Well Andrew, our top story this week was the end of the 2425 regular season. The Phoenix Suns, owners of the league's highest payroll, missed the play in completely, finishing tied with the Portland Trailblazers at 36 and 46. In response, the Suns quickly moved to fire coach Mike Budenholzer, who was only hired last summer. Now, assuming Devin Booker is still a son next season, their next coach will be his eighth head coach in 11 NBA seasons. Matt Ishbia met with the media this week and was defiant, promising that the Suns would win championships. Quote with an S at the end Another word with an S at the end is picks which the Suns do not have until I'm like 45. The expectation is that Kevin Durant will be traded this summer, and while many have assumed Houston would be a likely suitor, Mark Stein reported this week that a Katie trade would be unlikely for the Rockets because he does not fit with the team's timeline. Now it took all the way until game 82 to decide who would finish the season with the worst record and this year's reverse champion was the Utah Jazz, who finished with 17 wins, only three more than last year's Pistons team. The Jazz secured the worst record after the Wizards got a dramatic win in the final game of the season, a 119 to 118 win in Miami that ended on an impossible Bub Carrington floater at the buzzer. The Wizards finished the season with an average scoring margin of minus 12.4 that is third worst in NBA history behind only the seven win Bobcats and the 9293 Dallas Mavericks. Now, speaking of the Mavs as we do every week, some good news finally happened for Mavs fans this week, but not before the Mavericks franchise could make something bad happened. First, the day before the Mavs 910 playing game against the Kings, Nico Harrison offered to sit down with the local media for an interview with the stipulation that there would be no cameras or recordings made of the interview. Thankfully, he did not exclude writing utensils and so the entire interview was still widely available. When asked about Mavs fans biggest misunderstanding regarding the Luca trade, Harrison said, quote defense wins championships. When asked about how creating a three to four year window after trading away the team's future first was in the best long term interest of the team, Harrison said, quote Defense wins championships. When asked why he didn't believe the team he built last season, which went to the NBA Finals, was a contender, Harrison said, quote Defense wins championships. Somehow, none of those answers were as bad as MAV CEO Rick Welts comparing the Luca trade to Golden State trading Monte Ellis for Andrew Bogut. The second trade comparison is many weeks from the Mavs, where it's unclear which side of the trade they think they are. Thankfully for Mavs fans, however, the week wasn't all bad as the Mavs completely demolished the Kings in Sacramento, getting up by as many as many as 25 points before coasting to the win. Now, two years after ending their 16 year playoff drought, the Kings lost to the Mavs, locked in their second consecutive season missing the playoffs. The Kings responded by agreeing to part ways with GM Monte McNair, quickly hiring Scott Perry as GM, who was previously in the Kings front office and was most recently with the Knicks. The athletic Sam Amick reported that McNair didn't want to fire Mike Brown, which is why we didn't see anything from the Kings after Brown was fired. Amick also reported that McNair may have not been behind either the DeRozan signing or the Levine trade. Now Levine's old team, the Chicago Bulls, are also out of the playoffs after similarly getting destroyed by a ten seed at home. The good news though for Bulls fans is they will have their first round pick because they acquired the unprotected part of that pick back in the lavine trade. So as of Friday morning we know the matchups for two more playoff series in the East. The 2, 7 matchup is going to be between the Celtics and the Magic after Orlando beat Atlanta in a game during which Trey Young was ejected after picking up two quick texts for pranking the refs. After throwing an aggressive chest pass to one ref, he immediately did the trick where you pretend to pass it to someone spin it back to yourself. When the other ref asked for the ball he was ejected. But you know, honestly after the ref's performance in the Warriors Grizzlies game, maybe they need to be pranked every once in a while because Warriors Grizz it was close contest. It came down to a five second call on an inbounds play at the end of the game that ended up ending the game is set up a Golden State Houston 27 matchup in the West. But the two minute report revealed that in those final 120 seconds the refs made four separate errors in the game now the 18 matchups will be decided on Friday night, all leading to the first day of the NBA playoffs on Saturday. Listen to this. On Saturday we get Bucks, Pacers, Nuggets, Clippers, Pistons, Knicks and Lakers. Wolves. Wow, that is a Saturday. And those are the top stories this week.
