The Deep 3 Podcast - Reacting To The First Weekend Of The NBA Playoffs! | TD3 Live

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Everything we learned from NBA playoffs weekend 1! #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

Last week we got up here, made an episode, we celebrated, we talked about it. We were elated by the fact that M.A. Playoff basketball is finally here. And we opened that episode by saying, we're going to do better than we did last year, in which we had historically god-awful first-round predictions. We got almost half of them wrong, which you should do better than that for the first round. We are now about three days into the playoffs. Are y'all feeling better about the state of your predictions as of now? I feel pretty good.

nothing that I've said has been like absolutely crazy um the only shocking that has happened so far is oh my god the lakers lost game one but other than that everything's aren't on track for me personally how you feeling donovan i mean i feel about my predictions overall i feel fine you know i feel maybe that the lakers one but that's the only one that's the only one we'll talk about that no i actually i actually still feel pretty decent about that one i said i came up here i said lakers and five. I'm still not like, shocked. We'll get to that. Super worried about that. We're going to talk at length

about that because that was a very interesting first game. There's some non-believers in the Timberwolves up here. We're going to have a lot, man. I don't know. Believers. So, as you guys see, by the title, we're going to talk about the first weekend of every NBA playoff series. We're going to kind of recap

the things that happened in this first week. Talk about, you know, our first impressions of each series, how we're going to take things away from that. Well, we're not going to overreact to. Well, the chat's in a weird position. Let me fix this for y'all. Yeah, man. Before we get to that, though, we have some news to talk about.

Moe your team, the Atlanta Hawks. Not in the playoffs, but making things happen. Being in the news for, I don't know if it's a good reason. I guess you can be the judge. How do you feel about the fact that your team, out of nowhere, fired? Landry feels their GM. How did this make you feel seeing this headline? This is the most, like, random news that I wasn't expecting to see ever.

this season. I feel like a season. This season. Yeah, I know. As a Hawks fan, I woke up confused because I'm like, okay, in general, we can all, we all know Laundrie Fields was in charge of the Dejante Marie trade, which set this organization back asset-wise at least for several years, for the rest of this decade, you know? But seeing how he like made a generationally ass trade, not generations to drag, but made a really

bad trade and somehow like reverted it and put us right back on pace and gave us like an actual identity was impressive. It's one of the most impressive feats that I've seen like over the last year from any GM. Now of course like you know we're made we're the land of hawks ha ha ha but when it comes to like stylistic. Yeah yeah we suck. Yeah exactly like when it comes to like the stylistic play for us he gave us an actual legit blueprint for the first. first time that can lead us to like some type of success in the NBA whether it be winning 50 games the first time of a minute or like being actual contenders one day I guess the I guess the question and it goes for like for Landry Fields the situation and then for everybody else in

general is do you get credit for fixing your mistake because like if if you ultimately like make if you make the first mistake and you set you guys back yes it is your job to go fix your mistake like how much credit do I have to give you for doing something like rectifying this wrong that everybody well not everybody but like you probably shouldn't have done that in in the beginning and you wasted two and a half three years of our of our life of this franchise's life yeah you got back to this point we should have been here three years ago we made to the conference finals in 2021 and you messed it up so like I can't look at this reclamation project by Landry Fields and be like oh like he was doing the you know he was doing a good thing like yeah he was

supposed to do this. Yeah. It's a weird timing because they have good momentum. You know, you're right. He was responsible for the whole he dug themselves into. But they were on the way out of it. It was seemingly things are moving in the right direction after the Risa Shea and Dyson Daniels acquisitions. Those went well. So you didn't expect him to get fired at this time. But if they decided they wanted to clean house and they wanted to get a whole new direction, I guess you can't, you can't let a couple good moves stop you from going new direction if that's where you want to go. Yeah. I'm just really worried about the, ownership of this team, Tony

Wrestler, we have very, very cheap owners like every NBA fan says damn near and seeing how just a couple years ago like I believe it was your 2022 right before we made the Dejante Murray trade at the time Travis Schlink was our GM

and for Travis Slink, if I remember correctly he really didn't want to make this Desonte Murray trade whatsoever to the points of where he sacrificed his job and he got demoted. He was place as an advisor for this team and then time went on and he and

he eventually just like quit because he was just so upset with the whole thing. He just wanted no parts of it for good reason. And seeing this happen now makes me feel like I don't know what's going on in the organization or these owners specifically. I don't know if like there has to be some major risk whether the GM.

You know exactly what this is. Want to be like oh, like what is it should trade, Tray Young or whatever it is. You know exactly like and it makes sense. Exactly where this is leading to. You trade Landry Fields or you fire Landry Fields and this organization who has been mid for the last five to seven years really historically but for real for real like the last five to seven years you've been 500 nine seed all this stuff you've tried the Tray Young experiment it has not

worked you've had different iterations you have the peak in 2021 and now you just say can we actually like all the questions of can we actually build a championship contender around Tray Young. You've had that really for the whole time. But over the last couple of years, you've kind of gotten a little bit more and more clarity to that, especially as his efficiency has dropped. And so it feels like, hey, we're just going to clean house. And we're going to trade Tray Young. They'll smoke around it last year. It might actually be for a this time. I don't know. Because even then, it's just like, why would, just a couple days ago, Treyon was on a podcast interview with Chris Haynes. And he probably said like, yeah, I want to be in

Atlanta. I don't want to go anywhere. So in my mind, it also indicates to me like, damn, like maybe he kind of feels the pressure or the clean of the house like actually happened. He has to make sure like, you guys, like, I want to be here. All right, man, that's five minutes of Atlanta Hawks Hawk. That is more than enough. Enough of you happen about the Hawks. Dr. Palo in the chat said, thank God we have in person now, sick of Mo's ass Wi-Fi. You see it. We're in person in the studio. We're going to be here forever. The lives are going to be this much better. I'm so excited for lives now having good quality stream labs remote it was hard to make it really good but we're here now it's going to be good going forward somehow some way shit's going to happen it's going to be

my fault stream labs god forbid uh gang k in the chat said you guys haven't even talked about step curry yet my god we're going to get there trust me we have plenty to say about step kerry's ridiculous shot making to the chat i know give us a break man we're getting some breaking news out the way but we're going to talk now about all the playhouse series first though let me read some donations real quick shout out they smell like ruffles what They say you smell like chips. Listen, these smell like you just are not for me because me personally, I walked out the house with tone. You know what tone is?

I don't. The MP's newest line. I smell like Duke Dennis. Oh, oh, tone. Yeah. I smell like Duke Dennis. What? Do you feel like you have the order?

Of course. I had the birds looking at me funny earlier. Shout out the horse of yokech are tipping $2.39. He said, Kauai might be a top five playoff riser of all time. That's not ridiculous. Shout out to Walking 37 for tipping $2.14. cents. He said I too would take a bullet for Josh Hart. Listen, you and Donovan are in the same boat.

I actually never said I would take a bullet for Josh Hart. I just said he. Actually, no, I think I did say that. Did I? I insinuated you would, and I told you to say it, and you did say it. All right, I'll do it. I'll do it. It's easy to convince me. All right, fine.

But all right, man. Let's talk about the playoff series that I've gone on so far. Every series has played at least one game. As of yesterday, two series, I played two games. And at about 53 minutes, we're going to get game two of Pacers versus Bucks, and we'll start there because we got breaking news today that Damien Lillard will return. Oh, wrong screen. Four, game two action against the Milwaukee Bucks.

I'm against the Indiana Pacers. This was the biggest question mark for the buck season, obviously. When the news came out that Dame is going to miss time of blood clots, we were like, oh, fuck, well, it's cooked. He's not coming back in the playoffs. Nobody comes back in blood clots in three weeks. Miraculous recovery is here for game two. TBD, what his condition is going to be like, but he'll be there.

He'll be on the court. They should surely give a better fight and hit the game one, which, what did you guys take away from game one and when the pacer just beat the living shit out of the bucks every question that i had about the bucks the answer was yes like like is yonis amazing yes should they be leaning on like is it too much to ask of of uh a kpj and kai kuzma yes is this team old yes but like it was just they were just overwhelmed and you saw so much no matter what you think about yonis and dam and their fit is like at least it's going to be better than relying on Kyle Kuzma, who put up the Tony Snell.

Tony Snell, you can rest out because the Kyle Kuzma graphic is one, not only the same stat line, passing the torch, but a better graphic of him looking goofy, falling out on whatever. Well, he put up a trillion. 10 zeros in the stat line. 0,000,000, 0,000, 0.000, 0.000,000. We've never seen it before. It was legendary, something called the, someone's in the chat on the stream first started.

Are y'all going to react to the Kyle Kuzma Astorclass? We are because it was a big question mark. When the trade happened, we were not fans of it, I think, by and large, because we all understand that their ceiling. When we went into the season, we said this team's old as hell, their ceiling is defined by the availability of Chris Middleton and whatever level player you're going to get from Brooke Lopez. We said they have four players, all of which are veterans above the age of 30,

actually Yonis is below, but, you know, not a young guy anymore. And we said these guys have to all be playing at their perfect peak condition going into the playoffs for them to have a ceiling. We knew Chris Milton wasn't going to do that for you anymore. That ship had sailed. So they said it's ripped their bandit off and get in a young guy who can inject some athleticism, hit the boards, running transition, yada, yada. We understood it, but we said, my guy, have you seen Kalakuzma play the last six years?

He is not 2020 Kawakusma. That guy is not walking through those goddamn doors. And if you wanted to run a victory lap, this was the game to do it. Because goddamn, he looked useless out there against this team that was running up and down the court, blitzing the buck's defense. They stayed home a lot on Janus and dared the rest of guys to beat them. They said, Janus, you're going to get your own one-on-one. We understand that.

We're not going to give anybody else easy buck. they're going to have to create for themselves, they could not do it, especially Kyle Kuzma. Brother, you guys remember how leading into the playoffs, a lot of NBA fans are trying to force feed, or a certain sector of NBA fans are trying to force feed us, this like, oh my God, this might be LeBron's 28, or Janus's, LeBron, Yonis's 2018 LeBron moments.

