JJ Redick

That's a great question. Man. I don't think so.

That's a great question. Man. I don't think so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know what?

And you know what?

Morgan, are you a golfer?

Morgan, are you a golfer?

Like played in a high school team?

Like played in a high school team?

And I thought, well... Let me think here.

And I thought, well... Let me think here.

That's a great question. Man. I don't think so.

Yeah.

And you know what?

Morgan, are you a golfer?

Like played in a high school team?

And I thought, well... Let me think here.

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I look back at that 2022 Bucs team as a big, big what if, with Middleton missing essentially the entire playoffs, and yet they still go toe-to-toe with Boston in a seven-game series that ends in what will forever be remembered as the Grant Williams game without Middleton. And I've said this before.

I look back at that 2022 Bucs team as a big, big what if, with Middleton missing essentially the entire playoffs, and yet they still go toe-to-toe with Boston in a seven-game series that ends in what will forever be remembered as the Grant Williams game without Middleton. And I've said this before.

Everyone that I know on the Celtics, within the Celtics, came out of that series with one universal reaction, which was, we never want to see that fucking dude in a playoff series again about Giannis. That's how good he was that year. And he's still incredible. He's probably 97% as good as he was in that year, maybe a little bit less than that.

Everyone that I know on the Celtics, within the Celtics, came out of that series with one universal reaction, which was, we never want to see that fucking dude in a playoff series again about Giannis. That's how good he was that year. And he's still incredible. He's probably 97% as good as he was in that year, maybe a little bit less than that.

And they had a championship team that year with Drew still, and Middleton wasn't there, and they just didn't have enough. And then they pivoted the next year the way they pivoted. We all know Nets, Rockets, Heat, whoever else wants to get into it, Knicks. A lot of it will depend on the playoffs and what happens to some of these teams in the next round or two or whatever. Yeah.

And they had a championship team that year with Drew still, and Middleton wasn't there, and they just didn't have enough. And then they pivoted the next year the way they pivoted. We all know Nets, Rockets, Heat, whoever else wants to get into it, Knicks. A lot of it will depend on the playoffs and what happens to some of these teams in the next round or two or whatever. Yeah.

Unlike what we saw the Brooklyn nets do. they have no vehicle to get those draft picks back. The Nets got some of their picks back because they had Phoenix draft assets. There was this theoretical, could Atlanta get their picks back by trading Trey Young to the Spurs? That wasn't a crazy, implausible idea. There's no pathway that I can see anyway to reclaiming ownership of those picks.

Unlike what we saw the Brooklyn nets do. they have no vehicle to get those draft picks back. The Nets got some of their picks back because they had Phoenix draft assets. There was this theoretical, could Atlanta get their picks back by trading Trey Young to the Spurs? That wasn't a crazy, implausible idea. There's no pathway that I can see anyway to reclaiming ownership of those picks.

And it's just... It's just, you know, look, Giannis has two years plus one left on his deal after this. Dame has two years left to play our option for $58.5 million in 26-27. It just sucks. It all sucks. And here the Pacers are again. Now, I thought the Pacers were going to win this series anyway. Now they're almost certainly going to win it up 3-1 going home.

And it's just... It's just, you know, look, Giannis has two years plus one left on his deal after this. Dame has two years left to play our option for $58.5 million in 26-27. It just sucks. It all sucks. And here the Pacers are again. Now, I thought the Pacers were going to win this series anyway. Now they're almost certainly going to win it up 3-1 going home.

One massive, what appears to be a massive injury to Damian Lillard, who left Game 4 of the Bucks-Pacers series with what appears to be a torn Achilles. I don't even... I mean, look, it obviously sucks. Damian Lillard is almost 35 years old.

One massive, what appears to be a massive injury to Damian Lillard, who left Game 4 of the Bucks-Pacers series with what appears to be a torn Achilles. I don't even... I mean, look, it obviously sucks. Damian Lillard is almost 35 years old.

Tyrese Halliburton just cackling, literally cackling on the floor after every play that he makes. And a looming Pacers-Cavs series that is kind of interesting. And just as an aside, I asked you to pick a team of the weekend for this wild weekend. Just to go deep cut, I picked the Cavs because I thought that Cavs' Game 3 performance in Miami was, like, cruel enough championship cruelty.

Tyrese Halliburton just cackling, literally cackling on the floor after every play that he makes. And a looming Pacers-Cavs series that is kind of interesting. And just as an aside, I asked you to pick a team of the weekend for this wild weekend. Just to go deep cut, I picked the Cavs because I thought that Cavs' Game 3 performance in Miami was, like, cruel enough championship cruelty.

Like we are coming to take the soul of your franchise. We are going to extinguish any hope you have of like, oh, we're coming home. Like someone will get hot. Maybe we can steal a game. And they came and they were like, we are going to dig your grave, throw you in the grave, stomp on your face a few more times, bury your corpse, and then light the whole graveyard on fire.

Like we are coming to take the soul of your franchise. We are going to extinguish any hope you have of like, oh, we're coming home. Like someone will get hot. Maybe we can steal a game. And they came and they were like, we are going to dig your grave, throw you in the grave, stomp on your face a few more times, bury your corpse, and then light the whole graveyard on fire.

And I was like, oh my God, this is a nasty fucking team. I think they're going to beat the Pacers in the next round, but the Pacers have some interesting answers to throw at them. And the last thing I'll say, all the shirts that the teams are wearing,

And I was like, oh my God, this is a nasty fucking team. I think they're going to beat the Pacers in the next round, but the Pacers have some interesting answers to throw at them. And the last thing I'll say, all the shirts that the teams are wearing,

I'm interested to see what shirt... the Grizzlies come out for, for game five. Cause I think they have the, they have the Thunder figured out, right?

I'm interested to see what shirt... the Grizzlies come out for, for game five. Cause I think they have the, they have the Thunder figured out, right?

I think they've really figured that one out.

I think they've really figured that one out.

Look out, look out. Okay. See in game five, back in the Thunderdome. OK, are we ready to move on to series number two? Sure. Wolves, Lakers. Holy fuck. What a wild game for in Minnesota. The Wolves take both games at home to go up 3-1. The Lakers are on the brink. The end game of this was so crazy that my notes are like just a page long on that. LeBron had a block. a strip.

Look out, look out. Okay. See in game five, back in the Thunderdome. OK, are we ready to move on to series number two? Sure. Wolves, Lakers. Holy fuck. What a wild game for in Minnesota. The Wolves take both games at home to go up 3-1. The Lakers are on the brink. The end game of this was so crazy that my notes are like just a page long on that. LeBron had a block. a strip.

And then Jada McDaniels got an and one to put Minnesota up one on a beautiful play by Ann, who capped a masterpiece game by stringing out a trap. Didn't panic. I'm going to string this out. I'm going to string this out. Found Nas Reed, who was sensational, who found McDaniels. And then... All hell broke loose in the game with Minnesota up by one.

And then Jada McDaniels got an and one to put Minnesota up one on a beautiful play by Ann, who capped a masterpiece game by stringing out a trap. Didn't panic. I'm going to string this out. I'm going to string this out. Found Nas Reed, who was sensational, who found McDaniels. And then... All hell broke loose in the game with Minnesota up by one.

Luka brought the ball up and fell, slash got tripped, slash the last two-minute report will be interesting. JJ is mad about it. And then LeBron threw away the inbounds pass, slash it was stolen. Then Ant fell and looked to be falling before LeBron hit his wrist in what was a foul, but he looked to be slipping anyway.

Luka brought the ball up and fell, slash got tripped, slash the last two-minute report will be interesting. JJ is mad about it. And then LeBron threw away the inbounds pass, slash it was stolen. Then Ant fell and looked to be falling before LeBron hit his wrist in what was a foul, but he looked to be slipping anyway.

If this is indeed a tour in Achilles, any discussion of it has to start with just Damian Lillard, the human being who built a legacy of greatness in Portland, got traded kind of against his will to Milwaukee, tried to make the best of it.

If this is indeed a tour in Achilles, any discussion of it has to start with just Damian Lillard, the human being who built a legacy of greatness in Portland, got traded kind of against his will to Milwaukee, tried to make the best of it.

It was called a foul on a plus challenge by Chris Finch, who has coached a fantastic series every way around and made the two free throws. Then it looked like Minnesota was trying to foul up three and didn't. And Austin Reeves got a quarter three and missed.

It was called a foul on a plus challenge by Chris Finch, who has coached a fantastic series every way around and made the two free throws. Then it looked like Minnesota was trying to foul up three and didn't. And Austin Reeves got a quarter three and missed.

Didn't it look like they were trying... Randall kind of hugged Luka, and I was like, I think they're trying to foul up three. They should have fouled up three, and they didn't, and they almost fucking paid the price for it. Where do you want to even start with this? The Lakers are on the brink. Luka's getting roasted. Nico Harrison is... Got the sneer going somewhere, maybe?

Didn't it look like they were trying... Randall kind of hugged Luka, and I was like, I think they're trying to foul up three. They should have fouled up three, and they didn't, and they almost fucking paid the price for it. Where do you want to even start with this? The Lakers are on the brink. Luka's getting roasted. Nico Harrison is... Got the sneer going somewhere, maybe?

Which I have never seen in my life. And... What an insane game. You start wherever you want. I don't even know where to start.

Which I have never seen in my life. And... What an insane game. You start wherever you want. I don't even know where to start.

um came back very quickly from a blood clot issue to play in these playoffs didn't look like himself not surprisingly looked like he got tired at the end of games didn't impact the series the way that you would expect prime damian lillard um to impact it and now after a couple of games back suffers one of the most devastating injuries in sports a 35 year old small guard and

um came back very quickly from a blood clot issue to play in these playoffs didn't look like himself not surprisingly looked like he got tired at the end of games didn't impact the series the way that you would expect prime damian lillard um to impact it and now after a couple of games back suffers one of the most devastating injuries in sports a 35 year old small guard and

No one needed another playoff appearance like Julius Randle needed another playoff appearance because his playoff numbers before this series in a very small sample were so atrociously bad, they looked like they were implausible. And the sample size got bigger. And Julius Randle, he's guarding LeBron. He's attacking all the right matchups.

No one needed another playoff appearance like Julius Randle needed another playoff appearance because his playoff numbers before this series in a very small sample were so atrociously bad, they looked like they were implausible. And the sample size got bigger. And Julius Randle, he's guarding LeBron. He's attacking all the right matchups.

Even when he attacks what I would consider the suboptimal matchups, he's getting stuff out of it. He's throwing the right pass. No turnovers in 25 points in 43 minutes against the Lakers on Sunday. And Ant... You mentioned it like, you know, the game slows down is a cliche that we use all the time.

Even when he attacks what I would consider the suboptimal matchups, he's getting stuff out of it. He's throwing the right pass. No turnovers in 25 points in 43 minutes against the Lakers on Sunday. And Ant... You mentioned it like, you know, the game slows down is a cliche that we use all the time.

This is a case where I think you can actually see it happening because this is a very simple series for Ant. The Lakers are switching almost everything. He's picking whatever matchup he wants. A lot of times it's Luka. He seemed to get a soft spot for attacking Rui Hachimura down the stretch yesterday. I don't know what he likes about that matchup, but he roasted him.

This is a case where I think you can actually see it happening because this is a very simple series for Ant. The Lakers are switching almost everything. He's picking whatever matchup he wants. A lot of times it's Luka. He seemed to get a soft spot for attacking Rui Hachimura down the stretch yesterday. I don't know what he likes about that matchup, but he roasted him.

And when that matchup happens, he gets the ball and the Lakers load the floor from every angle. They try to confuse him. LeBron is like a cornerback on the sidelines, like stunting here, stunting there. He's like ferocious. And Ant just sort of digests it all. And there were a couple of times where he didn't wait at all. He just got the matchup, put his head down and went.

And when that matchup happens, he gets the ball and the Lakers load the floor from every angle. They try to confuse him. LeBron is like a cornerback on the sidelines, like stunting here, stunting there. He's like ferocious. And Ant just sort of digests it all. And there were a couple of times where he didn't wait at all. He just got the matchup, put his head down and went.

And there was a level of decisiveness that I, I, there were no dancing, no prelude, no, no, anything just go. Then there were other times where he like dribbled into the lane, help converged, took a dribble back, kept a live dribble, help went away. And then he'll just spin into like a nice 12 foot shot over Luca. It was calm. It wasn't seeking highlight plays every time.

And there was a level of decisiveness that I, I, there were no dancing, no prelude, no, no, anything just go. Then there were other times where he like dribbled into the lane, help converged, took a dribble back, kept a live dribble, help went away. And then he'll just spin into like a nice 12 foot shot over Luca. It was calm. It wasn't seeking highlight plays every time.

It wasn't being reckless like Jalen Green's being reckless in the Warriors Rocket Series. It was like a veteran, calm, just masterful performance. And defensively, he's been good. Chris Finch has gone all out putting Randall McDaniels. and Ant on Reeves, LeBron, and Luka, and switching any time they try to get in actions together. They've been on point with that.

It wasn't being reckless like Jalen Green's being reckless in the Warriors Rocket Series. It was like a veteran, calm, just masterful performance. And defensively, he's been good. Chris Finch has gone all out putting Randall McDaniels. and Ant on Reeves, LeBron, and Luka, and switching any time they try to get in actions together. They've been on point with that.

We haven't seen Ant's been guilty a lot of times of lazy box outs and falling asleep off the ball. Part of it is that the Lakers haven't forced a lot of that pressure on him, but he hasn't made any of those mistakes. Incredible Ant performance. The Lakers are just going to be complaining about the refs. You can talk more about Ant, but I do want to hear your reactions to both the

We haven't seen Ant's been guilty a lot of times of lazy box outs and falling asleep off the ball. Part of it is that the Lakers haven't forced a lot of that pressure on him, but he hasn't made any of those mistakes. Incredible Ant performance. The Lakers are just going to be complaining about the refs. You can talk more about Ant, but I do want to hear your reactions to both the

alleged trip by Jaden McDaniels? It's not alleged. I mean, his foot hit Luka's foot and Luka fell over and the overturned foul.

alleged trip by Jaden McDaniels? It's not alleged. I mean, his foot hit Luka's foot and Luka fell over and the overturned foul.

Well, and this is the issue, and I don't want to overplay this issue and transfer it onto every foul and non-foul that happens, but I'm glad I talked about this with Goldsberry last Thursday when I talked about the physicality of the playoffs and how I just thought... This is a completely different sport from the regular season to a level that I don't think I can remember. And I used dangerous.

Well, and this is the issue, and I don't want to overplay this issue and transfer it onto every foul and non-foul that happens, but I'm glad I talked about this with Goldsberry last Thursday when I talked about the physicality of the playoffs and how I just thought... This is a completely different sport from the regular season to a level that I don't think I can remember. And I used dangerous.

Like I said, someone is going to get injured or there's going to be a fight. And this is the problem with this is that when plays like this happen and by the letter of the law, it's probably a foul. And you see calls like a little nitpicky call here or there. And you see teams being like, how are you going to call that? Yeah.

Like I said, someone is going to get injured or there's going to be a fight. And this is the problem with this is that when plays like this happen and by the letter of the law, it's probably a foul. And you see calls like a little nitpicky call here or there. And you see teams being like, how are you going to call that? Yeah.

When I just got tackled by four guys and you let it go, and it's a completely legitimate argument. Every time there's a touch foul late in the game, teams are like, I don't understand. Hand-checking is completely legal now. We're getting mugged. And then you call this. It's a legit argument. And I do think the refs have lost control of a lot of these series. And I don't...

When I just got tackled by four guys and you let it go, and it's a completely legitimate argument. Every time there's a touch foul late in the game, teams are like, I don't understand. Hand-checking is completely legal now. We're getting mugged. And then you call this. It's a legit argument. And I do think the refs have lost control of a lot of these series. And I don't...

This isn't Kevin Durant. This isn't a dude who's seven feet tall who can just bank on. Worst case for me is I can just be like Dirk Nowitzki, old Dirk, just raining jump shots. We don't know 100% certainty. All the comments last night were pessimistic. We're going to get to the future and what it means, but just...

This isn't Kevin Durant. This isn't a dude who's seven feet tall who can just bank on. Worst case for me is I can just be like Dirk Nowitzki, old Dirk, just raining jump shots. We don't know 100% certainty. All the comments last night were pessimistic. We're going to get to the future and what it means, but just...

Everybody loves the physicality. I like the physicality. Nobody wants to see 40 free throws. There actually have been a lot of free throws. So it's not like they're calling nothing. They can only call so much. I get the flow of the game stuff, but this is like, this is football out there.

Everybody loves the physicality. I like the physicality. Nobody wants to see 40 free throws. There actually have been a lot of free throws. So it's not like they're calling nothing. They can only call so much. I get the flow of the game stuff, but this is like, this is football out there.

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And maybe in, you know, I mean, I don't want to say the history of the Lakers franchise because they're going to have some big, big decisions to make. And they do have home court. And it's always easier to come back 3-1 down home court. Look, that was a foul. It was a foul. Absolutely, indisputably a foul. he's also already falling down. And if you told me, well, it's a no call.

And maybe in, you know, I mean, I don't want to say the history of the Lakers franchise because they're going to have some big, big decisions to make. And they do have home court. And it's always easier to come back 3-1 down home court. Look, that was a foul. It was a foul. Absolutely, indisputably a foul. he's also already falling down. And if you told me, well, it's a no call.

We just let it go. I would have been like, well, that's kind of consistent with how you've called most of these playoff series. The trip by the letter of law, I guess that's a trip. He did. Jada McDaniels does take like a weird half step forward, but I don't think Jada McDaniels is sitting there thinking as Luca is bringing the ball up with 35 seconds left in a pivotal playoff game.

We just let it go. I would have been like, well, that's kind of consistent with how you've called most of these playoff series. The trip by the letter of law, I guess that's a trip. He did. Jada McDaniels does take like a weird half step forward, but I don't think Jada McDaniels is sitting there thinking as Luca is bringing the ball up with 35 seconds left in a pivotal playoff game.

How can I like accidentally trip Luca and get away with it? And then you still have the inbounds pass that you throw away. And end up almost throwing the game away. Yeah. I do want to talk about Luka because I jokingly brought up Nico Harrison and you left. Here's what I'm tired of.

How can I like accidentally trip Luca and get away with it? And then you still have the inbounds pass that you throw away. And end up almost throwing the game away. Yeah. I do want to talk about Luka because I jokingly brought up Nico Harrison and you left. Here's what I'm tired of.

And it happened in the Phoenix series that they ended up winning the year they made the conference finals in the second round. It happened in the Celtics series, the finals that they ended up losing. And it's happening again now.

