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Speaker 3: All right, welcome to Hoops Today, here at the Volume.
Speaker 3: Happy Wednesday, everybody. This NBA Finals Game three Instant Reaction
Speaker 3: was brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do
Speaker 3: you cash back as usual. We've got Colin Coward here
Speaker 3: to break it all down. Kind of a funky game.
Speaker 3: Poor zingis out to start, a lot of attacking the
Speaker 3: rim for Dallas, getting easier shots around the basket, but
Speaker 3: that classic Boston driving kick attack and excellent defense gets
Speaker 3: a big What was whether they were up twenty one
Speaker 3: in the early fourth quarter, A little bit of a
Speaker 3: classic Boston meltdown, a bunch of bad isolation possessions. Dallas
Speaker 3: gets going a little bit, but at the end Luca
Speaker 3: fouls out. Boston just seeming It kind of reminded me
Speaker 3: of that Pacers series where they just kind of took
Speaker 3: control of the game late with a few good defensive
Speaker 3: possessions and a few quality driving kicks, and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, the Celtics are up three to zero in
Speaker 3: the final. So Colin, what's your biggest takeaway after Game
Speaker 3: three tonight?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, you can't be a lobsided team
Speaker 1: and thempletely lobsided. When Shaq and Kobe were winning championships,
Speaker 1: or Michael and Scottie, there were a lot of helpers.
Speaker 1: I mean, good God, you could go to Ron Harper
Speaker 1: could drop twenty and coup coach and Kerr and Packson.
Speaker 1: You know, there were just other guys that could contribute.
Speaker 1: I mean the first half, it was fifty one fifty
Speaker 1: at half, and it was Boston against Luca and Kyrie.
Speaker 1: So you just I think you just can't be that lobsided.
Speaker 1: And I also think it's to your point. So my
Speaker 1: first takeaway is it's just too much. I thought I
Speaker 1: wrote this down on the fourth quarter. Luca looked cooked,
Speaker 1: and he's not a good defensive player, but you know
Speaker 1: he's He's just he doesn't slide quick enough, he doesn't
Speaker 1: get in great position, and he can complain a couple
Speaker 1: of times in the first half, he complained so much
Speaker 1: that he got behind on defense and got burned. But
Speaker 1: I think what we're finding out is Dallas had the
Speaker 1: things that they did against Minnesota, they just can't do
Speaker 1: against Boston. We saw him beat an old team, a
Speaker 1: big team. They don't have the personnel to match up
Speaker 1: on either end of the floor.
Speaker 4: They just don't.
Speaker 1: This is just a mismatch, and I think it starts
Speaker 1: begging the question is what do we do with Boston.
Speaker 1: This is one of the great runs by a team ever.
Speaker 1: Is it an Eastern Conference that's weak, or have we
Speaker 1: undervalued just how good their seven person rotation. You know,
Speaker 1: if Porzingis and Horford are off the bench, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty good seven, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think Boston's really really good, and I think a
Speaker 3: couple of underrated elements they have, with exception of some
Speaker 3: brief stretches. They had an ugly stretch in the middle
Speaker 3: of Game one, they had an ugly stretch obviously in
Speaker 3: the early fourth quarter here in Game three. But they've
Speaker 3: been playing a lot of grown up basketball, which is
Speaker 3: something they were a little bit inconsistent with. Over the
Speaker 3: course of the regular season. Both Jalen Brown and Jason
Speaker 3: Tatum have understood their job, which is get the defense
Speaker 3: in rotation just so that everyone can play with an advantage.
Speaker 3: And then a big part of it, too is Jalen
Speaker 3: Brown's rise. We you know, there's been so much talk
Speaker 3: about Tatum, and there's no doubt that, like I think
Speaker 3: the fact that his jumper has been so often he's
Speaker 3: having like a really bad jump shooting playoff run. I
Speaker 3: pulled this out on my show the other day, but
Speaker 3: this is the fourth consecutive season where we've seen a
Speaker 3: decline year over year from on his jump shooting, and
Speaker 3: so he's kind of just like going through something with
Speaker 3: his jump shot that's messing with parts of this game.
Speaker 3: But I think the major story is less about like
Speaker 3: Tatum being lower, but more about Jalen's rising into that tier.
Speaker 3: I think you could, like if you it used to
Speaker 3: be for me that Jalen Brown was in that third
Speaker 3: tier of stars. He wasn't one of the best guys
Speaker 3: in the league. He wasn't in that list of like
Speaker 3: all the flawed superstars. He was something beneath that. And
Speaker 3: basically the entire second half of the season, in this
Speaker 3: entire playoff run, he's been playing at Jason Tatum's level
Speaker 3: right up there as one of those that second tier
Speaker 3: of stars in the league, and that just is another
Speaker 3: infusion of talent that just makes it that much harder
Speaker 3: to deal with. And like again, like I do want
Speaker 3: to talk about Lucas defense, and I think it's an
Speaker 3: important kind of discussion about his personal development, But I
Speaker 3: want to start by just kind of just pointing out
Speaker 3: that Boston is optimizing themselves. They're playing to the best
Speaker 3: that they are capable of with this group, and that's
Speaker 3: what makes them so difficult to beat. I do think
Speaker 3: you made a good point about the matchups though, Like
Speaker 3: Dallas did get an old injured Clippers team, a Thunder team, which,
Speaker 3: by the way, pushed them pretty damn hard, but they're
Speaker 3: young and that some of their younger players really struggled
Speaker 3: on the offensive end. And then Minnesota, as we discussed
Speaker 3: that nauseum was just a nightmare matchup, Dallas was a
Speaker 3: nightmare matchup for them because they could protect the rim,
Speaker 3: and that's a huge weakness for a team in Minnesota
Speaker 3: that was literally seventeenth on offense in the regular season.
