The Ringer NBA Show - LeBron’s Toronto Takeover, the Ben Simmons No-Show, and More Playoff Prescriptions | Group Chat (Ep. 261)

Episode Date: May 4, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan, Justin Verrier, Haley O'Shaughnessy, and Kevin O’Connor go live to discuss the Eastern Conference semifinals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, it's Chris Ryan. You're about to listen to the Ringer NBA show group chat tonight. We talked about LeBron James's Toronto Takeover and a very emotional Sixers Celtics game, which saw Ben Simmons maybe come back to Earth a little bit. I had some feelings about that. We really appreciate you listening. We recorded this on Thursday night right after the games, and this is also part of a live video. You can watch us every week, Wednesday or Thursday after a bunch of good games on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, however you want to do it. want to tell you a little bit about some stuff that's happening on the ringer before we get going we are part of the ringer podcast network and so is the dave chang show it's an awesome new podcast from the chef dave chang he is obviously responsible for restaurants like momo fuco

and the new los angeles restaurant major domo in the first episode of the dave chang show dave talked about the opening of major domo it's a fantastic look inside of how restaurants really work how the creative and craft of cooking and running a restaurant works so i really recommend you check out the Dave Chang Show, subscribe to that. On The Ringer.com this week we had lots of great basketball stuff. Kevin O'Connor wrote about Kevin Love. We'll have plenty of looks tomorrow Friday, if you're listening to this on Friday, about this Toronto Cleveland game.

It's been a great week on The Ringer. You should also check out the NBA draft guide that we do with Kevin, Danny, Jonathan Charks, giving mock drafts, giving analysis of all the prospects. So please be sure to check that out. And without further ado, let's get into Ringer NBA show group chat. Basketball is very good. OKC would make the finals in the east. Ben Simmons doesn't need a jumper.

Terry Rozier is more clutch than Kyrie. Basketball is very good. Welcome to a completely unbiased NBA ringer NBA show. It's group chat. I'm a little disappointed. I'm not dispassionate about this. It's more of a funeral than any sort of celebration postgame. My name is Chris Ryan.

My psychologist is Justin Verrier. Helio Shannessy is here. Kevin O'Connor is here. The blog boys, the Bitcoin boys are in the back. Say hi, everybody. It's Palo. Keith, it's Pat. Danny's here.

The Sixers are about to lose to the Boston Celtics. Eight seconds left. Yeah, in game two of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Fun, no faith. It's eight seconds left. So Reggie Miller is not coming out of the tunnel anytime soon. We're going to get into everything, Sixers, Celtics. We're going to get into everything.

Cavs Raptors. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the other series still going on. But let's talk about what everybody's going to be talking about starting basically right now is where the hell to Ben Simmons go. Kevin. Boston's defense. So you think it's a matter of getting swallowed up? Yeah, I think it's a number of factors. It's like we've talked about this the whole season. I've written about it before. We're like, he can't shoot right now. So there's a limitation in the half court. But Boston's ability to throw different guys at him on the floor, whether it was Al Horford or whether it's Mark or Smart, they really just limited Ben Simmons from getting into the paint, which is the only place he can score right now. Right. And it's like when that's not, if he's not getting into the paint and then distributing, it's four and five on offense. Because he won't shoot. He's not willing to shoot. He's not willing to take a shot.

He won't miss. Took four on the entire game. He missed all of them. So what are you doing on the court? He only took two before he got yanked and then he came back with like, what, five minutes left? Let's be really real. They went up with TJ on the floor. The Sixers went up in this game with T. T.J. McConnell leading this team. And when B and Simmons came back in in the fourth quarter, now it's 103, 106, so I have to pay attention to this. To pull the curtain back just a little bit, Chris was definitely caping for T.J. to replace Ben Simmons' future repeat of the year. We're not so far along. Okay, so here's the, there's two sides of this.

You leave Ben Simmons in to learn from mistakes and show him that it's his team, and you've got to, like, come through adversity and build your character by losing or winning in these big hot situations on the road. And taking shots. And maybe take a shot from time and time. In a basketball game, yeah. And then the other side of it is he's just a kid. He's still a quote-unquote rookie. And sometimes everybody needs to sit. And TJ showed them, like, TJ got them back in this game.

It was a great call by Brett Brown to do that. It took a lot of guts, and it's one of the reasons why he's a great coach. They were down six when they pulled Ben Simmons and put T.J. McConnell in late in the third quarter. And they were up to when Ben Simmons eventually went back in. McConnell's energy really changed that game and brought Philly back into it. But you need Ben Simmons. when this game goes back to game three to elevate his play in the half-core.

You need to post him up, I think. You've got to find a way to get him going. I think the thing that's making me so upset is that this is not like, it's not like Miami didn't try to throw some stuff at him last series. It's like they were really physical with him. MMA fighters were squaring off with him.

Boston's just better though. Like they have more guys that they can throw at Ben Simmons. And not only that, they have more guys that they can put on everybody else on the floor as well, especially Joel Lumbed with Aaron Beans or Al Horford. And maybe they have a better rookie. Have we ever considered that?

Come on, I mean, like, Jason Tatum played like the rookie of the year. And it's funny because we completely overlooked him in the discussion. Just, quick note, nothing's funny about this. No, but we overlooked Tatum in this entire discussion. It was Mitchell or Simmons. Obviously, Tatum kind of tailed off toward the end of that season. His three-point shooting, which was like in the 540s at a certain point early in the season. Tapered off.

Significantly tapered off as we look and he's about to go to the line right now. I just think like he makes so much sense for this team, and it's great to see him stepping up. Yeah, and he's filling this Jalen Brown void. Jalen Brown did play tonight, but pretty much he would do something cool and then look like he just tore his hands. Right, and then have like that wince face.

