The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Steph & Warriors blow out Grizzlies, Giannis & Bucks dominate Celtics

Episode Date: May 8, 2022

Jason reacts to Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and the Warriors’ blow out Game 3 win over Ja Morant and the Grizzlies. He also discusses Giannis Antetokounmpo’s dominant performance as the Bucks held of a late comeback from Jayson Tatum and the Celtics to take a 2-1 series lead. #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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And apparently that's what's happening in my head as well. I hope all of you guys are having a great weekend so far. Awesome day of basketball. Before we get too far too much further into this, if we hear anything about what's going on with John Morant's knee, we will touch on it in the show. Obviously at this point, we do not know anything at this point. We are going to start by talking some warriors and grizzlies. Stick around for later in the show. We're going to break down. Celtics, Bucks, as well as the two games from last night, which turned a couple of, at the time, boring playoff series into much more interesting playoff series. That's what happens when one team that wasn't playing any defense started playing defense, and another team added their center, who may or may not be the best player in the league. So we will get to all of that. Make sure you guys stick around for the whole show. A couple of housekeeping notes, don't forget to like this video and subscribe to the channel. Check out our newsletter.

You can find the link to that in the description. to this video, it's a great way to keep up with all of our content. And then follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. That's where you can see all of my film breakdowns that go through some of the, we get into the weeds on this show a little bit. And it helps to see some video that backs up the things I'm talking about. But let's start with Golden State in Memphis. And before we get into some of the nitty gritty details of this game, I wanted to take a minute to talk about Jordan Poole because we've talked about him on the show before as a bridge, right? A bridge from two eras. You've got, you know, it's so important when you're trying to have sustained success

in the NBA to draft well and to make moves on the margins that keep your team filled with talent and not just talent, but new energy and new ambition, right? And when you're talking about, like, for instance, a San Antonio Spurs team, it's not that Tim Duncan didn't care as he got older or that Manu Genoblee and Tony Parker weren't, you know, as invested as they were when they were younger, but as their physical decline was taking place, they needed an influx of talent in order to bridge the gap long enough for the San Antonio management to try to bring in a new crop of stars, right? That's what Kauai Leonard represented to them.

And Kauai Leonard obviously kept that ship floating even to a greater extent that I think even Spurs management expected. But that's kind of what Jordan Poole has turned into for the Warriors, right? You've got this existing core group of stars in Steph Clay and Draymond, And then you've got this future of stars. You know, Moses Moody looks like a very good, you know, three and D type of wing. Jonathan Cominga looks like Jeff Green right now,

which again, the question becomes, does he become Jeff Green or Tracy McGrady from there? Because Jeff Green obviously didn't have the consistent ceiling to really be as valuable in the league as we all thought he would be. But Jonathan Caming has got all this flash of like freaky athletic, six-nine swing man who can guard multiple positions and, you know, create shots off the bounce and pressure the rim in a way that a lot of guys through Golden State have been able to over the years.

And then you have James Wiseman, who we don't know what the deal is with him. Obviously, missed this entire season. But they've got this new crop of stars and they've got this old crop of stars. But you can't tow both of those lines. It's a dangerous game to play. You get caught in the middle and it can be a problem. Well, Jordan Poole is so good already that he represents a bridge between those two eras. But what's even more interesting to me is the specific way that he adds so much

juice to this warrior's offense. If you look at the warrior's offense and what made it so great in the 2010s, it was a combination of a bunch of different things. It was Steph Curry and his ability to drag defenders away from the three point line. We talk a lot about guys taking defensive attention, but the vast majority of defensive attention that you saw in previous years in NBA history was rim attention, right? LeBron driving to the basket and everybody collapsing and him spraying out to shooters.

That's what you're used to sing. Well, Steph did like an inverse version of that where he was pulling guys away from the rim. And so suddenly, Golden State was running these four on threes on the back end and getting layups and dunks nonstop because no one was under the rim. What helped make that work was guys like Clay Thompson, who was an excellent three-point shooter, but also a great movement three-point shooter. And he was great at attacking closeouts. And so he was great at capitalizing on the attention that Steph would pull away from the rim. And then Dramon Green. and everyone knows what he does great offensively or defensively.

But one of the biggest things that he's brought to this team over the years is his playmaking out of the short role. So when guys send two bodies to Steph, Steph just hooks it over the top of Dremont. He's barreling down the middle of the floor. And if guys come into him, he's great at making reads out of that. That's kind of been the traditional organism of Golden State Warriors basketball. And it's always been important to have guys around those three that are smart, guys that can make quick decisions in four on threes. one thing they have never had, though,

is like a true straight line drive threat. Steph is very good at weaponizing his shooting to get past people, and that does apply rim pressure to a certain extent. Same thing with Clay, whether it's pump bacon drive or just guys closing out recklessly because they're terrified and him rolling to the rim, or Draymond rolling to the rim simply because no one's guarding him. They get that kind of rim pressure.

What they don't get is what you've seen from John Morant in this series, which is me staring you right in the face and me just going right around you because you can't keep me in front. They've never had that really athletic, like straight line drive threat. And you've seen how much that can damage a defense. This is a very good Golden State Warriors defense. They can't do anything with John Morant. They can't do anything with them because they cannot keep him in front.

Having that dynamic is a totally different type of offensive warping that comes on that creates openings for other people. Jordan Poole is that guy for this offense. He is the guy that can stare you in the face and hit a quick move, and he's already past you. But he's not just past you because you were pressing up on his shot. He's not past you as you're kind of slowly meandering your way into the lane. No, no, no.

He is flying by you, like a blur. And it just causes everybody to collapse around him. And what's amazing, he's actually a great passer, which is unusual for a player that age, especially a player that is this polished as a score. A lot of guys that come out looking like this are more scoring focus. They don't pay as much attention to the flow of an offense and things along those lines. What makes it especially dangerous is he's doing these things with Stefan Clay on the floor with him.

So when you've got Stefan Clay and Andrew Wiggins, by the way, a lot of people have a misplaced representation of Andrew Wiggins because of his career in Minnesota. He's turned himself into a bona fide three-and-d player, 40% three-point shooter on decent volume, obviously a great defensive player. But when you have Andrew Wiggins on the floor with Steph Curry and Clay Thompson, and you have a guy that can be a straight line driving threat, the way that Jordan Poole does, it adds this whole other dynamic to the offense. You know, when Steph was in his absolute peak, every single screen and roll at the top of the key was a trap.

Like every single time, no matter what, if you didn't trap step, you were going to get beat, right? So as a result, they were playing a ton of four on three. Well, you're seeing a little bit less of that as Steph has gotten older, having Jordan Poole be able to quickly compromise the defense with straight line drives is giving a lot more four on three opportunities, but with Steph actually involved in that action. It's been super, super interesting to see. And that's the dynamic that's going to make this team super interesting going forward.

