The Mismatch - Blowout Playoff Games, Rethinking Mavs-Warriors, and Tim Connelly Leaving

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

Verno and KOC begin the show discussing the abnormal number of blowout playoff games this season (01:00). After the Heat were physical in their Game 3 win, they got blown out in Game 4 as the Celtics tied the series at 2-2 (17:20). KOC explains why having Robert Williams on the floor is more important than having Marcus Smart. After pushing the Suns to seven games, the Mavs are now down 0-3 to the Warriors and the guys are starting to reconsider choosing the Mavs in this series (24:12). One thing is certain when it comes to the Mavs: They need help. Lastly, they discuss Tim Connelly leaving the Nuggets to join the Timberwolves and some of the notable performances from the NBA combine (47:54). Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. We're not just reacting to the NBA playoffs on my podcast. We're also doing it on The Ringer NBA show and the Mismatch podcast. They are coming after some of these NBA playoff games. Check it out, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights on the Ringer podcast Network. Welcome to The Mishmatch. I'm Chris Farnan. And joining me as he does every Tuesday from The Ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor,

A.K. Kevin O'O.comer, Kevin O'Conner, Kevin O'Colns, Kevin O'Clymer, Kevin O'Candiland. Berneau! What's going on? man. Well, you were at Boston versus Miami game four last night. And unfortunately, I think the biggest storyline outside of the Celtics tying it up two to two and making it a competitive series is that everybody was left after last night saying, when can we have a good game? When are we going to get to watch competitive basketball? And I saw you retweet some numbers this. morning kind of giving

some clarity to what we all feel and yet when you see the numbers it justifies how we all feel. Yeah, Justin Fond tweeted out the average margin of victory over the last 17 postseason games is 19.8 and there's been a total of only seven clutch time minutes over those 17

playoff games. That's crazy, Chris. That's a cross-series, cross-different matchups that we haven't gotten all that many close games down the final stretch. And, I mean, this Miami-Boston series, I was texting with people last night, like, what do you think of the factors going into this? And nobody is, nobody is given the same answer. And plenty of people are saying, I don't know, it just seems kind of random. I mean, is it injuries, probably a little bit of that? Like, do you think it's still a little injuries?

I mean, I think that part of it is injuries. But not the whole thing, right? Not everything. Well, I mean, the easy answer for everybody is always like, oh, well, well, this is what you get when these teams, there's a certain randomness to being able to make shots and three point shots. Three point variance, right? The variance aspects. Okay. Okay.

Fine. I accept that that could possibly. Well, because in the Dallas case, they hit them against Phoenix. They ain't hitting them now. there's a great variance to that. The shot quality tells you they're getting basically the same shots they did. They're not making them this series. They did last series.

That it's random, right? But, okay, fine. Even if I accept that, last night, Boston missed 26 of its three-pointers and got outscored by Miami in that category by 18 points. They still won the game by 20. All right. Yeah, exactly. So it's, I mean, it's, so it's, so let's do away. Yeah, let's do away with that.

You know, part of it is I do wonder if it is the, the very small amount of time between the games. Yeah, right? That there, you know, that the adjustments are made from game to game, and that these, that it just feels like it's every other day and it's coming at you. And so especially for the older teams, right, and maybe some of the older players, that that could have a profound impact on them, especially if they're nicked up and need to recover. So take for instance, we saw it like, what happened to Chris Paul?

Chris ball was the best fourth quarter scorer in the in the entire NBA. He's been one of the best fourth quarter scorers in the entire NBA for 15 years. He was one of the best fourth quarter scorers early in that series. And so, you know, they say he had a quad thing at the end. So let's accept that he was, he was bothered by something. I don't want to take anything away from the defense that was played on him by Dallas. All right. But he's bothered by something.

and there's no rest for the weary. A guy like that when you're 36, 37 years old, you really need to have the requisite amount of time to rest that thing, and you're not getting any time. And you've got to go out, and your best players, you've got to run out there 35 to 42 minutes, right? And so you take into consideration,

you go back through the year. There's a lot of these situations. In fact, most of them, where you're talking about three games, of five days, right? Well, when we talk about it during the regular season and we say, that's their third game in five days, or that's their fourth game in seven days, like those are usually known as trap games throughout the year. Like, you know, in gambling parlance, people, people call these trap games because they say, all right, this is the dead team. This team has been off for

a couple of days. Terrible spot for them. And then you see these wild outcomes. You remember a couple years ago, and I don't think he does it anymore, but Baxter Holmes did that article. Remember I brought it up on the mismatch years ago, and it was like this four in five days or four and seven days.

It was a whole column he did, and he updated it throughout the season. And it was basically the premise was schedule losses. And you would see, like, the outcomes in those things. And it would do some very good explaining for, as we were going through an 82 game season, and we would see, like, the, I don't know, the Tuesday night game, it's like the heat play at Denver, and the final score was 127 to 88. And you're like, what happened there?

And then inevitably, you would go back and you would look, and it would be part of Baxter Holmes article that were he was chronicling, here are the spots throughout the month. And I mean, the record was crazy. The record was crazy. Every time he wrote the article, the record was crazy. Like, you could spot these. And so, you know, then you take, now this is a different situation because it doesn't necessarily favor a team like

that article would because they're both got whatever amount of games. but, you know, again, I'm not saying this is the answer. I'm saying in a world where we are looking for answers, I mean, one of the things I can come up with is just it's game after game after game after game. You know, the personnel changes, the guys are banked up. I don't know. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, I think that could be a factor, you know, the timing of games.

We mentioned injuries. We mentioned three-point shooting variants. something else somebody brought up to me that I thought was smart was these are defense first teams. So if you're getting off to a slow start and any, you know, for any particular reason, just missing shots or like elite defense is being played to cause you into some turnovers. If these two defense first teams, if one of them is scoring early, like the Celtics did last night building an 18 to one lead early in the game, that team has a extra built and advantage. if they also are scoring and transition getting stops, and then they have half-core possessions. It just kind of adds up early in games.

