The Ringer NBA Show - The Four Bounces Heard Round the World: Kawhi’s Raptors Advance | Heat Check

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

Kawhi Leonard’s buzzer-beating fadeaway lifts the Toronto Raptors over the Philadelphia 76ers to move on to the conference finals (3:12), while CJ McCollum’s big night helps the Portland Trail Blazers defeat the Denver Nuggets to secure their first conference finals berth in 19 years (32:29). Host: John Gonzalez Guest: Dan Devine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of He-check is brought to you by Belvedere, part of a 600-year Polish vodka-making tradition. Belvedere vodka is all-natural and made with 100% non-GML Polska rye and pristine water. Belvedere has champion Polska rye vodka and superior natural ingredients since its inception and continues their mission with its new Belvedere single estate rye series. These award-winning vodkas, Smogery Forest and Lake Bardazek, are two distinct tasting vodkas born from. from expert craftsmanship. Much like, say, Kauai Leonard in Game 7, even when it looks like the Raptors have their backs up against the wall, he's still draining threes in critical situations.

Taste the difference and enjoy Belvedere's new single estate, rye vodka's on the rocks. You're in a delicious cocktail today. I could use one after Game 7 here in Toronto. Belvedere's a quality choice. Drinking responsibly is too. And now, heat check. If you knew that was coming, it's heat check time.

Welcome to a special playoff edition of Heat Check. I'm your host John Gonzalez. I am in Toronto, joined as I am every week by my producer, Isaac Lee, who is in L.A. Hey, sorry for your loss, man. I feel like I should do some like happy Mother's Day stuff, but probably not so happy for mothers in Philadelphia. I just got out of Game 7. It was not the best game 7 I've ever seen, but it was one of the best game winning shots I've ever seen by Kauai Leonard. it was an incredible performance by him

and an incredible moment where the ball bounced four times and it went through the hoop and the raptors are moving on and the Sixers are not and immediately afterwards I got a text from Bauman who said he wanted me to shout him out

for predicting that the Sixers would win Game Six to make me come up to Toronto to watch them lose and work a game seven at night on a Sunday so shouts to Bauman, you were right. Yeah, apparently Toronto has it in for you. really just want you to work hard on the Mother's Day and Game of Thrones Day.

And Game of Thrones Day. What an incredible game. We're going to get into it in just a second. I want to say to everybody, thanks for listening. Please rate and review us and all of our fantastic Ringer NBA shows and pods. And check out all of our great content on the ringer. Palo and Haley are all over the winners and losers from the playoffs. Danny Chow has a piece about Kauai's game winner. I wrote about Sixers Raps game seven and the ripple effects for those Philadelphia 76ers. And Dan Devine. Dan Devine's always writing stuff. He's always writing stuff about the NBA. The NBA never stops. Dan Devine never stops. So I feel like he's a perfect guy to talk about basketball with right now after two crazy game sevens. The Sixers lose. The Raptors win. And out in the Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets were up big. They blow it. And the Portland Trailblazers advance. So we have a lot to talk about. So let's bring him in. All right. Joining me on the line. He's a staff writer. He's essentially. at this point, he checks unofficial third member, Dan Devine joining us. Dan, as I said in the open, I just came from a crazy conclusion to game seven of the second round of the Eastern Conference.

It wasn't one of the best games I've ever seen. It was easily one of the best finishes I've ever seen. Yeah, I was kind of not sure you still were going to want to do this. I wasn't sure exactly how our conversation was going to go. But yeah, I mean, listen, if it's got to wrap up in that kind of way, at least you get to see something that, you know, the kind of ending that very few people get to watch live. It was an absolutely wild finish. So from my vantage point in the arena, I was up pretty high. The angle that Kauai took on it seemed crazy.

And then when it bounced at first, I thought, okay, this looks like it's going to overtime. And then it bounced again. And then it bounced two more times. And when it fell through, our reaction from the press row was the same reaction as everybody in the crowd was the same reaction as everybody watching at home. It was some version of, holy shit. I can't believe that shot went down. It was really incredible.

Did you think that was going to happen? Did you think the ball was going to go through? Before the start of the play, I sort of thought, yeah, I mean, this is the way this ends. It ends with you gave that guy one more shot or that guy got one more shot and he made it because this guy makes this shot. But then I saw the play as it was unfolding and it's like, he's running really far away and he's running sort of in the wrong direction.

He's running himself into the corner. and there's a lot of red around him. This does not seem like a really high percentage look. And then for it to hang on the rim and that, you know, those four bounces and then to just sort of drop through. It's, it was sort of like the most kawai, the most appropriate dramatic shot that a guy like kawai could hit. Like bounce, bounce, plink, and then everybody goes nuts. So, I mean, it was obviously they had to draw it up for him. There was no other option and there was no other way that no other place you would put the ball in that situation.

But for him to sort of take that banana. to out kind of run all the way around the three-point arc into the corner and then shoot the fade. I was like, yeah, no one hits that shot, but he hit that goddamn shot. He hit that goddamn shot. It was just incredible. And this sounds like kind of a weird thing to say about somebody who's easily not just the best player in this series, but might be the best player in all of the playoffs anywhere so far. But it was sort of a redemptive moment for Kauai because right before that happened,

he had a chance to sought the game away by making both free throws. he only made one free throw, and Jimmy Butler races the length of the floor, grabs the rebound, races the length of the floor and ties the game with a layup. And then all of a sudden you're going, oh, man, Kauai might have just blown this for them by not making both free throws. And then instead he hits it. And he was saying afterwards that he's never made a game one or obviously in a game seven before. It's something to add to his resume.

