The Ringer NBA Show - The Playoff Picture in the West and End-of-Season Awards (Ep. 91)

Episode Date: March 30, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Vernon talks to Zach Harper about the end of the NBA regular season and the nearly finalized playoff picture in the West (1:10). They also discuss the MVP race heating up between James Harden and Russell Westbrook (35:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Major League Baseball is finally back as the new season gets underway. The Ringer Podcast Network has baseball fans covered with the Ringer MLB show, playing exclusively on the Tune-in app for the month of April. On top of that, the Ringer Podcast Network has partnered with Tune-in to give baseball fans a free 30-day trial of Tune-in premium to listen to every live home call of every MLB game around the league. Catch the Ringer MLB show only on Tune in during April and with your premium subscription,

listen to the live MLB games on Tune In. Just go to tune-in.com slash Ringer and subscribe. Download the Tune-in app and start listening today. Tune in, your everything audio app. Ringer NBA show, I'm Chris Vernon. Joining me today on the show is Zach Harper. You can find him on Twitter at Talk Hoops. You can read what he writes at Fanrag Sports.

Zach, what's up, brother? I am just enjoying the end of this season because I feel like despite this just being a true, two-team league like I've heard, that this has been a really fun season. You got very, I don't want to say lucky, fortunate maybe last night. You had a lot of stake in that Spurs Warriors game because you wrote an article, you wrote an article, the possible pitfalls facing the spurs when the games really matter. And then the game starts like 15 to nothing and 23 to 3.

What are you thinking as that takes place as someone who has, as printed an article, the possible pitfalls facing the spurs when the games really matter. I think it got to 25 to 3 at one point, and I thought, I don't want to if I'll just start watching some old Broad City or something at this point. Maybe I don't need to be on Twitter right now. And then the Warriors started chipping away and getting back into the flow. And then the article turned out to be kind of correct because Tony Parker was bad and managing nobody didn't have a good game.

And Patty Dills actually didn't do all that much. kind of the crux of my argument was it worries me because there is a certain lineup they're going to have to play a lot this season or in the postseason and that lineup has been bad like not just like bad for the spurs but just bad in general so as that started kind of

coming into form I thought all right maybe I didn't completely you know jinx the rest of the Western conference and pops just going to roll through it because these guys are the ball handlers and they kind of get everything going and when it you know especially when

they whip the ball around so much the spurs. Like that first action is the one that starts everything in motion. And it just doesn't happen as fast anymore because inevitably Parker and Genobley are older. Yeah, I mean, you know, Genobley's going to be 40 in July. You know, and he's still pretty good. Like he's a 38% three-point shooter. He's still good. It's just he doesn't have, he doesn't have that first step or that explosiveness that made him

such a dangerous player that, you know, kind of got everything off balance for the defense. and then he would just pick you apart. And then Tony Parker, I mean, he just, like, he just hasn't looked good in really three years to me. And part of that is injuries and part of that is just wearing tear and whatever. But if you take those two away, you're relying so much on Patty Mills, who's been spectacular this season. But the line of the line of the, the line of my reference in the article is like Patty Mills, Mani Genoble, Kauai, Paugasol, and Lamarcus Aldridge.

And that's a good offensive line of. They're scoring like almost 109 points per 100 possessions. That's fantastic. But they're giving up like almost 119. They can't stop anybody. They don't stop anybody on the perimeter. They don't stop anybody inside the perimeter. And as good as Kauai is, he can't make up for those four defenders.

And so I feel like they're going to have to play that lineup because that's a good offensive lineup for them. But if they do and you don't get any kind of resistance on the perimeter outside of Kauai, I just think they're in trouble. Well, because I think maybe one of the thoughts was, and especially after bringing in Gassal, it was clearly get bigger, right? We'll just try to get every rebound.

Like one of the ways the teams have been that have given the Warriors problems to the extent that they've had any problems is when they shoot the ball, they get it back and when you shoot the ball, they get it, right? Just being big, forcing them. You know, Draymond can only guard one guy. And so forcing them to have some kind of formidable front line, which, you know, I mean, then you're forcing them to play, Zaza a lot.

or Javala a lot or whoever. And so, you know, the idea was be able to go big, but it feels like, again, maybe this year, they're just, Pops going to be looking to that bench going, all right, how do I match up with this? And I don't know if they're good. It's like they are clearly best when they've got Aldridge and Pau and their best players out there.

But that's probably not best versus the Warriors in terms of trying to match up with them. If we're looking at the two best teams possibly matching up to see who could go to the finals this year. Like, I get the idea of going big against the Warriors. I think it can work, but you have to be able to slow down the tempo. You have to be able to grind out those possessions. You have to be able

to really beat them up. And that's just not Powell and Lamarcus at this point in their career. I don't know it was them at any point in their careers, but especially not now. So when they throw like Dwayne Dedman out there, great. He's a fantastic defensive player, right? Great rim protector can defend the perimeter, a fantastic

rebounder. Like that works, but then you lose something offensively because he's, you aside if you cover the lobs, like he really, I know he hit a jumper last night, but he, you know, he really isn't a threat in that sense, and you have to be able to kind of balance those two sides of the ball against the Warriors while making it, you know, that classic Memphis Grizzlies grit and grind or what the jazz are trying to do with their big lineups. Like those are the things you have to do, and I just don't think the Spurs necessarily have that personnel.

