, But that's literally because of
Speaker 1: what NBA history tells us, right, Like, we have not
Speaker 1: had a Western Conference team make more than one trip
Speaker 1: to the finals in the totality of the last six
Speaker 1: years since Kevin Durant and Steph Curry broke up as teammates, Right, So,
Speaker 1: like that's just the West is too deep with teams.
Speaker 1: Chances are we'll be sitting here exactly twelve months from
Speaker 1: now talking about a team like the Minnesota Timberwolves, or
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Memphis Grizzly, just some
Speaker 1: random team that just kind of rises from the midst right, Like,
Speaker 1: But if there is a dominant version of this Dallas
Speaker 1: Maverick team that takes shape over the course of the
Speaker 1: next few years, there's your guy. It's Derek Lively. If
Speaker 1: Derek Lively turns into Tyson Chandler Across with like a
Speaker 1: little bit of Anthony Davis Cross with a little bit
Speaker 1: of like legitimate like can shoot corner threes and stretch
Speaker 1: the floor a little bit, that's a top thirty, top
Speaker 1: thirty five player in the NBA that can be a
Speaker 1: profoundly impactful foundational piece alongside Luca and whoever his secondary
Speaker 1: star is in the long run, whether it's Kyrie or
Speaker 1: it's someone else, and like, just I mean kind of
Speaker 1: removing ourselves from the scope of this series for a minute.
Speaker 1: Derek Lively, just what if he's just awesome? If he's
Speaker 1: just awesome, that could go a long way towards adding
Speaker 1: another layer of resilience to what this Dallas Mavericks team
Speaker 1: can accomplish year on a year out. What's the pathway
Speaker 1: for Dallas. Dallas is going to somehow win this series?
Speaker 1: What does it look like? Well, it's really simple. You
Speaker 1: gotta win one basketball game on Monday. It's in Boston.
Speaker 1: To my Mavericks fans that are listening, are you confident
Speaker 1: any you think that you're a better team than Boston,
Speaker 1: If any of you think that the level of optimism
Speaker 1: that you had going into the series, if you think
Speaker 1: there's legitimacy to that, go in a game. Go in
Speaker 1: one game in Boston on Monday. Contain. Do exactly what
Speaker 1: you did tonight. Work on the ball to contain flap maout,
Speaker 1: dribble penetration, make for easier rotations so that it's easier
Speaker 1: to contest without fouling, so that you can contain on
Speaker 1: the contain defensive rebounds, right, and all of those things
Speaker 1: trickle down to transition opportunities, which trickle down into cross
Speaker 1: matches which prevent Boston from establishing their game plan. Not
Speaker 1: to mention, we have the Porzingis injury wrinkle in all
Speaker 1: of this. Right, So go to Boston on Monday and
Speaker 1: win one game from there, you're the home team on Thursday,
Speaker 1: You'll be favored. You'll be favored to send this thing
Speaker 1: back to Boston for a game seven, where the exact
Speaker 1: same principle applies. Like, we have never seen a team
Speaker 1: come back from down three to zero, but we have
Speaker 1: seen a team come back from down three to one
Speaker 1: before in the NBA Finals, right, and it's a momentum thing.
Speaker 1: Once Cleveland won Game five, which, by the way, how
Speaker 1: did they win? They won because Lebron James and Kyrie
Speaker 1: Irving went into that building and dropped eighty two points.
Speaker 1: Do we think Luca and Kyrie are capable of that?
Speaker 1: I sure as hell do that. It's a long shot,
Speaker 1: but they're capable of it. Right, you win that game,
Speaker 1: you come home with all the momentum. Do you guys
Speaker 1: remember that Cavs Warriors Game six, It was like thirty
Speaker 1: three to eleven or something in the first quarter, like
Speaker 1: they jumped them early. That game was never truly competitive, right,
Speaker 1: and then you end up in the knockdown, drag out
Speaker 1: fight Game seven. So that's the pathway. If you believe
Speaker 1: you're the better team, go into Boston on Monday, execute
Speaker 1: on the details, win that game. From there, you have
Speaker 1: a home game with a chance to send it to
Speaker 1: send yourselves to a winner take all game seven. So yeah,
Speaker 1: like do I think that's going to happen? Obviously not,
Speaker 1: But that is the pathway, and that's where you have
Speaker 1: to drive that belief. And there's no way you can
Speaker 1: do it if you don't believe. And that is what
Speaker 1: the mentality of that locker room is going to be
Speaker 1: over the course of the next couple of days on
Speaker 1: the Boston front. Like it's really this simple, Like you
Speaker 1: can't fake urgency, it's completely impossible. There's playing hard and
Speaker 1: then there's playing like your life depends on it. And
Speaker 1: like playing hard is a character thing. It's what we
Speaker 1: refer to as motor right. You either have the willingness
Speaker 1: to push yourself when you're tired or you don't. Right,
Speaker 1: that is like a thing that goes comes down to
Speaker 1: the individual, right. But playing hard and playing desperate are
Speaker 1: two fundamentally different things. It's impossible to replicate what you
Speaker 1: saw tonight was a crazy desperate Dallas effort, right, So
Speaker 1: all you have to do is bring that same level
Speaker 1: of desperation in game five. For you, it's the exact
Speaker 1: same concept in reverse that were talking about with Dallas.
