The Ringer NBA Show - Ep. 11: Winners and Losers Finals Game 3 With Chris Ryan, Juliet Litman, and Tate Frazier

Episode Date: June 9, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan, Juliet Litman, and Tate Frazier on the winners and losers from the Cavs' win over the Warriors in last night's Game 3 in Cleveland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Juliet Littman. I'm Chris Ryan. I'm Tate Frazier. Game three of the NBA finals was last night, and we are here for a quickie pod to talk about the winners and losers coming out of game three. No Miguel. No Miguel. With the quickie.

Oh, okay, cool. What's your favorite Miguel song, Tate? Quicky. Okay. Okay, cool. You can ask me or? Yeah, Chris. What's your favorite Miguel song?

I don't know what the name of it is, but it's the one that sounds like 1979 by this passion pumpkins. Okay, I don't know what you're talking about. Let's move on. Do we want to talk all finals, winners and losers, or just game three? Let's do game three. Okay. It's fresh in our minds. Tate, hit us with your first winner. Winner, home court advantage. Ooh, conceptual winner. Like it. Tell me more, Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah. Basically, Cleveland just can't lose at home, you know. It's been a 52-year drought and they're 13-0, which is an unlucky number. Well, it was, and that was coming off of being 0 and 7 in their last 7 against the Warriors. Yeah.

Right? So they'd lost seven straight against the Warriors, which I actually was thinking about this last night. I was like, they're not going to, I mean, you can't lose nine in a row or whatever. That would be a lot. I don't think anyone expect the Warriors to win game three. Maybe not lose by 30. I didn't. I always thought the Cavs would get one.

I thought they were going to go for the kill. And I also thought that that would be like a great historical statement to be like we swept in the finals. Like we're the best. I'm glad you brought up history because I don't think the Warriors have played. played like an historically great team in months. When's the last time they had a great game, team game? Can you, like, can you name it? I mean, I guess.

Would you say game six? Yeah, game against the Thunder. But that was a Clay game. That was Clay game, guys. That was Clay. That was Clay. Give Clay is due. Yeah, I mean, game six, even game seven, I felt like the Thunder were going to come

back in that game somehow. Yeah. I mean, I guess great teams find a way to win and that's what we're seeing. But I feel like you, to go to the regular season for like what we think of as like the warrior's greatness carving people apart i think that that part part of the problem with that is that great warriors games often end in the second quarter right yeah or in the beginning of the third and they'll just have like an explosion of a 22 nothing run and you're just like oh well the game's over i guess you could say game

two was like that yeah if that's the year but i guess that kind of gets to maybe a potential loser from last night we haven't had like a staff breakout since the like really the blazer series so show of hands verbally, who thinks Steph is 75% right now? I guess I do, but like, why would he deny that he's not healthy? Because I do think that there is a degree to which the narrative is, I understand why it would be, it wouldn't be advantageous for them to, I think it would be advantageous if they were like, this guy's gutting it out. And instead, they're like, he's fine.

But his body language sucks. He seems to drift in and out of games. Kerr pulled him. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Kerr benched Stefan Kerr. like the unanimous MVP in game three last night in Cleveland. I mean, that's a pretty big storyline.

So I personally don't think that it has to do with him being heard. I think it has a lot to do with, I think he's annoyed. I think people are really like chipping him hard and he's tired of it. He's not getting a ton of calls. Last time he went to the free throw line like once, right? Yeah. And not until the third quarter. Yeah.

And I think he's frustrated and he's not getting those calls and he's in Cleveland. And LeBron is like definitely trying to send a message. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was going to be my first winner was LeBron. Okay. not only did LeBron get his It's not even his jumper was better

Last night than it has been and it's been pretty bad But it seemed like he made jumpers At the times when he needed to Sure. There was a transition three from the top The key that he hit that was a very like Oh, okay. He's like a feeling At three. Because they and everybody sagged off of him on it. It was like there was

