The Ringer NBA Show - Warriors Rout Cavs in Game 2 | Heat Check (Ep. 282)

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

The Ringer’s John Gonzalez is joined by Kevin O’Connor to react to the Golden State Warriors’ convincing win against the depleted Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 2 of the NBA Finals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good office. He's his hot. 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 the Bay Area. Isaac Lee, our producer, back in Los Angeles, per usual.

Shouts to Isaac. Was in Oakland for games one and two. Game two just wrapped up. Right now, I'm in San Francisco. In the morning, I'll fly to Cleveland. NBA never stops. The finals continue. We've got all your NBA content on the ringer.

You want to check out Haley O'Shaughness. He wrote about Game two as to Danny Chow. Kevin O'Connor's got a big piece on the ringer. You're going to want to check that out, and he'll be on in just a second here. We've also got NBA desktop with Jason Concepcion on Tuesday and Friday. That's been a blast. Really loved his Brian Colangelo Collars bit. I was a little less thrilled about him making jokes about my face and the meme from the locker room, but that's fine.

It's still a good show. You check that out. And of course, you've got Bill Simmons podcast. He just did a podcast with Deezus and Miro. And also he did post-game reaction from game two. so you want to listen to all of that. You want to watch all of that. You want to read all that.

That's all good stuff. But right now, we've got our post-game reaction from game two with my partner in crime, this entire series. Let's bring him in. All right, joining me, I would normally say on the other line or in studio. Instead, joining me right now from his very own hotel room, it's Kevin O'Connor. What's going on, Gons? How you doing?

Excellent, my man. We have spent the better part of this entire week. together bopping around to practices and games. We had a nice dinner with the boss man. Bus rides and everything. We were on the bus and Bill took us out for a nice dinner. We just got done with game two, which was what we kind of expected from the Warriors all along and not at all good for the cavaliers.

It's bad news. Bad news for Cleveland. I think, look, they came into the serious gons with a pretty solid, well-executed game plan. However, there's only so much that you can do against the. Stefan Curry when he is pulling up from 35 feet flinging shots up into the year. You need to take the ball out of his hand somehow. And they haven't done that. They haven't trapped.

They haven't blitzed. They're just switching and letting Curry do his thing. So the Warriors won game two by 19 points. They go up 2 in the series. And as Kevin just mentioned, the big thing was Steph Curry. I mean, Steph Curry was good to start. And then he just absolutely caught fire at 33 points. Eight assist seven rebounds.

But he made nine three-pointers, which was an end. NBA finals record Kevin and also Kevin the same number of three pointers as the cavaliers made as a team. Oh my God. That is gross. That is really bad. And that's the thing. Everybody was talking before this game. Maybe Cleveland shoots the ball better in game two because they didn't shoot it at all well in game one. But here's the thing. Are you really going to bank on George Hill, J.R. Smith, Jeff Green, like a variety who had got a chance. You're really going to bank on these guys to elevate their play to a higher level or

you're going to bet on Steph to go off. And that's exactly what happened. And Katie was much better this game as well. Yeah. Not only that. I mean, so when you mentioned about Golden State going off and Steph Curry having a crazy game and he had as many three-pointers as the entire Cavaliers team combined, just to put that into perspective, David West hit a three-pointer, which was more three-pointers than Jeff Green, uh, Jordan Clarkson, Kyle Corby. Yeah, more than Kyle Corver. Kyle Corver and Rodney Hood combined one. So not a good night for the cavaliers. And I think it's got to be a point of major frustration.

Like we spent a lot of time talking about the cavaliers because with the warriors, it's like it's much more likely that they're going to be good on any given night. Right. So we're looking for a storyline that will say to us, oh, maybe the Cavs can climb into this series. Right. And in game one, it looked like that. They were like, if not for J.R.

Smith, if not for a charge and a block call that gets reversed, if not for them losing their cool and their composure and just falling apart in overtime. And some of the officiating. And some of the officiating, absolutely. but they could have stolen a game. So we focus on Cleveland because we're hoping that they get into it. But like you mentioned, I mean, you look at this team and beyond LeBron James, nobody did anything. Well, Kevin Love was fine, not defensively, but offensively.

Yeah, you're right. I think it is a false hope, though. It really is. I mean, talking to people before the game, it's like, hey, you know, is it going to come back to Oakland? It's like, yeah, probably not. Probably not. You don't think that LeBron can steal a game at home? I mean, he's LeBron James.

So, of course he could. But look, with LeBron, 29 points tonight, 13 assists, nine rebounds, two steals. Killer game. I mean, it's a good game, a great game. It's fantastic. That's unbelievable for LeBron James, but it's not, really. It's just not. It's actually not

compared to what we know he can do, but you can't expect that every game from him. You just can't. So it was the 11th time that LeBron has had a 20 point 10 assist NBA finals game. That's more than Jordan and Curry combined. It was the 39th time he's at a 20 point NBA finals game, which tied Kareem for the most since 1964. And yet, as Kevin mentioned, still not enough.