Speaker 1: You have to win on Monday, because if you don't,
Speaker 1: you got to go to Dallas where they're gonna be
Speaker 1: favored to send this thing to seven. Right, So everything
Speaker 1: comes down to closing the deal on Monday, bringing that urgency,
Speaker 1: flipping that dynamic, riding the home crowd again, a lot
Speaker 1: of like game plan discipline stuff. So like Joe Mizula
Speaker 1: has been talking a lot about spacing. That was the
Speaker 1: quote coming out of halftime. All those same diligent all
Speaker 1: the things that Boston was being very diligent about in
Speaker 1: the first three games. Getting the right matchup, running action
Speaker 1: early in the set to get switches so that you
Speaker 1: have Dallas's rim protectors above the break rather than along
Speaker 1: the baseline, and then from there creating dribble penetration, hunting
Speaker 1: the great shot instead of the good shot. You do
Speaker 1: all of that. You score. If you score, you get
Speaker 1: to set your defense. If you set your defense, you
Speaker 1: don't have transition cross matches. If you don't have transition
Speaker 1: cross matches, you can execute your defensive game play, which
Speaker 1: is something that Boston has done really well over the
Speaker 1: course of this series. I think Boston is gonna win
Speaker 1: Game five. However, we would all be foolish to write
Speaker 1: off Luca and Kyrie in a must win game like that.
Speaker 1: That certainly is a possibility that's on the table. But
Speaker 1: I do think Boston is going to close it out
Speaker 1: in game five. All Right, Well, you're going to get
Speaker 1: into the mailbag, drop questions to the chat, and we're
Speaker 1: going to get to as many as we can here
Speaker 1: over the next twenty minutes or so. We're this close
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Speaker 1: and responsible gaming resources. All right, first question, is Derek
Speaker 1: White the best role player in the NBA? If not,
Speaker 1: who is? This is a tough one. I'd have to
Speaker 1: I'd have to take some time to really think about,
Speaker 1: to really think about who the other candidates for that
Speaker 1: type of kind of title is. That said, I do
Speaker 1: think Derek White is kind of like the perfect NBA
Speaker 1: role player. And the main reason why is there's like
Speaker 1: a positional versatility with him. Like he's a guard, but
Speaker 1: he's pretty big, and he's pretty athletic, and like can
Speaker 1: do things with his length and athleticism on the back
Speaker 1: line as a rebounder and as a shot blocker. You know,
Speaker 1: there was a a comment I can't remember, Oh, it's
Speaker 1: a tweet. It was a tweet that came out of
Speaker 1: like a report somebody I'm gonna blank on who it was,
Speaker 1: but somebody reported that Derek White could be considered for
Speaker 1: the Olympic team spot should should Kawhi Leonard be on
Speaker 1: a to participate? And when I saw that, I thought
Speaker 1: that was interesting because like there's these other names that
Speaker 1: you're going to see thrown around, right, Like, well what
Speaker 1: about Tyrie? What about Jaylen Brown? And like both of
Speaker 1: those guys would certainly be more deserving, right Like, if
Speaker 1: you're just going on who has the better basketball reputation,
Speaker 1: that player should get the spot. I agree, but strictly's
Speaker 1: thinking about the game of basketball. Derek White, to me,
Speaker 1: is an incredible spot up player who can run inverted
Speaker 1: ball screen actions and has a ton of experience running
Speaker 1: inverted ball screen actions, meaning he can set screens for Lebron,
Speaker 1: set screens for KD, set screens for Jason Tatum who
Speaker 1: will be on that team as well, and pop and
Speaker 1: create advantages there a second piece of it, Like Derek
Speaker 1: White is a professional off ball player, he is a
Speaker 1: professional off of Superstars player, right. He is a guy
Speaker 1: that has made his living learning how to be next
Speaker 1: to a supreme talent and fit his talent a lot
Speaker 1: longside what he does and to accentuate what the team does.
Speaker 1: And so I actually reeded when I saw that. I
Speaker 1: was like, Derek White would be perfect. He'd be willing
Speaker 1: to take an on ball defensive role like it was
Speaker 1: the most important thing that he's doing. Right. I think
Speaker 1: Derek White is the consummate NBA role player that you
Speaker 1: could plug into any team anywhere around the league. He's
Speaker 1: great above the break, he's great in the corners. He
Speaker 1: can run action, he can run inverted action. He's an
Speaker 1: athlete that can impact the game on both ends. I
Speaker 1: absolutely think that Derek White's in the conversation for best
Speaker 1: role player in the NBA. Let's see should Joe Mizzoula
Speaker 1: play Krisops Porzingis in Game five? There's two things that
Speaker 1: you have to factor in here when it comes to Porzingis. One,
Speaker 1: like Boston has a chance to repeat, like they're not
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference where it's like ten bloodbath teams
Speaker 1: every single year. Like the East is gonna be better
Speaker 1: next year, but I think Boston is gonna be favored
Speaker 1: to win the East next year, right, And so what
Speaker 1: you can't do with is risk potentially him having some
Speaker 1: sort of bigger injury that extends into next year or
Speaker 1: affects his ability to stay in shape over the summer. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: we don't even know what the fallout of this injury
Speaker 1: is going to be like in the short term. So
Speaker 1: there's that piece of it. There's like a risk reward factor.
Speaker 1: If you think you can win the series without porzingis
Speaker 1: you got to try to win the series without porzingis.
Speaker 1: Second piece of it is how's mobility? Like, part of
Speaker 1: what happened with Christops porzingis is he was playing awesome
Speaker 1: in the first two games and a lot of that
Speaker 1: had to do with his mobility. After he kind of
Speaker 1: tweaked it, he wasn't playing as well, right, So, like
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if he's out there. If he's not
Speaker 1: Christops porzingis, So like it really depends on the coaching
Speaker 1: staff to know how much risk there is for severe
Speaker 1: additional injury and two and I guess that's up to
Speaker 1: the medical staff. And then two for the coaching staff.
