Hoops Tonight - Mavs embarrass Suns, Celtics take out Giannis

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talking about about basketball was not enough today. We clearly have to get into it some more. After one of the wildest playoff outcomes I can remember seeing, I would say that this is at least the wildest since the Clippers lost to the Nuggets in the Bubble in terms of just the feeling I got watching the game, just the utter disbelief at at watching a team that has

less talent not just beat a better team. In terms of talent, but kind of demoralized them to the point where everywhere everyone on the team started to behave strangely and there's some quit going on. And that was just an incredible like like just an absolute underdog as whipping is all that was. UM, we're gonna get into everything from this game, very very excited about that. UM, before

we get started, a couple of quick housekeeping notes. Make sure you liked this video and subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channels so you don't miss any more of our content. Um, make sure you check out this channel. The rest of the night. Colin Cowhard is back from his vacation in Europe.

He's gonna be doing a breakdown of both games. Draymond Green is going to be reacting to both games as well as reacting to that back and forth and some of the beef that's going on between him and Kendrick Perkins, which is obviously going to be gold. I personally can't wait to see that, so you're gonna want to check

out that. And then, last but not least, follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason lt so you guys can see the XS and o's videos and things that I do along those lines to break down the things that we talked about on the show. I don't think there's any place we can start tonight other than with Jason

Kidd and the Dallas defense. Obviously, any time that a team like Phoenix, who was a six and a half point favorite coming into this game, anytime a team like that comes in and gets absolutely shellacked, chances are a bunch of different things went wrong. So obviously we're gonna try to get to as many of those things as we can. But to me, the biggest thing was Dallas's defense.

You know, And it's interesting because a lot of people think with coaching that it's all about like fancy moves, right, like some crazy wild card or curveball that you would throw that would just completely change the dynamic of the game and and and turn the tables in your favor. But to me, like that's that's fool's gold, that's few and far between. That's gimmicky. To me. Great coaching is about getting your players to do the simple things every

single time, and to do them right. It's dependability. And I've been blown away by how good of a job Jason Kid has done with this group, because there are some really really good defensive players on this roster during Phinney Smith and Reggie Bullock or the two that come to mind, but there's a lot of guys that throughout their careers were not fantastic defensive players. Have done a great job within this scheme, and it's because everyone's always

in the right spot. Everyone always does the right thing every single time, and that is discipline instilled from the coaching staff down. This series has been such an amazing example of that because the number one play that allows the Sons offense to function is the high pick and roll, and they run in a bunch of different ways. Sometimes they run it as a kind of a dribble handoff instead of a pick a screen and roll. Sometimes they'll they'll run a decoy action first that feeds into the

pick and roll. Sometimes they run their Spain pick and roll where they have a shooter underneath the basket that replaces to the top of the key after the screen

and roll is run. They have a bunch of different variations of it, but the gist of it is their offense is predicated, especially with Chris Paul on his ability to come off of a DeAndre a and ball screen and either score in the mid range, or feed to DeAndre and under the basket to a mismatch, or unguarded for a lot of dunk, or if the defense collapses around him, to kick the shooters on the weak side. That's that's what allows everything to function with this Phoenix offense.

They have other elements. Obviously, occasionally they'll just toss it to DeAndre in the post, and obviously Devin Booker attacks a lot in mismatches. He'll attack and dribble handoffs and coming off the pin downs and things like that. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but the simplest foundation action of the Sun's offense is pick and roll. Dallas doesn't do anything crazy to cover it. It's a pretty standard coverage.

It starts as a drop. So let's say that Etan is set the screen and clappers the big as Chris Paul is coming over the top of the screen. What they've been doing in this series is they put Dorian Phinney Smith on Chris Paul, and they put Reggie Bullock on Devin Booker, and essentially, as Chris comes off the screen, cleipers at the screen. So it's a drop coverage, but it's an elevated drop. The big is up at the level of the screen, which is a concept we talked

about on this show. It's essentially to dissuade the quick pull up shot coming off of the screen right. But Dorian Phinney Smith or Reggie Bullock, wherever it is, whether it's Devin book or Chris Paul, will chase over the

top if they get caught on the screen. So for instance, if Eton just gets a monster screen or sets a moving screen or whatever it is that catches during Phinney Smith, then they'll just switch and Cleverer will stay on Chris Paul or stay on Devin Booker, and during Phinney Smith will just roll with Etan down to the post. And while Aton's rolling, they'll help out of the weeks side corner to take away the easy lot and essentially that's

the end of the coverage. They'll rotate out of that, you know, like the guy who helps on the roll man will get out to the corner. It's nothing spectacular. They're not doing anything super like like groundbreaking with their coverage.

They just do that specific thing perfectly every single time, so Chris Paul can't attack Kliba on that quick switch or on that quick coming off the screen because there's back pressure coming from behind, and so the only way he can really do it is to pull that dribble out until Phinney Smith gets caught on the screen and then you can attack Cliba and the switch. Right. But here's the problem. Chris Paul for some reason, just doesn't want to shoot anymore. We'll get a little bit further

into that later. But when you couple Chris Paul's lack of aggression with a very basic coverage that Dallas is running extraordinarily, well, they couldn't score anymore. It was wild to see the the offensive ratings in this series for Phoenix game one points per one hundred possessions, Game two hundred and thirty seven points per one hundred possessions. We talked about how Luca didn't really particularly bring it defensively.

The whole team didn't really bring it defensively, which made it hard to make a judgment call about what was gonna happen the rest of the series. You guys heard me on the show. I was like, how were we supposed to understand or predict what Dallas is going to do in the rest of the series. When they didn't even try really defensively in the first two games. Well they started trying rite Game three they only allowed hundred and four points per Hunter possessions. Game four, the only

allowed hundred nine. Game five, Phoenix had another really good offensive game hundred and twenty points per one hundred possessions. But then in game six back in Dallas, they got a bunch of stops again ninety four points per one hunter possessions. That's why we picked Phoenix at the show, because Phoenix could score pretty much at will against Dallas at home. For whatever reason, Dallas's defense didn't keep up with the level they needed at needed to to compete.

But tonight they came out dialed in. And that's on the coaching staff. Like again, it's nothing spectacular. There's no gimmicky thing they're doing in terms of like some hy old help coming from some crazy place or anything out of the ordinary happening. It's a basic coverage that is extremely well coached, that has ran extremely well. The beautiful thing about it is they are allowed by doing that.

They're making it so that Dorian Phinney Smith and Reggie Bullock at least have an opportunity to try to stay connected to Chris Paul and Devin Booker. It's giving them fewer opportunities to attack other switches. Certainly helps when Devin Booker has his war shooting night of the postseason by far, that's again, if you're gonna, if you're gonna get, if you're gonna be down seventy to thirty one at one point, a whole lot of things gotta go wrong, and a

whole lot of things did. But I thought the core foundational problem here was Dallas running really really smooth and disciplined pick and roll coverage and Chris Paul just being unwilling to try to make him pay, unwilling to try to score even when he was coming off those screens. He's throwing the past before he even really draws the defense. And it's a whole other thing. We'll get to Chris Paul in a second, but it's just I wanted to give that shout out to Jason Kidd and and you know,

most importantly with Jason Kidd, last note on him. You know he got a lot of crap for is the job he did in Milwaukee. Talk to Bucks fans and they'll tell you Jason kids an awful coach. And my thing with that is, like talk to Cavs fans and they'll tell you Tyler wasn't a great coach. Towards the end, I didn't think he did a fantastic job with the Cavs and I did a good job, not a great job. And then that year after Lebron left, things went south

and he ended up getting fired. But like sometimes it's as a coach, we have all these examples throughout sports history. They just go look at like some of the jobs that Bill Belichick did in the NFL, some of the jobs that like Nick Saban did when he was in the NFL. A lot of coaches struggle in specific environments for one reason or another. To me, it's the coaches that are malleable, that are willing to change. Those are

the coaches that have the most success. And so this is one of those things when you're when you're if your team has a vacancy right now, be a little bit more willing to accept a coach maybe that's in their second and third gig. Now, if we're talking Doc Rivers and he's been in the lead forever and he still is making the same mistakes that he's been making.

