The Deep 3 Podcast - The Lakers And Rockets Are Failing, Lillard Is Injured, & More | TD3 Live

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Breaking down this crazy week of NBA playoff hoops #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

What a week. What a week, what a week, what a week. What a fun week of NBA basketball. What a great week of NBA basketball. What a splendid week of NBA basketball in which all of our teams had a great, great, great week. A lot of success brewing for all of us. I'm sure we're all feeling happy today. Feeling fantastic right now.

Yeah. We're feeling so good. You're feeling vindicated. Vindicated. Vindicated in a lot of ways. What do you feel vindicated about it? Are you part of that way? And I'm also just feeling better than that.

than the entire city of Detroit. I feel so good right now. It's amazing. I love it. Are you really proud of that win? Is that well, is that win like well earned? You realize that's like one of the most atrocious late game calls that you've seen in a minute. And you're happy for that? I'll say this. Game two, Josh Hart gets smacked. Damny elbowed in the back of his head by Jalen Duren on a dunk. They don't call it. The very next play, Dennis shooter goes down and hits a three. And the entire shape of that game is different. So, If you want to call it even, we can call it even. The next is hell.

I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. Because if it was the other way, pissing family would be like, hey, toughen up. That's what you get for foul baiting. You hate to see it done to you.

So I don't care. And I'm happy that they're sad today because it means that I'm happy. It was a great weekend. Oh, my God. Shout to Walking 37 for tipping $3. Bright and early in the stream. He said Mo's head is looking extra kissable today. Appreciate the Mo glaze.

Yeah, man. like we talked about we have a lot of playoff basketball to cover today a lot happened over the weekend a lot of stories broke a lot of developments in all these series that we're going to get to you guys know the ones we got to talk about you guys know the ones that are especially relevant to us sitting up here don very touched on the nick series i don't want to talk about but before we get to all the playoff basketball today we have to we have to begin on a not so great note on a quite tragic note actually damien lillard has torn his achilles tendon Damn.

Several days after coming back from a pretty miraculous recovery from a blood clot in which he returned in about a month from blood clot that he had in his thigh, I mean in his calf, it seemed like it was going well. You know, we're on top of the world thinking, wow, this recovery is amazing, good for him. We'll see if they can make something happen. We didn't really expect the Bucks to be able to win the series with or without him, thought they're, you know, overmatched talent-wise. But almost all of that having to do with the Bucks season is completely fucking irrelevant.

This is just devastating for Damien Lowe, the player, a 35-year-old point guard. who was already a small guy and we've seen him what he looks like dealing with injuries and he's not 100% there's been some issues the most devastating injury

you could possibly imagine for a guy at this point of his career or any point of a career really. Yeah. Man, as soon as he felt that pop in his Achilles tendon and just like sat down and it was just literally him alone,

arms cross, waiting for the coaching staff to come get him and Kyle Kuzma, I guess, as well, was so depressing. And it felt like he knew that it was just like, completely over. And that just gave me like little to no hope that this injury that this injury was

going to be or wasn't what it was. I was terrified. Yeah, it looked really bad right away. And then as soon as the game ended, before it even ended, we got a report from Chris Haynes that, you know, Chris Haynes is famously very plugged in with Damon Lillard. They have a clear relationship through the media. Before the game was even over, they were like, yo, they're fearing for the worst. But an hour after the game is over, the worst was confirmed. Don, what's your first thought here? I mean, it's just awful. you obviously you never want to see anybody get hurt especially with an injury like this it sucks because of all this stuff that you said because he was fighting back to get back onto the floor and whenever it got announced that he was coming back just on the blood clot we're like hey like shout

to you for doing that it also sounds crazy because every all the doctors are like I've never seen this before in my life this is just unprecedented I've never seen anybody be able to you know overcome the blood clot like that and so to have that to have the basketball basketball element of it where the Pacers are just better than you guys. So you're out here fighting for your life and then you're also just losing. And then this whole, the whole Milwaukee experiment, like Damon, Milwaukee experiment, it's over, it's been a disappointment and it's been bad. And so a lot of the conversation coming out of it has now turned very much into the future

where it's like, okay, well, what does this mean for the Buck's future? What does it mean for Yonis's future? that all happens and it sucks because this this injury just spearheads a lot of it and it's the jump it off point for what is very clearly the next era for bucks for the buck's future and for dames future the only good thing is that he's still he's in the middle of his contract and it's not it's not like a kari irving situation where he's going into a contract year and then gets hurt he still has a couple years on his contract so the money's on the money's on the way that's a great news for louis

Like, like, that's the, that's the only silver lining because everything else is just really, really devastating. Yeah, listen, 2027, he's making $62 million. Either way, it fucking goes. He's going to be 38 years old making money. And I've seen people call it on Twitter, like, what do you do if in this scenario of Damien Liller? You know, you're already, you're at an age of inflection for a player of your size and your age that, like, you were already assuming this timeline for the books had a couple years left because the Damien Lillard father time bout was coming up, right? This just accelerates it. like you obviously you can view this positively and say that there is a world in which he has

miraculous recovery all like Kevin Durant it's not impossible in modern medicine nine times out of ten this probably means it's the last we've seen of prime damien lillard in any form so yeah you mentioned the buck's future like that's i don't even know where you even begin to discuss the situation they're in they are so beyond fucked it is like it's we know we talked earlier in the season about how it's almost miraculous that we see a trio of teens be so fucked this year in the Mavs, the 76ers, and the Sons. It's like a great trifecta of screwy on top. Welcome number four, the four horsemen of the fucked apocalypse.

The bucks are now in the same exact range. We don't know what's going to happen with Yonis' feature in terms of him being able to request a trade or not, if that's going to be his M.O. Look around. If you don't have Dame, your second best player is Kyle Kuzma. Your third best player is 38-year-old Brooke Lopez. Yikes. No vehicles to get better.

No future draft assets. So if they do trade him, they're going to have to hope they get a good haul of young players back because they can't rebuild on their own right. They are firmly screwed in a way that the suns might be the better outcome of your team's future than the currently is looking for the bucks. Yeah, I believe the Milwaukee books have control of their, they don't have any control of any picks until the year 2031. God, 31, 32 years old around that time. Damn. My hair is already gone.

My eyebrows might be gone too by that time, bro. It's looking really spooky for them. And then on top of that as well, you mentioned they have no real asset of talented young play. players whatsoever, but there's outside of Kyle Kuzman, maybe you look at someone like Bobby Portis. Oh my God, could we get like a first round pick for him too? I don't know. It's looking really bleak. And I can't get nothing but sad for the fact that, okay, like, cool, like, the Milwaukee Bucks are screwed, but there's a player within himself and Damien Lord who's, he probably had another year to maybe three years left of like playing at an elite level.

And that's just like squandered away. Yeah. Because of this injury. And I know we like to make this joke about Damuilar, he's accomplished nothing, be grown, that's it. But genuinely, he's going to be remembered as one of the most, he's one of the most like high octane point guards at his position who just was cursed of being in the most talented point guard era ever. Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly my takeaway. Like, we'll have plenty of time between now and free agency time in which we might expect the honest trade request, might expect maybe they proactively to say we got to trade. And whatever the outcome is team wise, that is not.

going to be good either way. Well, playing time to talk about that. Damien Lillard is going to be hopefully very appreciated. I fear might be underappreciated because of the things you mentioned. Bro, in 2023, he averaged like 32 points for game on 62% true shooting. He's one of the best guard scores of all time. And I'm not like, I've never identified Damien Lurd as like one of my favorite players. I've never been like, oh, my name's Stan. But even me who has like a neutral attachment to him as a player in his like overarching standing in the league, you can't had to do anything other than respect, Damien Lurd. He's such, like, a positive, likable player and just, like, story-wise, the impact he's

had on the game and just, like, presence on these teams that you mentioned didn't have a chance of winning, but he went out there and just, like... Listen on fire, bro. He is, like, every small market team's dream. Like... The bubble? Dude, the moment you remember with him in the bubble, like, it just feels so crazy that, like, in an instant, that might just be gone forever.

