The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - LIVE: Warriors Win Game 3 Over Rockets + Nuggets Win Game 4 THRILLER

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

Jason reacts to Steph Curry’s monster game leading the Golden State Warriors to a huge Game 3 win over Alperen Sengun, Jalen Green, and the Houston Rockets and then discusses the INSANE finish to the Denver Nuggets-Los Angeles Clippers Game 4 with Aaron Gordon’s buzzer beater dunk off Nikola Jokic’s last second shot attempt. #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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Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Winning on Clay is an art. The rallies are relentless. And at the French Open, only the toughest survive. I'd know. I competed there for decades. Join me, Renee Stubbs, on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast for no nonsense breakdowns of the biggest matches, the toughest players, and the moments that define Roland Garris. Jen should win.

She's an outsider to win the French friend. And she likes Clay. Listen, Leonard Rabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any surface. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. The volume.

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What an incredible night of games that we just were treated to. Jackson and I were just joking before the show started. Like, this is our eighth consecutive night going. And I think we've gone six of those mornings too. So it's been like this crazy blur. But at the same time, like Jackson says, I'm riding a high from those two incredible games. and I am too.

Like, it's just so much fun, at least, in this time of year, despite the unending train of just incredibly good basketball games. We're going to be breaking down, tonight we're focusing on the final two games in the slate. So we're going to be hitting that absolutely bonkers, Clippers, Nuggets game. And then the Golden State Warriors end up pulling out a game on the strength of their defense against the Houston Rockets, some key contributions down the roster with Jimmy Butler out. We're going to break those two games down from the perspective of both teams. Then after that, we're going to do a mailbag from the chat.

And one of the things that I like about that mailbag is it allows you guys to kind of direct into certain parts of these series that you guys are interested in that you guys want to talk about more. So come into the later portion of the show, drop your questions in that chat. Any other questions you have about these series, any other series around the league, make sure you guys hang out for the mailback at the end. You guys know the joke before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show and out. Don't forget about our podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight, it's also super helpful if you leave your

rating in a review on that front. We also have social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook where Jackson's doing some great work. Make sure you guys follow us there. And last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions and YouTube comments and keep getting to them throughout the remainder of the postseason. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I was confident coming into this two-game home set here for the Warriors that even without

Jimmy Butler, they should be able to get. the job done. Mainly because of two things. The simple fact that Steve Kerr, as he openly said in a timeout in game one, these guys can't score on us in the half court if we can keep them trapped there. Three times tonight, the Warriors held the Rockets to 22 points in a single quarter. That is going to keep things close enough. And then at home, I just believe in the Warriors role players finding enough ways to ride the energy of the crowd and find ways to contribute offensively. That's kind of been the story of the Steph Curry era, is especially when they're at home, even when guys are out of the lineup, if Steph's out there and if Draymond's

out there, they're going to get enough stops and they're going to get enough advantages to be able to win a game like this. And they were just incredible. We're going to be going down the line here talking about all their individual contributions. I do want to start with Steph, though, because what was actually interesting about this game is Houston controlled it early. And one of the big reasons why was that idea that I talked about with the Warriors role players being able to ride some of that energy of the crowd and their defense to be able to provide offensive punch. That wasn't there to start the game. No one could make a shot to save their lives and to kind of compound the issue. Steph for the first, basically till the middle of the second quarter

was just like kind of easing his way into the game, not bringing a time. Not bringing a of aggression. I thought he was coming off of his screening actions telegraphing that he was looking to pass. He had a couple of turnovers. He wasn't being aggressive enough. And then right around that middle of that second quarter, Steph turned it up. And there's a certain amount of like, even with that level of defensive attention, there is a, there is still a, a certain amount of panic that you can induce by providing the necessary scoring pop. And as we saw in game one, like Steph, even in this scheme, even with the face guarding, even with the double teaming, even with the grabbing off ball, even with the blitzing of the ball screens, even with all of the

physicality, Steph can cut these dudes to pieces. He's capable of doing it. And he demonstrated that in resounding fashion over the course of the last three and a half quarters of this game. It all just started with turning up his aggression. As he started curling off of screens, instead of curling off of screens and immediately looking to get rid of the ball, he started trying to force the issue a little bit. Jay Billis was talking during the game about how he was like putting on his tape, so to speak, trying to take on multiple defenders, curling those actions and taking scoop shots in traffic, taking floaters in traffic. He started to look to be aggressive for the first three-point shot, pushing it a little bit further out, taking some more heavily contested shots. He found some

isos, some isolation situations that he liked working against, like against Dylan Brooks there at the end of the game, that quick crossover into the pull-up three. And because he brought the requisite scoring pop, 36 points tonight, that is what started to induce the final sequence of the game, which was Gary Payton the second starting to get downhill out of keepers and like fake triple handoffs and slips of ball screens. He even got free on a backdoor cut off of a classic screening action where both guys ended up running with Steph. That comes from the scoring pop that Steph brings throughout the game. 36.7 rebounds, nine assists.

