The Ringer NBA Show - LeBron Pokes Back, Vintage Russ Shows Up, and More From Saturday’s Game 4s | Group Chat

Episode Date: April 23, 2023

Justin, Rob, and Wos recap Saturday’s playoff games, starting with the Lakers bouncing back in Game 3 and beating the Grizzlies easily. They discuss the Grizzlies' abysmal start to the game, Dillon Brooks's poor performance and ejection, and more. Next, they talk about the Suns taking a commanding 3-1 lead over the Clippers (20:28). They talk about Russell Westbrook’s impressive showing, Chris Paul’s vintage performance, and more. Then, they talk about the Sixers sweeping the Nets. They give their thoughts on the Sixers without Joel Embiid and what’s next for the Nets (40:25). They wrap up with the Heat taking a 2-1 lead over the Bucks. They discuss the Bucks' struggles on defense, the Duncan Robinson resurgence, and Victor Oladipo’s season-ending injury(55:00). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Sean Fennessey, one of the hosts of the Prestige TV podcast. HBO's Barry is back for a fourth and final season, and that means I'll be back recapping the show with co-creator and star Bill Hader to dive deep on the themes, scenes, and major moments in the series. Bill will provide insight into how every episode was made and why it's ending. New Prestige TV Barry recaps will go live every Sunday night when the episode ends, so make sure you're subscribed to the Prestige TV podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to group chat.

I am Justin Barry. Joining me, two podcasters that don't play with their meat, Rob Mahoney, Big Waz. Wise, it's a boom time for growing related activity in the NBA. Have you noticed this? I mean, I feel like that's all season long for most of these guys, but that might be a different groin-related activity. It's 10 o'clock in the morning.

What better time. Should we just start there? I mean, we're going to get into Saturday's action, four games on the slate. But now this is two incidents of grain hits. We have Dylan Brooks. We have James Harden. One more, it's a trend. It just feels like there's a lot going on here.

And I don't know how this happened, Rob. Well, you missed Joel Embed, too, whether he did hit or not, allegedly. Who knows? It's weird. And it's weird that it's escalated to the point that now we have to talk about, like, is this guy going to get suspended? for this nut hit in the middle of a playoff game. This is not how I thought we'd be spending our time

at this stage in the postseason, but it's where we are. Clearly there's a lot of animosity between some of these teams. There's a lot of chippiness. There's a lot of the playoff energy that we love and we love to see. And I guess that's the outlet for it this year.

It's just find the nearest person to you and hit them very hard in the nuts. Yeah, and I think, man, what you're seeing with the Grizzly specifically, this is not a group that exercises is very much restraint collectively and individually, and they could get out ahead of their skis oftentimes. I think that's what originally drew us to the Grizzlies,

this sort of unbridled, just energy that they had, that it felt sort of untamed. And we liked the wildness of the Grizzlies. And, you know, they were one of those extremely high effort teams, especially last year when they sort of burst onto the scene as like a true sort of contender type. And I think this is part of it, especially when you consider the age of the guys.

All of the main players on this team are really young guys still. And I think we're going to see these mistakes crop up. But it's like to me, even with the injuries to Stephen Adams, it's just like, y'all should be playing better against the Lakers? You know, maybe I'm crazy. Maybe Justin's just like, come on, Waz. This is the Western Conference contending Lakers.

But I think their youth is holding them back and it displays itself with this Dylan Brooks nonsense. But, Waz, here's the thing. Dylan Brooks, the offender in question, the guy who's been talking all series long, the guy who got ejected from this game for hitting LeBron on the nuts, he's 27 years old, you know?

I'm not saying he's had a ton of playoff experience, but he should be better than that. And what he is is he's Dylan Brooks, right, he's not a young guy. This is who he is, right? He runs very hot. He plays with a ton of energy and a ton of, like, intensity

in ways that has a lot of stray voltage. And it can lead to moments like this. It can also lead to moments like in the first quarter where he damn near shot the grizzlies out of this game. Well, well, first of all, we think that the dong tap was intentional, right? I think there's some gray area here. I don't think it was intentional.

But again, Dylan Brooks, kind of doesn't get the benefit of the doubt when he's in post-game press conferences, you know, basically disparaging the guy who he punched in the nuts. You know, like, we got to take all of these things into account when trying to judge the behavior. So while I don't think that he was like,

yo, you know what, LeBron's about to go past me, let me grab his junk. But the referees get put in a situation where you ever watch like a TV show or a movie where they're in a courtroom and something that wasn't supposed to be allowed and court gets said and they tell the jury, strike that from the record.

You're not supposed to consider that. Like, are referees supposed to not consider what this dude is doing in his postgames and the antagonisms? I don't think that's possible. Well, they did when they brought someone from the referee just epicenter. They did make a point to ask that person

who wasn't, Moni McCutcheon, who is typically the person coming in from the wonder, Emporium, like whether or not Brooks's history factored in. And they said specifically that it didn't, but I think you're right. How much can you just block that all out and not realize that this had been building for a couple days now, to the point where LeBron even went up to Brooks very pointedly before the game and made a point of saying something to him? Well, you have to take, like, look, the referees, while they may be trying to do that and trying to judge these kinds of incidents independent of context, they've also been clear that some of the rulings on whether these hits,

are unnecessary and excessive, which are the criteria for flagrant fouls, are depending on whether they hit, right? So how LeBron reacts is important context. How LeBron reacts, he certainly react. Again, like, I think he got really hit. I'm not saying he embellished it, but how he reacts is important.

How he reacts is rooted at least somewhat in the fact that he knows Dylan Brooks has been talking all this shit, right? Like, there already is a relationship to these things. So clearly the rest are looking at that, stuff on some level. It just may be more of an unconscious level rooted in the way the events themselves manifest. Let me tell you, LeBron's Bill Hader, his train wreck co-star would be proud of that performance. Shouts to Bill Hader. By the way, big ringer guy. Yeah, they were definitely

giving hater-esque angles on LeBron writhing on the floor for a good couple minutes there. It looked like an episode of Barry. Yeah, I just didn't expect to be watching so much the Pruder film of whether or not someone hit someone in the gonads. Definitely puts a new spin on Cajonis factor, but I guess this is the playoffs and improbable things happen here. But otherwise, I would say quite a first day for me as a Lakers fan was. Unfortunately, you picked a bad time to go against the purple and gold. You know, I was just hanging out in the foreign club, loving this one.

