The Ringer NBA Show - Jimmy Goes Down (and So Do the Warriors). Plus, the Wolves’ West Finals Chances and More Playoff Future Questions | Group Chat

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Justin, Rob, and Wos are here after another night of game 2 playoff action. They start with the Rockets beating the Warriors and discuss what impact a potentially unhealthy Jimmy Butler could have on the rest of the series (3:52). Then, they take a look at some of the other series with Justin asking the guys one question about Heat-Cavs (21:12), Clippers-Nuggets, Pistons-Knicks, Pacers-Bucks, and Wolves-Lakers. Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Ben Cruz Social: Keith Fujimoto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Helphelp.com. Hello and welcome to group chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me a couple of on-court blood enthusiasts like our friend Joe Missoula, Rob Mahoney, Bigwas, gentlemen, pod two of the postseason. How you doing? Too bloody?

Not bloody enough? What is Joe Missoula's problem? And I say that in many different respects. I think it's going pretty good. It's been enjoying ourselves. Tonight was a bit of a slog. But we soldier on. You know what I mean?

Like you got to take the bad with the good. You can't have the Kauai Leonard miracle game. This is true. Without the Jimmy Butler hip and ass contusion game. So it is what it is. That's my approach to podcasting as well. Is it? You just throw the bad one.

out. What were our bad ones, do you think? Do you want to go through the whole course of them? If you got them top of mind. None come to mind, but, you know, there were some down, some fallow periods probably toward the end of the season, I would say. Maybe when we did 40 minutes on the trailblazers together and afterward, we were like, man, we probably could have gone an hour. That was tough. Even in a pod where we were clearing out for the bad

teams, that was way too much trailblazers. I apologize to everyone listening to group chat. I do not. I would do it again. I will do it again. Anyone pound any chicken Alfredo before this pod? We got to talk about this. Dude, I don't know the last time I had chicken Alfredo. It's like kind of a dish that I'm almost morally opposed to for some reason. Yeah. What's your moral standing on? Is it like all that cream?

The heavy cream of it all. It's like, I don't know. Like for some reason, like, if you put a lot of butter in something, I'm fine with it. But like, I watch people on YouTube just dumping cream into something. And I'm like, this doesn't seem right. I feel like this shouldn't be a tactic that we go to so often in the culinary game. It's like the, for context for anyone who may be far afield, we learned via the broadcast tonight that chicken off right is apparently Jalen Green's pregame meal, which I would say explains a lot about some of his performances. He's also 22. This is

true. Derek Rose was eating gummy bears for like three straight years. Like, these guys can eat anything at that age. I feel like Alfredo is kind of like the fluffer nutter of like the pasta realm. It's just like an unholy concoction that is similar enough to what you're going for.

It's also the type of thing I wonder if people see it as a go-to dish, like they see it on a menu and say, oh, I need to get that past the age of 30, right? Like, that just doesn't feel like something adult human beings are doing anymore. But hey, I might be wrong. I think it's a natural evolution.

You know, you start with a buttered noodle. You make it to a chicken Alfredo. I would just like to introduce all of you, starting with Jalen Green. Let me introduce you to our friend Carbonara, you know, a slightly elevated version of a mostly similar kind of flavor profile. Well, if you're surprised by this five minutes of pasta talk, let me, let me preview our second segment of today, which is that we're going to talk about some possible surprising. going forward.

So we're going to talk about today's Rockets and Warriors game. But then we're going to look at what types of things might surprise us based on the action we've seen thus far. That's the best way to probably present it. But first we had a game, nightcap game that we thought was going to be pretty high intense action like in game one. Unfortunately,

Jimmy Butler took a hard spill there pretty early in the game. He was out. And the game was pretty much wrapped up from there. The Warriors did their best to stay to them, some better than the other. some being maybe Pat Spencer, the others being perhaps Jonathan Cominga. Why, is this scene, unfortunately,

just like one that the Warriors had to pun after Butler went out? Yeah, this felt like that classic game two where you know the team that lost game one is going to come out with a haymaker and try to prove like, all right, we know we need this game, and we have to come out with a certain level of assertion

and authority. and aggression, quite frankly, and the Rockets did that. And it felt like the Warriors were like, okay, we've been here a million times before. We know what you guys are about to do. But we're just going to stay the course and it's going to be fine. Like, you know, the Rockets went up 10. They were up 9. And it felt like the Warriors were just like, we just keep this like within like seven points or so.

Now let this thing get too out of hand and we're going to be fine. And then, of course, Jimmy Butler, damn there, bursts his spleen on a freaking play. that he ended up shooting the free throws and did not come back. And that was just unfortunate. Yeah, and it just snowballed downhill from there. Just a really nasty fall. And we're still waiting for more news on Jimmy Butler. He's going to get an MRI.

The good news is that there are a couple of off days. I think the Warriors and the Rockets don't play again until Saturday. So maybe there's a little more time for him to be on the mend, but it did not look good. It was a really hard, really painful fall. And frankly, it's the kind of thing where even if he did come back, you could see it affecting his mobility, certainly his verticality. Like the rebound where he fell, he was skying for those kinds of rebounds in this series

so far. Like that's a different sort of Jimmy Butler that allows you to play small when he is that athletic. That's hard to do with the busted ass tailbone. Like it's really hard to do when you're in that kind of pain. So we'll have to see one, can he come back? Two, what does he even look like? And three, if he's in any kind of compromise for him, what does that mean for Golden State's

offense? That's an awful lot of trouble maintaining scoring runs without him. So they're officially calling this a pelvic contusion, which makes it the third pelvic contusion for the Warriors this season. I don't know if I've seen a single pelvic contusion, but now we've had a big three of them in Golden State. It looked more of like a tailbone hit, more of like a back butt sort of thing, but he fell super hard on it. I saw some people talk about like that was a men undercutting him almost as a dirty play. But if you look at the replay, he clearly gets pushed because in fact, Draymond ends up nudging him. him in part because Pajemski couldn't ward off Stephen Adams, who nudges Draymond,

who nudges him into a man Thompson. It was a real Domino's action that just led there. And so it's super unfortunate because I think you are worried if you're the Warriors that something like this might happen to Jimmy. It has happened in recent years that he'll just get things in dense that leave him out for a game or more than that. For this to be like the absolute flukeous situation, it's the worst possible scenario because you saw what happens when he's not in there.

They just can't replicate. is two-way value. Yeah. Well, they can't even fill the minutes, frankly. Like when you're getting into the Pat Spencer, Jonathan Cummina minutes. And granted, Brandon Pajemski was also ill for this game. He wasn't feeling 100%.

