The Ringer NBA Show - The Phoenix Suns Take Game 1 of the NBA Finals | Group Chat

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

Justin, Rob, and Wos get together after Game 1 of the NBA Finals to talk about the Suns’ thrilling win over the Bucks (including a hobbled Giannis Antetokounmpo) (0:45), take some questions from live Greenroom listeners (24:41), and discuss any adjustments either team needs going into Game 2 (37:48). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Associate Producer: Sasha Ashall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Full Court Fits is the Ringer's new weekly NBA video series hosted by Big Waz, a.k.a Wosney-Lambre. Each week, we take you around the world of NBA fashion and share can't-miss style choices from your favorite players and keep you up to date on the latest news and releases in sneaker culture. Waz also talks to experts like Damian Lillard's personal stylists to give you behind-the-scenes looks at how the NBA's biggest stars choose their outfits. New episodes drop every Friday, so make sure you're subscribed to the Ringer's YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash the ringer so you never miss an episode. Welcome to group chat. I am Justin Verrier. Joining me, Rob Mahoney, Big Waz, and all of the people of the Spotify Green Room. Thank you for joining us for this Game 1 NBA Finals Reaction podcast.

What a time. It's only 846. I feel so fresh. I feel so spry. We had a couple days off here. Waz is just his time after this game to just go read, Catcher in the Rye like he usually does at night. Yeah, Shouse the... Is that the one with Holden Caulfield in it? That was one of my summer readings in high school, Catcher in the Rye. I'll never feel... It was like a really sulky-ass teenager.

That's all I remember about that book. I think that's the one with Art of Vader, actually. Oh, okay. Rob was a fan. I could tell. Huge fan. Yeah, obviously. All right.

So, big game tonight. Yanosan Teta Kupo showed up, surprisingly. I couldn't say his name properly, but we're still surprised that he was there. Let's start here, Rob, because there are a lot of different things we want to break down. What was the difference for you tonight in this game? Oh, big question.

We start broad, and then we narrow it down. It's like the inverted pyramid. Honestly, I'm sure we're going to talk about the Bucks defense a lot. I thought there were problems were stalling out on offense, not getting enough from Drew Holiday at all in a game where all three of the Sun's core guys really showed up. And if that's going to happen, Drew has to play bigger than this.

I don't mean to put everything in his lap, but it kind of comes down to that sometimes. Yeah, I think they looked good very early on as far as they kind of understood what Phoenix was trying to do. And they were like, look, it's something we've been clamoring for all playoffs long. The Buck said, look, we're bigger than these guys. We're going to attack the offensive glass. We're going to get the ball to Lopez down low on switches.

Another thing I like that they did, because they started, and I know we're going to get into their defense, but they started from the get-go, switching everything. And I thought Phoenix handled it very well, but what they also did was on the cross-matchups. They were looking for Brooke down low, right? They were like, all right, Brooke was on a small guy. We're getting the rebound, grab and go, go find him. So I like some of the stuff that they were doing very early on in that regard. Yeah, I mean, some series are about who makes contested jumpers,

and there was some of that with Chris Paul hitting some really tough shots in this game, but it was also a lot of the suns converting a lot more of their interior looks than the Bucks could. And some of that is just like if P.J. Tucker is going to get an offensive rebound. PJ Tucker's not great at layups. And so you can be bigger, you can be the more physical team, and you can still end up coughing up some of those extra opportunities. Yeah, we should get to that later lineup that the Bucks put together and had some success later on in the game. a little bit later on.

I do want to focus on this first half, though, because it did seem like everything the bucks were trying, the Sons had a solution for. Like they tried switching, like you said, they tried a little bit of a drop there toward the end, and it just seemed like Chris Paul was solving it. And on the other end, it didn't seem like, even though they were bigger,

even though Janus and Tedocupo was out there, they just didn't have much success in the paint. 14, for 29, the bucks were in the first half in the paint. Both of those things are really, really surprising. Was, do you just think that's a case of the sun's coming in with the right game plan, Chris Paul just being able to foil whatever they have or something just like mechanically wrong, line up wrong with the Bucs?

See, to me, I like the Bucks process. If I'm going to have Brooke Lope, if I'm going to have Chris Paul taking 18-foot fadeaways over Brooke Lopez as what you guys think your best option is on that end, I'm fine with that. He made them today. And Booker made a couple of them on the switch. He had a couple of times where he got Lopez in the air and drew a file. So the process can be a little bit more sound.