Didn't expect this performance. But to your point about the Grizzlies, they do kind of have a history of talking tough and not backing it up. Listen, that first quarter was quite possibly the worst quarter of playoff basketball that I've ever seen. Holy shit. From anybody. And it wasn't just the brick shots, like the turnovers were just so careless. And it's just sloppiness.

They just were not ready to hoop. You know, after, you know, all of these days passed from all of this yapping, you bumping your gums all over the place, puffing your chest out, like, we beat your butt without our All-Star, and you're feeling proud. And to come out, knowing how important this game is and to deliver that performance to start the game, they effectively lost the game in the first 12 minutes. That is so hard to do, especially in today's three-point shooting, happy, crazy NBA. They lost it in the first quarter. That's inexcusable, man. And, you know, some people would be like, Well, Taylor Jenkins got to have him ready to play.

Man, listen, if you can't understand the gravity of the moment, there's no coach that can pull that out of you, man. Like, I know we just passed Easter Sunday. Jesus Christ himself couldn't come and pull that out of you. If you can't understand on your own that this is a huge game, man. This is like, wow. And here's the thing, too. I understand that it's a young group and it's easy to think

we're going to be doing this forever. That's crazy. Just look at the Clippers, man. Obviously, Kauai and Paul, Georgia, way younger than these guys. I mean, excuse me, older than these guys, but when they put those two together, it's like, they're going to be in the finals, they're going to do this.

This is going to be injury after injury and just bad luck and terrible luck and, like, you can't take these moments for granted. And yesterday, that first quarter felt like a group that was taking their situation for granted. It was an interesting contrast with these game threes between the Grizzlies and one of their other rivals, the Golden State Warriors, right? The Warriors show up after going down O2. They look very in control, right?

They look poised. They knew exactly what they wanted to do. The fact that Memphis came out in this game, and specifically I want to zero in on the other four starters who are not John Morant, you expect Jha to come into this game rusty. You expect him to come in, needing to feel out that hand, figuring out what he can do, what he can't do. the fact that the other four guys were just categorically not ready to play and not just that they missed but the way

that those shots were missed like you know Tyos Jones came into this game for example shot a three so wide it didn't even hit rim it was awful like that kind of stuff is just inexcusable in a game like this right like it's okay to have some nerves it's okay to be a little afraid it's okay to be a little

daunted by the fact that the Lakers are coming at you with all of this energy but you got to expect that they're going to be a desperate team. You got to expect that after all the talking, the Lakers are going to show up to play. And what do you have to show for it? What do you have to show for that preparation and that anticipation other than a 9.4 first quarter

that literally lost you the game, as you said, was it's, they played so well over the back half of this game and specifically Jha went from in the first quarter. I kind of thought, is he going to be playable in this game with the way he was losing his handle? Yeah. to putting up one of the most miraculous fourth quarter runs we've seen in a long time, almost stealing this game out from under the Lakers,

if they had just given him any help at all in the first, Memphis has a real shot at this game. Well, that's why I wonder if it does ultimately trickle back to Brooks, because it seemed like getting him out of the game and getting the circus off of the court, almost refocused them. Clearly, nothing was going right for the Grizzlies, and it took John Morant scoring 22 straight points to even rally them back into this game to the point where it became pretty close down the stretch there, but I do

wonder if this lend more credence to the idea that maybe they shouldn't even re-sign Brooks this off-season because he's become such a distraction and like clearly the Grizzlies have had a lot of chemistry issues, let's call them, this season. I don't think you're going to get rid of John Morant, your guy who's

potentially on a Supermax contract coming up this off-season. But Brooks seems like a really easy person to extract from this situation and maybe try to refocus this team like they did in this game was. I don't know if I take it that far because I think Brooks is a legitimate difference maker on defense. I think like what he actually does wins games for this team. It takes their defense from, oh, this is a pretty good group to damn. They can guard the hell out of people.

And he's, look, man, I'm sorry. LeBron is not whooping this guy's ass. It's just not happening. And he's mainly guarding him on an island. To be fair, they're switching every single. single pick and roll, and, you know, even Tillman is doing a decent job on LeBron. So I guess you could take that with a grain of salt. But, like, this guy, he's a huge difference maker. And I think he gives them an energy and an edge that the team feels like they need. It's become part of their identity. Now, how successful has that identity been for them?

That's a different question. I would, no, I would balk at the idea that you don't resign this guy this offseason. because to me, man, on it, like, on it. Like, for instance, if the Warriors had this dude all season where, like, all he has to do is literally nothing else would shoot wide open shots because Steph's being a triple team and just mall perimeter guys like this,

he would be incredible. Just think about what Sacramento would do with a defender at his level like this. I watch so many of these playoff teams struggle finding wing guys who can just, you know, switch out on people, be decent on the boards, like, do all the stuff that Wiggins, you know, has been charged to do. Like, I wouldn't go that far, but I will say this about the age thing.

And to your point, Justin, you're right. I remember when I was younger and dating. Like, anytime you were dating, it was fun. It was like, oh, we're hanging out. We're doing this. It's going to be great. Who cares? Like, we're young and we're happy.

The minute I turned 27, every conversation started talking about the future and what do you think about kids and blah, blah, blah. line is and you know i got a timeline for a ring in the biological clock and i was just like my head started spinning at 27 so yeah you're right 27 you ain't no spring chicken anymore that's when you really settled down and got super serious about dating and in life oh no i didn't but that's what people wanted um well i will say this the worst thing you could possibly do to this Lakers team is give them a reason to come out with a head of steam. How many times have we talked about if you just give galvanize Anthony Davis, if you just have him aggressive, how much better is this

team? And I think he proved that, Rob. I guess going forward the question should be, should we expect more of a performance similar to what the Lakers started with? Obviously, that's probably an outlier. But do we think what they had was a successful model? I think they had, I think they had like 20 of 22 buckets at half time were right at the rim or or in the paint or do we think with jaw back seemingly sometimes healthy seems like he had trouble crowing the ball early but he did come round into form do you think that is probably more what we just expect going forward i mean i think the first quarter and the fourth quarter of this game are pretty operational right jaw is not going to have 22 straight the lakers are not going to have that kind of explosion i mean the

three's alone for Jha. He he shot sensationally well. He closed this game so well. And those threes wasn't touching rim, right? It was just completely swish. And he was being left open because they were they were giving him some space, but even under those circumstances I wouldn't expect it. And on the Lakers side,

that's just not who this team is, right? They are not a pedal to the medal every possession. We're going to lay the smackdown on you the whole game and we saw that, right? After the first quarter. We watched the fourth quarter. After the first, even they let up some, you know, they let up. They let the Grizzlies back into this game.

