The Ringer NBA Show - Sixers Earn a Game 7. Have the Bucks Earned the Title of ‘Favorites’? Plus, Kevin Durant’s Injured Calf | Group Chat

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

We give our immediate reactions to a statement game from Ben Simmons, who helped the Sixers force a Game 7 in Toronto on Sunday (0:50). Then, we eulogize the Celtics and wonder if the Bucks are flying under the radar as the best team in the league, before wondering how KD's injury will affect the Rockets-Warriors series (16:00). Finally, we recap a tumultuous week in Lakerland, as they lost out on their desired coach in Ty Lue, only to land on Lionel Hollins and Jason Kidd as potential backup options (33:00). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Miller Light. When Game Day comes around, there's only one thing on your mind. Winning. Miller Light is the beer that's brewed to have more taste with only 96 calories and 3.2 grams of carbs. So you never have to compromise on game day. It's a win-win that means game day will never be the same. Miller Light, hold true. Basketball is very good.

Seth Curry is the best curry. The Sixers should trade for Landry Shannon. The playoffs are better. without LeBron. Basketball is very good. Hello! And welcome to the Ringer NBA show. It's group chat. Yeah. Just a duo. It's me and Justin back again on another Thursday night in Los Angeles. Hey friends. Let's talk basketball. The Sixers just won 112 to 101. And Justin and I are taking our lives in our own hands in a lot of ways by podcasting during this Denver, Portland

game. We'll be giving you 10-10 win-style updates on the hour, every hour, of the score in that game. when you're listening to this, the result will be in. We just wanted to talk a little bit about the Sixers Raptors series. We wanted to talk a little bit about the end of the Boston Celtic season. I'm sure you're really broken up by that. It's pretty tough for me and my family. I also want to talk a little bit about Durant and the Achilles that wasn't. And a little bit about this Lakers Clown show.

So we have plenty of stuff to talk about besides two small market teams, Denver and Portland. No, I'm just kidding. It's all about the experience. You want to hear us react in real time to when Nikola Yokic puts up the 20th point of the game. It's 16-7. Well, we'll get there eventually.

Let's get into this Raptor Sixers thing. Last week I came on and I was like, everybody's crowning the Sixers. Not me, but other people are crowning them. Right, definitely not you. I was promptly hoisted out by my own Petard because the Sixers went on to lose game four in Philly during a weird day game

where everybody seemed to have not woken up. A lot of people binge eating Scrapple. Yes. And then they got throttled in Toronto to go down 3-2 and then tied it up today in Philly 3-3. This was somewhat predictable. I feel like these semi-final series are now rolling into that home, home-home.

Yeah, imagine that. Teams going back and forth. Yeah. Well, I mean, it wasn't like that in the first round, obviously. But this is a really, really, really even series. And essentially just, I feel like the raptors have been really consistent. know what I mean? It's the Sixers where it's just like you're not sure who's going to show up.

Yeah. And to your point, I thought this was the Ben Simmons game. We had an article on the ringer this morning from Jonathan Charks basically saying that Ben Simmons is not a point guard. He's a center. And while he played effectively next to an Embed who can get to, I thought I saw a lot of what Charks was kind of pointing toward of how he needed to play in order to get engaged. He was running in transition. He was, even though he was playing with mostly big men out on the floor next to him, he was pushing the tempo. But he was also super active off of cuts, off of every... A couple putbacks. Couple putbacks. He was set, like, he caught a lob, I believe, from Jimmy Butler. Yeah. So you're seeing a lot of the things that we've always kind of wanted to see from Ben. He was playing like

he wasn't the number one pick. Like he wasn't this chosen superstar to be. He was playing like a Mike Scott. Yeah. And when you have that much talent in that body and you're just getting a lot of points off of activity that, like, that's the best you could hope. Yeah. I mean, Ben Simmons can be a threat from, you know, 90 feet away. He can just start to accelerate and he can move in transition.

And he also is a devastating passer. So in transition, he has like the world in his hands when he's really got ahead of steam going. I personally, like, I just think he is a one-in-a-kind player. So I have a natural affection to him. I love great passers. I love guys who find those angles that aren't there for 99% of the people who play basketball. And Ben just sees passes in a way that only like five or six guys in the league really do.

