The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - How Nuggets pulled off INSANE comeback vs. LeBron & Lakers

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Jason Timpf breaks down how Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and the Denver Nuggets pulled off their incredible comeback win over LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 2 of their series. Jason highlights the biggest 4th quarter moments and shares what LA should have done differently in their effort to even the series. Later, Jason breaks down film from Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and the Dallas Mavericks' 96-93 Game 2 win over Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, and the Los Angeles Clippers as well as game footage from Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves' 105-93 win over Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns. The show ends with Jason hitting listener mailbag questions including why he believes LeBron James is a top three player in the NBA right now, and what to make of Steph Curry following his sluggish end to the season with the Warriors. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having an incredible week. We're going to keep it real simple today. We're just going to do a film session. I've got roughly like 50 clips or so from three different games we're going to hit. We're going to hit Lakers Nuggets, Mavs, Clippers, and Sons, Wolves in the film session today. And then I also have a mailbag at the end of the show where we're going to go over.

I think I got like five or six mailbag questions we're going to hit. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. So you guys don't miss any show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed, wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. and then keep dropping mailback questions in those YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the season. Also, last but not least, before we get started,

I want to talk to you guys for a minute about game time. This is the best time of year to get out and see a basketball game live. There's just nothing like NBA playoff basketball. And we've got so many guys that are kind of on the tail end of their careers that are out there playing guys like LeBron James, guys like Kevin Durant. Make sure you guys get out there and see these guys in person while you can. Game time provides an incredible experience. They have all in pricings. You don't have to worry about going to check out and suddenly getting surprised by the amount of money that you're going to have to spend. You don't have to worry about a convoluted process. You can check out in as few as two taps. And they have a really cool feature where you can

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Create an account and use code Hoops for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code Hoops. That's H-O-O-P-S for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's get right into the film. So we are going to be starting with the complete collapse of the Lakers at the end of this Denver Nuggets game, but specifically the work that Denver was doing offensively. They scored on eight of their last nine possessions in this game. This has been a consistent issue for the Lakers this season in two crunch time games.

the regular season, they gave up an offensive rating over 190. And then the offensive rating, they allowed for the nuggets and crunch time of game two of this Western Conference first round series. 200. Yes, that's not a mistake. 200 points per 100 possessions is the rate at which the nuggets were scoring. As I said, they scored on eight of their last nine possessions. So let's get, without any further ado, over to the film.

So first of all, we're going to start with LeBron James driving on Contavius, Caldwell Pope. really bad floor balance from the Lakers here. You're going to see LeBron, AD, and Rui all end up underneath the basket and gave Vincent in the corner. That puts Austin Reeves in a huge predicament and transition defense. So when LeBron misses this shot at the rim, by the way, Casey, people had really, really good defense against LeBron down the stretch. LeBron was still magnificent, made a bunch of plays, but he had, trust me, he missed

some of them, too. It could have been worse. And honestly, when you look at it and break it down simply to Jamal Murray hitting that shot, you needed every last one of those KCP stops in order to get out of here with a win. So, Miss, now look at the floor balance. Gabe Vincent's trailing the play. We already have a three-on-one before we've done anything. We have MPJ, Aaron Gordon, and Jamal Murray with only Austin Reeves back.

But in addition to that, you're going to see Yokic beat AD down the floor, too. Everyone's just outrunning the Lakers. We're going to get a kick-ahead opportunity here. and Michael Porter Jr. kind of pump fakes on the three-point shot and finds Aaron Gordon underneath the basket. He draws a foul, gets the line. He makes bold free throws. That's our first bucket. Next time down, we're going to get Yokic attacking Anthony Davis in the post. Interesting thing to me about here is fatigue setting in for AD. AD was not good defensively at the end of this game, and you could tell that he just was out of gas.

And Yokch took full advantage. He powers through AD here and misses the shot. But from this specific spot, I want you guys to pay attention to how quickly Yokic gets off the ground when he's out of balance versus A.D. He just takes a split second to relax. See, A.D. just relaxed for a split second. That allowed Yokch to get back up there, tap at the ball and create an offensive rebound for himself. Here we go again. We're going to get yet another Yokic post up of Anthony Davis out of a ball screen. Kick back to Yokch at the top of the key. And he's just going to rip right through AD for a left shoulder hook. And AD did a really nice job on Yokic for about three quarters. Well, really up until he picked up his fourth foul. And then Yokic just ripped right through him

down the stretch of this game. Easy little hook shot over the top. This was another mistake from AD that I thought I would attribute to laziness or I shouldn't say laziness, but fatigue. So we get the two-man game with Yokch and Murray here. And as Yokch comes down, Murray's kind of peeking back. You can kind of see it as he comes off. Watch Murray peek back right there. See how he's peeking back to kind of identify where Yokic is? Yokic is going to linger here at the top of the key. Now, Anthony Davis, his primary responsibility here is to contain Jamal Murray on the drive

because Austin Reeves is in a trail position. But instead, a little subtle fake, Jamal kind of flattens out his drive and fakes like he's not going to make that driving move. He's reading AD and AD is going to make a critical mistake here. AD is going to close out on Yokic instead of. of containing this drive. And that little hesitation from AD, Jamal Murray then quickly turns the corner and gets to the rim.

Even LeBron was caught off guard because he thought AD was going to be there to contain the drive. And again, if you're AD, especially considering Yokic probably will take that three, but he's especially with 10 seconds on the shot clock, it's far more likely that he's going to give attack a close out there. So if I'm AD, I've got to focus on containing Jamal Murray first. and when Jamal throws the pass back, close out and play the results from there. No matter what, even if Yokic is going to knock this down, you know, a good percentage of the time, it is still a lower value shot than Jamal Murray scoring easily at the rim.

Now we're going to get Ruehachemir misses a wide open three here. Again, that was a big difference in this game. I was talking about it in the post game after game two. but the Nuggets non-Yokich-Murie players and the LeBron and the Lakers non-Lebron A-D players, there's been a mismatch there.