And, of course, I love fairy tales. I like stories. I like cool moments. But I knew off-ripped, like this roster is just, talent for talent I'm not having that conversation both all-time grades but this roster on paper

is so much worse than that 2018 without Lillard for sure Without Lillard for sure Absolutely that's the biggest thing Yeah you're right And Kevin Love was on that 2018 roster He is so much better than Kyle Kuzmo

so much better than Brooke Lopez Which so Let's talk about this game one first Then we'll get to the Damien Lillard of all The biggest question that I had for the Pacers I mean for the Bucks was Do you have anybody on this roster that can disrupt Tyreys Halliburton

We know he's playing at the tip-top level of NBA playmaking this past four months of the season, right? Since that crazy, terrible start, his level of playmaking and the speed in which he does at running your transition, the speed in which he makes decisions, the perfect decision every time, it doesn't matter for shots falling in or not. His free-flowing style of playmaking, if you can't give just some kind of pushback against that and you let him run around comfortable, he's going to dice you up and everybody else on the Pacers, Nemhard, Siaka, Miles Turner, they're going to be able to attack from points of leverage that Tyree sets him up for. and it's going to, points are going to fucking flow in really fast. That's exactly what happened.

They had nobody to make Tyrese uncomfortable. He looked spectacular as a passers. And that's one of the things with the Pacers, especially in this series, is like, if Tyrese can score, it's, it's just gravy. Like, it doesn't matter, like you said, because they're out here running it up. And Tyrese didn't, he didn't shoot well. Yeah. Like, but he's still, he's still affecting the game.

And so if you're, if you're Milwaukee, you, you. you hope that that whatever dame was saying on the sideline after game one please back it up because somebody has to somebody has to make Tyrese work and i i think with every with every great player and we're going to get to this especially in another series the the like best best players you're not you're not going to ever like shut them down you just want to make it to that they just can't do what do what they do easily and Tyrese he him and the speed at which the paces play it makes everything easy and Milwaukee just doesn't have anything for that. Hey, is Andrew Nemhardt a playoff riser?

Can we say that now? He's one of my favorite players, bro. This man is so good. His production in the regular season over 82 games is never going to jump out on you when you look at the statute, right? He's never going to consistently be this really good score that reflects the way we feel in these moments. But man, two years in a row, he gets in this playoff atmosphere, teams game plan for Tyrese

to a certain extent in the half court and the Pacers come out and say, okay, you're going to direct your attention to him. you're going to direct your attention to see yacum what are we going to do we're going to attack your weakest defender we're going to have and imhardt put his shoulder in torre your prince's chest over and over again create consistent buckets his little like he does what she does where he throws a shoulder into you on the drive then like desels for a mid-range jumper or like a tough like floater lay up in the paint strong as hell he's so good at that like he's like a shee disciple yeah yeah he is he is honestly this team this buck's team just has no answers whatsoever for any

of the guys and any of the none of the layers of the cake that the indiana pacers have to offer like yo why i i understand it and i'm it's hard to stop but seeing what pascal schakom's doing consistently makes me feel like he's always going to remain like one of the more underrated players that the league has to offer and of course it all it all starts and stops with tyris halibur and he's the main you know target for defenses and whatnot but even seeing him like i remember there's one specific play where yonis i think yonis blocked his ass and yonis blocked him and he was going down he was going downhill and he tried to put it behind the back and pascal is like the disruptor that he is on all ends of the floor went up it went up ahead

swept it away from pushed it up ahead and then it got tossed back to him and he just hit an easy layout like shit like that is so invaluable and it's the two-way play that makes this team a little bit higher ceiling-wise than what they were what they were before him yeah if if pascal's playing that at this level indiana like they have an opportunity to make cleveland i guess just worry about some things i still don't think they got to work yeah like i like i don't think that they would beat cleveland but it would probably be a very similar situation as to last year where you play like they're playing boston last year all the games are close but indiana just they just couldn't finish out games obviously you have another year of experience all that type of stuff and so then

you're able to make Cleveland work and things can get kind of scary if they if they figure out how to close games because even in this game where they were up by a very very big margin towards the end of the game Milwaukee was able to make a run and they were able to make it just a little bit closer than what it was there's there's you know like a shot that that that doesn't go in it ends up turning into like a five-point swing stuff like that happens in the playoffs but like that is that that that's what happens you know what I'm saying apparently we're lagging like right now. I think it's going to recover. The stream hasn't crashed yet, but

everyone's freaking out in the chat. Folks are frying me in the chat right now saying I got McDonald's Wi-Fi. It's not even my Wi-Fi. Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I don't live in the zip code. It hasn't crashed again. Chat, let me know if you guys are back as someone's screaming, holy lag. It said to kill help. I think, yeah, it didn't crash, though.

It should be fine. My brother's long gone. The same is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It didn't crash. We're all good. I don't know what's going on with the Wi-Fi. I'm in the basement, so sometimes is going to happen but as long as there's a crash we're good as long as you guys don't see the stream go down it'll recover we're here but yeah man so obviously they need dam in lord to come back and change the just talent disparity in the series right days decided that only

yonis is going to beat us and two through 12 on this roster was not up to the task they could not compete with the pacers like from end of quarter two it was clear this game was over they were to simply outtasked in every way they were raining threes lock them up defensively and running do you guys have faith that injecting dame for the the first time in a month to this team is going to make a difference to this tonight yeah make a difference easily bro he's going to make a difference now will it lead into a win that's what i mean i mean i mean in your outcome like obviously it's better to have dame than not even if he's out of shape and like recovering but are you willing to say the bucks can win the series after what you saw in game

one with the dame yes yes because i think that even as bad as i refuse to believe that cal kuzma is going to have another what was it like zero zero yeah like 10 i don't know what the word is for like 10 times single. But I refuse to believe that he's going to put up a stat line like that again. If you get 20% more from Kyle Kuzma, that is fine. And saying that you have Dame on your roster now, that's cool. I do think that the conditioning is going to be hard for Dame to not only go from not playing to playing, but to go from on the bench to playoff basketball, playoff intensity.

Like how many minutes do you actually think that you can get from Dame in, in the series or for the next couple of games. That is very true. You're not going to roll Dame out and be like, hey, go give us 40 minutes tonight. That's not going to happen. Straight off of a blood clot? That's what I hate this, man. It would feel medically, you know, irresponsible.

So I just, I don't know. And I think however many minutes Dame gets, that's going to tell me a lot. And that's going to, I guess, inform my answer a little bit more. Yeah. I'm still willing to go to assume that the patients win the series, regardless. I was already in favor of them. And like you said, it's a lot to ask Dane to bounce back this fast. But you never know. Before we move on the next series, shout out to I have avocado for tipping $15. Shout out to Mac for tipping $30 in one cent. Appreciate you. He said, today is my

birthday. And I've been watching you for a while and wanted to donate for once. And also with Shannon Sharp, Lakers in Five moment is your favorite. I, uh, which, uh, we're not discussing Shannon Sharp today. Happy birthday. Hope you have a blessing. He gets no time. And shout out to Debra the Zebra for tipping $5.55. Appreciate you guys, man. Oh, my gosh. Next, next one we got to talk about, let's talk about the Lakers versus the Timberwolves.

This is obviously one of the most hotly talked about series coming into it because it's the Lakers. And Anthony Edwards on the other side, coming off of a really strong playoff run last year, question was, you know, without Caront to Towns, adding in Julius Randall, what do we do expect from the Timberwolves team that looked good in the second half of the year?

But obviously, everybody in the meat media said, end of the day, they got Luca, they got LeBron, they got Austin Reeves, they've had a good defense second half of the season, we're going to go towards that side. Donovan had absolutely no faith in Timberwolves. You had no faith in Timberwolves either, but you were a little bit less harsh. I was like, I'll pick the Lakers, and I'm kind of scared. It can go seven. Every single thing that I was scared of that could have happened fucking happened in game one.

Every single swing factor, every potential strength the Timberwolves had to the Lakers. We talked about question-wise, had to figure out how to stop. They failed to stop it. it was an avalanche a one-sided swing factor worst case in error for lakers best case in error for the timber wolves how do y'all feel about this game i mean i said lakers in five and to get to five games the wolves got to win one you know so it's it's okay but i think that one the okay obviously timbo wolves they shot 50% from three yeah now part of that is the way that the lakers were we're defending them,

allow them to get good shots so that they can shoot 50% from three. However, that number is going to come down just a little bit. I do think that we're going to get a better LeBron James in the next four games.

I hope so. Because if LeBron plays like that, it's not like you're not going anywhere. Oh, it's over. Yeah. It's not going to happen. Remembered you guys were on my ass saying I'm too harsh on LeBron?

I'm too wishy watching on LeBron. I mean, it's a, it's a game one and it's a class. classic quote you can if you say feel out game I'm going to shoot myself you know what it is exactly I mean this is LeBron we we know what he does this is what he does it's not it's not you know complicated I do think that even with Luca whether or not the Lakers have LeBron and Luca or LeBron and AD they've always operated on the premise of we're going to have two of the we're going to have the two best players in a series yeah that's that has that has been very very clear in terms of what their ceiling is and what their floor is If LeBron is not playing at that level, and if Luca is not operating at that level simultaneously, they're not going to go anywhere. And we've known this for a long time since they've made the trade, and you just didn't see that. So I think that game two is going to look so much different when you get when you get LeBron more involved because Luca started off very, very hot and had a lot of moments where he could get whatever he wanted offensively. Some of the shots just weren't falling, but he was getting to, you know, certain Luca spots on the floor that you see.

see him operate from consistently. Yeah, that's like extremely irrelevant for why they lost, though. Like, Luca's gonna be Luca, you're right. Lebron has me better.

End of the day, so I had the Lakers in one of my teams on the questions. He said, fuck what you says. No, no, like,

I understand you's got to get yourself. You're right. Like, Lucas, I mean to say, they have bigger fish to fry. I'll get what you just said for the last three minutes.

It does not matter. It doesn't, though. Because I was going to say, they have bigger fish to fry. You know what it is? Their bigger rotation is so goddamn ass that he,

that even Luca drop 60 and you're right and you get a better Luca and all that happens it will barely fucking matter because the biggest question mark we had for them

is how far can small ball take you and they have an inherently high variance style there they can have Luca could have fucking 50 in that game

and they still might have lost because the variance swung in the worst direction and they felt all the weaknesses of being small had none of the advantages that's going to happen

when they execute so goddamn poorly so like I'm barely even looking at Luca and the reasons you said like he'll be better LeBron will be better that's fine they just have so

they're gonna swing so far up and down because of the lack of rim protectors if they execute that poorly again or consistently for the series they'll get absolutely smoked

yeah they won't they should execute better so I'm not up here bringing the alarm yet but all the reasons I was scared of them and said like this might go seven I was gonna pick the Lakers

regardless I'm a fucking Lakers fan if you expect me to do anything otherwise you're out your goddamn but I was worried and game one made me feel even more worried

yeah I agree with that I understand completely one of the things that the Lakers hung their hat on since this trade happened was defense surprisingly and if that obviously if you take away their superpower which obviously should be like Luca and LeBron but if you take away like their team identity like obviously you're going to be fried the type of defense that they played the biggest beneficiary of that two nights ago was Jada McDaniels bro he is in my mind like the biggest X factor for the Timberwolves and what their with the possibilities of

what their organization could turn into or the next few years. years. And Jada McDaniels, I believe he shot like 11 or 13 or 14 or something like that. And he put up like the coolest, most easiest 25 of this god-bein-life room. 100% true shooting. Yeah. What the hell? And that was not a fluke though. Like, yeah, they'll shoot worse naturally. But one of the other questions we had, or not the question of the swing factors was we know this Lakers defense in the small ball, swarming style is predicated on leaving shooters open wisely, right, picking your spots. And we said it when the Timberwell is running these five-out lineups with Nas Reed and Randall out there,

they have no weak shooters to help off of. If they shoot really well, it's going to get scary. And they're going to force the Lakers to get out of that small ball look. My God, they shot extremely well. They couldn't have shot better. So part of it will go back to the mean a little bit. They're not going to shoot that well. But they're getting good looks.