But then he would always still go up and like shoulder bump his teammates and we're like, don't leave the ground. There was a couple of plays Haley where we saw Benson's also getting absolutely smoked by Terry Rozier. Ormark is smart. Happens to the best of them. So if he's going to, going to be a negative on defense

and he's going to be a negative on offense. This is not panicking. Like, look, even if they lose this series so be it, whatever. But, you know, the series starts when it goes to Kelly. Yeah. So wait. Are you just recap here? They can't play

one of their number one overall picks and they can't play the more recent one. I didn't say they can't play Simmons. I'm just saying that tonight, he's through a donut. And it's like, he's just got to get his my rate. is going on. The rest thing I don't want to hear about because he had he had his rookie wall. He got over it. He looked incredible against Miami. Is it really getting his mind right though?

Or is it getting his game right? He doesn't use his left hand to finish around the rim and he can't shoot. He shoots for the wrong hands. Well, you can't get your game right in between game one and two. Oh, for sure. That's what I mean. It's more about like the off season of the next couple of years and he needs to improve on these significant weaknesses. Right, which I guess is what you can take as a happy takeaway from this loss. I have no happy takeaways. Palo. This is I'm sorry interrupt. But as the game goes final

to kind of add to you this point here, it's the final line for Simmons is he's a minus 23 and TJ is a plus 17. So just you know, take that as you will. Real quick here. Can I just say just check out? I love math. Can we just check on your

emotional state here? Are you doing? You doing it? I'm still like in a like real post- Super Bowl zone where like nothing can hurt me. But I love this team more than some of my family members. And this was a really disappointing

performance. And we got Cuffington back into where he needed to be, where he looked like an incredible two-way player tonight. And I was hoping like there's no way that Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier can play out of their minds like they did the first game. And smart's shooting numbers were bad. Well, not this game.

Yeah. No, this game was good. Marcus Smart. Yeah, he was 4 for 4. I think he finished 4 from 7. Four from... Four for ten. There's over six of those last threes. Yeah, that's pretty typical smart. Defensively, Kevin just kept like gushing over the entire game.

There was that playing, I believe, the third quarter where Sixers had, I think, four on five, four on two in transition, and Marcus Swarge just stepped up and stripped the ball from Ben Simmons. In transition, in a play where Sixers probably have an incredible points per possession. That was... That honestly speaks to a lot of, like, what happened in the game, which was that the Celtics looked more explosive, but even the Celtics that weren't supposed to look explosive did, like Al Horford blowing past Joel and Bede at the end was really weird and just like not encouraging at all for the Sixers.

I mean, this is what we talked about just a few weeks ago. We were talking about Kryptonites, right? And I think what we brought up was a team that was good enough and experienced enough to go at some of the younger Sixers players. And now you're starting to see it a bit where they designed a defense and can execute it. And Ben Simmons is a little shook. Like long term, he could be a top 20 player in the league,

top five player in the league, Right now, he still needs to figure out how to get over this first hurdle. It seems like they're a little put back based on their first sign of adversity for a young up-and-coming team. But what you were saying earlier is that he can't shoot through it. And that's the difference. Because he literally will not shoot. And that's, I think, very uncommon for what we see in all basketball right now, right? Like, it's such a Shooters League that we're so used to seeing guys if they're slumping.

Okay, just keep chucking. Keeps keep chucking. You'll go in. You'll be fine. But then, it's literally like a tomahawk jam or nothing for him. And if he's not getting runways to the lane, if they're not designing plays where he's getting like three or four feet of clear space to get to the hoop, obviously it just tightened up tonight.

I take your point about running into a team that was a little bit more experienced, but it's not like these guys are like the 04 spurs or something like that. And like Robert Ori is out there. This is like... But they have the backbone. As we've always said, they have the system in place and they have guys that fit the certain roles that maybe they're not to the level of Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, but they do fit what they want to do, especially defensively. This is what, the best

defense in the league this season? It's the best defense in the league and everybody in the team can defend except for Shane Larkin. Everybody is a really good defender. Shane Larkin, at least also in his good position like T.J. I don't want to make your night worse, but I do have a stat for you. No, make it worse. At this point, right, I do have a stat for you that apparently the Celtics in series where they've gone of 2-0 are 36 and 0. All right. I mean, the Celtics Blue a 2-0 lead, is that what we're doing now?

That seems like, I get that. But, like, this is about compressed narratives. You're supposed to hold serve at home, right? I don't know. We're already there. Well, if the Sixers win the next two games, what are we talking about? If they win their next two games at home, is this like, is this an even series?

Is this going to come down to seven? I think the series still goes six or seven games. I would love to see the stats of a team that goes up to nothing. in a series. I think that they're probably overwhelming in favor of the team that went on. These are very abnormal teams to do that too, though.

On one hand, you have a very young team. On the other hand, you have a team that was half backups to start the season. My question is, for Philly is, what exactly do you do? Like, what's the adjustment? Because the issue with...

You want, blow it up? Blow it up. The problem with posting up Ben Simmons and using him in a playmaking role there is that Joel and Bede is not yet a great threat from three-point range. One of six tonight,

only around 30% on the entire season. So it's like you want to beat inside, and yet you also need Simmons there as well. And it's just a really difficult contrast and styles because I do think you need to probably just stomach it and just put Simmons on the post and see what happens. You need to do it more. Well, this is kind of the question that I'm most interested in going forward.

Is this just a blip on the radar that they're going to figure out in this series? Or is this something we have to worry more about them going forward? Because the big issue with adding another piece to this team is that they're two guys right now both aren't good shooters. Right, this is... Okay, so now that this game

is officially done and dusted, we could kind of reset and talk about it now. They lost 108, 103, and Justin is alluding, possibly, to the arrival of LeBron James, right? Like, you were talking, like, that was like a possible... The Sixers were being tossed out there and are still being tossed out there

as a possible landing spot for LeBron. Now, Justin's November... Don't just count the Hicks, you guys. ...prediction of the Knicks because of Fisdale is now being thrown out. There was that the Post today, the New York Post said? I believe so. So there was a New York Post report today

that Fisdale could be attracting LeBron James. But before we get there, your point is basically that there's not enough ball to go around for a guy like Simmons who's all on ball to have somebody like LeBron. That it needs to be somebody like PG or even like maybe I say Kauai or something like that. It doesn't need the ball so much to create, right?

