The Ringer NBA Show - The Celtics Roll the Sixers in Game 2 and Just Askin’ Questions About the Playoffs | Group Chat

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Justin, Rob, and Wos react to the Celtics blowout victory over the Sixers in Game 2. Then they ask a few lingering questions about the playoffs including questions about Kevin Durant, Dillon Brooks, and the Lakers (26:49). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, Wosny Lambre Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Sean Fennessey, one of the hosts of the Prestige TV podcast. HBO's Barry is back for a fourth and final season, and that means I'll be back recapping the show with co-creator and star Bill Hater to dive deep on the themes, scenes, and major moments in the series. Bill will provide insight into how every episode was made and why it's ending. New Prestige TV Barry recaps will go live every Sunday night when the episode ends, so make sure you're subscribed to the Prestige TV podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Barrier,

joining me a couple of every man in some Budweiser under ruse Rob Mahoney, Big Waz, what's up boys? I think we need to talk about this. I think we need to have a discussion about a lot of things with that column, the usage of peeps, the disclosure of underwear information regarding one Nicola Yokic.

I'm speechless. How is this the thing that is happening? How is it that, especially look, as someone who voted myself for Yokic, how are these my people? How is this the group that I am aligned with? Did that not factor in to your MVP voting? Well, I didn't know about the that's what she said,

boxers, and had I known, maybe I wouldn't have voted for him, you know? That's a red flag. I definitely think today's audience probably isn't aware of how wild some of the like 10 years ago internet was.

Like, I wouldn't say that this level of column used to float around, but there's definitely things in the ether. A Chris Sheridan line about the Milwaukee Bucks' owner's daughter comes to mine. I think you guys know what I'm talking about. There's a lot of creep behavior, but like this definitely jumps out is like at the top of even that heap, I would say. I somehow missed this whole college.

Oh, was. Whatever thing. I got to send this to me. I can't wait to read it. I too, Justin, like you missed the days of Gawker. and dead spin and all the crazy stuff we used to see on the internet. Justin,

would you like to try to explain to Waz the context here and to our listeners too? I assume many of whom I hope are not familiar with what we're talking about. It's like a Chris Ryan episode recap of a bat shit insane Denver post column in which the columnist

I think was making the case that Nicola Yokic should have been the MVP because he's more of an every man. and he knows this because he watches him get dressed a lot or waits for him to get dressed a lot in the locker room and sees him put on funny underwear. I believe there was that that's what she said. Which other ones are we missing here?

Budweiser. Yeah, Budweiser logo. There were some SpongeBob SquarePants, boxers. And this was the lead for the case for MVP was this is the guy. This is our guy because he wears these specific novelty boxers. Are we sure that? this isn't a league plant to show evidence as to why

media doesn't deserve access to players ever, ever, ever again. That's what this feels like. Because anybody who's ever been in a locker room, like that scrum is like nothing else where dudes, you know,

some dudes are in their towels. Some dudes are just straight up getting dressed in front of you. And you're just in their space, their personal space, space, trying to be as normal, as human, as not lurky as possible. And somehow this guy managed to get the details of the underwear of the two-time MVP, future finals, participate. Hold on.

We're getting ahead of ourselves. Hold on, man. That's what later in the show. But yeah, that's, that's the, our, our media is so freaking focus group to death and consultant to death that like nobody would ever do this anymore for the most part. But so you're like you're pro under Roos. I mean, what harm is actually done by any of this? This guy wrote a sucky column.

We can move on with our lives. That's true. Well, I'll say this. The actual MVP didn't necessarily bolster his performance or his, his bona fides, for the award tonight. So, Nicole Yokish has that on him. We're going to talk, of course, about the Sixers, just getting absolutely wallop by the Celtics, 121, Sixers, 87. But really, we should only focus on the third quarter here, Celtics 35, Sixers, 16.

I don't even know where to begin, wise. It just seemed like the Sixers didn't have it tonight. The Celtics hit some threes. And that was enough to just shut the game down right away. Yeah, I mean, even the way that the Sixers were using Joel, where they're sort of spelling him, in minutes playing them. They said they announced before the game, apparently, that he was going to play in seven-minute intervals.

And so it felt like they were treating Joel's return as a ramp-up, and the team sort of acted like this was just a ramp-up game, right? Our main guy is sort of getting his sea legs back after missing all of these games. And that's how it sort of went, especially in the first half. And then, you know, third quarter just got blown up. but I'm not surprised by the result.

I'm sure you guys have seen this stat floated out there. The last 15 times a home team has lost game one in a playoff series. They've won game two. This will be the 15th straight time that has happened. And so we shouldn't be surprised by this result at all. I mean, it's certainly notable that Embed is back. And I think we're not surprised about this result. Hopefully there is some surprise to be had in the way the rest of this series unfold.

And a lot of that's going to depend on what Joelle is able to do when he's able to do it. I thought Boston, for their part, honestly, in this game, for the introduction of an MVP-level player to this series, threw a lot of stuff at him, right? You got Al Horford guarding him, you got Marcus Smart guarding him, you got Rob Williams, you got Grant Williams. It's something that honestly not enough teams do, and you could see this, for example, when Jimmy Butler got hurt the other night and the Knicks just, like, did not go at him. it's a little devious to challenge a guy who's injured, but if you're going to play, you got to push him, right? You need to see, like, can you do basic things?

Can you establish post position against a pest like Marcus Smart on a bum knee? What does it look like when you try to spin off of Al Horford? And sometimes in B, looked incredibly explosive, and sometimes it looked a little tentative, understandably coming off of an injury like that. Again, a sprain that by the projections based on the grade of his sprain, should have probably taken him out of the lineup for a few weeks, but he's playing because it's the playoffs.

