The Ringer NBA Show - Nuggets Smoke the Lakers and Playing Coaching Matchmaker with Mike Trudell | Group Chat

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

Lakers.com's Mike Trudell joins Justin, Jon, and Rob to go over the Lakers’ loss in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals to the Nuggets (0:34), match up available head coaches with vacancies around the league (42:18), and preview Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals (1:08:52). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, Jonathan Tjarks Guest: Mike Trudell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Gatorade. For over 50 years, Gatorade has fueled the best athletes to rise to the occasion during their biggest moments. From young athletes, just starting to turn heads to some of the best athletes to ever play their games, Gatorade shows they are the proven fuel of the best. The best are fueled by the best. Then, now, forever. Nothing beats Gatorade. Hello, and welcome to group chat, the ringers' weekly NBA discussion show,

where we talk about everything from shimmies to strained Batman references. I am Justin Verrier. It is 8 a.m. Pacific. And joining me today, Jonathan Charks. What's up, guys? Rob Mahoney. Good morning. And our special guest from the Lakers broadcast on Spectrum Sportnet from Lakers.com.

Are there any other jobs that I'm missing here, Mike Trudeau? Kyle Kuzman's stylist, perhaps? Yeah, that's all fine. I mean, I did. The Dark Night did come on last night, and I, of course, let it stick for the opening scene before moving on to something else. Right. I thought it was great that when Dwight made that reference,

which is what we're talking about. He called him The Joker, apparently, not just Joker. He's a very formal guy, it seems like. Always doesn't. Yeah. We're going to talk about a few things today. We're going to get to Heat Celtics later in the episode. We're also going to talk about some coaching matchmaker,

trying to pair some coaches to some of these job openings. But first, we'll talk about Game 3 last night, Nuggets. 114, Lakers 106. Pretty surprising, I guess, considering how the game is going that the Nuggets kind of took over there, but I guess at this point, we shouldn't be surprised

at anything the Nuggets are doing. I feel like we have this conversation pretty much every stage of the playoffs. Now it's like, well, you know, the Nuggets doesn't seem like this going the way, but you can't really count them out, and here they are. Let's start with Jamal Murray, Mike.

So you've kind of been close to this series. You're not in the bubble, but you've been obviously following the Lakers closer than we have. What stands out to you about Murray, this series, and specifically last night, 28 points and just like 30 different big shots? Yeah, I thought, honestly, I thought his passing was really terrific last night in that game. And I think he finishes with 12 assists. And, you know, the Lakers are still trying to give all kinds of different looks to Denver.

And they're not doing the, they're not treating it the same way. They did the Houston matchup or the Portland matchup where, because those cases were a little bit different. As good as McCollum is, they were really, focusing all of their attention on Lillard. And then as good as Westbrook has been at times, was not playing that way in their Western Conference semis matchup, so they really devoted all their attention to Hardin.

And in this case, you can't really do that to either Murray or Yokic, because both of them can hurt you in kind of more legitimate ways. So I thought that that was the main adjustment between this series and the previous ones, is what they were going to do with Murray on offense. And I thought they did a pretty good job of taking away his three-point looks until, of course, he hits those big daggers late, which were super deep. But he was getting into the teeth of their pain

and just making plays. So that, to me, was the biggest difference from Murray from game three is from one and two. Yeah, Rob, we've been talking about pretty much this entire postseason, whether or not this is a leap for Murray or just kind of he's having a couple of good games, or he's just on a tear.

Maybe it's like the bubble sight lines. I don't know if you've heard this, but it's a Hooper Gym out there. Apparently. But he was making plays and also celebrating at times as if he were Steph. Well, I think he deserved it. I mean, I think Mike's exactly right,

that some of the passes he was making, it was really heady stuff in a make-or-break situation for the nuggets, right? Like, to come up with that pass to Paul Millsat that he did kind of on a blindside cut, that's star-level stuff. That's what he has risen to the occasion to do. And for some reason in the series, whenever Jamal-Marie leaves his feet,

he turns into like a Zach Galfinacus doing math in his head. head meme, and you just see every angle on the floor. He's made three or four of those ridiculous passes over the course of this series already. I think it's important that he has the flash to his game, that he has the confidence, that he has the bravado, but he's shown himself to be capable of managing a game against a great defense in the Western Conference finals.

He's shown the ability to really have that substantive streak to him. Yeah, and kind of going off what Mike was saying, it's that combination. We talked about it last week, that pick and roll between Yokic and Murray, when you have the scoring guard and the playmaking big together, it just puts a defense in such a tough situation.

Like the Lakers have not found an answer for that yet because no one really has that pick and roll. I like your meme reference there. I was thinking of the Nick Young meme, right, where he's looking around with the question marks, but that's the opposite kind, right? Because he don't know that Nick has the solution in that case. You know, like the whole,

to me, the whole thing in game three was just energy and effort, right? I mean the rebounding battle alone. If you tell me that the Lakers got rebounded 44 to 25, I probably would have thought you were crazy. That's just not something that usually happens. And Anthony Davis, when have we ever seen him get two rebounds? So that to me was the Lakers were in a way almost managing that game,

whereas Denver came out with complete desperation. And almost everything else went alongside with that. So yes, Jamal Murray and Yogh were great. They're always going to be really good in screenroll. But typically the Lakers are able to take advantage on the other end, as opposed to you shouldn't be able to do that with Lebron. in AD, they can kind of play both ways. But they weren't really able to take advantage of that packed Denver paint.

And that's just where I thought the difference was. Yeah. So what do we attribute that to? Was it just guys just hitting shots that typically weren't? Or is this like the Jeremy Grant game? And that was the difference? I think we just saw a lot more staggered action from the nuggets in this game in a way that kind of broke open what they were doing in their pick and rolls with Yokage and

Murray. And, you know, overall, I think the Lakers have defended that action really well as well as you can against two players of this caliber. But when you add that third screener into the equation, a Jeremy Grant who's now slipping to the rim as Yokic pops, that's a really hard action to mind all the threats on the floor at the same time. We saw a little bit more miscommunication, I thought, from the Lakers. Yeah, I think, too, you're seeing also the difference in depth in the series as it goes on, right?

Jeremy Grant had a big game. Montaigne Morris had a big game. Lakers are playing 10 guys. They don't have 10 good players. It's time I start dropping guys at the rotation, I think. Yeah, I mean, there are a couple of blown, like, pretty obvious blown coverages from the Lakers. There was that one where Marcus Morris just, like, lost the shooter. I think it was Monty Morris in the corner.

Justin, you had the wrong. Wrong, Morris. Wrong. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of mori out there. It's hard to keep track. There are. As a twin parent, Justin, I take offense to that, okay?

Let's get your, get your twin straight, please. Markief does not appreciate that. You would think I would be able to tell from the visual cues, you know, like one is just just stepping on guys constantly and one isn't. But, but anyway, no, and then Kyle Kuzma, obviously there was that, like, kind of confusion in the middle of the paint where someone's left open. I feel like we talk about this every round with the Lakers. It's just like their big two is just so incredible. And they continue to be, Anthony Davis has been really great.

We're going to talk about them a little later. But it's just like the other guys. And it almost felt like in this game, like the dice rolls just came up like, just snake eyes every time. And even on the offensive end, guys like Caruso guys who had been stepping up previously, just, weren't there, right, Mike? Well, so I would argue that the Lakers bench has actually been really consistent. It's been much better in the postseason in terms of net rating, really either side of the ball than it was throughout the regular season.

And part of that is because the Lakers, and I don't think people, especially on the outside, really anybody but Frank Vogel, or maybe Anthony Davis, were expecting Rondo to be this impactful. Now, he really was great for basically four to the last five games ahead of this one going back to the Houston series. and he struggled for the first three quarters. I thought that was part of it. The guy that brought some energy was Dwight Howard, but Pusma didn't have his typical game.

And really, even Caruso, who's been so good, made a couple defensive plays, but was turning the ball over, was missing his shot. So that to me, when the bench as a whole struggles, it's more of a character of the overall basketball game, where LeBron and AB, they still got theirs, but they weren't particularly sharp, other than the moments when LeBron was attacking the rim.

And this goes back to that simple point as before, you know, Denver down to O played with this desperation. LeBron is always talking about you have to match the desperation of the opponent. And he usually says that for closeout games. And so clearly the Lakers did not do that in game three. And so anything that we can break down. And I thought you guys did a great job of speaking to a couple of the specifics at Denver's Pick and Roll offense, for example.

