The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Heat-Celtics NBA Playoff Game 3 Reaction: Jimmy Butler & Miami embarrass Boston

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat's 128-102 Game 3 win over Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. Jason shares his thoughts on the Celtics throwing in the towel early with their latest NBA Playoff game, the Michael Jordan-Jimmy Butler comparison, and what needs to change for Boston moving forward. #volume #HerdSee 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. On The Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me.

I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Listen to look back at it 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 you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard,

but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHard 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. The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume.

Happy Sunday, everybody. Covers to the Eastern Conference Finals here at Hoops Tonight is brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? Well, the Boston Celtics let go of the rope, get their ass kicked in Miami. A bunch of stuff that I want to dive into. the reality of what this means about where the Celtics are at mentally.

I want to talk about some of the comps that I have for both Jimmy Butler and for this Miami Heat team. And then at the end, I just have some brief thoughts about the Celtics moving forward. I don't want to do a full obituary until they lose. But statistically speaking, the Lakers and Celtics are in a position where they have to do something that no team has ever done before, which has come from down 30. I'll share some thoughts on that as well here in just a minute. You guys know the drill before we get started.

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Don't forget, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I was talking with Ryan, our lead producer, and shout out to Ryan. He does a ton of stuff behind the scenes to make this show possible. We were talking, we kind of get together usually on Sunday and just kind of hash out what the schedule is going to be over the course of the next week or so. And obviously a couple of sweeps leads to a predicament, right, in terms of days off.

Because the final start on June 1st, no matter what, which is 10 days from now. It's a week from this coming Thursday, right? So we're kind of looking at it. We're like, man, what are the chances that Boston pushes this thing to six? And I was, I texted him, I said, the case is they're too talented to not take one of these next two and then win an elimination game at home, which would, in theory, push a series to six. But I said, the reality is,

they look like a team that might crumble on the very next heat run. And when we were talking about that, it was in that first quarter sequence when Kevin Love was kind of hobbling around on the court and the Celtics looked like the more physically aggressive team. And then they saw Kevin Love out. At one point, it's a 21 to 20 game. like I said, kind of a funky injury.

And then he hit him in the mouth with a run. They go on a 38 to 17 run over the next 10 minutes of game clock. And from there, there was just no fight. There's no fight in this team anymore. And so runs happen in basketball games. It's certainly on the road, right? Like, it's just a guarantee. The nuggets go up huge, right?

In the first half last night, it's like the Laker run was inevitable. It was just a question of whether or not Denver would be able to regain. control of the game through their fight, and they were able to. And Boston just simply was not able to. So what do I mean when I say fight, right? To me, like, remember when LeBron was talking after each of these series about how hard it is, right? Like, okay, we beat Memphis, but Golden State's going to be harder. Okay, we beat Golden State, but the Denver Nuggets are going to be harder. What does that mean? It means, like, in these basketball games, there's a desperate. level that's taking place on the floor.

A lot of guys are pushing themselves when they're truly exhausted. When their body is at a point where most of us would consider that a limit, they're putting in another effort at that point. It's extremely difficult to do. And so in order to do that, you have to have a belief in a bigger goal. Like you're making that extra effort when you're completely exhausted because there's potentially a Larry O'Brien trophy waiting at the end. And so when you actually remove a team, remove belief from a team so that they don't see that trophy anymore, it becomes extremely difficult to fight.

And when they stop fighting, it can go downhill very quickly because now we're talking about a great basketball team that is fighting because they do see the trophy against the team that is no longer making those extra efforts, no longer executing and doing all the things they need to do to pursue that ultimate. goal. And so that's where stars in particular play a large role in basketball games. You know, when there's an inevitability to a guy like a Jimmy Butler and the fact that you just know that he feels more confident than both of your stars and that he's getting to his spots better than both of your stars. And that no matter what happens in the runs of the game, the oscillations of the game, he's confident. Your stars are not. And that dynamic trickle down the roster, guys stop fighting, and then you end up in a predicament where an extremely like the Boston Celtics have more talent than the Miami Heat. That's just a fact. There are blue chippers