And I think this is something that, like, you've mentioned previously that I find really, really interesting where you look at LeBron and you go, that's a crazy game, right? But it's still not enough. And like earlier in the playoffs, you mentioned this on Heechak where we were like, the Pelicans got through, right? And they're playing the Warriors. And I said, you know, Anthony Davis had a good game. Anthony Davis had something like 22 and 12.

And you said they need 45 and 20 from him. him. And that's kind of what the calves need from, like, they basically need game one, LeBron, in every game for them to have a chance. So before game one, I was texting with two executives. One of them said to me, he's like, LeBron's going to have to shoot 80% for them to win this game. And another one said he's going to have to score 50. He scored 50, but he didn't shoot 80%. Yeah. Right? Like, that's where the line needs to be. So, you know, in our NBA slack earlier tonight, I mentioned I was like, is LeBron being too passive tonight? And it sounds like, It sounds crazy.

It sounds so dumb to say that when he's having such a fantastic night. But it's like, maybe he is because you do need that 45 to 50 points from him because there's just no other way for this team. I just don't, it is unreasonable to expect LeBron James to do that on a nightly basis because it's not realistic. However, it's what they need to win the finals. And if we're talking about what Cleveland needs to do to win the finals, they need LeBron James to go off every single game. Yeah. And it's not even just. to win the finals, it's to make the finals competitive, right?

Because like, yeah, to win the finals. Right. It's what it took. Right. And even then, they couldn't overcome their own stupidity and their own mistakes and their own J.R. Smithness. And the fact they still didn't get enough shooting from everywhere else on the roster either.

Right. Exactly right. I mean, like that roster is exactly as bad as we've been talking about all season long. And yet. Since October. Since October. And yet. Even after the change.

But for a moment, we thought it was better. Pre trade, post trade, going into the finals, against the Pacers. against the Celtics. But the thing, and I just wrote about that this week with the other other cavaliers. I did two parts on the other cavaliers, one being they know how bad they've been and like they hear everything that we say about them. And yet they're still. Well, of course, listen to the H-HECD podcast and group chat and all those.

And of course, you and Verno. Oh, and by the way, shouts to Verno. We did a video for Verno where Kevin O'Connor recreated escape from Oracle, which was excellent, so I highly recommend you check that out on the ringer.com, but the other cavaliers, like, they haven't been good all season, and they know they haven't been good, and yet, they're still alive, right? There's only two teams playing, so every time we count them out, this team still, like, is around. Should Ty Lou start playing some of the other cavaliers that weren't good? I'm talking about, like, the runny, hoods of the world, the Jetty

Osmans, because, look, Jordan Clarkson is not getting it done. Yes, you can say, oh, he brings a little bit of defensive energy, but come on, dude, this guy, his favorite player is himself. He's not playing well on the offensive end of the floor as well at all. So why not give Rodney Hood a shot? Maybe he continues to stink as he did post-trade, but guess what? He was an 18-point-per-game scorer in Utah, so maybe you can get that out of him. Give Jetty Ozma a chance, a guy who hustles on defense, who can pass the ball unselfishly and who can maybe try to hit some spot-up threes for you better than Jordan Clarkson at whatever sub-30 percent. rate that he's hitting at, I think

Tyloo in Game 3 needs to shake it up and give some of these other, other Cleveland guys a chance over the Jordan Clarksons of the world. Osmond and Hood had a combined, four minutes each, combined eight minutes. I did the math. I'm very good at it. Jordan Clarkson also had a total of eight minutes.

So it's not like he was out there a ton. I think that at some point, Tyloo looked at it and went, oh, yeah, Jordan Clarkson's not helping us, definitely hurting us. But I think to get back to the LeBron point, because all roads lead back to LeBron for the cabs. But you mentioned to me during the game, and this was 100% true. And I think it all ties back to the other cavaliers, right?

Like he's zipping these passes around. He's playing, he played 44 minutes tonight. You see that one he had to Jeff Green when he was underneath the rim? And what happened? It was like 90 miles per hour. Yeah. I want to see the spedometer on that ball. It was crazy.

He's unbelievable. And he's doing all these things. And yet his teammates can't execute once he gets the ball of them. He was trying to get them involved, which I think is why we didn't see a 50-point performance from LeBron and because he thought, okay, I'm going to need some help from them. But you mentioned how frustrated he looked by it because he was making all these fantastic plays and they were making no fantastic plays. Yeah, there was probably maybe 10 times over the course of the game where he just put his arms up in the air.

And sometimes it was because of a non-call, the chance you would expect LeBron's done that his entire career. But other times, it was a little bit of frustration. Those teammates, there was one time with Larry Nance inbounded the ball. I think it was at the end of the second quarter to Jeff Green for whatever reason. Jeff Green was covered. LeBron's open to the left. And after the ball went out of bounds, LeBron just held his hands up as if to say,

I'm open. Yeah. Hello. I'm open. I'm LeBron James. Perhaps the greatest player of all time. The greatest, according to Nick Wright. You and I agree with by the way.

The other day. When I said, LeBron James is the greatest player of his era and you said... The greatest ever. Ever. And I said era and you said ever. And we went back and forth. It was like a really bad...

