The Ringer NBA Show - Holiday Steals Game 5, a Warriors Stinkfest, and Offseason Roulette | Group Chat

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Justin, Rob, and Wos discuss Giannis’s big game in the Bucks’ comeback road win (2:46). Then they review Memphis’s domination of the Warriors to force a Game 6 (28:37). Finally, they raise some offseason story lines with a game of Offseason Roulette (40:31). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, Wosny Lambre Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, it's Ariel Hawani of the Ringer MMA show. I'm Chuck Mindenhall. And I'm Pizzie Carroll, and together we are three-pack. Follow and listen to the Ringer MMA feed exclusively on Spotify for all the latest in the world of mixed martial arts. And join us live on Spotify Green Room after every big event. See you then. Love you. Welcome to Grinchat.

I am Justin Barrier joining me as always. Big Waz, Miami Rob Mahoney. Gentlemen, how's it going to be? going. What a phenomenally weird night of NBA basketball, I got to say, but I'm happy to talk it through with the two weirdest guys I know, so I could not be in a

better place. So where should we start in this one with one of the best playoff games in recent memory, or by far the worst in recent memory? Does anyone have a preference? No, I certainly don't want to have anything to do

with Whoop That Trick. By the way, they got to bring Terrence Howard in there at some point to wrap these records, man. I think they had the guy, I'm going to venture a guess. He actually wrote those raps. And they had a guy who wasn't Terrence Howard perform his hard out here for a pimp when you're trying to get this money for the rent. They had them rapping it like at an intermission.

But yeah, get Terrence Howard, get them to get the perm and let's get this thing rolling again. We need rob in the perm. I think I could make that happen. That's your experiential journalist next article. All right. If Zach Levine signs with the pistons,

I'll get up perm. Okay. You don't want to put that out there, man. I'll turn that into another drop. But I got to say, whoop that trick, probably the, like,

has a longer life as a Memphis Grizzly song than it does as the song from hustle and flow. They've been playing that for years, if not decades now. I stand by the movie, actually, too. I'm just saying I had that DVD in college and yeah like Terrence Howard like great movie smoker

like the way he lights a cigarette and takes a drag like you could tell that dude is actually smoking a few meters in his life so should have should have won the Oscar just off of that see that's what we're going to lose with Gen Z it's going to be great movie vapors but nobody can smoke a cigarette anymore you know it's true but look 15% less cool um all right well we We already covered the Grizzlies series. Let's move on to the Bucks and Celtics. Bucks 110, Celtics 107. The last five minutes maybe were incredible,

some of the most exciting basketball plays that I've seen in a really long time. Where do we start? I guess Holiday. Yeah, we got to start with Holiday. But Rob, just, you have the floor, my friend. I mean, to have the gumption to make the defensive play that Drew Holiday does here,

in his minute 41 of this game to have the complete focus to have basically one of the best blocks I've ever seen just in terms of execution in that moment in that play and as far as plays that matter just incredible stuff and Drew Holiday had to say overall played probably about as well as a human being

can possibly play while shooting 39% from the field like this was a total Drew Holiday game he missed a lot of shots you would have hoped that he would make or you would hope that he would make he made some mistakes but he's such like a workhorse for that team in terms of minutes and responsibility and obviously coming through with these huge defensive plays and clutch moments.

I think the bucks are a really underrated clutch team somehow. Like the energy that Drew and Janice have in the final minute of games is just so much higher than pretty much anybody else in the league that they turn out to have these incredible plays as a result of it. So I'm watching the end of this game

where Drew Holiday is just like literally taking people's lunch money And I'm reminded of Andre Agudala, ironically, because I remember it was years ago. Somebody did a profile on him. I can't remember who. And the profile is explaining all the film work he does to study guys' tendencies, how he's in tune with the numbers. Like, yo, you push a guy right and he takes a pull-up.

He's liable to make this percentage, yada, yada, yada, yada. And then at the end of it, he's like, and I'm not even the best person in the league. true holiday. And I couldn't, like, I couldn't, like, that stuck with me in his moment where people are giving him his flowers, right? Like, this shiny profile about how actually great and important Agu Dala is, he was like, look, man, true holiday is on another planet. And so watching this game, I'm just reminded of that, the strips.

Like, his hands are so freaking strong where, like, it's almost as if he's got super glue on his hands. And if he's anywhere near that thing, he's taking it. And just the upper body strength, lower body strength, constantly moving his feet, his anticipation. It's just crazy. And then, you know, of course, because on the offensive end is not quite as exhilarating or his exhilarating in that you never know what's going to happen.

Absolutely. But, man, he made a huge three down the stretch. He was just, you know, it was just championship resolve, I got to say. just watching the bucks. Because after Horford got that put back, I was like, okay, this thing, Boston has wrestled control of the series finally. I feel like, you know, coming out of game five, you've got home court, and you're up three two.

You're probably going to take this series for them to come back. Janice, at least making one of those free throws, the offense, like, just everything they did down the stretch to actually pull this out was incredible. Yeah, Drew really ripped everything away from not only Marcus Smart, but the Boston Celtics. And I don't think there's any argument that the block was the best play of the game. Not only did he block him, but he managed to corral it immediately, like, Hakeem, Kareem style, where it's like you didn't just send it out of bounds, but you actually took control of possession, which, like, to have the presence of mind to do that is absolutely incredible.

And just like the force where he just ripped it from him was just like so viscerally, like, enjoyable. But what was probably the more demoralizing play for Marcus Smart there? That block or the steel to end the game because while the steel wasn't as nice of a play, to have it happened to him again must have been like one of the most crushing moments of his entire life. I mean, that block though, like Marcus Smart afterwards goes palms up, look into his bench, look into the rep. I wasn't sure if he was asking for a foul or if it was just bewilderment as to what had just happened. I'm just not going to get over that block for a long time. That's...