And it happened in the Phoenix series that they ended up winning the year they made the conference finals in the second round. It happened in the Celtics series, the finals that they ended up losing. And it's happening again now.

And my gripe is, why do you have to get humiliated at the beginning of every single playoff series before you show the world, like, yeah, I can actually put in a little bit more of an effort on defense. Because if you go back and you watch game one and two of that Phoenix series, He is so bad defensively that it's laughable. And then all of a sudden, he becomes passable.

And my gripe is, why do you have to get humiliated at the beginning of every single playoff series before you show the world, like, yeah, I can actually put in a little bit more of an effort on defense. Because if you go back and you watch game one and two of that Phoenix series, He is so bad defensively that it's laughable. And then all of a sudden, he becomes passable.

Celtics series, same thing. This is why Brian Windhorst screamed on television, which Brian never does, about like, hey, you have shown us you can actually do this when you care. And yet again, here we are. We're four games into this series, and he's just helpless defensively. Off the ball, too. Like his little lunges, like gambling, not even gambling, just sort of like,

Celtics series, same thing. This is why Brian Windhorst screamed on television, which Brian never does, about like, hey, you have shown us you can actually do this when you care. And yet again, here we are. We're four games into this series, and he's just helpless defensively. Off the ball, too. Like his little lunges, like gambling, not even gambling, just sort of like,

lurching around aimlessly out of the play. It's like, look, the trade is, is not, I've said before, like I wouldn't have done a trade. Almost no one in the NBA would have done this specific trade. You can find corners of smart NBA people, team people who would, who would tell you the idea of getting out ahead of this and trading Luca is not a crazy idea.

lurching around aimlessly out of the play. It's like, look, the trade is, is not, I've said before, like I wouldn't have done a trade. Almost no one in the NBA would have done this specific trade. You can find corners of smart NBA people, team people who would, who would tell you the idea of getting out ahead of this and trading Luca is not a crazy idea.

This is a guy both of us kind of our professional careers kind of overlap almost exactly with Damian Lillard's entry from Weber State into the NBA. I remember watching him at Summer League trying to pick apart his game, not pick apart, but like, oh, my gosh, something something's interesting here.

This is a guy both of us kind of our professional careers kind of overlap almost exactly with Damian Lillard's entry from Weber State into the NBA. I remember watching him at Summer League trying to pick apart his game, not pick apart, but like, oh, my gosh, something something's interesting here.

the idea of doing it without shopping him to get nine first round draft picks and swaps and doing this specific trade is where the logic falls apart. So I look, I still think it's a crazy trade, but I'm just tired of like, I'm going to be embarrassed until our backs are against the wall. And then I'm going to show you that. Yeah, I can put up a little bit of a fight.

the idea of doing it without shopping him to get nine first round draft picks and swaps and doing this specific trade is where the logic falls apart. So I look, I still think it's a crazy trade, but I'm just tired of like, I'm going to be embarrassed until our backs are against the wall. And then I'm going to show you that. Yeah, I can put up a little bit of a fight.

How about you put up a fucking fight in like game one of the second round. And now you're down three, one, and you're probably going home.

How about you put up a fucking fight in like game one of the second round. And now you're down three, one, and you're probably going home.

Well, I mean, this is like when the trade happened, we're like, well, he gets to look at LeBron's off-court regimen up close and correct all these problems. He is extension eligible at the end of the season. LeBron has a player option this summer. And sneaky thing to look at

Well, I mean, this is like when the trade happened, we're like, well, he gets to look at LeBron's off-court regimen up close and correct all these problems. He is extension eligible at the end of the season. LeBron has a player option this summer. And sneaky thing to look at

We all know, you know, there ain't too many players with two series winning walk off shots in the history of the NBA. I mean, just reaction, just gut reaction.

We all know, you know, there ain't too many players with two series winning walk off shots in the history of the NBA. I mean, just reaction, just gut reaction.

Austin Reeves is extension eligible, and I don't think there's any way that he takes the extension that the Lakers can offer, which is like four years, 90 million. He's going to go into unrestricted free agency after the 25, 26 season. They obviously still have all the stuff that they traded for Mark Williams before they did the trade.

Austin Reeves is extension eligible, and I don't think there's any way that he takes the extension that the Lakers can offer, which is like four years, 90 million. He's going to go into unrestricted free agency after the 25, 26 season. They obviously still have all the stuff that they traded for Mark Williams before they did the trade.

I think the Lakers backed out of the trade certainly feels that way.

I think the Lakers backed out of the trade certainly feels that way.

They've got swaps. And I do think one interesting stat from this series is that Luka only has 20 assists in four games, which for him is not very many. He has low assists game one. He had one, I think, in game one and two in game four and then a bunch in the middle. And I think you feel the absence of a dive man for him to sort of break down the defense and get into his sweet spots.

They've got swaps. And I do think one interesting stat from this series is that Luka only has 20 assists in four games, which for him is not very many. He has low assists game one. He had one, I think, in game one and two in game four and then a bunch in the middle. And I think you feel the absence of a dive man for him to sort of break down the defense and get into his sweet spots.

Jackson Hayes didn't play the entire second half. And by the way, you know what what complicates everything you're talking about? Scramming, fighting over screens when you have to play the entire second half of a high stakes playoff game against a big, nasty, fast physical team. I don't know what I haven't. I'm not reading what the reaction to it is. I understand it was desperation time.

Jackson Hayes didn't play the entire second half. And by the way, you know what what complicates everything you're talking about? Scramming, fighting over screens when you have to play the entire second half of a high stakes playoff game against a big, nasty, fast physical team. I don't know what I haven't. I'm not reading what the reaction to it is. I understand it was desperation time.

And it's like, there are a lot of coaches. If they did that, they would be getting flambéed today. If Tibbs did that, he would be getting lambasted today. And I understand it's apples to oranges because Tibbs does this in the regular season and JJ Redick does not. I get it.

And it's like, there are a lot of coaches. If they did that, they would be getting flambéed today. If Tibbs did that, he would be getting lambasted today. And I understand it's apples to oranges because Tibbs does this in the regular season and JJ Redick does not. I get it.

But like, that is a really, a really like, I'm watching it and I'm like, wait, I actually looked back in the middle of the game. Like, did I miss a sub or is he actually not subbed anybody? I'm like, oh my God. I mean, I would hope Tibbs took it as a personal attack.

But like, that is a really, a really like, I'm watching it and I'm like, wait, I actually looked back in the middle of the game. Like, did I miss a sub or is he actually not subbed anybody? I'm like, oh my God. I mean, I would hope Tibbs took it as a personal attack.

Like lots of other coaches do this. You like, they do it with Curry. Like you get the, you get a minute, you get the TV timeout, you get back in the game. Um, also Jordan Goodwin can play. I think Jordan Goodwin can play a little bit more than he's playing. Yeah. Uh, Dan Wojcicki wrote a great piece about the Banshee culture.

Like lots of other coaches do this. You like, they do it with Curry. Like you get the, you get a minute, you get the TV timeout, you get back in the game. Um, also Jordan Goodwin can play. I think Jordan Goodwin can play a little bit more than he's playing. Yeah. Uh, Dan Wojcicki wrote a great piece about the Banshee culture.

That's a term they use to describe just the flying around defensive players that they've cultivated. And Goodwin is kind of the poster guy in the story. It's like, well, it's nice that they were Banshee, bought into Banshee culture. Now they can't get on the floor. Season actually matters. It's tough scenes. I will say,

That's a term they use to describe just the flying around defensive players that they've cultivated. And Goodwin is kind of the poster guy in the story. It's like, well, it's nice that they were Banshee, bought into Banshee culture. Now they can't get on the floor. Season actually matters. It's tough scenes. I will say,

Oklahoma City is watching all of this and being like, you guys go to town, like beat the shit out of each other. We're over here. Yeah, Memphis figured us out, but the series is over. So we're just we're just chilling. Like we're fresh as a daisy. We're young. We're deep. And it's like it's it's the Warriors Rockets game for us tonight.

Oklahoma City is watching all of this and being like, you guys go to town, like beat the shit out of each other. We're over here. Yeah, Memphis figured us out, but the series is over. So we're just we're just chilling. Like we're fresh as a daisy. We're young. We're deep. And it's like it's it's the Warriors Rockets game for us tonight.

But right now we only have one to two series in the entire round and we're about to talk about it. Like, I think the Warriors are going to have some urgency to win this game and try to get out of this series because they're watching these teams just slug each other. And every series is so physical. The Thunder are like, yeah, we're done. We're cool.

But right now we only have one to two series in the entire round and we're about to talk about it. Like, I think the Warriors are going to have some urgency to win this game and try to get out of this series because they're watching these teams just slug each other. And every series is so physical. The Thunder are like, yeah, we're done. We're cool.

We'll take like eight days off until the next round if you'll get. And they might get like, depending on this Denver Clippers series. I want to give Chris Finch's flowers. You mentioned the Reed-Gobert conundrum. I feel like he's played that exactly right. He's had a great feel for, okay, and I've said this before, the Rudy issue is not on defense.

We'll take like eight days off until the next round if you'll get. And they might get like, depending on this Denver Clippers series. I want to give Chris Finch's flowers. You mentioned the Reed-Gobert conundrum. I feel like he's played that exactly right. He's had a great feel for, okay, and I've said this before, the Rudy issue is not on defense.

It's on offense, particularly the way the Lakers are guarding them.

It's on offense, particularly the way the Lakers are guarding them.

Didn't go great. I feel like he's had a great feel for that. And the same with DiVincenzo and Conley. And the Wolves' second most played lineup is that lineup with DiVincenzo for Conley and Reed for Gobert. Plus 27 in 22 minutes. for the series.

Didn't go great. I feel like he's had a great feel for that. And the same with DiVincenzo and Conley. And the Wolves' second most played lineup is that lineup with DiVincenzo for Conley and Reed for Gobert. Plus 27 in 22 minutes. for the series.

He even played all three bigs together yesterday and played now somewhat due to foul trouble, played Jada McDaniels at the four and Terrence Shannon at the four played a little smaller. Like he's playing every card and he's doing it in the right doses.

He even played all three bigs together yesterday and played now somewhat due to foul trouble, played Jada McDaniels at the four and Terrence Shannon at the four played a little smaller. Like he's playing every card and he's doing it in the right doses.

Any, any, any adjustment you're looking for from the Lakers as they try to save their season other than what we've kind of talked about defensively and and all that.

Any, any, any adjustment you're looking for from the Lakers as they try to save their season other than what we've kind of talked about defensively and and all that.

A couple of things before we put this series to bed. Minnesota, 35% offensive rebounding rate. They're doing their job as the bigger team.

A couple of things before we put this series to bed. Minnesota, 35% offensive rebounding rate. They're doing their job as the bigger team.

Well, the possession they had when they went up, I think they were up two after LeBron had his second highlight defensive play the last two minutes. And they, up to with like a minute 10 left, big possession. They just did nothing. They just ran. They just all kind of stood there. Luka, I think, ran some rote half speed pick and roll. LeBron ended up taking like a logo three.

Well, the possession they had when they went up, I think they were up two after LeBron had his second highlight defensive play the last two minutes. And they, up to with like a minute 10 left, big possession. They just did nothing. They just ran. They just all kind of stood there. Luka, I think, ran some rote half speed pick and roll. LeBron ended up taking like a logo three.

That's an exhausted team kind of frittering away a massive possession. on the hope that a 30-foot three will just go in and win them the game. The other stat I want to mention, Minnesota plus eight in free throw attempts. I don't think a lot of people expected that. Game five could look a little different in Los Angeles, but if those stats are like that, this series is bye-bye.

That's an exhausted team kind of frittering away a massive possession. on the hope that a 30-foot three will just go in and win them the game. The other stat I want to mention, Minnesota plus eight in free throw attempts. I don't think a lot of people expected that. Game five could look a little different in Los Angeles, but if those stats are like that, this series is bye-bye.

It's going to show that you did sponge it. Here's the real dirty truth. Every time I have not washed the dish appropriately. I am a serial ignorer of the outside of dishes.

It's going to show that you did sponge it. Here's the real dirty truth. Every time I have not washed the dish appropriately. I am a serial ignorer of the outside of dishes.

I'm in a rush. I want to get things done, and I'm sloppy. But maybe a challenge flag. The uptick to two challenges has sort of changed the math. When there was one challenge, you just save it for the end of games. Miami never uses challenges, ever, which is kind of weird. But now that there are two...

I'm in a rush. I want to get things done, and I'm sloppy. But maybe a challenge flag. The uptick to two challenges has sort of changed the math. When there was one challenge, you just save it for the end of games. Miami never uses challenges, ever, which is kind of weird. But now that there are two...

You will get smart people who are in charge of figuring this out for teams who will say, on the first one, if you're 100% sure you're going to win it, you can use it on something that feels innocuous, like a change of possession or something, because that could be a three, it could be whatever. Decision tree number one is like, are you going to win it for the first one?

You will get smart people who are in charge of figuring this out for teams who will say, on the first one, if you're 100% sure you're going to win it, you can use it on something that feels innocuous, like a change of possession or something, because that could be a three, it could be whatever. Decision tree number one is like, are you going to win it for the first one?

an out of bounds call where it like clearly hits somebody's hand and, and it's been called the wrong way. I would hope. Yeah. I just, I just don't describe that level of certainty and I'm certainly not going to bank a playoff game. Oh, you know what? I'm a hundred percent certain on, I need, I need the, I need Mets fans feedback on this.

an out of bounds call where it like clearly hits somebody's hand and, and it's been called the wrong way. I would hope. Yeah. I just, I just don't describe that level of certainty and I'm certainly not going to bank a playoff game. Oh, you know what? I'm a hundred percent certain on, I need, I need the, I need Mets fans feedback on this.

I vowed when I got laid off and I embraced the Mets again, after a long time off during their playoff run, I vowed to be a regular fan. Like it's not a regular, I vowed to keep in touch. I can't do it. Like, I vowed to check a box score, and I do it every day. Maybe they'll be on in the background somewhere on a TV where I can glance at it. Okay, so-and-so's up. I'm doing it.

I vowed when I got laid off and I embraced the Mets again, after a long time off during their playoff run, I vowed to be a regular fan. Like it's not a regular, I vowed to keep in touch. I can't do it. Like, I vowed to check a box score, and I do it every day. Maybe they'll be on in the background somewhere on a TV where I can glance at it. Okay, so-and-so's up. I'm doing it.

I'm living up to my vow. Now I'm buying a jersey. And this is what I'm 100% sure of. I'm buying a jersey. And as a lapsed, diehard Mets fan, I own two jerseys, Todd Hundley and Mike Piazza. That's how lapsed I am. I need the Mets community to tell me what is the most ethical –

I'm living up to my vow. Now I'm buying a jersey. And this is what I'm 100% sure of. I'm buying a jersey. And as a lapsed, diehard Mets fan, I own two jerseys, Todd Hundley and Mike Piazza. That's how lapsed I am. I need the Mets community to tell me what is the most ethical –

and most metsy jersey to get anyway um you mentioned lucas smoking the layup a fun theme of this weekend's crazy games are the forgotten plays that end up being huge so there's that there's schruder yeah not accelerating for a layup at the end of the third quarter and instead passing to tim hardaway jr i think for a dunk that didn't count in a game the pistons lost by one um Was it one?

and most metsy jersey to get anyway um you mentioned lucas smoking the layup a fun theme of this weekend's crazy games are the forgotten plays that end up being huge so there's that there's schruder yeah not accelerating for a layup at the end of the third quarter and instead passing to tim hardaway jr i think for a dunk that didn't count in a game the pistons lost by one um Was it one?

Did they lose by one? I think they lost by two. Two? Whatever they did. It was close. My brain is mush. And then... Oh, no, it was one. You're right. 94-93. And then there is the end of the first quarter of Nuggets Clippers, which turns into the game of the year, maybe, at least given the stakes.

Did they lose by one? I think they lost by two. Two? Whatever they did. It was close. My brain is mush. And then... Oh, no, it was one. You're right. 94-93. And then there is the end of the first quarter of Nuggets Clippers, which turns into the game of the year, maybe, at least given the stakes.

Where with 1.9 seconds left, I think, James Harden throws a football pass on a sideline out of bounds that goes the entire length of the court and goes out of bounds on the opposite baseline. Nobody touches it. And the Nuggets get the ball back in their offensive end. And Jokic hits a three at the buzzer. And you forget about stuff like that in the craziness of the game.

Where with 1.9 seconds left, I think, James Harden throws a football pass on a sideline out of bounds that goes the entire length of the court and goes out of bounds on the opposite baseline. Nobody touches it. And the Nuggets get the ball back in their offensive end. And Jokic hits a three at the buzzer. And you forget about stuff like that in the craziness of the game.

And holy crap, was this game crazy? Yeah. It's just these things come back to bite you sometimes. Let's talk about that game because we have a bonus. That series, rather, it's 2-2. It's the only 2-2 series, and we have an extra day off. The series does not resume until tomorrow. I asked, I gave you one homework assignment, which was rewatch the Aaron Gordon miracle.

And holy crap, was this game crazy? Yeah. It's just these things come back to bite you sometimes. Let's talk about that game because we have a bonus. That series, rather, it's 2-2. It's the only 2-2 series, and we have an extra day off. The series does not resume until tomorrow. I asked, I gave you one homework assignment, which was rewatch the Aaron Gordon miracle.

And I've watched it 20 times and tell me something you didn't notice the first times that you watched it. Did you find anything?

And I've watched it 20 times and tell me something you didn't notice the first times that you watched it. Did you find anything?

So I'm not going to lie. I watched the entire Warriors-Rockets game after that game. And as I was watching that game, every 10 minutes I would be like, I'm going to have to rewatch this game because all I can think about is Aaron Gordon's dunk. I don't really understand what happened still. I don't understand the science behind how that was indisputably a good basket.

So I'm not going to lie. I watched the entire Warriors-Rockets game after that game. And as I was watching that game, every 10 minutes I would be like, I'm going to have to rewatch this game because all I can think about is Aaron Gordon's dunk. I don't really understand what happened still. I don't understand the science behind how that was indisputably a good basket.

I believe that it was because they've gone within milliseconds to show the light going off. I just can't believe that it happened. I don't even understand how it happened. And I noticed the Kawhi double-team too because I'm watching and... You see Aaron Gordon come for the offensive rebound and you see the defense kind of shading toward Jokic.

I believe that it was because they've gone within milliseconds to show the light going off. I just can't believe that it happened. I don't even understand how it happened. And I noticed the Kawhi double-team too because I'm watching and... You see Aaron Gordon come for the offensive rebound and you see the defense kind of shading toward Jokic.

And I asked myself, why are they overloading the floor at all? Why is all the attention just not on like, stay on our guy? There's nothing you, James Harden, can do by taking an extra half step toward Nikola Jokic on this shot. It's going to go in or it's not going to go in. And then you watch it again. It's like, actually, they're tilting a lot.