And you remember last year in the playoffs, Pop, you know, he's trying to, he plays Duncan, then he doesn't play Duncan. Then he tries Bobon and he does, you know what I mean? And then he, and then he, and then Bobon doesn't. play at all. Like he tried a bunch of different stuff last year in their playoffs. And then it finally just seemed like he looked down the bench and like, okay, I don't, I don't have, it wasn't a adjustment to make. He just didn't have the goods. He didn't have the personnel to be able to match up. Yeah. And from Kauai Leonard, you know, you have to look at that, that line, you know,

the options around him and go, well, who is the advantage for them? Because I think if you, I think if you get into a game, like it worked in, what, game one against the Thunder last year. But if you get into a game where it's like, hey, we're just going to ride, we're going to ride Lamarcus Aldridge on offense. He's going to pick you apart for 40, 50 points. Well, as long as you cover everyone else, I don't think of the bad strategy for the defense, right? Like, if Lamarcus Alders beat you, then so be it. And it's not that he's a bad player.

It's just that's not when the spurs are at their most spurs. That's not when they're moving the ball around and hitting threes and getting cutters and everything. That's just him taking mid-range jumpers, and most of the league will live with that. All right. How significant is last night? Are we making too big of a deal out of one game between those two teams? Yeah, probably.

I mean, I think the thing to take away from it is look how good Steph Curry looks right now. Right? Like he and Clay, and then, you know, Draymond's just been ridiculous for the majority of the season. But great, not even just shooting the ball, but just the way he's attacking the decisions he makes. He seems to be in a very comfortable zone. I think the one thing you take away from the Warriors in terms of skepticism is how do they work KD back into it once he's healthy and how much does that take away from stuff and what he's and what he's been doing you know the last couple of weeks because that will be you know finding that balance of

something they didn't do really for most of the season and it's fine they're talented enough to where you just roll for the regular season you know you win 60 plus games and it doesn't really matter but once you get into the playoffs and things slow down a little bit and you're not able to you know really surprised they're not surprised things but just overwhelmed overwhelmed overwhelmed teams on random nights in the regular season, and you can kind of get game planned for a little bit more. Where is that balance? And they probably won't have time to figure that out,

even if they're able to get through the first round on the game. I just wonder, will we see this curry in the postseason? No, that's a good point because it's not, the idea that it would be seamless might be a little far-fetched. They don't have, you know, a million games. log together. Like if, you know what I mean? If Genobley goes down and then he comes back in, it's just seamless. They've played hundreds of games together as a unit, but that's not so. And the Warriors, you know, at the very beginning, you know, it took a little while for them to figure out,

you know, how they're all going to play their roles. And now it does feel like that, you know, it took a little while for them to settle in once KD went down. And now you're back to the whole, all right, now we got to go back to the way it was with Kevin. And that may take a little time, right? just to work the kinks out and figure out how we're going to play again. I don't know if he just seamlessly goes back into that lineup and they're devastating again. Right, and I think the key is actually on defense because since they went down, Drayvon's gone nuts, like trying to, one, write the ship defensively and two, be the defensive player of the year finally for the first time in three years.

And they've been the best defensive league since KD went down. Well, they were like second or third before he went down. So it's not like it's this big contrast to pre-injury and post-injury. But when he comes back in, will he still be able to defend? Like the way they use him, he's going to be able to make jumpers all day. I'm not worried about him fitting in on offense in terms of getting his groove back and give his game back to where it was. But defensively, he was so important being able to switch everything and being long

and being a rim protector and ending possessions with defensive rebounds and everything. I wonder if he'll have that explosive and that, you know, kind of continuity with everybody to where he can back up Dremont or Dremont has to back up him or whatever, you know, the combination is depending on who they're playing. If they can't get that back defensively, then do we see kind of the problems of last year against the Cavs in those final three games of where it just, everything seemed a little, a little off and they weren't able to quite, you know, grasp that end of the floor? I kind of think that that's the bigger problem than how he fits offensively. The defensive thing is super surprising. I thought they would take a big step back without him in the lineup.

Right? I mean, in the end, they got Clay Thompson and they got Steph Curry. They're probably going to score, right? Right. But I did think that especially as good. He had gotten a lot of accolades for being an extremely good defender for them this year. So the fact that their team defense has not taken a step back at all is, that's shocking to me. Very shocking.

