Speaker 1: At this browd rises to its feet.
Speaker 2: What Carls slandered home?
Speaker 1: Are left wing free ball?
Speaker 2: Perfect?
Speaker 3: Botly pop that haven't blocked the shot of the rim?
Speaker 3: How with the left head and a bow? Welcome to
Speaker 3: the Chase Down Podcast, part of the Caves media family.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Justin Rowan. The Chase Doown is presented
Speaker 3: by Fubo, the official streaming partner of the Calves. Watch
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Speaker 3: Slash Calves. The Cleveland Cavaliers take Game one against the
Speaker 3: Miami Heat. The Heat found a way to stick around,
Speaker 3: make it a tight game. At times, a couple runs,
Speaker 3: a couple little pushes there, but the Calves always managed
Speaker 3: to maintain a healthy distance between them. So much fun
Speaker 3: to see the Calves take Game one. Carter, how you doing?
Speaker 2: You know they might have maintained a healthy distance, but
Speaker 2: I didn't maintain a healthy connection with my voice.
Speaker 3: It's no, you truly didn't, and I'm not maintaining a
Speaker 3: healthy distance from you either. If I sound like hell
Speaker 3: in Game two. It is one hundred percent your fault.
Speaker 3: But the Calves did their own part in almost making
Speaker 3: me sound like hell in this game. It was terrific
Speaker 3: to see them, you know, find that groove look like
Speaker 3: themselves offensively an offensive rating of over a hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty seven in their you know, debut of the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five playoffs. That was one of the big things
Speaker 3: that we wanted to see. You identified that two podcasts
Speaker 3: ago where you said I want to see, you know,
Speaker 3: a one eighteen type offensive output here. They kind of
Speaker 3: exceeded your expectations by about twenty points.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I just wanted to see the offense not
Speaker 2: drop off. You know, I wanted to see them get
Speaker 2: to run the kind of stuff that we've seen them
Speaker 2: run all year. You know, I wanted to see them. Look,
Speaker 2: I mean to put it simply, like they were in
Speaker 2: control of the game, and like, at no point do
Speaker 2: I feel like Miami had control of the game. Like,
Speaker 2: even when they made their runs, I feel like, at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, it was still very much
Speaker 2: a Cavaliers game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really did. It felt like a Cavs game.
Speaker 3: They got to the spots they wanted to get to
Speaker 3: And that was one thing that I noticed really early
Speaker 3: on Miami wasn't coming up to the level when they
Speaker 3: were setting screens there, Darius had many opportunities to attack
Speaker 3: them in a drop. They really hunted Tyler Hero more
Speaker 3: than I even expected. And the interesting thing about the
Speaker 3: way that the Cavs did hunt Tyler Hero, it wasn't
Speaker 3: just guard to guard screens to you know, get the
Speaker 3: mismatch and attack them one on one. Sometimes that was
Speaker 3: the case. I think we did see a lot of
Speaker 3: guard to guard screening throughout the night, but also would
Speaker 3: flow into the pick and roll right like you would
Speaker 3: generate that advantage. You generate the mismatches, get the switches
Speaker 3: you want, and then use that as a means to
Speaker 3: defeed Jarrett, tofeed Evan rolling to the basket, or even
Speaker 3: to find you know, cutters coming along the baseline.
Speaker 2: I mean, they didn't really have to feed Evan and
Speaker 2: Derrett though in fairness, I mean, Hi goes absolutely ballistic.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about him a lot. Twenty eight points on
Speaker 2: fifteen shots on him and puts up thirty on nineteen,
Speaker 2: and Darius puts up twenty seven on seventeen like and
Speaker 2: no point did the heat sell out to stop the
Speaker 2: Guards while they were attacking to Tyler Hero and the Calves,
Speaker 2: We're more than happy to continue torching him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, Miami really didn't send a lot
Speaker 3: of help either, Like once the Caves were able to
Speaker 3: generate that advantage with Hero, I think Miami kind of recognizes, Hey,
Speaker 3: we're gonna have to play this pretty straight up. Like
Speaker 3: we do have the zone as an option here, but
Speaker 3: for the most part, we're going to have to play
Speaker 3: a lot of one on one defense. We're gonna have
Speaker 3: to trust our guys because whether it's Ti Jerome, whether
Speaker 3: that's Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, whether it's the Biggs Max Struce,
Speaker 3: everyone's able to make the right play and find someone
Speaker 3: when you create those advantages. So if you are having
Speaker 3: so much trouble containing the point of attack that you
Speaker 3: need to send help to to you know, bail out
Speaker 3: Tyler Hero and to blitz into trap, the Cavs are
Speaker 3: going to hurt you a lot in those spots. And
Speaker 3: you know, I understand that that's the approach for game one.
