The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - EVERY WAY Pacers should beat Thunder in NBA Finals w/ Sam Vecenie

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Jason Timpf is joined by head NBA writer for the Athletic Sam Vecenie to break down the NBA Finials between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers. They both give their general thoughts on the matchup before discussing every strategy and game plan the Pacers could use to beat OKC, why Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam are so important, and how tough it is to defend Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Timeline 0:00 Start5:27 Series overview15:55 Pacers offense37:25 Pacers defense49:00 OKC historic greatness #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I hope all of you guys are having a great start to your week. Well, my friend, my good friend, Sam Vassini is coming on the show. And we have a very fun kind of format for today. And it's kind of unusual under the circumstances. The Thunder are a massive favorite to win the NBA finals. They are currently minus 700. And so under those circumstances, we talked and we came to the conclusion that it would be a fun exercise to pretend that Sam and I are the coaches of the Indiana Pacers. and we are attempting to come up with a game plan that might give us the best chance to win this particular series.

Sam, before we even get started, how are you doing, man? We haven't talked in a long time. It's been a very, very busy few months, but it's so nice to have you back on the show. It's great to be here. It's busy. I finally just finished the draft guide, which means I'm like up for air now. I finally can relax a little bit on top of all of the crazy recording that Bryce and I have done where we're going live every other night for the playoffs is the schedule we've done in the playoffs.

So it's good to be up for air and it's good to chat with you. Again, like I feel terrible. Like we haven't even caught up on the phone because I've just been like literally in front of my computer. This is the time of year where I put on like eight pounds or nine pounds just because I have to watch so much like to stay above water on both. I finally get to go to the gym after we're done with this. It's going to be great. Yeah, I was going to say I stopped playing as much basketball for a while there

in like April and May and like I was starting to not play as well. I started to get a little down on myself. I was like I need I need to get some of this routine back in motion. And thankfully in the finals we space out a little bit. So before we get into our exercise, I couldn't help but think after the finals were set about a conversation you and I had on this show, right after the NBA finals last year.

We discussed this. I asked you what your biggest lesson you learned from the playoffs was. And we both had like similar answers that were like in different kind of like they were more or less meaning the same thing. But the answer you came up with was ground coverage and essentially having to do with speed and the ability to cover ground in rotation because of the idea that in order to do anything to make a star uncomfortable. You have to do a certain amount of aggressive loading up and that inherently puts you into these rotation situations. And then there's also just the

reality of how much of the game is being played in transition. I kind of became obsessed around the idea of perimeter speed. This was a concept that I was hitting on a lot around the same time and it more or less means the same thing. But I can't help but notice that we have these two teams that are not particularly big, but that have a depth of perimeter speed and the ability to cover ground in rotation that vastly supersedes some of the other teams that we've seen around the league. And so my first question for you is just what have you really learned from this particular postseason run with Indiana in Oklahoma City ending up in the finals? Does it legitimize anything about your big picture basketball worldview? Yeah, I think that that is a really good point in terms of the ground coverage defensively. And look, I've been obsessed with this for a couple of years now, for sure.

I think I would add to it and just say that I think every team needs a five-out look at the very least. Like, it might not be your primary designation, but you need to at least have the look to be able to go five-out at all times. Otherwise, it's just really hard to be able to survive in the NBA currently because you need different, kinds of adjustments that you need to be able to make depending on the situation. You know, against the Lakers, Minnesota really thrived by loading up and being able to play as big as possible. But, you know, in other situations, they certainly needed to be able to go five out and be able to play multiple different offensive looks more than anything. So being able to go five out would be what I would add at any point, even if it's not your

primary look. I would hope that it's your primary look, to be frank. But I think you can make it work without it being your primary work. The other thing that kind of stood out to me was just depth. Jackson and I were talking on playback the other night. Just this, you know, there's all this low-hanging fruit in basketball in terms of things like picking up full court to make people uncomfortable. In terms of like being able to play an incredibly hellacious pace. In terms of really having like an overall like expectation that everyone in your lineup is allowed

to be aggressive, that everyone in your lineup is allowed to turn the corner and look to score. And I think that there's a reality that you need depth in order to do that. And I think what stood out to me as a counter example was the Knicks with Tom Thibodeau, where all year long he's emphasizing heavy minutes for starters under the guise of conditioning, but all year long those guys were not sharp on the details in large part because they had to play such heavy minute loads. And so I'm not saying it's the end-all be-all because I do think it's possible for you to have success in the NBA without a ton of depth, especially if you've got like six rock solid players. The Celtics famously last year, they were like a pretty tight

eight-man rotation. And towards the end, they were, you know, leaning pretty heavily on their top six guys. But I think there is some reality to the fact that you can exploit more of that low-hanging fruit by having a good 10-11-man rotation of guys that can at least succeed within your scheme on both ends of the floor. Well, and the other way to exploit that low-hanging fruit, I'm glad you brought up the low-hanging fruit idea, is something that both Indiana and the Thunder honestly do maybe better than anybody, and that's like spurred ability, right?

The ability to just go on these crazy runs and create points off of turnovers immediately. I believe that Indiana and the Thunder right now are currently first and second in the playoffs and points per game off of turnovers, right? And you look at the way that the series is going to, you know, flow, in my opinion, it's going to be based on the idea of the turnover battle because nobody does a better job of forcing turnovers than Oklahoma City. And arguably, nobody does a better job of reducing turnovers than Indiana, right? So, like, that battle to me is going to be the key to this series. But Indiana, I think, is a really underrated team in terms of forcing points off of turnovers just because while they don't, like, force an insane number of them, they're always lethal in how they're

execute off of them. They are so intentional in the way that they go about finding mismatches. If you have anything to exploit, they are incredible at finding different cross-matches and transition to be able to attack. That's just the reality of what they do, is because they have Halliburton and Nemhard, both of whom have grown up playing in these up-tempo schemes as point guards, right? They have this incredible ability to always find the cross-match. Both of those guys are really sharp at knowing exactly where the advantage is. is Gonzaga played at one of the fastest tempos in the league or in the country under Andrew Nemhard, right?

Tyrese Halliburton's been playing this way for years, right? He just knows how to handle it. Having multiple ball handlers out there who can all shoot, who can all make decisions. At the end of the day, like what this comes down to for me on some level is A, the ground coverage and B, just decision making in general. The ability to process the court, like basketball on the court at such a high level is so incredibly important. And it's why we've seen Alex Caruso just, you know, elevate his game even further in the playoffs this year.