And I asked myself, why are they overloading the floor at all? Why is all the attention just not on like, stay on our guy? There's nothing you, James Harden, can do by taking an extra half step toward Nikola Jokic on this shot. It's going to go in or it's not going to go in. And then you watch it again. It's like, actually, they're tilting a lot.

They're tilting a little bit because Kawhi is double teaming. And that leaves three on two on the backside. And Harden doesn't know who to box out. And here comes Aaron Gordon. And absolutely incredible. I'll tell you what I noticed. Jokic has zero reaction, like which we've seen before. He just puts his head down.

They're tilting a little bit because Kawhi is double teaming. And that leaves three on two on the backside. And Harden doesn't know who to box out. And here comes Aaron Gordon. And absolutely incredible. I'll tell you what I noticed. Jokic has zero reaction, like which we've seen before. He just puts his head down.

Like it's almost if you just zoomed on in his reaction, you would think they lost the game. He just puts his head down and just starts walking. And Jeff, I have an eye on Jeff Van Gundy all the time because I miss Jeff. I love Jeff. I'm so happy that he's back in the muck of this. And I'm sure he's enjoying himself.

Like it's almost if you just zoomed on in his reaction, you would think they lost the game. He just puts his head down and just starts walking. And Jeff, I have an eye on Jeff Van Gundy all the time because I miss Jeff. I love Jeff. I'm so happy that he's back in the muck of this. And I'm sure he's enjoying himself.

Like really in it. And so I watched him, and he just sort of, he's sitting down. He's not standing up. He's like the only guy not standing up. He's sitting down, and then he just sort of keeps sitting down. Just an absolutely incredible moment from an incredible finish, which includes an absolutely ridiculous shot that Jokic hits to put them up to, followed by a Zubat's putback to tie the game.

Like really in it. And so I watched him, and he just sort of, he's sitting down. He's not standing up. He's like the only guy not standing up. He's sitting down, and then he just sort of keeps sitting down. Just an absolutely incredible moment from an incredible finish, which includes an absolutely ridiculous shot that Jokic hits to put them up to, followed by a Zubat's putback to tie the game.

This series is now 2-2. It was the series I was most excited about. I picked Nuggets in 7th. I feel like it could have been a sweep by now. Like the Clippers have been the better team. They're plus 33 for the series. Where are you as we go into game five in Denver? I don't know if you made a pick. I don't remember. What's your feel of this?

This series is now 2-2. It was the series I was most excited about. I picked Nuggets in 7th. I feel like it could have been a sweep by now. Like the Clippers have been the better team. They're plus 33 for the series. Where are you as we go into game five in Denver? I don't know if you made a pick. I don't remember. What's your feel of this?

I am having not watched Bogdan Bogdanovich entire career, every single game, having not watched every international game, having not watched his games in Europe.

I am having not watched Bogdan Bogdanovich entire career, every single game, having not watched every international game, having not watched his games in Europe.

It's one of the reasons what you said about regular season basketball enthusiasts. I might change my social media bio to that. It's one of the reasons that one of my favorite random NBA teams of all time is the 2018-19 Blazers, who come off an absolute humiliation sweep at the hands of Anthony Davis and Drew Holiday the year before, where Drew Holiday just single-handedly turns into like...

It's one of the reasons what you said about regular season basketball enthusiasts. I might change my social media bio to that. It's one of the reasons that one of my favorite random NBA teams of all time is the 2018-19 Blazers, who come off an absolute humiliation sweep at the hands of Anthony Davis and Drew Holiday the year before, where Drew Holiday just single-handedly turns into like...

Yeah, this series is stretching Jokic to the absolute outer bounds of his versatility. I mean, there are possessions where he runs. He starts by running an inverted pick and roll as the ball handler and finishes by shooting a three in isolation. I mean, that's literally what happened on one possession, I think, in late in the third quarter. They're running him off pin downs.

Yeah, this series is stretching Jokic to the absolute outer bounds of his versatility. I mean, there are possessions where he runs. He starts by running an inverted pick and roll as the ball handler and finishes by shooting a three in isolation. I mean, that's literally what happened on one possession, I think, in late in the third quarter. They're running him off pin downs.

They need to run some cross screens for him. Like they're using the absolute versatility.

They need to run some cross screens for him. Like they're using the absolute versatility.

limits of his versatility just to survive in this series you mentioned mpj he gets crapped on all the time because of his contract because his handle hasn't developed because his defense is is a little bit spacey at times it was in this game or particularly early off of chris dunn his defense is a big pivot point in the series because he's guarding chris dunn and as you suggested he's

limits of his versatility just to survive in this series you mentioned mpj he gets crapped on all the time because of his contract because his handle hasn't developed because his defense is is a little bit spacey at times it was in this game or particularly early off of chris dunn his defense is a big pivot point in the series because he's guarding chris dunn and as you suggested he's

Clearly in game four, adjustment number one is whatever help you're giving off Chris Dunn in games one to three, dial it up by 50% in game four. Ignore him completely. And you got to be on time. You got to be on time no matter where Chris Dunn is. If he's on the strong side, it doesn't matter. Rules don't apply. Your job is to help. And he screwed that up a few times.

Clearly in game four, adjustment number one is whatever help you're giving off Chris Dunn in games one to three, dial it up by 50% in game four. Ignore him completely. And you got to be on time. You got to be on time no matter where Chris Dunn is. If he's on the strong side, it doesn't matter. Rules don't apply. Your job is to help. And he screwed that up a few times.

He played 42 minutes with a bad shoulder. Six of 11, four of seven on threes, 17 points. The Nuggets needed every one of those points. Crap on Michael Porter Jr. when he deserves it. Recognize that that's a ballsy performance. Christian Brown, I thought, was the unsung hero of the game. Eight of 19, not great. One of seven, not great. The one was huge.

He played 42 minutes with a bad shoulder. Six of 11, four of seven on threes, 17 points. The Nuggets needed every one of those points. Crap on Michael Porter Jr. when he deserves it. Recognize that that's a ballsy performance. Christian Brown, I thought, was the unsung hero of the game. Eight of 19, not great. One of seven, not great. The one was huge.

I thought his defense was some of the best he's played. And you can see the Nuggets trying to figure out When can we sit Jokic back a little bit on these pick and rolls? Because when he's up to touch, it's a problem for us. It's a good battle when the Clippers have to pass it around and figure out how to find the open guy. But they're trying to like, can we sit him back a little bit?

I thought his defense was some of the best he's played. And you can see the Nuggets trying to figure out When can we sit Jokic back a little bit on these pick and rolls? Because when he's up to touch, it's a problem for us. It's a good battle when the Clippers have to pass it around and figure out how to find the open guy. But they're trying to like, can we sit him back a little bit?

You can only do that if Christian Brown is like roaring down Harden's tail on those pick and rolls. But you mentioned Dunn. And that was the adjustment that enabled the comeback was the Clippers went to Bogdanovich over Dunn and did something that I was waiting for them.

You can only do that if Christian Brown is like roaring down Harden's tail on those pick and rolls. But you mentioned Dunn. And that was the adjustment that enabled the comeback was the Clippers went to Bogdanovich over Dunn and did something that I was waiting for them.

When will they feel pressed to do this, which is play, go all in on a lineup with only one non-shooter in Zoo instead of two with Zoo plus Dunn or Zoo plus Derrick Jones Jr. or God forbid, Ben Simmons plus one of those other guys. And they went all in on it. And the Nuggets had zero answer defensively like normal. Norm Powell went crazy. Every shot was wide open.

When will they feel pressed to do this, which is play, go all in on a lineup with only one non-shooter in Zoo instead of two with Zoo plus Dunn or Zoo plus Derrick Jones Jr. or God forbid, Ben Simmons plus one of those other guys. And they went all in on it. And the Nuggets had zero answer defensively like normal. Norm Powell went crazy. Every shot was wide open.

All of a sudden, the spacing just bent the Nuggets defense and just broke it. And I'm interested to see how quickly they go back to that. They should and will, I think, start Chris Dunn still. But you mentioned Batum, and Batum is the guy that I like in those lineups the best because of his combination of size, defense, and shooting. I've got my eye on that lineup with...

All of a sudden, the spacing just bent the Nuggets defense and just broke it. And I'm interested to see how quickly they go back to that. They should and will, I think, start Chris Dunn still. But you mentioned Batum, and Batum is the guy that I like in those lineups the best because of his combination of size, defense, and shooting. I've got my eye on that lineup with...

Batum in Dunn's place in the starting five. I thought that was an issue. And they went zone. Yeah. In a way that really seemed to confuse the Nuggets.

Batum in Dunn's place in the starting five. I thought that was an issue. And they went zone. Yeah. In a way that really seemed to confuse the Nuggets.

All right, coming up on a loaded edition of the Zach Lowe Show, Rob Mahoney for the first time. I'm such a longtime fan. We're hitting everything. The Lakers on the brink, the Aaron Gordon buzzer beater, the Tim Hardaway Jr. non-call Celtics magic physicality. Looking ahead to the next round. All coming up on an NBA playoffs edition of the Zach Lowe Show.

All right, coming up on a loaded edition of the Zach Lowe Show, Rob Mahoney for the first time. I'm such a longtime fan. We're hitting everything. The Lakers on the brink, the Aaron Gordon buzzer beater, the Tim Hardaway Jr. non-call Celtics magic physicality. Looking ahead to the next round. All coming up on an NBA playoffs edition of the Zach Lowe Show.

Oh, they went pre, they went prevent offense big time to the point that Yoko tried to walk the dog a couple of times. And the Clippers were like, you're not doing that. And one of those possessions, he had to throw that like a, like a sudden, like pick the ball up and lob it to Aaron Gordon, Aaron Gordon, just like sprinting. printed up the court with the ball and turned it over immediately.

Oh, they went pre, they went prevent offense big time to the point that Yoko tried to walk the dog a couple of times. And the Clippers were like, you're not doing that. And one of those possessions, he had to throw that like a, like a sudden, like pick the ball up and lob it to Aaron Gordon, Aaron Gordon, just like sprinting. printed up the court with the ball and turned it over immediately.

Michael Jordan plus Scottie Pippen for the entire series. It destroys the Blazers. Embarrass those guys, really. In a series that you could look at and say, well, okay, you're never the same after that. You got to make some trades. You got to fire some people. And the Blazers didn't. they held the fort, they rebound next year, and they make the Western Conference Finals.

Michael Jordan plus Scottie Pippen for the entire series. It destroys the Blazers. Embarrass those guys, really. In a series that you could look at and say, well, okay, you're never the same after that. You got to make some trades. You got to fire some people. And the Blazers didn't. they held the fort, they rebound next year, and they make the Western Conference Finals.

It's like, oh my God, they're kind of disintegrating here. They really were.

It's like, oh my God, they're kind of disintegrating here. They really were.

I do. The zone, I thought, confused them and at times confused me because I think if you rewatch the possessions, there are some in there that are actually man-to-man, except the matchups are just different. They just straight up put Kawhi on Jokic a couple of times. And if you look at the way the matchups are flowing, it's kind of man-to-man. I think they just got them... off balance.

I do. The zone, I thought, confused them and at times confused me because I think if you rewatch the possessions, there are some in there that are actually man-to-man, except the matchups are just different. They just straight up put Kawhi on Jokic a couple of times. And if you look at the way the matchups are flowing, it's kind of man-to-man. I think they just got them... off balance.

And one of the things his own does is it fucks up all the matchups. So if you get a stop, everything's scrambled going the other way. And Kawhi is killing the nuggets on cross matches because he's guarding Michael Porter Jr. The nuggets want no part of Michael Porter Jr. On him. Michael Porter Jr. Wants no part of just like, okay, I got to take Kawhi. Um, I'll just do it.

And one of the things his own does is it fucks up all the matchups. So if you get a stop, everything's scrambled going the other way. And Kawhi is killing the nuggets on cross matches because he's guarding Michael Porter Jr. The nuggets want no part of Michael Porter Jr. On him. Michael Porter Jr. Wants no part of just like, okay, I got to take Kawhi. Um, I'll just do it.

He's running away from that matchup and Kawhi is feasting in the void of that. Um, Aaron Gordon, it's an awesome moment for him. Just a player that I think every basketball diehard can appreciate everything he does. Awesome moment for him. And I like the Nuggets.

He's running away from that matchup and Kawhi is feasting in the void of that. Um, Aaron Gordon, it's an awesome moment for him. Just a player that I think every basketball diehard can appreciate everything he does. Awesome moment for him. And I like the Nuggets.

They've sprinkled in some Murray-Gordon two-man game to try and get him going as a roller and use Jokic as a little bit of a spacer, secondary playmaker. They've even done Murray-Gordon-Jokic staggered screens, which I like. And... I still don't think they're running enough Murray Jokic pick and roll. They only ran 19, according to Second Spectrum, in game four.

They've sprinkled in some Murray-Gordon two-man game to try and get him going as a roller and use Jokic as a little bit of a spacer, secondary playmaker. They've even done Murray-Gordon-Jokic staggered screens, which I like. And... I still don't think they're running enough Murray Jokic pick and roll. They only ran 19, according to Second Spectrum, in game four.

For the series, they're running about 20 a game, 1.4 points per possession, no matter how you slice it. That's very, very good. I feel, I don't know. It's like, we're going to talk about the Knicks in a second. I have no idea why there's not more Brunson cat pick and roll.

For the series, they're running about 20 a game, 1.4 points per possession, no matter how you slice it. That's very, very good. I feel, I don't know. It's like, we're going to talk about the Knicks in a second. I have no idea why there's not more Brunson cat pick and roll.

in theory, this looks like Nuggets in seven. It's two, two, both teams have won on the road. The Nuggets have home court advantage. Don't feel good if I'm a Nuggets fan, but, but like, I also, the series has been strange enough where it, every time you feel like, okay, the Clippers have it figured out. They're clearly the better team. They blow out Denver in game three.

in theory, this looks like Nuggets in seven. It's two, two, both teams have won on the road. The Nuggets have home court advantage. Don't feel good if I'm a Nuggets fan, but, but like, I also, the series has been strange enough where it, every time you feel like, okay, the Clippers have it figured out. They're clearly the better team. They blow out Denver in game three.

This is the bye-bye year against Oklahoma City when Dame makes one of the all-time great shots, and then they beat Denver in a seven-game slugfest in the next round. And people kind of poo-poo that Conference Finals run because they got smoked by the Warriors in the Conference Finals, totally overmatched. The bracket broke right for them.

This is the bye-bye year against Oklahoma City when Dame makes one of the all-time great shots, and then they beat Denver in a seven-game slugfest in the next round. And people kind of poo-poo that Conference Finals run because they got smoked by the Warriors in the Conference Finals, totally overmatched. The bracket broke right for them.

It sort of comes back to this muddy middle. And so I, I guess we're just going to kind of live there. Any, are any parting thoughts before we go to Pistons Knicks?

It sort of comes back to this muddy middle. And so I, I guess we're just going to kind of live there. Any, are any parting thoughts before we go to Pistons Knicks?

Pistons-Knicks, 3-1 Knicks. Was it a foul? Yeah. It was a foul. Probably should have had your challenge. Probably should have consulted the flowchart. Well, you can't challenge that, can you? Why not? Could you challenge a non-call? I believe we saw another challenge of a non-call this weekend. Yeah, you're right. It was a foul.

Pistons-Knicks, 3-1 Knicks. Was it a foul? Yeah. It was a foul. Probably should have had your challenge. Probably should have consulted the flowchart. Well, you can't challenge that, can you? Why not? Could you challenge a non-call? I believe we saw another challenge of a non-call this weekend. Yeah, you're right. It was a foul.

Josh Hart said it was a foul. It's the arms that get me in the end. The arms come down a little bit. And I will credit Tim Hardaway Jr. for this. He doesn't jump sideways super aggressively to sell it. And I think in the end pays the price for playing borderline ethical basketball and not doing what a lot of players would do, which is completely take a sideways jump shot. It was a foul.

Josh Hart said it was a foul. It's the arms that get me in the end. The arms come down a little bit. And I will credit Tim Hardaway Jr. for this. He doesn't jump sideways super aggressively to sell it. And I think in the end pays the price for playing borderline ethical basketball and not doing what a lot of players would do, which is completely take a sideways jump shot. It was a foul.

And the Knicks win anyway. I don't know what else to say about it. It sucks to have a game decided on a play like that. Ultimately, there's a lot of things that go into deciding the game. The Knicks are only plus eight for the series. They're scoring 110 points per 100 possessions. They're going to win the series. They should win the series, obviously.

And the Knicks win anyway. I don't know what else to say about it. It sucks to have a game decided on a play like that. Ultimately, there's a lot of things that go into deciding the game. The Knicks are only plus eight for the series. They're scoring 110 points per 100 possessions. They're going to win the series. They should win the series, obviously.

Brunson has the injury scare and then comes back and scores 15 points in the fourth quarter on seven of 11 shooting. Incredible, incredible performance, incredible shot making. And cat with just two all time bailout jumpers, one falling out of bounds on a totally dead possession where the again, the Knicks don't run their best stuff. And the other one,

Brunson has the injury scare and then comes back and scores 15 points in the fourth quarter on seven of 11 shooting. Incredible, incredible performance, incredible shot making. And cat with just two all time bailout jumpers, one falling out of bounds on a totally dead possession where the again, the Knicks don't run their best stuff. And the other one,

If you freeze the moment where Kat makes that step back three that ultimately wins the game, you will struggle to find worst space, worse spacing from a competent NBA offense. Literally all five Knicks players are within the same 20 foot quadrant of the floor on the right side. And Kat steps back and it's a three incredible shot. Where do you want to go?

If you freeze the moment where Kat makes that step back three that ultimately wins the game, you will struggle to find worst space, worse spacing from a competent NBA offense. Literally all five Knicks players are within the same 20 foot quadrant of the floor on the right side. And Kat steps back and it's a three incredible shot. Where do you want to go?

I mean, I'm already looking ahead to the next series, which will be Knicks Celtics, probably. I feel a little worse about the Knicks coming out of this series than I did coming into it. I picked the Knicks in five. This is on course for Knicks in five, but it's not the Knicks in five that I envisioned.

I mean, I'm already looking ahead to the next series, which will be Knicks Celtics, probably. I feel a little worse about the Knicks coming out of this series than I did coming into it. I picked the Knicks in five. This is on course for Knicks in five, but it's not the Knicks in five that I envisioned.

They got some health luck, although they suffered their own health injuries, the health issues. Nurkic was hurt for, I think in that entire playoff run for them and Cantor, that was like the Ennis Cantor playoffs. You know what? I've said this many times before. Ask the LA Clippers about how easy it is to make a conference finals.