Because I think Jordan Poole is going to be an all-star one day. And so when you have a guy who right now is like at this moment an all-star level player, that's a massive influx of talent. You know, that's what is allowing this group to age grace. Clay Thompson had a big night tonight, but he hasn't really looked the same since his injuries. Draymond Green is still the same defensive monster that he's always been, but he's never been able to recreate the offensive pop that he had in 2016, right? So a lot of like trying to get back to the amount of talent that was there in 2016 and 2017 has been a chore because of injuries

and because of aging, which is just the natural order of things. Having Jordan Poole come in here and play like this, that gives you time for Jonathan Kaminga to have three, four, five years to get better for James Wiseman to have three, four, five years to get better, and you not have to panic, trade them in pursuit of instantaneous talent. So if you're a Warriors fan, the Jordan Pool thing just has to be so incredibly exciting for you. Let's get into the game a little bit, though. This was an interesting game. Memphis, for as much as I've criticized them for not coming out serious a lot in this playoff from, they came out dead serious tonight. That was what was so strange about them getting blown out the way they did. Early on in the game, their dribble contain was

fantastic. They were defending really well on the perimeter. And John Morant just went right back to what he did at the end of game too. He was just getting into the lane and making easy kickouts to guys, and they were getting great shots every time. They jump out to an 18 to 8 lead. Golden State had eight turnovers in the first quarter. That was part of that, you know, Golden State through this entire era, there's been one consistent flaw. It's they don't take care of the basketball. And a team like Memphis that runs really well, they're going to put you behind the eight ball there. So Memphis jumps out to a big lead. I have a personal theory. A lot of people disagree with me about this, but I believe that it's actually better to get off to a slow start than it is to get off to a fantastic start

because I'm a big believer in like, you have to really lock in. And when you really lock in, it's hard to get out of that zone. But when you get out of it, it's hard to get back into it. And so a lot of times getting punched in the mouth is exactly what you need to lock in. And then the rest of the game, you're so dead eye focused. Whereas so many times you see something like that, you saw from Memphis. They come out and for like six minutes, they are locked in, but then they get a big lead. They let their foot off the gas and now they're getting punched in the mouth. And that was the dynamic that took place in that first quarter. But again, it was John Morant, you know, we have to stay a little bit positive on Memphis here. John Morant continues to be completely

unguardable. There's absolutely nothing they can do with them. They can't even keep them from hanging on the rim. He's just getting by people and dunking on everybody. He's so good at, like, you can't help out of the corners because he's just so reflexive with his passes to those corners. That dude is a flat-out star. I said on the show a while back during the regular season that I thought John Morant was better than Derek Rose, was better than Russell Westbrook. You know, like he's better than Donovan Mitchell,

better than all of these guys that came up that were your typical super freak athletic point cards. He's better than all of those guys. He's already a better shooter than any of those guys. He's flat out a superstar. But their biggest shortcoming right now is they don't have any offensive creation outside of him. If he's not creating something,

nobody else on Memphis can. At the end of the third quarter, Memphis was down by 21 points. Memphis didn't have a single player at that point in the game, other than Jha, that either had more than 10 points or more than three assists. So they didn't have anybody else on the team that they could lean on to create. I know Desmond Bain is dealing with a back issue right now, and that kind of stuff is really hard to gauge how much it's limiting a player.

But even when Desmond Bain was at his peak of health, he never was a great shot creator. He always was feeding off of attention dedicated to other people. He's more Clay Thompson than he is C.J. McCollum, as I always say on the show, Jaron Jackson Jr. has potential to attack mismatches, but he's so young and he's so undisciplined right now that he just doesn't understand how to read defense as well enough to really weaponize that the way you need to. He's kind of a bull in a china shop when he's attacking those mismatches.

So Jaws kind of stuck on an island trying to create everything. And that's going to be the big thing that meant. is going to have to address in this offseason if they do lose, is find somebody else that can consistently basically play the point forward role for them and start at the top of the key and try to help make decisions for people. But, you know, for as much as I can complain about Memphis's offense, it was their defense that cost in this game.

Specifically, dribble contain. You know, we talked about this in the Minnesota series. You know, Minnesota was one of the best teams in the league at keeping guys in front on the perimeter. I've talked a lot on this show about how, you know, back in the day, dribble contain was nowhere near as important because you had all these big guys around the basket. It had more to do with your rim protector, your help side defense, than your ability to keep people in front off of the drive. I think ironically, the 2020 Lakers won playing a vintage style.

They won having Javelle McGee under the basket with Anthony Davis. They won with Dwight Howard and Anthony Davis. Even when they went small, you know, was Anthony Davis and LeBron on that backline. The whole, Danny Green was not super quick with his feet. It wasn't great at keeping people in front. Contavius Calvo Pope was okay, not great. You know, Alex Crusoe was good at it, but they had a lot of guys that gave up line drives. They were just really good at funneling you into their help.

But as the league has evolved, now almost every team in the league is playing four or five guys that can all pass dribble and shoot. Look at this Warriors lineup. When you have Steph Curry on the floor with Clay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole, with, let's just say it's Draymond, those four guys can all, pass dribble and shoot really well. And then Draymond can pass and dribble really well. So if you get into a system where guys are getting beat off the dribble,

it's just one thing after another. Your defense is just all over the place. You can't hope to recover at that point. So at this point in the league, it's never been more important than it is right now to have guys that can sit in a defensive stance and at least make it hard for people to beat you off the dribble. There's a huge difference between Jordan Poole,

dusting somebody at the perimeter and having a full head of steam towards the rim and Jordan Poole having to do two or three moves and then a counter move because the dude slid once and he had to make a counter move and now he's spinning into the lane now he doesn't have a head of steam that gives much better opportunity for guys to help and recover off of that. No one's saying you can never give up a drive but you have to occasionally make it difficult to get a foot in the pain. It can't be easy all the time. And what you've seen tonight, and this is John Moran's, biggest weakness right now. And it's the biggest thing that's going to hold him back as his career

develops. He's going to have to really, really adopt this side of the basketball. It's got the athleticism for it, but you have to contain. John Moran is offering absolutely no resistance on the perimeter. And again, Memphis, their defensive structure is kind of vintage. They used to play two bigs all the time, but even when they don't, let's say Jaron Jackson's down there or Brandon Clark is down there. It's kind of like Desmond Bain's not a great dribble contain guy. Tyos Jones is not a great dribble-contained guy. De Anthony Milton's okay. Not great. John Moran's not a great dribble-contained guy. Kyle Anderson is slow-footed. They have a lot of guys that are great athletes, but in like a big athletic wing kind of way, not like a quick-laterally keep people in front of you kind of way.

