Hoops Tonight - Clippers-Mavericks Reaction: Luka Doncic & Dallas KNOCK OUT LA, will face Thunder

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Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. Twenty one plus age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. See dkang dot co slash b ball for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to whom tonight you're at the volume. Happy Friday, everybody. Oh both, if you guys had a good end to your week. We're gonna break down both of tonight's games from the perspective

of both teams. The Clippers pose out the Mavericks at home and the Magic win at home against the Cavs. So we're gonna have Game seven on Sunday as well, which should be fun and then special for tonight, I'm gonna do fifteen minutes of mail bag questions at the end, So drop as many male bad questions as you'd like in the chat, and Paul, our producer, is gonna be sending them to me so that I can get to him at the end of the show, and I'll get to as many as I can for about fifteen minutes

or so at the end of the show. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to our brand of YouTube channel. You don't miss any more of our videos. Call me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys don't miss any show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight, don't forget to keep dropping those questions in the chat as well as the begin him at the end of the show. All right, let's talk some basketball. So that

looked a lot like Game four. Right, The MAVs are just a better basketball team than the Clippers when they don't have a healthy Kawhi Leonard, right, Like that was the big question mark surrounding the series, was like, is Kawhi gonna be healthy? Is he gonna be able to bring anything to the table. As soon as he was out, this thing was over. The reality is is that once we get into super physical and tense environments, Luca and Kyrie are just better shot creators than Harden and Paul George.

Both of these teams have elite perimeter defenders. Both of these teams play physical with ball pressure. Both of these teams have a lot of athletes that can attack the offensive glass. There's no advantage there. The advantage is in shot creation. And in Game four, like we talked about, Luca and Kyrie dominated Paul George and James Harden, and they did the same thing tonight between Luca and Kyrie fifty five points and seventeen assists, Paul George and James

Harden tonight thirty four points in eighteen assists. We went into much more detail in Game four, and I won't get into that much detail tonight, but the gist of it is is that Paul George and James Harden are just simply not athletic enough to get separation from superior defensive athletes. Kyrie has the quickness to go with the skill that he can get separation with. Luca has the size and strength. Those two guys have elite physical traits that allow them to break open in a way that

Paul George and James Harden cannot. Paul George, when he was in his athletic prime, back when he was with Indiana, had this insane first step. Even just as recently as like twenty twenty one, he had a crazy first step and he was toasting people off the dribble consistently, But at this phase of his career, as he's entering into

his mid thirties, just not the same. And as you kind of look around the landscape of the league, if you're making a list of like not just shot creators, but shot creators that have reliability in intense postseason environments, it's a very short list, and it's basically like a handful of guys that are just all time type of skill athletes, right like Jalen Brunson is a guy that's kind of breaking that mold. Steph Curry is a guy

who has broken that mold. There are some guys that kind of are exceptions to that rule, but for the most part, it's the big, strong, fast guys that have like superior physical gifts attached to IQ and skill, which they use with those physical gifts after they get separation

to pay plays off. But at the end of the day, like I'm watching and when you see Paul George dribbling on, when you see Paul George dribbling on Darrek Jones Junior, Like he's just not capable of getting free from him as easily as you see other higher level shot creators around the league. That really is the is the gist of it. Kyrie, I want to shout him out. He's been amazing all series and once again, like Luca, all series long, has just struggled to get back to his

normal level of efficiency. Some of that I want to credit the Clippers. Some of that is shot selection, He's taken a lot of really difficult shots, and some of that is the neat right, Lucas struggling a little bit, Kyrie has been carrying that load. And like, here's the thing, I'm wrong about a lot of stuff. I never sit up here and try to pretend that I'm Jason Stradamis and I just get everything right as it pertains to the NBA. That's never been what I've tried to lead

you guys to believe. But I'm on the right side of history. And when it comes to Kyrie Irving, from the minute everything was going south again, just really really wanted free agency. That mattered to him, right Like he got traded to Boston, he wanted free agency. He wanted to pick a destination. He picked Brooklyn. I'm not defending

everything he did. He made some mistakes off the court, especially where and on the court in the sense that like he abandoned his team in a lot of cases and many there was stories about him leaving his team without even informing the coach, Like there's stuff that Kyrie

did that's not okay. But for the most part, like, the reason why he left Boston was because he wanted to be a free agent, right, And the reason why he left Brooklyn is because he wanted an extension and because he had burnt the bridge with Brooklyn, Brooklyn wasn't going to give it to him, and so he really had no choice but to force his way out of Brooklyn to go to a different scenario where he could get a long term contract, which he did. Not defending

everything he did in that stretch. But at the end of that trade saga, when he got sent to Dallas, Kyrie got basically painted as a complete and total, unreliable asshole, and that just wasn't true. And most importantly, in all of that, people started to rewrite the history on who Kyrie was as a basketball player, and like, yeah, you're right, when he's the number one option on a Boston team, probably not going to be able to pull you over

the top. But I don't know about you, guys. I never had any delusions about Kyrie being a number one option. That was never what I thought he was. I don't

think you guys felt that way, right. He's always been viewed as like the ultimate number two a guy if you can put him next to a do everything superstar, like a true top tier guy, and he can just focus on basically second side shot creation, running units, when when your best players on the bench, he's actually an extremely useful number two, not just on the offensive end either, he competes on the defensive end and can be useful there. Right.

