The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LIVE - Playoffs Day 1 Reactions: Lakers/Wolves, Knicks/Pistons, Nuggets/Clippers, Pacers/Bucks

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

Jason reacts to day one of the NBA Playoffs and breaks down all four games. He starts with the Los Angeles Lakers loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves including Luka Doncic scoring at volume but LeBron James and Austin Reaves struggling + Anthony Edwards playing a spectacular playmaking game. Then he discusses the New York Knicks beating the Detroit Pistons behind a huge fourth quarter run from Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns over Cade Cunningham, the Denver Nuggets and Nikola Jokic getting a huge overtime win against Kawhi Leonard and James Harden’s Los Angeles Clippers, and finally the Indiana Pacers dominating Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. #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.

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What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was crying. You just understood.

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see dkng.c.c.com slash audio. You're at the volume, heavy playoffs, everybody. Happy Saturday. as well. We had a jam-pack slate tonight. My Lakers laid a total leg at the tail end of the slate. We're going to be leading with that one, but we're going to hit all four games from tonight's slate. Lots of interesting stuff to get into. We're officially in the grind. We're going to be doing film breakdowns in the morning. This is the fun part. I'm excited to be here. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT.

So you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast on our hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson is doing great work on our social media feeds, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Make sure you guys get over there to get additional content throughout the year. And then last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We'll still get to a mailbag about once a week throughout the remainder of the playoffs. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I thought the wolves threw an awesome punch tonight.

Every one of these series that I've been picking, all of the teams are capable of winning. The only series where I see like absolutely no path are the Orlando Magic over Boston and the two one eights. I think even though I've picked certain teams to win every series, every team is capable of beating that pick, so to speak. And that's why I talked a lot about the swing factors in every series, the specific things where, hey, if this matchup goes one way or another, a classic example tonight in the Pacers Bucks game. I talked a lot about Miles Turner and Brooke Lopez, these two stretch bigs. And if one of them just badly outplayed the other could have a huge impact in the game, Miles Turner kicked Brooke Lopez's butt tonight. It was a huge part of how the Pacers controlled that game.

Every single swing factor that I discussed for the Timberwolves Lakers series went the Timberwolves way tonight. And what I thought was an ass kicking. I thought that was quite embarrassing. I sympathized with JJ Redick and his early fourth quarter. press conference as he just, you could just tell. He's like, this ain't about schematics. We're just getting punked out here. And I thought the wolves absolutely punked the Lakers tonight. The first swing factor I discussed, ants playmaking. We all knew that the Laker defense since the Luka Danchich acquisition and really dating all the way back to Anthony Davis's injury has been

geared around, you know, loading in the paint, swarming, a lot of stunting, a lot of helping, a lot of forcing teams to beat you by breaking you down with the pass. And one of the big things I talked about is if Ant goes into the series and he just tries to force his way through everybody, it's not going to go well. But if he just takes these simple basic reads that are there, it could be the first domino in a much better offensive performance for the Timberwolves as they take control of the series. He was awesome all night tonight, not even just making simple swing passes like, oh, you're sitting down off of the strong side corner off of Nas Reed. Like, I'm just going to throw a pass there. Like, oh, you're going to double teamy as I'm about to turn around

over my left shoulder and take like an impossible fade away. Sure, I'm just going to drop it off to Julius Randall. Why would I take this super hard fade away? Just taking every easy shot that came to him. Did you notice he didn't take any threes in the early part of the game? He wasn't trying to force the issue. He was just trying to take what the game delivered to him. And I just thought he had one of is better like floor general type of just control the flow of the game type of games that I've seen Anthony Edwards play. And if we remember dating back to the parts of the Timberwolves or excuse me, the Nugget series last year where it went south, it was a lot of that sort of thing. Ants struggling to solve the puzzle to the Dallas series. Ants struggling to solve the puzzle.

Now, one of the things we talked about, the lack of rim protection is a big part of how he was able to do what he did to Phoenix and Denver and what he did to the Lakers tonight. compared to Dallas, but still the swarming aspect still required him to make a lot of good decisions tonight. And he just made a lot of good decisions. If Ant plays like that for the rest of the series, just strictly talking about decision making, because there's a lot of other factors we're going to talk about that will go the other way. Like, I don't think Jaden McDaniels is going to outplay Austin Reeves for the entire series. Like there's going to be games where, you know, Jaden goes 0 for 3 from 3 and Austin has 27 points. There are certain things that are going to swing

different directions. But if Ann Ann, can control just his decision-making throughout the series, that's going to give the wolves a very good chance to win. Because even though there was crazy shooting, we're going to talk about that in a minute, a lot of them were really good looks. And even streaky shooters, if they're given repeated, continued opportunities

at getting comfortable behind the three-point line, they're going to make shots. Second big swing factor, role-player shooting. When the wolves pulled their starters, or I should say when the Lakers pulled their starters, The wolves had finished to that point in the game, 21 for 41 from three. Over 20 made threes and over 50% really impressive shooting. Every like streaky wolves shooter that you're counting on missing shots was hitting.

