Wemby & Spurs Not Playoff Ready? Concerned About Jokic? + Dort Foul Reaction & Watch Out For Hornets

Summary

Podcast Summary: Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective

Episode: Wemby & Spurs Not Playoff Ready? Concerned About Jokic? + Dort Foul Reaction & Watch Out For Hornets
Date: March 2, 2026
Host: Brian Windhorst (with Tim Bontemps, Tim McMahon, and Mark Dagenau) – ESPN, Omaha Productions

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Episode Overview

This episode breaks down key conversations and storylines from the NBA’s current season, focusing on:

• The San Antonio Spurs' emerging concerns as the playoffs near and Victor Wembanyama's evolving role
• Issues facing the defending champion Denver Nuggets, especially recent struggles from Nikola Jokic and a controversial Lou Dort foul
• The surprising surge of the Charlotte Hornets and "Buzz City Killers" lineup
• Updates and banter about East and West playoff races, individual player milestones, and some notable sideline moments

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Main Discussion Points

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1. New York Knicks vs. San Antonio Spurs – Spurs Not Quite Playoff Ready?

[00:34–11:48]

• Knicks snap Spurs’ win streak:
  The Knicks earned a convincing home win over the Spurs, ending the Spurs' run. The crew debates the Knicks’ real quality and what the matchup says about both teams.

• Fatigue & Road-Trip Woes:
  The Spurs have been on a long "Rodeo Road Trip," and exhaustion may be taking a toll on key players, including Victor Wembanyama.

• Victor Wembanyama’s Offensive Role:

  • The group debates Wemby’s penchant for settling on threes and playing like a wing:
    “The more he plays like a wing, the more you’re giving the opposition a chance.” – Tim Bontemps [08:40]
    • Spurs may have to adjust in the playoffs, as teams will dare poor shooters (e.g. Stefan Castle, Dylan Harper) to shoot and clog the paint against Wemby.

• Supporting Cast & Shooting Concerns:

  • “Stefan Castle has improved as a three-point shooter over the last six weeks … but [San Antonio are] a little light on the shooting.” – Tim McMahon [07:59]
  • Discussion about Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie stepping into consistent roles as shooters/3-and-D guys, but concern remains.

• Playoff Outlook:

  • The hosts agree there’s a learning curve coming for this young group; expect growing pains under postseason pressure and targeted defensive schemes.

Notable Quote:

“When they get in the playoffs, and they’re playing a team that’s game-planning for them, they’re going to say, ‘Stefan Castle, we’re going to stand 25 feet away from you, and we’re going to let you shoot the ball and have a time. And how is he going to handle that?’”
— Mark Dagenau [06:37]

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2. Eastern Conference Check-In: Waiting for Real Contenders

• Knicks’ Home Court & Top of the East:

  • Knicks are formidable at home; their recent wins mostly came against tanking teams. Bontemps notes the real test for the East’s top teams (Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, New York) will come in the postseason, with few surprises until then.

• Jayson Tatum's Return Theories (Boston Celtics):

  • Banter around Tatum’s expected comeback and numerology conspiracy theories (could he return on 3/14, St. Louis area code “314”, Pi Day?).
  • “If Jayson Tatum comes back on March 14 … it would be great.” – Tim McMahon [14:48]

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3. West Playoff Contenders: Wolves Rise, Nuggets Struggle

[19:14–29:06]

• Minnesota Timberwolves:

  • Completing a 3-0 West coast swing, now 11-4 in their last 15. The panel sees them as the West contender with the most complete two-way game.
  • Anthony Edwards is highlighted as a superstar who can win games by himself in the playoffs:

    “We’ve seen him just have games in playoffs where it’s like, dude, you’re not beating that guy today.”
    – Tim McMahon [20:08]

• Path to Conference Finals:

  • Wolves aiming for a top-three West seed and favorable playoff bracket.

• Denver Nuggets’ Struggles:

  • Post-injury, Jokic’s play has dipped (now under 50% FG for the month, rare in his career – previous sub-50% month was Nov. 2019 [32:46]), and their record is faltering (4-8 since his return).
  • Team is running into lineup issues and defensive shortfalls with Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson out.
  • Additional concern: Jokic’s wrist problem, affecting his inside touch and three-point shooting.

Notable Quote:

“This is a guy who probably has the best paint touch in the history of the game … it’s been very hit and miss since he’s been back.”
— Tim McMahon [31:16]

• Nuggets’ “Clutch” Issues:
  • Denver’s record in close games is poor lately (possibly 1–7 in clutch situations during this stretch).
  • Adelman may have to stagger Jokic/Murray more due to depth problems [27:55].

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4. Dort’s Dirty Foul on Jokic – Fallout and League-Wide Reaction

[32:02–43:42]

• The Incident:

  • In Friday’s OKC-DEN game, Lou Dort blindsides Jokic with a hip check/trip (the panel agrees: obvious, dirty, unjustifiable).
  • “It was a dirty play. It was an obviously dirty play. Any neutral person watching the game would universally agree.” – Mark Dagenau [35:11]

• Aftermath:

  • Dort was ejected (flag-2), and both teams’ coaches addressed it postgame and pregame on Sunday.
  • Nuggets coach Adelman remained upset, implying need to “stand up for yourself” in future matchups [39:54].

• Dort’s Reputation:

  • Previous borderline incidents (e.g., Ja Morant, Brandon Ingram), but this play “removes plausible deniability." Now, Dort’s rep as a fair but aggressive defender may be permanently altered:

    “I think this is a pretty big mark on Lou Dort’s reputation, and I think a lot of the plausible deniability … going forward will not exist.”
    – Mark Dagenau [41:12]

• Next Meeting:

  • The next Thunder-Nuggets clash is March 9th [42:56], expected to be heated.

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5. The Charlotte Hornets’ Stunning Turnaround: "Buzz City Killers"

[46:15–60:04]

• Charlotte’s Resurgence:

  • Now 19-8 since January 2, after being written off – allusion to their starting lineup (LaMelo Ball, Khan Knipple, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, Moussa Diabate) now 18-2 together.
  • Net rating +30.4 (elite); have outscored opponents by 179 points.

• Elite Shooting, Historic Run:

  • Four straight wins by 15+ points, eight straight games making 5+ more threes than their opponent (historic).
  • Lineup stats compared with NBA’s best – “This lineup ... twice as good as the starting lineup of the 60-win Detroit Pistons … that’s a lot of minutes.” – Mark Dagenau [49:13]

• Credit to LaMelo Ball:

  • “Can LaMelo Ball ... ever really drive winning in the NBA? ... you have to recognize this dude is having the kind of season I was not sure he could have, and that’s making a major impact for a team that’s winning now.”
    – Tim McMahon [49:43]

• Khan Knipple’s Rookie of the Year Case:

  • “He is officially ... the Rookie of the Year favorite ... he’s already broken the record for three-pointers made by a rookie … shooting 49-44-88.” – Tim McMahon [55:14]
  • Compared to rookie Steph Curry: same 3P%, higher volume, younger.

• Playoff Implications:

  • Charlotte now 10th in the East, within striking distance of the 6–8 seeds.
  • “If they continue anywhere near this pace ... they’re going to be a team literally no one’s going to want to play in the first round of the playoffs.” – Tim Bontemps [53:29]

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6. Other Noteworthy Moments and Quotes

• Anthony Edwards & Chris Finch Banter (Wolves):

  • Finch recounting his relationship with Ant Edwards — “This is what I bleeping do!” — after Edwards hit a game-winner and barked at his coach [23:17].

