The Ringer NBA Show - The Bucks Destroy the Hawks and Why Are Young Players Succeeding in the Playoffs? | The Answer

Episode Date: June 26, 2021

Seerat is joined by the Ringer's Rob Mahoney to break down the Bucks' beat down of the Hawks in Game 2 (0:51) and take some listener questions (38:40). Then Chris and Seerat talk about the success that young players have had so far in the playoffs (57:08). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Seerat Sohi Guest: Rob Mahoney Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Flying Coach is back for a second season. Peter Schrager and Rams head coach Sean McVeigh are joined by guests from around the sports and entertainment world. They're discussing the latest NFL news, telling stories from their careers, and breaking down games from their unique perspectives. Check out Flying Coach Season 2 on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the NBA show. It's The Answer.

I'm Chris Ryan. In just a few minutes, Syrit Sohi and Rob Mahoney are going to take you through Game 2, Bucks Hawks. And then after that, Syrit and I will come back. And we're going to talk a little bit about the young players taking over this postseason, especially Trey Young, especially Devin Booker, some Lucas stuff in there, some Pelican stuff in there, some King stuff in there. It's not just all the playoff teams.

So let's get into Sir and Rob's reaction to game two, and I'll be back later. All right, we're coming in from an absolute beatdown by the Bucks. They just destroyed the Hawks. And we are very lucky because we have the number one chronicler of the Bucks dominating in Rob Mahoney. very excited to talk about this with him. We also recorded this conversation on Spotify Green Room. So if you guys want to hop on next time and ask us some questions, just break down the game with us. You are more than welcome to.

Rob, honestly, there's nobody better in the world. We are so lucky to have you today to break down the books. Nobody wax is poetic about them better than you do. So why don't you just start off? What did you like about the bucks today? Well, let me wax first by giving them credit. I didn't expect to give them, which is, I really didn't think we'd see this much separation for Milwaukee in this series. It just kind of felt like with the way these teams match up, the Bucks offense kind of comes in fits and start sometimes.

The Hawks have been the best comeback team of the playoffs. Even when things were getting away from Atlanta in the first half, I thought we would be coming back in the third quarter in the early fourth on a hawks run. And that just did not happen. It was stop after stop after stop from Milwaukee and transition bucket one after another. Tough way to win.

I mean, you just can't be doing that. You can't be turning the ball over the way Tray Young did and expect to win this game. Yeah, no question. The third quarter, I was kind of on the same page as you. I was wondering, okay, like they closed out the second quarter all right, right? Like, I think Tray started making a few better decisions, and we'll get into his decision-making. But then they, the Bucks came out in the third quarter. And that first possession, their defense was just amazing.

amazing. They came out of the gate. They're already, you know, it's already a blowout and you're expecting the hawks to come out the way that the bucks came out. But, you know, they were just, they were just on point. And it ended up with, you know, Drew Holiday and Brooke Lopez getting into a pick and roll and just communicating really well. Lopez ends up on Trey on a switch almost at the end of the shot clock. And I feel like Trey, like this kind of told me the type of game that Trey was having. He just dribbled it out, and I think he was so happy to finally get into a good situation, potentially good scoring situation, that he, like, lost track of the fact

that the shot clock was running down, which is not characteristic. This was an uncharacteristic Trey Young game, which, I mean, I think that that really is the story to me, just the Buc's defense and how they, how they shut down Trey Young. True Holiday did an incredible job. but just the Bucks scheme in general really forced, like it really forced the Hawks hand. And it felt like Trey didn't really want to give into it. It didn't feel like he wanted to come in and have the same game that he did in

game one, just hitting a bunch of floaters, like a lot of overpassing and stuff. And honestly, then like you said, you can't turn it over like that. And the Bucks just got off running. And these games, when they do that, it's just I don't really know what you can do. And you were right. Also, you were right. We talked about it last time. The Bucks didn't have, like, they hadn't had their explosive three-point shooting night.

No. And they finally had it. They certainly did. I mean, there were a lot of looks in this one from Pat Connitton and Brooke Lopez that you almost don't want those shots if you're Milwaukee. But on this night, they were falling and that's enough. The thing about the Bucks is, you know, their half-court offense can be a little tricky. But their transition offense is so deadly. And you can poo-poo transition offense in the playoffs and say it's too conditional.

know, you can't get those shots every time, the game's going to slow down, all that stuff, which in generally speaking applies. But when it does hit like it does in this game, it completely overwhelms you. And I think that's part of what we saw with Trey too, is the Hawks just put, or sorry, the Bucks just put so much pressure on the Hawks to score every time because they were getting transition layups. That's a tough way to live when you're trying to figure out the geometry of kind of a slightly shifting defense from Milwaukee.

And I think Trey definitely got into his own head a bit, just trying to bring break it down. He wasn't seeing the floor. He wasn't seeing his angles the way he did in game one. That's for sure. Yeah. I mean, he didn't have angles, right? Like the whole thing with game one was just like he got 46 points because the bucks were literally like, hey, nobody else is going to beat us. And they adjusted off of that in the second half. That's why this game is really curious to me. Um, because I just feel like if the Hawks played like they did in game one, just from an execution standpoint, from a decision making standpoint, not even from an energy standpoint. Um, they would. have had a much better game, they probably wouldn't have won. I mean, that's just how

good the bucks were tonight. And they were just determined. You know, this was a must win game for them. I think they would have found, like, they probably would have found a way to come out and it's over, you know, but at the end. But honestly, like a lot of things that I just felt like they were doing right in game one that they stopped doing. Even on defense, like Janice had a great night in the paint, which we should talk about. But the reason that the bucks got off from three was just that the the hawks were just bringing way too much help and down the stretch in game one you know Nate had uh you know they accidentally let a little bit of X's and O's get into into the what like the what do they call it you know what the mic up yeah not the miced up the like they

call it something else but you know inside tracks I'm sorry inside tracks yeah during the inside track segment which you should all watch on T&T um like uh Nate said, hey, when Janice gets into the paint, we should stay at home. And they did. And they won that game. And that was a big reason why they were trading twos for threes. And this game was kind of the opposite. Like, not even true. Twos for three. It was turnovers for threes, really. Like that was essentially the story. But yeah, like that was, that was very strange to me that they, like they, like they, I feel like they went away from things that, um, that were working for them. What do you think? Well, the balance definitely tilted in that regard, where I thought

the gameplay and the bucks used in game one to approach. to Trey Young was obviously flawed. They needed to be up higher. They did that in this game. But in terms of what they were doing for everyone else, hugging up on the shooters, kind of the exact inverse of the strategy you were just talking about with Yonis,

they wanted to do the same thing with Trey. Contain him in the pick and roll as best you can. Cut off all the other shooters. And they did that effectively. They just couldn't stop any Trey Young jumpers or floaters to save their lives. Once that changed, Atlanta just didn't have enough going offensively

once you start containing Trey's pick and roll. That has to be the big. adjustment for Atlanta moving forward, I think. You have to get more action off the ball. You have to get, you know, take a page from what Phoenix has been doing, for example, in these playoffs. You know, the way they mobilize guys in the corner, the way they move their wings around just when your defender might be rotating over to protect the basket or whatever. It's a little different with the way Milwaukee's defending, but you have to get into that mindset of using Trey almost as a decoy as a setup man a little more versus putting the ball in his hands and letting him be a genius.

Because that can get you so far, but if Milwaukee's going to contain like this, he's going to be hard pressed to score every time if they're getting enough stops to run out. Yeah, those are all really good points. Because I felt like this game, Trey wanted to get them going. There was a possession where, you know, Hurter had a mismatch against Lopez. He passed it back to Trey. Trey passed it back to him and Hurtor hit a three. And that kind of just showed you like what Trey's mindset was tonight.

but the floor was not like, to your point, it just wasn't set up for that. So yeah, that's definitely something they can do. And, you know, Bogey had a tough game as well. Like, you know, coming in within the first two minutes, picks up two fouls and like clanks a floater. But he picked it up a little bit later on the game. Like, it didn't really matter at that point. But maybe he can get it going.

But I think honestly, like the big thing probably coming out of this, like Reggie Miller brought it up. And like it's kind of been like a push and pull throughout the season, like just John Collins involvement in the offense. Like, do you think that it makes sense to find, you know, maybe different ways to get him involved individually? I mean, I think they have to. And again, it's whether you're going to use him as, you know, sometimes they park him on the wing. Sometimes they use him as a high kind of staggered screen guy.

They just need to vary up those looks. And, you know, again, like, I can't believe I'm using Milwaukee as the model here for half-court offensive execution. But just like, look at the way they'll use a Janus Chris Middleton pick and roll to then set up something for Drew Holiday on the weak side. You just need a little bit of that kind of action to get the wheels greased up a little bit more. Because this is really tough to win a series this way. Atlanta is still, they're still the underdog. They still have a mountain to climb in terms of, you know, not talent necessarily, but the way these teams are aligned, the bucks are just much better suited to guard the hawks than vice versa.

And that's going to put them behind the eight ball in a lot of these games from the start. They have to find a way to overcome that. I think it's fair to say that there's a talent deficit. especially, you know, if you consider a defense of talent, like, um, why wouldn't you? I mean, you, we don't have to have the meta conversation. I feel like that was a preemptive, that was a preemptive conversation trying to defend your own pickup game there, I feel like. My pickup game.

That's what I'm saying. Wow. Wow. I will have, you know, I'm a dog a defender. I hate when people score on me. I don't believe that at all. You just, you just don't have the disposition of a. dog a defender boat. Are you serious? I'll believe it when I see it, I guess. I, you know what?