They're going to shoot above their averages if they continue to defend him this way. It's going to be what it is. Yeah. And so, okay, there's a little bit of that where it's like, yes, they are going to have to obviously make some adjustments because, One, Ant was able to get downhill and not only get downhill to score, but get downhill to where he was also the one making decisions, right, driving, kicking out, doing all that type of stuff.

And what I was very, very confident about coming into the series was Ant's not going to be the one making all those decisions and or putting all the pressure on the Lakers defense. I thought that they were going to do a little bit more trapping, blitzing, right, and really, really get the ball out of his hands and make Julius Randall. be this like he's going to be the one that's going to have to score he's going to be the one that's going to have to make decisions which he did have like seven turnovers in the game which is like if you are looking at for bright spots you can you can look at that and you can say okay i i think that the lakers are eventually they're just going to have to put more attention

to aunt and make sure that he doesn't get downhill yeah and like randle shout out to him because he did have he did have have a good game i just also don't think that that's going to happen for the rest of the series and I think that they're going to be able to really really all the all the things that I was worried about from from randos perspective I do think that we're still going to be able to see that and so don't you know don't be surprised if the lakers come out in game two and there's there's a shift from that and you also get a better awesome Reeves who started the game off extremely cold and so now you have a better Reeves a better LeBron better defense and game two goes to the lakers and it's kind of and not i'm not going to say easy

but it's not this like crazy, crazy dog fight because you're going to get a lot of regression on both sides. And so I think that the Lakers do take game two because I do believe that we've seen enough from JJ and we've seen enough from his adjustments to know that he's going to have something for Ant. Yeah, well, he had too much for Ant last game. The problem wasn't they didn't trap him enough

and they trapped him too much, I think, and Aunt had the best passing game of his career. Ant was dicing them up. They were trapping him. He just had the perfect passing reads every time. He was ready. His processing was really good. I think it's go the other way

They had to Like they can't Knowing how good The shooting is around Ant They can't just seed An open look time And trap them automatically

They have to Probably play Vanibut more Than they want to Because the offense Limitations And say Ant's gonna have to have To have some hard looks

And beat us As a score To some extent Which So you're saying Play more on one and one Because they were helped Because it was like

Overhelping Right when it's going down I'm saying Like play like like ball you know like ball denied we're just like you're not gonna have to sure easier shut than done when he's so athletic yeah yeah they need to be a little bit less aggressive on the doubles or just well one end of the day they execute the game plan horribly they were slow they were punched in the mouth physically weren't ready was what j j reddick said they just have to execute

the game plan better but yeah i think they had to be a little more wise about how they deploy the doubles against and not give him so many easy playmaking opportunities because he showed in game one he's going to make the right passes and i guess they they thought he wouldn't and they wanted to see him it. My God, he proved it. Their transition defense was fucking horrible. They had to be better there. That's fixable. I think JJ Redick needs to allow Jackson Hayes to make some more mistakes. He'll only pay eight minutes and really said the whole game is going to be small ball.

I don't think you can win that way. You're going to have to get something at the Jackson Hayes minutes more than eight minutes a game. And I know he had a poor start, but JJ trusts him less than I've ever seen any coach, trust anybody in their goddamn life. He might have to deal with that and have a little more release, allow him to work through some stuff. and yeah, end of the day their offense, I told you guys before I think is overrated. People assume it's this three-headed juggernaut that is just

unstoppable. Lakers offense. It's been overrated since the trade, right? People assume it's unstoppable with these three ball handlers. It hasn't been their offensive rating has never been elite since they got Luca. They've been winning with defense. We're going to need to see some late game shot making and like they're going to need to play to the ceiling people who are assuming

they can. I haven't seen it yet. So I don't feel great. You know, I don't know. I'm going to go Lakers. I'm a fucking Lakers fan. So I'm going to allow myself to have hope. But if they lose game two, oh, it's so cooked. Or if they barely win, I'm still not going to be that encouraged. Like, again, I'm telling you, so far, every swing factor is going towards the Timberwolves. It's not over. It's never over at the game when you can't overreact and say it's done for sure. They can, they have one game left to prove to us. They have the

adjustments, you know, at their disposal. But I don't feel great. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to feel great. But also, when it comes to the shot making, I think out of every single team in the NBA, the Lakers have two, three of the best guys to do it. Two, three of the best guys, you can have, not you can have, obviously, honestly, not like that, but they have, they're very well equipped for that. And I agree with you, like, in terms of them and their identity honing in around the defense, we're going to need to see it. It was absolute disaster class. I think we're also like within that same right too. Seeing someone like Anthony Edwards like actually make real life development.

So all of these reads and passages that he made last two nights ago, he wouldn't have made last year or two years ago and whatnot. So there's real life evolution in his game and props to him. But man, if they're going to, if the Timberwolves are going to carry this away and upset the Lakers, in my mind, I have to envision like a big Julius Randall game. And that sounds insane to say. And I know, I understand. They literally won basically without him. I said they can keep doing the same thing they've been doing. But man, that's the only way I see it possible.

But I feel it wasn't fluky. So I'll say this. If nothing to change, I don't think we can treat this like the typical, oh, it's a feel-out game. Nothing about game one was a fluke. Obviously, those shoot a little bit worse. They won by a ton. They'd win by a little if they shot normal. So even you go there and apply that normalization, they still win the game.

The Lakers have to straight up show us a huge difference. in their approach to the game. I don't think we can just assume they'll do that. We'll see. No, JJ is a rookie head coach. We all have faith in him. We think he's good. He showed us in a regular season.

He can make adjustments. We got to see it because it wasn't fluke. It was everything that we thought was a potential weakness was a real-life weakness. So I'm not willing to say it's like I need to see the Timberwolves do X to win. Unless the Lakers prove otherwise, the Timberwell should be favored to win. I smell a LeBron James 40 piece coming tonight. That could happen. All your worries will with her away.

Yeah, well, see, I'm not, I hope you're right. I'm not saying it's impossible, but they need to show me before I have blind faith anymore. I gave them blind faith in game one. I looked past all the weaknesses and told myself, we'll figure it out. You know, I'll go towards the best players in the world. They didn't figure shit out of game one. So we'll see. They'll be right.

Maybe. You better hope they'll be all right. Or else what? You're wrong. Okay. And how funny would it be if two years in a row, the Timberwolves, two years in a row, we pick against them in the first round because we pick the team. with the goat level ball handlers in LeBron and Kevin Durant and their great sidekicks. Well, you know, obviously LeBron's a psychic now, but, you know, the legendary player

with other starboard handlers next to them, last year as sons, this year Lakers. How funny would it be if they win Bull Series because they're just bigger, faster, stronger, and punk the shit out of both these finesse teams around ball handlers? They might do it. They could. And it would just tell us that never pick a finesse team to beat the Timberwolves, that they're just going to punk all these soft-ass teams and no interiors. There will be a lot of parallels, I'll say that.

But the Lakers are better than That's on the team in every way So it's not over But if it does go that way We'll have a lot A lot to look at I'm still taking the Lakers in six As is my original prediction

Still taking it Yeah I'm thinking it's gonna go seven either way But I'm not The Lakers aren't out of it We'll see I guess game two will tell us everything Maybe by the time you come to the episode on Friday Maybe I'll be full on

We're fucked But right now I am Worried but it's not over Yeah I'm still a lot It's gonna be a great game Let's talk about the other person I feel like to be worried

Let's talk about Knicks versus Pistons We got game two yesterday Game 1, the Pistons We're kind of slapping the Knicks in the face For a lot of the game Then the Knicks had a Almost like historic playoff comeback They had a 21-0 run

Came back Everybody said up Well, there it goes The young team of the Pistons Can't hold on to a lead The grown-ups won That's how it goes in the playoffs And then game two came out

And they punched them in the goddamn face again It looked just how it did in game one Before they choked that big lead The 210 run How are you feeling now seeing the series tied up and seeing that terrible last Tom Tibodeau offense

get clamped. I have a lot to say on this. Okay, go. I saw, I have a lot to say. One, in game one and in game two, the exact same thing happened in that the Pistons

are a young team. They choked away a lead again in game two, right? And the Knicks should have taken the lead but they missed a foul call on Josh. That's a clear foul.

And I hate myself for what I'm about to do. But according to the last, to the two minute report, it was a miss call. Oh, my God. It was a miss call. And all I'm saying is you miss that call, the very next play. The very next play is a shooter three. That, there's that. I do think that after this season, the only thing that is clear to me after watching these two games is that Tibbs is not going to be the

coach next year. Absolutely. That's it. That is the number one thing that is that is so clear because one, cat had a, he was, cat was good in game one. The fact that for a majority of this game, Detroit is guarding cat, is defending cat with wings and Tobias Harris is on him. And you can't find a way to get cat involved outside of cat. Hey, just go throw your shoulder into Tobias Harris. That one is a problem. Two, you've traded five first round picks from, for Mikhail Bridges. There's times where you don't even know that he's out there. And the only time that anybody really knew that he was out there was when he was missing threes at the end of the game,

which obviously I want them to go in. I'm not going to blame him for that. Like, oh, like you suck this and that because like it happens like that sometimes it is whatever. It does suck because the guy that he was not one for one traded for, but you trade for cat, you get, you get Dante out of there. You bring him McKell, whatever. Dante hit those shots.

last year same thing game two round one dante hits the shot from the top of the key to give the knicks the lead mckell has three opportunities to do the same thing he misses all three of them that that is is a very very tough sight to see the it's awful it's awful it's awful towards the last four minutes of the game as the nicks are coming back they are walking the ball down and you know what's going to happen every single time it is going to be a jaylon brunson high pick and roll with whatever they're going to try and find a mismatch nobody's going to move nobody nobody's going to have a back screen nobody's going to nobody's going to have a cross screen nobody's going to do anything it's going to be jaylon brunson he's going to have his eyesaw on either

one of the other elbows and he's going to bang bang do either a fade away or try or trying and get the file which he had to do because yo at least in the first half the first half the way that the rest were were calling the game was absolutely absolutely atrocious in the first half. I, listen, what, I would say this,

what Brunson was doing in the second half, shameless. It was, it was shameless. The foul baiting. Celebrating after getting a three point call?

