← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - LIVE: KNICKS-PACERS REACTION: Jalen Brunson & KAT dominate to force Game 6 vs. Tyrese Haliburton & Siakam
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- [00:00]
Jason
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Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service port in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption. Required card is no cash access and expires in six the Volume the NBA Finals are almost here and every play could be the one that changes everything. This is the NBA playoffs, where heroes rise, legacies are built and the action never lets up. And with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, you don't just watch the madness, you live it back. Your favorite team ride with your clutch time killer bet on the buzzer beaters, the breakout performances, the game winning threes. From player props to same game parlays, this is how you take your fandom to the next level. The New York Knicks, after beating the Celtics, are up to plus360 as the second best odds to win the title. Surprisingly, the pacers back at plus 600 because my initial thought on that series is I want to pick the Pacers. But some interesting championship odds right now. 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Well, the New York Knicks, with their season on the line, played the best game that they've played in this postseason from start to finish. This is a team that's had a lot of success in this postseason, but it's been pretty uneven. Even their wins, especially in the Celtics series, felt like all of them came from substantial deficits where they played poorly for the most part, but then played great in these short bursts. A wire to wire dominant performance by the New York Knicks kind of changing the way they were defending as well. We'll talk a lot about that and how it translates to Game 6, as well as how it could translate forward to a potential NBA Final series. Lots of interesting stuff we're going to get into tonight. Then at the tail end of the show, we're going to take 10, 15 minutes of mailbag questions from you guys. 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 show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review. On that front. Jackson is doing great work on our social media feeds. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok. Make sure you guys follow us there and then like I mentioned off the top, get those mailbag questions into the chat so that we can hit them at the tail end of the show. Any specific angles of the series you guys want to dig deeper into? Anything's fair game. You could drop them in the chat. Also, when we finish here tonight, we're heading over to Playback. That's Playback TV Hoops Tonight. That's where we take callers. We watch film. It's more informal. We just talk hoops. We kind of hang out more as a community and I've been really enjoying those those streams. So make sure you guys hop over there with us when we Finish tonight on YouTube. All right, let's talk some basketball. So the big takeaway in terms of the schematic difference between game five and game six or game four and game five. And again, like most of the case when it comes to situations like this is just the natural swings of urgency that take place in a playoff series. I feel like we've had fewer of those kinds of swings in this playoff run compared to some recent years. I think that probably has something to do with the overall level of physicality, but this is kind of what happens in playoff series is urgency kind of oscillates back and forth, especially between two teams that are relatively evenly matched, at least when it comes to their ceiling, like these two teams. And the Knicks just came out with a ton of urgency. Jalen Brunson immediately comes out with the 60 run, just obviously bringing the aggression that he wasn't bringing down. The stretch of game four just kind of had a different feel in terms of that intensity. Tyrese Halliburton just completely no. Shows the game against some ball pressure. And here we are sitting at 3, 2. But what were the specifics? So the Knicks really went with a bunch of super aggressive coverages tonight. Tons of ball pressure, tons of denial, trying to prevent Tyrese Haliburton from even getting the ball. This is something we talked a lot about going into the series, and we did see briefly in at various points throughout the series, especially down the stretch of game three when they got a win. But just out the gates tonight, they were able to get Tyrese Halliburton to be way less aggressive just by bringing a ton of pressure, not just in the denials, but also when he had the ball. It kind of felt like Tyrese was getting rid of the ball just a beat too early tonight. Like where he would get downhill on a ball screen and he'd already be jumping to turn around and pass out of it before he's even really threatened in any way as a scorer. And that's the impact of pressure. Pressure makes ball handlers uncomfortable. Another big thing you saw tonight was off ball denials. Whenever anybody picked up their dribble, so. Or had a ball in the triple threat. So, like, if you threw the ball to the high post or if a guy happened to pick up his dribble because he overpenetrated and needed to stop, boom. Everybody was face guarding, denying, trying to prevent those easy kickouts. And just in general, they made Indiana way, way, way more uncomfortable than they did in previous moments in the series in ball screens. They were Blitzing. They were showing up high, just really getting aggressive on the ball. You could hear Tibbs in the. In that first or second time out on the broadcast when they show what he was saying in the huddle. He was like, aggressive, aggressive, aggressive. On our blitzes, on our shows, in our pressure and our denials, aggressive. The point being, you can take advantage of the dynamic that's at play in terms of the urgency and it being an elimination game. I like the idea of going with super aggressive coverages in this type of game. You're at home in front of Madison Square Garden and that crowd is just ravenous, right? You're facing elimination. So