Hoops Tonight - Ja Morant hits winner for Grizzlies, Suns take Game 5, Heat advance

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help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight Hope and Why or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In Tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee, visit www one eight dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel Here at the volume, I'm Jason Timp Happy Tuesday, everybody. I hope you are all having a great startier week. Another action packed night in

the NBA postseason. We got effectively a game winner from John Murant. We're gonna start with that tonight. We're gonna break down Sons Pelicans. We're gonna get into the games that I missed from last night, so we're gonna get

into the Sixers and the Raptors. We have another series that ended tonight with the heat and the Hawks will touch on that briefly, and then for those of you guys who are listening at the end of the show, we're gonna do another ask Jason anything, So in the chat drop any questions that you have and we will get to them tonight at the end of the show. But let's start with the grizz in the Wolves, very

very interesting basketball game. Game fives in a series tied at two have always been on my favorite playoffs settings. That's the the game that it. Both teams are immensely familiar with each other, both teams know exactly what each other want to do, and it truly comes down to can you do what you do better than they do

what they do? If you guys remember, I think it was last week we were talking about the Raptors falling down behind the Sixers, and I think it was back when they were down to oh and I talked to you guys about how, you know, everyone talks about how the Playoffs are about matchups, and there's a lot of truth to that, but it goes deeper than that, you know, Like it's the concept of styles making fights, but it's not just the styles that make the fights, it's which

style wins. Because each team has a style. We just talked about this with Jonas Valancunas in Game four of this series. He's been really bad through the first three games, played really well in Game four and it turned what had been a bad matchup for the Pelicans into a good matchup because of what he did to control his style. The foot speed was an issue with him, but he brings size to the table, so if he's dominant with

his size, it undercuts anything like that. It's no different than like Connor McGregor when he was in his prime, knocking everybody out if he could make the fight quick. He had such a great knockout punch that it swung a lot of fights that otherwise might not have gone

his way. Then Nate Diaz came in and made him go from round to round and tested his stamina, and it changed the style on Connor and exposed a weakness for him, and interestingly enough, in order for him to even the score and their rematch, he had to embrace some of those long form strategies like kicking the ship out of his leg a million times and earning points and things like that. That way to win a fight by decision, right, And it's not just about what your

strength is. It's about can you inflict your strength on somebody well enough that their strength doesn't win in that specific matchup. Usually I like to have a theme for the show, and we had a couple of different themes last week, and that's gonna be the theme for this show. It's gonna be brought up several different times. The idea of a team actually controlling the style of the fight.

And what's so interesting about the grizz In Wolves series is when each when either team has control, they look dominant. The Grizzlies all season long have been this freakishly athletic, high flying team that gets out in transition and gets all of this stuff in the open floor. And I told you guys all season I was worried about them in the postseason when the game slows down in dealing with half court scenarios because they don't have a ton

of half court creators. They have John Moran, and that's pretty much it. Desmond bains like basically an off ball player, more of like a Clay Thompson archetype than he is like a C. J. McCollum arketype, better at creating off of an advantage than he is at creating by himself. And then the same goes for Jaren Jackson Jr. For give him the right matchup and you give him tons of space. Yeah, he could do some work in the half court, but a lot of things have to break

his way, and I was concerned about them. They kind of remind me of the New York Knicks from last year, much much better version. To be clear, the New York Knicks were not a two seed, but there was a dynamic to what the New York Knicks did that was more effective in the regular season than it was in the postseason. And what that had to do with was

they had one half court creator, right, Julius Randall. But they were kind of like a freakishly athletic, try hard, defense oriented team that loved to get out In transition, then they ran it to an Atlanta Hawks team. Last year's Atlanta Hawks team was much more serious than this year's team is. We're gonna talk about that later tonight. But that Atlanta Hawks team kept them in the half

court and it turned into a chess match. And the problem was Julius Randall was the only guy who could create his own shot in the Atlanta defense was devoting all of their attention to Julius Randall, so he had a rough series in the Knicks offense completely fell apart, and a similar thing has been happening to Memphis in this series. How does the seven seed. They've won two games in this series and in the other two two of the other games they had monster late leads that

they blew. So Minnesota could have very well already won this series in five. So Memphis has shown some real holes in what they do. And to me, it reminds me of that Nix team from last year, like I said, a better version of it. But all of a sudden, you have a Minnesota team that's trapping them in the half court. Often when they get in the half court. Like we've talked about, Minnesota has one of the best perimeter defense teams in the league. They're not a great

back line defensive team. They're not like a rim deterrent team, like a Anthony Davis under the rim or Click Cappella DeAndre in big vertical shot blocker under the rim. That's not their style they are. We're gonna guard you on the perimeter and keep you in front and not even let you get to the paint, let alone try to finish over everybody and all series long, when Minnesota has been able to hang onto that rope and keep control

of their style of play, they've been dominant. But like so many other young teams around the league, they fall apart when they get into a situation where consistency is a factor, when they have to do it possession after possession after possession. That's what you expect from young teams. It's one of the big reasons why I told you guys last week that I'm off Memphis as a title contender. They're not serious enough, consistently enough to not get beat

by a serious team down the line. Phoenix Suns, for instance, tonight Chris Paul led team team that's dealt with some pain and suffering losing in the NBA Finals after being up to zero. They are dead serious, and they were there was no chance in the world that they were going to come out in this game. Five have a

flat stretch. Memphis has had three or four extended flat stretches in this series where they don't play hard, where their defense is lazy, where they're kind of like more style and less substance, and it's gotten them into a bunch of big holes, but there were times in the series several points, like in Game three when they blew back to back fifteen point leads in the same game where Memphis was able to rest control of that get out and transition more. I thought a super interesting part

of this particular game was late game decision making. I told you guys back when Minnesota was going on their run during the regular season. You know, I love Anthony Edwards. We've talked a lot about him on the show. I have a ton of excitement about him in the long run. Even the shots he took in that fourth quarter, even though I disagreed with some of them from a shot

selection standpoint, they were disclose to going in. There's a version of Tonight's story where Anthony Edwards basically executes the Memphis Grizzlies, and maybe that will be coming down the line. But he's a kid. He's young, and D'Angelo Russell is

a little older. But he's not exactly your savvy, slow down point guard, and he went rogue on one of the final possessions of the game with better players on the floor, took a crazy, terrible pull up jump shot that he pricked that was my concern the entire time with this Minnesota Timberwolves team. Can Anthony Edwards in D'Angelo Russell make the right decisions down the stretch of games Minnesota.