I get what you're doing. You're trying to push my buttons. You're trying to motivate me. And you know what? As a friend, I appreciate that. But I read the play. And because of that, it's just not going to be psychologically impactful. So I think you need to go back to the drawing board. Rats. Yeah. Yeah. But one guy who did, one guy who did lock his matchupup up. Yeah. Woo. Chris Middleton. Chris Middleton. So, you know, there's talk of his offensive struggles. I feel like that's a little bit being mis-framed here.

First, like, Fux didn't really need his offense today. To me, this feels like a Drew Holiday series on offense. He's been fantastic. First of all, you know what? I'll just let you have your Drew Holiday moment. You're being very generous tonight, and I appreciate it. Well, this is, I'm just trying to play the hits. I have to, first of, I got to, Eli, we're going to bring you up on the stage if you want.

You can just, you can ream me out. I deserve it, which is also why I'm just giving the stage to Rob to, you know, say nice things about the bucks. This is, this is my form of, you know, self-punishment. We all have to eat crow sometime. But yes, this is definitely a Drew Holiday series. I think Middleton, as you mentioned, I mean, he had a really rough game one. Offensively, in this one, I thought he was fine. the shots weren't always following for him,

but the playmaking was really good. He was able to get things moving in that regard. He's giving them what they need in that area of the game. So as long as he's doing one of those two things, either activating shooters like he was in this one or hitting those tough mid-range shots or threes on his own, you're probably going to be in pretty good shape, especially when Holiday is clicking at this level.

And the Hawks, you know, their guards are very talented. They have a really deep collection of players. They can rotate it on the wings. And I'm going to say just about none of those guys is strong enough to really reckon with Drew on a drive. Like he can move all those guys out of the way. And when you're driving as confidently as Drew is right now, and I feel like he's taking his three really confidently too,

which is something after some of his struggles from Beyond the Ark in the last series, that's a really tough recipe to stop in a player. Holiday is, he can get in his own head, certainly, in terms of the way he runs an offense. But when he's scoring at this level, that's something that the hawks don't really have a great answer for. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I was actually going to be my next question.

Like, is there anybody in the hawks and guard him? Because I'm with you. I don't think, I don't think they can. And I think he knows that, right? Yeah, he's playing like it. Yeah, yeah, he totally is. Like I felt like I didn't want to do like the body language analysis thing, but he really just does feel like he looks like he's just in the zone.

And he's making really good decisions. for a hawks seemed honestly by the way like started the game not necessarily started the game but they put together some good defensive possessions and the bucks three point shooters just really got off and you know that that credit to credit to drew for that but you know they made him make decisions and he's been making good ones all series long

like he's he's having a fantastic series almost makes you wish that they could have gotten bogey too man what could have been a seven game series like that or if the hawks end up winning which I don't think they will. I think the Bucks are going to win this, but if they do, and like that's,

you're going to be looking back at that one, even with him being injured. But yeah, back to Chris. He's doing, like, he's playing like the defensive utility role, it feels like, because the Bucks just kind of have their offenses series. Like it's,

it's, you know, a Drew Holiday series. And Middleton can, you know, post up every once in a while. but I don't really think he needs to. I think the series, especially with them pushing and transition or trying to as much as they are and did today, it just feels like, you know, it's better to just have him really focus in on defense and create offense that way.

Like, he was really getting into the passing lanes. And his defense on Herder, I thought was huge. Like, if you're going to ask the Hawks to beat you one on one and you need somebody other than trade to get involved, Herder is like that number one option. And just like to make him not even. just guard him one-on-one, but to, like, make him really, really struggle. Like, winning that matchup is just huge for the box. Exactly. And I feel like if you really were worried about Middleton's offense, the move

there would be to pull PJ Tucker out of the starting lineup, who, I mean, PJ Tucker scored one point and was plus 32 in this game. He's just going to kind of have, he's going to have to discover offensive utility every second he's on the floor, because all he really does is space to the corner, pull up occasional offensive rebounds, bless him. I mean, he's doing enough dirty work to try to get by. But if you were to replace PJ Tucker in the starting lineup with Pat Conaton and have Conitin chase herder around instead of Middleton, then all of a sudden you have fresher legs for a supplementary score if you need it.

And maybe a little more spacing if you need it, depending on what you really make of Conant as a shooter, I realize that's a riskier proposition. But what I'm saying is that the Bucks, even for a team that I think they're locked into certain things. Like they need to play Lopez a certain amount. They need to play Tucker a certain amount, even though those guys aren't always perfectly suited for every part of this series. But they do have options if they need to move stuff around to get guys like Middleton

different looks or guys like Drew a different kind of lane. That is there for them. I'm going to pivot. Janice in the paint tonight. Like Janus is night tonight. Oh my God. That Dr. J. Like first of all he spins and then he changes a shot in the middle.

His creativity in the paint, like that seven foot fader was going for him when when that's going. like, you know, it's just, it's just tough to guard him, especially, especially for the Hawks, because, like, they have to get into his base. And if he can pull up over them, they don't really have a guy like, like, like, the Nets had in terms of, like, you know, Blake Griffin or Kevin Durant that could actually impact his height. Like, because I just feel like Capella doesn't, Copella doesn't get there with him on, on those

fadeaways. Like, that's just not really, like, his body type, I guess. Like, he's a little bit more straight up. So when he's hitting, if he's hitting those against the Hawks, like, that's just tough for them. But man, like, he just had an incredible night. And this is the second time the playoffs that he's just gone into this mode where he's like, I'm not shooting threes. I'm just going to go into the paint. I'm going to be relentless. I'm going to like, you know, pull up some moves slash sometimes travel that, that like you're just not going to be able to guard. And he's now done this twice in the

playoffs. First time was game six against the Nets. And he only needed to do it for one half here. But like, man, like, can Giannis just flip this switch whenever he wants to and just decide like, hey, I'm going to be Janice, like, destroyer of the paint for however long I want to. Well, especially when no one on the other team really has a great chance to guard him. As you mentioned, Capella, he can be a good positional defender that can force Janus to, you know, go reverse on his layups, to have to go underhand on some stuff to work around him, but he's not going to stop him. And John Collins has no shot.

That's what we've learned in this series so far. John Collins is, you know, like Jeff Green before him, a sacrificial lamb whenever Yannis wants to post him up, to either draw fouls, to get to the basket, that's not going to work. And so when you're starting from that place, it's not a surprise that Yannis can get to the rim this often. It's not a surprise that he ends this game with one turnover, which is such a huge stat for them. If you can make Yannis get into the pain and kill his dribble, have to worry about the three seconds, have to worry about, you know, hands reaching in, swiping at him. That's where you can start to cut off some of those easy points. But we're not really seeing

that because, you know, the Hawks are trying to hug onto those shooters, as you mentioned. They're trying to take away all those other options, that just means Janus gets to eat. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the one thing, though, is like, I really think they can, they can give him more looks, even if you're not necessarily going to, you know, you don't really necessarily want John Collins on him all the time, but I think that's a look they can give him. I think that he actually had a few possessions today where he was, you know, he was decent on him. Like, with Capella over and over again, I think the thing is, just like, you figure it out.

like throwing Solomon Hill in there a little bit more often. I feel like he just didn't really play enough today. And again, another thing that was just different in game one that can just kind of go back. Like, that's the one thing that still boggles me as we continue to go through some of the things that were different. They weren't in game one. So that's, you know, after a win, that's strange, I guess. But yeah, I think there's a couple, like there's more to be done against Yanis. also just, you know, more physicality.

I'm curious to see, like, you know, we saw that version of Yannis come out in game six against the Nance. I'm curious to see if this is like something that he's going to be like carrying over. Like, how often are we going to, are we going to see Yonis just say, screw this? Well, the best way you can get that version of Yonis as often as possible is by, you know, really sparing his minutes at the five as much as you can. Because that's when it starts getting really stressful. When he has to rebound everything, when he has to guard every tray,

young pick and roll because they'll pull him into those actions. If the more you can keep Brooke on the floor or, you know, Bobby Porter's had a really good game playing some minutes at the five in this one too, him and Janus are a nice combination because he can give Janus some of that space. That's such a nice release for Janus that lets him preserve his energy, lets him keep attacking without having to worry about some of that stuff. You know, whenever we talk about a player being aggressive, to me, that's a statement about the lineups and the positions that player is put into, more so than some dispositional thing.

It's about where are his teammates positioned on the floor and how much stress are they taking off him to allow him to pursue those kinds of shots. And right now, the Bucks are putting Yonis in a great spot to drive as much as he wants. That was very well put. Do we have anything else on the Bucks? Or should we take some questions? Let me take a look here one second. Or should we let Eli just come in and roast me? I mean, we haven't gotten into the Cheryl Crow factor, which is in games where Cheryl Crow is in attendance, the Bucks are now plus 34.

I mean, that's a pretty huge X factor in this series. So I will be eating Cheryl Crowe today. Oh, boy. Cancel the podcast. Cancel all of it. Cancel me. Really? In the meantime, Lucky Edge asks, can we do the Gobert conversation?

What is the Gobert conversation? What conversation would you like to have about Gobert? What Gobert conversation do you think he's having? I honestly don't know. I feel like most of it is kind of our conversation. already been asked an answer. I mean, they're out of the playoffs. I feel like we kind of know what we need to know about Rudy Gober's ability to guard small ball at this point, don't we? Yeah, I'd say so. I was playing around with my head a couple days ago,

trying to find a place to get, trying to find a way to get Ben Simmons to Utah, just because it would be hilarious of him and Donovan Mitchell or teammates. And he kind of, like, is a perfect fit there. But it's hard to find. a trading partner for Rudy because it's like, what team wants to win a champion, like, what team wants to protect the rim, but also not win a championship? Ouch. I don't think that's true. Okay.

