The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LIVE: Game 5 Reactions: Nuggets/Clippers, Knicks/Pistons, Pacers/Bucks

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Jason reacts to the Denver Nuggets taking a 3-2 series lead over the Los Angeles Clippers with their big Game 5 win. He discusses Nikola Jokic playing well and Jamal Murray having a bounce back game, plus Kawhi Leonard and James Harden falling short. Then he discusses the Indiana Pacers eliminating the Milwaukee Bucks as well as the altercation after the game between Giannis Antetokounmpo and Tyrese Haliburton’s dad & the Detroit Pistons extending the series against the New York Knicks.  Follow the show on Playback for future “Aftershow” content: https://www.playback.tv/hoopstonight #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 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.

We invented 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. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you.

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 ice. 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 can win.

She's an outsider to win the French fame. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lina Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any service. 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. 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. The volume. The NBA 82 game grind is done.

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For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.c.c.o slash audio. I'm glad to Volu. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start for your week. jam-pack show tonight. We had a four-game night on a weekday. Absolutely insane. All sorts of crazy drama. All sorts of crazy results. We had a game winner. We have a bunch of stuff we're going to be getting into today. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter underscore

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All right, let's talk some basketball. Quickly before I get to Clippers Nuggets, the Celtics game is the game I didn't get to watch tonight. So we're not going to get around to that one. But I saw Jason Tatum 35, 8, and 10 on just 16 shots to close out the magic. his third consecutive 35-point game. In the entire playoff run last year, he had two 35-point games total. And that is the biggest difference

between this year's Celtics and last year's Celtics. Last year's Celtics did not have, in my opinion, a player that can reach that top-tier superstar level. Jason Tatum was incredibly versatile in that playoff run. He did a ton to make that team championship caliber, but now he's bringing that extra level of shot-making, and half court surgery that makes him one of the very best players in the entire NBA, and it just makes that Celtics team that much more difficult to deal with in this sort of setting.

Again, no more thoughts on that game because I didn't get to watch it, but when I saw that number, again, he already has more 35-point games in the first round than he did in the entire playoff run last year. Great sign for Celtics fans. We're going to start with Clippers Nuggets. And for two games in a row now, it has felt like the Nuggets have had. the Clippers solve. They're bringing late help on Kauai when he gets into the midrange and preventing him from really getting into a good scoring rhythm as a shot maker there in that short

to midrange where he loves to work, although Kauai did have one of his better passing playoff games that I've ever seen from him tonight. But Kauai has managed to score over 25 points just once in this entire series. They're putting a ton of pressure on Hardin. Christian Brown is applying a lot of full court ball pressure, like just attacking the basketball and making him uncomfortable. they're bringing Yokic aggressively out to the level on him. And as the intensity of the series is picked up, James Hardin has looked completely caught off guard by it. I was joking with my buddy Jason Maples on Twitter earlier.

Like, it's still shocking to me. Even with James Hardin's playoff history, when you're watching it happen, it's still jarring to see. Because like the game has this level of intensity, and you can see it in all these different ways, right? It's two, two, two, game five of a series, basically a must win for both teams for obvious reasons. It's just very difficult to put yourself in a situation

where you have to win two games in a row just to survive, right? And you're seeing like the yelling and screaming of Russell Westbrook, the yelling and screaming of Christian Brown, even the intensity from like Nicole Yokic, just like barking at his teammates, barking at the officials, getting super excited every time one of his teammates makes a play. There's like this emotional momentum with the team as they're bringing the requisite intensity to meet the moment.

the transition pushes from Yok, it's just his eyes light up every time he sees an opportunity to make the defense pay for something. There's a level of like mental and physical intensity that is present in all of these series, but you can see in the game tonight and then you're watching James Hardin and it looks like he'd much rather to be playing in like kind of a chill pickup game. Like he's operating at a level of intensity that is just several levels below what the team needs from him in that moment. And it always, again, this has happened a lot over the course of his career. And it often comes in this phase of the series, towards the end of the series,

when the team has been scouted out really well. And the defender guarding James Hardin has started to pick up on some of his cues and some of his little tips that he uses to tip off the moves that he's going to use. And the physical intensity and the overall urgency of the moment picks up. and as it gets crazier and crazier, he struggles. Back-to-back, very important games for the Clippers, James Hardin at 26 points total in the two games. I do want to credit the Nuggets defense, though.

With exception of the fourth quarter in game four, when they kind of lost control of things in transition, and then you could tell just in general the Nuggets got out of their defensive groove, the Nuggets have looked like the more intense team. They look like they want to win the series more. they have pretty quickly recaptured a level of defensive intensity much closer to what they had in the playoffs in 2023. It all starts with the bracket in the ball screens. The ball pressure that Christian Brown is applying on James Hardin and Yokic getting out and making sure that Hardin is not having an easy time getting the pass out from those situations.

And you can see James Hardin get flummicks that he's like trying to force a pass to the roll man when the skip pass is open. but the guy guard and the skip pass is like on the roll man and it's a turnover because he's getting sped up and he's struggling to deal with the physicality and he's not making the same reads that James Harden can make when things are just a little less intense or when he is more intense and ready and engaged in the moment. But it all starts with those two at the level. Christian Brown and Nicole Yokic, the two of them are the guys that have stabilized this defense with what they've done in pick and roll and then the backside rotations. That's the third piece of that they've managed to recapture.