You can tell throughout this whole series when they are in the flow of the game, they're very confident when they don't have to think about the one possession but rather the fifty possessions, meaning like early portion of the game, second quarter, third quarter, when they don't stress about messing up. They look so good because del and and are flowing and they're being aggressive. Karl Anthony Towns is playing with

the crowd and he's being aggressive. But then they get down to the handful of possessions and suddenly it's not about your points per possession. It's not about how effective your offense is. Usually it's about this possession and this

decision I have to make. And you know, there was an interesting moment I can't even remember if it was the end of the third quarter beginning fourth, but John Morant took off an absolutely destroyed Malik Beasley with a poster dunk, And it was kind of funny because John Moran has been trying that exact same dunk like dozens of times since he got in the league and nearly gotten himself killed a half dozen times with awful falls because trust me that they're just super super dangerous plays

when you get bodies underneath you when you're flying that high. But he finally got one. But I don't know if you guys noticed, but almost immediately after that play, the entire demeanor of John Morant changed. I think before that dunk, he only had ten points in the game through three quarters. Minnesota was really holding them in check in the half court. I believe he had nine or ten assists at that point, so it's not like he was ineffective, but he was

limited in a lot of different ways. And starting with that dunk, John Morant made a conscious effort and deliberate decision to attack the rim. Do you guys remember very next possession a day of near poster eyes, two more Minnesota Timberwolves, and then the possession right after that aggressively to the rim, finished left hand on the left side of the rim. He was consistently getting to the paint down the stretch of that game. And this is the thing,

it's not like Minnesota's defense got worse. It was an intentional effort. It's exhausting. It takes understanding angles and being more picky about when you drive. But John Morant knew that even though it was gonna be a very difficult job, he was gonna put his head down and go to the rint. On the other end of the floor, D'Angelo Russell, Anthony Edwards and Carl Towns became jump shooters, and in their defense, they were making them through most of the game.

They had a fourteen point lead, I think it was in the thirteen or fourteen right around the middle point of the fourth quarter, so it was working. But again, it's not about the fifty possessions. It's about the ten or fifteen right at the end of the game. And for those ten or fifteen possessions at the end of the game, John Morant was being aggressive and getting to the basket, and Anthony Edwards and D'Angelo Russell and Carl

Towns were settling for jump shots. Again, Anthony Edwards had to pull up threes in that fourth quarter that were this close to going in, but they weren't great shots. One of them he had John Ray on him right on the left wing. John More has been a horrific perimeter defender in this series, there's no way in the world that he would have been able to keep Anthony Edwards from putting his head down and go into the rim and settled. As we call it in basketball now.

I think that word gets used too often because I think people have an unrealistic expectation of how exhausting it is to go to the rim. But in a small sample size, when you absolutely need baskets, you gotta take what you can control. You can't control whether or not a jump shot goes in. I remember arguing with Laker fans in the two thousand twenty finals game five up, three games to one, Lebron drives to the basket, kicks out the Danny Green at the top of the key.

Danny Green is wide open shot to win the trophy, and all the Laker fans were slandering him because he missed it. But here's the thing. The best shooters in the league, when they're wide open, never right a So it's just as likely that he'll miss as he'll make. Anthony Edwards works really hard on his pull up jump shooting game, and he's been shooting really, really well on pull up jump shots of late We've talked about it a lot on the show, but on your best day,

you might make half of them. And that's the issue. You're putting the fate of the game in chance instead of something that is far more reliable. John Morant took one jump shot in that fourth quarter of one three pointer in that fourth quarter, top of the key, wide open on an offensive rebound by Brandon Clark. Brandon Clark

was unbelievably dominant in that fourth quarter offensive rebounding. He had three, I believe, all contested in traffic, all unbelievably massive little details about the game of basketball that kind of go underneath the surface. You think about a battle between John and and Dill and Aunt and don't get me wrong, that's the core decision makers of the series,

and they're obviously the biggest guys swinging the impact. But on the big play where John rand tied the game, or when he made the shot that gave them a one point lead, what happened was is in transition, the Grizzlies ran like a three man action at the top of the key like Towa, two ball screens for Jaw and on the play, Uh, there was a switch and I believe it is. It was Jade McDaniels ended up

on Brandon Clark and Jenny. Jenny McDaniels is big and tall and athletic, but Brandon Clark is bigger and stronger and more athletic, and so he just pinned Jaden underneath the basket. They gotta stop. They forced to miss, but Brandon Clark just jumped up over everybody and grabbed it and swung it out to John Morant for the big shot. Again, the types the quality of shots that Memphis was getting in that fourth quarter was we are not leaving this

to chance. We're putting our head down, We're going to the rim. We're winning every physical altercation. These are things we can control. We are not going to leave this game to chance. The Timberwolves left the game to chance by taking contest to jump shots. Like I said, there's a version of that story where if they make them, you win. It looks great, there's a highlight reel that's great.

