The Deep 3 Podcast - Everything We've Learned In The NBA Finals So Far | TD3 Live

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Today we react to the NBA finals and much more NBA news! #nba Support the stream: https://streamlabs.com/thedeep3pod Today we react to all the latest NBA news! Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Join the TD3 discord!: https://discord.gg/RUkjpMPp7E Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794 Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/ Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg Muhamed's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are live We had a little small 30 second delay Because the stream lives is lagging They got us We got us We're here at 501 We're a little bit late

You guys got us This time the allegations are true But close enough Close enough on time for me That I'm not willing to take it With that being said As you guys see about that title We're here to talk about

What was a very very interesting Game 4 and game 5 Of the NBA Finals We got that to talk about In two games since we last spoke we have some more Kevin Durant news Nobody wants his old ass We got some Desmond Bain trade news

We got some New York Knicks Coaching Vacancy trade news We got lots of going on And I did say trade news For the New York Knicks Head coaching vacancy Because that is the kind of the conversation We're having

So lots of talk about today Where do we eaters at? They're here Me? He's right there Yes, he's eater? Yep What do you do? Eating, eater in command

Hmm That's a new title? Exactly We just decided that Donovan's a head eater exactly he's been crazy crazy what are we doing it you know all the good food spots

what do you mean you want to make a statement as a new the crowd out head eater how do you feel about these allegations we will be eating all the time we'll be eating often and we'll be eating effectively plates will be full everyone saying patients are going to win in the chat you guys still hold on the hope yeah

yeah come on come on come on With that being said, we're just talking about the finals, obviously. That'll be the main part of the stream. Before we get to that, let's start talking about Kevin Durant. Let's talk about the new trade saga going on where it's seemingly, it's just a much of hot potato about who's lowball and better. And before we get to all the current offers and what we think of the late land is, we have seen a suitor eliminated. Like Mr. Kevin himself, apparently he has no desire to go to Minnesota.

He's seemingly shut that down himself and said he does not want to live in Minnesota at all. Interesting. which I mean it makes sense like just on a basketball side they to make that fit and to make all the money work like you're going to have to basically give up go bear if you if you take go bear off of the Minnesota Tim Wolves they're dead it's done it's dead like I don't care if it's it's and it's KD and that's fine right if you have Nas read as you're starting center you are getting destroyed like in the in a playoff context like you're just not going to go far without go bear being that anchor and so so if i if i'm kiddie good job like that's a that's just a smart move that's terrible for me and my propaganda this is one of my two biggest like offseason fan fictions that i had i'm wanted this happen for like since they really traded away car on city towns way back last since last year and i understand it makes sense like you said i agree with you you you trade gober your toll team is dead you there's no real space or real room for you guys to be serious competitors

for the little things that Gobert does that eventually add up to being one of the to him being one of the best like floor raises that the NBA has to offer at that position so I agree with you it's sad it sucks for someone like Katie I would he really there's a tweet that happened that came I think like years ago I think he tweeted like back in 2011 he was like bro what is good about Minnesota why would anybody whatever want to live in Minnesota that's what I think is why he doesn't want to go there I don't think he gets to fuck about what's our team defense going to be like, without Goubert, I don't think that's on top of his mind at all. I think he does not want to live in Minnesota. I think that's probably much more pressing to him. I think, yeah, losing

Gobert would be a very, very difficult thing team building wise to figure out a way to like manufacture that defense and aggregate when you're bringing in a 37 year old to start. That'd be hard. They wouldn't start in Osriot Center, I think. I think they would figure out some kind of stopgap move, whoever that may be. I think his ass does not want to live where it's freezing cold for five months of the year. So this was tweeted by Kevin Durant January 1st, 2011. He said, if I crack a smile out here in Minnesota, my lips will bleed. Tapstick won't help. It's too cold for all that. Yeah, I don't see him wanting to be there. But yeah, nevertheless, that's one suitor that's seemingly off the board. I mean, they could still do it because right now he's not traded yet for a reason

because there's lots of negotiations, lots of hardball going on. So I suppose they could pull the raptors and come in at the last second and say we're going to do it anyways as a one-year rental and see what happens. Get off to go bare contract in the meantime, clear the books a little bit. Still possible, but I can't imagine the team is going to be jumping for joy to get a 37 year old, I mean 37 year old that doesn't want to be there. But now that I'm thinking about it, this kind of feels like the way the Minnesota has been operating

over the last two years where they go and they make a move that everyone's like, why would you do that? That makes no sense. And the two more is like, just wait for it. Trust the process. It'll make sense. And because everything with them has been about financial flexibility, it does make sense.

if you are continuing to go down the path you say we trust aunt and we are betting on him to just be great in the long in the long run we're going to get off a gobert's contract and then whenever kd's contract is up and he you know eventually ages out now we still have in a in his prime and we're going to have mad cap space and mad flexibility that situation might be you know enticing to him and for what for what the the price looks like it is for kd If Minnesota can do something or get themselves into the sweepstakes, I'm cool with it. Honestly, if they if they do make that trade happen, it almost feels a little bit like Phoenix Sun's 2.0ish where okay, you got a shooting guard who's not he's not Devon Booker obviously. Some could argue he's a little bit better than the different booker regardless is the same level player, maybe a couple of those above of Devon Booker and then you have a whole lot of nothing.

You don't have a traditional point guard because Mike Connolly's on his last legs. Your center position is so thin with Nas Reid and whoever else is back there. The depth, a little bit, you can assume who knows what's going to happen with Jay and McDaniels, whether or not he'll be a part of that package. Their whole identity will be snatched away from them if you go ahead and make the straight-out. It would be a very different team for sure either way, whether it would be good or bad. It would be a total identity shift. Shout out to Ferris V2 for tipping $10. Appreciate you.

He said, we're helping him get through his tough hour-long, 10-hour construction shifts. Damn. hard worker appreciate you ferris and shout out to sean pukes that says for ten dollars he said got into ball with your podcast last year keep with the great work guys appreciate you chat where do you want to see kevin around go because obviously as timber wolves are out of it that's one of the more fan favorite places to go obviously there's a texas teams some other suitors while we're talking about this let us know who you guys want to see him go to or who you think he'll go to let's say that reading the tea leaves what your current prediction because another one that's been ruled out

this was never really any traction here it was kind of just like theorizing but the nicks are out they have no interest, essentially, according to Mark J. Spears, that was Kevin Durant's preferred trade destination. There was talk that he wanted to go there at the deadline if they were going to move him. Apparently, the Knicks aren't having any of that. Really? How do you feel about that? Beat it, chick.

Like, you had your chance. You missed out. What was the chance? When did he miss out? Yeah. 2016? Yeah. In 2019, he could have been here.

Oh, that is true. Oh, yeah, 19. Yeah, he could have been here. Would you, would you in a brosky? Why don't you want him there now? Unless the trade is legit, just cap for KD straight up, I don't think it's worth it. Because then you would have to give up Mikhail and or OG. And so like all of those pieces together would feel like a lot.

There's also the piece that the last two and a half places Kevin Durant has been, he has been unhappy. And so maybe you say this is the place that he wanted to go to. He's going to be happy. But we don't have a coach yet. So what if we trade for Kevin Durant, then hire coach. He doesn't mess with the coach. And then now we have a weird situation. You have another team again.

Coming off of an Eastern Conference finals run, you have a lot of expectation. New York and the way that the fans are, like Katie talks to fans all the time on Twitter. He would be on Twitter nonstop. I do think that like for somebody who's very, very online, that could get a, They can get old very, very quickly. Yeah. So, that man is going to be on watch once he sees one side talks. Yeah.

NYC side talks video, man. It's a wrap. So I'm, but I'm, I'm okay with us not, you know, not trading for Katie. Because, again, unless, unless it is specifically cap for Kevin Durant, I do think that a lot of the other pieces, it's just too many moving parts to do in a year where we're going to talk about this later. But the East is wide open. So I don't think you have to be as aggressive with some of the moves that you're making. You could also say that you may be more aggressive because it's so wide open, which we'll get to later with another team in the east that made similar move. But obviously the Texas

teams have long been the two teams that I think people view as a running favorite is to get Kevin Durant, whichever way it goes, he's going to be in Texas. Apparently the Spurs have decided that the sons are asking for too much as of currently, as of today. They haven't decided to make a strong push because they asked for too much. And Shams Sharani reported that perhaps they're stockpon their assets for a bigger star. He said, I think they're going to to really be stockpotted their assets for potentially a bigger move, a bigger player, someone who may fit their timeline.