Julius Randall, four for six from three. Jaden McDaniels, three for three from three. The Nasreid threes I thought were entirely on JJ Redick. I thought that was a really poor bit of their game plan in this game. They were consistently helping off of him. And I just think Nause is too good of a shooter to be one of the guys that you're gaping so significantly off of. And a lot of Luca Donchich in those sorts of possessions, just getting caught way down on the block for easy little kickouts to Nazeri. That's a game playing thing that they've got to clean up.

But the stuff, like you got to, if you're going to guard Anthony Edwards, if you're the Lakers, you kind of have to live with Jaden McDaniels taking some moderately contested threes. Julius Randall taking some moderately contested threes. And to their credit, they went seven for nine tonight. They just made them. Meanwhile, the key guys for the Lakers that are part of their five-out spacing groups, Rui Hachamura, Doreen, Finney Smith, and Gabe Vincent, a combined four for 13 from three. Roll player shooting skewed heavily towards Minnesota.

Now, I want to be clear, especially when we talk more Lakers later in the show, that is not a factor that you can just sit there and just go, I hope this changes. I talk about this all the time. Variance plays a role in shot result in games, but it's a much smaller role than people are willing to give it credit. I know it's easier to just pretend it's like some math equation that can spit out a shot value number for us. But the truth of the matter is, is these things are all intricately connected. Like, you know, one of the big takeaways that I have from this team is that the wolves,

and dating even back to last year's postseason, they kind of have this like momentous avalanche feel to them. When they get that part of their game going and they're super confident. And frankly, I think if the Lakers are just hoping those guys will miss, it could go poorly. You have to play them into misses by control. different factors of the game. The third factor, I talked a lot about how LeBron and Austin would need to score the ball. Like, I'm not worried about Luca. Like, Luca's, Luca figured it out tonight like he usually does against the Timberwolves to

score at volume and efficiently. But LeBron and Austin are going to have to bring that level of shot creation themselves. Maybe not quite that level, but they need to be reliable. The two of them, 35 points combined on 31 shots combined. That's just not going to cut it. another massive swing factor that went towards Minnesota. I talked about how one of the biggest pathways for Minnesota to win the series would be defense to transition. They won the fast break points battle tonight, 25 to 6.

There was an early second quarter stretch. As I'm banging my head into the wall watching Rui Hachamura and LeBron James repeatedly try to score at the rim on Rudy Gobert and Nas Reid, which was driving me insane. But as they're doing that, they're making these mistakes that are leading to these running. out opportunities and it's just easy runout, not forcing it at the rim in transition, but taking the easy kickouts to the corner that were there, guys running their lanes to make sure that their outlets in transition, everything went towards Minnesota and they kicked their ass. Pretty much the only positive in the game for the Lakers was that Luca was able to

score. And even then, I thought the wolves did a good job of avoiding the wide open, completely unguarded threes through ball pressure and closeouts. A couple of specific things. I talked game playing before the series how I thought the wolves should switch with their fives. For the most part in this game, they switched with their fives. That was another way they stayed out of rotation. Ball pressure on Luca so that his kickouts are not, you saw that last one that he fired out of bounds. I think Luca had five turnovers in the game. A big part of those turnovers is when Luca gets two to the ball, pressure him like hell so that he has a hard time finding a passing angle to get a ball out to a specific spot on the floor. Like, you know, I talk to different fans of different teams. It's a big

part of how I get perspective from people who root for a team every single night. I've always found, I just know this from personal experience. I have a understanding of this Lakers team as someone who has rooted for them every single night for the last several years, that you get intimately from being that type of fan, right? And so I was talking to a Wolf's fan buddy of mine before the series. And one of the things he was talking about is like just why Wolf's fans feel so confident. And one of the things he talked about was like, it's hard for us not to after everyone told us we were going to lose to Phoenix. And he's not wrong. And that's really that that momentous athletic athletic avalanche thing that I'm talking about. Like there is an identity that this wolves team has. I talked about it a little bit in the regular season. It was a big part of why Minnesota to me was like a legitimate long shot contender relative to what their position was in the standings. The timber wolves have the ability in the post. season to scale up athletically. Every

team does to a certain extent, but what's weird with Minnesota is like it takes on this like confidence. It starts from ant and flows outwards to the rest of the team. They're all having a great time just whipping your ass running up and down the floor. And like

they're again, I think there is a real, a real problem here for the Lakers that they have to address. And I think the last thing I want to say in the wolves before we get to some specific game plan stuff that the Lakers can do to try to regain control. Jada McDaniels, he, you know, showed the job he did tonight was different than the job we've seen him do for the most part in his time in a Timberwell's jersey.

