The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast Prime Cuts - Warriors w/ Marcus Thompson, Celtics w/ Chris Mannix, Matchups w/ Jason Timpf

Episode Date: June 11, 2022

This is Prime Cuts! The best of The Colin Cowherd Podcast. First, The Athletic Bay Area columnist Marcus Thompson on how the former NBA fathers of Finals players have rubbed off on their sons, if the Warriors would drastically re-shape their roster with a Finals loss, how KD would process another Warriors title, and how his relationships with Steph and Draymond differ. Then, SI Senior NBA Writer - and host of Boxing with Chris Mannix - Chris Mannix on if the Warriors are done, why the Celtics severely struggled early under Ime Udoka, how he got his players to buy in, and why Brad Stevens deserves credit for this potential title run. Finally, Hoops Tonight Podcast host Jason Timpf on why Robert Williams has been the difference maker for the Celtics, and why the matchups might spell doom for the Warriors. Make sure you follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates and check out FanDuel for the best wagering and daily fantasy action! #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential.

Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tauntons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule. of two.

Listen to Stuff to Bole Your Mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media.

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for us. The athletics, Marcus Thompson, how the underdog Celtics have taken control of the series. Chris Mannix, cover the Celtics for a year, stopped by. Our own Jason Timph, breaking down the matchups. All right, let's bring on Marcus Thompson, Bay Area columnist for the Athletic. He's written a book KD, Golden About Steph Curry, and the current book, Dynasties, the 10 Goat Teams that change the NBA forever. As I said, I think he's as good at NBA writer.

as the country has, of the many things. Peyton's dad played in the NBA. Kerr played in the NBA. Steph played in the NBA. His dad played in the NBA. Wiggins professional athletes. His dad played NBA too, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

You know what's fascinating with the Warriors? You can really hard coach them. Like, I don't think you can, I mean, I see the Lakers. You can't hard coach all those guys, man. You're about to find out with Darvin Ham. But it's you're around the Warriors. Like, I think, I think Kerr is on their ass a lot. And I think they demand a lot.

And maybe that's my interpretation. But I think there's value dad played in the league. Dad tells you the truth about this league, which is you're going to get, and by the way, I think those dads like it. Because I think they don't want, they see their son making all this money. And dad didn't. And he's like coach him hard. But I do think part of the Warriors culture is this incredibly deep IQ EQ from dad,

the mom on, you can just coach them differently. You know, there is something to that, right? Like I think it starts with Steph. Because if Steph was different, everything would be different. If he's a superstar, if he acted a certain way, it would be much tougher for everybody to fall in line. But because you can coach Steph, right? Like, because, you know, he's Mr. mid-major, like, coach get hard on him.

Remember, his mother was finding him for turnovers, right? Like, his dad told him all about how it goes. Like, that kind of set the tone. But, yeah, I mean, Michael Thompson will throw shade at his own son in a heartbeat, right? He'll point out when Clay's missing layups. Can you imagine what Gary Payton has said to his son? Can you imagine the tough love there? I do think there's something to not just that they were former players,

but they're players from a different era where it's like my son can't be soft. Right? Not my son. He can't, you're not about to be out here, misrepresent my generation and my field, right? So I do think there's something to that where it's like, hey, I know Clayton is from Rancho, you know, wherever he's from, Rancho, Santa Margarito, whatever, you know, They grew up in these affluent environments. They've had, you know, nice lives.

Their parents set them up. But they're not going to be soft. That's not happening. That's what Gary Payton told his son. You're not about to be. I know you're not from the hard, Scrabble Streets of Oakland, but you're wearing that paint name.

You better get out here and play hard. And they all do kind of have that, right? Like, Steph will never stop coming at you, ever. And he went to Charlotte Christian. This is the right. He's from the right side of the tracks, right? But I do think their fathers kind of put that in of that 90s basketball. And who's more 90s basketball to Steve Kerr?

Like, he fought Michael Jordan. He will fight all of the dudes, right? Remember with Mike Brown? Steve Kerr caught like COVID and Mike Brown had to fill in. And there were moments where it was like, here's where you miss Steve. Because Steve will call a timeout and cuss the whole team out, right? Steve will call out Steph for the turnover. He will go off on Dreemont.

