Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Playoff Chaos For Wolves, Knicks & Nuggets + Dame Injury Update

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to talk a wild weekend in the NBA playoffs. The crew starts with the sad news surrounding Dame Lillard’s injury and what that may mean for the future of the Bucks & Giannis. Then, the guys dive into some games with insane endings including Ant Edwards’ masterclass performance to down the Lakers in a thriller & what that means for LA in the series, a historic ending to the Clippers-Nuggets game in what has been a blockbuster matchup, the Warriors getting a big win without Jimmy Butler and the Knicks’ stars coming up clutch in Detroit. Plus, an interesting exit interview from Ja Morant in Memphis. 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. of the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing slightly after midnight on Sunday night slash Monday morning. Joining us from New York City, home of the New York Knicks, who are up 3-1 in their series with the Pistons, Tim Bonteps.

Hello, everybody. Luxuriating at home in Dallas, the series between the Thunder and Grizzlies being done while the rest of us are out here on the road covering highly important series in Miami like I am. It's Van McMahon. Howdy, partners. Now, I would say your series is not that important, and Bontemps is not on the road. So we're off to quite a fibbing start so far. Well, there was a lot that went on this weekend in the NBA,

and it's a somber note that we're going to start out with because the last game of the weekend had a big downer with a big implication going forward. And that's Damien Lillard with what looks like a torn Achilles tendon in the first half of the Pacers victory over the bucks. Chris Haynes reported first. Chris Haynes is a long-time acquaintance of Dame Willard. First off, you saw the play.

It unfortunately had the hallmarks of a torn Achilles. Non-contact guy going down while he was pushing off the leg. So we'll wait for confirmation, but obviously very difficult. I don't even know how you go on if you're the Bucks. I mean, Bobby Portis did the in-game interview after the third quarter. It was still a little bit of a game. The Pacers ended up winning, I think, by about 25. But Bobby Portis acknowledged it.

He's like, you know, it just threw us off. You know, they see their guy going off. And so, okay, I mean, this series is over three-one Pacers with them going back to Indiana. But torn Achilles is, you know, for a guy in his 30s, it's a career-threatening injury. but okay, it's going to decimate the 2025-26 season for Dame Willard, which is going to decimate the Bucks Outlook for 25-26. And, you know, while you, this is a two-prong thing, you feel for the Bucks, but how do you not think about what the future of the Bucks in the house of Tena Cumpo is?

It's inavoidable, inescapable. That's every Bucs fan was had to be thinking the same thing. and it looked like dame had gotten incredibly fortunate the way they had caught the blood clot early we thought he was going to be out for the season um it was his right calf where the blood clot was and this was his left Achilles that was torn I don't know if any has any relations you know put an extra weight on I don't know but it wasn't the same leg but um the buck's injury health um fortune misfortune has been horrific for three or four years now, and it's going to be horrific to end the 24-25 season.

Bob Demp's, I'll just start with you. It's possible that Yannis has played his last game in Milwaukee for as a buck. I don't know, but it's also irresponsible not to contemplate that right now. Yeah, I mean, the first thing I thought of watching it live was just, I just felt terrible for Dame. I mean, we've all been around Dame for a long time. he's one of the all-time good dudes in the league. He's obviously one of the 75 best players ever.

You know, he just fought back from this deep vein thrombosis to come back and, like you said, come back and play out of nowhere. And it's just a killer for him. I mean, probably wipes out all of next season. And you're talking about a guy who came to Milwaukee hoping to win a title. And they're going to have, you know, he's barely going to have played in the playoffs for him at all in two years. And like you said, I mean, then you just. have to start thinking about the future. And I thought a lot about 2019 and being around Raptors,

Warriors, and seeing Kevin Durant get hurt and then seeing Clay get hurt. And that set the Warriors back for a couple of years. And it's for I certainly thought it might be the end of their whole run. Obviously, they've had this second act where they got this other title and we'll see how far they go this year. But yeah, I mean, it just, it just really sucks. And, you know, we, We talked a lot about the future for Janice and what things could look like going forward for him and for the Bucks and for the league this summer. And look, this was a team that I think was already headed for trying to get out of the luxury tax next season. To do that with two guys making $110 million on the roster was going to be exceedingly difficult to begin with. now one of those two guys making $55 million almost certainly has a torn Achilles and almost certainly is going to miss if not all of next season, the vast majority of next season and is going to be in his mid-30s.

So you can't really count on to be in there at all. So when you try to build a roster out, if you want to entertain the idea of keeping you honest next year, just to talk it through for a second, there's really no way to do that. and have a team that's good enough to compete when you look at how this series is gone. And outside of one half against the Pacers, they've largely been dominated by the Pacers. And that was with Dame somewhat available. So it's just really bleak. And it's hard to think anything other than that this is going to cause everybody involved to have to really look in the mirror about what the next steps they want to take are. and it, you know, it just, it just really sucks for the bucks and their fans.

Like you said, it's been several years in a row of devastating injuries in the playoffs, and it's just a real bummer. And a first round exit under any circumstances was going to lead to a lot of questions about Janus's immediate future. And I believe was going to lead to Janus asking himself a lot of questions about the immediate future. This is just a devastating way. Obviously, the series isn't over yet, but it's over. And this is just a devastating way for it to happen.

But look, this whole series has been Janice putting up insane numbers and it not being enough for the bucks. You know, like they were trailing when Dame went down. They're not the better team in the series, despite having by far the best player on the floor. have by far the best player in the series and they're nowhere close to it being as good as the pacer's. And then it just becomes, okay, let's just go with the logical hypothetical of it's finally time for Janus to figure out or with the bucks to figure out what his next chapter is going to be. It's such a tough situation because like can they make a traditional rebuild?

type of deal when they don't have control of their own first round pick until 2031. What they have to do if we're going to hypothetical it out, right? You just have to get the absolute most you can get back and then figure out what it is from there. Maybe that's 900 draft picks. Maybe it's a bunch of current talent. Maybe it's a combination of the two, right? But like you can't at this point, if you make that kind of trade, it's like drafting, right? you never should draft a player based off the needs of your current roster because that player in theory is going to be good four or five years from now and you want to just have the best player you can get.