Everybody like ran straight to the hoop and he had like 10 seconds to think about taking the three and he nailed it. Yeah. And he really from the first, from the from the national anthem on put it like where it was like if we're going to lose it's going to be embarrassing for me because I'm doing the like everybody get hyped up everybody key off me I'm going to lead us to victory and if they had lost that would have been like kind of the end of the

chapter of the LeBron era in a some ways you know I mean if you he has to will them to win so LeBron would be my first winner yeah I mean it was a great dominant LeBron performance last night like only 32 right 32 and then like on every dead ball he was barking orders he wasn't letting Steph make deadball shots that was a great that was like you were saying he was he was I think they have uh miced up footage or something of him yelling like whoever he guards gets the ball yeah yeah at step yeah he was like all he was just trying to like send a statement the whole time and then in this press conference he was like he's the greatest shooter of all time which is like shooters now the way to like put step down like subtly he's like he's not the greatest player

but he's the greatest shooter and I just love like that's kind of true though yeah petty LeBron's great though. I like Patti LeBron too. I like Pettie LeBron. It's more fun than like professional LeBron. One note about LeBron. He was wearing like a suit last night. It just looked really hot. Like dude, it's June. Like warm. Yeah. Yeah. Like he just looks like he was like he was probably spitzing a lot. He had a lot of buttons on that suit. Yeah. I was like this man's button up straight up literally button up. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's like a February outfit, not a June outfit. Like get out your like your linen suit, some sear sucker perhaps. Yeah. Maybe he's trying to be like a hedge against the, the Durant Westbrook, um,

juvenileification of postgame wear. I think he draft is very French. Like I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the streets of Paris or something. With Dio. Yeah, with Bobo. He's drinking some fine wines. Tate, hit me with a loser. Loser Harrison Barnes.

Ooh, tell me more. 18 points. And it always feels like every time Harrison has like a big game where he's like the predominant score for the Warriors, everyone else no shows. And it just like makes it look even worse. It's like, oh, Harrison's having a great game while the Warriors are getting crushed. It's like garbage time. He can't carry them to a win.

He did well in the first few quarters when it was still competitive. He kept them. He hung them around. Like, whenever he's the reason they're hanging around, it's like, this is not good for the Warriors. I have a question about Harrison Barnes that I'm hoping you guys can answer. Why don't the Warriors like ever commit to him or use him properly in the second half of games? Like, it's not just a trust thing.

Like, I think it's also strategic. Like, can you explain that to me a little bit? I think, I mean, Harrison's hit some huge shots. He hit that three against the Rockets to like send it overtime. when, you know, Steph had his finally, like, we're the Warriors, we're back kind of game. He's an important cog in their system. Yeah, but in the second half, it's just like,

they kind of get down to the bare minimum of, like, we need Steph, Clay, Draymond. Like, they get centralized. And, like, Harrison was supposed to be that third guy, and Draymond, like, took his spot. Yeah. And that's why Harrison's always been the odd man out. And that's why he's probably going to leave.

I mean, this could be the end of the death lineup, the series. Sure. They might. Then you add Kevin to Rand. Yeah. I was just going to say, like, Kevin Durant, what is death if Kevin Durant is coming? Is this true?

I mean, I guess the death lineup lives on. It's not really dependent upon Harrison Barnes, right? It's just like a forward who can hit threes. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, so the death lineup kind of was popularized in last year at the finals when an assistant coach on the Warriors, Nick Uren, went to Skir and was like, you should play Iguodala instead of Bogart in this lineup. And that was where they just shut down the calves and everybody was like, well, that's the

most effective five-man lineup we've ever seen. This year, we had another assistant coach stepping up and making a suggestion. Not really a tactical one, but Phil Handy on the Cavs is one of my winners. He apparently went up to those guys after game two and was like, you guys just got punked. And you could see, like, he really like tore the pain off the walls apparently after game two. He's from Oakland. He was apparently embarrassed to get, like, to have his team get. Had his whole family there.

He's like, man, my family is watching us. in Oakland like that, so he apparently, like, really read them the Riot Act. He probably was pissed because the tickets were so expensive. Yeah, I know, seriously. And he paid for all of them. He's like, that's 20 G's, son. Yeah. Probably.