And so not only did he get painted as this like complete and total jerk when really he was a guy who made some poor decisions, but also was being opportunistic about his situation, like he had never been a free agent when he Boston. I'm not gonna hate on a guy for wanting to pick a team. Okay, that's like I feel like that's the dream for a lot of NBA players. It's like, one day I get to choose where I want to go. Good for him. He chose Brooklyn. Okay, there he burned his bridge that you

can blame him for. But when it came down to it, the nets were not going to give him the money he wanted. He wanted the long term security. He had no choice but to force his way out at that point. The nets were kicking everybody's ass when he demanded that trade. He did so because he needed to find financial security. And he found it in Dallas. And guess what He's

learned from his mistakes that he made in Brooklyn. So he's on his best behavior and in Dallas he has found long term financial security and another role alongside a top tier superstar where he is thriving and like no matter what the basketball side of it, he always did what he was supposed to do as long as he was alongside a true top tier superstar the way that he needed to to push them over the top. And so I'm I'm gonna always defend Kyrie in that specific regard,

not his specific actions. But I think I think way too much was made of the bigger picture of who Kyrie Irving was as a person. And I'm glad to be on the right side of history. There because now he's the second best player on a team with genuine championship potential and they're headed to the second round for the Oklahoma City Thunder. And he was just unfreaking believable in this series. In Round one, PJ and Maxi hit five more threes. That was a huge swing factor without

the entire series, those guys hitting shots. And it's been a little bit back and forth and alternating, like Maxi was the one hitting the shots in Game four, PJ is the guy hitting the shots in Game five, maxicalle But did me leave the game with a nasty shoulders plaint is spraying where he kind of fell really hard with his whole body weight on his shoulder. That could be big for OKAC, which we'll talk about in a minute. I wanted The last guy I wanted to shout out

for Dallas was Derek Lively. That the third quarter run that he went on was crazy. He was doing it all. He's defending, he was cleaning up the glass on both ends, was really active on the offensive glass, in particular, providing that vertical spacing that we know is so crucial to the way that Luca likes to play. And then the big one making reads out a short role that again

simple concept. When Luca calls for a ball screen from Lively and Luca's defender shows high above the above where Lively's role is, He's going to roll into a four on three and he's got to catch there, and he's got to make the reads quickly. He even had a play where he caught on the right block and made

like a little left shoulder hook off the glass. I was thinking a lot about it because not only is it truly impressive that Dallas was able to find a true contributing player in the NBA draft as a rookie, and not only was it impressive that Derek Lively himself put in the work to become that type of reliable player, but I think he can get so so so much

better in the long run. And I actually had a little moment today when I was watching the game where I'm like, I look forward to that moment when we're watching the MAVs three four years from now and Lively is like a well established, really really good NBA player

alongside Luka Doncic. She feels like one of those guys that like, we're gonna kind of attach to Luca and his career in terms of like one of his like you know, partners in Crime, so to speak, and like it just it just feels like the beginning of an era there and Derek was just incredible tonight. Looking forward for the MAVs again, Thunder is gonna be a tougher matchup. Tougher in some ways and easier in others. But I do think the okay See without Kawhi is a with

the Clippers not having Kawhi. Okay See, he's a better team. Okay See's shot creation is substantially better, Like Shake Kildas. Alexander is just a much much better player then both James Harden and Paul George. So that's a whole other challenge that challenges you got sitting in front of you. Derek Jones Junior is gonna have his hands full from the start of that series. I think he'll probably get

the matchup, and then Jalen Williams. He didn't have the stature of Paul George or James Harden, but he is a much much better at fleet and he brings a I've said this before, but I think he has the best combination of downhill force, pull up jump shooting and playmaking ability of any forward I've seen in a very long time. Like there's there are guys that can move the way he can and can play make the way that he can, but can't shoot the way that he can.

There are guys that can move and shoot, but can't play make the way that he can't. He is a rare combination of those three traits. His first ever playoff series against an elite defensive team that put elite perimeter defenders on him the whole series twenty one, seven and five on fifty nine percent from shooting as a rookie. Never's done it before, So like that, it's gonna be a whole other challenge in terms of shot creation from Oklahoma City. But they don't bring the physical strength that

the Clippers bring to the table. Now, lou Dort is super strong and he's gonna be He's another guy that's in that top tier perimeter defenders, and so it's gonna be a tough matchup for Luca to deal with. So Luca, he's slumping right now. He's gonna need to figure it out for Dort. Dort's gonna have a difficult series ahead for him in terms of just how hard he's gonna

make things for Luca. But Chet is just not the type of power player that zubatches A Zubats is, i should say, And they don't really have a power forward on the roster. They don't have anybody in that like Kleiba PJ. Washington type of size profile, right, And so it's gonna be about bullyball in a lot of cases. And but before we get into that, this is where

Kleiba and his injury could be an issue. And I hope that Kleeba is able to come back because one of the big things that I could see Dallas doing to try to handle the Shay Chet pick and pop and the Jalen Chet pick and pop. As I've talked about a lot the for traditional bigs that run drop coverages.

