The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Lakers vs. Grizzlies Playoff Prediction: Will LeBron James upset Ja Morant?

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Jason Timpf breaks down the 7th-seeded Los Angeles Lakers' first round matchup with the 2nd-seeded Memphis Grizzlies in the NBA Playoffs. Will LeBron James and Anthony Davis go on another NBA Finals run or will Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson, and Memphis play spoiler? Timeline: 00:00 - Introduction 06:40 - Can the Lakers guard Ja Morant? 15:49 - The Grizzlies' biggest strength 17:58 - The role Anthony Davis plays 22:04 - Which team will be more clutch? 23:29 - Lakers vs. Grizzlies Prediction. #volume #herd See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On The Look Back at It Podcasts. In 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me.

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

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

but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. The Volume. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume.

Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great week so far. I'm actually recording this on Tuesday night. We've got a lot of series previews to get to this week, and I was wide awake. So I figured, hey, why not just knock out Lakers Grizzlies right now? So that's the series we're going to be diving into. You guys know the drill before we get started.

Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me at underscore Jason LT on Twitter. So you guys don't miss any show announcements as well as any other video breakdowns that will be doing during this playoff run. And if for whatever reason you guys miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you can find them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. And last but not least, you guys have heard me talk about game time,

the fastest growing ticketing app in the United States. If you're looking to get out to an NBA game or a baseball game or an NHL game, a concert, or a comedy show, GameTime has amazing last minute deals on tickets to all of these. So if you're looking to see your favorite NBA team play in the playoffs, Game Time has a deal for you. If your favorite artist is touring around the country, my favorite guitar player, blues guitar player is John Mayer. He's playing his last tour with Deaden Company this summer. I highly recommend you guys check that out if you're into blues guitar.

Game Time is going to find you a deal on that. as well. You're going to get a great seat. You're going to get a great deal. The app is super user-friendly. They've taken amazing care of me, and I know they'll take amazing care of you guys. So no matter where you live, get out and have some fun this week. Download the GameTime app, enter your email and redeem code Hoops for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, enter your email and the code Hoops. That's H-O-O-P-S for $20 off. Download game time today. Last-minute tickets, lowest price, guarantee. All right, let's talk some basketball.

So a couple of quick series notes before we get into the weeds. The Grizzlies are a minus 1-30 favorite. I predicted during our live instant reaction last night that it'd be very close, a very slight favorite one way or the other. Turns out the Grizzlies are a slight favorite. I think that makes some sense. The Lakers are playing some sloppy basketball coming into this series.

The Lakers did win the season series two to one. All three games were weird. And the first one, Anthony Davis was out. The Lakers were playing this weird group with LeBron and a bunch of the pre-deadline guys, and they had this wild fourth quarter comeback to come back and win. And then in the second game, it was in Memphis post-deadline, but LeBron wasn't playing, and they didn't quite have enough shot creation. John Morant had this massive third quarter, and the Grizzlies won.

Then they played one additional time, this time at Crypto-Dacomoran, and no LeBron or John Morant, and the Grizzlies didn't have enough shot creation. and the Lakers won a low-scoring affair at home. Stephen Adams and Brandon Clark will both miss the entire series. So there's a lot of pressure on Jaron Jackson in particular in this series to play a lot of minutes and to avoid getting into foul trouble against the Lakers team that is great at drawing fouls. This is very important, especially as we head into this series, because it's a narrative right now. A big story coming out of that Minnesota game last night was the free throw differential.

I think in the fourth quarter in OT, the Lakers took 17 compared to just three for the Timberwolves, which was a Mike Conley foul right at the buzzer at the end of the fourth quarter, right? And this has been a theme throughout the entire season, this last half of the season, as teams have been hyper-focused on the Lakers and their free-throw differential. It is extremely simple. The Lakers are the best team in the league at getting to the free-throw line. they lead the league in free throw attempts per 100 possessions, and they are the best team in the league at stopping other teams from getting to the free throw line.