That's a different story. But like these younger coaches, especially players that are familiarizing themselves with a new type of gig, cut them some slack in that first gig because it's not always gonna go smoothly. And I think Jason Kidd has done an unbelievable job. Let's move on to Luca came out scored the first eight points of the game. Two incredible step back threes, turnaround fade away out of

the high post. Both of the step backs he hit were over Phoenix's best defenders, to step back over DeAndre Ayton that was heavily contested in the left corner, and then a step back over the Kail bridges on the left wing. Both extremely high, high, high degree of difficulty shots, but they sucked the life out of this team. And Lucas had stretches like that over the course of this series where he's made some shots, but he made a bunch of shots to start this game. And then Spencer Dinwood,

he guys, I've been Spencer Dinwood. He has been horrifically bad in this postseason run. He's averaging twelve points per game on thirty six percent shooting. Coming into tonight and I think you had twenty one just in the first half. And I told you, guys like Luca desperately needed someone else to help carry that load. Tonight it was Spencer. And especially in a Game seven environment, especially as an underdog, you need a wild card, you need something big to

go your way, and tonight it was Spencer Dinwoody. But what was wild was you know, I always thought one of the big reasons why I picked Phoenix, and for the record, when these when we're talking about these predictions, guys like it's impossible to predict sports. If it was easy, if we all knew what was going to happen, one of us would watch professional gamblers. People who pick sports for a living are typically only right, you know, in

the high level, typically with their picks. This is extremely hard to do. So that that day for me picking games, that is for sure. And I paid. I paid for

it in the old wallet on FanDuel. But you guys know how that goes is But you know the you typically the reason why I was so the reason why I was so confident in Phoenix was I thought that they could tighten the screws defensively to a level especially over the course that game to where they would just be able to get significantly higher shot quality than Dallas. If you guys remember game five in this series, Luca

came out scorching again. Dallas had a big lead early again, but over the course of the game the game stayed relatively close, and then Dallas really turned the screws defensively late second quarter and then into the third quarter, and all of a sudden, it was, you know, fifty five or whatever. It was like it just their defense engaged over the course of the game war on Dallas, and their shot quality fell apart. But this was what was wild.

And this is where Spencer dinwity you know, Luca better buy a mistake dinner tonight, because the power of Luca and Spencer together going off in that first half, I think the two of them combined for like forty seven points or something like that in the first half. Them doing that utterly sat Phoenix of all of their confidence. And then all of a sudden, they didn't There was nothing to motivate them to tighten the screws because it

just felt like it wasn't their night. They weren't getting anything. It completely destroyed that team. You know what's interesting and this is this is what reminds me about of golf. Like basketball is a sport where there are areas of the game we're trying harder has a positive effect, like defense, rebounding, running floor and transition, attacking the basket, things along those lines. But there are so many elements to basketball that are up here and that our finesse oriented skill to hand

eye coordination. You know. That was during the pandemic when I couldn't play basketball anymore for like the first six months, I got big into golf because I had to scratch the competitive which somehow, and what was so wild to me about it was like when things started to go south, like if you hit a couple of bad shots, trying harder accomplishes nothing in golf, Like swinging harder is like

arguably the worst thing you can do right. It's so much about standing over the ball and being calm and trusting your form and trusting your muscle memory, which is precisely what's so difficult when you're frustrated and you're annoyed and your body like wants to lash out physically somehow, you know what I mean, And that's why we all have that drive that we slice three yards off the course to the right because we're piste off that we missed a putt on the previous hole right, and basketball

is the same impact. There was no level of effort that Phoenix could tap into to compensate for the fact that they couldn't score the basketball. Every open shot, guys are choking on those. Chris Paul like you could tell first shot he got of the game how to pick and roll pump fake Dorian Phinney Smith went flying by, He's wide open at fift and he just missed it.

And you could just see like that like shrug from Chris Paul, like, oh man, again, I missed another one, and it's like it's it's wild because Dallas on the other end of the floor. Meanwhile, their confidences at level ten, they really trust their muscle memory, they really trust their

jump shot form. Spencer and Luca are getting to these tough shots, but they are rising into the shots supremely confident in their ability to knock them down, while Phoenix was just imploding mentally in all of those hand eye coordination, all of those decision making, all those mental elements of the game fell apart and there's no trying hard to fix that problem. It was. It was a train that got off the tracks and there was no way to

get it back. But that's the That's again, like I told you guys before the game, like I picked Phoenix, but don't bet against Luca. And I bet against Luca and I paid for it, you know, Like that's what happens when you have a guy like that who's the best player on the floor. He has the capability of tapping into something that can have a huge psychological impact on the game. And he was so so good tonight that it took very very good basketball players I've been

all year. I said, Phoenix is the most talented team from top to botty. They don't have the top end talent or he get to that in a sec. But from top to bottom they have more talent than anybody in the league. And that team had like points but two minutes left in the third quarter. That's how much Luca mentally destroyed those guys. The CP three and Book thing is weird. Book just had a bad night for the record. Like that guy, for the most part in

this postseason run, has been remarkably consistent. He just had a bad night. Now, the weird thing is is when Devin's not making his pull up jump shot, he doesn't impact the game in a ton of other ways. He's a above average to good isolation defender against normal guards and wings. Right, can't guard Luca, but he can guard normal guards and wings. But he's not like some dominant, impactful defensive player. He's not a dominant and impactful playmaker.

So when the shots aren't missing, then he doesn't have a ton of impact on the game. But that's why he's not a superstar. That's why he's something less than that. Right, Chris Paul, the same thing we saw through eight games of this playoff run. Like a lot of things were going for him. You're scoring the basketball, shooting the ship out of it from the perimeter, make him plays, but then his you know, his shot left him and all of a sudden, the defense wasn't committing to him as much.

So a lot of his playmaking gets canceled out. Now, all of a sudden, he's not impacting the game very much, arguably hurting them, And that's where that lack of a superstar comes in, you know, like you need in these environments, it's very hard for everybody to score. When you get especially when you get to these late rounds, everyone is so good. All the defenses are incredible. There are no easy opportunities. You need to have somebody that can truly

ultimately compromise the defense on a consistent basis. And and it's amazing to me how often an NBA history, the one single superstar can beat the collection of talent. You know, Boston, if you replaced Jayson Tatum with another Jalen brown If I just took Jayson Tatum and had to Jalen Browns instead, that team is significantly worse and they would never have

been able to score against this Milwaukee defense. That ultimate superstar talent and their ability to compromise the defense is still the most valuable skill in the NBA, especially as a perimeter initiator. You guys know who I am about the mbiads and the Yokches of the world. Like, Luca just completely and utterly destroyed the better team, the best team, the team that had that coming into this playoff run I thought was the favorite. Luca just destroyed them, you know.

But the CP three thing is weird, man, Like my guess is, And again we're recording this live. I haven't been paying attention to the postgame. My guess is that Monty Williams or CP three will come out in the postgame presser and reveal some kind of injury because the type of dip in his aggressiveness from the first eight games of this playoff run to the last five are completely inexplainable. If I if I tried to explain him, I'd say he started missing shots as a result, the

defense wasn't committing to him as much. As a result, a lot of his playmaking was limited, and then he just became a superlimited player. But I can't tell you how many times I'd see him coming off of that screen and Dorian Finney Smith would get caught a little bit, but instead of trying to attack Kliba, he would throw the swing pass to the other corner before the defense had even collapsed, and then it was an easy rotation.

Or instead of just pulling it out and getting the switch and attacking Kliba, he just keep moving the ball around. There was a blatant lack of aggression, and I just don't know how to explain it. I mean, he is old, so I mean maybe it's as simple as that the lift was gone, the confidence was gone. I don't know.

I hope we find out something because, man, like guys, after Game two of this series, do you remember the conversations we were having about Chris Paul His close out game over the Pelicans was one of the most dominant playoff performances I've ever seen, fourteen for fourteen from the field. He was destroyed, like surgically destroyed the Mavericks in Game two and then never was heard from again in this series. Truly bizarre. I don't I don't know what to make

of it. But again, that's that will always be the thing that puts a cap on Phoenix's potential. You know, the last thing I wanted to hit on this before

we bring my guy Carson on. There's a huge difference, in my opinion, between the strategy that Phoenix had this regular season and the strategy that Dallas had, you know, all the time during the regular during the dregs of the regular season in like February, you'll see you know, bloggers and and NBA writers right like Wax eloquent about things like oh I love the motion of Dallas, or I loved the motion of Phoenix's offense. I love how

sophisticated everything to do is. And then you'll you'll hear them talk about Dallas and they'll say, like it's too heliocentric, like it's too Luca dependent, this is that this is not sustainable. And they'll say the same thing about like

Lebron and a d and the Lakers. They'll be during that entire playoff run like they're literally are during the entire regular season there far and away better than everybody, But all the bloggers were like, Oh, their offense is is too it's too redundant, it's too it's too stagnant, there's not enough fall movement, blah blah blah. But it's

proven to work in the playoffs. In the playoffs, your motion offense, with all your with all of your sets that you run, in all the actions that you run, it just doesn't work in the postseason when you can scout, really, when you can really scout for a team, there's not a pick and roll coverage that that there's not a pick and roll that Phoenix can run that Dallas didn't have down to down to a science on how to cover.

By the end of that By the end of that series, it just more often than not, it comes down to can you space the floor properly and do you have a player that can be your supreme offensive and shader, And then do you have one or two guys that can spell your supreme initiator by running some quality offense and on any given night one of them can go off.

That dynamic is proven to work in the playoffs, the five out dynamic, the Maxi Kleiba at center during the regular season not gonna do a lot of damage, but DeAndre Aton at center, traditional drop coverage is running a super traditional scheme like that, We'll eat up a lot of innings in the regular season and generate a ton of wins. But then they get into the postseason and

everything that they do is solvable. And then the teams like Dallas that navigate through the season as a team that's under the radar, they are prepping for the playoff environment. Is it harder to eat innings in the regular season that way, sure, But in this setting that style has proven. You know, It's one of the big reasons why it was high on Boston towards the end of the regular season, Like they were running stuff that has proven to work in the playoffs. Tatum was doing a great job taking

double teams and passing out of them. They were switching everything on defense, which is the defensive scheme that I believe most in. They were doing stuff that I knew would work in the postseason. And and it's just like, I can't believe how often us as basketball fans and analysts fall for the regular season crap all the time.

