The Ringer NBA Show - Giannis Dominates as the Bucks Win Game 3 | Postgame

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

Just after Game 3, Justin Verrier and J. Kyle Mann come together to break down the Bucks win and look forward to the rest of the series. They discuss Giannis' big night (1:25), Ayton's foul trouble (17:40), and if the Bucks can actually make it a series (32:08). Plus, they talk potential Finals MVPs (45:13). Hosts: Justin Verrier and J. Kyle Mann Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The NFL draft may be over, but the Ringer NFL show isn't going anywhere. On Mondays, join Kevin and Nora as they look ahead to the 2021 season. And on Wednesdays, check out Flying Coach Season 2 with NFL Network's Peter Shreger and Rams head coach Sean McVeigh. The two longtime friends are joined by guests from around the sports and entertainment world to discuss the latest NFL news, tell stories from their careers, and break down the game from their unique perspectives. Check out the Ringer NFL show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello and welcome. This is the Ringer NBA show. I don't know what the title is. This podcast doesn't have a name, but I am Justin Verrier in joining me for this Sunday night breakdown of game three of the NBA finals. It is the man of the hour, Jay Kyle Mann. What's up? The Jay Kyle Man of the Hour.

A podcast has no name, as you said a few minutes ago, Justin Verier. And that is where we are going to operate in the shadows like a stealthy assassin. and skillful and cunning. Yes. Yes. Incredible game tonight, though, man. Yes, you know who else was cunning and like an assassin? One, Janice and Tedocumpo, my friend.

He sees the moment tonight. I mean, Janus has been, he's been like the embodiment of the Undertaker meme, you know, the popping up from the coffin. Right. The way his knee bent in that game when he went down with Quint, Clint Capella to now miraculous, man. I mean, I can't believe he's moving. I mean, we were kind of debating about, well, he looks a little laterally hampered.

He doesn't look right. He's looked fantastic in these last couple games. Yeah, this postseason was really shaping up to be a referendum on Janus's career, or maybe even just his decision to re-up with the bucks over the offseason. It didn't seem like things were going well, especially in those Eastern Conference finals. But here we are. Like, he has put himself back. in the LeBron level, Shaq level dominance in the NBA final. So he had 41 points tonight,

13 rebounds, six assists. He was 13 from 17 from the free throw line. So he obviously had back to back 40 point games. That's the first time since LeBron in 2016. And the second player all time to have back to back 40, 10 games in the finals, Shaq being the other one. So clearly he is just on another level. In terms of physical dominance, yeah. I mean, he's on a short list of guys, I would say, in the history of the league who have like just this physicality-driven dominance. But I think a key thing that we should mention is, you know, even though that they were pretty insistent about getting their points in the paint tonight, I mean, tonight, let's see, the points in the paint numbers were 54, which is the same as last game. Actually,

that might be a little higher because I checked that with like a minute to go. But really, really sticking with that approach. I mean, second chance points tonight. The differential was 20 for Milwaukee. Two for Phoenix. Huge, huge differential there. Got to the line and converted. A big thing, though, too, I think is that, like,

Janus was very patient about drawing two and getting off the ball, which he has, that's been a big question for him in his development throughout his career, I think. And it's crucial for a team like Milwaukee just to put guys in a position to make simple mistakes. or not mistake, it can be mistakes, but simple decisions and not worry so much about, you know,

pound in the ball and things like that. But he was unstoppable tonight. Yeah, I don't think it's a coincidence that Drew Holiday had perhaps his best game of these finals. Well, not perhaps. It was actually a good game, which makes it his best game of the finals. Chris Middleton came to life a little bit there in the first half didn't have as good of a second half. But the big thing was like this became a center versus center off and d'andre aiton got into foul trouble and all of a sudden yannis just took advantage of the sun's zone that they had to fall back into because unfortunately a guy frank kumitsky just like couldn't stay on the court and like to the credit of the bucks and mike budenholder who's taking a lot of knocks here in this postseason and i mean he just fed the

beast and that's really all you had to do there really wasn't much you could do against yonis just catching it uh with deep position and your turn and and it's only Jay Crowder and Cam Johnson in your way. I want to say something really quick. Somebody said Aaron FC said Janus over Prime Shack. Aaron, I don't know how old you are. Maybe get on YouTube. No offense.

I'm not going to go with you on that one. No offense. But yeah, I think, yeah, you're right. I mean, there was some chess going on in this game. I think what we've seen is that Aiton is critically, critically important. You know, I think that he is basically a line of defense and past that, it is just hollow. You know, like the suns are very vulnerable.

