The Ringer NBA Show - Denver Rides the Russ Roller Coaster, the Wolves Overwhelm the Lakers, and More Top-line Takeaways From Saturday’s Game 1s. | Group Chat

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

Justin, Rob, and Wos are here right after the first set of game 1s with their immediate reactions. They start by discussing Denver’s game 1 win in overtime against the Clippers (3:15). Then they talk about the Timberwolves impressive road win over the Lakers (23:55). Then the Knicks comeback victory at home over the Pistons (33:50) before wrapping up with the Pacers comfortable win over the Bucks (54:41). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Marcelino Ortiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-dash-help.com. Hello and welcome to GroupShat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me on the first night of the NBA playoffs. We got playoff Rob Mahoney. We got playoff Big Was. Guys, we just watched, what, 10 hours of NBA basketball,

back to back to back to back? How you feeling, Rob? Wonderful. I mean, should we be so? lucky every day of the year, but at least we have these first two weekends, you know, wall-to-wall basketball. I'm a pig and shit, Justin, I got to say. I feel like we usually do the back-to-back nights where you do four and then four, but we're only doing this first night. And I have to feel like, I'm feeling spry. I'm ready to get after it. Yeah, I mean,

the game started at 10 a.m. local time over here almost reminded me of an NFL Sunday. You just wake up on Saturday or, you know, it's a weekend day, get your breakfast going and just plop yourself on the couch and get ready for a full day of NBA basketball. Yeah, what's your, what's your food technique, Was, are you snacked up? Are you conscious, like, in my case, I have excavated the pantry. I've gotten rid of all the food in my house because I will eat it if it's present. Like, what is your sustenance strategy, Was? Today, this is slightly embarrassing, but at 1130, I placed the DoorDash order for a four-piece Popeye's meal. And so- Not an embarrassing thing about that.

Bodyed two pieces of chicken immediately upon arrival and then let the other two just chilled and re-heated it. Bodyed it about two and a half hours later. So yeah, that was basically my snack, the four-piece Popeye. That's beautiful. That's long-term vision. That's like LeBron pacing himself out. the course of entire series. He's not just going to blow everything all once in the game one, especially this game one that we saw for him tonight. I definitely had multiple versions of caffeine

throughout my days. Like I started with the tea. Then I had a cold brew. Then I had coffee that just was in my fridge for like a week that I had left over. You drinking stale coffee? Yeah. I think I had four different sources all coming into me at different times. Are your intestines okay? No, like not usually. So it's all It's always to build back from the deficit. I'm starting at negative five. I got to get to zero in order to survive. Build back better.

There you go. So I would say we had four pretty good games. Even the last game, Lakers Wolves, was interesting in its own right, even though that was probably the lone blowout of the evening. Even the bucks kind of climbed back into it in the first game of the series. But we have to start with game number two on the docket as we go through all four of these. We'll go through top line takeaways. We'll talk about first impressions on all of these.

But Nuggets 112, Clippers 110 in overtime. I was trying to calculate, do some long division based on whether or not Russ made more positive plays or more detrimental plays. I think if you carry the one Rob, I think he ultimately came on top. But what does your math say? I think absolutely. The last deflection off of James Hardin's hand tilted the ledger. Until then, as with Russell Westbrook often, it's anybody's game, you know? His angels or his demons could have the day.

But in this case, Kim was some huge plays, was dared to come up with huge plays by the Clippers and absolutely delivered. And, you know, there's kind of a corresponding Chris Dunn effect on the other side where guys, and Ben Simmons sometimes

where those guys are challenged to make plays, but that's what the playoffs are all about. Like, Kendrew Russell Westbrooks deliver, and boy, did he tonight. And he had to. I thought, especially in the second half, Ty Loo and them decided

that they were going to completely tilt their defense. in ways that were going to dare Christian Brown and Russell Westbrook to beat them. And in a lot of ways, those guys came up with the plays that ultimately made the difference. And so, yeah, Russ tonight, he repeated his premature layup again,

the same one that nearly blew the, that actually blew the wolves' result from a few weeks ago, that he did that again with the nuggets up, wanting to burn clock and him just, airballing a layup. But he made just some incredible plays. Defensively, he was a menace on the offensive glass.

Like, they got so many extra possessions because of Russis effort. He's one of the only guys, I guess, besides Nicole Eokit, you can run a for his break on that team. I don't know if you guys remember that play with Yolkis. Plotted through. Sprinted on that fast break by himself. He was 39 minutes into the night at that point. Give the guy a break.

It was crazy. But Russ, I thought, man, I thought he was a net positive, man. Especially when you just consider the stuff, the stuff when he gets rolling that he's good at, they have no other way of generating that stuff. And that we got a decently good Russell night. It was amazing. Well, you mentioned that they left him wide open, like that they tilted the defense away from him. I would say it was to the point where I almost felt like the Clippers pulled their goalie

and completely left him so wide open that he had. just a reservoir space in front of him, but he made the shot to his credit. I also appreciated when that tip play happened where went off hard and toward the end there. You could see Russ celebrating, like being really triumphant. And then if you go through the play enough through the review, you see Adelman in the back being like, get back on defense. It's not over yet. It was just such a crazy Russ experience. But we can get into some of the things that happened earlier.

It seemed like the Clippers had a huge advantage offensively. I thought this game was going to be over quickly. but it really got pulled into the mud and you have to give the Nuggets credit because they made time and time again the tip plays, the hustle plays, Brown diving on the floor that the Clippers just couldn't come up with.

They made a ton of those plays. But also I think if you want to sort of understand what happened in this game, you look at who was dictating the terms. The Nuggets come out in a funky like one two two zone, which is all but saying up front, we cannot guard these guys.

We do not know how to guard them. And guess what? They just did not guard them for a while. Then when the Nuggets had the ball, the Clippers were switching so much. They were throwing the Nuggets off their game. And they were taking all these threes. The Nuggets are a team that was, I think, 30th and three point rate this season was settling for three after three after three. They just did not look like the Denver Nuggets on either side of things.

They went to a simpler defense. They upped those effort plays you're talking about Justin. They were flying around in rotation. They were flying around for loose balls. They're flying around for rebounds. All of a sudden, the intensity gets turned up. All of a sudden, they get their pick and roll game locked in, and they're able to kind of start exploiting some of those mismatches.

And then you see the Clippers making changes where, oh, they have to get bigger lineups on the floor now in order to handle those switches, to handle the Yokic Murray pick and roll. But as a tradeoff for that, then the Clippers pick and roll game is clogged up, and James Hardin can't get to the basket the way he did anymore. So you could see the nuggets like resting control of it. But the only way they're able to do it is because overall, the effort and intensity just was not there in the first quarter.

