The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Lakers-Timberwolves Game 3 Reaction

Episode Date: April 26, 2025

Jason reacts to the Minnesota Timberwolves beating the Los Angeles Lakers in a crucial Game 3 behind a STELLAR performance from Anthony Edwards to overpower LeBron James and Luka Doncic. #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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course of this last season and the postseason last year and some of the mistakes he had dealt with in the past. We're going to be breaking that game down from the perspective of both teams. I was doing a live stream with my buddy Pete Zias from Laker Film Room during the game. So that interfered with my ability to cover the other two games. tonight, but I'm covering them tomorrow morning. So Magic Celtics, Pacer's Bucks, will be hitting those games in tomorrow morning's show. But today, just Lakers Timberwolves, and then we'll do a mailbag from the audience from the chat at the tail end of the show, and then we'll get out of here for the night. You guys know the Joe before we get started,

subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. So you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast fee wherever you get your podcast under Hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where Jackson's making great content throughout the year. Make sure you guys follow us there. Then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions and those YouTube comments so we can keep getting to them throughout the remainder of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So as mentioned

before, about 103, 103, 103, but about four minutes left. I was on the playback stream with Pete Zeyas and shout out to Pete. He does incredible work. Love talking basketball with him. But we had been discussing throughout the game the reality that has been throughout this series that the Lakers are just a little bit more comfortable in the half court creating offense than Minnesota as long as they can control the controllables right like stay out of transition don't turn the basketball over you know keep your body positioned properly to force the wolves to make decisions and to make shots over the top essentially what I've been referring to in the series is like hanging on to the rope if they can hang on to the rope they're fine but if they don't hang on to the rope they're going to

lose. And even with that last stretch that we saw from Anthony Edwards, in that game, the Lakers logged a 99 offensive rating in the half court and the wolves logged a 92 offensive rating in the half court. There was 28 points off of 19 Laker turnover. Some of the dumbest turnovers that I've ever seen from that team just coughing the ball up right underneath the basket like not protecting it after rebounds, trying to throw passes to guys two feet away that are not ready for the basketball. The Lakers just looked really. sloppy and undisciplined and that got them into a close game late and in a close game late anthony edwards actually turned out to be the better half court shot creator so regardless of what

the numbers say we had a 103 103 with four minutes left mostly half court basketball and aunt just badly outplayed the laker half court shot creators obviously context there being luca whatever the illness that he was dealing with tonight but what really impressed me specifically was the way that Anthony Edwards got the job done. They started moving his ISOs to the top of the key, which I thought was interesting. The ISOs that he had been running on the slot, meaning like more towards the wing,

they allow the Lakers to be more planned in their approach. So for instance, with Anthony Edwards on the right slot, right wing, that defender is going to overplay the middle and try to funnel Ant towards the player who's digging down off the corner and the guy who's helping out from under the, rim effectively making him play one on three on his drives. We talked about this in our film sessions.

A lot of ants layups in this series have been ripped through the primary defender, gather through the guy digging down from the corner, and then some sort of slaloming move around the dude at the rim so that he can get a layup. They move him to the top of the key, and one of the things that that does is it puts in a position where the defender guarding him has to square him up. one of the reasons why that matters is on the wing when you can overplay a side you can actually use that arm that you're using to overplay the side to get closer on the pull-up jump shot because you're less worried about giving up dribble penetration because you have more of a plan for it but at the top of the key there if you lean up like that you can give up dribble penetration

and be in some trouble and so he was able to hit two step back threes in one-on-one situations where he was able to shed the defender, that first one against Luca at the top of the key. Big part of that is he's got Lucas squared up. He's able to get that, you know, a little bit of backwards momentum so that he can do that pullback dribble and get separation for his shot.

And like, as I was talking about with Pete on the broadcast, like the Lakers kind of have to live with that. There's a certain amount of Anthony Edwards pull up three that they're going to have to live with unless they start doubling, which we did see a little bit of, and I do think we'll see some more of that later in the series, but we'll talk about that in a minute. The play that I thought demonstrated the growth

was the assist to Nas Reid off the left wing. So he hits the step back over Luca. It's 106, 103, and he gets a drive along the right baseline. And instead of trying to force something up, he elevates and rifles a pass to Nas Reid on the left wing, and he knocks down a three. Those reeds have been there for Ant throughout the series. We talked about in game two in our film session.