all over that roster, whereas you've got a bunch of undrafted guys in Miami. But the Miami Heat are a better basketball team. Why? Because they have more fight. Why do they more fight? Because they have a star, the star that feeds them with confidence and allows them to consistently play at the top of their game, a coach that consistently puts them in position to succeed and gets them to believe in that trophy, in their ability to get to it. And once the belief is there, the fight follows, once the fight is there, when you've got guys like Bam Etabio and Jimmy Butler, and dudes that are in these smaller roles, because again, Jimmy Butler and Bametabio, because of what they do on both ends of the floor, they fulfill so many responsibilities on the court

that the responsibilities for the other guys are relatively easy. they're not asking them to guard, you know, Jason Tatum, right? Like Caleb Martin is going to do some of it. Maxx is going to do some of it. Jimmy Butler is going to do some of it. But they're not asking, like, you're not asking Kyle Lowry to defend on an island against one of those guys. Right? Like Jimmy and Bam are doing the vast majority of the dirty work.

And doing so much for the team offensively, everything else is achievable. So undrafted level talent can out. kick their coverage. Whereas if your other stars are not like that and they don't fulfill all those responsibilities, suddenly the shortcomings of those other guys start to show up. Like in that Lakers series, LeBron James and Anthony Davis are not having a good offensive series. It's been one of the biggest issues for them in this entire season. LeBron's jump shot is a shell of what it used to be and Anthony Davis can't score in the poster isolation anymore when it used to be. So now all of a sudden you are hyper-focused on the fact that, man, Dennis Schroeder is having a bad series.

Man, DeAngelo Russell's having a bad series. Whereas if these two were dominating the game offensively and doing the things that Jimmy Butler is doing in this series, for instance, and what BAM's doing in an ancillary role to Jimmy consistently, and BAM's aggression has been amazing in this playoff run, especially physically. When that's happening, suddenly you're not focused on the other stuff because Gabe Vincent doesn't happen. to take a bunch of extremely difficult shots unless he's in such a crazy rhythm like he is tonight that they're all going in, right? But there's a lot less pressure on these guys. So they have more belief. And when they have more belief, they fight. You guys get the point. And

that's what I find so impressive about this Jimmy Butler playoff run. He sapped them of belief. And that's the thing. One of the things that Boston has to focus on is making the right But time and time again in this series, it's Jason Tatum driving down the lane in crunch time, 103, 100, wide open kickout to Jalen Brown, wide open kickout to Malcolm Brogden, runs Jimmy Butler over for a charge. Jimi Buhler, offensive rebound under the basket, two open shooters on the wing, and he tries to force it in traffic and gets blocked. Meanwhile, you see a play like tonight. I wrote down this play, because to me it kind of embodied this concept.

Kyle Lowry runs the kind of dribble handoff thing with Caleb Martin on the right wing. And both guys go with Lowry. Lowry floats a pass over the top to Caleb Martin. Caleb Martin could, he's a great athlete, could have tried Jason Tatum at the rim, had an opportunity to. Just one guy.

Not a thicket of bodies. One guy. And rather than try to force, it over a better athlete in Jason Tatum. He makes the extra pass. It ends up in a Gabe Vincent catch and shoot three that goes in. If Caleb Martin forces that play, maybe Jason Tatum blocks it, which sparks the Boston Celtics fast break, which leads to an easier shot for Boston. Instead, it's take it out of the net and go against our set defense because of one decision. And that's the type of decision that Boston never stayed locked in on. And I think all of that, the fight,

the execution, it all comes down to Jimmy Butler sapping that team of their belief that they can win. And it's crazy to me. I've seen a lot of comps about Jimmy Butler and about this Miami Heat team. And I've seen the MJ comp get thrown around. Those of you guys who are Heat fans who have been listening to this show, I've been looking at more as a LeBron comp.