And I think by the end of the second, By the end of the second, they finally got there. Yeah, that first quarter was, I'm not going to lie, pretty disheartening because it's not that the clippers were scoring. It seemed like they were just walking in for layups. The Nuggets, like, you know, they basically traded baskets, but the Nuggets were, like, running their offense, getting, like, system buckets. But, like, they were working to generate these shots they happened to be making early. Whereas the clippers, especially hard in Zubachu, I thought was excellent. Both had great games.

Zubach game. Yeah, Hardin, to me, there was at times where he felt like the best player on the floor, which I haven't felt that way about James Hardin in a playoff game

in probably five years, if I'm being honest. And so, yeah, the lack of resistance, the lack of, you know, making the clippers feel them was so tangible and obvious. And then, you know,

they came out of that timeout after going down 15. And the intensity and physicality just ratcheted up. They ended up cutting it down. to something like five or something before halftime. It was like, okay, we have a game on our hands. I mean, even Jeff Van Gundy was getting in on the intensity.

Just rip up all away from no good. I think the trainer was even involved in that one. But yeah, I think you're right. It was so simple for the clippers early on. It was like just a dump pass into Zubotch, caught from the backside, and they got it over and over and over again. But it felt like once that gunked up, once the nugget switched things around in order to account for that, it almost felt like the clippers froze to a certain extent.

And it almost felt like their lack of dynamic play offensively started to come to bear, where it's like there was no route to easy buckets. And the one thing that the nuggets do well is that they have so much size that they can crowd around the basket and force you into those push shots into a lot of floaters. And it just wasn't falling for Hardin, didn't feel like a lot of the pushes from Zubach were even going in. And so you were looking around and that's typically where you would want Kauai to save you. And Kauai was decent in this game, but he just didn't have the pop. He was okay, I think overall.

He made a couple of buckets. but overall I thought like they needed him to be supernova and to take over as he has throughout this second half and he just wasn't there and they didn't really know where else to go to. Yeah, I thought this was a pretty anonymous game from Kauai. And if anything, his biggest play of the night was the play where he absolutely botched that ISO attempt against Jamal Murray and the ball went off his hip out of bounds where Jeff Van Gundy seized it

and refused to give it up all to respect to Jeff Van Gundy. I think they just needed more from him. Like they got what they needed from Hardin ultimately, which was big time shot making, great playmaking as usual. The floater game was on point. The stepbacks were largely on point. Yeah, in the later stages of the game,

I think it was a little more spotty, but he also hit some huge runners down the stretch. So I don't want to take those away from him. And Zhu was cleaning up everything inside. Like it was a huge part of their second chance offense early in the game. And then Kauai's like, sometimes he's there, sometimes he's not. Sometimes he has the mismatches,

but he's not quite delivering. I just didn't think it was a like Kauai Leonard superstar kind of performance. and maybe they didn't need that, but they needed clearly two more baskets from him than he was able to give. Yeah, I think even in the best of times, though, it's not as if Kauai is like playing within the flow of some offense.

He's getting the ball and he's getting to his spot. And, you know, when he's at the top of his game, there's literally nothing anybody could do about it. Yeah, that is true. Musling people, he's muscling his way into 16 feet from the basket, creating space and just canning mid-range after mid-range. I thought what the Nuggets did a good job of against Kauai is when he did try to turn the corner,

sending that late help, where that's Kauai's like the glaring weakness of his game is his sort of playmaking or passing or seeing the floor, you know, when extra defensive help comes his way. I thought they did a great job of that on Kauai. But again, their best offense was James Hardin and Zubach in the pick and roll. Definitely. It seemed unstoppable at times.

And Hardin had to step back at times. He's finally convinced himself that he's allowed to take spot-up jump shots, which is nice. Also, the floater game was just, it was incredible. Like, I don't remember the last time James Harden seen this dominant, where he was dictating terms of the game. There was a couple of times in OT where it's like, you know, he's trying to get Jamal Murray on a switch. And so, like, the offense takes like 14 minutes into like, all right, set the screen for him. and he comes at the screen and finally I got Murray or whatever. But Hardin was incredible.

Yeah. See, that's where I would like to see guys other than Leonard get involved. I agree that Leonard wasn't just nails in this game. I thought he was ultimately fine. But like, where is Norm Powell in order to provide that electricity? Where is Bogdan Bogdanovich? You got brought in specifically for that. It just seemed like they were defaulting to a lot of the old, including Nick Batum,

who only compounds the issue that you're a little just creaky, getting into things. And that's actually where you don't want to be. with Denver because then it becomes a game of execution and Yokic is probably going to win that battle 10 times out of 10. I didn't really have a problem with the Batuam minutes. I mean, he had some big threes. I'm not saying that he was bad.

I'm just saying that like you weren't getting the athletic pop that ultimately the nuggets got from a guy like Russ. Like the surge jolting through this game toward the end was Russ. I was not expecting a big bench scoring advantage for the Denver Nuggets.

Like against a pretty deep Clippers team. And that is because, as you said, Bogey was not just MIA, but might be unplayable in this series. It's become very clear. They attacked him relentlessly. Everybody. It was just like, whoever has the ball and wherever Bogey is on the floor, you're going directly at that guy.

Ben Simmons has Ben Simmons, although now braided up. So congratulations to him, I guess. And other than that, it really was just Batum. And I thought Derek Jones, Jr., gave them pop defensively, but it's very limited on offense. And I think part of why, ultimately, they had to move away from the pick and roll game down the

stretch was Derek Jones Jr.'s defender was clogging things up. And, you know, taking away some of making hard and settle for some of those floaters versus getting all the way to the rim, taking away some of the like Godzilla versus Tokyo roles that Zubots had during like the bulk of this game. Like they were just able to get bodies in the way in a way that really threw the clippers off their game. Yeah. Part of why I think the bench advantage showed up for the Nuggets is because they didn't really play a bench. It was Russell Westbrook. It was some Peyton Watson. and then like a sprinkling of Jaden Pickett. And so that was pretty much...

He played five minutes. And that included benching Michael Porter Jr. down the stretch in a game. Talk about awful. He was awful in every facet of the game, bro. And they asked Yokic about this after the game about like, you know, why wasn't he engaged, yada, yada? And Yokic's quote is, if you're not going to be engaged right now, then you're not supposed to be playing this sport. He's not wrong.

Can't disagree. I mean, there's a couple things happening. One, basically every other starter had to play 45 plus minutes as a result of this rotation problem fundamentally and the fact that Michael Porter wasn't able to give you more than 26 minutes period, but also those 26 minutes had zero impact and zero force to them whatsoever. That's a huge issue because not every Russ Knight is going to be like this. As we're kind of circling around the fundamental give and take of the Russell Westbrook experience,

every game that Russ plays, and he's going to have to play a lot for this team because they don't have alternatives, becomes about Russell Westbrook, becomes about his limitations, becomes about his give and take. It's the only way he can be on the floor is either the nuggets are having to make it about him

or the clippers are targeting him or exploiting him or challenging him to make plays. And it worked great for the nuggets here. They were able to ride that experience to a really important win, but it might not in game two. It might not for the rest of the series. We're just going to have to see how it goes with him.

