Hoops Tonight -Embiid and Harden flop in embarrassing 76ers loss

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help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight Hope and Why or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee visit www one eight dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. Started with Phoenix and Dallas. This is shaping up like a textbook playoff series where the teams don't seem to be willing to bring their

effort and focus on the road. Both of these teams are extremely difficult to guard when you look at the way that they're set up. I feel like Phoenix is more of an of a multifaceted offensive threat in the sense that Chris Paul and Devin Booker are primarily responsible for just that initial compromising of the defense. Once they get that initial you know, defensive help rotation and they kick out the rest of the guys can take it from there, there's so much talent surrounding them on the floor.

Cam Johnson is fantastic get attacking closeouts and can shoot. Michail Bridges had a rough night tonight, but he can attack closeouts and shoot. DeAndre Ayton obviously, you know, he's one of the most capable young big that we have in the league. They have a different type of attack. It's more kind of like backloaded, but at the same time,

Dallas is also extremely difficult to guard. The differences is that Dinwoodie and Bronson and Luca all have more of a responsibility to try to score and when they when they make that initial move, and the guys off the ball are more shooters, spot up shooters, traditional spot up threats, rather than you know, close out attacking kind of guys.

You're not expecting Reggie Bullock to put the ball on the floor and hit a bunch of one dribble pull ups, or Dorian Phinney Smith or Maxie Cleiber any of those guys. It's kind of more of a you know, we're it's different. It's more frontloaded in that sense. Both teams, though, are extremely difficult to guard, and both teams have shown and when they're at home that they're willing to do so, that they're willing to do the work to do so.

But it goes both ways because those offenses, you know, for Phoenix in particular, they depend on guys like Michail Bridges having big games. They depend on dere and really struggled finishing in the paint tonight. They that's an important part of their offense. You know, Cam Johnson the same thing. They've kind of removed Campaign not entirely from the rotation, but they're using him a lot less. But they've depend

on those guys to play well. So when they go on the road and those guys don't play well, their offense ceases to function. And for Dallas, that's shooting. They go on the road and they depend on Reggie Bullock to make shots, and they depend on Dorian Phinney Smith to make shots. He makes eight threes in game four and then struggles in game five, And that's the difference.

When they go on the road, those guys can't make shots, and then their offense ceases to function, their defense starts to fall apart, and you know, that's just kind of how this goes. But that's exactly why it's so important during the regular season to fight for things like home court. You know, as much as we criticize the NBA regular season for lacking urgency, and it does, and there's a lot of things that I would do to fix that, but there is the ever present need for home court.

There are teams, uniquely equipped teams. It's usually up here. They are uniquely equipped teams that are immune to that sort of thing. You know, Like you don't doubt that Miami was gonna go into Game six tonight and play with a certain amount of focus and effort. You don't doubt Milwaukee, for instance, like mill We're gonna talk more

about Milwaukee Boston later tonight, like that game. Milwaukee being at home for Game six means nothing because both of those teams travel so well, And if Milwaukee loses Game six, Boston doesn't instantly become a shoe in favorite because they've shown a propensity to be able to lose at home. They've done it twice, you know. But there are two those two different kinds of teams in the league. I'm not mistaken. Phoenix is now two and four on the

road in this playoff run. There's been some really ugly stretches in there. It's something that they're gonna have to figure out. The biggest thing that staying it out to me right now that concerns me about Phoenix is Chris Paul and particularly his ability to score the basketball. Now, Dallas mixes up coverages a lot. They do drop with Dwight Powell. They do a little bit more switching with

Maxi Cleveland, but they do some drop with him as well. Uh. Most importantly, the guards are doing an amazing job for Dallas of fighting over the top of the screen and making things tough on Chris, and he's his aggressiveness has toned way back. Through his first eight playoff games, he was incredibly dominant as a score and it just hasn't been the same in the last four games. What specifically concerns me about that because I do think Phoenix is

gonna win Game seven, and we'll talk. I'm gonna preview Game seven a little bit tonight because I think that's a little bit more interesting than diving into this particular game. What concerns me with Chris paul scoring struggles is future matchups. So Golden State does a ton of switching if they get into the to the finals. Boston switches everything, especially against the team like Phoenix and Miami if they happen to be if the Miami happens to get out, they're

gonna switch everything. And Milwaukee we've literally seen them against Phoenix. They did drop the to start the series, but towards the end of the series they went to Jannis at the five and switched everything against switching defenses, Chris Paul is going to have to score. We've talked a lot on this show about the way you attack switching defenses. We're gonna get further into it when we can start

talking about Boston. But you attack switching defenses by beating people off the dribble and getting into the lane, enforcing help so that you can get teams in rotation. And you know, Chris Paul, it's gonna be there's gonna be a ton on his plate specifically to do that. Now. I haven't heard anything about an injury for Chris. I haven't heard anything. I don't know what's going on there. I don't know if he's banged up. I don't know if there's some residual mental stuff from the incident with

his family and the crowd. I don't know what's going on with Chris. He just doesn't seem to be the same, and that if I'm a Phoenix Suns fan, that would concern me, because specifically, if you get out of this round facing Golden State, facing in Miami or a Boston, those three teams are gonna do a ton of switching, and you can just about guarantee that towards the end of the series, Milwaukee will do a bunch of switching as well, just like they're doing to Boston right now.