Speaker 3: We'll see if Eric Sposter takes that same approach going
Speaker 3: into game two. We know that he is a master
Speaker 3: of adjustments, and he's going to be dissecting this game tape,
Speaker 3: particularly with two days off between these games. It'll be
Speaker 3: interesting to see if they go to the adjustments earlier
Speaker 3: than we expected, which typically Game three is that adjustment game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a twenty point loss will do that, though, where
Speaker 2: you know, I felt like, again, the Caves really controlled
Speaker 2: this game. Even when Miami was keeping it clos early.
Speaker 2: They were shooting over fifty percent from three, The Calves
Speaker 2: weren't hitting well, and like it just kind of felt
Speaker 2: like a matter of time before the dam broke. And
Speaker 2: I mean, I just don't think Miami had a lot
Speaker 2: of answers, and like, I think the meanest thing you
Speaker 2: could say about the game plan was that you didn't
Speaker 2: really feel bam aut Obio's presence on defensive end.
Speaker 3: No, you didn't feel him on the defensive end. I
Speaker 3: thought he had a very strong offensive game. He generated
Speaker 3: the majority of Miami second chance opportunities in this game.
Speaker 3: It felt like he had really nice timing for those misshots.
Speaker 3: He definitely won that kind of one on one battle
Speaker 3: with Evan Mobley, not that they were going at each
Speaker 3: other a whole lot, but he outplayed Mobile. I think
Speaker 3: it's fair to say That's something I'm going to keep
Speaker 3: an eye on going into Game two, is do the
Speaker 3: Cavs find other ways to get Evan going. But like
Speaker 3: you said, there wasn't really a necessity to feed the
Speaker 3: bigs because of how well the Guards were playing, and
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed that. It was almost like they took
Speaker 3: turns to some extent where Donovan really kind of had
Speaker 3: it going. Early. I thought he did a terrific job
Speaker 3: of setting the tone that man knows how to play
Speaker 3: to a crowd. He understands the importance of a moment,
Speaker 3: whether it was when he fought for the jump ball,
Speaker 3: anytime he could get those energy plays.
Speaker 2: Well shivered and Duncan Robinson.
Speaker 3: Right, and he plays to the crowd in all of
Speaker 3: those moments, and I thought he did a terrific job
Speaker 3: from a leadership standpoint. But then second and third quarters,
Speaker 3: I thought Darius had some of the most timely baskets.
Speaker 3: The playmaking was incredibly strong, really really really good playoff
Speaker 3: game from him, and then ty Jerome decided to put
Speaker 3: them my Ami heat away, which he has done all
Speaker 3: season long. He has been terrific coming in off the bench,
Speaker 3: and fun fact for you. I saw this from Calves notes.
Speaker 3: This is the first time in Cleveland Cavalier's playoff history
Speaker 3: that three players have scored over twenty seven points in
Speaker 3: a game.
Speaker 2: Really, that's pretty wild. You know, They've had some great trios.
Speaker 3: They really have. And to make that even more impressive,
Speaker 3: Donovan was the least efficient of the bunch, shooting almost
Speaker 3: fifty eight percent. Darius shot fifty nine percent, tie up
Speaker 3: to sixty three percent. That's you know, that's an underrated
Speaker 3: thing that we probably didn't talk about enough in this series.
Speaker 3: I never want to go too negative in you know,
Speaker 3: playoff coverage, and particularly when we're talking about other teams.
Speaker 3: I like focusing on what teams do well and how
Speaker 3: the Cavs can counteract that. But there really aren't a
Speaker 3: lot of spots to hide Tyler Herro in this series,
Speaker 3: particularly when the Cavs are able to go to these
Speaker 3: two and three guard lineups, you know, without being punished.
