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The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - GAME 6 REACTIONS: Wemby & Spurs ELIMINATE Edwards & Wolves + Cade & Pistons force Game 7 vs. Cavs
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Zach Lowe
This is an iHeart podcast.
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It feels good when the story ends with savings.
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The Volume.
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Zach Lowe
All right, welcome to Hips Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Friday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great end to your week. Feels good to be back in the home studio. We got a jam packed show for you guys tonight. Breaking down both of tonight's games from the perspective of both teams gonna be looking forward for the spurs as well as the Timberwolves and what's going to be a very interesting off season for them. And then the Detroit Pistons just rolled up into Cleveland and kind of punked the Cavs and kicked their ass in just about every phase of the game. Got a bunch of interesting stuff I want to get into in that game as well. Then at the tail end of the show, for those of you guys who are hanging out in the chat, drop your questions. Jackson's going to come hang out. We'll take those questions at the tail end of the show. So if you have anything that you want to get into from anything around the NBA playoffs, drop them in the chat. We'll get to them at the tail end of the show. You guys know the drill before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel. We're on the pathway to 150,000 subs. So it mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to just click that subscribe button if you're already subscribed like this video. Sign up for post notifications. That helps us a lot. All right, let's talk some basketball. So not really too much more to get into here in terms of the kind of chess match, so to speak, or this particular Spurs Timberwolves matchup. The Timberwolves were never able to solve the Victor Wenyama problem. That was just something that was abundantly clear as the series progressed, even early in the series. And yeah, they got tossed a bone in the form of Victor Wenyama getting very angry about getting pushed around a lot and lashing out with his elbow and deservedly getting ejected from a game. But as long as he was on the floor, they couldn't get good shots really, other than, you know, mediocre kick out, catch, catch and shoot threes. They couldn't really get anything good at the rim. And on the other end of the floor, they were in this constant dilemma of either throwing their defensive resources at the spurs guards and then allowing Wemby to get really clean catches around the basket or to work one on one or throwing all their resources at Victor Wenyama on his roles and his posts and conceding either really good driving opportunities or really easy threes for San Antonio's guards. It was just something that they couldn't handle. The Anthony Edwards, after Game five literally came out and said, victor Wyama is doing some things that we just don't really have answers for. And that was the truth. We saw Chris Finch come out and attempt to put Julius Randall on. On. Right on Victor. Women. Yama to actually start the game and put go bear over on Steph Castle. Didn't matter. Steph's been shooting over 40% from three in this postseason run. Hit five more threes tonight so that coverage was rendered useless. They were getting. Steph Castle was also just like driving down the lane for dunks and easy and ones early in the game. Just inverted ball screens where. Or not inverted ball screens. Excuse me, regular ass ball screens where Victor's setting the screen and Steph is driving down the right lane line. And just both guys are rolling with Victor down the lane. And so Steph's like, all right, if you're gonna let me go, I'll go in and dunk this ball. Or, you know, Ant will come flying over and hit me in the head while I'm shooting a layup and I'll get an and one. And that is just an example of that dynamic that has become a huge problem for every defense in the league, which is Victor's just really difficult to handle on his roles in his posts. And if you throw resources at him, he. You're just dealing with so much ball handling. So many players that can get to their spots. Steph Castle and Dylan Harper can go at Mike Conley whenever he's on the floor and get to a decent look for themselves. Dear. And Fox, all series long, as things have progressed especially has just gotten really good at finding his little opportunities for little short pull ups and the. The beautiful skip passes that he throws like, that's the thing that kind of makes this all work, right? De' Aaron and Steph in particular, and I. I'd add Dylan in this conversation as well, all those guys are really good at throwing skip passes off the live dribble. So as they're working downhill in their drives and in their pick and rolls as the defense reacts and shrinks the floor, they just whip the ball across the court and they get really high quality threes. And one of the things we talked about after game five was I thought the spurs got great looks and they just didn't really make them. Well, tonight they did. They were 18 for 38 from three. And this game was over early. We had a brief run from Ant there in the late second quarter where he tried to get the team back into it, but it was just too much for them to handle. I thought Dylan hit a massive jab step three at the top of the key that kind of stymied that run and pushed the lead back up to 15. Changed some of the psychology of how that that run felt. And the spurs just ran away with this one. The Wolves had no answer and the spurs are advancing and Minnesota is moving into a very, very interesting off season. Before we quick talk about the next round with San Antonio, I just want to shout out just what I think has been a very, very impressive young basketball team in the San Antonio Spurs. For a team. You know, I was texting with a couple buddies about this during the game. We've seen the truly great superstars in NBA history have excellent deep playoff runs in their early 20s. It does happen, but like for a team in their first playoff run, and this is an exceptionally talented team, to be clear, like, this is certainly not the same as the 2006 Cavs, you know what I mean? Like where you have a young LeBron that's carrying a rather flawed roster along. So there's certainly a great deal of talent on this roster. You have, you know, Dylan Harper and Steph Castle as guys that are, you know, blue chip prospects in the NBA and Darren Fox, who's worthy of a max contract and they certainly have more talent. But for a team to come in even. Even acknowledging that for a team to come in led by this young of a star and to be this inexperienced in the postseason and to be a poised team that is playing excellent basketball and just beat two teams that I revered all season long. Those of you guys who watch this show know that in the summer before the season, I had Denver number one in my championship contenders. I dropped them immediately after the first month of the season. I dropped them down to number two, but they kind of hovered in the two spot most of the year and I still had them in the top tier at number four. When we got to the tail end of the season and Minnesota was a team all year long that I said that I thought was way better than they looked in the regular season. I thought they were a team that could