The Mismatch - The Suns Take Game 2 of the NBA Finals

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

Chris and Kevin get together right after Game 2 of the NBA Finals to talk about the Suns going up 2-0 over the Bucks (0:40). Then they talk about Adam Silver saying that the play-in tournament will stick around next year (40:58), his comments on player injuries this season (45:20), the front-runner for the Orlando Magic head coaching job, Jamahl Mosley (51:54), and Chris’s new favorite player in the draft, Moses Moody (55:22). Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Associate Producer: Sasha Ashall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What If The Len Bias story is about University of Maryland Phenom, who was the second pick of the 1986 draft who went to the Celtics, and just two days later, had one of the most tragic and shocking deaths in sports history. The podcast investigates how Bias' death changed the trajectory of NBA history, sparked America's cocaine panic and made a lasting impact on the world of sports and far beyond. Check out What If the Lenn Bias story on the Book of Basketball 2.0 feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to The Mismatch. I'm Chris Varney. and joining me as he does every Friday from the ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, a.k, Kevin O'Bomber, Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Cly and Kevin O'Candie, Kevin O'Clym, Mr. Bright Future Son himself, Kevin. Verno. The sons are up to nothing in the NBA Finals.

They are up to nothing. We just got done watching them win game two. Another double-digit margin at the end of this game. It ends up 118 to 108. And I don't know how you felt, and obviously we'll trace back to the beginning. But there was in the fourth quarter, the Bucks had cut it to six. It was 103 to 97. We're a little over four minutes left in the game. They come down. Conitin gets a good look at a three.

He doesn't make it. Comes down the other way after about 50 offensive rebounds. Oh, yeah. Chris Paul nails a three. back to the other end, Middleton, who's had a miserable night, gets blocked by Aiton, other end,

Bridges scored. What could have been a three-point game with about four minutes left to go, and then this thing becomes, it's a different world maybe, becomes 11 within two possessions, and then there's about three and a half left in the game. I mean, that was the game, honestly.

Like there was a, it was a six-point margin. And I don't want to blame Conantin, but they missed that three. That was their chance to really put the pressure on, to wipe out that lead, to make it a one-possession game. And instead, and this kind of speaks to how great the sons have been, that's when the game can start to flip in Milwaukee's favor. They're feeling really good about themselves. Maybe Phoenix takes a time out to kind of gather themselves. instead on the fly after the miss, fight, fight, fight for offensive rebounds.

Paul hits a monster shot, eight and block, bridges, you know, scores, 11 point game. And, you know, it ends on 10. They ended up winning by 10. But that was the only time where I thought, boy, Milwaukee may come all the way back in this thing. And then the sons hit them with that mini run. And that was it.

Chris, I had the same exact sequence written down in my notes. That summed up the whole game for me because the Sons, they only had 11 offensive rebounds to 18 for the Bucks, but the Sons had 19 second chance points on those 11 offensive boards, whereas Bucks had only 23 second chance points on their 18 offensive boards. The Sons just converted every opportunity for loose balls, for runouts and transitions, offensive boards in the half court, every opportunity, it seemed like they can inverted it. Like this team, of course, obviously in the first half, too, they had that 10 pass

sequence where like Jay Crowder threw a pass and got deflected and bounced right back to him. And then they managed to still get something out of that possession. It just, there were so many moments like that over the course of the game where the sons were resilient and kept at it and took advantage of opportunities that were there. Well, and Kev, we'll get to the sons and everything that they did tonight. On the buck side, we got the full Yonaut. honest experience. Oh my goodness. He was outstanding

tonight. The guy ends up 40 minutes, 42 points. He's 15 of 22 from the field and not totally dismal from the free throw line. And, you know,

sometimes it is pretty simple. So they get this ungodly performance out of Adjad de Kumpo. In fact, the third quarter when he scored 20 is the most anyone's score. in a final quarter in the last 25 years.

That's how great he was. And they had only made up one point against the Sons after that third quarter where you get that just historic, literally historic performance out of Janus. And that's because the two sidekicks, Drew Holliday and Chris Middleton, for the game, 80 minutes, 12 for 30. from the field, 28 points combined. I mean, he didn't have his running

mates with him. Bud shortened up the rotation, so you really only played six guys that gave you anything in the whole game. And when you get a 42.40 minute performance out of Janus,

I mean, you got to do something with that. And he was let down. by those two sidekicks that he's got with him tonight, whereas you saw a myriad of players standing up for Phoenix in this game, not the least of which was Bridges. Crowder hits a big shots. I mean, it was kind of everybody.

It wasn't the Chris Paul show. And then kind of everybody else filling in the blanks. This was almost a flip. It was the Yonnas show for the Bucks. And then who else? Nobody else. Is there anybody else that you even think about regarding this game outside of some outstanding defensive plays from Holiday?

But the offense was just, I mean, abysmal. Yeah. I mean, the holiday was 7 of 21 from the field. Chris Middleton was 5 of 16. And it goes without saying like, Captain obvious here, those guys need to be better. I think you also do need to give credit to McKell Bridges for the job he's doing playing defense on Chris Middleton. I feel like with his length and a. agility. He is in his head. I mean, you watch video of Middleton. Sometimes he's peeking back when

Bridges is trailing him, worried about that shot being contested. Bridges had that steal on him in the first half where Middleton lost control of the ball even before Bridges got there. He needs to be better. He's going to have one of his hot performances. And Drew Holiday just looks like Drew Bletzel out there on offense. It's disappointing to see that. And you know what, Chris? You mean Eric Blanco. Drew Bletzo, Eric Bletso, whatever. Yeah. Shout out to Terry Rose. for the new blest. I'll Terry. I'll Terry.

But you mentioned you honest, Chris. 42 points tonight on 22 shots and 18 free throw attempts. He was tremendous. And I can't help but wonder. I'm thinking, you know,

we're texting a little bit tonight during the game. I threw out the idea of like some Brooke Lopez post-ups if Middleton and Holiday aren't going. And I come away from the game feeling this. Should the bucks be force-feeding even more shots to Janus. Why not get him 25, 30 shot attempts if Middleton and Holiday don't have it?