It's why we see guys like Chet Holmgren at the center position be able to, you know, make decisions faster than other centers, in my opinion, play such a critical role for them. Isaiah Hartenstein's a very good decision maker for a big for Oklahoma City on the other side. I would argue that Miles Turner is just so well drilled within that scheme at this point. Pascal Seaccom is so problematic in terms of creating mismatchezing. but he also makes good decisions as well in terms of when to attack those mismatches. The ability to process basketball is just absolutely critical to me. It is the number one thing to me that these two teams particularly, beyond not really having like a weak link on the court to really attack, that's what these two teams do better than

anybody, in my opinion. Well, and with the way they play defense, they're gearing everything around rushing you and getting you to make mistakes as decision makers. And like we were blown away when we would watch film from the Knicks series, how often they would have like really poor spacing where there'd be nobody above the break for some reason, which was the number one culprit of their transition defense issues. And then they'd have like Mitchell Robinson in one dunker spot and O.G. and O.G. and O.G. and O.D.N.O.B. and the other dunker spot. And Kat just set a ball screen for

Brunson and for some reason he's rolling. And you're like, what the fuck are you guys doing? Like this is, there's so many like simple things like that where it's like when you watch the Celtics when they were at their best. And I actually think the Thunder are an underrated kind of like spacing relocating team. They do kind of whirl around off the ball really well. But like they're, they're just so much sharper with the little decisions about where they relocate to where they space to where they cut from like how, you know, one of the reasons why they're such good transition defenses is their ability to kind of make sure they always have their floor balance set up. Well, speaking to that point, like I saw, you know, your volume call. league, Jeff Teague, bring up that, like, when he played for Tibbs, like,

Tibbs isn't, you know, wildly intentional about these things, right? Like, he just, like, kind of says, go and then just yells damn a whole lot, right? Like, the intentionality is really critical to me, like, having intentional spacing. And that's why, like, to me, I kind of understand, like, even though the Knicks just went to the conference finals, if they want to move on from Tibbs, like, I'm not going to sit here and complain. I thought he coached an incredibly poor series against the Indiana Pacers, just both in terms of the lineups he decided to utilize going two bigs against that transition attack.

And then additionally, the intentionality of the spacing just feels totally wrong all the time to me with them. Not all the time, but too often. Let's go with for a team that is as talented as they are. So when I look at these two teams, I think that what stands out above what I've said so far is the coaching. These two coaches are two of the top five coaches in the league. And I actually wonder, I think for a while we were at a point where there were like five really elite coaches, right?

Like guys that I thought really moved the needle for you. And then I thought there were like five or six like not great coaches that moved the needle negatively. And then everybody else is kind of in the middle, right? I actually wonder if in this new era of basketball where in 10, intentionality in regard to spacing in terms of tempo, in terms of rotations, in terms of making sure you don't have like a weak link on the court regularly. I think we might be at a point now where coaching is actually starting to become more important even than what we had been thinking of it as being previously. Because that intentionality in spacing and rotational alignment is so critical now in the biggest moments in the playoffs.

I totally agree. Like this low-hanging fruit stuff, it's not based on like just easily, easily attainable points that everyone in the league is known about for decades. It's a lot about how the game has changed. Like Boston was able to tow the line of being an elite offensive rebounding team and an elite transition defense. Why? Because they utilize these corner crashes towards the elbows because they understood this is where the ball most frequently comes off of the wrist. him. And it also is kind of like a runway for our transition defense. The top two guys get back. These guys crashing out of the corners can kind of whirl up the floor after they make that crash.

And there's just like this kind of understanding that like, okay, every time we play in transition, we're 20% more efficient. So why would we not hunt that at every single opportunity that we have? You mentioned the cross matches. To the antithesis of that, Jason, defensively as well with your spacing. The Knicks. constantly had like four or five guys below the foul line chasing offensive rebounds against the Pacers as well. So like that it's not just spacing from an offensive perspective. It is actually kind of spacing from a defensive perspective too in making sure that you're able to stop the low hanging fruit on the other end too. It's yeah. It's like we've just we've

been talking so much about the things that they've been taking advantage of. To your point, both the Pacers and the Thunder are great at not turning the ball over. both this is these are all like readily attainable things and so like this is one of the things that us laker fans were bitching and moaning about nonstop with respect to j j jrattig versus darvin ham is like j j j j did not do a good job in this postseason run and he's got obviously playoff game planning and adjustments to figure out at a higher level than what he figured that what he had this year and um but like j j j j j at the very least came in from day one and was like we're going to harp on these details and so and they suddenly were a better team and like

Shay Gildes Alexander in his MVP speech mentioning how Dagnot was just a pain in the ass. Like that stuff is all incredibly important to maximizing, especially when the margins are smaller too. Like this isn't the this isn't what it was 10 years ago where the calves and the warriors are so clearly better than everyone that everyone else is just kind of fighting for second place in their conference. Like this is every, if you look at these, the playoff field this year, kind of felt like anybody could get it done.

And here we are. We're with Indiana and Oklahoma City. And Oklahoma City was this close to losing in the second round. These are very, very tight margins. By the way, Oklahoma City was this close to losing in the second round in a series where they had 27 points per game off of turnovers. So like you tell you tell me whether or not low-hanging fruit matters in the NBA. But let's get to this series. And so you and I are the coaching staff.

We are trying to figure out who's the lead assistant in Indiana right now. Do you know, off the top of your head? I think they do different things for different ends of the court. Like Jenny Boosick, I know, does the defensive side. I can't remember who does the offensive side. I feel like Rick does a good amount of the offensive side, but I can't remember who their, like, coordinator is on that end. Gotcha.

So we're sitting down in our coaches meeting. We're focusing on the offensive end of the floor. I wrote down a couple ideas, and I'm going to just give one of them to you right now. We'll just kind of go from there. So I have a feeling that this series ends with Chet at the 5. There's some pretty strong data from the regular season that Isaiah Hartenstein struggles to guard this team.

Not hard to figure out why, traditional bigs that are not like apex athletes like Mitchell Robinson are going to struggle to a certain extent in this type of whirling dervish type of offense. So I think it's going to be a lot of Chet at the five alongside four perimeter type of players. So I think it's vitally important for the pacer's to force Chet to guard on the perimeter as much as possible. So my next question, my first pitch to you is this. Should Indiana consider going small in this series?

In what respect? So are we talking like Toppin and Pascal? Are we talking, you know, like they go four perimeter guys and like knee Smith at the four small? Like how small? I would say like a good amount of Siakum and Topin and then for the record, this is not, this is not like we start the game this way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Does the game tilt towards we're, because we haven't even got to the other end of the floor. they did struggle a little bit in ball screens, especially with Hartensign getting behind. And I think that's going to happen a lot with Chet as well.