Whereas Mike Brown is like, all right, I'm going to trust that these guys figure it out. And that's where you kind of really felt Steve Perrin's impact. He don't care about like, your fillies. He's going to tell you what it is. He's going to call you when you wrong. He's going to get on his superstar. And when he wrong, he's going to call it. But he doesn't care about that.

That dude played with Michael Jordan. Like, he ain't worried about any. He ain't worried about the fillets of his players for sure. Yeah. You know, what happens in sports is we tend to overreact. And it's always been inches, not feet. I mean, Tom Brady. Are you sure?

I mean, Brady, outside of the Rams Super Bowl, Brady could have lost all of them or he could have won all of them. And so it kind of is reasonable. He should have lost a couple of close Super Bowls, right? Like, whereas Jordan, I always felt his team was really better. So if the Warriors win, I feel this warrior team is a little just a year too young, moody. Kaminga with a couple of their players. And then they're a little too old, Steph, Clay,

Iggy. But yet, they're just so buoyant. They're so smart. They're, they, you know what I mean? They just keep,

they don't, they get rid of their anger. The median age is perfect, huh? The median age is perfect. Right. So they just, they're just, they just kind of figure shit out.

Right. Yeah. And, but it's interesting. If they lost this series, yeah. There'd be a chance. change made, even for a franchise that doesn't overreact.

And I'm thinking, if let's say they lose the series, Clay doesn't play well. What do you do? They got a lot of young, they got a lot of young players that are really interesting and they're getting really expensive with their old players. Everybody says, you can't break them up. And I'm like, you know how many times I've heard that shit? You lose a title game. And you have four expensive stars and one of them doesn't play well.

people overreact. I don't know that they do this time because I don't think the expectation was a championship. So they're already in a sense playing with House money. I think from that standpoint, they thought they'd be good again. If they lost in the West Finals to Phoenix, say, right, Phoenix was the best team in the league before Dallas exposed them. I feel like they look at this and say, all right, we're back. I mean, they went from not making a play into the West finals.

The thing that gives them patience, right? It gives them a chance to have patience is the money that kick in, like the new money won't kick in until the next season, not this next season, but the one after that. That's when Jordan Poo's money would kick in. And that's the big money you're talking about. And also, if Clay finishes this series not playing well, Draymond finished the series not playing well,

what can you get from on the market? The best thing you might be able to do is run it back and hope Clay in his second year will be more healthy. It'll just be, it'll be tough to move them. But I do feel like, from all the talk that I've heard,

this season reminded them or was confirmation that they can win a championship again. Even if it's not this year, they're back in the mix. So now you're running back next year, right? You got Wiggins in a contract year. You know,

even if you resign pool, that wouldn't kick in for two years. So like financially, they still basically in the same situation. The question becomes, how do you add what you need, right? Now, if they lose the finals, it's like, you know, you need to get some rent protection, right? You can use another way. Like, how do you get that? And that's where you need the rookies to advance. So they kind of are in a situation where I don't know it would benefit them if they

overreacted. Like, who's the player they can go get? That's better than what they have. So they might be well positioned. The question is what happens in two years? Or if they decide to re-up Wiggins, right? Now you got Wiggins getting new money and Jordan Poole get new money. And you still got stuff making 50, Clay 40, right?

Like, then the numbers get crazy. But do you see the numbers they're ranking in? They just guaranteed a fifth game, a third game in its playoff series. So that's four series with at least three games at the highest ticket prices we've ever seen. So money ain't a thing. I like, it's like Joe Lacob is like in that video with Jay-Z and J-Z and J-Z and J-Z and J-Z and J-Main Dupree. With the top down screaming out money ain't a thing, you know, he can pay at all. Put somebody to Photoshop, Joe Lacob in that, in the drop into convertible with J-Z and at J-Z and J-Z and Jermain Dupree.

Is it, is it like do you, everybody, I have different personalities with different people, right? Like, like, is your personality, is your relationship different? those two. Oh, yeah. No question. First off, Steph is like a global icon, right? So it's like, it's like you get two minutes with the president. You know what I'm saying? You feel like, I'm a big West Wing guy, right? Remember like it would be like, it would be like people holding up whole bills, right? And Congress and their answer is, let's just give me two minutes with the president, right? And then, all right, that's all you wanted. I could have got you that. Right. That stuff is on that level, right? To where I'll sometimes forget because I've known him for so long, right?

