The Ringer NBA Show - The Cavs' Dominance, Rockets' Liftoff, and Warriors' Huge Spread (Ep. 104)

Episode Date: May 2, 2017

The Ringer's Chris Vernon and Kevin O'Connor discuss the Raptors' reliance on isolation against the Cavs (5:00), James Harden's masterful pick-and-roll play (10:00), LaMarcus Aldridge's dismal showing (15:00), the Spurs' discipline on defense (23:00), Wizards-Celtics (29:00), Scott Brooks's rotations (34:00), John Wall's scoring (40:00), and the Warriors' ridiculous spread over the Jazz (44:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Very excited to announce the newest podcast to the Ringer Podcast Network family. It's against all odds with Cousin Sal. So this pot is gambling, gambling, gambling, and more gambling. Yes, I have a gambling problem. I want to share it with you. I want to make it your problem. And it's not just football. NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs, baseball, horse racing, there's boxing. UFC when we hit... Summer Slam? Oh, all the wrestling when we hit July. We have a hot dog eating contest for Nathan's. And some surprise celebrity guests. Yeah.

All right. It's against all odds with Cousin Sal. Subscribe to it wherever you listen to your podcast. And we're thinking about once a week, right? Yeah, let's do it. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. Joining me as he does every Tuesday from the Ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor.

Kevin. What's going on, Chris? Well, what was going on last night was we did not have competitive basketball. The Cavs ran off. on the Raptors and the Houston Rockets ran off on San Antonio. Let's start with Cavs Raptors, your initial reaction to what took place outside of the, you know, they were doing dunk contest dunks within the first couple of minutes of the game. And I felt as if that was possibly a bad omen for things to come for Toronto, it turned out to be.

But biggest takeaways from Cavs Raptors last night. Well, that dunk was something else. That got me super stoked. And I'm kind of like an old curmudjo when it comes to dunks, but that dunk was great. But as for the game itself, the Raptors can't start Valanchunus. They can't. They can't do it. I mean, you have to play him off the bench.

You can't start him against Cleveland starting five. But the issue is, you know, as the ringers Jonathan Charks brought up in his article today, that you could bring him off the bench against the Bucks last round because They had, you know, Greg Monroe an interior player that he can match up against. But when the Cavaliers take Thompson off the floor, they usually play with the stretch five, whether it's Fry or Love. So I don't know if Valanchunas has much of a role in this series at all, but that needs to be the first change that needs to happen for the Raptors going into game two. It's putting either Powell or Patterson and the starting five over him.

You think he just gets Enis cantered, which is the last two years, right? that at some point Billy Donovan just looked down to his bench and said to Mo Cheeks, I can't play him. And it happened last year and that it's happening again. And now it's just a different big plotter. It's Valenus this time. Yeah, exactly, Chris. That's the way it was watching him for the 20-ish minutes that he played last night.

And I don't think that's going to change at all going forward. Yeah. So what do you do if you're the Raptors? You know, they end up losing by double-day. I mean, the score looks better than the game. wouldn't you say, 116 to 105, but literally,

I never thought that the Raptors were going to be able to win that game. I don't want to just say that because clearly Cleveland is a prohibitive favorite. But even when they, like, came fighting back, I thought this is one of those Cleveland's getting bored. And they feel like the team that when it's time to turn it up, they're just going to be able to turn it up. I know Toronto got a couple of games off of them last year. Feels like, you know, I don't think Toronto's going to be able to beat them in the 110s.

Like they're going to have to keep that game. They're going to have to slow that thing down, though, aren't they? And I know that you're saying that they got to sit valentunis. I mean, you think they can play small and just you think you just go with the front line of Patterson and Abaca would be your best shot? So I think it's partially that, Chris. I think another part of it last night, and this was partially because of Cleveland's defense, and it was partially just Toronto falling into what their old habits were, is last round against the Bucks, they really tweaked their shot just distribution.

During the regular season, they attempted 41% of their shots from mid-range, and then against the Bucks, that number dropped the 32, which would have been like, you know, towards the bottom half of the league in the NBA, whereas before they were in the top five or six. And this was the focus of my article today on the Ringer. then last night against the cavaliers, they reverted right back to their typical habits. You know, more isolations, less ball movement, more mid-range, less threes. And, you know, to beat the cavaliers to keep up with them offensively,

they're one of the most three-point heavy shooting teams in the NBA. You need to be able to shoot more threes or get to the lane and you get layups and dunks just like they did it against the bucks. Because if they're playing the way that they typically do, I don't think that they stand a chance. I mean, it's like you said, Chris, The score is 116 to 105, but it really didn't seem that close at all. Toronto had their fourth quarter kind of garbage time comeback outscoring Cleveland by 10 or 11 in the fourth quarter.

That's what made it feel kind of close. But it's like we talked about last round. That game, you know, the Cavaliers beat the Pacers in game one. They won by one point. It didn't feel like a one point win to me. It felt like a 10 point win. This game against the Toronto Raptors was an 11 point win. It felt more like a 20 point win.