ratchet things up and reach a certain level on both ends of the floor. That was far greater than what they had shown over the course of the 82. These were two teams that I had a lot of respect for. And you know, Minnesota beats the hell out of Denver. San Antonio beats the hell out of Minnesota. And here San Antonio is in the conference finals against, against okc. This is going to be a really, really interesting series. I think of all the, the series that we have had in the last decade or so, probably the most important series since the 2018 series between the Houston Rockets and the Golden State warriors, obviously we had a dynasty at the peak of their powers in Golden State in an up and coming team in Houston. But I even go back further because it lacks like as good as James Harden was, he wasn't the type of guy prospect that Victor Weyama is. He wasn't the type of young talent that, you know, Steph Curry or Kevin Durant or LeBron James obviously were. And that's why what I actually go back to are those matchups in 2016, the last time we had this type of matchup where you had two truly great teams led by two truly great players, like future all time great players was the 2016 Thunder warriors series in the Western Conference finals and the 2016 finals. That's the last time we had this type of hype, this type of talent, this type of showdown between these types of teams. And I just, as a basketball fan, I've been rooting for it all season. I wanted it so bad that I was legitimately pissed off at the spurs for what they did on the last day of the regular season when they botched game 82 and put themselves in a situation where they might have had to go through Denver or through Minnesota instead of through a, you know, instead of having OKC hand handle that Denver problem for them. Right. Like I was mad about it because this is what I wanted to see but ended up not mattering. San Antonio cruises through Portland, the handle. Minnesota probably would have beat him in five if Victor doesn't get ejected. And now we have what we're looking for. So I, you know, obviously San Antonio dominated the regular season matchup. I'm not going to dive too deep into the matchup today because we're going to do a series preview. It's my number one goal for tomorrow during the day. So sometime during the day tomorrow you guys will see a series preview for Spurs Thunder. But when I was digging into it a little bit today, I actually went back and I watched the second half of the one game that the Thunder did win against the Spurs. That was where I kind of wanted to start my, my little film session. I have a ton more film to watch. I have multiple additional games that I need to watch. But just for my little dip back into the history there, that third quarter when I watched it was kind of weird. Like Victor women. Yama bangs knees with Shay Gil Just Alexander on a drive in the third quarter and ends up leaving the floor for a good chunk of time. And by the time he comes back, the Thunder were up like 11 or 12 points. And it was something that the spurs were unable to recover from and like Harrison Barnes is on the floor playing a lot and Harrison Barnes missed three wide open threes during that stretch. AJ Mitchell's not out there. You did see OKC go with J. Will on the floor to try to space Victor we out. So you saw some of these like dynamics and OKC I thought just, you know, ran away during a stretch when Wemby was off the floor and they were able to stiff arm him from there. I also thought the spurs didn't play particularly well and obviously as we go back and dig through the footage, this is going to be a matchup where we've seen Oklahoma City have a lot of problems and the dynamic is pretty simple. They are the one team that has the combination of having a five man in Victor Wembanyama that can completely shut down the basket on one end but also create space for them on the opposite end of the floor with his role gravity, with his ability to pop right. Like we've seen other teams like Minnesota run into OKC and cause problems for them with their rim protection. But on the other end of the floor they really struggle to score because of Rudy Gobert's inability to catch and finish in traffic, which really became a story in this series, which we'll talk about more in a minute. But like that is the difference with Victor Weminyama. He is both the rim protecting phenomena that he is, but also the guy that can cause problems for OKC's ability to protect the rim on the other end of the floor. That and Oklahoma City. Their entire defense is predicated on aggression and turning you over. And as we talked about, this is a team that has a lot of guards that can handle the basketball that handle ball pressure just fine because they're every bit as big and athletic, if not bigger and more athletic than the OKC guards. And when they get into the paint they can skip the ball. They can get the ball across the court to the three point shooting on the opposite end of the floor. This is a team in San Antonio that is built to beat Oklahoma City. That doesn't mean they will, but it is not a fluke that they gave Oklahoma City as many issues as they did during the regular season. They have a Victor Weman Yama problem just like Minnesota had a Victor Wenyama problem. This the difference is they have maybe the best player in the world and shake elders. Alexander, I would argue that this series is going to determine that. I think Victor Wenyama has had more two way impact on winning in this playoff run than any player. But you got to go snatch the chain. You got to go into OKC and you have to win that series to get that recognition. I think whoever wins this series, obviously it's not as pure as that but. But like I'll just put it this way. Whichever guy plays better in this series between Victor and Shay is going to get my recognition as the best player in the world. At least is at least as in terms of what I feel like as a basketball fan. Right. That's the kind of stakes that we got. But Shay is a completely different level of basketball player than Denny Abdia, than Anthony Edwards, than Julius Randall, than any of these guys that they ran into in previous rounds. They have a new challenge in front of them. This is a team that has some physical size on the front line, especially with guys like Jalen Williams who I would presume will be back in game one and Isaiah Hartenstein that can try to shove Victor Weminyama around. This is a team that has the type of perimeter athletes that can match up with every single time Steph Castle, Dylan Harper and Darren Fox are on the floor, they're going to have an elite guard defender on them. This is going to be a challenge that is fundamentally different and it's a different Thunder team. What they saw earlier in the year, Jalen Williams is Jaylin Williams coming off the bench, has really worked on his three point shot and has provided a level of like aggressive spot up shooting that gives them a different look at the stretch five. I do think that we can see more Chet at center lineups in this matchup depending on how Isaiah Hartenstein plays in this grouping and AJ Mitchell didn't play much during the regular season. That's an entirely in this matchup. That's an entirely different level of dribble penetration to try to handle Jared McCain as a guy that can space the floor at the guard spot. If you try to sink in nail help on your Shay Gilders Alexander isos. This is the two best teams in basketball, both playing amazing, playing to their individual peaks, playing to their team peaks and they're meeting