He wasn't entirely himself. But who else does goals they have to go to if Jimmy Baller can't play? I mean, we saw what this team look like with the Andrew Wiggins situation. It wasn't much better than what we saw after Jimmy went out. So I'm not surprised that they weren't able to sort of make this more competitive, especially again the Rockets are down 01 they're at home the series they know is basically over if they lose the first two at home and so it's like as early or as we are in the playoffs it's this this is a version of a do or die game for the Rockets and you know not having Jimmy under those circumstances is tough yeah so Jalen Green took the opportunity and ran the fuck away with it 38 points hit 8 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 on 18 attempts. I never know what to do, Rob, with a good jail and green performance

because there's always that nagging thing in the back of your mind. Like, there's a totem of evidence that suggests otherwise. Right. But I got to give them. They needed someone with pop. Obviously, they had the size advantage that bore out in the first two games. But to have this, I mean, I guess is it replicable? Is the big question here?

I don't think IMA O'Doka knows what to do with the good jail and green game sometimes. Like the rocket's existence. are trying to figure out who Jalen Green is. And to get to see him do this in a playoff moment, and an important one, as you outlined was, that's huge, right? This is a really important data point for Jalen Green's career. The shooting kind of is what it is,

and he's going to streak one way or another. We've seen that often enough. For me, it was more coming out of the gate, driving hard, making plays, not letting himself get shut down by defenders who shouldn't be able to stay in front of him, digging in defensively, getting out in transition. That's all stuff that's within his power to do all the time.

And frankly, needs to be within his power every game of this series. Like they don't necessarily need him to be a 38 point per game superstar, but they need him to be someone who gets utility points, who makes important plays using his athleticism. He's one of the most athletic players on the floor. You should be able to get by Steph one-on-one. You should be able to get by some of these guys on the break if you're kind of starting off in a similar place.

And so seeing him realize that he's allowed to make quick decisions with the ball, that's a huge step forward. The shooting is amazing. It was awesome to watch, but we'll kind of see how it goes game to game for him. Yeah, and Jalen Reed is a player that, you know, we know he's capable of doing this every now and again, but I'd be shocked if this changes Golden State's approach to how they defend this guy. You dare Jalen Green to take 183 points again. That's like that that's a beautiful tradeoff for any defense.

And I got to admit, some of these were like, they were already up, 13, 14 points. He's wide-ass open. There's no pressure on it. Jimmy's already out. They understand the Warriors are walking wounded. So, look, I'm happy he came through for them. I've been a Jalen Green sort of optimist early on in his career. So I'm happy to see him do well under this context.

I don't know that this is the start of some new level of Jalen Green in the playoffs that's been unlocked. I think the takeaway for me was how different the team looks when they have someone like this step into the void. Because in the first game, it was funny because they had the size advantage and they practically like tripled them up on the boards. There's such an advantage with Adams or Schengun on the court. And when both of them are there, they're just mauling at this point. But they just needed someone after they got the rebound to do something with the ball to actually score it. And unfortunately, a lot of their best options are just bonus guys. It's like it's Brooks, it's Eason, it's a men.

These guys that you would hope that there would be four other players on the court who did all those stabilizing and then they can go just be chaos agents essentially. They can knock down a three or in a men's case. He could just do whatever the fuck you can do. I keep thinking back like if it's green, it's great, but they need that every single game. And I can't stop myself from thinking like, man, if they just had like a KD type in that role, how dangerous team this team could be because. Like there are certain advantages that have come to the four in this series.

They just need the 30 points per game guy in order to bring them to that next level. Not even the 30 points of game guy. Just like the solid 24 but reliable in one-on-one situations guy. Like the one who, as you say, is preventing Fred Van Fleet from shooting 19 times in game one. And in some ways would prevent Jalen Green from having to do this in a game two situation, right? Like that you could lean on an even sure more veteran hand. But this is a good outcome for Jalen Green. I think it does put them in that delicate place, though, where this isn't who he's going to be all the time.

Fred, you would expect, is going to have to hit shots at some point in this series if the rockets are going to advance. Because those other guys are not. Like, not only are they not going to hit them, they're not even going to take them. And so who is going to be hitting from the perimeter? Who's going to be creating out of those second chance opportunities that are not just putbacks? I thought this was a pretty good shangoon game overall. And I thought he was like wily enough attacking both smaller guys and going head to head with Dremont, just like making shit work. I thought it was a really important mechanism for the Rockets offense,

but they are a team that's going to win defense first, basically every time out with this version of their roster. I think you have to give Shangoon a lot of credit, especially in that game one. He has an advantage, but he's pressing on it in ways that you would hope he would. Like he's got the opportunity and he's taking the most of it. The little baby hook was definitely falling in the first game.

And like, he's just doing enough at that position in order to get by. We got a tweet from our friend Harjohn. Sani who suggests that Shangoon is basically the Boris Diyahu of Nikola Yokic's now. Yeah. Do you guys care to unpack that one? Do you agree? I like this better than like the poor man's Yokic or like the, you know, store brand Yokic.

Adding the Boris Diyahu element, I think is very important. There is a certain like mysterious, unknowable element to what Alper and Shangoon is going to do on a possession to possession basis, like the whirling dervish aspect of his game that is a little less calculated and a little more Boris Diao just slinging passes out there. So I see the vision of this one, to be honest with you. Yeah, I think what it meant for me is that on the scale of being as good as Nicola Yokic is and completely not, and we throw NBA players on different parts of that scale, Yeah.

Wherever prime Boris Dio lands on that scale is where... No, I think it's more nuance than that. I think it's within Nicola Yokic player type, the big playmaking center. He's a Boris Dio level, yeah. He's not a Boris Dio-esque version of that player. You know, he has the essence of a Boris Dio. If Boris Dio... If Boris Dio played like Nicola Yokic...

I think more of the opposite if Nicola Yokic played like Boris Diao. I think that Shengun is probably more of a physical like burly version of Boris Dio is what I would say. Yeah, that's a great call. Sure. Even though tonight I believe he had like a set shot

without jumping from like a foot outside of the restricted circle. He was expecting someone to guard him and no one ever did. He was like, I guess I'm just going to take eight seconds to fire up this little set shot. I'm going to measure. I'm going to aim. I'm going to let go. Knocked you right in. On the flip side of this, I think we could probably write off the Jonathan Comingo curveball aspect of the series at this point. He kept telling me he has more to give than he's been allowed to.

That's what's happening in my text for two days. When Pat Spencer got on the court, I believe they checked him at the same time. It almost seemed like Spencer had been thinking the entire game. Like throughout every play, he was imagining where he would be on the court and like what he would do. in that scenario. And it seemed like Jonathan Kaminga just woke up from a nap.