And that specifically changes Chris Paul's role against Dwight Powell and Mexic Clipan. When he's going into drops all night, he can get over the top of that screen and play Maestro all night long and just throw the ball around to shooters and he can still have impact despite not being a great score. But once he gets into the switching, defense heavy system, he's going to have to create shots, and so that that's the one thing that

concerns me. Devin Booker finally had a rough night tonight, but coming into to NIGHTI was averaging point four points per game on an astounding sixty true shooting. So my whole thing with Devin Booker is that he's been consistent, so I'm not gonna overthank him having one specific bad game. I wanted to look four to game seven because there's one specific move that I think Dallas has on the table, and there's one specific move that I think Phoenix has

on the table to try to improve their chances. So for Dallas in particular, their offense hasn't traveled in this series. They're averaging better than ten points better at home than they are on the road in Phoenix. The only averaging hundred and five points six points per Hunter possessions in Phoenix. When you zoom in on it, specifically, when they've played after tonight, when they've played with White Powell on the floor, in seventy four minutes their minus nineteen, but in two

hundred and fourteen minutes without him their plus eight. The problem is is Dwight Powell is not guarded when he's when he pops anywhere to the perimeter, he's not guarded, and then he does present that lob threat for Luca. So if you know, if the guards, so for instance, Michael Bridge is doing an amazing job fighting over the top of screens and shutting off some of Lucas stuff and pick and roll. If anybody else is in that action, they're dying on the screen. Chris got caught on a

ton of screens tonight. A bunch of the guys are struggling with that. Once they get caught on the screen. It's a lot dunk every time with Dwight Pale. So there's it's not that Dwight Pal's that giving you anything. He's also been very good defensively. He's big important rebounder. He brings a lot to the table. But the problem is is the overall amount of space that Luca and And and Spencer Dinwoodie and Jalen Brunson have to operate

when Powell is out there, it's just not great. And as a result, it's more of like a four out, one end concept as opposed to a five out concept. It's just allows DeAndre eighton to hawk the paint, and if DeAndre and can haalk the paint, that turns all of those guys into mid range jump shooters and it

just makes the game a lot harder. And so you know, Dwight pal has been playing, you know, right around I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's a right around fifteen minutes per game, right, So in a game seven environment, you might have to go up to Maxi and be like, look, man, i'm gonna need forty two minutes out of you tonight, and we'll give you two three minute breaks to start the second and fourth quarters or to end the first and second at

first and third quarters where you can take a little bit of a breather, but I'm gonna need forty two out of you in game seven because with Maxi Cleiband on the floor, there's two very important reasons why he has to be out there. One, in any sort of off ball situation, it's just like the Al Horford thing with Brook Lopez. You park him in the week side corner and all of a sudden, DeAndre and can't help.

So that's obviously important. The second part of it is it takes Phoenix out of their drop coverage because when you pick and pop, so when they set, when they have Cleber set the screen, Cliba set the screen of Pop, the Mikhail bridges or wherever it is that's chasing, Luca has to switch now because if he chases over the top, Maxi's wide open every single time, and so it's just

for me. If I'm Dallas and I'm rolling up into Phoenix for one game to potentially advance to the Conference finals, I'm going up to Maxi Cleiban and I'm saying, hey man, I need forty two minutes out of you, And the same thing goes for Phoenix. So you know, it's it's the general concept because for Phoenix, this guy is Jake Crowder and they basically took him out of the rotation in the second half tonight. We saw him briefly in

the fourth quarter when the game was already over. But there's a difference between you know, when we're looking at shooting percentages, specifically three point shooting percentages, like oh, you know Jay Crowder shoots whatever this percentage is from three, or you know Desmond Bain shoots this percentage from three. Well, there's a huge difference between the way the two players are guarded. Desmond ban is a great example, but I'll

keep it in this series. Let's talk about Reggie Bullock instead of Desmond band So if I'm comparing Desmond Bain or excuse me, Reggie Bullock to Jay Crowder, there three point percentages aren't one and the same because every shot that Jake Crowder gets is completely wide open because Dallas is ignoring him, whereas Reggie Bullock, if he catches the ball, Phoenix is panic chasing him and accounting for him everywhere

on the floor. Although they lost him a lot tonight, the point is is, like, it's not so much about what you're shooting percentage is it's about whether or not you're guarded or unguarded. Because if I let Reggie Bullock sit wide open the way that Jake Crowder was all season, Keith shoots six from three his his percentagees did because he's guarded differently, and you see that impact Phoenix's offense.

So they've done some interesting things to try to counter this by putting tucking him further away because you know, Nikki has Duncan did an awesome job laying this out with some video today on his Twitter feed. But when you know when you have a non shooter one pass away.

We talked about this a lot with Janice when they're with their post ups, like Milwaukee does a really nice job of tucking a good shooter one pass away because that first defender that's one passed away has the best potential to disrupt whatever your star is trying to do.

And so when Phoenix tries to run a pick and roll with DeAndre and Chris Paul, but Jake Crowder is at the top of the key, which is where he's been spotting up for the most part in this series, things just get janked up because whoever's guarding Jake Crowder is now basedly tripled. The becoming that third defender in the pick and roll just makes it way harder. But here's the thing. You can tuck him in the week side corner, but now his guy who's guarding him in

the week side corners sitting under the basket. It's effectively the same predicament. So that's another situation. I don't have the numbers off top of my head here, but I looked earlier today Phoenix is playing a lot better without Jake Crowder, and so that might be the move that they have to go to at game in game seven at home, Hey mchaeal Bridges, I need forty out of you. Hey Cam Johnson, I need forty out of you. You know, maybe less Tory Craig, less less Jake Crowder give themselves

the best chance. But I mean, at the end of the day. We have seen both teams best punches in this series, and Phoenix's best punch is better. They're far likely They're far likely to throw their best punch in Game seven, So I'm still leaning with Phoenix. Bummed that I lost some money on Phoenix tonight, but I still believe they're going to win this series. Before we move on, all of you guys who are listening, I sincerely appreciate you guys join us tonight. Please like this video. I

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My favorite same game parlay this week is Boston to win Game five by at least five and a half points and for Drew Holiday to go under twenty one and a half He's been great in the two wins, but in both Boston wins, Drew Holiday has scored less than twenty points. I think Boston is gonna put on a defensive clinic in Game five. That's how I think

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Miami Heat. I made two bets tonight, both money line bets, both on the road team in a Game six. But I made those bets for very different reasons. I bet on Phoenix because I think they have a lot more talent than Dallas. I bet on Miami because they don't have as much talent, but because I could count on them to bring their very best punch in a closeout game on the road. You know, there's a lot of attention thrown towards heat culture. It's kind of like a buzzword.