No, no, no, no. He was celebrating because he got a sorry out the game. It was, it was shameless.

However, he had to do it because they were calling no foul. They had two free throw attempts in the first half and it didn't come until 25 seconds left. Tibbs was right after the, after the game.

Kay was running into the lane every single time in the first half, they will call in everything. It's been touch fouls. Jalen is getting fouled on a majority of these plays, and he was not getting the calls until very, very late. So I don't feel bad about the foul baiting. But all in this series, one, do I think that the Knicks are still going to win? Yes.

Two, is Kat going to have to show up or is Mikhail going to have to be very, very consistent? Yes. Three, do I, am I 1,000% sure that Tibbs is going to be able to figure out a way to do that? No. and so like if they're not going to do this off of just straight if if they're not going to score off of just we're better than you guys because out of the top six seven eight guys after kade everybody on the mix is better they're all better so like I'm just going to have to go get a bucket and we're just going to have to win like that and outside because outside of that

what the pistons have going in their favor is kate is awesome and he has this like bigger friend that allows him to get downhill, do all these stuff. And like I said before, everybody on that team is ready to fight. They're all very, very physical. Exactly. But they are all very physical. They all have insane, unlimited amounts of dog. And right now, the Knicks need to respond with some dog of their own.

And so it's dog and its talent. If the Knicks lose this series, or if this goes to seven and they barely win, this will be one of the most embarrassing performances I've seen from a top three seed in several years. This is disgusting. coach Tom Tibado leave the game before the game leaves you I'll say that

he is a defensive-minded coach that is not currently having an elite defense and we could say that's because it's anchored by Jane Lam Brunson cat pairing that probably makes it very very hard to have an elite

defense so maybe he doesn't have the personnel to run what he wants to run and get the most of the strength there right when I say he is the worst offensive coach in the NBA I don't know if I'm exaggerating or not I might be there might be somebody out there

maybe Doc Rivers is worse maybe some other older worse I think Tom Thibito has the least inventive, most vanilla cookie cutter offense in the NBA right now. Katzate, he, the way that the Knicks play offense is exactly the way that I play 2K. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not 2K. I do not play 2K a lot. What I do is I get a very athletic player.

Normally, I get the bucks. And Yonis is scoring 70 every single night because I'm calling for, I'm calling it, I'm calling a pick and roll and I'm getting 70. I'm playing running dunk man. That is how I play 2K. The Knicks play offense the same exact way because it is very predictable, you know, exactly what is happening. And the reason why we think of Brunton so highly is because he is perfect for this because his tough shot making ability brings it to a certain level. Yeah.

So it's, oh my goodness. They have a top five scoring. I'm shaking. They have a top five scoring guard in the NBA. They have the best shooting big man in the NBA. They have three wings to vary degrees who can handle the ball. And when I say handle the ball, I'm not saying put Josh Hart in a pick and roll, put Ogen, nobody in a pick and roll. But they have secondary ball handling ability that if you run them off of screens, run them through inventive actions, get them running downhill in the short roll making reeds.

They can do more than a typical fifth option can do as ball handlers and passers. Yet, all they do is run these vanilla pick and rolls. They put a wing on Carlton Towns and they switch it and they just say, okay, so you're either going to attack us one-on-one with Jalen Brunson against a solid defender or you're going to attack us one-on-one. with Kat against a solid defender from a high point without having good post, you know, position. And then Tom Tibido says, okay, I hear you. That's going to be a response to my basic ass pick and roll. I'm going to do it every time. I'm not going to make any changes. Every single time I will do that and I won't let you concede your mediocre ass just cookie cutter screens because Kat isn't going to make good contact. You're going to switch it and we're going to

have no point of advantage. And then we're just going to continue to do that every play. And we're not going to do any type of adjustments that are smart. Don't do anything. to make the most use of our talent. McHill Bridges, everyone's getting mad at you for being a disappearing act and I would like to say that you should get really mad

at Tom Timbado because he's the blame for making you sit in the corner and make some shit happen. Tom Timbos did my push back. I don't know if this is going to end well for McHale.

I was going to say you should punch a wall. McHale Bridges is left out to dry getting no interesting actions ran for him. Nothing interesting is ran at all. You know what's so interesting. You guys didn't even say the name that I've been waiting for.

You mentioned him. O.G. Anobie, what the fuck happened? Yo, when Jenlon Brunson was out. He has to run around guarding K for 40 minutes. Because McKale can't do it. McKale is too, like, Mikel is just too light to guard Kade.

And the all defense, DPOY level, McHill, we've all accepted that that's gone. But, and so like, the only person on the team who has the quickness, the speed and the strength to guard. Kade is O.G. Now, Kade made, O.G. is making him work and Kade is a great player, so he's getting buckets as well. And everyone's going to point to last night and be like, oh, OG was getting cooked. Look at game one. O.G. was making Kade work. And Kade didn't have a great game because of the physicality that O.G. was putting on him. But because you have

Jalen running every single action, because you have the offense, all on him, you're putting so much pressure on him and asking O.G. to do all of this. That if, O.G. is not, you know, scoring 20, 22 a night, which if you are asking, like, think about what you are asking OJ and Nobie to do, to go be DPOI and then go score 25 points. You are asking him to be prime Kauai Leonard. And that is just unreasonable to ask of him. And even the defense that he's, that he's playing, it's fine. It's okay. You're right. I agree. I'm not having to ask him to put up 20, 25 points more so this thing, this. Criticism is angles towards Tibbs.

I've been saying for a minute now, like, dude should be, his job is going to be on the line. I've been saying it over the last like two, three months or so. For moments like this happening. We're talking about the Knicks fan. But how do you see someone like OG and Ornobie go do what he did average like 20, 25 points a game? When Jalen Brunson's out, you don't implement any of the all-around changes that this team is made. He had one card.

Listen, the Knicks had had one card to get OG activated. they played it last night it didn't work and and now we're going on to game three i don't know if certain people are going to get on flights and be in detroit like that so i don't know if oh so i don't know if oj is going to is going to go off for 28 they have they have to they they one have to be more creative offensively which at this point in the season is just not going to happen to everything and we can start talking about detroit in this point because one everything that the makes were last year, Detroit is right now. Like, Detroit is so much more physical. Detroit is dominating them on on the glass. Even without Isaiah Stewart last night, they out rebounding them by like 1415.

It's embarrassing. They're getting so many more offensive rebounds and second chance opportunities that it's okay if they are missing a couple shots because they can, they can follow it up. And so they are bringing a level of physicality that the Knicks are not, they're not ready for and they haven't responded to it yet. And so when you talk about getting free throw calls in the first half and that was a big storyline. Yes, I do think that the refs weren't good, but also Detroit was putting a lot of pressure on the defense. They are going downhill. And so whether that's a SAR going downhill, Cade driving and kicking to Malik who's knocking down shots, Tobias Harris, who apparently has buckets again, they are doing everything

that they need to do in playing piss and basketball. And so once you get past, like game three is going to be very, very scary because once you get past these first two games where the Knicks 100% should be up 2-0 right now. You've gotten the young team collapses and you should have won and you should have defended home court and you didn't. They are now going back home.

They got the split. It's going to be the first time that this Pissons team is expected to win a playoff game in like 17 years. The crowd's going to be rocking. The Knicks need to be on alert because there is a very real possibility

that they go down 2-1 because everything that Detroit's doing. We're talking about Jalen shot making. Cade shot making has been crazy His ability to get into the lane And make tough shots And do all this stuff is wild And so if he's going and he's getting 12 free throw

Attempts a game And he's able to knock down floaters And he's able to get assist Because Malik Beasley is thug shaking in the corner It's going to be scary Chat how many booms are you giving this Donovan crash out Let me see it right now Rating from 1 to 5%

Don't know what's right on your Apple watch right now I don't know I don't know It's about a 15 minute crash out About one loss Give me a boom rating for this. Because it shouldn't be like this, though. It just shouldn't be like this.

Yeah, no. This is quite an embarrassing performance. Just, yeah, they suck. But shout out Kate Cunningham. The Pistons are doing what they need to do. They're mucking the game up, doing what is needed to capitalize on this lackluster offensive performance.

This second game, that one, that spin was ridiculous. That S.R. spin is a fastest spin I've ever seen in my life. Same, yes. Kate Cunningham, especially in game two. We had eight bench points, by the way, in game two. Yeah, that's what's going to happen. Can I mean, played like,

Four minutes or something. He had $3,000. He had $3,004 minutes. I guess so, yeah. Let me talk about Kay cutting him out. Every time it's about the prop Kade cutting him up. By the way, the Knicks also suck at this. Cade got downhill and abused that cat drop in this past game.

If he's going to get downhill like that and have that kind of free throw weight, well, free throw rate. Weight. That is exactly. The one thing that Kade is lacking in his game is consistent room pressure. We thought it was going to be a big limiting factor from him. This year, he had enough short. mid-range threat and better passing, better shooting that he made up for it. But he's not the best

rim score in the league, you know, efficiency-wise. My God, if he got to play cat every game like he did in game two, he would be a top-five player in the world because he was destroying the rim. That's a very encouraging sign. I think it might be more about the Knicks and it is him. But regardless, seeing him have that clear aggressive approach when he knows

the team is a weak rim protector, big development. Huge development, man. this series after this series we're going to have a lot of interesting damn near nasty conversations about kate cunningham and i think people are going to look at jillian brunson be like yeah buddy that top 10 player conversation for you is probably going to be expired really soon which is stupid as hell i don't agree with it i don't agree with it but it's going to have it's going to have a very similar discussion so table that keep that in mind because we're going to get something along those lines you're going to piss me off next thing we're going to talk about let's move on to one of the most exciting series. Warriors versus Rockets. Game one this game was literally everything we could have

possibly expected to be. Everything we came up here and said it would be it was. The Rockets half court offense, goddamn abysmal. They scored less than 90 points. They couldn't score at all. The Warriors half court offense also pretty abysmal. They got locked up by the

Rockets like we expected they would. They also didn't crack 100 points. But God damn Steph Curry was a godsend. He made so many ridiculous tough shots that in the end, the Rock has got their game off. They did the ridiculous offensive rebounding approach. They rebounded 41% of their misses. They ran the double-big lineup. That worked.