Like, he has been absolutely fantastic in the two Warriors wins in this series. I can't say enough about it. I want to skip ahead to Gary Payton for a second because, you know, one of the things that was kind of standing out over the course of the early portion of the game was nobody really had anything going offensively. Brandon Pajemski had some. had some good looks from three. He wasn't knocking him down. Jonathan Cominga, you know, Steve Kerr places a bet on him to start this game and takes Buddy Healed out of the starting

lineup, puts Quentin Post in there, tries to set Jonathan Caminga up with some more cleared side ISOs and just Jonathan Camiga couldn't get anything going. He was struggling with the physicality of the situation. The game seemed to be moving a little too fast for him. He wasn't able to get anything moving. And so all of a sudden it's like, what do we have here? And, you know, there were a couple guys who stepped up, specifically Buddy Healed, who we'll talk about in a minute. But one of the things that stood out to me in that second half was Gary Payton specifically saying, I am going to the rim. He was decisive. He wasn't coming off of those fake dribble handoffs or slipping out of those screens trying to look to pass. He was looking to score the basketball.

He went to the rim over and over and over again in that stretch. And like that was just, that was such an important bit of rim pressure in a game like this where without Jimmy Butler, it was difficult to come by a rim pressure. I thought, I thought Gary Payton was fantastic in this game. Finished with 16 points on 7 of 9 shooting hit two massive threes as well, massive night for Gary Payton the second. Buddy healed though. It was a little bit of a weird shift in the early third quarter where he just, when he checked in where he looked like he was just a little lacking that intensity. But aside from that brief stretch

to start the third quarter, I thought Buddy was fantastic all night. Just bringing that requisite level of aggression. Obviously, Steve Kerr was going to have to bump his minutes up under the circumstances. He ended up playing 29 minutes tonight. A lot of situations like that, a lot of Post, a lot of Gary,

a lot of Buddy healed, trying Jonathan Caminga. They're doing that because they're trying to, like, inject some offensive firepower into the situation, and counting on the fact that Draymond and the rest of those guys, Moses, Moody, Gary Payton, all those guys would be able to get enough stops to be able to keep this game within reach. And buddy, every single one of those five threes that he hit was super, super important

in this game. He's plus 14, 29 minutes at three steals as well, big time game from Buddy Heel. Quentin Post had a really difficult job tonight. You know, sometimes you get handed a job that you're going to lose, but your job is to just try to shrink that gap as much as possible. To try to lose by as little as possible. I remember I played in this money tournament once up in Phoenix. There's a three on three outdoor money tournament in downtown Phoenix.

And we ended up winning it, winning the money, thankfully. And there was a semi-final game where we played, and I had to guard this guy named Michael Craig. And some of you Hoopers might recognize the name. He played at South Mountain Junior College in, he played a South Mountain Junior College up in Phoenix, and then he ended up playing mid-major D-1, somewhere out in the South, if I remember correctly.

But he was just this behemoth of a man, like 6'4, like 260 pounds of just solid muscle, freaky athlete. And my job in that game in that three-on-three was, you're going to lose some battles to Michael Craig. Like he's going to bully you, he's going to get some layups, you're going to take a bunch of shots to the chest.

You're going to be in pain after that game, but all you have to do is just try to not lose by that much. And that was literally the job that, uh, that Quentin Post was handed tonight on the defensive glass against Stephen Adams. He got thrown around sometimes. He gave up some offensive rebounds. He was just, just his legs were destroyed. He couldn't make a three point shot to save his life. He was leaving everything short on, on, on, in his shot making situations. But he did the job. He won enough of the battles. Nine defensive rebounds. Three offensive rebounds. plus seven in 27 minutes.

Quentin Post took the assignment to just get his ass kicked by the Houston front line tonight. And he stood in there and he just held his own and did his job battling for those possessions. Some nice tap out rebounds too in situations where, you know, other guys were engaged in boxouts. I thought Quentin Post was fantastic. And then just the defensive effort all night. I mean, Draymond Green had about as bad offensive game as you'll ever see him play, making some misreads, some sloppy turnovers, struggling to finish around the rim,

blaming it on the refs when he wasn't getting fouled. Like, Dremont had a nightmare offensive game, but he did a ton of damage defensively around the rim, especially to Alper and Shangoon. How many times did you see Shangoon miss a shot within like three feet of the rim tonight? Many of those were because of the disruption that Dremon was providing on Shangoon's base.

