The Ringer NBA Show - No Embiid? No Problem! | Group Chat

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

The Philadelphia 76ers found themselves without superstar center Joel Embiid against the Nets in Brooklyn for Game 3, unintentionally unlocking Ben Simmons to seize a win (0:52). Meanwhile, the San Antonio Spurs handily beat the Denver Nuggets behind an unlikely outburst from Derrick White (15:10) as the Golden State Warriors re-established their dominance over the Los Angeles Clippers (26:22). Plus: Which matchups are we most interested in so far (39:24)? Host: Justin Verrier Guests: Chris Ryan, Haley O’Shaughnessy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of group chat is brought to you by Turro. Turro is a peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace where you can book any car you want, wherever you want, from a community of local hosts. From exotic sports cars to practical daily drivers, you can choose the best car for you, whatever your budget. Download the Turo app, that's T-U-R-O, on the App Store or Google Play, or visitturro. Get $25 off your first trip when you sign up for Turo and use promo code Ringer at Chewereau. Check out. Terms of plot. Basketball is very good. The Sixers Miss Markel Falls.

Russell Westbrook isn't playing hard enough. The Nuggets should play Isaiah Thomas. Basketball is very good. Hello and welcome to the ringer NBA show. This is the group chat. I am Justin Varyer and joining me tonight in this late night episode. We have Haley O'Shaughnessy. Late night.

It's 830. Chris Ryan is also here. What's up? But like for you, Chris. It's late. This is my bedtime. Honestly, I go to bed as quickly as possible. We don't have to do this.

We're going to derail the podcast. Well, you know, it's late. Wait, no, by all means, let's talk about when you guys, you over-leap age, people go to bed. I'm 41. It's okay. It says it in my Twitter name. It's 77. Isaac, you can totally cut all this.

I just want to create some editing work for Isaac right off the jump. I'll tell you this. Usually like 1130. But recently, I've been indulging myself. allowing myself to step to like 1231 because it's like my life is shifting more towards nights. You got to treat yourself. Yeah. Every now and then.

Haley? Keep yourself young. Honestly, like 10. Let's start over. No, this is great. This is great content. So tonight, a robust slate of NBA games, starting with the Sixers and the Nets, the Nuggets and the Spurs will get to that one.

And as we're recording this, the Warriors are blowing out the clippers. we're just going to hope that the clippers don't storm back here. It's not like that's ever happened in recent history. But some interesting stuff happens in this first game. The Sixers win 131, Nets, 115. It was in the balance for a very long time. Joel and B. did not play in this game, and we could talk about the repercussions there.

But I thought it was really interesting what happened late in the game. It seemed like they kind of figured things out. Did that seem like it to you? I thought this was a game where we had like stages of, like, optimized version of the Sixers. So, like, you know, in some ways, Joel not playing while annoying and probably not beneficial to the team because he's an incredible player. It was like clarifying.

So you don't have him be tonight. You don't have to worry about him being out there. You don't have to worry about him not being at 100%. You don't have to worry every time he hits the deck. He's not going to get up. He's just sitting over there farting on the bench. That was so him. We can all agree that was him.

Which we're referring to a clip from the TNT cameras cutting to the bench. Minamir Johnson maybe just need to be separated. Why were they sitting next to each other again? Somebody smelt it, other people denied. Yeah, dealing it. We are not sure who supplied. So to start the game, they don't have Embed out there, and it just immediately looks like Simmons is more aggressive.

Obviously, there's like the fake, bold and board material with Jared Dudley saying... I wouldn't call that fake. Well, I mean, why tawn him then? I mean, I just think, I mean, Simmons should bring it every night. If he's the kind of player we think he is, that the whole thing for him needs to be

consistently delivering on a night-to-night basis, which has sometimes been the knock against him. And then Justin, I feel like as we arrive towards the fourth quarter, Brett Brown happened upon another even more optimized version of his team when Bobon fouled out, and instead of going back to Greg Monroe, who had been an absolute disaster for this team for most of the game, he went small and the Sixers just annihilated the Nets.

Yeah, for some reason, Brett Brown decided to not shake up basically the foundation of what they've kind of rolled out there this entire postseason going with Monroe in that starting lineup. You know, we've been critical around these parts of Brett Brown, particularly lately. I would kind of been on the fence because I don't really like to critique coaches because I don't know as much. There's probably a bunch of things I'm missing in the broad landscape of things. However, these past few games, Brett Brown has been on one. And this one was a particular, like, this was the clear example of this where they stuck to the big man in the center.

The Nets kind of chewed up Monroe in the pick and roll. And then all of a sudden they couldn't use a big man. and Ben Simmons was unleashed like we probably have never seen before. Not in a playoff game, for sure. Not in a playoff game. So they went small. Ben was effectively the center. They used him creatively.

He was out in space. It's almost like he was in a, like, a dewy meadow just romping around this entire time. And as a result, he ends up with 31 points, which I think is won below his career high. And went to the line 11 times. Yeah, I'm no coach, but Greg Monroe as a volume score, he had 13 shots tonight, which is the same as Ben Simmons. Yeah, it's absurd.

It's one thing to put him out there, and then to give him those shot opportunities is a completely ridiculous thing. To be fair, if he's out there and they're just assuming that he is simply subbing for the Embedreel, that's who they're going to feed. But that is... But that's the problem.

In and of itself is an indictment of Brown, if he's just like, Greg Monroe, I will sub you in the Embed role. Like, that's just not what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to be like, Greg Monroe, stand out there, be a big body, and get out of the way, and then rebound and play defense. And now... And it gets tons of touches and takes 13 shots. That's nuts. Which, by the way, like, if that's what you want, go with Bobon.