And I do think it speaks to how good they. been. I thought they were really going to, I don't want to say struggle, but certainly were not like a prohibitive favorite in the West if they didn't have a hundred percent Kevin Durant on their squad. I thought that might have opened the door for some teams. But when you go on the road and you, you know, I mean, you beat Houston like they did and you beat San Antonio like they did. These last couple nights, maybe just, maybe the beginning of the Durant injury was simply just the schedule sucked for them, right? They were in the middle of this long, the long part of their schedule against some pretty good teams,

and they were trying to figure out how to play without him. But damn, man, they've looked pretty damn good the last couple nights when you knock off the two and three seed on the road. Yeah, I mean, and it's just like it's kind of back to the same old warriors, right? Like, they're just, the whole stuff thing. Like, you think about what he's been in the last 10 days. He outplayed Russell Westbrook, he outplayed James Hard, and he outplayed Quile Leonard last night.

The four top MVP candidates, and he just went out and outplayed all of them. I don't know, like he was criticized a lot this season for, you know, not being up to the standard he set the last two years. I think it was fair criticism. But you kind of look at the playoffs get closer, man, he's gearing up. And he's really just on an incredible level once again. And you've got to wonder if maybe this injury kind of got, you know, to KD got him set at the right time. And if they can work KD back and find that balance, if you get this, Steph Curry, my God. I mean, I just feel bad for the rest of the Western Congress.

because you're right like they looked a little vulnerable for a while and now that vulnerability just seems like a joke well and you've seen in these big games right you know who's been super awesome is iguadala right okay so kevin direct goes down at the beginning of the season i think there was a lot of people fairly that said hey guadala looks a year older right like sometimes you know when you when you get to when you get to age 33 and he's got a million miles on him um and And you got these finals runs that Iguodala doesn't look like the defensive stall where do-everything guy. At least he didn't at the beginning of the season.

And now you look at these last three and he killed the Grizzlies and had 20 points and seven rebounds. Then they play the Houston game. And these are all 30-plus minute games for Iguodala. So he's playing more minutes. And this guy has been averaging like seven points a game this year. year, which is startling, I think, to a lot of people. But then when they got in these big games, he drops 20 on Memphis.

He drops 12 on Houston and is everywhere and gets a six rebounds and six assists. And then last night, he chips in 14 and 6. All the while, shooting like crazy percentage from the field and kind of being in everything small forward. So, I mean, I don't know. Iguodal has clearly still got it. And I wonder if his assent can remain. once Kevin Durant comes back? Yeah, I mean, what's the, like, the Super Death lineup or whatever, you know,

Apocalypse lineup or whatever we're calling it, but like if they can, if they're able to get that going, and Iqadala can even be 80% of what he's been the last month or so, you know, that's just a scary proposition. It feels a lot like the Princess Bride where like all of a sudden, Guadal was like, oh, by the way, I'm not left-handed. Like, I, you know, here, this is me, this is me at my best. And now I'm going to switch my style and be the Iguada that was so important the last two years. And really, like, he was, he was great last year. He just, he had the back injury,

I think, and I think it was a back injury, lower back injury. And that just kind of took away everything he could, he could do in terms of physicality. And then you throw that against, like, oh, by the way, now you have to do this against LeBron. And he just kind of looked weak, or not weak, but he just looked susceptible to, you know, to not being his best self. And now, you know, at the same time, that Steph's building up towards a playoffs, it would all is building up. And if you get, I mean, again, if you get 75, 80% of that, that's just a dangerous role player to have. And by the way, I believe it's the contract year. But this is the right time to be making this push.

You know that death lineup came up all the time last year. And then we brought up the super death lineup and whatever. Curly hasn't gone to it much this year. You know, and do you think that's just a saving it back for the playoffs? Or do you think it is somewhat of a different change of philosophy? of, you know, keeping a big guy out there. I do wonder how much of that is, like, let's make sure Zaza is entrenched in this system and everything.

Let's make sure Javail can, you know, be whatever is not Javali. Like, let's try to get these guys up to speed as much as possible. And then we think we can go to that in the playoffs because you also look at it up until recently. I mean, the Warriors just don't run a lot of pick and roll with Steph Curry, which seems insane. Like, Steph Curry, no offense to James Hardin, LeBron James, those guys, like, Seth Curry still may be the best picker roll player in the league.

And this is something that they just seem to rarely go to, especially when KD was healthy. So I do wonder how much is being saved for the playoffs because there is no real win for the Warriors to, you know, to win by 30 instead of by 18. And so if that's the case, you know, are they saving this stuff? But then if they're saving the stuff, it kind of goes to the whole idea of can you flip a switch once you get into the postseason,

which I'm not sure you can. And is that the Warriors version of flipping a switch of, oh, we'll go to the super death line of. And by the way, we're going to run a bunch of pick and roll with Steph Curry. These are the things we will blitz the Western Conference and the Cavs with in the finals. These are the things we will go to. But if you don't kind of fine-tune that throughout the regular season, I don't know how easy of a transition that is. So Golden State's now three and a half up. That was a monster win, standings-wise, in terms of them being able to hold on to the number one seed.