Host 3 (8:18)
Yes, this is very exciting because last year we didn't have any surprise teams. That doesn't happen that often. In fact, the 992000 season, there's only been four seasons without at least one surprise team. But we were spoiled this year because we ended up getting three surprise teams. And as a reminder, that is a team who won at least 10 more games than they're over under. So who got it this season? Detroit Obvious over under was 24 and a half. They won 44 games. That gap 19 and a half games. That is tied for the second biggest gap among all surprise teams going back to the 992000 season. In fact, one of the teams they are tied with for second is the 0102 Detroit Pistons. This was Carlisle's first year as coach. The team had Ben Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse. They similarly had a 19 they they and a half more games than they're over under. The other two teams, Portland Trailblazers over under preseason 22 and a half end up winning 36 games. Very impressive. And then in what I would say is like the least surprising surprise team ever, the Chicago Bulls 27 and a half preseason over under. They win 39 games. Now for all these teams I do the difference between their previous year wins and their current year wins. Never been a surprise team that the number was zero. Where the Bulls end up being a surprise team despite winning the exact same amount of games they have scored in the previous season. Which is just a great stat for the Bulls and I feel like is very representative of the season the Bulls had. So those are three surprise teams. Very exciting. I don't know how me and Andrew managed to not pick any of those three teams. Very bad job we did. And shout out to the listener again who made us the surprise team website which you can go look at@tinyurl.com surprise teams. Now one more thing Andrew before we get to our guest this week. Back right around the all star game we picked a Few names who we thought might make a post All Star break leap. And I wanted to do a first and second team all post All Star break leaps mouthful. So my second team, Shane Sharp, one of my picks, Zachary Steph Castle, Aaron Neesmith and Cade Cunningham. That's. That's my second team. Okay, first team, I'm going to go in a little bit more depth. First we got Quentin Grimes, which was also one of my picks. He had maybe the funniest pre to post splits 11, 4 and 2, pre 23, 5 and 5. Post all star break. What what's really funny though is if you look at net rating, like how the team played when he was on the court. Pre All Star Break minus 0.6. Post Ulster Break minus 14.6 because he was playing on the Sixers, of course. Wow. Now his true shooting percentage basically was unchanged. This was just a guy, which actually is very impressive because he got a lot more usage and he was still able to maintain his efficiency. Quentin Grimes might just be a good player, so it'll be very interesting to see what he gets this summer. Second name Denny Abdia. We talk about him a lot. Pre All Star Break 15, 6 and 3. Post All Star Break 23, 10 and 5. His net rating swing minus 5.2 to plus 5.8. He was huge. And then some names that I just wasn't thinking of. We're going to get to an obvious name, but some names I wasn't thinking of. Tyrese Halliburton. Now if you just look at the counting stats, it doesn't seem that significant. 18, 4, 9 to 21, 4 and 11. But his true shooting went from 59% to 68%. Post all star break and the net rating swing went to plus 1.2 to plus 12.7. He was obviously a big part of the Pacers being one of the better second half in the league. Another name I wasn't really thinking about. Paulo Banchero. Pre All Star Break 23, 7 and 5. Post All Star Break 29, 8 and 5. His true shooting jumped from 51% to 58%. And in case you're wondering, average true shooting this year was around 57 and a half. So Paulo post All Star break got his true shooting, his efficiency above average and his net rating swing went from minus 6.7 to plus 4.6. And then the last name, the one you're expecting, also an insane jump. Josh Giddy, 12, 7 and 6 to 21, 11 and 9. Similarly, his true shooting 54% to 62% and his net rating swing minus 6.5 to plus 9.9. So once again, our first team, Josh Giddy, Paul Benchero, Tyrese Halberton, Denny Abdia, and Quentin Grimes. So congrats to all those guys.
Dan Devine (15:17)
You hang the banner of the mission accomplish right behind me. So. All right, we'll start with the positive. I think that there's a lot to be excited about with Matas Buzelis, I think that like he was deeply unscared. For a 20 year old who had like been playing in G league ignite last year, that's good. He showed a way to like, he could impact winning, he could attack the basket. There's stuff to get excited about with him. That's cool. The Josh Giddy question is like, is the fact that you shot 38% from 3 on decent volume, like, is that the new normal or an outlier? Because you didn't do that before and now you did it. So like, if you, if that's the new normal, then paying you becomes more palatable and then you're maybe an easier person to build around. I'm a little skeptical of that. I think there's reason to be skeptical of it. But what we saw, like we knew that he would put up numbers given the ball. I think he was like third or fourth in the league in touches per game after the Levine trade. So like they cleared the Runway and he took the ball and he ran with it. That's a mixed metaphor. But he could shoot too now. And so if he can keep doing that, that's good. But the, the big thing to me is like this feels like an inflection point because you've got some decisions to make financially. Like there's a, you move off the DeRozan contract, you move off the Zach Levine contract. And if I'm looking at spot track correctly, after next season, they're set up to have Nicola Vucevic, Kevin Herder, Zach Collins, Kobe White, IO Dasunmu and Javon Carter all come off the books after next season and they got a club option on Lonzo. So you could like clear everything off and say we're going to start fresh and this is an opportunity for us to say what kind of teams we want to be, what's the identity of a team we want to build. And what I think they're going to do is pay Josh Giddy a lot of money, extend Kobe, White, maybe extend IO Dasunmu, not have a center after next year and kind of keep chasing 38 wins. And so like that's the part that I'm worried about. I think there's an opportunity for a big vision. I just don't know that I see it.