He's playing because they need him. He's going to see what he can give. And I think it was smart for the Celtics in their own way to kind of test that. Yeah, they swept the leg. And Embed's leg was just braced with probably just like a mummified cast on it. It almost seemed like underneath his sleeve there.

He definitely labored at times. But to Rob's point was, it seemed like they went at him. Particularly to start that third quarter, it seemed like Jalen Brown was testing not only in Beade's ability to keep up with them as he. drove to the basket, but a lot of those perimeter defenders who we know are a little shoddy and this probably

wasn't their game. Yeah, I mean, in the first half, they certainly challenged him a few times, but he had about five or six blocks in that first half and some of them were straight up nasty. Jalen Brown tried to go up and get a little highlight real situation going and Embed emphatically

denied him. Malcolm Brogden who, you know, let's face it, nobody's ever accused him of having a pogo stick. He tried to challenge and B. down in. That just got swallowed whole. I thought N. B.

looked pretty spry on defense at times and was an effective deterrent, not just when he blocked it, but as we always say, affecting guys' desire to even take a shot in the painted area. So he looked good in that respect. And that's a game-changing idea, right? When Tatum and Brown sort of try to supplement their pull-up game with drives, hard drives, even when they beat their guy in the case of Tatum isn't always the case. He doesn't always dribble past the dude.

To have Embed lurking down there is going to be a big deal going forward, I think. Well, especially in the games where the Celtics aren't hitting threes like this, right? They're plus 14 in three-pointers made in this game. You're just not going to lose many games where that's the case, where you have that kind of margin working in your advantage. Some of that is, again, like, you know, Malcolm Brogden is probably not going to go six of ten from three every game. Grant Williams is not going to go four for eight.

But I will say this. When the Sixers are bad, like a bad Sixers game, one of the things that drops off dramatically is the impact of their closeouts. Like they just do not chase guys at the line anymore. They get really lazy hanging out kind of in those intermediate spaces on the floor. You know, it's your James Hardin. Sometimes it's even your PJ Tucker's, like, just kind of picking their spots to not challenge this shot. And I understand why you would do that sometimes with Boston.

like Malcolm Brogden was not shooting well in the playoffs overall coming into this game. Al Horford, not shooting well overall on the playoffs coming into this game. And this game. Sure. But those are two guys who are like top five in the regular season at three point percentage. Do we have to get that cute? You know, like can't you at least chase them off the line a little bit? And maybe that's a matter of like we don't want to put that much pressure on a bead to have to rotate and all those things too.

Like there's a there's a cascading effect here. but I think Philadelphia can do a lot better just contesting some of those shots to begin with. Sure. It also is who the Celtics are. So ESPN had this stack going into this series. The Celtics, when they hit at least 40% of their threes, their record is 34 in two across the regular season in the playoffs. When it's below that, 27, 24, game 1, 38.5%. In game two, they actually only hit 39.2, so this would fall into the latter category.

But after the third quarter, before Sam Hauser is unearthed off the bench, before Cornette comes out 46.7% 3. And Rob, you were actually pretty early on this point. When the Celtics hit threes, they feel like they're a different team. Like, is this kind of

the math for them in this playoffs? Is that they need to shoot, I mean, this is an extreme example. They shot 51. I don't know if they'll get there again. But like, as long as they're barraging and making them, they're going to play well. And if not, it's going to be a little bit more dicey.

I think it's a little more complicated than that. Because as we've seen between games one and two, the defense you get from Boston, varies wildly, right? If they had this kind of defensive effort, and I thought some of it was very simple, like, let's not just space way far out when James Harden tries to go ISO or Joel

tries to go ISO in the post. We're going to run doubles at these guys. We're going to do occasional traps opportunistically. We're also just going to, like, hedge in from the shooters in the corners, and we're going to see, like, can PJ Tucker hit a couple shots tonight? Can Tobias Harris hit a couple, like, dribble pull-ups coming in from the corner tonight? We're going to see how that goes. Like, make those guys prove it.

And I thought some of what they were able to do in jamming up Philly was just as simple as that. And so if this is the defense, you don't need all of those threes quite so much. But if they're going to defend like they did in game one on any regular basis, their only option is to out shoot people. Yeah, and I think another thing that counts towards offensive efficiency is taking care of the damn ball, not throwing it all over the place, which they did better tonight. And, yeah, I'm in complete agreeance with Rob. If they defend at the level that they're capable of,

they don't need to make a bunch of threes to win games, especially against a team like Philly, who, yes, they were an effective offense this year. They were a good offense, you know, one of the league's best offenses. But nobody actually thinks in the playoffs, there's some type of juggernaut that cannot be solved. Nobody actually believes that,

as evidenced by the game that their second best player had today. And so to me, it starts on defense with the Celtics. That's always been the hallmark of this team ever since it came together under Brad Stevens. There's been times where they've let go over it, especially this year because especially early on, they were such a juggernaut on offense where they were just breaking records offensively. When they're doing what they're capable of on defense, this is when they're completely unlocked. It's interesting that you say that about Brad Stevens because over the last couple of days in between games one and two of this series.

You know, there were a lot of Joe Missoula quotes out there about the defensive issues in game one. One theme that I thought was very interesting was him deflecting some of that by saying the way we win games is with like our offensive management of them, right? It's about some of the turnover problems you talked about. It's just like, can we control the game on offense? I think we're learning a lot about Joe Missoula and whether he actually gives a shit about this team being good defensively or not.

And you can certainly see it in their habits. Like they don't play like a team where that has been a point of emphasis all year. They just don't. Maybe he has the ultimate confidence in the group's talent defensively because they certainly defensive talent. They're the most talented of any team in the NBA when you consider what they can throw at people on the wings at the point of attack, at the big man position.

