The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Steph Curry & Warriors fall to Jokic-less Nuggets, why Denver is West's favorite

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Jason Timpf reacts to Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and the Golden State Warriors' 112-110 loss to the Denver Nuggets, who were missing Nikola Jokic. Is it panic time in Golden State? Jason later discusses why the Nuggets are currently his pick to represent the Western Conference in the NBA Finals despite having LeBron James' Lakers, Kevin Durant's Suns, and the Warriors as threats. Later, Timpf reacts to Anthony Davis' 40-point performance in the Los Angeles Lakers' 134-109 win over the Houston Rockets. Is AD on the same level as Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid? And with six wins in their last seven games, have LeBron James and the Lakers established themselves as a Western Conference favorite? Later, Jason reacts to Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks' 117-104 win over Joel Embiid, James Harden, and the Philadelphia 76ers. Lastly, Jason discusses if Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and the Dallas Mavericks can kiss their season goodbye following seven losses in their last eight games. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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on YouTube or on the podcast feed, the AMP is the very first place that you guys can get these shows. The Golden State Warriors are only capable of playing incredibly hectic comeback, fourth quarter type of games. And they suffer a really disappointing loss in Denver, but I thought it was another indication of some of their athleticism limitations. We're going to dive into that a little bit. Then we're going to have our guy Carson come on.

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So, you know, there's this separation between the winning core of the warriors and what they can do to grind out wins. You know, it's funny when I was a younger basketball player here in the city of Tucson, and I'd play in the men's leagues and stuff around town. We would frequently lose to older teams that didn't have as much talented as us, but they just kind of knew how to play, right? And that sort of basketball IQ, fierce competitiveness, sheer force of will, whatever your elite top-end talent is that your specific team has,

you can ride that a certain extent. But at the end of the day, this is a contact sport, and there's a great deal of, there's a great many physical confrontations taking place on the court. I remember, I'm a Cowboys fan, and I remember in the mid-2010s when their offensive line was so damn good, like they'd roll up into Green Bay to play the Packers. And yeah, they're not as good as Aaron Rogers and Richard Rogers and everybody that was on that team. But they would just dominate the line of scrimmage and run the ball wherever they needed to go and eat two-up clock, dominate. time of possession and they'd win. And it didn't matter what kind of skill advantages that the Packers had or whatever team the Cowboys were playing had. And I've always said that like those physical confrontations, that athleticism, whether that's perimeter defense and containing the ball,

crashing the offensive glass or the defensive glass, running up and down the floor and transition, all of those things are the physical battles that take place on the basketball court. And if you lose all of those, you have to be damn near perfect everywhere else. And, you know, Denver has a lot of athletes on the roster. Peyton Watson, just again, how many times in the NBA do we have to see whether it's, you know, a guy like a guy like Peyton Watson, what we've seen just Jonathan Camingo with the Warriors flying around here the second half of the season on the Lakers, guys like Jared Vanderbilt or guys like Wenian Gabriel. We see this type, this archetype of player around the league. And if you're taller than six, seven and you're athletic and you're athletic and you're,

you just play your ass off, you can impact the game of basketball in a lot of different ways just by flying around. Payton Watson was everywhere in the second half of this game, making plays just with his length and athleticism. Christian Braun, Bruce Brown. That Denver bench is athletic. And here's the thing. With that Warriors roster, even though they've added Gary Payton, now the reality is, is without Andrew Wiggins, they're a significantly below average team in the NBA from the same point of athleticism. And you can win and overcome that. You just have to be perfect. We're going to get into this a little bit deeper when we talk about the Mavericks later on in the show. But like Stefan and Clay couldn't make a three in this game.