Yeah, and the steal is cool because it's like, do they foul, you know, up three or do they let him take a heave or what's the deal? Drew Holley's like, no, you just steal it. Option C. He just steal the ball and end the game. That was incredible. But yeah, watching Drew and Janice, who I know we're going to get into, I was just incredible, man.

and Janice is doing everything that he can. And, you know, this team is a little bit limited, of course, without Middleton. And just personnel generally, it's not like they have a bunch of guys who are just finding Janice in the pocket, getting him the ball in the most optimal positions, catching him on the move, all of that. Janice has to do all of this stuff either in transition or starting his drives 25 feet out, i.e. like, the plays that take the most energy to do. And that's how he's getting all his buckets.

And he's finding a way to bring it on defense. This guy's just, he's incredible. Like I said it before, and I'll say it again. I thought Yokic was the MVP of the regular season. I don't really think there was a huge argument about that. But the best playoff player in the NBA is Janus Ante Coupo. Like he shows it night after night at this point.

Yeah, it didn't seem like it was going to go that way. At least for like the first couple quarters, the two telltale signs, I think, of a mixed Yonest game because there aren't bad Yonis games anymore. They're just like less good ones. Five three point attempts. He was two for five from three.

And when he's taking more threes, you start to wonder, is the rest of the box not giving him enough? So he has to force those shots. They're like mix up the defense, create a little bit more spacing for himself. And TNT also had this other stat. 18 offensive fouls in this postseason

that's the most for any player. Obviously, the goal for any defense is the crowd, Janus, and to like just block his path to the rim because once he gets there, it's going to be, no question he's probably going to make it. But, you know, it wasn't going well. And then all of a sudden he does what he does most of the time, even though he is like battled in the face,

even though Grant Williams and Al Horford probably doing the best job on Janus that I've ever seen. He ends up with 40 points, 11 rebounds, three assists. There's seven turnovers in there, but just like when they need him, he kind of just wills it. It's just like it's hard to really argue that this guy is the best player in the world right now. Well, not only that, I think he's just one of the best guys to watch. You know, in terms of night to night, getting exciting plays you don't expect. You have no idea what he's going to do.

He's one of those guys that from the time he picks up his dribble, you just have no idea how he's going to take his strides to get to the rim, and that leads to some incredibly explosive plays. But one of the things that this series has really highlighted for me is his change of direction. Like his ability to pick, only getting better at it, but to pick up his dribble, he has Horford in front of him a lot of the time, or Grant Williams, and he's kind of glancing past one of their shoulders because he's able to just completely shift gears. And that means it's either going to be a defensive foul, or he's just going to extend for a layup, pretty much on every occasion.

And you can't even give him baseline doing that either because, as we saw in this game, he can do wraparound, reverse layups and one with contact. No big deal. I'm just, I'm in awe watching him play. I mean, in this series so far, 34 points, 14 rebounds, 7 assists per game averaging. That's pretty good against the best defense in the NBA. And against a team that really, despite having as many good defensive wings and as many mobile defensive bigs as anybody,

they're just out of answers. They just don't have anyone who can really shut him down. And so they're left with, as you were mentioning, Justin, like trying to draw offensive fouls, trying to put the refs in 50, 50 positions. And Janus is going to take those a lot of the time. Like if he's running full speed into someone, he's going to force the refs to make really difficult calls,

and he's going to get a lot of them. Did you see toward the end of the game where it seemed like at one point, Al Horford and Grant Williams linked hands, hands across America style. When Janice was running the break, I'm like, what is going on here? Rob, I think you raised out of good points. Just like he's obviously been one of the most dominant forces around the rim for years now.

But let me throw this at you guys. Is he now like one of the most crafty scorers at the rim? Like Kyrie style. I just don't remember him having this bag, as the kids say, of being able to contort himself in order to go up and under. go around, and also just like use his length in order to surprise a lot of defenders. It seems like he'll just like all of a sudden shoot out and he's already at the rim. And I don't think even guys who've guarded him for years now, like are ready for it.

And it's almost like they just don't expect someone to be this giant of a human to be this long. And I think he utilizes that in much more like crafty and genuitive ways than ever before. That can't be true though, because Janus isn't skilled. You know, as we've become painfully aware, this is not a skilled player. Yeah, and, you know, to bring it to the sort of macro level, I think Boston, again, these guys are going to have nightmares at night when they think about the result of this game because it's not just that they had it. It's the way that they lost it, which was all of these goddamn extra possessions,

where they're just getting hammered on the boards. And if you just take care of that defensive glass, you know, just best. better, your half-court defense takes you home. Like, Milwaukee is still, like, a lot of times they're just doing this station-to-station stuff. And it's just like, Janis, Drew, do something, take us home. And that doesn't always get it done. And, you know, you got to shore that stuff up.

And then conversely, man, the bucks avoiding half-court not just by crashing the boards, but they had some great stuff in transition today, which we say. over and over again when you're playing against the two best freaking defenses in the NBA, just walking it up and ficking and tossing the ball around the perimeter is not going to get you a bunch of great looks. You got to do it in transition, semi-transition, crashing the offensive glass. And, you know, the switching defense is great because you keep your man in front. But oftentimes what you're doing is you're switching smaller guys onto bigger guys and you're getting pounded on the offensive glass.

So that's sort of a give and take. That's a little bit of a chess match that we've been watching all series long. And this has just been a bona fide classic. Yeah, I mean, the Celtics, the Celtics were at 14 points with about 10 minutes left in this game and just went full on prevent offense basically, running clock. It was very strange. Giving up some of the same kinds of transition looks that, you know, drew one underrated part of his game is an excellent hit-ahead passer.

Like he is at that, you know, in that Kyle Lowry sphere of always looking for Janus, but also also looking for Pat Conantin and West Matthews and whoever, he got a free bucket in this game because Grayson Allen was standing baseline. The entire Celtics defense was set and they just weren't looking and he got a free layup after just threading a pass to him through it. And so I'm thinking about that play. I'm thinking about Janus hitting his three in this game, all these kind of backbreaking individual plays.

By the way, the first three was a big one, too, because it either took it from 11 to 8 or 12 to 9. One of those two, we're like, obviously we understand that like, whatever, it's just another three. But there's just a feeling you get when you take the lead from 12 to under double digits. Like, it just teams get tighter.