Yeah, and when, I mean, obviously you cannot have three points out of Damare Carroll. Demarie Carroll has to be a part of this series. And he was just, he was literally a nothing last night. I mean, that's a big part of it. Absolutely. They need their bench to, not their bench necessarily, but they need their secondary players and their bench players to far exceed what Cleveland's doing. Because Kyle Lorry and DeMarderose, and, you know,

unless they have, you know, super inefficient games like they haven't passed playoff series, those are the guys you're going to lean on. but to create separation against Cleveland, they need the Damari Carols and the Sergei Baccas and the Corey Josephs and the Norm Powell's of the world on their team to really elevate their play. Because look at Cleveland's bench. You know, we've talked about this before. They have guys who can, you know, do two good things in the court. But defensively, most of those guys really aren't that effective. Fry can hit threes.

Corvick can hit threes. Williams makes plays sometimes. But for the most part, those guys can be attacked on the defensive end of the floor. and that's where you need, Toronto needs those guys a step up. Like Patrick Patterson last night, one for seven from the floor, one for five from three. They need him to have that three for five from three nights to create that, you know, to close the gap with Cleveland. They need to be able to score and hit their threes.

And if they're playing like they are last night, I'm not sure how long this series could realistically go. Because Cleveland looks just so far and ahead of them, you know, both in terms of style of play, shot distribution, but also just pure, a sheer talent. You end up forgetting as time goes on, but you know, you brought up at the very beginning of this about Valentunus and about how he couldn't play. If we go back, Valentunus wasn't involved in last year's series. And Toronto was the only team that knocked off Cleveland twice. They were the only team that won any postseason games in the Eastern Conference against them, right? And we may forget this, but if you go back and look in the first, in one of the games that they beat him,

DeRosen and Lowry combined for 67 points, right? One of them had 35, the other one had 32. In the other game, they had like 40-something. But that's not what stands out from the box score. Obviously, they were starting Luis Scola, but Valentinus wasn't even in the series. Bionbo started. And in one of the wins against Cleveland, Kevin,

he had 26 frigging rebounds. And the other one, he had 18 rebounds. So in the two games that they beat Cleveland in the playoffs last year, Bismac Biombo had 40 rebounds. They ain't got him anymore. It all comes down to, you know, when you're building your roster, what kind of big man do you want to have? Me, personally, I much prefer having the Beambo Thompson type,

that guy who can protect the rim some. You know, Beambos far are better than Thompson in that role, but both of them can switch and defend the perimeter a little bit, and both of them are terrific rebounders as well. I'd rather have that explosive rim running presence who really doesn't need the ball from the post areas to be effective over the kind of Valanchunus canter type. I don't want to sell Valentunus short as a player. I think he can do some more things on the floor. But it just comes down to that roster construct type of player that you want to build around it.

Beyondbo is kind of that guy for me in terms of a player mold. 26 rebounds. that's monstrous. That is absurd. 26 rebounds in a game, man. That's a Will Chamberlain shit right there. I know. You end up forgetting that that happened.

But when I went back and looked like, all right, just in terms of personnel, I was like, how do they do it last year? And then I was like, oh, well, all they need is a guy that can average 20 rebounds a game. That's all. They're in trouble. They're in trouble. Especially against Thompson. Thompson's a vacuum on the boards. I mean, it doesn't always show up in the numbers,

but that guy's an elite rebounder. You can push him around, though. Like, if you recall, when they would play Washington, Gortat would push him around. But they don't have anybody to push him around. Toronto doesn't. I mean, I guess your best bet would be Patterson or Abaca. But, I mean, Abacca's not a push-around guy.

I don't know. Patterson's the toughest of the interior guys. But they certainly don't have a Biombo anymore. I don't, and it's not just about last night. I know a lot of people thought that Toronto has a shot to make it a competitive series, and part of that's because of the deficiencies defensively that Cleveland has shown. But I was not hopeful about that being competitive after last night. And then even less hopeful when I went back and looked at how they did it last year,

because how they did it last year cannot be mimicked. There's just not that guy anymore that can grab every damn rebroad. bound available. Cavalier's defense still isn't perfect, but I think it looked better last night. I think it looked a little bit more together. There's still some misrotations and some wacky things that they were doing, but I think they're getting closer to where they need to be to, you know, compete in a final series against the Warriors.

I still don't know if they could beat them, but they looked better last night, despite giving it 105. Most of that was garbage time. I think they did a good job forcing the Raptors and or baiting the Raptors and some ways into taking more of their typical mid-range jumpers than allowing open three-pointers or allowing them to get to the lane.

That's really the keys. We always want to be careful about overreacting to game ones because we've gotten burned in the past, right? Overreacting to game ones, including even in last year's postseason. That being said, San Antonio is in massive

trouble, Kevin. I do not think that that was a one-off. I think that is sign of things to come, where you look at that San Antonio bench and you go, all right, what's he going to go to, especially with the big guys? And I get that you're not going to hit 20-something threes every game. And maybe Houston doesn't look as devastating as that. That being said, they looked slow last night and Houston looked like they got everything they wanted. That shot distribution chart is the most absurd thing I've ever seen.

I mean, you're talking. They scored 126 points, okay? They scored 66 points off three-pointers. They scored 36 points in the paint, and they scored 24 free throws. They literally had zero mid-range points the entire night. It was the, it was like the perfect lay-it-up or tray-it-up game that's ever been played in the playoffs. I came away. I know they were up by 30, but I came away by halftime.