They allow the fewest free throw attempts per 100 possessions. They are the only team in the league that is good at both. As a result of that, they have a massive free throw differential compared to other teams around in the league. There's not a single other team in the league who's top five in both categories. So at the end of the day, just naturally, they're going to have a big, advantage there. I thought Ben Taylor, some of you guys know him from thinking basketball. He did a whole thing on this when this was a big story a couple weeks ago, but it really just has to do with the way this particular season has played out. This Lakers group and their

free throw differential isn't even in the top 15 for teams in this century. So from 2020 to 23, or excuse me, from the year 2000 to 2023, there have been 16 NBA teams that had better free throw differentials than the Lakers. It just so happens in this season, the Lakers are the only team that are good at both, and that's why it looks funky. What happened in that game last night? In the fourth quarter, the Lakers started switching everything, which shut down all of Minnesota's driving lanes. They played much better at the point of attack, and so Minnesota was just passing the ball around on the perimeter and jacking up late clock threes. That's not going to draw a foul. Meanwhile, on the other end of the floor, it's LeBron, it's Dennis

Schroeder and it's Anthony Davis just barreling to the basket every single time, initiating a ton of contact. The Lakers have a lot of guys who are good at getting to the foul line, and defensively, they defend without fouling, which is mostly a coaching thing. It's something that coaches preach at every level of basketball. So don't buy into that particular narrative. Doesn't make any sense. If the league was rigging games for the Lakers, I promise you they call that foul when Jason Tatum is driving, or when LeBron's driving to the basket and Jason Tatum hacks him. I promise you they call that foul when LeBron James is driving to the basket and Christian Wood hacks him at the buzzer. I promise you they call that foul when Joel Embed is grabbing Russell Westbrook's arm right in

front of the ref on the final possession of the game. If they're trying to rig games for the Lakers, they're doing a horrible job of it. It's not a conspiracy. It's just a talent. It's a skill that the Lakers have that no other team in the league has right now. And that's why they have that particular advantage. Memphis, for example, 15th and getting to the line, 14th and stopping from getting to the line. So guess what? The Lakers are probably going to win the free throw differential battle throughout this entire series because Memphis is extremely average at it and the Lakers are literally the best at it. So it'll be a narrative again throughout this series, but remember what's happening with the basketball. This is a team that is great at this specific skill. All right,

like we did with our other series previews, we're going to focus in on some major matchups that could go one way or another. First, can the Lakers guard Jahn Morant? The Grizzlies have super straightforward matchups for LeBron James and Anthony Davis, right? Dylan Brooks is going to guard LeBron, probably every minute that he's on the floor. Jaron Jackson Jr. is going to guard Anthony Davis, probably every minute that he's on the floor. Now, who knows if those guys will do a good job, right? They could get into foul trouble. LeBron and AD are two of the best players in the league, right? So they might end up losing that matchup anyway. But the athletically and from a size and physicality standpoint, those matchups make pretty good sense. With the Lakers starters, they don't have a

player that naturally matches up with John Morant very well. That's just a fact, right? Dennis Schroeder is somebody they have on the bench that can do it, but DeAngela Russell and Austin Rees are not going to be able to stay in front of John Moran. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw, if you saw Darwin Ham try throwing Jared Vanderbilt at him on some occasions just to see if he can. But they don't really have a straight-up match-up that can do well guarding John at the point of attack. That's just a reality. So they need to do two things in particular to counteract that. And by the way, John Moran is averaging 31 points per game against the Lakers this year in two games, albeit somewhat inefficiently in their one big win, which is post-deadline without LeBron. John Morant had this magnificent third

quarter. I can't remember exactly how many he had a 20-something in the quarter, but they had an extended stretch where they just couldn't do anything with John Moran. And so they're going to have to figure out how to contain John Morant in this series. Again, two things that I think they need to do. First of all, play Dennis Schroeder as many minutes as he's capable of playing. He doesn't need to start, and it doesn't even need to come at the expense of Austin and Delo. Because you got to remember, there's 96 minutes available at the two guard positions, right? So Austin and Delo can both play 32 minutes, and there's still 32 minutes that are available. So what I would do is I cut Malik Beasley, potentially entirely out of the rotation, to play Dennis as much as possible.