They got some health luck, although they suffered their own health injuries, the health issues. Nurkic was hurt for, I think in that entire playoff run for them and Cantor, that was like the Ennis Cantor playoffs. You know what? I've said this many times before. Ask the LA Clippers about how easy it is to make a conference finals.

Well, Hart has been awesome the last two games. And there was a segment of Knicks fans clamoring for less Josh Hart and more Deuce McBride. By the way, Deuce McBride can't make a shot. And I said on Thursday, like, that's just not going to happen. Josh Hart is too important to the fabric of the team. Tibbs is the last coach who's going to do something like that.

Well, Hart has been awesome the last two games. And there was a segment of Knicks fans clamoring for less Josh Hart and more Deuce McBride. By the way, Deuce McBride can't make a shot. And I said on Thursday, like, that's just not going to happen. Josh Hart is too important to the fabric of the team. Tibbs is the last coach who's going to do something like that.

And Josh Hart, 14 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals in Game 4, made his threes, which are going to be pivot points in this series. And in Game 3, I thought Josh Hart pushing the pace...

And Josh Hart, 14 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals in Game 4, made his threes, which are going to be pivot points in this series. And in Game 3, I thought Josh Hart pushing the pace...

unlocked cat because the pistons could not get out of the durin cat matchup which they're trying to avoid and durin was stuck on cat cat walked into some trail threes not only that using josh hart as a facilitator from above the elbow and getting your cutting game going i think opened up their offense a little bit so i you know i get what you're saying i just sometimes i wonder like

unlocked cat because the pistons could not get out of the durin cat matchup which they're trying to avoid and durin was stuck on cat cat walked into some trail threes not only that using josh hart as a facilitator from above the elbow and getting your cutting game going i think opened up their offense a little bit so i you know i get what you're saying i just sometimes i wonder like

You know, Bill has spent the whole year raving justifiably about the Brunson cat pick and roll and how unstoppable it is with shooting around it and Bridges heart. I mean, heart shooting, take or leave an Ananobi who's been outstanding the whole year. They've run 47 pick and rolls in four games. That's just not nearly enough.

You know, Bill has spent the whole year raving justifiably about the Brunson cat pick and roll and how unstoppable it is with shooting around it and Bridges heart. I mean, heart shooting, take or leave an Ananobi who's been outstanding the whole year. They've run 47 pick and rolls in four games. That's just not nearly enough.

And in both Game 3 and Game 4, yesterday because of Tobias Harris' foul trouble, they were gifted extended periods of time where the Pistons decided we have no choice but to guard Cat with Jalen Duren or Paul Reed. We're putting our centers on him because we just can't, we don't have anything else to do.

And in both Game 3 and Game 4, yesterday because of Tobias Harris' foul trouble, they were gifted extended periods of time where the Pistons decided we have no choice but to guard Cat with Jalen Duren or Paul Reed. We're putting our centers on him because we just can't, we don't have anything else to do.

And you're just like, you are been gift wrapped, gift wrapped a chance to run a Brunson cat pick and pop and just see how they respond. And they either don't do it or they run it so halfheartedly that it doesn't go anywhere. And there's fatigue in that too.

And you're just like, you are been gift wrapped, gift wrapped a chance to run a Brunson cat pick and pop and just see how they respond. And they either don't do it or they run it so halfheartedly that it doesn't go anywhere. And there's fatigue in that too.

And even when they have to, I keep harping on this, even when they have Tobias Harris on cat, you're not outlawed by the NBA from running that same two man gap.

And even when they have to, I keep harping on this, even when they have Tobias Harris on cat, you're not outlawed by the NBA from running that same two man gap.

Ask a bunch of these... Ask the Charlotte Hornets haven't won a playoff series in like a thousand years. Never poo-poo. Yeah, brackets break, right? You get some luck. That's fine. A lot of teams are never able to put themselves in any kind of position to take advantage of that kind of luck. I love that team. I've always loved Dame.

Ask a bunch of these... Ask the Charlotte Hornets haven't won a playoff series in like a thousand years. Never poo-poo. Yeah, brackets break, right? You get some luck. That's fine. A lot of teams are never able to put themselves in any kind of position to take advantage of that kind of luck. I love that team. I've always loved Dame.

game because guess what if Tobias Harris switches Jalen Brunson is going to get a good shot and what he's usually doing is just hugging cat and saying we're not leaving cat and Jalen Brunson is getting good driving lanes and if it also if he switches you might get a cap like you're allowed to do this and this is I think I'm assuming I haven't listened to Bill and Ryan yet why Bill tweeted this is a brutal Tibbs game because you are you are

game because guess what if Tobias Harris switches Jalen Brunson is going to get a good shot and what he's usually doing is just hugging cat and saying we're not leaving cat and Jalen Brunson is getting good driving lanes and if it also if he switches you might get a cap like you're allowed to do this and this is I think I'm assuming I haven't listened to Bill and Ryan yet why Bill tweeted this is a brutal Tibbs game because you are you are

You are gifted this chance of we don't have to problem solve around Jalen Duren on Josh Hart. We are given the matchup that we got Cat for, center on Cat, and we don't leverage it. It's driving me insane. Is it driving you insane?

You are gifted this chance of we don't have to problem solve around Jalen Duren on Josh Hart. We are given the matchup that we got Cat for, center on Cat, and we don't leverage it. It's driving me insane. Is it driving you insane?

42 in the series. It doesn't feel that bad to me. Although there, there, there was one catch and shoot three cat had in look like three minutes ago where he was kind of spaced out at no man's land. I was surprised. It's that dramatic minus 42.

42 in the series. It doesn't feel that bad to me. Although there, there, there was one catch and shoot three cat had in look like three minutes ago where he was kind of spaced out at no man's land. I was surprised. It's that dramatic minus 42.

21 years old. 21 and a half years old. Incredible.

21 years old. 21 and a half years old. Incredible.

If you look back at my MVP ballots over the years, I always have him like a spot or two above consensus. And it just... it's he's been pretty open about how rough the transition to Milwaukee was for him personally. Yeah. I think he bought in the chemistry with Giannis just kind of never got to the point where we all thought it would be so easy for them on the pick and roll.

If you look back at my MVP ballots over the years, I always have him like a spot or two above consensus. And it just... it's he's been pretty open about how rough the transition to Milwaukee was for him personally. Yeah. I think he bought in the chemistry with Giannis just kind of never got to the point where we all thought it would be so easy for them on the pick and roll.

I used to call Mike Budenholzer Coach Low Hanging Fruit, and people took it as an insult. And I was like, no, it's a compliment. He's taking all the easy, like, we're not going to foul. We're going to get every defensive rebound. Like, we're going to take care of all the stuff that's easy for us to take care of. It was a completely, it was like meant as a compliment. Pick the fruit. Fruit's there.

I used to call Mike Budenholzer Coach Low Hanging Fruit, and people took it as an insult. And I was like, no, it's a compliment. He's taking all the easy, like, we're not going to foul. We're going to get every defensive rebound. Like, we're going to take care of all the stuff that's easy for us to take care of. It was a completely, it was like meant as a compliment. Pick the fruit. Fruit's there.

It's delicious.

It's delicious.

I don't know if that's the conversation I want to have about a guy who's getting paid 53 million next season, 57 million the year after 61 million the effort. Like, yeah, we can't really, we've got to dial back to pick and rolls with the best shooting self-proclaimed best shooting big man in the history of the NBA because of his fat. It's not, it's not, it's not good.

I don't know if that's the conversation I want to have about a guy who's getting paid 53 million next season, 57 million the year after 61 million the effort. Like, yeah, we can't really, we've got to dial back to pick and rolls with the best shooting self-proclaimed best shooting big man in the history of the NBA because of his fat. It's not, it's not, it's not good.

He played very well and he's played tough. And this has been a physical nasty series. Like all of these series have been. And yeah, you know, the Knicks are going to pull out of it. And yeah, but the Tobias thing has been really fun. I like this Tobias. And they're lost without him. They don't know what to do without him. Should we play a Sarr Thompson? Should we play a Ron Holland?

He played very well and he's played tough. And this has been a physical nasty series. Like all of these series have been. And yeah, you know, the Knicks are going to pull out of it. And yeah, but the Tobias thing has been really fun. I like this Tobias. And they're lost without him. They don't know what to do without him. Should we play a Sarr Thompson? Should we play a Ron Holland?

Should we just play Cade at the four? What happens when we play Cade at the four? They just don't know what to do. I'm a little surprised. Deep cut. Is Simone Fontecchio, like, dead? Like, what happened to him? I thought he was going to play a little bit in this series.

Should we just play Cade at the four? What happens when we play Cade at the four? They just don't know what to do. I'm a little surprised. Deep cut. Is Simone Fontecchio, like, dead? Like, what happened to him? I thought he was going to play a little bit in this series.

And we can talk about that trade and revisit it. Yeah. And I didn't think they were going to win this series with Dame, without Dame. I just didn't think they were good enough. But this is just... For NBA diehards who are up watching Blazers jazz at 11.30 Eastern time, he's a beloved player. And he's a beloved leader. And he's just... It just sucks.

And we can talk about that trade and revisit it. Yeah. And I didn't think they were going to win this series with Dame, without Dame. I just didn't think they were good enough. But this is just... For NBA diehards who are up watching Blazers jazz at 11.30 Eastern time, he's a beloved player. And he's a beloved leader. And he's just... It just sucks.

The... The Pistons have only scored 109 points per 100 possessions in this series. Offensively, when I picked the Knicks in five, I said, I just don't see if they're going to be able to score enough to keep up with the Knicks. Now, it turns out keeping up with the Knicks has not been that difficult, and they still haven't been able to do it. What have you thought of Kat's defense in this series?

The... The Pistons have only scored 109 points per 100 possessions in this series. Offensively, when I picked the Knicks in five, I said, I just don't see if they're going to be able to score enough to keep up with the Knicks. Now, it turns out keeping up with the Knicks has not been that difficult, and they still haven't been able to do it. What have you thought of Kat's defense in this series?

I think okay is, I think I'm like 80% of okay. I think I'm like a little less than okay. There have been segments of the series when they've asked him to come up to the level of the screen against Cade, and he's just been too late. And so he's got to like panic and rush out. And Durin has had streaks of dunk, dunk, dunk. And then they've sat him back a little bit and said, can you try dropping?

I think okay is, I think I'm like 80% of okay. I think I'm like a little less than okay. There have been segments of the series when they've asked him to come up to the level of the screen against Cade, and he's just been too late. And so he's got to like panic and rush out. And Durin has had streaks of dunk, dunk, dunk. And then they've sat him back a little bit and said, can you try dropping?

And that hasn't worked. But he's been, other points he's been okay. Spinning it forward to the likely Boston game, Knicks matchup in the second round. Obviously, Boston dominated that matchup in the regular season, but you hit it exactly on the head.

And that hasn't worked. But he's been, other points he's been okay. Spinning it forward to the likely Boston game, Knicks matchup in the second round. Obviously, Boston dominated that matchup in the regular season, but you hit it exactly on the head.

I'm watching Orlando-Boston, and Orlando has successfully dragged the Celtics into the mud, which I did not really think they're going to be able to do this level. Celtics' three-point game fell off volume-wise in Orlando in games three and four. Only 38% of their attempts have come from three in this series. It was 50% in the regular season. And that's obviously Orlando's plan.

I'm watching Orlando-Boston, and Orlando has successfully dragged the Celtics into the mud, which I did not really think they're going to be able to do this level. Celtics' three-point game fell off volume-wise in Orlando in games three and four. Only 38% of their attempts have come from three in this series. It was 50% in the regular season. And that's obviously Orlando's plan.

Orlando's base defense in this series is we are switching everything Wendell Carter Jr. 's are five. Switchier than Cat, but it's not like he's, again, prime Kevin Garnett. Corey Joseph's are one. A little stouter than Jalen Brunson, maybe. Not maybe defensively, but it's not like he's a 6'5 point guard. It's Corey Joseph.

Orlando's base defense in this series is we are switching everything Wendell Carter Jr. 's are five. Switchier than Cat, but it's not like he's, again, prime Kevin Garnett. Corey Joseph's are one. A little stouter than Jalen Brunson, maybe. Not maybe defensively, but it's not like he's a 6'5 point guard. It's Corey Joseph.

But we're switching everything, and that means Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, you can have Wendell Carter Jr., and attack his feet, or you can play bully ball against Corey Joseph. And guess what? You can get all the way to the basket, and we're not sending help from anywhere.

But we're switching everything, and that means Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, you can have Wendell Carter Jr., and attack his feet, or you can play bully ball against Corey Joseph. And guess what? You can get all the way to the basket, and we're not sending help from anywhere.

We're going to make you make decisions at the rim, particularly if Cornette is on the floor, so there's a little bit of traffic there. And if not, we're going to count on Wendell Carter Jr., Or Corey, we're going to count on Wendell Carter Jr. being big enough to like, you're going to miss some of those shots.

We're going to make you make decisions at the rim, particularly if Cornette is on the floor, so there's a little bit of traffic there. And if not, we're going to count on Wendell Carter Jr., Or Corey, we're going to count on Wendell Carter Jr. being big enough to like, you're going to miss some of those shots.

And we're going to count on Corey Joseph to stand you up and make you take 12 foot jump shots. And we are not sending up. There's a moment in the late in the third quarter last night in game four where where Jason Tatum is driving on Corey Joseph and Caleb Houston out of pure reflex rotates off Peyton Pritchard in the corner, gets into the paint and then realize you can see it in his head.

And we're going to count on Corey Joseph to stand you up and make you take 12 foot jump shots. And we are not sending up. There's a moment in the late in the third quarter last night in game four where where Jason Tatum is driving on Corey Joseph and Caleb Houston out of pure reflex rotates off Peyton Pritchard in the corner, gets into the paint and then realize you can see it in his head.

Oh, wait, I'm not supposed to do this. And sprints back at Peyton Pritchard. And I'm watching this and I'm wondering, is this a blueprint that the Knicks and other teams can go to against the Celtics just as a way of like, yeah, cat's not Wendell Carter jr. Brunson's like Corey Joseph, but it's not like those guys are all world defenders.

Oh, wait, I'm not supposed to do this. And sprints back at Peyton Pritchard. And I'm watching this and I'm wondering, is this a blueprint that the Knicks and other teams can go to against the Celtics just as a way of like, yeah, cat's not Wendell Carter jr. Brunson's like Corey Joseph, but it's not like those guys are all world defenders.

And can we just slow the game down, make the Celtics devolve into one-on-one play and just decrease their three point volume. Is that a roadmap for the Knicks or not?

And can we just slow the game down, make the Celtics devolve into one-on-one play and just decrease their three point volume. Is that a roadmap for the Knicks or not?

As you're saying this, it also strikes me like... Cat is not as nimble on his feet as Wendell Carter Jr., and Wendell Carter Jr. is not super nimble, but he's pretty nimble. And this scheme falls away if the contested layups are just dunks. And Jalen Brunson is not Corey Joseph in the sense that the Knicks need Jalen Brunson's offense on every single possession. The Magic don't

As you're saying this, it also strikes me like... Cat is not as nimble on his feet as Wendell Carter Jr., and Wendell Carter Jr. is not super nimble, but he's pretty nimble. And this scheme falls away if the contested layups are just dunks. And Jalen Brunson is not Corey Joseph in the sense that the Knicks need Jalen Brunson's offense on every single possession. The Magic don't

really need Corey Joseph to do anything except hit a couple open threes. So go ahead, exhaust yourself on defense. Jalen Brunson doesn't have that luxury. But it has been interesting. Other teams I'm sure are watching this happen to Boston. And I thought Boston in game four, and I think was Stan Van Gundy on the call, I think he was, was noting this.

really need Corey Joseph to do anything except hit a couple open threes. So go ahead, exhaust yourself on defense. Jalen Brunson doesn't have that luxury. But it has been interesting. Other teams I'm sure are watching this happen to Boston. And I thought Boston in game four, and I think was Stan Van Gundy on the call, I think he was, was noting this.

They were busting out some more set plays, I think to get people moving. They were rolling to the rim more with Porzingis and Cornette. I think to try to get the magic to almost not think. Like, defend this like you normally would. There's a big guy rolling to the rim. What would you normally do?

They were busting out some more set plays, I think to get people moving. They were rolling to the rim more with Porzingis and Cornette. I think to try to get the magic to almost not think. Like, defend this like you normally would. There's a big guy rolling to the rim. What would you normally do?

I normally rotate inside, whereas when the game pauses and it becomes static, they can think and remember, like, oh, yeah, we're staying home. And I thought that was smart, but... I mean, look, Orlando made them earn that road win. I mean, this was a nice homestand for the Magic and encouraging in the sense of Wagner is fighting through whatever is going on with his jump shot.

I normally rotate inside, whereas when the game pauses and it becomes static, they can think and remember, like, oh, yeah, we're staying home. And I thought that was smart, but... I mean, look, Orlando made them earn that road win. I mean, this was a nice homestand for the Magic and encouraging in the sense of Wagner is fighting through whatever is going on with his jump shot.

The team doesn't have enough ammo offensively. We all knew that. But the defense has held up and they were in these games against. They won one and they were in the other. I mean, this is like a little more juice, a little more talent offensively. They're not that far from being a problematic playoff team.

The team doesn't have enough ammo offensively. We all knew that. But the defense has held up and they were in these games against. They won one and they were in the other. I mean, this is like a little more juice, a little more talent offensively. They're not that far from being a problematic playoff team.

It's a lot of great backup center hair sitting on the magic bench right now.

It's a lot of great backup center hair sitting on the magic bench right now.

It's funny. Bankaro is so interesting in this regard. He's kind of a Rorschach test for NBA fans because he's averaging 32 points per game, 44% shooting, 43% on threes, which means 44% on twos and like not great on twos. And so you can see people nitpick his game a little bit, particularly people who lean towards more of an analytics heavy bent.

It's funny. Bankaro is so interesting in this regard. He's kind of a Rorschach test for NBA fans because he's averaging 32 points per game, 44% shooting, 43% on threes, which means 44% on twos and like not great on twos. And so you can see people nitpick his game a little bit, particularly people who lean towards more of an analytics heavy bent.

I watch these games and I'm like, this dude is a freaking monster. He's got it. Like you said, when there's anybody who can help him, Because you just don't see a lot of guys who, within 45 seconds, look awesome as a pick-and-roll ball handler, and then look awesome as a screener, roller, finisher, and then look awesome as a post-up isolation guy, and then look awesome in transition.

I watch these games and I'm like, this dude is a freaking monster. He's got it. Like you said, when there's anybody who can help him, Because you just don't see a lot of guys who, within 45 seconds, look awesome as a pick-and-roll ball handler, and then look awesome as a screener, roller, finisher, and then look awesome as a post-up isolation guy, and then look awesome in transition.

