Hoops Tonight - NBA Mailbag: What Adjustments Do The Mavs Need To Make?

the first two games of the series. For Game one, though, we're doing a mailbag. So I've got a mail bag. I sent out a tweet earlier today. We had seventy something questions. I appreciate all of you guys for participating. Obviously we can't get to all of them, but we're gonna get to as many as we can. We're gonna be bouncing all throughout the NBA Finals around the league and some off court stuff in this mail bag. You

guys are the job before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and I YouTube channels you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt. So you guys, don't miss show announcements, don't forget about a podcast feed wherever you get your podcast on our hoops tonight, and then keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the summer. All right, let's

talk some basketball. Yes, first question, what's the concern level if you're Dallas that Boston completely owned the lower third court of lower third of the court defensively twenty three for forty seven, forty nine percent in the paint, took away their libs by nullifying the one to five pick and roll only got three corner three point attempts, went one for three by staying home and trusting defenders in space.

So yeah, that was my major concern coming into this series, just how different Dallas's pick and roll attack was going to look in this series by virtue of an adjustment that honestly, I was surprise Minnesota didn't try. Surprise Minnesota didn't try putting Jaden McDaniels onto Gafford or Lively and just have Gobar guard at Derrek Jones or PJ. Washington to try to disrupt the spacing of Dallas in pick

and roll. Put it simply if you allow Dallas to screen with their center, then they have traditional four out spacing shooter in the corner shooter in the corner shooter on the opposite wing screen. Both guys are rolling hard to the back or one's driving, one's rolling to the basket right, so the paint is effectively empty with two guys kind of attacking the rim. Right. As soon as you switch that matchup to where they have to to bring the center into the ball screen, they have to

use a wing instead of their center. Now the spacing gets all janked up right because now it's corner corner, but instead of this wing being occupied by shooter, it's vacant. That guy's setting the screen, and then the center is sitting in the dunker spot with Tatum on him, with his ass parked right underneath the rim, and so it just screws up the spacing of everything. And then PJ.

Washington or Darre Jones Junior has the predicament of like either rolling into all that traffic even though they're not great vertical spacers, or popping into that vacancy above the break where they're not very good above the break three point shooters, And so that problem is not going away. We talked about some specific things in our film session yesterday. One trying to set more RAM screens, so basically having

Derek Jones or PJ. Washington instead of screening for Luca, just sprint down and screen Tatum as hard as you can, and then maybe Tatum will forfeit a switch there, so that when Lively er Gafford runs up, you just have to have Lively sprint up into the screen, which will probably bring poor Zingis with them. If Tatum switches, then you have to have whoever screen Tatum quickly relocate back out to the wing so that they have the space

necessary to operate. That's one thing they can do, looking to attack less out of ball screens and more out of the post or in ISO, but not targeting Horford, who switched incredibly well in Game one, but maybe attacking the smaller guards instead. That's an angle that they can look to go through. Just in general, they've got to move with a lot more pace. I thought the ball pressure from Jalen Brown got them into a lot of

late clock situations as well. But here's the thing, those are none of those are clean, easy solutions, right, Like it's gonna be hard to set a pin down on Tatum. He might just fight through it and then follow Lively or Gafford up into the screen. Right Like, it's not going to be easy. There's not an easy solution here. Is this kind of a tough matchup because of Tatum's size. It's a tough matchup for Dallas in this sense. So I don't see that problem going away entirely. But Dallas

certainly can do a better job. But Boston dominating the lower third of the court defensively is a big part of just what their advantages are in this series, and it may not go away entirely. Does Lebron not being involved in the Lakers coaching decision and them looking to go with a development coach in Hurley more so point to Lebron being open to leaving LA this offseason or retiring soon In your eyes, I don't see that as

what's happening here. I actually I think Lebron's gonna stay and I think we'll play at least two more seasons. I think the Dan Hurley piece actually represents the best of both world here, because in the post Lebron phase, you've got a coach that's excellent with development and scouting and development. You've got to coach that will instill a culture that will last for years after Lebron James is gone. But also I actually think he's a great tactician for

this particular roster. He with Yukon had a lot of success generating space with a team that had multiple non shooters on the floor through a lot, specifically through off ball action. So think of it like this. When you're running ball screens like Dallas does, where you have Luca having a center set of pick and you've got shooters in the corners and a shooter on the opposite wing, let's think more in the Minnesota framework where the floor

is more spaced. When that's the case, help defense is pretty standard, right, Like the guy in the opposite corner is going to kind of try to find a sweet spot in between the like the block in the corner where you can help but also rotate. The guy on the opposite wing is going to come pretty close to the nail. Same thing on the strong side corner, like the drop coverage, Big is gonna run a drop Like.