It's like, you know, this dude is huge. Like, he's a global icon. So that's different from that way, whereas Draymond is like definitely like, hold me next door, right? Like, you can talk to him to him, right? You can argue with Drayvon and you can do that stuff with Steph if you get to him. He's just such a major huge icon, but they're both incredibly down to Earth. So, right, Steph is hilarious. Like he's always dogging me in press conferences. Like he's funny. He's cool.

Dremont is like, you could, be a Dremont could go to Target. You know what I'm saying? Like, Dremont is one of them dudes who can just kick it in Target and talk to everybody because he's so personable. Yeah. No,

I, he is, you know, when I started the volume, I think all companies need a moment, a break. And I've done this volume thing. It's a year.

and a half old, but I've been working on it for two and a half years. And Draymond was our big break. Like, we knew he was going to be good. But he was so much, he's such a grinder. And he's just, he's such a great example for the rest of our podcasters. I'm like, he's our biggest star and he's our hardest worker. And it kind of speaks to his second round draft selection, his Michigan state career. Oh, yeah. No question. I mean, his game is his podcast game. Same thing. No question. do sometimes I have to like stop and think about it. Like I remember when he was getting drafted and he thought he was going to be a first round or the second round he was still there.

Remember he was like the chubby dude, a tweeter, like what he's grown to become. And I think the part that always gets missed is just how smart he is, right? Like how he figures things out. And he always seems to like play chess while everybody else is playing checkers. So you kind of feel like, man, his dude will be able to do anything because he's got the IQ to figure it out, right? And half the time, when he's doing his thing, like he knows what he's doing. He knows what he's saying. Oh, absolutely.

He knows exactly. Yes. It's all, like, calculated from this, like, algorithm in his head. Did you see with Jalen Brown, he just moved his feet just up the torso to be a pain in the ass? Yes. Just like graze that calf sweat all up against. Absolutely. Yeah.

He knows, I'm telling you, I remember this from back in the day when it was Blake Griffin and the Clippers. Like, he knows exactly what he's doing. Like, and he does get out of control, but it's far less than what people think. It's often more calculated. Like, he's super smart. Like, that's the thing about Draybond. He's so smart.

He's going to figure it out no matter what. And then he's going to talk crazy once he figured it out because it didn't look like he was going to figure it out. It's all part of the plan. Like, I've seen him literally, like, set himself up because he knows I'm better when I got to prove my points or I'm better when I got to show you, right? And so, like, that dude is like, he's a bit of a genius in that sense, especially Oh, there's no, there's a real. Yeah, he's a savant. It's crazy. I mean, really. It's wild. With Rodman, Rodman had some of that, but he wasn't a catalyst offensively. And there were times with Rodden and where he just lacks certain personal self-control.

I think those moments for Draymond are very, very brief. A second, he gets mad, but then he just goes right back to being kind of the ultimate physical manipulator. And also he like owns his stuff, right? He doesn't, he doesn't duck. You never hear him. Like he was the first one, I wasn't good in game one. Like, Draymond, he is one of them dudes who kind of, you know he's just telling the truth.

because he doesn't, he's too smart to lie. You know what I'm saying? It's almost like, I don't need to lie because I can figure it out. I don't need to get out of it because I can figure out the situation. But so he also owns it when he's not, when he's not ready or when he's not like on point, but usually he's on point. There's just some more times that people understand his craziness is more calculated than it is. No.

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Visit 1-800-Gambler.net in West Virginia. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. in probably 10 days I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football,

or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger.

So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford show on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people.

I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on The Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill,

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Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine,

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Hopefully we will accumulate. Draymond Green's going to make us all rich, so then we'll be able to afford the whole Christmack's package. Listen, this is the simplest way to describe what I'm seeing. The Celtics don't even need Jason Tatum to play well to control much of the series. The Warriors need Steph to be great for four quarters, or at least three.

or they're done in this series. The role players, the non-starters, the non-stars for the Celtics are contributing mightily in this series. And the Warriors, many of their young players, Moody's not ready, Kaminga's not ready, Wiseman's not healthy, pools hit and miss. I said this today on television. Most, not all, but most championship teams have a majority of their best players in their prime. Celtics do, warriors don't. Little old there, little young there.

