Hoops Tonight - Game 4 Reactions: Lakers/Wolves, Knicks/Pistons, Celtics/Magic, Pacers/Bucks

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Void in Ontario, new customers only. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkang dot co. Slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoop tonight. You're at the volume heavy sun there everybody. Hope all you guys are having a great end to your weekend. We got a jam pack show for you guys today. We're gonna hit on four games. I'm gonna be primarily leaning into the first two games of the day. Those are the two games

that I thought were most interesting. So we're going to talk Lakers Wolves off the top, and then I've got a lot of thoughts on Nick Pistons. We'll be going shorter on Celtics Magic as well as Pacers Bucks, but we'll have some thoughts there at the tail end of the show too. Also, no mail bag at the tail end of the show today, just so you guys know, but we're gonna hitting all four of those games and then we'll get out of here for the night. You

guys are the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and I YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss an ShW announcement. Son't forget about a podcast for you wherever you get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where Jackson's doing great work. Make sure you guys

follow us there. And then, as I mentioned off top last, but not at least keep dropping mailbag questions and those YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. I was telling the guys before the show started. It's a very rough day for my personal playoff rooting interests. League team had a playoff game today too, that we lost on a game winning jump shot at the Buzzert from my former college teammate, my point guard back when I was playing in college. Shout out to Dom Banks. Just an

incredible player, good friend of mine. Hit a big time shot to beat us today. So took that knife to the chest and then had to go home and watch the other knife go into my chest in the form of the Lakers losing that game in the fourth quarter to the Minnesota Timberwolves. So obviously, before we get any deeper into it, just congratulations to Wolves fans. I'm sure you guys are very happy that I am wrong about

what ended up happening in this series. And it's been especially painful for me because Anthony Edwards just continues to take a special place in my basketball heart, so to speak, as I've always loved watching him play and just watching the way that he has broken my heart so to speak as a Lakers fan in this series has just made me love him even more as a player, and I'm just I'm really happy for you Wolves fans, and you guys are in great shape moving forward, not just

in this but moving forward for the rest of this playoff run and for the rest of this era that you guys have put together. So to me, Game four basically came down to a gamble that JJ Reddick made in the second half, a bet based on two things.

One that the Luca Lebron Austin, Dorian Phinney Smith Ruby hot Chimura lineup was consistently generating great shots against Minnesota's defense, and he wanted to ride that out as much as possible and the Lakers effectively after tonight's game or today's game, had like two and a half full days of rest before Game five and Wednesday, like they would have had all night Tonight off, all day Monday off, all day Tuesday off, most of the day on Wednesday, So I

don't think he was worried about long term wear and tear. But the gamble was that the Lakers would be able to survive those twenty four minutes without succumbing to the physical onslaught of Minnesota, and that ended up being the give a take, give and take right, and the Lakers just couldn't quite hold on. I thought Ant's shot making in the early fourth quarter was the first sign of

that onslaught. I talked a lot after Game three about how you pretty much just have to cross your fingers and hope Aunt misses those pull up threes because you can't realistically take them away. You're just gonna give the best athlete in the league a crazy runway over and over again. You have to play with You have to play essentially to concede a contested pullback or step back

type of three. Right. He hit three of them in the early fourth quarter, including a twenty eight footer over Austin Reeves with just under eight minutes left that cut the lead down to four, and that like immediately changed the tone and tenor of the game, and it turned it into a high pressure half court slug fest. And once again, just like in Game three, Ant and the Wolves just looked better down the stretch. Nasreg came in, one of the few fresh legs guys on the floor

there down the stretch. He immediately scored eight points. He scored against Austin on a switch. He had two long threes at the top of the key. The Lakers kind of started to show their fatigue on those two threes. On the first one, Luca beats Naz Reid off the dribble and smokes a layup, like right at the rim, smokes a layup, and then in transition, Luca made a

bad read. He should have matched up with Nas. Him and Nas were the last two guys back in the play, but Luca just misread the floor and ran to go guard Austin Reeves's man, even though Austin Reeves was already there. That left Nas read open. Just a mental mistake, probably that came from fatigue to a certain extent. And then on the second one, Nas broke open on a screening action kind of a two guys at the elbow. Nas was on the far elbow and Lebron just was resting

