Hoops Tonight - LIVE: WARRIORS-ROCKETS REACTION: Steph Curry and Warriors DEFEAT Houston Rockets in Game 7 Showdown

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Pacers threw a great punch. Sorry for the delay getting over here tonight. I had to work with mister Colin Cowherd tonight. He's the boss mans. You never say no, But I broke down a bunch of stuff with him about the first round on his show that you guys will see on the Volumes feed later. But I really wanted to take some time to get into the nitty gritty of what happened tonight. So we're gonna do that

on today's show. After we hit the two games at the tail end, I'm gonna go through each of the eight first round series and talk about the biggest thing that I learned through those series. When we finish up here tonight, after we get through those three segments, we're gonna head over to playback. Over on playback, we're gonna start talking about Minnesota versus Golden State first round. We're gonna go through some film. We're gonna take questions from

you guys. You're gonna get to come up on the stage. So if you're not already set up on playback, make sure you guys get set up over there on the Hoops Tonight channel. As soon as we wrap up here live on YouTube, we're heading over. I hope you guys will come hang out for another forty five minutes as we do some more stuff to talk some hoops and watch some film. So you guys on the Joe before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops and Not YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos.

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keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments. So after Game six, I talked about two things that would need to go right in order for the Warriors to win Game seven. One day would need to get alpurn

Shanghun and Fred Van Vliet under control. Those guys went for an efficient fifty points in Game six, and two they would need to get Steph going as a scorer because even though we can create advantages, because Houston can tighten the screws the way they do, He's really the only guy who can save them when Houston's really in that type of groove defensively. We talked about this a lot after Game six. You can't point to Moses Moody

to save you. You can't point to Brandon Pajemski to save you, even like with Buddy Heal's hot shooting in the first half. In that third quarter, it ultimately came down to Steph and his ability to generate offense against an elite, momentous attack from Houston. They took the first piece, they took care of that for piece right away. Right Draymon had his best defensive game of the series in my opinion. He had Shangoon in jail. His attempts close to the

rim looked super disrupted. He had some bad misses there. He was beating Shangun to spot so cleanly in the second half that he kept settling for that stupid one leg fade away that he was either shooting way over the back of the rim or way short of the front of the rim. Draymon had him completely flustered defensively in that game. I want to give Kevon Looney some credit there to Kevon Luony has been great, but Draymond again,

this has been a tough offensive series form. If you look at the way that the floor is set up, because they put Fran van Vliet on Draymond so that they can switch to Steph Draymond pick and roll. That took away Draymon's best piece of offensive utility for this team, which is connective playmaking leading those four on threes out

of Steph Curry traps. But because they're just switching any screen with Draymon, it put him into a position where he was more of a spot up shooter, which by the way, he did hit a couple of big threes early in this game. But Draymond was in a tough position offensive in the series, and so it wasn't going to be a big box score series. That's a lot of Warriors fans saying like, oh, we're gonna, you know, take a look at Draymond after this series because he's

not producing. It's like this was never going to be the series where he produced offensively because of the way Houston matched up. They kept their three switchiest defenders on Draymond, Jimmy, and Steph to try to neutralize any two man game with those two, so that you'd have to play two man game with whoever else was on the floor. But Draymond did an amazing job defensively in the series and gained control over one of the biggest problems they were having,

which was Shang Gooon. Over the course of the series, all of their guards did a fantastic job on Fred van Vliet. Those guys held They held Fred and Shang Gun together to thirty eight points on thirty six shots, so very inefficient lower volume, and most of the damage that those two did was in the fourth quarter after Golden State had already taken control of the game. And that really, ultimately was why I never flipped my pick

away from Golden State in this series. I just felt like Golden State could this offense if they ever needed to. I just figured they would have done it on Friday. I'm sure in the Warriors' locker room they're like, we should have done this on Friday, you know, give themselves a little bit of extra time. But they brought their requisite intensity and energy defensively tonight and they strangled Houston and that bought them quite a bit of margin for

air on Steph scoring. Steph goes scoreless for almost the entire first half, but it didn't matter because Buddy Heald was incredible. Now, those of you guys who were on playback with me after Game six, we talked about this specific thing. Steve Kurlean heavily into Gary Payton in Game six, and I think it might have had something to do with foul trouble for Buddy Heald, but he just went away from Buddy Heeld. His minutes were super low, and