But there are some similarities with both. Like, I look at this as more of a Michael Jordan type a defensive run with what Jimmy Butler is doing defensively because it's more ball pressure, playing passing lanes, forcing turnovers, and starting fast breaks. Whereas LeBron defensively was always like a backline guy. He could take on-ball assignments and you'd seen him guard a Derek Rose or Jamal Murray in a pivotal moment. But for the most part, it's LeBron protecting the rim, right? It's blocking Tiago splitter at the rim. Like, he's one of the all-time great, you know, backline guys in the NBA, right? And, uh,

So defensively, I say it leans more towards MJ. But on the offensive end of the floor, like MJ was a guy that worked a ton off ball, got to his spots, ton of post-ups, fadeaways over both shoulders, a lot of movement shooting, like coming off of screens and curling, coming off of screens and rising up and shooting.

Jimmy Butler's offensive approach in the series reminds me more of LeBron because it's live dribble, 35 feet from the basket, picking on matchups, getting the easy shots close to the rim. That reminds me a lot of, LeBron James in terms of the offensive approach. But regardless, I'm comparing Jimmy Butler in this playoff run to the two greatest basketball

players to have ever graced planet Earth. And that's what's crazy about this. The other reason why I keep going to LeBron is it reminds me of the psychological advantage that LeBron had. Like, guess what? In that first round series, he's going against Trey Young and DeJante Murray. Those are two pretty well-established, like, great basketball players in this league, right? Round two, it's Jalen Brunson and Julius Randall.

In round three, it's literally Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, two guys that are, I think I had in the top 12 going into this season. Like these are really well-respected guys around the league, and the only one of them who really went bucket for bucket with Jimmy as a competitor was Jalen Brunson. Everybody else was a shell of themselves. And I know Tatum's put up some numbers, but in the pivotal moments of this series, when they've needed him to do what Jimmy Butler does, which is run your offense, spam an action,

this high pick and roll, this post up, this ISO on the right wing, whatever it is, he couldn't just grab the reins of the game, dominate the pace, and get great shots like what Jimmy Butler was doing on the other end of the floor. And it reminds me of LeBron in that 2018 playoff run because you see these results that just don't make sense. The Pacers, you thought the Cavs were going to beat the Pacers just simply because it's LeBron James and that Pacers team wasn't super established. But as soon as they started playing games,

it's like, oh shit, Indiana has more talent. You know, then you go into the Toronto Raptor series and the Raptors are significant favorites and they're like a 59-win team with home court advantage. And then like LeBron beats them in game one by Steve. healing a game in crunch time. Game two, he hits all those fadeaways and just the life gets sucked out of the arena. You can see them stop fighting.

You can see them cease to believe that they can win the game. Next thing you know, it's a sweep. That's what's happening here. And it's a more impressive version of that from the talent differential because Jalen Brown and Jason Tana are better than Kyle Lowry and Demarder Rosen. But it's the same type of personality dynamic. Like he is such a. presence on the court with how confident he is and how he's got his whole team believing

that like it's sapping the other team of belief it's truly impressive to me um i wanted to do i wanted to do some shoutouts uh for some other guys gave vincent he had that massive late stepback jump shot in game two where he kind of shucked off uh um jason tatum into that step back jumper six threes tonight um a bunch of a bunch like he kind of went a little cold in that last round, but throughout this entire playoff run, he's hit a lot of timely shots. Duncan Robinson hit three-three. He's made a bunch of plays off the dribble in the first half. That was kind of a surprise. And then bam at a bio. It hasn't been like super high volume scoring or anything, but he's just, two things. He's been enough of a threat that it's warped

Boston's defense enough that they're not leaving him on an island all that often. And then secondly, his physical aggression is actually having a similar impact. on the belief of the opponent that Jimmy Butler is having. And the two plays that I look at are the play where Al Horford gives up back-to-back offensive rebounds where he kind of like sort of boxes out and bam grabs it over the top and then on the very next shot, this was in game two, he just like throws him to the side like a defensive end and grabs the rebound and dunks it.