All I want to see Brooke do is try at least a little bit to hurry Chris Paul up. One, and two, dribble past me, Chris Paul, because he actually wants to get into that two point fade away from 18 feet and he's walking into it. I think Brooke, what he has to do is make him do a lot more thing. it filled a little bit more harried. I know it's Chris Paul. He's one of the hardest people in the history of basketball to speed up. But that's the only critique that I would say, go ahead, Chris Paul, murder me from 18 feet. I think the real problem is on the back end where they're drawing the switch. And DeAndre Aiton, man, I'm telling you, he's a switch killer. It's incredible

to watch because we did watch the first round, the clips versus the Mavs, where Chris Tass poor Zingis could not beat a switch. He could not beat the little guy whenever they switched on to him. Aitin is chewing that thing up, not just on post touches where he catches it, does a quick move and shoots it over the guy, but lobs,

he's getting in transition. He's just, he's making the switching offensive proposition a difficult one way more so to me than Chris Paul and Devin Booker shooting fadeaways 19 feet away with outstretched arms of a 7 foot 5 guy. And you can

see the respect that the Bucks have for that just by the fact that they're putting P.J. Tucker on Chris Paul so often, they're so worried about that backline lob or just getting it to Aiton for those little like six and eight foot hook shots. They've rearranged their entire matchup structure to deal with that.

But, Waz, I'm with you. I mean, I think one way or the other you're going to have to live with Chris Paul and Devin Booker hitting some of these shots and taking some of these shots. We saw them drop in this game and they got their shots. We saw them switch and they got those shots. But you also pinpointed it in terms of trying to speed up Chris, trying to speed up Devin Booker.

And some of that is even, too, just getting them later into the clock, where the clock starts to speed them up. You know, you can switch. You can switch as your default defense, but you can try to reject the switch at first. Make them work through one or two rescreens until they get the matchup they want by having Drew fight through stuff. Sometimes it's as simple as that,

and getting the clock to do your work for you. Right. And so the bucks do in the second half go small, put Yonis at the five to start that fourth quarter, They come back. I think they pulled within seven at one point. It seemed like they had finally found something that works. But then our friend DeAndre Aten came through once again as he has this entire playoffs.

And I mean, clearly the bucks are going to have adjustments. We'll expect them to maybe come out smaller sooner, if not just maybe even to start with. But I mean, maybe Bud will just get wild in the finals and just decide to just wear his party hat this time. I doubt it, but we'll see. I do wonder if ultimately we are headed toward the conclusion that we've kind of had this entire postseason where it's like the sons can just account for anything. They just have the lineup that you really can't go small against. You can't go big against because they could do that with their base set. Like, Rob, for you, does that seem like the case that the sons just kind of have that ultimate like trump card for all these different lineups?

Or I don't know, did you see something what the Bucks did later on. in that fourth quarter that maybe they could build on for this next game. Well, I mean, if you could play Janus at the five for 48 minutes, that would be a pretty good solution. But in the state he's in, and even just at the level he plays at, that's not a very realistic option. So all of these, you know, Janus's health and the defensive strategy and what Chris Paul and Devin Booker can do to you,

these are all interrelated ideas. And I think one thing we've learned throughout these playoffs, and we saw it in this game especially, is we knew Devin Booker could be a killer. But in this game, I mean, he was a surgeon. He was so precise in terms of the way he was drawing multiple bucks defenders, setting guys up. The playmaking was awesome. And just picking and choosing his spots, we already know that Chris Paul can do that. And when you have two guys who can do that at once and you can stagger them, someone on the floor is always playing with that level of precision.

That's going to be really tough for the bucks to beat. Yeah, and I think the thing about Booker, he didn't shoot particularly well from the field. I think he was like 7 of 19. But guess what? Like Rob just said, every time he got the ball, he felt like he could do something decisive against the Bucks, any Bucks defender one-on-one. There was no indecision when Lopez gets him on a switch

or P.J.'s guarding him straight up or Drew's guarding him. He felt very confident getting into the teeth of the defense. And again, to reiterate what Rob's saying, it's like he's spraying this ball out to shooters in the corners, corner three-point shooters to guys like Cam Johnson. and Mikkel Bridges and Kim, Johnson specifically, who's been an inferno all playoffs long, right? So I think that's something I would be worried about. Chris Paul isolating at 19 feet, even against Brooke Lopez, who you got to not like that matchup

and feel the bucks. That's fine. But I think the way Devin Booker feels the energy that, like, there's nobody on this team that could stop me from getting to my spots and bothering me. That's something I'll be worried about if I was Milwaukee. I really just want to fire off my takes on this pod with the confidence of Cam Johnson let loose in the corner every time.

