The Ringer NBA Show - The Lakers Clobber the Warriors, Julius Randle Goes MIA, and More | Group Chat

Episode Date: May 7, 2023

Justin, Rob, and Wos start by reacting to the Lakers' dismantling of the Warriors and taking a 2-1 lead in the series. They talk about Anthony Davis’s impact on both sides of the ball, the Warriors' second-quarter implosion, D’Angelo Russell, and much more. Then they discuss the Miami Heat dominating the Knicks to take a 2-1 series lead. They discuss Jimmy Butler’s return from injury, Julius Randle’s disappointing performance, possible adjustments for the Knicks, and more (28:15). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, Wosny Lambre Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz 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

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Two guys who love L.A. Rob Mahoney, Big Waze. What's up, guys? We love it. We love it for you. Fun fact, Justin, I had never in my life heard that song, knew of its existence, any of that, until I moved out here five years ago.

Really? Not at all. Like, no, where would somebody play that in New York? That's not a thing. It's not like a real song. Well, my understanding in Rob, maybe you could back me up here, is that that song was initially kind of a diss on L.A. people and somehow was co-opted to be the anthem

for not only Los Angeles but the Lakers. You mean to tell me that the same country that plays born in the USA at every election rally would misunderstand the meaning behind a song? That does it sound right? I know. It's crazy to think. Well, speaking of Angelinos, we do have Game 3. Lakers Warriors also have

Heat and Nick's Game 3. We'll also talk about some of the other series toward the end here because Rob is logging on from Phoenix. But we got to start with the Night cap. Lakers 1 27, Warriors 97. It seemed like this was going to be another Warriors trouncing. It seemed like it was going to get into a three-point contest early on there. But then everything that could go wrong for the Warriors went wrong. Dremont Green hit with a couple fouls. There was the take foul that was also a flagrant one. By the middle of the third quarter,

Dremont had his fifth foul and there really was no turning back. Rob, did this seem like that to you there. It's just kind of everything went askew for the Warriors and it was really tough to rebound there. That's definitely how it felt. I mean, the second quarter, I think, is where the margin explodes, right? You get this huge run by the Lakers, the Warriors completely collapse. But the third, I think, is where things get interesting because you got like an all-out, shut the door effort from LeBron and AD, taking it from an 11-point game to an 18-point game. LeBron's flying all over the floor, hurtling people in the first and second rows. AD is blowing up everything and the warriors honestly just they look sloppy as hell and there were so many

misconnections in their offense beyond just the turnovers which were obviously a problem but just near turnovers that disrupted their action that kept them from getting into their stuff and all of those arrows to me point back to anthony davis they all point to him blowing up every possession that even had a chance to get into the pain and when that's the case yeah your uh your attempts at a three point contest can go a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of ride you become way too reliant on those shots and God, did they miss a lot of them? Yeah, I actually wrote down after that 13-0 run. The Lakers went down 40 to 29.

They're down 11, and then they come back 13 straight points to go up too. And I was like, that 13-0 run might have saved the series slash season. It felt that pivotal. But honestly, just watching it in the first quarter, Clay put up five-threes. Like, if the Lakers are playing defense the way they're supposed to, you can't not let Clay Thompson get off five three-pointers. He got off four for the rest of the game, right? So they tighten that up.

And a lot of it had to do with AD doing his best, Brooke Lopez impersonation. And it's just like, AD, you cannot, no, you cannot just stay in the paint when Looney and Dremont are leveling the dudes that are guarding Stefan Clay. Like, these dudes are just walking in the trees. And AD was like, oh, yeah,

I've got like a 7 foot 9 wingspan and I'm really fleet of foot. I can just step up on this and still play great defense. And I think that's where everything changed. Shruder, Vando, all of these guys are crowding Stefan Clay's airspace. And it's like, look, you can either try to make some type of mid-range, but you're not going to get a three off. We're going to be in your shirt. And good luck going to the rack against AD.

That's not going to happen for you. And I thought, you know, the strategy panned out beautifully for them. You know how you know this is a Warriors' podcast, a Warriors game podcast, is that the Lakers can win by 30. And Waz is out here, dingin AD for the drop coverage in the first quarter. But that's why they were losing, Justin. It's why they were losing and it's why they came back. Like, AD started flying all over the place, right?

He's like, look, I can cover the ground, right? Like, I can get in this guy's face to give a good contest. and I can still stay sort of glued to my man on the role. Like, it's the hardest job defensively in the sport. When you get put in that pick and rolling, you have to do that delicate dance of getting up on the ball handler and not losing contact with a dude for a lob or whatever the case may be. And AD at first was half-faccented.

And then when he was like, hold on, man, I'm the best defensive player in the sport. Everything flipped for them. you can see a few different things turn up with AD. And a lot of it, as you're saying, the effort was obviously there, the intensity was there in terms of just like making a conscious adjustment to impact the game in that way.

Some of it is as simple as like putting him in more positions where he's guarding Jamichael Green instead of Draymond Green and realizing like, look, we're just going to live with a couple of Jamichael Green shots and like attempts to dive toward the rim and attempts to crash the offensive glass. And it's going to be fine because he's Jamichael Green. And very quickly, we learned that a lot of the impact,

that Jamichael had on game two, is kind of illusory, right? Like, this is something that is the figment of your imagination. If you choose to honor him and respect him, you're going to empower the warriors to create that space and create that kind of momentum. If you ignore him, eventually he's going to have games like this.