But all of that stuff when they're in the film room and Vogel's looking at it, it's just it's so obvious, right, that the energy level is not there. And so the discrepancies are going to be pretty clear. So I'm curious for you think about this. I feel like the adjustment for the Lakers ultimately is LeBron on Murray,

Davis on Yokich, and you switch it, right? Because that's probably the most switchable pair of guys on Yokets and Murray in the whole NBA is those two.

Yeah, I think that's a good point. And they, but they for the most part, if you look at games one and two, in addition to bringing Dwight on, I think he's the guy that gives Yokic the most problems.

Defensively, I think they're going to be okay in forcing DeVord to take at least contested shots. You know, Jeremy Grant got to the free throw line 12 times. That to me, he was super aggressive going to the rim. I think that's something that they

can take away, which is better overall energy. Where they need to focus on, for me at least, is in the half court on the other side of the floor where Denver is going to keep trying to pack the paint and the Lakers have to not take that bait and just pull up and keep shooting. Now, Anthony Davis bailed them out of that in game two by just hitting a bunch

of contested shots as he has wanted to do at times. But they have guys, whether it's LeBron, specifically, or Rondo. They can get into the pain. You guys always hear the expression, right? You want You want to touch the paint and then either keep going if you're LeBron or kick out and get actual wide open shots to shoot her. So that to me I thought broke their rhythm where the Lakers said, okay, we can get these shots off. And they just didn't press their advantages that they put on the offensive end.

And that kind of affected the overall flow of the game. Well, that was an area too where the Lakers put themselves in a hole so much earlier in the game that even after they made their huge run, I mean, they looked gasped. They looked like they didn't quite had the legs to attack the same way they had been. you just can't against a team that's as good as the nuggets, you can't be giving them that. You can't be giving them a 15-point lead. You can't be surrendering the momentum in that way. And that speaks to that desperation, that urgency, that the differential between the two teams in this game. Because once you allow that, I mean, that's the thing about LeBron, you know, we can talk about putting him on Murray, which I think is a great option for them.

And we've even seen it where at the, I think it was at the end of the second quarter, at the end of a quarter in game two, the Lakers feigned where, you know, they had Alex Russo kind of hanging at half court while. Murray brought the ball up, and as soon as he crossed half court, LeBron and him sprinted into a switch to try to throw off the nuggets a little bit and play that pick and roll. I think we'll see LeBron on him and in the primary action plenty in this series, but you got to save that guy's legs too, especially if he's going to be driving as aggressively as he was early in these games. Yeah, and I think two are talking about not having desperation. I would say look at like the lineups they were using, right?

We saw in game one, Javelle's really going to struggle against guarding Yokic, and that Denver is not really going to guard Javel. So, like, we know, and in game one, Dwight played over from the second half. Like, we know Dwight's a better matchup in the series than Javel. Yet in game three, they still started Javel and they still benched from the second half. To me, that was just like punning a game. Like, you got to go out, play your best players. Like, I would expect in game four, not going to say Javel at all.

I'll do my guess. Well, I think that's the big question that we're all kind of talking around is, how much do we think this is repeatable for the Nuggets? Or how much do we think that this is, at this point, just the, the memorial punt game from the Lakers. It happened to be the first game of the previous two series, but then you saw them come out and pretty much just demolish the other team. If you asked Jamal Murray, they should be up to one.

And I think he really has a case there. I mean, it comes down to Anthony Davis just hitting that huge shot. And like, after this result, that shot seems even bigger. We're talking about the game two one where Davis obviously hit the stepback. So I don't know. Are we worried about the Lakers or are there enough fixable things, Mike, here, where you could just say, well, you do one or two things, and this is a different game.

No, I think it's probably the latter. I mean, look, the Lakers, even with this loss are 10 and 3 in the postseason, right? Denver's, I think, now two games above with their 500. And Denver just is not as good of a defensive team as the Lakers have been in terms of, as an overall team. They didn't play like in game three. And the thing about game two is so sure, I get that from Murray and Mike Malone kind of made similar comments about the Nuggets felt like they deserve that one.

Well, they also erased an eight-point lead with three minutes left. Yokic hit four straight shots. All of them contested. One of them, the absurd tip. And so it's one of those things like if you think back to your whatever level of sports you play that and you remember your losses, right? But then you don't get credit for the other way around two, like the games that you won, right? That you're not thinking, oh, well, that one, I could have lost that one. So you kind of have to play both ways there.

The Lakers were up by 16 in game two. I thought they kind of, same thing as game three. So here's the different, the point I want to make about it. When they're in the film room and Frank Vogel's trying to sell it as a loss in game two, it doesn't really stick because they still end up winning the game and they're up by a lot. And so maybe they get punished a little bit by Denver in Game 3 for that lack of just continuing to put their foot on the pedal. But that's how these playoffs series should go, right? As you guys have been saying, Denver is a really good team.

They deserve that full respect. And if you don't give it to them for even one game, then they're going to win. Mike, I got a question for you, actually. So in game three, A.D. played 43 minutes. LeBron played 37. Can LeBron go to like 44, 45, 46 minutes anymore? Like, I think that would go. Yeah, so I think that he can, especially if they're going to play Rondo as much as they are,

because that gives you X amount more possessions where he's off the basketball. You can either put him in a post, you can put him somewhere else. And he can still be really impactful defensively on the weak side, which as you see during that run, all of a sudden, you know, Milsop is going to the hoop, and there's LeBron, right? I stay in vertical at the rim. Like that's the thing that they have in their bag. But I always remember back to the Cleveland and Golden State matchups, you know, where

Cleveland goes small, LeBron is essentially at the center. And Steph and Clay would get that foot in the lane. And then LeBron would just come out of nowhere. So like I still think that he has that part in this game if they're going to extend some of the minutes. But they just, this is what's been interesting about this Lakers postseason. They have not been in any close games other than like other than these last ones. Portland, the closest game was game one. They lost by seven.

Every other one was double digits. Houston, there wasn't one game that was within that double-digit standard. So they just didn't even need to think about stretching LeBron Ray these minutes. So I do think, though, that is in their bag and that's something they can go to, but they don't want to go to it too much

early in a series. Well, here's a question I have. So LeBron statistically was brilliant. He had a triple double. The turnovers weren't great. I think he only had two free throws. It just seems like he hasn't really put his stamp on at the very least the last two games.

I don't know. I think maybe I'm just so used to LeBron just completely taking over a playoff series or at the very least when that late run happened for the Lakers, like him turning it and the Nuggets never coming back. Am I being too worried about a guy who is clearly still one of,

if not the best player in the world? Or are there signs, especially in that game two, where he was really off where like LeBron's age is starting to show a little bit more more as we go through the playoffs. So for me, guys, LeBron, I think is, so I'll make a parallel to how we've used the regular

season. He's got a goal in mind. And what is it going to take from his body, you know, to get to be at peak shape by the time the playoffs start. And he's going to sort of, in year 17, he's going to monitor that pretty closely. And he's got like a very specific plan. Same thing in the playoffs, right? How, like, how do I get 16 wins?

And so I think that he's still brilliant, as you said. I mean, he's got a 30-point triple double when you can, it's not his like top elevator game. But I think that he is, he is in his own mind and not necessarily explicitly, but he's going to make sure that the proper amount is going to come out of his body by the time that the series ends. And then, you know, I think without looking ahead to the next round, you don't want to certainly do that. But I think that he's got that internal clock going. So I still trust it. I haven't seen physical signs that he doesn't have it, including, I mean, how many dunks in a transition buckets did he have in that. fourth quarter. So to me, it's in there. It's just, it's about managing when it's going to come out

in the most intelligent way that he can. One thing I'm watching, so in the round two, LeBron's shot 26% from three. Right now in this round, he's shooting 21%. I mean, make some threes. It's a lot easier on your body, right? It's a lot less work to hit a three and get into the rim. It's about the nature of those shots, too, and when he's taking them and why he's taking them. And I think, you know, it's not like those are kickouts into open spot-ups for the most part. Like, he's taking those shots either late in the clock because the offense didn't go anywhere. He's taking them late in the game because, again, he doesn't quite have the legs to get all the way to the rim anymore. I think those misses in that percentage in itself are indicative of a lot of kind of what bothered the Lakers in this game and really over the course of this series.