But my favorite part about that was, you know, so you saw all the emotion of him after he makes the shot and his teammates mob him. And rightly so, they're enjoying this whole thing. And of course, Kauai gets asked about it in postgame. And he said, yes, I was very emotional in the most monotone possible way. So it was a perfect celebration for him to talk very evenly about how excited and high he was from the play. It was just an incredible thing to behold. Yeah, I think that's sort of perfect insofar as he just, everything's in brackets or in parentheses.

It's all encapsulated. That happens in the moment. And in the moment, there's the exaltation and the freak out. the holy shit I just did that. And then as soon as that's done, it's all right, now I've got to go get rested up in treatment and a couple days. And, you know, it is bright back to that like you barely feel a pulse and low blood pressure kind of situation.

But maybe that's what you need to be somebody who can perform to this degree in these moments because like that was the thing that, you know, as you're watching those late game possessions, you're like, even really great players. And there were some really great players in this series. But even those guys don't seem to want to have the ball in. their hands right now. They don't want to be the one that makes the mistake. They don't want to be the one or they're not able to sort of elevate their game in these moments. And that's, I don't think that is like a, you know, to paint with a broad brush and say that none of those

players like ever will. Jimmy Butler obviously has that amazing run out of the full court layup to tie the game. I know, Embedd has had major moments. He will have more, et cetera. But there was this, that sort of just collective tension of everybody not wanting to make the mistake that screwed everything up and lost the series. And in that moment, maybe it's because there was just sort of no other option. It was like four seconds.

And if you do it here and we win, then great. And if not, we go to overtime and everyone continues to have this long heart attack. But in that moment, who's ready to bring it home. And that's exactly why Masay Ujiri

traded the most popular Raptor ever, or one of them, to take a swing at a superstar because you need superstars in moments like this. And they got one and now they got a chance. There's no doubt about it. I mean, like everything you're saying about how Kauai won.

wanted that moment. It wasn't just that moment. If you want to expand the moment to just say the game or the series, he's been everything for the Raptors in the playoffs, certainly in this series. I mean, there were a couple of moments, a couple of games early where Pascal Seaccom was playing really well. And then later in the series, not as much. And I think Abaka was pretty good tonight. He played 29 minutes. It felt like he wanted some of those shots. Kyle Lowry took some of those shots didn't make a lot of them. He only made four of his 13. He went one for seven from three. But outside of that, for the most part, it was mostly just like, Kauai taking the ball and isoing and deciding I'm going to do all of this by myself because the rest of the team didn't

look super interested in doing any of that. Like it felt very much like the Raptors not named Kauai were like, yeah, we're cool with you doing this because I don't want to. Pascal Seacom, I thought, like, kind of shrunk from the moment. Gassal, essentially. especially like, you know, he was busy trying to defend Mbid, which is fine, but I didn't feel like he had a particularly good game where he was invested in things. It had to be Kauai. It had to be Kaui this entire game. It had to be Kauai in that moment. If it hadn't been Kauai, the Sixers would be in the Eastern Conference Finals. Absolutely. And I think it's worth, you brought up some good points about what Gassal was

providing, what Lowry was providing. John Schumann from MBA.com had a really good tweet in a note that was like, good defensive basketball is still good basketball, right? It's not just, It's not just that when you watch a slug fest, it means it's trash. And so Gassal goes 45 minutes and 11 seconds, matches every second Joel Mbid's on the floor. And Mbid goes six for 18. Now, some of that's just Mbid. Some of that is a lot of it is Gassal's defense. We've also seen instances in this series where Mbid was able to beat Gassal's defense.

You know, he's an elite offensive player. But the defensive work, the six for 18 for Mbid is more important or at least equally as important as Gassal's three for eight. Yeah, the Raptor's defense. late as the game really funneled down into crunch time was really excellent. I mean, there was a series of three straight possessions, two of which were, I believe, shot clock violations by the Sixers where they just could not get a look offensively. They looked lost and disjointed. And conversely, unlike the Raptors who had Kauai as a takeover guy, yes, you have Jimmy who can potentially do that, but he didn't in this game. And he was very

plainly the only guy who could, like, ISO their way, hero ball their way into a victory. I mean, it had to be a unit thing because they really only have one guy who could be their closer. But in those three series, it was excellent defense by the Raptors as well. It wasn't just that the Sixers looked disjointed offensively. It was that Toronto was just really all up in them for that entire time. And I think, like, as much as it was a failure by the Sixers, it was a win by the Raptors defensively. Yeah. And that's really been, that was the idea to some degree when they made the Gasol trade.

Obviously, it's the part of the big argument for making. a deal like the one for Kauai, which is it elevates your ceiling. You need to have a late game offensive creator at a different level at a different order of magnitude than DeMar de Rosen or Kyle Lowry was able to give you, but also you're prioritizing defense by having one of the elite perimeter defenders in the world sort of imported at a position of what was weakness when you didn't really have that guy with DeMarder Rosen. So you elevate the defensive ceiling across the board.

Seacum coming on this year in his growth, his development, you know, he's been absolutely monstrous. when they went to those bigger lineups where it was Gasol playing with Ibaka and Siacom, all of a sudden all that length and all the ability to cover ground quickly, the way they could close out on shooters and get hands in passing lanes and stuff really ratcheted up. The Raptors, this was sort of the recipe. In a perfect world, we've seen it in some blowout winds. It's also great ball movement and swing, swing for open shots.