Speaker 2: And also the fact that Miami really only has Bam
Speaker 2: means that you're able to run pick and roll with
Speaker 2: whoever isn't there, Yeah, and you're able to bring you know,
Speaker 2: Haywood high Smith up to the action. And like I
Speaker 2: just felt like they kind of just could push whatever
Speaker 2: button they wanted and they were just able to I
Speaker 2: don't know, it just didn't feel like Miami really ever
Speaker 2: made the Calves do anything on that end of the floor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, I thought the same was true
Speaker 3: for Killel, where I thought that the Calves did a
Speaker 3: lot of things to get him into the action and
Speaker 3: to generate advantages there. I did not have, you know,
Speaker 3: a big game. He just had that kind of one
Speaker 3: book back dunk, which was impressive, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 3: But you know, I thought that whether it was Tyler Herro,
Speaker 3: whether it was where on the interior, I don't know
Speaker 3: how Miami ends up defending the Calves. And that goes
Speaker 3: back to what we talked about pregame, which is if
Speaker 3: the Calves are able to play their game, if they
Speaker 3: are able to generate offense that the way that we've
Speaker 3: seen all season, and Miami keep up offensively. They had
Speaker 3: such a you know, Miami had such a good shooting night.
Speaker 3: I know, late game, garbage time, they jacked up some
Speaker 3: threes and brought that percentage down to forty one percent,
Speaker 3: but they were hovering around fifty percent pretty much the
Speaker 3: whole game while still trailing by nearly ten points or more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was a good shot variance game
Speaker 2: for Miami, which is like the worst thing you could say.
Speaker 2: You know, Hero hit a couple of ridiculous ones, Wiggins
Speaker 2: started the game with a couple of tough ones, you know.
Speaker 2: Davion Mitchell, absolutely, I think the number that actually might
Speaker 2: matter just as much as the thirty one attempts. Like,
Speaker 2: they weren't really able to get their half court going
Speaker 2: in any meaningful way on the offensive end either.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they really struggled to keep up to the Cats offensively.
Speaker 3: And you know, we talked about over the last month
Speaker 3: and a half of the season there was a bit
Speaker 3: of a shooting slump with I, Jerome, Darius Garland, and Mitchell.
Speaker 3: We saw Ty come back from some time off and
Speaker 3: look explosive again. He was hitting his shots, you know.
Speaker 3: Towards the end of the season, as the Cavs actually
Speaker 3: got to stay home a little bit, we saw Darius
Speaker 3: have some good performances to close out the year. We
Speaker 3: saw Donovan have some good performances to close out the year.
Speaker 3: This week off, did those guys as much good as
Speaker 3: we were hoping for and you know, I think we
Speaker 3: talk about what the three guard configurations can do offensively
Speaker 3: and how they were able to generate offense so well,
Speaker 3: but I think a big part of why they are
Speaker 3: able to stick with those lineups and you know, really
Speaker 3: lean in on the offensive end of the floor is
Speaker 3: because of how well those guys were playing defensively. Darius
Speaker 3: Garland took those assignments against Tyler Hero and really performed
Speaker 3: well in those spots. Hero hit one incredibly tough three there,
Speaker 3: but Darius did a good job of staying straight up,
Speaker 3: you know, forcing them into tough shots. He didn't you know,
Speaker 3: he didn't reach in and foul. Donovan was diving for
Speaker 3: loose ball's playing hard defense. Tied did a good job
Speaker 3: and Sam Merrill as well. Sam didn't have a huge
Speaker 3: impact on the scoreboard, going to a four from three,
Speaker 3: but he really played well defensively. I thought his footwork
Speaker 3: was terrific. I thought he did a good job of
Speaker 3: bodying up on Tyler Herrero and some of those other
Speaker 3: guys on the perimeter, and really, you know, he made
Speaker 3: it easy for Kenny to continue to trust him with
Speaker 3: more minutes throughout the game.
Speaker 2: I think if anything, there was a kind of a
Speaker 2: revelation of Miami is kind of short on players who
Speaker 2: played bullyble like Giro can't isn't going to like go
Speaker 2: through your chest. Wiggins doesn't really want to do that,
Speaker 2: you know, and then it's just like Bam hitting tough
Speaker 2: jumpers and like if Donovan or Sam or Darius have
Speaker 2: a problem, it's when guys can kind of power through them.