Save it for another day. Yeah, it was a really bad who's on first bit. But with Lever. LeBron, like, I don't know how much more he can give, right? Because he played 44 minutes in game two. He played 48 minutes in game one, which went to overtime. He played the full 48 in game seven versus Boston. Going back to game six versus Boston, he played 46 minutes. So like what we're missing here is a combined, what, four minutes plus seven minutes is 11 minutes over the last. And he's still in the finals. He sat 11 minutes in the last four games. Kevin, that's insane. He went to the finals with this team.

Slept the Raptors with this team. He beat the best defensive basketball with this team. He went to overtime the game one with this team. I'm not arguing that he's a goat, but right now, I'm not going to get into that. But the fact is, is no, you can't expect more. He's already given everything. He has to be exhausted. Oh, no kidding. He has to be. I mean, I think we can see it on the court sometimes with, there was one time, I forget when this happened. I want to say it was maybe middle of the third quarter, but he didn't cross half court until there was like 16 seconds left on the clock. The ball, the offense was already being initiated by one of his teammates.

And he didn't get across half court until 16 seconds left because he's taken that little bit of a breather any chance he can get. Well, not only that, but there were multiple long stretches during the game where he was guarding KD. So not only was he asked to do all of that at the offense. event. And not only has he not taken hardly any in-game time off in the playoffs, like since game six, where they were facing elimination and now they're facing the Warriors and pretty much every game against the Warriors, they're playing it like an elimination game. But on top of that, they're

asking him to guard one of the most dynamic players on the other team, right? I mean, like, that's got to be absolutely exhausting for him. It's almost unfair to ask him to guard at all. Yeah. With what he does on offense. Look what's happening a lot with the, with the Warriors. Like, you ended up with Steph on LeBron James a lot, right? Because they're just like, all right, well, we're not going to put KD on them. We're going to save KD and we'll see how it goes. And like, Steph isn't actually guarding LeBron when they switch him into those picking rolls. Helping off.

Right. They're helping off of them. And they know what they're doing with that. With LeBron, though, he's giving maximum effort. All of a sudden, he's Deadpool. And he's giving maximum effort on the defensive end against KD. And I just don't know how he sustains it. What more can the man do?

We watched him in game one, score 51 points on 19 to 32 shooting. It was. to me, I thought maybe the most remarkable live game that I've seen in person. It was just truly astounding seeing what he was doing. But then in that overtime period, to go back to game one, Golden State just really sold out just on LeBron because all Cleveland was doing was calling a screen to get a switch onto Stefan Curry, isolating LeBron at the top of the key and letting him go to work.

But the problem is, is that the paint was just completely full of Golden State defenders and Cleveland players who couldn't space the floor. So the fact is, is LeBron had no space to do anything at that point of the game when Golden State was really just selling out on him. To me, that captured the series where he just can't do it all by himself. He needs help, and he's not getting it at all. He needs his teammates to have a hot shooting game. Like we talked about going into game two. He needs the defensive scheme to, I think, change.

I don't think they can continue just switching pick and rolls on Curry. I think they need to start blitzing and trapping and trying to get the ball out of that guy's hands. because Golden State is at their best when Stefan Curry initiates the offense. Not Katie. We've seen that over the course of the season when Steph's been out at times. They're at their best with Steph. So they need to try to get the ball out of his hands because guess what? Yeah.

Maybe it doesn't work because it's probably not. But you get to try because what you're doing now, it's not working, period. And the story. So try something new. I think you're absolutely right. I mean like offensively, I want to get into the defensive part for the Cavs in a second here. But offensively, you know, Kevin Love was fine offensively. He made three threes.

He had 22 points, 10 rebounds, 7 of 18 from the floor. Beyond that, nothing. You've got nothing. You had, you know, Tristan Tom. He said he was just fine. He's fine. He's so fine. How are you doing today?

I'm doing fine. That's what Kevin Love was. Yeah. And then you had George Hill, who was a minus 11. He had 15 points. He shot just five or 12 from the floor. I don't think you're getting nearly enough out of him. And then beyond that, you don't have anybody doing anything.

Jeff Green really came back down to Earth and did. I mean, like, not like, Jeff. Green. Jeff Green is always on earth. Yeah, exactly. It's when he's not. Right. Then you look and you go, oh, wow, Jeff Green had a couple podium games. Did you see the NBA desktop video that they did? Yeah. It was fantastic. Good Jeff Green game. Shocking news around the world. Yeah, that's what it is. I mean, like, you should, like, that's when it's surprising, right, when you get a good Jeff Green game. So then you look at the roster and we've done this all year long. But, okay, so you need Kevin Love. And then beyond that, you've got Tristan Thompson in the starting lineup. he's not going to help you.

You've got George Hill in the starting lineup. He's had periods where he's helped you, but not really. You've got J.R. Smith in the starting lineup, and he said after the game, I just wasn't good. Yeah, no kidding. Like, first you killed them at the end of game one by forgetting what the situation was. And then you kill them in game two with five points. And by the way, shouts to the Warriors fans who chanted MVP. MVP.

