The Ringer NBA Show - Lakers End the Warriors’ Dynasty and the Heat Send Knicks Packing in 6

Episode Date: May 13, 2023

Kyle and Tyler share their instant reactions to the Los Angeles Lakers closing out Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Golden State Warriors. They talk about the elite guard play from the Lakers, Dennis Schröder’s puzzling ejection, the lack of help around Stephen Curry, and Klay Thompson’s tough shooting night (1:33). Next, the guys discuss Anthony Davis’s defensive impact and whether or not this is the end of the Warriors dynasty before making predictions on the Western Conference Finals (16:38). Later, they break down the Miami Heat ending the New York Knicks’ playoff run despite Jalen Brunson’s standout performance (34:06). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Tyler Parker Producer: Kai Grady Additional Production Supervision: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Folks, basketball is so very good and on nights like these. It can be a two-sided coin of elation and heartache. And tonight, the Lakers are elated to close out the Warriors and to join me to discuss it. Joining me to discuss it is Tyler Parker, T.P. actor, extraordinaire, author,

General Muser, huge guy, great smile, firm handshake. Huge guy. Just accept my compliments, Tyler. No, that's my favorite one so far of all of the weeks we've been doing this. I think huge guy is your best work. Well, you know, just the fact that you're huge is a nice cherry on top. This would not be a cherry on top of the Warriors Dynasty, I wouldn't say.

This is, we're going to get into all of that. But just quickly, Tyler, what's your 35,000 feet takeaway from this game as the Lakers have sealed the deal and they move on now to the Western Conference finals to face the Denver Nuggets. What do you think? It just sort of feels like a culmination of the Laker guard play offensively and Anthony Davis defensively. I mean, the marriage of those two things together,

the guards just constantly attacking pool and stuff. and clay and the warrior's inability to keep them out of the paint. And then on the other end, just Davis terrifying everyone, is sort of becoming fully realized again this postseason and just being everywhere, all over the place. Yeah, points in the paint, it seemed, I mean, it was a narrow margin for points in the paint. They were LA won at 46 to 44, and even second chance.

points the warriors the warriors outdid them but it seemed like every time um you're you're right i think about like the guards you specifically brought up a point that i thought was a good one uh which was the fact that like there were no breaks as opposed to the kings the lakers are very dynamic they they've become dynamic they've worked on their issues in something in a way that the warriors failed to over the course of this year something that we'll talk about here in a minute but in this game they got you know a variety of contributions from a variety of players they got pick and roll from Delo Russell, who is just kind of, you get your best Deelow Russell whenever he is just kind of house money icing on the top, you know?

Totally. Like whenever he's floating around and there's no pressure on him. And whenever you have those guys, like, you know, you have the certainty of the LeBron James rim pressure, which we saw him just kind of awake from his possum sleep tonight as we, as we knew he was going to. It kind of reminds me of, there's an episode of The Simpsons where like the mafia, the Springfield Mafia takes on the Japanese, it's like the fist of Japan. I forget what it is. Right. You know the episode I'm talking about? And Homer's like, he keeps watching the one guy

in the white suit and he was like, he's going to do something awesome. I know he is. And then like they cut away. And he like is doing back flips through the yard and just kicking everybody's ass. Like I kind of feel like, I kind of feel like that's what LeBron did tonight where we were just like, I feel like he's going to do something awesome. He still has it in him. And you talk about picking your spots. I mean, LeBron did that tonight. But talking about the ball handlers, it is, it is a nice, just layer of nuance on the top. That's what I always say. The implied offense of LeBron with the nuance on top. And you got, you got reps from DeLo, you got reps from Austin Reeves, from Lonnie Walker. Lonnie Walker continued his just, and these are just extra little

pain points that keep, they're demoralizing, I would say, when they just, when they put you into spin cycle of the, and the guys just keep coming. And, and, you know, Shruder got thrown out of this game. Kind of bizarrely, I felt like both of his texts were weird. What was your read on that? I mean, I don't. I mean, the second one in particular, Davis gets a dunk and then immediately steals the inbound, goes up for a shot, gets fouled by Draymond. Schroeder and Draymond been drawn back and forth, you know, a majority of the series.

and, you know, Dremont's sort of response to Schroeder walking up to him is to just stick the ball right in his face. And sure, it's hard to, there hasn't been a good angle to be able. It didn't look like it would be hard to move your mouth, I think, if a ball, if a basketball was, you know, pressed against your lips. I think it'd be difficult. Yeah, it's hard to know what Schroeder said because, yeah, he had a ball like in his mouth. Yeah, I mean, it's a good, you know, in Draymond's defense, it is a good way to get someone to stop talking. Draymond's ability to treat everyone around him and the refs like dog shit incessantly and just, you know, never get the T's that he deserves. Oh, my God.

