Lakers Tonight Joel Embiid & 76ers, Chris Paul & Suns close out Raptors and Pelicans

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are having a good week. So far. We had two amazing Game six is that we are going to get into tonight. The Sun's behind a fourteen for fourteen from the field performance from Chris Paul, go into the go into New Orleans and close out the Pelicans, and then the Sixers shut everybody up by going up into Toronto and killing them on their home floor to close out the Raptors. We're gonna get into both of those games

as well. As looking forward for all four of those teams, the Raptors and the Pelicans going into this off season and what they should be addressing, as well as the Sons and the Sixers going into the second round and what they're gonna be facing looking forward in this playoff run. But let's start with the Raptors Sixers games. So I picked the Raptors in six and I was very wrong

about that. Um, I think you know, the specific things that I was looking at as reasons why Toronto would have a chance to win, We're not incorrect in a vacuum, like, for instance, like I do believe Nick Nurse is a better coach than Doc Rivers. I do think that Toronto is the were athletic team, and had the series taken a certain tone, that they could have had more success

there where I was very wrong. And the reason why I think my prediction went so hot the Rails was Toronto's inability to score in the half court ended up directly affecting their defensive end of the floor and their ability to disrupt Harden and their ability to disrupt Joel and beat. Obviously, Toronto over the course of the last you know, half decade has loaded up on wings and they have a ton of athleticism, a ton of size,

and there's a great deal of value in that. But one of the downsides there is almost all of those wings as they came into Toronto weren't very polished offensively. Now their player development has been excellent and they've turned all of those wings into good enough offensive players to be a very good team. But there's another level to them being able to create on offense that is missing, and that ended up being what was the killing blow

for Toronto in this series. That couldn't score when they were in the half court, and as a result, more often than not, Philly was attacking their defense when it wasn't set, and so as a result, they weren't as polished and you know, tight with their rotations, and Philly was getting great shots. The shot quality throughout the whole

series for Philly was better. You know. I had a I have a coach here in Tucson high school coach that I coached with, and he played a Division one basketball here in the US and then he went overseas I believed to Italy for like seven or eight years to play professionally. Very very smart basketball mind, very good

guard is six three kind of power guard. And you know, he used to say to me when we were talking about our players on our team, you'd say, there are shooters and there are makers, and it's a It was an interesting concept that I had never really heard before in all my years playing basketball. But it's it's it's you know, it's just semantics, it's just a phrase. But to me, it captures the difference between a person who is like unbelievably confident in their ability to shoot versus

a person who can shoot. And when you start looking at the Toronto roster, you have Gary Trent Jr. And Fred VanVleet, or what I would call makers. They are guys that like, if you consistently leave them open, even if they miss a handful of shots over the course of any sort of significant volume, they're gonna make you pay for leaving their them open. They are capable of knocking down shots, but they're also unbelievably confident in their shot.

Whereas you'll see everyone else in the roster, all those guys like Pascal Siakim and Scottie Barnes and O. G. N Nobi, they are capable shooters, like if you leave them open. They've worked hard enough to where they're gonna knock down a decent percentage of them, but as soon as they miss a few, the confidence goes out the window, and there you can catch them. On the right night, they'll be making everything because confidence is more attached to result for them than it is to the work and

their actual ability to shoot the basketball. I thought the turning point of this game, especially in the third quarter, Philly basically just sagged off of everybody and let all those guys shoot. But the problem was as simultaneously, I think Gary Trent Jr. Was actually on the bench during that third quarter run. All five players on the floor were being left open on the perimeter, but none of them were truly confident in their ability to raise up

and shoot. So the psychology of them laying off ended up really really hurting them, and suddenly there was a lid on the basket. Then they started driving into guys that were already waiting for them in the paint and shooting really low percentage like floaters and push shots and contested you know, scooping layups and stuff around the rim, and they were missing everything, and next thing you know, Philly's making everything on the other end and the game

is over. Now, I'll give you an example, guys like Danny Green, Georges Kneeang, Tobias Harris. I would even argue Tyrese Maxie falls into this group as well. Those guys are makers, like they are confident in their shot. If you leave them open consistently, they might miss a couple, but they're eventually going to get it going. It's kind of like the difference between playing in a pickup game

versus playing in a full length game. Like when you go play pick up with your friends in a game to ten or a game to fifteen or whatever you play too, you might not have enough reps to get your rhythm, and if you happen to shoot poorly, you might get beat. But when you go playing your men's league and you've got you know, to twenty minute halves of running clock in that forty minutes, you have time if you're getting good shot quality, to get your rhythm.