But there's a version of that story where you miss them, and that's and that ended up being what actually happens. That's that's another concept we're gonna get to a little bit later in the show. The idea of controlling what you can control. We're gonna get to that. When we talked about the Sun's series, you know, I talk a lot about the concept of why you can't afford to trick off games in a playoff series. It's really hard to be the time a team four times out of seven.

And I would argue that Minnesota has played well enough to beat Memphis four times already out of five tries, They're probably gonna lose this series. I would imagine that there's a better than fifty percent chance at Minnesota wins Game six and sends this to Game seven. But even if Minnesota does win Game six, the numbers tell us that the home team almost always wins Game seven almost every single time. I can't remember exactly what the percentages,

but it's more than three fourths of the time. So chances are you're gonna lose the series now, and you played well enough to win four of the five games, but you lost focus in three pivotal stretches or late first half in Game three, between the third and fourth quarter of Game four of also of Game three in the same game, and then tonight in the in the late fourth quarter section of the game three times where

you lost focus and you cost you a series. And now if Minnesota does win this series in seven games, they will have had to effectively beat Memphis six times out of seven tries. Those are the little details that win and lose playoff series. That's why I'm always lower on young teams. And that's why I value perimeter decision making so much. Having a ball handler, not a big, a ball handler that can set you up on offense from the perimeter and and make intelligent basketball decisions not

just for himself but for everybody on the team. And I thought that was was the hallmark of Jaws game tonight, which is his first big playoff moment. Obviously, he's played well in the playoffs before, played well enough to eliminate the Golden State Warriors last year in the playing tournament, played well enough to steal a game from the Jazz in the first round. But this was his first bona fide,

real playoff moment. Game five, team with expectations, series tied it to down big adversity in front of your home crowd, Palms get sweaty, everyone starts to feel tight, and Jaw settled down, threw away any chance, didn't settle for bad jump shots, put his head down and went to the rim, and as a result, he swung potentially a whole playoff series because if Memphis wins, I think you could make a realistic case that Minnesota played better in this series.

And so that's a huge moment for Jah. Looking forward for Memphis, I still am concerned about them. Like I said, they're not serious enough. Their half court offense concerns me. And then John's defense has been a real problem over the course of this series. Kind of reminds me of Malik Monk, where like he's got this freak athleticism and a decent set of physical tools, good long arms. He's not short by any stretch of the imagineation. Yeah, he's shorter than a wing, but he's not short by any

stretch of the imagination. But he's very thin. And basketball's game of angles and physicality in the playoffs, wins and

you can't have Patrick freaking Beverly consistently attacking you. And they attack Job with other switches as well, But the problem is is that they get even an inch of an angle on jaw, they just blow through his shoulder because he's not strong enough to hold his ground, so I think for his entire career unless he bulkes up a little bit, which who knows how these got These guys, you know, are going to transition as the age, Like John could end up looking like Russell Westbrook one day,

to be built like a truck. You just don't know. But if he's day, he's thin like this, that kind of changes the way you have to construct the team. You've got to construct the team in a way that covers for his defensive shortcomings, a lot more length, a lot more athleticism, so on and so forth. But yeah, I would predict Minnesota to win Game six, but I think Memphis is gonna end up winning the series either in six or in seven. Moving on to the Suns and the Pelicans. So, like I said, you have to

control what you can control. Phoenix's Upship's creek in a lot of different areas of this series. Right, Devin Booker's out, that's a that's a easily their most important player. I think you could have made the case last year that Chris Paul was the most important player because Devin played better this season. But with his shot creation, it puts a lot on everybody else, and what you saw in game four this series was some of the things that are out of your control not go well. Chris Paul

didn't play well. IRV Jones guarded him extremely well. You know, Michail Bridges and Deandreton didn't play as well. A lot of things didn't go right. But you can control the defensive end of the floor. You can control your decision making. I thought it was really really interesting that in this big game, in a big environment like this, that Phoenix was able to get as many stops as they did. The Phoenix limited their turnovers the way they did. Those

are the things you can control. And there's been a couple of weird dynamics right like the Pelicans have utterly demolished Phoenix on the offensive glass in this series. I haven't seen the numbers updated from tonight, but I think they're averaging right around fifteen offensive rebounds per game. A lot of that's matchup oriented. New Orleans is sending a ton of guys to the glass at the expense of

their transition defense. There's a bunch of reasons why they're getting as many offensive rebounds as they are, but that's extra possessions. That's fifteen additional possessions per game, so you have to make up for that. When you factor in losing Devin Booker and having so much offensive scoring load on Chris Paul, you can't afford to have a bad defensive night. You can't afford to have a bunch of turnovers.

And that's why I love having a grown ass man, a grown adult who's been in the setting so many times as the guy that you can lean on in these settings. Chris Paul was built for this type of setting. That's why I decided, even after the Devin book injury, Brooker injury, that I predicted the Sons would win the game and win the series. It'll be another story in the next round. Adding Luca to the picture, that's a

whole other animal. Luca is gonna have a hell of a time getting eight and out on the perimeter, working against Chris Paul and isolation. I'm really curious to see how he fares against some of the longer wings for Phoenix. That's gonna be a super super interesting matchup if they get to that point. But Chris Paul and his i Q and his experience I believe was gonna be enough

to control the series. And it was even in a even in a predicament like Devin Booker going down, obviously they got a much They got a much better night out of Mikhal Bridges, they got a much better night out of DeAndre eight. And I talked a lot with you guys about how important it was to have those two guys carry the scoring load that Devin Booker, but with him being out takes out of the picture. One other interesting note on this game, New Orleans is reliance