in what should be an absolutely epic series. I can't wait. I'll tell you right now I'm leaning towards San Antonio very close like in that 55, 45, 60, 40 range. I'm going to watch a bunch of film tomorrow. We'll put together a detailed series preview. I can't wait to dig into it more. I won't make my final pick until then but this feels like what's going to Be a very truly special series in NBA history. And I can't wait now talking Minnesota for a minute. Where the hell do you go from here? If you're Minnesota there. It's not one of those things where you look at this roster and you feel like there's like some substantial weakness. You know, I, I was talking about this with Jackson before the show. I know internally they're thinking point guard and they have been for a long time. But it's like, let's just say for instance, you go get a league replacement level starting caliber two way point guard. Like, let's pretend Fred Van Vleet's on this team. Like Fred Van Vleet, pre ACL tear in the IO DUNU spot. It's Ant, it's Fred, it's Rudy, it's Jaden, it's Julius. Do you think they're beating San Antonio? Do you think they're beating okc? I, I've generally thought that the whole like point guard thing is a little overrated. You just need guys that can play make you need guys that can manage a game regardless of which position they're at. And so it's less about the position and more about the talent. For me, if you want to tell me that Ant and Julius don't work because neither of them are good enough at like managing the game as a point guard or as a, as a playmaker, I'm on board with that. All right, let's talk about what we can do to try to, to make a move that brings in a more talented playmaker at a specific position group. But like to me, the idea of the traditional point guard, a guy that is like six foot two, that brings the ball up the floor and gets you into your sets, there's less value there than there used to be in the NBA. It's a talent thing for me. I just don't know of like a specific guard that I think is going to come in and like be dramatically more talented. Like, okay, so let's say it's Darius Garland. Like Darius Garland. Let's say you, you're, you're making some sort of move because Darius Garland is no longer going to have a spot because the Clippers draft Darius A Cuff at the number five spot or Kingston Flemings or something along those lines. Like do, do. I think Darius Garland comes in and addresses some things. Like, sure, you would get them to play a little bit faster. You would get some early dribble penetration. He would certainly kind of ignite some more of those driving kick sequences that make them good. But he's, you know, Mike Conley size without being anywhere near as good at defense as Mike Conley is, you know, Mike, for all of his physical limitations, brings a certain competitive energy at the spot, you know, and like, I, I, I do, I think Darius Garland is the talent ad that suddenly shifts Minnesota into a tier with San Antonio and okc. No, I don't. You know, so, like, that's where it gets tricky. Like, I think for Minnesota, it needs to be more of, like, finding a talent play rather than necessarily going after a, a point guard in the purest sense of the word. Like, I just think that that, that can get a little bit tricky. Now where it gets tough is like we talked about with the Lakers when we were doing their kind of offseason preview. Yeah. So San Antonio is awesome, and OKC is great, and no one's going to be able to amass talent with them. Okay. Do you just quit? Do you punt and just let them win the next few titles?
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Zach Lowe
You have to try anyway. And so where does that start for Minnesota? And to me, it actually starts with the Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle, front court. I think that one of those two guys probably gets moves that moved this summer. Julius, ironically, I, I would argue, is harder to move now because of how poorly he played in this postseason run. And Rudy Gobert obviously had a huge moment in the first round against Nicole Jokic. But that's what kind of points me towards Rudy Gobert. I don't think they're going to trade Rudy. I think that Tim Conley loves Rudy. I think he views them as fundamental to the identity of the team. Here would be my pushback on that. What causes Rudy to be unplayable every time they run into an elite defense that can protect the rim is he can't catch and finish in traffic. If you had better lob passers on the team, I think Rudy would have more utility. Like, Rudy, weirdly, is a guy that I think could play at the center position for a team like the Lakers, for example. Why? Because you're playing with guys, specifically in Luka Doncic. But Austin and Luca are both great lob passers as well. That would make use of Rudy's vertical spacing in a way that Ant and Julius have always struggled with. But, like, Rudy has ironically played himself into a position of value. Like, he's got a one plus one on, on his deal Right. Coming up after the season. So one year plus a player option right. In, like, the mid-30s. That's, like, right around Market value for a center. Yes, he's 34, but he just played, you know, athletically like some of the best basketball of his career. He looks fantastic. I think that they could probably flip him and get either draft compensation back that they could use to try to pursue a player. If they wanted to go, I don't know, make a move after a guy like a. If they did want to go, try to get like a Devin Booker. If they did want to try to go get a, you know, some other, like, super highly talented player that. Where they don't have the draft compensation to package right now, or maybe they could turn that into depth at a specific position group. The one thing that kind of stood out to me in this series is like, okay, we need to space out Wemby. Well, Julius can't really shoot. Jaden shot well in the regular season, but shot poorly for the most part in this postseason run. If you're going to go. If Nas Reed is our center and Joan Baron J is our backup center, we're going to use that as like a too big kind of structure, then I think you need more shooting at the 3 and 4. And so that's where I wonder if they'll. If they end up making some sort of move that targets shooting at that position, maybe they flip Rudy in a deal for a Michael Porter Jr. For example, maybe they end up getting in on that sweepstakes. You know, I just think Minnesota's tweaks have to be more geared towards how do we space out Wemby rather than let's bring in a point guard. But then Rudy Gobert is still our fundamental problem, and our talent level isn't where it needs to be to compete with OKC and with Minnesota in San Antonio. I'll be really curious to see what they do this summer because there's just not really an obvious area of need. Like, Julius did play really well for stretches of the Denver series. Jaden McDaniels was arguably the best player in that series. Rudy Gobert shut down Nicole Jokic before the injuries. They had like five good guards. Like, this team is deep and has a lot of talent. They just don't have a solution for Wemby and they're not good enough to beat okc, and that just kind of puts them into an awkward summer as we head into the off season. All right, let's talk Cavs Pistons for a little bit before we get into our mailbag. 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Zach Lowe