So if like, is there, is there a team out there that's like, yeah, like, we think Rudy Gover can, you know, push us over the edge. So I couldn't really find one. I'm not so convinced that they're going to blow it up or that they should. Like, I think they're closer with a healthy Donovan Mitchell, healthy Mike Connors. And, you know, I think ideally you would want to upgrade your wing spots a little bit more so than Gobert. I think Gobert can be a finals level, championship level center if everything else is clicking right. But, you know, it helps when your perimeter guys will guard at all, which they did not.

So it kind of put them in a rough spot in a lot of those situations. Vance Williams makes a good counterpoint that the problem isn't Rudy. The problem is Utah has no wing defenders. That's very true. Game 7, a lot of the video that was exposing Rudy was just like Rudy, you know, getting taken to the rim by somebody on his switch

and then the help coming and then not rotating onto a shooter. But at the same time, like, there's a reason that the help comes. It's, you know, it's not hard for a guard to penetrate on him. So I feel like it's a little bit of a chicken and egg situation, but they did, like, they don't have, that's why I like been there.

or like I just like the idea of it. I don't know if I actually like it. I like the chaos of it. But somebody like him defensively. They just like didn't have like, you know, the 610, 6-9, like kind of brawny 3-D guy. Like the Jay Crowder, honestly, who's who's leading every team to the NBA finals all the time. Just jump on Jay Crowder's back, go straight to the NBA finals every year. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, like, you know, like that's why Chris Paul came to Phoenix. He came to play with Jay Crowder. But let's get back to this Bucks-Hawks stuff a little bit. I mean, I think one thing I'm curious about after this game is how representative it could possibly be on a day where Milwaukee shot this well. Like, how close do you think the margins are for Atlanta? Is this still a winnable series for them? Is this something that's more chronic, that's a more severe problem?

Where do you put the Hawks chances right now? I mean, I had the Bucks winning the series in six. And that's probably where I still have it. You know, I think, I think, you know, the Hawks have, are more than likely to take one game at home. And I don't, like, to me, that's probably going to be it. And, you know, it's more, these games, like, that's a really interesting thing about the playoffs is, like, some games really tell you a story about where the rest of the series is going to take you. And others, you just end up throwing out. And, like, you never really know until it's over.

And this game, especially, like, because of just a discrepancy, I. between like the the hawk's execution in game one and game two, I think that there's a very high chance that they can bounce back because there are so many things that they, well, what do you think about actually the, like, what do you think about my analysis of the Tray Young situation where like my thing is just like if you just made better decisions, he wouldn't have had eight turnovers,

the Bucks wouldn't have got it got it going in transition, and the Hawks offense just would have eventually jelled better. Like, just kind of like it did in game one, They had a tough first half, but they pulled through and they turned the game into a slog. Do you think that other than, you know, Brooke coming up a little bit more often, and Yonis actually switched onto Troy a little bit more. Do you think that there's anything specific that the Bucks did? I think it the...

Brooke coming up that much higher is significant. The difference between him basically being in the restricted area to coming up, even to the level of like the elbow and the free throw line. That's a huge change. He's still so inconsistent with it, even in this game. Like, there are times that trade could have taken advantage of it. He is definitely inconsistent with it. But that's one area where I feel like Mike Boodenholzer in the construction

and some of the orthodoxy of the Bucx defense probably underestimates what Brooke can do. Like, if you just get him into the pattern of getting up higher a little bit more, getting into that kind of stutter step, like dance, dance revolution, Brooke Lopez kind of mode, I feel like he can contain that stuff. He can at least slow it down enough that, like, that's the point of having Janus is that he can rotate if you really need him to have Brooke gets beat on the perimeter. So, like, put your big guys out there. Let them contest shots. Let him, you know, pull Tray Young in a little bit, which I thought he did pretty effectively in this one. And so if we want to start from the premise of, like, okay, if Tray Young exercises better decision-making and, you know, tones down his turnovers, what could that do for the Hawks?

I would say you're presupposing a world where he has just like better vision and angles and doesn't have a seven footer much closer to him in this game than he did in game one. Like the geometry and his actual view of the court, I think changed a lot from game one to game two. Brooks, that's a really interesting point on Brooks, I guess, you know, just how much can you really push him on defense? because, you know, by game seven against the Nets, he was, he was pretty much trying to be a perimeter player out there. My question is really, it seems like it's something that he kind of actually like negotiates with himself in terms of like how often he can do that because he can't do that all the time.

And I'm kind of curious, like, you know, if this turns into, you know, if the Hawks win game three and game four becomes pivotal for the bucks, like, will we see a little bit more, a little bit more from him? Like, you know, because like, you see these clips, like, especially like before he's getting a little bit older, but like he used to really be able to sit down on defense. And I think he can he can do that at times. Um, like there's, we're getting to a point with Bud where I feel like there's a little bit of hysteria around his decision making. A little bit. Yeah. Just a tad. Just a tad. Um, and not to say that it's great, you know, like ultimately game, you know,

winning game seven did save his job. Um, but I also think that there is like an alternative universe where like the Brooke, the book conversation is. always the biggest one, right? Yeah. There's an alternative universe where if you don't play him, you just don't get enough offensive rebounds and spacing and just like a guy mucking up things in the interior. And I think it almost turns into one of those things where we take for granted

that existing because it's just such a heavy part of the buck's offense that we don't really give credit to one of the big pieces in making it happen. It's actually a little bit similar to the to the Rudy Gobert conversation, except that Brooke was never, Brooke's not a, Brooke, Brooke didn't win defensive player of the year, I guess.

And also, you know, has really, really good perimeter guys around him, like the best in the league, really. I think the other thing, too,

about how much you would want to marginalize Brooke or rein in his minutes or control him in this way or that is, again, you're putting a lot of pressure on Janus if you're going to ask him

to play that much five, or Bobby Portis, if you're going to ask him to play that much five. So the idea that he can come in and eat innings for you, and in this game, not just eat them,

but really thrive in them. Like he was, he was blocking shots well, he was, you know, getting some good stuff inside, really getting to his spots as much as anyone in the bucks was.

It was really him and Drew and Janus that were, they were really getting great looks. Middleton was working for some tough stuff and otherwise just kind of role players feeding off of them. But, you know,

I think that's what's so frustrating about the Brooke Lopez experience is you have moments against the nets where he's so, so much bigger than everyone around him that you expect him to be able to thrive or score in this particular way.

and he can't always do it, but the games where he does, I mean, it pays off so majorly for the Bucks. I think it just kind of shows how close they are, rotation-wise, to being a dominant team all the time versus a dominant team in games like this one when we don't know which version of the Bucks

is going to show up in game three. Yeah, but isn't that the thing with when you're, like, when you're relying on playing defense, though, like some nights you're just going to have like a level of clampdown intensity that they had today. And some nights you're just not going to be, like, it's just not sustainable to play defensive. defense at that level every game, even throughout the entire playoffs.

You know, I think that would wear out most teams. Yonis of the Five is really, so in this series, I don't know how much it would really wear him down, you know? I think he could actually do a pretty good job of stopping the lob if they need to, right? Like, it's one of those things that you don't necessarily pull out unless you absolutely have to. But if Trey comes out and just destroys him on pick and roll again, like I think we saw some interesting possessions from Janus either denying the ball to Trey, which they did a really good job with today and also just switching onto it and completely

like just destroying any any any pick action they can do because like as as good as Trey is on switches like you'll live with him trying to beat Janus or at least you'll try if that's something that you know later down the series if they need to you can do like that's just not something that they've needed much and they can I think they can lean on it in this series. It's not like they you know they're like no none of none of the Hawks are going to beat them up in the post. Like, that's an advantage that the bucks have in the series. I mean, one of the ways in which people are harping on Bud, I think unfairly, is he's actually been somewhat willing to go to Janus at the five.

It's been like an appropriate break glass in case of emergency kind of move for them. And so the fact that they have that in their back pocket gives them a lot of leeway to explore this other stuff. I think you're right about Janus switching on to Trey Young. That's something if I were the, if I were the bucks, I would be totally comfortable with for stretches or even a quarter. a time, I would just get a little nervous about it for a full game. The idea of him having to exert that much energy, trying to contain Trey Young off the dribble, and maybe even in a more damaging way, picking up needless fouls. Because that's the one area where Janus guarding perimeter guys, especially ones who

draw that three-point foul really effectively. Like, he wants to close hard so badly. He wants to get to that shot. I feel like, and we saw that in game one, Trey was able to pull that on him once. That's what I would worry about, is that combination of, is Yonis going to pick up too many fouls if he has to guard too many guys on the perimeter and switches like Trey and is he going to wear himself out in the process. But the fact that you can do it for a quarter, the fact, you can do it for six to eight minutes and basically blow a game open or close out a game doing that, that's something

that the Bucks didn't even have to do in this game because they were so dominant the rest of the way. And so, you know, if this series is within a margin of error for the Bucks, the fact that they can just shift gears to that and that it's a very comfortable look for them, that would scare me if I were Atlanta. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a margin of error where I think things with with Bud get really interesting because there's two different arguments that you could make. You could say very convincingly that they shouldn't have gone seven against the nets. And honestly, like it was closer than it should have been. But you know, it's basketball. Things happen. And they ultimately pulled it out. But if they lose that series and we're having a different conversation about like, you know, being too slow to make

certain adjustments or like not leaning on them enough. And I think that's where the bud criticism kicks in where like people don't necessarily, I think people don't feel like this team is maximized, which they aren't, but they've like, they've been, they've been as good as they've needed to be so far. Yeah, they still need to be more proactive. They still need to be quicker to make those changes. And, you know, if they survive this series, they'll be tested just in a completely different way in the following one. So that's not going to change. Like, we're not going to push, no matter how loud you are on Twitter, you are not going to push Mike Boodenholzer

to do those things clearly at this point. So I think we just need to all settle in with the idea that this is a team that if they do win, they're going to win more on tweaks than overhauls. They're going to do what they did between games one and two, which is they're going to move Brooke Lopez up

a foot and a half to two feet in the drop, but he's still going to drop. And like, we need to be comfortable with that version of the Bucks potentially winning the title because they can do it. They can play a flawed, you know, non-optimized version of basketball. They can be a version of themselves that is not their best self,

and they still have the power to win the finals this year. May we all be so lucky in our own lives. Right, yeah. Like, just not having to maximize yourself and still just being better than the competition. Not exactly where I saw it going with the Milwaukee Bucks, honestly. But, man, their defense has just destroyed the league. it's it's interesting like watching how many different how many of these matchups.

