You're tuned into Heat Check with Trista Quick.
On this episode of the Heat Check, it is the final division previews Babe for this year in the NBA. I break down the Atlantic, the Central, and the Pacific divisions with my favorites, my dark horses, and those who have their own chance back absolutely none, looking at you, Lakers. I recorded this on a recent episode of beut MGM tonight, and the odds might have changed since then, and I am happy to share it all with you.
All right, Nick, let's do me a favor and drop that beat.
All right, Trista, it is NBA futures time. Let's talk about the Atlantic. So first, let's just get out of the way. Are the Knicks winning this division? Do they have any chance?
No?
Is there any reason to take any kind of thing.
I think the only way you would say that that was possible if they did get Shay this year, and I don't think that's happened.
Okay, that's they're not winning the division.
No, I would agree, all right, So cross the Knicks out of there. Yeah, then it gets real interesting. I mean, you can't take the Celtics and minus three hundred undred, you can't do that. So if you're not taking the Celtics right now, what do you think is the best player on the board the Sixers at plus six fifty, the Raptors at plus seven fifty, or the Nets at plus eight fIF.
That's such a great point.
And they all have their own problems, right the seventy six Ers, yes, like they found their defense. What are they They're the fifth best defensive team in all of basketball one hundred and nine point four defensive rating. But you look at them, they're twenty eighth and scoring like they really struggle to score the basketball. It's just Tyree s Maxi and Joel Embiids. So in terms of that, like they're literally giving up more points than their scoring.
So I don't think that.
There's a possibility for the Sixers to regain the hopes that they had coming into the season.
I think they're gonna have to make a move. I think they're gonna have to.
Probably make a trade, probably have to change a coach in order for this to sort of turn around. And plus, we don't really know what James Harden is going to look like when he comes back.
He looks he looks good.
He did, But now when you have another setback for a whole month. What do you do, PJ when you're sick eat? Yeah?
What do you do when you're injured? Yeah?
And we know James Harden has had a how should we say, predilection for yeah, for for eating a lot of food. Anyway, he started a steakhouse in the middle of Houston that had, like I did a whole thing on it. It's like lobster inside of a steak, like dressed in butter with Fois Gras on top, wrapped in bacon, wrapped in something else, and it's like, Yeah, James Harden likes to eat. He likes to eat all the time.
But now he's not burning off any calories. So no to me for the six, I guess the one that I would have to take is Unfortunately theors at plus seven fifty, we've got a Pascal Siakam who has been injured.
Before Pascal was it was got hurt.
He's averaging highs in every statistical category for his career. You look at him, he was averaging twenty five nine and eight with a steal and a block per game. So like that, coupled with OG, couple with Gary Trent, I don't think anyone's beating Boston, but they are an ankle injury away, you know what I mean.
If something happened to Tatum, sure.
Then you know anything could happen. And that's kind of what you're vetting on, is that something is going to change. Maybe Malcolm Brogden gets hurt as well, and who knows, right like, maybe the setback to Robert Williams is there. But I could not in good conscience take the seventy six ers. I could not, in good conscience take the Brooklyn Nets, even though they are playing really good defense.
I think that they are going to bring back Kyrie.
Irving and that's.
What makes me very leary about taking that.
That's what makes this so interesting.
Kyrie's the whole wild card because right now they're at plus eight fifty. If Kyrie comes back, do you think the odds stay the same? Do you think they go higher?
I go higher?
You think they go higher like plus one thousand?
Oh No, I think it's lower or.
Something like that plus six fifty, Because that's what I was going to ask you.
Yeah, if Kyrie comes back, I don't know how you can touch the Nets. I think they're almost better off without.
I think They honestly are a better defensive basketball team, no doubt. And here's another thing that you could say to yourself, all right, why why would I want.
To maybe bet on the nets? You still have yet to get back TJ. Warren.