It wasn't so much that the Lakers did compete more than they did in game one. But the same reads were available. The strong side corner reads were there and didn't make it a single time in game two after he made it several times in game one. The skip pass was there. He was getting into the teeth of the defense and some of those passes were getting deflected or getting sent into areas where they were tougher for guys to attack off of. In tonight's game, just decisive down the stretch knew exactly what he wanted to do.

Rifles that pass to Nasreed. He knocks down the three, gets LeBron in a switch, crosses him up and gets into the basket for a layup, just surgical down the stretch. That was the difference. It was 103, 103. They end on a 13 to one run fueled almost entirely by Anthony Edwards in his half court shot creation. That's really the thing.

Like, as I mentioned, the wolves have these overwhelming advantages in the margins, right? Like, they are the bigger, more athletic team. They forced 19 turnovers tonight that lead to 28 points. they have 56 points in the paint compared to just 26 for the Lakers. If Anthony Edwards can shrink the half-court gap with that level of shot making, with that level of decision-making, that's where the wolves have the potential to end this series sooner than later. Because if they're the better half-court team and they're the better, you know,

like detailed margin team, that's where they can end up in some trouble. Now, there's obviously going to be games in this series where Luca doesn't look like, he did tonight. I thought Luca looked like an absolute shell of himself on in every phase of the game. There was a clear and concerted effort from the wolves early in the game to attack Luca and ISO. We even saw that down the stretch with the shot that Ant hit. That was inevitable. We heard a ton of that. After the game in the press conferences, we had a feeling that the wolves coaching staff would emphasize that. They did. The Timberwell was made a very concerted effort to attack Luca. And it was exacerbated by the fact that Luca just looked slow.

The dead giveaway that you could tell Luca wasn't himself was he looked surprised by ball pressure and he looked surprised by help defense. But like getting into the teeth of the defense and drawing a second body and then just trying to shoot and getting blocked. Or Jaden McDaniels jumping him along the left wing on one of his early catches with some ball pressure and Luca just looked like he was just like surprised by it. as he coughed the ball up.

Like there was just a, like this was, this was a game where, where Luca was unable to overcome the physical circumstances that he was dealing with. And I thought that that really hurt the Lakers down the stretch.

It's great as LeBron was. And obviously LeBron was incredible tonight, on both ends of the floor. His shot making was the best we've seen from him since he came back from his groin injury. That pull-up transition three he hit was like one of the most difficult shots I've seen him take under the,

circumstances kind of reminded me of the shot Steph hit against M. Thompson near half court where it was like sprinting to his right, kind of forward, just left right footwork, elevates, just sticks it. You could just tell he just had great lift and he stuck it. But LeBron is not going to be able to really create offense in the half court as effectively as Luca can when he's right. And that was really the difference in the game tonight. When they got it to 103-103, 103, it was going to be Anthony Edwards versus Luke Donchich. And Luke just didn't have it tonight. And Anthony Edwards showed what his ultimate potential is.

I was talking with Pete on the broadcast. It's been really hard for me in this series because all of you guys who are longtime listeners of the show know that Anthony Edwards is one of my favorite players. And having to root against him is not a fun experience. But I have so much excitement for Ant with this big picture potential simply because of the fact that there's really nothing

you can do to stop him from either creating a clean, for himself or him being able to dart through the lane, elevate, and make a high-level kickout pass. You can't stop him from doing one of those two things. The shot that he gave up, that he hit on DFS, the shot that he hit on Luca, you have to concede those. If you take them away, he will go right around you all night long. And so really that that's the big picture potential with aunt that's so excited. Once he learns to really read all these defensive schemes,

that is where he's going to be able to just oscillate between high level aggression, high level kickout passes based on what the defense is giving or taking away from him. And that's where he's going to be able to float his offense for larger portions of games through higher level playmaking. This kid is barely scratching the surface of what he's capable of being as a basketball player. And it's, it's, it's scary to think about 27 year old aunt when he still has the 45 inch vertical or whatever the hell he has. And he still is the 42% high volume 10 3s a game type of guy. But a guy that can get up into that five, six, seven assists per game, high