they really really struggled offensively in that game. Right, But in this particular game, and maybe it was Gary Payton being sick. Maybe it was an adjustment from Steve Kerr, but we talked in the playback after Game six. The numbers clearly showed in this series that the Warriors were substantially better with Buddy Healed on the floor as a complimentary offensive piece than Gary Payton as complimentary defensive pace. I'm a huge Gary Payton fan. I just think this

was a tough matchup for him. I was texting with Jackson earlier today. Jackson made a very interesting point. He was talking about how like in this matchup, because you're not as worried about Houston's guards doing a ton of damage just with like unbelievable star level talent, he doesn't have as much upside defensively in the series, and then the offensive limitations are still there. Gary Payton had moments

in this series. He won a game in this series slipping out of ball screens right as we talked about. I think that was Game four. I remember it was either Game three or Game four. I can't remember one of the two in Golden State. But overall in this series, the team fared better with Buddy Heeled on the floor. They leaned more into him, tonight. It's that complimentary scoring, Like if Steph's gonna get face guarded and double teamed off of ball screens, there's a lot of space to operate.

But he got a lot of clean looks and he was able to benefit off that. He had thirty three points on fifteen shots. But Houston made a run Iyande, a run that started in the late second half, extended into the excuse me a late first half, and extended

into the early second half. Houston cut the lead down to three, and they tightened the screws and Buddy wasn't getting open and Jimmy wasn't getting open, and Steph was really the only guy who was going to be able to save them in that spot, and right when they needed him too, he got going. He had twenty two points, but that's underselling it because almost well all of that

came over the final two quarters. In change. He had a little pull up three, a deep pull up three in the late first half, but all of those twenty two points came basically over the last you know, roughly twenty five to twenty six minutes of the game. He started working primarily on the ball instead of running through

off ball action. There was a lot of high pick and roll, a lot of high ISO and those of us who have been following the Warriors over the last decade, we know that's the break glass in case of emergency approach for the Warriors when things get really tough on offense, and it's just the advantage of Steph. Steph can default into high ballscreen attack when he needs to, and he

did an amazing job of it. Down the stretch, attacked Jabari Smith and an ISO and was able to shake him and get downhill all the way to the basket for a layup. Take that little piece and file it away from the Minnesota matchup because Steph is definitely more comfortable against taller athletes than he is against the load of the ground athletes, which is something to keep in mind. But he was the shot making was there, he was

getting to the rim consistently. Steph just completely took over the game and Houston was never able to recover from it. Like guys, this is why I hold stars to that standard, especially when it's their role on that team. I knew Steph was capable of this. This is what he does better than just about anybody in the world, and it wasn't gonna be Moses Moody save in them. It wasn't gonna be Brandon Pajemski saving them. It was gonna be Steph.

It had to be Steph, and Steph took that responsibility seriously and came through for his team, especially when that's your role. Like you know, it's like I, you want to know why I was really critical of Lebron after Game seven or excuse me, game five of their first round series because he wasn't rebounding. I wasn't as critical of him in the Game four loss because he only took two shots in the fourth quarter. His job wasn't to score on that team. It was Luca's job. Luca

wasn't doing his job. In Game five, the Wolves kicked the shit out of the Lakers on the glass. Lebron's the one guy who was capable of anchoring them on the defensive glass, and it was him that I was seeing that was letting go of the rope and not doing his job. He's the star, he has the superpower. He's the one guy who could save them in that spot, and he couldn't do it that Luca in that Game four. He's the one guy who can create the offense against

that elite defense and save the day. This is why I always look at stars before coaches, stars before role players. This is a unique sport in that in this sport, your superpower is your superpower is your superstars. They are the one being an entity on the court that can circumvent the surrounding circumstances. And when all hell broke loose tonight and Houston was making their run and a men Thompson's getting downhill with a rim every single time, Steph