Speaker 2: And it didn't really feel like Miami had the personnel
Speaker 2: to want to play that way.
Speaker 3: And that's not something you can just do out of nowhere,
Speaker 3: right like you're you can't all of a sudden decide
Speaker 3: I'm going to be that player that gets into the
Speaker 3: dirty areas and does the dirty work, right Like, you
Speaker 3: kind of have to always be geared towards that. That's
Speaker 3: not a flip switch that you can flip. And you
Speaker 3: know what, sometimes I don't want to go into the
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Speaker 2: Justin can we just talk more about Ty? I mean,
Speaker 2: what a debut for him in the playoffs, a proof
Speaker 2: of concept for his style of play for this team,
Speaker 2: and he really closed them out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, sometimes when you watch a player, you know,
Speaker 3: for a full season, you get the vibe that this
Speaker 3: is someone that lives for these kinds of moments, but
Speaker 3: you don't know it until you see it. And you know,
Speaker 3: Ty Jerome absolutely lives for these kinds of moments. Going
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen from the field, he was terrific tonight.
Speaker 3: The confidence he plays with, and you know some of
Speaker 3: those shots you see it on TV, you understand, you
Speaker 3: see the metrics that say he has one of the
Speaker 3: toughest shot difficulties in the league, but some of these shots,
Speaker 3: watching them live, you just are like wow, Like he
Speaker 3: is not he doesn't have a lot of space to
Speaker 3: work with, but he's still getting that flower off and
Speaker 3: he's hitting it with consistency. He is never going to
Speaker 3: shy away from those open three point opportunities. If you're
Speaker 3: playing drop against him, he is going to kill you.
Speaker 3: The confidence that he plays with it's infectious. And when
Speaker 3: you have a three headed monster, when you are able
Speaker 3: to keep Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell out there together
Speaker 3: and then sub and Ti Jerome, so you always have
Speaker 3: two dynamic guards out there, that's something special. And you know,
Speaker 3: congratulations to him. He is named the finalist for six
Speaker 3: Man of the Year. But in my opinion, it'd be
Speaker 3: a travesty if this guy doesn't win it. I don't
Speaker 3: think anybody has been better coming off the bench this season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just what I keep going back to is he
Speaker 2: changes the flow of the cabs. He is not a
Speaker 2: part of the machine. He is like, uh, he is
Speaker 2: like an extra like turbo mode for the machine, you know.
Speaker 2: And just the confidence, the difficulty of the shots, the
Speaker 2: foul drawing, the physicality, no one pretty literally like jumped
Speaker 2: on a heat player and forced to turn over, which
Speaker 2: you know, probably could have called that a foul, but
Speaker 2: you know whatever, it just felt like a total a
Speaker 2: total tie game.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, I'm not going to complain about a fifty
Speaker 3: to fifty call that went our away because there were
Speaker 3: plenty that didn't. I actually thought they did a really
Speaker 3: good job of keeping their composure in those moments I
Speaker 3: think there were some of those that you know, certainly
Speaker 3: felt as if they could have gone the other direction,
Speaker 3: but they didn't let any of that break them. I
Speaker 3: honestly thought they did a really good job of dictating
Speaker 3: terms here. Like I thought they brought the physicality to Miami,
Speaker 3: and that's not always the case. They won the offensive
Speaker 3: rebound battle, they won the over battle. And one of
Speaker 3: the things that you know, you mentioned to me when
Speaker 3: we were watching the game is you really like how
Speaker 3: they were picking them up full court and at.
Speaker 2: Least, you know, start the game right away.
Speaker 3: Really to dictate terms right. And that doesn't mean you're
Speaker 3: always going to play full court pressure, but if you're
Speaker 3: at least pressuring the inbound a little bit, it changes
Speaker 3: how comfortable they are bringing the ball up right, like
Speaker 3: you're just knocking them out of rhythm just a little bit.