you know you're going to get a certain level of urgency out of your guys. The refs are going to let you get away with a lot of physicality in this type of game, and most of all, it prevents you from coming out lethargic. These coverages put you in situations where you're asked to sprint and be aggressive, whether that's in a ball pressure situation or just because you're rotating around off the ball after the pass comes out. It requires intensity to be that aggressive. And so it kind of just brings it out of you out of necessity. Right? And Indiana really just came apart at the seams. To give you guys an idea, their previous series high and turnovers was 14. They had 20 tonight. They had averaged just 10 and a half turnovers per game in the series. They doubled that in tonight's game. That's the level of discomfort they caused. Indiana scored just 45 points in the first half. Remember guys, first quarter of game four, they had 43 points. So just two completely different Pacers offenses in the last two games because of that intensity and physicality. And again, like Tyrese Haliburton, as he's known to do at times, and it's been less often in this postseason run than it was last year. But when teams bring super intense defensive efforts, he can no show a game. And that's what he did tonight. And you know, when that happens, it's really difficult for Indiana to score effectively. And it is something to keep in mind for Oklahoma City. We'll talk more about that later. Should we get to that, to that point if, if Indiana can close it out. But I thought everyone for the Knicks was great on that, especially on the defensive end of the floor tonight. I specifically want to shout out Mitchell Robinson. He didn't get a ton of burn in the second half as Tibbs went more in the direction of. Of Josh Hart. And Josh. I Thought played well tonight. I thought it was one of Josh's better games in the series. It's kind of like making some of the shots he was missing earlier, grabbing some of the contested rebounds he was missing earlier in the series. Right. Type of game to. To play Josh. And there was a couple runs that they gave up at various points, but in the first half in particular, when they were making that initial push, I thought Mitchell Robinson was everywhere. The big thing that really stands out to me with Mitch is his recovery athleticism. You saw a couple of his, like, transition defense sequences where he gets a little too much dip on his chip and he like, just straight up, like, attack someone in the air and commits a foul. But again, preventing the easy layup and making the guys actually earn those points at the line. But in general, in every single one of those situations, whether it's a ball screen where he's pursuing or he's in rotation or he's in just like, a situation where he's on the ball while everyone else is denying, he just brings this level of athleticism and kind of. It just feels like he just engulfs whoever he's going after in those situations. He's one of the most fun to watch defensive players in the league when he's really going. And I, you know, Mitchell Robinson is an interesting player in terms of how he kind of fits in the league beyond the scope of just a backup center. There are some issues, obviously, in terms of maintaining motor over larger minute loads and whether or not he has the offensive utility to be a factor in a more, you know, featured role. But when he, when he comes off the bench and in, obviously for the last two games in a starting role, and he's. When he's. When he's out there in those limited minutes, he just brings this absurd amount of energy, and it can just really be disruptive for their opponent. Other Brunson and Cat were both phenomenal on offense tonight. Again, Brunson, kind of a classic, like, we're not losing type of attitude. Like, you could just see it in his body language and demeanor right out the gates. He knew that he didn't do enough at down the stretch of game four. We. We watched the end of game four after on playback a couple nights ago, and it's just kind of weird how Brunson just wasn't looking to be aggressive down the stretch and was just kind of passing out of some situations that we typically see him shoot out of. But he fixed that right away. I mean, we were talking about Neesmith not solving him, so to speak, or really wearing him down over the course of the series. Strong sign tonight that he came out and just straight up bested that matchup immediately out the gates and he's going to have to do that again in Game 6 for the Knicks to win. And then Carl Anthony Towns, he's been basically unguardable since the fourth quarter of game three. It seems like it's really clicked for him that none of these dudes can guard him in terms of one on one kind of face up situations. He can just rip through whether it's right or left and just power through contact and get all the way to the bucket and you could tell Indiana's trying really hard to send him to his left hand, but he was able to power through to his right hand several times today and just get up through contact and he just like rips his arms up through the people that are reaching and grabbing and he just has a gift for finishing through contact. He was amazing tonight. Really just a wire to wire dominant performance for the Knicks and that if you're looking for a bit of optimism, it's the first time in this series that they've had that type of wire, wire performance and the the last time they had a wire to wire type of performance like that was in game six against the Celtics. If you guys remember when they really were peaking at that point in the series and they're going to need to maintain that peak if they're going to have any chance to win game six. Game six will be the toughest game that New York has played in this series. We talked after game four, these two teams when they're at their best are pretty similar. I you could even argue that New York ceiling is maybe a touch higher just because Kat and and Jalen Brunson are more reliable as one on one players if they end up in slowdown situations than a Siakam or a Halliburton. But the difference is I know what we're going to get from Indiana