How Panicked should the Pistons be? | Morning Shoot Around

Summary

The Athletic NBA Daily — "How Panicked Should the Pistons Be? | Morning Shoot Around"

Date: April 29, 2026
Hosts: Dave DuFour, Zena Keita, Esfandiar Baraheni (with Law Murray as special guest; Andrew Schlecht in co-host role)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Athletic NBA Daily's "Morning Shoot Around" centers on the current state of panic for NBA teams either out of the playoffs or on the brink of elimination, focusing specifically on the Detroit Pistons, who are facing elimination by the Orlando Magic. The hosts grade teams' panic meters, break down disappointing playoff performances, especially Jalen Duren’s, and analyze looming off-season decisions. The crew also explores how future roster and coaching decisions may reshape several franchises, including the Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Denver Nuggets, and touches on broader playoff trends.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Grading the "Panic Meter" (02:28–03:14)

• The hosts introduce a "panic meter" (1–10 scale) to grade each team's level of concern given their playoff situations, with both present and future outlooks in mind.

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2. Detroit Pistons: A Franchise at Defcon 1

(03:13–16:25; Main discussion 06:09–22:29)

Pistons Down 3-1 to Orlando; Why So Bad?

• Panic Meter: Unanimous "10"—highest concern possible.
• Preseason expectations: Detroit was meant to cruise past an Orlando team that "actively hated their coach" and once lost by 50 points.
• Law Murray: "This is a Magic team that was falling apart that actively hated their coach. And it was like no secret that … they lost by 50. Yeah, he lost by 50 on a Sunday, bro." (06:24–06:42)

Jalen Duren's Dismal Series

• Duren, supposedly Detroit’s "second-best player" and pending big-money player, has been brutalized by the matchup, compared unfavorably to the smelly “durian” fruit.
• Andrew: "Jalen Duren has been so bad that he smells like a fruit you're not allowed to bring indoors." (07:07)
• Stat line: 9.8 ppg on .46 FG%, 8 rpg, but outplayed by Wendell Carter Jr.
• Law: "Wendell Carter Jr. shouldn't be outplaying you when you are an all-star looking for money like that. This stuff's critical." (07:45–08:19)
• Duren isn’t the only issue, but Magic’s physical front line (Wendell, Paolo, Franz) have bullied him.

Coaching and Roster Fit Problems

• Coach JB Bickerstaff gets praise for the regular season, but criticism for playoff inflexibility and poor offensive creativity.
• Andrew: "It's the playoffs. You cannot play two non shooters. Period. It's, that's, it's over. Like you cannot do it and they do it." (15:08–15:26)
• Asar Thompson’s inability to shoot/cramped spacing highlighted as a major problem for Duren and Cade Cunningham.

Future Outlook for the Pistons

• Urgent need for a "starter-quality" shooter to support Cade.
• Discussion of role-player shooters like Duncan Robinson (good, but not a playoff starter) and Tobias Harris (has gone ice-cold: "missed 18 of 21 threes"—Law, 20:50).
• Potential free-agent target: Rui Hachimura as a “play-finisher.”

On Duren’s Future & the Rookie Max

• Despite a poor series, Duren’s steady progress, age (22), and value at the center spot means Detroit shouldn’t overcorrect.
• Law: "I don't think you let that completely disrupt. Like, you're not replacing him." (13:04)

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3. Orlando Magic: Playoff Giant Killers or Fool’s Gold?

(18:29–32:36; Future focus 22:00–32:36)

Orlando’s Surprising Dominance

• Their messy, physical approach is “built for the playoffs,” but cannot shoot ("they can't shoot still"; Magic have scored only “402 points in four games.”)
• Discussion about the importance of personnel: Orlando's positional size can neutralize opponents’ best players and turn every series into a “rock fight.”

Magic’s Offseason Dilemmas

• Looming salary cap/tax issues and friction between coach (Jamal Mosley) and stars (Paolo, Franz).
• Andrew: "They're about to get so expensive and. Yeah, I mean, like, flirting with the second apron. Expensive.” (22:29)
• Law notes Bane trade as critical to current playoff fortunes: only consistent shooter.

Coaching Uncertainty

• Mosley’s job isn’t secure despite the playoff run; hosts debate whether a more system-based or veteran coach (e.g. Mike Budenholzer) is needed to unlock offensive talent and resolve ball movement issues.
• Andrew: "The thing that's missing for this team is some sort of an offense. Like, they never run anything." (27:23)

Building Around Paolo and Franz

• Need for a shooting big, more dynamic offense to maximize both forwards, and creative schemes to avoid defenses easily switching on Paolo/Franz actions.

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4. Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Toronto Raptors: Panic Spreads in the East

(36:03–46:14)

Cavs on the Brink

• Panic Meter: “10” (major pressure to advance).
• Toronto’s confidence has flipped the series as Cavs’ bigs (Mobley, Allen) again fail to dominate smaller lineups.
• Andrew: "Three years in a row, Andrew, we. I'm a broken record on the Cavs. It's all about why are their bigs not playing big again, why are they not dominating?" (38:54)

Mobley’s Developmental Crossroads

• Hosts unsure if Mobley is ready to be a full-time center; offense not progressing enough.
• Andrew: “He doesn’t impact the game enough game to game offensively … he's not able to take advantage of the mismatches." (42:22)

Impending Shakeup?

• Jared Allen, Mobley pairing questioned; potential for big off-season trades, especially if Donovan Mitchell departs.
• Law: “The Jared Allen, Evan Mobley pairing is on the line here. … We all know the easiest thing to do would be to trade Jared because … his last All-Star appearance was four years ago." (41:09)

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5. Boston Celtics: Playing with Their Food

(46:14–51:22)

• Celtics’ occasional “textbook” losses come from Tatum and Brown both trying to play hero-ball in tough spots, getting “stuck in the mud.”
• Andrew: “You keep giving it gas … and you just get deeper in the mud and that's what happens. ... That's what help happens with the Celtics." (46:38)
• Joel Embiid’s toughness and performance after injury highlighted: “He needs to be studied." (49:00)

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6. Western Conference: Who Should Be Most Panicked? (Denver Focus)

(51:26–60:47)

Denver Nuggets Floundering Against Wolves

• Hosts agree Denver is under the most pressure (“five-alarm fire”) if they lose to short-handed Timberwolves.
• Cam Johnson trade has helped depth, but missing Michael Porter Jr.’s size/rebounding; Cam described as “an average sized person, a really good dude, but he ain't scaring nobody." (54:32–54:41)
• Nuggets’ offense ultra-reliant on Jokic-Murray; no solutions when defended by wolves’ adept defenders.

Potential for Turnaround, But Questions Loom

• Minnesota’s offensive firepower in doubt, but if they finish Denver, big changes could be triggered.
• Key injuries (Peyton Watson, Aaron Gordon) significantly impact Denver.

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7. Other Notable Team Discussions

Houston Rockets: Murky Future (64:00–70:16)

• KD experiment called out as a flop—“doesn’t make anybody better” (65:36).
• The roster is both raw and misfit; poor floor leadership after Fred VanVleet’s injury.
• Eme Udoka (coach) pegged as strong in culture and defense, but not at fixing offensive or floor leadership woes.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Duren's series:
  Andrew (07:07): "Jalen Duren has been so bad that he smells like a fruit you're not allowed to bring indoors."
• Wendell Carter Jr. outdueling Duren:
  Law (07:45): "Wendell Carter Jr. shouldn't be outplaying you when you are an all-star looking for money like that."
• On offensive limitations:
  Andrew (15:08): "You cannot play two non shooters. Period. It's, that's, it's over. Like you cannot do it and they do it."
• On the Cavaliers panic:
  Andrew (37:17): "The house is on fire."
• On the Celtics' “mud” problem:
  Andrew (46:38): "That's what help happens with the Celtics ... you just get deeper in the mud."
• Embiid’s resilience:
  Law Murray (49:00): "He needs to be studied. Like, that is like one of our favorite things to say, but it's actually the truth. He needs to be studied."
• On Denver’s trade-offs:
  Law (54:41): "He [Cam Johnson] ain't scaring nobody. And apparently, he's not inspiring the Nuggets to do different things."