It's kind of like a way that you guys can relate it to when you guys play in your in your local runs. But for for guys like Tobias Harris, for guys like Danny Green, for for guys like George's kneeing like if they miss a shot and they're running back on defense and their head they're thinking, Oh, I can't wait to get another look like that, because the next one's going in and look. In this game, Tyrese, Maxie, Tobias Harris, Danny Green, and George's nan went eleven for

twenty three from three damn near. A lot of attention was being dedicated to James Harden, a lot of attention was being dedicated to all and beat. They were getting great looks and they were knocking them down because not only are they capable of making shots, but they are confident when they get those quality shots and they're gonna knock them down. Conversely, Pascal siakam O, Gianna Nobi, Scottie Barnes, that young Chris Bouche, Pressius Seshia, all guys that are

capable of knocking down shots. Those guys went five for twenty five from three, and they were all great looks. They were all dare dare you to shoot type of shots and they just couldn't knock them down. And so one of the things that's gonna be really interesting for Toronto looking forward. They've got enough wings now they might

need to look into getting more offense. When you've got what I just name off six guys that they were playing in their rotation tonight that were unbelievably good athletes and wings, it might be worth looking into moving a couple of them to try to get in more offensive firepower. Got a type of guy that I'd be looking at in terms of shot creation, another guy who his shooting can be inconsistent. But what I'd be looking for is maybe see if you can poach Donovan Mitchell away from

the Jazz this summer. We're gonna do a video on the YouTube on the Utah Jazz here in the next couple of days as soon as their series is over, and when that happens, will dive in a little bit further into what the matching machinations of that would actually look like. But you need to get a very very confident athletic shot creator in this lineup to help make some of these shots easier for some of these Raptors players.

And then you need to target one or two wings that maybe not that aren't as athletic, that aren't as you know, capable of getting up and down the floor in Toronto's you know, helter skelter system, but that are confident shooters that are makers rather than shooters, Guys that even if they miss a couple of open shots, they will consistently and confidently feel like they're going to knock them down over the course of any sort of large sample size. That's gonna be the big ask for Toronto

this summer. You've you've shown that you can build, you know, a brick house of wings that is a royal pain in the ask to play against. But all of the best teams in the league have some combination of that in real confident, offensive polish. So you need to bring some of that in that needs to be there the next direction that that franchise heads in. Let's move on

to James Harden because James Harden and CP three. Harden definitely more so than CP three, but both of those guys have some ugly spots on their playoff resume, and both of them tonight in hostile environments in very important playoff games against teams that actually absolutely were threats to beat them. They were massive and did exactly what was necessary to lead their team to victory. So we have to give them some credit. Early in the game, James

Harden was aggressive to the basket. Now some of that was Toronto, I thought came out really sloppy defensively to start the game. They were weirdly over aggressive to Harden on the perimeter. Instead of making him make a couple of step back jump shots to take Philly out of their offensive rhythm. They were kind of over aggressive and James was getting easy driving lines. They weren't even really

making him earn his trips into the paint. But as a result, it set a tone, and throughout the whole game, I thought James Harden did an amazing job of not forcing things. If you had the right matchup and he had the right space, he was aggressive to the rim. He was magnificent passing the basketball. I think he had fourteen or fifteen assists during that stretch. We were talking

about shooting earlier. During that stretch in the third quarter, when all of Toronto's shooters simultaneously got in their own heads and suddenly all those shooters, not makers, were being dared to shoot, and none of them felt confident, and it appeared there was a lid on the rim. Rim. Meanwhile, on the other end, James Harden was orchestrating fantastic basketball, getting fantastic looks for really really good shooters as well as himself. It was just a really impressive performance. Now

again with James Harden, this your favorite. This is a first round series. The stakes will only get higher as we go further along this deal. We're gonna run into a Miami team in the next round that's definitely gonna be a little bit more confident going against you and is gonna probably pay attention to this particular series and do some things that Nick Nurse didn't. Maybe dare you a little bit more to be more aggressive as a score and as a you know, pull up jump shooter

and things along those lines. But to credit James Harden, because I don't think again we were We're gonna, you know, at some point in the next couple of days, I'm gonna talk a little bit about Kyrie Irving and his little rant on on Twitter about the media, and I don't I don't want to get into that because I'm gonna save it for a later date. But you know, one of the things that I think is very important in the media is criticism has to happen because it's authentic.