I don't want to talk about refs too much. But I mean, obviously we are going to see some rule changes. And I think the one thing that's been really interesting in these playoffs is like the amount of times that the reps really like dictate the outcome. And this didn't feel like one of those games by any means. But the bucks were able to be very physical. And like, you know, if you can be physical in the playoffs, like I guess like I didn't pick the bucks to and I think that's probably the part where I went wrong. Just kind of overvaluing skill, I guess, especially with Annette's.

But yeah, it's really, I don't know, it's, it's really interesting because, like, when they're allowed to do what they want to do, that's actually like what makes me really excited about watching the bucks in the finals. Because, like, that's when you're really allowed to do whatever the hell you want. It's a different battleground there. Yeah, yeah. And, like, all the players know, like, they're a game. when it's like winner go home or like you know you only have a specific amount of games left like you are going to put literally everything you have out there like i would be really curious to see what you know like the bucks could pull off like historic finals defense numbers just by she like regardless of who the opponent is just by like sheer like sheer like environment you know well and the players on the team like the game seven they played against brooklyn was genuinely one of the hardest played games i think i've ever seen and so when you put guys like p j tucker into that

fire guys like Chris Middleton who are going to run themselves ragged on defense and yonnes we know i mean if anything goes 100% all the time even in the regular season these are guys who are who are going to leave that out in a finals and be ultra physical who have that capacity to play just just a lockup series and to your point about the officiating in this game obviously that wasn't the whole margin but it does feed into what gives this a game like this its momentum where if you're tray young and you could see tray's exasperation trying to draw some of the that he usually gets, and those would lead into turnover sometimes. And so when that's rolling into a turnover, that's rolling into a fast break for the bucks,

that's just feeding into the flow of the game in that way, I mean, it wears you down. And then it forces you to try to force things on subsequent possessions. You're so desperate to get something going. You make a different kind of mistake. I think that's what we saw from the Hawks as much as anything, is just these mistakes building on each other from that pressure that comes not just from the officiating or just from the turnovers or just from the bucks running out, but the way all those things intersect. Yeah, and they add on top of each other, too. As like, as this series goes on, you know,

Trey Young is only going to get more exhausted by the bucks, right? And that's just, like, that's just how it, that's just playoff basketball. Um, not to, not just playoff basketball. What else is just playoff basketball? Tell me more about this playoff basketball. Well, it's very exciting, Rob. Uh, Corey Yesterday says, I like the idea of taking a page from the bucks and only improving myself ever so slightly each day. Rob, how will you ever so slightly improve yourself? I'm going to sleep a little bit more. I mean, I'm going to exercise slightly better sleep habits overnight.

I think that's going to, that's really going to recharge me for this weekend. And then I'm going to try to squeeze in a fast and furious nine screening just to get my adrenaline pumping, just to feel alive. I love that. I admit, sorry, go ahead. I was just saying that combination is going to carry me all, you know, straight through next. week. I love that. I love that you're getting into like this intense warrior mode. Like much of these players in the playoffs like really trying to to do whatever you can to pull what what is left in your bag. It's it's really admirable. And you know, I wish I wish you the best of luck.

Like attrition, attrition comes for all of us. Uh, at the, I'm feeling it. I got, I got to say, I'm really dragging at this point. I'm in, I'm in like minute 52 of an overtime game, basically. I could, I could really use like the, give me an official review. Like, Kevin Durant turn around. Justin's just like, dude, what the somebody just poke a ball out of bounds so that the officials have to review it for 10 minutes and I can sit down, please.

Yeah. It does feel like that with all these series going to seven, but it does make it more fun. Does anybody have any questions for us? Yeah, hit us with some questions in the chat. They can be about this game. They can be with the playoffs. They can be about Syria.

It's apparent lockdown defense that I still don't believe. anything you want. Yeah, I admitted today that I've never watched, uh, watched Fast and Furious. And it actually like, yeah, well, it's set off this, this amazing reaction of a lot of people coming forward and admitting that they too haven't, um, haven't watched Fast and Furious. So actually, like, you know, in the, in between, uh, yes, fans, I do have issues with a, with a bill of tire. Uh, oh boy. I mean, it's, has it become, has it become an official hire yet? No, I don't think it's official yet. Okay.

Okay, well, I mean... We'll have to revisit the language. Yeah, I mean, that's... They're closing in, closing in on a bill-ups hire, whatever it is right now. Yeah. That's for a different pod. Yeah, it's definitely for a different pod. But, yeah, no, I mean, a lot of people came forward and said, hey, like, I, too haven't

seen Fast and Furious. I stand with you. So, you know, in between watching this game, I actually started a bit of a revolution and really allowed a lot of people. people to heal. So I don't know. I'm not saying I'm a hero. But I mean, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't use that word. No, but somebody else could. Yeah, if they wanted to. If they wanted to. The legions of people just like you definitely would. Do we have, okay, so we've actually, we've got, we've got a couple questions now. Thoughts on Reddish back in the lineup and if he

can have any impact. Rob, take it away. I mean, he didn't really get a chance to play many meaningful minutes. So I think we'll have to wait and see for game three. But part of the issue is, I didn't really feel like the Hawks were hurting for good wings necessarily. Like, Herder has been really good all throughout these playoffs. I think the one issue would be Bogdanovich in his knee and how much he's really able to get up and go. And, you know, if they're going to run him through screens and stuff on the other end, how much he's going to hold up to that. That's one area where if you're not going to lean on Solomon Hill, you know, Yeoman, Superstar, Solomon Hill, then I think you can get something from Cam Reddish hopefully.

You should lean a little bit more on Hill. I think that's, if there are any silver linings to take out of this game, getting Cam Reddish some run, even though it wasn't a situation where he wasn't going to be able to get any level of rhythm. He looked so happy when he came into the game. That was just nice to see. I think he was just super excited, which I imagine anybody would be,

even if like, you know, your team is losing. But yeah, just being able to get him to run in this game, and not having to, like, you know, potentially risk some real minutes helps. You know, potentially, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see how he looks. But they definitely, like, looking at today's game, they definitely could use some more defense. And he actually, like, he could, do you think he could have a shot on Drew?

At this point, I guess, like, anybody has to try it. I think the issue would be, you know, this is his first playoff minutes ever. Isn't that the issue with the Hawks in general? Well, but they've been able to, you know, they've had some onboarding through their previous series. So I'm not surprised he was thrilled to get in this game. I mean, it's great to make your playoff debut, but this is a high pressure situation to be suddenly plunked into. So, I mean, they should give him a try on Drew because they don't have a lot of other good options there in particular, especially when you're moving Trey around to hide him. Like you need someone with a body who's agile enough to do that.

Reddish is theoretically that kind of player, but that's a lot to ask. And especially I wouldn't, I mean, I'm not going to move them into the starting lineup or anything like that. Rob, how much, Rob, how much would they have to pay you to, uh, to take the magic coaching job from Vance Williams? I mean, not that much by coaching standards. It seems like a, I mean, I don't really want to live in Florida, but. Okay. I mean, that's why you wouldn't do it. Yeah, yeah.

Everything else seems fine. Cade Cunningham to the Pistons. fit takes. I'm going to be honest, I'm not like a big draft person until the finals are over. Rob, do you have any Cade Cunningham takes? I'm not even a big draft person until they play their first NBA game, to be honest with you. So you've unfortunately come to the wrong podcast. Yeah, well, yeah, you might want to take that one over to KOC or Kyle. Would the bucks have gone undefeated if Dante DiVenzo didn't get injured? That's actually, man, Wow.

Like that, what a great example of, you know, not having to not having to maximize yourself and still being better than everybody else. I had kind of just forgotten that Dante Diefenchezgo was hurt because, I mean, like they could. I mean, look, he's actually, he would have, he would have been a really great body off the bench to, to defend Trey for sure. Like, better than anybody else that they have right now. Like, you kind of hate when he, like, these, these moments when Pat Connington gets stuck

on him to switch or just. You just really feel for the guy. So, yeah, I mean, I think it would have made an impact. Potentially, you know, in game one, nothing really made an impact today. But yeah, I mean, Dante is, he's a 3-and-D guy, he's young. It would have been also just, like, great experience for him. When he can chase guys, too. Like, I would have seen him less for Tray and more for Bogdanovich and Herder and those guys.