I came away with that game. And I even thought this, honestly, after watching the Spurs versus the Grizzlies, I thought, geez, man, if the Grizzlies can score like this in some of these games and get as many good shots and they're starting James Ennis and Vince Carter, I can't wait to see what Houston can do. And the other thing was Conley had a monster series because he could run that pick and roll over and over again. And I'm thinking, my God, if Hardin is putting these guys

in picking rolls all the time, they are in trouble. I think San Antonio is in big trouble in that series, Kev. I do. I'm with you, Chris. I said Rockets in 5, Bill Simmons podcast last week. And I've seen a lot of Spurs in 7. And I just don't think that they have the right roster construct to stay with Houston. I just don't see how, I can't conceive how they're going to be able to

than the series that far because, you know, as you said, Conley really cut up the Spurs defense last round. I mentioned in my article on Monday that he scored 1.2 points per possession, or rather the Grizzly scored 1.2 points per possession out of the pick and roll when Conley shot or passed the ball. And with Hardin, Hardin is perhaps the premier pick and roll player in today's NBA. And he's surrounded by some of the league's premier three-point shooters. And he's also surrounded by two of the best. rim runners and Clint Capella and Neyne. Even if you want to go to the third one on the bench, Montrez-Herald.

They have guys that I think really allow Hardin to just thrive at the highest of levels in the pick and roll. And we saw that happen to the highest level last night for the Rockets. They were getting open threes easily whenever the Spurs, you know, helped on Hardin's pick and rolls on his drives. And when the Spurs didn't help, it turned into Capella lob dunks or layups for Hardin. I just don't know how San Antonio can effectively defend that when they are relying on David Lee, Powell Gasol to defend James Hardin when he's rumbling down the lane. I think they need Deadman to really step up, but at the same time, he seems to be kind of in Popovich's doghouse.

I don't know if he doesn't trust him on the floor, doesn't trust his decision making. But he's the guy they really need to step up. They need a more mobile big man to effectively defend those pick and rolls. I don't know if anybody's ever been dog cussed like David Lee was. was four minutes into that game. I mean, I wanted to cry for him. I was just sitting on my couch. And Popovich pulled him out of the game.

I'm like, oh, my God. I mean, obviously, you know, they got the cameras on it, but good grief. You could just tell. I think he took two timeouts in the first five minutes of the game, didn't he? Popovich. He was just like enough of it. He knew. He knew.

He knew right away. He knew. Because they were. And then there was an instant last night. This, I, I, I, I, I, I, wish I put this in the article, but it sticks in my mind. Ryan Anderson, you know, spotting up for three, and Gasol closes out on him, and Anderson blows by Gasol.

Ryan Anderson doesn't blow by anybody on the court. He's, you know, I don't want to call him one-dimensional, but he kind of is within his role on the team. You don't see him blowing by defenders often. And then on the other end of the floor, Ryan Anderson blocked Lamarcus Aldridge, and Anderson has only 14 blocks in the year. It's just a bad night for San Antonio and stuff like that's happening. Well, and the other thing is San Antonio is a bigger mid-range team than anybody else.

So this is, you know, and I know they always ying when everybody yanks. They do hit three-pointers, but they don't take a ton. They shoot a high percentage of them, but they don't take a ton. I mean, they score a lot of two-point basket, San Antonio, and this is the ultimate trade threes for twos, and you're just doing it all night. Even when you do, even when San Antonio gets on runs, It just takes them longer, right? Like Houston, I mean, hell, you can look up and they've put a 12-0 run on you in a minute and a half or something like that.

Whereas it may take five minutes for San Antonio to get a 12-0 run on you. That's the problem. And that type of, that variance that you're alluding to, Chris, I think that's what gives Houston a chance against Golden State. I don't think they'd beat Golden State, but it gives them a chance to win one, two, maybe even three games. they can have nights like they did last night. They can have those performances where they fire up 53s with a lot of them being open and they can hit nearly half of them. They can have nights like that where, you know, no matter what you're doing defensively

or no matter how many points you're really scoring on the other end of the floor, it's not going to be enough. And, you know, one thing that we're not even really speaking to, Chris, that Mike D'Antone mentioned after the game last night, but the Rockets defense is pretty good. I thought they had a good performance last night. I know it's easy to focus on the 126 they put up, but they had a strong performance defensively as well.

Well, that's because it's Kauai Leonard and who else? I mean, Audrey, can you be shittier than he was? I mean, like, what? This guy's like a multiple-time All-Star. He looked like the worst player in the world. They have four points? Oh, man. I think he had four.

Did he have four? Yeah, he had four points, four points, two-for-seven shooting, six rebounds. What is four points? A minus 36. I mean, what is four points or Lamarcus Aldrich, for God's sakes? I don't even understand. I don't even know why that's possible. The guy had fucking four points.

Four. I got an advanced stat. The Spurs had a 62.3 offensive earning when Aldrich was on the floor last night to a 122.2.3 defensive earning. So they were outscored by 60 points per 100 possessions when all. was on the floor. Geez. 60.