This guy is dominant. He has shown he can get into the paint and draw files or finish through contact. Why not get him even more shots when this is the freaking NBA finals? Feed Janus if nobody else is going to help. Well, I think that that's what took place as the game went on. Obviously, he took it into his own hands in that third quarter, but it felt like we had played five minutes and Drew Holiday had taken 12 shots. He did. So it did kind of correct itself

as the game went on. But it was a stunning amount of field goal attempts very early for Holiday in this game. To your point, Kevin, they end the game. I mean, if you wanted to be able to control the game by being big, they did it. You know, they got the rebounds, they got the offensive rebounds, and they slaughtered Phoenix in points in the paint.

54 to 28 tonight. Now, what that stat will not tell you is that Phoenix at 23s tonight, which, in fairness felt extreme, right? Like, that felt like something you typically see out of, like, the jazz. earlier this year, or some of these other teams that are more prone to be shooting threes on a regular basis. But they were not going to down tonight. Especially David Booker.

Yeah. I mean, they were not going to have down at a good percentage. And the Bucks, while they shot 44% in game one, you know, we wanted to see is that, is there something to that? Did they get better looks? But the truth is, you know, that this was about what they? they've done throughout these entire playoffs, which is shoot around 30%, which it's stunning that they're honestly with the way the NBA has played right now.

It's stunning that they're even in this position in the NBA finals shooting 30% from three. But they were back to that tonight. And so what they were great at. And, you know, look, Darrell, Mori tried to tell us years ago, threes are more than twos. And so the bucks had a. boatload of twos tonight, but threes are more than twos.

And we saw it working for Devin Booker. I mean, this is really, we're witnessing an evolution of his game during this postseason, taking more pull-up threes, making more pull-up threes. We talked about it Tuesday night, Chris, game one, Booker 1 of 8 from 3, 10 of 10 from the free throw line. Tonight, zero for zero from the free throw line, 7 of 12 from 3. He can get it done in so many different ways. This is why this guy is a superstar.

This is why the sons are in the NBA finals because of the player he's turned himself into. And I think, you know, the way in which he scored tonight. Let me stop you. His numbers, the past five games leading into tonight were actually when I pulled them, it was not, and I know he had the broken nose and everything. And Lord knows I made more excuses for him than anybody.

But in the last five games, he was 36% from the field and 21%. from three. Oh, yeah. It's always a game two last series that happened. But it wasn't a matter of time, you know, until he's going to catch a heater at some point. And tonight, what do you have, seven threes? Seven threes, I think? Seven three, seven and twelve. And, you know, he did it against everybody. You know, out of his 31 points, he had 13 against Middleton, five against Janus, four on Tucker, three on

T, three on Holiday, three on Lopez. They put so many different guys on him. Tucker probably did the best job of the bunch, but that dude got whatever he wanted. And I felt, you know, not to knock Chris Middleton too much here, but I felt like on so many of the possessions where Booker saw Middleton in front of him, he knew that he was going to feast. Middleton gave him too much space on multiple occasions. I think it was the second half, Aiton set a screen on Middleton. There's no urgency in fighting over, and Booker just needed a little bit of space to launch. And for the Bucks, you know, they're down to, oh, Chris, but I don't feel like this series is over.

You can still get a hot Chris Middleton game. You can still get a good Drew holiday performance. you can still feed Yanis even more. They're not totally out of it here, but man, the suns are so good and they can beat you in just so many different ways on offense, and they have the pieces on defense. Like we'll see what happens in Milwaukee, but...

Well, here's the thing, Ken. This is what we always say, right? If you think Chris Middleton stinks, wait 24 hours. If you think Chris Middleton's amazing, wait 24 hours. It's the damnedest thing. If he came out and had 35 points, in the next game. Shots nobody.

No, I know, but I don't, I don't get it. I don't, I mean, it's just, but that's,

we've become used to that. And, but that's the only guy. Like, if Drew Holliday went big in the next game, I would be surprised. That would be surprising. Yeah.

I agree with you. I agree with you. I mean, and he didn't, except for when Janus was out. And, and he did. When they really needed him,

Brooke Lopez, and Middleton really rallied and got that thing together. But Janus has got to have somebody come along for the ride because here's the truth. He's still the best player in the series. It's just a matter of two and three. That can't be Devin Booker and Bridges and Chris Paul and, you know what I mean?

Or Aiton, like Middleton's got to be one of the best four. in the series, right? And he's arguably not even one of the best five right now. Not even close. As he said, yeah, Bridges and Ian have been better. Yeah. So if we're writing off Holiday as being, you know, one of the great players in the series, like you can't have it where after, after Janus,

I honestly don't know. If you watch tonight's game, I don't know who the next buck you take is probably holiday just for the defense. Yeah. But I mean, he's had some great, great possessions for sure. I mean, spectacular. But the problem is, offensively, it was him and then just, I mean, piecing this together.

Putting holiday on Chris Paul did make more sense to me. I mean, we saw on multiple occasions the sun's getting into their sets a little bit later. It didn't matter tonight. Phoenix was just draining shots anyway. But I think that formula is something to continue doing into game three because maybe with the home court advantage, you know, loud fans and everything that it disturbs some of the crispness

of the Sun's offense in the half court if you're having holiday pressure more. So if I'm Milwaukee, I'm continuing to do that and continuing with Tucker on Booker. Yeah, they just, I think if you're the Bucks, you just hope that the Sun stop shooting fireballs.

And Middleton starts doing it. Yeah, because you did, even if that's just a reasonable number, right, that you don't get slaughtered from the three point line. They did such a good job at points in the paint. And they also did a really good job at Aitn, not killing them. Like, they won the big game, right, in terms of the game that's played down low. But my God, they can't, they can't shoot with this team.

And then you just have to hope that especially, you know, they typically say role players, shoot better at home. So you're hoping McKell Bridges isn't not going to. down shots like he was. You're hoping Jay Crowder isn't knocking down shots like he was. I mean, because they, and obviously you're hoping Devin Booker doesn't knock down seven threes. I mean, this was 23-pointers.