But, you know, he's, he is a real question mark when it comes to whether or not he works in these more half court slowed down tactical games. And that's unfortunately, we'll get an answer to our question in game seven, I think. Because I don't think Nick Nurse is going to get into a track meet. in Toronto. Yeah. With Philly in Game 7. I think it's going to be a grinded out game

with a lot of Kauai midway or late into the shot clock just picking these guys apart apart. And that's where Simmons tends to struggle. He's done like an admirable

job on Kauai, although Kauai is cementing himself as like a top three player again. He's making him work for it. Yeah, but he's making him work. I thought it was interesting that Nurse kept Kaui out there

for 40 minutes. It's a 112. 101 is not indicative of how far apart this was for most of a very bad fourth quarter. But Nurse played Kauai, I think for almost the entire third,

had him out there. I guess he's just not concerned with this is why you just sit the guy on back-to-back, as to have him available for this time of year, I suppose. Right, and I think you were the one that mentioned as we were watching the game, maybe they were just trying to force the Sixers to play their guys. It seemed like it, because Embed the gaudiest stat, if you look at the box score,

is Embed plus 40. Which is really interesting because he only had 17 points. He wasn't particularly effective as an offensive player. And I think that's the trade-off when you want engaged Ben is you probably don't get a lot of Embed because, I mean, as we were just talking about, like, they effectively play in the

same space. They are, if you really want to feed into what Sharks is saying, I think they are kind of center types. They're both going to play around the basket. And so, you could definitely see Embed, like, fall back as Ben was asserting himself. Yeah. And but I think you saw Embed

way more engaged as a defender. He's still going to be that, and you saw him deterring shots from the rim. You saw him just, just like, swathe way, Pascal Seacama at one point. It's just... You got a Kauai block that was pretty devastating.

It was a really good one. I thought it was encouraging, but at the same time, if we're forecasting to game seven, I do wonder if that's the tradeoff you're working with. You can only get one or the other because of how much they bought on the court. So the Sixers came out and really got out of the blocks fast.

And one of the things that's really interesting about watching these Sixers games is that the starting five tend to be spectators, for one another. It's not like, we made some comments about this starting five in comparison to the Warriors optimal starting five. It's not like that Warriors team. I don't feel like there's as much sharing of the ball. There's not a, at any given point on a trip down the floor, anyone can score feeling. It's more like it feels a little bit more hot hand. It feels a little bit more like it seems like Jimmy has it going. Let's go to Jimmy. It seems like Jimmy has it going. Let's go to

Jimmy. Tobias has the mismatch. Let's go to him a couple of times. And then it's like, let's get it to Embed to make sure he's still engaged in the game. It was a pretty quiet first quarter for him beat offensively, and Butler really carried them in that first half, I thought. And it was kind of an interesting backdrop was that showed up in a minivan. I think Butler has been completely embraced by Sixers fans over the last week or two. His style of play, which if you watch regular season games was hit or miss, has really like blossomed in the playoffs.

And of course, game six, we find out right before the game, at least according to Rejan Rondo and a couple other people on NBA countdown that this could be Butler's last game at Wells Fargo as a sixer. Did you take anything from that? That little tidbit of information? Do you think that's a fair company that he leaves? I guess it depends on how much stock you put into Rondo being the new woge. Yeah, so there was already like deep state Rondo is working on behalf of LeBron to destabilize the Sixers.

Right. I also saw something out there that Rondo said if they don't have a coach by the time free agency hits, he's not going to stick around. Yeah. I mean, I think Brett's coaching next year. Like, there's some hot seat stuff about him last year. I don't know. Getting to game seven of this series with a team that he's only had really for a quarter of the season,

I suppose I'd say you can't hold that against him. But it looks like people will hold anything against anyone. I still always go back to show me the candidate who should step in and take over. Show me the guy who's like in waiting. Right. Because you might fall into a situation like the Lakers where you get rid of a perfectly adequate coach and Luke Walton, who maybe just didn't have the support of a locker room, and all of a sudden you're left looking at Lionel Hollins and some of these other guys

that go ahead. We'll get to that. But no, I think it's interesting. With Jimmy in particular, Brett Brown had that quote, I think, earlier. He's the only adult in the room. It's just so ironic for all of us outside of that situation, given everything we know about Jimmy and especially going into this season where he pretty much blew up the Minnesota. Timberwolves before that season. Yeah, he's acting extremely 15 years old

for most of the season. Right. And definitely in this series, he has been the most reliable guy. And I just don't know how to reconcile that because on the one hand, I know that his play is effective and it's particularly effective

in the postseason. But there are certain times where it's just him, iso balling and kind of making things work. I guess the flip side of that is that that's what Kauai is doing and this is what postseason basketball is. Let's talk about Toronto a little bit

Because I feel like we talked a ton about the Sixers last week on group chat. And I do want to like analyze this Raptors team a little bit. You know, Leonard's probably up until the calf strain, I thought the second best NBA player in the NBA during these playoffs. Next to Durant. I guess Yanis has a claim to that. But I would say Leonard, Durant, Janice, Yokic. Who else would you put in there?