Man, 60. I don't recall seeing that in a box score when a player played in over 25 minutes very often. I don't remember ever seeing it before. I love to look at the history to see how often that's happened. 25 plus minutes in a net rating of 60 or worse. If somebody knows how to look that up, definitely tweet us and let us know because I'd be curious to see that.

Yeah, RIP, his net rating, because. I mean, hell, you got to then have a net rating of plus 60 just to get back to zero. He's got no chance in this series to have a positive net rating. Even if he goes crazy the next couple of games, he'll never have a positive net rating for this. And it's more than likely going to be rather miserable. Wow. Yeah, I just- It sucks to see Aldrich fall so far, like so quickly.

I mean, it's just one game, but it's kind of been a trend in other ways. too. We've seen him have disappointing nights. Well, here's the thing, Kevin. Who are they supposed to play? That's what I'm looking at, right? Like the only guy they had outside of Kauai who had 21 points, the only other guy they had in double digits, well, they had Tony Parker and then they had Jonathan Simmons,

who had 11. But you look up and down their bench and you go, okay, who do they play then to just try to match up? and the issue is he's going to keep looking down that bench and he just doesn't have the horses to match up. All you can do if you're, all you can do if you're San Antonio is pray they just miss a ton of threes. That's it.

And I'll say this because just watching that Grizzly series, San Antonio was a radically different team on their home court than they were on the road. like they shooting wise they made tons of shots playing in san antonio and they just didn't in memphis and so god forbid if that was i mean if that holds true when they get to houston they could really get i mean i don't know if you're going to get thumped any worse than that 27's about as bad as it gets on your home court um but damn man i just i don't know i i look at it and i i'm saying this is one of those where you go, all right, if you're pop, what do you do? And, you know, his best players

and the guys you would want to roll with, it's just a horrific matchup in this. It really is. Feels like it. Don't you think? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to figure out what they should do. I mean, I think you're going to start with giving dead men an uptick in minutes. And I think, you know, the second thing you probably have to do is start Jonathan Simmons over David Lee. I think that's the second thing you have to do. But at the same time, does that solve you? problems. Even if you theoretically take Gasol and Lee out of the rotation, which I'm not going to do, but even if you did, and you play Deadman for 25 minutes per game or something like that, you played super small ball to really match up with the Rockets. Let's just say that's what you did.

Is that really? Is that enough? I'm not sure that that's going to be enough either. I just don't, I look at their personnel against Houston. It's just not a good matchup. That's the way I felt before the series, and it's the way I feel even more so now after watching game one, maybe even more strongly. I just think that the way these two teams are built, Houston is one of the most progressive teams in the league with their roster construction, whereas San Antonio, they're in a transition phase, let's face it. They lost Tim Duncan last year. Tony Parker and Manu Genoble are getting older. They aren't really where they need to be for the next era building around Kawhi Leonard. They're in a transition phase. Their future

point guard, perhaps, Dejante Murray, isn't ready to play yet. They still have guys, who need to develop. Maybe Kyle Anderson turns into a player. Maybe they retain Patty Mills going into the next season. Maybe they don't. They, they are, this is a transition phase for them. So the fact that they won 61 games with Kawhi Leonard just totally dominating. It says a lot about Kauai, but it also says a lot about where the spurs need to go this postseason. What's stunning is you look, and during the regular season, San Antonio was the number one defensive team efficiency-wise in the NBA. And to watch that last night, that is, I mean, that is implausible to me that they were the best defensive team in the NBA, given their personnel. But they were over 82 games. That was the best

defensive team in the NBA. And if Houston just skunked them, I mean, it's going to be, listen, if they shoot 44% from three, they're almost, they're going to be unbeatable. They just will. I mean, they, and again, they probably won't shoot 44%. That was almost historic, given the amount of threes that they shot last night. I mean, they shot, would they end up shooting 50? I think they shot 53s. 52.50. I mean, 50.

I mean, 50. I mean, 20. You have the best defense. Sorry. You go. 53's? 50. Kevin, I just went through and I get, right, like, so the grizzlies hired David Fisdale

and they shot a ton of a lot more threes this year. I just watched like the last five or six years of basketball where you come out of the game with like 14 attempts or 12 attempts. The idea that somebody shot 53s in the game is just outrageous to me, much less hit 22 of them. But I don't get it. I don't get how San Antonio was that awesome defensively over the course of 82 games. I think a big part of it, Chris, for San Antonio, is it speaks to in today's NBA, right? I think we talk a lot about man-to-man defense, but oftentimes off-ball defense with the way the ball moves around.

can be just as important. And San Antonio, like, you know, I knocked David Lee and Powell Grosol earlier, but those guys know where to be on the floor and they know when to be there. They're very good in their rotations and they're smart defenders. I think San Antonio has a lot of smart defenders on their team. But there comes a time where, especially in the playoffs, I think oftentimes speed and talent really just, you know, overwhelms no matter how good you are, you know, in terms of your rotation.