Curry took over the game. And when he took over the game, everyone else was helpless and the Warriors immediately pulled away. They immediately pulled away. And so those two dynamics that needed to flip the defense on Fred and Alburn and then the scoring for Steph Curry, they flipped. Warriors are able to flip the dynamic that took place over the other two games. I thought Jimmy was great again tonight. He hit a lot of stabilizing shots. He went on a little solo run in the fourth quarter

that helped stiff arm the Rockets. I want to shout out Steve Kerr. I thought he coached a great series and I thought he played every right card in game seven, increasing Buddy Heels minutes like we talked about, although that might have had something to do with Garry hate and being sick. He played Kevon Looney instead of quinning post, which I thought was a really smart move after how they just got bludgeoned on the glass in game six. You needed to lean more towards rebounding. That was a

really smart decision. Loony also had some really good defensive possessions on Shangun. He had some adjustments for the zone. We talked about that after game six, like they really struggled against the zone in the fourth quarter. They just had some innovative stuff. You know, there was a possession, did you guys see the possession where Jimmy got the layup because him and Steph both broke open on a back cut at the same time and they kind of almost ran into each other, but Jimmy got the layup.

What they were doing in that sequence, which I thought was really smart, is they were triggering switches and then back cutting. Steph has got Shangun on him. He's running out like he's gonna go to the wing. Shanggoon passes him. Off to the next guy. Steph's watching now print as soon as he passes him off, he back cuts. Because as soon as he passes him off, he relaxes. Steph was able to get back cut right to the rim.

He was actually wide open. Jimmy ended up getting the ball, same sort of thing from Jimmy trigger to switch back cut out of it. They got a wide open three for Buddy. Heel. That a really smart play design where they had Steph flash to the high post to occupy a defender right as Jimmy was racking to the right off of his man, which occupied the two top guys in the zone, and Buddy relocated across the top of

the key, wide open for three. The current his staff took the time to look through some specific details for ways they could get openings against that zone defense. I thought the Warriors championship pedigree showed in a big way tonight. Is they got the winning game in Game seven. Looking forward to Minnesota, I was, Colin asked me tonight, He was like, you know, after what we saw from Houston, you know, Minnesota in theory is just a better version

of Houston. You know, is Golden State just gonna get crushed. And one of the things I told Colin, I don't know who I'm gonna pick yet. I'm gonna I want to watch more film, I want to get more into it. But I am way more on the coin flip side of things then a lot of I think there's gonna be a lot of Warriors pessimism. You guys are gonna see on in sports media over the next couple of days. I think you're gonna see a lot of They're gonna go get crushed by Minnesota. And here's the thing, maybe

they do. Maybe they go get crushed by Minnesota. I look at it as a fundamentally different matchup than Houston in some good ways and some bad ways. There's no doubt they're gonna be harder to guard. Julius Randall and Anthony Edwards and nasried that they're an entirely different animal offensively than what Houston does. That said the other end of the floor, I do think Golden State's gonna have actually more success scoring against Minnesota than they did against Houston.

There's a big difference between like the speed that Houston has on the ground in the form of Fred van Vliet and a men Thompson, which were the two defenders who did the best job on Steph and bigger athletes. Steph looked pretty comfortable tonight against Jabari Smith Junior. He looked pretty comfortable tonight against Jabari in the entire series. He looks comfortable against Dylan Brooks on an island in isolation. In those situations, those bigger, taller wings, they have more weight.

They struggled to move side to side as quickly as some smaller players do, like in a weird way, like, I am very concerned about Golden State's abilities should they win the next round to compete with a team like Oklahoma City because Oklahoma City has a ton of speed on the ground. They literally are a much better version of Houston, who's really fast on the ground, excellent in rotation. They also have rim protection and also have super high

level offensive talent. That's a tougher matchup for Golden State now in my opinion, after what we saw from Houston. But Minnesota it's a lot of like Julius Randalls, kind of a big upright athlete that you can move side to side on and have success against. Even Jaden McDaniels is a guy that Steph can break free of because he's a little bit stilty and upright, and Steph can move side to side against him. Working against Nas Reed, I think he's gonna have a good amount of success

like that series. It's also a fundamentally different defensive type of job than what Minnesota just had against La La. Two big giant forwards that are just trying to play isoball that plays directly into what Minnesota does well. Those are matchups that Naz Red and Julius Randall can succeed in that they're not going to succeed in against Steph. Even just the concept of isolation, Minnesota is gonna have to deal with all of the ball and the player

movement as guys are running around. And by the way, if you guys want to see some examples, we'll go over them in playback after the show. Come hang out with us on playback and I'll show you guys some film. The last two wins that Golden State had against Minnesota this year, Steph beat them down the stretch with off ball movement as guys like Ant and Nas and Julius Randall were not as attentive as they need to be.