Again, the goal of your defense in the playoffs is to make opposing stars uncomfortable. Have they done that with Kauai? Yes, they've kept him from volume scoring. Have they done that with James Hardin? Yes, they've kept him from picking them apart and pick and roll. And for as much as we've talked about the Nuggets defense

down the stretch of the season, which was a major storyline. It was the main reason so many people, including most of the Nuggets fans that I follow, picked the Clippers to win the series, was because their defense was in such a bad place, but they've been operating at an insanely high level on offense for months. I thought Yokic was so much better than his box score looks tonight.

He's four for 13 from the field, but I thought he had complete command of the pace and flow of the game. He generated countless advantages. His transition pushes kept everybody out of position throughout the game. The team was playing out of those. A lot of the looks that Jamal Murray got were out of those transition pushes out of those Yokic postups and Yokic high post kind of fulcrum situations where he's just setting these guys up with great advantages. It kept everyone in rhythm. As I mentioned

earlier, I thought Yokch was fantastic defensively tonight. A way better game than the box score would lead you to believe. And then Jamal Murray. The sixth 40 point playoff game of his career. That's kind of a crazy stat dating back to his awesome shootout that he had with Donovan Mitchell back in the bubble. Jamal Murray looked fantastic tonight. Out of everything we saw, and we saw a ton of three-point shot making his three-point shot was just dead-eyed tonight.

He was getting separation on his moves. He was getting great lift all over the floor. But I thought the most exciting play for Denver's playoff chances was the transition donkey had at the end of the game. He got up and he yammed that thing. And you could tell he knew it too. And he was like, he was pumped and you could tell he was feeling great physically. and that bodes extremely well for the big picture with this Nuggets team.

That really was the story of the series to this point, in my opinion. The Nuggets had some other big contributions tonight. Russell Westbrook was amazing in the first half, vintage, like not just knocking down spot up threes and scoring as a cutter. He was like getting buckets and causing actual problems for the clippers on the ball. Michael Porter and Aaron Gordon were both excellent tonight. Christian Brown was great on both ends at that huge three at the end of the third quarter. that built that extra bit of margin going into the fourth.

But at the end of the day, Jamal Murray and Nicole Yokic have badly outplayed James Hardin and Kauai Leonard. That's the series. Everything else flows down from there. That's what dictates the types of advantages the role players are getting. James Hardin is the guy on the clippers

that can consistently set people up with advantages. He hasn't done a very good job of that. Nicole Yokic, even in a poor shooting night, set up his team with countless advantages. throughout the game. And again, when I keep talking about creating advantages, it's a very basic concept. Every basketball player, even the best basketball players in the world, are going to be more successful when they have a defender sprinting at them

versus when they have a defender set on them. When the help defense is out of position and sprinting into help versus when the help is already preloaded up. That's why advantage creation is so important. that's why I tend to be very predisposed, so to speak, as a fan, as a basketball fan, towards players that naturally create a ton of advantages in games. So I've always liked the big forwards, the LeBron's, the Lucas, the Nicola Yokiches. I've liked the deadly high pick and roll playmakers, the guys like Tyrese Halliburton, for instance.

I've always liked the guys that just, I mean, Steph is kind of a unicorn. in this regard, but he can just create a ton of advantages just by running around the floor and everybody reacting to him. Janus, just by being this battering ram that you have to account for by packing up the paint. Those guys that can consistently set their teammates up with advantages, they're going to have a really high offensive floor. Everything flows down from those guys.

And again, the intensity, like, I don't think it's a coincidence that Nicolaeokic has looked like psychopathically competitive in these two games and his team has met the moment and been a buzzsaw versus a clippers team that's had a lethargic James Hardin and a generally quiet and like like Kawhi Leonard is not the type of personality that is going to galvanize a group with energy he's he gets called a robot for a reason now kawai I thought was pretty good tonight. And Kauai in general is going to have a certain floor because he is going to bring the requisite intensity, but Kauai is not the kind of guy that's going to like legitimately galvanize a group emotionally and be like, hey, like wake the fuck up. It's time to go. What are we doing?

You know what I mean? Like, when are you going to see Kauai do what Nicole Yokic did in the huddle after game two? Where he's screaming at his guys. This is unacceptable what we're doing right here. the clippers just got punched in the face twice like badly you don't see that too often in a playoff series won this competitive or you've regardless of arena regardless of where you're at one team just looks like they're genuinely playing harder it usually goes back and forth based on who won the previous game any chance for the clippers to reverse the trend of this series is going to come down to those two flipping the script

same thing I said about the Lakers versus the wolves. Can the Lakers beat the wolves? Yes, it starts with Luca Donchich and LeBron James not getting completely outclassed by Anthony Edwards and Nas Reid and Julius Randall at the end of games. Until they flip that dynamic, nothing is going to change.

Same thing goes here. Until James Hardin can bring the requisite intensity and create the advantages necessary to get this offense to hum, and until Kauai Leonard, can bring that volume scoring that he brought in game two, they're going to struggle to flip this dynamic. Now, I picked the Clippers to win this series,

as I mentioned, like most people did, given what we've seen from the nuggets and the time leading up to the series. But one of the things I said after game two, and it's something that I feel very strongly at this point, is as a fan, I would like to see Denver advance because I think they have a much better chance to deal with Oklahoma City.

the Denver Nuggets hung 140 points on the Thunder the last time that they played them. They have the ability to break down the Thunder defense with their aggregate playmaking. One of the specific reasons that I've not been as high on this Clippers team is their lack of playmaking once you get past James Hardin. And James Harding can have some issues as the intensity gets leveraged, right? I am worried that the Clippers would go into the Thunder series and just, really fall apart offensively. And so I'm personally hoping that the Nuggets can close this deal because I think that they present a very interesting type of challenge for OKC.