The spacing is pretty standard, and you could really load up on the ball, right Like that's one of the

downsides of four out one. In offenses, there's not a lot of ball in player movement, right, but when you run action off the ball, so that let's imagine Let's imagine the Lakers, for instance, if you have Lebron James and Anthony Davis running a ball screen on the right side of the floor, and you have guys just standing like wing wing a little bit further on the wing corner, those guys all can sink into the lane and they can have their kind of attention geared up on the

ball screen where they can help. One of the things that Dan Hurley's great at is keeping help defenders occupied with action. So if you have those three guys on the weak side running like a double wide pin down where the first guy curls around the first screen and then the second guy curls around the second screen and they're just like doing shit on the opposite side of

the court, those three help defenders. Now they're mental, the their focus is geared towards that action, and so they have they have a decision to be They can either gear up on the action and then not help on the ball screen. Now Lebron and Ad are cooking, or they can favor the ball screen and you could leave an opening for a shooter on the weak side because you're not or a cutter on the weak side because

you're not paying attention to the action. Dan Hurley is big on ball in player movement and making sure that especially when you've got a team like the Lakers that's gonna have Anthony Davis who can't shoot, and Jared Vanderbilt who can't shoot. You look, Jared Vanderbilt, he's healthy next year,

is probably gonna start at small forward. So like, with that type of configuration, like, you're gonna need ball in player movement to maintain space to maintain your threats offensively, and I think Dan Hurley is a perfect fit for that. So like, I like his schematic approach to maximize this Laker roster while also being the future of the franchise in the sense that he can scout and develop young players and also establish a culture that lingers long after

Lebron has gone. I think it's a perfect fit, and I'm very hopeful that they can get a deal done. What can Dallas do defensively to mitigate being in so many help rotation situations leading to open Boston threes. Based on my observations, I think it's worth considering not pressuring the ball handlers so far out. This was a really good take when I watched the film. It was something I noticed, but I didn't actually put in my film

session last night. But there were several possessions where Dallas players were picking up ball pressure close to half court and then they get beat and then they're in rotation before they even get a chance to set their defense. And so that's a good adjustment, like playing a more passive defense where you're just working on containing the ball. Right, Like in general, with Boston, if you play off of them,

they have a tendency to settle on some pull up threes. Now, you gotta be careful because guys like Tatum and Brown are good at seeing a defender on their heels, giving space and driving at them at one angle and then crossing over or getting into their body and spinning off. So they sometimes being on your heels can work to your detriment if you're not good at actually absorbing contact and staying in front. But in general, there's not really a lot in terms of scheme that you can do differently.

You just have to do a better job, guys. Just like when it comes to Boston driving kicking from a spaced out floor, the job is simple. You have to contain the basketball. If you contain the basketball, you prevent help defense from being engaged. If you prevent help defense from being engaged, you prevent spot up opportunities on the weak side, which are going to be more efficient than a loaded up ISO. You need to basically take it so that the spot up attempts go down and the

ISO attempts go up. And the more you do that, the better chance you give yourself to get stops against the Boston Celtics. This is an interesting one. What is a better set of third, fourth, and fifth options the twenty twenty four Celtics with Drew Holliday, Derek White and Christopsporzingis or the twenty seventeen Warriors with Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Drake Gudala. Really interesting question, but I think

it's the twenty seventeen Warriors. Klay Thompson was is these was at this point the second best shooter in the league, is the second best shooter of all time, and he also was an elite perimeter defender. Unfortunately, he hasn't gotten the recognition he deserves for it over the course of

his career, but he's an elite perimeter defender. Draymond Green is the second best defensive player of this era in my opinion, obviously, and then he's a guy that keeps their offense flowing with his ability to function as like a dribble handoff fulcrum in their five out offense. And then Andre Gudala is probably the second best perimeter defender of the era behind Kawhi Leonard, Drew Holliday, Derek whit