That's the same thing here. If it gets to the point where they're going to trade Janus, you have to just get, unlike a certain other trade we've talked about a lot, the absolute maximum amount you can get for him. And then whatever you're left with then, okay, then you assess what do we want to do, how do we want to proceed, what's the best path forward for? for the team, et cetera. But you can't, to me, they're two totally separate tracks. It's not, you can't worry about their draft pick situation or anything else other than if you're going to make that deal. You're only going to get one chance to do it.

You've got to maximize every answer to it you can't. On one hand, it could be clarifying because they were sort of stuck in trying to figure out what to do, especially with Brooke Lopez and Bobby Portis being free agents. They're trying to figure out a way to keep them when they're both in their 30s. On the other hand, I'll just point out, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade. He was traded in 1975. The Bucks did not go back to the finals from 1975 to 2021. You know, they waited 40-something years.

What is it? 41 years. Most franchises never get one player as good as those two guys. No, I understand. Especially in a small market. No, I get it. math, 46. 46 years.

I didn't go to Texas, North Texas. You go, you know, generations between having championship contenders. Maybe you could debate in the, you know, Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson era, maybe they were, they made to the conference finals.

But they went generations between being contenders. So saying goodbye to an in-their-prime star is not as easy as agreeing with the logical whiteboard that Bontem's just said. Well, and they don't say goodbye unless Janus says it's time. I understand, but, you know, it's, look, that's why I said, I think it's a clarifying moment for everybody. Like, if Janus wants to spend his career in Milwaukee,

good for him and God bless him. Like, that would be great. Like, look at Dirk, right? We spent the last three months talking about Luca being traded and Mavericks fan base and Lucas. and Dirk all thinking it was going to be a Dirk-like thing, right? He's going to spend his whole career with one team. Yannis has won a title.

He doesn't have to go chase the title. So, like, I'm certainly not sitting here saying he absolutely should leave. If he wants to stay, great. But to me, this, obviously, this is a horrific injury. And as I started off with, I feel awful for Dane. Like, this weekend was so awesome. We're going to talk about all these awesome games. And then watching the first quarter of the skin,

like, oh, let's see if the Bucks can make this interesting. and then Dan gets hurt. But like this moment, I think clarifying is the right word. It should be perfectly clarifying for everybody involved to figure out what it is they want because the idea that this team is a move away from being up there with Boston or Cleveland or these other teams, if this is a torn Achilles, they're, they were already far away and now they're miles and miles and miles away. So then everybody has to sit down and decide what it is they want.

Yeah. And again, the circumstances with Dame suck. But it's not like, hey, they were a contender until Dame went down. They weren't close. They weren't, you know, this series, Janus has been Superman, and they were probably going down 3-1 tonight regardless. You know, they- They argue Orlando's been more competitive with Boston.

Yeah. Honestly. And, you know, if Janus decides he wants to go somewhere where he feels like he's going to have a better chance or, you know, even if you're like the Brooklyn thing, I don't get that, to be honest with you, but whatever, you know, whatever he decides, you know, you can't blame him.

And will it be a bleak, immediate future for the buck? Sure. But he hung a banner there. And, you know, he's a Hall of Famer if he never plays another second. You know, he hung a banner in his jersey. He'll hang in the Raptors there. and, you know, if it's some bleak years coming right after because you win all in trying to win with him again,

so be it, it's still all well worth it. I agree. Okay, more on that later this week. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. Okay, now the game, one of the games of the season, so far the game in Minneapolis on Sunday, the wolves beat the Lakers by three. What's even the best game of the weekend?

Whatever. Honestly, I don't think it was. You're right. It was a really good game. That's how good this weekend has been. No, it wasn't a better finish than Aaron Gordon Duncan.

It was an incredible game. I'm not, I've only, that's how good this weekend has been. I mean, there's been so many awesome moments all weekend. I know that the, that ESPN writ large is going to focus on the Lakers going down 3-1.

I would like to start by focusing on Aunt Edwards, putting up 43 in, a game where he makes a huge statement. We already knew where he was as a player. He goes for 43. He has outplayed Luca Donchich in this series, even though he wasn't great in games one and two. But he plays an absolute killer game at both ends of the court

and hits the free throws that, you know, are huge in this. You know, I don't, I'm not sure how controversial that play was, but, you know, there's a play, you know, overturned what they call foul LeBron. but Aunt was killer in this game. He sensed how important this game was, relentless going to the basket. This is a guy who during the season,

you know, was really dedicated to the three-pointer. Not in this game. In this game, Ann Edwards was hunting the hoop. I think he got there 17 times or something like that, and exactly what they needed. And they're down 10 going into the fourth. Well, listen, in two games this weekend,

because we haven't talked since before game three, Ann Edwards played 86 minutes. He scored 71 points. He had 14 assists. He only had three turnovers. And he just dominated the fourth quarter of both games. Both games are sitting right there. Lakers had a chance to get not one, but both of them.

LeBron James had two incredible performances, especially today on a short, short, short turnaround. Luca Dodger was sick the other day. He played much better today. and Aunt just beat them in the fourth quarter and just had more juice down the stretch. Some of that I think is because of how Chris Finch handled things compared to JJ. We'll get to that in a minute. But like that's the only thing you can take away from these two games is that in the fourth quarter, in winning time, Anthony Edwards delivered.