I think they were six for 26 up until that final sequence. I can't remember what they actually finished as, but they weren't shooting very well. And if they're not going to shoot well, they can't overcome those physical disadvantages. Same thing with Kyrie and Luca. Kare and Luca have to be damn near perfect to make up for the limitations that they have elsewhere on the roster. It's just a lot to ask. And, you know, again, I think we've seen a lot of this narrative with the nuggets as it pertains to Yokic's MVP case, trying to minimize the talent that's on this Denver roster. And the reality is, is it's a lot of the same issues that I've been talking about with

the Lakers having to do with staggering. They just, they play their starters together all the time. And then they bring in these line shift bench groups. and as a result, those groups really struggle because they don't have nearly enough talent because they don't stagger their players very well. They do occasionally, but not nearly as much as some of the other teams in the league. And so you get these absurd point differentials. I'm sure some of you guys who were listening to the NBA TV broadcast tonight,

they had a graphic that they put up on the screen showing what the nuggets are when Yokic is on the floor and what the nuggets are when Yokic is off the floor. And you'll see differentials there with the best players in the league often. That's normal. they're your best player. And obviously in the NBA, the singular best player on your team has more impact on winning than just about any other team sport. And so obviously removing that kind of guy off the floor, you're going to see a drop off that goes around the entire league, regardless of which player we're talking about. But the reality is, is Denver, even though it doesn't

have the same kind of big names that you see in some of these other supporting cast, like when you go to the Bucks, you know, Brooke Lopez and Drew Holiday and Chris Middleton, they're a little bit more renowned around the league, right? When you go to Philly, James Harden, obviously, is considered a superstar, even if he's probably on the tail end of that side of things. Tyrese Max, he was off the charts good again tonight with his shot making. He's a guy that you think of as like a star guard. So you think of those rosters as more talented. And I think they are probably, but not much. And the truth is, is that that Denver roster has a lot of professional NBA starting level basketball players that complement Nicolioch extremely well. And they do have a good amount of size on the

perimeter. What's Golden State's biggest weakness? Perimeter size, right? Especially without Andrew Wiggins. Without perimeter size, you buy opportunities to shoot over the top for people, right? So like, you know, if the Warriors have to put Jonathan Kaminga to try to handle a guy like Jamal Murray on any given possession, then guess what? Michael Porter Jr. is going to be isoing Steph Curry. And And Steph competes defensively and he puts in all the effort. But the reality is, is if Steph contests a Michael Porter Jr. Hesitation pull up three, he's not bothering that shot. He's just not.

He's just giving up too many inches there, right? So like Michael Porter Jr., just consistently getting to his spots and elevating and knocking shots down. Aaron Gordon has to do everything forward. Contavius Caldwell Pope, one of the most professional two guards that you have in the league that just does everything well that you need in a supporting player. on an NBA roster. They have a lot of talent, a lot of athleticism.

This is a good team. And guess what? Jamal Murray, he's capable of hitting all of the high level shots that the other stars around the league hit. This game kind of got off the rails there in that early fourth quarter. Who was it that was hitting the shots? It was Jamal Murray flying through, I think it was an elevator screen at the top of the key and knocking down his shot or the nuggets forcing a turnover and Jamal Murray

dribbling down the floor and pulling up from three. I think, you know, I don't know how. many times we have to see this, whether it's with the Lakers and how bad they looked with LeBron James and Anthony Davis and a bunch of like terrible role players versus good NBA starter level role players or this Warriors team who has struggled so much this season, compared to last season because of just dropping two significant role players that they used to count on. Third, if you count for Andrew Wiggins getting out of the lineup. We just, in NBA history, we've way too frequently applied too much credit to start.

They absolutely are the determining factor for a team ceiling that goes without saying, but you do need good basketball players down the roster. And Denver has a lot of really good basketball players. And that's why, as of right now, if the season war to end today, I mean, we'll see how things go with the Lakers and matchups. And Andrew Wiggins, I saw a report yesterday that potentially he's returned to the Bay Area. I don't know if that means he's nearing a return to the team or not. apparently he had been out of San Francisco before that, right? So like obviously some things can shake

up at the bottom of the West, but right in the suns won again tonight in Oklahoma City. Kevin Durant looked amazing, big shock that that poor shooting night the other night was an anomaly. So there are teams in the bottom that could potentially enter this mix, but Denver to me remains the safest bet for the time being until we see a matchups because they just have that top tier superstar. They've got the supporting players that fit perfectly with him. They have. They have. have home court advantage. And statistically speaking, one of the best home court advantages in sports because of elevation, they're just in a really good spot.

