Hoops Tonight - NBA Mailbag: Why Luka Doncic & Mavericks can beat Celtics, what happened to Wolves?

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you guys are having a great week. Just gonna do a quick mail bag today before we get to Game four the Western Conference Finals tonight. We'll be going live on YouTube tonight after the final buzzer. Make sure you guys are there, got like twenty twenty five questions we're going to get to today. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Following me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT 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 bag questions and those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the first question, what is your most interesting storyline from a likely MAVs Celtics. Obviously, the Celtics have officially secured their spot in the NBA Finals.

The MAVs need one more win to do so. But as we've broken down at nauseum in the show, We're going to get into a little bit deeper today. I don't see a pathway for Minnesota to flip the script against Dallas. I think it's a terrible matchup for them, in addition to the fact that Luca is clearly a better player at this phase of his career than Anthony Edwards,

and so I don't really see a path there. So I think the overwhelmingly likely scenario is that we're going to get the MAVs versus the Celtics in the NBA Finals, and so from there, I'm gonna kind of go a little bit deeper into a concept I talked a little bit about last night with Colin Coward. What I think is most interesting about this series is the complete difference in the two builds of these rosters. Right, Boston feels like more of a talent accumulation type of roster. Right,

everyone plays positions that compliment each other really well. Right, Like Derek White's more of like a skill guard, right all, so, an excellent defensive player and a great athlete, but he's a guy that can you know, really run a lot of action. Excellent pull up three point shooter when they go to late game situations, it usually ends up being

Tatum White two man game, right. But then Drew Hollidy kind of plays that athlete guard guards the other team's best guard kind of thing, right, And then you've got you know, your smaller forward, and then you've got your bigger forward and Jason Tatum, and then you've got that center position with a rim protector and Chris tops porzingis right. But at the same time, none of those guys are

like role players, right. Every single one of them has at various points in their careers been playing in very large roles, even like Derek White, who's been a role player and a lot of teams, Like I would argue, at this point, he's become one of the primary decision makers for the Boston Celtics, right, And so that team is you know, as we mentioned in many of the recent episodes, all five of those guys that I just mentioned on the open market, if they were free agents

right now, would command over thirty million dollars a year. So it's like a very talented, you know, conglomeration of players.

in this playoff run. Right, So it's like it's a lot of like guys having less talent being focused into very specific roles behind these two super talented offensive players versus Boston, where it's like kind of everyone has to do everything because everyone is a star, right, And so like I do find that to be super super fascinating going into that series, that to me is the most

interesting storyline. Another kind of way to look at it is like Luca being potentially the best player in the series versus Boston clearly being the more talented team in the series, and so it's going to be an interesting kind of of you know, case study and whether or not the best player on in the series can elevate his team over more talent. Now again, but for the record, we've seen many times over the years that not be enough. Right, Like, I think Lebron James was clearly the best player in

the world from twenty twelve to twenty twenty. I thought that that was clear, and yet there were several examples over that stretch where he did not win the NBA Championship, he won four of them. What is a nine year span, so we lost five of them, right, So like twenty fourteen, that Spurs team just had it cooking in so many different ways offensively and at Dwayne Wade's knee was kind of bothering and the team was kind of just getting a little bit fatigued, a little bit old, right, you know.

Twenty fifteen, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving get hurt. Right twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, the second and third best players in the world, team up with each other and that ends up being enough to unseat him. Right, twenty nineteen, he has the groin injury. So, like you guys can see the point, Like there are many times in NBA history where the best player in

the series does not win. I think just look back at the Denver series, knowing what we know about Anthony Edwards now and seeing that he doesn't have the matchup resiliency that someone like a Luka Doncic has. Now that we've seen that, we can state unequivocally that the best player in the series in the Denver Minnesota Series was Jokic and yet Denver lost, and so we're gonna see if Luca can reverse that trend going into the NBA Finals. Next question, does Dallas have what it takes to upset

Boston in the finals. Absolutely, They're an elite defensive team, right. I think a big part of it is going to be Luca attacking and pick and roll. I started to just barely look at some film. We're gonna do a lot of series preview content around this series because we're just gonna have a lot of time. Like, guys, if if Dallas wins tonight, which I think they probably will, but Minnesota's got a shot if Dallas wins tonight, we're looking at eight consecutive days, full days off before the

NBA Finals. Like I was thinking, we'll probably go there's two Dallas Boston games. We may just do full breakdowns of both of those games. We might spend an entire show talking about the offense. We might bring on Chris Mannix, we might bring on those of you guys who were Dallas. If you guys have a specific like team, someone who covers the Mavericks really closely that you guys think is great at it, drop it in the comments I'll see if I can't reach out and get them on the show.