Like, again, another way to save Chris Middleton's legs to make him more of a score. If you can have Dante taking some of that off his plate. Yeah, man, this team is just like, it's so talented. It's just more, I feel like it's just about like finding that right balance between offense and defense. And it just, it really felt like they struck it perfectly today. Casey Nolan asked, what pieces of the hawks missing that will take them to the next level? Or is it just having a healthy team and more experience? Well, I mean, I think you're going to have to replenish some of the vets after this.

Like, Danilo Gallinari, you can't really count on him doing this twice. Honestly, it kind of feels like this is like probably his title shot. it's been a hell of a run from him though like Gall has he's been showing up wings like it's almost like at one point I think like when he's getting dunks and driving that's when it gets a little weird

I expect him to just shoot over the top of people maybe post him up but when he's actually getting to the basket I mean he's I don't know what his bag looks like at this stage in his career but he's fumbling through it and finding some good stuff pretty much in every series he plays in he got a good practice shot up against Drew today that could potentially be something he could do. But man, like this team actually has a ton of playoff experience. Not necessarily like championship experience, but they have a lot of a lot of guys that have like just

been in the league for a long time. So I mean, I think the same thing applies to Solomon Hill. But, you know, you're going to get Hunter back. The thing for the Hawks to me is really just like, are they going to just go into the tax and keep everybody? You know, like that to me is a bigger question. I don't know if it's really about adding another piece. Like I think if they can keep everybody that they have. That's a, that's a terrifying team. Like they, like, they, they just got Cam Reddish back too. So, like, I think it's just about like kind of figuring out, uh, what's next. Yeah, at some point they're probably going to have to start consolidating, if anything, because, you know, they'll, they'll bring back Collins and Herder if they can, uh, but

Herder, I mean, sorry, Collins is a restricted free agent. Right. This season. So he's probably going to get the max. And a herder's got another year because he's on Tray Young's time table. but Hunter is such a huge part of this team. I mean, between Trey's hurt shoulder and Bogdanovich's knee and not having Hunter and just getting reddish back now, I mean, next year's Hawks team is going to look very different. They're just going to have to juggle things in a totally different way once they have all their pieces back. And so, again, at some point, at some point there's a trade just to trade two good players for one very good player, you know? Yeah, probably.

And like, you know, naturally, I think, I think that's actually kind of the tension with like, the John Colin situation is that like not all young players can can like dominate an offense and and thrive and find like like their most dominant selves like on on one team right like that's always a tough thing with development of young guys but I also wonder like you know with when I brought up the vets earlier like you could replenish a lot of them the other thing is that like you know you still have some time to figure out what cam is and not it's not like every one of these guys has to pop and be a star. Like right now, things are looking really good.

But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think the Hawks are mad talented. I don't really think they like need to, they can't really add anything else if they have to sign anybody else, anybody anyway. They're really good. And we don't even know what Anyaka Ongu will be yet. You know, he's such, she's just kind of a bit player on this team. He could be their starting center in two years and be a really good player potentially. He's been pretty good in his, uh, in his playoff minutes.

Today he, at his worst moment was probably, I think, I mean, there was like a rotation he didn't make on Janus, but for the most part, he hasn't really looked like a rookie. And he's like, you know, he's already got an NBA body. Like seems like he works really hard. And like today, today, like there's a point in the second quarter where he just kept drawing fouls and none of them were shooting fouls. And it felt like the Hawks could use it to, you know, just, you know, get into the bonus early and try to, like, just dig into into the lead. But then obviously the bucks went on the 20-0 run. But all of that is just to say that he can more than, like, hold his own in a couple of minutes here, which, you know, that's quite a bit for a big man that's a rookie. Yeah.

What else we got? Rob, jump in on the Doug McDermott top 10 free agent in 2021 camp. Is that a camp? I don't think that's a full camp. That seems like at best that seems like an encampment, maybe just like a stray tent on the side of the road with one guy in it who you don't really trust. Is it move of like a porta-potty?

What a terrifying thought. The Doug McDermottet free agent port-a-pottie apparently. That's where he's taking his calls at 12 a.m. this year. Who are our title favorites? I think it's the bucks I got the Sons of the Sons But that's I mean that that could

I mean we don't really know what's going to happen in either of these series yet But no Yeah we can talk about that potential matchup when it comes But yeah I mean I do what do you think about the comparison between like the Sons and the Hawks Like we talk you know what actually we shouldn't talk about this because we are talking about this next With Chris Is Pat giving me a yeah for for for not making editing difficult. No, I think he's giving you a yeah, for the sons, for the sons. Oh, for the sons. Oh,

because he put a son, son emoji. That is what emojis usually mean. That's true. Let me explain emojis to you real quick. Thank you. Thank you. What are they? That was the end of my bit. That was all I had. So yeah, I know, I want to put you there because I think it would actually be difficult to explain what emojis are. Yeah. What emoji would you use in this? performance giving you Nick Van Exel 2003 playoff vibes. Oh, that's high praise. Nick Van Exel was really good in the 2003 playoffs.

Tell me about it. I wasn't there. Well, I mean, he was coming off the bench for that Mavericks team. I mean, I'm trying to think of what the comp for him would be. I mean, obviously he's like the ballsy, shoot first guard off the bench, but just swagger up to a thousand. I don't think there's anybody

in this series there really compares to that. I mean, Trey. I guess it's probably got to be a bench guy. This feels like this feels like what Bogdanovich could have been, not a bench guy, but like Bogdanovich could have met this guy if he was healthy. You mean healthy coming off the bench

for the bucks in our alternate dimension? Yes, exactly. Reggie Jackson has been on one this whole playoffs. Very much has been. Oh, that's right. Sorry. We were talking about Nick Van Exel as he compared to Reggie Jackson,

not anyone in this series. My mistake. I have no way to process how good Reggie Jackson is right now. Do you have the framework to understand what is happening there? Because I don't. Playoff basketball. That's actually playoff basketball.

There we go. We found one. Weird shit happens sometimes, man. I feel like that's the whole Clipper's story this year. Just role players you really don't expect to do things that, like, you know, you would predict at very timely moments. Have we, has it been unearthed whether his performance shifted? once he started wearing the goggles.

No, that's a great story idea. In previous playoff seasons, well, I mean, he wasn't exactly in the playoffs all that much, but I just was not impressed with Reggie Jackson as a player at all. But now that he wears Rexpex, I feel like his game has, you know, it's visibly matured.

Oh, there you go. There you go. Do you think he actually, like, was one of those people that got glasses to feel smarter and he actually internalized it? Do Rexpex make you feel smarter? I don't know that works that way. I don't know.

There's only one way to find out, Rob. Okay. And we'll be doing it in a pickup because now I have to lock you down. I don't think that's going to go too well. It's going to be a real Brooke Lopez versus Trey Young kind of vibe. I think I think really match up. Yeah. That sounds fun.

That sounds fun. I can like, you know, like no old first, like you just like won't be allowed to call a foul on me. I don't think that's how pick. Well, actually, no. That is sometimes how pickup works, actually. I take that back. I mean, like, there's an etiquette to it, right? Do we have anything else?

Other than that, other than that, I think, I think we've covered a lot today. Do you guys have any other questions? Yeah, last call for questions if you want to get them in. Maybe he'll have a Monarchal next game. That's Ian McFadden. By the way, Siri, go lightning. I'm assuming that's a hockey reference. Bill's been trolling me because I just have not been paying any.

attention to hockey despite the fact that this is Canada's chance to get their pride back and win the Stanley Cup, take it back to Canada. But I'm not about borders here, you know. I think we should be transitioning to a more borderless world, a fluid world where, you know, a Canadian like Sir and Sohey can just have a conversation with an American, a red-blooded American male like Rob Mahoney.

Very cosmopolitan of you. Yeah, I thought so. Look at us. It's a new world order on this podcast tonight. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're changing things, you know, we're changing the game. Casey asks,

this will be the last question that we take. So much of the conversation has been around the defensive adjustment that the bucks make. Are there any defensive adjustment the Hawks can make? We talked a little bit about Janus,

I think, just giving him different looks. So we won't get too much into that. But other than Janus, what do you think, Rob? Well, I mean, you could tilt away more from their shooters. Like, they shot well in this one,

but the gamble and the gambit you run with the hawks in a lot of cases is you want you want to live with brook taking threes you want to live with pat conotent taking threes all these role players even some nights drew holiday taking threes and if that allows you to get into the lane and swipe at yonis a little bit more just to crowd him out a little bit i think that could be worth exploring it's just such a fine line you have to walk with mowaukee when when they're in this kind of position when yonis is dominating his one-on-one matchup in that particular way and the shooters are hitting it's just that's a no-win situation i think most games will be

pretty different. There's a little more leeway there. Otherwise, I don't know that there's a lot of matchup play for them. They're kind of locked into some of their stuff because you don't want to put Trey on anyone who's a threat to score, really. And so then you're really just looking at those other four guys and doing the best you can with three threats who all attack in such different ways. The best person to guard Chris Middleton is not usually the best person to guard Drew Holiday. Their games just are too different for that. So I don't know that there's a lot of like matchup changing to be done per se for the hawks so much as tweaking the game plan a little bit, limiting the turnovers, which we've hit a lot.