We saw them flirt with that at different times throughout this, throughout these playoffs. And, I mean, it's been fun to watch eight and blossom defensively, but I think it's, it's been on both ends because whenever you take that hard roller away from them on offense, I think that it affects, it affects the rest of their perimeter players. Now, you know, I think that the Bucks got lucky that they had, you know, Jay Crowder had a pretty great shooting night, and they came away with a big win, because, you know, Crowder can be pretty volatile. But I think the lack of the hard roller there hurt the trickle-down effect of their offense. And we've seen this kind of happen a couple times throughout the playoffs. But, yeah, I mean, Aiton bothers everything on the inside. He bothers Lobbs. He's positionally a lot more patient. He was scoring early on. The way this game was officiated, there were a couple different times where I was like,

Is this going to swing back towards, because there were a couple calls. I think it was at the beginning of the third quarter. Did you notice this where it looked like it was getting a little touchy? Yeah, you were hearing Scott Foster's music, like getting louder and louder as this game went on. The glass broke. And he was coming. Yeah. I was like, well, are they going to start? Because it really seemed like Milwaukee needs to win the, it seems kind of like Crow Magnin, to put it this way. but like Milwaukee needs to win the the brass knuckles, you know, the effort part of this series or they have no chance. So they got to win the physical and like second effort, multiple effort part of this. And I thought that they did tonight, but we saw, I'd be curious to see what like the on-off numbers were for Aiton tonight because it was glaring, you know. Right. Didn't expect to be

saying this, but Dario Sarich's injury could perhaps be maybe not swinging the NBA finals, but they're definitely putting them on tilt a little bit. But I have to say, like, I did think that Janus's approach, I don't know if it's different, or at the very least they're leaning into the best of him. Like, clearly not Prime Shack. I agree with your point earlier. But, like, he is approaching the game, almost like Prime Shack to the point where he only had one three point attempt until very late in this game. I think he only ended up with two. And if you look at his shot chart, there's like a couple of miss jumpers kind of around the paint, but every shot, that he made tonight, all 14 of them, or within five feet. They're all right at the basket. And that is

what you need to do when you have a transformative giant man who could like leap over anybody or or Euro step around anybody. So I do think that was pretty important. And I do wonder, and I'm curious what you think. Like, I wonder if the extra rest going into this game helped someone like Janus, who obviously has to go through way more treatment these days in order to get on the floor. Yeah, I mean, rest is obviously critically important at this. I mean, this has been a slog of like a year and a half for NBA players. And, you know, coming in with a knee injury specifically, I think all rest is critical, critically important. I think we saw like against the clippers, their schedule with the lack of rest hurt them. I mean, I think that that's true. And not to take anything away from the sun's there. But, you know, rest is always good. I don't think that that's breaking news. But I think that, I mean, Janus asked out early in this game. I think what, that was maybe just to catch his breath. I didn't hear anything. Did you hear anything specific?

He almost seemed like too hyper. Like he was just going too hard and he really needed to take a step back. But thankfully, it wasn't anything structurally with his knee. I think that this game was a convergence. This is every NBA game. But I mean, you want to avoid having a lot of bad things happen at once. I mean,

Booker being out of rhythm and out of sorts tonight on the same night that Aiton, such a critically important piece, Those two things just can't happen at the same time. It's really just brutal for Phoenix. You know, Chris Paul opened up the game, I thought, really brilliantly. But what did you make of Booker's struggles tonight? Was there anything that jumped out to you about schematically that was going on? Or was he just missing shots?

I don't know. It feels like Booker has these games. And, like, last series, I was willing to write them off to the mask. It just seemed like he was not feeling comfortable. And he would have these games where he wasn't shooting well, and thus he wouldn't be aggressive, and then he took off the mask, and then you wondered, was he more hesitant to drive because he was worried about his nose?

Maybe something like that was happening, but I also feel like just overall, the Bucks definitely had a bounce, had an aggression to them that they probably didn't have over the past few games. I wonder if it's home court advantage. But they definitely seemed like all of the little plays that were going the Sun's way,

things went the Bucks way in this one. Did you see something more in-depth schematically to knock Booker off? No, I mean, they had, they always kind of had, it was a situation where, you know, Tucker has been on Booker in this game and the last game, and I know people have kind of wrung their hands about that and fretted, but I mean,

I mean, Tucker is constantly into his body. I didn't really notice anything that was different from the past. Somebody maybe could chime in and tell me if they noticed anything. But, no, it just seemed like he just was out of it. of rhythm and you know they talked to moni at i guess it was after the you know maybe halfway through the second quarter and they were like what are you going to say to booker and he's just like nothing so it may just be a case of um you know booker's seen all kinds of looks in these playoffs he's had physical defenders on him he's seen he's run the gamut in this and this in these playoffs so

i can't really have a shooting night like that though you know if if on a night i guess it's it's going to be an interesting thing to see if next game, you know, Milwaukee has this blueprint. And I thought last game, it kind of, it wore, they tried it and it didn't necessarily break the right way. Well, tonight it did. And you've got to kind of think about the percentages of like how many times out of 100 are they going to be able to use this game playing and,

and find effectiveness. This is a weird Milwaukee team in a lot of ways, like offensively, because they don't really have highly intuitive creator. playmakers on their team, but they have a few guys that are, that are pretty, like, decently good, you know, like, good, simple decision makers. They don't have, like, high level, like, manipulators. But, yeah, I mean, next game, they definitely need more out of Booker. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that's why a game like this from Janus is so important, because you did see it unlocking some of those, like, auxiliary guys as a result of his dominance.

Like, Drew just, like, stepped into threes with more confidence to the point where he took 10, in this game. He was five for ten from three, and you just don't typically see him take that much. Like, the story of his postseason has been that he just doesn't feel comfortable being aggressive. And you could always see him like wondering when he should pick and choose his spots. He doesn't really feel like he's within the rhythm. Well, he was taking those shots. And I think that has to be a big credit to what Janus was doing. It did seem like, I was luding to this earlier, it seemed like Middleton would get going in this game. He didn't really. At one point, he had more points at the half than he did in all of game two.