• Rudy Gobert’s Defensive Impact:

  • “If not for Wemby, Rudy would be a very deserving Defense Player of the Year candidate this year.” — Tim McMahon [25:22]

• Buzz City Killers Nickname Ongoing Banter:

  • Jokes about overusing the “Buzz City Killers” nickname for the Hornets [46:28–47:43].
  • Self-deprecation and playful mockery among the panel: “You've run that into the ground...” – Mark Dagenau [60:37]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment Topic | Timestamps | |---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------| | Knicks defeat Spurs, fatigue, and readiness questions | 00:34 – 11:48 | | East standings + Jayson Tatum conspiracy theories | 11:48 – 16:59 | | Timberwolves & Nuggets race, Jokic struggles, Gobert's impact | 19:14 – 31:16 | | Dort’s dirty foul, fallout, and reputation discussion | 32:02 – 43:42 | | Charlotte Hornets’ surge and Khan Knipple’s ROY case | 46:15 – 60:04 |

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Conclusion

• Spurs exposed some playoff-prep issues, especially shot creation/spread concerns with Wembanyama and a young, non-shooting backcourt.
• Nuggets are battling injuries and Jokic's rare struggles—raising legitimate concern about their title defense.
• East heavyweights are in "wait and see" mode; Boston’s Tatum watch continues.
• Minnesota looks best equipped among West hopefuls to capitalize.
• Charlotte Hornets are suddenly the toast of the league—no longer pushovers, propelled by an unprecedented rookie season from Knipple and a young, high-octane core.

Notable upcoming games:

• Thunder vs. Nuggets, March 9th – anticipate tension (Dort vs. Jokic) [42:56]
• Boston Celtics – all eyes on Jayson Tatum’s imminent return [13:00]

Panel’s tone:

• Analytical, candid, humorous — plenty of inside jokes and light-hearted jabs throughout.
• Strong mix of data-driven insight (“he’s a 50-40-90 rookie!”) and old-school, eye-test observation.

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For more in-depth player stats, playoff bracket analysis, or background on running NBA jokes (like “USWB” – Urine-Soaked Wet Blanket), tune out the ads and dive into the next episode of “Hoop Collective.”

Transcript

[Tim McMahon]

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[Tim Bontemps]

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Sunday evening. Joining us from New York City, where he attended the New York Knicks San Antonio spurs game today, where spurs losing streak, or winning streak, I should say, was brought to a crashing end at the hands of the powerful New York Knicks, Tim Bontemps.

[Mark Dagenau]

I don't know about powerful, but they are the Knicks and they did win. Hello, everybody.

[Tim Bontemps]

Joining us from Dallas, Texas. He's just back from Oklahoma City where he saw Yika Liokic almost tear the face off of Lou Dort and and is headed out to LA in a couple hours. Here is Ban McMahon.

[Tim McMahon]

Howdy, partners. Also made a little pit stop pregame to go see the Thunder tonight in Dallas. Didn't see the need to stick around for the actual game, but did want to ask Mark Dagenau what he thought of David Adelman's two days later comments on the little fracas there. We'll get into that later.

[Tim Bontemps]

We certainly will. Let's start in the right there in New York. Bontemps. Let me just say that, you know, there's been quite a bit of discussion about the fact that The spurs are 4 and 1 against the Thunder this year. And you know, we've talked and counted the plus minus point differential with the Pistons being 3. Zero against the Knicks. What is it, 84, 80 something? You know, I think if you're going to stick with those types of things, then it must be recognized that the New York Knickerbockers are 30 against the San Antonio spurs this year.

[Mark Dagenau]

No, they're not.

[Tim Bontemps]

Not officially in the standings.

[Mark Dagenau]

I think think the Knicks lost because that was the start of their slide. The spurs came back and beat the Knicks on New Year's Eve.

[Tim Bontemps]

My preparation for this podcast is a disaster. Yeah, I even studied the. I even studied the box score from that game from a year ago.

[Mark Dagenau]

I mean, they.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah, they did beat him on Christmas. Did they beat him in the NBA class?

[Mark Dagenau]

The Knicks are 2 and 1 against the spurs this year and led a lot of the other game before they completely collapsed in the fourth quarter and lost.

[Tim McMahon]

All right, they beat him in the NBA Cup. They beat the mess out of them today. Honestly, the Knicks needed like a convincing win against a good team because they've had some that went the other way on them recently against some quality competition. And then the spurs rolled through February. But what, what? Out like a lamb in like a lion. Is that what old March gave him? A little lion treatment?

[Mark Dagenau]

He blanked out Christmas Day this year because Cav's corner came to New York and lost.

[Tim Bontemps]

Cavs corner with a powerful win over the Nets today.

[Tim McMahon]

The spurs also had a pretty memorable Christmas Day where they spanked the Thunder's little butts up there in OKC.

[Mark Dagenau]

That is fantastic.

[Tim McMahon]

Finishes 3 and 12.

[Mark Dagenau]

And I have been at Madison Square Garden on many an afternoon on Saturday and Sunday over the years where the road team, whether the Knicks been good or not, has come into the building and looked like they were asleep, which is I would say, a large part of what happened in this game today.

[Tim Bontemps]

How long have they been in New York? They've been in New York since Thursday. Right.

[Mark Dagenau]

They got, they got to New York. They got to New York on Wednesday, played the next Thursday and no, it was a back to back.

[Tim McMahon]

So they got in early Thursday.

[Mark Dagenau]

That's right, early Thursday morning from Toronto. Then they played the played game.

[Tim Bontemps]

What game is this on the Rodeo road trip.

[Mark Dagenau]

It's, it's pretty high up there. I mean they played the, they played the Austin. They played the Austin Gays in the middle to break it up a little bit. But they've been on the road for a long time. Then they go to Philly to play the Joel Embiid List Sixers on Tuesday.

[Tim Bontemps]

The Joel Embiid injury is. That's an oblique and not a leg injury. So there's at least, there's, at least, there's, it's not a leg injury. It's knocking them out.

[Mark Dagenau]

That is true. And then the spurs go home on Thursday to play the Pistons again.

[Tim Bontemps]

They last played in San Antonio on February 7th.

[Tim McMahon]

Yes, circle Thursday. That one's going to be interesting because, you know, I'm pretty sure the Pistons will come down there determined to prove a point and old beef stew, I believe will be back for that and rest and refresh.

[Mark Dagenau]

Yeah. Yeah, that'll be a fun one. And look this to your point about the Knicks, Tim, this. It was good for them to get a win against a big opponent on national TV at the Garden. They have been very up and down of late. It was a nice win for the Knicks, you know, Sunday afternoon. MSG stuff aside, they played well. They, you know, this, it looked like the spurs might run them out of the building, out the jump. They got out to an early lead and then the Knicks played pretty well the rest of the way and took care of business. Spurs had a lot of weird turnovers, but, yeah, for a team that's been, I think it's fair to say, flailing around for a while and is, you know, not really had their legs under them for a while to get, to get a win like this, particularly ahead of a pretty tough back to back later this week. They go to Toronto on Tuesday and then they come back to New York to play the Thunder on Wednesday. Certainly getting a win over the spurs today was a nice change of pace for New York to get them back going in the right direction.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah, and I'm not going to overreact to the spurs, obviously. They just won 11 straight games. You know, the Wimby turnovers, okay, he shot it better or at least scored better, scored more efficiently than he had over last week. You know, he admitted after the game in Toronto the other night that he was basically exhausted from all the travel and the schedule coming out of the All Star break, even though he was absolutely just dominating things defensively. This was a game that the spurs starting guards who, you know, it's one of the better backcourts in the league. De' Aaron Fox and Stefan Castle, both of them can't lay eggs and they both laid eggs today.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, Victor, pretty much by his standards, has been offensively at least, in a slump defensively. He is not ever in a slump really, but he did, you know, he's, I'm not, I, I still, it still makes me get a little queasy when he takes so many threes, but I gotta, I'm gonna have to move past it because he's, this has been the case for his whole life and he doesn't care what anybody thinks. And I think, I think ultimately he will, I suspect ultimately he will learn, especially in the playoffs, that if he's going to lose a playoff game, it's going to be with him playing inside. But he doesn't, he doesn't want to play that way. So I, I, there's not really much that I'm going to say that's going to affect that.