on Saturday. We're going to get the Pacers very best. They're going to come out the gates with a ton of pressure and pace and aggressiveness and energy and all of it. I, I feel pretty confident Halliburton is going to have a big bounce back game like they are going to be the best version of the Pacers on Saturday night with the Knicks. I literally have no idea what to expect this Saturday and I would imagine most of you Knicks fans feel the same. Like they're just as likely to roll over and get beat by 30 as they are to win the game. And that's what makes them really difficult to get a read on for this type of game because we've just seen so many times even in series that they've won in this postseason look bad and if for extended stretches. And so it's just, it's just kind of weird. I just don't know what we're going to get. But to be clear, I do know that New York can win that game. In terms of the schematics, I would try those same super aggressive coverages again. It's the only time in the series they've had sustained defensive success. Even going back to our playback session last night when we started watching some of the OKC Indiana tape just in prep for a theoretical finals, there were a lot of. Oklahoma City had a lot of success. They were also able to get Tyrese Halliburton to just completely disengage. With that type of pressure, it might just be your best chance to beat the Pacers. And also it just keeps you aggressive. I mean like, think of it like this. If you're going to give up a bunch of advantages anyway because when you're in your traditional defense, you get lost too often. Might as well get lost in the context of everybody flying around and trying to pressure the ball if you and see if it can cause enough chaos to prevent those sorts of easy kind of tic tac toe sequences where Indiana gets wide open shots over and over again. I also think trying to bring the worst out of Tyres Albert is the best way to give yourself a chance to win in that building. If you let him get comfortable, I think you're just going to lose. And so again, ball pressure, denial, same sort of stuff in game six. I think you have to lean into that. But again, the Knicks have clearly demonstrated in this series at two different points down the stretch of Game four and then again tonight, that they can shake Indiana's offensive foundation with their defense in Game 6. If they do that, they've got a very good chance to win. For the Pacers, it's just about not allowing New York's pressure to dislodge them from their offense. Cal Burton's got to shed the denials. Be physical on the ball, throw the guy out of the way. Go get the basketball. Look to be more aggressive early and often in the game. Don't pass the ball too early out of your attacks. If you pass the ball too early, if the defense hasn't committed to you in any real way, there's no advantage that you're creating. You create advantage by being a threat. You be a threat by looking to get further deeper into your attacks. That just. That that was just completely missing from Tyrese Halliburton tonight. Make the defense react to you. One of the things we saw in film, and this is something that I've talked about a lot in this postseason dating back to the Cav series, but I really like when Halliburton is getting denied and facing a lot of pressure and he's going through one of those stretches where he's being a little bit more uninvolved. Get him involved in the action. Have him be a screener. We saw some examples of that again in the Oklahoma City tape last night where in the one clutch game they played a lot of Nemhard on ball because Halliburton was struggling with dort. Well, they just used Halliburton as a screener and like, you know, double drag and stack type of actions to try to keep him involved. And again, like when you are in a situation where you're like hugging. There were so many examples tonight where like they're showing replays and like Knicks are literally like hugging Pacers off the ball. And again, that's just playoff basketball. That's the kind of contact they've been allowing off ball more or less this entire postseason in every series. But you've got to find a way to, to, to have success in that context. And if you have an on ball guys, call it Nemhard or Siakam and you have, you have Halliburton go up to set the screen and Mikhail Bridges is hugging him. Mikhail's probably not going to help on screens. And so there's a lot of advantages you can create there by either having the guy turn the corner as Halliburton screening, or if Mikhail comes off in any way, shape or form, he can then slip out of it. And then Tyrus Halliburton has an opportunity to attack with an advantage, but he is attack from Halliburton when he does get his catches, when he does get his opportunities, he cannot just completely disengaged from the game offensively the way he did tonight. And then on defense, I'm more or less okay with how they've guarded Jalen Brunson. I thought they could have been a little bit tighter on their help tonight. There were a couple of situations where I thought they were just a step late, especially from the low man position. Aaron Eastmith obviously can do a better job staying attached. He's won that matchup over the tail end of this series. But Brunson is what he is and there's only so much you can do. I'm not necessarily worried about the specific coverage there with Cat, though. I think they need to throw more resources at him. They have to make him a passer, more aggressive with the double teams earlier with help, put him in a situation where he has to make reads in traffic instead of just allowing him to bulldoze his way to the rim in one on one situations. Once Kat gets his momentum, he's just a bull in a china shop and he's going to win that battle. More often than not. You've got to put him in a situation where he can't get his Runway and the only way you're going to do that is if you bring early help or doubles. And so I want to see a lot of that in Game six. Last note on the Pacers before we get to our our questions there. I'm a little concerned about a theoretical Oklahoma City matchup after a little bit of the film that we watched last