And, I mean, it makes a little bit of sense to me, I mean, because it's kind of just basic basketball. You get a stop, you get a early offense, and then if you score with an increased chance of scoring on the break, that means you have a better chance of getting a stop on defense, right? Like simple stuff, right? It's very simple, but it does make sense to me, especially given the nature of some of the teams

that have been remaining in the postseason. And someone else said to me, and this is like strictly about Miami and Boston, they're like, Boston has a bunch of young, you know, like airheads in Miami. I don't think that they're that great. That's what this person said. And, you know, that's just one person's assessment. But I think you add all of these factors up together, you know, these, you know, opinions about these teams and how they analyze them, the basics of basketball or like trends in basketball

on the schedule. I think all of it's coming together, and it's all sort of just random, though. I think a lot of it is just kind of random when you put it all together, but I don't think there's any one particular reason. If you had to choose just one, Chris, like, if there's one reason that is the strongest reason why we're seeing so many blowouts, for me it'd be three-point shooting variance. Like, which one would it be for you? I think it would be the amount of games in a short amount of time,

that we would get much more competitive basketball if they had a little more rest. that's what I'd say. You could be right. You could be right. I wonder if the league will reevaluate this in the years ago. Because there have been, I know Ben Taylor with his thinking basketball podcast, so I saw he tweeted out a staff this morning from his show that showed there has been an increase and blowout rate in recent years.

So like going back to 2017, 2018, it's like this year's an outlier compared to some of those other seasons, but it still has been higher in the last, four or five post seasons. Josh Everly tweeted out this morning. We've already had 22 games in the playoffs where a team is won by 20 plus points. Man, that's crazy. That's 15 so far this playoffs. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

No, 22 this year. That's already happened. Last year was 15. The year before was 12. Oh, wow. So it really is way more this year. It's crazy, dude. And think about this.

Of the 76 games that have been played so far, 39 have been decided by 10 or more. Man, over half. Over half of the games have been decided by double digits. That's crazy. Yeah, it's weird. How about this? And 22 of those 39, if we take the other stat,

so 22 of those 39, it's 20 plus. 39 that are 10 plus 22 that are 20 plus and you know I was reading this morning when do you think the last game we had I'm not yet well this is an impossible thing to answer so I'll just tell you

the last one possession game in the final two minutes of this postseason I have no idea game five Celtics Milwaukee. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. That's a good game. That was May 11th.

Almost two weeks ago. That was the last... Almost two weeks ago, Chris. Almost two weeks ago. That was the last one possession game in the final two minutes was Celtics bucks in game five. it's crazy to think about because that was the Drew Holiday game right the Drew Holiday game right the Drew Holiday

block on Marcus Smart the Drew Holiday Steel right yep now in this particular series that was under 10 seconds with one point for that game you know the one you were at last night

okay so so far in this series one team has led the other by a massive margin so the heat were up 20 in game one The Celtics were up 34 in game two. The heat were up 26 in game three. And last night, the Celtics were up 32.

Oh, my God. At least game three got interesting. We have had leads of 20, 34, 26, and 32. Oh, my God. So it's not even like the other team's up 16. They're up 32. I'm not kidding you. All right.

So I don't know what it felt like in the arena. Loud. Teagarden always is. That game was over in six minutes. Yeah. I really felt that way. I mean, Tidigardo was popping pregame. It was popping her in the first quarter.

It was loud. But then it kind of simmered down, you know, because the game was felt in hand, even though you can never feel like it's in hand in the NBA playoffs, apparently. Oh, I mean, well, they score one or two points in the first, like, five. minutes of the game. I think they started one for 15. And I was like, all right,

backs against the wall, Boston, they've come out firing, crowds going out, Miami can't make anything. Boston's a very difficult team to come back against. And so this is going to be a horrendous issue for Miami tonight. And I mean, it really felt like that. It really felt like halfway. That's the problem. It's not even like. like these teams run each other out in the second half. Six minutes into that game. I walked into my kitchen. In the other room, my daughter was watching Lego Batman.

I sat down and watched that for 10 minutes with her. Don't blame. I was like, I'm like, I ain't missing nothing. Hey, no, I would. And my son came in and he's like, hey, what's going on in the Heat Celtics? I'm like, the hell Celtics are beating their ass. I was like, I promise you, I'm not missing anything. I watched the first six minutes and the one team went one for 15.

And I don't, and I don't think that's going to get much. better anytime soon. I walk back in. They were up by 20 something. I was like, yeah, all right, made the right call. Lego Batman was pretty damn funny. I mean, also, like, when it comes to, you know, the fact that Lego Batman is a fair option to turn to with some of these games.

Have you ever seen it? The first 20 minutes of that movie are frigging hilarious. No, I've never seen Lego Batman. That's a funny. Because, like, is it made by the same people? I'm assuming who done the Lego movie? movie okay and that's a very funny movie i'm telling you if you don't laugh at you'll laugh at the opening credits the first 20 minutes of that movie are hilarious really and so she just started it so i watched

like the first like whatever i know i mean i've seen the movie a bunch obviously pretty uh pretty good cast i see here will on that michael sarah rosario dawson i've always had a big crush on her was erio dawson let's go zach aliphonacus Jenny Slate is Harley Quinn. Conan O'Brien as the riddler. Wow. Zoe Kravitz is Catwoman. No, it's great. It's great.

It's great. Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill. Wow. Mariah Carey? They got every character in the world in there and it's funny. I promise you it was better than Boston, Miami. In fact, I may watch it again if game five looks like that. Playoffs are heating up.

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Stop. In New York, one-eight-eight-eight-nine. In Tennessee, Redline, 188089-8-8-2-70. In West Virginia, 800, 800-Gambler.net. Well, with these games, though, Chris, it's like, in terms of analysis from game to game. Well, let's talk about some of these guys. And part of me feels, I mean, part of it feels like, in some ways, what is there to say? All right.

