Hoops Tonight - Clippers/Nuggets + Knicks/Pistons Game 2 Reactions

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where we're releasing content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow us there, and then keep dropping mailbag questions in our YouTube comments so we can hit him in our mail bags throughout the remainder of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I say out a tweet in the middle of the third quarter reemphasizing a point that I made after Game one of this series, which was that I thought that Denver's chance to win this series was to keep things close. The Clippers are not

a super high quality playmaking team relative to Denver. I think Denver in general is a little bit smarter as a team, and so in theory, if they can get into close games with two three minutes left, four or five minutes left and it's a two or three point game, I like Denver's chances in those situations. And boy did I jinx the hell out of the Denver Nuggets because

they end up getting into that situation. It looks like the Clippers were gonna build a little bit of margin there in the late third quarter, right, we got a huge Nick Matoom three. There was a James Harden three in there. They get a couple of buckets, they push it up to seven, but Denver battles back and we end up in another crunch time battle, but ironically it was the Denver Nuggets who were the undisciplined team in crunch time. Aaron Gordon, with a wide open dunk, smokes

it off the back of the rim. Michael Porter Junior, who honestly played a much better game than he did in Game one, earned his right to close the game.

Made a couple of huge plays, an offensive rebound where he drew a foul, a huge three, and a chaotic sequence on the right wing, and then he gets a defensive rebound on a critical possession, looks to throw a kick ahead pass, but hesitates at the last second, and right when he pulls back on that kick ahead pass, the ball just slips out of his fingers goes right to the other team, leading to a wide open three for Norman Pale, who really couldn't buy a bucket most

of the night but hit several big ones late. It hit that three along the wing that was a huge swing. Instead of getting a Denver offense possession, which this season has been worth like around one point two to five points, especially with Nikole Yocic on the floor, you end up giving up three to the Clippers instead, So between he's at and the dunk, we're talking about like almost six

and a half point swing back towards the Clippers. And then on that critical Jokic turnover late in the game, he gets double teamed, and this basketball one oh one. When you're double team it's about spacing and making yourself available. Both Christian Brown and Russell Westbrook stand in the exact same spot up on the right wing, making themselves easy to guard. Jokic has no place to go with the ball, he tries lobbing it in that direction. Kawhi Leonard gets

a big steal. That was what was so unusual about what happened down the stretch. The Denver Nuggets so are typically so surgical about getting to the best possible shot and not making mistakes down the stretch, made three massive mistakes in crunch time that swung this game back towards the Clippers. And meanwhile, on the other end of the floor, Kawhi was just absolutely surgical with his shot making. He

was amazing all night. Had just a classic Kawhi Leonard I'm not going to miss a single pull up jump shot type of game, but I thought the two he hit at the end might have been the toughest ones he hit all night. That right shoulder fade over Aaron Gordon. Aaron Gordon defended that perfectly. On Kawhi's followed through here, he damn near high five to Aaron Gordon, but he got the separation that he needed to at least get the clean look off or at least to get into

his rhythm, and he knocked it down. And then the second one coming off the right wing, he sold it with this really nice aggressive driving move. Really got his momentum going down towards the basket before he hit that in and out dribble and elevated. That got Aaron Gordon on his heels so he could get good separation on the move and he knocked it down. I thought he did a much better job of handling double teams in this game. I want to credit the coaching staff here

because they made it really simple for him. They had him attack on the right side of the floor. Denver was strong side zoning, usually with Jokic, meaning they were bringing Jokic over to basically outside the block and allowing Aaron Gordon to whoever was guarding Kawhi in a switch to basically force him towards the baseline where he's going to go right into additional help. And what the Clippers did there is they just sent a flasher right to the high posts, right at the semi circle below the

free throw line. That's where he saw Norman Powell run in and get that little floater. That's where he saw Avita Zubats come in and get that little kind of hooking floater that he takes in that spot in the floor. They created an easier read for Kuhi to make, and it was interesting because in those situations he was making

the reads. It was on the other ones when he was dribbling out above the break when Denver brought the double teams that Kawhi did a lot of what he did in Game one, where he kind of struggled to identify where the opening was or miss some of the easier reads. But when they got him into the right side of the floor, they had a plan. They had a plan for how to handle that double team, and he had five assists in one turnover tonight to go with the thirty nine points on nineteen shots. Just a