Speaker 3: So they finally ran into a team that could actually
Speaker 3: push their specific weaknesses. And I think that's probably one
Speaker 3: of my biggest takeaways from this entire postseason run, is like,
Speaker 3: you have to be able to win different ways, you
Speaker 3: have to be able to play different ways, you have
Speaker 3: to be able to beat different types of teams. And
Speaker 3: Dallas was good enough to beat the matchups that got
Speaker 3: out out in the West, but they were not good
Speaker 3: enough to beat a team that could really spread them
Speaker 3: out and test their perimeter defense.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think one of the reasons I always
Speaker 1: considered Jalen sort of a second tier guy, not a third.
Speaker 1: But I think it's a little like d Wade is
Speaker 1: that d Wade could score twenty five. It was never beautiful,
Speaker 1: a lot of mid range playing, way bigger. You know,
Speaker 1: he punched way above his weight physically. Most of the
Speaker 1: great scorers Michael and Byrd Kareem though not pretty dominant.
Speaker 1: They either have one or two go to shots or
Speaker 1: they're pretty I mean Carmelo was pretty offensively Steph. Historically,
Speaker 1: the great scorers have just either been unique or they
Speaker 1: just can do something nobody else can. D Wade and
Speaker 1: Jalen Brown are very strong, can be a little streaky,
Speaker 1: play both ends, highly resourceful. But it's not aesthetic beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's a tough, physical twenty seven. You know, they just
Speaker 1: bang into people. They're on the floor and we punish people.
Speaker 1: If you know James Harden, it's just Kobe, it's just, oh,
Speaker 1: this is like it does I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 1: And I think Jaylen Brown to me's a little d
Speaker 1: Wade where you look up and you're like, man, that guy.
Speaker 1: That guy plays big, that guy's tough, that guy's strong,
Speaker 1: that guy's physical. You know, d Wade was not always
Speaker 1: the best player on his team. He played with Shack,
Speaker 1: he played with Lebron, but there were nights d Wade
Speaker 1: was the best player on the floor. And that's how
Speaker 1: I feel with Jalen Brown. I think it's just one
Speaker 1: of those things that Jalen Brown deserves credit for his game.
Speaker 1: He has worked at his craft, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like he's like a radio star with a bad voice,
Speaker 1: Like like he just worked outwork people. Because that jumper
Speaker 1: initially in the league, you know, he I out of
Speaker 1: cal I told you he looked like a football player.
Speaker 1: I was just like, God, this guy is strong. He
Speaker 1: has worked his butt off. I mean d Wade went
Speaker 1: to Little Marquette, he goes to cow These are guys.
Speaker 1: These are not like guys that are going to UNC
Speaker 1: at a high school or UCLA. So I think Jalen
Speaker 1: is and and frankly aggressive as we say, matters and
Speaker 1: he's really aggressive that dunk. I wrote it down here
Speaker 1: somewhere that that dunk, by god, God, that's like epic,
Speaker 1: you know ESPN Classic, you know that's like, okay, that's
Speaker 1: an all time YouTube play.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would I would attribute Jalen Brown's kind of
Speaker 3: increased you know, like just just the rise that he's
Speaker 3: taken in the season down to three things. First of all,
Speaker 3: he's defending at an insanely insane insane He hasn't guarded
Speaker 3: like this since the twenty twenty two season, except for
Speaker 3: he's smarter and a little bit bigger now, so he's
Speaker 3: even better at it. The second piece of it is
Speaker 3: understanding his best advantage, which is is just a better
Speaker 3: athlete than everybody, so doing things like crashing the offensive glass,
Speaker 3: had a huge offensive rebound put back in crunch time,
Speaker 3: just beating people off the dribble. Remember in Game two,
Speaker 3: it was that drive pass Maxi Kleba for the left
Speaker 3: handed finish.
Speaker 4: That was a huge play in that game.
Speaker 3: And then the third piece of it, and this, I
Speaker 3: think this is one of my favorite things about the
Speaker 3: game of basketball, is that pursuit of adding something to
Speaker 3: your game and seeing it come to fruition on the
Speaker 3: biggest stage. Jalen Brown worked really hard over the last
Speaker 3: couple of years to become a mid range, post up
Speaker 3: fadeaway jump shooter, and he paid his dues behind the
Speaker 3: scenes by himself of one on one work, and here
Speaker 3: in this season he was actually the best post up
Speaker 3: fadeaway jump shooter in the league based on points per
Speaker 3: shot attempt, and I thought it was really cool to
Speaker 3: see a game here where Dallas gets it down to
Speaker 3: one after Kyrie made that floater. I think it was
Speaker 3: ninety three to ninety two, and he hit two massive
Speaker 3: post up fadeaway jump what was out of the post
Speaker 3: and one was kind of like a step back. But
Speaker 3: he had two massive pull up mid range jump shots
Speaker 3: to close that game out. And I guarantee you there
Speaker 3: was a moment there for him where he kind of
Speaker 3: looked in was like, this is why I put in
Speaker 3: all that work.
Speaker 4: It paid off. He put in the.
Speaker 3: Work, he got better, He gave his team a better
Speaker 3: chance to win the title. End of story. I want
Speaker 3: to shift to the Luca thing for a second, because,
Speaker 3: like I sympathize with this play to a certain extent,
Speaker 3: I have all the offensive responsibilities, so obviously I can't
Speaker 3: just just be an all world defensive player. But we're
Speaker 3: not asking Luca to be an all world defensive player.
