The Ringer NBA Show - Warriors Overpower Rockets and LeBron Carries Cavs (Again) | Heat Check (Ep. 272)

Episode Date: May 21, 2018

The Ringer’s John Gonzalez is joined by Chris Ryan to discuss the Golden State Warriors handily defeating the Houston Rockets in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals (2:24). Then Justin Verrier and Tate Frazier come on to debate whether LeBron James can bring the Cleveland Cavaliers to a series victory against the Boston Celtics (30:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to off as figure-titch. He's as hot as a boat torch. It's a heat check. You knew that was coming. It's heat check time. Welcome to the heat check podcast. I'm your host, John Gonzalez, in Cleveland. I have a soft spot for Cleveland.

Major League. One of my favorite sports movies of all time is here. And I'm joined as I am every week by Isaac Lee, who is in L.A. Hey, man. I've actually never seen Major League, but it sounds like a delightful movie if you like it. This is one of those pop culture holes in your frames of reference that you need to. to fill because it's a super fun. It's probably dated. It is dated.

But it's a funny sports movie and I've always enjoyed it. And it's all, even though prior to covering basketball, I'd never come to Cleveland. I was always like, all right, Cleveland. I'll root for Cleveland. So I'm assuming this is a baseball movie regarding the Cleveland Indians. Yes.

Is that correct? Yeah, it's, uh, Charlie Sheen is in it, a bunch of other people. It's good. It's funny. You should check it out. Okay. But I'm here. I'm in Cleveland. The Cleveland Marathon was here today, which is apropos because the NBA playoffs are still going. It feels a little bit like a marathon. But we've got plenty of NBA-related content for you.

We've also got a lot of draft coverage. KOC was at the Combine in Chicago. So you want to check out our Ringer NBA draft guide. It's really great stuff. And also Jonathan Charks has a piece on Luca Donkich on The Ringer.com, which was really good. You want to check that out as well. And, of course, listen to those two guys along with Danny Chow on draft class. Those guys have been killing it.

and check out NBA desktop, which is now two times a week during the playoffs. Jason Concepcion, really smart, really funny, excellent show. We also have Danny Hyfitt's piece on the Celtics Cavaliers series up on the ringer.com, and I'll have a column on the site following Game 4 on Monday night, so please check that out. We're going to talk about the Celtics and the Cavs series later on in the show with Justin Verrier and first time ever from One Shining Podcast and GM Street, Tate Frazier. will be here on heat check. That should be a lot of fun. But first, Rockets and Warriors just wrapped up game three. And to talk about that, we're going to bring in one of my absolute

favorites here at the Ringer. Boom, Shackalaka. He's heating up. All right, joining me on the other line from the world famous The Watch podcast from Sources Say from from Group Chat, the host of many other Ringer-related shows. He's also my editor. He is the king of content. The MC Hammer of the Ringer, he's too legit to quit. It's Chris Ryan. MC Hammer. Okay. Do I wear the parachute pants?

I assumed you already had them. I brought that up because Oracle Arena plays too legit to quit all the time, and they're like super dedicated to it, so I figured I'd work that in for you. And also, I just assumed you're a big MC Hammerhead. I was more of a young MC guy. If the war between those two was, I was Team Young MC. You picked the right side on that one. But I do enjoy the Warriors on dying dedication to all things,

MC Hammer. So good for them and they went out and they hammered the Houston Rockets in game three. Not a good game, Chris Ryan. The Warriors won by 31 points. They're up to one in the series. And like every other game in either conference finals, it was a blowout and not very interesting. Watch the end of this game or the second half of the game with Isaac Lee, Tate Frazier, and Justin Verrier. Here are some of the things we discussed. Will Alden-Ehrank be good in solo? How do you think Joe Johnson feels right now? Would a lineup of Quinn Cook, Nick Young, Zaza, Petulia, Jordan Bell, and Kavana Leone beat the Kings?

This is what the conference finals is eliciting at Ringer HQ. And I think it's probably a statement, look, these are not middleweight fights. They're over so fast. They feel uncompetitive in a weird way that I don't think we're really used to because I think what happens is now, like, he-checked podcast is a perfect example of this. We're talking so much about playoff basketball all the time. We're analyzing it from every micro and macro level. And I think what happens is that we're forgetting that

postseason series basketball is kind of boring sometimes. And it takes a little while for things to sort themselves out and for each team to get annoyed at each other. And then when you get to these game fours, I think we're putting a lot of hope on these game fours right now. I'm putting a ton of hope on these game fours. But you're right. Like the deeper that we get into the playoffs, the more or the less competitive that these games have seemingly become.

And like the conversations that you guys were having at Ringer HQ is what I was talking about here in Cleveland when I was at the queue. And I'm going to talk to Barry and Tate later on in the program about that Boston Cleveland series. But, you know, for game three of that series, I was sitting in the arena with all the other writers. And by like midway through the third quarter, we were just shooting the shit because the game was horrendous. And it's kind of a bummer. You know, on the one hand, we talk about, you know, like, this assemblage of talent, like, with the Warriors and how. And Chuck's put this on our in our slack about how it's kind of what LeBron envisioned

the heat was going to be back in 2010. And, like, you know, we love these super teams on paper. But in execution, it's been boring. Are you bored? Well, I think it's important not to get to record store guy about all of it and just be over everything. it is still something singular in professional sports to behold this team firing in all cylinders. I think the thing that I find difficult to, you know,

I don't find myself super entertained by is you get the best version of the Warriors, then you get in another game the best version of Rockets, and then in another game you get the best version of the Warriors. I'd like to see both teams show up with both best versions of themselves in tow and get that game. And I hope that's what we get over the next few because now we have such a small series. You know what I mean?

Now it's going to be every possession and every decision has the weight of the world on its shoulders. I do find myself a little bit numb to it, but you have to say, I mean, the third quarter that's about as good as a basketball team can play tonight as we saw in the Warriors. It was amazing. They were absolutely phenomenal.