You know, the timeline being Victor Woman Yama is like 21 or 22. I forget his actual age right now. This guy's 37, so it's quite the difference in timeline there. And obviously we've all kind of convinced ourselves that you can kind of work both. You can kind of let KD be the next few years and he gets out the books and you do the next era,

yada, yada. But it is an unnatural fit. And we are convincing ourselves of that. So if that's the case, that would make sense. I don't know who that bigger start will be though. Because if it doesn't seem my Janus is coming available anytime soon. Yeah, that's just some unforeseen event happening

that they're just holding their guns to which makes sense. Like they're honestly like the best thing, one of the best things that they could do is just hold tight continue to belt assets and wait until their bad contracts like Devin Vassell and all that just like slowly ticks away because that's the biggest thing in my mind that's holding back

this organization. What's happening with Devin Vesel that money and what you can do in the meantime to fill in and like in gray shade this new era. Can I tell you something? Yeah. If they went and got Kevin Earth, they wouldn't have themselves money in it.

Right? So, like, that problem would be gone. Also, he's not a bigger problem, honestly. It makes it a $28 million a year. It's not a big of a deal. Yeah. It's annoying when you see him play basketball, me. That's when it bothers me.

In terms of flexibility, though, it's not holding back, really. I think the timeline thing, I actually think they're looking at it wrong. It's not like Wembe is in his prime right now, and you are paying him maximum. you have Wembe who is ascending who by the start of the season and if he hadn't you know if the damn blood clots hadn't come in then we would have ended the season and said when B is a top nine player at work right top 10 player something like that whatever so you were getting top 10 NBA production on a smaller deal Kevin Durant by the time it's like said and done it's not like you're going to have to re up on Kevin Durant's contract and

then pay him and and then pay Wemby. This would be the time that you can go out and get KD so that even if even if Wembe stays at the level that he's at right now, offensively, there wouldn't be so, so much pressure. I think that he still would take a jump, but there wouldn't be so much pressure for him to ascend to this like, you know, number one option, ball in your hand, you carry us, whatever. Yeah. You would have KD in that space.

And so I do think that it's a little bit, it's a little bit dumb to look at it. I can understand. I don't think they're maximizing there. I don't love the two timeline because it's also not like we're getting three 37 year olds and now we're really playing both. It's like we have a young team and one old guy and that's what will rock. Well, to be fair, they have been in the talk. So I think they agree that the possibility is open.

It's just whether or not they should go all in for that because of the restraints. But I think they agree that it's one to entertain it. Yeah, I think you can, Wembe's so good and so cheap right now. Well, so cheap. He's number one pick. So he still makes like, I'm sure like $12 million. or something like that. It's not minimum. But you can almost view it like when an NFL team has a rookie QB

and you've got to stack the roster around that before it gets expensive. If they were to get Kevin Durant, they'd give him a two-year extension, I think, assuming they want to really commit to him, that's what he wants. So you'd have this coming year, which is expiring years in two more years. I think off top of my head, NBA rookie contracts is four years. So the fifth year would be the first year he gets paid. So you'd be one year of overlap where Kevin Durant's expensive and one beats expensive. That's pretty manageable.

You could live. You get the next two years. you could afford them both and kind of like view it as like even split that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world i think yeah exactly i think what we're talking about right now is just like next level team building yeah uh when it comes to being a master at the payroll and i i agree with you if i was a spurs identity i would i would probably do it unless they really try to pull my arm for that number two overall pick and i think this gives them absolute opportunity to be a solidified had locked top three team in the Western Conference

for release like the next three years. And two years from now, I think that's when Wembe gets off his rookie deal. That's when his, not extension yet because it hasn't happened, but you can assume his essential will happen in 2020, 20, 20, 20. So it's fully worth it in my mind

to absolutely maximize your roster and how your money works. Yeah, we'll see though. Right now they're nickel and doming each other. It's like there's four or five suitors that are all low balling and the sons have no leverage and they all know that. So nobody's really jumping out yet.

It feels like he's going to be Houston Rock, though. feels like that's probably inevitable if the spurs are being cautious and not going to blow them out of the water offer wise feels like it's a rocket it's a matter of one do the like the raptors come in and give them a crazy offer or what do we what do we settle on asset wise for the rockets yeah the the rockets the rockets is it is the the best fit and the best merge of not only timeline but picks and assets and then just overall need because with san antonio yes you can still go get kd even if you keep the number two overall pick your bench and your depth is still in question you you're going to have to like retool that very

very quickly on the fly and Dena Harper for as great as you know as he's touted up to be right now he's still a rookie guard and it's going to be very unlikely that he comes in and his averaging you know 15 17 points off the bench being that type of you know six men but if you could be but if he could be if he if he can be a six man that's like six man of the year as a rookie if if he can amazing yeah that's crazy now I'm not now I'm not trading the number two overall pick regardless, right? So, like, in any scenario that we trade for KD, Donald Harper is going to be on the team.

It's just a matter of how much do you believe in Daniel Harper to be that guy in year one. But for the Rockets, we've set it for a year and a half. They have too many guys. And now, after this last playoff run, they don't have a guy to step up into the, you know, the number one score. So that's why, that's why Katie fits with them the best. All right.

Next new story, we've got to talk about post Kevin Durant. An NBA finals trade involving an NBA finals team went down today. Surprising that census rarely said, NBA draft deal, the Indiana Pacers are trading their number 23 pick and the rights to Mojave King to the New Orleans Pelicans for Indiana Zone 2026 first-on pickback, which the Pelicans had previously acquired. So essentially, the Pelicans are giving them. a pick back to move it up for this year. They're just swapping the 2025 and 2026. The Pelicans get a

23 overall pick that I guess their estimation is next year. It'll be worse than that. So might as well take it in a pretty good draft class with a deep pool of role players in the middle. And the Pacers by doing this, they unlock the ability to trade for first-on picks this summer. Now that they got 26 back because of the protections being different, they can trade 26, 28, 30 and 32 if they're to make it all in big deal trade. Kevin, our welcome to the Indiana Pacers. We're going to love to have you there. Tyreys Howard's are going to add like five extra years to your NBA career. He's going to hoop with Pascal. See, I can get that ring again.

He might take years off. But as fast as he plays? Oh, no. My first thoughts were either, one, Trey Murphy, welcome to Indiana. Yeah. Or two, if we're getting real crazy and I'm just a pie in the sky fan fiction, this is very unlikely. Anthony Davis, welcome to Indiana. Anthony Davis, wow.

I don't think they're trying to do that, Nico. But if he was, if you wanted to have a good LGO free card, two or three, three. first-on picks from Indiana? I love that basketball fit-wise for Indiana. It would be amazing. Man, what's going on, man? Yeah, I don't know. I think Trey Murphy could be something that could make sense because, you know,

there's obviously a good bidding war run on right in hill for him, and it seems like they want picks and they're valuing that. The Paces are close enough if they did like Benedict Matherin, one other marginal piece and the two first-round picks, that would move me a little bit. First thing I'll say is the Norris Pelicans wanting to get off of someone like Trey Murphy is easy. one of the stupidest things that any front office could do easily for whatever reason. I think they're just trying to see right now if somebody's to blow them away offer-wise.

Like they're saying similar to like Desmond Bay. Yeah. They're like, we're open. We're not thirsty. But if you want to throw us three first round picks, we'll take it because he is, like there's an infatuation with young wings where we assume they can be stars, but it's not always 100%. So they're like, if you want to pay top dollar for what he could be, not what he currently is, we will understandably take it. But it's at this point in their rebuild, retool, whatever you want to call it, is the smart thing to do. Yeah, it could be a good pivot because they have so much going on right now that, again, you can let Chamber if you continue to thrive here and be patient.

Or you can say we have a lot of time to go. He's soon going to be paid. He's probably ready to help a team pretty soon. We're not pretty soon away. It could make sense. Nobody on that, that whole team is about to be, it feels like it's, yeah, it feels like it's about to be blown up. I just seen a podcast clip from, I forget what that podcast called with like three, four. It's called the pivot.

Yeah, and Dejante Murray was on there. He basically exposed that entire training staff. He talked about how he was so hard for him. He was going through a lot of personal stuff in his life. And on top of his, I think, wrists or hand injury, whatever, he sustained weight earlier in the season before the ACL or the Achilles went out. He talked about how it was so hard for him to log in training time and just table time and on the court one-on-one time with himself, which is insane.

And so, hey, I mean, if that's a kid, I just like shitting on the North Pelican's not. They're going to be like this bad. this level of ass. JJ in the chat said Isaac who the Lakers getting. I was just telling Moe this right before we start recording. Clint motherfucking Capella. That's where my expectations are. Not high.