unbelievable game from Kawhi Leonard. One of the things we talked about all year, dating back to training camp. I had my optimism surrounding the Clippers. I predicted them to finish above the play and thought they'd be good, base on my beliefs, my core basketball beliefs surrounding their perimeter athleticism, James Harden as a floor raizer on offense in the regular season, What if Eata Zubats can do as a pick and roll partner with it Harden and all the

other stuff he showed. But one of the things I talked about at the beginning of the season was there's always this potential outcome, which is we joke about Kawhi and the Clippers struggling in twenty twenty. We talk about Kawhi being consistently unavailable from a health perspective in twenty twenty one, in twenty twenty two, in twenty twenty three,

in twenty twenty four. But none of that matters if, for whatever reason, he makes it to April this year ready to go, and here we are it's April twenty.

is just like the ballscreen attack. When they get two to the ball, there's an opening there in the pocket or on a skip, and there's these simple read and react sequences that have to take place, and there were just a couple of examples where it worked better. There's a big one out of the right corner late in the game. Harden came off lefty hook pass over the top to Zoo, and Zoo you could see it coming

a mile away. They loaded up the low man and they came across to rotate and Nick Patum was wide open in the left corner and Zoo just threw a beautiful over the top pass that landed in Batomb's hands with plenty of time for him to knock down that shot. They still botched a couple ones in their baseline cuts. Chris Dunn missed a reverse layup, credit to Aaron Gordon. He had a nice last second contest. But they're still batching some of those like baseline cut finishes that they

I can get in those sequences. I thought that there were a lot of close out attacks from Norman Powell that didn't get converted. There's still a lot of meat on the bone there, so to speak for the Clippers to try to clean it up and get even more out of it. But I thought they handled everything just

a little bit better today. Really nice bounce back when James Harden obviously not the most statistically impressive game with the four turnovers in eighteen points and seventeen shots, but I thought he hit some big ones, some big momentum shots throughout the game. I thought that big three hit in the late third quarter to push the lead up to seven was an example of a shot that carried more in terms of the momentum of the game. Defensively,

I thought they got they've they've forced. I want to credit them for forcing them into some of those mistakes, specifically transition defense and getting back and sprinting and communicating. That's what closes up the opening that causes Michael Porter Junior to hesitate and go to throw the ball and then cough it up. The ball pressure from bog Don Bogdanovich on Russell Westbrook as he's driving up the left sideline versus the turnover that leads to the Derek Jones Junior.

Don't there was a turnover that zubats or that Joki chad against a post up where Chris Dunn. We've seen Jokic burn teams a million times with this. He'll post up, He'll spin over one of his shoulders. Aaron Gordon will cut along the baseline and find a little opening as his man steps up to help on Jokic's spin, Chris Dunn came flying in and intercepted that pass to Aaron Gordon along the baseline. They they just made a few more plays in this game, and it ended up being

the difference for Denver. A lot of positive Michael Porter Junior reintegrated himself with his rebounding by just being active on the offensive glass. I thought it was a you know, like it's one of those things where it's annoying that you have to sit down with Michael and be like, hey, this is what you're great at let's get you to do this in this big game. Like at a certain point you kind of hope that he would just bring up that bring out that level of intensity in game one.

But he did bring that intensity, drew a key foul late in the game, although he did miss a big free throw, ended up hitting a huge three on that right wing. But he just made that one critical mistake late that ended up undercutting a lot of his success in the night. But Jamal Murray looked great all night. Russell Westbrook, aside from the handful of mistakes here and there, is still finding ways to space the floor as a cutter and as a shooter. Russ literally got chased off

the three point line. I can't even remember the last time I saw that where Russell Westbrook has a dude literally come flying at him and forced him off the three point line. Russ panicked so much at the close out that he literally immediately traveled and stepped out of bounds. It just ended up not getting called as he was to the basket and drew a foul. There was a lot of upside from Denver tonight. They just undercut all

of that upside with mistakes twenty turnovers. Twenty one points off of those turnovers, lots of them were picked sixes and key sequences late. The MPGA turnover directly leads to a three for Norman Powell. The Russell Westbrook turnover directly leads for leads to a dunk for Derek Jones. The miss free throws from Yo Kitchen Michael Porter Junior changing the shots that you can take at the end of