There will be some team next year that's running a traditional center, that's running traditional coverages, that has a really pretty ball movement player movement offense that will lose again in the postseason next year will fall for it again, just like we did with the Utah Jazz. For the last few years, the Utah Jazz looked like a dominant regular season team and then consistently get their ass kicked by lesser teams in the playoffs. We have to eventually

learn from this. And to me, I thought, I thought, I thought this series was the greatest example of that most talented team in the league, Phoenix. But they were built in a way that was easy to scheme for. And Dallas literally completely neutered their offense in Game seven on their home floor, completely wild stuff. We're gonna get a little bit further into the details of the series, but I'm gonna bring my guy Carson on to do so, Hey, buddy,

haven't seen you. Yeah, it's been a few hours, hasn't it. Well, it's great to be back. We've got we've got a few big questions from tonight. So let's start with this because you talked about obviously an off night from book you talked about just sort of the staggering lack of production from CP down the stretch. But who do you think Jason is most at fault for the Sun's collapse? Man, I would tie it mostly to CP three. Um Again, like the Booker thing is a wild card. Like he

just didn't shoot well tonight. Don't get me wrong, they guarded him well, but he got to a lot of his typical spots, and he got to a lot of his typical go to moves and he just wasn't knocking them down right, which is again that that's variants there.

And for a player like him, who's not the best player, like he's not like a top five player in the league, Like, it's unrealistic to expect him to go out and shoot as poorly as he did and had a monster impact, but so much about what makes Phoenix's offense work is Chris Paul has to be enough of a threat to

either score or to draw the defense in. So he's kicking to the Cam Johnson's of the world and the Michael Bridges of the world that are super talented off ball players that can persistently make them pay attacking clothes outs. But they you know, they that that has always been the scariest thing about Phoenix is not the first action. It's like the second side action has always been terrifying with Phoenix, and they just didn't even get to that

nearly enough for when they did. Like I don't know if you notice that, Carson, but Chris Paul is like literally coming off the screen and before he's even looking to shoot, he's whipping the ball across the court. I just didn't think that was sustainable. And I thought I thought, like I thought that some of those problems started to manifest in game three, and I don't think they ever really went away. Like that offensive rating of one twenty

in Game five was elevated by the fourth quarter. I thought, um, through three quarters, I think they had held him to like seventy seven points or something like that. So, like Dallas, I think figured out some stuff and but up a huge part of it was just CP three. And I don't know, man, I don't know if the injury news is coming or if it's just simply that he's old. But the CP three the last five games was not the same guy as the guy from the first eight games. Yeah,

not even close. And just to give some stats that contextualize that last five games, he's nine point four points and five point eight assists per game. And it's not like his efficiency is poor or anything, but he's taken seven shots a night. And so regardless of what variable

you attribute a majority of that too. That's inexcusable. And I think that CP three is a guy who is consistently unfairly maligned for his playoff resume when he actually individually has often overperformed his regular season production has been more assertive as a score, and we saw those stretches within these playoffs right where he is just dissecting out of the pick and roll. Five games ago, he was

shooting seventy three percent from mid range. Throughout the playoffs, it was like Chris Paul pick and roll was surgical every single time, So I don't know that there is a person you could put more at fault. I would look maybe to the overall roster construction and talk a little bit about the same things that maybe playing Milwaukee in a way, just in terms of you need more guys who can really go out there and create a shot.

And you talk about the beauty of the regular season offense and all that, and the cutting of the macau Bridges and whatnot and eight and feeding off of what those lead guards can do. But when that stuff is taken away, when you're facing a high level switching defense like you've talked about, then you maybe they just needed more actual firepower. So what do you think, I mean, does this roster need legitimate reconstruction and what are the

things that they would need to do. Man, I thought they had the mo was talent in the league, Carson, Like I thought in terms of off ball creation, I don't know that there was anybody that had more talent this year. Like no one's kicking to a Michale Bridges as their fourth best player anywhere in the league right now. Like it's just like, I mean, here's the thing, Like

this is the this is the real conversation to have. Uh, Chris Paul fell apart at the end of the Milwaukee series through Holiday completely shut him down and it changed the series. Right, Um, there wasn't just true Holiday was team effort. Holiday also spent a lot of time on Devin Booker in that series. But the point is is that everything worked for Phoenix until Chris Paul fell apart in the finals last year. This year, everything worked for Phoenix until Chris Paul Paul fell apart in the second

in the second round against Dallas. So the reality of the situation is is as great as Chris Paul is and as much as he's contributed to the rejuvenation of the Sun's franchise, ah, He's just he's not nearly as valuable when when when their backs are against the wall. So I love the Devin Booker Yeas again, tonight was not a representation of this playoff run from Devin Booker.

He has become a very reliable two way three level score Okay, Uh, DeAndre, I think maybe maybe the move is Carson like next year is the year that Michale Bridges and DeAndre and need to become featured in the offense.

Maybe it's that simple, and they need to become more you know, dependable in that regard like I but at the end of the day, like they need to eventually consider moving on from the Chris Paul era and finding another guy who's a little bit more reliable as an initiator and that specific circumstance, you know, I know the Lakers are trying to get rid of Russell Westbrook. I'm not sure if anybody's interested, but my point, my point is is that my point is is that like like

love Chris Paul. We've done nothing but you know, the compliment him in this playoff run, at least until things went south. But it's just whatever is going on with Chris Paul right now has been the driving force between them falling apart in the last two playoff runs, So

that has to be accounted for somehow. Yeah, we'll get back to I think some of the interesting stuff with the Sun's future and what's next for them in a second, but we do first have a question in a donation from Clyde macassara, so shout out to you Clyde, Jason, and Carson. This is a question how can a VET Warriors three exploit the MAVs in the Western Conference Finals. Jason,

what do you think? Oh, that's a good question. So this if you guys listened to the to the preview we released on YouTube a couple I think it was either yesterday or the day be for um the I thought, even though Phoenix I think is a better team overall in terms of talent than Dallas. UM, I thought Dallas was a worst matchup for Golden State because what scares me is Luca was trying to knock down a lot of shots over the likes of DeAndre Ayton and Michael

Bridges in this series. And not that Golden State doesn't have great defensive players, because they do. Golden State is great defense. They're kind of like Dallas in the sense that there there there, They are just absolutely incredibly well code, always in the right place, always do the right thing. Their star leads by example, everyone follows. They're an extremely good defensive team, but they are not a physically imposing defensive team. They're not a big and long defensive team.

They are a lot of it's it's everything outside of that's perfect, but they don't. Luca specifically thrives in by shooting over people. He's a guy that loves to pin you on his backs that he's basically guard yokis right, Like he's pinning you on his backside or on his hip and getting two spots on the floor, he could shoot over the top of you, and he's gonna have a size advantage over everybody in that series, which is

gonna make things really complicated. I think that this is the thing if Phoenix's offense has a lot of dynamic action, for sure, but Golden State's offense has a ton of dynamic off ball action. So I think the biggest thing would be trying to capitalize on Luca on the other side of the floor. You know, tax Dallas is switching defense with just over like just by complicated actions, three player actions that make the switch. Is more difficult to pull off things along those lines. But I mean, man,

this is again. You guys, stay tuned either late tomorrow or early on Tuesday. I am going to watch a ton of film tomorrow morning, and I'm gonna release a couple of previews of both of these series and I will do a further deep dive into it. But my initial, my initial kind of uh, my initial kind of idea would be You're not gonna be able to guard Luca. He's gonna get whatever he wants to try to turn him to a score. See if he can outscore you for the series. But it's on the other end. How

much can you punish this Dallas defense. Punish got the likes of Luca, the likes of Genalen Brunson, the likes of Spencer Dinwoodie that aren't great defensive players in a vacuum, but that are good within the scheme, and see if you can wear them out that way. How do you feel that Steph matches up individually in this matchup? I mean, this is the thing. You're Lucas gonna pick on him, and they'll do certain things Like Golden States really smart

at pre switching. So basically all that pre switching is is like, imagine that Steph Curry is guarding Let's say Steph Curry's guarding Reggie Bullock in the week's side corner and Lucas up at the top, and he calls for