I know he did get, I know he got a double T in that situation, but it, you know, it, um, yeah, it's just, it's just ridiculous. I mean, after, like, you talk about Lonnie Walker. you talk about the guards a little bit more. After that, you know, there was a, there was a, there was, you know, a brief period of time where, you know, Schroeder had had guarded, uh, curry well, all game. And, you know, I think there was a period of time after that. Well, okay, like, well, let's, you know, let's see if Steph gets going here. If, if he can kind of, uh, shake free a little bit and catch a rhythm. And instead, Walker basically picks up where he left off comes in and just, it's bombs away.

And, I mean, it already felt like the Lakers night. But whenever he came in, it was just sort of like, oh, okay, this is, the, the warriors don't have the horses on the perimeter to be able to handle what the Lakers guards were doing. I mean, Reeves was fantastic, all game, timely threes, and, you know, solid playmaking. You know, he was flailing around like he likes to do. And you'd like to see him cut some of that stuff out. but he was fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I was just super impressed with the Laker guard play, to be honest with you. I mean, LeBron feels like the story ultimately to be, you know, in his 20th year and playing 43 plus minutes and going 39 and 9, you know.

But, yeah, I mean, just impressed with the Lakers across the board for sure. I mean, LeBron set the tone early, I think, that like, I'm going to the basket in this game. And it's not something that he can do as consistently. You know, he used to, in the past, as we know, he came into the league as sort of a wiry flying around, sort of a big wing type, not quite. But once he committed himself, he had that era, I guess, that started in like 13, all the way to kind of up to 20, where he just was like just a relentless punisher around the basket. And he kind of asked to pick his spots a little bit more now.

But in this game, yeah, you could just see that they didn't really have an answer for him, specifically because Wiggins with that rib cartilage injury, he just, you could even see with the way he was running. He kind of seemed like he was like concaving his chest a little bit, maybe to protect himself. But LeBron early on was just kind of like, hey man, you know, like you shouldn't be, you know, which this is the relentlessness of the playoffs. Like there's not like a slap on the back, hey, buddy, just at a courtesy. I'm going to leave this sore alone. LeBron immediately in the first quarter, I think his high in the playoffs for post-ups was like nine, I'm pretty sure. And in the first quarter, he had four post-ups, which were all just kind of like aimed at Wiggins to irritate him.

And you could tell it was a problem immediately for Golden State. You could tell that this was going to be an issue that they were going to they were going to prod at throughout this game if he stayed in. It absolutely felt like it wound up feeling almost like an indictment of, the Warriors roster construction in the first place, that they didn't have someone to stick on LeBron right there. I mean, Draymond's in foul trouble all night. You know,

you have different points where you've got Moody trying to stay with them. There was, you know, a time in the third quarter where Braun just saw Moody and lit up and gave him a ride to the rim. And, you know, they don't trust Cominga, you know, they're not like,

three minutes in this game. It's, it's, you know, it's just they didn't, they didn't have the horses, you know what I mean? Like, it, it wasn't the, you sort of kept expecting the math to wind up working out for the Warriors like it always has throughout this, you know, dynastic run, right? It's just like three is more than two. And, you know, Curry is impossible. And at some point, you know, he's going to get hot and somebody else will. And a hard rain will fall and everything will go back to the way it was. And they just didn't have it tonight.

I mean, Curry was bad. And, you know, he's got 32, but on 28 shots, four for 14 from three. Clay's even worse. I mean, this is, you know, this was an all-time bad clay game. He just looked out of it on both ends. Let's get to that. Let's get to that. I mean, there definitely was some bedshitting that went on in this game.

to comment on like the Steph thing, I mean, I kind of feel like this is just the result of them spinning too many plates for too long. And I think we can, if we look back at the Sacramento series, it could be easy to overlook the fact that they were riding stuff pretty hard. Like,

you know, and they got some Herculian out-of-body experiences from him, performances from him, although like it's hard to underestimate Steph at this point, like what he's capable of. So to say that something is extraordinary with him is kind of difficult at some point. But yeah, like you said, 11 for 28,

but it's like Steph just had no ability to, I always use that word to orbit. He just had no, he had nothing to play off of because of the lack of contributions that they got. Now, you talked about Clay. This is one of the harder questions that kind of ripples out when you zoom out and you look at their situation going forward.

But Clay was rough in this game. In 37 minutes, you know, he only managed to get eight points. He got five assists, but he was three for nine. 19 from the field, two for 12 from three for 16.7%. You know, in the first half, I felt like he was even getting looks, you know? Like, we've seen him press a little hard, and it's hard to come back and be the two-way player that he was, that we would like to see him become again, you know, because, you know, he tore his ACL and then he tore his Achilles. Those are pretty debilitating if you're a lateral guy who is, like, guarding the ball and take a tough assignments and moving off the ball.

ball and things like that. But this also kind of adds to, you know, we've seen it a couple times now. In the close-out game against Sacramento, Clay was two for ten, only managed to get, only managed to get 16 points, you know, two turnovers. And we were talking with our guy being Cruz, a Warriors fan, about like the finals last year. The fact that the Warriors won that game kind of overlooked and the brilliance that they got from Steph and even got some contributions from Wiggins and Pool kind of overshadows the fact that Clay was rough in that game too. He was five for 20, you know, two free from the field,

turned the ball over a lot. I guess he kind of, and then you start to look at like pool, you know, there's a lot of kind of troublesome, you know, I was comparing it with the Lakers. There's just a lot of troublesome. We put our eggs in this basket and the bet has just gone wrong for the Warriors. It just adds up like Cumminga, Pool, you know, Wiggins is hurt and he's played better, but it just kind of feels like the Warriors have kind of put their bet to keep this window open on something that has let them down. And it's hard to feel optimistic coming away from this game if you're looking at the Warriors, big picture.

