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you guys today. We're gonna get both of tonight's game to the Boston Celtics close out the injured Cleveland Cavaliers to advance to the Conference finals. I thought Jason Tatum was absolutely amazing down the stretch of that game after Cleveland made a little bit of a run to get it close in the early fourth quarter.
We're gonna break that game down.
The Dallas Mavericks go into Oklahoma City and amend their ugly loss in Game four at home to take a three to two lead. Luka Doncic plays one of his best games of the postseason. We're gonna break that game down, and then at the tail end of the show, we're gonna hit about ten to fifteen minutes of mail bag questions. I have Paul, our lead producer here, he's gonna be
tracking you guys in the chat. So drop some mail bag questions in the chat and Paul's gonna send them to me, and then we're gonna hit them at the tail end of the show. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to a brand new YouTube channels.
You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys don't miss youw announcements, don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight, and then keep dropping mail bag questions in the YouTube comments and we keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So Luka Doncic bounced back, had
an amazing game tonight. You know, I said about Jamal Murray after Game two, there is a tendency like this is kind of like the inner battle that every competitor tries to have, right when things aren't going your way, there's a natural part of you behind the scenes that will try to look for a reason, Yeah, well I did this yesterday that messed up my routine. Or oh I'm dealing with this injury that's kind of preventing me
from having that little bit of explosiveness. Or oh my teammates aren't doing this, or my coaches aren't doing that, or the refs aren't letting me do this. It's kind of human nature, right, and you know, part of that competitiveness is fighting against that and finding a way to
be great anyway. And like that's the thing, Like with Jamal Murray, there were a lot of reasons why you could have pointed to that game to shit show, right, Like, oh, Minnesota's playing great defense, he's getting hacked and fouled all over the court. Obviously, he just came out of a difficult series with the Lakers, and now he's dealing with this calf injury. There's all these reasons, right, But the problem is is Game three is still two days later?
You know, Well, for every other series, obviously for that series he got a little bit of a longer break. But that's the thing with Luka Doncic situation. Had a really rough Game four, right, more turnovers than made field goals, was on the floor seemingly all night long, was really really accentuating his injury in terms of his body language, was constantly complaining to the referees, and it's like, yeah, but guess what Game five is on Wednesday, So you
just gotta find a way. And one of the big things I talked about after that game is like cutting down on mistakes, right, Like, so much of what makes a basketball player effective is decision making. And so even when you're banged up, if you just really focus in on handling ball pressure soundly, being more diligent about avoiding some of the aggressive defensive things that Oklahoma City can do, and just read the floor and do what Luka Doncic is better than most people at, which is playing half
court surgery. If you just do that, your decision making will rise to the surf and we'll carry you through. Then you'll build confidence and rhythm, and then it won't matter that you're moving at eighty five.
Percent of whatever your normal level of mobility was.
I thought it was abundantly clear from the opening tip of this game that Luka Dancich had a different level of focus. I thought that he was way less worried about the officials, way less worried about whatever jank defense lou Dort was playing, way less worried about whatever was going on with him physically or whatever. He just was focused on the game, and I thought he was magnificent.
It reminded me a lot of that bounce back from Jamal Murray in Game three against Minnesota, in the sense that like, you can take a look at all the excuses and run to the bank with them and find out it's not going to help you win the series, or you can confront all those excuses, focus on controlling what you can control, and just find a way to be better. And Luca did that in a big way tonight.
He had less than half as many turnovers as he did in the last game, hit a bunch of big momentum shots, had doubled the number of madefield goals finished with thirty nine or thirty one to ten and eleven only three turnovers, was plus thirteen in his minutes. Just a dominant performance, big thing that was standing out to me, especially early in the game. And this is something that Luca does better than basically everybody in the league at this point.
As a perimeter player.
Jokic, I think is a similar level passer, but it's obviously a different type of offensive initiation than what Luka Dancic does. But Luca's really good at reading all three levels of the defense. And when I think about the different levels of the defense, the first level is the point of attack, that's the guy who's guarding on the basketball.
The second level is whatever the screen defense is. Right, So if there's a ball screen from a big man, it's usually gonna involve some form of drop coverage, hedge, or blitz, right, Like, it's either gonna be a blitz or a hedge, or it's gonna be high drop or a low drop, a catch atge, something along those lines, right, all those different coverage ideas. Maybe a switch if you
throw it in there. Right, If it's a guard to guard screen, it's either gonna be a switch, or it's gonna be a hedge in recover or a blitz.
Right like those are.
That's the second level of the defense is reading who's involved in the action, meaning if it's a two man action or three man action, whatever, those two or three defenders reading what they're doing. The third level of the defense is the back line, and almost always the third
level of the defense is going to have an advantage situation. Right, It's almost always going to be like a guy in the dunker spot and a guy in the weak side corner with only one guy guarding him right, or the roller will get behind and it'll be like just the roller, the low man and the shooter in the corner. It's almost always a two on one. And the reason why most defenses are willing to concede that is the simple
fact that most passers can't make those reads. The majority of the guys in the league can read that first level of the defense. That can the good ones can read the second level of the defense. Only the great
ones can read that third level of the defense. And I just thought between making beautiful skip passes to the corner to Derek Jones Junior, who was hot at the beginning of this game, to finding the vertical spacers between Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively and Derek Jones Junior himself just constantly finding reading that back line defender, that lowman and identifying like, oh, he's glued up to the corner shooter. Well,
this guy's cutting along the baseline. I can throw the lob. Oh, he's more geared up to stop the guy cutting along the baseline. Well, my skip pass to Derek Jones Junior is open there.
I thought.
He just did an excellent job of that half court surgery that we're talking about. It is a big time bounce back game from Luka Doncic. Really, the ebb and flow of this series on the Dallas front has mostly come down to Luca's play. He got badly outplayed by Shay in Game one, they lost. He got badly outplayed by Shay in Game four. They lost. Every other game of the series, Luca's been able to at least either play that even or win that matchup, and it's gone
Dallas's direction. That's the responsibility and the expectation that comes from being one of the best players in the league and being the best player on a team that has real championship expectations. Luca passed a big test tonight on the road to two series against an elite, physical, pain in the ass perimeter defender in Lou Dort. So shout out to Luca, big game from him. Derek Jones Jr. He was a big part of their early start. You know.