16 points in the fourth of this game, hit three threes and got the line five times, went five of five with the line. Four or seven from the floor, the Lakers have 19 points on five of 18 shooting. And, you know, to me, obviously you start with Ann's performance and you throw the numbers out there, especially the scoring, but the assists, the turn arms, all that. He did that without playing hero ball, which, again, the biggest criticism of Ant as a player at this point of his career is his tendency to lean in a hero ball in these kind of situation. That's why I picked the Lakers to win this series because I felt like, hey, if it's close, it's going to be advantage of Lakers because the Wolves really struggle. in clutch situations. And, you know, Ant was like,

I think it was a minus 51 in clutch situations this year with a, you know, high volume of shot attempts and a low field goal percentage. But there were, there were a handful of plays in the fourth quarter where he didn't get, he doesn't get a shot. He didn't get an assist. But he makes the play to start the ball movement to lead to a great shot.

Note that's the stuff Finch has been hammered on him. Hey, make the right read. You know, if the reads get off the ball, and, you know, kind of start the, you know, start the ball movement, do that. And, you know, he had two or three times where big plays that were hockey assist. And that, to me, is huge growth.

You know he's not scared at the moment. Like, he wasn't scared last year when he's looking, you know, talking trash to his idol, Kevin Durant, now playing KD and Devin Booker, you know, say what you want about the Sons. But, you know, the Sons were, I believe, favored in that series. And Ant was the best of the series. Well, 100% series. And it's not scared of anything. Sometimes he's too unafraid, I would say, or too thirsty for the moment.

And this was like the perfect balance of taking over, but also making the right plays and not feel like he had to do everything himself. This was not hero ball. This was a patient, patient but aggressive, just dominant, performance down the stretch. He was, the Lakers got outscored by 10 points in the fourth quarter on Friday night. Ants was plus seven in that, in that quarter scored seven points. In this game, Lakers get outscored by 13 in the fourth quarter and played the whole fourth

in this one, plus 13. So he's plus 20 in the two third quarters. I'm sorry, the two fourth quarters, which basically are, have defined the series. You know, that's the two games that could. have gone the Lakers way that go the wolves way. Now, granted, on Friday night, I know Luca was sick and he was not himself. But that, all the more reason why JJ Redick's decision making in the second half of this game is just, he coached this game like it was game seven of the finals.

Yeah. Not like it was, you know, game four the first round. Well, the most remarkable thing was him saying they decided this in the locker room at halftime. Like, I'm sorry. If Tom Thibodeau did this and didn't pull a one starter, the entire second half, the entire city of New York would have pitchforks out and would be coming for it. It would be the biggest story going.

Like, I'm sorry. I understand in part what he's thinking. The Lakers roster is not good. All right? It's the reason I pick Minnesota to win the series. They're the deeper, better team outside their top couple of guys. However, the Lakers are up by 10 at the end of the third quarter. You've got LeBron James at 40 years old on a 36-hour turnaround.

We've got Luca Donchich, who's coming off having food poisoning and throwing up in the locker room and need to come out late to start the second half on Friday. You cannot play those guys the entire second half without any break. Play Gabe Vincent for a couple minutes. Play Jared Van derrickville for a couple minutes. Play Jordan Goodwin for a couple minutes. I'm not saying they got to play 20 minutes, but you've got to give these guys. a break, especially when you're up. It's one thing if they're down 10, and if you're going to go down 3-1, the season's

probably over and you got two days off after. So, yeah, let's just throw the chicken's sink at it and go for it. In this situation, the Lakers had a dominant third quarter. They had the lead. You have to give these guys a break. And you could see, as the fourth quarter went along, I thought Chris Finch played it perfectly. He brings in Nas Reid with five minutes to go.

Nas Reid immediately gets five points, has a ton more energy in everybody on the court. Then he brings in Dante, he even. Vincenzo, he has a ton of energy. He's flying around making plays. And yes, the three guys on Minnesota's bench and Nikale Alexander Walker and those two dudes would be the fourth or third best player on the Lakers. So that's inherently JJ's problem here. But at the same time, you have to try to play a couple of other guys a little bit. This has never happened since 1988. You just cannot do that in this game. I will say there were six players who played all 24 minutes in the second half, and it was a sixth.

And LeBron honestly made some incredible defensive plays down the stretch. Unbelievable. You know, the one, like, I don't know, man, if you have to go to Hawkeye to catch the foul, the Hawkeye cameras to catch the foul, I don't know, that did that, whatever. But, like, he had two or three just incredible defense plays. But Lucas only points in the last seven minutes were three free throws on a total bailout foul. Julius Randall fouled him, but like Luca was going to throw up a terrible shot, and Braynall just made a, you know, it was a bad foul.

Now, they were forcing the ball out of his hands, but still for Luca to go the last seven minutes without scoring, and Luca had a rebound in the entire game. And just two assists, by the way. Yeah, and, you know, defensively, I mean, there are definitely some like Luca statue standing watch type of moments on the defense. in and look, there were multiple occasions last year where Luca played these kind of minutes in playoff games, right? Where he would play, he would take a couple minutes, maybe two or three minutes in the first half, and then he might play the whole second half. Like that happened a lot. These

circumstances are different, right? Luke is, I mean, I don't want to harp on the conditioning stuff, but like the condition was a major issue early in the season. He had the longest injury layoff of his career. There's no possible way for him to be in peak shape. And then, as you mentioned, that, you know, this guy was puking his guts out 48 hours ago, you know, spent his whole day yesterday basically if he wasn't getting treatment, sleeping. It's just, it's one, it's also one thing if it's Luca and aunt, guys in their prime, so I think if it's the oldest player in the league on a 36-hour turnaround. That's crazy. I don't care if they had four days off and they weren't sick and they weren't 40. It's crazy.

You can't do this. You don't do it in game four of a playoff series. I mean, look, there is no qualification. This was game seven for the Lakers, I think. Like, look, I still think the Lakers can win the series. No, you made the point. Up 10 going on the fourth, that's not the way you, it's not the way. No, no, listen, I'm saying in general, down to one as the home team on the road,

you have to win this game to give yourself a realistic chance to win the series. That's why I'm saying it's like game seven. You still don't old to play five. guys. By the way, just because I don't want this to get lost in the shuffle, you mentioned the foul on LeBron, on Anthony Edwards on the drive with it nine seconds to go. They call the ball out of bounds. The wolves challenge it. Amazingly, the Lakers call time out, then the wolves challenge it. Not only do the wolves win the challenge, the Lakers lose their time out, had a big impact on the end of the game. That was a very unusual sequence that I don't think I've ever seen before.