He's had games like that before. I don't want to pretend like he's never done that before. But there's a difference between a D and 3 wing, meaning a wing whose job it is to guard the other team's best player who's going to get concession three point shots on the other end to the floor and he just kind of has to knock down 35% of them and just, you know, make basic reads and blah, blah, blah. There's another layer to that position when you can legitimately score the basketball. This is where it comes into the role that I've discussed a lot this year, which is the weak side scoring forward. If you can do like what Jaden was doing in this game,

like driving closeouts and slaloming through guys with Euro steps for floaters in the lane, he had another one where he drove a Dorian Finney Smith close out off the left corner and got into Lucas chest and had a lay up right at the basket. Those sorts of like aggressive scoring moves in conjunction with being three for three from three in conjunction with bringing transition scoring. That's the stuff that could make Jaden McDaniels into a $30 million player is when you bring that legitimate second side scoring piece in addition to the defense. I thought he was awesome tonight. The simplest way I could describe this game is like once you get off of Luca, Jaden McDaniels and Nas Reid outplayed every other Laker tonight. And that's before we even get

to other matchups down the roster. It was a total ass kicking tip of the caps of the Timberwolves. So let's talk some Lakers. I'll know everything I need to know about this team and about where this series is going in the first half of game two. I agree with J.J. Reddick and what he said in the start of the fourth quarter. There's certain person, like, I thought he, I thought he was doing a little too much blame shifting there by saying there's no schematic things that went wrong. You can't just be conceding threes to Nasreid. That's not a good idea. You need to be coaching up your stars to be attacking the right types of matchups, like maybe get into Rui and LeBron's ear and tell them to stop trying to shoot layups over Rudy Gobert. Like, there are certain things that he could improve, but the

majority of this game came down to a good old-fashioned punking. And like, yeah, it's really easy to be like, we were playing regular season basketball, we got to bring the requisite intensity. Yeah, I agree. But this could turn into last year's first round series against the suns really quickly if you don't bring it. I did think the Lakers after, like, from that like late third quarter stretch to the mid fourth quarter, they started to fight. But it was too little too late. And Minnesota was in such a groove with their shot making that it was just impossible for them to get over the hump. And Anthony Edwards was hitting turnaround fadeaways and Julius Randall's hitting turn around fadeaways and they're still hitting every damn three they're taking. And there's

certain, there's certain stuff like that where it's like, that's why you got to bring it early in the game. There's a certain point where like you try to ratchet up the defensive intensity, but these guys are already in a groove that they're going to hit shots. You know what I mean? And like, but they're, they were at least competing physically in that stretch there in the late third to the early fourth quarter. But like the reality is the reason why Phoenix lost to Minnesota and sweep last year was they got punked in game one, and then they were never able to regain control of the situation. There's a momentum to the way these things go.

There is a version of this where it's like, okay, you compete better physically. You don't get punked as much physically at the point of attacking on the glass, several things like that. I thought Luca had a bad night on the defensive glass, for example, just like standing around while guys were just jumping over him to get the ball. Like if everyone just competes better, you do a better job making things a little bit tougher. Maybe guys miss a few more of those threes.

On the other end of the floor, LeBron and Austin, you pick the right types of matchups to attack. You do a better job generating shots. You stay at a transition. You do a better job executing in the half court. Now, as that happens, Minnesota's not getting into their high, you know, octane transition. We're all having the time of our lives running and jumping through you type of confidence attack. You can derail that a bit. And then all of a sudden it's like we're trapping them in the half court.

They're not hitting 50% of their threes. They're hitting 38% of their threes. We're doing a better job on the glass. LeBron Austin and Luke are generating better shots. There's a version of this where they can regain control of the situation as they head into game two. But it starts with all of those things. LeBron and Austin have to be better in their execution. Everybody has to battle better on the glass, battle better at the point of attack, close out sharper.

the role players do have to be more confident knocking down shots under duress. All of it has to swing to stop that wolf's machine. And like, here's the thing. I will know everything I need to know in the first half of game two. If the Lakers are serious, if they're serious about accomplishing the things that they want to accomplish, then they will go out to start game to bring the requisite intensity and control that game and take like a seven to ten point lead into the halftime buzzer.

If I see that, now we have ourselves a series. If they lay down and do the exact same thing to start game two, this is going to get ugly. I do think this team is more physically capable of hanging with Minnesota than Phoenix was last year. I don't expect it to get that ugly. But this could certainly get ugly and you could be looking at a five or six game victory for the wolves if the Lakers don't wake up for game two. They have some real problems that they got to deal with that the wolves demonstrated tonight.

Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news. We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how 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. And 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 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.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaders to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered.

Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis, and I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on Clay. Jenchian win. I mean, she went down in three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted.

She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lina Rabakina is arguably the best player in the world. right now and I actually can win on any surface because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. All right, let's work our way backwards through the games.