Speaker 1: How well is he actually moving? Is he actually moving
Speaker 1: in a way where he can impact things? Because if
Speaker 1: he's not, then it's not worth it all. Right, next question,
Speaker 1: is there an argument that Tatum is the most switchable
Speaker 1: defender in the league. So uh yeah, absolutely at this
Speaker 1: point in time, because like we've seen, like there are
Speaker 1: guys that are in that conversation for like best permitter defender,
Speaker 1: Guys that are like Jaden McDaniels, who are like too
Speaker 1: thin to guard the bigger, stronger players in the league.
Speaker 1: But like to be clear, like Lucas had a lot
Speaker 1: of success against Jason Tatum in this series too, So
Speaker 1: like I wouldn't go as far as to say, like
Speaker 1: some of that's just Luca being unguardable, right, But yeah, Tatum,
Speaker 1: with his size and strength, should in theory be able
Speaker 1: to do a better job on him than a guy
Speaker 1: like Jada McDaniels. A. Jalen Suggs is another guy who's
Speaker 1: regarded as one of the best permitter defenders in the league.
Speaker 1: He's a touch on the small side, right, like Lou
Speaker 1: Dort is a guy that I think can cause a
Speaker 1: lot of problems to some power players, but like you know,
Speaker 1: he can be a little bit on the underside side
Speaker 1: in terms of lengths. So what about pull up shooters
Speaker 1: when it comes to against a guy like him. Tatum
Speaker 1: has that unique capability of like real size and strength
Speaker 1: and perimeter mobility. Now, I don't think Tatum has been
Speaker 1: the same level of defender that he was in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two this year. I think Jalen Brown has made
Speaker 1: improvements since then. I think Tatum has gone down a
Speaker 1: little bit of a level since then. But like, Tatum
Speaker 1: hasn't done as good a job on the perimeter in
Speaker 1: this series, but he's been really good at the rim.
Speaker 1: He's been really good on the defensive glass, He's done
Speaker 1: a good job holding up under any sort of physicality
Speaker 1: that Gafford brings to the table. But like in terms
Speaker 1: of switchability, meaning actual ability to guard one through five,
Speaker 1: Tatum is certainly in that conversation. Again, I'd have to
Speaker 1: think more about it to give you guys an actual list.
Speaker 1: Let's see how do the Warriors become contenders next season. So,
Speaker 1: anytime I see a team get written off, and we
Speaker 1: just saw this last year with Dallas and we're seeing
Speaker 1: it this year with Golden State, when you're writing a
Speaker 1: team off, usually if they've got a couple of real
Speaker 1: key foundational pieces, in this case Kyrie and Luca, or
Speaker 1: in the Warriors case like Steph Curry. Some draft compensation.
Speaker 1: Jonathan kaminga Draymond Green is still one of the best
Speaker 1: defensive players in the league. Right, You've got foundational pieces,
Speaker 1: so it's really about smart Tweaks. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: more complicated for Golden State because Steph wasn't playing well
Speaker 1: to end the season. He was like he was like
Speaker 1: seventy five percent of himself for basically the last half
Speaker 1: of the year. So like Steph is gonna have to
Speaker 1: one get back to being Steph and then just smart Tweaks.
Speaker 1: I think they absolutely have to get a bona fide
Speaker 1: secondary shot creator. There's been a lot of buzz surrounding
Speaker 1: like Zach Lavine with Golden State. In recent weeks. I've
Speaker 1: talked about like Dejontay Murray. We've talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: like like more on the margins moves, guys like Michale Bridges.
Speaker 1: There are a bunch of different directions they could go.
Speaker 1: But whoever that guy is, he needs to be somebody
Speaker 1: that can legitimately take the reins from Steph for large
Speaker 1: doses of basketball games. One of the underrated pieces of
Speaker 1: the Warriors decline over the last couple of years is
Speaker 1: Jordan Poole, kind of fell off and Andrew Wiggins kind
Speaker 1: of fell off, and those two guys kind of like
Speaker 1: combined for that legitimate secondary star in terms of offensive firepower.
Speaker 1: I don't know that Wiggans ever is going to get
Speaker 1: back to that, and Jordan is gone. I don't think
Speaker 1: Chris Paul is going to be that. I'm not even
Speaker 1: sure if he's gonna be on the roster next year.
Speaker 1: So like you got to find a bona fide secondary
Speaker 1: shot creator. A little bit more interior size, I think
Speaker 1: is the second piece. I actually like their wing athleticism.
Speaker 1: They just need to have a big look where they
Speaker 1: can be more physically imposing, maybe a Draymond Green at
Speaker 1: the four type of look. But again, don't underestimate small
Speaker 1: tweaks on the margins and how they can improve a
Speaker 1: team like Dallas literally just got a like a couple
Speaker 1: of rim runners and a legitimate forward in PJ. Washington
Speaker 1: and they nailed one veteran minimum signing and then boom
Speaker 1: NBA Finals. So like that, that's again this stuff is
Speaker 1: I always talk about that quote that I got from
Speaker 1: Mark Titus that basketball is more art than science. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing I'm talking about, Like you can't
Speaker 1: just add up the pieces on paper. There's like a
Speaker 1: synergy to the way basketball players fit together, and slight
Speaker 1: tweaks that accentuate each other's strength can kind of lock
Speaker 1: into place and allow you to become a basketball team
Speaker 1: that is greater than the sum of its parts. With
Speaker 1: the passing of the great Jerry West, I've always wondered
Speaker 1: your favorite players from the older generations, and who do
Speaker 1: you think would play well in today's NBA. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go that far back, mainly just because for me,
Speaker 1: like as a basketball fan, I especially when you go
Speaker 1: out past the eighties, I just I have not watched
Speaker 1: enough of those guys to give an educated opinion on
Speaker 1: how an opinion about how I believe they would fit
Speaker 1: into today's game. All I will say is like, for me,
Speaker 1: the guys that I ended up watching a ton of
Speaker 1: even though I didn't watch them when I was actually
Speaker 1: a kid, but more as an adult, is like the
Speaker 1: kind of players that kind of had my same build.
