Welcome in What's Right with Nick Right somewhat emergency reaction Episode two, Day one of the NBA Playoffs Saturday and Sunday. I guess Day one and two, But game ones across the board eight games three and a half interesting ones is to my eye. Maybe you could say three and three quarters interesting ones, depending on what you think of
Pacers Bucks. We're gonna start with Warriors Rockets. We will then get to the Lakers getting absolutely unraveled by the Timberwolves, and then probably the best game of the weekend Clippers Nuggets.
With a few minutes on the.
Four other games, most notably Nicks, Pistons, Warriors, Rockets. Watched it live last night, rewatched the bulk of the second half this morning, and there are some things that should not surprise you at all. The Rockets defense being as advertised all year. That's a good thing for them. The Rockets offense being as you worried about once the playoffs got going, that's a bad thing for them. Both of those showed up. This is my pick in this series
was Rockets in seven. And I'm not going to lie to the audience that that game didn't shake my faith in the fact that the Rockets can go blow for blow with the Warriors.
It did shake my faith a bit.
And if this team gets to a game seven, do they have anyone that is going to be able to make shots now the Rockets or if you didn't watch the game, the Rockets are not going to be six of twenty nine from three throughout the series. And you did see how the how limited the Warriors offense is
outside of Steph and Jimmy. But the outside of Stephan Jimmy doesn't matter when the the Warriors defense, which has been the number one defense in basketball since they got Jimmy Butler, can suffocate the Rockets, holding him to eighty five points.
And when Steph.
Curry, who the last time the Warriors played the Rockets scored three scores thirty one. And so my biggest takeaways from this game in no particular order, Shingoon's got to be even more active, and Shingoon has to be willing, and he was in this game to his credit.
If Draymond is going.
To give you those eight to fourteen footers, you just got to take them I E. And now Shingoon made it, took and made that one end of shot clock three. This is a guy who on the year only you know, he took just over one to three a game and was twenty three percent. It's not his game. He almost has to be willing to take one or two of the game, not just end of shot clock, because they are giving him so much space and maybe that can open things up. Obviously for the Rockets side of things,
they need Van Vliet to be better. Van Vliet hit the one shot late, and that's what was so interesting about this game. Rockets found themselves down by twenty four after the Warriors avalanche twenty three to twenty four steph hits the insane three, and then they punched back and they got it all the way down to four points with Fred van Vliet finally hitting a three after starting the game one of ten. But they weren't able to
get over the over the hump. They had used a bad challenge earlier in the game or in the fourth quarter on a block charge, which just unless you are one hundred percent like those aren't getting overturned. And because of that, they weren't able to use their challenge on an out of bounds call when the ball went off Draymond down four late in the fourth they can't challenge it. Warriors inbound it. Steph hits a rainbow three from thirty feet and all of a sudden.
You're down seven. And they never got closer.
So they had their opportunities. But Jalen Green is going to.
Have to show up.
And the concern for the Rockets on the Jalen Green front is and I understand it's a weird spot because they had everything locked up. He wasn't playing big minutes. But Jalen Green now his last four games five point seven points, two point seven points. That's your leading scorer on the season, and so he's going to have to get going. Amon Thompson seems shell shocked by the game.
That's fine, second year player, first playoff game. He's going to have to be more impactful defensively because because the Rockets, despite aim In Thompson not having his typical aim In Thompson esque impact on the defensive end, the Rockets will sign up for the Warriors scoring ninety five points in every single game. It was the Warriors defense combined with the Rockets total inability to score that allowed the Warriors to control this game. And now on the Warriors side
of things, credit where credit is due. Jimmy was excellent on both sides of the ball again, twenty five seven, six, five steals, only one foul plus minus can be misleading in this instance, it wasn't plus fourteen in Jimmy's minutes and Steph after I think starting zero for three then at one point made eleven of his next twelve or eleven of his next thirteen, and just those backer Layton shot clock, good defensive possession. The Warriors did a good job.
I'm sorry, the Rockets did a good job staying attached to Steph. These weren't practice shots by any means, and Steph made them pay anyway. If so, I know, I game ones are tough because you don't want to underreact, but also you're you're prone to overreact. Steph and Jimmy combining for fifty six points is something the Warriors will sign up for every game the rest of the series.
