Playoff Chaos For Wolves, Knicks & Nuggets + Dame Injury Update

Summary

Hoop Collective Podcast Summary
Episode: Playoff Chaos For Wolves, Knicks & Nuggets + Dame Injury Update
Release Date: April 28, 2025
Hosts: Zach Lowe, Tim Bontemps, Chris Haynes
Transcript Highlights Included

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I. Introduction

In this episode of the Hoop Collective podcast, ESPN's Brian Windhorst, along with insiders Tim Bontemps and Chris Haynes, delve into the tumultuous NBA playoff landscape. Released on April 28, 2025, the discussion centers around key playoff series involving the Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets, and a significant injury update on Damian Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks.

II. Damian Lillard's Injury and Its Implications

The episode opens with a somber note as the hosts discuss Damian Lillard's unfortunate injury during the Pacers' victory over the Bucks. Chris Haynes, a longtime acquaintance of Lillard, reports:

Chris Haynes [01:14]: "First off, you saw the play. It unfortunately had the hallmarks of a torn Achilles non-contact guy going down while he was pushing off the leg. So we'll wait for confirmation, but obviously very difficult."

The injury, which appears to be a torn Achilles tendon, is a significant blow not only to Lillard’s career but also to the Bucks' prospects for the 2025-2026 season. Tim Bontemps elaborates on the severity:

Tim Bontemps [02:49]: "It's going to decimate the 20, 25, 26 season for Dame Willard which is going to decimate the Bucks' outlook for 25, 26."

III. Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks' Future

Following Lillard's injury, the discussion shifts to Giannis Antetokounmpo's future with the Milwaukee Bucks. The team faces salary cap challenges, especially with two key players making $110 million each, one of whom is likely to miss the next season due to injury. Tim Bontemps provides insight:

Tim Bontemps [06:27]: "If we're going to hypothetical it out, right, you just have to get the absolute most you can get back and then figure out what it is from there."

The hosts debate the possibility of Giannis staying in Milwaukee or seeking a new chapter elsewhere, considering the Bucks' diminished competitive edge without their star players.

IV. Spotlight on the Timberwolves vs. Lakers Series

A. Anthony Edwards' Dominant Performance

A significant highlight of the episode is Anthony Edwards' outstanding performance against the Los Angeles Lakers. Edwards scored an impressive 43 points, showcasing his ability to take over crucial moments:

Zach Lowe [15:46]: "He scored 7 points in this game. The Lakers get outscored by 13 in the fourth quarter, and he’s plus 20 in the two fourth quarters, which basically have defined the series."

B. Lakers' Coaching Decisions and Strategy

Conversely, the Lakers faced criticism for their coaching decisions, particularly JJ Redick's strategy to play key starters throughout crucial playoff games. Tim Bontemps criticizes this approach:

Tim Bontemps [19:59]: "There are five guys in Milwaukee, they're already far away, and now they're miles and miles away."

The hosts discuss how these decisions impacted the Lakers' performance, especially considering players like LeBron James playing extended minutes despite recent ailments.

V. Knicks vs. Pistons Series: Controversial Calls and Player Performances

The Knicks-Pistons series was marred by questionable refereeing, notably by referee David Guthrie. Zach Lowe recounts a pivotal moment:

Zach Lowe [43:26]: "Cade Cunningham gets a great look from top of the key two in the final 30 seconds... The referees go back and look at it and Guthrie comes out and says he got the call wrong."

This overturned call significantly influenced the game's outcome, leaving Pistons fans frustrated and igniting debates about officiating standards in high-stakes games.

VI. Other Notable Series and Performances

A. Clippers vs. Nuggets

The Clippers showcased resilience by overcoming a 20-point deficit against the Nuggets. Tim Bontemps describes the thrilling comeback:

Tim Bontemps [33:24]: "Aaron Gordon threw it down like the Lorenzo Charles Derek play... it was just completely complete serendipity."

B. Rockets vs. Warriors

Steph Curry delivered a stellar performance against the Rockets, scoring 36 points with minimal turnovers despite defensive pressure from a young and physically adept Rockets team. The hosts commend Curry's endurance and skill:

Tim Bontemps [40:09]: "Steph can be flying around for him to play 41 minutes against this Rockets defense... it's just awesome to watch."

C. Celtics Series

Jason Tatum impressed despite dealing with a bone bruise in his wrist, scoring 36 and 37 points in consecutive games. The Celtics' depth was tested, necessitating resilience from other players who stepped up in key moments.

VII. The Importance of Depth in Playoffs

A recurring theme throughout the episode is the critical role of team depth in the playoffs. Teams like the Timberwolves and the Clippers have demonstrated superior bench strength, allowing them to maintain competitiveness even when primary stars are underperforming or injured.

Chris Haynes [51:57]: "They have guys you can rely on. That's been the difference in these games."

Conversely, teams struggling with depth, such as the Bucks and Lakers, find themselves at a disadvantage when faced with extended playoff runs and unexpected injuries.

VIII. Conclusion and Producer News

As the episode wraps up, Tim Bontemps shares personal news:

Tim Bontemps [60:53]: "We're having a boy... Hopefully by the next podcast, we'll have the kid here."

The hosts extend their best wishes and conclude with reflections on the intense and unpredictable nature of the first-round playoffs, highlighting the blend of high-stakes competition and unexpected outcomes that define this season.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Chris Haynes [01:14]: "It unfortunately had the hallmarks of a torn Achilles non-contact guy going down while he was pushing off the leg."
• Tim Bontemps [02:49]: "It's going to decimate the 20, 25, 26 season for Dame Willard."
• Zach Lowe [15:46]: "Anthony Edwards delivered 16 points in the fourth quarter."
• Tim Bontemps [19:59]: "This was game seven for the Lakers."
• Zach Lowe [43:26]: "Guthrie comes out and says he got the call wrong."
• Chris Haynes [51:57]: "They have guys you can rely on."

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This episode of Hoop Collective provides an in-depth analysis of the current NBA playoff dynamics, highlighting player performances, strategic coaching decisions, and the overarching importance of team depth. The discussion encapsulates the emotional highs and lows of playoff basketball, offering listeners comprehensive insights into the unfolding series.

Transcript

[Zach Lowe]

Fellas, you know Degree Cool Rush deodorant, right? Well, last year they changed the formula and guys were mad about it. One dude even started a petition. So guess what? Degree heard us, admitted they messed up and brought the original Cool Rush scent back exactly how it was. And it's in Walmart, Target and other stores now for under $4. So grab some and remember why its cool, crisp and fresh scent made it the number one man's antiperspirant for the last decade. Degree Cool Rush is back and it smells like victory for all of us. Hello and welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing slightly after midnight on Sunday night slash Monday morning. Joining us from New York City, home of the New York knicks, who are up 31 in their series with the Pistons, Tim Bontemps.

[Tim Bontemps]

Hello, everybody.

[Zach Lowe]

Luxuriating at home in Dallas, a series between the Thunder and Grizzlies being, being done. While the rest of us are out here on the road covering highly important series in Miami like I am, it's Ben McMahon.

[Chris Haynes]

Howdy, partners. Now, I would say your series is not that important and Bon Temps is not on the road. So we're off to quite a fibbing start so far.