Reggie Bullock to come set a screen. Basically, instead of Steph following Reggie Bullock, you know, Draymond or some other perimeter defender, someone like you know let's just say Andrew Wiggins will just leave his man instead and go up with Reggie Bullock to the screen, and then Steph will just go run over and guard Andrew Wiggins man. Right, that's a pre switch. It's a way to prevent Luca

from getting on. They'll do they'll do all kinds of stuff like that to try to keep Steph from getting onto Luca, but forgetting like Phoenix was trying all the same things, and and Luca was still finding himself on Chris Paul or Cam Johnson and attacking specific matchups. Like you just have to trust that any possession that Luca goes isolation and tries to score over the top of

you is stagnating the rest of the roster. Again, like Luca had a lot of games in this place in this particular series where he made a lot of shots, but Dallas's offense didn't function very well, including game five

in this series. So obviously tonight it looked terrific, right with everything that went wrong, But you gotta just dare Luca to score forty five, stay home off the ball and just hope that then at then at certain points you can stunt at Luca with help and hopefully at that point all of Dallas's shooters will be out of rhythm because they haven't touched the ball in forever. That's

that's the strategy that I would go with. But I mean, Steph does not stack up with Luca as a defensive player, like he's just he's gonna get beat in that matchup, but that's to be expected. The same thing is gonna happen to Jordan Pool. The same thing is gonna. I think Luca is gonna have success scoring against Andrew Wiggins. Like,

that's not the point. The The idea is Steph has to match what everything that Luca is doing, and then some on the offensive end of the floor, like especially with how much Dallas can switch from time to time, like that, they're gonna they're gonna try to have. My guess is they'll put Reggie Bullock on Steph because Reggie Bullock is a better lock and trail defender than Dori and Phinney Smith Um and bigger, bigger defenders struggle fighting

over the top of screens. So my guess is Bullock will be chasing him like crazy all over the floor and it's on him to uh to capitalize on that one way or another draft, whether that's drawing attention or or attacking Reggie Bullock in isolation rather than trying to chase him around screens. But step Steph's biggest impact on this series is gonna be him reaching m v P level impact offensively mhm. And I think the secondary creation is also going to be pivotal from both sides because

we key in on the superstar matchup. Obviously, Luca feels like he's a given to produce that just meteoric levels every single night. Steph, we'll see if he can quite get there, if his individual creation is where it needs to be. But obviously, I mean, you look at a game like this and it's Bronson and Din Witty who make all the difference. It was Bronson in that first series who was so pivotal. Din He's been wildly and consistent for the Warriors. We've talked a million times about

Jordan Pool and how crucial he has been. So we'll have plenty of time to look at that series because obviously that is what's up next for us now to focus on. But tonight is the night in which it's seems like the Sons are the story of the league was as incredible as Luca was, and as great of a story as this is for the MAVs, the Sons have been the story of this season. The Golden Boys. They were sixty four win team in the regular season

last year. Obviously it seemed like the title was right within their reach, and they had the second best regular season record, and they had it felt like the best cast of role players. They were an incredibly complete two way team. They had the coach of the Year Booker.

A lot of people were saying took another ascension with some of his defensive progress, and CP at thirty seven now felt like he was still playing at that all NBA level and all these things that just made it feel like, well, this is the year for it to all come together. And they ended up being healthy unless we hear something about CP to the contrary, and yet they fall short. And I think that that's obviously devastating in a vacuum, but even harder, Jason, do you think

that the Son's title window is over? Now here's the thing, like, so, this is what happened to Janice after the bubble, right, and this is what happens to every team that suffers like the Clippers too, Like, no one really has taken the Clippers dead serious ever since they lost to the Nuggets. Right, It's just the problem is is they are now. They are now beyond the point of any sort of acknowledgement

of regular season success. Like if they come back status quote, same group of guys and and they start the year forty and eight, no one's gonna be like, oh man, sons are taking it all because they're now. They are now they have now been officially diagnosed as a team whose playoffs ceiling is lower than the regular season series ceiling.

You know, there was this thing that happened with h Let let me think of a good example, the two fifteen Warriors, for instance, Like they had some good fortune along the way and in the playoffs, right, Like I think Patrick Beverley was hurt in that first round series with the Rockets, and then in the second round series with the Grizzlies. You had like a I think it was, um gosh, who was it that was hurt? Oh it

is Mike Conley and the Grizzlies series. Mike Conley I think was hurt and missed games in that series, and then they got to the finals and then Kyrie Irving got hurt, remember, and Kevin Love was out right, so like everyone was like, okay, they won, but is it real? You know? And then they went into the next season and just whooped everybody's ask to kind of like prove like, no, no, no, what we did was real. And obviously what happened in the finals that was more about Lebron James and the

fact that Steph Curry had a bad knee. Like that was that the seventy three win Warriors proved that would happen in two thousand fifteen was not a fluke. Right, Well, that's the thing that's like the situation at play here. Like you you you go into that first round series and you're down to one to the Lakers, and then Anthony Davis gets hurt and you win the next three games and win the series. Right. Then you go into the next round and you sweep a a Denver Nuggets

team that's missing their second best player. Okay, then you go into the third round and you get dragged to six games by a Clippers team that's missing Kawhi Leonard and like blew a closeout game at home in Game five, or Paul George came in and let you on fire. Then you go into the finals and you come up to oh, but you're up to oh against Dave of Milwaukee team that has Janice playing on hyper extended knee, and then all of a sudden, the series flips on

you and you lose four games in a row. Right, So, yes, you're two wins from an NBA championship, But you had skeptics, right, including myself. I was a big Sons skeptic, right, And so this season is your opportunity to prove that last season was not a fluke. And during the regular season

they did that to their credit. But as we've talked about, and Chris Paul teams in particular, because he's such a good closer, and because he's so procedural and what he does, and because in a regular season environment he's so hard to guard, like, you expect a certain level of regular season success from a Chris Paul team, and that was even true when he was in Oklahoma City that one year.

But they got into a first round series against the New Lens Pelicans, who scraped their way way in out of the playing tournament and got dragged to six games, and it took a fourteen for fourteen performance from Chris

Paul on the road to barely win that game. There was a version of that story where you're going back to a game seven there and then you losing seven to the Mavericks, Like all of a sudden last year is starting to look not fraudulent, but like a little bit like some stuff broke your way, Like all of a sudden last year looks a little bit more like Trey Young taking the Hawks to the Eastern Conference Finals than you know, a legitimate finals run, right, Like, that's

what it starts to look like now. It's that there are a lot better than that is a very talented team for the record, but the point is is there's a level that you have to get to to win an NBA Championship, and Phoenix has demonstrated two years in a row now that they can't reach that level. Specifically, they can't reach that level when going up against a

true legitimate, super duper star. Well, Janice did to them last year and what Luca did to them this year, they looked helpless under that, Like look at what Luca did tonight and then look at what Janice did in Game six, dropping fifty on them. And they're literally just sitting there like they might as well have their hands tied behind their back. There was nothing they could do to keep up with it. And so this is like, you know, do you remember this, Carson we talked about

before the playoff run? I said, this would be an interesting year two determine whether or not the Superstar era was over. Do you remember me talking about that and

my whole idea. No, I shouldn't say over, but the value I thought, the value of the Superstar laid in teams was starting to get diminished as a result of teams going five out and suddenly there being a great deal of importance on backside players, like how good are your guys at attacking closeouts on the backside because we don't have a traditional bruising refrigerator power forward on the floor anymore, we don't have a traditional center on the floor.

No, no no, no, It's like everyone's fast and everyone can cover a ton of ground. So it's a lot easier to double Superstars and recover out of it. So I was saying, I was like, this will be an interesting playoff run. I'm curious to see what will happen. Will the Superstar teams continue to to to win or will it be the team teams that that kind of rise to the top of the food chain. And this was it,

This was this was that conversation personified Dallas. Dallas had a significantly lesser amount of talent on the floor in this game and in this entire series and one player and the psychological impact he was able to have on everybody on the floor. And I used to talk about this all the time with Lebron, Like when Lebron would hit that level, everyone would just crumble around him under like like he was so confident on the floor and his control of the game that DeMar de Rosen would implode,

Kyle Lowry would implode. Everyone that he would play against in these Eastern Conference playoff series would just completely implode, partially under the greatness of what Lebron was doing. And you saw Luca do that tonight. And so again, if there's a if there's a time coming when the super duper star becomes less valuable in the NBA, it sure as how wasn't here now, because Luca just just completely obliterated the best team of basketball tonight. It's just unbelievable stuff.

And it is particularly difficult for the Son's just because I mean they're at such a crossroads now where you have to make the decision with Aidan, and obviously they have been highly reluctant to pay him max level money and now his contract is up, and as incredible as Chris Paul is, it's just so completely unprecedented for a thirty seven year old small guard to be closer this good. There's like one other guy of that portfolio, of that profile who has even been like a good player in

NBA history, and it's John Stockton. I mean you look at like how far he and Lebron for that matter, are outpacing everybody previously in that age range. It's just unthinkable, and especially for the little guys. So given that all their role guys got better, right Bridges and Aidan and Cam Johnson, it just all really did feel like it was coming together for a time. And so I think that it is an incredibly difficult loom to try to

recover from for the Suns. And it's very difficult for me to see them coming back and winning a title because everybody around them is constantly getting better. I don't know how they conceivably get better from here. The big one is gonna be Michael and DeAndre because like, and I'm I'm with you, Like I wouldn't say that Phoenix's window is closed. I just think it's temporarily closed, Like I think I think the Chris Paul Soun's window is closed.