on isolation. So if you look at the UHUM, if you look at the box score after the game, Phoenix has twenty eight assists to New Orleans is fourteen, And a big part of that is just the way they play. You know, New Orleans kind of plays a similar style to Brooklyn in the sense that they rely on their two primary shot creators, Brandon Ingram and c. J. McCollum,

to attack matchups all over the floor. The problem is is, just like what happened with Katie and Kyrie, if you run into a really good defensive team like it's gonna turn into a tough shot making contest. And what's more reliable Phoenix bruising you on the inside forty six points in the paint Phoenix, executing in pick and roll, getting high quality shots or brandon Ingram and c J McCollum

taking tough isolation jump shots on every single possession. It's not a surprise that they didn't play particularly well as a result, but that's all I had on that particular game. We're gonna bring Carson on and we're gonna get into some of the other series is and go over some questions that he might have, And hey, guys, just remember, if you're listening and you're in the chat, we're doing a mail bag at the end, So any questions that you have, dropped them in there and we'll get to

them at the end of the show. The playoffs are here and you can make every game feel like Game seven on Fandel Sports Book, an official partner of the NBA. FanDuel is hooking you up with free bets throughout the playoffs. It doesn't matter if your new customer or already have an account. Just be sure to check out the app for exclusive weekly same game parlay promos. Vandel has so many ways to play, and best of all, when you win,

you'll get paid faster than a fast break. New to FanDuel, just download the fan Duel sports Book app and signed up with promo code Jason T. Once again, that's promo code Jason T. All right, Well, Jason, we're gonna play a game here called what have we learned? As you said, we're gonna run down some key points from a few series and you're gonna tell me what your takeaways are from that. So we're gonna start with the Miami Heat, who finished off the Hawks today in five game What

do you think we've learned from their performance? And moving on pretty convincingly in Round one. So I thought this was the least interesting series in the first round, and I'm glad it's over. Atlanta. To me was, like I said many times on the show over the course of the last week, they were the sore thumb of this playoff field. They were the one team that seemed to be clearly a level below everyone else that was playing among the other fifteen teams. You know, I have three

big takeaways that I learned from this series. One, there's an issue with Trey Young. There there were so many people that jumped on Luca early on that they're kind of turned into this like counter tray movement. And then last year in the playoffs. Because he won two playoffs series, there became this additional trade Young movement, like oh, Lucas

never won a playoff series, Trays already won two. And anybody who actually watched the Hawks last year knows that they beat a NIXT team that had no half court creation. They beat a Philly team that was literally combusting on the floor in front of our eyes to the point where they had to reconstruct after the season with the

Ben Simmons situation, and Atlanta had an awesome defense. Truth of the matter was is Trey Young shot below fort from the field last year in the playoffs, and he shot thirty one percent from three, and he wasn't terrible. He had more mints, obviously, but there were a lot of things that broke his way in that series. In that run, the reality with Trey Young is in the playoff environment, when the physicality is allowed to go to another level and guys are allowed to grab, when they're

allowed to hold slim slight players struggle. It's just a fact. We have so much evidence of this throughout NBA history and this year's postseason run obviously, only five games average fifteen point four points on thirty two percent from the field in eight percent from three. I love Trey Young's game in in some areas great passer, willing pastors kind of like Luca, like actively looking for his shot, but also has the ability to make the high level reads.

The differences is I think Tray is a little bit more of a gunner. But the biggest difference between the two of them, and the reason why Luca is so much better and the reason why it's silly to ever put them in a conversation together, is Luca can lean on you, man, and in all of these matchups, Luca is gonna pick on a small guy and he's gonna bully him. He's gonna pick on a big guy and uses his moves to get him to get a step, and he's gonna pin him on his backside, and he

has the strength to hold them off. I know this has been something that I've leaned on a lot in my basketball analysis over the course of the last few years, but it's something I believe very strongly in. Like these playoff series, is are physical fist fights, and size does matter. There are guys that have overcome to have been able to overcome it over the course of the years, Kevin Durant, even though he's thin, what happened with Boston, that's an outlier,

usually does well. Steph Curry six three, kind of slight, but he's so good in almost every single area of the game, and he's good enough defensively that it doesn't matter as much. But I've always leaned on guys that are more physical. Trey Young, good player, He's solid. I'm not sure that his ceiling could possibly be much higher than it already is right now, because what is there that Trey could add to his game at this point with his physical limitations. And then the last two things

really quick. Miami's offense. I told you guys all the season I was worried about them in the half court. Atlanta was the twenty six ranked defense in the regular season. In Miami only scored a hundred and fifteen point nine points per one Hunter possessions in this series, which would rank seventh among playoff teams. Really really curious to see what their offense looks like in the next round. Regardless of whether or not they play Toronto or play Philly,

they're gonna play a significantly better defensive team. And the last but not least Jimmy Butler's health. We talked about this right before the end of the regular season. This dude is like practically playing every other night now. In the regular season, he'll play one or two games in a row and then he needs a rest, and then here he is missing a playoff game for a sore knee. I love Jimmy Butler's game. He's a bona fide playoff player.

A lot of the things that I just talked about with physicality and decision making or why he's such a dom a playoff player. But if the dude can't stay on the court, like that's just one other massive red flag for the Miami Heat. So let me ask you a little bit more about Trey first, because I think when you are looking at one man offensive engines, he stands certainly among the league's best. Right in terms of

ry output. He led the league in total points and assists this year, was very efficient in doing so, lead the Hawks offense to be the second most efficient basketball without a really high level second creator on that team.