They eased them back into it. At halftime, it was what, I think a 16 point game where it could have easily been 26 or 30. They had their chance to put this game away and chose not to. And so I think that's kind of the Lakers team we're going to see is one that ebbs and flows pretty hard. They can go incredibly

aggressively in the paint for stretches or minutes or even a quarter at a time, but it's going to fall back on some other habits, right? They're going to fall into some turnover ruts of their own. They're going to get into some uneven guard play. They're going to find times win, even though we haven't seen it yet, guys like Rory Hachamur are not going to hit every game, although maybe apparently he will. So what the fuck do I know? This is just what we have

now, yeah. You know, D.Lo was pretty good today in Pick and Roll, which is not a given, as evidence I came to where he was completely horrific. Those passes were really slick, though. Like, he was setting up AD really well. He had some beautiful finds. I thought Rui had a good, a good drive where I'm just like, oh, okay, if he's going to find his driving game when they don't have, you know, some of their best perimeter guys on him, I think that's something that can open up.

But yeah, the Lakers, they do a lot of times, especially with Bronnan AD, man. There's a lot of cool guy basketball that goes on where they're just like, we're not going to try until we absolutely positively need to. And even when Jaws going on his run and his dad is going nuts, front row, they got within 12, guys.

You know, the game was never seriously in doubt, even when they was like, oh, my God, it's getting scary. Ham has to call it time I was within 13, you know. And so I think you got to take some of that with a grain of salt as well. Some of these other teams could use some cool guy basketball, though. You know, there have been some bleak playoff games so far. I could use some cooler play. Well, should we go to the coolest guy on the court?

One Russell Westbrook in the matinee game at... Hold on. Before we go on, I just want to say one thing. And the league is fucking screwing the pooch on this. And it's these damn camera people behind the basket. It's absolutely crazy that they're doing this. A.D. almost busted his whole ankle on a dude who's sitting... What do you call that? What do we call that?

Chris Cross Appleson? Cross? Chris cross. He's sitting criss-crossed applesaws. He's not sitting on a chair. So there's like a bunch of limbs there to step on and hurt yourself. Because what? They taking cool pictures?

Like, is this actually great for the business? We got enough playoff injuries from these dudes busing their ass as it is. This is the third time this playoffs that somebody is damn there hurt themselves from these camera guys behind the bat. There's no reason for it. I don't think these guys should get fired. Obviously, I want them to keep their jobs. But there has to be a better way than these dudes just laying on the floor right behind the basket while these guys are going peddled to the medal in a freaking playoff game. This is crazy that they're doing this still.

It's wild. Like, this dude almost got hurt. It happened in the nick game. It's happened in a bunch of games already. They need to fix that ASAP. Do you think all those angles of LeBron rubbing his junk, like, just happen, you know? You need to really get in there, man. You need the angles.

So you tell me the NBA can't afford those NFL cameras that's roving all across the damn field and all of that. Well, those will get broken within, like, minutes with the ball flying around. There just has to be a better way than dudes laying on the floor behind the freaking basket in a playoff game, man. These guys, a bunch of dudes damn there hurting themselves from it. Anyway, I just had to get that ran off. When we've talked before about AD's just like awful injury luck,

obviously, yeah, like, avoided having to leave this game because of an ankle turn or something like that, but he did get busted in the face. Yeah. I'm like, was it by the fan trying to catch him or was it the camera person's leg? I think it was Will Ferrell? Yeah, Will Ferrell? Yeah, Will Ferrell.

He was definitely in the mix. Busted up, AD? Yeah. Will Ferrell wearing like a Lakers jersey and like corny Lakers hat, I think tried to hold him up or someone next to him. And I think accidentally hit him in the face. Damn. That was Will Ferrell. And this is right after the Cajonies factor, LeBron situation. It was like minutes later to the point where Doris Burke of all people was like,

this has been really chaotic. But yeah, AD is basically a Mr. Bean sketch at this point. Like he just somehow falls into like a pit of piranha. he knew how to know what? All right, why don't we flip to the next game at Crypto, the earlier one? They did the whole court swapping situation there. Sons win 112, Clippers 100. I did not expect Russell Westbrook to be a capable rotation player in the NBA playoffs.

I certainly did not expect him to get 37, 6, and 4. And a near win against the Phoenix Suns was. Can you make sense of this? How did we get here? I mean, I'm not convinced that the Sons were playing, you know, the fullest of, with the fullest of intensity. Look, I'm glad he had a good game. He had a good game. Russ is good.

He's not going to be out of the league next year. I'm proud of him for that. And I'm happy for him. Like, if the Sons actually felt threatened by this team, I'm not sure that we'd be seeing all of this Russell Westbrook, 30. shots, you know, 37 points stuff. I don't know. I don't want to take away from the guy. He's performing what he's being asked to do. He's being asked to shoulder the burden and he's keeping these games pretty competitive

and he should be commended for that. I just, I don't know, man. No Kawhi, no Paul George. I think the players on the Phoenix Suns realize they're playing a wounded, quite frankly, unworthy opponent. And so, you know, it's hard for me to get too geeked off of this rust stuff. Let's just say in periods of his career where he was, you know, more athletic, more closer to his peak, we felt for this kind of stuff. And when it mattered, it ended quite comically.

And so I don't see why five years later I should be falling for this same stuff. I'm not. But this has been the opposite. It's rough, guys. This has been the opposite, though. Like during the regular season, especially with the Lakers, he wasn't playing well. better now than he was in the regular season, which absolutely never happens for us.

That is that point taken on me. I mean, again, I'm not saying he's, you know, one of the best players in the league. I'm not saying he's poised to return to all NBA level status. I'm just saying in this series, I disagree with you about the Sons. Like, I see that team as a team that is disorganized defensively that isn't, that isn't, honestly,

it's not elite to begin with, right? They are not an elite defensive outfit. And Russ, is explosive in a way that they are not well equipped to handle. Honestly, it's been a little shocking to see, especially you flash across the league, you know, a frequent comparison point for Westbrook

and James Hardin in Philadelphia. Hardin's having trouble just like getting to the rim. Russell Westbrook is below and past everybody, finishing over KD. He was a force in the post in this game too. I don't know. I don't think you can say a bad thing about the way Russ has played in this game. Let me ask you this, though.

Of the eight semi-final teams that we're going to have, the elite eight, would Russ be in your closing lineup for any one of those teams? I think he might. I think it depends on your team. It depends on what you need. Boston, no. Milwaukee, no. Well, actually, I...