It's so due to the shooting. It's so due to whatever the factor is. But there are different guys that are stepping up every time. So last night, I think you walk away from that game because I did walk back in to watch it. And I think you walk away talking about Derek White and Rob Williams. Obviously, look, Horford has been great. And consistently, consistently great, a mainstay for that team. But you got good Derek White right from the beginning.

And you got great Rob Williams. So it has been some different guys here and there, upon the game. You know, it's not the same guys every time. Sometimes it's Grant Williams and Peyton Pritchard. Sometimes it's, you know, Max Trues hit that huge shot for Miami in the last game. It's different guys besides the stars. Because look, when Tatum walked in with the Jordan Kobe thing, you got to, you got to show out. And obviously, he was best player on the floor stuff for the first half of that game, for sure. But if we're talking about the extras, certainly Derek White and Rob Williams

deserve some credit for their performances in last night's game. And I know that you had mentioned White in a tweet last night as you were sitting there watching it. Yeah, he starts off 4-4. And, you know, I just tweeted about the hustle. He had some great transition plays. The scoring is the cherry on top with him because he always brings everything else.

And Robert Williams, in only 19 minutes last night, but very effective on defense. It seems to me, like, if you're, like, we've seen the Celtics without Smart and Williams in game one. We've seen them without Smart, without Williams. Derek White does a pretty good job, you know, filling in the mark of smart shoes. Well, I mean, he comes out last night and he gives you the first seven points of the game, 13 points, eight rebounds, six assists, three steals. I mean, yeah. It was an excellent game. But with Robert Williams, though, the size he provides on the floor, the length, it does seem to make a factor on BAMMetabio.

When Time Lord is out there versus when he's not. And when you've got Horford out there too, who's got 13 rebounds, four blocks, you know, and they just absolutely crush Miami on the boards. did they won the rebounding battle 60 to 39 and they had 11 blocks the heat had two and this is a team that I mean you know they spent the last

48 hours here and about out of the the heat just walked in their house and punked them out physical basketball right in game three uh men versus boys scuff and that response

you come out and it's 60 to 39 on the board, like all the, all the tough stuff? Sure. Boston flipped the script. Well, I mean, just to pull up the numbers with Robert Williams on the court versus opt to court,

these are going to be Bamata Bio's numbers per 36 minutes just to kind of regulate the numbers that I'm saying, allowed to make them digestible. So when Robert Williams is on the court, bam at a bio is scoring 11, point four points on 5.4 shots per 36 minutes. When Time Lord is off the court, those numbers go up to 17.7 points on 13.4 field goal attempts per 36 minutes. So his field goal attempts are going up by eight per 36 minutes when Time Lord is off the court. His points are going up from 11 to 17.

It is just a minor indicator that Williams just being out there, whether defending at a bio or not has been a deterrent to Adebile getting some of the shots that he has scored on throughout this series. And now he's not just scoring at the rim. Like we saw in game three, him scoring away from the basket. He hit that big time jump shot in the second half to kind of

quiet down a Celtics run when they were making their comeback. But Time Lord seems to be like the major difference maker in this series for Boston. They just feel like a more complete defense with him out there. Whereas smart the smart is vitally important. Obviously it's a defensive player of the year.

We know his impact. But Derek White can do a good job at filling that responsibility in this series. And Pritchard, you know, they've done a better job with him after he had to play 30 minutes of game one when it wasn't any of those guys. So, I mean, I think with Boston, as long as they have Robert Williams out there for, you know, 20-ish strong minutes against Bam out of Bio, that's going to make a significant impact on the rest of the series if he can stay healthy. And obviously that that's a big question.

Yeah. And last night seeing, you know, Jimmy Butler was nowhere near what we have seen in some other games out of it. I mean, the heat was just terrible. They were flat and they sucked. And it was weird because you're watching that game and you're like, damn, man, this team cannot score at all. And then you're like, well, maybe Tyler Hero could get a bucket. Oh, Tyler Hero's not playing. Right?

Like, they don't have just bucket getters. And if Jimmy Butler is going to be crappy, you desperately need Tyler Hero. The truth is Miami has no chance unless Jimmy Butler is great. We know that. He has to be great. And he wears nowhere close to great. And so they're a little banged up too. And you do wonder how much of this is going to be.

What kind of roster can you field? They, because I'm done trying to figure the series out or predict what's going to happen. It's just these wild swings. You really, this, like, you say, hey, what do you think is going to happen in game five? I have no friggin idea. I'd imagine somebody kills somebody, but I don't know which one. Yeah, well, I mean, one of them's going to kill the other one. I just can't put a finger on which team's going to do the killing.

Yeah. I mean, we got one series significantly wrong. Very, very wrong. But I'm going to stick with Celtics and Six for this one. All right. Might as well try to get one of them right, Chris. Okay. That other one.

I mean, I, look, we were wrong. There's no way around it. We were definitely wrong. We were wrong. I'm going to make a minor excuse. And that is, I figure, especially with the attention that Luca would get

because of his greatness, that the Mazz would continue to get wide open threes. And make those threes. Some of them. They don't make any of them. They're wide open. It's not even like, dude, no one is around them.

Reggie Bullock, I mean, those rims are taking a beating. Yeah, there's four to the fourth. They're shooting 32.6% from three in the series. Well, and their whole offense sets up getting wide open threes, and they get them, and they can't make any of them. Maxi Cleaver, I mean, pumpkin. He turned into a pumpkin.

And Reggie Bullock, too. Oh, just can't make nothing. I mean, congratulations to him that morning. He won the Social Justice Award, the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award. But that night, he also turned into a pumpkin. My God. Those guys, Cleba and Bullock were a combined 0 for 15. Well, it's crazy.

You watch this stuff, and it's like, swing, wide open three. This is what you play for. You get a wide open corner three. Nobody's within 50 feet of you. bang off the rim. Not the Mike Green bangs you want to hear. No, and not to mention, they don't rebound any of them. You know what I mean?

Like there was like one possession where they got two rebounds off long shots. And I was absolutely shocked. Like Finney Smith tracked one down and somebody else tracked on down. And I was like, wow. And you juxtapose it between game on the line, five point game, Luca Donchich, who, in the words of Pat Beverly, played the cone, obviously, you know, getting blown by, by Clay Thompson, like he's frigging prime Kobe Bryant.