We're gonna have a lot of fun previewing this series, and we're gonna get into all those details. But one of the things that I noticed in my initial kind of look at some film yesterday is Luca is too big for everybody on Boston pretty much except for Jason Tatum. And so I think a big thing is Boston's not gonna want to put Jason Tatum on Luca, especially not early in the series. I think Drew Holliday is gonna

get that assignment a lot, right. I think Jalen Brown and Drew Holliday are gonna be the guys that see

the majority of the time on him. And like, you know, first possession of the game in Boston, like Luca gets Drew Holliday on his hip and just methodically works him down into the lane, waits for chrisops Porzingis to recover to the role man, and then he just shoots an easy little floater over Drew Holliday and he turns around and makes the too small symbol, right, So, like I think that that's gonna be kind of like where this series hinges is can Luca really strangle the pace of

the game and pick the Celtics defense apart in the half court because if you can and keep the game kind of slowed down in intense and high pressure, maybe on the other end of the floor, can your elite

defense play Boston into some of their worst tendencies. Now, one of the things that's going to be interesting is Boston is very much a spread you out type of driving kick offense, which is very, very different than what Minnesota does, right, and like, you're not gonna have the luxury that you have in this series of having Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively just spark in the paint because Rudy Gobert is terrible at making anything other than a dunk.

I'm gonna actually pull up this stat real quick. I tweeted it out yesterday, but I pulled this up on Synergy yesterday and I was like literally blown away. So,

Rudy Gobert is this that is like legitimately insane. Let's see, Rudy Gobert is shooting sixteen for thirty five on layups in this playoff run and three for eleven on floaters in hook So like that's one of the things that allows Derek Lively and Daniel Gafford to just kind of roam off of Gobert and help in the lane is like, unless it's a clean dunk, Gobart's probably not gonna make it.

And so that buys you that luxury. That's not what it's gonna be like with Al Horford and chrisops porzingis they're gonna be operating primarily from the three point line and it's gonna be a lot more about covering in space. Now, this is where we've found out that Maxi Kleba is coming back tonight. That's a big deal for Dallas, right, Like having Kleba back gives you the ability to put

lineups out there with Kleba, PJ. Washington, and Derek Jones Junior all on the floor at the same time, and then you can you can put those guys on Tatum and Brown and Derek White and ask Kyrie to do a somewhat easier job of guarding someone like a Drew Holliday and ask Luca to maybe be the guy who's hedging and recovering on an on an Al Horford or

something along those lines. Like they're they're gonna have options, more options by virtue of having Maxi Kleba back, but it's gonna be much more of a of a defend in space type of series, whereas this series is much more of a load up and pack the paint type of series.

probably Luca as well. There are a lot of really good lob throwers that have seen over the years, like guys like Trey Young, guys like Chris Paul. Lebron was always good at he just never played with a vertical spacing threat until Anthony Davis, and he's been pretty good

at connecting him with lobbs. But the problem with Lebron and Ad is they play very similar positions, so teams will typically switch those ball screens, and so lebron ad picking rolls out something you see a ton of unless you're playing against a drop coverage big, right, But I think it's clear Luca. One of the big things that I think makes him the best at it is he's tall, and like you got to think, so, what makes a lob open. A lob is open when the rim protector

leaves the lob threat. Right, If the rim protector is leaving the lob threat, that means that a seven footer or some sort of large center type player is leaving that guy to pressure Luca, and so he's got to be able to get that pass over the tall player. I put in the film session yesterday. Do you guys remember that transition post up of Mike Conley where Luca spun baseline and threw the lob up to I think it was Gafford, it might have been Lively, it doesn't matter.

But on that play, Gobert left him and double team Luca and came up arms up, and Luca just happened to get the pass up over the top of him, which is just a kind of like a benefit of him being as tall as he is. I've been saying this for a while, but I think Luca is the only current NBA player that can contend for goats status thoughts.