the game. This has to be the Denver Nuggets in crunch time, the Denver Nuggets from the last few years that weren't mistake prone. This is their pathway. They've got to keep things close so that they can out execute them late in games. I was talking with Jackson before we came on the air, and Jackson made an interesting point just about how each game in this series is basically swung on mistakes. Clippers' mistakes in Game one, Denver

mistakes in Game two. These teams feel very evenly matched, and this is going to be a series that pretty much comes down to the decision making, the playmaking, and the mistake making or lack thereof, from either of these teams as they move forward in the series, as we always do, come back to the channel on Tuesday morning Tomorrow morning, and we will have a film session that will go over some of the specific details that I noticed in this game. All right, let's move on to

Pistons Nicks. Kind of similar to the first game, where the Pistons just controlled things throughout, but the Knicks came on strong late. Just this time, the Knicks came on strong at the very end of the game instead of the early fourth quarter. Jalen Brunson did some surgical shot making, and some surgical playmaking got the game tied, and the game came down to a pretty open Dennis Schroeder pull up three against Jalen Brunson and then a Mkale bridges

pretty open catch and shoot three. Although it was moving, it was wide open, but it was a little bit higher difficulty because he was kind of moving aggressively towards his left. But Dennis made his, McHale missed his, and that was the difference in the game. The Pistons tie the series. Cade Cunningham has his first huge playoff game of his young career. I thought the story of his original rhythm that he built in the early part of the game was his transition pushes. He has this ability

to finish while going full speed with either hand. A lot of guys have to slow down and they'll go to eurosteps so or they'll jump up to try to elevate goes through you in transition. It's a straight line, it's bump with the shoulder. It kind of gets to that left hand on the left side of the right hand of the right side.

interesting approach in this game. It was less, you know, one to five pick and roll and a lot more of those pick and rolls with Tim Hardaway Junior trying to attack. Jalen Brunson I thought Tim Hardaway Junior set awesome screens. This is like such an important part of playoff intensity. You can get away with a lot more, especially if your feed are set, like if your feed are set. They'll let you lean, they'll let you bring those forearms in, they'll let you chuck somebody pretty good.

As long as you're in position, as long as you're not moving around or like standing in a four foot wide stance or something like that, you can get away with a lot of contact on your screens. And Tim was just setting great screens for OG and then the scheme there that the Knicks are going to run and that most teams run when teams try to attack a

small guard as a classic hedge and recover right. So Jalen Brunson is throwing his body out as a hedge, and the next step in beating that coverage is as Tim Hardaway's setting a good solid screen on OG, uh Caid's got to get over the top of that hedge because if he does, he can turn the corner and there's an opening there before Og can recover from the screen for little min range jump shots for him to get downhill and to get into the teeth of the defense.

A lot of success attacking Jalen Brunson in ball screens, beating his hedges with some quality screens from Tim Hardaway Junior. A lot of semi transition attacks. This is where Caid was getting his one on one success against Og when he had the semi and again semi transition. All that is, to me is a typical transition possession is you know, two on one, three on two, everyone's sprinting full speed. Semi transition is like are kind of back, but they're

not really set. The defense is still a little bit on their heels, but it's usually more of like a five on five or a five on four just before the defense is completely set. And in those situations, Ojan Andobi's got his weight more backwards. He's a little bit more on his heels, which you know, neutralizes some of his physicality, and so that's where Caid can kind of stare him down as he's on his heels, hit him

with a quick, quick crossover dribble. Now he's able to beat him to the spot and initiate the contact allowed to allows it allowing him to leverage his strength a little bit more to get easier finishes around the basket. That big late lob to Jalen Jurned, I thought this was a really fan of a fan of I thought this was a really fascinating play. Sorry, it's been a long couple of days. So obviously at the end of

the game, Kid looks tired. Quite a bit of action being run for Dennis Schroeder down the stretch, which we're going to talk about in a minute, but there's a huge play late in the game where Caid generates a wide open lob dunk for Jalen Durnan, and I thought it was just a really smart example, a really good example, I should say, of why it's so important to take the time to set your spacing up properly before you

run action. So in this case, they have Kid coming off of the ball screen towards his right hand, so that Duran is rolling to the left, but they have an occupied corner in this case Malik Beasley in the left corner. McHale Bridges is the guy who typically would be the low man there, and what they did is right as Caid was coming off the action, they had Malik relocate from the left corner up to the wing