Let's talk Pistons, Knicks. So I thought the Pistons showed a lot of why they're a tough matchup for the Knicks for the first three quarters of this game. Hey, doing some nice. playmaking out of action, attacking Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns. All of the Pistons role players played well. Tobias Harris was great. Tim Hardaway Jr. was great. Malik Beasley was great. Those guys combined for 64 points. There was a Dennis Schroeder layup driving past Carl Anthony Towns in a little like slot ISO off the left wing that put the pistons up 98 to 90. And the Pistons did not score again until they were down 13 points. The Knicks just completely blitzed

them. Brunson found a matchup that he really liked in the half court, which was Tobias Harris, and he was doing a lot of really good work against him, just kind of semi-transition attacks to get him where he's jumping to one side and hitting him with crossover moves. He was able to beat him with a regular crossover move in the half court to get inside position on him. He was doing a lot of quality work against Tobias Harris. They're down the stretch, which is a little note to file away for the inevitable, you know, it's game four, two to one, five minutes left, games tied. that's a matchup that I think the Knicks feel good about is Brunson going after Tobias Harris.

Campaign was great in that run. He actually started the run with a little crossover, one of his patented left-or-right crossovers into a scooping layup. He had two massive threes to rescue possessions, one off of an offensive rebound, one off of a crazy stepback move at the end of the shot clock. Then the Knicks started forcing turnovers. O.G. and Ninobe forced a turnover on Kade and the post.

There was another turnover they forced on Kade on a baseline out of bounds. Cat forced a turnover on a high post entry, where he jumped it and they were able to get out in transition. And that's when the Knicks are at their best, right? That defensive transition stuff. And literally in just that brief stretch, that brief little 21 to zero run, they completely erased everything else that happened in that game. And then the Knicks are coasting to an easy win.

Like what looked like a textbook like, oh, the road team steals game one type of thing, turned into a one zero lead for New York with just that brief stretch of basketball. I thought the Knicks guarded Kate Cunningham really well all game. one of the things I talked about in the series preview is that I expected the Knicks coaching staff to look at the tape and to see that OG and Obie was a better option to guard Kate Cunningham and that's what they did.

We talked a lot in the regular season about how Mikhail Bridges was just not big enough in terms of his base to stop Kate from being comfortable fighting for spots. And that's really the key. Like that's what OG does as a bigger, stronger player guarding Kate. Like it's the like there's so many different examples

like just fighting for position and like as Cade's trying to seal and create a passing angle, he's trying to seal and create a passing angle against the guy who's actually bigger and stronger than him, instead of a guy that he's bigger and stronger than, right? The last post up that Cade had against O.G. Where he turned it over. Like he tried to swing through with his right shoulder

and power up through O.G. With his right shoulder. And when he does that to most defensive players that guard him, he's so big and strong that he's just blowing through that player and getting to where he wants to for his little right shoulder fadeaway. Not OG. OG's holding his ground, he's having trouble fighting up through there to get a shot. He turns the basketball over. Just making him uncomfortable. Like that's the thing. When we talk about

shot result, the number one thing you can do to make any star or role player shoot below their season averages or below their career averages or however you want to look at it is to make them uncomfortable. Take the little things that they do in games that come second nature and make them a chore. Like, oh, you want to catch the ball coming off of like an Iverson cut off of a screen at the high post, well, I'm going to fight you like hell until you get the ball. And by the time you get it, there's going to be 11 seconds on the shot clock and you're going to be exhausted. That's the type of work.

That's the type of value that comes from having size and strength fighting you off of position. Someone that Kate can't dislodge. That was a really smart game plan thing from the Knicks. Kat made a couple of huge defensive plays late in the game after having some troubles in earlier phases of the game. He had a couple of plays where, you know, paid split him and pick and roll or he just got caught out in space and struggled to contain the

ball. But he made two massive plays during that run, a rotation back to the basket where he forced Jalen Duren into a miss on a catch layup where he was out of position behind the play, sprinted back and had a nice contest. He was the one who forced the turnover on the high post entry just with his just physical pressure like a three quarter front kind of thing. He was great. Just again, shout out to the Knicks. They turned what could have been easily a stolen. game one into an early series lead. And I thought that that was a encouraging note to that Brunson found a matchup that he really liked there down the stretch.

On the Pistons front, I talked all season long or all series, excuse me, it's been a long day. I've been watching basketball since 10 a.m. In the season preview pot, I talked about how NBA history tells us that the Detroit Pistons usually lose this series because of the fact that they are just unfamiliar with this setting, specifically Kate, right? And honestly, that was really the big thing that stood out in crunch time. Like, Cade was badly outplayed during the run. There was some variant stuff, right?