That's great production. The fact that they combined for fifty six and the rest of the Warriors combined for thirty nine is something the Rockets will sign up for every single game the rest of the series. And I think the Warriors only hitting twelve threes is not really going to be an out liar for this series because the Rockets are that good defensively. The question is can the Rockets find anybody who seems comfortable taking tough and big shots.
And there's one other element that I haven't even discussed that's one of the biggest stories of the game, which is the Steven Adams minutes the only person on the Rockets with a positive plus minus. And again I'm not trying to lean too much on plus minus, but it passed the eye test. When Adams was out there, he not only was the biggest player on the court, but he looked even bigger than he actually is. So we'll
get to Steven Adams in a minute. The player for the Rockets that I would be looking at and saying, hmm, could he be a guy who does more for us this series is a guy who they took third in the draft a few years ago and has kind of stayed the same level player since his rookie year. He's been a thirteen and seven eight guy as a rookie, and he's a thirteen to seven and seven or eight guy as a third year player. And that's Jabari Smith. Jabari Smith is six to ten guy that can shoot.
When he was drafted that high, the hope was that if he can develop his shot and again after being I think a thirty percent free throw or three point shooter as a rookie, he's around thirty five percent. Could he be Michael Porter Junior, worst jump shot, better defense, but a really tall guy who presents matchup problems who can hit threes. Again, Michael Porter Junior is probably a bad comp because even in those same height, Porter Junior
is a huge defensive liability and a great shooter. You hope Jabari Smith can be a good defender and a good shooter. But Jabari Smith in this game, the only guy who's hitting all his free throws hit is three shots from the field. H is won three. Can he do a little bit more? And the other question for the Rockets is Steven Adams, who is in this weird place where he's in year thirteen, but he just turned thirty one. I think can Steven Adams play not just
twenty minutes, but thirty minutes? Because the Steven Adams minutes, the Warriors look tiny and Quinton Post has nothing for him. Quinton Posted out there just to shoot threes. The Warriors don't want to play Looney. They have put Jonathan gaminga totally on ice, and so can't Are the Rockets comfortable playing a lot of minutes with the two bigs. Here's the thing, and this is the problem with losing game one.
When you're the home team and you're the young team, it's not going to matter the long series adjustments if you don't respond in game two with a great shooting performance and bounce back. Because what I do know is this, even though I think the Rockets are a better team than the Warriors, they lose the first two at home, that series is over, and so they are. I would they are tiny favorites in game two, two point favorites. That is we do you know, silly must win on
the TV show. That is definitionally a must win for the Rockets. I still think this is a seven game series. My faith in the Rockets being able to get to one hundred points in a game seven, even in their building wavering a little bit after that performance. Now, speaking of faith wavering, the game I was most excited for that was a good game for about a quarter and a half, and then an absolute route. Timberwolves won seventeen,
Lakers ninety five. Now some folks are going to say, well, Timberwolves go twenty one to forty two from three nas Reed and Jaden McDaniel's combined for almost fifty, you're just gonna lose that game. That's not my analysis of it. I wish that was my analysis of it. If a team has an outlier shooting night and they barely beat you, or it's a close game like the Warriors did to the to the Lakers about three weeks ago, that one I can chalk up to. Okay, one team made shots,
the other team did. That is not the game that I saw Saturday night, because yes, the Timberwolves had an outlier shooting night, but they blew the Lakers out.
And yeah, the Lakers.
Made a slight rally late like maybe are they going to make a game? The answer was no, they were not going to make it a game. And I said on Friday that I thought Anthony Edwards was going to average thirty to a game in this series, because I thought the Lakers were simply going to take their medicine, that he was going to have matchup advantages. They would stay home somewhat on shooters and say listen, aunt have at it. But you're not going to beat us two points at a time. That is not at all what
they did, not even close. What they did they being the Lakers, was packed the paint what you expected, and then also send help to Aunt who just sprayed the ball all around the court and it led to the Timbrels starting the game twenty one to forty from three before the bench came in. The Lakers will lose if they keep that up. I think the Lakers are a better team. I think that there are a lot of pieces on the Lakers offense side we can get to.
