The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LIVE: Thunder Dominate Nuggets In Game 7 To Advance To WCF

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Jason reacts live after the Oklahoma City Thunder dominate Game 7 against the Denver Nuggets. He discusses huge games from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and OKC’s defense being too much for Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon.    #Volume #Herd See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It just, there's very little chance for them to survive two more playoff rounds. And as I always say, like you've got to have belief if you're a basketball team to overcome great adversity and it was always going to be difficult to be in Oklahoma City on the road. And Denver gave it a good, you know, punch there to start. But when they started to lose control of the rope, they just let go and Oklahoma City ends up blowing them out. One of their interesting defensive adjustments in this game, going to a lot of Alex Crusoe on Nicole Yokic and just fronting the post that really turned the game around. We're going to break that game down briefly from the perspective of both teams. And then we'll talk about Oklahoma City looking forward. And then we'll

talk about Denver looking forward. Then we'll take about 10, 15 minutes of mailbag questions before we call it a day. No playback today just because it's a Sunday afternoon, but we'll be back with our usual playback after show starting with game one of the Western Conference finals on Tuesday night. So you guys are going to want to go over to playback. TV slash hoops tonight to get set up there for our usual after shows that'll be starting back up on Tuesday. You guys are the joke before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so

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and Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Make sure you guys follow us there. And last but at least, keep dropping mailbag questions in the chat so that we can get to the mailbag at the tail end of this show. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the start of this game looked very much

like the classic experience gap, right? Like the ESPN graphic that's on the screen shows just the number of game seven. both teams have played in and Denver's just been in so many of them and I think the total number of combined game seven appearances for okayc was three and that was Lou Dort Shea and Isaiah Hartnstein if I remember correctly and like Isaiah Hartonsine I think that was last year and then if I'm not mistaken I think the Dort Shea one I think that might be the James Harden blocked three in game seven in the bubble if I remember correctly but that that's the

only game seven experience that that group has had, right? And that abundantly was clear at the start of the game. The Nuggets looked like the far more comfortable and confident team. The thunder offense looked super tight. Guys were missing layups. Guys were missing jumpers. Denver's in control, right?

From there, I thought three distinct stretches flipped the game. Stretch number one in the later third of the first quarter, Alex Crusoe and Russell Westbrook check into the game. Alex starts denying Nicola Yokic the catch at the high post and just in general using a really good three-quarter front slash full front to basically shut off passing angles into Yokic in the post in the high post. From there, none of the Nuggets role players looked like they knew how to make a high post entry. Russell Westbrook had a couple of turnovers.

He had a possession where he just said, screw it. I'm going to go to the rim and he got blocked. Christian Brown ended up finally missing a three. And suddenly that 21 to 10 lead was 20. to 21 going into the start of the second quarter. It just kind of felt like a different game. OK, C, kind of had some momentum coming out of the end of that first quarter. Then the second pivotal stretch, David Adelman makes the critical mistake of leaving

Nicola Yokic and Jamal Murray both off the floor at the same time in game seven at the start of the second quarter. The Thunder went on a 6-0 run literally in 62 seconds. a minute and two seconds, all of a sudden it's 27 to 26. All of a sudden, the Thunder have a lead in a game that the Nuggets controlled for, you know, seven minutes, eight minutes. I think it was actually nine minutes. It was less than the, the total run from 21 to 10 to 27 to 26 took less than five minutes of game clock.

Just completely flipped to the game. From there, The Nuggets stabilized. Jamal Murray hits a little jumper, puts the Nuggets back within one. Mark Dagenal calls a timeout, puts Chet Holmgren back in. And over the final three minutes of the first half, the Thunder closed it out on an 18 to 5 run.