Speaker 1: So like I'm six ' six, I have long arms,
Speaker 1: and I play on the wing. So like I watched
Speaker 1: a lot of Bobbie Bryant growing up, I watched a
Speaker 1: lot of Michael Jordan. Growing up, I watched a lot
Speaker 1: of Grant Hill, Anny Hardaway, those kind of guys, because
Speaker 1: those guys just kind of like played a we had
Speaker 1: similar like frame to me, so like I would try
Speaker 1: to play like they played because I wanted to do
Speaker 1: the kind of things that they could do. And so
Speaker 1: those are the guys that, like, I watched a lot
Speaker 1: of like film on and things along those lines, and
Speaker 1: I've watched a lot of like NBA Classic games and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But when it comes to like Jerry
Speaker 1: West generation, I'm just so under exposed to them. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I try to do on
Speaker 1: this show is like not talk about things unless i'm
Speaker 1: unless I've done the appropriate amount of research. And so
Speaker 1: so I don't talk about the draft until we get
Speaker 1: out of the finals. I'm not going to sit here
Speaker 1: and pontificate about draft picks when I haven't done the
Speaker 1: requisite research. But interesting question again to me, Jerry West,
Speaker 1: like I said this on the show with Colin, to me,
Speaker 1: he's just one of the great basketball geniuses of all time,
Speaker 1: and I look at things like him putting Kobe and
Speaker 1: Shack together, him stopping the Kevin love for Klay Thompson,
Speaker 1: trade him kind of like being one of the guys,
Speaker 1: one of the in the brain trust that assembled to Clippers,
Speaker 1: and they're the Clippers were supposed to be like Boston
Speaker 1: in so many different ways, right and we're seeing that
Speaker 1: come to fruition in the championship right now. So like
Speaker 1: to me, Jerry West was just kind of in touch
Speaker 1: with where the game of basketball was going and was
Speaker 1: one of the great geniuses of our time. Hey, Jason
Speaker 1: fan from India enjoyed the content. I've been learning a
Speaker 1: lot about about basketball. Keep up the good work. Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, thank you for the kind words to
Speaker 1: sincerely appreciate it. The one professional basketball contract I signed
Speaker 1: before I hung up the shoes was in India. I
Speaker 1: was going to play in this league called the Uba.
Speaker 1: They paid me for like two weeks and then the
Speaker 1: league and then the league folded. And then at that
Speaker 1: point I like looked at my wife and I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't keep doing this. I just got to go
Speaker 1: to work. But I got to meet the When when
Speaker 1: that league was being put to it was in like
Speaker 1: the third or fourth season. They were doing like a
Speaker 1: major showcase here in the US, and they've like flew
Speaker 1: all these people out and I got to meet a
Speaker 1: ton of people that actually live in India and it
Speaker 1: was just like a really cool part of that experience.
Speaker 1: And big one if for me in my life is
Speaker 1: always wonder what would happened if that season would have
Speaker 1: come to Fruition and then I would have gone over there.
Speaker 1: Work ethic and psycho competitiveness is paramount to the greats.
Speaker 1: As a GM, how do you evaluate players in the
Speaker 1: draft for that intangible So here's the thing, Like I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer in kind of staying in your wheelhouse.
Speaker 1: It's impossible for me to really get into touch with
Speaker 1: the intangibles of draft prospects because the people that do
Speaker 1: it year round and watch every single interview, they do,
Speaker 1: watch every single one of their games and really keep
Speaker 1: an eye on their motor in the different their their
Speaker 1: competitiveness within games and things along those lines. For me,
Speaker 1: I have to do kind of a very abbreviated version
Speaker 1: of that. Like the NBA Finals, let's say they end
Speaker 1: on Monday, that's what the seventeenth. So like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to have less than two weeks to prepare for the draft,
Speaker 1: and so for me, I'm gonna be primarily focusing on
Speaker 1: skills like skills and tape, Like just as much as
Speaker 1: I can digest in a short period of time, that's it.
Speaker 1: If I was working in the draft, that would be
Speaker 1: a major element to my focus on player development, Like
Speaker 1: player evaluations, I should say to me, Like, it goes
Speaker 1: into the competitiveness or your you're like being a psycho,
Speaker 1: your work ethic, those sorts of things, those to me,
Speaker 1: they don't just manifest in skill development, they manifest in
Speaker 1: the games, right, Like in order to be the kind
Speaker 1: of player that buys into a defensive scheme and is
Speaker 1: willing to do the dirty work, you've got to be nasty,
Speaker 1: You've got to be competitive. There are no there are
Speaker 1: no lazy guys that do that type of job. Right
Speaker 1: But in addition to that, it's about the competitiveness, the pettiness,
Speaker 1: the wanting to be better than the guy next to you.
Speaker 1: That's what drives you on a daily basis to put
Speaker 1: in the work. And one of the things I talk
Speaker 1: about a lot on the show. And I know this
Speaker 1: just from my own personal experience because I went through
Speaker 1: skill development in my twenties because I was so late
Speaker 1: to pick up the game of basketball, Like it's incremental guys,
Speaker 1: Like you shoot ten thousand jump shots over the course
Speaker 1: of two months over the summer, and you might get
Speaker 1: this much better, like it is a year over year,
Speaker 1: like just painstaking effort to improve your game on the margins.