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:13–06:09: Why the Pistons’ situation is uniquely dire
• 07:07, 07:45, 08:22: Jalen Duren riff; Duren vs. Carter Jr.; Magic’s physicality
• 11:57–13:43: Should Detroit give Duren the rookie max?
• 15:01–16:25: Pistons’ offensive struggles and playoff coaching critique
• 18:29–22:29: Future needs for Pistons; what Orlando’s success might mean for them
• 22:29–32:36: What happens next for Orlando? Cap, coaching, team-building questions
• 36:03–46:14: Cavs-Raptors, the Mobley-Allen dilemma, bench woes, Mitchell’s future
• 46:14–51:22: Celtics' playoff psychology, Embiid’s heroics
• 51:26–60:47: Western Conference—Denver’s vulnerability, impact of Cam Johnson trade
• 64:00–70:16: Rockets’ identity crisis and future unpredictability

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Conclusions & Flow

The panel uses humor and deep analysis to dissect why Detroit is at maximum panic, weighing both present failures and the complicated future. Orlando’s own future is paradoxically clouded by unexpected success—could a strong run obscure deeper problems? Meanwhile, the NBA is portrayed as a league where regular season and playoffs are "almost different sports," and several franchises—from Cleveland to Denver to Houston—are described as teetering on the tipping point of radical change.

Fans looking for hope in Detroit, warning signs in Cleveland, or next steps for Orlando will find this episode rich with insight, frank player evaluations, and several laugh-out-loud NBA deep-cuts.

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For listeners who missed the episode, this summary captures all the crucial discussions and atmosphere—skipping the ads and focusing only on the basketball, from panic meters to playoff pitfalls.

Transcript

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[Andrew]

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[Law Murray]

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[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Men's Wearhouse helps you love the way you look no matter if it's a formal occasion or a more casual thing. Job interview, tea time, high school reunion, wedding, courtside seats or just a neighborhood party where you want people to say man, he looks impressive. If you're a man with something, anything on the books, Men's Wearhouse has the clothes, shoes and accessories that make you look and feel good. Their in store experts will help you find the right look while their on site tailors will ensure you've got the right fit. Men's Wearhouse love the way you look. Welcome to the morning shoot around here on the Athletic NBA Daily. We're live on YouTube. It's Wednesday and we have a special guest with us, Dave DeForest with us as always because he's on every show imaginable for us.

[Andrew]

They pay me to do

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

in the most literal sense. We've got Long worry with us this morning. What a treat.

[Andrew]

Overdue. Been a while.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

It is, yeah.

[Law Murray]

There's. It's been a lot going on this month, let's just put it that way. But I'm happy to see you guys.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah, this is a delight. So we're going to. I thought we could go through each series and there's there's teams that lose half the teams are going to lose half of them. Right.

[Law Murray]

I know.

[Andrew]

I'm so excited.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

And we're gonna. We're gonna talk about teams that have either already lost or even teams. Maybe we get to talk about both teams with some of these series that are 2, 2 or even 1 is 3, 2 that we feel like there might be some issues as well. So we're gonna go through each series. We're going to talk about how much should these teams panic? Like, what is the panic meter? So we'll grade these one to 10. And I thought it, it's. It's good for the panic. We can talk about panic in the. The current sense. But I'd also like to talk about the future of these teams as well.

[Law Murray]

Sure.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

What they need to do as far as like this summer or potential trades or if there is a way for them to even get better from here. So we're talking about panic. There's probably a really good place to start and that's in Detroit where they are down 3:1 to the Orlando Magic. They play tonight on Prime.

[Law Murray]

6:00pm on Prime. On Prime. We ain't never seen a team season end on prom video.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

This could be.

[Andrew]

Oh, man.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Is Prime.

[Andrew]

Is prime the new NBA tv? Is that.

[Law Murray]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Is that.

[Law Murray]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Because I feel like it should be Pepeacock, right. Not NBC, but peacock. Because it's like the answer, like prime is just. That's all. That's the only service they have. Peacock is clearly the lesser. It's like, oh, you. You probably don't have Peacock. Oh, we could put this NBA TV series on Peacock. Right. Like,

[Law Murray]

I see where you're going with. But there's such a NBC like entity that it's like the production doesn't make

[Andrew]

it feel less special, but like Boston Philly is. Is that a Peacock game tomorrow? Yeah, I don't think it's for NBC.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

It's Peacock. NBC Sports. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. Anyways, let's talk about the present Pistons. Okay. Where should their panic level be? Franz Wagner. Is he. Is he listed as out yet? I think he's. Well said as questionable.

[Law Murray]

Questionable? Last time I checked, he was still questionable. But Palo spilled the beans, if you want to call it that. He be questioned that they're not planning on having him because it would not be smart to play with the injury that he has. And you know, we are very sensitive to injuries in the playoffs. Every time someone gets hurt, people want to cut an extra five games off the regular season schedule. This would apply here.

[Andrew]

I Won't be happy until it's a 20 game season. Well, like

[Law Murray]

we. We're going to lose so much basketball. 20 games season. 20 minute games and whatnot. Mercy rules. If you up 30, it's a running clock.

[Andrew]

Hey, I. Look, I. I do think 40 minute game, which is what the rest of the world does. I think 40 minute game, there's a lot of merit for that. Gets it down in the NBA. It probably winds up being around 100 points, which is great. Like a team would go nuts and it'd be like 110 and you'd be like, wow, how'd they score? 110 points. But I don't think we're getting less than 70 games ever. Never.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

No, no. Rails. I don't even know what I'm saying.

[Law Murray]

We're not gonna ever talk about the Pistons.

[Andrew]

Pistons. The Pistons after, after winning, you know, after having the season that they had. I don't. I mean it's got to be a 10. I mean, you could go home tonight, I guess. You know, you're at home.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah. Yeah. It's got to me if, if there is a 10, it's. It's with Detroit because this is a 18 matchup. This is a magic team was falling apart that actively hated their coach. And it was like no secret that

[Law Murray]

they lost by 50. Yeah, he lost by 50 on a Sunday, bro.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah, they wanted everyone to go home. Like everybody thought it was a foregone conclusion. And now here we are. They're up three. They're up three one over the Detroit team.

[Andrew]

What a great joke. Shout out to Dan Golog. Jalen Durian. That's right. Because he stinks. Jalen Duran has been so bad that he smells like a fruit you're not allowed to bring indoors.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Oh yeah. Explain this joke to people because this is definitely like a Dave to four coated joke.

[Andrew]

Here it is. Durian. Durian fruit smells like trash. It tastes like pudding, but it smells like trash. So you have to get past the smell to be able to eat it. But yeah, Duran stinks. That's a great joke. Love it.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah, he's 46 from the field. 9.8 points per game, 8 rebounds, 2.3 assists in this one. Three turnouts.

[Law Murray]

I mean, that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is that they posting his ex the whole series, man. Like you can't be Angel Reese relevant in the playoffs, bro. Like that's what it is for me. Like Wendell Carter Jr. Shouldn't be out playing you when you are an all star looking for money like that stuff's critical. This is like the opposite of what Jerome James gave us all those years ago. Wow.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah.

[Law Murray]

Yeah. We had to bring deep cuts during

[Andrew]

Fruit and Jerome James, that matchup, that matchup, this is probably the best I've ever seen Wendell Carter play. I mean, this, this series, he has been including the best game of his career.