Dan Devine (17:48)
Oh, the. My first thought was, you know, I like Sam a lot. I'm a friend of Sam's. I don't know who Sam's sources are. I would never deign to ask, but if I was Monty McNair, I might want to it to be out there that none of that stuff was my idea. So don't blame me. As I'm on the way out the door, that's the first thing I thought. I was like, huh? I wonder if Shmonti Schmichnaer was the one who made that phone call. And then the other thought I had was, it's an old movie, so forgive me, but Copland, the movie Cop Land. Robert. I think Brian De Palma directed Robert De Niro. No, James Mangold, maybe. Robert De Niro. He's an internal affairs detective. And Sylvester Stallone comes to him like, hey, I didn't help you before. I want to help you now. And De Niro says in so many words, you had a chance and you blew it. There was an opportunity here. You had an identity. I just talked about the identity thing with the Bulls. You had a style of play. You had a way. Things were. You got the fans excited. It was resonating. There was a whole. There was a beam. There was a whole thing. And like. But it was also, like, we understand this might not win us a championship, but it's good and it's cool and we're excited about it. And in, like, 18 months, you just completely trash canned all of it. And I don't get why. I don't like for who, for what? Like, I can. In a vacuum, in the individual decisions, like, you need more talent, because last year you were about the same level of team, but the west got better. You needed more talent. DeMar DeRozan is talented. He might have been the best player you could get. I get it. You were flailing and not as good as you hoped you'd be. And you'd lost a couple of games, including one, embarrassingly, at the end, you fire Mike Brown. I don't love it, but I get it. And you just. You need. Again, now you're at the point where Darren Fox wants out because you kind of hung that whole thing around his neck. So, okay, you make a Trade and you get back an all star scorer in Zach Levine and you're like, okay, I get it. But again, vision. What are we trying to build? Are we trying to build a previous failure version of the Bulls plus Demanda Sabonis? Like, and then for what? So I look at it and I just say, like, the bad teams stay bad a lot of times because the people making decisions feel like they're just cats chasing a laser pointer and they don't have, like, a goal in mind, really. And it would bum me out a lot if the beam was just like the universe's biggest laser pointer.
Dan Devine (21:18)
What if you. I mean, and Chris Paul has said, like, he's like, I don't know. I'll think about it this off season, but I think I might want to keep playing if he wants to leave San Antonio. And, like, I would totally be fine if he didn't. But, like, say he's like, no, I'll go back to California. It's like a 45 minute flight back to my home. What if you gave Chris Paul the mid level exception and we're like, fix it or organize us. Figure out how to get everybody where they go, like mentor Devin Carter and Keon Ellis and show everybody where to stand and what they're supposed to do when they get there. And then in a year when you've made your 13 million or whatever, and you hear the sound of someone else calling you from another state across the NBA landscape. You put your bindle on your shoulder and you keep walking out that way. I like the idea of you need somebody who is just like an organizing principal, who's like, I don't need to be the guy scoring every. I mean, you had the scorer and you let him go. You had the guy who was just like instant injection of offensive efficiency. You moved him because you needed to decongest the log jam and give a team to one person, like, all right, who just organizes it and says, you go there, you go there. I get you shots, I teach you how to screen for me, I teach you how to work the other end of it. We work from there. I think that makes some sense. And also maybe just gets Sabonis a lot of easy, like pocket pass buckets. And he likes that. The lower wattage, not as exciting version of that is like, if you can get like a buy low Tyus Jones to do a similar kind of job, like organize, don't really get in the way too much. Hit some shots when the ball comes to you. High turnover or high efficiency, high assist, low turnover maybe. But like, I don't know, maybe I'm missing the big swing, but it seems like there's not really anybody in their price range or with their asset collection that is going to like completely revolutionize everything. So, yeah, you know, Chris Paul, basketball preacher. Let's do it.