He was battling down there and just winning. Like, again, this is the thing with basketball. Doesn't matter how bad of a game you're having. If it's close late, just make a play. Find a way to make a play. Do something that will help your team. And Draymond made several defensive plays down the stretch of this game. And then honestly, on the Houston front,

there's just too much inconsistency in the form of their shot creation. You know, Shangun kind of got figured out towards the end of the game by the Warriors' front line. You know, Jackson and I were talking last night in the mailbag. about just the inconsistency with Jalen Green. Jackson and I talked last night. We were like, is it more likely for Jalen Green to score less than 15 points tonight? Or is it more likely that he'll score more than 25 points? And both Jackson and I said he'd score less than 15. He had nine points and 11 shots in this game. Fred Van Vleet hit a couple shots early, but went right back to the same inefficient shot maker that he was in the first two games of the series.

They just don't have anything that they can rely on offensively. And ultimately, that's what's going to get them beaten this series, is that if the Warriors give a concerted effort on the defensive end of the floor, they're not going to be able to score. And over and over and over again, they got the stops they needed. The Warriors were able to get the stops they needed to pull this game out. Hey, it's us to Jonas Brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast. Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there.

But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... 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 in 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. Jen she went. I mean, she went down in three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted.

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

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of I Heart Women's Sports. 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 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 Slices Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

All right, we're going to talk some Nuggets Clippers for a few minutes. And then, like I said, Warriors fans, Rockets fans, if you guys have any questions surrounding that series, bring them to the mailbag portion here in about 10, 15 minutes. So after two very close games in Denver, it looked like we were going to get back-to-back blowouts in Los Angeles. The Nuggets completely took control a game in that third quarter. They outscored the Clippers 35 to 17.

I thought Yokic was absolutely amazing, orchestrating things in that stretch. he had 16 points, eight rebounds and four assists just in the third quarter. He got Michael Porter Jr. going, catching James Hardin, being lazy off of him in off-ball situations, just, oh, you're sitting with your right foot by the lane line. I'm just going to rifle this pass to Michael, and he's just going to go up and shoot it. He caught Hardin in a very sloppy switch where he tried to just like shove. I can't even remember who it was. I think it was Derek Jones, but he tried to like shove one of the Clippers other perimeter defenders out of Mike,

wasn't ready, Yokic rifled the pass. He knocked it down. He had a variety of insane shots, just the shot making from Yokits in that stretch. He had this, like, crazy high-arcing, running floater going through the lane off of a screening action. A lot of Yokic attacking off-ball screening actions to try to get Zhu caught up, trying to chase somebody through screens, which is something that you don't see Biggs do very often. He had a tough movement three running to his right. Same sort of thing. Off-ball screening action just ran up to the right, got his feet set, quickly knocked it down. He had a break-rhythm, pump fake three out of the left corner where he had a same thing.

sort of thing, a baseline screening action that got Zhu caught up on it, caught on the corner clean, pump faked guy ran by, he was able to just settle into the shot and knock it down. He did damage on the offensive glass. The passing was insane. He had this feed to Peyton Watson underneath the basket where he got Ben Simmons in a kind of a one-on-two situation. I can't remember who it was in the corner. I think it was, I think it was Peyton Watson. No, no, Peyton was under the basket. And then I think it was Michael Porter Jr. somebody else might have been Aaron Gordon, somebody in the right corner. And Peyton Watson is the real threat, right?

He's a good athlete who's got a easy, like, vertical spacing window that he can just go up and dunk. And Yokic literally just looked Ben Simmons off, just looked towards the corner. And Ben Simmons lunged the wrong way. Yokich rifled it to Peyton Watson and he got a dunk. You could literally feel Yokic suck the life out of that arena. The clippers started to miss a lot of easy shots, like clean looks for guys like Nick Batum that just weren't going down because you could just feel it. in the arena. You could feel the momentum slipping away from the clippers. The Nuggets also doubled

Kauai to great effect during that third quarter stretch, in large part because Chris Dunn kind of had his first really, really rough offensive game in the series. He made some tough reads on short roles where he just kind of botched advantage situations. He was unable to knock down his open catch and shoot threes. And that's the thing. You got to make Chris Dunn beat you. And that doesn't mean beat you once. Like he's got to beat you once. Like he had a game in the series where he went three for three from three. Like Chris Dunn can beat you, but can he beat you four times in two weeks? That's the question. And you have to at least force him to do that. And they were able to actually kind of play him out of the rotation to where Tailu ended up closing with Bogdan McDonovic. But the

clippers really came apart. And it looked like the nuggets were going to get out there with a comfortable win. But then the clippers went on a completely insane run of their own to start the fourth quarter. Really started pushing the pace. You can see on the very first possession, they just were running up the floor to try to get something going. They got their pick and roll game going. Finally, with James Hardin. James Hardin just started to bring more energy. A couple of nuggets, like Michael Porter Jr.

and Nicole Yokin's both like really relaxed on defense during that run. And you know, it's one of those things you're up 20. You don't want to, you don't want to just blow through a ton of energy. But they almost lost control of the game during that stretch because it just was over and over and over again. James Hardin getting into the teeth of the defense for layups and kickouts to guys for easy shots. then on defense the clippers ran a two three zone where they used the opposite guard to deny the high post catch which kind of baited the nuggets into some tough above the break threes they ran five uh possessions of zone in that fourth quarter and got five stops that was a big part but really was the ball pressure they just up to their overall level level of intensity and ball pressure they forced a bunch of turnovers they turned Denver over five times in the fourth quarter and it was like one of the craziest momentum swings you'll ever see because it just it was like it was like it was like like stop bucket, stop bucket, stop bucket. Crowds going absolutely insane.