Even on defense, their ability to load up against an Oklahoma City Thunder offense is something that I think is a favorable matchup for them too. I think that would be a really fun series, a Thunder Nugget series, a series that obviously the Thunder would be rightfully favored, but I think it would be a really fun example of two very different styles, a very experienced team versus an inexperienced team. That's what I'll be rooting for moving forward in the series. It's not over.

The Clippers absolutely can win game six and they absolutely have the talent to come back to Denver and win game seven. But they put themselves in a bind and it's really hard for me to imagine something different happening when their leaders haven't seemed to bring the requisite intensity and to be able to meet the competition that Jamal Murray and Nicole Yokich are bringing you straight to them.

Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? 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. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special. So how did we, how do we actually come up with the 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, 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. I mean, she went down at 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.

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

Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Before we move on to Pistons, Nix, I'm going to do a very short version of the announcement we made last night. We did just start a new partnership with playback. It's a app that I feel very passionate about. it's an opportunity for you guys to be more interactive with us on the show. And so starting tomorrow, tomorrow after the final buzzer of the Lakers Wolves game, right after we do our YouTube show, we're going to do our normal YouTube show here.

When we're done, we're going to go immediately after to what we're calling the Hoops Tonight After Show. And at the Hoops Tonight After Show, over on playback, we're going to take questions from you guys. We're going to be able to actually bring you up on the stage. We're going to be able to actually go through film live. so we'll be able to do a lot of like the actual visual examples of the stuff that we talked about on the show. It's going to be super interactive, a little bit more informal. Something I'm really excited about.

It's going to be with the after show in this playoff run. And then we have some big picture goals for next year to start doing some live watchalongs where like we can watch big NBA League past games together and actually go through the games as they're happening live together. Something I'm really excited about. But for this season, we're just doing these after shows after our live YouTube shows. So when you guys have an opportunity, hit the link in the description, head over to the hoops tonight, playback feed, get set up so that you guys are ready to go tomorrow night. Again, after the final, or after we finish the live show tomorrow night on YouTube, we're all going to head over to playback to start that new venture. I'm super excited about. I hope to see you guys over there.

All right, let's talk Pistons Knicks. So the Knicks had a chance to close out the Pistons in the same fashion that they took a 3-1 lead with. keep things close until you can out-execute them down the stretch. But instead it ended up being Kate Cunningham and the Pistons that played better down the stretch and sent this series back to Detroit for Game 6 by quickly capitalizing on a late injury to Jalen Brunson. So it was a crazy sequence. Pistons are up 95-92. Jailen Brunson tweaks his ankle on a closeout along the left wing. Cat literally goes down in a four-on-five and drops a bomb like a 45.

foot three from almost the logo that ties the game at 105, just a huge shot. But Cade, very smartly, while Brunson is still on the floor limping around, immediately looks to attack him. Now, Cade had been attacking Brunson throughout the series. And in that fourth quarter stretch already, he had just hit a three against a hedge gap on like two or three possessions earlier. And again, a hedge gap is like when Cade's coming off the screen and Jalen Brunson tries to hedge or throw his body out to force Cade to retreat, O.G. Ananobe is going underneath the screen to try to meet him on the other side. And so there's a gap when, right, when Brunson's pulling back and O.G.'s coming up,

it's very similar to his switch interchange gap, which we've talked about a lot on this show. And Cade, it was able to hit a three in that situation against the hedge. But after Jalen Brunson sprained his ankle, he didn't want to hedge anymore because he didn't want to, like, have to throw his body into a lateral quickness situation. So instead, He just hugged up on the screener. That put Kate in a situation where he had no hedge. And what happens if you set a good screen and there's no hedge? You're going to get downhill.

He goes flying downhill, challenges the rim protector and misses a layup, but in the process occupies the rim protector, which allows Jalen Duren to fill the gap from behind and get the dunk right under the basket. There's a lot of that down the stretch. Jalen Brunson had a very similar play that led to a Mitchell Robinson and one where like when you get to the basket, even if you miss a layup, if you engage the rim protector, if you force the rim protector to leave his feet and get out of position,

you're going to have your center rolling down the lane with nobody who's even remotely physically capable of hanging with him on the offensive glass. That's the challenge with the drop coverage big. And that's why you'll see drop coverage bigs do so much stunting at the ball because they don't want to leave their feet because if they do, they're out of position to box out and deal with the big man rolling down the lane or to even deal with a lob, right? And we saw a bunch of that. Jalen Brunson got Mitchell Robinson open that way,

paid on the first possession after Jalen Brunson's injury, takes advantage of the lack of a hedge, gets downhill, ends up getting the miss that Jalen Duren cleans up. On the other end of the floor, Tobias Harris gets a massive stop against Carl Anthony Town. So after Jalen Brunson gets hurt, They have to sub in Deuce McBride, right? And Josh Hart ended up getting hurt as well. And so we saw a campaign end up coming in the game as well at one point. But it was definitely an unfortunate set of circumstances for the Knicks. But Kat, as we saw it, in many points in this series has been able to create his own offense when needed.

He's hit a couple of big left shoulder fades in crunch time. He had that crazy step back three against Jalen Dern in game four. So in theory, well, we just go to Kat here. He can create offense. Tobias Harris, excellent individual defense against Kat, forces him into a tough fadeaway, merely blocks it and actually forces him into a really tough, like a really bad miss, like a bad, bad miss. Cade goes down the other end.