Well, Mike, how much does LeBron expect AD to really shoulder that load? So AD has been equally brilliant at times in the series. his last game was probably the best playoff game he's ever played, game two, not game three. But it seems like there are times where they could really use someone to really take the reins, and maybe it shouldn't have to be LeBron all the time.

And it does feel like he's in this situation where he's like really into empowering AD to be that guy because maybe AD doesn't think he's that guy all the time. Like, do you think that LeBron consciously is trying to push AD to be that more often? Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it, Justin. I mean, so the way that LeBron approaches all these games in the season, he did lead the league in assists, and most of those assists went to AD. Right?

There's the stat where he, like, I think that I'm trying to think of who was second in the NBA. I don't know. One of you guys might have it, but the LeBron to AD specific assists led the league by a lot throughout the season, which makes sense, right? They are, of course, the best pairing, at least in my opinion, on any roster. So game two, Justin, I think is a good example of what you were saying, though. first half, LeBron comes out, storming 20 points. You know, he's going to the rim, gets a three, he's getting the three-to-line. Then in the second half, AD gets going, and LeBron just continues to sort of milk that and let that happen.

And then that does two things. One, it gets AD going, and it also, in theory, saves up a little bit more of LeBron's overall energy for the rest of the series, or at least, I think, mentally, or even if it's subconsciously, that might be the way that he's approaching it. So that, and that to me, again, is the whole benefit of having them play together. Is their goal winning the championship, how are they going to do that? Some nights it should be LeBron, some nights it's going to be AD. And even on the nights where it's not LeBron, he's still going to probably end up with his, you know, close to 30 triple double,

because that's what he's going to do. But they can look very different, right? The LeBron stats sometimes can look very different depending on the, just looking at the box score and watching the game. Oh, so I got some wild stats for y'all from the series. So when LeBron and AD are both playing, Lakers are plus 11. AD without LeBron, Lakers are plus 17. LeBron without AD, Lakers are minus 14.

I mean, it's a very small sample size, but that's interesting. You know what's interesting, especially about it, Jonathan, is that it's opposite of what we saw in the regular season. Yeah. And that's to me partly

because AD has picked up his game, but also because the Lakers bench unit is just much better. And Rondo is the key there. Like when Rondo is in the regular season, the Lakers net rating was lower. When Caruso was in in those minutes, it skyrocketed. That just generally was how it went.

And again, with Rondo stepping up his play, that I think has made some things easier for AD with that unit. But I also think that LeBron can control that to an extent. And if he sees that stat, which you probably will, then it will probably be different in game four. LeBron reads the media? No, LeBron is a, LeBron reads the box scores. Oh, there you go.

By the way, can you tell that Rondo and AD have that just chemistry or just like get along naturally because of like their pelicans ears? Yeah, I mean that, so that sweep against the Blazers, I think, was formative, right? There was some trust built in that. They were fantastic. Especially for AD, yeah. Yeah, I mean, AD was fantastic.

So it was Rondo, Drew Holiday. I just remember them kind of swallowing up Dame and CJ. And then AD, I thought, played really well against the Warriors too. Now, they were never going to win that series. but that was when I think a lot of us were watching and thinking, okay, yeah, it's like, it's not just a statistical AD, like, yeah, this guy belongs. He needs a couple, he needs a little bit more help,

but he's got it. You know, he doesn't really have a weakness. He just, he, as he's been saying, like in game three, he can't have a game where he's got two rebounds. And it's just like, still, LeBron has played a million more playoff games than him. And that's what we have to remember about AD. He's like still right around that 30 mark.

And so I think that that will come, but it's a, it's, It's important that they see it on tape and there's, okay, yes, if we, if we treat the game like this, then Denver will beat us. Yeah, AD had, I think, 10 free throw attempts last night. There are times where I feel like he could have triple that amount. He's, he's kind of settling into these mid-range jumpers, which he's incredible at. And he's getting a lot of follows off of those, which I think are surprising. I just wonder sometimes if he's just like a little bit more aggressive at getting toward the basket.

And maybe this is a credit to Yokic or just the Denver defense kind of walling that up and taken away from him. But I just almost feel like he can get to the line at will. And because he's such a good shooter, like, that could be the difference in the game. If he's just a tad more aggressive about this and sharks, you wrote about this, I wonder if there's even a next level from this leap that he's already taken. There was a great line when he was talking to TNT after game two, Anthony Davis. And he says, Rondo always tells me to go for 50 points every night. And I was like, right there, Rondo's worthwhile for the Lakers.

That alone, that common every game is like worth $2 million. I mean, the terrifying thing if you're the Nuggets is anytime Anthony Davis faces up, because this series has already shown that Yokic has nothing to do with that play. Like, he is just completely off his game. He's on his heels. You know, I think Yokic in some ways can be an underrated defender. He's not chopped liver in a lot of actions just because he's so big. But Davis is just so much quicker than him.

He has that advantage to your point, Justin, where every time he doesn't score on those possessions, it feels like a lost opportunity. he isn't getting to the line when he faces up. This is one of the quickest and most agile and most talented and skilled bigs we have in the league. So he's leaving points on the floor even when he scores 27 in a game. Even when he has a productive game by most measures, he's just that talent and has that kind of match of advantage even against an all-N-Ba-level center. I mean, that's tough to deal with and tough to deal with that pressure, but to Rondo's

point, maybe it just means you go for 50. And I think with knowing that, I feel like to me it means Denver's got to pack the paint. And so, like, Mike, how many the Lakers guys do you trust as shooters of their supporting cast? Like, who do you trust when that ball comes out for the open three? So, I mean, so Danny Green sometimes comes up and gets criticized for this, but he still almost always ends up around 40% eventually, right? Like, he might have his one for eight game, but I still trust him to make threes. KCP, Kuzma, which I was really surprised that he didn't take that first shot when he got it

in the fourth quarter. But, like, those would be the three guys that are, if they're around LeBron and AD, I think that you can kind of count on those guys. And then Marquif was 40% three-point shooter in Detroit this year. He was 44% heading into this series. It's tougher for them to play them to play Marquith because of Denver's lineup. But like that's what's, if I can touch on the AD thing too about how aggressive he should be, what's interesting is that Denver, of course, is packing the paint in a very similar way that Portland was.

They had white side and Nurkich on the floor. So AD always could face up. always had that open jump shot if you wanted it. And sometimes I think LeBron pointed this out last game, the Lakers can't get baited into that all the time, though. Like, they need LeBron or Rondo to initiate some of that offense and get the nuggets moving. Because if it's just AD face up, yes, he can score, but that means that the rest of the guys are probably standing. The paint is packed and things just get stagnant. So it's really, it's like a weird mix of things there. You trust AD to go get his own. You trust LeBron to do it. But those other guys can kind of get

lost in that shuffle if they're just standing and they're not having any activity going around the court. Right. And then it becomes a yonest thing. It's funny that the two rebounds are obviously going to stand out. Eddie addressed it. And I think everyone on Twitter addressed it. I know that we overvalue height now. Like everyone's like, oh, it's about your length. It's about like positioning all its other stuff. There are multiple times in this series where I feel like Yokic being a couple inches taller than AD has actually allowed him to get more rebounds over him. Obviously, so the tip in game two where he hit the shot, but there was like one or two where he's just like kind of reaching over AD. And like maybe this is anecdotal. Maybe this isn't actually what the bigger

issue is. But I was, I was remembering when I first started covering the pelicans and AD is 610. He's, he's still 610 to this day. We now have the actual heights for some of these guys. And randomly, he went on their in-house podcast, the Pelicans, and was like, they measured me. I'm 6-11 now. And he was really weird about it. He's like, but I don't want to be 6-11. I think I'm 6-10. It was honestly the most bizarre like story because, A, it wasn't true. And B- Remember, it's like the KG one, right? Where he was like never going to be a causal footer. And they didn't even stretch it to being seven feet, which would have like, I guess maybe provided some sort of psychological advantage. that AD's actually taller, like the KAD thing, right?

But then he was also like, it's weird, I don't want to be 611. It's just it doesn't fit me. I fit better at 610. So this is a long way of saying. I do wonder if he actually had this extra inch. Maybe it would have been five rebounds instead of two. I mean, Justin, if you don't want AD at his 610, you don't deserve him at his 611, you know? This is true.