Yeah, I mean, just from the jump, it was odd because it wasn't like they were getting bad shots. You know, they were good shots and it was just, it was stuff that generally has fun. fallen for them, you know, and it just didn't. And it, uh, they, when they don't, when they can't surround that Steph and Draymond pick and roll with shooting and playmaking and guys who you can trust their decision making and when you need, when, when a game is getting out of hand and you need, and you need, you need to get a good shot. In the past, they've had guys like Sean Livingston, Igadala, these dudes who are going to keep you on schedule. The trains are going to run on time, right?

And they know where the ball is supposed to go. And if they need to make a play, they can. Also defensively switchable, too, which is an issue. Yeah. For sure. For sure. And I'm more just, I'm more just talking about offensively here. And whenever the person that they start to rely on that's sort of coming off the bench to kind of give them their firepower and give them another look is kind of giving them just a more chaotic stuff that's, you know, middle class stuff like Poole is. And, you know, Devin Chino is great tonight, but he's not going to be somebody who's going to go, you know, I don't think he's somebody who's going to go win you a playoff game yet, right? And so it, they just, yeah, I feel like I'm just repeating myself. It felt like they kept expecting things to work out. And it's just, it's just not 2016 anymore.

Yeah. And you're talking about Steph and we're talking about it's nice. They ideally don't want to play this way. They don't want to play with him with the ball, just constantly facing the basket and pick and roll over and over again, A, because of Anthony Davis, which we will talk about here in a minute. but also like just because it's the most infuriating part about Steph's game is when he doesn't have the ball you know whenever he's away from it that's where his genius is totally because he's so clever about getting open and changing his speeds and in this game you know his his on ball in

ball screens uh this was his season high if i'm not mistaken yeah 48 total just screen actions he was involved in in this one so 62.3 per 100 so yeah heavy heavy and this that's kind of a, that's a last resort for them. That's the situation that they're in. But I want to flip it here. You know, we're trying to do this thing of like analyzing where Golden State goes from here, but also giving the Lakers a lot of credit. Now, you talk about like putting your bet on things that didn't work. The Lakers are the polar opposite of that. And I've talked a little bit in the past about like how I personally feel like the Warriors have kind of, kind of abandon their roster construction philosophy. You were talking about like Iguodal and

Livingston, both kind of guys who were former point guards had ball in their hands, like big physical, switchable guys. I guess they just didn't have the ability to go get those dudes, but just kind of a high quality threshold of decision makers. But if you look at the Lakers, what they've done in the past, you know, in the past few months, even since the trade deadline, you know, they bolstered their team with a lot more kind of extra ball handlers and extra guys who can get going. But all of this revolves around Anthony Davis.

Anthony Davis, when healthy, I pointed this out to you. Defending ball screens in this game, Anthony Davis only allowed 0.538 points per possession. I know that's not a mainstream stat that you can just rattle off anywhere at the grocery store and everybody knows what you're talking about, but that's insanely low just for perspective. And also, and we've talked about this a little bit in the past too, but like, you also just can't totally quantify Anthony Davis's impact on the game. You know, I texted you and I was like, they keep going to this one five pick and roll with Looney. They keep trying to bring Davis away from the basket.

But it seemed like even that didn't take him out of the play. It just, he looms so large in this game and really, I don't know, that seemed like a pretty, if that's your last resort, it still wasn't a great option at the end of the day. It didn't feel like. He was spooking everybody. I mean, he had, you know, he had, Steph is one of the best finishers in the league down there. and he had him, you know, shooting scared. When Davis looks like this, it changes everything for them. LeBron doesn't have to exert as much energy.

You know, their guards can be physical and aggressive and press up on people. And, yeah, I mean, he's just a condor down there. I mean, you've watched a ton of Davis. When he's like this, is he just, do you think he's just the best defender in the league? I've said this has been a hard conversation for the past few years just because whenever he's hurt and you know, whenever we're even doing our rankings, when you start to talk about Davis and he's just piling up these D&Ps and these times when he's out, it's kind of like, I kind of think Davis is still really good. You know, we, the fatigue in the basketball public, you can just feel it when people are just like, people get to the point where they don't want to hear it. And then you get into a playoff series like this. And I was asking you, can you think during the war, Warriors dynasty. To answer your question, yes, I do think he's the best defensive player in the

world when he's healthy. That's not really a wild stance by me on a night like this. You know, a few months ago when he's not playing ever, it's like, yeah, it's like, okay, shut up. We get it. But if he doesn't play, what good is he? But it's like on a night like this, and when he's this dominant, and I was going to ask you, can you, other than that last time they played A.D. in a playoff series, can you remember the Warriors dynasty coming up against a dynamic room protector like this? I don't think they've played one of this. level that I can think of. Yeah, I don't think so.