He hasn't come back from injury yet. Yes, Kyrie is out, and maybe that's a good thing. Edmund Sumner I just did a piece on him today for the heat Check, and he's been actually really good as a starting point guard for them instead of Kyrie Irving, really good defender, shooting forty percent from three, getting you know, has one of the lowest turnover assistant turnover ratio in the NBA,
and everybody's just sort of playing together as a team. Now, well, you still have to incorporate Joe Harris back into the offense. He's got to get into rhythm. Seth Curry has got to get into rhythm. Nick Claxton he has to kind of find his identity. And who knows, maybe you're kind of like betting on Maybe's right.
You can't bet on the knowns.
So maybe you're thinking to yourself, something happens with Ben Simmons and he comes back in. But I've been burned by Ben Simmons enough times for me to really put my hard earned dollars on that team that he is on.
We were obviously a little down on the Celtics to start the year with not having e May and just regression from making the finals and all that stuff.
And you know, what are the best the league right now?
Or is it Milwaukee?
I think it's Milwaukee by a lot. By a lot.
I think Milwaukee fully healthy. We haven't even seen them fully healthy all year. They've like lost twice, three times maybe, and those games there were players missing from all of them.
We have not seen Middleton at all.
Jannie has set out some games, Drew has set out some games. Pat Conington has not played, Joe Ingles has not played.
Like you don't even have half of the roster that you want.
Yeah, you know, and.
Now there's whispers that they're gonna go get Jay Crowder. So I think that the Bucks are by far and away the best team in the league right now.
Do you think it's the right time now to jump in on the Raptors? Do you think you can get better value on them at some point? Do you forego this great question? Seeing the Celtics continue to win games they go to like sixteen and five or something like that, and then the plus seven to fifty becomes like a plus twelve hundred or would you jump on the seven to fifty right now with Toronto?
You know, I think probably waiting throughout Pascal Siakam's injury is important. Let's go ahead and look at the Raptors schedule because that actually matters.
And you look at maybe like.
After a big long road trip out west or something, and you're like, all right.
They believe we just got ruffed up by that.
Yep, Cleveland just got roughed up. So they're at home for a while, out home until basically, you know, Thanksgiving is over.
Tough schedule coming up, and.
Then after that they have to play the Pelicans, the Celtics. No, I mean they have some like games, right, they get some games. Maybe you hold off, You hold off until maybe they're a stretch against the Suns, the Bucks, the Knicks, a couple of games against the Hawks and the Bucks.
Again.
Yeah, I mean, I think you gotta wait till January. I think January is probably a really good look because then they end up going west.
To go play the Blazers. The Sun's the Jazz.
February fifth, when they lose to the Grizzlies, and Boston has been just cool, chilling. Maybe you wait till the All Star break, but if I had to do anything, I would play I would play them.
We talked about the Atlantic Division last hour. Now we're going to talk about the Central Division, and we have another heavy favorite, the Milwaukee Bucks minus two to seventy five to win the division. They are ten and three on the season. The Cleveland Cavaliers eight and five. They are plus two hundred, Chicago Bulls six and eight, they are twenty to one, and then the Pacers and the Pistons they are both two fifty to one to win the division. First off, are you worried at all about
Cleveland losing four games in a row? Obviously never a good thing.
Weak division, very weak division. Pacers stink, Piston stink, bull stink like. So yeah, I mean it's a two horse race. I don't think anybody's.
Beating the Bucks. I don't think anybody's beating them period, let alone in the division.
It is a little odd though, don't you think that the Celtics are minus three hundred and the Bucks probably the best team in the league's only minus two to seventy.
So respect they have for Cleveland.
That's respect that they have for Cleveland, that's respect that they have for Boston. Right the Boston obviously is getting a lot of respect from the market. I do think that there are some issues with the Cavs because if you look at Darius Garland with Donovan Mitchell, he just really and he got hit in the eye and he broke his orbital bone and his eyes still very swollen and doesn't look like he's functioning well.
He had a huge game.
The other night, but it was without Donovan Mitchell, right, Like, I think he had fifty one, two and six, but before that fifteen points, six points, sort of all over the place.
Couple of good games twenty nine and twenty four.
