Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Major Upsets Brewing in Round 1? Can Magic & Lakers Keep It Up + Early Playoff Headlines

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to react to an exciting opening weekend for the NBA Playoffs. The guys tackle a few major upsets starting with the Magic’s stunner in Detroit including if the Pistons are in real danger in this series. Next, the guys tackle if LeBron can lead the Lakers past the Rockets and discuss if KD will be back. Finally we talk Victor Wembanyama’s playoff debut and discuss the other major storylines you need to be watching.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. the HOOP Collective podcast, we talk about the NBA, which you're doing on midnight on Monday morning. Joining us from New York City,

although he was in Boston today for game one of the Celtics series, which he was so impressed with, he turned around and left the city. I thought you were going to cover the Boston Marathon on Monday morning, Tim Bottoms. I did not say to cover the Boston Marathon, though Hannah Storm is doing the telecast of it, and on Friday she asked me about what time the game was

and asked if she was running the marathon, which she was very amused by, which is she's just going to be in town for it. She said, nope, I'm just doing the TV. I definitely am not trying to run that. That's all right. Well, not people know that Bon Temps is a runner and ran cross-country in high school.

I never have even considered running a marathon because that is an insane amount of distance. God, Godspeed, oh, actually, shout out to Drew Carter. Drew Carter. Oh, really? Is running the marathon for charity on Monday. Wow.

Shout out to our guy, Drew Carter, in all seriousness, I was going to do that, and I totally forgot. All right, shout out to Drew. Jackson, what are you doing with your life? And good luck to him. It's going to be like 45 in Boston. I would rather run the marathon on 45 degrees than 85 degrees. That's exactly what I said to somebody else is doing it today.

It's a much better attempt if you're picking one. All right. In case you don't know, Drew Carter is the voice of the Boston Celtics on TV and also is No. Come on. People listen to the pot. Listen to the pod, no? Come on. Okay, well, this is a thing. That always doesn't happen. Anyway,

and Jackson's former college roommate, along with Noah Eagle. I'm sorry, you don't know who you are. You haven't been introduced yet. You'll just sit there and wait. You'll sit there and wait until you're called on. We've got a spicy window today, folks. This is going to be a fun pod. Joining us from Oklahoma City, where he watched the Thunder dismantle the Phoenix Suns in game one of that series is Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners? Can I talk now? Yes, please. Please. Oh, great. Let's just sum up.

We don't need to really hit on it. I mean, it was a complete blowout, much like last year against the Memphis Grizzies in game one. Quick turnaround from that Friday night, late playing game for the Suns. Most significant thing that happened today, J. Lynn Williams, J. Dubb, looks like himself. Yeah, you had four steals in the first half alone, I'm pretty sure.

And the Thunder, what was the points off of turnovers in this game? four to two. See, okay, obviously you're going to give the sons a bit of a pass because they've played three games in six days or whatever. But I'm just going to say that when the thunder are dominating the possession game like that, that is when you know they're at their best. Okay, maybe some games will be, they'll hit more threes. Maybe some games, Shea will be a little bit more on his game. You may have certain variants. When the thunder are dominating the points off of turnovers, it means that they're assisting.

is functioning highly. One more quick stat. 34 to 2, that 32 point margin points off turnover is the most in the play-by-play era since 97-98, which as far as our ESPN research folks can go back and track that. The second most was a 30-point margin, and that was by the Thunder in Game 7 of last year's Western Conference semifinals when they blew the nuggets off the floor. I looked this stat up.

They won this game by 35 today, I believe. I can't do math right now. Their average margin of victory at home in the West playoffs last year, obviously the finals was tighter, including game one, which they lost. Their average margin of victory at home last year in the West playoffs was 29. No disrespect to everybody else, but the Thunder are the heavy favorites for a reason. It will be a big disappointment if they don't win the title. And today was an example of why.

We'll see if they're healthy. We'll see how it goes. Doesn't mean they're definitely going to win, but they should win, and that was a good statement of intent. And, by the way, McMahon, it's interesting that window comes on here spicy today because we know that in Cavs Corner right now,

there is rejoicing. Oh, yes. Because they see the path to the conference finals Sands LeBron for the first time since when, Brian? 1992 192 Mark Price Brad Doherty

I've been telling people listen I think the magic are about to get hot I was saying that after that first playing game Let's rewind Let's rewind 72 hours to the Friday morning pot The magic are a team That just needs to go

Their separate ways For a little bit If not for a while Now by get hot I thought It meant go lay on the beach In Cancun But now they're just getting hot

Well, I don't know if they were that hot today, but it was a, look, the home teams were seven. Well, the Pistons were not, that's for sure. Cade Cunningham was hot and the rest of his team was not. The home teams were seven to one over the weekend. I don't have our final stats at info report on the weekend, but I got to believe that's the best home teams have done for the first weekend in a while. I mean, there have been years where we've seen three home teams lose on Saturday. I think that's happened a couple of times in the last decade. And so the one home team that did not win was the Pistons, the one seed in the west, in the east.

The magic with two impressive performances since our last pod, one on Friday to get into the playoffs, just pounding the Charlotte Hornets, ending that Cinderella dream. Vin is playing performance by the Hornets. It's unfortunately true. It's unfortunately true. And all the wrong, all the wrong reason. You got that right. Yeah.

Anyway, then they go up to Detroit, you know, with no really ability to prepare and lead this game from tip to tail. I'm not sure they were behind more than a handful of seconds in this game of forward at all. I don't think they trailed. I think it was wired away. It got back to 65, 65, about seven minutes to go in the third quarter. And then it looked like Detroit had come back and was going to take control of the game and go on and win. and then all of a sudden, Magic just took back control again. And, I mean, look, to me, the crazy thing about the last 72 hours with Orlando is the performance they had on Friday

and the performance they had today against Detroit, this is the team we thought Orlando was going to be back in October. And they basically have not been hardly at all this season. And then when everybody wrote them off after they had desolatory games against the C team for the Celtics and then losing, not playing well against the Sixers last week. I mean, McMahon is far from the only person who thought that that was a one, two, three, Cancun situation going into that game Friday at home. And instead, I mean, that Horns game might as well end it five minutes in. And they come out and play a great game today. And I was thinking watching this Detroit game.