He was just a total mess. Maybe he just didn't assume he was going to play because he hasn't of late. But I don't know why. I just, I don't see it. If you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready. Like, come on, brother. That's true. Like, this is your moment to prove Steve Kerr wrong and say that this guy doesn't

understand the abilities that I have and what I could do for this team in terms of helping them win. Like, this is your moment. And what do you do? Shit the bad. horrible. In some fairness, when he came out, you could see he was like trying to do the right things.

I'm going to roll hard to the rim. I'm going to try to make plays for other people. It was sloppy. It wasn't in concert with the rest of the offense. It played out exactly how you would expect a guy who has not been playing NBA basketball, suddenly thrown into a highly physical series to play out. I never really got this angle.

This idea that Jonathan Cumminga, because of his athleticism, was going to play in this series and was going to be a factor as a counter to the Rockets. It's like, I don't know if you've met Tari Eason and the guys that were on the other side of this. They are just as physical, just as athletic and have their head screwed on at least a slightly different way. It's a more conducive to team basketball. Guys, why are we pretending that Steve Kerr is somehow just like, he just can't bring himself to play this guy over Pajemski and Moody and Buddy Heald?

Like, it's Steve Kerr just, he's just killing it. Like, bro, he would love to play you over these cats. You're just not good enough. That's it. Yeah. The problem is it seems like all the typical Jonathan Kaminga issues plus it seems like his confidence is shot now. And now I don't really know how to reconcile that because they were in some pretty

high-stace games toward the end of the season. Like you really couldn't sacrifice those Kaminga minutes in order to in game 80 to make a go of it in the play in games, all that other stuff. But not playing him even a couple minutes, man. It just seems like there's no way coming back for this. The offseason for him, whatever is going forward. I don't know, man. because you got to bring them back in some capacity

or you just got to cut the qualifying offer his ass. You get the qualifying offer, fam. We'll get there when we get there. But I think this comming as stuff does highlight the Butler discrepancy again, where it's not just Jimmy scoring or Jimmy's passing, but like the savvy that you're getting from Jimmy Butler versus what you're getting from these various Golden State role players. It's just not comparable by any stretch of the imagination.

Like you really miss that in a game like this. Piss poor. So anything beyond the Jimmy Obviously we're going to learn more about his injury Going forward for this one Is there any rocket that Draymond Green does not have a discreet and separate beef with I love it I love it so much

He's straight up just going down the lineup Like it's incredible This is a war, this is a battle Game 3 indeed shepherd beef I can't wait he's going to pick him up off the bench and suplex him Your mustache isn't as good is Pat Spencers. I think

Draymond almost pulled the LeBron fake on the floor like peeking behind his eyes moment at one point because that flopper, he did get hit in the face. The Jalen Green elbow kind of like forearm to the face situation. Yeah.

Yeah, but there was like a five second like TV delay on that one. Yeah. Accentuated the contact for sure. Yeah. So I guess that's what we're looking forward to going forward, Rob. I mean,

what I'm looking forward to whether Jimmy Butler can play. And if he's not, what is plan B for Golden State's offense? Because this is a, this is a real, this is a worst case defense

to have to grind out games against. You don't want to be in a position where you're lacking firepower against the Rockets. If you've got it, it plays out like game one. You're in control. You have a lot more to dictate.

Yeah, you got to deal with the physicality and the rebounds, but you can get through. You can get by if you have Steph and Jimmy out there together. If you don't, now you're in the mud with these guys. And you simply do not want to be there.

You absolutely do not. So here's the thing. Good offense beats good defense. You know what we never say? Mediocre offense beats good defense because it doesn't. You're not going to beat a good defense with the players that are around Steph Curry, sans Jimmy Butler. All right.

Let's take a look at some of these other series now because I believe every single series has gone past game two. So everyone's flipping to the road locations now at this point. It's a good time to like take a snapshot of everything that's going on throughout the league. here's here's the gimmick we're going with how surprised would you be on a scale from one to five if and then I will give you the scenario one not that surprise at all five shocked like if I heard that Rob had canceled a TV podcast in order to do a group chat can you even imagine I would be I would be stunned you know that that's the level of five we're going with right now that's the most unfathomable thing you can imagine

these days, yes. Nuno was funny. Didn't Joanna Robinson move to L.A.? No, no. She's still here in the Bay. Oh, she's still in, is she moving to L.A.? I don't know. Oh, I thought she moved out here. I was like, is that why Rob moved out yet?

So he could be closer to his TV partner? Okay, relax. Also, have not moved out there, for the record, still in my Bay Area closet. We're living. Why, do you want to move to Portland? We can get something going up here. Absolutely not. Much love to the Pacific Northwest, but no shot.

We could split the lawn mowing duties. We're having a good time. Yeah, how are you doing with the mower? How's the yard work going? Oh, you don't want to start this conversation, man. We'll go longer than the Trailblazers conversation. About to plant some tomatoes, though. So what's up?

Okay. All right. First one up on the board. This game or this series played out early on, but unfortunately the heats. valiant effort was for not, they go down 02 to the Cavaliers, but full court

fits alum, Davian Mitchell showed out yet again 18.6 assists and a rebound in the losing effort. So my question was to you is how surprised would you be if Davian Mitchell becomes one of the hardest working, best condition, most professional, unselfish,

toughest, meanest, nastiest players in the NBA. Not surprised at all. It's kind of always been his MO to be dog, quote unquote, to be the kind of guy that's going to chase dudes around screens and guard 94 feet, a less annoying Pat Bev, if you will, right? And the question was, will this guy ever make threes consistently? Will he ever, you know, will his handle get up to snuff? And I don't know, man, these last three weeks in Miami, he's looked like a bona fide point

guard, straight up. Yeah. The defense hasn't gone anywhere. He's still like top notch in that regard in terms of effort and positioning and all of that stuff. But now he's making threes. It's crazy. And he's taking them with confidence. The form looks good. The rotation.

The art. It's like it's a real shot. It's not like sometimes, you know, certain guys have weird jumpers and they got this shot put kind of thing going on and you're like, that can't go in with any consistency. Davian Mitchell's shot mechanics look beautiful.

They look really good. And so I'm, man, I tip my hat to him and what he's doing. I think it started early. earlier too. Like he was a pretty solid point guard for the Raptors this season. Like just like good utility option filling in. And then,

but the shooting was still kind of come and go. And then he gets to Miami and he's hidden everything. And so you've got the like improvisational point guard play, which they desperately need. Good Lord is this offense like Tyler Hero centric in a really bad way. Not because he's doing anything poorly. Just they're so reliant on him to create everything that Davey on Mitchell comes in. It's a breath of fresh air.

One more guy who can actually dribble. where a guy who can actually create something. He's been so important to the point that, like, I know, I'm sure Spow had his reasons for Davy on Mitchell not starting. I don't know what those reasons are because not only is Davy on Mitchell clearly the defender that you talked about was, like just a bulldog, an absolute menace, on ball, digging down every, every aspect of defensive play. He's just a straight-up better offensive player than Alec Berks at this stage.