Speaker 3: There's a certain like baseline level of effort that you
Speaker 3: need just to have your teams be able to function
Speaker 3: as a defense. And like so many people have made
Speaker 3: it about Luca versus Tatum, and like Ohill Tatum struggling
Speaker 3: to guard Luca too. That's fine, but that's not what
Speaker 3: this issue is. The issue is Dallas can't beat Boston
Speaker 3: unless Luca plays better defense. And you saw the stat
Speaker 3: that was going around. Luca got blown by more times
Speaker 3: in Game two of the NBA Finals than any player
Speaker 3: had in over ten years tonight, just like falling asleep
Speaker 3: on Sam Houser, He's literally guarding one of their best
Speaker 3: shooters in the corner, one pass away. He's not even
Speaker 3: looking at him. He's like five steps away, not even
Speaker 3: looking at him. There's a play where Drew Holliday's just
Speaker 3: running in circles around him, getting offensive rebounds as Lucas
Speaker 3: not paying attention on the defensive glass, not sprinting back
Speaker 3: in transition, complaining at the referees. Even like that last play,
Speaker 3: you know you have five fouls and Jalen Brown's trying
Speaker 3: to drive past you, and you're throwing your body in
Speaker 3: front of him and knocking him over. Even if you
Speaker 3: think that that's a charge, you put the whistle in
Speaker 3: the ref's mouth like you made him make a call.
Speaker 3: I'm just so disappointed in his performance in those areas
Speaker 3: in this series.
Speaker 1: And all I heard all year is and I watched
Speaker 1: him in the regular season, and I did think he
Speaker 1: played better defense. Playoff basketball, you start getting the conference
Speaker 1: finals and finals, it's a whole different ball again. First
Speaker 1: of all, you're fatigued. Now you're now into one hundred games.
Speaker 1: You're now tired. Also, the games are more intense. It
Speaker 1: becomes really possession basketball, so you can't take plays off.
Speaker 1: So it's a great example when I hear people say, well,
Speaker 1: Luca's defense, it was a lot better this year. He
Speaker 1: committed in the regular season, But this league's getting younger.
Speaker 1: Younger players are less refined. You don't have to be
Speaker 1: a great defensive player in the regular season against about
Speaker 1: seventy percent of this league. But Boston completely exposes you defensively.
Speaker 1: Like everybody can score. I mean they're big shoot, everybody
Speaker 1: can shoot. They're bench guys. So it's it does show
Speaker 1: you the gap between you know, the conference finals and
Speaker 1: the finals and everything else you are. It's a different level.
Speaker 1: I mean Michael Jordan, and I've said this before, Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's legacy is you know, if Michael would have played
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference not the Eastern, he you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't go six for six, right, he would have
Speaker 1: faced the Pistons and the Celtics, perhaps in the finals.
Speaker 1: So his legacy is built on six for six. We
Speaker 1: just say he's the best player. Even though Russell won eleven.
Speaker 1: Lebron does everything better. He's the so it does. Your
Speaker 1: legacy is largely framed by finals. In Western Conference finals,
Speaker 1: this has been This is gonna stick to him like
Speaker 1: he was atrocious defensively in these finals, and that's gonna stick.
Speaker 1: That's why I say my comp to him is he's
Speaker 1: a better Carmelo Anthony. I don't think he's in great shape.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's easy to play with. I don't
Speaker 1: think he's committed on the defensive end. The difference is
Speaker 1: he can shoot the three Carmelo refuse to. And he's
Speaker 1: better than Carmelo. But Carmelo was an elegant scorer. He
Speaker 1: was a beautiful offensive player. But you know he was
Speaker 1: threatened by Jeremy Lynn. So I'll stick by this. It's
Speaker 1: not a perfect comp but this is gonna stick. I mean,
Speaker 1: if we're gonna bang on Tatum and he's gonna win
Speaker 1: the finals, then we've got to bang on Luke. Who's
Speaker 1: gonna get swept and is atrocious defensively.
Speaker 3: Well, and it was specifically one of the major issues
Speaker 3: for why they couldn't guard Boston. And that's the thing
Speaker 3: to the point that I made earlier in the show,
Speaker 3: Like when I talk about being able to win different ways,
Speaker 3: I'm mainly talking about the defensive end.
Speaker 4: You have to be able to guard different teams.
Speaker 3: Like, because guess what, you are gonna face a Yo
Speaker 3: Kitchen one round that is like this bizarre kind of
Speaker 3: like post up force, and then you might face the
Speaker 3: Warriors in the second round. It's gonna be Steph Curry
Speaker 3: flying around screen and he's gonna be shooting all these
Speaker 3: threes and they're gonna be inverting and running a lot
Speaker 3: of four on threes with Draymond rolling down the middle
Speaker 3: of the floor right, And it's like, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: you play Minnesota, here's Anthony Edwards, this old school two guard,
Speaker 3: and then you play a team like Boston. It's like
Speaker 3: no true superstar, but five great offensive players that are
Speaker 3: gonna spread you out, right. So it's like there, you
Speaker 3: do have to be able to guard in different ways.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if you can play a role in
Speaker 3: the regular season. You have to be able to beat
Speaker 3: four playoff teams. And again, as I mentioned earlier, I
Speaker 3: understand the offensive responsibility angle. Here's where I disagree with
Speaker 3: that as an excuse. This is the way your team
Speaker 3: is built. Your team is constructed so that you and
Speaker 3: Kyrie do everything offensively. You can't ask PJ. Washington to
Speaker 3: create offense. You can't ask Derek Lively, Daniel Gafford, Josh Green,
Speaker 3: Derek Jones Junior.
Speaker 4: That's not their job.