I was talking about this yesterday with my buddy Sam Vassini. We were texting about it, or two days ago we were texting about it. I think Derek Jones Jr. Is probably the best veteran minimum signing in the.
League this year.
The other guy that you'd be looking at is Kelly Ubray with the Sixers, and he obviously had more scoring pot, but I just don't think he's as good as a perimeter defender as Derek Jones Jr. And he's a little bit more willing to stay on script, while Kelly's a little bit more willing to kind of like freelance and kind.
Of hijack possessions.
And so I'm not I think Kelly has also been a very good veteran minimum signing, but I think Derek Jones Jr. Has probably been the best veteran minimum signing in the league this year. And again that's a shout out to Dallas's front office because to put it simply, when you're operating on the margins the way teams like Dallas are. When you go all in on a trade for a guy like Kyrie Irving, when you go all in again for the Gafford PJ.
Washington deal, you basically.
Have to nail all of those little fringe types of moves right. And getting a guy like Derek Jones Junior at a veteran minimum salary was an absolute home run. And he's now one of your five best players. He's one of the guys you're leaning on in a big way in these environments. I think he's done an outstanding job guarding Shake Gilds as Alexander in this series. He's been able to convert spot up possessions both by knocking
down three point shots and slashing into the paint. He's got that vertical spacing piece that we were talking about earlier. Luca just always has an eye on where Derek Jones is, has a really good feel for the timing of Derek Jones's footwork when he jumps, and so Luca always seems to get him the pass in the absolute perfect spot. Those of you guys who have played basketball and are athletic or have been playing with real athletes. You know, that lob throwing, it's like you either kind of can
do it or you can't. There's that famous clip that was going around in game I think it was Game two or three where Jalen Williams was making fun with his teammates of Shay for being a bad lob thrower. And I think Isaiah Joe might have made a joke about how he's bad at passing in general, but like that's the thing, Like lob passing is kind of an art and Lucas just amazing at it and you can tell he's got the chemistry with all of their vertical spacers.
Oklahoma City's youth, I think has been showing in a big way in this series, and again there are examples. I think youth is winning in a lot of ways in this postseason, but not youth in the early twenties. It's mainly been youth in the older twenties that have
been thriving. It's been the guys that are in their prime, the twenty six to twenty nine years old that have been kicking the shit out of the early to mid thirties veteran stars, right and but Oklahoma City is very, very young after Shay, and I think what you're seeing in a lot of cases is bad decision making in intense environments, which is a typical kind of thing that you can see with young basketball players. They struggle to slow themselves down when the intensity gets to a certain level.
The big thing that's been standing out to me in this series is bad rim decisions. And I'm gonna start by giving you guys a couple of stats because I think these two stats will drive this point home. Coming into tonight, the Oklahoma City Thunder in this series have been generating just sixteen wide open threes per game. Remember that's the defender at least six feet away. They're shooting well on them. They' shooting forty four percent on them.
Got some bad luck on those tonight, couple of huge ones that Keason Wallace missed, and again he hit the big ones in the last game, So that's kind of the nature of making miss basketball. But they're not generating nearly as many. They're only generating sixteen per game in this series, not counting tonight. Obviously the stats haven't updated, but they were averaging twenty three per game in the regular season, that's a time and a half as many.
So to put it simply, you're experiencing like a thirty percent reduction in the wide open threes that you're generating, in large part because you were forcing shots at the rim against rim protection.
Here's the other stat to drive that home.
They shot sixty eight percent in the regular season in the restricted area. That's a really good number. They're shooting fifty eight percent in this postseason at the rim.
It's so much just.
Like getting worked up and trying to confront problems with youthful exuberance and athleticism when so much of this type of basketball is about take a deep breath, slow down, and take advantage of the easy shots.
That are available to you.
We're gonna talk about Jason Tatum here in a minute, who had, in my opinion, his best game of the postseason tonight and just did an unbelievable job picking apart the calves down the stretch of that game when they started to get it close. And the beautiful thing about it, we're gonna get into the details here in a minute. He did it with easy reads like it wasn't like he was like deeply manipulating the defense. He was taking advantage of easy stuff that was in front of him.
That is what wins at this level.
It's all about the guys that can slow down, read what's happening in front of them and make decisions. And a lot of Oklahoma City's youth has been flashing in that regard in this series because they're just so rushed and they're forcing things. Ironically, because we're going to go back to Tatum and the Celtics here, it reminds me of the Celtics Bucks series in twenty twenty two. If you guys remember that Bucks team had no Chris Middleton
and so they had no Chris Middleton and no PJ. Tucker, two guys that were really important in the championship run in twenty twenty one, right, and so it put a substantially larger shot creation responsibility on Giannis and Tennecompo and Drew Holliday when you put him in that big of a usage role, can fall apart in terms of his efficiency, which he did. And so that was a series the Celtics should have won in like five games. But a
big reason why that series got dragged out. Part of it was Giannis's greatness but another part of it but was bad rim decisions. That was a series where Milwaukee was keeping brook Lopez at the rim, and it was like Tatum and Brown that they were just forcing the issue downhill and like trying to take bad shots over brook Lopez at the rim, and then they'd miss slide out of bounds into camera row and Milwaukee would run out the other way and Giannis would get something going.
In transition, that series turned at the end of the series in large part one. Tatum had a magnificent shot making game in game six, but they also just did a better job but finally making those good rim decisions, Like, hey, we're doing exactly what Milwaukee wants us to do. We are challenging the strength of their defense, which is their rim protection. If you're looking at Dallas's defense, it's similar to what we were talking about with Oklahoma City in
terms of the three levels of their defense. The strength of Dallas's defense is the point of attack and at the rim they have rim protection, and they have good point of attack defenders, but they've got guys.
Usually on the weak side.
