← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - Game 4 Reactions: Lakers/Wolves, Knicks/Pistons, Celtics/Magic, Pacers/Bucks
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Levittown Podcast Contributor
The volume.
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I'm going to be primarily leaning into the first two games of the day. Those are the two games that I thought were most interesting. So we're going to talk Lakers Wolves off the top and then I've got a lot of thoughts on Knicks Pistons. We'll be going shorter on Celtics Magic as well as Pacers Bucks. But we'll have some thoughts there at the tail end of the show too. Also, no mailbag at the tail end of the show today, just so you guys know. But we're gonna be hitting all four of those games and then we'll get out of here for the night. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jason lt so you guys don't miss any show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. We also have social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook where Jackson's doing great work. Make sure you guys follow us there and then as I mentioned, off top. Last but not least, keep dropping mailbag questions in those YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. I was telling the guys before the show started. It's very rough day for my personal playoff rooting interests. My men's league team had a playoff game today too that we lost on a game winning jump shot at the buzzer in OT from my former college teammate, my point guard back when I was playing in college, shout out to Dom Banks, just an incredible player. Good friend of mine hit a big time shot to beat us today, so took that knife to the chest and then had to go home and watch the other knife go into my chest in the form of the Lakers losing that game in the fourth quarter to the Minnesota Timberwolves. So obviously before we get any deeper into it, just congratulations to Wolves fans. I'm sure you guys are very happy that I am wrong about what ended up happening in this series and it's been especially painful for me because Anthony Edwards just continues to to take a special place in my basketball heart, so to speak, as I've always loved watching him play and just watching the way that he has broken my heart, so to speak, as a Lakers fan in this series has just made me love him even more as a player. And I'm just, I'm really happy for you Wolves fans and you guys are in great shape moving forward, not just in this series, but moving forward for the rest of this playoff run and for the rest of this era that you guys have put together. So to me, game four basically came down to a gamble that JJ Redick made in the second half. A bet based on two things. One, that the Luca, LeBron, Austin, Dorian, Finney Smith, Rui Hachimura lineup was consistently generating great shots against Minnesota's defense and he wanted to ride that out as much as possible. And the Lakers effectively after tonight's game or today's game had like two and a half full days of rest before game five and Wednesday like they would had all night tonight, off all day Monday, off, all day Tuesday, off most of the day on Wednesday. So I don't think he was worried about long term wear and tear. But the gamble was that the Lakers would be able to survive those 24 minutes without succumbing to the physical onslaught of Minnesota. And that ended up being the give and take. Give and take, right? And the Lakers just couldn't quite hold on. I, I thought Ant's shot making in the early fourth quarter was the first sign of that onslaught. I talked a lot after game three about how you pretty much just have to cross your fingers and hope Ant misses those pull up threes because you can't realistically take them away. You're just going to give the best athlete in the league a crazy Runway over and over again. You have to play with, you have to play essentially to concede a contested pull at pullback or step back type of three, right? He hit three of them in the early fourth quarter, including a 2028 footer over Austin Reeves with just under eight minutes left. That cut the lead down to four. And that like immediately changed the tone and tenor of the game. And it turned it into a high pressure half court slug fest. And once again, just like in game three, Ant and the Wolves just looked better down the stretch. Nas Reed came in, one of the few fresh legs guys on the floor there down the stretch. He immediately scored eight points. He scored against Austin on a switch. He had two long threes at the top of the key. The Lakers kind of started to show their fatigue on those two threes. On the first one, Luka beats Nas Reed off the dribble and smokes a layup like right at the rim, smokes a layup. And then in transition, Luka made a bad read. He should have matched up with Nas. Him and Nas were the last two guys back in the play. But Luka just misread the floor and ran to go guard. Austin Reaves his man, even though Austin Reaves was already there. That left Nas Reid open. Just a mental mistake, probably that came from fatigue to a certain extent. And then on the second one, Nas broke open on a screening action. Kind of two guys at the elbow. Nas was on the far elbow and LeBron just was resting or fatigued or whatever it was. He just was like flat footed, standing upright. And when Nas ran off the screen like it probably should have been a switch, but LeBron should have been up like communicating with Austin like, hey, Nas is getting ready to come up. You