I mean, considering what Kauai has around him, he probably was the best. So this was a fascinating example of what Justin and I were talking about last week, which is essentially this trade that wasn't just a trade of players, but it was a trade almost in team philosophy that the Raptors made in the middle of the season when they traded for Gassal

because you saw Nick Nurse essentially playing a seven-man rotation and even in the most dire straits of the game sticking with his starters throughout that third quarter. They still are like, I feel like they're heartbeats, beat their EKG is just way more steady than the Sixers. But do you think that Toronto should be feeling really confident going into Game 7 on Sunday? I mean, on the one hand, you still have the best player in the series. You're surrounded by Fanatics because you've got Chow as a Toronto, late-coming Toronto fan,

and I'm a Sixers fan, so you hear it from both sides. Yeah, but now these days, Danny blues more on his baking guy in Milwaukee than he does anyone around here. Danny just is a fan of whoever has off-market meats to sell him. Right. I know a guy in Philly, Danny, by the way, if you want to go. I feel like we know who these teams are against each other at this point. I mean, the Raptors are Kauai, how much he could do. And then if Siakum steps up and some of these other guys around them, I think they had success, not this game, but in the game's past,

going a little bit bigger and matching size with the Sixers. But I do feel like this Ben performance is kind of the Trump card to that Trump card. Yeah. Just how do you stop it when he no longer is playing like a big man? he's playing more like the hybrid LeBron light type that we all kind of fell in love with to begin with. I do wonder if maybe the next counter is to go even smaller if you're the Raptors.

But then on the other hand, like... So what is their small, small lineup look like then? Well, that's the problem because you're getting into the bench and the bench throughout these playoffs has been almost impliable. But that is because you're trying to match size with size.

So I think it's going to be really interesting the next kind of turn here because do you play a guy like Fred Van Vleet who's struggled this entire postseason Norm Powell who I don't particularly like but he did get a good run here toward the end of the game there are things that they could do

because the Raptors have built this interesting bench where they have kind of mix and match parts but they haven't been willing to go for it because it's just been monotony monos. Yes. It's the OG spot that he would have he would have been the small ball five if he wanted to experiment about it a little bit, right?

Yeah, I think this would have been a shorter series. Yeah. if that was the case, but he hasn't played this entire postseason that's really thrown off what they've been wanting to do. On the other hand, they have made do. It's just Kyle Lowry is your third best guy, oftentimes your third offensive player, and you're not getting much from Marcus Saul. We've been saying this entire postseason. I mean, he's basically out there as a defensive specialist to counter and be. Yeah. And maybe he did that on the offensive end tonight, but you could see how they're just not really respecting him at all on the offense event. he was over five at a crucial point of this game over three from three and then he ended up three for eight which is fine but like that's the guy they brought in there not to be I don't know name your defensive specialist not to be a Kavana Luni yeah right he was there to provide two-way value and as good as he is as a surreal passer there are only so many of those guys you could have before you need Kauai to go scored for Pascal to go score yes yes I think uh I'm leaning Sixers W on Sunday um wow mostly.

It's really big of you. No, mostly because the game is going to be at 7 Eastern. And I think that one of the things that has been like really difficult for the Sixers to handle for some reason, especially in B, is the early daytime start times. So honestly, if this game had been at 1230 or 3.30, I might be leaning Toronto. I think these teams are pretty even. I think that I would like to see a, if not a breakout Reddit game, at least a better night than what he had tonight, which was 11 points, 3.4.

for 10 from three and not and no free throws, which shows me that he's just, he's not making up up for like a bad shooting night with any kind of aggression. Now, that's not always J.J.'s bread and butter is to getting, getting to the hoop, but I saw him pulling out of a couple of like, oh, there's, there's a Baca, so I'm just going to turn around and drive, dribble the other way. And it's like, if you can get a Baca to hack you, it's two points anyway because he's so money from the line. So I'd love to see a little bit more from Reddick as a Sixers guy. the problem is is that I think that

Gasol and Lowry tend to perform better at home and so I think it's gonna be a pretty close game I don't think it's gonna be a blowout the way the last couple of but I'm gonna go of Sixers just because I can't really conceive

of life without them You're not afraid of Joel Embed having to go through customs because there's a lot of germs going through airports these time of year I mean it's it's a it's been a roller coaster

with Embed and we talked about this I guess we haven't talked about it since last week because last week we saw him and he was God and then he got filled by multiple household illnesses.

Look, you forgot to take the, what is that stuff to prevent illnesses? Emergency? Yeah. Or like zinc. Yeah, stuff like that. That seems like something he could get a sponsorship for. Yeah. You know?

They have live sports too. I would say that the Sixers don't do themselves any favors with this. And this is just the problem with what's happened to them over the course of the year, which obviously, like, the ringer has been a part of, is that they don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore. They don't. You got to, if Embed is not sleeping and texting his coach at 6 in the morning and saying, I might not play if he's got gastric and distress or a fever or a cold or whatever is wrong with him,

like the explanations just don't seem to add up very well. So they're kind of like the Game of Thrones writers? That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. 2618 in this Denver, Portland clash just to keep you guys up to date. Wow.

Ending the first quarter soon. What do you think is going to happen? I think Portland will come back. Fingers crossed because Bobby will get mad at us if we miss the close out. Why don't we move on to some of yesterday's actions, some of the Wednesday action, because even though those things are kind of old news, by the time you guys hear this probably Friday morning, they will have lasting effects on the week. Obviously, Kyrie and Kevin Durant tied together to some extent.