Well, and the other thing that's fascinating about it is, McMahon will remember this, The reason this call happened today is because last year, Kyrie Irving fouled Jaden McDaniels in game two of the Western Conference finals. The ball went out of bounds. The ball was off Jade McDaniels because Kyrie fouled him. And because of that play, the NBA changed the rules. So this year, you can review for an approximate foul. And on this play, like, LeBron hit and on the wrist.

Like, I thought it was a foul. I would under, I was a little curious, more than a little curious to see if they'd actually call it on LeBron in that spot, but they did. I thought he hit him on the wrist. And that call can't happen last year. It just would have been off-ant. It would have been Laker Ball. So it is fascinating that that call, which put the wolves in that hole last year, down to O, comes back around and gets them the ball up one with two free throws for Ant and helps them win this game. One other thing I'm going down the stretch. So the possession before that, the Lakers have the ball, Luca is bringing the ball up the court.

Jaden McDaniels is draped all over him. Okay? Luca can barely move. He is exhausted and he steps on Jaden McDaniel's foot and falls. Now, I text with some referees tonight. The short answer is if a player falls forward, most of the time it's a trip. But if the defender's foot is on the ground, sometimes the official can't see it, is long story short. And so after the game,

JJ Reddick says that that should have been a foul and Luca should have gone to free throw. If it had been called a foul, it wouldn't have been egregious, but just in texting with some officials tonight, they just said it's a very hard call to make in real time when the, when the defensive player's foot is on the ground. Well, you'll be shocked to know that Luca agree with JJ. Well, here's a key thing that I don't know if everybody picked up. So Luca falls on the ground, has no choice but to call timeout. So the Lakers lose. They had two timeouts left, and those are their last two.

When he calls time out, there's 17 seconds on the shot clock, which means, and they hadn't gotten it over the half court yet, that does not reset. They have until the clock strikes 15. So they had something less than two seconds. You have eight seconds to get the ball into the front court. I'm sorry, yeah. But basically, if the clock hits 15, it's a violation.

The ball was not across the line. So they go into the timeout and they've got to draw up a play that gets the ball into the front court because if the ball is inbound in the back court, unless it's a real quick touch pass, you run the risk of an eight-second violation. I don't know if this was explained on the broadcast.

I don't think, I don't know if it was. But I know that- It was. They were on top of it. I know that Aunt Edwards knew it because Aunt Edwards immediately came up to the referee and said, got one second, right? And so the play, Luca like comes to the half court line and kind of stops because he's afraid of catching it in the back court and being a backward violation.

And I'm not sure who comes over, who comes and gets the steal. Was it McDaniels again? So that is a, you know, a bunch of different things happen. And here's one last thing I'm going to say about the events of the last few minutes of the game. The Lakers did get a great shot. Oh, yeah. They did. They come down. Luca gets trapped. He kicks to LeBron.

LeBron moves it to Austin Reeves. I know it was a tough shot for Reeves, but he gets a clean look. But here's the time. It wasn't that tough. It was an open quarter three. Yeah, but he had a- Take every time. I agree.

100%. Here's the problem. Here's the problem, guys. Let's say the ball goes in and you go to overtime. What do the Lakers have left for overtime? Well, at least they have a chance, but yes. Well, I agree. For sure.

And by the way, by the way, the other, thing we should talk about. The Bellwether in these four games has been Jaden McDaniels. The three games he's played well. The lake, the wolves have won. He has been unbelievable in the series. And it has been a huge moment for him, a guy who's been up and down, I think to be charitable, at times are in the regular season. And he has been unbelievable in the three wins in this series. And Reeves, and Reeves hasn't been great. No. I mean, like, coming into this series, the Lakers needed their three stars to be top five, preferably top four. And I think Ann has been better than Luca.

And it's been the best player in the series. LeBron has been great on defense the last couple games. He was good on defense also in game two. He made some plays, but he's been great on defense in game three and four, 38 points in game three. He and Luca are probably two and three. But then it's a ways before you get, I mean, even Nas Reid. the depth of the wolves has shown through.

It shone through in the way Chris Finch operated the game. He believed in his bench. And look, it's fair to question the depth of the Lakers. But Chris Finch had levers to pull. And J.J. Reddick, at halftime, of what essentially was game seven, decided he had no levers to pull. And that's the difference in the series at the moment, beyond ants. I don't know how you can make any decision that you're going to do for the entire second half. I agree.

I'm not saying that's logical. I don't think you can say we're going to trap the pick and roll. We're going to play so, you know, we're going to press. Like, I mean, every decision has got to be dynamic. That was why. I thought that was an unbelievable quote when I saw it. Oh, you didn't mention Julius Randall, who's having a very good series. He's been awesome, too.

By the way, he only rested 32 seconds in the second half. And I've not seen Julius Randall play better defensively than he did. he's been an unbelievable monster. He's been unbelievable. He committed to one terrible foul on Luca, but he was really competing defensively. The wolves went 18 and 3

down the stretch, and I know that the route of schedule was not good, but they still went 18. A certain team had a similar record down the stretch last year. They had a pretty good playoff. And by the way, I'll put something else out. The Pacers went 14 and 4 down the stretch.

And they look, and they have been impressive. I'm waiting to see. the Pacers in the second round against a different opponent, but they've been, they've been very, very impressive. The calves look great. Well, again, settled down the Cavs corner. We haven't talked about the Cavs at all, but the cabs look great. I don't know. Caves Pacers talk, Caves Pacers talk starting next weekend when the second round starts in Cleveland. I know, I'm just, you know, just saying, and you know what happened in game three with the Cavs? They didn't play Darius Garland because

he had a sprained toe. So therefore they played really big. They played Dean Wade and DeAndre Hunter, the extra minutes, and their defense was impenetrable. I realize that the Pete are not the 96 Bulls, but holy Moses, did they look great? All right. By the way, if we're going to mention hot teams down the stretch of the regular season,

we've got to mention the Clippers. It's a 2-2 series, but I'm just telling you, if the Clippers win this series, they're going to put up a real fight against the Thunder. Let's just talk about that game. We got to talk about it. So I was at our colleague, Mike Wilbon's house. I had to go to Phoenix for a couple of days for a personal matter.