got to be ready to switch. Both LeBron and Austin were just a little slow to react. And Nas breaks open at the top key and hits another three. And Ant made a very similar kick out read on a baseline drive that looked very similar to the one in game three where he hit Nas Reed on the left wing. He had Dante DiVincenzo on the left wing who drove the closeout and got an and 1. Another great decision from Ant down the stretch. Ant be the double team. He was getting double teamed by Dorian Finney Smith and Rui Hachimura out in the kind of like left, like just in front of half court on the left side of the floor. And Rui lost contain. Ant actually beat the double team off the dribble. Forced Luca to help. It turned into effectively a triple team that caught LeBron in like this weird three on one underneath the basket where Ant makes a beautiful pass to NAS. LeBron flashes. LeBron drops it off to Jaden, or excuse me, Nas. Reed makes a nice connective pass to Jaden McDaniels on the baseline. Austin Reeves fouls him. That ends up basically being the game winner. That lineup with Nasri, Dante DiVincenzo in for Rudy, Rui and Rudy have been killing me in this series. In for Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley is probably their best lineup. It creates space while still maintaining their size and physicality. It closed the deal yet again for the Wolves tonight and now they are in serious control of this series. It's not over. The Lakers will have their shot. We'll talk about that in a little bit later on. But this same theme from the end of tonight's game has repeated itself over and over again in this series. Even in the game two when the Lakers won, it felt like over the course of the end of the game, the Lakers start to look old and tired while the Wolves continue to look like the Wolves and then they take control. The Lakers came came apart at the seams. And a bunch of basic execution details late that I do think were associated with fatigue on the Jaden McDaniels game winner Rui Hachimura loses contain on a double team. When you're bracketing in a double team, the ball's here and these are the two defenders bracketing. This guy has to prevent him from driving outside. This guy has to prevent him from driving outside. You have to contain the ball and force Ant to make a pass. But if you go back and watch Rui as he's sliding, you can literally see how exhausted he is with the way he was moving on the Nas read threes like I mentioned. Luka smoking the easy layup and losing Nas with a mental mistake. LeBron getting caught relaxing. Austin missed several wide open threes in the fourth quarter. LeBron had zero points in the fourth quarter, was generally uninvolved in the offense. But this is where it gets tricky though. I knew coming into the series that this would be a physical tug of war. I knew that the Wolves would wear on the Lakers over the course of games just by being more athletic. I knew the Lakers would be able to score, but I also knew they would wear down. What I didn't predict was just how badly Anthony Edwards would win the superstar matchup with Luka Doncic. This is where the entire series turned. The Lakers were tied with four minutes left in game three. The Lakers were up two with four minutes left today. Luka had zero points in both of those sequences. From that point forward in this series, Luka Doncic has been 5 for 17 in the fourth quarter. Anthony Edwards 10 for 23. Anthony Edwards has made twice as many fourth quarter field goals as Luka Doncic in this series. Luka has one fourth quarter assist, Anthony Edwards has seven. That's the series. That's it right there. Two games. Game three and game four coin flip games. And that came down to clutch shot creation from the two team superstars. And Anthony Edwards went toe to toe with the guy that many people, including myself before the season placed as the second best player in the league. And Ant just straight up alpha dogged him. He stared down the guy who beat him in the playoffs last year and straight up kicked his ass. The insane shot making the growth as a playmaker. It's been incredible to watch and here's how important it's been. The Lakers actually outscored the Wolves in the last three games by 17 points in the first three quarters. But Ant and the Wolves have won the fourth quarters by 23 points. Turn two of those games into Wolves wins. He, Anthony Edwards has been the swing between this series being 31 Lakers and it being 31 Wolves. Now before we like, I want to be clear before we talk a little bit about Luka here. Luka is not the only one to blame for what happened today. As I mentioned, LeBron made several mistakes. He had a bad turnover in the final minute. He like it was kind of on everybody. The, the, the. There was this weird trip where Jaden McDaniels tripped Luca. Probably should have been a foul where that led to a sideline out of bounds with 17 seconds on the shot clock. Because they're 17 seconds on the shot clock. The Lakers could not inbound into the back court. They had to inbound into the front court. So that caused a very tight space. Basically LeBron was just on the other side of half court out on that sideline. It Basically took the amount of space that the Lakers could inbound to and cut it in half. And the Wolves defended it pretty well. Luka was kinda in a position where he could catch, but Jaden was right on his backside. And LeBron took a bad angle. He threw it to Luka's right shoulder. Luka's left shoulder, he probably