The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Mavericks eliminated, Lakers & Warriors' playoff matchups, Miami's spoiler potential

Episode Date: April 8, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to the Mavericks decision to rest several key players against the Bulls, causing Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic to miss the postseason. Later, he discusses how he thinks the playoff seeding will shake out for the Clippers, Warriors and Lakers, and who those teams should hope to face in the NBA playoffs. Finally, he reacts to the play-in seeds being locked in the Eastern conference and breaks down the Heat's chance to play spoiler in later playoff rounds. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes.

Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tauntons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith ruling. of two. Listen to Stuff to Bole Your Mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. Hey, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at The Volume. Happy Saturday, everybody. I hope all of you guys are having a great weekend so far. Just a quick show today. We're going to be touching

on three topics. We're going to talk about the Mavs, kind of strangely punting the last two games of their season, even though they had a puncher's chance to still get into the playing tournament. Then I want to talk about just some scenarios. in the Western Conference play in. The way I think it's going to break out and how I actually think it's the best matchups if you want to see some teams like the Lakers and Warriors advance to the second round.

And the last but not least, our Eastern Conference play in tournament is completely set. I just want to talk for a few minutes about what I expect to happen in that playing tournament, as well as which team from that group I think has the most chance to make noise in the first round. You guys know the show before we get started.

Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason L. so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And if for whatever reason you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you can always find them wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight. And last but at least, you guys have heard me talk about Game Time, the fastest growing

ticketing app in the United States. If you're looking to get out to an NBA game, a baseball game, an NHL game, a concert, or comedy show, Game Time has amazing last minute deals on tickets to all of these. So if you're trying to get out to go see an NBA playoff game, game time has you covered. If you're trying to get out and see some baseball, which is increasingly harder and harder to find on television, Game Time has you covered. Or, hey, if you're looking at going out to see the John Mayer solo tour that's going around, I think he's going around playing a bunch of his old acoustic songs before he hits the road with Dead & Company for their final tour this summer, which I will be attending. Game Time is going to get you a good seat there as well. They have an amazing user experience. You're going to get a great deal.

You're going to know exactly where your seat is. They've taken great care of me. I know they're going to take great care of you guys as well. So no matter where you live, get out and have some fun this week. Download the GameTime app. Enter your email and redeem code hoops for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, enter your email and the code hoops.

That's H-O-O-P-S for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So this Mavs punting thing. obviously as competitors, it's hard for us to ever rationalize that sort of thing, right? Especially as fans. And fans are especially competitive, right?

That's kind of in the nature of what it's like to care about a sports team as much as we do. And so it's hard to kind of see that line of thinking. But a couple of things. I don't think this was Luca and Kyrie's decision. This was clearly from above them. And it probably is the right decision. Are they going to beat anybody? in that first round series.

Are they equipped to beat a team like Denver? No, absolutely not. They have no way of ever even hoping to contain Nicola Yokic, even with everything they can do offensively to disrupt him on the other end of the floor. And then Memphis is literally one of the biggest and most physically imposing teams in the NBA. In Dallas, that's their specific weakness.

So there's nothing they're going to accomplish by putting the stress on their bodies to get into that first round series and get a win. Again, I understand it from the standpoint of a competitor, but it's not necessarily the right decision. I've talked to a lot of Lakers fans before who have said varying versions of, I wish Kobe didn't go for it in 2013.

You know, he killed himself down the stretch of the season to try to get the Lakers into the playoffs, tore his Achilles against the Warriors in a late game, just to get them to a first round series with that super clunky roster with Steve Nash and Dwight Howard and it just, it's just what in the grand scheme of things, while competitively, it was a move that made sense. And obviously, that's Kobe's personality and he's going to want to do it that way.

It actually wasn't the best thing for the team. They would have been better off packing things in and saving the wear and tear on Kobe's body and finding a way to kind of retool around the margins of that roster to make it work and give it a run the following year. was playing at an incredibly high level. And that's the way that you have to look at this. Kyrie and Luca, the offensive fit is there. Kyrie's playing some of the best basketball of his career.