And what I would do is I'd start with your normal starters. I'd bring Dennis in as the first sub, like around the six minute mark for probably Dilo, right? So you can run Dilo with the bench group. And then the rest of the game, I would mirror Dennis's shifts with Jah Morant's minutes so that you can keep him on Jha as much as possible. Dennis Ruter is not some Jommerant. elixir that's going to solve that problem entirely, but he's the Lakers' best point of attack defender. He's one of the better point of attack defenders in the league, and at the very least, he's going to make things more difficult on Jha. And that goes a big step towards making it so he doesn't

get as aggressively downhill into the teeth of the Laker defense. Secondly, the Lakers need to find a way to make Jom Rant play in a crowd when he does get downhill. This is a major matchup piece that I like for the Lakers because Memphis is one of the worst spot-up teams in the league. There are only three teams in the entire NBA that are worse at converting spot-up possessions than the Memphis Grizzlies. The Atlanta Hawks, the Houston Rockets, and the Charlotte Hornets. Those are the only three teams. They are 27th.

They convert spot-up possessions at less than a point per possession. Now they brought in Luke Knard to confront this a little bit, but it goes beyond just shooting the ball. We saw this when we were talking about Isaac Akoro and the Cavs and their spot-up players. converting spot-up possessions, part of it is knocking down open-threes, but a lot of it is attacking close-outs, especially in the NBA, because teams are so dialed in defensively that a lot of times higher-level close-out attacking is what allows you to convert spot-up possessions.

For example, there's a late play, I think it was in OT or late fourth quarter of that, I think it was in the OT, actually, of that Lakers' Grizler, or Lakers' Timberwolves game. Rui Hachamura catches in the right corner. He pump-fakes, shooter goes by him. He gets downhill into the lane and takes a step back in the lane. He ended up missing it, went in and out, kind of a toilet bowl around the rim and came out. But it was like a high level step back 10 footer that was actually like a pretty damn good shot. And the shot that Rui Hachamura has been hitting at a high clip this season, around 50%

and out of a great defensive possession from Minnesota. So you get a pretty damn good shot out of a great defensive possession because of high-level close-out attacking. Counting catch-and-shoot-3s and everything they do attacking off the dribble in those close-out situations, the Grizzlies are converting those at less than a point per possession.

That's a legitimate problem for this particular team. That is going to allow the Lakers to load up in the paint. It's also going to put the Grizzlies in a pretty difficult predicament. I'm really curious to see how Taylor Jenkins confronts this issue because they're going to have a classic conundrum of weighing size and athleticism versus offensive skill.

My guess is that when the chips are down in this series, Taylor Jenkins is going to go with offensive skill, especially with how good this Laker defense can be and some of their weaknesses at the point of attack. The guards are the weak point of the Laker defense, right? So I expect them to go with John Morant, Tyos Jones, with Desmond, Bain, Dylan Brooks, and Jaron Jackson. That gives them the best combination

of keeping their two best defenders on the floor while also having a great amount of offensive skill on the floor, right? Tice Jones brings a little bit more of a methodical approach to his high pick and roll attack compared to what John Morant does. Here's the problem there. Three of those guys are 6'5 and under, and Dylan Brooks is 6'6. As a matter of fact, post-deadline,

the Grizzlies are 25th in rebounding, post-deadline. and the Lakers are fourth in rebounding. So what used to be an outstanding rebounding team for the Memphis Grizzlies is now one of the very worst rebounding teams in the league because that's what happens when you remove guys like Stephen Adams and Brandon Clark from the equation.

Brandon Clark in particular, because Stephen Adams, he was going to be a guy that wasn't going to play a ton of minutes anyways. In the playoffs, he's a guy that can be exploited in a lot of ways, right? but although just getting two shifts out of him usually helps. Brandon Clark was this other versatile athletic forward, especially next to Jaron Jackson. When the two of those guys would play together this year,

they were kicking teams asses. I want to say they were like 10 points positive per 100 possessions with the two of them on the floor together. Taking him off the floor and having to slide Dylan Brooks down into that power forward position or having to go with a limited offensive player, like a guy like David Roddy or a guy like or going big with a guy like Xavier Tillman, which I expect them to start with Xavier Tillman, but it'll probably be a one-shift player each half. But it's going to put them in that conundrum of which way they're going to go.