[Law Murray]

To me, that's something extra in the playoffs. And I wanted to not make that reference or joke, but I mean, it's been four games and you've seen how Jalen's played and you've taken that one Dell's played. Don't tell me that is not relevant to how this series is playing out, especially in this critical matchup. Before we got on air, we were talking about the Pistons second best player. They have two all stars and Tobias Harris ain't one of them. Why is Jalen Duran getting canceled in. In the series like this? This series is only, you know, I wanted to see the series because Orlando worth all their flaws. You knew they were going to be physical. Their Magic aren't soft. They're a lot. They have a lot of issues, some that are still apparent in this series. They can't shoot still out if it's not Desmond Bane flicking their wrist. Okay. Like they're not. They've scored what, 402 points in four games. You can do the math there. That's an ideal Dave Duor game right there. Like the Magic are who they are, but you know who they are. A team that was never going to be intimidated by the Detroit Pistons. So why is Jaylen Duran in a position where you talk about future like Andrew, Andrew Schleck was hitting this up like, you know, we were about to do town halls or something. You know what this, this is the Jalen Duran series. He's looking for money and he. If this, if it stopped in March, it was looking great. Well, April 29th, what it was, was

[Andrew]

looking like beef Stew. Has been the third best player for them in this series. I mean, his and. And just functionally fits better as a. Because he's a shooter and can space the floor and Duran has been so bad. And I think that like the other part of this is that JB Bickerstaff is really not doing Jalen Duran any favors. Yeah, he's got him out there too much with the Sar Thompson. Right. So you're dealing with a congested lane as it is. And it's not the regular season. Like they are just going to load up. You're not getting any easy Looks and Aar Thompson doesn't even look at the basket. So you really only have to guard the area around. Jaylen Duran and the Magic have just been big. They're. They're sending like, you know, Palo Ban. Caro is huge. Franz Wagner huge. Wendell Carter, Mass. I mean, these guys are just. It's a lot of big bodies. And I think it's just Jalen Duran's not good enough to overcome the challenges around him. It's not just that he's having a bad series. It is not set up for him to have a good series.

[Law Murray]

Yeah.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

You don't think there's still a chance that he gets the. The rookie max during.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I feel like he might.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

I mean, I think he's gonna make. I mean, he's gonna make all NBA, right?

[Andrew]

Yeah,

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

I think he could still get it, which. And maybe this is just a young player experiencing the playoffs as a guy who's supposed. Who has like, big expectations behind him. I think a lot of times you forget, like, I mean, during. He's. He's been in the league a while, but he's still only 22.

[Law Murray]

Yeah. Detroit. The Detroit. This was a great draft pick for them. 13th pick in the draft with a pick that they originally didn't have. You don't let that guy get away. Like, Jalen has taken steps that you can see on an annual basis. He went from not starting to starting to, okay, you can be a starter for a playoff team to, oh, you can be an all Star. Like, right. There's, you know, he's been. He's been durable. He's. He's not a dumbass. Like, right. There's a lot you. You like the center position is hard and it's fickle. I cover a Lakers team sort of that has deandre Ayton on it. And at this point, you know, in deandre Ayton's, you know, time, it's like, yeah, things might have gotten a little sensitive. We saw what it. The drop off after he got paid after year four when, you know, there was that. What are you doing? You know, with his restricted free agency. I think you gotta do what you can to not mentally and psychology psychologically disrupt a guy's improvement, especially at a position like center.

[Andrew]

If.

[Law Murray]

Yeah, he's getting absolutely outplayed and he's disappointed tremendously in four games against one team. I don't think you let that completely disrupt. Like, you're not replacing him.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Law Murray]

Or at least not in the short term. Right. Well.

[Andrew]

And also, it doesn't mean that he's not a playoff center next year. Right, Right. I just, you know, he, he improved so much between last year and this year that there's no reason for me to think that he's not done getting better. You know, his defense still has a way. Even though he improved so much on defense, he still has a ways to go in my opinion.

[Law Murray]

Honestly, he played well last year in the playoffs relative to, you know, certain, certain things. I mean, he rebounded well. He was a much hub against the Knicks in the first round than he's been in this series. That's the thing. Playoffs are matchups. Like. Right. Small sample size. Cedar. But it's the most significant of the small sample sizes that we acknowledge. Like if they survive this series, which again the Franz Wagner injury and the home court advantage. There are avenues. These games have been close. It's not like the Magic are blowing these dudes out for 48 minutes. Just in the minutes it matters. So like it. This is a 3:1. But just like the Nuggets Timberwolves 3:1. It's like you, you gotta, you gotta see it finish out right. And, and if that happens, that will be the best thing for Jan Duran. Not just because his team will live to see another day, but because maybe those matchups are a lot better. It's like things will look different against Jared Allen or Yaka Portal for instance. We gotta see it.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah. I mean their, their offensive rating is like, what is it, like 15 or 16 points worse for 100 possessions than it was.

[Law Murray]

Yeah.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

In the regular season. I mean they were, it's 17 points. They were the ninth best offense in the NBA.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Law Murray]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

They're not running enough. They're not, they're not creating enough chaos. They're not getting any easy buckets. And again in, in the half court, they're just playing too many non shooters at a time. It's the playoffs. You cannot play two non shooters. Period. It's, that's, it's over. Like you cannot do it and they do it.

[Law Murray]

Especially if you're not creative offensively and.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Law Murray]

You know, JB is, I, I, I, I really appreciate jb. There might be a ballot with my name on it that validates that statement. But we've known year over year, even going back to Cleveland, you know, that's not one of his strengths in the playoffs is being creative offensively.

[Andrew]

I think in the regular season he is so good at putting everyone in a position where they don't fail. And that wins you so many games. But the playoffs, you've got to go win. It's not just don't fail. You have to go and succeed. Like, you have to take advantage of the stuff that's in front of you. And they don't. I mean, they don't necessarily have the roster for that. And so I think that J.B. bickerstaff, the job that he did in the regular season, excellent, excellent. Getting this team to 60 wins, I mean, that's pretty absurd when you think about the deficiencies that they have on offense.

[Law Murray]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

It's just that as soon as you get to the playoffs, things are tight. And the, and the Magic, frankly, are one of the teams that can just mash with those guys like they are. They are positionally just as big. Kate Cunningham. It doesn't have this huge size advantage because they'll switch everything with a guy who's almost his size or, or bigger than he is. They just.

[Law Murray]

And honestly, they don't even need to do that because Jalen Suggs is a football player.

[Andrew]

Well, that helps, you know, which is part of why he's a hurt all the time.

[Law Murray]

Yeah, exactly. No, like it's the Andrew you see Alex Caruso on a regular. Like, there's a reason Alex Russo makes so much sense for the Thunder where he's not nearly as valuable to 80, 85 of the rest of the league. You have to keep that guy's minutes down because he is not capable of just coasting by himself. You can't play him 25, 30 minutes and think you're going to keep him healthy. You need to reduce his minutes severely. And Jalen Suggs is a younger, better version of that. You know, he better be. He was a top five pick. Alex Reer was undrafted out of Texas A and M back when he was balding then. So it's like you have personnel and that's what, you know, you, you have to have the right personnel. And, and, and again, the Magic are a rock fight team too. They were messy all regular season, but if this was any series and you say, oh, the magic are up 3, 1 on the pistons and you set that in October with what we thought the Pistons were going to look like and what we thought the Magic were going to look like, would you blink? Would you be like, surprise?

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

However, we did get to see in the regular season what both teams were and it is surprising.