I don't know how this series is going to go. There's a lot to talk about with it. But the Pistons kind of remind me a little bit of the Lowry de Rose and Raptors right now, where that team always had people going, man, are they actually really that good? Are they really going to make a run? Are they really going to get deep in the playoffs? And they would always lose the first game of the playoffs every year. That's true.

It was always Saturday at noon. And the sky was always falling after that. So, you know, there's a long way to go in the series. But that was the first thing I thought of tonight. I got a whiz of the quiz. Ooh. Yes, please do. All right.

Whiz of the quiz, who was the last 60 win team to lose their playoff opener? Was that the playoff opener? 60 plus win team to lose their playoff. Was that the Mavericks? Damn, Wendy. Which Mavericks? Oh, I was thinking the We Believe the... Yes, sir.

And what happened in that series? The We Believe. Warriors beat the 06-07 Mavericks, who that was actually a 67 win team. Yeah, with all due respect to the Pistons, this team doesn't have that potency of that team. And what happened at, uh, what happened in that series? Went six games.

Well, that was Don Nelson with his game plan against Dirk Novitsky, his old team and whatnot, whatnot. Yeah, it was also a, uh, a one star 60 plus win team. like Josh Howard was their second best player. There's a lot of similarities. I mean, that team was better and Dirk was better, but there's a lot of similarities. But what's crazy is Cade had 39 tonight? Can I just say the stat about Cade?

Like, you know, 39 points, got to the line 11 times. But two huge stats I want to point out with Cade. One, he has four assists. And not because I think he was hogging the ball. It's just, there was nobody out there who wanted to shoot. Secondly, Jalen Duren, who was an offensive machine down the stretch of the season, he takes four shots in this game. Kate Cunningham takes 27 shots.

Jalen Duren takes four? That's concerning. No, sir. That is, I mean, again, I'm not criticizing Cunningham. This is all the concern, all the concerns about Detroit. One of my neighbors is a big Detroit sports fan. I saw him outside. He's walking his dog after the game.

He was like, man, that wasn't very fun. I said, no, no, it wasn't very fun. And it also highlighted all the concerns everybody has about the team. Like, it's a one ball handler team. It's Cade Cunningham. And then a question mark is who the second perimeter score is going to be. Jalen Duren had an amazing year. I voted for him for all NBA.

He has had, like, he's been far better than ever would have guessed. But if he's your second offensive option, how is that going to go? Did not look great today. You know, there's a lot of questionable one-way players in terms of, like, how big their impact can be. On the playoff stage, you know, Sart Thompson had a, again, he was, I mean, he did a little bit of stuff offensively today, more than, it's a little bit more than normal. But like, it's a flawed team with a lot of questions, and then they come out and they lose like this.

And I mean, look, can we make an argument that Orlando's the more talented team? Like, I think we can at least make an argument, right? Yeah, I mean, I mean, the Pistons bench was 4th 16 in this game. Well, going into the season, you would have said Orlando was better than Detroit. I believe the magic had a higher over-under. Correct me if I'm wrong. But I believe they did.

By the way, Wendy, you mentioned the four or six. there's a rule about assists. Somebody has to make a shot. That's what I'm saying. And they were four of 16 off of Cade's passes. Tobias five for 15, one for seven from three. But typically, typically he's getting Duren some easy buckets.

That clearly didn't happen. You mentioned Dern barely took any shots. Listen, Wendell Carter dominated Jalen Duren. That's not. If that happens during the series, it will not be Detroit. Moving on. And listen, man, we all were hammering on Palo Bancaro. I did, you guys did, the world did after that Philly playing game.

He brought it to Charlotte, dominated that game. He brought it today. I'm not to say dominated, but he was really good on both ends of the floor. And when Palo Bancaro uses that 6'10, 250 pound athletic frame to get downhill and attack and make things happen, he is an all-star, all-MBA caliber player. When he settles for a bunch of jump shots, he's, eh. Well, he's attacking right now.

And by the way, Franz is starting to look springy again, too, after he didn't deal with these leg injuries. That was the best I've seen Franz look in a while. He had 19 points. Obviously, the magic played very well across the board. their starting lineup, five to five dominated the pistons. I don't even think the magic

played great offensively in this game. Well, magic aren't going to play great that offensively that often. Right, but you're going to have a game where they hit their threes. Sure. Well, and again, if you just go through their starting five, Jalen Suggs, Desmond Bain.

Suggs was everywhere in this game. Sugs. Yeah, everywhere. Play with great energy. Ron Fogner and Wendell Carter Jr. You compare that to Kate Cunningham, Assar Thompson, Tobias Harris,

Jalen Durenne, Duncan Robinson. Like, at best, that's a wash. Like, they probably are the more talented teams. Why Orlando was such a massive disappointment this season. They were supposed to be challenging to be a conference finals kind of team after trading for Desmond Bain. I mean, how big, let's just put it this way. You know, I'm a big believer in never overreacting to game one.

I don't care if you win by 35. I don't care if you lose by 35. Obviously, it can be something an indication, but, you know, I've covered many, many, many series where you get to game four and you laugh about what you thought about the series after game one. So I brought up Toronto, I brought up those Toronto teams for a reason because this was an annual right of passage for the Raptors for about five years. So they would win or one or two rounds in the playoffs and they would lose game one of the first round every year and it would be an existential crisis. So how, how concerns to the Pistons? We know there are concerns overall. How concerns for the Pistons be about this series right now? Go ahead, Taney.