And Danny Green's making six threes and everybody looks great and you're putting up 125 points. But this was also the blueprint. This was the way Masayu Jiri built this team this year. It's you're going to need all hands on deck defensively. You need to be able to take the opponent out of their primary actions and snuff out what they want to do most and do that long enough to give Kauai Leonard a chance to be the best offensive player in the series. And it took a lot of kind of a long time. It was the very last few seconds of the game, but it certainly looks like a plan that made a whole lot of sense. And now we get to go find out what it looks like when Kauai Leonard goes up against Yonis Ida-Kumba, which sounds like a damn monster movie.

I'm pretty excited for it. Yeah, I'm not there yet. We can be excited for it a little bit later. I'm still digesting this thing. I don't blame you. I don't blame you. I mean, look, Kauai was a monster of the entire series. There's no doubt about it.

And then, like, the other guys were alternately invisible and semi-useful. But in this game, even when, like I said, you know, I knocked Siakum for sort of shrinking in the moment and them not getting a lot out of Gasol or Laueri or Green or whatever. But also, in terms of a unit and doing the... the dirty little things that help you win a game. It wasn't just that they did that defensively. They were also all over the glass. And this is something that is sort of surprising to me because the Sixers, when they

assembled this five-man unit, one of the things that they really liked about, and I don't know that they did it on purpose, but it was a byproduct of these trades. All of a sudden, they got really big, right? They have five guys, you know, JJ is big for a shooting guard, I guess, but the other four guys are very large for their position. And yet, the Raptors crush them. them on the offensive boards. And time and time again tonight, it became a crucial thing that the Sixers couldn't avoid and that the Raptors benefited from. The Raptors had 16 offensive boards.

Serge Abaka alone had four offensive boards, which was as many as all five Sixers starters combined. Yeah, it's crazy. And it goes to, you combine that with turnovers, right? Because those are sort of self-inflicted wounds and their missed fundamental opportunities. And what you get in is, you know, Toronto force Philadelphia committed 17 turnovers leading to 21 Raptor points. And it's not even just that, though, because I mean, there was a 16 offensive rebounds. They didn't necessarily lead to instant buckets. I think only 12 second chance points for Toronto, if I'm looking at this right. But what it leads to is a 24 field goal attempt disparity between Toronto and Philly.

Toronto got up 89 shots in this game and Philly only got up 65. And you can't in a game 7, obviously comes down to the final possession. it comes down to the very last shot of the game, you can't give that many more bites at the apple to a team that even if they're struggling is still really good and has elite talent and has an elite shotmaker and creator and Kawhi Leonard to be able to make you pay on some of those. So I'm sure that's the kind of thing that Brett Brown is going to be, you know, seeing in his sleep for the next few weeks.

So they know all those second chances that they gave up, you know, the live ball turnover is the missed opportunities there. In the playoffs, these margins matter so much. And over the course of the series, it seemed like whichever team got the better of those things of the offensive glass, whichever team was better suited to take care of the ball or forced turnovers wound up winning. And in game seven, those things definitely went Toronto's way. Yeah, it really did.

I mean, the aftermath, too, was just crazy. Like the juxtaposition of watching the Raptors celebrate and then alternately the 76ers not. Yeah. And Bede was so despondent that there were multiple raptors that were consoling him. Seacom went up to him and gave him a hug. And Abaka was whispering in his ear. and Gassal was given in him words of encouragement, and he was just devastated and, you know, like, obviously,

how could you not be after something like that? I mean, it was just a killer to watch, but I wonder, like, it felt like the narrative out of Philly was that everything hinged on game seven, which is crazy because if you distill it further, that means everything changed by that one shot. Like, all of a sudden, if that shot doesn't go in and they somehow win this game,

does it change everything about, like, Butler may be coming back and maxing out Harris and sure, you're fine with Ben Simmons doing whatever Ben Simmons does. And Joel will be just finding Brett Brown's a good coach. And all of a sudden none of those things are true or maybe only some of them are. It's hard for me as a Philadelphia and to gain perspective on it. But it feels kind of crazy that the narrative would shift that much on one play. Yeah, I agree with that.

I mean, I think heading into the game of a number of smart people, you know, I think Derek Bodner at the Athletic and some other people has sort of written that notion that if this really is a referendum on Brett Brown, if whether or not the Sixers win game seven is going to determine whether or not he has his job. You also have written about what we don't know about coaching and how fickle that sort of discussion can be during the postseason. This idea that if they win this game, then he's a good coach and then the players are good and we're building in the right direction and bring everybody back and sign everybody. And if they lose this game, you need to change on the bench and you need to change the rotation and you need to get rid of the guys and make wholesale changes. it seems like at the risk of bringing back old ghosts.

That's not the longest view in the room, right? That's not the way to sort of make these decisions. Maybe the pressure of the moment forces you to change that thought process. Obviously, last several front offices that the Sixers have had, have had a different sort of viewpoint on the timeline of this team. That made sense as a way of looking at it before the game. I certainly think it makes sense when it comes down to the final shot of the game. you have to look at what led you to this point and what brought you here, that collection of talent,

the group and the rotation that you put together, and see where you fell short, for one thing, I'd say, having five centers and only one of them being playable is a problem? This is, okay, let's pause here for a second. Okay. Because there were multiple times during the game when, you know, I'm two screening it. I'm on Twitter and I see people crushing Brett and saying, you got to get Embed back in there. and what are you doing running Greg Monroe out there for all of two minutes. Essentially, he had a seven-man rotation, as did Nick Nurse in this.

