The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd’s Instant Reaction -  Lakers/Nuggets Game 1, Spurs/Wembanyama Fit

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Colin gives his instant reaction to the Nuggets Game 1 Western Conference Finals home win over the Lakers, and the Spurs winning the NBA Lottery and the rights to French 7’3” unicorn super prospect Victor Wembanyama   Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates! #Herd #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? 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 IHard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The volume. Hi, everybody. Let's have an instant reaction off the Nuggets, 132, 126 win over the Lakers. If you're the Lakers, I think you have to feel pretty good. And I'll get to the Nuggets in a second. But Denver was about as good as a basketball team can be in the first half.

Yokic put on a first quarter that was like a skills competition. competition. They hit everything. They're passing, their energy. They outworked the Lakers. They dominated the boards. And in the end, after a 37 point first quarter with the Lakers trailed by 12, and then another second quarter where the Lakers were outscored by 6, 35 to 29, it felt pretty hopeless. But the playoffs are about tweaking. This is the knock on Doc Rivers. He didn't tweak. He didn't adjust. So Darvin Ham, we've talked about this, has done a really good job of adjusting. So they started making some defensive adjustments, put Rui on Yokic, have AD as the help defender. That's something that was obvious. I also thought their effort improved.

I also thought Yokic felt like he tired a little bit later in the game. But I think overall, what's really interesting from the box score tonight, if you look at it, field goals, both team shot 54%. Three point shooting, both teams shot basically 46%. Excellent. Free throws, Lakers were 23 at 26. Both teams shot very well from the free throw line. The difference in the game, assists were even, steals were even, turnovers were low, points in the paint, both had 50. The big advantage was rebounds. The Lakers were out rebounded badly, 47 to 30. And I think one of the things that's pretty remarkable about what the Warriors have done was small ball at speed and pace. and three-point shooting.

But I remember a conversation, and Denver's really big. Michael Porter's 6-10. Gordon 6-9. Yokic is huge. Even KCP, 6'5 and a half is a tall guard. They're just a big, long team. And Mark Warkinteen, the late Mark Warkinteen, used to coach basketball and assistant at UNLV, then was a GM around the league, work for the Knicks Blazers.

He used to talk about length all the time. And I remember one time we had a conversation about the Bulls teams with Pippin and Jordan. And he was talking about between, you know, Coo coach and Rodman and Harper and Jordan and Pippin and Luke Longleys. They always had so much length. Their bigs like Cartwright weren't dominant, but they were long. And he said, over the course of a game, they would get five loose balls, five tip passes. And he said, if you give those to Michael Jordan on the other end, he shoots 50 percent, there's your ball game. He goes, how many games did the Bulls win by four, six, seven points? Their length was so significant.

And it's amazing the Warriors put up this dynasty where, you know, once Kevin Durant left and pre-C Kevin Durant, they were never a terribly long team. So you don't get the freebies underneath. You don't get the pass deflections, the tip balls, the tip passes. Denver lived off those in the first half. Their length and hustle points. The Nuggets just carved up the Lakers, volleyballing it around, getting second and third chance. and then again, you tighten things up at halftime, and the Lakers played a much better second half.

Again, I think they have to feel pretty good, considering Denver was a nearly flawless team at-home altitude advantage for game one. I think it's going to be a really interesting series. You know, they always say styles make fights and title fights. You can see why Denver was the number one seed. Highly efficient. They don't shoot a ton of threes when they do. They hit them.

I think they had to. one of the lower number of threes in the NBA this year, but we're very efficient. They don't turn the ball over a lot. They get a lot of second chance points because of their length. And late helps them on both ends. So you can see they don't shoot a ton of threes, but Jamal Murray is really good when he does. You can see why Denver's a really good team. Plus the altitude, that's always been in any time the nuggets have been good.

They've been very good at home. So I think we're going to have a six, seven game series. I think the quality of basketball on the. the floor tonight. I mean, the talent. KCP, Yokic, Michael Porter, Gordon, Jamal Murray, Rui had a really good night. Austin Reeves had a couple of big threes late. Anthony Davis really woke up in the second half offensively. LeBron James, it's no coincidence. These teams are here. The Lakers and the Nuggets just, it's trees against bigger trees. and that was the difference tonight.

Those 17 rebounds, second chance points. Most, it felt like a lot of them were in the first half. The Nuggets were playing downhill. But the Lakers, and they do this. When you're very good defensively, you can just make enough stops. You go on a little, Rui gets hot, Reeves gets hot, LeBron hits a couple, Davis gets in his groove,

and all of a sudden you're outplayed, and you looked up and you were like, oh, they're down six. They're down four. So Lakers can hang around like that. And that's what length and defense and adjusting does. My takeaway is if Los Angeles would have stolen that game, that would have taken the wind out of Denver's sales. They didn't.

Good effort. Denver's earned that number one seed. We knew what they were big coming in. But you really, when you watch the Warriors' lack of size against the Lakers, And then you watch the Lakers and they look small compared to Denver. It gives you an idea. If you're the warriors watching this game tonight saying, okay, in the offseason, we've got to get bigger. You know, when that small ball first introduced and those players were in their prime, Clay and Steph and Dremont, it was a little faster.

They've slowed down a bit. Now they don't have the size and that. Denver's the real deal. Really, really nice win. Okay, I want to take a quick break. Come back thoughts on Victor. Wambanjama going to the Spurs. How great have the NBA playoffs been so far?