I mean, just reducing the Bucks fast break offense is going to be the biggest thing they can possibly do for their defense. Yeah, I agree. I'd say, I'd say, you know, I'm a little bit more leaning towards a side of just let Janus try to beat you and live with the results, at least for the most part, you're going to be living with two-pointers that way. But come to think of it, you know, game. three in Atlanta, I wonder if you start off crowding him and just seeing like who's going

to hit threes on the road. That is though a risky thing to do with the team that has as much experience as Milwaukee. I think you probably just want to go with what you think is tactfully best. And personally, I think it's just, you know, seeing if, seeing if Yonis can beat you. Because once everybody else gets going, it just, it just gets tough. But yeah, in this situation, your best defense really is your offense. Like, you just don't want them, want them going in transition. So that's really where they, where they have to figure things out, play some hawks basketball. Some hawks playoff

basketball. All right. Thank you so much, Rob. Thank you so much. Everyone else for joining us. Great questions. We appreciate that you guys, that you guys come and listen to these. We're definitely seeing some repeat listeners and stuff. So that's

that's super duper appreciated. There's a lot of places you can go to, you know, break down the game and we appreciate that you do it here. But signing off, Rob, thank you so much. Is there anything you want to plug? What do you got? I got no plugs. I'm in a green room on a Friday night. This is all I got going on

right now. Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, signing off on this Friday night is yours truly and Rob Mahoney. Okay, Sir, we're back. Whatever just happened happened in Hawksbucks, but we're here to chat a little bit about

some of these young players in the postseason. If you had a question that you would answer, ask, that we would answer today. Do you have one or is it really just like, damn, look at these young players go? Question mark? You know, it's funny. I like that you're getting a little bit meta here. First of all, Chris, I missed you. I know. It's nice to be talking basketball with you again. Well, I only do post games where there's 15 reviews in the last two minutes and D'Andre Aiton does a alleyup dunk to finish the game. Is that in your contract?

Yes, that's right. I negotiated it with Daniel Lack himself. Yeah. Yeah. Today we're talking about, today we're talking about the kids. Yeah. The kids are more than all right. The kids are overtaking. No, okay, so we have, I do have, I do have questions.

More than anything else. So we're going to be talking about, obviously everybody knows it's like one of the biggest topics. This postseason has been how many young players are dominating. We're definitely seeing a change. You know, batons are being passed. But beyond that, players seem to be younger than ever in the NBA playoffs and doing things that they weren't able to do before. Or at least there was an idea that they weren't able to do it before. Just the idea, you know, the playoffs are more physical.

You have to be more intelligent. You know, vets, you know, they've been there, right? So I think, let's start here. Let's start here. Do you think that that stereotype had some truth to it before? Yeah, I think that it used to be an older league. I think guys used to come into the league slightly older, whether they'd spent a little bit more time in college

or come over after a few years in Europe or a few years in South America or what have you. And I think that they're just expected to contribute a little bit earlier. There's two kind of angles that I wanted to approach this from. And door A, door B here. But one thing is, you know, I was hearing Rissillo and Kevin talk a little bit about this in relationship to the lottery that happened earlier this week. And they were talking about the shot making that's happening in the league and whether or not

we're in the midst of a talent wave. And I guess that's possible. We could be in the midst of just like a bunch of guys who happened to be really good at basketball all coming into the NBA at the same time. We could also be going through a moment similar to the one that the NFL went through where all of a sudden some of the concepts from like Texas high school football and some of the more high-act-ane offenses in college football, all of those, like, kind of ideas start coming into the NFL,

and you get Patrick Mahomes playing in an offense that no one had ever seen before, unless they watch a lot of Texas Tech, you know, or Oklahoma. But the NBA version of that is that guys are learning younger and younger how to emphasize and develop individual skills and specifically, like, shot-making skills and specifically like concepts about getting to your spots, drawing contact, playing off of contact,

floaters. Like, I mean, like these things that you would think it takes seven, eight years in the league to sort of really refine. And you get somebody like Trey, or you get somebody like Booker, and maybe they're miracles, or maybe they're like a harbinger of things to come. What do you think?

You know, I think they're definitely a harbinger of things to come. There are a lot of, that's a great metaphor, too, with football because, you know, you see a lot more spread pick and roll in lower levels now than you used to. And that used to be, for point guards, especially for lead guards, that used to be the hardest transition to learn how to play the pick and roll. And now everyone's playing pick and roll from a young age. And, you know, this isn't necessarily a good thing,

but it's probably a different conversation to have. But for, you know, the last pretty much since basketball has been a profitable enterprise. youth hoops has progressively moved towards actually just becoming a business and players yeah yeah really and players are are really forced to act like professionals at a very young age um and and the game always evolves i think the game is naturally always going to get better um you know like i think when we do when we do comparisons back to like you know other other players i don't people don't necessarily like saying that like, you know, the new guys are always better, but they have more tools. I was on, I was on Bill's pod last night.

We were recapping Clipper Sons, and we were talking about Booker. And he made a really interesting point about how, like, guys are just smarter, right? Like, all the players in the playoffs are really smart. And I think that that might be a really big reason for why we're seeing this, because if you look at Booker, for example, but he's just one example. but he embodies a lot of things that I think are why we're seeing this. So first of all, he goes to Kentucky. Devin Booker is probably, like, he's known he's going to be a pro for a really long time, right?

His dad played professional basketball. We're seeing more of that too. And he chooses a school that is essentially a, you know, it's a prep to pro program to prepare you for the NBA. He wanted that. And I think, you know, Kentucky players want that. They want to get, like, get their feet wet, essentially. Like, you have to, you have to play to, like, you know, 20,000 fans that are extremely passionate.

You're basically a celebrity. You have to, you know, act like a professional. And you also get to be in big moments. The night's man is probably also a McDonald's All-Star, right? Right, yeah. Yeah, it's a real, it's a real talented team where guys have to sacrifice, too. You have to play your role. McKeel Bridges is another great example of this.

Went to Villanova. which is essentially that school has become like, how do you prepare for the NBA? Like I remember talking to Jay Williams about like, you know, positional inversions and stuff. And he basically told me like, we are preparing our guys for the NBA. And if we,

or not necessarily the NBA, just development, right? And if we end up losing some games because we're playing the long game, that's fine. Obviously Villanova doesn't lose a lot of games. So it works out. And he's very, very free to just say that. Did you say,

Did you say Jay Williams? Oh. Jay Williams is on my mind. I was like, Jay Williams really is invested in Villanova. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a big Villanova guy. As, as we all know. Jay Wright, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, my bad. Jay Wright, yeah. Yeah, no, I got, I got hacked there. That's what happened. Of course. No, it happens. It happens once upon, but we persevere.

Exactly, exactly. But yeah, like, there's guys are just being forced to be professionals at a very young age. So I think, I think this is here to stay. Yeah. Would you consider, so let's try to like do a little bit of historical mapping. Do you think that this is a long-term result of other NBA teams or the league itself, just seeing what the Thunder did in the early part of the 2010s, as they moved from Seattle, Oklahoma City, they draft these three guys.

They not only in the lottery, but hit the lottery with those three guys. They also get somebody like a Baca. They surround those guys with competent enough talent, although obviously not enough to get them over the hump. And within three years, right, three years or so, they get into the finals, right? I think it was their fourth year together,

or the fourth year that, like, I think it was Katie's fourth year. For Katie's fourth year, they're in the finals against the heat. Yeah. And obviously, you know, that was a false dawn to some extent because they had so much trouble with the warriors after that. But I think a lot of teams, the Sixers, the Hawks, looked around and said, that's our way. We're probably not going to be the heat. We're probably not going to be the Knicks.

We're not going to be either a free agency destination or the kind of place that we can lure a blockbuster trade, like an Anthony Davis or whoever to come to our team. so we have to draft like we have to draft well and we have to build up our guys in their rookie deal so that we can surround them with with good talent. Do you think that this is what we're seeing with Trey, with Booker, to some extent with Yannis? But I mean, do you think that we're seeing a long-term effect of the thunder?

Yeah, totally. That's a great point. Because when you look at it, so look at the suns, right? Obviously James Jones has come in now, But before Ryan McDonough was a GM, he was with the Celtics before that. And he was definitely, like, you know, one of the guys that I think was looking at what the Sixers were doing. And there were a lot of teams that were looking at what the Sixers were doing. The Sixers were the loudest about it.

But, you know, analytics-minded teams that were being more intentional about team building and what it is that they actually are as a franchise is definitely, yeah. Like, do you feel like franchises are becoming more self-aware? Because, like, if you look at the Hawks, too, Travis Schenck came from the Warriors as well. So, you know, Booker, Aiton, and McHill were drafted by McDonough. And then obviously, Shlank, Travis Schenck has, you know, built this Hawks team. And I think that the place that they even, like, kind of evolved past, like, what the Sixers did is realizing that, A, you can build around vets and young guys, which is also, like, one of those NBA stereotypes.

It does get harder, right? I think certain locker rooms, like you like to, you know, old teams can say, hey, we're not going to practice a lot, things like that. I remember the Raptors used to just have optional practices for, like, you know, Kyle Lowry, while, you know, O.G.

I don't know, would have to be. I have optional practices in my deal with Spotify. It's nice. Dude, like, where, who did you talk to? It's just chronic back problems. It's just what goes into it. I do think you have. have a point there. I think that the idea of teams being a little bit more self-aware and a little

bit more intentional is right. It can go wrong. I mean, I think that there's another component here where it's like aside from the younger players, you also have to think about often the oldest person on that bench is going to be the head coach. And we are seeing an example, especially with Nate McMillan. The difference between Lloyd and Nate is apparently the Eastern Conference finals. That is apparently that's how good of a, how big of an upgrade they just made at coach. Now maybe all of those guys just needed to hear

a new voice and run a couple of different sets and get a couple of different instructions. And there's just a different vibe in the locker room. But yeah, I do think that Travis Schlenkin must know Atlanta has historically not been despite the fact that is quite popular with NBA players has not been like a free agency destination

for NBA players. And this is the best way to get where he wants to go. Yeah, there's two things on that. So I think switching out Pierce for McMillan was perfect for, well, first of all, Pierce had clearly just, you know, lost a locker room. Like, there was just, you know, that situation was a mess. Like, he needed to go. But they also, like, they brought in Nate McMillan, who has always been, like, a very structured coach.