So for instance, Chet, excuse me, Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively, they're in a drop coverage, right, So essentially as the ball handlers coming over the top, they're trying to drop and keep the roller and the on ball guy in front. You know, on a better pull up shooter, they might be closer to the level, but for the most part, they're they're working kind of from where the ball comes off the screen back towards the basket, right, And so that works when the ball when the when the guy's

rolling right, when Zubots is rolling into the paint. You can kind of guard to people at once in some way, shape or form, right, but as soon as that screen

or pops it, he's just gonna be open. The pick and pop is like the ultimate uh you know, it's like the ultimate trump card for any sort of for any sort of like basic trump uh drop coverage, you can't really like get out there in time, right, And so this is where I see Kliba being super important and Dallas leaning more into that look they used in Game two of the Clipper series, which is Kleiba and PJ. Washington together, Because if you do that, you can do

something like have PJ. Washington on Jalen Williams and Derek Jones or you know, it'll be interesting to see too, because Jalen's more of a downhill threat and Sha, he's more of like a shifty guy. So maybe it'll end up being PJ. Washington on SGA and more Derek Jones matching athleticism for athleticism on Jalen Williams but either way, if you have those two guys there and you have Kleiba on chet, then you can switch any ball screen

between any variation of those two guys. And so I think that's something where where Kleiba's value is a little bit understated. And so I'm hoping that that shoulder injury isn't too serious because that's gonna be something that I think that Dallas is going to need. But again, like I mentioned earlier, Bulli ball is gonna be the name of the game. Luca is gonna need to hunt the

thinner Thunder players and take him to the basket. That was where he was most efficient in this series was right handed drives where he would like kind of get down the lane line and then kind of stop right around the block and just shoot that little one handed push shot slash like half hook over his left shoulder. That's a big one I think for him to lean on in this series against some of the smaller defenders.

Attacking the offensive glass like they did tonight, there's a huge part of this series for Dallas, and that's a

big way that you can attack. Okay, see, they're one of the worst defensive rebounding teams in the league and then deep seals for PJ Washington with the other thing I wrote down where PJ did this more often during the regular season, but like when he gets a smaller matchup on him, like if Oklahoma City has to put dort on Luca and they have to put Jalen Williams on Kyrie Irving, that's gonna leave one of Shay or Josh Gitty, probably Josh Gitty on PJ Washington, And so

deep seals in the paint to try to get quick early post touches and easy dump ins for like layups and fouls and things like that. Bullyball is gonna be a big element of that series. I will have a series preview later this weekend. I did my prep for

Pacers Nicks, but I haven't recorded it yet. I'm recording that first thing in the morning, and then I'm gonna start doing the prep for this series, so I'll probably end up recording that video later in the afternoon, and so it'll probably be up either later tomorrow night or in the morning on Sunday. But when it does go up, I will tweet out the links. You can see it on my Twitter feed at underscore JSNLT on the Clippers front,

I don't really know what to say. I don't know how you build a team or prepare for a postseason run when you're best player is literally not physically capable of handling a playoff runt, WHI is on the books for one hundred and fifty two million dollars over the next three seasons. I can't even get mad at Paul George and James Harden for not being able to successfully navigate this half court environment against an elite defense, because that's never what they were meant to do. They were

never meant to be depended on to this extent. They were designed to be secondary and tertiary shot creators behind Kawhi Leonard, who is one of the rare guys when he's healthy, who has resilience as a shot creator in the slowdown, playoff environment against elite defenses. And so I don't really know what to say. You can't blow it up because you're about to head to a brand new arena. You can't go into your new arena with a rebuilding

team that seems like a financial disaster. So my guess is that they'll let Paul George go to free agency, but then match whatever he gets offered, and so they'll do whatever they need you to bring Paul George back. Now, maybe he'll choose to leave, but I think they'll offer Paul George whatever the max is to keep him. I think they'll sign James Harden to a long term deal at a little bit more of a team friendly number. And I think they'll run it back. And I do

think that's defensible for two reasons. Won the arena, Like we mentioned obviously, like it's just the reality of going into a new arena. You almost better off giving it one good season there with all of this talent to at least drive some of the buzz. And then especially like if you're selling season ticket packages like they've probably been.

They've probably been selling season ticket packages, and so you'd hat to go back on that by bringing out a some sort of rebuilding team or trading a star away and not having the talent that you have, right, And so like, I think it's defensible to bring everybody back under that circumstance. And the second piece of it is just the reality of their predicament. They're not one move

away from figuring this out. They could trade Paul George, but it's still gonna be fragile Kawhi and James Harden who needs to be a secondary shot creator behind a true superstar. Right, So it's the same, it's more or less the same predicament. And so that's kind of where I tie this off is just as a Clippers fan, don't get your hopes up, because even if they do run it back, the reality is is twenty twenty one, Kawhi Leonard looked awesome and then his knee fell apart.