So they're three-and-a-half up. And then you have the spurs are going to be the two-seed and the rockets are going to be the three-seat. Like these things, even with less than ten games left to go in the season, these things are all but completely decided. The Jazz are at four right now. And then you have the Clippers who are a game and a half-back, Oklahoma Cities, who's two-and-a-half-back, and the Grizzlies who are two-and-half back of each other. I'm saying, respectively. Utah's got, and I know this is a team that you get to see the most, Utah's got Washington tomorrow night, they got two with Portland, they got one with Minnesota, they got two

with San Antonio, both home and away. So they don't have an easy schedule the rest of the way by any means. Washington's obviously been great the last couple of months. Portland needs every game like blood. Minnesota's still out there fighting, and then obviously. you got the San Antonio's, which I think if you look at their schedule, if you're Utah, you just pray that they're sitting everybody at the last game of the season, which would probably be to be expected, considering they'd be locked into their seat.

That being said, do you think Utah holds on to the four seed? I mean, I think they have what? They have seven games left and four of them are at home. I think they'll take, I think they have a great chance of taking that Portland game. And the Warriors may be resting on the second, you know, the second of the season. And I would expect the Spurs to be resting on the last night of the season. So I do think, like, what looks like a tough schedule probably isn't as tough. The key is if they can beat Washington at home Friday night,

then I think that sets them up to kind of be a lot, not a lock for the forcey, because anything could happen, and they're banged up, so you don't know how much of their regular guys are going to be in and out of the lineup. But I do think that puts them at a huge advantage to finish out pretty strong. And I don't know, I mean, the Spurs may even rest people on Sunday, right? They may rest people in both of those games, kind of what you alluded to. So I think the jazz are fine in terms of the four-seed. I think the tricky thing for them is would you rather play the Clippers

or would you rather play the Thunder? And we know the Clippers are susceptible to being, you know, to cheddar bobbing themselves. I like to say, you know, just shooting themselves anywhere on the body and kind of ruining their chances in the playoffs. We know that the Thunder, if you can slow down Rust at all, then great. but the Jazz actually had a problem slowing down rust this year. And so maybe that's a worry. So I think trying to figure out, even if they're the four-season, they have that home court advantage, you know, what is the best matches to them?

That's kind of the scary thing for Utah. It's weird, right? Because you would immediately say, hey, listen, you got a lot of, you got a veteran playoff team with three big stars in the Clippers, right, versus this one-man team in Oklahoma City. But it just so happens matchup-wise. A, you're right. If you have a big problem stopping Russ, that becomes an immense problem.

And the second thing is Oklahoma City does have the big guys that can go and fight it out with you down low. If you're throwing Adams out there. Canter obviously would have a hard on for beating Utah because he's no – because it's his former team. But they got some guys that they could throw out there. They wouldn't get slaughtered by the Utah front line and especially. go bear to be like actively seeking out go bear which i don't know that's a good strategy because go bear is ridiculous but but he seems to like i think someone mentioned two games ago hey are you you know are you change the like it was something some kind of like just really mundane question of

like you change the way you attack with gobert in the middle and he was like russ seemed offended to the point of i'm going to go dunk on this guy now and he's tried to dunk on him a couple of times I think he got bowled or lost the ball or whatever, but he seems almost more motivated than normal, which is an insane level of motivation in the first place, to best Gobert and show that he doesn't have to be scared of anybody in the middle of the floor. And for whatever reason, that's kind of, you know, galvanizing the team. And they seem, you know, Stephen Adams is a big guy that can knock Gobert off, you know,

off of position for a lot of things. And you're right, Annis Cantor, he hates Utah, Utah hates him. Like that would be kind of a fun little thing there to try to get them. I think the key is, you know, can the jazz just make shots? They're a very good three-point shooting team and their role players are very good at shooting threes. And so if they can make shots, I don't know that Utah or I don't know the Oklahoma City

has the firepower to keep up outside of Russ because they're such a bad shooting team, but they also just kind of thrive off of offensive boards. And if they can battle go bare inside, if they can battle favors considering you still kind of playing on one leg. If you can make the jazz go big and still beat them on the boards, then yeah, maybe that does give Oklahoma City a little bit of an advantage just because of the rust factor. All right. So being honest, selfishly, obviously I do not want the Grizzlies to play the San Antonio Spurs again

by any means. So when I'm at the game last night, I'm watching, I was at the Grizzlies Pacers game last night, which, by the way, the Pacers all effed up. Like, getting to see that. And you know this. You get a totally different sense of things when you're at that arena. And, you know, sometimes when it goes to commercial or whatever, those are the moments where, like, I'm talking about where there's a break in the action and the teams are walking back to their bench, right? These guys can't stand each other.

Like, and the last time I felt that way was last year's Houston team. You know, it was like they didn't give a shit. They just didn't even talk to each other. nobody's calling out anything. And then when they would walk back to the, you know, because you can see how these teams communicate with each other. And last night, like, Jeff Teague was getting, like, thrown into a fire by Mike Conley. And he just didn't even, he ended up with four points. Monte Ellis ended up with two.