There's you know, I think it gets overplayed as it pertains to comparing that to the rest of the better teams in the league. Right, Like, I don't think Miami has some massive culture advantage over a Golden State or a massive culture advantage over like the l A Clippers or the Milwaukee Bucks or many of the other teams around the league. However, they do absolutely have a culture advantage over the middling teams in the league and the

teams at the bottom. You know, especially when you see in environments like this, there's a toughness that goes that goes into the way that they play. Erik Spoelstre has said before that the types of players that Miami targets are edgy, and they're usually guys that have had, you know, a different path to their position in the NBA at currently. They usually have a chip on their shoulder. They usually weren't you know, high level draft picks, guys that you know,

we're used to success. They're usually guys that have kind of been down in the dumps a little bit at various points in their basketball careers, and that breeds a certain level of toughness. They're an extremely you know, when it comes to when it comes to the the talent that's on the roster, you can always count on a handful of things. You can count on them being in their peak physical condition, you can count on them being mentally tough, you can count on them being well coached.

We've talked a lot about Miami over the course of this playoff run and the way that they have. You know, I I compared them in a in a recent show to that those viral clips that go around in the n B a of like three or four NBA players all doing the same thing at the same time, whether it's all complaining at the rep at the same time or all running down in transition at the same time, and they go viral because it looks bizarre, because it

looks like almost like video game characters. That's what Miami looks like on defense and on offense. Everything they do is is so disciplined, and it's you can count on a certain level of attention to detail from that team every single night. And it's their biggest advantage in a lot of these situations. You know, specifically when it comes

to coaching, and in like a night like tonight. One of the things that they've been doing consistently throughout this entire playoff run, but it you know, it's obviously was deeply impactful tonight, is they do things like switch coverages. Like one possession, you come down there in his zone, the next position, you come down there in a man. One time you run a pick and roll, they trap it. The next time that you run a pick and roll,

they're in a traditional drop. Then they randomly switch. Do you guys understand how hard that is to do in the flow of a basketball game. Do you understand how much time and effort when it comes to coaching, when how much time and effort it takes to instill those things.

You know, It's funny because I coach high school basketball and I can't tell you how many times my coaching staff and I we will ask our players to run a play and they won't do it, but their kids, you know, so you expect that to a certain extent. But even when I was in college, it was the same thing. I can't tell you how many times the coach on the sideline would make a call with grown men. When I was playing an ai A ball like, it's like we had a twenty nine year old point guard

in a thirty one year old shooting guard. I was one of the young guys at age twenty two, and it was you know, and for the record, and for all you kids out there trying to play one day or are playing right now in high school or in college, is one of the easiest ways to solidify your spot in the rotation is to be dependable when it comes to running plays right or being in the right spots and your defensive scheme and always being where the coach

needs you to be in whatever his system is. But Miami has that down to a t. That's why I bet on them tonight. Let me look at the other side with Philly and could I tweeted this out earlier. Is there a four man grouping in this playoff field that is more talented than Joel Embiide, James hard Entiree Smaxie and Tobias Harris. Yeah, there probably is. If we really looked hard, you could probably say like a Janice

Chris Middleton, Drew Holiday Brook Lopez is above them. Right, You could say like a Steph Clay, Jordan Pool, Draymond Green. But that that's probably the end of that list. Maybe Chris Paul Booker eighton and Bridges right, But like that Philly quartet is right there with them. But they just I mean three games in the series, four games Games one, two, and games five and six, they gave a piss poor effort,

which is astounding under the circumstances. And those first two games in Miami, yeah and beads out, I get it, but they punted those games. They quit in the first quarter of Game five. The big reason why I bet on Miami tonight was because my because Philly quit in the first quarter of Game five of a pivotal to two playoff series. And then after the game, Joel Embide came out and basically implied that he doesn't want to

be playing. You had this long drawn out quote about how you know if he's in a lose lose situation because if he plays, he won't play well. But if he doesn't play, everyone will call him saw offt. Well, here's the thing, dude, You're on National TV in game three. In Game four on National TV, you had a broken face and you were recovering from a concussion in those two games, and we saw you sell your soul on the court on on defense, and then at Game five

and six you just stopped. You just didn't do it. Now, Okay, Like, maybe is it possible that there is stuff going on that puts you in a position where you know, as the series was progressing, things got worse. I don't know. It's hard to jump to that conclusion. All I know is that you had those same injuries in Game three in Game four and you didn't play hard. Anybody on the roster. James Harden took two shots in that second

half tonight. How bizarre is that there's a bunch of stuff going on in the in the in the area of toughness and just metal and in all of those little intangible basketball qualities. There were so many things for Philly in this series that went south. And guess what, That's what happened last year. Philly had more talent than Atlanta, Philly had more talent than Miami. They lost both of

those series. You know, that's one of those things, like when we're getting into the top of the league, when we're comparing you to Kevin Durant and Lebron James and Janice Antenna Kombo and Steph Curry. We're talking about guys that bring it every single night, especially at least in the postseason, and set a certain tone that trickles down the roster for whatever for whatever reason, that just doesn't

happen with Philthy and it's bizarre. But before we move on, I want to give some credit to Miami because, like again there I described them in our last show that talked about Miami. I described them as a sponge in the desert that they squeeze every last drop out of. There's no chance in the world that that Miami is gonna leave points on the table, that Miami is gonna leave an opportunity on the table. They will get the

absolute most out of their talent. You know, it's funny because I put in my notes Philly's big mistake, and I put that during the game because all I could think of is, like, you know, who would be a guy to have in your foxhold for a game like this is Jimmy Butler. And then, as fate would have it, Jimmy Butler after the game quote he's talking about him beat. I love him, I'm proud of him. I still wish

I was on his team. I definitely love the Miami Heat, though I got so much respect and love for Joel Embiid. That was their big mistake. They chose Tobias Harris instead of Jimmy Butler in that summer, and I mean there's some conflicting intel there. Apparently Philly might have offered him four years instead of five years or whatever it was, and there's you know, obviously Jimmy had an affinity for