[Andrew]

Orlando, hey, listen, Orlando is the funniest story in the NBA right now. And, and there's no more absurd example of the difference between the regular season and playoff stuff than. Yeah, than Orlando it's, it's great. I love it. I love, I love when a team flips everything on the, on its head for us. It's great.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah. What about, what about the future for Orlando? Like, I think for the, for the Pistons? Like, they need to go find another score on the perimeter. The challenge of building around, like Asar Thompson and Jalen Dern are great players in a vacuum, they're great players, but when you pair those two together on the court, you, you have a really big challenge in front of you. And it's been a challenge for Kate Cunningham. It's why he deserves to be an MVP candidate, because it's not the best built squad, but like, that's the story

[Law Murray]

of Cade's life right there.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah, no kidding. It really is. And so I'm. They need an elite shooter. Like, they need an elite shooter that is a starting level player. They have some good shooters that are role players, but they need a starting

[Andrew]

level shooter if they can upgrade the Duncan Robinson spot with somebody who, who holds up defensively.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Because Duncan Robinson kills him on defense. I mean, just some of the dumbest fouls you've ever seen in your life.

[Law Murray]

I, I got a name for you. I wonder if Rui Hachimura would be a target for Detroit. Ruiz a free agent. And I believe Tobias is a free agent. And we were just talking about. Tobias is missed 18.

[Andrew]

Really taking the Tobias spot. I mean, I, I like that. I think, because the play finisher guy.

[Law Murray]

Yeah, because honestly, that's all you're asking for. You know, you're asking for a guy to make a high percentage of his shots inside or outside the arc, and that's pretty much all Ruby's good at. But he's really, really good at it. And he plays with a heliocentric offensive force already. You know, actually he plays with multiple of them. But, you know, you get the picture there. Like with me with Duncan Robinson, it's like Duncan is doing what Duncan is expected and supposed to do. He's not being great at it right now, but he's been adequate to good. Whereas Tobias was a 36, three point shooter. He's the guy who plays a ton of minutes, gets a lot of touches, gets a bunch of rhythm, and if he shot average, this series might be flipped right now, especially in the time of the game that it matters. He's missed 18 of 21 threes. That's the guy who, it's like, you know what Elsar is not going to do or is going to.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Law Murray]

He's going to run around and try and make things happen during is supposed to be better, but Jern is your center. Cade's got the ball and is asked to do everything. Duncan has actually played himself into a better role because he is actually a little bit better on ball than most. Quote unquote shooter only types like he's developed a. I hate talking about his development. The dude's over 30 now. But that's what we're talking about. Like, it's. Tobias. Tobias. It's not that he's been a complete zero in the series, but he's been a zero in the thing that Detroit needs to regress a little bit more. We all knew Detroit was a bad shooting team, but there's bad and then there's sub 30% bad. There's 37 regular season Tobias Harris and there's. He's missed 18 of 21 threes. Tobias Harris. We're not asking him to be a sharpshooter, but he's got to hit open looks tonight or their season's over.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah. How do we feel about Orlando moving forward? Let's say Orlando wins a series. They move forward one. It's not like completely insane that they, like, make a run at the conference finals, which would be. We just feel so strange.

[Andrew]

Crazy.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

But let's say they make it to round two. They at least put up a good fight. Or do we just say, oh, everything's fixed in Orlando now.

[Andrew]

I can.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Or does this just delay some inevitable things for the Magic? Like where. Where are we at? Where are we at with Orlando if they do in fact move on to round two and then at least look good to competent.

[Andrew]

They're about to get so expensive and. Yeah, I mean, like, flirting with the second apron. Expensive.

[Law Murray]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And this is a team that was. It was a seven seed. Right. I think that no matter what, even. I mean, unless you win the finals, I guess if you made the Finals, you. You could justify. But a conference finals run in the East.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Don't tempt me with the potential Thunder Josh Robbins final.

[Andrew]

That would be so. That would be so much fun. Live from Epcot center, it's the NBA Daily. I. I do think. I just. I don't know if you can double down on this. It would be such a huge mistake in my opinion. I mean, like, Jamal Mosley was a lame duck coach all season long, and I. I think obviously he's done a really good job in this series so far just because they're winning. But has he. Has he done anything that's like, earth shattering as A coach? I don't think so. They got healthy. They, they kind of ran into a team that was poised to be upset. Like we were talking about a potential 8:1 upset of the Pistons starting in like February. Right. Like they, they were suspect. So I think that they're likely to say, oh, wow, look, we're, we're pretty good. Look at what happens when we're healthy. They need to get Doc Rivers in there. Maybe he's so good at spitting that message. Right.

[Law Murray]

Doc's been there before.

[Andrew]

Been there before. Yeah. Yeah.

[Law Murray]

No, it's crazy that they are up three one with them being an eight and Detroit being a one. And this is the same thing 23 years ago. And Doc was at the end of the, you know, I, I wonder if that was the same conversation 23 years ago. You know, I was only in high school. So like, to your point, I think they made a big move. We saw the last time a not quite all star was traded for that many first round picks. And you know, we were, they were talking about Tibs as if to say, if you lose this series, you're out. If you lose Sir Jarrow. And then, hey, conference finals didn't matter. Right. And that was a team that obviously, you know, was higher in the seating. You know, it's, it's going to come down to the relationships. Like, Tom Thibodeau is not the next coach because he didn't have certain relationships, you know, tied up. And the biggest noise that you heard with Orlando is the friction between Jamal and Paolo. Like the Magic. Their issue is they thought that they'd get more games out of Palo, Franz and Jalen. For me, I expected the Magic to be in the conference in October. That's why I said what I said earlier on this stream. And one of the reasons they didn't do that is because Franz played what, two games between mid January and, and the end of March, like, and Moe's didn't exactly balance that out with, you know, results over expectations. Like that causes friction. It's like, yeah, we're hurt. We're hurt every year. Like, can we do something different? Can we do something about it? That Bane trade saved them in so many ways. Like, yeah, you gotta remember it was Kentavius, Caldwell, Pope in that spot. Bane is the only guy in this entire series. You can make three. Bane and Duncan and, and Bane's been that much better than Duncan, you know, so to you guys point, it's like you don't have money to spend on anybody else. You don't have Draft picks to spend on anybody else who gets moved. The coach and the coach move when you don't have the best relationship. Now let's see how much better those relationships get depending on this playoff run. I think that's the trick with the Magic.

[Andrew]

I feel like the East Conference finals can just trickle out of teams. You know, it's a, the east is, is wacky. We might have Raptors magic in the second round, which nobody predicted. And then the winner, you know what I mean? Like, the Raptors have a good shot at making the conference finals, which none of us thought they were even going to win their first round series. So I, I would be worried about the trap, the Eastern Conference finals trap. You know, think about the Atlanta Hawks a few years ago. You know, they make that run and everybody's like, oh, watch out for the Hawk. Not really, I, I, I don't know. But they don't really have the, the truth is I think they at least run this back one more season. The roster, whether the coach is there or not, I don't know.

[Law Murray]

This is, yeah, you don't have a choice. Who would you move? Dave?

[Andrew]

Right, exactly. They, I, I do think that this is a team that needs just maybe a coach with a system like Mike Budenholzer or someone, you know, needs to get in there, a more veteran coach. Get in there. The thing that's missing for this team is some sort of an offense. Like, they never run anything. You never. And that's personnel. It's politics too. But they need a coach that's going to have some gravitas and some juice to be able to come in there and say, hey, see this little box on the floor? That's where you stand. And when the ball moves the other way, you move up here. I mean, they don't do that stuff. And so I would just like to see what does it look like if they actually had a cohesive offensive game plan. And I mean, the defense, I don't think it needs much improvement. They're pretty good at that.