But the future version of the Suns that's built around Booker, Bridges and eight and being better players, that that window will open up eventually. But they're clearly not ready yet, you know. So we we talked a lot about how like Michael Michael Bridges guys like he's in a situation where he's not exactly just getting tossed a ton of

on ball reps right eating the same thing. Like if I if I threw Eighton into the to the Process six ors five years ago, there's a good chance that I don't like again, don't think he's Joel embat but there's a good chance that he's closer to that than what he is now, you know what I mean, Like, there's a good chance that Eighton is a and twelve guy playing for the Process sixers. Right, these guys Micaal Bridges and DeAndre Ayton are they're not going to complain

about it. Because winning is fun. If you've ever played for a winning basketball team, that ship is a blast. Okay. I played on an n ai A team with that BEATA Division one team and started the year thirteen and oh we were top five in the country. Those are like the most fun days I've ever had playing basketball. Okay,

like winning is fun. They're having a good time. But Eighton and Bridges, there's clearly a development element that they might have to lean into in the next couple of years, which is, we need to start feeding the ball to Eton in the post. We need to start hitting him on the short roll all the time. We need to get a ton of Michael Bridges on ball reps because you need to figure out what those guys are because if the core of Bridges and Booker and Eighton is

enough to win a title, you need to find out. Okay, you need to find out soon. So it might take an experimental year where you just feed those guys a ship ton of touches and just see what they can figure out in terms of their own individual offensive ceiling, and then you can make a read like, Okay, McHale is not enough, Atan's not enough. Why don't we trade McHale and eton for a legit superstar, put a legit superstar next to Booker and then we make a run

for it. You don't know what whether or not that's a smart move until you really lean into their offensive development and see what they're capable of. So, I mean, it might even be worthwhile to just to move Chris and then try to really lean into two Bridges and eight and and just try to see what they're capable

of in the next couple of years. That's interesting. I do feel like, I mean, CP has been so essential obviously to establishing just their offensive identity, the tempo they play with, putting everybody in positions to succeed, and Bridges. To me, you're absolutely right about playing winning basketball in a winning context. He does just feel like the perfect complimentary offensive guy, like the cutting, the pure shoe doing,

I mean, the attacking close outs. It's just like you fit him in anywhere, and he excels in that role. It is a little difficult for me to see him being like that lead twenty plus kind of guy though, and eight and I've always just been skeptical of offensively because he just has some troubling tendencies. You know, I

just think he's kind of fundamentally passive. He really isn't comfortable ever, like putting the ball on the floor, you know, you get him a mismatch and unless he has the guy literally buried, like, he doesn't back people down nearly nearly enough. Given that he's a physical behemoth, his post games kind of underdeveloped. So I don't know. You're right, though, at the same time, that's never been like a point of emphasis for him. It's been kind of okay, especially

since cp got there. You're in this plug and play role. You're like kind of playing that replacement big role, but you're just better at it than the average guy, So we'll see. I don't know. I do have a healthy level of skepticism about what the Suns can be in a post CPI era because I think they have some really talented players, but he, to me, has been just the engine that has made it all go. So I'm concerned. I really think that this was the moment and they

did not grab it. This did feel like their last chance, didn't it. And as good as Booker has become, he's he's not an engine. He's definitely not an engine. So, like, you're right, someone someone's got to be the engine and and and maybe and maybe that's what they have to do, and maybe that's the tough decision they have to make. Especially you don't feel like paying eighton then then maybe that's what you gotta do, is you gotta move them. But my thing is like if I were running the suns,

I don't want to know what I have. I would wanna because again, like to your point, like I'm with you, agree with you, eton seems really uncomfortable in terms of the high level offensive stuff. And Michael Bridges like, yeah, he'll he'll hit this these drifting jumpers through the lane and and he'll tack close out and make a nifty finish and do some things like that. But there's just

there's you you need the brandon Ingram treatment. You need to be throwing the basketball like as a primary initiator for two years to really learn stuff, you know what I mean. And so because again there's just like there's a huge gap in player development from each level. I talked about this with my high school players all the time. Like step one is learn how to do it in

the gym by yourself. So like, for instance, if you're a guy who wants to learn how to take post up fade aways, Like get sit in the gym and take post up fade aways all day long, you know, like like turn over your left shoulder over your right shoulder from both blocks, you know, make at least five going each way every single day for like a couple of months. Okay, Then the next step is like get to the point where you can do it in practice

or and in a five on five situation. Right, But even then there's another level past that to doing that in an actual game setting, because when when there's actual pressure in a real flow to a five on five basketball game, there's a whole other level of intensity, especially for like high school kids. Like it's one thing to to do something in a practice, it's another thing to do it when you're playing against the local rival team here in town. You know, like it's a totally different five.

And so again, like there's been a huge wall in their development in the sense that they are playing alongside two primary ball handlers that function that run basically the vast majority of their actions, and so they just I would like to see what it looks like. But again, you you just gotta find you yet to find out one way or another, and they might know. They might know internally. They might know internally like, hey, we've been given Michale, you know, a ton of reps in practice

and he's just not figuring it out. Or we've been given it in a ton of reps in practice and he's just not figuring out. They might know, but either way, to your point, they need to find out what they which of these core pieces are worth keeping and which aren't. And to me, I love the idea with Booker being

an awesome three level score. I love the idea of having a great playmaker next to him, and it just so happens that Chris Paul at this point can't dictate enough attention with his scoring to open up his playmaking. But again that that that's the type of thing that they need to target. They need to find somebody that

can actually be the offensive engine alongside Devin Booker. Completely agree with you there, all right, So we've done a lot of talking about the Sun's Let's slip to the MAVs for a second, because this was obviously utterly dominant Game six, they also won by seven, Like this was a dominant close to this series from the four seed and a team that at a certain point halfway through the year, Luca wasn't really looking like himself, and I don't think expectations were that they would be here in

the Western Conference finals. But the story is Luca and what he is capable of doing night tonight. So, Jason, do you think he's the best offensive player alive? I think I'm gonna go with yes. The two guys that I view as the you have to prove you're better than these guys is Lebron and Steph Um. I think Steph's combination of nuclear scoring punch in combination with his ability to dictate attention everywhere on the floor that opens

up things for his teammates. I know you're big on Kitch there as well, and I think Yoka just creeping into that conversation really well, especially with Stephan Lebron's decline. And my guess is that you and I will be having a conversation at some point in the next couple of years where it's Luca and Yokich that are those two guys. But here's the thing, and the reason why I would take Luc over Yokich is like, just in general, you guys know how I feel I want a big

wing that can score and pass. Those are the that that to me, has always been the type of player that I've been drawn to. It's why I always liked the way Lebron James played basketball. It's what I've always thought that he was the best player in the world

up until recently. That's that to me, I think is the most the most uh reliable playoff archetype specifically, and when I say big wing, I mean big, like powerful, A big, powerful wing that can that can thrive in physicality, thrive in and punish smaller mismatches, and that has the ability to capitalize on defensive attention thrown towards them. I

think is the most valuable skill in the league. And again, like this Phoenix defense was specially equipped to handle Luca in a lot of different ways because of their overall size. That's why I was so worried about them in this series. I think Luca is going to put on a clinic offensively against the Golden State Warriors. It remains to be seen whether that's enough, and I definitely want to watch

some more film before I make a pick. But like like Luca, I think that his ability to punish smaller defenders and to punish defensive attention throwing his way is going to put Golden State in a pickle that entire series. It's just to me, that's the every other type of offensive player that we look at, Like Kevin Durant, as great as he is, he missed way too many reads against Milwaukee or against Boston and it really hurt them

in that series. His his lack of high end playmaking, in his lack of ability to handle physicality took literally the best individual score in the history of the league to most people, and rendered him ineffective in a playoff series because he couldn't pass very well and because he couldn't an'll physicality. You look at you know, Steph has just lost a little bit of a step in his individual shock creation and it's been, you know, a big drop off from what he was literally just last season, right.

And you know, just in general, the mbiads and the Yokiches of the world, they struggle so much with foot speed and their ability to cover ground compared to a lot of the guys in the league, like that big power wing that can punish mismatches and pass through the ship out of the basketball it's literally the next it. I've always said Luca reminds me of two thousand eighteen Lebron, but not athletic, you know. It lacks all the defensive upside, lacks all of that high, high above the rim action

type of stuff. But he has that level of control over the half court environment in the sense that he's always aware where the help is, he's always one step ahead of what the defense is trying to do, and he's always going to get what he wants. It's just a question of whether or not he's gonna make it, or whether or not his teammates is his teammate is gonna make it, And to me, that is the quintessential offensive engine and the modern NBA and appears to be

the next the next iteration of that. I think you're spot on there. And what he lacks in obviously the high end athleticism of Lebron, and this is not to say he's the equal, but he certainly makes up for a lot of that with just his next level difficult shot making and the fact that you have the turnarounds and the fadeaways and the advanced stuff out of the post when he wants to, and it's just like any mismatch.