It's the Ben Simmons problem, and that's why a lot of people had him ranked behind. Brandon Ingram in the draft. And Simmons, that was a mistake. Simmons should be going forward ranked ahead of Ingram. And he's a better prospect, the better player. But when it comes to team building, you certainly do need to think about the pieces around him.

And that's going to be the difficulty moving forward. And B needs to improve as a three-point shooter. The guys that they add need to be able to shoot off ball as well, unless Ben Simmons is able to become, at least an average three-point shooter, nobody needs him to be great. I don't need him. I honestly, at this point, would take an average 10-foot shooter. It's interesting because entering the playoffs,

we were like part of the beauty is that he can do all this without a three-point shot. It almost makes him, you know, different in a way. And now we're seeing how much of a problem it is. I think the problem is it confirms our greatest fear. And when everyone had, like the one knock on him since he was in college, before he was in college, was this.

And it's really kind of, it's bearing fruit right now. I think the biggest issue I see is that pretty much the three other guys around Embedon Simmons shot well from three. You have Covington playing out of his mind, playing the best defense you can hope. You shot four for seven, much better. It's the point where he might have, should have been playing the bench most of the time that game. Reddick was five for nine. So you're getting those guys scoring off of kickouts, and that you're still not overcoming the Celtics team.

Yeah, I mean, Kevin, we've kind of talked about Donovan Mitchell over these last couple of weeks. Everything winds up affecting. Thank you, Louisville Cardo. Alumni Association, but everything winds up affecting our perception of everything else. If Donovan Mitchell isn't essentially leading the Jazz into a tied series against the best regular season team we had this season, does this look as bad? Is it a matter of like what he's going up against? Honestly, it doesn't for me. No, I think like Justin mentioned, like it's almost it's confirming some of the flaws with Ben Simmons. And it's not just the jumper though. It's the

lack of a left hand around the rim. And a little bit this series and games won in, two. Some of the defense has been really weirdly inconsistent with him. He had an unbelievable season. I had him on one of the all defense teams, I believe, if I remember correctly, if not, he, on the borderline of it. This year, Terry Rozier is blown by him in games one and two.

Can't believe this is coming out of your mouth. It's difficult. I have some, uh... You're like the dude from Breaking Bad back there. I have some NBA player Spice fresh off of Twitter right now. Okay, yes. Gorin Dragich, who I believe is on a team that

eliminated from the playoffs? By the 76ers. Exactly. Just tweet it out. This is it. Roy. That's it. Retire. Out of here. Come on, man. I was going to ask something important about Boston. You know what? I actually have a Would You Rather. I want to make sure I get this in. Okay. Would you rather be Markell on the bench watching Tatum go off? Or would you rather be Ben Simmons watching T.J. McConnell go off. Oh, I'd much rather be Ben Simmons. Ben Simmons is not getting benched for T.J. McConnell.

Having said that, I would rather be Markell because this is not a new experience. You should be used to it by now. I haven't been back to Boston since 1999, Kevin. When you worked at the Middle East. Yes, thank you. I heard that on a podcast. But I do think it's worth noting that that is not Miami.

That is like a moment. much more intense playoff atmosphere than maybe the Sixers saw when they went to Florida and had like a half full joke. For sure, we talked about this on some podcast or the I forget which night it was, but it's like the Sixers haven't gone against a defense like this in about two months or so. I mean, this is the best defense in basketball that they're going against. And with Miami, it was like, that's a really good point. With Miami, it was like, who do they throw against them?

Justice Winslow or Josh Richardson or James Johnson, three guys. With Boston, it's four, five different guys so they can put on him, and then they can still match up against everybody else. And I think one of the problems tonight for Philly was more so, like even in Bid Simmons not doing anything was an issue, but fatigue, they really exhausts a lot of energy early on in the game, it seemed like.

Embed being blown by on that late possession when Horford drove right by him. I can't tell. That might have been as much of like, I have a five fouls, and if we hit a three on the other end of the court, this is going to overtime, and maybe I'm not playing in it. It made Al Horford look explosive.

Yeah, but that's actually just really good play design, though, isn't it? Like, just setting those guys up where he's, like, turned that far away. I don't know, Pal, did you have something? Yeah, so, okay, so we have a question from Peter Carloan. He asks, is Kyrie a Ewing theory candidate? Oh. And I kind of, I want to ask that, but I also want to kind of connect that to Kevin's point, which he was saying, you know, this is Boston has the best defense in the league.

Is it as good because Kyrie's out? Yeah, you don't get the legendarily ferocious defense of Terry Rozier if Kyrie Irving is in. Sure, I'm going to say. You also don't get Kyrie Irving hitting game seven jumpers to clinch the NBA finals. I don't think that was needed tonight. Yeah, I think the biggest issue going forward is that now we have to deal with the Celtics teams potentially in these finals again. I'm so tired of like the narratives about like, oh, they're all together and like they just scrap and Brad Stevens the president. Get out of here, man.

I'm sorry, Justin. Would you rather watch the Raptors in the Eastern Congress? Offer's finals. No. Because let's talk about the only team more screwed than Philly tonight. Toronto. The Pelicans? Toronto.

Let's talk about Toronto. The collapse, the extinction of the Toronto Raptors. Somewhere just out of my field of vision is Danny Chow. There's a tear slowly rolling down. An IPA-flavored tear rolling out of his eye. And this was an absolute shot, like horror show for them. Like, this is the worst possible thing that could have happened. You got punched in the mouth by LeBron the first game that happens.

