Hoops Tonight - Top 5 NBA Finals Stories: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Haliburton, all-time great DEBATE, TV ratings

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you guys are having a great week well. As promised, today, we're going to go through the top five storylines of the twenty twenty five NBA Finals. We've talked a lot of basketball over the last couple of days. We're gonna get into some of the narratives that are surrounding this series, some of the debates, and some things to keep an eye on in terms of stories to follow in this series. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and Not YouTube channels. You don't miss

any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys don't miss ShW announcements. Don't forget about our podcast few wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there and then keep dropping mailback question in our YouTube comments so we can get to them in our mail bags throughout the remainder of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the first storyline that I think we've already seen quite a bit of talk surrounding in the week leading up to the finals, just people complaining about small markets

and the ratings. Right like I saw, there's kind of already a theme heading into the conference finals, as we had the Knicks alongside a Minnesota Timberwolves team, in Oklahoma City thunder team and an Indiana Pacers team. But this to me is the inevitable part of the NBA cycle. There's a lot of talk about like having small markets and that being the driving force behind low ratings, when

that simply is not the case. We've seen so many examples of teams in every sport be able to overcome whatever perceived limitations sit on in their market to become a very like, a very resonant team in among NBA fans. Classic examples we talked about recently, Golden State wasn't viewed as that type of team. Steph made them into that type of team. Cleveland wasn't viewed as that type of team. Cleveland was one of the biggest rating draws in the

league for a while because of Lebron James. You build that sort of ratings monster in the NFL teams like the Kansas City Chiefs. You think the Kansas City Chiefs were major ratings draws ten years ago. This is something that you build through exposure in high stakes moments like this. Very similarly, we remember after MJ retired, there's a phase there where it's like, oh, man, like, who's gonna be the next guy, Who's gonna be the next face of

the league. But then it just builds in momentum and all of a sudden, it's okay, here comes Kobe, here comes Shack, Here comes Tim Duncan, here comes Lebron, And all of a sudden, we have a very healthy trove of stars to drive the league forward. Right. It's all part of that natural kind of ebb and flow. We're in a weird spot here. Lebron and Steph are aging out. Some of these younger stars like Tyre's Halliburton and shake yel Just Alexander don't have a ton of exposure to

casual basketball fans. Yet this is their opportunity. It is through play style and resonating with people and being the type of culturally resonant basketball force that Steph was that Lebron was combined with sustained success in late May in June. That actually provides them foundation to have a strong set of ratings moving forward for the league again ultimately the NBA Finals. The goal of them is to showcase the

two best teams in the NBA. This series may only have one Top five player, maybe only three Top twenty five players between Siakam and SGA and Tyres Halliburton, depending on how you feel about chatter Jdubb. I haven't done my player rankings yet. Maybe JDub lands in the top twenty five, but like maybe as few as three players in top twenty five. But it does showcase the best basketball that has been played this season and specifically within

the realm of what works in the modern game. As we've talked about so much, you can increase your offensive efficiency by like roughly twenty percent every time you push the ball in transition. Pushing the ball in transition is low hanging fruit that exists in basketball for you to take advantage of. It is there for everybody, and the pacers in the Thunder have been two of the best

to do that. Ball pressure is a simple market inefficiency that makes ball handlers uncomfortable, forces them to work later into the shot clock. On offense, potentially forces turnovers by speeding up those players, and can lead to easier transition opportunities going the other way. This is low hanging fruit that is available to everybody in the league, and the Pacers in the Thunder have just been the two best

teams at actually taking advantage of it. This is a showcase of the right way to play basketball in the modern NBA, regardless of who is on your roster, and if you have the ability to replicate these things, you can actually drive more success for your team. And in that case, I find it to be a very series. It's not going to crush in the ratings. It never was going to, but that doesn't mean that teams like this and that players like this can't eventually drive ratings.