night and from what I saw tonight. So we've been going back and forth about this and I haven't really devoted a ton of of energy towards watching all of the tape because I want to wait till we know what the actual matchup is. It would be annoying if I did that. And then all of a sudden we're covering a a Knicks Thunder finals, right? But we've done a little bit of it. We watched a little bit of tape last night from Oklahoma City and I've been thinking through theoretical coverages and stuff like that with Jackson. We've talked in segments on the show and you know, we came around to being a little more positive in terms of just their ability to pass through Oklahoma City's defense and some of their smaller guards and their ability to slide their feet and stay in front of Shay. But one of the things that we saw last night in the Oklahoma City game is Tyrese Halliburton wanted nothing to do with the basketball down the stretch of a game and they were just going through Andrew Nemhard and using Halliburton a little bit as a screener and they lost that game in a crunch time situation in Indiana. Now context there being substantially earlier in the season, basically a different Pacers team. NITH wasn't even available in that game. There were several sequences where Oklahoma City was pinching off of Ben Matheran and you could tell the Pacers were just a little bit hesitant to Throw that kick out pass because he's not the level of shooter that N. Smith is. And so like again, the regular season basketball is regular season basketball. And hopefully over the course of a series, Tyrese would be more comfortable. But it was a little discouraging to see that he just didn't really seem to be comfortable at all operating with the ball against Oklahoma City's defense. The Knicks, they, they, they've been like occasionally cosplaying as a good defense at various points in the season. They have had no sustained defensive success at all at any point in this postseason or in this entire season dating from October all the way through to this point. The point being they are not going to, they're not going to be able to reach the level that Oklahoma City can reach on that end of the floor. Point being, you're going, whatever it is you're seeing from New York, it's going to be a substantially harder version of it in the finals if you even get to that point. And so again, step number one is you got to be able to handle this pressure and you got to be able to play Pacers basketball because if you can't figure it out against the Knicks, you have no chance of figuring it out against the Thunder. If I had to pick right now for game six, I think Indiana wins and wins comfortably. But I absolutely think the Knicks have a chance to win that series or that game. And I think if they do win that game, all of a sudden they become the favorite to win the series and have a great chance to go to the finals. So if you're a Knicks fan, you just got to think about it in a one game context. Go in on Saturday and you're in great shape to go to the finals. Go in on Saturday, right? But you guys know the job. It's not going to be easy. That Pacers team and must win games at home has been a literally a buzzsaw. So I think the Pacers are the safe bet. But the Knicks absolutely have their chance.
- [21:10]
Jackson
Blending Vice's signature dynamic storytelling with the.
- [21:13]
Jason
High octane world of sports, Vice Sports brings an exciting and diverse range of programming that goes beyond the game.
- [21:19]
Jackson
From action packed live events to gripping.
- [21:22]
Jason
Behind the scenes documentaries, to hard hitting investigative pieces and in depth profiles of athletes, coaches, teams, Vice Sports captures the.
- [21:30]
Jackson
Raw energy, drama and passion that make sports truly unforgettable.
- [21:34]
Jason
Catch live events and other exclusive sports programs only on Vice TV. Go to vice tv.com to find your cable channel. All right, let's get to Jackson and let's get to some questions.
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Jackson
Let's do it. Let's sort of stay on that game six how the Knicks would win topic for a minute here. If the Knicks win game six, do you think it'd be more about their defense and the pressure, the turnovers they were able to generate tonight or more about their offensive success via Cat's sort of continued dominance in Brunson?
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Jason
I, I think that the Knicks offense kind of feeds off of their defense, their team that I think has been at their best offensively this season when they're running out in transition. So I think they're kind of connected to a certain extent. I'm not particularly worried about Brunson and Cat being able to generate offense. There's a certain amount of like role player shooting variable that you have to factor in. Like, I mean I thought the four jump shots that Landry Shamit and Deuce McBride hit tonight were huge. Like they each hit a catch and shoot three and then they each hit a kind of a tough off the dribble jump shot in, in the mid range that were important shots. Shame. It's was weird he like jumped way back and almost had his feet on the three point line. But like there's a certain amount of like that role player shooting that could be a variable in that sort of game. But I think it's all about the defense. Like to put it very simply, the Pacers are a great shot generating machine and if they allow that machine to operate, they're just going to make the shots and you're going to lose. The only chance you have is, is to disrupt that engine, dislodge them from their offensive foundation to where they're not moving the ball as well, they're not playing with as much pace. They're starting to second guess their decision making. Tyrese Halliburton wants no parts of it. That's where you have the opportunity to really slow the game down, at least on that side of the floor and then just pushing off of misses, pushing off of turnovers. And when it comes down to a close game late in the half court, you like your chances with Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns. Right. So I think it has more to do with their defense.