They were even able to weather some shots. Like Jamal Murray hits like a tough elbow jumper. Aaron Gordon ends up hitting a three above the break. Like, and even then it was just, but then it would be like stop bucket, stop bucket, stop bucket. And it just was out of control freight train towards the clippers until the final sequence when Nicole Yokic was able to seize back the momentum. So the clippers go up by one towards the end of the game. And on the final sequence, we get this weird, we get this weird kind of set of plays where

Nicole Yokic gets called for an offensive foul in a play where he gets, gets called for hooking Nicole Yokic's arm. Now, my biggest issue with this has just been the total inconsistency in the way that this has been called. Like, I watched James Hardin hook a guy, like, with that inside arm on a drive and get three free throws out of it early in the series. So like, what's the deal, refs? Is it the arm hook is an offensive foul or is it we give James Hardin three free throws? Like, let's get some consistency in the way that we're calling that. So Yokic loses his mind, gets pissed off. They go to the other end.

After that play, though, nuggets down by one. Yokic, I thought this was a genius play on his part. Just goes right back to the same damn move. Just quickly makes a right-handed drive against Zhu. This time he doesn't hook. He just keeps that arm in and tries to blow up that shoulder, kind of snaps his head back, gets the call.

He's going to get that call in that situation. after what happened, you just get called for an offensive foul. You complain like crazy. There's a psychological element to this sort of thing. And I thought that was a genius play by Yokic to quick get himself to the free throw line. Smokes the first free throw, nearly smokes the second, but it goes in, ties the game. They go down to the other end of the floor. They get a stop. They come back the other end. Yokic hits this insane left shoulder turnaround jump shot right over Zhu that puts him up to. Obviously Zubots ties the game on the offensive rebound off of the James Harden was right at the front of the rim and, like, smoked a layup, but Zoo comes in

and taps it in. And then Aaron Gordon wins the game, dunking, kind of a weird sequence from Yokic. I didn't love the shot. Yokich got there. He kind of turned into the somber shuffle, just sprinting out to the right wing. It was a very weird final possession from Yokich, but Aaron Gordon, the man in the right place, James Hardin ends up missing a box out. Aaron Gordon and dunks it. And that was as close of a buzzer beater as I've ever seen in terms of it being released in time. Like at the buzzer, like, it's like the top third of the ball is above the rim and the bottom two thirds of the ball is below the rim. I thought it was the right call to allow the bucket. But that was about as close as it could possibly be. And, and man, like, what

it's impossible to overstate how important that win is for Denver. They don't play again until Tuesday. This is a team that is beat up. Michael Porter Jr. is in rough shape. He's been dealing with some issue with his feet. He's been dealing with an issue with his shoulder. Aaron Gordon told an NBA reporter that he can barely jump right now. Like they're beat up. They need to go home and sleep in their own beds and they need a couple of nights to relax. They need to get their legs back underneath them. And so for them to pull that game out and, and, you know, two because they were losing by one that could have been an absolute catastrophe heading home down three to one this is this could have been like it felt like the entire series was hanging in the

balance there and now now the nuggets get to go home get a little bit of rest home court advantage the rest of the series they just have to win two out of three much much stronger position for denver to be in after that incredibly insane finish another clutch win for denver two shouldn't have been clutch. Should have been more of a comfortable win, but I still trust Yokic more than I trust Kauai and James Hardin in a close game late. I didn't like some of the shots that Kauai got late in the game. He took a, he had Jamal Murray on a right wing ISO late where I thought he could have worked more towards the elbow to try to get like a right shoulder or left shoulder fade away. That's more of like a 50% shot for Kauai. He ended up taking a pretty tough off the dribble three that I didn't particularly

like. In crunch time, I do trust. Yokich more, obviously game two notwithstanding when they ended up making their mistakes. But it's just a reminder that these series are decided by the tiniest of margins. That game could have literally gone either way. And now, now Denver's in a much, much more commanding position. They lose that game. Clippers are going to win the series. Denver wins that game.

Now it feels much closer to that 50-50 kind of spot that we were in after game one. And that's kind of where I feel at this point. I'm still feeling like this series is very much a coinful. but L.A. had a chance to close it there and it just couldn't close the deal. Some Clippers notes, James Hardin's overall level of intensity and focus was just off for the first three quarters. Didn't really bring aggressiveness or decisiveness in pick and roll until the fourth quarter, which I thought hurt the team. His off ball defense has been bad all series, but it was especially bad tonight, made several mistakes during Denver's third quarter run.