There's nobody that comes to mind aside from Davis, like we were talking about, aside from Davis in 2018 and that Pelican's team. 2015, yeah, too, also, yeah. Was it 25? Yeah, sorry, 2015. I mean, he had an unbelievable, I mean, put up unbelievable numbers that year. And they only got to the playoffs that year because he hit like a, I think it was like a weird double pump sort of like that deep.

Against the thunder. Yeah, against the thunder that year to get into the playoffs. But yeah, I think that that's the only time, right? I mean, 2016, Cavs, no. Iba maybe. I mean, healthy abaca was bothersome, but not like this. You know, like, you know, Adams was athletic in 2016, but nothing compared to the, you know, this. He's a three-level rim protector.

He can meet you at the level. He can hang back and still bother. And he can make crazy out of it. area plays. And like when he's purely playing center like this, I mean, yeah, I think that's, that is why we project like what Mobley could be. We're always like Kevin Garnett, Kevin Garnett, Kevin Garnett. It's like the closest thing to prime Kevin Garnett defensively that we have seen since then is Anthony Davis. And I think that unequivocally is the case. Davis's body control in the air, like whenever he, when he starts, you know, going and getting these contested rebounds where,

you know, you see this collection of hands in the vicinity of the net and then he just claws in there. It's, yeah, it's just a different level of activity from him than you see from other bigs. I think just because of like, you just forget how fluid he is. I think because he's so dinged up a lot of the time and because there's a lot of falling down and, you know, grabbing his face and stuff like that, the first thing. I think it's pretty natural that the first thing that people would think about would be, you know, sort of that, that he's a little bit fragile, right? But it does mask. He's really an impossibility down there. I mean, it's going to be so much fun to, I don't even know if we've talked about enough about the Warriors losing. Maybe if we've spent too much time on Davis, but it's just going to be so much fun watching Emma Yokic. I mean, that's just going to be unbelievable, just two Yeagers going at it. Like, it's going to be something. Yes, it is.

And, yeah, flipping it back. So let's do, I mean, the obvious big takeaway here is that, like, you know, since 20, I mean, they had a run in 2014 that was pretty solid. But then, you know, they turn around. Steve Kerr comes in. They win a title in their first year. They were totally expecting to kind of take it slow and, like, we'll get comfortable with Kerr in 2014, 15. And they just go and win the title in the first year. And ever since then, you know, it seems like we've been on a track where, you know,

Steph goes down and I guess at the end of the 2019 finals, that kind of had a finite feel to it. But there was sort of that like, there was that thing in the air of like, okay, well, maybe maybe Clay gets healthy. Maybe they retool a little bit. And we had that era where they tried to connect the eras. And they have those high draft picks and they come and they take Moody and they take James Wiseman. And then they take Cumanga. And they traded for DeAngelo Russell. There were a lot of sort of questionable things that went on during that time.

Yeah, we didn't talk about DeLo Revenge Game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking about that clip from Royal Tendombs where Royal Tendombs where Royal points down, I know you asshole. That's kind of what I wondered if they were like yelling at Delo at some point. But that ending in 2019 kind of felt like, well, maybe it's not over. How do you think this time is different? I mean, compare and contrast, Tyler.

That's a hard question. I mean, part of it is that Dremont's not what he was. Part of it is that, I mean, in 2019, had there been multiple clay injuries or just the one? He tore his ACL in that finals, and I think to my knowledge, that was his first, like, major, major injury that I was aware of. And then, you know, obviously during the rehab, you know, during the fall of 2020, I believe it was like a couple days after the draft, Yeah, he tore his Achilles. Right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, I think the story after 2019 was more like,

oh, these guys lost because Durant got hurt. The finality of it was maybe people forgetting how good Steph was and kind of letting Durant's injury take the forefront. This time around, there's not any real injuries to take the attention. attention from just the result. That was, I mean, you know, the obvious things like that was in the finals and this is in, you know, the second round. Steph is still what he was.

Arguably better than ever. I mean, he's just as good. Yeah. And so it's hard to, for it to feel like there's any sort of, you know, bow on the run exactly, if only because he is one of those guys. that you feel like, okay, if we, you know, surround him with capable people, we got a shot. But I think that everyone else around him, just lacking the juice and really not meeting the moment in a lot of these games, that it was, you know, Clay has the one, Clay goes for 30, you know, wants this series, I think, right? But like, other than that, generally somebody goes and gets a big number, it's almost always curry.

They just, they feel like they just lack the juice outside of him to really scare a lot of teams now. And I mean, they got a lot of money committed to these four dudes, right? And so it's, and I don't know, I don't know what you can get for Dremont. I don't know what you can get for pool. It's probably not what you need. You mentioned Clay going off. I mean, yeah, and I guess it was game two. He had 30 points when they won that game.