MVP. It was a classic troll job by the bay. And it was really good. And, like, Tailu was asked about that and said, you know, do you think that the crowd got to J.R. Smith? And Tailu said, not much gets to J.R. Smith. And I think that's probably right. Like, I don't think J.R. Smith cared about that.

But he just didn't play well. And they need him to get super, super hot. And he hasn't been. I mean, I think, I think that's a J.R. has almost always been as a player, on and off player. And right now, really not just right now, but this entire season in a way, he just has been off. He's 32 years old. he's not what he once was someone posted some clips of him on uh twitter the other day like back in

the nugget stays and the next days when he was like one of the best dunkers on the league that's not jr smith anymore he's not that guy who's going to go off this season he was an eight point per game scorer who occasionally shows up and does a little bit more occasionally but he's not the same guy anymore not the same guy anymore and then on the on the bench as you mentioned they have nothing so then that's killing them offensively this is supposed to be like you know two great offenses going at each other and it's one great offense and then LeBron James and then defensively and you mentioned this and this is really

great offense when you're just LeBron. It really is. But then like defensively in the same way that the calves are trying to get the matchups that they want by putting LeBron James in favorable pick and rolls and they end up with Steph Curry on them a lot. That's fine.

But the inverse is true. And you mentioned it. When the warriors are putting Kevin Love in the pick and roll and all of a sudden Kevin Love is guarding Steph Curry, that is a recipe for absolute fucking disaster, which it was in the second half. That's how a lot of those three balls that went down, one of which you and I were standing on the court, we did a little video for the ringer and we were standing right by it.

He tossed one up that was an absolute rainbow and drained it. And then he hit one in the corner like a couple possessions later on Kevin Love where he fell and drained that one too. Kevin Love has no business being out there and they've got to figure out a way to avoid that. And I feel like Kevin Love, you know, within the role that he's being asked to play, he's doing fine. Kevin Love's doing what he's being told to do. But the fact is I don't think. you continue telling him to switch those screens. And being out in the perimeter trying to guard Steph Curry, that's not his bag. Yeah, not only that, but it also takes him away from the rim too, right? Where he's at his best when he's rebounding the ball, when he's, I think, I think when Kevin

Lova is dropping as a defender that's when he's at his best. You can't do that against Golden State. That's why I think you need the trap. Look at what Cleveland did in the first round against Victor Oladipo and the Indiana Pacers. They very aggressively came out blitzed, trapped. took the ball out of Oladipo's hands and put it in Miles Turner's hands, DeMontas's hands, and made those guys have to make plays off the dribble or have them make,

have to make them into a scorer. Well, guess what? You can try to do that against Golden State, too, because aside from the three greatest shooters ever, maybe, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Clay Thompson, there's not a lot on that team that you're especially afraid of when they're spotting up behind the arc, whether it's Draymond Green or Nick Young.

You're really scared of Swaggy P? Sean Livingston doesn't shoot threes Javelle McGee doesn't shoot threes Kavana Looney doesn't shoot threes I don't care that David West hit a three tonight He's not a three-point shooter They don't have any threatening shooters On their team

So that is a recipe for being able to help off those guys And aggressively taking the ball Out of Stefan Curry's hands And force somebody else to make a play on that team Because when Steph does it What you're doing now Not working, do something else Yeah, it's really not working for Cleveland Cavaliers

We spend a lot of time talking about Cleveland We haven't really spent much time on this podcast yet talking about the team that's been the best team in the NBA for a long time. Now it is up to nothing in the finals as we expected the Golden State Warriors. So we're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors. We'll come back and talk Golden State. Today's Ringer NBA show Heat Check is brought to you by SimplySafe. Here's why we here at the Ringer are big fans of Simply Safe home security. SimplySafe is ready for anything that gets thrown at it.

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And now back to Heat Check. All right. So we're back on Heat Check. We're in KOC's hotel room here, which, by the way, this is a much better setup. So I have been on the road as listeners to the Heat Check podcast know for much of the playoffs. And I did a podcast on the road in Philly.

I did one in DC with, house, which was super fun. I did one in Cleveland. Tell us about that one. In two of those three, I was in a hotel room by myself with some rando engineer that Isaac dispatched to meet me. And so, COC, thank you for hosting. This is a much better setup. No problem, God. Not nearly as weird. Still weird, still weird, but not nearly as weird. So the Warriors, COC, you whenever talking about this as we were walking to your room to set this up. And you would say, all anybody's talking about is the cavaliers. And I had said, yeah, because we expect the warriors just to be good, right?

We expect them to be the favorites in the series, which they are. We expect them to go ahead in the series, which they have. We expect them to be the dominant team, which they've looked like. And they've somehow managed to be, yeah, they've somehow managed to make being excellent look boring. I wonder, I don't know if I want to spoil something I want to write about, but I wonder when does it get boring for them. I wrote about this earlier in the year. I did a whole piece. But that was different because it was regular season.

When does it get boring to win in the finals? I think the regular season, it definitely is boring for them. They coasted the entire season. But when does it get boring now? They need a challenger. Right now, Cleveland isn't that challenger. Will it be Houston next year?