So, like, my idea behind the Pacers going small is the true switch ability to be able to switch ball screens and prevent the easy kind of reads that Indiana, or that Oklahoma City can make in pick and roll, but also the ability to consistently force Chet to guard on the perimeter. I think that Indiana is going to be able to get a certain amount of like pick and pop type of stuff with Miles Turner, but I think that OKC is going to live with chasing him off with just a late close out. And so what I'm wondering is, could you actually force Chet to guard in more action and force him to guard on the perimeter more by going small, especially with a team that's not particularly big in any case.

Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast. Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it.

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Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. So I don't mind this idea. In general, the Pacers have really taken advantage of Biggs in the playoffs, this, you know, entire run from Mitchell Robinson to like Jared Allen never being able to figure out that Tyrese Halliburton only goes right, right? Like they have really, really struggled. They've really taken advantage of that and other teams have struggled to deal with them. I don't, so like almost the way I'm going to think of this is like, you know, you bring up this idea. And like I'm trying to think of like it from Oklahoma City's perspective. because so much of this is a chess game, right?

You're trying to figure out what the counters are going to be ahead of the counters, right? So if you go small, right, do you think that a Seacom-based five unit is going to be capable of taking advantage of Hartenstein enough is my question? Because if I'm the Thunder at that point, I'm just crashing Hartenstein to the glass on the offensive end fairly regularly, especially with how I'm assuming you're going to have to play defensively, where you're going to have to play a little bit more like shell coverages

as opposed to like getting aggressive and trying to force turnovers because Oklahoma City doesn't really do that. So that would create like potentially more situations where Hartinstein might be able to crash the offensive glass a little bit easier. I do agree with your point that like the Hartenstein minutes will probably be like 20 year or so a game. But like if you're going smaller, do I just match and go bigger with Hartenstein and Chet and say, okay, can Siakum beat Hartenstein in a mismatch situation? My guess is yes, but like at what level would be my question to you? So Hartnstein was matched up with Seacom one-on-one

quite a few times in transition cross matches in the film that I was watching. I actually thought Siakum had some success just like getting downhill against him. There was a little bit of like, there were a few plays where Seaccom tried to draw fouls and it didn't work. But I actually liked Seaccom's attack attacks against Oklahoma City's bigs. But the point you're bringing up about Hartnstein is fair. I think the way that I would think of it is in this theoretical scenario, the Pacers have played Hartnstein off the floor. And then they go small. So essentially it would be almost like mirroring Miles Turner's minutes to Hartonson's.

if that makes sense. The other thing that we have to talk about here in any of the minutes that we watched on film, because I have watched the other games as well, like the games from the regular season, which Oklahoma City went 2 and O. the game in March was like a 20-point beating. And Chet did not play in either of these games.

Basically everybody else played. I think Ben Matherin missed one of the games as well, but basically everybody else played in these games. So we have like a decent sample here, but Chet did not play. and that does like really fundamentally change a lot for the way that Indiana is going to be able to match up, I think. What worries me about this? And I don't even know that you're wrong.

Like I think that it's potentially their best option. I think it's potentially Indiana's best option is I do think Chet is better at guarding on the perimeter than like, you know, Carl Towns. And then, you know, like, Jared Allen. Jared Allen, like any of these other guys that they played, right? So what would worry me about this is you're just like, okay, we're just going to play drop with Chet and we're going to play at the level maybe with Chet. You're going to try and what, like, slip Seaccombe behind them maybe to get like an easy mismatch at times.

Maybe you try and run like a quick little like slide action where it's just like a quick little ghost pick and pop kind of thing in order to catch him. I think Indiana does a really good job of differentiating the kinds of ball screens that they run for sure. Um, maybe like it might be their best option is to go small. It's just the issue is that like they haven't really been willing to do this. And I did it a little bit at the end of the next series, just a little bit. Yeah.

I'm like all in favor of them not playing Tony Bradley and Thomas Bryant. Like I think those are the minutes that really worry me if I'm Indiana. Mm-hmm. But yeah, this is, this is better to me. This is a good idea. If I'm them, I'm definitely playing small more than I'm playing the, 10 to 12 minutes a game where Thomas Bryant and Tony Bradley are on the court. I would definitely do that. Yeah, it ties to the defensive end because I didn't like the way that I thought that Indiana

gave up a lot of vertical spacing opportunities on the role specifically to Hartenstein. And that's what kind of, I'm glad you brought up the Chet piece because we talked about this in our series preview. Like I, I look at Chet as the best of both worlds with Hartenstein in the sense that he brings the same kind of vertical spacing element as a guy that can roll behind the defense, but that legitimately can guard on the perimeter and this whirling kind of offense. That said, even within that context, I think he's the smartest target point for Indiana to try to go after just because he's a big body. And if you can get him shifting one way or the other, that could help. I, the other one of the other thing with Chet is a, is a lob threat to me, right? I always think Chet is a little bit better

is a lob threat cutting baseline than he is in ball screens. I just think it allows him to load up a little bit easier in those situations. But what that does is it means that like a lot of the ball screens will be set like guard to guard, right? And I would imagine like figuring out an answer to the guard to guard screening actions and the small lineups or actually those are actually going to be the critical thing to me, trying to figure out like, okay, how do we handle the guard to guards? Are we just switching if it means we're getting Halliburton on?

on Shea or if it means we're getting, you know, Obie Toppin onto Shea? Or are we, you know, going to try and like hedge and recover a little bit with Halliburton and Topin? Obviously you switch anything to Emhardt and Eastman, I would think. But, you know, what would your answer be to the way that you guard, guard to guard ball screens if you're going smaller would be my question? I would switch. I thought that Halliburton's hedges straight up didn't work because Oklahoma City's guards were. were just slipping to the rim, particularly Kaysen Wallace. And I feel like Halliburton is at his best when he's going against, like,

ghost screen guards that go to the three-point line because he's really good at getting out of the hedge with his hands up and making that pass kind of float over the top and being able to rotate relatively quick. But I think the traditional, like, kind of guard-guard screen where the guard just slips directly to the rim, torched Halliburton. I actually thought he did okay in his Shay switches, like, okay. And like, at least enough to make him hit a couple counter moves to where the help defense could get involved.

And he actually did force a couple of misses. I know that's a lot to ask for Halliburton, but I'm worried that if they just let him hedge, that it's going to end in a bunch of slips. But you're right. I mean, going small, I think the entire game plan shifts more towards switching because essentially the entire purpose of going small on both ends of the floor revolves around being able to attack Chet in space more effectively

and then being able to switch ball screens so that they don't have the issues they were having with the roll man in the regular season. So I find that to be most likely a switching scheme if they were to go small. Okay. And then final question here about this piece of it if you go small. So do you just trust if you're Oklahoma City for Jalen Williams to be able to guard Siakum? because if you do that, then it's Tappin, then it's Chet on Toppin. And I would imagine they'll just leave Tophin open from three at that point. Yeah, I think you could also talk me specifically because of the Oklahoma City matchup into them going into more guards.