Uh-huh. I guess benefit of the doubt is that maybe they didn't know Embed wasn't going to be there until the last minute. That's bad, too. Also. Yeah, because there's been this mysterious, like, hey, he might have a knee problem. And we're all surprised by it. I just think that you need to decide who you are and you need to just do it. If he's 75%, 65%, and it's not going to risk long-term injury,

so you're saying to yourself, well, we need him out there and we want him to be out there. There's something about this story that, of course, like any Sixers story, I feel like we're not getting the whole thing. Gons did a piece on the Embed today on the Ringer. And he talked to people and he was around and he was like, it's a pretty loose camp right now except about the Embed stuff. But I felt like just rip the Band-Aid off. If you don't feel comfortable playing him, don't play him at all.

Don't put them out there for 25 minutes. Don't put them on a minute's restriction. Don't kind of put your hands in your pockets and wonder what you should do. Just don't play them. It's the Nets. You should be able to beat the Nets with Tobias Harris, Jimmy Butler, and Ben Simmons. I do kind of understand not being transparent about a player's health status in the playoffs.

Yeah, but this isn't like the Patriots going into an AFC championship. Like, I agree with you, but like, what are they hiding? It's Joel and B. I know. It kind of almost makes it seem like it's bigger. Yeah. I think the bright side, though, is this did seem like a light bulb moment. I think for the course of the game, they were beating them by sheer talent.

Tobias Harris was six for six from three-point land. JJ Reddick finally contributed a big game. He had 26 points. Jimmy Butler is still floating. We could definitely talk about that later. But as soon as Ben got out into open space, he seemed like a different player. And I think that they found something that will work while Mbita is out. I guess the flip side of that is I do wonder what will happen now that Ben sees what else is out there.

when he's playing his style of basketball and Juel isn't there to clog up the paint because you're even seeing this in the game too where in order to get Ben more involved they were almost like giving him a full head of steam going into the offense. There's always this gap in between the half court line and where people are guarding Ben Simmons

because they're basically dragging back to the pen. Say and go ahead and shoot from 25 feet of time. Right. And so what he was doing, he was just getting a full head of steam into that so he would have momentum. I think he's better on the run and it worked. Now he has the entire court And it looks like the Ben Simmons that we all fell in love with his rookie year,

where he's just always moving. And I think that's what you need from him. But if Joelle comes back, that automatically is gone. Haley, don't you think it's a little bit like, it's a good opponent for that kind of game, though? Like, the Nets want to run. The Nets are young. They're maybe not the most defensively disciplined team in the world.

It allows Ben to, like, gallop up and down and kind of see all these little, like, dump off passes or no-look passes or pocket passes that he can do. Sure. The Nets have a lot of young team problems. I also think in the context of the Sixers win, we should probably consider a lot of Nets had less than ideal games. Joe Harris didn't make a three. Curricks didn't make a three.

D'Angela Russell was two for nine from Deep. Spencer Dimony, one from four. I mean, a lot of their typical contributors were a little bit off. The second of three games so far that have basically swung on three-pointers made. So the Sixers were like three for 25. That's definitely not the Sixers story. No, but I think that they would have won game won. Although interesting today, because for the longest time, Reddick and Tobias Harris were the, well, they finished the second and third leading scores, but Tobias Harris had 29 points and JJ Reddick had 26.

So that's the question that I was going to ask is like, we immediately, whenever Joel is absent or present, you look at how it affects Ben. But I wonder whether or not there's a little bit more of an equilibrium to the offense for guys like Toby and JJ. Well, if they weren't hitting their shots tonight, the Sixers would have lost. Sure, sure. And we wouldn't have cared about Ben Simmons. But we literally, like, the Sixers don't need JJ Redick if he's not hitting his shot. So it's like, that's like, that's all he does. So I just was kind of curious.

I'd like to go back and watch a little bit of it, knowing what I know, how it's going to end up, and see, like, does Tobias have more room to play just as much as Ben does? Well, I guess the flip side of this is they probably rolled it out toward the end, out of necessity, yes, but they probably couldn't have done it early on because they don't have enough bodies in order to play. like this the entire time. Well, that was my question is, how are they starting the next game if Mbete isn't playing in it? This is the fascinating thing about play of basketball. I mean,

is like, there's always these like... If it's the same thing as this game, that's just such a mistake. Yeah, but like, I always find it really interesting when coaches happen upon these lineups and then it's like, okay, so like, are you going to be tempted by this? You want to go with this in the first quarter? You want to make this your first, like, substitution lineup? When do you bring Mike Scott in? You know, like, do you start with Greg Monroe and sit there and like, it's 13-7 and you're like, okay, now I'm going small? Or do you wait till this? second or third round of substitutions. It'll be interesting to see how Brett does this.

And honestly, it'll be interesting to see if Brett learns from this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's the old death lineup problem. It's so effective. And I don't know the net rating on this, but it must have been off the charts. But when do you decide to roll it out? Because the big advantage the nets are always going to have is just their depth. You saw it this game where Carus Levert pretty much, like Russell wasn't really there.

Didn't we knew he was coming and going, but Levert really took over for the Nets, which was encouraging to see because throughout most of the second half, after he came back from that kind of devastating injury. He did not look like himself. He turned it on late. But this looks like the type of guy that they could have. So they have all of these ball handlers who can chew you up from the outside. And especially with the Sixers who have all these big men who aren't going to be able to keep up with them, there is that clear advantage.

Now, the counter for the Sixers would be to play more like this, but they literally cannot. They do not have enough players. He won't play Jonah Bolden. He won't play some of, he won't play TJ. Yep. They've shortened the rotation in a very specific. specific way. And he's dropped a couple of guys like T.J. Zaire's not going to get many minutes. Jonah's out of the rotation. Jonathan Simmons didn't play tonight. So you're essentially...