And then we see AD go from the kind of non-factor he was in game two of the series to, again, completely dominating. And I guess this is just the rhythm of what this is going to be, whether it's every other game from AD or whatever it ends up, like, turning into. But when he dominates, the Lakers win, And when he doesn't they lose. Like it's,

it's not that much more complicated than that, unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately, depending on who you want to win this series and how much you respect and believe that AD can turn that up whenever he wants to. Yeah. And that's where the Draymond losing him midway through the third quarter,

probably just sealed their fate, even if the deficit was already pretty much mounted there. Fifth fall was 6.54 to go in the third. I thought that the Warriors had figured something out, even though Jemichael Green probably wasn't. adding much value at all. Just staggering Draymond and Luni at least gave you somewhat of an answer to do something against AD.

But as soon as he went out, clearly the floodgaze opened. And so I think the question was going forward is if you're Kerr, do you try to roll it back again with Jamichael in the starting lineup? Do you bring Looney back to the starters and then figure it out from there? Or do you just replace Jemichael with maybe a wing, maybe a pool or someone else and stick with Draymond as your go-to-five in the starters. To me, I'm putting Draymond and Looney back in the lineup to try to goose my offensive boards because I just don't think they're going to generate great offense with how the Lakers

have the ability to play them, right? Trude is just doing a good job of staying in the front. Same with Vando. Even Dilo. Delo is somehow fighting through screens and basically, you know, making it. it so that the big man doesn't have to stay with this guy, but only for a beat, because he's fighting his ass off around those screens. And so if the guards are going to guard these guys at the point of attack at that level, and AD's going to, you know, give his customary effort,

I think they're going to struggle to score. And to me, put your big dudes in and try to get offensive rebounds, because I don't think they're going to generate fantastic. offensive to have court. The next sort of move here is to just skew this pick and roll stuff and just be like AD's eating on lunch, Steph, just go out and beat people. That's it. That's the next way. But you can't come into the series with a team that's this talented defensively and

say, Steph, from the minute go, just carry us like you did in game seven of the first round series. Like, you have to try to do this other stuff. But I think Steph sort of playing in isolation. has to be coming at some point soon here. Rob, what do you think? I love how every series kind of turns into that on some level, right?

Like any long competitive series, you start with running your stuff, you shift into running high pick and roll, and eventually it's like how much do we have to just like put the ball on our best player's hands and ISO this thing to death? Because that's what good defenses, especially will wear out of you, right?

Like they will take away your preferred options. And I think in particular, like so much of the connective tissue for the Warriors was disrupting. in this game, that you can see them having to, having that need to just put the ball in Steph's hands and have him create, to just kind of clear some of the bodies out of the way. Because even though Vando is doing a pretty good job in particular of staying in front of him, you can see moments where Steph gets some breathing room, right? Like where he crosses him up, gets Vanderbilt on his back.

And then all of a sudden he's in that like 15 to 8 foot range in front of him and AD. And it's like, what can you make work in this space? And we talk a lot about obviously the maker misleague stuff as it pertains to open threes, as it pertates to role players. It's interesting that in this series, a lot of it has come down to, like, does AD make his elbow jumpers? And if he does, you win and if he doesn't, you lose.

In this game, just can Steph convert on those in-between shots? And if he does, maybe this is a game, like, throughout the fourth quarter. Maybe this is, like, closely contested versus it really got away from them because they just, like, could not get anything even when Steph is getting some clearance

out of that high screen. So, you know, as much as the warriors are loath to do stuff like that, to simplify on that level. I think at some point they're going to have to. Well, Rob, what do you think about going maybe more to small ball then? Because on the one hand, clearly they're playing the two bigs to start with. If you want to categorize to Michael Green is a big, like to match up with the size of the Lakers, right?

They don't want to concede too much. The Lakers are huge across basically all positions in that starting lineup. On the one hand, you are conceding that. On the other hand, you're putting more offense on the court. And as we're seeing, like, if we're going to boil this down to AD has to be, on in order for the Lakers to win. The Lakers clearly need to win the three-point battle decisively. And not only are you putting more shooters on the floor,

you're also running more, you're getting more quick stuff, and you're running AD and LeBron into the ground there. So I don't know if I love it, but I wonder if that is the logical next step. What do you think, Rob? I mean, small with whom? Right.

Is it, so you want to put, you want to put Jordan Poole in there instead of Jim Michael Green? But he would be the logical next guy, but like, I don't know, would Peyton somehow, like, blur the lines there where you're getting more defense, but someone who could, in theory, hit an open corner three? See, to me, the Peyton part is problematic because he's a small guy who's also not going to shoot it. And so I think your problems are exacerbated by doing that.

That's why to me, like, you put your best five guys out there, which is the Draymond and Looney. combination and basically see where it goes from there. And of course, individually, guys can be better, right? I think Wiggins could do more to attack LeBron. Obviously, we said Steph could be more aggressive in hunting his shot. But I think there's, you know, Dremont could make a layup as Zay so eloquently put it in our pre-production.

I think their guys can be individually better. But I don't know, man. Like, whenever Golden State has had trouble in the play, playoffs in the past, it's because their continuity stuff sort of devolved. And, you know, like, they don't want to play into one-on-one. And that's what I think is the most important thing about getting Golden State out of this. It's like, you're now forcing a team to do things they don't want to do.