Speaker 1: The same thing goes with ball handling, ball handling and shooting,
Speaker 1: Like you might experience some initial improvement, but it plateaus
Speaker 1: pretty quickly and then it's like incremental improvement and so
Speaker 1: like you got to be the psycho to be the
Speaker 1: guy that improves in those areas, and it requires like
Speaker 1: if you're just going into the gym three four times
Speaker 1: a week over the summer with the trainer and shooting
Speaker 1: a couple hundred shots, like that's literally not going to
Speaker 1: do it. There is a psycho level of work you
Speaker 1: have to achieve on a day to day basis to
Speaker 1: make those sorts of improvements. How much of Browning having
Speaker 1: better production than Jason Tatum in this playoffs has been
Speaker 1: based on how they're being defended, for example, being guarded
Speaker 1: by Nempard versus Nie Smith. It's a huge factor, right,
Speaker 1: Like Tatum's always getting the primary defensive player. In terms
Speaker 1: of the actions, it's the same, Like both guys are
Speaker 1: getting the same help. Both guys are getting like aggressive
Speaker 1: coverages and ball screens and things along those lines. But
Speaker 1: there's no doubt in terms of the individual matchup, Tatum
Speaker 1: has a tougher shake. One of the bigger pieces of
Speaker 1: it is just the jump shooting. Though Jason Tatum is
Speaker 1: just having a nightmare jump shooting postseason, Jalen Brown is
Speaker 1: shooting better. That's the give and take of basketball, right,
Speaker 1: Like if I always talk about like defenders being on
Speaker 1: their toes or being on their heels, if they are
Speaker 1: terrified of you shooting a jumper, they're going to be
Speaker 1: up on their toes, which will make it easier for
Speaker 1: you to go around them. If they're terrified of you
Speaker 1: getting downhill, they're going to be on their heels. But
Speaker 1: if they only have to worry about one of those things,
Speaker 1: they can really sit on whatever that is. And so
Speaker 1: Jason Tatum, it's like offer a late contest and he's
Speaker 1: missing it right now. So like these guys are, it
Speaker 1: makes containing him easier in dribble drive situations. So again,
Speaker 1: I think it's part of it's the matchups. Part of
Speaker 1: it is Jason Tatum is having a bad jump shooting
Speaker 1: stretch and by the way, that can happen. That's part
Speaker 1: of the game of basketball, right Like Lebron James last
Speaker 1: year had the worst jump shooting season he's had in
Speaker 1: ten years, and then this year he had the best
Speaker 1: jump shooting season he's had in ten years. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he worked hard last summer. I'm sure that was part
Speaker 1: of it, but it's not like Lebron made some gigantic
Speaker 1: improvement year over year in terms of his actual core
Speaker 1: shooting capability. He had a rough season, he had a
Speaker 1: hot season. Jason Tatum has been in a shooting slump
Speaker 1: that's been lasting for a few months now. Who would
Speaker 1: you favor in a potential Game six in Dallas? So
Speaker 1: Boston deserves to be heavy favorite in Game five, right
Speaker 1: as they should be if Dallas were to steal that game.
Speaker 1: My guess is the line will be very slightly in Dallas.
Speaker 1: His favorite something like Dallas minus point five. I also
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if Boston was a very slight favorite
Speaker 1: in that game, like a minus one and a half,
Speaker 1: a minus point five, something like that. For me going
Speaker 1: into Game six in Dallas, it'd be a coin flip
Speaker 1: for me. Main reason why is Boston's been really good
Speaker 1: on the road. I do believe Boston is the better team.
Speaker 1: I think that Boston has more advantages in this series.
Speaker 1: And so even if Dallas were to get some sort
Speaker 1: of crazy Kyrie Luca effort to steal Game five, I'd
Speaker 1: still make it basically a coin flip in Game six,
Speaker 1: but Dallas absolutely could win that game. What do you
Speaker 1: think of Jordan Pool to the Nuggets. Wow, that's a
Speaker 1: really interesting type of deal. I went on Washington Sports
Speaker 1: radio a few days ago, and I was talking a
Speaker 1: lot about how I wouldn't give up on Jordan Pool,
Speaker 1: and so I imagine they'll keep him. I think that
Speaker 1: young guards in particular have very volatile, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of life cycles, and so I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: Jordan Pool at age twenty seven is going to be
Speaker 1: a pretty steady pro and I think whatever team bets
Speaker 1: on that is going to have some success. Or the
Speaker 1: reason why simple Jordan Poole can beat people off triple
Speaker 1: inting knockdown jump shots. He's like, that's a really good combination.
Speaker 1: Like he's quick as hell and he can knock down
Speaker 1: jump shots. Now, you hadn't shot the ball well in
Speaker 1: a couple of years, but that capability is certainly there.