He did. He took one shot. He took one shot. He took one shot. Okay. So yeah. So Jonathan Simmons did come in at the end of the game, I think. But yeah, it's Ennis. It's Mike Scott. And it's Bobon. Yeah. That's the bench. And that's going to create problems down the road for this team. I don't know. At the same time, I'm encouraged. But I still think the same issues that have shown up these past three games are still going to exist. It feels a little bit early for him to be going like I'm playing my eight best players and everybody else is sitting. This feels a little bit more like the kind of thing that should be happening in the Eastern

Conference Finals. But maybe I'm wrong. I mean, I look around, I see a little bit more of a larger rotation happening in other series. But I think the Knits are competitive, so I don't really think that this is like an embarrassment for the Sixers. Like, I think the Sixers are going to win the series probably pretty handily. but it'll be interesting to see

where do we stand on Brett after this series? I think people are ready to be second-guessing him a lot, but I think there's other stuff happening. It just seems like other stuff is happening behind the scenes. There are other avenues where the Nets could get another game too.

And, you know, let's say that he does feel pressure to go small for the majority of the game. The Nets have a bunch of great drivers. You know, they can really get inside. And if he doesn't win this series convincingly, I don't think it necessarily matters that they won enough for everyone to just be in breast favor again.

They want the Sixers to be doing to the Nets what the Bucks are doing to the Pistons, even though the Pistons don't have Blake. They don't have Blake. It's unrealistic because the Nets are a better team than everyone thinks they are. And when your offense revolves around threes and driving that much, you're going to have great games. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it seems like Brett is coaching tight and Atkinson is coaching Lips. He's willing to play the hot hand.

He's willing to try things a little bit. So he didn't go with Lavert as Lavert in the third. Right, yeah. But even when the Sixers went small, the Nets went super small. Yeah, yeah. With Ronde Hollis at the center. Now, we'll see what ends up happening. But, I mean, this problem isn't going to go away for the Sixers because their next matchup, if they get past.

It's exacerbated. Yeah. It's exacerbated. They play the Raptors. It's exacerbated. This is what Nick Nurse does. Yeah. He pretty much did not have a rotation the entire, well, he had certain rotations, but he liked to freelance.

And as we saw in the first two games against the magic, he still likes to do that to his detriment in the first game. But I think that's going to... If Brett Brown is already struggling with this, I just don't think, like, what's going to happen in the next round? The other aspect of the Raptor's depth is we so often think of depth as, you know, a larger rotation, but the Raptors are different because their players are also versatile. Yeah.

So that adds another element of depth that the Sixers just don't have. Like we're just saying about JJ, same thing with Ben. I agree with you. Like, to me, it's like depth is. like multiplicity of looks and like styles that you can deploy as much as it's just like, hey, we should have 11 guys, you know what I mean?

Like it's like, hey, here's the small lineup, here's the fast lineup, here's the defense lineup. Like I like it when teams can do that. How far did the Sixers get? The second round. I mean, I think they have a shot against the Raptors. Anything's possible. Is there any hope?

Like, on a scale from 1 to 10, where's our confidence? If Lowry, or sorry, not Lowry. Maybe if Flowery gets hurt, then they will win. If Kwai gets hurt. What will be fascinating is, like, like, what's the deal with the beat? Is this a matter of him getting like a week of rest and he'd be fine next round?

I don't think he'll be in shape and I don't think he'll be 100%. But I would sit him for the rest of the Brooklyn series if you thought he would be exponentially improved in the second round. Well, they can win this series without him. Absolutely. They should. Yeah. Well, let's turn to the next series on the board here to the other elite young point guard in the NBA. We're talking about Derek White, of course.

This is so dope. This is really cool. I'm trying to remember the last. star that got made. I mean, not the, you know... The last Spurs boy to man to hero. But I just mean like the last guy that like for a lot of national audiences, they're probably like, who is this guy?

No, seriously, he was drafted 29th in 2017 at 23 years old. He played a full four years of basketball. And he was in the G League for like 24 games last season. Yeah, I think he was originally like a Division 2 guy. I'm pretty sure Pop said when they drafted him that like he didn't know like who he was. He had never heard of the name Derek White and who he was on the face of the earth before this moment.

Now he's probably their best player. He had 36 points tonight. The Spurs won 118 to 108. They're up 2-1 now on the two-seated nuggets. Do we get a Jamal Murray update? Does he still suck? No, he went out. Oh.

Because there was a pretty interesting moment where Murray came up lame a little bit. It seemed like he hurt his knee. The play still went on. Denver driven down the other end of the court, San Antonio got the ball back, and Murrigg tried to get back into the defensive transition, transition defense, and Yacopatel basically picked him off at half court, and Murray did not like that.

Yeah. Well, before that, he wasn't having a good game. I don't think it had much effect on the nuggets. Why don't you just retire, Jamal Murray? How about that? Man, I capes so hard for Jamal Murray going into that draft over Buddy Healed. Oh, yeah. He's still a time.

He's, look at last. He's way younger. I mean, this is kind of what we expected. I said this before last week on He-check, that this is the type of series that I wanted to outsmart, like, the narrative. Like, the narrative was set for both teams that the nuggets were a little shaky, didn't have the experience, what do we know about Jamal Murray, whereas the Spurs have the infrastructure.

And I think you're seeing that happen in real time. To the point where the Spurs, I'm starting to look at their roster, and over the next couple of years, even, they're set up in ways that, like, I just didn't expect him to reboot this quickly. Because after the trade, we were just like, wow, the wheels have finally stopped turning. They haven't built for the future. And everyone wanted them to make a trade for Kauai that had so many young players in the package. And then they traded for Damar, who was in the same spot that Kauai is in terms of their career.

And it just seemed kind of like, oh, Pop wants to win one more time. But then no, you look and they have so much to look forward to, Dejante Murray, Derek White. They're not even using Lonnie Walker. No. Right. Yeah. And so they have... Rudy gay.

Do you guys watch this team? Are you guys like... Do you think this is a boring Spurs team and inspiring Spurs team? It's funny because you think you're boring until you watch them, right? And you see DeMar blow past someone to go to the basket or pull up. I always just think the spur... I think there's such an obvious ceiling on the Spurs that to me I just want someone else... I want something different because I know that the Spurs aren't going to win at all.