So right now, in game one at least, we saw that. I think even when San Antonio is on point with their defensive rotations, Houston was still able to get, you know, open shots, open layups, open threes because they just overwhelmed them with their just sheer talent on that end of the floor. Maybe San Antonio does win games, you know, in this series because of the fact that, you know, they do really make the right tweaks to tweak the lineups that they're using, which I think would help their rotations. I think, look, I'm kind of rambling here, but one of the things that I'm confused about, though is I can't I still can't understand why Dwayne Dedman didn't play to open the series because he made makes so much sense and that makes me wonder if Popovich just doesn't trust him maybe Deadman you know in Popovich's eyes doesn't you know make the right you know rotations at the right time maybe he doesn't trust him to communicate as much on the end of the floor whereas you can trust David Lee you can trust Powell Gasol to make the right reads maybe that's it I'm just speculating but it's just odd that Dedman fell so far out of the rotation midseason and then you you know, in a series that made so much sense for him, he didn't play until, you know, it was too late to make a comeback. Well, in fairness, he'll probably go back to him.

But in the last series, you know, Deadman had food poisoning, I believe it was, one of the games, and David Lee really provided a spark. So it really worked for him in the last series. So he's probably just giving it another run. Like, hey, maybe I found something. Maybe this David Lee thing really works. I don't know. And then, of course, he didn't.

Deadman, like, Deadman played like 25 minutes per a game. like in January and February and then into March and then he just faded away from the rotation. His minutes got slowly cut down, down to like 15 minutes per game and then down to maybe 10 or so towards the end of March. And he played a little bit in April more, but and then obviously against Memphis, you're right, he did start playing the series like 18 minutes per game, 20 minutes for game in the first one or two games, but then he faded away and I don't know. It just seemed like there was kind of a progressive drop from 50 minutes.

February to March to April then into the playoffs. And regarding what you were saying about the defensive efficiency thing, it just feels like if you are, you know, I don't know, 82 games a year, you know, not a ton of preparation going into each game. If you've got a defense that really knows what they're doing and is on that proverbial string, then that's how you can night in, night out, be elite defensively. But then when there is only one team to prepare for, as it is. in the playoffs, your deficiencies get exposed, right?

And that's the way it works, right? You then can just hone in on one team and how do we want to attack this team? And that's why I say when you go, and maybe Dedman is the answer. But, I mean, you're expecting Dwayne Dedman to be a monster that I don't think he is, right? So, but when the answer to what could you do to fix things as Dwayne Dedman, you're effed. That's what I think. That's what I think. Harsh but perhaps true.

Yeah. All right, we've got to take a quick break. We'll talk about the games that are coming up tonight. Boston, Washington, and Utah and Golden State are going to play their first game tonight. We'll get to those after these words. NBA show today brought to you by ZipRecru. Are you hiring? Do you know where to post your job to find the best candidates? Posting your job in one place isn't enough to find quality candidates.

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All right, Kevin, Boston, Washington tonight, game two. Boston took game one. Out the gate, Washington was up 16 zip on them, and it felt like then, and obviously won the first quarter, but I swear that Washington team, it feels like they can't withstand three minutes of bench players being out there before they get slaughtered.

And once I thought the Marquiv Morris injury was a death blow to them in game one. I'm not so sure that that game doesn't play out a little bit differently. Maybe Boston would have still won, but if it doesn't play out a little bit differently if Morris doesn't get hurt. But I do think what that did was expose just how tricky the situation is with Washington in that they're five guys I'd put up against anyone. once you get past that holy mackerel

it is a it is a big big problem and so it just feels like their first five are going to have to slaughter somebody and then just try to hold on for dear life where they've got to play bench guys biggest takeaways from Washington Boston that was mine

it was oh god this Washington bench really came back to haunt them already that definitely the bench not being able to film Archieff Morris of shoes was huge and that that's definitely kind of when the game turned in some ways because look what the Celtics really attacked the Gortat you know down the stretch of that game because I don't think he can defend as well on the perimeter whereas if Morris were able to play they could

have put Morris in as their small ball five and had him defend Al Horford and that would have allowed him to have more versatility on the defensive end they would have been able to switch more screens would have been able to more effectively defend O'Horford on the perimeter and they wouldn't have been getting burned, you know, with Gortat, you know, getting just blown by by Al Horford. I think, I think that was really, you know, the missing piece for them in that game. But with that said, you know, it's kind of like we said with the Spurs and Deadman. I'm not sure Markief Morris is going to be the key piece that totally swings the series, you know, back in Washington's favor.

For one, you know, we need to see if he's fully healthy when he returns tonight as he's supposed to. And not only that, I think Washington does need to make some tweaks. I think early in that game, Celtics had Isaiah Thomas and John Wall, which was weird. I wasn't expecting that at all. I thought they would hide Thomas off the ball. But then they did. They hid Thomas on Bogdanovich.

They hit him on Porter. They hit him on Ubre, Jr. And the Wizards really did nothing to try to expose Isaiah Thomas. They posted up Porter once, which I don't think is the right approach. I don't think a porter post-up is a going to win you a series. And they only ran one pick and roll to force a switch. in which Isaiah Thomas effectively defended against Bradley Beale. They need to do more of that.