It is weird, though. You're right. Because I would, yes, I would love for two teams in the same series to show. show up on the same night. That would be grand because it's sort of strange that like the series is 2-1 on both sides right now as we record

this. The Warriors are up 2-1 right now. But the game that the Rockets won, they were dominant. They looked fantastic. So in a weird way, this could still be a series, but it hasn't been, we haven't had a game yet. It's just so strange to watch. Yeah, I think the scariest thing for

the Rockets is that the regression that they saw tonight is a regression that they have to account for. with the Risa and Tucker and some of the role players falling back to Earth. The thing that's going to keep Dantone up at night, and it's the thing that I think nobody is surprised to see and nobody ever doubted we'd see it again, is we got Curry back. And if you've got Curry and Durant going for 50 or 60,

you know, you're in a world of hurt. And you've basically, there are no responses for that. So I don't know what Houston's counter move here is. they missed a ton of easy shots. And I think that that's the one silver lining for tonight is Mike Dantone has to go home and think, well, we're not going to miss that many layups again, right? We're not going to miss that many open threes again.

Yeah, and you're absolutely right. I think in the first couple of games, it looked like the Rockets might be able to take advantage of Curry. Curry didn't seem like he was right. There was a lot of talk about whether or not his knee was still bothering him. And actually, did you catch their, in the game broadcast, David Aldridge did a report where he was talking about how there were questions about whether or not Steph Curry was fully healthy. He had only gone two for 13

from three in his first two games. And then like literally as David Aldridge was giving that report, Steph Curry drained a three and then just went off. Yeah. And I thought that the Warriors were very sensitive to the dam breaking. There was one play. I think it was in the third quarter when he was on that going blind run that he went on. And KD had the ball on the wing and specifically like sought out step to come over to him to get the ball and get a mismatch and i thought it was like you could tell that durant was like this is like step's hearing jimmy right now and we got to let him have it like we got to let him go we got to let him get 30 plus we got to have the stadium go nuts and have step step step say this is my effing house

all that stuff they wanted him to have this game so i i expect that that is actually a bigger win for them than this margin of victory. Yeah, absolutely huge. And you're right. When those two guys are cooking where Kennedy and Steph were cooking, initially early on in the game, KD looked better than Curry. I mean, Curry hit that one three during David Alder's report, but then he missed his next however many before he finally started going. But they combined for 60 points, which was more than the Rockets five starters combined.

They only had 58 points for all of the Rockets five starters. So, KD and Steph were killing it. But I think sometimes we forget while we're watching KD and Steph and Clay and Dremond and that like killer lineup when Andre Godal is in there about like how good they are offensively. I think sometimes we forget how good they are defensively because when they play at that kind of defensive level where they're like really limiting the rocket starters and the rockets, they're running the rockets off the three point line. Rockets only made 113s in that game.

They're killers. I mean, they're next to impossible. to stop because that defense is and can be everybody as good as their offense. Yeah, they were 23 points on fast break points tonight and I thought that what I saw from them tonight that I hadn't seen in the first two games was them running downhill. And that's

the home court advantage, right? Like that home quarter advantage is what makes the rockets miss layups and what makes the warriors running down the court sound like a herd of Jurassic Park dinosaurs. You know, when you see those guys approaching and you know they could either attack the rim or three guys on that floor can stretch the court and hit from anywhere pretty much inside the half court line. There is no there's no transition defense for that. And I thought that there was just a little bit more zest to their play.

You're right, the defense, and that's where the defense comes in because they're creating turnovers and they're getting out on offensive rebounds or on defensive rebounds and they're running with it. I also thought it was pretty interesting to see that when it's a KD-centric Warriors, offense. It's not that it's ISO or that it's slow, but if they're relying on him and the rockets are like, we'll give you the mid-range one-on-one, but we're going to stop the layups and the threes,

it's a little bit of a slower plotting offense, but when Steph is cooking and there's a little bit more downward momentum and they're running, you can just see like a world of different offensive options open up for them, and they are absolutely unbeatable when they're playing that way.

Yeah, I mean, and then on top of that, they got good games from, you know, some of their bit players too, right? Like, Kevan Looney earlier in the game had a crazy block on Luke Bamutei, who I don't think will ever try to dunk again. But that might be the last we ever see of Luke Bamutei. I like him. He said that last game. I don't know what he's doing out there. Minus 28 for the night. I mean, I guess everybody's minus 28 for the night.

But like, what's up with the ritual sacrifice of this guy? He can't lift his arm on his shoulders. It's tough, too, because everybody, everybody, Everybody likes Luke. He's a great dude. He's a really good teammate. He's a good defender. And people always talk about him as this, like this glue guy and this intangible guy and get him the hell out of there because that wasn't good.

And then you have Nick Young running down the floor, like taking heat check threes. And then also wearing, did you see the shoes he was wearing? No, what was he wearing? Oh, my God. This was such a Nick Young thing. He broke out the Benihana Adidas Habachi collaboration. It literally said Gilbert Arenas wore these shoes. They only made like a thousand of these, right?

And so, like, Gilbert and Eritas was the guy who came up with this weird monstrosity of a Frankenstein sneaker creation. And it literally says habachi on the strap across the toe. So he was wearing those tonight. That was, like, the most interesting part of the game. So shout out to Nick Young. And shout out to the Benny Hanna in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Yes, absolutely. Who doesn't look at Benihana? How worried would you be, though, if you're the Rockets?