It is a guy like Luca, it is a guy like Kyrie that's in those two on ones on the weak side defensively, and so if you could capitalize in some of the weak part of Dallas's defense, you might have more success. But instead, by attacking one on one and forcing shots against rim protection, you were playing directly into Dallas's strength defensively, and it just was like a
lot of really poor decisions attacking closeouts. They had a good stretch at the end of the third quarter, or they were making those kickouts passes, they were just missing some good looks. Case On Wallace got a couple of good looks in that stretch, just happened to miss him. Mark Dagenol, if you guys remember, in his interview to start the fourth quarter, was like, I like that process there at the end of the third quarter. We just
have to keep trusting it. And then the first couple plays of the fourth quarter, there's a play where Aaron Wiggins drives a close out in the left corner and in chet Holmgren is standing completely wide open in the right corner, and instead of making the kickout pass, he tries to force like a lefty up and under reverse layup while screaming and yelling at the refs and jumping and flailing over three defenders and he misses it and they're going out the other way.
There's another play.
Lou Dort out of the left corner, drives a closeout, gets into the lane, there's an open shooter. Instead, he forces like a shovel pass to Chat at point blank range and throws it too low and it ends up being a turnover. It's like the decision making driving closeouts was a huge problem throughout this entire series and again in the big moments tonight. Honestly, that's the story of
the series. The main story of the series is Dallas has just done a much better job of taking advantage of the back line of Oklahoma City's defense in a way that Oklahoma City has not done for Dallas. And so as a result of that, the only real reliable offense that Oklahoma City has had to this point has been Shay's shot making. And it's been there and he's
been great. Another twelve for twenty two tonight for thirty one points, hit five threes, right like Shay is or excuse me, he's twelve for twenty two, hit two threes. He a really efficient game. But that's all you've got going because there isn't enough in terms of the overall rhythm and flow.
Of the offense.
Again, like I said, you're generating about two thirds as many wide open threes as you did in the regular season. That's a problem, and that is on your offensive approach. You have to do a better job looking forward. It's like what I said after Game four. I thought after Game four it was two to two, but I didn't think either team was playing particularly well. Like I thought, Dallas played like shit in that game, and if they make their free throws, this.
Series is over right.
So like it was obvious that both teams could play better, and Dallas did tonight. Dallas kind of put it all together tonight. Tonight felt like the game where Dallas had it all going right.
Like Luca and.
Kyrie both played much much better. They defended really well. Again, they've defended really well throughout most of the postseason, aside from a few stretches. They won the glass big time, forty six to thirty three. They won the points in the paint battle. They had twenty seven assists to just twenty for Oklahoma City. They put it all together tonight, and they controlled the basketball game in one right. Okay, c He's gonna need to do the exact same thing
in Dallas in order to extend this series. But part of this is the reality of younger basketball players. Like I talked about so many times over the years, young basketball players really struggle to identify what's working and replicate it and identify what's not working and trim that fat. Veteran players are much better on the fly at picking those things up and making those tweaks to make sure that they replicate what's working and stay away from what's
not working. But Oklahoma City does have the talent to go into Dallas and win in Game six. I mean, how they did it in Game four without even playing particularly well, So it's on the table. They just have to identify what's working and repeat it and avoid some of the same pitfalls that they've run into over the course of the series. I do think Dallas is going to close it out in six, but I believe that Oklahoma City has a good chance, and we will see what happens in a few nights. And I think that
one is actually pushed to Saturday. I think there's a little bit of time off, which is another really nice treat for Luca because I'm pretty sure. Tomorrow is Nuggets Wolves, and then the following day is Nicks Pacers, which is an extra day off that really benefits obviously the Knicks with Jalen Brunson dealing with his foot injury. And then I think the Dallas game is on Saturday. So depending on how things go with our game seven, this might be our last two game night of the year. We'll
see how it goes. All right, Movie on to Boston. So kind of a weird game, right close out game. You Ma through comes out this hair hair on fire, super aggressive, a little bit of like hesitant basketball. Early in the game, a lot of Celtics were kind of hijacking the show, and Tatum just wasn't very involved. Even though Tatum looked locked in, he had this like driving contact dunk at the rim early on where I thought he got fouled.
And he didn't get the call. I wasn't really involved early.
You know how that goes with closeout games, just kind of it's really hard to put a team away, right, So Cav's going to run. They cut it to three in the fourth quarter. It's eighty eight eighty five, and I want to kind of go possession by possession through what I thought was a really, really fascinating stretch of Jason Tatum basketball, and one that I thought was, you know, a really a kind of like an exhibition of what makes Tatum so good.
Right.
And this is something where I have to do a better jobs as an analyst because I tend to get really focused on, you know, a specific take that I'm trying to drive home, and then a lot of times I lose sight of the bigger picture. And like, I love Anthony Edwards. I think he's something that American basketball is desperately needed. Love his personality, love his game, and I've kind of used Jason Tatum as a vehicle to
try to drive that point home. And you know, I haven't done a good job of making sure that I properly encapsulate what makes Tatum great while also accentuating what makes Aunt great.
Right.
