The Herd with Colin Cowherd - The Draymond Green Show - Celtics/Nets Sweep, Warriors Lose One To Denver, and a Mailbag

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

On episode 24 of 'The Draymond Green Show' Dray breaks down how the Celtics/Nets series concluded, what he thinks the Warriors need to do better against the Nuggets in game five, why Ja Morant is great but doesn't deserve Most Improved Player, and answers a few mailbag questions. #Herd Produced by: Jackson SafonSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The volume. The Draymond Green Show is presented by Fanduil Sportsbook. There's no better place to bet the action than on Fandual Sportsbook during the football season. It's easy to use. It's safe and secure. You get payouts in as fast as two hours. There's so many bet types. My favorite same game parlay bets.

There's live betting, player props, futures. If you're new, just download the Fandual Sportsbook app. To get started now, sign up. Please use the promo code Colin C-O-L-I-N. Fandul, Sportsbook, makes it easy. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Draymond Green Show. This is our 24th episode, and we had originally planned to record this on Monday,

but with the Celtics and Nets series winding down or going into a game 4, we wanted to kind of wait and see what would happen. with that Siri could Jackson Celtics pull off the sweep? Or was Brooklyn going to at least send it back to Boston and make it a game five? As we know, that did not happen. Boston pulled off the sweep of Brooklyn. And Boston is moving on to the second round

to what seems like they will be facing the Milwaukee Bucks. Chicago has lost the – well, they did lose the last two games at home, both by 20 plus points. So that one is looking like it's a bit over. And so it seems as if the Boston Celtics will now go on and play the Milwaukee Bucks. But before moving on to that series, just wanted to touch on that Boston and Brooklyn series. Boston continued to look like they've looked since January, a defensive joggernaut. and, you know, has a couple guys on the offensive end

that they can form their whole offense around and everyone else kind of fills in. And, you know, Marcus Smart is doing a great job of playing the point guard position. And, you know, one thing I really want to talk about about this Boston Celtics team is this. Brad Stevens' first two moves is GM or president. I'm not sure exactly what Brad Stevens title is,

so forgive me for that. His first couple moves is GM or president. Most people thought were two of the most questionable moves that he could make and start in his tenure. One was everyone thought Market Smart shouldn't be receiving a max contract extension. You know, you probably need to trade. Market Smart, this hasn't worked. Blah, blah, blah.

Brad Stevens believed in Marcus Smart gave him the max contract extension and cleared the way for him to be the point guard of the team. he also brought back Al Horford, who had kind of been, you know, trending down being an O.K.C. and not playing on a contender, which I can only imagine being in your 16th year, if I'm not mistaken, how that feels. And so he brought back Al Horford and a very guard, heavy guard dominant NBA, he brought back another big and everybody's kind of looking like, why is he doing that? And those two moves has proved. to be so genius for the Boston Celtics. Al Horford, Boston Celtics are playing two bigs next to each other all year. Al Horford's versatility

actually allows them to do that. And then Marcus Smart has been an incredible point guard all year. So those two moves that started off so questionable are paying dividends and we saw that in this series. Jason Tatum looked to take another step forward in his development

and another step forward in becoming the Jason Tatum that we all have been kind of expecting him to become. I think the thing that most people forget about Jason Tatum, Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown is that we started watching those guys so young. I think Jason's rookie year, they made it to the conference finals, the Eastern Conference Finals. And so you start to see that and you're like, man, this got next, this got next.

And you forget, no, he still has to take those lumps that you're taking year two. And he still has to go through what you go through in year three. It's still a process. But because we saw them flourish so early, everybody was just ready to jump and kind of wipe the process out. And Jason Tatum, the way he's stepped up and, like, just become that guy. Like, when you're watching them play, you know he's the guy. And to me, from the outside looking in, it looked like Jalen Brown supports that. It looked like Marcus Smart supports that.

It looked like all of those guys are pushing him to be that. He's becoming more and more comfortable in being that. Obviously, again, he's getting older. He's getting more mature, more experience. He's becoming more comfortable within himself. He's learning who Jason Tatum is. And I think it's such a beautiful thing. And if you saw Marcus Smart Instagram caption another day,

I took that ass him saying, talking about Jason Tatum and what he said was I'll go in the alley with any of these guys as long as Batman lead the way. And when I read that caption, I took that ass, our young goon just dominated this series. And as long as he lead the way into that dark alley, we are right behind him. we're pushing through with him.