Speaker 3: And I thought they did a really really good job
Speaker 3: of dictating terms on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 2: Well, Darius said it right off the rip, like in
Speaker 2: this postgame interview, like he felt like their physicality is
Speaker 2: what helped them win the game. And like a big
Speaker 2: thing about the playoffs is hitting first, like you're gonna
Speaker 2: get hit. It's gonna be tough, but like you have
Speaker 2: to dictate the physicality battle, and like I thought they
Speaker 2: did a great job of that. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: a team that played no full press all year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not an accident that they started Game one of
Speaker 2: the playoffs doing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And you know, we asked before the game, are
Speaker 3: there going to be little wrinkles that Kenny's been keeping
Speaker 3: in his back pocket? Is there little things that he's
Speaker 3: going to do in the postseason that we didn't see
Speaker 3: in the regular season. I think that's one of those things.
Speaker 3: But honestly, if we are going to have a discussion
Speaker 3: about the Cavs dictating terms about you know, the physicality
Speaker 3: that they played with, I think one guy that deserves
Speaker 3: a ton of credit is Jared Allen.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I thought he was making all of those fifty to
Speaker 3: fifty plays that you want to see, the way that
Speaker 3: he was hunting for offensive rebounds. He got six of
Speaker 3: them on the night that play in transition where Ban
Speaker 3: had a breakaway dunk and he met him at the
Speaker 3: rim and blocked the hell out of him. Jared, I thought,
Speaker 3: really came to play And this is just again another
Speaker 3: one of those reminders I think people think about two
Speaker 3: years ago. They forget that this man average seventeen and
Speaker 3: fourteen last year against the Orlando Magic, but before you know,
Speaker 3: suffering the broken rib and even playing you know, through
Speaker 3: some pain there. While he was playing, I thought Jared
Speaker 3: was absolutely terrific to and I really really felt his
Speaker 3: presence out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he was phenomenal. Six offensive rebounds, three steals,
Speaker 2: like a lot of like straw that broke the camel's
Speaker 2: back plays from him tonight.
Speaker 3: Hm, yeah, there really was. And I thought he had
Speaker 3: active hands too, where even you know, he has three steals,
Speaker 3: but I feel like there are two or three other
Speaker 3: possessions where he got the hand in there, started to
Speaker 3: disrupt things, you know, it caused a little bit of
Speaker 3: hand fighting. Maybe Darius comes in and gets the steel
Speaker 3: ultimately or someone else. I just thought the activity level
Speaker 3: was at a really really high level, and I'm just
Speaker 3: going to be curious to see. We know that Miami's
Speaker 3: going to look at this. They're going to look for
Speaker 3: opportunities to make adjustments. I don't know what they can
Speaker 3: do to really change what the Cats were doing with
Speaker 3: their guards, but if they start selling out and trying
Speaker 3: things and say Okay, maybe we're going to force the
Speaker 3: Bigs to beat us. I'm really interested to see how
Speaker 3: quickly we just to take advantage of that, because that, honestly,
Speaker 3: that feels like the CounterPunch that's coming at some point
Speaker 3: this season where Evan Mobley and Jared Allen are going
Speaker 3: to need to be the guys that are leading us
Speaker 3: in some scoring for portions of the game.
Speaker 2: I just feel like, if your solution to the Cavs
Speaker 2: is two on the ball, that's not a good solution.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just can't think of, you know, a whole
Speaker 3: lot of other options. And you know, this is not
Speaker 3: to be disrespectful, but this is kind of the dynamic
Speaker 3: when you're talking about a one versus eight playoff match
Speaker 3: ten one verse ten. You're You're right, you are correct
Speaker 3: to point that out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I do still think Miami is going to put a
Speaker 3: scare in them at some point this series. I think
Speaker 3: that the Cavs can respond to that. What I saw
Speaker 3: tonight really confirmed a lot of what I was thinking
Speaker 3: heading into the series, which is that the Cavs are
Speaker 3: looking to make a statement. I saw Chris Fiedor publish
Speaker 3: an article where the guys were talking about how they
Speaker 3: watched the OKAC game earlier, they saw what they did,
Speaker 3: how they made a statement as the number one seed,
Speaker 3: and felt like they needed to go out and make
Speaker 3: a statement. I feel they did that. You know, they
Speaker 3: put Miami away in the fourth quarter. The one thing
Speaker 3: that I'm kind of keeping an eye on, and you know,
Speaker 3: we would like to see them clean up, is how
Speaker 3: they close quarters in this game often. You know, in
Speaker 3: the final minutes of the first, second and third quarter
Speaker 3: they got outscored by about five points there, you know,
Speaker 3: almost each time, Yeah, had another fifteen points to the score.