And that's why if the season were to, if I had to make a pick right now, I think the nuggets are the safest pick, even though there are lots of threats in the conference. All right, guys, we're going to get to a bunch of other topics around the league, but we're going to wait for my guy Carson to call on. Carson, what's up, buddy? It is good to see you, my friend. Good to see you too, man.

So as you said, a lot we want to hit on here. Let's start with this. Anthony Davis has been on an unbelievable stretch as of late. He's at 37 or more points in four of his last five games. Is he now playing well enough to be considered in the same tier as Yolkich and Bede when we're talking about that absolute top class of big men around the league? Dude, I'm so excited to talk about this with you. You're the specific person that I think is the perfect person to have this.

discussion with because you're a huge yokech fan i as of late have ranked mbeed above him and obviously anthony davis is on this tear i'm excited to get into it that was an impressive win for the lakers by the way they went down into houston and and just crushed them and uh anthony davis looked great lebron james was just playing old man ball passing the basketball around ruby hachamura just yeah i i've always said position battles are like the best thing to bring out the best in a basketball player and it's like, hey, dude, do all the dirty work or sit behind Jared Vanderbilt. And he stepped in and he's playing really well. It's a good win. The Lakers are looking really, really good. As of right now, they are literally tied in the loss column for the five seat. Can you believe that after this season?

But so here's, this is my, this is my take, Carson. I think that Anthony Davis is in the same tier with those guys, but does not have a case to be considered above them. Um, again, you have to factor in availability with this stuff. Like I frequently get in trouble with Laker fans who act like I don't value Anthony Davis when simply I look at it from the standpoint of what he looks like when he's available and in a rhythm versus when he's dealing with injuries.

And the fact of the matter is is he's not been able to finish a playoff series healthy since he hoisted the trophy. That's just a fact. And that's an important footnote on Anthony Davis's career. He has the ability to clear that reputation, right? Just like Joel Embed, has in recent seasons by playing through pain and being more available to his team. But like when I look at

it, you know, he's not the same offensive player as Joelle and Nicola Yocch. That's obvious. He's not the same level of isolation score or post score that Joel Embed is. He's not the same pass or not in the same stratosphere. Neither is Joe Lombid to Nicola Yokic. But I do think he's a significantly better defensive player than both of them. I think his ability to protect the rim supersedes. both by a significant margin, and he has the versatility to switch out onto the perimeter. He's the ideal small ball big in NBA history. I've often said that, you know, Anthony Davis has never had the case to say he's the best defensive player in the league because of his availability.

But I do think his defensive ceiling is as high, if not higher, than any player in the NBA. And make no mistake, he's not a slouch on the offensive end of the floor. We've seen it recently. This is a third consecutive game with 38 plus points. He's gone for 35 plus 13 times this year. Most of his scoring average stuff, which, which dude, he's still averaging 26 points per game. It's not like he's got some low average, but he does have issues with consistency of aggression. He does have issues when it comes to settling for jump shots from time to time.

But when he is engaged, healthy, trusting his foot and locked in on both ends of the floor, he's every bit as impactful as Yokicin and B when they're at that same level. So I'm curious to say, do you think I'm jumping the gun there? Do you think there's a gap or do you buy AD as that level? player. I think when we're talking about ceilings, absolutely. And there's plenty of evidence for that. I mean, Anthony Davis 2020 in the bubble run was viewed as a bona fide top three, top four player in the world, had one of the best two-way runs that we've ever seen. And sure, that was a bit unfair because he just decided he was going to shoot 38% from deep, which

he's never seen from him in any other stretch of his basketball career. But never was. The ceiling, you're right. When he's available, is best defensive player on the plan. And we've seen some offensive production from him this year that we've never seen before in terms of the skill. And I think that that's a huge reason this has been such an awesome season for him. Like the dominance that he's had in that short range shot making outside the restricted area, but his hooks and his floaters, 48% on those shots is 8% up from last year almost. He's been significantly better for midrange. And he's stopped taking a lot of the bad jump shots, I feel, at least in comparison to some of these previous years.

