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The code is colon for twenty bucks off your first purchase terms apply again. Create the account the redeem code Coli in twenty bucks off. Download the game Time app today. Last minute tickets Loa's price is guaranteed. The NBA breathed a sigh of relief with the with the Knicks holding on to beat the Pistons, and the Warriors holding on to beat Houston. So I had picked Houston in seven. I thought their depth and athletic ability. I knew they weren't a great half court offense, and in the end,
Jason timp hoops to night. In the end, they got so many bad, awful half court possessions. And you know, it's funny, just for all the Curry struggles in the first half cominga you can't have him on the floor in the end, I'll say this, And it wasn't a great night offensively. I mean it's one o three eighty nine. It was not a great night for the Dubs, and their defense was tremendous. But I did think Jason, on average,
they just got more organized, better looks. Even when Curry was struggling, Buddy Heel was getting good looks, Pods was getting good looks. And in the end, it's just youth. It's like, it's like watching the most talented college basketball team of all time with Houston. You're like, could have could we run a play if not for a men Thompson in the first three quarters, I'm like, would they
even be in the game. So again, just the experience those crucial second half possessions, Warriors looked more organized, they looked more experienced.
To me, Yeah, you know, the Margins are pretty slim. Calling like it was here we were Houston Game seven, They're on a run. It's sixty three to sixty. As a men, Thompson starts taking over there in the third quarter and it's like literally could have gone either way at that point. But what happened at that point, which I thought was super fascinating, was that was really when
Steph Curry started to assert himself. And as I came out of Game six, there were two main areas where I thought Golden State had obvious ability to just play better, so to speak. And it was one they had completely lost control of Fred van Vliet and Albern Shangoun defensively. Yeah, they have fifty points in game six. Those two guys both looked completely held under control into night's game. And so that was the first big one. Get control of Fred,
get control of Shane gun. Shout out to Looney and Draymond. I thought those two guys just did an unbelove was huge. Oh yeah. And then as all of their guards did a great job on Fred van Vliet throughout the game. A bunch of different guys got minutes on him. The second piece of it was there's a pretty strong correlation in this series. With exception of Game four, there was a pretty strong correlation in this series between Steph's shot
making and the Warriors winning. When he was going offensively, they were in control, and when he would cool off, Houston was able to get enough stops to kind of get in transition and get going. And one of the things that Steph did in that second half was he just stopped running off ball and he just started bringing the ball to the floor, and he brought the ball to the floor and he just started spamming high ball screens and he got a bunch of good looks for
himself and for his teammates out of that. That has been kind of the break last in case of emergency Warriors offense for years now is when things bogged down for them, they'll just let Steph run high, pick and roll and again, like he had. I think he finished with twenty or twenty something points. That's that's under selling his impact because he only had he had zero up until the very end of the first half, and so he scored at a top tier, superstar level during that
second half stretch when they really pulled away. And the last piece I wanted to shout out was Buddy Heel. The numbers coming out of Game six were pretty strong that the Warriors were better with Buddy Healed on the floor versus Gary Payton. And this is not an anti Gary Payton take. I'm a big Gary Payton fan. It's just they don't need his upside as much in this particular matchup because they're not guarding, you know, really high
level guards. Next round, they're gonna need him for Anthony Edwards, they're gonna need him in a big way. But in this series, with the way Houston was guarding, having that other shooter on the floor that could really compliment what Steph was doing, that was a big I thought Gary Payton getting sick almost helped Steve Kerr in that way because it don't almost forced him to lean into Buddy Moore,
and Buddy was fantastic. But that was just Championship Warriors basketball when it mattered, and a lot of immature basketball from Houston, and that was the difference.
Yeah, I mean, shot making matters Buddy, I think finished was seven and threes. You know, it was an interesting game when Curry was struggling in the first half, Buddy was huge. I thought Pod toed a couple of big baskets. You know, there's gonna be a people that are just never gonna like Draymond Green, Like I get it. But he had a couple of big plays, just big baskets, and you know, then he was shooting back to back threes and that was the end of the clock. And
it was bad Warrior possessions. But when when stead I mean, at one point, I'm looking up and I'm like, Warriors lead, and Steph it had like two points or four points. I'm like, God, they're in good shape. This is just incredible. And you know the thing about Curry when you watch him and Steph has these games, Steph has these halfs here where'd you go? And it's not that he needs the confidence, but Steph is not a He's such an collaborative force that if he's off, he's really good at decoy,
he's really good at off ball stuff. And sometimes I almost feel like Kurs say, bro, this is your offense, Like we're not gonna do this you're gonna bring the ball up and make shots. And I don't know, I just I felt like the team knew Steph wasn't playing great and everybody else gonna And then did you notice when Steph was playing great, everybody finds their perfect role, you know. Butler's like, okay, now they need me late, I'm gonna take He had like a little six nothing run.
But I find that the team there's a harmony, especially with like Pods has it now like he knows Okay, Steph's on a heater, Steph's hot set screens for Steph. You can sense the team's senses. Okay, Steph's back, guys, everybody get the pitching staff order. Now everybody knows where they're spot on the floor, is right.