level kickout reads, really starting to become the half court surgeon. And like, you know, before the season, I said Anthony Edwards was the fifth best player in the league that I would picked a lead of franchise from the start of the season through to the NBA finals. And there was another side to that take involving me bumping Tatum down to seven, which ended up being the wrong part of that. Tatum was fantastic again tonight, at least for the parts that I watched. And I think that if you were to list the top four players in the league, it's pretty clearly Yokic, it's, it's Janus, it's Shay Gilders Alexander, it's Jason Tatum, maybe Luca again at some point soon if he can get physically right. But Anthony Edwards to me is arguably that fifth guy.

So here we are in April and Ant through the course of this season from October to now has shown the growth as a jump shooter, has shown the growth as a half court shot creator. Think about it in game one too. He was fantastic in game one. Nine assists one turnover. He's been playing at a higher level as a half court decision maker than he has at any point in his career. And I think you can make the case that he's encroaching on that top tier of guys with the level of play that he's reaching. I think that the Lakers are going to have to start considering double teaming him. We saw a little bit of it towards the end of the game right after he already put things away, specifically picking him up earlier in the possession out towards half court. The wolves are not

very attentive in those situations flashing and quickly breaking down the defense in those situations. I think the Lakers are going to have to consider doing that. if Ant continues to find that kind of groove in the fourth quarter. It's not something that I would just bring out first quarter right away, but it's something that I would consider pulling out a little sooner in game four than JJ pulled it out in game three. But all around, just much smarter approach from the wolves tonight attacking Luca instead of just, you know, hunting the Lakers better perimeter defenders,

Anthony Edwards, the half court surgeon down the stretch. And then they are the physically dominant team. they were able to get the Lakers to let go of the rope tonight. There were so many examples of them just, just getting sloppy, rushing. Like Austin Reeves had a few turnovers where you could just tell he's rushing, he's struggling against the ball pressure, he's dribbled the ball off his knee or losing control of it one way or the other.

You know, Jared Vanderbilt looked like he was a little sped up tonight. You know, like Rui Aja Mura looked like he was a little sped up tonight. There was just a lot of examples where the wolves in their pressure caused the Lakers to let go of the rope. And their pathway is very simple. Even with what Ant showed tonight, even with the attacks of Luca, the Lakers are the better half-court team. If they can keep things in the half-court and they don't turn the basketball over and they

just surgically go about the process of creating advantages and playing off of it, they can win this series. But it's going to be tough. And it doesn't look good with the way that this series breaks down from a schedule standpoint. Now I talked a lot over the course of the last couple of days how I viewed game three is a game the Lakers kind of need it. Because they don't just turn around and play on Sunday. They turn around and play on Sunday at a 1230 hip.

So some basic math, that's less than 40 hours from now, that they have to turn around, that LeBron after that game has to get his body right. That Luca, after dealing with food poisoning, has to get his body right. And, you know, this is the thing. It's super unfortunate. Like, win or lose.

whether it's Minnesota or L.A. that ends up advancing. I'd rather see it happen with both teams at full strength, but you don't get, you don't get to, you don't get to take a day. You don't get to call in and we were joking about it on the live stream. Like, it's, it's not like, I've had food poisoning before. I know you guys all have. It's pretty shitty feeling. There's a lot of laying around. There's a lot of like, oh, I stood up for a minute. Now I immediately feel nauseous. There's a lot of like horrible feeling that comes with that. Can you imagine if, it was like, oh shit, I got to go play the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight. Like, it's, it's crazy to not just to play the Minnesota Timberwolves,

but to have to play them in a high level, high leverage playoff game. And, but it is what it is. Everyone's dealing with certain types of ailments, whether they be physical, whether they be with health. And, you know, Luca just wasn't able to overcome it tonight. And down the stretch, they just didn't have a go-to action that they could go to. You could tell, I mean, Luca had two ISOs down the stretch, one against Jaden and one against Julius, where he just didn't get any separation.