And I was like, oh, this is where Middleton starts to really assert himself. He took zero free throws, the first two game. He ended up with three in this game. I'm not really sure what to make of him because he ended up with only 18.7 rebound, six assists. You'd like to see more from him. And so that's where I'm a little bit concerned. But I guess if Yonnas is going to have this going,

like all he has to do is really bury down open threes. Yeah, Middleton is interesting because it seems like he's, they talked about this a little bit on the broadcast. Maybe it's just his temperament or his body language. He definitely seems, he seems very selective. He's not one of those guys that like has to be going all the time, always hunting his offense. He seems like selective of it in the kind of the flow of the game. But they didn't really need him to go absolutely nuts tonight. And that's, you know, that's a good thing.

I would argue that, I mean, Middleton a lot of times is there. best creator. They had some pretty, they had some pretty chaotic possessions throughout this game I was noticing, like where, you know, Middleton threw one rolling pass to Janus that was like at his knees. You remember that, the one I'm talking about? And he somehow recovered it. And then Janus and Middleton tried to hook up. I think it was Middleton to Janus again. And Janus wasn't even looking. Holiday had one that was a screen and roll with Janus that was pretty chaotic. They always just kind of seem like they're like on the edge of a knife. Like they just always seem like they're just almost going to be in peril, but they get it done. It's it's the way they cobble offense together

is unusual. I can't really remember the last finals team like this that was, I mean, they're just bullying. Like in the second half of that game too, I think some of the adjust, one of the main themes of this game is when they didn't, you text me when it happened that when Moni decided not to go back with Kaminsky and they went with that that small ball lineup. What you think, I was kind of noticing that they were trying to use Coniton as sort of an entry point to get, to get some disruption, to get some imbalance going, to get them into rotation. I thought Conant held up pretty well during that stretch. Phoenix didn't like overwhelmingly win those minutes, it didn't seem like to me.

Right, because your guy, Cam Johnson, just went on a heater. My God, just completely leaping over PJ Tucker to the point where Bud had to, break out his challenge just to save PJ Tucker from the abuse he's going to get. The sneaker king was about to lose his title because he was just not going to be able to log onto his Instagram account ever again. Well, he got a good look at some sneakers on that play. I mean, they were right by his face. What do you think about, like, Cam Johnson's, his athleticism, he just has this, like,

this athleticism that kind of jumps up, like, it sneaks up on you. Like he's one of those guys that he'll make big plays. I was going to his, I was going over here to his compound or his combine numbers to see. My theory is he has small hands. I feel like you're talking about him like he's Kyle Corver. He has sneaky athleticism. No, no. He's the X-Dine on this team.

The X-Tine? Was that a baseball reference? Yeah, that's the consummate hustle guy. Come on, you're in the South. They must talk about the old stick ball every now and then. I have family members that are big. He's Cardinals, right? Wouldn't Eckstein Cardinals?

He used to be. Okay. That's lost on me. Okay, I went and looked it up. Yes, small hands. 8.5 by 8 inches. That's small. That's probably why, like, whenever you see, for his size, I mean, especially, but

whenever you see him get ahead of steam, he's one of those guys that, like, Hamadu Diallo is like this. Like, if they're, like, in traffic or something, they can't quite leverage their athleticism. like they can't quite get up and control the ball. But when Cam Johnson gets ahead of steam, he can do some incredible stuff. I mean, that scoop layup that he hit was pretty nice, good shooter.

I think they kind of wasted a couple good nights, you know, from Crowder and Johnson on some level. Yeah, I mean, that was, if you're looking at the positive for the suns in that zone lineup, that was it, right? You got some more contribution from that. Bridges, who had a completely off night, I believe hit a three during that stretch early on, they went to the zone.

I just don't know how much you could rely on that. And like if we were talking about big questions going forward for the suns, like all of a sudden, their margin for error seems almost as thin as the bucks. So the books have obviously had their injuries. Dante DiVincenzo wasn't out there. And it just seems like after their starting lineup, you're really just trying to not screw things up.

You're getting into the Nassas territory after Pat Conantin. You're throwing out Jeff Teague minutes, who all of a sudden played way too much even before this game was completely out of hand. But the suns you're looking at when Ait isn't out on the court, what are you going to turn to? That is very much a big question.

And I do wonder if that exposed something going into this next game where if your bud, you could look at that and maybe you cram it down, Eaton's throat, get him into foul trouble early and now you're exposing that even more. I guess it comes, I mean, I need to go back and watch each of his fouls.

I mean, the one thing about Aiton is that he's been pretty good. He's improved in these playoffs at not drawing fouls. And it's kind of a thing where I think that they can go at it and attack him, but I think that they should be careful not to go too hard at that because that's always risky, always dangerous to overdo it. And to get yourself out of any rhythm. Like the Bucks are a team that can't really afford to lose whatever rhythm they have offensively. So, yeah, I mean, I think they tried again.