We're going to stand rock solid, and that's how we're going. And that's the way those guys played. You flip over to the Brooklyn Nets. You know, the question I'm seeing constantly is what happens next? You know, does Kyrie sign his extension? Does he not? You know, if you're the Brooklyn Nets, do you want Kyrie's sign extension? I mean, I've seen something that says Steve Nash,

that the Brooklyn Nets wants Steve Nash to quit. I mean, you're starting to see everything kind of unfold with whatever one's thoughts are on the Brooklyn Nets. What were my takeaways on the Brooklyn Nets? I just thought in that series, Boston made it a point that Kevin Durant and Kyrie Urban will not beat us. We know those two guys can beat us. They're not going to beat us. And what it looked to me as, there was no one to get those two guys in position. to score the ball where they like to score the ball from.

And so you end up seeing a ton of turnovers. You know, I saw all the numbers with, like, Katie and his turnovers versus Jason Tatum and all the different things. But the reality is, Brooklyn struggled to get stops the entire series. You struggle to get stops. You come down against a set defense every single time you come down to court. I don't care how good of an offensive team you are or what offensive players you got on your team.

Playing against a set defense every time is nearly impossible. Everybody in the NBA, if they can get their defense set, they know the principles, they know where their rotation should be. That's kind of how it goes. And that's what we saw with the Brooklyn Nets is every time they came down, they're looking at Boston's length at boxes and elbows. Katie, get the ball. It's six eyes on him.

It's eight eyes on him. What that means is you have his two eyes, the guys guarding him. the two eyes of the guys to the right, the two eyes of the guys to the left, maybe the two eyes of the guys right behind. And so when you say six eyes or eight eyes, that's what that means. And, you know, those guys are coming down the court against this set defense, and they're seeing all of these eyes. The whole defense is shifted towards them loading up,

making those guys either have to swing it to somebody else to beat us or you're going to have to beat us with tough shots. And it proved not the work. And so I don't know what's going to happen in Brooklyn. We'll see. I mean, you know, you can just run it back and say Kyrie was, you know, he missed most of the season. We weren't able to jail.

But there seems to be more that will come in that situation. So we'll sit back. We'll wait and see. But I was not, I was actually very surprised to see Katie and Kyrie get swept. But that just shows you how good that young Boston team is. and those guys aren't playing, but the true test now comes. You got to go through the defending champs if you want to move on. And this is going to be another series for JT, for J.B, for Marcus Smart,

for those guys to take another step forward if they want to win this series. Now, a key factor in this series, as we all know, no disrespect to the Chicago Bulls, but I can only go off what I just watched those last two games in the series. So I don't want to jump the gun. But if the series end up, if it ends up how we all think is going to end up, Milwaukee, Boston, that Chris Millerton injury becomes, I mean, it's going to become more magnified because that's one of your best scores against a very good defense again. And you take that score out of their, they're going to load up on Janus Moore, they're going to load up on Drewmore. They're going to make Conantin beat you or beat them.

You know, they're going to make Grace in Alabama. beat them. Grace and Alice has been playing extremely well. They're going to make Bobby Portis beat them. And so I'm looking forward to that series, but Milwaukee does have to take care of their business first, and I don't want to be disrespectful. But it's happening, and I'm looking forward to that series. And of course, I know everyone wants to hear my thoughts on Game 4, Warriors versus Denver. As you know, we always start off talking about the does, but I wanted to give a little

twist because the reality is that was a little more exciting. You know, it's a sweep of the Brooklyn Nets. Everyone wants to see that. Everyone wants to talk about that. So just went a little left. But here we go, baby. I know everybody thought, Draymond's going to come on.

Now you're doing it after a loss. It's so much easier to do it after winning. The injury's still the same. It don't waver. I'm still here. We're still doing it. The Denver Nuggets, they did exactly what I expected them to do. They came out.

They played hard. No one wants to get swept, especially not on their home floor. They have the MVP of the NBA. Not a soft guy by any stretch of the imagination. You don't become the Nicola Yokish that we know today if you're a guy that just comes out and lay down when it's time to get swept

and you were once to 46 pick, 47 pick. You don't become that guy if you're someone that just goes and lay down. Mike Malone, who was once my assistant coach is their head coach. I know what type of fighter Mike Malone is. We didn't expect them to come out and lay down. And I thought we came out.