He can attack in any way. He can beat a big off the bounce, or he can step back on them. He can take the little guys into the post and just destroy them. And the entire time he's aware of every single pass on the floor. And there's the physical imposition too. I mean, he's a big, strong guy who just keeps coming at you and the volume never stops

with him. And these playoffs he's thirty one and a half a game, six and a half a sist per game, almost fifty percent true shooting, doing that from the perimeter, controlling the game as he does. You're right, it probably is the most valuable thing. I do still really think Yogich makes a case because I don't don't think he's like any big man we've ever seen in terms of he is obviously the one initiating and running your offense and amplifying all the other talent around him. You know,

he's not a great one on one player. He gets involved in so many different ways within an offense. And I will say Luca at his best, I don't think you can beat when Luca is making half of his step back threes, and when he is just brutalizing guys out of the post, and the difficult shot making is on that to me is the best offensive player on

the planet. I will say, though, I do think Luca is a more inconsistent score in terms of efficiency than Yokich, than certainly Katie, than Lebron, because sometimes those shots just start falling, you know. As dazzling of a three point shooter as he is, he's also like a career thirty percent guy from three, I want to say, so when he's at his best, I do think he is the

best offensive player on the planet. I am tentative to say point blank that he is, though I would agree with you if you kitch in his perimeter shooting didn't completely fall apart at the end of the season and now in your defense, no, you're right, And in your defense, Yokich had extensive stretches of of good shooting previous in his career, so Nuggets fans will tell you it was an anomaly. But he did not shoot well from the perimeter to end the regular season or in this postseason,

and specifically against Golden State. It costs some issues where when he would pop away from the rim, Draymond could roam a little bit. And remember there was that one part where, uh where I think it was Mike Malone was like Draymond's not even guarding anybody, and what they were specifically referencing there was like Draymond, especially when Yokis would pop to the perimeter, just was like daring Yokich to shoot and he just couldn't make them pay from

out there. But here's the thing we're splitting hairs here, Carson, Like these are to me, Yokich literally is the is basically Luca but the big man version of it. So for me personally, I always am going to favor the perimeter guy that can do it, you know, from a little bit more verse the lead in terms of locations on the floor. But dude, yeah, like I mean, I can't, I can't disagree with anything you're saying about Yokis because

it's just simply factual. So so I'm with you, and it's very close and too and I think as Lebron ages out and as Steph ages out, those two guys are the guys. Those are the guys that are gonna be the primary offensive engines in the league. And Janice is going to be that all around Swiss army knife kind of type of dude. And you know what will end up happening and what'll what'll we'll basically determine the you know, the next ten years of the n b

A is gonna be. You know what happens first? Does Luca get in shape and become like this kind of pretty damn effective two way player that has crazy stamina, or does Janice become the surgical half court presence that can shoot over the top of everybody and task extremely well. Like whichever one of those two things happens first could end up being the indicator of of what happens over

the course of the next decade. But man like for for the league aging out, for Kevin Durant, Evan Ran and Lebron on their couches, and and and you know, Steph showing some signs of decline. Like we're in good hands. We got a lot of we got a lot of good players coming along the horizon. Alright, guys, So we are going to talk some Celtics and Bucks. But before we do that, here is a word from our sponsor. It's time to dig yourself out of that winter hibernation.

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code TEMP to receive your first month free. Visit bluetoo dot com for more details and important safety information, and we thank Bluetoo for sponsoring the podcast. The question was what were we going to see tonight? Because I knew all of those things before game one, and they came out flat and got beat, wouldn't even attempt a mid range shot, had a bunch of turnovers, never ran back on defense on the turnovers, and they got beat soundly. Then they went back and beat the ship out of

him in game two. But then they roll up in Milwaukee and lay an egg, and then they come in in game four and come back from downten and have this incredibly impressive win. It was like a roller coaster up and down, and so you never knew what you were going to get from this team. Then I started to kind of look at the film, and what I could tell from looking at it is it seemed to me, again, this is a new entity in the league, this Boston

Celtics team, so we're all learning on the fly. And what seemed to me to be the the problem, the source of their poor decision making on offense, was when

Milwaukee would ditch brook Lopez and start switching everything. Because when brook Lopez was on the floor, they would run this high screen and roll right and Brooke would be in drop coverage, and guys like Tatum and Brown and Smart We're getting disconnected from their defender and cleanly operating in the middle of the floor and drawing help and kicking the shooters, and they were getting fantastic shots every time.

When Milwaukee would switch everything with Brook Lopez off the floor, all of a sudden, they're not getting separated from their defender. Guys are in isolation situations, and Tatum and Brown and Smart kept going to pull up jump shots off the dribble, and it was ugly offense, and it actually worked and led to a Milwaukee win in Game five, and I believe it would have worked in Game six had it not been for Jason and Tatum getting insanely hot at the end of the game and making a bunch of shots.

And if you're a Bucks fan, you have to be infuriated because all of that data was readily available to everybody in the Bucks organization. I sent out the numbers earlier today, but Brooke played basically half the series before Game seven, and in the half that he was on the floor, the Bucks got absolutely destroyed. They were minus

sixteen per one possessions. And in the half that he didn't play when they primarily switched, there was some Janice drop stuff in there, but for the most part they switched with those lineups, they were plus six per one possessions, so at twenty two point swing. And so what did I tell you, guys? I said, I thought that Milwaukee would finally go to a switching lineup for most of the night tonight, and I thought that Boston would struggle offensively and that the game would be a coin flip.

And I said that I trusted Janice a little bit more than I trusted Boston's defense. Well, Coach Budd played brook Lopez for thirty seven minutes. Thirty seven minutes in the face of all of that evidence that I just laid out for you, guys, And so if you're a Bucksman, you gotta be infuriated. In fact, when things were going south there in the third quarter, Budd went to three

bigs before he benched brook Lopez. His audible when things were going bad was to go to that, uh, Bobby port Is at small forward next to Janice at the four, with brook Lopez at the center, which is like the exact opposite of what I would have done in that specific situation. It was really really strange stuff. But to to Boston's credit, you know, they they I've always talked

about their their offensive process and their shot selection. You know, there's a there's nothing wrong with taking a wide open three. But there's a difference between taking a quick three early in the possession off the dribble, or a quick three in transition, and the three when your feet are set on a kickout. And it's not just as simple as the psychology of shooting early in the clock, because that's part of it too, But I want you guys to

think of it strictly as if you were the shooter. Okay, if you're running up the floor full speed in transition and you have to set your feet while you're running to knock down a shot, that's tougher than a stand still shot when you're facing the rim. Right Now, Let's say you're the ball handler and you come off of a ball screen and there is a defender who gets caught on the screen, and a defender and drop and you have a little bit of space and you pull up.

That also is a tougher shot. You have to handle the basketball and get into your shooting pocket. You're on the moves, you have to get your feet set. That's a tougher shot. Now, let's pretend Marcus Smart drives to the basket, gets both feet in the paint, and you are standing on the right wing, standing facing the rim, facing Marcus Smart, and your feet are already set. And Marcus Smart kicks out to you and you catch and your feet are already set. You've been standing still, so

you're not fatigued. It's a much much easier shot. That's why it's not as simple as open verse not open. It's good process. You have to have good shot process, and throughout this entire game, I thought Boston's process of attacking the rim and kicking two shooters rather than settling for quick early shots and transition and out of ball screens was a huge part of why their shot quality

was better. The textbook version of this tonight was Grant Williams, who was wide open all night, and some of that Game seven stuff was happening early right like Grant. I think Grant Williams started two for seven from three and the announcers were getting on them, but they were saying like, hey, these are the open shots. And as we've talked about,

this is this is Milwaukee's defense. Milwaukee ranked twenty it than defense from the All Star break to the end of the season, and during the entire regular season, I think they were four and as if you looked at their numbers, they locked down the paint and they gave up wide open threes. They gave up more wide open threes than any team in the NBA. They gave up more than twenty wide open threes per game according to NBA dot Com, meaning the defenders at least six ft away.

Those are wide wide open threes. And so that's that's what the Milwaukee defense gives up. Now, over the course of this series, Boston has neglected to generate those really high quality ones at stretches where they would take those quick shots. But when they when they had that process down and got into the paint and kicked out, they got great looks and they knocked them down. And here's the thing you start too. For seven. To Grant Williams credit,

he didn't get scared. We've talked a lot about this on the show. We were talking about it with Dylan Brooks and Clay Thompson after that Game six the other night. There's a lot of people that don't want to shoot in these environments. There's a lot of people that have fear. There's a lot of people that they miss a couple and they just think it's not their night and they

don't want to take them. Grant just kept taking them, and after starting two for seven, he caught fire in the second half and made a bunch of them and that blew the game open. But that's but that's the game is it's one of two things. Is gonna happen when you're giving your opponent wide open three, because Milwaukee got a lot of wide open threes tonight too. The

differences is they were four for thirty three. The difference is is as the miss is piled up, they seemingly got more and more discouraged and the shots were further and further off target, Whereas with Grant Williams, he just took those as opportunities to build his rhythm and then as the game progressed, he just started knocking them down. But it was that poor shooting from Milwaukee changed the

game because everything in basketball is connected. The more your shooters are making teams pay for helping, the less teams can help on your star. Janice came out like like the Tasmanian Devil today. He had ten points and eight rebounds and six assists in the first quarter. He scored or assisted on twenty four of Milwaukee's twenty six first