Because as you mentioned, home court advantage matters. The Warriors already stole one in their building. They just got blown out by 31 in their first game in Oakland, and he didn't shoot well at all. Chris Paul doesn't look right. There's something going on with Chris Paul. How worried would you be? Professional athletes, I don't know if they worry, quote, unquote,

as much as professional sports writers do. But I don't do that. would say that this is this is the biggest game of the rocket season by far coming up it is a must win game they absolutely like cannot go back to houston down three one there's no way the warriors are going to lose three games in a row so it's it's it's actually like this is the series on on tuesday i wonder about it because you can't win when you know you're getting 20 points from james harden like earlier in the year early in the playoffs, when the Warriors were playing the Pelicans, I'd said to KOC, oh, you know, Anthony Davis

had a good game. He went for like 22 and 12 or something. He's like 22. They need 42 out of him. Similarly, James Harden, 20 points, you need 40 out of James Hardin. Chris Paul, he had 13 points. He only made two out of his eight, three-pointers, five of his 16 shots from the floor. It wasn't a good game. There's something wrong there. Like, there's been hints about whether or not he's fully healthy. He says he's fine. Maybe he isn't. But whether he's healthy or whether he isn't,

they need both of those guys to carry them. Because if they don't, it's going to be over right quick. Like you said, I mean, this is the biggest game coming up. Yeah, I wonder,

I mean, you've been around basketball teams for a really long time. You've been in locker rooms. I don't know if these guys ever talk about it, but there is something, there has to be something to a collective series psychology. If you're the Rockets and you know you're playing again in 48 hours,

and it's going to be a hostile Oracle crowd, And when you get, you know that game three is going to be an absolute cauldron walking in there and everybody's going to want the best from the Warriors. But the game to win is game four, right? You've got to, you've got to steal one in Oakland if you want to have a hope in this series. Do you think that the Rockets are actually saying to themselves, like, look, man, like, whatever happens happens in game three, but the game that we all have to get a 40-point James Harden game and a triple double Chris Paul irritant game and everything else, that's got to be game for.

And not to say that they punted on this at all. Like there was at one point in the second quarter even, I was like, oh, they're kind of like, they're sticking around. But that third quarter title wave wiped them out. But do you think that there's anything to teams kind of looking at the long game within a series? Even if that long game is like, if you lose that, you lose game three, you're now, you have no more mistakes left. I think they're, I mean, they're human and they're not stupid, right?

they know that there's seven games. It's kind of like Ty Lou when they came back down 02. He was like, look, you know, it's obviously an important game. But even if we lose it, it's still not game seven. There's still going to be more games after this. So, you know, we have to win. We want to win. But it's not like it's, you know, win or go home.

So I think that they, yeah, I mean, I think it would be natural enough to go, this is an important game. But there's a difference. I think what you said about it, not them not punting on it is right. I don't think they go into the game and go, eh, it's no big deal. But I do think it carries less urgency to it. Like, I would be really surprised

if they came out that flat in game four because they know exactly what's at stake. Yeah, I kind of almost look at it as like a group of people doing the same thing that LeBron doesn't get, like the rest while playing thing. And that they were almost like, they have to know what their body needs

to play twice in 48 hours at the highest possible level. And, you know, Mike Dantonio, I just saw called them soft tonight. Like he obviously wasn't happy with their performance. Nobody would be. They got absolutely shalacked. But I wonder if there's a little bit of like they're thinking about Tuesday.

And they're thinking about the fact that they're playing one of the probably the two greatest teams ever assembled and that they are going to need their best possible game at the most important possible moment. And if they leave it all out on the court and lose by 11, you know, on a Sunday night, what if they don't have their fastball on Tuesday night? I'm just trying to just grasping at straws because I think what we've seen a lot, and these playoffs, just to go back to what you were saying in the beginning, is a bunch of uncompetitive games

because one team is playing like a kind of series-long chess rather than like, we're going to dive after every loose ball, we're going to leave it all out there tonight, we're dying on this hill. I keep thinking about, remember earlier in the year, you might have commissioned it, it might have been varier, I forgot which editor, but we were all sitting around and we were talking about the warriors and like how uninterested they were

in the whole regular season proceedings. And so it was, like, okay, we'll go out and talk to them about this. And initially, I thought to myself, well, that's a bad idea because, like, who's, what professional athlete is going to give you a straight up response to that? And instead, almost to a man, and including Steve Kerr, every single one of them were like, yeah, man, we're bored as hell. And I think we forgot what it was like when the warriors are fully engaged, because they're clearly, like, into all of this, and they're locked in, and they're scary when they are. And, like, there was a

moment there during the regular season where I think we were looking at the rockets and maybe not overvaluing them. They had an amazing regular season. But regular season and playoffs are much different. And when the Warriors are locked in and healthy, it's night and day. Yeah. I think that, you know, I found Durant's performance in game one to be a sort of a little bit of a manifestation of what you were talking about because I felt like this is a guy we've heard

him on tons of bill pods over the last year or so talking about like his obsession. with hooping and you can tell that he has like a real competitive fire in him that is a very like pure basketball competitive fire like he just wants to be challenged and then like face that challenge and in some ways like the the move that he made in free agency is the thing that's keeping that from happening on a regular basis but in game one I thought that he was really like they need me tonight and I'm going to do it and he did it he was just an absolute assassin on game one. And I think that that is sort of what we saw on a team level from the Warriors tonight. They had their crowd. They did not have home court advantage in this series. It's probably the

first time that they can remember not having home court advantage in the series in the last three years. And I thought that they really played like the dominant force in sports that they are tonight. They looked like a dynasty tonight. And I guess the thing I'm trying to get at, and this is a little bit meta, but we are always sort of pushing for how do we talk about this team? How do we talk about this team? And I think part of the issue is that when we go back and we look at some of the Jordan stuff, they all have these iconic moments like Byron Russell, Craig Elo. And none of us can really recall what the game two was like, except for Bill, who has like a photographic memory for this stuff. Do you think that in 20 years we're going to look back and

we'll have iconic moments, especially of the Durant Warriors? Or do you think that this is going to be like what happens when dynastic teams go too far and like the spirit of competition, kind of get sucked out a little bit. I don't know. That's a really good question. I think, like, we tend to sort of romanticize the Jordan era bulls because of Jordan and how great he was. But there was some of that back then.

There was a lot of that back then, right? Where you knew there was inevitability to it where you wanted the series to be competitive and you wanted, say, the Utah Jazz to be a good competition for them. But you knew they weren't, right? And you knew that. you knew that eventually they were going to get to the playoffs and that the Utah Jazz would fight as hard as they could and then Jordan was going to dispatch them.