aggressively as though he was gonna shoot. So what that did is it put McHale Bridges in a really tough spot in terms of his decision making. All game long, the Knicks were putting two on the ball in those kid ball screens when they could, especially with the five man was involved, right. They were doing it as well with Brunson, but with that five man. As Caid comes off and he has two on the ball, that means the roller gets behind right. Jalen Duran gets behind the

ball screen defender right. In that situation, SUA, the lob is open unless you tag the roller from the lowman. The lowman in that situation since kid is dribbling towards his right, towards the right corner, towards the right wing area. In that situation, technically the lowman is Mikale Bridges. It's his job to come over and step in front of

Jalen Durrett. But because it's Malik Beasley over there, such a great shooter, and because they relocate him out of the corner up to the left wing, McHale Bridge's natural instinct is to follow the shooter as he's relocating, and so that basically neutralizer removed the lowman from the equation. What happens when there's no lowman and there's two on the ball with Kate, he doesn't need to make some tough shot, he doesn't need to beat someone off the dribble.

He just got to go like this and just throw an easy lob pass up in the air for a dunk for Jalen durt Really really smart action at the end of the play or at the end of the game, and just a great example of why it's so important to set your spacing up properly. There's a lot of margin in basketball games. If you can get up the ball quickly, get up the floor quickly, get guys into their spacing properly, get to a matchup early enough in a possession you have quality spacing and time on the

clock for guys to extend advantage. By driving closeouts and stuff like that, you can dramatically improve your offensive efficiency. That stuff really does matter. If that ends up being, you know, Dennis Schroeder in the left wing instead of Malik Beasley, it's the easiest low man rotation of all time. You're going to concede a catch and shoot three to Dennis Schroeder, especially when he's a guy that you can close out hard at and he's a guy that's a

little hesitant to take that type of shot. You know, all the stuff that Kaid was succeeding with today, is the same kind of stuff that allowed Kaid to be

successful versus the Knicks throughout the entire regular season. This is a big part of why even though I picked the Knicks and I still do believe the Knicks will win the series, I did believe this would be a long series because the Knicks have their advantages, and specifically, Kay Cunningham has found opportunities in ways for him to be successful against this team, regardless of the type of

matchup that he's dealing with. Again, the really smart attacks like those guard screens with Tim Hardaway Junior, that was an excellent way to neutralize some of og Anonobi's physicality on Kade Dennis Schroeder. I ended up talking a lot about Dennis this year because he got traded to two playoff teams. He has his limitations. His jumper is inconsistent. He's small, so he's somewhat matchup dependent in terms of

who he can guard effectively. Famously, in the twenty twenty three Conference Finals, he was basically useless first Jamal Murray because he was too big and strong, so he could just get to his spots and shoot over the top of him. He's not as fast as he used to be back like when he was in Atlanta and he could just toast everybody off the dribble all the time. But he's one of the best competitors in the game.

And what I mean by that is that he despises losing so much that you can count on him to care. I talk about this all the time. I think a basketball player, I think a player in the NBA that hates losing is actually more valuable than a player in the NBA that loves basketball, because the hatred of losing will drive you to do the dirty work. Ideally, it's both, and the best players in the NBA are both. The Steps, the Jokich's, the Lebrons, the guys that have run this

league over the course of the last decade. These are guys that hate losing and love basketball. But Dennis Schroeder is a classic example of one of those dudes that despises losing. He has this competitive motor, his fight, his willingness to battle his ass off against Brunston every minute is on the floor, the ability to be confident in a big moment that all stems That all comes back to Dennis Schroeder's unrelenting competitive nature and It was a reason why I loved rooting for him when he was

with the Lakers. It's why I told Warriors fans that you guys would like him. He just didn't get to say they're long enough, and he had to be trade filler. And I told Pistons fans right after the deal, like, if you need a backup guard to be or Jaden Ivy temporarily, you can't do any better than Dennis. Schroeder has an option in that spot, and like they you know, J. B. Bickerstaff closes with him instead of a sar Thompson, which