It's... It's been... I actually think that Dame is probably... I actually think he's going to age pretty well. I think so. Part of it is because of what has recently happened with James Hardin. And you've seen a lot of people recently being like, you know, James Hardin was actually like X, Y, and Z where in the moment,

James probably wasn't appreciated or people didn't look at him in a certain light. And now after the Clippers year and even a lot of the younger fans, they look at James Hardin in a certain way. And when you talk about, like when you talk about shooting and the best shooters of all time, step gets the nod not only because of his crazy percentage but because the thing that separates him is he's doing it off the dribble where a lot of the greatest shooters of all time are catch and shoot guys right you're running off the screens that type of stuff dame is also in that category of i can do this off the dribble in a way that it's really in the top top tier off the dribble it's really just step and dang yeah it's like step you know the tier of his own but even the the the long-range thing. In that sense, it is just stuff and day. And so when you start looking back and you start going over everything, there's going to be a contingent of people that are like, yo, this guy who's shooting from 35 feet, he's pulling up from the logo just like that. He was

averaging 30 points for game. He was just in a bad situation. We have this in every era where people have their guys that were great scores, didn't have a lot of playoff success, but people still loved him because of the way that they played, Dame is probably going to fall into that category and the fact that he stayed on one team. And that's probably something that's going to be very antiquated as we move forward. And nobody's really doing that. He stayed for, he stayed with the Blazers for a long time. I do think that history is going to remember Dame as like, I know, I'm saying it like he died. It's weird. But like this is the worst month of his life. I'm just like, yeah. It's sad. Yeah. It's important.

But they'll remember him fondly. Chad, what's your guys' favorite Damon Lillard moment? And we were talking about all this misery like, oh, fuck, this prime might be over. What do you guys don't remember? When you think about Damian Lillard and you think about the years in which he was dominating the league as a top three point guard in the league, what comes to your brain as like the day moment? Bro, I got one.

Immediately, my favorite moment of all time from Damien Lillard doesn't even have to, has to do with him and what he did on the court. But it's the reaction that he brewed out of, I think it is Austin Rivers. He was praying that came in a little, finally missed a shot. That is my favorite moment. I think it was like 20, 20, 30. Everybody's saying, that's a bad shot, him sending OKC home. Yeah, iconic.

The fact that he has that and the one from early in his career against the Rockets and all the ridiculous bubble shit, like, he really does have a lot of iconic moments for a player that never got it done in the Ohio stage, whatever verb you want to use to signify doesn't have a championship. He really does have one of the more iconic 2010s of any Don winner, however you want to phrase it. And it's stamped on a J-Cole mixtape as well. well so it's listen that all that all that stuff moving forward that's that's great that's great

legacy work right yeah so it sucks so it just it's just gross it feels terrible for damon lillard yeah for the bucks like what they're not going to win the series spoiler alert we didn't think they're going to win the series whenever we got the news that dam is coming back damn sure don't think they're going to win it without him they just look like they don't stand a chance talent wise like we said where do you want it where what does your mind go from here like what what does the summer look like like maybe yon's request a trade and obviously that will cause a cascading effect that I think we all think it's probably likely. Let's say he doesn't.

What the fuck do you do if you're the GM of the books? It's April 29th, Tuesday. The Milwaukee books are facing off against the Pacers and they're starting Kevin Porter Jr. Derry Bird, AJ Green. Then there's Gary Trent Jr., Janice, and Brooke Lopez. Yeah. This roster is fucking ass.

Yeah, it's not great. It's not great. It's not what you want to see to feel any type of security beyond, like, I wasn't to say you don't have any security in your future. You don't even have security in your present. Like, they're not even good now. It's, they don't even have a mix of good veterans. Like, none of us liked the Kuzma for Chris Middleton trade when it happened. We were all like, I mean, I get it. You don't, you might not get anything out of Chris Middleton. That's, that sucks, right? Maybe the reality is he can't give you anything at

this stage of his career. I would rather deal with these maybe side effects of rolling that dice again and hoping we can get good Chris Milton for a playoff run than the just non-existent fucking ceiling of Kyle Kuzma being your go-to-third option. That never made sense to us. Bucks fans came up here and yelled at us saying it made sense. We need to get athletic, make it so Yannis can play center, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was always bullshit. It always did not make sense in terms of Kuzma being the pivot guy. How do you feel now? Your one move you had was getting off of your franchise legend, Chris Middleton, best Yonis teammate of all time, and you're left with this. You could name all the players

on the Bucks roster and how good you feel about them for the future. Kuzman's going to be like seventh on that goddamn list. I don't care. If I'm the Bux GM, I don't care what Yannis says. You're getting traded. Wow. Like in terms of me keeping my job or me being somewhere happy, there's two ways out of this.

You either trade Janus or you go and you sign Thanassus again and you go and you sign Kosis and you sign all his brothers to make sure that even if we suck on the basketball floor, he can be cool in like in the facility. the every single day because for all the reason that you guys said they have no way out and it's the same the suns are in the same predicament where you the only way out is by tearing it down to the ground and trading all of your players and the only asset that you have is yannis you may like like brook is super old and isn't going to give you a great hall kuzma if he played well maybe

you could have flipped him but if you played well then you would have wanted to to keep him So it really is just Janice at this point. You have to make sure that you don't go ahead and you don't pull Aniko Harrison and you don't just offer him to one team. You tell the entire league. I don't think you can do that. Whether or not you make it public or not,

you need to call everybody in the league. You need to call everybody in Fiba in other leagues and say Yonis is available for trade. I need to know everything that you are able to offer me because if and when he decides, Besides to ask for the trade, you need to be ready. I'm on the complete opposite end of you, simple because they don't own control of their own picks until 2031.

If you completely tank and nuke your team and if you try to be somewhat like fake, mediocre for the next six years or whatever, that's not productive whatsoever. What is productive in my mind is staying home, having Janus there and trying your best to get it out to be a 40, 42, 3, 1 team or whatever. And just be studied in history because if you go ahead and trade away Janus, you're doing nothing but benefiting and you're committing to a rebuild, you're doing nothing but benefiting

teams like the New Orleans, Pelicans, I believe, who have their pick and also the Portland Trailblazers as well. Like you gain nothing from that other than like, yo, at least we're off a yonis and we have, I don't know, some random young player with somewhat potential like Anthony Simons or whatever they can't be.

It's a difficult situation. You can't just tear it down and do that kind of rebuild, but it's also a sunk to some degree. Oh, well, one, the one thing hanging over all this. honest is probably some request of trade, right? We know he talks a lot about how loyal he is and how much that means to him, clearly. I've never seen the situation that will test the motherfucker's loyalty quite like this fucking $2025 roster.

I don't think he's inhuman. I don't think he has robotic levels of loyalty. I think he will succumb to the elements that every single star around the league ever, besides Dirk and Steph and Kobe fucking Bryant have succumb to when they see there is an inability to win around you entirely and they know they're an MVP level player. They know the way they'll be talked about to go on in the first round of you. Kobe's so fake. Kobe won a national TV

and ask for a trade. Yeah, yeah. Not even Kobe. The same elements that apply to everybody will apply to him. He will look in the mirror and he will have some decisions to make.

I think he probably will come to to do the conclusion that it does not make sense to stay here. Even if he doesn't, you can keep him like you said. There's no easy out like there was for, say, the Hawks

if they want to get rid of tray and they can say the spurs, you have our pick, you need a point guard. It's a direct swap. Everybody wins, right? they don't have that easy out. I don't think the trouble

I just want Janus. Or maybe they will. Who knows? That's, I guess it's not impossible. But it doesn't make like automatic sense in your head. That's a clear swap, get our future back. But man, if you can get him for a core of a trade package with some young players, you might be better off.

I don't know. Like, there's the politics of it. You don't want to get rid of your franchise legend. You might be better off getting a trade package that involves a Reed Shepard and a cam Whitmore and whatever else it gets from that. Maybe it's a man Thompson. It's fucking Yonness. So it's not impossible.

you might be better off getting your young core via Yonis trade and doing the best you goddamn can to rebuild and gain picks otherwise and do a like 2010's Brooklyn Nett style rebuild. So the team that we'd be looking at is the New Orleans Pelicans because they own the swap. They own the swap between 2025, 226, and 2027. I welcome to the Milwaukee Bucks, I guess. Whatever it happens, it's, they're not a good situation whatsoever.

Like, it's a lose-lose it seems like barring a just like ridiculous amount of luck and they somehow find a way to turn it around, which is an impossible, I guess. But, man, overall, you feel terrible for Dame, terrible for Bucks fans. I guess bad for Yonis, too, because he clearly wants to stay, but it's going to be very hard for him to maintain that.

I wish there's a positive spin for anybody, but there's not. I mean, shout to the Indian and the Paces. You guys, once again, are winning a playoff series. Good for you guys. It have been a while since they have been to the second round, and now they're going to be in the second round for back-to-back seasons.