Philly, no. I think that raises actually a good question. How much of Russ's success is because he's all pissing vinegar going up against KD, doesn't have Paul George Kauai, or how much do we think he is playing like he was in potentially Houston number four where he's moving without, with as much space as he's had since the Rockets basically had him as a small ball center? I'll say this. I think Denver could figure out a way to make Russ work. Oh, yeah. The Cavs are the Knicks, those teams. Honestly, the Warriors would be great with this version of Russ, right? The one that's defending like this, the one

The one that can guard Kevin Durant? You're selling me on this. He is. The KD factor cannot be underestimated. Because I have never in my life seen Russ play like this on defense. Same, same. Ever. Not since UCLA, bro.

It's crazy what he's doing on defense. So you might be right. I stand corrected. I stand corrected. What he's doing on defense, it's kind of nuts. and it begs the question of where the hell was this your whole career? A lot of like the blocks and pokeaways are coming from behind. It's a lot of like hustle plays, one, which is a credit to Russ.

But it's also like he is given the optimal context to fly around and make shit happen. Oftentimes maybe like go a little over his skis and try to do too much. But I do wonder if the clippers just provide him what he would need in order to be close to a productive Russ. in the way that the Lakers were the complete opposite. That was the worst possible scenario for his game. Yeah, this has turned out to be a good scenario because you said, Justin, the space that they're able to provide him, you know, they've kind of had to reshape the rotation a little bit,

especially since Kauai has gotten injured just like to make things work. You know, you take out a Nicholas Batum, for example, because Batum kind of accentuates what you get when defenses like converge on Kauai. With Russ, he's not as useful. They plugged in Marcus Morris. That was, I mean, he was just eaten minutes and eaten shots out there. That was not necessarily great. but otherwise they are well-spaced.

They do give him room to operate. They give him room to like, man, Russell Westbrook in the pick and roll, when he goes away from the screen, he's just screeching by anyone who's trying to guard him. And the players who are guarding him are good defenders, right? It's like Torrey Craig up at the ball. It's Devin Booker,

who I think is putting in like maximum effort in these games and really trying to get after it. He's playing hard. He's got his own little like game with Russ right now. Like their back and forth has been really fun. But honestly, like I think to, to the larger question about Russ and how much he's putting in defensively and the fact that these are contests from behind and things like that.

The energy level he's playing with in these games for 40 minutes, scoring 37 points being the primary driver of offense and flying around like that on defense, there just aren't a lot of NBA players who do that all the time. And this has always been one of the defenses of Russ is like, like him or not, all of his faults, that dude plays hard. I think that defense has been grossly oversimplified. Okay, okay, thank you.

That has not usually applied to defense in a way that has been kind of convenient in that conversation, but now it does. Yeah, I just think the Russ conversation, I always discount the idea that he's playing defense, right? And this series has been the outlier where he's taking on the challenge of being like, I have to bring it. A lot of people scared the guard, KD. I went up against this fool in practice a bunch of times. I know his little secrets. I know his weaknesses. I'm going to go after him.

So, yeah, that has definitely been a delight to see. Yeah, Katie and Chris Paul were very complimentary afterwards. I mean, they were defending him like he was Bill Russell at a certain point where it's like, this guy's just had success in this league. How can you, people don't know ball are the ones that are kind of criticize. I'm like, let's scale it back. He's been pretty bad for a while. But it's been awesome to see, honestly.

Like, I think if you're the Clippers, you have to bring him back next season. If only to retain the asset, man, because as we're saying, like, I think this guy could be helpful in certain context. I mean, if only because you're going to play KD again, you know? That's a good point. I mean, should we also talk about Chris Paul, who quietly also had a little bit of a throwback performance? They keep leaving open. And, like, he made some shots in this one, including a couple big ones. Robbie wrote about Chris for the website the other day.

Were you surprised that he still had this performance in him? Because you've seen him now miss a lot of these open jumpers again and again, even in these playoffs. Well, I thought this one was less the open jumpers and more he was getting back into his stuff, right? It was contested jumpers. It was play out of the pick and roll. He looked like vintage Chris Paul. And I think the larger point with Chris and what I wrote about is not that he can't be that guy. It's that he's not that guy every night anymore.

You know, his fourth, he used to always be this fourth quarter takeover player. We saw it in this game. His fourth quarter usage has been significantly down this season, but it's significantly down so that when you need him, he can have this game, right? You're pacing yourself, you're picking your spots, you're having a more balanced approach so that your older veteran in the twilight of his career can have these huge moments that he absolutely delivered, right? Katie and Devin Booker did a lot of heavy lifting over the course of this game.

I thought Chris was great throughout it, to be honest, but particularly in the fourth quarter, was just sensational. I thought this is probably the best balanced game between the three of them so far in terms of really modulating each other, helping each other out, feeding each other for open shots,

and really being the kind of trio that they're ultimately going to need to be. Yeah, and we've seen Chris Paul do this the last, however many playoffs where he has these moments where he looks like, you know, a version of his best self. And it's like, oh my God,

how's he still doing this at, you know, his age and then hamstring and then this and then that. This year he's not going to be actually forced to shoulder this burden so maybe his body will better respond to these kind of performances because he's not being asked to be the primary driver of offense as much as he has been in the past specifically with Phoenix. And so we'll see, you know, it's just I'm just on a, I'm very apprehensive about it because I've seen him

have these moments in the playoffs where, you know, they're targeting Luca and they're laughing their heads off at him at the press conference. And then the rest of the series, the guy turns into a freaking pumpkin, you know. And so I'm excited to see him do this. I know he's going to carry it forth in the next rounds. But can he maintain it will be the question. Yeah. And that's where they're going to need to find easier stuff for KD and Booker, too, right? Booker is working really hard for a lot of these points. And in a way that honestly is really commendable. Like I wish I could clip tape

of the way he, like he never phases out of offensive possessions. Devin Booker will attack, drive, kick out, relocate, right? His closeout attacks, dude, where he's already running full speed before the ball even touches his hands. It's just, this guy is playing at a

ridiculously high energy level. Ridiculously high energy level. And for KD, I mean, honestly the clippers given their personnel, especially given the fact that like Kauai and Paul George are not out there, I thought it'd been guarding him about as effectively as you possibly can. Like they are contesting him every catch. They're making it hard for him to ISO and to post up.

They're shading in his direction. And he still gets 31 on 17 shots because he's Kevin Durant, right? That's the reality of that situation. But they're really doing the best they can. And I'm curious to see as the rounds go on and teams see this model a little bit, see what, you know, Terrence Mann and Eric Gordon, Russell Westbrook have been able. to do. What happens when he faces the next level of defense, right, as these things start leveling up throughout the series? Well, I was going to say, does Booker need anything to be easier?