They slowed the game down, made a defensive approach. But in the end, in a clutch claim, the team with Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler ended up coming clutch and winning in the end, blowing up that lead to over 10 points in the last couple minutes. Everything you could have expected from this series to see, a men Thompson playing great defense, Stephen Adams being ridiculously impactful on the boards. Operants and Goon playing really well against that small ball look the Warriors struggling in parts with their role players but being built out by the star power

of the top two guys the Rockets half-foot offense still not being good enough against the elite Warriors defense go down the checklist Jayland Green's sucking ass in this game everything you could have expected happened every single thing happened

that you could have expected I was going to ask him about it because that like everything that we saw seems pretty chalk in terms of our predictions and everything the one thing that we can't necessarily account for,

and it's really the story of the Rockets and of this player is the inconsistency of Jalen Green. If Jalen, if we get to game two, and Jalen Green has 25 points and has a really good game, the Rockets are probably going to win, and you're going to look at this, you're going to look at the game, and you're going to say, yeah,

the Rockets have a lot of young players. They have the more athletic squad. If Jalen Green is scoring and they have a guy that they can go to to get buckets, where is the real advantage for Golden State because a lot of this stuff leans towards Houston if you just think about it like in a vacuum. Yeah.

But if he's not, if he's not playing like that, if then the Warriors have like, they're playing, what, two on five, I guess defensively because like Stephen Adams isn't an offensive threat like that. Well, honestly, he is. Yes, he is. I say that, but you know what I mean? Like in a traditional sense.

Fuck tradition. He is the biggest threat on the court. His obro, they rebounded 41% of their misses and still didn't score 90 points. Yeah. Like, the biggest question. So, do you know how hard that is to do? Like, you have to be. You gotta be trash.

There's words I can't say on this shit. But they still almost won. So, okay, so we all picked Warriors in seven, right? I think we all ended up there. Did anybody go to- I say Warriors and Six. Okay, yeah. Six, seven, something like that.

We all picked Warriors in a tough war of a series. But we're all like, listen, man, we're picking Warriors in seven because we're going to default to going with the stars that have a better half-court offense, but we're not super certain this rocket team can make it tough. I still feel that way after this game. They shot so unbelievably poorly, even for their standards. Like, Fred Van Vleet was a goddamn brick. Jalen Green was a brick who Jalen Green is the most inconsistent score in the league, but he has his high. So we will get better Jalen Green games. We will get better than 17% from three games from the Rockets. And despite how horribly they shot, it was still a close game in ways that I

think is replicable. Steph Curry is a crazy stat line. They made him work. This is one of the most impressive Steph Curry's shot-making games we've seen in a long time. He didn't just like cook these guys. Steph Curry was making tough jumpers

against elite defense, which he's going to do. That's part of why we picked them to win this close series. But there will be games where he has a less impressive stat line because that defense makes him get the ball off better. And there will be games where Jimmy Butler

also struggles. Like he didn't necessarily light it up, but he'll also, you know, probably will be better in certain times. I still think it'll go seven We will get better performances In the Rockets but I still Especially after this game how it ended

I have no reason not to believe the Warriors Are going to win this Whether it's five, six, seven games You see it How horrible this Rocket Spacing is And how well equipped the Warriors are To make them pay for that Yeah, I agree

When it comes to like How responsibilities lay on each and every single one of these players soldiers At least in the starting lineup Like you know what a man's going to give you Offensively like it is what it is not too much of a burden is going to be placed on him or like expectation just yet

because of the stage of development the second year player at the end of the day we talk about him like he's like you know the next upcoming thing which he is in his own right. Fred Van Vleet he's been exactly who he's been over the last five six seven years.

He's going to shoot a lot of tough shots and miss a lot of shots too. But that's what comes with it. He's going to give you great defense, solid playmaking and all that. No one like rides for him as like a number one initiator or bucket getter. Alfred Sengu

Hmm Chad how many No one can say something None about him Chad how many booms are we given Alprin Sengoon for Duncan Andreemong Green to start the game That was a monster dunk

That was like That was like That was like the most humiliating Type dunk for someone Like Jimon Green Because it was like all body Like it was a slow posterizer pro Like he had probably

A couple chest hairs Slipping his mouth after that It was like that Demoralizing as a man Chad can I get a boom check please Boom boom boom What the fuck Elena said 17 booms

That sounds about right Yeah What a statement how to start a game for Sengoon. Like that was so electric. And Shada Sengun, he played well in the worst offense environment ever. They played the two big lineup with a men Thompson out there at the same time. So three non-shooters. And listen, Sengun did what he could.

They made it work, you know. But that's not going to be able to work against this team. I actually disagreed. But I was going to say, they made a comeback playing big. But you know what they did? They had Jabari Smith on the court. That was a huge difference. His shooting made a big difference.

it's going to be hard to play Sengoon, Adams, and Amen. But in that lineup, when they came back in the third quarter, they had Jabari out there and they had enough shooting and they made that comeback, they had to lean on that. They took Jabari out the game to close it. They went towards the starting lineup. Clearly it was a mistake. They lost that lead.

They got flooded in the last couple of minutes. Shibari Smith better play a lot of minutes in game, too. This lineup, when I saw it, I was like, there's no way. This is just the biggest lineup of all the time. It's crazy. Like, you're playing Jabari. Jabari, Sanguon, and Stephen Adams is just so, it's so, big. And so that's why I think, I do think that it is viable. And I do think that for Houston,

especially against a defense like going to state where they're so, they're so sound and they're so good and they've always had this great defensive infrastructure. And you have a DPOI on the back end in Dremont. The one place that you can absolutely, not only exploit them, but dominate in terms of like one of their weaknesses is their size. And the fact that you can come back from 20, the fact that you can really, really make it tough. and make it to where Moses Moody has to make a shot. Like, he's the one who has to make shots to kind of keep them at bay. I do think that Houston can consistently go with this double big lineup

and out rebound and out physical Golden State and get wins that way. I really think that that can be like. I agree. And that's the crux of why we think this is going to go seven. Like, it did work in part. They just need to be real careful about who's the ancillary parts next to those bigs. And there has to be enough shooting. There just has to be.

like we talk a lot about how draymond and jimmy are so smart and so good at diagnosing what you want to do and they win defensively despite not having quite as much perimeter talent with iq with these guys what that means in practicality is like that means a lot of things but one of the ways it is is this defense is really really good at shrinking the floor and playing gap defense and really sagging off of shooters and being really smart at helping at the nail but getting back at the right times you this team is way too good at that specific skill set for you to play lineup with one shooter out there. Like, it's going to be tough to figure it out

because their best players are non-shooters, but you're not going to win the series if you don't consistently play lineups with at least a little bit of shooting around your double bigs. Not against this team. This team is way too smart defensively. Way too smart. It's not going to happen.

Yes. I think game two, like for Houston, the silver lining, obviously, for them is one, you think that you're going to get a better jailing Green game. If nothing else, even if Fred plays the same way, Jalen Green should play a little bit better. Yes. You have, you have your double big lineup that you can, that you can lean on. Steph Curry, the shot making was absolutely insane. And so even if, well, you say that he's 10%

worse, there's ways that you can get back into the series and get, and get it back to 1-1. I just, I don't know. I think that like Golden State, they're just so smart. This is. This is another case where they're just like the older veteran team it's a they know they know how to execute down the stress they know what what to do houston is it's the first time being in in a situation like that even though that you have veterans like fred like dylan even like stepan adams they they are they are new to this and so you you get that game and so and they have step curry at the day like any of the day it was a game where neither team had super productive offense but god damn step curry scored 30 on incredibly tough shots and he made the difference

It was very similar circumstances for both teams. Jalen Green is your leading score. He shit the bed. Steph Curry is your leading score. He put on a masterclass. Like, end of the day, that was the defining factor. We can point out a lot of other things, but as expected, that Star Power made the difference. Yeah, I agree.

I'm so interested to seeing. I don't know how, I don't know how great Steph Curry is going to play next game. Obviously, it's going to be to tall task to drop like 31, 32 again back to back. But more so what I'm looking at. at is the other guys around him, the Moldus Moody's of the world, the GP2s of the world, the Quentin Posts of the world.

Guy Santos. Yeah, like all these guys. I want to know who's going to be the third, fourth guy to give them an extra dose of scoring if Steph Curry or Gene Baller isn't able to, like, give them a Herculean effort. That's like the biggest thing for me

for the Warriors going to the game too. Yeah, and you know what? I'm feel better about Steph Curry give herculean efforts and I do Jalen Green coming out and lighting the world on fire. But you're right, that'll be the swing every game is which star guard is going to be able to do enough to make up for all the other just defensive struggles that the other team gives. I agree. I mean, let's talk about the other West Western Conference game that is in the middle of this bracket,

four or five matchup. The other series we have two games of now. Clippers versus Nuggets. We came up here and we said this is going to be the closest series in the playoffs. Naturally, it's a four or five game. So it should be right. It is living up to that. I think we all went clippers in seven

I believe I won I win clippers yes and seven did you I went I think I took the I wanted to go clippers in five by I I went I went Clippers in six

Okay we all expect the Clippers to win a hard five I may have said as a joke at the area in Clippers and five We all expect the Clippers to win a hard fight series they either go six or seven or maybe five if you're expecting Donovan's scenario where Kauai just kills them but it was supposed to be a seven game war

They should be up too old right now Jacks, exactly. Or they could be down to own too because it was too instead of close games and that guess that's the point of this is that it has been everything we thought it would.

In game one, the clippers were winning for almost wire to wire than in the end, the Nuggets win by a way that I did not expect this Nuggets team to win games, simply wanting them more

and having more dog. They won that game by hustling their asses off in the fourth quarter. Russell fucking Westbrook Giveeth and take it the way and God damn he giveth this game.

He got some clutch steals made some clutch threes and let them open. We'll ignore the mid-range jumpers that came in between that, but he can't clutch when it mattered most, and his dog and the intensity that he brings permeated, and they won that game

when they really shouldn't have. Yeah. In game two. Similar things happened. Dog wasn't enough because Kawhi Leonard had one of the best scoring games. It was fucking career. How are y'all feeling about this war?