catches it, but he threw it to the wrong shoulder. That's a bad turnover on LeBron. He took a bad three with five seconds left off the left wing in the final minutes. He lost Nasrid on one of his threes. Like we talked about, he scored zero points. LeBron shares some blame. Austin Reeves missed five threes in the fourth quarter, some a couple of wide open ones in the final minutes. Rui Hachimura made a few defensive mistakes. I want to be clear, tonight is not only Luka's fault, but Luka is the one player on that team who is truly capable of closing that deal. And he went 1 for 6 and he looked like completely exhausted and lifeless down the stretch. Now before you tell me, well, Jason, he played the entire second half. That's on J.J. redick. Well, so did Ant. Ant played 24 minutes in the second half. Julius Randall played 23 and a half minutes in the second half. Naz Reed can, can pull the I was fresh card. Everyone was fatigued. And yeah, I know that Ant is a better athlete and he will look better when he's fatigued than Luka, but he looked like Ant. Luka didn't even look like Luka down the stretch of that game when his team desperately needed him to look like Luka. And it's been the entire series, 5 for 17 in the fourth quarter. So again, even though tonight wasn't entirely his fault, it was a team, a set of mistakes from the team. My initial impression of Luka in the big picture, even beyond this series has been that he consistently wears down at the end of games. He was also just 11 for 27 in clutch situations for the Lakers in the regular season this year. I'm not saying this to pick on Luka. I root for the guy for obvious reasons. I just want to see him reach his full potential. He's getting passed by his peers right now. Tatum is playing better than him. Shea's playing better than him. Ant's playing better than him. Hell, Steph is playing better than him. He's leaving meat on the bone when it comes to his potential. And I genuinely believe that if he could figure out his conditioning, that he has a great chance to become the Best basketball player alive. As Jokic phases out as he gets older, there will be no player in the league that has a better combination of scoring and playmaking ability than Luka Doncic. If he could become a player that holds up over the course of games, holds up over the course of seasons and series, can stay healthy, can be operating at peak efficiency at the end of games, while also being a plus defender, which he's capable of being. That's the best player in the world. That's what he's capable of doing. It is a real and achievable outcome for him. And it would literally just take one summer, one summer of obsessive work. The same obsessive work that all of the greats in NBA history have used to maximize their potential. The ball is in Luca's court. And like we all knew this before. I mean, that was literally the main storyline behind the trade. Right? But we got to see it up close and personal here. I can put it this simply. Had Luka played to his potential in this series, the Lakers win this series. But instead he faded at the end of games while his counterpart on the other team was fantastic and it flipped entirely in the other direction. Other notes that I wanted to give before we move on to the next game, JJ's decision to play everybody all 24 minutes in the second half, look, it was high risk, but it also had high, high reward. And I hate playing the results because so many things went wrong down the stretch that could have just as easily ended in a win for the Lakers. Even with everything that went wrong, the Lakers led in the final minute and like, had they gotten it done, JJ would have looked at, looked like a genius. As the Lakers went home for a long stretch of time off with the series tied. I also thought the Lakers were on the wrong end of too late calls. Luca got tripped at half court. He should have gone to the foul line after that. I thought LeBron, when he stripped Anthony Edwards underneath the basket, he was more or less in the hand wrist ball area. And the game was insanely physical. You had just let a non call go and Jaden tripped Luca. I didn't like that call. And by the way, I'm not saying the Lakers are screwed. You know what I always said, Bad calls are a part of basketball games. You have to be prepared for that contingency. I don't blame the refs for today's outcome. I'm just saying it was a razor thin margin. The Lakers very easily could have won that game. They didn't. But I'M not going to blame it on JJ based on that result. It was a gamble. The gamble came razor thin, close to paying off. And there was an obvious downside which was fatigue. And the fatigue did play a role in the loss. I think that's worth bringing up. But like, Chris Finch also played Anthony Edwards the entire second half and Julius Randall most of the second half. Like, it's not exactly the craziest thing we've ever seen. They just were. J J was looking at it like, I, I don't know that I can afford Vando minutes here. I don't know that I can afford Gabe minutes here. Now. Like, I probably would have just found little short bursts to get them some rest. But like, I'm not going to over criticize the risk based on a result that was like this close to going the other way and looking like JJ was a genius right now. Can the Lakers win the series? Of course. It's really simple actually, if you get down to it. Do I think the Lakers can beat the wolves in Game 5 on Wednesday? Yes, I actually think they will. I think