And so I don't really know. I don't know why he finally got the starting nod today as Spow was kind of throwing a bunch of different things at the wall. And I don't know why it took this for that to happen. I have a question for both of you guys, and this related to the pre-show. If somebody told you... I am legitimately terrified. If somebody told you before this game that there was a heat player who made an Olympic

team, a few All-Star Games, consensus media darling. Like, you can't find a national media guy that has a single negative thing to say about him. And then there was another Miami player who any time there was a suggestion that he was any good, media people scoffed and laughed and mocked.

Who do you think those two players would be like in those two buckets that I just presented to you guys? Is the Olympian Pele Larson? Pella. Pella Larson, be respectful. Yovitch is the... Yeah, there's Yovitch and Yovitch.

They were both Nicola Yovitch. No man, Bamarabio, he's stinking up the joint In a season Okay, I don't know about stinking up the joint Because I think his defense Especially like half court Against Evan Mowgli

Has been pretty important and pretty good But he's not The elevating superstar they need He's not Bruce Bowen, man Like he's not getting paid To be a one-sided-ass player Like this guy is looked at As an all-around

Big-time component to everything these guys are trying to do. And I know we used to love, oh, BAM catches it at, you know, the elbow extended and he's facilitating and dribble handoff, and he's such a nice passer and all that. Still does that. He's got to score, y'all.

Like, this man needs to score. He's got to make a shot. He needs to become a threat. Like, it can't be Tyler Hero going freaking Kobe mode in here. I am open-minded to the various realities that BAM could find for himself to be a really good NBA player to be an even better star than he already is.

But I think you're honestly, right? You know, just watching how limited Miami's offense looks when the Cavs just deny Tyler Hero of the ball, right? Just like don't let him get the ball for this possession and everything goes nowhere. That is unacceptable when you have Bam out of bio on the floor. Like he has to be able to reroute something to get you a credible shot. And there's just too many possessions where he and the other heat

just like are not capable of that. Bam's never been a score. You know, I know he's flirted. around the 20 points per game mark, but it's often been playing off of other guys. He does so many things that are ancillary to an offense that bring them to another level, the playmaking, the ball movement,

all this other bonus stuff. But the fact that he had to step out and shoot threes was in order to declogged the lane because that's probably his best usage. And so I just, I just don't know if he has it in him. He is still of all-star caliber, given all of the things that he does on both ends. Oh, yeah.

But I think he needs to be your number three offensively. And this point, they're just hoping to feature them. It's partly probably why someone like Davian Mitchell is taking the opportunity and running you with it because it is there for someone. It's just, BAM's not going to be the one to do that. Yeah. It just, it has to be more than Tyler Hero, who I thought has had a pretty exceptional start to the series overall in terms of the offense he's actually able to generate.

It's just too much. And it's more than you would ever want him to have to do to the point where, yeah, like some of the other members of the heat are scoring some. Davian Mitchell is scoring. You got 17 out of Haywood Highsmith, which by Haywood Highsmith standards is like going for 50. Like that's about as good as you're going to get from Haywood Highsmith. And still you come up pretty distinctly short.

I would say the heat made this competitive. They fought. They really closed the gap. And then they just ran hard into kind of the ceiling of what they can produce offensively. And you flashed to the other side. The Cavs had their moments where they kind of slog through. They weren't playing their best for stretches of this game.

Here comes Donovan Mitchell down the stretch, hitting every big shot, every big floater, creating every big play. And then you know you can trust both the defense. in the overall engine of their offense to get enough supplementary play. Just to tie a bow on the Davian Mitchell thing, what do we think his role is next year? Do we think he's like Haywood Highsmith Plus? Do we think he could start or is his future ultimately coming off the bench?

Well, do you think he's on the Miami Heat? He's a restricted free agent, and I assume he recognizes the opportunity he's got here. It's been great. It's been a great fit so far. I mean, I would love to see, you know, like, I would love to see a Jerome James situation where he just, not that he doesn't live up to the

contest. Not to say, come on. But like he has an insane playoff run and somebody wants to pay the hell out of him. I would love that for him. Yeah. But also, you know, if the heat offered him a fair deal, what do you guys think is a fair deal?

Four years, 14 per? Yeah. Mid-level money. Yeah. I think he deserves like decent starting point guard type money. I think he's worth that. Yeah. If the heat offered him that and, you know,

maybe got a player option on that. the third so that, you know, if he developed nicely, he could cash in again. I think that would be a pretty cool deal for him. I would love that for him because I think he seems to like like it there. Newsflash, a lot of NBA players like being in Miami. And he's already one of these psychopath, work, hardworking kind of guys where the standards that have been set by Spowe and Rouse won't bother him in ways that maybe has bothered other players in the past on the heat so i would love to see that happen for him yep this is the trade off

not going with shrewder and going with mitchell in that trade package michael has to be like brought back has to be put on a new deal but there's a longer tail with him if you do believe in him if he did show something in this little kind of run he's out with them i think he's just a better complimentary fit with tyler hero who is again clearly established himself as a really important part of this team. You just have to find some better scoring from 3, 4, 5. That's their ultimate challenge going forward. Speaking of needing better

scoring, let's talk about the magic who held tight to the Celtics in a game that, as we mentioned above, got a little bloody, definitely got pretty bruising as most magic games tend to do. This one, I don't know if this was a tougher watch than

the Lakers Wolves the night before, but certainly the magic have a special ability to pull things into the sumo wrestling pit. Yeah. I think after two games, as good as the magic have been keeping it close, like obviously a 10 point deficit for the magic feels like it's 30 at times. And I just can't help but wonder, like, where is the offensive juice coming from?

How many more times are we going to do this? And so my question is, how surprised would you be, Rob, if the magic finally decided to trade for some goddamn offensive help this offseason? I would not be surprised. I think on the one to five scale, I'm like a two. I'm not saying it's a foregone conclusion, but I think what gives me some optimism is that, one, it's time.

Like straight up, you watch this team play. It is impossible not to focus on what they don't have. And by that I don't mean, like, oh, they're missing an all-star level point guard. I'm sitting there watching this game being like, man, how different would their life be if they had Peyton Pritchard? Like, how transformed would they be if they just had a guy who could be a threat to score in that position? And I say that legitimately, with great respect.

for Corey Joseph who is defending his ass off out there. And ultimately is given this team like a bit of stability. An absolute pros pro who's coming and done a job, but he's not a score. But goddamn, he's not a starting level point guard in the playoffs, man, against the freaking best team in the Eastern Conference. That's insane. He is not. It's an insane ass.