And I mean, you know, everybody keeps saying make-miss league and all that. It's like, and you sort of have set the table here for going forward. So if you're looking at the decisions to be made, I think that's the most daunting part about this looking to the horizon. It's just, and it raises a lot of questions about like, okay, how kind of inextricable are is the sort of like synergy, between these three guys and the success. Can you separate a Steph and a Draymond? I always call them the binary star where it's like the chemistry,

it can't be underrated, like the chemistry between, you know, Draymon is sort of a playmaking fulcrum and Steph as this off-ball savant genius. It wouldn't, you know, I've seen people talk about a trade potentially with like Atlanta. So then you import some of the defensive personality

that Atlanta sorely needs and you send a John Collins to, to Golden State. How perilous do you think it is to sort of underestimate Draymond's impact offensively on what the Warriors do and they're like off ball heavy offense? Like, is that something that you can just go out and get any, you know, any, any swinging fella like to just step in and recreate it at the same level? I don't think so. I think what he does out of those short roles is very special. And, you know, Draymond's one of those dudes

that if he would just play like he played in game five all the time, you'd just, you just, I think you'd be, they'd be fine. I mean, like there were times again tonight

where he's just not even looking at the rim, it's hitting his hands and he's immediately swinging it, you know, and Anthony Davis playing a big part in that too, right? I mean, yes,

but you, you, like, Davis was on the floor during game five, too. There are times where he does seem, you know, like he doesn't want it.

You know what I mean? Offensively. I mean, do you think that them losing him would be, would hurt their offense more than it would hurt their defense? I almost, I mean, defensively, obviously he's, you know, one of the best defenders in the world right now. I mean, it's hard to say. I think it's more, his impact as an offensive player,

I don't think he's not a universal donor to any team, any situation. Whereas, like, defensively, I do think. that he's a universal donor. So I think that you have to value his defense ahead of his offense in that way. But I think his offensive, you know, impact for them is just so specific to what they do and to Steph specifically that, you know, I just don't know that you could assume that like a John Collins could work in or you talk about like another another fulcrum big guy could just step in and run the same kind of DHO stuff. And, you know, the two-way part of it is part of what makes him so, such a low-waste player that he's able to pull that off.

as a non-shooter, and that's really hard to do. Yeah, if you look at it and you just look at the fact that, like, you know, they, they, the Jordan pool thing looks rough now. And if you're going into the off season, you're thinking about, like, well, who potentially, I keep hearing about them potentially making big, big moves. I could see Draymond going and working hypothetically with, like, a Cleveland. If you look at the way their two guards sort of like run on and off ball quickly, any kind of situation like that, which is kind of, is the template that,

the Warriors created so he could potentially go somewhere else and try to sort of like franchise what they did somewhere else like let's recreate it but I don't know that it would work the same way but the other problem too is the leverage part of this other teams have sat here and watch pool on big stages just be terrible I mean he made so many boneheaded plays tonight um defensively offensively he just was a no show um gave them like garbage buckets when the when the the you know, the decision was already kind of locked in. He had some moment in the third quarter where, like, you know, LeBron's got the ball, like, you know, kind of like a little up from the right elbow or something like that.

Like LeBron's heels are on the three point line and pools like pressing up on him, like trying to get underneath them or whatever. And, you know, LeBron just goes right by and pull fouls him. And you just sort of like, what do you think you're doing here? Yeah. Why do you, what is, what is? What about LeBron's game, this entire series, makes you think the way to handle this situation is to press up on him and get into his chest? You are down your knees thanking the Lord if he shoots that.

It's just sort of like real basic stuff where you're just like, are you just not, you know, maybe he's thinking like, okay, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to, you know, get some energy going. You know, like let's, let's, you know, show some, you know, toughness here, whatever. but it yeah it was just one of those things like it was sort of the defensive

version of of some of those shots that he takes where you're just like you know you can't have thought you can't have thought about this

yeah he looked like he didn't want any part of that play to me to me he had a look on when they showed the replay he had a look

on his face where he was just like I want to be anywhere else and I thought that I thought that he fouled him just to get out of there

like that was his escape route was the foul? Yeah, I thought that he was just like, oh, and he just kind of held his hands up. Like, oh, man, he just looked like he wanted to do anything other than be involved in that play. Yeah, going for it, it does feel bleak for the Warriors, but you know, you have to flip it the other way and give the Lakers a lot of credit like we talked about. And moving forward, yeah, I mean, this this Nuggets match up.

The physicality part of it is like, you know, they are going to be able to bring a physicality to the Nuggets that I think is going to be unique. You remember a few years ago whenever, now they don't have like a Dwight Goon-type guy on the roster to come in and just hit Yokich in the face. That's an interesting thing about this Lakers team is how little time they're playing like a true backup five or even like in the rotation.

I mean, it's pretty... I mean, they're playing LeBrona at the 5 even when it's not working. I mean, they're not... They don't trust any of those bigs. I mean, the LeBrona of the 5 stuff has not gone great, But they're just doing it because I don't know. I mean, I think that they just, I don't think that he trusts Bamba at all. You know, it doesn't, yeah.