They need to try to force switches and to make, you know, the Celtics defense into less advantageous positions because John Wall and Bradley Beale can score against anybody. But it's a hell of a lot harder to score against Avery Bradley and Marcus Smart than it is against Isaiah Thomas. And I think they need to find better matchups in the half court because they're not going to get as many transition opportunities when they're just zooming up the floor getting easy buckets. They need to learn, you know, try to make tweaks in the half court

to, I think, keep up with the Celtics. All right, so you were talking about how they had to put in Ubrey in there, and he ended up playing minutes, especially after the injury. Kelly Ubre has played seven games so far in the playoffs this year. You referenced that absurd net rating for Aldridge last night, right? And that was just a one-off game. Through seven games, Kelly Ubre has a minus 26 net rating, Kevin. they are getting

how about this you want me go through the rest of their bench bo-on-ballionovich this is a team that by the way just won their last series and is now playing against the Celtics in the east semifinals magnanovic through seven games minus 10 net rating

Brandon Jennings seven games minus 15 net rating Kelly Ubra as I mentioned minus 26 Jason Smith minus five I mean it's unbelievable The only one when you look, and in fact, when we were talking about the Morris injury and how big a deal that was, of the guys that play minutes for Washington, he has the most positive net rating on the whole team. He's like a plus 13 on average.

So he's actually the guy they could least afford to lose according to net rating. And then these bench guys that I just railed off, it's not just our eyes that go, oh my goodness, their bench stinks. They don't have one positive contributor, not one. It's almost impossible for an NBA team. How do you have not one guy that comes on and helps the cause? It's just a matter of how bad you get your ass kicked with any of them in the game. It's bananas. I guess it's, I guess, you know, the kind of the funny thing here is, you know, Bogdanovich was an upgrade for them on their bench.

And Bogdanovich can score, but the problem is he doesn't do a lot else on the floor. floor. And I think the Celtics picked on him a lot at certain points when he was on the floor. They attacked Bogdanovich. I thought, look, I don't want to knock. Let me stop you real quick. Let me stop you real quick. The other part of this is it's Brooks' fault too, because there's too many of them on the court at the same time together. So that kills all their plus minuses, right? You might. When Bunyanovich plays with Wall and Beal, then it's okay, right? And it probably serves him well. you know, net rating wise.

So part of their, you know, incredibly horrible net ratings is that there's three and four of them on the court at the same time. And that just can't be. He just has to totally interspersed them with other starters for them to be able to contribute at all. Otherwise, you're just dying, right? It's tough. It's tough, though, for him at the same time.

I mean, he played, he, Beale and Wall shared the floor for 32 minutes. that game. So then there's 16 minutes remaining where either one of them's on the floor or neither of them are on the floor. There has to be zero minutes when neither of them are on the floor. I'm not sure of the number in that game. I think they shared the floor. One of them was on the floor. I think the majority of the time. The tough part is though for him is you can't play those guys 48 minutes. And, you know, when you turn to Brendan Jennings off your bench, I think it's hard. I think it's a hard responsibility for Scott Brooks with the hand he's been dealt. So I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't know. Can you give more responsibility to Wall and Bill when they're already playing 40 minutes per game?

I don't know. I feel like maybe then you're working against yourself if you're just running them into the ground. I just think that their secondary players just aren't good enough. Like Ubre and Porter can defend. You know, on ball, I think they're really good. But off the ball, I don't trust them. I just don't, I don't think that they have enough pieces to really effectively compete with the Celtics who are. deep team. I think the Celtics bench is really what separates them in this series. I think the wizard's starters can absolutely, you know, overcome the Celtics, especially Wall and Beal, obviously. But that bench unit, that's going to be a problem for them, no matter what Scott Brooks puts out there the rest of this series. Okay, we talked about what the Wizards problems are, and obviously they desperately need Morris back. We talked about their bench issues. What about what the Celtics did

right? Obviously, the easy answer is they hit a crap load of threes. Uh, from franchise record, in fact. And Jay Crowder turned into like Larry Bird out there. What else did they do right? They've got perimeter defenders clearly to throw at Wall and Beal. But when you looked at Boston, let's set aside what we think Washington could do or what they need or what the issues may be. What do you think Boston got right in game one?

I think it's pretty simple, really, Chris. I think they just did what they do best at the highest level that they can. I think they executed at a terrific level in the half court. I wrote briefly about this in today's article, but they found some things that against Washington defense that seemed to work. They typically run a dribble handoff to Isaiah Thomas. They've done this all season long, and they ran that a bunch against the Wizards.

And Washington had a hard time containing that dribble handoff. It turned into layouts for Al Horford, three for Jay Crowder, or pull-ups for the ball handler, or whether it was Thomas or Bradley. I just think the Celtics are a very diverse half-court team. They're on a lot of different sets, or they can get into their typical motion offense, and they just executed perfectly well in that game.

And I think that was really the key to them getting a lot of open shots and taking those shots. And not only that, I think, you know, as we said with Washington, when their bench is out there, it's hard for them to match up. They need Morris to be healthy. They need him on the floor, I think, really as much as possible. playing small ball five for them so they can maintain versatility. I feel like Wall is going to try to kill it tonight.

You know, he ended up with 16 assists in that first game. I think he's going to be a little more selfish tonight and go for it. You know, you saw him in that game six against Atlanta, came out after the game and said, I told him I was going to score over, you know, 35 plus. I think you're going to get that tonight. I think Wall's going to go out there and try to get 35 plus. I don't know if he can do it, but I think he will.