I think it's that simple. I think the fact that Boston can control the series and Tatum has been okay, I kind of feel like the warriors are doomed. Am I overreacting? No, I don't think so. Look, I picked the Celtics to win in six to start this series because everything I've seen from Boston, and I've been up close and personal with them since the start of the season.

but everything I've seen from Boston from late January on suggest that they're the real deal. I mean, if you look at the numbers from mid-January to the end of the season, they weren't just the best defense in the NBA. They were the best defense in the NBA by a country mile. And we mentioned the top. They're generationally good defense. And to your point, they don't need Jason Tatum to go off to put up between 105 and 115 points.

They need Tatum to contribute in other ways. They need him to be a facilitator, which is something that IMA Yudoka has drilled into him really from the start of the season. But as long as he's contributing in that way, they don't need him to be a carry-the-team type of offensive player because they do have a wide selection of weapons they can go to. I mean, Jalen Brown, I thought in game three, set the tone in that game. I mean, he was the one out there being aggressive early on. Jalen's the kind of guy, Colin, that he heard and read every single thing that was out there about Draymond Green locking him up in game two, about the way the Warriors pivoted to Draymond on Jalen and the impact that had on him. And he came out looking like he was determined to show that he was better than that.

On top of that, Al Horford, more the player that scored the 20s in game one that scored the two points in game two. Grant Williams started to make a couple of shots. Peyton Pritchard made a couple of shots. The margin for error for Boston is just a lot wider than the margin for error with Golden State. You know, Clay had a great game three, but I'm not banking on Clay playing like that the rest of this series. Everything I've seen of Clay this postseason tells me that when he's left alone for standalone jump shots, he's the old Clay Thompson. When he's asked to play on the move or runoff screens, he is a diminished version of himself because his body's not all the way back

from those lower leg injuries. So, you know, Steph is now hurt with what he says, the same injury that cost him, what, like a month plus towards the end of the season, maybe a little bit better than what that was. I just think Golden State is in a world of trouble to where, to the point where if Boston wins game four, I think they win this series in five. Yeah.

So I'll throw this at you. So Imeo Oduku comes into the Celtics and they have a really bad first two months. And you don't always see that in football coaching. Sean McVegoes to the Rams, it works instantly with Jared Gough. But in basketball is different. For some reason, Spolsterer, LeBron Wade, it took like 20 games to get it right. You were there. why were they so bad early?

Yeah, I was there and over the weekend I spoke to Ima Yudoka on the phone for about 20 minutes about this specific subject. And we talked about the resistance that he faced from these Celtics players early on to two specific things that he was trying to implement. Defensively, they play very differently from how they played under Brad Stevens. the way this team switches, only a handful of teams in the NBA do it, largely because if you don't have a point guard that can switch in the way that Marcus Smart can switch, there's no point in doing it. And the Celtics, for the last 10 years, they have often or always really had a lead guard who has been a defensive liability, whether it was Isaac Thomas, Kyrie Irving, Kimball Walker,

you had to hide that player. So the Celtics, they were transforming their defense in training camp to become something totally different. To the point where Emey told me that Jason Tatum came to him in the first week at training camp and saying, you know, maybe this isn't going to work. Maybe we should go back to some of the principles that we used in previous seasons. Emay's message, just stick with it. Stick with it and force them to stick with it. The other part on the other end of the ball was that, you know, Eme, he had a bird's eye view.

of these Celtics for the last two years. He was an assistant on Brett Brown's staff when they lost to Boston in the bubble. He was an assistant on Steve Nash's staff when they beat them in the first round. He knew what this team needed. And what this team needed was for Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown to stop being so focused on being one-on-one players

and become playmakers to embrace that part of the offensive game. It was funny, Colin. You go back even further to when EMAe was important. introduced as the Celtics head coach. He's sitting up there next to Brad Stevens, and somebody asks him about improvements, and he may specifically cites that the Celtics were 27th in assists in that previous season. It looks over Brad kind of sheepishly, and is like, sorry, Brad. Sorry, I had to say it, but we need to improve in that area.