I thought we were ready to play. But I also, and saying that I think we needed to raise our physicality level a little bit more early on in the game. I think we found it as the game went on. But we needed to raise that a little earlier in the game, especially when you're trying to close out a team. I thought, I thought for us, that was a very good situation for us to be in, whether we won or lost it.

Moving forward, we can learn from that experience. The one thing I've always talked about is our team, we still have a very young team, a very inexperienced team when it comes to playoff basketball outside of the five that's won a championship. And so for us, I'm not mad at that at all. And, you know, I like the way the Nuggets came out.

I respect that, but now, you know, we're back at home. We did what we were supposed to do. When you go on the road, the objective is to win one of the two. We won one of the two. We tried to get greedy and go in there and get both of them. It didn't work. Now we come back home, game five, settle back in, get back to the game plan. We turned the ball over 17 times in game four.

Most turnovers we didn't have in any game in this series. That fuels their break. That gets all those other guys going. Then all of a sudden you have a Monte Morris with 24 points you have. Aaron Gordon with 21 points. You have Bones Highland, I think, with 15 points or somewhere around there. And so you allow all of those guys to get off by turning the ball over. A lot like Brooklyn.

We were playing against a set defense all night with all the foul. And they went to the foul line 37 times. It's hard to be the team. You're turning the ball over. So you can't get your defense set and they're getting runouts. They're getting open shots in transition. and then when you do get a chance to play them in a half court or you're trying to get back in transition,

they shoot 37 free throws. That means at least 19 to 20 times in that game right there off the free throws alone you're playing against a set defense. You know, what are you, 80, 90 possessions? So there's more than 30% of your possession. against a set defense automatically because you're coming off a free throw situation. So for us, I think it's very simple. Get back to not turn the ball over, get back to defender without filing.

That falls on me. Game three, I have five files. I was able to make the play. But game four, I had six foul. So I can't continue to get in that same foul trouble as well. As the leader on that side of the floor from my squad, if I'm going to get in foul trouble, if that's the tone that I'm going to see,

then you have to expect that guys are going to follow that. You got to take the good with the bad as a leader. You can't just take the good and say, oh, man, our defense was great. It was great because of these reasons. And I'm right in the middle of that. And I say our defense, we filed a lot. We didn't cover the things that we need to cover. And our defense was bad, but I'm not in the middle of that.

No, I'm right in the middle of all of that. So I have to do a better job of defender without foul. And the dubs have to do a better job as a whole of defender without foul. And when we do that on Wednesday, I have no doubt in my mind that we go ahead. We take game five and we move on to the next series. But as I said, close out games are tough. So it's on us to lock in. It's on us to take the experience that we learn from game four,

bring that to game five and finish the job. That's what's important. You get out of this series. You don't look ahead and say, all right, we're going into game five. It's automatically done. No, it's not. Finish the job. Get back to the game plan.

We get back to the game plan. I don't have any doubt in my mind that will close the series out. I also heard a lot from a lot of different people, some close to me, some on Twitter, about the Aaron Gordon double tech

or whatnot in the first quarter? You know, I don't make much of double text situations, honestly. In most cases, I totally disagree with double text because usually

there's someone that did something that required a reaction from someone and once the reaction comes then it's like oh we're going to give both of them tech and it's like make the tough call and call the first tech that should be called

not oh I just watched this guy do something to him and he reacted so I'm going to give him a tech for reacting like come on man we're human beings you're going to have reactions to things and I feel like if an official see certain things happen.

And you saw what led to that, then you call the tech. Like, don't double tech. Now, in our situation, it was totally different. We were both talking back and four. We probably deserved a dope a tech. But in a lot of those situations, and more so throughout the regular season,

seen a bunch of them, I really disagree with the double tech. But I don't make much of the Aaron Gordon thing that happened in the first quarter like small fruit gotta keep keep going you can't like oh man we got into it in the first quarter I'm gonna hold on to that like that's

keep it pushing that's the least of my words move forward I ain't tripping on that at all in the moment we've all been waiting for my rant on most improved player of the the most improved player of the year in the NBA

the award that the name needs to be changed on. Number one, I want to say congratulations to John Moran. I don't, I'm always happy to see a young black man have success. When you're talking most improved player, you get that award because you worked hard. And so I don't ever want to take away or dim the light on the work that he's put in. I think the point I've been making the entire time is maybe, Maybe I just may be a better talent evaluator, general managers, than basketball player.