Like there is no top to bottom what they present defensively on a talent level is second and none. So maybe he's just like, you know, our talent on defense is such that I don't have to worry about it. I would wholeheartedly and strongly disagree with him. I think they're going to make their money on defense in the playoffs this year. But, you know, I might be able to understand why a young guy in his first year as a head coach

might think he could get things done on offense solely. Well, also, I don't know a single coach who doesn't think that turnovers are the end-all be-all of every single basketball game that's ever happened. Like I've sat through many Elvin Gentry press conferences. He, one of the architects of Pace and Space and seven seconds or less, talking about how turnovers are the most important thing. And it's like, is it?

Are we sure about that? But, Wads, I have it down here is 13 minutes before you brought up James Harden. So I have to commend you. You waited this long. Incredible restraint. 45 points in game one, 12 in game two. So please, go ahead. Well, let's just say it's been a hilarious couple of days for your boy as, you know,

Vary or tease me up on our last podcast about this fool going to Vegas and his past postseason. Of course, I took the red meat and just went nuts and talked about he's a choker. You can't count on him. This, this, that, and the third. And inevitably, James Hardin has the, literally the best playoff game. of his life. Literally. Ever.

He never played that good in the playoffs before. And so, yeah, a few people, more than you, be shocked to learn that the internet

wanted to, thought I should have my come-upins for pointing out that James Harden did a stupid thing by going to Vegas and it has been

historically horrible in the postseason. And to those people, I would say, Game two, bitches! Let's go.

Game two. This is the guy that I know. James Hart. Hardin, the Redeemer. I am redeemed, Verrier. Two for 14, O for six on three.

And then Rob mentioned some of these lazy closeouts. Who you think your number one corporate was? That man. Come on now. Come on. Now you thought he was down? No, we back up. James Hardin, back to being what he is.

And honestly, I don't even know if he would have made it to 12 points, if not for Malcolm Brogden, seeming to forget how James Harden plays basketball for a quarter. that was a little odd. But other than that, like Jalen Brown guarded him for a lot of this game. Big adjustments,

made a ton of difference having that kind of physicality and size unhardened. That's going to be tough for him to get around on a regular basis. So is this it? We had the one game

and that's it? Like he just logged one day of work week and he's just taking the rest off. So he'll have games where he's not as bad as 12 points on 14 shots, right? But he's definitely not, that game one is not happening again. Not against a team that's actually locked in and keyed in.

Maybe he gets to a place where, you know, they load up on him and he's finding other guys and he's the reason why these other guys have stepped up and made big shots. But hardened himself, you know, seven of 14 from three. And like what we saw in game five, like just lethal in the midrange, creating all of this space, I find it very hard to believe that's happening again in the series. Doubling down. That's just going to say.

I will never understand the James Harden mid-range thing. It's like he just forgets he can do it sometimes. And when he does it, it looks great. So I don't know why he just like selectively takes it completely out of his bag and decides to leave it at home

on games like this. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you guys brought up Jalen Brown and his defense on Harden because I do feel like, obviously the threes started to pile up toward the end of that third quarter to the point where it was just

it was never going to come back from. But do you feel like Brown kind of set the tone for the Celtics coming out of the break. The game was kind of hanging in the balance. And Tatum had an awful game somehow worse than James Harden, probably the worst playoff game of his entire career. And he's had many, many playoff game. So that's pretty bad. But Brown was just aggressive, man. He kind of got things going.

He was going at those wing defenders. He was going at and beat. Only scored 25 points in this game. Obviously got shut down pretty early. But like, once again, it always seems to. to be brown that's stopping the tide or being the emotional lift from this team. And I know he gets kind of

lost in the shuffle. There's a big to do made about him about what his future is with the team. They need this guy, especially this season in this playoffs. I don't know that it's always brown. Like I don't want to throw Tatum under the... It's a lot of brown, but I think okay, some of that is the ebbs and flows

of Jason Tatum's game relative to other superstars, right? Like he is reliant on, especially when his three isn't falling. Things can get a little wayward for him sometimes. So you want a counterbalance for that. You want someone else you can go to who's going to have that aggressive mentality. That's why they compliment each other pretty well, right?

Like, Jalen can be that guy on demand who it's like, we just need you to be hyper aggressive this quarter. And he's shown in this series, in many playoff situations, he can be exactly that kind of score for them. So I don't really see it as like him stealing the Tatum spotlight or anything like that. Like, to me, this is a necessary evil when Jason Tatum is your best player. Like you want a second guy like Jalen Brown. Yeah, I will say in the NBA finals, Jalen Brown was the far superior player.

Tatum did not have that game. But at the same time, in the first round against KD, it was Jason Tatum putting KD in a straight jacket, one-on-one on an island, right? And so I'm kind of done doing the who's the 1A, who's the 1B with these two guys? They're incredibly elite at what they do. And, yeah, sometimes Tatum is just not going to have it, right? I think he's heard a lot of the criticisms from people like me in the past, not that he heard my criticism, but people who had the same one,

that the long two fade away with three guys draped all over you. That's not it. Get to the rack. Get to the line. And I think he's made a concerted effort to try to do that. He just can't always do that, right? Like he just can't always make that happen. It just might not be in the cards for him to be that sort of foul drawing, you know,

piling up 12, 13 free throws a game. And this might just be who he is in that respect. And he's not a blowby guy, right? Guys are getting under him. I know against Golden State, man, Draymond Green was timing this fool up so perfectly every time he got to the basket. So, you know, I get that. But I think he'll have matchups where the wing guard in him is just not going to be big enough, long enough to bother his shot.

And he's going to have his moments in his playoffs and put his stamp on with the ultimate success of his team. Yeah. And there's a reflection of Vimede in that, too. In the same way you're talking about Dremont. Like that's where you see some of Vindt's power is preventing people from driving and challenging them when they do. If Tatum is already the kind of player that can fall out of his game for stretches, it only tracks that that would continue as Embed gets high. healthier and healthier in this series. Right. And to be clear, I'm not doing praise pie here. Like, I'm not saying Brown is the most important one in Tatum is a bum. But what I am saying is obvious Laker, dividing conquer tactics going on. We see what's happening. Playing the long game, Justin.