Their starting back court had six combined. And would Connolly? Connolly had, like, 30-something? Yeah, he hit 36. And they just like, and then just watching them like walk back to their huddles and whatever. You know, it's one thing to keep on seeing all these Paul George headlines. It's quite another to then witness that team in person. And there is just a massive disconnect with them.

Massive. And I don't know. Because they're not horrible players, right? It's one thing you see some of these teams and they just got crap players. These are not crap players. They just cannot play together and clearly don't like each other. Yeah, I mean, that was kind of speaking like to champion your point about Houston last year. I remember in Miami, I was there in Miami third game of the year.

And Houston lost the first two games by 20 points each. And Kevin McHale came out for his pregame talk with the media. And he just already had this disconnected thousand yards there where you're like, oh, this guy's not lasting through the season. Like either he doesn't want. or they're going to fire him. But you could tell third game, like, something was wrong with that team. With Indiana, the other night, Paul George drops, like, what, 37 on the Timberwolves.

They get down to a final possession. Timberwolves are up one with, like, three seconds left. Paul George gets it. Wiggins, you know, stops his initial move. Wiki Rubio comes over and helps. And Paul George, you know, kind of takes his time, throws the ball to Montee Ellis for the game winner, which Paul George took too much time. and Monta gets a shot off late.

He missed it anyway, so it didn't matter, but they didn't get a shot off in time. And after the game, Paul George is like, you know, we don't have a sense of urgency. We don't want to win right now. You know, he's making these comments. I'm thinking, you have a sense of urgency. You just, like, you just ruined the last possession

by taking too much time. There was no urgency on your part. And so it does feel like almost hypocritical, not that Paul George hasn't done a ton of season, because I do feel like he is, he's on this island in Indiana, in terms of just talent, and being able to get things done and everyone else around him,

they're talented players, but none of them seem to fit. So I get the frustration, and you hear the whispers, the rumors that, like, there is no chance he stays in Indiana after, you know, once his contracts up. And, you know, things can be wrong about that stuff, but it does seem like he will have one foot out the door pretty soon if he doesn't not have it already. But it is just this weird, like they just don't seem to know what they want.

They want to acquire talent, which, yeah, good job. That's what you need to do. But they don't seem to know. Larry Bird seems that you have a hard time, like, putting it together because, you know, you say, hey, we want Paul George to be the small ball four. And, you know, we want to run up and down the floor and get, you know, really start matching the basketball of today. And then Paul George is like, well, I don't really want to do that.

But I don't want to be a four. I kind of felt like them signing, I kind of felt like them signing Lance Stevenson yesterday was a flip of the bird to Paul George. It probably was. You know what I mean? Like, hey, you want to keep on. popping off in the locker room every night. All right, fine.

We're bringing in your old buddy Lance who you couldn't stand. Yeah, like, I mean, they had those problems from that last year with that group, right, where, you know, everything kind of fell apart in terms of, like, chemistry in the locker room. There were real issues in that locker room the second half of the season, and they went from a team that was challenging Miami

to a team that just, which is kind of, not a joke, but just, like kind of a joke in terms of thinking of them as a contender. And they've switched things around and they tried to play faster, and then they hired Nathan Miller, never coached a fast team in his career,

and you throw Fatty E's Young in there, you throw out Jefferson in there, and those are all, you know, quality players, but they don't really fit with what they were supposed to do, and they don't fit defensively with what they, you know,

they wanted, you know, what they want to do now, and I just, I don't know what the direction is. At a certain point, you think, you got to think, like,

just blow it up. Yeah. Just trade, like, the ransom, the ransom you can get for Paul George this summer. I, even with him becoming a free agent the next year,

you would be stupid as a, as a GM not to want to try to acquire Paul George and have the advantage of paying him more money, right? Like, I get the threat of him going to L.A. and being a Laker next. But at the same time, like, that's Paul George. Like, you should be able to give up a pretty good bounty for him and still be a competitive team. Yeah. One of my buddies knows CJ Miles. I'm just talking to him after the game.

And Miles are just like, dude, we're just totally despondent. Like, they just, like, we just quit. We quit. We quit. We quit. You know what I mean? When they tried to have Paul George be the small ball four and he didn't want to do it, they had CJ Miles guarding power forward.

Like that was their answer. Like they just don't have it. Yeah, it's crazy. So anyways, I'm sitting there at the game and this is the life of a fan, right? So you're sitting there at the game and now you're in standings watching. And I started off by saying, don't want the Grizzlies to play the Spurs. So now I'm checking, I'm going through my phone, right? And it's like, Orlando's up by 20.

I'm like, hell yeah. Orlando's up by 15. Hell yeah. Orlando's up by 10. All right, cool. Last time I checked it, Orlando's up by four with 20 seconds left. I'm like, dude, just hang on. And then all of a sudden down on media row, everybody's like, dude, Westbrook.