like 80's been a horrible three-point shooter for the last three years now, and he's taking less of them this year. And I think that's just a benefit to his game. He's been aggressive. He's been physical. He's been efficient. Like, if you look at these last two games, I think he has 13 offensive boards,

and he's creating second chance opportunities for himself, off his own misses, it's like when ADC's Alperin-Sangoon and goes right into his chest and either just goes through him and gets a layup or puts up that little touch shot, that's awesome when he consistently does that. He's at an awesome rebounding season, great defensive player,

the Lakers are a top three defense when he plays. They're a bottom five defense when he doesn't. Like, this is what Anthony Davis can be. He's a wrecking ball. Yes, he's not as good of a pure score of the basketball as Duelan Lameed. He's not nearly the offensive player that Yolkid. But his two-way ceiling has got to be the highest because he can hang 40 on you in four out of five games and be the best defensive player by far out of these three.

The difference is just the consistency. And it's not just availability, Jason, those two, has these perennial MVP candidates, a status that they've been. both earned as these consistent carry their team night to night guys just have a different level of consistency. Yokic may not take 15 shots every single game. He's going to touch the ball 110 times. He's going to dictate basically every possession and he's going to lead to lead offense. And Bid is basically just going to get his 30 and be the most important defensive piece for the sixes every night. And AD just has never had that consistency, the aggression, the mentality,

like even in the last few weeks, among these incredible. masterpieces, you have that eight-point game. You have a pair of 15-point games. Like, it's just different. And that's why I think those two guys have to have the edge. But yes, AD has proven it. And he had these two years of, like, shocking regression. But this AD right now is as good as bubble AD.

He is. I mean, he's added new elements to his game more consistently that are more legitimate, in my opinion, than him having a 38% three-point shooting run that was just never going to be replicated. So, no, I don't think that you're out of bounds. It's the consistency that separates these three to me. That the level of footwork he's been demonstrating, particularly in the last two games. It's like old school, Hakeem Olajuwon, like pivot, spin over both shoulders.

He actually looks a touch quicker than he has in the last couple of years. I think it's just a product of how much the Lakers have needed to lean on him as of late and him just drop and wait. Look, here's the thing. When you're putting together a list, you have to put Yokic in and beat in front. They've earned that right. but I mean, I would argue, especially in a playoff setting, if he's healthy in a playoff series, there's a case. I'm not saying I would necessarily take that pick, but there's a case that AD is the guy that you would pick for a series. Again, looking back to

2020, he was definitively a top four player, I thought. When you were looking at it, it was like LeBron, Steph, and KD were all still clearly ahead. But like coming out of that 2020 playoff. Now, Janus has since laughed him. That's a fact. But coming out of the 2020 playoff run, if you had Janus over 80, you were the crazy guy. Like, because Janus and his lack of half court polish showed up in a

big, ugly way in that Miami series. And Anthony Davis was the half court, you know, like tip of the spear for that Lakers team. And they would just dump the ball to him with seven seconds on the shot clock. And they were scoring healthy over a point per possession. Like, he definitely is

deserving of being in that in that tier at least when we're evaluating for a playoff series. Before we move on really quick, I wanted to ask you. I said that Joe Limbid's play here the second half of the season has demonstrated to me that I think he's a slightly better player than Yokic. Are you ready to make that pick or do you disagree with me? No, I'm not quite ready to go there because I think that there is still an offensive gap that is really underrated.

Like the elevation that we see from Yokic night to night, it's unbelievable. And I agree with everything that you've laid. out about the Nuggets playing their starters as much as they do together and that sort of messing with some of the team impact stats. But the bottom line is that Yokic still consistently leads the best offensive basketball or a top three offense. What has been the best team in the West consistently this year by far. And he does that all while being a liability defensively. I just think he is a generational easily top 10 offensive player of all time. And that to me makes up for the defensive gap where I just feel that Embed is a bit overrated. I still think he's a plodding guy

who can be exposed in space. He's a good rim protector, but is holding guys like 2% below their average shooting percentage around the rim this year. So it's not a dominant. Like, Yonis is 16, right? Yonis is this unfathomable helpside rim protector. Mbid is big. He takes up a lot of space.