But, I mean, there is part of me that sits there and goes, you know what? Like, are we just going to keep saying this about the Sons? Because the last game, they did it in a different way. This isn't the way they won game won. You know? And we sat there and said, well, you know, in the Bucks favor, you're not going to see another Janus 11 attempt game. Well, we didn't. We didn't see close to that. But it didn't matter. He had 42. I mean, if I was talking, by the way, say whatever you want about a single game plus minus. This does tell a hell of a story. They were plus three with Janus on the court, plus three. All right? They lost the game by 10. He played over 40 friggin' minutes. They couldn't play eight minutes without him. They couldn't play eight minutes. And in fact, couldn't play eight minutes without them getting beat by double digits, which is what they did. So they were actually, that was one of the things that people

drew from game one. It's like, hey, they were a positive when Yannis, they actually outscored the sons when Yannis was on the court. Well, guess what? They just did it again. And they still lost. Andy had 42 this time. He didn't have 11 attempts. So I don't know. You know, I guess we'll just have to see what they look like in Milwaukee. For sure. I mean, I mean, I think it gets back to what I was saying earlier.

Like, do you need to lean into Janus Moore? Get him more shots. Do you think that's realistic, Chris? I mean, he took 22 tonight. And 18 free throws. It's all like he didn't get a ton of shots. Am I asking for too much here for a guy who just hyper-cetted his knee a little over? I think the answer.

I honestly, look, I don't think the answer is more Janus. I think it's some of these others. Bro, can you just not be bad? How about that? But what if you get another night? How about just don't be bad? But what if you get another off night from Middleton and Holiday?

If you get another off night from those guys, it's a really worth feeding holiday, 21 shots. Like, wouldn't it be nice if four or five more of those went to Janus driving and attacking the basket. Wouldn't that have been nice, though? I wouldn't pay, I mean, look, I don't have the numbers here in front of me, but it felt like at the end of the first quarter, he already had 20 of those attempts. Yeah.

I think he had 12 after the first. Take one the rest of the game. Oh, yeah. Well, look, if he gets three shots a quarter, I got to let him have those because he's busting his ass on defense. I did think he did a much better job, and it was noticeable early of not just allowing

the high screen. Right? That was something that felt like they allowed to take place much more often than they should have in game one, which was go set that high screen. And now, okay, Brooke, guard Chris Paul, guard, Devin Booker. They did a much better job of not allowing that to be attacked, fighting through those screens or recovering on their guy as to not routinely see. Brooke Lopez having to guard guys.

He has no business guarding, especially 20 feet away from the basket. And I thought, you know, generally, I mean, I think one of the stories of this game, you mentioned that 10 past possession, they put great defense for like 23 seconds. Yeah. And then it ends up, I think, with an 8 and 1, right?

Where he got it, he caught it on the baseline and put it in. And it's like, all right, what do you want? like they did everything. They stayed home. They rotated. They switched. They did everything.

They were active. They got their hands on the ball. And it was like, it didn't matter. And that's the thing. I think Milwaukee did a lot of the right things tonight. Brooke Lopez playing more drop coverage, did an outstanding job playing the man driving and the roller. You know, Drew Holiday fighting over those screens.

Like you said, Chris, did a great job. What they did make sense. And maybe in game three, it'll just transfer. translate better. If Phoenix doesn't shoot quite as well. If Chris Middleton is better than bad, if True Holiday is better than bad, you know, there's definitely reason for hope for the bucks going back home. No, if you're the bucks, you sit there and you go, bro, they just shot 50% from three at a crazy high volume. That's not what they do. It's not. It's not what they do. They did it. They did it tonight. They did it in a finals game. They did it when it matters most.

but that's not what they did. They've done it though. Phoenix can beat you in different ways. They've had hot shooting performances over the course of the season. But that's not their team. Their team is not a high volume three-point shooting team that makes at a high volume. That's the jazz. That's not the sons, you know?

Yeah, I mean, they're seventh and three-point percentage during the regular season, though. It's not like they were- But what were they in attempts? 15th. smack in the middle. Yeah. Smack in the middle for Phoenix. And how many a game?

34.6 per game during the later season. Yeah, you're up a little tonight on the 40. And then during the playoffs, they've taken 30.4 per game. I promise you this. I don't care what their percentage was. What did you say their percentage was, was seventh in the league?

Seventh in the league. Yeah, I'm going to guess it wasn't 50%. No, I mean, that's what they did tonight. Of course. So that's what you say. You sit there and you go, I don't think, I don't think the sons have a,

a, you say that's not who they are. I think it is who they are in the sense that they beat you in so many different ways. Some nights, it's with pick and roll. Some nights, it's with ball movement. Some nights, it's with Devin Booker. Some nights, it's with defense. Like, the sons have so many different ways of beating you, which speaks to the level of talent and depth on this roster.

I mean, so, I mean, like, they're not specifically any one thing. I guess that's just the way I look at it. It's like, I agree with you like that they're not a pure shooting team because they're not over-relying on that, but they can be that. be that on particular nights. Yeah. You're just hoping, I think if you're, if you're the bucks that you're not,

you did so well with being able to control the paint and they didn't really have a good answer for Janus that you hope, okay, we get back home, we get in front of our crowd, we're going to get a different Chris Middleton, got a different true holiday. And the other thing is this, the bucks have been in this spot before.

They've been in the spot where, you know, They've been down and they've had to come back. And in that game three, Yonnas had 31 shots against the nets. Yeah. So got to feed him more, even more. I mean, well, he did go to the line. I know, I know. Like true shot attempts, you know, falls drawn, you know, on shot attempts.

He took about half the shots. He did take more. Yeah. All I'm saying is that I think they should have got more from him tonight. Like, dude, in that first quarter, he buried him. Aiton on a drive to the rim. And he did it on multiple occasions, regardless of who was against me. He was 15 of 22.

I would have liked to have seen him. They were really physical with Aiton tonight, and it messed him up. They were. They were. They were physical with him. I mean, look, Chris Middleton's got to be an all-star. Every year we talk about Chris Middleton is underrated. Chris Middleton is underappreciated.

Chris Middleton, you know, it's one of the best players in the league that nobody talks about. And it's like, well, this is why. We're in the frigging NBA finals. Like, where are you? Where are you? What are you doing? Like, why? Why are you five for a doubt?

I mean, look, and I get it. You're going up against McKell Bridges. But it's still McKell Bridges. McHill Bridges isn't making an all-start teams. Butkele Bridges isn't on the off defense team yet. McKell Bridges had a hell of a time just last series on defense. Do you not recall? We were just talking.

about this. Last series, Paul George didn't have that much problem, right? I mean, they had some, they had some, they had some problems, uh, there. And Middleton, like, I don't get it, man. I don't get it. The same guy that could score 20 in a quarter, or 17 in a quarter.