Because combined, they scored 61 points on 50% shooting. Like, yeah, I just think this is a team that's going to live or die based on Katie and Booker being able to hit tough midrangers. And so far so good. And like, I think if we want to like look ahead just slightly and assume that they get out of this matchup with the clippers with Denver, I do wonder if this is ultimately just going to come down to who is going to hit more shots. Yeah, and it just seems like having two of the very best in the NBA is a good thing to have at this time of year. And Booker, if anything, is even ascending to a higher level than I think he's even been at before. Yeah, Justin and I were at game three, and Booker was absolutely, he was untouchable.

He was, he was impossible. There was nothing they could do with him at any level, on the ball, off the ball, intradges, whatever. whatever you wanted, mid-range, three-point, to the rack. He was untouchable that game. You know, I remember early in the year, somebody had floated the idea like, oh, Devin Book is now the best two guard in the league. I was like, hold on, man, calm down. You know, Donovan Mitchell, blah, blah, blah.

And then I'm like, by the end of the year, I'm just like, yo, this dude is clearly the best shooting guard in the league. I don't think there's any question. I think he's a cut above what Donovan Mitchell does. Obviously, James Harden is just a shell of himself. But, like, this dude is incredible to watch. Man, every week we get on here and it's, you know, you and Justin just been hanging out, going to the offices, going to games together.

Real chill invites every time. Getting pregame dinners. I mean, you're missing a lot down there in the bay, man. I really love to hear it. Hollywood Spotify lifestyle. Yeah, you're missing out. Sure. But yeah, I don't know.

I want to keep picking against the sun. because you look at what they have and it's like, oh, they're really writing a lot on Tori Craig being able to fill in some gaps in DeAndre and being able to catch and actually finish. But I don't know, man, if you just have these two guys, it's really hard to pick against them. So I guess you haven't been watching the nugs, huh?

No, they are putting the wolves. So it's a little bit of different ballgame. One positive note on Sun's rotation watch, though. I thought these were by far the best, Josh Akogi minutes they've gotten in the playoffs yet, right? They went to him over Craig. He turned out to be a really important player in this game and I suspect that

had a lot to do with the fact that Monty Williams was just fed up with some of the defense in the first and third quarters and was like screw this, we need to get more physicality out there, we need to get more energy out there or Kogi can be that. Anytime they get those performances, it's huge. Like 20, 25 minutes from one of these

role players you're not quite counting on could be the difference in a game like this. And to me, this was the opposite of the Lakers Grizzlies game as you were talking about was, right? Like that one kind of got close but wasn't really close. This was a 12-point game

that was right there for the clippers to grab and they just didn't quite have enough. I didn't think I'd be saying this, but the Cavs wished they had a Torrey Craig or a Josh Akogi. You know, like if it has had someone stable that they can count on,

that might make a difference for them. We should point out that Kauai also missed this game second in a row. I think the more damning thing was Chris Haynes reported that, He still has swelling in his knee. So this isn't a case of management as it has been in the past. And there's no timetable for his return.

I don't know what more to say about this, Rob. But, I mean, we could probably get into Embedde as well here. It is disappointing that once again we find ourselves in a situation where two of the most important players in the playoffs just might not be able to go. It's disappointing. It's an awful break for him as a player. Like, I feel for guys who rehab to come back from those kinds of injuries. and then have setbacks or re-injuries

or other injuries that complicate their way back, always hard. But the reality of this is like, he spent a whole season in bubble wrap to specifically avoid this kind of outcome. And if he doesn't come back in this series at all, I know we've been, you know, putting an asterisk by his name for a long time already,

but I think we have to really dramatically shift how we think of him as a player. If he can't finish a season like this one, after all the Clippers did and he did, to try to make sure that he would be available at this point. point. He just doesn't seem like he's necessarily capable of avoiding these kinds of injuries, that he's capable of being available on a regular basis at the ends of seasons. It's tough. And this is kind of a footnote on this thing, but like maybe don't, if you are Kauai Leonard,

sit on the bench wearing a t-shirt that says, look at me. That's just kind of like a weird, it's a weird choice. Again, maybe that means something I don't understand. Self-awareness. Just don't do that. Yeah, you know what, man, this is just who Kauai is, and I think people have to accept that his body is just, it's just going to have difficulty holding up to the stresses

of hooping in the postseason or just hooping in general. If you go back to the San Antonio saga and the idea to just like, bro, you just have to play, it was like, yo, you don't have like a torn MCF, or meniscus or ACL or whatever. This isn't some procedure that needs to be done and then you rehab and then you come back. Like, this is just what your knee is.

It's not going to be better, right? And that's what San Antonio's argument was that entire argument. It's like, bro, like, there's nothing to be done here. You're either going to play and deal with it or you're not, right? And all of the years since, we got the Toronto thing, which people don't remember, bro was limping towards the end of that, man. He limped out of that series. He gutted it out, won a championship.

He's going to be immortal forever for it. But if you go back and look, he was moving terribly. And the clippers are like, sign me up. We'll move heaven and earth just to have some of that. Of course. And then in 2020, they got, you know, they got used and abused by the Nuggets. so that wasn't a Kauai thing. And then it's just been injury after injury, after injury, after injury, ever since then.

But we joke about moving heaven and earth, but you saw who he was in the first two games of this series. He was the best player in it. And this is a series with Kevin Durant. You don't blame them, but you do wonder how much their desperation did factor in there. And the same reason, like I think about with the Sun's trading for KD. Like, you still make the move, but clearly they went all out in order to do so. I wonder if on the back end this is going to look pretty poorly. I think that class of free agents and trades we had in 2019

just was a classic case as we look back on it of teams just doing way too much in prioritizing superstars too much to the point where all the injuries that came up as a result just completely watered down any of the side benefits. There's only one title that came from all of the movement in Brooklyn and the Lakers with the Clippers. and even that led to some pretty downtimes afterward with the Lakers. It's just, I don't know. I just, I wonder how much effect it's going to have on for moves down the road here,

even with the Clippers now. Like, I think we have to start asking ourselves, like, what do the Clippers do with Kauai? Because it's not the case with Embed, for instance, where the team is completely oriented on him. The Clippers are used to playing without Kauai. And I do wonder if there's a very near future where they start to say to themselves, like, maybe we should try to find a way to move on from this guy. Maybe so. And maybe honestly, if you're investigating all of those possible futures with and without Kauai, with him prominently featured or not, like all of the variations they're in, Russell Westbrook becomes a more valuable player, right?