I just, I still feel like, you know, Phoenix is, they have this big weakness, but I still feel like they're the more offensively capable, dynamic team once the, you know, it was just like when you take away their hard roller, whenever, whenever Booker's not playing well, you're just, you're pulling out like two big pieces of the engine that are going to prevent it from, from going anywhere. You know, Brooklyn still had a couple, you know, big-time creators that they could go to. Well, and then, you know, Kyrie went down. But they don't have that luxury. But I think that I was thinking about this Phoenix team, too. It's sort of like years from now, you know, I feel like everybody's been kind of eager to discount them, you know, as sort of like a team that doesn't add up to what we would think would be a title contender. But some of these young players, man, I feel like years from. now we're going to be like, because Aiton was playing fantastic before he got into foul trouble.

I've just been endlessly impressed with him. And I don't know. If he starts to develop that face-up game, too, like he hit a 15-footer facing up tonight. I was like, man, if he can start making that consistently, he's going to be, he's going to be an all-star. I mean, I think he wants to take that 15-footer wherever they're giving it to him. I almost think like his turnaround started when he stopped taking those as much. But you definitely saw, you know, the bucks getting it.

him those shot opportunities way more. I don't know, man. It's weird. Like, I agree with you overall. We were talking about this via text just before we dropped on, like, as the game is going around, we both feel pretty comfortable with the sons. Like, I think we feel pretty good about what they were able to do. It's just seemed like they had a control over the game in that first quarter.

The bucks kind of threw everything at them and they kind of withstood it. And they weren't down by that much, if at any, after the first quarter. And I've just been really impressed overall with, this young team has been able to handle adversity, like series after series after series, and this was another example of that. Things obviously turned in a different direction, but, you know,

I'm a little bit more worried about Aiton after this game. Just because, like, if he's not out there, you see how things kind of just crater. And while Chris Paul had things going to a certain extent with whatever they were willing to throw at them, like there was one point where they were trapping hard on him and he found Cam Johnson, right? When it was Kaminsky,

he still managed to find, Frank Kaminsky for easy buckets. But if Booker's not going to be there, if Bridges isn't going to be there, like, who are you going to turn to there? I mean, Bridges is probably someone we should talk about here. Is this just the off night? Or do you think like the Bucks found something there that they can expose? I think he's running up against sort of a threshold and his own development that he, once he crosses it, I think it's going to make him an even better player. But I think they were putting him in position to, I haven't seen like, the tracking on his on his touches tonight but it seemed like he was getting it a lot in situations that were not in rhythm like he's not really a natural like table setter at this point he's like a catch and shoot make one move and kind of score type person I thought they they defended him pretty well I mean overall that's kind of that's kind of where he is as a player for me right now he can kind of get into the middle and make that mid-range pull up he's pretty good at like straight line drives, you know, in transition, he's good, obviously.

But I always kind of got the feeling that if you really saw bridges after like three dribbles, you know, changing directions, making a decision, you started to kind of see the seams a little bit. Like you started to kind of see where he needs to grow as a wing creator. And if he does that, I mean, he's going to be fantastic. But I think that Milwaukee defended him well in that sense and that they didn't let him get into those. those situations where he is productive. That was kind of my read on it. Right.

What did you think about Bud overall in this game? So obviously he's taken his hacks, most of them coming probably from this podcast network. But I was watching, and it did seem like he had the counters whenever the sons would try things. Like when they went to that zone, he briefly went to a smaller front court lineup

and all of a sudden Bobby Portis makes a three and then PJ Tucker made a three and just seemed like the ball was zipping around. in the way it probably hadn't been earlier. And then he went the opposite direction later on, and he put his bids out there in the floor, and they kind of just kept punished him down low. It just felt like he was at the controls,

making the right move for the first time. And God, I can't remember in how long. Are you feeling better about what Bud's doing overall, or am I just over-emphasizing? I think this was sort of a primary color situation, not to downplay it. I mean, I'm not one of those people that, I mean, I'm not one of those people that think,

but is like a doofus or something but he this is simple calculus here though i think you know you've got this transcendent downhill player who can get to the rim who's quick that can beat you know he's big enough to bother like small ball fours he's quick enough to buy you know he's quick enough to go by a lot of players that guys his size typically aren't able to also the way crowder was playing him at different points during that stretch those non-eighth minutes didn't really make a whole lot of sense you don't want to, you want to dare Janice to take an early shot. You don't want to, you don't want to get up on him and, and dare him to go by you because he can, because he's so long. You know, that little cushion is where you can anticipate. And Crowder usually does that.

That's what kind of, what I didn't really understand. I posted a clip the other night about, like, of, I just pulled a bunch of clips of Crowder jumping in front of Janus. Like, he's done it for like the last five years. But yeah, I think that, um, I think that Bud made some simple decisions that just worked tonight. And I, I don't think, I mean, there's sometimes where basketball isn't, our buddy Jonathan Sharks says this to me all the time. Basketball can be really simple. And I think tonight, this is simple. You have a transcendent downhill player. And you also have Brooke Lopez, too. I mean, Brooke Lopez's nimbleness for his size. He's such a good player. I've just found myself in these playoffs appreciating his skill level and his agility for how freaking big he is. He's a barakiosaurus, man. Like, he is just gigantic. Like the way, he beat Aiton off the bounce one time,

and it was so graceful, like, you finish with touch. Yeah, I mean, this is a simple, like, brute force algorithm. Get around the rim, finish, use your size. And the shooting will follow. Brooke has one play a game where he'll, like, he'll be on the three-point arc, and he'll try to be almost like an elephant trying to hide behind a couch,

where he'll, like, scooch down low, so he managed to have, like, a lower center of gravity for his dribble. And yet somehow he manages to weave around traffic and get to the paint and finish nimbly because he has such amazing touch at the rim. Like I almost want to like show all of the other Bucks Biggs, Brooks touch, especially Yonnas sometimes, where it's just like this guy just makes things happen. He's almost like Kyrie in like a mecca suit, you know, like just the way he's able to finish

sometimes. But I mean, he played 21 minutes tonight. I thought that was another feather in Bucks. where, like, he used him effectively. You didn't overuse him. He put him in lineups where I think it made sense to play him. Definitely, definitely. And, yeah, I mean, I think one of the big things about him, like you said, I agree, is the touch.