Speaker 3: They are play finishers who play defense, and so by design,
Speaker 3: this team needs you to do a bunch offensively. So
Speaker 3: if you're going to get to the Promised Land, your
Speaker 3: goal of winning the title, you have to find a
Speaker 3: way to do that and guard. And this is again
Speaker 3: something I love about NBA history. Every superstar we've seen
Speaker 3: has encountered their greatest weakness, their greatest vice. Right MJ
Speaker 3: and Kobe, it was are they willing to trust their
Speaker 3: teammates when it matters?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: For Lebron, it was the jumper. He had to literally
Speaker 3: have Greg Popovich ignore him at the three point line
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eight and then again in twenty
Speaker 3: thirteen before he conquered those demons and became the basketball
Speaker 3: player that he needed to be like, even like Steph
Speaker 3: Curry and NICOLEA. Jokic had to learn how to be
Speaker 3: better defensively. Luka Doncic has to take better care of
Speaker 3: his body so that he can hold up better physically
Speaker 3: over the course of an eighty two game regular season
Speaker 3: in playoff run, so that he can do his job
Speaker 3: on offense while also being at the very least a
Speaker 3: functional part of the defense. He does not need to
Speaker 3: be all world, he just needs to be better than this.
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Speaker 1: This is what happens if you look at most of
Speaker 1: the great players, Kobe and Duncan and Michael and you
Speaker 1: can go back in the history of time, any of
Speaker 1: them Lebron were great defensive players in their prime. Others
Speaker 1: Bird and Steph Curry weren't, but they worked at it.
Speaker 1: They were good team defenders, right like that, You cannot
Speaker 1: find an NBA champion with your best player as an
Speaker 1: awful defender, Like, I don't know if one exists. I mean,
Speaker 1: Yannis defends. I mean, look at the Jokis, by the way,
Speaker 1: I think you know Jokic gets a bad rap, but
Speaker 1: his girth creates he you know, he bangs on a
Speaker 1: lot of people. He may not move his feet as
Speaker 1: well as you'd like. I don't think he's a bad
Speaker 1: defensive player.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I think I think he's He's okay. But again, Gordon's
Speaker 1: excellent porter. Can defend, you can't. You're not gonna win
Speaker 1: a championship. By the way, Kyrie people say he's excellent defender,
Speaker 1: he doesn't look as great in this series.
Speaker 4: Again, he's been bad in this series. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like in the NFL, we fall in
Speaker 1: love when quarterbacks run around, but eventually against better defenses
Speaker 1: and better defensive coordinators. You have to do most of
Speaker 1: your work in the pocket. Mahomes will run every Super
Speaker 1: Bowl fourth quarter because he can, but he understands it.
Speaker 1: But we fall in love with running quarterbacks because it's
Speaker 1: so damn exciting. I love Jared Goff. It's not exciting
Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson. I like watching him play. It's the same here.
Speaker 1: We fall in love with offense because it does win
Speaker 1: in the regular season and it does win championships. But
Speaker 1: at some point you're going to face a roster that's
Speaker 1: going to expose you. And so whether it's running around
Speaker 1: as a quarterback or scoring these points ball usage, there's
Speaker 1: a price. Harden worn out Luca. I mean, let's be
Speaker 1: honest about Luca. BEYONDI he looks gassed, he looks tired,
Speaker 1: he looks you know. So I don't want to pick
Speaker 1: on him because he's obviously a gifted player. But this
Speaker 1: is the difference. When Jokic lost that series of the
Speaker 1: Minnesota there was nothing to really pick on, right, Like
Speaker 1: you're like, well, they led by twenty, Like there's a
Speaker 1: reason we're picking on Luca. There's a reason we're tough
Speaker 1: on Tatum. And let's let's let's move to Tatum. I
Speaker 1: think to your point, I do think he's he This
Speaker 1: is a confidence thing, like he doesn't you know, he
Speaker 1: had a couple of big baskets late. But it is interesting.
Speaker 1: It does create an interesting scenario is you're watching your
Speaker 1: teammate crush he's got a better matchup, right, and you're saying,
Speaker 1: and you're sitting there thinking, well, his matchup's better. It's
Speaker 1: kind of fun. I'm conserving energy. And the truth is
Speaker 1: we have huge leads. How often do they need me?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 1: In the fourth to night he had a dunk at
Speaker 1: the rim, He had a couple of big shots, so
Speaker 1: they did need him and he delivered. But you can see,
Speaker 1: you know in these mismatches early Jason, he's sitting around.
Speaker 1: You know, these stars, Lebron does it. They can serve.
Speaker 1: They're like I can concern.
Speaker 4: They haven't needed him.
Speaker 1: They needed him in the fourth quarter a couple of
Speaker 1: big baskets and he delivered a night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've talked about this before, but like I it
Speaker 3: really dawned on me about two thirds of the way
Speaker 3: through this season or I was thinking for all the
Speaker 3: flaws that Tatum has as a like tonight, it was
Speaker 3: kind of infuriating to watch him just repeatedly settle for
Speaker 3: that pull up three points shot, even though he literally
Speaker 3: hasn't been able to make it for like three years.
Speaker 3: But it's like, he's kind of the perfect guy for
Speaker 3: this group because you need someone that's absolutely willing to
Speaker 3: feel out whether like he will not grab the reins
Speaker 3: unless everyone else is falling apart, right Like, if someone
Speaker 3: else has it going, he'll just keep going to that guy.
Speaker 3: And like, and so he's kind of in a weird way,
Speaker 3: like for this particular group, he's the type of superstar
Speaker 3: that kind of actually.
Speaker 4: Does float all the boats higher.