Bro, so far, I think when I, these two teams are so unbelievably close in terms of like competition-wise, obviously it's a four-five race. Yeah. But the biggest thing that I've seen between these two teams which is like a swing factor

is the turnovers at the end of the day game one I think the Devere Nuggets had like 20 turnovers or something like oh no the Clippers had like 20 turnovers or something like that compared to Quai had a lot of Nuggets like 11 and the clip this script was flipped this last game

like if you look at the stat sheet I believe the Devere Nuggets out rebounded the living shit out of the Los Angeles Clippers also hit more threes in them but the biggest outlier that like screams out all you guys really didn't lead up to think of what's part of this section

was the turnover so I think that is very interesting and I think that's been the tellto story of this team through like the closeness of each and every game it's like you have to play perfect basketball whoever makes the least

them out of the stakes fucking wins we got someone in the chat glazing us with chat GPT and it's hilarious keep looking at what TW3 4 says he's doing chat GPT glaze but no you're right it's very close stuff like turnovers is the story of the difference like game one kawai really struggled as a playmaker

they didn't turn over a lot and he didn't look great you know he didn't look terrible but he didn't look fantastic whereas james harding put up a fucking fantastic stateline and it wasn't enough game two just kawai was just an entirely different person he it was a shot making just i said master class earlier i think is what i said only way i can describe it it was a perfect shot making game from him he abused the yokech drop abused his size advantage against other players and that was a big difference but we can't talk about the series without talking about the zubotch versus yokish matchup that has

really been everything obviously yokish is going to get his point three rounds assist he's goddamn yokitch this was this was not it this was a bad triple double for his standards it hasn't been easy he almost had a quadruper double with turn him and it was not a good performance for his standards he looks tired he has to do everything he dude they lost the game because he turned it over the last possession. When have you ever seen them lose a game because Yokish makes a bad decision? He's overtaxed. And this is something that we have, we've been seeing consistently throughout the

entirety of the season for them. It's nothing new. And earlier in the year, like, who's on the screen? Why is DeAndre Jordan on the floor in a playoff game? It's ridiculous the situation that they're in. Marches are nasty. Oh, speaking of centers, we didn't expect, Ben Simmons looks fucking dope. He looks so good in this role.

It's a back of five in this small role. He moves really well They've been doing these aggressive hedging defenses That are giving their guards trouble Because he's mobile for a big man He's really good rolling on the short roll He can still run really fast And defend pretty well

Like obviously he's not Ben Simmons of old But in this small role as like a backup small ball five Dude shout out to Ty Lou for that I'm excited Shout out to Ty Lou making Ben Simmons Look the most useful that he's looked Over the last like three years Yeah putting him as a center

And yeah like that excites me For future if they get past this round that excites me because they'll play the one seat to get at this right they'll play okay okay c that excites me because you're gonna have to give them some kind of special looks against shea having a five is that switchable like that's a good wrinkle for a contender to have yeah this team is just so i wish the nuggets had that i wish the nuggets had any big that was of that variety

defensively man tragic but this game right here one of the most like hilarious things that i see between also like game one and game two as well is I believe MPJ was like who he sub-di-i. I think he played like maybe 14, 15 minutes or something like that. Limited minutes in game one. And that's when we had the Russell Westbrook

experience, which ultimately led them to lose. No, they won, my bad. Which ultimately led them to win. Great win in the most sloppy way possible. And this game over here, MPJ seemed like he was much more engaged. A lot of great timely clutch threes and in turn, Russell Westbrook's minutes were reduced.

This is just like a coaching masterclass that we're witnessing right now. And Tailu, of course, is doing Tailu things. And I feel like at the end of the day, it's going to lead them to come up top towards the end of the series. Shout out David Adelman. Dude, this team fell dead in the water. Like, their vibes were so bad.

Their defense was so abysmal. The effort was so poor. All the reports we got out of their locker room just sounded like they were all, like, not giving up, but there was some cracks and one punch and the shit would have shattered, and they would have all given up and thrown the white towel in. David Adelman put some new life in them You mentioned the benching of MPJ in game one That takes some guts to do

He's willing to do that He's willing to play the best players And a lot of times it's been Russell Westbrook And this game, MPJ played better Like he's willing to make tough decisions He's clearly inspired better buying from them He made them be able to flip the switch That everyone says contenders need to be able to flip

Yokic said when it before they fired Michaelone I don't think there's a fucking switch I think you are who you are Yochid said that It looks to me like they flip the goddamn switch this is by far the best effort defense they played really all year i hope david adamant sticks around because it's looking encouraging so far yokech also said that the beast was most dangerous when it was vulnerable and here they go looking good i i agree with you though that the tyloos has been

you know doing his thing coaching especially because it's going to be very it's very clear what the series is is coming down to because all these games are going to be very close is russell west we're going to the shot or not because they the clippers are daring russell westbrook and they are daring yokids to put russell westbrook in position to to take club shots and because if he's out there they're like okay go ahead go go go ahead and so like oh yeah but last night they made him do that and he like three threes they've done it in the same that's what i'm saying they did it in game one he hit the three and then they was like do it again yeah exactly i dare we talked about this in group chat that was one of the most cold-blooded just like

like, or height moments I've seen from a coach. Ty Lou left Russell Westbrook open, down three with the game on the line. Or they're up three. They leave Russ open in game one. This is back-to-back plays on the highlights. This is game two. Yeah. But in game one, they're up three.

Nuggets at the ball. They double on your location and leave Russell Westbrook wide open. He who smacks the three. They look silly for leaving wide open, right? Now the game's tied. And then the next time down, he does the exact same thing again. He says, I fucking know Russell in Westbrook better than anyone. do it again show me twice

and what do you do he got the shot wide open he hesitated he fucked up he dribbled they turned it over because he overthought it that is such a just cool moment for Tailu to be like man that shit

was a flu do it again and then it works you know how much balls you have to have to be able to do that yeah and we saw it again

in game two and so I think as like for for Yokic and his passing Donovan you over here what's up someone's just said Donovan my mom said you cute

How do you feel about that? Why were you going to interrupt me for that? Sorry, I just needed to be acknowledged. He said, of all the things interrupt me, this is what you draw my attention to. Hey, man, it is what it is. So, I do, so yes, I do think, though, that the Clippers through two games, while the games have been close,

I've felt better about them after each game. Because, like, obviously, like, game, game one was a game that they're supposed to, that they're supposed to win. And at the end of the day, if Russell Westbrook hits the three to knock you out, you wipe your hands and you say, it is what it is. Like,

I will take the opportunity every time and it'll be fine. The fact that you get Kauai Leonard playing like this, which nobody ever really doubts if Kauai can reach this level. It's always just the idea of, is he going to be on the floor to do this? And everyone talks about, you know, 2019 Kauai.

Let's talk about 2021 Kauai. Like that, that version of Kauai, we can even talk about 2023, Kauai in the Suns series, he's done this plenty of times. And so if he's going to have that type of shot making and you're going to get a better game from, from Norman Powell and something that the Clippers haven't always had, but you have now in Zubach, which is a legit, like great, great player.

Like that's, that's a different wrinkle than you've had before. Shout out to James for tipping $10 six minutes ago. He said the Grizzlies will never score 100 points in this series. It doesn't feel like it. Doesn't feel like it at all. Appreciate you. Is that I miss anybody else? Shout to James.

He took 41 minutes ago. He tipped $3. And shout out to Deep 3 Fran for tipping $1. We missed those. Shout to Vincent for $5. And I have avocado for $15. You appreciate all, you all, man. That's all the series that have been really close.

Let's do a speed run real quick through the 1 and 2C matchups in the West. Holy fuck. Beats. I don't even know if belt to ass is even like correct for what we saw the other day, bro. Beats them by 50 points. My God. But another thing you need to be said, absolute smackdown. We expect the Thunder to sweep.

I should be doing with my belt. You lose my 50. Come on. That's terrible. Out east, Cavs versus heats. Cavs won. It looked how it should look. I don't have anything to say about that.

They're also going to win in four or five games. And then Celtics versus Magic, similar story to what we talked about. Matches don't have enough firepower. They're not going to win these games. But shout on Palo Van Carroll. We said all we want to see is Palo Van Carroll cook. He cooked for his game. That's all we want to see.

We want to see the magic. He's a hooper, man. All we want to see is he's a bucket getting. That's all that matters. It's Palo look good and continue to get those reps, continue to show and learn from the hard coverage you're going to see against the best defense in the Eastern Conference. First game, it looked really good. Just continue cooking.

That's all it matters. You're not going to win any games. Just cook. Playoff risers. Palo Bank Carol. Franz Wagner, please. Help your boy out. Exactly.

We keep you that sort. Yep. And with that being said, it's on to the next thing that we're going to finish this episode off with. I saw on Twitter on one of our comments that somebody said react to hot takes again

which you haven't done a long time It's been a minute It's been a long time So I made a community post And I asked you guys For your best NBA hot takes pertaining to the playoffs So today we're gonna react

To your best NBA playoff hot takes We're gonna grade them A through F I can't find mine But these guys have Their little things That have the grades on them We'll hold it down

We'll give you guys All of the correct judgments And chat I want you guys to tell us you know among your peers among your chat friends let us know how good these takes are yeah man let's get started they're all pertaining to the playoffs like i said first off we got this guy t12 says the clippers are the second best team in the western conference great defense along with a pretty good offense with healthy kawai being a top 10 player in the league

james hardin is still very good powell got all-star considerations this season and zuwosh is a top 40 to 50ish player do you guys feel like this is a good take are the clippers the second most dangerous team out there you know what i'm feeling really good I'm feeling very good. I'm giving this an A for a hot take. Mo's giving it an A as well because it's true. It's true. The idea, best case scenario for the Clippers is you have James Harder who can set the

table for everybody. And Kawhi Leonard is just the Terminator and he is going to dominate from the midterangue play good defense. And you're just going to eat like that. They check off every single box that it takes to have a competing team, a championship level team and the NBA today. You got Kawhi Leonard who could easily. be like top five player.

I don't know where he ranks in that conversation in the playoffs, but he is highly up there. Well, if he plays like a good game two, he's certainly high up there. Yeah. That would make him very high. Exactly. You got James Hardin who is. I've averaging 40 points on like 70%. Ridicrous. You got it. It doesn't even make any sense.

You got James Hardin, who is one of the better point guards in the NBA today, and he's in a role in which where he's not forced to consistently give you like 25, 20 points a game even. All he needs to do is set the table up on in a consistent basis and hit timey threes here and there and he does that perfectly fine and then after that you got all the other like pieces when it comes to chris done and then you have the

bogged up boddanovich's of the world who hasn't even been like that useful or that good over the series guys like that exist ben simmons is there and then i didn't even mention like zubach who is he is rising very very quickly in terms of how i see him compared to like all the other centers in the NBA today yeah very quickly it's it's looking like such a good take a lot of people were saying into lukewarm tape. It is. That the clippers are there. I started with the reason.