Not much Bamba. No, much Bamba. No, I mean, I think you're going to probably have to see more Jared Vanderbilt in this series just because of the big forwards. Denver has a unique tandem of forwards in Gordon, in MPJ, and then in Jeff Green. I mean, they have a slew of big forwards that they can throw out there, whereas, and it may be a thing where the Lakers, their perimeter size is the flip side of that, and they challenge.

But, you know, Denver's done a lot to address their issues in the past year, like building year over year. And I don't know, if I just, like, quickly held a water gun to your head and said, pick something, who do you feel strongly about in this matchup? I don't feel strongly about either of them. I, like, it, golly, super-soaker to my head. Nuggets. but just because, I don't know, maybe I don't trust enough. Maybe I'm still like it.

I don't know. I'm not good with these predictions. Not a big prediction guy. I mean, Denver is going to present a challenge because they are whole and functioning on an offensive level that Golden State is not right now. I think Steph's brilliance maybe masks some of the symptoms. The underlying disease, they masked some of the symptoms, but the underlying disease was there, which was that, like, they were short-handed. Denver is not suffering from that right now.

They've got a unique offball threat. They have a really clever offball threat who's playing super well in Jamal Murray. They have a passing Savant who can also go and get you a 40 point triple double in Yokic. You have a guy that you have a couple, you know, physical players inside. I just think I would lean Denver,

but also, you know, the AD room protection part of this is going to be really interesting for their cutting game, you know, if he's hanging back. So I would still give Denver like a slight lean, but I don't know. It's hard to feel confident about that right now with the way that LeBron and AD are playing. So in the other game of the night here was the Miami Heat closed out the Knicks. 96 and 92. They win the series 4 to 2 and they move on to the Eastern Conference finals to await the winner of Philly and Boston,

which we eagerly awaited. I'm excited to see that one. For the Knicks, I feel like this was a story similar to kind of what Golden State was going through in the fact that, you know, the Knicks did a lot to improve their roster this year. And it was interesting to hear Knicks fans kind of coming away from this one. They seemed like they were down. I mean, they were sad that the season's over. But they all kind of seem to have more of a, they seem to have more pep in their step than normal for a last day of the season type thing, whereas Nick's fans are usually kind of staring into the despair. thinking horrible intrusive thoughts.

But tonight, tonight it just kind of seemed like a similar thing to what Steph was going through in that, you know, Brunson had an incredible game. He's had an incredible series. He played another huge minute load tonight, 45 minutes, went 14 for 22, and this one, five for 10 from the three point line, and he put up 41 points. But for me, it kind of felt like this was a story of, you know, he scored nearly half of their points. and the other half here was a struggle. It just seemed like the Knicks really, really had a hard time.

Credit to Miami and their active, handsy defense, but it just seems like the Knicks have some things to answer about the guys that they have bet on, similar to the Warriors here, but they really had sort of a lack of help for Brunson in this one. Yeah, I mean, he felt, I wouldn't have blamed him for feeling all alone out there. I mean, you know, Randall was, as he likes to do, dribbling the air out of the ball.

It, watching him try to, you know, take Bam off the bounds. I mean, I know he's, I know Randall's had some big games against the heat in the regular season. But, you know, it definitely felt like a situation where Spolstra and out of bio had him kind of figured out. and knew what to do with him to keep him neutralized. Some of the threes he took tonight, you just wonder where his head's at. And, you know, Barrett, I mean, he started off aggressive, you know, gets to the line of bunch there in the first few minutes of the game,

but, you know, makes one shot tonight and just gets the ball taken from him and just doesn't seem comfortable in that situation. You know what I mean? He seemed like he wasn't really ready for it. And it, yeah, I mean, it just heart, you know, it plays so hard and does so many things well.

And he's now the father of twin boys. And congrats to him. Yeah. Congrats to him. But yeah, I mean, the heat weren't worried about him at all. And even on that last play there, when Brunson gets kind of that sort of soft double and doesn't know what to do with it, winds up shoveling it to Randall or trying to, at least. And, you know, Vincent makes a good play there.

That, that, let me put a pin in that play for a second. That was an odd play. Brunson got trapped on the baseline. He had hard above the break wide over. open. And instead of kicking it to him, he shoveled it into traffic, which was an odd choice, I thought. Did he just not see hard? Or did he think he couldn't make the pass? What do you think happened there? That was, I didn't, I, they didn't show a good angle to be able to tell if he was actually blocked. It felt like, I don't know how he couldn't have seen him. It's, it just based off of,

you know, whatever angles we were given on the broadcast, it seemed like he. He, saw him and didn't want to throw it there and saw Randall cutting late and maybe didn't think Vincent was going to step in. And, you know, Vincent kind of slides back in, cuts Randall off kind of, you know, there as he's kind of entering the lane. And that's all she wrote. But it did feel like it felt like Brunson wasn't trusting heart there to be able to hit that. And I don't blame him. I don't really blame him. I wouldn't have blamed him for making the pass either. But if he's, you know, it, Hart has not shot the ball well. And there's, you know, there's a, there's a reason that he, that there was nobody around him there. I mean, it seemed like the Knicks, they, they got that, you know, they got that, that weird flagrant one foul gave Vincent was trying to, I couldn't tell it was intentional or not, but it looked like he was kind of trying to swim off the ball and just, I mean, it looked like it looked like it. It felt.