I talked about Kauai needing to be able to operate a little bit closer to the rim towards the end of games. This is, it almost feels to me watching that Kauai's a little afraid of double teams at the end. And he knows that if he works into the mid to short range, he knows he's going to get attacked and he's going to have to use his passing ability. And it almost, I've seen this dating back even to the Warriors game on Sunday right before the playing tournament. Like Kauai is seems to be more comfortable at the end of game settling for further jump shots to try to avoid double teams. And he just needs to embrace that. He needs to embrace. Set it up. Tailu needs to set up the spacing a certain way that makes Kauai's passing reads easy so that he doesn't have to stress about it.

But Kauai needs to operate closer to the basket at the end of games. And the Hardin pick and roll is still their best action. It just depends on James Hardin bringing in the necessary pop. And as we know, James Hardin is known for having that type of game. Like, oh, massively important a game, opportunity to take complete and total control of the series. And James Hardin just half asleep for three quarters of the game, which we've seen over. the years. Like,

the, like it, you know, we go to that, back to that Spur's series, and there's the concussion that people point to, but there's just so many different examples

throughout his career were like, massive important game and just, the energy and competitiveness isn't there, the way that it needs to be. And that's one of the main reasons why, like, you know, this Clippers team,

they're very, very good. I ended up putting them fifth in my contender rankings, um, before the postseason started. But I had them below that top tier. And the main reason why, is just there's the aggregate playmaking talent piece that I've talked about a lot,

but there's just so many wild cards. It's like, are you going to get a focused, intense harden? Are you going to get kind of like a sleepy hardened, right? Like, Kauai has even had an up and down nature to his game over the course of the tail end of the season. It just, I don't feel like I can count on the clippers to be the best version of their selves night to night. And I don't think they have enough margin for error to make up for that sort of thing, which has kept me just a little bit lower on the clippers than many of my peers that cover the league are. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast. Well, we didn't invent it.

We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how 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 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. Genshin win. I mean, she went down in three to Roebuckina, but I'm delighted. Yeah, she's an outsider to win the French. me. And she likes Clay. Listen,

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Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, let's bring Jackson up here. Let's take some questions about these years. Let's do it. Let's do it. We got a lot of questions about, you know, this Warriors Rockets game. naturally. First question. You said Steph's, this was written wrong, sorry, Steph's game one performance was one of his better playoff games because of what he was facing in the supporting cast. How does today's game compare? The, uh, Steph didn't have as crazy of a shot making game

tonight, I didn't think in terms like that that game one, he hit four or five of some of the, you know, top tier tough shots that he's hit in his career. Um, also that game one feel too, like you never know what you're going to get in terms of the defensive level of intensity, what the whistle is going to be like. I don't think it quite rises to game one, but I did think that that was a classic and fantastic Steph Curry performance. 100%. Next question that we're getting a lot of from this game is, is this the end of the Jonathan Cominga experiment? If it's not the end, what are your not, if not the true, true end, you know, what are your thoughts on Cumminga sort of generally on the team as well as specifically in the rest of this series? Well, tonight was the latest example in a

very, very long line of examples that Jonathan Kaminga has some potential as a one-on-one player. But in dead serious basketball games, he's not good enough at it to be able to really give him a lot of leeway to try to drive that part of his game. And, you know, in the big picture, it's tough because there are the realities of Jonathan Kaminga being at a point in his career where a franchise needs to invest in him. And it's just tough to make. that sort of decision when the development at this point, at his age, hasn't really come to fruition. And again, on this team, you can crack into the rotation earlier and more solidly as a reliable read and react player who also plays defense soundly, both on the ball and off the

ball. Then you can crack into this rotation as an on ball player. If you're going to crack into this rotation as an on ball player, you got to be really, really efficient because you're not going to run a lot of on-ball sequences alongside Steph Curry. Alongside Steph Curry, the majority of the work you do is going to be operating in his ecosystem. And so Jimmy Butler has shown a wonderful ability to kind of shape shift between connective attacker, playmaker, rim pressure guy, but also be able to command a unit for these very short stretches. Like here's a three-minute stretch where we're going to give you the ball a bunch of times. But right now, Jonathan Kaming is just not good enough at it to be able to justify that kind of role

on a dead serious team. And so here's the thing. He might be 26 before he's ready for that role. So if he's 26 before he's ready for that role, there are some realities about him being effectively useless on this team relative to what he could be somewhere else. And so I've been saying

this since the trade deadline, this is, he just needs to be, it's in the best interest for all parties involved to send him somewhere else this summer. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I feel like there was a period of a year or two. where it felt like maybe Steph Curry didn't have the championship ceiling that we thought. He might have run out of that from a gas, an age standpoint.