Yeah, In general, you can tell that the team kind of senses whether or not Steph's in one of those zones. And I mean Steph will send his own signals, like there are stretches. There were stretches over the entire second half of the series where you could tell Steph was like in this part of the game, I'm not really looking to be aggressive, I'm looking to save energy. And I thought it was really interesting. I don't know if you notice as Colin, but whenever he would in the
second half, he was doing this to save energy. He would come off the high ball screen and if they ever if Houston ever defended it, well like if they didn't get anything out of that first action, he would like take whoever was guarding him, whether it was Dylan Brooks or Men Thompson or whatever. He goes stand out by almost half court and just let them faceguard him out there so the other guys could play four on four.
And it's just part of the energy conservation piece of it that you could tell Steph was finding little parts. The point is is like with Steph, it's flurries. It's these six or seven possessions where he makes four or five shots and it blows a five point lead to a seventeen point lead. Steph is very much an avalanche type of player, and that's the entire team is built
around that. And to your point, like I mentioned off the top, when we were talking about the defensive end, the two things they had to fix where they needed to get Steph going and they needed to get Fred and Shangoon under control. You want to know why the Warriors had a lead. Despite Steph not playing so well. They completely shut down Shangouon and Fred to start the game, and look, Draymond had a really bad offensive series. There
were some very specific reasons for that. The Rockets put Fred van Vliet on him so that they could switch ball screens. One of the biggest pieces of offensive utility for Draymond on this team is him running ball screens with Steph and getting to make the decisions as the guy leading the four on three on the other side
of the team, blitzing Steph Curry. As soon as they put Fred van Vliet on him, it kind of neutralizes Draymond offensively and turns him into a spot up shooter, which by the way, he did hit a couple threes to start this game. But that puts Draymond in a predicament where he has to be fantastic defensively to really be valuable, and I thought Draymond was amazing defensively in this game. He was the one who stonewalled Shane Gun was not getting to his short hook in this game.
He kept having to turn over his right shoulder and take one like fadeaways along the baseline. Draymon had Shane Gun in jail tonight, and so like you always have to look beyond just the box score with him, he's the foundational piece of everything that makes them great.
Defensively, It's gonna be interesting for Houston because, like a men, Thompson was so valuable to them tonight when especially when Van Vliet, I mean Jalen Green to me, I'd move him tomorrow. He's a little like Coamingo, where I know I'm getting a world class athlete, but Jonathan just doesn't naturally.
He doesn't feel natural Offensively, he doesn't. Sometimes he's like a lost kid at the park, like he's just kind of like I'm not sure where I fit and you're like, dude, you are long an athletic, get near the rim, something good will happen, and he's hovering on the outside.
A men.
Thompson makes himself so it's so useful. It doesn't matter what it is. It's keeping a ball active, it's on the floor, it's being a defender, Like the dude is just a classic an annoyance. And then offensively, he's just so aggressive. It's it's not Westbrook, but it's some guys in this league that are so aggressive they just players don't want to face them, they don't want to guard them, they don't want to be in their space. Butler's got a little bit of that, but he's a much better
offensive player. But I was thinking, as I watch Houston, I would keep Shangoon who Milwaukee would want to be on at trade. Anybody would, And I would keep Aman Thompson. But I was talking to an NFLGM years and years ago. He goes, when you make a big trade, everybody thinks we want draft picks, but I don't want nine draft picks. Your team gets too young, and like veteran coaches get really frustrated with twenty two year olds, Houston is literally
too young. Like they go to the bench and it's a twenty two year old and there's and I and I said, I keep Shangoon young, I keep Amen Thompson. I would move some of those young players. I felt like, I mean, Van Vliet's great, doesn't he really knows his role. But I think sometimes they need to develop these offensive players. These young guys, they're dependent. If Fred's not hitting, they can really struggle Jason at half court, and I mean just getting good looks if he's struggling.
There were points in this game where I was like, man, I kind of think a Men Thompson or Jabari Smith Junior going one on one is a better option than Shangun and Fred because of how in jail those two guys were. You know, I was thinking about it tonight as we were watching these crazy Amen Thompson like wing drives where they kind of just let him if he brings the ball up in transition and he comes up the left wing and he likes the matchup in front of him, they'll kind of just space and let him
go one on one. And it actually reminds me a little bit as Ion Williamson in the sense that like no one can keep him in front off the dribble, and then he just pops up off the ground just short of the rim, and he could shoot little floors, short jump shots and little scoops all over the place. He had an insane move tonight where he had a behind the back dribble into like a crazy up and under on the other side of the rim, and I was like, good God, this is like an NBA Superstar
type of play. But Amn Thompson to me is completely untouchable. Shane Goon, It's one of those things where you barter with him. But if if Milwaukee goes we're hanging up the phone, but push in the table, I'll call it in right, then you make that sort of deal. But ultimately, like there's a Men Thompson succeeding in this series and guys of Kaminga and Jalen Green not succeeding in this series, I actually think is a very interesting kind of storyline
in the sense that they're all freaky athletes. But there's two things with the men Thompson that separates him from the other two athletes. Amen Thompson is an elite on ball defender, yes Kaminga and Jalen Green are not. And then a Men Thompson is elite processor in the middle of the floor. He is he makes quick decisions, and he gets the ball where it needs to go. Those are both the specific reasons why Jalen Green and Kaminga
struggles so much on offense. Amen Thompson is useful athleticism because he has a really high basketball IQ and he's great at one thing on defense already, which is what
he can do on the ball. Kaminga and Green, they're not great at anything, and they're both poor processors, which is kind of a death sentence for an athlete, especially when you get in the postseason and all of a sudden like quickly reading the forlor and making decisions is the difference between success and failure in many cases.