He's good there. But I don't think he's great. So, no, I'm not quite there with you. And I will say, if we're going to have this whole, hey, both these guys need to prove more in the playoffs, Yon has been way better in the playoffs than Mbid. And Bid has maybe one. once played up to expectations in a playoff series.

Yokic has done everything. He's just been exploited a bit more defensively. But offensively, he's been every bit as brilliant as ever, maybe even more so because he's more aggressive. So that's interesting. I actually go the opposite direction on the playoff side. I think they've been more even. I think Embed's been a much better playoff defensive player than Nicolioch.

But the big thing with Embed is his jump shot falling apart when he reaches that stage. And that's such a pivotal, important part of his game. And that's going to be what I'm keeping an eye on in this playoff run. but I don't think it's fair to give a playoff edge to either of them. Because like sometimes with them B2, like do you remember that Rafter series a couple years ago where it was like, he was shooting terribly. It was like he shot like 33% from the field for the series.

But like they just dominated the rafters whenever he was on the floor and got their ass kicked every time he was off the floor. Like I do, I do think. Oh, are we using on off? Are we using on off stuff now, Jason? Very interesting pivot. Yeah. I don't know.

I just think we've consistently seen. efficiency in production drop with Mbid. Like he's under 47% from the field in his playoff career under 30% from 3, 24 a game. That's just not the same Mb that we've seen in the regular season. It's absolute monster. So I would say Yokic has been the better playoff player. But I mean, AD, just to bring it back to him, has fought his way back into this conversation. He's earned it.

He fell way out of it. And he had a stretch earlier this year, which now, I mean, he's had that second unbelievable run. But the nine game stretch where he averaged 35, 15, and three blocks. per game. Literally nobody has ever done that. Akeem, David Robinson, Shaq. You know, Wilts probably did it 100 times, but they didn't track blocks. And he did it on 72% true shooting.

So it's like, you can't deny what he's capable of. It's just let's see it more consistently. And hopefully in an actual playoff run this year, if the Lakers can get it all together. That would be a lot of fun because I hate to see wasted potential, Jason. It's, it's no fun. Let's pivot to another game that we saw tonight between a couple of Titans Out East, including Joe L. Embed,

Bucks beat the Sixers. What did you take away from that game? You know, it was interesting. I, I, the, Janus and the Bucks needed this game. More than, more than I think, Philly did. Obviously, it was an opportunity for Embed to put another stamp on the MVP race, which he passed on in the Denver game, which I, I, actually, I want to, we're going to take a, we're going to take a quick break here.

Did you have anything to say about Embed's keeping that Nuggets game the other night? No, not other than, I think. that while this is a conversation we'll have later, I'm growing increasingly anti-load management, but if it makes sense for anyone, it's Embed in his third game in four nights. I was just surprised that he would even allow that after the interview came out that morning. I'm like, that's just a bad look, but no, I do not think Abed is ducking Yokic, and I think that if you think that, that's ridiculous. Carson, he thinks he's better.

He played 13 straight games. Oh, you think he's ducking? That one. Then played every game since. I'm not saying he's, I'm not saying he's ducking him, but it's not a good look. It's not a good look to play 13 straight games, including a back to back without James Hardin, games that you probably were going to lose anyway to then skip that particular game. When that game, we know from the straw poll that the MVP race was on like the 50 yard line.

Like it was dead heat between Yokachin and B. Like it's, it was there for the taking. And again, like it was to me, it was just like, the part that I couldn't figure out was just from the standpoint of as a competitor. And like, how do you not want to try to beat him again? You know, but that said, like, I, maybe I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it was, he had some tightness in his calf and he just decided to rest. But it was weird to play 13 consecutive games and then to hop back for those last two.

But so in this particular game, the Bucks came out with a much higher defensive energy. They were, the big schematic thing that stood out to me from this game, out from their last matchup was just Janus sticking, uh, sticking Janus on PJ Tucker in the weak side corner. And he's already the most devastating help defender in the league. Because again, you guys got to think of it this way. Like James Hardin coming off of a ball screen, they like to trap, right? You'd like to be able to show high, not necessarily trap, but bring your ball screen defender up high out to hedge so that James Harding can get downhill or to his pull up three and you're chasing him over the top of the screen. So you're throwing that pocket pass to Joel

and beat at the free throw line. And Janus is just waiting for him there every single time in help. And then he's such a great athlete that even when there's good shooters out there, he can get a good contest. But here's the thing. Philly's the best spot up team in the league. But PJ Tucker's not one of those guys. And again, he tries to impact the game as best as he can in that position.