It felt accidental. It didn't feel, it didn't feel intentional, really. I mean, it was, it was a solid shot to the face. Yes, it looked like it really, really hurt. Yeah, but it didn't feel, it didn't feel like he was hunting, you know, like it. Yeah. Yeah. And in this game, one for four from three, but I really, coming back to the story about the lack of help thing, you know, as we said, Brunson was doing his crazy, a rhythmic getting in the lane thing. And it was, it was working, that thing that we talked about earlier in the playoffs. But whenever, you know, the Knicks have had this issue, you know, in the past it was worse. I thought they improved it a little bit. They needed more connectivity within their offense. Losing quickly was brutal for that, but he wasn't even playing well to begin with. But then you, whenever you, it's just so tediously and, you know, tumultuously, like, balanced their ball movement and their, like, flow within their offense that you pull one piece out. And it just kind of crumbles. This summer, man, I mean, I feel like for RJ Barrett, let's just start there.

RJ, you know, a number three pick in the draft. He was a guy that a lot of people kind of had confidence in. They didn't win the Zion sweepstakes, but they were like, hey, we got an RJ potential star. I feel like this offseason is going to be kind of a soul-searching moment for RJ because he looked lost defensively. Not even lost. He just looked overwhelmed. Jimmy was flat out hunting him throughout this game.

It was just like licking his chops and he's still a young player and has a lot of of time to get better, but offensively he was terrible. One for 10 from the field, 11 points, three turnovers. He got to the line. But the other one is Randall, like you were talking about. And I don't know what the Knicks do about this because Randall is one of these guys that can toggle between, you know, if he's getting off the ball quickly, if he's, his big thing is that he'll just get into these ruts.

He'll stick on the ball, dribble, dribble, dribble, take like a crazy fall away. like 18-footer, three-pointer. It's just tough for their offense because you're just, you're negating that all these things kind of pay forward and hurt Mitchell Robinson. I don't know. I just, I kind of want to scream when I watched Randall play that way because it's just bad basketball. And I really don't know what they're supposed to do about this.

Three for 14 for him, 21% from the field. How do you solve the Randall problem, man? I mean, do you get rid of him? Is there a world where he's not? he can play a different style? How do you solve a problem like Julius Randall? I think the only way that they can bring him back is if he sort of understands, hey, you trying to do everything is not good.

And you need to be able to fit into an offense that is featured around Jalen and show us that you can make quick decisions. with the ball. When he goes fast and is decisive and is at least, you know, trying to get to the rim, you'll, I think, deal with the mistakes there, some of the misses way more than you will. These, you know, want to be Barkley backdowns that in, you know, that like start with a bunch of jab steps and, you know, wind up with kind of, you know, some hotly contested fade, right? Like it just doesn't, he doesn't have that kind of bag to be able to do that in the playoffs against a good defense. He's not, he's just not that kind of shotmaker. And if he can come to

that realization, then I think he can, you know, provide a lot of value for a team. But if he wants to be, a bunch of people have mentioned the body language and how he can get a little mopey out there and can seem not even necessarily down on himself, but just down on existence. Well, yeah, his body language blew up a couple of possessions because, you know, the Knicks were like, all right, we got to get the ball out of Jimmy's hand. So Jimmy catches the ball across half court and they bring two and they blitz him around the half court line. You can do that if you're recovering with some with some urgency. And whenever they took two to the ball. Randall just moped to go recover. And it was just like a pass to the middle, kick, swing,

swing, easy bucket. It was just like any of those times where they could have like made a play to like, you know, get some traction in the end of game scenario. He was killing him with the bad shots and also just the moping on defense like you were talking about. It almost makes me think like, does he just need to be like rehabilitated in the basketball since? Like he got this big contract because he was the primary option, which I think might have been the worst thing for him, like in his identity as a player, because I think that there's a world, and I wrote this in our top 100 thing, where if he made those quick decisions like you were talking about, he can pass the ball. I've seen him do it. Attack, be a 0.5 player, take open threes, but be a connector instead of this like, you know,

be the punctuation in the middle of the sentence, not the punctuation at the end. And he just really struggles to do that because there's something hardwired into his brain. brain where he's like, I need to be a primary option. Otherwise, I just don't feel comfortable playing any other way. No, I'm with you completely. I mean, one of the more bonkers stats that came out of the night is that Brunson made 14 field goals and the rest of the Knicks combined, I think, made 13. The fact that they were in the game was crazy. Yeah. The fact that they were in the game was crazy. It really is. I think that in some ways it was just Spoe and the heat defense just kind of outsmarting Randall and just being like,

it's like a batter that can't lay off the high stuff, right? Like, it's just like, we're going to give you these shots that we know that you just can't resist. And we know that you're going to take them. And then we're going to get a body on you and you're not going to, you know, that's going to be that. I mean, he's he's not a guy who's going to try to get others involved. whenever he doesn't have his stuff going. Like, when he doesn't have it going, he's going to try to get it going. You know what I mean?