quarter points. He came out like a monster. But what did you guys notice over the course of that game, Because you didn't have to guard Pat Conaton, because you didn't have to guard Grayson Allen, because he didn't have to guard Wesley Matthews, because none of those guys were

making shots, they started helping more on Janice. I remember I saw this phenomena for the first time and that Son's Lakers series last year and the you know, everyone looks at Anthony Davis getting hurt, which obviously was a huge part of that series, but part of the issue

too was every Laker just got outrageously cold. Kent David's call with Pope couldn't shoot, Kyle Kuzma couldn't shoot, you know, everybody on the Dennis Shrewder was like a wall, like he would pump bake at nobody out on the perimeter. And as a result, every time Lebron caught the ball on the wing and turned to face the basket, there'd be a defender right in front of him, and there'd be a defender in his left driving lane and a defender in his right driving lane. There there was no

option other than to shoot over the top. And that's what happened to Janice in this game as it progressed. Even though he was phenomenal in that first quarter, the worst that Milwaukee shot, the more manifested in Boston building a more dramatic wall, and it took away those options, you know. Special shout out to Chris Mannix here at the volume he called this after game five. He was like, I want to see Boston put Marcus smart on on Janice more. And they actually did that starting in Game six,

and they did it a lot again tonight. I'm not sure that it would have worked had Milwaukee shot better, because not because of the bad strategy, it just honest

is the best basketball player alive. But I did think it was an interesting wrinkle over the course of the last couple of games because of his quickness and his ability to stay in front of Janice and discourage some of the more like physically aggressive moves, the elbows that ripped throughs, the swim moves, the eurosteps and things like that, because he's gonna just flop every time and it just

discourages your honest a little bit. But all of that piled up that the spacing the Marcus Smart getting up underneath him, the lack of shooting in the way that it caused the wall to become more dramatic. And then I thought fatigue played a role. You know, Janice tapped into something in this series that we haven't seen in a really long time from any basketball player, and it it took a certain level of physical exertion that was

inevitably going to take a toll on him. And I thought, especially in that second half, he started to look tired and he started to show some of that fatigue and he started started to manifest in a lack of willing is to plow through that wall, because that's the whole thing with you, honest as, you just keep plowing through the wall because eventually it's gonna fatigue. Eventually it's gonna lead to guys getting out of your way, and that's

when you have those opportunities. But you know, as far as as far as Milwaukee goes like, there's some serious stuff you gotta look at after the season. The league is stacked right now. Chris Middleton being out is a huge deal, obviously, but there was nowhere near enough offensive talent on the floor for Milwaukee to score against this Boston defense when they were loading up on your honest,

that's something they're gonna have to figure out. But some of its games, some of it's Game seven, and you know, this is the thing, and I was talking about this with some other people on Twitter during the game, but you know, Boston's gonna make you look bad. You know. Uh, Brooklyn actually put up a decent offensive rating in that first round, but the context there was Katie and Kyrie on the floor in the regular season was giving you

damn near a hundred points per hunter possessions. So it's like an unbelievably dominant offense that ran into Boston's defense and became average. And what you're seeing here is an

average offense. The Bucks this year without Chris Middleton average about a hundred and nine points per one hunder possessions, which is okay, right, it would have been it would have been towards the bottom of the league, obviously, but it's the offense depends on Chris Middleton, right, But it took it from a bad to blow average offense to an absolutely untenable offense that could not score in the half court. That's Boston and we we need to and we we need to stop making excuses for what has

been transpiring in this in these playoffs series. It's not about Katie and him not being multifaceted enough to attack Boston's defense. It's not about Kyrie and him being kind of a weirdo that probably, you know, shouldn't be playing a team sport and should probably be in a soul No, no, none of that, None of that is the case. Boston shut them down. That's what happened in that series. This is not about Chris Middleton being out. Obviously it plays

a role, but Boston's defense is really, really good. They caused Janice, literally the best player in the world's efficiency to tank in this series. Literally a Shaquille O'Neil type Shaquille O'Neal two point oh perimeter version. His shooting percentage is tanked in this series. That's that's Boston. And we're gonna talk a little bit more here in just a minute with Carson about Boston's ceiling and whether or not

they have the capability to win the title. And that gets more complicated because then we're diving back into those Boston offensive issues. But make no mistake, this Boston defense is by far the best defense in this field, arguably the best defense of this era, and that is a massive weapon looking forward in this playoffs, in these playoffs, that is a dependable thing. Milwaukee shooting wide upen threes, they might go in, they might not. Tonight they didn't

go in. Boston's defense is the safest bet in sports right now. Every single night, they're gonna come out and make life a living hell for you. And they did it for seven games. Credit to Milwaukee for dragging it out, Credit to Janice for dragging it out. But Boston is really good man, and uh, I think we all need to be a little bit prepared for Boston potentially being around for a long time into June. All Right, we're

gonna bring my guy Carson on. Let's talk about Jayson Tatum because we had a debate just the other day on whether or not he's been the second best guy throughout these playoffs. We've talked many times about his ascent throughout the second half of this year. Has he officially proven that he is a top tier superstar? Absolutely? I I think navigating through those two series the way he did, um it's it's undenied able at this point and again,

it is a team effort. This Boston team has a lot of talent, but to be clear, a huge portion of this Boston defense is what Jayson Tatum can do. A huge portion of what allows this Boston offensive function is what Jayson Tatum can do. I know Marcus Smart one defensive player of the Year, but I actually think Jayson Tatum is the best defensive player on their roster.

I think his versatility to be able to guard opposing wings, to play passing lanes, to help around the rim, I think I think Jayson Tatum is the best defender on the team. So he's the best defensive player and the best offensive player on the best team in basketball. And that's something that only a top tier two superstar could

pull off. You know. His performance in Game six was, like we've talked about it on the show, the kind of thing that when you're showing when when they make a documentary one day about Jayson Tatum, you know, thirty or forty years from now or whatever, like that game is gonna be on the reel as as the first signature playoff moment of Jayson Tatum's career. Tonight, he was very under control. He I put him in him and

Marcus Smart were the two guys in particular. I thought that made the concerted effort to touch the paint before

kicking the shooters, which I thought was hugely important. And then also when Boston wasn't shooting well early, Jason Tatum made his first four threes, and in a game like that, kind of like with Milwaukee going for for thirty three, sometimes it just takes one guy that catches a heat or makes a few to change the psychology of those open shot opportunities, because when you're four for thirty three, usually everyone on the floor just feels like the rim

is tiny, you know what I mean. But I thought Tatum coming out and knocking down his first four threes did. I did a great job of just loosening up Boston's nervousness. He played a really controlled game tonight. They're not all gonna be You're not always gonna make every step back three and pull up three that you take like he did in that fourth quarter in Game six, But you have to find ways to impact the game in other ways.

He's great defensively, did a great job making plays first teammates and I made made enough offensive plays to to you know, continue the offensive flow that they had. So yeah, I think it's well, we're gonna have to after this season really dive into where all these guys specifically land. But you know, I should say, when you say top tier superstar, I think the top tier is Joannice by himself. But I think I don't think it's because everyone else

got worse. I think it's because Joanna's elevated over everybody. So the the tier of superstars that has like the Lebron and the Kadi and stuff, I think Tatum is absolutely Like I think Jayson Tatum can look Lebron or Katie in the I and be at the same level as them. Yeah, that's remarkable, but I think it's undeniable

ities at that top tier superstar level. Now he has eliminated effectively every weakness that existed within his game, and there's still some inconsistency with maybe some decision making, and he still does rely on the difficult shot making, but less than before. He's great at it. And the production, the two way ability, the efficiency, it's just all there.

I mean, he is undeniably at that level, I think, and the Celtics are undeniably at that top tier contender level, and you have been on that for a long time, an adamant lever in their ceiling and what they've been able to do. So is the Celtics season officially title or bust? Now? Oh? Absolutely? I think. I think if you're Boston, Miami, Golden State, or Phoenix in particular, it's title or bust. The only teams that you should feel okay with not winning is this Dallas team, right because

you don't necessarily have enough talent to to compete. You know, Milwaukee shouldn't be hanging their heads either, because you were a massive underdog in this series without Chris. You know, after the Brooklyn series, I thought Boston was a the the the the number one contender like with everyone else

below them. And the main reason why was Devin Booker at the time was injured, right, So, like I didn't know what that was gonna due to the Western Conference situation and Steph Curry obviously we didn't know what to expect with his foot injury and and what all could happen there. Um. But one of the things I've learned in this series is you can't trust their offense, especially

against switching defenses. You know, Uh, this Miami matchup is gonna get super interesting like this, I would hammer the under on every single game of this Boston Miami series because I think both of these teams are gonna switch every single screen, and Miami in particular doesn't have nearly enough isolation shot creation I think in order to really have an affect to create generate enough offense. But I also think that Miami switching attack will stagnate Boston a

lot and get them into those isolation contests. The difference was with Milwaukee, they were coming down after those switching possessions, after they forced Tatum to miss a fifteen footer, or they were coming down in honest was just barreling everybody over and going right to the rim. Miami doesn't have