Good for them. That concludes our Bucs. talk. Chad, I see you guys saying the books are currently up 13 to 3. I do not care. If you think they're coming back from down 3-1, if that happens, give Yannis a top 10 player of all time stamp. You know, you got a win-nex series. Stamp it already. Chad, what's the playoff series you guys want to see us talk about next? Our recent donations, you guys let us know where you want to see us go now. Now that we got that out the way. Shout out to Mohair, Moe Problem for tipping $3. Appreciate you, man. Shout out to Joaquin 37 for

tipping $2. We appreciate you. Shout to Elena for tipping $5. We appreciate you. LeBron tried, Luca cried, the Lakers are fried, wolves in five, baby. Shout out to Moe Spate for $5, we appreciate you. Shout out to I have avocado for $15. Appreciate you. Car insurance, refurbished, malnourished, Lakers, not in five. Shout out to Elena for $10 to the craniums crazy. Shout to Kevin Galicki for $10.

And that's everybody. We appreciate you guys, man. Yeah, what playoff series should we talk about? me personally I kind of want to do the obvious I want to talk about what I almost said one of the best playoffs series but they're almost all bankers

let's talk about the goddamn Lakers let's talk about the Lakers and why you're in so much pain what you want to talk about I mean what's there to say multiple chains are getting snatched right now VBS is getting snatched

Multiple chains are getting snatched right now Nico Harrison is like guys listen I kind of told you guys They called them a madman. I was kind of cooking. You guys didn't give me time for the plan to play out. And now here we are on Tuesday. And the Los Angeles Lakers are down 3-1 on the brink of elimination to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

They are. They are. So this is a series that we all picked the Lakers in a variety of fashions. I picked them in six or seven. Moe was around the same. Donovan's Lakers in five. We all felt that the Lakers who win this team, this game. because of what we saw in the second half of the season

in which they had a good small ball defense had a good job of neutralizing interior defenders and they had the star ball handlers with Luke Adonches, LeBron James, and Austin Reeves, and we thought that would give them the late game execution bump that when we go into fourth quarters and the games are tied, you trust these guys to get it done over

the young-ish lack of elite passing perimeter players of Timberwolves, right? That's a good synopsis of why we did that. Absolutely none of that is fucking true right now. Not a single element of that came to fruition. And You know, there's a lot of talk about this. There's been the victory laughing of Nico Harrison Truthers, people saying that,

you know, halfway joking, halfway slandering, Luca Donchich for not defending well, for not performing in the fourth quarters famously. People are slandering Austin Reeves, slandering JJ Reddick, everybody that they can point to and say, ha, ha, you're the reason they're losing. There's a healthy amount of that to go around. I think, though, the reality of the situation is pretty much everything you can point to for why the Lakers' offense and defense is not performing to the level it did in the second half of the season, which we were all encouraged enough to predict them to win this series,

Jackson Hayes went from giving them 22 minutes a game of very good center defense and decent enough pick and roll play to being fucking unplayable and being the most low IQ big man I've ever seen for the three and a half minutes he can play before JJ Reddick snatches his ass out the game and puts him on the bench. That is the difference. We thought, no, they had a great defense for the whole stretch since Luther, right? They could do that because their small ball defense was swarming and it was great. It was swarming and great 25 minutes a game with 20 minutes of Jackson Hayes. You can't do smallball for 48 minutes a game or 45 when you play Jackson Hayes three minutes and bench them. The question we had before the series start for that

episode was how far can small ball take you? It can take you pretty fucking far when it's half the game. Not the entire thing. It going to 45 minutes a game is ridiculous. There's no way to have a good interior defense. Offensively, we know the power of a pick and roll attack with Luca Donchich. He needs a big man for 20 minutes at least. You make him attack an ISO for 48 minutes, it's not going to go well. Rees looks worse. Luca looks worse. Everybody looks worse offensively when you have no big men.

You're going straight five out, straight ISO for 48 minutes. And defensively, again, a complimentary pick a complimentary pick and roll defense, I mean a small ball defense works. Not when it's the only play you have. Every game they've had this series has been close, right? Besides game two, a game one when they got blown out because they get to the fourth quarter and they keep it close and then they're just fucking gassed because everybody on the court has to defend with all the energy in their hearts because there's no rim protector. And what do you

know? Fourth quarter, they collapse every game. What we thought would be a strength of them to perform in the fourth quarter has been an absolute negative because the lack of room protection has made it so everybody has to exert all their energy for 40 minutes. So the last eight minutes, they have nothing left to give you. It all boils down to the fact that they went from having a decent, decent starting center to literally none. You just cannot win in that way. The whole basis of why we decided to believe this was possible is because Jackson Hayes gave us just enough. Like, going from Jackson Hayes being mediocre and, like, that's fine, is a huge difference to there's literally no playable bigs. This is amazing.

And I will say, I overthought that it's funny how we've gotten to this point because the Lakers right now are really living up to the expectation that we thought whenever they traded for Luca. Exactly. Right in the brief window in which they traded for Luca and before they traded for Mark Williams. everybody basically was like oh this is amazing not because it's going to make the lakers win a chip this year but because now they have luca for the next 10 years and you can take this summer and you can build around him but they're not going to win a title this year and then obviously you got the second half of the season but they are like they aren't necessarily disappointing anybody because basically everybody said that everybody everybody said like oh this team isn't going to do anything they're not going to have the defense

I don't even feel bad about this because they just showed us that they are who we initially thought they were. We just let ourselves get fucking fooled by fake 20 games of Jackson Hayes being playable. Like you said, the Mark Williams trade happens

and we say, wow, this is a complete team. Like this is going to do some damage. Then the Mark Williams trade gets rescinded and we're like, well, shit, they're incomplete. I mean, they can still make a conference finals, I guess, but we don't think they can win a title.

They don't have any bigs. And then Jackson Hayes comes out and plays weirdly good for Jackson Hayes, who has never been very good at basketball since high school I'm sure he comes out and performs better than any of us could have imagined and I you know on top of the world getting Luca

I'm like okay I'll choose to believe this why not Luca makes Bigs better apparently it worked for Jackson Hayes it is enough clearly they're defending at a very high level the offense is good enough we're seeing it come in fruition surprisingly so and turns out that was a facade and I guess you can debate you know obviously

the biggest culprit is the fact there's no center play available and Anthony Edwards can eat at the rim like I said you can't can have three quarters of the small ball working by the time he gets the fourth quarter, everybody's gas and so forth. I guess the only debate to me is do you blame JJ Reddick for not playing Jackson Hayesmore and not giving him more of a leash? Because it's a tough debate because clearly the outcome of not playing him at all is you're just too small and you literally don't stand

a chance. You'll lose fourth quarters every time. But also in those three minutes, he plays every game. He fouls twice because he's getting bitched on the boards by Rudy Gobert and he just looks unplayable. So it's a tough situation for JJ Redick. The outcome says it's not working. But do you blame him in practicality? No. They had to go and sign Alex Lenn. Yeah. After after the deal was made because they didn't have any viable centers. And Alex Lent hasn't played in like in a while. Like their rotation is so low. And I thought that they, I thought that their answers, like I picked the Lakers to win the series because I thought that their answers were just going to be enough. Right. I thought that Luca and LeBron and them being the two best players in the series is going to be

enough. Guess what? They're not the two best players in the series. Anthony Edwards is the best player in this series right now, and he has been absolutely dominant. And so there's that aspect of it. And also for the Lakers, like, you know, I think the only thing I can kind of blame JJ, at least in game four is like the whole second half?

That was insane. The whole second half, you're telling me that you can't get one minute before a TV timeout or you know figure out a way to get some type of rest a whole second half when lebron is 40 years old and not a singular summer nobody talks more about how about how old lebron is than lebron and jj redd they are the they are the two main guys who know how hard it is to play at a high level and how intense all all of this stuff is and they were not mindful of the fact that this guy is 40 years old playing playing the second half so i do think that that was a bit od I mean, he knew this is, this pretty much was a must win for the Lakers if things panned

out, which they did, which they did anyways, like the series is pretty much over in regards is over. I think me personally, it was a bold statement and he's showing this is a loud ass way to showcase it, of course, but he's showing like, you know, you legitimately only have five guys who you can trust on on this basketball. You don't, though. So we've been very, that he trusts. Yeah, maybe not the NBA in general.

That's the problem. J.J. only trust. That's his thing. We've been very quick. to pray JJ Reddick for all the good things he's done this season because he's had a great rookie season for a rookie head coach in a tough situation, right? He's adapted on the fly.