And I had some free time on Saturday afternoon. So I went to Michael Wilbon's house in Scottsdale, which is always a wonderful place. As you do, McMahon, as you do. As a wonderful place to watch games. I had the chance when the suns were in the playoffs back in the good old days in Phoenix, I could do that. And I had to get going. and the Nuggets got up by 20, and they were just cruising.

You know, they looked great. And I was like, all right, I got to make a drive down to this event I got to go to. And Wilbon calls me like 20 minutes later, you're not going to believe this. The Clippers have gone on a 30 to 3. I don't even know what he was talking. He was all fired up.

So I didn't, I saw the last play, but I didn't see the Clippers comeback. It was, I mean, the amazing thing was, to talk about this JGRetic decision today, David Adelman basically did the same thing. Home team, down to one in the series. Those guys, you know, Jamal Marie, Michael Porter, all these guys sat for a brief period in the second half.

But they basically said, we're playing these guys the whole second half. And they were up by 20. And the clippers just came on like an absolute freight train. One point is a 32 to 9 run. Same thing. It was like, this game goes to overtime. The nuggets are going to get run off the court. And their season is going to be over.

And then just the crazy, just the absolute craziest ending ever to the point where if you watch the like the slow mo like 120 per frame shot replay, you have to like click all the way to the very last shot to see the ball out of Aaron Gordon's hands like in the to dodd nick of time. Like it's just that was unbelievable. Unbelievable ending. And like the reason I think that he. gets a dunk there is that nobody thinks there's time left for an offensive rebound. Well, it was like a perfect, it was like a path. It was like the Lorenzo Charles, Derek Whitberg play back in the NC State Championship game. It's just like completely complete serendipity.

And by the way, huge shout out to Michael Porter, who's playing with this busted shoulder and played a ton of minutes, was out there basically the whole second half, clearly limited. Obviously, it's not a shooting shoulder, but still like, that, that series is just, an absolute war. Well, Aaron Gordon has been banged up all year. He's been dealing this calf all year. You know, he's not the same type of explosive athlete. Yeah, Yokic has been banged up.

Jamal's been banged up. I mean, they're fighting. But Gordon's plungy athletic on that last one. And, you know, that's one where, look, if Joker doesn't shoot an air ball. Yeah, game's over. The Nuggets lose. But because he shot it about two feet long, and I mean, obviously, Joker's just trying to throw up something there.

but because it was about two feet long Gordon was able to get it and throw it down That's got seven written all over it And on one hand It seems a little bit unfair for the Thunder To win 68 games and have to get that winner But on the other hand the Thunder are done And they're going to have at least eight to ten days off

I was going to say Thunder are going to be rooting hard hard hard hard Yeah, that series to go seven games Oh my so my They're going to They're going to cheer every single cut on Yokic's arms. The man's arms are perpetually slashed. Like he just got out of Freddy Kruger movie.

And what a battle between him and Zubots. He's been awesome. Dude. Awesome. And like the Clippers, Kauai we've talked about, like he looks springy again. He looks like a guy who is capable of being the best player in any series.

You know, he's on that short list of guys. where, you know, listen, Shea very well could outplay him. Obviously, they're not playing one-on-one, but Shea's a likely MVP, Joker's a three-time MVP, but Kauai can be the best player in any series.

Over a seven-game stretch, he can, you know, he can outshine anybody. Kind of like, you know, kind of like Ann Edwards can. And, you know, like Kauai's back to being that guy. Hardin has had a great year. If it's Clippers Thunder, there are some really interesting storylines there. There are. The Paul George Trey can still pay off for the Clippers because Kauai is still there.

And that was the whole point, really. Yeah. James Hardin represents the worst trade Sam Press he's ever made. Well, it just would be, I mean, it just would be another epic series. I mean, either way. I mean, I think these two teams, like, Wolves Lakers have been great. We'll see where these two teams stand physically. the end of the series, but

watching this series, I think these are the second and third best teams in the West in whatever order. And, you know, we'll see what happens, again, health-wise. But, I mean, this has just been, it's been unbelievable to watch. I'll just say, other than the Thunder, all of the seeds in the West,

well, I guess maybe not the Grizzlies, but seeds two through seven, the seeding didn't matter. You know, it, you know, the wolves and nuggets, or the wolves and the clippers if they win these series, it's not an upset. You know, it's not. You know, it's overcoming,

not having home court advantage. But these teams are all very, very close to each other, as these series have dictated. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. Okay. Also won't be an upset if the Warriors win the rest of their series. It was a segue. True, but the rockets have got to do better

than in game three with Jimmy Butler on the sideline. just, you know, they don't have the firepower and it's pretty obvious and, you know, under certain circumstances, they have enough. But, and I know they're on the road and it's a big ass for a young team, but they need, if they're going to win the series, they got to win that game. They just got to. And now they're playing from behind and, you know, Jimmy's going to get better by the day. So. Well, and that was just, I mean, talk about Herkulean efforts. I mean, Steph Curry does not usually play 41 minutes for a lot of reasons. Obviously, he plays an incredibly taxing style. He's not that big. They try to maximize the time he's out there so he could be flying around.

