The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers down Cavs again + are the Warriors done without Steph?
Wed, 07 May 2025
Tyrese Haliburton hit the game winning 3-pointer to complete a 20-point comeback win for the Indiana Pacers as they take a 2-0 lead in their second round playoff series with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Dave DuFour and Es Baraheni breakdown the Pacers comeback, Tyrese Haliburton’s game winner, and Donovan Mitchell’s epic performance. Then, Jon Krawczynski joins the show to breakdown what went wrong for the Wolves, Anthony Edwards weird game, and how the Warriors survive without Steph Curry.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Eś Baraheni and Jon KrawczynskiExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson Moody Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: How did the Pacers achieve a comeback against the Cavs?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. Coming up, the Pacers win a wild comeback win in Game 2 over the Cavs. And we got John Krasinski to talk about the Timberwolves' loss, even though Steph Curry was out for the Warriors. Good morning, everybody. Good morning-ass horrible night. Good morning. Oh, my God. If you were in Cleveland or a Cavaliers fan or... I can't believe it.
I still can't believe it. A former Donald Mitchell fan, maybe in Utah. Yeah, yeah. Unbelievable game. The Cleveland Cavaliers just, they had no business being in the position they were in. They were down, you know, Evan Mobley, Darius Garland, DeAndre Hunter in the game, ran up a 20-point lead, and then to just have it ripped away from you like that when you think you stole one.
It's got to feel awful. Tyrese Halliburton hits a game winner and the Pacers are up 2-0 on the number one seed in the East.
It's so funny that we have back-to-back game winners based on terrible execution from young number one seeds in each conference. I heard you and Zena talk about OKC and the bad communication, the fouling up three, all that that led to the Gordon game winner. Right. And it's funny because now Halliburton has his second game winner of the playoffs to like Aaron Gordon.
Chapter 2: What mistakes did the Cavs make in the fourth quarter?
And it's because the Cavs made so many mistakes in that fourth quarter. I'm thinking about the the fumble of the inbound pass. Yeah. That led to the Nemhard. You know, Nemhard got Steele, and then they went down, and I believe it was Halliburton who got fouled. And then offensive rebound, Halliburton hits the game winner. And he also did the big balls celebration. I don't know if you saw that.
Chapter 3: How did Tyrese Haliburton's performance impact the game?
Yeah, exactly. I mean, listen, you're up 2-0 and you won two games in Cleveland. You do whatever celebration you want. Also, hey, look, shout out Aaron Neesmith. That guy, once again, down the stretch of a game, his energy shifted everything. I mean, he had a crazy foul guarding Donovan Mitchell where he throws his hurdles, Donovan Mitchell. That's how aggressive he was playing down the stretch.
Chapter 4: What role did Aaron Neesmith play in the Pacers' victory?
But also, he gets that big putback. And, you know, to be honest with you, the little bit of the replay review there gives Indy a little bit of a chance to kind of catch their breath, you know, and set their defense. So they kind of lucked into a little bit of a break there, right? Like Neesmith then draws that offensive foul.
yeah neesmith draws the offensive foul and you know what like i i love the defensive effort from indiana all night this is this is a crazy because you think about like donovan mitchell folks had a crazy same game we thought we were we thought this was going to be the max streus show and we're going to talk about how playoff donovan mitchell which we still will because they were great but but i i thought indy turned it up in the second half they got out and
transition more I thought Halliburton gave them tons of juice in transition and part of that is the turnovers forcing more turnovers in the second half pushing it and then to your point Neesmith making tons of awesome shots five threes in that game massive shot making right well
It was a little bit of a weird game for the Pacers, especially in the first half. We're thinking, okay, hey, they got a real shot to go up 2-0, and they came out flat. They were talking about it on the halftime show, even. It was that obvious that they came out flat. And then when you go in, if you just look at the box score, look, I think the Cavs did a good job.
Obviously, their game plan, don't let Siakam beat us. Don't let Halliburton beat us. Now, of course... down the stretch of the game. I mean, he takes four shots in the last, I think, two, two and a half minutes. So they had eight shots for Siakam, only 11 for Halliburton. Those guys don't have big games, but the other guys did. Miles Turner had a good game scoring the ball. Neesmith puts up 23.
And then the other thing was coming out of the halftime break, it just felt like the Pacers had more of that Pacers energy. They started running on makes. Again, right? They weren't doing that in the first half. And it was almost a little bit – and I'm not going to give them credit for this because I don't think that they planned it this way. But there was almost a little bit of rope-a-dope.
You know, did the Cavs run out of gas a little bit? I mean, I think you could argue certainly they looked tired. I mean, Jared Allen basically, you know, the only big man for them. So they had to win. You saw like –
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Chapter 5: How did Donovan Mitchell's performance influence the game?
You saw Donovan Mitchell towards the end of the game, like every stoppage, hands on knees, looking exhausted. And dude, you take 30 shots in this game. You play 35 minutes. He had a usage rate of 47 and a half percent, which, by the way, to contextualize what that means for everybody. Right. Giannis Antetokounmpo leads the league this season in usage rate at 35 percent.
That means he held on to the ball 12 and a half percent more than Giannis does on a regular basis. Like it was just he was the guy for them.
Right. His shot chart, you know, so he puts up 30 shots. And nowadays, when a guard does that, you're thinking, oh, he must have shot 15 threes. He took seven. Right. But he attacked the he attacked the basket. How many paint? He had 19 shots in the paint.