Speaker 3: He does kind of just seem to buy virtue of
Speaker 3: his willingness to kind of just disappear into different roles
Speaker 3: based on what that game needs. It's made it so
Speaker 3: that this team, because again my fear with Boston was
Speaker 3: will they be able to do this? Will they be
Speaker 3: able to play drive and kick basketball and trust each
Speaker 3: other and avoid the bad ISO threes and play defense
Speaker 3: the way they need to? And they have And I
Speaker 3: mean again, like I feel like everything comes back to,
Speaker 3: like what conversation we're having. If we're having the conversation
Speaker 3: is Tatum one of the best, like two or three
Speaker 3: players in the world. Then yeah, it's like we got
Speaker 3: to be a little bit more nitpicky. That's why we're
Speaker 3: talking about Luca. You're wondering what you said. You don't
Speaker 3: want to pick on Luca. This is a pretty low
Speaker 3: bar that we're asking here, Like we're not saying you
Speaker 3: need to be all world. You just can't be like
Speaker 3: highlight real bad on the defensive end of the floor
Speaker 3: like that. That's what we're talking about. And so again,
Speaker 3: within the context of where Tatum is in this league,
Speaker 3: I think he's done a beautiful job leading this team.
Speaker 1: You can't roll through the playoffs like this. I mean
Speaker 1: they were twenty three and seven against the West. I
Speaker 1: think if you count the playoffs, forty four and eleven
Speaker 1: against the East, and they're just a hot knife through
Speaker 1: Marger and then the playoffs, you do have to have
Speaker 1: a conversation like have we sort of undervalued just how
Speaker 1: good they are? And I was thinking tonight when Horford
Speaker 1: had a big I think a defensive player or rebound
Speaker 1: late and I'm like, dude, he's like they're seventh, they're games.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's like stop on Tyrie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like this team's got a lot of It
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit when Andre Iguidala was the
Speaker 1: MVP and the Warriors. Finally, you're like, you're a pretty
Speaker 1: deep team. When you're bench guy. They aren't as electric
Speaker 1: or aesthetically pleasing as the Warriors, but I'm telling you
Speaker 1: they they have more good shooters than the Warriors. The
Speaker 1: Warriors just had the best shooter on the planet and
Speaker 1: the best catch and shoot. The Warriors probably had three
Speaker 1: of the four better shooters if they match. But if
Speaker 1: you're going seven deep, I just don't think NBA teams, Jason,
Speaker 1: this is a younger league they're not equipped to beat.
Speaker 1: It's almost like the league got caught flat footed when
Speaker 1: they added Drew and Porzingis, and even without him tonight,
Speaker 1: you're like, it's just it's a young league. People don't
Speaker 1: have that many wing defenders, you know. And by the way,
Speaker 1: wing defenders has been for about three years. What the
Speaker 1: league wants, well, nobody's trading when they get them. Nobody's
Speaker 1: giving them up. So it's like, there are excellent wing
Speaker 1: defenders in the league. Boston just happens to have like four,
Speaker 1: and they have seven shooters. So I do feel like
Speaker 1: the Celtics to some degree, kind of have caught the
Speaker 1: league flat footed by upgrading at the Marcus Smart position,
Speaker 1: upgrading at Porzingis, who didn't play, so Dallas scored low tonight.
Speaker 1: A couple of lobs returned. But we got to be
Speaker 1: honest about this. It's a moment in time. The league
Speaker 1: can't defend this team. They're just when they're playing ball
Speaker 1: movement Celtic basketball like that second quarter. Nobody's stopping this team. Nobody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the this is probably the first NBA
Speaker 3: team I've ever seen that can credibly run a full rotation,
Speaker 3: like a literally a full eight man rotation, where every
Speaker 3: single player can dribble, shoot, and pass well everyone like
Speaker 3: it's it's It's truly a unique combination. And so to
Speaker 3: your point that I don't think NBA teams are jet
Speaker 3: prepared for.
Speaker 1: That, They're not.
Speaker 4: Now I've been I've I've been.
Speaker 3: Thinking a lot about where I would rank Boston among
Speaker 3: other champions over the course of the last couple of days.
Speaker 4: And it's complicated because I.
Speaker 3: Do think this team appears more dominant than they actually are,
Speaker 3: in the sense that the bottom of the East was
Speaker 3: extraordinarily weak, so they racked up a ton of wins
Speaker 3: there to The Eastern Conference had five good teams, four
Speaker 3: of them ended up on the other side of the bracket,
Speaker 3: so they only had to play one of them, and
Speaker 3: that team was injured. Those teams all beat the heck
Speaker 3: out of each other. The Celtics had two easy first
Speaker 3: round opponents. Also, I think you and I would both
Speaker 3: agree that Minnesota and Denver would have presented more issues
Speaker 3: to Boston more than doubt, Like Minnesota has the personnel
Speaker 3: to contain on the perimeter, which is like literally what
Speaker 3: you have to do to beat Boston. So I do think,
Speaker 3: like when I was thinking about it, like there are
Speaker 3: teams that are somewhat more limited in recent champions like
Speaker 3: that Warriors team with Steph. I didn't think that was
Speaker 3: a great roster. I thought that was just Steph literally
Speaker 3: just like just hit the peak of his play there
Speaker 3: in that game for and obviously a deserving champion, But
Speaker 3: Steph was that team that was not a super talented team.
Speaker 3: The twenty twenty one Bucks that was the COVID year.
Speaker 3: A bunch of good teams and good players were out.
Speaker 3: But I think I think like I think Boston has
Speaker 3: a case to be better than that, like Denver Lakers
Speaker 3: Raptors tier that we have in the last last few years.
Speaker 3: My one pushback on that would be those were awesome
Speaker 3: teams that also had the undisputed best player in the
Speaker 3: world on them at that time. Because in twenty nineteen
Speaker 3: Lebron was hurt. You could make the case Kawhi was
Speaker 3: that guy, right like Jokic last year probably still the
Speaker 3: best player in the world. Lebron in twenty twenty I
Speaker 3: thought was the best player in the world. So that's
Speaker 3: a one thing that complicates that discussion. That's it to
Speaker 3: your point in terms of the league being flat footed.