And that put them behind the eight ball non-stop in this game, especially against the Golden State team. You know, the way that they play with their ball movement, it's especially difficult. difficult. Because of the predicaments that they put you in because of how threatening their players are off the ball. It's not like Golden State's job guarding John Morant is different. It's like they just have to deal with this one guy that keeps coming at them from the same spot on the floor. Top of the key, dribble drive. We had to figure out how to contain that. We had to figure out how help and recover off of that. The Steph Clay Jordan Poole thing, everyone's in a different spot of the floor each time down the floor. Everything looks different. Each possession is unique. It puts an

extra tax on your brain and your ability to stay focused and pay attention during that time. I thought another huge element in this game was Golden State's shooting regression. They shot like absolute shit in Game 2. They were Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Pools, Steph Curry, and Clay Thompson combined to go 7 for 36 from 3 in game 2. And on the tape, when I watch the tape, great looks, a lot of really good looks. There's some tough ones in there, but a lot of really good looks. Again, when you see shooting percentages, it always helps to go back and look at the tape. and just look at the quality of the shots.

Was it one of those nights or was a team defending you really well? Memphis was giving up a lot of really good shots to great shooters, especially in that second half, and Golden Sage's wasn't making them. Well, tonight, Wiggins, Poole, Steph and Clay went 11 for 21 from 3. That's great positive regression. Clay Thompson looked fantastic tonight. You know, specifically with these types of injuries,

I talk a lot on this show about rhythm. And I, you know, I appreciated that Draymond Green on his last episode specifically mentioned this, because, you know, again, those guys, I played at the college level, but these guys are pros. They have a lot more credibility than I do. To hear them say it, it carries more weight. But this is why I say that so often. You have to, you have to account for the fact that getting rhythm as a basketball player takes time, not just within the game, but also within a long span. Coming back from that many injuries, being away from the game for as long as Clay has been, he was never, even if he feels

fantastic. Even if you told me his body was more athletic than it was pre-injury, it takes a long time to dial it in. Think about what jump shooting is. Like, again, if I take a three, I'm 6-6, I have a 6-10 wingspan. So there's a lot of moving parts, right? Long arms. Like one slight millimeter mistake in alignment can mean a foot at the end of the shot. And if I'm taking shots from 24, 25 feet, like, it is a, it's a, it. is an exact science getting the ball to go through the rim often. And if you are off by just the slightest bit, it can take a long time to really dial in those details. And so for Clay, especially as a Warriors fan, you got to bear with him through some of that. You got to be willing

to, you got to be willing to understand that he's working through something. I remember when I broke my foot between my first and second year playing in college, like I played horrible and non-conference play, even though my body was back. It was just that all of that timing stuff was off. All of that rhythm stuff was off. Then I got into conference play, snapped into gear, and made the all-conference team. But like, if you looked at my numbers

and the way I played in the first half of the season, I was absolutely horrific because I was coming back from an injury, and it just takes time to get that stuff back. So seeing Clay look like himself again, and, you know, one of the big indicators with Clay is audacity. Him and Steph Curry, it's always been about the shots that they're willing to take. That's a great sign of where they're at mentally. And there was a stretch there in that third quarter where you could just tell Clay looked confident

again. There was a play where he caught the ball in the right corner. He knew exactly what was going to happen. He's like, I'm going to pump fake. This dude's going to go flying by me. I'm going to get a look. And he actually missed it. But it was like, you could just tell like in his head, he was processing things at the right speed finally. Later in the corner or earlier in the quarter, he made a one-legged running three going into the lane. And it like popped through the net. It was dead on. There's no chance he was missing it. So seeing Clay get a little bit back, that's, again, we talked about the influx of talent with Jordan Poole. That's kind of like another influx of talent. Having Clay Thompson regained some of his form. And obviously, defense is another

side of that. He'll have to get a little bit better. But it's good to see that Clay looks good. Looking forward in this series, game threes are tough because I almost always favor the home team in game three. It's their first home game of this series. The teams are already somewhat familiar with each other. So no one's getting surprised, right? And generally speaking, the home team playing in game three is added motivation advantage, unless they happen to steal both games on the road. But like, if you're looking at Golden State, they lost game two.

Should have won, blew an opportunity. They lost game two, right? And so this was a great opportunity for them to come into their home floor and regain control the series. You knew they had a motivational advantage. Same thing was going on with the Bucks. They got absolutely destroyed in game two. I know there was kind of like a second half

or things got a little bit more interesting, but they were down 65 to 40. 65 to 40. So they were going to come out on their home floor and want to take care of business. I always call this the buzzsaw game. It's one of my favorite games to bet. And yes, I bet on the two home teams today.

But like this is one of my favorite games to bet because this is the one game in the series where I think home court plays the biggest role. Game three, regardless of what's going on unless the home team's up to O already. Game four is going to be a different challenge. Memphis is going to go look at the film, and they're going to see immediately where all their missed opportunities were,

particularly on the defensive end of the floor, particularly with dribble drive contained. They're going to come into game four with a whole other level of focus. Now, they will be the desperate team. There's always like a little bit of a flat feeling in game four. Like the home crowd always has a little bit less of an impact in that second game, right? So this is got, it's not over. I picked Golden State for a reason.

I think they're the better, smarter team. And I think they have more creation. I think they, I always look at half court, like how well can a team succeed within the half court? And I always trusted Golden State more in those moments, but the series is not over. I told you guys, it's so important for Golden State to try to end this series quickly because of the way that Memphis can physically wear you down over the course of a series, crashing the offensive glass and stuff like that. By the way, weird side plot of this series, Golden State has been amazing on the glass. Coming into this series, we all thought Memphis was going to destroy them down there. And they've been great. Special credit, Gary Payton Jr.

or Gary Payton the second before he got hurt. And then also Andrew Wiggins and Otto Porter. Auto Porter Jr., again, and this is part of another thing with the way the game has changed. It used to be that the jet, like the average shot distance was so much closer to the rim that there were fewer longer rebounds. So what became so important was big guys that could rebound, right? In the modern NBA with how many long distance shots there are, shots are coming flying off the rim all over the floor. So guard rebounding, wing rebounding is more important now than it's ever been in the history of the league. Having a guy like Otto Porter Jr. who's just got like kind of a heat-seeking missile for the basketball is a great asset, especially at his size. And him and Andrew Wiggins have

been fighting and clawing for contested rebounds this entire series, and it's neutralized a significant portion of Memphis's attack. But at the same time, Memphis is going to keep coming. It's like I've been talking about with the Milwaukee Boston series. It's not about keeping Janice in front one time or even five times. Can you still do it on the 97th time, on the 98th time, when things really start to wear you down? So getting a 3-1 advantage, taking it back to Memphis and closing this series out, that's the best way to prevent any sort of long-term wear and tear that can take place

over the course of this series. So Game 4 is a big opportunity. It's going to be a good game. both of these games are going to be on Monday night. Monday night will be a super, super interesting night. We will absolutely be going live after the final buzzer the last game that night. And I can't wait because game four in a 2-1 series,

that's always the big turning point. Are you going back 3-1 or are you going back to 2? Huge difference between those two situations. Everything's going to come down to who can sit in a stance and get a stop, who can keep somebody in front, who's willing to do that job specifically with Jordan Poole, who can create shots, other than Jah. One of the things that Memphis has been doing a lot and they might have to do more is have