[Mark Dagenau]

Well, and this is all part of what is to come for the spurs over the next few months. I mean they play Stefan Castle, who at this point is a negative shooter. They play Dylan Harper, who at this point is an unproven, if not negative shooter. They play de' Aaron Fox, who's not a big volume three point shooter. Like part of the, part of the not issue with their team because they have an awesome team, but like part of the build their team is that Victor is one of the better shooters on their team. And when it gets into the playoffs, like I was talking about some of the spurs writers after the game today, including our guy Corleone Wright who's here, I mean when they get in the playoffs and they're playing a team that's game plan it for them, they're going to say, Stefan Castle, we're going to stand 25ft away from you and we're going to let you shoot the ball and have, have a time. And how is he going to handle that? How are the spurs going to handle that? How is that going to impact their spacing? What are they going to do to react to that? Like there's a lot of stuff like that that's gone on that hasn't really gone on during the regular season because over the course of 82 games teams are not game planning like that really for an individual opponent. When you get in the playoffs, they're going to start to hone in on stuff like that. And you know, this is all part of the, the growth that's going to be required from the spurs to get where they want to go and the stuff they're going to learn about their team. And you know, the same goes for Victor. We all know how insanely competitive Victor is and you know, he might want to win with style points, but at the end of the day he's going to want to win. And I suspect if the way to win is to play in a different style than the way he has been, he'll play in a different style.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah, Stefan Castle has improved as a three point shooter over the course of the season. You know, over the last like six weeks or so. It's, you know, he's in the mid-30s. But I agree with you there. My thing with Wimy, it's not necessarily how many threes does he take and how many shots around the rim?

[Mark Dagenau]

Obvious.

[Tim McMahon]

It's, it's the quality of three that he's taken. And honestly more than the threes, there's, there's a lot of possessions where I'm like, let someone else dribble. Let somebody else dribble. I don't I know a for a 76 guy, he's got a great handle, but he's a 76 guy. I don't need Wimby, you know, pounding the dribble and trying to go between his legs and around his back through traffic very often.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, this goes back to what I've we've talked about all year. The more he plays like a wing, the more you're giving the opposition a chance.

[Mark Dagenau]

Play finisher rather than play creator is the way to go right now.

[Tim Bontemps]

The more it's not to say that he can't be an awesome wing, but the more he plays like a wing, the more it favors the other team, which is what Kevin Durant was essentially saying a few weeks ago. But having said that, there are going to be times when this dude hits six out of eight threes and it's an undefensible shot. It's just less undefensible than inside.

[Mark Dagenau]

If they hit threes, it's going to be like that game against the Pistons when they win, I think 18 for 40 and like they shoot 40% from three, they ain't going to lose. Like, that's that, that's the bottom line. So, you know, yeah, when the threes go in, it's going to look awesome, but you know, when they don't go in, then they've got to change things up, right?

[Tim Bontemps]

But the idea is that he can be 7, 4, 7 5, whatever he wants to list himself at. He can be that every night. The three, the three can have variance his size every night. That's just a basic 10 of basketball.

[Tim McMahon]

They've got a couple guys who in Devin Vassell, you know, three of nine from three today. But Devin Vassell has really been cooking lately. That's a pretty big development because he is their best shooter in that starting lineup. And then Julian Champagne has become a critical part of that team. He's, you know, become a permanent fixture of the starting lineup. You know, took Harrison Barnes spot. Barnes is coming off the bench and Julian Champagne is kind of the epitome of that 3 and D type of role player. And it's funny, I looked up his three point percentage the other day. It was like 37. I'm like, man, I swear almost every time I watch this guy it feels like he's a mid-40s three point shooter. But those two guys are going to be huge for the spurs because their biggest, like obviously the inexperience is something that is just a fact. And then aside from the inexperience, the Biggest blemish on their contender resume is that, you know, they're a little bit light on the shooting.

[Tim Bontemps]

Since getting blown out by the Pistons, the Knicks have won four out of five games. The problem whenever you talk about this going forward with some of these teams is you got to go back and look, well, how many tankers did they play? They played the Bulls who are in tank situation.

[Tim McMahon]

Hey, big win for the Bulls today. What do you mean?

[Tim Bontemps]

I know they beat the Bucks. They ended their, they were winless in February, but March 1st they got a W for the Bulls but they, they beat, they did beat the Bucks the other day. Who are not tanking. I would just point out that the, the Knicks have won four out of five. They continue to be reasonably formidable at home. Bon Thames. Like this was the thing really since the start of the season they were pretty awesome at home and then they had a favorable schedule, very home heavy early on and then when they had to start playing road games, you know and they have some head scratching losses and probably will continue to have them but when you play them in the Garden they're, they're pretty formidable. That remains the case.

[Mark Dagenau]

Yeah, I mean for these top four teams in the East, I don't really think there's. The only one that we're going to learn. I think anything real about between now and the end of the season is Boston and that's assuming Jason Tatum goes back which I do think will happen at some point and then obviously there's going to be some adjustments there. But like for Detroit, they are going to be who they are and we'll see how it goes in the playoffs with the Knicks. They are going to be who they are. We'll see how it goes in the playoffs with the Cavs. Like we kind of know what the Cavs are even though they have these new pieces because it's going to be James Harden, Donovan Mitchell with the ball. They're going to be playing with the two bigs and to me the biggest questions there are obviously we'll see what happens to James Harden thumb thing but that, that shouldn't be a long term deal. So will Donovan Mitchell be healthy when they get to the playoffs? And then how does this wing rotation look and you know, can Max Druce come back? Like well, well they're will they be healthy when we get to the playoffs? But like their main core guys, even though James Harden is new, we kind of know what they are. So it's kind of in it to me for the most part. I mean wait and see mode until we get to mid April with all four of these teams at the top of the east, at least until we see Jason Tatum on the court.

[Tim Bontemps]

Speaking of Tatum, by the way, we, we taped this a little bit before the Celtics played the 76ers on Sunday. I should point out that today, the second episode of the the Tatum documentary the Quiet Work, which is chronicling his recovery from that torn Achilles, is on every Sunday on the NBA and NBC and produced by our friends here at Omaha. Episode two has now come out without him coming back. So there was a lot of conspiracy theory that today would be the day. You know what the new conspiracy theory is? Bontemps, have you heard the new conspiracy theory on Tatum?

[Mark Dagenau]

I have a theory that I know what it is, but I will let you tell me.

[Tim Bontemps]

Have you heard it?

[Tim McMahon]

McMahon, is this the Mac 10 numerology theory?

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, it's not just him, but you know, Dave McMann, our guy, Dave McMenamin is, he's a believer in numerology.

[Mark Dagenau]

And so when he heard this basketball numerology, at least.

[Tim Bontemps]

Basketball numerology. Yes. Just to be clear. Yes, there's a theory that Jayson Tatum is planning a comeback on 3 14, which, you know is the Ides of March, isn't it? Beware of the Ides of March. It's PI. Oh, it's pie. When's the Ides of March? The Ides of March is the 15th, I believe. The ides.

[Mark Dagenau]

March is the 15th. PI Day is the 14th and it's also the area code 314 of the loo where he is from St. Louis.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yes.

[Mark Dagenau]

James comes from.

[Tim Bontemps]

Is it the story that he signed his contract? He could have signed for 315 and he signed for 314.

[Mark Dagenau]

Unlike our guy Dave, I do not study the numerology to this degree. I just think he'll be back sometime in the near future if he going to come back because he's got to have some time to ramp up before the playoffs. And you know, we're, we're only six weeks out from five weeks out from the end of the regular season at this point.

[Tim McMahon]

Does Jason Tatum like pie?

[Tim Bontemps]

Wendy, I don't know. I need to. I will never assume anybody likes pie again. I will further study that and I will get back to you.