The Knicks are all scrambled in transition defense. Jalen Duren ends up setting like a little brush screen for Cade at the top of the key. Same exact thing. Cade goes flying downhill, misses, but occupies all the help defenders, and there's Jalen Duren just standing under the basket ready for another finish. So more value in the form of rim pressure from Kate. And his rim pressure was fantastic down the stretch of this game. You got a transition push for a scoop shot.

He was downhill, nonstop down the stretch. None of this tough mid-range fadeaway shit that he was settling for in game for. Cade was going to the bucket down the stretch in this game and had a lot of success that way. So Cade goes down the hill, gets the miss that leads to the Jalen Dern put back. Now the pissens are up for. Tim Hardaway Jr.'s turn to get a big stop. This time they go to McHale Bridges. Tim Hardaway forces him into like a tough leaning fadeaway along the right lane line,

ends up missing. And then Cade closes the deal with a textbook drop coverage attack where he gets Deuce McBride trapped on his side, puts him in jail, hits a little floater. And then on the very next possession, a post fade where he turns over the double team and Assar Thompson just slips along the baseline right behind Carl Anthony Towns. And Cade rifles a perfect pass right to him underneath the basket for the easy. layup, Cade was brilliant down the stretch of this game. And by the way, during that whole run, Tom Tippett was never able to get Jalen Brunson back into the game. Now, I understood the idea

from Tibbs. He had one time out left. And the ability to advance the ball is it could make a huge difference in a comeback, right? So like, first of all, you got to remember, Brunson was stepped out because he was having an ankle injury. He needed a minute, right? Cade scores or generates a bucket on three straight possessions. So it gets to six quickly, all right? So it's already in a situation where the Knicks basically need to go like, like perfect basketball down the stretch, right? And in that scenario,

it's very possible that you do hit a shot that forces you to call a time out after fouling to advance the ball so that you can get another shot up with like two seconds left on the game clock if you run into that scenario. So I think what Tibbs was thinking is someone's going to get fouled, something's going to go out of bounds. Worst case scenario, this is why we have Kat. this is why we have Mikhail Bridges so that they can run offense if we need to the need them to in a situation. In theory, we have a better defensive lineup out there.

Maybe we can buy Jalen Brunson a few possessions. So I understood, but then it just by the time you got a chance to use the time out, it was too late. But like at the end of the day, the damage was done in those first couple of possessions after Jalen Brunson got hurt. And so I don't want to hyper focus on that decision there from Tibbs. I could see what he was thinking. He just wanted to save that time out for a final possession. should they need it. But the story of the game, and easily the most interesting storyline for the rest of the series, was Assar Thompson's individual defense on Jalen Brunson. Pistons fans had been

clamoring for this adjustment for the entire series. There was some pretty strong lineup data that the pistons were about the same on offense and considerably better on defense when Assar Thompson was on the floor. I was a little bit more on the fence. Down the stretch in game four, Assar made a couple of classic young guy mistakes on offense. So I thought it was at least defensible to at least in crunch time for, excuse me, for the pistons to go with like a more experienced and more polished offensive player. But down 3-1, J.B. Bickerstaff finally leans fully into Assar. He plays a series high 29 minutes.

He was plus nine in those minutes. Jalen Brunson finishes the game four for 16 from the field. Now as a team effort, several guys got big stop. on Brunson on an island. Cade got stops. Dennis Froder got stops. Guys did, it was a team effort on Brunson.

But Assar applied constant ball pressure, was closing off driving angles by beating him to spots, was bumping him off his base on his fade away, got great contests on his mid-range, was pursuing him over the top of ball screens and getting contests from behind those rear-view contests. And I thought his ball pressure in particular caused Brunson to play faster than usual.

It sped him up throughout the entire game. He missed a couple of shots. that he usually makes, like, easy shots right at the rim. He took some unusual shots. Like, there was one where he had a catch in the left corner, and Assar Thompson closed out on him. Textbook closed out, closes out on the high side shoulder to funnel him towards the baseline.

Brunson rips baseline and ends up taking kind of like a Euro step floater. But Tobias Harris was like right there, like right there. And Brunson just shot the floater directly into Tobias's hands. Like it barely got out of his hands before he got blocked. and like Brunson usually sees that sort of thing, but I thought he was just a little bit rushed, just a little bit uncomfortable compared to what he looked like at other points in the series.

And so, I mean, especially with where the situation is gone to this point in the series, I think it was a worthwhile gamble from J.V. Bickershaft to lean into Assar more and it paid off. And that will be the biggest key in game six back in Detroit. Can Brunson solve the Assar Thompson problem and get more comfortable throughout the game. I think the Knicks are going to go into Detroit in Game 6

and play like a veteran team that knows they need to win. They had a similar game last year where they went into Philly, I think, and beat them in Game 6 where they kind of looked a little sketchy, but then they were able to rise up on the road and get the job done. My guess is it'll look a little bit like that, but it'll probably still be a close game because this Pissons team has had a lot of success with them against them with their physicality. So I think it'll be a close game, and it'll come down to late game execution.

and if the Knicks can be what the Knicks are capable of beating and Jalen Brunson can stay on the floor, they should be able to close out the deal there. But really impressive moment of growth there from Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons. All right, we'll talk quickly on Pacers Bucks and then we'll do a mailbag and then we'll get out here. Milwaukee threw a hell of a punch tonight. Janis played another amazing game in that like kind of point center role where he's next to Bobby Portis and he just kind of determines everything as the half court shot creator. 30 points, 20 rebounds, and 13 assists with two steals and two blocks. An absolutely insane stat line.