And I'm like, bro, are you in, are you in mud? What is going on here? Because I rewounded to watch it. Clay Thompson gets a ball. Luca does this half-ass step out. Then he does the, you know, I'm lazy, so I'm going to just try to poke the ball from behind. He misses on that. And then he whips it across the Jordan Pool.

Wide open three. Curtains. Game's over, right? Games over. Like, you play for that shot. And that's a different. He makes that shot. You know what I mean?

He's wide open. Foop, game over. And they added it at five, and it was like, well, geez, man, they could somehow, some way, end up stealing this thing if they could finally make two, three-pointers. Yeah.

Because they had gotten some stops down the stretch. They went on that late, like, what was? 11 to 2 run, something like that. And I'm thinking, geez, they get one more stop. This is going to become pressure time. But instead, Poole just ended the game with that three. Not to mention the Wiggins, though. I mean, my God, Kevin.

My God. I got someone DM me a little Photoshop of Wiggins dunking on you with being in the background in place of Jalen Brunson with a big smile on my face. Oh, my goodness. It made me laugh last night when I saw that. Maybe I'll share that on Twitter when we promote this pod. Oh, my God. Yeah, the Wiggins stuff is,

It's really a joy to watch. I texted one of my buddies with the Warriors, and I said, what the hell? He said, look, this guy, they told him, you go guard Luca, you be aggressive on offense, and he has been awesome. He's been awesome. There's no way around him. Yeah, he's been terrific. And that dunk, holy hell. That was crazy.

Unble, two feet. Yeah, I know. What a moment. Crack that thing back? Oh, if they would have called that an offensive foul, that would have been such a miscarriage of justice. It would have been ridiculous if that happened. But with this series, though, Chris, I think, I think I listened back to our conversation when we said Mavs. I said Mavs in six.

I forget, what did you say, Mavs in seven or something like that? But I listened back to it. I think I'm happy with our analysis. obviously the pick was wrong. It's like in the drafts where sometimes your analysis is on point, your scouting notes are on point, but the ranking is poor, right? That's the way I feel about it.

I think we gave credit to what could happen for the Warriors to win this series. And I believe we said something along the lines of like, you know, this is a different type of offense that the Dallas defense has been defending. They've been defending more predictable offenses with Utah and Phoenix, with a lot of picker.

role and now with Golden State, they just got them in the spin cycle with their motion and they're cutting, their movement. Like it's a problem for Dallas in addition to the fact that, like you said, the Mavs are missing a ton of shots. And Seth Curry himself said it. We're playing the best basketball all season right now.

The Warriors are clicking on a higher level right now that we saw last round against the Grizzlies when they were struggling to get by the Grizz with OJah Moran. And we know how much success Memphis has had with OJah the whole year. But seeing that, right after Dallas came back and beat Phoenix,

all of it together, I just, you know, I think I just got tricked a little bit by recency bias there with Dallas, with what happened in that series, with the Chris Paul collapse, go on stake clicking, you put it all together now, and I just feel like the warriors have totally exploited the Dallas shortcomings that were there before and have been for a while, like Dwight Powell at Center,

lack of wing depth, but now it's quite obvious just how pressing those things are as needs for Dallas to find this offseason to build and close that gap with the Warriors. Look, it doesn't matter because as I always say, and these games are not played on paper, right? But they're winning the shot quality still. They're still winning it.

They just don't make anything. They made them against Phoenix. And when you're talking about the whole, you know, defensive thing, part of that is they made all those shots against Phoenix, which enabled them to set up their defense, right? We talked about getting to play deadball basketball. Well, not only it's the worst of all things when you can't make any threes, because now you're clanking it off against the team that wants to get in space and pace, fly up and down the court. now you're in scramble mode and you don't have good matchups anyway.

The Looney thing has been huge. The Wiggins thing has been huge for them. So when we talk about the extra guys and what they've done, but you look back and you see what they were able to, what they were able to give up against Phoenix when they got their wins. They gave up 94. They gave up 101. They gave up 80.

I'm sorry. They gave up 94 101. 86 and 90. Those are the point totals for Phoenix in those games. And a lot of that is because they were able to knock

down threes in those games. You know, when you've got this offense that is predicated on one guy and his usage and you're whipping the ball around and getting open threes and you can't make any of them

and you can say, well, yeah, that's Because they're playing the Warriors. Except then why does the shot quality things say that they would be expected to make these shots? You think Reggie Bullock looks across and goes, oh my God, it's blue and gold. Now I can't shoot this wide open friggin three. Like, that's ridiculous. You think Maxi Kleepa's going, oh, God, I'm playing the Warriors instead of the Suns. Now I can't make wide open threes.

Like, it's not like they're contested now. They're not contested. It could be, I mean, it might not be because the blue and gold. It could just be random. It could also be like, oh, shit, this is the West finals. And where it's, you know. Pressure breaks, pipes, maybe. Yeah, maybe.

Could be that. But, I mean, it'd be Phoenix. Yeah, no. It was a 65-win team or whatever. Exactly. So, I mean, that's what I mean. Like, it could just be random. Like, it's as simple as that.

It could just be random, not a choke job by any means. Or maybe it is regression to the main. and that's what we got dup by. In the end, Kevin, you know, there's part of me that sat back and go, man, I really did get fooled by that. In the end, it's still Maxie Kleber and it's still Reggie Bullock and it's still Dorian Finney Smith. It's still like, it's still what we talked about during the year, which is like Lucas got to have more guys. You know, like they're not, you're not whipping it around to Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. kids of Clay Thompson when you're paying extra attention to Steph Curry.

You're throwing it to Reggie Bullock and Maxie Cleaver, which, you know, look, no offense to those guys, but how many other awesome teams are those guys starting on? Really? You think those guys are starting on any other team? That's awesome? I would venture to say no. I would venture to say they're both bench players. on any of the other awesome teams.

That's what I'd do. Dwight Powell, yes. Dwight Powell, what? Dwight, Dwight, Dwight, well, he'd be on the bench. Yeah, for sure. I mean, Finney,

Finney Smith, Bullock, maybe. Does he have, like, did he have blackmail stuff on, on them or something? Like, did he's got some kind of deal

where he has to play six minutes or something? What the hell is the point of putting him in the game? I don't understand it. They start the game, And then you just, are they trying to get him involved so that he'll wave his towel the rest of the game or something? What the hell is the point of that? They got to find an upgrade over him this offseason. I think.

I know Mavs fans have known that a long time at the starting center spot. But it's becoming even more apparent now against Golden State for sure. It goes without saying that they, it's crazy though. Like with Golden State, they have beat the Mavs, not with the three. pointer, but with getting to the basket at will, which is kind of as a result of the, you know, the gravity that they pull, you know, from the perimeter to get to the basket. Yeah, there's no rim protection. Yeah, there's just no rim protection. They're exploiting it. The Warriors, and like also you get to give, like we said, the Warriors team, like they're playing

better basketball than ever before. But like Steve Kerr, his coaching staff, they've coached the hell of a serious, man. The way they're switching it up on defense, throwing out the zone randomly out of nowhere, changing schemes, changing matchups. Like we saw them pull Steph off of Bullock in the middle of, I think that was game two when that happened. And then

Dorian Finney Smith becomes the guy that they had to have screening for Luca. Just little things like that, all of that has added up and has given Golden State a lot of the separation that we've seen this series. And Steve Kerr said on his weekly call with K&BR about

you know, how it annoyed him about the experts, so-called experts, talking about the warriors needing to play more pick and roll the last two years. And then he's stuck with the system and now, and now we're seeing everything work out. You know, I do remember reading some stories at the time about like people within his front office saying, hey, James Wiseman needs to be utilized and more pick and roll. You know, it's the best thing that he's doing right now.

So I don't think it was just goofs like us, saying they need to play more pick and roll. No, that was, at least in my point of view, that was 100% Wiseman-related. Yeah, I thought so too. Well, because the truth is, and look, everybody at Golden State knows this. Maybe Steve doesn't.

You can't use Wiseman as Draymond. Yeah. It's not what he does. I think the picker and roll, it was a Wiseman thing, more than anything else. You can't, you can't throw. the ball to James Wiseman at the at the free throw line and have him initiate the offense and now play four on three because two guys are out on staff like that's the thing

when you put the kid in the role you know exactly it's to me the benefit of wiseman was kind of exactly what we just said the warriors have done on defense they're constantly changing up schemes I think with wise men oh suddenly we can become a high pick and roll team ha like we have this in our pocket too. Like, I think that, that was the benefit that I kind of foresee. Well, and he gets to do this now. But anyway, he didn't say this against Memphis, did he? Sure.

When they weren't targeting John Morant or Tyos Jones or anybody. Sure. Yes, exactly. But to his point, though, you know, they did stick with the system. And a lot of these young guys are flourishing in the biggest games. And they're about to go to another finals by sticking to the system, playing their way, you know, etc. etc. And they've coached a hell of a series to their credit there. For the Warriors to be in this position, again, one game back from the finals, they're sixth.

I just go back to that stat. I believe we shared from ESPN stats and info at the time they tweeted it out. But the Warriors are going to be the seventh team with 21 plus playoff series wins in a 10 plus span in NBA history. The 60s Celtics, the 80s Celtics, the 80s, Lakers, the 90s bowls, these most recent spurs we've seen over the last 20 years, the early 2000s Lakers, the Warriors are in that category for teams that have sustained winning and won that amount of playoff series over 10 years. That's crazy company to be part of, which does put into perspective, their ability to sustain success over the last 10 years.

The fact they're about to be in another finals, it's crazy, Chris. It's crazy. They're here again. They're here again. One game away. Well, and the other thing is they have the, they have the win streak going in the West Finals, right? Mm-hmm.

How many is this in a row? I think it's, oh, geez, I can't remember what the, what is the number? Six, no, no, no, in terms of. Oh, games won. Yeah, yeah, yeah, nine game streak in the conference finals, dating back to game 6 of 2018, which is the longest in the 16-team playoff era,

trailing only the Bulls winning 11 in a row in game 3 of 1993 to game 3 of 1997. That's wild. If they win tonight, if they sweep out the Mavs, that's a 10-game winning streak in the conference finals game. Wow. That's crazy. The last one they lost then was today in 2018, May 24th, 2018 against the Rockets. That's the last time they lost in the Western Conference finals.

98-94, Houston won that game. That's crazy. Chris Paul, 20 points, James Harden, 19 points. Eric Gordon with 24 off the bench. That's the game they lost. So they won the last two versus Houston, and then they sweat. Portland and now they're up 3-0 on Dallas. That's wild.

That is wild. Would you see that tweeted out? That's a good step. Kevin Pelton was the one that had the nine-game winning streak. That's a good stat. Yep. Nine-game winning streak. The last team in the Western Conference to win the NBA finals not from the state of California or Texas

was the 1979 Seattle Supersonics? Not from which states? Is that true? Wait, what was that stat again?

I'm not sure I'm hearing something about states. This is insane. Can you say that stat again? No, so either one would apply because it's, because obviously

both these teams are from California and Texas. The last Western... But why were you bringing states into this? Is this like electoral college? What, what are you? What is this? I'm saying the last Western Conference team. I was just looking at these stats from the,

from the, what's it called, from the series. The last Western conference team to win the NBA finals, not from California or Texas. Oh, okay. That's,

okay. Was the 1979 Super Sonics? What? Is that true? That does that. Any other team that has, that's incredible. that's incredible

i'm falling up NBA finals history I'm scrolling up you had to have either been what about Oklahoma City they didn't win the finals but I'll win the finals yes win the finals okay

I think my hair my hair checked apparently San Antonio Dallas Golden State yeah and the Lakers damn that's insane

yeah 1979 Sonic and even the teams that lost, it's a lot of California and Texas, which makes sense, considering the amount of teams there are from California and in Texas and the Western Conference,

it's like a third of the conference itself. But the fact that so many of them, even the ones that lost, it's crazy. Bro, it's 1979, though. I know. It's over 40 years ago. So it's OKC in 2012 lost. Utah and 98 and 97 lost Seattle and 96 lost

Phoenix in 93 Portland in 92 Portland in 1990 Oklahoma City And then Sonics won it Yeah it's in 12 yep And then Sonics won in 79 like you said So it's not even that many years That a team outside of California or Texas even made the finals

And well and then you know what that makes people feel good Right because all the people from California are moving to Texas Oh, yeah, all going to Austin. So at least they're going to a place that can have an NBA finals team in it. Yeah. Right? While paying, much less income tax. That must be great.

That must be really nice. That must be sensational. I'm sure Elon will give you an extra room in his house. As nice as you've been to him. He says, tweet him, Ken. So, Elon, give me an extra room. Give me, I'll, I'll be outside. Yeah.

Solar panels and shit, it'd be fine. Solar panels, yeah. Yeah. Can I ride, go ride, record the podcast on a cyber truck? No problems. Hey, all right, so two more things before we get out of here. First is, you mentioned, you wrote an article about what the maps need to be looking at. And we talked about this weeks, maybe months ago, where I said, uh, that Tim McMahon throwing out there,

that there's like mutual interest with Gobert. Like, I don't know. It felt like the worst kept secret, you know, as the whole Utah thing was going the dramatic wrong way. And the idea that the Mavs would really want him. And obviously, you can imagine at this point, he'd probably like a new landing place. What did you mention?

Three first rounders, I think, in your article. I don't know. I forget the amount that I had in there. You're just trying to figure out a way. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure. Yeah. I'm willing to negotiate. Yeah.

I mean, it was like, I think I said two first or three, maybe one protected dot dot question mark. You know, I'm willing to negotiate here with Mavs fans with what they would be willing to give up. But I just think Rudy Gopera solves a lot of your issues.

You might just need to rope in a third team that can take, is it just wants to take on some expiring or some bull crap. Yeah. I mean, the big thing is like, there's three. things. Number three, you know, you got to have a center. Yeah. Number two, need more wing depth. But the most important one, though, is Luca continuing to get better. Like, that's most important. And Luca himself said it after game three. He was asked

about, you know, playing in the Western Conference finals, how do you balance your scoring, you know, with creating for others? And I thought he gave a really great answer, pretty much just saying, hey, I'm 23 years old. I'm in my first West finals. I'm still learning about the things that I have to do, and I'm going to get better from it. And I thought it was a really good answer. There's no finger point,

and he took accountability that there's some shortcomings in his game that he needs to get better at. So I look forward to Luca coming back next season. We're going to know on day one of training camp, just when he steps foot in there, how he looks physically, how serious he took his conditioning this offseason. because I'll tell you what, Chris,

that's the one thing that's been like, has popped to me in this series against Golden State. The amazing condition that some of these Warriors players are in, especially Steph Curry, who has been tremendous defensively all postseason, compared to Luca, getting targeted over 20 times per game,

getting just ripped apart by Golden State, especially in this series like Phoenix did early in their series last time, but just the difference in conditioning from Steph compared to Luca. He has to see that. too. I'm sure he fails feels that too. So

coming back next season in better shape that that's the next step. That's the next step for Luca. So he's less of a liability when he's targeted on defense and they get to change the roster too. Also want to ask you about the Tim Connolly thing. This is one of those things that could have a profound

impact on two teams in the Western conference. But because they're not huge. market teams, it probably doesn't get as much talk, but rather significant for the Minnesota Timberwolves to go big game hunting and to be able to get Tim Conley to leave the Denver Nuggets and head to another team within the conference. What do you make of it for Minnesota?

what do you make of it, maybe more importantly, for Denver? From what I understand, this wasn't something that he necessarily wanted to do that, like, this is, you know, the salary got doubled, according to Woj and Shams. I believe a number of people reported that,

you know, it got doubled. This is life-changing money. There's, like, ownership, equity as part of the deal, Woj said, I mean, there's a lot of reasons to go to Minnesota for Conley. And I think for Denver, a lot of Nuggets fans are understandably pissed off this morning, losing a great general manager like him and, you know, somebody who has taken calculated risks

and built a great team that's made four straight post seasons that has Yokic, that won as much as they did without, you know, their second and third best players all year long. He sucks to lose that guy. But I also get it from Denver's perspective not paying him. They did the same thing with Masayu Jiri back in 2013 when they let him go to Toronto. then they give Tim Conley a chance. They bring in AK, and now AK's in Chicago,

Conley's in Minnesota. But Calvin Booth, 10-year NBA vet, 10-year front-office executive, comes highly regarded. If he's able to slide into that role on a far cheaper deal and do a great job

with a fresh perspective, I understand it, it's just for Nuggets fans, it's the fact that it follows a trend of a lack of investment. You have this great general manager in Conley,

who is highly respected, who especially internationally shreds, because that's where he had his upbringing as an international scout in the NBA. You lose him, and you have one of the older practice facilities in basketball. Your games still aren't on TV. You still are in a position now

where you have one of the smallest front offices in the league. You have a coaching staff that's paid on the lower end compared to a lot of organizations. You just wonder if you're a Nuggets fan, damn, like where's the investment in us compared to like the Los Angeles Rams? Where's the investment in us compared to some of these other franchises

that the Kronky's own? You know, when you have a two-time MVP and Nicole Yokic and you're losing your general manager, you know, it's just, it's a strange place to be, but you only hope for them that Calvin Booth is able to step in and continue to build on

what Conley started. And on the Minnesota side, I mean, I think if you're One thing on Denver, though, before we go to Minnesota, though, like I said at the end of the article, is it possible Tim Conley's leaving at the perfect moment because, like, you have so much uncertainty moving forward with Denver, what's Jamal Murray going to look like,

what's Michael Porter going to look like, you know, what are you going to do to fill some of the gaps on the roster considering your cap situation and the guys you have entering free agency soon or Will Barton, you know, not being quite the same guy? Is there any part of you that feels like maybe he's making this jump at the right moment to go to Minnesota? Any part of you? I don't know.

I mean, if they're in the NBA finals next year, I don't know if it's the best time, right? It's a money deal. You know, I think that it's an opportunity. You don't know what kind of owners A-Rod and that crew is going to be. And you don't know. A lot of uncertainty in Minnesota, too. I mean, you don't necessarily know what you're getting into completely. Now, I just know you're making a lot more money.

Well, if you're Minnesota, though, I actually think if you're a Minnesota fan, you've got to be thrilled about this. I agree. And you're getting a great general manager. But more importantly, because this is one of the things that happened when my buddy, John Crosinski from the athletic who does a great job covering that team. When he was here, I talked to him, and it was the weirdness of this whole thing, because this doesn't go through for another long little while,

the whole changing of hands from Glenn Taylor to the A-Rod group. He's still met with Glenn Taylor for this. Yeah, right. It's still a while's away before that happens. And so one of the questions was, okay, so who's calling the shots? You know what I'm saying? Like, you know the new owners that are ponying up all this money. They want to have a real say in what goes on in the future.

And you know, and Glenn Taylor still owns the damn thing, right? So he's going to want to say it. And so basically the truth is it's unclear, right? It's collaborative, but it's not collaborative. And so here's what I would hope if I'm a Minnesota fan. This gets rid of all that. They've just decided, we're going to hire a guy to take over basketball. this guy's taking over basketball.

He's the one. He has proven himself at being able to do this job and a great job doing it, and he's going to be making the decisions. And he's not having to call Glenn Taylor, and he's not having to call A-Rod, and he's not having to make sure everybody agrees on everything.

We have all agreed. If we could get this guy, we're going to give him ownership stake, and we are going to let him run basketball, football operations. So there's no, because you know the way it is. I mean, you talk to the GMs, they got to call their owners every time they're going to do anything.

Well, imagine having to call three. You got to call three different guys, you know? Hey, are you guys cool with this? It's too much checks and balances. So I think if I'm a Minnesota fan, you hope that they all came to an agreement. If we can get this guy, this guy's going to run it for us. And I'll tell you this. They hired another guy from.

a couple weeks ago, which we didn't mention on the podcast, but I know him. Steve Senior, they hired him away from the Grizzlies front office. And he is great. Great. That was a very, very, very good hire by Minnesota. They hired Steve Senior to go over there, who was in charge of player development, et cetera, and he will do a tremendous job for them. He's very highly regarded, not just in Memphis throughout the league. he's great and so man now they got tim connelly running that thing think you're in really really good hands you know so long as the owners don't meddle you are in some really good hands because uh they still got the guy from houston right that took over for gerson uh uh sashan is that's name sasha yeah

they still got him there it sounds like he's going to stay around so they got some they got some really good dudes in that front office, man. Yeah. That's one thing I'm looking forward to seeing with Tim Conley because he, for what I understand, he's always been a collaborative decision maker. He had AK in Denver for years, and those guys worked hand in hand

in the decisions that they made, even though Conley was the final decision maker. Now you get a lot of smart people in that Minnesota front office. If you're a Wolves fan, you got to feel pretty good about the number of guys that you have there that have a history of working together well and other front offices,

they now can come together and hopefully work together well here with a changing ownership. A lot of uncertainty in Minnesota, a lot that needs to change there too. You need your young guys to get better too, just like Denver needs their younger guys to come back and stay healthy

and be their former selves are even better. So both of these teams have a level of uncertainty, but Denver has the two-time MVP and to leave that, that's obviously a downgrade in terms of roster, in terms of upside with where you are right now. but I'm very excited to see what Minnesota does. Anthony Edwards on the up and up.

Hopefully Kat continues to improve and maybe they'll figure things out with the rest of that roster, with the rest of that roster to properly build around them. It's exciting for a Wolf's fan. Very exciting. Last thing before we get out of here,

the Combine was this past weekend. Did you hear anything big out of the Combine? I mean, measurements are always a thing, you know, two of the things that I read, the, the kids name it, dude. Mark Williams? Yeah, people were highly impressed by his measurements.

Nine, nine. Yeah, standing reached second all time compared to Taco Fall. Bro, what is that? Nine, nine. Bro, you got to jump three inches to dunk? Yeah. That is crazy. Because he's not like a freco, like taco.

He's a big guy for sure. But a 9-9 standing reach is, that is absurd. For a guy that's like not some, you know, 7 foot 5 monster. That one. And then, yeah, and then, you know, all the other numbers for guys come out. And one of them that I read was that Patrick Baldwin. kid from Milwaukee that I know was very, very highly regarded as a high school prospect, went and played for his dad, I believe.

But he had like the third lowest vert in the last 10 years. It was Dieter Lawson, who I knew from Memphis and Dakari Johnson. That is, that's not great. That's not great. Third lowest vert. That's not a good. Yeah. Yeah, that one's tough.

I mean, some of the guys didn't measure, you know, Kennedy Chandler from Tennessee had a 42-inch vert, which can make up for the size. I mean, when you can... Yeah, he's a little guy. You could jump. Yeah, but when you can jump like that, you can make up for being a little small, I think.

I think Dyson Daniels, you know, you ask about buzz. I think Dyson Daniels got a lot of people talking about the week he had. I know Gavoni tweeted out some top five buzz that that's consistent with what I've heard. A lot of people see him as kind of this year's Halliburton. So I think with Daniels, with his size, 6-6 without shoes, long wingspan, almost 6-11 wingspan. You know, he shot the ball well at the pro day,

then impressed teams after he didn't shoot it well in the G-League season. And if he's able to shoot the ball well on top of all of his other skills, as the defender, playmaker, decision-maker, high basketball IQ, hustle. Like I said, people, look at him as this year's caliber. So, you know, I think with Daniels, you're going to hear increasing chatter about him being a guy who could move up boards after his

week in Chicago and the development that he showed. I would alert everybody, there's some really good notes on Bleacher Report, John Wasserman's, Jonathan Wasserman's article. He was great work. He kind of ranked his top 50 prospects. Tari Isan, 7-2 wingspan. Jeremy Sohan from Baylor,

he had just turned 19 on Friday. So super young guy. You know, Johnny Davis measured better than expected. That's a kid from Wisconsin. He was almost 6-6 when he measured out. So that was a good thing. Oh, wow. I just pulled up Wasserman's board.