Twenty twenty two, he was still recovering from the knee injury, couldn't play in the playoffs. Twenty twenty three, he looked awesome in the playoffs and then his knee fell apart. Twenty twenty four, looked awesome all season, and then his knee fell apart before he got to the postseason and he was unable to play. So that and like each one of those years, he's getting older. I mean a half decade is passed, so like half decade ago, his body couldn't handle it, and now he's falling apart before

he gets there. It's sad. Kawhi Leonard is one of my favorite players to watch. A good chunk of my game, our moves and things in play style that I've stolen from Kawhi Leonard, huge fan of his. It's a huge bummer, but it's just the reality of the predicament. He for whatever reason, just his body can't make it. His body can't make it through this grind. And so maybe you

get lucky. I mean, you going too the New Arena, and by the grace of the basketball guys, you just roll in deep next season and everyone hangs tight and healthy, and then you get into the postseason, you go on some sort of run. Maybe that'll happen, but I just don't think anybody should get their hopes up. Moving on to Calves Magic. The dynamic of this series is super fascinating to me because like it's two very different game plans between the two teams. Like the Calves are daring

the Magic to make jump shots. The Magic were dead last in a jump shot attempts per game during the regular season and near the bottom in efficiency. They're not a good jump shooting team. So the Calves are ducking underscreens. They're playing contain on the ball. What that means is is like positional defense, so like you're giving ground and just prioritizing keeping the offensive player in front no matter

what it takes. So like, even if you have to leave a guy open on the perimeter, you're just beating him to a spot, sliding, taking that contact in the chest, trying to bait them into taking jump shots. Right, Jalen Suggs is really the only guy for Orlando that they're really trying to run off the line. And by the way, he had a great night twenty two points. Should have had twenty five if he didn't kick his legout on that one end one that got over or the offensive foul.

But he had a ton of big momentum shots and obviously he's been a defensive force in this series. Jalen Suggs continues to be awesome. But the Magic are doing the exact opposite to Cleveland. They're chasing Darius Carland and Donovan Mitchell and Max Strew's off the line. Then they're ignoring the non shooters in the corners, like guys like Mobiley, guys like Akorro, and they're trying to funnel the calves

into the paint. And then from there they're just banking that they're gonna be able to get enough stops at the rim. Now, the Calves had a great paint knight. Donovan Mitchell made eighteen shots in the paint. Garland made eight, so they got twenty six made field goals in the paint just from their backcourt. Mitchell made nine shots in the paint outside of the restricted area. Just a deadly

eurostep floater. He also does that wade pullover dribble. He is one of my favorite moves to use because it like automatically gets Essentially, you're driving up the right side of the floor and you pound the ball with your right hand and you gather a high but when you have real downhill force coming, your elbows are up here, and so what ends up happening is the back pedaling defender who's kind of in your way has a tendency naturally as human nature to kind of go to kind

of like back away from the elbow because you're worried about your getting hit, and so usually that gather over the top will get you back on to the left side towards the rim, and then you just explode off that left leg and you can get all the way to the basket. Now, Mitchell was using that to set up his floater, So he's like doing that high gather into the middle of the lane and shooting that floater over the top, because once again, that was kind of

the way Orlando's defense was set up. They were trying to take away the paint, take away the three point line, very analytically a smart approach to offense, right or defense. Excuse me, but Mitchell just made a pay nine shots that he made outside of the restricted area, but inside of the paint eleven paint field goals for Garland, Mitchell gets fifty. Honestly, it made me feel bad because that was one of the better playoff performances that I've seen.

That was a that'll get lost in the mix because it was a loss, but given the fact that it was on the road, in a close out game where his teammates were in a lot of ways letting him down, and we're gonna get into that in a minute, he was just unbelievably good. And it just as a bummer because he played well enough to win that game and he doesn't get a win down the stretch. The Magic just made more plays and fewer mistakes than the Caves. The shot making was there for both teams. As we

talked about. Mitchell was hitting shots. Pallo got hot late. He had a big pull up three over even Mobley on the left wing, and then he had a spin move into Moblei Mobiley raked him across the arms, kind of a dumb foul. I think Pallo missed the free throw anyway, But anytime Paolow saw Mobli on his heels, same sort of thing, just hard dribble to the left, like spin into either a short fadeaway, short hook shot,

something along those lines. But Mitchell and Paalow were getting into the shot making, but Garland was the guy that just couldn't kind of meet that level. Made a few huge mistakes down the stretch of the game. Everyone saw the eight second violation. That's just completely inexcusable. You're just not paying attention. There's no ball pressure. There was no ball pressure on that play. He just slow dribbled across half court and took an eight second violation. The cole

Anthony put back along the baseline. This is where I want to get into the concept of rebounding as a team versus rebounding it as an individual. And this is especially important when you don't have physical advantages, which Cleveland without Jared Allen is at a huge disadvantage against Orlando. So on this play, Franz Wagner comes off of a ball screen on the left wing and shoots a pull up three. But on the play, Evan Mobley came up

to the level of the screen. So when Evan Mobley came up to the level of the screen, Wendell Carter Junior, the guy who set the ball screen, he rolled hard to the basket right and as soon as the shot goes up, it's not even really a role. It's more of a crash. So Franz has taken the three, Mobley's out at the perimeter and Wendell Carter Junior is sprinting

down the lane to go get an offensive rebound. Now, Evan Mobley's gonna try to get back in front, but he's really out of position, and so Donovan Mitchell, who's guarding Cole Anthony in the right corner, he comes down and cracks down and boxes out Wendell Carter Junior. So Donovan Mitchell is rebounding as a team. He's looking and going, yeah, I've got Cole Anthony and he might crash. But Wendell Carter Jr. Is crashing and he's got Evan Mobley beat right now, I need to get in there and box out.