I thought was smart. He's very good at making Brunson work hard for his shots, and he has a little bit higher floor as an off ball player on offense, and he's a guy who can run action late in the game. So Kaid runs out of gas late in the game and the Pistons needed a bucket, and you know, Dennis had to miss a miss on a different shot. It was like a little midrange pull up that he missed, but he went right at Brunson on that final possession

and it was a ball screen. He gets to Bias Harris on him and he brings Brunson back into the screen again, and Brunson really did not want to switch back out on Dennis, and so on that second switch, Brunson was hanging just a step too far back and Dennis just confidently stepped into that shot a huge shot in a huge moment in that game, especially when Kay Conningham's on the floor and he just stuck it. It was a big time shot and it ended up literally being

the difference in the game. We haven't even talked about the Pistons defense yet, and I thought their defense was fantastic all night. They were flying around in rotation closing up openings after putting two on the ball against Brunson. They did an excellent job rotating to Cat to take away his easy pick and pop and spot up opportunities. They really controlled Cat all night. He generated sixteen points on one on ones meaning post ups and ISOs.

Cat all night. The Pistons did get some help. Oj And and Obi and Michale Bridges missed some wide open looks, like absolutely unguarded looks, especially open like early in the game, New York generated seven completely unguarded catch and shoot jump shots from Chale, Bridges and Og and and Obi, and they made just two of them, and one of them

was a two pointer. So like, if you generate seven unguarded ketch and shoot jumphots from Mkale and Og, you're hoping to get twelve points out of that, not five, and that ends up being literally the difference in the game tonight. Like most of the adjustments for New York basically just involve their guys playing better, Like Cat's gotta play better. The Calbridge has got two great looks down the stretch, one on the right wing and one at the top of the key, both of them he left

way short. They need him to knock those shots down. Ojan andob Be missing wide open corner threes, not bringing the scoring pop that he brought down the tail end of the season like they need, Like there's always this desire that I've seen since I started covering the league to come up with like some magical solution. This is what we can do. This x's and o's thing that's gonna solve all of our problems. And it's like, you can try a different matchup here or there, you can

try running a different action here or there. But because in the NBA playoffs everyone does so much more switching and all the actions are scouted, it really just comes down to your dudes have to play up to their capability. And right now, McHale Bridges, Ojan and Obi and Karl Anthony Towns are not meeting the moment the way that even some of these Detroit Pistons role players are, and they just got to be better. They converted spot up

possessions tonight at zero point four to eight points per possession. Now, some of that is the quality of Detroit's rotations. I want to give them credit, but these are pros and not just pros. These are elite pros on the offensive end in oj In and Obi and McHale Bridges. They need to convert those, They need to convert them at a higher clip. And again, I think the Knicks are

gonna win the series. Over the course of this series, the more experienced, more talented veterans will eventually find their footing. But this Detroit team's not going anywhere. They've been out rebounding them on the offensive glass, and through the first two games, Kate is obviously comfortable and getting to where he wants to on the floor. They have some physical advantages.

There are some tough hurdles for the Knicks to cover in the series, and they're not going to cover it unless they're high paid, highly revered role players on the wing can meet the moment and help contribute on the offensive end of the floor. All right, let's bring Jackson in here and let's get to some of your guys' questions.

where he was the only guy who could generate offense when the entire game plan was built around stopping him. As like, it was a remarkable Steph Curry performance. I was blown away by it. And then Kawhi every bit is impressive tonight for the Clippers. I would go with the two of those guys. What do you think, Jay, Yeah?

the thunder defense. In that game they a Denver completely blew this game down the stretch.

I'd much rather play the Clippers. I think the Clippers lack of playmaking talent would be a disaster against Okayc's turnover forcing defense.

every every other skilled offensive player. And I think that would be much more effective against a team like the Clippers that where you got so many bodies to throw at James Harden not I mean, Kawhi is pretty big, so it's probably just mostly lu Door, but you got still a lot of bodies you can throw a kwhi and a lot of swarming that we've seen Kawhi struggle with in this series.

So like, if god, let's let's let's say Golden State beats Houston, you're facing one of Minnesota or the Lakers in the second round. I think the Golden State defense is capable of doing much more damage to Minnesota's offense than the Lakers defense is capable of doing. And I don't think Minnesota's biggs are the types of bigs that would do substantial damage to the to the Warriors defense. So neither of those teams I think could be particularly damaging.

