The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - NBA Finals: Luka Doncic COSTING Mavericks? Celtics rank among past 5 NBA champions

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Jason Timpf answers listener questions during an NBA Finals Mailbag. Jason discusses which team from the West would have given Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics the most difficult time in a playoff series (4:30). Later, he discusses why Luka Doncic's defensive efforts have been detrimental to the Mavericks' chances in the Finals (8:45), whether Jaylen Brown has elevated his game to superstar level (15:30), and ranks the 2024 Celtics amongst the previous five NBA champions (23:30). (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.) #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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All right, welcome to Hoops and I here at The Volume. Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Well, if the Dallas Mavericks had won last night, we'd be pouring over the film today, talking about all the different ways that Dallas may or may not be able to tie this series and just what we expect to happen in game four. But that's not what happened.

This series has been pretty consistent throughout the same themes on both ends of the floor. Dallas incapable of containing the basketball and staying out of rotation as Boston picks them apart for high-quality rim attempts and shots at the three-point line. And then on the other end of the floor, the simple adjustment of putting Jason Tatum on their centers has caused all of the spacing of their ball screen actions to fall apart. And Luca hasn't been able to punish the bigs enough in switches for it to matter. And so Dallas hasn't been able to score. And that dynamic has not changed at any point throughout the series. And so this thing is over.

No matter what, even if Dallas goes and gets game four off of a hellacious effort and a lackadaisical one on Boston's front, I think Dallas is done with. I don't think there's any basketball dynamic they can flip to potentially go on a run and win a bunch of games in a row. So what we're going to do today is we're going to do a mailback and talk about specifically some of the questions you guys have surrounding the NBA finals. You guys know the drill before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel

so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight. And then keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the off season. And the last minute at least, before we get started, I want to talk to you guys about game time. They have an amazing ticket buying experience.

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Last-minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right. Let's talk some basketball. Oops, and I, well, bad. First question, is there any team in the West that would have matched up well against Boston in the finals? So, as we're looking at this, remember, one of the biggest lessons that I learned in this particular postseason run is to look at things more through the concept of the individual matchup rather than what the teams look like in a vacuum, right? So, like, even as we just look at Dallas, they beat the shit out of Minnesota because Minnesota can't handle their rim protection. Boston has a counter for their rim protection through five-out spacing.

It causes their defense to fall apart. Even on the other end of the floor, like because Minnesota guarded Dallas traditionally and because Jada McDaniels was too skinny to guard Luca, Luca picked them apart. Come into this series, bigger, more physical defenders, the adjustment from Jason Tatum, all of a sudden Dallas's offense falls apart. So it's very much a matchup-oriented type of league. with that being the case, teams that would have caused Boston more issues, teams that can guard on the perimeter at multiple positions.

So teams like Oklahoma City, now this year I thought they were too young and I don't think they would have been able to beat a team like Boston, but the team like Oklahoma City in the future seasons is a team that I think could give Boston some issues. Minnesota. I don't think that I would have picked Minnesota against Boston. It would have been really close. I would have needed to go back and look at the film, but chances are I would have ended up picking Boston, who knows.

but they have a depth of perimeter defense personnel. They could run lineups with Anthony Edwards, Nikiel Alexander Walker, Jaden McDaniels, Kyle Anderson, Rudy Gobert, where all five guys can switch and guard on the perimeter against multiple different types of archetypes of players. On the other end of the floor, we saw what Anthony Edwards did to Denver and Phoenix because he can beat everyone off the dribble and get into the paint.

They ran into rim protection against Dallas. That was a problem against Boston, especially with Porzingis injury issues. They don't really have a lot of rim protection beyond Porzinger. And so that would have been an interesting matchup to see if Minnesota could have had some success. That said, I think the only team I would have picked against Boston outright would have been Denver. And the main reason why is they have some defensive weak points as well, guys like Jamal Murray, guys like Michael Porter Jr. Yokic did not have a particularly good defensive season this year.