So he knew what this team needed to do to get better. It just took them months to figure it out and to really embrace it. weren't truly bought in, probably until after the first of the year. There were flickers towards the end. You remember that Phoenix game on New Year's Eve where they just blew the doors off the suns? They were moving the ball really well there. But it wasn't until mid to late January where it all started to coalesce and they completely bought it. One thing he did that surprised me that works was his tough love paid off. I mean, I do TV in Boston as well for NBC Sports and I do the pre and post game show. And I can't tell you.

tell you the number of times, I sat on that desk after bad losses, watching an EMA press conference, and then responding to it after he had just taken out the blowtorch and napalm these guys. Like, he was hitting them hard. He wasn't, you know, Brad Stevens, his philosophy, as it is with many coaches in the NBA, was to take it all on him. It was the coach's fault. I made all the mistakes. It's not the players because he believed that was in the best interest of the team. I'ma didn't do that. I may just went out there and specifically cited guys who weren't getting the job done. I remember thinking, this is never going to work.

Like a coach with no resume to speak of, a first-year head coach on any level, blasting his team in the way EMA is, is never going to work. But it turns out that's exactly the kind of coaching that these Celtics craved and exactly the kind of coaching that they ultimately responded to. So it was, you know, look, a quick example. For example, Robert Williams is playing in this series right now because IME Yodoka spent the first two months of the year and into, even before, then, into training camp, finding 900 ways to call Robert Williams soft to basically imply that Robert Williams in years past did not play through pain as much as he should have. Fast forward through this season, there's a toughness to Robert Williams that simply did not exist in previous years. And that's what's enabling him to go out there on one leg, coming back a month after knee surgery,

and give them 20, 25 good minutes every single night. That's a direct result of the tough love, Ima Yodoka showed. I think what happened to Brad Stevens is he smartly realized they were tuning him out. He had a player or two that just didn't connect with him. And he realized this is not the time. That was my takeaway. He's his smart enough guy, got self-awareness. He's like, you know what?

I think Quinn Snyder feels the same way. like, I'm just running in circles here. I can't figure out the Gobert Donovan Mitchell issue. I can't solve this jigsaw puzzle. Let's get a former player in here. No, I think when it comes to hard coaching, you have to read the room, right? I mean, Brad Stevens, for his entire time in Boston, I viewed him as a top 10 coach. At times, I felt he was a top five coach in the NBA.

His play calling, his understanding of basketball is at an elite level. But as he got towards the end, it's certainly, I don't know if his voice was being drowned out or tuned out, but it wasn't having the same impact. The players were not responding in the way they responded early in the careers of Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, and Marcus Smart. And to Brad Stevens credit, he didn't go out there and find someone that he could connect with or relate with on a personal level. He went out there and found the anti-Brad Stevens. He found a coach who was philosophically and in terms of coaching background completely different. Imeyodoka, ex-player, never been a head coach on any level, long-time assistant, defensive-minded guy as he was in his previous two stops in Brooklyn and in Philadelphia.

He found a guy that could give this team something that he couldn't. That's one of the biggest reasons the Celtics are here right now. And I agree with you on Quinn Snyder. I think it's the exact same type of situation. I don't know if a new coach is going to be able to come in and elevate that team to a Celtics-like level. There are just too many flaws with that roster beginning on the defensive side. But I do think they would respond better to a different coach than Quinn Snyder. So as I'm prone to do, let me pat myself in the back here.

I said early in this series, you is my witness. I said, believe it or not, I think Robert Williams is the key to the. the series. He's not the best player. He's not a top three, four player. But he had the biggest plus minus when you put him in the game between the objections, the offensive rebounds, the rejections and the offensive rebounds, and he shuts down any interior scoring. So Boston had better paint scoring, more blocks, 13 or 14 offensive rebounds. And generally, if you look at a series, you think it's Tatum or Brown or Curry. And they're better players. I think the size, I think Robert Williams, I think he's a complete utter disruptor to the interior scoring to the Warriors.