[Zach Lowe]

Well, there was a lot that went on this weekend in the NBA and it's a somber note that we're going to start out with because the last game of the weekend had a big downer with a big implication going forward and that's Damian Lillard with what looks like a torn Achilles tendon in the first half of the Pacers victory over the Bucks. Chris Haynes reported first. Chris Haynes is a longtime acquaintance of Dame Lillard. First off, you saw the play. It unfortunately had the hallmarks of a torn Achilles non contact guy going down while he was pushing off the leg. So we'll wait for confirmation, but obviously very difficult. I don't even know how you go on if you're the Bucks. I mean, Bobby Portis did the in game interview after the third quarter. It was still a little bit of a game. The Pacers ended up winning, I think by about 25, but Bobby Portis acknowledged it. He's like, you know, it just threw us off. You know, they, they see their, their guy going off and so okay, I mean this series is, is over three one Pacers with them going back to Indiana. But torn Achilles is, you know, for a guy in his 30s, it's a career threatening injury. But okay, it's going to decimate the 20, 25, 26 season for Dame Willard which is going to decimate the bucks outlook for 25, 26. And you know, while you, this is a two pronged thing you feel for the Bucks, but how do you not think about what the future of the Bucks and Yas Tennokounmpo is? You. You. It's, it's inavoidable, inescapable. That's. Every Bucks fan was had to be thinking the same thing. And it looked like Dame had gotten incredibly fortunate the way they had caught the blood clot early. We thought he was going to be out for the season. It was his right calf where the blood clot was and this was his left Achilles that was torn. I don't know if any has any relations, you know, put an extra weight on, I don't know. But it wasn't the same leg. But the Bucs injury, health, fortune, misfortune has been horrific for three or four years now and it's going to be horrific to end the 25, 24, 25 season. Bon temps. I'll just start with you. It's possible that Giannis has played his last game in Milwaukee for as a buck. I don't know. But it's also irresponsible not to contemplate that right now.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, I mean the first thing I thought of watching it live was just, I just felt terrible for Dame. I mean we've all been around Dame for a long time. He's one of the all time good dudes in the league. He's obviously one of the 75 best players ever. You know, he just fought back from this defense rhombosis to come back and like you said, come back and play out of nowhere and it's just a killer for him. I mean probably wipes out all of next season. And you're talking about a guy who came to Milwaukee hoping to win a title and they're going to, you know, he's barely going to have played in the playoffs for him at all in two years. And like you said, I mean then you just have to start thinking about the future. And I thought a lot about 2019 and being around Raptors, warriors and seeing Kevin Durant get hurt and then seeing Clay get hurt and that set the warriors back for a couple of years and it's for. I certainly thought it might be the end of their whole run. Obviously they've had this second act where they got this other title and we'll see how far they go this year. But yeah, I mean it just, it just really sucks. And you know, we, we talked A lot about the future for Giannis and what things could look like going forward for him and for the Bucks and for the league this summer. And look, this was a team that I think was already headed for trying to get out of the luxury tax next season. To do that with two guys making $110 million on the roster was going to be exceedingly difficult to begin with. Now, One of those two guys making $55 million almost certainly has a torn Achilles and almost certainly is going to miss, if not all of next season, the vast majority of next season, and is going to be in his mid-30s. So you can't really count on it being there at all. So when you try to build a roster out, if you want to entertain the idea of keeping Giannis next year, just to talk it through for a second, there's really no way to do that and have a team that's good enough to compete. When you look at how this series has gone, and outside of one half against the Pacers, they've largely been dominated by the Pacers, and that was with Dame somewhat available. So it, it's just really bleak and it's hard to think anything other than that this is going to cause everybody involved to have to really look in the mirror about what the next steps they want to take are. And it, you know, it just, it just really sucks for the Bucks and their fans. Like you said, it's been several years in a row of devastating injuries in the playoffs, and it's just a real bummer.

[Chris Haynes]

And a first round exit under any circumstances was going to lead to a lot of questions about Giannis's immediate future, and I believe would was going to lead to Giannis asking himself a lot of questions about the immediate future. This is just a devastating way, and obviously the series isn't over yet, but it's over and this is just a devastating way for it to happen. But look, this whole series has been Giannis putting up insane numbers and it not being enough for the Bucks, you know, like they were, they were trailing when, when Dame went down. They're not the better team in the series. Despite having by far the best player on the floor. They have by far the best player in the series and they're nowhere close to being as good as the Pacers. And, and then it just become, okay, let's just go with the logical hypothetical of it's finally time for, for Giannis to figure out or with the Bucks to figure out what his next chapter is going to be. It's such a tough situation because like, can they make a traditional rebuild type of deal when they don't have control of their own first round pick until 2031?

[Tim Bontemps]

But they have to do. If we're going to hypothetical it out, right, you just have to get the absolute most you can get back and then figure out what it is from there. Maybe that's 900 draft picks, maybe it's a bunch of current talent, maybe it's a combination of the two, right? But like, you can't at this point, if you make that kind of trade, it's like drafting, right?

[Zach Lowe]

It.

[Tim Bontemps]

You never should draft a player based off the needs of your current roster because that player, in theory, is going to be good four or five years from now and you want to just have the best player you can get. That's the same thing here. If it gets to the point where they're going to trade Giannis, you have to just get, unlike a certain other trade we've talked about a lot, the absolute maximum amount you can get for him and then whatever you're left with, then, okay, then you assess what do we want to do, how do we want to proceed, what's the best path forward for the team, etc. But you can't. To me, they're two totally separate tracks. It's not, you can't worry about their draft pick situation or anything else other than if you're going to make that deal, you're only going to get one chance to do it. You got to maximize every ounce of it you can.

[Zach Lowe]

On one hand, it could be clarifying because they were sort of stuck in trying to figure out what to do, especially with Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis being free agents. They're trying to figure out a way to keep them when they're both in their 30s. On the other hand, I'll just point out Kareem Abdul Jabbar requested a trade. He was traded in 1975. The Bucks did not go back to the finals from 1975 to 2021, you know, they waited 40 something years. What is it, 41 years?

[Tim Bontemps]

Looks most franchises never get one player as good as those two guys.

[Zach Lowe]

No, I understand.

[Tim Bontemps]

Especially in a small market.

[Zach Lowe]

No, I get it.

[Chris Haynes]

46, 46 years.

[Zach Lowe]

I didn't go to Texas. North Texas you go, you know, generations between having championship contenders now, you know, maybe you could debate in the, you know, Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson era, maybe they were, they made it to the conference finals, but they went generations between being contenders. So saying goodbye to an in their prime star is not as Easy as agreeing with the logical whiteboard that Bontemps just said, well, and I.

[Chris Haynes]

And they don't say goodbye unless Giannis says it's time.

[Zach Lowe]

I understand, but, you know, it's.

[Tim Bontemps]

Look, that's why I said. I think it's a clarifying moment for everybody. Like, if Giannis wants to spend his career in Milwaukee, good for him, and God bless him, like, that would be great. Like, look at Dirk, right? We spent the last three months talking about Luca being traded and Mavericks fan base and Luca and Dirk all thinking it was going to be a Dirk like thing. Right. He's going to spend his whole career with one team. Giannis has won a title. He doesn't have to go chase the title. So, like, I'm certainly not sitting here saying he absolutely should leave if he wants to stay, great. But to me, this. In. Obviously, this is a horrific injury. And as I started off with, I feel awful for Dane, like, this weekend was so awesome. We're going to talk about all these awesome games, and then watching the first quarter of this game, like, oh, let's see if the Bucks can make this interesting, and then Dane gets hurt. But, like, this moment, I think clarifying is the right word. It should be perfectly clarifying for everybody involved to figure out what it is they want. Because. Because the idea that this team is a move away from being up there with Boston or Cleveland or these other teams, if this is a torn Achilles, they're. They were already far away, and now they're miles and miles and miles away. So then everybody has to sit down and decide what it is they want.