And like in retrospect, we think back about like how amazing those basketball games were. But they weren't really entertaining, right? They were entertaining in that like Jordan was so dominant he could will his team to victory on any given night. But I don't know that they were necessarily like fun to watch. We would have to go back and watch them. I think eventually we'll look back on this period and go, wow, they were really amazing, and they were dynastic, and how fascinating was it that they could play that well whenever they

wanted to when they were really focused? But ultimately, was it entertaining? Was it good for the league? I mean, we've been barreling towards Rockets Warriors all season long. This is what we wanted, right? We were like, okay, this is going to be the actual finals. The Rockets represent the best chance to beat the Warriors. But do they?

I don't know. I mean, I honestly don't think that anybody has a prayer against the Durant version of the Warriors. I just don't. I just don't know how you defend it. I don't know how you stop it. You saw it tonight. That's one of the best offensive teams in league history that they played against tonight. And they just, the way that they go about their business and the way that they can present problems and, like, exploit, like, every single thing about modern basketball is something that they do well.

stretching the floor, positional flexibility, allowing your players to play within a system that encourages ball movement and player movement, but also accentuates individual accomplishments. You get to see Steph do step back threes from 35 feet, which you're not supposed to do.

They're rule breakers and they're rule followers and they rewrite the rules and all these things that are going to be things that we talk about probably for the rest of our professional careers is when we watch the Warriors and what the Warriors did to basketball. But I think that what we're seeing in a little bit is, like, Chark said this too in Slack.

This is what LeBron was supposed to do in 2010. It was to have this unbeatable team. And what happened was for a lot of different reasons, that didn't quite happen. It didn't happen in the first season, and it didn't happen in the last season he was there. And the Warriors just don't look that vulnerable. They seem impervious to outside narrative chatter.

The most you can do is just be like, what about Draymond? Is he going to keep his head? Like, that's not a, that's not even a concern troll. Like, that's not, I know. That's not the same thing as, like, LeBron not being able to take a team over the top. It's just wild. This is where we're at.

It is wild. And, like, it's so crazy to say this. But the Houston Rockets won 65 games. They've got the presumptive, heavy, heavy, heavy favorite going to win the MVP and James Hardin. And I look at their roster right now. I'm staring at it right now. I'm like, oh, they don't have enough. We should have seen this all year.

Like, they just, they don't have enough because of all the things you just said. The Warriors have better personnel and their system and the way that they adjust and their defense and they're just better at every level, at everything. They can play by the rules and then they can create their own and the rockets don't have enough. And that's a crazy thing to say about the team that was the best team in the league with the MVP. I mean, has that ever happened in league history? Has the best team in the league during the rest.

regular season with the MVP, the best player, looked like, okay, yeah, we don't have enough. It's crazy. No, I mean, I'm like, off the top of my head, I can't think of this time when that happened. I mean, I think Iverson won the MVP, the 01 year, and I don't remember how many wins the Sixers wound up with that season in 01, but nobody thought they had a prayer against Kobe and Shaq.

I mean, this is kind of like what I'm talking about. You're going back to that era of, well, they just have two guys or three guys that make it so that you do, no matter what you do, you can't beat them. This is the one last thing I wanted to talk to you about because I do think that we're going to hear a little bit about this as the week goes on, especially if these two conference finals get away from us. I don't know what's going to happen to these. You're going to talk to Justin and Tate about that. But if this one winds up being 4-1, I wonder if we'll hear a little bit more chatter about, tweaking the playoffs, whether it's bringing back the five-game opening series or something, because this is rough, you know what I mean?

Like, you want, I'm curious to know, or maybe you and I are being too neurotic about this, and kids everywhere are drawing Steph Curry on a piece of paper and playing with him in Fortnite tonight. And I don't, you know what I mean? Like, maybe we're just being too worry-worry-worts about it. I don't know that it's like neurotic or being worry-worts about it. I think it's just, you know, goddammit, wouldn't it be nice to have a foil? Right?

Like, it's great to have a hero. But it's also, you can't have a hero without, like, a counterbalance. You have to have something for them to charge against and fight against. And this thing seems baked, and it's felt baked for a while. And I think, like, for a moment there, we kind of kidded ourselves into believing that it wasn't baked and that it was going to be close. But I don't know. Maybe the Rockets will pull it out in game four and will reverse course again because there's a lot of recency bias in the playoffs. before I let you go, give me a prediction for Game 4.

You think that they're going to come out and do better things, right? I think it's a Warriors win that's close. I think it's a Warriors win that's in single digits. And I cannot wait. You know what I mean? Like, I would rather just, like, hit Sim in my life to get to Tuesday night. I want to see it. I want to see these two teams.

That first quarter, or the first two quarters, really, of the first game, I thought were just some of the most sumptuous basketball I've ever seen. You know, and so I can't wait for it, but I think the Warriors have them. I just don't know if the Rockets have enough more, enough room to make the mistakes that are going to be natural to make. It's just the Warriors just will feed on your mistakes.

They'll just feast on them. They do. They love to feed on them. It's unfortunate because the Rockets are serving themselves up right now. I hope you're right. I hope it's a, well, I hope it's a close game. I mean, I don't really care one way or the other. I think it would be better for basketball,

for the NBA, for these playoffs. If the Rockets did pull it out and make a series, of it. I hope it's a close game. I just feel like we're headed for another Warriors win and that this thing's going to be over. But keeping my fingers crossed, Chris Ryan, you have many other things going on

this week. You've got The Watch, right? Is it the Sources Say Week? I should say the rewatchables is coming back tomorrow. I believe it'll be up tomorrow. Maybe it's on the 24th. I can't remember when they're going to get it up, but we're recording social network tomorrow. So excited for that. Oh, excellent. This is fun.