Host 2 (23:49)
Since you're not as good at baking as I thought you were, please get out. So let's talk about the. These four matchups that we know about. Nuggets, Clippers, Lakers, Wolves, Pacers, Bucks, and Knicks Pistons. Is there a series that you have, like, changed your mind on over the last week or one that you're just, like, going back and forth with?
Dan Devine (24:08)
Yeah, to me, it's Clippers, Nuggets, and it's not. You know, I don't know that there's like a. A nitty gritty. Like, I was deep in the film and I thought of this. Like, I think the Clippers are. Are better, and I think they've been a better team for, like, two and a half months. Basically, since Kawhi got to, like, full minute load, which was, I think, the beginning of February or right around the trade deadline. They've just been better. Like, they've been awesome. I think they finished with, like, 18 of 21. Like, they've. They've been really good for, like, two and a half months now. And the Nuggets haven't. I mean, see Michael Malone and Calvin Booth, but they have Jokic. And so, like, I. I think all of the matchup components point to the Clippers, but then I'm like, there is no matchup. There's no answer for Jokic. So to me, I look at it. I think you can. That's a coin flip to me. But that was that. That's the one I look at. I'm like, you're going to be wrong kind of no matter what. So. But then again, we're in the MVP season where you're wrong no matter what you do anyway, so at least we can just, like, sit. I can sit and live in that wrongness no matter what. It's great. I love it. I love the way this feels.
Dan Devine (25:33)
Like, I really. I lack my confidence in this, but it's. It's weird. It's almost. It's the other way for me because I feel like I'm. I'm seeing and hearing a lot of confidence in the Knicks to kind of, like, pat the Pistons on the head and dispense with them, and I don't. I don't think so. I don't think it's going to be quite so easy. I like there's, I've heard, I feel like I'm hearing and reading a lot of Knicks in five and that feels to me much more like Knicks in seven or maybe even Pistons in six. Like, I think the concern that I would have if I was a Knicks fan was do you have an answer for Cade Cunningham in the pick and roll? Like he destroyed Karl Anthony, Towns, Pesh, Precious, Achua, whoever was playing center for the Knicks in drop all every time they played. He was awesome. Yet like 52% of his threes, he walked into pull ups. He, when you the, the big came up, he just dropped a pocket pass or a lob to Isaiah Stewart or Jalen Durant. Like he has the answers to that test. Do the Knicks have another test to give to him? I'm not so sure about that. And so that's, that's the one that gives me pose. I feel like I'm seeing a lot of confidence in that and I do not share it, but maybe I'm too low relative to consensus there.
Host 3 (28:23)
Yes, I am a Thunder fan, but I think the west is obviously much harder than the East. And if I'm just going based on what team I think is most likely to make the Finals, I feel like I'm going to go with Boston. Obviously, Cleveland's a great team. They're a great team. But I think if. Even if it got to the point where it was Boston, OKC in the finals, I still think I would lean Boston just because they've done it before, because they're going into this playoffs healthy. That makes me feel good about them. So I'm starting off with Boston, which means, Andrew, I have a pretty good idea of who you're going to pick Second.
Host 2 (28:58)
You have now cornered me into being the homer, which is great. I knew you were going to do this. I knew you were going to do this. After I decided to go second, I was like, oh, no. I'm going to have to be the one to say it. Oklahoma City Thunder, plus 12.7 net rating, 68 games. I mean, there's like, so many. They've got the mvp. They have one of the deepest rosters in the NBA. The bracket, if you look at it, has broken pretty well for okc, too. So, yeah, I think you got to go with the Thunder. It's a bold pick, the number one team. So bold.
Dan Devine (30:38)
I, I think they're going to beat the Rockets and I think that whichever team comes out of Lakers Wolves, I like Golden State. In the matchup against either one of those teams, I think that the, the, I think in a small ball series against the Lakers, I think the warriors have answers to those questions. I think in a high stakes. Who do you trust more in a seven game series against a Wolves team that's like Ant and then Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle and on and on and on. You know, shouts out to Mike Conley. No, no shade to the legend. I, I, I think the Warriors I could see a path. So if I'm, if I'm having to pick like I don't like either Nuggets or Clippers over Thunder. I don't like either Pacers or Bucks over Cavs and I'm kind of like cannibalizing myself there since I just took the Cavs. So my, my like long shot here or my, my other, my other gambit, my moonshot would be the warriors kind of making it all the way through. So we're going to go with that.