and Christopsporzingers are really good players. I don't think they're on that level though, and again there's no shame in that the twenty seventeen Warriors, in my opinion, are the greatest basketball team ever assembled in the history of the NBA. Here we go non NBA related, but can you explain the Sith Grand Plan again from Star Wars? For some reason, I started to get so interested and interested in Star Wars lore. You know me, geek Jason Star Wars, I'm like, yes,

let's do this. First of all, the Acolyte premiere came out. The first two episodes. It was awesome, by Buddy Luke and I did full reaction to it. That's on my other podcast feed. That's the Two Sons podcast. You can find that on YouTube just under their Two Suns podcast. Have a full reaction to the first two episodes of The Acolyte. Will also have a reaction. We'll also have a reaction to episode three coming out about us pretty

late on Tuesday. Is it Tuesdayeah? I think it's Tuesday night, So keep an eye on the feeds on Tuesday night as well. Have another one, but hop over to that feed, subscribe and really appreciate it. Check out some of the Star Wars content. Sith graand plants pretty simple. So the Sith for thousands of years were many. They were numerous, right, and they are. The Sith are very inwardly focused and selfish,

so they would just betray each other. Like anytime a powerful Sith would rise, multiple lesser Siths would team up and they would overthrow him. Whereas with the Jedi they always worked in concert with each other. They were self less, they were all in on the larger goal, and so anytime there'd be a major galactic conflict, the Sith would try to attack and they would fail. Sometimes they get close, but they would fail, and they'd fail the same way

every time. They'd splinter and they'd fall apart, whereas the Jedi would come together. And so darth Bain, a thousand years before the Phantom Menace, identified this problem and realized that that was a weakness in the Sith order. So he actually manipulated and killed all of the Sith and

so it was just him and his apprentice. He instituted what's called the rule of two, where there'd be one Sith who would embody the power, and then a second Sith who would crave the power and then eventually take it from him. From there, he understood they'll never beat the Jedi through force of arms, because the Jedi will

always come together. So they had to find a different way to beat the Jedi and overthrow the republic, right, and so the person who first referred to it as the Grand Plan was Darth Plagis, but it actually initiated with Darth Bain, and the idea was you're going to

you're going to work underneath the surface. You're going to work with subterfuge and cunning, and you're going to try to sabotage from the shadows the Republic, right, And so there was a plan that took shape over the course of a thousand years through accumulation of resources and political influence and all these different things. And basically Plagus and Palpatine executed the final phase of the Grand Plan. But essentially from the way, if you've ever read the book

Darth Plagas, I highly recommend it. But in the book Darth Plagas, he actually breaks down how essentially the thought process was. He wanted to foster division between the inner Core worlds and the outer rim worlds and basically make it so that the inner the Core worlds were prospering while the outer Core worlds were suffering through through a

lot of hardship, right. And from there, he wanted to basically force the galaxy to turn on itself so that it would go to war, and then he used the Clones as the vehicle in the war to kill all of the Jedi through Order sixty six. Right, Like Plagas actually hatched that entire plan, Palpatine just executed it. And like it's really like, in my opinion, it's just like really good world of building and lore. And I'm obviously

a huge star wars Nerd. So like, I apologize for the people in this who are listening to this episode of our Big Star wars Nerds, But that's like a little short, quick synopsis of what the sifth Grande plan is. But again, I did talk a ton of that shit on my two Sons podcast with my buddy Luke's hoop

over there and check that out. Assuming Boston can finally get over the hump, does they go into next season as the favorites or does a team out west like Minnesota or Denver get the nod because of the matchup. So I actually only viewed two teams on the top tier going into the postseason, Boston and Denver. Denver was the only team that I like. Minnesota was an interesting one matchup wise because of their a couple things with