They were this year. Houston certainly was a challenge. Yeah, they were. Will Houston come back and be better next year, even push them more, even though it went to seven games. Well, Boston with Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward push them in the finals, they need a challenge, man, because right now Cleveland's not it. Cleveland is not that challenge, even though it's with four years in a row,

even though Cleveland had the 3-1 comeback, which was unbelievable to watch, it's different now because since that happened, they have Kevin Durant. It's like before and after the 3-1 comeback. After the 3-1 comeback, it's a completely different error in my book. And right now they don't have what is a word. the adversary and I hope they get that. They're their own adversary, right? Like, and that's not as interesting to that.

It's, I think, why they've been so bored. Or to us. Right. I think that's why they've been so bored during the regular season. And then they get into the playoffs and they go, okay, well, at least it's the playoffs. Yes. And now I think, like, they're at the point where they're just kind of playing against themselves.

It's like if you're playing against yourself in a video game or something. They are. Like, Sean Livingston was asked about this at the practice here the day. I forget who asked it, but the question was basically, something like, did you ever expect that you would have a hard time getting hungry in the playoffs, like in the finals? Yeah. And Livingston was pretty honest and he was like, I mean, you're hungry.

Like you want to win a championship, obviously. But yeah, it's a little surprising that the taste isn't what it was the first time. Right. Because they've done it so much already. It is different. It's different. And Kerr has mentioned this, right? He's talked about it openly.

He's talked about like different ways that they've got to figure out to motivate themselves. Right. And there were times in the playoffs where he called them out for not showing up because there are games. They just full flat take off. Yep. Right? And then who knows? Maybe we're in store for one of those in the finals when it goes to Cleveland.

And maybe that's how Cleveland ends up stealing one, a combination of them being sort of bored with themselves and LeBron just having a monster effort. Or maybe we already got it. Or maybe we already got it. We just don't know it. Well, maybe we already got it and J.R. Smith didn't know it. Maybe that's actually what happened. But like, like, look at what for this game.

I mean, Kevin Durant had a fantastic game. as we mentioned, Steph Curry went off. And then you had Clay Thompson, who almost missed his first ever playoff game, didn't and came back. And afterwards, he said,

you know, I wish somebody had told me, you don't really realize how much you need your ankles or how much you use them. And Steph Curry went, you could have just asked me. Which,

like, so that was a great buddy copper team for them. But like, by the way, Clay was killer. One quick thing. Yeah. With Steph killing it,

he was unbelievable tonight. It was unbelievable. 9 of 17, 33 points, but he's still only 11 of 26 from the floor. Right. Like, there's still even a higher level for him. Right. Katie, only 10 and 14, turned down to 25 shots. There's a higher level for him, too.

Like, this team still has room to even be better than what we've seen. I felt that way in last year's finals, too, in the five game win that they had over Cleveland. I feel that way through two games, there's still another level for this team. It's weird, too, because I'm looking at the box square right now. Dremont didn't do anything tonight. Right? I mean, he, like, he played, he was, offensively. Offensively, he's all over the place.

Yeah. In the box score. I'm talking about for them to get to 122. Defensively, he was great. It's seven to six to zero turnover. He was a facilitator. He was amazing on that part. But I'm saying they didn't need him to do anything, but like those intangible

Dremont things. And they still beat Cleveland by 19, right? So. I think that's really the special thing about their team is that you don't need Dremont to do more than that. Like, that's really what Dremond does best. He can rebound. He can play defense.

He can be. a great passer and he's fantastic. That's that's what you need for me. And like you had Javel McGee start the game. He went six for six. It was we had a Javelle McGee game in 18 minutes. I mean, it was crazy. Just clowning. Sometimes it's just silly. I didn't expect to see David West play an 11 minute game either. But Steve Kerr can just throw anybody out there. He kind of can't. I mean like and and you mentioned like when with the rest of their guys like beyond Kevin Durant and Curry and Thompson, it's not like they have like killer shooters,

but they don't really need them because they have those three guys. So it really is kind of a challenge. They would against a better defense, I think, because... But what defense exists that's better, right, that can really stymie them? I mean, Cleveland's not a good defense. It's a very poor defense. I mean like a really good defense.

Houston did a much better job against Golden State. We just saw it last round, turning them into more of an isolation team, making all their off ball, their fancy cute cuts off ball, the nice offball screens that they set made it tougher on them because that team can defend really one through five, whereas Cleveland doesn't defend one through five at all. Nobody on this team really defends.

I want to expose you just a little bit here because we were watching that game and we were talking about, you know, like how good the Warriors looked and how good stuff looked. And you noted that the Cavs defense was terrible. in your KOC way said the Cavs defense is ass and I was like it is it's it hasn't been good it hasn't been good all year it hasn't been good in two years what was the last time you looked at remember going into last year's playoffs the narrative was oh man like can a team with a defense this bad challenge for a championship and that narrative has continued since and I think the answer is

no unless you have LeBron James right right you have LeBron James he he's he's the trump card to any of those historical arguments, but against Golden State, Golden State is ultimately you do need to have a great defense, obviously. I think Houston showed the template last round. They gave it to them. Houston really did make it tough on Golden State. That certainly, to me, does feel like it was the real finals. This is going to go down in history as the NBA finals, Cleveland versus Goal and State

for the fourth year in a row. But to me, that last round matchup, Houston versus Golden State, that was a true battle of two Titan teams. Yeah. It's just so happens that one of the main guys, Chris Paul, unfortunately got hurt in game six and seven. And maybe things would have been different. Maybe not. Maybe the Warriors would have reached another level that I think they could potentially have.