So how much of what we saw in this series do you think is a product of actual things about his game that are not sustainable in the playoffs versus issues with the Hawks roster construction and the fact that they didn't have that second guy who could really punish the Heat for dedicating overwhelming attention to Tray night in and night out, because obviously it's inexcusable from him. I mean, it was, I would say, kind of a shockingly bad series. But which of those factors do you think is more

important and was more impactful there? Well, the conversation we're having about Trey is kind of similar to the one we had about Yoki, Like the conversation I'm having is

more about his ranking in the league. I'm with you, there are roster shortcomings here, Like you need if you're gonna have a guy like Trey Young that has to operate with the live dribble from the perimeter or out of pick and roll, you need to have a bigger wing that you can throw the ball to to try to generate physical offense, a guy that can attack, seize mismatches. You know, Danielle Gallinari just never really amounted to that.

You know, Badanovitch was just way too inconsistent, and he's not big enough to be that kind of rim pressuring guy anyway. So, like kind of like again, the archetype of boy on Bogdanovitch with Utah is kind of what I'm talking about, Like someone like that that can take

a different element to their offensive attack. And then again, you have to have a defense like you did last year again, unsung hero of last year's play off team, and Atlanta wasn't a dominant playoff team last year in the regular season by any stretch of the imagination, but they did hit a level in the postseason that allowed them to eke out a lot of games. Defense Again, it's like it's something that you can count on and

you will. You'll be shocked at how many times in a playoff series or a playoff game where you'll see a team that will shoot poorly, have a lot of turnovers, a bunch of guys, have bad nights, but you end up winning somehow, and it's just because you played so well on defense that you forced them to not play well as well. So like there, let me be clear, Trade can be the best player on a championship team.

You just he's far enough down the list that so many things above him have to be perfect, like has to be with surrounded by tons of defensive talent has to have a co star that can pressure the rim and is more physical. A lot of things would have to be perfect around him in order for that to work out. Going back to the Heat for a second, do you feel significantly different about them now compared to before the series and where do you feel like they

are in the Eastern hierarchy of contenders right now? I would think they're gonna be the worst team left in

the second round. Uh they I would give them an outside chance to beat whoever comes out of the Sixers Raptors series, because both of those teams have gaping holes, like just like you've seen from Toronto in this series, there's a massive chasm between what they look like when they're bad and what they look like when they're good, you know, And and the same thing goes with the Sixers, like when they when they're humming, they were whooping Toronto's ass,

and they've looked unrecognizable in the last two games. So like, Miami will be capable of beating either of those teams, but they're also capable of losing to either of those teams for the same reasons we discussed earlier. Nothing really has changed for me other than the fact that you know they they're playing Duncan Robinson less. That was to be expected because he's having issues on the defensive end.

I don't think Kyle Lowry is as important as everyone else thinks he is, just at this point in his career because he's a little bit older. But the health is a concern to Like. I would say that I was already low on them before the playoffs, but I'm even lower now. Like I give them a zero percent chance to get out of the East. Wow, Yeah, I think that that's pretty reasonable because of a lot of the offensive limitations that you've talked about in the inconsistency there.

I will say they are wildly impressive defensively, and I do think that you know that gives them some sort of chance. But I think that you're probably right. They would be probably that last team in the next round. The their defense, it kind of reminds me of Dallas. They have great defensive players on the floor. Bam Adebile unbelievable defensive player, you know. P J. Tucker I think is underrated because so many people are focused on his

limitations Offensively. Jimmy Butler is obviously incredible. They have great defensive players, but so much of what they do involves convincing average to below average defensive players to to work their ass off, which I which is a credit to the Heat organization, to be clear. But they're gonna run into a team, probably the Celtics in the conference finals, that are gonna have excellent defensive personnel to match the

dedication in the effort. Another thing too, from a matchup standpoint, One of the things that we're gonna talk about this later here just a couple of minutes, but the Raptors are starting to expose Joel embid with foot speed and we'll talk more about that in a minute. Against this particular matchup with Miami, I think they're going to be able to get away with dropping Joel Embiid all series.

And if they can keep Joel embiad drop all series, that completely shuts off the paint, turns Miami into only a jump shooting team. So there's some matchup stuff too that I think is is gonna end up getting in their way. Not a bad defensive team, but I think there's a massive chasm between their defensive ceiling and like Boston's defensive ceiling for instance. Sure, yeah, I think the Dallas comparison is interesting. I feel like the personnel is

more impressive. But I agree with you. I mean, Boston right now is in a class of their own on that end. So you mentioned some of the stuff that we've seen out of Philly slumping a bit in their last couple of games. One up, three oh on the Raptors. Now we're looking at three too, we're headed back to Toronto.

What do you feel like you've learned from what we've seen in the last couple of games and what's been going on in that series, Jason, this is such a classic series for understanding why it's so important not to overreact to one game or two two games. Obviously there's the wrinkle of them having fallen down three oh, and

that being something that's never been done before. But in game three, Toronto played really well, and honestly, it came down to particularly Siakum and VanVleet really struggling offensively to the point where they couldn't close the deal in that game. Way too much was on you know, Gary Trent Jr. To make plays or O. G. N and and Obi to make plays. But the truth is is like if you were watched the first two games of that series, and

then watched game four and five. They they are massively on wreck ignizable between the two the two stretches of games, and it's because in a playoff series so much can change. We talked about this at the beginning. I said the theme of the show was styles make fights, but that

the stuff it's about the style that wins the fight. Well, coming into this series, we talked at length about how Joel Embide and James Harden were the best two players in the series, probably that that uh Philly had more talent than they should win, but they had some specific flaws. Won their transition defense to Joel Embiad's ability to handle double teams, three James Harden and his abilities to score in single coverage, and then four Joel Embiid and James

Harden in a driving kick system. Those are my four big gaping holes that I saw in this Philly roster. So what sucks is those advantages. Toronto was completely geared and equipped to inflict on Philly. They had all the length and athleticism to cause James Harden problems and to cause and be problems and double teams, all the length and athleticism to get up in floor and transition to get into driving kicks scenarios where they can take advantage

of their lack of foot speed. They had all of that, they had the coach to do it too, but they just did it. In the first two games of the series, the Raptors allowed a hundred and thirty five point eight points per one hundred possessions. In the first two games of the series, the Sixers ran them off the floor in transition, So the same thing that they should have

been doing to Philly happened to them. So even though Toronto had advantages, Philly was playing so well in Toronto was playing so poorly that none of that materialized and they got their ass kicked. In the three games since, the Sixers are being held to one hundred and two points per per one hundred possessions, literally thirty three points fewer more than thirty three fewer points per one hundred possessions compared to the first two games of the series.