So I was looking at I thought about this for a little while this morning because I kind of think of like three tiers of young players, Like the guys in that like age twenty seven to thirty range that are like kind of in the heart of their prime right now. There's like the guys that are in that like twenty five to twenty six, twenty four to twenty five to twenty six range. Those to me are the

guys that are just entering into their prime. And then there's the guys that are in their early twenties that are like very clearly just like raw talent, that are still kind of getting into that phase. In the older tier, Jannis and Jokic, they both have a title, right but they both turn thirty next year. It's a one championship. Entering into your thirties, they just would have to go on an absolutely crazy run over the next five years to enter into those conversations.

I just don't think he has that upside. Jason Tatum, I think is a really good and maybe even a bit underrated basketball player, but I don't think that he's in the tier of players that can really like dominate

the league for a half of a decade. Like like, I think he's the perfect fit for this super talented Boston roster, but I think if you swapped him with like, with a guy like Luca and put him in a role where he really had to run an offense by himself or with only one secondary shot creator for an eighty two game season, I just don't think he's the kind of guy that can really do that at.

just completely raw potential with those two. So it's like there's a there's a huge, wide rue range of outcomes for them, and as you get older, those ranges of outcomes kind of zero in between where your current development is and what your potential upside is, right, And so yeah, I think that I think that Lucas certainly has that potential, but I also think that there are some guys in the younger generation that have that potential. What is it that separates go Baar in the eyes of voters from

players like Ad Bam and Victor wemen Yama. I find it odd that media voters complained about him winning just to vote for him year after year. So voters, I've one of the big things that I learned after I got into this business. A good percentage of voters rely heavily on metrics, which is crazy to me, but it is what it is, and I've had one of those guys explain to me the reasoning and their whole thing is like the eye test is flawed, but numbers are unbiased,

and that's a good way to look at it. I think that that's absurd personally, but that is the way that so many voters think.

sort of thing. I think the second piece of it is people are just enamored with the fact that Gobert is like super engaged defensively all the time, which is completely ridiculous when you factor in the responsibilities that Anthony Davis has, that bam Adebayo has, that Victor Webmbinyama has a D and bam we're both like folkrum ball screeners in a five out offense all year, like they were guys that had to like consistently make decisions and set screens and roll hard to the rim, not in a

way like Rudy Gobert where it's like maybe you'll catch and finish every once in a while, they were expected to score. They were expected to score consistently on the offensive end of the floor. And Victor webbin Yama obviously as well, is a guy that is a primary initiator for his team, and so like I can speak to this from personal experience. Like when I was in college. When I was in junior college, I was like one

of the best scorers on my team. I was the guy that had the ball in my hands a ton. Then I went to Naia, and when I was there, I played alongside two All American guards. My role fundamentally changed from guy who had the ball in his hands to I stayed on the floor and like kept my spot in the lineup by basically devoting all of my energy towards guarding the other team's best player and trying

to knock corner threes down right. So like in that every game I went in like all I cared about was defense, defense, defense, because that was how I kept my job while I was playing alongside really good offensive players. And so that's what Rudy Gobert does. Rudy Gobert goes into tonight's game, He's not thinking about anything on the offensive end. The only thing Rudy Gobert is thinking about tonight going into the game is how do I anchor

this defense? Whereas Anthony Davis when he's going into Game five in Denver, he's thinking, man, I got to give him an efficient thirty tonight two, you know what I mean. And so like there's just a lot of pressure sure on those guys to do more. And I genuinely think all three of those guys and arguably Draymond as well, are better defensive players in a vacuum than Rudy Gobert.