And I was like, what? And I go and check and I see that three. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, what? This guy, 57 points. And Orlando had a chance to knock him off, right, last night. And done and didn't. And the guy has like, even on these, like, a game like that, it's a fucking Wednesday night in Orlando.

He's just absolutely laying waste to everyone. And even when it looks like they're down by 20 or down by 15 and maybe they just don't have it that night, he just, he takes over the entire game, takes over a fourth quarter and wins again. And so I look at their schedule the rest of the way, Zach, and I say, All right, they got San Antonio. Then they got Charlotte, Milwaukee, at Memphis, at Phoenix, at Denver, at Minnesota, and Denver. So it's not exactly a murderer's row to finish off their season. And I just, I sit back and wonder, like, is this going to run out?

Like, is he really just going to be able to do this where they play with fire, where they're scoring around and they could lose a game to Orlando. But then in the end, he can just take over and win them. a game again. Like, I don't know. It seems a little late to think he can't keep doing it. You know, with the whatever. Eight games left.

Yeah. Yeah, no, eight games left. Now he's going to fall off, right? Like, now the energy runs out and the motivation is gone. Yeah, he's just ridiculous. And, yeah, you can say, oh, it's just high-volume stuff and high-usage stuff. You know, he's hogging all the possessions. Whatever.

57, 13, 11 last night, like, and shot pretty well, and shot well from three. and got to the free throw. Well, go pull their record. I mean, I can't, I can't speak. I'm going to, I'm going to be a little off here. So don't, please don't everybody tweet me and be like, the actual record is, I know it's, it's something like high 20s wins,

like a 28 or 29 and 7 when he has a triple double. So enough already with the whole he's chasing stats. Look at their damn record when he has a triple double. Like it ain't like he's just getting triple doubles in law. He's getting triple doubles and their winning percentage is crazy when he does it. Right. Okay. These rebounds on miss free throws and it's getting him an extra two rebounds a game.

Okay. So without that, he's 31, 10, 10, and 7 or 31 10 and 8 instead of 31 10 and 10. Okay. Like, what are we doing here? But what is the, like, what's the thing we're trying to accomplish here? Yeah, that's bogus. I mean, everybody that has a lot of rebounds gets a couple off of free throws and whatever. It ain't like everybody that averages double-digit rebounds gets 10 in traffic.

Yeah, I think most guys that are at the top of the league are getting like eight or nine uncontested rebounds a game. I think that's what the sport view numbers show or something like that. And I don't know how accurate those are in terms of measuring it, but it seems to be something a lot of people are going off of. But you look at last night. I honestly wonder if if last night he was like, man, James Hardin does have a lot of momentum with this MVP race right now.

What can I do? Well, what if I get down by a bunch to Orlando? I'm going to turn the ball over. He turned the ball over seven times in the first half. After his final turnover, he went like, I think someone tweeted me, he went like 44, 9 and 7 after his seventh turnover. And just the rest of the game just destroyed. Like, he went 44, 9 and 7 after 7 turnovers in the game.

Like, that's ridiculous. That there is, like, any way you try to cut up this season by Westbrook, and you can still say, I mean, I still kind of have Hardin as the flight leader for me with the MVP right now, But if you want to say Westbrook's MVP, great. If you think it's hard and fine. I think both of those are acceptable. But anyway, you slice up this Westbrook season, they're ridiculous.

Let me pause on that real quick. I'm going to ask you another question about that MVP race and also another award race that is going on that a lot of people aren't talking about. But first, these words. Ringer NBA shows brought to you in part by Team Mobile. It can be hard to balance baseball in real life. Catching your team's games is hard enough,

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There's no cost to apply or to set up your line of credit. As an NBA show listener, when you qualify for your funding, you'll get a $100 visa gift card you can use anywhere. That's Cabbage with a K. K-A-B-B-A-G-E.com slash ringer. All right, Zach, we were just talking about the MVP, and you were talking about Hardin and Westbrook. Hardin, when he was talking about the MVP, said 82 games matters. What say you? Is James Harden right that you should get extra credit if you play all 82 games,

which is going to be presumably what both he and Westbrook do? Yeah, I think, I mean, I think that, doing it for 82 rather than 74, especially when you're leading to a team to, you know, 50, 60 wins, whatever it's going to be. Yeah, I think that matters. I mean, I think it's a, it's an award for the longevity of the season and excellence within the season, right? And the value you add to your team or the value, you add to the league, or I don't know how we're defined value at this point. But yeah, if you're able to do an 82 games rather than sitting out a few here and there, yeah, that should absolutely matter. All right. Another award that has not become

some kind of massive debate because every day and every game has become a referendum on the MVP race. So if Kauai does something great, it's the Kauai think piece. And the same goes with Westbrook and the same goes with Hardin. Every day the MVP discussion has been great, right? And it's certainly been on the front burner for the last two months. What has not is who is going to be coach of the year, which might be an even greater race. And surely somebody's going to write the big piece about this. But I would say this has been a great year for NBA coaching.