I mean, they better have their full attention. I'm not going to say it's a five alarm fire, but, you know, it's an alert. You mentioned Jalen Duren. The other guy who's just flat out has to be much better is Dennis Jenkins. And the silver line of Cunningham missing that time at the end of the season, And the Jenkins really played well during that stress. It's like, okay, is that, is that the secondary? What does that tell you that you're asking a rookie who is a two-way guy?

He's a second-year guy. And he's not a two-way guy anymore. All right. I'm sorry, he's not a two-way player. Okay. So is A.J. Mitchell, for example. I mean, like, they're converted two-way players. Yeah, but you're not saying A.J. Mitchell is vitally important to the Thunder.

I would say he's a sixth man in the year candidate, although he's not a finalist. I'm just telling you, Jenkins has to play well for the Pistons. And what I'm saying is, is that what does that tell you about the Pistons? It tells you that they've got a massive void for a secondary playmaker that it appeared that he was capable of filling. Which is what has been said about the Pistons four months. And that goes back to the trade deadline when Tray Jean Langdon, I would say showed his hand and not going after anything at the trade deadline saying, hey, we're going to wait. Well, he got Kevin Hurt. He got Kevin Herder as part of a, like, moving around of salaries.

I mean, it wasn't. Well, he's played 19 minutes today. He traded for him to check down there. Kevin Herder's fine, but they didn't go, they didn't go out and actively seek to acquire a player. They moved off of Jaden Ivy and they got Kevin Herder back. So we've talked a lot about Jaden Ivy and his impact on other places. We support Kevin Hurder on this pod. Yes, we do.

Big fan of the pod. And he's a nice player. But, like, they didn't go. You know, they could have. gone out and tried to add an impact piece. And they very clearly said, we're going to sit back. I mean, Vinnie, our guy, Vinny Goodwill's written about it. Like, they want to see what this team looks like and how it does in the playoffs.

And then they can adjust. And I don't, I'm not saying that's wrong. But. And, and they did have, they had all the ability in the world to, to make, you know, take a big swing. They had financial flexibility. They had to buy it. Not only, like, you know, they had wiggle room financially plus Tobias Harris's

large expiring contract. They've got all their picks moving forward. If they wanted to be aggressive, they could have been. I've told you, in that way, they remind me of the Thunder a couple of years ago. That that team traded for Gordon Hayward, but they certainly didn't take a big swing before the deadline. And the one thing the Pistons did at the trade deadline was just improve their draft pick. Like they moved up, they did a swap with the wolves as the wolves were moving money around, as you mentioned Mike Connolly, moved up several spots in this year's draft in the first round.

That was really the main thing that Detroit did, which is fine. but now you get to this playoff series and like you ask what the concern level is, there's two series where there should be a high concern level. We're going to talk about the other one next. The concern level should be really high because this game, like it shined a light on every single concern you would have about the Pistons.

And if we knew coming into Friday that seemingly the Orlando team that was supposed to show up all year has now appeared at the start of the playoffs, that's a much. And look, they could easily, well, look, they could easily turn back into a pumpkin in game two, and this could be a five-game route. Like, I'm not saying the series is over. Yeah, it's just, you know, NBA basketball is fragile.

They had a couple of absolutely objectionable performances, and they had bounced back with two excellent performances. I mean, they had a couple of objectionable ones. Like, let's not act like we're. No, I understand. But, I mean, like, really the game. Magic have been one of the two or three most disappointing teams of the entire week this season.

It's not really close. All I would say is typically I would 100% agree with you on game ones. I think because of the concerns everybody had about Detroit, the fact that this sort of exemplified all of them, I think it's a real concern. And we'll see what happens in game too. I mean, it's going to be a massive game. I think they get two days off, right?

It's Wednesday. Yeah, Wednesday got to sit for. two days play game two. They haven't led a playoff series in 18 years, which is wild. Also haven't won a home playoff game in 18 years. This is 2008, which was either right before or right after LeBron's retroactive flagrant foul on Chris Weber. Was here after for bookkeeping purposes. But it depends on when his memory says.

That's true. But, yeah, look, I mean, Orlando's played great the last couple games. And, I mean, yeah, it's going to be a fascinating game on Wednesday night. See how it looks. See how it goes. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. The other series that I guess the favorite loss game, the rockets were favored. Well, of course, okay, so Durant, but I wonder how much the line moved when it was announced.

I was going to ask, I don't know what the line did after Durant was ruled out. Durant went through a pregame workout. I want to say it was like two or three hours before tip and bass is like, I can't move right now the way I need to move. I can't play. And Imodoka says he hopes it's a one game thing. It's a, he took a shot to the knee during practice this week. And fellas, let me tell you, I'm going to go.

Jackson says the line went from Rockets by five and a half to Rockets by two and a half. All I know is this, I'm going to play pickup basketball tomorrow. The offense there will look better than the Rockets offense. without Kevin Durant on the court. I'm going to say there's a couple of things about that. So first off, let me just say, the Lakers, if they have any serious interest or ability in winning that series, had to win game one, had to, because their home and Durant is out. And the imbalance that happens with not having Luca Donchich and Austin Reeves rebalances when you don't have Durant with that team.

You know, no Fred Van Bland and Durant, you know, I know Van Baville, hasn't been there all year, but you could argue. I'm Stephen Adams if you want to throw that in. You could argue that it's way more balanced when you can, when you toss in no Van Vleet. Now, there's a couple of things about this game that were wild. Number one, and I haven't seen any history on this, but the rockets took 27 more shots than the Lakers. That's insane. 27 more shots.

Now you may say, oh, maybe the Lakers had like 15 more free throws. No, sir. Free throws were even, 26, 25. So from John Schumann, because I have another John Schumann stat, John Schumann from MBA.com, or pal. The Rockets shot 27, got 27 more shot opportunities on the Lakers. He's including field goal attempts and trips to the line, I guess, for that. That was the fourth biggest differential.

in any game across the league this season and the biggest for any team that lost. I mean, just right there, just that differential right there because when you talk... There's also a companion stat that goes with that. Okay, well, I'm going to tell you, how do you get 27?