LeBron and AD have basically, I've actually, I actually think they've outplayed Jamal and Nicola just a tiny bit, not in the sense of, obviously, the scoreboard and Jamal Murray made a bunch of big plays down the stretch of that game,

but Jamal's been inefficient. Jamal has struggled for the majority of this series except for the tail end of the fourth quarter of game two, right? Like, LeBron and AD have gone punch for punch with Yokic and Murray for the most part. I'm going to call it even because of the clutch shot making of Jamal Murray. But I think we can all agree.

LeBron and AD have gone punch for punch with Yokic and Murray. But the non-yokic Murray role players have outscored the non-Lebron A.D. Lakers by like 30 points or something like that in this series. They have completely dominated them. At the end of this game, we had a wide open three for Rui Hachamura. Austin Reeves ends up missing a pretty good look on a pull-up three over here. Michael Porter Jr. knocks down the crazy chaotic three on the other end of the four. Big difference down the stretch of this particular game. But we're going to get out in transition on this one.

Yoko is going to look to attack Anthony Davis again. And once again, he's just going to power right through him. AD, these were bumps that he was doing a much better job of holding his ground in the first half. Now he's getting out of position. He's gambling. You could just tell fatigue has completely taken over for Anthony Davis at the end of this game, Yokic gets an and one on him. This is where we finally get to stop from the Lakers. And it comes out of the two-man game as LeBron is on Yokic. As Yokic screens Austin, Austin gets hit. And so LeBron has to switch.

And LeBron does a good job of reading the shot clock and understanding that I'm pointing to the ground as if he's reading the floor. That's a broadcast trick. But he's checking down the floor and he sees on the other end the shot clock so he knows Jamal has to shoot. So he jumps it. And when he jumps it, Jamal ends up defaulting to a pass at the last second and LeBron's able to hit it away and get out the other end for a dunk. Again, really, really lost in all of this. LeBron was pretty damn good down the stretch of this game. All right. So then we get the chaos, right? So Yokic sees Aaron Gordon with just Austin Reeves on him underneath the basket. A lot of people were calling this a shot. I don't think it was a shot. I think this was literally Yokic

identifying that Gordon had the size advantage and basically just getting it up in the air as high is possible so that Aaron Gordon can basically high point it, and he does, and he beats Austin Reeves the ball. By the way, that's a battle that if Austin Reeves wins that battle, the Lakers probably win the game. That's how subtle a little thing like this makes a huge difference in a game like this. Aaron Gordon wins that battle. Rui and, excuse me, sorry, guys, Rui gets caught out of position here. Michael Porter Jr. breaks free on the right wing. Really nice pass from Aaron Gordon. Delo comes in and gets a final contest, but it's not enough huge shot for Michael Porter Jr. to tie the game.

So the Lakers are going to get a couple of buckets here down the stretch running an action called stack pick and roll that we've talked about a lot on this show. It's where you look to backscreen the screen defender. So the first time they run it, it's going to be Delo on the ball and LeBron as the back screener. So again, you can see, AD sets the screen. LeBron's job here is he's trying to backscreen Aaron Gordon. Doesn't even really get much of a screen on him, but that's, actually the design of the play. Either way, because Aaron Gordon has his back turned and he's keyed in on AD,

D. Lo is able to get downhill and make a nice scoop shot off the glass to give the Lakers the lead back. This is the play I thought Darvin Ham should have challenged, and I thought it was a huge missed opportunity. So we're going to get, at this point, the Lakers make a switch. They put LeBron James on Jamal Murray, and they put Anthony Davis on Yokic. They're going to switch the two-man game, right? So as Yolkich comes off, they were going to switch, but Jamal ends up rejecting the screen. As he's coming downhill, there's a little bump right there, just a little bump, okay? And Jamal ends up taking and missing a fade away, right? So here's the thing.

We can argue about whether or not that was a foul. Personally, I think in this type of game with everything that was going on, it wasn't. But as I always say, don't blame the officials. By the way, and I've said this, I said this on Twitter, and I firmly believe it, the Lakers going after this game and blaming the officials, I thought it was lame as hell. I thought I will never ever support a team that blames officiating after a loss. I think it's literally a loser mentality. Don't like it, right? But in this situation, LeBron's mad. This is a call. And again, we watch it in full motion. This is a kind of contact

that happened almost every single possession in this game. So here's the problem I have. What do you see here? The Lakers have two timeouts. There is 57.6 seconds left in this game. What is Darwin Ham saving the challenge for? What is he saving the challenge for? That is going to get overturned, in my opinion. If he calls the challenge, it's going to be overturned. They're just going to give possession back to the nuggets, and you're going to have another opportunity to try to get a stop.

I honestly was really disappointed in Darwin in that sense because the players are out there scratching and clawing and doing everything they can to try to win the game, and you are not doing your job as the coach to take advantage of the resources at your disposal. wasting that challenge taking it home with you, that is wasting a resource that was at your disposal. And so again, I don't blame the officials. Officials are going to make mistakes. I don't blame LeBron. He's just trying to play defense. The guy blamed there is Darvin Ham. His job is to throw the challenge flag. I say to throw the challenge flag. To challenge that play, turn on the red light, whatever the hell you call it, and try to get that one overturned.

Again, we literally saw earlier in the game, the Nuggets get two calls overturned, including one where DeAngelo Russell got raked across the face. It was going to get overturned if they challenged it. They needed to challenge that. It was just a missed opportunity from Darwin Ham. We go down the other end. The Lakers are going to run stack pick and roll again. This time it's going to be D.Low setting the back screen.

So you're going to see, again, AD set in the screen. Aaron Gordon is our screen defender. Watch Dilo back screen Aaron Gordon. Gets a good screen on him. Now LeBron has the angle on KCP and Jamal Murray is the helper. There's just nothing he can do there. that's an easy layup. LeBron again complaining.

This is the one that LeBron was pissed off at about. He thinks he got hit there. And again, probably a foul, but that kind of contact was happening on almost every single possession. So I don't really sympathize with the Lakers complaining about officiating. If anything, they should have been complaining at their head coach for missing that last challenge opportunity. So then we go down the other end. LeBron has the layup, right?