They stole two minutes with Greg Monroe. And my thing was, what exactly do you want him to do? This is something I've repeated multiple times. I guess I don't want to repeat it one more time. What exactly do you expect Brown to do? I guess he has some hand in assembling this roster because he was instrumental in installing Elton Brand as general manager in the front office. but like you said,

they have a shit ton of centers and none of them are good after Embed. Yeah, I mean, the number, I'm sure it's made the rounds already and if it's not, we're going to make it make the rounds right now. Embed got 99 minutes of rest in this series over the course of seven games

and the Sixers were outscored by 109 points in those 99 minutes of rest. That's crazy. That is basically an imaginary number. That's like if I told you, they outscored them by 113 points. You could have made up something that's not a number and I would have been like, yeah, okay.

Sounds about right. I mean, the long and the short of it is, you can sort of hold a couple of different thoughts in your head, right? You can say, Embedde had a very up and down series, and maybe some of that was due to injury, and maybe some of that was due to illness, and maybe some of that was due to performance, and maybe some of that was due to Marcus Saul and yada, yada, yada.

But they need him to be something closer to the consistency of what Kawhi Leonard gave Toronto in the series. That's what the, if he's going to be the franchise player, if he's going to be the perennial all NBA player, the tent pole centerpiece, he has to be that guy. But expecting anybody to do that for 45 minutes a game in the highest leverage moments of the season is faulty construction. And so if you're talking about what changes need to be made and what adjustments need to be made as six years move forward, what this game and this series and whatever, this result is a referendum on, I think you start there as opposed to we got to get rid of the coach and we shouldn't resign this guy or this guy or this guy. It's you have to figure out how to be able to win these games with Embed playing 38 minutes or 40 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes and then falling short in the last second because you couldn't live with Greg Monroe for five seconds.

Did you see the post game presser? I saw some of it. I didn't see all that. We were also, you're talking about second screening. It was a game of throne situation that had to happen here. Yeah, I've heard of that show. Don't tell me anything about it. It was a weird post game presser for a lot of reasons, but specifically with Brett Brown, who was asked like, hey,

you know, so about all this speculation about your job there, guy, have you had any conversations with ownership about your job? And his answer was very strange, very short. He said, we talk about that stuff all the time. The club can address it. And I was like, what? Right. That's it. Like, the club can address it. And, you know, they've got clean out day tomorrow. And now everybody's on Brown Death Watch here. And I just think, like, I fear that he's going to end up as the scapego, which would be unfortunate for all the reasons that I wrote about in a very long piece saying, I don't think that we know as much as we think we do about coaching and especially not in the playoffs. And then beyond that, Jimmy Boller was also asked, hey, what are your plans there, guy?

And he said, I'm not talking about that right now, which I understand it's like moments after a game seven that they just lost in brutal fashion. But watching him afterwards, like he got off the dais, he was with him B, they got off the dais, they went into the back there. and they had like a hug goodbye that felt more than just, hey, we're teammates, we just lost a game. And then they went literally in separate directions. Yeah, like the symbolism was a little on the nose for me. Yeah, it's like I can't write that. I can't, you're seeing that, it's all a bit much.

But I can't blame, honestly, I feel like I can't blame Brett Brown. If he was like, I actually don't want to answer another question about anything right now because all I've been doing for the last, I don't know, five years. years is answering questions about what the front office is or isn't going to do and how to interpret what they will or won't say or whatever. And like he's been put out in that position so often for so long and he's the shield sort of taking all those shots for him to be able to say like, yeah, I don't really have much to say about my situation. Like the reality is if Brett Brown gets fired because of this, he will have an opportunity to coach. I would imagine as soon as he would

like to somewhere else. You're not going to walk into probably the same talent situation that you would here, but I would imagine he would not be a free agent for very long if he chose that. Because I think what you showed in terms of building this culture, developing, starting from the very early process days of like, this is the way we play. This is the idea, the identity, the style. This is how we're going to grow the confidence of our young guys, how we're going to develop the program and all the sort of collegiate stuff that all that language was couched in. People bought into it.

And it did grow and it did develop. And I don't know that maybe those guys, you know, guys like Embeddon's and Ben Simmons and, I know, before the, you know, some of the other guys like Robert Covington and Dario Sharich, maybe those guys would have become who they were anyway no matter what, but maybe not. And I think as organizations around the league look at it and say, we want somebody that we know can, you know, people, whether it's have a hand in player development or that is capable of bringing a team every step of the way, he's shown that capacity to do that while also being a hell of a quote in the process. So I would imagine if that's the way things swing,

I don't think that'll break too badly for him in the long term. And I think that if you're going to make that choice in your Elton brand, your Sixers ownership, you better have a really damn good replacement lined up because as we just saw in LA, coaching searches can get weird fast if you don't have exactly the right idea for who you want and when you want to get them. Yeah, Tyler is available. I mean, after coming within not just one game of the Eastern Conference Finals, but one shot that bounced four times. Right, one miracle.