Kind of an extension of what we saw at the end of the first quarter, Alex Crusoe, but also J-dub during the stretch doing some great work, battling for position against Nicola Yokic denials, poor post entries, forcing turnovers, run out, dunks, and it basically ended the game in a three-minute stretch there. So if you look at the first half in general, for out of the 24 minutes, two-thirds of it, Denver looked completely in control, methodic half-court basketball, methodical half-court basketball, getting and making better shots. But in these short bursts, spanning just eight minutes of game clock,

the thunder just completely dominate the game and Denver's never able to regain control from there. There's some reality to the difficulty of dealing with ball pressure guards. Any of you guys who have played basketball and are kind of a bigger player, you'll have some experience with this over the years where like, a ball pressure guard will just get up in your business. And he's swiping at the ball and grabbing and clawing and doing all that stuff. And what you have to do is you've got to create space. And the only way to create space is to use to protect the ball, clear with your elbow, clear with your shoulder, use your hips, use pivot moves, trying to clear out space against a smaller player. And it becomes a very delicate balance because most guards or most guards just naturally

get a form of bias from officials because they're smaller. And so they just get to get away with more contact. And if you swing that elbow just right, even though his face is like right here in your personal space, the ref's going to call that an offensive foul. And so I was talking about it on Twitter earlier today. It's like a form of gamesmanship. in the same way that foul drawing guards like what Shea does or Jalen Brunson does or Austin Reeves does in the same way that those guys grift their way to the foul line on offense,

there are defensive players who grift extra possessions by doing that sort of thing. Ball pressure, ball pressure, ball pressure, and what they do is they train themselves as soon as they get any sort of contact above the shoulders, they just flop back and they're going to get a call. And it's just complicated dealing with ball pressure. and it is what makes this slender defense so incredibly difficult to deal with is you survive the Dort Jdub phase. And here comes Kason Wallace and Alex Crusoe. They're probably even better at it than the first two guys are.

And so it's just wave after wave. Aaron Wiggins gets in on the action too. It's just wave after wave after wave of big physical guard that's going to get in your business and be aggressive and physical. and the rest aren't going to be able to call every foul, and they do some gamesmanship at their own, and it just is a overwhelming wave-after wave of force on the defensive end that wears you down. And that's how Oklahoma City won the series.

Ultimately, they won this series with their defense. Looking forward for OKC, I thought they showed a lot of growth throughout the series. Denver had them on the ropes three different times in games that they ended up winning, just because they stuck to their identity and trusted that it would eventually carry them across the finish line. And it literally did. It took longer in game four. It took longer in

game five. But eventually they did wear down Denver's offense. Eventually, they couldn't score the ball. Eventually, their downhill force did break through the barrier that was Denver's defense. Alex Crusoe won you have playoffs. I don't think you win this series without Alex Cruz. I thought that was a really interesting thing in retrospect, looking back at that trade. I hope Chicago is enjoying Josh Giddy. But Alex Crusoe is a veteran role player who came in, the only rotation player on this team over the age of 26. And his ability consistently knocked down spot-up threes in this series while also being a guy that not only was defending Jamal Murray extremely well at stretches, but was also doing a great job on Nicole Yokic for stretches. You could argue he was the best defender that Denver used on Nicole Yokic in the series.

just unbelievable output from a player that they brought in during the summer. Isaiah Hartnstein, by the way, too, the job that he did on Yokic guarding his strong hand. The trades made this summer by Sam Presti to bring in Alex Crusoe, the decision to sign Isaiah Hartnstein, they literally gave this team a championship ceiling that would have been cut off at the knees right here in the second round. They would not have beat the Denver Nuggets had they brought last year's team back. So shout out to Sam Presby for those moves. I thought that was a nice bounce back game from J-dub.