Speaker 1: We've seen it in the past. As far as the
Speaker 1: Nuggets fit though, one of the things I talked about
Speaker 1: a lot with the Nuggets. I love everything about that
Speaker 1: team except for they don't have anybody that can just
Speaker 1: generate dribble penetration since Bruce Brown has has left right,
Speaker 1: Like everything with Jokich's size related, Jamal Murray's screen related right,
Speaker 1: So like having a guy like Jordan Pooh can beat
Speaker 1: people off the dribble would be a would be a
Speaker 1: huge asset to that team. It'd be tricky to figure
Speaker 1: out how to do the to work out that type
Speaker 1: of deal, though, especially at his salary. Is Luca a
Speaker 1: younger James Harden, an excellent scorer who doesn't know what
Speaker 1: defense is. No, Luca's a way better version of James Harden.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, James Harden was. James Harden was. What
Speaker 1: happens when analytics takes too much of a role in
Speaker 1: constructing an NBA offense. For instance, like James Harden, the
Speaker 1: step back three, the left handed drive off of the
Speaker 1: off of the between the legs dribble, and the occasional
Speaker 1: crossover back to the right. Everything with James Harden in
Speaker 1: his prime was at the rim step back three. The
Speaker 1: rim step back three added a little bit of a
Speaker 1: floater in twenty nineteen right, but like there was a
Speaker 1: predictability with James Harden that made him easier to defend
Speaker 1: as playoff series progressed. One of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: think Luca has been a better player in the postseason
Speaker 1: than James Harden is he never it seems like every
Speaker 1: attack from him looks different. Like he's willing to attack
Speaker 1: from the post. He's willing to attack straight iso, but
Speaker 1: he's also willing to attack in ball screens. He's not
Speaker 1: just taking step back threes. He's also getting into the
Speaker 1: mid range. He's taking step backs from the mid range.
Speaker 1: He's taking turnaround jumpers from the mid range. He can
Speaker 1: put you in jail and kind of like manipulate things
Speaker 1: from the middle of the floor. James Harden never would
Speaker 1: stop in the middle of the floor in his prime.
Speaker 1: In the twenty eighteen twenty nineteen stretch, that little like
Speaker 1: kind of right handed push shot where he kind of
Speaker 1: powers his way along the right lane line and kind
Speaker 1: of fights her position and shoots that little pop shot
Speaker 1: Like there's just so much more variety in Luca's game.
Speaker 1: That makes him a much more a much more resilient
Speaker 1: offensive player, especially against elite defenses down the line, as
Speaker 1: far as the defensive end of the floor. Like, I
Speaker 1: think Luca's gonna learn his lesson. I think he's just young.
Speaker 1: I think he's arrogant. I think he needs to have
Speaker 1: humiliation to kind of like have that slam slapped in
Speaker 1: his face, right, Like I've talked about it with Lebron
Speaker 1: all the time, Like twenty eleven, Lebron got embarrassed. Dude,
Speaker 1: your jump shots two inconsistent. You don't have much of
Speaker 1: it back to the basket game. You just you in
Speaker 1: general just aren't good enough in these details to get
Speaker 1: to where you want to go. And like a huge
Speaker 1: part of what turned around his career twenty twelve in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen was his ability to turn his back to
Speaker 1: the basket against KWHI Leonard, his ability to knock down
Speaker 1: over the top jumpers, like his jumper saved him literally
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve on the road in Game six in
Speaker 1: Boston when they were down three to two, Like, Lebron
Speaker 1: reached a level as a player as a result of
Speaker 1: humiliation he like remember, he like disappeared that entire summer,
Speaker 1: like didn't talk to anybody when he came back to
Speaker 1: following seasons like reading books and shit, and like he
Speaker 1: was just like Lebron, like got straight up humbled in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven and it made him a better version of himself.
Speaker 1: I think Luca needed to. I think Luca needed to
Speaker 1: get punched in the mouth and like, hey, dude, you're
Speaker 1: really fucking good, but you're not good enough and there's
Speaker 1: these clear areas where you can improve, and I think
Speaker 1: this series is amounting to that for Luca. What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on the Luca Carmelo cump As players. I
Speaker 1: don't really see how they're that similar, even if I
Speaker 1: point out the point, even if I get the point
Speaker 1: about the poor defense, So don't look at it so
Speaker 1: much as the player cump because obviously they're very very
Speaker 1: different types of players. Right, Luca is a playmaking forward.
Speaker 1: Carmelo is a scoring forward, but lucas also an elite scorer.
Speaker 1: Right Like to me, Luca is just a much better
Speaker 1: player with a much better standing in the league. I
Speaker 1: never thought Carmelo was like a true Apex superstar, Like
Speaker 1: he was just always in that second tier for me,
Speaker 1: Like even when he was on those really good Denver
Speaker 1: Nuggets teams in the late two thousands, Like I never
Speaker 1: thought he was like at the Kobe level, at the
Speaker 1: Lebron level. I always thought he was just like a
Speaker 1: tier below that. I think Luca's been an APEX star
Speaker 1: for you know, the better part of a half decade now.
Speaker 1: So like to me, I don't see that specific side
Speaker 1: of the cup where I do agree. And the point
Speaker 1: that I think Colin is trying to point out is
Speaker 1: like it's about unachieved potential. Like Luca's insanely good, and
Speaker 1: he can be so much better. Like if he actually
Speaker 1: became psycho competitive about how he cares for his body
Speaker 1: and he became like a leaner, more muscular, better conditioned
Speaker 1: version of himself, that's just a way better basketball player.
Speaker 1: And when you combine that with the mentality to be
Speaker 1: engaged on the defensive end, he can achieve anything. He
Speaker 1: could be the goat that like, that's he could absolutely
Speaker 1: go on a run and be remembered. As in the
Speaker 1: conversation with Lebron James and Michael Jordan, that is an
Speaker 1: absolute potential for Luca. But it is non negotiable that
Speaker 1: he addresses those things. I don't think Carmelo ever had
Speaker 1: that potential. But if you talked about what held him back,
Speaker 1: it's the same things. It's a lack of attention to
Speaker 1: a health and fitness and a lack of commitment to
Speaker 1: the details, especially on the defensive end of the floor.
Speaker 1: So I think that's the point he was trying to make. Again, like,
Speaker 1: it's not a perfect comp but there are some similarities there. Somehow,
Speaker 1: some way, somebody has to break the streak and win
Speaker 1: from down to three. Could it be this Maps team?