or fatigued or whatever it was. He just was like flat footed standing upright. And when Nas ran off the screen like it probably should have been a switch, but Lebron should have been up like communicating with Austin, like, hey, Naz is getting ready to come up, you gotta be

ready to switch. Both Lebron and Austin were just a little slow to react, and nas breaks open at the top of key and hits another three and made a very similar kickout read on a baseline drive that looked very similar to the one in Game three where he hit nas Reed on the left wing. He hit Dante DiVincenzo on the left wing, who drove the close out

and got an end one. Another great decision from Ant down the stretch, Ant be the double team he was getting double team by Dorian Finney Smith and Ruey Hotchi murr Out in the kind of like left like just in front of half court on the left side of the floor, and Ruy lost contain. Ant actually beat the

double team off the dribble, forced Luca to help. It turned into effectively a triple team that caught Lebron in like this weird three on one underneath the basket where Ant makes a beautiful pass to nas Lebron flashes, Lebron drops it off to Jaden or excuse me. Nasried makes a nice connective pass to Jaden McDaniels on the baseline, Austin Reeves fouls him. That ends up basically being the

game winner. That lineup with Nazrid and Dante Devincenzo. In for Rudy, Ruey and Rudy have been killing me in this series. In for Rudy, Gobert and Mike Conley is probably their best lineup. It creates space while still maintaining their side in physicality. It closed the deal yet again for the Wolves tonight, and now they are in serious control of this series. It's not over. The Lakers will have their shot. We'll talk about that in a little

bit later on. But this same theme from the end of tonight's game has repeated itself over and over again in this series. Even in the Game two when the Lakers won, it felt like over the course of the end of the game, the Lakers start to look old and tired, while the Wolves continued to look like the Wolves, and then they take control. The Lakers came apart at the seams at a bunch of basic execution details late that I do think we're associated with fatigue. On the JD.

McDaniel's game winner, Ruey Hachimura loses contain on a double team. When you're bracketing in a double team, the ball's here and these are the two defenders bracketing. This guy has to prevent him from driving outside. This guy has to prevent him from driving outside. You have to contain the ball and force Ant to make a pass. But if you go back and WoT watch Ruey as he's sliding, you can literally see how exhausted he is with the

way he was moving on the NAS read threes. Like I mentioned, Luca smoking the easy layup and losing NAS with a mental mistake, Lebron getting caught relaxing. Austin missed several wide open threes in the fourth quarter. Lebron had zero points in the fourth quarter, was generally uninvolved in the offense. But this is where it gets tricky. Though I knew coming into the series that this would be a physical tug of war. I knew that the Wolves would wear on the Lakers over the course of games

just by being more athletic. I knew the Lakers would be able to score, but I also knew they would wear dam What I didn't predict was just how badly Anthony Edwards would win the Superstar matchup with Luka Doncic. This is where the entire series turned. The Lakers were tied with four minutes left in Game three. The Lakers were up to with four minutes left today, Luca had

zero points in both of those sequences. From that point forward, in this series, Luka Doncic has been five for seventeen in the fourth quarter, Anthony Edwards ten for twenty three. Anthony Edwards has made twice as many fourth quarterfield goals as Luka Doncic in this series. Luca has one fourth quarter assist, Anthony Edwards has seven. That's the series. That's

it right there. Two games, Game three, in Game four coin flip games that came down to clutch shot creation from the two team superstars, and Anthony Edwards went toe to toe with the guy that many people, including myself before the season, placed as the second best player in the league, and Ant just straight up alpha dogged him. He stared down the guy who beat him in the playoffs last year and straight up kicked his ass. The insane shot making, the growth as a playmaker, it's been

incredible to watch. And here's how important it's been. The Lakers actually outscored the Wolves in the last three games by seventeen point in the first three quarters, but Anton the Wolves have won the fourth quarters by twenty three points turned two of those games into Wolves wins. He Anthony Edwards has been the swing between this series being

three to one Lakers and it being three to one Wolves. Now, before we like, I want to be clear before we talk a little bit about Luca here, Luca is not the only one to blame for what happened today. As I mentioned, Lebron made several mistakes. He had a bad turnover in the final minute. He like it was kind of on everybody the the There was this weird trip where Jada McDaniel's trip Luca probably should have been a foul where that led to his sideline out of bounds