But he's turned the ball over a lot, and Donovan Mitchell obviously has sort of taken over in terms of what he's been doing. And I said this before, like when you watch the end of Cavs games, the offense just does not run smooth. They just don't know how to get it to not turn the ball over.
They bring it up, two guards bring it up. They're kind of.
Both like sort of running in synchrony. One has the ball, doesn't really matter who. They wait for a high screen from either Jared Allen or Evan Mobley that usually draws a double team and not a switch that that other you know, big man that is on Jared Allen or Evan Mobley sort of shades over to the other guard that does not have the ball, and they basically play dB and they pick off that pass and they get
out in transition. It's like clockwork, and they're making errant passes and they're making passes to guys that shouldn't be shooting, like Karris Lavert. And I love Kevin Love, but sometimes he needs to sort of stay in his place. Isaac Accorro is not a great shooter. There's a good team, but I am concerned about this team down the stretch of games. And that's in critical games. That's a non
critical games. Yeah, if you look at what the Cavs have done in their schedule, they lost to the Kings in this fashion, Warriors they lost to the Warriors in this fashion. They lost to the Clippers in this fashion. So that was three games in a row that they did that. They lost to the Timberwolves in that fashion as well, they sort of came back at the end with no Donovan Mitchell. But listen, like they beat the Lakers as they should, they beat the Pistons as they should.
Ye had two huge wins against the Celtics.
Trist that's a great point. They have one win this season that hasn't been Every other win has been nine points or more. Yeap, They're kind of like the Bills. They either win by double digits, so they can't win one score games, right like that.
So yeah, they have literally one good win and that was against the Celtics.
I never really in ot.
Yeah, so if.
It come down to it, and they're allowing leads to just evaporate as well, Cavaliers were up.
Going into the fourth quarter.
I think they were up thirteen points, well four minutes to go, and it was a seventeen to one run.
Why do you think that is that Cleveland just can't close out this game. Do you think just Garland and Mitchell are these players yet?
I guess you think.
I think there's some guys that are getting a little bit too. You know, they're watching the lead slip away and then they're starting to feel the pressure of it and they're pressing a little bit instead of just getting into their actions. They're not making the extra pass, they're not getting their bigs involved, right, which they should.
Yeah, and you know you've got a lot of hero ball.
Darius Garland has always played hero ball and Donovan Mitchell has always played hero ball. And I think that sort of at the end of games does not bode well, especially against good teams.
If so, if you weren't to take the Bucks or the Calves, you would take you would take the Bulls. If you couldn't take the top two, would you.
I don't even think there's any conversation. I mean, they could make a they could make a move for someone not.
Even a flyer, because even if you throw, you know who are going to get three dollars on the Pacers that can win you seven hundred.
No shot fifty.
Well, I know what the Pacers want to do. I don't know if you do, but I know, And Jake Fisher alluded to this. You know, the Pacers want to be a top five draft pick team. Like they're going to compete down the first you know, half of the season, two thirds of the season, and at the All Star break, at the trade deadline, they will move their expiring pieces and then they will fall to the end of the
earth like they will just pew. There is absolutely no shot that the Pacers would win this division, especially considering that the Bucks have multiple guys that are really good and guys that are coming back from injury as well. So I know that the Pacers don't want to win this division. That would be an epic failure. I think for them Pistons, they are another team that I think is fun. They're trying, but they're definitely not in the
mix for it either. I think Dwayne Casey is sort of more on the mix for the hot seat and the Bulls. They just don't have enough pieces. Like Vooch isn't playing defense, he never really has. We've got basically Alex Crusoe and no Lonzo, who knows when he's coming back. There's just no reason to bet anybody else be that besides those two, in my opinion.
Are you surprised that the Pistons have been this bad to start the season?
I am. At the end of the day. Jade and Ivy's very reckless player.
He's like a Jah Morant, but not as good his decision making qualities like Jamorant but he can't do the thing the potential.
Yeah, you can see there's flashes.
He's a very up and down kid versus say of Keegan Murray, who's more of an emotionally stable kid. Like not to say, I mean just on the basketball court, I don't need to say about anything else, like more steady in terms of like the highs and lows of the game we saw against Saint Peter's and that same kid exists. Now.