But because Rudy Gobert devotes all of his energy in that direction, he puts up these crazy metrics and all the voters just kind of glom onto that sort of thing and they run with it every single year. And so Rudy Gobert has four Defensive Player of the Year trophies, and I think he's probably somewhere around the fifth to seventh best defensive player in the world. And it is

what it is. If the Timberwolves mostly Towns and Ant were playing like they were the first two rounds, would they be up three to zero or at least two to one. I mean, yeah, But think about why they're playing poorly. They're not playing poorly, like so many people want to point to this as like some sort of mental shortcoming, like, oh, you know, Carl Towns and Anthony Edwards just ran into this aura of Luka Doncic and

then they just crumbled the pieces. No, Like they're playing a very different defense than they did in the first two rounds. They are completely incapable of getting into the paint. All of Minnesota's paint finishes have come off the ball, either through cleanups around the rim, put backs, or attacking

closeouts on the weekside. Carltown's in Anthony Edwards are not consistently getting into the lane because of elite perimeter athleticism and elite vertical athleticism under the rim for Dallas, and so again, like they're not playing well, but there's a basketball reason for that, Like we got to get out

of this hole, like, oh, they crumbled under the pressure. No, no, no, Like there's generally speaking, if the basketball conditions are favorable, a player is gonna play well, and if basketball conditions are not favorable, they're not going to play well. And again, it's exposed a couple of weaknesses as we've gone over

in this series. I've consistently said Carl Anthony Towns is a guy that if you can flatten out his drives and shut off the lane from him, he's an inconsistent over the top shooter, and so you will turn him into a make or miss guy, and he's been missing in this series. That's something that can happen with Karl

Anthony Towns. Anthony Edwards his flies, he's all one speed right now, and so he's got to learn against these super packed in defenses how to be more methodical to manipulate help defenders, which is going to take him a few more years of experience. There's two of these. I'm so relieved that Jason is leaning Boston. Would have crushed my soul for him to give us his curse. The second one, Please don't pick the MAVs to win, Jason, don't do it. First of all, I literally picked the

MAVs to win against the Clippers. I picked the MAVs to win against the thunder when they were an underdog. So was I cursing the MAVs. Then, in my pre playoffs contender rankings, I had Denver one, Boston to Dallas three. So like I obviously was a huge believer in Dallas all along, I picked against them in this specific series

in a razor thin margin. And then I also laid out in the series preview all the different reasons that Dallas could win, including Jada McDaniels might be too skinny for Luca, including Dallas has real rim protection that might cause problems for Anthony Edwards and Karl Anthony Towns. In the lane, I also mentioned like I thought Luca's knee might be in rough shape and it might cause some problems. It clearly has not been an issue. So like, first

of all, I haven't cursed your team. Second of all, I've been consistently on the Dallas bandwagon for the most part over the course of the latter portion of the year, So I really don't know where all that sentiment comes from. Why don't teams target Luca? Why didn't they put him in pick and roll? So, first of all, there's a reason why the Wolves can't because Luca has been targeted on occasion in this series, and he's ended up on an island against you know, Luca, or against Anthony Edwards

or against Carl Anthony Towns. The reason why the Wolves are struggling with it is think about it like this. If it has Derek Jones Junior on him and he brings Luca into the screen, gets a switch at that point, where's Gobert if it's an ISO. If it's an ISO, go Beart's sitting underneath the basket in the dunker spot, right, and who's guarding him Derek Leivelier Daniel Gaffer Right. So

Luca's defensive job becomes very simple. Just press up on Ant and make him drive, and if he drives, he's just gonna drive into all of this damn traffic underneath the rim. Dallas has also been helping heavily off of Jade McDaniels all serious. So it's not that they're not trying to target Luca, it's just it doesn't solve the fundamental problem, which is Ant can get by his man. That's not the issue. Even Derek Jeonge Jr. And can

get by him. It's the totality of the team defense on the way they're packing the paint, and with Gobaert and McDaniels being left open, how they're incapable of consistently making them pay for doing that. But Boston is very,

very big on matchup attacking. Up until the point where Tyres Aliburton left the series, the vast majority of action they were running was targeting Tyros Aliburton either on the ball through pick and roll or off the ball through inverted pick and roll where he was hedging and recovering.