The job against the Lakers was a physical job. We can hold up on an island against Lebron and Luca in one on one. The job against the Warriors is a mental job. It's about tracking shooters, getting through action, communicating through tons of switches. Totally different jobs. So it's gonna be an interesting series. I think. I haven't seen

the odds yet. I'll look him up here in a minute, but I do think that Golden State has the ability through Steph to have a more successful offensive series against Minnesota than they did against Houston, which I think could make it a closer series. Again, not gonna make a pick tonight, but I'm leaning much closer towards that being a coin flip series than it being some sort of giant advantage towards Minnesota. On the Houston front, I think the answer after tonight is you got to go after Yannis.

I think he's the obvious decision. I think he fits the identity of the team. I think that you put everything on the table but a men Thompson. If you can combine Janis as a legitimate shot creator with everything that you have in the size and physicality of this team, you'll basically be a superstar led version of this Houston Rockets team, which I think could be super exciting. But we will talk more about the Rockets on another day.

All right, So we're gonna hit Pacers Calves for a little bit and then I'm gonna go over my takeaways from each of the eight first round series, and then after that we will head over to playback for the rest of the night. So I thought the Pacers just completely caught the Calves off guard today. The Pacers offense is bill around the ability of all five players on the floor to be able to both score and playmake

out of every spot. Right, So like knockdown, catch and shoot threes, but also to hit off the dribble threes out of combinations. You'll see Siakam and Turner even hit the occasional off the dribble three. Right. All five guys can score in the mid range, All five guys can score at the rim. All five guys can pass and

play playmate out of any of those spots. Right. None of the guys are super high level offensive players, but they all can be super effective if they have an advantage, meaning a defender running at them versus sitting stationary in front of them, and Tyre's Halliburton is the most relentless

advantage Hunter I have ever seen. You turn your head and a guy relocates or cuts behind you, Tyree's gonna hit him every single time you sink too far into nail help off the top of the off of the wing like he's gonna throw that swing pass and burn you. Every single time you get caught with a foot in the paint on the weak side, He's gonna burn you with that skip pass every single time. I thought the Cavs came out the gates today super undisciplined and unfocused

in their off ball defense. Early in the game was a lot of Max Struce and Jared Allen. Those are the two guys that were consistently getting burned, just getting caught sinking into the lane and help or just not paying attention as their main is relocating or cutting around them. DeAndre Hunter, when he was in the game, he was brutal. I counted about a half dozen different mistakes that he made that directly led to good opportunities for the Pacers. Really,

the Pacers offense operated at peak efficiency all night. Here's some crazy stats for you. They generated seventeen unguarded catch and shoot threes compared to just ten for Cleveland. They got better looks. They had a one seventeen offensive rating in the half court. That's insane, ninety seven for Cleveland in this game, twenty seven spot up opportunities for Indiana that they converted at a rate of one point five to six points per possession. They got over one point

three points per jump shot. Overall, they shot extremely well. All their play types worked. They had a one to seventeen offensive rating on post ups including passes, a one to thirty six offensive rating, and pick and rolls including passes, a one to eleven offensive rating on isolations including passes.

They just picked the calves apart tonight. And then in crunch time, like Donovan Mitchell goes on a run in that third quarter, gets down Hill a bunch, It turns into a back and forth game in the fourth quarter, and in crunch time, Indiana was able to take control again and it came down to Tyre's Halliburton beating Jared Allen. In switches. We talked a lot about this in the

series preview. Inevitably, as things grind down, especially late in games in Cleveland, does a lot of switching with their bigs in general, but they did run a good amount of you know, traditional kind of picking there, like like like high drop type of looks where they tried not to switch Mobley and Allen onto guards earlier in the

game if they could avoid it. But Jared Allen throughout the game at various points, a few times in the first half and then a bunch of times down the stretch was switching on to Tyrese Halliburton in screening it. And that's where the difference is between Tyreese when he's at a near MVP level versus the guy that we saw for most of the end of last year when

he wasn't very explosive. He's such a smart player that if you run drop coverage or traditional at the level coverage or any sort of traditional pick and roll coverage, he just passes the ball too well. You'll get picked apart as a passer. But if you can shut down those openings by switching, you could put the onus on

Tyre's Halliburton to beat you as an isolation player. And when he had his hamstring injury, he just wasn't quick enough with that first step to like consistently beat people off the dribble and make some good stuff happen there. He beat Jared Allen on a switch six times in this game for either a bucket or a kickout to somebody else for a bucket three times in crunch Time.