Speaker 3: You gotta beat Boston to win the title, so you
Speaker 3: better have guys that can guard on the perimeter, and
Speaker 3: even your weak links better be able to at least
Speaker 3: do something within the scheme like funnel to the right spot,
Speaker 3: like compete on the glass, get back in transition. And
Speaker 3: so I think that if there's something that Dallas has
Speaker 3: to learn from this, and Luca specifically, if you're going
Speaker 3: to like Boston's probably gonna be heavily favored to win
Speaker 3: the East again next year easily, and so that so
Speaker 3: that means if you're gonna encounter this team again, you
Speaker 3: better be ready for this challenge. And I think that's
Speaker 3: gonna be something they're gonna have to look into again, Luca. Individually,
Speaker 3: all these teams, like teams like the Lakers that have
Speaker 3: like always they're always playing two or three bad perimeter defenders.
Speaker 3: That could be a nightmare if you ran into Boston
Speaker 3: for whatever reason, team teams like Denver. Like Denver, even
Speaker 3: I would have been interested to see this matchup because
Speaker 3: of seeing Jokic garden space, seeing Jamal Murray garden space,
Speaker 3: seeing Michael Porter junior garden space, and so all of
Speaker 3: these teams I think are gonna be looking at it
Speaker 3: and like, we got to get more athletic on the perimeter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk a little Jerry West eighty six
Speaker 1: years old. By now, everybody has seen the stories. One
Speaker 1: of the things that really jumped out to me this
Speaker 1: week was how badly the Lakers have butchered their coaching search.
Speaker 1: And I thought they sort of butchered the death of
Speaker 1: Jerry West. They were very late on sending out something
Speaker 1: like four to five hours late. I had a discussion
Speaker 1: with somebody yesterday and they said you know, to preserve
Speaker 1: the Bus Jerry Buss legacy. Genie may want to consider selling.
Speaker 1: She can't compete financially. It's not an elite front office,
Speaker 1: you know, the clipper's office, the executive suite has far
Speaker 1: more people, far richer owner going into a new arena.
Speaker 1: It's they're just not I look at the Lakers, very
Speaker 1: petty with Jerry West. Come on, he's the logo. And
Speaker 1: I never faulted them. When Phil Jackson and Jerry West,
Speaker 1: you know they you know, there's reports that's not who
Speaker 1: Jerry would have hired. They were never built to get
Speaker 1: along right. That was never going to work.
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 1: But I thought between this coaching search, which has been embarrassing,
Speaker 1: I mean, when you go after a college coach and
Speaker 1: you can't bid more than Kentucky does. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is the California is the largest economy in the country.
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, I think is the biggest single city economy,
Speaker 1: maybe at San Francisco with Silicon Valley. But I thought
Speaker 1: that was embarrassing, and I thought they handled the Jerry
Speaker 1: West thing poorly. And I will say this, I reached
Speaker 1: out to a couple of people today because it happened
Speaker 1: right before I went on the show, so I didn't
Speaker 1: get text during the show. But I mean what people
Speaker 1: really said was is that if you think of how
Speaker 1: long Jerry West was in basketball, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: eight to eighty six, Like you know, it's eight years
Speaker 1: old to eighty six.
Speaker 4: In that.
Speaker 1: All those the tough childhood, the brutal childhood, lost his brother,
Speaker 1: his dad verbally and physically abusive.
Speaker 4: That kind of.
Speaker 1: Isolates you, like you feel like you're on an island.
Speaker 1: You don't trust dad, and there's loss of life in
Speaker 1: the family. Jerry became a great friend and a great
Speaker 1: listener and a great ally to players, and I don't
Speaker 1: think that ever left him. I mean, I think to
Speaker 1: the very end, it's pretty remarkable when an eighty year
Speaker 1: old man is revered by twenty three year old men,
Speaker 1: that's really rare. I mean, it's one thing if you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, you landed on the moon, you're an astronaut.
Speaker 1: You know, we all have these iconic figures, but for
Speaker 1: people in your industry to still like, hey, let's get
Speaker 1: Jerry West on the phone. And I think Jerry's rough
Speaker 1: childhood created this sort of metal and steel, you know,
Speaker 1: he said a lot of people say they're dogs. He goes,
Speaker 1: I was a wolf. I eight dogs. There's a toughness
Speaker 1: with Jerry, and I wouldn't want to go his past
Speaker 1: to get it, but I mean he he The word
Speaker 1: I got from two people today was like he was relentless.
Speaker 1: If Jerry wanted something, you know that movie. Rick Buker
Speaker 1: said today he was called the logo and El Loco
Speaker 1: like he like they were both nicknamed. So but I
Speaker 1: guess going back to my point with the Lakers, I
Speaker 1: thought they were really petty on his death, right, Like
Speaker 1: you can beat petty in life. Don't be petty when
Speaker 1: somebody dies, Like tell your ex wife, your ex husband,
Speaker 1: if they pass, that's the day that you show some
Speaker 1: grace and class, right, even if you've had acrimony in
Speaker 1: a relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, it's a low bar. It's a low bar.
Speaker 3: It's the day that he died. You're expecting more than that.
Speaker 3: I you know, obviously, obviously Jerry was one of the
Speaker 3: original psycho competitors, the guys that are just wired a
Speaker 3: certain way that obviously led to their success. I you
Speaker 3: know what fascinates me with him too, is he's just
Speaker 3: one of the most respected basketball minds that ever came
Speaker 3: into the league, and he's got his fingerprints on all
Speaker 3: of these weird turning points in NBA history. For instance,
Speaker 3: he was basically the guy that put Kobe and Shack together.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember this, but he was
Speaker 3: the guy that stopped the Warriors from trading Klay Thompson
Speaker 3: for Kevin Love.