And so the thing is is, like with Jason Tatum, there is a lot of focus on some of his scoring limitations, right, Like takes a lot of tough pull up jump shots, has a tendency to settle, you know,
there's a lack of aggression with him. Sometimes there's some of that stuff, right, And that is true, But there's a bigger picture of Jason Tatum's game, and he is a much better playmaker than the majority of his peers at the forward position, just an outstanding defensive player and rebounder and the guy that just helps a basketball team
do a lot of stuff to win games. And I thought tonight was kind of an interesting example of that, where if you were watching the game and you weren't paying attention to the specifics of what were happening what was happening, you might trick yourself into thinking that Tatum was being passive, but all he really was doing was playing smart, easy basketball to take advantage of some coverage
mistakes that the Calves were making. So at eighty eight eighty five, Jason Tatum is hanging out around the top of the key in like a straight iso and on the play, Al Horford sitting in the right corner and Evan Mobley is just completely ignoring him and he's just sitting right in the paint. Tatum goes, I don't need to beat my man off the dribble. I don't need to call for a ball screen. The defense is automatically
in rotation. If I simply make an on time, on target pass to al Horford in the corner, whips it to Al Horford in the corner. Horford drives the close out, forces Garland to help. Drew Holliday kind of does like a little banana cut into the front of the basket. Horford hits him, and Drew Holliday makes a little pop shot in the lane, an easy drive and drop off that was generated from Tatum just taking a deep breath,
slowing down, reading the floor, making an easy decision. Then on the very next possession, he's dribbling up the left wing and again, a lot of players would slow down, call for a ball screen, try to make it about them. No, he just looks up the floor and he goes, oh shit. Darius Garland's guarding Jayleen Brown and he's not really eving like up on him at this point, so he just throws a simple kick ahead past to Jalen Brown. Jalen
Brown rips to the left and drives downhill. Garland finally wakes up and cuts him off, but not until Jaln Brown gets pretty deep down to the left block. As a result of that, Evan Mobley has to double and so Jalen Brown makes a beautiful kickout pass, makes a beautiful kickout pass to the to Derek White, who hits the three. And it's like, that's an easy basketball play that Jason Tatum identified just by seeing that there was a transition cross match. Garland's guarding Jalen Brown, and Jalen
Brown is open on the wing. If I throw it to him, he's just gonna be able to rip through. He rips through, draws the second defender, which was mobiley, and then he hits Derek White. He knocks down the three. So the next possession, Garland gets a layup in a ball screen that cuts it. That cuts it to ninety three eighty seven. They go down to the other end of the floor and they run two man game, and
they run it with Tatum and Derek White right. The two defenders involved are I think it was Dean Wade was guarding Tatum at this point, and then Darius Garland was guarding Derek White.
Right.
Tatum has the ball. The coverage that most teams are gonna use in that situation is a hedge and recover right.
So Darius Garland.
Hedges and on the hedge, Dean Wade for some reason chases over the top a lot of times, like when you know a hedge is gonna be there, the hedge is gonna cut off the drive, so you don't need to chase over the top. You can actually go under and try to meet him on the other side because Garland is gonna cut him off and make him take
a retreat dribble. Typically, right, Instead, Dean Wade chased over the top of the screen, So when Tatum went around the hedge, by the time he finally got around Garland, Dean Wade had still not recovered to get back in front of Tatum. So this is easy basketball, right. Tatum just drives at the hedge, sees that Dean Wade hasn't recovered,
so he turns the corner and goes downhill. When he turns the corner and goes downhill, he just drives hard at the rim and he ends up pulling in Evan Mobley in help, and he just whips a beautiful cross court pass to the left corner, completely unguarded. Al Horford knocks down the three. Now it's ninety six to eighty seven. Similar kind of thing. On the very next possession, Jason Tatum is isolating on the left wing against Marcus Morris senior.
Jalen Brown is in the opposite corner.
In the right corner. Okay, Max Struce is guarding Jalen Brown, but is completely ignoring him and sitting in the paint. Once again, Tatum doesn't get baited into thinking Marcus Morris is too slow to guard me, I'm gonna try to beat him one on one. He just goes, why do I need to call for a screen? Why do I need to play io ball here? Jalen Brown's standing completely unguarded in the right corner, and Max Strus is gonna
have to close out to him. If I drive by Marcus Morris, I'm probably just gonna end up engaging Struce in help and making the same type of kickout pass. Anyway, Why make it more difficult than he needs to be. He just whips a cross court pass, hits Jalen Brown
right in the shooting pocket. He rips to the baseline and beats Stru's off the dribble, drops it off to Al Horford, standing wide open underneath the basket, gets a layup ninety eight to eighty seven, very next possession, exact same type of two man game that they ran with Derek White. The exact same functionality Garland hedges, Dean Wade chases over the top. For some reason, Tatum comes off the hedge, Dean Wade is not there, and as a result, he just steps into a wide open pull up three
at the top of the key knocks it down. It's one oh one eighty seven. Game over, takes one shot and dribbles off in action twice total, and yet every single possession made the decision that got Boston a great look. You know, I was kind of thinking about it because, like I had a mailback question the other night that I didn't actually get to because we ran out of time.
But one of you guys asked, like, oh, if Jason Tatum is not as good as the top tier guys in the league, how does that affect Boston and like their roster building in the future. You know, because I've always talked about how you need the guy right. And here's the thing, Like Tatum might not be a top tier superstar in the sense that he might not be the kind of guy who's gonna like perennially be in the MVP conversation, but he might be the perfect star
for this kind of roster build. He's playing with a lot of talented guys. But at the same time, most of these guys are talented guys that play best with an advantage.
Right. Jalen Brown's a guy that's got a good.
Amount of audacity and shot making ability to play on an island to kind of create for himself.
Right. Derek White has shown the ability to create for himself. Right.
But for the most part, especially against top tier competition, you'd prefer to have Jalen Brown operating with advantage. You'd prefer to have Derek White operating with an advantage. You'd prefer to have Drew Holliday operating with an advantage. You prefer to have Al Horford and krisops Porzingis operating with an advantage. And so having a somewhat passive superstar that is more willing to just kind of take advantage of
the easy reads that are available. And again, like I talked about, I think he's one of the best playmaking forwards in the league. I think he's a better passer than most of his peers at the position, and I
thought tonight was a great example of that. And so, in a weird way, I actually think he might be perfect for this group in the sense that if there was a real alpha dog superstar with this group, he might actually minimize some of the impact of the other five starter caliber players because they probably be relegated more
to smaller roles. Now there's a fine line, because I do think that Tatum is going to have to be effective and aggressive and efficient at the highest levels here, Like if they face Denver in the finals, I do think he's going to have to average thirty two to thirty three points per game on something above sixty percent true shooting. So like, again there's a fine line. There always comes a point Yoku tran into this in this series. There always comes a point where it's like, actually, I
need to do it myself. And the reason is I have the best physical gifts of any of my teammates. So in this hell hole of a fistfight of a stuck in the mud environment, I'm gonna need to be the guy that uses my size and strength to be impactful here. Right, So I do think he's gonna gonna have to be more aggressive as a scorer. But at the same time, like he's just had his three best this three game stretch here over the tail end of the Cavs series has been the best kind of scoring
basketball that he's played in this postseason run. So he's kind of starting to get that rhythm and groove going at the right time. But you know, I just want to say, like I you know, Jason Tatum. We've talked a lot about him on the show over the course the last couple of weeks by virtue of the whole debate with Anthony Edwards right, which by the way, was pitched as a mailback question by one of you guys.
