The Zach Lowe Show - Huge Playoff Takeaways With Kirk Goldsberry, Plus a Deep Dive Into Wolves-Lakers With Jon Krawczynski

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Zach is joined by Kirk Goldsberry for some reactions to what they’ve seen so far and to talk about what to look for tonight (1:04). They then look at the physicality of Warriors-Rockets (39:05), and discuss how the Bucks can turn things around (56:23). Later, Jon Krawczynski joins to break down everything happening in the puzzling Timberwolves-Lakers series as we head into Game 3 (1:09:43). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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RG-G-Help.com. This episode is brought to you by Mickelob Ultra. Playoff season is here. So what better way to get into the spirit of things that with a tournament of your own? Compete to see who can make the best tip. Test your basketball skills with a game of around the world. Even better if Mickelope Ultra is on the line,

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prizes, and details. All right, coming up on the Zach Lowe show, Kirk Goldsberg and I react to all the games from Wednesday night. We look ahead to bucks, pacer, nuggets, clippers, pistons, nicks. We hit everything. The physicality, Jimmy Butler's injury, Jalen Green's explosion, Jalen Brown's explosion. And then John Krasinski from The Athletic on the very strange Wolves Lakers series, a super awesome deep dive. Hope you enjoy it.

The Zach Lowe's show, it's Thursday morning. Three more playoff games in the books. I was up to 1.1.130 watching film. I'm on no sleep. Let's go. Kurt Goldsbury. How are you? I am terrific, Zach.

Always great to be with you during the playoffs, especially. but also running on less sleep than normal. Sleep. Who needs it? Actually, I do. Okay, briefly, last night, here are the most important things that happened. We'll circle back. We'll circle back to all this stuff.

Jalen Brown, massive statement, I'm here, I'm healthy, I'm ready to explode for 42 minutes with Jason Tatum out and massively important sign for the Celtics. Bloodied Christop Sparzingis was a fun thing that happened. God, the physicality in these playoffs. But if you're going to bookmark two things that happened last night for the long term, one is Jalen Brown announcing, I'm good, we're good. No Jason Tatum, no problem. Orlando's offense still stinks. Franz Wagner's jumper still busted. Hitch, still present. 2-0 Boston. Thing number two, obviously Jimmy Butler's pelvic contusion undercut accidentally. I was glad no one tried to make a thing out of it. I'm in Thompson,

his balance. There's a collision. Jimmy Butler falls, plays eight minutes. The Rockets win a rock fight where there are like nine near fights and scrums and Tarysen through a towel at Pat Spencer, who was like implausibly involved because Butler was out, Pajemski

was saying, Jonathan Cominga played. They ran out of guys and Jonathan Cominga actually got on the car. Steve Kerr looked on the bench like, is Boca available? No. Cominga, get in. And he stunk too, much to my Shagrin is a Jonathan Kaminga fanboy. Rockets win, Butler Prognosis, TBD, and then in the other game

that probably nobody watched, Donovan Mitchell scored 10 points in two minutes to ice. A frisky heat cabs game, which we will talk about. Those are the headlines from last night. One-one Warriors Rockets of all those series is the fun one to watch. But let's briefly hit tonight. It's 9.30 in the morning. I don't want to belabor at these games because they're coming on tonight. But we have to start with the 10 p.m. game. Clips Nuggets, game three, first playoff game in Inuit Dome, it's going to be rocking. This has been the series of the first round, and the biggest story in the NBA is Kauai Leonard. You were up close with the Kauai Leonard experience as it petered out in San Antonio.

What is it like for you to watch this guy look like all of a sudden peak Kauai is back, pouring in 39 points, 15 of 19 shooting, getting to any spot, any matchup, and just getting steals, looking like, oh yeah, this is the guy that I voted for for MVP eight years ago. What has it been like for you to watch this? Yeah, it's like Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. I got George Carlin. I got a phone booth. And I'm in 2016, 2017, when I was among the people who thought this guy was one of the best players on planet Earth.

I thought we at the Spurs could win titles with him as our centerpiece. And I never thought I'd saw it again. You know, it didn't end great with Kauai in San Antonio. Everybody knows that. But it's incredible to watch. He's averaging 1.6.1 points per shot in the series in the postseason. That's like batting 600, Zachlo in baseball. It's insane to watch.

I never thought I would see it again. The Nuggets have no. answers for him. That's not surprising if you watched Denver all year long. What is surprising is that Kauai Leonard looks to be right now the best player in the NBA postseason, which I never thought I would say again. I'd say we've all said that previously six, seven, eight years ago. But here we are in 2025 watching Kauai Leonard blend volume efficiency as a

scorer better than anybody in the postseason. And of course, playing incredible defense on the other end as well. and playing 40 plus minutes, whatever the Clippers need. I'm like you. I never thought I would see it again. I gave up on it. Even as they finished the season roaring to a whatever record in their last 30 games, saying to the world, we can compete with anybody in the West,

maybe even Oklahoma City who we might see in the next round. And oh, my God, the thunder. Holy crap. Even as that was happening, my brain has just been so conditioned to Kauai getting injured and bad things happening to the Clippers. And Kauai has not finished a season healthy since the bubble five years ago. That's the last time he played in the Clippers' last game of the season. And so my brain just wouldn't let me consider that this was actually a tenable possibility.

And knock on wood, it's only been two playoff games. And, you know, we've seen him play two, three, four, six playoff games and then something bad happens. But this is unbelievable. I mean, this is a two-time finals MVP, a two-time defensive player a year. You mentioned one point, whatever, six points per shot. 29 ISOs in this series against the Nuggets, 1.375 points per possession. That is just bonkers. And it's like Aaron Gordon sometimes, if there's an adjustment, I'm looking for,

not looking for, but I'm interested to see how Denver guards the, when Kauai brings Jamal Murray's guy into the two-man action. They've been mostly defaulting to just, all right, we're going to switch. We don't want to get ourselves in rotation and giving him the Jamal Murray matchup. And Jamal Murray's got no shot. I mean, Kauai Leonard is like a tank running over him. And I'm watching these games thinking, man, do you not want to, I know you don't want to get in rotation, but it's like if Norm Powell's the screener, I know Norm Powell can flare out for threes, throw in some hedges, make Kauai pass, make Kauai think, make Norm Powell make plays in space or whoever it is. I'm interested to see that, but this is like, I mean, it's no secret that I love Kauai as a basketball player.

I was one of eight people who voted him MVP in 2017, the year Russ won. He's played some of the best games I've ever seen in big stages, including Game 6 in Dallas in 2021, one of the best games I've ever seen anyone play for the Clippers. That was for the Clippers, but for any team. And I said this with Bill the other day. I don't remember the last time I was so dead wrong about a team as I was about the Clippers. The Thunder are the franchise of the year in the NBA. If you win 68 games, that's what you are. The Clippers are the co-franchise of the year.

For this team to lose Paul George in a move that was clearly like, we just don't think this era, this year is over. We don't know what's coming next, but this year is. over and win 50 games in the west, not the JV East, like yay, the Bulls won 37 games in the East, okay, this is the real varsity NBA, and go toe-to-toe with the nuggets and be the better team, I think, through two games. And I just, I thought I took the under. I thought it was over. I'm like, without Paul George, it's going to be like hard and holding down the fort where the Kauai's inevitably injured. This feels just like a nice little cute placeholder until we figure out what the next iteration of the team is. And here they are. And they nailed every free agent signing.

Derek Jones, Chris Dunn, on and on. Ty Lou is as good as it gets in the NBA. But it doesn't work at this level without this Kauai. And I just never thought we'd see it again for a sustained period of time. He's been unbelievable. He's been great. He looks like Kobe. And I don't say that lightly. And when he was drafted, it was a lockout summer and they couldn't really work out with him. Remember when he couldn't shoot? Remember that coming out of San Diego State? He was the 15th. Pick him in the draft. His ceiling is Bruce Bowen, ladies and gentlemen. That was not an uncommon scouting report when he landed in San Antonio. His ceiling is Bruce Bowen. The Spurs think they found the next corner three and D guy. Well, Chip England deserves a lot

of credit. Kauai deserves more credit, but they couldn't work out together in the summer of 2011. then I think you've written about this, but, you know, they modeled, they looked at Kobe's game and they looked at Kobe's shots and they looked at how we could build a portfolio of ISO-heavy dominance. And they shared a vision. Obviously, Kobe was a role model for anybody growing up playing hoops in Los Angeles in the early 2000s. And Kauai's no exception. But when he hit that shot against Gordon off the right elbow, it looked a lot like, the Kobe shot in Phoenix. And again, I don't make these comparisons lightly, but both you and I know that Kauai Leonard is capable of making some of the biggest shots in some of the biggest games in this sport. We've seen it for years. We didn't think we'd see it anymore. But he is dominating this series. You know, Denver is kicking the clippers behinds when Kauai is out of the game.

Their net rating, I think, in those precious minutes is plus 10 or something, Zach. So he is the MVP of this series. I don't think that's an exaggeration. And I'm a huge yokech guy, but Kauai right now is the best player in the series. And that is stunning to me. That is absolutely stunning. And I also want to echo your point. Tailu remains one of the league's great coaches.

And it's a shame he didn't get more attention in the coach of the year discussion. I know you've gone out of your way to throw him some flowers. but you're exactly right. Getting to 50 wins in this conference without your best player, that is stunning. So I'm just, as this series shifts back to Los Angeles, I mean, what do you expect? What do you expect in games three and four? Well, okay, start here. I'm fascinated by how Denver responds to a game that was a very frustrating loss for them.

there was some tension in that locker room after game two from what I've heard from a bunch of people who were there. And some of it was just normal frustration after a tough loss. Some of it was like, ooh, okay. And this is a team whose rotation is very short, who plays three guys that the Clippers respect as potential outside shooters. Murray, Yokic, and Michael Porter, Jr. Two of those guys run pick and roll together, which is great. It's the best two-man game in the league. The numbers are off the charts for it.

But when they do run two-man game together, that means two of those three shooters are on the ball, essentially, and no one else gets any attention. And so there's the sort of battle there where the clippers have all these responses to the Murray-Yokch pick-and-roll, and no matter what it is, it's swarming the most threatening stuff in the middle of the floor. You take one of those three guys off the floor, Michael Porter Jr., who responded nicely in game two.

The shooting quotient dials down to an urgent crisis level, and they do it for defense. They do it because it allows Jamal Murray to guard Chris Dunn instead of Norm Powell. But I'm just, you know, I'm fascinated by how they respond. Can Yokic get a little more momentum going in the post? He's starting to get, I mean, Zoo, Zoo is unbelievable on both ends of the floor. I'm so happy for him. He might make all NBA. He might actually make it.

Stan Van Gundy mentioned he voted for him, 13. He makes Yokic work so hard, and yet 22 post-ups for Yokic in the series, 1.28 points per possession, or 1.25 points per possession thereabouts. Very good number. He's starting to get a little momentum there.

You know, Denver's, this was one of the first, games where I thought Yokic looked tired at points in the game. We played the entire second half and I flagged a couple of pick and rules that I think were in the third quarter. And as I mentioned, like Murray Yokch two-man game is a very stressful play. The Clippers' default strategy against that has been to kind of late switch it, to try to contain it and then late switch it. And then Yokch can exploit that with post-ups on their guards, etc. a couple times in the third quarter,

Yokic did something which he rarely ever does, which is not pop to three and not roll to floater range. You just kind of stood 19, 20 feet from the basket. And you can see Zubots being like, oh, awesome. I can just drop back in like worst case scenario is he gets an open 19 footer or semi-open 19-footer. And so I'm interested in how much gas, does he have enough gas to do this over and over again,

43, 44, 45 minutes. who's going to help them along for the ride? How do they respond? And then, yeah, I don't know. What are you looking for from either team? I mean, what's an adjustment? What's something? Yeah, I think this is breaking for LAC.

I think one of the, I've never called them LAC before just now. I think that's- One of my least favorite chance in the whole league when they do. L-A-C. It's not happening. Just no one, it's a horrible chance. Don't do it. Well, on a macro scale, maybe this is this weekend, not doing X as a nose for just a second.

Maybe this is the weekend, the Clippers fans get a real identity. This is the biggest moment for their new arena, their fan base, finally out of the shadows of the Los Angeles Lakers, hosting incredible games in their brand new building. Maybe the LAC era is here. Ultimately, one of the cliches in pro basketball this time of year is what? Role players play better at home in the playoffs, right? Role players. And I think one of the biggest advantages, we can talk about Kauai and Hardin and Yokic and Murray all we want. The Clippers are undeniably a deeper team.

The Clippers undeniably have more talent. Norman Powell hit one of the biggest shots of Game 2, Derek Jones Jr., Zubotch. The list goes on. Ben Simmons is out there playing well. They just have more optionality. He's out there. He's out there playing.

He's out there. Ben Simmons made a basket. He's out there. I remember telling Chris Vernon, like, here's what's going to happen two weeks before the playoffs. I was on his podcast. It's like the Clippers are going to end the season as the hottest team in the Western Conference. And people like you and me are going to be looking at James Harden,

Ben, Ben, Sands, and Kauai Leonard and trying to make sense of what do with this team that undeniably can play at a very high level. And here we go. Now they're playing the Nuggets. So long story short, I expect those role players to be a little bit better. And I expect Denver's role players to be a little bit worse on the road. And I think that breaks for the Los Angeles Clippers to win these two games. If I had to predict what's going to happen, I feel like Jokic and Murray, that two-man game is going to be great.

Harden and Quay are going to be good, but it's going to be the Clippers role players, specifically guys like Norman Powell and Derek Jones, that rise up and make big plays and take these games for the Clippers. And Boydanovich has done nothing in the series, and he's going to make some shots eventually. And you just watch like Tyloos rotation. It's very simple rule.

Like, you know, they start a defense first non-shooter and Chris Dunn and then an offense first third, fourth score, Norm Powell. When those guys come out, it's always balanced the same way. Like Dunn out Jones Inn, Powell out Bogdanovich in. And just watch Chris Dunn.

Because the smart thing that Tyloo is doing is he knows when we run the Hardin Zubots pick and roll or the Kauai Zubots pick and roll, which is those two two-man games operate much differently because of the way Hardin works versus how methodical Kauai is. They know whether Yokic drops back, whether Yokic comes up to the point of the screen, and they'll mix up both. they're going to pull in off Chris Dunn, no matter where he is. And so they'll move him around. They'll put him on the weak side.

That's the easiest read for Denver's defense because weak side, that's where the helps coming from. All of a sudden, he'll be on the strong side. And there were a couple times when Michael Porter Jr. had him on the strong side, and didn't pull in because that's strong side. You're not supposed to help from there. But when it's Chris Dunn, you are. Then at the end of the game, they set staggered screens with Zoo and Chris Dunn as the

other screener. So you're taking the help guy, putting him in the action. It's just like they're mixing it up and keeping Denver just off balance enough. I can't wait for this game. We're talking about all-time heavyweight players with Hardin, Kawhi, Yokic. And, you know, look, I admittedly am higher on this guy than almost anyone in the world outside of Calvin Booth, maybe. I watch these games, and I watch Russ and Peyton Watson getting almost all the bench minutes, two guys who are not going to get guarded under privates.

It's fine. We all know this. This is not to bad mouth any of these guys. It's just what it is. And Jalen Pickett comes in and they don't trust Jail and Pickett. You might play one stint, not a second. Julian Straw, there's injury and inability to earn the coaching staff's trust on defense. It's been a big little, a big little subplot for the Nuggets because they really needed

him to become a rotation player this year because of his shooting. And he just hasn't been able to earn the trust. The injuries haven't helped. And I wonder if they'll even dust him off a little bit. Zieg Najee, that's over. I mean, they're playing DJ as a backup center in Game 2. I couldn't believe it. Okay.

Any last thoughts on this game? No, I can't wait. I cannot wait. I think, you know, we haven't talked enough about Joker, but I think everybody knows how both of us feel. I think this is another tremendous stage for him to just go crazy. And, you know, with all due respect to Tailu and Zubots, I think Nicole Eokic has an opportunity to carry a team in a harsh environment.

once again. So I just throw a little more shine on there. I can't wait to watch it is the headline. I think we share that opinion, Zach. You know who we haven't talked about enough? Because their series has been such a freaking massacre. The winner of this series gets the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are up to O, they've outscored the Grizzlies by 70 points in two games.

The 118-99 game two, 19-point win. That's a nail-biter relative to game one. The Grizzlies look. You know what the Grizzas look like? They look like a team that has no identity because they fired their coach a week before the season ended, completely scrapped the offense that they had committed to with all the cutting and close up. And now it's like, Jaron Jackson Jr. is either going one on one against one of 19,000

elite Oklahoma City defenders or standing on the perimeter spacing the floor for Zach Edy doing nothing. Jod's just out there kind of have an ink. They just look rudderless. Yeah, small nitpick. Small nitpick with what you're doing. just said they fired coaches, which is different than what the Nuggets did. I think that's a big point. And when you prepare for the playoffs, it is like a war room where multiple coaches are

studying film for multiple hours a day. And they decided not only to get rid of their head coach, but two or three of the under the supporting coaches. And I think when I watch them, I'm like, you guys have no game plan. What is there's no identity. The identity, they just need the season to be over. They have no identity. It's kind of, well, anyway, but Oklahoma City, I mean, they look like they got shot out of the cannon in this series. Like, they've been saving their legs for months. Caruso, who's been load managed all season, looks like he just like he just came back from a six-month hiatus and he has nowhere and tear on him at all. The ball denial, the getting over screens, it's just outright.

outrageous how good they are defensively. Look, I picked them to make the finals. Lots of people pick them to make the finals. Actually, not as many people picked them to make the finals as you would expect, but I did. Probably you did. Others did. It's tempting to watch these two games and be like, oh, is this, are they going to go like 12 and 1 in the Western Conference playoffs?

There's going to be, and SGA hasn't even shot well yet. Far from it. They'll get stressed out at some point. It's not going to be this series. maybe it's next series, but there's going to be a couple games where the half-court offense gets a little tight and a little wobbly, and they'll have to work their way out of it. But they look unbelievable. And we've been saying it all year, the Hartnstein-Shet combo loomed is one of the great wild cards of the season. Would it work?

How would it work? I think it's been even more important for their offense than for their defense, although defensively it's Montres. It just gives them another look to go to some offensive rebounding, the Hartenstein floater, the Hartnstein short roll game. Those guys are plus 18 and 30 minutes together. Then they go five out with Chet and set all their guard, guard screens or use Chet as a screener. And you can see the defense being like, oh, my God, what are we supposed to do? They look so fresh, so fast, so goddamn nasty.

And again, it's tempting to say, oh, they're just going to roll. And they might roll. This might be a 12 and 2. situation. I suspect there'll be a series where it's 1-1 or they have a couple bad games here and there. But, I mean, the playoffs have a way of revealing who you are and revealing the true hierarchy of a conference. And I don't want to belabor Memphis because I talked about it already. Memphis has to be looking at this and saying, this is the measuring stick. We're so far from this that we don't even know where to go from here. That's how awesome Oklahoma City is looking.

And everyone, including Boston, who I picked to win the title and will still pick to win the title, particularly Jalen Brown looking like that, has to look at this team and say, okay, that's the level. Like, that's what we have to score 110 points against that defense right there. Good luck. Yeah. No notes. I don't know how much you can learn from a series against said Grizzly's team. But one thing I think that's important sort of building on what you said is if we anticipate this Nuggets Clipper series to go six or seven, you're getting. a wounded older team in round two. And I fully expect OKC to take care of business this weekend

in Memphis and get another long period of rest and get ready for another beleaguered opponent to come in. Whoever wins this Clippers Nuggets series will probably be in a little bit rougher condition than the young bucks from OKC. I love their depth. And that seems like a cliche. but what you just said, they have optionality. Depth gives you a few things. It gives you optionality with the lineups, but it also gives you fresher legs on defense later in the game throughout a series. Their ability to play seven, eight, nine guys, ten guys, and not miss a beat.

I think in short, Zach Lowe, the Oklahoma City Thunder are Bill for War. And I can't wait for them to get to the next round. part because I want to see them try to do it against a little bit better opponent. But I've seen nothing so far to dissuade me from the simple idea that they're going to win the Western Conference. Can you imagine if they sweep Memphis and Nuggets Clippers is like a six or seven game, just Slugfest, what game one of that following series is going to feel like? The Thunder with like eight days of rest just coming out, growling.

They're also just such a smart team, just like a small example. This is one of my favorite things in the NBA. Nobody does this. Not enough people do this. Game two. By the way, you know it's bad for the Grizzlies when my notes say things like, should they play Jay Huff? We've reached the stage of the Where's J. Huff?

A Huff stuff. So there was a post. They tried to post up Jaron Jackson in the first quarter. I think he had J. Dub on him, not a mismatch. In fact, it's almost getting guarded by J.L. Williams in the post is almost like a misdemeanor. assault, and I mean that in a good way. And Santiago

had the ball, and he was going to entry pass to Triple J. He picked up his dribble like 30 feet from the rim. SGA was on Santhi Aldama. SGA saw that. And nine times out of ten, the player in SGA's spot is just you know, just it's another game,

whatever. He's guarding normally. He lets the guy throw the entry pass. SGA saw Santiago pick up his dribble, took three strides back and was like basically doubling Jaron Jackson, Jr. from the front. It was just like, you're not going to throw the ball in. Go do something else.

And the Grizzlies were like, oh, you're not just going to give us the road entry patch. You're going to be this mean. And the whole possession just died. I love watching the Thunder. They're incredible. The Zach Lowe show is brought to you by Fanduel. The NBA playoffs are finally here. And there's no better way to be a part of the action than with Fandulul, America's number one sportsbook.

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Again, opening at 7 p.m., I don't want to get too far into it. This feels like a capital M moment in the Tom Thibito era of New York Knicks basketball. Like, are you actually this good of a team? Is the cat trade actually going to pay dividends? Is this heart, Bridges, Annanobie, Brunson, cat thing? Again, gaps emerge, right? The Celtics are the measuring stick in the East. You're 1-1 against the pistons.

Young, hungry, physical, wildly untested, overmatched talent-wise, and you are 1-1 going into Detroit. Your offense in game 2 looked as if you had never seen the concept of centers guarding Josh Hart and wings guarding Carl Anthony, towns. Guess what? You've seen it since literally opening night of the season. That's how Boston guarded the Knicks. And they just sort of like, I guess all we have is Jill and Brunson

doing stuff that it wasn't enough. And look, there's a lot of counters they can go to to get cat unlocked, to get more variety in their offense. But this feels like put up, not put up or shut up because it's game three, but this feels like the next few games of this series, If Detroit can take these guys to seven, like, we're going to learn a lot about the Knicks. This feels like a statement moment for the Knicks. And I want to come out, mix up some variety, use bridges more. You know what? If a wing is, if Tobias Harris is on Cat, you can still run Brunson Cat Pick and Rules.

They've run 21 Brunson cat pick and rules in two games. That's not enough. That's you surrendering to what Detroit wants you to do. And guess what? When you run it, Tobias Harris is staying attached to Cat, a lot and Brunson gets easy driving lanes. You get switches. Like, they just got to make Cade work on defense.

Post up Annabia on Cade. Put Anadobie into pick and rolls as a screener, a ball hand on it. It's like more stuff. And credit to Detroit, they're so mean and so nasty. And Cade is so ready for all of this. But New York should win this series. They should not be having this hard of a time against a strategy. They've seen a million times.

It's every smart team plays the Nix's way. I want to show up tonight. angry and efficient and calculated. I want to see that. To quote Kareem from Subway Takes, 100% agree. I think the Knicks are in trouble. I'd go a little bit further.

The biggest stat here is about that starting five. That starting five that they put all their poker chips into the middle of the table for Zach Lowe. They're losing this series when those guys are on the court. That can't happen. The only reason they won game one is campaign goes crazy. in the one moment I think the Pistons were not ready for was it's Madison Square Garden, it's game one of the playoffs.

Holy shit. We're not ready for this fourth quarter. And to their credit, the Knicks took advantage of it. And thank God they did if you're a Knicks fan because that has kept you from being down 02 right now. The other thing that caught my eye in this series was Beasley and Hardaway were awful, awful in game two from three point range and the Knicks still lost. We've talked a lot about Brunson and the isoplay and the foul baiting,

but I keep coming back to something you just brought up. Where in the hell is Carl Anthony Towns? When you get Tobias Harris on you, dude, you're supposed to be the best big man of your generation, one of the best scoring bigs of your generation. You get Tobias Harris on you. You need to go to work. You need to do that barbecue chicken thing that Shaq's always talking about. You need to go win that.

And he just disappeared when they needed him. I blame it on him. I blame it on coaching. I blame it on lack of creativity. Because look, when they've put him in the post against Tobias Harris, I bet the efficiency numbers are pretty good. Tobias Harris is making him take tough shots. Shout out Tobias Harris, who has become kind of like an NBA nerd punchline sort of stand

in for boring averageness. He's been awesome in this series. And he's been like tough and fired up. But yeah, Kat's got to get going. And they just got, like, they just have to be better. I've seen people say, you know, less Josh Hart, more do some McBride, so that they can't do this gambit of putting a center on somebody other than Kat. And clearly they don't want, they even took Paul Reed started on Kat.

And then they're like, you know what, Paul Reed? We're doing the same thing with you. You guard Josh Hart. Like, that's a cool idea. I get the appeal of it. You get much smaller. And, you know, Tibbs has shown, like, he put McHale Bridges on the bench in a bunch of games this season, including game one of the series, he sat for a lot of the fourth quarter.

I just don't think it's realistic to say just have, have cut in half, Josh Hart's minutes. I don't think that's going to be a solution. He's been too important to their team. There are other solutions that lay within this lineup that they have to unlock. But enough, Nick's. One more, next point. This is Nick's trivia with Zach Lowe. Okay.

Zach Lowe, if you had to guess how many fouls Jalen Brunson has drawn in the first two games of this series. I saw a graphic that listed all the fouls, all the Knicks players have drawn, and it was Jalen Brunson, like maybe 25 I'm going to ballpark? 23 fouls. No other Knicks player has drawn more than five. He's essentially fouling out almost two pistons per game. That's cool.

So his foul per falling over ratio is almost 50%, like he's probably fallen over 46 times and drawn 23 fouls. I'm sure the audience of the Zach Lowe show. wants you to chime in on, are you annoyed by Jalen Brunson right now? I mean, I get, it's just, I'm used to it, right? But I am annoyed, like, he'll get, he'll get, he'll just get, what annoys me is just when there's nothing happening,

and he tries to make it look like something's happening. So they'll inbound the ball to him just out of, out of a basket, like a baseline out of bounds. Inbound the ball, his guy will be like pressing him, just totally routine. pressure and he'll, wow, flop his head, but I'm just like,

how about you just bring the ball up to court, man? Like, it's, if you get someone up in the air and a pump fake and you try to jump into him, I hate that shit. I think they should call that an offensive foul for every play every time.

But like, I get it. An event has occurred that you've created. When you've tried to create something from nothing, a non-event, that's what annoys me. Let me ask you this, though. On the general topic,

now we're going to Warriors Rockets and Butler got hurt in all of this. That series is, insanely physical. I mean, Draymond is in a semi-altrication every five minutes. Every game the commentators are saying how physical this is and how this is nothing like regular season basketball. And my question to you is someone who's worked in the league and probably had these discussions,

is there such a thing? We all want like hard competition, more physicality, fewer free throws, fewer pauses to the game. Everyone enjoyed last year when the refereeing shifted mid-scently. season to allow more physicality on defense, even though the leak was like, what, nothing happened. Who? We didn't tell anyone to do anything. No one did anything. There was no directive.

Is there such a thing as too big of a difference between regular season basketball and playoff basketball? Because this is like football on television right now. Hallelujah. This was the top note I had for Rockets Warriors. I mean, it's very annoying when the regular season is a different sport than the postseason. It's rendered even more meaningless because the game is, it's like a different sport. It's like a different sport.

So we just said Jalen Brunson has drawn 23 fouls in those two games, okay? Shout out to the Pistons defense. They're physical. No notes. How many fouls do you think Stefan Curry has drawn in these two pro wrestling matches in Houston? Six. I'm going to get six. Oh, my God.

Six. And every trip down. The LeBron flex on that one. You got it, buddy. What are we doing? Anybody who's watched Houston and Golden State has seen Curry been manhandled? Apparently, in the regular season, you can't touch Stefan Curry, but in the postseason, you can wrap your arms around him.

Every time he comes off any kind of off-ball screen or on-ball action, you can put your hand on his hip and spin him around. I don't care what the rules are, but you're exactly right, dude. As an analyst trying to make sense of this. sport, you're supposed to be able to learn from the regular season. You're supposed to be able to strategize based on the regular season. And if we're going to change contact allowances in these games so drastically, and you can say, Kirk, it's been like the playoff foul.

This Rockets Warrior Series seems like the biggest chasm I've ever seen between what would be allowed in the regular season versus what is allowed in the playoffs. So I think there should be some level of expectation that the games get more physical. but between that Brunson stat and that Curry stat, I think it's fair to say, like, what are we doing here? What are we calling a foul? And what are we not calling a foul? Like, these games are dangerous.

I remember Jimmy Butler is laying on the ground, and Stan Van Gundy is saying, well, these games are more physical than, I'm like, yeah, of course, this guy's getting an MRI tomorrow. And early in that game, Jalen Green dives into Stefan's legs on a loose ball. Again, that's just playoff intensity. Of course, there's going to be some of that. But I think you nailed it. How can these coaching staffs and front offices prepare for the postseason

when the rules are so drastically different, specifically those contact allowances? Well, and Orlando, who can't score and has not been able to score all year. Their only recourse against Boston is, A, Holt Palo has a huge game. And he has. He's making the shots. Boston is giving them enough of them that if they have, had any support for him at all, they'd be in these games. And B, beat the shit out of the Celtics. Just they can't call everything. They can't call everything. Let's beat them up. And guess what?

Jason Tatum's already injured. And luckily, it's just a bone bruise. He was doubtful. Maybe if I suspect if the Celtics were down, 1-0, he would have played or if the Celtics had any fear of this opponent he might have played. But he didn't play. And to your point, like, the regular season probably needs to be a little bit more physical. And the playoffs so far probably are a little too physical. And just narrow the gap a little bit. That's right. Because you said the word dangerous.

I'm watching these games. And I was sticking this before the Butler fall. And again, that was an accident of just guys flying around. Someone is going to get injured. Like Jalen Green just runs into Jemond Green and just elbows them in the face. And yeah, he got a flagrant, but someone is going to get injured or there's going to be a fight. And that's cool. Like we all like to watch fights.

fights are cool. Fights are cool right until someone on your favorite team gets suspended for game seven of a playoff series. That's what's going to happen if they keep allowing just wrestling matches all over the floor. All right. Let's talk about Warriors Rockets. One-one, I think we all expected a long series. I had Warriors in seven.

The crowd was tranting F.U. Dremont, Steve Kerr, very, not very, slightly upset by this. I'm like, you know what? if there's someone who brings this level of wrath upon himself, it's Dremont Green who is flailing and hitting people and getting, he's always tangled up, right? And sometimes you watch the replay and it's like, I can't really tell whose fault it is that they're tangled up

and they all fall over and someone gets called for a foul. But when you're always tangled up, like you're just permanently entangled. It's probably your fault most of the time. The biggest thing was the Butler injury. Obviously, if he's, we don't know as a recording, what the status is. You know, Tim Kawakami tweeted that there was some optimism that he had avoided some serious

injury, but there's an MRI today. Who knows? Obviously, if he's out for an extended period, the whole series shifts into Houston's favor. But Jemski was also sick. And the other thing that happened was credit Jalen Green, who took a whole bunch of shit after game one. He was awful in game one, responded with the most meaningful game of his career in the NBA, 38 points on 13 of 25 shooting, 8 of 18 on threes.

His shot selection was better. Very few, if any, ISOs where he's just driving at Steph wildly, much more pick and roll, much more catch and shoot threes. And look, I don't know again, like, it's going to depend on injuries and who plays and who doesn't play. The Quentin Post minutes were a gift for Jalen Green. They were a gift for the Rockets because they gave them a place to attack defensive. and Quentin Post had no shot in the pick and roll, no matter what he did against Jail and Green.

Kaban Looney didn't really have a shot in the pick and roll. And the more of those big guys have to play, Golden State can finagle different ways. They can play zone. They can put Post on, you know, whatever Jabari Smith, Jr., just anybody but the main screen center, they'll find him and they'll punish him one way or another. But Jelan Green played a calm, sound game, and the Rockets defense is what it is. I want to shout out Tari Yason, who 14 points off the bench. I think they could actually go to him a little bit here and there if Steph is guarding him, which he is.

He has a decent power game. He's made his threes. He's a menacing transition. You could not keep him off the boards. And he's also had to guard Steph a little bit because of cross matches. Like if Steph is on him and there's a stop, he's stuck on Steph. He's done that really well when he's had to guard Steph. to do it. Obviously, they want Thompson and Van Vleet on Steph primarily, but Easton's done a really

good job and just the Rockets are just going to, it's just unpleasant to play against him. I don't know, did you have any takeaways? It's hard to have major takeaways from a game where one of the three most important players plays eight minutes and is injured, and they have to go so deep into their rotation. But did you have any, any takeaways from this game that's going to make you like, okay, now I'm watching for that in game three as we go to the bay? Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. If Butler can come back, I'll be interested in seeing if Golden State can win this series. If he doesn't come back, I think it's curtains. Because what I've seen is Houston is just much deeper.

And if you look at the weak links on the Houston Rockets, they're a lot stronger than the weak links on the Golden State Warriors. And I think Pods led the Warriors in rebounds in game one. his absence was no small issue here either, and I know he was technically out there. I hope he feels better. I hope Jimmy Butler gets better and is able to play because this series should go seven games. But I think if Jimmy Butler is limited in any way, the stats point to that being curtains for the Golden State Warriors season. I think he saved their chances to advance throughout the Western Conference playoffs. and in an ugly series, they need him.

This series is so ugly. Like, among the 16th playoff teams I'd written down, Houston ranks 14th and Golden State ranks 15th. You know who 16th is? I bet you can guess. Memphis. Memphis Grizzlies. So not counting the Grizzlies,

these are the two worst offenses we've seen. And when you take Jimmy Butler out of that equation, the warriors are now left with no choice, but to put in players like Kaminga and ask Quinn Post to play more minutes than he probably should. And ask Moses Moody to take more shots than he probably should. All of that production going away makes this break for Houston, obviously. I think, like I said earlier, the weak links in Houston. You mentioned Tari Isson.

They have Stephen Adams coming in off their bench. They have Jabari Smith, Jr., coming in off their bench. One of the big macro trends in the 2020s in the NBA is depth is so vital, especially in the Western Conference as a differentiator between good teams and great teams. Well, I know Butler and Curry are the biggest stars in this series, but the depth, that bench in Houston is so much better. It's so much deeper. And it allows them to do more things and play harder defense for a longer amount of time. So, long story short, if Butler can get back in, Golden State has a chance.

If he's not coming, I think this thing's over. Javari Smith, Jr., one of those guys who lost his starting spot this season, nobody quite knows what he is. Does he have more ball handling in him? Is he a four? He's playing some three now.

He's playing some five. Is he just a pick and pop guy? Can he exploit mismatches? He tends to fade away, blah, blah, blah. Just the guy I'm happy to have on the floor. I like his to, I think he plays winning basketball. He fights. He plays hard.

He makes threes. I think they could post him against Steph when Steph hides on him. A couple of quick things from this game. Jalen Green, 23 pick and rolls in game two, up from 12 in game one in terms of what his role was. He shot 41% on catch and shoot threes this season. 31% on pull-ups. Like redirecting any of his threes that way, which they did last night, is good. And obviously, Steph is going to go at the big guys on Houston on the pick-and-roll,

whether they're on Moody, whether they're stuck on Draymond, whatever. Interesting chess match going forward. Let's quickly go through the other series. Boston, Orlando, and Miami, Cleveland. Do you have any thoughts on... Let's start with Miami Cleveland, because Miami made that a game

and has actually scored pretty well against the cabs through two games, almost 117 points per 100 possessions. Hero was sensational. And I thought Spow, you know, I'd mentioned on Monday that too much hero isolation against Sam Meryl and guys, this is not really his game. Not enough off ball movement, flare screens, pick and roll screening, pick and roll ball handling.

Total sea change. They had to move it all over the floor, doing all sorts of different things. He was great. They got it within two late in the game. And then Donovan Mitchell scored 10 points in two minutes and 10 seconds, if my math is right, on two crazy twos and two awesome threes. Put the game away.

Cads are scoring 133 points for 100 possessions. They're going to win the series. it's going to raise a lot of questions about Miami's future and where is this team actually going. Honestly, the best thing that's happened to Miami is that by making the playoffs, they got their pick situation in much better order. So they will give their 2025 pick to Oklahoma City and their 2027 pick top 14 protection to Charlotte rolls over just one year. If they had not made the playoffs, they were facing a scenario where they give unprotected 26,

unprotected 28. So they got that sorted out. They have the Warriors picked this year. I don't know where they're going long term. They're not going to win this series. But talk about the Cavs. What have you impressed you about the Cavs? The shooting numbers, the depth on offense, you said about Donovan.

I think that was a cool test last night. Without Donovan Mitchell, that team is in trouble. And that was going to be a very different story this morning. We might have led with that story. If Miami did what I thought they. might do there for a minute, which was David. Davy on Mitchell turned into like Michael Jordan plus

Kyle Lowry, some mix of those two players for about five minutes. And Haywood Highsmith, turning into Clay Thompson late in the game. I did not have that. Nicole Ovich turning into Nikoliovich late in the game. It wasn't super helpful. No, he caused him, the key

moment of that comeback. I thought he had a blunder that might have cost them. But with Cleveland, you know, Their offense is their signature weapon. And specifically when it is it's the open, the ability to create open shots on the edges last night. They were 22 of 45 from three.

You're not going to lose many games in any part of the NBA season if you're making 49% of 45 three-point shots. And you have guys like Donovan Mitch Lewis, 7 of 10, Max Trues was good. DeAndre Hunter hits his, Sam Meryl, Evan Mowgli. hit three-threes. So what sticks out to me is sort of the breadth and depth of their three-point attack and how that offense, whether it's in transition or in half court, seems to be almost as

good as Boston at reliably creating clean looks for their good shooters on the edges of the court. The pace at which they play, and I'm not talking about fast breaks, I'm talking about every cut, handoff, redirect, is. done with such urgency and speed that you can see the heat being like, I can't, we can't even keep up with what's going on. And you mentioned Struz. I think Struz is the poster guy for that.

He does everything at 100% speed and acceleration. Every cut, every move, every bolt around a screen. And the passing is so fast that the ball is just ahead of the defense. They're playing so together, so connected, and the heat just can't keep up. The one thing that I do think is interesting is Kenny Atkinson has showed this throughout the season. Until you force him otherwise, he is going to over index on shooting at the expense of size. And so you've seen Jerome playing a ton of minutes, Merrill playing a ton of minutes, Akoro playing very few.

And Akoro thankfully made a corner three last night after looking like, uh-ohs, play off Akoro back in game one. Oh, my God. And Dean weighed just six minutes. it'll be interesting to see if and when they arrive at an opponent, and maybe it's not till Boston, that forces them to reconsider that and what that does to their rotations. Just small notes on Cleveland, sometimes I'm like, should they just play their starters more?

And last night there were a couple of funky substitutions where they brought Garland or Mitchell in a little earlier than usual to have them play together. Like, should they just play Mobley and Allen together a little bit more? They never play the Hunter at three lineup with, with the rest in the Struces spot, which is fine. Like,

Struis has been so good, it doesn't matter. One of my favorite plays from the game, and this is where you know you have, like, this is one of those plays that's a sign of a team with great chemistry.

Darius Garland gets a pitch ahead. He's got Kelle Ware on him, on the right wing. Great, miss, he can dance, he can go to work, he can get, it's highlight time for Darius Garland.

Instead, he's like, I got Kelle Ware on me. There's a small guy on one of our big guys somewhere. I'm going to wait. for that big guy. And it's Jared Allen. And Jared Allen comes rampaging into the paint, seals whoever the small guy has on him. Entry to Jared Allen and won. That's a play. That's a healthy, together connected, happy team. He need much more from Bam, particularly when he's got smaller guys on him. Love Bam. Didn't do enough last night. Boston, Orlando, I don't have anything else to say,

other than Boston has gotten 45% of their shots have been threes. That's a win for them. That's a lot. It's a little less than their regular season rate, but it's still huge. And every time Orlando does anything but switch, anytime they get into normal pick and roll rotations, Boston gets a three. Jalen Brown was sensational. I have nothing else to say about that game. I love Orlando's future, but dude, do they need to find some catch-and-shoot help on that roster? No, you're-you're- Really?

They thought they had it. Is this a segment from 2021? This is a shout-out to Sir Rudy. and all the magic brethren. But they thought they had it in KCP. Franz, I thought, was trending in the right direction as a shooter. And they essentially bring in a knife to a gunfight when it comes to this three-point war they're having with the Celtics. They don't have enough firepower.

I'm surprised they got to 100 points last night. But, dude, I like this team. I like the core. They don't have Suggs. That's one of their most important pieces on both ends of the court. Mo Wagner. Mo Wagner as well. The rotation is limited.

We didn't expect them to beat the Celtics with this rotation. I just think you can still learn from this series. And guys, we need to have some more shooting out there. We need to have some more reliable shooting out there if we're going to compete with the best of the East. And I would say they have the potential to be the best team in Florida for a long time. We just talked about the heat. Southeast Division Champions, baby. 41 and 41. Hang the banner.

what I would say to Orlando is like you're in a new phase of team building. You need to learn from these games. And what do I learn? I think it was one of 15, one of 16, two of 15 from Franz and KCP. They're supposed shooting in their starting group last night. So I don't know what's going to happen in the next two games. I saw our boss Bill Simmons was irate at the physicality coming from the Orlando Magic. He took to Twitter slash X last night.

and accused the Orlando magic of being like children in a bouncy house flying around and torpedoing into his beloved Celtics players. I'll tell you this. I won't go in a bouncy house. I won't go in. If there's more than two people in a bouncy house, you might as well call an ambulance immediately. When I go to children's birthday, but first of all, I was at a children's birthday party

once when there was a gust of wind and the entire bouncy house tipped over. And there was like screaming children, screaming parents. bouncy house, when we moved into the burbs, we have a decent size backyard. I wanted a trampoline. And our insurance guy was like, under no circumstances should you get a trampoline. A bouncy house is like 10 times worse than a trampoline. I won't go in at Kurt Golds, but I will not go in a bouncy house. I should now imagine if Goga was in that bouncy house, how dangerous that would be.

And you're jumping around and all of a sudden you're Christop's Porzingis. The line of the night was that Scalabrini? on the Celtics broadcast? I want to give a credit. I'm sorry if I get this wrong. Maybe it was the play-by-play guy, but somebody, you know, when Porzingis is there bleeding from his forehead, somebody said the unicorn has lost his horn. And it was just perfect because it was right there where the unicorn horn should have been. But you just hope the Celtics come out of this in one piece. We want the full title defense. And there's, you already said, we lost Tatum for a little bit here. Porzingis, that was pretty scary. And you just hope that the Celts,

Celtics come out of this in one piece. Porzingis's rim protection has been awesome. He got to the line a bunch last night because they were switching and they leaned into his post game again. Drew Holiday. There's always like, Drew Holiday, every one of these games, it's like, Drew Holiday has been kind of quiet. And then there's like a five minute stretch where he decides, I'm just going to press

someone, take their cookies, make a couple threes, and all of a sudden the Celtics reach a different level. Last thing on the magic, you know, a lot of the attention that I think this is true. priority number one, getting a guard who can shoot and create off the dribble. And we don't need to go through all the potential names now. And I do think that should be priority number one. I will say the more I watch them, and I've said this before, the more I think they need, like Wendell Carter Jr., I like him, he's just not enough of an anything at center.

He's not enough of a roller. He's not enough of a lob threat. He's not a lob threat or roller at all. He's not enough of a shooter. He's not enough of a passer. Mo Wagner is a nice backup. They need a center who's enough of a something. And I don't know if it's a pick and pop center,

pick and screen and dive lob threat center. Maybe they should do an aborted trade for Mark Williams. I don't know. Like they just need something from that spot to bend the defense more than Wendell Carter Jr. and Goga, who has fantastic hair, by the way, and Mo Wagner are able to do it. This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Look, it can be hard showing how much you love someone.

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I want to finish up with you on this. Milwaukee, Indiana resumes tomorrow night. You want to talk about it for. franchise at a moment of crisis. Doc's got the Doc face going. Mm-hmm. Where you know the Doc face. How about the Doc?

Like, I don't know. What is it where I've never seen anyone bend at the knees like Doc does? He's at like a complete right angle watching the game. I've never seen any. It's one of the, that's just his default pose in life. I don't know. Does he see the game better? Janus is awesome.

Dame came back. was fine, looked a little tired at the end of the game, kind of went into decoy mode, as you'd expect. All the rest of the starters have been poo-poo. Mine is a million. The bench, fine, like you want to play more Gary Trent, KPJ, Bobby Portis. That's all cool. Like, they've been a little better than A.J. Green. The A.J. Green, Yonis, pick and roll with A.J. Green screening, very effective. They all been good. My question to you this is this, Kirk. what is no matter what lineup they play Milwaukee has been so helpless defensively yeah and so just

out of tenable answers that I'm I'm sitting there like what's the answer because I'll tell you what the answer is not to switch everything thing they did in game two was so bad and so obviously untenable that I couldn't believe Doc Rivers didn't scrap it through one quarter you're switching everything with Brooke Lopez guarding Tyrese Halliburton, with Damian Lillard guarding Pascal Seaccom, with Bobby Portis guarding Tyre's Halliburton. It's like a freaking buffet for the Pacers. They can put, they can get Tyrese Allerburdon or Pascal Seaccom on any buck of any kind and just simplify the offense and go to work. And once they get by the first level of defense, it's pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, until it's a three or a dunk. And the bucks just were like,

I guess we have nothing. We can try zone. Well, our zone is giving up. Let me look up. 1.26 points per possession. That stinks. T.J. McConnell's a zone killer. They've got a bunch of zone killers. They can move Brooke Lopez around defensive. It's like if you're going to switch everything, the matchups don't even matter. I'll tell you this.

Switching everything, not the answer. I couldn't believe they stuck with it. Is there an answer? No. They have dismantled a championship team. Championship team. Well, they were a champion. I don't want to go too far back in NBA history.

But I look at this as sort of a macro scale thing, looking at the new owner syndrome, if you want to call it that, firing coaches, trading star players, making just blunder after blunder. They got rid of Drew Holiday. They got rid of Chris Middleton. They got rid of Mike Boodenholzer. And this is what we have now. And the key moment in game two was, you know, Damien, to his credit, hasn't played. basketball or exercise in six weeks and comes out and makes

a giant shot with two minutes and 30 seconds left. It was a two-point game somehow. The next two possessions embody what you're saying. Seacom comes down. This is the biggest defensive possession of the buck season. Halfway through the shot clock,

Pascal Seaccom is shooting a practice shot from the right way. It's because they switched and they tried to do the scram switch, which is like the fancy thing where you switch, there's a bad matchup like Damian Lillard on Pascal Seacom. And you scramed, you re-switch so Dame runs somewhere else. And you know what they did?

They ran around like the freaking three stooges. They didn't know where to run. They ran into each other. And you know who guarded Pascal Seaccom? Nobody. And that's what happens when you play a kind of defense that you have not played the entire season against the elite offensive team. If they come out switching everything like that in game three,

I'm going to throw something at the wall like I did when John Franco Franco used to blow saves for the Mets. I'm going to throw something at the wall. Can you get on Twitch for that? Can we get a Zach Lowe show Twitch feed where we watched the first few minutes of game three at FISA? I'm going to get up like this and do the dock where I just bend over at a completely right angle. How did he do that? I can't even do it properly.

Hey, you never played in the NBA like Glenn Rivers. The subsequent possession after that, Seacom three, was another wide open three this time from Nemhard. And next thing, you know that two-point game is an eight-point game. There's a minute left. And we're talking about this being the end of an era in Milwaukee. And I'm not going to go into the sort of palace intrigue that could happen. But suffice to say, I think like the Phoenix Suns and like the Denver Nuggets, the Milwaukee Bucks since getting to the finals have really dismantled what made them great

and thrown it away with a series of. transactions and decisions that are now have you on the verge of losing a first round series to the Indiana Pacers. You know who got really sad listening to that? Devin Booker. Devin Booker's postseason comments about how what's really frustrating is how closely we were three years ago and now this is where we are with everyone pounding and hating each other and firing coaches like like, you know, I drink cups of coffee.

Sad times. You know what I say? I was saying, and everybody, I'm sorry. I talk about the Spurs too much, but, you know, one of the things you learn there is they were relevant for 20 years and they made the finals six times. 14 times they didn't. And they didn't, when they lost to Memphis and a 1-8, they didn't go fire pop and RC and all this. You can't overreact. If you're trying to build a long-term thing, whether it's Phoenix or Milwaukee, you can't overreact to one disappointing postseason.

if you're trying to, you know, I just... How about this? Okay, so, so you shouldn't fire your coach every year, every year firing a coach. I can't believe how common that is. They should try to, the son should try to hire a head coach on a one-year contract. You like, look, let's be honest. Let's just, well, you sign a one-year deal because you see how this goes.

Credit to Matt Ishbia, who dialed down the rhetoric a little bit in his post-game, uh, it, blowiation. Is that a word? saying, did not say 26 out of 29 teams would change places with us. He did a year ago. One of my all-time favorite. You love that one. Put that one in Springfield in my absurd quote,

Hall of Fame wing. They need we have the wing of absurdity, which I once created for Grantland, and I had a whole series of stuff that was supposed to be in it. Headlined by a sculpture of LeBron gesturing at J.R. Smith. Why? Why? All right. Light years ahead is over there somewhere.

Oh, there's so much. Joe Johnson, Joe Johnson saying, it's not that bad here about Brooklyn. That's one of my all-time favorites. Nico saying, I didn't know he was that important to us. I can't. I can't even. I can't even. We're making a wing here. We need to include all the people. This is a separate off-season podcast. I can see, I can feel it coming. Where was I going with this? Oh, Ishbia. And then he can't help himself.

It's going to say, we're going to win championships here. and I said it with an S. How about you just go singular? The franchise has zero championships. You didn't even make the fucking play in tournament. How about you just go pee at the end? And how about you just say, you know what? We're going to try our damnedest to win a championship.

No, we're going to win championships, plural. Awesome. I hope you do. I hope you do. Okay, Bucks, here's some of the things I would try. Why are we panicking about Miles Turner pick and pop three-pointers? he's a very good shooter. He's a good shooting center.

I don't think he wants to take 12 in a game. So no matter who's on him, whether it's Brooke Lopez, or if I move Brooke Lopez to Seacom or Nesmith or Nesmith, rather, which they've done, whoever it is, drop back, contain Tyrese Halliburton on the pick and roll, force him to kick it back to Miles Turner. And yeah, try to get out there and contest. I'm not going to send a third guy flying at Miles Turner and unlock the Pacer's passing game, which is exactly what they want.

I'm at least going to mix this in. I'm going to mix in, hey, take a contestant pick and pop three. Or what are you going to hand it off over here to Andrew Neb? Are, cool. Like, do that instead. Like, I don't care. I'm not putting myself in rotation. I'm going under on Andrew Nemhardt picks.

I'm not going over. I'm going under. And I'm just not going to get myself in rotation so readily. I'm definitely not going to switch everything. everything all the time. Sure, mix it in here. They're mixing his own here or there. And, you know, we'll see. They can play around with, again, who Lopez guards. But I just, those are just a couple, a couple of, throw in a trap every once in a while. You got to mix up your defenses because if you play the same defense over and over against Indiana, no matter

what it is, and especially if it's switching, they're going to roast you. I don't even care who Milwaukee plays. Like, none of these dudes off the bench is any kind of like silver bullet. Gary Trent Jr., he's guarding Halliburton. He's got no shot on Halliburton. He's a good defensive player. Fine. On the ball against Tyrese Halliburton, it's just barbecue chicken. So I don't know what the solution is, but it's not what they did. And it's a big, big moment for the Bucks, obviously.

Any parting thoughts on Bucks Pacers? I love watching the Pacers, by the way. That's what I was going to go. I think the Pacers deserve more credit than we've given them, not only this year, but last year. Let's not forget, they went pretty far last year. I think that team still has a great identity as sort of a fast-paced, smart offense that can spread the floor and score it and play really fast. I think they put your defense in tough positions. I think they deserve credit for creating those kinds of open threes and mismatches that are exposing this Bucks defense.

Tyrese Halliburton, I kind of left him for dead middle of the season. Nope, he's good. He's come back strong. He was on my own NBA team. I can't believe he was a must for me. I don't know if he's going to make it, but he was a must for me. So I love watching that team. I think Rick Carlisle deserves a little more credit in conversation than he gets at building this group up.

But, you know, I think if they come out of the series, I think it's a really intriguing matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers. So I think that the Pacers deserve credit for being one of the more unique, more powerful offenses in the league and getting through and potentially exposing this Bucks team for being as mediocre as it currently looks. The Bucks have not had any stretch this year in which they sustainably were like a very good team. They had stretches where they were a good team.

But there was never a stretch you could point to saying, oh, if they just bottle that 10-game stretch, that's a team that can win two playoff rounds. It's never happened. That's why I picked the Pacers in this series, Dame, no Dame, whatever. We'll see, though, like if Dame comes back and gets his win, it's a different story, to wit, Janus as ball screener has only set 26 picks through two games. That's probably not enough because it's their best offense. 1.3 points per possession directly out of those plays.

So when Janus or the ball handler shoots or one pass away, 1.5 points per possession total. More Dame Janus pick and roll. A couple other notes on this one. Indiana has 16 turnovers in two games. I think Milwaukee was dead last at forcing turnovers in the regular season. that's partly their personnel. They're old and slow. It's partly the way Doc likes to play. Indiana is just going to get a shot every possession. That's an 8% turnover rate. That's basically nothing.

And just keep an eye on how they guard Janus postups. They're hard doubling Janus in the post. And the Bucks showed some adjustments in game two. They gave a couple touches at the nail where it's harder to double. They changed the way their cutters go through and who's one pass away to make the reads easier. But all that's window dressing. If they can't find a way to even make Indian and I think on offense. They're dead in the water. The Pacers will get a split in Milwaukee and wrap it in five. Kirk Goldsbury, any parting thoughts on all these series before I bring in the great

John Krasinski to talk about Wolves Lakers. I'm envious to you guys got to talk about Wolves and Lakers. Kyle Kuzma is my parting thought. With all due respect to Kyle Kuzma, Chris Middleton did not deserve to be jettisoned like this for a player who essentially made Tony Snell look good. in game one. And come on, we need more from Kyle Kuzma to justify that transaction. To me, it epitomizes where the bucks are. Thank you, Zach Lowe. Thank you for having me on the Zach Lowe show. Kurt Goldsbury, I know you're watching all these games. I know you're taking notes and

grinding and just it's a pleasure to talk to you. I love the NBA hat. I like the whiteboard in the background. It's great to be on the same team. Again, I'll talk to you soon, buddy. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever get hit with a plan out of nowhere. need something ASAP. Maybe it's an impromptu basketball game, a last minute trip with the crew, spontaneous date. That's when Prime's same-day delivery comes in. Get whatever you need.

Delivered to you fast, so you can say yes to the moment. Same day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast. Available in select areas, terms apply. All right. Wolves Lakers time, baby.

Battle of the Lakers franchise, battle of George Miken, all of it. I'm so excited that John. Krasinski from The Athletic is here. How are you, buddy? I'm doing great, man. Great to be on the new version of the great show. Let's do this, man. Such a wonderful guy. Love hanging out with you. You know, when I went to Minnesota on guy's trip number one post getting laid off, went to a Wolves game. We went out for some drinks

after the game. We met for lunch today after it was, what wonderful time? The drinks, the drink, what was the name of that bar? Lions Pub. Lions Pub? Yeah, right down the road. Yeah. We had a memorable, a couple of memorable experiences at the Lions Pub. We did do that. That's for sure. 1-1, Wolves Lakers, Wolves'Role game 1, Lakers, kind of rolled game 2, very low-scoring game. Strange series. There's always a series or two where you get to game 3, even game four, and you're like, I still don't quite have a feel for this one. I know what it's really about. What's been your big picture takeaway, just like, is there a Minnesota's plus

13 for the series, who cares really? It's been a slow, ugly, whatever a series. Have you had a big takeaway through two games? Yeah, I mean, you're right. It's been hard to get a handle on it. What I've looked at in the first two games is if the Lakers are not going to score 100 in the game, the wolves are going to win the series. Like, I think that's where they want to live. But the big question is going to be, for me on the wolf side of things, is can they keep their composure enough against Luca and LeBron to stay in these games and not, let them get away. I thought that actually game two was pretty impressive for the wolves to come back

the way that they did. And they really played poorly offensively. And so if they can find a way to just, you know, they don't have to shoot the lights out like they did in game one, but they just have to be more composed, more organized than they were in game two. And they should be in good shape. But man, when you are facing LeBron and Aluka in a series, it is a torture chamber. And so So I don't know what's going to happen in the series right now, but I do think that the wolves feel confident with how they played defensively out of these first two games that they'll be okay here. Yeah.

I mean, I think you said it organized was the key word you just said. I picked the Lakers in seven. And I picked that because I called it the haywire factor. I just didn't have faith in the wolves to not go haywire like four times for three and it stretches at critical times in the series or even non-critical. It could be first, they went haywire in the first quarter of game two, and it costs them to game. I at least know the Lakers, for the most part, are not going to go haywire because they have

those two all-time geniuses running their offense. To me, the story of game two was the wolves just completely lost the plot on offense. And, like, you know what the Lakers are going to do. They're going to switch a lot. You can get pretty much any matchup you want. Now, I thought the Lakers were smarter in game two about not switching all the time and if they saw

like there was a Randall Alexander Walker pick and roll and the goal was to get I think Gabe Vincent switched on to Randall Alexander Walker slipped the screen and the Lakers were like we're not actually going to switch this one

we're going to read this correctly and not give you the mismatch thought their help was a little better whatever you know what the bread and butter is going to be and instead of going at Luca and instead of going at Austin Reeves there was like Randall attacking Hachamura

Randall attacking LeBron. He got a lot of stuff out of that. Jada McDaniels going one-on-one against Austin Reeves. That's the right guy to go at, wrong guy to do it. Just too much of like letting Luca off the hook, letting Reeves off the hook, not thinking just thoughtless basketball, which is very much surprised me because in game one, they played the opposite. Did you talk to anyone about that?

Like, why did that happen? Yeah, it was a big conversation point after the game. I thought Anthony Edwards had a very interesting answer about it. said that he felt what he was seeing in front of him was the Lakers going to almost a pseudo zone, where he would see things right in front of him and then they would shift into a little bit of a zone. And what we have seen from the Timberwolves this season is zone defense is death. We saw it in the Milwaukee game. They gave up a 24 point lead in the fourth quarter because the bucks went zone.

Can we stop and talk about that game? Please, please. It was a disaster of epic proportions. If people have not seen that game, and it's a random regular season game, could have been extremely costly to Minnesota. They're lucky it was not. They were down by Milwaukee was down by 24 points, I think, in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, in the fourth quarter, 10 minutes ago.

And went to his own. And the entire league, everybody in the Western Conference in Minnesota's bracket, everyone in the Western Conference players should have seen that game and put zone in their scouting report. Because this is not an exaggeration, John. I have never seen a team play worse against the zone in the NBA. If you and I were on the court, we could not have done worse. They were just like throwing the ball to the other. It was unblocked.

Like, were you at that game? I was there. Yes, I was there. Yeah. It was, it was inexplicable to me. It was a circus of like I have never seen either. This 21st season on the beat. And you know Zach, I've seen some really bad basketball teams in Minnesota over the years.

and that was as bad as I have ever seen any team play for any extended stretch. And so I do think that is a little bit of a concern for the wolves in this series in terms of if they're seeing a little zone and don't know what to do with it. Mike Conley does not have a great matchup in this series. And so his minutes are limited and his production is limited. and when he is not a factor offensively, you said it, Zach, the wolf's defense becomes mindless in a way. And, you know, if they hit a bunch of threes,

if Ant is getting downhill, it can work. But that is the big, just Achilles heel for them, is if you make them think through a stretch of offensive game, it usually goes poorly for the wolves. And so that's what we saw in game two is you just saw them not be able to get a handle on where they were supposed to go, how they were supposed to move. And it resulted in awful shots, awful shot selection, and letting a game go that they very easily could have won. You hold a team to 94 points on the road. You should win that game.

And they just, they were never really in it. I don't understand why it takes so much thought in high level complexity to be like, where's Luca? Just attack Luca. Or Reeves. Or Reeves. Or Gabe Vincent. But like, Nas Reid is being guarded by Gabe Vincent. Maybe give him a couple touches. Like, it's not that hard. Now, I understand the Lakers, to your point, their help was, I think, a little bit like a step further into the paint than it was in game one. Particularly when there was a non-shooter on the floor. We'll get to that.

Like, Terran Shannon came in. And LeBron's like, I'm just not guarding Terran Shannon, Jr. We're just going to zone up off him completely. the Gobert thing, we'll talk about in a minute. And I thought Minnesota had less offball movement around that stuff to confuse, to confuse the help, like less flare screens, fewer cuts, fewer confusion, all that stuff. But like, it's still not that complicated to just find the right, to start by finding the right guy to attack the right guy. And they didn't even do that. And the lake, but the Lakers, to their credit, they're a smart, connected defense, even when they're small.

And that's the thing. Like if you just get by the first layer of defense, Hayes is going to play 10 minutes. The other 38 minutes, there's no shop blocker there. If you even count Hayes as a shop locker, he's a goaltender. How about that goal ten? It was incredible goaltender. He was absolutely furious. He couldn't believe the call.

It's the most obvious goaltender I've ever seen. Not a great Hayes game. There's no rim protection back there. And I just don't understand why, like I get what you're saying. The Lakers made it complicated. They changed coverages. They scrunched in and scrunched out. they rotate on a string, they make you think.

But step one is just the right guy should attack the right guy. And that's the part. Like, I don't get why that's so hard. I'm sure Chris Finch in the huddles is saying this stuff. I just don't understand why it's that hard to execute at least that part. Yeah. And I think that especially, Zach, in the most disappointing thing to the Timberwolves was they took 25-3s in the game. Now, they didn't shoot well at the start.

but what they needed to do was move the ball a little bit and keep shooting threes like they do. They're one of the best three-point shooting teams in the entire league. And so to go away from that, it looked like they all just wanted to attack to the middle of the zone and do something that was beyond their capabilities. And so I think they got into a mental game of, okay, we have to take this control. trollback some other way when they just make the easy play. And they just did not do that over and over again, passed up three-pointers, you know, passed up the easy matchups that were out there and made it harder on themselves. And that's why they were just, you know, when they shoot, yeah,

38% 20% from three. It was, it was grueling to watch. I'm going to read you some numbers. You ready? Please lay it too. Second spectrum tracking numbers. this is Luca pick and rolls with Gobert as the guy guarding the screener Let's go Okay, because Gobert is getting flambayed Flambayed, lambasted Did I just make up a word?

I think he did. I think he did. Because everyone sees it, right? Everyone sees it. It's very visible when a ball handler gets Gobert and Gobert is a little stilted. He's a big dude, man. Like those big dudes

it's a lot of limbs to move around. It doesn't always look great. And you know, you get roasted on a crossover, commit a foul, step back three. Like it's very visible. It's very obvious. And so it's the talking point after game two. Oh, four-time defensive player of the year. Out of his comfort zone.

Boy, oh, boys, here we go again. Why is he this generational defender if he can't match? Here are the numbers. Game one, Luke Adich against Rudy Gaubert, 15 picks, 0.615 points per possession out of those picks directly. 0.77 points per possession overall. That is... Is that good? No, that's horrible.

That's not good, is it? Game 2, 23 picks, 0.56 points per possession directly out of them. 0.632 points per possession overall. If you had that points per possession for a full game for a full season, you're a G league team. You're a college team. Now, very small sample. Those numbers are somewhat deflated by spot up shooters two passes away, missing wide open threes that it creates. You saw in game two.

The wolves are concerned enough that they're trying to switch Gobert out of that pick and roll while his man is on the way to screen. You'll see him point someone else get there. So I'm not saying he's been great. I'm not saying it's not an issue. Luca has been, I've been actually very impressed with Luca's level of decisiveness. When he gets Gobert on him, he's not pulling the ball out and dancing and taking a million step back threes.

He'll do one jab step back, he's going to shoot. And the minute he stands you up, he's blowing by you and drawn a foul. He's been very good about that. I'm just saying the numbers are the numbers. There's no argument that Gobert's defense, and all the stops, all the times,

there was a steal he had all the times where he forces a pass out and the defense isn't compromised. People just don't notice it because they want to notice the bloopers, basically. The numbers are what they are. This is not been a problem. In fact, I will posit this. If Gobert is a problem in this series, it's on offense where he's a problem. And he's a problem because the Lakers are going to switch everything. Minnesota is going to pick their matchup.

The Lakers are going to zone up. and it's much easier to zone up when one guy is sitting in the dunker spot and the guy who just screened for aunt, let's say Jada McDaniels, is rolling towards that big guy in the dunker spot and everything's clogged up versus when it's Randall and Reed and Randall at least is going to stand on the perimeter and everyone is going to stand on the perimeter and the reads are much easier. And if you look at some of Randall's drives that went haywire or Edwards's drives that went Haywire, like there's one, like around nine minutes of the third quarter. You can freeze the screen there.

Gobert's in the game. McDaniels is rolling down the lane. There's nowhere for him to go. I think Gobert's defense has been fine, more than fine. I think if there's something to watch it, how is he impacting their spacing on offense just because of the way the Lakers are defending? That's my hot take, John Crizzi. It's not even that hot.

It's not a hot take. I'm giving you a clap for it because it absolutely drives me crazy. there was one play in game two where Luca got Rudy in the ISO, made a really creative, crafty move, comes down to the baseline, hits an unbelievable shot. It was really, really fun. It was really impressive. And social media lights up. Oh, he caught a body. Oh, but he was one for four against Rudy in that game.

And I honestly thought, Zach, that in the fourth quarter, in the second half, one of the reasons, that the wolves were able to cut into that lead is because Luca did seem kind of hell bent on, I'm going to embarrass this dude. Like, I'm going to put him in one-on-one. I'm going to cross him over. I'm going to step back. I'm going to go by him. And I am going to put this guy on the sports center top 10.

And it really kind of bogged down the Laker offense for a little while. And so I do think that Rudy has done a really good job. in that matchup. And for, you know, anyone to say otherwise, because Luca gets him once or twice, I mean, that's just disingenuous. It's ridiculous. You are 100% correct on the offensive side of things. And I will say this on Rudy a defensively.

He's got to grab more rebounds, man. There's been a few times. It's just they've glanced off his fingers. He hasn't been able to get his hands on it and end the possession. He's just got to do a better job there. But one-on-one against Luca, he's been fine. And offensively, one of the reasons I was optimistic about the Timberwolves going into this series is in the last month or so leading into the playoffs, they had really done a good job with Rudy, getting him involved. Julius Randall, little drop lobs to him.

Even Ant was finding him a little bit more. And Rudy was consistently 15, 17, 19 points, like really being a factor. Now, he's playing terrible defenses. but you thought that maybe they could build on that, and they haven't done that in the first two games. And so if he is going to be out there, if you're not just going to go with the Nas Randall front court, he does have to be more of a factor.

He has to catch the ball cleaner. He has to, they have to find little lobs out of the dunker for him. He's got to get on the offensive glass better and create more second chances. That's the way that you hurt the Lakers by going big with Rudy, and he has not done enough of that. so far in these first two games. It's funny you mentioned the Randall passes to him and the aunt passes to him

because I remember joking midway through the season. You could have made a really fun compilation of Gobert calling for the ball wide open and Randall not passing to him. And part of it is because those are tricky passes to make, right? They're thread the needle, lobs, whatever.

And part of it is like, I bet if you got them honestly, you know, in a moment of honesty, Aunt Randall, I don't think they trust him to do enough with the ball. I think they intentionally are like, I don't think I want to pass to you right now. It's like watching Kauai and Ben Simmons right now.

You can't see Kauai be like, yeah, they're loading off you. I think I'm just going to hold on to this one for now, buddy. Okay, can you just get out of the way? And they did involve him more as the season, particularly the last two, three weeks. But you mentioned offensive rebond. If the Lakers are going to go small, the wolves have to win that.

And we should mention that the entire Wolf's team was in foul trouble in game two. And I thought did Devencenzo foul trouble and Reed foul trouble? Devastity. It's a big deal. One of the things I like about Devin Chenzo in this matchup is they play faster when he's on the floor. And I think talk about one way to beat a complex zone of pretty big guys that know how to help. Just get out ahead of it.

And I thought when Devin Chenzo was in the game, they did a good job of just like, we're going to fly up the floor and just see what happens. Yeah, absolutely. I think that it is no. that the wolves were terrible offensively in game two, and Nas Reid and Dante Divencenzo were both in foul trouble early because what we have seen from this wolf's team all season long has been they generally start slow. They did in game one. They were down seven in the first quarter game one. I think they had 21 points in the first quarter. That starting group typically does not

play well offensively at the start of games and digs themselves a whole. When the wolves start to get control of the game is when they go to the bench and Devinchenzo and Reed and Nikiel Alexander Walker all step in and the ball flies around and they shoot threes and they move and they get out in transition and when Reed went out early and when Devin Chenzo went out early it took way to really of their most important offensive players and so then it became a lot more of Julius Randall ISO you know he did he did well like I give him credit against my Randall rule is you don't get to, my Randall rule, the Randall rule on this podcast is,

Julius, you only get to attack when you get a mismatch, and he violated it over and over again in game two, and he got stuff against Rui and LeBron. He came to play and he did his job. Yeah, he played really well. Here's the thing about that, though, too, Zach, is

he did his job, and I think he recognized, hey, we got no other options, so I'm going to do this. I'm going to be a little more assertive. But when we have seen the wolves at their worst, is when it's aunt heavy ISO, it's Julius heavy ISO, and everyone stops and just watches. And when they are at their best is when the ball is moving, when it's driving kick. And there was just a lot less of that because it was Randall going to work.

And so it did sort of work for them because they shaved a 22 point deficit down to nine in the fourth quarter. But it also was really, it's hard to sustain that level of offense and really get your on any extended run when you're kind of going about it that way. So I think if I'm the Lakers, I want to invite that style of offense from the Timberwolves. And if I'm the wolves, I want to avoid that. So game three will be important to reestablish some kind of flow, some kind of ball movement, driving kick, and get open threes and let them fly. And that's just what was not happening in game two, in part, because I will still.

say the Zach, Luca and LeBron were both just so much more active with their feet defensively. And I think that was, you know, they were very physical. They got their hands on people and they did all that. But they moved their feet a lot better and just made it harder for the wolves to generate some of that. Yeah. I mean, they played super hard. LeBron has been awesome on defense for the last 40, 50 games of the season. Offensively does not look great. I had a bad game one, 8 of 19 in game two, hasn't been able to find a bully ball groove. I think they should hunt Conley more than they have. Like when Conley's on the floor, they're not going at him enough. I expect that to change a little bit. But if LeBron doesn't play better, like Reeves missed great shots in game two.

All six of his threes he missed. They were all good shots for the, but maybe five of them were good shots. I don't worry about Reese. He's going to give you what he gives you as the third guy. If LeBron doesn't play better, I think Minnesota is in good shape in this series. But I honestly, like, I have no clue what's coming next to this. I have no feel for this series at all. It's been a very strange, it's been a very strange two games. You mentioned, I just think if I'm the wolves, I want to speed the series up. I want to run, run, run. And like, there was one play where they got to stop. I can't remember when it was. And Devenchenzo just flew up the floor and hit it ahead to Ant. And Ant attacked. I think Randall was in the post. And Aunt just like dribbled

around like they tried to front Randall and immediately was just like, I'm going around you, I'm going around both of you and laid the ball up and in. And it was just before the defense could get set and Devenchenzel made the play and Ant continued to play. How about that aunt dunk by the way on Jackson Hayes? That was like, that was

a leap out of your chair, dunk. Unbelievable. Two hands and got fouled, didn't get called, but like the force that he put, you know, I've seen every day, Aunt Dunk that in his career and he has had some unbelievable one.

That's right up the end of the top. It was in traffic. It was against the big. It was two hands right on his head. What are the best ones? The John Collins one. John Collins. There's a one.

Wadnebabi. Yeah. The Wadnabi one. He had one in Phoenix in the Phoenix series that kind of ended the sons in the fourth quarter as they were burying them. He's had, you know, and he just had one towards the end of the season. was it Utah or Brooklyn, I can't remember, but just coming out of nowhere and throwing down as much as he does. Yeah.

So he, I mean, he scrapes his knuckles on the ceiling. Like he can, and he throws it down. What did he say? What did he say? He was talking to a fan and the fan was chirping at Rudy. And Rudy got 200 million. And Rudy said, no, actually I have 300 million. Rudy has 300 million, and I have a bigger blank than you and grabbed his crotch as he walked away.

So the first part was fine. The second part, probably don't need to be doing that. You know what? Yeah, there are children. Won't someone think of the children? I sound like Reverend Lovejoy's wife on The Simpsons. Won't someone please think of the children? However, one of my rule, minus something that obviously crosses a line, right?

Mine is something that's, that's, we all know where those lines are. If a fan in like the first three rows is just relentlessly going at you and making it personal, I think you should have carte blanche up to those lines to fire back at them. It's my, I have a corollary to that. I call it to Stephen Jackson rule. In the 2012 Western Conference Finals, Stephen Jackson made a corner three. He was playing for the Spurs. And he made it right in front of the Thunder bench.

And he turned around and he yapped to the Thunder. bench and he got teed up for it. And he did it because they were all telling him you can't shoot. It's a brick, whatever. You should have carte blanche to be able to talk to the other bench. I don't care what you say. So if these fans are going, I don't know. Anthony, has he been fined a million dollars combined this year?

How many are we up to? $380,000, Sack. $380,000. He doesn't care. No, he cares not at all. I do think what the league is trying to do is say, Aunt, man, you are the next guy. Like, you know, LeBron and Steph and KD are only going to be here for a little longer.

need you to be right up there with Tatum, right up there with Luca, right up there with a few of the other guys to take the mantle. And so this was, I think, more of a, you know, kind of a career achievement award fine than, then like for this specific thing here. And so I think that's, that was the crackdown. But I agree with you, Zach. Like, did I, was I offended by that? No, I wasn't. I've seen and heard way worse than that. But I think this is the league trying to to make a statement and rain him in. Hey, at least it's a career achievement fine and not like, you know, like I have no empathy for the guys who yap at the refs all the time. Like Luca, for instance, like Luca, when he got ejected from that game, who was that in Oklahoma City, right?

Was that in Oklahoma City? Yeah. That was ridiculous because he was talking to a fan and not the ref. The ref is obviously going to think you're talking to him because you talk to him all the time. Draymond getting a quote unfavorable treatment from the road. First of all, he doesn't because Draymond could not possibly get ejected for you. He could close line someone and not get to, he could hit someone with a DDT and not get ejected for. I guess not. I guess he did get suspended for hitting people last year. But you know what I mean. You know, just like John Moran getting fine for the gestures. Like, yeah, no, yeah, that's, you brought. that one on yourself.

Okay, big picture. Last question. I'm most curious about this game three, maybe of all series other than Nuggets Clippers tonight. And part of the reason is the series feels like a black box to me still. But, I mean, it's easy to get into the weeds and we've gotten into the weeds. Like, there's a path to the conference finals here for these teams. They're in the better side of the bracket.

The winner will get either the Rockets who are untested or the Warriors and we'll see with the Jimmy Butler's MRI shows, but it's not like they're an unbeatable juggernaut, despite their record with Butler and Curry. And Minnesota is kind of this fun, like this funky team where they made this huge town's trade before the season. They kind of have an up and down,

and they're like three games over 500, 60 games into the season. They finish super strong and barely get out of the playing. Like the Warriors do them a favor by dropping a couple games to get out of the plan. And they don't feel like a contender because of the up and down nature of their season, because of the trade, because they're the sixth seed. But they're a pretty goddamn good team, and there's a pathway for them to get it together and get pretty far in the playoffs.

Again, as far as they did last year, like, the stakes are big in these games coming up in Minnesota. 100%. Yeah. I mean, I think, like, that was, well, I understand. I do why so many people pick the Lakers. you have Luca, you have LeBron, you have all this. But like, I really do think a lot of people who are Lakers in five, you know, even Lakers in six, were looking, not looking at the wolves numbers.

You know, 17 and 4 down the stretch, top 10 offense, top 10 defense, net rating in the top five. Like, all of that stuff tells you that there is talent here if it's harnessed and plays the right way. My concern right now for them, Zach, is they typically have not been the greatest team at home. Like you think, oh, they split on the road. You go home. Target Center is going to be on fire. And believe me, Target Center is going to be ridiculous on Friday night.

Like, it's going to be, you know, people thought crypto was loud. Nah, wait until you get there for this, for the Lakers. It's going to be insane. But they were last year after the Phoenix series, they were one in five at home in the play. They have had some of their ugliest performances at home this season, losing to the Wizards, losing to a few other teams at home. So they have to figure out something to get playing better there. But if they do, it's right there for them.

They're deeper than the Lakers. They have the ability to win this series. And not only this series, but next series as well. So all of it is right there for them. but they have to get out of their own way to do that. And that's going to be the key. Composure, execution, organization. If they do that, they have the pieces to make this big run.

But we do. We kind of have to see it happen first before you really believe that, yeah, this is actually happening. They're also facing a legit, very good team with incredible top end talent who made some good adjustments in game two, who ran a little bit more of their sort of pet sets where, the three stars cooperate and screen for each other and they got some good openings that way. LeBron got a three. LeBron got along two. Finney Smith got a back cut that led somewhere, all through them cooperating with each other,

simultaneous action on the ball, off the ball, lean into that more. But yeah, it's a big, high stakes, very strange series. I'm excited for game three. John Krasinski of the Athletic, John Krasinski's show, his podcast. I've said it before. There is no better beat writer in the NBA than you. it's an honor to have you on. It's great to see you.

Who knows? Maybe in six weeks we'll be back at the Lions. The Lions Pub. The Lions Pub. Anytime, man. I'm just happy you're back. The league is better with you back here, Zach. I'll buy next time we go to the Lions Pub.

So come on in. Oh, that's a good invitation. John Kruzynski, everybody. Thank you, sir. All right. That's it for today. Enjoy the games over the weekend. We'll be back first thing in the morning Monday to recap what promises to be another

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