Because we've seen trade Kauai, you know, let him walk in his eventual free agency, you know, just de-emphasize him in your offense, whatever that looks like. If you have oxygen and you have spacing, Russell Westbrook will fill it and he will put up monster games like this one. He may be a complicated player at other times too, but he's capable of these kinds of performances. And that's not nothing when you have a team's like a structure that's as unstable as what the clippers have because of all these injuries. Yeah, you might suffocate because he is taking up all the oxygen, but he will definitely do that. Occupational hazard. Sure. Sixers' nets. Sixers move on, four or no.

I feel like all of Philly talk radio was really bummed by the outcome of this one. because they have the Embeddick, they have the hardened nut punch. You had another hardened playoff letdown, just brewing here. The knives were sharpening. This was going to be an all-time weekend for takes on the Philly radio scene.

Unfortunately for them, they pulled through here. I don't know. What do you want to talk about here with this one, Rob? I would say maybe, honestly, look, it is genuinely cool to see a Sixers team without Joel Embed. win on physicality.

I'm not sure we've seen that very much, if at all, but you saw they just had a pop, they had a force, they had an elegant energy to their play from guys like Paul Reed joining the starting lineup, from DeAnthony Melton, from Tobias Harris, honestly, who played exactly the way they needed him to play,

especially given, I mean, James Hardin's limitations, as you alluded to, Justin, like, he did not have a very good game in terms of being the kind of star you would want your second guy to be in this moment, moment. The way they won is they just like muscled and worked the nets and really locked them down in that third quarter in particular to the point that they just shut

Brooklyn's water off defensively. Yeah. You know, the nets are just an underman group. We said it already. These guys finished the season 13 and 14. This isn't a real six seed, right? This is more like a playing type of team. And I think even without Joel, the Sixers, given, you know, the pedigree, of the guys that remain on the roster when you think of Maxie and Hardin and Harris, they should be able to take care of business. So it's nice to see that they were able to do that.

I don't know that I would be all that encouraged going forward by James Hardin's play because he's going to need to be their second best player, especially if Joel is actually limited by this injury. Doc saying he's not even sure when this guy is going to be ready to come back. And so that's something to keep your eye on.

But yeah, you got to be encouraged by this group finishing the job. I think the nature of some of their rosters before was so uneven and weird. And the thing that Mori did as soon as he got there, it was like a well-rounded, well-balanced, normal team. Like, yo, let's put some freaking shooters around our all-time great, you know, inside presence of a big, right? Like, let's get some wing defenders. Let's, you know, he normalized the roster. And I think that work was shown yesterday. Well, I do think we should talk about Hardin here.

So 17, 11, and 8 decent overall, but 4 for 18 from the floor. I clock him at 2 for 13 in the paint and 1 for 7 inside the restricted circle. So at the basket, how do you make sense of this? Because he was getting to the hoop, but it's just like every possible thing that could go wrong when he got there happened. And I don't know if it was just an inability to fit. finishover guys because of the diminished athleticism and the lingering effects of the hamstring industry or what, but like,

I don't know, man. That was probably the biggest takeaway I had from this game is just like how much is that going to carry over into a series with the Celtics? Yeah, I mean, he's not going to get more space than this just by virtue of, you know, not having Joel out there. And Joel is a big who can shoot, who can play, you know, the high post, all those

things. But just when Joel is out on the floor, the floor shrinks, everyone is packing the pain a little bit more. This was more spread out. He had some angles. He had some drives, he is telling us with his play, like with his finishes, that he doesn't trust it, right? If you blow by a guy and you miss as badly or you blow some of those pretty easy layups in some cases that he's had in, oh, really over the last two games, that's telling me that you

don't fully feel confident in that shot, in your ability to extend and your ability to get past people, and your ability to finish when someone is contesting from behind you. That makes sense if you have a lingering injury, right? if you have not only the lingering hamstring stuff, but the potential Achilles stuff too, like you're just not feeling like you have the separation you need. And that might be who James Hardin is right now. And that version is a player who makes Joelle Embed better, right?

Who makes your best player better by giving him a pick and roll partner, a passer of that quality. But isn't necessarily going to be up for every moment Joel isn't on the floor, right? It's been kind of a mixed bag, those lineups where it's been Hardin in the second unit, kind of like that mix. He's done okay in this series. I don't know that I would expect that mix to do okay against the Celtics.

Yeah, it feels like a guy who's a bit out of answers because a lot of his drive, sometimes he's driving to get filed. He's not necessarily driving to try to finish, right? Which is funny because I think about somebody like Anthony Edwards, too, I feel like he's always trying to score when he drives and never really too worried about drawing the contact and getting the foul hardens the opposite. And so when it's established that he's not going to get the calls at nearly the rate that he was used to in the past, I don't, I feel like he doesn't have the tricks.

He doesn't understand the angles. He doesn't understand the amount of lift that he needs. He's just not, he's not in a practice of trying to legitimately score over Biggs when he gets into the paint. And I think those numbers, those nasty numbers that you pointed out are indicative of that. Yeah, this was his best free throw game of the series. by far. And he had eight, right? That's not vintage James Hardin,

but it's certainly better than the combined zero. I mean, if he's getting eight free throws a game, that's big. That's great. But that's eight coming off of three, coming off of zero, coming off of zero, right? That's been the escalation over the series.

And then Doc, after the game, Embed about 50% for the next round. Yikes. To start the next round. To start the second round. Yes, at best. but if you're at 50% to start, I don't know what we're going to get

and how quickly this falls away from them. It's just really disappointing. I mean, I guess this is what you have when you're on the Embed ride, but I don't know. I don't know how many times Philly can keep getting to this point and then losing Embed for a couple of games here and there

and not start to be frustrated with what they have. Like we can talk about Hardin, we can talk about all this stuff. It ends and begins with Embedd and clearly, he's not going to be there, or at least potentially for some of this series. Yeah, especially after the season he's had, like, the fact that this, we're playing this game again of just like the lingering injuries, the stuff that's piling up, the bumps and bruises over the course of the whole year, but also of this series, it's tough to see. I mean, like, the one thing we wanted

with these Sixers is like, we have our doubts, we have our concerns, we have our questions, can we just see them at full, like at full throttle, see Hardening and B'd really trying to make it work against the other best teams in the east. I mean, it seems doubtful we're going to get that. I think we're going to get, you know, if Joel and B does come back, we're going to get a version that's a little bit wobbly, that's a little bit compromise, maybe a little bit unsure of that knee. But at least the Sixers got him some time here, right?