that luxury. As a matter of fact, I think Boston's gonna be able to get away with pretty basic single coverage against every player on that roster, and as a result of that, like I think they're gonna be like, hey, if if if Jimmy Butler wants to pick on matchups all night long, be our guest, Like he's just not the same stratosphere a player as Johannest. So that series is gonna get really, really ugly, But I think Boston

is going to control it. Will end up doing a preview of that series at some point in the future. That's a little bit more detailed. Hi, it's Colin Coward. I started the volume to bring you some of the most apathetic voices in sports. While you're here, make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks. We've talked a lot about how spectacular he was throughout this series, trying to overcome the Middleton absence and what you have called the best defense of this era. But at the end of the day,

the Bucks did fall short. So does Janice deserve any criticism for that? Hell, absolutely not. Now, he didn't have a great night tonight, but I did think it was a product of all those things that I talked about. He came out absolute gangbusters, doing everything to try to steal this game in that first quarter, and nobody else

on the team showed up, literally nobody. And then as the like we talked about, as the shooting started to pile up and become a problem, the wall just got more and more dramatic and it just became impossible for Joannice at that point. Now, will there be if there ever comes a time where Jannie can start punishing people over the top by knocking down consistent jump shots, then then that's when that's when we're talking about potentially the

best basketball player that's ever played the game. Right, But like in this in this specific case, like to me that the box score numbers tonight were more product of just the way the game unfolded. But this is my biggest pet peeve because you know, I obviously I'm a Lebron fan, but this doesn't just apply to Lebron. This applies to all of the basket while players of this era.

Because there is no Michael Jordan in this field. We don't have a guy that went six and oh in the finals, even though Michael Jordan lost plenty of playoffs series in his career. But how many of you guys are familiar with the the three six mafia phrase? I got used to get thrown around all the time referencing Lebron fans, right, and obviously four six mafia just doesn't

quite have the same ring to it. But that phrase used to always bother me, just simply in the sense that it was such a weird way to look at this particular sport. Don't get me wrong, like, basketball is unique in the sense that one player can impact winning more so than any other sports that I'm aware of in terms of team sports. You know, even if you are Clayton Kershaw, the best picture of this era, if you can shut the other team down in Game one

of the World Series, that's great. We're not seeing you again until game five, you know, like if we we've seen Tom Brady with a bad offensive line lose in early playoff rounds, right, like you just the uniquely in basketball, one player can put a stamp on the game in ways that other other sports that's not the same. However, even that only goes so far. Tatum is really good, but Tatum is not nearly as good as Yournice, not in the same stratosphere. Be honest, I think he's on

a tier by himself atop the league right now. And he literally had there was nothing he could have done tonight to win that game and there and there and

too often anytime any individual player loses. And this is part of that stupid stand culture that's kind of taken over with NBA fans, where it's like, no, everyone just really like kind of aligns behind one player and then everything that they do in the way they talk about the game is to denigrate all of his rivals and to uplift his It's like apologists for they're just all apologists, basically. And not only is it bad for just the way we talked about the game of basketball, but it's really

unfair to these guys because it's just not realistic. It's not the way that this works. I thought Kevin Durant was the best basketball player in last year's playoffs. I thought he tapped into an incredible level of basketball last year in that series against the Bucks with his co star injured with an ankle and his other co star on a bad hamstring, and he damn near stole that series. But he lost. And I had Janice fans calling me crazy for saying that I thought Katie was the better

player in that series, but he was. He played better basketball than Yannie in that series, and damn near swung the outcome of a series that he had no business even being competitive in. And that's what happened here. Janice had no business even being competitive in this series. I picked Boston in five. They were a massive favorite before the series. There was no reason in the world why they should have even been playing this game today except

for how great Janice is two eighteen. That so many parallels between that that series with Lebron and the Celtics in two thousand eighteen, same thing they're They're sitting in overtime of Game one of the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors. They have no business being there except for Lebron tapping into something that no basketball player in

two thousand eighteen could tap into. All three of those guys and those specific scenarios I mentioned, I thought were the best players in the world in those seasons, and none of them got the trophy. So as much as winning is all that matters within the team concept, and I'm I'm big on that, I don't like, you know, I'm not. I'm not I'm not I don't like diminishing winning because winning is all that matters. But that's within

the team concept. Criticizing individuals every time they don't hoist the trophy to me is super disingenuous, It's unfair, and it's just it's just low brow, you know, the unintelligent basketball conversation. It's just not something I'm interested in, Like your honest to me is unquestionably the bad basketball player in the world, and he lost in his second round

this year. Here's what I don't want to hear us having a goat conversation in twenty years and someone going, remember when Janice lost in the second round two that, like that's weak, No, it's not. He he was the best player like that. That's just something that we got a ditch and in the entire way that we talked about this game. Yeah, I totally agree with you philosophically,

and we do see it very consistently. And I think to a specific debate, like after it was announced that Yoki was m VP, there was a lot of talk about, okay, but he isn't still here, and specifically EMBIID advocates and stands pointed to that fact. But it really says a lot about the way that you lose. Obviously, EMBID lost in pretty humiliating fashion. Yokich lost playing basically an offensive masterpiece, and Janice lost averaging thirty fifteen and seven against the

best defense in the league. So I agree with you. I'll try to play Devil's advocate a little bit. I think obviously this was a herculean task, right because this team is just not equipped in terms of shot creation, like you said, and it wasn't just be honest. I mean, I think Drew had to take on much more significant offensive volume for a lot of this series than he probably would have wanted because they don't have shot creators elsewhere.

But it is an inefficient series from you, honest, there's probably too many of the bad jump shots and he only shoots from three and forty six percent from the field. I don't know that you could really say that he forced it because it did feel necessary. But I know you said that he did everything, and I think that I largely agree. But is there anything that you would look at from this series and say Janice should have

done this better? And is there any part of you that resonates at all with the well, I mean, a guy really does have to be held accountable for if his team comes up short again. But here's the thing, Carson, Like, let's say, okay, let's say that Janice also has Kevin Durant's jump shot, so like he and mix in all these possessions is coming down and like pulling up three, he's off the dribble and making him you know, for

first of all, now we're talking about a mon star. Okay, we're not talking about an NBA player, We're talking about an alien. We're now we are now building a created player in NBA two K with the sliders all the way up. Who seven ft tall? That's just not realistic. Okay, like that, If that guy ever exists, then I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen in the game of basketball. But the second thing is Milwaukee shop four for thirty three from three tonight and all of them

were open because of Janice. So here's the thing. Like, I think the best basketball player that I have seen live in my lifetime is two thousand eighteen Lebron. I still think MJ is the goat based on all of the film that I've read, all the books that I've read, and I trust people that were around during that time, But like I can't, I didn't see him with my own eyes live. Okay, I watched Lebron James live in two thousand eighteen, and that was the best basketball player

that I had ever seen. I could have dropped him into this game tonight and he's losing because his teammates are gonna a four for thirty three from three there's this is a team sport. There is a dynamic. We always talk about that, like cascading effect. It's like the more guys, the more shots you guys make, the more things are opened up. The more the more they miss,

the more things closed down on you. What would inevitably happen if I dropped two thousand eighteen Lebron into this game is he'd be turned into a jump shooter because there'd be absolutely no driving lanes because nothing would be open around the basket because his teammates aren't often aren't knocking down open threes, and he might go he might make two or three of the threes that Janice smissed and two or three of the midrange pull ups that Janice missed, and they lose by nine instead of by

you know, fifteen or whatever. It was, Like you just it's just not a realistic it's it's people, and I get it. I like to me, where it becomes an issue is when you're looking at the Joel Embiide situation, where it's like, dude, you're you're playing a minami heat team that's not as talented as you like. Now I have to look at the results with you Okay, did you did some of your teammates not play well? Yeah, that's true, but you should have been able to overcome that.

You had the talent. You know, last year when uh and beat in the Sixers lost the Atlanta Hawks, Like, you know, it's Lane Blaman, Ben Simmons when you were playing you know, Trey Young and a bunch of role players and you lost at home in a game seven like that, I can't look at But like when you're watching a game and there's a clear talent chasm, it's just it's not real. It's not it's not fair criticism.

Like the my least favorite example of this is people will point to k D hitting a pull up three over Lebron in Game three of the two thousand seventeen Finals as like some huge marker of him out playing Lebron in the series, when literally that was the fifteen consecutive game that Golden State team had won in the playoffs, they were undefeated in the playoffs. That's not That's not any sort of mono imano type of battle between Katie

and Lebron. That's the greatest basketball team ever assembled going against that caste. It's a totally different vibe, and so again with this kind of stuff, it's just I understand that it's part of like the take culture, and I understand that we as a society we love to lift people up when they win and burn them down when they lose. But sometimes it's more complicated than that. And that's all I'm saying. All Right, guys, that is all

I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support. I am super excited for these Conference Finals. It's going to be incredible. Stay tuned either late tomorrow or early on Tuesday. I'll have a couple I'll watch some film tomorrow morning, and I'll have a couple of Conference Finals previews coming out that you guys will see. As always, I sincerely appreciate your support and we will see you on Tuesday night. After the final buzzer of Heat Celtics, the volume