The offensive rebounding in this game, I assume that's what you're talking about, Bontos? I was talking about the other reason why the Lakers won the game, but we can get to that in a minute. The offensive rebounding was 21-3. in favor of the Rockets. This is an unheard of spread to lose a game. And by the way,

there were a lot of offensive rebound opportunities for the Rockets. Yes, there were. Well, that's true. But, like, that's their game. Their game is to get offensive rebound opportunities. And I think they're going to continue to get offensive rebound opportunities. It might not be plus 18, but they're probably going to be plus quite a bit every game.

Well, it was a, I think JJ Redick described it as a simplistic game plan, which I think is what they, needed. I, you know, DeAndre Aiton played, like, here's the thing. DeAndre Aten cannot, like, we talked earlier about how Wendell Carter cannot outplay Jalen Duren. Do you, yeah. And you have any chance?

DeAndre Aten cannot equalize. Actually, it wasn't even equalized because Shangoon was six, six of 19. Yeah, Aiton was 8 to 10. Aiden had 19 and 11. Shingoon had 19, 8, and 6. but Aiton was it It was six for 19 from the field Aighton was a bigger factor in this game

I mean a center shooting under 33% from the field is hard to do The other stat from John Schumann Was that among the eight teams to play Saturday night Or I guess during the day Saturday The Lakers had the lowest expected field goal percentage

And the highest actual field goal percentage You didn't think that You didn't think Luke Kinnard Taking guys off the dribble It was going to continue. Well, the Lakers going 10 for 19, and I would emphasize the 19 from three in the game. Like the Lakers winning a game where they only took 19 threes.

I would not have bet either. How about the Rockets making more threes than their opponent, which happened in this game 11 to 10 and losing. It's unheard of. That's what I mean. Like, there's a lot of math in this game that if you, like if you just look at the math, the math would tell you,

This has to come back in Houston's favor, even if Durant is not around because the math is so compounding in Houston's favor. However, anyone who watched that game, to Tim's point, and watch that Houston offense, I don't think it'd sit here and be like, oh, man, the math is going to come around for the rocket. It's going to be great. Like, maybe it will, but I've got to see the math actually work after watching that because that was impossible to why. They don't have a calculator. They're counting with rocks, and that's what they're throwing at the freaking real. They're stacking the rocks. Well, you know what I was thinking about, and I know that I think, you know,

Luke Canardt hit five threes. I think LeBron assisted on three of them. Probably at least. He might have had two assists and then two hockey assists to him. But I was just thinking back to all of the players that I have watched LeBron in the playoffs with, hit have a five three point or four or five three point because you know back in the 2000s if you made four threes it was like six threes in today's game um and you know i'm thinking like damon jones uh daniel gipson kyle corver who i saw on saturday night wallie zir i'm going through the uh i'm going through the uh i'm going through the carlotte team yeah wally zurbiac um i don't think norris cole ever made four but norris cole has a really in his really is really

Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller, Shane Badiere. Brown. Matthew Del. No, I'm not talking about Hall of Famers. I'm talking about guys, you know, Matthew Delavadova, J.R. Smith, Kent Tavius Caldwell Pope, Kyle Kuzma. Like, you're not going to win a series, like having LeBron and a couple of shooters that are playing off each other. But you can win some playoff games that way.

And that's what they did. I've been watching LeBron win games like that since high school. That may be not where they got out shot by 27 attempts, but where LeBron just spreads the floor and, you know, he had eight assists in the first quarter of this game. I thought he was going to have 30 at one point. I think he had three assists to Knard in the first quarter alone. I mean, he's been around forever.

He knew the opportunity that was there. And you could see, like, he was posting up. He was aggressive right off the bat, got them out to a good start. Like, you knew they had to win that game to have a chance of the series. He was very locked in. You see the, they caught him, it was with the eyes. The demon pose. Is that what it's called the demon pose?

I think so. Okay. The famous internet meme from his Miami days. Well, I'll never, you know, Pat Riley blew that, you know, the, the hall of champion. That's not the, the champions walk or whatever. The hallway from the court to the locker room in Miami, it's got wall size, like, you know, eight, about longer than that, 10 feet high, you know, for, for, for, years, right as you walked off the court, there were two gigantic things on the wall in the

Champions hallway there in Miami. One was Eudanus Haslam with blood pouring out of his face, dripping down his chin. And the other was LeBron in the demon pose. Like that was like, you know, that's the epitome of, you know, heat basketball. Heat culture, baby. Yeah. So they were, you know, LeBron was definitely locked in and look, they just, they had to win that game and they did. And so now I'm here in L.A. I'll go to the game on Tuesday and see how the rockets bounce back in that one. Well, see if Durant plays, A. And, I mean, the other thing that was interesting to me was I was surprised that Amund Thompson basically didn't guard LeBron. I thought he'd be on.

Well, they started a Koji to guard. Well, I understand that. But I would have put my best defensive player on LeBron and just try to take LeBron out of the game. I also thought it was interesting. They started a Koji. instead of Tarisa who actually played well off the bench. Tarisan, I mean,

as long as you're talking about things that are not going to repeat himself, Tarisan went 7 to 7. And the rest of the team went like 7 to 90. It's actually crazy. Like, you know, you also figure, you know, Reed Shepherd goes 6 to 20. Not all of the shots obviously were good shots,

and it was his first playoff game was on the road. You're not expecting him to, like, dominate. But you're also figuring Reed Shepherd if he gets 20 shots, it's not going to go 6 to 20. Red Shepherd also had eight assists and got in the lane a bunch of times for wide open threes for guys that were,

nowhere close either. I'm still trying to figure out. A lot of people I talk to around the league are trying to figure out exactly what Reed Shepherd is, who Reed Shepherd is. I don't think you're going to draw any grand conclusions based off a second year playing in his first playoffs, but they didn't be pretty good this postseason.