Like, you know, now you're cheering for the Hawks to extend that series in the hopes that, you know, get him beat as much time as possible to rehab that knee, to get more comfortable with it, to buy him some time to get back, even if he does have to miss a game one or a game two even, just like, Try to string this out and try to make this as competitive as you can until you can get them back out there. Yeah, and, you know, it bears mentioned it. Some of these injuries were kind of fluke-ish, like the face injury or, you know, the hand stuff or whatever. Like, it's not like all of this stuff was like Kauai, where it's the same exact thing every single time.

It's a different case for Embed. However, you know, at a certain point, if you're a Philly fan, if you're Philly management, coaches, like, bro, you got to get out there. you got to give us whatever the hell it is you have because the opportunity is here in front of us. And, you know, it's not a guarantee that we're going to be back here. And people are saying, oh, this is one of the most wide open playoffs ever. If that's the case, you know, if there's any truth to that, this guy needs to be out there and he needs to be given whatever it is that he has,

even if it's a diminished version of an MVP season. Yeah, I suspect some of that was just the difference of already being up three out of the nets. this was a game that even if it just went in the tank, you could afford to lose theoretically. If this is game six against Boston, I imagine he might play. I say that as someone with no actual knowledge of what's going on with Joel Embed,

but just from the situational perspective. This is Dr. Rob's prognosis. Dr. Rob, Dr. Rob, Professor Waz, we're back. We're popping pimples. We're giving prognoses out here. Well, thank you to Philly for sweeping the nets and not doing the gentleman sweep as we might get potentially with Boston. Just don't play with your food, as Doc Rivers would say, and just get this over with. Yeah, or your meat.

Well, that's you guys. But Brooklyn now goes off into the off season, which means we are going to say goodbye to them. Do we want to play the drop for our friends? Do we have the rights to that? Fair use, baby. So the Nets, I guess all of this was kind of found money after the Kevin Durant trade. McKell Bridges rising into what seems to be one of the best end scorers in the NBA was unforeseen and gives them hope for the future.

They do kind of come to a crossroads this offseason. So they only have two free agents. Cam Johnson restricted. Seth, Curry, you imagine Cam comes back. Seth, let's hope he finds a new home on a contending team. That guy needs to be playing like really important playoff minutes for a contender like the Lakers or something. like that. But the following offseason, this is their free agency list, Dinwiddie, Joe Harris,

Royce O'Neill, Nicholas Claxton, Patty Mills. And so you're coming to a point where you really need to start making a decision about what team are you? And I think the question was, is do you think there's enough here to make a go at something? Or do you think Brooklyn is better off maybe making a full-scale rebuild? Tear this down to Cam Johnson, McHale Bridges, and then play the long game as they have in the past, just slowly and steadily building this up. Yeah, of those 20-24 guys, I think Claxton is a dude you absolutely bring back for sure, no matter what, because not only Z good,

I feel like he fits what a lot of teams are trying to do at the big position, just his versatility, to guard out in space, plus rent-protect. Like, that's a rare commodity. The vertical spacing, you know, like, he's a rare, he's a rare commodity, so he's a guy that you bring back. Dinwiddie, you know, To me, I like Dimbledy, but he's got a lot of injury issues at this point in his career as well.

So that's something that they probably, you know, have to give, you know, a lot of thought to. But, yeah, look, McKell Bridges being there means you got something. Whether you can, you know, potentially hit on some rookie at the 11th spot or something like that, like you'll see. But I don't think this is the kind of thing that you can take a sort of one-size fits off. because how terrible can you really be with all of these rotation players on your team? Like legitimate guys, they have a lot of them. Right.

I think that's the question is, do you want to be decent for as long as you can be and just hope that you strike it rich and make some of these sort of fringe moves in order to bolter that? Or do we feel like we need to start from fresh and do it over? The one factor in this, of course, Brooklyn, a lot of their picks are going to Houston. and Brooklyn now assumes the future of like the Sons and I believe they have some Sixers picks. So it would make sense for them to be competitive in the interim. I don't know, but it is an interesting roster building question, I think, Rob.

It's just like, how much do you really lean on the scale and like trade these guys for future assets? Or do you just kind of build on the fly? Yeah, I think it's definitely an interesting question, especially when you look at some of the games of the series and when they get to the critical moments of these games, you know, critical third and fourth quarter runs, kind of crunch time-ish possessions

in which they absolutely have to get a score. We saw a team that was either trying to do way too much because they didn't have a singular guy they could focus in on, even Mikhail Bridges for as good as he's been. Hasn't really been that player in these kinds of moments necessarily? Like he's had good playoff games,

but in the like, we need to score on this possession moments wasn't necessarily that in this series. They just looked like a team that didn't have a star. And that's what they are. It makes sense. It tracks. there's a lot to be excited about. I think you can be really excited about

Cam Johnson's performance in this series in particular, but you cannot look at this Nets roster and say internal improvement alone is going to get us where we need to go. I think you think of yourself as a way station team for good players. You're flipping. You're trying to get wings in the door

and out the door, whether it's for picks or other kinds of players that are redundancies on contending teams that could be more useful to you than them. I think you have to be mindful of that in like a very trade-focused. way. This is not a team that necessarily needs to bottom out, but I think they have to be very active about what's available. Ben Simmons, rehab project. They could use some playmaking. I'll say

that. I don't know if he's the guy to give him to him. He is the highest paid player on the team for the next two years. 40 million a pop. God. 40 million a pop for the next two years. And nobody thinks he deserves 13. minutes a game on this team. No. And this was a team that was handing 13 minutes a game to Joe Harris, who has not been able to make a shot for a while. To be fair, we don't know

what back injury he has or if he still has it, but there's clearly some physical stuff going on here. Was his back hurt against ATL when he was scared to take layups against Che Young? Oh, okay. I think that was a pride injury. All right. Let's go to the last game on the docket.

Heat $121.99. This series is just all over the freaking map. At one point, the bucks are scoring 130 points. The next, they can't even get over 100.

Janus is hurt. Jimmy Butler hurts his butt. Doesn't play the fourth quarter. Doesn't have to. Victorola Depot. We should mention very scary knee injury. I was really sad to seek after everything that dude has gone through. This whole podcast,

it's been all nut hits and injuries. Like, how is this where we are? I mean, and Jimmy Butler bruised his ass. Right? Like, that was a nasty fall.

That was hard. That was a hard fall. If you were watching that, like, that was bad. He stayed in the game for a little bit after, but he had to, he had to bounce, man. And he played incredible. Jimmy just in the playoffs, man. This guy is just, there's nothing like it, dude. He is so reliable to just, and again, in the regular season, he's not this huge bucket-getter.