But the Lakers choosing because we don't have rim protection, we're going to leave shooters rather than because we don't have rim protection, we're just gonna take our medicine. If Anthony Edwards goes crazy, I think that is the wrong fork in the road to take. I think that you cannot let all of these Minnesota role players feel good about what's going on, be more engaged on defense because they're seeing the ball go through the hoop and approach
it that way. I also think that the Timberwolves approach defensively on Luca was a smart one, which was Luca, if you get forty you get forty, you are not going to generate a million open threes. And that's why Luca had thirty seven points and one assist. I thought, listen, Luca was the one Laker who I thought played quite well. I didn't think his defense killed him. The one assist was because things were not available. The idea that that Luca took other guys out of the game, I don't
buy that. So I and the Lakers got blown out in the non Luca minutes. They didn't do great in the Luca minutes, but then Luca's off the court for eight minutes, they lose those. By god, I don't even know, ten points in eight minutes. Like so that is Luca bears the least brunt of the blame here, but.
They the Timberwolves.
Defensive approach to the Lakers needs to be more of the Lakers defensive approach to the Timberwls. Now, I understand if people are listening and they're like, well, the Timberwlves have Rudy Gobert and because of that they can stay home with shooters today have a improtector.
I get it.
I understand the Timbrels are expected to be a much better defense than the Lakers, and they are a better
defense than the Lakers. I get that, but there needs to be more of a There needs to be an adjustment in the Lakers defensive approach, and there also needs to be an adjustment on if you think Jackson Hayes is you know, I wouldn't necessarily change the starting lineup in Game two of the playoffs, but if he's only playing eight minutes, there's not really much of a reason to play him any minutes.
And if you just want to start really small. The one thing that grim Wolves.
Didn't do was take advantage of the lakers lack of size by letting Gobert get involved on lobs or jump hooks, anything like that. Gobert two shot attempts. They just wouldn't pass him the ball. But Gobert was effective. He had some good defense on Lebron Drives, some good defense on Luca Drives, and you give him credit. Now, am I panicked if I'm the Lakers? No, I'm not panicked.
And we did see and you know during the bubble, they.
Lost Game one to Portland, won the series in five, lost Game one to Houston, won the series in five. They this does not feel like those series felt. But there are obvious adjustments. One is Lebron being more aggressive from the opening tip. Now we've seen Lebron in Game ones, we know that that is not really his mo and he kind of got it going a bit in the second quarter. But him being more aggressive early and the other thing, and this is no shocker, Austin Reeves has
to play better. Austin Reeves was the lakers worst defender and probably their worst offensive player, so none of that is gonna work. So everything bad that the Lakers could do, they did in this game, which is why they lost by twenty. What I will tell you is the Timberwolves
and they shouldn't be are not scared at all. And the Timberwolves and Anthony Edwards, a team that stared down Kevin Durant and Devin Buoker last year, and that stared down Nikola jokicch and Jamal Murray last year and walked them down into Game seven, are not intimidated by Luke
and Lebron. I thought it was disappointing that the Lakers were not able to attack Mike Conley Moore, and I thought some of the Lakers' defensive disadvantages should have been muted to a degree by the fact that they shouldn't have needed to guard Gobert because the Timbrels just wouldn't give Gobert the ball. Now, another small silver lining for the Lakers. If you think this, you know, if you're
not writing them off after game one playoff. Julius Randall does appear to be here, had some dumbfouls, seemed to be in a weird machismo thing with Lebron, had a half dozen turnovers, and yes, he hit his threes, but not much else, And so that's something to watch for. How aggressive Lebron comes out to open game two is something to watch for. And do the Lakers trim down Jackson Hayes's eight minutes to even less.
I don't know that you really can.
I don't know that that's their plan, but I almost feel like it needs to be zero or it needs to be fifteen. But eight minutes doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to me. So it's not panic time for the Lakers. But you cannot chalk that game up to add they were the Timberwolves were hot. There were bigger issues than that, and Lebron's got to be better. Austin's got to be way better. And any game that Luke has one assist, Lakers are gonna lose. And again, be clear, I don't I'm not putting the
blame on Luca there. But when the Timberwlves have twenty nine assists and the Lakers have fifteen, that feels accurate. And typically the team with more assists might also have a bunch of turnovers because the balls popping around the court.
That wasn't the case here.
