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All right, alter to tonight. You're at the volume heavy Sunday. Everybody help.
All of you guys are having a great weekend. We're just gonna be breaking down for about ten to fifteen minutes that Game seven between the Calves and the Magic. Got a lot of content coming out today. Earlier this morning, we released our series preview on Knicks Pacers.
You can find that on the feed.
I recorded like a forty five minute film session on Game one of Timberwolves Nuggets. That's also gonna be up on the feeds here shortly. And I'm also going with Colin Cowhard later tonight to bounce around all the NBA storylines after the first round and heading into the second round. So lots and lots of content coming out today, and then tomorrow morning we're gonna have another three. We got our series previews for the Thunder and the MAVs as
well as the Celtics and the Calves. And then we're also going to have Game two Nuggets Timberwolves, and I think we have h there's a Game one tomorrow night as well of Nicks Pacer. So just a ton of content coming out over the next couple of days. You guys know the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more
of our videos. Follow me on Twitter, I underscore JSNLTS, you guys, don't miss you announcements, don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. And then keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the of the postseason.
All right, let's talk some basketball.
So you know, this series got a little bit hairrier than it needed to be. I think if Jared Allen was healthy, this series would have ended in six. Obviously, Orlando's like a buzzsaw at home, and it would have been tough, but Allan, it just makes Orlando's physical advantages that much more imposing. They're already bigger than Cleveland, but when you play Evan Mobley was undersized at the center position but plenty of size at the power forward position.
When you play him at the center, you just put yourself into a bunch of physical predicaments, right, And like that kind of allowed Orlando to do more damage to Cleveland over the trail end of the tail end of the series, like making Game five such a tough game, right, winning Game six, having a substantial lead in Game seven.
Those were the physical advantages. And honestly, when Jared Allen is out of the picture, it just puts a ton of pressure on the Cavs guards to be like, not just good offensively, but great offensively.
When Jared Allen was in.
The picture, they were better shot creators obviously than Orlando. We talked about that before the series, but they could have more margin for air or when they're healthy. With Jared Allen out, they had to be awesome, and they were awesome. When once again, it cannot say enough about Donovan Mitchell in this series, eighty nine points in the last two games. Damn near ended this thing in six anyway,
and did end it tonight. But early in this game it got a little tricky because the Cavs guards were struggling. I think Mitchell's was like two first first eight or something like that. Mitchell got off to a rough start
and Orlando was like red hot from three. They made seven of their first fourteen threes, and Orlando went up by eighteen, and it looked bad because in a series like this where the defenses are so good and the offenses on either side are less than great, it was one of those things where eighteen points might as well be thirty five, you know, in a different series. Right, But three things turned the game around. One an amazing
defensive effort from the whole team. But I also thought Isaacacorro really led the charge just with his energy and effort and really good individual defense on Paolo. And then Orlando cooled off from three. They were seven for their first fourteen, but they were three for their last seventeen, and one was in garbage time. And Orlando is a
very bad jump shooting team. We're going to talk about that in a big picture sense here in a few minutes, But that seven to fourteen was the outlier, so just staying engaged in the game, not letting go of the rope, hanging around long enough for the shots to start missing for you to flip the script. And then lastly, Donovan Mitchell got going again once again by beating people off
the dribble. Caroselvert two did a really nice job generating rim pressure over the course of the whole series, but in that third quarter run Donovan Mitchell has thirty nine today, just an unbelievable carry job carrying the offense for Cleveland in this series.
And then huge.
Plays late Evan Mobley Obviously we don't think of him as much of his score, but like he had not even counting the dunks, and in garbage time hit a couple of big buckets, once on a pocket pass, which again gris Burke was like, this is worth. Evan is most comfortable in the pocket and pick and roll, not really like that's usually a weakness of his. But he confronted that weakness, made a big floater in the role.