Speaker 1: Oh no, he said he would resign.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like that.
Speaker 3: Was a huge Like that was a huge turning point
Speaker 3: in the history of the NBA had they made that deal.
Speaker 3: Because I mean, as I think, Kevin Love is a
Speaker 3: little underrated in NBA history, but he wouldn't Clay, and
Speaker 3: Clay obviously was a natural fit with that team. Say
Speaker 3: what you want about the Clippers. Their failures have primarily
Speaker 3: had to do with health. But like I mean, if
Speaker 3: the Clippers ever could stay healthy and together with Kawhi
Speaker 3: at the top of his game, they would have just
Speaker 3: been a better version of the Celtics team. And like
Speaker 3: he he's how rare is it too to see an
Speaker 3: older guy who's been around the league that long, who's
Speaker 3: that who's got that much of his finger on the
Speaker 3: pulse of where the game of basketball is heading? Because
Speaker 3: that's so unique because usually it's the older guys that are,
Speaker 3: you know, still running eye formation and it's still stubborn,
Speaker 3: and they're stubborn, Yeah, exactly, and he's he was the
Speaker 3: guy that was just kind of ahead of the curve
Speaker 3: in all of those different ways. And like, that's what
Speaker 3: I'll always remember about Jerry West is if you're right
Speaker 3: in the short list of the guys that that were
Speaker 3: the basketball geniuses in the history of the league, He's
Speaker 3: just on the short list there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there there was a humility about him. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's weird to say, but you can be really
Speaker 1: confident and simultaneously humble. You can't be arrogant and humble,
Speaker 1: but you could be confident in humble and he straddled
Speaker 1: that line where and again, his childhood probably had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with that. You know, you're very grateful
Speaker 1: when you kind of feel like you escape tough times,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's like when they you know,
Speaker 1: I was a child of divorce. Not to bring it
Speaker 1: back to me, but when you're a child of divorce,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how much you make. You remember not
Speaker 1: being able to afford like cleats in high school and
Speaker 1: having to borrow with friends, like you remember having to
Speaker 1: wear like ripped shorts and pe glass because your mom
Speaker 1: and dad were divorced. Like, I don't care if you're seventy.
Speaker 1: That shit doesn't go away like that. Tom Brady to
Speaker 1: this day has a chip on his shoulder because he
Speaker 1: went in the sixth round. You win in thirty Super Bowls,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't matter. So it's sometimes really bad parenting
Speaker 1: and bad situations create jet fuel and humility and gratefulness.
Speaker 1: And I think Jerry had all of those things. And yeah,
Speaker 1: well he won't have to watch the Celtics hoisted trophy.
Speaker 1: I guess they're Jerry. I know he didn't like that.
Speaker 1: Boston has had a great deal of success. The Red
Speaker 1: Sox don't feel like they're in that stratosphere. But between
Speaker 1: New England and the Celtics, you know, I said this
Speaker 1: before the series. The Celtics were too good not to
Speaker 1: win one. They're too weird to win four. And this
Speaker 1: thing will eventually break up Porzingis's health, Derek Wide will
Speaker 1: get paid for by somebody. They're just too good not
Speaker 1: to win. And in this NBA, you know, I watched
Speaker 1: them tonight when they are moving the ball, like the
Speaker 1: second quarter.
Speaker 4: I mean my notepad I was. I'm watching it with
Speaker 4: my daughter.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is insane, this is like, this is
Speaker 1: like I mean, this is like if you're in a
Speaker 1: gym and a bunch of college guys come in and
Speaker 1: start playing against non players and you're like, God, everybody's
Speaker 1: everybody's great.
Speaker 4: Like, there was a.
Speaker 1: Point You're like, this could be a forty point game.
Speaker 1: This is Dallas. The crowd just went quiet. I think
Speaker 1: Boston's too good, too good not to win a title.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we were on that over the last couple
Speaker 3: of years. They were gonna get one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is group.
Speaker 3: As soon as they made the poor Zincis draw Holiday
Speaker 3: t it just felt like inevitable that once in the
Speaker 3: next three years, Yeah, they were going to get Well,
Speaker 3: it's just a question of when and like and you know,
Speaker 3: I think I again, I think that. I think that
Speaker 3: it really came down to all season long. It was
Speaker 3: whether or not Boston was going to play to their
Speaker 3: strengths when it mattered, and they did that. We were
Speaker 3: were we going to get the Jalen Brown that fell
Speaker 3: apart against Miami last year, or were we going to
Speaker 3: get the Jalen Brown that we know he's capable of being.
Speaker 3: He's been the Jalen Brown that we know he's capable
Speaker 3: of being. Like Drew Holliday, was he going to be
Speaker 3: a clunky fit or was he going to be a
Speaker 3: natural fit. He's a natural fit by the way, watching
Speaker 3: Drew Holiday guard Kyrie Irving down the stretch of that game,
Speaker 3: just like there's so many highlights now in NBA Finals
Speaker 3: history from the last few years of just Drue just
Speaker 3: putting the clamps on people.
Speaker 1: Hey, by the way, I thought of this. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered, don't get greedy.
Speaker 1: Is this a moment in time? In a weird way
Speaker 1: for Dallas, this is sort of a hey, be careful
Speaker 1: about Kyrie. You got to the finals. This was wonderful.