And missing Jalen Sugg sucks in that regard. He helped them so much the season on both sides when he was out there. Overall, though, I think their front office, I think pretty much everyone there understands that there is a trade that they need to make at some point. And that point is basically now. Like you're watching Paulo Bancaro thrive right now with fairly minimal spacing, beating guys one-on-one, beating up people inside,

like doing everything that you would ask him to do. Can you get him a little bit more room to operate? It doesn't have to, you don't have to change everything about your team, but you need a little bit of relief for your core stars at this point. Yeah, you shouldn't be asking Paulo to be Luca Donchich or Prime LeBron James in terms of ball handling duties. Like, that dude should be setting the screens, you know, resetting screens, slipping screens, pick and pop, you know, attacking closeouts, attacking mismatches when defenses are too scared of the pick and roll and they switch a little guy onto him.

Like, that's what he should be doing, you know. It should be a more big man dominating role than, all right, man, set up our entire freaking team and set yourself up to score. every single time. Like, that just should not be the case. Especially he wants to do that stuff. Like, I think that's what's a little bit perplexing about where the magic find themselves is this isn't an Anthony Davis, like, I want to play this one specific way. And I kind of rebel against what my ultimate destiny should be.

Palo Ban Carroll wants to be a four. Like, he wants to play opposite guards. He wants to play opposite playmakers. And I think we're about there. I think it's got to be time. I think the good thing is I don't think that they need an Anthony Davis to, what they need is just like someone who has a veteran steadiness to them, but can also hit a goddamn three-pointer.

And so the way their contracts are stacked up, Bankero, I believe is due in extension this off season. Wagner obviously got one. Suggs obviously got one. If you're paying those three guys and those guys are critical to everything that they've built, you really can't add a superstar to this mix as much as people want to play trade machine. I also don't think it makes sense because they have such a established high. hierarchy. There's good depth here. But because they built so much depth, they do have the pieces in

order to make just the right guy that they need. Not the superstar. Anthony Simons makes a ton of fucking sense. We've been talking about it for two years. That type of guy, like the Tristan de Silva's, you know, the failed Jet Howard projects, the Caleb Houston's, like every type of shooter that they've tried to cycle through over the past couple years, plus some picks. Like it's doable. I just need the magic to really. I just need the magic to really. realize this, you know, because the problem has been them organizationally believing so much in their feeder system rather than wanting to necessarily step outside that. And obviously, KCP didn't do too well this year.

The shooting was dreadful again tonight. And so I just hope they're not reticent to do that because they need it. Like, the time is now. Yeah, I think it's been just so much like wait and see, wait and see, wait and see there. Yeah, believing in the feeder system and also wanting to give even their stars, right, like a chance to manifest their games to whatever extent they can. And then once that happens, once things settle, you wait for the right move and you make it, I just think you could play that game all day and you're just going to be kind of spinning your

wheels in more or less this same place as long as this is the case. Like, Franz is already really good. Paolo is, he is clearly like leveling up right before our eyes, even in less than ideal circumstances. You got to give them more to work with. So I really think this has to happen this summer. They have two picks in the first run of this upcoming draft. I don't know where those guys play.

They don't even have room in when. is it like Aceletta or whatever it is? Osceola. Asiola, thank you. They can be mentored by Tony Black and the rest of the young guys. I thought McClong needs reps. That's a pretty good Tony Black game. He's played pretty, he's been fine the first two games.

Yeah. All right, next one on the board here. How surprise would you be if Kauai Leonard missed a shot? That's a five. Yeah. At least 4.5. Dude, like ripping the freaking. Nets.

The game two, where he started something like nine of ten, and like most of these shots were contested. He wasn't like by himself completely like guys were guarding him and he was just so laser focused dialed in. It was crazy, dude, to the point where that last shot, that big shot that he made one-on-one, where Denver kind of thought about just trying to force him to pass and then they half-heartedly came and it was just him and Aaron Gordon

and as soon as he got the shot off, I was like, this is money. Like, there's just no way this shot is going to miss. And yeah, he basically iced Denver with that. Just an incredible performance, man. Yeah, we just expect every shot to go at this point, which I didn't know if we were ever going to quite get there again. but 31 points a game

through these first two games 79% on twos what the fuck Yeah that's insane And anecdotally it seems higher Like even that seems low relative to what we have actually watched So I just think this version of Kauai

is something that's really special To watch something that as I said I just did not think was ever going to happen again And so the fact that we get to see it Is a delight Why I've been poo pulling this clipper thing all year I mean we were we were wondering when Kauai came back

Like how is he going to fit exactly what form is he going to be in at the end of the day? And we'll see. Like the question with him has always been, can you get back? And then once you do, how long can you kind of sustain that sort of run? We've seen him have incendiary starts to the playoffs and then mysteriously kind of bow out four games in. I really hope that's not the case. Everything so far has been really, really remarkable. You guys have to remind me because it's been so long since we've seen Kauai on this level of just like killing it.

because he obviously can get to his spots and he could obviously raise up over most players and he can drill it with efficiency. Just what he's doing now, though, where there's like three guys around him and he just has the right timing in order to pull up one, but also like hold it for an extra beat in order to get right above the outstretched arms and then drill it. Feels like another layer that he's been on from the excellence that he's been on for over the past, what, eight to 10 years. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Honestly, the footwork has been ridiculous for years now. What struck me in game two is the freaking handle is so tight and so freaking

just, it's a weapon, man. Like his handle is a straight up weapon in a way that I'm like, man, this guy is crossing people over with the quickness that, like, I just haven't seen it so long. And he's generating so much separation. on these dribble pull-ups. It's so crazy. Freaking nuts.

I would say it probably hasn't looked like this since whatever the year was where he had that monster game, the close-out Dallas, I think it was. Yeah. Yeah. Like it hasn't looked like that since. And yeah, it's pretty freaking insane to watch. That was definitely the closest comparison point for me too. And I would say that game, game six in 2021 against the Mavs,

was one of the best playoff performances I've ever seen. anybody play. And so this was like, we're kind of approaching that territory. The stakes are totally different, right? Like that game six was a monumental game to basically seize control of the series. This one though, saving,

you know, planting a flag on what this series can ultimately be, which is just going down O2, the way that they've played so well against Denver would have been demoralizing. That would have been really tough. Even with, you know that the margin is tight, you know that these games could go either way.

You still got to try to steal one. And the fact that they were able to, clearly a really important part of kind of putting their overall resume together for what would, what winning the series would look like. I'll also say one kind of unsung hero in the Kauaiasance has just been Chris Dunn hidden the mainstream, just watching him wreak terror defensively and basically free up Kauai to be like the second or third defender in a lot of these situations, just allows him to pop more offensively.