Yeah, I mean, it was a hell of a shot and a hell of a performance. not just in this game, but in the series by Kauai Loner, like all, all credit to the Raptors, they're going to be a really tough out for the Bucks. And I have no idea. And we're going to get to that in just a second who's going to win the Eastern Conference finals. But the simple, and maybe it's so simple, it's too obvious. But the thing that it would seem to me to do here is just to run it back with everybody. If you can get Jimmy to stick around and Tobias to stick around and you keep Brett,

and you like, you go, okay. I mean, remember, going into the playoffs, the five starters had only played together for 10 games. you just got into what can we do with these guys. And now it's over sooner than you'd want it to be sure. But I just don't know about like all of a sudden reconfiguring the roster and or, you know, ousting the coach and hitting the reset button. I'd want to see more of this because what we saw despite the end result was pretty good to my mind. Yeah.

I mean, again, you're talking about a sample of 334 total minutes between regular season and postseason. So it's not exactly like they've had a ton of time to gel and to come together. And in those minutes, quick math, they were a plus 173 in those minutes. So like again. Again, 11D million. 11D million. Yeah, like far in a way the best option the team had. And at times it looked devastating. At times it looked like Ben Simmons was figuring out where to position himself on the floor alongside Jimmy Butler picking rolls. And when Tobias was going and when JJ had the shot going and had the motion going there was space for everybody and there would be games where everybody takes like between

10 and 14 shots and they just rampage and that size coming to bear on the defensive end as well. There were there were nights where it all clicked. There weren't enough of them, unfortunately. And there were periods like that fallow period late in the fourth quarter where the grinding of the gears offensively and the lack of familiarity, the lack of sort of perfect fit came back to harm them in that way. But I personally would love to see what this looked like with a full off season, with maybe some reimagining of what you can do in the second unit,

improvements of some of those backup pieces, giving Brett Brown another sort of a chance to put the pieces on the board and figure out how to make them move around. There's a really interesting team here. There's already one, and I think there's one that could be even more compelling and more dangerous on both ends of the floor, given some chance to gel and to cohere.

But there's a lot of questions that need to get answered as far as contract situations, and the extension for Ben Simmons, who's now eligible for an extension of his rookie deal and Brett Brown situation and so on and so forth. So there's a lot that has to get figured out before you get everybody back to training camp. But personally, I would kind of like to see what it looked like. Going to be a super chill off season in Philadelphia.

If they don't bring back Mike Scott's tattoos and his headband, Philly's going to riot. All right. So spinning it forward before we move on to the other series, who do you think wins, Bucks and Raptors in the Eastern Conference? I wonder how excited NBA executives are about this market matchup for the conference finals. We've had some conversations about that. And I get generally the idea that these are not NBA glamour markets. But I kind of wonder if we've always said it's a league of stars, right?

You can sell stars. And I think you can sell Janus versus Kauai. I admit neither of those guys are at LeBron level of market saturation, public personalities, household names. But they're up there. And I think you can sell that. So I'm interested to see what the ratings and the public response looks like. But in terms of the on-court basketball stuff, I haven't dug into the matchup too much yet. They'll probably be doing that tomorrow for some conference finals preview stuff that'll go up on the ringer.

But my early read, my early first blush response is I think Milwaukee just has too many answers across the board. I loved the way that Mike Boodenholzer responded to getting punched in the mouth and that the game one sort of adjustments that Boston made. And he said, we know how we have to respond to this. We know how we have to adjust to it. We know we have the pieces in place to do it. We have the confidence in, you know, even without Malcolm Brogton for most of that series, you know, they said, we are going to figure it out with Pac Conantin. We're going to figure it out with George Hill.

We're going to, you know, we have this sort of secondary group of guys that we believe can contribute. And they did. And now Brogden is back. And he played pretty well in his first healthy game back. And they've had some time off to rest up and get everybody, you know, loading for bear. I mean, there will be that question. of, you know, rest versus rust like there is for every team that had a long layoff. But if any team was going to be going up against Toronto and have the still be able to feel like they had the best guy in the series, it's Milwaukee with Janus.

And given what the rest of the Raptors looked like at times in that series against Philadelphia, the way that they sort of ebbed and flowed and missed a ton of open shots and so on and so forth, I kind of feel like I trust Milwaukee's depth in Milwaukee's overall talent level more than I trust Toronto's in that matchup. But I think it's going to be fascinating. And, like, again, two guys who very well might wind up guarding each other the whole series and going at each other at that like a, a plus level of Janus versus Kauai. I can't wait to see what that looks like. Yeah, once again, not there yet. I'm sure in a day or two, I will be there. I'm like moments, moments out of the arena still digesting what the hell happened,

not just in that game, but to the Sixers season. And what's pending as they go into locker cleanout day on Monday, But yeah, a hell of an effort by the Raptors. I'm sure I will get excited about Raptors and Bucks soon, just not yet. All right, before we go to the other series to the Western Conference, let's take a break for a word from our sponsors. Today's episode of Heechek is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring used to be hard, multiple job sites, stacks of resumes,

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Download the Turo app that's T-U-R-O on the app store or Google Play, or visit at Turro.com. Get $25 off your first trip when you sign up for Turro and use promo code Bringer 25 at checkout. Terms apply. And now, back to Heat Check. All right. So before the crazy game seven in Toronto, there was a crazy game seven in Denver.