I thought he just showed more of a propensity to just attack the rim instead of settle for jump shots early in the clock. He did take a couple jumpers in the first half that he missed, but they were after he was aggressive, downhill, towards the basket. Just attack the rim and play defense and good things will happen. That's a great way to get yourself out of a slump, is just play really hard and focus on the things that don't depend on variance. looking at the Minnesota series again I'm not going to have a prediction until tomorrow I'm working on it first thing in the morning I'm going to watch a ton of film we'll have a full series preview at sometime probably during the early afternoon tomorrow but it's a very interesting series two elite defenses with elite rim protection and both teams have a legit too big look two elite on ball guards against two teams that have a ton of good on ball defense options which should make for a very interesting series in the sense that both Shea and and J-dub and, Aunt, and Julius, everyone should be uncomfortable

in this particular matchup. But there are three major differences between the two teams. The wolves are bigger while the Thunder are faster. I think that's like a kind of, they're both very athletic, but in different ways. The wolves, I think, are substantially more experienced.

And Ant's secondary shot creator is a veteran forward in Julius Randall, while Shay's backup shot creator is a younger guard in J-dub. And Julius has been a, substantially more reliable offensive player. My initial gut feeling, and this might completely change tomorrow after I watch a bunch of tape, so I'm not saying this is my pick. But my initial, like, just gut reaction looking at the series is I trust Minnesota's

offense to be able to score more over the top in these ugly-ass games. These games are all going to be really low scoring. And I expect it to be the kind of series where it turns into can Ant make tough shots? Can Julius make tough shots? can Nas Reid make tough shots? Can Chet Holmgren, J. Dub, Shea Gildersh Alexander.

And I just trust Julius Randall and Chet HomeGer, excuse me, Julius Randall and Nas Reid, just a little bit more than I trust Chet Holmgren and J. Dub right now. And so my initial gut reaction is to lean slightly towards Minnesota, but again, that might change after I watch the film

more intently tomorrow and start putting together that series preview. But again, we'll have, I think both series are more or less coin flip. Again, I picked Indy and I'm leaning Minnesota, but I think we've got an excellent conference final awaiting us between four pretty evenly matched teams, at least respectively, in their matchups. And I'm hopeful that for the first time since 2022, we get a good conference final because we've had a couple of brutal ones in a row. Denver, they had their chances, man. Up eight in game four in the fourth quarter, up nine in game five in the fourth quarter.

they'll be kicking themselves for a little while for this one. I think Yokic shall be kicking himself for game four, because that was the last game out of a three-game stretch where he couldn't make a shot. And if he would have been able to make more shots, his team would have won that game. I think Jamal Murray will be kicking himself for game five because he was so good for the first three quarters

and he just went cold in that fourth quarter. But overall, I was impressed by Denver's championship pedigree and their overall ability to make this into a very competitive series. I want to shout out Aaron Gordon. I couldn't believe he was going to play. And as he was running around, I couldn't believe he was playing. And there was a certain amount of like,

like they tried to keep him on heart and sign a little bit more. So he's less defending in action. He's doing a lot of switching off of every little screen, not really throwing a lot of effort in transition or in closeouts. But obviously he couldn't move. But I thought he was like positive impact on it. on a grade two hamstring strain. And it just is insane.

And like, you know, when I think about Aaron Gordon, obviously I'm a little biased because I'm a University of Arizona fan. But this last three years for him in the postseason, I think he's been one of the better, more reliable, more versatile role players that I've seen. And to me, he's just a champion and a legend and someone that I've got a great deal of respect for. And he's got a long career ahead of him.

And I think that's a perfect springboard to this next conversation, which is I want to start this point of view from a very basic kind of like position that I hold, which is I do think like without a doubt that Jamal Murray, Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon, and Nicole Yokic is a championship core. I think those four guys can absolutely start at those respective four positions and win the championship. They just badly need to upgrade that Michael Porter Jr. slot. That was a problem throughout this postseason, whether it was them not being able to trust MPJ, not being able to trust Russ, not being able to trust Peyton Watson. They just didn't have a reliable fifth guy. Michael Porter Jr. is going to be a difficult player to trade,

but he is the kind of player that I'd be looking to move this offseason for a defensive-minded wing. Because of Aaron Gordon's development as a shooter, Christian Brown again over the tail end of the series got his jump shot figured out. I, and also, Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown are two examples of defensive-minded players that have become better shooters. I think those dudes will probably get with whatever defensive-minded wing you get and friendly bully him into becoming a better shooter.