You've got The Watch. Rewatchable social network. You've got group chat. You were on heat check. You just basically don't stop talking here at the ringer. It's wonderful. One of these days, my voice is just going to go. I'm going to completely outlive my usefulness. It'll be great. You can just mime things on a podcast. It'll be excellent. Chris Ryan, thanks for doing this, buddy. I appreciate it. You got it, man. All right, we're going to get to Justin Barrier and Tate Frazier in just a moment. But first, a word from our sponsors. Today's heat check is brought to you by ADT. Is your home and ADT home? If not, get ADT and help protect against break-ins, fire, carbon monoxide, and for a limited time, get ADT's lowest rate

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instant peace of mind. Visit laterlife.com slash NBA to get a free quote and get life insurance checked off your list today. And now, let's bring in Justin and Tate. He's heating up. All right, joining me on the other line. He's a repeat offender here at Heat Check. He's from Group Chat. He's an editor. He's a writer. Justin Verrier is here. And for the first time ever on He Check, super famous. He's got many podcasts. He's gracing us with his presence. It's Tate Frazier. Tate Frazier, what's going on? Thanks for having me, John. I feel so blessed to be here.

It's been a long time coming to be on heat check. But I'm sitting right now, we have six national championships since 2000 in the room, Yukon and North Carolina. So I feel really good about that too. That's right. This is the dynamics duo that podcasting needs in the world. Yes, absolutely. I'm excited to unite you two as a super team.

I went to LaSalle and they made it to the Sweet 16 one time. And that was fun. That's cute. No, they had a championship from like the 50s when I think they, they played with a medicine ball. Yes, a sleeping giant. LaSalle was a sleeping giant for me, so I understand. I believe in LaSalle.

I think they're going to come back. All right, fans. It's a lot of LaSalle talk on the Heat Check podcast. My Philly heads will be thrilled. Tate Frazier, also, Verrier, did you know about this, that he had his wisdom teeth out, and he's playing hurt today? Yeah, I'm fully medicated right now. So anything I say, take with a grain of salt,

I'm trying to come in and be as clear-headed as possible. But, yeah, my wisdom teeth are out. I've lost all the wisdom that I have in my head at this point. But I'm just happy to talk about the NBA because I never get to do this. So this will be fun. If Tate's LeBron takes are particularly hot, that's why. It's definitely because of the medicine, not because of what he thinks in his heart. These are performance dehancey drugs.

Well, we're going to get into that because Simmons texted me and he's like, you should have Tate on. He hates LeBron. I'm like, all right, cool, man. Absolutely. We'll have them on. We're going to get into that. So the Cleveland Cavaliers, they were down, 02. they come back to Cleveland.

I am in Cleveland. They ended up blowing out, because every game in the playoffs evidently has to be a blowout. They ended up blowing out the Celtics to climb back into the series. Now it's 2-1. They wanted a 24 run to start game three. They won by 30. It felt like the calves were kind of white-knuckling it a little bit to start. It was the first time in 10 years since LeBron, like 1.0, that they started an Eastern

Conference playoff series down 02. and they seemed like they were sweating it in practice and Tailu wasn't in a good mood and they really, I felt like, needed that game. Yeah, I thought J.R. Smith's quote was pretty prescient. J.R. Smith, noted philosopher of the Cleveland Cavaliers,

just pointing out that like the extra three days. Of the world. Yeah, it's up the world. Just that they had the extra three days and for an old team like that, it makes a difference. And not to be reductive, but I think it made a lot of a difference, especially when you go up against the Celtics team

that, as we know, has been able to counterbalance them on the defense event just the way that they've been versatile, way they've been switching all the time. But they are still young and they looked at very much like that in the first quarter. What I learned is LeBron made a conscious effort to get his teammates involved. That's what it is. He's been having efforts, but they've been subconscious. But in this game, he made the conscious effort to get everyone involved. He's the reason that George Hill played so well. He's the reason that J.R. played so well. He's the reason that the team hit 17-3s. He's the reason that Kyle Corver is back and better than ever. I think he, what was he like four for five

from the field or something like that? Maybe even five for five from the field. He had a great game and, I think it was more about we knew that LeBron James was not going to lose game three being down 02. That's just not what was going to happen in Cleveland. They came out, they made a statement. I thought the most surprising thing was LeBron was deferring to everyone else and trying to get everyone else involved. And it led to them playing better defensively as a team, which was impressive. Yeah, he was an absolute killer. I mean, he's LeBron, right? So he can take over a game whenever he wants, but you're absolutely right, Tate Fraser, that that was a game where he scored 27 points on 12 shots, so he was super efficient. But there were so many times when he was getting guys involved and making crazy passes.

He had 12 assists that led to 30 points. You mentioned JR. He had one, LeBron had one drive where he drove, like, deep, deep, deep into the paint, jumped up, turned around and fired like a two-handed pass kickout to JR for a wide open three. and JR made it and just kind of shrugged and laughed it off. And I was like, that's the LeBron they need right now. They need a guy who's going to get all of them involved. He made sure to help George Hill get off early. George Hill hadn't had a good game one or game two.

Also, LeBron had several amazing dunks, including that one on the dude and the MAGA hat behind the Celtics bench, which I thought was excellent. So it was a great LeBron game. Yeah, I think it definitely had a trickle-down effect to the defense event as well. It seemed like once LeBron realized that guys like George Hill were going to get involved, were going to be able to carry their weight on that end. He seemed to spend more time on the defensive end

trying to lock down his end. And it seemed like their game plan going in was to put him on Marcus Smart more so he could freelance a little bit more. And you saw how much that screwed up what the Celtics want to do because they were able to stay small against that bigger lineup with Tristan Thompson at the center.

Well, when the offense wasn't going, they couldn't get the looks that they could in the second game. It seemed like Brad Stevens was more willing to go to some of those big guys. And all of a sudden, you have, you have a Selley playing early minutes. You have Greg Monroe showing. up from the middle of nowhere, and it really threw off what they were able to do. My favorite part of the game, honestly, was in Gershon came into the game, and it was like

three straight possessions, and I thought Aaron Baines was going to throw him out of the game. He was so frustrated with how lost he was on the court. I mean, it was like three back-to-back-to-back bad plays. Baines is yelling at Stevens to take him out of the game. He's like, why is he even out here? And you talk about Monroe coming in. Just all these lineups that Celtics had in this game just seemed really off. And I know that, you know, Rozier was having some problems, taking some early shots.