with seventeen seconds on the shot clock. Because they're seventeen seconds on the shot clock, the Lakers could not inbound into the back court. They had to inbound into the front court, so that caused a very tight space. Basically, Lebron was just on the other side of half court out on that sideline. It basically took the amount of space that the Lakers could inbound to and cut it

in half, and the Wolves defended it pretty well. Luca is kinda in a position where he could catch, but Jaden was right on his backside and Lebron took a bad angle. He threw it to Luca's right shoulder, Luca's left shoulder. He probably catches it, but he threw it to the wrong shoulder. That's a bad turnover on Lebron. He took a bad three with five seconds left off the left wing. In the final minutes, he lost Nasried on one of his threes. Like we talked about, he

scored zero points. Lebron shares. Some blame Austin Reeves missed five threes in the fourth quarter. Some a couple of wide open ones in the final minutes. Ruey Hatcher Murra made a few defensive mistakes. I want to be clear tonight is not only Luca's fault, but Luca is the one player on that team who was truly capable of closing that deal. And he went one for six and he looked like completely exhausted and lifeless down the stretch. Now, before you tell me, well, Jason, he played the entire

second half. That's on jj Reddick. Well so did aunt aunt played twenty four minutes in the second half. Julius Randall play two only three and a half minutes in the second half. Nasried can can pull the I was fresh card. Everyone was fatigued. And yet I know that ant is a better athlete and he will look better when he's fatigued than Luca. But he looked like aunt. Luca didn't even look like Luca down the stretch of that game when his team desperately needed him to look

like Luca. And it's been the entire series, five to seventeen in the fourth quarter. So again, even though tonight wasn't entirely his fault, it was a team, a set of mistakes from the team. My initial impression of Luca in the big picture, even beyond this series, has been that he consistently wears down at the end of games. He was also just eleven for twenty seven in clutch situations for the Lakers in the regular season this year. I'm not saying this to pick on Luca. I root

for the guy for obvious reasons. I just want to see him reach his full potential. He's getting passed by his peers right now. Tatum is playing better than him, Shay's playing better than him, AT's playing better than him, Steph is playing better than him. He's leaving meat on

the bone when it comes to his potential. And I genuinely believe that if he could figure out his conditioning, that he has a great chance to become the best basketball player alive as Jokic phases out as he gets older, there will be no player in the league that has a better combination of scoring and playmaking ability than Luka Doncic.

If he could become a player that holds up over the course of games, holds up over the course of seasons and series, can stay healthy, can be operating at peak efficiency at the end of games while also being a plus defender, which he is capable of being. That's the best player in the world. That's what he's capable

of doing. It is a real and achievable outcome for him, and it would literally just take one summer, one summer of obsessive work, the same obsessive work that all of the greats in NBA history have used to maximize their potential. The ball is in Luca's court and we all knew this before. I mean, that was literally the main storyline behind the trade, right, but we got to see it up close and personal. Here. I can put it this simply, had Luca played to his potential in this series, the

Lakers win this series. But instead he faded at the end of games while his counterpart on the other team was fantastic, and it flipped entirely in the other direction. Other notes that I wanted to give before we move on to the next game. JJ's decision to play everybody all twenty four minutes in the second half. Look it was high risk, but it also high reward. And I hate playing the results because so many things went wrong down the stretch that could have just as easily ended

in a win for the Lakers. Even with everything that went wrong, the Lakers led in the final minute, and like, had they gotten it done, JJ would have looked like a genius as the Lakers went home for a long stretch of time off with the series tied. I also thought the Lakers were on the wrong end of two late calls. Luca got tripped at half court. He should

have gone to the foul line after that. I thought Lebron when he stripped Anthony Edwards underneath the basket, he was more or less in the hand wrist ball area, and the game was insanely physical. You would just let a non call go. And Jaden tripped Luca. I didn't like that call, and by the way, I'm not saying the Lakers are screwed. You know what, I always said, bad calls are a part of basketball games. You have to be prepared for that contingency. I don't blame the

refs for today's outcome. I'm just saying it was a razor thin margin. The Lakers very easily could have won that game. They didn't, But I'm not gonna blame it on JJ based on that result. It was a gamble, the game became razor thin close to paying off, and there was an obvious downside, which was fatigue, and the fatigue did play a role in the loss. I think