And it was like, well, maybe we need to keep comming around. But now that it feels pretty clear that at least for another year or two years or three years, but at least another year or two, Steph Curry is capable of being the best player on a championship team. You got to, what's the point of Jonathan Cummong on this roster? There was a bunch of buzz last year in the middle of the season before the trade deadline, where some Warriors fans would say things to me like, like, well, you know, the Clippers traded away Shake Gilders Alexander.

And look, like I, I, Jackson and I were talking last night. We find, I find the Jalen Green jump, the Kaminka type of athlete to be tantalizing in a lot of ways because of just how physical these games get. And the ability to get to your spots is a real asset in super physical basketball. but at the same time, like, we can also admit, even though Kaminga has potential, like I think he has potential to enter into that like somewhere between the 25th to 35th best player in the league by the time he's in his late 20s. I really do think he has that potential.

Like a guy who could like make an all-star team one day, maybe one, you know what I mean? Here's what he's not. Shake, he'll just Alexander. So like, let's just let's take that and set it aside. You're not giving away the future here. So even to your point, Jackson, I talked about this at the time. like I'm sorry but like I like I like I like a lot of these young players Pajemski and comminga and Moody are not competing in the Western conference that

that team is not good enough you're you are going to rebuild when this is all said and done accept that reality and act accordingly 100% next question if Jimmy is a 50 50 call by Monday which you know the reporting tonight was that he had a lot more swelling than maybe they expected he was struggling to move which is why it wasn't just a pain tolerance thing going against tonight if he's a 50 50 call in Monday Monday, does tonight's result impact the Golden State's decision to play him next game? Should this result impact it? I think that if Jimmy's in a position where he genuinely feels like another couple of days off could be very good for his.

Actually, Jackson, can do me a favor while I'm saying this and just look up how many days are off? I think they play Monday night, right? So they get one day. They play Monday and I believe they play Wednesday. So they do go every other day for the rest of the series? They're playing Wednesday back in Houston. Okay. So that is a pretty quick turnaround.

But like if you could somehow get away with sitting him on Monday, you give him an additional all day Sunday, all day Monday, all day Tuesday, most of the day, Wednesday to rest before he has to play again. And in theory, I feel like Jimmy and Steph and Dremont with a mobile Jimmy can go into Houston and win a game five if needed, if it was two, two. and then close the series out in six. So, like, if Jimmy's not feeling like he can be a real asset on Monday, I would sit him. Yeah, it's a tough call.

I mean, it's so hard to say without knowing how bad it actually is, but it's going to be an interesting decision. Next question. This is sort of a hard one to answer sort of off the cup, but is Draymond Green the most clutch defensive player of all time? It does feel like he gets a lot of big stops late. I can think of a bunch at the top of my head. These, yeah, so to the question,

the, when we, we talked about this a little bit last night, like, it's really hard to do an all-time list right off the cup. So that might be more of like a, uh, a long form mailbag for the summertime. But, uh, I, Jremont in general is a wonderful clutch defender because of the physical. You know, um, the playoffs are always physical, but they get exceptionally physical when you get into the late game situations. And like they even, you know, they're, they're, you'll even see that in the, uh, uh, in that last layup that shang, and miss. Like, Draymond fouled him on that play. But like, that's a thing. Like, there's fouls all over the court. And like in a game where fouls are allowed to a certain point, Dremont is like one of the,

like, and even just in a vacuum, take away clutch defense, take away any of the details that we're specifically referencing. Just Draymond is the most gifted legal fowler I've ever seen. Like, this dude in regular season games in February, it will come out and he's going to find a way in the early portion of the first quarter to kind of like probe the extent. of what the refs will allow. And he kind of like finds that barrier. And then he operates within that barrier. And he's just,

he's just so smart. And he's so, the physical strength element to me is so important. Like I got into this argument with the guys from the, and I should say a discussion with the guys from basketball Illuminati. So like I'm in and Tom Haberstro and we were discussing the defensive player of the year debate.

And like, I was trying to emphasize him like the big reason why I think Dremont's a better defender than Evan Mobile. is like Evan Mowgli can win a lot of battles in the air as like a shot blocker and is like a guy in rotation. But I have always been more drawn to the shorter, stockier defenders because I think winning battles on the ground is actually the most important part of basketball. And Dremont just does a wonderful job of disrupting your base and keeping you off balance and bringing the appropriate physicality using gamesmanship to his, to his effect, like to positive effect, manipulating the refs.

like like like draymond knows that he can get away with enough for a certain like that the play where he ran up on the ref after he clearly didn't get fouled which was hilarious he uh that's like it's part of his gamesmanship it's part of how he gets away with stuff and like i i just think i just think he's i just think he's the best defender i've watched in this era yeah and i think the clutch thing i mean i think most of the time but on offense as well the best clutch players are usually just the best players. And the thing is get, everything just gets heightened and more challenging in the biggest moment.