So he's thinking within the team concept. Darius Garland, who's guarding Jalen Suggs up on the right wing, he's rebounding more as an individual, he when the shot goes up, just looks at Jalen Suggs, identifies that he's not crashing and does nothing. But that's not even just a rebounding rotation. That's a defensive rotation. When the lowman tags in any way,

shape or form, whether that's helping. And again, the lowman is the player that's guarding the guy in the weak side corner, and he is the guy who's responsible for the role man in the ball screen when your screen defender is up at the level of the screen. So Donovan Mitchell is the low man. Donovan Mitchell is the low man in a rebounding situation, went over to tag slash box out Wendell Carter Jr. If it wasn't a shot, it was just a role, he'd be tagging the roller right.

Same kind of rotation, though when that happens, the same thing is supposed to happen every single time. If you were on the wing and you see the low man tag or have to crack down and rebound, you have to drop to the corner. That is the next rotation,

and Darius just one paying attention, and so Cole Anthony just walked in for an easy offensive rebound put back late. Everyone's gonna focus on those two plays, but he had

two other turnovers in the fourth quarter, over penetrating. He'd got Paalo on switches and was just trying to beat him off the dribble, but like Pallo once again, like trying to protect the rim and take away the three point shot, right, So as soon as Darius started driving, he was taking really aggressive backward steps, and so what was open for Garland was a short step back jump or something in the mid range, but instead he over penetrated him both times, got himself caught into trouble where

he was buried underneath the basket with nowhere to go, and had to try to worst kickout passes when nobody's open because they're staying glued up off the ball, and he like it was just a really really rough stretch for Darius Garland, and once again, like I feel bad for Donovan because he was hooping his ass off and his co star was just kind of making mistake after a mistake. Darius was good for the first three quarters, I want to be clear, but yeah, that was a

rough fourth quarter from him. Really. The difference in the game, though, was offensive rebounding fifteen to two was the second chance

points advantage for Orlando. And the reality is is without Jared Allen, Cleveland is just completely overmatched on the glass, like we talked about earlier, like so many of these possessions, it's like mobilely under the rim with like Darius Garland and Max Struce and like your biggest guy there is Mobiley who's a relatively thin and undersized big right, and he's trying to get rebounding position or fight for contested rebounds with Wendell Carter Junior and Jonathan Isaac and Paala

Bonco and Franz Wagner, right, So like it's just an impossible job and so kind of looking forward to Game seven, that problem isn't going away unless Jared Allen is feeling better. And apparently he's in pain basically when he does anything with his rib injury, So I don't know, maybe he'll put on some type of flat jacket and try to give it a go. But like, but if Jared Allen can't go in Game seven, that problem isn't going away.

So the Calves are gonna need to ride the home crowd hold up better on the glass again, like I talked about earlier, rebounding as a team, doing your job, and then they're gonna need offensive support for Mitchell, which

is usually better at home. Anyway, on the Orlando front, I thought they could just do a better job of shrinking the floor on Mitchell when he does get past his man, especially on Mitchell in particular, because I think he's the one guy who's like really capable of shooting you out of the gym, and so they just need to do a better job on him in Game seven.

I know I said after Game two or Game three, I should say I said that the home team would win every game in the series, and I'm gonna stick with that for now, and or I should say for good and I'm gonna pick the Calves to win Game seven. But I'm gonna be honest with you guys. You it as more or less as of a coin flip. I think it could go either way. So yeah, we'll see what We'll see what happens Games seven. I think Jared Allen, whether or not he plays, is going to be the

biggest swing factor. But I really could see that game going either way. All right, Well, let's do about fifteen minutes of mail back questions here for Okay see vers Dallas in the playoffs. How do you weigh talent verse experience?

So obviously you can't lean entirely on experience, right, And we've seen hell, Oklahoma City fans have seen this, right, Like the early thunder teams that had Kevin Durant and James Harden in Russell Westbrook, they were going up against experienced, veteran teams and beating them, right Like, So I don't want to say that that's completely out of the equation. Something to keep in mind, though, when we look back through NBA history, like Kevin Durant, top twelve thirteen player

in NBA history, right, like James Harden. I don't know where I'd put James Harden all time, but we know what he turned into, right, he turned into a franchise cornerstone for a decade. Right. Russell Westbrook obviously played under KD for the majority of that time, but while he was healthy, was one of the best, you know, kind of like engines in the league on both ends of the floor. Right, So like especially truly special team that Oklahoma City team was. But I do think that Okayc's

talent has to be factored in here. So Dallas' experience, right, Kyrie Irving NBA finals experience in three different four different seasons if you count the brief minute a brief game that he played wait, three times. Yeah, he played in the NBA finals three times in twenty fifteen, twosy sixteen, in twenty seventeen. So he's been a lot of deep playoff runs. Luca's been to the conference finals before. Those guys have lost and lost in embarrassing fashion, have lost

in frustrating fashion, have lost in close fashion. So they have a lot of that scar tissue that I talk about, right, which I think is so important for winning in the playoffs. But at the end of the day, like, Okay, so he's just really damn good and so that's not going to carry you home, but it could be a differentiator when other things are when other things are equal, Let's see, why does Luca not seem as dominant as he normally is. Talked about this earlier in the show. But I think

it's a combination of three factors. Obviously, his knees bothering him a little bit. Give the Clippers some credit. They put their best athletes on him, Terrence Man and Russell Westbrook's pressure in the hell out of him all game long. And then three, I didn't like his shot selection. I thought he took a lot of really really difficult shots. He was actually really efficient when he got closer to the basket, and when he was more deliberate he looked

really good. And for the record, he was deliberate when it mattered, and I never thought his sloppy play like really cost the team, so to speak. But like I think it's a combination of all of those factors. Compare all the number ones the Kyrie has ever played with, Bron, Luca and Katie. How do you compare Kyrie playing with Lebron vrus Luca? Is there a difference? So I was actually thinking about this when I was working through the