But maybe not, man. Houston must be really kicking themselves right now, huh? Yeah. Well, it sucks because, I mean, like, you lose Chris Paul and it's like, now what, right? Like, that that was really the killer and there's nothing they can do about it. And you mentioned that, like, defensively, they obviously were better defensive team during the regular season. and they just played better defensively against the Warriors, what were they doing differently that either the calves aren't doing

or that the calves aren't capable of doing? Because it's easier, I think, for the Warriors to make adjustments. Like before game two, Steve Kerr was asked, okay, what are you going to do defensively to stop LeBron, right? And somebody asked him that before the game. And he goes, hey, this is great and all. I applaud you for trying, but I'm not going to give away my defensive matchups right before the game.

That seems sort of silly to me. Yeah. But clearly they were better. at preventing him. Now, he was doing other things, but he didn't go off for 51 points. And part of that was him trying to facilitate. Part of that was they were just better. The inverse is tougher, right? It's a tougher calculus for Tyloo. They don't have the same personnel. Their defensive schemes aren't as good. They haven't been good defensively all year. Like, what can they possibly do? What can they adjust? That's the first thing always to me is you look at the personnel. And clearly, I mean, clearly Cleveland's personnel is not close to on par with what Houston had and with a bunch of switchy, personal high effort defenders led by someone like PJ Tucker who was just fantastic that series for the Houston Rockets. But not only that, because of that personnel, I think you're allowed to do a little bit more with your scheme. Like if they can help off, they're better at helping and recovering. There's better communication on the defensive end of the floor.

And that's one part that might be a little bit tough for Cleveland, communicating on the defensive end, communicating the right switches or the right non-switches. I'm sure that might help for them at home playing in games three and four. But maybe not if the scheme doesn't change because your personnel still isn't that great. Look, man, we've said it all year. It's really nothing new now. Cleveland's personnel is just not good around LeBron James. They gave up a first round pick for Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance.

Like, I didn't fault them for, okay, you had to shake it up, right? It clearly wasn't working chemistry-wise. The team was in trouble. LeBron just gave an interview to Rachel Nichols where he flat out said, like, if you had asked me before the trade deadline, if I thought that we were definitely going to the finals. I definitely wasn't thinking that the interview was fantastic. I highly recommend it. Rachel Nichols is excellent. You know what else he said? Is your relationship with Dan Gilbert going to play a role in your pregencies? Like, ha, ha, ha, ha, we'll see. Yeah, it was like, very

creptic, right? Big grin on his face. It's very great. It's like, yeah, we'll see. I don't, but I don't. La, brawn. Yeah. Oh, like, it was, it was, it was bad. And he was saying it was bad. And it was probably going to be bad with Dan Gilbert coming up. But like, for me, I don't fault them for making the switches at the trade deadline because they had chemistry. issues, fine. But I do, however, like, and even George Hill and Rodney Hood, those additions made sense to me. You needed a point guard of some sort because you've had point guard problems all year. George Hill is a good defender in theory or has been in the past, and he could help you a little bit.

theoretically. Rodney Hood theoretically to me made sense because I was like, oh, they need offense. He's a good score. This is going to be perfect for them. Hasn't been the case. The thing I didn't understand, even though you had to jettison Isaiah Thomas and Jay Crowder, the thing I didn't understand was giving up a first round pick for Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance. That's a killer. You know, the funny thing is when that deal happened, I almost overlooked that first round pick in a way. And I feel silly now looking back because it seems so ridiculous to give up the first. It's ridiculous.

But looking back in the moment, it's like, oh, you know, Larry Nance is pretty good. He's a young player. I thought Larry Nance would be good with LeBron. And maybe moving forward, he will be a good player. Larry Nance is still, you know, young. He's only 25 years old, which is. not super young, but young enough. Jordan Clarkson,

ooh, doesn't look good. I mean, I was hoping, and I'm sure the Cleveland front office felt the same way, is maybe you take these young 25-year-old players and stick them in a winning situation. Maybe their play elevates. And guess what? Maybe that happens if LeBron James returns next season to Cleveland,

maybe having a full summer, full training camp, a full season together. Maybe Larry Nance, Jr. and Jordan Clarkson do look better, just because it looks like crap right now doesn't mean it will later, but it certainly doesn't look good just to be fair. Yeah, it doesn't. We'll see if it looks any better coming up in games three and four as this series shifts to Cleveland.

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And now, back to Heech. All right, KEO, say I am on a plane. as people are listening to this, I'm on a plane. It's impressive. I'm in two places at once. I'm on a plane to Cleveland, four games, three and four. He's LeBron, right? He could steal a game.