You guys got to come back and defend your home court and split and go to Cleveland and exploit that terrible defense and hope that these guys have a collapse like they've had before. And they come out and they didn't just lose. Like, they were never in this. Yeah. On behalf of everyone from the ringer to all of Toronto, get out of the mentions. Because we're just done. We just can't deal with all the Raptors. Because the entire season, the whole story from there has been,

well, you guys don't take us seriously. You don't respect us. Like, why don't you watch our games? Even the broadcasts would complain about not getting fouls because they don't have this sort of star celebrity status in some of these other teams. But as we've seen, we were all right to assume that because they haven't showed anything differently.

They're still showing the same issues as before. I actually am pretty wrong because I was so in on the Raptors. I was like, this is different. All the things that eliminated them last time in the playoffs are different. Yeah. You know, relying on Lowry too much and not having enough ball movement. So I'm just completely wrong. But I still think it's the same problem as the beginning of the season before I saw that Casey's system had totally changed.

And that's, you need a wing. I also think there was a lot of reason to respect the Raptors. I think they changed their system. De Rosen and a lot of the players in that team did change their games to adapt to it. It's just that's kind of the fears that despite all that, despite everything going right for that team, Giannobie being one of the better rookies in the league, really, especially on the defensive end of the floor, it's still not enough.

And that's the scary part. So I'm wondering to that point, because we have a question from at Big Chan C-64. I don't know if that's a fake account or real, but he's asking. You said Russian bots are tweeting about the rappers? He's asking two questions, but I'll ask the Toronto one first,

because he's asking if there's a missing piece, Kevin, you think maybe Toronto can add. can add in the future and who that is, or does their ceiling remain the same as long as they keep the same back court? My question, back to Big Choncy, is that, like, with what cap space? That was, like, when we did the blow it up article last year,

like, saying, like, they should bring it back, see how it goes, and maybe pull the plug then. I don't know what you're going to do. Like, I mean, nobody wants Jonas Valenthunis on his contract. Nobody wants a wash-up, Sergei Baca. I mean, DeRoson and Lowry, is like challenge accepted. I mean, DeRosan and Lowry, frankly,

I don't think there's much value out there. That was one of the issues like with the blow it up thing last year. Just nobody, I don't think, really wanted DeRosen. So it's like, what changes can you actually make on this team? That's what I'm afraid. I will tell you.

Okay, so the problem with this Raptors, right? This is like, this stuff, this thing that Bosch said, Chris Bosch said to Bill Simmons a couple weeks ago in their fantastic podcast. When he was talking about the 2012 Thunder and he was talking about how They were like, Westbrook and Durant can get their 50.

We were concentrated on Hardin. You look at what happened tonight to the Raptors. It's a perfect example of that. De Rosen and Lowry got there about 50. And then there was just a flat line. There was not a third guy to step up there. So what do they need? They need that third player, let's say.

Let's just say hypothetically. But what this season did was actually build value on all those below DeRozen and Lowry assets. Forget Valenutis. I'm talking to OG. We're talking to Van Vleet. We're talking about, Yeah, the strongest bench to the NBA at some time.

That's a good package, man. Whether it's getting a first round pick or whether it's getting a star who's got a wandering eye somewhere, I don't know. I think that you can do something like there. I think it's too late to do that, though. Fred Van Bleed is like the superstar version of T.J. McConnell. Right. I mean, like, what are you going to get in?

I mean, like, Dillandr. Hashtag ringer NBA is Fred Van Bleet the superstar version of T.J. McConnell? No, but I'm with Kevin, though. I think if you're going to blow anything up, it's the coach. coaching staff. And like I would like to see some new blood go in there and see what can they could do with the existing talent there. Because I think as a whole, they have a lot of pieces. And I would want to see someone not wait four or five years until you decide to shoot three pointers. Like what can someone other than Dwayne Casey do with those sort of guys? Okay, so he's decided to shoot three pointers. So now what? And you like what do they do now? Like with this straight up team, you bring Stots in. Well, I think the point our friend Danny Chow would make is that maybe you, maybe you're, you know, you know, You don't play CJ Miles at like the five and just like completely get shook in your lineups and just start throwing things out there that just don't make any sense. It's funny that you say Stots because one of my factor fictions is that you could change

different pieces from Portland and the Raptors and nobody would notice. Which is a huge indictment on the Eastern Conference. Right, yeah. That a team that came in third in the West and lost in the first round would have been like the far and away best team in the Eastern Conference. Right. Fala, did you have a blow it up thing? Yeah, we have another question from John Lucas.

He's asking, I don't know if this is two anti-Raptors, but he said, should the Raptors be moved to... Wait, you want to know if it's two anti-Raptors after Justin. I know, I'm really leaning into it, but here we go. So should the Raptors be moved to Seattle if they get swept? Come on. That's what I... This is a dope fan base. That's a fun arena.

Seattle is a lovely place. Have you ever been? Who's the lush? What's the Drake gonna do? Huh? Drake's got to go hockey games? What's he going to do? I'm going back to where he was drafted.

What's that? Ibaka can go back to where he was drafted. They could have Maclmore. Sitting game side, the court side. This is raw, man. Kevin, what do you think here in terms of, is there a tactical innovation that a new Raptors coach could add? Or, and we can get into some LeBron worship now, are we just running up against the reality that no one can beat LeBron when he's turned on? In terms of the tactical side of it, it's like the system was fine.

It was a really good system this year. They played the way you want to play. And even this series, they've still retained that. moving the ball. In the game one, De Rosen didn't settle for an ISO. He attacked to the basket and kicked it out to Van Vleet for an open three. It just didn't go in. They're still playing the way

the coaching staff wants them to play. DeRosen still isn't the three-point shooter that you would hope he is. And some of the other guys on that roster still aren't really what you hope they are. So maybe for Toronto it's like, wait it out. Maybe LeBron leaves and goes west. Wait it out is the new blow it up?