But, I mean, they basically played the bucks to a draw when Tucker was off the floor and got their ass kicked when Tucker was on the floor. And I thought a big part of that was Janus and help. And then a big underrated part of that too. is especially against teams like Philly that are bad transition defenses. I look at like positioning Janus and help as the perfect transition start. You know, like he's Tucker's in the corner. He's standing getting uncontested rebounds on all of the missed shots that take place in that action.

And he's just grabbing and going every single time. And again, when he's when he's, and I thought he passed the ball pretty well in this particular game, I think he only had like four assists, but he was making the right. reads and making Philly pay every time they sent extra defenders. And that was just getting him better opportunities to get downhill. It just, again, it's urgency and physicality and all the effort stuff that went Milwaukee's way as a huge swing factor. But that's the biggest matchup piece that stood out to me because if you have to take PJ Tucker off the floor, that's the guy you want to guard Janus with on the other end of the floor. Right. So it's just it's a, it's a pretty tough

give and take. And then the one other thing was just the Grayson Allen injury, tweaked his ankle on like kind of a funky step on the baseline. And that specific position has been a little bit of an issue for the Bucks because Pat Conninton hasn't played especially well. And when they size up and go with guys like Ingalls and Jay Crowder, they really struggle to contain on the perimeter, which we saw in the Celtics game. So like, it's just that that's a really unfortunate little ankle twist here. It's so close to the playoffs. But hopefully they'll have a good enough first round matchup that it won't bother them too much. Yeah. I agree with everyone. everything you laid out. This also just felt like a game where it was kind of like, hey, Milwaukee's just better. I mean, when you get this level of impact from Drew and Middleton and Bobby Ports had a great game, Yonis got whatever he wanted. He missed four shots. Two of them were just dumb jump shots. That I'm honest, why do you still do this? You know, the top of the key three had a weird pull-up jumper. And the one thing I do think that was interesting on top of everything you said is Mbid is not always a guy who needs to get all the way to the rim to be super effective, right? Because he's such a lethal.

pull-up jump shooter if it's off the short roll getting that free throw line. He can kill you from everywhere. He can also kill you just get into the line. But we do know how dominant Milwaukee's interior defense is. It did feel like Embed was settling a bit in this game at times. One of seven from deep. Only, I believe, attempted, he only made two shots inside of five feet in that restricted area all game and he took 25 of them.

So I thought that they did a good job on him. But I do agree. It just felt like there was more urgency. There was more intensity for Milwaukee. And in a regular season game like this, that can really be. a majority of the difference. Let's talk about the Dallas Mavericks, Jason, because they lost again tonight in the Hawks in overtime.

They're now a game back of Oklahoma City for that 10 seed, but they're effectively two games back because they do not have the tiebreaker. This is with three games remaining for each of these teams. Are they dead? Man, it's close. Oklahoma City gave Phoenix a little bit of a run today. And had they won that game, it would have been over, over, like actually legitimately over.

But that was a really funky game. I'm not sure if you caught it, Carson, but our producer Ryan was joking with us earlier. He's like, he's like, why did Quinn Snyder wait so long to jump back into coaching just to take on that Atlanta Hawks job with Craig Young, the coach killer? They're just kind of like, it's funny because watching that game, like, as a basketball fan, I love watching Kyrie Irving so much. But everything else about watching those two teams play is just like,

makes me want to claw my eyes out, you know? there was a really weird sequence at the end of this one. Quinn Snyder tried to give it away. I don't know if you saw it, but when they got that offensive rebound off the missed Christian Wood free throw, they ran a lob play for Javelle McGee. There's only four tenths of a second left. And they had a click Capella way out to prepare to like show or to hedge on any sort of like