Yeah, it's 21 minutes for him tonight. I mean, he didn't really, he took four threes. I didn't feel like he was, like, settling for them getting to the basket. But, you know, part of that is, like, trying to get Aiton in foul trouble, I think, is probably factoring into that a little bit, plus six in this game. Yeah, two rebounds, really. Yeah, not really on the glass as much. What did you think about the intense Bobby Portis, Arkansas Finis? I thought that he kind of got away with, I guess it was against Torrey Craig. It definitely looked like he gave a little extracurricular some bonus points on that play where they were tangled up.

Did you see that? Did I misread that? What happened with that play? You know the play I'm talking I don't know what. No, I don't. They got tangled up on, Craig was denying him, and they got tangled up. You remember that play? I think so. I just think this is what Bobby Portis does now, which is weird to say, now two series into this. It just seems like he's going to have a game where he just, like, puts his stamp on it. I mean, all things considered, he's not the worst stretch big option, especially on that Buck's bench is where you're just like, you're reaching for anything possible. Like,

I'm still surprised that Portis shot so well from three during the regular season. It was something like 47%. And there are just games where you just give him an open look from three and he's going to knock him down. And if he knocks down enough of them, he's going to stretch the court in ways where it's going to manipulate the defense and get them in rotations in ways that you probably wouldn't expect for Bobby Portis. I don't know.

I think he fits a nice little hole on this team, especially because they're just so depleted on the wing. Like he could almost give you enough of some of those. things that this roster lacks in order to just get by, you know? If he's, if he's like sort of what, very, discerning in his, in his choices, you know, they talked about, you know, Bobby's, he's always been this sort of tertiary or beyond sort of late rotation player who looked like he kind of wanted to climb up and be more of a, of a different type of, in a different type of a role. Bobby Portis perpetually looks like he just realized,

he ripped his pants. That's what I always say. He always has that look on his face. No, I mean, obviously in the playoffs, your looks change, you know, for him. He's not a guy that, you know, four for 11 tonight. He's just, he's an energy guy, you know, 11 points, eight rebounds. He's, he's giving them, you know, Janus isn't always demonstrative, you know, Middleton's pretty quiet.

Drew's not the most animated. You covered Drew for a while in New Orleans, right? how would you describe his demeanor as a player? Laid back. I always used to say he had the quick wit of a blog boy, Drew. Like, he's an adult in the room, very much so. And I don't think he's ever going to get too high. He's not going to get too low.

He's just who he is. Yeah. And then, you know, Brooke Lopez famously calm. It's just, I think Portis is good for them. I think Portis comes in and is just that little, I think it's good on every good team to have sort of this uncontrollable fire that could burn the house down, but it also could burn their house down. You know, I think it's just good to have a guy like that. Yeah, he's a live body. And I think, unfortunately, for this Bucks team, there's a lot of rigor mortis setting in. In addition to,

like, just straight up demeanor, there's just a lot of guys on their last leg. Like, the fact that they've gotten so much out of Brooke Lopez at this point has just been a godsend. Like, they brought him back to basketball life. And like, PJ Tucker, another guy we were talking about before the first two games. He was just so bad. It's just like the fact that. that Portis can get after it and he could just throw himself around. He's basically doing low rent PJ Tucker things, but with early era PJ Tucker athleticism. That's what I would say. Another thing I was going to say in this game and throughout this series, I'm just, I'm done with the off ball charges. I'm just, I can't do it anymore, man. I can't, it's going to

get somebody hurt. In general, I think the charge is out of control. I feel like if they just stop calling it. It might just go away entirely. I just wanted to tack that on as a micro gripe for me when I'm watching these. I mean, whether it be Chris Paul, whether it be honest, I mean, it's just driving me nuts. Yeah, I was just going to say, like a series with Chris Paul, Jay Crowder, PJ Tucker, like, you're probably not getting away from that anytime soon. No, it is here to stay, sadly, I believe. Yeah, no, that's definitely the worst of all of them, though. how some folks are quick to doubt the rookies or even understate their excellence during playoff season? Make no mistake, this is their time to shine and show out with career-defining

moments on that court. Kyle, who are some rookies that showed out in this year's NBA postseason? You know, I think that this year we saw some guys that were maybe off the radar, off the minds of sort of the popular basketball conversation that really made an impression. I thought, you know, one big one was on Yeka O'Kongwu for the Atlanta Hawks. I think that he was someone who came along slowly through the season, was really respected in the draft and had some tools that people were excited about. And I think that he showed some promise for a young team that is going to need to, you know, mature and sort of level up together.