Minnesota that I really liked. This for a matchup with doubt for Boston, really good defense that I thought could cost some issues for Boston. And also Boston can struggle to protect the rims sometimes. Now with Porzingis and Gobert that might have been an issue. And I don't know who I would have picked between Minnesota and Boston. I would have needed to prep I don't know. But the only team I would have actually, like certainly picked over Boston was Denver, and they lost to a tough matchup

in the Western Conference. So the next question is what will the top tier look like next season? Because I don't necessarily view Dallas on that tier. What will that tier look like next season? I think Boston is in that tier again. I think Denver's in that tier again, maybe Dallas, maybe Minnesota, Oklahoma City. I think as a team you look at getting back into that tier, Memphis could be really interesting. We'll see when we get into

the next season. Now, all the teams shape up, but to me, Boston is going to be on that top tier again until that starting lineup gets broken up. I just I don't think they're like head and Show above everybody. I think they are beatable. They're just a really bad matchup for Dallas, which is something that I've been talking

about over the course of all of our prep. And they might there are teams out West that do match up more favorably with Boston, so as is always the case, what did I say to Denver fans at the beginning of the season, You guys, I'm picking you as the favorite right, But it's more likely than not that you lose because that's just what NBA history tells us. Right. And then I got to a point where I was

more optimistic with Denver. Right. Remember I said I expect them to win unless they get an injury to their starting five. Well, Jamal Murray got injured and played like shit, and that ended up being something that brought their ceiling down enough, just enough for them to blow a twenty point lead in Game seven against Minnesota. Right. So, like again, I tend to think this is pretty even at the

top among a handful of teams. I don't know who that team handful of teams is going to be at the start of next season, but Boston will definitely be there. Denver will definitely be there. Out of trade DeSante cad LaMelo and Simons, who would be the best fit on the Spurs. I actually want them to go off to Darius Garland. I think he'd be a perfect fit alongside Victor wembin Yama in terms of timeline, in terms of a pick and roll threat that can both score and

pass kind of an opportunity. I think you can get him at a discount too. I think the Spurs can afford to overpay him for a few years. Like, I think Darius Garland is the guy that I would go after. What's the reason you had for that poll between Jason Tatum and Ad? So I put a poll, I said who's a better basketball player? Jason Tatum or Ad? And it went crazy viral and like there were thousands and

thousands of votes and it was really close. I think Tatum finished at like fifty two to forty eight as the better player. And all it was is like, whenever I have an opportunity to present a poll that I think will be close to fifty to fifty, I'll send it out just because I think that's fun. But like, the reasoning is pretty simple. I think Jason Tatum and Ad are very close to each other. I think they're

on a similar tier as players. Now, they're very different, right, Like Tatum's a better offensive player, AD is a better defensive player. Tatum is a little more consistent, AD is a little more volatile. But AD's ceiling is higher, tatum

ceiling is lower. Right, So like there's all these like differences between them, but I view them as more or less on the same tier in the sense that they're clearly not as good as the guys at the top of the league, but I think both of them could be the best player on a championship team if they're surrounded with enough talent, and so that was kind of my thought process behind putting them on the same level. But to be clear, like it, I don't think either

of them are at the top of the league. I just kind of I just wanted to kind of give an opportunity to compare the two of them early in the season and to start the playoffs. You had the opinion that Denver could be the next dynasty in the NBA, the possible Celtics title and the team staying together for at least next year. How do you feel about the Celtics dynasty or Boston Denver in the coming years? Great show.

I absolutely think if the Celtics win this year, they could put a dynasty is a loaded word because, like how many teams have really been dynasties in NBA history, Like we're talking about the Warriors, the Spurs, you know, the Lakers in the early two thousands, the Bulls, Like there's just not a lot of examples of them, right, I do think a lot of people writing off Denver, and I think that's stupid. I think Denver is going to be right back in the mix at the top

of the league next season. I think Boston will be right in the mix at the top of the league next season. So like it's very possible that over this four or five year span we get two Denver titles, two Boston titles, Like that's all on the table. I just don't think with how talented the league is, I don't think anybody's going to be running like three to four in a row. Are we going to see teams lean more towards five out offense in the future, I

think so. I think you're seeing some of the limitations of four out with Dallas in this series, just in the sense that the one simple personnel adjustment has like rendered their offense is severely limited. So like I think ball in player movement is a great counter to any defensive approach, and in general, like it just opens the

door for better matchups. Like if you want to prevent Tatum ending up in one place or Porzingis ending up in another, A great way to do that is just lots of reversing the floor, of reversing the the side of the floor that the balls on multiple actions in the same possession. That sort of thing is a great way to counter that, and so I do think more and more teams will will see the value of that

in the long run. Not really a question, but the Celtics, going from playing the Pacers crazy up tempo, fast paced offense, especially the games Halliburton played, to this slow, non off ball movement offense has to feel so much easier. Easier is the wrong word. I think it's just different. Like this puts a lot more pressure on your individual defenders to hold up against the best player in the world potentially in Luka Doncics and one of the best ISO

players in Kyrie Irving. And so even though it's different, it's still very hard. It's just different assuming they get him. How do you see Dan Hurley's offensive defensive schemes translating to LA and how will his playbook helped generate easier looks for Brown and ad great show as always keep it up. I went over the offensive part earlier. It's just like off ball action to occupy help defenders, using Vanderbilt and Anthony Davis more as screeners than spot up players.