But like, when it comes to to Tatum in a weird way, he might be the perfect fit for this team. I just think the final challenge for him, the final piece to push over the top if he wants to get the trophy, is gonna be identifying when it's like, hey, screw this, oh hierarchy stuff, give me the damn basketball. And by the way he did tonight, he didn't do it as a score. He did it as a passer. But he will eventually face a team down the line
that has better personnel. Probably Denver could could be a little bit of a challenge in the next round if the Knicks make it right, But like he will face a challenge where that specific type of heliocentric shot creation kind of stretch at the talent of a game requires him to be more aggressive as a scorer, and when he gets to that point, he'll need to confront that challenge and pass that challenge. But I just want to shout out Jason tATu. I thought he had a great,
a great close to the game tonight. We're not gonna really work a focus on the next round yet for
Boston until we find out who their opponent is. It's gonna be interesting if it ends up being the Knicks, who I believe it will be, just simply because the Knicks do not have the talent to hang with Boston, but they sure as hell can drag you down into the mud, and they're gonna play hard all the time, and Boston has had a little bit of an issue with inconsistent effort, and so I do think that'll be a longer series, although I'll be picking Boston to win.
But we'll get in to more detail on that when we get out of the out of this round entirely moving on to Cleveland, where did they go from here? There's a report released from the athletic immediately after the game. A couple of interesting kind of like tidbits in there. First of all, there's growing optimism around the league that Mitchell might extend. Thought that was interesting because there's been a lot of narrative based stuff about him, about him
wanting to leave. I don't think you can take that to the bank necessarily, but that's somewhat encouraging if you're a Cavs fan, Right, But then it immediately got kind of counteracted by this report from Darius Garland, who is with Clutch Sports excuse me, that some of his production has gone down since the Mitchell trade, and that if Cleveland extends Donovan Mitchell, that he may want a trade.
And so the point is is they're definitely it's looking more and more like they're gonna they need to choose between one of those two guys. Now, I want to kind of talk about the roster build in general. First, before, we talked about some specific some specific kind of strategy stuff for them going into the offseason, so we knew going into this year it's kind of a similar type
of problem that the Lakers had, where they've got some redundancies. Right, the Lakers have two skill guards and they have two power forwards playing at the three and four right, and so there's some diminishing returns because it's like, all of a sudden, you don't have a four decking guard on the perimeter. So now Rui's chasing Michael Porter Junior around. That's a disaster. It was one of the big factors
that cost him a series. You have two skill guards, no real athletes, so you get inconsistent play from both of them, and then Austin Reeves is forced to guard Jamal Murray all series, which is something that hurt them, especially at the end of games.
Right.
So like when you have diminishing returns because of red or when you have redundancies in your roster, you tend to get diminishing returns.
Cavs kind of have a similar type of situation, right.
Two interior based bigs that play at the same time, and then two ball dominant pick and roll guards, neither of which is particularly big and neither of which is particularly committed to the point of attack defensively, and so there can be some redundancy, there can be some diminishing returns there. Now I want to focus on each of them individually. So first of all, the two guard build. I actually grew more optimistic about it this year just
because of Donovan Mitchell's defense. I thought he had the best defensive season of his career. But when they got to the playoffs, Donovan Donovan's workload went up such a huge level that it kind of became untenable to ask him to continue to do the athletic guard stuff defensively while also carrying everything he was carrying offensively. And Donovan did not have as good of a defensive postseason as he did in the regular season, particularly in help he
got burned quite frequently. Right, So, like, I do think that when you really kind of take a second to decompress and look back at this season, it's just a lot to ask for those two guards to kind of mesh in the right way. And so I do believe that that's probably the direction that you have to go, is splitting up the two guard build. Also, I think Max Strus, because of his kind of his willingness to play off the ball offensively, is kind of like an
off screen threat and as a spot up threat. And then a Strus is just is just completely committed to the defensive end in terms of like will he will give you high motor effort there the point of attack all season. Right, So I actually think of Strusmore as a two next to Garland or Mitchell, whichever one you end up keeping, And I look at the three as the position you want to upgrade and try to find
a starting caliber two way player there. Right, you got to base the decision based on what Donovan Mitchell wants, because Donovan Mitchell is a better player than Darius Garland. I like Darius Garland. I don't think he has too much of a ceiling that's going to be super, super encouraging. Right, So, if Mitchell extends, I think you look to trade Garland for starting caliber three. If Mitchell doesn't extend, then I would trade Donovan Mitchell and keep and commit to Darius Garland.
Right now, the interesting thing there is which one of those guys commits. If it ends up being Mitchell wants to trade and you keep Garland, I think you have to look for more of a high powered, offensive minded forward.
That's where it might be worthwhile, especially with Evan Mobley's defensive versatility and his ability to compete on the perimeter, to look more or at some of the offensive guys like maybe you do look for a guy like a lowri market in right, Like, maybe you do look for a more of like a an offensive thread at that position, right,
maybe a Kyle Kuzma or something like that. Right, But if it's Mitchell that you keep and you end up trading Garland, Mitchell is such a high powered offensive player, I'd be looking for more of a two way thread at the three. That's where I'd be looking more at like a McHale Bridges. Maybe you call Brooklyn and you try to see if you can trade Darius Garland for a guy like Michale Bridges. Right like that, that's kind
of the tipping point there is. I don't think Garland is high powered enough offensively for you not to have a scoring forward next to him. Mitchell, I think can play with more of like a versatile two way Swiss Army knife type of forward because of the impact that he has offensively. As far as the two Bigs looks look goes, Mobley's offensive development isn't where you want it to be at this point, but it is coming along
little by little, and he did make progress this year. Also, like he's just not big enough to be a full time center and so the way I look at it, the athletic in size and rebounding advantages that come from the Mobley Allen front court exceed the downsides of some of their offensive limitations, and Mobili will continue to get better over the years.
And so when I.
Look at like the core build of Cleveland, I think of it as whichever one of the two guards you keep struce at the two, I'd stick with Mobley Allen and just try to upgrade that three spot depending on which one of the two guards that you.
End up getting.