Like, I thought Malik Beasley and Tim Hardaway, Jr., both got fantastic above the break three-point looks that just didn't go in during the run. Malik had a movement three going to his right off of a screen where he got plenty of separation that he happened to miss. Like, during that shot on Kat as a shot we all know he can make. Like, there were shots that they missed during that run. But the bottom line is that, like, a lot of that was off of K. chaos. Like Tim Hardaway Jr.'s 3 was on an offensive rebound. Malik Beasley's was on an offensive rebound. Like there's the actual shot creation piece. Cade looks sloppy. Like, why is he trying to post OG and Anobie down the stretch of the game? Jalen Brunson wasn't trying to attack

a Sarr Thompson if he could help it. He's getting a favorable matchup and trying to find a place to go to work. Cade attacking the best perimeter defender on the team in crunch time. That's a decision mistake. He had a very, he was the guy who made the really sloppy inbound pass on the baseline out of bounds. And that's the difference, right? Like, as things were kind of rounding into form down the stretch, Jalen Brunson kind of figured out how he wanted to attack. And Cade kind of like was decomposing a little bit. Now, again, that's to be expected. He's young. This is playoff basketball super hard, right? And like, it's just, it's just relevant within the scope of this series. In this series, you're going against Jalen Brunson, who for two years,

now has led his team through multiple playoff rounds and is pretty comfortable in this setting. And it's just something new that Cade is dealing with. I did think Isaiah Stewart looked better than Jalen Duren tonight. But Duren ended up getting six more minutes. And they were closing with Duren during the run. And Dern just, there's several things. He's a little bit late on some of his short roll reads. His finishing can be tricky.

He can struggle to guard cat in space. Like Isaiah Stewart has his own issues. but I think I would go with him a little bit more than I went with, then, uh, J. Bickersaff went with Duren. And then I did like Dennis Schroeder on Jalen Brunson. I thought that was a matchup that they could look to try to give a little bit more attention to Schroeder play 26 minutes.

It's not so much that you can scale that up so much. But like, I even thought just down the stretch when a SAR and Dennis were out there, they went to ASAR on Brunson and like, Dennis just pisses him off. Like, it's not so much that ASAR is not a better defender. Of course,

Asaar is. Asar is one of the best perimeter defense prospects I've ever watched. But like Dennis just has like a a little bit of like a anticipatory like he knows how to guard Brunson a little bit. And I just, I think that I would lean on that a little bit more. I'd have every minute that Schroeder's on the floor, I'd have him guarding Brunson and just trying to piss him off. Again, like I'm going to be doing a film breakdown in the mornings throughout this, throughout the entire postseason. We'll get into more details on the series as we go along. That was just my initial takeaways from tonight's game. All right, let's move on to Clippers Nuggets. Super interesting game. As we expected, this was going to be a super interesting series. The Clippers came out and did what basically every team is done to

the Nuggets for the second half of the season. And that's score the basketball very easily just about every single time down the floor. That's how it looked in the early part of that game. But right in the middle of the second quarter, there was a timeout. And out of the timeout, Yokic just like just applies a ton of ball pressure to, I think it was zoo, catching out on the perimeter and like the defensive intensity just skyrocketed for Denver. And it happened to coincide with the stretch when Kawhi Leonard and James Hardin were both in some foul trouble. And Denver worked their way right back into the game. And then it was a dog fight the rest of the way. And like one of the big things that stood out to me, like there was a lot of people talking and including myself about how

the clippers were sloppy in the way that they were capitalizing on some of those Denver coverage weaknesses that we've talked about, specifically like Denver being able to put two on the ball effectively and rotate out of it, which has been a weakness for them all season or handling, you know, mismatch attacking and shading and sending help and rotating out of it. They've been bad with that, right? And so there are a lot of these like sequences where like you can kind of see it take shape where it's like two on the ball, hit the short roller, guy cutting out of the baseline and like everything is just a little stilted. It's like the short roll guy is hesitating for just a second, the guy who cuts along the baseline, the passes a little off target and he fumbles

it a little bit. And then he like second guesses himself and pump fakes or something. There, there was a lot of like sloppiness and hesitance from the clippers as they were attacking some of those gaps. And like, I want to give the Nuggets credit. Like, I don't think the clippers are a particularly strong playmaking team relative to some of the other teams in the field. Like James Hardin is a good playmaker. Kauai can struggle with it from times. Norman Powell can struggle with it from sometimes like their their Chris Dunn can struggle with it sometimes like they they in their lineups have two or three guys on the floor at any given point that can hesitate when they need to make a decision that aren't necessarily the sharpest read and react players

in the league and so Denver upping the intensity is what causes that right like if you don't up the intensity the reads are very easy the runways are very wide everything looks easy breezy as you're breaking the defense down. If you up the intensity, you make them have to make some tougher decisions. You make them have to make some decisions quicker than they would have to make if you weren't upping that intensity. And that led to a lot of those mistakes.