the Lakers will win this game. I think the Wolves are going to win this series in game six back in Minnesota. But from there, if the Lakers win on Wednesday in game five, you have game six on Friday. It's one game in Minnesota. We know they can win. They were right there in each of the last two games. So you win on Wednesday, then you look at it on Friday and you go, just beat the Timberwolves in Minnesota one time. And if you do, then it's game seven on Sunday. You're the home team, you're likely favored, so they absolutely can win the series. I just think it's unlikely. I don't think Luca is going to suddenly get into better shape. He's wearing down not because he's not capable of doing the basketball things necessary. It is a, it is a literal conditioning problem. In order for the Lakers to come back and win the series, Luka would have to make me look foolish by suddenly transforming into the best player in the series, which he hasn't been to this point. So it's on the table. It's an outcome that can happen. I just think it's far more likely than not that the Wolves close this out. And on that note, just again, like I mentioned, off the top, just, I am happy, happy for Wolves fans because you guys probably got sick and tired of hearing guys like me and everyone else out there tell you how the Lakers were going to win. Hell, the Wolves themselves were sick of it. And you just have such a great team and you have such a great star and I am really looking forward to watching them as they move forward in this postseason. Should they be able to close the deal on Wednesday or on Friday? All right, Knicks Pistons as wrong as I've been about the Lakers Wolves series, I've been pretty right about this one. The Pistons have been right there every single game. They led by eight in the fourth quarter of game one. They obviously won game two. They were down by three with five minutes left in game three and they led by 11 today in the fourth quarter of game four. But over and over again the Knicks have been able to out execute them at the end of these games because they are the smart Time is precious.
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- [22:22]
Levittown Podcast Contributor
And more experienced team. Malik Beasley hits a three with 8 1/2 minutes left that puts the Pistons up 11 from that point forward. The Knicks played at their ceiling. They knew they needed that game. They played peak Knicks basketball while the Pistons on the other end made mistake after mistake after mistake. The Knicks were able to get offense on several fronts. Mikhail Bridges actually started the run with two really tough movement threes out of the right corner in a game where he couldn't make a shot to save his life. Hit two massive ones in the right corner. Jalen Brunson got into a great rhythm after coming back from an ankle injury suffered right along the sideline in front of the scorers. TABLE he's really solved Dennis Schroeder at this point in the series he's figured out that he's just too big and strong for him. He had easy layup on the left side where he just used a right to left crossover to get Dennis pinned on his right side and then just use that shoulder to create separation. Then he had to drive on the right wing where he literally went through Dennis's chest for a floater from about like 78ft. But like he has solved the Dennis Schroeder matchup. He beat Kate Cunningham with a simple jab step move to get into the basket. He gave Tim Hardaway Jr. A couple of tough buckets. He had a step back going to his left on the three point line. He had another little short shot along the left baseline. Brunson was fantastic down the stretch, but it was actually Carl Anthony Towns who saved the day and stole a win for the Knicks. Hitting three jumpers. One was a simple catch and shoot off of a dumb overhelp from Jalen Duran that Jalen Brunson just kind of baited him into. Just stared at the basket and pretended like he was going to ISO. Jalen just kind of sat there on the block and just was super keyed in on on Brunson. And Jalen just rifled the pass across the court, wide open. Catch and shoot three for Carl Anthony. Towns knocks it down. Just capitalizing on a bad defensive mistake from Jalen Duran. But then he hit an insane left shoulder fade away just like he did in game three. This time over Jalen Durance. Over a tougher contest. It was probably even tougher than the shot he made in game three. Just insane right there along the baseline. Then he hits this step back three over Jalen Duran. A little shot clock kind of rescue possession. Ends up in the late clock situation and hits like a 28 footer off of a step back against a great contest from Jalen Durant. Just two insane shots that turned that loss into a win for the Knicks. The Knicks scored 26 points over the final eight minutes to steal game four and take a 31 lead heading back to to New York. Here's a simple list for you guys of the execution errors that Detroit made down the stretch their first possession after Mikhail Bridges hit a three in that right corner to cut the lead down to eight. They ran an ISO for a Sar Thompson against Mikhail Bridges. And anybody who watched that whole game knows Azar Thompson was really struggling in that game to do anything on offense. He was in no position to command that possession. They gave it to him and he missed. That's an execution error from the vets on the floor putting a Sar Thompson in that position. Then Assar Thompson threw the ball out of