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah. And. And. And again, the circumstances with Dame suck. But it's not like, hey, they were a contender until Dame went down. They. They weren't close. They. They weren't. You know, this. This series, Giannis has been Superman, and they were probably going down 3, 1 tonight, regardless. You know, they argue.

[Tim Bontemps]

Orlando's been more competitive with Boston.

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah.

[Tim Bontemps]

Honestly.

[Chris Haynes]

And. And look. And, you know, if Giannis decides he wants to go somewhere where he feels like he's going to have a better chance, or, you know, even if you like the Brooklyn thing, I don't get that, to be honest with you. But whatever. You know, whatever he decides, you know, I. You can't blame him. And will it be a bleak immediate future for the Bucks? Sure. But he hung a banner there, and, you know, he's a Hall of Famer. If he never plays another second, you know, he's. He. He hung a banner in his jersey, will hang in the rafters there. And you know, if it's some bleak years coming right after because you went all in trying to win with him again, so be it. It's still all well worth it.

[Zach Lowe]

I agree. Okay, more on that later this week.

[Chris Haynes]

More Hoop Collective podcast after this.

[Zach Lowe]

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[Tim Bontemps]

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[Zach Lowe]

Race the sails.

[Tim Bontemps]

Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching.

[Zach Lowe]

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[Tim Bontemps]

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[Chris Haynes]

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[Tim Bontemps]

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[Zach Lowe]

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[Tim Bontemps]

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[Zach Lowe]

Okay, now the game. One of the games of the season. So so far, the game in Minneapolis on Sunday, the Wolves beat the Lakers by three.

[Tim Bontemps]

Was it even the best game of the weekend?

[Zach Lowe]

Whatever.

[Tim Bontemps]

Honestly, I think it was.

[Zach Lowe]

You're right. It was just. It was a really good.

[Tim Bontemps]

That's how good this weekend has been. No, I really.

[Zach Lowe]

No, it wasn't better. It wasn't a better finish than Aaron Gordon.

[Tim Bontemps]

It was an incredible game. I'm not. I'm only. That's how good this weekend has been. I mean, there's been so many awesome moments all weekend.

[Zach Lowe]

I know that the that ESPN writ large is going to focus on the Lakers going down 3 1. I would like to start by focusing on Ant Edwards putting up 43 in a game where he makes a huge statement we already knew where he was as a player. He goes for 43. He has outplayed Luka Doncic in this series, even though he wasn't great in games one and two. But he plays an absolute killer game at both ends of the court and hits the free throws that, you know, are huge in this, you know, I don't not sure how controversial that play was, but, you know, there's a play, you know, overturned what they call foul on LeBron. But Ant was killer in this game. He sensed how important this game was. Relentless going to the basket. You know, this is a guy who during the season, you know, was really dedicated to the three pointer. Not in this game. In this game. And Edwards was hunting the hoop. I think he got there 17 times or something like that, and exactly what they needed. And they're down 10 going into the fourth.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, listen, in two games this weekend, because we haven't talked since before game three an Edwards played 86 minutes. He scored 71 points. He had 14 assists. He only had three turnovers. And he just dominated the fourth quarter of both games. Both games are sitting right there. Lakers had a chance to get not one, but both of them. LeBron James had two incredible performances, especially today on short, a short, short turnaround. Luka Doncic was sick the other day. He played much better today. And Ant just beat him in the fourth quarter and just had more juice down the stretch. Some of that I think is because of how Chris Finch handled things compared to jj. We'll get to that in a minute. But like, that's the only thing you can take away from these two games is that in the fourth quarter in winning time, Anthony Edwards delivered 16 points.

[Zach Lowe]

In the fourth of this game, hit three threes and got the line five times, went 5 of 5 with the.

[Chris Haynes]

Line 4, 7 from the floor. The Lakers have 19 points on 5 of 18 shooting. And you know, the. To me, obviously, you start with ants performance and you throw the numbers out there, especially the scoring. But the assist, the turnovers, all that. He did that without playing hero ball, which again, the biggest criticism of Ant as a player at this point of his career is his tendency to lean in a hero ball in these kind of situations. That's why I picked the Lakers to win this series, because I felt like, hey, if it's close, it's going to be advantage Lakers because the wolves really struggle in clutch situations. And you know, Ant was like, I think it was a minus 51 in clutch situations this year with a, you know, high volume of shot attempts. And a low field goal percentage. But there were. There were a handful of plays in the fourth quarter where he didn't get. He doesn't get a shot, he doesn't get an assist, but he makes the play to start the ball movement to lead to a great shot. That's the stuff Finch has been hammering on him. Hey, make the right read. You know, if the reads get off the ball and. And, you know, kind of start the, you know, start the. The ball movement. Do that. And, you know, he had two or three times where big plays or hockey assists. And that, to me, is huge growth. You know, he's not scared at the moment. Like, he wasn't scared last year when he's looking, you know, talking trash to his idol, Kevin Durant, outplaying KD and Devin Booker. You know, say what you want about the Suns, but, you know, the Suns were, I believe, favored in that series, and Ant was 100 series and not scared of anything. Sometimes. Sometimes he's. He's too unafraid, I would say, or. Or too. Too thirsty for the moment. And this was like the perfect balance of taking over, but also, you know, making the right plays and not feeling like he had to do everything himself. This was not hero ball. This was a patient, patient, but aggressive, just dominant performance down the stretch.

[Zach Lowe]

He was. The Lakers got outscored by 10 points in the fourth quarter on Friday night. Ants was plus seven in that. In that quarter, scored seven points in this game. Lakers get outscored by 13 in the fourth quarter and played the whole fourth in this one. Plus 13. So he's plus 20 in the two third quarters. I'm sorry, the two fourth quarters, which basically have defined the series. You know, that's the two games that could have gone the Lakers way, that. That go the Wolves way. Now, I granted on Friday night, I know Luca was sick and he was not himself, but that all the more reason why JJ Reddick's decision making in the second half of this game is just. He coached this game like it was game seven of the finals.

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Not like it was, you know, game four, the first round.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, the most remarkable thing was him saying they decided this in the locker room at halftime. Like, I'm sorry, if Tom Thibodeau did this and didn't pull one starter the entire second half, the entire city of New York would have pitchforks out and would be coming for him. Right. It would be the biggest story going. Like, I'm sorry, I understand in part what he's thinking. The Lakers roster is not good all right. It's the reason I picked Minnesota to win the series. They're the deeper, better team outside their top couple of guys. However, the Lakers are up by 10 at the end of the third quarter. You got LeBron James at 40 years old on a 36 hour turnaround. You've got Luka Doncic, who's coming off having food poisoning and throwing up in the locker room. Need to come out late to start the second half on Friday. You cannot play those guys the entire second half without any break. Play Gabe Vincent for a couple of minutes. Play Jared Vanderbilt for a couple minutes. Play Jordan Goodwin for a couple of minutes. I'm not saying they got to play 20 minutes, but you got to give these guys a break. Especially when you're up. It's one thing if they're down 10 and if you're going to go down three one, the season is probably over and you got two days off after. So yeah, let's just throw the chicken kitchen sink at it and go for it. In this situation, the Lakers had a dominant third quarter. They had the lead. You have to give these guys a break. And you could see as the fourth quarter went along, I thought Chris Finch played it perfectly. He brings in Nas Reed with five minutes to go. Nazride immediately gets five points, has a ton more energy and everybody on the court. Then he brings in Dante DiVincenzo. He has a ton of energy. He's flying around making plays. And yes, the three guys on Minnesota's bench, Nikki, Alexander, Walker and those two dudes would be the fourth or third best player on the Lakers. So that's inherently JJ's problem here. But at the same time, you have to try to play a couple other guys a little bit. This has never happened since 1988. You just cannot do that in this game.