that's worth bringing up. But like Chris Finch also played Anthony Edwards the entire second half and Julius Randall most of the second half, Like, it's not exactly the craziest thing we've ever seen, they just were. JJ was looking at it like, I don't know that I can afford vandom minutes here. I don't know that I can afford gave minutes here now, Like I probably would have just

found little short bursts to get them some rest. But like, I'm not going to over criticize the risk based on a result that was like this close to going the other way and looking like JJ was a genius. Right now? Can the Lakers win the series? Of course? It's really simple. Actually, if you get down to it, Do I think the Lakers can beat the Wolves in Game five on Wednesday? Yes, I actually think they will. I think the Lakers will win this game. I think the Wolves are gonna win

this series in Game six back in Minnesota. But from there, if the Lake Bakers win on Wednesday in Game five, you have Game six on Friday. It's one game in Minnesota. We know they can win. They were right there in each of the last two games. So you win on Wednesday, then you look at it on Friday and you go just beat the Timberwolves in Minnesota one time. And if you do, then it's Game seven on Sunday. You're the home team, You're likely favored. So they absolutely can win

the series. I just think it's unlikely. I don't think Luca is gonna suddenly get into better shape. He's wearing down, not because he's not capable of doing the basketball things necessary. It is a literal conditioning problem. In order for the Lakers to come back and win the series, Luca would have to make me look foolish by suddenly transforming into the best player in the series, which he hasn't been to this point. So it's on the table. It's an

outcome that can happen. I just think it's far more likely than not that the Wolves close this out. And on that note, just again, like I mentioned off the tip, just I am happy, happy for Wolves fans because you guys probably got sick and tired of hearing guys like me and everyone else out there tell you how the Lakers were gonna win. Hell, the Wolves themselves were sick of it. And you just have such a great team

and you have such a great star. And I am really looking forward to watching them as they move forward in this postseason. Should they be able to close the deal on Wednesday or on Friday. All right, Nicks, Pistons. As wrong as I've been about the Lakers Wolves series, I've been pretty right about this one. The Pistons have

been right there every single game. They led by eight in the fourth quarter of Game one, they obviously one Game two, they were down by three with five minutes left in Game three, and they led by eleven today in the fourth quarter of Game four. But over and over again. The Knicks have been able to out execute them at the end of these games because they are the smarter and more experienced team. Malik Beasley hits a three with eight and a half minutes left that puts

the Pistons up eleven. From that point forward, the Knicks played their ceiling. They knew they needed that game. They played peak Knicks basketball while the Pistons on the other end made mistake after mistake after a mistake. The Knicks were able to get offense on several fronts. Mikal Bridges actually started the run with two really tough movement threes out of the right corner. In a game where he could make a shot to save his life, hit two

massive ones in the right corner. Jalen Brunson got into a great rhythm after coming back from an ankle injury he suffered right along the sideline in front of the scorer's table. He's really solved Dennis Schroeder at this point in the series. He's figured out that he's just too big and strong for him. He had an easy layup on the left side where he just used the right to left crossover to get him on his right side

and then just use that shoulder to create separation. Then he had to drive on the right wing where he literally went through Dennis's chest for a floater from about like seven eight feet. But like he has solved the Dennis Schroeder matchup, he'd beat Kay Cunningham with a simple jab step move to get into the basket. He gave Tim Hardaway Junior a couple of tough buckets. He had a step back going to his left on the three point line. He had another little short shot along the

left base line. Brunson was fantastic down the stretch, but it was actually Karl Anthony Towns who saved the day and stole a win for the knickt hitting three jumpers. One was a simple catching shoot off of a dumb overhelp from Jalen Duran. The Jalen Brunson just kind of baited him into just staring at the basket and pretended

like he was gonna iso. Jalen just kind of sat there on the block and just was super keyed in on Brunson, and Jalen just rifled to pass across the court wide open catch and shoot three for Karl Anthony Towns knocks it down just capitalizing on a bad defensive mistake from Jalen duran But then he hit an insane left shoulder fade away, just like he did in Game three, this time over Jalen Durrance, over a tougher contest. It was probably even tougher than the shoty mate in Game three.