I tweeted this earlier. Like, I was obviously wrong to pick the bucks to beat the Pacers for a myriad of reasons. And obviously the Dame injury was a psychological punch to the gut for the bucks in the middle of the series. But I don't have any regrets for believing in Janus and his ability to potentially win this series. Like, he is just, he is amazing. and he's going to go play somewhere else this summer, and some team is going to become frightening when they add Yonis to the mix.

And there are a couple teams out there that have the assets to make a move for him that are already really fucking good. And it could get incredibly scary. But Yonis played amazing. Gary Trent Jr. and A.J. Green go nuclear from three. They hit 14 of them, including Gary Trent hitting five of his eight threes in crunch time. But Tyrese Halliburton was even better.

Think about how good you thought Gary Trent Jr. was down the stretch. Like, did it feel like when you were watching the game that Gary Trent was scoring every single time? He had 15 points in crunch time. Tyrese Halliburton had 14 of his own in crunch time to go with two assists. The Pacers overcame a seven point deficit, no T with a little over a half minute left. Andrew Nemhart hits a ball, a bomb coming off a ball screen, like a deep, like 30 foot three off the dribble at the top. And then Tyrese Halliburton beats his man off the dribble twice, once against AJ Green on the right wing, once against Janice on Tenacompo on the left wing for the win.

And on both of them, like AJ Green, physicality bumping up on Halliburton, he still turns the corner, he bumps him at the rim and he still gets enough lift to power through the contact for a soft left-handed finish off the glass and one. And then attacking Janus in a switch, the nasty left-to-right crossover turns the corner. And for the second time in crunch time, he elevates and actually gets an up and under to avoid rim protection and cleanly lay it down off the glass. last like that is the most athletic Tyrese has looked on his dribble drive and rim finishing attacks especially at a one-on-one's since the beginning of last year when he was kicking

everybody's ass before he pulled his hamstring like there has been a consistent theme with Tyrese Halliburton in like his range of potential outcomes and it pretty much comes down to he can make all the reads. But in order to beat switches, he's got to be able to beat people off the dribble and hit stuff at the rim in traffic. And in order to dictate the type of coverage necessary to generate all the kinds of openings

that he can kill teams with, he's got to be able to hit his three. If he can hit his three off the dribble, that's the other ceiling-raising piece that unlocks everything that he does. Because if he can score effectively enough in drop coverage, and he can score effectively enough in switches, that unlocks his peak trait,

which is that he sees every, he sees every read as it's happening, and he makes those reads on time, on target, the pass is always in the right place. That's the ceiling raising piece. But it depends on his ability to be explosive in one-on-one situations and to knock down shots and drop coverage. And so, like, honestly,

we're recording a Pacer's Cavs preview tomorrow morning. So keep an eye on the feeds early-ish in the day tomorrow. for that. But the main thing that I want to focus on is that they're going to need Tyrese Halliburton to be amazing to be able to win that series. And this is the best that he's looked. Since the time that he came onto the scene early last year and everyone was like, oh my God, what are we watching? Like, evolutionary Steve Nash here. Like, he's showing that upside again. The first step on the move on Janus was crazy. Everyone's slaying Janus. And I mean, the dude had to do everything for his team. so like I'm just not going to be super critical of him in that situation.

This is not like the Luca Donchage situation where he's being anchored by LeBron James and Austin Reeves and somehow still running out of gas at the end of games. Like Janus is the engine for everything this team does. Like who's the second best player on Janus's team tonight? It's Gary Trent Jr. It's Kevin Porter Jr. You know, like like he took a bunch of league like a replacement level players in the NBA. went in Indiana, very good Indiana Pacers team and nearly got the job done. But like in that last

ISO, Tyrese, he toasted him on that move. He looked explosive on that move. And it wasn't like a high hesitation, just shoot the gap. He changed direction with a sweeping left to right crossover and then hit the jet moving forward. They're going to need him to be incredible to beat the calves. And I thought that that was a really good sign how explosive he looked down the stretch. We had a really weird altercation at the end of the game with Tyrese Albertan's dad, like walking onto the court to just shit talk Janus on the floor. That was super bizarre. But I thought both Tyrese and Janus handled it really well in their postgame pressers.

And that kind of took some of the weirdness away. Because you can see, like, I'm so glad that we've seen this from Tyrese, like, shit talk can get nasty sometimes. But there is something to be said about high level competition and the ability to separate what is high-level competition from what things are like off the court. And there are a lot of people out there that, like, I mean, we were talking about this last night. Like, I like to think I'm a reasonably nice guy. I have been awful to people on the basketball court before, like awful to the point where, like,

I think about it all week until I see that person and I can apologize to them. Like, there is a, when you get out there and the competitive juices start flowing, like, there is it is important to separate the competition from what things are like off the court and like yonis had a chance to go into that press conference and just rip tyrese and talk all sorts of shit about who he thinks he is as a person nope tyrese is a competitor wish him all the best but then calling attention to the obvious behavior from his dad and same thing with tyris halibur and he could have gone into the presser and been like those boys talk shit the entire series and we busted their ass nope you went up there and he was like look we're out there and he was like look we're out

outside of the lines now. Time to be a grown-up. You know, I respect the hell out of Janus. I respect the hell out of Dame. This is just what we do when we compete. And I just want to applaud those guys for handling that really sticky situation with class. Hey, it's us to 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 wild. range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do 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. 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, SNL's Mikey Day and Headwere 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. 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. Jen, she won. 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, 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.