Because I myself personally thought John Morant was absolutely incredible last year. And so that's kind of been my whole thing on him winning the most improved player award. I think John Morant maybe had felt kind of the same way, which is why he went and dropped that award off or had it dropped off at Desmond Bain's house. Now, that's him, you know, giving a war to one of his teammates that was in the running for the war. Listen, I actually agree, Desmond Bain probably should be in the top three voting for most improved player because he improved a bunch from his rookie year to this year and the player that he's becoming the importance that he has on that team. And so I'm not going to rant about this Most Improved Player thing again because, as I said, John Morant won the award.

I don't want to take anything away from him. But what I will say is there were four voters that voted John Morant, third place and Most Improved Player. I respect those four voters' opinion and their judgment on the actual award way more than everyone that voted him first place. Those four people that voted him in third place are actually more accurate and spot on with like, you know, you see all the work John Morant put in and you know how good John Moran was.

And it's like, all right, there's four people that's like, I want to mention John Moran in this category, but then they come to their senses and they're like, but he was so good last year that I really can't put him in first place, but I do want to mention and honor the work that he's put in. So yeah, we're going to like for third place votes. Those third place votes has to be the more accurate numbers on John Morant. And like I said, in judging and looking from afar,

John Morant kind of felt the same way. Like, let me go take this to Desmond Bang. Because that, I don't know. Like, nonetheless, kudos and congratulations to John Morant. That's incredible. to you get acknowledged for your work. I can't take nothing away from him. But the NBA, y'all got to do something about it.

It has to happen. The voting process, it needs scratch. Again, go show me anywhere else in a world where someone who's like, oh, I'm going to give my opinion on this, is going to decide who makes the money and how that works out. And who wins these awards? Ah, put a committee together in BA. You know, just like the competition.

Put some type of committee of coaches and general men. Put maybe a couple media members. Put some committee together and let's get these awards voted on. And let's also define what the criteria is for these awards. Come on now, NBA. I'm sick of asking. We need this done. Let's get it done, baby.

We need it. And before we wrap up today's episode, as you know, you know, I announced last week that we're going to do add a mailbag session and take questions from Twitter. Jackson has done the work and found the questions and brought the questions here, as Jackson always does. Jackson makes this whole thing go. I'm very appreciative of Jackson.

Jackson, what you got for me? What's our questions? What did the people bring to the Draymond Green show? Yes, just a reminder if you want to ask questions for the next episode, it's hashtag the Draymond Green Show on Twitter. That's where I'm going to pull these questions. First one, from Garrett Bullock at Garrett Bullton. How are these young guys adapting to the playoffs, the intensities,

mistakes, the crowd, even though they may not be getting the same minutes, they got in the regular season. How do you keep the young guys accountable and make sure they're still bought in and locked in? Well, I think it's, I think, Garrett, I think is very important that young guys, number one, understand that very thing that you are young guy that playoff minutes are earned, that just because you did things in the regular season, it's a totally different level, and you have to earn that trust of your coach in the playoffs. Now, who has earned that trust of our young guys?

Jordan Poole has earned that trust of coach during the playoffs, and he's playing absolutely incredible. Jonathan Kaminga has played now 11 meaningful minutes in this series, and his 11 minutes he worked his minutes. He played incredibly well. But that's not a badge to just say, oh man, Kaminga played well. Steve Kerr has to get him in the game more.

That's still a process. That's still trust that you have to gain. And when you have veterans like Andre, like Auto Porter, a coach normally is going to tend to lean towards those veterans because it's just more of a comforting thing for a coach because you lean on that experience. And so I think our young guys has done an incredible job of adjusting to the physicality, intensity level, and not making the mistakes that they made during the regular season.

Everyone makes mistakes. But I think they've done an incredible job of adjusting. I think our leaders has done an incredible job of leading them. And I think it's all working out. And it's coming together the way that we want and need it to come together. Fantastic. Let's stay in the in the playoffs right now. I know we can move off of it.

But from George Michael Perez at George Mike Perez, I thought this was an interesting question. I've never heard someone really asked a question like this. Are there any similarities and differences between the Warriors and Heat that a regular fan does not see? Big time heat fans. That's why I'm asking, love the pod and keep it going. Um, George. Are there any similarities and differences between the Warriors and the Heat?

There's obviously a lot of differences. I think the question is more about similarities. A bunch of differences. The similarities, I think, are Miami is built. They are built around Jimmy Butler's toughness. And then that kind of moves, you know, moves, you know, not that PJ Tucker isn't tough, not that Bam out of Bayou isn't tough.