And also seeing the chess match of Yokic versus Chris Dunn, because in addition of Dunges being a terror and like athletic marvel like his anticipation especially in the steel and the paint and in the key bucket down the stretch like he's on another level and i think we who've been watching the clipper games this entire year like oh we know that guy's in there but to see him hit at the same time of quite this the balance there that's just so formative yeah well especially when you think about down the stretch of that game Denver was trying to get into its stuff the clippers both were they obviously have really aggressive individual defenders they also were kind of playing some hybrid zone stuff now and again just kind of junking up the game.

And all the Denver two-man action kind of got like, it had a little too much preamble. Like you had to really set up, really get to their spots, really do all this. And some of that was because Chris Dunn was just interjecting himself into everything. Then on the other side, the plan is give the ball to Kwai Leonard. Get the fuck out of the way. Space the floor as best you can.

Let him go one-on-one and create a 19-footer. And he's just hitting every single one. And the simplicity of that, while, look, I love team basketball as much as anybody. I love two-man play as much as anybody. it's kind of, it's not comparable. When you have one player hitting 79% of their twos with offense, that's that straightforward,

you're not going to beat that. And you really just have to hope that at some point, the shooting is going to peter off. Was, how are you feeling about the rest of this series? Because things got a little dicey down the stretch for Denver plus. MPJ, Jesus, freaking Christ, with that turnover. That turnover is really bad. He was way better.

Way, way, way, way better. He actually, like, put his hands on people who would, driving within three feet of the cup. That was nice. The offensive rebounds, I think overall were huge. It was nice to see him like try to win a playoff game. That's a huge one. That was cool.

I think unfortunately, though, he's got the shoulder injury. Jamal Murray seems like he's pretty sick like a lot of people right now. I would say Jamal Murray for being a guy who was sick. I thought he played a fucking great defensive game in particular. Like, really was getting after it. But it's frustrating. Where was this in game one? The moisture.

Where was that in game one, honestly? No comment. I think this is just going to be a dog fight whale of a series, man. I really do. These teams are really good, both of them, and the clippers are extremely well coached. I think the only thing I will say, the clippers are being cute with their lineups in a way that I'm just like,

yo, Tailu, it's kind of your best guys, bro. worked though. It did work. They Jedi mind tricked the freaking nuggets and the not understanding what a zone defense was for like three to four solid minutes. Yeah. Which I was like, what in the hell is going on? But like these guys are coaching them up. I think if they just keep their best players on the floor for most of the time, this shit going to be, it's going to be a problem. But I think it's going to be a slug fest, man.

I need a Ben Simmons was fine. T-shirt. He was. Because he's been fine. Give him 8 to 10 minutes. Totally fine. He's adequate. Ben Simmons is adequate.

I don't feel great about it, but he was in this game. Fine. Ben Simmons is. All right. A couple more here. How surprised would you be if the Pistons finish ahead of the Knicks next regular season? Because I'm starting to wonder like how real is this Pistons kind of resurgence. Because I went into the postseason expecting them to kind of get.

it stomped, even though the Knicks were a mess for most of the second half of the season, I just thought like the magic, the pixie dust, the shooting success of the Pistons would kind of wear over time. But now I'm like, these are kind of peers, especially because Tibbs is going to run his top five into the ground by and by the time of the postseason. Like this is what you're going to get probably every year unless you add like more over the off season. And so it's kind of a dual question, Rob. It's like, how worried are we about the Knicks long term, especially with Tibbs at the helm and two, how bullish are you on the Pistons plus Jaden Ivy plus another year of this next year? I would be quite surprised if the Pistons caught the Knicks.

The second best offensive players, Toby Harris. What are we doing right now? This is crazy. It could be Jaden Ivy next year. Well, I also think you have to be really wary if we're forecasting beyond what's happening right now, going into next year. You've got to be wary about the year after the jump because history tells us these teams come back to Earth a little bit. They level out. Things get a little weird. They lose a random player who you didn't think was that important, but turns out to have been quite important all along. There's all this stuff that happens.

And I think that given their youth and given like getting Ivy back in particular, I expect the Pistons to improve modestly next season, they have quite a bit of ground to make up on the Knicks just even based on this year's standings. And that's a year in which Jalen Brunson missed a ton of games. Maybe that'll happen again. Maybe it won't.

Who's to say, as far as them being peers in the series, I always thought it was going to be a physical kind of tough series. I don't know that I would call them Pierce per se. I think the pistons are quite good. I think they can make a lot of different teams sweat. And they make teams work for it. But there is zero question who the more talented team is out there right now.

They're way more talented. They just felt like they're above trying their hardest to beat this team. Yeah. Like, not that good. Like, they're not that good that they could just show up and sort of sleepwalk their way through beating Detroit. Like, that's not going to happen. These dudes have to literally lock in. and treat this like it's a do or die series, which is what it is.

Yeah. And I thought towards the end of game two, like there was like a switch that came. It was like, oh, we actually have to try collectively on defense. Imagine it. Every man rotating and being in his spot and like giving some level of, like, it was, it's just ridiculous to watch, to be honest. And I think the offense, the way that it's ran is completely suboptimal. You can do this kind of station to state.

thing in the regular season because you have really good talent, but you are not going to be a great offensive postseason team doing what they do, not leveraging the strengths of all of their players on every single possession. And, you know, part of me wonders if an upset, man, an embarrassment here wouldn't be the best thing that happened to the Knicks and get to him. Get Tibbs the hell up out of there. Get you a freaking Kenny Atkinson. How about that? I would be a little mean of Tibbs. I think he's done, look, he has to. limitations, but I don't know, I'm ready to run Tibbs out of town just yet. Defense is your thing.

You should be able to guard this Detroit team. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if there's going to be some shakeups with the Knicks, not only at the coaching staff, but also with the roster, Kell Bridges has been pretty flat in terms of what they paid for them. And so I could see them doing things differently. And so if they mix with the calculus there, I just see a top heavy team that even if you add one more bench player, like a credible bench option, you get one. You know, it's not like they're going to just usher.

in a whole second unit that's all of a sudden going to solve the issues that they've had the season, which is that they're playing their guys too much. They're getting to the point where, like, they're relying on them way too often. And they get to the situation where you're asking Guzma, Brian, basically to save them half the time. That would be the case against the Knicks. The case for the pistons, I think, in addition to getting Ivy back, I think it's internal improvement. Like Kate Cunningham acquitted himself pretty well in the second game. Obviously struggled in the first, but like, that's a big old boy. He's going to keep doing better things. Oh, yeah.

And in addition to that, like Asar didn't play a full season, Ron Holland. Let's see him get more regular rotation minutes. Hopefully he doesn't fight half the league at that point. But like, there are a lot of guys that could take a step forward that you wouldn't have to be as relying on Mollie Beasley, basically being Steph Curry again next year. And the other thing that I've been kind of impressed by is just that like the defense traveled. And so there's like almost an identity to this team that's hard to replicate. And so, like, I think back to the Pacers last year, basically finding themselves, tweaking it on the fly with Seacom trade, but they basically knew who they are and they've just leaned in and tweaked things on the margins. It feels like the pistons are kind of on that trajectory at this point.