Not high at all. But let's talk about some real trade news. Let's talk about a move that moves a needle that changes the landscape at the NBA, potentially, at least changes the landscape of the Eastern Conference. We've got to talk about Desmond Bain, now being a member of the Orlando Magic. We're a few days late, but we're going to grade this trade for both teams. If you guys live under a rock and you miss this, the full trade details, the Grizzlies received Catavia's Colwell Pope, Cole Anthony,

four unprotected first-on picks, which is a gracious way of reporting it, but we'll get into the details later, but four first-on picks, one first-on-pick swap, the magic received, Desmond Bain. Yeah, shout out to the magic. What was y'all's first reaction to this going down a couple days ago? Damn! Yes, that's a lot.

That's definitely the first reaction is, Jesus Christ. four for Desmond Bain someone who's like a non all-star and doesn't have any real accolades in the NBA just yet not the shit on Disney Bain whatsoever one of the better I guess you can say he's like a top 30 45 whatever player in the NBA yeah but that's a lot yeah and that's the first reaction is whoa that's a lot for he is one of the best on all stars but whoa that's a lot and I think part of that is because of way it's reported for unprotected first-on picks first of all one of those picks is this year's pick I think number 16 if I remember correctly unprotected. it's not going to fucking change. It's the number 16 pick. So you only really use unprotected language and you're talking about

the future because I can be anything. That pick cannot be anything. It can be the number 16 pick it is. And one of those picks, the prize jewel of it, is a Phoenix Sun's 2026 first-on pick. That pick already has multiple swaps attached to it.

So confusing set of circumstances of where that pick will lie. It'll be probably a good pick, but it won't be a top five pick. I think it'll probably go to the Wizards if it is a top five pick. So it's not as egregious as a sound. It's not like amazing picks.

It's those two picks I just described. and two picks that are the magic's picks later on in the decade when you would assume they'd be a good team. So it's not premier draft capital, but, you know, a lot of people see that. They have that talking point. They're like, y'all overvalue picks. These are going to be the 28th pick in the draft if it works and yada yada. I think that's a little bit flawed. While I am saying that, it's flawed because for first-on picks, you're emptying your cupboard. So if you want to make picks of trades in the future, you know, every deadline, there's good role players available that cost a first-on pick. You really limit your flexibility here now by going all the

for Desmond Bain and having very few assets left to make smaller trades along the margins. And that's okay. It's okay. It's okay. I mean, Desmond Bain is a good player. He's a great player, you know? And they brought in KCP last year.

They said, we need you to knock down threes. And CCP said, I'm not going to do that. Don't want to. No, I'm okay. Desmond Bain. Desmond Bain is going to come in and he's going to make shots. Like this offense, this team has had one of the worst offenses, not only for the last couple years, but for the last

decade. It's been so long since they haven't been able to crack top 20. It's 2012. Top top 20. That's not a high bar to clear. No. To be a bottom 10 offense for what is that, 14 seasons now. Jesus Christ. And yeah. So, you know, we've long said that this team needs a dynamic shock creator that can be obviously a shooter and provides basing, but also give you another sense of playmaking for himself and others. And we obviously, it's like the whole internet, we pointed to Anthony Simons for years as being that guy that makes total sense skill set wise to gel with Palo, gel with Franz, Franz, because he can play on and off while next to those guys. The problem is guys like that typically suck at defense, or at the very least, they're mediocre

at defense. And this is a team that makes a point to not play any defensive liabilities on the court at all times. That's why their defense is top three every year. They are gigantic and make sure everybody on the court can play physically. Desmond Bain is essentially Anthony Simons offensively, but way better off the ball and a pretty good defender. Not amazing, but like good stout defender. He does a lot of that same spacing stuff, amazing running off of screens, gets up a high volume of threes, underrated ability on the ball as a driver and running pick and roll, has done a lot of that. That's kind of Simon's game. So they overpaid a little bit, but they're overpaying for the guy that we've described as the perfect player. Yeah, I completely

agree he's he just signed a fat ass contract and he's like underlock for so so many years after this season and on top of that too he's only what 26 it's going to be like 27 years old going into the next season i believe he is like a glove and hand fit there's not many players at the two guard position who fits better than someone like doesn't been for all the things you just said he's one of the he's been one of the i don't know five best catch and shoot three point players that the entire NBA has to offer over the last four or five years since he's been in the league since day one. And then you touched on his playmaking ability too.

Again, it's been constantly an underrated talking point of his game since he was in TCU. And I think over the last few years, he's averaged like, what, five, six, six assists per game consistently because he's had to learn how to play. And he's going to have been forced to play a pseudo point girl at times with the Grizzies because of John Moran being out so often. Now he's not the primary guy. You don't want that to have me. So turn over prone at times.

There's only so much you can do with that much arm. Not that much arm. But he's a great fit regards. Yeah. Like if you were thinking about the perfect guard, because we talked a lot, the magic need to shake some shit up. We were saying that if they go into next season

with the same roster, the same exact cast of characters, and pray they just figure it out, pray KCP gets back to shooting 40% from three magically and they just like flip a switch because their young guys get better, that would be negligent. That would be wishful thinking

when clearly they're. offensive approach is flawed at best, disastrous at worst. This is the type of move they need to make. We all just said they need to make something aggressive. And if you thought of the perfect player to add there, what would you say? You'd say someone who can play defense, be amazing catch and shoot, be a secondary creator. So if Palazian doubled, you throw it to him, he can create attacking the closeout. You would say be competent defensively. You would say be had versatility as a shooter, not just sitting in the corner, be going to run off screens. All these things you would say pointed as in Bain. Like I really can't think of a better reasonably able to get

shooting guard to fit this team. And guess what? If in two years, none of this works. Bain, you're out of here. We're getting a couple first round page back. Like that, there's that aspect of it. And I said earlier, you know, because of the state of the East, you might be able to tell yourself, oh, we don't have to be aggressive. That's more so like for the Cleveland Cavaliers, for the New York Knicks, teams who are already at the top of the conference and you don't have to look at your team and say, oh, we have to tear it all to the ground. We have to make some crazy move. The magic, you guys have to, like you said, you guys had to do something. And because the East is so open, you can say, Franz was hurt last year, Paolo was hurt, let's get somebody in here who's actually going to fit with both of them and make a real push because Indiana, even though that they're in the finals, they're not unbeatable.

New York is not unbeatable. Cleveland still has questions about them. Milwaukee sucks. Milwaukee's another team that also. They're also another team that can like, you know, convince themselves that they can be competitive in the east you have all of that working for yourself so yeah Orlando this is the time this is the time especially before you go and you pay palo crazy crazy amounts of money chat what are you guys grading this for the magic let us know your grades before we get into ours i will say there is like a little bit devil's advocate to have here by doing this they're paying des and bane almost i think 40 million dollars a year is going to be his contract in a couple years sugs makes 30 franz has already been extended and if palo makes all NBA, he's going to be making supermax levels. But if he does make all NBA, it's still going to be

30% of the salary cap. Those four guys is your team. That's your core. They don't really have any other big contracts you can add. You're already probably going to be a first apron team. You conduct the second apron with that. They're not going to be that, I don't think. But they will be a tax team probably. If not, they're going to be just below it and have no flexibility because, you know, if you decide not to pay the first tax for whatever reason, then you don't have any flexibility whatsoever. Yeah. to me then if that's the case these year guys you better pray franzka shoot threes next year and palo is ready to make the leap as a playmaker and be able to play more of a fluid style

play that hopefully you give him the spacing needed he can kind of take that step and not be such an isolation heavy slow playmaker that kind of like slows the offense down on his own right those two guys really have to get a lot better because if they don't and they aren't as ready as you hope they are then you're all in for a team that's not ready that's not a good situation to be in. Yeah, I agree. If I'm the Orlando Magic, the moves can't stop here. They have still like a slew of young players on this roster. Not to say that they should go ahead and trade them, but hey, if you're going to be so aggressive and you realize that the Eastern Conference is so wide open, nothing should continue. Nothing should be off the table. Anthony Black, eyes are on you for

sure. Tristan DeSilve, he had a good rookie year. Eyes are still on you. Who knows what's going to happen with Jonathan Isaac? He's still, he's under contract for the next few years, but he's like, working scientists. He's an experiment. He's an experiment. No one knows it really is going to happen with him how many minutes you can play on a day-to-day game-to-game basis. So in my mind, they continue to still need to push the envelope and unload whatever second rounders or whatever it is to get more veterans specifically veteran shooting on this team. I don't even think someone like I don't want Mendo Carter Jr. on this team anymore specifically too because it's like there's no more information know how much better can you get on this team. It's so limited. Yeah, I think

you really need a stretch five next to Palo. His like main mode of attack is doing guard-to-guard screens and attacking smalls. If you're doing that and you're attacking the team smallest player, when a Carter has to twiddle's fucking thumbs and dunker spot, they would get a lot more dangerous if they had a five-out spaceer that could sit in the corner for that instead of necessarily being there. Unless Powell makes a big passing leap and can start, you know, really doing those interior passes, which is important.