Maybe. But here's the thing. Are you beating Boston with Hayward and Irvingback? Are you beating Philly when Embed and Simmons getting better and adding another max free agent potentially. You feel like they're about to get, they're about to get the drawn back into the middle, middle class. They are. That was the fear. That was the fear last year and it's the fear now.

They're a wing away. I think we also saw tonight a little bit of what the difference between a star and a superstar is. I mean, it's not fair to judge anybody against LeBron, but you don't ever get the feeling like DeMard de Rosen's about to take the game over in the fourth quarter. Which is crazy. because he was like an outside MVP candidate at some point this season. Right. Absolutely.

I think the issue is, if we're looking at the roster and not the coaching staff, is that, yeah, LeBron is amazing and it's going to be tough to win a game against them regardless. But maybe when you go down by like three points in the third quarter,

you don't wilt entirely and just make it seem like you just can't come back. Like, it's insurmountable. It seemed like they defeated themselves as much as LeBron defeated them. To tie this to the discussion with Boston, like the amount of guys they can throw at Ben Simmons,

right? with Toronto, they only have O.G. In In In In In In In In In John, John Chalks wrote about that earlier this week, and it's the type of thing where Siacum isn't good enough to stop LeBron. And OG is just a rookie. I have a follow-up question for that, though. What about Kevin Love, though? Because Minnesota Kevin Love is back! He's back. Kevin wrote a piece about, will we ever see Minnesota Kevin Love? We did. Clearly influenced Kevin Love. Perfectly timed for our publishing cycle. Minnesota Kevin Love came out. Let's just get those stats really quick.

He scored... 31 points. 31 points and 11 boards. I feel the ice... The wind chill of Minnesota. Highest plus minus on the team, too. Eyes plus minus. They need the second star.

Like, they still do. And this is a close to maximum potential Cavs team maybe tonight with that kind of performance from love. It opens up everything else. If LeBron has a dependable second option out there, then Corver, J.R. Clarkson, I mean, whoever else. I mean, they didn't really get.

It was the 2016 Cavs again tonight, but still, I was really impressive love. It's funny because in game one, it was everybody else besides Kevin Lowe's. And then in game two, they were calling plays out of timeouts for Kevin Love. I mean, they were calling off-ball screens to get him going. He was moving around a lot.

It did look more like Minnesota, Kevin Love for sure. Do you think Tailu reads the ringer? I hope so. Hey, Leigh, what did you see from Cleveland tonight? Did you see, were you more impressive? with Cleveland, or were you more depressed about Toronto? Toronto. Okay.

And I'll tell you why. Because in the fourth quarter, when LeBron decided that he was just going to do the anti-Benz Simmons tonight and literally shoot every fadeaway from any spot on the floor that he decided he wanted to and made all of them, it was just like he was toying with them. Palo is cycling in some stuff here and there. You have something for us? Got another one. At Lee underscore Daniel 721 asks, did Lebron grab

the sixth Infinity Stone before the Toronto series. I haven't seen any of those movies. I refuse. Wow. Oh, wow. Yeah. No Avengers for me. Such a contrary. I think I saw the first one.

It was not good. So I have the any of his movies, I definitely saw it for a movie. They all blend together. I can't guess what an Infinity Stone means though. I bet you you can't. Wait. Let's see.

Let's see. I don't know. As somebody who's seen one Avengers movie, what is an infinity stone? I assume it's a stone that goes on Is it like a diamond? There are multiple stones. This has gotta be like a dragon ball.

Don't give them help. I haven't seen it either. What's an infinity stone? I just am really good at context clues. What do you think an infinity stone is? Like a horrocks kind of thing. I don't know what a horrocks is. Harry Potter.

What? I don't know. This is just the spraging everybody's not like this is a secret. I haven't either. Sorry you weren't 16 and 2000. All right, this is getting weird. Let's go to NBA factor fiction.

Let's get off of what we do and don't know about infinity stones, which is apparently an infinite amount. I want to talk about NBA Factor Fiction to open this up to a couple of the other series we have going on. Last night gave me life, the jazz, getting up under the hood of the Houston Rockets and saying, this doesn't work. Is that Rodney Hoodshade?

Indirectly? Is it? I don't know. Oh, under the hood. Because you're talking. NBA Factor Fiction. Factor Fiction. The Rockets and the Raptors are a regular season team.

So let's keep this to the Rockets. Was there anything that seemed like the Rockets were getting tripped up last day, and this is not a playoff offense, Kev? Fiction, no. I mean, Utah is a tough team. They're a really, really good team, and they have a great coach and a lot of good players on that team. Utah's not a slouch team.

So there was nothing the Rockets did wrong. It was just everything was like Utah's elite defense, Gobert defending the lane. I think an immaculate game plan by Utah to come out and really contain what Houston does best. So you're saying you think Chris Paul choked. No, no. It's just like, look, Houston, they shot 10 of 37 from three. That's like maybe the, maybe if you want to say they're a quote-unquote regular season team, sure.

But they're a team that trusts the math. They could come out next game and shoot 22 of 37. It's about hitting their open shots. It was cool to see their kind of, well, I don't want to say major. pieces because the jazz technically have no major pieces except for a rookie but it was really cool to see the other guys come together and contribute to that like XM on Hardin was very very fun and then on the flip side him on offense burke's on offense like kind of making up like Eric Burke's book Brooke yeah that was that was trying that out

last night I like he said Burke's brook and I did it took me like 10 minutes to understand that you meant that was a West book yeah Westbrook play on words the long form feature will start with like a scene with Brooke Burke against Alec He likes to take off from half court and just be like, I'm going to the hoop. Yeah. So this is a must thing. Okay. I want to remind you that I pitched something on him.

On Alec Berks? Yes, she did. Three months ago. And everyone shot me down. But didn't Alex Berks have like seven debilitating shoulder injuries in between the, like, when you pitched it and like when the tonight? Maybe like over his career in general. Love this editorial meeting route.

