The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Kings beat Warriors, Draymond Green ejected, Nets-76ers

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors' 114-106 loss to De'Aaron Fox, Domantas Sabonis, and the Sacramento Kings to fall behind 0-2 in the opening round of the NBA Playoffs. Jason discusses Draymond Green's ejection and how much trouble he believes the defending champions are in. Later, he reacts to Joel Embiid, James Harden, and the Philadelphia 76ers' 96-84 win over the Brooklyn Nets to take a 2-0 series lead. #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.

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Yep, that's me, Clivert 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, unfilled 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok's podcast network on TikTok. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a good start to your week. Round 1 NBA playoff coverage on Hoops tonight is brought to you by Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do you cash back? We are live on Amp.

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That's H-O-O-P-S for $20 off. Download game time today. Last-minute tickets. Lowest price. Guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball guys. So, you know, the Sacramento Kings, for whatever we want to say about them defensively, and I'm very fascinated by how well they've defended in this series, they are not a big team by any stretch of the imagination. That's why neither of these teams are.

And that's why, you know, I'm really concerned about either of them should they get out of this series and they face a team like Memphis or L.A. in the next round that are huge at almost every single position in the way that can present a bunch of problems for them. But between these two teams, there's clearly one team that is much, much more athletic. And I think you're seeing that in a bunch of specific areas of this game. Defensively, you're seeing a bad King's team defensively that has managed to put forth a facsimile of good defense. We've talked about this a lot during the season, but the strength of the King's defense is Deere and Fox is having a good point of attack defensive year. And then they've got some guards that they can bring in off the bench that are. good athletes. And so even though they haven't defended well all season, in this environment with the right level of intensity, they've been able to actually put together a good defensive effort

fueled by the strength of their home crowd, the fact that they don't necessarily need to protect the rim a ton with the approach that Golden State has been playing with. And like, you know, I've always been fascinated in the NBA playoffs by the way that that change in circumstance makes certain players more valuable and other players less valuable. For instance, Davey on Mitchell. Davy on Mitchell is a guy who played what, like 17, 18 minutes a game during the regular season, has always been an intriguing defensive prospect, but never could really gain a strong foothold in that King's rotation, right? It's like a guy that plays more than half the game. But it's like, can credibly guard Steph Curry equals automatic rotation minutes?

I mean, Steph Curry is a bona fide superstar. He's going to continue to make crazy shots, and he has played very well offensively in this series. but the shot quality has not been great. And that's a credit to the defensive effort from all of the guards on Sacramento. And you kind of see the flip side of that for Golden State, right? Because every shot attempt from Steph Curry is this, you know, and Steph has been the one guy on the Warriors who's been able to generate some rim pressure. You saw that again in the fourth quarter of this game.

You saw a little bit of it in the fourth quarter of game one. But no one else on the roster is generating real rim pressure except for a little bit of Andrew Wiggins. Whereas on the other end of the floor, it's just one possession after the other, another play where Deerrin Fox or Malik Monk is streaking down the lane towards the basket, drawing in tons of help, and driving and kicking and creating all sorts of good shots. You know, the skill set elements allow you to make tough shots, but the athleticism allows you to generate easy shots. If I asked you who got the easiest shots for the Warriors tonight, I know for a fact most of you guys would say Andrew Wickham. because it's like, oh, he got a post-up touch against Malik Monk and he just did two pound dribbles and then he's at the basket shooting a right-handed hook, you know? Or, oh, he just ripped through to the middle and kind of stiff-armed with his left arm and just hung the ball out with his right hand and then scooped it into the

basket because he's just a bigger, better athlete than some of the players that he's going against defensively. Even when he needed to create a jump shot, it's like when Andrew Wiggins just does a hard pound dribble to his left and takes a step back. Like, he just gets a lot of separation because he's six, eight, and he's a fantastic athlete. On this stage, when the defenses are all just at another level of intensity and focus and schematic approach, having that athletic advantage just matters. I'll give you an example.

There's a very good defensive possession at the end of this game where the Warriors forced to skip pass to the weak side corner. And on that play, Clay Thompson is in help. He's got his right foot kind of on the left block, and he does. does a really nice close out to get out to Harrison Barnes and dissuades him from taking the three. And Harrison Barnes drives to the left kind of towards the elbow. And Clay beats him to the spot and slides his feet. But Clay is 6'7.

And coming off of a couple major injuries, not quite the same athlete as Harrison Barnes. Harrison Barnes just went power into a spin move back towards his right hand and finished high and soft off the glass. Because Harrison Barnes is a better athlete. And, you know, again, it's one of those dynamics that I'm not sure the Warriors can flip in this series. The only way it's going to flip is the same way it did in the finals last year. You know, Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum are better athletes than Clay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins as a pair, right? Andrew Wiggins is on that level, but those two together are not the same type of athlete, right? But because Clay Thompson, over the course of the series, started winning those confrontations with Jalen Brown,

it ended up being a big thing that swung the series, right? And so over the course of the series, in this series is not over, by the way. Like the Sacramento jumped up 2-0. They're clearly a lot better defensively than we expected, but they've got to go to Golden State. And as bad as Golden State has been on the road all season, they've been that good at home.