Toronto's just playing better man huge part of it. I mean, Fred VanVleet is their best perimeter initiator. Fred VanVleet is a very good defensive player at the guard position. But he's small, and there are there's all these different ways that we look at defense, and you know, in isolation defense, van Fleet's ability to get up underneath you and slide his feet and be physical as valuable, but covering ground

in rotation, there's a ceiling there for VanVleet. He's small, can't cover as much ground, so they take VanVleet out of the lineup all of a sudden, Gary Trent Jr. Who's six five without shoes on. Gary Trent Jr. Was the smallest player they played. Everybody else other than him is massive, long and athletic. So suddenly Toronto looks a lot more imposing defensively just because of the lineups that

they're going with. There was a really, really really interesting sequence late fourth quarter excuse me, a middle third quarter of Game five of game uh you have Game five, so you guys have probably seen this clip was going around social media like crazy, and I specifically have been on this train all season long, so of course I

have to bring it up tonight. I talked to you guys about how I love Joel embid Joel Embiad's game, and I love Nikola Yoki's game, but I could never include them in the list of best players in the league because as dominant as they are at their position, they have foot speed limitations that you can target specifically in transition and in five out scenarios. Well. One of the things that Toronto has figured out so far in this series as it's progressed is Joel Embid can't guard

their quick forwards on the perimeter pretty average players. So there was a sequence in the third quarter We're on five consecutive possessions in isolation, not like, oh, he's attacking a close out, not like, oh, Joel Embid was helping on someone else and had to step over and was out of disadvantage. No staring Joel embat in the eye and driving to the basket on it. First play, precious thatch you a faces up at the foul line, does a jab step. Joel Embiad buckles, drives to the basket,

draws a foul. Very next play, O G and and Nobi kind of like fakes like he's gonna use a screen and roll. Joel Embiad is dropped way off of him like ten ft. O g hits the gas and punches the gap blows right by Embad for a done next possession kind of semi transition man on man on man. There's no help. It's just Joel Embiid on an island with Precious that you A pressus that you A just does it through the legs, dribble and just blows by Embead,

no chance, wide open lay up. Next possession, same exact thing. Pascal Siakam on the right wing just drives by right by Joel Embiad for a layup. And then finally on the fifth consecutive possession, out of the left corner, Pressous Thatchua drives on Embead and Beat actually makes him use a counter move this time, but Precious just up fakes. He goes up and under and makes a lamp on

the left side of the rim. Five consecutive possessions. Or they scored on Joel Embiad in isolation situations because their players are faster, and that again is Precious. Achua, O g n and ob In Pascal Sika all very good basketball players. None of them are dominant offensive engines, and Joel and Beat can't guard them on the perimeter. It's just a limitation in their individual games. Yo Kitchen Embeat not a criticism of them as like they're not top ten players, or they don't deserve to win m v

P or any of those things. Just why I personally am always gonna lean towards a Janice or Lebron or a kd is because if you put them in that type of setting, a game that goes up and down, or a game that's stuck in the half court, a game that's five out, or a game that's more traditional with you know, a lot of pick and roll and guys underneath the basket with less less spacing, they can thrive in all of those In ironments would Joe Yo kitchen and beat if the style exits their comfort zone,

they have shortcomings and you're seeing Toronto attack that. Another big part here in the series. We talked about how there was no way in the world that James Harden or that the the Raptors could not have one of the top two or three players in the series and win. They would need to and through the first two games, I would argue and Bead was the best player, Maxi was the second best player, in Harden was the third

best player. Before we got to a single Raptor well, Maxi's cooled off last three games, fourteen points on thirty nine percent from the field, eight percent from three Hardened looks like the same guy he has for the last three months, like a totally fine secondary creator who can make passes out of pick and roll and stuff. But he's not a great isolation player anymore. He's not doing well in spot up situations, and he's really bad defensively.

So there's a lot of liutations there. Here's the reality of the situation. There's two games left and Beat uh and Beat is the best player in the series. The Sixers have more talent and they have one of those games at home, so the Sixers should win. But there's a ton of pressure on them. Now they have to start by going up to Toronto. If you lose that game in Toronto, which Toronto, it's like probably like a coin flip, right. If Toronto wins game six, now you're

coming home. But there's a boatload of pressure, and we've seen how James Harden reacts in those situations. I'm still seeing Joel Embid rely too much on foul drifting. One last note on this series. One of the things that I noticed when I watched the tape this morning, Joel Embiid is starting to be relegated a little bit to the perimeter. On offense, He's having some success in situations where he's off ball and he happens to catch around the rim, and he's still as dominant as ever there.

It's a bucket or foul every time, basically, but the post ups with Embiid, Toronto's figured him out. They're getting the ball out of his hand. He's not getting good stuff out of that anymore. Down the stretch of Game five, and Bead was kind of floating around the perimeter, getting rid of the basketball, doing a lot more dribble handoffs, taking a lot of tougher jump shots. It's an interesting

dynamic you're starting to see. You know, early in the series, guys like Precious to Chua, Ken birch and O g and uh O g and Obi and Pascal, I mean, all of them have seen time on Embiid, but each of them at the beginning of the series were super tentative. They didn't want to commit fouls. They weren't being physical, they weren't testing his handle. They're kind of feeling things out.