Only had ten turnovers, and again Julius Randall had almost all of them. Everyone else who was handing the wall and Timbrelves did a great job. So Lakers got to fix that quickly. And I think they have to adjust what they're doing defensively as far as listen, take your medicine with Anthony Edwards. Don't let those shooters have I think of their forty two to three point attempts, I think thirty five of them, maybe thirty seven of them
were open or wide open. All right, get to the other games quickly, But let me remind you the NBA eighty two game grind is done. Now the real fun begins. NBA playoffs are here. It's time for high stakes drama, clutch moments, and jaw dropping plays. If you're looking to make the playoffs even more exciting, Draftings Sportsbook as you covered as an official sports betting partner of the NBA from the play in games all the way through to the finals. Now's the time to back your favorite players
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terms responsible gaming resources, see DKNG dot co slash audio. Okay, so the other games Nuggets Clippers was a game it felt like to me the Clippers needed to steal. And it's not steel as in they had been thoroughly outplayed.
It was far from that. But because that game was in Denver, because you put forty plus minutes on Kawhi and Harden, I know it went to overtime, but that's more damaging for them than I think for other teams because just as you know the schedule works out, they they are they are playing tonight, so they don't get the two days off everyone, but you know, I shouldn't say everyone, but half of these teams are going to
end up with multiple days off. Clippers Nuggets draw the short straw on that one, which is more damaging because the game went to overtime and so you got the full Russell Westbrook experience. I'm not breaking news on that he made the huge three. He also made some insane decisions, including not getting a shot off late and that you know, as time expired in regulation, the driving to the basket on a critical possession when he just needed to pull
it out. And he also took seventeen shots. If you're the Clippers, you are thrilled that he took seventeen shots.
Thrilled.
And if you're the Clippers, I think you are preparing for a lot of Russell Westbrook out there because they put Michael Porter Junior on ice in that game. I talked about the minutes minutes for the Clipper for the Nuggets, Gordon forty six, Jokis forty six, Murray forty eight, Brown forty five. It was another way. The biggest winner of this weekend really was Oklahoma City, and they earned it. They they played a leisurely twenty minutes, annihilate the Grizzlies
in historic fashion and get real evidence. Nuggets Clippers is going to be a war. They're gonna have a week off before Round two starts, and these the Nuggets just once you put Michael Porter Junior on ice because he doesn't have it. In some concerning comments from Joker after the game, I don't know he was talking about him or not where He's basically like, listen, if you're not ready,
you shouldn't if you're not. I don't want to misquote him, but the jokicch quote after the game about staying locked in or something seemed odd, and it seemed like it was maybe about Michael Porter Junior. You're gonna get a lot of Russell Westbrook. Now, his rebounding was excellent, his energy was excellent. He made the huge three. But you're gonna live with Russ. You're gonna die with Russ. I
do like the Nuggets in this series. I said that before the series, Clippers, if they could have stolen that one could have shifted a lot. I am curious at altitude the legs of both of these teams, but notably Kawhi and Harden just forty eight hours after a forty plus minute game. Jokicch and Murray have been playing these forty plus minute playoff games forever. Gordon seems fine and Christian Brown's young. I think Russ, I'm sorry, I think think that Kawhi and Harden are the guys to watch
the I would imagine. I haven't looked at the line for this. Yeah, it's basically pick them Clippers by one. I expect this to be a seven game war. Game one going to overtime only confirm that the other. Listen, three of the games are totally irrelevant. The Grizzlies don't want to be there. The Magic put up a good fight. I shouldn't say irrelevant, but the Magic put up a good fight for a half. And then the inability to
score is gonna hurt you. Yes, I mean we had three teams this weekend not break ninety, and the Grizzlies didn't break. They scored eighty and allowed one thirty one, the Magic, who had thirty seven second half points, and then the Rockets. We talked about earlier scary moment with Tatum, but it looks like his wrist is fine. Heat calves going into the fourth, It's like, Oh, are the heat gonna make these guys work?
The answer was no. And then the Knicks.
After looking really shaky for the first three quarters, have their best run of the season, Garden on fire, Michale Bridges on the bench, something to watch, and they go twenty one to nothing. And the Pistons, who are thinking, are we gonna steal a game when k doesn't even play that well, the answer is no. I'm gonna be at the Knicks Pistons game tonight, at least I think I am. And we'll be back with the regular pod
with de Monsey Tuesday morning. We might do a bunch of these quick hitter kind of thirty minute bite sized reaction pods after the great games or weekends of a ton of games. Please like, rate, subscribe review that way you know when the extra pods come out. Thank you to Paul for work an extra for us, and see you guys Tuesday with Demonsey reacting to Game two of Clippers Nuggets, Game two of Pistons Nicks, and even deeper dive on the Warriors, Rockets, and the Lakers Timberwolves.
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