Overall, we're very, very promising. We think he's going to be a pretty damn great coach in this league for a long time. I have no problem saying he's on the path of being a top 10 coach. He does not have a good series. Rookie pains are real for coaches, just like they are for players. And he is having some rookie growing pains. Playing all five players in the second half is some bullshit. We've never seen that before.

In the first round, it's crazy. If it's like game seven of the finals, maybe, but... No, it's some bullshit. The whole starting five, that's some pure bullshit. When you have Luca Donchich, who is an on-ball heli-centric playmaker, obviously he has the rest at some point. If fucking conditioning is not the name of his game, the upkeep of his body is not the defining trade of him.

He is not Jason Tatum. He's not Anthony Edwards. LeBron is 40. Austin Reeds is fighting for his last. life defense because there's no room protector. Same for those forwards. This specific group of five players absolutely needs rest because of how they're being deployed. I get the logic of like wanted to be something different and being daring enough in a must win game. It's some bullshit. It's not smart. Like it's teetering on smart, but it's obviously going too far. And that's obviously

something I can guarantee he'll never do again because he learned from this moment. Because you see that in the same game, Chris Finch benches Austin, uh, Nas Reid, one of their five best players for the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter. Risky move, right? Comes in energized, blows the game open, hits eight points in the span of like a minute and a half and wins them in the game in that fourth quarter. That's a difference in the season coach that understands that thing versus a rookie coach who is being bold and being brave, but it is far, far too much dip on a ship. That's what I do on 2K. You know, like you just, you really do. Yeah. Yeah, that's how, that's how you operate. And the Lakers had a lead. And it's not like you were playing from behind

the whole second half. You have. You had. leads and so even if you say even if you deep down in your core don't trust your bench there just has to be moments where you think like if we can get away with a minute here right and we can go into the fourth you know up seven rather than up 10 or something like that and obviously like every every possession matters every point matters all that stuff but fighting back is a much different and more acceptable scenario in which you would you would you would you you know, play all five guys. If you're up kind of double digits and you're, you're kind of rolling, you should be able

to sustain for 30 seconds, take a timeout, and then, you know, by the time the time out comes back, it's going to be five minutes. They'll be okay. Yeah. And there's also a big talking point is the offense hasn't been great in practice. It's such a difficult balance to figure out how much to spam a simple Luca Dantzic pick and role when he's one of the best NBA players of all time by creating an advantage because he's going to get doubled up.

time. Like in this last game, it fizzled out in the fourth quarter because the reasons I said earlier with no big. They're all incredibly tired and he didn't bench them. And people are like, run more plays, JJ. You can't just let them ISO every game. That is, that's not smart coaching, right? It's a little more complicated than that, I think. It was working really well in the third quarter because they were trapping really harshly on Luca and they just kept generating corner three after corner three. It works until it doesn't because you're super tired. So I think like everything you want to point to you as a weakness for this team, Lucas defense not being good enough

Reeves defense not being good enough whatever else things I've mentioned it all just comes back to the fact they're too tired because they don't have

a big and they have to work way too hard making up for everything defensively it's so frustrating because

if they had a Mark Williams they would have a shout out Timberwell is not going to take away and say they'd beat you guys but it would be

a much more competitive series you could very easily see it be flipped or at least be competitive game and game out be a tied series

whatever they're literally one big man away from everything we thought would happen happening that is literally a difference in the series.

It all comes down to going from 20 minutes a good big to absolutely zero. And we really do have to talk about your man's too, right? George's own, Anthony Edwards, and how he's taking the leap. And I saw you tweet about, you know, about taking the leap and doing all that stuff. He's on a different level. Man. He's so good. Dude, now that we're away from this Lakers conversation, he honestly probably should be

the biggest talking point of this series and seeing his level. of ascension, bro. So far this series, he's only had six turnovers across every single game, and he's had 23 assists total. That's insane. Six turnovers is crazy. Luca Dodges has 18 turnovers. Of course, different level of player, different types

of passes, riskier pass, or whatever. Lucas had 18 turnovers and 20 assists. That level of disparity, not to shut on Luca whatsoever. This is more so about Luke Anthony Edwards and his growth in his sense when he comes to how he processes the game.

and makes easy read more than ever. The game doesn't feel force. It doesn't feel like he's spamming every gerbil move in his package or whatever. It feels like everything is really intentional and he's giving the game as time goes by. He's just taking what he can get. Yeah, he's been really smart as a playmaker, right? One of the big keys for him obviously in his development was the Lakers and everybody you play are going to trap you.

They're going to make you pass the ball and beat them as a playmaker. They're going to doubt your ability to pass out of these double teams and, make those difficult corner skip passes that guys like LeBron and Luca do in their sleep they're going to doubt your ability to make the smart play and not try to do that too much and keep the ball moving he's answered every single question he is clearly playing as a top five player right now at this rate

and on top of that I mentioned you know you have to have the discipline to not always try to the corner skip pass to make the easy pass to the role man whenever they double you and let your teammates take over from there those teammates are taking over from there Jamie Daniels playing amazing

Nas Reid amazing Julius Randall answering all everything we wanted to see from playoff Julius Randall, he's answering the call there. They have not only the lead guard who can make the passes and not have trouble with the passing, the ancillary playmakers to take advantage those four and three situations and make you pay as a defense. Shout out to Timberwolves, man. They're a complete, complete team.

Yeah, dude. Like, I was watching, I think, after game one, Jainer McDaniels, he was answering some question from some reporting. He was talking about, yeah, man, like, they don't play Jackson Hayes. I'm the biggest dude out there. and they have no room protector. I'm just going to go to the paint every single time. And continuously, that's what he's been doing.

He's had a little bit of up and down series. But in general, he's played very, very well. And he's taking advantage. All these other guys are taking advantage. And a part of the reason why I said, like, yeah, this series is going to be over before we got to this point. I assume that the series is going to be over in six was the fact that it's going to be tough simply because they have,

the 10 rules are deep. They have so many other options. And they have legitimate, like, eight guys, eight, nine guys that they could play and trust in and make big plays for them on a consistent basis. Yeah, it's like, and in the day, like, it's a complete team

versus an incomplete team with the center equation for the Lakers. The Lakers might have been able to win a playoff series against certain teams with this outlook of not having a Jackson Hays. It had been goddamn hard, but it would have been possible. Not this team.

Not this team. Every team has their strengths and weaknesses with their starters, right? They have their defining traits with their go-to guys. The simple presence of having this much depth, and this much fresh legs for the Lakers

who are the complete and other opposite right now, like it's such an uphill battle to climb and like, I think that the, not just the fact

that the Timberwolves are winning these games, but the nature in which they're winning them with the Lakers being up in a lot of these third quarters, a lot of these start

these fourth quarters and the Timberwell is just clutching up and beating them by out executing them the fourth because they have the energy because that depth.

It just shows you the strength of this team and like, I guess vindicates the cat trade, right? Like the depth is this good because they added Don to Di Vincenzo

and Julius Randle in a two-for-one for cat, like they still would have had good depth with before the cat trade, so it's not like that came out of nowhere, but it certainly helps. And also, Julius Randall is defending his ass off

on these Lucas switches. Cat would not be doing that that well. So there are certain wrinkles that clearly makes them a better team in many ways because of the cat trade. Every move that the wolves have done, and we've had, you know, varying levels of,

I guess, like approval on all of them. All of them come down to the simple basis of we're betting on Anthony Edwards. Yeah. Like you go out and you trade all that you have for Rudy Gobert because you say we have we have aunt and he's going to get us to a level to where offensively he's going to be able to carry. You you then have this have this like very special year where you have Gober and can they kind of figure it out and you trade him away. We're like what the hell are you doing? You just had the most successful season that you've had in 20 years and you broke it up. Why?

We have Anthony Edwards. And so at every turn, It's very, very clear that they believe in him the whole league should because it doesn't, it doesn't make sense how good he is right now. Yeah. Like, it really is great. The three playoffs series that we've, the last three years that we've seen him in, it's been a first round exit against the Nuggets where even though that the Nuggets won in five, all of those games were close. and was being very, very aggressive. And everybody was like, oh, no, he's next. The next year, the whole question, the entire playoffs was like, is this Michael Jordan?

This is crazy. And now we're at the level of words, like, is this a top five player in the league? He ascends every single year. And now we've had this conversation because we know who OKC is and there's been a lot of parody in the West. Who's the second best team in the Western Conference? We've tried to say that it's, you know, a lot of people have tried to say that it's the Clippers. because the way that Kauai was playing, James was playing well,

Zubbatches, his growth and all that stuff. The Timberwolves have a very, very good claim for the second best team in the West right now. Well, before I go that far, I want to see them play a team with a room protector and see what happens. That's fair. But they're definitely in the conversation. To go up 3-1, and again, to make the statement against the team

that has to have two of the smartest players in the game. True. Very true. We're seeing all across the league that having smart players and understanding what to do, that really does make a difference in playoff basketball for an to go up against that and still be, I'm the best guy on the floor right now. That is very, very important and an interesting development. So, Chad, who are you guys?