And so when they miss a shot in isolation, it's like doubly sort of effective, right? Because it's like, man, this is not how we want to play. And so they have less confidence in no shot. shots, right? Like when the ball is flying around and dudes just to get catch it in rhythm and it's this beautiful offense thing, that like you can feel it. It just feels different. So I don't know that it's going to get much better for them in that respect. Yeah, I mean, part of the issue surrounding all of that, like regardless of how much ISO you want to run, whatever action you want to run. I think this is kind of the heart of your question as far as like trying to get smaller,

trying to get more spacing on the floor. The idea is good. The personnel for Golden State is this. Draymond Green, Kavanaugh-Luny, Jamichael Green, Gary Payton, Dante DiVincenzo, Moses Moody. Those guys are not going to get guarded, and they're not getting guarded right now.

And so, like, you can replace one of them with Jordan Poole to kind of spacing, but ultimately that means you have to live with what Jordan Poole does when he gets the ball. And I don't feel super great about that at the moment. Moody's given him some good minutes. But I realize it's a little bit of future casting there. You're just hoping for the best.

It's not that these guys aren't doing good things. It's just that they don't respect them. Again, at the Lakers, they're going to give Moses Moody a buffer. And they're going to see if he makes some shots and they're going to close out on some of them. But they're ultimately going to live with that stuff. And that's what great defenses do too. They know how to walk that particular line. And then the dangerous part about having pool out there is that he is just a freaking huge target.

It's just another guy to be targeted in the Lakers pick and roll scheme, right? I think, you know, LeBron, they kept complaining on the broadcast. Like, LeBron hasn't shot yet. What the hell? LeBron, hurry up and shoot the ball, like, blah, blah. And I thought he was playing pretty aggressively. It's not like he wasn't attacking the paint, doing driving kick stuff. But as the game wore on, he started initiating his attacks closer and closer to the basket, right?

doing it at the elbow, doing it in the high post. And if you're going to put Jordan Poole on there, you know, and he's going to end up on LeBron and these switches, that's when the Lakers' offense started to sort of have a nice rhythm and flow to it. LeBron was drawn to. He had that beautiful sort of moonshot, skip past to Dennis Schroeder for that three. That was just beautiful, vintage LeBron stuff. I think that, like, LeBron is now starting to find, all right,

how I make my impact offensively is to get the, catch the ball close and enforce two. Yeah, it seemed like LeBron has figured out Chris Paul mode, where he could just kind of sit and wait in the wings and distribute and still impact the game, but not really put his impact on it until he necessarily has to. And I like the broadcast was like, what the hell is going on? This was clearly the only time he hadn't had a field goal attempt in a quarter in his entire playoff life. It was weird. I'll say that.

But when you saw him kick it in, he also seemed to have a little bit of extra giddy up. And it did make a difference. There were some, like he was chasing down for blocks. He was running all the way up into the stanchion to go after a ball. I want to talk about that play, Justin. Yeah. That, like, that's why I'm blown away by what LeBron is doing in year 20 against the defending champs. The reason he had to run up those damn stairs is because he couldn't stop his momentum.

y'all that's old guy shit literally he could not stop himself he also jumped over the first row of fans I was thinking to myself that was me I would have face planted right by the reporters and this would have been the most embarrassing moment of my life or you just stop

you know what I mean you think you could do that I think I think if he if his foot was right he would just stop he wouldn't have to just keep going with his momentum That's how I read that. Like, this is a guy, like, when he ramps up,

he doesn't have the agility to sort of just do to stop and start stuff. And the fact that he's able to... Is it what it is. Hey, listen, I'm just giving the guy... Disrespectful. I'm giving the guy his just doing year 20 that he's being relied upon to do all of this stuff.

And he's still finding ways to find separation, get his shot off. He made a couple of threes tonight, which is always nice when he could get that rolling. LeBron, you know, I can't say enough about what the guy's doing. doing, man. Yeah, he had a massive impact on that third quarter to the point where at the end of it,

he and AD get pulled like slightly early and we got a great shot of them on the bench just like huffing and puffing after going nonstop for the entire frame. And I mean, salute to those guys. Like, again, that's when they sealed this game up. And they, the exact frame that the warriors are like customarily used to dominating and turning games around in that third quarter, the Lakers took it for themselves. and they're going to have to have those moments in this series. And this thing is by no means over.

Again, we've already seen some pretty extreme swings between these two teams. I'm sure we'll get even more extreme strategic swings as they continue to figure each other out. But those are the kinds of efforts that put you over the top when the game is in question. Yeah, and they got to sit the last nine minutes, which can't be overstated.

Because somehow the Suns and the Nuggets went, what, Rob? Like three games in between games two and three, but the Lakers and Warriors are going every other day. I don't know how that worked out. Make it make sense. I don't know. I'm not complaining about a little extra time in Phoenix, but I don't quite understand the scheduling on that.

Sure. What else from this one? Should we talk about DeAngel Russell, Waz? I know he's your favorite player. Look, I will say this. He's never played better, especially not in a playoff setting. And again, to do it against this Golden State Warriors team in particular,

and the Lakers offense, like, as you guys know, can get stuck in the month. They need him as a release valve. They need him as a guy as one of the only reliable spot-up shooters. He's doing it on the catch and shoot. He's doing it in pick and roll, creating his own shot, creating space. Like, some of his little pocket passes was getting on my nerves a bit, hitting guys in the knees. But every now and again, they're getting through, right?

And it's impressive. And look, man, I'm. I've been the biggest Vangelio Russell skeptic probably on planet Earth. But he is playing out of his mind right now. Like the way he was scoring in that first quarter, where he scored the first 11 points and he's doing it from, you know, all three quadrants of the court. He's earning some paper right now.