I actually put this, actually, this is a perfect pivot to the next one. I had a different one for my second piece, but we'll circle back to that. Should they? Because a lot of my Indiana on offense takes are geared around the idea that they're going to be face guarding Tyree. is Halliburton and ball pressuring in full court and some of the stuff with him kind of getting disengaged. Halliburton's usage rate in the regular season is low compared to other guards because of how

quickly he gets rid of the ball. But even juxtapose with his normal usage rate, his usage rate against Oklahoma City was hilariously low. It was like 12%. So the one game, like he took like six shots or something. Yeah. It was the first one early in the season. And he was aggressive in the second game as a three point.

shooter, but it wasn't really the same kind of like downhill force that he can usually be. So what I'm worried about, because the other thing, too, that kind of hammers that home is both Cleveland and New York had success denying Halberton. And that's specifically leading to him kind of getting disengaged. So I'm kind of obsessed with this idea of how to make Halliburton useful as an off ball player in this series. So the first, the third piece that I wrote down here, to kind of circle back to your point about who this fifth guy should be. I think dribble penetration is going to be really important because when things really bogged down for Indiana against Oklahoma City,

especially when they start to switch, they're going to need someone who can beat the man in front of him. And all of a sudden I start looking at T.J. McConnell as an option. So I'm wondering if, obviously, T.J. makes no sense if you're going to be playing through Halliburton on ball. But let's say that Dort has a bunch of success, against Halliburton early in the series with denials and physicality, and Halliburton's just clearly super uncomfortable.

You know, we're halfway through game two, and he has like 13 total points on like 12 shots. And we're like, something's going on. We got to find a way to get Halliburton going. I would start to look at like a guard lineup that has T.J. alongside Halley, where he can, one, space the floor off the ball. But two, I would be obsessed with using Halliburton as a. screener in this series because if Dort's going to hug up to him, then that's the best time to use

him as a screener because either O'Dort will have to help, which will get him separated from that pressure, or you're going to get all sorts of dribble penetration off of, of Dirt not helping on screens. But either way, I like the idea of having a guard like T.J. who's big and plays bigger than he is, but that has the ability to beat the man in front of him off the dribble. Arguably, that's his best NBA trait. It's like he can get past his man. And so I think that, suddenly becomes really valuable alongside a Halliburton lineup where he's not being aggressive. Yeah, no, this I completely agree with. I would expect that offensively, T.J. will play a big role in this series just because they do need

somebody who can get consistent penetration against Oklahoma City. And I do think that T.J. can just drive. Like, Kaysen will be on him at times, a great defender. Maybe you put Caruso on him at times. Maybe Caruso guards up the lineup. He's just so flexible in terms of what you can do with him that he's critical in a lot of ways. But I think TJ can get downhill, like in a way that is just effective, almost against anybody. It's what happens when he gets to the paint. That is the question, right? Like, can he make the mid-range jumper? Can he, you know, get all the way downhill and get all the way to the rim? I think he might struggle there, but I agree with you totally in terms of the idea of using Halliburton as a screener. Like,

I would, like, I'd be looking at like double drags into flares, right? For, for Halliburton to be able to potentially try and get him loose. I'd be looking at like, you know, trying to run even like off ball action for Halliburton where like, you know, he's the screener. Like you set like a double pin down, like a rap pin or something where Halliburton is the initial screener. And then, you know, the guy in the corner, maybe it's like Obie Toppin or something, comes around and sets like a wrap pin for him to come around and be able to like go up

and get the ball, right? Like those ideas are really interesting to me in this series. like those are things that I would almost certainly try to look at. I think that that's going to be huge because if you look at where the Knicks started to have success with Halliburton later in the series, it was the pickup point, right? Like they would pick them up 50, 60 feet from the rim and say, hey, we're going to make life a little bit harder on you. We're going to make sure that you have to work for every single second that you're on

the court here, especially whenever you're not running in transition, not off of a make. The key here for the thunder almost to me is like, can their offensive efficient be strong enough to where they can stop Indiana from running at the end of the day because they will run off of misses, they will run off of turnovers. I think that against Oklahoma City, you probably struggle to run off of makes quite as often just because of the fact that Oklahoma City doesn't really go for the offensive class regularly. Like, it's just not something that they do. I think they were like 20 first, 20 seconds, something like that in the league and

offensive rebounding rate this year. So they're almost always have four guys back. It's going to be a little bit harder to run in transition. So you're going to have to figure out ways to get offensive efficiency in the half court. And to me, making Halliburton a screener and then trying to get him loose off the ball, that's a really, that's something I would absolutely do. Yeah. Yeah, the last piece I had it, it all falls in the same lane, is just Siakum, Halliburton inverted ball screens.

I think the series eventually tilts towards J. Dub guarding Seacum. I think J. Dub has generally done a good job. against some of these big scoring forwards. He's just built like a truck and he's got long arms, which I think is the big thing that he can swipe at the basketball without getting out of position, which is key. But same sort of concept. Like imagine Dorr...

Now, I think Oklahoma City would inevitably just start switching this, but I think I like Halliburton's ability to potentially beat J. Dub off the dribble more than I like him against Dort. And similarly, I think I like D'Or. I think I like Siakam trying to score against Dort in the post more than I like him trying to score against J-Dub. And so now, inevitably, I think Oklahoma City will double post-ups over the course of the series.

But I think that I would really, really explore just Siakum at the top of the key with Halliburton as a screener and then Halliburton basically just slipping out to the three-point line if they're not going to switch. And if they do switch, then using both of those guys just having more favorable matchups. But to your point, and this is the more important piece of it all, I think Indiana is going to be running less for buckets in this series because of Oklahoma City's transition defense, but running more for those transition. and cross matches because I think those are going to be the key to getting them earlier, easier opportunities in the half court. See, but I know we're trying to look at this from like, how does Indiana win?

That's what makes India, that's what makes the thunder really, really hard to deal with is because like their cross matches are not always advantageous, right? Certainly not nearly marginally as advantageous as other teams cross matches are. Right. So, okay, we're cross-matching in transition, right? We're getting, oh, wait, it's Caruso on Halliburton now. It's, it's Cason Wallace on Aaron Neesmith now, right? Like, it's hard, right?

Especially when you have a number of different bodies that I feel okay with guarding Seaccom, right? Like, I feel fine if Caruso is on Seaccom. I feel fine if Jalen is on Seaccom. I feel certainly fine if Chet is on Seaccom, right? Shea is like to me the guy that you probably want to try and bring into the action defensively. And this isn't because Shea is a bad defender. I certainly don't think he is. It's more can you wear him down and kind of tire him out a little bit over the course of a series.