However, their game play and discipline, even from their lesser defensive players, including the three I just mentioned, so much better than what we saw from Luca. Like Luca, we're going to talk about it a minute. He was beyond destructive on the defensive end in this series. It wasn't even like, oh, he's got this athletic disadvantage that's causing problems. Like, no, you just, he literally wasn't focused. He wasn't playing hard. He was complaining. Like, it was an abomination what Luca did defensively in this postseason run.

I think that Denver would have been a little bit more locked in, a lot more locked in, down the roster in terms of their commitment to the defensive end. And then on the offensive end, Denver presents an individual end. Denver presents an issue for Boston that Boston can't solve. Whereas Boston could solve the Luca problem by putting Tatum on the center and because they have so many physical perimeter defenders, they were able to have some success against Luca, right? With Nicola Yokic and his just complete unguardability underneath the basket

by any player that Boston has wearing green, it would have put Boston in a predicament where they would have consistently been in rotation in giving up quality looks, which by the way we saw on the regular. their season when Denver beat Boston twice. There's a physical imposition element, too, that can lead to some shooting variants. I will say this, though, after watching this series, I would have felt, I feel more like Boston would have had a better chance to beat Denver. I would have picked Denver by the ever so slightest of margins, and I certainly think Boston would have had a chance. But again, looking forward out of the West, it's going to have to be teams that can really guard

on the perimeter. If it's a Clippers team that stays healthy and actually has Kauai playing at a top five that would be an interesting threat to Boston. Oklahoma City, as I mentioned, obviously the Denver team that I was just talking about. Memphis is a team that might have had some more perimeter defensive personnel to have some success. But that said, Boston, I think, was clearly better than everybody in the Western Conference, aside from Denver,

as I talked about going into the postseason run. The only team that I ranked over Boston the entire season was Denver, and that is the only team I would have picked against them. What are your thoughts about Nick's comparison of Luca's defensive performance with that of Steph in 2016? I'm assuming this is Nick right, but I'm not certain. Is there value in separating outcomes and effort while judging defense? Here's the thing. Steph has physical limitations.

He's small. And when he would get attacked and there would be some issues there, it would be like a guy overpowers him. Or Kyrie Irving just gets a, hits a tough step-back jumper over the top of him in the 2017. 16 finals. Very rarely in Steph's career, was it malaise or just not giving a shit that caused his team to have issues with him on the defensive end of the floor. What Luca did is an entirely different type of destructive defensive behavior. Okay. There's been so much talk about like, oh, well, Luca has so much to do. Oh, well, what about Luca's knee? All of this. We're not talking about him being Jalen Brown.

We're not asking him to pick up the other team's best player full court and to fight over the top of ball screens and to be, you know, banging bodies on the glass all night long. That's not what we're talking about. When you are constructing a team defense, there is a minimal level of participation that you have to hit in order for the construct of the team defense to work. And Luca was failing to reach that level,

not even coming close to reaching that level. there's a lot of focus on the blowbys, and the blowbys are bad. But you know, that to me is almost the least frustrating part about it. Because, yeah, we want Luca to get better physically. We want him to take better care of his body. We want him to be healthier. We want him to be able to contain the basketball more. That goes without saying.

But Luke is never going to be a lateral speed demon. He's just not. Like, he's going to have to do better. And I'm sure he will over the course of his career. my bigger issue with it was just the simple attention to detail. When you're flopping on three-point jump shots and falling on the ground and complaining at the refs while Boston's running the other way, you're actively sabotaging your transition defense and making it impossible for your team to contain when they're trying to sprint back in those situations.