So for that reason, I'm switching it to a B because it might just be, it just might not be that much of a hot take. Okay. Yeah, I mean. But it's a true statement. We'll see, obviously the other teams that people took super seriously out there, number two, it's like the Warriors, the Lakers, and maybe the Timber Wolves. We'll see how the Lakers look in game two.

Maybe they'll see. But after game one, it's looking shaky. The Warriors have to deal with a ridiculous war with the rockets. So it's fairly safe to say this for now. Okay. Okay, that's the easy one, though. We started off team for a reason. Let's move on.

Number two, the Pacers were running back and make it to the Eastern Conference finals this year. So what he's saying is, the Pacers will beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in round two. Now listen, man, we all like the Pacers to varying degrees. We all respect them. We all love Tyreys Halliburton. He got voted today the most overrated player

by his peers, actually, which is crazy. I think he's one the most underrated players, actually. So I love the Pacers. Do you love them enough to say they'll upset the number one seed in the second round? This is a hot, hot, hot, I'm giving it a B. So, yeah, so I'm going to agree with you.

We're aligned again. This is a B. Yes, I think that. I don't know about all this way. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I'm giving it a B just because I think that if Tyrese, if Tyrese is playing at this level, like you said earlier, Andrew Nempard, playoff riser, and Pascal, playing at a solid level.

I'm lying. This is just dumb. I got to give this an F. Yeah, I was going to say. You gave it a B because it's audacious. That doesn't mean it's right. I don't know. I can't even give you that high of a score.

I can't do it. It's not impossible. If you want to give it a C, the Pacers, if anybody was going to upset the Cavs and you had to rank the most likely teams to do that, the Pacers' frenetic style of play and how wide open the offense is, you can't hone in on one player against the bucks. If you can stop Yannis, you know, that gives you some satisfaction that you can stop the rest of the offense. I don't feel like there's one head you can cut off the snake here. That makes it super easy. They're just going to be a tough team to deal with regardless. Obviously, they don't have the talent with the calves or whatever, but maybe there's a world in which a team like that can upset them and get them uncomfortable.

it's not impossible so I can't give it an F shit's not higher than a C or D though they're not I don't I'm not gonna pick the calves I mean I'm not like pick the Pacers I'm not gonna pick the Pacers then like Donovan Mitchell's leg would literally have to fall off I'm not talking about no ankle roll I'm not talking about no like

Periputters whatever the fuck like he has his leg has to fall off and as long as he's intact brisket he could win off the bone he can win this series alone I'm giving this enough slow cooked smoked roasted off the bone I appreciate the audacity though

okay okay not the worst taking the world chat is firing it up saying fd you guys you guys are not rocking with the paces i see and i get it listen NBA fans at large do not respect tyrie taliburton do not respect their style of play around him so i get it but i won't give him that's a bit harsh funny though if they just make it to the east of conference finals like again back-to-back seasons and it's just like this weird era of like this team that's actually like loki good so you know the thing is that we're just going to spin it we're just going to be like every year the Cavs play a soft-ass conference finals

like a Mickey Mouse running but give them guys the Cavs got to play plumbers every year they get free finals births I mean the the Celtics yeah okay next one the Thunder are going to choke in the Western

Conference finals and get swept swept the swept the swept aspect is where I'm putting an F on this if you tell me obviously I think that the Thunder are not only going to win the West but win the title but if you told me that like Hey, they ran into the Clippers.

Kauai was on a heater. Like, that's crazy. If you tell me that, like, Yokos just starts going ridiculous and all this stuff happens, fine. Who in the Western Conference is good enough to sweep a 68 win team? There is no demons out there that are going to sweep a team this good.

He had me up until he used those last three words. He didn't have it for a fucking second. He didn't have me for a second. This is a table thing. Like, choking the Western Conference, we've seen that before time and time again. It happens to the best of them. Especially with, like, the youngest team in NBA,

which I'm not using that as a boy or excuse or whatever. I'm just saying it happens. But to say they get swept is just like outrageous. We've literally never seen a team as good losing the conference finals. By all indicators, we've never seen a team as successful. Regular season-wise is this losing the conference finals. I'm not been against history. F-take.

Yeah. If you tell me the Celtics beat them up in the finals, I guess that's possible. I'm not going to pick anybody in the West to fuck with the Thunder this year. Yeah, I agree. Getting swept? No one you do that. Listen, it's a hot take. So shout out you, Shush Smith.

He understood the assignment. You gave us some heat. That's a hate comprehension, though. You're burnt down the house, but you gave us some heat. Next up, the Warriors are winning the championship, and Steph Curry solidifies himself as a top five player of all time. I like this storyline. I'm not going to lie.

I'm not even going to think about this twice, bro. No logic, just vibes. No logic, bro. All right. Same for me. No logic. You're a step currieff, this is natural. If we're rating your hot take on how much we'd like to see it, I guess you can give it enough.

Wait, no. I mean, I'm in my bad. An A, I made to say that. But I'm again, once again, I am not picking anybody out west to fuck with the OKC Thunder, not even the championship equity of the Warriors, not even playoff Jimmy. I'm not picking against a thunder. But as a hot take, this is a very good hot take because if the Warriors were to slip into the Western Conference finals and Yale, even an NBA finals, of course it will be shocking

to us, but it's not like we wouldn't see this coming because they've literally shown us to be one of the best teams that the NBA has to offer since the Jimmy Butler trade happened. so yeah if they if they won the finals they would have to they would have to go through either either one of the best teams like that we've ever seen in the thunder a team that is kind of on you know that pace in the calves or the defending champion in the Celtics like you're going to have to go through a combination of those three teams and if step curry and the warriors do that is that enough to put in like top five all time that's a lot it yes it holds a lot of equity If they beat the Thunder

a top five net rating team of all time and then beat the Celtics Last year a top five net rating team of all time That means they will have Passed LeBron Bro, beating OKC and beating the Celtics Means you beat the two best teams Of the 2020s

Yeah Easy top five That would be one of the most That would be like a Dirk level ring Oh he's more helpers He already has one so I haven't two of them holes Listen This would be a fairytale right here

This would be a crowning of like Oh new Mount Rushmore type of guy Realistically, I'm going to give this a B hot take I think if he was this year I would be hard to put Cream Abdul-Jabbar over him and number three. Yeah. It would be a conversation.

That you, I might still go Korean. I'm not saying it's easy, but it would be a conversation. Yeah. It's like, listen, he'd match the rings. And it would be the level of difficulty. He'd match the rings of magic. He'd have the easy ones and he'd have the hard ones.

Oof. Listen, I understand though. Nothing's easy. I go, I kind of want to see it happening. No. 2017 was easy. I'm not going to. That one was easy.

It was simple. It wasn't easy. 2018 was easier. Okay. That does, listen, as far as wish we're thinking. I agree. I think 2017 might be the easiest championship of all easily. Okay.

Next up. Mavs won the Luca trade in the short term. All right. Well, considering that everybody's legs fell off, I'm going with an F. That is a terrible take. And listen, every time Nico Harrison opens his mouth, the trade gets even worse. it doesn't make it didn't make sense in the moment it doesn't make sense now the mabs are out of the playing in the last playing game was walking around hurting like having back having back spasm

cap spasm everything was wrong kairie's not there the chat is saying this is a z tier take i think legit sheep saw the prompt to give us a hot take and said let me say the dumbest shit i can imagine i think he fundamentally misunderstands what a hot take is and maybe we applaud him for that as a as a hot take and as a regular take it's just it's bad if if i'm thinking like someone like nico harrison this is a genius trade and i also think that this is a genius hot tag back to selling shoes brother you can't make any more trade go back to what you know get back in them factories next note if the nuggets don't make it out of the second round they'll blow the whole thing up and trade everyone but yokic

trade everyone but yeah so what he's saying is he'll trade Jamal Murray and Michael Ford Jr. Let's say that the two highest trade value pieces around him they'll completely revamp the team then he said same goes for Yonis and the Bucks I think there's going to be

a complete revamp for both of them I would say there's more so of a case for Yonis and someone like Yokich because for Yonis like yo at least Yolk has been through the first round plenty of times Yonis might be the one traded I don't know I go with the bucks for a reason the Nuggets things will happen regardless You already know what's going to happen

My hot ticket, right? And this is probably not even the hot take at this point But you already know The Bucks are losing the first round Nick's losing the first round You just swap the big contracts To get Janus and Kat in a trade And you move on from there

All right, we're going to the next one No more fan fiction allowed Jalen Green will be the next great Playoff dropper Playoff dropper Well, he has a risen I don't know exactly How can you drop when you're already like

Like his standard has not been high He has one playoff game And has played terribly Yeah So it's just an F It's almost too easy though You get no applause for me This is too simple

This is too obvious of an observation To be like Oh Jalen Green Bad hot take Is it bro's falling from the ground To the pits Exactly Where is he going This is low hanging fruit

You get no applause Oh man Next great playoff dropper Kauai is the best Playoff riser of all time This is not crazy to say at all I almost feel like this should be the talking point that like, yes, he is, right? Like, I feel like right now people say like Jamal Murray is because his points per game is the biggest gap there.

In terms of actually getting shit done at the highest level with the highest responsibility, I feel like it has to be Kauai. Yeah, especially it's, and the riser part of this conversation is so pitiful because it's just like what he does outside of the playoffs is just so, man, he's never been in consideration for a winning MVP whatsoever. He's not that type of guy. all NBA of course like he's in those he's more for the most part he's always in those conversations until he gets hurt completely like depleted off of that conversation but when it comes to like what he does on a consistent basis in the regular season compared to being superhuman just like iron man whatever it is in the play in the playoffs I I agree with this we're talking about Jimmy Butler here like Kauai's baseline as a player is still very hot

Jimmy Buller is what you'd want Kawhi Leonard's like final form Jimmy Buller's Jimmy. Jimmy Buller's led two teams to the finals. Yeah. With far less help. Kauai had a great team when he won. Jimmy Brother got that shit out of the mud. The teams weren't bad, but nobody expected those team's to be in the finals, and it was almost

entirely because of him. You're right. Maybe it is Jimmy Butler. But can I call you the best if you've never gotten and done before? Yes. It's about the gap in how much you rise, not to which the height you rise. It's the biggest difference. Exactly.

Okay. It's Jimmy Butler. And also there is the whole, you know, in the few series. that Kauai Leonard has is the ability to rise, he has risen. The other ones, I don't know. Everyone just acts like the bubble didn't happen.

Like him and Paul George didn't blow a 3-1 lead. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't great. Let's just act like it didn't happen anyways. No, no, it didn't happen. In a setting where everybody was just going crazy, T.J. World was averaging like 50. Everybody can, everybody can make shots in a real place, bro.