Oh my God. What a whole, what a playoffs from him though. I know. My thing with the bucks, though, is it just doesn't seem like they have an answer. You know, like it seems like they were.

This is game one. This is game one. Well, it's been the story of their entire postseason where it's just like they'd never feel comfortable when they have everyone. They've looked more, at ease in their offense.

They didn't look better, but more just the flow was better without Janus than they do with him. And obviously, the ceiling is way higher. It's through the roof with Janus here because he's the type of player who can go toe to toe with Kevin Durant. You just saw right from the jump

when he was even, he just looked prior than anyone should coming off of the injury that he had. He was getting to the foul line. I mean, that's an issue in its own right. But like, everything just seems gumbed up. And especially when they have all these bigs on the floor.

When they don't, their issue is then you're relying on the Bryn Forbes's of the world. Then you're relying on Pat Conantin and they just don't have enough wing depth. So it's kind of just like it's picked your poison. And I don't know if either one really gives them what they need. That's my concern overall. I understand the concern. I think the yonest thing, again, the defense always informs the Buc's offense because their half-court defense, I mean offense, excuse me, has been so terrible.

all post, not sorry, not terrible, inconsistent and unreliable all postseason long. They've had their games where they went crazy on people, but for the most part, you don't know which offense they're bringing on a night-to-night basis. And so they have to get stops on defense. They have to get buckets in transition. Transition Janus is the best Janus, right?

Like, he's the best transition player since young LeBron. Like, seriously, right? So if they're not getting out, and trying to manufacture points off the offensive rebounds, those point-blank layups, which again, you got to make them when you get them, and getting them in transition, they haven't proven themselves this postseason to be consistently good enough against set playoff, half-court defenses to get it done.

I think they got to figure out some things on the defensive end going forward in this series if they're going to really do what they have to do. And I also think that Janice's knee is going to get better as the series progresses. This is the first time of game action, right? You can't simulate game action in practice against your brother, right? Like, he had to do this game action

to sort of get his sea legs under him and understand what it is he needs to do the spots he has to get out, confidence that he's going to look much better as the series progresses. Depends on which brother, you know? If it's Coustice, you know? Like, he's looking pretty good to say.

He's an NBA champion. Oh, God. Yeah, the Nassus, but yeah, but the Nassus plays every game like it's the last position in the history of man. He probably plays harder than anyone on the Sons except for J. Crowder. Like, you're getting five fouls, even in practice against the Nossus. You do have to hope, though, that as Yannis is getting healthier, the transition play that was mentioned is so crucial.

And that was one area where I thought his spryness was a little bit deceptive. You know, early in this game, we saw Yonis blow by some guys' baseline for dunks. working out of the kind of isopo stuff, that's great. When he was in transition, he wasn't full Janus. Like, he was looking to pass. He was looking to set guys up. He wasn't plowing through, you know, the space between two defenders in the way he usually does.

And if you don't have that, that, I mean, that is a huge source of offense for the bucks. And so that's when we're talking about, you know, what their defense is doing wrong and why it feels so overwhelming that Chris Paul is stepping into 16 and 18 footers is because you're not scoring at all on the other end. And so that starts to build the pressure in the game in terms of, it against you. Yeah. And then we're pretty much just hoping and guessing that Janus's knee will get better as this

goes along and not worse. And because you would think like, yeah, he has more time in between games. Maybe he could do whatever herbal medicine treatment that they were apparently doing on him 24-7 in order to get him right for this game. Can he go vegan between now in game two? But Wads, you're an expert here. Dr. Waz, did the knee look better to you? Do you think like this will be a recurring issue for him?

How many aspirin do you think they taped on it? Listen, I don't think he's going to be fully right by the end of this, but I think he's going to feel confident enough on it to attack. It's just a lot different when you're playing an end-game competition. And honestly, the reason why I thought Janus was going to be able to come back when a bunch of Twitter doctors told me I was a complete idiot. I remember that Twitter doctors. apologize to me tomorrow.

Based on your sound medical advice and your PhD, they should have listened to you. Exactly. I'm a doctor. Emdy. But when the box came out and said, yo, he didn't tear anything. Like, it's not,

nothing is like structurally wrong with it. Like, that to me just meant like, all right, it's not like he's going to need some surgery. He needs time off, off of it. And he needs to like basically be cool with being slightly uncomfortable with it not being 100% right?

Like that's all that meant to me because they would have came out and said look that again everybody except for the clippers normally when people tear something ACL or whatever they come out and just say what it is you know what I'm saying?