Yeah, we're going to wait for the comeuppins at the end of the pot. I did that for you just because you had this James Hardin moment. So I also want to get into, I think there's some like ripple effects here in just the approach of some of these teams are taking between like putting a lot of threes up versus like attacking the rim that I think is interesting more big picture but I want to get into that a little bit later is there anything else from this game that jumps out to you did you guys appreciate the drone cam which what was happening there Justin we live in a divided country and it was honestly heartwarming to see people from across the political aisle coming together to agree

that the drone cam and its stop motion ass camera, we got to pack it up. We got to get it out of there. It just does not work. We punted that thing into the sun in like less than a quarter and I'm very proud of all of us. Yeah, I was so funny. Like I'm at our Spotify studios right now.

They put the game on in the theater room that they have in here. And so I'm sitting down and I'm watching the game. and that like sort of NBA 2K kind of view comes. And I'm like, man, is the NBA just do this for people that are doing this in the theater? The IMAX experience. I'm like, are we, are we? Exactly. I'm like, are we keyed into a special feed right now?

What in the world is going on? That was funny. Well, I have to say, Rob, this was your idea. Was it not? Weren't you the one that suggested that we should be getting the drones going back and forth to remove the cameraman on the baseline. So I feel like you build this into existence. I'm not opposed to a drone,

but can we get a freaking functional camera on that thing, please? Yeah. I think it was too fancy. What was the problem? Is that the problem? These guys were looking like Jack Skellington out there.

I don't know what you're talking about. I think it was just like in the future, man. It was broadcasting from 2032. All right. Anything else from this one that we missed? Any nuance, Rob? I mean, we didn't. We haven't really talked about Joe.

winning MVP at all. Sure. Monumental achievement for him, obviously an incredibly deserving candidate. And most importantly, you know, his teammate James Hardin, spring for this Rolex, really splurging,

really spoiling his teammate. It's noticeable that, Justin, I feel like Woz and I have known you for a long time. We've been working together, potting together for a long time. I've never once been offered at Rolex.

Oh, you guys want some Casios? I think I could spring for that. We can get Spotify to sign off on that. Yeah, let's get some timexes involved over here. But yeah, I'm, you know, I'm happy to bullies won. You know, they bullied these voters

out of voting for Nicola Yokic and try to mask it and we shall overcome rhetoric. But, you know, it's, it's, it's fine. It's fine. No, no, to be honest, like, I don't see how

anybody could say, Joel and Bid didn't have an MVP-worthy season, straight up. I think Yokic did too. Anybody who voted for Yokish, I don't think they have anything to be ashamed of. To be honest, I like the Yonis idea just because his team had the best record and it would be a way to not give it to Yokic

but still give a middle finger to the bullies. But at the end of the day, M. Bid, he played his ass off this season. And, man, and not that this should have factored into you know, Rob or any other MVP voters decision, but that video that the Sixers put out, like this obviously meant a lot to the guy. Really cool. That was really awesome to see.

And then, you know, you contrast it with Yokic who's just like, I don't even know what the big deal is type of thing. So, yeah, I like that portion of it, honestly. That's what sports are about. It's fine. Yokic gets his scene points for pretending like he didn't care about this. all the hipsters like Rob and Waz to a certain extent, even though you voted for Janus or fake voted for Janus,

we could all pretend like he's bigger than actual trophies. He has bigger things in mind here, including boxer purchases, apparently. I know we do a lot of podcasts. Have I said that I care about him not caring about the MVP? I'm pro people caring about things for the record. Give a shit. You know?

Show up. He's just lumping you in with the sort of constituency. Like, he's saying all of us. It's one of those things, Justin, where not all GOP voters are racist, okay? Am I a GOP voter? What is happening on this podcast? We can't just blanket statement across every single Yokage voter is some insufferable internet hipster about Yokic, right? Some of us just think he's the most effective guy in the NBA, as evidence by what he's doing in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

but go ahead, cook, King. I think you're both going to be hearing from my lawyer after some of these comparisons. I'm a little taking aback. All right, let's move along here. So we have some questions we want to ask about the rest of the playoffs going on. We're calling us just asking some questions here. These are takes that I think that we are thinking about that are percoling, but we're not 100% sure about. After the GOP rhetoric.

We're just asking some questions. We're just throwing them out there. Just hypotheticals for you. Listen, that Tucker Carlson seat is open, man. Licking our chops. First one on the deck here. Are we sure that the KD trade was the right move for the Phoenix Suns? And now we're definitely catching KD and the KD Sons probably at their needier.

At their lowest. Yeah. What, he's played like a handful of games. and this is the first time, I believe, that they've lost two in a row. But, you know, first round wasn't great. Second round, obviously down 02. And I think the big takeaway for me is it just seems like they don't have enough around this team. And so they find themselves kind of Rob in the similar situation as the Cavs where it's like,

yeah, your two guys are awesome. Clearly, Katie and Booker on another level, even than Mitchell and Garland. But like, you need other players to play. You got four guys. Chris Paul might not be there for the next two games. So you have three and Aiton is like kind of touch and go. I wonder if, A, they should have made the trade. But more specifically, like if they should have made the trade now at the deadline as opposed

to waiting in the summer. Just having seen that team before the deadline, and I know they were in bits and pieces because they had injury issues all year long. Like they just rarely had their group altogether. Something was off. It just like they were not right. Yeah. Really with the team that they had.

So I'm not thinking like, oh my God, what a missed opportunity. by not having the McAil Bridges, Cam Johnson's sons, really be able to make a run here. Would they be slightly, like, more playoff formidable in that form? I can't even really be sold on that, but I will say this for the Just Asking Questions theme. This is one of those questions that I'm getting floated a lot these days. Like, people are just throwing this out.