Just pack it in, make the necessary changes this summer, and give it another go. If there's criticism to levy here, it's all towards Mark Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks front office. Letting Jaylen Brunson go for nothing was completely inexcusable. Even for the dollar amounts we were talking about, this was not a quick. This was not Jimmy Butler asking for the Supermax and a team like Chicago being like, eh, like not worth the money. That's not what this was. This was not a situation where we were talking about enormous salary slot for a,

for a player that wasn't necessarily going to be worth it. Jalen Brunson was asking for in the mid to high 20s. And for a three-level scoring guard that is as efficient as he was, who averaged 20 points per game in the previous playoff run, who had turned himself into an above average point of attack defender, that is all, that is more than worth it for a player like that. And when you have an asset like that under your control and you let it go, it's very difficult to compensate for that.

The only way they could was by overpaying for Kyrie, and by overpaying for Kyrie, they traded away their best athlete and took the roster to a point where it was impossible for them to linger in NBA games. That's what happened. that's not on Kyrie, that's not on Luca, that's on the front office, and that's on Mark Cuban. And so kind of as we tie a bow on this really disappointing Dallas season, I actually am very optimistic, just like I was the day of the Kyrie Irving trade. But, you know, when it comes to how ugly this got in the time sense, don't look at the guys in that locker room.

Don't look at Kyrie and Luca, look at the front office and look at Mark Cuban. They're the ones that are responsible. All right, let's talk about some West Plains scenario. So Lakers and Warriors both got wins last night. I'm not going to talk about the basketball itself because it just doesn't matter. The Warriors obviously were going against the King's team that was resting all their players. The Lakers were going against the Sun's team that was resting all their players. I saw some Laker fans kind of hand-wringing a little bit about how the Lakers have looked the last few games.

Look, they played the Utah Jazz missing all their guys, and they just didn't care. And then they ended up in a dog fight that wore their legs out a little bit, and then they were in a back-to-back at the end of a long road trip against the Clippers. Obviously, we talked about that game at nauseam the other night. And then in this game in particular, once again, like you're going against campaign and a bunch of guys. Like, you're not going to get them to get, you're not going to get them like really stoked to play in that game. And I don't really judge NBA teams when they're in a situation where they're going to play down to their competition. It's just not it's not the right representation of what you're going to get from that.

team. So I'm not concerned about the Lakers looking a little sloppy against some bad teams. I'm not, you know, that to me is just kind of the natural way that you're going to see some veteran stars like LeBron James and Anthony Davis behave, especially if they feel like if they can turn it on for five minutes at the end of the game and get a win, that that'll be enough. So I don't really care about the basketball. I'm more interested in the actual seating scenarios that could play out as we go through the rest of this weekend. So my guess is that all three of the Lakers, Clippers and Warriors will win out. Okay. I don't think the Clippers will punt the Phoenix game.

The problem is, now, you might think to yourself, okay, if we punt the Phoenix game and, you know, this other thing happens, then we get the six seed, then we don't have to worry about playing the Suns. Yeah, that sounds great. But all these games are taking place at the same time in that like 1230 slot on Sunday, right? 1230 Pacific time. So the problem is, is like you punt the Sun's game, if you're the Clippers, but by happenstance, the Pelicans beat the wolves,

suddenly we end up in this like three-way tie situation where the clippers drop down to the eight seat or seven seat and then now they're in a playing game against the lakers that the lakers will probably be slight favorites in and if the lakers win that game now the clippers are in a winner go home game against somebody like the timber wolves or the thunder right so like that that is just an unacceptable scenario for the clippers just as tai loo they've been through that exact same situation and then bit by that in the past so what I expect the Clippers to do is to treat that Sun's game like a must win. And I don't see any particular reason why Phoenix would want to play spoiler. I don't see why Phoenix would want to just beat the Clippers to mess things up because if I'm Phoenix, I want the Clippers in the first round.