Like that they didn't and I was like all right he's going to come back I just think he's going to feel stronger as the series goes on. He's a young guy and you know it's the finals

you know not that anybody needs to be reminded of that I think he's going to play better as this thing goes on. Yeah, I think the problem is the book on Janus is out now. And one, he's probably been peer pressure to the point where even when he does take a three, he knows what a bad decision it is. And on the other end, if he wants to get buckets at the rim, he's going to have to earn them. He's going to have to power through everyone. And in particular, they're going to put him on the line and make him earn those. And so, like, there really is no good

solution for him and his best pathway to points is to be physical on a bum knee that you don't even know if it's even 100% healthy. That's like, that's tough. That's really tough. And the more that the bucks go small, the more that the sons are going to challenge him to move laterally and work that knee and strain it and push it. And that, you know, I don't think it's a coincidence that Yonis kind to seem to fade a little bit over the course of this game. Like his best offense came in the first quarter in the fourth he was running he was trying to play the role his team needed him to play but a lot of their offense even in that stretch where they were come back in the fourth was coming from those perimeter guys do you want to talk about true holiday now no i i feel like this i feel like

this is just a big conspiracy so he can remain underrated that like going forward he everyone will just whenever he has a big game everyone will be happy that he'll they'll get that he's setting the expectations low because they're pretty low right now. He finishes with a near triple double, but four for 14, 0 for four. And I just go back to the big picture again, you build your big three around one transformative superstar and two all-star-ish level guys. And that's really tough when those two other guys are not to the level of your number one guy, you know? Like you could you could have maybe one of those guys. You could have a Bosch or whoever filling into that third role.

But like, you're really counting on Middleton and Holiday to be your Hardin and your Kyrie. And like, Holiday in particular, it's just not living up to this. And it's at the point where, I don't know, like, are they ever going to get more than one big game of series from him? I think they can. But, I mean, he was just like turning down good shots in this game. Like, he just seemed so in his head about what he was supposed to be doing on offense. And it hurts for him when. if you're going to play a switching defensive style,

you're taking away some of his capacity to impact the game there, right? Because if he's going to be guarding whoever's screens and runs off to the corner, what is Drew Hodey supposed to be doing if he's also having an off offensive night? Yeah, and my thing with Drew Holiday is you're bigger than the three primary ball handlers

on the other team. Like, you're much bigger than campaign. You're much bigger than Chris Paul. You're even bigger than Devin Booker is, right? So, like, you even need to be taken set shots, spot-up shots, I'm tired of the step back, Drew Holiday Life. I don't need that.

That's clearly not a strength of your game. If you have a three and your feet are set, fire. Because you're actually gumbing up the works when you ball stop that way and just be like, all right, I'm going to put it on the floor. Oh, I'm going to pass it. You got an open shot, take it. But you should also be taking these guys to the cup, man.

You should be trying to get to the line. You're bigger than them. Force them to put their body on you and get some foul. that way. He's doing a decent job with his floor game and sort of setting guys up, right? Like, as you said, he had a damnly triple double tonight. Like, he's doing a decent job

of finding dudes, but I think he's got to cut out the fat. He's got to take the dribble, dribble, dribble, shoot it stuff. Early, mid, I don't care what time of clock it is. You shouldn't be taking that true holiday. And he's got to be looking to attack these small-ish slight guards

on the Phoenix Sunt. And you've got to be looking to push, man. Like, push. Push. You're supposed to be an athletic wing. That's supposed to be a strength of yours is your speed, your quickness. You know, you are getting some rebounds. Push the ball. They have to push. If the bucks don't play with pace, they're not scoring. We can't say this enough.

They're not a half-court offense. It's not what they do. They got to push. Yeah. I joke about the underrated thing, but this really is the flip side of all the things we used to say about Drew, like that he's so cerebral, he'll fill in the gaps. Well, now he's filling in the gaps when you want him to be just a premier, like score first player. You want to be able to turn to him and say, here, Drew, take the reins. Like, it sounds hot takey, but it's the truth,

but he's looked his most comfortable when Janus wasn't there the last two games with that Hawks series. It just seemed like you didn't need to push him into being aggressive. He said this after game, I believe it was five, when he had that first big game without Janus, the Bucks win. And he's like, yeah, like, I agree with Shaq and all those guys in the TNT booth. Like, yeah, I need to be more aggressive. I, like, I don't know what it is. It's just, like, something I need to get, like, myself into. And it just seems like he floats when those other guys are around.