Different things like that to manufacture spacing without shooting on the floor. But I'm not gonna go anymore into that because you saw that earlier in the show. I have not looked into Dan Hurley's defensive approach yet. If he gets hired, I will and we will cover it in the film session. If the MAVs lose this series, would Lucas still have the bragging rights title with no MVPs in championships or can he play well enough in a loss and still have the title going into the summer.

Here's the thing, I think Luca to this, but he played like shit in Game one. Don't let the box score fool gi. He played like shit. He was so bad on the defensive end, and he wasn't good enough offensively when it mattered. But I think he's been the most impressive player in this postseason run so far. So like, we'll see how that all dust settles at the end

of the series. I do think Luca will play better, but like, if Luca plays poorly for the entire series, like, that's gonna be something we're gonna have to look at. But again, at the end of the postseason run, I'm gonna do two separate lists and one of them will be who had the best season, right like who gets the bragging rights for this season? And right now, I

do think Lucas still maintains a spot at number one. Hey, Jason, in the video with con and you said you were in real estate, How and why did you make the switch in a similar situation, And I'm questioning should I pursue a passion in basketball and media love the vis and analysis. So I got into real estate simply because that was to me the most flexible career for me to be able to pursue something in basketball media. Now, real estate's tricky. There's a bunch of different jobs in

real estate. There are salary jobs, there are transaction coordination like administration jobs, and then there's like the investment side, where I worked for a while, and then there's residential real estate like like just being an agent, which I did that as well. And when you on the salary side,

the excuse me, the investment side. I was on salary, so it was a little easier to manage in terms of like the month to month budgeting, But like when I was in the residential side, like it's super volatile, Like I had months where I made a lot of money, and I had months where I'd made zero money, right, And like one of the big things I learned when I did that for a living, it's one hundred percent commission. So it's like you got to be really, really self

motivated and you have to put in the work. It's all about lead generations. Like for me, I was just holding a ton of open houses to meet new clients and that was what floated my business. But again, like that's a great job. That's super flexible. The residential real estate side, if you want to pursue a passion, but you won't make money unless you put in the work. So it's a delicate balance. It's not like you just get your real estate license and money starts coming in.

You have to sell houses and so it's a difficult job. But if you can figure out how to do it, then that is a very flexible job to allow you to pursue jobs to pursue, to pursue something like sports media on the side. As far as the sports media side, just start making content, get a camera, get a mic, put it out on a podcast, feed, put it on YouTube, put it on social media, and just see where it goes and Lastly, I would just say be yourself, don't

try to pretend to be someone else. Just authentically talk about whatever it is. Your topic is the way you want to talk about it and see where it goes from there. People just have people can see through it when you're not being authentic. What was Boston doing better than the Wolves in the last round in terms of drible pandetration? Why was ants drive not nearly as effective as Jaylen Brown and Tatum's yesterday? Why is it because of KP spacing or lack of effort from Luke and Kyrie.

It's simply because the spacing that Boston provides in general. It's not just Porzingis, it's Boston always has five shooters on the floor. They did not play a single non shooter while the game was in question yesterday. The guys off the bench Porzingis, Pritchard and Houser all great shooters, and so Minnesota with Colbert and Jada McDaniels and Kyle Anderson and Nikaile Alexander Walker. It's just that the MAVs could pack the paint, and most importantly, Gafford and Lively

were just parked under the rim. The entire time, and so even though Ant's a better driver than anybody in a Boston Celtics jersey, it just doesn't matter because the spacing isn't there. Who's your second favorite player of all time after Lebron Steph Curry? And the main reason why is because I actually watched him. I've always been a big Kobe and MJ fan, but I didn't start watching basketball until the mid two thousands and or to the late two thousands, and at that point CO was kind