When you're guarding Sam Houser in the strong side corner and you're literally several steps off of him just not paying attention to where Tatum can just throw a simple, swing pass to Sam Houser one pass away in the strong side corner and he can knock down a three in your face, you're not doing your job. When you're just standing around the elbow extended as Drew Holliday sprinting in and out of the lane, grabbing multiple offensive rebounds on the same possession, including a putback while you're standing on your heels doing nothing on the defensive glass. There are dozens and dozens of examples over the course of this NBA finals run in particular where Luca wasn't just bad on the defense event.

he was embarrassingly disengaged. He was downright damaging to Dallas's capability to even put out a coherent defense. It was, no exaggeration, the worst defensive performance by a superstar that I have ever seen in the NBA finals. So like, again, when we talk about criticism, I'm generally of the opinion

that guys that have a ton of offensive responsibility do need to have lighter defensive workloads. I think that sort of thing matters. I'm generally of that opinion. That said, there's a certain minimum level they have to reach, and Luca didn't even come close to reaching that. I thought it was completely unacceptable. And like, even comparing it to, like, Steph in 2016

and some of the other limited defenders in NBA history, to me it just doesn't even resemble it. Because say what you want about Steph and his limitations, he was trying. He was doing his job within the scheme. Luca couldn't even be bothered to do that. in this playoff series. When evaluating players, this next question is kind of related to that.

When evaluating players, do you think individual offense and individual defense should be weighed on the same claim? Is it 50-50 or should we put more emphasis on one over the other when evaluating individual basketball players? So I do think that you can't rank it 50-50. I think that you have to put additional weight on the offense event. And the main reason why is it is a lot easier to scheme an effective defense. with a limited offensive player as a star,

then it is to on the other end of the floor, try to scheme or coach up an effective offense when your superstar is a limited offensive player. For instance, let's just make it a very basic example. Let's take Yokic and Yonis. Yonis is maybe the best defensive player in the world, but if you just ranked his offensive skill set, he's not even in the top five, right?

He's somewhere far below that, right? If you looked at Nicola Yokic, he's the best offensive player in the league, but he's mediocre to slightly above average defensive player, depending on how hard he's trying in that particular season. I thought he was pretty bad in this postseason run. I thought he was pretty good last year, right? Who is it easier to build a championship team around? I think it's easier to build a championship team around Yokic,

because you can construct a role for Yokic to be an effective defensive player. and we've seen Denver defend at a championship level, right? But on the other end, Yokic just can make anything work, right? He can create something out of nothing on the offensive end better than basically every player in the league at this point. Looking at Yonis, you could get a league average player and construct a role for him at the power forward spot where he's a relatively effective defensive player, but you can't turn around and do that on the offensive end of the floor, right? like Janice's offensive limitations have shown to the surface in the postseason often. They showed up in 2023 when like, yes, I know he dealt with injuries in the Miami series,

but once again, close games in the half court, Jimmy was just way better than him, right? Going back to the seasons before he won the title, going back to 2020, going back to 2019, it's been a consistent issue through Janus's career that in the half court, when things slow down, his offensive limitations are harder to cope with as a staff and as a franchise. than defensive limitations, right? And so again, like, I think it's all relative. Like, Luca's defensive limitations are so bad that there's a conversation to be made

that Janus deserves to be over Luca simply because at least he's functional on both ends of the floor in a way that Luca is not, right? But yeah, for me, it's just, I've probably put it at about like 70, 30 in favor of offense because I think a super high-powered offensive player can kind of overcome everything in a way

that a super high-powered defensive player that's limited on the offensive end cannot. Has Jalen Brown now elevated to the Devin Booker tier of players with his playoff performance this year? Offensively and defensively, he's been paramount for Boston where his stock has to be up there as a potential top 12 guy. Love the show and love the Tucson's podcast.

Stay ambitious. The Two Sun's podcast is my podcast that I cover like Star Wars Game of Thrones, basically all television and cinematic media. We just had an episode drop yesterday on the Ackleite Episode 3. You can see the logo right there. It's on YouTube on Tucson's podcast.