That's for sure. That first half in particular, he was so good. And you're right wise about the pocket passes. Like I'd never seen a dude heat check on pocket pass. passes before, but he was just throwing in progressively tighter windows. I mean, not even hitting knees, but just like straight ankles on some of those plays.

Rough stuff, but he earned it. He earned it with the way he played and came out initially. And it kind of is proof of some of the error in the way we talk about a LeBron James team, right? When we talk about a LeBron team, often we're like, okay, they just need like a replacement

level caretaker, defense first point guard. I think sometimes that can be true, but you don't get a game like this from a replacement level guard. You just don't, right? Like you need someone who at least has the audacity to make some of those plays who can like go off for scoring binges like this. And there's going to be some wild ebbs and flows

that come with the DeAngelo Russell experience. But if you're in a position to have a team structure like the one the Lakers do where he doesn't have to be great necessarily every game because you have, you know, LeBron and not only that, but Dennis Schroeder and Austin Reeves, these other guys who are going to handle the ball some, you can just swing with these great performances like this one. And this was, I mean, genuinely one of the best of his career, like a huge game, a huge moment.

And I thought Russell was really great. Yeah, the problem is most of the time he does look like a replacement level guard, you know? But then he has games like this where he looks like one of the smoothest point cards in the goddamn league. Like I consider myself a reformed D'Angelo Russell apologists because especially earlier in his career, yeah, he would make some boneheaded mistakes and seemed like he needed a lot of maturing to the point where like he's given some interviews. I don't know if you guys caught an interview with Mike Trudell. I think it was during the War, the Timberwolves game where he did a walkoff. And he, like, he cackled away from that interview as if he was Harley Quinn. You should go look it up.

It's like, it was one of the most mind-blowing things I've ever seen. But, like, when he puts it all together, it's just like there's no smoother athlete out there. He can just do things that other guys can't. Why he can't do that stuff more than once every five games, I don't know. But when it works, it's gorgeous. some of those threes that delo hit in the first quarter in particular were just absolutely not even touch a rim like these were just perfect jump shots that he was making and that

that makes all the difference when you're running a pick and roll around AD because you know there was a couple of times in the second half where schroeder was able to get him get him for a lob or you know he got a pin down van gundy remarked upon it with like yeah we love those set plays where you scream for the big and get them get them into that action the warriors are definitely afraid of what AD can do around the pain so they're going to divert a lot of resources to that but if this dude is making threes that's just going to you know make the defense stretch them out even thinner and give a D more room to operate someone else on the Lakers I did want to talk about briefly uh Austin

Reeves pretty rough start but I have to say I think our guy and wats this falls into your purview, not only as a white American, but is potentially one of the best grifters in the NBA. Like, I feel like this guy is slowly working his way up into the pantheon. Like, Marcus, smart, who else is in there? But, like, Reeves is definitely one of the best in the game? Manu Genoobli. Is he in the Genoobli category? Look, I read somewhere online that people think that he's, like, kind of gassed, that he's hit a wall. Because obviously he's never played, this high level, this many minutes for this long. I thought he was hurt in the first quarter.

A lot of his shots are short in the first quarter. But what I like is this, he's still attacking Steph. That's the coolest thing about that. He sees stuff and he's like, this is lunch. I'm going to go at this dude. I'm going to create contact. I'm bigger than him. I'm stronger than him.

And like, he was relentless. And I thought that was huge. You know, when the Warriors get going on one of their crazy-ass runs where somebody gets to end one, and then the next possession, like 10 seconds later, somebody switches a three, then you turn it over and it's like, oh boy, here it comes. You need something like, you know, Austin Reeves put his head down and get to the line. You know, everybody sort of settle down. We can get back into our set defense and everything will be just fine.

I thought that was pretty cool on Reeves part too, just his stictiveness, right? to start off slow and still be mega aggressive against Steph and Clay and everybody. I mean, pool. Every time he sees pool, his eyes light up. And so, yeah, even when he's not playing his best, I find myself being impressed by what Austin Reeves is doing. Yes, I know my white American bias is showing, Rob. Well, he also is an important part of that shell game there. You mentioned, like, he'll go at Steph.

He'll go at Jordan Poole. He makes it difficult for the warriors to decide, like, where do we put clubs? Do we want to put Clay on DeAngelo Russell? Do we want to put him on Reeves? Because we know that Steph will get baited into fouls that we don't want him to get. And then you end up with this in this situation where whoever Steph is guarding ends up going on these little scoring runs in some of these games. I think Steph is a good defender on balance, but he has to pick his spots because he's

so important to the offense in ways that other guys don't. He has to keep his hands out of the cookie jar. He can't get those like rip through fouls that DeLo in particular likes to draw. And I mean, we saw, we saw Clay get pretty exasperated. with Reeves in this one in particular, just I could not, was not too pleased with the way that some of those bumps were being officiated,

but that's what Austin does so well, as he bates you into not only just jumping, but like, can he pull you in to take one step forward towards him so he can ram up into you? By the way, and I'm not just saying this for the obvious reasons, but Kevin Hurter was unable to hurt the warriors this way. He was unable to punish staff, punish Jordan Poole for their lack of size, right?

Like, he couldn't get into the lane. He couldn't draw fouls as, like, the secondary, you know, third ball handling guy on the Kings. And, you know, that's part of why they had to go home. I mean, obviously, Sabonis is mainly to blame. But, you know, I'm just saying, like, because Kevin Herder couldn't exploit the Steph matchups in the way that DeLo, in the way that Austin Reeves is,

it's making all the difference for the lake. have you updated your white American pantheon lately is it Reeves one herder two reaves one heard or two christian brown solidly three right now solidly yeah yeah he's given uh that i get some good minutes um rob anything else you want to go over here uh were you as surprised as everyone else from the resurrection of Lonnie Walker. He, the miracle mid-level signing this offseason went away for a long time, but he's back and better than ever. I guess he's better than ever.