Here's the thing about Porter Jr. 23 in the playoffs, he definitely finally, for the first time in his career, consistently brought it on defense. And he's not the quickest-footed guy, but he is legitimately like 6-10, 6-11. And when he plays his size, he can be a defensive asset. When, you know, Yokic is essentially meeting Hardin at the level on the pick-and-roll. they're dumping it off to Zubb at the, you know, the foul line extended. That guy on the back line has to be Michael Porter Jr.

He has to be some level of resistance in order for everybody to scramble from behind where Zubach catches it. But instead it was just like, you know, it was a Sunday run at the Y for this kid today. And I'm glad they benched his ass because quite frankly, man, what Russ and also Aaron Gordon had. monster fucking game. A monster game. What this dude, first of all, killing people on the offensive glass as well,

whenever they tried to put some little guy on him, he was like, I am attacking you to the basket. I think he got to the line 10 times today. Made a huge three-pointer. No hesitation. A brawl before the game? Like, what happened in his face? My home group chat was swearing like picket or somebody

punched him in the face at practice. But I'm not spedding that rumor, but I'm just like, I don't know. You're not not spreading it. Yeah. Not spreading it. You know, but he was a junkyard dog today, man. And without his relentlessness on both sides, he was a lot of the times providing the resistance when, you know, when we're like, oh, Kauai didn't have his best game.

That's Aaron Gordon's work right there, man. He was, I can't say enough about him. Like, you compare and contrast, especially the pedigree. and the sort of reputation of Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon, and what those guys contributed? You know what I mean today? It's night and day, man. What I like about the playoffs, especially in game ones,

is that you really do kind of cut through the noise of everything that we've been hearing leading up to the playoffs at the very least, if not the entire regular season. And one of the main discourses of the booth v. Malone thing was like, oh, you're playing Russ too much instead of the young guys. Like, why aren't you doing it? And I think what we found out in this game, that maybe Malone was at the very least right in the now, and that like maybe Porter Jr.

not as impactful as Russ when he's fully engaged in this. And also that a lot of the young guys, maybe they don't deserve minutes right now. Yeah, I don't even know that MPJ was a part of that debate per se, although clearly he can be when he plays to this level. And I think there's a Michael Porter versus Russ part of this conversation. There's also a, do the nuggets need shooting or do they need cutting right now, part of this conversation?

And Russ is cutting. his offensive rebounding like you zeroed in on was, that stuff was huge. And MPJ is not usually giving you that stuff. He's had great rebounding moments and series. He doesn't like to get his nose dirty. That's not his lane. It's really not.

And yeah, zero Julian Strother minutes, certainly notable. The Jalen Pickett minutes did not go well and that kills me to say, because I actually do kind of think there's something. I don't know that he's playoff ready yet, but I like his skill set and I like some things about him.

I also think if you're going to play him, you do not play him with Russell Westbrook. You play him with Jamal Murray and or Nicola Yoak. and try to steal minutes that way. But David Adelman, I got to say for being a week and a half on the job, benching one of your highest paid players to play Russell Westbrook in his place and cashing in on that bet, that's a ballsy coaching move. Inherited stones from his father, brother.

That's what it is. I think that's one of two things. That means Adelman probably not coming back or that Michael Borg, Jr., probably not coming back, would be my guess. It's possible. But, Waz, if you're the clippers right now, if you're Tailu, just sitting in in the hot tub with the assistant coaches going over this game. Are you saying

like, damn, we let one slip away in Denver, this one's going to hurt us because this is going to be a back and forth series? Or you're like, they played motherfuckers 45 minutes, basically all five of their main guys. And that's going to catch up to them down the road. Do we think that Tyloon is staff for

chilling in the hot tub post game? Why not? I mean, I've I have no argument against it. I can see it. I'm just trying to get the logistics down. Do you want to do that after rewind in the tape? I love. Love this tradition for us. Group chat hot tubbing, post pod.

Let's fucking go. Does Denver have a Ritz Carlton? I'm sure there's got to be a sweep with a hot tub in it. If I'm the clipper, and Ty Lou, I'm not going to lie. He's one of my favorite coaches. He just exudes such a confidence. Like, some people would say his hubris. Like, he was like, look, man, this game one.

I'm not playing Zoom 40 minutes, bro. You know, Yokic came back and he was kind of abuse. that non-big lineup. You can't go non-big against Yokic. I'm sorry. But like... Well, then Zoo's going to have to play 40 plus minutes. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

I don't think it was that bad against Gordon at the five minutes, but as soon as like Yokic comes in. Like, you can get away with a couple minutes. Yeah. You have to, I think you have to match Zub's minutes with Yokic's. Yeah. I mean, I kind of did. He played 39.

Yeah, but Yokch played 46. That's what I mean. Well, Math says that there were seven unaccounted door. I guess we have to drill down on the plus minus of that. I think Ty Lou has to like what they were getting out of the heart and pick and roll. Yep. I think he has to like the amount that Zube will make Yokic work in the one-on-one. And look, bro, Christian Brown and Westbrook, y'all got to beat me.

I still like my odds if I'm Ty Lou there. Now, Jamon Murray missed a bunch. a good plum looks, bro, in the mid-range, couple of threes. Some of these were barely freaking close, just clanging off the back iron. And I would expect him to make some more plays. He made some big threes in the fourth.

But throughout the course of that game, he was looking bad, some bad turnovers. I thought, Kauai guarding him down the edge of the game, that was like, that felt like a sort of like a Trump card almost. Like, yeah, bro, we're going to put the freaking. and monster on you. And I think it did have a... A positive effect.

Exactly. I think Tyloo still feels like he has advantages to press. But, you know, the nuggets are only going to gain in confidence from this win. The Clippers were right there. Yeah, I think if they clean up a couple of the rotation things, do and otherwise, I think either the Ben Simmons or bogey minutes probably need to go, if not be at least minimized to whatever extent you can minimize them. So who's coming in when Zoop sits?

I would just play Batum at the 5. Yeah. It's not ideal, but it's better than playing Ben Simmons and they just zone up the floor. Like, no one has to guard him. It's a huge problem. I thought the Simmons minutes were passable. I don't know. I didn't strike me as some like total chasm in terms of. I agree. He just caught the ball at the free throw line and there's no one within eight feet of him. And he's just pivoting around looking who to pass to. What are you accomplishing in those minutes? If you start from the baseline of any other backup center in the NBA who could just, like, get you by by, like, playing defense, then he's a totally passible. If you start from the baseline of the last three games against Atlanta in 2021, then this was completely fun. I guess so. But, yeah, getting Norm, getting Norm Powell more activated, as you said, Justin, they got to be able to get him more in the flow.