[Law Murray]

So, you know, you know what's funny, Dave, is last year or early in the season, the Magic were one of the many teams that were trying to just play with a faster pace just for the, for the sake of it. Now, why it stood out for the Magic was because if you watched the Orlando Magic game last year, then God bless you, because they played the ugliest basketball on purpose in the league. Like if, if, like they, you know, had the fewest games in the league where a team scored 110 points or something like that, like, in terms of either team, like, yeah, their games were, we're going to beat the crap out of you, and if you win, cool. But if not, then whatever. That's how they played. That was a part of their identity. And they tried to play fast early in the year. And it was called out immediately. How. Not only was it not quite benefiting their offense, but. But it was absolutely putting their defense at a disadvantage because they were not built to play that way.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Law Murray]

So that was Jamal Moses. And I'm having this conversation with you guys because again, going back to October, what did we think of Detroit and what do we think of Orlando? If Orlando was this, oh, my God, y' all were the top seed, would. It would have been shocking, just like Detroit was shocking this year. And I say it because if Detroit last year, six seed after being the worst team in basketball, we're an eighth seed this year or a playing tournament team this year with the personnel that we saw in October, would that have been surprising? Yeah, right now it's hard to think of it that way because it's hindsight because they won. But in October, it would have been like, yeah, sure, I can see it. Look at their personnel. You know, it's the same combo. We're having the same convo about what Moses strengths and weaknesses as a coach are that we are with jb. And I think it's just interesting because one team had the regular season success that they did in the circumstances they did. And another team, I think super highly of Franz Wagner, that guy is a big part of their defense. And we don't talk about them like that.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Law Murray]

You know, but if you were to ask Mose, hey, why is your team so good defensively? Why didn't you have any all NBA defenders when, you know, y' all were so good defensively? And Mose will tell you, well, Franz missed a lot of games. Yeah, that was last year when they were the second or third best defense in the NBA. They slipped this year. Defensively, Franz missed a ton of games. They screwed up this beginning of their season trying to do something that they weren't built to do. Franz is that good. They're up 3:1 because Franz. I really want to see how these Magic team plays with Franz set to miss at least tonight. I'm. I'm just saying. And what that means for how they see their team and see who needs to coach their team going forward.

[Andrew]

I. I think the biggest. The biggest problem to solve for. For the Magic for the future if when they have Franz and Paolo on the same team is how to have them be able to work together in a league that's happy to switch because they are so close in size, so similar in the way that they play. It's an easy switch for some, you know, teams that have personnel. Right. And that's. That is a challenge offensively. So how do you get your two best players to be able to have like, can Franz go set a screen for Paolo right now or vice versa? No, it's an easy switch. So now you've got to figure out, like, the system needs to be built around getting those guys to be able to work together. And. And I think that that stuff just from the, from the like NBA defense standpoint, it's tough.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah. It'd be great to have a shooting big.

[Law Murray]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Well, you know,

[Law Murray]

Junior play like this all the time.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, you mentioned it earlier.

[Law Murray]

This is.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

This is the angel respawl. This is.

[Law Murray]

This is.

[Andrew]

They also don't space their bigs out like they like because Goga can shoot, Wendell can shoot, and they don't space him out all that much.

[Law Murray]

Wendell can also pass like. That was the thing that I saw in game one, especially in that fourth quarter. They gave Wendell Carter the ball and use him as a hub and he was picking guys off that way. That's how they closed game one. Detroit never let in game one and they started to make some moves towards making that game closer. And all of a sudden Wendell Carter Jr. Was Again, there's a reason Wendell was a lottery pick.

[Andrew]

I would get both of it. I would have their bigs operating up on the. On the wing, above the break three and. And back cut. Because the Pistons actually aren't great at defending screens and cuts.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah. Shout to the Chicago Bulls.

[Andrew]

You guys think magic. Get it done.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

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[Law Murray]

Nah, I'm just kidding.

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[Law Murray]

Nah, I don't either.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

I don't think this is over.

[Andrew]

Who's banking in a shot to win the game tonight? Who's backing in?

[Law Murray]

I mean, the main shot was.

[Andrew]

That was one of the loudest backboard sounds I've heard a microphone catch on an NBA broadcast.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

I know.

[Law Murray]

It's like Desmond Bain dapping his coach when he gets traded.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah, that. That sound is the sound of the series. Like what does this series sound like? It sounds like this. Okay, let's. Let's move on to Cavs raps. We just did 32 minutes on that series, which is. Yes, playoffs. Okay, the Raptors. This is Gravy. We're on the gravy train. We weren't supposed to be here. We weren't supposed to be beating this team. We're not supposed to be thinking about round two. If it were up, if. If we just went based on what s thought was going to happen, this game, this series might be already over. But here they are. Two. Two. It feels like the Raptors have figured some things out, and it. It feels like the Cavaliers are playing to the identity that people expect of them, and it's not been good. Where should the panic meter be for the Cleveland Cavaliers, scale of 1 to 10?

[Law Murray]

Law Murray, I'm putting it you 10 being like, oh, my God, we're panicking. This is crazy.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

10. Yeah, 10.

[Law Murray]

10 is 10.

[Andrew]

The house is on fire.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

There is a pipe burst in the wall of my house.

[Law Murray]

That sounds like a personal experience, man. It is. It is absolutely personal experience.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

I walked into my. My bathroom three months ago to standing water in the bathroom, and I'm just like, I'm, I'm. I'm running as fast as. As I can out to turn the water off to my house because, boy, well, Panic.

[Law Murray]

Well, look, the Cleveland is home, and I hope that it's a better home situation than what Andrew's got. And I would say they're, they're. They're panic meters at a seven. You know, they. Toronto did not have confidence before they got home, and now they do, even with basement level shooting and with Brandon Ingram not looking like an all star at all. And this series is tied. And again, the Raptors have the momentum like the Raptors. Again, you mentioned it. This is house money, right? House money versus hot seat. There are so many dudes with hot seats. So Cleveland can't play like a panic team. But Lord have mercy, that is a huge game. I mean, if a team wasn't playing an elimination game on prime, like, I'd say that was the game that I'm most interested in seeing. And I'm going to cover a game tonight. I'm so not interested in the game. I'm, I'm interested, but, like, I'm gonna be there in body, not spirit. My spirit is absolutely going to be in Cleveland, Ohio.

[Andrew]

I think. I think the Cavs are. I think they're cooked. I'm. I actually. Well, I love that you talked about the confidence, man, because I do think that basketball has, like, it is a sport that momentum does exist in, like, having high confidence going into a game. And especially this Raptors team is so young. Scotty Barnes. I Mean, cmb, Colin Murray, Boyles, I cannot believe how effective this guy has been defensively against the Cavs big guys. They just once again, three years in a row. Andrew, we. I'm a broken record on the Cavs. It's all about why are their bigs not playing big again, why are they not dominating? It's. The Raptors do not have the size to. To deal with Evan Mobley and Jared Allen. They just don't. And they're doing this on effort. I mean, I guess they have the. They have the physical size as far as, like, Scotty Barnes is jacked. That's what they've got. But then they go out there and they just play with so much intensity defensively. And the Cavs, I mean, frankly, a lot of. A lot of attention on Donovan Mitchell and James Harden, rightfully because they have the ball all the time. But the. The reason that this is a 2:2 series is because Mobley and Jared Allen have not risen to the moment, period. They're getting outplayed by smaller dudes.

[Law Murray]

Straight up heard that year over year over year, no matter who the point guard is, no matter who the coach is, no matter who the opponent is, again, this isn't, you know, the New York media, you know, when we were talking about these guys first foray into the playoffs together back in 2023. This is a raptor team that honestly should be happy they're here.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah.

[Law Murray]

And it's. At a certain point, we know what the variables are. You traded Darius, you fired jb, you had a season where you exceed expectations, and then you had a regular season where you fell below that mark this year, even though you weren't bad. You know, you got a normal quote unquote good year. Like, we all see what the constants are. We saw they gave up on Darius. You want to talk about futures, Andrew? Let's have another town hall. The Jared Allen, Evan Mobley pairing is on the line here. And we all know the easiest thing to do would be to trade Jared because he's not the guy that you, you know, I mean, you paid him, but he's not the former lottery pick. He's not. You know, his last All Star appearance was four years ago, which by the player participation policy that we all are very familiar with this year, due to the league's fines, Jared is not a quote unquote star anymore. Right? It's on. Evan. Are you. Are you. Look, Evan, that dude, Scotty Barnes took your Rookie of the Year trophy. You wanna. You wanna play up or not? I Can't wait. I'm telling you, my spirit's in Cleveland, bro.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah. It's gonna be fascinating to see if Mobley steps up because he, I mean, he's been fine. It's not like he's been first two games.