There's a lot of speculation that these two will choose to play together at their next team where they to leave the Golden State Warriors of the Boston South. There's even some fever dreams about Kevin joining the Celtics. There's been some talk about Kevin joining the Celtics and Kyrie's still leaving the Celtics. Both of them going to Brooklyn, both them going to Knicks, whatever. Let's start with Boston. Okay. How much of a job is on hand here?

How much do you think is like, there's this thing in the Bourne legacy? Did you ever see that? It seems like one or two. But it's basically like Edward Norton, who's like plays like this NSA guy. or something. He's like talking about how like one of the assassin programs they have has gone wrong. Yeah. And he goes like,

we're just trying to find out how much we need, how much of like the patient we need to operate on to save the patient. Like we need to find out how much we need to cut out to save the patient. How much do they need to cut out to save the patient here? If Andy Greenwald was here, would this go over much smoother. He would remember the actual line. I'm also referring to the least popular born movie.

So it's not exactly singing. But my point is, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about a complete rebuild? Are we talking about no Rozier, no smart, no one of Brown or Tatum, no Kyrie? Like, what's the deal? I mean, if you asked Terry Rozier, he's definitely gone. Yes. He definitely had some incendiary comments after that.

Morris was more or less, like, I love Boston, but I'm more like, I just hope wherever I go treats me with the same respect, Boston. it. He also was like, I think we were the better team. Which is like on brand for the Morris Twins. No, I mean, I feel like there's the inflection point of the franchise is almost independent

of Kyrie. He's either going to stay or he's going to go. It seems like he's going to go and it seems like the closer we get to July 1st. I don't think that he will be necessarily even welcome back. I mean, I think that they might make a cursory exploratory offer or entreaty to him.

But by all accounts, It's hard to imagine them being like bring Kyrie back. Let's run this back. If it means getting Anthony Davis because he and Davis are so close, I would welcome him back with open arms just because I think Davis and him together that's a potential devastating one-two combo.

I think you're immediately, if Durant leaves the Warriors, probably the title favorites at that point. You think Kyrie? Kyrie and Davis and then the leftover Celtics. Kyrie and Davis is incredible because you're assuming that Horford probably stays too, because that's another thing we talk about, but he has a player option in addition to...

And he did not say, see you next year. Right. With him, it's an interesting discussion just quickly. It's just because he's going to be, I believe, 33, and he could theoretically go on the open market, maybe take a JJ Redick style of contract and go for... That feels like a warrior. One or two years, at a big lump sum, he can get more years as opposed to this one-year contract with the Celtics, or he could just stay. and be probably the best front court partner Anthony Davis has ever had.

Sure. I think, but so if Davis, Horford, Kyrie is your core, that's incredible. Yeah. And Hayward. And Hayward,

which who you presume it can't get worse for. Yeah. So I think, regardless of what Kyrie does, I think the question is, what do you see in Tatum? Right. Is he going to be the face of the franchise,

or are you not as high on him? Are you willing to part with him for Anthony Davis? Because I do think, if the Davis Derby becomes an arm race like we expect it will. Tatum is the best chip. Tatum is probably still the best player, especially considering all the unknowns

we have with Brandon Ingram at this point his blood clot issue. Also, nobody knows who's picking up the phone in the Lakers, which we will talk about a few minutes. Right. Rob is probably picking up the phone, which the Lakers would probably prefer not. Right. All right, let's talk a little bit about Durant then. Okay.

We just briefly discussed that that was one of the the wildest 10 minutes of I think Ringer NBA slack history was just the absolute like what will Durant's legacy be if he never plays again to you know

oh, Kastrainies can be okay it definitely was a scary moment it brought about an immediately more feisty four years team I think obviously like there was a feeling like

oh if they like they just lost their like number one offensive option and I wouldn't say they necessarily blew the doors off of the rockets. I thought they really, really played a defensively committed game

in those last 10 minutes. I don't know. I think the Rockets, if the Rockets wanted to win that series, they needed to have won it on Wednesday night. They needed to have taken a game. Yeah, I'm not so sure. I'm oddly encouraged about the Rockets, but I was also pretty encouraged coming out of their 02 hole

when they left Golden State the first time, just because I thought there's just so much freak stuff that happened. Now, I guess the counter would be that they had every opportunity to win that game. Hardin was perfectly fine. All the good and bad of what you're going to get from them was going to be there. I just think going forward without Durant for the rest of the series that the type of players they're going to have to play in order to soak up some of those minutes are the exact players that the Rockets want on the floor because they're going to expose them. The Rockets, like their biggest issue is they perhaps don't have the offensive talent. So

when those few minutes off, when Hardens off the floor, that they just can't keep up and attract me. And now Chris Paul all of a sudden, yeah, maybe he isn't doing as well carving up some of the bigs that he's had to go up against on switches so far. But now if it's like Andrew Bogot as opposed to Kvon Luni,

that's like the slightest bit of edge that you need in order to take advantage there. And I don't know. I just think overall, I think they might be comparable in terms of talent, if not perhaps one through five at the end of the game,

probably better if you're in the tuck wagon lineup perhaps. I don't know how... Depending on which version of Klingkapela shows up. Because look at... We were talking about Klingkapela last week and saying how, well, he got played off the floor whenever Durant wanted to be the best center on the floor, he could be that.