Me airing my grievances. I think the thing that I was most interested in is it feels like the rockets are going to fluctuate a little bit more than you're comfortable with based on those three-form percentages, as we mentioned. If you're relying on Chris and Hardin, who played pretty well in this one, and Capello did his thing, he caught the lobs and whatnot, the other ancillary parts,

if they're not going to hit threes, I do wonder if you're going to see games like that, and when the threes aren't falling altogether, whether or not they're going to be able to generate enough offense with Hardin Isos to do that. And against a team like the Warriors, I would definitely be worried about it. Isn't that last year what Darryl Morey said,

it's like the higher variance. Their risk profile is, yeah, you are going to have those rough night shooting, but you're also going to have quarters where your score 50. Yeah, right? And you still have two of the best isolation players in basketball, one of the best ever in James Hardin, to lean on when the game does slow down. And you have Capella, and you can just kick it inside to him for the easiest basket. What if Rudy's there, though?

That's true, and he looked way better last night than in game one. What did you say about Rudy Gober and some of his more demonstrative fouls? I don't know. What did I say? Something about, like, Rudy sometimes acts like he has. has my body. Yes, he sometimes thinks he's like a 5 foot 7, 130, we'll go 25 to a pound, like, body. He's so fragile sometimes on offense and he just won't go up and it's very annoying. Here's like a, I would say, an 86% genuine concern troll I'm going to offer up on the rockets.

Okay. Is that when you play a game that's predicated on getting to the free throw line so much, you're obviously going to be deeply engaged with the refereeing. And last night, I thought, they... Last night's refereeing was heavy-handed, though. started to get a little bit spooked by the refs. Like I thought like there was a couple of times where it seemed like Hardin was carrying a call with him

for a couple of possessions. Or he would get into it a little bit with Crowder over a foul and whether or not he got the call and then Crowder would take advantage of that moment to kind of get in his head a little bit. And you could see James Hardin be like, I'm the MVP, I can't like get into a shoving match with Jay Crowder or lose three possessions

by getting heated about this. But that is really difficult. If your game is like, we're going to get to the line X number of times a game, that means you're, you could, the refs can get in your head a little bit. Wait, can you see how much Chris loves this shit right now? This is his Super Bowl. This is how he makes up for the Sixers playing so poorly in the past two games. No, continue. Yeah, it's definitely partially that.

Like, that's always been the conversation with Chris Paul too. Yeah. You know, mental toughness and focus. And I think another factor perhaps is like with James Hardin, how much could be fatigue, right? On those stepback jumpers and he's relied on so much this season. Heavy ISO. Unbelievable. I mean, it's a heavy workload over the course of the season

where maybe you're starting to develop tired legs at this point of the season. Okay, let's do another NBA Factor Fiction, and I'd like to open this up as we are in a democracy to the Bitcoin boys back here as well. Show of hands, and we'll tell you what the vote is for the podcast. Are we headed for Cavs Dubs 4? Yes.

Yeah. Sure, yeah. Just me and Justin? No, no. You're right. You're right. You're right. Who do you have over Kevin Ward?

Over Cavs Warriors? Yeah. I honestly, so don't get too excited, but I honestly think that Boston winning tonight was just like... Fools gold? No, I just think. I still think that the Sixers have a chance out of that, and I think that the calves are just so floppy. They're the best. They're so floppy.

Like, okay, Kevin Love was good tonight. Yeah. Right? Kyle Corver was good two games ago. It's just like, what happens when nobody shows up except for Levant? You guys said to say the best, though. It's two nothing is a deep hole in the ground. Like, teams just don't come back from that, usually.

Maybe they're peaking at the right time. Yeah, maybe the Celtics have peaked too early. Maybe. That's what I think might have happened. No, I mean... Lucasart is not going to hit four threes in the rest of the series combined. The Sixers are the most talented team. I think we could all agree in the East.

It's just with the experience factor in there, like you can't discount what LeBron and Love and just a bunch of other guys can do. And he's rolling it back with the same team. You think he's comfortable with we've seen that. I had Rockets Cavs. the playoffs. Yeah. And I'd be happy to stick with that,

but I do think Golden State should be the favorite. After seeing Steph back especially. Yeah, after seeing Steph back and looking like himself and game one immediately. And then with Houston, it's like, there's something a little off for sure. I mean, I still think they're a tremendous team, but something's a little off right now.

I do think it plays a lot into like the mental mentality thing, which is kind of interesting because that's been on these guys' backs on Hardin's and Chris Paul's backs like for their entire careers. Absolutely. But it really seems like they get spooked, like you were saying, by the foul calls. But also I think that, like, Hardin doesn't want to have another, like, 0 for seven start like he did against the wolves. Also, you know, that kind of thing can really freak out.

It is a little bit of playing roulette, no matter how good you are. That's their difference between blowing someone out and staying in the game with them is if they can make their three-pointers. And Eric Gordon had a good game, but he had a terrible game in game one. And he struggled all season. And, you know. All right. Let's do then, to wrap up this part, let's do a little playoff prescriptions. Playoff prescriptions.

So we're diagnosed, we've diagnosed the problems. Does anybody have any solutions for any of these teams that are down in their series? And I'll include the Rockets in that too, just because they obviously didn't play the way they wanted to. But is there anything the Pelicans, Sixers, or Raptors can do to get back in this? Let's start with the Pelicans with you. Oh, the Pelicans? No, I don't think so. They're actually playing really well and they're just losing.

