Colin Cowherd Podcast - Nuggets/Suns Gm 4 Reaction, Celtics/Sixers, Lakers/Warriors

I think this is a benefit of the NBA. Very few controversial NFL players for a few controversial baseball players or soccer players in America. Maybe internationally they are, but in the NBA there's a lot of drama. Kawhi drama, ad drama, Lebron and b Jahn, morant Zion, I mean, even guys who are low key. Jokich gets involved in an MVP debate. And I've always said the NBA is the great story league. It's got great drama. It's soap opera.

And then there's Devin Booker, like Chris Paul has a love hate relationship with fans, so does KD and Booker goes out. He's Klay Thompson with better handles, like chill. He's on one of the great heaters I've ever seen in the history of the playoffs. He's really it's very rare because the NBA, between shoe sales and social media, it drums up a ton of stories. And you know, I know he likes old cars, like there's just there's just no story. And I watch him play and he's

got a little bit of an old school thing. He still loves the mid range jumper, but he can hit the three. He's not like Carmelo where he wouldn't embrace it in his prime, like he'll move back and shoot it. I mean, as somebody you played basketball again, I think he's more athletic than Klay Thompson with a better ball handler. But there is sort of this I'm just going to show up and do my job. You know, Clay at this point is very hot and cold. He was terrible

last game, great in game two. What do you make of Bookers eater?

really it had nothing to do. Chris Paul played a part of it, but they just added a lot of talent, They added a lot of veterans, They added DeAndre and they added Chris Paul and they started playing in these big playoff games. And everyone just attributes all of the success to the team to everything but Devin Booker. But over the years, despite him reaching that scoring peak early,

he's added a lot of things. He's become a much much better defensive player, he's become an outstanding playmaker and high picking early a ten assist again tonight, And like you said, he's just on an all time great shot making run right now. And it's been as we go back in his playoff career, he was kind of on a crazy hot shot making run in that twenty twenty one run when they almost won the title. It was Chris Paul that fell apart at the end. He's been unbelievable.

I think that he's gone under the radar as a product of the success of the team around him. But I think he's legitimately in that same list with the guys like Jason Tatum and Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid and all those eight, nine, ten guys that we put at the top of the league. He's in that tier. He's probably near the bottom of that tier, but he's in that tier like he's a bona fide superstar in my opinion, Yeah.

just not. I mean, Boston's gonna bring eight to nine Warriors, can bring eight nine Lakers, although I think they have a lot of b players, can give you eight nine guys. I mean Phoenix is like six so and I don't

think it's sustainable. You know, I told somebody the other day, whoever, I think the Nuggets will win the next two games, and I think what's going to happen is Denver's going to have a one oh series lead in the Western Conference Finals because I think they're going to vanquish the Suns here very quickly, and then the Lakers and Warriors, two older teams, are going to go seven, and then one of them with no rest, flies to high altitude Denver.

You're going to get run off the floor in Game one, and so Denver's gonna have a one oh serious lead. My takeaway on Denver is they're highly efficient. Jokic is insane. Not every championship team Jason is great. The Spurs team was mostly unappetizing to a lot of the nation. The ratings were really bad, and that clean learned that early Lebron team against the Spurs. Not every championship team is fascinating. I mean the Utah Jazz I liked him, but you

know there were you know, the pick and roll. I mean, even Malone wasn't highly vertical. He was kind of a bully around the basket. So would you agree that Denver, though, is gonna I think they're gonna win the next two games. That's my take care I think so too.

like over seventy five percent of them. So it is not sustainable. And you know, the thing is is as we look back throughout the series, kind of like Game two in Nikola Jokic made fourteen shots in the paint again tonight just living in the paint, makes some jump shots. He's gonna make some jump shots. He made some crazy

ones and one over Devin Booker was crazy. But there's no doubt that as you look at the shot quality moving forward, Denver gets a little bit better shots that are much more likely to be replicated as we move forward, and they have two of the final three games at home. So that's not to say the Suns can't win. If Devin and KD go into Denver and they shoot the

lights out again, yes they can win the series. But the safer bet is Denver because they're getting better shots and they have home court and what I think is the best home court advantage in the NBA.

comedy shows too. Download the game Time App and use the code colin cli in get twenty dollars off your first purchase twenty bucks off first purchase. Terms apply again. Download the game Time app use the code colin celi in last minute tickets low as prices guaranteed the game time app All right, let's pivot to a wildly entertaining series, ugly for most of it. James Harten carries the Sixers.

Another absolutely remarkable James Harden game. There. You know, it's hard to get my arms around what the Sixers are between Mbeid's health, kind of the roller coaster of Harden at this point in his career. I kind of always know the athleticism I'm going to get from Maxi. Tobias Harris can be a hot cold score. My takeaway when I watched that game, and even if Boston would have won in both regulation and the fourth quarter or fourth, yeah,

fourth quarter and overtime, Boston's last possession. You guys have been playing together for six years, get it together. Like everybody can bang on the coach for not calling a time out, but my takeaway is in that moment with that group, like if Stephan, Clay Draymond and Wiggins had eleven seconds, I wouldn't want the Lakers to be set. They're too good defensively, I'd rather be them. I'd rather have them backpedaling a little bit, kind of look into

the sideline. I generally, if you have a veteran team and a rotation you're comfortable with. I wouldn't call a timeout. It goes back to the years ago the Seahawks Patriots were in a Super Bowl. It was a real chess match Pete Carolyn Belichick, and you know Belichick is defense. He wouldn't call time out. He was like, we know what you're doing. This is why we agonize over practice. And so the Celtics and the Warriors are the two teams in the league right now. I'm not calling a timeout.

My experience is my edge. Lakers a brand new team since the deadline, I'd call a timeout. I'd want to get the ball to Ad. Even Denver's kind of young. Philadelphia depends on who's healthy and who's hot. So this comes down to something. I just there's an apprehension with Boston. I just can't get past. I just I can't get past that. I do not trust them. You know, games decided by five hundred or five points or less. I could be wrong. I think they're now thirteen and fourteen.

That doesn't make sense with those guys, does it.

five or six seconds left. And so, you know, the thing with Boston is, I agree with you, they don't really need an organization because they have so many good matchups and they're always gonna force you to help off of a shooter like Malcolm Brogden a wide open three in the left wing at the end of that game that he ended up missing. They're going to generate wide

open looks. It's just go quickly. It's the stagnation with Boston that becomes a problem when they dribble up the floor and they just take a contested jump shot or they get the switch they want, but then they stand and they stare around for ten seconds before they do something.

I was so impressed by James Harden in this game because he's kind of beating allegations in this playoff run because he kind of has a reputation for being a player that can fade later in series, and this was a super unique performance from James Harden because this is at a point in the series where they figured him out right. They are forcing him to his right hand

every single time. He had back to back at the end of regulation, when Joel Embiid was crumbling under Al Horford, Just and Joe made a couple of huge plays in ot so like, including the double team kickout to James Harden for the game winner and a little fade away over Al Horford. But Horford was completely falling off the face of the earth again. Embiid was in that fourth quarter and James Harden carried them. He had a hard isolation against a Jason Tatum where he got into the

lane to his right hand and made a floater. He had a pull up jump shot on Jalen Brown where he got to his right hand and took a and

took a jump shot like he has. He has gone to his weakness because that's what the playoffs are about, or forcing you to be uncomfortable, forcing you to do things that make you feel uncomfortable, and he is getting He's having success in the weakest areas of his game, and I think a big part of it is him not relying on the step back jump shot from three, or not just driving into the teeth of the defense and trying to draw fouls, but taking what the defense

giving him, which is those mid range shots, the little floaters in the lane, the little pull up jump shots. I was so impressed by James Harden in this game, and look like it sucks that he's so inconsistent, but this is what you want from a second star. He doesn't have to be there every night, but he needs to be able to win you a game or two in the playoffs, and Harden's won you two in this series so far.

So I feel like he's got more energy. I feel like there are times like today I thought, oh no, he's not tired at all. Embid looked gassed. It's like Harden didn't. Yeah, Harden didn't look gast at all. All right, now we go to the Lakers Warriors. Let's spend some time on this. You know, I was thinking about this series and when Golden State was playing Sacramento, I felt like they were facing a less talented version of themselves. But they were really looking in the mirror a lot.

And that's why I always felt strongly they were going to win the series because they kind of knew the next trick. They could kind of guess what was going to happen next. Sacramento's about a wing player away, a Wiggins away from being the Warriors. Right, they have some of the same components, but the Lakers are the opposite of the Warriors. Size, great rim protection, ad a dominant big length, inconsistent shooting, sometimes poor shooting, undrafted players bounce

around the league. Guys, they don't have the cohesion. You know, they're a trade deadline team. I'm like, they're the opposite of the Warriors, and I think there are times in this series I feel like the Warriors were a little flummoxed. They're not. This is like it's like in boxing, facing a left panded boxer, You're like, I know I'm better than him, but I don't have a sparring partner that's a left I've never faced a lefty, and I just feel like, to me, the Warriors feel they can't quite

make up their mind. Do they do they want to challenge the Lakers or at the rim? Or are they just going to do pull ups? Now? They went back to kind of attacking the rim a couple of times, and I'm like, guys, it's not gonna work. Ads has good A defenders the league have. That's not going to work. So I don't feel the same way I did with Sacramento, where I felt kind of this kind of hovering confidence, like they're going to figure out even though they've been

a bad road team. They solve that fast. But I do think Kerr will make adjustments. But boy, there are moments in this series they look small and frustrated. Is that they look small and frustrated at times.

I think this series has been such This entire playoff run has been such a I think Darvin Ham has been so incredibly impressive. He's hit a bunch of the right notes. I thought he made a bunch of key adjustments in Game six against Memphis, shrinking the rotation to the correct eight guys, tweaking his coverage of Desmond Baine. It was a masterclass. And then you go into this

series and it's Game one. We knew the Warriors were going to throw their fastball, which was all their off ball stuff with their main lineup, and Darvin Ham just top locked all the shooters, funneled everybody into the paint. It was a disaster. Game two, the predictable adjustment from Steve Kerr, lots of Steph Curry high pick and roll, Draymond Green kills him in the short role. The entire

game genius adjustment from Darvin Ham. He puts Jared vander Built onto Draymond Green and Austin Reeves onto Steph Curry so they can switch to Steph Draymond pick and roll. Now when they bring Anthony Davis into the screen, it's a role man like Jamichael Green or Kevon Looney who's just nowhere near as good at making those decisions in the short role as Draymond Green is. It's been a

masterclass coaching performance from Darvin Ham in my opinion. You know what's interesting, and this is why I say it's different than any other Warriors opponent in this era. In the past, it used to be that the Warriors would play your best players off the floor. Oh, we're going to play your center off the floor because he's too slow. We're going to play this guard off the floor because he can't guard. In this series, the Lakers have been

able to keep their core rotation and guess what. The Warriors have had to cut way back on Gary Payton's minutes and they've had to cut way back in Kavon Looney's minutes because of the Anthony Davis problem. We focus so much on superstar offensive players and their ability to overcome anything. Look at what Devin Booker did tonight. Look

at what Steph Curry's done throughout his playoff career. Anthony Davis not single handedly, but he's carrying the vast majority of this Lowe is exposing his defensive superpower to slow down this Warriors offense. I think it's been one of the best defensive performances I've ever seen from a player. This is very different. This is a very different type of challenge. Series is not over. I think the winner

of Game four wins the series. But man, this is definitely going to be a unique challenge for the Warriors.

series was the Warriors would win it. But I felt somewhere in the playoffs, whether it was against Jokic, or it's against Anthony Davis, or it would be against MBID, that they would face an offensive minded center and they just get nothing from their bigs. I mean when Wiggins was out, Jesus, I mean, they got nothing from anybody but the back court for two months. I mean it was just basically Steph kept him at five hundred. I mean, they had no scoring. So Wiggins gives them, you know,

you're fifteen a game at the wing. But I do think that Bob Meyer and Kerr, out of respect for Curry, everything's going to be. They're going to attain players eventually who are on Steph's timeline. Anthony Davis is on his timeline right, bigs that can play, And I'm really interested if they lose this series. They're not going to stand pat They're just not And as Looney right now has a reputation that's greater than his game. I mean, he's

got no offensive skill. He's a great rebounder. It's like, we can take fewer rebounds, give me seventeen points. If you ran the Warriors as constituted today and they lost in Game six, and it was Anthony Davis that just at the rim, protecting it and scoring. Where do you go, because I don't think they stand pat Where would they go?

on the front line with size and athleticism. And then I'd run a more traditional offense that you see around the NBA, where you rely more on Steph Curry in high pick and roll. It's just the way that the game has been set up. That's where you can have a ton of success these days, especially when you've got shooting and athleticism around you. And Andrew Wiggins and Klay

Thompson are great at that. Specifically, too often they've had to rely on being gimmicky to overcome their size issue, no question, and it's worked like we're not being critical. They've what they have, four titles. But you know, as players start to age out just a little bit and their effectiveness starts to slide just a little bit, it's time to potentially try something different. And in that scenario, I do all in on Steph Clay and Wiggins mainly too.

From an asset standpoint, like Clay at this phase in his career is going to be tough to get like value for right, Andrew Wiggins is one of the most important types of players you can have on an NBA roster, like a legit twenty point per game score that can guard the other team's best player. Steph I think as absolutely as at least two or three more years as

a peak level superstar. Then you start to look down the roster and it's like Jordan Poole, like him or hate him, He's at least an asset that you probably can get some value out of. So I would I would definitely look to bolster the front court with just a ton of size in athleticism, get Steph a real vertical spacing threat so he can actually run. You know,

you mentioned Anthony Davis. He might not be attainable, but somebody that can do some of like a poor man's version of him, that can play traditional drop coverag grim protect and be a vertical spacing threat like that would be the direction that I'd look to go if they did choose to rebuild.

guy gets worn down. Sixth round, he kind of seizes it. Seventh round, goes to the knockout. But it's interesting with Lebron that this series, I thought it was a real problem. After Game one, they get one day rest, so they're back on the court tomorrow. Do you foresee any problem Game four, Game five, Game six, Game seven, and I'm watching Lebron the other night, and I'm like, I know what he's doing here, He's waiting for the moment we got.

We may have four more of these things. Would you be concerned if you were Darvin ham about I don't know how much can I get out of him? I got, we got four games in eight days, potentially. That's just he's not Jason. That's just not what he's That's not what he is now.

out in transition. You know, he doesn't quite have the same first step that he usually has, probably a byproduct of the foot injury, which is a byproduct of his age.

game historical playoff Lebron. They just need him to be engaged defensively. Now, you said, should Darvin hand be worried? That's the thing. We have seen this throughout this playoff run and really throughout the entire season. The Lakers struggle to maintain their effort level. I would not be surprised in the slightest if Game four was much closer, or if the Warriors held a decent sized lead throughout the Lakers struggle to maintain that defensive intensity. But it's really

that simple to me. If they can get two more performances like that, they can win the series. Game four I expect to be super close. Game five, I think golden State would win nine times out of ten and then game six back crypto if you get that three two lead at that point. Lebron was excellent in the closeout game against Memphis. He smells blood in the water and he summons the necessary energy that he needs. Everything comes down to game four for me.

and I talked about this. He was never afraid to take a big shot like ever didn't know's love his selection, but I loved his effort. Diegelo Russell same thing. He's always willing to take a shot. But I don't think they're going to sign him for a long term deal. And the West year was weird. Veteran teams, you know, dovetailed in the postseason in the Bubble. They missed their wives and their friends and their kids. And this year is weird. I mean the Clippers were weird. Denver's a

unique team. I mean, Golden State had from the punch to the abysmal road performance, Chris Paul's now out KD trade, it is that bubble team. Even though you know, if you go back to the bubble and I don't remember it specifically, but I can remember a D really being dominant at times, and at times for the first time ever, Lebron like kind of liking it. In fact, I mean, do you remember that bubble where it was the first time ever Lebron was in a championship level thing and

was very comfortable dropping the ball low and observing. I think I think I think Lebron one of his assets. I think he's very comfortable. I think deep down he knows AD on both ends of the floor right now is a better player more consistently than I am. And I think Lebron's okay with it. He's always been a great teammate. Do you think he knows that Not only.

defend the way Jared Vanderbilt could. Thought that Laker team had slightly better guard defenders. But also Anthony Davis I think is on a defensive run that even he couldn't reach in twenty twenty. The thing that the difference is and the reason why, Like, I was incredibly confident that twenty twenty Lakers team was going to win. They started the season twenty four and three. I believed in their defense, I believed in Lebron. I thought they were going to win. The biggest fear.

that played a five out, you know. But specifically what scares me with this Lakers team is they just don't have close to the same offensive ceiling as that twenty twenty Lakers team, even though that twenty twenty Lakers team was known as being, you know, somewhat clunky offensively, simply because Lebron James was operating at a much higher level offensively in that playoff run. Yeah, he was giving you forty in the finals. Like like if I if I told you one of the odds that Lebron's going to

get forty tomorrow, you'd be like extremely low. Like it's just he just doesn't seem to have that first and then Anthony Davis was on such a jump shooting run in that twenty twenty bubble. He was making everything out of the post like he was Kevin Durant make you shot like fifty something percent on pull up jump shots in that playoff run. So like, as much as I enjoy this Lakers team, I do think they have a slightly higher defensive ceiling with their best lineups because of

Jared Vanderbilt. They have a little bit more flexibility, and they do have more offensive skill in the back court. But you win with superstars in the playoffs, and I'm just a little concerned with the up and down nature of Lebron and Anthony Davis offensively. That doesn't mean they can't win it, but I view them as more just in the pack, whereas to me, that twenty twenty Lakers team was head and shoulders above everybody else.

and Jimmy Butler's not. We'll discuss that this week when we're on again. But as always, Buddy, I appreciate it.