The Bulls, you know, they're kind of just stuck where like the Wizards are. They They're like not bad enough to tank and like be in complete rebuild, but they're not like great enough to contend and win a championship. Yeah, they're just they're stuck in a really better they need.
They should really make a move, you know, for more.
Picks or pieces, try to get some boy that can help them, like a Yaka Pearl prediction time, Yaka Purl will be the bell of the ball. If the Spurs are looking to move him, which you know you've heard that they are, Yaka Purl will have a lot of team shooters going after him because he's double digit rebound guy. He can do a bunch of things offensively, defensively, very versatile, you know, very long able to do that type of stuff.
Would you feel more confident about Boston winning the Atlantic or Milwaukee winning the Central Milwaukee?
Really?
Yeah, nobody else is going to win, all right, Trista.
Let's go to the Pacific Division though. This one I think is the most intriguing because you have some heavyweights in this one, the Suns, the Warriors, the Clippers, the Kings, and the Lakers. Sons are the favorite. They're eight and five on the season, minus one forty five to win the division. Warriors they are six and eight on the year, they're plus three hundred twin. Clippers are eight and six,
they are also plus three hundred twin. The Kings six and six plus sixty six hundred to win the division. And then oh, the Lakers three and ten. They are eighty to one to win the Pacific. Just go ahead and take the Lakers and thank me later.
Oh my god, that's maybe the grossest thing I've ever heard.
Well, we're obviously not doing that. This is an interesting division though, because the Suns, I'm not laying minus one forty five with them. The Warriors, you know they're gonna turn it around. But you know they can't win a road game.
That's true. You're gonna lay the one forty five at the.
Sun No, I'm not. I okay, I sixty six to what?
You're just all right?
Look, Ryan Horvat has the Packers, you have the Kings. Okay, you need to go easy.
On the sixty six to one.
They're not winning the division?
Sixties.
Do you see all the teams ahead of them, they're not winning the division?
Yeah, I understand that. Let's not standings.
Let's just know neither of the Clippers and then and the Clippers are three to one.
No, I agree, it's the Warriors of the Suns.
The Warriors right now are gonna be fine. We know this.
I'm gonna continue to say it because the more I say it, the more they lose.
Yes, and it's been tremendous.
The Suns are eight and five, the Kings are six and six, the Warriors six and eight, Lakers obviously three and ten. They're completely out of it. But the Kings aren't that far behind. They just need to win the conference to win the division. Literally, they just doesn't. They don't even need to do anything, just win games. Just Kings win the games, so.
Much easier said than done, though.
Clippers are going to continue to fall. I can't believe the Clippers are eight and six. Actually, that doesn't make any sense.
Much worse than that.
I mean, it's probably this, it's probably the Son.
It probably is to figure it out.
They're gonna win road games eventually.
But the Sons won the Pacific Division last year and the year before that, so I mean, I don't the Warriors can still be a you're right, yeah, you're the Pacific Division. That's probably why the Suns. The Suns are more well equipped to get out in front, in a lead. The problem with the Warriors is that, you know, by the time I think they figure it out, there's not gonna be that many games left. Right, And that's fine in the playoffs because you start fresh and it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter as long as the Warriors are a six seed or better, it doesn't really change a thing for them.
But they're not.
I don't think they're gonna win this division. I just it's gonna take too long for the role players to show up. We've got a full on panic mode on Warriors Twitter because the role players aren't very good. They just sent James Wiseman down to the G League. PJ just sent him down to the G League. Patrick Baldman Junior is in the G League.
Is it too early to call Wiseman a bus Not to me?
You, I mean, it's not.
What a skilled seven footer he is. He's been injured.
I go on Memphis every week and they were saying that.