Like, to get his whole family to go to the game, it was reported that the Warriors were offering tickets to the calves at $1,300 each. Like, that's insane. That's crazy. That's more than Hamilton tickets costs. What a heat check from Laco, but still. What a dick move. Yeah, Phil Handy was apparently, like, really gave him the rah-rah.

And they came out, and they definitely, like, I think, we talked about this before. It's like if you're going to lose, don't lose like being turnstiles and like watching those guys do like three man weaves. Yeah. It's like make somebody hit the deck. You know what I mean? Which Moscov did.

I just say, do you consider Mosgob a winner or a loser for taking out Clay? I was going to say Mosgov is definitely a winner, you know? He's just like imposing his will on the series. Clay is a counterpoint. He didn't, Clay came back to the game. Didn't work. Clay is a loser for saying that was dirty. Clay's never a loser.

And he's recanted those statements. right today he's like i guess i watch it you know you know and claude's like i watch the tape and now i don't think sheesh sheesh she it wasn't as bad as i thought sheesh sheesh i almost broke my leg i wish i could like walk around the soundboard just hit that sheesh whenever i need it you can't have uh like like sweep the leg johnny draymond green on your team and be like timothy mosgob who played like two minutes since january is the problem definitely seemed incidental upon reviewing the tape it seemed incidental But I just feel like Mazegov, just can't get anything, right? I thought Clay was pretty hurt, though.

I was worried he had, like, Westbrook from the... Kyrie from last year. Yeah, I thought I was worried it was like a meniscus thing or something about it. I'm glad he came back. I just hope he's okay for the rest of the series because if Steph is no showing and you really need Clay for the Warriors. I don't really know who I'm rooting for. I'm rooting for Clay. But like, I don't know between these teams.

It's kind of fun to watch LeBron just be so dominant. Yeah. Can I do another winner? Absolutely. J.R. Earl Smith, Jr. Yeah. Huge game for JR last night. Yeah, we wrote about this on the ringer.com.

Check it out. Jason Concepcion with a great piece about JR just, you know, the first two games, it was the first time Jason feels like he'd ever seen him and be scared. Yeah. That's a great point. Like that look of fear you don't come from,

doesn't come from him very frequently. Right. It looked like his mind was empty. Like in Gold's like, what is happening around me? Is that a home court thing though? Like, was he comfortable because he was back at home? He's jet lagged?

I don't know. Maybe. I hope he was hung over. That's what I was hoping. In Oakland? Yeah, I hope he was just having a good time at like tech parties like on his hoverboard

and was like, man, I definitely don't want to play in these games. I feel like JR at this point, though, is like Led Zeppelin in the 70s. Like he probably plays better hungover. He's so experienced with it. Although, I don't know. He said when he got to Cleveland,

you're really focused on basketball and stopped going out. So maybe that was the problem. He might have a because of Cleveland. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't think San Francisco or Oakland are really fun cities to party in, but they're probably have more options than Cleveland.

Right. I mean, just throwing it out there. there. We haven't talked about your man Kyrie, Tate. Yeah. Winner or a loser? A winner. Absolutely, right? Yeah, great game by Kyrie. He pretty much had to have that game. LeBron was like high-fiving him and stuff, which is nice. I mean, it's good for Kyrie. It's good for Cleveland. I feel like next game he's going to get roasted. But, you know, game three. I guess so. He was really into playing defense last night.

Yeah, he tried really hard. I was really proud of him. We talked about how he didn't look like he ever cared, you know? Like it didn't affect him. Last night, affected him. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about the biggest loser, probably. Stefan Curry? No, Kevin Love. Oh, Kevin Love.

Yeah. He's such a loser. I forgot about him. I was actually going to ask, what's a bigger move? Putting Iguodala in the lineup last year or taking Kevin Love out of the lineup this year? Well, I think the Iguidala thing led to the creation of one of the great top two regular season teams of all time. You know, the greatest record and one of the best ever. But if they win Friday,

and let's say like love is cleared but plays like 10 minutes or 15 minutes for caution precaution or whatever like I don't know man it's really bad for him I mean you think Ty Lou goes to David Griffin here's a hypothetical goes to David Griffin's like you're going to get rid of this guy his trade value will only go down if he sucks and we lose and it's his fault let's just say his head isn't right like he's got a back incussion and hold him out and hold him out and like it won't be his fault. I don't know. I don't know.

