The Ringer NBA Show - Celtics Reclaiming Momentum and Suns Dominating the Offense in Game 3

Episode Date: May 6, 2023

J. Kyle Mann and Tyler Parker are back this Saturday to discuss Celtics vs Sixers and Suns vs Nuggets in Game 3. The guys touch on Embiid’s efforts against the dominating Celtics, Harden’s post season performance and Grant Williams with the hard hitting head injury from Embiid. They also discuss, the Sun’s Devon Booker’s stellar shot performance, Deandre Ayton’s lack of strength in the offense and Denver’s maintained strength in the post season. Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Tyler Parker Producer: Jade Whaley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Peace! We're out of here. Basketball is so very good. My name is Jay Kyle, man. Saturday edition of the Ringer NBA show where we are going to be reacting to the playoffs. You know, I am joined by actor, athlete, former college basketball player, Nick Collison, disciple, improviser, extraordinary, league pass rankings guru, of course, General Muser, tall guy. He's tall.

I do feel that that's enough. He towers. I do feel that that's quite enough. I feel like Tyler is so tall that he could like big, boy me like under the like i feel like Tyler could just hold his arms up under the basket and just stifle me if i tried to shoot over him that's how big he is i do agree with this i do agree with this part of your intro i would i think i would eat you alive in the post i think that's true you just seem like you'd be an annoyingly efficient guy around the basket well speaking of efficient

guys around the basket joel and bade and the sixers last night joel mbeed we had two games we'll talk we'll talk about them in chronological order as we have been doing because these are one of them really, they were kind of on the same level. We didn't have any like instant classics last night, but we had two pretty good games. Joe MB gets the MVP last night. We'll start there. And then immediately they take the floor to try to capitalize on or, you know, recapture the magic of game one when they were at, at Boston. They got a huge game from Hardin. They turn around and they don't, they get a big game from Embed. They lose this game at home. The Celtics reclaim the momentum in the series. What's your, what's your first sort of takeaway from

from this Boston-Filly game, Tyler? It felt like the Sixers just didn't have enough offensive juice to be able to scare the Celtics when it mattered. I mean, the Harden and Beat Pick and Roll has been, you know, like the bread and butter for them all year. And when, you know, the Celtics start guarding it and kind of keeping a guy at the nail like that, and, you know, they've got that third defender there that's just able to kind of upset rhythm

and kind of, you know, funk things up a little bit. When Hardin and Maxi, when none of the perimeter guys for Philly really have it going, and it just becomes, okay, Joel, you go to the nail and be God, you know, it's, he was gassed and, you know, I think they just just ran out of firepower. You talked about not having the firepower. It was, it's, it wasn't even a case of like they did their best. It was really just, there was a huge absence in this game from mainly Hardin and Maxie. We can, we'll, we'll do Maxie first and then we'll get to the bigger thing here because there's just so much to get into with the Hardin part of this. But Maxie had a tough game, 13 points. He was 4, 16 from the field, three for nine from three, six rebounds and two assists. But Hardin is going to be

inevitably the big story. You know, other, other, other than aside from like the Celtics did what they needed to do, they didn't have any kind of like Herculean out of body experiences from any one of their individual guys, but they collectively played pretty well. But Hardin here is the big story. Hardin in this game, 16 points, 3 for 14 from the field, 2 for 7 from 3. In game one, Hardin goes for, you know, 45 points. And in the next two games combined, he doesn't even crack 30 points on 18% from the field. Yeah.

You hear a lot of like sort of converging like theories about like why this is happening. There are people that are saying that, you know, there was a little bit of rest that he got before in game one that like he that he could rest up. He's had this nagging heel injury, which, you know, if you're a perimeter play, if you're any kind of player in basketball, if you have a heel thing going on, it's pretty debilitating. It's pretty immobilizing, especially against a team that's as ranging and athletic and switchable as the Celtics. But then, you know, you've also got the pressure thing.

And it kind of enters in. You're a guy who rooted for Hardin. You're an OKC guy. You were there in his early pre-superstar phase when you guys drafted him. And so you've had a pretty good, I feel like you've had a pretty good view of him and Russ and Katie, but specifically on Hardin here. This enters into like a track record now for him of crappy post-game performances. What do you make of this sort of resume that he continues to. to pile up that he added to last night.

Why do you think this, why do you think this continues to happen? That was good enough. The huge sigh. But no, we continue. It's kind of hard to be surprised by it anymore. I mean, you almost feel a little bit silly for letting yourself get a little teased by the 45 in game in game one. You know, he misses, I think nine of his first 10 shots last night.

You know, all told he's three for 14. It's just a total dud. you just gave the stats. I think since, I think in game two and game three combined, he's five for 28, you know. And he doesn't look in rhythm. Is that credit to the Celtics or is that him just an absence of aggressiveness from him? I mean, I always have a hard time not giving credit to the defense whenever they're given someone hell on this level. I mean, the defense that the Celtic perimeter guys have played the last couple games is way more in line with how they,

guarded throughout the season, you know, particularly the Sixers. I mean, you know, Max, he's been having problems with the Sixers, you know, kind of since he's been a big part of that Philly rotation, you know, kind of one game accepted, I think, earlier this year. But the hardened stuff, I mean, it's the Celtics are a bad matchup for him, you know. It's, they've got a lot of bodies that they can throw out of them, a lot of different types of dudes, guys that could, you know, have the frame to be able to bother him and not get, bodyed in the lane by his shoulders like he can do some of those smaller guards when he starts getting downhill. You know, he's not getting calls throughout the game last night. There were some

sort of, you know, inexplicable non-attempts from him in the paint when he gets in there. And, and you'd like to think that the shots going up. And yeah, he just kind of, I mean, it's, you know, I saw someone being like he's, you know, going Ben Simmons against the hawks on us or whatever. And it's like, I don't know if it was on that level. He's not, you know, he's not passing out of a dunk with Trey Young flying at him exactly. But it's not, you don't want it to be just like this guy shrinks in big moments and he's mentally weak. You want the, you want the conversation to be more evolved than that. It might just be that, man.