Boston was going at him every single time down the floor. Also, Boston can get centers out of the paint because they have shooting bigs, so they can like legitimately play five out all the time, right, And so from that perspective, I do think Luca will get targeted a lot more consistently in the Boston series, and it will come down to, you know, is is Dallas willing to hedge and recover or are they just gonna have to double team m out of those situations or is Luca just gonna slide

his feet and do it. Well, we're gonna find out in that next round. Every Luca play description as you saying, watch how Luca bumps Jayden to create separation, or watch how Luca hits him so hard he goes flying, or Luca gives him a little off arm creating separation, or watch Luca bump Jaden with the drop step here, with each being followed by Lucas step back. This action is never called an offensive foul. How can anyone guard this type of play effectively? Basketball is a contact sport. I

hate to break it to you. That's just what it is. It's not like every single basketball Not only is basketball contact sport, it becomes more and more of a contact sport the later you get into the playoffs. And that's just not even that's not even just a NBA thing. That's at every life, whether it's high school, when you

get into the playoffs, it gets more physical. Whether it's an NCAA tournament game, it gets like that, whether it's a money tournament where there's money on the line and guys are playing like it, just anytime the intensity in stakes rise, it becomes a contact sport. And so that's why if you look back through NBA history, it's usually the big strong guys who end up playing the best.

It ends up being the Lucas, it ends up being the jokic As, it ends up being the Lebron james As, it ends up being the Giannises in this league, right, the big strong guys who have the most success. Why are you so convinced that Ant will just learn to be a smart player and game controller. He will improve, of course, but he has an enormous gap to close with guys like Luka or Jokis. I'm sure he will be a brilliant player for years to come, but I do not really see the signs of him being a

great decision maker consistently. I have the impression that Wemby is more likely to have that type of impact, and he is in his and he is in his way also a freak of nature like Ant. So if anyone is going to be an outstanding force in the league other than Luca or Jokic, it's going to be Wemby, not Ant.

Kevin Durant was still wearing a Golden State Warriors jersey. Okay, Like, that's how far we have to get for Aunt to be able to win a title on the same schedule as the lebron James Michael Jordan's tier of guys at the top of the league in NBA history, right, So, Like, I wouldn't overthink that. And most importantly, I've seen encouraging signs having that disastrous first half in Game seven and then figuring out how to be deeply impactful in the

second half. That was a huge, huge sign of adaptability from Ant, even in this series. I know every Mavericks fan is just convinced it was because of Lively. I thoroughly disagree. In terms of his overall approach. He was much smarter in the second half of Game three. No, it's not gonna be enough to turn the series around, but he is adaptable, he is learning, and he is rapidly improving. Give this dude five more offseasons, five more eighty two game grinds, five more playoff runs. He's gonna

be so damn good. Guys, He's gonna be so damn good. It looked like he might be ahead of schedule. Turns out still needs some more time. But that doesn't mean we need to pretend the dude is incapable of reaching where he wants to get to need the Boston Verse MAVs breakdown. Like I said, obviously, we're gonna wait until after the MAVs series ends, but we will do many, many layers of series preview content for this matchup, a ton of film, probably gonna have some guests on as well.

We're gonna have lots to get into over the course of the coming week. How has Ant's potential changed zero after the series? You just said in this video that he will need considerably more time to reach the peak, So that's considerably less rings for him. He potentially could have started winning championships starting this season, but now it'll take him a couple more years to get his first.

The potential does change, No, it doesn't. Lebron James and Michael Jordan didn't win their first until twenty seven and they've combined to win ten. He was on pace to be way ahead of schedule. It looks like he's a little bit He's got a ways to go. But guys, he's twenty two. He barely can order a beer. Okay, Jason, I love the channel and have improved my understanding of basketball measurably thanks to your logical and insightful breakdowns of

the game. I used the logic you taught me to predict that the MAVs have many advantages in this matchup and that should put them as considerable favorite, despite what

the overall narratives were surrounding the series. Looking back on your coverage, I believe you have the basketball like Q and experience to have gone against the majority of your peers and predicted the shape of this matchup before game one, but you allowed yourself to be moved by more narrative based statements such as Edwards is playing like a top five player in the league, or that either Denver or

Mini could easily beat Dallas or Oklahoma City. Do you think this is a fair assessment and that if you followed your own processes more strictly, you could have predicted this series more accurately. So, first of all, I really do try to look at the basketball before going into the series. If you guys, go go back and listen to the series preview and you'll hear a lot of the same shit that's happened in the series. I specifically brought up McDaniels might not be able to guard Luca.