He's not going to try. He's not going to look for other people. So he doesn't feel like he's being a thoughtful player in some of those moments when he does chuck some of those contested threes during times when every single possession for the Knicks was a total slog. and scoring felt like an impossibility, you'd hope that they would work for a shot that was something a little bit better than that, right? Brunson was not going to force the issue

in a way that was disruptive to the offense, right? Like, he was going to the rim, he was getting into the teeth of the defense, he was trying to make things happen for other people whenever his shot wasn't there. Like there was an effort to play downhill to try to get to the line, right, to try to get easier shots. And it did not, it felt like the,

it felt like all Randall was willing to do to try to get an easier shot was to slam his right shoulder into Bam's chest four times. It was adorable when he kept trying to score on Bam in the post. I was just like, let's just change the plan here. Yeah, it's just like he's operating in another reality. You know what I mean? It's just like, dude, this is, BAM is a full load. You're not going to be able to just body him down.

It's just not, he's got to get a little stronger for that. And Randall's a, I mean, Randall's a bull, right? But like, it's just he's not, he's not Bam. Bam has some pretty crazy core strength. But, you know, the Miami just kind of negated the ways that the Knicks sort of try to circumvent the fact that they don't pass the ball well, which, you know, Miami won the assist battle tonight, 25 to 13. and then won the rebounding battle, which is a place where Miami usually where the Knicks usually get some points.

Points in the paint. Miami won that, 38 to 20. And it was just, you know, you got a little bit of the Kyle Lowry. You know, he dabbled in here with his nine assists and just kind of, you know, nickel and dime and then with some baskets here and there. I don't know. Moving forward, it's going to be interesting to see who they end up matching up against. But Miami moves on. The zombie continues to wander in stock. the living, the living, I don't know how they continue to do it.

I kind of had the thought today, I was like, is Eric's bolstra? I mean, is he in the conversation for best coach in the world right now? I mean, I think it's worth, it's worth a thought. Dude, I mean, there was that stat floating around. He's been the head coach of the heat for 15 seasons, and they've been to the Eastern Conference finals for seven of those. That's just wild. Yeah.

You know, I mean, and he's got, you know, he's had, you know, He had stacked rosters for a few of those, right? But, like, it's, I mean, he's obviously, you know, like, in the preseason, he was my, like, preseason coach of the year just because it kind of felt like he had sort of gotten to that pop kind of point where just everybody was just sort of like, no, if you give this guy a series to try to figure something out, you know, good luck. Like, it, but, yeah, I mean, they were doing stuff with the zone during this game that was clearly confusing to the Knicks and he's just a diabolical game planner and somebody who is going

to give his guys every opportunity to be successful and to be put in positions that they are most comfortable in. And maybe more than that is just all of his teams play crazy hard. You know, it's not as if they, I mean, the heat were not a good hang for a lot of this year and played some ugly, ugly basketball, the first play-in game included. I mean, tonight was ugly, to be fair. They're winning ugly even still, yeah. For sure. But I more mean like even like vibes-wise, right?

There were times where they looked, you know, like they were, you know, ready for Turks and Kekos. You know, times during the season, the vibes didn't seem great. But credit to them for turning it around. I mean, they get great minutes from Lowry tonight. big minutes from Robinson, Struce played well. You know, like Vincent made big plays for them down the stretch. I mean, they just, it, everybody says it,

but they find these dudes and they turn them into real, you know, winning basketball players and guys that aren't afraid of the moment. I mean, you know, you sometimes you go get these diamonds in the rough, right? And it's like they're good for you up to a certain point, but once the stakes get high enough, Either the talent level's not there, or it's just like, hey, I'm not ready for this yet or whatever. And they find dudes that, you know, don't blink. And it, yeah, I mean, it's, I think it says, I think people give a lot of credit to Pat Riley and the whole heat culture thing for good reason.

But it, the spolster stuff and the, and the kind of the physicality and the toughness that they, that they bring. I don't know. It just, it feels, feels special. We'll see just how special it is It can continue to be We'll be sitting tight waiting to see The conclusion of that Sixers Celtics series Thanks for listening to us tonight

This reaction Tyler, it was good to see you Yeah, hopefully see you in person here When I head out to L.A. this weekend Do some in-person OKC draft stuff And thanks for listening to the Ringer NBA show We're going to keep coming with the daily coverage and reactions in the playoffs and the draft

and everything coming up as we continue to plow on towards the end of this season. Check out Tyler's League Pass rankings. He's going to be updating that soon. And thanks to Kai Grady and Ben Cruz, the cruise missile for staying up. Congrats, Kai, for your Lakers winning. And guys, we will check you.

We will check you next time.