For him to play 41 minutes against this Rockets defense with Amend Thompson and Fred Van Fleet and Dylan Brooks and all these really good physical defenders throwing themselves at him for the entire time he's on the court to have 36 and 9, only two turnovers. You know, Steph can be a little turnover prone. He had a couple early in the game, didn't have any more after that. He was flying around, hitting one bomb after another from three, it was just awesome to watch. And like you said, for a young Rockets team that's, you know, going through it for the first time,

this is like true baptism by fire for a lot of these young guys, seeing what it takes to get to the mountaintop right away. And, I mean, that was just a vintage all-time stuff performance. And the Rockets have probably seen more vintage all-time stuff performances than any other franchise probably times three at this. point. So, yeah, just a lot of these guys were, you know, prepubescent. Well, that's the thing.

Like, Steph has a ton of playoff games where he scored more points than this. But this was a throwback game to like the, you know, early 2000s where, you know, when you score 30, it's one thing to score 35 and your team scores 125. You score 35 and your team scores 100. The leverage on the points is greater. So, like, you know, that's. why, you know, and Steph. Every point is earned in the series.

Right. And typically, you see, I think Steph was like 10 of 25, which doesn't feel like a hot game. It was 12 for 23 and 5 for 13. Oh, 12 for 23. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, 5 for 13 from 3 doesn't feel like a great Steph shooting game. But then you see the way the game was played and you understand, you know, that the value

of each of those goes up. Well, and look, we all thought the rockets were a consistent offensive engine away from being a real contender. and that's pretty much the way this series has played out for them. Jalen Green's had one amazing game. They've won one game. He's had two poor games other than that. And we'll see, one, if the Rockets can make this a series.

But, you know, if not, we'll see how they react this summer when they will have options. I have a lot of options. They don't have options. Whether they act on those options remains to be seen. Maybe they'll have Cooper flag. It's possible. Thanks, Phoenix. All right.

So, Nick's Pistons, brutal weekend for... They're not Pistons today. They're pissed off. Brutal weekend for the Pistons fans. The Knicks are up 3-1. So, obviously, let's start with the fact

that the end of the game, it's a three-point, or it's a one-point game? One-point game. One-point game. Cade Cunningham gets a great look from top of the key. Two in a row for the exact same spot in the final 30 seconds. Regardless of whatever, we're obviously going to talk about this foul. It was a bad miscall. David Gauthory's staring right at it.

He's got to make the call. That being said, if Detroit goes on to lose this series, Kate Cunningham, who's played great, is that an awesome year, he's going to think all summer about those two shots. Got right to his spot on both of them. First one just rims out somehow spun out. Second one just missed. And either one of those goes in, Detroit very well wins this game and it's two-two

and they got a ton of life in the series. But obviously goes without saying you'd also like to see this call at the MP properly made. So it's an offensive rebound, the ball goes out to Tim Hardaway Jr. in the corner, Josh Hart bumps him. Referee David Guthrie is standing five feet away with a clear sight line, although, you know, Hart is on the other side of Hart away from Guthrie.

But anyway, he misses the shot. The referees go back and look at it, and Guthrie comes out in the pool report and says he got the call wrong. And it's, you know, look, I know that there's nothing you can say to a Pistons,

player or fan that is going to change the way they feel about that. Or J.B. Bickerstaff, he appears to be pretty heated. Biggerstaff came running down to the... He almost ran over Darren Herman walking out of the court. He was like, whoa, I got to get out of the way. Well, it's funny. Like, J.B. was hunting for, you know, David Guthrie, and Tibbs is like getting off the court. He's like, I'm going to get out of here.

I do think it matters that the officials took accountability and said I got the call wrong? Tough weekend for David Guthrie. Messing up this eight-second call on Friday. I mean, the end of his crew doing the end of the Celtics game the other day, also a complete mess, I have to say. He has this bizarre

eight-second call. He gets wiped out. The Celtics then get this rebound with, it looked like close to a full second on the clock. Never gets looked at. Not sure why. They get's reviewed all the time for timing reasons. For some reason, it didn't. Now,

Celtics didn't deserve to win that game either, just like I think the Pistons blew this game with a few other things down the stretch, but it's not a great couple of closing stretches there. By the way, real quick on the Celtics Magic, 3-1 going back to Boston, Jason Tatum misses game two

with the bone bruise in his wrist, comes back with 36 and 37. I know they lost on Friday, but still, Tatum, huge weekend. The Celtics are a little banged up, up right now. Tatum's got the wrist. Jalen Brown's still coming back from the knee. Drew Holidays missed a couple games with a sore hamstring. This has for Zingas tweaked his like tonight, too. They got to get, they got to close the series out on Tuesdays. And Porzingis has the, uh, you know,

removal stitches. Yes. Yes. He got hit the head too. But they, uh, they got to close the series out in game five and get this thing over with and get a few days off before they face either the Knicks or the Pistons in the second round. But from the Knicks perspective, perspective. Carl Towns makes two tremendous plays down the stretch. He makes a about maybe a 10 footer from the baseline

over the side of the backboard. I think it was deeper than that. That was one of the best shots. Like, look, the other three was a huge shot. Like, I mean, he had a really deep three to put him up. Obviously, Carl's got great range. This baseline jumper that he hit with, I think it have been Tobias. I can't remember if it was Tobias. Somebody just absolutely draped on him. I was only an eight footer. You're right. I just looked it up. But that shot, that turn around

jump around the baseline, it was an unbelievable shot. So that brings them to, that brings me on the baseline, you mean on the baseline. Like, yes, he shot and he had to shoot it over the backboard. Yeah. So they're down four at that point. That, I think it's at the end of the shot clock, right? It was. It was right at the end of the shot. He had to heave it up because he got caught with it in the corner and he just had to turn around and make this crazy looking shot. So he makes that, then the Knicks get a stop. Then he drills a deep three to put the last basket of the game, to put the Knicks ahead. I mean, this is, you know, Towns has playoff games where he's had big shots like this.

This is not like his arrival. But it was his first big moment in the playoffs in a Knicks uniform. He also had another big three with just under three minutes to go too. And he was there. I mean, Jalen obviously went out. It looked like Jalen might have messed his leg up for a minute. But Carl was the one consistent presence they had throughout the game. And then they got down to the end.