The problem is in the finals there are two days between every game except for one. So it's a little bit trickier to even like try and go with the let's wear somebody down angle because, you know, it's just harder. but maybe you can wear them down over the course of a game a little bit, like a small amount. I would imagine that the way that they'll set this up is that Shay is going to be guarding Niesmith, we think, right? So like to me, I'm going to set a bunch of Niesmith screens early in the game. I want to make Shea try and guard early in games,

is what I'm doing if I'm Indiana. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but at the very least I'm making him work defensively. and trying to make him engaged in the game defensively a little bit more often than what, you know, he might have to be otherwise if he's able to play on Neesmith and just sit in the corner. And then he's so long and covers ground so well that he's just going to be able to, you know, sit off of them and kind of relax a little bit.

And then it's just very dangerous for Indiana on the other end because then he's well rested. He's playing that free safety role in the back line. He'll probably get some steals doing that because he's so, long. I think my goal early on would be to try and involve Shea in screens, even though Shay is not a bad, like, on-ball defender necessarily. I think Shea is a vehicle for them in a bunch of different ways. Like, I think in situations where they can't push the ball at the floor in transition and they have to face up ball pressure, I think that Shea is an easy vehicle with which to, like, basically alleviate some of that. So essentially just let Neesmith bring the ball

the floor, you know, whenever Halliburton needs a break or when he's fatigued things along those lines. I think you mentioned using him as a screener. I even think I would hunt him off the ball with spot-ups for Aaron Neesmith because I think Aaron Neesmith is a very good spot-up close-out attacker. And I think if Dagnall has Shea doing what he did in the other series where he's like quite literally in the paint the entire series just as like a roamer, I think that's where you could end up burning him off ball with like those kickouts. Like ultimately before we shift over to the defensive end of the floor. I think this series inevitably tilts, as long as Indiana doesn't quite literally soil themselves against all the ball pressure, which I just don't think they will.

But if they just, as long as they don't like straight up soil themselves, they'll eventually take advantage of the openings in Oklahoma City's base scheme by moving the ball through it and getting those kickouts and knocking them down and just playing Indiana Pacers basketball. But the difference is- If they can get penetration is the key. if they can get penetration. But even within that context, like, for instance, like, let's say that they're running ball screens on the right side of the floor with, you know, or three-man action on the right side of the floor with Halliburton and Turner and, you know, knee-smith or something like that.

They're going to tag rollers and they're going to pinch in and the skip pass is going to be open and Tyrese is one of the very best players in the league at making the skip pass. So inevitably, I think the difference in between the two teams is that I don't know that Indiana has the same kind of defensive solutions that Oklahoma City has. Like Oklahoma City can be like, we're struggling to guard these actions. All right, guys, we're switching everything, guard, stay home off ball. Let's force these guys to play a bunch of one-on-one and let's see what happens. And like to your point, there's just not a favorable matchup out there.

Like we were talking about the Siakum-Halliburton ball screen. I think there's a good chance we see Caruso on Seacom a lot in this series and have him just switch onto guards in action and stuff like that. And so ultimately it comes down to the fact that Oklahoma City just has more solutions. But moving to the defensive end of the floor, the first thing I wrote down is just the ultimate load-up, meaning bring Miles Turner up to the level every single time, help hard as the low man, live in rotation. The thought process there is in this postseason, Oklahoma City, still converting spot-up possessions, which is 0.96 points per possession, which ranks 10th among 16 playoff teams.

Now, I would argue that in every big moment, they've come through and hit those shots and driven those closeouts and made plays. But I still think it's probably the best chance to slow this team down in the half court. And then forcing bigs to score in the pocket, like bringing low man help more towards the rim and less like aggressively up in the middle and making those bigs like catch there. And they're still shooting just 49% as role men in this postseason. And they're turning the ball over about 10% of the time there. So essentially by just living in a super aggressive low. loaded up traditional coverage where you're at the level coming over as the low man digging into the paint forcing them to basically score in the pocket and score on spot-ups i think is still

the best base scheme that they could use in this matchup okay so here here'd be my first question where is the pickup point for you then like where are you picking shea up i would start the series picking him up full court just because that's your identity and just see how it goes but i would be willing to bail on that quickly because Shea is really good at turning ball pressure into dribble penetration and Oklahoma City is really good at setting extended ball screens where they can get you into some trouble like even as far out as half court to just get you into a compromising position. So I would start there, but I would potentially, if Shea beats the ball pressure easily, I would completely alter the pickup point to more of a contain approach where you're conceding

pull-up threes and you're ducking under picks and you're like doing that sort of stuff. I just, I would, I'm a big believer in like, don't pivot off of your identity until they knock you off of it. So like, this is a ball pressure team that has lived with ball pressure all postseason. I would start with that. But I would, I would pivot quickly if Shade does what he did to Jada McDaniels and just gets past him before you even get into the half court. So I'm kind of working under the assumption that that's going to happen. because that's just what Shea does, right? Like if you pick up high, he's going to cause problems.

And if you pick up high and he doesn't cause problems, then you're going to give the ball to Jalen, and they're going to set screens for Jalen, and then Jalen's going to get downhill, and he's going to cause problems in terms of you picking up too high. So they have too many options to be able to handle the ball if you use the pickup point that high. I agree with you and don't go away from your identity early in a series.

I think you shouldn't do that. but I do think that the best way to guard this Oklahoma City team and just generally, because what you're trying to do here, if you're Indiana, in my opinion, is you're trying to create variance on some level, right? You are the underdog, you're trying to create variance.