So Chad, I have a question for you guys because I'm for you two. Let's assume the both teams up three, one are now win their series. Who are we going to pick between Warriors and Timberwolves? because Warriors present similar strengths what the Lakers have shown defensively with the small ball that has worked that the small ball defending has worked

despite like the outcome right like in the second third quarter they've been able to do a good job neutralizing Rudy Gaubert's impact and Julius Fano's impact at times and like give the strengths of weaknesses there the warriors do that defensively too but they have Dray my motherfucking green

anchoring it and not during Finney Smith and Rui so like that's a different level of defense that the Lakers are not bringing right now. That's an entirely different beast and I don't know how to like people are saying wolves in seven organize that conversation. It's so easy to say like the warriors in seven compared to or the wolves in seven compared to the warriors when they're facing like the best defensive team or the second best defensive team in the league and the rocket. So it's I don't I have no idea how to how to digest that conversation so I can lay it out brick by brick. Okay, cool. One of the

funniest things that I immediately thought about was like, wow, right, I get to see another. another playoff series of Rudy Goldbeyer versus Dremont. Nice. Fucking hilarious. I love the Dremont Greens of the world and the Bruttle Bears of the world. It's beautiful. But when it comes to these two teams and looking at their strengths, this is obviously like defense for both of these teams.

And one's tied has Steph Curry versus Antony Edwards. They are so wildly different. And when I think about the number one X factors for each team, for the Warriors, it's at this point in time, it's Jimmy Buller. healthy he can be for this series. And then for the Minnesota Timberwolves, a couple of X factors is, okay, like, Julius Ram, you were elite this last series. And you were, you are one of the, the biggest player going to going up against the Los Angeles Lakers outside of Naz and Rudy

Gobert. How well can he continuously play up against one of the greatest defenders this generation has seen? He's like the biggest X factor for me. So chat right now is at 56% Golden State. So this is extremely, extremely close. So that's a negligible variance there. That's going to be a difficult one to predict. I don't even, I need more time to think about it. I'm going to tell you my preemptive. Also, these heroes aren't over yet.

So I guess we'll give the losing teams of respect, the way until it's over, even though they're both over. And I guess we can use this transition. Let's talk about Golden State versus Houston Rockets. Let's do it. The Houston Rockers, another team that in our preview episode was on my list. My question for them was, which Jalen Green are you going to get every night? Are you going to get 6'5, Donne for Mitchell?

That I always refer to him when he's on fire. or are you going to get Jalen Green. They won one game in the series. Guess how many points Jaylen Green had in that game? 38. Guess how many points he had in every other game they've lost? Less than 10. Who would have fucking thunk it?

The difference literally is every single time is Jalen Green star production or is he who he is 90% of the time. This is the team that the only way we view the Houston Rockets all year is saying, great team, they're so close. They don't have their late game star, right? They don't have the one guy to put them over the top.

Every night that they have that guy production-wise, when Jalen masquerades as a great player, they're not going to lose. So the question was, how many times are you going to get Jalen Green to perform well enough that you win? Not enough, apparently, because it's pretty fucking hard

to come back from down 3-1. That has been the difference. What else have you guys seen, man? I've just seen, I've seen Jemong Green show everybody why he's allowed to run around like a lunatic. Because, like, he runs around the court, like he's pot,

and it's because at the end of the game, He's like, listen, one-on-one, you're not going to score him. And I'm going to be able to do whatever I want. Oh, can we say something? I mean, Adoka's a great coach. The decision to make your star player ISO on Draymond Green with the game on the line, knowing they're not going to call a foul on him because they're not going to let the the reps aren't going to want to decide the game.

And knowing Jermon knows that. And knowing Sengun does not have a physical advantage of a Dremont is an insane decision. Dremont was always going to foul the shit out of him and make sure he doesn't score. It went exactly as you would have thought. That was a crazy decision. And for Sanguon, this has also been brewing since the April game, right? Like all of the games between these two teams this year have been very, very chippy. But the one in April where him, with Jemont and Schengu, you know, have a little face-to-face or whatever, right?

You know, a little competitive. But, like, you have that. And then all the stuff at the beginning of the series and all the, all the physicality. because this series, along with Nick's Pistons, they're not even basketball, it's football. Like, these are, these are some of the most physical series I've seen in a while. And I think for, I don't know, for Houston,

I mean, what do you want me to say? At least for me, I've been saying it. That, like, you just, they can't score in the half court. And that was my question for them was, how far are you going to be able to go? Because you guys can't score when it gets under five minutes. And you have all this.

This game right here, you had the best Fred Van Bleak game that you've had in a long time. And you can't capitalize on that because Golden State is still able to defend at a high level. They're still able to out-execute you down the stretch of games. And so going back to Houston, I don't know, I don't know where the Rockets go. And if I was a Rockets fan, I would be so ashamed that they lost game three without, Jimmy Builder. That, game three, game three is the one where when you look back at this series, you just can be like, damn, like, how do we not get that?

Because it, even though that the Warriors are scored, all of these games are like under 90 points. Nobody's really scored. So how do you let an only Steph Curry-led team beat you in game three? Again, they just are who we thought they were. Like, I picked Warriors in seven. You picked Warriors in like five or six. We were all like, it'll be tough because the Rockets are good. we got to respect them, but even if you don't feel great about it, like I didn't,

you're going to, with all else being even, if you feel like it's a toss-up, you're going to go towards the Warriors because we know the sheer difference of late-game execution and star power offensively, that has to be the tiebreaker. Turns out it has been. Every game has been close. Every game has literally come down to the late-game execution. Every single one has come down to that. They're showing you they are who you thought they are, and the Rockets win percentage is

completely tied to the ability for Jalen Green to have a Magnibol. game and make a lot of three-point shots. That is their only ceiling for victory against a team that's good defensively. Live by Jalen Green, die by Jalen Green. And for that reason, he has to go. I can't, I can't. I can't.

Warriors fans are Rockets fans have completely turned on his ass. You're absolutely right. Finally, they have, finally they've broken free of their collective psychosis as a fan base. I have never seen an enigma quite like the enigma of Jalen Green on Rocket's Twitter. The way that these fan base, this fan base, or half of them,

because it's like a civil war over there between the Sangoon Truthers and the Jalen Green Truthers half of them are just like so bought into his aura and it's like insane because they've allowed themselves to be convinced that he's like

good at stuff because his aura and it's never been the case and they've just completely turned off every element of what they know about basketball and chosen to believe in the fairy tale

that he is going to be a top 15 player in a league or something one day and it's crazy that this is what it took for them to finally be like okay we need to fucking recalibur your expectations well it's because they haven't been in meaningful games in a while and every march or and i guess in in this year's case even before

march jing green had a stretch where he was playing a really really good basketball and some people up here you're kind of were telling me to stop being a hater and i was like just wait just wait just wait right because you see like inconsistency is something that is very very hard to to fix yeah if somebody is inconsistent from the jump for them to go. I feel like that is one of the hardest pivots and one of the hardest skills to learn is being consistent every single night and being able to to drop 20 all the all the time. And for somebody who is as athletic as Jalen Green, it is so frustrating watching him

in this series not always be able to get by Steph Curry at times. That's a good point. He's not as athletic as people act. Like that's the thing I've seen people talk about on Twitter and it's so true we keep saying

like he's very this guy yeah the best comparison I saw is that he is like Kyle Fuller and you

comparing him to like an NFL comparison he is the wide receiver that runs a 425 and is athletic

because measurably he runs incredibly fast when you measure him in an open gym Jalen Green is not a people always say

like a 99th percentile athlete Jalen Green should be better than this he has never been that on an NBA court he runs with he has a great vertical and he's quick with or without with out the ball different circumstances

different play types he is not functionally one of the best athletes in the league never has been he does not have good leverage good angles good ability to stop and start good functional one and two foot jumping off the drive against contested people to be able to like jump around over people like a john morant he does not have the soft skills necessary to make the most of athleticism he's just not one the best athletes in the league never has been who is who is one of the best athletes. Sam Williamson. His teammate.