But the Seacom trade is a huge trade. Like, that is a monumental change to the structure of the team that I think vaulted them into a different class. If they hadn't made it, it would be incremental gains all the way up. Here, I agree. Like, there's some young players who are ready to take steps. And to be clear, I really love watching this Pissons team play. Like watching Cade turn up the pace in game two was such a delight. Like you really get a sense of his physicality and how imposing he is when he's playing faster.

The Dennis Schroeder experience, I think it's been awesome in the series overall. Even though he's hitting the deck every third play trying to draw a foul. He's a perfect garden villain. He's great. Absolutely. Wonderful, wonderful garden villain. Jalen Duren had a really nice bounceback game that I think bodes well for his place in this series, especially with beef stew out.

He had to be good and big, and he was. Tobias Harris being a big game player has been huge. I have really enjoyed watching Asar Thompson play defense. I think he's been doing quite well. Apparently the refs don't agree with me. Jalen Brunson, you got to chill. You really have to chill, not just for all of us, but for the soul of the game of basketball.

It's been a lot. It's a little unseemly, the foul baiting right now. Let me ask you this question. Whose future of these four teams, would you actually rank these four? teams based on whose future you would rather have. So within the one to five surprise scale, we're doing a mini future power rankings? One to four.

Yeah. Okay. Knicks, Pacers, bucks, pistons. So basically, basically the three through six in the east right now. Well, four is bucks. Yes, 100%. Four is bucks. Their freaking superstar is making googly eyes at big market teams dreaming of better Jersey

sales. their second best players in his mid-30s. Yeah, I'd rather not have the bucks. I'd still say the Pacers, man. Like, their best player is relatively young. I think they're my number one. They're your number one? Of those four teams?

Nah, they're my number two. I take the Knicks over the Pacers for sure. That's fine. That's fine. I have no problem with that. Pacer Rob, checking in. Just saying, they're looking pretty good. I don't want to tell you. I would take the next.

They're going to be feeding him cocktail shrimp at St. Elmo's next time he shows. I've never had the shrimp cocktail. I'm still waiting for it. You'll have as much as you could stomach, my friend. I would pick the next one, market muscle, have a lot of talent. You could just completely change the team on the fly, basically. Like, teams are going to want bridges. Teams are going to want a cat.

If you want to just completely upend this thing, it's just going to keep moving forward in the different permutation. I might pick the pistons over the Pacers. is kind of what I'm leaning toward. I mean, I'm not surprised that you feel this way, but you're wrong. This is consistent, but yeah, no. Cade is already better than Halliburton. False, but if not, it's awesome.

Is going to be better? No. I just think you have a better number one. I just need to see some more proof of concept than two games. In this way, I was like, pretty good. The whole season was decent. All the be a worthy season for sure. Yeah, no, I'm talking about the team proof of concept.

Not Cade. like, they've played two. playoff games. They won 41 games. Like, I cool, they're cool. They're on the rise. But I don't think they're like clearly better than the Pacers now. 22%

for three. Justin is crazy, man. I just, I see it. I see the future. I think you were every player who voted Tyrease Halliburn, the most overrated player in the NBA. Like, you hacked the ballot box and you were just stuffing it with Tyrese Hallibank. Justin just saw

Tyrese Hallibor. Oh my God. I think of the top. said no notes. No editorial, no red, no red ink through that list. I have one more before we get to the Timberl's series about Tyrese Halliburton, believe it or not. Would you be surprised if Tyrese Halliburton arrives to game three of their series against the bucks in a wrestling leotard and a newsboy cap calls himself the newsmaker. I was pretty proud of that one.

And challenges Damien Lillard to a ladder match for the fate of the series. Not surprised at all. it's funny. I'm 1.5, I think. I'm 1. It's likely. It's funny because I think people are more pissed with Halliburton as he's

trash talking them than he is about the actual trash talk. Like, he's clearly a freaking little troll. And it's, it's working. Like, he is pissing people the hell off. He's a shit poster. If a shit poster, we're an NBA player. And it's just riling.

people up, which is not surprising. This seems entirely possible. We know he has the newsboy cap, for one. That's check. Like, he could just wear it and we'll wear it at any moment in time. We know he's a wrestling guy. I think Dame would take the invitation at this point. He seems pretty game to participate in all this, despite that he is getting played, as was mentioned.

The question is the leotard. Like, would he go for the wrestling leotard or not? Because otherwise, personality, hat, theatrics, I think he's delivering on all the newsmaker friends, you're asking him to, Justin. Like the same spandex that like Mr. Perfect would wear like a full body giant. But it's covered in like newsprint like headlines from back in the day. Oh, interesting.

Forest fire in town park. Oh, I thought you would like have the like Reggie Miller on the New York Post with his hands like this or something like that. Yeah. The hands are like positioned around his crotch. What? You lost me. I don't know what. what's happening.

What is he talking about? I don't know. This is how I feel about Tyre's Halliburton takes in general, but especially now. All right. What can I tell you? Last one on the board here.

Would you be surprised on a scale from one to five? If the Minnesota Timberwolves... Wait, wait, are we not going to talk about Pacers' bucks at all? That's all we want to talk about is the fake newsmaker a bit. Do you have anything you want to contribute

about the series in progress, Justin? I think the Pacers have this one in hand unless Damien Lillard just finds a way to flashback to three years ago. It's a tough ass gun under the circumstances. Yeah. They don't have enough on either end of the court. They don't have the horses.

Yeah. And worse yet, I think you see the pacer's solving them. And I don't care would none of you motherfuckers say Kyle Kuzma used to be a good player. No one's arguing that he didn't used to be. He was once a good player. Significantly better in game two, by which I mean, he scored some points. He did some things. He was

active out in the game in a totally different way. I think if Milwaukee has anything going for it, their bigs did a better job of running and sealing. Bobby Portis had an unbelievable game out of thin air basically because of it. You big it in these guys. So they can push on that a little bit. It's just it's not enough.

When you're trading off everything else is just not enough. Glad we got that Pacer's analysis in there. It's better than crotch talk. I don't know what to tell you. Is it? All right. Last one. Would you be surprised? that the Timberwolves make the West finals.

No. One. I think I'm getting there. Yeah. Like they're on the plausible side of the bracket where any team I would say any team could kind of make it. Like I wouldn't be shocked by any of them. Here's the question.