We're really on a plane right now, Guns? We're on a plane. Imagine I'm everybody to put their thinking hats on. I get to use my imagination. So LeBron, what's he thinking right now? I mean, he's thinking, God damn it, I need better teammates. Why don't they make any shots? I wish J.R. Smith hadn't brainlocked in game one.

That was our best. In a way, that was. the game where that could have changed the face of the series, right? Not even in a way. You've got a split. Yeah. You've got a split three and four. But is it possible, though, that they go and they pull what Cleveland has been doing all

season long and they surprise this just because they play better at home and they steal one or even two? Sounds crazy to say Cam LeBron steal a game at his own gym. No, I don't think it's crazy at all. I don't because it's LeBron. But you just gave me that like two that might be asking too much. Okay. All right.

If this series is tied up two to two. heading back to Oracle for Game 5. I just want a good series. It would be really nice if it was a good series. There's no chance. I know. It's tied up two to two. So what about before we get into like what we think needs to change and what we think

will happen in these next two games. But Roger Sherman put it in our slack, if he gave us an over under for Cavs wins the rest of the series and put it out 1.5, what would you take? Under. So you think they won, right? I picked a suite before the series. You didn't pick a suite. You did pick a sweet.

Yeah, we did that too. point five. I gave them one game. Set the line at half, Roger. Come on. I gave them one game. So I guess I'm just hopeful because entertainment wise, I wanted a series and what we've gotten instead, there have been some fun like ancillary storylines. It's been fun that LeBron James wore crazy outfits and, you know, so did Jordan Clarkson. Jordan Clarkson. And they're barking at each other. And they clearly don't like each other. And they're all these like, like surface storylines that have nothing to do with basketball, nothing to do with the series. I just want more. of that like it can be sort of entertaining from a storyline standpoint because they don't like each other

but basketball wise game one was it was great i want more of that i mean that's what basketball's at its best obviously it's i'm captain obvious right now basketball's at its best when the games are good yes but it's true when the games are competitive that's what sparked some of those moments like the scuffle at the end of the game with tristan thompson thompson throwing the ball dream on green's face all that quote unquote other stuff competition breeds that and we're not going to get that if it's 122 103 blowout I want more good games, man. I do. And I think for that to happen,

what needs to happen for Cleveland is, again, they need to change the defensive scheme. They need to start blitzing, Stefan Curry, taking the ball out of his hands, and maybe you screw yourself on that doesn't work.

But again, they have to try. They have to try something else because Golden State right now, they essentially are operating their offense against no resistance. And I think Cleveland needs to create some friction on that end of the floor by just putting pressure on Stefan Curry

and making other guys have to make plays. Because right now what they're doing, one thing I like that they've done is they have LeBron James helping off of Draymond Green, who can't hit a three right now to save his life, for the most part. He's hit some here and there. Right.

But he's not a threat. So I think you need to apply that logic to other areas of the floor. Because right now, Javille McGee, Kavon, Lutie, Jordan Bell are scoring at will at the rim with your switching scheme. I think you need to do something a little bit different, A, to get the ball out of Steph's hands

and maybe allow fewer of those easy at-rim operators. too. What about starting lineup changes for the Cavaliers? I mean, I think we're at a point now where you got to throw something else at the wall and see if it sticks in the same way that you're saying, look, go out there. First, you're going to try to figure out a way to keep Kevin Love out of the perimeter pick and roll with Steph Curry. They keep putting them in that blender. It's not good for them. But two, blitzing Steph Curry. You're trying, you're taking a shot. Maybe it doesn't work, but what you're doing right now isn't working. But then I look at the starting lineup and I go, okay, for me, the obvious change would be Kyle Corver for J.R. Smith.

Like, bring in J.R. off the bench. J.R. hasn't been good. He's hurt you mentally. He's hurt you in terms of like his shooting in game two. Why not take a shot with Corver? What do you have to lose? I mean, it's not like Corver has been, he only played 17 minutes in game two. He didn't look great. And only, only 16 minutes in game one. Whereas J.R. Smith, 39 minutes in game one, 31 minutes in game two. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that they're going so heavy with JR and not giving any minutes to Kyle. This is just a theory. But my guess would be perhaps maybe it's a age factor with Kyle Corver.

Maybe they find that he's at his optimal level when he's playing in that 18 to 24 minutes per game range. I say that. And yet he played 31 and a half minutes per game against the Toronto Raptors during their sweep. And he was really fantastic that entire series. Right now, Go on and Say is really just smothering Kyle Corver. All those nice off ball actions that they run to. helps bring him open. They're on top of all of them. So maybe part of it is that you're just not going to get him going. Maybe the counter arguments are starting Kyle Corver is that it's not

going to work because of the way Golden State is defending him. But I do think you do need to switch it up. Maybe it's Rodney Hood. I know. I'm not trying to laugh. Maybe it's Rodney Hood. They're so screwed. They're so fast. Has anybody hurt their free agency stock more than Rodney Hood? No, besides Norlands, Noel. Besides Noel. New Orleans is number one.