And if you look at the Sons and the Hawks, what they have, I love comparing these teams because they're very similar. they have this really good blend of structure and youth that has allowed them to thrive. I think that's essentially what the Hawks offense needed, with a little bit more creativity too. But I think young players want to know what they're supposed to do. And I think that there is something to having flow for sure. But it has to be within a certain confine. And I think that that really allows most people to thrive, right?

just like knowing what your job is. And the sons and hawks have both accomplished that, you know, Chris Paul and Monty Williams. Monty Williams was known for, you know, being one of those guys. He said earlier in this season that, you know, when he did, you know, he did a redux on his, you know, previous coaching stints. And he was asking a former player about, you know, what he could have done better. And he said that, you know, he just, he made, he made, he made,

Monty made him feel scared to make mistakes. And that was one of those things that, well, you know, Monty after having that conversation really felt guilty about that and changed that about himself. And I think that, like, he's struck the perfect balance now in terms of like being encouraging. And I think that Nate McMillan is also similarly very encouraging, very positive. And I think that that also really helps as well.

Because, like, and like most young players are still finding who they are, right? I think like when you're in a new situation like that, it helps. Yeah. The flip side of that of everything that we're seeing right now is a team like the Pelicans, right, where they have two young stars, three young stars. They try to surround them with structure and veteran savvy and some locker room guys with Reddick and Adams. And you wound up with, I think the pelicans have been the beneficiaries of multiple athletic tell-alls this season and podcast. You know, JJ Reddick podcast about like the dysfunction of the front office and Stan Van Gundy leaves after a year. And so it can go wrong.

The athletic tell all is like really becoming. It's not a good sign. Please nobody write an athletic tell all about me. You know what you mean? no it'll just be Chris Ryan is wonderful we'll get you know what we should like they should they should just reach out to like every CR head yeah that's right

that's right they could be the anonymous sources and me um the you know there's this thing that's been out there a little bit I think it happened when the

more when the conference finals pairing's got sort of determined where was this idea of like oh this is so bad for the NBA you know this idea and we don't have to I think it's a little bit of straw man I don't really know who is saying that

but it's like except for like four dudes who work at Sports Business Journal. But it's like this idea that no LeBron, no Steph, no AD, no Mb, no Dantich, all these like lack of like these All-Stars is going to mean like, oh, nobody's going to watch the playoffs. And then we get the games that we've gotten so far. And they're amazing. I would add another to the counter to that argument that there's somehow like,

this is bad for the league to have these teams in the conference finals. And the ratings are much better. The ratings are much better. Yeah. Which shows you why you can't like really make predictions based on, about anything with ratings because nobody knows why people do things. Fans wanted something new. Yeah.

And you know what? The fans of those specific teams and the fans who are now becoming fans of the sons or becoming fans of the Hawks because they want to chew for somebody in this stretch run. And even the bucks are the connection you make with a young player who is drafted by your team, I refuse to hear a bad thing about it. it is still one of the more wholesome things that happens in sports. Yes, it can go wrong. Yes, the player may not work out.

Yes, the player's career might get ruined by like a bad experience with his first team. But when you draft somebody and that person comes good and you come good for that person and it works out, that's why people burn jerseys. Like, I don't think it's cool that they do that. But that's why people get so attached to watching someone grow up in front of them. and Trey, you know, who I just can't believe beat the Sixers, I am against all odds, like, enjoying the Trey experience this round because I'm like, if I was a Hawks fan,

I would get a tattoo of this guy on my chest. What would it? It would just be the hair part kind of coming out of like the, like, so it would be kind of like upper, you know, pecks, but it would just be Trey Young hair. Would that be cool? Yeah. I think it would be pretty disturbing.

Would you get it like, would you like get it like colored in as like the same color as Trey's hair? No, it would be like an Edward Gory drawing. You know, it would just be like really like. Who's Edward Gory? He's like a children's illustrator. I knew that that was going to be too deep in reference. So yeah, anyway, my point is basically like one of the reasons why I think this has been a really cool playoffs is that the sons and foe grig gang can be like, we love Devin Booker. And like the Hawks people can be like Trey Young forever.

ever. I've not felt this way about somebody since Neek. You know, like, there is, there is an attached attachment that happens to young players that I think is, it's just one of them, like, the purest thing in sports. Yeah, of course. I mean, look, ultimately, we love stories. And stories are just watching people evolve. Yeah. NBA players are given so many challenges. It's literally just a structure of sports. It's like put motivated people in situations where they are going to face a lot of challenges at an age when they are going to naturally grow a lot,

and you are going to see some really interesting, very human things. Like, just, you know, everybody's experience is so unique. And getting to, like, watch just a little, like, tiny, needy, gritty bits of that is just amazing. Look at how people reacted to Terrence Mann. Kauai Linder was playing, like, Michael friggin' Jordan for, like, three weeks. And people were like, oh, man, Kauai's really great. Like, maybe Kauai is the best player in league. Terence Mann has one great game, and people are, like, naming their kids, Terrence.

It's just, like, this really seductive. thing. You should get like Terrence tattooed under. Yeah, under the tray. That would be like difficult to explain. Let's find you a new team to root for. Would you ever stop rooting for the Sixers? No.

No, I've come too far, you know? Okay. Do you have a trusted process tattoo in like a place that nobody sees? No. I know. I have a Doug Collins tattoo where nobody can see. But that's for another pod. Let's keep talking about some of these kids though.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. for sure. One of the things that's interesting too is that I think that player empowerment, ironically, is going to make that feeling even stronger between the fans of the players who decide to stay. Like, look at Damien Lillard, right? The fact that he has made an active decision to, you know, not wield his power to be able to stay, I think makes that relationship more

special. Whereas before, I think like a lot of that stuff, you know, like the stuff you mentioned about why, you know, sometimes, you know, it doesn't exactly what it seems happens because players didn't necessarily feel like they could make a decision about, like, where they want to go next. And now that they can, it's all the more special. Like, look at Janus, for example, if Janus wins one championship in Milwaukee, that's ultimately, like, more special than anything he would have done somewhere else. And, you know, that's just, that's just reality. Yeah. There's, like, two different MBAs. There's the NBA, there's Lakers fans, you know, and they're like, well, we, we were supposed to win the title at least once every couple of years. And then there's

everybody else. And all my Mavericks friends are just like, Dirk is God. I will never forget 2011 for as long as I live. And everybody on that team should be the executive vice president of the current Mavericks. You know what I mean? Like, and that's why you're seeing Dirk and Yeah, this might be the negative side of loving your championship team. too much right now. There definitely is. There definitely is. But it's, it is that thing where when your team gets that once in 15 years, 20 years championship, and one of these four teams is going to be a first time winner at least for like 50 years. Is that right? Whenever the bucks like won the last one the title. So it's going to be an incredible moment no matter what happens in the finals. And then you have

additionally, all the other storylines on top of it with Chris Paul. or with the clippers getting to the finals for the first time if they go through or with this amazing Cinderella Hawks team. So yeah, I mean, I think it winds up, it winds up creating like a completely different fan experience to the one where you're just sort of like, well, this was bound to happen because the three best players in the league got on the same team.

The Mabs are a really great example of the other side of this, where now because players are so good at such a young age, team building seems to be really changing as well. The idea that, you know, Luca should be really perturbed that the Mavs haven't built a championship team around him after year three is like kind of hilarious. And it never would have been a situation before this. Luca obviously came in being really NBA ready. And also, like, that's another element of this.

A lot of guys coming, you know, from playing like real professional basketball, Bogdan Bogdanovich, the Hawks. There's a reason he's a crunch time king. He's done it before. Read Paulo, you getty at the rigger. So that's a part of it. But yeah, like, it's changing timelines. And I think the Mabbs were definitely, like,

caught a little bit by surprise. And I think that maybe a similar thing happened with the Pelicans. I think the Pelicans internally thought they should take a longer view with Zion's development. I think the idea that they had with structure times youth was right, but maybe the personnel wasn't. Like, you don't really, I mean, we talked about this a couple months ago before, before I was at the ringer, but, you know, saying that you're bringing Eric Bledso and signing Stephen

Adams so that you can have, like, veteran leadership is just like, okay, dude. Yeah. But it's, yeah, so it's interesting. because both of those players now, like we had the athletic report by Tim Cato that, you know, didn't necessarily suggest that Luca could opt out of his contract. Like,

it sounds like, you know, based on what he said after the series, he's definitely going to be signing that supermax. Yeah, why wouldn't you? You could just, a year later, you could just be like, trade me. That's true.

That's actually true. You can get your money and then run. Ed, you know, athletic report also suggesting that, like Zion is unhappy. And that's, I mean, like, that's been out for a while. Ever since Madison Square Garden press conference where he seemed like he was the happiest he's ever been in his life to be in New York City.