Kyrie story. But Katie's actually an interesting example of a number one that Kyrie played with that didn't work out, And Katie's not the same type of Swiss Army knife offensively that Lebron and Luca are, and so I wonder if that's kind of the mix. Is Like I used to think about this and talk about it when when I was really active on Twitter before I worked in sports media. That was kind of how I got into

sports media. I won't get into that story right now, but like, basically, my wife and friends are not big basketball fans, right so, like I would go to Twitter to talk about basketball, and I remembers as a person rooting for Lebron during those years in Cleveland, like it kind of felt like a two thirds one third thing.

And what I mean by that is like Lebron was just kind of like responsible for the offense two thirds of the time, and that meant all types of versatile shot creation, high pick and roll, iso post up transition, you know, obviously looking to score himself, looking to create

for others, blah blah blah blah. And I remember there's a lot of criticism around Kyrie at the time where he'd have these possessions where he'd dribble up the floor and dribble, you know, seventeen times and never make a pass and then take a shot and people would be critical of Kyrie, but it really dawned on me in that twenty sixteen series in particular what they were doing and what that was is on those possessions Lebron would

rest while playing Lebron basically every year after twenty twelve, with exception of last year in twenty fifteen, was a reliable catch and shoot shooter. So Lebron would just park his ass, you know, twenty five feet from the basket on the wing, and he'd still be a threat because he could shoot. But Hyrie would essentially run his own action to try to hunt his own shot, and it effectively worked out for like a kind of efficient secondary

shot creation while also buying Lebron opportunity to rest. Lebron and Luca are very similar in that regard in the sense that they're like total offensive engines. Honestly, I don't really see much difference in the fit as it pertains to the offensive end. Obviously, they're just different as players in terms of Lebron as an athlete in all the other ways he can impact winning. Let's see who guards

Shay for Dallas. So I think they'll probably start the series with Derek Jones Junior because they're gonna look at that as like kind of lanky versus lanky, and then Jalen Williams more of a power player, so the look at that as like power verse power with PJ. Washington. But I think Derek Jones is quicker, and I think

that Jalen Williams is quicker. So I wonder if, over the course of the series, if they won't try switching that and putting PJ on Shae so he can absorb that off arm push off that Shay does and offer really good contests on his pull up jump shots. And if Derek Jones Jr. More focused on beating Jalen Williams to spots because he's got better athletic tools. But we'll see. I think they'll start with Derek Jones Jr. But we'll

see what happens over the course of the series. All Right, Let's see who are the current players that you think can be the number one on a championship team. So this is all relative because it's all about how much talent you have. Like, for instance, Jason Tatum is a guy I would typically not put on this list, But the Celtics have the most talented roster in basketball, and so of course he can win a championship. So like the reality is, is this question in and of itself

is flawed. I appreciate the question because it's a question all basketball fans like to talk about, but it's flawed in the sense of, like basketball is a team sport under any circumstances, Like in theory, you could have the fifteenth best player in the league and still win a title. And I don't think Dam's fifteenth. I think he's higher.

He's in that you know, seven to ten range. But like even though, like even if you had like the fifteenth best player in the league, when you have you know, six above average starters, that's just a lot of that's a lot of talent, you know what I mean? And I do think that that it can get into a little bit of a gray area. But if I had to run it down to like players who could be number one one on a championship team without an overwhelming

talent advantage. We pull up my leading scorers this year so I can get a little list, so I don't forget anybody. Joel Embiid, Yes, Luka Danci, Yes, Joannison, Tennan Kompo, Yes, Shay it's too early to tell. We'll see h Jalen Brunson. I don't think so. But we'll see Kevin Duran at this phase of his career. No, Devin Booker, I don't think so. Jason Tatum with an overwhelming talent advantage, yes, Donovan Mitchell, No, Darren Fox. Know. Steph Curry maybe last year.

I don't know if he could do it anymore. We'll see Nikola Jokic, yes, Tyree Spaxy know, Anthony Edwards, yes, Trey Young know, Lebron James at this phase of his career. No, Kyrie Irving, No John Morant. We'll see with John Morant in the long run. Anthony Davis, I don't know. He showed a lot this year. The tough thing with him is I don't think he's good enough offensively and we're kind of past the top there. So that's that's not

very many, I mean how much. I don't know if anybody was counting during that, but that's maybe like a half dozen guys. But like it's it's it's a rare it's a rare group. It's a it's a small class of players that can actually lead a team that doesn't have an overwhelming talent advantage. In my opinion, how big is coaching in these games. I have no faith in kid, and I don't expect to see him coaching in Dallas

much longer. So this has actually been a huge storyline surrounding the last few weeks, especially as it pertains to Darvin Ham. And I actually so, I think sometimes you

fire a coach because you're looking for an additional advantage, but he's not like the reason why your team is underachieving, and I think that was the main difference between Vogel and Darvin Ham. I think the Lakers fired Frank Vogel because they wanted to just see if they could find something better. I don't think it was like a matter

of urgency or crisis. A major point in the Vogal firing too, that gets lost in the shuffle is Vogel and Russ had a falling out, and the Lakers were hell bent on keeping Russ for some stupid fucking reason. So that's a big part of why Darvin Ham got the job was he kind of pitched his utilization of