Yeah. The stop and start and having the necessary, the necessary skills, which you said was a fucking bar because the bag that he has is very limited and it only works with certain positions on the court that he finds himself in. And when a team is keyed into you in the playoffs like the Warriors is, you expose yourself entirely. Now, I won't go as far as to say, like, I agree with you. Like his athleticism may be a little bit blown, overblown, but I, you.

still do think he's like you know he's a good athlete but when it comes to jailing green and thinking of him as a player or not even him as a player thinking about that 2021 mb a draft you look at the top four guys there's kade he's going to be an all-nbba player and he was an all-star then third pick uh i believe it was scott i think scottie was four yeah and then who was three mowbly mowgli mobiley defensive player the year he's probably going to be all-nbbaa was also an all-star Scotty Barmer was also an all-star. This is so fucking sickening to see if you're a Houston Rockets fan and to feel the continuous hope.

Do you think reason why, like year five or six now? Something like that. Sick as hell, man. Lewis Perez in the chat asked a good question. Is there any market for Jalen if we try to get off of him? He said, have him woken up from my Jalen and Greenside hostas. What do you think we can do to get rid of him? Should we make him live in Galveston?

Yes, ship his ass on dirty ass water. But, yeah, I mean, I think you can package Jalen Green in a star package, like, a salary, essentially. Like, in a Devin Booker trade, he's like salary filler to a team that's going to enter a rebuild. Like, he's not so bad on such a bad deal. Like, maybe a team could sell himself on like, that's good filler. But if you want to trade Jalen Green straight up, like, not being a star package, just go trade him for whatever we can get to get marginally better around our other young core pieces, I don't know that he returns a ton of value. He's been paid a lot of money. No one's fucking taking that deal.

I disagree. Okay, the trailblazers need a star guard. Do the trailblazers want him? Hell not. They'll do it. What do they give up of interest? They'll do it. I don't know.

I don't know yet for just because it's off the top. Yeah, yeah. Pull that in nowhere. However, Jalen Green has had enough good moments in the regular season. And is athletic enough to where and it works like this all the time. Yeah. It happens. Where somebody's going to look at Jalen Green and say.

I could fix him. And like, you're going to trick yourself into thinking that the number two overall pick in the draft who is insanely athletic, who you've seen, even though that the whole series didn't go this way, I've seen this guy scored 30 in a playoff game. Somebody is going to trick themselves into trading for Jalen Green. Well, Danny Ains give up Lowry marketing for Jalen Green and Cam Whitmore? No, I think Danny Age is smart. But maybe there'd be some other GM out there that would do something like that. Listen, the new Pelicans GM, go look at his track. for yourself to decide how you feel about that, but there's a report. I don't know how true it is,

but there's a report that he has mandated to trade Zion Williamson and his hiring. Zion Williamson for Jaylon Gray, the money works. I don't know. Yeah, it's, that's, that's, and so those conversations are going to be very, very interesting when we start getting all the reporting about what his market actually is. But I do think that there is a legitimate market to where, even if they don't package him in a star, in a star trade, you can, you can go do it. Now, I will say, the most efficient way to go about all of this is to put them into a Star Trek. You have too many guys.

You have too many guys need to consolidate and getting somebody like a Kevin Durant that you've been rumored to be interested in. That would make a lot of sense. Someone in the chat, Sartalk, I'm sure I did say that horribly, sorry. He said, talk about Jimmy Butler because the great he showed

to play 40 minutes last night is insane. Facts. That man's butt hurt so bad and he was out there grinding for 40 minutes, grabbing it every now and then, but staying out there, his ass was on fire literally and figuratively and man he was that's crazy i thought he would miss more than one game he fell so hard shout on him playing 40 minutes at that age is tough without a sore butt

with a sore butt that's that's that's that's good he got so many key he made so many key gritty just like signature jimmy butler plays bro and the one that like screamed to me the most is like yeah man like they missed his guy's presence even though they won the game prior but they missed his presence when he grabbed that final rebound i forgot who shot i think it was right band leader maybe alfred singoon or something like that singoon shot it and he skied so fucking high to grab that board and was the first one up off the ground and snatched it the warriors have no other player on that roster who has the ability to do that outside of maybe someone like draymond green but jaymond green is too busy doing other things on the court so to

see jimmy bellard kind of like stamp this game and solidify what this game meant to him and like over all the wars felt is the reason why they traded him traded for him shout out pods man after that horrific stretch to start this season in which he was he was slander to oblivion because of how hyped he was over the summer when they wouldn't include him in star trades shout out pause man second half of the season he already he already already recovered from that slump he just keeps getting better and better it you feel he is like the i'm trying to think the right verbiage for this. Yeah.

He's the evolution of what they wanted Jordan Poole to be without a lot of the downsides to the erraticism of his game. He's the off ball guard that can do a little bit with the ball in his hands and provide a lot of value off the stars that Jordan Poole, they had missed that. They had felt the missingness of that. Yeah. The absence of that, missingness is not a word. They had felt the absence of that skill set for a while.

Shout out pause, clearly filling it on the biggest stage. And now that you have Jimmy Butler and he can handle the ball, you really only need the shot making. Like you had Jordan Poole and you kind of needed to live with some of the decision making because it was just deaf and Poole kind of was that other creator. Now, again, like I said, Paz can just go and be more in the flow of the offense and just get bucket. So shout to him. Shout out to Isaac Stanford tipping $10.

That sounds like a Middle Eastern country. He said, damn when to Ciela Green join the pod. All jokes aside, much love y'all's podcast, keeps me sane during work. appreciate y'all man thanks Isaac Stan shout to you shout out shout out to

Dr. Giggle Touch for $5 appreciate you Dr. Giggle Touch and shout out to Mo Glazer for $2.67 cents

yeah Mo Glazer Isaac Stan where's the fucking where's Dr. Don kind of got motion

I love it yeah Donovan we don't we're not going to spend a lot of time on this series

but any any quick thoughts on Knicks versus Pistons like I said earlier it's a different

sport this is this is football this is like oh good point let's talk about that every single series in this playoff so far is insane

they're calling this so unbelievably physical they're not calling shit you know people always talk about that foul grifting shit is not going to work in the playoffs

it's a different game most years it's overblown this year it's unbelievably true they are calling these games like psychotic individuals

the reps are making sure that they don't take over these games which I guess is a good thing overall it's so it's a tough balance because

the reality is these games are so physical because these guys are playing for the seasons on the line that if you called everything like you do in the regular season people would foul out immediately so they have to swallow the whistle a little bit it's a little crazy

how different it is from the regular season right now like I don't know what the answer is if it's called more in the playoffs or call less than a regular season both are hard for different reasons it's ludicrous how much more physical the game is right now

across the entire NBA playoffs it's also it's also a difference because by by trying to take yourself out you then insert yourself because you're not making these calls. Yeah, a lot of non-calls.

That should be called. So, like, at the end of the Knicks Pistons game, like, yeah, Josh Hart, and Josh Hart said it in the interview. He's like, yeah, there was contact. He's like, we'll see it in the last two-minute report if it was actually legal or not. But stuff like that is where the end of that game, that call aside, the end of that game was amazing. Yeah.

I mean, the entire game was awesome. The Knicks had, the Knicks jumped out. It looked like they were going to go up 3-1 very easy. They were scoring. They were doing all this. Detroit looked like they were losing composure. And then all of a sudden, Detroit starts making shots. And Tobias Harris gets rolling and Malik Beasley starts doing stuff.

And Cade is out here hooping. And it's like, wow, this is actually one of the best performances from a young team in a situation on the brink of three one. They're about to, you know, level up at home, do all that. And then you just get to the last four or five minutes where they try to break Jalen runs his leg. And he comes back and he scores 15 in the fourth quarter on 64% from the field. Ridiculous.

Carr Antit Towns has two of the craziest shots I've ever seen him take and make from the 29-footer to the falling baseline out of bounds. The pistons continue to make shots. And Cade had an opportunity to win the game. They were down one. He gets a jumper that if any of your best players have that shot for the win, you're like, Okay, that's good. Like, we'll live with that.

It may not be wide open, right? Whatever. You will take that shot from Cade because you believe in him. Now I'm sure, and I'm going to throw this to you, let the people know why you may not, right? You may not want to trust Cade as much as, as you think. Oh, you're referring to the numbers you pulled up in the previous. Listen, I received the text because we were talking about this afterwards. And Isaac, because I, you know, some of our friends was like, yo,

okay like he just has to knock down that shot that and i just was like well here's the notes i pulled up before before last episode and it wasn't it wasn't very favorable in kade's uh direction yeah i i picked nicks and five on the episode because pulling up the data the nicks were one of my i mean the pistons were my team for the preview and i went to go see you know jaylon brunson is probably the best late game closer in the NBA as of now he's been killing the year two playoff seasons in a row he's been killing people in the playoffs in late game specifically I'm like, okay, the Pistons' road to winning is obviously Cade going ban for band with him and proving he is this top tier player as well.