I think the Warriors could struggle against Minnesota because Minnesota offers you size, but with veteran half court experience, so you like it. Sometimes with Houston, you know when the Golden State waive the white flag and that Game five, they were telling you this theme's not beating us back. We feel really good about this series. You can't give games to Minnesota. You're not giving anything to Minnesota. I think I think Minnesota size. I think they're coaching staff.
I mean, I think Ant won't have as many great looks as needed against the Lakers. They're gonna throw more bodies at him. I think, you know, I think Draymond Green. I mean, they'll just throw different looks and bodies. So I don't think Ant will have Maybe he will, but I don't think. I think sometimes Ant saw Lucas straddle over to him and thought, Okay, this is a bucket. Which way do I want to take him? But I don't know if this is it doesn't feel like a great matchup for Golden State here.
So you know, it's interesting, Colin. I came away from the first round feeling like Golden State has no chance against OKAC, but I actually think that they have a pretty decent chance against Minnesota. Let me let me give my two cents here because it's it's kind of a basketball matchup piece. So one of the reasons why Houston guarded Steph so well is they have a bunch of really quick players and that quickness was very attentive to the detail and they didn't let Steph get easy ones
off ball. Oklahoma City is Leyden. Their roster is Layden with players like that, super fast, super smart. Minnesota is a little bit more upright and big. And one of the things that stood out to me in this series was Steph felt really comfortable one on one against Jabari Smith. We had a late iso against him in this game and against Dylan Brooks. They're bigger wings that struggle to shift their weight from side to side. That's the first
piece of it. I think Steph is gonna like his matchups against nas Reed, Julius Randall, even Jada McDaniels a little bit as a taller wing. The second piece of it is, I spent this last week watching a bunch of Minnesota Golden State film because I just assumed they
would close it out, which took to this point. But they did end up closing it out, and Golden State won three straight games against Minnesota, and in the last two games in particular, they were clutch time games and nos Reed, Anthony Edwards, and Julius Randall multiple times lost focus off ball when Steph was running around and they left him wide open and he burned them. Here's why that matters. The Lakers series was very different. You have
these two really big forwards and Luca and Lebron. There are these big, strong forwards that are playing one on one basketball. There's no fancy approach other than I'm better than you one on one trying to score because I'm bigger and stronger. That fed right into the strength of Minnesota's defense, which is they have a bunch of big, strong, perimeter afletes. Golden State presents an entirely different challenge. It's a mental challenge, not a physical challenge. It's he's running
in circles. There's all this ball in player movement, and you've got to be paying attention. And we even have a recent example with Anthony Edwards in the Conference finals last year where he got cooked by Kyrie Irving because Dallas was running him through a bunch of off ball screening actions. Yes, I remember, so one of the things
that I'm looking at in this series. And by the way, for the record, Colin, I think Minnesota probably will be favored, and I'm not saying I'm gonna pick Golden State, but I've seen enough from the specific ways that Minnesota guards Golden State in the way that Steph can succeed against bigger,
taller players because he's just so much faster. I do think Golden State's gonna present some problems for them, and that's not even before we even get to the fact that Golden State is a flat out substantially better defense than the Lakers were, and it will be a very different challenge. They're more athletic on the perimeter, and they're
much better on the back line. They have the best defensive player of our era there, so I do think it'll be a closer and more competitive series than people realize.
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I want to talk Cleveland getting beat in Game one against Indiana. So this won't get as much publicity as a Warriors game. But the first thing is Darius Garland's out, so your point person's out, and again Donovan Mitchell's a score. They have scoring guards, but it's like losing your quarterback. Whereas Indiana. I think Indiana plays esthetically as pleasing a game to watch as anybody in the league. They play with pace. They can shoot threes, but don't rely on them.
They're young, they're athletic, they have length, don't depend on it. And Halliburton just doesn't turn the ball over. He's an incredibly smart player who they're pacing their ball movement. They get good shots, they're not they they rarely are sloppy. They're rarely out of control, which for a team that plays with pace, often you get out of control. And I'm and some of this, I'm just like, Okay, Cleveland doesn't have their their setup guy in the back court.