Now who's that guy? Right. Like, who are they playing at the end there? Because it will probably have to go with Livingston if they want to go into some sort of death lineup. Right. And then that also requires Draymond to stay on the floor. Draymond's...

Yeah, and he obviously followed out. game. Yeah, and it was like a minute 30 left, but I think there was a couple of instances before that where I was like that's really on the edge. Like it wasn't like he was playing with it like a hand tie behind his back. He was going after it. I feel like that Rockets game just for me it was like a guy who like is on like at a blackjack table and finds $100 under his chair and then like blows it. You know what I mean? It's just it's it's like you get this gift and they almost seemed like unaware of what to do with their hands until it was too late. And that, you know, I thought Hardin played obviously really. well, but there was just like a weird, as the Warriors immediately kind of fell into like, everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing because we've been playing together for a long time, the Rockets didn't seem to know what to do without Duran on the floor almost. Yeah, and there's that quote. I have someone throughout there today where I guess Wynhorst said this, that the Warriors kind of looked around after they found out the Duran was going to be there for the rest of the game and they smiled.

Yeah, and like even Kerr going into the post-game conference and invoking Liverpool and quoting Juergen Klopp. And it's like, you guys immediately rediscovered your identity as underdogs somehow, which is laughable to everybody who's watched basketball over the last three years, four years. Although that's kind of who they started out at. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

They've had to deal with this, like, you're the bullies, you ruin basketball crap for a couple years. And now all of a sudden it's like, Clay's hurts, Steph's having a subpar postseason. They're riding Iguidala on fumes, but like now it's just like nobody leaves in us somehow. Right. Which is great, but I do

think, and I wonder how much that's going to factor in, maybe they could just ride the adrenaline throughout this last game, and that will be enough, and then the Nuggets who are now up 34 to 26 going into the second. It's getting tight. Bobby, I can't believe you made

us do this this early. God, Bobby. You can't believe you're putting this on the airwaves, that is my choice. We didn't think Bobby had a mic. It was on me. This one's on me, guys. That's big of you. Yeah, that's a real Steph Curry attitude. No, I think that's fine. I think that could probably get you far.

But you're looking at the bench now. And all of a sudden, Alfonso McKinney played five minutes last game. It's probably going to have to play 10. Quinn Cook, who didn't play a single minute, I think he had a few seconds there at the end there. He might have to play rotational minutes. Like, those are the times where a team like the Rockets, who's probably going to go seven or eight deep

with guys that they could trust are going to be able to play off the floor. I don't know what the... aggregate point total is of four and against here, but it's not that high. These games have been pretty close. So those McKinney minutes, those Quinn Cook minutes could be the difference between winning and losing.

I mean, it's not a sexy opinion, but this could come down to home court advantage. And as you saw in Houston, the Rockets played particularly better. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Okay, so you know what just occurred to me? I mean, we've only done a couple of group chats, this playoffs, I guess, like three, four?

Sure. And we're just talking about like these game sevens and the possibility that we'd have several game sevens on Sunday, at least one. Are we not giving the bucks they're due? Because they just completely dispatched Boston. They get to rest. They'll have home court advantage in the next round. Brogden will be back.

Brogden will be back. Brogden gets the rest a little bit more. They can dial up as much tape as the tape lord Mike Buddenhouser wants to watch on either of these Raptors or Sixers teams. Do you think he uses an iPad or like a projector system? I think he's got like an old reeled or reel. like Thelma Schoonmacher, and he's just like going through a hard,

like 35 millimeter film. Right, he's cutting it. He's literally cutting the tape. Yeah, cutting and taping together, reels. Are we, is this one of those things where we're getting so consumed

by like narratives and what might happen in free agency that we're not seeing the best team in the league right in front of us? Well, that's a good question because going into the playoffs, this is something I was talking to everyone about. And I almost wrote something,

but I didn't get around writing it. I still might. What's more podcasts are for? If I have time, but I can give you the gist of it here. It's just we didn't know that the Warriors were going to be what they are. And even before Kevin Durant,

they clearly had something that broke the league that the league had to adapt to. And it kind of came out of nowhere, which in the past has happened, but particularly in this era, a free agency, we kind of know who the teams are. Yeah, sure.

We know who the contenders are. We try to wrap ourselves, up in certain narratives and certain other storylines that catch our eye in the course of the regular season but we know the teams. The bucks we thought would be okay

but we didn't think they were going to be this and I think that pre-existing notion throughout the season they haven't really kind of distanced themselves from. I remember even when they were on course for 60 wins we were still wondering well they did this in the regular season but are they post-season teams.