and he's like trying to throw what he got jaylon uh jaden excuse me along the left kind of short corner area where you know Luca did his patented like little fake step back pump fake and jaden was just all over it and he had to rifle a cross court pass to the right corner

that wasn't really open he went at Julius Randall and Julius Randall forced him to pick up his dribble around the right block like Luca literally wasn't even getting separation down the stretch and even the shot that he was making tonight, like the shot that he hit over Julius Randall on the left wing, like that was an insanely difficult shot. Like, he's not getting separation in this game because of the physical ailment that he's dealing with. And so the pathway for the Lakers to get

back into a position where they're in control of this series, they can get home court just by winning one. The wolves stole one. They got to steal one. In game four, they need to hang on to the rope. They need a better performance from Luca. They need to. to maintain the rhythm that we saw from Austin and LeBron. Austin early hits a couple threes. You could tell he was 0 for six in game one, but he got some clean looks. He found a way to get some of those to go.

I thought throughout the game, like the Lakers shot really well from three in this game, but I thought there were a lot of really good looks. LeBron hit a couple tough pull-ups. Austin hit a couple tough pull-ups. Luca hit a couple, uh, hit one in particular on that left wing.

That was pretty tough. But the Ruby catch and shoot threes, those are clean looks. The DFS catch and shoot threes, those are clean looks. The Gabe Vincent catch and shoot threes, those are clean looks. A lot of Austin's were clean looks.

If they can take care of the ball, keep the game in the half court, execute their offense, they can win this series, but they have now put themselves in a position where they got to win three of the next four. And that's just really hard to do under any circumstances, certainly when two of those games are going to be in Minnesota.

So it's a tough spot to be. Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast?

Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it.

Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast.

But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. 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, S&L'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. The French Open is one of the toughest tests.

in tennis. And I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris, every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on Clay. Jenchian went. I mean, she went down in three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lina Rabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now, and I actually can win on any surface. Because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open.

Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman, catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world.

He doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levant this plant to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds,

just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So we're going to, let's open it up to the chat now. We can get into any more details about the series that you guys want to if you guys have any specific questions about tonight.

But we can also get into some of the other series. Just remember, I have not seen Bucks Pacers at all. and I only saw about the first two-thirds of that Celtics Magic game. We definitely got a lot of questions about this game. First up, last year, Luca dominated the one-on-one matchup with Jaden McDaniels. You've obviously talked a lot about that. What is different this year? Jaden has done a better job with his physicality and his pressure in this series,

but like I thought all night long tonight, Luca just didn't have his burst. I thought Luca was just a shell of himself. I mean, all you have to do is look at the box score, five turnover, six for 16 from the field, 17 points. Like, Luca has had high point totals consistently in the Lakers last several games. Let me see if I can pull it up. But like, yeah, 31, 37, 39, 45, 23, 30, 35. That's the last, you know, eight or so games that Lucas played. It's 17 tonight. He had 68 points against the

Timberwolves in the first two games. It's just, he just didn't have the burst tonight. It is what it is. You don't get to take, you don't get a range check. You don't get to repeat. You don't get to play game three. It just, it is what it is. The Lakers had to win with a shell of Luca tonight and they couldn't get it done. Another question about the Lakers' defense. Hey, Jason, Duke from Ghana here, don't you think the Lakers are over helping on Ant's drives? Reducing the number of players helping on his drives will sort of help with those wolf kick out threes. No, because I think, I think Aunt has in many cases tried to force the issue through those situations.

And I still think your pathway forward is to force it to beat you with the pass. So, like, he's done it twice in this series so far, 29.8 assists tonight. But in theory, throughout the rest of the series, you want him beating you with the past. You want him beating you with, force him to make that kickout read over and over again. Like, does he make that same kickout read if it's 107, 103 Lakers with a little lead late in the game? or does he force the issue? Like, you still want to prey on his inconsistency. For the record,

it had zero assists in game two. So that game plan can work. It just, it's, it's about playing into his youthful inconsistency. Yeah, I, I agree. I mean,