Like, I would just be looking for someone in that mold of the Herb Jones, Jaden McDaniels type of player. Obviously, you're not going to be able to get Jaden, but I would be looking for that type of big, rangy wing athlete that can basically fill in the baseline spacer role off of Yokic as a cutter now that Gordon and Brown can shoot the ball as well as they do. And that raises your defensive ceiling and your overall athleticism substantially, which I think would be an upgrade. And then the last thing I'll say about it, just Jamal's conditioning. I think he needs to come into camp ready to go and maximize himself to the point where he's a more reliably good player in these situations.

Jamal was bad tonight, but he was fantastic in game six, and he was really good in game five until he wasn't. And so I think there's a clear shot-making ceiling there with him that he will reach more consistently if he just becomes the kind of player that maximizes what he can get out of his body over the course of a season. And so I think there's just, I think it's about maximizing what you have on board, making an upgrade to that fifth starter spot at the small forward position. I think there's a real opportunity there for Denver to pivot

and not have to ditch their continuity. Like I was talking to Colin today and Colin's like, well, do you think they should trade Jamal Murray? No, I don't. To me, Jamal Murray's continuity with Yokich in the two-man game is of substantial value. And you could get a player who on paper is better than Jamal, but it's not as good within this particular team and this fit.

And so I think you bet on continuity and you just upgrade that fifth starter spot, go from there. you've got enough young talent with, you know, Jalen Pickett and, and Peyton Watson off the bench, Julian Strather had his moments in this series. They've got, they've got their opportunity to, to get more talent out of your young players in the big picture. I think they just got to upgrade that fifth starter spot. Blending Vice's signature dynamic storytelling with the high-octane world of sports, Vice Sports brings an exciting and diverse range of programming that goes beyond the game.

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Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. 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. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast,

where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy,

Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis, and I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on clay. Jenchian went. I mean, she went down 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 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 bring Jackson on and take some questions. Let's do it. Let's do it. Just sort of sticking on this Denver point for a second, do you think,

Denver's issues have more to do with the small forward position or a lack of depth? So I think like there's a certain amount of depth that will come naturally through the development of their young players. Like I don't think the issue is having Peyton Watson and Julian Strother as you're, you know, even Russell Westbrook in this case as your 6, 7, 8. It's just not having a five. They just didn't have a five. Like I feel like this, I feel like if the nuggets got reliable play out of Michael Porter Jr. in this series they win. I just think they do. So, like, I think, I think that is a more achievable goal looking at it through the lens

of one piece. And then understanding, like, there's going to be year over year improvement with your young talent. That's, those guys are going to have their opportunities next year to get plenty of playtime. It's just, you got to have five guys that you trust in a big spot. Yeah, they, they didn't, they definitely didn't have five guys. They trusted in this series. That's for sure.

That is for sure. Do you agree with me that the top four, though, are good? I do. I do. I feel like the relationship and the continuity you're described with Jamal and Yokic feels very of the Steph and Dremont conversation to me where it's like, yeah, there might be a better player than Dramon Green to pair with Steph Curry. Yeah, there might be a better player to pair with Yokch and Jamal Murray.

But the chemistry they have on the court takes a long, long time to develop. And you're not, most teams are winning a championship without some. level of the sum is greater than the parts. Even when those parts are amazing, you need the sum to be greater. And that's where that chemistry, I think is really, really, really valuable. That's a great point. Like, we talk about this literally all the time. Your value in a vacuum doesn't matter.