He doesn't know when to call his own number. It's almost like it's the flip side of him being so past first and such a good teammate. You actually need him to be more selfish. Well, and the flip side of him being versatile, where you kind of fall into the cracks of a game. It's really tough for him in that way. But Waz nailed it. Like, if you're Drew Holiday and you can't drive campaign and finish over the Sun's backup bigs,

you're going to lose the series. Like, it really is that cut and dry. You need to absolutely dominate those minutes in particular. Like Chris Paul is pesky. That's a different kind of matchup. I get it. But you got to beat the Sun's backups. And yeah, we got to give the Suns' their credit, right?

Chris Paul comes out in the third quarter. He's aggressive. He drops 16 points in the third quarter. Basically, that quarter is what, gave them the separation that would end up being the difference in this game. DeAndre Aton on defense, I don't care if it's health defense, I don't care if it's on switches, I don't care if it's on the boards. Like, you name it, he did it for the Sons.

He continues to be an absolute workhorse. And, you know, obviously he's not ever going to be better than Luca Donchich. But if you have the type of big man who can anchor your defense credibly against all kinds of defensive matchups. I don't care if his jitterbug guards, big men trying to pound him in the post, guarding guys out to 25 feet, and you can't put little guys on him on offense where he's punishing switches. That's an extremely valuable player. Like, you can look around throughout the whole playoffs who could do that. I didn't see one. Like, the only person who theoretically could do it was AD and he wasn't around, right? So it's like, it's Aiton. We kind of killed Rudy for that same reason.

go bare, right? Like, you're the $200 million man. You don't catch the ball around the rim. Pat Bev is guarding you comfortably. You know, that's not the case. Eight in all playoffs long, when they put these little tiny dudes on him, he's like, listen, I'm going to eat and I'm going to eat consistently. So we got to give him his props. Rob, you love big men. Don't I ever. I mean, he didn't need any more validation to secure his next contract to get that max. But he's just racking up the profit on top. of it at this point. He's awesome. I feel like every series he adds another giant gaudy chain. He's stacking them like years off of like his latest victims. That's right. It's been it's

been wild to watch here. But I mean, I guess we if we're just handing out, uh, plot it's here. I guess we also have to give one to Chris Paul who yet again, man, I've started to write down Chris Paul's total point total at half because I know I'm going to have to look back on it to see how much he scored in the second half. And if you're wondering he had 11 in the first he finishes with 32 and 9 assists. Your random factoid of the day, courtesy of ESPN sports and information, Paul is the first player with 30 points and 8 assists

in a finals debut since Michael Jordan in 1991. Jordan was probably what, like 28 at that point, and Paul is 36, so a little bit of a difference there. But the fact that he's 36 and still taking over a game and was the deciding factor, I would say, and this one is still pretty damn crazy. And it wasn't the fact that he was like, just dominating Brooke Lopez or just beating one type of coverage.

It was everybody. Like, Brooke Lopez left this game, and Chris Paul did just unconscionable things to Bobby Portis on national television. And if you want the bucks to go small, that kind of means you're making peace with the fact that you want Pat Connettin guarding him or Bryn Forbes guarding him in a switch. There's no good answer when a guy's going to do that. And I think, as we hit at the top,

you're going to have to live with him hitting some tough shots in a game like this, he hit every tough shot. So I think our friend Vance in the chat asked this a little while ago, but does this series look different if the big ragu is in here? If Spicy D, Dante DiFincenzo was on there on the wing with that small ball lineup, would you feel better about the box? And do you think it would have made a difference in that fourth quarter? No.

I mean, like, no, you feel better about a team having a player that's missing, of course, who's, you know, an important part of their rotation. I would feel better. And I know Sun's fans are going to get mad. I'd feel better if the Bucks actually had their best player was healthy. Right? But he's out there and he's making a difference. And I think he's going to continue to do that.

But I don't think this is a Dante DiFenzo loss. This is a straight up, you couldn't stop these dudes loss. You just couldn't do anything with them. And, you know, Monty Williams, give him credit, man. He was prepared. He prepared these guys from looks, where they're not even throwing the lob to Aiton off of the switch. They're throwing it to somebody else so that he has a better angle to then throw the lob to Aiton.

Like they're coming up with counters. They were ready for everything the Bucs wanted to do tonight. This is my thing about, you know, the Bucks come out in this game switching from minute one. Everyone online hates it immediately. They go to the drop. Everyone hates the drop. And if you hate both of those things, basically what you're saying is you want them to try more of a hedge and recover type of strategy. Okay, that's fine.

But if you watch this game, the suns are such good swing passers, this kind of like tick-tac-toe connect the dots passing that Woz is talking about. It's not really a big deal for them if they need to hit a middleman and they pass it to Aiton while you recover. They can do that stuff too. Maybe you want to put more pressure on the J Crowders and the McKeown Bridges of the world to make those kind of like impact passes and plays. in real time. I can understand that logic, but it's not an open and shut thing. This is a really hard team to guard top to bottom.