Tyos Jones out there more to have another guy on the floor that can kind of make decisions at a high pick and roll. Especially one of the things that's been working really well for Memphis is Jared Jackson is shooting the shit out of the basketball. I think he made three more threes tonight, three or four more threes tonight. Him being such a threat in screen and pop situations is going to get guys like Ty's Jones downhill. They might have to play him more because they need some more offensive creation. but the flip side of that, that's another small guy on the floor. That's another guy who's not a great defensive player. That's the predicament that Golden State puts you in.

I talk about this in last night's show, our last show that we did. Good teams put you in predicaments where you have to make these types of decisions, and Memphis is going to be in that type of position. But yeah, I still pick Golden State. My guess is at this point that they'll win in six. I will predict that Memphis will win game five and that Golden State will win game four. But Golden State should be gunning to try to end this thing in five before physicality becomes a problem. Before we move on to the Bucks and the Celtics, I just wanted to hit our housekeeping notes again really quick.

Make sure you like this video and subscribe to our channel. Check out our newsletter. It's in the description of this video. Great way to just stay up to speed about what's coming on the horizon for the volume. And then remember to follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT. I regularly do video analysis that kind of backs up the things that I'm talking about on the show. It's a great place to kind of see examples of the things that I'm talking about. Before we move on, here's a promo for some other content at the volume.

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For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Out of that winter hibernation. Spring is here, and it's time to get sprung with Blu-chew. That's right. This episode is sponsored by Blu-chew. Blue-chew is a unique online service that delivers the same active ingredients as Viagra and Cialis, but in chewable tablets and at a fraction of the cost.

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That's T-I-M-P-F at checkout. Just pay $5 in shipping. That's bluechew.com promo code temp to receive your first month free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blu Chu for sponsoring the podcast. All right, let's move on to Boston, Milwaukee, which was an incredible game, which I predicted to be an incredible game. This was the game that I thought Milwaukee would win before the series when I picked Boston in five, which obviously, as of right now, is very much wrong.

But as I told you guys, after Milwaukee stole game one, I expected this to be a super long series just because of the dynamics of home court advantage. The reason why I liked Milwaukee's chances most in game three was because it's typically the game where the underdog has the best opportunity to win. It's your first game at home in a series where you're already familiar with the other team and you've played twice already. Two, you're almost always the more desperate team, even if you did manage to steal a game. Like Milwaukee's coming from getting absolutely destroyed in game two they had a little bit of a fake comeback in the second half. But they were down 65 to 40 at halftime in game two.

This was their night to come out in front of their home crowd and take a lead in this series. And they did. Now, it was super interesting on a bunch of different levels and we're going to get into all of it because there was a moment where I thought Milwaukee was going to blow them out. Early in the game, I actually tweeted out. I expected Milwaukee to blow them out

because Boston was really sloppy in some specific areas that we'll talk about. Then we have this weird stretch to start the fourth quarter where Boston locks in. You could just tell they were in a completely different brain space on offense and we're executing and getting great shots. And next thing you know, they have a lead. Then you have this weird final possession for or second to last possession for Boston where they get back to back completely wide open threes to potentially steal this game and take a two one lead when you've played horrible all night long. And then it's amazing move from Yannis to take the lead, get a stop. Yonis defends Jalen Brown at the rim.

and then they go down and Drew Holiday has that little floater in the lane and it's over. Just like a crazy helter-skelter up and down type of game on a bunch of different levels. But Milwaukee takes the lead. You know, I said before this series that if Yonis were to beat this Celtics team, I thought it would be an accomplishment on par with

what LeBron did in 2007 beating the Detroit Pistons team. And I don't mean, obviously there's differences. LeBron was younger than Yonis at that point. For LeBron that took his team to the finals, I don't think the Pistons were the best team in the league that year. I actually think this Boston team is the best team in the league. But the similarities were just the huge talent disparity between the two teams.

That Detroit team, I think, had four all-stars the previous year, and all those guys were still very much at that level in 2007, versus a team where it was solid role players, but no second star and kind of just one kind of heliocentric superstar that has the opportunity to potentially overcome the much better team. That's kind of the parallel that I was trying to draw there. And what happened was is Detroit was the better team, clearly demonstrated it for large portions of the series,

but LeBron just reached down and touched a level of basketball that not very many people in the world have ever done, and it was too much for the Pistons. And next thing you know, they were losing in six games. And that's the opportunity that Yannis has here. They're not as good as Boston. in any facet of the game. Boston's better at generating high-quality half-court shots.

You saw that down the stretch of that game. They got wide-open shots almost every possession in that fourth quarter. They executed fantastically well. Then on the defensive end, they were locking in and making everything difficult on Milwaukee. But down the stretch of that game, Janus was able to create shots when there was nothing versus Boston missing good shots. But again, as I've always talked about, jump shots, there's an expected value, but it's always up in the air. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don't.

Getting to the rim, closer to the rim stuff is more dependable. Janus's last two made field goals in this game were really nice, a little hook shot in the lane against Jalen Brown, and then that awesome Euro step around Grant Williams for the game winner. Once he made the move, it's like, that's going in. That's a dependable move. Janus overcame a clear talent disadvantage tonight. with his own individual greatness and won a basketball game. And now he has a two-to-one lead against the team that I think is better.

But we're going to dip into a bunch of different parts of this game. I wanted to start with that fourth quarter. Let's start with Yonis in particular. And again, it's like you saw it down the stretch of that game. When they went to Drew Holiday in isolation situations, he had a couple shots that he made. But for the most part, it was really difficult for him. And he actually got blocked on a bunch of his pull-up shots.

They tried to run some screen and roll action with Drew. and with Janice on one side of the floor, and they would kind of meander into the lane, but Boston would compress around them, and things weren't really open, and guys like Pat Connison, he made one corner three, but then he missed his last couple out from the perimeter,

so they didn't really have anything working for them. But there was one thing that was definitively working for them, and it was Janus on Tenacumpo. Just imagine, I think it was early fourth quarter on the right block against Grant Williams, the one where Hubey Brown had a freak out about Janus dropping his shoulder. And we'll talk a little bit later about Janus and officiating. But, and again, really quick note for you Bucks fans, not liking the way Janus is officiated is not the same thing as not liking Janus. Those are two completely different things.