Speaker 3: It's a laugher much much earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think there's definitely stuff to clean up.
Speaker 2: You know. There were some times where they got over
Speaker 2: their skis on the offense. They tried some really tight
Speaker 2: corridor passing, though they only had seven turnovers, so not
Speaker 2: too much at the end of the day. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, and some of that is noisy, you know,
Speaker 2: like the first half ends with Hero hitting a ridiculous three. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know they go in a little baby six
Speaker 2: zero run to make the game, you know, in contact. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I was glad to see. I don't think it
Speaker 2: ever got closer than seven in the second half, there
Speaker 2: was even with those little dips, there was a pretty
Speaker 2: sustained effort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and never felt like they got panicked. I think
Speaker 3: it might have come down to six, you know, when
Speaker 3: the Miami cut into it. It didn't feel like, oh,
Speaker 3: the next shot coming from the Cavs was something that
Speaker 3: was forced, right. It didn't feel like, you know, they
Speaker 3: they're panicked, and oh, we need to get something up,
Speaker 3: we need to extend this lead. Felt like they were
Speaker 3: just still running their offense, playing with confidence, playing with composure.
Speaker 3: And I don't think that was always the case. Going
Speaker 3: back to the playoffs. I think this team at times
Speaker 3: could have been rattled and they didn't allow the situation
Speaker 3: to get the best of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we haven't talked at all about the team's leading scorer,
Speaker 2: and Donovan Mitchell really and I thought his composure was really,
Speaker 2: really strong. I felt like almost every shot attempt he
Speaker 2: took was the right kind of shot. He took, like
Speaker 2: one pull up three I did in love when Evin
Speaker 2: had a mismatch and was posting. Other than that, I
Speaker 2: felt like his rim attacks were so on point. It's
Speaker 2: always a treasure watching him in person. You know, the
Speaker 2: way he moves just is another level of special in
Speaker 2: the room. And I just thought he had complete command
Speaker 2: of the offense tonight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really did. You know, only two of nine
Speaker 3: from the three point range. I agree with you. I
Speaker 3: thought most of them were all very good looks. A
Speaker 3: big part of when you're dealing with the score. As
Speaker 3: good as Donovan Mitchell is, you don't want him to ever,
Speaker 3: you know, pull it back right. I would rather him
Speaker 3: taking one or two shots that's maybe a little bit ambitious,
Speaker 3: rather than being passive, because he's someone that can get
Speaker 3: hot in a hurry. And you know, discussing how the
Speaker 3: Cats were able to get to the rim at will
Speaker 3: and how they were able to take advantage of Miami,
Speaker 3: I thought nobody did a better job of that than Donovan.
Speaker 3: Some of the layup finishes that he had were out
Speaker 3: of this world good. The body composure, we had an
Speaker 3: MJ moment. Not only did he have an MJ moment,
Speaker 3: he tied Michael Jordan for the most thirty point most
Speaker 3: consecutive thirty point games to start a series with seven.
Speaker 3: So you know, when the Caves advanced to the next round,
Speaker 3: which they will, trust me, I'm not going to shy
Speaker 3: away from that. We'll see if he can break MJ's record.
Speaker 3: I have full confidence that he is able to do that,
Speaker 3: and he'll once again have the opportunity to do that
Speaker 3: at home with the Kavs being the number one seed
Speaker 3: in the East. But I agree with you. I thought
Speaker 3: the composure, the leadership was all what you would expect
Speaker 3: from Donovan Mitchell, and that's really what we've seen all
Speaker 3: season long.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: It just feels like he has settled into exactly what
Speaker 3: the team needs him to do on and off the court.