And the road team won that one, Dan. The Portland Trailblazers were down 17 points on the road, looked listless in the first half. Dame couldn't hit a shot. and we're like, I'm watching it on a TV in the bowels of the arena here in Toronto, and we all had a pause to do like pregame media avail. And I thought, well, you know, this game's going to be over. To have it look like forget about it.

And when we came back from pregame avail, all of a sudden the Blazers were up and CJ was killing it and Dame made a couple of shots and Evan Turner, there was an Evan Turner sighting. And the Blazers won? This was crazy. I mean, you were watching this game. Did you expect Portland to emerge victorious and reach the conference finals? I did not. I feel like I didn't have much of an expectation one way or the other, to be honest with you,

because all of the things that we had had questions about with Denver all season long, you know, would a young team that depended on so many relatively inexperienced guys in their rotation, would they be able to meet the pressure of a game seven? Would they be able to meet the pressure of what that required possession to possession? and Nicola Yokic was fantastic as he has been all season and all postseason, but then there was the other big question that's sort of the

always question with the Nuggets is what kind of Jamal Murray game are you going to get? And 17.6 rebounds, five assists sounds really good, but it's four for 18 from the floor, and it's missing all four of your three pointers. And they needed something else. They needed that second

punch, that second source of shot creation and shot making to be able to answer and counterback when CJ would make his big shots, and Marie just wasn't quite there. And when... In fairness, in fairness, he did have a shot with about 30 left to get them closer. They were down one. I thought the bigger indictment, I mean, Yokic has to make both of his free throws with,

what, 11 seconds left? Right. And he doesn't, and instead, C.J. goes ISO and hits a mid-ranger where he looked like he kind of, as he was doing his stepback move, maybe pushed off a little bit, shoved off a little bit. but you know, Yokic hits both. All of a sudden, that's a little bit different,

but instead CJ hits the shot, now they're up three. I mean, CJ in this game, and in game six, actually, took over. And the Blazers

deciding to go with CJ because they had to add a necessity in those two games, I think says a lot because the ringer has been trying to trade him for years. And just ask him.

He's very aware of that. To me, the thing that was so impressive with CJ McCall, I mean, we've known he's a mid-range killer for years. We know when he's got that incredibly tight handle.

He's able to get into in and out of tight situations. He splits double teams like nobody's business. And he's just liquid with the ball in his hand. But he's been able to anchor lineups that really needed to be good for this team. Like the beginnings of the second and fourth quarter when it's just like him and yeah, it's Evan Turner and it's Seth Curry and it's Zach Collins. And you're like, I don't know, man. I hope.

I mean, you know, no dame, no Nerkich. We're trying to figure it out. CJ, you got to run everything and it's got to go through you and they worked. He was able to make them work and was able to sort of steady the ship in those moments. And then when they came back, when those sort of smaller lineups, I wrote a little bit about that in the pre-game seven piece that I did for The Ringer about Terry Stots in Game 6 turning more to like a one big man for Smalls look, whether it's Cantor or Collins.

But then with CJ and Dame and Rodney Hood who had a huge Game 6 and then, left early with the, I believe was the hyper-extended knee from game seven, but all of these sort of shot-making smalls that would go around. And for that to work, especially when Dame doesn't have it going, CJ has to make shots at a really insane clip and make plays with the ball in his hand to create for others. And he did a sensational job of that. I think more than 30 points and zero turnovers in game six and seven, which is crazy.

You know, a huge, given the shots that he was taking and the plays that he was trying to make to maintain that level of efficiency and not stumbled and cough the ball up is just wild. And it indicates that this is the proof of concept. The Blazers to a man would always say, we believe that what we have here is enough to get deep, to go far. We don't have to just break it up because we're not quite as good, or the production isn't quite as good. The results haven't been quite as good as the Splash Brothers or insert other one-two punch here.

This is the proof of concept, whether it means that they're good enough to go deep against those warriors. I mean, it remains to be seen. We'll find out what that matchup looks like and, you know, how effective Golden State's going to be coming off of a war of attrition against Houston. But this is the suggestion of like if you're pretty good for a long time and you believe that you have what it takes to get to really good, you got to keep giving it a chance. And they gave it a chance.

And C.J. McCollum made him look awful smart for it. Yeah, I think that's a really good point because like the Blazers have been in line in the Western Conference for a while. and there were those of us, pretty much when I say those of us, like we all work at the ringer, where we went, yeah,

you know, maybe you blow it up and you break up the back court between Dame and CJ and you see what else you can get. And you're right. I think this is validation for Neil Olshey

and the Blazers organization where they go, we told you. Like, this is something that we said that we could do and we did it. And here they are in the Western Conference finals for the first time since 1999,

2000. that was the Sheed team, Damon Stoddemeier was on that team, Scotty Pippin, Arvita Sabonis, DeMontas is dead. That's how long it's been since they've been in the conference finals. And they really hit on something here where, to your point about proof of concept, where they can go, okay, yeah. And to do it without NERC, too, I think is really, really impressive. I mean, they've gotten quality contributions from Cantor.

But when they lose NERC, I thought, well, that's going to be a huge blow for them because he was playing really well. and they plug in canter and they keep plugging along. And it's a big moment for the Blazers. And I think like pretty damn devastating for the nuggets because to be up 17 points at home in a game seven and blow it, I'm with you when when you say that, you know, you probably need more from Jamal Murray who only went four of 18 and didn't hit a three pointer. But to be up that big and then lose, that's going to be a tough, tough off season. Oh, absolutely. And it's, we talk about this a lot with young teams, right?

because so much of this core is under 25. And there's that sense of, yeah, well, you know what? This is their first kind of first taste of how difficult this is and how hard it is to win in the postseason. And it's going to serve them in good stead and they'll be back. Yeah, maybe. And I hope that's true. I love a lot of the young talent on this team.