I think he's so dynamic downhill and he's become such a good three-point shooter. He literally led the league this season and makes that he has, through his hard work, has created,

he's made his game almost impossible to defend. You don't have a good, option. What are you supposed to do? Let him just ISO and not help and let him finish over the Lakers lack of room protection. They don't have any room protectors. It's a lot easier to say we're not going to we're not going to overhelp if you have Rudy Gobert on the inside, for example, than it is if you have Jackson Hayes or Rui Hachamora or whoever is on the back line. Next question. Why are the Lakers not utilizing Vando more on Ant? Is his offense

really making him unplayable? Vando has been really mistake prone in the series. He had a decent first half shift, but like he had that play where he fouled Julius Randall because he like failed to pick him up in transition. There was, what was the mistake he made in the second? Oh yeah, where he gets that defensive rebound and like Nikiel Alexander Walker is like running right up to him. And he just holds the ball out and lets Nikiel Alexander Walker take the ball away from him. He's just he's just been a little, he's been a step slow in his reads. There was a Luca turnover on a blitz where when think of like the Steph Curry blitz sequence that we've seen a thousand times. Draymond short rolls out of it.

Steph floats the ball over the top. Draymond goes down the lane. Someone steps over and helps. He either sprays it to the corner. He drops it off to a cutter for a dunk, right? There was a sequence where Jared Vanderbilt was the screener. Luca got blitzed. And instead of short rolling out of it,

he rolled all the way to the rim. And when he rolled all the way to the rim, Luca did not have a player that he could pass the ball to right in the middle of the floor. And so Luca had to try to force a pass all the way down. down to Vando on the like Dunker Spot area and ended up in a turnover. Like there are a couple things. Vando can do a decent job on Ant, but the job of guarding ant is a five man job. It is not a one man job. And there's just too much mistake making and not enough on offense to justify high minute totals for Jared Vanderbill. I still think ultimately this series goes down with their

core five guys being Dorian Finney Smith as the fifth with those guys all playing like 42, 43 minutes in a big game. Yeah, the mistakes across the board were rough tonight. I mean, the Lakers had, what, 19 turnovers? And it felt like five or six of them were either fumbled passes or dribbled off their leg. Yeah, like, that's crazy. Luca got a defensive rebound and saw Austin flash in front of him. And instead of just bringing the ball up the floor, like he's always done, he like tried to

throw the ball to Austin from two feet away and it just bounced off his lap and went right to Anthony. Like, that was what happened on the play where he had dunked on Luca. and dunked on Luca because Luca coughed the ball up. LeBron on his hot streak, he gets on his hot streak, catches the ball up on the right wing, immediately just coughs the ball up. And like every single one of those cough-ups,

like immediately led to like an and one or a dunk or like, like the wolves made them pay every single time. You gave up 30 points on turnovers in a game that was tied with four minutes left. Like it, like this was, Pete and I were joking during the stream. like that's a game you deserve to lose. Like the basketball gods are not going to let you win a game where you play that sloppy. And I'd like,

aunt, aunt was great all night and he pulled it out late with his own, with his individual greatness. But like the Lakers didn't play well enough to deserve to win that game. They were lucky to be into it the way they were thanks to the shot making of LeBron James and Osse, Ries. Yeah, I would have been a complete theft if they were able to come up with that game.

Um, what are your, you, you talk to me this briefly, but what are your thoughts on LeBron's ability to have to be, have a highly impactful game on Sunday considering the short turnaround. I think LeBron's going to be fine on, on Sunday. Do I think he's going to go for 38 again? Probably not. But like, I think I, I, LeBron is the most dependable big game player that I've, that I've personally ever seen because of his floor being so high. Um, if my entire life as LeBron fan, every time I've gone into a, truly big game, which game four is a big game. You go down 3-1, it's really hard to come. Now you've got to win three times in a row against the Minnesota and Timberl. Like, if the Lakers are going to win the series, they need to win on Sunday. LeBron knows that. You can guarantee at least 27 and 5 in Draymond Green-esque defense on Sunday. They're not like, like to me the swing factor is Luca.

Luca needs to have a massive bounce back game on Sunday. He like owes it to the team. And like I get it. What happened to him was super unfortunate. But ultimately they lost this game because their best player was a complete and total shell of himself. So like they need Luca to get the IV fluids, get in LeBron's hyperbaric chamber, do whatever the hell he needs to do.