Dan Devine (31:54)
It's not so much that I'm, that I, I, I. Well it's the right way to phrase it. I don't want it to, to be like a denigration of the Rockets. It's as much as it is that that like I have a, one of my boomer takes is like I, I have to see you do it once to believe it. And I've seen Steph and Draymond and Kerr deal with the bigger, more athletic, more physical team and find answers and break them down over the course of a seven game series. And I've seen Jimmy just tilt a matchup against a favorite. I've seen those things more often. I also saw, I mean I think one thing we're kind of for that I've been surprised. I've seen it like haven't seen as much conversation about it like the warriors did this two years ago or three years ago to IME Udoka like the, like this. This was the story of that Celtics finals Was that, like, by the end, the bigger, more athletic, younger, stronger, more physical team was broken by guarding Steph for two weeks. And so, like, you know, past performance does not guarantee future results. But I look at that, and I'm like, I've seen this work this way, and so I'd bet. I'd rather bet on that than the other way. But of course, in two weeks, I could just be looking like a complete jackass. But, you know, what else is new?
Host 2 (33:21)
With this spot, I. One, you have LeBron James and Luka Doncic on this team, like, two. Two of the better decision makers. And you just see this very often, like, teams are going to pack the paint against this team, and it's about finding the corners. And you have, like, two of the best minds in the game that will get all the way to the rim, and they will make a move that looks like a shot, but then they will just zip it to the corner. And it's so impressive. And now it's. It's on the shoulders of these guys to hit shots from the corners, for sure. But if they can get hot similar to what the Mavericks did last year, then you're going to have a chance to make a run. I do worry about their size on the interior, and they've done a really good job of packing the paint with lots of guys and doing a lot of recovery stuff similar to okc. I think that. But JJ Redick has talked so much about how he's such a big fan of Mark Degnalt, and you start to see, like, some of the stuff that Mark does and some of the stuff the Lakers are doing. And so I want. I wonder about the sustainability of their defense. We've seen it, like, Wax and Wayne over the last, like, stretch after they got. Luca has been really strong, and then they've had weeks where that's not looked good at all. And so I just wonder, for a sustained playoff run, can they actually keep it together for that long? Because it's so taxing on all these guys. Like, Jared Vanderbilt is going to be just completely worn out by the end of this thing. But I. I do wonder about that. But if they can keep the defense up, you obviously have two guys that can deliver and clutch moments. I think that this, to me, is the. The next best team, and they also don't have to play OKC until the conference finals. And so you just never know if you can get there. You just never know.
Host 3 (35:45)
There is some strategy to this. Yeah. I just feel like either of these teams, you know, if OKC has, like, a cold shooting series, I think either of these teams could beat okc. As of right now, I'm more scared of the Clippers because they've always had a good defense, and now it feels like their offense is starting to click. With Kawhi playing a lot better and then with the Nuggets, like, if that starting lineup's healthy and they're all playing close to 40 minutes a night, like, that's a really good team. I know that they've, like, stumbled down the stretch, fired their coach, fired their gm, but if those five are healthy, that is going to be a really good lineup in the playoffs. So I'm still nervous about both of those teams, and I know that one of them's going to make it to the second round. So that's my final pick. Andrew, who's your final pick? Now you got to really start working now. You got to really start coming up with some good reasons for some of these teams.
Host 2 (36:35)
Yeah, there's. There's some rough ones left, I think. And I feel. I do not feel confident about saying these next words. I think I'm going to take the Milwaukee Bucks if. If only because of Giannis Antetokounmpo, who has had a ridiculous season. He's been so good. And with the good news of Dame returning to the lineup sometime soon, I think that you just have a puncher's chance, I think, out in the Eastern Conference. And we know that if you get Giannis to the Finals, even if he gets severely hurt, he's just Going to somehow come back and be amazing. So I'll go with the Bucks. I, I do not have any sort of like true conviction about this Milwaukee Bucks team or their, the way that they've been coached this year. But when you have a guy who has clearly been the third best player this season in the NBA and probably in a normal season would be the best player in the NBA, I have to, I have to give it to him. So I'll go Milwaukee.