So the Lakers are back up by two. And we're going to go back to a two-man game. with Jamal Murray and Nicole Yokic. First they switch it and Jamal goes, okay, I don't really like this matchup. So we call another screen. We get LeBron into the action and LeBron just briefly takes a negative step here where he gets a little bit unsquared and Jamal Murray is able to get enough separation to knock down a shot, big time shot from Jamal.

And again, that's why you keep shooting. Even when you've struggled throughout the game, you keep shooting because you're going to need to knock them down at some point and he hits the big ones, right? KCP flops here and in the process gives up an open three. There were a lot of Laker fans. And again, yeah, this is, if you watch it in slow motion, this was a good no call. There's no call.

If you watch, like there's contact here. There's like a very, very slight shove. But that's not the kind of thing that's going to get called in that moment. Lakers fans were pissed about the shot. I really disagree. You look at the paint. Yokic is there. LeBron this season is having the best jump shooting season of his career.

He's already made two, three. in the corner, in the quarter. He already made a right shoulder fade over here. He is, this is a great look for a great shooter. And literally watch, front rim, back room, front room. It's as close as you can come to making it. So like, I don't have any problem with that shot from LeBron James. Now we're going to head out the other way.

And I really liked how Jamal kept AD on his heels here. And there's a specific part of this play that I think got him open. So we get the little hedge from Delo to try to flatten out the drive. Now, now Jamal gets a running start kind of coming downhill, and there's an aggressive dribble attack move here that gets AD to take a negative step back into the lane. Right there. See, boom, now he's got his body turn. His shoulders are squared towards the rim.

That buys Jamal the separation to get back. I want you guys to watch this in slow motion. Watch that aggressive dribble drive move from Murray that actually creates the opportunity here. So watch right here he's going to make a hard dribble drive move. Bam, downhill. Look at his shoulder is literally down low below AD, making it look like he's going to drive. That gets AD to take his first big aggressive step back towards the rim.

Then he steps back, which creates the separation that AD can't make up. And game over, Nuggets are up 2 in the series. So like, again, we talked about a lot of specific things. for instance, we talked about the Miss Challenge call. We talked about Rui Hachamura missing an open three. We talked about Austin Reeves missing his three. We talked about AD struggling to get that one offensive rebound. The reason why all of that is just related to this specific game.

The Lakers played well enough to win this specific game, right? That goes without saying they were up 20 in the second half. That's not a hot take to say the Lakers could have won this game. they literally were up 20 in the second half, right? But the bigger issue is when it comes to these situations, when it comes to these late games slow down half court situations, you're not close to slowing down Denver's offense. It's not you're holding them to a bucket on half of their possessions.

They are scoring every single time down the floor. You gave up a bucket on eight of your last nine defensive possessions. In the regular season, you did the same thing. that's why I don't think the Lakers have any real chance to win this series anymore. It's just clear to me that they don't have the personnel to contend, especially with Jamal Murray at the point of attack. And it was an issue for them all season last year and in through the postseason. They never addressed it.

This team is too good for them, especially in those slowdown half-court environments. If they had actually done a better job getting stops over the course of the season, you might be able to talk me into them having more of a puncher's chance. but like yeah and like i i gave them just that tiny little crack of a chance to start the series but now i think that slam shut i did say at that point that i thought they needed to split in denver and they did not do so i specifically targeted game one as well they did not do so and the bottom line is is like there's no point of optimism that i can point to they are literally incapable of getting stops against this team and so by virtue of that they're just not going

to be able to beat them certainly not four times in the next five games all right we're move on to Luca's run against the Los Angeles clippers. Let me pull the clips up here. All right, we're going to start with a wedge screen so that Luca can attack out of the post. So a wedge screen is typically a screen where you start on one side of the floor and you get a screen from one of your teammates to then cut over to the block. And the purpose it typically serves as either to get a switch, but more frequently a wedge screen is used for post position. So if Luca comes down this side of the floor and he tries to back his way down, he's going to have to fight and fight and fight and fight for position to try to get down to a position

closer to the block, right? A wedge screen by virtue of Luca coming off, if they don't switch, then that guy's going to be in trail position. If he's in trail position, then Luca can get easier post position here on the block. That's why they use wedge screens. The nuggets use them a lot. A lot of teams around the league use these wedge screens to get their post players into better position. But the clippers are going to switch it. So here's the wedge screen. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win.

A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined.

And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music.

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So now Luca is going to attack James Hardin out of the post. Now we're going to get a double team from Russell Westbrook. On the double team, we're going to get a windshield wiper rotation from Kauai. Kauai is going to take Kairi. So now we have a three on two here on the backside, right? This is going to generate a close-out opportunity for PJ Washington. It's just way easier to score when you have a defender closing out at you. He pass fakes, jab steps is able to get an angle.

Nice patience to wait for Kauai to come down before he goes up and finishes. Once again, the action that generates the mismatch, that generates the double team, that generates the advantage situation. Now, this very next possession here, you're going to see one of the reasons why this lineup works. And again, this is my favorite Mavericks lineup. It's Kyrie and Luca, Maxi Kliba, PJ Washington, and Derek Jones, Jr. In order for this to work, it requires Maxi to be able to hold up against Zubotch in terms of size. Here, they're going to actually run through Zubach in the post. Zubats, I should say.

I'm trying to learn how to pronounce these guys better. So Klieb is going to actually fight Zubat Zubats into a really tough left shoulder hook and actually forces him to leave it short. Again, notice he's attacking the base. He's trying to slide up underneath him and disrupt his base, forces him to come sweeping across the lane and forces a miss. So again, they get an offensive rebound out of that. but I just wanted to show that play because I thought it was a strong indicator of the specific matchup problem that Zubots presents, Zubats presents, and how important it is for Klebe to be able to hold up in that matchup. Now we're going to get the exact same wedge screen, right? So here we are, Luca, Kauai, PJ Washington sets the wedge screen.