Oh, this is the Hawks team from a couple years ago shit, but that Hawks team didn't have Yanis. And that's the big difference. But, I mean, in addition to that, all their advanced numbers and all these other things suggest that this might be a sleeping giant. And so far, that hasn't been dispelled.

And I do wonder, does it come down to this being a moment for Janus? I mean, it certainly feels that way. It's just, it's just interesting. I don't know whether it's an indictment on our ability to pay attention to a smaller market like that or whether or not it has something more to do with the fact that. that we're just more interested in, like, a team and crisis stuff where you can just, like, really focus on, like,

the ups and downs of a seven-game series rather than, like, wow, Milwaukee's just dispatching a team that was widely assumed to be a finals contender in Boston. To be fair, we think that we know who the contenders are because they often are those teams. Yeah. Like, the teams with the best talent,

the teams with the big threes are almost always the best teams who will go on to win titles. Right. And if you look at the construction of the Bucks rosters, in addition to Janus, who was clearly one of the best finds in recent draft history, they're all second round guys. Even Brogden, who won a rookie of the year, was a second round pick. Chris Middleton was a second round pick from another team that threw him into a trade for, I believe, Brandon Knight and Brandon Jennings. Right.

So these guys, they don't fit that traditional mold, but they have this transformative guys, and they just play so well around them, which is why we slept on them. But I still think there is that shredded doubt that in a series that really tests them on their top five talent. I do wonder if they beat a team that was essentially like hit a lottery to get there in the Pistons. And then a team that was tearing itself apart in Boston. But the thing that impressed me about that Boston series was, and we talked about this last Thursday, I think, this was literally a matter of making a slight adjustment to Janus's spacing. And it was over. It was just over.

And it was one of those series victories where you just see like the might of another team is so overpowering, regardless of whatever was going on inside of the Celtics locker room or not. We were crowning them on the first game of this series when they won. You know what I mean? People were all excited about that. The bucks had to make like a couple of minor adjustments to floor spacing and they destroyed the Celtics. Well, we talk about this all the time. A team that knows who they are kind of has the advantage. and especially in the postseason

where we're just talking about the Sixers that we don't know game to game what we're getting from Ben Simmons. Probably their most important player on the floor. If not, he's not their best, but the way he plays can swing games as we just saw. But you're not going to get that from George Hill.

George Hill isn't going to be out there saying, oh, I just, you know, I want to get this post-up touch. No, but I would say this. The Sixers have a lot of question marks going into next season in terms of who's going to be there and who's not going to be there.

The Sixers have a lot of question marks right now in terms of what's the best style to fit the talent on this team? And whether or not you can really satisfy all the talented players, especially in the starting five, in the same game. Or do they have to take steps back? The Bucks don't have that problem. The Bucks have like a really obvious hierarchy. They have a really obvious route tree of guys that you're looking for down every end of the floor. And Budd has installed the perfect system for that team. and it essentially is like made

parts of people's games that wasn't even that successful. KOC wrote about Yannis's increased three point shooting attempts just because it's like it just changes the dynamics of the series and of a game if he's more threatening even if he's not going to make it.

You have to respect it and it changes the way like the defense is laid out if he might pull the trigger behind the arc five more times a game, three more times a game. Yeah. So I just feel like in a weird way it's that checkmate by any means. I wouldn't be surprised if the Eastern Conference finals

whether it's Philly or Milwaukee goes deep. But I just realized while we were sitting here, I was like, man, we really haven't dapped up Milwaukee for pulling what is essentially a LeBron Cleveland run so far in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Right. When we look back on the Warriors, we say, what were their kind of tactical advantages? What were the slight things that they did better

that they were ahead on? Because oftentimes this is the sort of thing that dictates the fate of the league. the guys who stumble upon or create these efficiencies that nobody else sees. Yeah, of course. And for the Warriors, it was obviously shooting and also switching on defense and putting those like-size players. And getting three miraculously good contracts going at the same time. I thought you were going to say getting a third.

No, but they got Steph on a discount. Yeah. And they got Draymond on a discount essentially. Yep. And that created the path to KD. And I do wonder if the bucks just kind of push that even further by pairing Janus, their worst three-point shooter with a guy like Brooke Lopez. So now, effectively, you're playing with a stretch center, which nobody has that to that degree. Yeah.

And now, as we're seeing, they can go five out where Janice is a respectable three-point shooter. At the very least, teams are forcing him to shoot it. And he's definitely stepping into those shots with confidence. As you mentioned, I think it has a trickle-down effect of the rest of the offense. Absolutely. let's talk about a team that has not mastered any efficiencies. The Lakers. Sure.

This was something that Justin and I talked about last week, which was the amazing circumstances of Monty Williams choosing to be the Phoenix sons of coach over reportedly the Lakers job. Last week, last Friday, I think it seemed like it was a done deal that Tailu was going to become the next Lakers coach. We ran a piece about that.