They're going to be able to pack the paint, especially against the starters, and they're going to, even in their best lineups, help heavy off of Jaron Jackson and help heavy off of Dylan Brooks. And I think that's going to allow them to make things more congested for John Moran. but it's going to be at the expense of conceding shots to Brooks and Jaron Jackson, and they've been shooting the ball pretty well lately. The last 15 games of the regular season, Dillon Brooks, 38% from three, Jaron Jackson, 42% from three. So they might be able to shoot them out of that coverage.

But battle one, can they contain John Morant? Keep Dennis Schroeder on him as much as possible, clog the pain as much as possible. Battle number two is that rebounding battle. Can the Grizzlies hold up under the physical onslaught of LeBron James and Anthony Davis and Dennis Schroeder. Again, with those smaller lineups. Say, for instance, you go with the closing lineup that the Lakers went with tonight.

So Dennis Schroeder doesn't matter if it's Schroeder DeLowe, but it's called Schroeder Reeves. And then Rui Hachamuro, LeBron, James, Anthony Davis. That's 7 foot 6969. So if you go with Jaron Jackson, Dillon Brooks, Desmond Bain, that's, what's Jerry and Jackson, 6,11, 6, 6,65. that's why that group has not rebounded well after the deadline. And so as a result, they're going to have to figure out how to weigh that gap. Because if they, just like we saw with Atlanta, Miami today, even if you get more stops, or I should say last night, even if you get more stops, if you get bludgeoned on the glass,

you will lose the series. And again, you can go big with Xavier Tillman, but he's not a good defensive player, and he kind of jinks things up even worse for them offensively. the Grizzlies are 5.2 points better per 100 possessions this year when Xavier Tillman is off the floor. So Taylor Jenkins is going to have a challenge on his hands to try to figure out how to contend with that physical back and forth. I want to credit Memphis because they've still somehow been 18 and 10 post-deadline despite the loss of those guys. And it really comes down to a handful of things. They're still defending really well. They're eighth in defense over that span.

They're the best team in the league at taking care of the basketball over that span. So credit to Ty's Jones and John Morant, and they're winning their clutch basketball games. I want to say they're nine and five in games that have been within five points in less than five minutes remaining. So they're grinding out wins. This has kind of subtly become a team that has a lot of winning characteristics. And again, that's going to happen. This is two consecutive years now where the Grizzlies have just won a shit ton of basketball games. So as much as we talk trash about them and make fun of Dylan Brooks for talking all the shit that he does and all the John Morant stuff, these are some winners here. Now it's a different level.

they have to stamp that with playoff success, but they have some talent there. This particular matchup, though, presents some physical issues for them. Again, the Lakers are a team that is going to relentlessly attack you in the paint. They are going to drive the ball to the rim. They are going to back you down in the post. They are going to draw fouls. They are going to attack the offensive glass. And so that's a battle.

I expect the Lakers to win convincingly over the course of the series, because every step they take to try to mitigate the Lakers' physical advantages makes them easier to guard. And just ask the Timberwolves, who literally the Timberwolves in the last 11 minutes of that game, made two field goals, an uncontested Anthony Edwards' runout dunk, and an Anthony Edwards' little four-foot shot in the lane with less than 20 seconds left in OT when the game was over. Those were the only buckets they got in 11 minutes of game time. When this Laker unit locks in defensively, they capitalize on your lack of offensive skill.