And they're going to be a really difficult team for Sacramento to get a win there. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's likely that this series comes back, to Sacramento at 2-2. The problem is, is the only way you're going to be able to get one of those games, and you have to get one of those games. The only way they're going to get one of those games is if they start to win some of these physical confrontations.

And I'm not actually sure that it's possible. You know, when Draymond Green went out, because Andrew, here's the thing, we talked about in this morning's video, those of you guys, Warriors fans who watched our film session that we did on the Warriors this morning, I talked about how there was two possessions at the end of game one where Andrew Wiggins and, Gary Payton got stops and contained Darren Fox off of the dribble and forced him into a tough fade away over his left shoulder and they got back-to-back stops, which allowed them to have a chance to win the game on the other end, which they were unfortunately unable to. But that was a good sign that

that was an indicator of the fact that they'd be able to get more stops in this game. And they did. Like when Wiggins and Gary Payton were on the ball in this game, they were phenomenal. But then what happens? At the end of the game, Dearen Fox knows Draymond Green is out. We'll talk about him getting ejected here in a minute. But Draymond's out. So all he has to do is call for a ball screen because if Andrew Wiggins has to fight over his screen, it doesn't matter how good of an athlete he is. He's going to get downhill. And that's Kavanaugh-Luny under the basket, not Draymond Green. Kavanaugh is a good player on a bunch of different levels and is a bona fide championship role player.

A guy who can play a little bit of starting center, a little bit of backup center, can do a lot of good things. not in the same stratosphere as a rim protector as Draymond Green is. That's just the reality. And so it just, once again, the shot quality, we have to separate quality from results. The shot quality has been better for Sacramento in both games. And the only way the Warriors are going to win on the road in Sacramento is if they can flip that dynamic. And if Sacramento is getting clear driving lanes and generating a ton of rim pressure

and kicking the wide open shooters versus Steph Curry just being one of the all-time great. making a bunch of hero shots, I don't like their chances. And so they've got to find a way to flip that dynamic one way or another. One other specific thing that I thought the athleticism gap is really starting to show in this series is just turning over the basketball. How many times today did you see one of the Warriors guards, like cross half court, and immediately run into ball pressure? Like, again, one of the advantages of what Davian Mitchell did is he just made Steph work really hard.

You could tell on his last few three-point shots, he didn't get nearly. enough lift, and that was why he was missing. That's wearing him out over the course of the game with ball pressure. He's picking him up right after he crosses half court. There's a lot of plays where one of the Warriors' guards then tries to throw a cross-court pass, and then there's a Kings player, another great athlete that's shooting into that gap. And Malik Monk is not the best defensive player in the world, but he's a good athlete. This is kind of an athletic team. Malik Monk is very athletic. Deere and Fox is very athletic. Harrison Barnes at his position is a very, very good athlete. Davion Mitchell in a different kind of like lateral quickness, center of gravity kind of way

is a good athlete. They're running into some problems there. They're going to have to find a way to flip that dynamic. On the dream on green thing, I kind of, I know you guys are going to be like, oh, he works for the volume. Of course you're going to say this. But I'm just take my word for it, that I'm telling you exactly how I really feel. I think is ridiculous that he got ejected. Have you ever, like, tripped and you notice like when you look down, you have a spot in mind that's like two or three feet in front of you that you plan on planting your foot. And then when you trip, like your foot doesn't get that far. And you end up planting your body weight at a point between where you are in the spot that

you're going. Now, did Draymond embellish it a little bit and maybe put his body weight on him a little bit? Sure, call it a flagrant. But here's what happened. On a play that Draymond was completely uninvolved in, Subonis got knocked over and rolled up into his legs and grabbed his leg. Meanwhile, the warriors are running the other way in transition trying to get a bucket. Dramon's a good playmaker.

A lot of those transition plays end with him trailing the play, catching the ball, and then quick flowing into a dribble handoff for a guy for a wide open three. He's trying to get up the floor, and Sabonis was preventing him from doing that. So, like, to me, Sabonis made a moderately dirty play, and then Draymond Green made a moderately dirty play that seemed a lot worse because you think he just outward, like, just deliberately stomped on Subonis. that's not what happened. He was trying to step forward. Then he got his leg grabbed, and so he ended up planting a different spot, and then he

embellished it and definitely played it up a little bit. And not Subonis, I'm talking about Dremont. Like, Dremont definitely, like, knew he was down there and planted his foot. But I don't think he thought, I'm going to stomp on Sabonis. I think he thought, I'm tripping. I'm stepping on this dude. If I have to, I'm going down the floor. And so to give just a technical to Sabonis and then to eject Dremon from the game, the game is

ridiculous, especially in a game. where with him on the floor, again, like, there's a little, I'm going to look at the line-up data tomorrow, but there's a little bit of a trend here where like when Draymond's on the floor with Gary Payton and Andrew Wiggins with Steph and Clay, they're getting a lot of stops, and that bodes well for them. But when you take Draymond out of the equation, they just had no chance to get stops. And like, Clay Thompson made some big shots down the stretch. Steph made some big shots down the stretch. And it just didn't matter because they couldn't get stops because you took their best defensive player off the floor.