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

Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's hit a couple, let's do about 10 minutes of mailbag questions, and then we'll get out of here for the night. Let's do it. First question. You allude to this a little bit in the Nuggets, Clippers,

portion of the show, but Yokic seems to have really stepped up on the defensive end, still not great by any means, but it does feel like a massive improvement from the regular season. Is that what you're seeing? yes um part of it is like the juxtaposition and what i mean by that is like they were so bad on defense to end the season they were so so bad like everybody was bad and so like there's a certain amount of like they're just kind of like competing now and that's making the world of difference

and they just weren't competing earlier but i mean like everything comes down to because of the way that Denver guards, everything comes down to just the three parts of their pick and roll coverage. The ball pressure of Christian Brown, Nicole Yokic at the level in their backside rotations, and they're just substantially sharper on all three fronts than they were in the regular season. Yeah, I mean, I feel like they're a lot sharper in the regular season. That feels obvious. It feels like he's been sharper just since game one and two. I mean, the, the, at the, the intensity and I was about to say foot speed and that felt like the wrong word to use for Yokic, but the intensity and the intensity and the intensity.

sort of purpose with which at least he's guarding out there feels notable. It certainly feels a lot more like their championship run than I did last season, you know, by comparison. He's big and he's smart. So like if he does, like, think of it like this. He, his speed is more useful because he's usually early. But he's got to be bringing the requisite intensity. But like, dude, I thought Yokic's intensity was like palpable on the screen tonight.

Like, you could tell he was like, I'm going to. this fucking game. Like, like, I'm winning this fucking game. And it just was like the exact opposite of the energy we were seeing from James Harden. It was crazy. Yeah, it is funny when people like to do the whole, does Yokch even care about basketball thing? Like, when you watch the dude in the playoffs, I mean, he is as intense as a competitor as everybody. Dude, it's such bullshit. What I was like, when I was like, what I heard, it was like, oh, Yokic like did this like, you know, four hour coaching class back when he was in Europe this summer. I'm literally sitting there thinking of like, this dude's a basketball nut job. This dude loves basketball. It's, let's

Yeah. On the Hardin question, are Hardin's late series struggles more about a lack of intensity or being overly scouted by that point, sort of familiarity with the opponent at that point? You know, I've been thinking a lot about this tonight over the course of the game. Like what is it that's causing him to do this? And I think there's a couple of different things. I think there's some obvious skill things. like James Hardin has always had a little bit, a little bit of a, like a, his bag has several very reliable moves, but he doesn't necessarily have like a gigantic variety of shot making. It's a lot of like the same three or four types of moves. And so I think there's a certain amount of like guys pick up on his cues.

But also like, I genuinely think that part of the NBA playoff process is, like overcoming the adversity of a defense kind of figuring you out. Throughout NBA history, even the greatest basketball players that I've watched, because in the playoffs you have to beat four teams over the course of two months, generally at progressively more difficult levels, right? And once you get into like second, third round, you're consistently running into great defenses. I think what ends up happening is like over the course of a series,

you get tons of tape and teams are pretty good at taking away what you like to do. And like you will find yourself in a basketball game where you're like, shit, the thing I like to do is not working. What am I going to do now? And like there's like a intensity, like confronting the problem with intensity,

which is like, well, if I just play really fucking hard, I can make these things happen that are positives for me and my, team and I can build momentum in the form of confidence that comes from that and and I can try to turn this thing around and then there's the it's just not my night you know it like it I you know it does it almost like feels like that kind of energy from him where he almost like succumbs to it and it's like dude James this happens to everybody this happens to literally everybody in these games it gets really fucking hard like you just have to find a way to contribute just find a way you you know, and like for him, it could have literally just been creating advantages in ball screens by like getting downhill with the same verve that he brought in the fourth quarter of game for.

Yeah, it's, this is probably a bit of an unfair comparison because it's, you know, one of the best players of all time. But you think Steph Curry likes being top locked? You think he likes being fucking face guarded? Like, he hates it. He hates it. But he at least puts in the requisite effort required to try to beat it other ways and create advantages for his team when defenses are. playing gimmicky defenses or trying to do everything they can to take away your best option, right? Like that's part of the equation that you're describing. No, you're absolutely right.

To put it simply, like Steph had a poor shooting night relative to what he's capable of in game for, but his impact came in the form of his intensity throughout the game. Right. And you can say the exact same for Yokic tonight. And on that Yokic point, James Hardin was tasked with the, at least point of attack defense on Yokic a lot of the second half. It did seem to have some success, at least, you know, he wasn't, Yolich wasn't as much of a score, certainly tonight. Is that something that you think the Clippers can use next game? Is this a reasonable thing that could affect Yokch and change the series or is it sort of like a gimmicky thing that tried to do tonight? It's gimmicky in the sense that like Yokch was doing a lot of work at the top of the key and it gave

them some flexibility in terms of the ability to switch. And there's also the reality that like, this is, teams have been trying this forever, which is basically, let's put our bigger forward that's not very good on the perimeter. Let's put him on Yokic and then let's put our center on the backline. And it's just really, as you look through the Clippers roster, they don't really have, like, Kauai effectively is that big forward, but he's better deployed on the perimeter. So basically, James Harden is playing the same role that you see so many teams use against Denver, which is he's basically their defensive four. I mean, who was his primary matchup earlier? in the series. It was literally Aaron Gordon