catch and shoot opportunity. And like the funny thing is to get a shot off in four tenths of a second. It has to be utterly perfect, right? And it just was so obvious that the biggest threat to them was the lob. and they just gave up that lob pass to, to, uh, uh, Javelle McGee. I did think it was, I'm going to, here's the thing. It's over. Like the, the, the Mavs, they don't have, it's the same issue we were talking about with the,

with the Golden State Warriors where like they just, it's, do they need perfection from Luca and Kairi to overcome their physical disadvantages? But I, as I've said many times when we've talked about this team, I'm, I don't really judge them this year. I mean, this is, there's no, there's no doubt that it's a catastrophe to entirely miss the playoffs, right? That's a catastrophe under any circumstance. But they were just going to get their ass kicked in a first round series against anybody, even if they happened to get out of the playing tournament. That was just the reality of their predicament. I did like what they went with down the

stretch of that game, though, with Christian Wood and Javail McGee on the floor. Uh-huh. Just going huge, just gives them a better fighting chance in the physicality areas of the game. By the way, McGee was a plus 13 and Christian Wood was a plus 10. And again, it probably won't be those two guys. But that's such a great example of that concept that I was talking about the last time we talked about the Mavericks. When you have surgical offensive players like Kyrie Irving and Luca Donchich, you can sacrifice offensive skill in your role players as long as they can compete with the physicality areas of the game.

So that's the blueprint right there. Go huge and athletic around Luca and Kyrie and let them make everything offensively. Obviously, it puts a lot on them as shopmakers. But again, this is a catastrophe. It's awful, but they were just going to get their ass kicked. And really, it's about next season, but you've seen the blueprint and how they need to go. Yeah, there's just a lot that needs to be improved upon. And that's where we're going to have to see some creativity this off season.

Like they have some mid-sized contracts here that they could potentially move, like a Tim Hardaway Jr., who does not merit what he's getting at this point. If you could attach something to the Bertan's contract, like maybe you can get somebody to take that on. You try to flip it into a really good two-way wing because they need that unequivocally. They need to upgrade in the front court all around, especially defensively. And I love Christian Wood. I always have because I was watching him in Detroit dropping 20 and 10 in these meaningless apricains. I was like, this guy's skilled.

He's athletic. He can handle. And I've always loved him for that. But the bottom line is that he can't play at the five for this team. When you have two liabilities at the point of attack and you don't have a great defensive wing, it doesn't matter all the fun things he can do off. Offensively. Your offense is going to be really good no matter what because you have Kyrie and Luca and he's going to hurt you defensively where you just can't afford to take any more damage. So that's what it's going to be all about. I agree with you. This is a bad look. It's embarrassing when you are coming off a conference finals run and you were like a top two team in the second half of last regular season and they were actually defending well and they had all this going right and then they let Brunson walk and we know that they could have had him for four years, 48 million if they had had the foresight and now he's a bona fide star. Like there's a lot that's gone wrong in Dallas.

And bringing Kyrie into this mix is a dangerous thing to add to the potion of disaster. But it's also potentially the thing that could save them. It just requires a lot going right. And there's a lot up in the air here. And I just don't feel great about where Dallas is at. And it's just a concerning dynamic overall, I would say. And in terms of if they can do it this year, sure. I mean, you know, they have the potential to explode offensively in any couple of matches.

They could beat Sacramento and Chicago and San Antonio, but it's like you said, it doesn't matter because they're one of the worst defenses in the league. They have been all year and they're not going to beat the nuggets right in a first round series. They're just too far behind on that. It's inevitable. Yeah. It's inevitable. Yeah. Let's take things big picture here for a second because we just had a new CBA that was agreed upon yesterday.