I'm trying to make them a three-point shooting team, and I'm trying to make them a catch-and-shoot, three-point shooting team particularly, or not, I'm sorry, a pull-up shoot three-point shooting team, not a catch-and-shoot three-point shooting team. I want to avoid the catch-and-shoot. shoot three-point shot as much as humanly possible. To me, the way to do that is you go under Shea's, you under and like drop even,

not drop, but like you play, not a full drop, but like slightly at the level, right? Like slightly below the level maybe. Just make it so Shea can't walk into like 18 footers, right? And then you let Jayden get back in recovery. and then you make and then they're probably going to adjust to like more guard to guard action right and that's fine to me as well maybe you just switch that depending on what your matchup is if it's haliburton i don't love that switch you maybe decide to yeah like i just go i think i go under with haliburton at that point and don't even like you don't hard hedge you just go under and drop and you make shea beat you with pull up threes as opposed to pull up twos yeah i think the other thing they could explore there too is like using kind of a modified hedge where the on ball guy kind of drops back to chuck the cutter as Halliburton's throwing the hedge because my it's like with the at the level coverage the at the level coverage to me is not about taking away the

pull up it's about preventing him from getting ahead of steam like that to me that like i i'm with you like i want i want shay taking as many pull up jump shots as possible in this series but i think if you run too aggressive of a drop and you let him get a runway. Yeah, it's one thing to be like, it's fine, just go under the pick. But it's like all it takes is him just doing a nifty ball handling move where he gets you jumping under the pick and then he just reverses or something like that. And you could be in some serious trouble. So like that's the one thing where like I, like, I feel like at the level is primarily serving the purpose of stopping the ball handler from getting ahead of steam. The hedges, I don't have a good answer for you. The switch is bad with Halliburton. This like

modified kind of like Chuck the cutter thing I'm talking about. It's all theoretical. Like it's you're just, that's just the reality of Tyrese Halliburton being Tyris Halliburton and trying to guard in that sort of action. But I still think I would try switching over anything else. But I generally agree with you that like the game plan of this particular matchup is to gear them towards the highest variance shot that they can take, which is literally a pull-up jump shot for She or J-dub. We talked about going small. That's the true one through five switchability, but that opens the door for offense rebounding in the same sort of problem that we talked about with Halliburton. Zone, the thing with Zone, I was going to bring it up.

The Thunder struggled a bit with Zone early in the Denver series, but they're averaging well over a point per possession against Zone over their last six playoff games. Like they've been figuring that out, and it's just, they just have guys that are a lot of guys who are comfortable working in the middle of the floor. And once again, this team, the overall like ball movement and space principles and just the awareness on offense is like so much higher than it was last year in my opinion. They could try some inventive zones like a three two or a one three one. But I think Chet and Hartinstein and Caruso and Kaysen Wallace, I think all of those guys have been great with like teeing up and working along the baseline and like finding opportunities

against any sort of like front loaded defense. So like I think ultimately things come back down to what you just mentioned. which is like that contain the ball, force them to play in drop, some variation of drop, either a high drop or low drop or somewhere in the middle, and ducking under whenever possible and basically just putting the ball handler

into this decision zone where it's like, will I take this mediocre shot or will I attempt to continue to work things around? Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, huge news?

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I'm giving him five different looks. You know what I mean? Like Denver in games, what was it, like three, four and five maybe, if I remember correctly, they came out like a goofy one three one where like Yokic was on the line. left wing, you know what I mean? Like, and then they would sink back into like their normal two, three zone, and then there'd be possessions where they played in drop, and then there'd be possessions where they hedged.

Like, they gave them different looks. And to me, you know, the days off going into the finals, the days off between games in the finals, that gives you ample opportunity to be able to throw some of these things in. You know what I mean? You can throw in the idea of, okay, we are going to give them five different, different looks in the first quarter like Denver did. We're going to say, hey, we need to be really solid with our two three defense where like Denver's two three was really interesting.

Like they would lift Yokic pretty high toward like the foul line area in order to take away that ability for, you know, Caruso to shoot into the foul line area or Chet to shoot into the foul line area or for Shay to feel comfortable once he got into that area because he'd always have someone to contest and then they'd have the base, the backline. guys in the corners, you know, rotate in and rotate out, right? Like, it was like a weird, like, almost like a two one two, like two three zone half the time. Like if, if I'm them, I'm Indiana, I'm looking at it like, okay, let's throw some of those looks in. Let's throw some of those, like, let's throw a one three one look in. Let's throw a man to man look in. And this is all very

hard. This is all very difficult on the fly when you haven't done it all season, right? This is the whole point of having all these days off and having a team that I frankly think is like filled with really freaking smart basketball players, right?

They can probably figure that like this team of guys, like I didn't really trust Minnesota's guys to figure it out because both Ant and Julius Randall are just not attentive enough off the ball defensively to be able to like effectively be able to play a zone.

But most of Indiana's guys are like pretty solid. Like even Tyrese is like a pretty solid off ball defender. He knows where he's supposed to rotate. He knows where he's supposed to go. If I'm them, I'm just throwing all sort of different looks at them more than anything. I'm throwing different ball screen coverages. I'm throwing different occasional zone looks.

And if I have some success, I see what's like you're throwing spaghetti at a wall whenever you have like a fork in the middle of the wall and you're seeing which. brand falls onto the fork and stays hanging as opposed to falling to the ground, right? I love this point that you're making because, like, you talked about trying to breed variance as much as possible and how, I mean, even before we started talking about the series, just about the value of coaching. And when you have these extra days, you just have so much more time to

implement these sort of things. I almost think of it, like, you know, like in the NFL when they talk about like your first drive being scripted and then, you know, after you get off script, like, how well can you, you know, play call in the moment. I almost feel like if you're going to mix up coverages, you almost go into it with like an incredibly scripted approach where it's like, here's how we're coming out, here's what we're going to do after the first time out. As soon as they go to, you know, this lineup, this is what we're going to do. As soon as they go to that lineup, this is what we're going to do, then we're suddenly going to come out in the second half and do this. And then when we're in our early fourth quarter stretch, when, you know, this is how we anticipate the game to be going.

is what we're going to do. Just have like an incredibly scripted approach to the mixing up of coverages and essentially just call on your guys to spend their off days mentally engaged, kind of figuring out how they're going to do that kind of stuff. Because to your point, they're going to need every inch. They're going to need every inch to win this series. And so before we wrap up today, I said on my show that I would be absolutely stunned if Indiana won. I picked Oklahoma City in five. I'm having a really hard time, even conceptually. a universe where they win this series. Why don't you just tell us your 30,000 feet like outlook on the series in terms of who

you think's going to win, how you expect the series to go, just like what your read is on the series from your perspective. I also picked Oklahoma City in five on my show. I think that they're going to throw just so many different bodies at Halliburton. The Thunder are going to throw so many different bodies at Halliburton. And then they also have. bodies like you can have two different primary defenders each game to throw at Halliburton and Nemhard to be able to just slow them down and annoy them and then you're making at that point

knee-smith see Ackham be the guys that either bring the ball up the court or have to initiate offense or whatever you want to do in order to have a real degree of effectiveness if those guys get wiped out so that worries me offensively I mean look look like the numbers say that Oklahoma City has been better with the five out alignment of Chet at the five and then four small guys, Jdub typically at the four, right? I am interested to see what the two big lineup looks like against the Pacers, if only because I think that because they do generally kind of abandon the offensive glass outside of Hartenstein, that they might have a little bit more success

than teams like Cleveland in New York did against Indiana in terms of just being able to get all the way back in transition and avoid cross-matches in significant ways. The big things that really worry me, though, for the Pacers here, are we're talking about this all in a manner in which we know that, like, they're entirely healthy. and like Miles Turner to me has not moved quite as well as he was early in the playoffs

since he went down the tunnel in game two if I remember correctly of the Nick series like I mean Carl Towns like absolutely obliterated him in that series in any like bench unit situation I was like I did not love the way he was moving and then Aaron Neesmith as well obviously sprains his ankle or whatever in game, what was that? Four, right? Yeah. Game five maybe. Yeah, and he hasn't been as impactful since he came back.