or Michael Porter Jr. for the most part. So like the idea there though is like what James Hardin is doing, getting super aggressive up underneath Yokic is one part of the team defensive scheme of handling him, which really involves packing things on the back

line and like making difficult passing reads as you have some non-shooters on the floor. For sure. I agree. All right, let's move away from this series to a couple other questions. Given the Knicks Piston series has been dead even or close to dead even are you, does that make you lower

on the New York Knicks ceiling or higher on Detroit's presence slash future given the fact that they're doing all this also without Isaiah Stewart and Jaden Ivy? I think that there is I mean you texted me during the game Jackson you're like I think this is going to be a series that the Knicks will win but that we will

look back on one day and be like hey this is one of the series where Cade kind of like showed some of what he's capable of like an important part of his story so to speak it's like the old LeBron Wizard series for instance, you know? And, and like, it's one of those things where, you know, Kate has learned some valuable lessons over the course of the series. Cade early in the series was like not being as deliberate with hunting screening actions and crunch time. It was attacking too much one-on-one.

In the middle of the series made some bad reads where he's like trying to like split double teams and stuff and turning the basketball over. Tonight, very decisive in the actions that he was attacking and was relentlessly getting downhill, wasn't settling for some of the mid-range jumping, shots that he was settling earlier in the series for like like kade has shown growth over the course of this series he's been really good defensively for stretches in this series like you're seeing a lot of stuff come to the surface of sar thompson and what he's shown you as like kind of the literally the mn thompson role just guard the other team's best guard and then operate as a baseline vertical spacer like the there's there's obviously a lot of exciting stuff there i personally was

never very high on the Knicks at any point this season. Like there was not a single day from, from the day they got the shit kicked out of them by the Celtics. There was never a single day that I really took the Celtics that seriously as a championship contender. We'll see, we'll see if they can flip that script going against the Knicks, but like, or going against the Celtics, but like it also is a little tricky to me with this Jalen Brunson ankle thing.

Like if he's not super explosive in game six and he deals with another game of Asar Thompson all over him, I could see things going. going south. I think the Knicks are going to win and I think they'll probably win in six. But there's like a hefty like 20% chance that the Pistons get this done. Like they are a real problem for the Knicks on a bunch of different levels. Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's crazy watching these playoffs with the sort of extra level of scrutiny that we're watching it with. And it's crazy how much the Thompson twins jump off the screen still. As rookies to have to be the best athletes on the floor every time they're

on the floor to be, it's rare to see a defender have the, this kind of size also. They're kind of huge and have the lateral quickness to constantly be beating people to the spots they want to be getting to all the time. I've been thinking about this a lot within the context of like, okay, so like why, there was a reason why I was disagreeing with a lot of people talking about the Luca Donchich, like, roster structure with the Lakers. And like, there's the obvious thing where it's like, you, you of course want to have Luca with a rim, like a vertical space.

or like obviously. And the Lakers will get one this summer, I'm sure. But outside of that, like, I like the idea of Luca being surrounded with guys that don't just finish plays, but that can extend advantages and play out of like kind of complex close-out attacking and connective playmaking and all that kind of stuff.

I, you know, I've had this like vision for what the Lakers can be that has never really come to fruition yet, which involves basically Luca created advantage and then LeBron and Austin and everyone else just playing off of that advantage and having a ton of success. But here we are, the Lakers are down 3-1, and last year a team of Luca surrounded with play finishing was more successful. So then I look at why. Why were they more successful? And I keep coming back to Derek Jones Jr. and Derek lively and Daniel Gafford. and the specific dynamic of having a legitimate guy,

like what Jaden's doing to Luca, which is having a legitimate on-ball guy that can be a pest that will switch if needed, but that is really hard to get to switch because he's so nifty getting around screens. That can make a guy uncomfortable all game, and that can be bracketed by rim protection on the backside. I think that's how they beat the thunder.

That's how they beat Minnesota. They press up, like, Derek Jones was able to press up on Ant's pull-up jump shot enough that he wasn't very comfortable with it. And Aunt was dealing with a ton of rim protection when he would get past that first layer. And I want to be clear, Ant deserves more credit. He's not just beating the Lakers because of a lack of rim protection. He has beat them with his passing and his three-point shooting, which is just a testament to his development. but I think there's something to be said about these types of guys. You're watching a men Thompson has some success defensively.

You're watching Asar Thompson have a lot of success defensively. You're like these, like I think it's actually better to surround your supremely gifted offensive player with defense than offense. And one of the big reasons why I'm thinking that way, Jackson, is these these shooters that don't make shots there's all these shooters that don't make shots out there and it's like so it's like what good is the shooter that doesn't make shots compared to the athlete that's athletic every single night and so like at a certain point i almost look at it and i go like how much different is the average like non-athletic skill guard shooting on wide open catch and

shoots in this series than some of the better athletes who maybe aren't as good as shooters, but they feel fresher, they get more lift on their jump shot, and they can impact the game in all these other ways. It's really interesting about shooters not making shots, because that's what I have in thinking many of the games watching the Pistons, where I'm like, can their shooters just hit a shot? What the hell is going on? And not that these two are the same caliber of player, because I think we can all agree that overall, Jaden McDaniels is a, you know, a tier or two above someone like Malik Beasley.

But from just a conceptual standpoint, Jaden's going to have some games where he hits three is like Malik Beasley. He's not going to do it every game, maybe one out of every five or two out of every five or whatever. But he is going to do that on occasion. And he's every single night going to bring the athleticism and size and speed and strength that someone like, you know, just by the example, Malik Beasley is not providing. And when they do make shots, it makes them like kind of unbeatable, kind of like they looked in game one. and then they can have a game like Jaden Jaden didn't shoot particularly well in game four but was like super super impactful defensively.