Speaker 3: He is someone that has, you know, learned from his experiences,
Speaker 3: learned from his mistakes, learned from the playoff series that
Speaker 3: didn't go his way, And it's just another level of
Speaker 3: maturity because I think back to Game one against New
Speaker 3: York that was his best scoring game of the series,
Speaker 3: but it didn't feel as connected. And maybe that was
Speaker 3: you know, the teammates not being ready for the moment
Speaker 3: in that game and him, you know, putting the team
Speaker 3: on his shoulders. But just the way that he empowers everyone,
Speaker 3: the way that he gets everybody involved, there's just another
Speaker 3: level of maturity in basketball. Like you that I think
Speaker 3: he's gotten his game to and that's exactly what they
Speaker 3: need if they want to contend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just feel like with Donovan, he's just kind
Speaker 2: of my poster child for like, basketball is not about
Speaker 2: the bag. The bag is important, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 2: but like his growth as a player has almost nothing
Speaker 2: to do with the way he dribbles, shoots, passes. It's
Speaker 2: just his understanding of the game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he's that passing ability was always there, but
Speaker 3: the way he access is it. The way you know,
Speaker 3: he finds guys, the vision that's improved. And I think
Speaker 3: one of the most important things and one of the
Speaker 3: most impressive things about Donovan Mitchell it this is a
Speaker 3: guy that was drafted to a fifty win team. This
Speaker 3: is a guy that has had success every single individual season,
Speaker 3: and he has been really good in each of those seasons.
Speaker 3: It would be really easy for him to look back
Speaker 3: on some of those years and say I did my part.
Speaker 3: Like I'm an efficient scorer, I'm one of the highest
Speaker 3: scoring playoff performers in the history of the NBA. Everyone
Speaker 3: else needs to get in line, they need to support
Speaker 3: what I'm doing here, but that has never been the
Speaker 3: way that he approaches them. Donovan looks at every single
Speaker 3: game and looks to see what he can do better.
Speaker 3: He tries to improve his overall game. And I think
Speaker 3: his understanding that we are going to accomplish the goals
Speaker 3: that I want to accomplish if we are moving as
Speaker 3: a collective, if we are doing this as a team,
Speaker 3: and I think, you know, you take a gamble when
Speaker 3: you go all in for a superstar, when you trade
Speaker 3: all those draft picks to bring in someone like Donovan Mitchell.
Speaker 3: They could not have envisioned this working out better than
Speaker 3: it has. He has been exactly what this team has needed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a general proof of concept for this roster construction.
Speaker 2: So much so, many great contributions up and down on
Speaker 2: him and obviously leading the way. But how about like
Speaker 2: Darius Garland putting up twenty seven points, I've assist three rebounds,
Speaker 2: and we barely talk about it. Like three years ago,
Speaker 2: we would have been like the first twenty minutes about Darius. Yep.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm always willing to go twenty minutes about Darius.
Speaker 3: I certainly could tonight. I really thought he played a
Speaker 3: terrific game. As I said, I thought he carried them
Speaker 3: a lot in that second and third quarter where he
Speaker 3: really set the tone. He hit really timely buckets. I
Speaker 3: was impressed by his defense. You know, I think you're
Speaker 3: right where this is almost unremarkable because we have come
Speaker 3: to expect this. This is what you have seen from
Speaker 3: Darius throughout the season. And yeah, he had the run
Speaker 3: in March light like so many others on this team.
Speaker 3: But he finished the season strong, and you know, he's
Speaker 3: off to a strong start when it comes to the
Speaker 3: playoffs and the deal.
Speaker 2: By the way, I cannot believe he was not nominated
Speaker 2: for a Clutch Player of the Year.
Speaker 3: You know, when you have the most clutch wins out
Speaker 3: of any player in the NBA, when you do it
Speaker 3: more efficiently than any player, you just you shouldn't even
Speaker 3: be in the top three, right Like that's that's that's how.
Speaker 2: This works, absolutely, buddy. I do want to take it
Speaker 2: to kind of the other side of the coin. You know,
Speaker 2: most things went great in this game. Two things didn't
Speaker 2: go so well. You know, both DeAndre Hunter and Isaac
Speaker 2: o quorroh four combined for an oh of eight day
Speaker 2: not neither really imprinted themselves much on the game. Any
Speaker 2: concerns there with how they played.
Speaker 3: You know, no big concerns because we understand that this
Speaker 3: is a one game sample. Both of those guys go go.