All Right, before we get out here, let's take a look at our mail bag. Assuming they stay healthy. Is this version of the Nuggets unstoppable? I can't see anyone left beating them in a seven game series. So I've been really impressed by Denver, and I do think that their offense is unstoppable in the sense that, like over the last three games, they have an offensive rating over
one twenty seven. And we're talking about a Minnesota Timberwolves team that not only was the best defense the league in the regular season, was clearly the best defense in the league through the first six playoff games, and is literally constructed by a former Denver executive to be Taylor made to beat the Denver Nuggets, right, and they.
Sure as hell can't stop.
Like, you know, there's been a lot of talk about Rudy Gobert after last night's game, and like, do I think Rudy Gobert deserves all four Defensive Player of the Year?
Not necessarily.
I don't think he's the best defensive player in the league, and I think he's got a deeply entrenched media backing that kind of gives him a lot of a leg up when it comes to reward season. But I do think he's a top five ish defensive player in the league. And it's more just fascinating that Rudy Gobert was targeting him simply from the standpoint of Jokic's greatness that for him, he's thinking, Oh, that guy, that guy that's the best
defensive player of the world. I'd rather attack him on an island because then I don't have to worry about him and help and I know that I can go through him whenever I want. And so that's more of a testament to Jokic than anything else. But I do think that Denver clearly demonstrated that they can score on anybody.
Now here's the thing.
The Lakers and the Timberwolves gave the Nuggets issues for different reasons. Right, The Lakers gave the Nuggets issues because they have incredible interior passing Lebron James and Anthony Davis and Ruey Hotcha Mura cutting along the baseline, rolling to the basket and ball screens, Lebron going downhill, Dlo and Austin Is spacing shooters. They have so much offensive firepower
in their starting lineup. Remember that team was what third and second or third in offense for the last half of the season if I remember correctly, so like that was an elite offense. But their issue was they didn't have the personnel to contain Jamal Murray and so they constantly ended up dealing with problems Layden games with getting
stops on Jamal Murray. So Denver was able to overcome that matchup by being like, oh, that's great that you guys are so good offensively, but we're better offensively.
Right.
The Minnesota series was different because Minnesota, it's like they've got excellent perimeter defenders. Instead of Austin Reeves on Jamal Murray, now it's Nikkeil Alexander Walker, and Jada McDaniels and Anthony Edwards, and they have given him hell in this series for the most part, Right, Jokic, It's like wave after wave of size. Like the Lakers did not have a two big look Minnesota does.
Right.
Minnesota's got these kind of big, trunky, power forward center hybrids that they put in front of Gobert. And so there's like this layered approach to their defense that really gave Denver some problems. But the way that Denver was able to regain control of that series is Minnesota's offense sucks, and so as soon as Denver really engaged themselves defensively, they were able to grind that Minnesota offense into the ground.
Right.
This is where Boston is unique. Boston has both the perimeter talent to make life more difficult on Jamal Murray, Kintavious Kalbo Pope, Reggie Jackson, and Michael Porter Junior, while also having the and I'm talking about the defensive end, while also having the super high powered offense on the other end. Now, the counterpoint is Chrisops Perzingis and Al Horford, knt Garden, Kola Jokic, You're absolutely right, You're absolutely right,
that's gonna be a disaster. But the way I would the flip side there is if Minnesota can't stop them, Like, what advantage is there really, Because if Yokich and Murray in that offense are gonna rip through Minnesota's defense to the tune of one hundred and twenty seven something points per one hundred possessions, then it really doesn't matter what defensive personnel Minnesota has, especially when they go over to the other end in Minnesota can't score, and so Boston
I actually think has the capability to get into a shootout with Denver and win. Now I will be picking Denver to win that series. I think they are more consistently at their ceiling and I think they are the safe bet. I believe Denver's going to win the championship, but I do not think this is just over. I think Boston has a really good chance. I think Boston specifically, one of the things with Boston, we talked about the high drop coverage that they've been using against Anthony Edwards. Right,
did a whole video breakdown on it today. Jokic did an amazing job in Game five at the level of the screen containing Anthony Edwards using active hands to force turnovers. He just had a great defensive game. He's been great defensively for the last three games. But the problem there is you can take the ball out Anthony Edwards's hands because there's just no offensive talent around him, especially with
Mike Conley's not out there. It's like, oh, you went with a high drop against ant or you double teamed ant on an ISO and you got the ball out of his hands.
That's great, well off the.
Ball, Aye Rudy Gobert, who can barely catch and finish, can't read the floor, is just an absolute disaster offensively. Carl Anthony Towns, who like, yeah, if he's making his three point shot, can get going offensively, but Aaron Gordon has basically contained him on the drive. The Keil Alexander Walker who's really streaky, and Jada McDaniels has been bad offensively through this entire postseason run, right, So like they just don't have offensive talent off of Anthony Edwards to
capitalize on those aggressive coverages. If Denver goes with similar coverages, and I actually think Denver will probably run more deep drop against we'll get into that more. If those two teams actually advance to the finals, but in the event that they run more aggressive coverages and load up Jason Tatum is one of the best skip passers in the league, and he's not passing to limited offensive players. He's passing passing to really high level offensive players that can all shoot.