We get the switch. We're going back to the block. This time they don't double because last time they doubled, they got in rotation and gave up a bucket. And Luca, you just can't leave him on an island with James Hardin. He ends up drawing a foul. gets hit on the forearm as he's going up. Now he's going to the foul line. On the other end of the floor,

one of the big stories of this game, like we talked about last night, was Luca holding up against the Clipper stars on an island. Here we're going to get a basic just brush screen from James Hardin to get Kawhi switched on to Luca. Look at Luca sliding his feet and cutting off the driving lanes. He actually pokes the ball away in the chaos. The Mavericks end up getting a steal.

Now we're going to go down the other way off the turnover. And this is just really simple, basketball. Paul George has Luca in a cross match. We're going to get a screen from Derek Jones Jr. That's going to lead to a switch with Powell. Now, Clippers don't like this matchup, so they're going to come with the double team. Here comes Kauai. Double team. Cleba's there. We're going to get a close out from Paul George. Extra pass, PJ Washington, wide open corner three, knocks it down. Again, the Mavs desperately needed somebody to hit some shots down the stretch. PJ Washington and Maxi Cleba both came up huge in this game. All right. So on this particular play,

this is a transition situation where Luca uses a head of steam to get Kauai on his heels. So, miss shot, Lucas is coming up the floor. Now, Luca smells blood in the water at this point, right? Mavs are on a run. I think they were down 7367, right? So they just tied the game. They're on 6-0 run. Games tied at 73.

Luca wants to completely shift the psychology of this game. And the easiest way to do that is to get a quick bucket, preferably a three, something that just sucks the life out of the arena and makes the other team feel like they're on the ropes, right? so Luca sees blood in the water. He's coming up the floor here. No one's matched up with him, so he starts to pick up his pace. Now, Kauai's there, but because Lucas is taking these super aggressive downhill steps, watch Kauai.

I'm going to move it into slow motion here. Watch Kauai take a backward step. Boom, right there. That's all that Luca needed to get the separation for his step back against one of the best perimeter defenders in the world. You can just tell on the release of that one that it was perfect coming out of his hand. Now he's talking shit. now Luca has completely fundamentally changed the psychology of this basketball game.

All right, let's get another wedge screen in here. So we're going to get the pass to Kyrie. Here comes the wedge screen. This time from Kleba gets the switch, comes through to the other side of the floor. And again, that one didn't look as much like a wedge screen as the others. Because the MAVs know the switch is coming, it's more just targeting a matchup. But the fundamental action on the first two times they were in it is a wedge. screen. Now, Luca's attacking hard into the post. Russell Westbrod doubles one pass away off of a

really, really good player, and Kyrie Irving knocks down the huge three off of the kickout pass. Again, if you're going to double one pass away, you've got to have a windshield wiper rotation. What that means is, let me go back here for a second. So what that means is as Russ prepares to double, especially with Kleba and PJ Washington, these are lesser shooters on this side. Kauai has to be immediately up and ready to rotate to Kairi. If you're going to double one pass away, Kauai has to windshield wiper with them, meaning both of them have to make the rotation at the exact same time. All right, this is Luca getting another stop against Kauai on an island.

So kick past there. We're going to get another hardened screen to get a switch. Now watch Luca contain the Kauai drive. Watch him just sliding his feet, beating him to spots, and cutting off driving angle. See, cut off the drive, spin back baseline, beat him to the spot, wall up, don't foul. Now at this point, Kauai's screwed. There's not enough time in the clock to do anything. He's going to have to rise up for an incredibly difficult shot.

Luca gets a great contest. Really, really good individual defense from Luca. Now, the clippers make an adjustment. My guess here is they didn't want to give up any more switches. So they put Russ on Luca. Russ is always really good at defending bigger post players. You might remember last year in the postseason, Russ doing a bunch of damage as a post defender against the Suns,

you guys remember. But it also, Russ is just so strong and low center of gravity. He's really difficult to screen. So my guess is they were just trying to avoid any sort of switch here. So instead of trying to get a switch, Luca just takes Russ to the post. And Russ kind of denies. He fronts the post, right? So now there's only eight seconds on the shot clock. So this play, this possession is kind of dead. But Kyrie Irving is capable of making a playoff the dribble to rescue possession. Four seconds left. Drives down on,

on Paul George kind of fakes like he's going to spin back and then goes back over his left shoulder with that nasty little floating hook. Now, Luca talked after the game, I thought this is really fascinating. Luca talked after the game about how he did not want, that he went to Jason Kidd and told him

he didn't want a double team because he trusts his defense. Here's a great example. Paul George gets Luke on a switch. Paul George tries to drive past Luca. Luca beats him to the spot and cuts him off, but the Mazz end up coming with a double team, which opens up this little opportunity to James Hardin, who ends up swinging to Russ, who hits a three.

Now, again, in terms of game plan, you live with that because you want Russ taking threes. But to Luca's credit and what he was saying after the game, he felt comfortable in that matchup on an island. Now, if you guys remember last night, I talked about overaggression being an issue for the clippers down the stretch. These next two buckets for the Mazz came out of pointless overaggression. So here we go. We have Luca trying to post up Russ again.

And Luca creates a little passing angle. And then again, if you're Russ, instead of going after this, just play solid defense. But he gambles, gets out of position. Luca gets downhill. Now all four other helping clippers are lined up on him. And he's able to generate another wide open corner three for PJ Washington who knocks it down. Now we're going to get Luca getting attacked on an island again by Paul George. Not going to slow this down or stop it.

Just watch him. Cuts off the drive forces a tough contested jumper. Literally, like again, I talked a lot. After game one, the hedge and recover was the schematic thing you can do, or he just needs to do a better job. And this is just him doing a better job on defense on an island. Look at him turning to his bench and hyping them up after he's getting these stops. Now, Paul George's turn to be overaggressive. And again, I wish, so it's going to start with the double team of Kyrie Irving.