And he defends pretty well. I... And he wants every bit of this. He doesn't care that they're overmatched. He feels like he's the best player on the floor. He's everything you want in a young, rising franchise star. And yeah, his efficiency is imperfect. Some of that is on him. Some of that is on... the surrounding talent just isn't good enough. Like we're counting on Anthony black a lot.

And he defends pretty well. I... And he wants every bit of this. He doesn't care that they're overmatched. He feels like he's the best player on the floor. He's everything you want in a young, rising franchise star. And yeah, his efficiency is imperfect. Some of that is on him. Some of that is on... the surrounding talent just isn't good enough. Like we're counting on Anthony black a lot.

And Gary Harris is like closing games for us. It's just not there. I love what I've seen from Paolo in this series.

And Gary Harris is like closing games for us. It's just not there. I love what I've seen from Paolo in this series.

I'll go one further. Franz Wagner maybe kind of has the yips right now on his jump shot and is like the greatest performer with the yips in the history of sports. The dude is his jump shot is all messed up and he puts up 24, seven and six and still take seven threes.

I'll go one further. Franz Wagner maybe kind of has the yips right now on his jump shot and is like the greatest performer with the yips in the history of sports. The dude is his jump shot is all messed up and he puts up 24, seven and six and still take seven threes.

Like there's something to be admired about a guy who's going through it in one phase of his game is in his head is a little bit and is still battling out there for 40 minutes and putting up Semi-efficient numbers for a team that needs anything they can get offensively.

Like there's something to be admired about a guy who's going through it in one phase of his game is in his head is a little bit and is still battling out there for 40 minutes and putting up Semi-efficient numbers for a team that needs anything they can get offensively.

Real quickly, I want to praise the Orlando Magic for something that happened in Game 3. Which nobody ever does. They get the ball back with the lead, 95-93. I believe there were 28.1 seconds on the clock. The differential between the shot clock and the game clock was about four seconds. It was either 3.8 or 4.1.

Real quickly, I want to praise the Orlando Magic for something that happened in Game 3. Which nobody ever does. They get the ball back with the lead, 95-93. I believe there were 28.1 seconds on the clock. The differential between the shot clock and the game clock was about four seconds. It was either 3.8 or 4.1.

Then there's like a bizarre eight-second call, which they end up overturning, and the possession continues as if nothing ever happened. Inverted whistle, whoops, whoops. By the way, what's with the whistling in the crowd in Minnesota? Does someone have a whistle? It's fooling everybody. They must. And so the Magic did what nobody does.

Then there's like a bizarre eight-second call, which they end up overturning, and the possession continues as if nothing ever happened. Inverted whistle, whoops, whoops. By the way, what's with the whistling in the crowd in Minnesota? Does someone have a whistle? It's fooling everybody. They must. And so the Magic did what nobody does.

The Celtics did not foul down two with a three to four second differential on the shot clock. I have always been of the school of thought, you have to foul because you're just not going to leave yourself with enough time. coaches are divided on this.

The Celtics did not foul down two with a three to four second differential on the shot clock. I have always been of the school of thought, you have to foul because you're just not going to leave yourself with enough time. coaches are divided on this.

And one of the reasons that coaches are divided and we'll play for the stop as Joe Missoula did is that no team ever does what Orlando did, which is run the shot clock to 0.5 before you shoot. So the ball is in the air as the shot clock is expiring one long rebound or one tip of the ball, and the game is over. Lo and behold, the rebound bounces really far out. The Celtics grab it.

And one of the reasons that coaches are divided and we'll play for the stop as Joe Missoula did is that no team ever does what Orlando did, which is run the shot clock to 0.5 before you shoot. So the ball is in the air as the shot clock is expiring one long rebound or one tip of the ball, and the game is over. Lo and behold, the rebound bounces really far out. The Celtics grab it.

They call timeout. There probably should have been like .6 or .8 left on the clock. They gave them .3. All they have is a lob. Jamal Mosley, I don't know if that was scripted. I assume that it was. I assume that was the advice. That should be your default plan is we are shooting.

They call timeout. There probably should have been like .6 or .8 left on the clock. They gave them .3. All they have is a lob. Jamal Mosley, I don't know if that was scripted. I assume that it was. I assume that was the advice. That should be your default plan is we are shooting.

If you don't put pressure on us, if you don't trap us, if you don't do stuff to speed us up, we're shooting with zero on the shot clock.

If you don't put pressure on us, if you don't trap us, if you don't do stuff to speed us up, we're shooting with zero on the shot clock.

And Joe Mazzullo was like, well, bad luck. It was a long rebound. Like, that's not bad luck. Like, a lot of rebounds of threes are long rebounds. That's, like, baked into the whole equation. I would have fouled there if I were him. I get why you play for the stop because... Teams assume the Magic will just go early and shoot with eight on the shot clock, and they didn't.

And Joe Mazzullo was like, well, bad luck. It was a long rebound. Like, that's not bad luck. Like, a lot of rebounds of threes are long rebounds. That's, like, baked into the whole equation. I would have fouled there if I were him. I get why you play for the stop because... Teams assume the Magic will just go early and shoot with eight on the shot clock, and they didn't.

Quick thoughts on Warriors-Rockets. The last game four resumes tonight. Warriors win a Steph Curry masterpiece in game three to go up two to one. This is almost a must win for the Rockets, despite the fact that they have home court advantage. It's very hard to see them beating the Warriors three times in a row, particularly if and when Jimmy Butler comes back.

Quick thoughts on Warriors-Rockets. The last game four resumes tonight. Warriors win a Steph Curry masterpiece in game three to go up two to one. This is almost a must win for the Rockets, despite the fact that they have home court advantage. It's very hard to see them beating the Warriors three times in a row, particularly if and when Jimmy Butler comes back.

Warriors use a makeshift lineup with Post and Kaminga, end up finishing the game with a small ball lineup. I mean, the Rockets' offense is what it is. What are you looking for very quickly in game four tonight?

Warriors use a makeshift lineup with Post and Kaminga, end up finishing the game with a small ball lineup. I mean, the Rockets' offense is what it is. What are you looking for very quickly in game four tonight?

It's a tough subject for me.

It's a tough subject for me.

I feel, I mean, I didn't have a ballot this year, but I said I would have put Steph, first team All-NBA over Donovan Mitchell in the fifth spot. I feel even better. I mean, no slight to Donovan Mitchell is unbelievable. I have no problem if he makes first team. He's been first team on my ballot once before. Steph is just unbelievable.

I feel, I mean, I didn't have a ballot this year, but I said I would have put Steph, first team All-NBA over Donovan Mitchell in the fifth spot. I feel even better. I mean, no slight to Donovan Mitchell is unbelievable. I have no problem if he makes first team. He's been first team on my ballot once before. Steph is just unbelievable.

And the three, he hit a three in Jalen Green's face when the score was 92-86 Warriors, where the Warriors like ran a bunch of stuff. Rockets defense has been good this series. Even Jalen Green has been defending pretty decently this series. Like they're playing hard. Nothing happened. Steph Curry catches the ball at the top of the arc with Jalen Green right in his face. No dribble, no anything.

And the three, he hit a three in Jalen Green's face when the score was 92-86 Warriors, where the Warriors like ran a bunch of stuff. Rockets defense has been good this series. Even Jalen Green has been defending pretty decently this series. Like they're playing hard. Nothing happened. Steph Curry catches the ball at the top of the arc with Jalen Green right in his face. No dribble, no anything.

Like no jab step, just rises up and hits a three. And it's like, that's just so mean. It's so dispiriting. And like you said, the Rockets have seen this movie too many times. None of these Rockets, but the Rockets. The building has seen it like they don't deserve that. I just you know, we all knew the Rockets offense was going to be tested in this series. It was their weak link.

Like no jab step, just rises up and hits a three. And it's like, that's just so mean. It's so dispiriting. And like you said, the Rockets have seen this movie too many times. None of these Rockets, but the Rockets. The building has seen it like they don't deserve that. I just you know, we all knew the Rockets offense was going to be tested in this series. It was their weak link.

It just for them to put up their offensive rating is one hundred and three point six points per hundred possessions. That's very bad. That would have been last in the NBA by a lot. For them to have an offensive rebounding rate approaching 40% and be that inefficient is kind of astonishing.

It just for them to put up their offensive rating is one hundred and three point six points per hundred possessions. That's very bad. That would have been last in the NBA by a lot. For them to have an offensive rebounding rate approaching 40% and be that inefficient is kind of astonishing.

You know, Ahmed Thompson looks like a young guy who's a little bit lost in this series because of his lack of a jump shot, and they can put anybody they want on him, and they haven't figured that out yet. Not surprising. The Adams-Shen Goon thing has been good, but they're clearly skittish playing it when Steph is on the floor.

You know, Ahmed Thompson looks like a young guy who's a little bit lost in this series because of his lack of a jump shot, and they can put anybody they want on him, and they haven't figured that out yet. Not surprising. The Adams-Shen Goon thing has been good, but they're clearly skittish playing it when Steph is on the floor.

Yeah, it certainly felt that way. They dialed it back. And defensively, they've been good. That's great. They're still in the series. Offensively, what they have is just not good enough. And Sam Amick wrote the piece for The Athletic. We've all been talking about it all year.

Yeah, it certainly felt that way. They dialed it back. And defensively, they've been good. That's great. They're still in the series. Offensively, what they have is just not good enough. And Sam Amick wrote the piece for The Athletic. We've all been talking about it all year.

If that proves to be the case and the offense isn't good enough and they lose in the first round, there are two ways you can approach that decision.

If that proves to be the case and the offense isn't good enough and they lose in the first round, there are two ways you can approach that decision.

your your approach could be we won 50 whatever games and there's number two seed we're ready but we just need a big boost on this end of the floor we've mentioned some guys already or could be like hey actually yeah we won 50 whatever games we weren't the two seed by that much and we kind of got exposed in the playoffs maybe we're a little further away than we thought let's take our time i suspect it will go the former way uh and be aggressive um if if this series goes this way but look

your your approach could be we won 50 whatever games and there's number two seed we're ready but we just need a big boost on this end of the floor we've mentioned some guys already or could be like hey actually yeah we won 50 whatever games we weren't the two seed by that much and we kind of got exposed in the playoffs maybe we're a little further away than we thought let's take our time i suspect it will go the former way uh and be aggressive um if if this series goes this way but look

It's not like the Warriors are so consistent and so level-headed that we can just assume they win tonight. This could be 2-2 going back to Houston.

It's not like the Warriors are so consistent and so level-headed that we can just assume they win tonight. This could be 2-2 going back to Houston.

I had Kate on my podcast two years ago. I've I've always been high on Cade. Never sold my Cade stock. I couldn't believe that people could watch him play and do the thing we do with young players. Oh, he's inefficient. He doesn't get to the line. Can you give him a little time? Do you see? You have to watch.

I had Kate on my podcast two years ago. I've I've always been high on Cade. Never sold my Cade stock. I couldn't believe that people could watch him play and do the thing we do with young players. Oh, he's inefficient. He doesn't get to the line. Can you give him a little time? Do you see? You have to watch.

And not like we're going to be right all the time, but you could see enough eight-minute slices of bad Pistons games where you'd be like, oh, there's something Luka-ish, Luka-lite here, the way he manipulates space in the paint. Um...

And not like we're going to be right all the time, but you could see enough eight-minute slices of bad Pistons games where you'd be like, oh, there's something Luka-ish, Luka-lite here, the way he manipulates space in the paint. Um...

Jalen Green's passing is just so disappointing to me that it hasn't evolved at all to the point that when he hits Shingun with a good pocket pass, you're like, can you just do that? Like, just make that pass. And even so, a sustained diet of Alper and Shingun flamingo shots in the pick and roll is just not going to cut it. I enjoy it, though, personally. I like watching it.

Jalen Green's passing is just so disappointing to me that it hasn't evolved at all to the point that when he hits Shingun with a good pocket pass, you're like, can you just do that? Like, just make that pass. And even so, a sustained diet of Alper and Shingun flamingo shots in the pick and roll is just not going to cut it. I enjoy it, though, personally. I like watching it.

Love the flamingo shots. And just to wrap up my old man yelling at Cloud segment of the podcast. Please. Please. You can't be a serious team and go 41 of 64 on free throws in a playoff series. They're shooting 64% on free throws. Shangoon was one of six. You're just handing teams minutes and quarters and games. But maybe they'll respond tonight and give us another.

Love the flamingo shots. And just to wrap up my old man yelling at Cloud segment of the podcast. Please. Please. You can't be a serious team and go 41 of 64 on free throws in a playoff series. They're shooting 64% on free throws. Shangoon was one of six. You're just handing teams minutes and quarters and games. But maybe they'll respond tonight and give us another.

Look, there are a lot of moves you can knock the bucks of the last six to seven years over. Certainly. I always go back to one of the stupid podcast things that I was happiest about in my retrospective of looking back. was squeezing in a rant about Dante DiVincenzo for Serge Ibaka at the end of whatever trade deadline podcast that was. It's like, I just don't understand.

Look, there are a lot of moves you can knock the bucks of the last six to seven years over. Certainly. I always go back to one of the stupid podcast things that I was happiest about in my retrospective of looking back. was squeezing in a rant about Dante DiVincenzo for Serge Ibaka at the end of whatever trade deadline podcast that was. It's like, I just don't understand.

Can we have more than one 2-2 series? If we get through this four games thing, I mean, the Cleveland-Miami thing is over. Yes. That's the other game tonight. Um, we only get one, two, two first round series. That's a, that's good for like getting the games over with and getting to the real stuff. But it's like, can we get a little, little excitement?

Can we have more than one 2-2 series? If we get through this four games thing, I mean, the Cleveland-Miami thing is over. Yes. That's the other game tonight. Um, we only get one, two, two first round series. That's a, that's good for like getting the games over with and getting to the real stuff. But it's like, can we get a little, little excitement?

Rob Mahoney, this is a thrill. We've known each other a while, had dinner during the finals. We can trace our NBA lineage to the Point Forward blog on SI.com, RIP. I was the originator of it. You and Ben Goliver took over for me and made it even better. And now I don't know what's going on. It's gone. It's long gone. Long gone.

Rob Mahoney, this is a thrill. We've known each other a while, had dinner during the finals. We can trace our NBA lineage to the Point Forward blog on SI.com, RIP. I was the originator of it. You and Ben Goliver took over for me and made it even better. And now I don't know what's going on. It's gone. It's long gone. Long gone.

Um, I am a regular reader and, uh, the group chat with you and Justin barrier talking about gardening in Portland for the first five minutes of every podcast or, or chicken Alfredo last week, there was a long positive discussion and was just throwing bombs left and right in between cryptic comments about his nightlife. Uh, An absolute great listen.

Um, I am a regular reader and, uh, the group chat with you and Justin barrier talking about gardening in Portland for the first five minutes of every podcast or, or chicken Alfredo last week, there was a long positive discussion and was just throwing bombs left and right in between cryptic comments about his nightlife. Uh, An absolute great listen.

It's gotten me through a lot of rides on the Peloton. It's a thrill to be a teammate of yours and to actually talk some hoops with you. And I look forward to doing it again. That's incredibly kind.

It's gotten me through a lot of rides on the Peloton. It's a thrill to be a teammate of yours and to actually talk some hoops with you. And I look forward to doing it again. That's incredibly kind.

All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. Thanks to Rob. Thanks to Jesse on the production. We'll see you later this week, Thursday morning, whatever the hell has happened in the NBA. This has been such a wild week. Who knows what'll be going on? Maybe talk about round two a little bit. Thanks for listening to the Zach Lowe show.

All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. Thanks to Rob. Thanks to Jesse on the production. We'll see you later this week, Thursday morning, whatever the hell has happened in the NBA. This has been such a wild week. Who knows what'll be going on? Maybe talk about round two a little bit. Thanks for listening to the Zach Lowe show.

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Everybody liked that trade for the Bucs. And I was like, has anyone watched Serge Ibaka? Like, I just don't trade wing for watched a big ever, not one time. The draft picks that were missed, the Kuzma trade is obviously a disaster, which included one of the only draft picks that who knows it may end up being a hit for the Bucs, AJ Johnson. Yeah. I'm with you on the Dame trade.

Everybody liked that trade for the Bucs. And I was like, has anyone watched Serge Ibaka? Like, I just don't trade wing for watched a big ever, not one time. The draft picks that were missed, the Kuzma trade is obviously a disaster, which included one of the only draft picks that who knows it may end up being a hit for the Bucs, AJ Johnson. Yeah. I'm with you on the Dame trade.

I will defend it until the end. Now, you could say, did they overreact to the Miami series in which they just fell apart completely? Giannis missed most of the series. Bud did not cover himself in glory in that series. They fire Bud. Butler bullies Drew Holiday. And it feels to them like the end of the road for this team. Like, we just don't have enough offense. And they make this trade...

I will defend it until the end. Now, you could say, did they overreact to the Miami series in which they just fell apart completely? Giannis missed most of the series. Bud did not cover himself in glory in that series. They fire Bud. Butler bullies Drew Holiday. And it feels to them like the end of the road for this team. Like, we just don't have enough offense. And they make this trade...

Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show on a Monday morning, Eastern Standard Time. Oh, my God. What a weekend. Rob Mahoney, first time I've ever had you on. An absolute thrill. I've been a fan for a long time. One-third of the group chat bros that has maybe sneakily become my favorite NBA podcast that exists. I even watch it now. I'm like a modern person watching it now. What a weekend.

Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show on a Monday morning, Eastern Standard Time. Oh, my God. What a weekend. Rob Mahoney, first time I've ever had you on. An absolute thrill. I've been a fan for a long time. One-third of the group chat bros that has maybe sneakily become my favorite NBA podcast that exists. I even watch it now. I'm like a modern person watching it now. What a weekend.

And they get Giannis then to sign an extension a month later, which in itself is a huge victory for that trade. Look, it hasn't worked. And one of the reasons it didn't work, as you said, is they couldn't control Drew Holiday's destination and it ended up being a worst case scenario for them. Another reason it didn't work is that Dame is 34 and got older a little faster than I think we expected.

And they get Giannis then to sign an extension a month later, which in itself is a huge victory for that trade. Look, it hasn't worked. And one of the reasons it didn't work, as you said, is they couldn't control Drew Holiday's destination and it ended up being a worst case scenario for them. Another reason it didn't work is that Dame is 34 and got older a little faster than I think we expected.

Another reason it didn't work is that the Dame Giannis pick and roll never turned in to the Steph Draymond 2.0, except the Draymond in this is a seven foot monster who can lob dunk everything. Right. I don't know why it didn't. I suspect part of the reason why is that Giannis didn't want to set 40 screens a game, and that's fine. He's above that in that he is above that.