It might just, he might just not have it. And if you've had this many, if you've had this many duds over the course of your career in the postseason, and it's going to start going through your head. When you've missed your first, whatever, four shots, that stuff's going to especially coming off of the game he had in game two. You know, you're just sort of like... Oh, shit, here we go again. Yeah, I mean...

Yeah, he didn't... After the game, when they talked to him, they asked him kind of about the game and his shot selection or whatever, and he's just sort of like kind of tried to play a little dumb. Like, I don't know, I got to watch the game, but I'm pretty good on basketball instincts. Yeah. I was like, well, I guess that's true, but maybe not, maybe not in April and May.

Yeah. I mean, this adds to, like we said, this adds to a sad sort of recurring Mount Rushmore of crap. I don't know, I don't know if it fully like ascends to like the worst, the worst of the worst for him. But, you know, if you looked at, you wrote about this, though. I mean, like he's had some stinkers. I mean, he had the, I guess it was in 20. 17, the 10-point game with six turnovers against San Antonio and they got eliminated and lost by almost 40 points. I mean, speak a little bit to the pantheon of stinkers that Hardin has, the turd bowl.

Well, I mean, the added factor in that game you just mentioned is that he also fouled out. Yeah. You know, like in Game 5 of the 2015 Western Commerce Finals, he says the playoff record with 12 turnovers. There's, you know, this wasn't just on him, but, you know, pretty grand. stinker is the 27 mysteries from the Rockets in that game seven against Golden State in 2018. I mean, you know, a lot of that rests on Hardin's shoulders, you know, play style shot selection, you know, all that stuff, right? Like, that's, that performance is kind of a direct result of the way that those Rockets teams played

and they played that way because he wanted to play that way, you know. Got the inexplicable no show in game six. the Warriors whenever Durant's hurt and not playing, and the Warriors just kind of run them off the floor. So it, there's just, he's had too many moments where it's like, all right, man, if you want to start changing the narrative, now's the time. And it just he hasn't, he just hasn't answered the bell. You know, after the post game, well, the post game of this game, you know, they were asking B to comment on what it happened. And it just seems like in B. B, it's making me sad because

and Embed's not totally innocent, you know, I guess the injury stuff is not his fault. It's not, you know, he puts himself in these situations where he gets injured because of the way he plays, because of how hard he plays and the remarkable things that he does. So I guess he can't

just be like, well, this guy, you know, his injury troubles, you know, he, well, he's a crappy player. Some of the stuff is unfortunate, but he did make some comments after the game where I was just thinking to myself, like, is this going to be you're a big part of like Embed's sort of plaque is we're going to just be like kept getting paired with these guys who either, you know, it just seems like it's just unfolding in this way that sucks.

But he made a comment that we were tentative about taking shots inside the paint. And then he said, players have to show up. Then he started talking, which I mean, you know, you could say that's aimed at Maxie and Hardin. And then he made a comment about like this Boston's roster ability. He was like, they have six or seven guys who can put the ball on the floor and just kind of like, You could feel Embed's frustration a little bit. And I was thinking about years from now, if they do like, you know, how 2K11, they had the Jordan, like, Legend Challenge, you know, where you had to like,

you had to recreate the different moments in his career. Did you replay this? You know what I'm talking about? I never played it, but I know what you're talking about. Oh, it's one of the funnest, like, video game modes of all time. But I was thinking if they recreated this for Indeed, I feel like one of them on there would just be like, hey, Joelle, you just won the MVP, you know. Sorry, like Hardin's not going to show up tonight, so you're going to have to have

an out-of-body experience. And, you know, like, Embed had a good game. He had 30 points. He was nine for 19. He had four blocks, you know, 13 total rebounds and three assists. But he le gassed out there. And I think that's a big thing is that, like, the Celtics have an option to, A, be switchable, fly around, bother them, you know, exploit.

I feel like no superstar duo in the history of the league, like, I mean, not the history of the league. but what superstar duo in the league falls down more than hard on an MB? Can you think of one? It's a lot of falling. I don't think so. I mean, it, you know, maybe Anthony Davis falls down enough that he qualifies just on his own. But the Embed haters would probably say that about him too.

Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of falling. Boston jumped out, though. They jumped out. They were white hot to start this game. They had a 14 to 2 run. They had all kinds of situations where, you know, they were getting into the lane. and you're talking about all the different guys that can pass and that can draw the defense and get into the lane and hit shots.

Tatum had a pretty solid one in this game, and it seemed like, and they were attacking hard and defensively, but it seemed like any time one of those guys fell down, it seemed like Boston was pushing in transition. They just kind of kept them on their heels all night, it seemed like. Yeah, they just, I mean, Boston just sort of seemed, I mean, even as Philly, you know, played, some more athletic lineups, some McDaniel's minutes in there and things like that,

more Melton than Tucker, that sort of stuff. Like just Boston just seems way superior athletically. And, you know, if they play the right lineups and do get out and push, then they're just going to be tough to stop. I mean, you talked about Tatum kind of finally having a nice game. He goes, you know, whatever, he's 50% from the field. He goes 10 for 20, 27, 10, 10, and 5. But those last, he has those two huge shots late, which felt like really sort of encapsulate, you know, why he's just such a tantalizing shotmaker a lot of the time.

The second one in particular, posting up almost deep on the wing, I think, right? If he started, I can't remember if he started out with his back to the basket or not kind of deep out there. But he tightroping on that kind of step back. His footwork is just, you know, he kind of reversed pivoting and step back, I think is what he did. He had him sealed on his hip and then, yeah, it kind of was like a, yeah. He can really go. And with some of that, some of that, you know, one-on-one, tight space footwork stuff, or he can kind of, you know, wiggle around in the phone booth and, you know, rise up at 6-9 and hit those things.

It's just really, really, really, really tough to deal with. He hasn't been just a burner this postseason at all. So it was good to see him, you know, kind of catch a rhythm there. But especially lately because he is one of these freaks that late clock, late game scenarios, he's got the skill set to be able to go get a bucket against anybody and just not, you know, not everybody's got that. Yeah. Another thing that we were kind of talking about in this game was, you know, Grant Williams at one point.