I'll tell you what, if Reed Shepherd was playing with LeBron, who knows what would happen? We talked about the pressure on Detroit. There's a hell of a lot of pressure on the Rockets to win this series, and they better win this series. I think regardless, frankly, of whether Durant comes back or not,

they're still, to me, the more talented team, if there's no Austin Rees and no Luca Donchich, like I don't think there's going to be. Obviously, if one of them comes back or they both come back, it's a different story. And we spent this whole time talking about how bad Houston's offense looks. That's been a problem all season. If they lose this series and the offense continues to look anywhere near as bad

as did in game one, there's going to be a lot of questions about the Rockets this summer. So, you know, that Detroit series and the Houston series, a couple pretty massive game twos Tuesday night in L.A. and Wednesday night in Detroit for a lot of reasons. All right. I'm sitting here watching the eighth game of the weekend on Sunday night. And I'm wondering how many games are we going to be watching Victor Wembe Njama in the spring play, the playoffs going forward.

I feel like that was the first of a great many. Hopefully a lot. Oh, you're talking about over the course of his career this year? Both, I guess. And, you know, I always remember in the gold medal game in Paris that it was the first I can't remember if it was the first possession of the game or it was France's first possession, but Victor comes down and hits a three right out of the gate, like basically making the statement, I am not afraid of this moment.

And he, the second, 20 seconds in, I don't know if it was the first or second possession, immediately goes to the basket in this game, has a 12th. point first quarter definitely was looking to shoot he did hit a couple of threes but i thought tried to play inside out um de aaron fox said that he thought the team you know he you know he's got a little bit more experienced than most of the guys he said he thought the team had jitters but i don't think number one had jitters and so he in his first playoff game puts up 21 points in the first half which is where the spurs basically grabbed control i know that the blazers came back on the second half on him.

And by the way, Denny Advia had 11 points in the first quarter himself. He was, I think he took nine shots in the first quarter. Like, Denny was trying to do the same thing in his first playoff game. I don't want to disregard that. The game was tied in the third quarter. I mean, Victor was unbelievable. But where the Spurs won the game was with Victor on the bench.

Like, they blew the game open with Devin Vesel, knocking down a bunch of threes in the third quarter. And they were plus nine in the game. And they were double digits plus. with Victor on the bench for basically the whole game. If we're consistently talking about the Spurs winning the non-Victor minutes in these playoffs, there's going to be a, do you want to ask how many games are going to be talking about the Spurs? We're talking about the Spurs a lot this spring, if that's the case.

Luke Cornett earned his money tonight in 14 minutes. Yes, he did. If you're losing those minutes and you're playing the Spurs, you're in a lot of trouble. Wemby, I mean, if you want to put Tomonica Mar on them, which they did a lot, then he'll go down low and dominate in the pain. If you want to put Donovan Klingin, he's going to take him out to the perimeter, and Klingin is lost out there.

And there's not a traditional big that I can think of that could guard Wimby if he's going to be knocking down threes. And it was five of six today. Yeah, he had only five rebounds and one assist and four turnovers. It was not a command performance in his normal all-around game,

but he had 35 points on 21 shots in his first playoff game. Right. I mean, he played a, He played great, and he had it was a great shot-making game, right? He didn't do a lot of the other stuff. And I actually think that the Blazers did a pretty good job in this game. Like, they could not hit perimeter shots.

They went 10 for 28 from 3. Obviously, they're going to have to get. 10 for 38. Or 10 for 38, I'm sorry, shot 26%. Like, obviously they've got to hit. Like, we talked about when stats made his bold prediction in the day. They've got to, they're going to get up a lot of threes. They've got hit a lot of threes.

In his first playoff game played very well. I thought. It was good. I mean, Denver or Portland was hanging in the game. And I thought, I mean, they were competitive through large portions of the game. And if the spurs aren't scalding hot from three, like, you know, that's a really interesting game. Now, obviously, I think Ceres probably going five games. But, you know, like it was a great start for Victor.

and it was a good start for this young team. You know, Stefan Castle, struggled hitting shots. That's going to be something like we've talked about to watch going forward in the playoffs. So what? They put Klingin on him some, and I'm sitting there watching it. I'm like, dude, shoot the ball. If Kling is going to, if Klinga is going to be down there at the free throw line and you get the ball at the top of the arc, let it go.

Well, this is why I've talked about that for the last month. Like it's one thing to say, oh, the guy's hitting 35% of his threes. And again, I love Stefan Castle. I think he's great. But it's another thing when you're in the playoffs and you have Donovan Klingin stand below the free throw line, Darren, you shoot the ball, right? So like, and he went four for 13 from the field. then he went one for five from three.

He did get eight free throws. He did look for aggression. Yes, he's going to make an impact on the game, obviously. Like, he's a good player. But that, you know, that's, if the Spurs, again, if the Spurs are winning the non-victor minutes and they're shooting 45% from three, they're not losing very many games.

Well, if they're one of the non-victor minutes, period, because I'm here to tell you, they will win the vast majority of the victor minutes. Well, but that's what I was going to say. those dovetail together. They won the victory minutes tonight, too. I know. Just wasn't.

Yes, he was plus four in 35 minutes, and they were plus nine in the other 11. Like that, that's what I mean. Like that. And again, that dovetail with Devin Vassell knock it down a bunch of threes.

And, you know, if the spurs can have two or three guys hot in a game from three, that might be enough. Tonight they had two. Victor and Vassel combined to go nine for 15 from three. Like, you know, that, if they have two guys,

do something close to that on a regular basis, plus Victor being awesome. That's a pretty good formula to be winning a lot of playoff games. Before we turn to the games, there are going to be a Monday night. I thought we should just get your opinion real quick on what happened in Boston today, Bontemps.