And then he also had a little like kind of post move in the middle of the floor to rescue a possession for his fifth and sixth points. Earlier in the fourth quarter with big buckets from Mobiley. Then they were out hustling Orlando. This is a big thing I talked about the idea of like scar tissue in the NBA playoffs. The thing that kind of taught me this lesson was the twenty twelve Miami Heat. I remember towards the tail end of that series with Oklahoma City in
the finals. The Thunder were the younger, more athletic team, but the Heat, especially the veteran Heat players, were like making more hustle plays to beat the Thunder to basketball. I remember there was a big offensive rebound off of a missed free throw from Shane Battier at the end of a big game late in that series, and like I remember sitting there thinking, like the Heat just got embarrassed in the finals by the MAVs.
They're playing with this like fear of loss.
In that Oklahoma City team that they were kind of like new kids on the block, you know, not as they haven't dealt with as much of that scar tissue and loss over the years, right, and so they just didn't It sounds reductive to just say like they didn't want it as much, but like there was clearly a level of like desperation that that Miami Heat team had because they did not want to lose two years in a row in the finals. That kind of pushed them
over the top against Oklahoma City. And that's the thing, Like Cleveland got embarrassed by the Knicks last year.
They got killed on the offensive glass.
Evan Mobley got exposed as a as a limited offensive player rolling to the basket and pick and roll. Mitchell Robinson did an absolute number to their entire front line. It was just bad. It was really really bad. Jalen Brunson outplayed Donovan Mitchell. It was just bad. Right, So they come into this series not wanting to lose in the first round again. There is a and a desperation with Cleveland in Orlando's the newer guys on the block, they haven't felt with a dealt with as much of
that pain and loss. They don't have as much of that desperation. And there were some big hustle plays late that went Cleveland's direction, That play where Karris Lavert beat everyone down the floor in the late fourth quarter for that reverse layup in transition, horrible transition defense from Orlando. They just didn't get back. Then the Darius Garland missed three in the corner. Isaacacorro just beats Pallo to the loose ball and then that gets worked back around.
Also shout out to Donovan Mitchell.
Just trusted Garland again to take the exact same shot and he made it the second time around. They were making the hustle plays late in Orlando kind of let go of the rope, and so again that's if you're Orlando, those are the lessons you have to learn. Looking forward, big win for Cleveland, though they were up against it. They're down eighteen against an elite and elite defense with massive size advantages, and they somehow managed to flip the
script once again. Put a lot of pressure on their guards to be great, and and Donovan Mitchell just was great. He just was great down the stretch of the series. Unbelievable work from especially if you factor and he's on a bulky knee. Looking forward for both teams, starting with the Caps, We're gonna do a full series preview later. But they were one and two in the season series
with Boston. If you remember, their one win was the game that they were up excuse me, they were trailing by twenty two to nine minutes left, and that was the game that Dean Wade got going. Remember the Celtics kept leaving him open, and then then he got in rhythm, and then then he started hitting a little bit more
contested shots. And then I can't I think it was Drew Holliday and missed a box out on him at the end of the game, and Dean Wade got an offensive rebound put back dunk that ended up winning the game. And that was the one where Jason Tatum got the really bad foul call shooting the fade away over Darius Garland, and then they overturned it on review. So like, you lost two games and then the one game you won,
you trailed by twenty two to nine minutes left. So like, we're gonna do a series preview on it later, but I don't it's really hard for me to see a
pathway to victory for Cleveland. To put it simply, Boston might not be as physically imposing as Orlando, but you're go going from playing the least offensively skilled playoff team in Orlando to probably the most offensively skilled playoff team in Boston in terms of total skilled down the roster, right, And like like Miami put bam at Abayo on Tatum and kind of removed him from the series in terms of like devoting most of their defensive attention to him.
And it was just like Jalen Brown gets going and Derek White gets going, and it's just that they just have too many weapons and it's going to put Cleveland in a lot of minds on both ends of the floor. So again, we'll do a full series preview later, but don't see much of a pathway there for Cleveland. On the magic side of things, a very successful season, you
made the playoffs. Pallo is clearly a star. Twenty seven points per game in your first playoff series against that type of defense when no one else on your team can really get anything else going.