It's on your podcast feeds under Tucson's podcast. Make sure you guys get over there and check that out. And thank you for supporting both of those shows. As far as Jalen Brown goes, I talked about this with Colin Coward last night. Like, to me, the conversation around the Jays has gone down some weird paths in this postseason run. I think it's less to do with Jason Tatum's decline.

And he's had just a really bad jump shooting postseason, which has been a kind of a continuation of an issue that's been kind of propagating over the course of the last two or three seasons. He's a third consecutive postseason run where he's down year over year from the previous year as a jump shooter. And so that's like a whole other separate issue. But really just Jalen Brown's gone up a level. Jalen Brown to me, when I'm ranking superstars, there's like the top tier guys,

which to me is literally just like Yokic, Luca, Janus, maybe Embed and Shea, depending on who you ask. Those are like the fringe guys in that group. But like those are like the three top tier guys. Then there's like the second tier guys, which are like all the superstars that are just not quite at that level, right? That's Embed, Shea, Tatum, LeBron, Anthony Davis, like Jimmy Butler. There's just a bunch of guys in that group, right? Well, to me, Jalen Brown was on the tier below that coming into this season.

And right around halfway through the season, he really started to turn it up defensively. He started guarding the other team's best player every single night. He was really committing on that end of the floor. I think it was part of his, like his scoring went down. this season just by virtue of all the talent that they brought in, and I think he was just trying to find a way to stay engaged with the team. But between that, his development is a pull-up jump shooter. I talked about this with Luca, or with with Luca, with Colin last night. I talked about how, like, it must have been really rewarding for Jalen to hit those big mid-range jump shots down the stretch last night.

He's been awesome in the clutch in this final series. I thought he had that huge driving left-handed layup by Maxi Kleba in game two. He had the two big jump shots last night. Like, he's just been, he's just been playing at that superstar level there that's just below the true top tier guys. And I've just been really impressed by him. And that, that's the talent influx. The talent influx is like, you know, even with Porzincas out, it doesn't change the fact that they have two guys that are in that second tier of superstars. And that's just really difficult to deal with. I mean, you guys know I'm a Lakers fan. Think about how optimistic I've been about the Lakers consistently and why. I've been super optimistic about the Lakers consistently. Why? Because they have two guys that are in that second tier

superstars in LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Boston has that too, in addition to Drew Holiday, Derek White, Al Horford, Porzinger when he's healthy. I've been really impressed by Hauser and Pritchard and their contributions in this postseason run. But yeah, the rise of Jalen Brown has infinitely increased the ceiling of this Boston Celtics team. We're this close to crowding a new NBA champion. And with action heating up on the court, it's even hotter at Draft King Sportsbook,

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Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves,

I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense.

And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers why he got the bar like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah. You figure it out real quick. Oh, yeah. Get your ass up and down the court.

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Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council. Rank the last five NBA champions, specifically talking about the matchup flexibility on a year-to-year basis. So this was an interesting one. Obviously, we're going to be moving forward in this question, assuming that Boston wins the title. Obviously, it's not completely over, but I personally think even juxtaposed with other 3-0 series, I don't think this is one that Dallas can turn around. So I do believe that Boston will close it out in no more than five games.

So for me, again, as I mentioned before, I think that this Boston Celtics team is a little less dominant than it looks on the surface. And the reasoning is pretty simple. The Eastern Conference at the bottom was atrocious. And so that inflated wind totals to a certain extent. To put it simply, you play 30 games against the West. You play 52 games against your own conference. That is going to make it so the Eastern Conference win totals are higher. There's a lot of talk about like, oh, this team out West only had 46 wins.