[Tim McMahon]

Well, I really hope he does come back on March 14 for the simple reason that I was able to get my little nephew Jameson tickets to a Celtics game. It would be the first time in his life he's a, you know, a suburban Boston kid and Our buddy Drew Carter came through for us. Oh, wow. It's a miracle when Drew comes through the fair. I mean, rising star in the broadcasting industry, I should say Drew Carter. So that would be great. Playing the Wizards, I was able to guarantee a win for my nephew's first Celtics game.

[Tim Bontemps]

Good job.

[Tim McMahon]

The Lizards, I should say. My bad.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, that was the thing. There was a lot of excitement with Jonathan Kaminga coming back, getting those two performances with the Hawks this week, but they were against the Wizards.

[Tim McMahon]

Listen, perfect time to come back, right?

[Mark Dagenau]

Seriously, you had another 20 and seven against the. He had another 20 and seven against the Blazers today with no Denny Avi on the other side.

[Tim Bontemps]

But I will say this. Yeah. Avia has missed a bunch of games here and I will, you know, as a sort of a. We're going to talk about Denver, the Denver Timberwolves game here in a second. But the, the warriors announced tonight that Steph Curry was going to be out at least another 10 days as he deals with that knee issue. And look, they're going to make the decisions based on Steph's knee. I'm not saying they're making on the decisions on trying to get the, you know, the eight, this the seven or the eighth seed in the West. But one thing that has made it a little easier on the warriors is that the teams behind them are losing primary and the team in front of them, the Suns, have been losing, you know, because they've had injuries and the Blazers have been, they've been on, I think they've been on a, a road trip. They're out east right now, but, you know, they've taken some losses.

[Mark Dagenau]

The warriors are guaranteed, guaranteed to quote our guy Charles Barkley of being no lower than 10th no matter what they do the rest of the season. So.

[Tim Bontemps]

Right. Well, the Tigers have done there. Yeah, I'm just. Yeah, but the Blazers haven't even applied home court.

[Mark Dagenau]

There's been no pressure, no pressure applied behind them either. So they've got maximum flexibility to try to coke Steph's knee back as much as they can and get them ready to go for whatever the stretch run is going to look like if they can get about there at all. More Hoop Collective podcast after this if

[Tim Bontemps]

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[Tim Bontemps]

So today in Denver, the timberwolves completed a 3.0west trip with a win over the Nuggets. The Wolves, by the way, are now 11 and 4 in their last 15. And while they, like the Knicks, are known for a maddening loss or two of the We've talked about this. Of these sort of non, you know, elite teams in the well, I mean, I guess they would say they're probably elite, but you can't.

[Tim McMahon]

No, dude, they can't claim that.

[Tim Bontemps]

Of the contenders in the west, there's, you know, there's easy to find flaws with a lot of these, you know, alleged contenders. Minnesota is of that middle pack. I've always felt that they were the most formidable because they play at both ends of the court. Yeah.

[Tim McMahon]

And they went to the conference finals each of the last couple years, which

[Tim Bontemps]

is because they play at both ends of the court.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah. Now, neither of those conference finals were competitive series, but they went to the conference finals both of the last two years. And they have the kind of superstar who, in any given playoff series, he can get you a Couple of wins. I mean Ann Edwards is. Is good enough to I we've seen it like we've seen him basically just it's been more like first round type of series, but we've seen him just have games in playoffs where it's like, dude, you're not beating that guy today.

[Mark Dagenau]

They're right now a half game. They're a game or a game back of the Rock actually tied with the Rockets. One more win, one more loss. So percentage points behind the Rockets for third in the West. And look if they can get to third in the west and they can get on the side of the bracket with the Lakers again in the first round and a Spurs team, assuming the spurs are in second, that has absolutely no playoff experience on the other side of the bracket, like they're going to feel pretty good about their chances of getting back to a third straight conference finals.

[Tim McMahon]

Honestly, even if they match up with the Nuggets because they've knocked the Nuggets out before. And you know, today's another reminder the Timberwolves have no fear of Nicole Jokic's Nuggets.

[Mark Dagenau]

I just more meant that the way it's set up right now, 1 and 2 in some order looks pretty comfortably to be San Antonio and Oklahoma City. And I think it's probably going to be Oklahoma City one and San Antonio two. So really the spot you want to get to is 3. You avoid the Thunder all the way to the conference finals and you probably also avoid Denver all the way until the conference finals. Your Minnesota. And like you tell the Wolves right now they don't have to play. They play have to beat one of those teams to make the finals. Like yeah, no, I don't think any of us are picking them to beat either team. But that's the path that you want to have and it's a path that they'll gladly take if they can get it.

[Tim Bontemps]

So I would point out that Denver, the series, the season series is over and Denver has. Has beaten them three out of four. They, they won the season series, but of course Minnesota.

[Mark Dagenau]

Are we sure?

[Tim Bontemps]

No, I'm not sure if that was the case. I thought it was.

[Mark Dagenau]

I will double. I will double check your matches.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, I guess you better do for the rest.

[Mark Dagenau]

Do you think you're right?

[Tim Bontemps]

I'm on till, apparently. I mean I studied the game and everything and I remembered champagne had like this big performance and I was like,

[Tim McMahon]

are we going to get a nightmare?

[Mark Dagenau]

They aren't.

[Tim Bontemps]

No, no, I'm dumb. Stone cold sober.

[Mark Dagenau]

The third game by the Way was that Christmas Day game. Speaking of Christmas, when jokic only had 56, 18 and 15 in overtime in that game that I believe we recorded the podcast before that game started.

[Tim McMahon]

We did.

[Mark Dagenau]

Turned into an epic game.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah, it was an unbelievable comeback by.

[Mark Dagenau]

And had that shot in the quarter to tie it.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah, right. Yeah. Joe Crab all time game. Fairly. A fairly notable performance in that one.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, well, it was Christmas Day. We had to draw the line somewhere.

[Mark Dagenau]

Wasn't blaming you, it was just fun.

[Tim Bontemps]

I listened to. I talked to Chris Finch a little bit, but listened to him in some interviews the other day in la and two things that he said. First off, he just. Even though that was the night that he gotten into the back and forth with Ant. One of my favorite things about that little back and forth. So Ant Finch is telling him to pass. Ant hits the game winner, step back over two Clipper defenders and starts barking at Finch like, this is what I do, right?

[Tim McMahon]

This is what I bleep and do.

[Tim Bontemps]

That's what I bleep and do. And well, I also liked Derrick Jones Jr. He was like trying to get to his bench because the Clippers called timeout. And he ended up basically in between Finch and Edwards as that was going down. And he just sort of smiled as he listened to it. But my. One of my favorite parts about it is as Ant is barking at Finch, Finch is just saying, all right, all right, all right.

[Tim McMahon]

And their relationship is actually an awesome relationship.

[Tim Bontemps]

I agree. And you know, answered after the game. You know, he's right 98% of the time. But he.

[Tim McMahon]

Well, and he was right on that case. It's just he coaches them hard play and with the right result, he coaches him hard.

[Tim Bontemps]

But he was saying, you know, he was praising Ant before the game and really praising his work ethic and, you know, his drive to be great, like, you know, up one side and down the other, praising Ant. The other thing that he was praising was Rudy, Rudy Gobert. He was like, you know, our defensive improvement is so tied to Rudy. By the way, did you see the. The drive by that Rudy, Rudy, Rudy takes so many shots, it's. It's crazy. Did you see the drive by that he got today on. On the broadcast?

[Tim McMahon]

I did not.

[Tim Bontemps]

So Dante DiVincenzo is wearing the mic.

[Tim McMahon]

Okay.

[Tim Bontemps]

And he missed a free throw. I don't know if he missed two free throws, but he missed at least one free throw, like really bad where

[Tim McMahon]

he said, I'm shooting free throws like Shaq.

[Tim Bontemps]

Right. So he said that during the first half. So they Come back to halftime for inside. And of course they play it. And Shaq, like, has a puss on, and he's like, you know, if I. If he's like, he's lucky I'm not playing. If he did, I would have flagrant fouled him the next time I saw him. And, you know, so they're all laughing at it. And then he's like, yeah, you know what? He's like, I liked even Chenzo. I wouldn't have flagrant fouled them. I just would have flagranted Rudy just for the hell of it.

[Tim McMahon]

Well, at least they didn't bring up Rudy's free throw percentage.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, that's true. But anyway, he. He's been praising Gobert. Gobert 15 rebounds today. He's plus 12 and 30 something minutes.

[Tim McMahon]

And listen, if it wasn't for Wimby, there would be a real deal conversation and it would be probably. It would probably be, I want to say, confrontational. What's the word? I'm controversial. How could I not remember the word controversial?

[Tim Bontemps]

You know that all too well.

[Tim McMahon]

It would probably be controversial. But if not for Wimby, Rudy would be a very deserving defense player of the year candidate this year.

[Mark Dagenau]

Well, it's 7 points per 100 possessions better when Rudy Gobert is on the court than when he's off defensively.

[Tim Bontemps]

And it was fun, you know, And Finch, it's one of the things why we'll always. And I find myself at two or three Timberwolves games a year during the regular season usually. And I always make sure I go. A lot of times I, you know, end up on the court talking to agents and scouts and stuff. But I always go to the public press conference for Finch because you never know what this guy's going to say is one of the best quotes in the league. And he said, yeah, he goes, yeah, the other night we were playing in Portland and Donovan, Cleveland got the better of him for three quarters, but he woke up with the fourth and shut him down. We won the game. And, you know, that's the thing. Like, he will talk about how Rudy is, like, helping drive this turnaround and drive their defense. And I was like, yeah, Cleveland was kicking his ass for three quarters because, you know, he'll be honest. But, well, and.

[Tim McMahon]

And the same thing with Ant. And that was kind of a perfect little flashpoint of that relationship, because the thing I think that he has gone on Ant the most over the years is, dude, make the right play when you're doubled. Make the right play as much as you hype your teammates up and like you pump your teammates up with your personality, pump them up with your decisions, pump them up with your play. And so that's been a source of friction and coaching. And Ant has improved significantly over the years, but he just had jumped on Ant about a bad shot.

[Tim Bontemps]

Right.

[Tim McMahon]

And then took another record. That's a worse shot.

[Tim Bontemps]

And it's just the team's barely cracked 90. It was not exactly a high level 2026 NBA game. So Denver has lost. You talk about 11 and four for, for Minnie. Denver is now four and seven in their last 11.

[Tim McMahon]

Four and eight since Joker's returned.

[Tim Bontemps]

Oh, is that what it is?

[Tim McMahon]

Okay, four and eight since Joker's return.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah. Please check my all, check all data right now. Jokic played better in this game than he had been playing. Cam Johnson was terrible in this game

[Tim McMahon]

and left with an ankle and said

[Tim Bontemps]

afterwards he's dealing with an ankle thing. And David Adelman said after the game that even though it' been the sort of the long standing strategy for the Nuggets to not stagger Jamal Murray and Jokic's minutes because they want them on the court as much as possible, particularly at the end of games, that he's going to have to change his rotation basically to make sure either Murray or Jokic are on the court because they're getting, they're getting hurt when they're off the court, which is, you know, kind of sounds like stuff that my compatriot Michael Malone might have said in recent years about the team's death. In this case, they're just really hurting defensively without Aaron Gordon and Baden Watson, but particularly Gordon. We've talked about this. They're just not the same team. And they're, they're, you know, they were holding steady in the standings, but now with, you know, Jokic has not been able to carry them to as many wins as before the injury. And so they're, they're losing, they're losing positioning. I think they slipped to fifth now behind Minnesota for after this. Yeah.

[Tim McMahon]

And so four and eight since Joker's returned. I don't know if today was technically a clutch loss or not. Was it within the last 5? Was in the last 5. I, they were 1 and the second

[Tim Bontemps]

half was played even. I, they were, they fell behind in the set. They got boat race in the second quarter and basically played the rest of the game even.

[Tim McMahon]

So they were one in six in clutch games during that stretch going into today. So maybe one in seven now I asked Alderman about that the other night and basically he said, you know, the way teams are loading up, they're basically obviously that two man games is good two man game as there's been maybe in the history of the league. The way teams are loading up against it, they're basically forcing other guys to take the shots. And like that was the night where Cam Johnson missed a clean look and what could have been a winning three in regulation. But so look, the injuries are obviously really hurting them and they've dealt with them all year long, but with Gordon Watson out, it's killing their defense, it's killing their depth. They expect those guys back soon, but man, they've really got to be careful with Gordon because this is two straight years of repeated soft tissue injuries with him and especially the hamstring. So as much as they want him to have time and they want seating, they want him to have time to get in a rhythm before the playoffs, like they've got to be real careful. But the injury that's not even on the report, they're really concerned about is Joker's wrist, not the knee that kept him out a month. He's been dealing with this wrist thing for years off and on and it's kind of like a day to day type of thing where some days he wakes up and it's not bothering him and some days it's stiff as hell. He's been under 50% from the floor six times during these dozen games, which for most guys like, okay. For Joker it's shocking. Like this is a guy who probably has the best paint touch in the history of the game. Like he shoots, his paint percentage is like a rim runner, but it's a bunch of like tough hooks and floaters.

[Tim Bontemps]

He's under 50% in the last, in the last month, which is. I don't, I. We should have stats and info look up the last time he's had a month where he's under 50%. I'll bet it's been years.

[Tim McMahon]

And he's really struggling with the three ball. You know, even today he shot it much better from the floor, but 1 of 4 from 3. OKC was 2 and 2.

[Tim Bontemps]

Five more turnovers today. His turnovers are way up and you

[Tim McMahon]

know, he usually is just such a money player in traffic on what should be tough shots in the paint. And it's been very hit and miss since he's been back. And so again the knee kept him out for a month, but the wrist is a bigger concern. He won't, he won't talk about it. Like, you know, I asked him the other day, how you feeling physically? Really good. And that's kind of a stock answer. Yeah, but they're, they're concerned.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, speaking of Jokic physically and the other night, let's just speak a little bit about this incident with Lou Dort. This has gotten a lot of people into their feelings, and it spilled over into today. So I wonder if you could talk about what happened today. McMahon, real quick. You probably saw it. If you're a listener of this pod, you probably saw it. But in case you didn't, it was the weekend, the other night when Denver. It was Friday night when Denver was in okc. Jokic and Dort, what did you. Jokic hit Dort with an elbow?

[Tim McMahon]

No, it was.

[Mark Dagenau]

So before you, before we get into this, just because I just looked it up, do you want to guess the last time Nicole yokich shot under 50% in a month before.

[Tim Bontemps]

Oh, wow, you did that? That was an impressive month, I'm going to say.

[Mark Dagenau]

Probably just went through second splits on basketball reference, probably second year in the league.

[Tim Bontemps]

I would say it was not this decade. That's the one, I think.

[Mark Dagenau]

I'm going to say it was not his second year in the league. However, it was also not this decade. It was November of 2019, his. Or 2019. 20, his fifth season in the league. He shot 45% from the field in November, and I believe he never shot below 50% again until this month, which is pretty cool.

[Tim McMahon]

And again, it's crazy because, like, you know, the Guy's putting up 26, 14 and 9, and you're like, man, Joker's just not right.

[Mark Dagenau]

He's in a slump and a quick eyeball of it. I think there's more 60 plus months than 50 plus months in that stretch. I'd have to count, but absolutely pretty. It's pretty close.

[Tim Bontemps]

That's wildly believable. All right, so what happened in that game?

[Tim McMahon]

So, obviously, look, these two teams scrapped for seven games in the playoffs last year. They don't love each other. The Thunder are very physical team. Joker's a very physical player. There's a lot of push and shoving, grabbing, tugging, you know, getting tangled up

[Mark Dagenau]

and a lot of flopping on both sides.

[Tim McMahon]

All that good stuff throughout the course of the game. Fourth quarter, pretty early fourth quarter, Joker's running up the court. He's in the back court. And Lou Dort put it in reverse and it was a hip check.

[Tim Bontemps]

No, but didn't something happen before this?

[Tim McMahon]

I mean, they got tangled up.

[Tim Bontemps]

There were a hundred things that Happened.

[Mark Dagenau]

There were a hundred things that happened during the game.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah, there were a bunch.

[Mark Dagenau]

The ball had been taken out of, bound. And as the Koyoka just running up the court without the ball while the ball's being inbounded. Lou Dort looked like he tried to hit him in the leg that he's hurt. That's what it looked like.

[Tim McMahon]

He. He put it in reverse, did. He did the blind hip check. And then he stuck his right foot

[Tim Bontemps]

and Yic hit the floor.

[Tim McMahon]

Hip check, trip combo.

[Tim Bontemps]

Like a redwood falling. I've never. I don't think I've ever seen him hit the floor that hard. And he rolled over like he was going down a hill. Like when he was a kid.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah, because he hit it hard and then he basically rolled over, got back up and, you know, lose to the what I do thing. And Joker got right up in his face. Gave him the chest bump.

[Tim Bontemps]

Was right up in his face. It's. It's a legendary. The fury, the Serbian fury in that face is. That's going to be a legendary moment.

[Mark Dagenau]

Well, that part you saw is when he grabbed Jalen Williams. Now, listen, let's just start off with this. For any complaining from Oklahoma City about Lou Dort being ejected about the call on this play, on anything else that happened, just ask one question. Is there absolutely any possible justification for Lou Dort's actions on this play? The answer is unequivocally, no, not at all. It was a dirty play. It was an obviously dirty play. Any neutral person watching the game would universally agree it was a ridiculous thing to do.

[Tim Bontemps]

I would hope most of the non neutral Thunder fans would recognize.

[Mark Dagenau]

I would hope so, too. His reaction afterward was also completely ridiculous. First Mark, like, he didn't foul him. And then to be like, oh, yeah, wait, what are you talking about? I'm going to turn.

[Tim McMahon]

Well.

[Tim Bontemps]

And then Mark Dagonault, with all due respect, who. I've got a lot of respect for him, but Mark Dagonault saying. Didn't he say McMahon? He was like, well, I guess going forward, anybody gets tripped, he'll be ejected.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah, essentially he. His thing was, if that's a flake, you know what?

[Tim Bontemps]

Let's.

[Tim McMahon]

I'm going to find his exact quote just to make sure that we get this right. But his deal was. Yeah, his deal was basically, hey, if that's a flagrant two, then it's a flagrant two, no matter who ends up getting tripped.

[Mark Dagenau]

Which I got the quote right here. If you, if you.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah, we'll go ahead and read it.

[Mark Dagenau]

Need it let me find and then

[Tim McMahon]

we'll get to Adam.

[Tim Bontemps]

I will say this. Anybody who was tripped like that, it would be a flagrant two. So I guess I would agree with him on that.

[Tim McMahon]

Go ahead and read the quote. Bond temps.

[Mark Dagenau]

Yep. I'm just. Wait, I'm just trying, not trying to read the. I, I could. The whole thing is. I'll just read the whole thing. If you were watching the game, I think you could see very clearly very early that it was a chippy game. These are two teams that played each other in seven game series. We're in the same division, We've played each other a hundred times. You know, they know our playbook, we know their playbook. It's just what it is. Like I said, it's going to be the perfect game. And things get, you know, they escalate like that sometimes. I know Lou, I know Jokic, I know Jay well. Jalen Williams is the other guy who came in late with when sort of defended Dork.

[Tim McMahon]

That that's the iconic joke or stare.

[Mark Dagenau]

Yes.

[Tim McMahon]

Was it Jay Will?

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, he was angry.

[Mark Dagenau]

So then J. Wall came in. I don't think anybody's trying to hurt anybody. They're just great competitors and you know, that's what I thought. It just boiled over. I think it was nothing more than that. And then this is the part you were getting to. I will say this. If a player gets, if a player gets. If J. Will is running up the floor, gets tripped, we expect a flag or two from this point forward. That's all you know, if that's the precedent, if that becomes a malicious play and flagger 2 is the line in the sand on that, we would expect that. That if it's J. Will, we would expect that. If it's anybody and if that's the case, we're good. To which my guy Tim McMahon came in after that and said was the flagrant two upgrade because it was the three time MVP who got tripped. And Mark said, no, I'm not going to answer that question like that. I said what I needed to say

[Tim McMahon]

about it and here's my deal. I hear what you're saying, hey, if that's a flagrant too, fine. If it happens to any role player, then it should be a flagrant tube. Okay. Yeah, I do agree that a blatantly intentional dirty trip should probably be a flagrant too. Like that's not a basketball play. As Joker said, it was an unnecessary action and a necessary reaction. That was Joker's quote. But here's the thing, especially if it's to a superstar. And I would say the same thing. If a role player, you know, I'll just say Bruce Brown because he's a. He's a, you know, tough role player for the Nuggets. If Bruce Brown takes that kind of shot at Shea Gildis Alexander, absolutely, he should get kicked out of the game. You cannot have guys taking cheap shots at MVPs. I'm sorry.

[Mark Dagenau]

I would go as far as to say this. I would say that if there's any player who has a known injury to his left leg and is running up the court and a guy on the other team does what Lou Dort did universally, it's not hard to leap forward to what I don't care if there's.

[Tim Bontemps]

And no injury. That was a bad play.

[Tim McMahon]

You don't need to be. You don't need to be blindly tripping.

[Mark Dagenau]

You don't need to be doing it regardless. That's what I mean. And that goes back to the beginning. Any complaints about the way this was handled to me, should be answered with a very simple answer to that question. Is there absolutely any reason Lou Dort should have done that? The answer is no. There's no reason at all. It was 90ft from the basket. He didn't have the ball. He shouldn't have been near him.

[Tim Bontemps]

All right, so McMahon. It came. It carried over to today a little bit.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah. And so Adelman and the Nuggets were still heated today, and I think they

[Tim Bontemps]

would happen was they started to see the replays. I'm not sure they had seen the replays really. And they.

[Tim McMahon]

Trust me, they'd seen.

[Mark Dagenau]

They saw the replays. Bench has all the replays immediately. They definitely saw them.

[Tim McMahon]

And they'd seen the replays. And. And anyways, I'll get to the money. The money point of Adelman's pregame quote today, he said then for Dort to take that shot, and then I guess it wasn't that big of a deal from their standpoint. How they looked at it is ridiculous. That was malicious. It was a cheap shot. Lou Dort's a great player, and that's not what I've seen him do before. But at some point, you have to stand up for yourself, and the team does as well. And so basically, look, Lou Dort does have a bit of a reputation for being dirty. I think a lot of things people point out, like the job play last year, the Brandon Ingram play, I think there's been plausible deniability. This is a guy who makes his living as a tough, physical Aggressive defensive player. There wasn't. There was no plausible deniability here. Was not a basketball play. It wasn't a defensive play.

[Mark Dagenau]

No, it was just a dirty play. And by the way, all those other plays in the past, McMahon, I think you said the key phrase. Lou, who we all have big respect for, I voted him first team all defense last year. He's a tremendous player. His story is sort of the epitome of the Thunder ethos, right. He's an undrafted player on a two way. He comes in, he's turned himself into this fantastic defensive player.

[Tim McMahon]

He's a great player and developed a three point shooter. Huge part of their championship, exactly part of their culture.

[Mark Dagenau]

Huge respect for him as a player. However, he has had plausible deniability. That Job Morant played brought it to me several times by people this weekend. Like there's always been an ability to say, well, you know, you could, you could always sort of argue it. Like I would say going forward, I think this is a pretty big mark on Lou Dort's reputation. And I think a lot of the plausible deniability he's had in the past going forward will not exist. And Thunder people, I will probably say that's not fair. But at the end of the day, all these other things in the past, he was on the line of making a basketball play. And you could always say, well, you know, if you look at it this way or look at the context of the play, you could see why it happened. This is the kind of play that for fair or not, is going to be remembered and is going to be in the back of people's minds if other things come up with Lou Dore in the future. Not so different than things that have happened with Draymond Green and Dylan Brooks and other guys who have gotten in a bunch of things before. Even if Lou Dort doesn't have anywhere near the history of flagrant twos and other things that those guys have. But this was a very significant play and it's, I think, gonna stand out because of that.

[Tim McMahon]

Real quick, I did ask Dagonal his pregame availability, what his response was to David Adelman's comments today. And he essentially avoided answering the question, instead gushed about how much respect that he and everybody else in the Thunder organization has for the Denver Nuggets. So that was, you know, that was basically Dagonalt's way of saying, like, hey, you know, I don't want to get into a back and forth on this. And by the way, I'll see both of Those teams again. March 9th in Oklahoma City.

[Mark Dagenau]

That is going to be a game to watch for sure.

[Tim McMahon]

And perhaps again in May.

[Mark Dagenau]

Oh, and look, this is, you know, it's, I mean, it'd be an unbelievable playoff series if it happens. I think they're, I think they're the two best teams in the league. Whoever wins that series, if it happens, semi conference semifinals could determine who wins the title. And you know, it's, they're both, like you said before McMahon at the start, they're both physical teams. You know, they both, they both know all the rules with the refs. They're, they're there. There's a lot of stuff going on there. And you know, this is, I'm sure not the last time we're going to talk about some sort of Thunder Nuggets refereeing controversy, whether it's this season or in the future, with how often these two times are like two teams are likely to go head to head for a while.

[Tim McMahon]

More Hoop Collective Podcast after this if

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[Tim Bontemps]

Before we go and we gotta send McMahon over to the airport, I just want to point out a little something that keeps going on in the league here because we, we kind of, you know. You guys mock me a little bit when I keep talking about Charlotte.

[Tim McMahon]

I'm not mocking you.

[Tim Bontemps]

So the Hornets, we just don't like you.

[Mark Dagenau]

Or at least I don't like you repeating the nickname Buzz City killers 7,000 times. That's all. I know you do.

[Tim Bontemps]

I like it.

[Mark Dagenau]

You've made your point on that.

[Tim Bontemps]

Let's point out you said it the first time on this podcast.

[Tim McMahon]

I would like better if you go back to the bu Cut. You've gone. You went to Hollywood like a decade ago. Go on.

[Tim Bontemps]

You know, not only that, but like I haven't been able to see my haircut person. We. I'm like, I'm, I'm. It's. My hair gets out of control fast. Like it, it's like a tipping point in the game.

[Mark Dagenau]

We need a Buzz City Killer for, for Wendell's hair. That's what we need.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, I do cut it off. So they.

[Tim McMahon]

They had my clippers delay for you.

[Tim Bontemps]

All right. Yeah, please. I'll see you this week. They had an afternoon game with the Blazers on Saturday, which they beat the Blazers. No Denny Avia. But just a couple of things going on here that I just want to point out. So first off, the moose is loose again, is off suspension. So they won the game. They blew him out. I think they blew him out. I got to check my facts here, but I'm fairly certain they blew him out. So let's go Back to this. That their starting lineup of Lamelo Ball, Khan Kanippel, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges and Moussa Diabate are now 182 as a starting lineup.

[Mark Dagenau]

It's pretty good.

[Tim Bontemps]

They have out one of those two.

[Mark Dagenau]

One of those two was the game that they all got thrown out of I believe.

[Tim Bontemps]

Right. I mean they were losing games but still there's been some games in their turnaround where Lamelo hasn't started and come off the bench because in back to back situations they bring them off the bench. So there's a small asterisk in there. But when those guys start. But how about. But forget about that. They've outscored their opponents by 179 points so far this season. That's the best five man lineup going in the league. And as far as what they're doing to teams, let me point this out. They have now won four straight games and I'm going to go, I have to go look at who they played because I got to check the tanking meter because maybe that's in there. But they've won four straight games by at least 15 points. That's the longest streak in franchise history. And they've made at least five more threes than their opponent in eight straight games. Which is one of. See the. It's the. There's only been two longer streaks in NBA history.

[Mark Dagenau]

Well look, let's just do it this way. Let's just do it this way. It's the eighth most used five man lineup in the NBA. Okay, so it's played a lot of minutes. 281 total minutes, 29 games. Offensive rating of 136.2. A defensive rating of 105.7. A net rating of 30.4. Just for comparison.

[Tim Bontemps]

And you don't want to call them the Buzz City Killers. I got it. Good to know.

[Mark Dagenau]

The most used lineup in the league is Minnesota starting lineup. They're 600 minutes plus nine. Like that's great. That's awesome. The Detroit's starting lineup, 457 minutes plus 14 like again great. This, this lineup in a little bit smaller sample size. Twice as good as the starting lineup of the 60 win Detroit Pistons. Like that. We're not talking about a small sample size anymore. That is a lot of minutes.

[Tim McMahon]

And look, I personally this podcast in general and frankly the league as a whole, when you talk about front offices, scouts, etcetera have been very down on Lamelo ball. Was very down on Lamelo ball going in the season, early in the season you've got to give Lamelo Ball credit, the question was can LaMelo Ball, this Harlem Globetrotter type of dude ever really drive winning in the NBA? And fellas, even he's shooting at 40% from the floor. His net rating is plus 9.6. They are a minus 2.3 without him. That's about a dozen point swing even with him not shooting it great. Their offensive rating when he's on the floor is 123.5. Historically elite and it goes all the way down to 109.3 when he's off the floor over a 14 point swing. Offensively now they've got talent around them. You know Brandon Miller, Colin Knipple, who by the way is now officially the rookie of the year favorite according to DraftKings. You know Miles Bridges. But as much as we doubted as much, I'll speak for myself as much as I doubted Lamelo Ball, you have to recognize this dude is having the kind of season that we I was not sure he could have and that's making a major impact for a team that's winning now.

[Tim Bontemps]

They are this. I just looked at this. So these last four wins are against Washington, Chicago, Indiana and Portland. Portland is not officially tanking. The other three teams are tankers.

[Tim McMahon]

So but this is not we're not reacting to a week, we're reacting to months, right?

[Tim Bontemps]

Well on January 2 they lost to Milwaukee to fall to 11 and 23. They had lost three in a row at that point since that game they're 19 and 8.

[Mark Dagenau]

And by the way, they right now are in 10th place in the Eastern Conference standings. They are 1/2 game behind Atlanta, which itself has gotten going thanks in part to playing some tankers lately. Got back to 500. They're two games back of the Magic and the Heat who are tied for seventh right now. And they're four games back, five in the loss column of the Sixers who have had Joel Embiid dealing with one thing after another for the past few weeks and you know, been up and down themselves like it is not only not inconceivable that the Hornets can get into the 7 8. It's not inconceivable they can get into the 6 in the eastern Conference when they looked dead and buried for all it started January we were thinking about them being down there with all these teams fighting for lottery position. I think frankly if you gave them true serum they were expecting to be down there fighting for lottery positioning. This is not what the Hornets I know what the Hornets plan coming into the season was they were going to let the young guys play and see what they look like, but they didn't think they were going to be a playoff team this year. Like this has been a total flip round to the point where they're buying Kobe White at the trade deadline and they're adding him to their mix. And like if you're the Pistons, if you're the Knicks, if you're the Cavs, if you're the Celtics, like whoever winds up in the the two seed or the three seed in the east or if it's the, if they end up in the 18 with Detroit, this is not your typical 8, you know, 6, 7, 8 seed. If they continue anywhere near this pace over the next, you know, four to, I guess it's six weeks from today is the end of the regular season. Like if they're playing anywhere near this level, I mean they're going to be a team literally no one's going to want to place play in the first round of the playoffs.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah. Now having, having said all that, the Hornets track record of the play in under Lamello is.