And he reduces them to a three-ball shooting team and as good as they are. If Boston scored in transition, down low and on jump shots, and you can only score offensively deep as good as Clay was. I think if Robert Williams gives you 26 minutes or up, rest of the series, I don't. I think Boston's the better team. Your thoughts? Most importantly, Rob Williams just played a much better game than he had been playing earlier in the series as well. He looked a lot more immobile is the wrong word, but just he looked banged up in the first couple of games a little bit.

He was doing some silly stuff too where he was roaming too much off of Kevin Looney and getting kind of lost and giving up stuff on the back end. I thought he just played a really sharp game on both ends of the floor. He was much more, he was much more focused and intentional. about where he was supposed to be on the defense event. And then on the offensive end, you know, big guys typically muck up spacing, but there are two ways that you can counter that. One is what's called vertical spacing.

So if you're a great jumper around the rim that can catch lobs, that helps. But the big one is offensive rebounding. And he got a bunch of huge offensive rebounds, just crashing the glass relentlessly with his size and athleticism. As a team, Boston, you know, Colin, we talked about this after game two. We both said, you know, Golden State won the physicality battle. the second half. But we thought as long as it stayed that style of game throughout the series, it would actually favor Boston because they're just simply the bigger and stronger team,

not just on the perimeter, but under the basket as well. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things we just have to own. Warriors are going to win the third quarter and Boston's going to have bad six-minute stretches, even in wins. They're not, this is not a beautiful offensive team. and when they're playing a disruptive defense like Golden State, they just got baking in. They're just going to have these moments. But, and I had said this probably two or three weeks ago on Fox, I'm an FS1, I said they're so good defensively. When they have these horrible six-minute, seven-minute stretches, the Celtics do, you know, they trail by eight. You know, Miami's got a little bit of that, that Miami, you know, Miami, I don't think nearly as good as Boston because

Tyler Hero is such a limited player defensively. But Boston has the ability. They know they can get ugly, but they just play so hard. They protect the rim. And okay, you're down seven. You know, so much of this sport and the Warriors dynasty is about these great runs. And I think a lot of what Boston does well is just limit your runs mostly. But to your point, Boston has ugly basketball.

Like, they do stuff and you're like, oh, this is just not. But, you know, I if you look at the history of the NBA, I've been watching it since the early 70s, there's been a handful of great teams, Showtime Lakers, Warriors, MJ's Bulls. A lot of our champions, Jason, have been really flawed teams. They've had overachievers. They've had one star.

And I kind of feel like that's what Boston is. They feel like good enough to win a championship. They're going to need health. Robert Williams have to be healthy. I think they're going to need another big game from Marcus Smart. You know, I had Warriors in six. I don't feel as good about it. The Celtics are minus three and a half in game four.

I probably take the Warriors plus the points, but I don't know if the Warriors win. I feel like with Robert Williams looking much more dynamic tonight, I think that's just, that is a dilemma. I don't think it's a solvable issue for the Warriors. Since the Brooklyn series, they haven't had many consecutive good performances. I'd say probably game six and game seven against Milwaukee was their best example of that.

But they pretty consistently, after having a great performance, go back in the next game and lose sight of the things that went well for them and have issues. You pointed out that Boston is a flawed team, and I 100% agree. And generally speaking, though, the flawed teams that end up succeeding have overwhelming advantages in other areas of the game. So for instance, the 2020 Lakers were a bad half-court offense team. They were bad in the regular season. They were bad throughout the bubble stretch before they got into the playoffs.

But they just had these two incredible mismatches in LeBron and AD, and they were a dominant defensive team, and they rode that wave to the championship. And guess what? No one ever really cared that their half-court offense wasn't great. This Boston team, like their physical advantages on the perimeter, like we talked about in game two, have caused Golden State to make an adjustment that is really a hurt them around the rim. They had to, because their guards are too small, they had to pull Draymond Green out to guard Jalen Brown. In the bench lineup in the second quarter, they had to have