Speaker 1: Of course it could, It's just not likely. What I
Speaker 1: always talk about with this is any team that has
Speaker 1: the ability to go up three to zero has advantages
Speaker 1: that allowed them to go up three to zero. You
Speaker 1: don't go three up three to zero as a fluke.
Speaker 1: You do it with advantages, right, So like, in order
Speaker 1: for you to turn around and do the same thing
Speaker 1: and win four in a row, you better have all
Speaker 1: the advantages, and that would require roster dynamics flipping. So like,
Speaker 1: I think the team that eventually breaks the three streak,
Speaker 1: and it'll happen eventually, But the team that eventually breaks
Speaker 1: the oh three Strake. It's gonna be injury related. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be some team that goes up three to zero
Speaker 1: and then some sort of pivotally pivotally important member of
Speaker 1: the team gets hurt and then suddenly it just flips
Speaker 1: all those advantages, and then the team with the advantages,
Speaker 1: which is the down oh three team, is able to
Speaker 1: rack together some wins just for fun. Who do you
Speaker 1: think would win a seven game series between the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty Lakers and the twenty twenty four Celtics. I just
Speaker 1: think it's an interesting matchup when comparing champions. So I
Speaker 1: think the twenty twenty Lakers are the best team since
Speaker 1: the two thousand and Night since the twenty eighteen Warriors.
Speaker 1: Main reason why is it's the only team in that
Speaker 1: span that had two bona fide top five players in
Speaker 1: the league. The Raptors had Kawhi. Your second best player
Speaker 1: is Pascal Siakam, Right, the twenty twenty one Bucks, it's
Speaker 1: like Giannis, and then it's Chris Middleton and Drew Drew Holliday. Right,
Speaker 1: it's twenty twenty two Warriors, it's Steph Curry, and then
Speaker 1: it's like Andrew Wiggins is probably second best player on
Speaker 1: the team Denver Nuggets, it's Nicole Jokic and Jamal Murray
Speaker 1: is really good. I have the Nuggets, I think if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, have him second in that list, but
Speaker 1: like that team had like Jamal Murray is like somewhere
Speaker 1: around the fifteenth to sixteenth best player in the league, right.
Speaker 1: And then you have the Celtics team where I think
Speaker 1: they have two guys that are in that like six
Speaker 1: to ten range, right, So, like the Lakers had the
Speaker 1: unbelievable top end star power. As far as the matchup goes,
Speaker 1: the Lakers actually matchup pretty well with the Celtics because
Speaker 1: they were an excellent team on the perimeter. Defensively they
Speaker 1: had had They started Game six of the NBA Finals
Speaker 1: against the Miami Heat with Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Alex Caruso,
Speaker 1: Contavious Colwall Pope, and Danny Green. That's KCP dominant perimeter defender,
Speaker 1: Alex Cruso dominant perimeter defender. Twenty twenty was the last
Speaker 1: great defensive season of Lebron's career. Anthony Davis was the
Speaker 1: best defensive player in the world. Danny Green was the
Speaker 1: worst defensive player in that lineup. The Lakers would have
Speaker 1: had the best player in the series. They'd had the
Speaker 1: best two players in the series. Now, as we all know,
Speaker 1: the Anthony Davis host twenty twenty, by virtue of injuries
Speaker 1: and a lack of commitment to the details, has declined
Speaker 1: as a jump shooter and has become a player that's
Speaker 1: actually down in that tier with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen
Speaker 1: Brown now. But in twenty twenty, he was better than
Speaker 1: both of those guys, and than these versions of both
Speaker 1: of these guys. Like you guys remember Ad in the bubble,
Speaker 1: he was like like Kevin Durant mixed with the best
Speaker 1: defensive player in the world right like he was. There
Speaker 1: was a case to make that he was at the
Speaker 1: same level as Lebron, and it was certainly close. Although
Speaker 1: I still think Lebron is the best player in the
Speaker 1: world at that point. Do you think Jalen Brown can
Speaker 1: reach top tier superstar status. I don't know. I never
Speaker 1: want to say never, especially to a top tier athlete.
Speaker 1: The one thing with Jylen Brown that I think would
Speaker 1: hold him back is even as he's made improvements as
Speaker 1: a playmaker, most of the top tier superstars are at
Speaker 1: least above average playmakers, and I don't think Jalen Brown
Speaker 1: has ever been able to reach that level, but I
Speaker 1: would never say never with a guy like Jaylen Brown. Hypothetical,
Speaker 1: who would you have picked in the twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: Western Conference Finals had the Sons beat the MAVs in
Speaker 1: Game seven and played the Warriors, that's interesting, but give
Speaker 1: me the give me the Warriors. I think Steph Curry
Speaker 1: would have been the best player in the series by
Speaker 1: a mile. That Suns team in particular two like they.
Speaker 1: I was never as high on that Sun's team as
Speaker 1: everybody else. They in twenty twenty one, I thought the
Speaker 1: Lakers would have beat him if Anthony Davis didn't get hurt.
Speaker 1: The reason why they made it to the finals had
Speaker 1: a lot to do with injuries they ended up facing
Speaker 1: that injured the Clippers team in the conference finals. Their
Speaker 1: best player was Devin Booker, and I really like Devin Booker,
Speaker 1: but I don't think Devin Booker is an APEX star.
Speaker 1: They would have been. I would have picked the Warriors
Speaker 1: against them, for sure. Saw a summer trade rumor of
Speaker 1: marketing into the Knicks. What do you think of that?