Watch the way they're guarding and Bead now they're testing his handle, they're reaching, they're being aggressive, they're getting up underneath him. They're starting to have some success there. So like if there was ever a time that earlier I was just wishing it would happen. Now this is a real potential outcome. Toronto has a game at home, a chance to win, and then Game seven and in Philly anything happened. This thing is still up in the air.

Although I am still picking Philly because they are the better team, so obviously, I mean, the three oh come back would be completely unprecedented historically and wildly amusing for a number of reasons, largely that you would have two guys who have just become notorious for playoff under performance and collapses, with Doc Rivers and Harden being at the forefront of it. You say that Philly is still the favorite,

but it's possible for Toronto to do it. What do you think is the most important thing that needs to happen if Toronto is actually gonna pull it off, And if you had to estimate a probability of the Raptors actually doing it and winning this series, what range would you put that in? I put it in about so a little a little less than a coin flip. The biggest thing is going to be the offensive end. Yeah, it's a legit Carson. They have a legit chance to win this series. It's I think the key is gonna

be the offensive end. Pascal s has been playing well. O g and Obi has been playing well, hitting shots. Precious a Chiwa, this dude in Miami. He was kind of just like another undersized forward who tried really hard, who and I say undersized, like had more of the size of a wing, but didn't have the skills. So he was playing kind of as a forward and just kind of like a do everything utility player. He is showing flashes of offensive potential on the perimeter that are

really really exciting. And he's young. I think he's only twenty two if I remember correctly. You correct me if

I'm wrong there, Carson, Like, Precious looks amazing. There was a play in the first half it was like like late second quarter where Joel and Be was helping on a play where O g and Nobe was isolating against James Harden and O Gennobe threw a skip pass too Precious Schua in the corner and Precious had already made a couple of jump shots in the game, so and Bead had to close out hard, and Precious did like an up fake and ripped through the baseline and threw

down a dunk right before the shot clock buzzer. And I'm like, that looks like a straight up slasher wing and that doesn't look like unskilled forward like he's showing some flashes there. So the key is going to be can Toronto score enough to win this series? And so it's gonna come down to guys like Precious playing well. O G and Pascal obviously is that is their best individual shot creator with with Van Vleet out, so I

think it's gonna come down to them on the offensive end. Well, the name of the game here is what have we learned? And there's very few people who are better to learn from, I think when it comes to talking about basketball then our colleague here the volume Draymond Green. He recently gave his thoughts on his pot on the net struggles against the Celtics, So Jason, let's take a listen to what

he had to say. I just thought in that series, Boston made it a point that Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irvan will not beat us we know those two guys can beat us, They're not going to beat us. And what it looked to me as there was no one to get those two guys in position to score the ball where they like to score the ball from. And so you and up seeing a ton of turnovers. Uh. You know, I saw the numbers with like Katie uh and his turnovers versus Jayson Tatum and all the different things.

But the reality is Brooklyn struggled to get stops the entire series. You struggle to get stops. You come down against the set defense every single time you come down to court. I don't care how good of an offensive team you are or what offensive players you've got on your team, playing against the set defense every time it

is nearly impossible. So, Jason, obviously you've talked a lot about how brilliant the Celtics defense has been and explored the net struggles offensively, But what are your thoughts on that? First of all, Uh, I have so much respect for Draymond as a basketball mind, and it really really makes me feel good to hear him say some of the similar things that I have said over the years. It makes me feel like we gotta be doing something right

over here. How often do we talk about set defenses and the difference between attacking in transition inter semi transition versus in the half chord. Why it's so important to get stops and all that stuff. You know, a couple of things. He's hit the nail on the head. They

absolutely went to take away Katie and Kyrie. Um. I think it's a little bit more difficult than it looks to try to get them in spots where they can succeed, because that was a big part of the series, was fighting them off of position with physicality at different spots on the floor, and even when they tried to run actions where you know, like there was an in bounced play in Game three baseline out of balanced play where like we're like Katie and Kyrie and Nick Claxton were

all kind of in like a triangle, and like Katie and Kyrie set across screen and then Nick Claxton like fake setting a screen and they cut back and Tatum and Brown and Grant Williams. I think we're the three defenders involved, and they're literally hugging all three nets on the play. And when Jalen Brown and Grant Williams do the switch on the Katie Kyrie screen, they just like shoved the player like Kyrie and Katie to each other,

and then like grabbed him again. And then on the play when Nick Claxton goes to fake back to the basket, Hated like grabs him again and he reaches in and gets a steal on the inbounds pass. It runs the other way, and I'm just like, well, here you go. Here, You're trying to run in action and it just doesn't work because Boston's just beating the ship out of you off the ball. It's just kind of the nature of

the way they play. And I think I think it's just it's just the important it's the important reality of the way that playoff basketball gets so much tougher. It's really important that he was talking about attacking against the set defense, because the Celtics offense really really got going in the second halves of this series. In the first half, first quarter, second quarter, Brooklyn was able to get a lot of stops. It's a big part of why they had early leads in every game. But as the game

forget progress, they had a lot of problems. I wanted to share some very specific of some kind of in the details stats from this series, because the series was interesting on a couple of different levels. It was it was an example of you know, we talked about styles making fights, but these two teams have very similar styles. Like Brooklyn is a team that has to get out and transition a lot, so is Boston. Brooklyn is a team that likes to switch a lot, so is Boston.