I mean, good game from him, dusting him off the bench, throwing him back in there, you know, get some cardio, get some shots up. I don't mind it. I can't say I'm like expecting Lonnie Walker to have a big impact on this series. So we'll see what they end up doing with some of those minutes going forward. But they need someone in that mystery suitor spot, right? Like some nights it's Rui Hachamura, apparently some nights it's going to be Lonnie Walker. Somebody needs to step up and hit those open shots as they come their way.

And apparently the Lakers have enough guys to fill that by committee right now. I like Lonnie Walker because he puts pressure on the rim. And as good as Jemann is at protecting the paint and Looney too, it's not like these guys are trees down there. Right. And so you should, in theory, be able to get off some decent looks in the paint. And at least Lonnie Walker, when he gets the ball, he's looking to get down there. Yeah, the Lakers definitely have options.

One of them, unfortunately, is not going to be Malik Beasley, as we saw it. But maybe we'll hope and pray. What can you do? What can do? You only got six minutes somehow in a game that was in hand for over like a quarter. All right. Let's flip to the other game. Heat 105, Nix 86.

Was, I'm going to turn to you first here because we want the report from the borough, sponsored by Timberlin here. What do you think the temperature is locally on one Julius Randall these days? This is the what second time in a row in the playoffs that he has stunk up the joint. Freaking, I mean, I think most people expected Mobley to have him in a chokehold, straight jacket, whatever, in the clamps, whatever you want to call it. And that happened, right? I don't think people thought that he was just not going to be able to do anything against Miami in a pivotal game three. But look, man, this is who this guy is.

This is who he's been in the playoffs, largely, mostly, right? He has no track record of being able to generate, you know, even mildly efficient offense in playoff settings. So I don't see why anybody should be surprised here. And if you watch this game, basically from the tip, the Knicks just got dogwalked. They got their asses kicked up and down the court on both ends. They couldn't get anything going on offense. And the heat just got whatever they wanted.

And, you know, how I knew it was going crazy, Cal Lowry was just walking into threes. He just felt so confident in everything the heat were doing. And yeah, panic mode needs to be setting in down there on Madison, not Madison, excuse me, on 7th Ave, because these guys are getting smoked right now. I know there's going to be a lot of attention on Randall, and rightly so. This was like a holistically shit effort from the Knicks offense in a way that,

like, you're right to point out Lowry was, because Kyle Lowry outplayed, I think, every Nick in this game. And that's like straight line drives to the rim. It's hustling for loose balls. He was able to create, even just like out of ISO, which for Kyle Lauer is not really something that happens very much. much these days at a sustainable level that the Knicks really could match. So, again, pile on Julius Randall as you will.

I think his performance certainly warrants it. But this is a team that shot 34% from the field in total because the heat just completely turned the water off. So there's lots of ways to point fingers here. Yeah. Where do you want to go here? Jalen Brunson, 7 for 20. RJ Barrett, 5 for 16 somehow, a minus 32 in this game.

Randall and Brunson over 10 from three. Like there's just so many stats to pick from. So, so, so, so, why, yeah, like, what's going on here? Is this just another example of Spow being able to really press on the pain points and expose a team that has flaws like this? Or was this just inevitable with the Knicks? A team that can get pretty sludgy offensively and doesn't have the three point shooting, most of the time to order to even catch up to the heat.

And the heat weren't even that good on offense this game. Look, I foolishly picked the Knicks to get worked in the first round because the stuff they need in order to be effective, most good playoff teams can stop it. Like, most good playoff teams can figure out a way to box out and not have these guys grab 40% of their offensive rebounds, right? Most good playoff teams can shut off your transition game and force you to play in the half court

and try to generate offense that way. They got to efficient offense in the regular season by pressing those specific advantages. And when they're taken away, they look like a putre to have court offense. And I think that's kind of to be expected given the personnel, right? It's like it's going to be on this effort stuff that they, you know, basically win on the margins, right? Like, they have to get out and run. They have to be able to win the offensive rebound battle because they just, you know, don't have the personnel to create the consistent advantages to, you know, where defenses

start to become leaky so that you can create good shots for you guys. There's nobody you're really afraid of in the one-on-one here. There's no post threat where you're like, okay, if Julius Randall is backing this guy down, we got to send two to help, right? Like, they don't have anybody that sort of creates that advantage. And so, you know, when it's going terrible, it's going to look like this. And that's where playing against the heat in particular is tough because Miami is a team that even when they get up early in games, they will still do that stuff.

Like they will stick boxing you out. They will stay going after loose balls. They will play Mitchell Robinson off the floor in a game like this by drawing fouls on him, boxing him out, keeping him off the offensive glass, taking away those margins you're talking about. So it's very, very difficult to create that kind of extra offense against Miami with the way that they defend and they're kind of like,

collective level of attention to detail in a way that makes me pretty worried about the Knicks. Like if this is what their offense is going to look like as sludgy as this, this is just not going to be the series for them. They just don't have that in them. The Knicks missed their first 15 shots outside the paint. Also, didn't hit a three until 6.10 into the second quarter. I think one thing that might have some trickle over effect is they did do a better job on Jimmy Butler as the game went along.