Miami and he fits in perfect to that system. So I get it, but we far too often in these situations we underestimate the way that that toughness and metal

factors in to these playoffs series. Just like Eric Spoelser said after Game five, you know, you work so hard on a scheme, you work hard on strategy, you come up with a plan, but really all of that goes out the window, and it comes down to who goes out and makes the extra efforts, who goes out and is willing to do the things that other people are not willing to do on the floor. So where do we go from here? If you're filling, well, let's start

with Harden. What do you do with James Harden? Really weird game tonight, wasn't attacking the rim, wasn't put it, not even putting the refs in a position where they had to try to make a decision about whether or not he was fouled. Two shot attempts in the second half. Really weird night. But I've said this before and and and it's it's what I truly believe. You keep hard in despite the fact that he will be overpaid the minute you put pen to paper, for two reasons. First

of all, he's an asset. At some point down the line, you'll be able to trade him and you'll be able to get something back in return, whereas if you don't sign him, you get nothing. But two aside from tonight, tonight was weird. You know, like I think I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna be as hard on, hardened for tonight as I would be if he was the true leader of the team the way he was when he was in Houston. This is Joel embiads team. He came out flat, everyone else followed. James Harden because of

his physical decline, is not capable right now. If hitting the Jets, he could have taken ten shots in that second half and they still would have lost. To be clear, he's just with his physical decline, he's not capable of it at this point in time. Remains to be seen if you'll be able to do it in the future, So I'm not gonna be as hard on him. But for the most part in this postseason, I thought Harden

did pretty well given his physical limitations. I thought in games two through three through five of this series, particularly in Game five, I thought he was the only sixer that showed up, and obviously he was a monster in Game four. Did it would knock him down this His whole impact in this postseason was mainly knocking down threes and playmaking. But that's all he's capable of right now. So to his credit, I actually, you know the way

I look at it. If you're Philly and you're looking at you, if you're if, if you're Darryl Morrin, you're looking at this roster. I actually like a lot of things about this roster. Tyrese Maxie is really good. Guys. He's in his second season and he had monster playoff games. In this playoff run, he was a huge part of why they beat Toronto. His ability to get out and transition. He reminds me he's not as good as Jordan Pool.

Um doesn't have that did that kind of side to side shift nous and the off the dribble jump shooting. But he's a very good shooter already, and he has that Jordan Pool straight line drive threat that can be so devastating in the NBA, especially in the spread floor. I love Tyrese Maxi's game. Tobias Harris is overpaid, sure,

but he's a very good basketball player. And for him to be your third or fourth best player as a guy who can guard the other team's best wing, exploit mismatches, spot up, off the ball, attack, close out, score and transition all the things that he can do, that's a huge weapon to have on your roster. Joel Embiide you, we're gonna talk about him in a minute. He's Joon Beads great, you know. And then James Harden is that

adult in the room on the perimeter. I talked a lot about this in the Boston series after last night. Right Boston's biggest weakness right now is they don't have a player that understands the flow of a basketball game, that understands when things are getting off the rails offensively and when to rain them in just an adult with the basketball. They don't they like a traditional point guard type of concept. They don't have that guy in Boston. That's a value there. And one last thing on the

heart and thing like he's thirty two. I is it gonna happen? I don't know. Probably not, but there is a chance to. And this is another reason why you extend him. There's a chance that this was the season where hard and got humbled in some ways. He probably realized in this playoff run that he tried to tap into some things that weren't there anymore. And he may go into this offseason with the renewed motivation to try

to improve his physical condition. Me we're gonna learn a lot about James Harden with the way he comes into training camp next season. Last note on Philly, I think they have to fire Doc Rivers. He had some moments in this postseason. To be clear, I thought he outcoached Nick Nurse in the first round. But here's the thing. The toughness element, if it's not gonna come from a player, it has to come from your coach. Look at the Celtics.

The Celtics had issues with toughness consistently over the previous few years. Email Udoka came in and completely changed that. Younger more recently in the league, a guy who brings a ton of toughness when he was a player, and he inflicted that on his players in his locker room. What I would do is I'd fire Doc Rivers and

I'd find a guy like email Udoka. I have to do some research to find some specific examples, but I look for someone that has a toughness type of identity that can inflict that on this group, because that's what this group needs and forward to move on entirely. I have one last note. I on the Danny Green injury. I have no idea of Joel and Bead flopped into his life. I have my suspicions, but I'm not going to jump to that conclusion. I'm really really bummed out

for Danny Green. He's not on a guaranteed contract next year. Didn't look good. We don't see. We don't know the m r I results yet, but we can all be pretty sure that's bad. And he probably wouldn't be able to finish rehab until he's thirty six years old, So I don't know if we're gonna see him play NBA

basketball again, and that really bums me out. I'm not going to comment on that play, but what I am gonna do is take this opportunity to once again tell you guys that this flopping ship has to be taken out of the league. It is terrible for the league in terms of the health of the game of basketball. It's terrible for the television product. Joel Embiid became a He became a freaking caricature or of himself. Tonight, he

was falling on almost every single play. There was a play where he was running back on defense and transition and tripped over himself and fell. It's It's like I've never seen anything like it. It's bad. It's bad for the health of the game, it's bad for the television product, and most importantly, it's not safe. Again, I'm not referencing

that play. I'm just saying, especially as a big human being, every time you willingly and purposefully fall on the floor in traffic, you put everyone else around you at risk. You put their legs at risks, you put their ankles at risk, you put their knees at risk, and you willingly make that decision. And this is where I have to go at the NBA because this has been a problem for the better part of a decade now and they let this happen. Go turn on a game from

like two thousand two. Go turn on a game from Tell me how much flopping you see? This is a new ish problem in the last decade or so, and it's one thousand percent because it gets rewarded. I shared out of tweet today. You can see it on my feed. Joel embiide get drawing a foul on PJ Tucker on a pull up jump shot at the free throw line where he literally does not get touched and kicks both of his legs in the air like he does on every single shot attempt and flails and screams and gets

a foul call. It worked. Why would he stop? What? What incentive is there for Joel embid to stop flopping when it works and it's a significant chunk of his offense. The irony is average twelve free throw attempts in the

regular seasons down to nine in the postseason. Dropped from twenty eight points a game or thirty points a game in the in the one points a game in the regular season down to twenty four points per game in the postseason when you rely on getting to the foul line and they and it still works to a certain extent, but it works less. It's no surprised that it stops functioning for you. Look at the guys at the top of the league. Lebron James is not depending on getting