I specifically brought up that the rim protection might be an issue for Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony Towns. I specifically brought up that Derek Jones Junior was a freaky athlete that might be able to have some more success keeping Anthony Edwards in front off of the dribble. I looked at all those advantages. I think where I specifically made a mistake was I knew Dallas's rim protection would be different than Denver. I just thought ant would have

more success against it. So, like, honestly, like it's this series should be a little closer than it is. It shouldn't be a sweep. Dallas isn't four to zero better than Minnesota. But Anthony Everards is having a really really rough series, which can happen sometimes for young basketball players when they run into a tough matchup, and so again, like the way I look at it, like I was wrong, but I had it close. Go look at in the preview, I've specifically said, like, this can go either way. Dallas

certainly can win. I'm picking Minnesota. I thought Minnesota's defense would have a little bit more impact on Luca, and I thought Anthony Edwards would have a little bit more success attacking in the half court against this team. It went a different way. I was wrong. It happens. I don't know what else to say. But at the end of the day, guys, like like I guys, Minnesota beat Denver.

Minnesota beat Denver. Denver and Anthony Edwards went toe to toe with the best player in the world and like played more or less at his level over the course of a seven game series. Like Dallas flipped the script. Good on them, tip the cap. But like, let's not sit here and pretend like Minnesota was a bunch of bums and we all foolishly picked bums over because of narratives over the Dallas Mavericks. That's not the way that I see it. First you were on Denver, then Minnesota,

now Dallas. Do you have pick integrity? A couple things I hate this part of the job, but it's something that we have to do.

he said something that I thought was fascinating. He goes, humans on a deep level are are are addicted to variants, And what he meant by that was like, we want to go into a situation and not know what's going to happen, right, And he was referring to it with JJ Redick wanting to get back into coaching, and essentially, the way I interpreted that and what I thought was super fascinating is like, that's what makes sports fun to watch, guys,

is we don't know what's gonna happen. If we knew every single game clearly who was going to win, no one would watch. Where's the fun in that? Like, at the end of the day, Like, that's what we love about sports is you tune in for Game seven Denver Minnesota and it's like, man, what's gonna happen tonight? Is Denver going to flex their championship muscles and get this thing done? Or is Minnesota, on the strength of this twenty two year old kid in a great defense, gonna

beat these guys. And you're like, grab your popcorn, man, get pop an ice cold beer. Let's watch what happens. Like that's what we love about sports. And then guess what we turn it on and it's like, holy shit, Denver's up twenty. Oh my gosh, they haven't scored in like five minutes. Now Minnesota's back in the game. Uh oh Nasried's making shots. It's oh my gosh, Minnesota's gonna win. That's why we love sports. That's why we love it. I said this on a mail bag like a week ago.

There's nothing that has surprised me more since getting into this industry than how obsessed people are with like my ability to successfully predict playoff series, which is like completely absurd. It's completely absurd. Secondly, I was on Denver because they have the best player in the world and they have a damn good basketball team. They barely lost in a series where they led by twenty in.

pick integrity? What does that damn mean? I just don't understand, Like, help me understand what you're expecting in terms of picks. It's it's so confounding to me in retrospect. Do you think that the fact that Minnesota took all seven games to beat Denver was an indication that they were not ready? They went up two oh and honestly, I think it should have ended in five or six. Mex The matchup was literally perfect form Minnesota. I'm curious to see what

you think about this. I don't think it needs to be overthought. I thought, honestly, just Denver is a championship caliber team that flexed their muscles and was able to kind of regain control of the situation.

gonna include film. When we do series season previews, we're gonna include film. So like draft stuff, we're gonna be able to do film this year. So like I'm excited to see what we do. We'll probably after the finals do some sort of like strategy meeting internally to kind of come up with some ideas. But we're gonna do

a lot of stuff with film this summer. Jason mailback question for you, what do you think is the hardest part regarding prepping for these reaction videos you make or even going into a series were's so evenly matched between both sides. Huge fan of the show, so reaction videos easily. The hardest part is the close game. So you can

imagine I'm writing notes watching the game. I'm writing down all the interesting tactical stuff that I'm seeing, right, but let's say it's one hundred to one hundred and four minutes left. Everything about the narrative of the show and the flow of the show hinges on who wins the game. And often I feel like a certain team's gonna win, or I write a bunch of notes about one specific side, and then you have a massive comeback, like a twenty point comeback in the second half of game seven, and