I think he's going to try. I think, I mean, kind of alluding to what, you know, we said before, it was hard for him, you know, to score that night. You know, he was defended by a mix of Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley throughout the game, it seemed, except for the beginning of the game when Isaiah Thomas kind of started out on him, and then a little bit towards the end when the Celtics had a good lead. Other than that, it was against Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley.

And both of them kind of give you different looks for you, John Wall. And the Celtics, I don't know if this was intended, but it did seem like they mixed it up, giving him those different looks. They need to get Thomas on wall. They need to find a way to get that done. I don't know if the Celtics will kind of zone Isaiah Thomas in the corner to keep him away from Wall or if they'd willingly switch that screen. I just think you need to find a way to get that matchup.

In the half-court game, a lot of it's due to matchups and picking on the weakest link on the defense. And that player is obviously Isaiah Thomas for the Celtics. They don't have many weak perimeter defenders. Marcus Smart elite Aver Bradley elite Jay Crotter when he is playing at his full potential

elite perimeter defender and he can switch Al Horford very good perimeter defender for a center they don't have many weak links even on the bench Terry Rose is a good defender Olinic is not a good defender but he's very good positionally kind of like Gasol and Lee are so the Celtics have the ability

to defend with a lot of different guys Thomas is a weak link that they need to pick on they need to find a way to expose him Otherwise, I'm not sure how Washington can effectively score in the half court. When they weren't a great half court scoring team this season in the first place, they were pretty average, actually. Yeah, here's how. Here's what I'd say. The answer is, get some damn stops.

I mean, if you give up 123, you're always taking the ball out of the basket. And so you never have any chance at the cross-matching stuff. Whereas when you've got maybe the fastest guy in the world, you know, that can get some ball and go out on the break. You don't get to choose who guards him. The problem is if you give up 123 points, they get to choose who guards a guy every damn time. So it's impossible. I mean, listen, why isn't going to win nothing giving up 123? Like, that's their shot, is they have to get, they have to make sure that when they get stops,

they just get going and they run because, like I said, you don't get to choose who guards him then. but if they're going to play half-core basketball that much and they're going to give up 120-something points and they're going to let Boston be able to choose who guards John Wall, forget it. Because they are good enough. Those guys are good enough. And they've got enough bodies to throw at him.

They say the best defense is a good offense, but maybe the best offense is a good defense for Washington. With a lot of the teams that can run off of it, You saw that with Oklahoma City, too. Right? You saw those. The waves would come when you just got Westbrook snatching it off that backboard and him just taking off by himself.

Wall does that all the time. There can be five guys between the goal and wall. And somehow he's the first one to the goal. He's just faster than everyone by like a wide, wide margin. The problem is if you don't, right, If you've got to walk the ball up the court, you don't get any shot at that. I think it's going to be a big John Wall game tonight, and I think it's going to go down to the wire,

and Washington is going to have a shot to win. What do you think? Yeah, I think the series is still going to be competitive, for sure. I still see it going six games. I still think Celtics win in six. That was my prediction, unofficial prediction, before the series. I still feel that way. I think Washington can compete.

But if they lose tonight, it's going to be hard to come down from 2-0. I think this is a little different than the Celtics Bulls series where, you know, I think we talked about this, Chris. When the Bulls are up to O, it was like, well, you know, we'll see here because this is Chicago. They might have just had two really hot games. Whereas this series, Celtics seem to really have found themselves since they fell down to O. And I think if Washington doesn't win tonight, it's going to be really, really difficult for them to mount a comeback. All right. Utah and Golden State start tonight, Kevin. this is clearly a hundred percent battle of wills, battle of being able to dictate tempo.

If Utah is going to have a chance, they're going to have to be able to play a game in the 90s, which seems like a very, very hard task against Golden State. Clearly, if you're getting up into a hundreds, Utah is way out of their element. I think most people think that playing in the hundreds is way out of Utah's element. There is no way to keep Golden State with a healthy Durant out of the hundreds, and therefore Utah is just going to get hit by a freight train. What do you think? Is there any chance Utah can slow a couple of these down and turn them into slug fests? They're going to try.

They're definitely going to try. This is kind of going to be a lot like the Spurs Rocket Series, where the Rockets were one of the fastest-paced teams and the Spurs were. And with this series, it's kind of the same. Warriors are one of the fastest pace. Jazz are one of the bottom five slowest. So, you know, it's going to be a battle of different philosophies, a battle of pace. And who controls that? I don't know if Utah controls the pace.

I don't know if they'll have the edge necessarily, but that's what they need to do. I think, you know, one of the key things for me, Chris, is Rudy Gobert. I mean, Rudy Gobert needs to be able to effectively defend the warriors when they go small. He's an unbelievable defender. Like, don't think I'm knocking him here. He's probably the second-best defender in basketball behind Draymond Green. But the thing is, is what makes Draymond so unique is his ability to do literally everything on the defensive end of the floor. Where it's Rudy Gobert can sometimes have some difficulties when he steps out onto the perimeter.

Like, what happens if you're a goal in state, they're on a pick and roll, Gobert switched on to Kevin Durant? That's a situation where Gobert needs to be able to get that stop. When Gobert is the guy, you know, really trying to get by you with the ball rather than Dremont Green. He can defend Dremont. It's when the Warriors get those switches with Curry or Durant that I think Utah could run into trouble. Well, and you remember this. You remember when we're, if we go back to the beginning of this, when we were talking about Cleveland and Toronto, we talked about how Toronto was able to pull it off against Cleveland in the wins last year.