There's been a, it's a funny relationship that I feel like the general basketball, like public has. and Celtics fans. If you hear them talk about it, I feel like I just know a lot of Celtics fans in general. So this is probably why this happens. But, you know, him and Derek, like, Derek White, you'll hear, you'll hear like, there's such a range that people will be like, Derek White might be an all star. I feel like people just go wild with it.

But then they'll be like, maybe every fan base is like this. And then they'll be like, he's unplayable. He can't play. I feel like Grant Williams kind of has a similar vibe with that. Are you surprised that Grant Williams is a lot? after Joelle and B basically tried to step on his head like he was smashing a grape. I mean, it was a jarring moment in this game.

I can't believe he's still got all his teeth. I was like sure that you were going to just, he was going to get up and you were just going to see a handful of teeth there. Jalen Brown said it was the craziest thing he'd ever seen on a basketball floor. I don't know if I would go that far. But it was, I mean, like, it was much harder than it seemed like it was in real time. In real time, it was like, oh, did he get kind of like, you almost thought like the calf drug along the back of his head or something, that it wasn't, when you saw this Lomo, sheesh.

I mean, Grant Williams is one of the most annoying players in the league and just sort of, I think, grading as an on-court personality. He must, I don't know if he's, my guess is that he gets to the arenas early on some of these nationally televised games and is waiting outside the production truck with his shirt already off so they can put the mic on him. He's just ready to go. You think he volunteers to be the mic? It's every game. Every single time.

I guarantee you that guy is front row raising his hand. I'll wear it. Yeah. You know, like he has it. He has like a, I mean, play so hard. Don't want to take anything away from that. But yeah, the vibe is sometimes just a little bit kind of. I just, I mean, I said to you, I was texting, we were texting during the game,

there's just something a little bit kind of child actory about it, right? Where it's like, you feel like, I love this. Explain it. You feel like it, when you hear him talking on these mic, on these mic'd up things, there's something very sort of stilted and, okay, my mom told me everything I'm supposed to say in the intro to this audition. My name is Grant. I love to spend time with my friends and family.

eat pizza and the color blue. Yeah. It's not that it's performative exactly, but it's just like, dude, tone it, I feel like if I'm Tatum or, or Brown,

or smart, or Horford, when you see these situations, and Grant Williams is like in the huddle, like, come on guys, we just have to be, we,

we're not playing our game. We have to play. It's like, dude, shut up. You know your spot. Well, there's all kinds of,

like, extracurricular things that you can weaponize. in basketball, whether it be like Draymond's fire and Draymond's like aggressiveness and, you know, messing with people, shit talking people, talking to the rest, getting guys thinking about things. You can weaponize some of those things. And like, but like I've always said, they can kind of teeter on the edge of like, hey, this could go wrong and screw us over. Like, I mean, that's kind of a thing that goes on in basketball. But what's funny about Grant is like Grant's thing is like he, and I feel like he knows this.

Like that's what's kind of funny about him. Well, for sure. I think he has to be that. He knows that he has like a natural sort of thing that grates on people. Like I feel like I heard Stephen Adams say this one time. He was like, I annoy people. Do you remember that quote where he was like, I just get on people's nerves? Yeah.

Well, because he like, I mean, Adams is thing. And I'm sure with Williams on some level, it's similar. Like, you know, Adams didn't even grow up watching the NBA. And even whenever he was trying to get to the league, wouldn't even really watching it. So he didn't have all this like. the stars in the league weren't these like hallowed dudes to him. He wasn't like awestruck by them and really paying them a lot of deference.

And so he gets into these playoff series and he's like, you know, giving Zibo forearm shivers and stuff and just sort of playing how he would play against anybody else. And guys are like, hey, what, you, you respect me right now. You have to respect me right now. That's a funny. That's a funny thing that we don't think about a lot, I think, is that, yeah, that that stuff is just sort of in our, in our minds of consciousness. even that like yeah that they are going to give them this sort of and i could see how to throw them off

but i guess the point i was going to make is that like the funny thing about grant is that like his annoyingness past superpower like you described it like it'll annoy his own team it'll annoy their own fans and it's like but then you have this weird dynamic of he gets a 300 pound man steps on his head and he comes right back into the game and he and he doesn't even like get mad at Embed, he's just like, no, man, it's all good. It's all part. A, I think M. B was lying. I think that I don't know, I don't know if I want to say that or not, but it's, you think he saw, you think he tried to step on him? That would be hard to do. That would be hard to do. I don't think he could have, I don't think that M. Bid could have aimed well enough

going backwards. Yeah. Without really seeing where I don't think he, I mean, Embed's taken some, you know, shots at dudes in the past or whatever, but it didn't seem, and it seemed just like, you know, big tree fall hard. And like that, you know, that's kind of, yeah. Yeah. Well, that led us to discuss something that we would like to see the league adopt, which is something that we want to call when it comes to the challenge rule, we wanted to like inject something called this fucking guy provision.

So in a game, in this game, this is what brought this up is that like, I believe it was melting to sort of like. aggravatedly sort of just kicked the ball. It wasn't like a full-on, like, Chuck person punt the ball or a Pete belt punt the ball. It was just a sort of he kicked it. He looked like a kid. Yeah. A kid.

He looked like a kid who was just like having fun and just, it looked like you were shooting around at the end of a practice, right? And that you had just taken some big long shot and you were about to run into the locker room and you just give the ball a little kick just as like, it didn't seem mad at all. Yeah. And so Grant sees this and the camera's always. caught this. Grant, like, excitedly, he seemed to really enjoy it. He runs up. I feel like Grant could have been like an IRS auditor in another life or something. Like he like, he runs up and is like frantically pointing, frantically pointing, gets them big CP3 energy here. Runs up.