And if I sit up here and only say nice things about people, now I'm a liar and none of you guys are gonna want to listen if I'm just up here, you know, telling you things that I don't even believe. But the flip side is is you have to be fair. My thing is be critical, but be fair. And so in this situation, like for James Harden, a guy that has a nightmare of a playoff resume, he was a mon to tonight and played incredibly well in a game that I had some money on fandel on

the Raptors. I was actively rooting on the Raptors throughout the entire series. So like, you gotta give it to James Harden. He went up to Toronto with his own physical limitations, as he's aging and he's losing a little bit of athleticism. He went in Toronto and and just orchestrated an amazing offensive game and led his team to a dominant victory. We gotta give him some credit. Joel Embid, you know, I obviously he's incredible. He was monstrous again tonight.

I get so frustrated watching him. There was a play and I think it was in the second quarter where he was posting up on Pascal Siakam and he took a hard dribble into the middle and did this like massive, like drop step with a hard elbow right into Pascal Siakam's chest. Pascal Siakam like buckles, but then kind of recovers and just goes with verticality. And Joel Embide like throws up a lefty hook, And what have I been telling you guys? He flops like a jump shooter when

he's trying to take layups. He takes like a lefty hook, kicks his legs up in the ground. It just sprawls out on the floor, and then Toronto's running the other way and he gets up and he's complaining at the reft.

Literally nobody touched him on the play. It's just I want so badly to like Joel Embiid because he does so many things that I personally respect, you know, as a basketball fan, and I just it's he's making it so hard for me to do that because of the fact that he just consistently does things that are objectively unlikable on the basketball court. That type of behavior is just unlikable, And like I know, Philly fans get very

sensitive about that very particular topic. I know Joel and beat himself is very sensitive about that about that particular topic, but I I just can't stand it. So looking forward to this Miami Heat series, it's gonna be a little bit different on a couple of different fronts. I think Bamata Bio presents somebody and it'll be really interesting in

the opening minutes of the series. Uh, can bamat a Bio handle Joel embat in single coverage, because if he can, that changes so much about the dynamic offensively for the Sixers. Talked earlier about guys capitalizing on attention to Joel Embiid and James Harden in tonight's game, Maxi, Harris Green and E eleven from three. A lot of that is because

they were getting fantastic looks. Well, if bamade Bio can handle Joel Embiad in single coverage, at least well enough that they don't have to massively compromise their defense to get attention to Joel Embiid, then it could change the overall shot quality for what guys like Tyris s Maxie and Tobias Harris are getting. It could change the amount of free space that James Harden has to work with and make his life even more difficult. So that'll be interesting.

Other side of the floor is where I really really worry about Miami, and it's why I think Philly has a good chance to win this series. Not making a pick yet, will probably do so in our live show on Sunday. But what worries me is Toronto did a really nice job of taking Joel Embiid outside at least in games four in game five and driving the ball on him and taking advantage of his lack of foot speed.

What worries me is Miami in particular. There they don't have a ton of guys that drive to the basket heart. P J. Tucker is not a slasher. Tyler Harrow and Duncan Robinson are more movement shooters, although Tyler Harrow has a little bit of a basket attacking game, you know, Kyle Lowry is more methodical and he's kind of dealing with some injuries right now. Jimmy Butlers are only real like kind of like take you out to the perimeter and use my foot speed to beat you to the

basket type of guy. Victor Oladipo a little bit as well, but like they definitely don't have the same type of you know, slashing foot speed that Toronto does. In addition to that, Bama A Bio, I know he's capable as a jump shooter, but he definitely falls into that shooter not maker category. He's definitely the kind of guy that if you dare him to shoot and he misses a couple, he'll get in his head and then suddenly he won't

even want to take them anymore. And so Joel Embiat in that role on Bama A Bio, if he is able to drop all series, drop coverage and pick and rolls and drop into the basket and help when bam is not involved in pick and roll actions and doesn't have the basketball, that could change the dynamic of the

shot quality for Miami. It buys potential for guys like Maxie and Tobias Harris and George Kneeing and James Harden and all of the role players Danny Green, all the role players for Philly to be more aggressive on the perimeter and push up on shooters because they don't have to worry as much about getting beat to the basket because Joel Embid has their back. It's gonna be a super interesting dynamic. I want to dive into a bunch more film and then after I get into the film,

make a pick, probably on Sunday. Like I said, but that's going to be a very very interesting series. All right, Let's move on to the Sun's so again. Chris Paul another another guy that has a little bit more of a spotty playoff resume. His his resume is very hot and cold, like unbelievably massive performances on a bunch of different stages, but then some you know, pretty amazing collapses

too along the way. Another guy that has an iffy playoff resume, but he you know, I have a lot more confidence in him in big moments that I do and James Harden and it's a big reason why I picked Phoenix to win this series despite the Devin Booker injury.