If that makes sense. No, it does. like the middle ground warriors. It would almost be unfair if they got to the conference finals, I think. Like if they were to beat Portland in the next round, I would almost be like, God, really? Right, whereas Portland has been working for this forever. They have all their stars. Well, they don't have Nirkage anymore.

But yeah, if the Nuggets advanced, then it would be like, okay, great, then they're going to get experience in the postseason that they can use next year. They're really young. But with the Spurs, it just feels like there's such a ceiling. Although, like we just said, they do have young players who are getting experienced now. There's something to be said about expectations, and the Spurs really haven't had much throughout this entire season. They've kind of plotted along, and they've kind of handled their business. But it's funny that we're talking about them as kind of the young upstart team with this bright future ahead

and some of these, like, guards that are so crucial to the team popping when that was supposed to be Denver. Yeah. And I believe it was Jonathan Charks in our Slack earlier today. it was just like how much the expectations have kind of just like completely warped our opinion of the Nuggets. And as you've seen, they probably shouldn't at this point in their trajectory be a two seed.

It should probably be the seven against the old guard. Yeah, the sliding doors of like, if Carmelo never signs with the rockets and the rockets wind up as the two seed anyway, like then the Denver narrative is totally different if they're just like at the three taking care of business against Oklahoma or something,

but instead. Well, and who knows what it would have happened because the seating was so tight in the middle. Yeah, I think it's kind of a bummer because there shouldn't be that much, I don't think there should be that much pressure on Yokic and Murray. I mean, Murray's having this huge,

I don't know if we want to... It's such a yo-yo series for him. Right. Yeah. I think an interesting question, though, is we talked about Yokish this entire season as an MVP guy. Should we not be holding him accountable

the fact that he can't get everybody in motion here? It's also a real regular season, postseason situation where I think like the passing lanes are a little, a little tighter. And maybe like the looks that were there earlier in the season, the cuts, the little spaces are just a little closed up. You know what I mean? Like, Spurs aren't like that dynamite of a defense.

It's not the best Spurs defense I've ever seen. It was just inconsistent. Yeah, it was inconsistent. On the road and at home. Yeah. Well, we talked about the Spurs future. How worried are we about the Nuggets future? Because this past off season, they specifically traded picks and

order to really kind of cement their quark to pay Will Barton to pay Nicola Yokic a year early in order to lock them up long term. At this point, they kind of are who they are. They still have Michael Porter coming up. That's what I was going to say is like Michael Porter becomes like kind of a big X factor for them. Because that's like a guy under their control who could do the kinds of things that they need like a wing who could add 25 a night at his best. But who knows with back injuries with kids like that. I'm not worried at all. They are super young still, as we've mentioned. This is their first playoffs as this iteration of his team. Millsap has a team option next year. Will Barton doesn't seem completely healthy. He's a completely different player than he was last year. Last year,

he kind of did it all for them. This year, you know, he went down with injury early in the season and he is not the confident do-it-all player he has been. Think about their three most important players, or even their four, or even their entire starting lineup. They're either young or Will Barton or Paul Millsap. Yeah. I'm not worried about them at all. I don't think that either they're in this tight situation that it seems like they are.

It seemed like they were this off season because of Millsap. And also they have a lot of tradable pieces. They just do. And so they definitely have an avenue of we can open this up. The Malibis, the Monty Morris. Yeah, they could definitely open this up. I'm not worried about them,

but this is definitely not their year. That's for sure. They would also not be the first team to get their asses handed to them by Popovich. Sure. Like they came out of the regular season feeling pretty good about themselves, and then they just get carved up by a spurs team. So this is kind of a take, but I actually don't think it's that hot anymore.

I wonder if Murray being hurt might be the best thing for them, because they'll play more Monty Morris. You might see a little bit more Malik Beasley, and Beasley hit 20 tonight. Morris has been probably, if not the best, backup point card in league all season, but one of them. The best. I would go ahead and say the best. They're just like they have these guys there. It's just they're clogged up because of Murray.

And with Murray, it's such an interesting kind of, conversation because we're in this era where anyone can be anything. Yokic is a point guard. He's a dough boy, like seven-footer, and yet he's out here dropping dimes like he's Jason Kidd. Murray projects to be that similarly, like, versatile. Like, he can do a lot of different things. He just doesn't do one thing well consistently. And so in a playoff series, that's kind of what I'm hoping for. And so you start to see guys like Morris, like Beasley, start to pop, whereas Murray's, like he just constantly seems like he's figuring things out. But he is.

He's what, 22? Yeah. And I like that he puts himself in the most crucial situations for better or for worse. Now, I say that as not a Denver fan. So I'm sure if you were closer to the situation, you probably would have a more emotionally like volatile reaction towards him. But guys like that who are like, I have the ball at the end of the games are like, they have like a nose four crucial moments, which I kind of like, I dig that.

Yeah. Same. All right, let's take a quick break. We're going to come back and talk about the Warriors Clippers Game 3, which is ongoing right now. And then we're going to look ahead to some games on Friday. Today's episode of Group Chat is brought to you by Brilliant Earth. Brilliant Earth is the global leader in ethically sourced fine jewelry. Create your own custom engagement ring right on the website by picking from a variety of ethically sourced diamonds, gemstones, metal types, and settings.

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Terms apply. And now back to group chat. All right, we're back. The Warriors are up 69 to 48 right now in the second quarter. KD. having a monster performance. He kind of called his shot, I guess. A little kind of a Babe Ruth

moment in that press conference that got tossed around for, I don't know, two days. Well, because he answered a question. He answered a question. He thoughtfully answered a question from a peer. Yes. Is it too late to get him the Nobel Prize? Or is it?

No, I think the voting is still to come. But I think the big thing here is Kavan Looney stepping up, as we all predicted. Now, this is kind of just going. Didn't you predict that? I think you did predict that. I've been saying it. It's not an original take, but, like, I definitely believe in it. What's the, like, the political equivalent of, like, saying Kavana...