But I would love to see another five-out spaceer here. And I don't know how they do that with this much pick equity gone. Yeah. Surprise, surprise. A team needs a stretch five. Everybody needs it. Everybody needs it. I'm giving this like a B-plus.

I was going to say B flat. Yeah, I, I'm happy because of their aggression to, to go for it. And obviously with a lot of the apron stuff, a lot of teams are making moves to duck, to duck aprons to give themselves flexibility, but also, let's go for it. And I don't, I don't mind that attitude of saying, we, one, we've already committed to Franz by giving him that money. You know that regardless of what happens, Palo is getting an extension. everybody in that building understands that those two guys are here to stay

and that's who you're building around if you guys actually have belief in them let's operate like you believe in them and try to put a team around them so I'm cool with it I like the trade and I like the fact that like Bain is should be a very seamless fit

I do wish like you said that they had a little bit more natural playmaking but every team is not going to be perfect so we'll see what happens when we get to the season but it's cool I think I'm going to go ahead

give it a B plus like again for all the things you said earlier this is one of the best fits that you could possibly ask for and they played they paid absolute full price to go out of KCP who was owed like 20 million dollars next year in the year after that he's pretty much dead money that's just gone um and you get someone who very much fits the timeline I would definitely give it a B plus the only thing that worries me is like okay like someone like Desmond Bain it's not super talk about he doesn't have any catastrophic injuries but he is not the healthiest player on a consistent basis

and this team right here specifically is they consistently deal with some type of injuries like last year they were both of their star players were obliqueless bro they were just running low on obliques for whatever reason yeah they're oblique dependent players exactly yes they are you're very much right and so that worries me because of depth reasons

but again all eyes are on their young players who very much should step up yeah Bain played 69 games last year for what it's worth. Nice. Second time in four years that he's played over 68 games. So maybe that, like, you hope and you, like the magic are going to tell themselves, he's not injury prone. He just had two unlucky years or whatever and we can get a consistent, you know, production out of him.

I hope, again, for their sake, that that's true. But you're all right. It has been a little bit up and down with his health. Yeah. And you mentioned the KCP thing. That's the other side of it is you could say they paid an extra pick than one. what you would think to dump the KCP salary. That's probably another talking point to tell yourself.

I like to believe we can give KCP another year and see if he bounces back. I don't feel like he's just completely cooked, but they know more about him. Having him in the building, maybe they view him as cooked on their team. So I guess I understand that. And the other point you made is they have all these young guys, which could be viewed as a question mark that like,

do we got trade some more of them and try to like find some cheap veterans with that, with those young guys and do that. But you can also say they kept all the young guys, so they have their healing still. You know, when the Rudy Gobert trade happened, people mocked them for keeping Jamie Daniels out of it. They ended up batting a fifth pick so they can keep Jaden. And at the time, Jaden wasn't anything worth noting about. But they knew he was in the building.

And they saw a world in which he could become a next popular role player for them. Maybe that's their Tristan de Silva, they're Anthony Black, their Jet Howard, if he ever finds a way to have a role, et cetera. So that is still good. They still have every, if they believe in the guys ahead the door now, they still have every reason to believe that that could be a big ceiling razor for them. Exactly. Those are going to be real swing factors. any type of injuries happen for this team, which naturally happen to every NBA team for the most part.

But that means to say, to me, it mostly comes down. I think we all agree, Pallas is probably going to make a leap next year. We all feel good, assuming he can be the top 15 player that they feel he can be. I feel good about that. He still has approved some stuff and still will get better at areas. It's not a guarantee, but I feel good about that. Is Franz going to remember how to shoot or is he not? Like, that really is going to be a big deciding factor in the playoffs.

Yeah. Yeah. Because he's amazing when his three-point shot is falling. But when it's not falling, it makes a gigantic difference. It's so frustrating. Let's talk about the Grizzlies now, though. That was all magic related. The Grizzlies were the 2C for a lot of this year

and then had a second half of the season, collapse. They fired their coach. They have kind of an identity crisis right now. Nobody really knows that you should feel comfortable with John Morant being the face of your franchise, being the star that puts butts in seats. Nobody really has a good feel for, is that a way to win long term?

Does that have a championship ceiling like we thought it did in 2022? That's very much in the air. People were saying, are they going to blow it up? Are they going to trade him in dead a night? like Luca, what's going to happen? Well, now they made their first move. Bain's gone. I don't think they were shopping Bain,

but if you get a deal like this with this much fucking value, you got to take it. We'll start here. What are you graded for the Grizzlies? I give this an A because, you know how you had a lot of worries about the Orlando Magic

and their cap situations being in hell in a few years from now? That's what the Memphis Grizzies are right now, or at least were, when Des and Bain was a part of this roster. They had very little moves. they already had all their draft picks. They knew they were a move away because of the limitations between just the three of these players.

Like, Jha has certain limitations. Bain does. And Jaron Jackson, Jr. as great as he is, he's not, like, the most complete four out there at all. And so I like this because this is, like, key retooling. A lot of people see this and they're like, they think that their Memphis greases are waving the right flag. And in my mind, that's, like, not happening at all. They're just taking a step back, reevaluating themselves. it feels so much more dramatic because it's like this might be the worst 48 team when I've seen

in my life for whatever reasons what it feels like but I think they're just taking a step back and they're really just like honing on honing on these assets they understand some like Zach Gidey is going to miss a chunk of time at the start of next year which I completely forgot about they're just reevaluating things and just really trying to find themselves and I like it overall you don't lose it's impossible to lose that's what they wanted you to do they wanted you to forget that Zach is going to be out yeah like this is I think it's, for all the reason that you said, that's why I think that it's smart because because of the collapse, I think that the Grizzlies know internally without

winning a championship with these three guys. And so Jai is still, he showed enough at the end of the season to make you think that that whatever you saw in 22 and 23, it's still there. And then with Jaron's progression, you can, you can say, we're going to have these two guys, we're still going to be competitive. The West is so, so honestly, equal outside of OKC. Maybe we could still find our way to get to the two C with our depth and we go back and we're not going to be in the second apron or, you know, paying some crazy tax.

That, from that standpoint, it's okay. Overall, big picture, as long as you have Jha on your team and that's your number one guy, you're going to have this overall question. But this specific move, it's like a B plus, A minus. I'll go A plus, but they got five four for show picks for. Desmond Bain. Like we can understand that it makes sense for the magic given where they're at what they need, what they can accomplish. If they fix their knees, et cetera, we can justify the price that it makes sense to overpay a little bit, given where you are. We've seen similar

things. McHale Bridge's trade just happened, got them to the conference finals. Goberti trade happened, got them to the conference finals. So it can make sense to give too much picks if it's the right fit. But with that being said, it's still too many picks. So the Grizzies got too many picks for a guy that was not going to change your life. I think it's very abundantly clear that For whatever flaws you have with the Grizzlies, when it comes out of the coaching, the new scheme and how it would affect the jaw this year, their bench, whatever may be. One thing is not up for debate. Jha, Bain, Jaron as three max contract players is not good enough. Like, you're not going to win with that three big contract blueprint when those three guys are on those contracts.

It's not enough star power very clearly. So I think you don't have to trade Bain, but if you get too many picks for him and you can abandon that style and try to move to a two-star. approach with John Jaron and then use this new flexibility and these new abundance of picks to get a lot of high-end role players and be two stars plus a stacked roster and kind of do Pacers basketball, which is Halliburton, Seacom, and a bunch of good role players. I think that makes all the sense in the world, especially because you're going to have to pay Jaron a big raise pretty soon, depending on wherever that net's out over the summer if he decides to extend. You have a lot of options now and no matter what path you want to go down, even if it is

trading, Jod, trading, Jaron, whatever, no matter what path you go down, you will be better off for getting four first-time picks for you. Desmond Bain. Another path that they could also go towards too was that, hey, I mean, they have all these assets, all these picks. You mentioned a name earlier when it comes to Indiana Pacers. They could fucking be in the Trey Murphy sweepstakes if they really wanted to as well. They have the assets to go ahead and do so. That's probably likely. They've been connected to so many wings over the years.