Another reason it didn't work is that the Dame Giannis pick and roll never turned in to the Steph Draymond 2.0, except the Draymond in this is a seven foot monster who can lob dunk everything. Right. I don't know why it didn't. I suspect part of the reason why is that Giannis didn't want to set 40 screens a game, and that's fine. He's above that in that he is above that.

Another reason it didn't work is that teams just sold out on it from preseason game one. It was clear like, Brooke Lopez, you're going to be allowed to shoot. Whoever, you're going to be allowed to shoot. Another reason the trade didn't work is part of the logic, and I echoed this logic, was Yeah, you hurt your defense by trading Drew Holiday, one of the best perimeter defenders in the league.

Another reason it didn't work is that teams just sold out on it from preseason game one. It was clear like, Brooke Lopez, you're going to be allowed to shoot. Whoever, you're going to be allowed to shoot. Another reason the trade didn't work is part of the logic, and I echoed this logic, was Yeah, you hurt your defense by trading Drew Holiday, one of the best perimeter defenders in the league.

Your base defense is a dropback scheme. That doesn't work if the guy pursuing the ball handler isn't hounding that guy from behind and challenging all those shots and making all those looks extra difficult. But who are we kidding? If you have Giannis and Brooke Lopez, you have the foundation of an elite defense for the next couple of years.

Your base defense is a dropback scheme. That doesn't work if the guy pursuing the ball handler isn't hounding that guy from behind and challenging all those shots and making all those looks extra difficult. But who are we kidding? If you have Giannis and Brooke Lopez, you have the foundation of an elite defense for the next couple of years.

And Brooke Lopez got benched in this series against Indiana. He was too slow for the series, and that didn't hold up either. And it's tempting to look back and say, What happens if they don't make the Dame trade? Are we just in the same spot anyway, given what has happened to Chris Middleton's career? But I guess the difference would be you're in the same spot, but let's say you've stood pat.

And Brooke Lopez got benched in this series against Indiana. He was too slow for the series, and that didn't hold up either. And it's tempting to look back and say, What happens if they don't make the Dame trade? Are we just in the same spot anyway, given what has happened to Chris Middleton's career? But I guess the difference would be you're in the same spot, but let's say you've stood pat.

You still have all the draft picks that you no longer have. You still have the ability to trade Drew Holiday, which you no longer have. Now... You don't have the ability to trade Damian Lillard, which was the last bullet left in the can we salvage this thing around Giannis? And nobody wants to have this conversation. I don't want to have this conversation. You don't want to have this conversation.

You still have all the draft picks that you no longer have. You still have the ability to trade Drew Holiday, which you no longer have. Now... You don't have the ability to trade Damian Lillard, which was the last bullet left in the can we salvage this thing around Giannis? And nobody wants to have this conversation. I don't want to have this conversation. You don't want to have this conversation.

Definitely not. Opposing teams who I contacted last night who would theoretically be Giannis suitors already do not want to have this conversation. They're in mourning, too. It is unfortunately unavoidable just to say this. They can't trade Dame. That pivot is gone. This team cannot win with Giannis. There is no path to them winning big in the playoffs anymore.

Definitely not. Opposing teams who I contacted last night who would theoretically be Giannis suitors already do not want to have this conversation. They're in mourning, too. It is unfortunately unavoidable just to say this. They can't trade Dame. That pivot is gone. This team cannot win with Giannis. There is no path to them winning big in the playoffs anymore.

They do not control their draft pick through 2030, so they cannot tank. And there just isn't enough here. There's no path to a championship team. And Everyone understands that the Bucs understand that Giannis surely must understand that.

They do not control their draft pick through 2030, so they cannot tank. And there just isn't enough here. There's no path to a championship team. And Everyone understands that the Bucs understand that Giannis surely must understand that.

And all that's left to do now is for Giannis and the Bucs, maybe individually, maybe in conjunction, but ultimately, no matter what happens, it's going to be up to Giannis to decide what to do with that reality. Do we sit in it and be a one team star forever and do our best? And that's cool. And hope.

And all that's left to do now is for Giannis and the Bucs, maybe individually, maybe in conjunction, but ultimately, no matter what happens, it's going to be up to Giannis to decide what to do with that reality. Do we sit in it and be a one team star forever and do our best? And that's cool. And hope.

There's some miraculous set of events that delivers some talent here that I just could not possibly foresee. Or do we not? And that's just where we are. I don't want to get into like the fake trades. But look, the uncomfortable reality is there is no path to this team winning in the next three or four years. They don't control their draft. There's just nothing they can do.

There's some miraculous set of events that delivers some talent here that I just could not possibly foresee. Or do we not? And that's just where we are. I don't want to get into like the fake trades. But look, the uncomfortable reality is there is no path to this team winning in the next three or four years. They don't control their draft. There's just nothing they can do.

And it's now just up to Giannis to sit with that and decide his career.

And it's now just up to Giannis to sit with that and decide his career.

And also, you know what they can never take away? No one can ever take away the ring.

And also, you know what they can never take away? No one can ever take away the ring.

They got a ring. Drew got a ring. Everything after that has not gone great, but they got a championship. Never, ever, ever nitpick the draft picks, nitpick the trades, whatever. They got a championship. It's the whole reason we do this and they got one.

They got a ring. Drew got a ring. Everything after that has not gone great, but they got a championship. Never, ever, ever nitpick the draft picks, nitpick the trades, whatever. They got a championship. It's the whole reason we do this and they got one.

I don't even know where to start. We had an all-time great buzzer beater. Like, literally, we've never seen it before. We've had... Non-calls that are going to infuriate multiple teams. And the last two-minute reports will be eagerly anticipated. We had copious fights and scrums and near fights and spiciness. A couple of injury scares. And then, sadly, the place we have to start.

I don't even know where to start. We had an all-time great buzzer beater. Like, literally, we've never seen it before. We've had... Non-calls that are going to infuriate multiple teams. And the last two-minute reports will be eagerly anticipated. We had copious fights and scrums and near fights and spiciness. A couple of injury scares. And then, sadly, the place we have to start.

AJ Green just does what he does consistently. You mentioned Middleton. And are we here anyway, no matter what? Although, obviously, the opportunity cost is what it is of doing the Dame trade and having it backfire.

AJ Green just does what he does consistently. You mentioned Middleton. And are we here anyway, no matter what? Although, obviously, the opportunity cost is what it is of doing the Dame trade and having it backfire.

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I look back at that 2022 Bucs team as a big, big what if, with Middleton missing essentially the entire playoffs, and yet they still go toe-to-toe with Boston in a seven-game series that ends in what will forever be remembered as the Grant Williams game without Middleton. And I've said this before.

Everyone that I know on the Celtics, within the Celtics, came out of that series with one universal reaction, which was, we never want to see that fucking dude in a playoff series again about Giannis. That's how good he was that year. And he's still incredible. He's probably 97% as good as he was in that year, maybe a little bit less than that.

And they had a championship team that year with Drew still, and Middleton wasn't there, and they just didn't have enough. And then they pivoted the next year the way they pivoted. We all know Nets, Rockets, Heat, whoever else wants to get into it, Knicks. A lot of it will depend on the playoffs and what happens to some of these teams in the next round or two or whatever. Yeah.

Unlike what we saw the Brooklyn nets do. they have no vehicle to get those draft picks back. The Nets got some of their picks back because they had Phoenix draft assets. There was this theoretical, could Atlanta get their picks back by trading Trey Young to the Spurs? That wasn't a crazy, implausible idea. There's no pathway that I can see anyway to reclaiming ownership of those picks.

And it's just... It's just, you know, look, Giannis has two years plus one left on his deal after this. Dame has two years left to play our option for $58.5 million in 26-27. It just sucks. It all sucks. And here the Pacers are again. Now, I thought the Pacers were going to win this series anyway. Now they're almost certainly going to win it up 3-1 going home.

One massive, what appears to be a massive injury to Damian Lillard, who left Game 4 of the Bucks-Pacers series with what appears to be a torn Achilles. I don't even... I mean, look, it obviously sucks. Damian Lillard is almost 35 years old.

Tyrese Halliburton just cackling, literally cackling on the floor after every play that he makes. And a looming Pacers-Cavs series that is kind of interesting. And just as an aside, I asked you to pick a team of the weekend for this wild weekend. Just to go deep cut, I picked the Cavs because I thought that Cavs' Game 3 performance in Miami was, like, cruel enough championship cruelty.

Like we are coming to take the soul of your franchise. We are going to extinguish any hope you have of like, oh, we're coming home. Like someone will get hot. Maybe we can steal a game. And they came and they were like, we are going to dig your grave, throw you in the grave, stomp on your face a few more times, bury your corpse, and then light the whole graveyard on fire.

And I was like, oh my God, this is a nasty fucking team. I think they're going to beat the Pacers in the next round, but the Pacers have some interesting answers to throw at them. And the last thing I'll say, all the shirts that the teams are wearing,

I'm interested to see what shirt... the Grizzlies come out for, for game five. Cause I think they have the, they have the Thunder figured out, right?

I think they've really figured that one out.

Look out, look out. Okay. See in game five, back in the Thunderdome. OK, are we ready to move on to series number two? Sure. Wolves, Lakers. Holy fuck. What a wild game for in Minnesota. The Wolves take both games at home to go up 3-1. The Lakers are on the brink. The end game of this was so crazy that my notes are like just a page long on that. LeBron had a block. a strip.

And then Jada McDaniels got an and one to put Minnesota up one on a beautiful play by Ann, who capped a masterpiece game by stringing out a trap. Didn't panic. I'm going to string this out. I'm going to string this out. Found Nas Reed, who was sensational, who found McDaniels. And then... All hell broke loose in the game with Minnesota up by one.

Luka brought the ball up and fell, slash got tripped, slash the last two-minute report will be interesting. JJ is mad about it. And then LeBron threw away the inbounds pass, slash it was stolen. Then Ant fell and looked to be falling before LeBron hit his wrist in what was a foul, but he looked to be slipping anyway.

If this is indeed a tour in Achilles, any discussion of it has to start with just Damian Lillard, the human being who built a legacy of greatness in Portland, got traded kind of against his will to Milwaukee, tried to make the best of it.

It was called a foul on a plus challenge by Chris Finch, who has coached a fantastic series every way around and made the two free throws. Then it looked like Minnesota was trying to foul up three and didn't. And Austin Reeves got a quarter three and missed.

Didn't it look like they were trying... Randall kind of hugged Luka, and I was like, I think they're trying to foul up three. They should have fouled up three, and they didn't, and they almost fucking paid the price for it. Where do you want to even start with this? The Lakers are on the brink. Luka's getting roasted. Nico Harrison is... Got the sneer going somewhere, maybe?

Which I have never seen in my life. And... What an insane game. You start wherever you want. I don't even know where to start.

um came back very quickly from a blood clot issue to play in these playoffs didn't look like himself not surprisingly looked like he got tired at the end of games didn't impact the series the way that you would expect prime damian lillard um to impact it and now after a couple of games back suffers one of the most devastating injuries in sports a 35 year old small guard and

No one needed another playoff appearance like Julius Randle needed another playoff appearance because his playoff numbers before this series in a very small sample were so atrociously bad, they looked like they were implausible. And the sample size got bigger. And Julius Randle, he's guarding LeBron. He's attacking all the right matchups.

Even when he attacks what I would consider the suboptimal matchups, he's getting stuff out of it. He's throwing the right pass. No turnovers in 25 points in 43 minutes against the Lakers on Sunday. And Ant... You mentioned it like, you know, the game slows down is a cliche that we use all the time.

This is a case where I think you can actually see it happening because this is a very simple series for Ant. The Lakers are switching almost everything. He's picking whatever matchup he wants. A lot of times it's Luka. He seemed to get a soft spot for attacking Rui Hachimura down the stretch yesterday. I don't know what he likes about that matchup, but he roasted him.

And when that matchup happens, he gets the ball and the Lakers load the floor from every angle. They try to confuse him. LeBron is like a cornerback on the sidelines, like stunting here, stunting there. He's like ferocious. And Ant just sort of digests it all. And there were a couple of times where he didn't wait at all. He just got the matchup, put his head down and went.

And there was a level of decisiveness that I, I, there were no dancing, no prelude, no, no, anything just go. Then there were other times where he like dribbled into the lane, help converged, took a dribble back, kept a live dribble, help went away. And then he'll just spin into like a nice 12 foot shot over Luca. It was calm. It wasn't seeking highlight plays every time.

It wasn't being reckless like Jalen Green's being reckless in the Warriors Rocket Series. It was like a veteran, calm, just masterful performance. And defensively, he's been good. Chris Finch has gone all out putting Randall McDaniels. and Ant on Reeves, LeBron, and Luka, and switching any time they try to get in actions together. They've been on point with that.

We haven't seen Ant's been guilty a lot of times of lazy box outs and falling asleep off the ball. Part of it is that the Lakers haven't forced a lot of that pressure on him, but he hasn't made any of those mistakes. Incredible Ant performance. The Lakers are just going to be complaining about the refs. You can talk more about Ant, but I do want to hear your reactions to both the

alleged trip by Jaden McDaniels? It's not alleged. I mean, his foot hit Luka's foot and Luka fell over and the overturned foul.

Well, and this is the issue, and I don't want to overplay this issue and transfer it onto every foul and non-foul that happens, but I'm glad I talked about this with Goldsberry last Thursday when I talked about the physicality of the playoffs and how I just thought... This is a completely different sport from the regular season to a level that I don't think I can remember. And I used dangerous.

Like I said, someone is going to get injured or there's going to be a fight. And this is the problem with this is that when plays like this happen and by the letter of the law, it's probably a foul. And you see calls like a little nitpicky call here or there. And you see teams being like, how are you going to call that? Yeah.

When I just got tackled by four guys and you let it go, and it's a completely legitimate argument. Every time there's a touch foul late in the game, teams are like, I don't understand. Hand-checking is completely legal now. We're getting mugged. And then you call this. It's a legit argument. And I do think the refs have lost control of a lot of these series. And I don't...

This isn't Kevin Durant. This isn't a dude who's seven feet tall who can just bank on. Worst case for me is I can just be like Dirk Nowitzki, old Dirk, just raining jump shots. We don't know 100% certainty. All the comments last night were pessimistic. We're going to get to the future and what it means, but just...

Everybody loves the physicality. I like the physicality. Nobody wants to see 40 free throws. There actually have been a lot of free throws. So it's not like they're calling nothing. They can only call so much. I get the flow of the game stuff, but this is like, this is football out there.

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And maybe in, you know, I mean, I don't want to say the history of the Lakers franchise because they're going to have some big, big decisions to make. And they do have home court. And it's always easier to come back 3-1 down home court. Look, that was a foul. It was a foul. Absolutely, indisputably a foul. he's also already falling down. And if you told me, well, it's a no call.

We just let it go. I would have been like, well, that's kind of consistent with how you've called most of these playoff series. The trip by the letter of law, I guess that's a trip. He did. Jada McDaniels does take like a weird half step forward, but I don't think Jada McDaniels is sitting there thinking as Luca is bringing the ball up with 35 seconds left in a pivotal playoff game.

How can I like accidentally trip Luca and get away with it? And then you still have the inbounds pass that you throw away. And end up almost throwing the game away. Yeah. I do want to talk about Luka because I jokingly brought up Nico Harrison and you left. Here's what I'm tired of.

And it happened in the Phoenix series that they ended up winning the year they made the conference finals in the second round. It happened in the Celtics series, the finals that they ended up losing. And it's happening again now.

And my gripe is, why do you have to get humiliated at the beginning of every single playoff series before you show the world, like, yeah, I can actually put in a little bit more of an effort on defense. Because if you go back and you watch game one and two of that Phoenix series, He is so bad defensively that it's laughable. And then all of a sudden, he becomes passable.

Celtics series, same thing. This is why Brian Windhorst screamed on television, which Brian never does, about like, hey, you have shown us you can actually do this when you care. And yet again, here we are. We're four games into this series, and he's just helpless defensively. Off the ball, too. Like his little lunges, like gambling, not even gambling, just sort of like,

lurching around aimlessly out of the play. It's like, look, the trade is, is not, I've said before, like I wouldn't have done a trade. Almost no one in the NBA would have done this specific trade. You can find corners of smart NBA people, team people who would, who would tell you the idea of getting out ahead of this and trading Luca is not a crazy idea.

This is a guy both of us kind of our professional careers kind of overlap almost exactly with Damian Lillard's entry from Weber State into the NBA. I remember watching him at Summer League trying to pick apart his game, not pick apart, but like, oh, my gosh, something something's interesting here.

the idea of doing it without shopping him to get nine first round draft picks and swaps and doing this specific trade is where the logic falls apart. So I look, I still think it's a crazy trade, but I'm just tired of like, I'm going to be embarrassed until our backs are against the wall. And then I'm going to show you that. Yeah, I can put up a little bit of a fight.

How about you put up a fucking fight in like game one of the second round. And now you're down three, one, and you're probably going home.

Well, I mean, this is like when the trade happened, we're like, well, he gets to look at LeBron's off-court regimen up close and correct all these problems. He is extension eligible at the end of the season. LeBron has a player option this summer. And sneaky thing to look at

We all know, you know, there ain't too many players with two series winning walk off shots in the history of the NBA. I mean, just reaction, just gut reaction.

Austin Reeves is extension eligible, and I don't think there's any way that he takes the extension that the Lakers can offer, which is like four years, 90 million. He's going to go into unrestricted free agency after the 25, 26 season. They obviously still have all the stuff that they traded for Mark Williams before they did the trade.

I think the Lakers backed out of the trade certainly feels that way.

They've got swaps. And I do think one interesting stat from this series is that Luka only has 20 assists in four games, which for him is not very many. He has low assists game one. He had one, I think, in game one and two in game four and then a bunch in the middle. And I think you feel the absence of a dive man for him to sort of break down the defense and get into his sweet spots.

Jackson Hayes didn't play the entire second half. And by the way, you know what what complicates everything you're talking about? Scramming, fighting over screens when you have to play the entire second half of a high stakes playoff game against a big, nasty, fast physical team. I don't know what I haven't. I'm not reading what the reaction to it is. I understand it was desperation time.

And it's like, there are a lot of coaches. If they did that, they would be getting flambéed today. If Tibbs did that, he would be getting lambasted today. And I understand it's apples to oranges because Tibbs does this in the regular season and JJ Redick does not. I get it.

But like, that is a really, a really like, I'm watching it and I'm like, wait, I actually looked back in the middle of the game. Like, did I miss a sub or is he actually not subbed anybody? I'm like, oh my God. I mean, I would hope Tibbs took it as a personal attack.