Speaker 1: But Jason he had like he's had eight bad playoff
Speaker 1: games like this, Like every third game it's bad, and
Speaker 1: it was atrocious defensively. If there's anything out of this
Speaker 1: series that you go, okay, it's you know, if Kyrie
Speaker 1: comes out of this thing. You know, we've seen this
Speaker 1: with Andrew Wiggins contract here gets to the finals. It's
Speaker 1: the minute he got the bag he's never been the
Speaker 1: same player, Like this is a reminder. Kyrie's not good defensively.
Speaker 1: He can be streaky, He's very hot and cold. He
Speaker 1: can fall in those Boston games. In Boston he gets
Speaker 1: very iso, very quickly. Just you know, again, he got
Speaker 1: to the finals with him. As I was watching this,
Speaker 1: I thought there were times tonight I'm like, this isn't
Speaker 1: the worst thing for Dallas. This isn't And now you'd say, well,
Speaker 1: porzingis Brunson, Kyrie can't.
Speaker 4: Well, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: He got to the finals.
Speaker 2: Did you ever ever?
Speaker 1: I mean, did you ever?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm the game tonight and I'm thinking, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of positives for Dallas, and my positive is, well,
Speaker 1: they're not going to sign Kyrie to a massive extension
Speaker 1: in a year, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think I think that Kyrie has been a lot
Speaker 3: more good than bad in this postseason run. I also
Speaker 3: think he was pretty good tonight for the most part. Again,
Speaker 3: the defense hasn't been good enough, but that.
Speaker 1: He scored a lot in the first half, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he did.
Speaker 3: He was a big part of how they got that
Speaker 3: early lead. Yeah, But there's he had two absolute stinkers
Speaker 3: in Boston and there's just no way around it. And
Speaker 3: like the hard part too, is that it looked like
Speaker 3: the crowd got to him a little bit. My bigger
Speaker 3: fear with Dallas. And this is, by the way, this
Speaker 3: is not this is not just emotion speaking. This is
Speaker 3: just what NBA history has told us. There hasn't been
Speaker 3: a since since Katie left the Warriors, there hasn't been
Speaker 3: a team in the West that's even made it twice.
Speaker 3: So like it's a different team every year. It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: here's the Lakers, here's Phoenix, you know. Oh here's Golden State.
Speaker 3: Oh here's Denver, Here's Dallas. Like next year Memphis has come,
Speaker 3: John Moran's coming back, Jared Jackson and Desmond Bayner getting better,
Speaker 3: They're gonna be right there in the mix with everybody.
Speaker 3: Oklahoma City wouldn't be surprised if they were the one
Speaker 3: seed again next year. Not to mention they have a
Speaker 3: trade to make. The Lakers are probably gonna do something
Speaker 3: to go all in. Who knows what the Clippers are
Speaker 3: gonna do heading into their new arena. There's so many
Speaker 3: good teams in the Western Conference, And like you trick
Speaker 3: yourself into thinking like, oh, We're just gonna be there
Speaker 3: every year. Like I would be shocked if Dallas made
Speaker 3: it back to the finals next year, would you absolutely?
Speaker 1: First of all, Denver is already favored, and Denver will
Speaker 1: make They'll make an addition. And Denver led by twenty
Speaker 1: in Game seven against Minnesota and matches up much better
Speaker 1: with Boston. Also with Boston, we have to be honest.
Speaker 1: Porzingis's health is a real issue. This is not a
Speaker 1: new thing like this is this is who he is. Also,
Speaker 1: it's different after you win. It is hard. You know,
Speaker 1: people take a little off season, you know, make a
Speaker 1: little longer off season. That's just the reality it is.
Speaker 1: I mean Aalen Brown signed of Max played great, you know,
Speaker 1: it's he may not equal that. So Also I think
Speaker 1: the Knicks will get another player, and I think the
Speaker 1: Knicks can be physical enough. Could be a real pain
Speaker 1: in the ass for Boston in the playoffs the way
Speaker 1: they play, if they can stay healthy and be physical.
Speaker 1: So Philadelphia's got cap space, Milwaukee Dame Jannis probably both
Speaker 1: don't get hurt. And I think everybody in the West
Speaker 1: getting better. I mean, o case, he is interesting. They
Speaker 1: they have enough draft capital, they're good. They could get
Speaker 1: great with the right edition, like like like that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think listen, I had Boston in six.
Speaker 1: It looks like Boston in four. But this this NBA,
Speaker 1: which is more international and more parody.
Speaker 4: I'm here for it.
Speaker 1: You know. I sat there tonight and I'm like, if
Speaker 1: Dallas comes back and wins, you got to be kidding me. Like,
Speaker 1: for for two and a half quarters, I'm like, God,
Speaker 1: Boston is this is this is warrior, like with Katie,
Speaker 1: this is a machine. And then they just got into
Speaker 1: this awful ISO like bad. I I'm talking like old Boston.
Speaker 1: I'm talking like twelve and or fourteen shots. You're like
Speaker 1: that fallaways Like like I'm like, missoula time out, get
Speaker 1: a set play, what do we do? And then you
Speaker 1: know Tatum had a couple, Jalen Horford a big defensive play.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think this turned out sort of
Speaker 1: how we thought. It's just been quicker.
Speaker 3: Well it should have been more competitive, but we all
Speaker 3: knew this would happen. You're right, And like again, my
Speaker 3: all eyes for me are on Luca. I if he
Speaker 3: comes into camp next year and looks physically different, that'll
Speaker 3: tell me a lot about what he's learned about his
Speaker 3: game and what.
Speaker 4: He needs to do.
Speaker 3: If he's serious about getting to the promised line, I'll
Speaker 3: be excited to see that. All right, guys, that's all
Speaker 3: we have for tonight. This NBA Finals Game three Instant
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Speaker 3: have a good night. We'll be back tomorrow morning to
Speaker 3: get a little bit further into this game.
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