But if you're the clippers from a game plan perspective, you've got to be less aggressive and actually force Luca to score here. But instead, he reaches. And when he reaches, he does get a hand on the ball. But Luke is able to regain control. Now Paul George is out of position. Once again, downhill, everyone keyed in on him wide open catch and shoot three for Maxi Klieba. Knocks it down. Huge shot making from PJ and Maxi late.

Another huge defensive play for Maxi Kliba on Zubats here. Zubats. So PG drives. Maxi steps up and help. He's not over committing, but he's putting himself between Zubats and PG, right? Gets the drop off pass. Now watch in slow motion. This one I am going to slow down.

Watch the strip from Maxi here. Watch this. So he's in position. Watch the strip. Right as Zubat's going up. Boom. Knocks it loose. Huge defensive play from Maxi here down the stretch.

And then lastly, we get our dagger. So Luca's got James Hardin. We're just going to work it down. Clearing out, creating space. This was the shot that we all saw coming last night, right? This is one of Lucas' favorite things to do, especially on the road in the postseason. He wants to take, he wants to snatch your soul with a shot. He wants to hit the dagger.

He wants to talk a bunch of shit. He wants to let your crowd know about it. Here we go. I missed a playoff, Luca. All right. We're going to move on to Suns Wolves. I've got to go to a different playlist here. So give me a second.

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I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Clipper Taylor the 4th.

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And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye They said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do a little camp?

Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack.

I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, this is the second episode where we've discussed, correct? So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really?

Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So first possession here was one of the early possession. of the game. And I thought it was just a strong example of the Sun's doing a lot of over-penetrating and in the process struggling with the physicality on those drives. So again, if I'm Devin Booker here, this is where I just want to throw a kickback pass to Grayson Allen and take a three. You are now trying to get downhill and score against the best athlete at your position in the league. This is not

an advantage. And especially with the amount of physicality that's being allowed, that's a battle he's going to lose. And it gets physical with them and Devin Booker turns it over. Big story in this game, was the sun struggling to handle physical ball pressure. Talked about Ant needing to beat coverages, the hedge in particular, and the high drop in particular with passing, and also dig downs into driving lanes. In this case, the coverage is the drop, right?

But Grayson is hard digging into his driving lane. Easy read to Mike Conley over here. Aunt takes it, buys a close-out opportunity. He's able to drive it and score. Ant was just magnificent in this game passing, in my opinion. Here's an example of a really bad misread from the Sons and them making life more difficult than it needed to be. So they run some early offense and they don't get anything out of it.

So it gets kicked back to Grayson Allen and then him and KD end up running action, right? So here's where we're set up here. This is the play I talked about on the show last night, those of you guys who remember. So Conley's guarding Grayson, Kat's guarding KD, right? And we know that the coverage here is going to be hedge and recover, right? So as Grayson comes into this Go screen, Conley is going to hedge, which is going to open up an opportunity for Grayson to attack and close out here, right? Here comes. Screen. Hedge.

Grayson breaks free. Katie throws the pass. There is a baked in driving lane here with seven seconds on the shot clock for Grayson to rip left, just catch and rip and drive. If he catches and rips, in all likelihood, Gobert is going to step up and Ant is going to drop to try to box out Nerkich. And Bradley Beale is going to get a wide open corner three because he is a very good catch and shoot three point shooter. So all Grayson has to do, rip left, draw Gobert, Ant will sink. Beal's going to be open, wide open catch and shoot three. What is Grayson do instead?

Just throw it back to KD. Now we're attacking a set defense. And guess what? KD is going to drive and take and miss a really tough contested two. So instead of getting a wide open catch and shoot three for Bradley Beal, we're getting a tough contested pull-up two for KD. That's just bad process. More importantly, why'd you run the screen?

Why'd you run the ghost screen if you don't have any intention of attacking the advantage with it? And like, I feel bad for Grayson because he re-sprayed into that ankle last night, but a lot of these misreads and opportunities early were on Grayson Allen. All right. Our next one, this was a really nice peel-off switch from Anthony Edwards in a transition play. So I'm going to put this one in slow motion because I think it's interesting. So Bradley Beal is driving, right? Nirkich is trailing the play.

Edwards and Gobert are both on them, right? But watch as this gets behind the rim, Ant makes a call. He identifies right here. He's like, oh, Rudy's got this under control. Brad's behind the backboard. If he tries to rise up, Rudy's going to clean this up. So Aunt goes, I'm no longer needed here. I'm going to recover to the pass.

And so he backed off and runs into this passing lane right as Bradley Beale throws it and gets a steal. Huge defensive play, obviously early in the game, but really, really nice defensive play from Anthony Edwards. And just an example of the type of smart defensive instincts that make this Minnesota defense so good. And it generates a runout opportunity in Jaden gets to the line. All right. Our next one is another missed read from Grayson Allen. Okay, so Grayson catches on the wing. Beal cuts through.

We're going to get the ball screen with KD, right? Grayson comes off, cats in a drop. Look at this. Throw the damn basketball to the wide open guy on the wing so he can attack a close out, right? Nope, we're going to swing it across the floor and run action on the other end, which is going to end in Bradley Beale taking a contested pull up too. It's like it's literally the story of this matchup. far. The Sun's passing on easy driving kick opportunities to play on an island against

elite perimeter defensive players. This was a silly foul from Carl Towns, and I just thought it was funny because Kat was complaining at the refs all night, but this is going to get called every single time. Watch as he gets ready to set the screen, watch that last step, and then he just trips him. Just literally just sticks his leg out and trips him, and then he'll get mad at the ref for getting called for an offensive foul. Now, another goal. Grayson Allen Reed here in transition. He's going to over penetrate and drive into physical situation and turn it over. Again, as he's driving, right here, as he's driving, boom, Carl Towns turned his back. Throw the ball to Devin Booker. He's going to be able to drive that

close out or hit a catch and shoot three. Instead, we over penetrate into traffic and turn the basketball over. We're going to get a double staggered action here from Bradley Beale. This was another play I talked about on the show last night, right? So Bradley Beale is going to come off the screen. Jaden's chasing. Jaden's chasing. Both bigs are dropping. Freeze right there. I'm actually going to go back a little bit. Right. Throw the pass. Throw the pass. It's open. These guys are dropping. Jaden's trailing. Royce O'Neill is wide open at the top of the key. There's no problem with the angle for the pass. If you throw that, here's one of two things is going to happen. Either Nikiel Alexander

Walker is going to close out or Nazarede is going to close out and Royce O'Neill can drive the closeout, which will keep the defense in rotation and help you generate an easier opportunity, or he's going to get a catch-ins-two-three, which is going to be a higher percentage shot than this. But instead, Beal over-penetrates. Go-Ber, a lot of late-clock switches from Rudy Go-Ber last night that were huge in this game. But he switches out, and now Bradley Beale is going to take this incredibly difficult step-through floater thing against Rudy Go-Ber. That's an extreme.