And so Boston, I think is actually uniquely equipped to score on Denver and also make things somewhat more difficult for them on the defensive end. Again, I will be picking Denver, but I it's gonna be close. I think it's gonna be a great series, and I do think that Boston certainly presents a lot of challenges for Denver. By the way, Boston shot like shit in both of the regular season games against Denver and they were still right there in both of those games. So again, picking Denver,
but don't ride off Boston. I absolutely think they can win that series. And I do not think this is over and that's how it should be. I want it to be difficult. That's the best part about adversity and NBA history. You want you want to see what Jokic can do against that next level of the challenge, and I'm glad it's going to be in the finals. And by the way, neither team is there. Denver still us to get past Oklahoma City Dallas, and obviously Boston still
us to get past New York Indiana. I just expect them to those of you guys who listened to the show. I've been on Boston Denver in the finals basically the entire season. All right, Hey, Jason, love the show and MAV's okay, see, both stars performed, both teams decent from three, But the difference is the use of the bigs. Chet
needs the ballmore, do you agree. So it's tough because with the way that with the way that Dallas is loading up on ball screens, particularly at the rim and at the point of attack, and in ISO, there's not really a ton of opportunity for Chet to score on the role because there's a lot of congestion in there. So most of it comes down to Chet needs to be operating in advantage situations more and that's not going
to happen unless those kickout passes were happening. And again, like I talked about earlier, Oklahoma City just hasn't done a very good job of taking advantage of those kickout opportunities. How do the MAVs get Kyrie going, so Kyrie is getting Both teams have really good perimeter defenders, right, It's been difficult for everybody. Luca and Shae have managed to break out a little bit because they're both you know, top six or seven players in the NBA, depending on
where you want to rank Shay. I think Luca is the second best player in the NBA, right. I think we'll take a look at it in the offseason. But I think saying Shay's top five is not, you know, completely out of the realm of reality, right, Like he's I want to see how the rest of the postseason
goes before I do those rankings. But those are two really, really, really good players, and so they've managed to break out in a couple of games, but they've also had bad games, right, Like I thought Shay was pretty bad in Game two, in Game three. I think Game three in particular, I think he was like ten for twenty three from the field and was really struggling to knock down those mid range jumpers.
Right.
Luca was a disaster in game four, right, Like a lot of this is just lou Dort's awesome at defense. Jalen Williams case on Wallace. These guys are awesome at defense, Dearrek Jones Junior PJ. Washington the rim protection. Chet Holmgren has been amazing defensively in the series. It'saw a crazy stat today. I don't know if it actually survive tonight off the check real quick, but I saw it. Sad that Chet has won his shifts in every single game this year in the playoffs.
That's crazy.
Let's see if he did it again tonight minus ten. So Chet lost his shift tonight, his shifts for the first time in the entire postseason. So, like, both of these teams are really strong at the point of attack and really strong at the rim. But yeah, as far as Kyrie goes like, I actually think Kyrie has done a really nice job of just doing what he can to help winning. Like tonight even just there's a huge three he hit off of a ball screen to put
them up fourteen. I think it was in the early fourth quarter if I remember correctly, And it's like he's not getting great looks, but he's just finding a way to make shots in timely moments. Kyrie's playmaking has been a huge asset to the series. Kyrie's been excellent defensively in this series. I'm sure you MAVs fans would agree, but like, yeah, Kyrie needs to get going offensively if you're gonna like beat Denver in the next round, there's
no doubt. But like credit Oklahoma City and Kyrie's just finding other ways to impact winning well. The Nuggets beat the twenty twenty two Warriors. I think the Nuggets are the best team in the leite that I've seen in the NBA since the Kadie Steph Warriors, So I do think they beat the twenty twenty two Warriors. Again, that's not a discredit to the twenty twenty two Warriors as
a championship team. They're a bona fide championship winning team, but so much of that was Steph just overcoming everything for his team, and that team a bunch of key guys overachieved, particularly Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. But in terms of like sheer, force of power and size, I do think that the that Denver was better, This version of Denver is better. But again, like I think Denver is gonna repeat this year. So like the last team
to repeat was the Kadie Staph Warriors. Before that, it had been almost what had been what six years or so earlier that it was the Lebron James heat right, and before that it was the Lakers. Like it happens really rarely in NBA history, and so if Denver can pull that off, that's impressive. Not to mention that, I think the league is just freaking stacked with talent right now, so a repeat championship would be a really special accomplishment.
How much does the krisops Porzingis injury impact the Celtics title chances in your opinion? Obviously, I think they need him to beat Denver, But you've got three weeks until Denver, so I don't think it matters all that much, just simply because I think he's gonna be healthy when the time comes. But yeah, if christops Porzingis gets hurt or gets re injured along the way, that just makes it difficult because Denver is just a really damn good team and I think you need all hands on deck for it.
Let's see.
Who's more valuable to the Nuggets, Murray or Gordon. To me, it seems Gordon is more valuable. Is the more valuable player. He anchors the defense and has many outstanding offensive traits a couple things Murray is. Again from the Stanme point of process, you can't talk about Murray's injury. He just needs to find a way to be better, like we've
talked about. But he obviously is a little bit hampered, and a lot of it is matchup based, right, Like this is a series that Denver is dominated on the interior. Jamal Murray was never going to be the way you beat Minnesota. Minnesota's perimeter defenders are too good, right And honestly, like I thought, he got pretty good looks against the Lakers, he just was cold and then he got hot at the right times, and like every single time they needed Jamal Murray in the Lakers series, he showed up and
he made shots. I do think that overall it's very close between those two guys, but I think I'd lean very slightly towards Jamal Murray. But every single one of those defense players in that starting lineup is pretty close in terms of impact. Like, can't write off Michael Porter Junior. He was unbelievable, especially through the first like six playoff games this year. Minnesota has been way more keyed in on him over the last few games, but He's hit
some big shots too. I think Michael Porter Junior, especially as a help defender and rebounder, he brings a lot to the table. Kntavi's Collop Pope is the guy you're asking to guard the other team's best perimeter player every night, so you got to give him some credit there too. And he hit a bunch of huge threes in Game five. So I think all those guys are of are vitally important. But if I had to pick a true number two, even though Aaron Gordon's having a magnificent playoff run, I
think I still lean slightly towards Jamal Murray. Let's see, I'll do two more then we'll get out of here. Does Dallas matchup well with Denver or Minnesota? So I again, I think Denver is gonna win. So I'll talk about it more from the Dallas Denver perspective. Obviously we'll confront it from Minnesota's perspective if they happen to flip the script and win the last two games. But the thing with Dallas, again, it's gonna be a big part of
it is going to be Luca. I think you're gonna see similar types of coverages from the standpoint of Denver, you know, kind of being at the level and Yoka the specifically Luca has that gift, like we talked about earlier, manipulating the back line of the defense. But a big advantage there is they have the Aaron Gordon piece. So like, what a huge luxury to have Aaron Gordon. If you do run into a kd if you do run into a Lebron, if you do run into a Kawhi, if you do run into a Luca, that you can put
him on a big forward from the other team. And I think Aaron Gordon is a guy that's gonna have some size and quickness to make things somewhat difficult on Luka Dancic. I think Dallas will be able to score in that series. But similarly to what we talked about earlier, I think that the front line for Denver would do a ton of damage. I think it'll I'm going to
say exactly what I said after the Lakers series. I thought Minnesota had a similar type of chance to be Denver because they were so bad offensively, right, Dallas, I actually think kind of brings a better combination of offensive ability and defensive ability. I do think that they'll compete with Denver, but I just think overall, it's the same kind of story we've been talking about. They're a really good offense, but they're not as good offensively as Denver.