Russell Westbrook right. Darvin Ham had to be fired because he was like he was just legitimately a bad NBA coach coach, and I went into excruciating detail, did thirty minutes on it today, so you can find that on our UH on our YouTube feed. But I put Kid more in the in the Frank Vogel class than the

UH than the Darvin Ham class. Meaning of course you can probably find a better coach than Kid, and of course he's gonna have moments where you're frustrated as a fan, But I do think he has a baseline level of game management and at least is going to put the outcome in the hands of the players. This is generally one of my big kind of beliefs in basketball. I do think that the truly elite coaches can dramatically increase your odds. We've seen that with guys like Eric Spolster

and Steve Kerr. Right, Steve Kerr like completely transformed the Warriors from a mediocre playoff team into a championship team in one season. So like we and we've we've any of you guys have read about that. No, it was like like Mark Jackson just had st Steph Curry running spread pick and roll all the time, and Steve Kerk came in and was like, no, we're going to run five out motion. We're gonna lead the league in passes.

They led the league in passes. Their offense took off steph one MVP, averaging like twenty three points a game. Like the rest is history, right, But outside of that top tier, there's only a handful of them. All that middle tier, of the guys that are not terrible, I don't think they're gonna help or hurt your championship chances that much. And the reason why I feel that way is like, you see this like you have a game plan, but how often do you get a transition cross match?

How often do you have, you know, an action that gets a switch before you run an action All of a sudden, your base scheme is kind of out of whack. Like so much of basketball is read and react, especially in the modern NBA, and so really, so much of this is on the players. I'm both ends of the floor, you know, Like a lot of times, like you are in the moment as the ball handlers coming downhill at you in a ball screen, You're making a decision on the fly, Am I coming up high? Or am I

staying back on the roll man? Or like you know, that sort of thing, and you know, every guy that's guarding a perimeter player. Should I do down hard here? Should I stunt? Should I hard double? Should I stay home on the shooter? Like there's and obviously there is a game plan there, but because of those cross matches, so much of it is read and react. Okay, now you got the defense in rotation at that point, you're not running a set. It's driving kick basketball. That's not

something that the coaches help you with. That's like the basketball players on the floor, how good are they at reading and reacting? Same thing goes on the defensive side of that. How good are you at closing out? How good are you at like closing out on the right shooter, Like, okay, they're driving and kicking, and there's a kickout past to Russ, Okay,

let me not close out on that one. Or like I'm you know, I see a bang bang play happening with two shooters on the wing, and one shooter is a much better shooter than the other, Like maybe I should actually close out to the better shooter even if the worst shooters catching the ball. Maybe bait on his indecisiveness a little bit, Like there's there's so much read and react in basketball, and so that kind of mitigates

a lot of the coaching element of it. Right, Like Darvin Ham, I think is legitimately a bad NBA code, And the Lakers went to the Western Conference Finals last year and legitimately gave Denver some issues this year, but it was because of the players. So like for me, it's about like making sure that you don't have a truly damaging coach. And as bad as Jason Kidd can be sometimes I don't necessarily view him as a as

any sort of like truly damaging coach. And so if you're in that middle tier and you got one of those guys, So for instance, the Sons with Frank Vogel, Like if they fire Frank Vogel and they hire a Mike Budenholzer or Kenny Atkinson, they're just gonna be in the exact same boat that they were last year. Right, But if the Lakers fired Darvin Ham in bringing a Kenny Atkinson or a Mike Budenholzer, all of a sudden, they're gonna have a baseline level of competence which will

help them avoid some of the major issues. Darvin Ham put you in like four guard lineups, you know, cam Like, this is the this is the crazy stat I always tell with Darvin ham during the three to ten stretch host in season tournament, Wind'angelo Russell was playing as many minutes as Camra and getting as many shot attempts as Torreum prints. That's below the baseline level of competence for a head coach, right, So like there is like a truly damaging level. I don't think Jason Kidd is there.

What is the difference between number one options and number two options? So a real number one option on a championship team is a guy that can consistently generate quality shots against an elite locked in defense in an urgent and physical and intense environment. There's a very short list of those guys, like we talked about, right, a secondary option or a secondary shot creator. He's a guy that can create shots when the factors are kind of in his favor. So a quality matchup. Maybe he has a

perimeter defender that he happens to be comfortable against. You know, maybe it's a defensive scheme. So for instance, like if James Harden, let's say the same Clipper series happens, but Kawhi Leonard's healthy, and so PJ. Washington has to guard Kawhi Leonard and Derek Jones Junior has to guard George the entire series and the entire series, James Harden is getting more favorable matchups and he's consistently seeing Kyrie. Not that Kyrie didn't do a goo job. Kyrie did a

good job on James Harden. But maybe if James Harden never had to see an elite perimeter defender in the series. Oh, and they're running a deep drop coverage and they're you know, digging down off of shooters and tagging the roller every single time, then yeah, James Harden's just gonna be able to get downhill and make the plays, the reids, the