So it requires the best players to be able to succeed in those moments. But so because of that, Dre's unbelievable blend, like singularly unique blend of physical strength on that stocky aspect that you're describing, incredibly long wingspan and incredibly high IQ just makes him so hard to score on at the end of games. And it allows him to cover up for mistakes he's made, cover up for mistakes. Other people have made. it's crazy like all the stops he's gotten off the top of my head that i can think of got the big regular season to stop against kevin dera he got that block against daniel gafford

in the playoffs against the mavericks he's getting these all and they're all different types of stops he's able to do so many different types of things defensively that it's it's really challenging i would just it's hard to imagine going at him that point you made about how the best clutch players are just the best players i love that i'm stealing that that's fantastic stuff right there jackson like they're just the best players. Speaking of the best players, where does Steph Curry rank in the best players in the world of ranking right now?

Because according to this comment, you know, nobody's playing better than him right now. I think the important context of the question we should attack here is not on an 82 game regular season basis. No one is going to argue he's better than Yon has on the 82 game basis, right? But for four playoff series that you have to win, where would he, where would he sort of fall in that pecking order? I don't think he's playing better than everyone right now. there are a lot of guys playing a really good basketball right now.

But I do think Steph is operating at that tier. Like, I mean, Janice is averaging 36 points a game right now. Like, Jalen Brunson is averaging 34 points a game right now and has, like, executed the pistons and the clutch over and over and over again. Like there are a lot, like, Nicola Yochich was playing at an insanely high level tonight. She goes Alexander just, like, eviscerated the Grizzlies today. Like, there's a lot of guys playing at a really high level right now. I just think Steph is operating at that tier, which is the key.

Like you don't need Steph to be the best player in the world. You just need him to be able to go toe to toe to with the best players in the world. That is what it will allow Golden State's number one ranked defense post all-star break and the overall IQ advantage and the coaching advantage and like Jimmy Butler's playoff upside. And that's what allows all of that to operate. And like the it's been abundantly clear to me pretty much since the all since the Jimmy trade that Steph has had that top tier superstar ceiling still. And that's the key. Like, and there's a difference. Like there are guys in the league.

Like, LeBron, for instance, is a guy that, like, on any one given night in the, in this playoff run can reach that level. He reached that level last night. But, like, he wasn't at that level in game one, for example, right? And, you know, had a great defensive game, too, but wasn't able to really assert himself offensively in game two. And, like, the thing is, is, like, Steph is night in and night out right now, providing the superstar offensive upside that this team needs to reach their ceiling, which is really all

you can ask from it. But like, as far as like actually officially ranking these guys, like, I just want everyone to know, like we, that is what we do in the summertime and we take it very seriously. We will do extensive detailed rankings of where these guys rank in the league after what they've done this season, what I would, you know, rank them going into next season. Here's the thing. It's been, what, four playoff games or three playoff games for Stead. for for a couple of these guys it's hard to really like parse them out ranking wise until we have a larger sample next question as you sort of alluded to in the in your answer to the last one does this win say more about golden state and our championship ceiling being able to win without jimmy or is it more about the rocket's just not being on on their level tonight was championship pedigree tonight was we need to get this win against this team team under these circumstances. I don't think it's even like a style necessarily that the Warriors will play in future games when they're healthy and put together. Like you're not going to see that

much, uh, Quentin Post. You're not going to see that much of, uh, of Buddy Healed. You're not going to see that much of Jonathan Kaminga. That was just like, that's just championship pedigree, just getting through a tough circumstance in a series. I have been pretty consistent about how I feel about Houston throughout the entire season. I viewed them as a non-threat to upset the Warriors in this series. Like I, like I was like I told you Jackson in a mailbag one of these last few nights that I thought they'd go to a two and a two and oh in Golden State even without Jimmy. So like to me the this entire series is more about surviving the rockets. And next round when they face either Minnesota or L.A. It's going to be a better indicator for us of where they're at in relation

their championship ceiling. Yeah, I think winning games like this is sort of like in the regular season, most championship teams beat up on the bad teams. They don't just beat them by a little bit, right? Like, it's an indicator of high, high level basketball, but it's not necessarily an actionable thing you can take and say this type of game means they're going to win the bigger ones. It's a good piece of evidence, but it's not necessarily predictive. Totally agree. And that's a thing. Like, we need to see where, like, Both L.A. and Minnesota present very different types of challenges to the Warriors. And so in that round, we are going to get a better look at them again.

Like, let me just put it this way. When I ranked my championship contenders, I didn't even put rockets in the top 10. Like, I didn't even have them on that list. So, like, Minnesota and L.A. are both legitimate second-tier championship contenders. So, like, that is going to be a much better indicator. Like, if Golden State smokes one of the teams coming out of that series, that would be, to me, like the holy shit they've got a real chance to get this done type of series for sure let's say a couple more questions first i wasn't really going to ask this question but since we are on the topic you know

i'm not trying to jinx anything if the warriors are making able to make it past this series we had quite a few questions about who would be the better matchup easier matchup for them in the second round the lakers or the timber wolves this is a really good question i think minnesota's i think excuse me i think Golden State's defense, and you and I talked about this earlier in the series, I think Golden State's defense because of Draymond, because they're just a little bit faster. They're a faster team. I think Golden State's defense would be able to do a lot more damage to Minnesota's offense than this Laker defense can do.