And then tonight, that spin move on Jalen Brown. Where it's like Jalen Brown is one of the biggest, strongest, most athletic wings in the league, and Bam hits him with his spin move and just, it looks like Janus. And he's dunking while Jaylon Brown's looking on, like sliding down the floor. That type of physical aggression is just as impactful in affecting the psychological elements of this series as Jimmy Butler. So Jimmy and Bam together have inflicted that on their opponents for three straight rounds. And that's what makes this NBA final series potentially, which statistically is going to happen, which is Denver versus Miami. That's what makes it so

interesting, is the idea of kind of like an immovable object versus an unstoppable force. The unstoppable force being Jimmy Butler's massive basketball presence and the effect it has on anybody who's not a top, top, top tier veteran defending champion type of superstar versus just Nicola Yokic who's unflappable and is in the process of finishing off Kevin Durant and LeBron James in consecutive rounds. So that's what makes that NBA final series so interesting. Who's going to be the one that folds there? You know? But I'm unbelievably impressed by Miami. As a basketball fan, like again, and I've seen a lot of talk like, oh, what about the ratings? I'm so not worried about it. For one thing, because

our show is about basketball. It's not about the narratives and stuff. And so we're going to have a great time regardless of who's playing. And most importantly, these are the types of teams that resonate with everything that this show is about. Like to me, I love basketball games and I'm obsessed with the process of winning basketball games. And these are two teams that are experts at that process despite not having the super team type of mold. Right. And that's what makes it super fascinating to me. and we're going to have a lot of fun for the next three weeks in the process. Boston.

I'm not going to do a deep dive on it tonight because I want to spend a good amount of time this summer. Obviously right after Boston gets eliminated, we'll get started, but I want to take like two, three days to really dive into what options are available for them out there. But I do think that something has to be done. A couple of things. Joe Missoula, I think, I think, I think for a team that has this type of championship expectations, you need a coach that has a little bit more playoff experience.

I think that's just the reality. Missoula very well might be a great NBA coach one day, but he was slow with adjustments in this entire playoff run, really. Didn't really understand some of the more aggressive things that you can do that you saw other teams around the league do. And most importantly, his team didn't believe. And one of the coach's jobs is to keep a team five. And I know it sounds silly, but like stuff like Imei Udoka just trashing his team early in the season,

that sets an expectation in it, in it forces the team to kind of buy into this like tough mentality that stems from the coach, right? You know, like Mike Ballone, this entire damn Lakers series has been telling lies about the reality of the series in terms of the way it's being covered in the media when everybody's picking Denver and they've been a favor of the whole time. I'm one of the few people who pick the Lakers, but he's doing that to keep his team motivated. Like, he's trying to put a chip on their shoulder. That's part of the job. And in this particular group desperately needs a great motivator.

They desperately need a great motivator. But it extends to the court as well. And so I want to take a look at the court. So inevitably, I think they're going to have to move on from Joe Missoula, and I believe they will. What do you do with the roster, though? So, you know, it's funny. We knew they had a ball handling and decision-making issue

at the end of last season. But we thought the answer would be bring in aggregate ball handling, right? That's why all of us praised the Malcolm Brogden trait. So you bring in Malcolm Brogden, and now there's no doubt that the team has a ton of aggregate ball handling, so much so that this team actually opted to go small a lot of the time, whereas they were bigger much of last year with Robert Williams playing center, right? Which is a big part of why their half-court defense wasn't quite as good as it was last year.

But it's become clear that that's not the issue. because at the end of the day, you're not having Malcolm Brogden run your offense when the game is tight. It's got to be in a star's hands, a real star, that can go blow for blow as a decision maker with Jimmy freaking Butler. So it's less about, I think our lesson that we have to learn from this is it's less about aggregate ball handling and more about the top end ball handling, the actual star players in the game. you need a star like I said earlier that can spam the same action against an elite NBA defense and consistently get good looks the theme of this Boston offense is literally random that's what they call it they call it random and so as a result it's like you've got stars masquerading as cogs in a system and you've got cogs in a system masquerading as stars

when guards just take over the offense for long stretches and they don't have that simplicity that Miami can go to in the form of picking on matchups with Jimmy Butler, with Bametabio kind of hovering around the short, the semi-circle as a release valve. And so when I look at that, I spent just about five minutes before the show, just looking to see if there was something that was obvious up front. And I don't see that guy. I don't know, I don't see a guy that Boston can get this offseason. that solves that specific problem. Kevin Durant was that guy.