There's a version. If I would have told you in two thousand and eight that in the twenty seventeen NBA Finals we were going to see the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers, all of you would have been bitching at the time about how it was going to be a low ratings type of situation. That's not the case. These guys can build juggernauts in the ratings with their presence and their ability to capture their hearts and minds of basketball fans. Number two, Tyres Halliburton, in the line

of embarrassment perpetuated by this Oklahoma City defense. I've talked a little bit about this on the show over the course of the last couple of weeks, but Oklahoma City has done some serious damage to some really good players in this postseason run. So I wanted to actually give you guys a rundown of just some of the specific, truly damaging performances their defense has done to some respected

players around this league. In the first round, Desmond Bain had a game where he went three for twelve with four turnovers, another game where he went three for fourteen with five turnovers. Jaron Jackson had a game where he went two for thirteen with just four points four points on thirteen shots as a power forward in the NBA. In the sweep game, he went just three for twelve from the field. I talked about Nikole Jokics playing three of the worst games of his career in rapid secession

in that second round series. In that series, in Game two, three and four, Nikole Jokic shot just thirty three percent from the field just eighteen percent from three and had sixteen turnovers to just fifteen assists. How often have we thought of Nikole Jokich as a guy who only makes a third of his shots over a week of basketball games, or as a player that has more turnovers than assists. That was the type of damage that Oklahoma City did too Jokic during a stretch where they won two out

of three games in regame control of the series. That is the damage they were able to do to the best player in the world. Julius Randall had almost entirely rehabbed his playoff image through what he did through the first two rounds, like on both ends of the floor against the Lakers, and then just successfully breaking down Golden State's defense over and over again the way that he did.

He had a two for eleven game for just six points in Game two against Oklahoma City, and then in Game four, a pivotal game at home where they desperately needed him to be good, he was just one for seven with five points. So this is a long list of really good players that Oklahoma City hasn't just had success against, but has flat out embarrassed, like even with Jokich in those games, relative to what we usually see from him. That is quite literally the lowest end of

the Jokich spectrum that Oklahoma City's defense showed us. Tyres Haliburton at various points in his career, especially in the postseason, has shown when things get really intense in terms of ball pressure and physicality, he can have a problem with maintaining his aggression and engagement in the game. And I think it's very possible in this series that Oklahoma City could bring out some of those really embarrassing stat lines

for Tyrese Haliburt. He's susceptible to those under any circumstances against this particular defense. I think we could be walking away from this series talking very differently about Tyrese Haliburton than we did after the first three series. That is a storyline that we have to keep an eye on. Number three shake Giljes Alexander. If he can finish this off by winning this series and winning finals, MVP is putting together one of the best guard seasons in NBA history.

Even if you want to take that guard part and set it aside. To win at least sixty eight games, to make the All Star team, to win the scoring title, to make first Team All NBA, to win MVP of the League, and to tie it off with the Finals MVP. He would be just the second player in NBA history to accomplish all of those things in a single season, with just Michael Jordan in nineteen ninety six being the other one. Now, there's always a natural pushback to this

sort of thing, and I totally understand it. It's just human nature. We start talking about it, it's like, holy shit, this is one of the best seasons in NBA history, and then we all immediately want to start bringing other guys up. And I totally get that. It was like that. I mean, I'm a Lebron fan. It was like that

with Lebron. I remember it was like, oh my god, he just won a second title, and the jump shots he was hitting against the Spurs in Game seven, and just the way he played down the stretch of Game six, and everyone's like, is this the greatest basketball player ever? And what did we see? We saw this like natural pushback from everybody as it became like no, no, no, no, make him learn it. Michael Jordan did this, Kobe Bryant did that, and it just becomes part of that natural pushback.

I understand that that's part of the deal, but that doesn't mean we can't acknowledge what we're seeing in the moment. Shay has an extremely talented roster this year. He has one of the more talented rosters in recent NBA history. This would not be as difficult as some other championships that other stars have won. That goes without saying, but over the course of his career, those circumstances will shift.