suddenly the entire show flips over. And so instant reaction shows are kind of interesting and unique challenge in the sense that like it's just you never know what you're gonna have to say because things can change so quickly over a few minutes at the end. As far as like series previews, like the hardest part is like I go through the film and I see, oh, this team has this advantage, this team has that advantage, this team has this advantage, this team has that advantage, and it's

really difficult to predict something that's wildly unpredictable. The vast majority of the series, in this playoff run, we're but between relatively evenly matched teams that could have gone either way. Even just look at thunder MAVs. If PJ Washington, Let's say that Shay gets a clean block on PJ. Washington on that corner three and they win, and they go home and they win game seven, the entire NB Finals could be different like that we would at Thunder Minnesota

in the second round, in the third round. So like, again, all of this stuff hangs by a thread, and so many things could have gone differently, and so like that's the hard part. And like, honestly, when it comes to doing series previews, like like half the battle is like no matter what I pick.

take care of his body at all. But there certainly is another level he can get to on that front, and I wonder if you will ever get to that in his career, because if he does, that could have locked an entirely different level in terms of him both defense and in terms of his conditioning level over the course of games, which is already really good. How do you see the matchup between the Nuggets and the Maps. Barkley had a short comment that Denver would have beaten

Dallas if they had managed to go through Minnesota. I probably would have picked Denver to beat Dallas had they met in the conference finals. It's really as simple Denver. In the same way that Denver has the personnel to guard Anthony Edwards, they really don't have the personnel to deal with Jokic. They would have to double and swarm him the entire series, which would have led to a ton of open looks. The other part of it, too

is Dallas. Denver is more capable of handling Dallas's loaded up defense with their ability to move the ball side to side. They play more five out and I think

they would have just generated a lot more quality looks. Also, Da Denver has a player that's big and strong enough to kind of sort of hang with Luca and Aaron Gordon, which is something that Minnesota does not, and that's just fundamentally different, Like Luca wouldn't be able to put Aaron Gordon in jail on those ball screens and manipulate Aaron Gordon the.

Luca versus Jokich is interesting. Obviously, Jokich has certain advantages with his size, but I believe Luca also has a few advantages by virtue of him being a perimeter player and a great ball handler. For example, the best closers usually tend to be guards, and Luca is probably the best closer in the league today. On the Nuggets, too, Murray is typically the one closing games more often than not. Also because he is a perimeter player, I believe he is able to control the pace of the game more

so than Jokic. Having said all that, if there was one shot to be taken, I'd run Jokic post up over any other play in the league. There's just a feeling of inevitability with Yokich that isn't there with anyone else. When it's all said and done, I do expect Luca to end up higher in all time ranking, simply because he's younger by four to five years. Also, to be fair to him, he's been a superstar basically from day

one of his NBA career. That part at the end I agree with like Luca probably has a better chance of ending up higher all time just simply because he got started younger. Right, I disagree in the sense that I do think Jokic can strangle the posts of the pace of the game. I do think Jokic can operate as a closer. He chooses to go through Jamal Murray often just because of matchups, and it's also just Jokic is one of those guys too that like he doesn't give a fuck who makes or takes the shot. He

just wants to win. But Yokic is certainly capable of operating as a closer. I actually think Jokic and Luca are very similar. They are two offensive engines who consistently generate quality shots through the team, either by scoring on an island, and they're pretty much unguardable. There's only a handful of guys in the league that can guard both guys, and then the consistent making of good reads when they draw double teams.

is they play different positions. Yokich operates more in the flow of the game as a five out guy versus Luca being like a four out you know, heliocentric type of guy. As someone in what I would consider to be the new age of sports media, what is it going to take to get away from the clickbait headlines that currently dominate old slash traditional media. I understand that the Celtics have had a far easier road than the Wolves, but but the Anton Tatum narratives are so bizarre to me.