We said, Bionbo had like 26 rebounds in one, 14 rebounds in another, and they could turn those. things into Slugfest. The team that can always rebound the ball. You saw it two years ago when the Grizzlies went up to one against the Warriors and they just got every damn ball and they played the Slugfest with them. You saw it last year where there were times in that Oklahoma City series against Golden State where Oklahoma City just appeared to get every ball, every ball. And so it kind of feels like Gobert's got to have like 15 to 20 rebounds a night. Seriously. it's just got to be when Golden State misses, you get it. And when your team misses, you get it. That's the way to be able to play with them, to be able to hold them down, hold them to one shot,

you know, limit possessions if you can. I mean, that's your shot. And it just feels like Gobert needs to have this monster rebounding series in order for that to be possible. and for Utah to even get them into a couple different games where they could play Slugfest against them because I even though I referenced the last two years, it's a different animal now when you, it ain't Harrison Barnes anymore, right? It's Kevin Durant. That's the problem. How about this friggin line tonight?

Do you see what the line is for this game? No, I haven't. What is it, like 10, 15, something like that? 13 and a half. Wow. It is the Western Conference. semi-finals. And here's the problem. I don't even know who I take. 13 and a half. Like, that's just unbelievable. That's unbelievable. These are,

theoretically, these are supposed to be the four best teams left in both conferences, right? That's bananas. Yeah. Yep. I think they are. Honestly, I really do. That feels like a sweat. Doesn't it feel like Golden State's going to be up by 22? and you're going to be praying James McAdoo makes a shot because Utah's going to make a late run and lose by 13, right? Yeah. I swear if that plays out, I'm going to laugh my ass off so bad when you've got all these gamblers sitting around praying that damn James McAoo or Ian, who is it, Ian Clark? Is that the other one?

Who are the guys? Pete Clark. Yeah, Pat McCaw. Yeah. You're just praying that they get you. You know, right? Like so the Warriors are up by 22, and then the last three minutes they go scoreless, and Utah ends up losing by 13.

That's the way that plays out. It's like the situation when, like, you know, the team is running the clock down. Are they going to take the shot or are they going to take the turnover? You're just shouting at the TV when it's like a 12-point game, take the fucking shot! I can see you. I don't bet because I don't want to deal with that. But if I did.

I don't want to make any bold prediction. on how I think the ones, how it's going to play out tonight. My initial reaction after watching the Clippers, Utah was, oh, God, Utah is really, really in for it. But if they, you know, if they got it into a, you know, like, it's still feel-out mode between the two teams. It's not the regular season anymore. And they could turn it into a slug.

If you told me that they turned that thing into a slug fest and they had a chance in the four, you know what I mean? It's a fourth quarter of game, and they're still in it, and Gobert's got 15 plus rebounds. I honestly would not be that shocked by that. Really? I don't know. He's going to have a big series. He's got to have a big, big, big series for them, you know, scoring, scoring in the inside

from the pick and roll, protecting the rim, correcting the perimeter. I think he's the key to this series, Chris. They need Gobert to have the series of his life. And not only that, though, they also need Gordon Hayward and Joe Johnson, all those. those guys that have the series of their life to keep up with Golden State. I'm not sure there's any other way to beat this team than having, you know, basically everybody in your roster click on all cylinders. Yeah.

I mean, George Hill's a pretty good defender. And, you know, if that's your front line and Gober's your back line, you're some pretty good defenders, you know. I don't, we have seen a couple different teams be able to slow it down and turn it into just grab every rebound team. So I don't, I don't know if Utah is just going to get. bombed out. I'll let you know after I watch them play tonight. I need to see it one time. Well, where does you place your bet? Golden State minus 13 and a half or Utah plus 13 and a half.

I think I'd take Utah. I think I would too. I really do. I think it could be a 10 point loss, but I take Utah with the points. 13 and a half's a lot, man. You know, and you know everybody in the free world is going to be on Golden State. right when it gets when it gets game time there'll be 60 70 something percent of the bets on golden state and Vegas didn't the Vegas didn't get all those lights by that many that people winning if go betting golden state was all that easy then uh there'd be a lot of rich people around here in these uh in these parts but it's not that easy and so there's going to be a lot less money on utah than they'll will on golden state tonight so I don't know I guess yeah I I I don't

like it because you know the second you say a golden state beat somebody by 30 but it seems like golden state's a little more willing this year sometimes to let some teams back into it um you know cur's not there on the bench i don't know how big a deal that's going to be um and i think maybe you know before before all the adjustments get made that uh that maybe utah could put up a fight and get them in their kind of game at least for a while tonight. So I guess I'd take the 13 and a half. But that's Sal's domain now. That's cousin Sal's domain.

Kevin, I can't wait to watch these games tonight, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, brother. Me too, Chris. Have a good one. That's Kevin O'Connor from the Ringer. And thanks for listening to another Ringer NBA show. We will talk to you on Thursday. Thanks to Cabbage for sponsoring today's episode.

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