Hell, if it's a beer that he needs to get back in shape, like do something. Get him back on his feet. And like Luca needs to be amazing on Sunday. What do you make of LeBron and Conley laughing and joking around during that late review? Do you care at all? Do you not care? I don't care at all. Like, did you guys feel like LeBron wasn't competing? Did you guys feel like Mike Conley wasn't competing?

Did you guys feel like Anthony Edwards wasn't competing? Like those guys were like putting it all on the line on the floor. Like to me like LeBron and Ant were team USA teammates and LeBron has famously been a guy that will make somewhat light of big moments. It's like you remember when he hit the pull up three right after Paul George dunked all over the Birdman. And then he like went up and like went up to Paul George's like, hey, we're playing some great basketball here. Like that's the thing you got to remember too. Like that was a hell of a game, guys. That was a show.

LeBron and Ant put on a show tonight. We were treated as basketball fans to an incredible basketball game. And I feel like there is there are some moments where those guys are out there and like, hey, what we're doing is pretty cool here. This is a funny question from Miles. what did you say when Conley banked in that three? I thought he banked it on purpose. Well, so if I remember correctly, Luca got beat on a baseline crash by Conley.

And then after Conley got the rebound, he dribbled out to the wing. But it was so visibly obvious, like two feet off to the left off of his hand that I just, Mike Conley had to have tried to banked it on purpose. It was a decent look, too. Like he had a decent amount of separation.

He was laughing coming down the other hand. So you think it was lucky? But either way, man, that's a banked in three in the fourth quarter of a playoff game is great. Oh, my gosh. What is your opinion on Rudy Gobert's impact in this game and threat the series? His statistics as well of his offensive impact are almost non-existent, but it feels like he sparked a couple of runs, especially in the first quarter. Rudy, I thought was good tonight. They ran a lot of more diversified coverages with him tonight.

Like, and this is where it's like, I think it's so fun. There was such a, there was such a conversation surrounding the Rudy Gober and the ISO's, and there's a lot of, like, numbers. getting thrown around. My read in game two was that Luca had solved the Go Bear switches. In the second half, he had generated back-to-back wide open catch-and-shoot threes attacking Rudy and ISO's, one of which was a Dorian Finney-Smith one that he made. The Lakers had been getting 1.07 points per ISO, just counting shot attempts, not even counting passes as a team against Rudy in the first two games. So like for all of the talk,

like the coaching, the players and coaches will tell you what they think and they came into game three and they stopped switching with Rudy. So that should tell you guys what the Minnesota coaching staff felt about Rudy Gobert, defending and switches on the perimeter. They did randomly switch with him once in the second half and he jumped up on Luca

and forced to turnover. But once again, Luca just like, like surprised by ball pressure like i like one of the most bizarre luka games i've ever seen and i'm just chalking it up to the food poisoning and throwing it out because i refuse to believe he would play like that under normal circumstances but they ran a lot of drop coverage they blitzed with him a few times tonight so at the level coverage and lucca just luka wasn't able to attack it the way that he usually did but overall i thought rudy was fine tonight they won his minutes like uh i think in general

like he has he has provided enough positive impact to justify the minutes that he's been getting the Lakers have been unable to like play him off the floor we did see when Luca attacked him along that right lane line and bumped him with that left shoulder and hit that little hook that was a drop coverage possession uh it kind of looked like a switch because he was attacking Luke uh rudy one-on-one but it was a drop coverage possession and after that shot they did bail on him and go to Nas Reid. But I think that could have just as easily been for offense, and it was Nas Reid who literally ended up hitting a three

on that critical possession late. So, like, I'd argue that Chris Finch made the right call there. For sure. We can take a couple from some away from this series. Hey, Jason, love the show. What has been your favorite series to watch so far these playoffs? That's a really good question.

Pistons, Nicks. I just, there's a lot of players in that series that I really like. Um, that pistons team to me has a lot of likable guys that I think are going to be fun guys to like root for for the pistons over the course of the next half decade. I would say, I've gotten a good amount of enjoyment out of Celtics magic too. I really enjoyed watching that game today. Yeah.