It's just, you know, every single year I cover the league, I feel like I learned a little bit more. And you always are, everything's also about the context. Like you, you also, we've seen teams like Denver pull it off to where they can win

without a ton of supreme athleticism on the floor just by overwhelming skill and size. or Golden State, where it's like, Golden State has continued to win without much physical size on the floor repeatedly over the course of the last decade. And so, like, there is no harder fast rule to be clear. But as I'm looking specifically, like as a fan of the Lakers, for instance, as I look at that team, I've been, all I can think about for the summer is getting more athletic. Yeah. It's all I can think about.

And just thinking about it more really just in real time. as in the playoff specifically when defenses are so, you know, focused on the guys who are the best players, obviously, but they're also very focused on the elite level play finishers like a Malik Beasley. They are on that dude's hip, right? Malik Beasley is not getting many half court remotely open three-pointers. While Jaden McDaniels, someone of that sort of ilk, is getting open three-pointers because defense are like, we will live with that. We will live with him shooting threes.

And so then the equation changes even further where it's like, what would you prefer a contested Malik Beasley three or a wide open Jaden McDaniels three? And the numbers probably, I don't even know what the numbers say. They would probably still land in Malik Beasley. But it's a lot closer. You're not actually comparing contested three for contested three. You're comparing contested three for much of the game. You're comparing contested three from shooter versus open three from quote unquote non-shooter.

It's a little more complicated than that because I think there's value in being guarded a certain type of way. But I think, like, I think Malik Beasley is a class of shooter that gets guarded that type of, I'll give you an example, like Bogdan McDonovic, you know, or like when you're looking at like Tim Hardaway Jr. is a great example. Tim Hardaway Jr. at stretches in this series has not been able to make shots. Like, to me, it's that, that tier below Malik Beasley, where it's like that, where the other team just puts a decent lock and trail defender on them that takes away the way that you,

easy ones and then like all of a sudden he becomes a useless player like but there's it's just it's just the volatility because like I feel like buddy healed was this guy and buddy heels had a couple of good games in a row so like my point is though is like like buddy healed when he's got the shot going the way he did in the last two games looks like a good player but like buddies looked really bad in the games when he hasn't been hitting shots and so that that's where it just gets tricky and I think that there's something to be said about the dependability of athleticism. And like, ideally that guy can hit a catch and shoot three. But like, to me, it'd be like a guy like Chris Dunn.

Like, how much value is there in a guy like Chris Dunn versus a guy like a Tim Hardaway, Jr.? And it's a complicated discussion. And like, you know, there are other times, there are other times I watch a game and I'm like, oh my God, shot making is the only thing that matters. Like, I, it's all, I feel like it all depends on like having the perfect mixture of things. it's just I tend to think of it like having Luca Donchich as like this supremely gifted offensive player that can create advantages. I just want to put him in a situation where his athletic job is really easy so that over the course of games he can just focus on creating shots.

There's something to be said about it being problematic how much they switch with him. And this is why his conditioning is so important because it would be good for him to be able to add a a hedge and recover look to what he can do, but he just needs to get faster and he needs to be able to cover ground more over the course of games. But yeah, I've just been, I've been very keyed in on the athletes,

and we've just seen a lot of examples of the athletes kind of having big impact at this point. For sure. Let's do one more question. In a Cavs versus Celtics match, potential Eastern Conference matchup, assuming that that does happen? Does Donovan Mitchell need to reach the level

of a top five player? And do you think he's capable of reaching that type of ceiling? I think where Donovan Mitchell is, going to become incredibly important for the Cavs Celtics matchup is crunch time when it turns into the matchup hunting slow down type of thing because the Cavs I think are going to have a lot of success in that series just with their blender and what I mean by that is just the incessant transition pushes the quick decisive attacks the diversity in the way that they attack but at the end of games the Celtics will be able to strangle the pace and it's going to become about picking on matchups

and there's no doubt that Donovan Mitchell is going to have to go toe to with those guys. The key there is though is like, can the calves get, so for instance, one of the reasons why I view in that series is more of a coin flip is like the home court advantage piece. Like what if the calves win game one or game two by, you know, 15, 18 points and it doesn't come down to crunch time, they could put themselves in a situation where like if they win two games like that in the series, then Donovan Mitchell might only need to out-execute the Celtics and crunch time, you know, twice.

you know, like he, that's really the key to me is like, I think if the calves are going to beat the Celtics, they need like a couple of those games to be like run, like between game one, two and five, they would need to win two of those games by like 10, 15 points. Because I think it'd be, I think it'd be really difficult to ask Mitchell to out execute Tatum four times in a series in a crunch time, you know, slow down type of game. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. All right, guys, that's all we have for tonight. As always, we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show.

as mentioned, tomorrow we are going to be doing our series preview on Pacers Cavs with Carter Rodriguez. Tomorrow night, live after the final buzzer of Lakers, Lakers Timberwolves. Don't forget, we're also doing our first hoops tonight after show on playback. So make sure you guys get down there to the link in the description and head over to playback and get signed up and get subscribed to our channel. Jampack Day for the show tomorrow. We'll see you guys in the morning. What's up, 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 supporting us, but if you could take 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. We invented 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 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. 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. Jen, she's an outsider to win the French friend. And she likes Clay. Listen, Leonard 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. 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 documentation. at 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.