John Goddales wrote a piece about, this is a LeBron pick and this is for the next few years of LeBron and Los Angeles and it just shows like kind of LeBron's hold on the franchise in a moment of kind of institutional chaos. It was expected to be announced

within a couple of days. It turns out that at least according to reports there were disagreements about the length of Lue's contract which the Lakers wanted to tie to the remaining years on LeBron's contract, three, instead of giving him a five-year deal which he felt like he deserved. And also the Lakers wanting to weigh in

and tell Tyloo who he should have as his assistants, including, among others, Jason Kidd, who the Lakers have interviewed for the head coaching job and liked, but apparently have not liked enough to offer him the job. So the Lakers do not have a coach. There are reports that Kurt Rambis is now becoming increasingly involved as a voice inside of the franchise. There are some, you know, entertainingly bat-shit Stephen A. Smith reports this week about LeBron both recruiting Kauai,

but also people telling Jeannie Bus, people close to Jeannie Bus telling her she should trade LeBron. So what the hell? I kind of agree with that last one. Oh, man. No, I think it's one thing if you decide as a franchise

that Ty Lou isn't your guy because I don't think he's that much of an inspired choice. I wrote way before this that it seemed like they were very much reaching into their past to try to find some semblance of stability by just trying to recreate what worked

because their attempts at reinventing the wheel did not work very clearly. They made a conscious decision to try to pair defenders and passers with LeBron and they found out very quickly that you need shooters,

which is what every other LeBron team has done. Yes. But that wasn't the case here. They chose Lou. Everyone seemed to be in an agreement that Lou was going to be the Lakers coach. He understands LeBron. He's a good tactician.

He's won a ring. The issue was Polinka, Genie's hand-picked GM. negotiated in poor faith, it seems like, or at the very least, tried to assert leverage that he did not have. If he's not, he's already lost the PR war about what did happen. Yeah, which is bad for someone who's made his bones as this master negotiating. He's been getting beat up a lot in the press over the last couple months,

because not only in the post-magic stuff with the magic genie emails and the CC, he's also gotten pretty much routinely in pieces about the Lakers, now, there's like a little bit of like a nugget about like, and Polinka whose rep is not that great among other agents or GMs in the league. There's some pushback to that, but that's, that's what people say. I don't say that. That's what other people say. And now this Tailu thing, which is, it could be for a variety of reasons. You could even make the argument that like, why do we have to give a Tailu five-year deal? You know what I mean? Tailu's still getting paid by the calves. It's a perfectly reasonable position. Right. But when it's do or die time, like clearly,

you have to back off because as we've seen, their fallback options are the guys that you specifically said, these will be your assistants. And now maybe they were trying to do some some Phil Jackson type of thing where you have the head coach who's more of like the Mr. Miyagi's sense type. Like he's the manager of the assistants and you just built. It's like Nick Sabin. Right. On Alabama. The assistants are the geniuses. But Nick Sabin's assistants leave every season and they just stay winning titles. Now you can say it's about recruiting, but like, that's the thing is that it's okay to have volatility on your assistance bench and have like a new offensive coordinator of year if you just get the best recruiting class in the nation

and churn out NFL linebackers. Right. Well, regardless of what happened, they're now left with Lane Kiffin. See, I took you into deep SEC offensive coordinator talk and you got shook. This is turning into a recilipot. You like to lift? Yeah, I just did some squats earlier today, man. they're pretty much

settling on Lane Kiffin as their guy. If Frank Vogel is now the next in line, if Jason Kidd is the guy next in line, you're already saying to your fan base, well, we got somebody who we clearly didn't think was capable of being a head coach to begin with.

Right. And so the word on Kidd was that he was impressive in the interview and that they liked his ability to develop young talent. Which is fine. Are you guys going to really run it back with the kids? Do you think

the time heals all wounds? And you think Ingram and Ball and Kuzma and Hart are like yeah, water under the bridge. Let's just go. Let's just try this again. I just don't know this team can't go into the next season with the same roster. And

look, you know, that Rondo said Jimmy's going to play in New York or L.A. There's reports that LeBron was trying to talk to Kauai. I don't understand how that can even happen. That seems like tampering, but let's just for fun say that happened. Some combination of or lineup where it's like LeBron and Jimmy Butler

or LeBron and Kauai Leonard, although I got to say, man, watching Kauai Leonard on the Raptors this year doesn't seem like LeBron and Kauai would really work in terms of a ball dominance standpoint. Yeah, it seems like Kauai is set on being the guy. And if all the reports are true, and he wants to go to the Clippers first and foremost, that would only seem to indicate that. being the backseat to anybody.

So I think that the issue really is here is who's calling the shots and whether or not you can credibly make any kind of pitch to a free agent. In Kauai in Jimmy's case, this is probably their last, well, Kauai will probably have another one, but Jimmy, this is the big one. So Jimmy's going to want to get a deal where even if he demands a trade in six months, we'll have like a four-year deal somewhere. And Kauai is not presumably not going to want to up stakes and leave again anytime soon. So you're trying to pitch to them, yeah, this is what this team is going to be for the next few years.