So again, guys, this is I. I don't like watching shows that have overly you know, critical clickbaity type of subject matter, right, but I don't have to watch them like this is the beautiful thing about the new age of sports media. Whatever it is you're into listening to, you can find and so like my thing is like there, those things will continue to exist as long as people watch them, and people still.

my team does the rest. And so like again, like it's there's a certain business element that we have to be realistic of. Like if it get if a click baity headline gets you guys to click, but then you like my show for being what my show is, then I'm gonna take that as a win. Even if there was a little grifty thing we had to do off the top to get you to come through the door, right. But like, once we get the door swing, it's really

about whether or not you like the show, right. But again, like, if you guys don't like the stuff that's out there, all you have to do is not watch it, you know, Like I don't think it's really that complicated. Damn after hearing all those stats, how does Minnesota even keep it close?

some of the half court execution stuff. I'm having an argument with my friends and I said Tatum has to be the one to guard Luca in the finals.

a guy like Jada McDaniels can't. Right from there, Luca will probably start trying to run guard guard screens to try to get to try to get Tatum switched off of him. From there you run hedge and recover and you rotate. But I think that would be the goal because that's the best way to get the ball out of Luca's hands and actually make other people try to score. Is like if you have it so that you can't

attack and straight Iso. Because one of the things that Dallas would do is if they're blitzing ball screens against Minnesota, Luca will just attack Jayda McDaniel's one on one because he feels comfortable. He won't be able to do that as easily with Tatum, So I think Tatum on Luca

is probably their best strategy in the long run. Also, Boston has enough offensive talent that if you went to Tatum and said, hey, I need you to devote eighty percent of your energy to guarding Luka Doncic, Boston would be fine because they have enough offensive talent on the other end to make up for it.

I don't think we need to overthink it. They just they're the stars are actually just really really good, and they've got really good role players doing all the dirty work for them. Didn't you say that ant Man is clearly better than Tatum. So I had a mail back question that said where someone said who would you take right now, Tatum or and I said I would take I would take Aunt right now, no questions.

instant reaction shows with Roger at night. The other half of the show is me by myself covering the rest of the league. Roger and I had very different goals. My goal was to cover the NBA at large. Roger's goal is to be a credentialed reporter that covers the Los Angeles Lakers. When the volume reached out to me, they wanted me to cover the league as a as a solo guy like I was already doing for the other half of the state of the Lakers. So that's

really all it was. They were essentially just trying to build a new show around what the Jason timf podcast was before I started working with Raj. But Roger and I had different goals. Roger doesn't want to cover the entire league and wants to cover the Lakers, and that's what he's doing right now. But I loved working with Raj, and I think he's one of the best people that covers the Lakers. Does great work. I think he's working.

I think he's doing a show right now with an A Kilawala, and they do a great They do a great job. Seems like Luca jumped Giannis for you and the best player in the world rankings. How and why? Very simple? I just I think the most important skill that a basketball player can have is the ability to consistently generate quality shots, first team in the half court, and I think Luca's awesome at it, potentially the best

player in the world at it. And for Giannis, I think that's actually been one of the major issues that has plagued him over the years. Like, yes, he got hurt, but when push came to shove against Miami last year, he couldn't get a shot at like, he couldn't make a quality shot over the top of bam, Like he

can't even get like a left shoulder hook right. Going back to the twenty twenty two season, like his I actually thought he was really good in that series against Boston, but still there's some limitations in terms of his ability to get shots off over the top when he can't just penetrate into the paint. And then obviously before that, before the twenty twenty one season when they won the title, that was consistently what was his issue in twenty nineteen.

In twenty twenty twenty twenty one in particular, two like a genuine championship. Don't take anything away from it, but it was a weird season and he played some limited competition along the way, and I do think that that was one of the things that allowed Giannis to overcome that specific weakness of his second part of the question, the Wolves exposed how bad Yokich is a is a rim protector. How has that shaped your view on him relative to Giannis and other great bigs in NBA history.

So the thing with with Jokich is he demonstrated last year that he could defend the rim well enough against like really good competition too, against Lebron and Ad against Bam and Jimmy, against Kadie and Devin Booker. Like, he demonstrated that he could do that at last year. I think in a lot of ways, Minnesota just drove him into the ground with their overwhelming physicality, and I think he got tired and I think he fell apart there. So obviously there are some things that he has to

improve on in that regard. But I still think, to put it simply, if I had to build a team that could win a championship, I feel it could be easier to build one around Yokic than Yannis simply because it's gonna be easy for me to get defensive personnel that can thrive offensively off of what Jokic does than vice versa. All right, guys, that's all I have for today is always. I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting

the show. We're gonna be back tonight live on YouTube after the final buzzer Game four between the Wolves and the mass I will see you guys then. H