Yeah, and it makes sense. Trey Murphy is someone who has, I don't want to see he's so much better than someone like Desmond Bain, but there's a difference and he has his ceiling is higher as a player overall. defensively, offensively, the whole night in my mind. He's low-key kind of ass at defense. We don't talk about it. Yeah, he doesn't like a ass in Memphis, though. Maybe, but I think currently doesn't Baines better,

but you're right. The ceiling is higher or Trey Murphy. So I guess that there's definitely a world of Trey Murphy, you lapse them. Yeah, exactly. And so even having the opportunity, they've been crying for someone at that three spot four years now since like 2021, 2021, 2022.

And he's someone who fit perfectly fits that timeline. But if whether or not he's the answer or not, It doesn't matter. They just have a world of opportunities to get this right. And they can make mistakes. And I like taking the risk on KCP and like trying to like reclamation project that. $20 million a year is like not cheap, but it's not egregious. I don't think he's completely cooked.

He's still a good defender. And I feel like we saw him at his best. Usually when he's playing with stars, I can really set him up and be like high drivers of good looks. That wasn't the case last year for the magic. Obviously, he didn't shoot well, but it wasn't the best offensive ecosystem. If I'm a good team that has star players and I have faith in them to create shots, I don't hate KCP as an asset. I agree.

This also tells me, like, they need to fully lean back on John Moran ball and maximize the living shit out of him again. Please. That's debatable if that's going to get you anywhere, though. That's the thing. But you're right.

That probably is where they are. It needs to happen if KCP's on that roster because they got bailed out so many times with someone like Desmond Bain. Well, it's a good debate, though, because I don't know. Like, John showed you that you want to go down that route. I don't think they're going to train him right now.

So they are definitely probably are going down that route. Yeah, why not? Like, go out with a bang. Tell us what Knox. I feel it festering. Let us know. It's just the clock is ticking now. Like that's the only reason why I wouldn't give them an A plus is because even though that you did get all of these picks, you sped up your time to decide whether or not Jai is the guy.

You think so? I do. Why is it sput up now? I would think it would be the opposite. I think now you have less expectations because you're cheaper and you can kind of take your time figuring out with the next phases. I think, I think that now, now that you have opened the door to all, to all of this like retooling, like you said, you're going to start leaning back on, on John Morant basketball. And you're going to, you're going to see very quickly.

Like, I don't think it's a, it's going to be a thing where we're going to figure out, because we've seen job be at that level before. It really is. You are back in this situation. This is what you wanted. We have a new coach who is going to be on your side. Are you going to be the guy? or not. And so you're going to have a very, very small window where you can figure out and

fully decide is he the guy. If you want the patient route, that's cool. But also, they've won one playoff series in five years. Yeah. Damn. John Moran has has been in and out the lineup for the last three and a half. And so now you're going back and you're going to give him the keys to this franchise again. It's by December, we should know what this team is going to look like. And so just for a team that doesn't really get free agents probably like if you're trading job you have no idea what the future of your team looks like you have to make a decision very very quickly and so that's the only thing where i'm like now that that aspect of it feels sped up okay yeah either way though whether it is feature without jaw or is feature with jaw i still like the value so it is complicated the new

situation they're in they definitely have to figure out what the new identity is going to be and i think it's underratedly difficult the situation they're in like the jaw jaron ceiling is pretty low unless you get the really, really, really stacked team of role players around him, like, similar to the Pacers and had the perfect coach to maximize it, similar to Rick Carlisle. That's not a, like, great guarantee to contend.

So I don't, I really don't love either outcome for them. Because I also don't love trading Jaron and Jahn and having to, like, restart from nothing. Like, because I don't have other, like... That feels like a cop-out. Yeah, because they just don't have, like, the young core around them that you feel really great about. And with how what you've seen these teams these days with the new

lottery odds just get fucked every time they try to do something like that. Like, you don't feel good about that outcome either. Although I think Grizzies fans are rather optimistic right now. I would feel a little bit queasy if I was a Grizzies fan. A. You got four new draft picks, hard-ass jerseys, and

Keglock is still there. This is a fucking winning to me if you're And there you go. So we got an A for the Grizzlies, B for the Magic. I'm fine with that, yeah. I got a, I'm definitely with the A with the Grizzes for sure. For you be all around? Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a solid trade and you can see

the logic on both sides. I just like, everybody's all right yeah everybody's fine it's just fine now with that being said let's talk about the NBA finals let's talk about the thing we're all here to talk about the main thing you see in the title since we last spoke two games been played and since we last spoke two Oklahoma City victories have occurred when we last spoke they were down to one and the people weren't our comments section where where they're they're they're itching they're they're smelling blood in the water they were smelling an upset they were smelling okayc choke job for the second year in a row this time on a bigger stage. They were smelling the Halliburton legacy series in front of us. The Pacers just

shocking the world. Since then, the tone has changed, obviously, with the series being reclaimed, the advantage is now, Oklahoma. They have to win one more game and the finals is over. And that's even more exasperated by the fact that Tyrese Halliburton is injured. Cap strain that really held them back in the last game. He didn't make a single field goal in game five and everybody's flaming him. The worst game of his career, obviously. I don't know how you all feel about that. You let you guys talk about it. You guys know how I feel. feel i assume you can expect i'm copping please i don't really care i don't blame him because he's injured and playing the best defense we've ever seen how do y'all feel about that game for him i mean

a couple games ago or i think the last game champs tweeted out this is before the paces leaked in information but they're just like he has his like thingy going on they use the word specifically thingy going on and so it's a calf strain i don't really care about this performance because he was clearly hurt yeah and i think the biggest takeaway that i've had when it comes to tary's Chaliburton in general and seeing how good that he, how far he's ascended in the NBA landscape is like he's a great player. I'm just not going to like force any talks of him being like, oh, he's like top 10 or whatever.

Like he is what he is what he is. And games like this happen once in a while for times happen. Obviously not to this degree. Like zero figles is fucking crazy. Yeah. But sometimes he's going to get you like 10 points, 12 points away or whatever it is and still have a fantastic. game. Yeah, but like you said, that's a big difference, though, from this being such a

disaster because of the injury, like, games like this happens in the sense that he doesn't score really well, but games like this don't happen. This is like bottom of the barrel. Like, if he was healthy, this would be a travesty, but he's not healthy. So I, I personally don't want to do anything with it with the whole conversation, but, you know, yeah, people are going to get their takes off. No, no, it doesn't make any sense to go ahead and try slander him off of this game. No slandered, like, see, I knew he was just a nose and what are we talking about? He's hurt and it's a thunder that's quite that's quite the crazy combination like i'm i'm with i'm with you i'm i'm not i'm not going to see here and because i think we've elevated uh tyrese to like top

four point guard in the league or whatever standard it's we say it's that's a good good measurement whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever even if if you're said tyrese is at i still think that he's at that he's at that level i'm not going to be like oh he's he's a fraud whatever zero field goals is it is egregious like yeah like even if you're hurt like Zero is crazy. Yeah, I know. Things like this make me, I hate that I'm saying this. But for a quick second, there was a conversation.

I don't know if it was here or if it was online where we were like, yo, if Tyreys Hallammer wins an NBA championship, is he better than what's the Westbrook all time? Westbrook is not walking away no matter what's going on with six field goal attempts, ever. Okay, catch you, he's in one bitch, he's in one bitch and at least. He was out there as a decoy. I know what you're saying. He's out there's a decoy, though. He was just basing the floor.

Like, if this was a regular season game, he's. his ass would not have been playing. So, like, he took, he took, he took, he was over to when, whenever the injury happened, he was over to, he took three more, three more shot attempts in the, uh, in the first half, obviously missed them all. And so the second half is the, is the one where it's, it's very, very clear. Yeah. He's hurt. He's just running around. He can't do it. He's literally over the last two games, like he hasn't been that good at all. I know like last game was a little bit different. He did play a little bit better but like you can tell very even even when he was in indiana like he was

not 100% himself and yeah he had such a hard time getting to his normal spots just dilly dally and skipping on the court like he usually does he wasn't able to do that you know why sir torture chamber yeah i mean torture chamber both of these things are true so yeah obviously you don't want to see zero it's it looks crazy on paper i i never want to i never want to pile on when someone's clearly out there just because it's the finals and we know that they are not anywhere close to who they are but no who was close to who they were Jalen motherfucking Williams

40 bomb the best game of his career on the biggest stage in the biggest game of his career he's dude you cannot like we were watching this game together I mean Mo you weren't here Donovan was here and we were just like what is he doing how is he doing this obviously a lot of them were like he was killing

him in transition lots of cuts finishing in all those ways he always does but my god the difficult shot making he had under the rim these crazy scoop layups that he was nailing with these crazy angles consistently, it was an out-of-body experience from a guy who obviously has gotten a lot of flack for inconsistency. We'll say that. Some games he's amazing.