Like lots of other coaches do this. You like, they do it with Curry. Like you get the, you get a minute, you get the TV timeout, you get back in the game. Um, also Jordan Goodwin can play. I think Jordan Goodwin can play a little bit more than he's playing. Yeah. Uh, Dan Wojcicki wrote a great piece about the Banshee culture.

That's a term they use to describe just the flying around defensive players that they've cultivated. And Goodwin is kind of the poster guy in the story. It's like, well, it's nice that they were Banshee, bought into Banshee culture. Now they can't get on the floor. Season actually matters. It's tough scenes. I will say,

Oklahoma City is watching all of this and being like, you guys go to town, like beat the shit out of each other. We're over here. Yeah, Memphis figured us out, but the series is over. So we're just we're just chilling. Like we're fresh as a daisy. We're young. We're deep. And it's like it's it's the Warriors Rockets game for us tonight.

But right now we only have one to two series in the entire round and we're about to talk about it. Like, I think the Warriors are going to have some urgency to win this game and try to get out of this series because they're watching these teams just slug each other. And every series is so physical. The Thunder are like, yeah, we're done. We're cool.

We'll take like eight days off until the next round if you'll get. And they might get like, depending on this Denver Clippers series. I want to give Chris Finch's flowers. You mentioned the Reed-Gobert conundrum. I feel like he's played that exactly right. He's had a great feel for, okay, and I've said this before, the Rudy issue is not on defense.

It's on offense, particularly the way the Lakers are guarding them.

Didn't go great. I feel like he's had a great feel for that. And the same with DiVincenzo and Conley. And the Wolves' second most played lineup is that lineup with DiVincenzo for Conley and Reed for Gobert. Plus 27 in 22 minutes. for the series.

He even played all three bigs together yesterday and played now somewhat due to foul trouble, played Jada McDaniels at the four and Terrence Shannon at the four played a little smaller. Like he's playing every card and he's doing it in the right doses.

Any, any, any adjustment you're looking for from the Lakers as they try to save their season other than what we've kind of talked about defensively and and all that.

A couple of things before we put this series to bed. Minnesota, 35% offensive rebounding rate. They're doing their job as the bigger team.

Well, the possession they had when they went up, I think they were up two after LeBron had his second highlight defensive play the last two minutes. And they, up to with like a minute 10 left, big possession. They just did nothing. They just ran. They just all kind of stood there. Luka, I think, ran some rote half speed pick and roll. LeBron ended up taking like a logo three.

That's an exhausted team kind of frittering away a massive possession. on the hope that a 30-foot three will just go in and win them the game. The other stat I want to mention, Minnesota plus eight in free throw attempts. I don't think a lot of people expected that. Game five could look a little different in Los Angeles, but if those stats are like that, this series is bye-bye.

It's going to show that you did sponge it. Here's the real dirty truth. Every time I have not washed the dish appropriately. I am a serial ignorer of the outside of dishes.

I'm in a rush. I want to get things done, and I'm sloppy. But maybe a challenge flag. The uptick to two challenges has sort of changed the math. When there was one challenge, you just save it for the end of games. Miami never uses challenges, ever, which is kind of weird. But now that there are two...

You will get smart people who are in charge of figuring this out for teams who will say, on the first one, if you're 100% sure you're going to win it, you can use it on something that feels innocuous, like a change of possession or something, because that could be a three, it could be whatever. Decision tree number one is like, are you going to win it for the first one?

an out of bounds call where it like clearly hits somebody's hand and, and it's been called the wrong way. I would hope. Yeah. I just, I just don't describe that level of certainty and I'm certainly not going to bank a playoff game. Oh, you know what? I'm a hundred percent certain on, I need, I need the, I need Mets fans feedback on this.

I vowed when I got laid off and I embraced the Mets again, after a long time off during their playoff run, I vowed to be a regular fan. Like it's not a regular, I vowed to keep in touch. I can't do it. Like, I vowed to check a box score, and I do it every day. Maybe they'll be on in the background somewhere on a TV where I can glance at it. Okay, so-and-so's up. I'm doing it.

I'm living up to my vow. Now I'm buying a jersey. And this is what I'm 100% sure of. I'm buying a jersey. And as a lapsed, diehard Mets fan, I own two jerseys, Todd Hundley and Mike Piazza. That's how lapsed I am. I need the Mets community to tell me what is the most ethical –

and most metsy jersey to get anyway um you mentioned lucas smoking the layup a fun theme of this weekend's crazy games are the forgotten plays that end up being huge so there's that there's schruder yeah not accelerating for a layup at the end of the third quarter and instead passing to tim hardaway jr i think for a dunk that didn't count in a game the pistons lost by one um Was it one?

Did they lose by one? I think they lost by two. Two? Whatever they did. It was close. My brain is mush. And then... Oh, no, it was one. You're right. 94-93. And then there is the end of the first quarter of Nuggets Clippers, which turns into the game of the year, maybe, at least given the stakes.

Where with 1.9 seconds left, I think, James Harden throws a football pass on a sideline out of bounds that goes the entire length of the court and goes out of bounds on the opposite baseline. Nobody touches it. And the Nuggets get the ball back in their offensive end. And Jokic hits a three at the buzzer. And you forget about stuff like that in the craziness of the game.

And holy crap, was this game crazy? Yeah. It's just these things come back to bite you sometimes. Let's talk about that game because we have a bonus. That series, rather, it's 2-2. It's the only 2-2 series, and we have an extra day off. The series does not resume until tomorrow. I asked, I gave you one homework assignment, which was rewatch the Aaron Gordon miracle.

And I've watched it 20 times and tell me something you didn't notice the first times that you watched it. Did you find anything?

So I'm not going to lie. I watched the entire Warriors-Rockets game after that game. And as I was watching that game, every 10 minutes I would be like, I'm going to have to rewatch this game because all I can think about is Aaron Gordon's dunk. I don't really understand what happened still. I don't understand the science behind how that was indisputably a good basket.

I believe that it was because they've gone within milliseconds to show the light going off. I just can't believe that it happened. I don't even understand how it happened. And I noticed the Kawhi double-team too because I'm watching and... You see Aaron Gordon come for the offensive rebound and you see the defense kind of shading toward Jokic.

And I asked myself, why are they overloading the floor at all? Why is all the attention just not on like, stay on our guy? There's nothing you, James Harden, can do by taking an extra half step toward Nikola Jokic on this shot. It's going to go in or it's not going to go in. And then you watch it again. It's like, actually, they're tilting a lot.

They're tilting a little bit because Kawhi is double teaming. And that leaves three on two on the backside. And Harden doesn't know who to box out. And here comes Aaron Gordon. And absolutely incredible. I'll tell you what I noticed. Jokic has zero reaction, like which we've seen before. He just puts his head down.

Like it's almost if you just zoomed on in his reaction, you would think they lost the game. He just puts his head down and just starts walking. And Jeff, I have an eye on Jeff Van Gundy all the time because I miss Jeff. I love Jeff. I'm so happy that he's back in the muck of this. And I'm sure he's enjoying himself.

Like really in it. And so I watched him, and he just sort of, he's sitting down. He's not standing up. He's like the only guy not standing up. He's sitting down, and then he just sort of keeps sitting down. Just an absolutely incredible moment from an incredible finish, which includes an absolutely ridiculous shot that Jokic hits to put them up to, followed by a Zubat's putback to tie the game.

This series is now 2-2. It was the series I was most excited about. I picked Nuggets in 7th. I feel like it could have been a sweep by now. Like the Clippers have been the better team. They're plus 33 for the series. Where are you as we go into game five in Denver? I don't know if you made a pick. I don't remember. What's your feel of this?

I am having not watched Bogdan Bogdanovich entire career, every single game, having not watched every international game, having not watched his games in Europe.

It's one of the reasons what you said about regular season basketball enthusiasts. I might change my social media bio to that. It's one of the reasons that one of my favorite random NBA teams of all time is the 2018-19 Blazers, who come off an absolute humiliation sweep at the hands of Anthony Davis and Drew Holiday the year before, where Drew Holiday just single-handedly turns into like...

Yeah, this series is stretching Jokic to the absolute outer bounds of his versatility. I mean, there are possessions where he runs. He starts by running an inverted pick and roll as the ball handler and finishes by shooting a three in isolation. I mean, that's literally what happened on one possession, I think, in late in the third quarter. They're running him off pin downs.

They need to run some cross screens for him. Like they're using the absolute versatility.

limits of his versatility just to survive in this series you mentioned mpj he gets crapped on all the time because of his contract because his handle hasn't developed because his defense is is a little bit spacey at times it was in this game or particularly early off of chris dunn his defense is a big pivot point in the series because he's guarding chris dunn and as you suggested he's

Clearly in game four, adjustment number one is whatever help you're giving off Chris Dunn in games one to three, dial it up by 50% in game four. Ignore him completely. And you got to be on time. You got to be on time no matter where Chris Dunn is. If he's on the strong side, it doesn't matter. Rules don't apply. Your job is to help. And he screwed that up a few times.

He played 42 minutes with a bad shoulder. Six of 11, four of seven on threes, 17 points. The Nuggets needed every one of those points. Crap on Michael Porter Jr. when he deserves it. Recognize that that's a ballsy performance. Christian Brown, I thought, was the unsung hero of the game. Eight of 19, not great. One of seven, not great. The one was huge.

I thought his defense was some of the best he's played. And you can see the Nuggets trying to figure out When can we sit Jokic back a little bit on these pick and rolls? Because when he's up to touch, it's a problem for us. It's a good battle when the Clippers have to pass it around and figure out how to find the open guy. But they're trying to like, can we sit him back a little bit?

You can only do that if Christian Brown is like roaring down Harden's tail on those pick and rolls. But you mentioned Dunn. And that was the adjustment that enabled the comeback was the Clippers went to Bogdanovich over Dunn and did something that I was waiting for them.

When will they feel pressed to do this, which is play, go all in on a lineup with only one non-shooter in Zoo instead of two with Zoo plus Dunn or Zoo plus Derrick Jones Jr. or God forbid, Ben Simmons plus one of those other guys. And they went all in on it. And the Nuggets had zero answer defensively like normal. Norm Powell went crazy. Every shot was wide open.

All of a sudden, the spacing just bent the Nuggets defense and just broke it. And I'm interested to see how quickly they go back to that. They should and will, I think, start Chris Dunn still. But you mentioned Batum, and Batum is the guy that I like in those lineups the best because of his combination of size, defense, and shooting. I've got my eye on that lineup with...

Batum in Dunn's place in the starting five. I thought that was an issue. And they went zone. Yeah. In a way that really seemed to confuse the Nuggets.

All right, coming up on a loaded edition of the Zach Lowe Show, Rob Mahoney for the first time. I'm such a longtime fan. We're hitting everything. The Lakers on the brink, the Aaron Gordon buzzer beater, the Tim Hardaway Jr. non-call Celtics magic physicality. Looking ahead to the next round. All coming up on an NBA playoffs edition of the Zach Lowe Show.

Oh, they went pre, they went prevent offense big time to the point that Yoko tried to walk the dog a couple of times. And the Clippers were like, you're not doing that. And one of those possessions, he had to throw that like a, like a sudden, like pick the ball up and lob it to Aaron Gordon, Aaron Gordon, just like sprinting. printed up the court with the ball and turned it over immediately.

Michael Jordan plus Scottie Pippen for the entire series. It destroys the Blazers. Embarrass those guys, really. In a series that you could look at and say, well, okay, you're never the same after that. You got to make some trades. You got to fire some people. And the Blazers didn't. they held the fort, they rebound next year, and they make the Western Conference Finals.

It's like, oh my God, they're kind of disintegrating here. They really were.

I do. The zone, I thought, confused them and at times confused me because I think if you rewatch the possessions, there are some in there that are actually man-to-man, except the matchups are just different. They just straight up put Kawhi on Jokic a couple of times. And if you look at the way the matchups are flowing, it's kind of man-to-man. I think they just got them... off balance.

And one of the things his own does is it fucks up all the matchups. So if you get a stop, everything's scrambled going the other way. And Kawhi is killing the nuggets on cross matches because he's guarding Michael Porter Jr. The nuggets want no part of Michael Porter Jr. On him. Michael Porter Jr. Wants no part of just like, okay, I got to take Kawhi. Um, I'll just do it.

He's running away from that matchup and Kawhi is feasting in the void of that. Um, Aaron Gordon, it's an awesome moment for him. Just a player that I think every basketball diehard can appreciate everything he does. Awesome moment for him. And I like the Nuggets.

They've sprinkled in some Murray-Gordon two-man game to try and get him going as a roller and use Jokic as a little bit of a spacer, secondary playmaker. They've even done Murray-Gordon-Jokic staggered screens, which I like. And... I still don't think they're running enough Murray Jokic pick and roll. They only ran 19, according to Second Spectrum, in game four.

For the series, they're running about 20 a game, 1.4 points per possession, no matter how you slice it. That's very, very good. I feel, I don't know. It's like, we're going to talk about the Knicks in a second. I have no idea why there's not more Brunson cat pick and roll.

in theory, this looks like Nuggets in seven. It's two, two, both teams have won on the road. The Nuggets have home court advantage. Don't feel good if I'm a Nuggets fan, but, but like, I also, the series has been strange enough where it, every time you feel like, okay, the Clippers have it figured out. They're clearly the better team. They blow out Denver in game three.

This is the bye-bye year against Oklahoma City when Dame makes one of the all-time great shots, and then they beat Denver in a seven-game slugfest in the next round. And people kind of poo-poo that Conference Finals run because they got smoked by the Warriors in the Conference Finals, totally overmatched. The bracket broke right for them.

It sort of comes back to this muddy middle. And so I, I guess we're just going to kind of live there. Any, are any parting thoughts before we go to Pistons Knicks?

Pistons-Knicks, 3-1 Knicks. Was it a foul? Yeah. It was a foul. Probably should have had your challenge. Probably should have consulted the flowchart. Well, you can't challenge that, can you? Why not? Could you challenge a non-call? I believe we saw another challenge of a non-call this weekend. Yeah, you're right. It was a foul.

Josh Hart said it was a foul. It's the arms that get me in the end. The arms come down a little bit. And I will credit Tim Hardaway Jr. for this. He doesn't jump sideways super aggressively to sell it. And I think in the end pays the price for playing borderline ethical basketball and not doing what a lot of players would do, which is completely take a sideways jump shot. It was a foul.

And the Knicks win anyway. I don't know what else to say about it. It sucks to have a game decided on a play like that. Ultimately, there's a lot of things that go into deciding the game. The Knicks are only plus eight for the series. They're scoring 110 points per 100 possessions. They're going to win the series. They should win the series, obviously.

Brunson has the injury scare and then comes back and scores 15 points in the fourth quarter on seven of 11 shooting. Incredible, incredible performance, incredible shot making. And cat with just two all time bailout jumpers, one falling out of bounds on a totally dead possession where the again, the Knicks don't run their best stuff. And the other one,

If you freeze the moment where Kat makes that step back three that ultimately wins the game, you will struggle to find worst space, worse spacing from a competent NBA offense. Literally all five Knicks players are within the same 20 foot quadrant of the floor on the right side. And Kat steps back and it's a three incredible shot. Where do you want to go?

I mean, I'm already looking ahead to the next series, which will be Knicks Celtics, probably. I feel a little worse about the Knicks coming out of this series than I did coming into it. I picked the Knicks in five. This is on course for Knicks in five, but it's not the Knicks in five that I envisioned.

They got some health luck, although they suffered their own health injuries, the health issues. Nurkic was hurt for, I think in that entire playoff run for them and Cantor, that was like the Ennis Cantor playoffs. You know what? I've said this many times before. Ask the LA Clippers about how easy it is to make a conference finals.

Well, Hart has been awesome the last two games. And there was a segment of Knicks fans clamoring for less Josh Hart and more Deuce McBride. By the way, Deuce McBride can't make a shot. And I said on Thursday, like, that's just not going to happen. Josh Hart is too important to the fabric of the team. Tibbs is the last coach who's going to do something like that.

And Josh Hart, 14 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals in Game 4, made his threes, which are going to be pivot points in this series. And in Game 3, I thought Josh Hart pushing the pace...

unlocked cat because the pistons could not get out of the durin cat matchup which they're trying to avoid and durin was stuck on cat cat walked into some trail threes not only that using josh hart as a facilitator from above the elbow and getting your cutting game going i think opened up their offense a little bit so i you know i get what you're saying i just sometimes i wonder like

You know, Bill has spent the whole year raving justifiably about the Brunson cat pick and roll and how unstoppable it is with shooting around it and Bridges heart. I mean, heart shooting, take or leave an Ananobi who's been outstanding the whole year. They've run 47 pick and rolls in four games. That's just not nearly enough.

And in both Game 3 and Game 4, yesterday because of Tobias Harris' foul trouble, they were gifted extended periods of time where the Pistons decided we have no choice but to guard Cat with Jalen Duren or Paul Reed. We're putting our centers on him because we just can't, we don't have anything else to do.

And you're just like, you are been gift wrapped, gift wrapped a chance to run a Brunson cat pick and pop and just see how they respond. And they either don't do it or they run it so halfheartedly that it doesn't go anywhere. And there's fatigue in that too.

And even when they have to, I keep harping on this, even when they have Tobias Harris on cat, you're not outlawed by the NBA from running that same two man gap.

Ask a bunch of these... Ask the Charlotte Hornets haven't won a playoff series in like a thousand years. Never poo-poo. Yeah, brackets break, right? You get some luck. That's fine. A lot of teams are never able to put themselves in any kind of position to take advantage of that kind of luck. I love that team. I've always loved Dame.

game because guess what if Tobias Harris switches Jalen Brunson is going to get a good shot and what he's usually doing is just hugging cat and saying we're not leaving cat and Jalen Brunson is getting good driving lanes and if it also if he switches you might get a cap like you're allowed to do this and this is I think I'm assuming I haven't listened to Bill and Ryan yet why Bill tweeted this is a brutal Tibbs game because you are you are

You are gifted this chance of we don't have to problem solve around Jalen Duren on Josh Hart. We are given the matchup that we got Cat for, center on Cat, and we don't leverage it. It's driving me insane. Is it driving you insane?

42 in the series. It doesn't feel that bad to me. Although there, there, there was one catch and shoot three cat had in look like three minutes ago where he was kind of spaced out at no man's land. I was surprised. It's that dramatic minus 42.

21 years old. 21 and a half years old. Incredible.

If you look back at my MVP ballots over the years, I always have him like a spot or two above consensus. And it just... it's he's been pretty open about how rough the transition to Milwaukee was for him personally. Yeah. I think he bought in the chemistry with Giannis just kind of never got to the point where we all thought it would be so easy for them on the pick and roll.