Well, another part of AD's line last night, and this is on charts you want to talk about. So he's 0 for 4 for 3. I don't know how much of a big deal that is. He's hitting him when it counts clearly. But we talked about Yonis earlier, and I think this brings up this big discussion about, well, how much is a three-pointer critical for some of these bigs? Because as we've seen, I think other guys are getting around without it, right, Charks?

Yeah, and I'm watching A.D. in this series, and the way he can score like 10 feet, six feet off the dribble. And to me, I'm like, that's what Yannis and Ben Simmons should be doing. I feel like making those guys in the three-point shooters is not really the best use of their time. Like, is Ben Simmons ever going to be a 35% three-point shooter? It seems very, very unlikely. Like, I'd rather him work on his floater game. Maybe he can pull up 12-footer.

I feel like when you're that good, when you're that big and strong and fast, your advantage is at the rim. So, like, get better at that. Like, what was that in those, like, heat games? Yonast taken, like, seven-threes a game. Like, he doesn't need to do that, I don't think. The tricky part for me there with whether it's Yannis or Ben Simmons is that, A lot of the shots that AD makes are just touch shots that like he, like that's something that is harder to me to learn that you have to almost be born

with that kind of thing. Like where he can toward his body and he's, he's flying from right to left across the paint. And he just kind of floats up a soft little like Yokic has the same kind of touch, right? Where it doesn't really matter where they are on the court, but they're going to get the, the ball has a chance to go in because of the touch that they have.

And, you know, I don't know if Simmons and Yannis have that. And if they can't learn it, then I don't know, Jonathan, like, can that maybe they, maybe Janice has to just get to some certain spots at the three point line, where it's more of like a direct drive for him. I don't know. I don't know if you can teach that. Well, it's funny you say that. So I remember I was talking to a college development coach. And he was saying when they do recruiting, they look for touch first. They figure if you have the

touch inside will make you a good shooter. But like if you don't have a touch inside, then why would the shot ever come? That's a good point. It makes me think of like guys like, you know, like Brooke Lopez or Marcus Saul, where you can turn them into. a three-point shooter overnight. Like the same thing. Like those guys have nice touch inside at the rim. Avita Zubats to me is a guy that doesn't shoot threes that could. Could probably step out there like really good free throw shooter.

You know, those are the, whereas, you know, Javelle McGee, it's going to be, or Dwight Howard, it's going to be a little harder for those guys to get to that point, which reminds me, those guys didn't get any rebounds either. I think, I think one and Javil had zero. So I can just Yokic, just give him credit in Millsap and Grant. They were just super physical inside. And that to me, to completely switch the topic back on you, Justin, let me, let me just back out now. No, no, I think we do need to talk about the Nuggets.

This is where Rob would tell us that we've been talking too much about the Nuggets opponent. Jeremy Grant, let's start here. So I do think, like, there are certain process guys that we tend to focus on as just either the example of why the process worked and why it didn't. Jeremy Grant, we forget. But in a lot of ways, I think he's probably the biggest. if, well, Robert Covington, but other than Covington, the biggest, like, from nothing to something superstar of the process. And this was probably the best game, at the very least I've ever seen him play. How much of this is repeatable, though, Rob, just because, as we mentioned, he went to

the line 12 times, there was a point where they were doubling Jeremy Grant in the post. I don't know if that was like a confusion or a LeBron freelancing sort of thing or what, but he was having the game of his life. He was. I mean, I don't think that part of it is terribly repeatable. The part that's repeatable to me is his ability to consistently guard wings and especially high-level wings over the course of these playoffs where, I mean, for one, the Nuggets don't have a lot of better options than him defensively. He has to play a lot of minutes because they desperately need that kind of length against mostly LeBron, but also some against AD too. And to me, in that regard, he's been pretty terrific. And so anything he's giving you offensively is kind of gravy.

I think one thing that was, you know, kind of has been a positive development is his willingness to take threes, because especially you see this, you know, we've been talking about. a lot about, you know, Biggs learning to shoot threes and guys having touch. Grant is not a traditional touch guy by any means. He's kind of grown into being a shooter because, you know, because the circumstances in the state of the league demanded it. And often with those guys, you see that in the playoffs, they clam up. They don't trust their shot.

They refuse to take shots. They'll swing the ball. They'll try to look for any way out of actually attempting those threes. Grant, I thought in this game in particular, took some really confident in rhythm shots, even against closing defenders, that the Nuggets really need him to take and make those shots. There's just really not a way out, especially with as good of a defense the Lakers are.

Guys like Kim have to take those opportunities. I think it was a really positive development for Denver that he did. Yeah, and it's not just Grant. It's also like Monta Morris. We contacted him earlier. Like Montemores really outplayed Rondo in this one. And like the Nuggets got a lot of young guys off their bench

or in their starting lineup who can make shots. And I mean, Rob had a good article about Denver last week. And you pointed out that they gave away Malik Beasley for nothing. Malik Beezley's averaging 20 points to game in Minnesota now. The number's like, we're so stacked, we have so many good players. It doesn't matter. You can just go for a first round

pick. We're busy. It's just crazy. It really is. I think, especially with all these bench guys, you saw Michael Porter Jr. step in and have a couple good minutes, a nice little productive spurt. It wasn't a great game for him. But I think for, you know, Yokich and Murray have been so good and so dependable in these games

that all these other guys can kind of play with house money a little bit. They can play pretty loose. And as we talked about, everyone's counting out the nuggets. They certainly feel like underdogs. They talk about being discounted all the time. I think there's a sense that for so many of these other role players, they can play really loose basketball.

And that gives you a certain freedom to have a game like Morris did, to have a game like granted. It gives you the freedom to be your best self sometimes. Guys, the only counterpoint I would make is that in games one and two, when L.A. was more locked in, with the exception of some of the end of game two, there wasn't a single nugget other than Michael Porter. Jr. aside from Murray and Yokic, who was in double figures in scoring. And so I, like,

I don't know if one of those guys is so dynamic that the Lakers can't adjust defensively. And so like that, it just gets back to that whole thing. If they, if they can kind of beat Denver to the punch in game four, then some of that, some of those easy buckets, like the nuggets were getting second chance points, so they killed the Lakers on, that stuff should go away. Just based on the Lakers length, based on the personnel. Again, this is a team that dominated Portland and Houston, two of the best offenses in the NBA. Denver is another of those best offenses, and they can be much, much better

than they were in game three. And I don't mean to like throw cold water on the Nuggets role players, but they, like, they did control them pretty well in the first two games. But I would say the difference is Houston's role players were very limited spot up shooters. Same with Portland. Like, they're like four, five,

six, seven in the rotation. They're guys who spot up can't really dribble. Denver's got a lot of guys on their secondary players who can dribble, pass, and shoot. So I think it's going to be a little harder to lock them up as a series goes on as my guess. Well, I think you have to hope that it's kind of a whack-a-mole situation, right? Like that as the Nuggett or as the Lakers shift their attention to whoever's hot that night in terms of the Nuggets role players, that then maybe Gary Harris has a big fourth quarter, that maybe Montemore steps up and hit some shots.

It's tricky in that situation, but I think one productive change for the Nuggets bench, and maybe this is just punishment for the way the end of game two went was really scaling down Mason Plumley's minutes over the course of this game over the course of this series. Just because, we saw it, especially when AD is at the five and the Lakers are playing smaller, there's just no room for Mason Plumley in those kinds of minutes. And we saw, I think it was Jeremy Grant playing a little bit more of the backup five in this game, which, you know, when he's rolling the way he is, that's an easy decision. But I think overall, the Nuggets have to lean into that kind of thing if they're going to win.

And my guess, to bring it all the way back, my guess is if you want to slow down the Nuggets secondary guys, you've just got to switch to screen Yokich and Murray. because if you don't switch that screen, you got to send help. And if you send help, Yoko Tamari can make the past, other guys can make plays. To me, that's the pressure point of everything,

is that pick and roll. If you switch it, if you have guys who can do that, everything else kind of might go down. Yeah, I mean, you got to imagine that the Lakers are feeling good about their bench playing the Nuggets bench to close to even,

even close to that, just simply because the Nuggets have more young talent, more developing talent, more guys who you would expect to provide an advantage. And if the Lakers can get by with just some of these guys that they picked up off the scrap heap, if they could just, they get four out of five good games from Rondo.