Butler only had 28 points, 10 of which were in the first quarter, and it seemed like they said the bunch of doubles at him. And I should mention 28 basically did not play the fourth quarter because he didn't really have to until a stretch there. I guess if you want to take something away from this, Waz, it's that like maybe you could send extra attention to Jimmy and make everyone else beat you. On the other hand, you know, Shrews had a good game. Like they have the shooters to beat you. So I don't know.

This one's tough. Yeah, the thing is, right, like the reason why the heat struggled this year is that guys like Struz and Gabe Vincent and Caleb Martin did not play to the level that they did last year. And now that the playoffs have started, they're back to playing at that level. These are more than capable guys. If you're diverting extra resources to try to shut off what Jimmy Butler's doing, these guys, they're shooting with the utmost confidence. There's no hesitation when they shoot it, right? Like the game before that we were talking about, there was a possession where Gary Payton caught the ball,

and he looked at the rim, he said, nah, sort of one of those record scratch moments. Nobody on the heat is doing that. They are feeling it right now, and they're back to playing, you know, to the quality that they played last year that they could, you know, push Boston to seven games in the conference finals.

Like, this was a quality, high quality. team last year. One of the best teams, obviously, in their conference. And so, yeah, man, those bench guys, those ancillary guys, excuse me, are back to playing with, you know, just incredible confidence. And so, yeah, I think the Knicks are in trouble. Because clearly, like, the status, if Jimmy Butler's going to get to the line 11 times, that means you got to send help. You know, like, your guys just can't deal with him without fouling him. And once you do that, Jimmy's going to find these dudes. Yeah, and the equivalent players for the Knicks, We were, we've been raving about New York's bench in the first round,

talking about all these supporting parts who have come up a huge in these games. This was Emmanuel Cookley's best game of the series, and he made a third of his shots. Four of 12. And that's kind of where the bench is overall. Like, Quinn Grimes, the minutes just are not good enough. Obi-Toppan, like, has had his moments in the series, but this wasn't one of them. And he still ended up, like, finishing the game in crucial stretches because Tibbs didn't want to play Mitchell Robinson anymore.

And Isaiah Hardinstein wasn't much better and almost gotten a fight in the middle of this game. it's like they need to find more help from somewhere. And they're going to keep trying to turn over these rocks until they get it. But I don't know, man. It's just, it's really hard to trust some of those further rungs down, kind of down the rotation right now. Yeah. It doesn't help when the heat are up double digits and they're still the ones

diving face first for loose balls. Like it's tough when your identity as the Knicks is to be the toughest nose team that's really going to go after it and control the rebounds. And then the other team just like kind of. it punks you. Like, they're just doing what the Knicks do better. And so it's going to be tough there. I guess one thing that they could look forward to is it seems like everyone is going to sprain an ankle in this game. So I do wonder if there is going to be a trickle-down effect from all of the injuries happening. Brunson had his foot stepped on, quickly sprained his ankle. His look particularly

bad, so we'll see what happens there. But Butler did re-injure the ankle. And like, if they don't have Butler the one game that the Knicks won, Rob, was without Butler. So I don't know. It feels like that's a stretch. We're already hoping for like a player not to be there to have a chance. But I guess that's where we are right now with the series. Yeah, I'll believe Jimmy Butler won't play when he just like does not show up for game four. And I guess even if he doesn't, that's the value in a win like this is you're buying your best player time. You're buying your guys time to get healthy if they really need to. But I don't know. Jimmy, Jimmy is good enough in games like this.

On a bum ankle is still head and shoulders the best player in the series. Indisputably. Yeah. Well, what's interesting about this one, just from a big picture perspective, was, and I'm curious with your thoughts here, it's like it does feel like the gap between regular season basketball and playoff basketball is probably a chasm at this point. And it's something that I think has been priced into the playoffs for a couple of years now. We've come to expect it.

But like this definitely feels like the most extreme example of it. And I do wonder like what the trickle down effects of this is and whether or not like do we see in the regular season next year more teams like the heat just doing the bare minimum to get by just knowing that they have playoff guys just like ready to take off when basketball gets to this. Dude, they almost lost to the Bulls, i.e. didn't make the playoffs. right? That almost happened, guys. I don't know that that can be the strategy. What I will say, and I know I'm beating a dead horse here with this long-ass 82 game schedule.

So we watched the defense that AD played in games one and three. That's the level of effort you have to give to be great at defense in this league. The amount of ground you have to cover against these type of offenses is so physically taxing. How can anybody be expected to do that 82 times over? It's unreasonable to think that these guys are going to do that.

And so defense has never been harder. And so, like, this idea that I'm going to expect dudes to just give maximum effort or rush back from injury as fast as they can when the season is 82 freaking games, like, I don't know how you can expect that. You know, and I know it's probably going to happen because the owner's just not visionary enough to understand that this would be much healthier and better for the game. They're not creative enough, even though they're supposed to be the masters of industry, you know, the Titans of Industry. These are the smartest money people ever couldn't figure out how to make less games more interesting, more competitive, more compelling.

But yeah, like, this is the result, man. And you can't ask these dudes to play at Miami Heat level intensity every single game for 82 games. This is turning into such a funny case study for this idea. Like if the Lakers end up making the finals or the heat makeup ending the finals. Do you imagine those? But it's not even like they were the clippers, right? Where they were like slow playing their stars all year and like really trying to stretch out the season and just get to the finish. Like the heat were just not very good for long stretches of this season.