He's streaky, Chris. We've seen these guys before. He's just a streaky player. He really is. Because he's, because he's not like an elite ball handler. He's not elite at getting to the basket and drawing files. What he is is a jumper dependent player. And there's going to be nights where you're on. There's going to be nights where you're off. And like that's the way it's just going to be with him,

which is why like I think on nights like this is going to Yonis more. Like I think even some more Brooke Lopez post-ups would have been nice to see. It's not like he's a great post player. He's an above average to good post-scorer. He had Jay Crowder on him who's four, five, six inches shorter. You know, I think it would have made sense to at least go to that sometimes on nights where it's like, yeah, you know what, the holiday doesn't happen tonight. And look, I know with Middleton, he can catch fire at any point. It could be one quarter where he catches fire.

And it makes his night look out standing for all four quarters when you just look at the box score. So you continue to feed him. I just think there's a little bit of some little tweaks the bucks can make. More Janus. Throw in some Brooke Lopez post-ups and see what happens against the smaller guys defending him because they have eaten on Yanis. because they need to have them. Well, here's the big problem. In the absence of Middleton being able to knock down shots, Kev,

with these great, great players, you know, the mode of operation, and we talk about it with Zion 2. We talk about there's a lot of these guys in the league. You surround them with three-point shooters, right? They're going to get so much attention, and they're either going to get so much attention, and you're going to be able to throw it out and whip it around and get great looks from three,

or you are going to, they're not going to get the attention and then they're just going to score at will, which in many cases tonight, Yonis did. But seriously, who do they even throw the ball out to that you sit there and go? That's cash. I swear to God, Phoenix throws it to Cam Johnson in the corner

and I'm like, money. It's Cam Johnson. It's Cam Johnson. He's not even one of the five best guys on the team, right? But he plays a role. Yeah, yeah, that's the difference between these teams, right? Who do you think if Yonis gets doubled, he throws the ball out to and you go, that's in? Like, they don't, I don't know who you count on to be able to knock down those shots, right?

They don't have the shooting, you're right, in that spot unless it's Middleton, unless he's knocking down those shots. They also, the Phoenix Suns watching them and the way they play offense versus the Bucks, the ball just pops around so much more. When is the last time you saw a Bucks 5 pass possession? Shit, we saw a Phoenix 10 past possession. Chris, you bringing up Cam Johnson and like his consistency as a shooter

and how much you can rely on him to hit shots for you. When he was drafted 11th, I criticized the pick. I felt like it was a real. reach that there's higher upside players, you know, but seeing the important role, a guy like him can play in 18 minutes, seeing what McKell Bridges could turn into. You know, McKell Bridges, he's called a three-indee player because he hits threes and defends at a high level, but he showed tonight he can do more than that. Guys who, you know, might have a baseline as a three-indy guy or a sharpshooter can become more or play critical roles on teams. And it just,

it just makes me think, you know, the draft come. up later this month on the 29th, how difficult it is to balance out, you know, seeking out higher upside players versus higher certainty players. And the Sun's, you know, targeting Cam Johnson, like looking back now, it makes all the sense in the world because it feels so much better when you have Cam Johnson out in the corner or out in the wing to whip the ball out to rather than some of these shaky shooters, you know, who are inconsistent for you and that don't add a lot on a lot of nights. Cam Johnson brings something every night because of the threat of his shot.

So, you know, it's just a thought on my mind. I'm curious about what you think about that when adding players through draft or even free agency and trade. I think it's super fascinating, Kevin, because I've talked for years on this very podcast about the NBA being agist when it comes to the NBA draft. And there's so many of these outstanding college players, whether, and we've gone through a hundred times. Oh, Jay Crowder, by the way, who's on the same Phoenix.

team once upon a time was a big East player of the year that was taken in the second round. We know about Dreybond Green. We know about Malcolm Brogden. We know about there's a bunch of these guys. And it's not, you know, nothing in the draft by any means is 100%. In fact, nothing's even 70%. But I will say, I root for a team that has been praised immensely for the ability to draft. And one of the things that they were able to hit on the last two years.

And in fact, I even saw John Moran retweet somebody that said this last night, that the Knox on Brandon Clark and Desmond Bain were their age. That was the Knox, literally, the Knox. And people praised them for nailing it two years in a row with these guys. And when people said, here's the positives, this, this, this, this, this, this. this, this. Here's the negative. They're old. Okay. Well, that's two in a row that they were able to hit. And I think here's another great example tonight, right? Where it's like, okay, maybe you could have gotten Cam Johnson later, but you got a real player with that pick. And again, the knock

about Cam Johnson was his age. Yep. Everybody knew he could shoot the cover. off the ball. I mean, the guy's got a sweet stroke. Really good shooter. But he was old. And he was older than his peers, right? He had that old Pittsburgh day. 23-year-old rookie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 25 now in the only second year. And so maybe there is a little bit of a lesson. It just, when we look at the draft and like, hey, it doesn't matter. Like, don't immediately, if the guys got all the stuff that you like, then we've weighted age too much. You know what I'm saying? And I also think age could be an advantage for a team though

because Cameron Johnson, he's making $4.2 million this season. He'll make $4.4 million next season. He'll make $5.9 million a season after that. That is way below what he would make if he hit free agency this off season. Way below because of his shooting ability because of how

rock solid he is on defense, because of how reliable he is as a passer, just how easy, how great of a teammate he is, like all of these things, right? He'd make 10 plus million dollars. So, from a team perspective, if you get a rookie who can contribute like your Desmond Baines of the world, you know, like a Cameron

Johnson, that is a significant difference maker for you. When you have a knockdown shooter who can do all these other things on a rookie deal and don't have to worry about going to spend $15 million on a shooter in free agency. It just makes a lot of sense to me. You know, for the Phoenix

Suns, like at the time of that pick, I think the mindset was, well, maybe this team isn't that close. But the vision probably was, well, get another Federer. And then it all makes sense. And it all makes sense like watching this team right now with all the pieces they have. Well, and if I'm not mistaken, the other one was we were all a little perplexed. Was that the same one that the Culver deal was involved with? Was that the, was that the pick they got with Sorich? Yes, that was the Culver deal. So it was like, yeah. He's been better than Culver. Yeah.