What are his clutch game numbers like in the postseason? Well, the team has played in 37 regular season post, regular season games in which there's clutch minutes. They're 17 and 20. Kate specifically shot 34% in these clutch situations and 23% from 3. So I was like, damn, that doesn't make me feel good about the Piston chances. And then I looked into the stats and saw that their defense is heavily relying on forcing turnovers, the Knicks are a top five team and not turning the ball over.

All these teams have held true. The Knicks are just a better team. They were fucking around a little bit for the first few games. Their offense is ridiculous. They made it closer than it should be. But to me, this series is just what should have happened. The Knicks are a better team. It's good to see they're not playing with their food quite as much and they're actually

coming out of these games. I mean, I actually disagree. I actually think that they are playing. They are, but they're winning. Yeah. Yeah, they're winning because these games are close. I think the biggest development over the last two, two and a half games, is the fact is two things one josh hart has gotten you've gotten better production out of josh hart

and he's been more of a facilitator and that has really really helped with cat because after after that game two lost i came on here and i was screaming out like cat has to show up you have to buy his hairs on him all this stuff cat's been who've been these last two games and especially in in that game four you've seen him be more aggressive you've seen you've seen cat actually be the number two offensive option. And that's the thing that the entire offense was built on in the regular season. And so you've seen, you've seen the J. LaBrensen shot making. You've seen Josh Hart flying off the top rope to get offensive rebounds and doing this and finding people in transition and being a downhill demon there. You've seen Kat and his three-point shot stretching the floor. You've seen

O.J. and Inobie and his defense. And so now as you are going into the second round and O.G. shot making is getting better. The only thing I need to see more from this starting five is I need to see Mikhail Bridges. I just glanced at the chat. I see I'd fight Jalen Brown or Grant Williams. I don't know why K.B. The Goat said that in the chat, but apparently he beat the shit out of Grand Williams.

What did it? What did he was at home nursing his injury? I don't know who brought up. What player you want to fight? But I just saw I would lay hands on Grant Williams. If he swore on me, I would have done it. Yeah, man. shout out this is an ugly physical series and yeah i mean it could be two too if they called that

three-pointer should have could have would a lot of stuff could have been different if these play if the fouls were called or not called this happens in every series right now i don't do you guys like is it is they allowing to physical where's the line are you enjoying how insane all these series are i think it's perfect right now i think it's perfect this is exactly what the mba needs everyone like we said earlier was crying about how oh file bait news falabating that and whatnot Like, this is, I hate to say what you said earlier, but this is, this does feel like a different product of NBA basketball that we're watching right now. And this product leads to wildly entertaining forms of basketball. I'm not one to hear talk about ratings or whatnot, but to talk about ratings for a second, shit is sky high because of all the certain, all the storylines and shit like that that's building up throughout these series.

And I think the physicality obviously helps close the gaps a little bit more. So I think it's perfect. I like it a lot. And the only time that I'm upset is when I'm in full fan mode and I'm watching these games. And I'm like, that was a foul, that was a foul. But as you step away from the games and you go back and you look at it, it's like, I'm okay with this. And it's hard because the one thing that everybody always asks is like, can you be consistent that or not going to be, it's not going to be consistent. And when you allow it to be this physical, that consistency kind of goes out the way.

but you can kind of live with it because you get moments like this where ultimately it comes down to the shopmaking and it comes down to your team's ability to create advantages, whether schematically or through your player just being that good and not, okay, we're going to live at the line and do that stuff. It's a bit too far. There's a lot of games, right? Yes, they should have left more physical.

It's going to be because you can't call every foul when guys are trying this hard. there's got to be some kind of line though like at times it's a bit crazy like they should have called that foul on the pistons if it's a clear three point play to decide the game you get found that egregiously you should call that when Luca fell they should have called

that whenever jaden tripped them in the game like there's key calls in these fourth quarters they don't decide these games because there's a lot of plays that happen beforehand I understand refs don't want to be the guys that decide a game winning play they should be if it's a clear foul like wherever the line is

I think they need a at least for important plays if you want to let them fucking fist fight in the first quarter go for it fourth quarter you gotta call the files I think yeah Josh Hart should have been called for that so would be like files like that I think you have to like set you have to set a tone which like you have to one of the things that the NBA

enforced over the last few years I think it's the Zazaapalio rule bro you got to protect your shooters can't go underneath their fear or anything like that so yeah I think I agree with you on stances like that too bad we're up through one yeah I don't know so listen man all I'm hearing is

all I'm hearing is look at the free to line quite as much. He will not be quite as efficient. He might drop from 32 points for game to 29. But all I'm also hearing is nobody is going to score against that, that Thunder defense, if they're allowed to foul every play, the Thunder, if these games get called the same way in the NBA finals, oh my God, how do you score against Alex Caruso and Lou Dort when they're allowed to hand-checking? Your Lou Dore is feasting. Hand-checking is just back fully. You're not scoring on the 2025 OKC Thunder if they're allowed to hand-check you every play. I don't know. I mean, You may have to, you know, outsource some consultants called John Morant because apparently

he had everything figured out. And so he's, if you ask him, he has all the answers. He can give you guys the keys to beat the Thunder. Hey, man. We're talking a lot about all these teams out West and everything. Notice we haven't said a single thing about any of them making the finals. It thought there are so head and shoulders. It's a lot.

It's a lot. It's a lot. Last thing I want to do for this stream, I asked you guys on a community post to give us your best original new NBA nicknames for certain players. I ask you to give us a nickname for any player you want cross-MBA history, and we are going to react and grade them based on how good they are. Let's do it. You guys ready?

See what they cooked up for us? All right. I hope y'all creative. I hope y'all nice. First off, the cranium commander for Jalen Brunson. That's 10 out of 10. That's good. That is great because obviously, I think, actually, no, 9 out of 10.

his nickname what we call him in the streets he is the captain so if he could be the cranium captain that would be great listen i love a good alliteration i'm going 10 out of 10 the cranium is in fact crazy there's never been a crazier cranium the ratio of cranium to bucket getting is next level we've never seen that combination either it's really just one to one like his his head is so massive but he gets so many buckets it's really equal so that's why he is he's my cranium captain. Chad, I want you guys to grade these as well. I mean, rate these as well.

We're giving this a 10. Oh, someone said three out of 10 tops. Haders, shut up. Respect the cranium. Going cranium for cranium right now. It's a 10. I know I go lie. Next one.

So this guy said the anomaly for him. I'm ignoring that because what I really like is the blueprints for the Thompson twins. Hmm. Why do you really like? Because they're the blueprint. That's tough. They look like, bro. They look like they were made in that NBA lab to make the best NBA athletes

you could imagine. They are the blue prints. for peak NBA athleticism. That's that's hard as fuck. The blueprints. Okay. I like it. And there's two of them.

I don't think you like it enough. I don't like it. I had to think about it for a second. What makes it elite to you? Brother, it's just a game organized game. You understand a good nickname when you see it. This one works. The blueprint.

Okay. They're the standard. You're not going to see better athletes than that. Like they jump fast, they run. I mean, they jump fast. They jump high. They run. Run fast, they're quick, they're strong.

They are the blueprint. They are the blueprint, but what is like the usability for this nickname? It's not that off here. You're like, man, the blueprints. Like, unless they're teammates one day, it's fucking insane. But other than that, I give us a five out of ten. It's a good nickname, but how often are you going to be like, the blueprints? You're not going to say that option.

You said that as a joke in that joky voice and it was still tough. Exactly. You. You don't get it. Next up. Jello for. Joelle and Bede. Jello is already taken by Mr.

Leangelo Ball. Do not take his nickname. Don't take his nickname. He's running it. So why we're going to say zero out of ten? Yeah. It's taken. You can't have that.

It's disrespectful also. I thought you'd give this. I thought you'd be higher on this personally. Why? Because it's disrespectful to Doyle and Bede. No. No. I don't care if it's disrespectful.

You are not going to cross the line and be disrespectful to Leangelo Ball. Oh, he is a massively angel ball stand. The rapper of the summer? The rapper of the summer of the year? So what I'm hearing is... Too good. No, my law and order.