I love LeBron and I am totally okay with the fact that he does not get a lot of foul calls when he's trying to bully ball people all the time. But we'll get to that in a little bit. On the right wing, it's bump, bump, and then get into the lane for that hook shot over the top. That's a, it was defended perfectly by Grant Williams. The only thing he could have done better is maybe flop to try to take a charge, but Janus just got to that little, half hook in the lane that he made. And by the way, as I tweeted out, that little half hook, to me, that's the honest's go-to move. That's the move that he can have to beat a set half-court defense. Not the fadeaways, not the one-legged stepbacks, not the three-point shot. It's that. Let me just bump you once and then step into the middle and take that right-handed hook in the middle of the lane. It's unguardable. His release point is way too high. He can get it in any

circumstance, and it's a high percentage shot. He can, he's not quite there yet, but I would have that he's capable of getting to the point where that is like a super, super high percentage, efficient go-to move for him, something that he can go to, kind of similar to the way that same shot was for Tim Duncan. But then he had like two spin moves on on Jalen Brown in the lane, one where he got really good separation and got a dunk. And on the other one, Jalen did a good job of sliding in front of him, and he went back to that little hook shot and made it. And then on the final possession, same thing. Nothing's open, didn't settle, did a beautiful like rip to the right and then a beautiful quick.

Euro step to the left and got just clear around Grant Williams, and he's right at the rim and finishing at the rim. That's unbelievable offense down the stretch. Yonis is the biggest rub on him compared to his peers at the top of the league is his ability to create shots in the half court. And is he as good as LeBron at it? No. Is he as good as Kevin Durant at it? No. Is he as good at Luca and Yokic and some of these guys at the very top of that list? No. But he has turned himself into a player who's very good at it. He's probably in the tier right below those guys. And that's good enough for Janus.

When you're as good at everything else in basketball as Janus is, if you're as dominant defensively as he is, if you're as incredible in transition as he is, if you're as incredible as an offensive rebound or finishing around the rim, if you're as incredible defensively, both on the perimeter and in help side, and as a leader and physically and your ability to thrive in fistfight-type environments, If you're good at all of that, then you don't have to be the best half-court score in the entire league.

But if you're very good at it, that's enough. And he is very good at it. And that's enough for him to be the best player in basketball. And that's what he is right now. We have to acknowledge that because he's demonstrating it for us on a playoff stage. You guys know me? I was slow to admit that because I'm always going to be slow. I'd rather be late to the party than disrespect established guys by bumping them to the front before they

deserve it, but Janice deserves it now. He has clearly demonstrated it. This is the second postseason in a run where he, a second postseason in a row where he has clearly demonstrated that he's better than anybody else in this field. He's doing it. And again, he has to do it two more times. There's a lot of basketball left in this series. We're going to talk more about Boston here in just a minute. But I had to start with Janice. He deserves the shout out best player in the world. And he's halfway towards stealing a series against a far superior team. That was a minus 200 favorite. on Fanduel before the series. A couple more quick notes on Milwaukee.

I thought Brooke Lopez was a monster tonight, big double-double, was crashing the offensive glass like crazy. And then especially early in the game, he kind of turned into an interesting release valve for Milwaukee in the half court, just throwing the ball to him on the post. Even against someone like Al Horford

is a great post-offender, you know, when you lose Chris Middleton, especially in rescue situations like late clock, don't have time to run in action, you need someone to throw the ball to that can create a play. And that was kind of an interesting wrinkle tonight, the ability to throw the ball down to Brooke Lopez on the block.

He scored there a couple times. He had a big hand one there in the third quarter. It's an interesting kind of wrinkle in this series. Then Drew Holliday was a monster again. That was the big swing factor in game one. I told you guys he was a second best player on the floor. I'd say probably Jalen Brown was the second best player on the four today, but Drew Holliday was the definitive number three,

and he was definitely better than Tatum tonight. It's a huge swing factor. We'll talk about Tatum in just a minute. But his shot making was huge again. and he had a bunch of big shots down the stretch, had a big fade away along the baseline in the fourth quarter, and then he had the shot that kind of iced the game when Tatum fell over and he hit that kind of wild little floater in the lane.

So another big one from Drew Holiday. But I want to talk about Boston a little bit. You know, their offense was the story of this game in two different ways because they were so incredible offensively in that fourth quarter and they were so bad offensively through the first three quarters. I told you guys that, you know, after one of the, big reasons why it hasn't gone as smoothly for Boston as I predicted before the series was they go through these extended stretches where their offensive decision making becomes poor.

And this was something that IMA Udoka specifically talked about before game two, talking about early contested shot clock, early in the shot clock contested threes off the dribble, and threes that don't come off of multiple driving kicks. And in this entire game, Boston allowed themselves to get. it's psyched out. And for the record, this is a credit to Milwaukee's defense. Milwaukee's defense, because it is so good at specific things and weak at other things, it can mess with your head, especially if your like natural priorities as a basketball player are to attack that thing that they're specifically good at. You have to rewire yourself to make the right reads

in these situations. That's the predicament that Milwaukee puts you in. But almost immediately from the start tonight, I saw the same kind of offensive decisions. decision-making from Boston that I saw in game one. Driving into rim protectors instead of trying to get the rim protector out of position before attacking or kicking to open shooters. Quick three-point shots in transition, off the dribble and off the catch. Just a lot of them weren't even open. And some of this I got to credit Milwaukee with because, you know, Milwaukee's defense,

we've talked about this a lot on this show. And Bucks fans are all like, no, no, no, Milwaukee, their defense is actually good. It was just Brooke Lopez. No, no, it wasn't. Their defense was bad. They were literally 20th in the NBA after the All-Star break in defensive rating. Like, you can't blame Brooke Lopez for being a bottom third defense in the NBA. They were bad, okay?

But again, as I've said, the way they were bad was they oversold to the paint and they gave up a lot of stuff on the back end. But again, it's not like the scheme was let people shoot. No, they have stuff built into their scheme to rotate to shooters. They just weren't good at it. They didn't do a good enough job when they'd sell out to the paint at spread. back out when the ball is popping around on the perimeter to get to shooters. Tonight they did a much, much better job of that. Boston only took 33-3s, and I thought they forced a lot of those.

So much better job from Milwaukee in this specific game at rotating around to shooters. But again, Boston bought into that or played into that a lot with their own shot selection. In terms of their basketball IQ, they have guys in Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum and Marcus Smart who have shown a lot of growth over the course of the last few years as decision makers, but it's not consistent. They still have stretches where they dip into it. I thought Tatum, part of the reason why he had a rough night tonight

was he was taking difficult shots instead of kind of letting the game come to him. And then as he was, you know, when you're 2 for 11, 2 for 12, 2 for 13, you almost feel like it's not your night, so you start really forcing the action. But that to me was what killed him. And, you know, and again, it comes down to the transition element.