[Andrew]

He was good actually, during this series.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah. It's just like, can we get consistency and it like, do you guys feel like Evan's ready to be a full time center?

[Andrew]

Like, I, I don't know. I wouldn't feel comfortable with that. I, I, I just. The funniest thing is I think defensively, fine. It's to me that he doesn't impact the game enough game to game offensively. He's not able to take advantage of the mismatches and it's not like he's not a good pick and roll partner for these guys. And you've got James Harden, right. This is, to me, this is a James Harden, Jared Allen series and we're not seeing that. And then Mobley's not able to take advantage off the dribble period against these dudes. So I don't know. I mean, the tricky thing about Mobley being the center is that we just haven't, we don't have the sample size of it. They don't do it enough in, in kind of high leverage situations that we know what it looks like.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Also, they're just not getting a lot from like some of these role players that they traded for at the deadline.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

They're not getting much from shooter in this series. Keon Ellis is in what my, my co host Alex Spears dubbed the singler zone years ago. It's when your field goal percentage, three point percentage and free throw percentage don't add up to 100.

[Andrew]

Oh, rough.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Oh.

[Law Murray]

It's a crazy zone to be in.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

It's a crazy zone to be in. It's, it's difficult. It's a very elite group. You can't get, you can't just get there, so. Right. Yeah. I, I don't know. I don't, I don't know where they go from here, but I do think like this team, especially if they go out in round one, this is where we see the fireworks.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

I think Mitchell's, I think Mitchell's probably

[Law Murray]

gone, especially with that, especially with that gm like Kobe has reacted to more with less reason to like you did not make the trade that you made in mid season, which was not the only move they had. DeAndre Hunter started the season one this team. Right. And then he Got put in witness protection. So, like, for guys that were supposed to bolster your depth, for guys that, honestly, we're supposed to insulate Donovan, you got a point guard who was available that I literally put the, you know, no Child Left behind theme, you know, for the way Kenny Atkinson was talking about James Harden just being available. That was clear. It's like, oh, my God. A guy who plays their injuries, toughness, durability. Like, you can criticize James for a lot of things. It's like, James will show up, at least physically. But the thing with James is when he knows it's a rap, you see it. I saw it last year at the end of the Nuggets Clipper series when he was like, I'm playing with Chris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr. And the Denver Nuggets. Chewable defense does not respect those dudes. So they're overplaying me and Kawhi. It's over. And you saw it, and James didn't want to talk about it, but we all knew there wasn't a whole lot to talk about anyway. I don't know if James has gotten to that point, but good Lord, you will see it before it completes the process of playing out. And that's. And that's the thing. It's like all these dudes were here to protect Donovan. Extra ball handler, a guy who's available. Multiple ball handlers off the bench, multiple shooters off the bench, multiple defenders, for that matter, Keon, if he was going to play, it's because he's will run around and not care about how many touches he gets. You can't say that about Shooter and Merrill and all those other guys that come off the bench with him. Even Jalen Tyson. Telling you, I said it before. My spirits in Cleveland tonight.

[Andrew]

I don't know if the Raptors can win in Cleveland. That's what. That's. I mean, you know, I guess we'll find out tonight.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

But, yeah, this. The series looks completely different depending on what city we're in so far. I don't. I don't know that there's gonna. I think the Knicks have control of this series in a way that makes sense. I think they were gonna. They were gonna struggle. The Celtics are hopelessly. The Celtics, I would say, in this one, textbook.

[Andrew]

Textbook losses. Like, two of them. Yeah, they play with their food, and it's. It's amazing. You know, I said this on the show today, that with Tatum back now, it's two guys when things start to go poorly that are trying to fix it. Right. It's not. This doesn't come from a selfish place, from, from Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum. They are the best players on the team, and they. That part of their job that they, as they see it, is, well, we got to get us out of the mud. And instead, man, you guys ever been stuck in the mud, like, in a car, like off road or anything? You know what happens? You keep giving it gas, you keep giving it gas, and you just get deeper in the mud and that's what happens. That's right. That's what help happens with the Celtics. And so now you've got, like, they were able to avoid that so much this season when Tatum went out there, because it was, it was not. Guys like Jalen Brown, when he's on the court, he was bailing them out a lot. And then when he wasn't, the ball just would pop and move. And so I, you know, I, I think that they probably win game six. It feels like it's going to be like a one of those Celtics blowout wins after a disappointing loss. But, man, if it gets a 7, if Embiid is going to look like he did last night,

[Law Murray]

that's something I really am.

[Andrew]

He's incredible. He did not look as good in the first game as he did the second game. And I think he, he heard him in the first game, but I cannot get over how good he looked last night. The dude is 19 days removed from an appendectomy. He's still dealing with the knee thing. I, I just. I don't know. I mean, he, he's. He's so talented. And you just. I don't know. You hope one of these times can, can we just, like, break the PED policy for Joel and just give him,

[Law Murray]

like,

[Andrew]

everybody knows about peptides now somehow. Come on. Like, let's just, just start sneaking those into his protein shakes. We're not looking.

[Law Murray]

I'm amazed that he's even playing. Like, because I know. And, and I mean, honestly, it. I'm just happy that I don't have to pretend like I'm a doctor. I, I don't know anything. Like, all I know about appendectomies is what happened to OG and 2019. Nick Nurse situation. I'm like, oh, oh, gee. Didn't even get cleared until June. How's this dude still playing? Same thing with two years ago. It wasn't two years ago. The Bell's policy was like, yeah, I mean, I'm telling you, you cover certain teams and people who read my work know that I've been on the Clippers for a long time. Certain teams, you learn way too much about certain medical conditions. It's like, man, I did not know that this was even possible. You know, like, this dude, Joel and B needs to be studied. Like, that is like one of our favorite things to say, but it's actually the truth. He needs to be study. How is this dude keep coming back from the craziest things? You come back from broken orbital bones multiple times, stomach issues and real actual organ being taken out. And he's out here deciding that he's going to take Hater and Garza to the woodshed.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

And he did.

[Law Murray]

And yeah, so watching the Celtics is like, you know, the weather. You're like, you know, in certain municipalities, like, if they hit the threes, they get. That's it. Like, that's their st. But also we saw it in the playoffs last year. You guys alluded to it. If they go cold, they're just going to have a commitment to going cold. That leaves doors open for teams to walk through if they are capable of walking. The six are top heavy as hell, but if Joel's going to play well, if Tyrese is going to play well. You know who played well last night? Paul George. There's a playoff p in every game in this series. Sometimes it's Peyton Pritchard and finally got. I mean, that's a. That's a great Paul George performance. It's not. That's a sustainable Paul George performance. You can. It's like, hey, Paul, just kind of play hard and make the right play consistently and let your skill and size take over. I mean, he can do that. I know it's year 16, but I mean, he had 25 games off. I think Paul's feeling a lot better than he was most of his Sixers tenure. That's going to be a hell of a game in South Philly.

[Andrew]

Yeah, to my point. Let these guys just do some PEDs and be ready for the playoffs, man.

[Law Murray]

Like, walk right into that one.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

They should absolutely trade Paul this. This summer, by the way. They should absolutely trade him. With him looking good, the time is now. Okay, let me. Let me frame it this way for the West. Which team should be the most panicked in the Western Conference right now? We'll include the Blazers and the Suns in this. And which team do we think will look the most different in October because of this panic?