So tell me, what's a higher percentage shot? this or what you might have gotten if you threw the kickback past Royce O'Neill. That's not a difficult question to find the answer to. All right. Now we're going to see Kevin Durant turning the ball over against physical ball pressure. This happened a couple of times with Nas Reid in particular. So the sons are running out the other way. They're going to throw the ball, KD.

And Nazaree just picks him up with aggressive ball pressure, physical stunting at the basketball, and forces a turnover. And again, that was a huge story in this game, just in general in this matchup. you apply physical ball pressure on the suns, they're going to turn it over and get sloppy. Devin Booker, same sort of thing here. Fatigue is starting to set in. There's ball pressure, there's ball pressure. He's trying to make a high post entry to KD, but he doesn't make a pass fake. And so Nikiel Alexander Walker is able to get an easy deflection and force a turnover. Now, this was the stretch that I talked about in the show last night where Anthony Edwards was beating the hedge, or beating the, yeah, the hedge and recover.

So we're going to go to Anthony Edwards here on the wing. Nas Reid screens. There's the, so Eubanks's coverage is supposed to be a hedge, but he's just too slow there. So it kind of looks more like a high drop, but it's more or less the same concept. Now, again, instead of doing anything stupid, take the read that is there, the easy kickback to Nas Reid. Devin Booker's closing out. He has to leave his feet to contest the shot. That allows Nas to drive and he's able to get to the foul line.

Again, take the easy reads that are available. Now, this is going to be a bucket for Devin Booker and an example of how much easier it is to score when you're playing with an advantage. So we're going to get a ball screen, and this is kind of like a Spain pick and roll type of thing where Booker is relocating to the top as UBanks is rolling. We get to close that opportunity. Now, look, this is what it looks like, a nice little kind of brush screen here from UBank. too. Devin Booker attacking with an advantage. He's able to pump on the pump. He gets Nikiel Alexander

Walker to close out hard to his right hand side. Then he's able to drive left. That gives an angle for Eubanks to set another screen. And does not dig down. And so Devin Booker can rise cleanly into a pull-up two-pointer. Like again, those guys are just going to be so much more efficient when they're attacking with an advantage versus when they're attacking in a set defense situation. And it's going to beat the hedge with the pass here again. Again, U-Banks is a little slow, but he's up, right? And Devin Booker, like they're doing on so many of these ball screens, is digging down super hard into the driving lane. Ant throws the kick. It's almost a little sloppy pass, and so Mikhail and Alexander Walker ends up having to hit a little tougher shot than you're expecting,

but that opening is created by Ant making the read against the hedge. And then we're going to see it again here. So Gobert, high drop. Gobert's rolling. Gordon sinks into the lane. As a result, Nikiel Alexander Walker is open. And he identifies Jaden McDaniels on the weak side. Again, look at KD. KD is sinking into the lane. KD.'s got his foot on the left block. So now Katie is closing out on Jada McDaniels.

And all night long, Jaden was magnificent with these just basic rip-through moves on KD, just beating him with his athleticism, rip. And this is just a really, really nice little drifting fade away along the baseline. So shout out to, shout out to Anthony Edwards. He was just really good as a playmaker in this particular game.

More physical ball pressure from Nasreed forces yet another turnover. Now, that one should have been, that one actually went off of Nasreid's foot, but they didn't review it. But still, a turnover for all intents and purposes for the game that was caused by ball pressure. All right. Last four clips of this game, Mike Conley takes over in the fourth quarter.

Now, not shown here. I didn't show it because just for time's sake, but in the second quarter, Mike Conley scored 12 points against a deep drop coverage that Nurkich was running. And so, coming into the fourth quarter, Mike didn't score in the third quarter. And Frank Vogel made what I thought was a mistake.

He made a coverage adjustment and started running high drop. And instead of just daring Mike Conley to continue to beat them as a score, Mike Conley just has too much chemistry with Rudy Gobert as a pick and roll partner. And when you threw the high drop at him, just immediately picked it apart with pocket passes. Gobert screen. Nurkage is coming out high. Easy pocket pass.

Katie's way too slow on the tag. Easy dunk for Gobert. Another sloppy turnover from Devin Booker on the other end. Again, this is just fatigue. I'm a big believer that fatigue is having an effect on the suns and just their overall sloppiness. Fatigue and ball pressure. We're going to get a guard screen from Bradley Beale.

Gobert kind of shows there's a closeout opportunity, but look at this pass Booker throws. That's just sloppy. Another pocket pass from Conley here. There is a switch because of help, right? So there's another wedge screen that gets Carl Towns an advantage on Bradley Beale. So Nurkich calls for a switch and he points back out to Gobert. So Beal closes out. But then as Conley runs it, again, instead of Beal kind of meeting Conley here in a more passive way, he closes hard. And when he closes hard, that opens the pocket pass for Gobert. Nerkich has to tag, Kat cuts along the baseline and gets a layup.

Same exact thing over here. Again, high drop. Look at how hard Nerkich is showing on these. Easy pocket pass. They're going to run it again here. Look at that. Hard show. Kick to Gobert.