Like, you see it all the time. And he just spot up three, swished it. And I was like, damn, the bucks were, they just, refuse to die. Definitely an Undertaker game for them today. They had it. Like, whether there's the transition stuff, whether it was the offensive rebounding we were talking about.

They just had the energy edge through a lot of this game. But shout out to Bobby Portis, man. He almost kind of lost them the game at some points. When he freaking, like, somehow gets wide open on the baseline. And I think it was Connitin who looped a beautiful pass over the top of the defender right in this man's bread basket and he just smoked it just absolutely smoked it he loses the ball going up nobody in front of him three feet from the basket i was like wow what a goat but then of course gets the offensive rebound put back psycho b that was like oh b incredible we love it well he's

the offensive rebound and goat i mean seven offensive rebounds in this game the bucks were all over the offensive glass and i don't know i mean yonis missing that free throw turned out to their benefit. Maybe Janus missing free throws all this time was just a long con leading to this moment for Bobby Portis to swoop in and win this thing. Yeah, I mean,

Portis just has those like little flip shots around the hoop, that short jumper, and he hits enough of those where, and he always seems to make like the big plays. Like, I don't know. Like, obviously Brooke Lopez is essential to what the bucks do, especially on, especially on defense.

But I don't know. just something about that front court with Janus and Portis just feels like it fits, especially in the crunch time minutes. Should we talk about the Celtics now? Yeah. I think the big question here is, can they get over this? Right. Because I think we were preparing to have this podcast and wonder if this was the Celtics big

moment, right? It seemed like that their collective length was just frustrating the bucks for most of the game. Holiday in particular, it seemed like Jalen Brown, although he had some really rough plays, like was doing enough, providing enough supplementary scoring next to Tatum. Tatum was having a decent game. And then it all kind of fell apart. And now I don't know where to leave them. So as we're looking kind of ahead here was, like, how are you feeling about the Celtics,

in particular, perhaps their mental state? I don't watch this game and think that the Celtics somehow don't have what it's takes to win the next two. I guess mentally this has got to be draining, but just look at the tape, man. When you guys played straight up against these guys, y'all got the better opportunities of it and were just better. Now, again, the effort stuff, the junkyard dog stuff where people are just beating you to the spot, beating you up on the offensive boards, I think that stuff that gets cleaned

up, but traditionally in the playoffs, those advantages get muted. So I still think that they can mute those types of advantages Both in transition and on the offensive boards And you know I just think Tatum can play smarter man like you know Some of this Kobe system stuff you know the the freaking the step back twos I just don't I'm just not really here for it and sometimes even when he's going to the rack He's driving into three guys is it's just like yo like just play just a little bit smarter,

be more sound, and I think they can do this. I still think the Celtics are going to ultimately win this in seven games. I really do. And that's not just me being stubborn about my pick and wanting to look smart. I think they've shown

that when they're solid, they're better than this iteration of the box. Boston Waz over here. Ha! Yeah, I think the question for them is less a mentality thing. and more the size issues that they have right now with their limited depth.

So long as Rob Williams can't play, you look at this team, and the really only decision points are, are we going to stretch Grant Williams into heavy minutes, or are we going to play Peyton Pritchard a lot, or are we going to throw Derek White in there? Derek White was good today, by the way. He had a good game.

He had a good game, but this is against a team that is going to play monsters at the 4 and 5. And that's how you get this offensive rebounding deficit. That's how you get the points in the paint deficit. It just leads to these problems that, especially when you're switching as much as Boston is, you get anybody but Horford or Williams on Janus,

and they're cooked. Even Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum can't guard him. So there's just so many places for Milwaukee's offense to go, especially when Rob Williams is out of the lineup. And so they need him. He wasn't even great when he has played in this series, but they just need size so badly. And both of these teams,

are super shallow. But you see the difference between someone like Janus and someone like Jason Tatum at this point in their careers, which is if you have Janice, it just doesn't matter that you're going to play

George Hill 13 minutes and he's not going to be good. It just doesn't matter that you're going to put Grayson Allen out there and he's going to get head hunted in every mismatch because you have Janice.

It's going to put up 40 points on 27 shots. And on the other side, you're just hoping to keep this thing together with seven dudes in duct tape, basically. And it's hard.

It's hard to do that unless everyone is playing lights out. Thunder legend, George Hill, across the lines from Thunder Legend, Al Horford. He's become a legend of a lot of franchises. Like Cavs legend, George Hill, obviously Pacers and Spurs legend, George Hill. He's making some legendary rounds over the last couple of years. I think there are a lot of people who are very surprised

that he's giving 13 playoff minutes, probably including some people on his own team. Yeah, I guess the one advantage the Celtics have with this lineup without having perhaps the size and an unwillingness, it seems probably rightfully so, to go back to the Thys, Horford's starting unit, is that when Lopez isn't killing you and isn't giving much offensively like he was in this game, you can play a little bit smaller. And it seemed to work for the most part. Like, I don't know, Grant Williams is probably the most effective Janus defender. I wanted to have this

conversation with you guys. Is like, who is even on the short list of, of guys who flustered Janus before. You might say that, but I'm looking at NBA.com's advanced stats for the game. And today, Grant Williams had the worst defensive rating of anybody on the team, right? And obviously, that's not going to be all Grant Williams, but it's not as if they got their best results. And I just think if the series has gone on, the longer it has, Janice has figured out his best mode of attack against, you know, all of the Boston defenders.

So I think Grant Williams is doing a good enough job. You can't, like, you can't expect him to hold Janus to what they did in the first two games. Like, I'm sorry, the guy, it's, that's not how this works. Like, he's the most dominant player in the game. So I really think they just got to be better. Again, both on the boards, but like offensively just not be so boneheaded. Sometimes they get off against the Grayson Allen's, which is like when you're attacking Grayson Allen one-on-one, I'm fine with it.