People in the league, people covering the league, like, huh, isn't it interesting? This team, like, sold so much to get Kevin Durant. They have such a limited timeline, given his, age and injury situation. And this is the way one of those runs is playing out. I don't know that I agree with that premise entirely. And I think given an off season, a lot of this stuff is going to look a lot better,

like when you don't have to rely so much on, you know, non-shooters and guys who can't defend, just like guys who aren't playoff viable, they're going to look a lot better. But in the moment, I get why we're asking the question. Yeah, look, I think the very best version, let's just say they didn't have all those juju problems that Rob just mentioned. The very best version of the team prior to the KD trade, where McHale Bridges is finding himself as an on-ball thread, and Chris Paul actually has, you know,

working hammies and groins and that kind of thing, is probably a little bit better than this group who's played like 14 games total together. This specific group at this moment right now. That being said, the high-end potential, of what this team has right now, far surpasses that of the previous group. I don't even think that can be questioned.

And so, yes, this was the right move. However, I will note, I was highly skeptical of the idea that this was some, you know, world beating juggernaut. They were going to just sweep through the West because they were just so great because now they have KD.

I was not sold on that idea. And again, because I watched the Brooklyn Nats, last year. As great as KD is, there's only what so much the guy can do. He absolutely makes your floor higher than, you know, 99.9% of the dudes that have ever played in this league. But again, not that he's some tunnel vision kind of guy, but he's not a great playmaker. You can't just ask him to be the hub of every possession and him creating shots for everybody else all game long. that's not what he does. Okay, and what he's asked to do,

which he did in game one for the most part, be individually great against his matchup, which is what he did, 12 or 19, 30 points, good game, efficient, was good. But, you know, he was a little off this game. And guess what? When you're playing a non-shooter and every time KD has the ball,

that's one of your best shooters who's also not spacing, which means the team can now load up on you, I think you're seeing the results of that. that. And so I'm not surprised by this. I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. Syke. Yes, I am. But I'm just saying, this wasn't, this wasn't completely, um, impossible to see coming is all I'm saying. Chris Paul getting injured, right? That's not hard to imagine. Also not a unique out. Like, I know there's like all the little butterfly effects of what's happened since the KD trade, but if this was what was going to

happened to Chris Paul anyway, was he was going to have a soft tissue injury in the playoffs. I'm not sure that other version of the team is any better off than this one. Yeah. And well, how much was that other version of the team at fault or not doing as well because of some of Chris Paul's problems? It wasn't entirely because of in the regular season. He definitely had a stretch when he came back from some of the injuries and he looked okay.

But like a lot of it was just like he hasn't been right and he has been right for going on what since last year's playoffs, maybe even before if you want to count the time. he missed the injury. And so I'm looking around in the playoffs, and I'm just seeing some of these teams, the heat in particular, who are doing well with the type of players that we know always do well this time of year.

Yes, Jimmy Butler has been magical. But like, they have the 3-&D players who are giving you two-way value, who are hitting threes. And I'm just like, you know how you can kind of tell what a team has

based on how they perform in the playoffs? I think the Kings, for instance, acquitted themselves well. We know a little bit more about the Kings based on that. I kind of think we know about what the last

league probably values based on what the necks acquired and extracted from both the Mavs and the Sons. They basically raided both of these teams of those three and D wings that we need that every team needs this time of year. And in the Mavs case, in the regular season, even just to get over the hump. But it's like, I almost feel like the Nets made a calculated bet that if we take all of these guys away that you know you're going to need for these specific situation in order to size down in order to match up with some of these teams, play to your strengths, play a little bit more small ball. It's not going to work from you.

And as we're seeing with the calves and we'll see this offseason, I wonder how hard it's going to be. Because one, those guys are the most coveted, probably asset in the sports, among them, certainly, after superstars and all that other stuff. But now you have a lot of teams that need this exact type of player. I know that was a rambling kind of answer, but like it almost signals something bigger picture in the NBA right now. I agree that that's what the Nets were after. I don't necessarily think that they were super invested in the idea of handicapping the Sons. You know, there is an interesting dynamic here

when you own another team's draft equity. You do kind of want them to be bad in the hopes of those picks will pay off in a big way. But as Waz was saying, like, Katie raises your floor so much. It's not like, you know, again, barring like significant injury where he misses a ton of time, the Sons are going to be good during this stretch for as long as he's there.

The problem is more this dynamic we're talking about, which is Katie is a killer, right? Like in the playoffs, he's a killer. And there are guys who are like this. Kauai is like this. And then there are totally other types of players who just kind of get everyone involved and activate all these different, you know,

bases of scores and guys coming off the bench and they turn them into different kinds of players. You can see it with Steph, you can see with LeBron, you can see it with Yokic. There's different ways to do it. That's just not where Durant is. And it's really not who he's ever been. And that's okay because what he is good at

he's the best in the league at, or at least close enough. They just need to have the kind of supporting cast to accommodate that. He's also getting older. You know, the injuries I don't think are an outlier at this situation. I think you've got to price that in to a regular season, if not in a playoff situation. It's just like, I think he's aging to the point where, yeah, he's still clearly one of the best sort of players in the league.

But like, I don't think it's unfair to expect him to start easing into, maybe not LeBron territory just yet, but like kind of on the cusp of that, where he needs to see the Florida Booker. We were saying what a good thing that was in the first round series, but now we're seeing it, it's like you actually need to be the bulletproof guy to shoot down the nuggets. And they're not getting that. It just, I don't know, your margin for error is super thin when you build these teams based around two players.

And to not get like just extreme 30 point games from all of them every single game, you see the results happen. I mean, I hear you. But this season, Kevin Durant averaged 29 points a game shooting, 56% from the field and 40% from 3. I think he's still that dude, you know? Like he gets a lot of attention, and that's why Booker really popped off in that way.