Do we have to talk about that again? Very quickly. I mean, it could talk about it really fast. I mean, the Sixers, if they're going to be competitive in the series, Maxie has to be the best. Tyrese has to be the best player. He was not.

They have to get up a ton of threes. They were two for 16 from three in the first half, and they took five in the competitive portion of the second half and made one or two. They were four for 21 from three in the first 42 minutes of the game. Like, that is an impossible, forgetting even the four,

like Nick Nurse after the game was like, we have to get up more threes. And I think once they started to miss shots, they turned down open shots, but like that's the whole story. story. Like Boston played great. Jason Tatum was awesome.

The Celtics dominated from start to finish. But the only thing to talk about is if Philadelphia wants to make this a competitive series of any kind, Maxie has to be the best player to do that. He's got to play better than Tatum. He's got to play better than Jalen Brown. And they have to get up more threes. If they're shooting under 25 threes, you're shooting under 30 threes or even maybe 35 threes, I just don't think they keep up with the Celtics.

And they certainly didn't today. I mean, the threes today were 16 to 4. It's unsurvivable in any game. in any league. Well, again, it's the attempts. I mean, they almost attempted as many as the Celtics made. Like, you just cannot win the math. I mean, that's even the thing to go back to the Laker game.

Like, yeah, the Lakers went 10 for 19. I don't think the Lakers are winning a lot of games if they take 19-3s. I would agree. It's just, it's not, especially playing the Celtics, like the Celtics are going to probably shoot 40. That's unlikely to be a competitive series. I agree. That's what I agree.

That's why I said. That's the only really thing to talk about is the can that's San Sixers make it competitive. Today was not a good indication they can. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. Fellas, I do hate to rewind, but there was one more point I wanted to make about San Antonio. For it, brough. I got a text from Malika Andrews, the Malik Andrews.

Oh, the I. Thank you. The Malik Andrews, who was in OKC today. And the text says, San Antonio. giving O KC a run for the league lead in the freebie T-shirt percentage worn. Tim Duncan and David Robinson wearing the freebie t-shirts today, by the way.

But a color-coordinated fiesta. Fiesta vibe. Another thing to go back to from that game, the coolest moment of the game, they keep showing David Robinson and Tim Duncan is sitting there together watching the game. And Victor makes this absurd move with his got the ball at the top of the key.

He does this spin move. He brought the ball up, by the way. Yeah, brings the ball up to court. Does this spin move around Denny? Yams it in the net. And they cut to David Robinson and Tim Duncan, who were both like, what the hell was that? And just laughing at this guy.

And it was a very cool piece of camera. He does things to make Hall of Famers just shake their heads and chuckle. But we saw last year how critical the freebie t-shirt percentage worn factories in chasing the championship. Now, well, I got to tell you, as I looked at Oklahoma City today, I did not see a single

fan. It looked like... There were many. A video game from like the 19 to 2002 where they just made every fan in the crowd look exactly the same. Every face and fan looks exactly the same. But I'm telling you, in San Antonio,

again, they had the fiesta thing where each section was his own color, and I'm just here to say, huge advantage in the series because news came out of Portland. Oh, no free t-shirts being given away because you know why? T-shirts cost money. Well, I thought it was interesting. One of, so I can't remember the media member who put it on X that there was not going to be free t-shirts.

Not free. I mean, if what they charge for playoff tickets, it's basically included in the price. The business side president of the team announced there would not be shirts given out. That's where it came from. Right. But so then it came out with the, some media member put it out. And one of the new card owners, one of the shield tile, I think is the way you say his name. The one who lives in Portland.

Yes. He came and responded and said, don't worry, we've got something better planned. Which it sounds like something you would say. Free rain jackets? All right. Guys, what have we got better planned? Hey, by the way, related note, Sean Heikin, who has a substat covering the Blazers, reports that the Blazers are not traveling their two-way guys during the playoffs.

Now, two-way guys are not eligible for the playoffs, but I have never heard of a team not traveling their two-way guys during the playoffs. It's not all. Chris Mannix from Sports Illustrated had a story about this couple of days. days ago and one of the details. Checkout. Well, so typically an NBA team, you know, they travel to the game, the road game, and then they stay in the hotel during the day and they head over to the arena sometime in the late afternoon, early evening, you know, two or three, even four buses, I guess, take people over.

And so they pay for like, you know, they make a deal with the hotel, but they pay extra for the half day. Right? Like a super late checkout, basically. Right. And so according to Mannix, and I talked to somebody, and this isn't, I mean, he said multiple sources, but I talked to somebody that's indeed true. Like, in an effort to save money, some of the staff have been asked to leave their

room by checkout time at noon so they don't have to pay. Let's just call like it is. New ownership there is embarrassingly cheap. Now, let me just say that, like, they don't have to stay in the lobby. like there's other rooms that teams ran out, such as like conference rooms. Brian. They're not traveling two ways.

They're not giving away T-shirts. I'm trying to pay them to say, like they're telling them to sit on their suitcases in the lobby. Brian. Brian. Brian. What are we doing? What are we doing?

I'm just telling you what I was told. There's no need to defend. We're stating a fact. I'm not defending. I'm just saying that they're not making them sit on their suitcases in the lobby. You are defending when he start wheedling on about. I'm not defending that. I'm just saying they're not sitting on the curb.

They are asking their head coach in the future to work on an hourly wage. All right. Say that that's not true because that'll end up getting aggregated. It's not true, but they are cheap as hail. Yes. That is, I would just say that there are savings centers that teams can have. I don't think not traveling, you know, a couple of hotel rooms and in the grand scheme of things are going to do it. But whatever, not of that affects how many people.

points Denny Avia had, which was 30 in game one. Oh, but his extension might be affected. Well, that's true. That is absolutely true. And if it is, then that'll be a thing. But anyway, your point about the T-shirts in San Antonio, yes, they were very cool. And the vibe in that arena was very cool. And look, it's Victor's, you know, I think Vassell got to pound the drum at the end of the game. Boy, did you see the men in black suits? Apparently, Kelly Allenick went to a Taylor, New York City and got all his teammates, like all black suits, black dress shirts, and they came in, fitted and ready to roll for the playoffs.