I thought this was just physical domination. Interesting, because it didn't really like show up in the possession battle like in the box score. So Cleveland actually had more offensive rebounds. They had 16 compared to Detroit only having 13. The Pistons forced 20 turnovers, but they had 18 of their own. So it wasn't like it was this massive like, oh, we took 20 more shots because we just dominated the possession battle. I just thought it showed up in a bunch of really tangible ways around that. So like in the offensive rebounding battle, the Pistons just got key offensive rebounds in big spots and paid them off with buckets. So despite having three fewer offensive rebounds, they had seven more second chance points. It's they had 20 second chance points in this game and so many of these like massive offensive rebounds that just led to these huge payoff sequences like shotgun blasts to the chest for that Cavs team. Like Paul Reed just reaching over the top of Evan Mobley to get an offensive rebound and throwing it out to Duncan Robinson for a three at the top of the key. That just feels like devastating to Cleveland's comeback chances. Or you know, Paul Reed had one over Jared Allen where he saved it from out of bounds and pitched it in and got saved again to a Sar Thompson who then dumped it back to Paul Reed who got an and one under the basket. Just a massive sequence down the at the end of the game. Like they just got key offensive rebounds and they paid them off more frequently. And that was a huge part of the momentum swings of this game. The interior finishing. This is a big part of how they physically dominated the game. They were 48 to 26 in points in the paint, just getting easy bully ball baskets right at the rim over and over again. Compared to Cleveland, getting more like contested layups that had little to no chance of going in. Jalen Duran finally had his first big offensive game, really of this postseason run. He scored eight points directly out of isolation. He had in 12 playoff games before tonight, six total isolation points in the entire postseason. He had eight tonight. I just thought he punked the Cleveland bigs, just powered through them over and over again. He had a little like jab step drive on Jared Allen, where he beat Jared Allen on the jab staff and jab step and then powered through Evan Mobley. That was actually off of one foot too, which is something I've been somewhat critical of him on. He had a big two foot take a couple of them on Jared Allen late in the game where he just drove and then turned over his left shoulder for easy shots. He just overpowered them one on one over and over again in this game, which is a huge boost for. Again, like we're going to talk about the offensive contributions. Like this was a Pistons team that got 27 total points on 26 shots out of Tobias Harris and Kate Cunningham and they won by 21. You're not doing that unless you get a bunch of offensive contributions down the line. Jalen Durant pitched in 8 points at ISO. I think he had 15 in the game. I just thought in general, Detroit's bigs, mainly Duran and Paul Reed, punked Cleveland's bigs in the second half of that game. Just outworked them, pushed them around, made every big play and every big run. I just thought they dominated that matchup. And then lastly, their defense, this Pistons team, as we've talked about, is capable of throwing a defensive punch that Cleveland can't match and ratcheting up their defensive intensity to a level that can cause Cleveland to fall apart. And I thought like a perfect example is the first possession of the game. And so they're, they're running out of a horn set. They're running basically James Harden off of a double Drag at the top of the key. And Dennis Jenkins just shoves James Harden and pushes him back out to half court so that he can't use the screens. And James just quits on the play and just kind of like funnels out to half court. Then they run that, they take that same double drag and they move it over to run it with Donovan Mitchell coming out of the left corner. And Assar Thompson is just top locking the shit out of Donovan Mitchell, not letting him get to the ball. And so Donovan kind of panics and like hooks his arm and tries to drag through with the hooked arm and picks up an offensive foul. And it's like, okay, Cleveland just didn't even get anything close to a successful offensive possession because Detroit just blew it up right at the start by just physically punking James Harden and Donovan Mitchell on the first play of the game with their perimeter defense. And it was like that in like every phase of the game, like the intensity of their closeouts. One of the things I went on in Cleveland on sports radio just before the game, and one of the things that I was talking about with those guys was, you know, before this three game winning streak in the postseason, they had been just 34% on catch and shoot threes as a team. Well, they had kind of figured that out. We talked about this a lot back when I was in Chicago. Like the, for the previous two games, like Cleveland's been hitting their catch and shoot threes in the middle chunk of the series. They had been 45% on catch and shoots from three in the last three games before this one. But they were 7 for 25 tonight. Just made them a little bit more uncomfortable, a little more pressured. They were just 28% on those catch and shoot threes tonight. And then lastly, the help rotations, like they forced Donovan Mitchell to play in a crowd. And I know Mitchell had a bad game, but they did not let him have anything easy. Like they were content to be like, let's just continue to throw the kitchen sink at him on, on his drives and we'll see if he starts making the kickout reads. And he made a few. And it would be maddening sometimes to watch as he would like drive into the lane and make a beautiful kick out to Evan Mobley in the right corner for a wide open three and he knocks it down. And then on the next possession, he's just forcing something up in traffic at the rim. Like there was just a certain level of forcing it from Donovan, but to Detroit's credit, they were really consistent with Their rotations forcing Mitchell to play in a crowd. They didn't give him anything easy. I've seen the Cavs meet Detroit's force in this series three times in a row, really in the middle of the series. But tonight they weren't even close. That was physical domination that trickled down into every phase of the game. The Pistons came out with a desperate effort and Cleveland got their ass kicked. Now again, you got to get offensive contributions when your stars aren't scoring. Duran had his 15 points. We talked about that earlier. Dana Jenkins, 15 points was frying Donovan Mitchell to start the third quarter. Just caught him being lazy on a ball screen off the left wing, hit a huge three in the left corner, got downhill to his right hand and scored on a possession shortly after. By the way, I've seen a lot of people calling for double teams of Kate Cunningham. The Cavs went to double teams of Cade Cunningham late in the game. Swing, swing, wide open. Danish Jenkins three in the left corner that he knocked down. I think, you know, every time we talk about the, the schemes, like so much of it is just playing the results a little bit in the sense that every scheme has a strength and a weakness, right? And if you allow a guy to play one on one, he might hit shots, right? But if you double team, his teammates might hit shots. And a lot of times we go like, oh, they double teamed and the guy missed the shot. That means that was the right thing to do. Or oh, we switched and we stayed home and the guy missed his one on one shots. That means it was the right thing