That's four good games that I was, for more good games than I was expecting. I was talking to Zach Cram from the Ringer earlier today. And he was saying that unlike the Eastern Conference finals, most of the scoring in this series is coming just from those big twos. It's like 50%, close to 50%. The Eastern Conference teams are closer to 35 to 40, which is a significant. difference. And so really, if it's coming down to the big twos and you have LeBron and AD, like not to really just like make this as simple as possible, but that does feel like a war that

the Lakers can win. Yeah, I think those are all good points. And the main, like my, my main summary thought of this series before it started was still that, okay, you've got your four stars. But for the Lakers, these are for the most part still two way players where you're going to get a big impact both sides of the court. Can Denver get the kind of defensive. impact from Murray and Yolkich, are they capable of getting that? To me, it's, you know, it's just not close when you have AD as the potential or the theoretical defensive player of the year. The whole Janus argument, we can have a different day. And the net rating thing and all that. And then, you know, LeBron in the postseason still, it can really bring it defensively. So

that, that's still, it's a very simple way to look at it. The role players have a say, the coaches have a say in the rotations. What, what Sharks was saying about the screen role, a defense for Denver, super important, all that. But ultimately still, the Lake have the two guys that can be the best two-way players in the series. And that should be the difference. Really quickly here. So the Lakers tried a few things. They went to the zone during, I believe during that big run in the fourth quarter.

They also went super small. How do we feel about the Lakers just like getting wild and like are any of those things repeatable? Or are they just like throwing stuff against the wall and hoping to just like make some to work? Man, that zone was nasty. And, you know, some of it, you know, Rondo being super physical up top. And within the letter of the law and the way the game was, was called in this particular room, but also just the idea that every time Paul Millsap or somebody

kind of got through for a cut, you're being either met at the rim by LeBron or AD every time. And that's where, you know, LeBron's defense overall, I think we kind of can gloss over because his offense is so great because the Lakers overall is such a great defensive team. This is one of the elite level rotational defenders in terms of wings that you could possibly have. A guy of his size, of his leaping ability, of his savvy and understanding the angles on the floor. And he was playing the middle of the zone at times and rotating up and around just because, you know, the switches and the matchups kind of had tilted it that way. But I think that's something they could look to. But I think it's also telling that as soon as, you know, the nuggets started

to show some life and hit a couple shots, the Lakers shifted out of it. Because I think it's just for them, for not having the reps of playing zone as much as some of these other teams like the heat, it seemed a little uncomfortable for them and taxing for them to kind of maintain it. Well, what is the future of the zone in the NBA? I just want to talk about this really quickly because we're seeing it more and more. It's pretty much only just like a change of pace to throw offenses off their game here. The heat probably deploy it more than anybody else. Is there ever a point that some team can go like full Syracuse, full Jim Behind and just like go zone the entire time?

Sharks, what do you think? You know, it's funny. I was like back when OKC was first getting going and they had like Abaca, KD, St. Adams. They had this guy, Perry Jones 3, he was seven feet tall, too. Oh, we know Perry Jones. Come on. This is the podcast for Perry Jones. If you could play like four or five, seven footers together somehow, then sure.

Other than that, I don't know if a full-time zone is really reasonable. I mean, I think to me, it could be something like, so if Houston could play the way that they played this year, right? Like, you could have a team, I think, play a full regular season like that. And still for the most, like, get, you know, become experts at it, give teams a different look. You're not really prepping for it if it's back to back. I think you can get through a regular season. But once you get to a series, you can't be that one-dimensional in the NBA. These guys are too good. They're too smart. There are too many players that can dissect and figure it out. And that's why I think we see this stuff

in spurts and in spots and as a change of pace to a really good screen role of offense, for example. So regular season, the thing it could work, but postseason, yeah, eventually it would flame out. It's kind of cruel that it's one of those defenses where if you're a great zone defensive team, you almost don't want to be the team that starts the revolution where other teams start doing it. Because as soon as everyone is doing it, as soon as our critical mass of teams are doing it, it loses almost all of its value because then teams are getting enough reps against it where they know the solves. They instinctively can shift into their stuff around it. Yeah, I was going to say, can you imagine if Houston is the team to usher this in?

Like, their approval rating would just be just non-existent. All right, let's take a quick break here. When we come back, we're going to talk about Billy Donovan's hiring in Chicago and a couple other open vacancies that we're going to try to fill. This episode of Proop Chat is brought to you by Square. If you run a business or are thinking about starting one, Square has tools to help you take contactless payments and get paid fast. For your in-person sales, Square can help you switch to contactless payments like Apple Pay and contactless cards with touch-free hardware for your counter, curbside, or on the go. If you want to skip the hardware altogether, Square can help you create shareable checkout links that customers can open on their phones.

Then it's just like the online shopping. Customers simply enter their payment info and pay. When it comes to taking payments online, Square has a bunch of tools to help you get paid, like a free online store, digital invoices, and this other tool called virtual terminal that lets you charge credit cards with your web browser. No matter how you take payments with Square, you can get your money fast. That means instantly, the next day, or on your service. schedule. So whether you're looking for new ways to sell or just starting out, Square has tools

to help and see everything Square can do at square.com's forward slash go forward slash ringer MBA. This episode is brought to you by Gatorade. For over 50 years, Gatorade has fueled the best athletes to rise to the occasion during their biggest moments. You know, I was actually around for one of Elena Deladonna's, maybe not best moments, but perhaps her formative moments. I was on campus at Yukon when she actually was there and apparently left that day to go back to Delaware. She wanted to be closer to her family. She wanted to do it her way. And I got to say, as we're talking about all these other NBA players who are doing it their

way, who are using their player empowerment to really pick their situation. We'll talk about Anthony Davis in this episode. Elena Deladonna, first example of player empowerment on the college level. And now she's killing it in the WMBA. She was MVP and all these other great things. Just another great Yukon legend among the many and many of them. From young athletes just starting to turn heads to some of the best athletes to ever play their games, Gatorade shows they are the proven fuel of the best. The best are fueled by the best.

Then, now, forever. Nothing beats Gatorade. All right, we're back. We're going to talk about some other teams that aren't in the playoffs right now. So right before last night's game three, the Bulls hired Billy Donovan to be their next head coach. didn't have a long break there from Oklahoma City. Seems like he found a home pretty quickly. I was also surprised that how many different teams were reportedly looking at Donovan,

considering I think he had a good run with O'KC, but I don't know if he had a great run per se. But he ends up with the Bulls, a team that I wouldn't say they're in a rebuild situation, but they also have a lot of young guys too. And that seemed like based on what we'd heard about when Donovan split. it from Sam Presti in Oklahoma City was something he was maybe trying to get away from. Rob, how do you feel about this fit here? Is this going to be appreciably different from what perhaps Donovan was facing in Oklahoma City? I think it's a pretty different situation. And we've talked about this in previous podcast, too, with this vacancy specifically in Donovan

in that Oklahoma City still has some tearing down to do to even get to the point where they're rebuilding, right? Like, you know, Chris Paul trade is coming at some point, whether it's trade, Stephen Adams or, you know, repurposing and finding new homes for some of those players is still an upcoming part of their process versus Chicago is not a complete team, but they already kind of have some of the young talent that they want to start building around that. They want to start grooming into a winning team. I think this fit makes them pretty good sense. Donovan, to me, is the kind of coach who doesn't get a lot of credit because he doesn't have the marketing of a system because he isn't a persona in the way that some of these other good coaches in the NBA are.

but he coached the Thunder within an inch of beating the Warriors in 2016 on really smart game planning. And the hallmark of this year's Thunder team, to me, was kind of its night-to-night competence, was kind of bringing everything up to the level where from Chris Paul to Lou Dort to Darius Basley, you know, this was a team that could come to play, that could win in fourth quarters, that had, you know, was well prepared. I think that's kind of what this team needs right now, especially because, you know, and somebody's going to depend on whether they have a real point guard on their roster next season or not, but just the overall level of competence from the Bulls on the court,

this is a team that had trouble just kind of getting into its stuff at times. And so, you know, I think that's where coach like Donovan could really help. Which is surprising because wasn't that Jim Boylan's entire mission was just to provide some level of organization to everything that they're doing? Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing, too, is that Boylan, it's not like the stuff that Boylan was trying to implement offensively was rocket science. Like they were just trying to run some pretty basic flow type concepts.

but when you're trying to develop Kobe White and you like what Chris Dunn gives you defensively but you don't really want him to have the ball in his hands and then Zach Levine is, you know, I think kind of had a pretty good season and a step forward for him, but it's kind of taking every shot that looks even remotely decent to him. You need some people on the floor who can just kind of run your stuff,

who can get you into your offense, who can manage things a little bit more. So there's some roster work to do clearly. But in terms of the talent that they have, you know, I trust Donovan to make better use of that more than Jim Boylan, certainly. I mean, yeah, following Jim Boylan, that's a nice guy to follow if you're an NBA coach, right? And I think for Donovan, what I would go back to are his Florida days when he had Horford and Noah.