He has Daniels fifth. Yeah. Wow, he is Daniels fifth. Six, seven and a half in shoes and the fastest shuttle run time in two years. in two years. How about that? Wow. And Jonathan also has Branham 8th, too?

Wow. Interesting. Yeah, a lot of teams like him. You're familiar with Brandon? I don't. I don't know him. He's interesting. Ohio State?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, the only, the only way I know about him is Titus bitching about him not coming back. Yeah. Martin Titus is so bad. Yeah. He was hoping nobody would find him.

And then they'd get him for another year. And Ohio State team, because the other kid from Ohio State, E.J. He's going to go pretty high too, right? I like him, yeah. Yeah, he had some pretty good numbers. He had, interestingly enough, because he's a big guy. He's 243 pounds. He had the highest standing vertical of anybody there that tested.

which I was kind of surprised by and evidently great interviews. You know, another prospect, another prospect people really liked was John Butler out of Florida State and no guarantees he stays in the draft, but he's a guy, we were kind of, I was going to put him in the last draft guide update

that we did when we expanded to 40 profiles, but deciding to save until we found out if he'll be in the draft or not. But with John Baller, seven foot, like super skinny. He weighed in 174 pounds at seven feet tall. But he can shoot three. He's got some defensive versatility.

He can handle a little bit. And the way I'm kind of framing him in my mind is even though he's a seven footer, he's not a big. He's just a big wing. So if you kind of look at him in that lens, he begins to have a lot of appeal. So John Butler is another kind of like second round sleeper guy to keep in mind. I tell you this. And he's got him ranked low on on his level.

List. Washerman's list? This is Wasserman's list? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's low. And I'm interested to know I'd have to go check your updated to find out where he is. Do you have Minot on there? The kid from Memphis, Josh Minot? Not yet.

He'll be in the next update, I think. I'm telling you to. Like, so a lot of Primo energy. You know, where it's like I could see him fly. upboards. You know, obviously I saw him a lot here in Memphis.

He didn't get to play all that much, but he is one of those kids, great head on his shoulders, awesome in interviews, smart kid. And he just has, like, if you're trying to take a swing for the fences, you're like a good team that's like we feel like we can player develop. I mean, you just, the size, that's wetticism, the all the, skill that goes along with it. Like, he is, he is super diamond

in the rough stuff. I believe that. Yeah, my not's got some skill, man. I think overall, I think overall this draft class, it has a lot of talent that I feel like is going to be in the league for many years to come. Or at least it's going to get a lot of chances, right?

Like, I think a guy like Minot is a good example of somebody where even if he doesn't pan out, even if he only has a six-year career, he's going to get like that second contract and opportunities to flourish considering how Rahi is coming in and the glimmers that we've seen in college and we'll see in the NBA.

I think this year's draft is a lot of those dudes. Yep. A lot of guys that will contribute early as well. Like you mentioned E.J. Liddell from Ohio State earlier. Like, oh, E.J. Ladle is going to contribute if he falls in the right situation as a rookie and he's going to go, you know, after the lottery. There's going to be a number of guys like that this year.

Yeah. And he might not go in the first round And he was the top five high school recruit Here's the truth These players just keep getting better and better and better You look at this past year And how many guys are able to contribute You know

Like really play It was deep for sure This past draft Yeah I think this year's Deep with guys worth taking a shot on Right It's not necessarily deep in terms of guys who are going to be early contributors

or will have like amazing careers. But I think there's a lot of guys who are going to end up, like I think Rusillo said this on Bill's pod after the lottery, but he wonders like about flipping. Is it actually that like the 10 to 15 guys are going to be better than the five to 10 guys this year? I feel like it could be that type of year. It's kind of flat after the top.

Well, I mean, you just look through the playoffs and even the teams that have advanced, you know? Memphis had Zaire Williams, Golden States had Cominga and Moody, both getting minutes for them. Very little Josh Green for the Mavs. And I know he's not a rookie, but honestly, might as well be in terms of the amount of minutes that he has played. Desmond Bain, who was like a, you know, second year guy that was playing for Memphis.

You've had Peyton Pritchard, who has contributed. Grant Williams, who's still a young player, who has contributed. I mean, and these are on the, these are on the teams that are right there that have a chance. Bones Highland, you know, contributed for Denver during the playoffs. I mean, we've had, there's a bunch of guys, you know, and I don't want to, I don't want to miss any. But we've seen a bunch of guys that have been able to contribute early in their careers to even the best teams, even the ones that are probably going to be in the finals. in each conference, which is crazy to think about.

So another one. Kevin, it is always a pleasure. I know you're going to be jumping on a plane. Next time we speak, you will be in California. Going back to L.A. First time since, I don't know, what is it? May 13th, it's been like 10 days since I've been in L.A. I've been on the road in Miami and Boston.

It's been a good trip. Almost since the last time we had a competitive NBA playoff game. It's been that long. It's been that long. Isn't that crazy, dude? I mean, I've either been at blowouts or I've been watching blowouts on TV. I said May 11. Yeah.

That was the game five of Boston Milwaukee. Maybe me flying back is the secret anecdote. Let's get this thing competitive. I just have to be home in L.A. I have to not be out. We need. Seeing the world and seeing friends. The world is out of order until we can.

Whittling my thumbs. Kevin O California. California. Back together. All right. Thank you to our executive producer, Jesse Lopez. As always, Kevo. I'll talk to you on Friday. Have a good one.