And they got better. And they could have, like, granted, they could have ramped up if Jimmy Butler was this Jimmy Butler all year long. If he, if he approached every game with this sensibility versus the kind of like, let's democratize this a little bit and move the ball around. I'm going to kind of pick my spots more so than beat Jimmy Butler every minute of the game. That is worth a couple wins on its face.

But I don't know, man. Like Miami was trying in the regular season. They just guys weren't hitting shots. They weren't as good as they seemed to be the previous season. and everyone was trying to figure out why, even internally. So it wasn't like they were just kind of waiting for this moment to blossom. They really had to work for that. Rob, with the Lakers, they're two wins away from the conference finals,

up two to one on the world champs. We were putting Victor Wimbunyama in New Orleans, okay? That happened. We were photoshopping those jerseys. Like, that happened. We thought these guys were going to end up with the number one lottery pig. now there are two wins away from the conference finals. That's absurd.

That's crazy. I mean, that's just another different argument to shorten the season because you do have teams like the Lakers basically slow playing their way through the regular season, basically saying we can wait until the trade deadline and then punch it and then still make the play in because the play in also provides teams more opportunity to slow play it and to really drag it and dog it in the regular season. And it goes, I mean, once again, our friend Daryl Morey is having a negative effect on the regular season basketball product because he's basically, I wouldn't say pioneer, but he definitely popularized the idea that you don't have to build your team in the off season. You could figure things out on the fly, see what they happen, and then hit the trade deadline. It really depends on the market, but that was something that he always used to talk about. But I think, wise, you really hit the point there. It's just like, how are you going to have such a long regular season and then have teams? like the heat and the clippers built for the playoffs,

it's almost like you need to build two separate ways. And I think if you want to have the resources like the clippers, you could in theory do it, although it didn't work out. But the heat are kind of the other example where they just hoped and prayed that they could make it far enough in order to really be where they are now.

It's a really fascinating discussion. Before we go, I did want to kind of zip through the other two series here, in particular because Rob, you were in Phoenix last night. for what I guess we'll call the Devin Booker game, but in my mind it was the holy shit DeAndre Aiton game. What was it like being in that arena as Aiton was, it seemed like the crowd was like ready to just like hoist him out of the arena

just to get him off the floor. Yeah, it seemed like they maybe had seen this before. That maybe they were used to DeAndre Aten's whole deal. And they were really sick of it. Let me tell you, like the contrast in the way that that arena like went nuts for jock landale doing like the bare minimum play at the center position versus d'andre aiden willfully refusing to dunk and then stiffing himself on layups at the rim honestly frankly deserved and he left he left without speaking to the media last night dandre aiden

did there were some shots of him being like very frustrated on the bench like huffing and like huffing and taking off his arm sleeves and throwing things on the ground got just totally bench for the end of this like must win game for the suns in a way that if i'm being totally honest, like, you don't want to make more of these things than they are, but the track record with Aden is what it is. He has really driven himself to this point. It's just getting harder and harder to see him as, like, a fixture of this team's future, right? Like, if you can't play in games like this, what are you doing here? Like, what are, what are you providing to this team's structure when they're already down Chris Paul, when they're desperate for role players, and they're

just like, I, like, we trust T.J. Warren, who is barely played in this series more than you in this moment. Not exactly a shining endorsement for their former number one overall pick. Yeah, I mean, you're playing against the number one seat in the conference. Your leader is out with a muscle strain and this guy is throwing in his temper tantrums and ruining the juju of a team that's up against it, man. And the thing about it is like you're carrying on a blood feud with Moni Williams who might be the most universally beloved and well-liked person in the whole entire fucking NBA.

That's crazy, bro. Like, that's just wild to me. Where yesterday... I wouldn't even do that, okay? Yesterday, the sideline interview where they're asking Monty Williams about eight, and he's like, yo, man, he's got to get that, and he's got to dunk that ball.

and he will he caught himself having to say like he realized he was ripping the guy on live TV and he caught himself like no and he's he's gonna do it like this shit is bad bro and they need him like this the Laundale thing like it was cute yesterday but like that's not gonna happen

that's not an answer I thought he played pretty well like he was flying all over that court and maybe it was just a contrast between Aiton doing nothing, like trying not at all versus this guy who is only trying and probably didn't have a ton of actual basketball skill to provide there. But like, yeah, I thought, I think Landell should start next game. Rob, I don't know if like what's going, what's the scene is like down there, but like, is it that bad? Is Landale going to start? I think the question is how much Bismac

Bionbo are you prepared for? Because if Landel starts, like, what are you getting from DeAndre Aiton at that point? And that's the concern, right? Like everything we're talking about, Again, the Suns won this game. And Aiton is throwing a fit. Again, there's also footage of him like Chris Paul trying to like come up and talk to Aiton during a stoppage and play. He's just giving him the cold shoulder repeatedly. Storms out of the building after the team won. And honestly, they probably would not have won if Denver had managed to play like more than one quarter of defense in this game.