I was thinking the same. It was the big CB3 energy when like it was the same kind of pointing that CP3 was doing to D'Andre Jordan that one time when he was like, shoot it, shoot it. Remember that? Like whatever I'm getting that was? Yeah. Or the untucked juries. He's the famous one too. But we were saying under the,

under the this fucking guy provision, a team would be able to review a call like this. And if someone is behaving in a way that is a little over the edge or maybe it's annoying, the referees can throw it to Sikakis and they can look at it and review the footage and be like, you know what? They're right. This fucking guy. He did, you know, on the on the basis of.

this fucking guy. We're going to overturn the call. We did watch it again. Upon further review, does seem that DeAnthony Melton's face was almost whimsical when you kick the ball. There was no malintent there, at which point in time, Grant Williams approached and behaved like a spoiled child. And we did deem it of this fucking guy scenario. And they keep their time out. It should be two free throws. I think that that's where I think that this fucking guy is worth two free throws and probably and the ball, right? Yeah. There's some guys that are going to be more prone anyway. This fucking guy provision, just tell us what you think about that if that's going to work. The thing about, you know, what's funny is, I was going to say too, another big outing from this game, you know,

we're laughing and joking. But in seriousness here, like, you know, they did get a big game from Tatum, 27 points, 10 for 20, 10 rebounds, five assists. He's getting off the ball better and hitting his shots, picking his spots. Well, Horford actually, Al Horford, in defiance of God, continues to just, he just makes winning play after winning play. He had an incredible play at the end of this game where Melton comes out on him and Melton is just froggy. He's just, he's too froggy. He's way too excited. Stay down. I don't know what you're doing. He's trying to like deflect the past. And Horford is just, his resting heartbeat as a player is just so low. He sees that Melton is too froggy. He's just like, okay, simple ball fake to the right wing. Melton jumps a thousand feet into the air.

And then, you know, there was some, there was some back and forth about whether or not Al Horford was an elite shooter because some reporter laughed. Yeah, he got pissed at that reporter for laughing at him. I saw that. I watched the clip. I don't blame the, you were talking about giving the respect. Like, you know, whenever somebody like that that you do respect or you want to like, you know, you're, you're treading lightly. He's sort of smiled in this way that, like, that was sort of like, I'm kind of kidding. I don't know if you've seen the clip of him, but he was kind of smiling. So the guy kind of laugh with him. And then Horford immediately pulls the chair on him. And it was like, oh, it's funny.

That's funny to you? I was like, that was kind of abusive what he just did. He besheed him. Yeah. I mean, the like gaggle of reporters laugh, I think is very similar to, you know, pastor just made a joke in church laugh where the bar is very low. And you are just almost lacking out.

People are almost laughing out of shock that a bit happened at all in that moment, not whether or not it was funny. And you also have with the reporter side of things, I think there's always the like, hey, yeah, we're all friends here. Yeah, we like, yeah, you like us. We're buddies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We see each other all the time.

You like us. Well, Al, yeah, Al's great. Yeah, we're great. We're close. Well, Al, Al, after, you know, speaking of elite shooter, he can, I mean, maybe one of the bigger plays of the game, I think it was a four-point game with like three and a half minutes to go. He hits that shot. And, you know, the Celtics just were more composed down the stretch.

But, you know, we talk about this on a game-to-day, game-to-game basis daily, like we've said here on the Ringer Podcast Network. Check it out, subscribe. And, you know, we freaked out about game one. But, you know, all that said, you know, Philly still has a chance to take this game. back to Boston tied. How confident are you in them doing that at this point? I mean, I think Embed can go Superman and get a game even if he doesn't have anything else around him.

Like, I think he's still, you know, he played super well. But, you know, I think he's shown he has a higher level he could get to if the knees, if the knees right or right enough. concern is just defensively, Embed's covering up a lot of mistakes for those guards on the perimeter and is just getting really, really tired. If they crank the variance and just, you know, it's either hardening, me, pick and roll, Embed working from the elbow, and then you just, you've got, you know, Maxie and Melton and Hardin and Harris just fire in and a couple of them get hot. It's totally is totally possible. Yeah, the Celtics just still feel like a bad matchup to

me for the Sixers. Brown's been, Brown's been was had a good game, last game, and just sort of he seems like a big problem for them matchup-wise and is, and is playing well, you know, sort of despite those odd turnovers in the last game. But yeah, I don't, I don't know. If, you know, all my belongings on the table, I'm picking the Celtics for sure. I don't think it's, I don't think it's an impossibility for the Sixers to get one or even two more. But, yeah, I mean, things on the hard and front better change in a hurry. And it doesn't seem like that they're not used to changing like that in the playoffs when it comes to him. Yeah. Well, Crank the Variance, I think, is a good title for this podcast.

I'll submit that to Jade, our producer. Let's go ahead and move on to the other game, which was, Sun's Nuggets. This was, you know, you're talking about, as you were, as you were talking about, like, Hardin's resume for, you know, just stinkers, turds. I feel like we have, we have a resume sort of accumulating with Devin Booker, big game book, as I called him, a couple years ago in the playoffs. So really, the only big blemish on his resume at this point was that game against Dallas last year where the Phoenix just fell apart. COVID had entered. Who specifically had it? I don't know. I don't have the test, but we know that COVID had entered the equation.

and it was very disruptive and as well as Luca Donchich was very disruptive. But last night, we get an out of body. It's getting to the point where I didn't even know if it's out of body, Tyler. Like if you're looking at like the playoff averages for for Devin Booker, you have to kind of start wondering, is he him? You know, I know that that's a really tough question to answer. But he had, you know, in these playoffs, he had 30, he's been averaging 36.9 points, 48.9% from three on nearly six attempts.

I mean, just Eric Werheim, like, brain explosion. 6.9 assists, 2.1 steals. In the first quarter of this game, he comes out, you know, what's funny is they lose the quarter by two points. Denver was in a rhythm in the first quarter of this game. They had 31. It was 31.29. But Book comes out and goes eight for 10 in the first quarter for 18 points. Overall, last night, Booker gets 20,

for 25 for 45 points. What impressed you about Devin Booker's performance last night? How is he able to do this? What the hell's going on? Give me help me here. The contested shot making stuff now is getting ridiculous.

Like, he's always been a good shooter, and I think the ball handling's always been pretty underrated, like, always unhurried, you know, steady pace. You're not going to see him get worked up. You know, like he's going to get to his spots, he's going to do what he wants to do. I think that some of the stuff that he's been doing,

and it's not like he hasn't gone there, you know, sort of before and past games, but I think just seeing him do it on this stage, some of the stuff he's doing kind of in the midpost a little bit, some of these, like, kind of like taking guys down there and hitting these contested turnarounds in big spots when the sons need a bucket, especially during some of these games,

you know, prior to last, night and in the stretches last night whenever Durant wasn't getting to the line right well speaking of getting to the line he scored 45 points and only went to the free throw line twice that's incredible he had 47 right was it 47 yeah he had 47 i misspoke yeah two free throws no no crazy it's like it's if you look at like polar sides of the of the of the the or polar sides of the spectrum opposite sides what hardens doing with the with the with the and depending on the play style. And then you look at what Booker's doing.