[Chris Haynes]

I will say there were six players who played all 24 minutes in the second half and it was a sixth. And LeBron honestly made some incredible defensive plays down the stretch.

[Tim Bontemps]

Unbelievable.

[Chris Haynes]

You know the one like, I don't know, man, if you have to go to Hawkeye to catch the foul, the Hawkeye cameras to catch the foul. Is it. I don't know that whatever, but like he had two or three just incredible defense plays. But Lucas only points in the last seven minutes were three free throws on a total bailout foul. It was like Julius Randall fouled him, but like Luca was going to throw up a terrible shot and Randall just made a, you know, it was, it was a, it was a bad foul. Now they were forcing the ball out of his hands, but still for Luca to go the last seven minutes without scoring. And Luca had a rebound in the entire game and just two assists, by the way. Yeah, and, and you know, defensively, I mean, there are definitely some like Luca statue, stand and watch type of moments on the defense, Vin. And look, there were multiple occasions last year where Luca played these kind of minutes in playoff games, right, where he would play. He, he would take a couple minutes, maybe two or three minutes in the first half and then he might play the whole second half. Like that. That happened a lot. These circumstances are different. Right. Luke is, I mean, I don't want to harp on the conditioning stuff, but like the condition was a major issue early in the season. He had the longest injury layoff of his career. There's no possible way for him to be in peak shape. And then as you mentioned, that, you know, this guy was puking his guts out 48 hours ago. You know, spent his, his whole day yesterday, basically. If he wasn't getting treatment, sleeping, it's just.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, it's one, it's also one thing if it's Luca and ant guys in their prime. So I think if it's the oldest player in the league on a 36 hour turnaround, that's, that's crazy.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't care if they had four days off and they weren't sick and they weren't 40.

[Tim Bontemps]

It's crazy. You can't do this.

[Zach Lowe]

You don't do it. You don't do it in Game 4 of a playoff series. I mean, look, there's no qualification.

[Tim Bontemps]

This was game seven for the Lakers. I think, like, look, I still think the Lakers can win the series, but.

[Zach Lowe]

No, you know, you made the point up 10 going in the fourth. That's not, no, it's not the way.

[Tim Bontemps]

No, no, no, listen, I, I'm saying in general, down to one as the home team on the road, you have to win this game to give yourself a realistic chance to win the series. That's why I'm saying it like game seven. You still don't want to play five guys, by the way, just because I don't want this to get lost in the shuffle. You mentioned the foul on LeBron, on Anthony Edwards on the drive with it, nine seconds to go. They call the ball out of bounds. The Wolves challenge it. Amazingly, the Lakers call timeout, then the Wolves challenge it. Not only do the Wolves win the challenge, the Lakers lose. Their timeout had a big impact on the end of the game, but that.

[Zach Lowe]

Was a, that was a very unusual sequence that I don't think I've ever seen before.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, and the other thing that's fascinating about it is McMahon will remember this. The reason this call happened today is because last year, Kyrie irving fouled Jaden McDaniels in game two of the Western Conference finals. The ball went out of bounds. The ball was off Jaden McDaniels because Kyrie fouled him. And because of that play, the NBA changed the rules. So this year, you can review for an approximate foul. And on this play, like LeBron hit. And on the wrist, like, I thought it was a foul. I would under. I would have. I wasn't. I was a little curious, more than a little curious, to see if they'd actually call it on LeBron in that spot, but they did. I thought he hit him on the wrist. And that call can't happen. Last year, it just would have been offhand. It would have been Laker ball. So it is fascinating that that call, which put the Bulls in that hole last year down to oh, comes back around and gets them the ball up one with two free throws, Grant helps them win this game.

[Zach Lowe]

One other thing I'm going to talk about going down the stretch. So the possession before that, the. The Lakers have the ball. Luka is bringing the ball up the court. Jaden McDaniels is draped all over him. Okay? Luka can barely move. He is exhausted. And he steps on Jaden McDaniel's foot and falls. Now, a text with some referees tonight. The short answer is, if a player falls, go falls forward. Most of the time it's a trip, but if the defender's foot is on the ground, sometimes the official can't see it. Is long story short. And so after the game, JJ Redick says that that should have been a foul and Luka should have. Should have gone to free throw. If it had been called a foul, it wouldn't have been egregious. But just in texting with some officials tonight, they just said it's a very hard call to make in real time when the. When the defensive player's foot is on the ground.

[Chris Haynes]

Well, you'll be shocked to know that Luka agreed with JJ well, here's a.

[Zach Lowe]

Key thing that I don't know if everybody picked up. They. So. So Luca falls on the ground, has no choice but to call timeout. So the Lakers lose. They had two timeouts left, and those are their last two. When he calls timeout, there's 17 seconds on the shot clock, which means. And they hadn't gotten it over the half court yet. That does not reset that they have until the clock strikes 15. So they had something less than two seconds.

[Tim Bontemps]

You have eight seconds to get the ball into the front court.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm sorry. Yeah, but if it basically, if the clock hits 15, it's a violation. The ball was not across the line. So they go into the timeout and they've got to draw up a play that gets the ball into the front court. Because if the ball's inbound in the backcourt, unless it's a real quick touch pass, you run the risk of an 8 second violation. I don't know if this was explained on the broadcast. I don't, I don't think, I don't know if it was, but I know it was.

[Tim Bontemps]

They were on top of it.

[Zach Lowe]

I know that Aunt Edwards knew it because Aunt Edwards immediately came up to the referee and said, they've got one second. Right. And, and so the play, Luca like comes to the, the half court line and kind of stops because he's afraid of catching in the backcourt and being a backcourt violation. And I'm not sure who comes over, who comes and gets the steal. Was it McDaniels again? So that is a, you know, a bunch of different things happen. And here's one last thing I'm going to say about the events of the last of the last few minutes of the game. The Lakers did get a great shot.

[Chris Haynes]

Oh yeah, they did.

[Zach Lowe]

They come down. Luca gets trapped, he kicks to LeBron. LeBron moves it to Austin Reeves. I know it was a tough shot for Reeves, but he gets a clean look. But here's the.

[Tim Bontemps]

That tough as an open quarter. Three.

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah, but, but he had a take every time.

[Tim Bontemps]

100.

[Zach Lowe]

Here's the problem. Here's the problem, guys. Let's say the ball goes in and you go to overtime. What do the Lakers have left for overtime?

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, at least they have a chance. But yes, I agree for sure. And by the way, by the way, the other thing we should talk about, the Bellwether in these four games has been Jaden McDaniels. The three games he's played well, the Lake the Wolves have won. He has been unbelievable in the series and it has been a huge moment for him. A guy who's been up and down, I think, to be charitable at times during the regular season. And he has been unbelievable in the three wins in this series.

[Zach Lowe]

And Reeves, and Reeves hasn't been great.

[Tim Bontemps]

No, I mean day to day.

[Zach Lowe]

But coming into this series, the Lakers needed their three stars to be top five, preferably top four. And I think Ann has been better than Luca.

[Chris Haynes]

Ant's been the best player in the series.

[Zach Lowe]

LeBron has been great on defense the last couple games. He was good on defense also in game two. He made some plays, but he's been great on defense in game three and four. 38 points in game three. He's. He and Luke are probably two and three. But then it's. It's a ways before you get. I mean, even Nas Reed.

[Tim Bontemps]

The depth of the Wolves has shown through. It's shown through in the way Chris Finch operated the game. He believed in his bench. And look, I. It's fair to question the depth of the Lakers, but Chris Finch had levers to pull and J.J. redick at halftime of what essentially was Game 7, decided he had no levers to pull. And that's the difference in the series at the moment beyond Ants going to the end of the year.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't know how you can make any decision that you're going to do for the entire second half.

[Tim Bontemps]

I agree. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that's logical.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't think you can say we're going to trap the pick and roll. We're going to play so. And you know, we're going to press like, I mean, every decision has got to be dynamic.

[Tim Bontemps]

That was why I thought that was an unbelievable quote when I saw it.

[Chris Haynes]

You didn't mention Julius Randall, who's having a very good season.

[Tim Bontemps]

He's been awesome too, by the way.

[Chris Haynes]

He only rested 32 seconds in the second half. And I. I've not seen Julius Randall play better defensively than he did.

[Tim Bontemps]

He's been an unbelievable monster.

[Chris Haynes]

I mean, he commit the one terrible foul on Luca, but really competing defensively.

[Zach Lowe]

The Wolves went 183 down the stretch and I know that the schedule was not good, but they.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, a certain team had a similar record down the stretch last year. They had a pretty good playoff run.

[Chris Haynes]

Yep.

[Zach Lowe]

And, and by the way, I'll point something else out. The Pacers went 14 and four down the stretch and, and they look. And they have been impressive.

[Tim Bontemps]

And I'm waiting to see the Pacers in the second round against a different opponent, but they've been. They've been very, very impressive.

[Zach Lowe]

The Cavs look go rate well again.

[Tim Bontemps]

Settle down corner.

[Zach Lowe]

We haven't talked about the Cavs at all, but we could skip right past that look great. I don't know.

[Tim Bontemps]

Cavs Pacers talk starting next weekend when the Second round.

[Zach Lowe]

No, I'm just, you know, just saying. And you know what happened in game three with the Cavs? They didn't play Darius Garland because he had a sprained toe.

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

So therefore they played really big. They played Dean Wade and DeAndre hunter them extra minutes and their defense was impenetrable. I realize that the Pete are not the 96 bulls, but holy Moses, did they look great. All right.

[Chris Haynes]

By the way, if we're going to mention the hot teams down the stretch of the regular season, we got to mention the Clippers. It's a two, two series. But I'm just telling you, if the Clippers win this series, they're going to put up a real fight against the Thunder.

[Tim Bontemps]

Let's just talk about that game. We got to talk about it.

[Zach Lowe]

So I was. So I was at our colleague Mike Wilbon's house. I had to go to Phoenix for a couple of days for a personal matter. And I had some free time on Saturday afternoon, so I went to Michael Wilbon's house in Scottsdale, which is always.

[Tim Bontemps]

As you do, McMahon, as you do.

[Zach Lowe]

As a wonderful place to watch games. I've had the chance. When the Suns were in the playoffs, back in the good old days in Phoenix, I could do that. And I had to get going. And the Nuggets got up by 20 and they were just cruising, you know, they looked great. And I was like, all right, I gotta make a drive down to this event. I gotta go to. And Wilbon calls me like 20 minutes later. You're not gonna believe this. The Clippers have gone on a 30 to 3. I don't even know what he was talking. He was all fired up. So I didn't, I saw the last play, but I didn't see the Clippers comeback.

[Tim Bontemps]

It was. I mean, the amazing thing was to talk about this JJ Reddick decision today. David Adelman basically did the same thing. Home team down to one in the series. Those guys, you know, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter, all these guys sat for a brief period in the second half, but they basically said, we're playing these guys the whole second half. And they were up by 20. And the Clippers just came on like an absolute freight train. One point's a 32 to 9 run. Same thing. It was like, this game goes to overtime, the Nuggets are going to get run off the court and their season is going to be over. And then just the crazy, just the absolute craziest ending ever. To the point where if you watch the, like, the slow MO, like 120 per frame shot replay. You have to like click all the way to the very last shot to see the ball out of Aaron Gordon's hands like in the tada nick of time. Like just. That was unbelievable. Unbelievable ending.

[Zach Lowe]

And like the reason I think that he gets a dunk there is that nobody thinks there's time left for an offensive rebound.

[Tim Bontemps]

It was like, it was like a perfect. It was like a pat. It was like the Lorenzo Charles Derek play back, right? That's an NC State championship game. It's just like completely complete serendipity. And by the way, huge shout out to Michael Porter, who's playing with this busted shoulder and played a ton of minutes was out there basically the whole second half. Clearly limited. Obviously it's not a shooting shoulder, but still like that. That series is just an absolute war.

[Chris Haynes]

Well, Aaron Gordon, Gordon's been banged up all year. He's been dealing with this calf all year. You know, he's not the same type of explosive athlete.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, Jokic has been banged up. Jamal's been banged up. I mean, they're, they're fighting.

[Chris Haynes]

But Gordon's plenty athletic on that last one. And you know, that's one where, look, if Joker doesn't shoot an airball, yeah, game's over. The Nuggets lose. But because he shot it to about 2ft long and I mean, obviously Joker's just trying to throw up something there. But because it was about 2ft long, Gordon was able to get it and throw it down.

[Zach Lowe]

That's got seven written all over it. And on one hand, it's. Does it seems a little bit unfair for the Thunder to win 68 games and have to get that winner. But on the other hand, the Thunder are done and they're going to have at least eight to 10 days off.

[Tim Bontemps]

I was going to say Thunder are going to be rooting hard, hard, hard, hard. That series to go seven games.

[Chris Haynes]

Oh my.

[Zach Lowe]

They're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna cheer every single cut on Jokic's arms. The man's arms are perpetually slashed like he just got out of Freddy Krueger movie.

[Chris Haynes]

And what a battle between him and Zubots.

[Tim Bontemps]

He's been. Awesome, dude. Awesome.

[Chris Haynes]

And, and like the Clippers Kawhi we've talked about, like, he looks springy again. He looks like a guy who is capable of being the best player in any series. You know, he's on that short list of guys where, you know, listen, Shay very well could, could outplay him. Obviously they're not playing one on one. But Shea's a likely mvp. Joker's a three time mvp. But Kawhi can be the best player in any series over a seven game stretch. He could, he can, you know, he, he can outshine anybody kind of like, you know, kind of like Ann Edwards can and you know, like Kawhi is back to being that guy. Harden is, is, has had a great year. If it's Clippers, if it's Clippers Thunder, there are some really interesting storylines there. There are the Paul George trey can still pay off for the Clippers because Kawhi is still there. And that was the whole point. Really.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah.

[Chris Haynes]

James Harden represents the worst trade Sam Presti's ever made.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, it just would be, I mean it just would be another epic series. I mean either way either. I mean, I think these two teams, like Wolves, Lakers have been great. We'll see where these two teams stand physically by the end of the series. But watching this series, I think these are the second and third best teams in the west in whatever order. And you know, we'll see what happens again health wise. But I mean this has just been, it's been unbelievable to watch.

[Zach Lowe]

I'll just say other than the Thunder, all of the seeds in the west, well, I guess maybe not the Grizzlies, but seeds two through seven, the seating didn't matter. You know, it, you know, the Wolves and, and Nuggets if, or the Wolves and the Clippers if they win these series. It's not an upset, you know, it's not, you know, it's overcoming not having home court advantage. But these teams are all very, very close to each other as these as these series have dictated.

[Chris Haynes]

More Hoop Collective podcast after this.

[Zach Lowe]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are.

[Tim Bontemps]

The words you really need to remember.

[Chris Haynes]

Remember.

[Zach Lowe]

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need. Have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, and.

[Tim Bontemps]

Even reach a real person when you.

[Zach Lowe]

Need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[Tim Bontemps]

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[Zach Lowe]

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[Tim Bontemps]

Also, won't be an upset if the warriors win the rest of their series as a segue.

[Chris Haynes]

True.

[Zach Lowe]

But the. The Rockets have got to do better than in game three with Jimmy Butler on the sideline. They just, you know, they don't have the firepower and it's pretty obvious and you know, under certain circumstances they have enough. But. And I know they're on the road and it's a big ask for a young team, but they need. If they're going to win the series, they got to win that game. They just got to. And now they're playing from behind and you know, Jimmy's going to get better by the day, so.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, now it's just, I mean, talk about herculean efforts. I mean, Steph Curry does not usually play 41 minutes for a lot of reasons. Obviously he plays an incredibly taxing style. He's not that big. They try to maximize the time he's out there. So he could be flying around for him to play 41 minutes against this Rockets defense with Amen Thompson and Fred Van Vliet, Dylan Brooks and all these really good physical defenders throwing themselves at him for the entire time he's on the court to have 36 and nine, only two turnovers. You know, Steph can be a little turnover prone. He had a couple early in the game, didn't have any more after that. Flying around, hitting one bomb after another from three. It was just awesome to watch. And like you said, for a young Rockets team that's going through it for the first time, this is like true baptism by fire for a lot of these young guys. Seeing what it takes to get to the mountaintop right away. And I mean, that was just a vintage all time step performance. And the Rockets have probably seen more vintage all time stuff performances than any other franchise probably times three at this point.

[Chris Haynes]

So, yeah, just a lot of these guys were, you know, prepubescent.

[Zach Lowe]

Well, that's the thing. Like Steph has a ton of playoff games where he scored more points than this. But this was a throwback game to like the, you know, early 2000s where, you know, when you score 30, it's one thing to score 35 and your team score is 125. You score 35, when your team scores 100, the leverage on the points is greater. So, like, you know, that's why, you.

[Tim Bontemps]

Know, every point is earned in the series.

[Zach Lowe]

Right. And typically, you see, I think Steph was like 10 of 25, which doesn't feel like a hot.

[Tim Bontemps]

It was 12 for 23 and 5 for 13.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, 12 for 23. Okay.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

5 for 13 from 3 doesn't feel like a great step shooting game. But then you see the way the game was played and you understand, you know, that the value of each of those goes up.

[Chris Haynes]

Well, and, and look, we all thought the Rockets were a consistent offensive engine away from being a real contender. And that's pretty much the way this series has played out for them. Jalen Green's had one amazing game. They've won one game. He's had two poor games other than that, you know, and, and we'll see one, if the Rockets can make this a series. But, you know, if not, you know, we'll see how they react this summer when they're. They will have. They have options.

[Tim Bontemps]

I have a lot of options.

[Chris Haynes]

Options. Whether they act on those options remains to be seen.

[Tim Bontemps]

Maybe they'll have Cooper flag.

[Chris Haynes]

It's possible. Thanks, Phoenix.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, so Knicks, Pistons. Brutal weekend for.

[Chris Haynes]

They're not Pistons today, they're pissed offs.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, brutal weekend for the Pistons fans. The knicks are up 3:1. So obviously let's start with the fact that the end of the game, it's a three point, it's a one, it's a one point game.

[Tim Bontemps]

One point game, one point game.

[Zach Lowe]

Cade Cunningham gets a great look from top of the key two in a.

[Tim Bontemps]

Row for the exact same spot in the final 30 seconds. Regardless of whatever we're gonna, we're obviously gonna talk about this foul. It was a bad missed call, David. God. 3. Staring right at it. He's got to make the call. That being said, if Detroit goes on to lose this series, Kate Cunningham, who's played great, set an awesome year, he's going to think all summer about those two shots. Got right to his spot on both of them. First one just rims out somehow spun out. Second one just missed. And either one of those goes in, Detroit very well wins this game. And it's 2:2. And they got a ton of life in the Series. But obviously goes without saying, you also like to see this call, the MP properly made.

[Zach Lowe]

So his offensive rebound, the ball goes out to Tim Hardaway Jr. In the corner. Josh Hart bumps him. Referee David Guthrie is standing five feet away with a clear sight line. Although, you know, Hart is on the other side of hard away from Guthrie. But anyway, he misses the shot. The referees go back and look at it and Guthrie comes out in the pool report and says he got the call wrong. And it's, you know, look, I, I know that there's nothing you can say to a Pistons player or fan that is going to change the way they feel about that.

[Chris Haynes]

Or J.B. bickerstaff, he appears to be pretty heated.

[Zach Lowe]

Well, Bickerstaff came running down to the.

[Tim Bontemps]

He almost ran over Darren Erman walking out of the court. He was like, whoa, I gotta get.

[Zach Lowe]

Out of the way. Well, it's funny, like JB was hunting for, you know, David Guthrie and Tibbs is like getting off the court. He's like, I'm gonna get out of here. I do think it matters that the officials took accountability and said I got the call wrong.

[Tim Bontemps]

Tough weekend for David Guthrie. Cal messing up this eight second call on Friday. I mean, the end of his crew doing the end of the Celtics game the other day, also a complete mess. Have to say he, he has this bizarre eight second call. He gets wiped out. The Celtics then get this rebound with, I look like close to a full second on the clock. Never gets looked at. Not sure why that gets reviewed all the time for timing reasons. For some reason it didn't. Now Celtics didn't deserve to win that game either. Just like I think the Pistons blew this game with a few other things down the stretch. But it's not a great, not a great couple of closing stretches there.

[Zach Lowe]

By the way, real quick on the Celtics. Magic 31 going back to Boston. Jason Tatum misses game two with the bone bruise in his wrist, comes back with 36 and 37. I know they lost on Friday, but still, Tatum, huge weekend. The Celtics are a little banged up right now. Tatum's got the wrist. Jalen Brown still coming back from the knee. Drew Holiday's missed a couple games with a sore hamstring.

[Tim Bontemps]

This has. Porzingis tweaked his leg tonight too. They gotta get, they gotta, they gotta close the series out on Tuesday.

[Chris Haynes]

Porzingis has the removal stitches.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yes, yes, he got hit in the head too. But they, they got to close the series out in game five and get this thing over with and get a few days off before they face either the Knicks or the Pistons in the second round.

[Zach Lowe]

But from the Knicks perspective, Carl Towns makes two tremendous plays down the stretch. He makes a, about maybe a 10 footer from the baseline over the side of the backboard.

[Tim Bontemps]

I think it was deeper than that. That was one of the best shots. Like, look, the other three was a huge shot. Like, I mean, he had a really deep three to put him up. Obviously, Carl's got great range. This baseline jumper that he hit with, I think it might have been to buy I camera if it was Tobias, somebody just absolutely draped on him. I was only an eight footer, you're right. I just looked it up. But that, that shot, that turnaround jumper on the baseline, it was just an unbelievable shot.

[Zach Lowe]

So that brings.

[Tim Bontemps]

Dropped it in.

[Chris Haynes]

That's when you say on the baseline. You mean on the baseline, like. Yes, he got, he had to shoot.

[Tim Bontemps]

It over, over the backboard. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

So they're down 4 at that point. That. I think it's at the end of the shot clock, right?

[Tim Bontemps]

It was, it was right at the end the shot. He had to heave it up because he got caught with it in the corner. And he just had to turn around and make this crazy looking shot.

[Zach Lowe]

So he makes that, then the, the Knicks get a stop. Then he drills a deep three to put the last basket of the game to put the Knicks ahead. I mean, this is, you know, Towns has playoff games where he said big shots like this. This is not like his arrival. But it was his first big moment in the playoffs in a Knicks uniform.

[Tim Bontemps]

He also had another big three. Just under three minutes to go too. And he, he was there. I mean, Jalen obviously went out. It looked like Jalen might have messed his leg up for a minute, but Carl was the one consistent presence they had throughout the game. And then they got down to the end and it was the Jalen show, as usual. And Carl stepped up and hit three massive shots.

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah, Jalen had a huge fourth quarter, but Cat was the one who hit the biggest shots at the end.

[Zach Lowe]

So that's the other thing coming out of this game. Jalen gets rolled on. So I, I, it was his right ankle. His, it was his left ankle. I'm fairly certain that he sprained that cost him about a month. Most of March and part of April was his right ankle.

[Chris Haynes]

I'll, I'll double check that.

[Zach Lowe]

Okay.

[Tim Bontemps]

No, it was same, it was his right ankle. Same one, yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Okay, well, so he gets rolled up on in that ankle and everything had all the makings of A high ankle sprain, which by the way, going back to it in that, in that wolves Lakers game, LeBron was diving for a loose ball and he landed on Aunt Edwards's ankle, which had all the makings of a look of a high ankle.

[Tim Bontemps]

Sprain and looked a lot like The Solomon Hill LeBron play from back in the day and aunt, aunt LeBron are probably the two most like, indestructible people we've seen in a long time. And it just, it looked like Ant's leg was dead and then he just popped up.

[Zach Lowe]

It's like, okay, no, but LeBron missed the rest of the season pretty much. He never recovered from that.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, that was like, that was like the first. I mean, I guess it wasn't the first one. The knee was before that. But first real injury absences, the groin.

[Zach Lowe]

That he had his first year in la. But think about that. The point is Ant has shown incredible rubber bones and ligaments in his career and he just picks right up. I mean he, he looked like, oh my gosh, he keeps going, right on going. And this, this one. So Jalen, I mean, like the way he like sort of had his right ankle like just was holding it up in the air. You were like, oh my God, he goes to the locker room, he comes back and has a great finish. I. The question you have now is how is that ankle going to feel? You got to fly back. How is the ankle going to feel for game five? You know, that's almost, that's like almost the biggest storyline in that series right now. Is Jalen's ankle going to be okay for Game 5? Because a lot of times, yeah, I.

[Chris Haynes]

Think the no call is the bigger storyline today.

[Zach Lowe]

Well, it's, I said the biggest storyline for game five. The biggest storyline for game four is the no call.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, look, if the Knicks want any chance of having any kind of chance to even contend with Boston, they have to win this game on Tuesday. They have to end the series A. Detroit has shown they're good enough to take games off the Knicks. These last couple games have been pure toss ups and the Knicks escaped with wins in both of them. But they've got to give their guys time off and they've got to make sure they're fully healthy and ready to go when they see Boston because they're limping into that series and Jalen's banged up and you know, they're all knocked around from a seven game slugfest with Detroit. They already have, I think, a slim to little chance, slim to none chance of Making that competitive. I don't think they have a prayer if they're exhausted going into a Boston series.

[Zach Lowe]

We've talked about. We've sort of danced around it. The story of this postseason. One of the stories of this postseason is depth. If you don't got it, you got trouble. It's problem with Denver, it's a problem with the Lakers, potential problem with the Knicks. And you look at a team, you know, like Oklahoma City, look at a team like the Cavs, who again lost an all star starter and won by 40.

[Tim Bontemps]

Celtics, same thing.

[Zach Lowe]

Celtics, same thing. Although the Celtics. Sam Houser scored no points in the first three games of the series, and he finally came alive a little bit today.

[Tim Bontemps]

They have eight or nine good players, though. That's the thing. They have guys you can rely on. The Wolves have guys you can rely on. The Clippers have guys you can rely on. Right. Like that's, you know, that's been the difference in these games.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. Depth is huge.

[Chris Haynes]

So, yeah, OKC plays 10 guys by the start of the second quarter every game. Seriously.

[Tim Bontemps]

I know, I know.

[Zach Lowe]

But the thing about Oklahoma City is Shea played C minus basketball and they swept.

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And you know, John Cook getting the.

[Tim Bontemps]

Four in game four.

[Chris Haynes]

Game four was. Was typical Shay.

[Zach Lowe]

It wasn't even still, though, kind of below his average.

[Chris Haynes]

Like a B plus for him. Yeah. You know, 38 on 13.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, he had 38. Okay. Yeah.

[Tim Bontemps]

Game. Game four. He was legit.

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah. The three games before that, like, he played fine. He's in shoot. Well, he was shooting 35 from the floor.

[Tim Bontemps]

But Jaylen, by his own admission, he wasn't good enough.

[Chris Haynes]

Yeah. Jalen Williams played a great series. Like you said, the depth, you know, and. And yeah, John Moran did get hurt. I mean, according to Ja. If he didn't get hurt, they'd be two, two. Now.

[Zach Lowe]

Let's stop with that. Let's. John Moran gave his exit interview. Give the exact thing that he said.

[Chris Haynes]

All right, so I'm going to read from Demichel Cole of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, or I'll just read his tweet. John Moran paused because he wanted to be careful with his words, but he clearly had more to say when asked about how the OKC series turned out, quote, I had them figured out. Added that he believes the series would be tied 2, 2, headed back to OKC if it didn't get hurt.

[Zach Lowe]

Now, not that careful. The swords.

[Chris Haynes]

No. When Jaw got hurt, the Grizzlies were up 27 points in game three. 29 on the very next possession. I'm gonna say they probably win that game. That's where they have more. But, like, this idea of, like, the Grizzlies were going to make this series. Dude, the Grizzlies did not beat a single Western Conference team with a winning record since January. And like, the, the idea that the Grizzlies were. Were going to make this competitive against the Thunder is silly. And if you don't believe me, ask Zach Kleiman, who his quote, as he's.

[Zach Lowe]

The general manager of the Grizzlies, in case people don't know.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yes, I'm not aware of this quote. I'm curious to see what it is.

[Chris Haynes]

Again, reading from Michael. I don't think we can look back at this season and say we're close. No, we're not. No, they're not. Like, they're not. This season was not close to anything good for the Grizzlies. They fired their coach with nine games left in the regular season. Again, they didn't. They had one win against any team with a winning record after January. They had. They beat the Pistons, I. I believe in April. Other than that, they were over against teams with the winning records. They were in. They were in the eight seed, like. And, and frankly, this core that everybody was so excited about, you know, this brash, young core talking about John Moran, Desmond Bay And Jaren Jackson Jr. Which, by the way, Jaren Jackson Jr. Is in line to get a fat extension this summer. They've combined or they've won a playoff series in their five years together. 1. So like this, they're not close. They've got to. They've got to figure things out. You know, Thomas Solo, you know, if I'm going to put a bet down, I think he's going to be the Grizzlies next head coach. That's not a certainty. It's hard to judge him based on, hey, you get the reigns. With nine games to go after being involved in this weird offensive, philosophical tug of war all season long, I thought.

[Tim Bontemps]

He did some stuff that was pretty solid in this short run he had. But, yeah, I mean, look, the biggest thing more than anything else is, like you said five years ago, if you'd said this group was gonna have won one playoff series over the next five years, you would have said, that's crazy.

[Zach Lowe]

There's no math.

[Chris Haynes]

It's massively disappointing. And obviously there's a lot of things. The fact that JA has more league suspensions than playoff series wins is a problem now.

[Zach Lowe]

Significantly more. Yeah.

[Chris Haynes]

Two to one now has not, you know, there's like, aside from silly bike.

[Zach Lowe]

I thought you meant suspended games versus playoff.

[Tim Bontemps]

No.

[Chris Haynes]

Oh, no. No games.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Chris Haynes]

Oh, just suspensions.

[Zach Lowe]

A lot more playoff suspended games than within.

[Chris Haynes]

I think Jaw has, you know, with guidance, has unders. He. He's come to kind of an understanding of how to enjoy life without putting yourself in jeopardy of. Of league disciplinary action. That's certainly significant progress. But hey, Ja. As a franchise player, it's. The Grizzlies are committed to him, you know, run out. Nola Roche, the assistant who had his hands all over the offense that Jai hated, was a sign of, hey, John, we're about you. You know, we're about, you know, making you happy. We're about appeasing you. But he misses a ton of games. And I know, like, hey, they're contact injuries, but he's a guy who tends to get hurt a lot. And I. When I'm talking to people around the league, GMs, execs, scouts, I don't have people tell me that they think Jaws like a top 10 player when he's healthy anymore. Top 25.

[Tim Bontemps]

He was relatively healthy this year and he wasn't close to being an all Star. Right. He was a good player, but it was just kind of around. And look, we've talked a lot over the last month about the clarifying nature of the playoffs. And when you get in the playoffs and you get disappointed, what happens then, Right? Because there's only four teams that can advance out of the first round in each conference and especially out west, there's nine, 10, 11 teams that think they can win one or more playoff series. Memphis is one of them. So whatever you want to say about Jaws quotes, right? Yeah. The most interesting thing said was Zach Kleiman saying, if you want to look at this season, can't say that we're close. And this is a team that has aspirations of being close. So what will they do about it? Actions over words. The words indicate there will be actions. This team has salary flexibility. They've got draft picks. Zach Kleiman has not been shy about trying to do stuff to improve the team in the past. It's going to be very interesting to see what they do because they've had some really nice finds on the margin. Scottie Pippen Jr. Was awesome in game four. He's on one of the best contracts in the NBA. Like, he's a really good player. Zach Edie had moments this year. Jaren has gotten better. Like, they can point to some things where they've made strides, but if you look at them in the hierarchy of the Western Conference. Like you said, McMahon, they haven't beat a West playoff team in three, almost four months and it's not good enough.

[Chris Haynes]

Desmond Baines on a max contract. Jaren Jackson Jr. I think he's probably going to end up all NBA. It's going to make him supermax eligible. It's going to make those negotiations really interesting. They both had bad, bad series against the best defense in the NBA. And look, it's the best defense in the NBA. But like, if you think you're going to do.

[Zach Lowe]

You don't think they had the Thunder figured out?

[Chris Haynes]

No, no. I don't think either one of those guys, they didn't figure out that, hey, if you dribble against those guys, it's going to be. Something bad's probably going to happen a lot.

[Zach Lowe]

I'll tell you that pass against them, the same problem. Those.

[Tim Bontemps]

Like I said, let's see. Let's see what Memphis does this summer. They. They, I think hold the keys to a lot of interesting pass this summer. Depending on.

[Chris Haynes]

You mentioned, you mentioned Scotty Pippen Jr. He's the guy who, you know, he's the guy who made the game four competitive with with jaw out. And you know, he's a guy he earned like they were 12 and nine with with him starting when Ja was hurt, which is interesting. And again, all indications from Clim, Zack Climan are that he is fully committed to John Morant, you know, and I don't know anything at this point that would tell me that that commitment is not mutual. There's a lot of whispering and rumbling around the league about whether Ja might be available. But, you know, that's. I would just put that into the speculation category at this point.

[Zach Lowe]

He is shot. He, you know, whatever it's worth. As a reminder, he shot that climb.

[Chris Haynes]

And shot it down strongly. But you know, hey, sky, enough.

[Zach Lowe]

Enough grizzlies talk. Enough grizzlies talk at 1 in the morning, okay?

[Tim Bontemps]

We'll.

[Chris Haynes]

We'll get to them again probably in October.

[Zach Lowe]

All right. Well, just what it is. All right. We got a lot going on in the league. Good luck to Bon Temps. Whatever his endeavors are this week, thank you.

[Tim Bontemps]

We could just say it's all right. It's not. We don't have to. We have to.

[Zach Lowe]

Well, I did around the bush.

[Tim Bontemps]

That's fine. I'm not going to be around for a minute. Might as well say why.

[Chris Haynes]

Oh, wait, wait, you're getting suspended.

[Tim Bontemps]

You could, you could say that we're having a kid this week. So I. That's why I've been home on hanging out not.

[Zach Lowe]

Are you going to reveal that it is a.

[Tim Bontemps]

No. We're having a boy. Yeah. Boy gonna be home. So everything's been good. So hope. Hopefully by the time this pod is on TV on when. Not this one, but the next spot is on TV on Wednesday, we'll have the kid here and. And yeah. So I don't know when I'll be back. Hopefully not super long time, but we'll be a man.

[Zach Lowe]

McMahon. The bontemp's name is going to live on generations into the future.

[Chris Haynes]

Rename them, naming them after me.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, we'll see. There hasn't been a decision yet on that, so we'll see. We still got a couple days figure it out.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, well, good luck to the lovely Kelly Bond and K. Bond and good luck to you and we wish you good sleep in the next couple of days because then it's over also.

[Tim Bontemps]

That's true.

[Chris Haynes]

Advising you those diaper change. You got to kind of use the diapers as shoes. Shield just in case. Just a little shield action.

[Tim Bontemps]

I. I've heard about that. Well, let's be ready.

[Zach Lowe]

He's watched the. He's watched the YouTube videos.

[Tim Bontemps]

I'll be watching the. I'll be listening to the pot from home and watching the games and we'll talk to you guys soon.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. Something tells me that Bon Temps's opinions are going to be slipping through into one way or another.

[Tim Bontemps]

But this has been about the best this has. Well, yeah, we'll be taxing on the group that I'm sure if this has. This first round is. I mean, I mean, obviously it's just such a bummer with the dame thing, but this first round has been unbelievable. Like every night there's one or two or three awesome games. It's just been great. So be a fun week ahead.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, he's having a great time. McMahon just sitting at home watching the games. All right.

[Tim Bontemps]

K. Bond was trying to get me to go to game five on Wednesday on Tuesday. So he's like, oh, this is going to be going to be a great game. I was like, we got other things to do. I don't think I'm going to be at the guard.

[Zach Lowe]

Knicks are up three one. All right. Thank you, McMahon. Thank you, Bon Temps. Thank you, Jackson, our producer. Thank you for watching and listening to Hoop Collective. We'll talk to you later this week.

[Chris Haynes]

Adios, amigos.