I mean, whether or not they want to accept that this is their roster going forward, all signs indicate that this is their roster going forward. Well, they probably won't get Griff to trade Davis for the same thing that got Del Demp's fired, right? Right. And I don't know if, like, that package is even in the top five of what the Pelicans could potentially accept. Can you think of, like, who would be the better packages? So you got the Celtics package of some kind of Tatum and. stuff package, right?

The clippers. Clippers. For sure. I do wonder if some of the more established veterans start to get put on the table, maybe is C.J. McCollum? Would you want C.J. and stuff over Brandon Ingram, which we don't who we don't know much about? No, it doesn't do anything for me.

I mean, I love C.J. McCollum, but if you're like the Pelicans, the Pelicans would immediately become like the funky NBA nerd favorite team. Right. But I don't think that that really moves the needle, especially. Griffin's got I like be aware of like a age of the guy

so that he's not dealing with a bunch of people who are like I can't wait to get out of New Orleans with my contracts up and B is something that will make people want to come to the stadium. You also have Ben Simmons. But I like I just to me that's just a non-starter. You think Davis and B could play together? I think there are complications there that are easier to sort out than Ben and Embed.

Because I mean let's face it, Davis doesn't want to be a center to begin with, and he's a respectable three-point shooter in the same way that Embed is. The problem there is you would try to find a point guard and all your assets have been depleted by getting Tobias and Jim. Right. So there's that. I mean, what's the Knicks pick going to end up at? Right.

Right. If the Hawks get won, would they flip Zion for Davis? I don't know. I don't think so. There are a few other teams out there that you can kind of put together. I don't know. The biggest question is just... Well, this is also the thing is that Davis is not a free agent.

So this is going to be another major issue for anybody who's... thinking about trying to take that year-long rental, which only I think Boston would have the stomach for. And if not Davis, as you alluded to, it does seem like Rob's reputation isn't sterling with most of the league. Sure. And so I do wonder if that provides complications in terms of trying to swing any sort of trade. So you're left with keeping your guys, hoping internal development works, and maybe signing a guy like Jimmy Butler. I've said this in the past. I think that team is competitive. It's probably better than we think if we're just assuming. that some of these young guys stay on the trajectory

they're on now, and they get away from filling their minimum slots with Rajan Rondo types and those are the moves that they really have to key in on. And that's what I'm most worried about because as we've seen in these Lou discussions, those little things on the fringes, they don't

seem like they're particularly like skill at executing. No, I know. And I mean, that's also like, if you're winning, those signings are for the loles. Everybody loves them. But as soon as you start losing, that's where everybody's like, I can't believe. You guys did all these things, and it was just like,

you should have been getting like the Rodney Magruder's, the, you know, the Patrick Beverly's, like the guys who could actually play. Listen, Amon Shumper is playing like 17 minutes. Austin Rivers. In game five against the Warriors. Those are the type of guys that you need in order to fill out a roster.

Daniel House, our guy, the patron saint of the group chat podcast. I love that you keep bringing him up, even though that is your like Mount Kilimanjaro to climb. 5250 Blazers. I like the challenge. I think we're going to wrap it up there. Okay.

What do you think, Bobby? Bobby, who do you think wins? The Blazers are the Nuggets? A trusty J. McCollum. This is good content. He's saved it for the playoffs. I'm going to go Blazers. Dill obviously says Blazers.

Bobby says Blazers. You think this is game six? This is all Nugs, baby. I believe in the Okich. Do you want to do the Nuggets of One take for posterity? I just think that Paul Millsaps is the type of guy that you really can't game playing against. I mean, I know he's older.

He doesn't give you what he used to give you on offense. but he's the glue guy for this team and he's the reason that the Nuggets won this game. I think that you just you got to expect the back court of C.J. McCollum and Damian Lillard, one or both of them to go off like they did

last night and you can never be sure who. Unless they don't. Unless they don't. They kept saying that they needed to break these guys apart, but when you see what they did in the court tonight, you really have to believe in this team going forward. Or not. Or not.

Thank you for listening to The Ringer NBA show. We will be constantly hitting you. I think we're going to try and do one on Friday night after game six of Warriors Rockets. Talent TBD. You can expect a heat check on Sunday, as well as a Bill Simmons show with Ryan Russollo on Sunday night, I believe.

And no games Monday, but we'll have a pretty consistent schedule of NBA pods throughout next week. Also, if I can have your attention, if you've possibly stayed with us this long through our hypothetical discussion of Nuggets and Blasers. and Blazers, let me implore you, please watch Talk the Thrones on Sunday at 6 p.m. It's after the 6 p.m., 9 p.m., East Coast, West Coast showing of Game of Thrones. Me, Mallory, and Jason, will go live on Twitter. So if you have any questions about Game of Thrones that you want to ask, it's hashtag Talk the Thrones. Because there's nothing else going on on Sunday that's of any distraction to me.

Which dragon do you think Ben Simmons is? The dead one. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.