Sarich and 11 for Jared Culver. Exactly. So, I mean, he's been better, right? It was like, well, geez, you got the, what, fourth pick in the draft? Sixth for Culver. Then six for 11 and Sarich. Yeah. Great deal.

Great deal. I mean, in retro, that's one of those where it's like, man, let it play out a little while, right? And I feel terrible for Sarich with that news about the Tori-C-L. And damn, it looked like Tori- Craig might have done it, too. That didn't look great for him either. No. And by the way, isn't this another reason for the Bucks to feel like you got to take advantage of those minutes when Aiton's off the floor? He played 42 minutes tonight.

I wonder if part of like his, he seemed a little off. Aiton did tonight. I mean, he wasn't like his full dominant self that we've seen in the postseason. I wonder if part of it, I wonder if part of it is them stretching his minutes out because of the lack of depth behind him. I think the other part of it was he's alone in terms of if they. Physicality against Janus. Yeah. Not only Janus, but I mean, they played Lopez.

I think we joked about it was closer to 30 or closer to 10 next game. He played what, 28? 28, yeah. I mean, that's a big team. And he's the only big guy. You know, Crowder will get in there and put his nose in there. But Aitin's got to go fight these guys for rebounds every time down the court. And that is, that's quite the.

task for a guy that still, you know, he's by no means a veteran and you're going up some big, strong guys and you got to fight, you've got to be jumping for every rebound and you've got to be fight for every rebound because if Aiton doesn't get the rebound, there's not another big time rebounder on that team. There isn't somebody else that's going to stick their nose in there. And he's got to go, I mean, he's got to battle both of them because when you play Yonis out there, it's like you've got two centers. And so it's two on one.

Every time that ball comes off the rim, there's three guys fighting for the ball. One of them's eight and the other two are bucks. Yeah, a lot of gang rebounding for the sons. Ten defensive boards for Crowder tonight. Five for bridges. I mean, like those guys got to crash the boards, and they do. You know, they do.

But there's only so much you can do, which is why, as you said earlier, you know, Milwaukee 18 offensive rebounds. It's a lot of pressure to put on eight, and especially when you're going to the basket every time down the court, too. And he's doing the best job you can. He's doing the best you can hope for against Yanis, being physical, bodying him,

trying to prevent him from getting to the basket. It's just we're talking about a potential all-timer. And, yeah, this is what he does. And I think it does, I do think we should pause just for a second because that was a, that was an amazing finals performance. All you have to,

all you want from these guys is when the lights get the brightest, what do they do? And oddly, though his team lost, there's nobody that could watch that. I remember as a kid thinking about, thinking this about Charles Barkley, honestly, because Charles Barkley would have like,

you know, 40s and 20s. Like, you know, 40 points, 20 remiss. It was like, okay, well, they didn't lose because of him. Like some guys, like Carl Malone would shrink, you know, and would have lesser games. But somebody like Barkley has a big, big playoff games, like West Finals games, games even the NBA finals. You know, you sat there in the end, then like you could say, oh, this guy, this guy

didn't win. Like we always hold it. Whoever the best player is, it's like, yeah, well, he didn't get it done. Well, there ain't anybody that could watch that game tonight and say they didn't get it done because of him. Because the fact that he had as big a game as he did, the huge. quarter that he did. He didn't have any help else.

And he's still coming back from a damn injury. Like, he's still coming. He had a moment living tonight in that fourth quarter. And this is the guy that does not play 40 minutes ever. That's been the thing is Booneholt and Holtzor plays him 34 minutes. I mean, if he played him 34 minutes tonight, they would have gotten beat by 50 points. Yeah. Six more minutes of no Yannis.

they couldn't, I mean, the second he went out and he ripped that shoe off, I guess they said it was a cramp or something maybe, but he took his shoe off. They scored five points in two seconds as soon as he went out of the game. So, I mean, they've got to get some help for him. We'll see what, you know, they always say a series doesn't start until somebody loses at home. Milwaukee, we've seen that deer district. You know that that city is... like frothing at the mouth for that first finals game.

And that's going to be a hornet's nest that Phoenix walks into. So, I mean, you'd imagine that we'll probably have a different opinion of the series or the series, you know, a little bit after we see game three and then maybe even game four. And then the narrative will follow like it always does. We'll have the books figured it out, you know, same way that people are saying have the sons figured it out with them. We've just learned our lesson so many times. We've got to let this stuff play out.

Absolutely. We have to. And game three will be Sunday. There's a little bit of an extra break here for these teams to get ready for that, rest up, get settled back in Milwaukee after this week in Phoenix. And then they have a whole bunch of time in Milwaukee because in game four isn't until Wednesday.

You know, so there's a lot of time between these next two games here. I look forward to seeing if there's any further tweaks in adjustments. from either side here. Will there be any pre-adjustments from the sun side of things and anticipating what the bucks might do? Will Drew Holiday get his head screwed on straight

on the offensive end of the floor? I look forward to seeing all of these things entering game three. Would it surprise you all if the suns go up three oh, Chris? Yes. It would surprise you? It would surprise me, yeah. Just seeing what it looks like in Milwaukee right now.

And you've got to remember, This has been a very resilient group. For sure. You know, they have. All through the postseason, they have been a resilient group. And Phoenix was just up too well on the Clippers. And next thing you know, they're playing, you know, for their lives in a game six in L.A. So, yeah, I mean, I would, I, I, I, this, these teams are not, this is, this is a good matchup.

So I've got to say that if I believe that to be so, and I don't think this is going to be a quick series. I don't think Phoenix is infinitely better than the Bucks. And so the ebbs and flows of a series are usually, you know, a team, if it's pretty evenly matched up, that a team should be able to hold serve on their home floor. I mean, there's nothing that is going to stun me, but I would imagine the Bucks will be favored

and they will be favored for a reason in game three. And Janus looks good, you know? Like Chris Middleton's usually a lot better in Milwaukee. It feels like, I don't know what the hell that was. And so I think it's- Gotta have him turning on. Got to have them. Oh, my goodness.

Do they ever? Do they ever? And Holiday, for that matter. I mean, it's 80 minutes of 28 points. you could find anybody to do that. You can find anybody. Probably anybody 80 minutes. They could probably get you 28.

They could certainly get you 12 for 37 from the field. That's just abysmal. Truly, truly abysmal. But yeah, and again, like we said, it's a six-point game. If Conitton knocks down that three, we might be talking differently, you know? Yeah, who knows?

But he doesn't make them. Yep. He doesn't do it when it matters. He was the only guy tonight. He was the only guy tonight. Only guy for them. Who cares? Hit the big ones.

It's like at least he didn't air ball it. Yeah, it could have given him credit for that for sure. Like he did against Brooklyn. Frigant air balls. Let's talk about some of these other NBA news that's happened since we last spoke. Adam Silver took to the podium. Not anything mega newsworthy that came out of it.

He always does this during the NBA finals. but he was asked some questions of interest to topics that we have talked about before, not the least of which was a play-in. You know, when LeBron James stands up, it criticizes it, when some other players stood up and Luca Dantythet's right at one point. So you got some premier players that weren't in love with the playoff, or the play-in, as it were. But Adam Silver said, you know, they'll meet with the owners,

they'll meet with the Players Association, and he fully expected to come back for next year. I was happy about that. I really liked the whole play in this year. I thought it kept a lot more teams competitive all the way to the very end of the season. And I hope it's something that becomes commonplace in the NBA. I did find it interesting that he did augment it a little bit,

but just by saying there might be some tweaks. You know, there might be, and I don't know. I don't know what those tweaks would be. But he did mention that, that there could be, there could be some tweaks that take place with it to make it even better. I mean, I don't really,

I don't have a problem. I don't know what they would do to tweak it necessarily. But I was, I thought it, it achieved the goal that wanted to achieve, which is to keep teams, you know, willing to play it out for a lot longer in the season. And we chronicled this throughout the last part of the season. The last 20 games of the season were much better than they would have been if we didn't have it.

100%. And it's the right decision for the NBA to continue doing the play in tournament. I wish I wasn't busy at the time of that conference call or the press conference for Adam Silver. I was curious about the in-season tournament, which he's spoken about in the, the past about his desire to someday install that in the future. There's no immediate plans for that, but I don't believe he was asked about that during the press conference. Obviously, plenty of other topics to talk about it. He brought up expansion to, you know. Well, the expansion thing, that's obviously backburner stuff right now because they got to get their finances right first

before they start. Look, before they start splitting the thing 32 ways instead of 30, they got to start splitting something, right? Because now he did say, that by and large what they had projected, that it ended up doing a little bit better financially. And he is very hopeful that things can start to get back to normal next year and that they knew what was coming without being able to have fans in the stands for the majority of the season, in many cases, the entire season. But it wasn't as terrible as they thought it was going to be.

and so hopefully they can get back on track and recoup some of that. But, I mean, to throw in to start talking about expanding when you're just trying to get your franchises all back above water financially because you tried to make this season happen, you know, I would assume that it's just not going to happen very soon. They got to they got to stabilize first before they can ever start talking about splitting, more money up. Like, nobody's interested in splitting more money up right now. Though they would bring in more revenue. So it's about the right timing to do that. And, you know, we'll see when that happens.

It seems inevitable at some point, either later this decade or early in the next decade. We will see that expansion talk ramp up. But we're not there yet. No. We're not there yet. Those were the major things that stood out to me was him talking about the expansion stuff. And then, you know, he's going to get the questions about China.

You know, he's going to get the questions about COVID and how they got through the season. But I will say, it wasn't all seamless by any means, but they did get through a season. The injury stuff is super fascinating to me because, you know, the NBA on their end has done a bunch of studies. And one of the things he talked about was rest being up more than ever. and yet injuries were up in this manner. And so it was like, is it workload? Because that's not necessarily the easiest thing to say. So it's hard to know if there is.

But I did feel like he was being sincere in that they're really looking into it. And I do think that he has this was, we know that the reason they had to do what they had to do was all because of money. placating TV partners, making sure that these players were not going to have to take extreme pay cuts in order to make that happen. And so it was a bad deal that everybody agreed to, right, in order to make it happen for the greater good, meaning the best of bad deals. Yeah, keeping it financially viable. But hopefully this isn't as big a topic when we get back to next year and a normal year. year and that this was in part because of not being able to have the same amount of rest and that you would typically have throughout a season.

And some of the injuries are just freak stuff. And it hurts because it was big, big time players that got injured, right? And so is it because, and LeBron obviously threw a lot of gas on that fire saying that look at all these guys that are injured it's because of this well look bro everybody had a seat at the table everybody agreed to this and it sucks we all admit it sucks but hopefully next year we'll see an uptick and healthy players because of but it seemed as if the statistics didn't necessarily bear out that it's as bad as it feels on the surface because it feels terrible on the surface always when you lose a lot of great players which we did

absolutely yep and like like silver did mention during that press conference he said resting was up 100% over last season and you know he questioned you know publicly you know he doesn't know the answers but he's like well we need to figure out how much does load management help you know with all you know every the doctors analytics and the investment teams are putting into health you know of their players why are injuries up when there's you know 72 games instead of 82 games and rest us up it's just so many variables and you know it makes me think about that when we saw Daryl Simmons and Ryan

Rissillo in Vegas a couple years back at Summer League and he's on stage talking about how a lot of that injury research stuff in his opinion there's studies that go against that are just strong that show that it doesn't make it different. So I wonder if Silver's reading some of that same

stuff. Yeah. I mean and one you just you just don't know, right? Like I remember there was a Leo Mazzoni was the famed pitching coach for the Atlanta Braves when they had all those great starters, guys that had very long, amazing careers,

Hall of Fame guys, you know, Tom Glavin, Greg Maddox, John Smoltz, you know, and if you ever hear, he's an old head,

but if you ever hear him talk about pitching, like, you know, and the way they threw and when they threw, when they were throwing when they weren't pitching and long tossing and all this kind of stuff. And it's like, like, now you've got pitch counts when you're in the, you know, the fourth grade. But we're also blowing out guys' arms when they're in the, you know, kids' arms when they're in high school or whatever.

There's high schoolers getting Tommy John for God's sakes. And so, like, what is the answer? Sometimes, like, is the answer maybe even training yourself to be able to deal with the strain and throwing on days off and whatever else, the way they used to do it? or is it because obviously we have a tremendous, there's not, there's hardly any great young pitchers that are not having like Tommy John by the time they're in their first, you know, five seasons or whatever it may be. And so I don't know. And basketball is obviously, you got 100 million scientists,

you got these massive staffs on every team. You got these guys wearing damn nodes on everything. You know, you got cameras all over. over the place and you got body suits that they're wearing. They got tracking devices they're wearing. And we still can't figure it out. Sure. I mean, I remember when I did a story on Donovan Mitchell a couple weeks back,

shortly before the jazz were eliminated about how he extended his shooting range. And one of the things that he brought up to me was the importance of improving just his lower body strength over the course of time and improving his conditioning. And he walked me through like some of the stuff that him and, you know, his trainer down in Miami at DBC Fitness, David Alexander do. And I talked to him as well. And like they track like his sleep. They track like how many minutes he played, whether it was a travel day, how long the flight was.

And that's what determines the work he's going to do on particular days, whether it's a day where he chills out and does nothing and just plays video games and watch his film. Or whether it's a day he does weight training or a day he's getting shots up. like, and still you can turn the wrong way and hurt your knee or hurt your ankle. Like it can still happen, right? And like you can do all of these things that can help and that can definitely improve your conditioning and your strength. But sometimes you still just get hurt, right? It just happens.

Like that's what happens when you play sports unfortunately. You can't stop injuries from happening. How fascinating is it that who you were just talking about and all that you knew about that's going into that preparation? He got hurt. Exactly. He did. Him. Specifically, not just anybody. Yeah, you can do all that. And he did. Yes.

The guy you're talking about it, it got hurt. So, I mean, okay, what about the, what about the Schmo that's not doing any of that, who stayed healthy? You know what I mean? Who's not tracking any sleep or any flights or whatever? Sometimes you're freaking ankle turns. Exactly. You know?

Exactly. Sometimes your ankle turns. Jamal Mosley looks like he's going to be coaching the Orlando Magic. is the guy that was right in the middle of all that, uh, maverick's crap. Chris, time to start up. Luca to Orlando. Oh, gosh. Yeah, that's, uh, Lucas guy.

That's for you, Kevin Clark. It seemed like everybody was going to be getting, uh, or it seemed like all the articles originally were like, oh, Rick Carlisle's gone. Jamal Moses, he's going to get that job. But then you and I opied that maybe Rick Carlyle was going out there. maybe he didn't feel necessarily stood by completely with all of the stories that had come out about everything with the bads because we had wondered aloud like when is the last time that you saw a coach leaving and stumping for who should get the job and it wasn't he didn't stump for Jamal Mosley he walked out the door and said I think Jason Kidd should get that job it's like all right still it's still so odd how he did that. It's still really odd.

Well, DeMobossey got a job after all. So he didn't. Not yet officially. Just emerges emerges as the strong front runner according to Woj. See, I thought they were going to hire Kenny Atkinson.

Yeah, but now it sounds like you go to the Warriors as lead assistants. Yeah. So I, which is interesting. You know, that's an interesting spot for him to be because I mean like, you know,

who knows if Kerr will be there for three more years or 10 more years. Yep. But if you're in that lead assistant spot, I wonder, you know, if he could slide into that someday. Who knows? Maybe, I mean. Or is it like, you know, like,

uh, is it like coaching, you know, car wash is that golden state? It used to be San Antonio. It was a golden state now. We're now, Kenny Watson can go, Kenny Atkinson goes to Golden State,

becomes more appealing for the next head coaching job next season. Maybe. Yeah. I, but I think, uh, if I'm not mistaken, Luke's the only one.

Right? Walton is the only one that's called. Nobody's hired Mike Brown off that staff, right? I mean, I think Mike Brown was just coaching. Who was he coached in Nigeria? I was watching this weekend. They were in those Olympic trials. I think Mike Brown was coach in Nigeria or one of those teams.

But nobody's hired him. And he was what? Like when Kerr had that back injury, he had, he like was winning all the way through too. And I guess people just thought anybody can stand on those side. and win a bunch because Luke won a bunch. Mike Brown won a bunch. Steve Kerr obviously what a bunch,

but I don't know. I'll tell you what, though, Kenny Ackinson is a good hire because before he was head coach of the Nets, what people loved about him was his player development.

And for the Warriors here, you get some younger guys who are in need of some development. Kenny Ekinson might be able to help them along in that category. That's why I thought he'd get the magic job. Yeah. You know,

it made sense, yeah. I thought it was just natural. We talked about kind of building the culture with a young team in Brooklyn, which he did. And maybe Moseley can do that too. He comes highly regarded. You know, Luca loved him. Not by Rick Carlisle, but by some of the younger players, by some younger guys. If it's Moseley, we'll see what happens there.

One last thing before we get out of here, because I do want to throw, I know you're going to be doing all kinds of draft stuff in these next. couple of weeks. You're updating your stuff right now as we speak. And so keep your eye on everybody, both Kevin's Big Board and all of the NBA draft coverage at the ringer, which I love. I love the breakouts. I love the artwork. They do, they do an unbelievable job with it every year. The draft guide looks so beautiful, doesn't it? Yes. The reason I have to ask you about this, or I talk about this, is because there is a player that I think is worth. noting tonight specifically, which I was going to hold on to this, you know, because I always talk about guys that I think are not going to fail in the NBA. And in fact, I believe it's,

it's not worded like that, but it's kind of part of the write-up even on your draft guide this year. But then watching Bridges Tonight and then thinking about it. So I was watching over the weekend, and we were actually texting about Mike Schmidt. So I want to give him a shout out. I think he's great. It's outstanding. Great on television. Like I really do.

He's incredible. Yes. And they could have Mike Schmitz doing like NBA in Dutchess NBA draft. I was watching this, you know, he does the thing at the combine and he'll bring the player in. And then like right to their face, they'll show the video of like the witnesses. Like here's what people say you stink at. And then they'll show like you making some terrible play. Why were you ball watching here and let this guy cut back door three times in this individual

game? What's going on? Explain yourself. And then there'll be here's what you can tell you've really worked on. Here's what people really like about you. I saw you get better at this. It's great. That's great stuff.