The sequence in Crunch Time hits a step back three at the top of the key, gets down into the painted area, it takes a dramatic step back up to the top, knocks it down on the second one on the switch. Donove and Mitchell follows Miles Turner down the lane as Miles Turner is rolling, so Halliburton's sitting against Alan up top on the switch on the other side

of the floor. DeAndre Hunter comes over to try to scam to try to scram Donovan Mitchell out of the switch, meaning he's going over to Donovan and being like, you get out to my man over here on the wing. I think it was nem hard and I will take Miles Turner so that I can battle with him on the glass, meaning an interchange. Right, So Mitchell's on Turner, DeAndre Hunter's coming over to scram him out of the switch.

There's a little miscommunication. Donovan Mitchell's not paying attention. Donov Mitchell had a really bad game on both ends of the floor, in my opinion. We'll talk about that in a minute, but especially on defense, Donovan's not paying attention,

so nem Hard's wide open. Just for a second, nem Hard's wide open, and Halliburton just throws the easy swing pass like he does every single time you make that kind of mistake, and nem Hard knocks down the three, and then he beats him to the basket, takes a series of moves towards the right elbow against Jared Allen, and then beats him with a step through moves and banks it in, and so like, even when Cleveland took a lead and the game slowed down and they got

into half court, Indy was able to reassertain control just by being a better half court team than Cleveland was. And I thought Tyree's Halliburton was the best player in the in Game one. I thought he pretty significantly outplayed Donovan Mitchell really on both ends of the floor, and like Indy just came in and threw a great punch. I thought as a team they were great defensively, making

everything hard on Donovan Mitchell. I think it's gonna be a pretty significant wake up call for the Calves on a bunch of levels, Like if you're not familiar with what the Indiana Pacers do, what a great game one just as a crash course in what makes them such a scary team. And like Tyre's Halliburton's sneaky, playing pretty close to that superstar level over the course of the

last few games. And he's like cooking everybody in every which way, and he's got that offense humming at about as high a level as you'll see an offense operate in the NBA Playoffs. Really impressive game one from Indiana. On the Calves front, the attentiveness off ball is the

big one. There are so many situations, especially in the early parts of the game, where Cleveland would, like you know, their guy would give up the ball and they would go relocate to somewhere else on the floor, and you would see Cavs defenders off ball just relax, and when they relax, they just would get burned every single time with the pass. Simple example, there's a play where I

think it was Nie Smith. Nie Smith's on the right wing and I think he was being guarded by Max Strus was the guy guarding him, but I'm pretty sure it was Nie Smith on the right wing and Haliburton gets Jared Allen on a switch and he's dancing with the ball and Max Strus just relaxes and he kind of like sits back down towards the left elbow, like ten feet off of Nie Smith, not even helping on the drive. Jared Allen's not even compromised. Just easy swing

pass over to the right wing. There's a wide open catch and shoot three for Nie Smith that he knocks down, and it's like, I know, Max Strus can be a better, more attentive defender. He lost Andrew Aaron Nee Smith on the first possession of the game, same sort of thing, sinking into nail help, staring over at the ball at Tyres Halliburton swing pass Nie Smith beats him off the dribble attacking a close out and gets a little banking him. DeAndre Hunter. Jared Allen lost Pascal Siakam a bunch of

times early in the game. Like they're just as a team, they need to really be more mentally engaged defensively off the ball against this Indiana Pacers team. You cannot make those types of mistakes. You will get burned and then Donovan Mitchell. I thought he just did a really poor job of managing that game. He tried to solve all

of his problems by scoring. I was watched. I've rewatched the entire game during the Warriors game, and I rewatched every single Cavs offensive possession, and there are just a lot of situations where Donovan's getting into the middle of the floor and there are kickout opportunities there and he's not taking them. He's taking contested floaters and step throughs