I think they have to figure out how to make a more sustainable pick and roll attack that isn't going to be mucked up to this degree. And this has been, to be fair, a Clipper's struggle for the vast majority of the season. Like, it got iron, it got kind of papered over when Kauai got back, and they've been good enough offensively because of other factors. But they do, like, they have, they hit the skids pretty bad. And even in their better games, like there'll be a third quarter stretch where they just go scoreless for four straight minutes or at least can't get field goals to go. It's just part of the Clippers experience. All right. Let's flip to the other end of L.A. here for, can we say one more thing, Nicole Yokic at 29, 12, 12, and

in this game. We literally didn't even mention it. I mean, it's just what he does. We talked around Jim. I'm just saying it's like it's taken as a fact of life that that's who's going to be. He's a foundation of every conversation we're going to have about these series. I just want it noted for the record. Okay.

So Lakers Wolves, a game that wasn't much of a game for about three quarters there, I'll be honest, I was pretty stunned by this outcome was. We all picked the Lakers to win this series. I think we all had inklings that the wolves might have some advantages that they could press on.

I didn't expect them to press on every single one of them to the point where they pretty much blew Lakers off the court before halftime. What stands out to you about this one, Was. The Lakers are just not an obviously better team than these guys. This is, they're more than they're equal. And, you know, I think it bears remembering that, remember when they made the Luca trade,

everybody was like, yo, this is not a trade for this year. They're probably, you know, kind of worse because they're way less well-balanced. now after the Luca deal. And now somehow we've psyched ourselves into thinking like the Lakers are world beaters. I just think they did not execute at a high level. You know, just like conceding switches with Luca Donchich.

Like just, no, go ahead. Yes, let's switch Luca on to Anthony freaking Edwards who does like three crossovers and dudes are falling on the freaking floor, like literally. And that was the Lakers response to just simple, making rolls 40 feet from the basket. I couldn't understand that. But I don't know, man.

The way is like getting the ball out of his hands on these drives or when they send two really early up top above the three point line, he looks different in terms of how he's seeing the floor right now. And then, you know, just let me just tick off somebody's three point shooting that the Lakers, excuse me, that the Lakers got capped into them today. Julius Randall, famous playoff flop in terms of shooting three specifically, any kind of jump shot, four for six from three, Jaden McDaniels, three for three from three, Mike Conley, two for three, Aunt Edwards, four for nine. Nause Reed, six for nine from three. Like, he's Dirk Novitsky, guys.

I don't know that Dirk Novitsky had many six of nine from three games, if any. And so, yeah, Like you get that kind of shoot. If the wolves are going to shoot like this, pack them up. The Lakers are done. But you have to feel more confident that like Julius Randall and Jaden McDaniels are not going to be the freaking Splash Brothers going forward. But what if they are? This series is done. Yeah.

Pack them up. If the shooting cash is like this, it's just a monumental problem for the Lakers. I don't think it will every time out. I think some of these guys are fluky enough. Noss is a great consistent three-point shooter. Jaden McDaniels is certainly going to ebb and flow a bit among others. I think the bigger problem, as you alluded to, As is the playmaking and the crispness of Ant's decision making.

I don't know that I haven't looked this up. I'm going to guess we have not seen a nine assist one turnover game from Anthony Edwards. That's insane. Maybe ever, given the level of pressure that he was getting under these circumstances from a legit quality playoff caliber opponent. Just a tremendous game from Ant. I mean, he had it in full control, basically from. after the first quarter. I thought the first quarter

it was the Lakers playmaking and overall their like control of the game in particular Luca that was driving everything that was happening. From that point on it was athleticism and length and guess which these teams has dramatically more than the other. It's your Minnesota Timberwolves led by Anthony Edwards

who has both in spades. I think when they made the Carl Anthony Townshade they probably were envisioning a performance like this where it's like oh yeah you're going to load up on aunt or we're going to shoot fucking 33. Like, have fun with that, or 53s. And they just were bombing away the entire time.

The ball movement was pinging. And I think Julius Randall deserves a lot of credit for that. Now, by the end of the game, he was starting to spend out. I think he had seven turnovers. He was like nailing LeBron in the face. He got a technical. But overall, this is about what you want from Randall where it's just like he's defaulting more to pass Julius rather than score first Julius.

You basically have played an eight-man rotation most of the season until you had to like literally play other players. because it wasn't working out. You had to work in a Clark. You actually had to play your talented rookies that you traded draft picks for. But you have the muscle memory of this eight-man rotation.

So it's not like you have to really change anything about that. And then you're just hoping to get more from all these other guys that still have more in them. Jada McDaniels being the prime candidate of that. He played probably the best game I've ever seen him play.

He has been good for a good stretch now. But he was just confident and just ripping things away from them on the boards and just score. boring in a way that I haven't seen him probably ever. This was a great sort of a culmination game for Jade McDaniels. We've seen him have good shooting games before and we know what that alone can do if ants already drawing so much attention.

I think over the back part of the season, he was so aggressive, getting into the paint and sort of hitting little runners, leveraging the fact that he is bigger than almost every player who ends up guarding him because teams don't take him seriously. And the wolves clearly identified that is this is a pressure point that can work for us, right? like we need to get Jaden the ball. He needs to get it inside where he actually is big and use it. In a way that if you flash across the court, Rui Hachamura is being guarded by basically every small guy that the Timberwolves have.

And he's mostly shooting threes. And we'll see if that's kind of a lever that the Lakers end up pulling in future games. Or we're going to post-Ruey more. Are we going to use him in more in duck-in situations? Like those are the kinds of matchups you have to exploit to win a series like this. And for the record, I still think this is going to be a long series. I still think this is going to be more competitive. once the shooting equalizes a little bit.

I don't think the Lakers defense is always going to look this bad, but the wolves are here. And this is an incredible announcement in terms of their entrance to the series. I'm a little worried, though, if I'm the Lakers, if only because I think the one thing that we targeted going into this was the rim protection and that you had to basically

build it in the aggregate, well, they sold out trying to stop Ant, who, despite having a pretty awesome performance, he went out in that, what is the third quarter with the hamster or the, um, he had a calf thing. yeah and then but he came back but he wasn't really meteoric scoring

so you still have to account for that like when he's on when he's powering through some of these like three man fronts that he's going through but like I don't know how they ever changed the calculus because yeah the wolves shot over their heads but like Dante Divencenzo didn't shoot that well

like he's gonna have a game like that and to kill Alexander Walker he could shoot like that so I think it's like repeatable in a way that if I'm the Lakers yeah like Luca and LeBron and Reeves they're going to have so much used to overwhelm, but like the wolves have the balance of defense offense that I think is going to be scary for anyone.