I don't think any player in NBA history has had a more talented roster than Steph Curry did in twenty seventeen. But he had another opportunity in twenty twenty three or to twenty twenty two, excuse me to demonstrate that he was capable of leading a championship team that had less talent, that was actually operating at a talent deficit in the NBA Finals. And so over the course of Shay's career,

we'll see more of those challenges that arise. Maybe as this Oklahoma City roster gets more expensive, Maybe if he forces his way out to some other team hoping for green or pastors. One day he ends up on a more limited team that's maybe too star Layden and doesn't have the necessary depth. There's so many different ways that Shay's career can go and this is just one part

of the story. And yeah, like if he wins the finals this year and has this incredible season put together, but over the course of the rest of his career is underwhelming, then he's not gonna be remembered with MJ And he's not gonna be remembered with Steph and Lebron and Kobe and the greatest guards that have played this league. It's all about sustaining and it's all about putting all of those feathers in the cap of your story. I

talk about this with with Steph just a minute ago. Like, if Steph only won the two Kevin Durant titles, probably gets remembered differently, but he didn't. He won two others, right, Lebron, same thing. If he only won the twenty twenty title alongside Anthony Davis, you know, different type of story if you only won the two titles with the heat. But that's not what happened. We saw in twenty sixteen him

overcoming adversity in a different way. In twenty thirteen, a couple of seven game series down the stretch of the postseason. That twenty twenty title clearly his easiest one. It's not the one everyone goes and tells the story about when they're talking about how great Lebron James is. But in the part of the in the journey of being a basketball player, there are gonna be years when things kind of pan out for you and it goes easier than

you're expecting. There're gonna be years when things don't go your way and you face more adversity and you have to dig deeper and you have to reach a different level as a player. In the season, things have gone pretty smoothly for Oklahoma City, but even in that context, Shays had one of the greatest seasons in NBA history, and he deserves credit for it based solely on the fact that no one's ever done it other than Michael Jordan in nineteen ninety six, and it would be an

excellent first feather in his cap. No one's gonna put him as the second or third best player of all time unless he sustains this for the better part of the next decade, but this is the first step in that direction, and it's been an incredibly impressive season from shake Kyos as Alexander obviously pending him finishing the deal. Number four is Oklahoma City an all time great team. Now, as I've said multiple times, you do not earn that status, at least not in my book, unless you win multiple

championships for all the reasons that I just said. Circumstances change. It's like Boston this year. Boston this year, have a couple guys get injured, don't play as well as they typically do. Right Porzingis is dealing with an illness, Jalen Brown's knee isn't quite where it used to be, and you run into a tough matchup. What we didn't think would be a tough matchup, but what ended up being a tough matchup in the second round, and all of a sudden things were a little tighter. All of a sudden,

we had some close games. We didn't have to see Tatum and Brown super surgical clutch time decisions last year in the postseason, in high stakes situations. This year we did. They didn't do the job. New York actually beat them right. It is through multiple seasons that we see teams overcome adversity. It is through multiple seasons that teams can attain that status of being an all time great team in NBA history, But in this single season, would we consider this to

be an all time great single season in NBA history. Well, they right now are eighty and eighteen. If they won this series in five games, let's call it, they'd be eighty four and nineteen in that particular case. That puts them pretty far up the list in terms of best records in single seasons. This postseason run has been pretty impressive for them. We talked about the Western Conference being an absolute blood bath, and it was. They were the

one team who got a favorable first round matchup. They earned it by all of the regular season games that they did. I thought there were seven good Western Conference playoff teams, and obviously Oklahoma City got to play the eighth. But after that, they beat the twenty twenty three champs, the best player in the world, a team that I viewed specifically as a tough matchup for them, and guess what, they brought some adversity to the equation and we got

to see Oklahoma City overcome that adversity. They were down to one in the series and trailing by eight in the early fourth quarter of Game four. They're trailing by nine early in the fourth quarter of Game five. They overcame that that Timberwolves team is a very very good team that has beat a lot of really good teams. That Timberwolves team beat Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal. They beat Nikola Jokics last year, they beat Luca and Lebron this year. That is a team that has done

some damage and Oklahoma City survived them. And if they beat this Pacers team, that's a Pacers team that just won an Eastern Conference that had two sixty win teams in it. So Jackson and I were having some fun before the show. We were trying to figure out how we would rank the top five teams since twenty ten. So I'm calling that like kind of the end of that era when Kobe won his last title in twenty ten.

So I'm going from the twenty eleven MAVs all the way through to this theoretical twenty twenty five championship of ok I'm a city team. If they were to win, where would they rank? I thought the twenty seventeen Warriors were the obvious number one. That is the most talented roster ever assembled in the history of the NBA. I don't think it's particularly close. They had the second and third best players in the league playing on the same team.