Some games he's like, damn, I wish it was my third best offensive player, not my second best offensive player, you know? Jalen Williams giveth and Jalen Williams take it the way. That's kind of been the experience in both playoff runs. This felt like he shut everything up forever. This was like a leave me alone for the next two years type of performance. And it just felt this performance. Every five seconds was like, oh, my goodness, because, yes, he gave you 40.

He's also on the other end playing amazing defense. And so it's one of those games where like it's so, it's so crazy because he, he performed to the absolute peak of his powers, right? And it was very loud. And it's all that. Shee, she had 30, 10, two steals, four blocks. And we're like, oh, yeah, cool. Two steals and four blocks in the finals game. And we're like, oh, yeah, like, it's cool.

The level of a production that we got, and I think I said, I said to you, I was like, this is, this is Bron and D. Wade. Like, this is Bron and Kyrie. This, the, the amount of teammate carrying that we got in game five. It's an all-time performance from, from those two guys. Especially because Chad and Caruso were bricks. And it didn't matter because these two guys were carrying all the scoring load. Yeah.

It was, it was one of, from a teammate perspective, it's one of the best finals, duos performances that we seen in I'm not going all time once ago in modern yes we've been fans in last 15 years history that was what we saw last that was amazing yeah yeah it's up there definitely and it's it was so much needed because if we got the jada the normal jada that we've seen through games one through four like who knows I'm not going to say they they would have lost this game but it wouldn't have gone the way it happened last night I will say that for sure seeing jada just consistently like shut the water off when Pascal Seacom, again, this is one of the better games that he's played

throughout the entirety of the year. He was so complete getting offensive rebounds, hitting the three, just being a menace in everyone's pockets defeat. He was amazing. Again, CJ McCollum, he was, I said to C.J. McCollum, T.J., my bad, was amazing as well. And Obita, like, the Pacers were not just dead in the water. And every single time, J.W. just continues to give him a hammer, whether it be playing help defense,

being the normal ball hawk that he is or doing what he did with the insane cutting performance that he did last night. Top tier. Yes, obviously J-dub is the main storyline, is the best game of his career. And you mentioned Shay also had an incredible game. And like I said, we haven't talked since two games ago.

So combining these last two games has been such a just like put up or shut up moment for Shea and he put the fuck up. Game four, the first three quarters, was a nightmare. I tweeted that regardless of how this goes, I'm always going to have respect for Rick Carlisle for how he put on this defensive masterclass on defending Shea after the game two. After game two, he made an adjustment that they switched to this game where they hound him off ball 48 feet. Nemahard complete face guards, refuses to let him go. They pay 48 minutes,

a tight defense on him and just tire him out. And it worked. Game three, he looked in disarray. The first three quarters of game four, even worse disarray. He was uncomfortable. He was tired. It was looking spooky. It looked like there can go down three weeks. while him playing terribly. Then fourth quarter came around. You saw he was conserving some energy, clearly, and he started running fast in the fourth quarter and scored 15 points to shut down the Pacers

and make it 2-2 instead of 3-1. That was a legacy-defining fourth quarter. Then you get this game where, again, they make an adjustment, that genius defense that was so good for a game and a half. Wasn't so genius this time because he said it's hard for me to score in the half-court.

I will simply run and transition every time and I'll beat them down there and I will kill them at the rim. that worked and made a cascading effect that the pressure that was seemingly too much to deal with in a similar way that it seemed like

it was too much to deal with against the Nuggets Game 5 comes around he figures it out and puts on a master class just an all-around amazing game It's also a very, very good moment

for Dagnol because we talk so much about all the adjustments that he makes like should he have made this adjustment the starting lineups all this other stuff

to change your rotation pattern in game four of the finals a lot of coaches would just be like hey this is how we this is how we run you're going to play the whole first quarter and then come out and get your rest here and we're just going to go there and to be able to adjust that to to see your best player getting haunted and said we need you for the fourth we're going to switch up some stuff and then for it to be paid off instantly and for shade to still have all of that energy to just go and get bucket after a bucket, have the, for me, the two biggest plays that stood out from game four were the one where he was falling down, kept his balance on the baseline, knocked down the jumper,

and then the three on the, on the wing to cut the lead from four to one. Yeah. Those were the two where as soon as those happen, there's always plays in games where you see him and it's like, oh, this is actually going to go their way. When the three went in, I said, okay, Shay's got it. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, this is okay C's game and you felt it in that in that moment. So shout out to Dagnall for making that adjustment.

Shout to Schaefer stepping up. And now, hey, man, it sucks. They're going to have to close it out on the road. I know. Oh, that sucks. But hey, also to carry on your shoutouts, Kason Wallace, he had his first three of the series in the game last night. I think he had like four threes in total. He had a fantastic shooting performance.

And then also a role player MVP for this series as well. shit like you mentioned him earlier Isaac Lou Dwart goddamn I don't know why but he's just one of those players where his shot isn't even ugly but every time he shoots the ball I'm like yeah that's way off that there's like no chance it's going in it's either swishes or it's like

kind of an ugly brick and to see how he's been performing on both ends is being an absolute hound and being so physical to guys like Tyre's Halliburton and while doing that being a pseudo rim protector while also being like

a fucking demon defensive back on on that end too he's he just doesn't make sense as a role player we got casein wallace MVP in the chat being happy we got case and wallace mentioned nice yeah man like everything like obviously they went down to one and there was like everyone was itching everybody was wanted to overreact and we made our episode and i was especially non-reactive in the people in the comments we're like refuses to admit why because we had a conversation where you were like when you talk about what okay c's failing. And I was like, I don't know, man. The Pacers are just playing real good. I feel like it's fine. I feel like I'm going to give them props and not overreact to the Pacers. I'm

to the Thunder being bad. And people in the comments were obviously like, can never a bit what okay is he's playing poorly. I'm like, bro, just wait. It'll be fine. Like, just wait. It will be okay. And it's okay. And I like that you mentioned big props of Mark Dagnol because obviously they started the series and it was a little rocky. Obviously, Tyree Talbert hit that game winner after they should have won in game one. And the conversation immediately became, at least on the ESPN on the broadcast, did he make a mistake, changing the starting lineup before game one? Uh-oh, you took away them throwing the first bunch. And I think Bob Meyer specifically kind of started that on the broadcast saying that's

foolish and whatnot. And I hate that in principle, just because I feel like you can view that either way, depending on the outcome, it can either be you're too panicked or you save something for the finals. You know, you can go either way. I love the Mark Dagnolusho and time and time again that he understands his team has a lot of versatility. He understands. that he can try different things, go back to other things, flip back and forth and feel comfortable with his group because he's going to put them in the best position to succeed. Most teams, after they made that case in Wallace

into the starting lineup thing, we just ran with it because you said, we don't want to fuck up confidence and switch back and forth. He went right back to double bigs two games later because he's like, fuck it. We have the ability to be multidimensional like this. Exactly. Just assume me. Shoot me. What do you do with?

Yeah, like, okay. So what? I'll go back now. I was wrong. Yeah. And I love that. So many coaches are scared to make one change, are damn sure scared to revert that change. And he's like, it does not matter. we have a million things we could try exactly i agree like i said earlier in the series in one of

the streams that we had there's a certain level of pressure release that someone like isaiah hardinstein is able to provide seeing chet again chet has is not a good finals for him at all offensively yeah offensively not a good finals for him at all and he but regardless of the fact like we've see we still see like flashes in his game that's very much appreciated and i don't know if he will be able to have the same juice that he usually has without him on the court doing all the nitty urine things, it's a little bit harder on his body compared to someone like Isaiah Hartonson sign. And in game one, again, I wouldn't have made that change.

I would have just stuck with it. Yeah, I would have just went with the starting lineup that's been there. But also, they forced 19 turnovers in the first half. Like that defense was hounding and the exact reason why you say, we need to go small, put chit at the five, have just perimeter defenders everywhere so we can hound into. Indiana, it worked, right? It worked in the first half and then offensively, you, you collapse. Like the last, the big thing that has changed for whatever in, like, in the last two games

is one, like you said, Casey Wallace actually hitting three is being, being a plus on offense. And two, you've seen time and time again, Jalen Williams showing up, carrying the low when, when it's needed in game three, or not in game three, in game four, when Shea is not having the best time in the first three quarters. Jalen Williams was playing very aggressive. He was scoring the ball, carrying the offense, keeping them in that game.

And then it was like, all right, MVP, take us home. That's what happened in game four. And then obviously you have the Jalen Williams games in game five. That is what OKC has needed throughout this entire year, throughout this entire run. And J-Dub stepped up. He answered all the questions. And so there's so many moves, like you said,

that can be litigated afterwards depending on the outcome. And I think, OK, C, at least in the last two games, has done things the right way. And everyone in the comments is asking us to talk about the refs. So you guys know, I can do that. I can do that. You guys know how I feel. I'll get my surprise, surprise. I do not give a fuck.