And it was the Jalen show as usual. And Carl stepped up and hit three massive shots. Yeah, Jalen had a huge fourth quarter, but Kat was the one who hit the biggest shots at the end. So that's the other thing coming out of this game. Jalen gets rolled on. So it was his right ankle. It was his left ankle, I'm fairly certain.

that he sprained that cost him about a month, most of March and part of April. Was his right ankle? I'll double-check that. No, it was his right ankle. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, so he gets rolled up on that ankle and everything, it had all the makings of a high-enkel sprain. Which, by the way, going back to it in that, in that Wolves-Lakers game,

LeBron was diving for a loose ball, and he landed on Aunt Edwards's, ankle, which had all the makings of a look of a high ankle sprain. It looked a lot like the Solomon Hill LeBron play from back in the day. And Aunt LeBron are probably the two most like indestructible people we've seen in a long time. It just looked like Ant's leg was dead and then he just popped up. I was like, I know, but LeBron missed the rest of the season pretty much. He never recovered from that. Well, I was like the first, I mean, I guess it wasn't the first one.

The knee was before that, but. No, the groin. The groin that he had his first year in L. but think about that. The point is, Aunt has shown incredible rubber bones and ligaments in his career, and he just picks right up. I mean,

he looked like, oh, my gosh, he keeps going right on going. And this one, so Jalen, I mean, like, the way he,

like, sort of had his right ankle, like, just was holding it up in the air. You were like, oh, my God, he goes to the locker room. He comes back and has a great finish.

The question you have now is, how is that ankle going to feel? You got to fly back. How is the ankle going to feel for game five? You know, that's almost, that's like almost the biggest storyline in that series right now. Is Jalen's ankle going to be okay for game five? Because a lot of times... Yeah, I think the no call is the biggest storyline today.

Well, I said the biggest storyline for game five. The biggest one for game four is the no call. Well, look, if the Knicks won any chance of having any kind of chance to even contend with Boston, they have to win this game on Tuesday. They have to end the series. A, Detroit has shown they're good enough to take games off the Knicks, These last couple games have been pure toss-ups and the Knicks escaped with wins in both of them. But they've got to give their guys time off.

And they've got to make sure they're fully healthy and ready to go when they see Boston. Because if they're limping into that series and Jalen's banged up and, you know, they're all knocked around from a seven-game slug fest with Detroit. They already have, I think, a slim to little chance, the slim to none chance of making that competitive. I don't think they have a prayer if they're exhausted going into a Boston series. we've talked to, we've sort of danced around it. The story of this postseason, one of the stories of this postseason is depth.

If you don't got it, you got trouble. It's a problem with Denver. It's a problem with the Lakers, potential problem with the Knicks. And you look at a team, you know, like Oklahoma City, look at a team like the Cavs, who, again, lost an all-star starter and won by 40. Right, Celtics, same thing. Celtics, same thing. Although the Celtics, Sam Houser scored no points in the first three games of the series.

And he finally came alive a little bit today. They have eight or nine good players, though. That's the thing. They have guys you can rely on. The wolves have guys you can rely on. The clippers have guys you can rely. Right? Like, that's, you know, that's been the difference in these games.

Yeah, depth is huge. OKC plays 10 guys by the start of the second quarter every game. Seriously. I know. I know. The thing about Oklahoma City is Shea played C-minus basketball, and they swept. Yeah. And, you know, John...

You got cooking in the four in game four. Game four was typical, Shea. It wasn't even... Still, though, kind of below his average. Like a B-plus for him. Yeah, you know, 38 on 13. Oh, we had 38. Okay.

Yeah. Game four, he was legit. Yeah, the three games before that, like, he played fine. He didn't shoot well. He was shooting 35% from the floor, but... By his own admission, he wasn't good enough. Yeah, Jalen Williams played a great series. Like you said, The Depth.

You know, and John Moran did get hurt. I mean, according to Jop, he didn't get hurt, they'd be 2-2 now. Let's stop with that. John Moran gave his exit interview. Give the exact thing that he said. All right. So I'm going to read from De Michael Cole of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. I'll just read his tweet.

John Moran paused because he wanted to be careful with his word. But he clearly had more to say when asked about how the OKC series turned out. Quote, I had them figured out. Added that he believes the series would be tied to two, headed back to OKC if he didn't get hurt. Now. Not that careful of the swords. No.

When Jock got hurt, the Grizzies were up 27 points in game three. 29 on the very next possession. I'm going to say they probably win that game. That's the game where they have more. But like this idea of like the Grizzies were going to make. this series, dude, the Grizzlies did not beat a single Western Conference team with a winning record since January. And like, the idea that the Grizzlies were going to make this competitive against the Thunder is silly. And if you don't believe me, ask Zach Klin, who his quote, as he

is a general manager of the Grizzlies in case people don't know. Yes. I'm not aware of this quote. I'm curiously what it is. Again, reading from Michael. I don't think we can look back at this season and say we're close. No, we're not. No, they're not. Like, they're not. This season was not close to anything good for the Grizzlies. They fired their coach with nine games left in the regular season.

Again, they didn't, they had one win against any team with a winning record after January. They had, they beat the pistons, I believe, in April. Either than that, they were over against teams with the winning records. They were an eight seed. Like, and frankly, this course. that everybody was so excited about, you know, this brash young core, talking about John Moran, Desmond Bay and Jaron, Jaron Jackson, Jr., which, by the way, Jaron Jackson Jr. is in line to get a fat extension this summer. They've combined, or they've won a playoff series in their five years together, won. So, like, they're not close.

They've got to figure things out. you know, Thomas Isallo, you know, if I'm going to put a bet down, I think he's going to be the Grizzies next head coach. That's not a certainty. It's hard to judge him based on, hey, you get the reins with nine games to go after being involved in this weird offensive philosophical tugger war all season long. I thought he did some stuff that was pretty solid in this short run he had. But, yeah, I mean, look, the biggest thing more than anything else is, like you said, five years ago, if you'd said this group was going to have one one playoff series over the next five years, you would have said that's crazy.