bounds. He caught the cut to the basket off the right slot. K dropped it off to him and he tried to make a connective pass to Malik Beasley, but he just didn't look before he threw it and rifled the ball out of bounds. JB Bickerstaff finally puts Dennis Schroeder in form. So two big mistakes from Aar Thompson to start the run. Jalen Dern gets a Defensive rebound and makes the classic young center mistake of bringing the ball down. Brings the ball down. Josh Hart comes in, swipes it off his leg, off the ensuing baseline, out of bounds. Mikhail Bridges comes off of a screen. Malik Beasley gets caught on it. Jalen Duran again, when he sees a shooter coming off a screen, is supposed to be up at the level of the screen. He's way back in the paint. Mikhail Bridges gets another clean look right where he just made one in the right corner. Knocks it down. So literally two Jalen Duran mistakes turned what should have been a stop into three points for the Knicks. And again, I'm not trying to pick on Jalen Duran or any of these guys. The Sar Thompson. I'm just pointing out the obvious fact that these are young players and young players are going to struggle with attention to detail in big, in big spots like this. Right. They gave up an easy transition take foul to Josh Hart on a really bad offensive possession where Cage just stand stood out by like the logo while Mikhail Bridges was face guarding him. And he just watched Dennis Schroeder and Malik Beasley have a rough offensive possession which, like, that's fine. Like rough offensive possessions are part of the playoffs. It's super physical. Sometimes you just get exhausted. That's not the problem. The problem is, is both Schroeder and Beasley were slow to get back. You can't compound the problem by not getting back. It turned into like a three on one and Kate had to just wrap up Josh Hart. Cade turned it over trying to split a ball screen. That's a little spoiler alert. He does it again later in the game on Cat's first three. Like I talked about, Jalen Duran is sinking all the way into the paint. That's just dumb. That was the whole reason why they had Tobias Harrison. Cat originally to begin with was to avoid that specific problem. Duran just struggles to guard shooting bigs, which is why he shouldn't have been in that position on the first place. That, that, that's on J.B. bickerstaff. Like they, they need to make sure that they have their matchup set up in a way that they're not going to give up that sort of problem. Especially since Kat was frying Jalen Duran anyway on an island. It's not like you're trying to protect Tobias Harris there in any short, any, any way. Cat hits the fade away over Jalen during the cuts. The lead to two Cade tries to ISO OG and an obi, which is probably the worst matchup he could attack on the floor. We talked a lot about that. Jalen Brunson has been much more surgical about being deliberate to get to the matchups. He wants that hits a three to put the Knicks up. Cade tries to split a double team again. Josh Hart is right there digging down off the strong side corner and Cade just tries to split the double team again and turns it over again and like it was just mistake after mistake after poor decision after poor decision. But this is just the reality of the process of developing as a basketball team. In order to win at the highest levels, attention to detail is required and young, inexperienced teams have a habit of missing those details, especially in their first few playoff runs. It's all good. Valuable lessons are being learned. It's just an explanation for why, even though Detroit presented so many problems for the Knicks over the course of the season, I had a feeling the Knicks were going to pull this series out. Last note on the Knicks I wanted to shout out OG Anunobi and Mikhail Bridges. Neither of them had big scoring nights, although McHale hit a couple of huge threes in the right corner. But those guys defended about a half a dozen one on ones against Cade Cunningham down the stretch and they didn't get beat off the dribble a single time. They forced him into a bunch of tough contested pull up mid Rangers turnaround jump shots out of the post. Brunson was getting to the rim and New York's defenders were forcing Cade into jump shots, which has variants. You might miss him, right? Cade's a good mid range jump shooter, but he might miss him. There's way less variance right at the rim. Jalen hit some tough jumpers that step back to his left. Sidestep three off of against Tim Hardaway Jr. Off the left wing. That's an incredibly tough shot, but he was at the rim and that really is the, the experience element. Like Cat played three playoff series last year. Jalen Brunson played four playoff series in the last two years. This team has just a lot of guys that have been in a lot of serious basketball over the last few years that gives them an advantage in this sort of situation. Looking like the Knicks are going to close things out in five on Tuesday. All right, very briefly on Celtics Magic and Pacers Bus Pacers Bucks. I thought Tatum was fantastic down the stretch of this game. Punishing switches. He had like a little jab step jumper over Gary Harris. He made a. There was kind of like a an obvious difference in just the level of patience and deliberate nature with which Tatum was attacking switches versus the Orlando Wings, like, there was a sequence where on both ends of the floor, like, Franz Vogner gets Peyton Pritchard and he caught Peyton Pritchard as like