You got to feel good if you're Atlanta when you're looking at a guy like Okongwu who is just this asset sort of to the side of their offensive identity who could turn into, you know, a defensive anchor, which was always sort of the expectation for him with great hands. He's a good finisher, really intelligent player. And he's a good bargain right now for, I think, you know, he was giving you quality playoff minutes at that age and at that experience level. He looked calm, calm like a bomb, calm like a cucumber. I thought he was really impressive in these playoffs. That's what they say. Yeah. Now, the Hawks definitely have some options there with all their good young players. And that's a wrap. Just like these rookies won on the

court, you could win with your insurance by getting the personalized service of a local agent all for a surprisingly great rate with State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Let's look big picture here now. So bucks get one. They're still down two to one. How are you feeling about them overall? Do you feel like they catapulted themselves back into this series, or do you think this is ultimately still a Sun series that the Bucks just happened to steal a game or two? We've gone back and forth with both of these. teams where it's just sort of been an ebb and flow of like do you believe you know we've been hesitant to believe in both of them i mean i had moments in the first round where i was like okay Milwaukee has like

they've addressed their issues in the off season i think maybe the plus plus kind of performance from drew gave me a little a little more confidence than um i mean drew's just been extremely up and down in these playoffs he's been super super frustrating but then we've gotten super super performances from yannis you know in this series but you know drew was better in this overall i mean i they're not a team that like gives me they're just not like a momentum rhythm team where you just come away skipping even tonight i'm like you know they did bully them but it was contingent on a lot of things going right um if those things don't fall the exact way next time um i mean i it's going to have to it's going to have to play out a very specific way, sort of that, you know, one in the 14 million.

It's not 14 million, not like the Dr. Strange thing. But I feel good about them, but a lot of things are going to have to go their way because they're really asking a lot out of Janus. They're getting a lot of, of course, there's also the Middleton thing where, you know, he could surge. He could have a better, he could have a better, you know, an uptick in his production and things like that. I'm still in the middle on them, honestly.

I don't feel overly confident, but I also have. I've kind of felt I really gave them a lot of crap against the nets. They had some injury. Things break their way in that series. I still am leaning sons, honestly, just for all those factors that went their way. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, no disrespect to Janice because he's putting on just an all-timer, but it does have, like, it has the feel of a LeBron James all-time performance in a loss

in a final series. Like, they need him to be this good in order for them to have a chance. chance and that's always scary territory. I mean, maybe he ends up just putting up 40 a game from here or not. I wouldn't put it past him at this point, especially if the rest in between games are going to help him. I'm just clearly speculating, but like he's going to have two more games off or two more days off before this next game. They could really pace him. They didn't have to play him a ton of minutes in this one. They only got him out at 38, which for Bud is like is something. but I don't know, man.

I'm just, I'm worried about those ancillary guys, like you said. I don't know if Drew's going to be able to give you more than what he gave you in this game. 21 and 9 with good three-point shooting. That's about as good as you're going to get for him with just like harassing lockdown defense on the other end. Middleton's the one for me where I just don't get. Like you need a Middleton in order to be able to play off of Janus. And I would want, I would expect the sons in this next game to double down on Janus to force them to, to the, the, the, the, the, the buck to beat them with somebody else. And Middleton is going to be

the guy to do that. I mean, we've kind of been talking about this all season. I mean, Zach Cramm wrote this really, really early out in the, uh, the regular season where it's just like, Middleton has to be the closer for this team. I think that's true now. And I also think that he needs to just be the wing scorer they need before that you get into crunch time. Yeah, I mean, he is perceivably their, their closer. It's, it's funny you were talking about, um, and I mean, we'll talk about, um, and I mean, we'll talk about. about Middleton first here. I mean, his offensive upswings can go all the way up in near 40 points. I mean, we know that he can go, that he can go bonkers. And it may be a, it may be a kind of

basketball is, we talked about this a lot with like the top players thing. This is a game, this is a sequential game that, you know, there's the sequences within the game, there's the sequences within the series within the season. And this could be a sort of a bigger macro thing where, you know, where, you know, Milwaukee is using this game plan and the schematic response from the Sons could end up creating some openings, you know, depending on how they try to defend. Some of this, I don't know that there's a whole lot

you can do about, like, Janus, but I think if they do try to, like, adjust, you know, avoid going to the zone, things like that, that could open up some things for Middleton to start to really attack in his way. But, yeah, you were talking about, like, it's funny how we like we ding coaches for not for playing their players too much and we also ding them for not playing them enough it's just like uh it just goes both ways it seems like it's it's a hard

life for an NBA coach you really just can't win on some level sure i mean i'm sure they go back to their mansion and sip their wine coolers and scroll twitter doom scroll right right uh just just replying to kevin durance replies with their own anonymous bots. But if you're the Sons, I think you do have a big question on your hand. So if Aiton, well, Aiton has to sit at some point, unless you decide to go full nets here and just play him 48 minutes, you're going to have to fill those minutes somehow. Do you think that the zone small ball approach that they put out there tonight is the answer to those Aitonless minutes, or do you think like they have to go somewhere else? Do they have to try, I don't know, more Tori Craig?

Do they have to unearth Jalen Smith from the depths of whatever hell he has been in throughout this entire postseason? You know what's sad? I liked the Jalen Smith. I liked him coming into the draft. There just must be, I mean, he's a young player. He must just really not be showing them anything to fill them with confidence in practice. But honestly, man, it's just, it's slim pickings here.