So we remember in game one, Milwaukee has 28 fast break points. And we talked about how Boston's defense and the half court was excellent, but they struggled defending in transition and a huge part of it was their bad shot selection. Well, game two, they tightened all of that up. They only give up six fast break points.

Well, tonight they gave up 21 fast break points again, and my guess is that when I look at the data tomorrow, the half court defense is going to be excellent, and my guess is it's going to be in transition where they got killed again, which is a damn shame because it's like a proven winning formula there for them. That's right there on the table. Like, take smart shots, play smart offense. You will win because your defense is better than theirs by a lot. So trap them in a half

court game and you're going to win, right? And they did in the fourth quarter. That's the wild part. Down the stretch of that game, that entire fourth quarter, Boston's offensive execution was excellent. Guys were driving and kicking instead of driving into traffic and trying to finish. Guys were passing on the early shot clock shots that weren't as good as other shots. Down the stretch, They were getting fantastic looks. Really, the only possession I had a problem with was Jalen Brown. So they're up 100 to 99. They get back-to-back wide-open threes.

I think one of them was for Jalen and one of them was for Al-Horford, if I remember correctly. But they were both wide-open shots. Both of them had a chance to ice the game. You miss them both. It happens. They go down, Yannis scores. Okay. So now they're up 101, 100.

But, again, the shot Yonis took was a really difficult, like, Eurostep through the lane. All-time great move from an all-time great point. player, but you're still getting better shots on the other end, right? Like, go down and execute. And Jalen went off script, early possession, kind of got a lane to the basket. Yonis came over to help, and Jalen obviously saw him because Jalen didn't go straight up to the rim. He, like, tried to dive into Yonis's body to drive contact, and he ended up throwing the ball right into the bottom of the rim, turnover, then they go down, and that's when Drew Holiday makes the shot that puts him up three, right? But for the most part in that fourth quarter, up until that Jalen Brown possession,

Boston was really smart with their offensive execution. They took the right shots. And when they take the right shots, they're the better offensive team. They don't have the supreme offensive talent of Yonis, but what they do have is five guys on the floor at almost any given moment in time. They have five guys on the floor that can shoot, dribble, and pass. And when you have those things, that's when you get those awesome possessions where there's multiple driving kicks,

and that's when you really get open shots against this Milwaukee defense. When they do that, that's when they're going to have their best. best chance to win. But I thought that that fourth quarter was really telling, you know, there was a moment there where I'm like, oh man, Boston's going to win this series in five because this was the game Milwaukee had to win. Boston played like crap for three quarters. This is the game you have to win. And Boston almost stole it. That's what tells me right now, judging by what I saw, an overall half-court shot quality through three games now, Boston gets better shots. They just do. Again, if Janus is going to score 42 a game with bad

shots, like with terrible opportunity and terrible spacing, then Milwaukee's going to win, right? And that's that all-time great type of accomplishment that I was discussing earlier. But Boston's getting better shots. They should win this series. I expect them to win the next three games. One last note with Janus. I talked a lot after game one. At first, after game one, I was kind of critical of Janus for a shot selection. But then after I went back and watched the tape, I relented and said that I was wrong and that in reality, Janus is slowly starting to wear down the of the Boston defense. That's the important detail.

Like, again, like Isaac Alhorford and Grant Williams, they are capable of sliding their feet and taking Janice's shoulder to the chest and absorbing it for a possession, and then two possessions, and then three possessions, and then four possessions. But around that 13th, 14th, 15th possession, it starts to get kind of exhausting. And then there comes a point where Janice is staying at the same level of strength that he's always going to be at, and your defenders are just going to start to be a step slower, be a little bit more willing to open up that shoulder rather than hold their ground,

right? And that's when things start to go through. I thought today was the first time in this series where you really saw Boston's defense break. So they give up 22 points in that first quarter. They give up 24 points in the second quarter. They give up 34 points in that third quarter. Janice was a monster in that quarter. I'll have to go back and look at the film. So again, you guys are going to want to follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT tomorrow morning. I'll dive into some of the film of this in particular. But in that third quarter, Janice broke through that wall. Now all of a sudden he's dunking everything. Now all of a sudden he's getting to the free throw line.

Now all of a sudden he's starting to plow people over and they're not getting in his way the way that they were earlier in the series. It's an interesting thing to watch because, again, that's why I thought this, again, I told you guys coming into this that I expected Boston to win game four. But for those of you guys who watched our last show, you remember, I said, but they have a chance to win game three because they had three days off. And I thought that would give them a chance to physically recover to the extent they'd be fresh enough to stay in front of Janus in this game.

And what was kind of bizarre is I thought Boston's defensive intensity to start this game wasn't great, which was a whole other issue. But again, Janus has demonstrated that he can wear down this Boston defense over time, which is significant because you play again in two days. And I expect Boston to win, like I said. But Janus's example, Janus's opportunity, is to keep dropping that shoulder, to keep trying to run people over, to keep breaking down that wall to have more of those 34-point quarters.

That's how you're going to have to steal one of these games down the line. Because I do think Boston's going to get one in Milwaukee at some point. So you're going to probably have to get another one in Boston, right? So that's Yonis's opportunity. Keep breaking down the wall, keep wearing people down. So my prediction before the series was Boston in five. I thought they'd win their two home games. I thought they'd lose game three,

thought they'd win game four, and then I thought they'd win game five. Well, Milwaukee has derailed that by stealing game one. but they won game three, which I expected. However, I think the half-court shot quality has demonstrated that Boston's the better team. I expect Boston to win game four. I expect them to win game four. I expect them to win game five at home.

And then I think they'll win game six in a defensive slug fest back in Milwaukee. But if you're a Bucks fan, Janice has demonstrated that he is capable of overcoming that with his own individual greatness. The opportunity is there for him. Like I said, he's halfway there. Long way to go. But that's the chance. What's going to win?

The best team in basketball or the best player in basketball? We are going to find out over the course of the next week. Hi, it's Colin Coward. I started the volume to bring you some of the most authentic voices in sports. While you're here, make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks. All right, let's break down last night's games for just a few minutes. These two series were kind of snoozers compared to the Celtics Bucks and the Warriors Grizzlies.