Just insane right there along the baseline. Then he hits his step back three over Jalen Durant, a little shot clock kind of rescue possession, ends up in the late clock situation, and hits like a twenty eight footer off of a step back against a great contest from Jalen Dury. Just two insane shots that turned that loss into a win for the Knicks. The Knicks scored twenty six points over the final eight minutes to steal Game four and take a three to one lead heading back to New York.

Here's a simple list for you guys of the execution errors that Detroit made down the stretch their first possession, after McHale Bridges hit a three in that right corner to cut the lead down to eight, they ran an ISO for Asar Thompson against Mkale Bridges, and anybody who watched that whole game knows. Asar Thompson was really struggling in that game to do anything on offense. He was in no position to command that possession that gave it

to him and he missed. That's an execution error from the vets on the floor putting a Sar Thompson in that possession position. Then Nisar Thompson threw the ball out of bounds, cut to the basket off the right slot. K dropped it off to him and he tried to make a connective pass him Alik Beasley, but he just didn't look before he threw it and rifled the ball out of bounds. JB. Bickerstaff finally puts Dennis Schroeder in for him, so two big mistakes from Assar Thompson to

start to run. Jalen durn gets a defense rebound and makes the classic young center mistake of bringing the ball down, brings the ball down. Josh Hart comes in swipes it off his leg off the ensuing baseline out of bounds. Mkale Bridges comes off of a screen, Malik Beasley gets caught on it. Jalen Duran again when he sees a shooter coming off a screen is supposed to be up at the level of the screen. He's way back in

the paint. Mcale Bridges gets another clean look right where he just made one in the right corner knocks it down so literally, two Jalen Durham mistakes turned what should have been a stop into three points for the Knicks. And again, I'm not trying to pick on Jalen duran or any of these guys, Zasar Thompson. I'm just pointing out the obvious fact that these are young players, and young players are going to struggle with attention to detailing big in big spots like this, right, they gave up

an easy transition. Take foul to Josh Hart on a really bad offensive possession where he just stood out by like the logo while Mikal Bridges was face guarding him and he just watched Dennis Schroeder and Malik Beasley have a rough offensive possession, which, like, that's fine. Like rough offensives sessions are part of the playoffs. It's super physical. Sometimes you just get exhausted. That's not the problem. The problem is is both Schroeder and Beasley were slow to

get back. You can't compound the problem by not getting back. It turned into like a three on one and Kate had to just wrap up josh Hart. Kate turned it over trying to split a ball screen. That's a little spoiler alert. He does it again later in the game on Kat's first three. Like I talked about, Jalen, Duran is sinking all the way into the paint. That's just done. That was the whole reason why they had Tobias Harris on Cat originally to begin with, was to avoid that

specific problem. Durren just struggles to guard shooting Biggs, which is why he shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. That's on JB. Bickerstaff, like they need to make sure that they had their matchups set up in a way that they're not going to give up that sort of problem, especially since Kat was frying Jalen during anyway on an Island. It's not like you're trying

to protect Tobias Harris there in any any way. Kat hits the fade away over Jalen during that cuts the lead to two kid tries to Isojan and Obi, which is probably the worst matchup he could attack on the floor. We talked a lot about that. Jalen Brunson has been much more surgical about being deliberate to get to the matchups. He wants that hits a three to put the Knicks up.

Kid tries to split a double team again. Josh Hart is right there, digging down off the strong side corner, and Kay just tries to split the double team again and turns it over again, and like it was just mistake after mistake after poor decision after poor decision. But this is just the reality of the process of developing

as a basketball team. In order to win at the highest levels, attention to detail is required, and young, inexperienced teams have a habit of missing those details, especially in their first few playoff runs. It's all good, valuable lessons are being learned. It's just an explanation for why, even though Detroit presented so many problems for the Knicks over the course of the season, I had the feeling the

Knicks we're gonna pull this series out. Last note on the Knicks, I wanted to shout out ogn and Obi and McHale Bridges. Neither of them had big score knights Aw the McHale hit a couple of huge threes in the right corner, but those guys defended about a half a dozen one on ones against Kid Cunningham down the stretch, and they didn't get beat off the dribble a single time. They forced him into a bunch of tough, contested pull up mid rangers, turnaround jump shots out of the post.