It's the Warrior's fault because they put all this pressure on him to compete right away and he's been injured and he only played three games in college. But like, yeah, the Warriors probably shouldn't probab shouldn't dress someone who played three games in college probably should And who has you know, who's a big man? Because big man we know this. They develop in a different way than guards. They take too long. They take not too long, but they are
slower to develop. Yeah, you kind of want to get a big man that's like been in college for a few years, not a guy who played three games and then got suspended. But the Warriors, with all the role player issues that they have, they lost Gary Payton, they lost Otto Porter, they lost b A. Leecha, they lost Damian Lee, they lost a host of want to scount on Anderson. They lost like six or seven guys that really got rotation minutes.
It would all hasn't played yet.
Klay Thompson will be fine, but you just need other guys off the bench to do things. And by the time they figure out who that is, Moses Moody hasn't been very good. Kaminga hasn't been very good. I don't know that there's gonna be enough games left for them to catch up.
You've sold me on the Warriors. I agree with you. I think they're out of the hunt. They you know, regular season games. When you've won as many championships as they do, you know how to kind of save your energy a little bit, navigate the regular seasons.
More of an exploring day, not a scoring day.
He saw that too throughout Lebron's career, like when he was young in Cleveland. Always wanted to get that one seed. I'm with you the Warriors. You sold me there, Clippers, you know, I mean, Kawhi is just you can't trust them to stay healthy. No, they're not going to win enough games.
I guess outside of the Suns, if there was a bet to be made, I guess the King. I guess. So just for pure value.
Yes, yeah, no, you're right see six to one.
Because they have depth. So if guys are out, like they can plug and plays.
Paul's been injured, DeAndre Ayton is it has been up and down. Jay Crowder wants to be traded. Cam Johnson out for a couple of months. Like why not the Kings at sixty six to one?
The Kings that call right King?
Why not my Kings?
No?
I like that?
All right, they're balling sixty six to one, PJ. Can you imagine dollars? I might do that when I that they're cooking?
You really like the Kings?
I didn't score?
Can they defend it all?
Yeah? In crunch time they put Steph in prison. Really like they blocked Steph. Steph in the fourth quarter the last game against the Kings.
He he was sitting there.
With twenty seven points and I needed him to get thirty. He came in with like seven minutes left. He did not score another point.
PJ. It was out of this world.
It's pretty good.
Yeah, it was really really good. I mean so when they when they need to, the Kings can lock down. They're not like a defensive powerhouse for all forty eight, But when they need to, they can.
So if you had to make a play, would you play the Raptors plus seven to fifty to win the Atlantic or the Kings sixty six to one win the Pacific?
Why not both? Why not both?
It's true?
Probably the Kings, probably the King you sold.
You know they're six and six, the Suns are eight and five. Yeah, I mean it was strange.
Things back, Strange things they get go on a run, strange he get Murray gets into scoring twenty five, twenty seven a night, he had deer in fire, scoring thirty, got Malik off the bench, and Malik Monk off the bench, scoring sixteen seventeen. Davion Mitchell's locking guys down, Kevin Herder's coming, He's in the rotation, can score twenty. You've got like just multiple guys that can shoot, multiple guys.
That can do things.
I love it. I didn't even mention him on a Sabonis he assist Powerhouse, getting twenty down in the block, starting to shoot threes again. If he becomes the sniper Sabonis that we know who knew him to be in Indiana, watchout.
They almost have like too many guys.
They have a lot of guys.
Really, I just said a bunch of names, and then guys that you don't even know, like Chimezi Metu and Trey Lyles, like a bunch of dudes off the bench who are getting significant minutes as well. Bet MGM Tonight airs Monday through Friday, seven pm to eleven pm Eastern Standard Time. Get it on the Odyssey app, on demand, or it's available in podcast form after the fact wherever you get your podcasts. A million thanks to my co host Ryan Horbaught and PJ Glasser, as well as my producer Cameron Gray.
But that's all the time that we have for the Heat Check. We'll be back with an all new episode.
Check out the feed for past episodes mini episodes which drop every single day and follow the Heat Check.
As the season continues to heat up. Do not forget to.
Download, Please subscribe, Please tell all your friends, please every single one of them, and follow us on socialide at this heat check and actress to crick on TikTok