Taylor Jenkins is going to have to go with his most skilled offensive players. If it's not Tias Jones, maybe it's Luke Kennard. I'm not sure. But whatever they do there, they're going to open themselves up to be exploited physically. All right, two other matchups I want to talk about. What will the Lakers be able to do to counter the double-distance? teams of Anthony Davis. This has become one of the biggest stories for the Lakers lately, and I actually said in the play-in preview that this is my biggest thing that I'll be watching with the Lakers in this

postseason run. When AD starts to get double-team, the team just goes away from him. It's a big part of why his scoring has been down. And so I have three things that I think the Lakers can do to help Anthony Davis and his struggle with double teams. First of all, have Anthony Davis attack quickly. When you attack quickly, it's before the double team gets there, and there's usually, like, a double team is going to come and try to close gaps on you, right? But it's a process. If you catch and go right away, you might be able to get through there before the gap closes. It's a reckless move.

There's going to be more turnovers. There's going to be more offensive fouls. But by barreling into the lane, he's also going to draw fouls and get to the free throw line, and he's going to collapse the defense and create easier kickout opportunities. When he gets passive and pulls back from the double team, they, pressure him and then he doesn't make the kill pass and he makes that easy kickout pass to the perimeter which gets them into a more of a traditional close-at attacking situation rather than the pass that beats the double team. So going quickly is the first thing that I would do to try to confront

that problem. Number two, do something off the basketball to make Anthony Davis's reads easier. A lot of NBA teams refer to these as help beaters, but it's some kind of action or movement to help your double-team's player have an easier outlet. So, for instance, back-screening out of the dunker spot. So what a lot of teams will do is they'll ignore the weakside corner. And the guy in the dunker spot will, the guy who's guarding him, will be the guy who doubles, and he'll go hard at Anthony Davis. So then the guy guarding the weak-side corner will come into the lane

to guard the guy in the dunker spot. So by being the guy in the dunker spot and screening that guy, you make it so that he can't close out to that skip pass in the corner. So that's a help-beater. So having Jared Vanderbilt back-screen that man so that he can't close out to Austin Reeves, then you tell Anthony Davis, hey, that skip pass is there. Even if it's looping, he won't be able to close out to it, right? Another thing is flashing to the middle.

Rui Hachamur is really good at this, for instance. and guys are really good at doing it with LeBron because LeBron hits him every single time but flashing to the middle of the floor is another place where you'll find an opening. And then lastly, relocating as a shooter. So when you see Anthony Davis looking around trying to find something,

in the double team, the other three guys defensively are playing three on four. So they're not really guarding a man so much as they're in a zone ready to close out to guys, right? So relocating goes a long way towards creating a better window for him to throw a pass to. but last but not least, just keep going to him. Just because he's getting double-teamed

and you're not getting the easiest kick-out pass in the world doesn't mean it's not a positive possession. There was a play, I'm trying to remember exactly what happened, but there was a play in the first half of this game where Anthony Davis got doubled on the left block in the Timberwolves game. And he didn't make the kill pass, he made a kick-out pass right to the wing. But they ended up swinging it around and still got a bucket out of it.

Anthony Davis double teams this year are still resulting in 1.18 points per possession. That's solid considering how bad it looks sometimes. AD is not good at it, but the reality is this is a skilled roster, and if you buy them opportunities to attack closeouts, they'll further the advantage and they'll make a play. So even if he does struggle a little bit with the double team, keep going to him. it's worth almost 1.2 points.

Don't just go away from it just because it doesn't feel fluid and natural to you. Last matchup I have my eye on. Who can execute better at the end of close games? Again, decision making is going to play a huge role in this series. It always does, but these are two outstanding defensive teams. And so these are going to be rock fights. And both of these teams have winning records in clutch situations this year.

But it's really going to come down to LeBron, James versus John Morant and who can make better decisions down the stretch of these games. LeBron has been a little bit up and down in the clutch the last couple of years. It's a product of a bunch of different things, but mostly injury. LeBron is a rhythm player when he's like locked in and in rhythm and he's got all of his little pull-up jump shots going and his legs are strong and he's in shape. Like he can be a master closing games. And you saw that in the 2020 bubble, for instance, and every year before that.