oh, this team out West only had 47, 48 wins. And it's like, yeah, they're just way more good teams. They can't all have 55 wins. That's just not how it works, right? So, like, the win totals, I think for Boston were a little inflated. There were five good teams in the East, in my opinion, and four of them ended up in the other end of the bracket. They all beat the hell out of each other to where Indiana,

which was probably, like, if I was ranking those teams on the other end of the bracket, like Indiana against the healthy bucks and the Sixers and that, Knicks team and the Pacers, I'd probably put the Pacers at the bottom of that list when they're all healthy, right? They beat the Bucks because the Bucks weren't healthy. And by the time that they got to the Knicks, the Knicks had completely fallen apart, right? So like they faced this injured, limited Pacers team in the conference finals. And then out of all of the teams that they could have faced out West, I think Dallas was no higher than third out of those teams in terms of who was best equipped to deal with Boston. And so it's a bona fide NBA championship. They are one of the

dominant champions in terms of on-paper success. However, a couple of specific things, like they do not have that true alpha dog apex superstars. So that would be something that I would hold them back compared to some other champions. So let's talk about the list here. And so I extended this to six. You asked me for the top five. I'm going to go to six because that's the delineation after Kevin Durant and Steph Curry

were no longer teamed up with each other post-2018, right? Or 2019, right? So we have the 2019 Raptors, 2020 Lakers, 2021 bucks, 2022 Warriors, 23 Nuggets, 24 Celtics. So at number six, I put the 2021 bucks. I think that Janice in that 2021 season was a lesser superstar than some of the other superstars that we've seen, like LeBron in 2020 or Yolkitsch in 2023,

Steph in 2022, and Kauai in 2019. I think he was behind all of those guys in terms of where the level he was playing at. in that particular postseason run. That team also in terms of just top-to-bottom talent, in terms of the quality of teams they beat along the way. Like you beat the Trey Young Hawks in the conference final and the Devin Booker, Chris Paul Sons, and the NBA Finals.

So I put the bucks at the bottom of that list. Number five, I put the 2019 Raptors. Similar to the Yonest thing, I think Kauai is beneath Steph, Yokic, and LeBron in terms of like that top-tier superstar power. That team was amazing defensively at a big look and a small look, an awesome home court advantage. Really, really good team,

but I don't think they're better than any of the teams above them. 2002 Warriors, I put in at fourth. The main reason why I have that team down further is like their second best player and third best player were basically like Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins in some order. I go Andrew Wiggins too, and then like, you know, Jordan Poole,

then Draymond Green obviously was amazing defensively in that postseason run. Clay Thompson had a huge fingerprint on the NBA finals with his defense on Jalen Brown. It was an excellent team that overachieved and won a title with one of the all-time great players in NBA history in Steph Curry leading the way. But in terms of just sheer force of talent,

that that was not something that that Golden State team brought to the table. So I had them a little bit lower. At three, I have the 2024 Celtics. And the main case there is just overwhelming force of talent, right? you have five players in the open market that would fetch 30 plus million. Al Horford, if he was a free agent tomorrow, and would probably be in that like 15 to 20 million range. Like, they just have an absurdity of talent.

They have an excellent coach in Joe Missoula, who really won me over in a big way in this postseason run. It's been really fascinating just to get a better exposure to the attempts that he's made this year to try to shape the Celtics into a team-oriented offense that trust each other and Hunt's quality looks. This was a Celtics team that I didn't really enjoy watching that much during the regular season because of their reticence to really buy into Missoula ball and what he was asking them to do.

And I actually genuinely enjoy watching the Celtics now in a way that I did it earlier because they're playing a brand of basketball that I believe is championship worthy. They've won me over in a big way. Jalen Brown, I think, has ascended into that second tier of superstars. awesome team. One limitation is they just don't have an Apex Star. Number two, I put the 2023 Denver Nuggets. I think that Nicola Yokic was and still is the best player in the world. We'll get into some of those specifics here. I think there's some of it in this mailbag, but definitely over the offseason. But the one limitation there, why I have