And look, here's the thing with Draymond. If you want to play the devil's advocate card, it's like, okay, dude, Sabonis initiated it. You can't get yourself kicked out of the game. So even if you want to stomp on him, even if that's what your body's trying to do, you have to try to, you know, play cool a little bit. Like that's fair, but I wouldn't have kicked him out there. I thought that was ridiculous. But again, great start for the Kings.

I'm very impressed with him defensively. Dier and Fox is a bona fide playoff player based on the simple fact that nobody can keep him in front. There are a lot more athletic than people give them credit for. One of the big things we talked about during the series is, are they going to go away from Kevin Herder and go away from Keegan Murray in favor of better defensive players? And they did. They went with Davian Mitchell. And then Malik Monk has been defending pretty well in this series, but it's more of an offensive type of sub because he's also beating people off the dribble. They've got a lineup there that really works. That's a bonus Barnes, Davian Mitchell, Malik Monk, and Deer and Fox. That's the lineup the Warriors are going to have to beat if they're going to win this series. And it presents some matchup issues for them. Not over. I expect the Warriors to go back and tie this series at two, but they're going to have to find a way to win in Sacramento eventually. All right, really quickly, we're not going to spend a ton of time on Brooklyn, Philly. I mean, I'll just be honest with you guys too. Like, this is one of the two series that I picked to be a sweep.

Brooklyn's completely overmatched. We're not learning a ton about what Philly's capable of in one way or another. I watched the film today and I tried to come up with some notes for you guys, but the reality is we're not going to learn a ton about what Philly's capable of until they run into Boston next round. I expect them to run into Boston next round. That series is going to be incredible. We were going to spend a lot of time on every single game in that series, but this particular series just doesn't have a ton going on. That said, a couple of specific things.

As we expected, Brooklyn is hard doubling Joel Embed, whenever they have a chance. When he catches the ball at the left elbow in particular, and they were spamming that to start the third quarter, he can make easy reads from there. And he had a lot of turnovers today. But I want you guys to look past the turnovers for just a second to look at a points per possession basis. When Joel Embed has been either,

when Joel Embed has been double teamed in the post. So like when they straight up hard double, not like drive and draw help, but like straight up hard double, he's generated 14 points out of that. That's 1.27 points per possession. He's also up over a point per possession in isolation when he's drawing multiple defenders.

So yeah, the turnovers are ugly, but everything else around it is great. A big product of that is a big, a reason for that is just the fact that Philly has such a great spot-up team. But Joel Embed is starting to manage the double teams a little bit better every single day. Again, the turnovers need to get cut out because that hurts them in transition. But that's going to be a dynamic they're going to face, especially against Boston, which is basically just a better version of this Brooklyn team.

I think they had 19 turnovers today. Obviously, Boston is a much better transition offense team. I want to say they're converting transition offensive possessions by like 140 offensive rating, which is insane. So you've got to find a way to take better care of the ball against Boston. James Harden. I spoke very highly of him this year about how I thought it was going to be a revenge campaign. And honestly, I think he's been better than I think a lot of us would have expected this season.

But one of my biggest concerns for him coming into the postseason is just is he ready for the fight. Is he ready for the competitive physicality? And the fact that that regular season bullshit messing around basketball just doesn't work at that level, Well, 31 points on 24 shots, a ton of foul grifting, 20 assists and nine turnovers, keeps doing that same thing where he gets into the lane and he sticks his arm out, which like you do that to draw a foul, but you're also exposing the basketball. So you're dramatically increasing your risk for turnover in the hopes that you're going to get to the foul line. I just, I think it's just unsurious basketball for this level.

So I'm hoping that before we get to Boston that James Harden locks in a little bit and gets a little bit sharper. on those details. But, you know, Tyrese Maxie and Tobias Harris had picked up the slack. They have 87 points in the first two games. Tyrese maxi got red-hot from three in the second half of this game. You know, Tyresexie is an underrated work ethic guy. You've talked to anybody who knows anything about the Sixers or is close to the Sixers. Like he's a workout warrior, a guy who's in the gym working his ass off every single day.

You know, that's impressive because his foundational skill is his athleticism, is straight-line speed and his ability to beat people off the dribble. him building out a like a completely respectable pull-up jump shot has turned him into a damn good NBA player. And if he's going to play this well, then that's going to go a long way towards covering for any sort of shortcomings that James Harden might have. Like I said, we're going to talk a lot more Sixers as we get into the second round. Tomorrow I'm traveling back from Canada to Portland. So I am going to be completely off tomorrow, but we're going to be covering the Tuesday night slate on early Wednesday morning. And then we have big plans for Wednesday night after game two of Lakers Grizzlies.

As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys and rocking with me and supporting the show. And I will see you guys on Wednesday. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel 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 unfilled of 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 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. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.