It's, like, predicting, like, the governor of Maryland race. It's like, good job, like, I guess. Yeah, I guess. I mean, the big thing is just, you can definitely see his impact as opposed to what Boogie Cousins was doing. I like to look at this series just in general as like a lens through which we can look for the entire postseason, which is just like, it's been a nice postseason for like night to night volatility within teams and narratives. So it's like you just really don't know anyone yet. And even the Warriors, like giving up that huge lead and boogie going down, which is a shame. but just the kind of sense of uneasiness

that seems to permeate that team right now. It's like, it makes it just a little bit more like, gotta watch this just to make sure. I mean, we're recording this, we're recording this without a net. The Clippers could come back. Yeah, it's only 20 points. So they've literally done it before.

Last night after the Rockets game, I wrote, my lead was like, hey, the Rockets could upset the Warriors. Yeah. Like, it could really happen. Sure. And that Warriors upset was enough. Yeah.

It's been building for a long time now, but no one. has ever come back from that much in the play of history and that should not be the greatest team in the history of basketball

Let's talk about this Gun to your head right now Warriors win the title Yes Well like a gun to my head Yeah but if you It's like a If you're gonna like throw me a gummy bear

I have this water bottle To your head right now Haley O'Shaughnesset What is your answer? That doesn't work You'd have to like give me some reward For taking the risk I'll teach you out of bet later

But that's basically not how it works So not like Russian roulette over here But no, if you were like, could it happen? Well, you wrote about the Rockets last night. And in that game, like, I was blown away how quickly they've taken it to the jazz. A team that kind of fools gold the past two years, but at the very least is a competent, well-run team that has some stuff going for it. And the Rockets looked better not only on offense, but defensively, I can't remember the last time they looked as good. Yeah, so there are three takeaways.

The defense is definitely one. The second one for me last night was their surrounding cast was very impressive, which is not something we said about the Rockets all season. Our guy, Daniel. Exactly. Your guy, Daniel. Klinkepella. And then the other thing is that a lot of why the Rockets fluctuated before was because

all teams fluctuate when they have, you know, they're missing players. They rely on three-pointers that much. But they're not going to go up and down anymore as much as they did before because James Hardin literally does not go up and down anymore. Yeah, well, they had to reimagine who, they were a couple of times. You know, like the first couple weeks of the season was obviously this kind of like failed experiment.

Then they're playing a lot without Paul and Hardin goes into full hero ball, back-to-back MVP mode. And then they just like leveled out somewhere along the line where they became this like hyper-efficient, pretty deep, pretty flexible lineup and rotation of guys that, I don't know, I mean, I'm pretty surprised that they're just destroying the jazz.

I thought it was going to at least be like, spunky and competitive. But it looks like they're just like mopping the floor with them. I think we have to bring up the Jazz's defensive strategy which is basically what the Bucks did, which is to take away Hardin from the left

and essentially give him free for all on the right, which has failed them in a couple ways, mostly because Hardin's one of the best players in the league so he can hit you from a long. He'll figure it out. But I mean, like I said, Hardin is just not going to be this inconsistent

player anymore. He is playing like an MVP. You know what I mean? He is an MVP. And I just feel like he is now someone I'm confident could lead them to a really competitive series with the Warriors. Maybe it's actually to their benefit. I mean, this is the kind of crap that we worry about, probably not what they worry about inside of a locker room. But maybe it's to their benefit that they have like flown a little bit under the radar as a team. You know, like, Harden, obviously as a player has been like in the spotlight. But as a team, I think there was like a lot of concern trolling and like shout and fraud when they were like

first losing in the beginning part of the season but then once they got back into the playoff mix I think people were like yeah they'll probably be like a four or five seed and then they just kept rising and rising and to see where they got you're just kind of like man like maybe like not having all this pressure on this team is built to beat the Warriors in a seven game series it has to happen now it's like

not only did they get the they also get the Warriors in the second round probably which is like maybe they're rolling right now maybe they're feeling healthy, a little healthier than they did last year in the Western Conference Finals, I still really believe that this is the best possible matchup for them. If they're going to have to face the Warriors, they're going to want to see them two weeks earlier. You know what?

You really hit it on the head that the kind of desperation, like we are built specifically to counter them. We have to win. It was like they were built for one game. It was like an Olympic athlete. He was like, I train my whole life to win this one race. And that game seven, then it was like, this is the worst failure in the world. Yeah.

But I think the difference is, and this sounds so. simplistic is that it looks like they're having fun. Yeah. Yeah. I think they look like the rockets from the beginning of last season. There's like a certain spirit to how they're playing. And I think about the Warriors where they went into this season saying that they needed boogie in order to give them a jolt something to play for.

And I don't think that could be overlooked when you have a veteran team that has been through the 82 game grind. And the Rockets, while they haven't been together as long as the Warriors, they went through this all last year. They proved everything that they needed to prove. And it almost is working to their benefit that they weren't

complete to start with. Because now you have guys like House and some of the other guys who they're just are injecting a certain energy into what they're doing. And the one thing I've noticed from these first two games,

even the guys that have been around Hardin for a few seasons now are playing better than they ever have before. DJ Tucker. I was going to actually say that it feels like they've also like detoxed.

a little bit off of their CP3 dependency because of that, like, oh, we have to get them both involved. Yeah. CP3 is going to come, like, we're going to stagger, we're going to depend on him, he's going to change his game to match this system. And now I think they're almost like, it's just great to have him out there. If he's healthy

to play, that's awesome. If not, we've been down that road before. It's not like this, like, oh, crap, we built this entire thing, hoping that he was going to be the second gun in here, and now he hurt his squad and we can't. And we spent all this money on him, and this has be the year. And I'm not going to lie, I fell into all of that. For sure. They told us to. That was

like the message. It was like the Warriors made us increase our risk profile. We went out and got Chris Paul and then we gave him this crazy contract after it. Yeah. We talk all the time about consistency and how a lot of the teams in the past, the best ones were the ones like the spurs that just rolled over the same core. They knew how to play together. There are like little nuances that just cannot be overlooked there. And while things have been cycling for the rockets, while some of these new guys have injected certain new things into what they do. do, Kenneth Freed even, has provided a lot of energy, and especially during those downtimes, you start to see guys master their craft around Hardin.