I think the idea is with Mark and Carter, they're very skilled bigs and they didn't want to get a show it too much last year. I think Carter stopped taking threes entirely. And when he was coming out, the whole point was, oh, he could be an Al Horford type. That was the comp forum. So if you're Chicago, I really think they're hiring Donovan to like get more of these two bigs because they've kind of got, they've spent high lottery picks on them. Those two guys are probably their highest ceiling guys on their team.

What are they going to be? I think he could help them find that out. Yeah, I wrote this story a couple weeks ago on playmaking bigs in the NBA and kind of the nature of that part of the position. The young player I kind of heard from most about from people in the league after the fact was Wendell Carter Jr. And the idea that in the right system, this is a guy who could be kind of funneled towards that end. Well, they certainly need it.

And that to me is the trick of this job. you know like so Zach Levine 4.2 assists 3.4 turnovers right like that he's you know he's got the ball for the whole game but he as you said rob he's really just looking to score and then uh charks i'll defer to you on Kobe white like i certainly watched a lot of his bull's minutes to not watch him in college at all he seems more of like a kind of a bucket getter who can occasionally you know make a play for somebody else so that that to me is a tricky thing for a coach coming in then who's going to have the ball to like actually get us into a functional offense and um Now, can he do it better than Boylan? I'm sure. But still, that's a little bit of a trick there with both Levine and White as guys that like to score. Yeah, the comp on Kobe coming out was Jamal Murray. Like, he was always kind of seen as a bucket getting two guard with speed and shooting ability. And I think for the Bulls, the big question of the number four overall pick.

What they're going to do with that is like, you know, if we talk about coaches a lot, but who that player at number four, what that pick ends up being is to have a huge role, more potting than Billy Donovan when it's up in the team. Well, where do they go with it for? What do they even need at this point? Because I feel like they are too deep at every position with guys who may be good and may not be good

and may be young and maybe Thaddeus Young. You know what's funny? If you look at the Bulls roster, they need a big wing defender who can also initiate the offense. Like literally, Jimmy Butler's the perfect fit for that team. Don't they have one that's making $28 million as well?

Isn't that something Otto Porter could feasibly do while he's counting his money? Hopefully, if he's hell of it, Yeah. So just to go over their books here, just because I think this is instructional. So Otto Porter has a $28.4,000, by the way, player option for next year. Zach Levine is making 19.5.

Thadies Young is making 13.5. Thomas Adiranski is making 10. And Cristiano Felicio, still there, still making $7.5 million. What a legend. That's amazing. So how much can you really do when you have this much money devoted to so many, let's call them okay guys. Rob, is this going to have to be by design,

by design of the previous regime, a bridge year before they could really make any appreciable difference? I thought they could have been better this previous season with a little bit better luck with, you know, avoiding some injury stuff, you know, getting a guy like Porter on the floor more who I think they had really invested in and thought of as a big part of their team.

You know, the bottom of the east, in terms of the playoff picture is so soft that I think they could easily crack into that if a couple things break their way, if they make a, you know, if they make good use of this draft pick, if they bring in some guys who can help them in free agency, I could see that,

you know, as far as raising the bar above that point, I don't think this is a home court advantage team in short order. But to your point about the depth, just in, quote unquote, depth in terms of having a lot of guys, you just need to sift through some of this stuff. Like, we need to figure out what Lowry Mark and it's. We need to figure out, you know, what Kobe White's going to be capable of what, you know,

and Wendell-L Carter Jr., another injury guy for them who they could have used on the floor a lot more. Just like, what are these guys going to be able to give you as foundational pieces? Because I think a lot of them are talented. You theoretically contribute to a winning team. But now we're going to start to figure out what these guys can actually do. Yeah, and my guess, if you're the new GM, the last thing you want to do is make a big trade now

when you don't have a great feel for these guys. You want to give yourself some time to watch some play actual games and kind of get a feel before you start shaking up the whole roster. I mean, my guess anyways. And just to make kind of the thinking about the Denver Nugger, as we've been talking about them on this pod. So the Murray and Yokic, that screen roll game, and I get that those guys are kind of a,

it's tough to put two of those young bowls in that mindset yet, but what which of these two players and maybe the number four pick becomes one of them, which of these guys really works together and creates good basketball chemistry on the offensive side of the floor? And how can that be something

that the other guys are then made to build and to fit around? Because Levine kind of plays how he plays. So is that something that you can, can Billy Donovan? come in, can he have that evolve? Can he put him into a slightly different role, depending on who he likes, whether it's, whether it's marketing, whether it's this pick. Like, that, that to me is what the interesting part of this Bulls roster is. And it's not going to happen next year. I think they've got to, they've got to spend some time and really dissect that. Well, it is interesting.

If you're looking for someone with perhaps direct experience with sort of these type of players, maybe Billy Donovan is the ideal guy because he's just dealt with Russell Westbrook for how many years. And on the one hand, yes, he has experience working around a player who dominates the ball, who expects the ball in pretty much every situation. On the other hand, he wasn't, as we've talked about on his podcast, able to really speak to Russ in a way that maybe massaged him or pushed him toward a brain of basketball that was, let's say, more efficient. Well, I mean, that's what's attractive about this job, right? Is you have a lot of young players, guys who aren't established in the way that Russ is. And to Charks's point, I think

this is where we see a little bit more of the Florida Billy Donovan, of who he is as a coach of what he actually wants and values versus I'm going to make the most of a team with, at first, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, then just Russell Westbrook, then Chris Paul. Like, those are enormous stars to have to mold what you're doing around versus this is, you know, for all the talent and the prospects that the Bulls have, this is a little bit more of a blank slate from a situation coaching wise. No, okay, it's funny. So 2016, his first year in OKC, they,

play the Mavs in the first round. And I remember we're asking him all these questions about Katie and Russ for a game one time. And he gave this really long answer. And we're all kind of sitting there. And it's like, yeah, those guys do whatever they want. He's just kind of there. Right. Like if you're a coach, you have Katie, Russ, and Chris Paul on your team over the last five years.

Those guys are your system. Right. You're not really getting a chance to implement much at all because those guys have so much credibility in the locker room. They dominate the ball so much. So, like, yeah, Rob was saying, now is a chance of Billy Donovan, right? We're going to let Billy Cook now. We'll see what he can do.

It is funny that he's willingly accepted some of the tougher personalities in the league for his jobs. Because when he was at Florida, he kind of had his pick of the letter there. He almost went to Orlando that time a few years back. Dwight was still there when he almost went to Orlando, right? Am I remembering that correctly? I think that's right. So we could fact check that after the fact. So you have Dwight, you have KD, you have Russell Westbrook, you have Chris Paul,

who it seemed like they got along really well and then now Zach Levine like I'm surprised that Billy Donovan just isn't like his hair isn't just blank white as opposed to whatever poly walnut sort of thing he has going on now but he has his work cut out for him but there obviously

as we are all kind of saying there is a lot of talent on that roster you can kind of potentially tap into let's pivot now to some of the other openings in the league because this is probably the biggest domino or the first domino to fall amongst a few because Donovan, as I mentioned earlier, was interviewing a few other jobs. I believe he was mentioned

specifically with the Sixers job, but the pool of candidates, it seems like a lot of guys are a lot of teams are pulling from the same pool. And I do wonder how many of these jobs are going to have to go to guys that are the team's second choice, whatever. So I want to start by identifying what specifically each of these teams needs, the teams that don't have a coach right now. And I want to start with New Orleans. Rob, is this as simple as we had Alvin Gentry and Mike Dantonian's free, so let's just get like the rich man's version. You certainly could go that route.

I think for me, it's more about establishing defensive expectations, about holding the team accountable in that way, just because even in some of these bubble games, must win games for the Pelicans if they were going to get into the playoffs. They were just like not getting back in transition defense. And, you know, I think Alvin did a lot of things right as a coach. I think you could certainly point to his firing as being unjustified or unfair by a couple of different metrics, including the Pelicans' health over the course of this season.