He took 23 shots that were twos. 19 of them were in the paint. Basically, 15 of them were in the restricted area, which is just absurd for a guy his size. He took 21 free throws, but I don't think anybody can call him a free throw merchant here tonight because he was just barreling his way to the basket.
Well, he got free throws that you're actually – this is what we point to when we say a guy has a lot of free throws, right? Like when we're making the argument that a guy does deserve free throws, it's this sort of rim pressure. And, I mean, again, this was the path to success for them all night. You know, Max Struess benefited from that quite a bit. Hits five threes.
But the other thing is, I think defensively, the way that the Cavs came out, I think they did a pretty good job. They just –
ran out of steam and the Pacers made the bigger plays down the stretch that yeah plain and simple yeah I think the Pacers also adjusted to the switch heavy defense Cleveland started switching in this game more often especially early to not let Halliburton and Siakam get downhill more often uh but the Pacers adjusted really well by like moving Hallie off the ball getting him to
Like attack from a different angle. And it worked really well because he was just cooking. I mean, look again, this is a guy who is just incredible. Also, Andrew Nembhard, 13 assists tonight, you know, the playmaking ability. That's what comes with getting Hallie off the ball, getting Nembhard to be your facilitator and then working and trying to get those other guys to score for you.
Yeah, and Halliburton picked up a wrist injury somewhere along the way. It did not matter, apparently. It didn't matter at the end, but I wonder if that might have been part of that. Nembhard, we talked about how he's a playoff riser. The shots didn't fall, but you mentioned he makes a big play, gets big rebounds. He had two offensive rebounds. He comes up with that steal. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: Can the Cavs recover without their key players?
Was Max Struess in the Matthew Delvedova role?
I don't know about that. I mean, I don't know about that. I will say Struess had some defensive possessions that were impressive, especially like Miles Turner down the stretch of the game. I thought the guards, when they were switched on to Miles Turner, gave him a really hard time around the basket.
And, you know, like, I was thinking we were coming into this 1-1, and I was going to talk about some of the things that, look, the Cavs are missing these guys in Game 3. They found some things that's working for them. But, man, now they're down 2-0, and you just started thinking, ooh, buddy. Yeah.
Oh, my God.
I don't know if the Cavs can do this.
Are you saying... I mean, look, it was it was impressive enough from the Cavs where you're like, all right, maybe they can go into game three in Indiana and put up a competitive fight. Right. That's their season on the line right there like that. You you have to win that game because going up, going down three. Oh, you're basically done. That's it. Right. Do you think they're done?
Is this it? I don't know, man. The Pacers are pretty good. And I think for them to lose four of the next six. I mean, it's tough. That's tough to see. Yeah, yeah. For the next whatever. Yeah. Yeah. For the next five, not six. Excuse me. That would be pretty tough. The matchup is is just too even. even though the records weren't in the regular season. Obviously, the Cavs had a great year.
But as the Cavs lose people, if Garland's not back, which we talked about this the other night, they said that this would be a multiple-week injury if it was a regular season. Evan Mobley, they were talking on the broadcast, he's limping. He can't put full weight on his foot. So they've got to be at least doubtful for Game 3. And I would say, you know, I don't expect those guys to be able to play.
So, you know, you're looking at a potential, you know, this was a home run game from Donovan Mitchell. Can you repeat that and expect, you know, 20 and 22 and 12 from Jared Allen? You get 23 from Max Drew. It's a little bit like, OK, see, you know, it really does feel like a game where you lose the game, where you get the huge Caruso night. Yeah. You know, and you lose it in heartbreaking fashion.
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Chapter 7: Are the Pacers contenders for the NBA Finals?
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After the Warriors pick up a game one win in their second round series against the Wolves, road teams in the playoff second round are now 5-0. Here to talk about it, John Krasinski, who covers Minnesota Timberwolves for us. John, I want to start with what you had to say on Blue Sky about this game because I feel like he kind of nailed it.
The Wolves lose game one amid a rash of missed threes and blown defensive coverages. Even a B-minus game would have won this. With Steph out, they're probably okay. This was a massively disappointing game. John, why was this game so disappointing outside of the loss?
Yeah, Dave, I mean, they come into this series with home court advantage. They played really well against the Lakers and just handled them. And then you have the fans getting all geeked up because they're facing the two biggest villains in Timberwolves lore, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green. And I do think that they...
wanted to come in and set a tone right away and just say that, hey, this is going to be our series. We are the better, deeper team, and we're going to show what we can do. But instead, Steph goes out with an injury, and they just played so flat, and they were so poor from a shooting perspective. And then even when they really needed to lock down defensively, they were just missing assignments.
It was... One of those things where the Warriors, 99 points, 39% field goals, 18 turnovers. This was a team that was so beatable. And in a long series, are they going to be okay? Yeah, there's a good chance of that. But you just know that you never want to give away games, especially against a team like this, and give them some belief. And so I think that's why it's so disappointing.
In the last round, right? Like Jimmy Bowler misses a game, the Rockets blow that one, and then they lose in seven. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly right. And so, you know, they have the benefit of more time here. But you just like in these playoffs, whenever you have a team that you that down, you have to get the win anytime you can. And and so that's why, you know, everyone was massively disappointed with the effort, with the execution, with all of it coming out of this game.
What was being said postgame about the slow effort and slow start for this team between Chris Finch and Anthony Edwards?
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