They had Klay Thompson, who at the time was one of the highest level starters in the league, an elite defensive player, the second best shooter to ever play the game. That was a phase of his career as well, when he was really starting to come together as a more consistent playoff performer. Klay Thompson was ridiculous. Draymond Green the best defensive player of our era, Andre Gudala one of the most gifted role players of our era. Seventeen one

Warriors clear the field. In my opinion, I think they're the greatest basketball team ever assembled, even counting the nineties Bulls, even counting the eighties Celtics and Lakers. I don't think anyone's come close. I just think they're far and away the best team in NBA history. Simple way to put it. They were in that blood bath of a Western conference and they literally swept them. They swept the entire West.

They won fifteen straight playoff games before the Cavs finally were able to beat them once in a game in Cleveland in game four of that NBA Finals run. The twenty seventeen Warriors clear the field. I think there's actually a gap between them and everyone else. Number two for me the twenty twenty five Thunder with Land right there, sixty eight wins, beating the types of teams they would beat on the way. To me, that clears the other teams that are on this list. Where it gets interesting

is starting to talk about those teams. Number three for me was the twenty thirteen Heat. They won sixty six games. They were defending champ which is another layer to add to this as well, and beating that San Antonio Spurs. They have back to back seven game series in the playoff run. They beat that Indiana Pacers team in seven in the Conference finals, and then they beat that San Antonio Spurs team in seven in the NBA Finals. That's San Antonio Spurs team is also on this list as

the twenty fourteen Spurs. I have them at number four. They beat Dirk's MAVs in the first round. They beat Kevin Durant's Thunder in the Conference finals, and they beat Lebron and Dwayne Wade in the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. Not as successful as a regular season, I think they only won sixty two games, but a more impressive playoff run, so I put them on that list, and then the fifth best team since twenty eleven. The twenty twenty four Celtics kind of a weak playoff field.

They kind of just coasted through and beat everyone. I thought the only real tough teams they played were the Pacers in the MAVs, but they handled both of those teams in four and five games, respectively. But they had an incredibly dominant regular season, especially statistically, which put them on this list at number five. So in short, among the last fifteen champions, if Oklahoma City closes this deal, I'd put them in second place behind the twenty seventeen

Golden State Warriors. Then our last storyline to follow in this series. Is this series a sign that you need to win with depth in the modern NBA? Yes and no. There is more than one way to win a championship. We were talking about this the other night on playback. There's a bunch of different ways to win any singular

basketball game. Don't underestimate star impact. Yes, these are deep teams, but Jay GISs Alexander forty points in the pivotal Game four against Minnesota, multiple games where he was very good in clutch time against the Denver Nuggets, Tyres Halliburton, three games that he straight up stole with game winners of one of them that ended up sending the game to overtime. These guys, their singular talent is a big part of why they are where they are. The depth, to me,

is all about that low hanging fruit. In order to ball pressure full court for an entire game, in order to push in transition as much as these teams do, in order to capitalize on every little detail in every single possession over the course of a sixteen game playoff run, you do need depth. And so if you have less depth, you can't capitalize on as much low hanging fruit. That

puts more pressure on your stars. But we have seen stars carry the load on teams that have, you know, six or seven players that they trust in their rotation and get it done. So yes, to me, what it's proven is that depth certainly is very valuable in the modern NBA. It's not the end all be all. I don't think the thunder make the finals without Shay. I don't think the Pacers make the finals without Tighliburn if you replace them with like like kind of like league

average types of players at their position. Let's just say, you know, like if we're looking for a kind of like a playmaking guard to fill in for Tyrees Haliburt, and like if you take like Chris Paul at this point in his career, that's not even close to the

same team. If you take Shay Gills as Alexander and turn him into just a scoring guard, like call it, Devin Booker, I don't think the thunder are nearly as good as they are with Shake Gils just Alexander right now, right, So, like, don't underestimate the star power and the way that those guys elevate these teams. The low hanging fruit just helps you win basketball games. And if you have depth, you have a better chance to capitalize on that low hanging

fruit throughout each season in postseason. All right, guys, that's all I have for the show today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us. In supporting the show, we have Colin Coward coming on with us live after every game in this NBA Finals run. We will be live after game one tomorrow night. After the final buzzer on you Tube. I hope to see you guys then