But Jimmy Butler is the leader of that team. And I think they are built around that toughness. They feed off that toughness very similar to how we're built. And, you know, and kind of my toughness, and that's my role on this team. And so I do see some similarities there with that. But as far as our two teams go, I don't think there's much similarities. I think a lot of our shooting on our team come from Steph Curry, Clay Thompson, and Jordan Poole. And then their shooting comes from like Tyler Hero,

Max Trues, you know, Duncan Robinson, which, you know, the roles that those guys play on that team and the roles that our three guys play on our team are two totally different roles. So I'd personally say I think there's more differences and a ton more differences than there are similarities. I'd actually go a step further and say, if those two teams were to meet in the NBA finals,

It's like the tail of two tapes. Like, we kind of don't play the same basketball at all. Next one from Lathen Poulon, apologies if I'm mispronouncing that name, at Lathen P-24. Talk about running the pick and roll with you as the playmaker on the role. What are you looking for since we haven't seen those weak side dive lobs like you used to throw to Iggy?

Well, I think it takes some time for guys to get accustomed to making that cut that Iggy. became so infamous for making. And it's a re, you know, and it, you know, me and Wiggins are almost there. Like, we're getting very close to getting that lot. But it just takes some time to build that chemistry. And I think for us, we haven't had the fortune of having great health this year.

And so all the pieces that you're now putting into the puzzle to make that an actual thing and to allow that to be open, they're just now getting there. So now you're just now learning how to read that cut, when to cut back door, when not to go, and to make that play happen. And so I feel like we're getting there.

Like I saw it once in game four where I could have thrown it, and I was like, ah, I just missed it. And so we're getting really close to that. Watch out for putting the pressure on Wiggins. I hope he hears his Wigs going to make that cut for me. And I'm going to toss that lob up. But I think for me, when I come out of the pick and roll, I'm just looking for that backside low man

and what decision he's going to make. Is he going to step up and stop me and make me make the next play? Is he going to make me finish? If he does step up, is the next defender? Is he pulling in or is he standing out with the shooter? Because if he pulls in to attack, the guy that was being guarded by the defender that already stepped up to take me, me up. If now the defender comes from the wing to tag and take his man away, then I'm

looking to the wing to one of my shooters. And then that's where you got Clay Thompson for three, or I'm kicking into Auto Porter. He's swing, swinging in Jordan Pool. And that's kind of how that unfolds. So my number one read is the guy who's in the hole, the one guy who's the bottom low man, which we call in the NBA, which is you're the last tag. You're the last line of defense. And then also, uh, the, the guy who's the bottom low man, which we call in the NBA, which is you're the last line of defense. And then also, we call it a sink guy. And that's the guy who's coming from the wing to either sink in and tag or he misses his tag. So I'm reading those two guys.

My man doesn't even matter. He's out of the play. He's the least of my worries. I'm trying to read those next two guys in line and then make that play. Last one. From Santiago Perdiz at Santiago Perdiz, which player from NBA history would you want to play with and one you want to play defense against?

One player from NBA history that I would want to play basketball with. I think the player that I would want to play basketball with and play defense on at the same time as Shaq. I grew up a Shaq fan. I had Orlando Magic Nightlight to zip up onesie. like an iron on Shaq Jersey, I was a huge Shaq fan. So if I could play basketball with Shaq, and then if I could also guard Shaq

so I can shut everyone up with the, oh, you can't guard Shaq? Of course I can't guard Shaq, but I can get a stop. Like, I ain't said I'm going to stop him repeatedly. But I think at some point I'm going to get a stop. But I would love that challenge, though. Like Shaq, like I said, he's my favorite player growing up.

if I had the opportunity to guard him, like, that's everything for me. If I had the opportunity to play basketball on Shaq's team, that's everything for me. So that's the easy one for me. Shack Dees, of course. That's my guy. So if, you know, everybody said,

oh, man, if you played in the league back then, you wouldn't be able to guard Shaq or you wouldn't be at a guard team. Shut up. I'm guarding Shaq. Bring on the big fella. That's it, man. On this week's episode of the Dremont Green Show.

Talk to y'all later this week. week. Hope you all enjoyed this analysis. When I talk to y'all later this week, Doves Denver should be over. That's it. It's a wrap. Peace.