For sure. Yeah, their like offensive-minded lineups are still really good defensive lineups, just by the nature of their personnel, just by who they're going to throw out there. And so this is going to be a lot for the Lakers to handle. And I think in particular, you know, Jackson Hayes just kind of like got wiped off the floor because they needed to score so many points to try to make up for the deficit once it built. Very quietly, the Dory and Finney Smith minutes did not go very well. And this does happen with Dorian.

It hasn't happened lately during his Lakers tenure because he's been kind of like a plus minus monster for them. But he'll have games where he just isn't really shooting well and thus isn't an offensive threat. And he isn't the best finisher, especially when contested around the basket. And if Jackson Hayes isn't that playable and Dorian Finney Smith isn't that good,

your list of live bodies is dwindling quickly if you're the Lakers. I'm not that worried about the Lakers offense. I think they'll be fine. and a half court. Like, they'll find ways to generate good looks consistently, but they do not have an Anthony Edwards matchup. They just don't.

Do you know anyone who does? Boston. I guess, yeah. Yeah, those might be the only answers. To be the best teams in the world. Yeah, like, the way he feels so confident, man, even, you know, they're targeting Luca, but it's like, LeBron, you can't stick with him.

with me. I think even the LeBron of the bubble championship was just a way more athletic defensive player in terms of doing defensive slides. Right? Like every now and again he could load up and get a nice chase down block.

He got one tonight? Yeah. Yeah. But like the quick Twitch stuff that you need an anticipation that you need in order to stay in front of Ant with any level of credibility. Like LeBron don't got that. He did have the one position to night where he switched on aunt and did the like happy feet let me show you i am engaged it's like the lebron equivalent of slapping the floor is basically what happened he gets the choppy feet yeah

we're glad that he did because otherwise i might not have remembered that he played in this game this is one of the quietest lebron playoff games i've seen in a very long time very true and i would expect that to change i don't know what was going on today he was not in the rhythm of this game he was not making much of a mark on it lebron man he's at the point where he has to match up one he's not not going to just smoke Nas Reid off the dribble on a switch. He's just not. He's going to take the Akron step back and make it one out of every four times. Like, he's got to find the smaller guys and beat them up.

Okay. That's how he's going to make an impact on his series. He hasn't really been a one-on-one kind of killer. Yeah. I would, yeah, I'm telling you, I would say since probably 2020, to be honest. I also thought low-key Julius Randall did a pretty good job. in his matchups with LeBron. He needs to stop trying to challenge LeBron with his one-on-one scoring.

Like, bro, like, LeBron's just as strong as you. You can't do your bully ball shit with him. Yeah. But I think LeBron has to match up hunt. He has to try to get the Nikiel Alexander Walker's, the Mike Conleys. He's got to target those guys. You know, DeVincenzo, those is who he got a target because I don't think he's just going to be able to, like, you know, when he, because.

usually when you try to guard LeBron on a pick and roll conventionally like that shit just doesn't work teams have figured it out years ago like yeah we just got to switch the big on to him he's not as quick as he used to be he has to be stronger than the guy that he's going up against to score efficiently

and he just wasn't you know hunting those matchups today I thought this was also a like oh Austin Reeves your future all star let's see it man but we might yes but we have a yes the most approved player in the world like

Oh yeah, yeah, let's see this because he looked pretty pedestrian. Well, some of that is the function of who is starting the possessions, right? And if you're going against a defense that's switching as much as Minnesota is switching right now, and Luca has the ball on his hands, Luca's going to work that mismatch game like we're telling LeBron that he should with some of the smaller defenders. And you see it in the box score exactly what happened. 37 points for Luca Donchich did incredible heavy lifting in the first quarter in particular. One assist.

Like, this is what the switching gets you, is you're going to, leave Rudy Gobert on an island sometimes and he's going to get in foul trouble. You're going to hang Nasreed out to drive once and again, but you're taking away some of these spot threes for other guys. You're taking away the momentum that guys like Austin Reeves feed off. He's such a second side attacker. And if there's

no second side to exploit, where is Austin Reeves' production going to come from? We're going to have to find that out over the course of the series. Cool, Austin Reeves. I think they just physically beat us from the get-go. Yeah, pretty much. Certainly did. Anything else from this game you guys have? I got nothing.

Looking forward to game two, though. Absolutely. Also, we got a playoff series because the home team lost the game. It has begun. The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Fandul. The NBA playoffs are finally here, and there's no better way to be a part of the action than with Fandual, America's number one sports book. After another competitive season, the top teams are ready to battle their way through the

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Kind of like the Rockets just to win game one. I don't know. The Warriors had to play the extra games, but older. I wonder if they're going to be shocked by the defensive attention. of Amen Thompson and some of the dogs that they have out there in Houston, just to maybe to recalibrate it. I kind of still like the Warriors in this series, but give me the home team in game one, at least to start with, and then we'll go from there.

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All right, Nick's Pistons. This one was very much a telltale sign of the Pistons being in their first playoff series, where it almost felt like they used up all their nervous energy in the first half. And then everything just came crumbling down, like all the young mistakes. I think Jalen Duren had, I counted at least two to three, like three second violations. I don't know what the fuck was going on there. He was really bad. The next went on a 21 to nothing run in the fourth quarter.

In the fourth quarter. That's bad. Yeah, producers, they said it, you know, at the top of the call. He's like, it's a young team. What are you going to do? Like, they're going to run up against a wall in the playoffs. Like, for three quarters, they look like, hey, we're the Knicks as equal, you know.

But let's face it, their offense isn't that dynamic. And O.G. Annobe looked like an all-world defender against Cade Cade Cade Cade Cade Cade. Against Cade Codningham. Like, he was crowding him. He was making all of his stuff tough. The only time Cade had some, like, good possessions was when OG got switched off of him. He fished filleted McHale Bridges. Because, of course, this guy went from all-MBA candidate to literally paper mache at this point.

they're going to have to figure out ways to free him up. Like, get OG Ananovi the hell up off of me if that guy's going to be able to be the engine for the offense. But yeah, it just felt like they hit a young team wall in that fourth quarter. And of course, you know, the Knicks had the home crowd and all of that. But I'm not, I don't think they're like, this is indicative of some series

that they're just going to get blown out of the water. But that fourth quarter was tough to watch from them. just full deer in the headlight stuff. And way too casual and like in terms of their execution. And this is the problem with what you're saying was as far as like, they got to free up Kade from OG. And that was a big change from the regular season where Kade just destroyed McHale Bridges in those matchups.

You put OG on him. Now when they were able to get Kade freed, they were prying him loose. They had to run this preliminary action to screen for Kade off ball to get O.G. off him. He gets the ball with 14 seconds on the shot clock. Kate is a really methodical player on his own. He's kind of taking his time,

waiting for the next screen, doing his thing. All of a sudden, there's three seconds on the shot clock. And, like, Milleke Beasley's tossing up, like, a one-armed, like, shot put three-pointer because the possession didn't go anywhere. And so you just have to execute with more purpose than these guys did. I just don't think they knew the urgency of playoff basketball. Like, they were not quite familiar with the brief as of yet. And so now that they've seen it, we'll see how they respond to it.