And the players, you just can't stop him. You can't keep him out of the pain. All of a sudden, his jumpers falling. He was just incredible. this entire game, playmaking for them. He's just the sun and the moon for this team and his show today. I was disappointed in the Bucks defense.

It's like, yeah, no Yannis, but y'all should be able to guard better than what they showed this game. It felt like they kind of took the heat for granted this game because they beat them up so badly in game two. So that was pretty disappointing. But, yeah, for me, my takeaway was just the Jimmy Butler show. Also, yeah, Duncan Robinson,

being able to pick those splinters out of his ass. Finally, it was nice. He was great. I mean, look, the Bam, Duncan Robinson handoff game is like riding a bike. Like, you can just roll that out there whenever you want. Depending on Duncan's confidence level and his shot at a given point in time, it may work, it may not. In this game, it was huge.

And I've been trying to put my finger on that was as to why Milwaukee's defense has looked so exposed in some of these games. You expect that somewhat with no yon. But honestly, given the season Milwaukee's had, and they made such huge gains over the course this year, guarding the three, taking teams off the line, chasing them out, preventing just three-point attempts, much less like contesting makes. And when Bud thought it was a good idea to let team shoot treaties? It's a new day. He has clearly undergone a spiritual journey to get where he is now.

No, but Bud is good. He's good now. But they have not been able to do that with the heat. And I wonder if some of that is the difference with Milwaukee. of like their defense is very good at taking away the one pass out, catch and shoot off of pick and roll or ISO stuff, less good about taking out the movement threes that Miami generates, right? Those handoffs for Duncan Robinson,

even guys like Caleb Martin getting open shots, Max Trues getting open shots. Yes, you're getting some open looks from just like an over-rotating defense that does happen. But I think it's just a different kind of beast. And on top of it, Miami's just hitting a hell of a lot of shots, That's interesting because to me that's the wave that they rode to the finals in 2020 was teams just inability to deal with that movement stuff that you're talking about between

Duncan, not just Duncan Robinson, but Tyler Hero too. They were just, like, teams just weren't ready for it. Goran Drogic was doing a lot for them in those days. And then it felt like in the preceding years or the years after, sorry. that teams were more able to deal with it and were more ready to deal with, you know, whether it be by switching, whether it be by doing different sort of defensive tactics.

But the Bucks felt like they never seen this before. Like they've been doing this for three years now, guys. And the Bucks had, ever since they got pantsed in 2020, they've been destroying the heat, you know. And so to watch them do this in game three, where it's just like, this is all stuff that you've seen before. not like some new wrinkle. Spow, he dusted off Duncan Robinson.

This isn't some new guy. Like, he's been here already. But that's the genius. Duncan Robinson played possum for two years to make you forget that this is the team they could be. Culture. I mean, the fact that he started the previous game, I think was a clear indication that Spow thought that that was the only way that they were going to beat this team. Now, Duncan goes to the bench.

Kevin Love goes into the starting lineup. But it was clear that they were going to Jack. And they don't have Tyler Hero even. probably their only credible three-point shooter this season, and they're still putting it up, what, 33 times in this game and shooting at a 49% clip, like, if that's the only way that they're going to do it, I think they're going to go down taking as many as possible.

Well, the other thing that happened in this game, I agree, the starting lineup change is actually really important, right? Getting more size out there in that starting lineup. Milwaukee did not go inside as aggressively out of the gate in a way that I think kind of destabilized them. but Miami defensively played up really aggressively into Milwaukee's ball handlers, challenging Drew, challenging Chris Middleton, challenging every freaking pass to the point that all the ball movement that we saw in game two from Milwaukee just shut down,

combined 10 turnovers for Drew and Chris. Like that's going to be a hard premise to win some of these games. And really, it put them behind the eight ball so early. Like Miami came out so hot and Jimmy was so good out of the gate. they were just trying to play catch up all night the bucks were. And they just did not have the momentum to their offense to do that. Yeah, there was a couple of times where they missed Brooke where he's getting fronted and it's just like the guy who's fronting him is Kyle Lowry or some six four dude.

And it's just kind of like, man, if Brooke is four feet from the basket, you got to find a way to do that. But it's easier said and done when the guy trying to make the pass is being straightjacketed. Right? And so, yeah, I thought that was a nice little wrinkle that the heat added, just making it harder to actually get the ball to these guys. And people might say, hey, this is like JV basketball stuff. You, you know, you swing the ball. The dude turns around and now he's in front of the dude who was fronting him. I get that. But like, when it's hard to just get it in, period, ask Kevin Durant about that. You know what I'm saying? They made it hard for them. But, you know, Milwaukee.

he still has a lot of advantages to press, like the size that you mentioned, even without Janus. But I think it's time, man, that Janus think about, you know, maybe playing through this pain. Yeah, I was just going to say, I've never had more confidence in a team, a top-seeded team down one, two than I do in the bucks right now. Probably because in the broadcast, they were talking like Janus was, like, able to go if he needed to. But I don't know.

Is it as simple, Rob, is Janus just being back out there? at this point. I mean, he's going to help a lot, obviously. You know, defensively, I think he's going to help a lot. Offensively, he just gives you so many different dynamics to these lineups. But as we're seeing, if the heater shooting like this, being down to one, it's an anxious position, right? Like, it doesn't take much from this point to push you to the edge, right?

One more hot shooting game from Duncan Robinson. Jimmy Butler is going to be there every game. He's going to be rock steady. The question is, like, now they're down hero. Victor Oladipo almost certainly is not going to play the rest of this series. We don't know the full details on what his injury is yet. The Sean just said it's a torn Patela. Oh, Jesus.

I mean, that's what honestly, like that's what it looked like, the way he went down basically holding his knee together. Not a good sign. So not terribly surprising that that's serious, but without those two guys, like Kyle Lowry had a really good game in game three. He's going to have to have a lot more really good games to get out of this series alive. Right?

They're going to need those kinds of players to, really step up and be consistent. That's been a struggle all year for the heat. Is can you get the Kyle Lowry's of your team, the Max Truces of your team to be consistent? Can you get good Kevin Love Minutes every game out? I don't know.

That's where Milwaukee has the clear advantage. It's just the stability when they have Janus, even with the ebbs and flows of their own shooting, they're just a more stable team. All right, let's wrap it there. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely on production. Thank you to Benjamin Cruz. We'll be back on Wednesday, Wednesday night.

you then.