Out of that selection of teams that's kind of in that 38, 39 loss area, between the Pelicans, the Lakers, the Warriors, and the Clippers, I might prefer to play the Clippers over all of those teams in terms of them being without Paul George, really not having much quality shot creation beyond Kauai Leonard. Outside of Kauai Leonard, it's like, does Norman Powell have it tonight? And is Russell Westper

going to make more good plays than bad plays? That's pretty much your only offensive creation outside of Kauai Leonard. So I would prefer to play the Clippers. So I would expect the Sons to rest their guys on Sunday and to avoid the playing tournament, I'd expect

the Clippers to treat that game like a must win. Which means my guess is that this is going to break down, Clippers as the five seed, Warriors as the sixth seed, Lakers as the seven seed, in one of either the pelicans or the Timberwolves in that eight seed. That's the way I see this breaking down. From there, I expect the Lakers to win their playing game against either of those teams. They are better than the pelicans and they are better than the wolves and they have demonstrated that recently. So, especially in a home game and a must-win type of situation. Also, from the Lakers perspective, I actually, this actually broke down pretty well.

With the Warriors situation with their lack of athleticism without Andrew Wiggins, obviously Andrew Wiggins is coming back, but he's out of rhythm. I would pick the Warriors to beat the Grizzlies in a later round playoff series, but a first round playoff series against the Grizzlies would be really tough because they're huge and physically imposing and the Warriors are still trying to get Andrew Wiggins up to speed. So I think it's good that the Warriors can dodge that. That Sacramento matchup at 6 is actually probably the ideal situation.

for the Warriors in the first round. And if you're picking somebody from 1, 2, 3, 4 to play as the Warriors, Sacramento is the team you'd prefer to play. So that breaks out perfectly for the Warriors. The Lakers, obviously, Memphis is a tough first round matchup, but it's a good matchup for the Lakers, right? So you've got this downhill force and John Morant that wants to operate around the rim that we have actively seen

on many different occasions Anthony Davis caused problems for. That was one of the games earlier, like a month or so ago, without LeBron James, Anthony Davis in the first half of that game, just dominated the game defensively with what he was able to do around the rim. The Memphis Grizzies are a team you can pack the paint against. So I expect the Lakers to pack the paint and have success slowing down Memphis's offense in a first round series there. So it's a good matchup. And then on the other end of the floor, obviously Memphis is physical.

Dylan Brooks has guarded LeBron pretty well this season, although we'll see if he could do it for a whole playoff series. Darren Jackson Jr., protecting the rim. It'll be a tough challenge. but I do think that Lakers have more half-court offensive skill, and I actually think they're a little bit better as a half-court defense when they're really locked in, and you've seen that post-deadline as the Lakers have been one of the best defenses in the league. The biggest wrinkle there will be point-of-attack defense in their ability to contain John Morant, but they can do things like put Dennis Schroeder on him as much as possible,

and then during the possessions when it's the starting lineup in DeAngelo Russell and Austin Reeves are out there, they can do a lot of digging off of Dylan Brooks and a lot of digging off of Xavier Tillman and maybe concede more threes to Jaron Jackson. They can find ways to contain John Morant with their weaker point of attack defenders and then try to structure their lineups so that you can put Dennis Schroeder on John Morant during the times when there's less rim protection on the floor because Dennis is their best point of attack defender. So I actually like that matchup for the Lakers, even though that's a tougher series. I think Grizzlies Lakers is going to be very close. whereas Warriors Kings, I think the Warriors will be a decent-sized favorite in that series.

The Clippers, you know, it's tough. Like the Sons, I don't think have a very good point of attack defense. They're going to have to deploy Josh Okogee on Kawhi Leonard in all likelihood. That means Russell Westbrook is going to have good matchups attacking downhill throughout the series. There's going to be a lot of pressure on guys like Kevin Durant, D'Andauntry to attack the paint. But we talked about it earlier. The Clippers just don't have enough shot creation, and they're not as good defensively as you think, and they don't have great rim protection.