Like, PJ Tucker is shooting from the corners with no hesitation. Quincapella, like, you even watch him, like, time his lobs and, like, the way that he and Hardin have kind of the symbiosis. It's just, like, it's really incredible. The core of their team is still the same one. Their top five players are still the same guy. It's Gordon. It's Hardin. It's Paul.

It's Capella. And basically what they did is they just filled out... They got better at playing with each other. Right. They got better playing with each other. And they just filled out a bench on the fly, which, as we were just talking about the Sixers, probably playoff fates more time than not

are going to be dictated not by those bench guys, but these five guys. Even like think about how we talk about Dan Tony this year compared to where maybe we talked about him before where like Mori is essentially like, Dan Tony has this job for as long as he wants it. That's the kind of like Spursian stability that you're talking about.

That's not like, there's not like, well, we'll see, you know, Mike, great offensive coach, don't know if he can do it in the playoffs, don't know if he has the defensive capabilities. Obviously, Bezella coordinates the defense. They brought him back. There's almost like Dante Scarnacki coming back to coach the offensive line of the Patriots where they're just like, this is just how it has to work. But everything around Hardin, you're right, all feels like everybody knows their role. Everybody's gotten 8% better at their rule.

And this is the result. So one thing I've been thinking about as a result of this, is this a self, telling point for the regular season as an event, if you're the NBA, the fact that so much can change for a team like the Rockets over the course of an 82 game season? Or is it actually the opposite? Are we going to hear people complain about it more? Because the Rockets pretty much didn't treat the first half of it seriously and just pretty much just waited until the deadline in order to figure out their team. I don't even think it's that they were not treating it seriously. I'd put that more on the team like the Warriors. It's almost like the Rockets just

couldn't figure it out. Like, a signing, like, Mello, can you believe that that was earlier this season? I mean, I think that they have, like, a very, a very, like, creative and progressive way of thinking about it. And even if signing Mello seems regressive to people sitting in a podcast studio, like, maybe Daryl was like, who knows? Who knows maybe this guy has a bunch of 26-point games in him?

And he's the difference between losing by 8 and winning by 6. I think it helps the regular season, actually, because you are seeing something grow. and if not even the Rockets, then just hardened. I mean, this guy came off at MVP season, had one of the most incredible regular seasons I've ever seen in my life. And now I'm just fully convinced that he is,

even though he has this postseason reputation for kind of falling off, or as Stephen Né Smith said, looks like he's on drugs or got hit in the head or whatever he said. I have full confidence in him taking them as far as they can go. I'll say this too. if I'm the NBA, it's a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty thing

because the Rockets actually got out of the way and let teams like the Nuggets and the Kings capture some headlines in the first half of the season and the second half of the season. We wound up getting to see a couple of different teams in the mix there that were really exciting. And you got to dream about like, ooh, is this the future? Is this like a page turning?

And then everything settled back down and we got kind of a mix of the new and the old, quote-unquote, for at least the last few years. So you do get a Nuggets too. but, you know, we're seeing a couple of teams like the Rockets and one of the teams I really want to talk about with tomorrow night is the Blazers.

It's like, man, you know, maybe there is something to coaching and continuity and letting guys grow and letting guys get to know each other of the course of a couple of seasons. Yeah, I mean, the Rockets are peaking at the right time and we'll get to the Blazers in a second. But it's interesting because it's almost like Daryl has found just like another market inefficiency.

He's on record is basically saying that like his team does not need to be the best in the regular season. and they just need to be the best in the playoffs. And also that you don't need to create your contender. I did not get that impression last year. In the off season. Last year, though, I felt like he was like,

we want home court advantage. Sure, they hadn't proved it yet. But he knew what he had in Hardden this year. He knew that Paul and the guts of the team, as we were just saying, was there. So he could throw darts with Mello. He could bring an MCW. Yeah, some of these other guys and give them chances. He could fail because he had more of a runway to get to it.

He had Daniel House. I can never remember his name. He had Daniel Hots. Daniel Houts. He had Daniel Hous. You know, in my drinking games, one of them was like mispronunciation. What's there really? Yeah, he would just be blacked out.

I don't get done right now. But he could keep him in the G-League locked up and not up with the big league team because they would need him sooner. So I just think it's interesting to look at it because like most of these teams, the Nuggets, for instance, are trading away draft picks. in order to make sure they had something on day one. Darrell cared more about day 40. Well, I think that maybe part of not being worried about failing is because they had the biggest failure in the public's eye last playoffs. Yeah, that's true.

They epically failed that game seven. That was a complete heartbreak. And yet they had made it to a seven-game series of the Warriors. Guys, why do we fall? To get back up again. Yeah. Keep the Friday Night Lights music. Poor Batman.

Speaking of a team that's fallen recently. Huh? Yeah, pretty good. The Portland Trail Laces. Oh. So we're going to jump ahead here. Friday games, not exactly a robust slate. The Thunderblazers series is my favorite series.

Amazing. Yeah. On Friday, we have three games yet again. The first one is a Toronto Raptors Magic Game 3. The Celtics are in indie for game three, and the Blazers travel to Oklahoma City for that one. We're going to do a little something based on my and millennial dating life, which is to either swipe left or right on these series based on our interests. You got to sell it. You got to be like really bullied in this.

You're like, this is the best idea we've ever had, swipe right. We. That's my fucking idea. We're just corny guys tweeting at you. Yeah. Our other option for this was Haley just reading people's tweets. Which would be very entertaining, I just have to say. Specifically, I don't, guy tweets is the best way to describe them?