[Mark Dagenau]

Hey listen, the Hornets are obviously a super young team that hasn't done anything like it's all the caveats, you know, I've certainly talked about with the spurs and some of these other teams times a thousand. Right. But you know, they're not a team. If I was one of these teams at the top of the East, I would not want to see this track meet Hornets team, that's been the hottest team in the league since the start of the year in the first round of the playoffs.

[Tim McMahon]

They're playing as well as anybody this side of the Pistons in the Eastern Conference.

[Mark Dagenau]

Yeah. I mean that. It's just a, you know, it's going to be fascinating to see if they can keep it up because this is, it's about as out of left field, especially in the middle of a season as a thing as we've seen in a while, particularly for a team that didn't make some. It's not like they added some major piece in the middle of the year and flip things around. They just took off pretty wild.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah. And that three point shooting edge, like that's, that's, you know, you, you want to talk about a pathway to doing something in the playoffs. Win the three point shooting contests every night.

[Mark Dagenau]

It's a special way to beat a team that might be more talented than you if you're just bombing. If you could bomb in 25 threes, I can. That could pretty fundamentally change a game. No matter what else is going on.

[Tim McMahon]

Well, and, and, and what's the, what's the biggest reason that they are winning that three point contest every single night? Wow.

[Tim Bontemps]

A guy who's hit more threes than anybody and is a rookie in the history of the league.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah. I mean what Con Knippel is doing. And again he is officially going to draft Kings. The rookie of. Your favorite part of that's because Cooper flag's been sitting for a while with his sprained foot that the timeline keeps kind of getting bumped back and back and back and back on.

[Tim Bontemps]

And by the way, there's no, there is no 65 game rule for rookie.

[Tim McMahon]

There's not. But Cooper's going to have to get back on the court and play well because his college roommate has been playing so well. I mean, we've got how many games left in season. He's already broken the record for three pointers made by.

[Tim Bontemps]

I think he's got, I think there's a, there's about 22, 23, however many are left.

[Mark Dagenau]

He broke the record in February.

[Tim McMahon]

And guys, he has a true shooting percentage above 65. He's shooting 49, 44, 88, basically on high volume. 3.5.

[Tim Bontemps]

Yeah, he's a 50, 40, 90 season is very much within his graft as a rookie.

[Tim McMahon]

He, and he's averaging 19.3 points per game and you know, he rebounds. He's averaging like three and a half assists. He's an okay team defender.

[Mark Dagenau]

He's a hell of a, he's a hell of a player. I mean the fact that we've never

[Tim McMahon]

seen a rookie shoot it like that, like this on this kind of bottom, averaging 19 points a game with this high of a true shooting percentage has literally never happened by a rookie.

[Mark Dagenau]

I had this discussion with some average people when they were in town and I, I said to them, I said, look, I mean as of today, I'm, I'd vote for Cooper flag for Rookie of the Year as of today. But what I said was I think there's a very real chance Khan will win Rookie of the Year and it's due to a combination of him leading Charlotte to a pretty unprecedented turnaround in the middle of the season. And he's been one of the biggest reasons why that's happened. And he's also, to your point, McMahon unequivocally having the greatest rookie shooting season of all time by leaps and bounds, like it's not even, there's not even one in the same stratosphere as him. So if somebody like Cooper flag did not win Rookie of the Year. It takes something pretty remarkable to happen. And both con Knoppel's play and the play of the Hornets is putting that in play. And, you know, hopefully Cooper can get back out there because he's fun to watch and it would be a fun race down to the end. But to your point, if he misses much more time, it's going to be very difficult for him to catch Khan with both the way he's playing and the way they're playing to compare him

[Tim Bontemps]

to Steph as a rookie. Now, Cooper takes eight or takes eight threes a game. Steph took five threes a game. So the volume, it's just a different era. Yeah, Steph shot 43.7%. We'll call it 44, but it's 43.7% and Knipple is shooting exactly 44% right now. He's higher at the free throw line than Steph was as a rookie and he's two points a game more. Again, speed of play is different. But also I'll point out Steph was a year older.

[Mark Dagenau]

Steph was several years older, I believe.

[Tim Bontemps]

Well, yeah, I think, yeah, he played, he played three years at Davidson or two. I can't.

[Mark Dagenau]

Yeah, three.

[Tim Bontemps]

Okay, so. Yeah, so. So I think, yeah, so Steph was age 21 at the start of the season. He turned 22. Well, whatever. The, the point is he played three years in college, so. Yeah, so like now they don't quite, you know, they're not the same type of player in terms of their, their makeup. But like Knipple, like Stephen works his ass off off the ball.

[Tim McMahon]

Well, and Knipple is not just a catch and shoot guy. He's a move movement guy and he like stuff, he has more stuff off the dribble than you would think. You know, there's like, you don't shoot 49% from the floor being a high volume 3 point shooter without him.

[Tim Bontemps]

He doesn't get to the line yet. As he gets older in the league, he'll figure out how to get to the line more. I think his upside as a scorer

[Mark Dagenau]

is he's a monster. Yeah, yeah, he's an absolute monster.

[Tim Bontemps]

But beyond that, you know, because Brandon, there's a, there's a Brandon Miller stat here that I lost, but Brandon Miller's been killing it too. I don't want to make it all about him, but Brandon Miller, he had a big game on Saturday.

[Mark Dagenau]

Their whole team is killing it.

[Tim Bontemps]

Like they're.

[Mark Dagenau]

It's just unbelievable how this whole Thing has flipped around the past two months. Like they, you know, I mean they were, they were showing some signs of making some nice progress this year and Khan was playing great and like they were able to get Miller out on the court and he and LaMelo and Khan were all playing like things were going the way they hoped they would. But I mean, nobody saw this happen in the last two months. It's completely turned everything on its head.

[Tim McMahon]

So one more point I do want to make on the Rookie of the Year thing. Typically, an impact on winning is not really a significant factor in the Rookie of the Year race. But that's because typically Rookie of the year candidates don't. Aren't able to impact winning because they're on terrible teams.

[Tim Bontemps]

Correct. Well, this was a terrible team.

[Tim McMahon]

Yeah. And Knipple's impact in winning.

[Tim Bontemps]

Brandon Miller has made five three pointers in each of his last four games. So he is also shooting very well. He's averaging 21 points on 43% shooting for the year.

[Mark Dagenau]

Yeah, I mean, you know, that's, it's been a really fun story and it's going to be interesting to see how these next six weeks go and where they land because like I said, I, if I was one of these older veteran teams at the top of the conference, I would not want to see this track meet team come flying in, bombing 45 threes, came in the playoffs having absolutely no conscience because you know, they won't, don't worry.

[Tim Bontemps]

McMahon, the USWB says no good nickname for him though. Whatever, whatever.

[Tim McMahon]

Oh, that's right.

[Tim Bontemps]

You gotta go to the airport.

[Mark Dagenau]

They said don't run it into the ground.

[Tim McMahon]

What, the USWB or Buzz City Killer?

[Mark Dagenau]

I mean, you've run that into the ground for quite a while.

[Tim Bontemps]

I don't think he has.

[Tim McMahon]

People always. I still get asked what does USWB stand for? And I just want to clarify for people. It stands for the urine soaked wet blanket. And I think it's fitting, just as Buzz City Killers are.

[Tim Bontemps]

All right, thank you to Jackson, Mark and Devon, our producers. Thank you very much to McMahon and Bontemps. See you soon, McMahon. Thank you for watching and listening to Hoop Collective. We'll talk to you in a couple days.

[Tim McMahon]

Adios, amigos. Foreign. It's a season two playoff race with tgl. Presented by sofi. Sunday at 9pm eastern. Jupiter links versus boston common golf. Monday at 7pm eastern. Los angeles golf club versus new york golf club. Tuesday at 9pm eastern. The bay golf club versus jupiter links. Keep up. It's golf watch on espn, espn2 and the espn app.