I really don't know where else you could go in terms of like who you could try at the five. I mean, Kaminsky is just such a liability. He was, you know, minus, I don't get caught up in like single game plus minus, but minus 12 in this one. You also didn't get a big, you didn't get a big performance out of campaign. You know, campaign is sort of a guy who can stack on top of Phoenix's, you know, flourishing offense. And then he comes at you as this extra thing. You're just like, holy shit, we have to deal with this little dude. He also has one of the most baffling, like, scoop shots.

He shoots that lefty scoop shot on the right side of the right side of the. rim and it seems unblockable. It's it really defies explanation. I don't know how he does that. But I don't I don't really know what they have in terms of like the traditional thinking like who's the biggest guy that we have that we could throw out there. I mean like you have Crowder who's like physically solid but he's not long enough. You just you forfeit rim protection. And you know they've thrown Abdel Nader out there a little bit but he's you know it's just you really are just down at the bottom of the barrel trying to like think about what you could do. Really, really critical that Aitin stays out of foul trouble. I don't know if it's perilous, man. I mean, I don't know how

they're going to be able to keep the car on the road with, with three wheels if Aiton's, if Aiton's going to end up in foul trouble again. Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm a little bit worried about the sons, though. Like, I agree with you. I think the sons are the clear favor in this series. I think the box are going to have to play completely over their head in order to counterpunch what the sons are capable to do on a good night offensively. But that margin for error, man, is getting thinner and thinner. And I'm just looking at the roster. I'm like, where is this going to come from?

I guess the two possible sources of an adjustment or just like a counterpunch to what they've been doing is that small ball lineup, one. They could just out shoot them, maybe some of the shots that they miss fall and all a sudden this is a different one. And I guess it goes back to Booker. Like if Booker has a good night, can you count on him to just, take the pass and just drive it into the center of the defense and all of a sudden this is a different game.

Well, the thing is that Milwaukee is defensively a little more competent and it's going to be harder for them, I think, to attack. Like I said, they thought they were attacking the weakest point, which was Conantant and they just didn't really have a ton of success. So if they don't, if they're not able to win those small ball minutes in that sense, I think maybe you just stop worrying about attacking him. and you just kind of get into, just kind of run your normal offense and see if you can get into rotation, see if you can get some of your guys that are in like advantaged, you know, matchup situations once the ball gets humming.

If, you know, if Milwaukee tries to put those lineups out there that are going to be bigger, that are going to try to bully them on the other end so that they'll have some potential mismatches. But the thing is like Milwaukee defensively is pretty good. I mean, so it's going to be hard for them to attack them in that sense. Yeah, it is a funny situation where I feel so good about Phoenix offensively at full strength, but you're absolutely right. I mean, it's a fascinating wrinkle. I think, I mean, at this point, how far do you think this goes? How many games? Because you and I may not get another chance to talk about it depending on how it goes. I was saying gentlemen sweep before this game.

Like after game two, I was like, oh, okay, we know what's going to happen here. And even after the first quarter, I was saying the same thing. Like the sun just have a control. over the game. Chris Paul, when he has Aiton running down that rim, running down that lane to the rim, it's just, it seems unstoppable. But I don't know. My confidence has been shaken a little bit with this game. I could see it going six or seven at this point for those reasons that we just talked about. I don't feel good about it anymore. What do you think? How many games? So you were just really traumatized by what happened tonight. You said six originally? I said Sons and Six. That was my original I said five, but I could see it going six and seven now.

You did say that, yeah. Yeah, I could see it. I could see it going seven. I don't know. I'll stick with it. I'll have a little backbone. I'll say the sun's in six. It just seems hard for all those things to go wrong at once.

Even if Aiton does go out with foul trouble, you know, you just get a garbage game from Booker like that. I mean, and he's bounced back. I mean, he had a rough game in the Clippers series, if I'm not myself. And of course, there was the whole broken nose thing that happened. I expect that he'll bounce back. He's a tough guy. Him sitting all those minutes, though, was interesting, though. Don't you think?

Was that sort of a mental thing? Could have been. I mean, you probably didn't need to put him through anything more. Like, I do wonder maybe, like, if the nose is a concern, I mean, you don't want to put him out there. So, like, even if he gets hit and it doesn't, like, re-break his nose, he's worried about that even more. I do wonder if like after this finals is over, we're going to get that story about like, oh, it's actually a much bigger issue. Like he couldn't breathe on the core, yada, yada.

Because he hasn't seemed right. He hasn't, he's had a game or two, but he hasn't seemed consistently right since that happened. He did take another shot. Yeah, like it could be. He's taking a few, yeah. Yeah, that's, God, that's brutal. I can't imagine. I've been punched in the nose. I've never had a broken nose. I've taken a couple orbital hits. that really hurt. Yeah, any of those face bone hits, they suck. They're rough to play with.

Yeah. And especially without the mask, he's vulnerable out there, yeah. I got punched in the face in sixth grade because I was like, I told some kid to pick up a piece of paper and it was the wrong kid to tell that to. He punched you?

It was in the middle of class in sixth grade. You just popped me in the nose and my nose started bleeding. And you know what the shitty part was? I also got in school suspension and I didn't throw a punch. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Did you tell him in sort of like a bossy, dickish way? Were you like... Probably.