Dan Devine (38:11)
Okay, that's right. I don't know ball, I base. I, I barely know baking. So I was prepared even before the Dame stuff to pick the Pacers in that series. Anyway, so I'm going to take the Indiana Pacers on the other side of this match for a couple of reasons. One, yeah, it's wonderful news to hear that Damian Lillard, the situation with the blood clotting appears to have resolved. I'm not entirely clear on how that has happened, but I hope it has and I hope everyone stays safe and healthy. It's still not totally clear when he comes back in the series and at what level he hasn't played in several weeks. And you're throwing him right into the fire in a playoff series against a team that's really good. And I think that the Pacers, because people sort of glaze over when they see Indiana. I think they maybe don't realize that's a 50 win team. That though if you, if the version of them you think you know is the one from last year, this one's not the same. This one plays defense and better than you remember them. They're not quite as fast, they're not quite as elite offensively, but they're better balanced. And Tyrese Halliburton has been about as good in the second half of the season as he was in the first half of last year when everyone was like is he going to make all NBA first team? Plus they, you know, they've really worked worked out the offensive balance with Pascal Siakam who has one of the better all NBA cases that Nobody's talking about. And he's not going to make it, but he's been really, really good this year. They are deep. They go and they use that depth because they pressure you all over the floor. I feel like Dame's going to come back and have to, like, deal with Andrew Nemhardt 94ft for, you know, or TJ McConnell or Andrew Niest. Like, they're gonna. They're just gonna keep. Or Aaron Eason, rather. They're gonna keep throwing bodies at you. Ben Shepard is going to get shifts. Like, they have guys they can keep throwing at you. And yeah, Giannis is probably going to average like 34 and 18 in the series, but I think the Pacers are just a better team, top to bottom both ways. And so I think if they get past the Bucks. This is the part that I don't love because I did pick the Cavs with my first.
Dan Devine (40:16)
See, here we go again. I don't know, but yeah, right. It would get me as a conference finalist. And if you told me that, that the Cavs fell short because the Pacers beat him in a seven game series, it would not stun me. So I feel like I'm getting both ends of that. I'm staying away from the part where I've got to pick somebody who's not the Celtics out of the bottom half of that bracket. And, yeah, it gives me. It gives me an opportunity there. So there we go. There's my Indiana pitch. The people of Indiana, of course, have always loved me and supported me, and so here I am providing that same love and support to them.
Dan Devine (41:11)
Well, first, can I give you, like, a little behind the bts, a little behind the curtain on the content game. What we really did was Ben and I wrote previews for each series, and then our bosses, like, subdivided apart from each of the previews and made that into a different piece of content. Like in the thing from the big short, where it's like, yesterday's finish comes tomorrow's soup, so. But yes, we did do that. We did all that work for real. It just was split up twice. And, you know, I'm going to give shouts out to Ben because Ben doesn't get enough shouts out. And he wrote the Lakers Wolves preview. I think his point of, like Anthony Edwards versus wherever they think the weakest link on that defense is, I think that's going to be fascinating. You guys just talked about the lack of interior defensive half. But also, you know, we've seen like the last playoff series, we saw Luka Doncic in the Celtics put him under the microscope over and over again. And yeah, I mean, that was not why the Celtics won that series, but we saw that be a strategy to go against Luca with that. Right. We've seen Austin Reaves get put under the microscope by teams when they're looking for a place to poke at. We've seen, you know, LeBron James is 40 years old and I don't think they're going to like, try to run pick and roll at LeBron, but, you know, how do. What does Chris Finch have in mind? What did that. Was that Wolves offense have in mind for making him work, for finding the weak spots? Can they shoot enough, as you mentioned, with the paint packing, are they going to be able to, like, take them out of that and find some ways for Ant to actually get downhill and get to the paint? I think that the way they're going to manipulate that or try to work with that, I'm really interested to see how that works, what they think their best pathway to points is. And just focusing on Ant more specifically. He. We know we've talked or there's been the discussion of. He struggles with double teams. If you blitz him, you crank up the heat on him, you trap him. He doesn't want to really get off the ball. He wants to get downhill and score right. Like, and if I could do that, like Anthony Edwards could do that, I would want to do that too. But this is like in the hero's journey of a player. Like, you make the playoffs, you then make your run in the playoffs. You have the. You run up against your sort of your weak link, your. Your Achilles heel, and then you got to show that you can sort of evolve with it. So if that's what the Lakers are going to do, if they're going to throw two at him, if they're going to try to blitz it out of his hands, try to make somebody else beat him, is he patient enough for that? Does he trust it enough? Can those teammates reward that trust? Does this become a series where instead of ant scoring 40 every night, ants getting nine assists tonight, I don't know, but I'm interested to see what they. What questions the Lakers make him answer and what his answers for it are. So that's the one that I'm sort of most interested in from the group that we put together.