Yeah, I mean, they were in that game. last night and it seemed like at the same time the Warriors could just step on the gas battle and just pull all away by 15. I think what we forget about and then shout to Danny Child behind me for writing this in his piece tomorrow, so spoiler. But like playoff, Draymond Green

is just on another level. Like this is, we forget that during the season maybe they coasted a little bit. When he's on, this team is a completely different team. And what they were doing in that last game it seemed like they were playing off of Rondo a little bit and giving him the Tony Allen treatment. Whereas

cut on the other side, they tried that a little bit in game one against Draymond Green. And Green made him pick. And Green made that first three and I was like, this is over. This is four games. Do you know how strange it is to say that in the playoffs, Draymond Green is the most fun player on that team? Yeah. On a team with Kevin Durant

who's like the greatest score in the league. Steph Curry. Steph Curry who could hit a shot blindfolded. Clay Thompson who could do that as well. While drinking chocolate milk. While drinking chocolate milk and enjoying you know, some other extracurricular activities.

Dramong Green is still the most fun one on both ends. Not to interrupt here, but personally, I don't agree with that. I find them like more exhausting than enjoyable. Is that bellworthy? Or what do we do that? Okay, I'm sorry. I don't know. I find Steph more fun to watch.

I think Dremon, I get his appeal, but it's just like, it's too much. Steph coming back, it was like almost a reminder of like, oh my God, I miss watching this guy so much. It's fantastic. When you hit that first pull-up three, who. Do you have any playoff prescription for the Raptors? Is there anything that they can do to get back in this Cleveland thing

or hope that Cleveland does a Cleveland on themselves? I mean, with Toronto, it's like we talked about earlier, there's still moving the ball, they're still doing the things that they need to do. Maybe it's fixed your defense because ever since mid-March or so, after they had that win streak, they've been pretty average. So it's about been six weeks or so, ever since they've been a great top-five defense. They need to get their defense fixed.

whatever it might be, whether it's intensity, defensive rotations, or getting the right lineups on the floor, something needs to get fixed on the defensive end before. It's not offense, I don't think. Don't play CJ Miles at center. Today's episode of the Ringer Ambia show is brought to you by Seekek. Buying tickets can be complicated and confusing, but there is a simpler way to buy with Seekkeek.

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That's Proflowers.com code Ringer. Let's use some mailback questions. Andy Durskwell wants to know if JJ Reddick is off the board, who on the ringer staff is getting picked for a first game of pickup? Mark Titus. He played college ball. Shout out to Titus. Yeah.

I want to, can I throw it? How about in this room? Can I extend it to on the other side of that wall? Because I want to, I've not seen this, but Sean Yu. I don't think I'm scared. The reincarnation of Patrick Beverly, who is not dead. Wow. But Sean You apparently is nothing but trash talk and ankle diving.

So that's what I'm going to go. I'm going to throw a vote in there. Do you have, when you see people, you're like, that guy, I've heard Colin or cut. It's pretty good. Colin is, isn't he hurt? Is he like completely devastated

by a shark bite right now? Is he hurt? Is he hurt? Shark bite? I don't even know what happened to Colin. Are we factoring in health, current condition? Yes, of course we are.

Of course we are. I think Pat in this room is the only one that actually plays right now, so just a Pat. As Russell Gibson asks, are the Knicks slowly getting their act together? Nice pieces on the court. It's the same pieces that were on there last year.

Front off is doing a job without noise. Yes, and now Fisdale. Do you want to do a quick why LeBron is going to the Knicks and how it happens bit? Well, it comes down to me just like speaking it into an existence. You should like run to the Houston and Chris Paul and me. Right. Kenny. Yeah.

I mean, it's really improbable considering that the Knicks' books are just completely gross. But like, let's say Ennis Cantor opts out. Or if Ennis Cantor opts in and LeBron opts in, you could maybe work out a trade if he like forces his way to that. I mean, I will say this. LeBron, every time he's gone to MSG, has always talked about how much he loves that stage. Sure. And he loves the city. He loves the energy.

And he's a historian of the game. So I think he would like playing there. Having said that, as you mentioned, the roster is kind of trash. Right. So I don't think it makes actual sense. But I think Vizzell's a good hire. I think he's a good hire for Christopps specifically because he's the type of guy who can take advantage of him in his offense. We actually, me and Justin and Danny were talking earlier about how he could turn Christops into somewhat what Anthony Davis has been after Demarck's.

after DeMarcus Cousins went down and like push him to the five and see some interesting stuff there because Fisdale played such a huge part in Chris, Chris Bosch. Chris Bosch's development. Yeah, in Miami. Yeah, there was nothing else contributed to Chris Bosch's development though. Did you see that Fis got out of plane and flew to Latvia like immediately after he got this job? Really? No, that's amazing.

It's amazing if like Christops is just at Hyde and he gets to Limeon and he's like, I'm here. It's like Christops is like, I'm a nice guy. Just FaceTime them instead. Palo, do you want to take one of these questions and ask it to the group? Sure, sure. Let's go with this one from at Alan Montasillo, Montecillo. Help a despondent Spurs fan. What needs to happen for a Kauai for Donchage deal?

Where is Donchich going first? I know. He's going to Phoenix. Didn't you know that? Right. Never got Igor. Igor whisper. Would you do Kau?

Would you think if you were the Spurs you would do Kauai for like a top three pick? need more than that. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't. Also, yeah, but he's also... Wolfs got Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett who didn't suck yet, and another pick for Kevin Love. We weren't sure he definitely sucked him, but he did suck him.

We were exactly sure. It's just one year, though. He's still number one pick only one year removed. So they got two ones and a future pick for Kevin Love. For Kauai. I've been told, like, that the Spurs are going to need like a home run Grand Slam offer in order to do a deal. He's actually holding out on them.

You know, Quiet is pulling what we all were like, Kyrie really could have done this if it came down to it. He could just say, I'm not playing. Which is seriously what it seems like Kwai is doing right now. When a star gets traded, when we look back on it, the deals aren't as good as we think. And so if Kauai picks where he wants to go, if he's going to say, I'm not going to stay here,

I'm not going to opt into my final year or sign an extension or whatever. I think then the offers start to get a little bit more complicated. Really, like, when was the last good star trade that we've had? You don't get good star trades because you can never get equal value. you for what you're offering out. If you're San Antonio and the offers are underwhelming in June during the draft or if they're underwhelming in July during free agency, why settle? Like you can pull

this out into August and September if you really need to. I know that's risking it too, but you're also potentially getting a team desperate or you're driving up offers for teams that miss out on free agency. I think there's there could be an advantage to drawing it out too if you're San Antonio. On one side, I see your point. I am scared that if this injury thing continues, and if there is more legitimacy to that than to this being like a ploy. Value goes down. Yeah, then your value goes down.