Yeah, yeah. Nerlands is number one. Rodney Hood really truly totally fell off. I don't even know if it's Nerlens's fault, though, because Nerlons just didn't play. All either is eat hot dogs. There is a moment in the game, like with four minutes left, where Rodney Hood and Chetty Osmond and Jordan Clarkson checked in together,

and there's a picture of it. And I was like, well, that's the end. Dream team. That's the end. There's no chance of these guys getting back into it with these guys checking into the game. And yet those are the guys they maybe have to give a chance to. So the other day at Media Day, I think it was before Game 1. Like, I had some time to talk to Rodney Hood.

And a surprising development, not only does Ty Loo not want to play Rodney Hood, but the media doesn't really want to talk to Rodney Hood because he's been non-existent. But I was talking to him about it's a nice guy. He's a super nice guy. I was like, hey, man, it's been like kind of a crazy year for you. And he goes, yeah, you know, like, like as a team, it's great because we're in the finals. He goes, personally in the playoffs, it's been kind of up and down. And I was like kind of up and down.

What were you up? You had like 12 points on a loss against the Celtics. What other up did I miss? Like, it's been horrendous for him. What, did he respond to that? No, I was just thinking this in my head. No, no, no, I didn't. I didn't say it exactly.

I was, I was going to say, damn, like, that's pretty forward. God, no, no, no, I can port myself with much more, feel horrible, with much more decorum in these actual, but I was just thinking to myself, sweet Lord, man, like, yeah, like, he, but he was nice about it. And I think, like, obviously he wants to play about, like, if you're saying to me right now,

more Rodney Hood is the dart that you'd throw, I would say to you, one of the darts do you have, God's? I don't know, I came up a quarter, that was my dart. What are the, what are the darts do you get to throw out there? And that's what I mean, I think that that's why I, I mean, I'm, as, as my friend Gary Washburn knows from the Boston Globe.

I am the president of the Jadie Osmond fan club. You really are. I am the president of the Jettie Osmond fan club. It's you and Danny Chow at the ringer. You're like one in one A. Danny got super excited there when Chetty checked in for like eight seconds. He's the president of the Dante X of fan club.

Okay, fair enough. I am the president of the Jetty Osmond fan club and have been for many, many years now. And Jetty's a guy, look, he sounds silly saying Jetty Osmond and Ronnie Hood. We are going to help LeBron James win a game in the finals. but that's kind of where you are. Kind of where you are.

I think maybe another thing, Johns, maybe could start Jeff Green. I know that it sounds silly. You know, I was thinking about that. Over Thompson, just to switch it up. Well, so I was going to ask you, would you go, like in addition to,

that was going to be my next one, would you go small and take Thompson out and go with Green? The problem is when you go small, they're better at going small. Exactly. The Warriors are better going small. Playing into their hands.

Yeah. But on the other hand, LeBron James is at his best when he has four shooters around them. So maybe, maybe you do just throw, you know, gamble. Maybe it's two things, or maybe it's 100 things. Maybe it's going small.

Right. Maybe it's minimizing Larry Nance's role, minimizing Tristan Thompson's role and going small as much as you can. And it's also trying to get the ball out of Stephen Curry's hands against their smaller lineups when they have a guy like Drey Monoth the Five, who's obviously unbelievable, but then the other guys on the floor are like Sean Livingston, Nick Young. Yeah.

whoever else. Maybe they put Quink Cook out there, right? Maybe it's Patrick McCaw, who's not a great shooter at all. Quink Cook's actually probably the best shooter off their bench, maybe even ahead of Nick Young. But again, he's not, he's not again a guy that you're sweating about. You love Quinn Cook. You called that. No, I don't.

I don't have Quinn Cook. You talked about Quinn Cook on the He Check podcast several times. That's your guy. He's the president of the Osmond fan club, the Quinn Cook fan club. I'm not a Quinn Cook fan. He's a solid fourth point

guard. This is really where the finals is gone up the rails. We're talking about the NBA finals. And some of the names that are actually being discussed in a rotation are Quinn Cook, Patrick McCaw,

Jenny Osmond, Rodney Hood is falling off a cliff. Like old David West. Kavan Looney. Some of the names of the back of the rotations for both these teams are stunning for NBA finals. The 2018 NBA Finals, it's fantastic.

All right, before I let you go, before I let you go, before I get the hell out of your hotel room, uh, your prediction, you're, you're predicting that this is over, right? Like, it's going to be over in Cleveland. That's it. It's a wrap.

We're not coming back to the bay. I mean, it'd be great. I love San Francisco. It's really, it's very beautiful. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'd say a sweep just like I did before the series. I'm going to give LeBron one game in Cleveland. We'll see how that goes. There's going to be plenty more NBA, Ringer content coming up on the ringer.com this week.

You want to read all of our stories. I'll have a piece between games two and three on Wednesday. we'll have a whole bunch of other content and we'll also have podcasts. KOC will be back tomorrow with Verno previewing game three. We'll have a group chat on Wednesday night after game three.

That's a lot of fun. We'll have draft class on Friday plus a game four preview and of course the big boss man, Bill Simmons. You always want to listen to his podcast. He has great stuff. KOC, thank you so much.

Isaac back in the studio. Thank you so much and a special thank you to all the heat check listeners for sticking with us all season long and through the playoffs. It's been a lot of fun. All right, guys.

Bye.