Listen, Rob, if it comes down to Chris Paul, 38-year-old beating me from, okay, 36-year-old beating me from the top of the key off of the dribble all series long, I got to tip my hat off to you and just, I got to give you your props. Like, those are the hardest shots in basketball to make, okay? Well, this hardest shot.

shots, but I'm saying that at least you get three points for them. Right? Like, these contested long twos are what you work your ass off on defense to generate, even from a Chris Paul, who's one of the best mid-range shooters in the history of the game. So to me, it's got to be about that. It can't be about Aitin catching dunks on my head the whole time. Cam Johnson taking wide open corner threes. And that's the thing, too, is if you're the bucks and you're only taking 16 threes in this game,

Oh, sorry. Oh, no, sorry, they took a lot of threes in this game. Only made 16 threes in this game. That was the issue with when the sons were hitting all their twos, you got to be able to trade some of that stuff for threes. You got to be able to at least win that kind of margin if you're going to force them into these contested 16 and 18 footers. They just weren't doing that.

Yeah, and that's where I think Devencenzo could help a little bit. I do think they need to skew the math back into their favor. That gives them at least one more credible shooter amongst a crew that, like, for a team that's built around just threes and layoffs, my God, like the amount of shooters that you could actually count on to hit a three are like, and it starts and finishes with Chris Middleton,

pretty much, because Drew's like a competent shooter. Brooke Lopez comes and goes depending on what series it is, BJ Tucker's Corner 3. I mean, again, same as Brooke. Like, so you're really down to one. Well, you have Forbes too, and I thought it was tell. But he takes away something on the other end.

That's the problem. I think Devencenzzo could at the very least, like, hold his own. At the risk of the D. Vincenzo mythology getting a little out of control here. We're getting dangerously close to the edge here. I do want to say, too, like, he is a guy who commits a lot of bad overreaches and fouls and gambles a lot. He's exactly the kind of guard you do not want on the floor in a Chris Paul series. So, yes, he could give you good minutes.

If he's filling the 10 Jeff Teague minutes in this game, the bucks are probably better off. But I don't want to go too far on the difference that does. Dante DiVincenzo is making here. I trust anyone with a goatee. They just look more distinguished. It's like the new version of glasses. I'm just looking at them right now on basketball reference. And I think to myself, I trust this guy.

You know? No. Another question we have here from Dylan Strine. Jay Crowder, finals MVP. Book it. So our guy was 0 for 8 from the field. Oh, for 5 from 3 point land. one for four from free throw, game high plus 19.

That's got to say something. He was, I think, the guy who first got in Janus's head about being aggressive, though, with the charge he drew on the baseline. Before that, Janus was kind of getting to his stuff, getting to the basket whenever he wanted. But if you can put up some resistance and make an injured player start to think about his moves a little more and be a little bit more deliberate, I think there's definite value to that. Jay Crot is a really useful player, even sometimes when he's scoring. one point on zero for eight shooting.

Let's have the actual finals MVP discussion here. So is game one? It's game one. We're making favorites here, all right? Is Chris Paul just off the board right now? Like, is there anyone even in like 10 spots of him? This is one, I think LeBron was legitimately the best player in the NBA finals last year. However, it was very close, right?

I don't think anything in the, the neighborhood of Chris Paul being kind of good and the Sun's winning this thing, sees him not getting that finals MVP. So it's got to be, if the Suns win, Chris Paul wins, right? Like, that has to be the case. And, you know, if the Bucks end up winning, it's going to go to Janus. To me, it's a two-man race. There's no way you're giving Chris Middleton your final.

That just, I mean, we already did that silliness when we gave it to Iggy, because LeBron only dropped 40 a game or something like that. That was wild. I don't know what the excuse was for giving it to Iggy. But yeah, I don't think we'll be doing that. It's either going to Chris Paul or Janus. We talk about the Russell Westbrook MVP and what a travesty. That was way more than we talk about Iggy.

No, Iggy in the finals was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. And the thing is because the stupid thing about Iggy as finals MVP was that there was chatter about LeBron winning it on a losing team. So if he played good enough to win it on a losing team, how could Iggy have stopped him well enough that he deserved finals. That doesn't make, that just doesn't track to me. And then of course, the part about like Steph just being the clearly the best player

on the team is clearly the reason they won the finals. Like clearly, you know, whatever. It wouldn't even be, it wouldn't even be Chris Middleton winning. It would be DeAndre Aiden winning. Like, not only, not only like a third or fourth guy in the pecking order, but like a guy who is directly, uh, whose value derives from the actual best player in the, that Iguodalis did stuff. Like Chris Paul,

he creates so much of what's going on there. I was just going to say, this seems like a very internet writer, uh, contrarian take, Rob.