And you know, I think it was game two right when Devin Booker went down, and when he went down, you know, I knew it would be difficult, but I was thinking, if Chris Paul could just float the ship long enough for Devin Booker to get back, that could be the difference in this Son's team going on a run and not going on a run because obviously without their best player, there's all this potential for them to

get beat if they run into the wrong matchup. Well, it turns out that the Pelicans are a pretty difficult matchup for the Sons on a bunch of different levels. Their length and athleticism really bothered Chris Paul at certain points in the series. In pick and Roll, you know, Devin Booker had a lot of success early in the series before he got hurt. It's really hard to tell how that would have gone over the course of the series.

Made a lot of big shots tonight. But again, I'm really curious to see how his hamstring holds up in the long run. But I want to give Chris Paul a ton of credit because here's the deal. You know, not everything goes your way, and sometimes you have a disastrous outcome and then you work incredibly hard to get back to the mountaintop and bad luck hits you along the way. It's kind of like lebron in two thousand twelve. You're losing two thousand eleven and this disastrous collapse in

the NBA Finals. In the summer, you start working with the Chemolage one. You clearly take a definitive leap as a basketball player. You're the m v P of the league.

The next season, everything looks great, and then Chris Bosh pulls his abdominal muscle in the series against the Pacers, and simultaneously Dwyane Wade's knee starts to give you issues, and now you're in some trouble, and now you're I think they were down two games to one in the Indiana series and things were looking really, really rough and at multiple points. Game four obviously got a big game from d Wade in that game as well, but Lebron

was a monster in Game four. And then you guys remember the Boston Celtics series, which bo Bosch missed most of. They were down three two in that series as well, and Lebron had to overcome that. Lebron on had to float the team essentially for long enough for d Way to have his little moments of significant impact and for Chris Bosh to get healthy, and as a result he was rewarded with the trophy. Well, a similar thing basically

happened to Chris Paul here. Imagine, you know, getting within two wins of a of a championship, the championship you've wanted your entire life. And then you come back into the next season and have a monstrous season where you're play incredibly well and your team is the definitive number

one seed. You seem to have, you know, you seem to be poised to undo the damage of last year's NBA Finals, and then your compatriot, your your teammate, Devin Booker goes down with a hamstring strain in the first round series. That's incredibly discouraging. And to Chris Paul's credit, he just put the team on his back and he and he carried them through this stretch long enough for Devin Booker to get back on the court fourteen for

fourteen in a game that the Pelicans. In the game that the Sons won by four points, they needed every last one of those baskets from Chris Paul continued to be aggressive in that fourth quarter, making decisions and getting to his midrange jump shot. Just I'll tell you, like, if he ends up getting a title this year, that's the game you need to look back at Game six against the Pelicans, fourteen for fourteen, avoiding that Game seven.

Who knows what happens in a game seven, especially if Devin Booker with with his hamstring, which obviously there's a bunch of risk of re injury there as well. Just salute to Chris Paul another magnificent performance to add to his playoff resume. Looking forward for the let's start with the Sun's What concerns me is the matchup. So the Pelicans unquestionably caused issues for the Sons and a couple of different areas of the game. Their length and athleticism

on defense bothered them in a lot of ways. Their ability to make tough shots bothered them in a lot of ways, their offensive rebounding bothered them in a lot of ways. There was a bunch of like little elements to this matchup that caused Phoenix problems. And what concerns me is we talked a little bit last night about a potential match up with the Boston Celtics, and Carson was asking me, you know, are you still picking the Celtics. If so, who do you think is most likely to

beat them? And one of the big reasons why I think I've I've kind of flip flopped coming into this playoff run. I had Phoenix as a tier on the tier one by themselves and then Boston and a couple other teams on Tier two. Well, now I'm flipping that and I'm putting Boston in a tier up by themselves in excuse me, and Phoenix in a tier right below them.