Those two guys just do operate kind of similarly in terms of what they're trying to do and what they succeed at. Yeah, and you know, it should be said. And look, it's a lot of times, it's unfair to compare guys to the stef's and the yoke which is these guys are MVP guys.

And again, these are the two guys in the NBA who are an offense unto themselves. KD is not that. He's a guy who can make really hard shots consistently. Okay? And that's the game. That's his game. And that's an important skill

when particularly in the fourth quarter of closed games. When, you know, running your little motion and continuity stuff where teams are locked in and stomping that out. It's like, oh, here, KD, hopper, Take it. Do something with it. That's valuable, but it's not the same as what Steph does. It's not the same as what Yokic does. Isn't that making the case that he should be surrounded by more depth that if you're going to trade for him, you need more supplementary pieces in order to

get him to the point where he could take over? I feel like I'm like dingin KD, but like I do feel like this should have been factored in a little bit more. And it seems like Matt Ishbio kind of like took the reins and just went cowboy on it. And I wonder if that might, ultimately hurt them down the stretch here. You don't think the sons know that though? Like they knew what they were getting into. They knew what they were giving up. I think maybe they didn't think

Michael Bridges is quite capable of what he's done. But in terms of the depth they were giving up, it was right there on the roster. Right? We were talking about it the day the trade happened. I don't know if they knew what they were giving up. When you're trying to trade for KD, by the way, it's easy to talk yourself

into a Landry Shamit, the dead eye, and you know, a Kogi's shot, he's been working with our shots. shot doctor and it's looking better. When you're about to make that trade, I can understand why somebody in the room is like, come on, it's KD, we've got to do this. But we've watched playoff after playoff

where certain role players like, yeah, it looks decent in the regular season. And then when those playoff lights start hitting your chest, it's not quite the same. And, you know, some people might say, oh, well, they could let Devin Booker play point guard. It's like, not really. Chris Paul takes like 20 years to get his shot off.

So functionally, he's not this. great floor spacer, right? Like, you have to put Chris Paul on the ball. And you know, I think realistically it's just get a guy who can make a corner three, like can at least credibly scare the defense to do that, who isn't completely horrible on defense and just figure out the rest. Yeah, I think that's probably closer to what actually happened. They got Shamit syndrome where they talked themselves into like five other teams before them

that Landry Schmidt could hit a three in the playoffs. And unfortunately that hasn't been the case. I think like, listen, I think you probably. Probably ultimately, if Katie's saying, get me out of here, I need to be traded right now, you make the deal. But like, you know, I think we are asking some questions about it right now. Yeah, understandable. It's the risk and reward of deals just like you don't just get to have home run deals. You can't every trade can't be the Anthony Davis trade.

You know what I mean? It can't just be a home run for one team and just blah for the other. Like, it just can't be that every single time. And like the Lakers in the like second, whatever. Anyway, that's just the give and take of modern NBA trades. And, you know, unfortunately for the sons, A-Rod in that group, completely blew up the trade market for the likes of Rudy Gobert. And that's just, they just had to pay the Piper.

That's life. Yeah. Well, since we're already talking about the Lakers, why don't we jump ahead to that one, Waz? My question is, are we, or was, sure, the Lakers won't make the West Finals. I'm mostly just checking with you, wise, how you're doing after game one. So I will say this.

I will say this. I'm surprised by how well the Lakers Guard and Golden States stuff. Like right out the gate, they had it game planned to a T. They had the personnel to execute. And man, it was like, this is looking hard. Like, it's like, oh, my God, in the first half, Clay's making all these shots. It's nine, it's two-pointers where he pumped, dribbled, spun, got somebody up in the air, and then made a long-ass two-point shot. You know, it's Vando completely harassing Steph, bothering him with the length.

You know, them having the sort of off-ball stuff scouted pretty well to the point where AD is, man, AD in game one was ridiculous. on defense. It was, I don't think anybody gets to the level of AD on defense when he is completely right. And I'm talking about even Draymond,

because when you add AD's length where he is playing the pick, the Steph picking roll so beautifully, where he's staying connected enough to Steph that, you know, with his long arms and his hops,

he's going to give a great contest. Steph has no interest in driving at him one-on-one. So that's completely taken off the table and he's keeping a good enough distance that he could guard the role guy in case there's some kind of lob or a pocket pass. I'm just like, man, if their personnel is going to do this well at doing all of the Golden State Warriors shit that they do, you know, I'm surprised. I'm surprised, Justin, that they can guard these guys this well. Yeah, AD's been

the best defensive player of the playoffs so far. And if he can be that guy on a consistent basis, they're going to be clicking at this kind of level. I, too, was pretty skeptical was. Obviously the Lakers in general on the record significantly repeatedly on that. But even in the series, I was wondering the same thing. Can their guys giving chase keep up with Steph and Clay? Are they going to get around all these

screens? And you're just not going to get a better like opening salvo on that point than what Jared Vanderbilt just did. For a guy that size and Vanderbilt's an amazing on ball defender, but usually in the way we saw in the Memphis series, right? Like quicker, rangier guys in front of him, quick guards, explosive guards, he's going to bother them with length.

I wasn't sure he's going to be able to get around all these screens, get around all these handoffs. He was unbelievable. And yeah, that blanketing effect of him and AD both is going to be really tough. But as we've seen with the Warriors time and time again, there's doing it for a game and there's doing it for a series. And at some point, it's not just those guys who have to be on a string. It's, is Dennis Schrooter like really plugged in tonight?