to do. And it's like actually all you're doing as these series progress is you're just trying stuff and constantly switching up coverages as a team starts to kind of figure something out or get comfortable. And like the Cavs had just won three games in a row. So whatever your concerns were about the defensive coverage, it had generally been working, right? And like I, I didn't even think they really needed to, to double team Cade tonight because Cade wasn't shooting the ball particularly well. But they tried it late in the game and it got burned. And so again, it's like most of the time it just has to do with execution. Like if you're going to switch and stay home, then the on ball guys have to do a better job of closing the space and making him feel uncomfortable, right? If you're going to double team, then you have to be sharper in rotation and maybe do something like, hey, Karis levert, you shoot the three instead of Dana Jenkins. Cause you're a lesser defense or lesser shooter. So I'm going to close out to the passing lane, like in between the two guys. Maybe I can bait him into some indecision there instead of just making that simple sequence for an easy catch and shoot out of the left corner, right? So like there's. There's a lot of, like, I, I think hand wringing about the scheme that you'll see in these series. And for the most part, it just comes down to execution, right? Like James Harden in the pocket when he's able to bring the big up to the level and pass into the pocket. The Cavs have gotten clean threes. I've been talking about how, you know, that's one of the shot quality Dynamics for Cleveland. J.B. bickerstaff has talked about how if he comes up to the level, he can stop James and Donovan from getting downhill. That's what he's thinking when he's putting the scheme together. And when they're not quite as sharp in the rotations and the kickouts aren't, as are clean and the guys are wide open and they go in. Then it looks like the scheme's not working. But then you have a game like tonight where you're running the same scheme. They've mixed in a handful of switches here or there, but it was a lot of at the level with their bigs, you mix in the same scheme and it works. Just because you're pressuring the ball and you're flying around in rotation really well and you're making them feel a little bit pressured on those threes and they don't go in. So more often than not, every scheme can work. It's just a question of whether or not you execute it well enough. But Dana Speed, that double team with that big three in the left corner there in the fourth quarter. Paul Reed at 17. By the way, the Pistons in this four game stretch are plus 16 with Paul Reed on the floor and minus 15 without him. He's been a huge swing in this last half of the series. Marcus Sasser came in and made a bunch of plays off the bounce. He was frying. James Harden getting buckets against him in ball screens. He had a big step back three over Sam Merrill as well. I thought one of the biggest plays of the game was that big floater he had in transition at the end of the third quarter off of the miss dunk from Evan Mobley. Duncan Robinson came in and hit four, three. Four threes again like they had. They had like eight dudes score at least eight points, if I remember correctly, from the box score. So like just a really impressive balanced scoring night from the Pistons to kind of like capitalize on the, on the success their defense and physicality was having on the game. On the Cavs front, you gotta be ready for physical war. That's what it's going to be. And it's definitely going to be like that in game seven. I thought catastrophic mistakes like big, like compounding errors really hurt them tonight. Like the big offensive rebounds we talked about that led to the big dagger shots from specific Pistons, Pistons players. Like the big like two way sequences. Like Donovan Mitchell forces yet another layup in traffic that has no shot and he falls into the stanchion and then they run out the other way and he doesn't sprint back. And Paul Reed gets an easy layup at the basketball. Like you're compounding an error by, by taking a bad shot and, and making a poor decision, but then laying on the ground and not sprinting back and giving up a layup on the other end. Like you make a good read, maybe you hit a shot and by not getting back, you give up a layup. I mean, we're talking about a four or five point swing right there, right? You know, Evan Mobley smokes that dunk and I just thought he went up casual. He went up casual and slow against, I think it was Paul Reed at that spot. But he goes up casual, misses the dunk, it leads to the Sasser floater going the other way. That's a huge swing going out of the quarter. And then lastly, I thought Donovan Mitchell and James Harden were both terrible tonight. I know James Harden scored the basketball efficiently. He was able to get to the foul line quite a bit and he was, I don't know, like 6 for 13 from the field. But like I thought he was really, really bad on defense. There were so many clips where I'm like, bro, this is a closeout game. Why are you playing so relaxed as Marcus Sasser is trying to drive past you? Why are you looking so relaxed as a sar Thompson is running by you for this offensive rebound. Like lock in, dude. You, you win tonight. You advance like what are you doing right? And then he had eight turnovers as well. He's had been prone to those kinds of games throughout this postseason run. And then Donovan Mitchell, like just truly a really poor game on both ends of the floor. I. There's no real way to sugarcoat it. The forcing, like he was consistently driving into Detroit's rim protection and just Throwing up bullshit. He was brutally bad on defense the entire game. I thought he made pivotal errors in big spots that undercut the momentum swings. Like to Harden's credit, even though he was bad, he led seemingly every Cavs run that they went on in this game and you know, consistently. One of the things I've talked about with the James experience is like he's just gotta be next to a star that can be reliable every night because he's not gonna be super, super reliable, but he's gonna get you a couple games. Harden is held up his end of the bargain in this series. Even if I think he's been bad tonight. You need Donovan Mitchell for a guy that you know is going to be commanding a very long term max contract to on his home floor. Not put forward a stinker like that in an opportunity to advance to the conference finals. I that was just one of the worst playoff games I've seen Donovan Mitchell play and they they Game seven is going to be very close in my opinion. The Cavs I did not think were ready for this game physically. I think they will come out in game seven and be ready for the fight. But Donovan and James both have to be a hell of a lot better than they've been, especially Donovan. But you know, even James over some of the mistakes that he was making in this game. If they're going to have any shot to win this one. Cleveland's bigs, that's where I expect the physicality to match. I think Mobley and Allen will be much better for the physical war in game seven, but I think this is I still lean slightly towards Detroit, but this is going to be a very close game seven. I think either team could win. Cleveland has certainly demonstrated that they can win in Detroit, but man I if I was casting I'd be pretty disappointed in the effort and physicality tonight. I thought, I thought they got punked. All right, let's bring Jackson up and let's talk from some questions in the chat.