And a huge part of that is Boston does a lot of what New Orleans does a lot better and I think their defense is going to cause the Sun's a lot of problems in the same way that the Pelicans did. And I think they're just a better version of New Orleans, and I think it's gonna be really, really difficult for Phoenix to overcome that. Now there's a bunch of different things that can swing that matchup. Devin

Booker getting back to can make a big difference. Like if Devin Booker is on No holds bar forty two minutes tonight, maybe it's not as close they're in New Orleans, right, So there's other details there that are up in the air, but so much can change over the course of the next you know month that it's hard to say what things are gonna look like in the NBA Finals, But just strictly from a matchup standpoint, Phoenix struggled with length

and athleticism in the series. Boston is a longer and more athletic version of the New Orleans Pelicans, So that's a that's gonna be an interesting element to look at. I would still pick the Celtics as of right now as my championship favorite. Now looking at the Pelicans, this gets This is a really interesting question in my opinion, because you know, as Pelicans fan, these kinds of runs

are what you live for. It's that that it feels like you're at the beginning of something great, right, And I think we have to give some credit to David Griffin, just like I was talking about criticism and being fair. You know, we've all been super critical of David Griffin for good reason. He made some moves that were genuinely confounding on a bunch of different levels over the course of the last couple of years. But you hit on a handful of inex pensive players and it could change

the course of your franchise. This is the advantage of having really, really smart people in your front office and in your scouting department. You find a Herb Jones, you find a Trey Murphy, you find a Jose Alvariedo, you find guys like that inexpensive on the fringes of the scouting sphere of basketball players. All of a sudden you find two really good three and D wings that are freakishly athletic and cause a lot of problems for a bunch of players, and a bulldog of a guard and

Jose Alvariedo that brings up. But I mean, it's it's it's difficult to even put together all the different ways that Jose Alvarido impacts the game of basketball. But you find you hit three guys there on the fringes, and it can make up for two or three years of mistakes in general management. So the curious thing to me with the Pelicans is what do you do? Is I on Williamson. I love the CJ. McCollum fit with Brandon Ingram. I love the two of them as your primary perimeter initiators.

Ideally you have the two of them and two freaky athletic wings, and then you have Zion at the five. The trouble is Zion struggles as a traditional back line defender. What I would do now, A lot of NBA teams are obsessed with traditions, So my guesses is that they'll continue to try to fit Zion in as a four. But what I would do is ditch some of these traditional ideas of how to construct a defense. Don't think of it as Zion playing the five. Think of it

rather as doing kind of a Boston Celtics esque. We are switching everything and we just have four wings and c J. McCollum you can get away with playing, you know, brandon Ingram alongside guys like Trey Murphy and Herb Jones and and Zion Williamson. You get four freak athletes that can cover a ton of ground. C J. Mcollum is not a freak athlete, but the aggregate size and speed and athleticism of that lineup would be really, really good. That would be what the direction that I would go.

Just continue to load up on wings and prioritize trying to play a more modern style rather than and then then you have a guy like Jonas Valanciunas for a different look, for a more traditional look. Jonas valancunists in this series. Even though he was dominant on the offensive glass and had some battles against DeAndre and that he won. I was throughout the entire series telling you guys, that in the aggregate. I didn't love the fit. I thought

he hurt their footspeed and transition. I thought he was clogging the plant at the paint. A lot of the time, I think there are you know, there's everyone's always terrified to go small because of all the things that you lose, but they never properly factor in all the things that you gain, and in this case, you gain spacing, you gain Can you imagine Zion Williamson attacking the rim with Trey Murphy in one corner and and and Herb Jones in the other corner and C. J. McCollum and Brandon

Brandon ingram up on the wings. That guy is going to destroy NBA defenses in that type of setting. Now, do you give ground on the defensive end that you might have to learn in the long run. Yes, it took the Celtics half the season to figure out there switching and get that dialed in enough to be truly effective. So you have to buy into that long term vision, be willing to take some bumps and bruises along the way.

Try to fit Zion Williamson into this mix and see if because he kind of has a very complimentary skill set to what Brandon Ingram and c Jim McCollum to do together. Plus a huge part of like compensating for a lack of size is gang rebounding right crashing from the perimeter. We talked about this last night. If you got Draymond Green inside boxing people out, you have to have a size and athleticism on the wing to come

flying in to grab rebounds. There's so much athleticism in that lineup that you might be able to compensate for that, even more so than you could with a guy like Jonas Valancunis on the floor. So that'll be an interesting dynamic as they as they go into this summer. What are they what's the idea of this existing construct adding Zion Williamson or there's even a case to be made that he should be traded, which I'm not gonna get into right now. Maybe we can get into that this offseason.

But very very exciting future for the Pelicans. They have a ton of talent. I'm really really interested to see what they can accomplish here over the course of the next couple of years. All right, that is all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys support. We may or may not have something on Jazz MAVs tomorrow morning. I will let you guys know either way. We have Friday night and Saturday Night off. Sunday we will be back. The second round begins that day, an

incredible matchup between the Bucks and the Celtics. We will get into all those details in Sunday night's show. Again, as always, I sincerely appreciate you guys supporting the show and I will see you in a couple of days. Volume