Tag by Booker. Now I've got a two-on-one on the weak side with Kevin Durant to kill Alexander Walker. KD stunts towards the baseline side. Gobert hits him wide open catch and shoot three from McDaniels. He misses it. it. But as all the suns had to rotate over this way, creates an opening for Mike Conley to get the offensive rebound on the backside. And that basically ended up being the shot that amounted to the dagger. So again, as you as you can see, and like I had a lot of, I'm actually going to go straight

into the mailbag here because this first question kind of plays into this a little bit. So this was a comment that was on the breakout clip that we did from the Sun's Wolves game last night. LOL, this dude is now saying that the game played out exactly as he said, but he literally picked the Sons to win. Don't change up now. So I know the vast majority of you guys are not like this. So I promise that I appreciate and I'm thankful for most of you guys being able to sit through this and understand. But I always have to clarify this every year when we get to the postseason.

I make predictions because it's my job. Okay. All of these series are really close. As a matter of fact, with exception of the Nugget series and the Celtics series, I think every single, the Nugget Celtics and Pelicans Thunder. So five of the eight series were in the one hundreds in terms of how much the favor is favored. So they were favored by somewhere between minus 105 and minus 195, every single one of these series. So they're all coin flips.

I'm going to make a prediction anyway because that's my job. and in the predictions, what do I always do? I tell you guys, here's what I think is going to happen as a guess. Here is my reasoning for why. However, if the other team wins, here is their pathway. I do that for every single one of these series. That's what I did for the wolves. I picked the Sons to win because in the regular season,

the Sons dominated the wolves. I had basketball evidence to back that up. in the process, I did say I expected it to go six games because the wolves are such a good defense and they're so physical, right? But in the process, I broke down the reasons why. Frank Vogel has a really good game plan. His game plan of the aggressive coverages against Ant and the passive coverages against Conley, plays the two of them into their worst tendencies and the wolves tend to fall apart offensively. That was the evidence that I used to make my prediction, right? but those of you guys who watched the series preview, you saw exactly what I said in the,

if the wolves win, this is what they need to do segment. I literally said they need Jaden McDaniels to give them scoring pop. What did Jaden McDaniels do in game two gave them scoring pop? They need Mike Conley to beat the passive coverages by being aggressive as a score. That is what he did in the second quarter run that led to the adjustment, that led to him picking them apart in the pocket passes in the fourth quarter. I said Anthony Edwards has to beat Vogel's coverage with pull-up jump shooting in decision-making against their kind of loaded up coverages.

In game one, he beat it with pull-up shooting, and in game two, he beat it with playmaking. And then lastly, I said, they cannot let the sons get into rotation. They need to stay home off the ball as much as possible and try to defend the actions one-on-one and two-on-two. So I laid out the pathway for both teams. By the way, this series is not over. I do believe now that Minnesota will win. Phoenix's process has been so bad in these first two games.

I don't think they're even close to figuring this out. And so I do believe Minnesota will win. But I made that prediction before the series, based on evidence, Phoenix does still have a chance. If Phoenix goes home and they do take advantage of those smarter reads, And they do get the ball in rotation and start generating higher quality shots. And they up their assist percentage to where it was in the regular season. And then their defensive game plan works better.

I do think they can get back in this series. In fact, I do think they'll get at least one in Phoenix. And I think there's a decent chance they get too. I just don't think Phoenix can do it four times in five tries now. So I do believe Minnesota will come back to win. But again, I'm saying this now because I'm going to make four more predictions in the second round and two more in the conference finals and one more in the NBA finals. All of these are mostly coin flips.

I pick the Mavs to beat the Clippers. You're insane if you don't think the Clippers can beat the Mavs. Of course they're capable of it. That series is razor thin, right? Like the, let's take the Pacers Bucs series. That series is going to be close. The Nixixixir series, I really do think the Sixers are going to go home and win two games and tie that series. all these games are very all these series are really really close so i'm going to make a prediction if i

pick against your team it doesn't mean i don't like your team it doesn't mean i don't believe your team can win i'm going to base my prediction on some basketball evidence and then i'm also going to lay out the pathway for how the wolves can win i wasn't trying to take a victory lap last night on the show all i was saying is wow this is interesting i thought that if the wolves won this is what it would look like And it's literally what's happening. I find that fascinating from a basketball perspective. Every team goes into matchups in a playoff series with advantages and disadvantages. In the team that best capitalizes on their advantages and hides their disadvantages is going to be the team that wins the series.

And so far, through two games, the Minnesota Timberwolves have done a masterful job of playing, of confronting their own weaknesses and playing well in those situations. Jaden's scoring, Mike Conley scoring, Anthony Edwards hitting pull-up jumpers and making passing reads. And Phoenix is playing into the worst version of themselves, right? So like, again, I just, I want to be clear. I know the vast majority of you guys give me that leeway. But for that small segment that seems to think that every prediction I make is me like staking my entire reputation as an analyst on the outcome of a series, that's fucking stupid. That's just not how this works. I'm giving you guys predictions because it's my job.

I'm going to give my case, but I'm always going to give a case for the other side as well. I'm not rooting against the Timberwolves. I simply just made a call based on evidence in the regular season. And I think we can all agree that in the regular season, the Suns gave the Timberwolves issues. Are we seriously going to pretend that isn't the case? Of course that was the case. They've just managed to flip the script on all of that stuff to have success in this series. Next question.

How do you feel about a healthy Lonzo? ball on this Timberwolves team. Love the breakdowns, keep it up. You know, I actually, again, just looking at it through the lens of a healthy Lonso ball, I love the fit. Excellent perimeter defender, more of a playmaking, pace pushing, kick ahead, Tyreys Halliburton-esque kind of like readmaker in the half court and in transition. And he turned himself into a really good catch-and-shoe player. I don't think you could conceive of a better two guard to fit your timeline post Mike Conley. I think that makes a ton of sense.