Brunson was getting to the rim and New York's defenders were forcing Kate into jump shots, which has variants. You might miss him right, Kate's a good mid range jump shooter, but he might miss him. There's way less variance right at the rim. Jalen hit some tough jumpers that step back to his left side, step three off of against Tim Hardaway Junior off the left wing. That's an incredibly tough shot, but he was at the rim, and that

really is the experience element. Like Cat played three playoff series last year, Jalen Brunton played four playoff series in the last two years. This team has just a lot of guys that have been in a lot of serious basketball over the last few years. That gives them an advantage in this sort of situation. Looking like the Knicks are going to close things out in five on Tuesday, all right, very briefly on Celtics Magic and pacers bus Uh pacers Bucks. I thought Tatum was fantastic down the

stretch of this game punishing switches. He had like a little jabstep jumper over Gary Harris. He there was kind of like an obvious difference in just the level of patience and deliberate nature with which Tatum was attacking switches versus the Orlando Wings. Like there was a sequence where on both ends of the floor, like Franz Vagner gets Peyton Pritcher and he caught Peyton Pritchard as like a primary assignment a few times down the stretches pressuring Franz.

Franz is having a lot of success attacking Porzingis. It's kind of an interesting kind of matchup decision there to just try to throw Franz off. But Franz tries to like drive against Pritchard, but he rushes, he drives, and he spins and he spins in this like rushed floater

and leaves it short. Right on the other end of the floor, Tatum gets Anthony Black and he methodically takes his time to back him down way into the lane, and Anthony Black ends up hacking the shit out of him and dragging him down into camera row and he gets two free throws, And it was just kind of crazy to see the difference between the super experienced dude who's played in the like damn near two hundred playoff games and the you know, young inexperienced team that's like

kind of figuring this out on the fly and seeing the difference in just like how deliberate they were in their matchup. Attacking down the stretch, Tatum hit a crazy step back mid range of over Pala Bonkaro. He drew three shooting fouls just by getting people to jump up underneath his base. I just continue to be amazed by

Tatum's growth as a half court decision maker. The big thing that stands out to me is just as overall comfort, there's you see this a lot with like stars that are at the peak of their powers in their like early thirties, where they have so much playoff experience already and they're so sure of who they are as a player. They may not be quite as athletic as they used to be, but they're just so smart because they've had

so much experience playing. You'll see a lot of those guys like in high pressure situations, even late round playoff series like Conference finals finals, You'll just see them look comfortable and relaxed while they're playing. Tatum's in his mid twenties and he's out there looking like one of those guys. I that's been the thing that stood out to me all season with Tatum. It's just his overall level of comfort executing in the half court, getting this team into

the right spots to get the right shots. I loved the set that Joe Mizula ran out of the time out that got porzingis the dunk where he dunked his own miss. Classic example of what happens when you try to involve screening actions with two very different types of players, Derek White and Chris Hops. Porzingis not a kind of action that you want to switch. You don't want to switch with Wendell Carter Junior. There, Derek White seit's a great screen. Wendell Carter Junior falls the magic don't switch.

Porzingis is wide open under the ram. He actually smokes the layup, but he gets a really quick second jump, which is a strong indicator of how he's feeling physically, and just dunks it down. Just an unb believable play from Porzingis, Al Horford had a huge rebound or he beat Franz Wagner to the ball that led to a

Derek White layup. I had a Celtics fan tweet at me after the game that this was the type of series that the Celtics would have been tied to two or maybe even down three to one a couple of years ago. But here they are up three to one and this was super important. They need to get the hell away from the Orlando Magic before someone gets hurt. Tatum felt the urgency, executed accordingly and got the job done.

And that's why I always put such a premium on that, like veteran presence, that experience, because a lot of times these games are decided by the thinnest of margins. The Magic have been in this series for the most part. Outside of game too, They've been in every game. It's like a more exaggerated example of some of the other series we've seen, like Rockets Warriors and like Nick's Pistons, and it just comes down to late game execution, and the grown ups just tend to do it better in

that situation. Right. It's actually been the interesting part of the Minnesota Timberwolve series is they've been the younger team that has beat the veteran, more experienced team. But here they are. They're up three to one, a good spot for the Celtics to be in good shape to close out this series all right, really quickly before we get

out of here tonight, Pacers Bucks. First of all, I feel terrible for Dame to work as hard as he's worked behind the scenes to get back on the court for that series and to suffer the type of injury that he suffered. I just hope that he's doing okay mentally. I can't even imagine where he's at right now, especially after they had just got a big win and it was early in the game and you're in a position where you can potentially tie the series and give yourself

a real chance to win. And it kind of reminded me. Obviously very different type of injury, but it kind of reminded me what happened after reminded me of what happened in the Lakers Sun series in Game five. Yeah, I think it was Game five, So the Suns were up three to one, right if I remember correctly, and Anthony Davis comes back, They're like Oh, Anthony Davis is back.