of already starting to fade. Obviously, I'm a huge Kobe fan, huge Michael Jordan fan, but like in terms of like the majority of my basketball fan hood, Steph Curry was the guy that I enjoyed watching the most other than Lebron, super unique, savage competitor, really good leader, genuinely just an awesome television watch. Just Steph to me was my second favorite player to watch. If the Rockets had beaten the Warriors in the twenty eighteen Western Conference Finals, who do

you think would have won the finals? Between them and the Calves with Chris Paul coming off a hamstring injury. I've had this take before, but like, I think Lebron was so much better than James Harden at that point as a playoff player. I know Harden won the MVP, but like Harden just did a bunch of damage in the regular season. I think if Chris Paul was injured that the Caves would have won. But if Chris Paul had somehow been able to come back and play in

that series, then I think Houston would have won. Why do you think Jalen Brown is so underrated? To me? He was obviously one of the fifteen best players in the league this year, didn't even make All MBA. Also, it makes no sense that only one Boston player made it. Actually, it makes a lot of sense. They have five thirty million dollar players in an open market, and there aren't

just fifteen thirty million dollar players in the league. There's a hell of a lot more than that, right Like, I want to say there's I'll have to look, but I'm sure there's forty fifty players that make at least twenty five million a year, right Like, there's just a lot of players that make a lot of money. I think that where I rank him we'll see after the season. But I think I don't think it's just like a sure thing that he is one of the top fifteen

players in the league. I think that's debatable. I think I don't even want to have a take on it because I haven't thought enough about it as far as whether or not he's underrated. Like what, let's be real about what's happening here. The top fifteen players in the league generally have major offensive responsibilities for their team. We know what it looks like when Jalen Brown has major offensive responsibilities. He's not consistent enough as a guy who

breaks down the defense to be in that role. He is, a part of why he's looked so good with this team is it's allowed him to operate with an advantage a lot and to focus his energies on the defensive end of the floor, where he's a top tier athlete. So like a lot of this is Boston by virtue of Brad Stevens, has surrounded Jalen Brown with so much talent that, like, his weaknesses are just not exploitable the

way that they are in other systems. So I don't think it's fair when you look at like, let's say, let's take another guy who's in that same range, like Damian Lillard. I think I had him at thirteen or fourteen coming into the season, Dame's job on Milwaukee is way, way, way, way way harder than Jaln Brown's on the offensive end of the floor, Like they live and die based on what he can do and what Giannis can do, right, Whereas with Jalen Brown, it's like Derek White runs the

action a lot of the game. You know, Drew Holiday will co op possessions like Tatum obviously is the number one. Like there's just so much talent in Boston that it allows Jalen Brown's strengths to rise to the surface and his weakness is to sink. Even just last year without Poor Zingis and without Drew Holliday, you saw how much more Boston needed from Jalen Brown and how much damaging it was, how much more damaging it was when he couldn't actually fulfill his end of the bargain in that sense.

So like, I'm not trying to undercut what Jalen Brown's doing, but all I'm saying is is like there's context here. This team is really good, and it makes the job really easily. It's like when Kevin Durant went to Golden State. There are so many people around that team were like, holy shit, he's the best part in the league. He's better than Lebron And it's like he's literally playing in a system where the game is so easy for him. That doesn't mean Kevin Durant's not awesome, it's just context.

We literally saw him in Oklahoma City look significantly less efficient the previous season, right, So, like again, the context is important here. Gylen Brown's awesome. He may be Top fifteen, We'll see you when I do my list after the season, but he's in a system right now that accentuates his strengths and minimizes his weaknesses because of how much talent

is on the roster. And lastly, like again, like, the only definitive top fifteen player on the roster was Tatum, So that's why he's the only guy who made All NBA. It's really that simple. I've seen a lot of people trying to dismiss last night Celtics performance by saying how we just got hot and how we won't repeat it again. But with this Celtics team, I feel like these types of Knights are built into their identity and their style of play allows them to have multiple so I do

think they'll do it again at least once. Like I said before the series, I think they'll have two blowout wins in this series. Also, like the shot quality is replicable, Like the problems that Boston presented aren't going away, But they also shot really well in that first half. To

put it simply, they went up twenty nine. Like we all think most of us picked Boston to beat Dallas, right, but we picked Boston to beat Dallas in a competitive ish sea, right, Like we don't think that they're just gonna beat the shit out of them every single time they play. When Boston shoots like that, they'll beat the shit out of them. But let's just take that exact