So at the end of the day, that to me is just an easy win for the Sons. But that breaks down pretty entertainingly because if KD beats the Nuggets, you have KD versus Yokic, which is interesting. And then you could, if the Lakers beat the Grizzlies and the Warriors beat the Kings, we could end up with a Warriors-Lakers, Steph versus LeBron, for the right to play KD in the conference finals, for the right to play Janus or Tatum and Brown in the Celtics in the finals, which would be a really, really interesting playoff run.

So my guess is it's going to break down 5, 6, 7, with Clippers, Warriors, Lakers. My guess is that the Clippers lose to the Sun, the Suns as of right now, and that the Warriors have a good chance to beat the Kings, and the Lakers have somewhat of a chance to beat the Grizzlies. We'll go deeper into that as we get closer to the playoffs, but that's just kind of like the way I see this breaking down right now,

and I think that's interesting. Last but not least, before we get out of here, the East playing tournament is set. Atlanta is going to travel to Miami to play in the 7-8 game, and then Chicago is going to travel to Toronto to play in the 9-10 game. I think the home teams are going to win all three of these games. I think Miami's better than Atlanta. Atlanta's kind of started to play a little bit better.

Quinn Snyder was talking about how they're starting to figure out some stuff with their spacing. But then they go and drop a game to the playing all their guys to Philadelphia last night. Now, mind you, it doesn't really matter. But it's just weird. Like every time I have an opportunity to kind of get stoked on Atlanta doing something, they just start to kind of look mediocre again. But that said, I think Toronto, even though Toronto will beat Chicago, in my opinion, I think Atlanta would beat Toronto.

I think Miami and Atlanta are by far the two best teams in that playing bracket right now. As far as which team has a chance to make noise in the first round, you can't go anywhere other than Miami. Miami versus Boston is an interesting psychological matchup that we've seen a lot over the years. Miami feels confident in that matchup. Miami's won two games in a row against Boston. Last year, Jimmy Butler had pull up three at the end of Game 7 that had a chance to send the Amy Heat to the NBA finals. It's a matchup they're comfortable in. Again, you can, it's, they're not as talented as they were last year. They just look a little bit older, a little bit

slower, a little less consistent. They've always been one of those teams that like if you catch them on the right night in the playoffs, they look bad. You catch them on the other type of night and they can look like the best team in the world, right? So like it's, they're just, there's so much variance there. It's tough to really project them. But Jimmy Butler is very capable of being the best player in that series. He's capable about playing Jason Tatum. He did several times during the Eastern Conference Finals last year. You know, Eric Spolstra is going to mix things up schematically and double and then not double and then run zone. And then here's a little half court, you know, kind of pressure situation. And they're just going to execute extremely well and make Boston feel

uncomfortable. And you can almost bet your life. That's going to be at least a six game series, which means anything can happen when you get down to game six if Miami happens to pull a game out. So the East play in tournament is a little less interesting because we don't have the type of like championship level contender that we have in the Lakers at that seven seed. And again, everyone freaks out. The Lakers have been the second best team in the league since the Detroit deadline. They've been one of the very best defenses. They've been one of the very best rebounding teams. And they've done most of that without DeAngelo Russell and LeBron James.

With DeAngle Russell and LeBron James in their starting lineup, they are bludgeoning teams. The Lakers are good. Don't look at their record. You have to look at their record post-deadline. It's not the same team. They overhauled almost the entire roster. That East Play in tournament does not have a team of that caliber. Although I do think Miami is by unique nature of their matchup with Boston and the Jimmy Butler

element that they're capable of pulling out a series there. We're going to do a deeper dive into these playoff matchups as we get closer. But just kind of headed into this weekend and how the playing tournament is shaking out. I just wanted to kind of briefly touch on. it. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. So here's the plan. We're going to be doing a show with Colin Coward tomorrow evening at 6.30 p.m. Pacific time. That's going to be breaking down everything that happened in the Sunday slate. I'm also going to be recording a video tomorrow that will air on Monday that's going to break down the playing tournament in some detail. So

keep an eye on the feeds tomorrow night and on Monday morning for some content surrounding the playing tournament. As always, I appreciate you guys, and I'll see you tomorrow night with Colin. 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 helped make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast.

Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tontons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to Stuff to Blow Your Mind on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.