That led to a lot of the clippers. What I'm saying is, is like, the clippers aren't going to pee down their leg on their own. You have to make them pee down their leg. And the only way you're going to do that is by upping the defensive intensity, right? In crunch time, that was where you could see that execution gap really take shape. The Clippers were doing a ton of helping off of Christian Brown and what Russell

Westbrook, right? You have to find a way to make them pay. Christian Brown hits a massive three in overtime on the left wing. Russell Westbrook, not just the open three that he hit at the end of regulation that put him up too, super active on the offensive glass as he's getting ignored in a lot of those sequences. And to the Nuggets credit, they kept trusting him. Yokich in particular, just he, I talked a lot about in some other matchups, specifically after the Lakers game earlier this year, about how like Yokic, when he's getting swarmed, has to kind of force the issue a little bit from time to time.

Be more willing to be like, yeah, I'm in a swarm, but I'm just going to just put my head down and try to make something happen anyway. I thought he did a really nice job of balancing that tonight. Like forcing the issue sometimes. And yeah, it's going to hurt his efficiency. He didn't have the most efficient shooting night tonight,

but forcing the issue sometimes, but then also being willing to take what the defense was giving him. three that Russell Westbrook hit in the left corner, for instance. Watch the way Yokic threw that pass. He threw that pass like, I want Russ to take this shot. He was trusting him in that spot. I thought that was a big part of how Denver succeeded in an offense late in the game. Mixing, spamming their best two players in spots where they can be aggressive,

but then trusting what the Clipper game plan was giving up to them. Westbrook's, like, it was kind of like a classic Russell Westbrook game in a lot of ways because like, I thought he was mostly great down the stretch. Lots of lots of huge plays famously at the end of the game, too gets that big steal as the clippers had their chance to tie. But there's like bad plays mixed in. You know what I mean? But like everything with Russell Westbrook is a scale.

And like if it's four good plays and five bad plays, it can be pretty damaging to the team. But tonight it was more like down the stretch. It was like six good plays, three bad plays. And it was like really impactful for the nuggets in this game. They don't win this game. without Russell Westbrook and the work he did down the stretch. And I thought it was a really smart move by Adelman as well with how Michael Porter Jr.

just looked kind of unready for that level of intensity to go with Westbrook. It's a gamble, right? It's a gamble because you could have that scale flip the other way, but the gamble paid off tonight. Again, I thought Yokic was fantastic. I thought the two-man game with Jamal Murray, even though Jamal struggled for a good portion of the game. I talked a lot before the series about how Jamal is such a rhythm player and how when he comes back from injury, sometimes he needs a long runway to kind of get his legs underneath them and to get his rhythm. And he struggled a little bit, but he made some shots.

He made some plays. He made a couple of huge threes in two-man game with Yokic down the stretch that were important in this game. The crunch time, when we got down to game within five, less than five minutes left, the nuggets were up plus 15.8 points per 100 possessions, a 126 offensive rating and a 111 defensive rating. that's really the key for Denver. If they can get to four minutes left, we're tied. I absolutely trust Yokic and Murray to out execute the clippers in a close game with a few minutes left. As a matter of fact, if every game in this series goes to crunch time, the nuggets are going to win.

But it's about that competitiveness in avoiding the onslaught throughout the game. That's where the intensity cannot let up. If you come out in game two and you let things get out of hand the way you did to start this game, Kauai and James Harder might not get in foul trouble. You might be in a situation like the Lakers were with the wolves tonight, where you're just clawing from behind the whole time and you can't ever get over the hump. And so it's about bringing the requisite amount of intensity on the defensive end at the level in their ball pressure on the backside in rotation to keep the game close enough

that you can stare down Kauai Leonard and James Hardin with three, four minutes left and how it execute them the way they did tonight. I thought Denver did a really, really nice job playing the long game against the Clippers tonight. Really like there's another conversation to be had about how after the Clippers got their big lead, they never really truly looked as comfortable offensively as they did to start the game. Kauai needs to do a much better job of handling double teams.

I thought he did a poor job in this game of handling those aggressive double teams. he did a much better job against Golden State. Some of that spots on the floor, too, Denver was mixing up, doubling in more when he got closer to the basket. And then all of a sudden, Kauai would just retreat like crazy and dribble out to half court while the pressure's coming, and it just made it really difficult for him to make the pass. He missed the flasher a few times and was just throwing swing passes to the corner, which is not going to compromise the defense.

You have to beat the double by making the right pass. That's always been Kauai's demon, right, is his ability to break down defenses with the pass. And the game plan was pretty clear with Denver tonight. There were a handful of ISOs in there, but there was a lot of swarming, a lot of digging down on him as he's dribbling into traffic. Kauai's going to have to process in the half court and play make out of it. And then in those tick-tac-toe situations, like I talked about, those four-on-threes, they have to do a better job of quickly processing the situation. You cannot hesitate on the short roll at making the read.