[Andrew]

Gotta be Denver, right? Feels like Denver has the most to lose out of this. Denver goes down to the. To the Wolves without Anthony Edwards and. And Dante Divincenzo throw him in there. Two starters. If they lose this series to their biggest rival, I think that that's a five alarm fire.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

And is Dave cutting out for you?

[Law Murray]

Law? He. I got him.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Okay. Oh, sorry.

[Law Murray]

You know, I thought, I thought you were referring to Dave as. And David Adelman, not Dave Dufour.

[Andrew]

Dave Adelman's cutting out. He's cutting out for a lot of people.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Cutting out for you guys too. He's got, he's got out for everybody else.

[Law Murray]

Joe, did they really boo him?

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yes. At home before. Yes. Yes, it is. It has been a bad look.

[Law Murray]

He.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Listen, if you want a, a look into what a coach should not do going down in a series that you should be winning, just go watch almost every one of David Adelman's answers because he looks pretty foolish.

[Andrew]

He got, he got a little bit chippy with, with one of the reporters out there in Denver. Yeah. And I, so I went back and I, I like watched the, the, the broadcast that this reporter and I mean just completely mischaracterized what the guy said. Shout out to Brendan vote from dnvr. It feels to me that like when you're losing and you're the coach, being defensive is just never going to work. Right. Being, being snarky, never going to work. I feel like the better strategy is you tip your cap to the other team, you say, wow, look at what they're doing. Well, and we got to get better. And then that's it. Right? And then you go and you do your job. All he's done is he's put attention on himself. And if we're talking about the job that he's done, they just spent all year. Jamal Murray had one of the healthiest years that he's ever had in his career. And they did not figure out anything beyond Jokic Murray, two man basketball. Cam Johnson can do stuff with the ball in his hands, never touches it. They, they are so predictable. And they ran into a team that actually knows how to guard that. I mean, no one has as many reps as Jade McDaniels and Rudy Gobert guarding Jamal Murray and Nicola Jokic. And it looked like it in this series so far

[Law Murray]

when it comes to Cam. I mean, when they made this trade, I think a lot of people are excited about the depth, opportunity and getting off of MPJ's. Not just money, but MPJ is obviously a character and maybe that was. We talked about team basketball and putting rosters together and the personality fit is something that gets overlooked unless it's defcom won from a chemistry standpoint. So people were like, oh yeah, refresh your energy, you get depth. I thought the misnomer was thinking that Cam was going to be, quote unquote, better than Michael. What I always appreciated, again, I've watched the Nuggets up close in multiple playoff series. What I always appreciate with Michael, even with him being a complete space cadet sometimes he is 6, 10 playing next to guys who are tall, who are, who are, you know, your quote unquote bigs. That advantage allows him not only to get clean looks when they're created, but it also allows the Nuggets to be a formidable rebounding team. And too often this year they were not that team. They, they. I, I thought people overestimated Jonas Valentunas's impact. The Nuggets found out right around the middle of winter that they did not have an advantage there. And so much of the calculus to their depth improvements like Bruce Brown has been way more volatile than you thought he would be when you look at the championship year, but absolutely the expected thing if you looked at Bruce Brown the last two years, right, he got his money. And so when you look at Cam, good player. When you look at his percentages, still a solid shooter, very good shooter. But he is an average sized player who he might be like, hey, I want to defend with Cam. Cam's not that kind of defender. He's definitely not that kind of rebounder. Cam rebounds like a guard, whereas MPJ would. If you, if MBJ gave you 10 rebounds, you absolutely take that for granted. You do not have the same size advantage. And the Nuggets were still the best offense in basketball this year. Even with Jokers missing all those games, even with Aaron missing all those games. Even Jamal did a lot to prop that up. But when it comes to the matchup, Dave, you said it. The Timberwolves don't give a damn. Just like the Magic don't give a damn about what the Pistons at going on. You know, this is, this is their matchup and, and it's like as good as Cam is a good player and we root for him, but at the same time he does not give you certain advantages and critical spots that MPJ did. MPJ changed check is because he is huge right at the perimeter position. Cameron is an average sized person, a really good dude, but he ain't scaring nobody. And apparently he's not in, he's not inspiring the Nuggets to do different things to, you know, get this series differently again. We'll see. They're only down three, two. And that's a hell of a game.

[Andrew]

I think that there's a great chance they come back and win this series because the Timberwolves are just down. I mean, they're gonna have trouble scoring. You know, they were able to play Tyus Jones and Jonas Valentunas and effective minutes in, in game five because there was nobody out there to take advantage of those guys. And that's really what it comes down to for Minnesota. I actually think Minnesota's defense is going to be totally fine. It's. Can their offense find a way to take advantage of these dudes in that Denver's gonna roll out there that you can just go at. I mean, Jokic, for instance. Right. Like get. Getting Jokic in action. And I know you don't really want to get Rudy Gobert up there and who's going to run pick and roll with them, but I do believe that, that it's about the offensive end for the Timberwolves completely. Terence Shannon Jr. This is his time to shine to me.

[Law Murray]

And you know Terrence is going to do what Jaden will tell him to do. Go right at the same dudes that Jaden was listening off.

[Andrew]

Yep. And I think that that's. That is if, if I was. If I was Chris Finch for, for game six, I don't know if I'd start him because I do think I like Mike Conley being out there and making sure everybody's settled and you know where you're supposed to be. And Mike Conley's not going to make mistakes. He may get outmatched at times, but he's not going to make mistakes and kill you. But it needs to be quick. Hook Terence Shannon, get out there and just start attacking Jokic. Wear Jokic out over the course of a game by just going at him non stop and hopefully you get some looks out of that. You know, I mean, Nas Reed. It's time for Nas Reed to have a big game. Julius Randall needs a 30 point night like just bully ball style even. He should be attacking Jokic and just make Jokic look. He looked awful in the fourth quarters of the first couple games. Get him back to that. Wear him out. I think that's the one way that, that Minnesota stands a chance.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I think it's going to be fascinating to see and I, I think I'll be interested to see if they do get through what they look like against San Antonio because they played San Antonio well this season. Now they, they need. I don't Know if Aaron Gordon has enough time to get well.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

I don't know what Peyton Watson status.

[Andrew]

It doesn't seem like Peyton Watson's coming back. And you know, that is. That is huge for the time.

[Law Murray]

That's a big part of the depth. Like, Peyton was the guy who broke out. Peyton was the guy who played with. We're gonna bring this word back. I mean, it honestly should be a theme for everything we do. Confidence, it can be given, it can be restored, it can be validated. Like, that dude played with a level that is going to get him paid. And they miss him tremendously right now. He's a guy that you can throw out there. He's, you know, for a horrible rim protection team. He knows his role and what he needs to do to help make up for the personnel that they usually have. He can drive, he improved his shooting. They miss him tremendously. And it's a hamstring, it's a soft tissue. You can't rush him back.

[Andrew]

You know, we, we talk about confidence a lot. And I would just say it's funny because it sounds like this nebulous thing, like they're NBA players. Why wouldn't they become your stars? Usually confidence, not a problem. It's the role player guys. It's why they play better at home. It's, you know. But if you want an example of where confidence is or lack of is killing a guy, Derek White's jumper is gone. And it's not, it doesn't. It's not mechanical, it's not physical. Purely confidence. He does not want to shoot. Now, he was a eight or nine attempt a game guy. He shot four in a game. Just one of the worst bricks from a corner three that I've seen him shoot in a playoff game. Just. That's confidence completely.

[Law Murray]

And we've seen that before from Derek.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Law Murray]

You know, 20, 22 playoff run. We saw it before.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah. Actually, no, never mind. He. He's. He's shooting 29. From the field. Yeah, from the field.