same first half, but five of those threes don't go in. Now, instead of being up twenty nine, you're up fourteen, you're still up fourteen and the NBA Finals in the first half, that's still a dominant performance, right, So like, yeah, the Celtics shot really well, but they got really good, high quality shots and they were so much better that even if they hadn't shot as well, they still would have won. So like, like again, over the course of the series,

they will have performances. I think Boston will win a game in this series where they don't shoot well, like, I think that's something that'll happen. So like, again, what happened last night is replicable in terms of shot quality, and when you get that type of shot quality consistently, you will have Knights where you shoot it well. When they shoot it well, they'll blow them out. That was kind of why I had that take that they'll have

multiple blowout blowouts. What moves, if any, does Denver need to make in order to get back to the twenty twenty three postseason levels of dominance. All I think they need to do is retain KCP and make one addition to the bench, preferably an athletic guard, like a guy that can beat people off the dribble, someone an athletic guard with the ball in his hands. Right. If they can do that, I think they're gonna be right back

in the mix. I think a lot of people are writing off Denver for losing in the second round when they were up twenty in Game seven in the second half, And if they won that series, I would have picked them over Dallas. And if they would have won that series, I would have picked them over Boston. So like, it really is a game of inches. They caught a bad matchup, they got tired, they blew a big lead in the second half. But Denver's gonna be right back in the

mix next year. What counters do you expect the MAVs will employ against the Celtics tendency to switch on screens. I went over a bunch of counters in the film sessions, so I'm not going to go in too much more detail, but one avoiding attacking Horford and targeting the smaller guards instead. We talked about rams screens to try to bring Porzingis into the action against a lob threat like Gafford and Lively.

That would allow to potentially unlock some stuff in their pick and roll game, but mostly Luke and Kyrie just have to do a better job. Zero point five to four points per iso is not going to cut it. Last question, what guitars do you have? Okay, I'm gonna move the microphone a little bit here so I can show you. So I have this one. This is a

This was my first PRS. This is a CE twenty four, semi hollow, really fun guitar, twenty four frets, really easy to play, and the main thing with the CE twenty four. Is it's a bolt on, so you can see how it's got the the neck actually bolted on instead of glued. And then it's got steel trim, so it's a steel bridge and then steel trim up top, and so it kind of has like a resonance to it that's kind of unique to a steal. This one right here is

a Fender Stratocaster, pretty standard. I like love the vintage colors on this one, but just a Fender stratocaster we have. Let's see here, this is my pride and joy. This is the most expensive guitar that I own and one of the two that I play most frequently. This is a hollow body piezo. So the main thing with it is it's completely hollow. So there's two maple pieces, one on the back and one on the front, and then it's mahogany around the side and a mahogany neck that's

glued in. And then the main thing is is it's got their vintage style humbuckers. These are what they call the fifty eight to fifteens, or like a kind of like a vintage sounding tone, super warm thing similar to like what you'd see in like a less Paul, but these these are beautiful sounding. I'm obsessed with these. And then this bridge has what's called a piazzo pick up in it, which makes it sound like an acoustic guitar,

which I really like. This one is my second favorite to play, and I think is the prettiest guitar that I own. I like this one a lot. And then lastly, this is my favorite guitar to play. This is the Silver Sky. This is John Mayer's signature guitar. It's basically like a Fender Stratocaster, but PRS's version. I won't go into too much detail geeking out about it, but like love the maple neck. I think it's the prettiest maple

neck that I've seen on a guitar. I love this kind of like rust, kind of like it's like kind of it. This just kind of reminds me of Arizona, which I really like. And then it's just got a really classic stratocaster sound that I really like. And then it's just so well built. It's got a really rounded radius. This one's a seven inch radius, so it's rounded, easy

to get your fingers around. This is like the if you've ever anybody who listens to the show's played a silver Sky knows it's like literally one of the best guitars to funniest guitars to play. It's also like relatively affordable compared to some of the core models that PRS makes, Like the purple guitar is more than twice as much as that one. So and then I've got a couple of cheapi's, a couple of epiphones like entry level ones, and then I've got an acoustic guitar over there as well.

All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We will be back on Sunday night with a live reaction with Colin Coward after Game two. I would see you guys that the volume