I never have. I have routinely said that conversations around refs is the worst thing about NBA discourse. And I think the ESPN broadcast career is making it worse by hyperfixating on it because they know if Twitter hyperfixates on it. I think it's crazy group think that is like snowballed into people thinking that these games are really decided by obviously some people think it's nefarious means some people think it might just be incompetent rest whatever may be nefarious the patient's foul a lot because they're defending extremely aggressively because they are under man on the interior and have to recover on at people

that they can't stay in front of they're gonna foul a lot whenever jdub is driving in the rim that consistently that hard and they don't have strong backline defenders when you press shay gildil tolexander 48 feet hand-checking him because you want to get him tired You're probably going to foul more often than otherwise. I don't think it's some crazy thing that comeback was ignited by them getting to the free throw line. I think if you go back and watch those calls, J-Dub was just driving a lot and doing really well. I don't think it was bad calls. There's obviously some calls on both sides.

They're going to be bad every game. That is what it is. That's baked into basketball. But I don't think Scott Foster won than the game. Scott Foster was trying to lose the game for OKC. There was a period, like in the third quarter, either in the third or the fourth quarter, there's a period where there's like 27 free throws or some, some either like high 20s low. 30s free throws for both sides and then even in the fourth quarter um and it happened again last

night so it wasn't even like a scott boston straight thing but you get into these moments where the refs are calling very very ticky-tack things at the end of the of the game yeah and okay c has been in my opinion on the wrong side of that where in game four there was like a four minute stretch where every loose ball foul every rebound they were getting a foul called on them and so when they are you know two and a half minutes left down by one and they can't close out possessions and they're getting foul calls that's going against them and then even last night there was another stretch just like that where they couldn't close out possessions they're trying to fight for a position on rebounds and they're getting foul calls on them i i think that the rest are bad just because they're making

bad calls but not in the but not in the sense of oh they're helping one team yeah they're not decide i just do they suck right now yeah yeah i i'm okay i'm okay with that talking for him because I'm just like at the end of the day, like if you're an Indiana Pacis fan, if you're upset at the way, at the outcome of this game and you're pinning it specifically towards the ref, brother, where is Andrew Nemhard? We had like one, two good games and he disappeared from the rest of the series. Specifically last night, you had just so many, like, reckless clues, turnovers, you know? What, like, there are just so many other lapses and things in this game, last game

specifically that you could point to besides the referee. Like, no one is going to go ahead. And I think, I think, okay, see, they degenerate. some crazy number of assists or not assists turnovers against the Pacers and for the first time this series or one of the few times of the series they were actually able to convert on a lot of those turnovers and beat the fuck out of the Pacers and the fast break where is that fast break where's that where's that defense that you guys like somehow like cultivated throughout this entirety of the playoffs wasn't there it's not the rest fall at all and I think people are also like

bad in the moment watching a game and deciding if it was a good foul call or not you're watching a basketball game with other people anytime it goes against a reading interest or that's a foul and then you watch the replay yeah you're like oh that's probably a foul like there's just like an implicit bias that yeah if it's a foul against you and it's not like egregious you're probably like what but so much of basketball fouls are about martial contact that prevent guys from doing marginal things that it doesn't have to look at a close line you know a specific call that I can immediately like tie that into I think what happened in the fourth quarter where somehow we witnessed a shay versus t jac McConnell jump ball and someone tweeted like

You know, Shea's the first person in NBA history to get a call on a fucking jump ball. And when I first thought, I was like, obviously, I'm like, damn, like, you really got a file on that. And then they're doing it and they did the replay and Teach him a call smack the fuck out of his wrist. And it's like, yeah, I mean, like, shit happens, you know. The start of game four started with Shea getting an offensive foul. And it's like, we're calling the foul in the first 15 seconds of the game on some stupid handfighting on the jump ball. Like, which it didn't end up like, man. manifesting itself, getting a foul in the first 15 seconds is so detrimental.

Like, to play, to, to play the entire game with five fouls instead of six, changes the math so much. And so for them to call that, that tiki tack, like, that's what, that's the annoying part about, about anything. It's like, we're playing, we're playing football for three quarters. And then now in the fourth quarter, it's like the same crew, the same refs. Now you guys are being tiki tag. Don't do that.

But no team is getting a crazy advantage from the reps. Yeah. It's just one of those things that I think you have. have to like if you want to have an actual opinion on the refs and feel good about it you have to like look back at like every call because like in a fourth quarter tight game you're seeing frito's you're gonna feel like it's like it's crazy like that would have been a foul in the second quarter you probably just don't remember the call in the second quarter that went quite similarly you know like there's always going to be a bias thing there that NBA fans will never escape feeling that the reps are against them but again maybe I'm biased but I feel like this has been a pretty evenly called series like it's fine it feels like it feels like normal playoff basketball to me yeah this is definitely not one of those series where they hand the rest had had their hands on any, any which one of these games whatsoever. A recent donation. Shout to Shrimp to Ream for donating $1.38.

He said, we too have donating and asking Don to hit the duggy. Remember the Eagles incentive? Most the Eagles incentive. Remind me. I forget. I think if you do it, you like... I think the Eagles won a Super Bowl.

Yeah. I don't remember. There's some element. I mean, I know the Eagles on the Super Bowl. Shout to LeBron Glazer 420 for tipping $3. Said, Mo, your dinner is ready. What? I don't know if that means.

a shot to I have avocado $15 I have avocado said if KD ended up in either the Rockets of the Spurs which team would make the most

sense for the fit The Rockets Both honestly both I kind of like the fit equally Yeah But maybe the Rockets The Rockets have a bigger

Need I'd say Yeah Yeah for the Spurs Is just gluttonous At this point The number two overall Pick What do you want man

What else What else If they got that No more overall pick And they've They paired Flag Flagg wouldn't be KD Dude that could

Never happen In this NBA I just couldn't happen, Mike. With Fox there? See, I've seen some people in the chat said we're just hating on the thunder with the thing. And I respect that.

Like, Carrie, K.H. said, y'all just don't want us to be hating. And somebody else was saying, you guys need to understand we're saltier than the Black Sea. That's fair. It's so clear. Some people are just praying on the thunder downfall. That's fine.

It comes into the territory. You're going to get haters. But there's so many people with, like, especially people that are like in like media that are like really talking about the rough stuff. Like it's like a big deal. That's bad.

Because NBA media is terminally online. and addicted to Twitter talking points. I'm like, so much attention is given to such trivial matters that if you have any sense of stepping back and thinking about does this matter, you realize it's just biased fans complaining out of usually hatred.

Like, it is not a serious talking point that needs to be dissected on ESPN broadcast. Every time I hear someone like, I don't know, some random, some random broadcaster talk about pull some random thing from NBA Twitter and just spew it out. multiple times.

Who does that? Maybe you want to rip out my ears. I know. Doores Burke and Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson and Richard Jefferson? Richard Jefferson is obsessed with talking about calls

because he knows Twitter's obsessed but thinking about it. So he wants to meet them where they are and talk about it. You get you online, man. You don't got to prove it to us. And every, he always gives his opinion on a call and he's always fucking wrong.

He's had the worst track record of being like, that's not a foul. Always a foul. And then he's like, oh, to me, that's a play on. I bet it is former player. It's always a play on. Everything's a play on when you're sitting in the booth, I guess.

And the funniest part is that if you go to all of these stand accounts, they're ran by 11-year-old. Yeah. Well, yeah, there's this. We need better discernment in media of what doesn't need to be paid mind to. I agree. I agree. Something that I will say move me very much last night. Man, next year when we do our white boy tier list, T.J.

McConnell's S-tier no matter. Oh, yeah. Fucking what. No matter what. He's S-tier for life. Yes. like he's stamped he's stamped in white boy history someone tweeted us that i don't know saw they're like how dare you put him in c tier

and i'm like fair enough yeah people bring up a lot of old takes we had to pull up the video up like a year and a half ago and they're like this age like milk i'm like man it was a year and a half ago i don't go fuck i'll let you have this one i should have put t hick McConnell next year i should have this coming you got us you got it also tony bradley minutes yesterday were one of the worst things happened in my life i've seen him hit i think a year old step in a fast break? I'm like, yeah, bro, it's so over. Okay, see it's six. But,

T.J. McConnell did, like, single-hand and they bring them back in the third quarter. Like, the only reason they brought that lead down to, I think it was, like, one at one point. Yes, it was out of two, I think. No, two. Because T.J. McConnell went nuts. He was giving them buckets. He had an animal mid-range jumper over three defenders. Yes. They sandwich him like a fucking Oreo, literally. He was

an Oreo mid-air. Coruso filed the shit out of them. Didn't matter. Buckets. Yeah, it started to feel like like game one all over again. where the thunder are up by 18, 19 points, lead dwindles down, and you just wonder, like, why isn't this a 30-point lead right now? Yeah. And then the paces are also, we've just done it so many times

that any time it gets to be like a 12-point game with the quarter left, you're like, damn, they can still get this. They can still do it. And it instantly turned from the T.J. McConnell game to the Jalen Williams game. Yeah. But like one more bucket, it's the McConnell game. It was getting spooky.