It's just incredible, like how it's trans. Like, it's night and day, man. Yeah. Like, he's hitting like 80% on corner threes. He's like at like, you know, he's like hitting over 52% in the mid range or something like that. It's the pull-up three's working. Everything is working.

He's getting to the rim. He's also just one of these guys that he doesn't get talked about as, I don't think, as like a guy who is this great processor of the. game like a, like a Luca or somebody or whatever, LeBron, right? But like if the nuggets slip up, if, you know, Murray had some sort of inexplicable gambles laid in the game last night, you know, sometimes where for some reason he's leaving Booker to go double Durant and stuff like that. Oh, we'll get to that. Maybe we pick somebody else. Maybe we go get, maybe we, somebody who doesn't have 40, maybe we go double off of him. But like he just, you know,

One of those daggers kind of lay, I think, to push the league maybe to seven or so. KCP almost kind of winds up in No Man's Land a little bit. Durant's got the ball up around Half Court, kind of in the corner. And KCP kind of gets in No Man's Land a little bit to try to bring the double, and Durant gets rid of it early, and Booker just attacks immediately and just goes right to the rim and just takes an angle where KCP can't, catch back up. And he knows that he's not worried about Murray at all. Murray's sort of turned around almost facing the stands whenever the ball's in the air to Booker in the first place.

By the time Booker's got the ball starting to head downhill, only then is Murray turning around. And Murray just does some little kind of bluff and get back trying to get to whoever in the corner. I think it was Warren. And it's, you know, Yokic once somebody gets to the rim isn't going to be able to do much, right? So he feels like he's not just on a heater. He feels like he's like taking advantage of a defense that does not have the guns right now, at least, to be able to stop, you know, him and Durant, right? Like maybe they can, you know, Durant puts up a big number last night, but super inefficient, you know, whatever it was, 12 or 31, he gets to the line.

And so he gets his numbers like that. That's what Stars do. That's a smart game by him. But, yeah, I mean, they don't look like they can do anything with them. book. And I mean, these are good, these are good defenders. KCP's getting turns on him, right? Like, you know, Gordon's getting turns on and Bruce Brown. Like, it doesn't matter. It's, he's, he's roasting everybody. Let's talk a little bit about like sort of the broad stuff that they've shifted here. Now, I saw it brought up that, you know, talking about basketball, it has sort of a

directional sort of flow to it. You know, you'll watch a lot. You were talking about the, like, the hardened, the hardened teams. And when they were, they were very north-south heavy, very pick and roll heavy, very like, here it comes, and teams could kind of load up. And because of those guys were so incredible, you know, Lucas still plays like this. They can load up and they can still pick you apart. A lot of these guys are like bigger playmakers. But the, you know, and that's the north-south thing. But the east-west thing is something that like they have tapped into. You talk about like these wide pin downs where Kevin Durant comes off of it moving laterally as opposed to moving like forwards and backwards. And they've had some success with that. And, you know,

whenever they get into this flow where I feel like a lot of the NBA is you build your team to sort of be built on the premise of like basic actions. Like when we come down a lot of the time, we like to run this type of pick and roll. We like to dump it. We like to ISO from here. And then from there, whether or not you're able to efficiently, you know, execute that, your offense sort of becomes read and react flow. And it's sort of like if, you know, I know you're the actor with the improvising. you tell me if this is ridiculous or not, but you're laughing. No, I mean, like whenever something goes off plan, the best, you know, the best actors,

the best, you know, I did some acting growing up, so I'm sort of familiar with this. But the best people that you want to be in a situation with are the guys, are the people who can, guys or girls who can steer the car back on the road with some improvisation, with some like skill to like, okay, the initial thing we were trying to do here didn't go the way we wanted. And the best offense is in the league get into this. flow state where they can read and react and continue to punish the defense that is rotating. You know, you keep them rotating, but you efficiently make good decisions.

And I feel like Phoenix has hit something here where they're running these sort of lateral east-west actions and then kicking the ball and then reacting quickly. Monty Williams is all about like the point five decisions. You catch the ball. You don't fucking hold it. You quickly shoot it, you dribble, or you pass it. You know, so they did a really good job moving into space, the eagerness that Denver had to sort of close on them. And you saw that over and over again.

There was, this is a good example. There was a sideline out of bounds play late in the game where KD was, was imbounding it. And Devin was coming over a screen, and he caught the ball. And you could tell Denver knew they were, they were anticipating a handoff to KD. but instead of handing the ball to Katie, he just pulls it like a quarterback and sneaks into the mid-range and hit just an absolute...

I thought that was the play you were talking about. He just hits an absolute dagger. But they had a lot of success, I feel, like, attacking the gaps. And they even, and, you know, Monty Williams, in case of emergency, broke the glass and pulled in some T.J. Warren and some Terrence Ross

at different points during this game. But I feel like they've had some success, like generating offense on that front. Yeah, I mean, Warren was a plus 20. I mean, like, you know, getting more offense out there, just giving them a little bit more space to play in Booker and Durant, I think, was huge. They got out and ran more. It seemed like a concerted effort on their part to try to not let Denver's defense get set up exactly. But I think what you're saying with the, like, kind of trying to go east to west, it just like ups the number of decisions that they, that the defense has to make.