But a lot of times teams don't come back. You know, so sometimes the best chance you get is the one that is right in your hands right now. And for it to go, you know, in the second half of that game, they go 16 for 48 as a team from the team from the, the field. They miss all nine of their three-pointers in the second half. They score 48 points and get outscored by 13. And they just- Forget about the second half. Dan, they only had two, three-pointers in the game. In the whole game. Yeah, it's crazy. And the whole game. And I think they were both in the first quarter, right? I think it was both, it was Yokic hit in two in the

first quarter. And like, so, but the idea that they had that early lead, they had that sort of momentum, and then they just could not sustain it. They could not continue to execute. And when McCollum keeps throwing in those daggers from mid-range and just keeping them close and drawing them in and raining them in a little bit, it puts them in position where it's a young team or an inexperienced team gets put to the test. And in fairness, I want to make sure I want to, I go clear on this. It's not just the inexperienced guys. Like, this was not a crowning achievement for Paul Millsap today, you know, to he fouls out with, I think he was three of 13 from the floor. He has meant so much to this team, especially on the defensive end for what he can lead people to do. And he was

killing early in the series, posting up on Aminu, posting up on Evan Turner. The Blazers were able to adjust, show him some more bodies, some more help in the paint, especially when Zach Collins is in the game, so he wasn't just bulldozing Evan Turner to get to the rim. And a lot of the easy stuff dried up for him and a lot of the good looks or the looks that he had, he wasn't able to knock down. And the moment when you need those leaders most, he wound up having a quiet performance. I don't think that's necessarily what's going to go on, Paul Millsap's career obituate. or anything like that.

But this was a day where Nicola Yochich needed help and where the Nuggets needed something to help them maintain what they'd already earned and already put together and keep it from getting siphoned away from them and clawed back. And there just weren't enough answers. They did not do what they needed to do

over the course of the last 30 minutes of the game or whatever to be able to maintain what they'd held. And I think that's going to leave a very bad taste in a lot of Mao's in Denver for the next few months. Yeah, I mean, you're right. like they needed something from somebody other than Yokic. And this is something that I was concerned about, not to do the, I told you this was coming thing,

but I kind of told you this was coming where like I wanted to see what would happen in a critical situation when Yokic wasn't necessarily like doing it all by himself. Who would be the guy to step up? And I think we've had Jamal, we had Jamal Murray games. I know he didn't shoot well tonight. I think Jamal Murray had a really good playoffs overall. But tonight you needed something.

from him a little bit extra. But beyond that, I wanted to see, like, who was going to be one of the nuggets to step forward and, and put their hand up and be counted. And it's pretty much nobody. And it's, that's a shame that, like, they have a lot of depth, but they don't have like a, beyond Jamal Murray, who I think is now the one A, they don't have a lot more beyond, you know, Yokic and Murray and like periodically Gary Harris. Right. Gary Harris has a way of, like, disappearing at times. And as you mentioned, not a, not a crowning achievement for Paul Millsap. And then you've got that bench that looked really deep during the season and looked less useful in the playoffs.

And that's just a killer way to lose. But I think it's more about the Blazers stepping forward and like taking that next step into, hey, we're here too in the Western Conference. We spent so much time focused on the Warriors and the Rockets that we kind of forgot about them. And this has been a hell of a playoffs for them so far. I'm with you. I don't know how many games they could potentially steal even without KD against the Warriors.

but really impressive. I mean, for CJ to emerge, when Dame wasn't necessarily playing his best. I mean, Evan Turner came out of nowhere and helped out a little bit. I mean, Zach Lowe tweeted this out. Evan Turner had three baskets and one made free throw. The entire playoffs combined before that game. Crazy.

And then, you know, all of a sudden, he's like, yeah, I can play a little bit. I'll help you out. They played 10 dudes in this game. Yeah, I mean, it's, maybe it's fitting. They're about to go play the Warriors, and it's going to be strength in numbers versus strength in numbers. I mean, it's funny, the book on the Blazers for so long, the previous iterations of them was like,

okay, so you trap the ball out of Dame's hands, you trap the ball out of McCollum's hands, and it's going to be, can Moharkless beat you, can Alphirut Aminu beat you? And oftentimes, for the most part, the answer has just been no. And that similarly true here, you know, those are they combined to go four or nine from the field, nine points. Aminu only played seven minutes in the game. You know, the matchups kind of went away from where Terry Stott's would tip. typically use those guys. I was wondering heading into this game, you know, game sevens can be

conservative affairs. They can be, you know, they make you play tight or you can feel the pull to play tight. So I was wondering, you know, is he going to lean more on those guys who offer more defensive aptitude and, you know, guys who can switch on different assignments and, you know, more length and so on and so forth? Or is he going to say, you know, we've been having some success with these small ball things and more shooting on the floor, try to put more pressure on the defense and also create more space to allow CJ to go ISO or Dame to go ISO. And Terry Stotz leaned that way. He leaned in favor of defense.

So that's what you see a lot more run for Rodney Hood. Rodney Hood emerging as a thing again. Amazing. Well, I don't even know if I can say again, just emerging. Right. Yeah, it might not be a reemergence. It's just an emergence. Right.