But sometimes they get out of this stuff and become very, you know, isolation-heavy. I think they just need to be smarter about how they're attacking on offense. And this thing will be fine. Yeah, I don't know that there are many better options than that than Grant Williams. and I agree with was that the longer Yana sees it, the more solvable it's going to feel. And the other thing, too, is on the other side of that. I think you felt the offensive limitations of Grant Williams in this game. He's really just kind of a spot shooter.

And with all the length they have on the floor, every time he goes inside, he just feels blanketed. He's passing out. I mean, it's kind of his game. But there just aren't a lot of places that he can go. And so credit to him for playing incredible defense. I'm with you. I think he's one of the best options for defending Yannas. It's probably him.

I mean, BAM is very. very good and yet look what happened to the heat when the bucks played them you know that's just kind of life playing the bucks right now is you can do a great job on yannis and you still end up getting trampled the Celtics did not attempt a three in the fourth quarter i think that kind of says everything right there like like you said deroguil didn't have an awful offensive game but this was the fear for the solstice coming into the playoffs so they have so many guys who are just kind of average offensive players probably give you a little bit of stretch here and but if they're not making buckets,

you're relying on Hero Ball Tatum, and you just didn't get that done the stretch. Well, shout out to the one guy who I thought was pretty good for them offensively in a distinct way tonight, which was Jalen Brown. Like his third quarter run, incredible, incredible explosive shot making. And he was the next few games, man.

This is his third straight game of looking like, you know, like he's supposed to. Yeah, and that's part of the recipe, right? Because on the other end, the box shooters were falling flat. for most of this game, especially in the first half. I think they only shot like two for 18 in the second quarter, everyone except for Janus.

And I think on the one hand, it's possible that they just don't hit those shots throughout the course of the game. Maybe they just have a bad shooting. On the other hand, they did bounce back because they do have a lot of credible shooters. So I don't know, man. I don't know where I stand. Obviously, I think I would put my money on the bucks right now.

I don't know if I would make that my Fandul pick of the week. but it's going to be a tough series victory no matter who comes up. Do you guys have like, are you leaning one way or the other? I mean, it's hard not to lean Milwaukee. I know, I know Waz is standing on the pick, but I like... No, I mean, yeah, they have two games to win one. Like, they have to be favored to win the series at this point. I just, I don't know.

I think there's just something about Boston that I just think they could get it done. Luck of the Irish. They definitely can get it done. But shout out to Bobby Porter's Pat Connettin. Championship frickin' role players, man. Those guys just make huge plays. Conantin did the most damage on Janus. Yeah, friendly fire aside, maybe.

And Conantin, man, doing this to his fellow countrymen over there in Boston is just, chef's kiss. The playoffs are heating up, and you can make every game feel like games, seven on Fandul's Sportsbook, an official partner of the NBA. Throughout the playoffs, all customers can place a no sweat, same game parlay, each week. You'll get up to $20 in free bets. If you don't win, Fandul has so many ways to play. And best of all, when you do win, you'll get paid faster than a

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1-800- Next Step or text next step to 5334-2 in Arizona. 1-888-8-8-8-9-7-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut, 1-8009 with it in Indiana, 1-8777-7-70 stop in Louisiana, 1-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope NY to 467-369 in New York, Tennessee Redline, 1-800-889-8-8-1-8-8-5-2-4-7-0 in Wyoming, or visit www. www.com.com. gambler.net in West Virginia. All right, I guess we actually have to talk about this Warriors Grizzlies game.

Final score, Memphis 134, Golden State 95. Ugly to Tyrone Hill, JV. I'll take your word for it. All right, I guess, uh, Waz, what the fuck happened here?

Uh, just the second game in a row with the Warriors just gave minimal effort. It's kind of crazy to watch the, games and Andrew Wiggins is the guy that's playing the hardest, right? Like, and I was talking to, I was talking this on the Warriors anyway, and I was talking to Sabrina about this. I shout to Sabrina Merchant.

We were texting during the game, but she was like, it's probably because, like, he wasn't around for the championships, so he hasn't built up this level of arrogance that the rest of the Warriors so clearly possessed, right? Like, you guys barely got out of that game. Like, barely got out of it the game before. And they came out and they just sleptwalked. And Memphis was at home. Their crowd was super into it.

They weren't trying to go out there and get punked. They loathed this team, obviously with all the chirping that we've seen back and forth through the media, through social media, et cetera, et cetera. And they just punched these guys in the mouth. They made a bunch of threes to start the game. and the Warriors just, look, you give up 80 points to a John Morant less Memphis Grizzlies team, and you were one of the top three defenses in the NBA all year. I don't know what to think about your effort today, except for that you didn't bring it.

Yeah, between the defensive effort and the first half turnovers, that was basically the game. You know, if they were just coughing up way too many possessions, and especially when you look at a box score and Draymond has a lot of turnovers, Usually what's happening is guys aren't moving the way they're supposed to or they're trying to do way too much. In this one, I think it was guys just were not moving the way they were supposed to. And so he's overpassing in some of those situations. They're not connected. They're not in sync in terms of what those feeds are supposed to be.

What a disaster. I mean, this has to be one of the weirdest results of any playoff game in recent memory. I thought this thing was going to go to 50. I tried to coin the phrase the Dremon on Twitter as I was trying to kill time for this game to finally finish. Five points, five assists, five rebounds, five turnovers, five missed threes. I'll accept five personal fouls as well, which is what he had in this game. It hasn't been good. It's probably not a good sign when your future Hall of Famer, your defensive captain, whatever you want to call him, is like necking neck with Damien Lee for like points scored

in a given game. I mean, I know people have talked about this. I think Bill's been on this a little bit, but like, Dremont's been pretty bad, you know, offensively. And he's kind of on tilt a little bit defensively getting into a lot of scraps with a lot of different people, some friendly fire, some like ones that were not his fault. But like, I don't know. This is like one of those things where I'm like a little, it's a little bit too much Dremont, you know, too much bad Dremont.

And I don't know, are you guys as worried? Well, they're not guarding him at all, you know, just aggressively. so at this point. This is always the interesting thing as teams play the Warriors is the deeper you go into the series, you either get so spooked by the handoffs to Steph that you end up over guarding Dremont or you're just backing way, way, way off. And I think Memphis is in that position where they have so many athletes, they have so much like ability to cover ground and so many active defenders. They don't really mind doing that at all. And so they were able to muck up so much stuff in this game just by playing off that kind of basic premise.

And I'm not the first, obviously, to mention this. They're a better team defensively when Jha isn't playing. Yeah. So, you know, we knew they were going to be just better at guarding what Golden State wants to do. I'm so, like, I don't really care about Dremont, not, like, them doing the sag off of Dremont, because I think he's figured out, even if he doesn't, like, they've got such good energy on the perimeter. if Stephen, what's his name? Stephen Adams is sagging way into the paint,

then Draymond is going to, not only is going to chip the dude that's trailing the step screen. If he doesn't get him good enough, you're going to chip him again and then give it to Steph, right? Like, I think they get good stuff out of that because Draymond just understands it. My problem with Jermont is when he has the ball five feet from the basket and refuses to shoot.

Not great. To me, that's a bigger issue as far as record scratches against Golden State than him, you know, sort of navigating and letting his off-ball guys of which he has three now to play with, even though Clay, like, he looks kind of slow lately, to be honest. I'm not too worried about that. I just think they need to understand that they're going to have to win this on defense. They're going to close this team out by denying, you know,

John Morant's Pipps efficient offense. So, no, and I don't know. the hubris of being like, oh, whatever, I'll close it out in game six, as if Steph can't roll an ankle or Draymond can't hurt himself or something like that. And then your whole season is over. I just don't understand warriors, hubris, and arrogance. But this has been them for seven years now, eight years actually. So I guess we shouldn't be too surprised either. Yeah, I love that Steph finally stepped out there and talked some shit. And then I also love that the warriors got wrecked immediately afterwards.

Everything about this game was kind of perfect. Yeah, I mean, I guess the only bigger concern here is if we're going to assume that they just go into this next round is, are they just like too small? And did the Grizzlies just show like what a bigger team can do by pushing them around? Because the Suns, as we know, are a pretty large team, not only just at every position, but like they've even been toying around with Javelle McGee, DeAndre, in like junk lineup. So it's like things aren't going to get easier for the Warriors in that regard.

And I'm kind of like, are they a little too finettes, you know? I understand that concern because even if you watch the first round, the Warriors defense was troublesome. It was worrisome watching them play. And you realize that they have one elite defender on the entire roster and that's Jemann. This isn't your daddy's warriors, right? where they're throwing out Jemann,

they're throwing out Bogit, they're throwing out Iggy, they're throwing out even Clay and Harry Barnes. And Steph, who is not, he was the worst defender, and he's a good defender, right? Or he was anyway, back in those days, this is not that. This team is basically putting it together by duct tape. I think that's the, there's a self-awareness there with Kerr as to why he's playing comminga bigger minutes, right?

it's that they recognize they need to become more athletic at all positions. Because like, let's face it, Clay, what he is right now ain't that. Jordan Poole defensively doesn't provide that, right? And so they're putting this thing together barely on the defensive end. And yeah, I think that's a major, major concern for them. Yeah, I don't think they can afford to look forward at all. Like, they can't even talk about the Suns right now. You give up a game like this.

The Christie's obviously deserved your full attention. And I think especially as Desmond Bain has gotten healthier, it's really changed this series. Like just the fact that he could go from back injury to at one point he got tripped up on a fast break running full speed and just hopped right back up. That is a magical transformation in health and ability.

And obviously he's just much more capable. He's a guy who needs to be in movement to be effective. And they need him in such a big way. I think he's had a really nice bounce back in the series as he's gotten healthier. Desmond Bain plus 46. Jaron Jackson Jr. plus 42. Still had three fouls somehow just because he had to get those.

Brooks plus 38, Tyos Jones, plus 39. I mean, I think the big question is like, how are the Grizzlies this good without John Moran? It's kind of been the lingering question. Practice, I think. Practice. Yeah. Or are they like 20 and 2 without Morant?

I mean, it's one of those discussions where I think you immediately want to throw it out because obviously a team isn't better literally without their best player. But like, I think you get a little bit more from everybody. And I do wonder if they are very, very good still without Moran. And so, I don't know, Rob, where do you fall on that? Obviously, they're better with a job. But they're a team that especially when you, when this happens randomly in the middle of a series or in the middle of a regular season, it's like how do you adjust your game plan from being very conscious of the hyper-athletic

guard on the floor to you look at this team who are you zeroing in on like who is your top defensive priority are you going to like lock up tyus jones at the point of attack because even if you do it doesn't really matter like he'll maneuver around other guys will take on more ball handling there's such an adaptive team i think is what makes them good without jaw like there's not when he's not on the floor so many guys touch the ball and they move it so well and all of them can kind of handle and kind of attack and kind of pass. And it leads to this really cohesive thing that on top of the fact that obviously they play a lot of energy, obviously they're looking to push the pace and hit the offensive glass and do all the Grizzlies things,

that it just works in that context. And that doesn't lead necessarily to a 40 to 50 point win in most cases, but it makes you competitive in games that you really have no right to be competitive in. Yeah, I absolutely don't think that they're better without job. but yeah, Rob put it beautifully. They're not, they play with a level of cohesion and they do have shit that they run, right?

And, you know, it sounds trite, but they run it hard. They're not just going through the motions. They're not like, oh, we're playing the three-time champs. We're down three-one. We're going to get our asses kicked. Like, no, like, we're coming out here. We're going to screen very hard.

We're going to fucking run. When we're running off of screens, we're going to cut that angle at the shoulder fucking perfectly. Like they do all these little things very well. And like I said, they're better on defense. So like, you know, like that comes, they bring themselves up on that level. And yeah, you catch a team that's veteran and that's like, oh, we don't have to take these young guys seriously. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

They could do it. But no, they're not better. I think when the, if the warriors actually execute a fucking. game plan, right, a scouting report, and not let, you know, say Jared Jackson get to his fucking right shoulder every single time he catches the ball down there. Like, I think they could actually do something as crazy as that might sound after getting smoked by 50. But with this game brought to the four for me was everyone left in the playoffs right now is really good. All the teams are really good and no one is completely trustworthy. Like, you just never know when one of these

teams is going to throw up an absolute stinker. You know, the Sixers got absolutely destroyed by the heat last night. Just absolutely destroyed. And it's like every team feels like they have that potential right now. Like, if you told me that the Celtics show up and they lose by 25 to 30 points, I believe that that's a possibility given their offense. All right. Well, let's look to some teams that don't have the benefit of making the playoffs.

Because as we've been going through these playoffs, some offseason storylines, it's a bit burbling, not a lot, but there's been enough here. And I just want to check in on a couple things. So I have with you, my friends, with us, five off-season storyline, but we're only going to get to three because we're going to play a little off-season roulette. I'm going to ask my friends here to pick a number between one and five, and then we'll go with that assigned storyline.

So, Rob, why don't you kick us off? What number do you want to go with? Four? Question mark? Should I look, should I cheat and look at the numbers so I can pick these things out? I don't know. But I'll take four. I don't even know what it is.

Rob, this is destiny. You know what number four is? I just looked and I regret it already. It's our friend, Zach Levine. Carlos, I think we have a drop we could use for this one. Absolutely not. Guys, this is not going to happen. Okay, yeah.

So Brian Winhorse, another friend of the pod, in addition to Zach Levine, friend of the pod, on a recent episode of the Hoop Collective, dropped this little tidbit that the Portland Trailblazers have in quotes, popped up as a potential landing spot for the two-time All-Star Levine from the Pacific Northwest. And if Seattle doesn't have a team yet, why not go to Portland, right? Winhorst, this is a specific quote. Let me just say that as I've talked to league executives, when they saw what Levine said

and what they see the Blazers can do, that scenario has popped up. So there to work with. But Rob, how are you feeling about the chase? for Zach Levine now in week two? Are you still feeling as confident that he will return to the Bull? I feel better than ever. Why would you go play for this Blazers team over the Bulls?

Dame Lillard? That's it. That's the only justification for it. It's Dame Lillard. But I don't know that... And then Simons, who I love, kind of plays the position now. It's a weird fit, you know,

And Josh Hart there too had a really strong stint after he got traded there. Like it seemed like there's a lot of competition for the minutes you would probably want. Or if you're Portland, you're locked into playing three kind of undersized guards again, which is just a hell of a way to reincarnate the flaws of your previous roster. I don't think you get Josh Hart actually because I think you actually have to waive his non-guaranteed contract in order to sign Zach Levine to a max. So you're getting Damien Lillard, you're getting Anthony Simons, you're getting Zach. Levine, maybe Nurkich back. And then honestly, it sounds like a very bad idea for everybody.

Can you name Rob another Blazer who is signed the next season? Is Justice Winslow still under contract? I think Justice Winslow is, yeah. Okay. Well done. I think Eric Bledsoe is, but again, is he? Did he ever, did he ever report, though? I don't think he was ever technically, like he doesn't have the jersey, is what I'm saying.

He's still in the salon. in Phoenix. Yeah, it's a pretty bleak setup, and I don't really get the Blazers approach overall. It seems like just based on all the burbling going around the league, is that they're hoping for a quick reset, right? They cleared the decks. They have money to play with.

Jeremy Grant, another rumored guy that they're potentially interested in. Simultaneously, they also re-signed interim GM, Joe Cronin, and Jason Quick of the athletic had a pretty skis. gaving article the other day basically suggesting that they really didn't consider a lot of other options. They just brought guys back and that might be a telltale sign that maybe a sale of the team is in the offing. But I guess that's neither here nor there. But like, I don't know, man. What do you guys, Waz think about like the Blazers quick reset here? It's hard. And like, everything seems so tenuous. And, um,

up in the air, right? Like, dame is due for an extension. We don't know what's going on with that. And the reason why Bing up Dame is because last summer, him and his people floated the idea that he might, you wouldn't be mad at a trade, right? So it's not like the Dame thing is, like, it's not nailed down.

You know, the furniture isn't nailed down with the dame situation. Of course, they've been talking about this sale for a while. Paul Allen's sister doesn't seem to be. somebody who's as obsessed with hoop as Paul Allen was. And so that, and again, when new ownership comes in, they want to do their own freaking thing, always. And that's top to bottom from management to roster and all of that. It just seems like everything is up in the air until they figure out all of this stuff.

Like, if you sign Dame to an extension, all right, cool. dames here. We know we got that and we're going to move accordingly. You sell the team. All right, cool. We got new ownership. And they're going to be like, all right, we either cleaning house or investing in Dane. But until like all of this stuff figures itself out.

And you wonder, are you even empowered to sign Dane to a long-ass extension if you're shopping this team to potential buyers? Like, there's so many questions left to be answered with this franchise right now. And that's not even getting into. We don't really know how good Joe Cronin is at his job yet. Like it's a pretty limited sample as an interim. Kind of, I would say, mixed results in terms of what they got back in some of those deals to kind of liquidate their previous team. They had Chauncey Bellups as a head coach.

I guess they're committed to him. Maybe one of the worst coaches in the NBA last season in terms of X's and O's, like did not cover himself in glory, I wouldn't say, despite obviously that roster had its own issues and dames injured, all that stuff. But not a team that overperformed given its circumstances. there's just questions everywhere. And the question kind of circling all this is if this is where Dame wants to be, what reason does he have faith in this organization to do right by him

and to do the right things and to move forward in the right ways? And maybe that's where they're banking on, okay, let's like promote who's already been here. There's a relationship. There's a bond. Let's lean on something established versus trying to get someone completely new in here that's probably going to have to reset the whole deal. Yeah, this isn't, this is like the anti, like, I think of meddlesome owners like Jerry Jones or Mark Cuban. Like this is the anti that these dudes are just like, yeah, we got an intro.