Is DeAngelo Russell really plugged in tonight? And they were in game one, absolutely. year, though. Shrewder's been doing it all year on defense. That, that I will say. And the only thing I, this is the difference between the Lakers game one and everybody else most of the time when they play against the Warriors. And I have to believe that the LeBron part of this is having an effect where he is just seeing this. He's seeing this stuff in his dreams at this point. Like he can, he can diagram Golden State's offense for them. Right. I think they come into it with, so much more knowledge about how to guard it. And so now when they start adding the little wrinkles, meaning when Schroeder's guy is setting the pick, sometimes where a lot of teams mess up against Golden State is when that guard-to-guard screen off ball happens for Steph.

Like, these guys are not expected to get planted by Steph or the other guard. And Steph or Clay or somebody ends up wide open off of that action. They're so good at screening for each other. The next step of that is just switching that, which the Lakers weren't doing yesterday. But that's another wrinkle that completely eliminates that offense. And so what does Golden State ultimately Redound do?

Redound to is Steph one-on-one, cooking people in ISO, which he's been doing all season long. He did it in game seven. I understand why he didn't want to come into game one. Like, all right, I'm just going to average 50 for the series and do it 44 minutes at a time. I get why they didn't take that approach. But I think the Lakers are going to get smarter about guarding this, not dumber.

Yeah, I tweeted this during the game last night. When you could tell how well the Lakers are doing by how long they could keep Jared Vanderbilt on the court. Because clearly they start this way. And they did in the first round series and they started most of the season post trade deadline after that. They see their identity as being this bigger, more defensive-minded team that is going to completely control the pain. And, like, LeBron, to his credit, had a really poor offensive performance for his lofty standards. He kind of downshifted to a big to the point where he is now focusing at times on getting rebounds on being a supplementary shot blocker.

He did a lot of the cleanup job when AD did get forced away from the basket. The point where he got jammed on by Gary Payton the second. And it's like, on the one hand, like, yeah, LeBron can't jump as well as he used to. On the other hand, that's what Biggs do. And that's kind of his function with his team now. It's just like, they're just so much bigger and so much successful, more successful at being a big team than probably any other team in the playoffs, more so than the six years as we just saw it tonight. And man, like, you guys said it already, but I just want to underline it like Anthony Davis, probably the best basketball of his entire career. Like, I came into this series wondering whether or not Draymond could be a foil for him because I watched a lot of Anthony Davis basketball.

And those kind of more squat guys like Dremont, P.J. Tucker, PJ, when he was on the Sons, even, like, before, like, when he was just like a weirdo defender with a foot fetish and he didn't have all this hype around him. Like, those were the guys that really kind of foiled Davis. Me shoe fetish. That's a very different thing. Yeah, okay. Go ahead. Well, all right. Are they different?

Keep it going. Keep it going. Keep it going. This guy is. Jesus Christ. He's just too big now. He's like, he's found in the way that like Bill has talked about Steph almost being at the peak of his powers, maybe not the best statistically, but just kind of has it all together.

80's kind of that because he's, he has the bigger body now. And he's almost playing like the most athletic big who is going to attack the rim relentlessly, as opposed to what he was at times where he kind of floated in the mid range and maybe wasn't as aggressive. Like I've seen a lot of him, I think is the best he's ever played. he was so good and he was so good in a way that makes you start looking up and down the Warriors roster and thinking

who's gonna score on this team over the course of this series right like if they're gonna be able to lock up some of the off ball handoff action you know Steph for as well as the Lakers guarded him 27 points in this game he worked hard for them but he ultimately

got there Clay was okay not very efficient by his standards really the found money was Jordan Pool had his best game of the postseason so far, that's not going to happen every game. And so you think beyond Jordan Pool, you know, if Anthony Davis is clogging up the paint, Draymond and Looney are not going to be able to eat scoring wise,

Looney's still a rebounding monster, which is going to be important. But Wiggins looked really shook in this game, did not want to test Anthony Davis inside, did not want to take spot-up threes when they came his way. They played Jamichael Green. They threw Gary, Gary Payton the second out there. They threw Dante Jimchino out there.

at a certain point making a couple open threes, but then AD just destroyed him. Yeah. On the other hand. Life comes at you fast when you play Anthony Davis, unfortunately. But that's kind of the question with them, is where are their answers going to come from, if not their core guys?

And that's why you're starting to hear the like, should they play Jonathan Comingam more? Should like, should Moses Moody get more run? I don't know what the answer is. And maybe the answer is ultimately like their shit just has to work better. And also we're talking about a five point game on balance. Like we're talking about the Lakers as dead. dominant and they were great.

But it was a five-point game that was right there. Like the Warriors had lots of chances to tie this game in the final minutes, missed some threes, miss some open looks, including a very controversial one for Jordan Poole that may have been contested by Darvin Ham from the sideline. This was a game. It was a great playoff game. And I don't want to overstay what the Lakers are doing, but they're off to a good start. Let me ask you guys this.

Who are you, like, who do you believe in to hit a shot except for Steph? He'd probably say Clay. hasn't been on throughout the playoffs but obviously he has the track record who else I think Wiggins will make a big shot I think he'll get his confidence back at some point

26% from three in the playoffs he's gonna have to honestly because they don't have any other options like pool is so inconsistent Clay and look God bless like the way he even gets his shots off when he has

he's no threat to dribble past anybody yet still gets off clean jump shots is just incredible, a testament to his work. But yeah, I think it's going to have to be Wiggins. Wiggins is why they won a championship last year, you know. It's going to have to be him if they win. And I think you'll have some opportunities.

I thought at the end of the game, when he was just housing people on the boards was pretty impressive. Those were huge. They worked all of those threes. But, like, just the fact that he was doing it, man. Like, that's going to be big for them. Wiggins is going to be why this series is like something special. Special.

Warriors are taking the most threes in the playoffs, currently 10th in percentage, behind the wolves and the suns. Now, obviously, some small sample magic in there, but, like, I think that reflects what we're seeing. Like, I think the Lakers are probably going to let them shoot, and they probably have to beat. Steph is going to have to be them.