Dan Devine (43:59)
I think he could be a really big factor. You know, I talked about the struggles that they've had in the pick and roll against Cade Cunningham. Mitch is way better at like being up toward the level and has the wingspan to play too. To be able to influence the ball handler without losing track of the big rolling behind him and to be able to like re time out the pass and get up to deflect it. Kat's not so great at that stuff. He's obviously he's like better athletically overall, but that specific version of applying his length and his size and his physicality never been his strong suit. And Mitch Mitchell Robinson, before he got hurt last season, was having the best defensive season of his career. Not because he was blocking so many shots, but because your colleague Fred Katz wrote at the Athletic he was just playing that like groundbound. I'm getting, I'm keeping you from getting to comfortable places and forcing like foul line floaters and jumpers that are lower percentage shots. Like, he's really good at that. He has looked healthy since he came back. He's down in weight too. I think he's playing at like 269, 270, he had said, which he was up in here 290 when he came back last year and clearly wasn't moving as well. That's a. That if he's able to play, you know, stay healthy, play at that level and play increased minutes, that could really be be helpful at the specific problem that the Knicks have had defensively. The other thing is on the offensive end, he's one of the best offensive rebounders in the league. He made a previous JB Bickerstaff team in Cleveland absolutely miserable a few years ago in the first round series that they played by just being a relentless offensive rebounder. If he's a. If they play two bigs, which is something that, that it's funny because Tom Thibodeau loves doing it, but he has not loved doing it with this team. Maybe it's just because he didn't try. You know, they're the keeping Mitch on a pitch count, not necessarily wanting to exhaust that in the regular season. If they're able to play two bigs and have cat space and then Robinson attacking the glass, that could be a big problem for a Piston scene. That's not a great defensive rebounding team. Could put, you know, maybe some more fouls on Isaiah Stewart, some more fouls on Jalen Duran, more pressure on that front court and create extra possessions. You tilt the possession game in your favor. That's a way. The Knicks were very, very good at that before they. This has not really been their identity this season, but it's a, it's a wild card and a trick up their sleeve that I think it'll be interesting to see how much they play.
Dan Devine (46:51)
Yeah, it'll be interesting because I think that one of the big like talking points in recent years of NBA playoff discourse, what a lovely thing is like, well, Gobert gets played off the floor against teams that go small. And that has never totally been true and has always been more based on the very loud highlights of teams hitting threes against him when he's tried to cover everybody or Luka doing it and then cursing at him in like, you know, four different languages at the end of last year's game. So I think if you're talking about them playing a lot of like Jared Vanderbilt and Rui Hachimura and you know, guys, you know, or Jackson Hayes obviously. But if the Lakers go smaller, there's still places that I think Rudy Gobert can guard. I think he can, he can like stay in the corner or you know, it's. It's a little bit of like, I'm going to make Rui Hachimura shoot me out of this. I'm going to make Jared Vanderbilt like back cut and dunk me out of this. And I think that. So I think that's interesting to me. Like I. If Chris Finch, I mean they still finished Sixth and points allowed per possession. They were right there in terms of their defensive efficiency over the full season. Hasn't felt like it, but that's. They were there all season. And then if they. If they do go smaller. Yeah, like what. What do those lineups look like? Randle kind of never played five in New York. Like, Tibbs really didn't trust it. He didn't trust the rebounding of it. He didn't trust. Even when they did bring in OG Anunoby, they only overlapped very briefly. But like, when you did have a guard, your yard kind of guy, they didn't. He really didn't trust it too much. So is Finch more willing to go with it if he. If he sees like this is a way for us to sped spread the floor, but also match up physically with a lot of like six, eight Burley guys? I think the, the point of attack, defenders, obviously. Jaden McDaniels is fantastic. Anthony Edwards can be fantastic. When he. When he dials it up, the concern to me will be a little bit less of like, what do you do about Gobert and maybe what do you do about Mike Conley? Because I think that's a button where they're like, yeah, they're going to look at him and say, that is the smallest guy on the court. He is going to be put into every screen and roll for Luca, for LeBron. We're going to try to hunt him and punish him. Dante DiVincenzo is a pretty interesting answer for that, right? Like, that's a guy who's bigger and is more rugged and can handle himself on some of those switches. But then you're taking arguably, you're not even arguably, you're taking your best playmaker, your most. Your steadiest pair of hands off the floor. And we know how tough crunch time has been for the Milwaukee offense and how they've gone through the lulls where they struggle to score and get good shots up. So it's going to be. It's a cat and mouse game and it's going to be the game of whack a mole. Can you hit something hard enough that we got to react to it and take something that helps us off the table, then how do we respond to it?