Speaker 3: In this game, Isaac, it looked a little more rushed,
Speaker 3: I thought DeAndre. A couple of those takes probably are
Speaker 3: some of the would fall in the category of those
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty calls that I thought could have gone
Speaker 3: their way. Isaac. You know, he rushed the first three
Speaker 3: point shot from the corner, hit the side of the backboard.
Speaker 3: There was one other that I thought was a good look,
Speaker 3: but some of the other ones, it just looked like
Speaker 3: he was forcing it. That's gonna be something to keep
Speaker 3: an eye on, because you know, he has struggled with
Speaker 3: that three point shot. I thought there were stretches where
Speaker 3: he was doing other things well. In the first quarter,
Speaker 3: he had that offensive rebound where he tracked that down
Speaker 3: from the three point line, a couple of hustle plays.
Speaker 3: I found it interesting that Eric Spolzer would sub Tyler
Speaker 3: Hero out when Isaac was coming in. I don't know
Speaker 3: if that is, you know, correlation or causation, but I'm
Speaker 3: going to keep an eye on it. But the most
Speaker 3: interesting thing about that is Coral struggles DeAndre struggles. Both
Speaker 3: of them end up being basically eighth and ninth in
Speaker 3: the rotation. Can really only went nine deep. Dean Waite
Speaker 3: only played six minutes, and I think two of that
Speaker 3: came in garbage time. He did exactly what he said
Speaker 3: he was going to do. He played the hot hands.
Speaker 3: DeAndre and Isaac struggle. We see Sam Merrill play more.
Speaker 3: Sam Merril plays well in the defensive end. He continues
Speaker 3: to get opportunities out there and chances to make an
Speaker 3: impact on the offensive end. I expect Kenny to do that,
Speaker 3: But what I want to keep an eye on is
Speaker 3: and the bench have a better performance with the except
Speaker 3: Ty Jerome was obviously terrific and that's going to really
Speaker 3: boost those bench numbers. But sam Merril was the only
Speaker 3: other bench player to make a shot. He went two
Speaker 3: to four. They're going to need more from DeAndre Hunter,
Speaker 3: from you know, Sam Merril, and obviously Isaac Okor.
Speaker 2: Conversely, I think it was easy not to need that
Speaker 2: much from them on a night where everyone else is
Speaker 2: doing an okay job on Hero. He's not going to
Speaker 2: go seven for eighteen every game of the series. With
Speaker 2: Sam and Darius and Donovan switching on to him. There
Speaker 2: are going to be games where you need DeAndre and
Speaker 2: Isaac out there and you need to play the more
Speaker 2: minutes just to just to get stops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a fair point. But you know,
Speaker 3: in Deandre's case in particular, I want to see him
Speaker 3: earn more minutes out there because I think he's going
Speaker 3: to be so important to them, particularly later on in
Speaker 3: the playoffs. I thought it was interesting that, you know,
Speaker 3: Kenny went to DeAndre with the core for earlier in
Speaker 3: the game. I think they got some first half minutes together. Man,
Speaker 3: he's just he needs to have more of an impact, right,
Speaker 3: And you know, I understand what you're saying. They were
Speaker 3: more than capable of defending the Miami Heat as is,
Speaker 3: but he is two way scor. He's someone that can
Speaker 3: really get going. And you know, if DeAndre Hunter joins
Speaker 3: the party here, you're going to feel really really good.
Speaker 3: You're going to be in a great position to sweep.
Speaker 3: So for me, he takeaways going into game two. Can
Speaker 3: we get more balanced than scoring where it's not just
Speaker 3: Ty Jerome having a heroic effort, And can Evan mobilely
Speaker 3: get going a little bit more because we're really going
Speaker 3: to need him later later in the playoffs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like fifty plus of the Cavs eighty
Speaker 2: eight shots for those three guards. I don't think Spoe
Speaker 2: will let you like fun all so many attempts in
Speaker 2: the three guys who are killing you again.
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to see what happens in game two.
Speaker 3: I'm excited about it. We will be previewing game two.
Speaker 3: I think the only thing more tired than Tyler Hero
Speaker 3: right now is your voice, So we'll get you out
Speaker 3: of here. We appreciate everyone tuning in live on YouTube.
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