That's a lot of, that's kind of like the humane way to handle it, like pretend he's injuries. Well, it's also pretty nefarious too because you basically, I mean, I don't know. It sounded like Love was like, I can go, I can do it. And the Cavs doctor, in conjunction with the NBA, but the Cavs doctor was like, no.

Yeah. It was weird because like wind horse was on ESPN and was like, he was like, I bumped, he's been bumped to questionable. Kevin Love is pretty much set on playing. He passed the last protocol without any setback. He'll play. and that was before game three.

Right. And then it was like, the doctors have decided he can't play. And then he was like apparently trying to like pander to the doctors and say, I can't play. It's just a weird thing. And then now it's also wild that he couldn't sit on the bench. I was going to say, why wasn't he on the bench? I guess he was in the locker room. And to be fair, like we're making it sound like so dark.

But those guys were all having like, like they were like, little Kev is definitely going to make some appearances on Snapchat tonight. It sounds like they weren't like Kevin Love is a loser and he's, you know, he's not part of this team or anything. I'm just saying that they just looked like a completely different team. Absolutely. I mean also like it's ridiculous, but Richard Jefferson's like better defensively for them than Kevin Love. Is there great winner? I don't want to get too mired in tactics or whatever, but is there like a version of this team where Kevin Love is like the sixth man? Yeah.

For the rest of this of this series. I think he had like the bench, the Cavs bench like itself, they pretty much played their starters the whole game. Yeah. Like if Kevin Love was their bench and like they just ran the offense through Kevin Love. Like we talked about you guys like Like why not take LeBron out play Kevin Do you know what I mean? And stagger them like that And have it be like where like you run the offense through Kevin Love's

When he's on the floor. Yeah, why not? It's an interesting idea. I just think defensively Kevin Love like can't be the lunchpin of your of your five man unit. Particularly against the Warriors. I don't think that Kevin and Karee can play a lot together because that's just a three on five every time down the floor. But I don't know. I just I He's still in my mind like I still remember. going to see him at Staples like three years ago and watching him get like 45 and 25 against the

clippers like he is not a bad basketball player no he just looks disconnected yeah yeah they just don't know how to use him really in the system one of my uh one another winner not to believe or the love point was just I wanted to shout out I just like realized that I've never I don't feel like I've ever seen Sean Livingston play a bad game sometimes he's not like super like influential but he is he's the designated driver of the NBA he's the steadiest of fans yeah I mean he comes in plays great defense. I was watching him like, you ever notice a guy

when he was handling the ball? You're like, this guy, like, 95 people could try to take the ball from him right now and they just wouldn't even get within three feet of him. I'm sure he's got turnovers, but I've never seen one, you know?

It was just like, I just love watching Sean Livingston on this warrior's team. He's really fun. I think he is my favorite warrior. Ooh, interesting. I like him a lot too. Feel a good story.

Like, you're so happy for him. Seems like a great guy. He also very charitable. I think he gives a lot of money back to his hometown. I had no idea he had played with nine teams. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty wild.

It's eight teams that are really kicking themselves. I know, he's great. I mean, he's a huge... Including Jared Jack, who's like, that's supposed to be me. Yeah, seriously. Yeah, yeah. What's Jared Jack up to this off season? Just kicking it?

Probably just like texting LeBron. He's still on the Nets? I should be Dante Jones. Is he still on the Nets? Yeah. Oh, that sucks. Yeah. What a bummer.

An abyss. Yeah, seriously. That really hurts. Sean Livingston also is really fun to watch because he, like, usually is so much bigger than the players he's guarding. So even it's just like fun. I like watching him in the post. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He likes to like abused dudes. Also he gives a really good name to the mid-range jump shot. Like a 10-footer from Sean Livingston is gold. It says as good as a three from Clay. I'd love Sean Livingston. Any other winners and losers?

Um, I was trying to think winner Larry Drew. Ooh. Interesting. Who had a great time. Another, another Cavs assistant getting some shine. Yeah, he had a great time on the bench last night. I feel like he has like, I feel like he's like, I feel like he's like the shadow coach of that team.