He hasn't been as impactful and just hasn't like played more than 20 minutes in a game yet. So like if he can't play a ton of minutes, a ton of minutes, Jaris Walker is going to miss the first two games of this series as well. And like, you know, I'm not sitting here saying that I think Jarvis Walker is like an impact player by any stretch of the imagination in a NBA finals. I mean, maybe down the road. but I don't really know what to expect from him, even when he gets back. And losing him gives you like another chess piece

that you can throw down at the table here. Having Tony Bradley and Thomas Bryant, like you probably have to play them, like minutes of this series unless Obie Toppen proves that he's able to like play the five consistently. And frankly, Rick Carlisle proves that he's willing to play small consistently, which like he hasn't done yet. Yeah, look, I think they steal one for sure because I just have an immense amount of faith

in this Indiana team. But the biggest thing for me here is, look, like I had Oklahoma City, I don't even think I picked a winner of these two in the preseason. I had Oklahoma City and Boston is the two teams that I thought would be in the finals in the preseason.

I picked Oklahoma City at the start of the playoffs. Like, I think we're just way underrating how good this team. team is and how well they've been built. This is a genuinely historic defense that they've built. They are one of the best defensive teams I've ever watched play in my entire life. And they have an MVP candidate to be able to get them enough on offense. And they have the five out structure to be able to play well enough on offense to be

able to make it work. Like they have Sheigiegles Alexander who could probably retire now and be a Hall of Famer. They have Chet and Jalen Williams who like, frankly, like if they go down and become Hall of Famers. I don't think anybody should be surprised based on what they've shown so far. I'm not going to sit here and say these guys are Hall of Famers right now. But that trajectory is very open to them still in a real way. And they just have like a tremendous number of role players that are really hard to deal with.

So they won 68 games and have like elite elite defense. This might just be like a truly great team, right? it's okay. It's okay for the Pacers to lose to like a truly, truly great team. And I think that that's kind of where this is setting up at this point. Yeah, it's interesting because like I think some of the criticism of Oklahoma City going into the postseason was fair in the sense that like their offense was rickety. And guess what? Every time they lost in this postseason, it was rickety. Like all four of their losses, their half court offensive rating was below 90. And it was close. Like they were down nine in game five of the Nuggets.

series in the fourth quarter. They were down eight in game four of the Nugget series in the fourth quarter. They could have been a second round exit, but to their credit, they conquered their demons in those moments and got the job done. And so like, I thought Oklahoma City had all the markers of one of those great teams, but I thought the skepticism surrounding them was also fair. I had them second going into the postseason behind Boston, just because I looked at Boston is essentially a team that could reach not that same level defensively, but a very high level. defensively, but also just a more experienced veteran reliable offense. And that ended up being completely wrong as Boston quite literally fell apart in that next series. But I agree with you.

Like I think Indiana gets game three. I think it's completely reasonable to think that Indiana can get a game based on that rickety offense. Like they're, they just have the ability still to go very cold and their guard initiators are still somewhat prone to stretches of poor decision making that you can see them losing a game. Their defense, though, I'm 100% with you. I think it's one of the greats. I listed this earlier today on our other pod because our actual full series preview pod because I was just so fascinated by the line of just body bags that Oklahoma City has left behind in this postseason. Desmond Bain had a three for 12 with four turnovers, a three for 14 with five turnovers.

Jaron Jackson, a two for 13 with four points. Jaron Jackson, a three for 12. Yokic for three straight games went 33% from the field, 18% from three with more turnovers than assists. Julius Randall, a two for 11 with six points, a one for seven with five points. They have straight up embarrassed some of the better players in our league, and I think they have the potential to do that again.

We didn't even talk about it, but I think there's a chance to Tyrese Halliburton. We leave this series thinking of him very differently because of the damage that this team can do. Like, in my opinion, all-time great is something that you start throwing around when you win multiple championships. But speaking strictly within the scope of one season, I'd argue this since like Kobe's last title in 2010, like if you went from like 2011 moving forward, it's the 2017 Warriors and then I think it would be this team. I think they would be the next team on that list.

I think they've been more dominant and more successful against tougher competition than like the 2013 heat. You know, like if you really dig into it, like I'd argue I'd probably, like if you're, if you're asking me who I'd take in a series, I'd probably take the 2013 heat because it's like LeBron and Dwayne Wade. But like if you're just strictly speaking of like what's happening within the season, what did they accomplish? We've discussed this Western conference as being an absolute bloodbath going into the season. And guess what it was? An absolute bloodbath. We talked about there being seven legitimate contenders in the Western Conference, and they've won it.

They won the conference, and they won it relatively easily, obviously a little bit of a threat from Denver. They've played some really good teams. I think it's pretty undeniable that if they close this out, they're one of the great single season champions. Obviously, you've got to sustain, and the NBA has a weird way of just positioning new adversity in your path.

just ask Celtics fans, like as they lose to in a series, they were a minus 800 favorite. But yeah, like I've been so – I thought game four against Minnesota was the defining moment of this playoff run in the sense that you have Shea putting together probably the best individual game of his career in that – like he was – that Minnesota completely shifted their scheme and played a very similar type of like pack the paint, force him to make decisions and over the top shots to what Oklahoma City was doing to Ant. And he had 40 and 10 assists. In that same game, J-dub, the guy who's been consistently criticized as a guy who doesn't show up,

just was fucking awesome. And then Chet Holmgren hitting huge catch-and-shoot threes. Their defense holding, like game four against Minnesota to me was like the kids growing up. And them showing that all of the demons that stood in their way, they were able to conquer. and get the job done, and I think they absolutely are one of those special teams. And frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they won the title again next year. I mean, honestly, let me just, this will be my last little thing towards to ask you, what do you, if you, let's say Oklahoma City wins,

what do you think would be the preseason odds for Oklahoma City to win the title next year? Plus 150 plus 200. So here's my thing. Is San Antonio getting Yonis? if San Antonio gets Janus, I think they're an immediate title contender. Just point black. I agree.

Straight up. If they get Janus and like some or if somebody else gets Janus, like I'm willing to hear that out for sure. And I think those odds would change in some way. But going without knowing who that is, without knowing where Durant is going, I think they open quite low, I would say, in terms of the odds.