Everything valid, the only value that matters is your value on that basketball team. And the Draymond Steff partnership supersedes any potential partnership of Steph with another big that doesn't have that, like, seamless synergy that you get out of those two. Like, even with Anthony Davis, like if you had to like as remember we had that warrior's fan it was like well what if we can get ad like if let's say you had to use draymond as salary filler in the ad trade uh there's obviously massive upside with ad but one of the downsides would be ad is not as good of a processor and short role player as draymond is and so even though ad's greatness would supersede and i'm sure the warriors would be better with ad because he's the type of superstar player but the point is is it's more complicated it's not just as simple as attaching an in a vacuum talent like Steph, because he brings two to the ball, 25 feet from the basket, processing is like one of the most valuable skills for a player playing alongside of him. And that's one of the things that Draymond brings.

Yeah, 100%. It's like, and there's obviously exceptions to that. Like if you put Janus with Steph Curry, yes, that's just enough of a talent gap where it's worth it. And if you put Steph Curry with Nicola Yokic, it's enough of a talent gap to replace Jamal Murray. But you're not, it's going to be challenging to have enough of a talent gap to replace that chemistry that we're sort of describing. Exactly. Exactly.

next question jason what kind of defense do you think many will play against okay c will they throw a lot of zone out there okay d okayc did have some trouble with the zone earlier in the series before they sort of figured it out a little bit i think we'll see some zone but i think this is going to be a man-to-man series for both teams i think it's going to be a ball pressure uh load up the strong side force you to move the ball and shoot against the hard close-out type of game like i think i think we could see extended ugly stretches like extended ugly stretches from both Shea and Ant in this series. Like both of these defenses are perfectly designed to deal with each other. Like it's like a, it's a real problem for both teams. And the like for as fast as OKC is, they're going to be dealing with Minnesota's length. And there's a

certain amount of like, Shea's and over the top jump shooter who's going to be shooting against length. But like at the same time, Ant's superpower is his quickness and his ability to beat people off the dribble with speed and there's just a lot of athletes that are going to be standing right in his way throughout this entire series. And so I think it's going to be very much a tough shot making for the stars kind of series and a catch and shoot three for mediocre role players type of series out of man to man sequences. And I think I wouldn't be surprised if we had multiple games in this series where neither team gets 200. Yeah. It does feel like both teams have unique defensive options to throw against the other team as best player.

Being able to have Dork, Caruso, Kason Wallace to throw at Anthony Edwards, and to have Anthony Edwards and Jadenny McDaniels to throw at Shea. And Nikiel's a great one fit. And they got both teams have a lot of long athletic defenders. Dante is super quick. Yeah, they can throw. And they all have different sort of strengths and types of defenders. They can mix up the looks, but I think is, you know, valuable as well.

How would, next question, how would you rank the last four teams? in terms of championship odds. This is a really good question. I think Oklahoma City should be a substantial favorite over both Indiana and New York. Minnesota, I would make a smaller favorite over Indiana and New York, but I think I'd make them favored. But I think that Minnesota OKC could go either,

way if that makes sense. So like strictly speaking the matchups, I view Minnesota OKC as a coin flip, but going forward into the finals, I view Minnesota as more susceptible to a loss to Indiana or New York than I view OKC. I think OKC would dispatch of the Knicks and the Pacers pretty quickly. It's just a nightmare matchup for both of them to have to deal with all that guard speed on the ball. So with that being the case, I'm going to go, I would rank the Thunder, small Timberwolves, big gap, Pacers, small gap, Knicks, is how I'll put it. I think I agree. And Draft Kings does not. Draft Kings has, I mean, they agree with part of it.

They have OKC as the heavy favorite, minus 165. And then I think probably just because you can only get one of the two Western Conference teams in the finals that from an odds perspective, they have an Eastern conference team next. The Knicks at plus 450. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the Timberwolves are plus 550 and the Pacers are plus 700. See, you know what's interesting about that, though, is I think it's, I think it's substantially more likely that Minnesota sneaks through O KC and beats who comes out of the East than either of the East teams beating O KC. Yeah, I do too. Yeah, like, it's just, can you imagine Halliburton and Brunson and Nemhardt, like, just dealing with the incessant wave of Payson-Wallis and Alex Caruso and Lou Dord? And, yeah, like, it just, I think it would just be too much for them. Like, I view the Western Conference finals is basically the NBA finals. Yeah, I tend to agree. And this is not to take shots at Tyre's Halliburger and Jalen Brunson because those guys deal with a lot of good athletic defenders all the time.