to the foul line. Steph Curry is not dependent on getting to the foul line. Yokich is not depending on getting in the foul line. Neither is the honest None of those guys are sereal floppers. They rely on putting the ball in the damn basket. And I just it's it's bad for him beat in his own development, it's bad for the health of the league. And if he didn't, if he's not responsible for hurting Danny Green today, he's

gonna be responsible for hurting someone in the future. Because a giant tuitor to seventy pound human falling all over the place in traffic like he did a dozen times tonight, everyone's planted, everyone's standing around him. It's dangerous and it's embarrassing, objectively unlikable, and it's terrible for the game of basketball. And I'm just ready for it to be over. I'm sick of it, and I feel really bad for Danny Green. I hope, I hope that he'll be okay. We have

a pretty shocking Lakers related quote today. This comes from Doug Gottlieb's radio show. It's Bill Plashky talking. He says, quote, I've heard that Phil would like Lebron traded. I've just heard that. I do know that Phil would like to keep Westbrook and try to make it work with him. Jason, can you even believe what you're hearing? Oh my gosh, man, Well, I mean, so, it's been well documented. We've talked about

this a million times on the show. Genie Buss has surrounded herself, her experts, the people that she relies on her advisors are all personal connections and not professional. You know, people that are in the weeds are in the work, in the grind of things right now, and even you know, even like like arguably the most competent person in the front office right now is Rob Polinka, and I would argue he's a bottom ten GM in the NBA at least,

if not even lower than that. But it's like, this is what happened, Like what happens if you surround yourself with advisors who consistently have a track record of giving bad advice, Well, you get a guy like Magic Johnson saying that we need to get the basketball out of Lebron's hands. You get a guy like Magic Johnson saying that we need to surround Lebron with playmakers instead of shooters. And then you get Magic Johnson suddenly halfway through the

season being like, oh, ship, we need shooters. Let's trade our only good starting center. And if each a zooboch and to bring back a defender, a shooter that couldn't defend and then essentially couldn't even play in their rotation, you get a ridiculous asset management, like like they literally had to sign Tyson Chandler in the middle of the season and as a result as a result of them

letting brook Lopez walk. They love brook Lopez was on the record saying he wanted to be in l A but I think it was because he was a big man who liked to shoot threes. That Magic Johnson was like, no, no thanks. You know you have Kurt Rambas walking. Kurt Rambis thinks more DeAndre Jordan's is the answer that's what's gonna happen when your advisers don't know what they're talking about. Phil Phil Jackson destroy a the New York Knicks as

an executive, traded Tyson Chandler for nothing. He's the guy who signed Joe him Noah to four years seventy two million dollars two years after he was any good and the year after he was injured all season, the year before he started two games. Like it just it's ridiculous. So what's the natural progression of bad advice from bad advisors. Well, let's keep Russ over Lebron, which the hilarious thing is that there's not even one single angle there that makes

any sense. They're both free agents after this coming season. They're both are on huge contract numbers, so it's not like there's any contract flexibility you gain in the process. And Lebron is at least one thousand times better at basketball. At this point, I thought Russell Westbrook was one of the worst rotation players in the league this year, and and Lebron James I thought was one of the top four or five players in the league this year. So

it's just it's completely ridiculous. But it's just it's it's what you expect at this point. You know, that was the most hilarious thing about gene He's interview that she went and did is it's just the latest example of self awareness. Like if think about it, think about it like this, all of the news we've seen, all of the disaster, all of the ship show, the entire public, the entire Laker fan base is painfully aware of how

poorly run this team is. And Genie Buss's response was to sit down with Bill Plashki, the same guy who's been talking NonStop about trading Lebron, and literally sit down with him and come to the defense of Linda Rambis and come to the defense of Kurt Rambis, and come to the defense of everybody that's on her side, and deflect any blame away from herself. But then be like, oh, it's my job to fix this, Jenny. You put everybody in this position like this is your cake that you made.

Now you have to deal with it, and it's it's just ridiculous. This is the you know, the last thing I'll say is, Laker fans, there's a very there's a very clear defined linear path to restoring your status as a contender this offseason, and chances are you don't. It doesn't happen because the people in charge are simply incompetent and incapable of executing all of the necessary steps on that path. You're it is like me asking you to go win a fight, but I'm tying your left hand

behind your back. You're competing against very good NBA teams that are full of talent, that have high level It's like hard working, ambitious and executives in the front office that are in the weeds watching games in Europe, watching games on League Past every night, that know exactly what succeeds in the modern NBA, that know exactly they know exactly what their team's identity is and how to build around it. And then you've got the clown show running

the Lakers. It's like, if Lebron manages somehow to lead this team back to a championship, it's gonna be one of the it's already him winning one. We have to reevaluate that and and the and the way that he circums basic we navigated around the ship storm that is the Laker ownership in front office, it's it's just completely ridiculous, But I mean at this point, you have to be pessimistic if you're a Liker fan, because there it's just unlikely that they do the things necessary to fix this.

I think ridiculous, clown show, those are appropriate words like this genuinely seems satire level. I think Phil is either far too deep into some sort of spiritual cleans in which his mind is no longer normally operational or actively doing a bit because it is like unfathomable then a human being could come to the conclusions that we're hearing in these reports. All right, let's go from one wacky character to another, because we've got a quote about Kyrie Irving.

This is from nets GM Shawn Marks. He says, quote, we need people here that want to be here, that are selfless, that want to be part of something bigger than themselves. There's an objective and there's a goal at Steak Year. In order to do that, we're gonna need availability from everybody. Jason, what do you think about that? Self awareness is one of the most important traits as an adult, Like, there's a reason why when you go in for a job interview, one of the questions they

ask you about is like, what are your weaknesses? And if you if your answer is I don't have any weaknesses, then then you're then you have no self awareness and the like it's Kyrie Irving came out of that game game four after the sweep and was like, uh, you know, I'm gonna be collaborating with Seawan and me and Kevin were and Josi, We're gonna we're gonna get this thing back on the I'm committed to this, We're this is collaborative, all this stuff. And it's like, dude, they don't believe you.