We're not going to try to get another one. But yeah, oh, shoot. There's another season next year. Oh, yeah, just keep the job. Just keep it pushing. Like, this is straight up absentee, like straight up nobody's at the wheel of this thing, ownership right here. By comparison, Detroit doesn't seem so bad now, huh? All I'm going to say.

Motor City, baby. All right, Wise, do you want to take a spin on the roulette? Four is gone. We're going one to what? One to five. One to five? Give me number three. Because it was just the Allen Iverson practice anniversary.

So give me number three there. It was indeed. The Kings have hired Mike Brown. as their head coach, someone who's streak was just snapped in the playoffs after what a magical performance on the Warriors bench tonight. Just a little tidbit to throw out there. This is the fourth former Golden State head coach

that Vivek has signed. The pipeline is real. Yeah, Mike Malone, eventually Alvin Gentry, Luke Wall, and now Mike Brown, obviously Vivek was a minority owner with the Warriors before. He took over in Sacramento, So how are we feeling about this was?

Like, do you have any faith in Mike Brown? So it's complicated, right? Like, on the one hand, I'm happy that Mike Brown gets to be a retread as a black NBA coach, right? Like, it's nice when a black NBA coach gets to have some of the luxuries of what white guys get in the league. So it's like Mike Brown getting his fourth or fifth job, whatever. as a head coach. That's pretty heartening stuff. That being said,

Mike Brown has never demonstrated that he was good at NBA head coaching. He was solid coaching the Cleveland defense. I will say that. The first time, exactly. He was good with those LeBron groups. Those were elite defensive teams. And it's not like they were brimming with, you know,

out-the-jim athletes that weren't LeBron, like even Andy V was sort of an IQ guy. So I've never seen Mike Brown demonstrate himself to be good. That being said, Jason Kidd was trash. He was terrible. And it's terrible at both of his stops. And, you know, I think he got better. I think that the pudding.

Absolutely. When you watch, we don't think of coaching coaches as people who are able to improve the way we do a second or third year player. But coaches can improve. And so I think the best case scenario is that he's seen all of this winning in Golden State. He's been, you know, at the front seat of it for all of these years. Maybe the hope is that he's soaked up a lot of this championship game

and he can bring some of that to Sacramento. I have my doubts. But, you know, that would be the hope if you're a Sacramento fan. I actually think Mike Brown's like a perfectly solid coach who gets kind of a bad rap and look at that Lakers job he did for example where he just got unceremoniously canned for kind of no reason

he came after Phil Jackson took a team that was okay a little old, a little shallow did some okay things with it I think that's kind of his way. You're selling it. No like I think he's very good at getting your team to competence

and the Kings need a whole lot of that. And frankly, like, the bar is so low. Like, Mike Brown's like a career 60-something percent win coach. Let's, this, this, this, this, chill. I'm just saying. He got the prime years of the best and second best or third best player in the history of the sport. Yeah.

Boobie Gibson number two on that list, yeah. I'm just saying to compare that to the Kings who have had one winning season. in a decade plus, you know? I think what's tough for him and tough for Sacramento in general is I think he could be one of the most or more successful coaches in recent King's history

and they could also be 11th or 12th place in the Western Conference next season. It's like, look at the West and tell me which of those teams that were in the top 10 this year are going to fall out. And then you have to account for the fact that, you know, the Lakers are presumably going to be better.

The Blazers are presumably going to be better. Where is it that the Kings are going to fit into this. Well, I mean, they've got, you know, Arvita Sabonis' kid who's an All-Star and just, you know, just a godsend. That's what I was told by everybody. They were fun.

Who got on my nerves for being a, uh, because I was a Miles Turner, Truther. This guy with the Sacramento. And like, I think we see what the freaking peak of your team can be when this guy is very prominently involved. I don't know what he's supposed to do with that squad. Yeah, I think they do have something offensively there with Sabonis and Fox. like a fast break connection, guys who could play inside out off of each other.

I guess if you're looking at this, if they're going to make any sort of improvement, it would be on the defense event because they do have guys who ostensibly, or at the very least have a track record of playing okay defense. Like Fox, there's a defender in there somewhere, maybe back in college, but, you know, it was there. Davian Mitchell made his bones on defense. You know, like Justin Holliday's there. I think if you're going to make chicken salad out of this roster,

I think you bone up on defense and Mike Brown is a defensive-minded coach. And then you just hope that like Subonis Fox gives you enough. I don't know if it's a recipe for like even the 10th seed in the West. But like, you know, it's something. Again, like they have a pathway. Like there's logic to what they're doing. And that's a step forward, I think. Yeah.

And they're going to have a high pick. I think what's a bummer is that they don't have a, a lot of other young talent. It really is just Davyon Mitchell for the most part, as far as guys who are pretty early in their careers. And even he is, what, 23 years old, I think at this point? Maybe almost 24 years old. 24, I think, yeah.

So they have a lot of guys who are in that, like, reaching equilibrium stage, like a Deerrin Fox, like a Domas Sabonis, which is not a bad place to be if you want to win more games, but if you're talking about the upward trajectory of this franchise, there's all the same questions that we've had for months, if not years, as far as how they're going to get better. Mike Brown will help with some of that again,

just getting them to a more professional place. But I don't know. It's hard to be very enthusiastic about Kings basketball. I'm sorry, Kings fans. All right. Let's jump to our last one here. I'm going to pick number one because this is a bit of a two-hander. The Los Angeles Lakers are out there looking for a head coach.

And according to one, Adrian Wojianowski, they have been granted the right, the right to interview another Golden State Warriors assistant, Kenny Atkinson. He joins a quite the crew of recent interviewees there in L.A., which includes Terry Stotz, former Portland Triple Laser's head coach, Adrian Griffin, and one Mark Jackson. Mark Jackson was the ostensible runner-up for the King's job. How are we feeling about the Lakers head coaching search, Rob, because this is a, The list is

overwhelming. I guess I'll say that. Well, who would you want on it that's not? Someone who has had been a head coach in the NBA in the past year, you know, might be a good start, not a guy who's been in the booth for, what, five to eight years.