Like Tyloo's like a player's guy. He's the new Tyloo. Yeah, exactly. Like he's like behind the scenes. Like I could easily see Larry Drew being the coach of the Cavs at some point. Like LeBron was talking to him last night. Like Tyloot at one point had his arm around Kyrie and like Larry Drew. No, Kyrie had his arm around Tai Liu.

It was like very performative like, tell me what to do, coach. And it was like more like friendly like I'm your teammate than like you're my coach. And like Larry Drew meanwhile, like has the clipboard and the bat. It's just a really strange thing. But big for Larry Drew. I don't understand the Cavs. I just don't. I just like I don't understand

their team dynamics. Like it just fluctuates so much. It just seems like a really like mercurial relationship. But it's a whole group of them. I just don't get it. Should we do predictions? Yeah. Let's pivot.

Game four, who do you like? I think the Warriors are going to win game four. I think it's going to be a lot of threes. I think it's going to be a sad night for LeBron and company. It's hard to pick the cabs in game four. Chris? I am predicting a close game for once. Ooh.

Yeah. And I think that the Cavaliers are going to win. Wow. So you think? I think that actually this entire series is going to come down to Clay. Because I think this is what Steph does. Like right now is like he's just like probably banged up, gives you 22 or something like that in and out of the game like in terms of influence. But I think Clay like as we've seen in the Western Conference finals, like Clay is the best two way player.

Yeah. Maybe in definitely on the Warriors right now he is the best two way player. Clay needed to play Kyrie better last night. If he plays Kyrie better on defense. then I think the Warriors win. And also that like fuels his game, I think. Like usually his best games when he's shooting really well, he's also playing defense really well.

Do you think that there's, is there any chance that we could, what's your prediction? I still think Warriors in five. Is there any chance in your mind that the Cavs could be the Warriors to the Warriors as Thunder in this series? So is there any chance that it's like the Warriors are up to nothing? Everybody crowned them. Playing the parade, blah, blah, blah.

LeBron, Kevin loves out of town. They played really well last night. hype crowd, really aggressive. If they win on Friday, is there any creeping doubt into who's going to win this series? I said if LeBron won this series, it would like submit his legacy. Like he could argue that he's one of the greatest players of all time.

He beat the best regular season team of all time. He came back from a deficit in the finals. He won with what we all think is a subpart team. If he were to come back and win this series, like he changes the whole perception of LeBron. He probably would like retire. He'd probably be just like, I'm done with basketball. Yeah.

That would be insane. It would be crazy. I just think that winning game seven in Oakland for the Cavs is so hard. Like that's just like probably the hardest game ever to win, the championship game in Oakland. I don't know. So it's hard to see that. But if that happened, that'd be like, it's just an incredible story. Yeah. It would be amazing. Do you think the death line? Do you think Kerr will start the death lineup in this game? I mean, they've only played six minutes in game three. I don't think so. Yeah. I mean, I don't think he needs to make that drastic of a change. If they lose game four, I think he will probably do that. home and just say we're going to play this lineup because we know it's worked before. What do you think?

Anyway, for the cast to win seven? I do. I do. I do. I do know. I think this is like a weirdly, I think that there's like a, now I think I was really, I thought Golden State was going to sweep. But when Clay got dinged up last night, I was like, anything can happen.

You know, you never really know. And I just feel like there's more choose to drop in this series. And there's a great clip from LeBron when he was on this heat day. and Curry like did three hesitation dribble. This is like when LeBron was friends with Curry and was like, you gave him three hezies? You gave my point guard three hezies? And he's like trying to be friends with Curry.

And this is like in 2014. And like I was watching that video earlier and I was like, LeBron used to be like so nice and like wanted to like be Curry's friend. And then last time I saw him block that shot. That's because back when he was probably like the Warriors will always be like the fifth seed

in the West and I'll never have to worry about it. Now he's in zero dark 23 mode, you know? Yeah. Everything's different. It's 30 so much better with that statement. I mean, it makes no, it's just so sad that he called himself, that zero dark 23. This doesn't make any sense. Thank you, everyone, for listening.

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