You're probably looking at OKAC in the conference finals, They're not a particularly big team, and then coming out of the East, you're likely getting Boston, who's not a particularly big team. So I I don't want to sit here and pretend like it wouldn't be great if the Warriors had a little bit more size on the front line, but I don't think necessarily it will show up in a real damaging way in this West playoff run.

because they think the Warriors are small. If they played each other, right, like the Nuggets, you can say, yeah, and the Clippers, I think would be the two teams that they their centers are problems on the inside if you don't guard them with side, even Draymond, who's as good of a defender interior against both those guys Joki chan Zu, that's a much more tough challenge on the specifically about the size issue than any of the other teams and the rest of the playoffs.

actually winning for playoff rounds is consistent offense. It's it's like Jimmy Butler hits six jump shots against the Rockets last night, Like, is he going to keep hitting six jump shots every night? Because if it's not that, they don't really have a reliable offensive player beyond Steph, and Jimmy's been great so far, but like I have my

skepticism after how he finished the regular season. So like, I think it's more likely that if like Golden State gets eliminated at some point in the first three rounds. You and I are sitting here talking about how they need more shooting and more like reliable play finishing, not necessarily size on the front line.

the floor. But if you're in the game at the end, you really feel confident that player is just good enough to lift you up over the top. So it's sort of a double edged swort of do you have the forty seven minutes forty six minutes of enough offense to get you there when? Because in the last two you feel real even though it didn't work out that way for the Nuggets tonight, you feel relatively confident that your singular player is going to lift you over the top.

the foul line. And like, Jimmy can do it, you know, four or five times in a game, and it feel like it happens in the flow of the offense, and it's not as disruptive as it can be, like when sometimes Kamingo will hijack a possession to disrupt the flow

of the offense. But a guy like Cam Johnson is the type of player that could legitimately, like score twenty points a game entirely in the flow of the Warriors offense, while also being a guy who was trusted with the primary point of attack assignment a lot for Brooklyn this year and actually showed some real defensive chops. So like as a big picture goal for the Warriors, yeah, like, I like to put it simply, and we can kick this back to you here before we get to the

next question. Would you rather have a legitimate center that fits the goal of this team as a starting caliber center or would you rather have Cam Johnson?

he's been managing. Like at a certain point we got to blame the players, like Aaron Gordon smoked it dunk, Michael Porter Junior coughed the ball up in crunch time, like like not putting yourselves in the same position when when a guy's getting double teamed is like basketball one oh one, Like you'll hear yelling about that shit in a pickup game or in a high school game, like you got, hey, that's spacing one oh one. Make yourself put yourself in a position where you're not easy to guard.

When you start staying next to each other, you're easy to guard. Like so many of the things that happened to Denver tonight, where like legitimately self inflicted wounds.

Peyton Watson is in the dunker spot ready for a lob and Yogic just kind of throws out of bound. Like he he has some weird turnovers, very very uncharacteristic turnovers tonight.

every once in a while. He had a game with seven turnovers in the Minnesota Timberwolve series last year too, and they're like, I want to give the give the Clippers some credit. They jumped some of the typical passing reads that he makes. There's some of them that were unforced too, like the one with Peyton Watson. I really do think that that one's on Peyton for not cutting

when Yokis originally saw the play. The one late in the game that Kawhi got to steal, that's on Christian Brown and Russell Westbrook for like legitimately just doing something really stupid. Yeah, but then like, yeah, the one where he spun out of the post up and dropped it off and Chris Dunn stole it. Like the actual read was to the right corner. I can't remember who it

was that was shooting over there at that spot. I think it might have been Michael Porter Junior, but he he missed the tic tac toe read for in that situation where unmade the rotation and he had to make the But like yokscha make mistakes like that every once in a while, I'm not. I am infinitely more encouraged about Denver and their chances to win this series after two games than I was before the first two games. So all you Nuggets fans take that for whatever it's worth.