And like, even though like I will say some of these palo mid range jump shots are like eyesores to me and it just kills me that he won't work a little closer to the bat. was really funny how on the broadcast I was watching very closely as a Celtics fan how j bill is was like basically or no it was tim legler and i think tim legler is usually great at these at this kind of stuff so i'm not taking a shot at really at tim legler because i really am a big fan of his but in this game he was like those those mid-range pull-ups when he creates space are basically a lay-up for palo i was like well not exactly i don't know about that yeah i'm going to pull up now i'm curious i want to see what uh what palo's shooting from the mid-range in this postseason but it's it's one of those things where the even with it there's a lot of like tough off the dribble midrange jump shots that are getting taken in that series but it is just fun because the magic crowd was great the magic are super big it been big and physical and they can play the Celtics into some uncomfortable stretches but to me and i don't know if you feel this way jackson even with the loss

the Celtics are still putting together some of the prettiest stretches of basketball two-way basketball that i'm seeing in the league right now and and they had a couple tonight like had that run right before the half. Tatum had this stretch where he just like went down, boom, pull up three, went down tough right shoulder fade, bam, went down tough pull of three at the top of the key. Like they will just blitz you in these like short periods of time and make leads just completely disappear. I, I would say, yeah, Magic Celtics and then Pistons, Pistons Knicks have been two of my absolute favorites. While you're asking the next question, I'll pull up the the numbers from Palo. Yeah, I think my my favorites before the game, the last two games, were the Nuggets Clippers

and the Warriors Rockets game one of that series but then game two of that series and game three of Clippers Nuggets were both blowout so kind of lost a little bit of the luster for me but really quickly 24 points on 26 shots from the mid-range stuff so far so he's been good that's

that's solid for mid-range basketball in the post season in the regular season he was 31% on long twos outside of 17 feet but he was 51% inside of 17 feet, which is literally the point that I'm trying to make.

Like, the point that I'm trying to make is that, like, he actually has such imposing size that he can get short-range shots that are high, like, highly efficient. But as soon as he gets out to the elbows and out, it just turns into not a layup to counter Tim Legler. But, like, that's really the piece of it. Like he's 51% inside of 17 feet, 31% outside of 17 feet, 32% from 3. That's really for him.

The goal is just fighting to get a position closer to the basket. He's also 49% on runners, floaters. So there you go. Okay. Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news?

Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special.

So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, people could call it.

call in and say, hey Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. 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. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis. And I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs. And on the Renee Stubbs Tennis Podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris, every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on Clay. Jenchian win.

I mean, she went down to three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lena Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now, and I actually can win on any surface, because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee in this.

this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levin this went to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. We talked about this a little bit last show, but until the game is played tomorrow, it's still an interesting question.

What are the Warriors' chances to make it past the Rockets, either without Jimmy Butler, or what's the hobbled Jimmy Butler? Or what's the outlook there? I told you before the broadcast tonight that I viewed the Lakers now is slightly less than a coin flip. Like I viewed them as about a coin flip in game one. now is like slightly less than a coin flip i am still i still feel like the warriors are gonna deal with houston relative like i think they're gonna win game three in game four like i there is a there is a a reality in that series which is

houston cannot score against the warriors in the half court when they're really engaged and they have their guys and they're healthy they can't there is an element with the lakers where it's like, well, if Ants going to hit his pull up threes and make the kickout reads, like, we're S-O-L. Where, like, like, I actually, like, I think, what do you think, what do you think is the likelihood? Let's just put it this way. Do you think it's like, what would you pick as the more, the more likely scenario that Jalen Green has less than 15 points in game two or that he has more than 25?

Oh, less than 50 more than 25. I would probably say less than 15. I would probably say less than 15. Yeah. they're going to, they're going to tighten things up there and they're going to get that figured out. Like, I, I, I think even if Jimmy Butler didn't play in game three or game four that the Warriors would win game three in game four. Man, that's, that's a, that's a prediction. I like that. Let's see if I can find. Guys, like, there's this, like, reality that happens. When Jimmy goes down and leaves the game and Brandon Pajamski is like, clearly hampered and like you, there is a feeling within the basketball team where it's like, oh, we kind of don't have it tonight. You know what I mean?