And good for Rodney Hood because there's been multiple times when I've been like, man, I always expected like Rodney Hood to maybe become a thing. and never was a thing until now with the Blazers? It's wild. I mean, but it's maybe not coincidental that, you know, a guy who got kind of knocked into the dirt a little bit gets to a situation where, A, not much as expected of him, but B, the culture that they have there is like, yeah, we just got knocked into the dirt about as bad as you can last year in that first round sweep. And we still believe and we still try to, you know, pick ourselves up and go back to it. And he has picked himself up and gone back to it. The hope is that, you know, whatever he suffered with that hyper-extended knee is, not going to keep him out for too too long. You know, hopefully you'd be able to see him get another chance because he certainly

has earned it with his play in this postseason in this series especially. But, you know, yeah, you mentioned Evan Turner, the basically playing like a point power forward role on the second unit as a distributor and a guy who can play out of the post, can get himself to the foul line. He was really working hard on the defensive glass because the nuggets were busting up the blazers on the offensive boards earlier in the series. And that became a point of emphasis to try to sort of steal some of those second possessions and eliminate those easy or looks for Denver's offense.

And he brought it. He played fantastic these last two games when they absolutely needed it. And those looks, those small lineups that, you know, more shooting, more offense. It opened up more opportunities. In game six, Dame took advantage in the second half. And in game six and game seven, C.J. McCollum put his stamp on it to the point where now people are going to like look at what C.J. McCollum has done during this postseason and say, is this one of the best players in the league that hasn't made an all-star team?

And maybe that's recency bias. and maybe it's not. But, you know, guy goes out in the second round series, 26.4 points per game on 46, 38, 77 shooting splits, like taking 24 shots a game and he's scoring with high efficiency without a lot of turnovers. It's all you can ask for from a complimentary guy to the point where Davy and Liller goes 3 for 17

in a game 7 and they win. I mean, you can't ask for much more than that. And we'll see how that matchup works out as they move forward with Golden State. But at this point now, there is no way you cannot consider this season. an unqualified success for the Blazers and a statement that they deserve to be in that consideration of that tier right below Golden State. And who knows what happens with the Warriors this summer,

you know, being really good in the West is hard. And if you do it for long enough, maybe some good things will happen for you. If they get second round CJ and first round dame, all of a sudden that could be a thing for them against the Warriors. It could make the series much more difficult than I think most people would expect it to be for Golden State before I let you go, because you're busy and it's very late on the East Coast,

I'm sure that you would like to go to bed and or spend some time with your wonderful family and maybe even watch that Game of Thrones show that you were talking about. What chance do you give them to, if not win the series, then take a couple games from the Warriors? I think there's a pretty good chance they take a couple of games from the Warriors. I mean, as impressive as what Golden State did in Game 6 against Houston was, and it was. It was fantastically impressive for them to go,

sort of the other way. As you mentioned with Portland playing 10 guys to expand the rotation out and get good minutes from not just Kavanaughn Looney but also if Alfonso McKinny steps up and Quinn Cook steps up and so on, this is still a team that is going to go into a Western Conference final series

without Kevin Durant to start it and if he comes back to what degree is he going to be limited, we'll have to see. And the Blazers are not scared of the Warriors. There's just too much familiarity for them to be shook by the matchup. They might not win it.

They might not be able to beat that talent no matter what, because as we saw when the warriors reorient around the Steph Dramon pick and roll and reorient around so much of their motion, as opposed to saying we have the ultimate, in case of emergency, break glass option, just give the ball to Duran, let him shoot over somebody, their offense becomes, it's not more potent, but it's just more varied. They can operate in a different way. It activates more guys. So that might wind up being a really dangerous thing for Portland. But I think Portland showing that they've got more looks they can go to as well. They've got more lineups they can go to. Zach Collins being somebody who emerges as a guy who can stretch the floor a little bit at the five while still protecting the rim and working on the defensive glass. It really adds a different dimension. And Terry Stott's has had to lean on it because of the absence of Nerkich and the limitations due to health and otherwise of canter. So I think that there's some different spice and some different looks than we've seen from Portland in the past in this matchup. I wouldn't put my money on them winning the series, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they took a couple games off it and it wound up pushing the Warriors to a sixth game here in this series. Yeah, whatever happens, as you said, super successful season for the Blazers.

We are excited for all of our Blazers, friends who listened to and have appeared on the heat check program. Ian Carmel, I'm sure, is out there doing donuts on somebody's lawn, I hope. It's a terrible day for the enemies of Ian Carmel. I think we can all agree on that. It's a terrible day for them. It's a great day for Jennifer. Jennifer is out there somewhere doing something.

Probably very excited about it. I can't wait to read the feature on Jennifer. Somebody's out there. Somebody's got it. it. Somebody's got it reported out. They just waiting for the way waiting to hit send. Go and lock it down. Dan Devine, this was excellent. Thanks for doing it, buddy. My pleasure, Gons. Get some rest.

All right. We thank Dan Devine. I want to thank Isaac Lee as well. And I want to thank all of you for listening. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. If you would be so inclined, and please read all of our content on the ringer.com. And don't forget, throughout the playoffs, you've got the mismatch on Tuesdays, corner three on Wednesdays, group chat on Thursdays. And we're going to have a whole bunch of post-game micropods in your feed. be on the lookout for that. Isaac and I will be back next week on Sunday for Monday. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye.