The Zach Lowe Show - All Tied Up in the NBA Finals: What Happened and What to Watch for in Game 3. Plus, Offseason News, Notes, and Fake Trades With Michael Pina.

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Zach and Michael Pina discuss the 1-1 NBA Finals from the city of Game 3, Indianapolis (1:52). They talk about the keys to the Thunder's victory, what the Pacers can do to adjust, and much more. Then, with an eye toward the offseason, the pair discusses the Hawks' outlook (41:16), possible Kevin Durant trades (53:29), and the Giannis situation (1:07:34). Host: Zach Lowe Guest: Michael Pina Producers: Jesse Aron, Jonathan Frias, and Mike Wargon The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Get started today at HubSpot.com/AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Coming up on the Zach Lowe show live from an undisclosed hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm here for the finals, baby. It's 1-1. It's exciting, 1-1. Game 3 is going to be fun. We got Michael Pina from the ringer. to come on. He was at the first two games in Oklahoma City.

He broke down what happened, how the thunder got even in a game that they kind of controlled all the way through and never ceded control over. We're going to dig deep into the X's. And O's the stakes, how Halliburton's got to play better going forward for Indiana, to have a chance. And what of this series is going to go back to OKC-22-3-1? What direction would it be 3-1? Then we're going to talk fake-duran trades because Kevin Durant's going to get traded and it's

fun to talk about fake trades. The latest noise with Janice, the Hawks making some front office moves in the Tray Young situation, which I'm endlessly intrigued by, much more intrigued than almost anybody in the world. I realize I have a thing for the Hawks. Darius Garland's injury update. We got a lot to talk about, and we're going to talk about it on the Zach Lowe show with Michael Pina. Stay tuned. Hope you enjoy it. And listen up.

You're listening to The Zach Lowe show presented by Fanduel. America's number one sportsbook has made it easier than ever to get in on the action during. the NBA finals and with live betting, the tip-off is just the beginning. Look for the live SGP tab on the Fandil Sportsbook app and build your bet slip. Then sit back and enjoy the game as you track the outcome of your parlay right in the app. If you don't already have it, download the Fandul app today and make every moment more. The ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Visit RG-Help.com to learn more about the resources and help plans available.

And listen to the end of this episode for additional details. It must be 21 and over in President Select States or 18 and over in President D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Helph.com. Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show live from Indianapolis. Indiana. The Zach Lowe Show has joined the NBA Finals Party. Michael Pina from the Ringer.com has been there all the long,

fresh from Oklahoma City. How loud was it last night for the Thunder's rousing game two win? A game that they had control of almost the entire time, just like they had control of game one, almost the entire time. This time there was no Indiana magic. There was a lot of Shea Gilchrist's Alexander Magic, a masterpiece performance from him. How was the atmosphere? Were the fans nervous?

Was it just unbridled enthusiasm? What do we got? Atmosphere was tremendous. This was my first experience in Oklahoma City, games one and two of this finals. And arguably the loudest arenas I've ever been in two games, two performances I've ever experienced. It was ear splitting. Shut out to them.

just an insane atmosphere all around. We are one-one, just where you want to be for a neutral fan, just exactly where you want to be. Oklahoma City is plus 15 for the series after a one-point loss and a 16-point win. You know, the Pacers have to be thrilled to have gotten the split. They're coming home for two. We could be in for a long series. I don't know.

I picked Thunder in five before the series. That was pretty close to a consensus pick. I modified the Thunder in six-ish after game one. Nothing in Game 2 really changed my thought process that the Thunder should win this series in certainly less than seven games. But the Pacers, man, you just can't. Even last night, you probably felt it in the building. I just kept waiting. I kept waiting, get it down to nine, get it down to eight.

Something crazy is going to happen. I think these crowds in Indiana are going to be crazy. And, you know, they could easily get one out of two here and it's two, too. I would be surprised if it's 3-1 going back to Oklahoma City, 3-1 in favor of the Pacers. But I don't know, what's your gut feel on the series after we've seen? Two games where it feels like, and this is what's fun about a playoff series, it still feels like there's some mystery to this matchup. You know, obviously in the finals you're facing, you have opponents that have only faced each other twice.

In this case, Chet Holmgren missed both of the games. Other guys from the Pacers missed a game here, a game there. So it's really fresh, and game two was different. In game one, we saw a little bit of double big, some lineup changes, some rotation changes, some scheme changes. But it just still, there's a lot of mystery to it still. That's kind of appealing. Where are you standing so far? I don't know if I necessarily agree 100% with that.

I had Thunder in five in this series, and that was my prediction. And obviously, game one was one of the wildest basketball games you'll ever see. and not a lot of it made sense after watching it and processing it. And Game 2 really played out, I think, more how I thought this series would go in a lot of ways. And, you know, Mark Dagnall kind of summed it up after the game when he was talking about how more comfortable the Oklahoma City Thunder looked on both ends after adapting and adjusting to Indiana's just unnatural playing style. their pace, their ball pressure, their full court tenacity. And I honestly felt like, you know, the series obviously isn't over. I don't want to say that.

It's kind of the same script as Oklahoma City versus Denver and Denver won game three after getting blown out in game two. But I just, I feel like the Thunder looked way more comfortable in game two and figured some things out. they, as you alluded to and stated, they went back to their double big a little bit. They didn't play AJ Mitchell at the start of the second quarter. They tightened the rotation. And I don't know.

I just, I just, I think that Oklahoma City should feel pretty good about where they sit right now. They should. They should. I mean, they probably would have liked to have been up 2.0. But even when they were down 1.0, I went on with Bill right after the game. I said, it's not like I think Indiana is not going to win the series. I compared it to how I felt after Miami and Denver were. I think it was 1-0 Miami in that series or whatever it was.

It was definitely 1-1 after two games. And I was like, I'm not really worried about it. Denver's going to win the series. And Denver ended up winning in five. But, you know, it's an interesting matchup. And they did look, even in looking more comfortable last night, they were still a little, they're still going for the knockout blow. Like even some of the Aaron Wiggins three is.

And we should shot out Aaron Wiggins and Caruso off the bench, joining Shea for two masterpiece games at their own. Some of those shots are like, okay, settle down, Aaron Wiggins. Just like right off an offense rebound or you're shooting again. Okay. J.L.N. Williams was a little skittish. That's skittish, a little just like hyperactive, I felt like at the start of the game. But it is one-one.

Thunder should feel good about where they are, I think, after dropping game one, despite dropping game one. And it starts with their defense. The Pacers, 109 points per 100 possessions after two games. Not great would rank toward the very bottom of the NBA and the regular season. And obviously, the spotlight goes to Halliburton. Fifteen a game so far in the series. Five turnovers in game two, which is supposed to be his superpower, is not turning over the ball. I mean, his whole superpower, the Pacer's whole superpower is we play a style, pass happy,

motion happy, super fast that is supposed to produce as sort of a downstream effect. A lot of turnovers that we just live with because the risks and the gambles and the movement produce such great shots, but we don't actually turn the ball over. In game two, they did five for Halliburton. How is Oklahoma City defending Halliburton and what can the Pacers do to unlock him? I mean, a lot of how they're defending him is they're just defending him with awesome players and they have no even below average or even average defensive players for him to really pick at. But is there anything schematically that's interesting to you that they are doing to him?

I don't know. I mean, they're up into him, obviously, very physical. Lou Doord, Alex Caruso, Kaysen Wallace. I guess watching that game, I didn't really feel like Halliburton was bad or anything like that. I felt like it was more the Oklahoma City Thunder's defense was just amazing. And, you know, obviously they do a tremendous job getting back in transition. and if you're going to, I think, criticize Halliburton a little bit, it would be, you know, they didn't runoff makes as well as they normally do. They didn't push when they did get turnovers.

They weren't able to capitalize a little bit. That's not all on Halliburton. But the big thing, I think, after the game was just Indiana's inability to touch the paint. And that was a big, I think, issue for them in terms of not being able to kind of play. their style and get the type of threes. They took a lot of threes, but a lot of them were not the type of threes that they want, the touch the paint, kick threes, spot-ups.

You know, Indiana's paint touch on offensive chances in game two was 52%. And for the sake of comparison during the regular season, the Celtics ranked dead last in the league at 54%. Pacers are usually a little higher than 60% on the percentage of their offensive chances where they touch the paint. And so that's just a big thing, but I don't know necessarily what like huge adjustment you can make beyond telling Halliburton to be a little bit more aggressive, flying off ball screens.

You can play them off ball a little bit more, have him come off, wide pin downs, curl into the paint, try to suck the help in. But Oklahoma City's defense is just so boxes and elbows and they're so physical. it's just, it's a lot. And so I don't, I don't necessarily know what big adjustment they can make beyond be more aggressive Halliburton. And that's like really a tough thing to ask when he's, he's making a lot of the right reads. He made a lot of the right reads early in the game, I thought, out of pick and roll based on how

they were covering him, you know, with the big's up to touch. But yeah, I just, I don't know. They're so, Oklahoma City's defense is one of the best we've ever seen. So I don't know. It's just a challenge for him to kind of figure out. and so far he's struggled. I mean, look, this is what we do to the best players. Like, every single game is a referendum on their manhood and their toughness and how bad they want it.

And it's like, I'm watching the game. And I'm like, I'm not really sure what else Tyrese Halliburton is supposed to do. Like, this defense is just that good. That said, I've talked to people within the Pacers for weeks now about Halliburton and how he plays. and there's this internal belief in the team that he's one of those rare players whose best scoring games also coincide with his best assist games. There's no pusher pull with if I'm going to score more. That means I'm going to assist less. It's like the more he is aggressive, the more the whole machine works faster and more officially.

And I think there's probably something to that. But look, all of these teams, first of all, Halliburton's pick and roll usage has been through the roof the last two rounds of the playoffs. The finals and the conference finals are like six of his 10 most voluminous pick and roll games of the whole season are in those series, which means under stress, this is where the pacer's are going. Even when it feels like they're turning the keys over to Andrew Nemhart, which sometimes they do, it's just a ton of Tyrese Halliborne. And the difference between the Knicks and the Thunder is that there's just less variety that he can go to in the pick and roll. There's no Jalen Brunson that he can run guard, guard pick and roll at and figure out sort of how the Knicks are how the defense is going to hand. handle that. What's going to open? There is no guard. There's no guard guard. There's no guard wing. There's not even like a Halliburton-Chiom because they're designing the defense to switch that two-man

game every time. It's just one big lever that they cannot pull in this series. You want to hunt Shea Gilges Alexander with Tyrese Aller, and that's not anything. Like, that's nothing. She's fine with that. If you get Shee, if you get Shee on Pascal, one thing I am tired of, it's like five times a game through the first two games. They get that switch with 12, 13, 15 on the shot clock, and they do nothing with it. Part of that is Pascal. He goes into the post. They don't get on the ball. He flows out to the corner. Part of it is just like, part of it is that it's really scary to throw an entry pass

against this team. And we saw Shea steal the ball from him once or twice in game two. Shea is one of the best in the league at what for most players is an over-the-back foul trying to steal and bad away an entry pass. He is awesome at jumping up, reaching over. not touching the body of the guy who's getting the ball and whapping the ball away. But part of it is just like you got to get Pascal the ball. Pascal's got to demand the ball.

Now, and then you hit on their bigs. I thought Holmgren and Hartinstein were awesome in game two, corraling Halliburton, but not blitzing him. And then getting back to Miles Turner right in time with Miles Turner's role or pop or whatever. And kind of not confusing, but leaving Halliburton without any clear. options. I thought they were awesome. And just more broadly, like most smart teams that play the Pacers, they're never going to blitz Tyrese Halliborne because they know that's just going to ignite. He's going to make the right read. The passing is going to, the sequences are going to get triggered.

Someone's going to get a quarter to three. They're trying to make him a dribbler. Go ahead and prod into the lane. Take 10 dribbles on this pick and rule. Be Chris Paul, because we know that's not how you want to play. And I think when people say he's got to get more aggressive, and we saw this in his best game against the Knicks, I think it was game four, where he had like 30 and 15 or something. And he just took, he saw that and he took it. He's like, you want me to take elbow jumpers? I'll take some elbow jumpers.

You want me to snake my way into the lane and drive all the way to the rim and take layups? I'll take layups. And I think right off the bat, we're going to have to see him do that a little bit more against Oklahoma City's bigs because there's just nowhere else for him to pick at. It's just going to have to be a lot of where's home grid, where's Hartenstein. like what can I manage with these guys in the two-man game? Yeah, there was one play halfway through the second quarter that kind of stands out now that I'm thinking about where I can nitpick Halliburton even though I don't want to. But there was one play where he got Chet on a switch, which is not really how the Oklahoma City Thunder want to defend him.

And he just couldn't do anything with Chet. And usually Halliburton is excellent, dancing behind the three-point line and getting guys off balance. And he ended up passing to, I believe it was Ben Shepard in the Strongside Corner and Kenrich Williams ran out there and forced a turnover with his ball pressure. And that was another possession where there was no pain touch for the Indiana Pacers. And so possessions like that, you just got to capitalize. The margin for error is, maybe not error. The margin for anything is just so slim with the Oklahoma City Thunder. So when you get those, not really a mistake, but when you get those advantage,

is you just have to take advantage of that. You have to capitalize. And I thought the possessions like that spoke to Halliburton's relative struggles in this game. Yeah, Chet was awesome on both ends of the floor. He was great Chet, bounce back game. He played more minutes, which was like the easiest possible adjustment to make between games one and two. A couple of other things you mentioned, transition chances for both teams and how kind of limited they seem. The defenses are just unbelievable.

I mean, unbelievable. I said before the series, these are the two. best defensive transition teams in the league. They have absolutely lived up to it. They are shutting down the best transition offenses in the league, which are also themselves. Neither of these teams can get anything in transition. I mean, not anything. You get a run out now and then, but even those are like super contested at the rim.

Guys are just flying back. These teams are fast. They're tenacious. They're well positioned. And neither of them can get going in transition. Oklahoma City, I mentioned this after game one. it was their worst offensive performance after steals in the entire season, and it was not close. And obviously, they had 9,000 steals in game one and did nothing with it.

Game two, fewer steals, production almost just as bad. Like the live ball turnovers are not hurting Indiana so far. And I went into why that was in game one. Number two, you mentioned something really important, as an aside, which is get Halliburton going off the ball. Now, I'm not saying that you got to flip your entire offense on its head and like install 25 new plays they get Halepard and doing this and curling around and all of a sudden he's JJ Reddick. But they have that stuff in their playbook. And I just think they're going to have to stretch the playbook to its absolute limits. And it can't just be like out of timeouts.

We suddenly run this back screen play that gets a switch and this and that. It's just got to be in the flow of their offense. They have to be more unpredictable. and part of that is using Halliburton in different ways and leveraging the fact that Siakum can handle the ball, including an inverted pick and rolls, that Nemhart can handle the ball some. After that, it falls off a little bit unless McConnell's in the game. Or Matherin.

Mathrin certainly is hungry to handle the ball for better or worse. I thought he played all right yesterday. I think they're just going to have to stretch the playbook to their limit. But to me, it all comes back to Halliburton Turner on the pick and roll. If they're going to be able to switch the Seacom two-man game, there were a little pokes at that Halliburton Turner two-man game where I thought they got good stuff and kind of confused Oklahoma City's defense a little bit. There was one where Turner popped for three and nobody rotated to him. Hartinstein had dropped back to take Halliburton on the drive and kind of

expected someone to go out and get Turner, whether it was the guard switching out or a third guy rotating over. Nobody did. And he missed a wide open three. Then there was another one where two people rotated out to Miles Turner and Andrew Nemhart was just like hey no one's guarding me I'm under the rim can someone pass me to the ball and like they're just little they're gonna have to they're gonna have to leverage that two man game for all it's worth but these

are just like I mean this this is the only answers that are really available against this team and I do want to say it's not just in transition like I think Indiana is playing a pretty sound defensive series almost across the board like they had some defensive plays last night chasing around

she contesting out the shooters like damn they really have become over the course of a season a damn tough and good defensive. Like Halliburton's flying out there contesting threes. Like I think they're defending pretty well and well enough to make this a series. They've just got to scrounge some points in the half court. And I don't know. I mean, I'm sure Rick is, Rick Carlisle is a genius. He's cooking something up.

I don't know what else there is to cook up. Yeah, I think two things I just want to say. One is Oklahoma City had four fast break points. in game two, which is four? It's like they had four fast break points

in game two. And it's one of those things where if you're Indiana, you're controlling the controllables and you're doing an excellent job. And if you, you know, if you hit four more threes

or something like that, because as you talked about, Turner had a few wide open ones off of Oklahoma City mistakes. If he knocks those down, if Obi-Toppan hits a couple wide-open ones, it's just a more competitive game in the second half because this team,

if it's within 12, 13 points, I mean, it's basically tied with five minutes to go. The other thing I just want to say is one of the more interesting rotational moves that Rick Carlisle made in the first half when they couldn't get anything going and they couldn't really penetrate Oklahoma City's defense was he played Obie Toppin at the five without Siakum or Bryant or Turner on the court. Me not, me not like don't like.

Would not like to see again. Yeah. Would not like any of the, if we could mothball the Obey Topin Thomas Bryant combo. We could mothball that one. And Oklahoma City very smartly was like, okay, double big now. Double big, put it out now.

See, Akum's gone. Turner's gone double big. I don't want to see it anymore. Yeah. So Topin playing at the five with four wings slash guards, you know, very short stint. I think they were like minus one in it or something like that. Kneesmith did have a driving layup

layup off a play where they were able to kind of spread Chet Holmgram out a little bit and swing it side to side. It's a tough layup. I'm not count on Aaron Neesmith making that shot again. That's fair.

It's a tough layup. Chet was right there, both hands up. Very tough shot. Fair, probably not sustainable. But that was just something I was keeping my eye on as someone, Rick Carlisle,

who is really trying to push buttons here to get more space with this Oklahoma City defense, which is just so amazing. I can cover so much ground. The NBA finals are here. It all comes down to this. And Fandle is turning the excitement up even more with an all-customer profit boost for every game of the series,

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A couple more. Tyrese missed most of the threes. How many threes did Halliburton make last night? One, two, you got a lot of good looks and missed most of them. Like, good looks. Some of them were good. There's not a bounce play. You got a good look.

I should have the box score up is what I should have if I were a responsible podcast. I'll say, don't. And I'm not looking it up. Anyway. He was three for eight. He was three for eight. Okay. One of them was, on to my point about stretching the playbook,

staggered screens, and Indiana is genius at this. I believe Oklahoma City had both their big men on the floor. And so they called a staggered pick and roll for Halliburton with the two Indiana bigs to involve the two Oklahoma City bigs. And they do this thing where most staggered screens, the guys are pretty close together. Indiana will separate the screeners by like 15 feet. And it just makes the defense like, what is this? Like, what's happening here?

And he pulled up for three between the screens because everybody thought he'll just use the second one and we'll switch there a couple of it. And he didn't. And he's just like, oh, no one's on me. I'm going to pull up. And then they got a couple of good threes off very smartly leveraging Oklahoma City's tendency to flood the paint against the thunder by setting little flare screens. Like if two guys are on the same side of the floor and they flood the paint,

one guy, Miles Turner is very good at this, will set a flare screen for the corner shooter. Nemhart got a three out of that. Do you just got to stretch it to the limit? And it's like it's very hard to play A plus half court possessions over and over again against a defense that's like, if you glance for a nanosecond over to see if the flare screen is happening, we're just going to take the ball. Like, we will take the ball. If the referees are going to let us take the ball, we're going to take the ball over and over again. They're just an awesome defensive team.

What did you think of SGA's game, I thought was awesome. That's not a hot take. But how the Pacers are trying to deal with him in the pick and roll, how he is. dealing with their defense and like what room to maneuver is there there? Yeah, I thought he played a much, much, much better game in game two. I thought he was more poised. I thought he was more patient. I thought his decision making out of the pick and roll was masterful.

A lot of it was off screens, ball screens that were set at mid court. Isaiah Hartnstein, once he checked into the game, I thought his picks were excellent, which was something that was lacking in game one to free Shea up. They even set some screens in the back court. And yeah, he was fantastic rejecting screens, fantastic splitting screens when they were hunting Halliburton, who was kind of helpless in this matchup. I don't know what the numbers are when he was brought into the action,

but they seemed to get pretty good looks almost every single time. When Turner was up high, you know, he would be able to split that if you brought Topin or Seacom or whoever. I thought SGA was just really hard to corral. And like if you are Indiana, I don't know if it's necessarily you want to make this huge adjustment here and you want to maybe be a little bit more conservative and not go 94 feet pressing him or what you want to do.

But I just think you need to execute better. I think Aaron Neasmith and Andrew Nemhart are so good typically at fighting over and ducking underscreens. They died on screens in this game. And that's just you can't do that against SGA and the Oklahoma City Thunder offense. And so I thought, I thought Shay was just, I mean, like 10 out of 10 performance from him. I really loved when he was able to get downhill and like set both feet, playoff two feet, survey what's happening, not immediately shoot it, which is what he was doing in game one. and he said after game two,

you know, criticizing Game 1's performance, it was just very sticky was the word he used, and he didn't like how, you know, it sucked that they had that type of performance on such a big stage. But I just thought everyone really adjusted to how to play off of Shea and the pick and roll a little bit better. And he adjusted in just terms of being more patient,

looking for shooters, spraying the ball out, trusting his teammates. So it was just a really excellent performance from Shea. Yeah, he was, he just had the whole game on his string. Just, just, I mean, and the craft that he's got in tight spaces is ridiculous. Change a pace. I've read before about him that he's one of the only players I can remember where it looks to the naked eye. Like different parts of his body are moving at different speeds and in different directions at the same time.

Somehow he's just this unckees. an X-Man. He's just an uncanny player. The Pacers have made it to your point about pressing him, right, and like bringing the bigs up. Like Thomas Bryant, God bless you, you got no chance trying to corral this dude 35 feet from the room. You got no chance. He's going to get around you. He's going to split you.

You're drawing dead. Miles Turner, pretty good defensive player. He's almost drawing dead. Obie Toppin is a traffic cone. These guys cannot get out and press him. And then you start to wonder, like, well, could they sit back a little bit? And the Pacers, I think, have smartly decided the one thing we're not going to do is let this dude walk in to 18-foot jump shots.

We're just not going to do it. And if it comes at the cost of us getting eaten alive 30 feet from the rim, if it comes at the cost of us putting two guys on him 30 feet from the rim and he burns both of them and gets into the paint with a head of steam, we're going to have to live with that because he's not going to be able to meander and walk and pace his way in to his home. favorite, favorite shots. He's going to be in a rush where slowing down is going to be difficult, and we are going to meet him with everything we've got in the paint. We're going to leave almost literally everyone else on the floor open and force him to make snap decisions on the move. And sometimes he's going to hit floaters. Sometimes he's going to Euro step for a layup around our help. He got an incredible N1. Sometimes he's going to take a shot that maybe is preferable to kicking it out to whoever else is open.

And sometimes Caruso or Dort or whoever is going to get a pretty open three. And we're just going to have to do our best to contest it. And I think maybe they're overdoing that strategy where now the thunder can see it coming every single time. And by the way, we barely have seen any zone from Indiana. I think they've played like three possessions of it. And right away, the thunder hit. Ironically, the thunder hit them right away with like Rick Carlisles of all people's

favorite play against the zone defense. And just bam, Jay Will got a foul out of it. J-dub, sorry, J-dub, respect to J-Will, the other J-dub, not J-will, or just dub. But maybe they're overdoing that pressure strategy. I get why they're doing it. Maybe they have to mix up more looks, but, you know, I just, like, they're playing it pretty well. And I just, like, they're forcing him to make passes, and he made more passes in game two. Chet got some threes.

And by the way, everyone was, like, raving about the passing. they threw 237 passes in game two. Now that's up from, I think there were like 208 in game one, which was a season low, according to tracking data for all games like ever this season. Yeah, it was a circle low, yeah. 237 was 90th out of 100 Thunder games so far the season. So it's not like they turned into the 2014 spurs out there, and I thought they got a little stagnant in parts of the third quarter, but they definitely moved the ball better. And part of the passing thing is like the total vaporization. vaporizing of their transition game

is probably taking away like six bang, bang, bang, passing sequences every game that are just not there. But I don't know. What, like, I don't know what else they're supposed to do against SGA. Maybe a little more zone, maybe switching up defenses now and then,

but he's just going to get where he wants to go, man. Yeah, I thought one, on one possession, they went zone. And I just thought in my head that it was designed to, protect Halliburton and I think they got a turnover out of it. But yeah, they didn't really run at a ton and maybe that's something we see more of going forward. You know, I thought that his decision making when he was isolated on the left wing, if they did not send help, he was absolutely cooking Nemhard or Mathurin or whoever he was on and that, it was ever, whoever was on him.

And then when they did send help, he got off it, hit cutters. It was like swing, swing, Caruso at a corner three, Wiggins sit and above the corner three. And so just like triggering the ball movement with the aggression, I thought was really excellent. And then this is kind of a side note, but when we're talking about passing, I thought Hartenstein, like,

when we're talking about like being more comfortable against Indiana's defense and just kind of how up into you they want to play, and everything. Hartenstein hitting Isaiah Joe on a back cut, Hartenstein hitting SGA on a back cut, and then SGA kicking out to Caruso for a corner three that he ended up missing, but was an okay look. Like that stuff is really, it really stood out to me when I'm talking about like, oh, this team is way more comfortable and kind of understands how to attack how Indiana wants to defend them. It's one of the reasons I missed the double big lineup. And look,

I called for them to play small more over and over before the series. I thought it was a much better one big series for them than any other prior matchup they had been versus two bigs. I didn't think they would just go full scale, erase the double big lineup like they did in game one. And part of the reason I like that group is because of Hartinstein's passing. And particularly the Hartinstein home grand two-man big-to-big passing, which got a lob dunk. And it just, it just energizes their entire. You can feel like it's like an electric current pulsing through their offense. Like, okay, now things are moving a little bit.

He hit Caruso. There was a sequence where the free agency signings or free agency and trade acquisitions of the summer of 2024, kind of put the game to bed in the third quarter. And it was all Hardinstein and Caruso. Hartinstein hit Caruso in the dunker spot on a pick and roll for a layup. And then Siakum, and I mentioned this after game one, see Akum has a cross match in a line. of these possessions if Indiana rushes the floor up because he's guarding Dort and Dort's guarding Halliburton. And in the crisscrossing of Dort trying to find Halliburton,

Siakum sometimes has a favorable matchup or no matchup. And they need to get to that. And after that Caruso bucket, they got to it. And it was Shea on Siaccom at half court. And Hartenstein saw it and sprinted up and poked the ball away from behind, dove on the floor to save it. And it got Caruso a three down the line. It was like these two guys who were just, just purely additive. They took away nothing from what the Thunder were or represented or nothing from their sort of identity and ethos of how they play and added more stuff and they kind of put the game away.

You mentioned Halliburton pick and roll defense. I actually think this has been a successful defensive postseason for Halliburton. What do you think of? I mean, I'm not to say he's like now a plus defender or anything, but I, I, I, I think, I'm not to say he's, like, now a plus defender or anything, but I think he's fought enough and used his length enough and hedged and gotten out of bad matchups with enough facility that like it hasn't really damaged their team. Yeah, I thought in the Eastern Conference finals

that he was very active when they would hunt him. He forced some turnovers. He was able to hedge and recover quickly without getting, like putting his team too much in rotation. So I thought that overall, you know, that was one thing that I was thinking about particularly going back to the, the Cavs series. I thought that he was going, that was going to be a series where he would be a little bit more exposed on the defensive end. And again, I thought he held up fine. And this is kind of a different animal a little bit.

You're going up against the MVP of the league. And he was just a little out of sorts. Not only when, you know, whoever was guarding Shay got caught on a screen, but there was one play where, and I think this happened also in game one a little bit, but he's on Wallace. Wallace goes up to set a screen. And in this situation in game two, Wallace stopped like around, I don't know, like about the top of the key maybe and Halliburton kept going.

And SGA saw two on him and he just flipped it to Kaysen Wallace. Kaysen Wallace took two dribbles, hit a little floater. And that's just a play where It just kind of speaks to how vulnerable they are When Halliburton is involved in the play, I thought. Okay, you want to get nerdy like this? Let's do it. The Thunder's screening in game two.

And usually when you complement a team screening, it's like they really hit some people. They knock some people over. They set some scouts. They did a little bit of that. Hardinstein's very good at that. The variety of their screens and like not screens, like what you're describing is,

not screen. Like, Jason Wallace walked up in the general direction of Shea Gilderce Alexander as if he was going to set a screen, stopped 15 feet away from him as soon as Tyrese Halliburton went to double. It was like a total non-screen hit a floater. Al Horford in his prime used to be one of the best bigs ever to do that. He would set these non-screens. Paul Millsap, do the Millsap-Horford Hawks were amazing at this. And just flipping the angle of the screens at the last minute.

Chet is really good now at setting flat screens for Halliburton, which means your butt is facing the baseline directly and you're not screening in either direction. You just leave it. I'm not for Halliburton, for Shea. You just leave it up to Shea to make the read and Shea just waits for, okay, what's this sucker going to guess? Which way is he going to guess? He's going to reveal himself first and I'm going to go the other way.

It was just a really creative offensive game for them. But when they do involve Halliburton, a couple of things. Number one, the little soft switch that he's doing now and then where he kind of just slides over horizontally, tries to cut off Shea, and ends. up kind of switching on to him, you can't do that anymore. You're just, you're dead. He's going to, he's just going to dribble right through you, right around you, you're dead. When he trapped and forced Shea to kick the ball to, like, Lou Dort or whoever, they got some steals out of that, they got some bad threes out of that. Like trap is better than like

soft switch. Number two, when he hedges like that and they hit his guy rolling to the basket, Indiana is doing this thing where Halliburton will peel over to a shooter somewhere else on the floor, and they'll try to rearrange the assignments on the fly. and the Thunder are starting to figure that out and figure out ways to confuse them when they're running around like that and that Wiggins 3 you pinpointed one of what he did at 5? What a Wiggins game. One of them was when he was a screener

and instead of rolling to the basket, he kind of took two steps to the basket and then Moon walked back out and just stood at the three-point arc and nobody ever found him. No one found him again. Halliburton had rotated somewhere else. No one found him. He was just wide open.

It's just hard, man. It's hard to defend Shea. it's hard to defend these guys. If I had an answer, I'd work for an NBA team. I don't have an answer. I don't work for any NBA teams. I will say this. Fans who want a long, long series really need to be rooting for Indiana to win game three.

Because I think if Oklahoma City wins game three on the road, they're going to start to smell blood in the water. And we could have a 3-1 series going back to Oklahoma City. And then, you know, we know what's looming after that. If it's 2-1, Indiana, it's just a completely different season. If it's 2-1 Oklahoma City and it's like semi-comfortable, they win by eight or nine, I fear for what is coming after that. But it's in Indiana.

And Indiana is legit. I just think there's, look, on paper, scoring margin, all of that, it's a mismatch. I just think we have to tip our cap and say Indiana is just way better than its record and its metrics. There's something happening here that's real. Yeah, it's really not even about Indiana. I have a lot of respect for Indiana. I think they're incredible.

I love how they play. They're so fun. They're aesthetically breathtaking. It's more about Oklahoma City and how great that team is and how great that team has been from wire to wire. And they have the league MVP and they can play all these different lineups. And they have some of the best of, I mean, they have an all defensive team literally on their roster. So it's just like the two series that were really, I was thinking about the most from the past, the two finals from the past were Jordan's first finals against the Lakers. lose game one. They win the next four

games. Hold on. Hold on. Were you alive for that series? Were you alive for that series? I was, technically, yes, I was alive. Okay. Because I was in middle school. I was in middle school and I was cheering for the

Lakers because they were underdogs and magic was at his twilight and Sam Perkins hits the big shot to win game one and I was imitating the Perkins shot the next day at school. So I just wanted to put for the record. Like just, I actually watch the series. Yeah, shout out to you.

I didn't. I was four years old, I believe. And then the other one is a series I did watch, staying up past my bedtime, was the Allen Iverson step-over game, Tailu, and then win game one, and then they just get smoked the rest of the series. And that's kind of,

those are the two series I was thinking about when I was thinking about the rest of this finals and how I thought it would play out, to be honest. And again, that's like not anything, about Indiana. I love Indiana. It's just about OKC. They're incredible. I thought that their response was exactly what everyone who watched them all year expected to see. And they delivered. And it's just so hard to make adjustments and execute them against this team. This episode is brought to you by Men's Warehouse. So you've looked at all the data.

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With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at Adobe.com slash Firefly. All right, let's get to some news around the league. And we'll go from, we'll just go quick about a bunch of things. Number one, the Atlanta Hawks announced a couple front office hirings today. Bryson Graham is coming from New Orleans and Peter Dinwiddie is coming from Philadelphia. They will work under Onsi Saleh, who is hired from the Warriors. All of the big names, GMs or agents that were reportedly in contention to go above Onsi

are obviously out of the mix. Now, this is his team. And also, I think Quinn Snyder's team, I think this is a, this is a signal that Quinn Snyder is maybe going to be the most important non-ownership voice on the team. And look, I have a thing for the Hawks. I just am endlessly intrigued by the Hawks for reasons that no one else understands. I think they're actually in a much stronger position going forward than people might realize. No, it's not. I don't think they're like a championship contender or anything like that.

I just think the DeJante Murray retrade, which just completely transformed. the DeJante Murray retrade, the emergence of Dyson Daniels as like a legit plus starter, and Jalen Johnson looking like a future All-Star before he got injured, those three events together, let alone what a Congu did in the second half of the season and getting Risa Shea looking pretty good. I think they're in a pretty strong position. And I just, I'm just so curious about what any of this means, if anything, for Tray Young, who looms is one of the bigger sort of.

franchise defining dominoes in the NBA, and not that Tray Young is like even a top 15. I don't know where I would have him. I didn't have him on an all NBA team this year, but he was borderline. Borderline. He has a $49 million player option for 26, 27, which effectively makes him an expiring contract once the calendar flips to July 1. It has been fanciful for everyone to suggest, well, they just got to get off Tray Young. Can't extend him.

It's too much money. He's not good enough. he's held the franchise hostage with his style of play long enough. Get what you can get. I can't believe I'm saying this now on June 9th, 2025. I kind of want the Hawks to keep Trey Young long term. And one of the reasons I think, one of the reasons is I don't think there's a great market for him. So I don't think there's a trade out there that completely just reorients the franchise in a positive way.

And so if I'm them, here's what I'm doing if I'm Quinn Snyder and Quinn Snyder's glasses and Oncet Soleil. I am being like, look, we'll extend you, but it's got to be like one of these, it's flat or it comes down and it's flat. Like, we're not giving you the max. I know you've been the franchise guy. I know we made the conference finals four years ago and kind of a fluky year for the East and have been playing MVP's since then. But if I can extend him at a number that's like their cap sheet is pretty clean. if I can extend him at a decent number, I just kind of like their team. And I do think he changed his style of play a little bit, just enough to make,

okay, is something happening here, is something interesting happening here? And then Jalen Johnson got hurt and the whole thing kind of got short-circuted a little bit, and they went back to their play in ways. I just, I just want to, like, I think that, I guess what I'm saying is, I think there's hope for like a Trey Young mid-career metamorphosis. this is too strong of a word, but I could see like in a year, in 10 months, it's like, oh my God, the Hawks are like up to one in the second round, and Tray Young is moving off the ball a little bit and blah, blah, blah.

Like, I could see it. I could see it. And I, that's what I think that's what I would do because I don't think there's three first round picks and a prospect or anything like that for Tray Young on the market right now. I love this take and this opinion and that process from you. I couldn't agree more. particularly when you said the part about him not resigning for the max or getting a max extension, that's pretty critical here if you're going to keep them long term.

And I can tell you exactly, he's switched agents. I think he's in C.A. And I can tell you he's going to walk in there and say, and his agents are going to walk in there and say, what are you kidding me? This is Ice Trey, man. This is Ice Trey. He does this thing. He does this thing.

All the kids do this thing when they make baskets. He makes shots from the logo. Like, that's cool. You make shots from the logo. People like that. People actually come to Hogs games kind of now because of Troy Young. He's a franchise guy. Like, if I were his agent, this is what I would say.

He's a franchise guy. You don't treat franchise guy. You treat Rudy Goldberg like this. You ask Rudy Gobert to take a discount in his late 20s, early 30s. That's like... That's literally the name that I was thinking of when you said the whole thing about. That's what they did with Rudy Gaubert. And I can picture Tray Young and his people saying,

hey, look, there could be more teams with CapSpace in 2026. It's a dangerous game you're playing. And there could be more teams with CapSpace. We also don't know. Any projection of CapSpace now is only half useful for the summer of 20206, whatever. But they're going to go in there and say it's a dangerous game, but you're going to piss off your franchise guy. And if they came to me like that, I would say, look,

I'm sorry if our four-year $165 million extension offer pisses off Trae Young. That's the offer. We'd like to have them on our team. If you don't like that offer, then we just table it because we're not rolling over on this. I concur with all of this. I'm a big Tre Young believer. I like his game for the most part. I could do with out a lot of the turnovers.

and I think that it's really hard to win in the postseason with his defense. Those are issues, but I think he's brilliant when he has it going offensively. He's one of the better pick and roll, smarter pick and roll operators in all of basketball. And he's a gamer. And to the point of like the finances and how that would kind of fit in with regards to like who is the franchise player, you know, I wrote a profile earlier this season about Jalen Johnson. And I talked to a bunch of people on the Hawks for it. And Anya Kangwu straight up said on the record that Jalen Johnson was the best player on the Atlanta Hawks.

And that is something that I kind of agreed with before. And when was the next time, when was the next time Treya Young passed to Anya Khanwu? Was it like two weeks? Yeah. It was a little bit of a cold streak there. Yeah. And so I like this. because I like the, I like how they've kind of insulated a lot of his weaknesses on paper and in practice too with Dyson Daniels.

And I'm really excited about Risa Chay's development. I like a Kongwu a lot, moving him to become the starting center. I thought was a long time coming. And it was good to see him play as well as he did down the stretch of the season. And when Jalen Johnson is healthy, I think I'm not like Pennson. him in to be an all-star next season. But I think if he was healthy last year and never hurt his shoulder, that that would have been a real conversation.

He's just, he's so awesome. And he compliments Trey on both ends. So, so yeah, I like this a lot. And you add in the fact that it's the Eastern Conference. And like, who knows the Chicago Bulls could be in the conference finals next year by the way we're going. So if you are the Atlanta Hawks, like maintaining your. your talented pieces that make sense together.

Sounds like a pretty good plan, honestly. My guess is they'll never say this, obviously, publicly or even privately. My guess is if they could have gotten or get a really great trade return for him, they would have done it or would do it and they can't and they haven't. And that's fine. And this is a fine plan B. You mentioned his defense and it called him a gamer. Part of being a gamer is deciding to really buy in on defense when it matters.

and Bayan can make up for a decent enough portion of your limitations defensively. Like, he's skinny and he's small, and that's just never going to change. But even with Halliburton, who's bigger and taller and a little stronger, Bayan has made a huge difference for him, just as it did for Curry early in his career, when he immediately was like, I'm going to try. Like, you didn't go at me at least. I'm at least I'm going to try and I'm going to get stronger. I'm going to hit the ball away now and then.

And if you surround a Tre Young, who's at least like bought in, With Jalen Johnson, Risa Shea and Dyson Daniels and a decent defensive center, you can't get a better infrastructure to hide him than something like that. And I will just repeat this stat over and over again because I think it's mind-boggling. Trey Young, again, did not turn into Steph Curry with off-ball screens this year, but he set more off-ball screens in this one season than he had in every season of his career combined prior to this point. That's something, and it doesn't have to be the end of something. It can be the start of something. Okay, I don't know. What happened?

When did I become Trey Young fanboy number one? This is a nice look for me. I like it. I'm enjoying this. Other piece of news, Darius Garland, Shams Trinner, I reported it today for ESPN. Tow surgery out for four to five months, including the beginning of next season. I never have much reactions to injuries other than, like, this sucks. It's great timing.

If there's going to be good timing for an injury, this is good timing for an injury. This is good timing. for a big injury and a surgery of this nature. I hope he gets healthy. He was incredibly snake-bitten two years, two seasons ago, had a great season this season. I wouldn't trade him if I were the calves unless I were just bowled over by a crazy offer. I kind of hope the calves run it back and see if they can toughen up a little bit

and be a little bit more playoff ready than they have been in the last couple years. But I don't know. Any strong reaction to the Darius Garland news? Yeah, surgeries are a bummer. It would have been cool if he was healthy. during this postseason run because I wanted to see talking about defense

I just wanted to see him hold up on a long playoff run and for that organization to kind of get a little bit more data about themselves but you know really good player coming off a really good season

and I'm just being speculative here but I do wonder if he were healthy and they were to have their season were to have ended as it did like what the how seriously they would consider moving on from him um i think he's really important i just i just based on just how that team has kind of flamed out uh of the of the postseason the past uh two three years i and him being undersized and donovan mitchell also being in the

backcourt and et cetera et cetera so i don't know i just i i think about sometimes about where he would fit better around the league. And we know the teams that make sense. But he also makes sense in Cleveland for the most part. I mean, they were the number one seat and they were freaking awesome this year. So yeah, I hope he gets healthy and looks the same as he did last season. Be interesting to see if the calves just sniff around a little bit with Garland and Allen this summer. We know it's not going to be Mitchell or Mowgli.

Sniff around. Now, their apron pretty. pretty dramatically. Their second apron right now, even before Jerome or Merrill. So they can't aggregate. They can't take more money back. They can't do all sorts of things. So, you know, I tried to conjure up like a garland for Durant fake trade because Garland actually would fit Phoenix's timetable and fit what they would need positionally. And it's just like, they can't take back more money. They can't aggregate. And then my brain broke. And I was like, well, they could do this and that. It doesn't matter. Okay. Speaking of Kevin Durant,

look Kevin Durant's going to get traded. We all know this is happening. And so I said, you know what? Fun. And there's always just buzz percolating about, oh, this team's in. This team may not be super in. This team's waiting to see what the tea leaves are. This team's waiting to see what happens with Janus.

And if they can get in on anything that happens with Janus, is anything going to happen with Janus? And I just said, let's make up our favorite Kevin Durant trades. So Michael Pina, I said, make up your three favorite Kevin Durant trade. You want to lead off with the fake Kevin Durant trade you like? And we can just bounce around the teams because Kevin Durant is going. getting traded. If Kevin Durant's not traded, it will be one of the most shocking non-moves in the recent off-season history of the NBA. Let's put it that way. I would love to do Kevin Durant

fake trades. And, you know, as you were just talking about like the second apron and the restrictions that all the apron business kind of puts on exercises like this, it bummed me out. So if any of mine actually aren't legal. We can just, you know, bleep everything out and start over. But I use the Spottrack trade machine for this. So blame them slash very useful resource. Thank you so much, Spottrack. So the first fake trade I have is Kevin Durant to the Minnesota Timberwolves. This is my favorite one for Rudy Gobert, Dante DiVincenzo, and and Rob Dillingham. And that's the whole trade.

Okay, so the Minnesota situation is very complex because their aprons involved for them, too, potentially. They have these three, but maybe outgoing free agents in Randall and Nasreid and Nikiel Alexander Walker, the first two of whom have player options that are not, like, totally out of bounds from amounts they would take if they were attached to extensions. taking them would imperil the apron even further, et cetera. So the trade you just mentioned of Gaubert DiVincenzo, how can I say this, is one that is batted around league circles now and then.

Wow. Because I've heard it in the last couple of days. It's just theoretical, just theoretical people. But I just keep hearing Minnesota's name come up vis-a-vis Duran. and the combination of aprons and player options and does Mike Conley have to get thrown in as a salary filler are you through in Dillingham? I think they would just be loath to do that.

Kind of breaks my brain a little bit. Moving Gobert is like, so am I just going Nasree at the 5 and we're not going to care about defense at all anymore because we have such scoring prowess? Like I don't, you know, is it too much of an upending? Because the more I've heard, I do think there was some actual smoke around Durant and the wolves at the trade deadline. I don't know how serious it got.

It was obviously incredibly complicated because of the aprons. But in the summer, it's much easier to rope in a third team. And I think a theme that we are going to have in a lot of these Durant trades is Brooklyn. And can Brooklyn be used as a salary? dumping ground, what is Brooklyn going to demand in exchange for being used as a salary dumping ground? And are those demands such that it's actually hard to satisfy all parties in this trade? And further more than that, are there constructions where Nick Claxton goes to Phoenix

because they need a center so badly if Brooklyn is involved as a third team? Those are all just thoughts. I like it. Give me another one. Okay. My second one is San Antonio gets Kevin Durant. Phoenix gets Kelden Johnson, Harrison Barnes, Sohan, and the 14th pick in this year's draft. That's it? That's it.

I got to say, like, when I think about this, it's kind of like you have Kevin Durant and he's amazing, all-time great player. He's also 37 years old and he's going to be very expensive. And so when I'm talking about like what's going back to Phoenix for it, I just feel like these halls aren't going to be very impressive.

And so if that's if this is light, then I don't I don't know what to tell Phoenix. But if I was San Antonio, if it's that light, if I'm the Rockets, I'm like I'm just going to go trade for him then. Like if that's

all I got to beat. I can beat that. Because you just traded, just for the record, you just traded Kevin Durant to the Spurs. And the Spurs did not give up the number two pick in the draft, Stefan Castle, or Devin Vassell. They kept all of those players and got Kevin Durant. I will say when I do this, the Spurs are one of the great mysteries around the league right now. No one is quite sure, like, how aggressive are they going to get for Durant? even that trade that you just outlined, which was Barnes, Johnson, Sohan, I think, as the players going out, like, it's not, you can construct an awesome starting five of Fox, Castle, Vassel, Durant, Wembenyama.

That is like, oh, oh, boy, shit, are they a problem now? Like, that's a real problem. And then the bench behind that is like, uh-oh, like, we got to use the MLE and we got to actually get somebody good with it. It's not very deep. I don't know how aggressive the spurs are going to be, but if, if, you're going to be, but if, If that's the price, then look, I agree with you. Phoenix is going to be disappointed here, given what they gave up to get Kevin Durant. And I think they're going to have to weigh, they're in such financial jail that they're going to have to weigh talent.

It's a sliding scale of like talent and financial relief. You're not going to get, you're not going to hit it out of the park with both. And talent can include picks and future assets. Like some teams are just going to offer you such dramatic financial relief in some. of these deals and a little bit less talent because not only can they can some of these deals get you under the aprons, it can get you under the tax, which you badly need to get under because your team is not good and is not going to be good next year. Okay, the spurs are on my list, the wolves are on my list. Give me your third team and then we'll go, we'll rapid fire through another ones.

I'm going to guess you. No, just give me your third team. I was going to guess who it is. Just give it to me. Were you going to guess Houston? I was going to guess Miami or Houston, one of the two. Okay. Those were my four and my five. You asked for three and I did five those were four and five those were kind of backup plans um my my houston rockets offer is just so disgusting i just don't even know if it's worth uttering out loud but my number three team and this is a semi serious one i don't know how realistic this would be but it is philadelphia and it's philadelphia they get kd they trade and this is why i don't know how interested phoenix would be with this

one, to be honest, but they would get Paul George and they would get Philly's first round pick in 2030. No, thank you. Thank you, Daryl. You can throw your fucking phone out the window with that thing. Goodbye. Don't call me again. My logic for that.

Again. Can I give you my logic a little bit here, the faint logic? In this universe where you're not going to trade Devin Booker, like, what are we doing? So I understand like taking back Paul George's contract is terrible. He's still a good player. I don't know if he's a max. Paul George. Yeah.

Paul George is going to have a good good year if he stays healthy. If obviously it's a big if. Yeah. Like his contract stinks, but he's a good player. He could make another all-star team. Who knows? But like if I'm Phoenix and I'm operating under delusion and I'm not going to trade Devin Booker, then okay, give me Paul George.

Let me get a draft pick. Like I feel like that is. something that would be appealing to them, even though if I were running the Phoenix Suns, that would not be appealing to me. So it's just want to get that on the record. Okay, I'm going to go rapid fire. The more I think about it, the more I kind of want Houston to do it, kind of, depending on what the price is, because Van Vleet, this is all contingent on either we opt Van Vleet in or we resign him to a lower number or both. Van Vliet, Durant, Shangoon,

and then surrounded by all the crazy length and defense that they have is a model that makes a ton of sense. KD needs a high volume, not that Fred Van Vleet's a high volume point guard, but someone to just do the running of the offense because KD is not going to do that as much anymore. It makes a lot of sense. Something like Jalen Green

plus some salary filler in Jocke, Landale and Aaron Holiday, plus some draft equity that may or may not include the number 10 pick in this draft and a future Phoenix pick that gets returned to them. That might be too much, given what the landscape is going to be. And I don't, I still think there's like, I still don't, I've heard nothing to change my belief that the Rockets front office is just not gung-ho about chasing Kevin Durant, about trading a lot of stuff for an older player who doesn't fit their timeline. But if they don't think Gill and Green is going to be a huge part of their future, then that's something that maybe is interesting to me. Miami is going to get involved. I would be shot given you mentioned how bad the East is going to be and how Miami generally operates. They could talk themselves into like hero, not trading hero, but a nucleus of hero plus

BAM plus KD, plus whatever decent young players are left over here can get us somewhere. And they have a Wiggins-Rosier salary combo plus picks to trade that sort of satisfies a lot. The key there would be they're going to have to give up one of Yovic or Hakez in any kind of trade. I just don't see Phoenix doing it without some carrot of like a maybe semi-interesting young guy. Colell Ware is the one that Miami will try like hell to hang on to. And that's where the Claxton can we rope in Brooklyn as a third team kind of comes in instead of giving up and giving up where. The Knicks have been mentioned a lot. The Knicks are going through their own turmoil right now.

They need to have a head coach and some other things. But obviously there's there are easy, not easy, but there are ways to make that deal if the Knicks stay under the second. an apron. I'll tell you a team that I think is going to get involved. I think the clippers are going to get involved. Oh, that's great. I like that. I don't know how heavily they're going to get involved.

I have no idea. Kevin Durant's thoughts on playing with James Hardin again. Don't know. But I know that the clippers can trade, and I double-checked with this today. They're 2030 and 32 picks unprotected. 31 pick swap. They've got Powell's salary, Bogdanovich's salary, Derek Jones Jr. You'd have to reroute one of those guys probably somewhere else.

And those picks, given the age of the roster, despite the fact that Balmer will spend whatever the hell it takes to win and all of this and they have a new arena that everybody loves, those picks could be valuable trade chips. I can't believe I'm saying this. I think that deal breaks down around Avita Zubats. I think the Sons would want Zubats in that deal, and the Clippers would be like, no, We're just not, the guy's too good. He's much younger than Kevin Durant.

We would want to pair him with Kevin Durant. And then the deal kind of dies unless you can do a Claxton three-way kind of thing. But I think the Clippers, I've learned enough with the Clippers. And I think the Drew Holiday stuff, which I alluded to a couple weeks ago, got out a little bit. I mentioned a team that had pursued Drew Holiday before, may try to get back into it if Boston decides to break up a lot of stuff. That was the Clippers. And I think that got out publicly. I just think the Clippers are going to do.

are going to try to do something this summer that catches people off guard. I think they're going to be involved in this. That's all I'm saying. And other than that, I have my fake sub bonus for Durant. Durant gets rerouted somewhere else, fake trade. And I'll give you my favorite fun destination. Well, maybe the Nuggets should just be mentioned. I don't think they can get it done.

How about the Pistons for Tobias Harris, Isaiah Stewart, Jaden Ivy, and a future first-round pick? And we just go crazy. and Kevin Durant suddenly plays for the Detroit Pistons with Cade Cunningham and their supporting cast that looked kind of ready to make some noise in the playoffs. That's fun. Sorry, Toby. I love that. Yeah, I mean, the Detroit Pistons, I mean, what are they thinking after their first round series against the Knicks, which easily could have gone their way?

And they, the Knicks obviously go to the conference finals and are, what, six wins or whatever from winning the, the title i feel like the pistons i i would not accelerate things if i were them necessarily but that is an interesting trade that i would definitely consider because you are not giving up you know ivy's very who knows but he was not obviously able to contribute to this particular iteration in the playoffs um and just i just want to go back real quick zoobots absolutely not he's not getting traded for kevin durant if i were the clippers that is an absolute no go for me he's he's he's Way too valuable. Almost made all NBA and deservedly so.

He's awesome. Those are my Kevin Durant trades. Real quickly on Janus, Matt Moore, our friend Matt Moore reported today that I think he said teams are under the impression. Yonis might be staying. Look, I've certainly had at least one team in the last 24 hours who would like to get in on any Janus bidding tell me, Yeah, we think he might be saying. Look, nobody, let me just be clear. Nobody knows anything right now.

I don't even know where Yanis is. I think he might be abroad right now. I don't know that, I don't know what's going to happen. But if people tell you he's staying, they don't know. If people tell you he's leaving, they don't know. I don't think anything's been decided or even close to decided. And I'm not sure that this is going to be like an. at the draft kind of thing given if this ever happens.

Like, I'm not closing the door on him getting traded and I'm not closing the door on him staying. I don't care that the reports there. Like, oh, he's saying, you might be staying. I'm not convinced of that at all. He's very aware of what the situation with the Bucks is and that he would essentially have to take a gap from contending at a high level while they somehow rearrange things to contend at a high level when he's 33, 34, 35, whatever it is, which is not an implausible

scenario and one we have seen with other stars who stuck with their original teams. I don't know what's going to happen. There was this idea that it'll get done at the draft. It could get done at the draft, watch the draft, and maybe it will. The draft is like not that far away. And any Janus deal is going to be a megalith. It's going to involve like three teams minimum, possibly four, possibly more. Brooklyn's going to be maybe a salary dump team.

The bucks are going to maybe try to get teams that have the Milwaukee picks to get in the deal so they can get picks back is not going to be easy. And I don't know what's going to happen except that I would tell people, do not go up and down with the day of the day. He's staying. He's out. He's staying. He's out. Because I don't think anybody knows anything yet. I certainly don't. And I've tried. That's it. That's all my honest things. Any final thoughts on this or the NBA finals, which are still going on. Resume in about 48 hours in Indianapolis? No, I mean, the Yonah stuff is, I guess, fun to talk about, sort of.

I haven't really been thinking about it too deeply with, you know, being in Oklahoma City and now Indianapolis. And as you like to say, this is why we do this. And I'm a believer in that as well. And so covering the NBA finals is like my purpose. Are you looking forward to the ratings discussion that's going to happen if the ratings are just okay? to bad for the rest of the series. I can't, I can't wait to dive in.

Seriously, can't wait. Honestly, it's one of my favorite things. I'm shocked that was on top of the outline on today's, today's episode, frankly. I had a lot of thoughts about the ratings and just how

down in the dumps they were. No, like I, you know, this is like a high level basketball. Does your, do you have a Nielsen box at your house? Do you still have it on the TV?

Do you have a Nielsen box that's wired into it? I don't, no. Right, I have a couple final thoughts. Can I give you a couple of final thoughts? Shoot. Very mundane, stupid final thoughts. They're more along the lines of, I forgot to say this during the podcast, and I would like to say it.

Number one about Durant. It is useful to remember as we talk about if this team gets Durant, how deep will they be, how shallow will they be? You don't just have to get Durant, whether it's a player from a third team or, like, can I get Royce O'Neil off your hand? You can get other pieces in the Durant deal. Number two, I can't believe I forgot to say this during our final segment.

Can we just – I'm sorry, it's all out of order. But there were two plays in the second quarter that I wanted to zero in on. I talked about how the Pacers are swarming SGA in the paint and making him make tough decisions. Back-to-back possessions, and I want people to look at – it's fun to look at – two minutes-ish in the second quarter. On one side of the floor, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, pick and roll. On the other side, Caruso is setting up for a second pick and roll for Shea. And the reason why that's important, and it worked two times in a row. Play number one, Shea got a drive against Siakum for a basket.

Play number two, J. Dub got a drive against Topin, I think, for a basket. The reason it worked is instead of having people jumbling up the paint, everybody was lifted out because they were setting up for pick and rolls, and one other guy was in the corner. And it was much cleaner for Shea in the paint. The swarm factor was not there. So that's one thing I'm going to have my eye on in game three is how Oklahoma City manipulates the spacing a little bit to make the reads even easier for Shea. It did feel like they're problem solving Indiana a little bit as game two went on. And Indiana has one giant problem to solve, which is the best defense we've seen in maybe since the 2008 Celtics.

I don't know. Those are my final concluding thoughts on the finals. Do you have any other concluding thoughts that you want to get to because I just interrupted you? No, I'm good. I think this series is very high level and the contrasting styles is very fun to watch and entertaining. And while I am someone who thinks that Oklahoma City is still going to win in five games and I have not abandoned my prediction, I would love for Indiana to split and make this very, very interesting going forward and just kind of. held to the wind, that would be great. And I think they're capable of doing it because they've got elite shot makers

and their style is so frenetic. And who knows, they're very, there's just chaos. So the finals are awesome. Don't care about the ratings. And when Janus gets traded, it'll be cool. But I, you know, it is, it's far away. It feels. It feels far away.

If it happens. All right. Well, we've got a long way to go between now and there. starting with Game 3 in Indiana. I will see you there. And I guess it's Wednesday, two days from now. Michael Pina at the Ringer, you're recapping a lot of these games for us. You had a great piece today about what happened in Game 2.

Welcome to Indianapolis. I'll see you soon, my friend. Thanks for popping on. Thank you, Zach. All right. That's it for the Zach Lowe show today from Indianapolis. I think we're going to go out and have dinner. Explore the local restaurant scene.

Who knows who I run into here in Indianapolis? We got a couple days before Game 3 of the finals. Thank you to Jesse, Jonathan, and Mike. on production. I'll be back later this week. I believe the plan is go live with Bill on the Bill Simmons podcast. You've probably heard of it after game three. He will do the same on the Zach Lowe show after game four on Friday. We might have an interim show if something happens. Who knows? But it's finals week. Always a fun time in the NBA. Thank you for listening to The Zach Lowe show. Must be 21 and over and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18

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