Shouldn't DeAndre Aitn't be the main competition for Chris Paul? Almost getting a 2020 game, 22 and 19 rebounds. You're just going to take that away from him like Chris Ball took away the last rebound on the game.

Yeah, what was going on there? He just didn't, he didn't want him patting his stats. Mm. See? Controversy, man. I will say, my alarms did go off

a little bit when Chris Paul was on the bench getting some attention from the training staff and the trainer started selectively positioning the towel boy to stand between Chris and the camera to completely obscure view on whatever they were doing with Chris Paul's hands. I assume replacing it with some kind of

like robotic hand that he could finish this series with. Very strange. Lots of weird little stuff on the margins of this game. Like in T-T. you just like takes off the skin and to reveal like an exoskeleton this series is going to end

with Chris Paul sinking into a pit of lava with a thumbs up slowly descending into the lava. Asla Visa Devin Booker um speaking of Devin Booker a stat coming through on the wire here

as we're going along. Uh, ESPN has bucks going one for 11 on shots defended by Devin Booker. Wow. It's not a stat. Not a stat? It's not a stat.

Devin Booker is some expert shot contester. Like, dude, come on. That's a stat about the Bucks half-core defense is what it is. Or half-court offense, sorry, is what it is. Exactly. Right. Let me ask this question. This is one from user Justin Verrier.

Would the Sun's look this dominant had either of the other East favorites made the finals instead of the bucks. So if we're dealing with the nets here, if we're dealing with the Sixers, I guess you could throw in the Hawks there as well since they actually made the Eastern Conference Finals. Still wrapping my head around that one. Do you think like the Suns would look this dominant?

Is it more matchup dependent? Or is this where we would end up inevitably the Sun's just being this good? Was this a dominant game? No, but I mean, they handled them pretty easily. It was dominant. It's an NBA Finals game. supposed to be evenly matched. This is supposed to be one of the best teams in the NBA.

And you get out to a 20-point lead in the third quarter, that's a pretty dominant performance, in my opinion. Whether you say it's because they got hot or whatever, I thought that was dominant, what they did. And I get that after the five-point, six-point play or whatever that shit was, it kind of snowballed after that. But I thought it was a dominant performance, for sure. There's no doubt they were in control. In my mind, the Bucks are, or I think within single digits or at least within 11 in the fourth. Sure.

They had their opportunity to go at this thing. They just couldn't quite pull it off. I see lots of like maker miss swings in this game, period. I think it could have unfolded very differently if, you know, again, the Bucks make three more of their first half layups that they just biffed. Right. And but to Justin's point,

if you're telling me the nets are healthy or, you know, drink at home, Was talks about another team in injuries. Obviously, the Nets to me make this thing look a lot differently. If you just give me one of Kyrie and James Harding, right? I think it just looks a lot different. But, you know, them be's the breaks. You know, sometimes you get injured and that's life.

Yeah, true to form, it is a lot about who's healthy. If Yonis is healthy, maybe this game is different. If, like you're saying, if the Sixers are there and Embede is fully healthy, Maybe it's different. And obviously with the Nets guys, too. I remember someone, I don't know who it was, was tweeting earlier on when the injuries started to flow. Like, well, this is what it is this time of year.

It's not about who's better. It's about who's healthy. And I thought to myself, that's some bullshit. Like, LeBron James was in every fucking finals for a decade. And you're going to tell me it's all about health. He was healthy. He was healthy pretty much every time, though. At least he was LeBron healthy, you know, like dealing with

Whatever. Come on, man. He had the broken hand. Don't forget that. Don't forget the hand and the elbow. He had a couple of nicks there. Yeah. He had his own exoskeleton at this point.

But yeah. And, you know, and, you know, that was definitely early on that was the take, right? It's like, guys, you're overreacting. You're present of the moment. Get over it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, it just kind of got, it snowballed, man. Like, everybody got freaking injured.

So, you know, it is what it is. I enjoyed this game. I think this series is going to be extremely competitive. I thought Phoenix's crowd was amazing. Yeah. I never really thought of Phoenix as a crowd city, but apparently they are, and I thought that was dope. Well, and every member of the crowd looks like a member of Papa Roach somehow.