Like some of this is great backcourt missing their missing their guy. But another part of this is when I watched it, I just thought, Oh, the Pacers are playing their game. This is what they look like when they're playing their best basketball. Good pace, good shots. Halliburton's controlling all of it. And I'm like this this could be
a problem. Like, I mean, Cleveland can really defend rim wing, like they're really good and we all know this, but boy, they there were there were pacing things today where I'm like, man, Cleveland just looks out of sorts. That's what it looked like to me, just visually. Cleveland was not in sync today.
Why this was a really fascinating game. One, I think you're hitting the nail on the head in the sense that I thought today was mostly that the Pacers, just the Pacers just send a message to the basketball world, like this is what they look like when they're at their best. I thought you put that perfectly. They did it. First of all, they defended Donovan Mitchell extremely well, pressured him all over the place, played him into a really
inefficient game. I want to get to that in a second, because that's Donovan Mitchell tried to conquer his demons today by scoring, and I thought that that was a mistake. That's something to keep in mind. But specifically with Indian offense, they do such an amazing job of taking every single easy opportunity that ever presents itself in the game. If you're running up the floor and Tyree sees you, he's
throwing the kick ahead pass. If he's just dribbling on the wing and you're on the opposite wing and your man kind of sinks in towards the top of the key, he's just gonna swing it to you every single time. And if you're on the opposite corner and your man's got a foot in the paint because he's trying to help, Tyresee is gonna throw it over the top and he's gonna hit you every single time. And there is very
much an empowerment from Rick Carlisle goes down the roster. Yes, everyone is encouraged to be aggressive on the catch every single time, and so Tyresee is the relentless advantage hunter. And I thought the Cavs were entirely caught off guard by that. Today. They were really sloppy off ball, left a ton of easy openings that they can clean up in game two, and I'm sure Kenny Atkinson will be
all over that. But Tyresee was hunting those advantages and then everybody was just in a groove playing off of him, attacking every single time time Tyree hits them. And Tyrese also, this is the subplot here. Tyres is what's bringing the real ceiling here where they look like they can actually beat anybody, and it's because Tyres is playing like he did to start last year. There was this thing that happened at the start of last year before he heard
his hamstring, where he was killing everybody Colin. Remember he won, Remember he won the n season tournament Eastern Conference and ended up losing it.
Then he disappeared like then he just he got injured and he just got hurt. Everybody went what happened to him?
That hamstring piece is his downhill ability to beat bigs and switches, because the key with Tyree Salliburton is he's such a gifted passer that if you run traditional ball screen coverages against him, he'll pick you apart. So what you have to do is you have to switch against him. He scored or generated a basket in a switch against Jared Allen six times today. Literally five of five of his nine made baskets were directly against Jared Allen in switches.
And what that is is it's the explosiveness. You saw that step through bank shot he hit on Jared Allen late, he was driving past Dean Wade on switches like ty Reese when he's explosive, is a bigger, more athletic Steve Nash. He just needs to have that extra bit of explosion, which has been inconsistent since he heard his hamstring. But The subtle thing that makes Indiana like a legitimate puncher's chance threat to win the conference is just how high of a level Tyrese is playing on the other side
of the floor. Like Donovan Mitchell, I was watching the I rewatched the game during the commercial breaks of that Houston game, and I just it was almost like a dude trying to ram his head through a brick wall.
It was like, no questions, two guys took yeah.
And it's like what made Cleveland so great all year the drive in kick game, Max Strus hitting catch and shoot threes, Sam Merril hitting catch and shoot threes, DeAndre Hunter hitting catch and shoot threes. That's their game in the game calling. Indiana generated seventeen unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. Cleveland generated ten. That's the difference in the approach. Donovan Mitchell four assists, thirty shot attempts. He tried, He tried to win this game playing hero ball, and it
got the entire team out of rhythm. And so even if Darius Garland is hurt and not at one hundred percent, just having him back out there to help the flow of the offense I think will go a long way. And Cleveland does have a lot to clean up on defense. Andy threw a great punch. I do think this is gonna be a long series.
Though, Okay, I gotta pay respect to Denver, so I took you know, it's really interesting for those listenings. So the Clippers go into a Game seven, and you think, to your I said before the series, I said, Tyler is worth a game because generally Denver's playing badly. At the end of the year, they replace their coach, like everything just spells trouble. Then they play an experienced Clippers team with an excellent coaching staff, and I'm like, this
is bad news. And yet the late game execution, the adjustments my Denver. It's like, all right, maybe it's the players, maybe it's the staff, but I felt late in games first credit to Westbrook who I Westbrook has found some sort of self awareness in the last month. He's had these quotes. It goes to the podium and he's like, you know, my game doesn't look like everybody else's. He goes, but I know what I am. I bring a lot of energy. Now sometimes that energy is a turnover, and
I'm like, oh my god, who unlocked this? Who unlocked this? Westbrook. But it's like, I have no problem with that game if you know it. And he was for years he get very defensive, and now he's like, hey man, my game doesn't look like everybody. So it's like, that's right, Russell, that's exactly right. He's such a tone setter, he's so relentless, and now he's already come to terms with me. Hey listen, man, it's a different game. It's not always great. He like
almost laughs at it. He's like, it just doesn't look like yours. But I got to tell you, Denver, considering, I mean, you would predict. I thought, who's playing poorly at the end of the year. Fires a respected coach plays a veteran team that's well coached and win. I don't know why the reason was, but some of it is Yokich, some of it's Westbrook. Is more of a just disappointment from the Clippers.
It's all of it, Colin, because I mean, to your point, you want to know how a team that is, in my opinion, more talented. I think the Clippers have more talent, and they were playing substantially better, better, more experienced game.
They're on fire for the last forty days.
Oh yeah, and they were in commanding position to win the series call and they were up two to one, like they should have that series. Like there's a whole there's a whole other conversation to have about the Clippers being in the position that they're being in. But I want to credit Nicole Jokic. He's the main one that stood out to me. What happened after Game three when the Clippers bloom really blew them out and took control
of the series. Jokic got on his guys in the huddle and was like, this is this is not good enough? In Game three though in the third quarter, or excuse me, in Game four, So Clippers up to one in Game four, it was close at the half. In that third quarter, Jokic played one of his best offensive quarters of the of the series to that point and built that first bit of margin. And really since that point, for the entire second half of the series, the Nuggets scored the
ball extremely well. They had like a one to twenty seven something offensive rating with Yokic on the floor, like they they were excellent offensively after that third that Game three kind of blow up that they had, and I thought jokicch in his overall intensity really led the way. Jamal Murray obviously was fantastic. Aaron Gordon was amazing in Game seven.
Christian Brown to start Game seven was really good.
And he was yes, and he was the guy who did the great job on James Harden throughout the series. In general, throughout the tail end of the series, I just thought Denver was in control. I never really was. Once we got to that point, I felt pretty sure that Denver was going to close the deal. I picked the Clippers to win the series at the start of the series, but once we got to once we got
to Game four, I picked Denver. I just felt like I felt like Jokic was just so much more in control of the half court dynamic, and you know, then to take it over to the Clippers side, you know, with James Harden and Kawhi Leonard, the two of them, they just aren't they just aren't good enough right now to be able to compete in the Western Conference with their shot creation. Kawhi Leonard struggled to handle double teams all series and just wasn't aggressive enough. James Harden, it
was like feast or famine with him. I mean, he has eleven in game five. He has seven in game seven, and one last thing to before I kick it back to you about Westbrook. One of the things I loved about his quote and he used the same phrase that you used when we did the pop on Wednesday. You said a force of nature, and he was like, I'm a force of nature. This is what I do. And the way I interpreted it, it was almost like he was saying, like, my style is to not think but
just to just act. Yeah, which is funny because in the quote he was like, I definitely think, like I'm a smart player, and I know he is, and that's not what I mean, but like, he's definitely an instinct player, like he follows his gut and he doesn't second guess himself,
and that comes with mistakes naturally. But when you combine that like audacity and confidence with his overwhelming athletic traits, it makes him a wrecking ball in like the best possible way, and he can god like that stretch towards the end of the game where he's just getting steals and going out and transition and dunking everything like that is force of nature basketball, and yeah, comes laid in
with mistakes. But I would argue the thing that's put him over the top is one his ability to operate as a cutter around Jokic, and two just him becoming a better three point shooter. Him becoming a better three point shooter has gotten rid of all the claimings that were part of those bad plays and mistakes that were really causing him to hurt his impact.
He's also a momentum player, so you notice this in this series. If he hit a three, he hit another. And I think sometimes, I mean, he's obviously a very confident guy. The way he dresses and his attitude, he's a very confident guy. But even the most confident Alex Rodriguez got dropped to eighth in a batting order once for the Yankee. I don't care how confident you are. Everybody struggles, right, Like basketball is so much of basketball, more than any sport, is a confidence game. Like even
Steph Curry will have these zero for six stretches. You're like, this is just not a good steff and he'll go off ball and move around, and so Westbrook can have these bad stretches. But the truth is when I watch him, and like a Men Thompson, a Men Thompson has so much value because he's so relentless and so aggressive that guys, he's a pain in the ass to guard. He's you know what I mean, Like he's Westbrook's hard. He's hard
to guard. He's in your face. He's physical and by the way, like a running back that's five to eight with leverage, Russell's got those this trunk and like he's really strong. And so you're a six seven guy and Westbrook's got leverage on you and he's banging you around. He rebounds exceedingly well for his size. And so there are these basketball players and they're very rare that there.
It's just like a genetic, like a they're just relentless athletes and it's and so I love that Westbrook's like listen, man, it doesn't look like everybody else's game, but I know what I bring and it's like, that's exactly what you do. And like a lot of times, like Jalen Green doesn't know what he is and I don't think he even has a pathway to it. Like Westbrook's come full circle to being a guy that I always thought lack of self awareness, having total self awareness. It's like, hey, man,
I'm going to a thousand miles an hour. I know what I'm doing in this series, so I think when you do what we do for a living, and I'm critical of people, you also have to be fair. I don't care if it's Baker Mayfield or Russell Westbrook. I watched him in this series, and Yokich is obviously the best player in the world I thought. I thought Westbrook was really valuable to the Nuggets. Do they match up with OKC at all?
This is a matchup I was hoping for. As much as I thought the Clippers would beat Denver, I didn't think the Clippers had nearly the playmaking talent to beat Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City plays very aggressively up in passing lanes and on the ball and ball pressure to try to force turnovers and get out in transition. That's like one of their foundational traits. They're the best defense in the league and they get out and transition and run on you like crazy. Denver is an elite, like top
tier passing team. They passed the ball extremely well. They're also a great screen setting team, which is very important because that's how the get free. Guys like Jamal Murray are gonna be go by lou Dort. You've got to get lou Dort off of Jamal Murray. The main thing, though, is Jokich is a superpower. Okay See cannot guard him. He posted up sixty two times against Oklahoma City this year. That's over fifteen times per game. He averaged only ten
against everyone else. This is a matchup that he loves to post up again against a lot they successfully can set screens to get Jamal Murray open. He had a big game in this matchup this year. They each one on each other's floor once it was two and two in the season series. Denver's gonna be able to score though, and that's the main reason why I think it'll be a longer, more interesting series. In their last matchup, they hung one hundred and forty points on him. The Jokich machine,
the Jokich Murray machine. They're gonna score against ok See now in theory on the other side of the floor. This is a type of matchup that favors Denver in the sense that they can load up and it's not a real like space you out type of team. Oklahoma City can get cold from three. Sometimes they can be, you know, a little bit sloppy with their passings sometimes. But that said, Oklahoma City's a lot older than they were last year, more mature than they were last year,
more experienced than they were last year. I was really impressed with them in their first round series because Memphis actually plays a similar style of defense to Denver in terms of loading up the strong side, and I thought Oklahoma City passed through Memphis really well, so okay Se should be favored. I was stunned at how much they were favored by. They were like minus seven hundred to win the series, which I thought was crazy on DraftKings, like I would have thought more like a minus three
hundred minus three fifty kind of favorite. Like I think Okayse should be favored, but Vegas is saying Denver doesn't have a chance. I think Denver's going to score, and that is just more than enough to make this a competitive series in my opinion.
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Yeah, the.
You know, it's let's go back to the Warriors and we can finish it with this. Jason timf obviously hoops tonight. A lot of the old teams lost. The Clippers were an old team they lost. The Lakers were an old team they lost. Milwaukee was an old team they lost. You know, Golden State's an old team and they won. Some of that is because they were playing a young team that feels like they're a year or two bind okase, Like they're just not like Cleveland was three years ago. Okay,
see was last year. Some of it's just the baby step nature of this league. Houston wasn't ready to win a series and even though they had some clear athletic length and depth advantages. But there is something to be said about Kerr was really I mean, Peyton's sick cominge he doesn't want. Basically, they had five guys and then like a Looney that was the lineup. It's like five guys Looney. There is something to be said for Steve Kerr. He was a great broadcaster, smart executive, really good player.
He did a lot of coaching tonight, there was a lot of I mean, when Curry's struggling, he is going through lineups. I mean, in Cominga's off the floor, Loony's in. I'm keeping Looney in. I want to talk a little bit about Kerr. All these old teams lost. It would have been very easy on a night if I'd have said to you didn't watch the game. Yeah, Curry was awful in the first half, and it was just Warriors really struggled offensively and they won. I think some of
it is I think Kerr has such a heartbeat. I mean we said into this series, Jason, oh, they have to play Cominga, and they really didn't and it worked. I mean, and I've got have told you, yeah, Comingo won't play much. What he does he clearly frustrates the hell out of Kerr. Oh yeah, Game seven, Peyton, They'll be sick as a dog. There was a million reasons why they should have lost this series. I mean, wasn't there.
Yeah. I texted our mutual friend Logan Swain in the middle of this game and I said, man, because you know he's a fellow Lakers fan, as we've been lamenting the disappointing end of the season, and I said to him, like, I still think Kerr and the Warriors are just miles smarter than the Lakers, And it just drives me crazy when I'm watching him, because Kurr just played every button right tonight. Now, obviously there was the illness to GP two, but it was right. Buddy was the guy. He needed
to lean his buddy. That was the right move. Quick hooks with Kaminga. He got two quick shifts. He made a bunch of mistakes right away and he was They called it. He called the time out to get him out in one of them. So like like like, so he had quick hooks on Kaminga going towards Kevon Looney in this game instead of Quinton Post. He understood this is going to be a bloodpath. This game is going to be about rebounding, not about spacing, So we're going
to go towards Kevan Luney. I thought that was smart. The the against the zone. I won't get into the the intricacies on here because it just would take too long. But there were a couple of specific things that they tried right away and got really good looks against the zone, which was the big story because in Game six when they lost control, Houston zoned them eighteen times in the fourth quarter and they scored three times in eighteen possessions.
So that was a huge storyline coming into game seven. Would Kurr and the guys be able to solve the zone. They did a much better job against it tonight. Every single little button that needed to get pushed got pushed, and it was the difference. I mean, this game was a three point game in the second half. I think we underestimate how much these series come down to pretty tight margins. Like if you really look at Denver, look at Denver versus the Clippers, You've got an overtime game.
You've got Aaron Gordon dunking at the buzzer to win one of the games. Look at Detroit versus New York. All those games swung on crunch time sequences. Lakers Minnesota Game three in Game four were where the series were decided. Both of those games were tied in the final minutes, in Minnesota pulled away. Like, the margins are slim, and if you haven't advanced in the strategic side of things, with your coaching staff. It makes a massive difference.
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time to see what the fuss is about. Head to your local Walmart, Target and try the og degree cool Rush for yourself. Well, I do want to talk about this obviously, JJ Reddick. I didn't think JJ had a great last couple of games in the series, okay, And I was thinking about this. I wanted a walk this
morning in Chicago, and I thought about this. So when Matt Lafleur got the Green Bay Packers job, he'd never been good looking, smart guy and Tennessee coordinator, but had never been a head coach, had never owned the room. So he goes to this iconic organization, replaces a super Bowl winning coach, Mike McCarthy. And the first thing I noticed is they became a very good first quarter team, much like JJ Reddick, very intentional, you know, classic coordinator,
becomes a head coach the Packers offense first quarter. It was clearly that he was a great in the film room coach. That's why he got the Packer job. But I didn't love his halftime adjustments because as a coordinator, the coach is doing a lot of the half. He's doing the talking at half, right, so you're doing a lot of what the coach wants at half. And then I thought by year two, Matt Lafleur became a really
good full coach. He came in his first year, he was a great They took leads that you win seventy percent of your games in the NFL if you take a lead, But he wasn't a great adjustment coach he was year two. Similarly, JJ Reddick Lakers were a very good first quarter team many times this year that have these great stretches, very intentional, very good in the film room, very smart guy. But I do think adjustments take time to be a great adjuster. Kerr is a great adjuster,
I think Joe. I think Missoula and Boston's gotten much better at that. It's the you know, playoffs series have four and five adjustments. Chris Finch's team very good at layering, and I just think JJ, I think it's just part of being a rookie head coach. Jason Kidd his first
go around. You know, you're good in the film room, you're intentional, you come out this is what we do well, and they don't so much to this league is second half, last four minutes out of a timeout, and it is a fair criticism on the film you watch to say that JJ will become a better overall coach, that there were times this year that he wasn't. Now maybe I'm the opposite, is true? But I just didn't think he was always the greatest adjuster.
I thought he was a little slow to adjust at times. I think, you know, I think in general with JJ, I have had no big picture concern just simply because I think he's smart, and I think he's hyper competitive and like kind of obsessive, which I think is what you just need to be to be good at that job. Is I think he'll I think he'll have some issues over over his career with just how hot tempered he is and how that can rub people the wrong way.
I mean, we saw that with Mike Malone. You can wear out the room pretty quick, sure if you're a great coach, and I think those will be things that
he'll have to work out. The perfect example of that to me was the Warriors Lakers regular season game towards the end of the year, where like Steve Kerr comes out for his little interview at the end of the first quarter, and he's just so calm and cool and collected, and then they go to JJ for his interview and he's like clearly mad and angry and agitated, and it's like it's like you learned too that, like your players start to I actually learned this from the high school
coach that I coached with. Like you, your players take on your personality in a lot of cases, and which is why it's so important for you to kind of stay as even keeled as you can, because if you get super emotional and worked up, your players will get emotional and worked up and stuff like that. But over the course of the series, I thought he made several mistakes. There was the at the beginning of the series, the Lakers just came out looking flat out unprepared for Game
one in terms of the intensity. JJ admitted after the fact that he thought he made a mistake by not scrimmaging at all in that week before the game, which I when I heard that, I was like, wait, you guys didn't play basketball for a week. I'm like, you're about to play the Timberwolves. It's going to be a war. You need to be ready. But to JJ's credit, he
acknowledged it. He understood that there was a mistake there. Offensively, I thought the team made a key mistake in the series by not attacking Minnesota's smalls at any point at any At any point in the series, there was no extended stretch where Lebron or Luca attempted to post up in that series. Lebron shot call, This is a crazy post Lebron. Lebron shot out of the post in that
entire series five times, five times in five games. This is like literally what he's done in his career, as like the thing he goes to when his back is against the ball. He was just unwilling to do it. But it also goes to Luca. Luca was in attacking smalls. They were only attacking bigs. There was the substitution pattern at late in game four, which I think again is a little bit more convoluted, because you know they win that game. You're playing Monday morning quarterback in a lot
of ways. But Game five, though, in particular, he switched his scheme towards double teaming, and they looked completely unprepared, meaning like they were giving up wide open layups and dunks to where like if they were a little bit more schematically prepared for that, they should have been able to at least tilt that towards the three point line
in certain guys shooting. They looked like an unprepared team for that scheme, which I think reflects poorly on JJ but at the end of the day, like I thought, JJ overwhelmingly in his first year exceeded expectations. Same same, I don't think JJ is the reason they lost to Minnesota.
I think the reason they lost to Minnesota is Austin Reeves was awful for the majority of the series and like literally the Minnesota took him out and Luca when whenever the series was hanging in the balance, late in game five, late in game four, late in game three, Luca was bad and that really was the series. And like I will, I will always kind of look at the stars before I look at coaches. But there's no doubt that JJ's got a lot of room to grow.
I'm just not worried about it because of how competitive, how smart he is. That stuff will come in time. I do.
I do think they have to consider there's some duplication with Austin Reeves, and they just need somebody's gonna want Austin Reeves and somebody's gonna be looking to get rid of a big And it's nothing against Austin. I think he has value. That wasn't a great series for him, Well, wasn't a great matchup. I mean, the truth is Minnesota's athletic and strong and physical, and they pounced on it and he just couldn't get to the free throw line. But I look at it and I think he has
served his purpose. He's an unranked player. Use him as a trade piece. But if you're not going to play Jackson Hayes against the team with Ruby Gobert, you need some size. You got to get a legitimate big in here.
Austin Reeves is one of my favorite players, and so it hurts me to say this because rooting for him has been and watching him go from like literally an undrafted guy to like a legitimate player probably deserves thirty million dollars a year in this league, like he's so good. And by the way, Colin, this is the first time in several playoff series that I've watched Austin and thought that he was overwhelmed, Like he's been very good in four previous playoff series. So, like Austin, this was a
really bad matchup for him. They're just so athletic. He caught the Anthony Edwards matchup most of the series and ant Yeah put him in jail, and Dante DiVincenzo defended him really well. My thing is it's more just about roster construction. I don't think you can build a lineup that succeeds in the modern NBA with two inferior perimeter athletes. I think that's where you're you're reaching. You're reaching kind of like below the like mandatory minimum level of athleticism
that you try. And so even though even though like it makes some sense in the context of Lebron, when Lebron retires, you're now building around Austin and Luca, and you would need the other three guys in that lineup to be like absolute peak athletes for that to work. Yep, And that's just difficult to do in terms of roster allocation.
And so honestly, when I look at it this summer, you know, that doesn't mean you get rid of Austin for nothing, but I begin to look at Austin as a key asset with which to return somebody that actually
fits this timeline better. And there's the second piece of it, which is, if you get rid of Austin, you better have a plan for another ball handler because Lebron is forty, so like there's got to be a this is this is gonna be a really fine line that they're walking this offseason because they need to walk the win now line alongside Lebron, but they also need to have some sort of plan post Lebron, and so that's where it
gets tricky. I look at like, you know, if you could call a Brooklyn and see if you can't package together Austin and another salary and get like a Cam Johnson and a Nick Claxton, so you get like a legit three and D guy and a real center to put next to Luca and Lebron. But even then you better be calling behind the scenes to stars and be like, hey, we're gonna need somebody to come in here and be
Luca's number two pretty soon. And you know, maybe it ends up being a Kyrie after his injury or something like that. Who knows, But there's there's definitely a fine line here that they have to walk in a lot of different pieces gotta go right. But I left the series thinking the same way you did, Colin. I'm like, I love Austin, I'm not sure if he makes a lot of sense here.
In the Big Listener, Nico Harrison gave you a little bit of a roadmap when he had Kyrie and Luca and like, okay, I need size and rim protection.
Yep.
And they were really good and got to the finals. And I just think that's the reality. It was the reality with Carmelo Anthon, who wasn't a willing defender. It was James Harden. There are just players in this league who are so gifted offensively you overlook stuff. If if Lebron is old and Luca is your star, you're gonna need some elite defenders. You need rem protection. That's just the way it is. It's okay, and you can get it. I mean they almost pulled off that deal for was that Mark Williams.
Yeah, And I don't think I don't think he's the answer either. Colin.
No, he's always hurt.
Uh, He's not a good defender.
Oh so, he's just a big guy.
He's just a big guy. He's got a little bit of Charlotte Hornets itis, so there's always a little bit of that. Like maybe maybe he bring him in and make him better. But I didn't love the film that I saw with him playing defense at Charlotte.
All Right, so we get ready for some more unbelievable NBA playoffs have been so damn fun, just so great and I could not wait for this game to start, and I was so too.
This was one of the biggest games I can remember in recent history. The ramifications of Golden State.
The number is going to be huge. The number is going to be huge for this. And by the way, let's give credit to the Pacers. Fun watch. If you're a casual NBA fan, they're just a great pacing, really smart Halliburton's a tremendous playmaker and passer. They've got well coached, they've got physicality, they can shoot it. To me, they don't depend on it. Just a really nice pacing and easy, fun, smart basketball watch. And they're going to give Cleveland some trouble.
So as always, Jason, this was great.
As good to see Youconnell, See you next week.
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