- [40:58]
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- [43:01]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Let's do it. We are going to start with a super chat question from Tommy. He said, I feel like some of the best success the Wolves had in this series was going small, forcing Wy out of the paint. With Chet's ability to stretch the floor and Shay's mid range prowess, will Victor Wembanyama sort of paint impact and overall impact this upcoming series be as big as it was in this series?
- [43:26]
Zach Lowe
I do because one of the big differences between the Thunder and the Wolves is the Thunder are actually like just a tiny bit light on ball handling. When you talk about, you know, A.J. mitchell and Shea and J Dub, they're like your core three, obviously. But after that like there's a lot of guys that, that are gonna, you know that the, the, that the spurs are going to be okay with putting the ball on the floor. I don't think Chet is as good a slasher out of closed outs as Julius or Nas, frankly. Like there's you're not going to worry about Jay Will putting the ball on the floor and penetrating the defense off a closeout or, you know, you're not going to worry about some of these like other guards like Casey Wallace or Isaiah Joe doing a ton of damage, like slicing and dicing your defense. And I think that one of the unique kind of things that San Antonio does is they put you in a position where they guard the three point line well and they guard the basket well and they force you into a steady diet of these mid Rangers. But they're bigger than okc. That's the difference, the fundamental difference. Like Minnesota was bigger on the perimeter than San Antonio was, so they were able to kind of get to some of these bully ball twos that were closer to the basketball that I don't think Oklahoma City is going to be able to get. I think it's going to be a lot of Shea and J.U.B. and A.J. like pretty tough, contested mid Rangers. Honestly, from the tape, like when I was watching that third quarter, where OKC had the most success was Wemby's at the rim. Somebody misses a shot on the spurs offensive end, long rebound towards the middle of the floor, OKC gets the rebound and runs in transition before Wemby's even there. Like, this is going to have to be a defense to transition series in a lot of ways. I don't think. I don't think OKC has a ton of solutions for Wemby in the half court.
- [45:27]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
All right, next question. Super chat from Lamar. He asks what will Harden's legacy be if they have a Game 7 loss on Sunday. He's been on six teams and put up a lot of stats, but his style has a ceiling in the playoffs, aka 0 rings.
- [45:44]
Zach Lowe
I think his legacy, quote unquote, is more or less exactly what it's been. Because I don't think this, I don't think this playoff run hurts Harden in any way. I think people are going to remember this series as the series that the Cavs realize that Donovan Mitchell's not good enough to be their guy. Like, I, I think James Harden. I would argue that the James Harden trade has been already a resounding success. Success in the sense that James came in and immediately provided more reliable playoff production than Darius did. I, I don't think it's any more complicated than that. Like, do I think James improved his kind of standing all time in this playoff run? No, I think that's still on the table if the Cavs win game seven and they continue to advance. But like, I, I don't think James has like let his team down in some sort of massive way in this postseason run like he has in previous runs.
- [46:37]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Yeah, I mean, I agree that I think he's. I think he has played better this postseason than the sort of, like, masses would talk about his playoff legacy, but not in enough of a way to actually change that. Where that needle is from, like a career standpoint. Fair. Which I think fairly so. You know, it's going to be tough to do in one first and second round of the playoffs. But I agree that I don't think this has necessarily hurt his legacy. He just kind of has his career kind of is what it is, which I think is. There's been a lot of talk about James Harden's career this week. A lot of Internet debate about Harden vs. D. Wade in terms of their careers, which I think is a fun, interesting debate. But Harden sort of is. It's hard for me to say to imagine him hurting his legacy at any point in the rest of his career unless he, like. Like, it's. He just already has a relatively low playoff sort of expectation from people.
- [47:28]
Zach Lowe
I think if he dropped like, 30 in game seven. Yeah. And the Cavs won, I think it would start to enter into that conversation where, like, if he looked good against the Knicks and God forbid they made the Finals. But if he looked good against the Knicks, like, I think he could. But yeah, like, I think if they lost in the second round, it would just be remembered as like a. A good run for James, but not anything that was like, substantial for his. His story, so to speak.
- [47:54]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Agreed. Okay, next question. The spurs have had a tougher path through the first two rounds than the Thunder. Do you think that has an impact at all in the. In the Western Conference finals?