I used to think you had a pretty small chance of winning this series, and now I think you guys have a pretty legitimate chance of winning the series.

sweep for Celtics Magic. I feel pretty good after Game one that Orlando has a good chance to get one game just on the strength of their defense and if Palo and Fronts have really nice games down in Orlando, but that obviously could also end in a sweep. Nick Pistons is going about as exactly as I expected it to to this point. The Pistons clearly showing some ability

to make the Nicks uncomfortable. But the Pistons now in both games have like kind of soiled themselves late and they just happened to pull this one out because one Denis Schroeder jump shot went in. But I think the Nicks will close that one out in six games. Pacers bucks very similar to how I felt after Lakers Timberwolves, where when I went back and watched the tape, I'm like, can someone go up to these guys and tell them that it's the playoffs? Like, what the hell are you

guys doing? And so both of those series, the Pacers Bucks series, in the Thunder or in the Lakers Timberwolves series, I'll have a much better feel for after Game two, because I felt it's really hard to tell how teams stack up unless they both bring their A game, and like Minnesota and Indie brought their a games in Game one, and the Bucks and the Lakers kind of tried to ease their way into the postseason and that went about

exactly as you could have expected. Denver Clippers, I will I'm not going to change my pick yet, but I went into the series thinking Clippers and six and feeling pretty strongly about that, and internally, I'm feeling closer to coin flip now. So that should give you guys a general idea of where I stand. I'm never going to overreact to the first couple games of a series, but I think you can start to learn, Like there was

there was a big one for me last year. I before Luca hit the game winner over go Bear, the Timberwolves had a two point lead in the final minute with a chance to tie the series, and I tweeted out the series was over. It was just like abundantly clear to me through two games that Luca was infinitely more comfortable picking apart Minnesota's defense than Ant was on the other end of the floor. And I just didn't

see anything happening that would change that trend. And what do you know, Dallas went into Minnesota in Game three and beat them or uh and uh I went up three zero, right, So like, I haven't seen anything that has changed my mind significantly, but I would say, yeah, the the Knicks or excuse me, the Nuggets Clippers one is the one that I'm closest to changing my mind because I'm feeling closer to fifty to fifty.

of hovering around ten. For the vast majority of the second half, those guys were I don't know what they finished up when I was texting you about it. At one point they were combined one for twelve. You got to assume it's a cliche, ha ha ha, the role player shoot better at home thing. If it's gonna happen for them, it's gonna because some of those guys started to hit some shots.

make more than their making. But I think the process wise, Cad is doing a good job against this against a good Knicks defense.

than the Pistons. I just think the margin is relatively small, and I just feel like the Pistons are far more likely to blow games over the course of the series, and they like to your point, the Pistons basically controlled both of those games and damn near lost both of them, which right, which is exactly why NBA history tells us that teams like the Pistons don't typically win this series.

But I think I think the point you're making is extremely fair, which is through two games, Kate has been the better kind of like half court surgeon, so to speak, than anybody on the Knicks. Before we get out of here tonight, I just wanted to thank you guys. We have officially crossed over one hundred thousand subs. There was

a moment back in October twenty twenty three. We were still on the Volumes feed and the Volume feed had like, you know, seven hundred thousand subscribers or whatever, and it was kind of like a scary moment. Me and by producer at the time, Ryan Brumley, still very good friend of mine, we kind of had a chat and we were like, we were like, do you want to go

out and like just launch our own channel. And we were scared because we were like, if we go out on our own, we could lose some of the juice that we get from the Volumes feed in terms of exposure. And we launched that channel from scratch in October twenty three, and here we are eighteen months later at one hundred thousand subscribers, and like you guys came over immediately, like we moved most of our audience, like in the first

week over from that feed. And all I can say is, you know, I've been doing this for what thirty eight months now with the volume, and I am just completely and totally mind blown at the support you guys have given the show and what we've actually managed to build here and the things that I've gotten to experience over the course of the last three years. Like I got to this summer go to like Team USA playing against Canada in Vegas. It was like one of the coolest

experiences of my life. I got to see Steph throll A lob to Lebron James and transition, and like getting to be at Summer League and getting to meet the people I've gotten to meet and get to talk to the people I've gotten to talk to. I just am so lucky, and it's because of you guys and the support that you've given the show, and this just feels like a huge milestone and I'm just I'm not taking it for granted, and I'd love to just let you guys know how much I appreciate you guys for supporting

me and supporting the show. That's all I have for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow morning with the film session on tonight's games, and then we'll be back tomorrow night with Game two of Lakers Timberwolves. And you guys might see you very angry and upset Jason tomorrow, we'll see, or you might see a more relaxed, confident Jason. We'll see. I'm really curious to see how the Lakers respond after the game went. But again, I appreciate you guys, and I'll see you tomorrow.