A, nobody's going to get fired for the first time in like decades. So making it through a season without somebody getting fired is as rare as it could possibly be. Steve Kerr went out of his way and he said Mike Dantone should win the coach of the year. That was a big headline everywhere. But you also, not only do you have Dantone and the job that he's done in Houston, You have Eric Spolstra, whose team was 11 and 30, and is now in the position they are in. You have Quinn Snyder, who's going to take the jazz to the playoffs for the first time since 2012. You have Scott Brooks, who at the beginning of the season, people are going, did they get the right guy?

Why is this team struggling so much? And they've turned into this devastating Eastern Conference team that nobody wants to play. And I might be leaving a couple guys off, right, that have done outstanding. just, but it seems like this year, I don't think, and again, I haven't even mentioned Kerr, I haven't mentioned Popovich. Those are the guys that coached the top two seeds. It seems like this year, though everybody's arguing back and forth Hardin, Westbrook or Kawhi or LeBron or whoever you like in the MVP, I might have a harder time picking or feeling great about who I choose for coach of the year this year. How about you?

Yeah, yeah. And let's throw these two in there to avoid the 12. back at you. Brad Stevens. Yep. For sure. The number one seed in the East. And I honestly think Jason Kitch should deserve consideration, considering how, like, they hit Ms. Middleton for most of the season, and they lost Jabari Parker, you know, for much of the season. And they still, like, have kind of rallied and not as extreme as the heat with

Spolstra, but have rallied from a position of, oh, no, this probably isn't going to work out this year to be, you know, the sixth seat in the East and maybe higher. They might be the five-seat by, you know, the end of the season. All right. So fine. Hey, hey. And you can keep on rattling guys. There's like nine coaches.

No, no, you can keep on rattling guys off. In fact, the only ones I won't hear a case for are Hoyberg and Earl Watson. Right, yeah. No, they're out. They're completely out. And Nate McMillan. And Nate McMillan. I even want to give Luke Walden a vote just because I feel bad.

Right? Like, just that Ligger situation sucks. So I want to, you know, give Luke Walton like a third place vote just to be nice. But, yeah, I mean, I think I was kind of on this Dan-Toney thing all season of like, you know, he's the coach of the year, and then Quinn Snyder was up there for me, probably because I could see him so much and see what he does and up close and talk to him.

But I don't know, at this point, I don't know how Eric Spolster doesn't finish top two. Like, that team, even with this run, like, the team's not that good. Hassan Whiteside, your best player or Gordon Dragage is your best player, and Hassan Whiteside's number two?

Oh my God, please, please, God, please God, do not let Dion Waders listen to this podcast. Oh, ankle by some magic powers just to come back and prove like, no, I'm the best player, not only on the team, but in this league. But that team isn't very good. They're not very talented, but they just come at you with this unrelenting just wave of effort. Like they never stop attacking. They never stop defending.

They never stop swarming. And to go from 1130 in the first half of the season to now probably make the playoffs and maybe even being the seventh. And yeah, part of that is because the back end of the east sucks, right? But whatever, like the turnaround they've had in season, I don't know that I've seen a better coaching job this season. Now, I think it's been as good as Dan Tony, as good as Quinn Snyder, as good as the other 13 guys we mentioned. But Bolstra has done so much with this team that shouldn't really do anything

that we were wondering two months ago should this team tank out. Like to have that kind of turnaround, it just feels like Spoh is underappreciated still. Well, and the other thing that's crazy about that, is if you go back in time, like Riley went on the radio in the fall, when things were all going to hell and basically said, you know, hey, our fans are going to have to be a little patient here, but, you know, brighter days are ahead, like almost conceding like, hey, we suck, I know we suck, but, you know, things are going to be okay.

Just give us a couple years, you know. I think it was like almost this resigned to, okay, this season ain't going to go that well. And getting a team that was 11 and 30, and it's not like they radically changed the roster, getting a team that was 11 and 30 to become a team that wins all the time, that is, that's insane. Because you just get so used to losing and you just become resigned to the fact that you suck. And they just never did. Yeah, and you end up with guys who just start going for their own numbers, right? Like it's not just the fact that, oh, we can't win games.

It becomes, well, if we're going to be bad, I'm going to get mine. And I'm going to, you know, I'm going to go into the summer and get a lucrative contract because of it or whatever. And it just never got to that point. And to do that with this group of players. And, like, they lost Justice Winslow. And I don't know how good Justice Winslow is, but that was a guy they wanted as a, you know, a core part of their team, even this season to kind of develop him. They lose a guy like him.

Like they turn James Johnson probably into the sixth man of the year or one, you know, just an incredibly valuable role player. They've done all of these things. They brought, like, I couldn't have, I couldn't have picked out a Rodney Magruder out of a lineup with just him and my friend. Like, I wouldn't have been able to do that. Oh, God. Listen, let me take you, let me give you a little time out. Are we going into Rashon Holmes territory?