and euros and things along those lines. He ends up taking thirty shots to get to you know, the thirty whatever points that he had in the game is super inefficient. He burned out all of his energy so that he had nothing for the defensive end of the floor and was getting cooked in a bunch of different ways on that end. Like I just thought, he tried to solve all of his problems by scoring, and I thought it was a mistake. Remember, Cleveland is at their best when

the ball is popping around. They are a team that can generate a lot more in the way of catch and shoot threes than they demonstrated today. They played an old fashioned Cavs game from years past, as a shot creation as a shot creation team, And I thought that came down to Donovan Mitchell. I thought he got out played by Tyres Haliburton tonight pretty substantially. And like, here's the thing, the Garland news is pretty sketchy. We're hearing

that his foot is a lot more serious than we thought. Obviously, I thought he was going to play today. He didn't play today. That's going to be a factor in this series. But even if Darius Garland isn't at one hundred percent, he should be able to help the flow of this offense. He should be able to at least like get the ball moving from side to side a little bit more so, even if he's not ready to go like at the level he was earlier in the season, I think getting

him out there will be super helpful. And my guess is that we end up seeing him in game two.

But you know, if they have to go without game two, it's about the management of the flow of the game for Donovan and which that what that means is is like he's gonna have to shoot more than he typically does, Like you probably want him around twenty to twenty four shot attempts in a situation like this with Garland out, but he needs to make a lot more swing passes, a lot more kickout passes on the drive, understanding that even if he has an opportunity to take a semi

contested shot in the lane, it's about taking it easy on his legs. It's about getting the rhythm of his teammates going. It's about the engine of the offense. Again, Tyres Halliburton didn't have a massive scoring night tonight, but the Pacers scored a million points and it was based on his advantage creation. That's the game flow piece of it. It's about understanding these little bits and pieces of time, Like here's a little three minute stretch where like I

really need to be looking to score the ball. Here's a stretch of the game where we got a lot of offensive talent on the field, on the court, I would actually be be better served making these sort of kickout passes. Like there was a stretch where Isaac Korro is on the floor with him for a while, and it's like I can kind of see why on some of those he's not kicking to Isaac. He's looking to

be aggressive. But like there are a lot of situations where Sam Merrill or Dean Wade or like standing in catch and shoot situations and the ball is just not getting sprayed around because Donovan's trying to smash his head through a brick wall instead of taking the easy stuff that's available for him. So, in short, Indiana threw their best punch tonight and the Calves through a really shitty one. I think the Calves can play a hell of a

lot better. But I also, as I mentioned in the series preview, I predicted Calves in six in large part because I do think the Pacers will have extended stretch of the series where they look really good, and they definitely showed that in game one. And here's the thing. If Darius Garland isn't gonna be ready, or if he's gonna be far from one hundred percent, this instantly becomes much more of a coin flip type of series that

the Pacers absolutely can win. All right, Before we head over to playback, I wanted to take we finished our first round right out of the eight series, only got five of them right, So not a great prediction first round for me. But what I wanted to do is go through this space SCIFX series one by one and talk a little bit about what I learned in each

of those series. So Cleveland Miami, really simple, just how high of a level Cleveland's offense is operating at in the half court in that series they were at like

a one to eighteen offensive rating. They in their overall offensive rating, it was like astronomical off the charts, the destructive blowouts, the Ty Jerome incredible shot making, the Donovan Mitchell incredible shot making, next Strews and DeAndre Hunter hitting all those contested threes, Like the Cavs offense was just operating at such an insanely high level in Round one, which was a big thing that stood out to me

from that series. Obviously not a great Round two opener, but that was my big takeaway from that specific series. Magic Celtics. I talked a lot last year after the Celtics won the title about how one of the things that I was most excited about for Celtics fans was the simple idea that Tatum in that entire playoff run operated like a second tier superstar, a very versatile player who was intricately valuable to the way that they won the title. That he wasn't bringing the scoring necess to

be a true top tier, superstar type of talent. In that first round series against Orlando, I thought Tatum showed clearly that he's just playing at a much higher level than he did last year. There's some other issues for the Celtics, some other guys not playing as wellsps Porzingis isn't playing super well, a couple guys aren't shooting the ball from three as well as they typically are. But Tatum's playing a lot better and that makes up a lot of the ground in that specific spot. Pistons knicks,

the Pistons are closer than we thought. Right Kate Cunningham, I think, even though he showed a lot of warts over the tail end of each of those games, I thought we saw pretty clearly the type of consistent, type of playoff weapon that Kate can be. In the big picture. We also just saw that experience matters time and time again down the stretch, the more experienced veteran team was able to make the necessary plays to win the game.