He respects O'Angelo more than you hate to L'Ull and B. So he's giving it his area at 10. Okay, I get it. Apex Predator for Anthony Edwards. The Apex Predator. Not, man. No? It sounds a little bit too clunky.

I'm like, nah. I don't think he could work for Anthony Edwards. You don't think he's the king of the jungle? Apex Predator. Who is this motherfucker? Randy Orden? That's what you call Randy Orrin? I don't know about that one.

I don't know about that one. It's not bad. I just think it's placed on the wrong player. Yeah, exactly. Like, he's out here hunting, bro. Like, hunting snakes and shit. Oh, he's just playing basketball. I think it's tough.

I don't know. He keeps killing all these other big cats. He keeps killing all these other lions, other people that consider themselves the kings. He keeps taking them. him down? Sounds like he's the Apex Predator. He's the, he's like the bullies bully for predators. It's too scary. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't be just too

scary. I can't put this on his name. He said, Apex Predator. Do y'all want him to be the face of the league or not? Okay, a predator can't be the face of the league. All right? The closer for Anthony Davis. I mean, Anthony Edwards. This is too simple for me. You think he deserves a little more pizzazz? Yeah, the closers is this. That could go to anybody really who's clutching the fourth quarter. I don't know about that one.

He's been closing quite well. Chat is genuinely not clicking whatsoever. I need them. I need y'all in the chart right now to also help give this, give y'all some nicknames. Because this is not it right now. No, okay. Well, apparently I'm picking them. Apparently the chat's nicknames suck.

Sorry. Netflix for the Lakers, because there's always next season. 10 out of 10. That is good. I like that. Are the Lakers fans, like Cowboys fans, like next year is our year full? That's always, that's the Lakers now? No.

You just won a title in 2020. It's been less than a decade since you got a title. You don't get to have that. Yeah. I'm not putting that despair on you. And they wouldn't. Also, no other fan base will ever be as. Sorry, I mentioned the Cowboys.

I got you going. My bad, my bad. I hate them so much. No, this is funny as hell, though. This was very good. I was shocked by the creativity here. Elite, 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10.

We got the historian for Jeff Teague, because he was there for every key moment in the past 15 years. And he's an elite storyteller as well. This is a 10 out of 10. He's a great bookkeeper. He knows how to tell every moment to the key to the second.

He doesn't forget shit when it comes to telling the story. 10 out of 10. And he's also the most trustworthy narrative there is. He will let you know if the story didn't go his way. way. Right? Like he's not out here lying like certain people just make making up stuff to make themselves look better. He would be like, hey, I got dunk on. I got cross over. They made me fell.

And I was like, damn, he got me. They say history is told by the winner. Jeff Teague is happy to tell the history from the POV of a loser. He's happy to every scenario on which he did not come out on top. Or he can't wait until someone how he got fried. Yeah, 10 out of 10. He's a three ad raven. This is perfect. Old Testament. I don't typically like lead nicknames It makes me feel a little bit sad Read that old fuck man He's pretty fucking old

Damn It's like four out of ten It's not great Out of the nicknames that start with lead It's not the best one Okay, okay Yeah everyone said Duke Donchage is trash I ignored that one for a reason

The Nutcracker for Jemong Green Classic anything with violence fit to drain my profile so I'm going at least an eight out of ten on this one yeah there's a certain baseline of accuracy that you have to do I can show you multiple cases of which this nickname prevails a chat just called me the Yucatan yapper I was about to say the Yucatan Yapper that's hilarious that's good you could tan yapper I might change your name in my phone to that oh good Lord you could say I don't know what you could same people look like you can so this one was interesting i put this on here because it was so

specific duncan robinson to dehumidifier in important pieces an important piece but you kind of forgot he's there has stretches where he gets hot and is a major factor stop it's too nerdy get out of you the dehumanity he wrote a whole think piece about duncan robinson no one's talked about this dude in ages hey shout out duncan shit i like no good robinson two out of ten two out of ten yeah i just had to include it of is the commitment to the explanation. Like I had to give him the right to be in the video. Shout out Nick Garcia for your...

One, it's so detailed, two, it's so random. Because that explanation doesn't even make sense to me of why you would say the dehumidifier. Like, the description makes sense for Duncan Robinson. Then you add the dehumidifier. And I'm like, where did we connect these two things? Shout out to you, Nick. You cooked, but this is just not my dish.

Yeah, you cooked like beans and weenies. I don't know. Something not great. Dyson Daniels, the vacuum. Is that better than the Great Barrier Thief? No. I think that the Great Barrier Thief is one of like the all-time nicknames. Okay.

Is the vacuum a good secondary nickname? No. Does he suck everything in sight? Does he get found a ball and just bring it in and it's his now? Very vulgar nickname. Don't say nothing. It's too much. Boy, as he sees a ball, he brings it in.

Like, it's a magnet. Damn. Shame. To the corner. Shame on you. Sorry, Oregoni orange. I said organic orange. I can't read.

Plan A for Anthony Edwards. Listen. He's the first man up. He always comes in clutch. He has plan A. This can mean so many different things. Like what? Plan A, he's from Atlanta.

Plan A, he is the number one option. And we ended there. Ten out of ten, big. Those are the only two meanings. And they're great meanings at that. It's perfect. It's so good. Hey, it's elite.

I like it. 10 out of 10. Shout out of the Atlanta one. I didn't even think about that. It's double entendre. Don't ask me how. It's pretty good. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Captain Hook.

I'm surprised I never heard this before. That just makes so much sense. This is W's all over the place. He cooked. Captain Hook is fire. This is so good. I almost feel like this has to be an original. But I've never heard this before.

It's not on his page? It's not on his basketball. I didn't look, but it might be. Let me check. If it's an original. the fuck out of here yeah this is

weirdly good this is elite this feels so real so real all right Lou Cap Murdoch big fella

the Tower of Power nope this is not on his page wow he only has five nicknames on there yeah I mean I guess Cap kind of

they didn't do their research I feel like then again maybe nicknames weren't as big in the 1970s yeah exactly okay this is a very good one

shout out to Ignitus XD gnaz gnaz read read he cooked did he nothing else need be said

it's gnaz read what don't you understand yeah are you dumb stupid bitch my best my best it's gnaz fucking read

you heard you man two words ten out of ten shay butter for SGA Shea butter. That's fire as hell in so many ways. That's tough.

I see it's tough because obviously Shea, Shea, butter is fucking smooth as hell, bro. Shea butter is also wildly consistent. Can get you through whatever. Man. Shout out of consistency of Shea butter. Always there for you when you need it. Never disappoints.

Exactly, bro. It's consistent as hell. I might start using this. Shea butter. I might start calling him Shay butter. Some of the chat said, Shea cheese. Shea cheese

Oh Yeah Tomatoes I wish I had one right now The tooth fairy For Derek White It's because he lost his tooth Several times

He's lost a tooth Twice on an NBA court That has to be Some kind of record No Chuck Hayes was doing that Way before Oh okay

Way before Shout to Chuck Hayes Why did somebody say L. Isaac Like I made up Sheethe's That wasn't mine L, Ethan Wells

Look at him in the chat Don't look at me Everybody boo Ethan Boo Ethan Boo Boo I need an L right in front of Ethan's name Oh can I get an L

Ethan in the chat Just blame him Won't they're bullying me Hands up So we have no love For tooth fairy dare So I said I hate Ethan I think

I think Fuck Ethan I'm thinking Screw you Ethan I said, poor Ethan Damn, he just got off of school trying to have a good time Ethan said y'all didn't say nothing when I suggested John Cumb for coming to get down

You should have kept that to yourself too Hey, keep moving Ethan says Boom again Leave the stream So is the reason I'm in rehab Unsubbed Never watch a YouTube short again Oh man, that's a

those nicknames I got today. That was hilarious. Kevin Galicki got some names for us. And what we're here, shout out to horse yokech for tipping $1.00. Shout to Kevin Galicki for tipping $20. Appreciate you. He said, call LeBron the Knight King. Okay, that's a decent one. Shout to Kevin Glecky for another $20. Nicknamed for

Zion, Joey Chestnut. Okay. Okay. Shout out to Dr. Giggle Touch for $5. He said McAulberg. Dr. Giggle Touch. I just heard of his name. Shout out to Don Gobald for one dollar. Shout out to DQ Sempai for one dollar. And shout to Isaac Stan for another $10.

Appreciate all you, man. What a stream. And that's the end of the stream. Appreciate all y'all coming through, man. That's the abrupt ending. You don't comment anything? Just tell us... Bye, Ethan.

See you. L. Ethan, comment, L. Ethan.