You heard Lou Williams. Like, no one was sick and it seriously. And that's on them. That's on them for being mentally tissue. Exactly. Lock him. Next one. Yokic leads a Nuggets to the championship and won finals MVP,

giving him even more argument for being a top 10 player in NBA history. So I guess the take is, does another championship give him top 10 status already? Another championship, yes. But I'm giving this a D because I just don't, it's just not going to happen. But like, shout out. Also, he's kind of already around that range, like 18, like 20 down to 12.

This is a big difference though. 18 to 10 is a pretty hard jump. You had to pass Kevin Durant, maybe Hakeem Elijah won a bunch of other legend, legend, legends. You might have to put him above Kobe Bryant and certain people's rankings. I mean, if he has another rank, look, four MVPs, well, three MVPs, two rings. Two finals of MVPs, the best offensive peak of all time, potentially. That's hard to keep that out of the top ten. Now listen, we don't think it's going to happen, so we're ignoring that part of this hot take. We all think this is bullshit.

They're not going to win. But if it were, would you be willing to put them to that level? Oh, easily. I think me personally I'll put him to that level It's easy to say that But you really think about it I think about it I think we all have like Kobe

Hakeem KD is like 9 through 11 Or we're missing some of the people They might put above KD But Kobe and Hakeem are probably 9 and 10 I think I had KD at like 15 Yeah you fucking hate KD I had him worse than that I think Oh I had him like 13 but regardless

Would you put him above Hakeem Elijah on and Kobe Bryant Man With another ring again That's tough right It's tough You I guess if the take is giving him more of an argument

Well, yeah, of course it's more. Yes, that's cool. However, I don't want to think about this right now, so I'm giving it. Exactly. This hypothetical makes me sad. Next one. OKC sweeps the entire playoffs

and becomes the greatest team of all time. Not lose a game? That's hard, but, oh, man. I'm giving it an A. That's a decent thing. The greatest team of all time. I'm giving it an A. They look so dominant.

and they look they look so good and i don't like there's a possibility that they sweep memphis and then they get like another week and a half off and then you go and whoever whoever comes out out of the four or five out of uh clippers nuggets is is just going to be beaten up okay c's just going to be out there playing video games for 10 days just chilling and then and then you play the other side of the bracket and it's it's going to be it should be light work the hard part is the finals it's you can't sweep the celtics there's the way they play the three point shooting variance, they're going to have some highs. You can't sweep the Celtics.

I mean, it might be the Pacers, according to some other people. Ah, shit. Well, listen, you might be able to sweep the Cavs. I don't know. Probably not. But listen, can they win every series in five? I think that's very realistic. This is very admirable.

I like it. Listen, for a hot take, I don't think that's crazy. It's not crazy, but sweep. I think he... I'm giving it in the day. He didn't consider the rest of it. He didn't consider the Celtics. Hey, the Pacians are up 31 to 16 on the bucks right now.

What if he did? she's word okay yeah and we'll see y'all later we're gonna tap into this what is happening but if they did yes they'd be the greatest team of all time if you win 68 games have the MVP then you sweep the playoffs yes no one can say anything about that yeah you're just fucking teflon listen it's only been six minutes and it's

it's a hard standard Kyle kuzma is currently all pays for another zero zero zero through six minutes he's not on the floor right now oh shit look as far as a hot take goes this is obviously too hot but it's not insane. Not bad at all. Damn Kyle Klo. Next up.

Yo, what if he does it again? Next up. Kyle Kuzum should come off the bench for the rest of the playoffs. Listen, he had zero. He had the trillion stat line last game.

I'm, actually no. I'm giving this an F because like who else are you going to put in that spot? Someone who does something. Fucking Kevin Porter Jr. Wingstopper.

Go out there and go play some. Listen, if he gets a second zero zero zero, give it an A. Like, I'd rather. play if he's not going to hit any three point shots and not space the floor or get me any rebounds especially i'm playing roger jackson jr okay i really think that if he does it again right

again listen we are on we are on zero zero zero watch if he does it again the buck should be able to amnesty his they they should be they should be able to just cut him it doesn't go against the cap and everyone says like hey i'm sorry we did this like it just doesn't count because this is just unheard of oh man man man healthy Kauai is the best player in any series he is a part of due to sheer consistency. So for this playoff run, any series you can imagine, do you think he'll be the best player that you'd want, assuming he's healthy? It's hard for me to have that conversation when Yokic is this.

But, yo, him and O KC, him and, him and Chase. You know, I'm going to give this a, I do think, obviously, obviously the defensive prime of Kauai, like we're not at, we're not there anymore. We've got to calm down a little bit, I think. Kauai is like this. We got to calm down a little bit. The last couple times that we've seen Kauai be healthy,

it's been kind of special. We have to calm down a little bit, I think. It's been kind of special. We must calm down a lot of bit, I think. I'm not going to calm down. I'm actually going to get louder. I'm giving this an A. I'm rocking with this.

Shout out to Kevin Gluckie for tipping $10. Appreciate you. Shout out to James for tipping $3. Appreciate you. But yeah, man, most series, Kauai can be better than most players. Yogesh, I'm picking over him. This version of Shea probably picking over him,

but I guess that could be a conversation. That's close. That's tough. If he continues to play in the game two, for sure. Exactly. It's a big if he's one of the fucking best games for his career. We'll see if he continues to be on that pace. If you tell me he's like a top five player in the playoffs right now, that's not ridiculous.

Like the fifth best player in the league is Jason Tatum. Fourth best player is probably Luca. If you tell me he has a better player than Luca don'tches, that is not surprised me even a little bit. I agree. Katie Cunningham is the best player in the Knicks Piston series. All right, listen, I'm so sick of this. I mean, it is what it is.

I'm so sick of this. There was some of this bubbling before the series started and it's happening right now. Yeah. The last two years, Brunton is averaging like 40 minutes a game. He's averaging 30 points a game. He's an elite shopmaker. What are we doing? He just got here, man.

He just got to the party. And I'm not allowing this through two games to say that he's the best. player in this series but he's not tougher than kate what do you mean not his ankles been jacked up and he's still getting bucky just kidding they've been fouled him every single time up the floor jenn's shoulder has been oh my good been body blocking him like a lineback and being defensive slides I'm sick of it but does but does he have aura and hype moments the way kinket kutton did you see the way kate kent put the ball behind his back and shoved I don't know who that was Josh hard out the way

he just hit that one very unathletic tomahawk but is he dangerous is he dangerous is he a problem Brunton is a problem is he a predicaments in the same way that he is he the paradox absolutely not y'all don't understand y'all don't get it nobody

we've talked about Do I have to spell it out Kate is a lot prettier than Brunson I'm going towards Cade how many times I got to say it just because my light skin star has a big head does not mean that you can use that again

I just did and his beard's better all right now that's a low blow get fucked that's a low blow you can't be going for his beard

next up Palo Bancaro is and has been on Anthony Edwards level yeah sorry Phil yeah now Anthony Edwards level

was tough because Anthony Edwards is currently playing as one the best players in the world I think we actually need to realize

is like rising to another level that people haven't quite accepted yet exactly like that's a top five player in the world potentially if the playoff run continues but palo is playing really well so aunt was the wrong benchmark but if you want to big up palo and say he's playing at a level better than people expected that's not ridiculous you just chose the wrong marker i agree shout out to palo he's doing exactly what needs to be done in order for the land of majesty at least like get the wheels the wheels going are they going to win absolutely not but he's getting is he getting his buckets

yes that's all you need to do you get too much dip on your chip but you pick up the right chip i'll say that that's a good analogy i like that let's go i like that when the nicks broke up the villanova group they lost their chance at a ring this is an a this is an a i think when you trade this is so sad they had the best vibes going into the office and you had already traded for mikhail before before you traded away dante chas giving this an a It is because the one thing that we've said all year long, and I don't want to harp on it too much because it's going to make me sad. But like we've talked about obviously the defense and like Kat has done his job.

Harp on it. No. He's done his job. He's played as well as you can like reasonably ask him to play. It's just hard to create a solid defense. And so for a team that had a very, very, like, tough defensive-minded identity last year, that hasn't been able to be replicated with Kat and Brunson. and so yeah that was that was tough so i'm giving this a n a i i'm giving this a day because

they they can't in turn with this villain villain nova i'd be shocked being broken up you also lose a lot of your flexibility in asset wise and shit and they're now like locked in handcuffs with mccal bridges and the five six it's not michael's fault though it's not his fault it's not it's fault they just like bit way too hard and invested way too much into them this is an f take they weren't did it there was no championship window no matter who they traded for. It was always fake. Cut the stream.

Shit doesn't matter. They weren't going to win regardless. You know what I was. Julius Randall, Cat, don't give a fuck. It was Celtics and five either way. You know what? Nish out of about to say I disagree for other reasons, but I like where you're headed towards.

Yeah, they weren't being the Celtics. Either fucking way. Jada McDaniels is the third best player between the Lakers and the Timberwolves. So Aunt Luca, Jada McDaniels. Are you stupid? It's a hot take. giving this an F.

Obviously, the conference. So who is Austin Rees to you, man? That's my biggest question. Don't even get there. It's LeBron, LeBron, Luca, and that's the top three in the series. Shut up. Awesome Rees versus Jada McDaniels. I don't know.

All right, that's cool. If we're talking about the top of the left, that's okay, we have a conversation. Oh, yeah, this is obviously a bad take. But listen, it's bold. Shout out you. If you would have said fourth, then maybe we could have had a conversation because would have been Reeves versus Jay McDaniels, but LeBron could be 50.

I don't think anybody's picking LeBron over, I mean, Jamie Daniels over LeBron. And that's the last one we got today. That's all the hot takes we had. I don't know. Wasn't terrible. A mixed bag here, you know, the title of the video that when we clip this out

was going to say best and worse hot takes, I think we had a good mix. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think chat was actually clicking in some of them. And this might be the best dose of hot takes that you've gone from these guys. Probably.

Yeah. A lot of times, a lot of times these hot takes. A lot of times these hot takes make me question, you know, some people's intelligence. That did. Oh, it still did. It still did. That won Mazz one for sure.

But it didn't happen as much. And that's progress. There we go. And that's the end of the stream, chat. We appreciate you all. We got to move on. We got to go watch the rest of this patience box game. Catch them before we missed.

We got to watch the O'KC Thunder beat down the grizzlies hopefully in game two. Thank you, Horsi Yolkich. Thank you, Horsi Yolkish for two more dollars. Wait, wait, real quick. Nope, any of the stream. I'm just kidding. Go ahead. Kyle Kuzma still has zero.

If you're watching We'll see you all later Keep up with the Calcutus style We're on zero watch We're on zero watch Calcus will watch Fuck