[Law Murray]

And what does that tell you, Andrew? Like, I still, I still like field goal percentage because in a quote unquote, make or miss league, you want to make a decent percentage of your shots. You want to get to places where you can make shots. If you are jump shot reliant and that thing's cooking, that's good. But you're still outside the paint, right? And unless you're creating those shots yourself, you're waiting. You're waiting for someone to serve you ain't. You can eat, but you can't cook. I've heard that from a coach before. So if you are not making shots and you are shooting that lower percentage is because you're also not getting to places where you can get easy shots and you're not creating advantages to get yourself to those spots. And that's Derek right now. It's like, look, people were putting Derek on high, high lists. You know, I might have done so myself at times because of the impact that the Celtics had when Derek's on the floor versus when Jalen's on the floor. But this is what we're talking about. It's like if that jump shirt's not going, do you have something else in your game? And the best thing Derek can do is run around, do some other stuff until the. Until he's kind of a good pick

[Andrew]

and roll guy in his career. I mean, I imagine they could do that. They just don't do. They don't play like that.

[Law Murray]

Yeah. And there's less touches for him. Jason Tatum is playing basketball again and that's great for the Celtics. Overall, that's outstanding for, for Tatum. It takes the ball out of a guy's hands who might needs a little bit more rhythm, you know, Again, Peyton Pritchard, he ain't got no problem going right now when he gets in the game. You know what you're getting out of Peyton Pritchard, that thing going up from 50ft, things going up. But yeah, I mean, I think you always got to look at how do you play when certain guys are out, especially if that's been the case all year. And how do they adjust and how do they adjust when their opportunities to get back into a flow is truncated somewhat and that's what you're seeing. Derek has attempted 14 shots in the entire series inside the three point line against the Sixers. Like that is an criminally low number. And he's been fine. It's just. It's not happening a lot. Yeah.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Of all players in the playoffs taking at least nine shots a game, Derek White's the worst.

[Andrew]

Crazy. Also, hey, before we get out of here, the Rockets, I mean, that. That situation is going to change no matter what. That I don't know where KD is going to play. I don't know where IME Odoka is going to coach.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I don't know what's happened. I don't know where Shingoon's going to be next year, but man, that is a nightmare scenario for them.

[Law Murray]

I'll be there. I won't be there in Spirit, but

[Andrew]

I was gonna be there. Law will physically be there, but he's gonna be watching the Cavaliers.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Oh, I love that. Golly. Yeah, that'll be. It'll be fascinating to see where they go to. I, Part of me, like, I liked getting off of the Jalen Green contract, like, using Kevin Durant as a mechanism to do that. Love that. And it appears that that might be the only thing that Kevin Durant delivers for them. It's just a mechanism to get off of that, that contract. And it appears to still be the right decision at this point in time. Yeah, but whenever you hit the, the button that they did and going to get kd, you put unnecessary pressure on all of your young guys to be ready now when they clearly are not ready now. And so I, I, I personally did not love the situation for kd. I did not think that he was going to elevate this team to this level. He has not done that.

[Andrew]

He doesn't make anybody better.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Well, some of that's Fred Van Bleed not being there. Like, this team is a little soulless, I would say, on the court, and at least that's what Fred can do. So, like, maybe you like, pseudo run it back with Van Vliet and you move Kevin on to somebody else and you try to run it back. But I, their, their future, which looked really, really bright at the end of last season, is a little more murky now. I don't know where they go. And they could still get. Amen. Could still develop and get to the level that everybody thought that he could.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

But it's gonna be, it's gonna be interesting to see where they, I think

[Law Murray]

they just, I think they just learn some hard things. Like, you talk about a men and yeah, I thought a man would be this amazing, you know, vortex of power of a basketball player. I mean, we learn more about what a man's not. You know, I mean, I think I

[Andrew]

blame KD for some of this, by the way, like the drop off that we saw with the men defensively. I think part of that is because his role changed so much to accommodate Kevin Durant. He's not this, this agent of chaos out there anymore operating from the back line. I think that, that the, the downstream effects of Kevin Durant, how much he has to touch the ball on offense. Right. Like how, how just completely disengaged. The other four players are offensively from Kevin Durant, period. When he has the ball, you get out of his way, and when he doesn't have the ball, he stays out of Your way. That's not, that's not effective. So, yeah, I think that that team's gonna just completely change.

[Law Murray]

Hey, Dave. I think that we know what's interesting about the Rockets is they went into this season and they were like, who cares what our starting lineup is? We're gonna start Kevin at the 2. We're gonna start. We're going to start Stephen Adams and Alfred Shengun together. Like, I felt like they went in especially once Fred towards acl, which that's the most unfortunate thing. Fred should not be that important. But Fred was brought there to not just be their point guard, but to also be their leader, to be their culture changer for a team that was in the absolute basement for three years under Steven Silas. Right? Which I don't even completely blame on Steven Silas. Look at what he was hired to do and what happened. Not even by the All Star like DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall played on that first even side of the scene, you know, with James Harden and P.J. tucker beginning the season with them. That's all I'm going to say about that. Like when you look at the Rockets like Eme is expertise is on the defensive end. He knows what he wants to do on that end. He needs guys to basically figure out the offense, right? It's easy when you got a guy you can trust your point guard. It's like in the NFL when you hire a defensive coordinator to be the head coach and it's like, all right, I need to pick the right offense coordinator and I need the right quarterback and we'll be fine. And that's usually what happens. He may lost his quarterback and he may also lost a sense of someone on the floor who can lead. From that standpoint of I know that there's someone out there who's going to settle this thing down. Kevin is the best mercenary in NBA history. He's always been a guy who as long as someone else can take care of the organization of things offensively, he's going to be the best at what he does. And we saw the Phoenix Suns two years ago. Remember that Phoenix Suns team? They were like, frank, you're the head coach and we're going to trade Chris Paul, by the way, for Bradley Beal. And who cares who the point guard is? Look at all these pieces that you have. And you know what? If the Suns beat your ass through three quarters, it was, it was sweet. But if that team got into a fourth quarter dog fight, you knew they were going to fold. Remember how we talked about that team? We knew they were going to be dog crap. Every fourth quarter, every clutch time game situation. No team blew as many leads as that team did. And they got swept in the playoffs and Frank lost his job after one year. Who did you really bring? Frank? No. Did you think Frank was going to have the solutions? No. We saw what happened with Russell Westbrook in a very similar situation to end his Lakers tenure. And he won a title with the Lakers. It's the same thing here. I don't think IME is a bad coach. I think Eme very much knows these issues. That's why he calls these dudes soft on a regular basis. But Eme's problem is that IME can identify the issue, but he is not the best at absolutely doing something to address it.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Law Murray]

And so we'll see if their season ends tonight.

[Andrew]

Anybody out there, let me know. 1 Bread and butter play for the Houston Rockets. I would love to see one. Just. What's a pet play?

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Alpi awkwardly barreling to the hoop.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Alpie, fall down, please.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

Just, like, jiggle your way to the hoop. You can get lost coverage at this game, which he will be there in body, so be sure to check that coverage there. Always love to podcast with Law. Law, thank you for joining us. The morning shoot around.

[Andrew]

This is the perfect.

[Law Murray]

Yeah, there we go.

[Andrew]

We. We gotta have Law in this morning Shoot around way more often because this is. This is Law Murray land right here.

[Law Murray]

Yeah, y'.

[Andrew]

All.

[Law Murray]

Y' all got me out of bed, man. I appreciate that. I ain't even get my stretching. I need this because I need to. I need to finish this story for my editors. Come call me. I love it. I love it.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

We'll be back tomorrow morning. Dave DeForest Barahenny, bringing you guys the NBA Daily. You know what?

[Law Murray]

You love it.

[Dave DeForest Barahenny]

So please continue to download that, share with your friends and we will talk to you guys again tomorrow.

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