I used to call Mike Budenholzer Coach Low Hanging Fruit, and people took it as an insult. And I was like, no, it's a compliment. He's taking all the easy, like, we're not going to foul. We're going to get every defensive rebound. Like, we're going to take care of all the stuff that's easy for us to take care of. It was a completely, it was like meant as a compliment. Pick the fruit. Fruit's there.

It's delicious.

I don't know if that's the conversation I want to have about a guy who's getting paid 53 million next season, 57 million the year after 61 million the effort. Like, yeah, we can't really, we've got to dial back to pick and rolls with the best shooting self-proclaimed best shooting big man in the history of the NBA because of his fat. It's not, it's not, it's not good.

He played very well and he's played tough. And this has been a physical nasty series. Like all of these series have been. And yeah, you know, the Knicks are going to pull out of it. And yeah, but the Tobias thing has been really fun. I like this Tobias. And they're lost without him. They don't know what to do without him. Should we play a Sarr Thompson? Should we play a Ron Holland?

Should we just play Cade at the four? What happens when we play Cade at the four? They just don't know what to do. I'm a little surprised. Deep cut. Is Simone Fontecchio, like, dead? Like, what happened to him? I thought he was going to play a little bit in this series.

And we can talk about that trade and revisit it. Yeah. And I didn't think they were going to win this series with Dame, without Dame. I just didn't think they were good enough. But this is just... For NBA diehards who are up watching Blazers jazz at 11.30 Eastern time, he's a beloved player. And he's a beloved leader. And he's just... It just sucks.

The... The Pistons have only scored 109 points per 100 possessions in this series. Offensively, when I picked the Knicks in five, I said, I just don't see if they're going to be able to score enough to keep up with the Knicks. Now, it turns out keeping up with the Knicks has not been that difficult, and they still haven't been able to do it. What have you thought of Kat's defense in this series?

I think okay is, I think I'm like 80% of okay. I think I'm like a little less than okay. There have been segments of the series when they've asked him to come up to the level of the screen against Cade, and he's just been too late. And so he's got to like panic and rush out. And Durin has had streaks of dunk, dunk, dunk. And then they've sat him back a little bit and said, can you try dropping?

And that hasn't worked. But he's been, other points he's been okay. Spinning it forward to the likely Boston game, Knicks matchup in the second round. Obviously, Boston dominated that matchup in the regular season, but you hit it exactly on the head.

I'm watching Orlando-Boston, and Orlando has successfully dragged the Celtics into the mud, which I did not really think they're going to be able to do this level. Celtics' three-point game fell off volume-wise in Orlando in games three and four. Only 38% of their attempts have come from three in this series. It was 50% in the regular season. And that's obviously Orlando's plan.

Orlando's base defense in this series is we are switching everything Wendell Carter Jr. 's are five. Switchier than Cat, but it's not like he's, again, prime Kevin Garnett. Corey Joseph's are one. A little stouter than Jalen Brunson, maybe. Not maybe defensively, but it's not like he's a 6'5 point guard. It's Corey Joseph.

But we're switching everything, and that means Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, you can have Wendell Carter Jr., and attack his feet, or you can play bully ball against Corey Joseph. And guess what? You can get all the way to the basket, and we're not sending help from anywhere.

We're going to make you make decisions at the rim, particularly if Cornette is on the floor, so there's a little bit of traffic there. And if not, we're going to count on Wendell Carter Jr., Or Corey, we're going to count on Wendell Carter Jr. being big enough to like, you're going to miss some of those shots.

And we're going to count on Corey Joseph to stand you up and make you take 12 foot jump shots. And we are not sending up. There's a moment in the late in the third quarter last night in game four where where Jason Tatum is driving on Corey Joseph and Caleb Houston out of pure reflex rotates off Peyton Pritchard in the corner, gets into the paint and then realize you can see it in his head.

Oh, wait, I'm not supposed to do this. And sprints back at Peyton Pritchard. And I'm watching this and I'm wondering, is this a blueprint that the Knicks and other teams can go to against the Celtics just as a way of like, yeah, cat's not Wendell Carter jr. Brunson's like Corey Joseph, but it's not like those guys are all world defenders.

And can we just slow the game down, make the Celtics devolve into one-on-one play and just decrease their three point volume. Is that a roadmap for the Knicks or not?

As you're saying this, it also strikes me like... Cat is not as nimble on his feet as Wendell Carter Jr., and Wendell Carter Jr. is not super nimble, but he's pretty nimble. And this scheme falls away if the contested layups are just dunks. And Jalen Brunson is not Corey Joseph in the sense that the Knicks need Jalen Brunson's offense on every single possession. The Magic don't

really need Corey Joseph to do anything except hit a couple open threes. So go ahead, exhaust yourself on defense. Jalen Brunson doesn't have that luxury. But it has been interesting. Other teams I'm sure are watching this happen to Boston. And I thought Boston in game four, and I think was Stan Van Gundy on the call, I think he was, was noting this.

They were busting out some more set plays, I think to get people moving. They were rolling to the rim more with Porzingis and Cornette. I think to try to get the magic to almost not think. Like, defend this like you normally would. There's a big guy rolling to the rim. What would you normally do?

I normally rotate inside, whereas when the game pauses and it becomes static, they can think and remember, like, oh, yeah, we're staying home. And I thought that was smart, but... I mean, look, Orlando made them earn that road win. I mean, this was a nice homestand for the Magic and encouraging in the sense of Wagner is fighting through whatever is going on with his jump shot.

The team doesn't have enough ammo offensively. We all knew that. But the defense has held up and they were in these games against. They won one and they were in the other. I mean, this is like a little more juice, a little more talent offensively. They're not that far from being a problematic playoff team.

It's a lot of great backup center hair sitting on the magic bench right now.

It's funny. Bankaro is so interesting in this regard. He's kind of a Rorschach test for NBA fans because he's averaging 32 points per game, 44% shooting, 43% on threes, which means 44% on twos and like not great on twos. And so you can see people nitpick his game a little bit, particularly people who lean towards more of an analytics heavy bent.

I watch these games and I'm like, this dude is a freaking monster. He's got it. Like you said, when there's anybody who can help him, Because you just don't see a lot of guys who, within 45 seconds, look awesome as a pick-and-roll ball handler, and then look awesome as a screener, roller, finisher, and then look awesome as a post-up isolation guy, and then look awesome in transition.

And he defends pretty well. I... And he wants every bit of this. He doesn't care that they're overmatched. He feels like he's the best player on the floor. He's everything you want in a young, rising franchise star. And yeah, his efficiency is imperfect. Some of that is on him. Some of that is on... the surrounding talent just isn't good enough. Like we're counting on Anthony black a lot.

And Gary Harris is like closing games for us. It's just not there. I love what I've seen from Paolo in this series.

I'll go one further. Franz Wagner maybe kind of has the yips right now on his jump shot and is like the greatest performer with the yips in the history of sports. The dude is his jump shot is all messed up and he puts up 24, seven and six and still take seven threes.

Like there's something to be admired about a guy who's going through it in one phase of his game is in his head is a little bit and is still battling out there for 40 minutes and putting up Semi-efficient numbers for a team that needs anything they can get offensively.

Real quickly, I want to praise the Orlando Magic for something that happened in Game 3. Which nobody ever does. They get the ball back with the lead, 95-93. I believe there were 28.1 seconds on the clock. The differential between the shot clock and the game clock was about four seconds. It was either 3.8 or 4.1.

Then there's like a bizarre eight-second call, which they end up overturning, and the possession continues as if nothing ever happened. Inverted whistle, whoops, whoops. By the way, what's with the whistling in the crowd in Minnesota? Does someone have a whistle? It's fooling everybody. They must. And so the Magic did what nobody does.

The Celtics did not foul down two with a three to four second differential on the shot clock. I have always been of the school of thought, you have to foul because you're just not going to leave yourself with enough time. coaches are divided on this.

And one of the reasons that coaches are divided and we'll play for the stop as Joe Missoula did is that no team ever does what Orlando did, which is run the shot clock to 0.5 before you shoot. So the ball is in the air as the shot clock is expiring one long rebound or one tip of the ball, and the game is over. Lo and behold, the rebound bounces really far out. The Celtics grab it.

They call timeout. There probably should have been like .6 or .8 left on the clock. They gave them .3. All they have is a lob. Jamal Mosley, I don't know if that was scripted. I assume that it was. I assume that was the advice. That should be your default plan is we are shooting.

If you don't put pressure on us, if you don't trap us, if you don't do stuff to speed us up, we're shooting with zero on the shot clock.

And Joe Mazzullo was like, well, bad luck. It was a long rebound. Like, that's not bad luck. Like, a lot of rebounds of threes are long rebounds. That's, like, baked into the whole equation. I would have fouled there if I were him. I get why you play for the stop because... Teams assume the Magic will just go early and shoot with eight on the shot clock, and they didn't.

Quick thoughts on Warriors-Rockets. The last game four resumes tonight. Warriors win a Steph Curry masterpiece in game three to go up two to one. This is almost a must win for the Rockets, despite the fact that they have home court advantage. It's very hard to see them beating the Warriors three times in a row, particularly if and when Jimmy Butler comes back.

Warriors use a makeshift lineup with Post and Kaminga, end up finishing the game with a small ball lineup. I mean, the Rockets' offense is what it is. What are you looking for very quickly in game four tonight?

It's a tough subject for me.

I feel, I mean, I didn't have a ballot this year, but I said I would have put Steph, first team All-NBA over Donovan Mitchell in the fifth spot. I feel even better. I mean, no slight to Donovan Mitchell is unbelievable. I have no problem if he makes first team. He's been first team on my ballot once before. Steph is just unbelievable.

And the three, he hit a three in Jalen Green's face when the score was 92-86 Warriors, where the Warriors like ran a bunch of stuff. Rockets defense has been good this series. Even Jalen Green has been defending pretty decently this series. Like they're playing hard. Nothing happened. Steph Curry catches the ball at the top of the arc with Jalen Green right in his face. No dribble, no anything.

Like no jab step, just rises up and hits a three. And it's like, that's just so mean. It's so dispiriting. And like you said, the Rockets have seen this movie too many times. None of these Rockets, but the Rockets. The building has seen it like they don't deserve that. I just you know, we all knew the Rockets offense was going to be tested in this series. It was their weak link.

It just for them to put up their offensive rating is one hundred and three point six points per hundred possessions. That's very bad. That would have been last in the NBA by a lot. For them to have an offensive rebounding rate approaching 40% and be that inefficient is kind of astonishing.

You know, Ahmed Thompson looks like a young guy who's a little bit lost in this series because of his lack of a jump shot, and they can put anybody they want on him, and they haven't figured that out yet. Not surprising. The Adams-Shen Goon thing has been good, but they're clearly skittish playing it when Steph is on the floor.

Yeah, it certainly felt that way. They dialed it back. And defensively, they've been good. That's great. They're still in the series. Offensively, what they have is just not good enough. And Sam Amick wrote the piece for The Athletic. We've all been talking about it all year.

If that proves to be the case and the offense isn't good enough and they lose in the first round, there are two ways you can approach that decision.

your your approach could be we won 50 whatever games and there's number two seed we're ready but we just need a big boost on this end of the floor we've mentioned some guys already or could be like hey actually yeah we won 50 whatever games we weren't the two seed by that much and we kind of got exposed in the playoffs maybe we're a little further away than we thought let's take our time i suspect it will go the former way uh and be aggressive um if if this series goes this way but look

It's not like the Warriors are so consistent and so level-headed that we can just assume they win tonight. This could be 2-2 going back to Houston.

I had Kate on my podcast two years ago. I've I've always been high on Cade. Never sold my Cade stock. I couldn't believe that people could watch him play and do the thing we do with young players. Oh, he's inefficient. He doesn't get to the line. Can you give him a little time? Do you see? You have to watch.

And not like we're going to be right all the time, but you could see enough eight-minute slices of bad Pistons games where you'd be like, oh, there's something Luka-ish, Luka-lite here, the way he manipulates space in the paint. Um...

Jalen Green's passing is just so disappointing to me that it hasn't evolved at all to the point that when he hits Shingun with a good pocket pass, you're like, can you just do that? Like, just make that pass. And even so, a sustained diet of Alper and Shingun flamingo shots in the pick and roll is just not going to cut it. I enjoy it, though, personally. I like watching it.

Love the flamingo shots. And just to wrap up my old man yelling at Cloud segment of the podcast. Please. Please. You can't be a serious team and go 41 of 64 on free throws in a playoff series. They're shooting 64% on free throws. Shangoon was one of six. You're just handing teams minutes and quarters and games. But maybe they'll respond tonight and give us another.

Look, there are a lot of moves you can knock the bucks of the last six to seven years over. Certainly. I always go back to one of the stupid podcast things that I was happiest about in my retrospective of looking back. was squeezing in a rant about Dante DiVincenzo for Serge Ibaka at the end of whatever trade deadline podcast that was. It's like, I just don't understand.

Can we have more than one 2-2 series? If we get through this four games thing, I mean, the Cleveland-Miami thing is over. Yes. That's the other game tonight. Um, we only get one, two, two first round series. That's a, that's good for like getting the games over with and getting to the real stuff. But it's like, can we get a little, little excitement?

Rob Mahoney, this is a thrill. We've known each other a while, had dinner during the finals. We can trace our NBA lineage to the Point Forward blog on SI.com, RIP. I was the originator of it. You and Ben Goliver took over for me and made it even better. And now I don't know what's going on. It's gone. It's long gone. Long gone.

Um, I am a regular reader and, uh, the group chat with you and Justin barrier talking about gardening in Portland for the first five minutes of every podcast or, or chicken Alfredo last week, there was a long positive discussion and was just throwing bombs left and right in between cryptic comments about his nightlife. Uh, An absolute great listen.

It's gotten me through a lot of rides on the Peloton. It's a thrill to be a teammate of yours and to actually talk some hoops with you. And I look forward to doing it again. That's incredibly kind.

All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. Thanks to Rob. Thanks to Jesse on the production. We'll see you later this week, Thursday morning, whatever the hell has happened in the NBA. This has been such a wild week. Who knows what'll be going on? Maybe talk about round two a little bit. Thanks for listening to the Zach Lowe show.

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Everybody liked that trade for the Bucs. And I was like, has anyone watched Serge Ibaka? Like, I just don't trade wing for watched a big ever, not one time. The draft picks that were missed, the Kuzma trade is obviously a disaster, which included one of the only draft picks that who knows it may end up being a hit for the Bucs, AJ Johnson. Yeah. I'm with you on the Dame trade.

I will defend it until the end. Now, you could say, did they overreact to the Miami series in which they just fell apart completely? Giannis missed most of the series. Bud did not cover himself in glory in that series. They fire Bud. Butler bullies Drew Holiday. And it feels to them like the end of the road for this team. Like, we just don't have enough offense. And they make this trade...

Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show on a Monday morning, Eastern Standard Time. Oh, my God. What a weekend. Rob Mahoney, first time I've ever had you on. An absolute thrill. I've been a fan for a long time. One-third of the group chat bros that has maybe sneakily become my favorite NBA podcast that exists. I even watch it now. I'm like a modern person watching it now. What a weekend.

And they get Giannis then to sign an extension a month later, which in itself is a huge victory for that trade. Look, it hasn't worked. And one of the reasons it didn't work, as you said, is they couldn't control Drew Holiday's destination and it ended up being a worst case scenario for them. Another reason it didn't work is that Dame is 34 and got older a little faster than I think we expected.

Another reason it didn't work is that the Dame Giannis pick and roll never turned in to the Steph Draymond 2.0, except the Draymond in this is a seven foot monster who can lob dunk everything. Right. I don't know why it didn't. I suspect part of the reason why is that Giannis didn't want to set 40 screens a game, and that's fine. He's above that in that he is above that.

Another reason it didn't work is that teams just sold out on it from preseason game one. It was clear like, Brooke Lopez, you're going to be allowed to shoot. Whoever, you're going to be allowed to shoot. Another reason the trade didn't work is part of the logic, and I echoed this logic, was Yeah, you hurt your defense by trading Drew Holiday, one of the best perimeter defenders in the league.

Your base defense is a dropback scheme. That doesn't work if the guy pursuing the ball handler isn't hounding that guy from behind and challenging all those shots and making all those looks extra difficult. But who are we kidding? If you have Giannis and Brooke Lopez, you have the foundation of an elite defense for the next couple of years.

And Brooke Lopez got benched in this series against Indiana. He was too slow for the series, and that didn't hold up either. And it's tempting to look back and say, What happens if they don't make the Dame trade? Are we just in the same spot anyway, given what has happened to Chris Middleton's career? But I guess the difference would be you're in the same spot, but let's say you've stood pat.

You still have all the draft picks that you no longer have. You still have the ability to trade Drew Holiday, which you no longer have. Now... You don't have the ability to trade Damian Lillard, which was the last bullet left in the can we salvage this thing around Giannis? And nobody wants to have this conversation. I don't want to have this conversation. You don't want to have this conversation.

Definitely not. Opposing teams who I contacted last night who would theoretically be Giannis suitors already do not want to have this conversation. They're in mourning, too. It is unfortunately unavoidable just to say this. They can't trade Dame. That pivot is gone. This team cannot win with Giannis. There is no path to them winning big in the playoffs anymore.

They do not control their draft pick through 2030, so they cannot tank. And there just isn't enough here. There's no path to a championship team. And Everyone understands that the Bucs understand that Giannis surely must understand that.

And all that's left to do now is for Giannis and the Bucs, maybe individually, maybe in conjunction, but ultimately, no matter what happens, it's going to be up to Giannis to decide what to do with that reality. Do we sit in it and be a one team star forever and do our best? And that's cool. And hope.

There's some miraculous set of events that delivers some talent here that I just could not possibly foresee. Or do we not? And that's just where we are. I don't want to get into like the fake trades. But look, the uncomfortable reality is there is no path to this team winning in the next three or four years. They don't control their draft. There's just nothing they can do.

And it's now just up to Giannis to sit with that and decide his career.

And also, you know what they can never take away? No one can ever take away the ring.

They got a ring. Drew got a ring. Everything after that has not gone great, but they got a championship. Never, ever, ever nitpick the draft picks, nitpick the trades, whatever. They got a championship. It's the whole reason we do this and they got one.

I don't even know where to start. We had an all-time great buzzer beater. Like, literally, we've never seen it before. We've had... Non-calls that are going to infuriate multiple teams. And the last two-minute reports will be eagerly anticipated. We had copious fights and scrums and near fights and spiciness. A couple of injury scares. And then, sadly, the place we have to start.

AJ Green just does what he does consistently. You mentioned Middleton. And are we here anyway, no matter what? Although, obviously, the opportunity cost is what it is of doing the Dame trade and having it backfire.