Okay. Like, I think he knocked my piece of paper over, if I'm remembering correctly, and I told him to pick it up. Like, it was his fault, and I decided to stand up to him. I see. Unfortunately, this is not the type of guy you say that to, and he just... Bop. Yeah. I called a kid fat one time, and he hit me in the... I've only been punching the face a few times. Yeah, in the locker room, I told his dude he was fat. the other time I got hit in the face I got hit in the face twice in one game one time because I had like a bit I'd like 17 and in the first half of a game and then they hit me in the eye twice I would do this I have pictures of it I'll post some bit I had the I had the blood coming down but I didn't score they got they got to me wasn't a super physical tough player honestly I didn't have what it took but yeah that's why just telling somebody to pick something up you get punched in the face that kid sounds pretty badass to be honest I mean like a bad person

but I'm sorry that happened to you, man. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I'm still recovering from it. Clearly, clearly. You had that ready to get to go there. Do you want to do a quick finals MVP watch? So we are three games in now.

I think everyone was expecting Chris Paul to just run away with this thing. Although I will say earlier on in this game, you started to see the tweets about, well, what about Aiton? Like, Aiton is the one doing all this damage. Paul is the one setting up, sure. but like all the numbers, all the double doubles, like he's had X many double doubles and that hasn't happened since Kareem Abdulrabar.

Those things were floating around. How much do we care about double doubles anymore, though, man? I mean, there's like the inflation of counting stats. It's just like double doubles and scoring. It's going to go up, up, up, up. I don't know. I just don't get his... It is cool.

It is cool. He's done a lot. I just don't get like... Do you see what I'm saying? No, no. I get what you're saying, and this was a big topic of discussion around Russell Westbrook and Triple doubles. right. My thing is like, we say it for a reason. It's just ease of use. It's just like,

just a random way to mark something so we could say like, oh, if you hit this mark, it usually means pretty good. It's like, it's an arbitrary endpoint. Yes, I get that. And for all the quants are like, well, you know, 40 and 8 is just as good. I totally agree with you. It's just, it's just easier. Don't lump me with the quants. I'm definitely not. And anyway, but no, I see what you're saying. that's true. I just hear people just pound the table about that one all the time. I just wanted to throw that in there. But I mean, in terms of the, are we in a situation where, you know, losing, even if, even if the bucks lose, is that where you were going to say next? It's kind of, I mean, are we in a situation where is Yonis going to, I mean, this is a pretty remarkable,

even if they lose, this is a pretty remarkable. Yonis had a rough year in terms of sort of credibility. you know, we kind of got into like eye rolling territory where it was just like, all right, buddy, piss off with your great performances and your second round exits. But I mean, it's just interesting how fickle all of this stuff is. I mean, he's in the finals and he's had this opportunity to perform big and he has. I think it's a big notch on his sort of legacy. I'm not in love with like the whole narrative thing. But it is. It is. It's a big notch for him. But I mean, do you think that there's, let's say they lose and he continues to. cruise. Tell us in the chat if you think that if, you know, if this continues, if you think Yana should win, even if they do lose. But like this video, follow us on YouTube. Yeah, smash the like button. No, I mean, I think it's possible. No one else is having like an extraordinary output enough to sort of dissuade me from thinking that. Yeah. Sure. I don't think it will

happen. It's never happened and it's never going to happen because there's at the very least going to be, one player who has a big game in the deciding game and all of a sudden we'll give it to him. It's very much the Iguodala thing where it's just like, well, we got to give it to someone on the winning team and we'll just pick the person that seems like it fits the best, fits the mold. I wouldn't have a problem with it though because I'm sure you can go back to the finals that LeBron has been in and say that he was probably deserving of it even in a losing effort. Was 15 the year that Iggy got it? I'm pretty sure it was. I mean, that was one of the best finals performances. that was one of the best performances ever, period, two-way by LeBron.

I mean, and he didn't get it that year. So, I mean, if that's the precedent, I mean, maybe they'll try to break the, you know, there's a first time for everything kind of thing. But I don't know, maybe you would have to have like one more outrageous game to even give some credibility to that. Well, I do think the one thing that Janus has in his favor that LeBron didn't is that there's enough shaming on social media and enough just mob mentality. that I'm sure that, let's say the suns win the next game and then they cruise in the next

game, but Janus keeps putting up 40 and 10, right? There's going to be enough voices in the room, in this case, the room being Twitter, saying like, oh, this should be a thing. Why are we following history, yada, yada, yada. And I do wonder if that counter narrative comes in strong enough that all of a sudden Janus has a better chance than LeBron ever did. Just by sheer shame. That's who you're going to say.

I mean. This is the power of. Shame, my friend. Shame motivates me to do a lot of things. You know, maybe I don't know. Let's see. We'll see what happens. All right.

Well, we'll keep an eye on that. We'll keep an eye on Kyle's shame. I'll keep you updated. Thanks. All right. Thanks, everyone for joining us. Thank you to Carlos on production.

We will be back. Well, we'll see if we'll be back. I'll be back on group chat after the next game, which I believe is Wednesday night. Kyle might be back if there is, what, a game seven?

Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens, possibly. But he'll be around regardless. Yeah. I'll be on Twitter. He'll definitely be on YouTube. You could smash his like button anytime you'd like. Sound like. You know. All right. We'll see you next time. Later.