But he did not get that team to defend. There's zero question about that in terms of a long stretch, appropriate sample size. We can look at one month of the season and say, okay, they actually tried and invested on defense this time. But you know, you wanted that to be a way of life. You want that, you know, you want to build towards something like what the Lakers showed this season, where from day one of the regular season, we are going to establish ourselves as a really good defensive team.

And no, you don't have that level. You don't have a LeBron and AD yet, per se. But you want to at least hold each other accountable in that kind of way. So since half of the Pelicans roster comes from the Lakers, I've seen a lot of these young guys in person for a long time. And, you know, Lonzo and Ingram and Hart all have really high upside defensively. They're all really good athletes.

They can all lock in. And then you add Drew Holley. to that with him and Lanzo on the perimeter and a couple other players. And Zion, I'm curious to see, like, if he plays a full season, what kind of shape that he can come in. He's at least an explosive athlete, but certainly needs to develop some defensive instincts there. But, like, those guys should be able to be part of a really good and interesting defensive system. And then, because they're going to be able to score, I think, with the kind of talent that they have there. But, yeah, as Rob was saying, if they can, if somebody can come in there and build that culture of buy-in on defense,

I think that's a scary team. That's a team with a ton of upside who also have a lot of picks coming. Yeah, that's kind of the plight of Alvin Gentry is that for as long as I've known him has been talking about two things, which is defense and injuries. And neither of them have really broken his way. And on the one hand, I do think he's gotten a raw deal. Like at certain points, they were trying to make do with like Solomon Hill and Etouan Moore on the wings.

And Etouin's pretty good, but Solomon Hill, clearly not. but on the other hand, the injuries, and while they have had a long history of injuries dating back to even before his time, like these just happened, and you can't always just like blame the injuries on these sort of things, but there was this weird thing that always happened with his teams where he couldn't find balance.

He was either, they're really a high-actane offense or the defense slumped, or on the other hand, after Ryan Anderson left, after Gordon left, they tried to prioritize the defense. The defense was good, the offense of slumped.

And so there was always this like he never really found the right balance with the team. They tried different defensive coordinators. They're in Ermin first. And now like it just never really worked out there. So I do think that is the priority. But I also wonder, Charks, isn't the priority like finding someone who could speak to Zion Williamson? Because as we've seen, they kind of go as he goes. Yeah, I mean, shameless plug.

They need my guy, Taylor Jenkins. They need a young, up-and-coming. coach, you can build culture, connect with these guys as people, and kind of just help them to just grow on and off the core. I think this is a young coach's job, is my guess. Well, I think that's an interesting transition to the Rockets Shop. So they've been talked about, like some of these other teams we're going to talk about with the Tailu, some of the veteran coaches who could really push them over their top. Do teams fall in the same trap that they do on the personnel side where they go for the known commodity, where, as we've seen in certain instances, Taylor Jenkins, Nick Nurse,

Like sometimes if you just go for the undervalued guy, the guy that nobody knows, maybe you could have just as much of an effect. Rob, what do you think? I think it depends a lot on the personality. And we could talk about this with the Sixers job, too, where I think the big thing for the Sixers, that they need more than anything else in a coach is clout. Like, they need a guy that Ben Simmons and Joel Embed will listen to.

And so you can, you know, Nick Nurse had credibility from being around that team. Like, he had the players here, he had relationships with them. I think when you bring in a young assistant from a different team or a young coach out of college or wherever the pipeline is, you need to make sure that they have the authority to actually talk to players, to actually guide them, to actually get them to change what they're doing. And that's a tough ask, if you're talking about a guy like James Harden, who is as credentialed in the regular season in terms of production as any player in the league.

And now, you know, James needs to take a hard look in the mirror in some ways in terms of, you know, what he's doing in the playoffs, where the rockets have fallen short in that regard and his part in any of that. But that's where I think you do need either somebody who's, you know, if you want to talk about promoting someone like John Lucas who's been with the franchise, I think that might have some legs. But in terms of bringing in a younger coach or a quote-unquote Nicknors type from another franchise, that might be a lot to ask in that situation.

Yeah, that makes sense to me. Like when you have older established players and like you're thinking, we want them to change something, you need someone who's going to say, I've won a championship doing X. What you're doing didn't work. What I'm doing could work, right? So we're talking about Billy Donovan. When he got to OKC in 2016, what's he going to tell KD and Russ?

I want a Final Four one time. Like, okay, bro. Two final fours, man. It's not going to make a difference to them. Yeah. So you need a coach with a kind of a gravitas to like really talk to them. Who that guy would be for Houston? I wouldn't mind Tyloo.

I feel like in Cleveland it's something like Tyloy really held LeBron accountable. He really kind of pushed LeBron and Kyrie. He has a championship. Guys seem to like him. That makes sense to me. I mean, it wasn't the legendary moment of Tyloos' Cavs 10 years. you're challenging LeBron at the beginning of the fourth quarter of game seven, like holding your star accountable in the biggest game possible and saying you're not doing

enough. And that guy is LeBron James. Like I'll take that guy coaching my team any day. It's interesting thinking about LeBron. So when Frank Vogel got the job last year, right, that this, I'm sure Justin, you had a couple of group chats thinking, all right, well, how's going to go? Right. And there was the Jason Kidd element. And what Vogel did, so first of all, he had LeBron's respect from those indie Miami series. So LeBron respected him as a defensive tactician. But Vogel is such a, he's such a positive guy who also clearly does his homework that he came into the Laker job and was just like, hey, here's what the roster is. This is what I think the best way we can play defenses. And he sold that to LeBron and AD and then let them be a

part of the process. And clearly that's worked out pretty well. To transition back to the Houston job, that to me seems like a really difficult situation to walk into. Not only with the way that they played uniquely to the rest of the NBA forever with PJ Tucker at the five, is the new coach going to come in? Is that person going to decide? Or is that going to be Darryorio that's like, hey, nope, stick it with a small ball, James is going to have the rock. We're going to try to get Russ to not shoot as much from the perimeter.

That's complicated, guys. I don't know how that Houston situation works out. Yeah, your style is almost dictated by the roster. Like, if you wanted to go into the post, you probably can't unless you want to go through like PJ Tucker or James Hardin because there just aren't any big men. And like maybe they'll find someone who is in Tyson Chandler. Justin, you say that.

I would love to see Hardin in the post. He's getting a little older. He's big. He's freaking a tank, you know. Posting up guards could be really interesting. It would save his leg some. That's the kind of thing I love to see a coach do in Houston is like changed up a bit.

Like Hardin in the Post. It's that kind of stuff. There was some poetry to the fact that when the Rocket's offense really gummed up in the playoffs, especially against OKC, they started posting up Hardin against Lou Doort. Like after all the years of Mike Dantony railing against the post up, this is where he turned.

But I mean, to Mike's point, I think that's what's so tricky about this situation is the fact that you have these restraints in terms of the roster, in terms of the way this team is probably going to play. All the reports so far have suggested that they're going to stay with the small ball. And yet, you know, Dan Tony has been on record about his own past in saying that half measures do not work with this stuff. Like, you have to be fully committed to this idea for it to work.

And if you're bringing in a free agent coach who is inheriting this team from somebody else, who's like, okay, fine, I can coach small ball. I can coach PJ Tucker at the 5 and Covington at the 4. I like this job otherwise, so I'm going to take it. you know, that might, I don't think that's going to be enough for them. Well, Mike, you spend this season with Jason Kidd, and he's a guy who's going to get named with pretty much all these jobs. How is that dynamic played out between him and Vogueau?

And like, what have you seen from him just like maybe X's and O's or even like relating to some of these guys like LeBron? It's been, it's really been like all rainbows and milkshakes, like whatever. Everything's been so good for the Lakers all year. But I think the biggest reason for that, and I think you can put this across sports as a metaphor for life, is that they've been winning. all season. Like they lost their first game of the season. Then they won nine straight.

They were always in first place for the entire season. They were up five and a half games on the Clippers when things ended in March. Then they get to the postseason. They lose one game. They win four straight. Same thing Houston lose one, win four straight. So everything has really clicked and worked with the coaching staff. And I think that one of the main values for having Jason Kidd and why Vogel likes to have them there is this is this is one of those few people in the world that can sit down and relate to LeBron about what it's like to have the ball in a significant postseason situation. Or same thing with Rondo. So he's a guy that's there that can kind of support Vogel's overall system and like, hey, we're all in this together. So that dynamic to me has

worked really well for them. And again, I think the winning is the biggest key, though, right? When everybody is winning any walk of life, then you're not going to do all of the dissecting that we just did about Houston because, look, it didn't work. What Houston did this year didn't work. What the Lakers did did work. So it's an easy hindsight thing there. Okay, Mike said that. A name just popped in my head. Chauncey Billups. There's a guy going to get

respect from Hardin and Russ. Seems really well liked around the league. I think he's been working. He's been doing something around the NBA last few years. That's something that could make sense too. He works for the Clippers. He's like an analyst right now. So there's another one. Yeah. Yeah, his name has come up with the Pacers job and we could flip to

this here. We could flip to the to the Pacers. It would It's curious who they're going to end up with here because Nate McMillan, another guy who did an okay job, but clearly didn't take them to another level. Turks, you were kind of on this earlier with Dan Tony and the fit there. And we talked about him earlier with some of these other jobs. But, like, would it make sense to put him in there and he could just like just supercharge what is already kind of a good offense, but not a great offense? And certainly not one that plays a quote unquote modern style.

Well, I guess it kind of goes into talking about with like coaching and the broader roster and how it all works together. Because I think the idea would be if Mike went to Indiana, you'd probably move Miles Turner, you'd play subonements at the 5, you'd play really fast. So it really just depends. And I guess what I heard was that Indiana thought

they had them, but now Philly's open and he's kind of backing out, is what I've heard. We'll see what happens. Is Joel Embed the type of guy that fits with Mike Dantone? Ben Simmons is. You mean a center who's been kind of reluctant and, dare I say kind of bad at rolling to the rim over the course of his career and is kind of the maybe one of

two kind of post up anomalies in the league in terms of guys who can actually buck the efficiency numbers and be really good in the post. I don't think that's the best fit for Mike Dantone personally, but I mean, it's certainly a high caliber job and it's the job that's going to give you the most talent on the floor as soon as possible if you're a free agent coach. As a, like, I mean this is a serious question. Can you, could Mike Dantone function in offense of five out with Embed. And I know it goes against everything, right, with Embed where you want him next to the rim and everything,

but how would that, you would get all of Embed defensively. He can make the occasional three. Sure, you throw him down in the post here and there, but it's curious to me what that would look like. Having all that space, Ben Simmons drives, like, you know, Embed duckins in the weak side.

That's intriguing to me. Well, it's not could he do it. It's could he sell Embed on it, right? He could do it, right? Draw some X's nose on the map. whatever. Like, would him be willing to, like, play off the ball that much? He seemed to like to be on the perimeter. That's true.

Yeah, I wonder if the zag here is that Mike Dantonia actually just goes through a midlife crisis and he goes five in. He just really, like, really plays through the post. He's like, he's done the whole pace and space thing. He really wants to, like, explore some part of himself that he really has never before. No, I mean, it's funny you say that. But I remember, like, Don Nelson would always say, oh, if I had a great post up, I would just do that.

I do small ball because it's the best way to win. I don't know if I really believe that, but maybe DeAntoney wants to try something different. Who knows? I also, I can't lie. I have, like, a visceral reaction to the idea of how much running up and down the court Joel and Bede would have to do shuffling back and forth in a Mike Dantone offense. It makes me uncomfortable to think about, given his injury history, given his body,

and given just the way that he runs physically. Well, they walked it a lot with Hardin. That's fair. Hardin wasn't really pushing the pace. Yeah. And then the last job here is Oklahoma City. It seems pretty obvious. They just need someone to.

maybe coach up Shea at this point. I don't know if you guys, are there any names from like lower level assistants, guys who are, who have the player development background. I know, like, I think about Lloyd Pierce as is the perfect type of guy from this team. I mean, I don't know how well things are going in Atlanta right now. We'll see next season. But at the very least, he seems to be able to get buying from these young guys and, and try to coach them up a little bit. This sounds like a Stephen Silas job to me. You know, a guy like, to me, this is a great opportunity for coaching development. Like you pick, this is where you pick your young assistant.

This is where you pick a guy who can grow with this group, knowing that they're going to work out some stuff on the fly to, that they're going to be progressing their career and becoming whoever they're going to be as coaches. So you want guys who can connect with players, who are agreeable personalities, who are going to be fit for a longer term job, but have also shown that developmental side, the X's and O's savvy, who are very well respected from pretty much every team that they've been around in a guy like Silas. To me, he's the kind of fit for a job like this to me.

Yeah, it's a young coach job, I think. Yeah. I thought, Jonathan, you nailed this earlier with Taylor Jenkins. Like, find a coach like that that can come up with the young players and sort of grow with them, earn their trust. And you bring in whoever the five guys that you hear are the potential best at that. You interview them. You see who has the best plan for your roster. And I guess their roster includes, you know, like 75 first round picks in the end.

The sharks, like, I thought that's a, Memphis really nailed that higher in Jenkins and maybe, okay, so you can do that same kind of thing. One thing that stood out to me, like the Mike Buttonholzer coaching tree, I think at one point he had Atkinson, Jenkins, and Quinn Snyder on his staff. And the guy that was talking about now is Darwin Ham. He's not Milwaukee.

Yep. He's a hot name. That would make sense. Maybe Milwaukee should hire him. Maybe the tree isn't what we should be focusing on in Milwaukee. All right, real quick here, let's talk about the Eastern Conference Finals. Game 4 is going to be tonight on Wednesday. You're probably already

listening to this podcast after the result is. So yay, go heat or Celtics, whoever won. But clearly the Celtics found something last game with Gordon Hayward going to a smaller lineup. What's the next move for the heat year, Rob? Like, do they just go the same way? Do they shorten the rotation? I don't think there's that much to change, honestly, just because with the stuff that they run, you can still work a dribble handoff game against a team that's that small and that's going to switch a lot. You just use it for a different purpose, you know, rather than freeing up, you know, shooters who are curling off handoffs into threes, you're working a little bit more of a matchup game.

You're trying to manipulate things a little bit, be a little more intentional in terms of who you're running off of what screens where and how that's going to contort the Celtics defense. And that's where a guy like Jimmy Butler does need to be a bit more direct in his offense, I think. He's kind of felt his way through games. And especially earlier, he hasn't been as aggressive,

he hasn't been as assertive even when he's had advantageous matchups. I'm not saying he needs to be ball dominant. Like, he doesn't need to be James Hardin or anything. But against that line. up specifically, Miami needs him to be a little bit less choosy. Yeah, if they're going to play, you know, their five best players, right? If they're going to play Gordon, Jalen, Tatum, Smart, Kemba, that's not a very big lineup. I'm going to need Bam, I'm going to need Jimmy to use their size to get some buckets,

to get them out of those lineups. I think that, to me, like, it's time for Jimmy and Bam to really step it up. It's a point in the series, like, this is your chance. This is Jimmy's chance to really be the guy. Let's see what he can do. Yeah, just, so I thought. that Hayward, before the series started, I thought this series kind of hinged on when

Hayward was going to be able to come back, and I thought he looked better than even expected in his first game, so that's a big edge for Boston. But to your guys' point about Jimmy being more aggressive early, I think he was able to get away with feeling the game out to an extent because Dragich was doing so much early, and nobody was expecting that. Like, Dragich didn't even start in the regular season.

All of a sudden, you know, the Slovenian assassin, he's just a quick side note. You guys remember when he got into it with Sasha Vietich? Yes. I talked into my head from, yeah, I digress. So like that to me is, if Mark is smart is going to be on Dragage, then Jimmy can't wait because Draggich isn't going to be able to do the same level of of things offensively if smart is on him.

So you've got to have Jimmy going earlier. I feel like Sasha Vyushishish has been trying to get back in the league for five years. I feel like every once a year. He's doing great. Come on to Manhattan Beach. He's got a, you know, he's got like, he's got his wine in all these restaurants. The hair still looks great. He's doing just fine.

He's off the Balkan Boys list, though. Off that. He wouldn't get invited to the dinner that they're having in the bubble right now. That's for sure. All right, let's end it there on Sasha Valyachech. Mike, thank you for joining us. Hey, it's been a pleasure, guys.

I really enjoy your work and nice talking to you. For Rob, for Charks, for me, for Sasha on production. Thanks to John Robison for our music. We will be back next week, Lumen. Hopefully, we will have an NBA finals pairing. We'll see you next time.