We'll see kind of who's ready for this stuff and who isn't. Jalen Duren, who's 21 years old, just might not be ready for this yet. And that's okay. Like, that's the learning curve of this stuff. And you have to go through your paces. You have to have your Jared Allen. The lights were pretty bright sort of moment.

Sometimes that's just what it is. I know. Perfect podcast guest. Yeah. You come up in the world. But, like, I thought beef stew was just a much more effective big. And I thought Jalen Duren, this is a tough matchup for him to begin with. They already have to basically have him guarding Josh Hart so that, you know,

Tobias Harris can guard towns. Like, they're already trying to navigate around him. And there are a few too many guys like that on the Pistons right now who are just like too young to know what to do implicitly. And so you have to coach them up to do every single thing. Are you guys? Are you guys? I like the energy.

I just don't know that it's always focused in a constructive way. Talent, you know, the speed at the position, strong as hell. Clearly. Has some, like, level of ball skills. But basketball IQ, stuff. I almost feel like he accidentally put on the wrong jersey one day. Like he's actually a football rush end in that he just somehow got mixed up.

I mean, he'd be a phenomenal volleyball player. We got to get him on the Olympic volleyball team. He'd be tremendous up there. He's a weird combination where he's like such a supreme athlete, but not in a way that totally translates to basketball. Like he just moves with like a weird gate and he's just strong as a goddamn bull, but like almost too strong.

It looks like he could just like spot for, for Schwarzenegger in some role or something like that. It's just like almost two muscle bound where it's like, you need more functional athleticism to get around. But to put that on top of some of like the dunderheaded mistakes that he's typical to make. It just, yeah,

he always robs me in the wrong way. But I will say this about the Pistons for most of the game, or at least the first half going into the third quarter, they managed to drag them into the mud, the Knicks in a way that I think will behoove them down the road because there was a real like Sixers, Knicks energy from last season to this game. And that's not where the Knicks want to be, particularly because Jelan Brunson, I noticed a lot of hobbling post making a bucket where he would make a dynamic move. And all of a sudden, he would not pull up lame, but just be a little bit slower coming out of there.

Yeah. He ultimately ended up with an awesome performance. He had 34 points in this game. So you can't ask more for him. But that's something I'm tracking here because it just, he never really had enough time post injury coming back to really get right. It just doesn't seem like he's there yet. I mean, it just looked like he jammed that foot a couple of times in this game off. just like weird kind of missteps and he's already someone who takes a lot of falls to begin with, but a gutsy ass performance who, you know, I would say Brunson early in this game, his normal shots, they were his shots were not going. He wasn't getting the calls that he wanted. He's got a Sarr Thompson all over him, which God bless anyone who's trying. And I thought the way he put it together in the second half was damn heroic in the way that we expect Jalen Brunson to be damn heroic. And I think

your point stands, Justin, as far as the comparison to that Sixers series, that is what it felt like, ugly, chaotic, and then here's Jalen Brunson to save the day. It really played out exactly that way. Second half was definitely some never underestimate the heart of a champion kind of stuff. And in the first half, just to bring it back to Ananobe,

he was the one carrying the offense. Yeah. Like, not only just guarding the hell out of Cade, but like he was the Knicks half-court offense, man, splashing jump shots, getting to the cup. He was great in that first half. So hats off to Anan,

Novi. And, you know, I would expect Brunson, man, he's smart enough to, like, know where the spots are coming from. He did have a lot of his foul drawing behavior that was just straight up not rewarded, especially in the first half. But, you know, like Justin said, he eventually came around and ended up, you know, picking up the offensive burden. I thought Bridges had some nice. I think there's something nice about what he provides with that mid-range game. Definitely. Where it's like, it feels like, all right, when we're not generating some fantastic look, we can have this guy come off of a drag screen and just curl into a beautiful mid-range jump shot. He had a few of those, this game that I think like sort of serves as a pressure release valve almost for the Knicks offense at times.

So it was a nice well-balanced performance from the Knicks, but, you know, the Pistons looked their age. Well, if the Pistons had a pressure release, it would be our friend to buy a. Harris who balled out in this game. Clyde Frazier, because I was listening to the Knicks broadcast, yeah. Clyde Frazier could not believe his lion eyes, boy. He should have been locked in on Pistons basketball this season because Tobias Harris has played well for the Pistons all year.

But in these moments, as we've been talking about, with such a young team and an inexperienced team overall, just a lot of guys who either have not been here or have not been here in the roles they are now asked to play. Tobias Harris is the steady hand by comparison. And I thought was just their most poloises. and maybe honestly their best player in this game. Cade had such a weird, up and down, inefficient sort of night. His role is very different than what Tobias here is asked to do.

But Tobias carrying the pistons in the minutes without Cade, that was a really positive development and overall, like a part of a great night for him overall. If it wasn't Tobias, it might have been Malik Beasley, who not on top of just like hitting every goddamn three he's taking these days, is now kind of like the emotional ballast of the six best team. in the Eastern Conference all of a sudden. But if your emotional ballast is shimmying,

like, don't you want your ballast to be solid and sturdy? He's naturally off balance. You're right. I'm just saying. I just can't stop from marveling. And I know we've been watching the Pistons for at least half a year at this point. All of us have been watching for full season, but they caught on at midpoint of this season.

That, like, the core of this team includes Tim Ardaway Jr., Tobias Harris, Malik Beasley, and Dennis Schroeder, who if you had told me that was like a team's pick up over the course of like an offseason and a trade deadline, I'd be like, oh, the Nets had to reach the salary floor. These are guys that just trade teams like every two to three years. They're all over the place. And yet this is the guts of one of the best teams in the East.

Like, I'll never get over that. It's been remarkable the way that they've just kind of filled out the rotation. And again, those are guys who have particular skill sets that matter. And at certain stakes of play, what Tobias can't do is a problem. Right? if you're the Sixers trying to contend Tobias's limitations are more of an issue. In this context,

where you just need him to be a fill in the gaps creator, where you need his turnaround mid-range game and not just to put him in the corner, all of a sudden he becomes a dramatically more important and more valuable player. I think you see versions of that with all those guys, right? With Beasley coming off the bench being like a pure sharpshooter and being a movement shooter in a way that, say,

he wasn't in Milwaukee, where he was kind of standing still waiting for the kickout from Yannis, is such an important thing. And Dennis Schroeder overall, I think, has been just really, really good for this team. We had an email from Wes, who was asking us about why teams in the NBA continuously undervalue players like Dennis Schrooter, I think it's a fair question. I think if anything, there's sort of a market quirk for the, like, low-end starting point

guard, high-end reserve point guard, where it's like, do we really want to spend our money there when we already have these stars and we already have point guards? but someone like Schroeder, who's a backup point guard who can play with Cade Cunningham, that's all of a sudden a very valuable thing. And frankly, on their side, too, campaign showing up in the campaign game of the early stages of the playoffs and kind of providing a similar lift. There's just not a lot of guards who will play, like, solid defense and actually have things that they're going to contribute offensively, both on the ball and offense.