Is it guys tweeting at you about the NBA? No, not tweeting at me. Oh, okay. Just guys tweeting? Just overconfident guy tweets and they don't know how fucking wrong they are about the NBA because they're guys. And I don't want to tell you guys what's been instilled in you since birth. But it's too much confidence.

Well, if there's one thing my dating life I show, my therapist would disagree. I call that a little woman's claim. Yeah. Okay. All right, but the gist is we're swiping left and right on this series based on our interest. Left.

Our enthusiasm. Left would be a no. Get out of our live series. Right would be, all right, let's see what's up here. Let's canoodle. Is that what you say first? Is that your version of, hey, you up? That might, that my opener?

Yeah. Okay, I'll go first. Okay, go for it. Because I'm ending that right now. I'm swiping left on Toronto, Orlando. Okay. Toronto, I'm ready for them to move on. I hate when this happens.

I hate when there's an upset game and then you're just like, so now we just have to wait longer for you to destroy these people? Yeah, exactly. That's exactly how I feel about this. I think that the most important thing to watch for in this series still is, can Kyle Lowry just bring it consistently? Right. You know, he has to for minimum three more games.

But really, it begins and ends there. I don't have many other questions about the Raptors against the magic other than that, because the magic, in my opinion, are so limited. What about Toronto stepping into that historic caldrew of an atmosphere in Orlando? Right. Where they could taste blood in their mouth. They've been waiting for a playoff matchup in the house that DeVos built. You know, they're just chomping at the bit at the ambival.

Is Kevin Krabb going? Yeah. It's a game four, yeah. At four because he's, yeah. He's going to reveal like a bunch of my Kevin's personal schedule, but yeah, he's going to game four. I went to the lovely Amway Center once. I had never been to an arena that pumps so much artificial noise.

Really? Can you tell like that? Yeah. Like, I rarely can tell. I'm sure they'll be jacked for it. I mean, I am making fun of them, but do you think that there's any, like, chance that Orlando could surprise Toronto with, like, a bunch of, you know, crazy atmosphere you're there? I just want to say, aren't you like a secondary Orlando citizen? It's like your second home?

No. No? Don't you go to Orlando a lot? My mom lives there. Yeah. But I never like, well, actually, I lived there for a little bit in high school. But anyway, I want to say that when I was living in Indiana in middle school, you're really globe-frattening over here. I've lived many places. The places in the country that aren't very fascinating. I've definitely lived there. We had this place called Perfect North Slope. and they pumped fake snow. Oh, yeah? And, you know, same as fake noise. It still works.

No, it still works. It still works. I still think it'll be intense. If anything, they need to pile that on to, I do think that it'll be an entertaining crowd because this has been a while. I think it'll be a fun game. Do I think that Toronto's going to lose again? No, absolutely not.

Right. Did you live close to, what is it, is it Christmas? I lived in celebration. Oh, that's dope. Yes. That's the extended Disney, like, community. Yes, because my mom, Works at Disney Road.

Yeah. Are you guys swiping left or right on the series? Floating left. I'm going to swipe right. Because the magic have such a found money approach to this entire thing. Like how awesome was it watching MCW rise from the dead? No, I know. With a bloody nose just like going like full zombie apocalypse on the Raptors and the referees.

I was definitely entertained by the magic. But it was just like, let's get this done with its five games. It's a fleeting moment. Yeah. I guess the one advantage is that's the 4 p.m. game. so there's no, like, conflict. If you want to watch basketball, you were watching that game. But the next game of the evening, 530 p.m. Pacific, the Celtics are in Indiana.

I think that going particularly well for the Boston Celtics these days. Which is funny because they're up to O. They are up to O, but two of the ugliest games of the series thus far, I don't think anybody's broken 100 points in either of these games. The Celtics have stormed back both times. Kair Irving did some stuff. Al Horford filling in the gaps. but I think against any other team, maybe even Orlando,

they would probably be like at least tied. Yeah, give me my next paycheck on this not being a sweep. Okay. Not really because I have to pay rent, but seriously, like they look so vulnerable. They're dying to get beat. Yeah. They're like kick our asses. If the Pacers could consistently get it together

and maybe like score three points in the third quarter, which they were fine the last game in the third quarter, then yeah. are many universes in which Boston is down O2. So what's your swipe? Oh, I'll swipe right. Because I think it's interesting to, as it has been all season, to watch Boston just utterly not be able to figure it out.

I'm going to swipe left just to be discerning. Like I'm not like super, obviously not into Boston. I'm not really that into this Pacers team. And this is not like a fun series for me. But I'm very curious to see what happens in indie. You don't like watching Boston struggle? Nothing about them makes me happy or even like happy to see them fail. It's just like because I know that they're lurking out there in my nightmares for the Sixers.

It's mature of you. Well, not until a potential Eastern Conference Finals, which I don't think either of them are going to see. So the one thing you see a lot on dating profiles. Congress has blood in his eyes. Just for a second, I just imagine losing the Celtics in the conference finals and how miserable not only like my emotional interior life would be, but also just like my day-to-day here would be. Because Bill would like go and be like, this is great.

I would just, I would be so personally upset. Right. Yeah. So, so interesting transition here. So one of the things you see often on dating profiles is that women often like to say they like adventures, which often means that they just like to go to Runyon canon. It was like very basic things,

but people love adventures. Just trust me on this. this series is an adventure, my friends. Have you ever thought about going out on a date where the girl was like, I love adventures? And you're like, I saw that you said you love adventures. I booked us a skydiving trip. I booked us an archaeological trip

where we're going to get chased by like Montanyard Indians in Columbia. Is that a package that's available? Well, no, but it's like the beginning of Raiders of Lost Ark. It's like you want to go on an adventure. Right. Because you've known me. One of those Antarctica cruises.

Yeah. They go on for 35 days. Yeah. It's a slightly intense first date. You've known me for long enough to know that I'm barely getting out of my house for a first date, let alone, you know, going to a different country. You're like, we're on the Amazing Race this season. I would actually vary.

If you come to me and you're like, I need two months off. I'm going on a first date on the Amazing Race. Like, you can have it, honestly. Dope. Yeah. All right, I'll keep that of mine. I've definitely gone on dates, like, in different, like, on travel. It's actually helpful for that.

If you want to explore an area, like I solo travel, I've done that a few times. Yeah. If you just want to be sure of a date when you're on the trip. Yeah. That's cool. Smart. Guys.

You get a good restaurant. Yeah. Just some tips. So yeah, I'm swiping right on this series. I mean, I'm just kind of fascinated still about this Celtics team because you could see it in Fitz and starts that the talent is still there. They finally pivoted to the starting lineup that we thought they were all going to play for the majority of the season with Hayward.

Brown and Tatum in there alongside Irving and Horford. I don't have much hope because it pretty much seems like the past two games have been totally reliant on Kyrie being Cavs-era Kyrie and just going off for

at least a half of a game. But I want to be there when it happens. I still think that's the big inflection point of this season is if and when the Celtics figure that out. So, all right, one last one. The Trailblazers and the Thunder.

The Trailblazers are up to probably the biggest breakout stars of the postseason? Dame time! People should take this series to help themselves study better. Yeah? Yeah. This is like an amazing stimulant.

This series is awesome. They're starting not to like each other, which is the best part, right when that first Stephen Adams, Dame Lillard, like, hey, don't ever do that again. Like, that's awesome because it's definitely going to happen again. Paul George may or not be able to lift his arm above his head. I can't tell.

We're still waiting for like what's, what's Russ going to really, when's he going to imprint himself on this? And in the meantime, powered by one of my favorite crowds in the NBA easily at the MOTA Center, those guys just went straight up heroes. They were like amazing in these first two games. And they're like one of the, like one of my favorite backcourts I think I've ever seen when they're really on. And it's just like I love the way that Portland plays basketball.

I really have a soft spot for Oklahoma. I think Oklahoma's crowd is going to be out of their mind. I really just hope we get like a 75% Paul George so we can see what he could do because these have been consistently over the course of the season my favorite like my favorite games have been the Portland Thunder games yeah I mean they're just two of the most intense players in the league yeah they're so polarizing yeah Damian Lillard and Russell Westbrook are the chip on my shoulder person and they have folk followings in their hometowns like you can't tell anybody

from Oklahoma or Portland anything about those guys this is one of the biggest like fuck you performances I've seen in a very long time from Damien Lillard just especially given the history the recent history where they've gotten blown out of their two first round series

of the past two years last year just Dame had the worst postseason of his career thus far and he's just come out and almost like has made it a point to not only play well but to show up Russ

in the process there was a pretty clear example of that where after Russ missed the three-pointer with Dame guarding him Dame clapped, like in front of him, goes back the other way and shoots it from the logo, basically. It's like, I don't know, like, it's basically what we loved in Westbrook from a few years ago.

Dame is kind of like taking his persona in these playoffs. Yeah, it's so much fun. That was, those possessions were so much fun. And also they, I don't think it was like a shoving match, but they kind of like exchanged words at one point. I jumped on my couch. Can you imagine those two getting into it? This is going to be the club. This is the easiest one where you're just like,

there's definitely going to be a pretty intense shoving match in this series just because you have to understand like the crowds in both of these places are a lot, like, it's way closer to college basketball than it's pro basketball in those two gems. Yeah. The Thunder haven't played well these past two games, but they haven't gotten blown out.

They've been in both of these games. And I wonder if the crowd gets into it or if we just see glimmers of old school Paul George. They're pretty much like dependent on two things that they don't have right now. it's Paul George being healthy and three-point shooters. But, you know, things happen.

Certain, like, threes go down that you wouldn't expect them to. People get hot. George could, I don't know, maybe the extra day off would have helped for some reason. He's not those huge ice packs on his shoulders all the time. Right, and he looks like a Dothraki with all the tape all over him. But I don't know. I think there's a good chance we look back on this series, and this is kind of the moment where Dame like sheds that reputation as a guy who's like a beautiful guy.

This goes back to the Rockets thing you're talking about, Or it's just like, I understand that we're always in this mode where we're like, the last thing I saw this person do is all the sample size I need. So we're probably overreacting a little bit. Like maybe in the next round, like there's a come down to Earth moment if he gets the second round. But Dame is so consistent that it's hard to see that incremental improvement, but I really think we are seeing it. I really think that this is like a, I never want to feel the way I felt last season against the Pelicans.

And that's like, I'm going to do everything in my power to make that not happening in. No, exactly. It's like we're seeing a narrative change in real time. And it's going to change for one of these teams. And for the other team, it's going to be like a Greek tragedy. Yeah. You know, they're stuck in the same position that they were. And I don't want to be so cruel as I say, like made fools out of themselves, but they're still in the, they're out in the first round.

Yeah. I mean, I think that one hundred percent Paul George should give Oklahoma a little bit. Like, they should go home and be like, well, we didn't have Paul George. But that's another first round out. I know. I know. I mean, but yeah, you're right. They have Paul George for the next, what, five years.

Yeah. It's so much fun because, like you said, these are both cult crowds. But I really want it to have them for the Blazers. I think you could tell from our enthusiasm about this series that we're pretty excited about this one. We're going to call this one our NBA watch at the night. We do this every week. So the Portland Trailblazers are playing Oklahoma. City Thunder on ESPN at 630 p.m. Pacific.

Guys, where are you swiping on this game? Can I propose on the first date? Well, there is an option, if you want to go into this, of a super like. I'll super like this. I just liked their Instagram from like 37 weeks. All right. Yeah, you could definitely tell that we are excited for this one. That's our watching the night.

And remember, if you want to watch every NBA game, subscribe to NBA League Pass on NBA.com or from your preferred. video provider. All right, I think that's it for this edition, this late night, sexy time edition of NBA group chat for Haley, for Chris, for Iceman on the ones and twos.

I'm Justin. We will see you next time. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.