You know what I mean? It just gives guys more and more opportunities to mess up. Sometimes it's not even necessarily about like, okay, this pass is going to be the pass before the shot or this pass is going to get us the shot, right? It's just like, well, let's just get this thing moving and get them rotating and give defenders, you know, like Murray, who are prone to gamble or prone to maybe get a little bored or a little lost or whatever. Let's give them, you know, ample opportunities for that to happen. And yeah, I mean, I think you saw that. I mean, the transition defense had been a thing for Denver sort of during the regular season. And so, I mean, it-

They were kind of middle of the road. Like, they were sort of an average team, you know, against the teams that attack and, like, are proficient at it. You know, 28 transition points last night for Phoenix. Yeah, attacking, like, early. I was telling you, I love Denver had some success with it, too, where they were, like, kind of picking on post-mismatches, like early clock. Like, Gordon had a really nasty one. But, yeah. But, yeah, Phoenix, I think.

the other thing too is that like and draymond has talked about this that this is one of the big things that i think the warriors sort of brought to the NBA is this sort of lateral stretching you out with decisions quick action stacking actions on top of each other i always think about like do you ever play at dr mario you're playing that game i know the game you're talking about but i never played it what the fuck uh so anyway and dr mario if you get a combination like if you your goal is to like eliminate the viruses and if you can to eliminate a couple in like one hit. It's sort of like Tetris where if you can like knock out multiple rows at once.

If you do that and you're playing head to head with somebody else, you can make more obstacles fall down on your opponent on the other side. So they have to deal with them. And I always think about that whenever I watch teams that do this, they just keep stacking decisions and you as a unit have to continue to like not make a mistake. And the other thing too is that like you're moving Yokic left and right and the low. That's the other thing about like when the ball's reversing, the low man changes. Once you start having to have that communication, that puts a lot of stress on a defense.

Well, and they were, and they were, you know, they like finally started to, you know, you saw Booker and Duran and even Payne, you know, they, Yolkich is coming up to the level. They start rejecting these ball screens, trying to make Yokic cover a little bit even more ground, right? Just like, you know, try to change up their looks that direction. I think they can do a lot. I think Phoenix could do a lot more to get. to help Durant get some easier buckets, get some better shots,

get some shots on the move, some shots going to the rim. It feels like, even though they are capable of some of these actions like you're talking about, that have given the Denver defense, you know, problems at certain times, just because of the threat of these two ISO monsters in Durant and Booker. But sometimes it does feel like that it's in the same way it would in even some of those on some of those Golden State teams with Durant is almost like, okay, here's the ball, go score. Yeah.

Go ahead. And he's not quite the same physically anymore to do that, you know? Well, no, that's definitely a factor. I would feel remiss if we didn't mention that I think Gordon is doing a hell of a job on him and is playing a great series and his backup five minutes and the bench lineups that Malone has gone. to here that have all of a sudden been super successful for the nugs since the playoffs started are a huge reason why they've, you know, at times, you know, looked like maybe the best team in the postseason thus far, where before they're losing all

these Yokic minutes now, you shift Gordon down to the five, you can switch everything. You've got Bruce Brown out there being a terror. I mean, Bruce Brown is stoning Aiton in the post. Like it's, you know, it's a, it's a fun brand of ball to, to, to, to, to, to watch whenever that bench unit really gets kind of flying around out there like that. And I mean, Gordon is a small ball five. I feel like NBA hipster types were, you know, praying for that from the Orlando days. And he never, never really happened. But it's a fun little wrinkle.

And it's, and they, you know, they've got the, they've got the, the personnel to make it to make it work. I mean, it, if you're, what, what's your temperature on eight and after? I mean, we talk, you talk about like a, you know, hardened shit in the bed. Aitn, maybe not on that level exactly, obviously, because there's not, he's not, he's not the player Harden was at all. But like, he's, he just has not been able to get going. And it doesn't, he just looks super ineffectual. Yeah, I was going to say Phoenix might end up to sealing the deal and getting him traded. Yeah, last night, I don't want to make this all about the suns. There are, there are things to talk about with the nuggets, obviously going forward.

Sure. I want to. But yeah, I mean, there are a few plays in this game where you could tell like Katie was getting frustrated with him. There were, you know, short roles where I think there was one in particular, you know, Jamal Murray not known for his rim deterrence. He's not known as somebody who repels and, and actually, Booker's actually gotten incredible at like verticality around the rim for a guard instead of, you know, taking charge as like cowards. The Aitin thing that is funny is that like Aiton is catching at like 13, 14 feet and you can

just watch him the terror on his face where it's like, I, was talking to you about like, hey, one dribble, reverse pivot, you know, left hand, right hand, shot fake. You see him catch. He freaked out. He had, he had, he had, he had, he had, he had, he had, he had, he had, he had, he had probably six three, you know, maybe, maybe six, four. And, and Aten is, is a legit seven foot, to my knowledge. You know, and the details of that don't even matter. He should have been able to take some kind of a dribble, you know, left hand, right hand and he loses his minutes to Jock Landale because Landale is a pardon the stereotypes and everything here. He's a lunch pail. He comes in and does the job. He comes in and he's finishing

around the rim and making those simple plays. You just, we just like playing with some, he's just playing with some force. I mean, you just look out there. That's it. That's exactly it. Even the blind eye stuff, you're just like, oh, he is just playing harder. Yeah. You know, like he's just, you know, it, you talk about, you know, catching in the lane and, and not being able to get it done. There was a moment where he screens for Booker and kind of, this was in the second quarter, I think. He screens for Booker and they've got,

they've got Durant, Weakside kind of one pass away. So Gordon doesn't want to get, Gordon can't get sucked down too far. And I can catch it with basically nobody around him. MPJ is kind of flying at him. And MPJ is, you know, tall, but he's, you know, this isn't stromile, right? Like this is, you know, thank you for that. Thank you for that.

That was for me. That was for you. I did that specifically for you. But like, he just, you know, he just goes to lay it in. And you don't want to like, I don't want to start sounding like shack on here where it's like, go dunk the ball, big fella. But on some level, you are just kind of like, hey, man, you got like, if they want to turn the series around in a big, big way, the only way for that to happen is for him to start at least trying to meet some of this yokage force with some of his own. or trying to use some of his skill set that he has that Yokish doesn't have, trying to get out and run and transition a little bit, right?