Yes. Even before that, even before that, like, I, man, I think he was out on, on, on, on, Stan, like, really early into the season. I think a lot of players were. And I think that, like, maybe it was Stan's negativity. Like, I feel like it was probably that. Um, you do have to, like, kind of have a new balance. now. Like I remember talking to Lloyd Pierce about, about John Collins a couple years ago. And one of the

things that he said was that like, you know, millennials are interesting. Like they want to know why with everything, right? And I think some coaches, ironically, I think maybe like the older you get, the more you're cool with that because like you're just like you're looking for that youthful energy, right? Whereas like if you're that age, you might kind of just get annoyed by it. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like with Nate that it was a perfect fit. And with Stan, it kind of went like the, opposite direction. So, you know, it kind of just shows you. It kind of shows you. Previous SVG team that could potentially kind of like use, use this new formula, like, you know, the pistons. The pistons just got the number one pick. Yep. I'm going to assume they're taking

Kate Cunningham. For the sake of this conversation. For the sake of this conversation. Yeah. And also just for like the sake of, you know, basketball reality and like for the love of God, please take Cate Coddingham number one. Yeah. Now he, you know, he's going to be. potentially joining a roster that has Sudec Bay going into his second year, Isaiah Stewart going into his second year, both really, really solid defensive players, Sadiq Bay, Villanova guy,

and Killing with your regret. I only know from listening to the mismatch. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. I've never actually seen Kian Hayes play. I only hear about him on the mismatch. Gosh, forgetting about Kian Hayes. Is Kee actually a real player? Is he just like something that KOC has manifested? It's a KOSC projection.

direction. Yeah. If you, like looking at what Kevin likes about basketball, like a creative, tall playmaking a guy that can shoot. Yeah. Yeah. That feels like what KOC would project. Right.

Yeah. But yeah, I guess Kaly and Hayes also on Detroit Pistons. And also there's Jeremy Grant too. So you have different timelines. And that's a really solid, interesting course. that might be able to actually play together and win a championship. And I wonder, you know, that just has implications for the entire league forever in ways that we can't even predict. Like, the Warriors should, can the Warriors actually just draft some players that would be ready to compete for a championship?

Do they have to trade those pins? Do you think that their fans are willing to wait? Do they have to wait? Like for a year, probably, yeah, for a year or two. Maybe? Yeah? Yeah, I guess. but like I think,

I mean, if you pick a challenge player. Isn't it? You know what I mean? It's, it isn't just the kid. It's which kid. And so,

you know, just in the same way, you know, we're sitting like how many years of, of, of lottery picks do Sacramento have sitting on their bench? You know what I mean?

Like, it's, there's sometimes, it's situational. And sometimes it's like, the guy's pretty good, but not great enough to beat, he's not Trey.

He's not Luka. He's not Aiton. And Aiton, obviously, was paired with the exact right two or three other guys to look the way he looks and he seems to have quote unquote gotten it and is now like

just a devastating two-way force and maybe he's the last center standing in this in this playoffs you know no offense to Zubak and and Brooke but like this this guy is essentially is the best center left in the post season there but there are going to be

situations where like the Warriors are what picking seventh seventh seventh and 14th. 7th and 14th. And the reaction that I saw was just basically like from Warriors fans

was essentially like congratulations. That's like two years we've thrown away now. And the idea that, you know, look at everybody who got hurt this year. Look at everybody who just, you know,

hey, put us in the playoffs and let's see what happens. And the warriors didn't do enough to help Steph this year. And who knows what would happen if the Warriors had maybe whether it was Deal Wiseman or whatever and they would have been the 60th or the 70

but like let's say they get into the playoffs like are the Warriors demonstrably worse than the Clippers on their worst day? Like I don't know. I mean like Steph in the playoffs is a X factor that you can't account for. So I don't get the impression that the Warriors fans are that trustworthy in who the Warriors are going to pick

to leave them back to the promised land Clay coming back or not. It also gets to the other the other new thing we're seeing is young players are facing criticism like we have never seen James Wiseman is a big man who like

clearly just wasn't like he just didn't really get not to say he didn't get the game but the game is just a little too fast for him right now and he has incredible talent

he just didn't look ready and big men always have, they tend to have like a developmental timeline that just takes a little bit longer. And I think what we're losing in some of this is just the patience of saying, hey, like obviously these guys are going to be flawed. Like that's kind of happening with Luca. I feel like Ben Simmons feels like it's happening to him. He's been in the league longer than some of these guys. And obviously like, you know, they're genuine places of improvement that he needs to make.

But there's also, I mean, I don't want to do too much like cycle analysis. of Ben, and I'll obviously, I'll let you take care of most of it, but when you have to improve your skills in public like that, I think that can be very difficult when you have like that level of spotlight on you and immediately you're being pressured to win a championship, which essentially winning a chance, like trying to win a championship just means like getting rid of all of your weaknesses so they can't be exploited. And that's, I mean, young players are going to happen. I think a lot of Sixers fans would settle for getting out of the second round, but I do understand. saying. The improvements thing is really interesting because I watch Trey now compared to even earlier in the regular season and a lot of the things that I didn't like about his game aesthetically

or the things I thought were weaknesses of his in terms of him trying to do too much or him not trusting his teammates or him hunting for fouls. He has turned those things into strengths. He is now one of the tougher players in the postseason, I think, in terms of the amount of contact he's taking,

the amount of contact he's initiating, like real contact, not like this guy brushed past me and I went flying across the court. And he's also trusting the setup. And he's finding the guy in the corner and he's finding the skip pass. And he's making these, like, Bill keeps bringing up Nash with Trey,

these Nashian plays where... Hey, last night he brought up Alan Iverson. How do you feel about that? I'm not ready to hear that, but like I have not seen a small guard play this well and like the way he's playing since Iverson. I will say that. I mean, I think there are. I got shades and that when he kept going, when he just kept going into the lane. But here's the thing. He's so smart. Like when he was driving and he would have Simmons on him and if he could get past Simmons and he would have Embed waiting for him, he wouldn't just leap into Embed and hope that he got the foul. He would do the Nash dribble around. He would do the like, I'm going to turn Embed around twice and then I'm going to hit Bogie for him. He would be able to. And then I'm going to hit Bogie for. for a three. It's like he is seeing the game now. And that is the coolest thing. Like when you see these guys realize like what they can do in real time, it's the best part about basketball. It's the coolest thing about these playoffs because there are so many young guys that are realizing in front of their own faces. Like they are maybe not necessarily surprising themselves.

But I think there's always just an extra bit of confidence that you get when you show that like you are, like, you are, like Aiton, for example. I think Aiton, Aiton played despite the Clippers lost, like, Aiton is first of all, like, just controlling the rotations on that series,

but I can see him taking a really huge jump after that game too, right? Like, those are the types of moments that can really power a player and, like, have them believing in themselves.

And again, like, it kind of goes back to what you were saying about, like, you know, fans loving the guys that were drafted their franchises.

There's just something so special about watching guys do that, watching anybody do that in any profession ever. Like, it's just the coolest thing in the world. If you live in Phoenix and Aiden went to Arizona and now is on Phoenix and you're just like, I've been with this kid since he was 16, 17 years old or whatever, 18 years old, it's got to be awesome.

Yeah, especially somebody with a wherewithal, like to be able to change their game, go from like being a number one pick and not saying, well, I need to score 25 points a game in order to prove that I deserve the number one pick because everybody's saying that, you know, the son should have drafted Luca or Trey and like they mess this up and all this stuff. Like, I think that just takes a lot of maturity to say, hey, no, like, I can, I can still sacrifice despite that. And I think that, like, in general, you know, now thinking about the positive, like, going back to coaches being positive for younger teams and encouraging, I think that these, these, this crop of players, obviously, has dealt with criticism at a level that is unprecedented. social media times just like the spotlight of being in the playoffs early is just ratcheted things up to a degree that I don't think that like you know it's like Michael

Jordan probably faced that level of scrutiny and you know like they may not know how to handle it in the best way like say Kevin Durant does I think yo man I I love the way Kevin handles it honestly I'm such a fan of it I think it's being logged on yeah He uses Twitter the right way. He just doesn't give a crap. I think it's great. I think he's just saying what he wants to say. I think, honestly, the thing with Kevin is that, like,

like a lot of players right now, we actually hear their voices. And people are complicated, so they become hard to pigeonhole. I think it was so much easier before to pigeonhole people. Like, I don't know. I think he handles it great, honestly. Because he just isn't letting...

I agree with you. I just think it's really funny when he gets like, he completely gets clickbaited where it's just like this this was meant to do this and he's just like, I'm here. Yeah, he does. He, you know, he's actually like, he really like, despite the fact that he doesn't seem to like the game and all of, like not basketball, but like, you know, the game outside of it,

he does a great job of contributing to it. He sure does. And giving us things to talk about. We appreciate the content. please young players continue to give us content. Is there anything else you wanted to hit before we turn in for the night? No, I think

this pretty much covers it. We got into some interesting places. I'm really excited to see where this goes. Like basketball is continuing to evolve. This generation of players, Trey Young, why is he able to have a Nash dribble at this age? Because he grew up watching Steve Nash. There's going to be players right now

that are watching Devin Booker and Trey Young and they're going to get to study them. And that's like one of the positive things about the information age is that like if you want to study something, you can and you can see like those intricacies in Booker's game which is like built off of you know like Kobe and

like passing like LeBron and just like a ton of different things right. And he's picked up a lot from playing with Chris. I think he's picked up a lot of like slow it down make the guy get on your hip. Then you can take him any. where you want and get contact. Yeah.

Yeah. Players who can process all of that information and actually be able to apply it are going to have, you know, the world is going to be their oysters in terms of like how far they can take their game. So let's watch some basketball, man. Yeah, let's do it.

Sir, thank you so much. We'll be back next Friday. Everybody, have a good week.