And a few key takeaways from that, Jason, comment on whatever you want. The NBA has basically moved towards limiting the spending that we can see from the teams that are most willing to spend high amounts in the league. So they've put a second salary cap apron, which is $17.5 million above the luxury tax that if you are above that, you can't even use the tax player mid-level exception to sign players. That was an interesting move. Other things that we saw in that CBA now was 65 game minimum for awards eligibility, a mid-season 2.5. tournament. What stands out to you from all that news that we got? You know, it's unfortunate because there are some good things in there, right? Like the mandatory minimums for awards. I think that will help. It'll never do the same thing as shortening the season, but that will help. I'm glad they

let the players start smoking weed. Like that, that's just the dumbest thing in the world when weed is is demonized the way that it is, but they're allowed to drink as much as they want. It's just silly. Right. So there's some things that I liked, but the reality was, is, did they, short in the season. No. So that doesn't, that doesn't send the game in the right direction, in my opinion. Like, the best way to get players to play games is to build in the rest into the schedule by spacing the games out more. Like, you know, how are you going to get a guy who makes $45 million a year to play a back-to-back against the thunder and the nuggets in February? You're just not going to be able to, right? And if you space the games out to where there are no

back-to-backs and there's multiple times a week where you're getting, or every single week, you have at least one stretch where you get two days off consecutively, like little things like that will effectively be your load management. That also increases the urgency of each game. By shortening the season, each game just like if you shorten season by 20%, each game becomes 20% more important. It's just simple math. And so I think that was the direction they needed to go. I mean, I'm going to keep an open mind about this midseason tournament thing. but like the reality is is I I can't imagine any do you think LeBron's going to care about a midseason tournament? Like do you think that that's an accolade that he's after?

Like no. So I have a hard time believing it's going to be anything more than just exhibition games if they don't have any impact on the standings. And so it's like and then the luxury tax penalties thing, it just does it's completely illogical to me. It's a it's a it's a lashing out reaction to this Kevin Duran. warrior situation where they ended up with the assets to get DeAngelo Russell to get Andrew Wiggins and they don't want to have that happen again where you have this massive payroll. But the reality of the situation is that that was a fluky occurrence with a massive cap spike that was not smoothed out with Steph Curry on a bargain contract.

It was the perfect storm of events that led to the Kevin Durant signing. Nobody's going to go sign a superstar this summer in the luxury tax. It's just silly to me. And most importantly, it punishes good teams who draft well. I would like to see them structure it in a way that makes it so that if you draft a player and your scouting department does their job to get a good player, that player should count to the cap differently than if you go out and sign a free agent. That's the way to add real fairness to this process, in my opinion.

So again, there's some good, but like I just think it's going in the wrong direction. The luxury thing to me makes no more sense at all. I agree with you completely. Like, you're going to punish really good teams who want to spend a lot of money who want to add that last quality role player. It's just completely illogical to me. The one point that really stands out to me is the 65 game minimum just in relation to that maybe being some sort of attempt to fix load management. Because we have seen a disaster in the last three years in the NBA. And I pulled these numbers a couple days ago because I was interested because I've just like, we are seeing stars sit so regularly.

In the last three years, Jason, All-Stars have missed 20% of regular season games and 10% of playoff games. So whatever the exact cause of this is, right? I don't know the exact split between legitimate injuries versus load management, but we can look back even to 2017-2019. Pace was similar, style was similar,

ground covered was similar, right? It should be a similar toll on your body. Guys, we're playing 8% more regular season games, 6% more playoff games. We are in a like completely unprecedented disaster in terms of players availability in the entire point of load management is, hey, we'll sacrifice the meaningless regular season game so our guys are ready for their playoff run.

We've seen 18 all-stars, Jason, miss 50 playoff games in the last two years. In 2014, not that long ago, zero all-stars missed a single game. I went back to 1988 to 90 because it was the most similar era in terms of a three-year span where we're looking at pace to right now. Guys played 96% of regular season games. All-Stars almost 99% of playoff games. So something is very wrong here. I think the season has to be shortened.

Load management doesn't seem to be the fix. But I don't know that this 65 game minimum is really going to help because I don't know the guys are load managing for 20 games. It's more probably like 10 to 12. But it sucks. It's tanking the product and it's not even working at what it's supposed to do. I was like nerd session right there. We listened to so much interesting information.

I agree. Officiating in load management, if they can fix those two pieces, I think the legal skyrocket because they have so much talent. All right, guys, that is all we have for today. No games tomorrow. So we're taking tomorrow off. We will be back either on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. I can't remember off the top of my head.

But as always, we appreciate your guys' support, and we will see you next time. 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, 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.

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