For a couple of different reasons, I thought Dallas really mailed in the defensive end of the floor the first two games and against a team as good as Phoenix, that's just going to make for some uncompetitive basketball games. And that's what happened. And then, of course, with Miami, they just simply had the easiest path to this point out of any of the 16 teams. I thought Atlanta was far and away the weakest link out of this 16 team playoff field. So it was just really difficult to learn anything from them. I mean, look at the Pelicans as the eight seat in the west and how much they gave Phoenix a run for their money and how much better they looked on both ends of the floor compared to that Atlanta Hawks team.

Just difficult to learn anything. And then they get into this next round, and Joel Embed's out. And on a team like Philly, especially with Doc Rivers and the way he wanted to replace Embed with like the worst starting center in the league right now,

it was just really difficult to get a feel for what that series is actually going to look like when they had Embed on the floor. So let's start with Philly in Miami. I specifically was looking at the Embedd thing from two angles. How would Miami be able to guard? him and then would Miami be able to handle him underneath the basket on the defensive end of the

floor? We'll get to that in just a minute. So from the start, what I thought was really interesting is I was expecting them to try to keep Bam at a bio on Embed as much as possible because of single coverage. And when they did try to attack, when they did try to post up Embed against Bam, they did stay single coverage. There wasn't any sort of double team. And Bam did a great job in those settings, made Embed Bede settle for jump shots. And Bede was not getting good shots there. That's a great sign looking forward for the series with Miami on defense knowing that they don't need to double team Joel Embed on those postups, right? But obviously, Philly's going to put you through the ringer of off ball screens, dribble handoffs with Embed, and screen and roll with

James Harden, right? And so what I thought was really interesting is in all of those situations, Miami immediately switched those screens and were happily willing to put smaller players onto Embed in switches. And the reason why, as you could tell, and they're an extreme well-coached team who's extremely disciplined on the defensive end of the floor, what they would do is just immediately front. So if they ran a ball screen and there was a switch, whoever switched on to Embed would stay on his high side so that when Embed rolled down to the post, he could go wherever he wanted, but there was a player in front

of him disrupting the post entry. And then immediately they would help out of the weak side corner. Because when someone is fronting you in the post, you have to kind of seal them, like arm on their back and ask for a pass over the top. Well, that lob pass over the top opens up the opportunity for the defender coming from behind to steal that pass. And then even when Embed would catch it down there, he would catch and immediately be sandwiched by the guy that was fronting him on the front side and the guy that was helping on the backside. So M.B. would have to hold the ball high. He couldn't come down with it or he'd get stripped. It was a really complicated situation for him down there.

And Miami did an excellent job in all of those settings. Credit to them for having an excellent scheme. And then having a player in BAM out of bio that makes it so you can't attack him in single coverage. so you can't just come down the floor and dump it to him in the post. You have to run screening actions. But when you run screening actions, they just immediately snapped into that front with the backside help. And that's a credit to how well coached they are and how disciplined and committed they are to the defensive end of the floor.

You ever seen those videos that would go viral from time to time of like NBA players synchronized where it would be like three guys at the same time that would all start running on defense simultaneously and it would almost look like they were mirror images of each other. Like three guys would all complain at the ref at the exact same time. with the exact same arm wave, and those videos would go viral. That's the way Miami looks when they're snapping into their defensive coverages in any of these specific scenarios. Like you'd see screen and roll with Hardin and Embed,

quick switch, Embed dives down to the post, and immediately you would just see Miami snap into position. Everyone would be exactly where they need to be. Guys fronting the post, guys sitting right under the basket, waiting for the lob over the top. Dudes are digging into their help lanes where they're comfortable closing out to shooters. Just a really, really impressive defensive team. And that's all great.

But the problem is, is all year long, I told you guys, I was concerned about Miami's half-court offense, particularly down the stretch this year. They really struggled in that specific area. And the issue is, is they don't have a lot of guys that are great shooters that are decision makers for them. So they have a lot of guys that can shoot Tyler Harrow can shoot, Duncan Robinson, Max Trues, you know, Gabe Vincent. A lot of those guys are knocked down three-point shooters. Even PJ Tucker has shot well out of the corner. But the problem is, is they don't guard PJ Tucker out there. They don't guard Jimmy Butler as if he can shoot really well.

They certainly don't guard Bametabio as if you could shoot well. And when you're going to play the vast majority of your minutes with those guys on the floor, it allows guys to sink into the paint, especially teams that have a lot of size. And so specifically I was concerned based on what happened in the 2020 NBA finals. Anthony Davis ignored Bamatabio and all – because Miami runs an offense very similar to what Denver does, where it's a lot of – like, Yokic will be at the high post, and it's a ton of dribble handoffs and ball screens trying to get their guards going downhill over the top of him.

And if guys go underneath, they stop and they shoot jump shots. If guys chase over the top, they continue to go into the rim. It's a really simple concept. But part of the reason why it works is you have to press up on Yokic because Yokic will turn and shoot on you. But the issue there too is if you get press up on Yokic, he can kind of spin off of you because he's so good with his body position that he'll get into the lane too. The problem is, is with Baymanabio, you do not have to press up on him at the high post in

those situations. And so I was always concerned that a real rim protector would be able to utterly flummox this Miami offense because they'd sink off of BAM and just sit in the basket and disrupt everything, just like Anthony Davis did in the 2020 finals, which was a massive swing factor in that series. Obviously, LeBron was the most important player on that team, but in many of those postseason series, Anthony Davis as a defensive weapon was just a massive swing factor in those series. Well, and it went exactly as I would have expected tonight. So to give you an idea, the in-game 1 and 2, Miami averaged 47 points in the paint in those two games. Game 3 with Joel and Bid playing, 28 points in the paint. So basically, 50% reduction, or excuse me, a 33%

reduction in your paint production based solely on having Joel Embed in there, which automatically led to them scoring in the 70s. And what you saw too is, you could literally see it kind of the dynamic taking place on the floor. Like, bam at the top of the key, dribble handoff to someone like Kyle Lowry. Kyle Lowry kind of gets downhill. Embed ignores Bam and kind of like corrals Lowry, right, right around the elbow. And Lowry has to swing it to the other side, at which point Embed drops back. Then it'll be Jimmy Butler, and he'll come flying off.