They they're not on your side. They view you as part of the problem. That's the reality of this situation. It's kind of like Russell Westbrook after that that horrible loss against the Pelicans when Lebron and a d are like sitting on the bench incensed and and Russ is coming up to them like patting them in the back like it's okay, guys, it's because Frank didn't play me. I'll be bad. I'll be back next time. And everyone's like, no, man, like,

that's that's not what's happening. It's just Kyrie has a complete and total lack of self awareness. I think Kevin Durant is completely under the under his under that spell as well because of the friendship, which has clouded his judgment, because the reality of the situation is that it was readily apparent to anybody that had been following Kyrie in the previous years that he was not the right guy

to partner with. There's heavy intel that in the two thousand seventeen playoff run, while the Calves were streaking towards a NBA trip to the NBA Finals, literally only lost one game in the Eastern Conference playoffs. There's plenty of reports that he was distancing himself from the locker room. That's ridiculous, like when times are good, he was pulling away. Then he threatened to get knee surgery to get himself traded out of town. Everything that he did with Boston,

we don't have to get into it. It's well documented. This guy is a vagabond. He's a flake. He's not dependable. He on any given day, his mood changes with like the weather. It literally he is. Doesn't say anything about him as a quality of a human being. I'm sure he's He's done amazing things to give back to the community. By all accounts, he's a great person, but he's meant

to be a solo act. He's meant to go, he's meant to do things on his own because in a team setting, he lacks the awareness of how important it is for him to be there and to be reliable and to be you know, what the team needs him to be and like and and like for him. Right after that game, he was talking about continuity being an issue. It's like, dude, you were the reason there was no continuity.

And that's the thing. He's the guy that in the job interview and they say what are your weaknesses, he goes like, my weaknesses is that I show up too early and then I worked too hard. Like that. That's that's literally the type of guy that he is. And it's just, you know, doesn't mean anything about him as a human being, just means bad teammate and and it means that it's probably worthwhile to try to find someone

else's partner with. First of all, I think it's amazing that you've now referred to Kyrie as a vagabond twice. It's two of my favorite moments in really the history of sports content, because that word is so underappreciated and you're bringing it back and it's a huge public service. I also think you make an interesting point about, you know,

Kyrie not operating within a team setting. I think that's intuitive, but it reminds me of Big boss Man Colin Coward said maybe a month or so ago, that Kyrie was built to be a musician or a tennis player or some sort of brilliant individual performer, but just you know, somebody you could never understand that team construct. Who do you think is the least self aware basketball player on the planet right now? Because I think there's a few

good candidates, So I'm interested in your thoughts. Oh, it's Russell Westbrook, hands down, And it's not even close, like at least with Kyrie Irving, Like he's good like like at least Kyrie Irving. There's like this little bit of evidence that supports him being not self aware. And it's that he like nobody can go at him in the NBA, you know, like that that that's like his little like that that's the thing that that's the driving force behind

his ego, outsizing his own self awareness. Right, Russell Westbrook was not a very good basketball player this year, and yet if you injected him with truth syreum, right, now we don't even have to do so. Just go on YouTube and look up Russell Westbrook's exit interview and watch how often he directly references his own unwillingness to adapt, his own poor player, or his own his own responsibility

for what happened on the court that year. And like you know, like specifically with the Lakers, guys, I covered them this year. I watched every single game they played twice. He was awful, Like it's the he's the poster boy for why counting stats in the box score do not reveal what a player's impact on the basketball court is because he was horrible off the ball, he was horrible on defense. He like his lapses and judgment and his lapses and awareness were like every single game, especially and

pivotal moments. And then he's just convinced that it was everyone else's fault. So I think it's Russ in a landslide. I completely agree, and I love teaing you up on any Russ stuff. But my take, for a while, like for several years, has been I think Russ might be the least to wear athlete. I would say of all time, it feels like of my lifetime because it's in every respect.

It's in terms of talking to the media and not acknowledging his own shortcomings, but more obviously than that, every single game it's, like you said, not understanding his skill set being this otherworldly athlete. You know, he's lost a little bit of that. But who doesn't want to operate off the ball and actively cut and this horrible shooter who takes five six threes a game and a million,

you know, terrible midrange pull ups. It's just everything he does screams, I don't actually know what I'm good at. I think I'm great at everything. Nothing can ever be my fault. So I agree with you, But I don't know, Kyrie. I could see some people arguing for him. The man is definitely off on his own plane a little bit.

But I agree with you on the right choice. It's just it's it's just a classic case of it's a classic case of like, if there was anything that would have humbled him into admitting these things, it was this

year and he and it didn't work. Like if if this Lakers season couldn't convince Russell Westbrook that there were some things that he had to get better at than nothing will And I'm not sure that he'll ever have We just talked about James Harden's potentially James Harden in his potential like redemption story, I don't know that Russ could ever achieve that without having some self awareness, and

he just doesn't. Yeah, well, he's a lot more focused on people calling him Westbrook and how that negatively affects his family because he is not at fault. He had a great season this year. All right, let's pivot to a quote about the Celtics here. This is from head coach email Udoka talking about their feelings after going down three two. He says, quote, of course we're gonna be down. Guys are gonna be upset about the outcome. We outplayed

them for three and a half quarters. We talked about showing our resolve and we made it tougher on ourselves now. It will make it sweeter when we bounce back. But we gave up a golden opportunity tonight. Jason, what are your thoughts on that? Well, first of all, I love imay Udoka. I think he I think he represents what

a modern NBA coach needs to be. You know, um, I've talked a lot on this show about how you know, there's a certain level of offensive organization that's important, a certain amount of like you know, detailed sets and getting guys in the right spots and mainly spacing concepts I think are most important at this point, and Emay obviously understands those things. But one of the most important things

is managing personalities. In the way that Emay Yudoka resonates with his players and can convince them to do the things that need to be done to win games is

so important, like and you it'll be interesting. The interesting thing to track with him will be burnout because for instance, like there are guys like Frank Vogel or Tom Thibodeau who in a short sample size seemed to be able to captivate his players into a certain level of work ethic intensity, but it seems to wear on them and then you'll see like seasons after or the same group of guys just don't get the same level of intensity

under those coaches. So that will be the next step for Emay is his ability to stay fresh in and to keep that level of commitment. You know, this series, I I agree with him though, like they made it harder on themselves, but this series is not over. You know, once again, Milwaukee's half court offense in Game five zero point eight eight points per play. Boston's half court offense in Game five zero point nine seven points per play.