Don't, don't, I'm saying, don't, don't tell you that you don't recognize somebody. That's what got me in all this trouble. That was the actual line. Oh, my God. The actual line was, The actual line that I first said to Kevin O'Connor was that Rishon Holmes could walk in the studio right now, and I wouldn't know who that was. And it became like, you don't follow the NBA. How the hell could you not know who?

This is, by the way, at the beginning, hey, by the way, this is at, this might have been preseason or it was at the very beginning of the season. And I was like, forgive me for being unaware of a guy that took 200 shots total. on a team that won like 13 games or whatever hell they won last year. Like, it was... Career high last night. I know. He's arrived. No, he's the best player in the league.

According to my Twitter feed, I hear more about Rishon Holmes than I do about any player in the NBA. Trust me. So be careful. I'm telling you, if you just turned Rodney Magruder into a damn All-Star, everything that Rod, I hope that everybody that listens to this podcast, every damn thing that Rodney McGruder does gets tweeted to you because that's my life with Rishon Holmes. I want 4% of that next contract then. If that's what happened, I think you get 4% of Rishon Holmes' next contract too.

Which actually is going to be for a lot, so it seems, because the guy's unbelievable. Oh, he's a max player now, right? I mean, he's going to be at the top of the league. All right. So how much do we brace ourselves for the Brian Winhorst expose, the Dave McMillan exclusive with LeBron where he shits on everybody if they lose to the TNT Bulls tonight? Well, I mean, the TNT Bulls are a force all into their own.

I know. That team is a mess. And yet you throw them on a Thursday night on TNT. and all of a sudden they're this Warriors team. It's unbelievable. Let me see what the line is on that thing. Hold on. Shirley.

Hold on. I'm going to look this up. You think Cleveland's favored? But at some point, the T&T Bulls got to command respect. Minus five and a half. I'll take the T&T Bulls plus five and a half. I don't think they're any good, but I'll take it. I'll go with the trend.

I'll put my money on Nikola Mertich and Rajan Rondo going off. I'm happy to do that. They don't lose on TNT. It is what it is. It's unreal. I mean, if the Cavs are going to write the shift, especially defensively, which has been just the best lately, you've got to do it against the T&T Bulls.

That's the galvanizing point in their season where they go, all right, we're not going to take it anymore. We're the favorite who's also an underdog tonight. Like, we've got to rally around everyone and play championship basketball. I think that's the tipping point in the Cavas season that sends them back into title defense mode. It would be somewhat more impressive than beating the Spurs. It would. If you take down the T&T Bulls, in my mind, you've won the

championship. I don't know how you get any other praise. Other than that, give Ty Loo coach of the year, give LeBron MVP, give Kay Feldar rookie year. Like, they get all the awards you take down the T&T bowls. This is a streak that goes back like 40. seasons. Four seasons. And it's, it's, what was the last one? The Warriors? Was it the Warriors? I think so. Yeah, they took down the Warriors. Yeah, I feel like that's what it was. Like, they weren't any good, but then they played on TNT and it was against the Warriors.

And that that was the, that was the win. It was 94 to 87 on March 2nd. It appears that was the game. they're so bad that people are wondering why Cameron Payne is in the D-League. That's how bad they're like, well, why isn't he up playing in it? Like, that's how bad this team is. And yet, I feel like they're a lock to wind tonight. It was the Bobby Porta show the last time they played. That was the Warriors. Yeah, and tonight it will be Cristiano Felicio or, you know, I don't know,

Bill Winnington's going to come out of radio and drop 30. Like, well, something's going to happen that just doesn't make any sense. Well, the one thing that they didn't have an answer for, for sure, the Warriors, when they played against the Bulls, was the big minutes from Paul Zipser off the bench. Zipsar hive. You think the Rishon Holmes hive is aggressive. Just don't say anything bad about Paul Zipser. Oh, really? Twitter, that is all Paul Zipser all the time.

Wow, I had no idea. I was unaware of the subculture surrounding Paul Zipster. Can't wait to watch the TNT Bulls though tonight. And then the inevitable, holy, something is very, very wrong. As if we haven't gotten enough with what the hell is wrong with the Cavs, this could be a massive one considering it's going to be on a Thursday night on national television and the Bulls stink, right? So it's one thing to lose.

Yeah, and the Bulls stink. Right. It's one thing to lose to San Antonio. And they don't even have Twain Wade anymore on their team, right? Right. No. That's just good. I mean, Jerry and Grant's going to go for 35 or something, you know.

I can't wait to watch it. You can follow Zach Harper on Twitter at Talk Hoop. Zach, you're the man. Thanks, brother. Anytime. Thank you. It's going to do it for another ringer NBA show. If you dig it, go give us a rating and review on iTunes,

and we will talk to you tomorrow. Thanks to Cabbage for sponsoring today's episode. Cabbage created a simple way for businesses to get flexible access to up to 100,000. visit cabbage.com slash ringer and you'll get a $100 visa gift card when you qualify. That's cabbage.com. K-A-B-B-A-G-E dot com slash ringer.