You know, here we go. We're gonna we're gonna have a chance to win the series, and probably shouldn't have come back, as Groin was obviously hurt, But in the first few minutes of the game, Anthony Edwards just or excuse me, Anthony Davis just suddenly realizes that, like, no, I can't be playing out here right, so he has to leave the game, and like you could just literally see the entire body language and the belief and the mentality of the Lakers just fall apart because they're like shit,

like we can't, like we can't win this game, this game without Anthony Davis, Like he's our anchor to everything that we do, right, And that's kind of what it reminded me of tonight. Like obviously, Jannis is more important to the Bucks than Dame and I and Dame at this phase of his career is a different type of player.

But you could literally see the Bucks just kind of let go of the rope a little bit after that Dame injury in a weird way where it's like you almost feel like if Dame was just out with the blood plot for the series, you almost feel like the Bucks would have had like a different approach going into that game, like, all right, we don't have Dame tonight, but we're gonna give this our best shot. And you could just tell it just suck the life out of them,

and they just didn't do anything well enough. And to make matters worse, the Pacers played a phenomenal game and seven guys in double figures thirty six. I checked this with two minutes left, so this might be a little bit updated, but at like a minute forty five seconds left in the game, they had thirty six assists on forty eight made field goals. That's insane. That's a seventy five percent assist percentage. That's like outrageous. They shot the

shit out of the basketball they shot. Damn you're forty five percent from three. Watching them versus the Calves is going to be a ton of fun, specifically the speed matchup. One of the things that I'm really excited about with that matchup is the Calves and a lot of what they do to teams is play with pace, get into the teeth of the defense with their speed, and the Pacers do match up directly with that in a lot

of ways. To me, the Calves are just a better version of the Pacers, right, Like you're gonna like Evan Mobley and Jared Allen is a better front court than Pascal Siakam and Miles Turner, Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell. Obviously better backcourt than Andrew Mhart and Tyrese Halliburton. You you know, the Calves have a different guys that they

can plug in at the three. But like the point is is like they are kind of similar archetypes of teams, but the Calves are just a little better at everything, right, And that's what makes it a super interesting series because that speed element, a lot of the things that the Pacers do they should be comfortable with going against the Calves, and I think that's going to make for a very

interesting series. That's my big prep for tomorrow. We're not doing a film session tomorrow morning, but what I'm going to be doing tomorrow morning is starting to watch film on Calves Pacers. I'm really excited to dig into that series. As for Yannis an Achilles, Tear for Dame massively devalues the one trade asset that the Bucks would have had

to attempt to pivot this summer. So now the chances of Yannis getting traded are astronomically higher than they were before the injury, obviously, But just for the record, I'm not going to get into anything regarding Yanni's trades at this point until the postseason, or excuse me, until we're done with the postseason. That's a summer conversation. It just I haven't even really thought about it much. Maybe we can do for fun over a mail bag one of

these nights. But like, I feel relatively certain that Jannis will get traded this summer, but like, we just don't know what how things are gonna shake down. Like it could be a team in this playoff field that gets eliminated and is disappointed and wants to make a super aggressive move. It could literally be the thunder for God's sake, Like we we have no idea what it's gonna be. We'll talk about it a lot this summer. I just

don't want to get into it tonight. But again, I feel terrible for Dame and I'm sure Bucks fans are in a really tough spot right now. It's not a good spot to be and I just sympathize with you guys, and I'm thankful for you guys that you did get a championship out of the honest and Tenakumbo era and you can literally never take that away. All Right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show.

No morning film session tomorrow, but we will be live after the final buzzer of Game four of Warriors Rockets. I'll see you guys then tomorrow night. So guys, as always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us. You could take a minute to do that, I really appreciate it. The volume