They're really good defense, but Denver's as good, if not better, defensively. Denver's top ten defense this year. So again, I think Dallas will compete, but i'd be picking down and we'll get into the the to the nitty gritty of that series if it ends up coming to fruition. Let's see, Oh, we got a Star Wars one, so I'll do I'll do one more basketball question and then we'll do a
Star Wars question for the Wolves. Would you trade Kat for a reliable perimeter initiator guard that can score, slash playmake like a Kyrie Dejonte archetype next to Ant Yes, the idea is the ideal situation. You want a really good skill guard next to Ant, answer your athlete guard. You want a skill guard, Just think like a a kind of like a bigger, better version of Mike Conley.
Right.
I still like Jada McDaniels at the three, but I think you need a really high level offensive player, especially as a shooter.
At the two.
In that case, Karl Anthony Towns gives you the means with which to make that type of deal because he has value around the league and you have a redundancy there. You have nas reed and you have to kind of look at it from the standpoint of luxury. Doesn't matter how much depth you have. If you're top five is not good enough. And so I do think that the best option moving forward from Minnesota is to trade Karl Anthony Towns. You gotta wait to see who becomes available
this summer. Dejonte Murray is actually an interesting type of player in the sense that he can kind of take some more of the primary point of attack assignments to save Ant's legs. Dejonte just had his best perimeter shooting season of his career. It also gives you another offensive creator that can create dribble penetration, which is something nobody else on that team can do. But Ant, like Cat,
can't beat people off the dribble. My common can't beat people off the dribble, So, like Dejonte is kind of an interesting kind of guy to look at. Also, if I'm Atlanta, I'd be really interested in Karl Anthony Towns. As the partner alongside Jalen Johnson in Trey Young, So that might actually be an interesting route for them to look at. What is your favorite Star Wars movie from
the first two trilogies. This is an interesting one. I think I'm gonna go with Revenge of the Sith, and the reason reason why is like, I've always been super fascinated by the history of the Sith. Those of you guys who don't know, I'm a diehard Star Wars fan, but I'm particularly big on fantasy, really like Star Wars, really like Game of Thrones, really like Lord of the Rings. I have a podcast that I do with my buddy Luke. It's called Two Sons. You can actually see the logo
down here. We just recently hit like the Showgun series, we hit Fallout.
Really really loved Fallout.
Don't know how many of you guys were into that video game growing up, but that was an incredible one for me. But we actually just did a big breakdown on the Acolyte trilogy, or the Acolyte trailer, i should say, And in that trailer there there were some easter eggs that that really kind of lead me to believe that that show has a lot more to do with kind of flushing out some of the history of the Sith.
I got super I Paul messages that are the Twitter rumors true that you love episode and then applauded in the theater when Palpatine returned.
I'll get to that to minute.
I have a story, but anyway, The Acolyte I think is going to be about some of the history of the Siths, particularly surrounding how the Jedi I discover the Rule of Two. It's kind of like a big plot hole in Star Wars. I wi'll get into it right now, because if you want to listen to that, you can go to my other podcast to see it. But some of my favorite Star Wars books are like the Darth Baine trilogy, which explains the actual origin, original origination of.
The Rule of Two.
And then also this book called Darth Plagis, which Darth Plagas effectively. It effectively kind of functions as a as a as a what's the word I'm looking for, as a a precursor, I'm blanking on the obvious word for movie that that comes before the actual series. Paul, you could probably text it to me, but it's a precursor to the Phantom Menace, right, prequel, thank you. It's a prequel basically functions as a prequel to the Phantom Menace.
In it, it just goes into excruciating detail of like where you know, there's a Sith lord named Darth Pennebrius who had an apprentice named darth Plagus who ended up finding Palpatine, And it intricately lays out what's called the Sith Grand Plan. And basically the Sith used to be thousands, right, and then a thousand years before the Phantom Menace, there's this big war with the Brotherhood of Darkness, the Jedi one partially through a manipulation of Darth Baine, which you
can read in those books. But from there, the Sith started to realize they can't win against the Jedi because they don't have the game war cability to be able to come together and reach a common goal. The Sith all backstab each other because they all want to be the dark Lord of the Sith, right, And so they come up with this system called the Rule of two and where there's always one master, one apprentice, and it
just kind of allows them to operate in hiding. But the major theme is they they are trying to secretly subvert the galaxy. They obviously conceptualizing come up with the Clone War. They obviously they create the Clone Army. They do all of this stuff right, and it all comes
to fruition in Revenge of the Sith. And so every time I watch Revenge of the Sith, I always just think back to the Baine books and the Plaguis books, and I just think about specifically, like this genius grand plan that that obviously George Lucas conceptualized, but that the Sith came up with, and it kind of all comes together in that in that particular movie. So of all the of all the the prequel trilogy, I think I
would say Revenge of the Sith is my favorite. But again, I've done deep dive summaries and reviews of all those books I just mentioned, and basically every piece of Star Wars content on my Two Sons podcast with my buddy Luke. I'm also going to be doing every episode of The Acolyte when it comes out, which is less than a month from now, So make sure you guys head over there and subscribe to that channel so you guys can see some of that content in the future. All right, guys,
let's call it a night. We're just gonna run a breakout of the the mail Bag tomorrow morning, so there will be some content tomorrow morning between the other segments we did tonight. But I'm not gonna do a show like a new show in the morning. I'll just see you guys after the final buzzer of Nuggets Wolves tomorrow night. I think Denver is gonna go in there and win and in complete the Gangster Suite. But we will see what happens, and I will see you guys live on YouTube tomorrow night. The Volume