It's not quite like, to me it's like, you know, Scotty Sheffler and golf right now, you know, somebody that like bets on golf, right? Like, Scotty Sheffler has won, like, his last three tournaments, right? And I think we're looking at it's something like he wins, like, once every, like, four times. Once every three or four times he plays, right? So, and like with the way he's playing right now, like, I kind of think he should be like plus 100 to plus 150 every single time that he takes the course. because it's just ridiculous. Like he's so far ahead of everybody.

It's like a tiger effect thing right now. I kind of think that given that this is the year before Oklahoma City gets expensive, and there are going to be decisions that have to be made in the summer of 2026, maybe even starting this year where they have to figure things out in order to get ahead of it. But they also have like a million draft picks to get ahead of it too, and they do a pretty good job drafting. They're not like infallible. Like they will take Uzman Jang and Dylan Jones sometimes.

but they're pretty damn good at drafting, right? So they're really well equipped to keep this thing going. And really the financial problems don't start next year. They start the year after. So it's, yeah, like they should be very much the favorite going into next year. Like even if they lose the series, I think they should be the favorite going into next year because Jalen and Chet aren't getting worse, guys. Those guys are going to get better.

Chad Holmgren is like scratching the surface of how good he's going to be. he's nowhere near that level yet is the crazy thing so yeah to me uh yeah this team is awesome and by the way like jdub can we like just like chill on the like hey is this guy like a failure or whatever is this guy like a guy who doesn't raise the occasion i'm not saying you did that obviously but you know in the minnesota series 22.7 rebounds four assists shooting 4946-83. In the Memphis series, I thought he was their best player, scored over 20 points every game,

you know, shot 23, 5-and-5 on 54, 29-60. Like, they didn't really need him to go nuts, but he still did it most nights. And the efficiency can go from time to time, but like his ability to create shots. And then he's doing it also while being one of the 15 best defenders in the league too. It's crazy.

he is I continue to say this. We did a show on my podcast, what, like maybe a year and 20, year and two months ago, year and three months ago, like the guys that are like rising stars in the NBA, right? Like the guys that aren't getting talked about enough. And my first pick was Jalen Williams because it's like, I do not think people understand how hard it is to find this skill set in a single player who can shoot, create his own shot, defend at a high level,

switch against one through like four and a half let's call it like these guys are impossible to find like he is this is like a jimmy but this is like this era's coming up jimmy butler and he might get one like when he's 23 or 24 years old is where we're at like yeah it's a sick player yeah there's the competitiveness too there's just there's like there's like a layer of competitiveness that really i think goes down the roster with okloma city we were actually talking about this on playback the other night like i would argue that that's one of the most underrated basketball traits. It's like how much of a,

how much do you hate losing? Like how much are you willing to put it on the line to prevent the loss? And he's just one of those classic guys. I think it's so funny that you said, we literally landed on the exact same number. We had a little exercise where we were like, what would be the championship odds for Oklahoma City at Open next year? And we both said the same thing,

right around that 150 plus 150 range. I'm not as worried about the big picture cost stuff because I think they're just, I think, I think they're literally just going to try to use the draft to find supplemental role player talent. Yeah. I think that's what they're going to do. I think they're going to, I think they're going to have their max guys, and I think they're just going to rotate through trusting their draft department. Like I, like, I don't think they're going to trade a bunch of draft picks for their generations, Dorian, Finney Smith. You know what I mean?

Like they're going to, for a $20 million role player. They're going to be targeting smart, upperclassmen that have been playing in organized programs for great coaches that they can, trust to come in and play 10, 15 minutes in a playoff game, you know, basically the case on Wallace types. Like, they're going to be, they're going to be hunting those guys nonstop. And I think they'll pivot off of expensive role players and they'll trust their core. And I think they're here to stay. And I think Daggne was an excellent coach. You bring up, like, the competitiveness thing and like the basketball IQ thing, this is part of their process. Like, this is what they look for. Like, this is exactly what they're, I've been

talking about this for multiple years now. They look for dribble pass, shoot, defend real positional size length, and competitiveness. Like, those are the things that if you have those boxes and you tick those boxes, you can play for this team. If you can't, then you're, you know, not everybody's going to tick every single one of those boxes, but you need to be able to, like, potentially get there at some point to be able to tick that box. And, you know, if you don't hit a certain threshold in all of those categories, you probably

are not in Oklahoma City Thunder guy. and to me they were just so far ahead of it in terms of the rest of the league where they knew that these guys were the most valuable guys and they put their stamp on it by going out and getting Alex Caruso this summer through Arturus Carnice of his incompetence. But like, you know, they're always there to take advantage of those front offices that maybe don't value a player quite enough and get the right value for them. So, yeah, anybody could have traded for Drew Holiday. Anybody could have traded for Drew Holiday. You know, anybody could, like, these guys are a lot. It's the market inefficiency right now. Like, how often in this playoff run did we see a really good player?

I thought Julius Randall was the latest example in, like, game four of the Oklahoma City series where like when things don't go their way, they just kind of shut down. Like, there's a lot of guys who are like that. Like, it's like a fight or flight response. And like you, when the shit gets tough, do you? you have a dude who like knuckles down and like really tries to just find a way to impact winning one way or another. It's like I think it's,

I think it's such an important foundational basketball trade. But Sam, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to come on the show. Tell everybody where they can find your work. Go to the game theory podcast over on YouTube. We just passed like 40,000 subscribers. So we're doing great over there. We appreciate you guys immensely for coming over and hitting that button.

Go, uh, go to the athletic. Keep me employed over there. where I write about the NBA draft as well. The NBA draft guide, which is the big 150,000 word thing. I write about all of the prospects in the draft. That will be forthcoming relatively soon.

I don't want to put a date on it because I don't want to jinx the fact that if I put a date on it, things could get hairy. But, like, could be as soon as next week, let's say. So once that goes live, go hit the subscribe button. go hit the, you know, go subscribe to the New York Times and all that stuff, where I go work. So, yeah.

And guys, Sam and I talked before the show. He will be coming on at some point later in the month to, he's, I think he's the best guy covering the draft. And so we're, as you guys know, I basically completely ignore the draft until right after the finals. And so although there's been a little bit more Cooper flag, you know, kind of motivation this year. But like, we're going to have Sam on and we're going to talk a lot of NBA draft stuff

when we get later into the month. Sam, again, thank you so much for the time. I will give you a call sometime in the next week, too, so we can catch up and just see how you're doing over there. But as always, we appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Make sure you guys head over and subscribe to Sam's YouTube channel and his work on The Athletic.

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