And Mark Jackson, a guy in Kenny Atkinson, who was run out in Brooklyn, probably not his fault, but at the very least... They was mad he didn't play D'Andre, J. Jordan, come on. Yeah, but the very least, like, the whole thing in L.A. will be star management, and I don't

know if that's at the top of his resume. Terry Stats, who the only reason I could think of them hiring or interviewing him is because they watch winning time and they're just like, oh, yeah, offensive genius who used to be in Portland, that seems like a recipe for success. It just, I think it's a clear indication that, like, they're just not getting the pick of the litter here. They're not even giving, like, the Darwin Hams and some of the top level. assistance that have been out there interviewing for other jobs like the Charlotte Ornance, etc. Just underwhelming, you know? Well, are they not getting them or are they not asking them, I think is, and I'm honestly

not sure. Like, if I would, we need a rampish on this podcast to answer that one. I mean, we're already, we're already doing this over Zoom. We're basically the entire Laker interview operation right here. I would love Darvinham for this job. I think someone like him would be a really smart hire, like someone who has, who has done their dues as an assistant coach who's really sharp, really well-respected, former player. I think that is the kind of candidate you should want. And if they're not interviewing him, they're crazy. Because if you prefer Mark Jackson for this job over Darvinham, I don't know what

universe you're living in. I think Terry Stott's could be fine. I think that could be an okay hire. He kind of is in a Vogel zone in terms of veteran coach. He's kind of on the opposite side of things in terms of being a little bit more offensively inclined than defensively inclined. But as far as like who could make sense of a somewhat limited roster, I mean, he did that shit for years in Portland in terms of making ends meet with guys who, you know, limited

role players, guys who are out of position. I think he could do a lot of that stuff well if you're talking about this very limited pool, but you're the Lakers. Let's broaden this thing out. Let's get in a wider range of candidates, please. Man, this Lakers exceptionalism shit where just haven't ever farted in Staples. Center or the forum makes you an expert at basketball is just makes my head want to explode. And it's like, you just think about all of the Lakers people.

It's like, well, magic can be the president or, you know, Rob who used to be Kobe's agent. Or, you know, this person, it's always just like, oh, if you were ever a Laker, Byron Stott, go down the list. You're somehow, you've somehow got the magic beans and you can figure out NBA hoop. and everybody else is a fucking idiot apparently. You know, I wonder if they'll have the humility to go outside the family, but then at the same time... I mean, I'm going to stop you right there. They do not.

Exactly. And it's just like, like, what is Rob Polinka even doing there anymore? It's clear that they've just completely cut his nuts off between the rambuses and Phil Jackson and all of that. And then, of course, there's the clutch influence. And it's just like, who to even? you trust to make this decision? And so I kind of lean with what Rob is saying.

I think they do need to get a former player in there. Somebody that's going to actually tell people, like, go fuck off. Like, you know, I know what I'm doing here and can look people in the eye and garner some level of respect. I don't know. I don't like to see what kind of roster they can build because even if AD plays every game, this is not a good team. right now. So it's like you wonder who can make, you know, lemon out of lemonade or lemonade

out of lemon. They really do make lemons out of lemonade, though, over there. That's kind of their specialty. Exactly. I think the thing that's like most concerning is the coaching search kind of replicates what they've been doing with the roster, where it's like they've been reaching for retreads as opposed to like thinking outside the box and bringing in new blood. I can't speak to Adrian Griffin, and I do think, like, maybe Kenny Atkinson got a raw deal, and, like, you can maybe look at someone and see the good in them where other people have seen the bad. But just like, where are the fresh new ideas, where, how are we going to spice this up? Because more than anything, they need new blood.

But I do want to hit on what Waz talked about, because this was number two on our list here. The L.A. Times with an exclusive interview with one Jeannie Buss here, in which she explained the people in her ear, and as Waz alluded to, we got magic back in the mix. We even got our friend Phil Jackson having lunches with Jeannie talking hoops. And then Bill Plashke, who wrote the article, had this quote the other day. I think he was on a radio show. I believe it was Jim Romes. I've heard that Phil would like LeBron traded.

I've just heard that, but I've got nothing to back that up. No off the record on the record stuff to back that up. I do know that Phil would like to keep Westbrook and try to make that. work with him. So this is unverified, like complete scuttle, but probably isn't true. Having said that, I do love it.

I just love that we've officially reached the point where Phil Jackson and Stephen A. Smith have the same take, which is they need to trade LeBron. We need to pack it up and go home. This is, the problem with that team is LeBron James. Yeah.

I haven't taken a look at Russell West Purs Tuckus, but maybe, you know, Phil, he does love his big buck guy. So that's how he tends to evaluate. Whenever the conclusion is, trade LeBron, I mean, go touch grass, please. Like, please return to Earth would be my primary response to something like that. Jeannie Buss just needs new friends, man. What is worldwide wobb doing these days? Weren't they hanging out for a while?

Like, would he not be a better consultant, Phil, who hasn't been around in the game? Please relax. Please, please relax yourself right now. Please relax. Too much? Oh, man.

No, if we go go deep into the NBA fucking rumor mill and gossip mill, let's get to it. Oh, man. Shit. Let's talk about fucking Donnie Walsh running a honeypot out in Dallas. Not Donnie Walsh. Clear Donny Walsh's name. That's not him. I mean, not Donnie Walsh. Excuse me. Donnie Nelson. Sorry. Got Nix on the brain. Allegedly. Allegedly. Hey, Donnie Walsh is my dad. He's a New York City legend. My bad, Donnie Walsh.

This after dark is getting real after dark. We just got off the rails, which I love. I think we just hired Wob as the head coach of the Lakers. I don't know how that happened. Or at least the Shadow GM. Yeah, I think we know how that happened. But that's for another podcast. All right, let's wrap it there.

We'll be back same time next week, I hope, if we're still allowed on the air. Thank you to Carlos Chirboga on production for filling in this week. We'll see you next.