But you saw it for a for stretches in game five of the Nick Celtic series where when Jalen Brown is like, I'm going to turn into a defensive like demon right now. That caused some problems for Jalen Brunson. I mean, they obviously won the series. It's not anything like that. But if you've got three different guys, you are always going to be fresh-ish to throw at Jalen Brunston or Tyrese Halliburton, it would be a challenge, I think. It's okay.

A simple stat to kind of break this down, Denver in the regular season, with Nicole Yokic on the floor, had a 126 offensive rating, okay? for Denver versus OKC in this round, they had a 104 offensive rating with Yokic on the floor. So OKC was literally able to cut Denver's regular season offense production by 22 points per 100 possessions.

That's crazy. Like they are, they are, you know, like I saw our friend, uh, uh, and colleague Carson Breber talking about them an all-time great defense. And I'm always hesitant to throw that phrase out until we, like, get there. But like, if, if they're going to get there, this is what it would look like. Like, they're certainly in the process. It's kind of like, it reminds me of like watching Yokic in 2020 and 2021 where you're like, this guy might be the best. You know, this, yeah, yeah, this might be the best player. Like, this, this defense from OKC looks, looks like one of those special defenses in NBA history that can really cause problems for teams. And the reason why Denver had

extended stretches of success against OKC is they had this big mammoth human that could just run like some of Yokic's drop step buckets through double teams today did you see some of those today where he's just like he just spins into traffic and just goes through like three dudes and lays it lays it lays it up the nix and the pacers just don't have that option against this thunder team and I just think I think they'd be in some real trouble yeah it's sort of like we talked a lot about Anthony Edward sort of being this like king king slayer. He's taken out all these, you know, all time grades on his way to, on this playoff run. If the Thunder end up winning the title, you know, the first round is whatever.

But being able to say we put the clamps on Yokic, we put the clamps on a Timberwolves team that just kind of shredded a great golden, not shredded, but like had a lot of success against a good, very, very good warriors defense. Yep. And then we put the clamps on Jalen Brunson or Tyreys Halliburton's whirlwind Pacers. Like that would be a pretty impressive defensive finals run, I think. I agree. And I think you're hitting on another interesting thing, which is that I think Golden State was a really good tune up for Minnesota to prepare for OKC.

Can you imagine if Minnesota had gone straight from the Lakers to OKC that I would have probably picked OKC in a heartbeat. But getting that Golden State matchup is like here's a real fast, smart defense that that'll throw you for a loop. The differences is you'll be facing real rim protection in this round. Yeah. All right, let's do one more sort of kind of abstract, crazy question. I don't know we can wrap up for the day. Okay. Love the show.

What do you think of this trade? This is a, this is a blockbuster. A doozy? A doozy. A doozy. The Lakers get Jared Allen, DeAndre Hunter, Isaac O'Coro, and Dean Wade. And Cleveland gets LeBron James. Okay, read me the names one more time.

Jared Allen. Jared Allen, DeAndre Hunter, DeAndre Hunter, and Dean Wade. And apparently this does work for the money. according to the commenter. Okay, let me conceptualize this for just a second. So in this universe, the calves would then run out Garland and Mitchell. With Struz at the three, with LeBron and Mowgli. And they would lose the depth of D'Andre Hunter and Dean Wade.

And the Lakers would get, so it would be Austin, Akoro would be there too, I suppose. Well, it's Luca Austin and DeAndre Hunter, I think. Yeah, you're right. Luca Austin and Deontan Hunter would be Hunter and Rui would be the three. Hunter and Rui and then Jared Allen. And then Allen at the center. And then. I mean, it's not the worst.