That's not like when LeBron gave all of his teammates, like in his part of a promotion. Remember that one year? One of the Warriors. The suit shorts. Oh, my God. And I had to listen to how those were actually really cool. And I mean, I don't, don't you remember like, you're there supposed to wear one sock pulled up high and one sock. I blocked it out of my brain because it was so awkward and now it's all flooding back to me.

I didn't, I didn't know the sock part of it. I seem to recall that. Please don't. I seem to recall there was a whole sock thing. It was, yeah, it was a thing. And they all had to wear it because, like, LeBron gives you this suit. But really, they're promoting the brand. It wasn't like, it was like, it's almost like when they're like, oh, LeBron gave all of his team.

beats headphones. Well, that, yes, it's to promote it. Like, it's a, it's a promotion. All right, anyway, forget about that. Well, if you want to promote some stuff, give me some stuff. Sure, do it. Wait, listen, we know McBain wants free stuff. He's made that extraordinary fear on the pot.

All right. There's three games, what I would consider, spicy potential games on Monday. First up, Cavs, Raptors. Cavs are head, a 1-0. They had a professional win. on Saturday. Got up by as much as 23,

but it's close in the first half. The big thing from that game, in addition to Hardin and Donovan putting up 50 points combined, Brandon Ingram, who averaged 20 shots a game against the Cavs in their regular season, only took nine.

They top-locked him, they shadowed him, they pretty much ignored Jamal's shed. I would say, like, you know, some injury report stuff, obviously Durant will be the number one injury report thing. But Emmanuel quickly, he's listed as questionable for Monday's game two.

Without quickly, the Raptors are in a tough scoring situation. The series is a rap without quickly. That's what Wade started, which is also related to the Brandon Ingram lack of shots. We were wondering about what they might do with that spot. Yeah, I mean, the Raptors are an offensively, challenge team normally they got to get out and run they got to play in transition but quickly is one of their better offensive players he's obviously they're their number one floor general if they don't have him i i just don't see how they're keeping up with this calves offense really don't also

you you highlighted with the the uh barnes versus mowgli matchup and kind of a weird scotty barnes game where he you know they came out and hit a few threes real quick which is something he doesn't usually do. Ended up with 21 points, 7 assists, but just a rebound, no steals, no blocks, minus 22. You know, obviously he's got to be much more impactful. Yeah, for sure.

You know, the Cavs defense was so spotty, the second half of the season. But they had a good weekish to prepare. They had a good game plan. And James Hardin is a load to handle in the half court. And the calves are going to want to slow the game down, which is what they do. I think the Raptors had, I think the transition points are kind of squishy. Sometimes you see a game and you're like, oh, the transition points in that game were 37, 28.

And I'm like, really, I find it like a slow game to me. But anyway, the Cavs held the Raptors to just three fast break points. That is the Cavs playing at their pace. So Quigley's availability will be relevant. and they play. Then are you going to Game 2 at the Garden? Yeah, I'll be at the Garden.

Look at you covering two series at once. It's very impressive. Wow. So Hawks. I'm going to go see it. Yeah. Hawks. Hawks Knicks.

Hacks. He's just going Garden to Garden. That's right. Apparently so. Yeah. The Knicks, Jalen Brunson, came out and set a big-time tone

against the Hawks in game one. Funny game for him. Yeah, then he kind of sort of faded a little bit. Not sort of. He had 21 points and was 8 for 11 from the field in the first quarter, and it went 1 for 11 the rest of the game. So, I mean, look, it didn't matter. They won the game, but it just was a, like,

he came out and couldn't miss for the entire first quarter and then just sort of faded off. It wasn't like a jaw-droppingly awesome Knicks performance. But it was a quality win. As he cooled off, Kat warmed up. Cat put some numbers up down the stretch and got us line up to a good place. I mean, I made a joke on Saturday night that it was the latest example of the Knicks winning in comfortable yet unconvincing fashion, which I think is like the summation of their

entire season where they won 53 games. They had this really good year. But everybody here is like, are they really that good? Can they really make a run? Like, where are they at? And this game was kind of the same thing. Like, the Hawks have little to no playoff experience. I thought they handled the environment pretty well.

C.J. McCollum had a really good first quarter. He and Jalen Brunson were going back and forth and making shots. That sort of allowed Atlanta to settle into the game a little bit. But Jalen Johnson wasn't great. He was 8 for 19. You know, Anika Ongu hit a bunch of shots and was good. He is also questionable with a knee issue for Monday night. If he can't play, the Hawks are totally cooked, again, like the Raptors.

Yeah, they don't have a size set. Right. Well, no, they don't have him or Jack Landau. That's a throwback. That's a throwback. To the other day. I'm making fun of Wendy. If they don't have him, I mean, again, just curtains for the Hawks.

So we'll see if he can play. But, you know, like Atlanta hung in the game despite not being able to throw the ball in the ocean in the second half and got it back to within eight with a couple of minutes to go. So, you know, Nick should win the series. They are the more talented team. Jonathan Cominga played 28 minutes off the bench. I think that sort of sums up where the talent level is for the Hawks. Once you get past the starting fives for both teams. Don't say to Cominga. I mean, it's just don't, they don't, I mean, look, they have Mo Gay and they played Zach Rishi Shea two minutes and the end of the first quarter and that didn't go

great. You know, like, Comingo was the one guy who played more than a handful of minutes off the bench. Yeah. Like, they just don't have options to go to.

Like, he was fine enough in the game. I mean, Risa, it would be nice if the guy who was the number one overall pick in the draft a couple years goes as awesome.

Yes, I mean, it'd be nice if he was like he was at the end of last year. Like, he is, he is just, his confidence is not in a good place at the moment. He's just not going to be a huge factor.