Yeah. also shout out to Pascal Seaccom S-tier Pascal Seaccombe. Oh my God. That fall every time I see them. I'm like, girl, how was he able to fall like that in the next two days, three days, wake up and give this team 40? My God, bro.

My God. Do we think they're closing out in six? Tyre's Hallibor and Injured, do you think they're going to close it out? If Tyre's Halibor was healthy, I would think they'd win game six and we'd see OKC and seven. Yeah. But the injury of it all. It's the injury ruins everything for me. like their train conductor is hurt

and someone who helps orchestrate and influence the pace of the offense and set the tones out, they have no chance of mind, man. It's OKC and 6. So, okay, so I think OKC I was going to pick OKC if Tyrese was helping or not. The real question is

because obviously he's going to try and play. He's not going to sit off this game. Whatever. Over or under two and a half field goals. I hope he doesn't play. I hope he doesn't play. Not even because I want the thunder to win, obviously. If you have a cap strain and you play, you know how often that becomes something more serious? There's been several Achilles tears there

because you're playing on calf injuries or some variety. He's going to play, I'm sure. I hope he doesn't. Assuming it's an actual strain, it's bad enough. If it's mild, he feels better than sure. But if he's out there,

like OG a couple years ago to playoffs where he plays for one quarter to then goes home. Oh, hell no. I pray he doesn't even try. OG didn't even play for the quarter. You're right. It was like a minute. Yeah, I think he hit one thing and was out.

Two threes. Yeah. He was hooping. He was hooping. But he could, He didn't like you took a bow and error to the knees. But that was terrible. I hope he's not to that degree.

He's going to, going to play. Yeah, he should. I think you definitely should play because it's at the end of your game six and then be a final. This is what you play your career for. Who cares? Who cares?

Who is the fuck? If he's going to injure himself worse? Because those are serious injuries to fuck with? No, man. Like, it's just like that's... No, I get it. You're right. That's what will happen.

Yeah. But if it is like a serious cap train, it, again, we've had this conversation with Aaron Gordon. That worked up fine. he didn't get re-injured, but teams letting their star players play through certain types of injuries that, like, statistically have a high likelihood of re-injury and make things much worse. I'm like, come on, man.

I understand. It's just, it's going to be, either way, it's going to be a hard summer if OKC wins, because either, either Tyrese, like, the only way it's fine is if he plays and he, like, doesn't get re-injured, but like, you know, knock on wood or something crazy would happen. You either have a summer field. by injury with Tyrese or a second straight season where the season's over and Tyrese doesn't play in the last game of the year because of injury and so that happened last year. Yeah. I forget about how that series went last year in the conference finals. And so

and so then you just he had this this amazing run and it's not going to be tainted or anything. Hell no. But like it's it's stamped. This is one of the greatest you know play playoff friends ever. You just feel sucky about the way that things end going to going into the also this is genuinely this finals have been so entertaining one of the most entertaining NBA finals yeah i don't know how many years like that sucks 2016 i don't know if i say 2016 on a on a game by game basis this is more interesting than 2016 yeah yeah it's a hard conversation to have like yeah that that's a hard conversation it's hard but in terms of quality of basketball you're probably yeah like it's so fun does suck it's going on like game where i'm just like scrolling on

Twitter on solitary. The same guy who made that hot take that this is going to be the best series. Tapio Trivito. Just said that's Treviso.

I told you. And we were like, I don't know, man. It's Bronfish Curry. And he's commented a few times. He's been like, I was talking about quality of basketball and you're also talking about

narratives. Bro. Quality of basketball. LeBron is high quality basketball. The Warriors of high quality basketball. Like that, regardless of whether or not they were defensive slog fans.

You got it. You got it. Everyone says it was made before game seven. I reject that. I hate. I hate that idea that it was mid before game seven. I know what you mean that like game seven was pinnacle. And before that there were some blowouts.

There were some bad games. Like bad games, quote unquote. The stakes were so high and these teams were so good. Like even those bad games, I still feel like those are very entertaining, very high quality basketball. Yeah. Like at the end of the day, it's a 70-3 win team versus the best player of all time. Like it's still, I still enjoyed it despite them not all being close games. Yeah.

All right. So, wait. Okay. So game one in 2016, game one, Warriors win by 15. game two warriors went dang Warriors went by 33 what the fuck game three Cavs win by 30

game four the Warriors win by 11 and then five six and seven go the way that they do so it's like I mean yeah game game two's bad and then game three would be the one where it's like you know two two o backs against the wall whatever you have that

I guess I don't hate blowouts as much as maybe other people do which I understand it's not close games I guess I understand that I don't view blow us as automatically bad games for me or yeah i don't qualify as a bad series if a couple blocks happened that's just and i don't remember those specifically but it's obviously not every blowouts a wire to wire blow out you know sometimes it's that that game three was pretty wide gotcha i do remember being like that but yeah this this finals he's listen you got it i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna

give it to him because i think the only ones like especially in the last five years you know last last year was kind of pretty decided the whole way through 22 would give it a I think 22 would give this series a run for it's yeah 22 was very good 22 was very good and 21 obviously is amazing too yeah son oh yeah down to all that the bucks would came back down from two there's only been a few bad ones like just 23 and 24 suck that's that's really it yeah but this this is special this is a special place in my heart yeah the yeah the fact that we got the the game four and in like the perfect setup where the road team is down to one right trying to trying to keep it there and then you have the MVP of the league scoring 15 in the fourth quarter to win that game that in itself

I think raises it a lot and I think I also like 23 was bad because it was an easy no contest but I enjoy like the storyline that so much of seeing the nuggets just like the crowning achievement it's kind of 22 I feel like 22 I don't remember exactly how the series broke down but what made that series great was the step moment was really Steph like getting that ring and going so superhero mode he sold it well did all the celebrations like that was like spectacle of what made that series good I felt the summit about 23 that it was like oh yokech finally did it so even in some moments where the games aren't like super competitive like in terms of the final outcome of the series I still

enjoy that you know what sucks away all of my enjoyment when there's always like a suit group of bitch ass NBA fans where we're seeing yeah wiggins for finals MVP man yeah at J-Dubb? Shut up! What are you talking about right now? Terrible. Yeah, doing a lot. I feel like we can applaud J-Dub without doing a little too much. Exactly.

Spinning all over. Relax. Damn. Fuck. Yeah, Meshay's averaging 32 for the series. I mean, you don't go overthink it. We don't overthink it. Two steals, two blocks the game.

Yeah. Before this game, Zad was shooting like 40-11. It's a legendary series. One of the better guard finals averages you've ever seen. Jeez. Casual. Wow. With that being said.

that's the end of the stream uh next episode hopefully if the game if the series ends in game six next episode of the show on friday will be us reacting that night because we record thursdays so we'll be recording thursday night after the game it might be a crowning achievement for the okayc it might be a celebratory episode or it might be a holy shit game seven's on the way episode who knows yeah i have no idea what's predicts what's it better be the thunder i'm i'll be so upset we stay up late and and i'll record and late at night for nothing nah y'all better be beans all Thursday. Thunder by East.

It's hard because it's in Indiana. It's a real home court advantage. It's like OKC is so it's tough. I mean, but assume Tyrese is at 25%. I don't know. Yeah, I've been 25%. I probably cook. But I don't know what to assume there.

Like I have no clue. That's a, that's the biggest thing for me. Assume Tyrese at 50%, 52%. They can win. T.J. McConnell's a god, remember? Yeah. He might have just had his moment though. He might have another one.

T.J. McConnell? He's had plenty of moments. At home, Benedict Matherin. He's already, TJ has already had two moments. Wiggins sucks on the road. had two moments. Wiggins is such a swing factor as well when it comes to this.

Yeah. Some more players are better at home. Patients have a chance. Pascal Seacom, legacy game. What are you prepared to do? What do you prepare to do about it? With that being said, we'll see you all later.

We'll see you on Friday for this week's episode. Goodbye.