People have always thought of this team as some three-point assassins. Two guys. Two guys. And pretty much outside of the KD years, nobody else can shoot threes on this team. Jordan Poole was, you know, nice regular season. And the playoffs, he wasn't some mark. Marksman, you know, not to the extent that people were respecting his shot that way.

And so that's been the story of this team. It's, it's Steph's like otherworldly three-point shooting, drawing all of this attention and opening everything else up. This hasn't been a team of marksman ever. Well, the first couple of years are pretty good. But yeah, remember when they signed to Marcus Cousins instead of getting winged depth? That was fun. All right.

Speaking of guys What are we doing? Damn. Distant to Marcus Cousins' Pick up. Light years. Could have been another title. This guy,

hold on. You ruined my perfect transition here. Speaking of wing defenders who can't hit threes. Thank you. Next and last on the list. Are we sure Dylan Brooks was the problem in Memphis?

And now this question is less about defending Dylan Brooks because I think we could all agree that he had a pretty piss poor playoffs and potentially season. I think it's more about just like the hullabaloo that has been started by one report from Shams Sharania, who suggested that Brooks isn't going to be brought back by the Grizzlies under any circumstances. And I feel like a lot of people ran with the under any circumstances part of it because it's so cutting. And it could ultimately be true. But I think after a while you started to see people reaggregate that.

as that was the direct quote from the Grizzlies, but it was clearly from Shams. And I think we're in this weird cycle where it's almost like people are thinking that, oh, they're throwing Brooks under the bus because they had a bad season. So how much is Brooks to blame for this? No, first of all, they didn't throw books under the bus.

Shams, that's my man, but he put some extras on it, right? Like unnecessarily put some extras on it. And that was it. They just told Dylan Brooks would not bring you back next season. That's it. But what's,

I think what people need to sort of understand about the NBA and locker room culture that, like, it's easy to say Dylan Brooks should just stop taking all these terrible shots,

stop doing all this crazy stuff. But it's hard because one, he's the longest tenured grizzly. Two, he fills ownership in the foundation that turned everything around. Like he's part of why they became a legitimate team.

And so three, his teammates who are better than him are younger than him. And they can't just tell the guy who, again, all of his antics was part of defining the sort of attitude and personality of the team to stop being who he is. And so it becomes a thing where he has to do this. He has to go somewhere else, get a fresh start, where somebody can tell him, yo, Dylan Brooks, this is a new situation. You don't have any stripes here. This is what you're going to come in and do.

And he's going to be like, no problem, boss, because there's going to be a different situation. But like, it's easy for people to say, somebody needs to just sit them down and tell him that. Who's going to do it? Yeah. That's the nature of how the NBA works. There's a real issue here between, you know, what you want of Dylan Brooks from day one is, like, phenomenal culture level buy-in. And you also want him to bring this edge

and this personality to your team and give a young team a sense of confidence. And then you also want him to be totally self-aware. Like those things are not compatible ideas. And you see versions of this with a lot of young teams with their various tenured guys. They don't always age gracefully. They don't always fall into their roles

because it is a hard thing to do for exactly the reasons you laid out was. It's not surprising that this is going up in flames. This is kind of the only way it goes up. And again, at the end of the day, Dylan Brooks is an all defensive first team level defender. Like, if you watched how he was guarding LeBron in that damn series, quiet as kept, he was in his ass.

He was. He did a phenomenal job, Guarding LeBron, guarding the post-ups, doing all of that. He's a first-team all-defense kind of guy. He needs to rein in the shot selection, be more self-aware. But this is a valuable dude.

Just a hypothetical team. Imagine what this guy could do on, I don't know, the Nuggets, right? Like, that would be insanely unfair. Too much Nuggets talk. We barely talked about them. When you guys are, I'm this scene. When the Nuggets do well, you guys start teaming up almost like your, Well, to be fair, Justin, we predicted.

We predicted this level of success. You didn't believe us. And now that it's come to fruition, you want us to shut up about it? Just wait until they get to the finals, Justin. We're going to be insufferable. I don't know if you guys want the 55th minute take of, are we sure that the Nuggets have played a good team yet in the playoffs? Because if we're being honest, wow.

I think there's still a verdict out on whether the suns are actually all that good. Okay. Yeah. Right. Because Memphis was great. Who else? Minnesota was incredible. It's the same thing at this point.

It's fine. Fly over country to wise. It's all right. Fair. But yeah, I'm sorry. I'm excited about Denver. But yeah, and I think, look, Dylan Brooks, good player. He's going to get picked up.

He's going to get a nice little deal. And he'll move on. We'll forget about this chapter. I think people even still, and they're not helped by the aggregators, don't know how to read these newsbreaker-e reports, right? When they do their write-ups, people don't know when it's, like, less direct information. and contextual, right?

And again, Shams put under any circumstances, which is just, they're not bringing him back this year. He put too much English on it. Yeah, like, I don't think there's a scenario where it is like, Dylan Brooks could never step back in this building.

You know, we wouldn't take him in a trap. Hell, no. Like, it's not that serious. He's not allowed within state lines anymore. It's not that. They didn't put a restraining order on Dylan Brooks. Like, they just said,

we're not going to give you a new deal we're moving on with our lives. That's cool and it's fine. You know what else won't be allowed under any circumstances? Justin Varyer under any circumstances, you are not allowed at the Denver Nuggets Championship Parade. So don't even try to get in. You're not allowed.

You're not allowed. That's what she said under Ruse as well. That's between you and like your local target. I'm a Calvin guy so I don't even know. No free ads, Justin. All right, why don't we wrap it there? What a place to stop.

Thank you to Isaiah Blakely on production. Thank you to Ben Cruz for filling in here. We'll be back Saturday night or Sunday morning. Just keep track of your feed. We sometimes come up late on Saturday. So we'll see. But until then, we'll see you next time.