- [48:04]
Zach Lowe
Absolutely. I've said this multiple times on the show. I think San Antonio is going to get Game one. And my main reasoning is, in addition to San Antonio playing tougher competition, San Antonio just played like, a rough facsimile of what it looks like when you deal with a big, physical perimeter defense that has lots of good defenders and a rim protector on the floor. And OKC just played two teams that were incredibly light on perimeter defense, talent and rim protection because Ryan Dunn wasn't much in the rotation for Phoenix. Like, I like, Devin Booker is a solid perimeter defender. Dylan Brooks is obviously excellent. But, like, Colin Gillespie is not a guy that's some sort of profoundly impactful defensive, you know, perimeter defensive player. Royce o', Neill's, you know, only okay at this phase in his career. Like, they're a very good team to Jordan Knott's credit. They rotated well, they made OKC work for stretches. But like, the talent level defensively that OKC is going to face and the talent level offensively that OKC is going to face is several orders of magnitude higher going into the next round, you know, and like, it's an increase in talent that San Antonio will face, too, but to a much lesser degree. And I also just think the adjustment of figuring out how to play against Wemby is going to be a little bit of a shock to okc. So like, I, I, regardless of who I think is going to win, which again, I haven't decided yet, I lean San Antonio, but I haven't decided yet. I think San Antonio has a big game one advantage. I just think that I think you're going to see a lot of like, oh, this is different from OKC players when we get into game one.
- [49:45]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Next question. Should the Timberwolves make a play for Giannis? I remember we talked about this sort of not feeling like the right fit at the deadline, and I think that seemed fair. It was fair at the time, but now it does feel like some of their players are getting not. I don't think. I think Exposed is maybe a little bit strong, but should they make a play? Should they rethink the Cal or should we rethink the calculus about the Wolves being the right team for Giannis?
- [50:10]
Zach Lowe
God, that's such an interesting question. Excellent, excellent question. So in theory, in this case, you
- [50:20]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
have
- [50:22]
Zach Lowe
go Bears improved trade value and Jaden McDaniels has improved trade value to contend with. They could, like I would consider this trade in a way that I never would have before this playoff run, and for two reasons. One, San Antonio is too fucking good. And two, Minnesota doesn't really have a pathway to compete with them otherwise. So let's say, for instance, you were able to construct a variety of deals where you sent out both Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert in this, in this kind of scenario. I'm pulling up there. I want to see the.
- [51:12]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Yeah, I'm trying to find what their trade package can be as well.
- [51:20]
Zach Lowe
So Jaden and so let's say it's Jaden and Rudy, though, because that's. That that would be enough salary. Now I don't. There's complications there. And how they would have to structure things and, and who knows if Milwaukee would actually take both of those guys back. You might have to find a third team to take on Rudy, but get picks back. And I would argue that Rudy and Jaden together are going to net you a lot more picks than what Jaden by himself would have netted you over the summer or over the deadline. So the bones of the team would then be Anthony Edwards, presumably you resign IO to Sun Mo, Nas, Reed, Giannis. My only question really would be, who's your three? But if you could somehow get one of those picks back and like convince a team like Miami to take on Julius Randle for a pick
- [52:18]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
for Andrew
- [52:19]
Zach Lowe
Wiggins, for Andrew Wiggins and then you roll out Ant and IO and Andrew with Nas and Giannis, that would be fascinating. That'd be a really interesting team. But I mean, we're talking about a lot of movies. People that have to agree that's a lot of moves. But, but the thing that makes it intriguing now is like I said, Minnesota's not good enough. They need talent. And two, Rudy has become a positive asset in my opinion. I actually disagree with you on that because we were texting about it.
- [52:48]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Yeah.
- [52:48]
Zach Lowe
Like, I think Rudy's played well enough that like, like for instance, I think the Lakers would pay a first round pick to take on Rudy.
- [52:56]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Wow. Like you think so?
- [53:00]
Zach Lowe
Because like, think of it this way. If you're root. If Rudy's making league average salary for a starting center.
- [53:06]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Yeah.
- [53:07]
Zach Lowe
He's on a one plus one. It's not like he's on some long term deal. Yeah. And the Lakers could make use of Rudy because they could throw him lobs for sure.
- [53:15]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
For sure.
- [53:16]
Zach Lowe
He could immediately come in and anchor their defense and like, let me just ask you, in a vacuum, who's a. What basketball team would scare you more? The Lakers with Rudy at center or the Lakers with Nick Claxton at center? Or the Lakers with Deandre Ayton at center.
- [53:33]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Yeah.
- [53:33]
Zach Lowe
Or the Lakers with Mitchell Robinson at center.
- [53:37]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
I maybe Mitchell Robinson. But. But probably Rudy Gobert. Probably Rudy Gobert.
- [53:42]
Zach Lowe
Yeah. And so that would be my thing where, like I said, and if I was a Lakers fan, what I. Or Laker, if I was running the Lakers, what I'd be thinking there is like, okay, I got Rudy for at least two more years because if he opts out of that, I could probably re up with him on a longer term discounted deal. But like I have Rudy and now I have two drafts to like try to, you know, maybe I use my 2026 pick on a center, you know, and like that becomes my backup. Or I start using my pro scouting department to find the next Nimi Keda kind of thing. But like I, I look at as a stopgap, like rather than trading for the center of the future. But it's a mediocre, shitty center. Shitty is the wrong word, but mediocre center.
- [54:25]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Yeah.
- [54:26]
Zach Lowe
How about we get a really good stopgap solution and we have multiple years to find the long term solution. That would be the way that I would look at it. But now we're talking Lakers.
- [54:38]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
I do think it's interesting for the Timberwolves and I do think, I would say, just looking at the spurs, like, if we're thinking about how to beat the Spurs, I do think having someone very good or very versatile or probably both to like match up with Wemby is crucially, crucially important. And I do think Giannis, you know, obviously checks that box. Even if you space him out, guy like, he's, you know, he's not going to do that, but at least he's like really, really good and really versatile.