So I think Stevens, you know, pulled him a little bit early. And then you also had the situation when Jalen Brown get into foul trouble. So everything that could go wrong, went wrong for the Celtics it felt like in game three. And for the Cavs, it just finally seemed to click for the first time. And they actually seemed like they liked each other, which I thought was pretty funny. Imagine that. Yeah, you never know on any given day how they're going to respond to each other. I'm not ready, though.

I'm not letting you off the hook, Tate Frazier. We're not past LeBron yet. Because, like I said, you're on the podcast because apparently you have some very strong. LeBron feelings and I need to know about them. Well, it's not like something that popped up recently where I was watching LeBron and I was like, you know what, I really don't like the way this guy plays basketball. We've known LeBron forever. We've watched him, you know, more than a game.

We've seen him since 03. I know all about LeBron. I think the thing that I talk about as far as my disdain for LeBron that does come out sometimes is the conversation about Michael Jordan and LeBron, which I think is not only unfair to LeBron. I think it's unfair to Michael Jordan. I don't like having those cross-generational comparisons. and conversations, even though they can be fun at times.

I mean, but you got it, it's gotten so outrageous right now that we have Shannon Sharp, you know, in a show calling LeBron James God, you know, like that's how far we've gotten with the LeBron conversation. It's like, we want to defend him so much. And, you know, I don't think he needs. Wait, you're telling me, you're telling me that a Fox sports host was hyperbolic. I don't believe it. I just don't think we need to defend LeBron as, you know, as viscerly and as much as we do,

because he is so great. I mean, those passes that he was making that you mentioned with his left hand, that's unbelievable. That's amazing. You know, that's what you want to see from a great player like him. I believe that he is the best player of the decade. I've never said anything other than that. But I just feel like it's unfair to him. And I've always said he's more like a Kareem than he is, like Michael Jordan.

He's going to have all these records. Wait, hold on. He's more Kareem? He's going to have been Jordan. He's going to break Kareem's Phil goal record in the playoffs, right? I think he needs like six more field goals. Once he breaks that record, he's going to have the argument on paper to be better than Michael Jordan, which is great in the same way that...

How many percissettes did he pop during the podcast? Just two, just two. No, but I will say this. The Kareem versus Jordan argument was a great argument, and it was the exact same way where it does not translate and you can't really have it. But we're doing the same thing now with Jordan to LeBron, which is the perfect example of why LeBron is great, because we go from Kareem to Jordan, Jordan to LeBron.

he's in that conversation. And that should be enough. I don't feel like we have to crown him, even though he is the king. We don't have to crown him and say that he is number one. We just have to say, hey, he's in the conversation,

and that's impressive. You know, I've known Tate for upwards of 10 minutes now. He's just a simple man. You know, he likes his vegetables to not touch his steak. He likes to have his ice cream vanilla at 10 p.m. specifically every night.

Come on. Come on. All this LeBron James talk, it's not fair to his teammates. That's the other thing. I just find it unfair that George Hill hits a three and they're like, what a play by LeBron. To be fair, that was the first play that George Hill made the entire postseason.

LeBron had nothing to do with the play. He didn't even run on offense. He's staying back on defense and he gets credit for the play. That's where I feel bad. That's where I understood Kyrie. That's the only thing I can say about that. Jordan Clarkson doesn't get enough love. Yeah. Jordan Clarkson gets plenty of self-love. Nobody loves Jordan Clarkson more than Jordan Clarkson. That's very true. I personally like, you know, I grew up obviously watching Michael Jordan. I'm of that era.

and think he's amazing, but I don't get worked up. Like, everybody who likes to pick aside in these hot sports debates with their hot takes on Fox Sports or whatever, that doesn't do it for me. I know that sports and sports fandom is wholly without nuance and that everybody has to take aside. But I've always been of the, why can't we just enjoy nice things?

Like, I really loved watching Jordan, and I really love watching LeBron. And the part that I like, what Tate said, was, you know, why do we have to sort of pit one against the other? why does one have to be declared supreme over the other? That doesn't really, I don't, that's never really gotten in it going for me. I will, though, ask, however, Tate Frazier about your LeBron takes. Just remind everybody where you went to school again?

I did go to North Carolina. So there's a little bit of that. And I will say, I love watching LeBron play, but I just love watching Michael Jordan play more. Yeah, see, I just can't separate LeBron from his impact on the game. Like, you say, like, we should give more credits of the guys around him. But the reason why it's getting spread around the way it does is because LeBron has had such an impact in the way that, like, gameplay is going right now,

whereas Jordan would rather punch his teammates in the face rather than passing the ball. LeBron is getting everyone involved, and that's one of his biggest assets. Speaking of people getting punched. Hold that, hold that thought. I want to actually talk about how LeBron has gotten everybody involved, especially in game three.

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That's promo code Ringer NBA for $20 off your first Seat Geek purchase. Seatkeek, right seat, right now, right from your phone. And now, back to Heat Check. All right, still here with Tate Frazier and Justin Barrier. And Tate Frazier not only has hot LeBron takes, and I want to get into how LeBron has made his teammates better, especially in game three. but somehow Tate has managed to link LeBron and Jeff Van Gundy.

Is that right? Well, we brought up the Jordan punching his teammates in the face, which is the great Steve Kerr story that came out from a practice, I believe. But my favorite moment of this playoff so far is Jeff Van Gundy talking about how he woke up at 5 a.m. to watch the royal wedding. Jeff Van Gundy is a very strange band, but we love him to death. He wakes up at 5 a.m. to watch the Royal Wedding. And then two minutes later, they show Chubbaco on the sideline,

who's for some reason in Cleveland at the game. and then that comes up and he goes, yeah, from Star Wars, never seen it. So this man wakes up at 5 a.m. for the royal wedding, and he has never seen Star Wars in his life. That's a national treasure. And then it just brought up to the whole point. You brought up punching.