Like the Lakers defense is very much a smart, positional, connected group. since December 8th, which is a 59 game sample, the Lakers are ninth in defensive rating. They're a good defense, but they're not a great defense. They're just a good defense. And they specifically are a defense that depends on IQ and a 40-year-old anchoring everything for them on the back line.

So like there are obvious times where you can see them just completely overwhelmed by Minnesota's athleticism. Like Jada McDaniels last night just over and over again getting into the teeth of their defense. at the end of the game, their complete inability to hang with Anthony Edwards. So, like, there's no doubt that Golden State just athletically is more set up to grind Minnesota's offense down into the mud.

And that's what's crazy is, like, guys, the Lakers, I just emphasized all these details about how their defense is not as good as Golden State. The Lakers are having more luck stopping the wolves right now than the Celtics are having stopping the magic. So everything I just said, still the Lakers are doing a better job. Like still the Lakers are able to stop that Minnesota Timberwolves offense. But that's in reference to half court offense, by the way, per cleaning the glass. But the point I'm trying to make is I think Golden State could do some real damage to that Minnesota offense.

Like I think they could, I think they could win that series with their defense in a similar manner to what they do against Houston. but I think the Laker offense can present some issues to them with perimeter size. So it's, man, it's really tough, Jackson. I think that Golden State would have a better chance of beating Minnesota. What do you think? I don't know. It's a very hard question. They're so different.

My gut was they'd have a better chance of beating the Lakers thinking on the, the The thought process being the Timberwolves present a lot of similar challenges to the Rockets in terms of size and athleticism, but they have an actual go-to score on the offensive, an actual offense. They have multiple scores who are better than, you know, the Rockets have. But I don't know. I mean, I think it could go either way. That's tough. Now that you put it that way, I do think I'd rather play L.A., but it's close. It's very close. Because the Timberwolves have this size and athleticism thing, but they're also not as good of a defense statistically.

as used it. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Man, that's, it's really tough. Also, like, the, the, the, the, the, the shangoon problem, like the rocket's offense has looked its best when they go through shangoon, as you know. And the Minnesota, like, Shane goons, in my opinion, shangoon's a better offensive player than Julius Randall. So, like, I think he could cause more problems there. Here's the other thing, too, like, I, I think the, I think the Lakers are going to win tomorrow. I, I could be wrong about that and everyone can take another victory lap on me we'll see i think the lakers are going to win tomorrow like i mean they played like absolute shit in the two losses like they played like

absolute shit and if we've learned anything from clippers nuggets it doesn't matter if you're up to one it's check ball you got to beat us again and so like i i i do think that this i think that series is still i have it like 55 45 45 in favor of minnesota like i think minnesota is a slight favorite for me in the jason sports book that that's where i have it but like i um Man, I think the point you made about Houston's physicality plus a better offense would make them a slightly more dangerous team to Golden State than the Lakers should be. So I guess I'm saying Lakers fans are Warriors fans

should be rooting for the Lakers to come back and win. Come over to the dark side. You're tempting. You're tempting the YouTube chat. I think the Lakers are going to win tomorrow. Let's take one more question and then call it for the night. If Joker continues to show, this is just the commenter's words, not mine. If the Joker continues to show that he's the actual head coach of the Nuggets.

So obviously like in the game tonight, parentheses, Yok, which was calling in subs for context. Does that mean that is that a bad sign for David Adelman's future as the head coach there? No, guys, like, you don't think Steve Kerr sits down with Steph and Draymond sometimes and ask them their opinion or that Draymond is never, Steph has ever run over to Steve and been like, get him out of the fucking game. Like, guys, like, that's just, if you're a, if news flash, it just because your coach doesn't mean, you know everything.

Players are also very, very smart. and every smart person that I know, every like smart, humble, like, you know, kind of like well-grounded person I know leans on other smart people to try to, to try to answer problems. It's not, I'm the coach, you shut up, I solve all the problems. Like, Yokic is a basketball genius. I would recommend talking to him as much as possible. Let's call it there. All right. That's all we have for tonight, guys. As always, we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. I'm going to do a quick film breakdown that should be up in the morning that is going to cover just like some details from the two games.

games might hit some Shake Gilles Alexander stuff in there too. So keep an eye on the feed tomorrow morning for some film. And then we have four to one series tomorrow. So tomorrow's going to be an old-fashioned show like last weekend where we have to hit four games at the same time. So be ready live on YouTube after the final buzzer, Pacers Bucks tomorrow night. I'll see you guys. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for

listening to and supporting hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it. The Volume. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin.

And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. Nice. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We get to ask other people to do podcasts.

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