- [55:09]
Zach Lowe
Giannis would be a matchup problem alongside Nas Reed for other teams because you're doing one of two things. You're either putting, you're either putting Wemby on Giannis and now Giannis just has to beat him off the dribble in some way, shape or form.
- [55:27]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Yeah.
- [55:28]
Zach Lowe
Or you're putting Wemby on Nas. And I would argue the best looks that Minnesota got in this series were Nas in the corner off of those helps from Wemby at the rim. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's something that I would consider now in a way that I would not have considered before the postseason run. It's funny how you like the playoffs. Just will just give you a bunch of new information, you know.
- [55:47]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Right. Okay, let's pivot to the east for a handful of questions. One, do you think Asar Thompson is the best wing defender in the league? Do you think he's the best non Wemby defender in the league?
- [56:01]
Zach Lowe
I think Chet is the best non Wemby defender in the league because I still think rim protection comes at a premium, especially rim protection that can move its feet on the perimeter. I would just argue that Asar is the best non center defender that I've seen in the league. Yeah, I think that's a more appropriate way to put it.
- [56:17]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Guy's an absolute game wrecker. Absolute game wrecker. Next question. Are the Knicks genuinely elite offensively or are they benefiting from a hot shooting stretch and defensive matchups that sort of work in their favor?
- [56:31]
Zach Lowe
I think that both things are true. Like there's some favorable. I don't the hot shooting, to me, like they're they're getting really good looks like, and I think they deserve credit for that. I'm actually going to pull it up. I bet you they're getting the best. I bet you they're getting some of the best looks that, that we've seen in the playoff run in terms of shot quality. But there's no doubt that the defensive matchups actually are kind of favoring them in, in a, in a way that is allowing them to kind of hide guys. And I'd argue regardless of who wins game seven, it's going to be the same thing. But they're on offense, they're legitimately playing different. And that's the thing, like, this is to me like hot shooting within the same, like, kind of structure, the same play style is less impressive than like, oh, we started doing something different and now we're getting better looks, so to speak. They are generating in the postseason. Let's see, They're generating. They're shooting 44 on unguarded catch and shoots. That's pretty high. 42 on all catch and shoots. That is the most efficient catch and shoot team in the postseason so far. So they're definitely shooting well, I'll give you that. But they're also getting really high quality looks. They're actually getting to the rim a ton. And this is where the inverted spacing matters. So in terms of shot attempts at the rim, they're getting 32 per game. The only team that's been getting more is Minnesota. But like, that's the, that's the value of having cat out on the perimeter with off ball action leading to like cuts and things going towards the rim. Right. So like, that would be the part that I would, I would say is sustainable. Like let's say that the shooting cools off a little bit. Well, they're getting a higher percentage of their shots at the rim than any team in the Eastern Conference. So that's got to matter for something.
- [58:40]
Jackson (Guest or Co-host)
Last question of the night from our Knicks fan, Homie Kalin. He said with the, with the Pistons cav series. Excuse me, coming. Going to a seven game series and especially if the Pistons win. You know, they had a seven game series the series before. Do you think that rest and that sort of aspect and like wear and tear on the Pistons or the Cavs will be a big factor in the next series.
- [59:03]
Zach Lowe
I think it probably matters more for the Cavs than it does for the Pistons. The Pistons to me look fresh as hell tonight. Like, they look, they look like they're doing good. I know Duncan's Been a little banged up. But, like, to me, the guy that I would be most scared of is how Donovan, like, kind of found a little burst in the middle of the series and now he looks like he's not fast enough to shake these guys. And so Donovan looking a little banged up would freak me out a little bit if I was a Cavs fan. So, like, I'd argue if you're a Knicks fan and Detroit advances, which they've got to be favored at this point. So, like, if. If Detroit advances and you're a Knicks fan, like, don't expect a rest advantage. Like, Detroit's going to come in and try to punk you. Oh, you got to go to their building anyway. So, like, they're going to come in and try to punk you and they'll be not coming off of any sort of crazy travel because they're probably already back in Detroit. They're probably back in Detroit as we speak. So, like, they're gonna be at home for game seven and then at home for. At home for game one. So, like, the only way I would see a rest advantage is like, yeah, if Donovan Mitchell and James Harden both had to pour their hearts and souls out for a Game 7 win and then turn around and travel to New York because the Knicks would have home court, then I think it would be a little bit of a rest advantage, but I don't think it's any advantage against Detroit. All right, guys, that is all we have for tonight. As always, we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow probably midday or so with the. With the Thunder spurs series preview. I will see you guys then. If not, then I will see you guys. We have no game tomorrow night, so I am having another night out with my wife. We're gonna go see the Devil Wears Prada too. And so that'll be fun. And then Sunday night we'll have, I'm assuming game seven. I didn't look at the schedule yet, but I'm assuming Game 7 does on Sunday. So I'll see you guys there.
- [60:51]
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It feels good when the story ends with savings.
- [61:49]
Amazon Health AI Ad Voice
It feels good to Geico T Mobile
- [61:51]
Public Investing Ad Voice
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- [62:14]
T-Mobile Ad Voice
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- [62:21]
Daniel Cormier
This is Daniel Cormier from the Daniel Cormier Show. This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. Power doesn't wait in the octagon or outside of it. You either make the move or you miss the moment. That's why you need a network that's just as powerful as you are. With Total Wireless, you get unlimited 5G data keeping you in the action from the walkouts to the knockouts. Now that's a total power move. Make your Total Power move today. Visit totalwireless.com or stop by your neighborhood Total Wireless Store. Additional terms apply. See totalwireless.com for details.
- [62:56]
Zach Lowe
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.