them below the Lakers is their second best player, obviously was Jamal Murray, who, in my opinion, is in that like 15 to 20 range. A lot of like really well, fitting players, but most of that team came down to Nicola Yokic and what he could do and his unbelievable level of dominance. The reason why I have the 2020 Lakers at 1, and look, I get it, I'm biased. I'm a Lakers fan. I'm a LeBron James fan. And by the way, if you guys disagree, I just want to see your rankings. Drop your rankings in the comments. You guys know I go through and read the comments. So drop your individual rankings on the teams and put your reasoning, and I'll read through it. And I want to hear your guys' take. My take is simple. The 2020 Lakers were the

team in that group that had two top-tier superstars. Anthony Davis, say what you want about him. Say what you want about what he's become. Say what you want about what he used to be. But in that 2020 season, he was unquestionably one of the five best players in the league. He had this, like, deadly mid-range ISO pull-up jump shot attack. He legitimately could space the floor from the three-point line and hit a game-winning three-point shot in that playoff series.

He was a dominant low post force, and he is the best team. defensive player in the world who had one of the best defensive playoff runs that we've ever seen. And LeBron James in 2020 was the best player in the world, in my opinion. Should have one MVP. That was the year everyone bought into Janus's advanced metrics just because they kicked the shit out of everybody in a bad Eastern conference. That team had, in my opinion, the best player in the world in LeBron and the fourth best player in the world in Anthony Davis, while also being a elite defensive team down the roster. There is no other team in that list. Denver did not have two top five players. This Boston team does not have two top five players. That Warriors team did not

have two top five players. Neither did the rafters. Neither did the bucks. And so that's my case. And so what I want you guys to do, if you're arguing with me and you're saying, Jason, you're an idiot, you're a biased Lakers fan. Why do you have the Lakers at one? Tell me what of those other teams conquers the fact that the Lakers had two of the top five players in the world during that span. That's where I think is a good spot to kind of start that debate. But we can get into that more in in some mailbags down the line. Next question. Even though the NBA has a lot of young talented players, why does it

not feel as exciting? I thought this was pretty simple. One, the Eastern Conference playoff picture was just really bad this year. Two, we have had back-to-back seasons. This is crazy. I had to go back and look at it. Back-to-back seasons where in the conference finals, the team jumped up

3-0 in both conferences. Miami went up 3-0 on Boston last year, Denver went up 3-0 on the Lakers. Dallas went up 3-0 in Minnesota this year. Boston win a 3-0 on the Pacers. Then we go into the NBA finals. Denver kicked the shit out of Miami last year and Boston's kicking the shit out of Dallas.

So for back-to-back seasons, the second half of the playoff picture has just been garbage. And so I think that that has kind of taken some of the excitement out of it. But I think a lot of that has to do with matchups, a lot of that has to do with health. So with the team,

the league getting deeper and more and more good teams entering the picture, I do think that we'll have more exciting playoff runs down the line. Do you think the finals MVP is locked in for Jalen Brown. Or depending on if it's a sweep in how each J.T. and him perform,

could it defer to Jason Tatum, love the show, keep it up? So I think Jalen Brown is the clear finals MVP to this point. He's been better statistically. He has the two most iconic plays of the series, those two one-handed dunks that he had, even on the block of PJ Washington

in transition at the end of game two. It was Derek White was in there, but so was Jalen Brown. He hit three of the biggest shots in the series that driving left-handed layup on Maxi Caliba as well as the pull-up jump shots that he hit last night. I think Jalen Brown is clearly the finals MVP to this point. Obviously, if J.B. goes for 12 in game four

and Tatum goes for 40, and it's a super close game, you could see potentially it's swinging the other way. But to me, Jailen Brown's clearly the finals MVP to this point. As far as the other element to it, which is like Jason Tatum's responsibilities, which are he gets double team more. Obviously, him being on the center is the primary, defensive function that has caused Dallas's offense to fall apart. I do think Tatum's impact in this