The question is, can Lonzo Ball get healthy? And that's where it gets tricky. But I thought that was a really interesting suggestion. And I would love to see Lonzo have a career renaissance in a place like Minnesota. I feel like a major part of the MAV's fourth quarter success was Russell Westbrook making a ton of bad defensive decisions for no reason. I know very little about the X's and O's of basketball, but sagging off Kyrie and losing Luca or going for a random steal isn't the smartest idea.

when you're trying to close the gap. So that's always the case with Russ. Russ is the textbook good play, bad play guy. And it's always a scale with him. And sometimes the scales tips, tips, it tilts towards bad plays more than good. When he was with the Lakers, more often than not, the bad plays were winning out. With the Clippers, for the most part, the good plays have been winning out. He did make a couple of bad defensive decisions down the stretch of that game. He doubled from Kyrie one pass away when clearly it wasn't schemed for because Kauai wasn't ready for it as the next rotation. And then he gambled on Luca once in a post up and gave him a downhill opportunity that led to an easy kickout pass for a PJ Washington 3.

So yeah, he did make some mistakes. I just think the good that Russ brought to the table last night outweighed the bad. Don't you think it's interesting how because of the wolves' insane perimeter defense on the big three and their ball pressure, a lot of these end of possession grenades go to Nurkich on an island against Gobert. How else can you beat lockdown? on perimeter defense like that at the end of the shot clock. So I'm just going to take this in a different direction.

I thought Gobert in general, switching on pick and rolls late in the shot clock was a huge part of Minnesota's defensive success in games one and two. Essentially, he's meeting them up high and following them into the lane. And yeah, some of those are getting dropped off to Nurkitch in late clock situations. But a lot of them, the guard is then pulling Gobert out and then trying to ISO against him. and Gobert is just doing an amazing job on those ISOs. Again, we talk a lot about Jane McDaniels and Anthony Edwards and Kiel Alexander Walker. I even think Mike Conley's done a really good job defensively in the series.

But Rudy Gobert is one of the top five defensive anchors in the world, and he pulls it all together for them. Steph has a down month on his stats and he is no longer top 10 and is no longer in his prime. Recency bias is crazy. So I wanted to clarify this. First of all, Steph's rough end to the season was actually a few months long. but I'm doing the exact same thing to Steph that I did with LeBron. LeBron showed a dip in his production and effectiveness last year.

And so I moved him way down the playoff. I think I had him eighth or ninth in my player rankings this year. Steph has really struggled as of late, but I still think he's a top 10 player. He just wasn't playing like a top 10 player over the last couple months of the season. He was in the low 20s of points per game and really inefficient by his standards, right? But after this season, yeah, I'm probably going to put Steph in the five to ten range, similar to what I did to LeBron last year.

But you're right. Steph absolutely can bounce back. And if Steph did what LeBron does what LeBron did at the end of the year this year, LeBron at the end of the year this year came in hot. And was the only player in the league post-deadline that was averaging at least 27 points per game on at least 50% from the field and 40% from three. He's one of only five players in this postseason run so far. to average at least 25 points per game on at least 50% from the field and at least 40% from three.

He's also averaging 10 assists per game in this postseason run. He's going toe to toe with Nicola Yokic at the end of basketball games. Like, LeBron's just playing at an extremely high level right now. So I have moved him back up the list. By the way, and I'll save the LeBron piece for the last question because we're going to get to that in a second. But if Steph goes into next season and starts looking like Steph again, of course I'm going to move him back up the list. I'm not burying Steph Curry.

I'm just saying strictly within right now, Steph has shown a little bit of a sign of decline and towards the tail end of the season wasn't playing very well. So yeah, I'm going to drop him down the player rankings temporarily. But knowing Steph, knowing how much of a competitor he is, I fully expect that at some point in October, November, December next year, I'm going to be like, holy shit, Steph's a top five player again. I thoroughly expect to do that.

But in the same way that I dropped a Luke. Remember when I dropped Luca to 10? I dropped him to 10 because his team didn't even make the playoffs. And he didn't play very good defense down the stretch. He did a lot of pouting, a lot of complaining at refs. One to pretty end of the season for Luca. I look at my player rankings as a constantly sliding scale. And I prioritize playoff production.

And so again, like with Steph, definitely not bearing him, fully expect him to make a return to the top of the, near the top of the league. but for right now, he doesn't get to make that claim because a bunch of guys play better than him down the stretch of the season. Lastly, love your content, but you're biased towards LeBron if you think he's the third best player in the NBA right now. I want to be clear. I don't think LeBron is the third best player in a vacuum to start a season with, right? No one's going to take LeBron from early October through June in the top three. However, we don't have to make it from October to April anymore. We're in April right now, and LeBron is healthy right now, and LeBron is playing at that level right now,

and Janice is hurt right now, and Joe L.M.B.D. is hurt right now. And so if I look at the group of players strictly within the lens of this postseason run, Yokic is a clear number one, Luca is a clear number two. Tell me who's the third. Who's the guy in this playoff field that is clearly playing better two-way basketball than LeBron James right now. Tell me, I want to hear about it. Maybe we can debate it over the course of the next week through mailbag questions. But like, I'm just saying strictly right now in this postseason because I don't have to worry about 82 games and I don't have to.

By the way, LeBron had an amazing season. But this was the lower end of the outcome. We all knew coming into the season that it was unlikely that LeBron would just be super healthy throughout the whole thing after how he kind of struggled to stay healthy in the previous few years. We got the small end of that outcome, which is LeBron stays healthy. Here we are. We're in the postseason. LeBron's playing fucking awesome in the first round against Denver. So like, that's kind of where my rationale is. But yeah, when we're ranking players this off season, I'm not going to have LeBron at number three because of the 82 game grind and whether or not he can hold up for 22,

for his 22nd season that way. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We are taking tonight. off. I'm going to spend some time with my wife and hang out since I've been putting her through it here the last couple weeks with how busy we've been. But we're going to be back tomorrow night after the final buzzer of Lakers Nuggets.

And I will break down tonight's game during the morning show tomorrow. As always, I appreciate you guys, and I will see you tomorrow morning. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite unhumored me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from

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the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you're not to be played with.

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