Draymond Green guard Jason Tatum when Andrew Wiggins was out. So like, they're in this predicament where they had to take their best backline defender, their best rim protector, because Looney's an okay rim protector, but he's not in the same stratosphere as Draymond Green. But because they had to pull him out to the perimeter to guard these guys, he's not there helping on the backline either. So it's like a physical mismatch forced the Golden State Warriors to play a defensive style of basketball that they have never played really. When can you think, like, they never put Draymond Green on LeBron as a primary defender. You know, like that's because they just had the luxury of having these bigger, stronger wings like Andre Aguadala, right, and Harrison Barnes. But because of the fact

that Otto Porter Jr. is just a touch too skinny and isn't laterally quick enough to stay in front of people, because Gary Payton, the second, is just a touch too small. And because all of the other wings they have like Moses Moody and Jonathan Kaminger are too young to throw into the fire in this situation. They're kind of stuck in this predicament where they just simply don't have the physical matchups necessary to contain these big Boston forwards. And again, Colin, Boston did not play overly well tonight. And that's the wild part there. I don't know what to expect in game for. This Boston team has been the most unpredictable team that I've watched in this playoff run. but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they came out and dominated them again in game four.

So I take notes. I have scratches all over paper, and so I go quarter by quarter. And this is what's really good news. This would be disturbing if I'm a Warriors fan. Here's who I mention in the fourth. I have four notes. Marcus Smart, Banks in a 3, 98, 89. Grant Williams.

dot, dot, dot, 13 offensive rebounds for the Celtics. Robert Williams, now four rejections. Marcus Smart hitting shots, 22. I don't mention Tatum. I don't mention Brown. I'm talking about role players. That would be like akin to me saying for the Warriors, Jordan Poole in the fourth quarter.

Kvon Looney gets big shots. No, you need staff. So Boston in the fourth quarter, Grant Williams, Robert Williams, Marcus Smart. I don't have Tatum down. I've Tatum all over the third. But what it tells you is Boston's role players or non-stars, I guess Marcus Smart kind of is, they're crucial. Whereas I think some of those players for the Warriors are liabilities.

that feels like a thing to me right now. Absolutely. And to even take it a step further, Colin, like there's going to be a game in this series where Marcus Smart isn't turning the ball over all over the place. Like as much as he shot well at the end, he was like he made some very, very, very painful mistakes throwing the basketball all over the court

that led to run out dunks and layups for the Warriors. Jalen Brown, who was dominant at the beginning of the game, wasn't super aggressive down the stretch. Jason Tatum, who was great down the stretch. stretch wasn't great for the first three quarters, there's a version of this Boston attack where all of these guys play well. And if that happens in Golden State, like let's say it's in a game five when the series is three one or it's two, two. Like there's a version of this Boston team that can hit a ceiling that they haven't hit yet in this series. And most importantly, I thought Boston had some

adjustments that were in their back pocket that they hadn't gone to yet. This was something that we also talked about on the favorites. Generally speaking, when you're looking at a playoff series, you want to look at what is available as an option, right? Like when you're looking at the Warriors and you're looking at their shortage of bigger wings, you're like, okay, our next best option is Moses Moody, like a young kid to throw in this environment? That's not a great option. But Boston just has this long list of options that they could go to. And they have so much defensive versatility.

Colin, check this out. One thing they were getting killed by in the first couple of games is the Steph Dremont High Pick and Roll. And because they were unable to guard it. Well, guess what they did? They put Jason Tatum on Draymond Green and they put Al Horford on Andrew Wiggins. How many teams can put their center on your wing and their wing on your center? And what they did is they just started switching that high pick and roll. And I don't know if you saw the stat, Colin, but Draymond Green is like top 10 all time and assists in the finals.

Did you see that? Yeah. And a huge reason why that's the case is because teams double step on those pick and rolls. And then Draymond Green is such a good passer coming out of that. Kevin Looney is not. And so they were unable to run their high pick and roll because Jason Tatum was on Dremont. It's just a simple little adjustment that caused them a bunch of problems. There's just more cards in Boston's deck that they can play as this series plays out than Golden State has.

Golden State's chance to win is basically hoping that Boston will vomit all over themselves and they will execute smartly like the veteran team as things progress, which by the way might happen. But that's their hope. The volume. Make sure to check out the Dramon Green Show. I brought Dramon Green into the volume because one of the more entertaining voices in sports, unique perspective, understands behind the rope. Also chops up with guests like Gary Payton, Zach Levine, Tracy McGrady.

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