So in every single one of the five games in this series, both teams have struggled in the half court, but Boston has been definitively better about ten points per every one d possessions. So it's consistently been Boston's own self sabotage that has hurt them. Milwaukee scored two point one four points per transition play. How insane is that? Literally they're scoring more than a layup on every transition play. That's where that's consistently been where this series is turned.

The difference is is Boston was also great in transition in Game five, they average one point seven points per transition play. Where Milwaukee dominated this game was the offensive glass we've talked about on the show. They had seventeen offensive rebounds. Bobby Porter has had seven. Milwaukee scored. This is a wild stack, Carson. Milwaukee scored an additional zero

point three five points per miss in putbacks. So if it just literally every time they so think of it like this, to simplify it, every time they missed three shots, they got a point in offensive rebound putbacks, which is just a wild way to steal a basketball game, and that's how they did it. So Boston was better in the half court. They actually won the fast breakpoint battle, and they lost the game specifically on the offensive glass.

But that's something they can not Marcus Smart said after the game, all we have to do is box out. But it all comes down to those details in their offensive organization. I thought the stat as wild as all those stats are, I thought the stat of last night's game was Boston attempted zero three's in the fourth quarter. Now think of it like this. Milwaukee's defense is specifically set up to give up threes because they overhelp in

the paint. Now, they did drop out Brook Lopez. They went with Bobby Portis and Janice at the four five, and they switched everything. But as I've said, the only way to attack a switching defense, because the switching defense is designed to bait you into stupid pull up jump shots. Even if you make them, they stagnate your team. They're not great looks. The only way to be the switching

defense is to beat individual matchups to the rim. Because if you can beat individual matchups to the rim, you will force help, and if you force help, you can get quality three point shots or quality opportunities to attack close outs. They attempted zero threes, which tells you that in that in Brooke up Has didn't play in that fourth quarter, so they switched everything the entire quarter in

Boston just neglected to apply any rim pressure. They fell directly into Milwaukee's trap and it costs him the game. Now I'm off of Boston in terms of like predicting anything with them, because I was off of them before they even won the game in Game five, because they're their their lack of discipline, and they're they're they're a guy who They're a team that would be killing for a guy like James Harden on the roster, and that

might be something they have to look into. They need an adult on the perimeter that can orient them and put them in positions that they need to be. But I I think I wouldn't count Boston out in Game six at all, and I wouldn't count Milwaukee out if Boston won because both teams. Both teams have shown the the ability to win on the on the road, so it's just you know, it's it's a really really interesting series. I think I think these are two of probably the

best teams in the league. They're easily the two best teams in the West or in the East, excuse me. And this series kind of feels like a conference finals type of series. And Milwaukee stole three games in this series simply by by winning on all the details. We talked about swing factors. That's a phrase I use all the time on the show as swing factor. If the entire game played out in the half court, Boston would have won this series in a suite. But it doesn't.

There are swings. It's like special teams in football or turnovers. You can you can be the team that runs the ball all night long with no issue that is picking them apart with your passing game. But if you have a couple of sloppy turnovers and you get dominated in special teams, you can cost yourself a game. And that's what's been happening to Boston is they're just getting destroyed

on the margins and all of the details. And that's specifically why like like I I, even if Boston wins this series, I would feel a lot less confident about them winning the title because they just don't pay enough attention to those things. It has been fascinating to watch that play out. There's throughout this series it's been the same thematic issues that you've touched on over and over again.

And obviously incredible accomplishment for Janice particularly, but the Bucks overall, if they're able to pull this off with Middleton out.

But it does feel in a lot of ways like a failing of the Celtics, just given the level that we saw them reach down the stretch of the season and the expectations that they drummed up in the opportunity that they had with how things have shaken out Middleton not being there, and obviously Miami a very good team in the conference finals, but I think certainly Boston has a higher ceiling. So it'll be interesting to see sort of what their responses if they fall short here, because

this definitely ended up being a pretty golden opportunity. It feels like, alright, yes, I think it would be adult, adult playmaker, just somebody who's a grown up on the perimeter that's there, that's gonna be their their go to need. I don't know who that is. I don't know if you target like a or someone like a Ricky Rubio

or someone along those lines. Just I don't think you need another primary ball handler, but you just need somebody that can get Tatum and Brown off the ball in terms of bringing the ball up the floor and making that initial decision. You need someone to throw the ball to Tatum here and be like here, dude, all you have to think about is scoring in this post up here, dude, all you need to think about is like drawing this

double team out of this spot. But like them, them bringing the ball up the floor and making that initial decision is too often resulting in things going off the rails. That's always been my thought with them, and it was interesting because I sort of felt like, and obviously there are differences, but their vision of Okay, we have our two score first wings and they're gonna be our offensive initiators very consistently out of isolation and pick and roll.

The model that I looked at and thought, Okay, that's probably most similar was what the Clippers had with Kawai and PG last year. But I thought to make that work, you needed, first of all, Kawai and PG, you who are just a better tandem to begin with a more developed playmaking tandem as well, and like one of the greatest shooting teams ever around them. And still obviously Kawai gets hurt, but it was a second round exit. So it's always seemed to me like a lofty goal, and

I think you touched on it. I mean, so many great teams that they have just straight up that dynamic star, scoring and playmaking guard. But if you don't have that guy, if you do just have the lead wing, you need a table setter, you need somebody to control the flow, because it's just too much to ask those guys I think, to consistently be great decision makers and facilitators and everything that they need to be right now if Boston wants

to achieve its ultimate ceiling. Yeah, in one last super quick note, like this is quickly becoming one of the most it's impossible to quantify. It doesn't show up in a box score. I have no way, I don't have any idea how to measure it. But game management is like one of the most valuable basketball skills that we're learning in this postseason run. And again it's you just

know it when you see it. It's just It's just it, guys that can It's almost like a manifest and pace in a lot of ways, Like you just can tell, Like when you watch Luca, there's just a control that he has over the flow of the game. And Chris Paul has that same control. Steph Curry has that same control. Janice has that same control. You just either have it or you don't. I don't know how to quantify it, but it's just Boston doesn't have it. And it's the

biggest reason. You know, Milwaukee has no business being in a close out game tomorrow. They have no business being in a closeout game and they are in one because of Janice's greatness and because Boston soiling themselves. Like that's literally what it is. Yeah, I I agree completely. All right.