Like it really was the Nuggets just like could not guard in particular Devin Booker, but really everybody. And that was why the Sons were able to pull this thing out. I mean, Landel was straight up better than DeAndre Aidan. It would not surprise me if he will be straight up better than him again in the next game and the next game. And for as long as the series goes on, I just don't think you can afford to like all out bench DeAndre Aiden at this point. Like if you want to get any minutes from him at all, he has to continue to start. When he got blocked and sent away at the rim by Jamal Murray, I almost threw the remote because I was like, what is this guy doing? Just like not having any investment in the Suns or the Nuggets or anything.

anything. Just like as a fan who wants to see competitive basketball, I was like, this is a travesty. But like a couple hours go by, I wake up the next morning. It's already flipped to the point where it's like, it's gotten kind of sad. Like people are piling all the way on Aiton and it's warranted and all that. But like clearly something is wrong there. And Rob, to your point, like the Suns won that game. They had absolutely blistering performances from Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. And yet it still seems like they are like just absolutely like in the mud right now that this is the series is over like I guess like what's the feeling locally right now does it feel like that I don't know about that I don't know if it feels like the series is over necessarily but you have to put more together than this right

like you have to have you have to manage to turn the vibe a little bit more and that's where obviously game four becomes crucial like a two two series flips the thing entirely so long as Chris Paul is out. There's going to be questions about who can step up and play. But really, really the triumph of this particular game for Phoenix, Devin Booker's 47,

sensational performance, just like one of the most efficient, unguardable kinds of showings we've seen from a player in these playoffs, but in any recent playoffs. But more than that, they got good minutes from Landale.

They got good minutes from T.J. Warren, who again came out of nowhere and hit a bunch of really crucial shots down the stretch. And they at least tried to roll out Terrence Ross to see what he would give them in this series. Like Monty Williams is starting to like, Can we at least see what these other guys can do?

And campaign also was in the starting lineup because Chris Paul was out, ramped up the pace in a way that I think was really healthy for Phoenix. So not only are they getting tough shot making from Booker at 47, KD at 39, put that together. That's enough for the crux of a game. Now can we get enough around the edges? And that did not come from DeAndre Aidan. But it came from these other guys and it came from just like,

can we get out in transition a little more? Something that honestly the Lakers did a really good job of against the Warriors, too. And a lot of these teams who are down in these series or tied in these series, who are trying to look for offense, trying to look for some of these avenues, that's where they're finding it. Like, can we just push aggressively out of the gate? And you could see that even on makes, like Kevin Durant, giving the wind up, trying to get the inbound in faster so they could get up the court.

That stuff is meaningful too. Yeah. I mean, that's another thing against Aiton. I should make another Aitin thing. But Mani, it seemed like he really had to, like, force himself to use the rest of his bench. He really didn't want to go there. but he ultimately didn't. And it paid off in that game.

So we'll see. Before we go, wise, though, I do want to do just a quick check-in on the James Hardin front. I assume you saw game three. What did you think of our guy's performance? James Hardin,

the gift that keeps on giving. I told you guys, his new nickname is the Redeemer. I had my bad, poor take. I, you know, I crushed the guy in the media in the press, and he redeemed me, y'all. It was fantastic.

Two straight games of this guy stinking up the joint in the exact ways that we expect him to. Nothing going to the paint. All of this stepback crap, just, you know, just can't get it done. He can't dribble past anybody. When Boston decides, like, no, we're going to actually play, like, real defense,

try our hardest. Like, nothing. He's dead in the water, dude. And so, yeah, this will be, you know, postseason number, you count them. in a row where James Hardin was a disappointment for his team. In fact, you know what? I'll say this.

He wasn't that bad against the Lakers, honestly, in 2020 in the bubble. I think that was a Russ. The Lakers decided that, okay, these guys have to play four on five and just choke their whole offense out after doing so. That wasn't really a Hardin thing. He didn't have the opportunity to choke it away. But he stunk up the joint every single other postseason. And, you know, I don't know why we should be.

surprised that he's doing it again. But this was a failure in a new and exciting way, I felt like, right? Like we've seen James Harden struggling some of these games in the past, but like the complete unwillingness to go to the rim in some cases, like just did not even want any part of trying to take some of these shots after. I think in particular, when he tried to draw, tried to drive and draw fouls and was unsuccessful, it got in his head. Like it really seemed like he was just averse to even getting into those deep.

paint situations after that. And if he's not that player, if he's not even willing to try that, that's going to be a rough hang for the Sixers all series long. You know it's bad when Doris Burke gets out the knives and starts cutting a little too deep. You know, she was like, what is going on here? And like, you know, but Philly, I am just kind of stupefied at this point because we had Fultz and that was its own thing.

We had Simmons and that was its own thing. And now somehow Hardin gets there and is falling into that same like just like black hole where he just won't go up for a layup because he's just a shell shock from going into the lane. I don't know what the hell is going on with the Sixers, but somehow like some of the best prospects and players that we've had have just just like completely fallen into the Bermuda triangle of weirdness. Honestly, since he's had that muscle injury with Brooklyn, he's never been the same. He's better than he was immediately after coming back. Like he's got some of the quickness back, but he just has no confidence that he can go by guys. And that was like the hugest component of his game, right?

This idea of being the isolation king. It was just like, oh, if guys get up, play up on me, I just dribble past them with my incredibly crafty handle. And once I get an angle on him, I'm, you know, I'm going to get to live at the free throw line. Now that he can't, you know, first step by guys or, you know, dribble past guys, he's got no confidence in all the other stuff that made his game so lethal back when he was in his prime in Houston. Yeah, I mean, I think at this point with Philly, you wonder if they're just going to say goodbye to Hardin when we get to the offseason. It might be one of those.

Remember in last offseason when Russell Westbrook had a video of himself driving to opt into his contract? we're like into that point with Hardin. So I don't know. Why don't we wrap it there? Hopefully this pod went well. Rob was having a little technical difficulty on his video. He looked like an impressionist painting most of the time. So if there's any sort of like herky-jerkiness to the flow,

we'll just blame it on that and not my poor hosting. All right. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Ben Cruz for helping us on on production. We'll be back Wednesday, same time as usual. Until then. Later.