That's super impressive.
And what's crazy is like, like most young players, he still has a ton of fat in his game, Like he has so many bad possessions and bad like decisions and like really difficult shots that he doesn't really need to take. Just wait until he trims the fat and identifies. Like I talk about with young basketball players, there's a
simple dynamic that takes place over the years. You get better at identifying what works and how to replicate it, and you get better at identifying what doesn't works and how it doesn't work and how to trim it out of your game. And Palo will do that over the years.
And like he has such physical advantages, he just strikes me as the kind of guy that can be like a consistent twenty seven plus point a game, playoff guy well over sixty percent true shooting lots of easy shots close to the basket with bullyball that he's going to be able to lean on in big situations. I think Palo is going to be amazing, but they need to come up with a plan to get a legitimate skill guard to pair next to Palo right. Obviously, I'm a
big believer in like skill guard athlete guard right. And there's a bunch of different directions they can go there. They can try to target that kind of skill guard through the draft, or they can do it on the trade market. I'd be making calls on guys like Devin Book, de jhon Te Murray if the heater looking to pivot this summer. I'd be calling on Tyler Harrow, even DeAngelo Russell from the Los Angeles Lakers.
Again, he is not a guy that you want to lean on.
In the playoffs, but he is a real asset in the regular season, and as long as you can cover for him athletically elsewhere on the floor, he can help in a lot of ways. He's a good playmaker and a really good spot up player. Right, So there's a bunch of guys that they can be making calls on.
But no matter what, regardless of what they do, whether they address that through the draft or through the trade market, every single player on that roster needs to be in the gym all damn summer working on their jump shots. The playoffs reveal your weaknesses. In Cleveland exposed Orlando as a team that can't shoot, and then we knew that throughout the regular season. But like hacking the paint, every single defensive scheme geared towards just baiting them into taking
jumpers that they're not gonna make. It just needs to be something they address. Franz Wagner in particular, he's a guy that had a lot of hype over the last couple of years, is like this big playmaking forward and really make the reads. But you cannot make reads if you don't generate openings in the defense. By dragging multiple defenders. You're not going to do that unless you prove that
you can be a threat to score. And if you're only a threat to score going downhill to eurostep floaters and stuff along those lines, and you're not a threat to knock down a jump shot, you just make yourself that much easier to guard.
And like, he just had a really bad.
Jump shooting season all year, but especially against Cleveland.
It's just something he's got to address. Franz is kind of hitting a little bit.
Of a wall in his development because of his lack of development of a jump shot. That's something that he's going to have to work on. But bottom line, you can't be leaning on these big forwards that can't really consistently shoot to generate all your offense. So again, that skill guard piece is what I'd be looking at.
And they just have a lot of really good players.
You have a lot of guys like Jalen Suggs and Wendell Carter Junior and Jonathan Isaac that other teams want. And if you can put the piece those guys together to get a star, Like if you can go get a Devin Booker, I would literally be Colin Phoenix, and I'd be like, here's Jalen Suggs, Here's Jonathan Isaac, Here's Wendell Carter Junior. Give me Devin Booker with Pala Buancaro and Franz Wagner, and I'll find guys that can do the other jobs, and we're gonna win a lot of
basketball a lot of basketball games. I think that that's something that they can look into. But again, gotta find some sort of legitimate skill guard to pair with your dominant forwards. All right, guys, that is all I have for this particular show. Again, I'm gonna be back later this afternoon with something I've already recorded, a film breakdown of Timberwolves Nuggets, and then also later this evening with Colin Cowhard that's gonna be on the Colin Cowherd podcast
YouTube feed. We're recording here in about four hours, so it should be up maybe in about six hours later this evening. All right, guys, I appreciate you, guys. I'll see you later today.
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