Okay. So I was watching one over the weekend and I got done. And Kevin, I was like, oh my God, I'm in love. Who wasn't Chris? I'm in love. I love to me. Tell me. I loved him in college already.

Right? But after watching the interviews and stuff, oh, I covet Moses Moody. I love him, Kevin. Oh, I love him. He'll be higher in my next Big Boer update for sure. Oh, my God. I said, I got done watching that thing,

and I'm like, let that kid walk into a frigging room of NBA execs. And I swear to God, they are going to walk. If I were in that room, and I've been around these guys now for a long time. There is no chance. Somebody's not going to walk out of that room and go, damn. Like, how do we not?

How do we not? I mean, that kid is so good in that setting. So good. And then you watch the highlights. He's got this freaky-ass wingspan. There's this number. He's like, I think they say it's 90. eighth percentile in scoring off of pick and rolls?

Well, what the hell is the NBA? That's all anybody does anymore, right? And I know Musselman from way back. He was a Grizzlies assistant for Mike Fratello. Obviously, he was an NBA coach also. And Musselman's done an outstanding job with that Arkansas team. You want to talk about riding for a player? I mean, he's on Twitter,

and you could go back and look at some of his tweets about Moses Moody. Holy crap, does he ride? I mean, he loves this kid, loves him. And so between musclemen loving him and, I mean, coaches don't always ride for guys in that way. He loves it. He's really sticking his neck out there. The team was obviously awesome this year and a surprise team. And just the kid has got such an unbelievable head on his shoulders,

got this freaky-ass wingspan. he's got an awesome name like everything about him I love it I love everything about Moses I love the Moses Moody experience you know the whole thing

he's like one of the it's like we said earlier about Bridges Bridges entered the league but Bridges entered the league clearly is a guy who could shoot threes and defend Moses Moody a guy who can enter the league and shoot threes

and defend and we'll see how the rest of his game develops over the course of time but like he has no doubt skill as a cutter, as a passer, as a mover off ball. I mean, he does all the little things that you want and a player who's complimenting superstars. And maybe he can do more off the dribble in the years to come. But Moody, so much to love, especially in light of watching Bridges do what he's doing. That's what I had to mention because even, even, and you're right, but in the in the draft thing, one of the things it said was, you know, sometimes a little slow to get off the threes, right?

So we'd have to work on that. Guess who they also said that about? Bridges. Yeah, and Bridges did need to change his mechanics. There was the famous clip of Zion blocking him. Remember when Zion like jumped from like the lane and blocked bridges in the corner in that game? And it was like, all right. Like maybe that was a little slow getting that thing off. But I mean, now you watch somebody like Bridges tonight who signed me up for him too, you know.

I love the freaky long arms. there is a picture find it there's a picture on the internet that the mom uh moses moody's mom sent to chad ford and he's tweeted so you'd have to go back in his time i find it and she took a picture of him and i believe it's from high school i have never seen i sent it to uh two different NBA guys that i respect a lot and i said did you guys see this and it is a picture He is touching the floor with one hand. And he is touching the top of the door with the other hand. And his mom says she calls him the human selfie stick.

I've never seen anything like that. He is touching the ground with one hand and the other hand is touching the top of the door frame. The human selfie stick. The human selfie stick. His own mom calling him that. His own mom. I love it. And I love that his mom's tweeting out pictures of him.

he's falling like, Mom, don't tweet that. I know. Don't tweet that, Mom. And look how much he's smiling and touching the floor in the ceiling. Oh, yeah. Yes.

So good. This is going to earn me tens of million dollars in the NBA. I know. I'd be smiling too, Chris. I know. Let me tell you something. I fell for him. I was head over heels.

Mike Schmitz is the blame probably. But my God. Schmitz is the man. Oh, this kid is so like that's why I love Chris. I love Mike Schmidt. I love Mike Schmitz. He's the best. He's so good.

You're really good, man. I think the guy's really good on TV. I don't know him personally. He's a great guy. Yeah, I know Mike. Oh, you know each other since 2014, 2015. Oh, okay. Then it's much more.

Then it's much more authentic for me to talk about it. You know the guy. I don't even know the guy. You never met each other in my life. Maybe if we're all at Summer League, we'll grab some dinner or something like that. It's too big time for us. Come on. Too big time.

Yeah, he's on ESPN now, for God's sakes. Yeah, sure, on TV. Doing, uh, hits with Scott Van Pelt. That's hanging out with dregs like us. Yeah. Talking about it. He's going on D. He's going out of D. Taylor.

He ain't going out of D with us. All right. That's going to do it for the show. Now, we do need to mention before. We finally had a, a breakup that came running back to us, Kevin. We've been broken up so many times by our producer. They just, they dump us, and then they just go on to greener pastures. And for those that have been listening to the show, you know we've been shouting out Carlos,

who's been stepping in for the last couple of weeks. But look who came running back. Sasha Ash Al is back. She is the one producer that couldn't leave us for good. all of them Isaac Bobby I mean we've had

we've had 20 we had we had we've had 50 producers they all dump us most of the time it's a very short

relationship but Sasha came back Kevin and I couldn't be more happy now she'll probably dump us again

I don't know can we believe in you this time Sasha you promise you'll never leave us again promise

promise you'll never... I can't. Oh, for God's sake. Because me and Carlos are going to be on and off for the next two, like, week or two. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. Oh, my goodness. Just the worst, Kevin.

Really. Right when I thought we had her back, she said, I'm sorry, Chris. I'm sorry. We're never going to have a producer for more than a season, Chris. It's not for good. Yeah. This is just. a one-night fling.

Now I'm leaving you again. Oh, well. Very sad. Sunday we'll have a producer for a third season. Someday. Yeah. Wait till Carlos dumps us too. He's the fill-in guy.

He's going to dump us too. Kevin, what is it with us? We've done this show for a long time. I don't know, Chris. It's our fifth season. We're producer killers. There's coach killers. We are.

Pod producer killers. We are producer killers. All right. Well, thanks to Sasha for producing the program tonight. Thanks. Thank you, Sasha. And thank you, Carlos, for everything last month or so. Kevin, have a great weekend.

I will talk to you on Tuesday. I'm really looking forward to it, Chris. It's going to be a good one. We've got some great basketball games to come in the NBA Finals.