And I was watching an old video today of Marcus Camby, and Danny Ferry hits him in the face. And this is back in 2001, 2002 or something. It's surprising from Danny Ferry. Yeah, of course. Classic Danny Ferry. And they're like, Danny Farrarry would never do something intentional. Then they play in slow motion.

He obviously did. And Camby's, trying to hit him. And as soon as he has like a little bit of a ray of sunshine to go at Danny Ferry, who has his back to him, Jeff Van Gunney sprints over like a secret service member protecting the president, gets in the way, and Camby ends up headbunning Van Gundy, Mrs. Ferry. Van Van Gundy goes down for the count, is knocked out. And it just, there's so many great Van Van Gundy stories. And I feel like we just need to collect them all into one place because the man's never seen Star Wars. He's been headbutted by Marcus Camby. It's just, it's just a great.

I enjoyed, the game was so boring that game three that I just had to listen to Jeff Van Gundy talk and that was about the only entertainment I had. We need to get you and JVG on one of your many podcasts together. We need story time with Tate and Jeff Van Gundy. I'll come back on Heat Check with Varyer and Van Gundy and we'll really hash this thing out. Yeah, you really booked the wrong JV here.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Fair enough. About that supporting cast that Varyer mentioned before we went to break and before we did Storytime with Tate, We were talking about how those guys were completely absent in game two. And the Cavs supporting cast had, like, they were horrendous from three-point range in the first two games. They made 14 threes out of 57 attempts.

And then in game three, they made 17 threes. So they beat their first two-game total in one game in game three. And J.R. Smith got off and Kevin Love got off. And Kyle Cover looked good. And George Hill was involved. Do we buy it? Is this replicable? Can they keep it going?

Do you, like, we've been wondering over this about the Cavs supporting cast all season long. Yeah, this is the problem with the playoffs, because I don't know which law of averages to believe in anymore. Because the Cavs were a really good three-point shooting team this season. So you'd assume that this is probably the team that we can expect going forward. Having said that, both teams weren't particularly good road teams. And as Tate and I were discussing before we came on here, it almost seems like we're going to, we're in for maybe a seven-game series now where you have a young team in the Celtics that can't go on the road. you have a team with the, like the Cavs, who's just awful in certain situations and just fall apart in situations.

And so they won't be able to play in Boston with that crowd and the way they're able to mount comebacks there. And so I don't know what to believe, but it is an encouraging sign that this Cavs team still exists. And the Cavs like to play with the lead. And I think that was the problem in Game 2 in Boston. LeBron came out and he said to himself, I have to get us a lead.

I have to be the main one. And that didn't quite work out. Obviously, he still had a great game. It was like, what, 41, 12, and 12, something crazy like that. but if the Cavs are able to go to Boston in game five or in game seven, LeBron, I mean, I'm not going to bet against LeBron in this series. I felt the whole time, even though that they were down O2, the Cleveland would be able to figure it out.

They win game three, but if they're able to still, they're going to steal one game of Boston. I mean, maybe it's game five, maybe it's LeBron doing it in game seven. It might be similar to what we saw in 2012 when he was on the heat when they were down and he went back to Boston and wins that game six. Maybe something like that happens, I don't know. But I do think this Cleveland team has figured it out enough where Kevin Love is now the number two option.

I think that they were smart to get Kevin Love away from Al Horford. That was a horrible matchup. We all saw that in the first two games. Why is Kevin Love guarding Al Horford? Tristan Thompson's done a great job on Al Horford. Morris did a poor job on LeBron for the first time in game three. I think he even said after the game he did a bad job. So I don't know.

I feel like Cleveland's figuring it out. And I think LeBron and Kevin Love are both sort of on the same page. If Kevin Love gets rebounds and is able to help on the offensive end, at least be a threat, then I really believe in the Cavs. I think they can do it. I hope that it's a series. I really do, because I was talking about this with Chris, and I could really use some competitive playoff basketball at this point.

Like, I would keep harping on this point, but I just want to see, I just want to see, even if it's not good single games where the two teams show up at the same time, even if it just gets us to a game six or seven, and it looks like it's going to be a series, that would be great. And you mentioned whether or not the Cavs can steal one on the road. Boston has been awesome at home.

They haven't lost yet these playoffs at home. They're 10 and 0 at home. They're just one in five on the road. And they looked really, I mean, like, you know, their net rating at home is obviously much better than it is on the road in the playoffs. And Brad Stevens had said, like, he doesn't care where the games are played. That shouldn't matter. But they clearly do because Boston came out in, like, game three, man, they shot sub-40% from the floor.

They only made six of their 22-3s. They got crushed on the boards. Jalen Brown was like really one of the only guys who showed out. You know, he made more than one three-pointer and Jason Tatum looked good but not good enough. And you mentioned Al Horford and all of a sudden, like Marcus Smart, who was doing Marcus Smart things in the first two games, he didn't have a good game. And now all of a sudden I'm thinking to myself, okay, like after the first two games, it looked like Boston was just going to roll him. And now I'm like cautiously optimistic that we've got a series. Yeah, I guess they just need Drew Bledso.

in attendance for the Celtics really to get up for this game. Because I was definitely disappointed that the Celtics didn't have a counterpunch in them late in the first or even in the second quarter. Because even when they got down a little bit in that game too,

they were able to rally back. There's something about the crowd, something about the way they play. They're very scrappy, the way that they're kind of like embracing this whole underdog thing. Terry Rozier is just selling t-shirts out of the back of his van these days.

Just something about them. It all works. And the calves throughout those first two losses were very confident. almost to the point of arrogance. And I was starting to wonder what LeBron was actually thinking. And we saw why in this game three. It's just when they have things going, they could just put it together.

And then the young team like the South is kind of wilted in the face of that. And it's one of those things too where we talked about this before we got on there. But role players and young players in the playoffs, when you're at home, it's easy. Everything comes naturally. You're used to it. You're in an environment. You understand. When you go on the road, you tighten up.