It's an interesting idea. Stay competitive but not, but not punt on anything long term. You're like Hunter or Allen are still like in there, rising into their prime. If not in their prime. They're not old by any means. They're also, yeah, to your point, there are also players that like specifically struggled in the postseason and that Cleveland fans are probably like I'll drive you to the airport anyway. Right. And sort of like both teams being like, damn, I don't really want to trade these guys. Don't. I never said I wanted to trade these guys. But if you're asking for them, I'll, I'll listen to a phone call.

So so, so Cleveland basically gets to use LeBron as like a one year rental slash they can drop his money off the books eventually. Right. Because they're like, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, might have to do a total vibe shift if they if they run it back and lose again in the second round for example next year and i think we came out of that series looking pretty clearly like yeah Mitchell and mowbly are there two guys garland's a big question mark still man that's a really interesting trade that's that's that's something that i would i like if if lebron was dead serious about being willing to go back to cleveland it'd be an interesting trade to explore and look at some different machinations in the sense that like yeah i i the one that the one other thing those i wonder if cleveland's going to look to potentially trade garland at some point if like

how many times are they going to is garland going to be basically useless in the postseason before the day before they look to go a different direction there but that could be an entirely separate deal this is interesting uh i'm not going to say that i would do it because i think the lakers here's my issue if I'm the Lakers. DeAndre Hunter and Rui are both redundant. There are big forwards that struggle to defend on the perimeter that are good catch and shoot players that can put the ball on the floor and attack close out that can attack a mismatch. But they're both better at four than they are at the three, in my opinion. Jared Allen is not quite the vertical spacer that Luca typically likes to play with, but he is a very good like short, like a short range spacer, meaning like floaters

and push shots and stuff like that. He's a switchable big that I think, which I think obviously JJ Reddick would like and Isaac Akoro's a real athleticism upgrade. But after all of them just struggled in the postseason, I think you'd have a hard time giving up LeBron for him. It's an interesting idea, though.

I'm not going to say I would do it or not, but that is an interesting idea. And like if LeBron, if LeBron decides that he wants to go back to Cleveland, there are certainly some avenues there to make that into an interesting trade. do you have any big picture thought on it? I mean, it's just, it's kind of hard to to wrap your head around.

But I do feel like it kind of, it's both teams are in a sort of, we don't feel like we have the roster clearly to be contenders. There has to be some kind of shakeup. It feels like for both teams, but it's hard to part ways with any of the guys that you would need to to make a trade. Like if you're a Cavaliers fan, I think it's tough to be like run it back. Just exact same run. I also run it back. There's also like who do we really feel confident about trading.

The Jared Allen piece is the complicated one to me because you trade him, you instantly become a dramatically worst regular season team. But this is, he's been, he's gotten his ass kicked in the postseason multiple times in the last couple years. So like, like Mitchell Robinson ate him alive a couple years ago. He got demolished by Miles Turner in this round. Like there's a, it's just really hard to sell your fan base on the idea like, hey, you guys, did you like that when we won 64 games? Well, without Jared, we're going to get 51, 52 wins. How does that sound to you guys? You know, but then the way you, because like, especially with LeBron, like, LeBron's not going to be some super impactful regular season player, but I would argue that Garland, Mitchell,

Struce, LeBron, and Mobley have a much better chance to win in the postseason than that version does. And so it's, it's, it's definitely worth exploring. All right, guys, that's all we have for today. As always, we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. As I said, we will be going tomorrow, early afternoon-ish, with our series preview on the Timberwolves and the Thunder. Very much looking forward to digging into that tomorrow. No playback today, but we'll get back to our normal playback after shows on Tuesday. Again, that's playback.tv slash hoops tonight for you guys to get set up there. Again, we appreciate you guys for rocking with us and we'll see you tomorrow.

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