Speaker 1: That'd be awesome? That's like a now I think one
Speaker 1: of the things with the Knicks is I think they
Speaker 1: similarly to what we talked about the Warriors, I think
Speaker 1: they need a legitimate secondary shot creator, and unfortunately Market
Speaker 1: is more of a play finisher than a shot creator,
Speaker 1: but he would certainly make them better as like kind
Speaker 1: of a slot into that Julius Randall position and putting
Speaker 1: ogn and Obi at the three. But if I was,
Speaker 1: if I was the Knicks, I'd be targeting someone who's
Speaker 1: more capable of creating things off the bounce. Should Lively
Speaker 1: be considered the third best rookie behind Chet and Wemby.
Speaker 1: That's tough, certainly, certainly if you're factoring in postseason contributions, right,
Speaker 1: I'd have to go back and look at all the rookies,
Speaker 1: but certainly considering postseason postseason contributions. Did Joe Missoula leak
Speaker 1: the formula to playing against Luca? So? I talked about
Speaker 1: this after game was a one or two? I can't remember,
Speaker 1: but like, I immediately thought back to the Minnesota series and
Speaker 1: I was like, man, shouldn't should they have just put
Speaker 1: Jaden McDaniels on Daniel Gafford and put Rudy goo Baer
Speaker 1: and Derek Jones Junior and done the exact same thing essentially,
Speaker 1: meaning put your biggest forward on Dallas's lob threats, put
Speaker 1: your rim protector on their bad above the break shooters,
Speaker 1: which are Derek Jones and PJ. Washington. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it would have been enough to turn around the
Speaker 1: Minnesota series because Minnesota had issues on the other end
Speaker 1: with their inability to penetrate Dallas's load up the strong
Speaker 1: side type of defense. But like this, I do think
Speaker 1: that Joe Miszoula has put together probably the best game plan.
Speaker 1: And again, like when people talk about the Mavericks, like
Speaker 1: their build is fine, they have rim protection, they have
Speaker 1: perimeter defenders, they have the superstars. The one weakness is
Speaker 1: they do not have a guy who can both guard
Speaker 1: on the perimeter and hit above the break threes consistently.
Speaker 1: So if you look at their situation, there's not really
Speaker 1: a ton of opportunity to improve the roster this summer,
Speaker 1: especially because they've gone all in in so many different ways.
Speaker 1: But what I would do is I'd go to PJ.
Speaker 1: Washington and I'd be and Derek Jones and I'd be like,
Speaker 1: and who knows, Derek Jones might end up being poached
Speaker 1: this summer because he had such good season and mostly
Speaker 1: maybe the I think the Mavericks will probably try to
Speaker 1: keep them with their mid level exception. But if if
Speaker 1: Dallas can keep Derek Jones in PJ. Washington, you basically
Speaker 1: point point to those guys in their postseason kind of
Speaker 1: like wrap up meeting, and you say, above the break
Speaker 1: threes all summer long, above the break threes and corner threes,
Speaker 1: above the break threes and corner threes. Again, it's there's
Speaker 1: a there's a It's not about winning one series against
Speaker 1: a really good team. You have to beat four teams,
Speaker 1: and every team is going to defend you in different ways.
Speaker 1: Boston did put together a nice formula with Joe Miszula
Speaker 1: for how to slow down Dallas' offense, and the only
Speaker 1: counter for that is to be able to either have
Speaker 1: Derek Lively turn into a three point shooter so that
Speaker 1: he can pick and pop in those situations, or to
Speaker 1: have Derek Jones PJ. Washington, that group of guys, Josh Green,
Speaker 1: you know, that group of guys become effective above the
Speaker 1: break shooters. Because again, if you if we look at
Speaker 1: the geometry of the four, if the dunker spot is
Speaker 1: occupied because Tatum or the other team's best forward is there,
Speaker 1: and guys are glued up on the corners because they
Speaker 1: don't need to help because the biggest forward is under
Speaker 1: the rim. Then you're setting ball screens to attack their
Speaker 1: center with your forward. If Luca's trying to get downhill
Speaker 1: in that ball screen, just imagine the geometry of the
Speaker 1: floor center in the dunker spot, Luca driving shooters in
Speaker 1: the corners. That's four players. Where is the opening. The
Speaker 1: entire above the brake line is open. If you have
Speaker 1: that guy, the guy setting the screen in this case,
Speaker 1: Derek Jones or PJ. Washington, if you have them roll,
Speaker 1: they're rolling into all that shit show underneath the rim.
Speaker 1: If you have them pop, there's just a ton of
Speaker 1: opening above the brake and those guys are going to
Speaker 1: be wide open every single time. So like that is
Speaker 1: the ultimate counter to what Boston is doing is you've
Speaker 1: got to You've got to force whoever it is that
Speaker 1: they'll stop at that point because they won't want their
Speaker 1: rim protector being pulled out above the break. You can
Speaker 1: literally cancel out that adjustment and force them to go
Speaker 1: back to putting their center on your center as long
Speaker 1: as that guy's capable of hitting above the break threes,
Speaker 1: and so that I think is going to be a
Speaker 1: big kind of like skill development piece that PJ and
Speaker 1: Derek Jones or whoever it is that they end up
Speaker 1: filling that spot with. We'll have to work on over
Speaker 1: the summer. All right, guys, that is all I have
Speaker 1: for tonight. I sincerely appreciate you guys' participation in the
Speaker 1: mail bag and as always for supporting the show. We're
Speaker 1: going to run. This mail bag is breakout clips probably
Speaker 1: on Saturday and Sunday, and then we'll be back with
Speaker 1: Colin on Monday night to break down Game five after
Speaker 1: the final buzzer live on YouTube. I will see you guys.
Speaker 1: Then the volume