And Embed kind of corrals Jimmy Butler until he has to kick it out. And then it'll be like Gabe Vincent or Max Schroes or somebody coming over the third time. And you just see Embed kind of corraling every. from right around the charge circle because he just doesn't have to guard BAM at a bio. That's the trouble there. And as a result, it led to these extended stretches where Miami couldn't score. They had a five-minute stretch in the first quarter, zero points. They had another three-and-a-half-minute stretch spanning from the first to the second quarter where they did not score. They had a four-minute stretch stretching into halftime and just after halftime where they went

completely scoreless. And then spanning the third and fourth quarters, they had another four-minute stretch where they went completely scoreless. That's four separate stretches that were at least three and a half minutes long where Miami could not score a point. As a result, at this last stretch, the last four-minute scoreless stretch to stretching into the fourth quarter, all of a sudden they were down by 10 points. And you saw, especially in that fourth quarter, Philly's transition attack, because really started to get going. A lot of Tyrexie grabbing the ball, just going the length of the floor. Also, Danny Green, terrible game too, but he was lights out. I think he was six for seven from three in this game. He's one of the best guys in league history at sprinting in transition to the

corner where you can get three-point shots there. And he was killing in that specific area. It's more or less the same from what you expect down the line. Like James Hardin good, not great, but he was great kind of getting guys into the right spot and making decisions, which is his one remaining elite skill at this point. And again, Tyrese, it's just so important as that sole transition force getting out after Philly gets stops. Really interesting series to see moving forward, again, Miami was bought a two-zero lead by virtue of the Joel and Bede injury. So obviously, Philly has a lot to overcome here. But if they can't figure out how to score on Joel and Bede in the paint with Bamadabio on the floor, there could be some serious issues

moving forward with Miami's ability to score. And they still have to notch two more wins against this defense. So right now, I'm refraining from making a pick at this point because I'd like to see one more game. But after game four, I'll try to make a pick. Again, originally, if I thought Embed was available for all games of the series, I would have picked Philly and six, but obviously just tossing Miami-2-free games makes that really, really hard to do. All right, let's quickly move on to Dallas and Phoenix for just a few minutes.

So again, this series, you know, we talked a lot after game one. I talked to you guys about the massive increase in degree of difficulty, going from a really bad Utah Jazz defense to a really, really good, excuse me, a really, really good Phoenix Sun's defense. Obviously, there was going to be an adjustment period there. You're adjusting to longer, more athletic defensive players, there's guys that are more committed to containing on the perimeter, better backside rotations. Utah was terrible at all of those things.

So there was going to be an adjustment. But the interesting thing was there's another adjustment Dallas has to make. And I thought Richard Jefferson did a really nice job in the color commentary of explaining this specifically. But he talked about how against Utah, I think Dallas lulled themselves into a little bit of a sense of security over how good their offense was and their ability to carry themselves on offense. And the reality is, as they succeeded the second half of the season,

on the strength of their defense. They were a very good defensive team, despite not having great defensive personnel. That's credit to Jason Kidd, and it's a credit to their commitment on that end of the floor, particularly from guys like Dorian, Finney Smith, and Reggie Bullock, who Aluka shouted out

after game three. Well, in games one and two of this series, Dallas's defense was horrific. They gave up 128.9 points per 100 possessions in game one, 136.5 points per 100 possessions in game two. That's awful. And in game three, they just simply were more dialed in on that end of the floor. So much more effort, especially from guys like Luca, more willingness to, yeah, you can save some energy,

but you've got to give a certain amount of effort to hold your own here. Much better ball pressure. Reggie Bullock did an unbelievable job in this game. So to Dore and Finney Smith, they only gave up 103.6 points per 100 possessions in game three. That is a massive, that is a 33 point drop from where they were in game two. And as we've talked about, that's so important to what they do on. the offensive end of the floor. When you do that, it makes it so that, because both of these teams play very slow.

It's not a very up and down game. It's not like watching Minnesota versus Memphis. These are two guys in Luca and Chris Paul that love to strangle the pace of the game. But there's usually a quick push after a miss just to get up into the front court to maintain matchups. We talked a lot about this after game two cross matches, the idea of in-transition defense having to pick up someone that's not your man that leads to a predicament to start the next possession.

Well, when Dallas gets more stops, Luca, there were many possessions where he's coming down the floor guarded by Chris Paul, coming down the floor guarded by campaign. And he was able to quickly turn those into post-ups and get baskets that way. Dallas has to get stops to reach their individual ceiling. And they were able to get a lot more stops in game three. And as a result, they were able to hang around better. Maxi Klebo was awesome. You know, there was this interesting predicament earlier in the playoffs where it was like, okay, do we go with Dwight Powell? who's a much better defensive player,

and he was kind of like a vertical spacing threat, rolling to the rim, or do we go with Maxi Cleva, who's not as good of a defensive player, but is more of a perimeter shooter and how he can stretch the defense that way. And they ended up going with Kleba a lot to try to punish Rudy Gobert, right?

But I've been really, really impressed with Cleva's defense. You know, he's, he looks small out there because he's been playing against two monsters, right? He's been going against Deontra Aiton and against Rudy Gobert, so he's going to look small. But he's kind of like a little bit more of like a wing than he is a big. He's very mobile. He can attack closeouts. He can put the ball on the floor. He

covers ground in rotations. And he fights down low. Obviously, he's going to lose that matchup a lot of times in terms of the physicality going against guys that big. But he's done a really nice job, and he's been absolutely vital to their offense. In this series against Phoenix, the Mavericks are scoring 9.5 more points per 100 possession with Maxie Klebe on the floor than they are without him. He's turned into a super, super important player. If you're a, if you're If you're a Dallas fan, again, I'm still picking Phoenix to win this series in six. But if you're a Dallas fan, you should be feeling a lot more confident about your chances to win the series after what happened last night. A couple things. Defense was much better and it seemed to

be associated with efforts. You can kind of toss out those first two games in a lot of different ways. Two, Luca missed a lot of easy shots in the game. He's 11 for 25, but specifically in the first half when Dallas was playing pretty well. He was missing, open shots time and time again down the floor. I do think Luca will shoot better in games as the series goes along. And most importantly, Jalen Brunson finally got going in game three. That was the concern. He was awful in games one and two in Dallas. You got a little bit of Spencer Dinwiddie in game two, but not enough. You need Jalen Brunson to be good in order if you'd have a chance to win the series. He was great. He had 28 points, four rebounds and five assists. If he can replicate that a few

more times in the series, you've got a chance. And then last but not least, the sons, I think, are shooting better. They've got three players right now shooting over 50% from three on decent volume. Jake Crowder is shooting 61% from three on six attempts. You have to think there's going to be some kind of regression to the mean there. Meanwhile, if you look at Dallas's core rotation players, none of them are shooting over 50% from three. Not that someone's going to, but if there's a chance for shooting regression in the series, it's far more likely that Dallas will shoot a little better than Phoenix down the stretch here than vice versa. Again, remains to be seen. And as we always say, A lot of that comes down to shot quality and how well defenses are playing.

So obviously Dallas has to continue to defend and do a lot of things right. But the bottom line is they have a puncher's chance now. It looked early after two games that Phoenix was far superior. Dallas demonstrated in game three that they have a punch. It's a long shot, but they absolutely have a chance to win this series. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. I sincerely appreciate your support as always. We will be back tomorrow night after the final buzzer of the last game,

and I will see you guys then. 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. Others say it's unleashing human potential.

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