Shruder is not anybody's idea of a sharp shoot, but you can't leave him alone when he's out there. Like, he will burn you. And, you know, he's a credible on-ball defender. Like, that's just not as common as skills as you would think. Like, think about someone like Gabe Vincent, who was considered the Lakers, like, sort of, you know, head of the snake pit bull kind of guy on the ball.

He's nowhere near as good on offense as dead and struter. Well, that pit bull got pacified, too. They just, like, threw a stake to the side and he wouldn't chase it. It didn't work out tonight. I think with Schroeder and also players of this player type, I think there's a pretty stark difference between the on paper version and the practical implications of them, whereas, like, Schroeder, the shot comes and goes.

And for a while, it was down pretty bad. And also, it took him a while to kind of round into form defensively to be the type of guy he was on the second time around with the Lakers. And so what you're really asking, like looking for with him, is basically a squir-first guard, who typically is pretty strong-handed and could be a little bit mercurial if he's not getting the right role for him. I think like he phased out of Golden State, maybe not because of locker room stuff, because

he wasn't hitting. He couldn't make a shot. And they really needed something out of those minutes immediately. Well, when you go to Detroit where the bar is a little bit lower, what they need is someone to basically be the guy handholding, the younger guy, in order to provide foundational, just like stability. And so I think that's why someone like him keeps knocking around because like you almost phase out of needing him.

But he is so valuable for so many teams specifically that have young guys. like Kate. But think about that line you're trying to walk with guys like him. And again, like I think campaign is another instructive example here where you need someone who is confident enough in what they do to come in guns ablazing when the situation calls for it, but not so overconfident that when you play them two minutes or you bench them, it's a huge issue. And it becomes like a problem for your team. Like it's a really difficult balance to strike with some of these guys. And that's why it usually happens to be more veteran types who fill it. Because early in your career, you're gun for a contract. Like you're trying

to prove yourself in a different way. These guys are trying to win and they're trying to fill a role and they're trying to figure out how they can contribute to this team. I'm not saying there's never ego involved, but the ego kind of shows itself a little bit differently. Campaign, just back from the dead. This is every other season with this guy. He's had huge moments for them this season, though,

where they just desperately needed a campaign type. And sure enough, they turned him on the bench. The spotlight comes to Cam. And it's his night. I don't even know how it works, but it keeps working. He's definitely more reliable than Deuce McBride at this point. He was gone through a bit of a journey over the second half of this season. I thought the Mitchell Robinson minutes were pretty good.

The game a little bit of a different look, he definitely, like his physicality. He had an impact of the game. So there's still more here to play there. I just want to go back to OG just briefly because the come up for OG, kind of almost supplanting bridges as the third guy on this team has been a little bit surprising to me. I think we all assume OG would settle into the same role he's kind of always been. Is this like havoc wreaker defensively? And then he'll just get his own offensively just to kind of almost mollify him in order

for him to just sit in the corner and take his shots. But like it almost feels like he called his shot by wanting to do more in Toronto. And everyone was like, oh, okay. Yeah. He's doing more in York. And it almost feels like he's completely recalibrated things. Yeah. Yeah.

His jump shot is as reliable as it's ever been. I'm not going to lie. I was always skeptical that he could ever become this kind of shooter. you just can't leave him all alone. Like he's a dangerous shooter now, which is just crazy to say, especially when we first started watching this guy in Toronto. Like, I never thought we would get to this day.

And, you know, his drive game has gotten better and he's good at the ducking stuff and he's good in the dunker spot. Like, he's, you know, he's rounded off his game quite nicely. But at the same time, like, bro, you get paid $20 more million than Mikhail Bridges does. So, like, yeah, I'm not going to. pat the guy on his ass and give him a gold star. I think we're just glad that he got here, you know?

Yeah, no, for sure. We talk all the time about the Jonathan Cuminga types who think themselves to be something they are not. And for a while, OG has never been Jonathan Cumminga, but he thought he was more than a straight line driver and a three-point shooter, and he was right. You can run an OG and an Obie pick and roll, and you're not going to embarrass yourself.

And better than that, you're going to survive some of these stretches when Brunson's on the bench or when he's out with injury, as we saw over the last couple months, because of his ability to do that. Do we know if Sunni Lee or Anne Hathaway were at the game today? We don't know for sure. Maybe both. I think Ian Hathaway was.

I was also told us. Nice. Nice. You saw her at the game, though. I know she was at some kind of public event recently, but I don't know if it was at MSG. Well, I just saw her. Josh Hart said that they need Sunni Lee and Ann Hathaway at every game

because OG seems to play better when attractive celebrity women are, you know, sitting courtside at the garden. Jim Dolan open your wallet Let's go This is a fixable problem Let's go I think this just shows you don't have to have graduated From Villanova to succeed on the New York Knicks

And in fact like it turns out maybe That isn't the key to success Unless you're Jalen Brunson Because isn't going well for anybody else I also want to say shout out to Carl Town So I thought when Brunson was struggling in the first half He had a bunch of like really tough shot making Like off balance runners

Exactly It wasn't the three either Yeah their offense was not in rhythm and they desperately needed points to sort of like hang around in this game and keep competitive. And he was, he was the vehicle for doing that as much as OG was. But I still got a docum points for using his Barry White voice in the post game interview. Did he?

I didn't even catch it. Yeah, he did the heavy bass in his voice thing. I was like, bro, come on. I told you with the pistons. Like, it's going to bring it out of him even more. All right. Last one on the board here. Pacer is beating the bucks.

We were talking on our group chat, group chat before the game. The Pacers showed up. these yes sirs shirts. Yeah. Can you spell that out? Yes, I hope comma. We'll see if the grammar played out. And then SIRS was apostrophe C-E-R-S, which you know I'm not a Pacer's like fan per se, but that's the type of cornyness that's going to get me back in.

I like it. I like you. I think if I didn't see what the buck's slogan was, but they might have defaulted to something along the lines of, man, we're just, we're doing our best out here. We're trying as hard as possible because they worked the way back into this game, but good Lord, did they look? Just outclassed. Question on that front. Were they trying their best?

Some of them were. Were the non-Yon-Sah bucks? I got to say. Kyle Cousmo was trying. I got to say. The Cusma of the last 10 days. Jesus, good God Almighty. Does he not listen to the Ben Bill Simmons podcast?

I put my neck on the line for this kid. And he was just horrific. At one point I looked up when I finally looked at the box score for the box game, they were two for 16 from three. Two for the first 16, bro. It was tough. Who could have possibly seen this coming regarding Kyle Kuzma, though? You know, I...