Like Aiton can do that. If the Sons are committed to kind of changing up a little bit the way they play now and trying to run a little bit more, trying to beat the nuggets before their defense can get set up, that's a way that if Aitnell just bust his ass down the floor, he can get some buckets like that, I think. You know what I mean? Like it's just, but it, I don't know,

No, man, it was, the more games like that that you see from him just, it just gets more and more disconcerting because it's like, I think you start to feel like, well, you're not asked to do, like you're being asked to do things that you can do. You know what I mean? It doesn't feel like they're asking too much of him, you know? And when you do see the team just play harder whenever they bring somebody else in, it's hard to not to not notice that. You know what I mean? It's just like the energy on the floor comes up all the way. You see these shots of him, you know, not wanting to talk to Chris Paul multiple times during timeouts. I kind of get it. I get it. I get it, man. Maybe Chris Paul would probably not be that fun to talk to. If you're DeAndre Atenre in this situation in their history, yeah, for sure. I mean, there were reports from some Phoenix people that sort of like, you know, the broadcast itself focused a lot on like, Aiton's not out there. And then you see him over there and he looked pissed. I guess they, I guess there were. reports that, you know, during timeouts and kind of as the game was closing, he kind of collected himself and was talking to Landau and stuff, which is cool. That's good to, that's good

to know and good to see. But you would just, you just like to see him play the way that you know he can, just be a springy dude in the middle that rebounds and defends and just sprints the court. Like you'll get, Durant and Booker are going to be getting so much attention. You know what I mean? he's got, especially now, they're going to start running doubles at those guys even more next game, right? Like, they're going to be blitzing the hell out of Booker. And so I still think even next game, Aten will have a chance to, you know, kind of be like, no, I'm going to turn it around here. But it just, he doesn't, he doesn't seem like the type. Yeah, there's going to be a chance. And I think coming away from this game, I think for the Nuggets and for the Suns, it becomes, as we look forward to how this is going to go in game four, I think it becomes a question of sort of like programs. and regression. I think if you're looking at like the progression for the for the Sons would be, you know,

Durant was was semi-mortal by his standards in the first two games. I mean, he got it, you know, he got his 26 and a half points, but it wasn't super efficient. You know, he was only 20% from the, from the three-point line. He wasn't getting to the foul line. And in this game, 39 points. And he got, you know, 16 free throws in this game, and a little bit more efficient. But, and then you got to start thinking about, like, what we were talking about is Booker going to continue to be Herculine. and then are we going to get, you know, some more from Aiton? They're going to need to have those guys firing on all cylinders. The other thing I think is if you're the Nuggets and you look at this and you think,

okay, you know, we're doing a pretty decent job. I think we can probably continue to do a decent job on Duran as far as the standard for doing a decent job on Duran goes, as we know, is a tough thing. Throughout the, I think they scored enough to win. I think if things go, if things go well the next game. Because if you watch down the stretch, they had some sort of fump. There were some weird calls, but there were also a lot of missed chippies. There were some sort of weird miscommunications that I think that they can tighten up,

like around the basket. I think there were a few missed shots. I still feel pretty good. If you consider like that progression regression thing, I still kind of feel like it's in Denver's favor considering the way everything went. Because I think if they don't overreact and overhelp in some of the situations like we were talking about, I don't think they're going to be giving up those corner threes to like T.J. Warren. And like I feel like Denver.

can kind of tighten up a little bit and they'll probably be fine even if Booker continues to play well. That's kind of my vibe too. Like, you know, it feels like a, I think it feels like a series that's going to go six or seven. You know, I would, in my head, it's still Denver's to lose. I, it, it feels like that Phoenix has to commit fully to this small. lineup, play fast kind of vibe. Like I just don't think that defensively, even if they did play these all defensive lineups, I just don't think they're going to be able to get enough stops to be able

to justify how ugly it's going to look on the other end. I think the way that they beat them is if they just try to just run, run, run, go, go. and I think Yokic is just too tough of a matchup there, to be honest with you. Like, even in the game last night, you know, Phoenix wins. Yokic was playing how he wanted to play. You know, they didn't have him, you know, they had him more play in the way they wanted him to play in game two when he goes for 39, you know, and 10 and 5 where he's, you know, not getting as many people involved, right? Like that, the terrifying Yokich and the Nuggets are at their best whenever he's pinging it around and they're getting everybody involved.

And you've got Murray in a rhythm and MPJ in a rhythm and KCP in a rhythm. You know, you've got Bruce Brown out there doing things. Christian Brown's been great for them defensively. And like to be a to be a rookie out there getting these minutes and not looking, not looking, you know, like you don't belong is big. Yeah, I mean, they've, the Nuggets stuff that they do. well, feels more duplicable and more sustaining than what the Sons have been doing offensively, despite how Booker's been on one all postseason. You know what I mean?

Like Booker has been consistent, and Booker's shopmaking has been consistent. He's been doing it. It's honestly fair to assume that he's going to go for 35 for the rest of the series, right? Like I think that that's just what he's been, he's been killing from Clippers since the jump. You know, like it's been impressive. But the rest of that offense, you know, you just, maybe they get, maybe they get a big game from, you know, maybe they get a bunch of threes from Terrence Ross one, you know, next game. Maybe they get a bunch, you know, what. I know, T.J. Warren goes, you know what, you don't, you'll like this.

I almost just called T.J. Warren, Willie Warren. almost just now. That's a one for the heads. I was just going to say, I just had a couple sort of lighter notes about Denver before we wrap up and get out of the Willie Warren. I'm kind of, I'm reeling a little bit from the Willie Warren reference.

Kentucky recruited him, by the way. They wanted him. Willie Warren and Tiny Gallen. They showed up at O.U. And everybody was like, all right, that's it. Keith, Tiny Gallon. Sorry, Kansas. We're the big boys on the block now.

Move over. And then Billy G. That was not the case. Man, didn't get him. No, there were. couple, there were a couple just things with Denver. First of all, Yok gets through a righty, one-handed skip pass to the corner, fully not looking. How far of a pass was that? I mean, that was like a, how many feet was that pass? I mean, it was, it was easy. It was from the,

it was from the, it was from like extended right wing above the three point line, right? So 30, 25, somewhere between 25 and 30 feet on a rope, perfectly, perfectly lands. I forget who shot. It was KCP. I was saying, you know, KCP, I've had this thing. We're talking about things if we run the league. We've got the, we've got the this fucking guy provision. We've also got, I just think there should be jail time for people who miss shots.