And if things aren't going right, like what happened, even Jalen Brown, you know, in that game, You get some foul trouble early. They seem defeated pretty early in that game. And once Cleveland gets rolling, I mean, it's hard to stop that. Once LeBron gets going and they're all confident, it's hard to stop. Yeah, there's shots of Jalen Brown sitting on the sideline looking not happy, I think said it all. But I was really surprised that Boston's defense looked so bad because in the first two games, they were like running the calves off the three-point line.

And the calves were talking about how switchable and long they are on defense and like how they were giving them fits. and they were forcing them to play at a much slower pace than the Cavs wanted to. And, you know, like, Kevin O'Connor and I were talking about this on last week's, he checked, where we were like, well, the adjustment to make is to go big and get more Tristan Thompson. But really, yes, they put in Tristan Thompson, and yes, he got some time, and yes, he was playing Al Horford well. But really, they kind of doubled down on playing faster. They were like, we're not going to play slow against them and play well. That's their game.

So we're going to try to get the ball in faster on makes. we're going to definitely push it on misses. We're going to run to our spots and hunt three-point shots, and it worked for them. And I just was surprised that Boston's defense didn't adjust in-game. LeBron and space is just so terrifying. And you saw when George Hill, it seems so ridiculous to say that George Hill just opens things up for this team. But if you have one other guy outside of Corver and love kind of producing on the wings and providing him more opportunities to get things going, you could see what it does on both ends of the court.

Gons, I'm wondering from your point of view, just being. there, like, what is the vibe now? Does it feel like the calves are confident? Oh, well, when I was first here, when I first got here, I don't think that, like, when you were saying that they were arrogant, that might have been true, but I don't know that they were used to the situation that they were in because, like, Kevin Love and Kyle Korver flat out said that there were several moments in the series where things weren't going their way, and they were frustrated, and they let that get the better of them. And I'm like, that's not normally something. that professional athletes admit to in front of the media.

So I definitely think that they were sweating it. Maybe that motivated them. But whatever the vibe was before, now I think they are confident. And I definitely think Cavs fans are confident. Like I was walking on the concourse of the arena at halftime to go get some chicken fingers. And people were like, yeah, I wonder, can we win this game? Like, can we just rattle off four straight right now? Like, they were just, like, laughing and having a great time.

And, like, Cavs fans are back. Do you think Michael Jordan would be arrogant in this situation? I don't think he'd be arrogant. It was just, you know, instilled confidence in belief in himself. But I will say about the calves, right? So they're down 02. The Celtics have never lost a series when they're up to O. Right?

In history, I don't know. I think the 37 and O, they've never lost a series. And then LeBron has done this. This only happened 19 times in history. LeBron's done it twice already, 2016 and 2007. I mean, it just feels like this is. is the perfect thing for LeBron to do. You know what I mean? LeBron defies, you know, no matter what you can say about the Celtics

scene without them having Kyrie Hayward, whatever it may be, the fact that they were down 02 and if they were able to rip off four straight, I think that seems very LeBron-like. Right. And the first time he did it was in that, like you mentioned, 2007 Eastern Conference Finals against the Pistons, there are shades of that team a little bit in the Celtics team where it's just all defense and you're kind of scrapping something together on offense. So you could definitely see history almost repeating itself in a little bit of. And 2016, obviously, too.

So it's like, I don't know. I know Celtics fans are going to be very upset to hear us to be so biased after seeing game three and completely switch. But even when they were down 2-0, I was like, it was good to hold home court advantage if you're the Celtics. That's all you can try to do. But you know that you're probably going to have to go to 6 or 7 with LeBron. He's not going out in 5.

They look like such a different team in Boston. I hear you on the Celtics have never lost after being up 2-0. Howard Beck pointed out that LeBron isn't playing. against Larry Bird and Kevin Garnett and Kevin McHale and those guys, though, so I'm not sure exactly what to do with that, but I will ask you guys this. Let's recalibrate our series predictions. Give me a prediction for game four and then for the series. I think the Cavs are going to win this game, but I think the Celtics are going to win the series overall, just because they have home court advantage, and it's going to be tough even with the way the

calves are playing to overcome a two-o deficit as we just wait out. I think it's going to go to seven games. I think LeBron is going to come close to winning and stealing the game five. They're going to go back to Cleveland, get that win, and then he's going to win game seven. Yeah, I picked the Cavs before the series. I was definitely sweating it after the first two games. The Celtics look like an absolutely unbeatable team,

and now they don't. So I'm going to stick with that. I don't know how many games, but I think the Cavs are going to win game four on Monday night, and then we'll go from there. Before I let you guys go, I just wanted to pass this note along. Tate, Shea Serrano says you should give him a podcast.

He thinks it's dirty. You haven't yet. I have tried and tried and tried to get people to give him a podcast. I promise. He doesn't believe you. We're not even old speaking terms anymore because of how hard I worked for him. How hard I tried. And yeah, it's been tough.

It's been a tough journey. I want him to have a podcast. If anyone out there wants to say to have a podcast, reach out to all the people in the Ringer universe that you love and adore and say Shays Serrano deserves a podcast. We have lots of podcasts here at the Ringer, as you mentioned. And you want to make sure that you want to listen to all the NBA show podcast coming up this week. We've got Kevin Inverno. Then we've got group chat. We've got draft class. And we've got Bill Simmons. And then next week's heat check will be from parts unknown. I don't know where I'm

going to be. I'm like the ringer's Papa Shango that way. It's a WWE reference for all my WWE heads out there. But we'll have plenty of basketball. So make sure to check out all of that and read all of our stuff on the ringer. I want to say thanks to Chris Ryan for doing this. Thanks very much to Justin Verrier and Tate Frazier. And of course, our producer, Isaac Lee. and a special congrats to Kevin Clark who was married this weekend. We're happy for him and his lovely bride, Emily. Thanks so much for listening, everybody, to Heat Check. We will be back next week.

Bye.