Hoops Tonight - WNBA Finals Reaction: Breanna Stewart & Liberty SHOCK Lynx + CONTROVERSIAL ending

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see DKG dot co. Slash b ball All right, opraon HOOPSINAI here at the volume heavy Monday, everybody, I'll bob you guys had a great weekend. We have finally made it to the first week of the NBA season. But before we get into the NBA season, I want to take a little detour. Last night, my wife and I watched Game five of the WNBA Finals, and that was

an incredibly entertaining basketball game. I have a bunch of thoughts on that particular game about some of the specific performances we saw, some of the officiating, discussion after the game, a lot of interesting stuff to get into on that front. After that, we're going to just take some time to go through some of my predictions for this NBA season. Some of it's going to be kind of a rehashing of some of the stuff we've gone over in other videos.

Some of it's going to be just some other predictions that I haven't had a chance to talk about on the show yet. Or we're just gonna do like a quick little synopsis of how I see this particular NBA season going, and then the plan for the rest of this week. We have two live shows at night this week.

We're going live Tomorrow night after the final buzzer of Lakers Timberwolves to discuss both of the opening night games, and then on Thursday night, we'll be going live after the final buzzer of Nuggets Thunder to break down that night's slate. We're also going to do a mail bag in that show as well. We're going to do a nice long show to prep for the weekend. You guys are the job. Before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Night YouTube channels you don't miss any more of

our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. So you guys, don't mas show announcement, I forget about a podcast feed or if you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight, don't forget it's helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. The last but not least, keep dropping mail back questions and those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the remainder

of the season. All right, let's talk some basketball. So really fascinating Game five between the Minnesota Links and the New York Liberty. That entire series was like that. Every game came down to the final handful of possessions for the most part. And you know, there's something about truly

high leverage basketball games. Even in like playoff games where there's a series, you see these oscillations and effort and intensity, right, Like home team might come out and win game one, but then Game two, maybe the road team just comes out like super desperate because they know if they go down to two to the series, it's gonna be very difficult for them to regain control of And sometimes that home team comes out with just a little bit less

urgency and it becomes something that manifests in the game. Right. But when you get to true winner take all games, like whoever wins moves on, whether that's game seven or in this case of game five, or it's a single elimination format like we see in the NCAA tournament. Whenever you get true winner take all basketball, it just makes such an incredible television product. It's super physical, there's fouls on basically every possession. We're gonna talk a lot about

officiating here at the tail end of the show. The effort everyone's giving is completely desperate, especially in rotation. No one's ever really open. That's always the fascinating thing that stands out to me in games like that. It's like, oh, you got two on the ball here, or oh this person beat this person off the dribble. But like, these are two teams that are so deep into the season, that have worked so hard for so long, and you bet, you bet your ass they're not going to quit on

any single possession at any point in time. And so it's like somebody steps over and helps, and then they rotate and they all kind of winch you'll wipe around and suddenly it's like, God, no one's open. And that's just like what it's like playing in those chaotic, super stressful situations, and like even when people are open, they don't they tend to not go in just because everyone's so rushed and hectic in every other phase of the

game that no one's comfortable shooting the basketball. The two teams went five for forty two from three in this game. They shot twelve percent. It just it's really difficult to play in those types of settings, which is it makes it for a really strange kind of product because it's really ugly basketball. It's ugly basketball. There's usually a lot of turnovers, there's usually a lot of sloppiness, there's a

lot of physicality, there's a lot of missed shots. But there's like a beauty to this ugly basketball in the intensity, in the urgency, in the stakes. It's what makes the NCAA Tournament so entertaining. The NCAA Tournament. Every NCAA Tournament game is ugly as hell because the defensive talent and coaching is so far ahead of where the offensive skill development is for those players. You know, you get to

the NBA. I mean you don't even see this in the WNBA as much, but like in the NBA, when you're dealing with some of these like ridiculous athletes that we have. There are guys that like, oh, you play perfect defense, but just hit like a left right crossover into like a fade away seventeen footer on the baseline and there's literally nothing you can do when it goes in.

There's there's a point in the NBA where the athleticism and shot making ticks up, and it can still have some pretty basketball in there, but you watch an NCAA tournament game and it's like those kids, they're completely in over their skis to handle the level of athleticism and the coaching attention to detail that those teams have on

their defensive schemes. And so it's always fascinating because like I'm like completely glued to the screen, super entertaining game, but at the same time, it's like some of the ugliest basketball that you'll see. Right. The most fascinating subplot of this particular game was just how substantially more comfortable Kayla McBride and the Fisa Collier looked compared to Sabrina and Escu and Brianna Stewart. Like there was a lot of talk about shooting percentages and how people shot from

the field. But like the truth of the matter is is even though Brianna Stewart and Sabrini and Escu weren't making shots, they weren't really getting separation. For Sabrina, Kayla McBride and Courtney Williams had her in clamps on her drives to the rim. It wasn't like she was getting an angle and just missing a layup, like she was failing to turn the corner. And as they had angles on her kind of flattening out her drives, she was

just throwing shit up. She got a couple of decent looks from three, but they were all really deep threes and they were so few and far between she was never able to get a rhythm. And again, I gotta talk about this concept all the time on the show. Even among wide open shots, no two shots are the same.

Is it a wide open shot where everything has been easy throughout the game and you're feeling great about yourself and there's not a ton of pressure and the game hasn't been super physical so you're not as tired or is it super physical? So your legs are beat, you're having a rough night because you're not getting open at all, So you don't really have a ton of confidence in your game. Every shot is monumentally important, so there's a

stress and like stakes element to every shot. All of a sudden, that wide open three is just not the same as the wide open three you take in a regular season game when you're feeling great, right. I do think Sabrina had a very underrated game, though we will get to that later on in the show. But Cayle McBride and Courtney Williams did an amazing job on Sabrina. She was not getting good looks. She went one for nineteen because she wasn't able to get separation from her defenders.

And Fisa Collier did an amazing job on Brianna Stewart, specifically in the mid to short range. Like she got some decent looks from the three point line, but that's a game plan thing. Brianna shot below thirty percent from three on the season. She shot just twenty six percent from three in the playoffs, so they were kind of

helping off of her and conceding those jump shots. But she went over three on threes and then in the mid range all of like the like like face up like step backs to like short range fadeaways that sort of thing. The FISA was doing an amazing job just like corraling drives and then closing the gap so that when Brianna would try to go to those step backs, she just wasn't getting separation. Again, like those two didn't shoot well, but it was one thousand percent a credit

to Minnesota's defense. They just straight up put the clamps on them right then. On the other end, like Nafisa was consistently getting dribble penetration using a great amount of hesitation moves in little body angle tricks to kind of like get angles on defenders that she could drive to the basket. The entire Links team did an amazing job of this, but no Fisa, particularly early in the game inside seals and slip cuts to the basket, like finding

angles on overplays. This was something especially in the first half where I was like, what is what is New York doing? Where like they were overplaying everything on the perimeter and giving up a lot of back cuts and slips on ball screens where like openings were coming on the role or in cutting situations right and like that that to me is like smart basketball too, Like if

you can in a game that's really messy. If you can get four or five easy layups just based on like tricks of the trade in terms of position eating and back cutting defenders that are denying the ball and that sort of thing, that's a great way to supplement your offense in a game where every shot is going

to be really difficult. Right, But then at the end of the game a couple times in a row, Defisa was able to get dribble penetration and get all the way to the rim and make layups that little driving reverse layup that she had at the end that should have won the game before the bad call at the end. And then Kaylen McBride was doing the same thing, combination of just weaponizing the fear for shooting ability as well as her ability to change pace with the live dribble

to get into the paint. It was crazy how much better those two looked on offense compared to Unesca and Stewart. As matter of fact, they made eighteen field goals between the two of them, and Yeneska and Stewart only made five. That's like a WHI Like if you would have said before the game, Kayla McBride and Defista calli you're gonna make eighteen shots, Sabrina Ynescu and Breonna Stewart are gonna make five? What do you think is gonna happen in that game? Right? So, like, shout out to those two.

They played and they played an incredible game. I talked about the cuts and rolls on a team level. Minnesota had sixteen points on cuts and rolls compared to just six for New York. So that was a big part of how they were having success in offense, especially on the first half. So how did they have How did New York winning this game? How did they win a game where their stars made thirteen more field goals or excuse me, where their stars made thirteen fewer field goals

than Minnesota stars. They dominated the margins. Minnesota had five more turnovers and allowed eight more points on those turnovers than New York did. That was a big swing in this game. New York won the second chance points battle by five points. That's a thirteen point swing just on the margins. Right there, free throws. New York got to the foul line seventeen additional times than Minnesota did. And by the way, before you start screaming about how it was rigged. A lot of this has to do with

play style. This is something I've been a concept I've been talking out about a lot on this show, especially at the NBA level. The foul count in this game was twenty one to seventeen. Wasn't that different. The reason why the free throws looked the way they did is the Liberty were attempting more shots right at the rim and getting fouled on shots right at the rim. The play type data pretty obvious. New York posted up nineteen times,

Minnesota posted up five times. New York drew four separate shooting fouls on post ups, they had more offensive rebounds Minnesota or New York drew two additional shooting fouls on offensive rebounds than Minnesota did. Those are additional trips to the foul line that they're generating by virtue of their play style. Do I think New York got a favorable whistle and that the call at the end of the game got botched. Yeah, But also the play style of these two teams is kind of conducive to a free

throw disparity. As a matter of fact, in the regular season, Minnesota was dead last and foul shot attempts per game, New York was third. So like, if a team is really good to get into the foul line and another team's not, there's going to be a disparity. That's just kind of how it goes. And that disparity manifested throughout the entire playoff run by the way, So like again I like part of it too, And we're gonna talk

a lot about officiating later. But like when you go on the road in a basketball game, part as a team, you're in the locker room going like, guys, we're not gonna get calls tonight, especially if you know, going in, like you're playing against a team that does a lot of grifting and a lot of flopping and a lot of trying to get to the foul line, right, you know, going in, that's part of the battle that you're trying to deal with. We will talk more about officiating later,

but again, it wasn't just the free throws. New York was just better on the margins. They forced more turnovers and they scored on them. They won the second chance points battle. I thought they executed better Like Sabrinni and Escu for a one for nineteen game, she did a massively better job running the point than Courtney Williams did. Courney Williams was a disaster down the stretch of this game,

just as a decision maker. Minnesota wasn't even matched up on the jump ball to start overtime and gave up a wide open three on the right wing without New York even having to do anything. Is that the officials fault in a one possession game in overtime Kayla McBride threw a terrible high post entry pass that turned into a pick six in a lay up. The other way was that the official's fault. Yes, Minnesota's stars played better and that allowed them to be in this game and

have a really good chance to win. Probably should have won, but the Liberty were a smarter team that did a better job of executing and avoiding mistakes throughout the game. It's always the little things that end up determining who wins and loses in these big time basketball games, which brings me to the lay foul call. So let's talk about this foul call. And again, we all know what

we're talking about here. It's a play where Breanna Sewer catches at the kind of left elbow and she drives into the lane, throws up that kind of bullshit shot gets fouled, makes the two foul shots since the game to overtime, Right, Do I agree with the call? No, she traveled on the catch immediately should have been a travel boom and a possession turnover going the other way, and then even the foul itself. I didn't think that the there was some contact, but I didn't think it

was enough contact to justify two free throws. Would I have overturned it on the review? Yes. If I was the official and I went over to the video and I was watching this and I'm in the WNBA finals, like literally the fucking finals, the trophies on the line, and I'm watching that video and I'm watching Breonna Stewart travel and then throw that shot up against pretty damn good defense. In help, I'm saying, like, she doesn't deserve two free throws. Here, we're reversing this call. But that's

just my take. At the same time, I thought the decision to uphold the call was at least defensible. Why because you technically can't review the travel that's unreviewable. It's a flaw on the rule, right, And the foul call was made on the floor live, so you need indisputable evidence to overturn the call. You're in New York, Brianna Stewart is two time finals, MVP is heading to the foul line to make two shots to tie the game. If you're going to overturn that call, these officials have

to be damn sure. Again, I would have overturned it, but I don't give I care more about the game. These officials, they're very, very keyed in on their rules right for good reason. It's a flaw in the system. But like I understood why they could didn't overturn the call.

You can't overturn the travel because the travel's not up for review, and you can't overturn that foul because it looked kind of like as she was straight up, her arm came down just a little bit, and that made it disputable, and as soon as it's disputable, you can't overturn it. So, in short, it was a bad call live, and it was really difficult to overturn that same dynamic bad call from the official that we go look the monitor, and when we look at it, there's just not enough

evidence by rule to overturn it. That same dynamic happens all the time in basketball games. Have we been covering the NBA here for a few years, how many times have we seen that? Dozens and dozens and dozens of times, which brings me to my main takeaway from that whole incident. Bad officiating is a part of basketball. Every basketball player has been around the game for any amount of time knows that if you allow a game to remain, two

potential variables come into play. One, a bad call might go against you, and two, somebody might make some lucky, bullshit shot. Every basketball player knows that, shit, it's close. Anything can happen. Now, bad call, lucky shot, we could lose this game. Everyone knows that. Every basketball player knows that. This is why teams are obsessed with building leads and maintaining leads, because that is what takes bad luck out

of the equation as a variable. So this is where I think what Cheryl Reeve, head coach of the Links, did after the game. I think it's super lame because you're right, you get screwed by a bad call at

the end of the game. You were also soundly out playing New York, especially with your stars throughout the game, but you made so many mistakes that you failed to build the margin to withstand the bad luck at the end of the game, instead of focusing on the controllables, taking better care of the basketball, holding up better on the offensive glass. Some of these huge execution mistakes late, like leaving that shooter wide open on the on the right wing right after the jump off. All these these

little control those are controllable mistakes. That's the shit you should be mad about. That's the ship that should be chewing you up on the inside as you're trying to deal with this loss. You go into that game knowing I have no control over the officials. You also go into the we're gonna talk about this with Stewart and Unescu here in a minute. You kind of don't really have any control over whether or not shots go in.

You work your ass off behind the scenes, you shoot thousands and thousands and thousands of them, but once you get in the game, as soon as you release, it either goes in or it doesn't. What you can control is your execution. What you can controls your details. And ironically, even though Minnesota's stars played way better, New York was way sharper on the details and they ended up winning

the game. For the record, like I was rooting for Minnesota in this game, I was pissed off about the call too, and the stuff with replay where we have replay for the sole purpose of getting the call right, and yet we're staring at the video where we watch Brianna Stewart travel and we're not allowed to call it. That's a problem. And I bitch and want about officiating in the big picture all the time. Most officials don't understand their role in basketball games. There are a million

things that they need to get better at. You guys know, I complain about that all the time. But when it comes to the team and the locker room, I will always criticize players and coaches who focus on officiating. It is completely out of your control. Again, like going on the road in a hostile environment and getting bad calls. Has been a part of basketball since James Nasmith hung up a peach basket. It is a part of the game.

It is a variable you know when you go in and that is why you fight so hard to avoid those types of close games. I do feel terrible for Nafisa Collier. She played about as well as you possibly can play in a game of that magnitude. She played like a champion and she didn't leave a champion, and that's gut wrenching, especially how with how dominant she was all season. But it is what it is, part of the game. A couple of shout outs to Brianna Seward and Sabrini and yen Escu. I thought both of them

showed remarkable mental toughness last night. Now, yes, in the narrative business, there is fallout from how poorly they play like Are is Sabrina Enescu gonna move up anybody's player rankings after that series? Probably not. Did Breonna Stewart demonstrate that she was better than the FISA Collier No and the Visa Callier out players. She looked like the better player in the series, But that's for us. That's for

the media to figure out in the moment. On your team, if you're in, if you're playing with the New York Liberty Jersey on that shit doesn't matter. If your shot isn't falling and you're failing to get a separation from your defender, the worst thing you can do is hang your head and get discouraged. That's literally where the philosophy of next play mentality comes from nothing that happened previously matters.

As long as I can find a way to make a couple of plays to help my team and get the hell out of there with the win, then the media can argue and say that I suck all they want. But if I just make a couple more plays and we win this game, I can go to sleep at night. That's the way most of these athletes are approaching this. For Stu, it was all game long. She couldn't make anything, but she just kept playing her ass off all night. She had fifteen rebounds. She was unbelievable defensively, she had

three blocks. She has this like crazy seven to one wingspan. She was impacting the game at so many different levels throughout even though she wasn't making shots. Again, she didn't play great. No one's gonna leave that game and go a man. Brianda Stewart was great. I'm sure she's still pissed off when the dust settles on the celebration at all, she's gonna think back and be like, man, I wouldn't I'd need to be better, right, But she made enough

plays and she got the win. Is the free throws late she missed clutch free throws earlier in the series. She missed clutch free throws earlier in the game, less than a minute prior. She had two free throws that could have tied the game, but then she made the

big ones at the end. Sabrina in particular really impressed me with her resilience because like in the first half, she was having an absolute disaster of a game, like so bad it was looking like it was gonna be on the short list of some of the worst playoff performances ever for a star basketball player. Like that's how bad it was. Yeah, it was so interesting. Again. I was watching with my wife and we were talking about it. Like her like facial expressions and body language, you could

not tell she was having a historically bad game. Somehow, her body language never cracked even for a second. She just kept her head in the game and tried to make a play. Again in the moment, no one's gonna save you. You have to save yourself. You have to find a way to make plays. I thought she was awesome in the second half everywhere except for making shots. Obviously, she had a disaster shooting game, there's no way around there. But in the second half she had five assists with

zero turnovers. She hit sobbily and pick and roll for layups twice. She hit her in transition, another time in a really nice over the top feet generating again, generating baskets in a game where baskets were really hard to come by. She hit brown A Stewart on a back cut. There's a play. She missed a three on the left

wing again, disaster right. Couldn't hit a shot save her life, misses the three, crashes the offensive glass, gets it, pulls it out, runs action, hits Brianna Stewart on a back cut for a lamp, generating an extra possession and then generating a basket out of it. That's that is just making a play. You're just making a play to try to help your team. She was the one who hit Phoebitch on the right wing in overtime for the three. She was the one who quickly identified that she was

open and made the pass. And she made several huge defensive plays. She blocked kayleb McBride on like an iso little step back three at the top of the key, several big lowman rotations. Do you guys remember the play where Nafisa was on the right wing and she was driving again sobboly and she got into the lane she like it was either a pump fake or Sobbily tripped. I can't remember what happened, but she ended up getting

a straight line drive had been layup. Sabrina came flying over, jumped vertical like this in the lane and just got n Fesaa pump fake. And when Nafista pump faked, Sabili was able to recover and blocked her it like eras the layup. Sabrina erased the layup with the defensive rotation. That's a play. That's making a play again like she had a disaster shooting game. There's no way around it. No one's sitting here going Sabrina is one of the best players in the WNBA. Like, no one's gonna call

her top five after that series. No one's gonna sit there and talk about how amazing she is. And she doesn't deserve that necessarily. She had a really bad game. She had a bad series for the most part, aside from a couple of moments, but I was impressed by her mental toughness in the sense that she was having with the world watching an absolute disaster of a game, and she just kept her eyes on the fucking prize and she just made a couple of big plays down

the stretch. And yeah, you know what, a lot of people are gonna talk shit about her in the media and in the casual basketball fan base, but she's a champion and that's all it really matters, because she made, you know, seven or eight big plays in that second half. And if she makes six or seven instead of seven or eight because she cracks emotionally at some point during that stretch, they lose. And that's why when you're having those kinds of games again, like young basketball players out there,

you're having a bad game. Something's going wrong for you, whether it's on defense or on offense, the coach is upset with you, whatever it is, things are going south. Keep your head on straight, keep your eyes on the prize, and just try to make a play. A big contested defensive rebound, getting back in transition, defense and taking away a layup, running your lane and transitioning, getting a layup, a really hard screen that gets someone open, a corner

crash that gets an offensive rebound. Any little thing can be that little bit of juice that either gets you go or gets your team going, or it could be the difference in a game that gets decided by the smallest of margins. I thought it was kind of one of those games that like young basketball, like young basketball players could learn a lot from what happens to bringing Yinescu last night. I thought it was an interesting little

basketball lesson. Congrats to Liberty. I feel bad for the Links, but that series was always going to end a heartbreak for somebody, right And I mean as far as the bad calls going is there's a lot of like kind of if he calls that kind of took place in that series. Again, it's part of the game. It is what it is. Basketball officiating is in a bad place for the most part, and it's always going to be

something that players have to be prepared for. As far as covering the WNBA goes again, like I'd love to try to do it more, the unfortunate reality is is that I kill myself covering the NBA. I mean, you

guys see in the playoffs. In the playoffs, we do what more than ten new episodes a week, and like part of the deal there is then we come right out of that and it's draft and its free agency, and it's I have to go to Vegas for Summer League, and I've got all this shit going on, and then it's like I gotta take a break at some point, and so like I try to take August and September is times when I try to tone it back and spend more time with my loved ones and try to

take a little bit of a break from basketball. But I will say this, I think it's an awesome television product. I think the players are incredibly talented. I think the quality of the basketball is really good. I think the parody is really good. I think it's entertaining, and we will be trying to cover it a little bit more with each of the coming years. And just again, it's always a delicate balance with trying to navigate the time off type of situation, and it's more complicated than just me.

There's other people that work on this show as well. But we will try to cover it more and more, if for no other reason that I'm a huge basketball fan and I enjoy watching I really enjoyed watching the WNBA this year. All right, let's quick go over some predictions on this upcoming NBA season. First of all, disclaimer up front. I will be wrong a lot. I'll be wrong about a lot of this stuff. If NBA basketball was easy to predict, we'd all be rich betting on it, right,

But it's not. It's really hard to predict because I, as Mark Titus said when he came on the show last year, basketball is more art than science, and I believe that sincerely. Like there's a concoction of ingredients, and sometimes it mixes together and makes it makes something beautiful, and sometimes it mixes together and it makes something less than beautiful, or it just doesn't amount to what you hope it would, right like that, That's part of the game.

But we're gonna just do our best to try to make some predictions because that's part of the fun of this. And I'll just kind of get into each conference to let you guys know what I'm thinking. So Eastern Conference regular season, I think the Celtics will run away with the one seed again. Again, they're too much of a well oiled machine. They're too deep and specific position groups not to just win a ton of regular season games.

My guess is the Knicks get the two seed. Similarly deep and talented, not at the same level as Boston but I think I as I've said before in some of our preseason reactions, I think the Knicks are just a lesser version of Boston. They should still win a lot of regular season games on the strength of a similar type of engine, even if it's not as good as Boston. Don't be surprised if teams like Cleveland, Orlando

and Indiana finish above Philly or Milwaukee. They're younger, and they're faster, and they just are at a different phase in their team development where they care more about regular season games. Philly will have to play without EMBII in all likelihood for at least thirty of their games. Milwaukee couldn't even get to fifty wins out East with Damon

Giannis both playing seventy three games. Now. I think they'll be better than they were last year, but I don't view them as some sort of regular season juggernaut that's going to win a ton of games. They're old, and they're slow, and Chris Middleton is going to be out to start the regular season. So my guess is, don't be surprised if at least one of those tea teams, Philly or Milwaukee, drops into that four to six range.

In the standings. I do think both of them are substantially better playoff teams than Orlando, Indiana or Cleveland, but in terms of the regular season standings, keep an eye on that. In the playoffs, I've tried to think through ways Boston could lose. Boston is built similarly to New York, but I just think they're better. So I'm having a hard time seeing a path there, like there's a chance. I'm not saying the Knicks can't beat them, but it

just feels like a long shot to me. Philly and Milwaukee, I don't think they're good enough at containing the basketball in space to defend Boston well enough to beat them four times in two weeks. So I think Boston probably gets pushed by one of those teams, probably to six, probably by if I had to guess a team like New York. But I'd be really surprised if Boston didn't win the East. Again. I think that's probably the of

all between the two conferences. It's certainly the easier pick out West okoame the city loses heart and sign to start the year, but I still think they run away with the conference in the regular season. That just have the best combination of good fitting talent and youthful exuberance that will play hard by a good margin. Out West Minnesota feels like the obvious two seas to me, they're young, they're talented, they're athletic, and they're great at defense, and

they have a superstar plays in every single game. So I think there'll be a few games back from Oklahoma City, but I think Minnesota will get the two. The next tier is a total bloodbath. Like I think the next best four teams are Denver, Dallas, Phoenix, and the Lakers. But and I'd include excuse me, I'd include Memphis in

that tier if John Moran is healthy. But then there's like these younger teams that aren't necessarily as good, but they have a lot of young talent and they could win a lot of regular season games, like the Pelicans, the Warriors, the Houston Rockets. Those are all teams that could be in similar win tiers as Denver, Dallas, Phoenix, and the Lakers, even despite the fact that they don't have as much talent. Now here's where it gets weird. Only four of those teams will stay out of the

play in, So let's work backwards. Who do I think is going to miss the play in entirely. I think Houston misses the play in. I don't think they have enough shooting, that's the main thing. Houston has a ton of talent. They've got a deep rotation of really good players, but they've got a lot of guys that you can sag off into the lane and help. I think that's

going to hurt them in close games. I expect them to be right around where they were last year, right around five hundred, maybe a little bit below, and I think that I think that keeps them out of the plane. I think San Antonio misses the plane. I don't think they have the talent over the course of the season to hang tight. But they obviously have a chance with Victor weman Yama if he just goes full wrecking ball.

The third team of the thirteen teams in the Western Conference that are trying to win, the third team that I think will miss the plane is probably going to be the Clippers. I had high hopes for the Clippers if Kawhi was healthy and ready to go to start the season, but he's just not and who knows, he might not play it all this year, at least not for a very long time, and that just puts a lot on Norman Powell as their secondary shot creator. So

I think they'll end up slipping. I like that roster with a healthy Kawhi to be a good regular season team, but without a healthy Kawhi, I don't know if they can do it. So if I had to pick, and again there this is just my attempt at a prediction. This is a total bloodbath. After the time, I think, Okay, C Minnesota is a pretty clear one too, But the next seven or the next eight, who the hell knows what's gonna happen. If I had to guess, I'd go Denver in Dallas above the plane for sure, and then

the next the two spots. I think the three teams that will be competing for that are the Memphis Grizzlies and then the Lakers and the Suns. All three of them are health All their success depends on health. If Kadie misses significant time, the Suns are screwed. If AD missed a significant time, the Suns are screwed. If if John Moran, if AD miss a significant time, the Lakers are screwed. Excuse me. And then if John Morant misses

extensive time. The Grizzlies are screwed, So who knows what's gonna happen in health there, But all three of those teams I think are gonna be battling for that four and five or for that five and six spot. One of those teams is going to slip into the plan. Whichever one of those teams has the worst injury luck will drop to seven. Then I would have the Pelicans, the Kings, and the Warriors as the three teams that end up getting into the play in with Houston, San

Antonio and the Clippers end up missing. Standings don't matter that much out West. Last year, the Clippers were the four seed. The Clippers were the four seed, and they were two games ahead of the Pelicans, who are playing team. Pelicans had forty nine wins playing team. Clippers had fifty one wins home court advantage in the first round. So like a lot of this, like oh, they're a playing team. That means a fundamentally different thing in the West than

it does in the East. If you're playing team in the East, you're probably a bad basketball team. If you're a playing team in the West, I'm certain you're a good basketball team because they're gonna be three good basketball teams that missed the play in entirely out West. And of those three teams, I'm sure a couple of them will be bad, but there's gonna be a good team.

My guess is Houston. There's gonna be a good basketball team that would easily make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference that's going to miss the play in entirely West. There were five games total separating the four seed from the ten seed in the Western Conference. Again, home court advantage in the first round, have to win two single elimination playing games on the road. Five wins separated those two teams. There's no shame in finishing in the playing

in the Western Conference. As far as the playoffs go for the West, it's all about matchups. Makes it extremely hard to predict. It's quite literally up for grabs. In my opinion, I could see seven different teams winning the conference. I could see Oka see winning the conference. I could see Denver winning the conference. I could see Minnesota winning the conference. I could see Dallas winning the conference. I could see Phoenix winning the conference. I could see the

Lakers winning the conference. And I could see Memphis winning the conference. Those are the seven teams that I view as legitimate threats to win the conference. I think Denver presents the biggest singular matchup issue in the conference, which is Nicole Jokich. So I'm going to pick Denver, but I don't feel particularly great about it, certainly not as the I feel about Boston. Like I would be surprised if Boston won or did not win the Eastern Conference.

Any one of those seven teams could win the West, and I wouldn't be surprised. As for the finals, though, if Okac or Denver get through, I think they have a legit shot to beat Boston, I would pick Boston, but I think Okac and Denver present enough issues to Boston to at least make it a long, competitive series that could go either way. Even though I'd picked Boston.

Minnesota has an interesting shot. They're so good in perimeter defense that they should, in theory, be able to slow down Boston's drive and kick attack, right, But I just don't think they're gonna be able to score enough to hang with Boston. So that's an effer if you won for me. If the Lakers' Suns Grizzlies are MAVs, sneak

through the West. I think they get smashed by Boston, just like Dallas did last year, unless one of those teams hits on a big trade or has a young player pop. Right, So, like, if the Lakers trade d Low in two first round draft picks and they get

a great haul back, they could be more interesting. If Ryan Done for the Phoenix Suns turns into this like thirty eight percent three point shooter is one of the best defensive players in the league and a great defensive rebounder, all of a sudden, the Suns become way more interesting and dangerous. Right. What if Derek Lively for the MAVs just becomes like a fringe all Star level player, that's

a huge swing factor for Dallas. What if Klay Thompson kind of has like a defensive resurgence with Dallas this year. What if John Moran just becomes one of the top five or six players in the league over the course of this season. That sort of thing could swing things for those teams. But as currently constructed and as I've currently seen them, I think all four of those teams will get smashed by Boston if they got through. So

for right now, pick Denver against Boston. I'll pick Boston to beat them in the finals in six or seven games. Not exactly a brave prediction, but they have the best team. I do think they'll face more adversity this year. I think they'll I think we'll have more fun at the end of the year just by virtue of some more extended playoffs series in the our conference finals in NBA Finals sucked two years in a row. I think we're gonna finally get a good end of the season this year. MVP.

I think it's extremely likely that Shay Gilos Alexander gets it. I think Luke would be my second choice, but I really worry about the MAVs winning enough regular season games in order to get the MVP. Like if Shae finishes seven or eight games above Dallas and the standings like Shaye's getting MVP. I just think sha like everything is just shaping up perfectly for Shae to get the MVP this year. Young player I expect to pop this year. I'm gonna go with Kaide Cunningham. He has a more

traditional supporting cast, looks really sharp. In preseason. He actually generated the most points out of pick and roll out of any player in the league. In preseason, he generated eighty points on sixty five possessions including passes. It's one

point two to three points per possession. That's amazing. He has excellent chemistry with Jalen Durr and he's got this like lob feed that he throws, and Jalen's so good at high pointing the ball coming down and then just like power dribble and just going up and dunking it with two hands. Got really good patience in the mid range. Shot over forty percent on pull of shots in preseason, Luca esque manipulation of help side defenders as he kind of patiently works in that mid range. Look for Kid

Cunningham to have a huge year this year. One of these older teams with high expectations is going to completely fall apart. The Bucks, the Sixers, the Lakers, and the Suns are the four teams I have my eye on there. I don't know who it's going to be, probably gonna involve an injury to a star, but one of those teams is going to fall apart, maybe even more than one. But it just seems like almost a certainty that one of those four teams is going to have a very

disappointing season, probably based on injury luck. A couple of mediocre teams is our last bit for today. A couple of mediocre teams that I expect to be surprisingly good. These are the four teams that I put picked out. All these teams, I think people expect to struggle, but I think will be pretty solid. One Golden State. They didn't make a trade this offseason, and so we already knew without a doubt from last year that they just don't have the firepower to hang with the top teams

in the league. But they added some high level role players that specific fit their style really well on both ends. They looked super sharp in preseason. They look like a team to me that's going to really hold up well against the lower end teams on their schedule, which should keep them afloat in the standings. And watch out if Steph has a little bit of a bounce back year and gets back to like near where he was when

he was a top five player in this league. That could be something that swings a bunch of clutch games for Golden State and then suddenly they could be in a much more favorable position. They're a candidate for mid season trade as well. That could move some things. But I think Steve Kerr is the second best coach in the NBA. I think Steph Curry and Draymond Green are incredible leaders. I think they look super locked in. Don't be surprised if Golden State is super scrappy this year.

The Clippers were a team I was super high on before the not high as like a playoff threat, but high as a regular season team before the Kawhi injury. They lose Paul George, everyone's off the set, but they just have all these good perimeter defenders and James Harden is a really good regular season offensive engine. Zubach is the perfect pick and roll partner for him. Again, just like you, full exuberance and speed on the perimeter combined with good half court shot creation. I just believe in

that formula for winning regular season games. So even without Kawhi, even though I think now without Kawhi they'll probably slip out of the play in I think even without Kawhi, they're gonna be paying the ass and they're gonna win. They're gonna win some games this year where like they look like the easy win on the schedule, and then it's like, holy shit, the Clippers beat him again or whatever it is, Like, I think they're gonna be a

decent team this year. The Hawks, they lose to Jonte Murray, but Trey Young is probably a little bit underrated at this point as a guy to run a team. And then Jalen Johnson has looked insanely good in preseason. He shot seventy five percent on jump shots, obviously a small sample, but shot the seams off the basketball seventy nine percent at the rim. They got some young talent. They're gonna

be exciting. I haven't had a chance really to watch Zachary Risochet really closely, but we will watch him over the course of the season. The Charlotte Hornets are the last team I put down lots of young talent with LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges, and Brandon Miller. Charles Lee has him playing a really fun brand of basketball. They're generating a ton of three point shots they got. I think they're just gonna be a really fun league past team

this year. Don't be surprised if they end up sneaking into that eight nine range in the Eastern Conference standings as well. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. I'm so excited to get into the season with you guys starting tomorrow night. Remember no show during the day tomorrow, but we will be live after the final buzzer Timberwolves Lakers on YouTube. I will see you guys then the volume. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening

to and supporting OOPS tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.