series is underrated. He's been better than what you would think looking at the box score. That said, Jalen Brown also has done a lot of stuff in the details. He's been one of the main guys getting them in rotation defensively. He's been the guy that's been picking up Luca full court in applying all that ball pressure and doing all that work. To me, even though Jason Tatum has a lot beneath the box score that he's been doing well, it's not enough to make up for the gap, and I think Jalen Brown deserves to win finals MVP. Do you think the Celtics can continue to win championships if Tatum isn't playing at a top five level? Because it's pretty clear that he won't reach that top tier. As long as those five guys are together, even just Horford and

with those four guys, yeah, forget about it. Let's just take the center position out of it. As long as Eric White, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, and Drew Holiday are together, I think that they're going to have a really good chance to win. I agree with Colin last night. He said that the Celtics team is too weird to like win three or four in a row. I agree with that. But they're too talented to not win at least one and to be in the picture every year. And if they're in the picture every year, all it takes as an injury here, favorable matchup there to get a win. And so I think if someone asked me, is it more likely than not that Boston wins another one in the next two seasons? I'd say yes. I think it's more likely than not that Boston wins another one at some point in the next two seasons.

They're durable. They're young. They're athletic. They just, they check so much. boxes they're just going to be in the picture. That said, every team that won the championship over the last six years, do you guys remember Nuggets fans last year? All summer long, how confident and arrogant they were. Remember Warriors fans the year before? Remember Bucks fans the year before that?

Remember Lakers fans? I mean, we're still arrogant. You know what I mean? So, like, we like, you got to remember that like every team that hoist the trophy thinks they're the team that figured it out. They're about to go on to run. Boston, actually, I do think, has a chance to win multiple. So does Denver. But we found out pretty quickly that it was kind of a

flash and a pan thing with that Warriors team and with that Bucks team, right? So something to keep in mind. Let's see. We'll do one more and then we'll get out of here. Hey, Jason, love the work you've been doing. You've really made me fall in love with the game again. My question is, did this year's playoffs affect how you look at future playoff series and if it did, how so. So this has been, and we're going to do a deeper version of this right after the NBA finals end. It'll probably be one of the early videos we do next week. Every year, if those of you guys who follow the show, I do like five biggest lessons I learned. But if I had to give like a quick elevator John, it's pretty simple to me. I do think it's important to run five out offense. You guys who have

followed the show for a while know that I used to be a huge proponent, not a huge proponent, but a defender of that four-out kind of brute force type of attack. But when you have the four-out brute force kind of attack, I think you need multiple physically imposing players for that to work. And I think that one of the things that's happened is Dallas has been reliant a lot on pull-up jump shooting because of this adjustment that Boston's made. And it's kind of stagnated things. It's made the role players play poorly, Kyrie and Luca haven't been able to hit enough of them, right? And so I think teams that have more ball and player movement that keep all five players

involved just have some more resilience when they get to the later levels of the playoffs. So like to me, ideally, you want to run a five out offense with five offensive threats. They don't all have to be shooters, but they all need to be offensive threats in some way, shape, or form, even if it's just like a screener and cutter, right? But I think that that's an important piece that I'd look at, like, I think that that's an important lesson to learn is that teams that run first. five out, multiple

threats, lots of ball and player movement. On the other end of the floor, again, this is something that I've always believed, but I think has been hammered home in a big way in this postseason, defensive versatility.

You have to be able to guard multiple ways. If you can load up on a team to guard, that's great, but you better be able to guard a team that spreads you out as well, a team that can test your perimeter defense and test your ability to contain in rotation. So next year,

when we see a team that has a great defensive rating that loads up the paint and drop coverage and uses the low man and loads up the strong side, but they have multiple weak perimeter defensive points. Just something to keep in mind as we go into the postseason. We'll get into way more detail about that when we get into this summer. As always, I appreciate you guys for participating in the mailbag and for supporting the show.

We're going to be back tomorrow night. No calling tomorrow, just me live after the final buzzer of game four. I will see you guys then. The volume. 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 acapella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm CJ Tollad. Dono, it's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs.

We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was funny. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis come until he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love.

This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva. and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS.

Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to futas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every woman my age want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes? They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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