You have to go up quick and strong on your baseline cuts. If you hesitate for a split second in the playoffs, someone's going to. to rotate into your space and take that opportunity away. I do think this is going to be a long series. My guess is that when the Clippers win, it'll be more in that like, we don't go to crunch time. They just control the game throughout. And then when things get close, I think it's going to go towards Denver. But like, this was a series again that I picked the Clippers. A lot of people picked the Clippers. The Clippers were heavily favored. Denver got the first one tonight. A big step forward in their process of potentially stealing this series.

Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news. We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special.

So how 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. And, well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas.

And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, 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. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real.

From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis, and I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on Clay.

Jenchian went. I mean, she went down 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. All right, last game before we get out of here for the night, the Bucks and the Pacers. I've talked a lot over the years about how when you see these different types of styles face

each other, it's not about which style is inherently better. It's about which style wins that particular fight. Which group is more capable of inflicting their strength on their opponent. The Pacers immediately came out and dictated

the terms of this game. Getting stops, getting out in transition. They outscored the buck 17 to 5 in transition just in the first half. Andrew Nemhardt was brilliant in transition to start that game like a crazy series of crossover moves to like cut through A.J.

and Antorian Prince for a layup, two plays where he just drove right at Brooke Lopez's chest and like just knocked him over and had a little scooping life. He had another little drive where he kind of dislodged De Yannis in the second half. So like I was certain to think Andrew Nemhard might just be a lot stronger than he looks and just has a real low center of gravity and he is really good at just dislodging. Like that's half the battle on, on offense is dislodging your defender. If you can dislodge your defender by just bumping him off of his base,

he's not going to be able to recover in time for you to do anything. But they were great in transition. Tzakken was finding openings in transition, both as a spacer and running the lane towards the rim. Their speed was on display all over the place, especially in their closeouts. Like, I thought the Pacers just perimeter closeouts did such a great job of just rushing and catching an unprepared Milwaukee team off guard.

There were two examples in the first half that I thought kind of demonstrated this. a Yonis swing pass to Kyle Kuzma on the left wing, and then a short roll sequence where Bobby Portis caught wide open in the right corner. And Bobby Portis didn't even get a shot off. And Kyle Kuzma ended up taking a heavily contested shot because the two of them just like weren't ready to shoot under an intense closeout. And like this is where I want to read you guys a stat that I thought was the stat of the game for Pacers Bucks game one.

Milwaukee logged 13, guarded catch and shoot jump shots tonight. So like contested like the computer logs that as if the defender's there, right? And Indiana log 12. So they both took about the same number of guarded catch and shoot jump shots. Milwaukee went one for 13 and Indiana went eight for 12. Now some of it was shooting variants, as we always talk about. That's far down the list for me.

Most of it was the Pacers were closing out and they weren't just there. They were disruptive. They were there with intensity and disruption. there were so many bucks closeouts in this game where they were literally running up to the shooter and just standing there with their arms out to the side where the guy shot over the top of them and made an uncontested shot.

Even though it's going to log as guarded because they're standing there, they weren't bringing the requisite intensity and disruption to the closeout. Pascal Seacum hit one, I think, on Bobby Portis at the top of the key. Bobby closed out and then just stood there while Pascal turned and shot right over the top of him. I thought the best example of it was Andrew Nemhard's first three of the second half.

So Nemhart hits two threes in the late first half. Like a, it looked like one of Milwaukee's own possessions where Kuzma came way off of the right side of the floor. And there was a skip to Nemhardt in the corner. He's wide open. Knocks it down. And then he had a switch, I think against the honest, if I remember correctly. But he just took a step back three from like 26 feet and it hits a three over the top. So Nemhart just hit two threes in a row right.

before the half. And I would argue at that point, even if it's in your game plan to close out short, you need to start closing out harder. First three of the second half, Andrew Nemhardt catches in the left corner. Torian rotates and stands there, like just runs up to in front of Andrew Namphardt and just stands there with no contest while Andrew Namphart shoots a three over the top. And I'm like, I'm like, you guys just aren't ready. Like the bucks in the Lakers today, not ready for playoff basketball and ended up getting embarrassed as a result. There is a level of intensity that this environment brings that you have to be ready for and the bucks just weren't ready for tonight. Those examples that I gave like the Torian Prince one, there were a half dozen of those

in this game where the closeouts just weren't there. And like when on the other end of the floor, Coosma and Portis are second guessing themselves on the catch because of the intensity of the closeouts, that's a huge swing in Indiana's favor. Indie speed was on display everywhere. In transition, over and over again, like the buck's just not stopping the ball or like leaving a cutter open. Milwaukee sharpened that up a little bit in the later portion of the game, but Indy splits them so significantly that the game was basically over. A couple of their shoutouts I wanted to give to Indy. Miles Turner, badly out playing Brooke Lopez. I talked in the series preview about how Pick and Pop was going to be one of the primary

actions for both teams. And, you know, Janus and Brooke, they do lots of different variations of it where Brooke will roll to the basket more. but like, Brooks is going to pop a lot in ball screens. Miles Turner popping at a Tyrese Halliburton ball screens is one of the favorite pet actions for the Pacers. And so the ability of those guys to score in those situations was going to dictate the types of coverages that the teams are allowed to use, right?