At the same time, what he was saying is absolutely correct. What do the Spurs have? Lamarcus Aldridge is, what, 31? Dejante Murray? Like, Manu was supposed to retire last year. Tony Parker's not coming off the bench. I'm not really sure what they have unless they can get something really substantial for fly. They're facing their toughest offseason in 20 years.

Yeah, because usually they build up. That's the whole thing about them. Pala, did you have any other questions for us? Yeah, I like this one. And Kevin mentioned Wiggins, but Dylan Anderson from Twitter had said, Wolves fan here, just a thought. Assuming Cavs win and Toronto needs a change,

how about a Wiggins, the Rosen swap? That would be a highway robbery. Yeah. For the Wolves? Yeah. If they dumped Wiggins on the Raptors. How would we change this? What could they do to make that work?

Which side? The Raptors. What else could the Raptors ask for? What would they have to sell their? fan base? I mean, maybe you guys tell us if you're from Toronto. What else would the wolves have to give up? I mean, Wiggins is from Toronto? Maple Jordan. Who is it?

Well, it's not, but it's not like a Wiggins thing. People from Toronto can tell me, do they have such affection for Wiggins that it would be like, he's coming home get rid of DeMara? Here's a question, though, would you think they would rather after everything they've gone through with this team, rather root for like a young, scrappy team than one who's going to, you know,

end up getting eliminated by LeBron because of the expectations and all that. They would get a whole, eliminate a whole... Are you saying a blow earlier? No, no. No, no. I was saying it. I will say this, Wiggins always plays better in Toronto because he's like, I'm home.

He plays better in Cleveland because he's like, you guys traded me and embarrassed me on live television. Yeah, but he's going to go out with Drake and it's going to be a whole thing. He's also only 23 years old. You think that there's second and third chapters to what we're seeing from Wiggins? I mean, look, I think we did an article on this this season where it's like Wiggins is not at all meeting expectations, but he's still shown flashes. How young is he? 23 years old. He's still shown flashes.

He said this a lot. I think he definitely needs a change. Because how Tibado's coaching him doesn't work. Right. Maybe, you know, we talked a lot about maybe this would work better if he was in a clear system offense, which is like, okay, we were just talking about San Antonio, something like that, Boston, the Jazz.

I would like to see him in that before I give up on him. But right now I'm, it's just very frustrating to watch him play basketball. Right. Kev, Joe Spinoza on Twitter, there's two questions. There's one from Joe, and there's one. from EWIC 7, I think is what is EWIC R7? And they're both basically, to summarize, like, Al Horford is amazing, and Brad Stevens is amazing,

to talk about that. For somebody who's just like, all I hear is how good Brad Stevens is or how all I hear is what a mysterious genius Al Horford is, is there any succinct way to explain what they do that is so special? Yeah, I think with Al Horford especially, he does all the little things. I mean, we're amazed by great shop blockers on the defense. of end of the floor, but he's really like a master of angles.

And he communicates. And he's a leader by example with hustle and positioning. And he can space the floor on offense, which helps everybody else out there, creates space for Tatum and Brown and Rozier to drive. It did for Isaiah Thomas last year. It did for Kyrie Irving earlier this year. And then Brad Stevens, we saw it at Butler. We saw it with the younger Celtics teams.

He has a way of putting guys into positions to succeed. I mean, ultimately it just comes down to execution. and game planning. Yeah. And it seems like those two together of like they're almost kindred spirits in that way. It is really bizarre to like hype someone up because they very clearly

like get the right position on defense. Right. And they cut a guy off because we're never going to like champion that and celebrate it. It just kind of makes you like a super boring guy. Yeah, it's like. Unless you're playing against Embed with two minutes to go. The guy.

Yeah. It's like during the season like a lot of Sixers fans understandably made fun of like Al Horford's Start line like 13, 7, and 5 as an All-Star. Charles Larley made fun of it. And it's silly, but how- been fun of it? Having that guy who is an A-plus screener,

a plus defender, a-plus communicator, an A-plus Deter, he can go to the screening Hall of Fame. He can go to the screening All-Star game. He is, aside for maybe like, Dramond, one of the best passing Big Men in basketball. He does a lot for that team that doesn't show up in the box score. Enhooots 4 asks, after game two, Would you rather be going home down O2 or heading on the road after a split like the Rockets?

I'd rather be going home after a split. I would rather win one more game. But let me ask this. Which home team coming into these second set of games should feel the best about their chances? So basically, like, the Sixers are about to host the Celtics in Philly, and the Jazz are about to host the Rockets in Utah, and New Orleans is about to host the Warriors. Who there out of those teams do you feel like has the best shot? Sixers have the most talent, as we said.

The home crowd has been behind them. Meek Mill is there now, so maybe they'll have them more. He was here tonight. Yeah, I know, but this is a setting. Blotted out by Gucci Mains were splendid Jalen Browngers. Yeah. But, I mean, them and then obviously, I was going to say the Raptors, but no, I can't. I think that Utah gym is pretty hype.

Yeah. Yeah, the good atmosphere. They're willing to throw all their phones in players' faces, so maybe that's an advantage. That's right. They look at flopping them much the same way I do. I share a lot with Utah. citizens. Let's wrap it up there. For Haley O'Shaughnessy, for Kevin O'Connor,

for Justin Vary, for everybody in the back, Bitcoin boys, blog boys everywhere. Thank you for joining us on the Ringer NBA show, group chat. We will be back next week. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.