We've got a quote from our guy Draymond here about the Warriors having to obviously make this adjustment from playing one version of the Grizzlies to playing another, and obviously we saw them get blown out in historic fashion in Game five. He said, you almost have to make the adjustment in this series as if we're starting an entirely different series. You kind of have to rethink the whole

game plan because our game plan was built around John Morant. Jason, you've talked a lot about the trade offs that you have losing Jaw obviously losing his lead scoring, but gaining some of that size athleticism defense. So what are your thoughts on that. What are some of the key adjustments to Warriors need to make there to actually go out

and close out this series. So I agree with him in respect to the fact that, yes, like all your coverage is changed because there's a certain amount of like a overloading that you do for Jaw, you know, right, especially on your defensive scheme, your pick and roll coverage, all those kinds of things. There are absolutely some massive differences without Jaw right and obviously without Jaw it's harder to get dribble penetration because there's just better perimeter defenders

on the floor for Memphis. But to me, this game tomorrow is so simple. There is a clear, like easily defined path to winning tomorrow for Golden State, and it's

do the physical job. So that means, you know, they went The reason why it was a buzz saw in Game five or get yeah, game five, the reason why that was a buzz saw was because no, uh, Memphis had a relentless physical attack on that game in every facet, offensive, glass, transition, defensive intensity, all of those things, and they manifested in all the stats. They forced a million turnovers, they dominated the game in transition, and they had a million second

chance points. Right. Those are all what I would call controllables. Those are all things that they can control. They just didn't want to do it in game five. It too simply, to put it simply, and we talked about on the show. I don't judge them for that. It's a very common phenomena. It's why I bet on that game, It's why we sent that out as a betting opportunity before the game.

Simply put older veteran teams going into a bigger, more athletic, younger team in an elimination game scenario on the road. It's just the buzz saw. And it's very rare that you'll see the veteran team match that physicality, especially when they have a home opportunity to close out on the horizon. Right. I Mean, you could argue that's what happened to Phoenix

tonight on a different type of level. You could argue that they could have brought an their level, but they didn't because they knew they had a home game on the horizon, right. So my thing is, like, if they go into Game six and Golden State relentlessly boxes out, works on their like sits in a defensive stance, and contains their ball handlers, which, by the way, Memphis without John Morant is a guardable team, a very guardable team if you do the work and then get back in

transition take care of the basketball. All of those things right there automatically put you in a position to win. Now, the reason why it was close in Game four, and the other thing they'll have to watch out for is early in the series they got a ton of dribble penetration. We did a whole thing on this in Game three, surrounding Jordan pools our opening segments. So the other important detail, all those physical details. But they also and I would

argue this is a physical detail as well. They need to put their head down and get by people. They need to get some rim pressure. They need to compromise Memphis defense with dribble drive, which they just simply didn't do nearly enough in the last two games. But the reason why I'm picking Golden State is all those things I just said, they know that Draymond knows that Steph knows that they have the appropriate fear, and they will.

I expect them to go home tomorrow night, to sit in a defensive stance and to contain memphis lack of ball handling. I expect them to sit down and box out and push guys out of the lane and crash the glass. I expect them to split back. In transition. I expect them to take care of the basketball. I expect them to do all those things that the grown up team usually does when they know they have to, and I think they'll get a win tomorrow. Alright, enough basketball, Jason,

let's get to the good stuff here. Because it's officially Star Wars season. We've got Obi Wan Kenobi coming out a couple of weeks. So let's give you a couple of appropriate quotes for a very important question about the Star Wars world. Here are some quotes from you and McGregor and Hayden Christensen on Revenge of the Sith. McGregor said episode three was a really good movie. Hayden says it's a phenomenal film. So Jason, let me ask you, are the prequels good? I'm pro prequel. I there are

things that I dislike about them, you know. So here's the thing. The sequel trilogy, it's an entire giant pile of garbage. Okay, the entire thing. It's an insulting it's insulting to George Lucas, it's insulting to all Star Wars fans, it's insulting to all of us, right, so it just it it. They knew they were robbing us, they knew they were going after our wallets at the expense of our Star Wars fanhood and everything that we stand for,

and they didn't care. Okay, what the prequels were was George Lucas achieving something that was very difficult to do, but also that had an element of like some cheesiness, some diving a little bit too far into the weeds, some bad acting, some directorial mistakes, things like that, some things that didn't flow, some things that were slow. So those are just nitpicky things. And of course, like you know, not every movie is going to be great, so that

that goes that that's just part of the deal. Thought. Revenge of the Sith was a phenomenal move movie and to to this day, and this is why. I hope that Star Wars will attempt to leave this timeline and do this again. But the concept of that fallen Jedi, you know, good turning evil, but that good turning evil and becoming way more powerful and becoming this entity that has to be dealt with, that to me is like a home run every single time, and it's the easiest.

It's the easiest way to to build an organic news story. So I hope they eventually do something like that. But I'm I'm with I'm with both of those guys. I thought the prequel trilogy was good and Revenge of the Sith was an awesome movie. Yeah, I think there's some serious prequel flaws. I rewatched all of them pretty recently. Attack of the Clones was my favorite as a kid, watching a million times not not good with hindsight, But Revenge of the Sith is my favorite Star Wars movie.

So I will stand with you and the esteem gentleman on this one. I'm very very pro Revenge of the Sith. Yeah. I may, I may or may not have something coming down the pipeline that is Star Wars related as a separate sure, but I'm not going to get into that tonight. All right, guys, a couple of quick notes before we get out of here. Remember to like this video. I sincerely appreciate you guys supporting the show. It would mean the world to me if you took the time to

hit that like button. Also follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. That's where I released all the video content that backs up some of the concepts that I talked about on the show. I sincerely appreciate you guys support We will be back tomorrow night after a couple more games sixes and I will see you guys then. Volume