And Turner outscored him 19 to 9, actually forced the bucks into switching some of the Turner Halliburton pick and rolls or picking pops in the second half. Like he was a huge part of their success against the zone looks. Like he would screen the top, man, which allowed the pacer player to get into the middle of the floor. And if Brooke was hanging back too much, he would pop. If on plays where Brooke would show high out to the foul line,

then Miles would just cut behind him and get easy opportunities at the basket. I thought he dominated that matchup today. And it was a huge swing factor in Indiana's favor. Seacum was great. Balance scoring, transition out of the post, spacing the floor off ball. All of that balance scoring from all of those guys from Nemhard, from T. J. McConnell, from from Siakum, from Turner. That allowed the Pacers to survive what was a rough shooting night from Tyrese Halliburton. And like, I mean, relatively easily survive a rough shooting night from Tyrese Halliburton. I want to talk a little bit about Janus.

Yonis was a wrecking ball early in the game. He was a lot of Yonis Brooke ball screens where they were just switching. And so he got a lot of one-on-one opportunities against Miles Turner. And he was doing a lot of work getting to the basket and drawing fouls and getting buckets there. but you could tell that he started to realize that some of his role players weren't super comfortable. And I thought Janus kind of went full hero ball. And that wasn't the way Janus was playing over the final few weeks of the regular season. He was much more trusting of the kickout passes early in the game.

What I thought was interesting is it looked to me like Janus started to run out of gas a little bit in the late second quarter because he was just these extreme high degree of difficulty like just bowling ball type of drives, started to settle for some jump shots, started to turn the basketball over a little. little bit. I think, again, especially as Janus develops in the future as to into more of a point forward, this is a big part of it. Like, it will serve Janus well to trust the past more early in games. These are long games. He needs to create a lot of shots over 48 minutes, right? And so being more willing to just take easy reads early in the game will make it so that he has more gas in the tank to be more physically aggressive as the game progresses. Not to mention,

and you can loosen up the defense by doing that. Obvious adjustments for Milwaukee. Just like I said for the Lakers, it's time to show up for the playoffs. You can't look surprised that the other team is playing super hard. You need to bring the intensity. Not just the closeouts, the other side of the closeouts. You need to be down in a shooting stance. The one where Kyle Kuzma ended up taking that crazy like spinning three,

his first three off the left wing. Go watch Kyle Kuzma before the shot. He's standing completely upright and he's like 27 feet from the basket. instead be down in a shooter's crouch ready to go so that on the catch you can quickly rise up or quickly ripped to the basket one way be ready to go on the catch that's part of the intensity that's part of the mental focus you have to bring during the postseason stop the ball in transition defense you want to know why brooke lopez is picking up andrew mhard at the rim and getting truck stick because no one picked him up before he got to brookelopez seacum had one in transition two where

no one picked them up. There's so many examples where the Bucks just weren't ready for the intensity of the playoffs tonight. They can guard this team. They held the Pacer's scoreless for more than five straight minutes in the fourth quarter. During a run where they cut the lead to 12 and in that run, A.J. Green got a couple of clean looks. Bobby Porter's got a clean look. They just didn't go down. The Bucks were out of gas at that point. There is a pathway, though, for them to be able to guard the Pacers and generate quality shots on the other end of the floor. they just have to bring the requisite intensity. Because this game was so early in the day,

I was able to get more data. For the other games, I'll bring more data in tomorrow morning's show. But shooting went heavily towards the Pacers. The Bucks generated 29 catch and shoots. The Pacers generated 25 catch and shoots. The Bucs got 0.72 points per shot. The Pacers got 1.56.

So they more than doubled them in catch and shoot efficiency in this game. Again, that's including unguarded shots. But like we talked about earlier with the guarded shots, there's a level of execution to that and the intensity of the closeouts. Transition points, Indy 26 to 13. Milwaukee allowed only nine of those 26 in the second half, though, so they did clean that up a little bit. But it's worth mentioning, Indiana did win the half-court battle.

Just half-court efficiency, a 112 offensive rating for the Pacers, just a 98 offensive rating for the Bucs. So totally dominant performance from the Pacers in game one of that series. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. It's Marathon, Not a Sprint. We're going to be back tomorrow morning with some more film stuff. And then obviously we got four more games tomorrow. I will see you guys then.

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, I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you. 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. 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, unhumored me with Robert Smigel 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. What's up, fam, it's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest

playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was funny. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis come in to him, he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS. Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to futas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every woman my age want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes? They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears or tears of laughter.

Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.