Like, KCP, one dribble pull up that hit it. But if somebody throws me a pass, I would, what percentage of people in the world, Tyler? You've, like, sort of, you've pontificated about Yolach a lot. What percentage of people in the world would that be the best pass they've ever? ever thrown in their life. That pass that he threw on a Friday night in May, and it was just like, he's made a million that were just as good or better. What percentage of people do you think that would be the best pass they have ever thrown in their life? I mean, considering what percentage of people have been NBA players? I would, what, like, you know, 99.99.99 would be the best.

If that's the best pass they've ever thrown, yeah, sure. I mean, I, like, it's not the best NBA It's not the best NBA pass. I mean, you know, like, Yoko has had better passes than that. LeBron, you know, a bunch of guys have had better ones than that. But in terms of like just the rest of the world? That's what we're talking about. Yeah, I'm talking about all of organized basketball. I'm just trying to think like human beings, it's in the high 90s.

Like that is. I would like, I would love to just if you could do, if you could run some sort of like, you know, simulator test with NBA players and you just bring them into a room with a computer and you put that you put the you basically like put them in you give them the ball in Yolkich's position right there and you're like all right where would you pass this? Or would you throw this past? Yeah. And I don't I think very few of them are like I'm going to no look to the corner. You know what I mean? Like I just don't think it's I don't think that that my thing with Yolkich is just the audacity of the passes during the time in the game in which he does them, that he is so

unafraid of taking those bonkers chances in tight games is delightful. Yeah. And it is so entertaining. But yeah, I mean, the past I always remember with Yokic that was like one of the ones that just like made me like a belly laugh for a while was in the bubble against the clippers. There's one.

I can't remember if it was in one of those overtime games or not. But he just kind of catches it at the nail or whatever. and he's not even facing the goal and he just throws it with two hands behind his head to Murray cutting or whatever. And it's just sort of like, oh yeah, this guy is, this guy's seeing the chessboard a little bit,

a little bit differently. I mean, like, you know, LeBron has had that stuff. Lucas got those passes right. Like there are other guys that can, that can do it, Lamello. But, yeah, Yokic, the combination of the height that he's able

to do that stuff at. I think that that's probably the part of it that isn't considered enough. It's the angle just being so tall. Yeah, it's why he could torture the, it's why I could torture the Timberwolves the way that he could because, like, you know, he's negating a lot of what makes Gobert special down there. Like, he can just see right up over the top of that stuff is why, you know, it's why he has so many assists to Gordon, right?

Like, that was one of those passes. that the announcers were like, what? Yeah, that was a stupendous one. The other thing was, and then we'll get out here, is quickly I just wanted to say, Michael Porter Jr. continues to be one of the oddest weapons for like a contending team.

I was telling somebody like, it is very bizarre that you have basically a superstar level talent shot creator, but they don't trust him enough. I don't know if they're ever going to trust him enough to fully enable him with the ball in his hands because he's so erratic because he'll make these decisions where you're like, and you'll see Denver sometimes be running their offense. Like Bruce Brown will cut like the action is supposed to continue and he'll turn around.

Oh, MPJ shot that. I didn't think that was. Like, and he's, because you're talking about being tall and just have more options. Like he just is so unbothered by close out sometimes where he's just like, yeah, I'm open right now. I'm shooting this.

And he had a sequence where it was late in the game where I was thinking I was like, Denver made a little frisky here. He comes off of a baseline. and curling comes all the way from the left corner to the right wing, catches the ball and makes this landale had a great close out on it. And he just shoots, elevates, and nets a three over him. I thought he might even gotten fouled. And then a few plays later, he catches on a backdoor cut and just posterizes Kevin Durant.

Like, he does things like this. Like, I mean, he punched that on Durant in a big time way. And, like, Durant landed on his back against the stanchion. Yeah. And it was like Redick and Richard. Jefferson were talking about something else. And then that happened. And then, you know, Roko just screamed.

And it was like, this is what we're talking about now. It was like one of those like broadcast moments. It was, I mean, it was a great, it was an unbelievable. I mean, we're talking too much about Yukic, as we all do. But the, it, it was a great pass by Yokic there. But yeah, MPJ is one of those like guys that has some of those, you know, Durant, Kauai kind of shots where you're just. just like this guy is, you know, in your chest completely, not giving you any airspace whatsoever,

and you're fine. Yeah, he doesn't. I mean, he's, it's, it is one of those things. It does feel like they're leaving stuff on the table there with him. I wish they would have given him more, you know, reps, more cuts in the cage throughout the regular season as like the kind of initiator or whatever. I mean, you know, they give the ball to Brown there's some and he's been, he's been solid with it in those sort of limited possessions it's felt like you never feel like you're in bad hands

there when he's got it, especially whenever he's running picking rolls with Yokic or even, I mean, even in the playoffs now whenever they're doing stuff with Gordon. I mean, like we were saying earlier, that lineup has been having success. But you do wish that like they would have given that lineup where MPJ is initiating a few more spins around the block during the regular season, just to have him ready for some of these playoff situations, because like you said, you do get into situations in these series where you need multiple shot creators who can put the ball on the deck and go get something in a situation where, you know, stuff's grinded to a halt. So it'll be,

it'll be interesting to see if that, like, bites them a little bit more in this series. But I also hate that I just use the phrase, it'll be interesting to see. So we can also, we can strike that from the record. You also said cuts in the cage, which is good. And crank the variance is also good. Yep, MPJ, he was still six for 10 from three, so 60% of 20 points. He's a nuisance. He's a great player.

I'm excited to see how this series is going to unfold. It's one of my, I want to, the Lakers Warriors one, obviously, is pretty awesome. Tyler was good to see you. It was good to hear from you. You can check out Tyler's league pass rankings. Are you updating that again for the end of the playoffs at all? or are we set? Yeah, we'll do at least one more update, maybe two.

It'll depend on how long these two series go. If both of them go longer, there'll probably be two more. But, yeah, I don't know. We haven't talked about it yet. So it'll either be this week and next week. But yeah, check us out. We're coming at you with playoff coverage every day on the Rear NBA feed. So, yeah, all right, guys.

Thanks to Jade Whaley for producing this. for our buddy being the cruise missile sitting in and listening as well and providing some research on who had COVID and who didn't and his great sneaker collection and we will catch you next time, guys.