Just to put a bow on this, Kuzma had a trillion, which is he played 22 minutes. He did not produce anything, but I believe two fouls. A 22 trillion. That's Tony Snellian to save the last. say the least. Like we're in rarefied air here. Tommy Snelly. So this was the six trillion in playoff history.

Oh, God. And frankly, Torian Prince wasn't that much better. Yeah. They did find something a little bit late where it was Janus plus the bench guys. Gave him a little bit more of a pop. I would assume they'd go to that unless Dame comes back miraculously in game two. We still don't know the status of this as recording this Saturday night. So there's like some silver linings there, Rob.

but overall there's just a lot of blood on this on this box score here. Well, there's a lot of blood because it was a comprehensive beatdown from a Pacer's team that is the better, more complete team. Yeah. I don't know that it's that much more complicated than that. And not having Dame exacerbates all of these problems, right? Like the things that the Pacers do well, especially on defense, they will close out to you on three and they'll take away your easy threes and they will bust ass back in transition. They're going to take away all the easy points on the table. And if you take the easy points away from the bucks, you are left with this.

Janus, be in Janus, more or less unstoppable, like cannot contain that guy. I thought the combination of Pascal and Miles Turner and switches and Aaron Neesmith here and designated X factor, Jaris Wallace, did their damnedest to contain Yonis. Jaris Wallace? Jarris Walker. You're not even getting your guy's name right. I'm a broken man. I'm sorry, Jaris Walker. I apologize to Jers Walker.

who I thought actually came in and did his honorary, like, filled the Ben Shepard minutes, you know, in an admirable way. But all of which is to say, this is what Janus is going to be in this series. Like, you're not going to stop him from getting to the rim. You're not going to stop him from getting to the line. But if the bucks are this predictable otherwise,

as they often are, especially when Dame isn't out there, this is what it looks like. It looks like a Torian prince stands still Ofer night, a Kyle Kuzma, Ofer, like, you just have to play better if you're, Kyle Kuzma, like that's, that's an important adjustment that we have to crank up the dial on Kyle Kuzma doing things. They just don't have a lot of options once you take away the low-hanging fruit.

Kevin Porter Jr. It's just stop, stop. Does Dime have more of an impact on this game by standing up to Halliburton and getting a tech than Kizma did? 202 minutes and doing nothing. Yes. Dame and Halliburton have a thing that goes back to last season. NBA in-season tournament.

It's been kind of a one-sided thing, I got to say. Halliburton is going to chirp. That's just what he does, no matter what. And, you know, I'm looking forward to some overly physical fouls at the cup. I'm ready for game, too. I hope fame comes back. I hope he's healthy and winded enough to make some kind of impact. Because if he's not coming back, they're getting swept, guys.

Yeah. You could even see. Like quarter to quarter, the Pacers were already figuring out, oh, this is exactly how much we can cheat off of these other guys to muck up things with Janus. And I thought, Andrew Nemhardt in particular, which is like flying in from the weak side, blowing up plays left and right. They're just going to get better at that stuff. He's the heart and soul of the team. He is absolutely the heart and soul of the team. They're going to get better and better at that so long as Dame doesn't play.

I think Halliburton feels confident enough to chirp when he knows that he has Andrew Nemhart on his side covering his ass in every possible. way because he, I think he might be the actual star guard of this team. No, no. Putting a little too much mustard on it. But no, I think we've now had enough of a sample to suggest that Nemhart is a crucial aspect of providing the balance that this team has found since this Yakum trade. It's not just Seacom. It was also very good in this game.

Just Nemher just makes so many defensive plays, like jumping passing lanes and like poking his hand in there and getting everything started there. plus the balance on offense where he's a good, he didn't really have a standout game, but it just does enough in order to round out this team in a way that they managed to be successful now for season and a half. He was also just turning the borderline kind of fast break possessions

into actual fast breaks. Like, he would just push it harder and then body through Brooke Lopez and then finish with the layout. Like, it's crazy stuff from Andrew Nemhard. But I want to zero in on Pascal for a second because I love watching Pascal Seaccom play in particular in the playoffs.

He has such an awesome whatever it takes kind of game. Like, you need a pick and roll. He can play any side of it. If you need to dig up a loose ball, he's going to be there. If you need someone to work in the mid-range and hit a turnaround jumper, he's your guy. And the Pacers need that because Harry's Halliburton is in some cases not those things, right? Like, he is not a definitive one-on-one player. It's not his skill set.

And so having someone like Pascal to fall back on is so important for Indiana and really is what gives them the lifeblood in terms of their half-court offense. Like when the system doesn't work, when Halliburton's movement and shooting don't work, Pascal's your guy or Nempard's your guy. And their ability to kind of toggle between them, I think, is what makes this team so effective. What do you think was basically Dame or Bust at this point? Pretty much. I don't know how.

And I think I might have probably picked the Pacers to win this series anyway. Obviously, a longer series. But if Dame misses the next game is going to be two zero. and now we're expecting these guys to win four out of five games against this Pacers team. I don't see how you could reasonably come to that conclusion. No.

I hate to do the game one jump out of the window. Oh, this is over, like kind of thing. But from what I watch today, the Bucks can't beat this team unless they have their other All-Star on the floor. It just can't be this stale. I think, you know, whether Dane plays or not, not, I think Doc needs to seriously look at bringing Tori and Prince off the bench and putting,

I would say, A.J. Green in the starting lineup, if you can. The reason those, like, Janus and bench guy lineups worked as well as they did was they were a little more random and they were a little less stale. And some of that is the difference between Torian Prince Stanstill shooter versus AJ Green movement shooter. And he was the only guy who could consistently get off threes against his Pacer's defense. And so if you can tap into some of that in the starting group with Janus, maybe you have something going. I think you're going to need Dame to make it matter regardless, but you got to start somewhere. I think the good thing that they have going for them is that all of these guys are all around the same level, which is unfortunately replacement level, but you can't cycle through things a little bit more quickly.

So you're right. It can't be as precious about benching Kuzma, even, or Prince just to get some of these guys in the mix there. I think Kuzma's got to be there because you need, you need someone to play better than they did. And he at least can do that. Like, you can expect that he will play better than a 20- He's going to play better than what he did today, but it has to be way better. I mean, he literally cannot play worse than he played today. He did not contribute anything.

I don't even know that he got cardio. He didn't even get his steps in out there. It just wasn't a good Kyle Kuzma game. All right. Why don't we wrap it there? Because everyone has a full day of playoff basketball to get to tomorrow on Sunday. Also, Easter. So happy Easter to all those.

He is risen. Yeah, Kyle Kuzmo will be risen again. I hope so. So for the bucks sake, you hope so. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for staying up late with us. We'll be back on Wednesday night going into Thursday. So check us out then. We will talk to you then.

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