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Use the code, Colin C-O-L-I-N. 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 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. All right, so the ping pong lottery has the San Antonio Spurs winning. Victor Wambanjama, the French prodigy. Of course, Tony Parker played in France, so there's a huge Spurs fan base in that area. And Victor said afterwards that a lot of people were hoping you went to San Antonio. They were one of the teams with the odds on favorite, one of the three favorites going into the ping pong ball lottery. Listen, if you're going to go anywhere, my heart was rooting for the Portland Trailblazers who have had the worst string of luck of any professional sports franchise in America.

Bill Walton was a brilliant college and pro basketball player, fell apart in Portland. Sam Bowie, a remarkable player with the Kentucky Wildcats, fell apart. Greg Oden, Brandon Roy. never ends Portland. It's ironic. Their smallest player, Damian Lillard has been the one that's had the great career, not the big guys. So I was kind of rooting for the Portland Trailblazers to get a break.

They are saying he's a better prospect than Magic Johnson and LeBron James. Let me push back a little bit on that. I think what made Magic so special, and he had a short career, but what has made LeBron special is their body type. I was watching LeBron and you had that black pullover on before the game warming up. He looks like a defensive end in the NFL. So much of LeBron's success is his body, not only is he taken care of it, but it's just built to last. You know, I said this about Tom Brady.

I've stood around Tom Brady one time. And Tom Brady is 6.5, 2.30. Tom Brady's a big man. You know, these small quarterbacks, the two is the Kyler Murray's. They age fast. Brady is big and didn't get him. hit much. So Wambinyama is a very 7-3 and growing, very thin. That body type historically is not an 18-year body type. And to break LeBron James records, you're going to have to play for 18 years,

at least. Magic Johnson, body type, big, huge for a guard. You know, a lot, Akima Lajuan, if you look at the players who have been great, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, He didn't get hurt much in his career. Very strong player. You think of Kareem as thin, kind of angular, very strong player. Good base. I don't know. I look at Victor Wambayama and I think, oh, he's absolutely offensively gifted.

Nobody's ever going to block his shot. He's going to get 20 points a game. He'll get pushed around for the first couple of years, but he's going to score a lot of points very quickly. But that frame, you know, we've seen a lot of really, really good. players and putting on weight and he needs to. It's not always easy. You know, you go from playing internationally at 19 years old to the NBA and an 82 game schedule.

You're dropping, you've got to play on both ends of the floor and the NBA. Okay. You're getting, they'll come back and score on you. You're dropping six, seven, eight thousand calories a night,

getting on a plane, too tired to eat, falling asleep, landing late. Guys, rookies hit, hit a wall. I mean, your body's still growing, 18, 19 years old.

So, you know, I said this about Chet Holmgren when he went to OKC. I'd put him on like a 58 game schedule. I wouldn't even let him for the first two years play 82 games. I'd go like 58 games first year, stay away from most back to backs unless they're home. And then I'd go maybe 68 games a year the second year. Then you can let him go. But to go from 36 games at Gonzaga for Chet Hongren to 82, with that. body type, there's no way I'm doing it. There's no way. And he got hurt very quickly.

And nobody's to blame on that. But I, you know, there's going to be so much pressure. He's young. The NBA schedule is daunting. You have to play both ends. He'll be tested because he's being called the greatest player ever, prospect ever. Guys are going to go after him. They're going to go right after and be overly physical with him. I'm excited. The thing I think that really is ideal, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, this is not the first rodeo for the spur. They've had this kind of prodigy. They've had this great player. This is what they do.

Popovich knows what he's doing. He'll be patient. The San Antonio Press is not unrealistic. It's not New York, Boston, Philadelphia. The fangs aren't out. Good ownership. Excellent front office. And they can kind of build the team they want.

They got a lot of salary cap room. They can build the team they want. They've let go. They've abandoned other players. So there's no egos, no divas. They're going to build around him on his timeline. So I can't wait to watch it. I mean, I would rather see a young quarterback go to an Andy Reed or Sean McVeigh than a defensive coach, right?

I would rather see one of these young players go to the Spurs than Greg Popovich than some guy that's going to get run out. I mean, in the last couple days, you know, it's Monty Williams gone, Doc River is gone. This chaos runs the NBA. San Antonio doesn't have a lot of it. And so he's going to a very solid, no chaos, reputable. organization with a history of developing players and winning under Greg Popovich, a very strong system. Nice place to live. You can kind of hide in San Antonio. So if you've got to go anywhere, that's the place. Good for him. So big night. Nice win for the Nuggets who looked apart as a number

one seed held on to win. And Victor Wambayama, who they're calling, Woe said his sources saying he's the greatest prospect ever. That doesn't mean it'd be the greatest player ever. Michael Jordan was the third pick. Let's take a deep breath. But he will score. I mean, you can, I've talked to a couple scouts. He'll walk into the league and score a lot really quickly.

Cross your fingers on his health. Can't wait to watch it. So much fun. Instant reaction. See you tomorrow on FS1. Premier Radio. Volume. Make sure to check out the Dram on Green.

show. I brought Draymond 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 Peyton, Zach Levine, Tracy McGrady. Make sure download the Draymond Green Show wherever you get your podcast, only on the volume podcast network. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenk Kirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart 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 grotes. 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. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.