Oh, boy. I'm glad you said that and not me. Yeah, for some reason the suns have turned into like Alabama football just overnight. But more power to them. It's just, I guess everyone's just looking to get out there and, and yell about something. Luckily, it's more for, for good reasons and not the bad reasons that we saw earlier in the postseason. Adjustments. We're going to talk about this game too going forward.

Rob, if you are Mike Boodenholzer, you have on a very nice half-zip pull-up on. right now and you're combing your beard in the mirror and you're thinking to yourself, what do I do with this game too? What are you changing about the game plan? I think what I'm trying to do is I'm trusting the intelligence of the defenders I have on the floor and starting to juggle coverage is a little bit more where it's not so much we're going to do switching for a while, then we're going to do drop for a while. I'm letting guys make more calls in the moment. I'm going to say Drew Holiday and PJ Tucker, figure it out. Like if this is a switch situation, switch it, talk to each other,

crack that, because the more you put that moment on your defenders, the more you're putting it on the Sons to figure it out too. You're at least putting a moment where Chris Pahl has to read and figure, oh, is this where I'm going to pull up? Is this where I'm going to slow play this thing? I basically need to find ways to get the Sons to stall a little bit more than they were, because they looked super comfortable because they knew exactly what they were bumping up against. Yeah, I think the point of the switching defense is to get.

get the opponent to play in one-on-one. And you got to have faith that, all right, Devin Booker, Chris Paul, y'all better be ready to go one-on-one for 44 minutes. It's on y'all to score very tough buckets against some of the best defenders in the league in Janus and Middleton and PJ and Drew. And have that it.

That's what your goal should be. I really do think this strategy was sound. Now, do I think, like Rob said, they need to be a little bit more unpredictable and who and when they're switching things. Sometimes the guy can fight over it. Because we know Prince Paul's not just going to rise in fire from three. His windup takes like seven years to get off.

Like, that's not a thing that he wants to do. So be smarter about how you're doing it. But yeah, I thought the strategy was fine. Yeah, you have more time to defend that pick and roll than you think. because the guys that pop, like if they have to go outside, you know, Aiton as a screener and start working in Biggs and you're having like Crowder set screens

or Bridges or Cam Johnson, I'm not really, I'm not worried about my ability to get and recover to them quickly enough. I think you can do that. And Chris Paul, as we've hit on, is not a guy who blows by you all the way to the rim and beats your rotating coverage.

He's just not. Yeah, make him put the ball on the floor. Like, take me to the rack, Chris Paul. Show me that you got some type of Kyrie Irvin type of finishing ability. save for that, like, I'm good. So bucks and six is what I'm hearing from everybody. I've picked against the Sons in literally every series.

No, I didn't pick against them in the Nugget series. But yeah, I'm picking the bucks. Wait, seriously? Yeah, yeah, I'm picking the bucks. Just playing the odds now. I'm just picking the bucks. Is this the Ethan Strauss? I'll make the pick nobody else's picking, so I'll look smart.

Yes, exactly. And when I'm wrong, nobody will remember. Nobody remembers exactly. Rob, what do you think? I have no pick. I'll get the fuck out of here. I hate this so much. It's sports.

It's fun. No one is going to come looking for you if you get it wrong. No, I think Suns in Six. Thank you. Mike Lewis said, get out of here, Watts. Come on. I'll go Suns in five. A nice little gentleman sweep here.

I don't know. I don't have much faith in the bucks after this one. Which game do they get? Is it the true gentleman sweep where you get the three, the three-oh son's lead and they squeak one in? You think they can win before that? I think so. Yeah, they're young. You know, maybe they'll be like, so, is it sowing their oats or feeling their oats?

What are we doing with oats these days? Hopefully nothing. Keep the oats out of this. Just do it in the comfort of your home, whatever you do. Yes. With your oats. But yeah, no, I could see them just like losing focus for a little bit and letting one slip away. And then Chris Paul will come back and we'll say Chris Paul's got this.

He's the one that rallied them to the finish. And there will be many a feature stories written about that. All right. That's it for us. Unless Wise, you want to talk about the sideline reporting tonight. Did you like what you saw out there? I thought it was fantastic.

Everybody was professional. Everybody had great information. Everybody was just solid team players. Fantastic. We love it out there. All right. We'll be back next week. I believe we're on Wednesday next week.

for whatever game that is. I think that's four. So we'll see you then for Sasha Ashall on production. Sasha Ashall on production. There you go. Patrick Modani. Patrick Muldaunty. Patrick Muldauny. Patrick Muldauny on the green room, just shepherding us through for Woz for Rob. I am Justin. We'll see you next time.