So, like, you know, it's Gabe Vinson and Mokey. And so we'll see, again, like, the Knicks, The Knicks are in control. Nicks look like they should be in control of the series, but, you know, we've seen the Knicks give games back before and we'll see if they do again. All right. The late game on Monday is Nuggets hosting the Wolves game two. Speaking of injuries.

Now, Aunt Edwards is on the injury report as questionable. I don't know if he's on the injury report because it's just a proceeding because it's an injury and they're handling it, or if he actually came out of that game not feeling great and there's a chance he's not going into the game on the injury report? I understand. He looked like a guy playing in the game who was going into the game on the injury report. I agree, but then he played. And so typically when you play and you're off the injury report, but he's not. That's not always true.

They attempted to make a point of, oh, no, I didn't think he looked like he was, like the knee was bothering him. He's just trying to regain his rhythm. Sure looked like he was bothering to me. Well, he couldn't make a shot. I know. I'm just telling you what their point, what their emphasis was, what their talking points were. What I would say in general about this game, the wolves have to consider that one a missed opportunity because I know that some of the numbers looked good. Like Murray had 30.

Yucch had a triple double. It was not a command performance by the Nuggets. They had some clutch play, some key plays. And, you know, Murray got to the foul line 16 times, which is tremendous. But that was C plus-ish B-minus by the Nuggets, and they got away with it and got ahead. They were one of 17 from three-point range

in the second half and won. I mean, you know, this was not like the Nuggets played well. The Nuggets also, they don't have Peyton Watson and who, like, that hamster. David Adamen basically played seven guys. Now, I, Valens Chuna and Spencer Jones played for a few minutes, but basically he's playing seven. It's right back to when they won the championship a couple years ago. I stuck it, but he did not look good and he was dealing with this knee issue down the stretch of the season and had a week off coming into the game. And like, look, we've seen can't have superhuman healing powers in the past, but that was not, like you said,

especially given Rudy Gobert had a very good offensive game, which he's obviously not going to do that often. And it's a game you can win on the road. And it, like you said, Denver was fine, but it was sitting there able to be stolen. That's one that hurts for Minnesota. And it wasn't on award ballots because the knee was such an issue. that he had to sit so much down the stretch. He didn't get to even close to 65 games,

not even close enough to get the, you know, whatever waiver that Luca and Cade got. You know, he had the foot thing earlier in the year, but this knee thing, it's the same knee issue. I forget the exact term, but it's the same thing that caused Steph Curry to miss 26 games. Now, Ant's obviously a lot younger.

Runner's knee. Yeah, Ants also. They got a fancy name for it, too, though. Anne's also, now he's skilled, don't get me wrong. But one major reason that Ann is such a special player is because he is so damn explosive. And so if he's just, you know, compromised. I am not an orthopedist, so I'm not trying to like, but I think the issue is swelling. And so you've got fluid, water on the knee.

they called my grandparents days. You got fluid in there. You're not, you're stiff. I mean, that's, that was the poll thing with Curry was getting the fluid out of there. So, you know, there's, by the way, there's reason fluid's in there. Usually it's to deal with an injury that's in there, but whatever. You know, I don't like this whole must win, this whole must win game thing. But like, look, if it's on a moment.

must win. But, you know, look, to me, if they lose the game and Ant looks good, that I think is fine. If they lose the game and Ant looks like he did in game one again, I mean, to me, the only thing, I mean, I shouldn't say the only thing, obviously be great for Minnesota if they win the game. To me, the biggest thing coming out of this game is going to be how does Anthony Edwards look and does he look like himself or does he look like a guy who's playing through a knee issue? And if it's the latter, I just am not sure how these guys are winning the series. Yeah, the only thing I'm going to say is their last series with the Nuggets, which the Wolves won in seven games was a bizarre series. And you want to talk about like,

you can't overreact game to game. The wolves won the first two on the road, lost the next three, including two at home, and then won the last two games at the series. and the last one was that historic comeback in game 7 in that mile high altitude. There's also this stat from Bennett Durando from the Denver Post that he tweeted out the other day that I was amused by. So the Nuggets are now 8 and 1 in game 1s going back to 2023. They're also now 1 in their last five game 2s. And the only game 2 that they won was one that they came back from down 20 in the second half. at home and won at the buzzer.

So the Nuggets have, like the team I saw today, Boston, have been known to kind of play around and let teams in and out a series and come down and come back. They routinely play long series, except, you know, the finals when they took the able to the five. So let's see if Denver can, you know, put their foot down and take advantage of the opportunity also. but that starts with, can Minnesota actually sees it if it's sitting there? And that depends on how it looks. The NBA, in something that is new this year, is what the new media deals, they announced all the finalists for the awards, all on TV on Sunday.

I don't think there was anything. There was a couple of guys who were like, I think what Assar Thompson making the finals for defensive player the year, that was. Wow, there's a mystery who's going to win that. No, I understand. I mean, if you're looking for something that's interesting, I don't know, is Tim Hardaway finishing top three and sixth man? I guess it's mildly interesting. But I thought that was deserving.

Yeah, it's not unreasonable. I just, you know. But surprises from the finalists. Yeah. Anyway, Monday they're going to announce the defense. the principal player of the year, guess what? It's an off day for the Spurs. Oh, gee, it is.

Yeah. Mike, right, get ready. You're going to be working, buddy. Yeah. All right. Well, our late nights begin. Thank you very much to Jackson and Mark for staying up late and put this together. Thank you to Bon Tems who flew to Boston and back, got up at three in the morning or something to fly to Boston and back.

What a hero. Yeah. I think of a fan. if you will. MacNeck covered a game today. I did sports center in the morning. I covered a game. Like, they got the mornings worth out of me today.

Chill out, boy. Good job. That wasn't what I was saying. It's not that you don't work. First podcast of the playoffs down, like several dozen to go. We'll talk to you later this week. Adios amigos.