And that trickles into every single element of the game. You know, and like, like, they're going to come out in game, like, I wouldn't be surprised if the Warriors won game three by 20 plus. Jalen Green's, uh, prop or his player props on draft Kings right now for game three. They, it's minus 115. They don't give them an exact number, which is weird. But 21 plus is minus 115. So they're expecting about 21 is the over under.

Yeah. Yeah. So the overunder would be around like 20.5 like in that area. And like that, that, yeah, like, and I would take the under. I would take the under there. Yeah, I texted you after last game. I was like, what are the odds? He has another game over 25 in the whole series.

And you're like, I don't think he's getting to. This is, this is actually a crazy stat because, like, I talked about how, um, Jalen Green, when he scored 30 points in the regular season, he did it 14 times. And they went 13 and 1. But there were, this is, this is, this is like crazy. This is how many times this season he scored single digits. He scored single digits 12. times. He scored fewer than 15 points 24 times. So to the to the point, he's like almost twice

as likely to fail to reach 15 than he is to get over 30. That is like, it's just, Jalen Green, it always has that upside. It just is, it's so inconsistent. And like to get, if I'm a Rockets fan, having gotten it once in the series feels like a luxury. It's hard to imagine. It's, it's so crazy because it is hard to imagine him doing it again in Golden State. But if you watch game two, you're like, this dude's Anthony Edwards, basically. Dude, I can never, I've been talking about this forever with Jalen Green and with Jonathan Kaminga, which is like the freaky athlete with some size, because that's the key. It's not, it's not Scoot Henderson.

It's Jalen Green in the sense that like there's some real size there. And real athleticism with size is so hard to give up on because they, they really do just have sky high potential. And when they do get into their rhythm, when they start to gain that confidence, they can be a force to be reckoned with. For sure. Let's see one more. This is a non-playoff question. What's the Spurs next move

this offseason to keep the path forward to contention? Scour for vets. Your timeline is accelerated now. You have Deerran Fox. You have Victor Wemignamah. You need to be looking for players that can play at the two

and the three and the four that can defend, hit three, attack closeouts, connective playmaking, that sort of thing. from a draft standpoint, too, I think because you have Steph Castle, because you have Victor Wenbanyama, you no longer need to be drafting for upside. You need to be drafting for immediate utility. So looking for, you know, fourth year seniors, fifth year seniors, guys that have been in college

programs that teach fundamentals really well, that are going to produce a lot of pro-ready role player type of guys. You're just looking to fill the roster with guys that can do small roles now. Like, Darren Fox is absolutely fine as your primary perimeter shot creator. Victor Wemann Yamma is absolutely fine as a secondary shot creator. You are teed up for success. You just got to build around the margins at this point. All right, guys, that's all we have for tonight.

As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. Jackson, you got a movie time tomorrow morning, right? What movie are you going to see? I'm going to see sinners. Oh, right on. I need to see that. I just need to find some time. I also Revenge of the Sith is back in the theater,

so I need to go find some time to go see that too. But the episode will probably be up, the episode for the Bucks Magic and Bucks, excuse me, Bucs Pacers and Celtics Magic will probably be up a little bit closer to noon-ish Pacific time. But none of those teams are playing tomorrow, so they'll still be available. But I think those games are worth digging into

because both of those teams managed to get the home win in game three. So it's worth looking at what they did to succeed. So we'll have that up in the afternoon sometime tomorrow. And then live after the final buzzer, Rockets Warriors on YouTube tomorrow night. Last note, I do have that if you're into Star Wars. We had the first three episodes of Andor come out. And my buddy Luke and I recorded about a half hour long podcast reacting to that. You can find that on my Twitter feed or wherever you get your podcast under Tucson's podcast.

Again, appreciate you guys for supporting us. We'll rocking with the show. We will see you guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys. You guys, I appreciate you guys. I'm just a minute to do that.

I'd really appreciate it. The volume. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what?

We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. Nice. Did it a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know, tired and sick.

Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. 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 Letter 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. Winning on Clay is an art. The rallies are relentless. And at the French Open, only the toughest survive. I'd know. I competed there for decades. Join me, Renee Stubbs, on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast

for no-nonsense breakdowns of the biggest matches, the toughest players, and the moments that define Roland Garris. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lina Rabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now, and I actually can win on any surface. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on. A Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.