Brooklyn is a team that likes to attack mismatches on the other end of the floor, so is Boston. But Boston kind of is like the better version of them. They're kind of the evolved version of them. Kind of like that, Like I've been talking about a lot on the show there what the future of basketball looks like on so many different levels, and and you saw that show up in the numbers. So obviously the Nets relied a lot in isolation. They isolated about four percent of

their possessions in this series. The interesting thing is they only scored zero point eight three points per possession and isolation with Katie and Kyrie on most of those possessions. The Celtics and isolation possessions averaged one point one nine points per one possession or points per possession, which is fascinating because I said, all towards the end of the regular season and coming into the series, I said, the biggest difference between these two dynamics is Tatum gets to

attack better matchups. He gets to go after Set Curry, he gets to go after Patty Meals. He gets to go after bigger, slower defenders or smaller, skinnier defenders. He had all of these different options, and Katie and Kyrie were just picking from an all you can eat buffet of all defense level guys. So of course it was gonna be a huge pain in the butt. So to give you an idea, the Celtics only lated on eight point six percent of their possessions compared to almost fourteen

percent for the Nets. Yet the Celtics only scored three fewer points in isolation possessions than the Nets did. They scored on fifty one point four percent of their ISOs and the Nets only scored on thirty six point eight percent of their ISOs. I talked about how they where they wore Brooklyn down defensively in the second halves. Did you know that the Celtics in this series scored nineteen field goals per game in the restricted area compared to

only twelve for Brooklyn. Bullying them inside, we talked a lot about Jalen Brown exploiting size Mitch mismatches and getting all the way to the rim them on the offensive glass. Al Horford was active on the offensive class and there so is Marcus Smart. They just they've won all of these little areas of the game that were so important to the way Brooklyn played. Boston just came in and

did them better. There were ten minutes of clutch time in this series, so remember NBA dot Com defines clutch time is five or fewer minutes remaining score within five points. In ten minutes of clutch time, Boston held Brooklyn. Again. Kyrie and KD two of the best closers in basketball. But for those of you guys who've listened to the show over the course last few years, I always say, closing is very complicated. It's not just about isolation scoring.

It's about perimeter decision making. It's not about one possession, it's about the last five to ten possessions. It's about defense. There's so many different things in closing. The Celtics, the Nets had the two best closers on the floor in terms of guys who can create their own shot. They averaged just fifty eight point eight points per one hundred possessions and ten minutes of of clutch possessions. So Boston utterly stifled Brooklyn in crunch time. As a result, in

those ten minutes, Boston outscored Brooklyn by fifteen points. And then lastly, you know, to Draymond's point, when Boston, when Boston didn't score, when Brooklyn got a stop and they were able to get out in transition, they scored one point three one points per one per transition possession. That's a great number. So when they got out in transition, they were scoring very, very easily. But then when they get stuck, and then when they got stuck in the

half court, that was when they got killed. It was just it was a it was a classic case of Brooklyn running into like the serious, grown up version of themselves. You know, Brooklyn was so much better than all of the detractors wanted to act like they were in this series. But Boston, you know, because like Brooklyn is not a dumpster fire. They just had a lot of drama. They had Ben Simmons drama, they had the Kyrie Irving drama.

They have some old, washed up guys on the roster, but there's some real serious basketball players on the team. But Boston is what Brooklyn would look like if it was well run. You know, stars that are dedicated to the craft, that are not interested in the extracurriculars. You know, uh, a willingness to be coached, checking ego at the door, commitment to defense, signing players that are for the betterment of the team rather than personalities or resumes, things along

those lines. You know, Boston is the grown up, professional version of Brooklyn, and it was cool to see them beat Brooklyn at their own game. So Draymond talks about sort of some of the issues was maybe a lack of that table setting presents who can get you know, those great scores going in their spots. You highlighted a bunch of the offensive issues that the that the Nets facing that matchup, and you know, I think the lack

of paint production and paint offense stands out there. So just given all of those issues that we saw, is there a specific personnel adjustment that you look at, like one type of player who you think, boy, the Nets are really missing that guy who they could also even conceivably get because obviously they are pretty tied up cap wise, But is there a certain spot that you look at there. I agree with Draymond from the standpoint of like a

playmaker would work great. The issue is is, like it's such a rare breed, like k D is already as good of a playmaker as the vast majority of the better playmakers in the league. There's just that group of four guys, you know, the Chris Paul's, the Lucas, the Yokichen and the Lebrons that are like on another level above them. And that's why I value those guys so much. There's so few of them, Like, is there one player

who's close to that grouping? Like I mean, guys like guys like Trey Young and James Harden are good passers, but there's obviously huge chasm between what they can do and those guys, and so I don't think they can attain that type of players. So what I would target in a in a potential Reeving trade I talked about We talked about this a little bit last night, actually, like the idea of building a Boston type of of

of concept with Katie at the Helm. So try to flip Kyrie for you know, Kyrie is gonna be overpaid on that contract, so try to flip him for other overpaid Wings guys that are six six to six eight that are willing to work on the defensive end aren't anywhere near as good offensively as Kyrie, but neither is Jalen Brown. Neither is you know, uh, Marcus Smarter. These guys that are playing for Boston, they're just they're building

off of their defense, Like Boston. Boston is scoring twenty four points in transition per game in this playoff run, which leads all the teams in the playoffs, So they're getting easy opportunities off of their stops, which is making guys like Jalen Brown, Marcus Smart, guys that are good offensive players, but they're not great offensive players, but they're having great offensive moments because of the openings that are

created by their defense on the offensive end. So I would try to flip Kyrie for that archetype of player, if that makes sense. Yeah. Absolutely, All right, guys, that is all we have for tonight. I sincerely appreciate your support. As always, we will be back tomorrow after the final game of the night, which I believe is Nuggets Warriors, so come hang out off to the final buzzer of Nuggets Warriors. As always, we appreciate your support and we will see you then