but when he's out of rhythm and he doesn't trust his shot and he doesn't have his legs underneath him, he can be a little clunky and he'll make decisions similar to the way he would if he was in great rhythm. So taking difficult shots or dribbling the air out of the basketball or trying to drive to the basket when he doesn't have an advantage. Like, LeBron will make some mistakes like that. And then John Moran is just a textbook young player, right? So who's going to win that matchup? My guess, says LeBron. But John Morant, winning that matchup at the end of games,

could go a long way towards giving Memphis a chance to win the series. I'm picking the Lakers to win this series in six games. They've been the better team in almost every facet of the game, post-deadline. They have the two best players in the series. If you're ranking players in the series, you're going Anthony Davis, LeBron, James, John Morant. We talked about this a little bit yesterday when we were covering the Warriors, but I'm a big believer in the best player in the series

having a swing factor in basketball games in playoff series, particularly because games are ugly, their rock fights, and having superstar talent that can squeeze advantages out on both ends of the floor usually are the difference in these games. They also have a massive size advantage with the loss of Clark and Adams, like we talked about earlier, and there are several metrics that bode well for L.A.

I'll read through these again. I went through most of these in the show, but I'll read through them again. The Lakers are the third best fourth quarter team in the NBA by net rating, and the Grizzlies are the fifth worst. So as a team, the Lakers execute better. The Lakers have the sixth best clutch defense in the NBA post-deadline. The Grizzlies are 15th. The grizzlies are 25th in rebounding post-deadline.

The Lakers are fourth, and the grizzlies are 27th in spot-up efficiency. The Lakers are 16th. I think it's a good matchup for the Lakers and a good opportunity for them to tighten up a bunch of things, if they're serious about making a title run. I still think the Lakers can win a title. We're going to do our picks tomorrow, but I'm leaning towards not picking them because I think they just have too many ways

that this can go wrong, and I don't think they're the appropriate amount of locked in. We'll circle back to that after this Grizzly series. If they win convincingly and they tighten up a bunch of things and LeBron looks great, hey, I could be back on board. But right now I think there are some safer bets. But this Grizzly series is a good first-round matchup for the Lakers, a series they can win,

and a good opportunity for them to get back to playing a championship brand of basketball. Just like we did with the other series, how can the Grizzlies win? John Morant needs to be the best player in the series. If LeBron James and Anthony Davis are as good as they are, the only way you're overcoming that is if it's Jaws the best and then Anthony Davis and LeBron. Jahn needs to outplay those guys. I think a big factor here would be the whistle. And I'm not talking about it from the standpoint of cheating.

We talked about this earlier. John Moran is extremely difficult to keep in front. And we've seen an NBA history. My favorite example is Dwayne Wade in 2006, but really quick guards that beat everybody off the dribble. Sometimes they enter into a phase of just absurd advantage creation where the refs just don't know what to do with them. And if he just starts beating everybody off the dribble,

get into the foul line nonstop, that could go a long way towards him being the best player in the series. Desmond, excuse me, Dylan Brooks and Jaron Jackson, they need to be able to stay out of foul trouble. again, Jaron Jackson is throughout his career struggle with foul trouble. Brooks has struggled a little bit as well. And they just don't have the depth to be able to handle those guys not being on the floor.

So they need to be able to defend without fouling. And they need to be able to shoot the ball well from three because the Lakers are going to dare them to do so. Desmond Bain has to provide legitimate secondary shot creation. We found out last year that he doesn't really create off the bounce very well in this playoff setting, albeit he was dealing with some back issues. they need really good secondary shot creation from him in this series. As a unit, Desmond Bain, Luke Kinnard, Ties Jones, and Dylan Brooks have to compete on the glass. Because I do think that Taylor Jenkins is going to go small,

and that's the only way they can hang with the Lakers physically is if those guys really compete on that end. If all those things go well, Memphis absolutely can win this series. I think a big bellwether for them is I think they need to go up 2-0. They need to put real pressure on the Lakers to have to win at Crypto.com Arena, especially because I think LeBron's going to get stronger as the series progresses and he gets in better shape and he starts to tie off some things with his skill set. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you support.

We'll probably have one or two more series previews coming out in the next, before the end of the day. We also have that video with Carson coming later this afternoon. As always, I appreciate you guys, and I'll see you later today. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel,

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show.

This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrating. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok.

On The Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s.

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