kickout passes, and he'll be able to generate offense. But then, like when that intensity ratchets up, when he does see a really good perimeter defender, all of a sudden, his ability to create shots just falls off of a cliff. That's a secondary shot creator. You've got a number one has to have a certain amount of resilience when it comes to the higher levels of basketball. Let's see, do you think Kyrie will be like Lebron and Steph who can age one play at such a high level despite

getting older. So similar to what happened to Paul George, because Paul George has got a great handle and pull up jumper. Two. I mean Kyrie's is better, but you get the point. There will come a point where Kyrie can't beat people off the dribble as well as he used to, and he will kind of dip into that level where he doesn't have that kind of resilience. But I don't think he's there yet. Let's see, here's a last one for tonight. Do you think Anthony Edwards is

similar to two thousand and six Dwayne Wade. That's really interesting now, Dwayne Wade. You know, Anthony Edwards is shooting really well on pull up jump shots, and Wade had some of that in his game, but he was more of just like a downhill a downhill force. I also think Wade. This is the most underrated thing about Dwayne Wade. Wade could change directions at full speed different in a different way than any human I've ever watched, And there's

no way I could really describe it to you. If you're a young basketball fan and you haven't really been familiarized with Dwayne Wade. Don't watch this stuff with Lebron in Miami because his knees had kind of failed him at that point. Go back and watch highlights from like eighth nine, and you're gonna see Dwayne Wade like be able to slice and dice defenses unlike anything you've ever seen. The big one that Dwayne Wade was good at. There were two specific things that Dwayn Wade would do that

were amazing. To beat people off the dribble, he was the best guy in the league at splitting a ball screen. So splitting a ball screen, what that means is if I come off of the ball screen, the defender is behind me right, but immediately waiting there is the screen defender right, and he's at he's going to be at a certain level right, So he's either gonna be at the level of the screen, way back at the basket,

or somewhere in between. But what a lot of teams would do, because back in the day, I don't know if you guys knew this, I remember this, but the most one of the most common pick and roll coverages during the late two thousands early twenty tens was a hedge you don't really see this much anymore. All high drop low drop switch blitz those are like really the

only coverages you'll see. Hedging is almost exclusively for guard guard actions now, and it's designed to protect like a Steph Curry or Jamal Murray, like a skill guard that is that you want to avoid getting onto bad mismatches. Right, But back in the day, it used to be the big guys that would hedge. So like when teams would run a ball screen, you'd see a big center like a pow Gasol or a Zadrounis Olgalaskis or somebody like that. You'd see them actually like take a hard defensive slide

perpendicular to the driving lane. So like imagine, imagine you're the ball handler and the basket's there, okay, Like you're trying to drive that way. I would actually slide out and cut you off this way, and I'd force you to pick up your dribble or take a retreat dribble that would allow my on ball defender to go underneath the screen and meet you, and then I would sprint back to the role man. That was like the cover

that you'd see a lot of the time. And so what Wade would do is he'd be able to beat the hedge with this like ridiculous change of directions. So like he'd come off the ball screen and then he would just like quick change direction and split, meaning like as I'm here, he would just beat me this way, which, by the way, is like the one thing you're not supposed to allow as a hedge. The one thing you're supposed to do in a hedge is prevent the ball

handler from turning the corner. You're supposed to make him go that way around you, the long way, because if he takes a negative step, meaning if he goes away from the basket up towards half court, that buys time

for the on ball defender to recover. Right. But Wade would split it, so he would be so fast in his ability to change direction at full speed was so ridiculous that these bigs would have no idea how to contain Wade on hedges, And so he'd split it and then he'd just come flying downhill and dunk on everybody.

Then the second thing he would do, and Kevin Durant actually does this now more in terms of getting separation, but Wade would do it to get downhill Wade would start in the corner and he'd come off and catch on a dribble handoff, but instead of coming off the dribble handoff and using it, he would just catch a quick rip back towards the baseline. But he was so damn fast with that change of direction, he would routinely dust everybody off the dribble and then he would get

down the lane and wreck havoc. If you guys remember the big dunkey hat on Kendrick Perkins, and this was when Perkins was in Okay, Okay, see if I remember correctly, it was on one of those baseline rips. He came off of a dho ripped back to the baseline, pounded into his spin dribble, and dunked all over Kendrick Perkins's head. But like Wade and Ant are different in the sense

that like Ant's a little bit bigger and stronger. Ant has a lot of that downhill force and is a better pull up jump shooter, but Wade had better change of direction. And the other thing with Wade is Wade was a high level playmaker. And we'll see maybe over the years off Ant becomes that, But like that was a big way that Wade remained effective after his knees started to fail him and he no longer could beat

people off the dribble the way he used to. He was a really high level playmaker, and he was always a very very good defensive player, and so he would have you know, eighteen to twenty points in a playoff game would be but would be a huge plus on both ends of the floor because of those things. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. I appreciate the questions and I appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Again. Keep an eye on the feeds Tomorrow morning. We'll have

a preview on Knicks Pacers. Obviously, we've got I think we have one game tomorrow, right, and that's the game one of Nuggets Timberwolves, I believe, yep at seven o'clock Eastern, So Timberwolves Nuggets Game one tomorrow will be live on YouTube after the final buzzer of that game. As I mentioned, we'll have Knix Pacers out tomorrow, probably thunder MAVs as well, if not by Sunday morning. I appreciate you guys, and I'll see you tomorrow. The volume