Are you saying one because it's plausible or are you saying one because it's likely? I'm saying one because the field on that side on the non-OPC side. There's no reason they can't beat the Lakers, Warriors or the ride. Like there's just no reason to think that they're. they can. I guess I'm at like a two. It's just I'm falling victim to the most recent game bias where it's just like the the shooting luck returning to what it's been all year combined with the collective basketball situational IQ being not exactly excellent on this team. That was tough. It's like Mike Conley and a bunch of asylum residents.

you know, like, and he's like the one, score. He's like the one nice nurse who's in her 50s. Yeah. The orderly. Yeah, the one nice orderly on the cusp of retirement trying to keep this whole thing together. It's pathetic. Yeah. Take that retirement package at some point. Although not Mike Conley. I hope he plays forever.

But yeah, like the, the basketball IQ, the amount of times that the wolves will just shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly for three minutes on end is deeply troubling. That said, they have advantages that many of these other teams do not. They have Anthony Edwards, first and foremost. Yep, they have the size. They have the defense. They have those nights where they go supernova from three, and they're incredibly

hard to beat on those nights. And they're also going to have nights where Dante Divencenza doesn't have like eight fouls in three minutes. You know, like they're going to have nights where the rotation is a little more complete. Also, Nas read, take a volume, kid. Like, chill, relax. You're prescribing? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, he's got, he's got to calm down.

He's a little bit too much right now. Well, that's partly why I have probably more, I came out of that game more encouraged for the wolves because it seems tough to replicate what the Lakers did on both ends there. It seemed like their entire goal was to bring the game deeper into the mud that it possibly ever could to the point where it almost felt like LeBron was more engaged defensively, tactically as a way to just like, will allow Luca to be the end-l-be-all offensively.

It's almost like they loot the house on fire. And Luca was the only one wearing like flame retardant clothes. And that was their whole approach. They barely generated any easy looks, especially in the second half. And I get it. They built the lead. And a lot of it is just like playing out the string.

But like it doesn't seem like they get a lot of system buckets, man. And I know that's tougher to do against a team that's willing to switch literally everything against you. That's the thing. But, like, I don't think Luke is a great switch player right now. Maybe I know I get it. He's dropped 30 in both games. He just doesn't put the defense in panic in the ways that we would have expected him to. So, you know, we'll see.

To be honest, there aren't that many players who are. If you're going to switch with pretty high-level players all the time and live with the results, I think you're mostly going to keep things pretty contained. like Rudy Goberra, I thought to my earlier point, did a pretty credible job, just like kind of hanging around and staying in front, at least contesting shots, got baited into some fouls, that's going to happen, gave up some possessions, that's going to happen. The reason the Wolves lost his game is because of everything happening on the other end of the court, where they just could not string two scores together.

And that's where I disagree about the replicability. I think so much of what changed for the Lakers in this was not just three-point luck, but are you actually guarding and contesting these three-pointers? are you actually rotating with force? And that's where things like LeBron really digging in defensively felt like an important shift in the tone of the series. And I think really amped things up for so many of his teammates. Like when he's playing like that,

it's so easy to follow him and doing it. And if that's the team the Lakers are going to be defensively, then I think this version of Luca is good enough. See, that's where I wonder if that's replicable, because it felt like all of the perimeter defenders, minus Luca, had to be on 11 in terms of physicality and activity in order to get to that level. Maybe they could do that again.

Maybe they just roll out the same approach. But also, I think it's dependent on the whistle that, like, they got away with a little bit more than the wolves did because the wolves are a little bit less savvy. A more physical game favors the smaller team. Does it? Yes, because they have to put their hands on people. I see what you're saying. In order to do, like, there's no other way for them to play defense. This is the dream on green corollary, you know.

Yeah. And if you're going to go tiki-tack against the smaller team, they're totally. coast. Yeah. I just, I just wonder, though, if the wolves

had a normal three-point shooting night, which I think they're probably prone to do now that they've had such a massive swing, the point where I think they made 21 in the first game.

Isaiah would say McDaniels had a normal shooting night in game, too. Yeah, not lately. I just don't think all of the players that struggled

and made five threes an entire game, DeVincenzo, Masreid, McDaniels, like, that's not going to happen again.

And if that happens, then things can be different. But one thing I did really love about what they did defensively, though on Luca, to Rudy's credit, one, it seemed like the earlier success Luca had on Rudy specifically

almost baited him to keep doing it over and over to the point in the fourth quarter. It's like he just saw Rudy and he had to attack him despite the fact that it wasn't. And it wasn't working. No. It was not working in the fourth. In part because I also thought they did a good job crowding with a help defender. And they basically didn't have Gobert going for the contest because then they were worried Luca was going to draw a foul or something. They had a McDaniel. or whoever was roving basically contest from behind, which I thought was like really creative and interesting. And that's the type of thing that I worry about going forward.

Also say this to the possessions where Luca kind of gets Rudy on his hip, puts him in jail and is kind of like getting into the lane after getting that first step, Luca misses a fair number of those kind of like little runners, those little push shots. And when he does, he is deep under the basket. He is not going to be getting back on the other direction. If you play that right, you can get points out of it. I don't think the wolves

played it right enough. I don't think they secured the rebound and got out enough. And some of that is a credit to the collective hustle of the Lakers who took away some of those opportunities. But to our greater point,

if you're going to force Luca to do that every single game, there's ways you can create advantages out of it, even if he is going to put up 30 plus every single night. Like some of the misses are going to be more painful than others.

So what would you guys say is the most likely outcome from that side of the bracket at this point? Because I think we all agree like you could see the Lakers coming out. finals. God. I mean, it's hard to say

on a night where Jimmy Butler is not out for an indeterminate amount of time. So I would say whoever comes out of this Wolves Lakers series feels more likely to me given we have no idea

about Butler and I don't trust Houston's half-bord offense. I'm a piggyback on Rob there. Give me the winner of Wolves, Lakers. Give me the team that's willing out of the three options on the table. Technically four.

I'll pick the Lakers. sticking with the Lakers, although I want to pick the wolves because their best players comparing his jock size to crowd members. Like, I want to be on the side of the team that's doing that, but I think the Lakers. Are you willing to subsidize his

fine? Like, are you willing to pay a share? Absolutely not. Daniel, heck, don't pay me that much. I would agree with you guys. I think the winner of this series probably goes. And I might lean wolves at this point. Yeah. I kind of believe I'm not mad at that, man. No, not a lot of a lot of a lot of.

We have so much talent on their team. Yeah. I like what they had. All right. Anything else for you guys? Any other wrestling scenarios you want to throw out there? Any other pasta, hot takes you want to get out for chess before we go here? Sit.

That's all I got. I think we're done. There's plenty of time to discuss pasta coming up. Thank to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Ben Cruz. We'll be back on Saturday, just like we did last time. Saturday night into Sunday morning. We will talk to you then.

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