Dan Devine (49:23)
I think that's a pretty fascinating question. But Finch has also been pretty comfortable saying, like, there's no sacred cows on this team. Right? Like, if we need. Outside of ant. Basically, if we need to. To put somebody on the bench because we think this gives us the best chance of winning, that Possession in that game, like, he'll do it. So whether that's Conley, whether that's Gobert, what that needs to be, I think they're at a point where they're saying it's all hands on deck. This is a really brutal matchup against two of the most difficult guys to game plan against in the world. And you know, whatever we, whatever gives us the best chance on any given night, I think that's what we're going with.
Dan Devine (50:21)
Defense and physicality to start with. Right. Like, I mean, IME Udoka basically built the whole plane out of Ime Udoka's attitude. This is like the black box version, you know, the concentrate of we are. We beat the heck out of you. We make you feel us on every possession and we are attitudinally disposed to just like make you hurt every possession. And to be able to do it with Dylan Brooks and Amen Thompson and Tari Eason off the bench. Fred Van Vliet, no picnic to deal with the point of attack. Even though he's small, he is handsy and he's a fire hydrant and like. And Sengun deserves a ton of credit for the improvements he's made. Like, if he wasn't improving on the defensive end, if he wasn't somebody that Udoka trusted to play big minutes constant, like he wouldn't have gotten to the point where he was making all star teams, going to be an all NBA consideration, all that stuff. Like you're a top four defense with him playing that minute's loaded. He's doing something right. You know, I think the reason they're so weird and so difficult to talk about is you're like, but they're not good at offense. But they're also kind of good at offense. Like they, it feels like they shouldn't be because the only guy, I think there's only one guy shooting over 36% from three on the team and it's Dylan Brooks who no one really trusts as a three point shooter.
Dan Devine (51:35)
And they're like bad. They're bottom third of the league shooting everywhere. Like, they're bad at the rim, they're bad in mid range and they're bad from three. And yet they're like 11th or 12th in offensive efficiency because they hammer the offensive glass, especially when they play with their two bigs, which has been talked about a lot. I don't know how much they're going to get away with. Shangun Adams against the warriors, they did it a little bit in that game a couple weeks ago. Seven games against Steph Curry. I don't know. That seems dicey to me, but maybe. But all the wings hit the glass too. Like, no, everybody does it. So they rebound. I think they're number one in the league in offensive rebounding rate, number one in the league in second chance, second chance. Points up near the top of the league and points in the paint. Just, they are constantly making you feel them in the paint. That's a big part of it. And they never turn the ball over or they rarely turn the ball over. And that's Van Vliet. Like, he is one of the sort of quietly most important players in the bracket right now, to me, because, like, it's gonna. I think the Golden State defense has been sensational since Jimmy got there with Draymond making that late season surge. All that and a lot of it is they turn you over. And when the Rockets have Van Vliet on the floor, they're really good at avoiding turnovers. And when they don't have him on the floor, they're not. And so can you avoid giving up the ball? Get shots on goal, get the advantage in the possession game? That's if you get. If you can tell me by the end of the season, by the end of the series. Yeah, the warriors are going to take five fewer shots a game than the Rockets every game. I think Houston probably advances, but I think that the challenge is going to be, can you keep that up against what this warriors defense has turned into? And that's going to be pretty tricky.
Dan Devine (61:33)
So the funny thing about Bitter Rivals, we. It was a. I think it was. It might have been the old show that I did with Jake Fisher. No cap room last season. And we talked. It was during the Pistons being awful. And I was like, here's the worry. What if Kate is kind of just like, you know, a. Like, shishi version of RJ Barrett. And because I think I was looking at the same kind of thing, I'm like, like, the finishing numbers on the inside aren't good. He doesn't do it. He gets. He gets blocked a lot. And then, you know, I got, you know, deposited into a trash can with that take this year. But. But it's funny that they're always connected in my brain when we're doing a podcast.
Host 3 (67:30)
That's bad for you. Real bad for you, Andrew. Yeah, the. Actually, actually the second most frequently worn jersey number 00, 23 was up there. And so it was like 22 or 20, 24. Okay, Andrew, last question. You can't win the week, but you could get it within one, which would be really exciting. Okay, so Trey Young had 355 turnovers this season which led the league. It is the fourth time Trae Young has recorded a 300 plus turnover season. That puts him sixth all time for most 300 plus turnover seasons. Now tied for the most are these two players who have each done that seven times each. Now you do get one point per correct answer, sir.