And we don't know the details. We don't know if Brooklyn was never interested. We don't know if Boston never pulled the trigger. But again, let's just have like a little exercise here. What if that's Kevin Durant instead of Jalen Brown? And you lose two solid role players. Like what is what does this look like now? If Kevin Durant is the guy that can be like,

I'm the grown-up in the room. I'm not scared of Jimmy Butler. Let me go blow for blow by spamming this action while Jimmy is attacking, you know, Malcolm Brogden or Grant Williams on the other end of the floor. And maybe that is the difference. The problem is that guy's not available anymore. Phoenix is not getting rid of him. The reality is that the most realistic option to bring in that type of player is Jason Tatum.

Jason Tatum has to become that guy. but he's young and it might be three, four years until then. So how do you reconcile that with the fact that this is a championship roster right now? And when you have championship rosters, guess what happened? Guys need to get paid. When guys need to get paid, they get paid market value. And when you have a great amount of talent on your roster, less talented teams want to pay market value to poach your players.

And so you could end up in a predicament where Jason Tatum becomes that guy. three years from now, but you no longer have a championship roster. And so I genuinely don't know that there's an easy fix. Like the right coach might be the only option. You know, it's tough to say. Maybe that's Brad Stevens, I don't know. But I will say this to Celtics fans. I'm going to take some time after they do get eliminated.

I'm going to take some time to really kind of come up with some ideas. because I think you've got to do something. The star players aren't enough, but the role players, that's so much talent, and you have to find a way to capitalize on that, just surely from the standpoint of asset management. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate your guys' support.

We will be back tomorrow night after the final buzzer with Colin Coward after Lakers Nuggets. I believe the Lakers are going to get a win. Actually, really quickly, on the whole coming down from 3-0 thing. In theory, it's not that complicated. Win a home game, right? Then win a road game. Just one.

Just win one road game. Then you come back in game 6, 3-2, at home. You'll be favored to win the game. You'll have all the momentum win that game. then in a game seven, anything can happen, right? In theory, it's not that complicated. Why does it not happen? Two things.

All that stuff I was saying about belief in fight, the belief in fight is gone. The other team sees a pathway to end the series. You see an impossible pathway. But secondly, usually the team that's up to Rio is the better basketball team. Like, you don't go up 3-0 unless you're better. Now, it might only be a little bit better, but it's hard to be the team that's a little bit better than you four times in a row.

That's why it's never happened before. I do think it's possible. I think it's way more likely that the Lakers do it than the Celtics do because they have an elite defense. And obviously LeBron James and Anthony Davis haven't played very well. Maybe they just start playing well and that turns everything around. But even in the case of the Lakers is just so incredibly unlikely. You know, even if they steal game four, they go in game five in Denver.

And it's like a hilarious Denver crowd that does not want to go back to L.A. for game six, you're going to get their very best punch. And so it's hard to believe that you're going to beat Denver in game six, giving their very best punch, unless you're a better basketball team than them. And the only way that's happening is if LeBron James and Anthony Davis get better, which this is kind of the, these are kind of the guys they've been this entire playoff run. Really good defensive players, both of them, just not the same type of offensive threats they were in 2020. So it's hard to imagine.

But again, I do think the Lakers will win game four. I think Boston loses game four. I think the Lakers win game four. And then Denver closes it out in five. but also I wouldn't be surprised if Denver closed it out and forward as well. All right, guys, that's all I have. I will see you guys tomorrow night with Colin Coward after game for the Western Conference finals.

The volume. 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 I-Heart 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, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with Ashton, athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeard 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. On the Look Back at it podcast. For 1979, that was a big moment for me.

84's big to me. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year.

I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.