The Pacers Bucks series just that Tyre Saliburton is back to the form that he was at before he got hurt last year, which fundamentally alters the ceiling of this Pacers team, the way he was attacking Giannison switches, the way he was going blow for blow with Gary Trent Junior down the stretch of Game five. That was just a really, really impressive series from Tyres that I think showed a different level of upside for Indiana than we

originally thought. Oklahoma City Memphis, really Oklahoma City's passing is what stood out to me in that series. I really liked the way that they moved the ball through the middle of the floor to high quality close out opportunities, high quality cutting opportunities along the baseline. That was something

they struggled with last year against Dallas. And Memphis is not a very good team, but Memphis does play a style of defense that tests your ability to make the extra pass, and I thought we saw some of Okasee's better passing games of the season in that series, which I think bodes well for them for future matchups, not just Denver, but should they face a Minnesota or a Golden State in the Conference finals, should they face a Boston in the NBA Finals, that processing speed is going

to have to be really locked in for them, and I thought it looks good in the Warriors Rocket Series Series one exactly as I expected, except for that we got that extra game, and it was just one of multiple examples. And I'm going to wrap in the Lakers and the Timberwolves here for a second. Physicality matters, Like one of the biggest takeaways I had from the first round is like, if you're just a bunch of big,

strong athletes, it just makes everything so much easier. And so I think there are certain teams like the Lakers, for instance, Like if I saw this exact same Lakers roster more or less going to the playoffs next year, I would discount them as a substantial threat because I thought Minnesota exposed them as a team that is just nowhere near physical enough to be able to thrive in the postseason. The Lakers are going to have to make substantial changes to their roster to be able to hang

in this setting. Like I thought, it looked a lot. I thought it looked a lot closer to what happened Phoenix, you know, than some of the tougher series that we saw over the course of Minnesota's playoff run last year. And so like that piece, and then looking at the Golden State series, similarly, all those different things panned out like steph was able to find a way to score against them. You know, their defense was able to strangle Houston.

But the big thing that stood that stood out there was like Houston's size and athleticism was a problem and Golden State didn't really conquer that problem until about, you know, halfway through that third quarter there in Game seven. So just a lot of takeaways for me in that first round about how important that physicality and athleticism piece is.

Last note on the Lakers piece, just the importance of conditioning for your top tier players like Aunt and Julius just consistently outperforming Luca, Lebron and Austin down the clutch stretches of those games, not as read doing a ton of damage in those situations. Lots of lessons to be learned there. And then for Denver, Denver versus the Clippers.

You know, I've heard a lot of talk about how depth is so important these days, and again, as I have always said, depth is absolutely important, but I still think superstars decide outcomes. And Nikole Jokic was far and away better than Harden and Kawhi in that first round series. Don't read the box score. It was a much tougher series for him in terms of efficiency and volume because

he was dealing with a bigger center in Zubots. But the offense for Denver hummed at an extremely high level when Yokich was on the floor down the tail end of the series, and I thought he was the difference in all those different ways. And you can even apply that same concept to all these other series. Brunson badly outplayed Paid down the stretch of games, that's why they won, and badly outplayed Luca down the stretch of games, that's why they won. Like Halliburton, even in the Pacers series,

Jason Tatum out playing Palo and Franz. It's the Superstars, Steph Curry out playing Fred van Vliet in a Game seven when it mattered Like ultimately, Superstars still determine the outcomes of these games. But happy to have the first round of the book. That's all we have for our YouTube live show tonight. We are headed over to playback right now, So again, click the link that's in the description of this video. Head over to playback. We'll get started there and just a couple of minutes and we'll

take some questions from you guys. We'll let you guys come on stage, we' watch some film, lots of interesting stuff to get into. I'll see you guys over there in just a few minutes. But so guys, as always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. They 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, but if you could take a minute to do that,

I'd really appreciate it. The volume