It's massively disappointing. And obviously, there's a lot of things. The fact that Jha has more league suspensions than playoff series wins is a problem. Now. Significantly more. Yeah, two to one. Now. Boy, suspended.

Jah has not, you know, there's like aside from silly by. I thought you meant suspended games. playoff. No. Oh, no, games. Yeah.

Oh, just suspensions. A lot more playoff suspended games than within playoff wins. I think Jha

has, you know, with guidance, has understood, he's come to kind of an understanding of how to enjoy life

without putting yourself in jeopardy of league disciplinary action. That's certainly significant progress. But, hey,

Jha, as a franchise player, it's, the Grizzas are committed to him. You know, run out, Noah La Roche, the assistant who had his hands all over the, the offense that Jai hated, was

a sign of, hey, Jha, we're about you. You know, we're about, you know, making you happy. We're about appeasing you. But he misses a ton of games. And I know, like, hey, there are contact injuries, but he's the guy who tends to get hurt

lot and I when I'm talking people around the league GMs execs scouts I don't have people tell me that they think Jaws like a top 10 player when he's healthy anymore top 25 he was relatively healthy this year and he wasn't close to being an all-star right he was a good player but it was just kind of around and look we've talked a lot over the last month about the clarifying nature playoffs. And when you get in the playoffs and you get disappointed, what happens then? Right? Because there's only four teams that can advance out of the first round in each conference. And especially out west, there's 9, 10, 11 teams that think they can win one or more playoff series. Memphis is one of them. So whatever you want to say about Jaws quotes, right? The most interesting thing said was

Zach Kleiman saying, if you want to look at this season, can't say that we're close. And this is a team that has aspirations of being close. So what will they do about it? Actions over words. The words indicate there will be actions. This team has salary flexibility. They've got draft picks. Zach Klinman has not been shy about trying to do stuff to improve the team in the past.

It's going to be very interesting to see what they do because they've had some really nice fines on the margin. Scotty Pippin Jr. was awesome in game four. He's on one of the best contracts in the NBA. Like he's a really good player. Zach Edie had moments this year. Jaron has gotten better. They can point to some things where they've made strides.

But if you look at them in the hierarchy of the Western Conference, like you said, McMahon, they haven't beat a West playoff team in three, almost four months. It's not good enough. Desmond Bain's on a max contract. Jaron Jackson, Jr., I think he's probably going to end up all NBA. It's going to make him super max eligible. It's going to make those negotiations really interesting. they both had bad, bad series against the best defense in the NBA.

And like it's the best defense in the NBA, but like if you think you're going to do some... You don't think they had the Thunder figured out? No, no, I don't think either one of those guys, they didn't figure out that, hey, if you dribble against those guys, it's going to be something bad, it's probably going to happen. I'll tell you that. You can pass against them the same problem. Those summers deflap their... Just like I said, let's see what Memphis does this summer. They, I think, hold the keys to a lot of...

of interesting pass this summer, depending on. And you mentioned, you mentioned, Scottie Pippin Jr., he's the guy who, you know, he's the guy who made the game four competitive with Jock out. And, you know, he's a guy he earned, like they were 12 and 9 with him starting when Ja was hurt, which is interesting. And again, all indications from Zach Climman are that he is fully committed to John Morant, you know, and I don't know.

anything at this point that would tell me that that commitment is not mutual there's a lot of whispering and rumbling around the league about what the job might be available but you know that's I would just put that into the speculating category at this point he is shot he you know whatever it's worth

as a reminder he shot that climbing shot it down strongly but you know hey sky enough enough Grizzly's talk enough Grizzly's talk at one in the morning. Okay, we'll get to them again, probably in October. All right. Well, but just what it is. All right. We got a lot going on in the league.

Good luck to Bontemps, whatever his endeavors are this week. Thank you to Jeff. I mean, we could just say it's all right. That's not, we don't have to, we have to be around the bush. It's fine. I'm not going to be around for a minute. Might as well say why. Oh, wait, wait, you're getting suspended? You could you could say that. We're having a kid. it this week. So that's why I've been home on hanging out. Are you going to reveal that it is a

No, we're having a boy. Yeah. Having a boy. Going to be home. So everything's been good. So hopefully by the time this pod is on TV on when, not this one, but the next spot is on TV on Wednesday. We'll have the kid here. And, and, yeah,

so I don't know when I'll be back. Hopefully not super long time, but we'll be a minute. McMahon, the Bon Tem's name is going to live on generations into the future. Are you naming them after me? Well, we'll see. There hasn't been a decision yet on that. Oh, my gosh. We'll see.

We still got a couple days to figure it out. All right. Well, good luck to the lovely Kelly Bonn and K-Bon, and good luck to you. And we wish you good sleep in the next couple of days, then it's over. Also, that's true. Those diaper change, you've got to kind of use the diaper as a shield just in case.

Just a little shield action. I've heard about that. We'll have to be ready. He's watched the YouTube videos. I'll be watching the, I'll be listening to the pot from home and watching the games and we'll talk to you guys soon. Yeah, something tells me that Bonn-Temps' opinions

are going to be slipping through into one way or another. But it is, it has been about the best, this has, well, yeah, we'll be taxing on the group that, I'm sure. This first round is, I mean, obviously, it's just such a bummer with the dame thing. This first round has been unbelievable. Like, every night there's one or two or three awesome games.

It's just been great. So be a fun week ahead. Yeah, he's having a great time, McMahon. Just sitting at home watching the games. All right. Kibon was trying to get me to go to game five on Wednesday, on Tuesday. So he's like, oh, this is going to be a great game. I was like, we've got other things to do.

I don't think I'm going to be at the guard. Nick's up 3-1. All right. Thank you, McMahon. Thank you, Bontems. Thank you, Jackson, our producer. Thank you for watching. And this same to the Hoccurective,

we'll talk to you later this week. Adios amigos.