a primary assignment a few times down the stretch. Just pressuring Franz. Franz is having a lot of success attacking Porzingis. It's kind of an interesting kind of matchup decision there to just try to throw Franz off, but Franz tries to, like, drive against Pritchard, but he rushes, he drives and he spins and he spins in this, like, rushed floater and leaves it short. Right on the other end of the floor, Tatum gets Anthony Black and he methodically takes his time to back him down way into the lane. And Anthony Black ends up hacking the shit out of him and dragging him down into camera row. And he gets two free throws. And it was just kind of crazy to see the difference between the super experienced dude who's played in like damn near 200 playoff games and the, you know, young, inexperienced team that's like kind of figuring this out on the fly and seeing the difference in just like how deliberate they were in their matchup. Attacking down the stretch, Tatum hit a crazy step back mid Ranger over Paolo Banchero. He drew three shooting fouls just by getting people to jump up underneath his base. I just continue to be amazed by Tatum's growth as a half court decision maker. The big thing that stands out to me is just his overall comfort. There's, you see this a lot with, like, stars that are at the peak of their powers in their, like, early 30s, where they have so much playoff experience already and they're so sure of who they are as a player. They may not be quite as athletic as they used to be, but they're just so smart because they've had so much experience playing. You'll see a lot of those guys, like, in high pressure situations, even late round playoff series, like conference finals, finals. You'll just see them look comfortable and relaxed while they're playing Tatum's. Tatum's in his mid-20s and he's out there looking like one of those guys. I, I, that's been the thing that stood out to me all season with Tatum is just his overall level of comfort executing in the half court, getting this team into the right spots to get the right shots. I loved the set that Joe Missoula ran out of the timeout that got Porzingis the, the dunk where he dunked his own mission. Classic example of what happens when you try to involve screening actions with two very different types of players. Derrick White And Chris Obs Porzingis. Not a kind of action that you want to switch. You don't want to switch with Wendell Carter Jr. There. Derrick White sits a great screen. Wendell Carter Jr. Falls. The magic don't switch. Porzingis is wide open under the rim. He actually smokes the layup, but he gets a really quick second jump, which is a strong indicator of how he's feeling physically, and just dunks it down. Just an unbelievable play from Porzingis. Al Horford had a huge rebound where he beat Franz Wagner to the ball that led to a Derrick White layup. I had a Celtics fan tweet at me after the game that this was the type of series that the Celtics would have been tied 22 or maybe even down 31 a couple of years ago. But here they are up 3:1, and this was super important. They need to get the hell away from the Orlando Magic before someone gets hurt. Tatum felt the urgency, executed accordingly, and got the job done. And that's why I always put such a premium on that, like, veteran presence, that experience, because a lot of times these games are decided by the thinnest of margins. The Magic have been in this series for the most part, outside of game two. They've been in every game. It's like a more exaggerated example of some of the other series we've seen, like Rockets, warriors, and like Nick's Pistons. And it just comes down to late game execution. And the grownups just tend to do it better in that situation. Right. It's actually been the interesting part of the Minnesota Timberwolves series as they've been the younger team that has beat the veteran, more experienced team. But here they are, they're up three 1. A good, good spot for the Celtics to be in. In good shape to close out this series. All right, really quickly, before we get out of here tonight, Pacers, Bucks. First of all, I feel terrible for Dame to work as hard as he's worked behind the scenes to get back on the court for that series and to suffer the type of injury that he suffered. I just hope that he's doing okay mentally. I can't even imagine where he's at right now, especially after they had just got a big win and it was early in the game and you're in a position where you can potentially tie the series and give yourself a real chance to win. And it kind of reminded me, obviously, very different type of injury, but it kind of reminded me what happened after. Reminded me of what happened in the Lakers sun series in Game 5. Yeah, I think it was Game 5. So the Suns were up 3:1, right? If I remember correctly. And Anthony Davis comes back. They're like, oh, Anthony Davis is back. You know, here we go. We're gonna. We're gonna have a chance to win the series. And probably shouldn't have come back, as groin was obviously hurt. But in the first few minutes of the game, Anthony Edwards just. Or, excuse me, Anthony Davis just suddenly realizes that, like, no, I can't be playing out here, right? So he has to leave the game. And, like, you could just literally see the entire body language and the belief and the mentality of the Lakers just fall apart because they're like. Like, we can't. Like, we can't win this game, this game without Anthony Davis. Like, he's our anchor to everything that we do, right? And that. That's kind of what it reminded me of tonight. Like, obviously, Giannis is more important to the Bucks than Dame, and I in. In. Dame, at this phase of his career, is a different type of player, but you could literally see the Bucks just kind of let go of the rope a little bit after that Dame injury in a weird way, where it's like, you almost feel like if Dame was just out with the blood clot for the series, you almost feel like the Bucks would have had, like, a different approach going into that game. Like, all right, we don't have Dame tonight, but we're going to give this our best shot. You could just tell it just sucked the life out of them, and they just didn't do anything well enough. And to make matters worse, the Pacers played a phenomenal game. It's seven guys in double figures, 36. I checked this with two minutes left, so this might be a little bit updated. But at, like, a minute, 45 seconds left in the game, they had 36 assists on, 48 made field goals. That's insane. That's a 75% assist percentage. That's, like, outrageous. They shot the shit out of the basketball. They shot damn near 45% from three. Watching them versus the Cavs is going to be a ton of fun, Specifically the speed matchup. One of the things that I'm really excited about with that matchup is the Cavs in. In a lot of what they do to teams is play with pace, get into the teeth of the defense with their speed, and the Pacers do match up directly with that in a lot of ways. To me, the Cavs are just a better version of the Pacers. Right. Like, you're going to, like, Evan Mobley and Jared Allen is a better front court than Pascal Siakam and Miles Turner. Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell, obviously better back court than Andrew Nemhard and Tyrese Halliburton. You, you know, the Cavs have a bunch of different guys that they can plug in at the three, but like, the point is, is like they are kind of similar archetypes of teams, but the Cavs are just a little better at everything, right? And that's what makes it a super interesting series, because that speed element, a lot of the things that the Pacers do, they should be comfortable with going against the Cavs, and I think that's going to make for a very interesting series. That's my big prep for tomorrow. We're not doing a film session tomorrow morning, but what I'm going to be doing tomorrow morning is starting to watch film on Cavs Pacers. I'm really excited to dig into that series. As for Giannis, an Achilles tariff or Dame massively devalues the one trade asset that the Bucks would have had to attempt to pivot this summer. So now the chances of Giannis getting traded are astronomically higher than they were before the injury, obviously. But just for the record, I'm not going to get into anything regarding Giannis trades at this point until the postseason. Or, excuse me, until we're done with the postseason. That's a summer conversation. It just. I haven't even really thought about it much. Maybe we can do it for fun over a mailbag one of these nights, but like, I feel relatively certain that Giannis will get traded this summer, but, like, we just don't know what, how things are going to shake down. Like, it could be a team in this playoff field that gets eliminated and is disappointed and wants to make a super aggressive move. It could literally be the Thunder, for God's sakes. Like, we, we have no idea what it's going to be. We'll talk about it a lot this summer. I just don't want to get into it tonight. But again, I feel terrible for Dame and I. I'm sure Bucks fans are in a really tough spot right now. It's not a good spot to be, and I just sympathize with you guys and I'm thankful for you guys that you did get a championship out of the Giannis Antenna Kumpo era, and you can literally never take that away. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. No morning film session tomorrow, but we will be live after the final buzzer of Game 4 of Warriors Rockets. I'll see you guys then tomorrow night. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review view. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
- [38:35]
The Volume.
- [38:40]
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- [39:09]
Levittown Podcast Host
In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI fueled nightmare.
- [39:15]
Levittown Podcast Contributor
Someone was posting photos.
- [39:17]
It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body part.
- [39:22]
Levittown Podcast Host
This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart podcasts Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [39:39]
Brendan Patrick Hughes
My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell bent effort to sabotage a war.
- [39:53]
J. Edgar Hoover was furious. He was out of his mind and he wanted to bring the Catholic left to its knees.
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Listen to Divine intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [40:09]
Michael Kasson
I'm Michael Kasson, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode I'm joined by Angeli Sud, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming.
- [40:25]
Angeli Sud
What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There's so many stories out there and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content. The term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen.
- [40:40]
Michael Kasson
Listen to Good company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.