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Jackson
So you were saying if you're going to finish the sentence in like an old school sports caster way, the Knicks win game six if it's. If they're able to make Tyres Halliburton uncomfortable.
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Jason
Yes, if they're able to. I think in general dislodging Indiana from their foundation on Offense, meaning, like, taking away some of the easy transition opportunities, preventing the, like, oh, there's 17 on the shot clock and they've already gotten into action and created a wide open catch and shoot situation, like ball pressure, denial, preventing them from getting into their stuff early, making them work deeper into the clock and making them play one on one.
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Jackson
What is your take on the Knicks looking so good and in the last couple of games, sort of extending leads with Brunt in the minutes with Brunson's been on the bench.
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Jason
This has been something we looked into in the numbers on playback one of the nights. A couple. It was like a couple nights ago or something like that. Basically, when Brunson's on and cat's off, they're good. And when cats on and Brunson's off, they're good. And when both of them have been on, they've been a net negative at this point point in the postseason. And it's really not all that complicated. There's a. There's a simplified order of operations. When you have one ball handler on the floor, that dude just knows he's got to be super aggressive. And that can, like any basketball player knows that if you play alongside a bunch of ball handling talent, it can be a more complicated process of, like, figuring out rhythm. Like, sometimes you overpass, sometimes you underpass. Like, there's a lot of, like, who is it that's looking to be aggressive in this part of the game? Having staggering gives you a situation where it's like, hey, here are the keys of the offense you're working. You know, yeah, Deuce is out there, Mikhail's out there to run second side action, but we're playing through you. And then it's a simple fact that like every other New York Knicks player that touches the floor is a dude that competes on the defensive end and flies around in rotation. And so if you have four of those dudes on the floor instead of three, you're just a better defensive team. And honestly, that's the thing that stood out in the numbers too, when we looked. It's just the Knicks defense with both of them on the floor is just rough.
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Jackson
Yeah, it's. Yeah, for sure. On the point of the Knicks defense and the ball pressure, as that was definitely the big storyline from the night. Why do you think they haven't done this earlier? Is it a coach coaching tip, not his tips philosophy right now? Is he worried about the personnel? Like, what has taken them so long to make this kind of adjustment?
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Jason
Every basketball team has an identity. We've talked about this a lot with regards to the Pacers in the Thunder. We've talked about it. Even with like Golden State, there's like certain teams where it's like we have a goal to maximize our talent and grab every little bit of low hanging fruit. And so this is the way that we're looking to go. But those teams have depth. The warriors consistently have had, you know, 12 to 13 role players that they've trusted to play big minutes. The Pacers have had a deep bench they can go to. The Thunder have a deep bench they can go to. I think that Tibbs has looked at his team and been like, I trust six of these dudes, so maybe seven. So we need to keep their minutes high. And so as a result of that, I can't be asking them to blitz and deny and pick up full court and do all that sort of stuff. Urgency brought that out. But I think another part of it too is like, like getting to the. Like I thought precious to his shift that he played tonight was pretty effective. I think he came in late too. But the, the when he came in in that third quarter stretch, like I thought he was effective. The Delon Wright minutes have been effective on the defensive end throughout the, the series and the bits that he's been playing Landrew Shame, it's been like good, like flat out good for them. So like digging deeper into the bench and putting those guys in a position where they're playing more roles like, like 18 minutes out of Deuce McBride, 14 minutes out of Landry Shamet, 10 minutes out of the line. Right. That keeps everyone else's minutes down. Kat played 36 minutes. No other starter played over 34. You put yourself in a situation where because you're using your depth, you're more comfortable picking up full court, denying being that physical. I think they would have done it anyway under the circumstances just because of the intensity of the moment. And we have seen in this postseason for stretches, they really ratcheted up defensively and they look great. But I think, I think just going with a shorter rotation has caused the Knicks and this has been a thing they've done most of the season. Going with a shorter rotation most of the season has put them in a situation where their base scheme has had to involve a certain amount of passivity on the defensive end of the floor.
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Jackson
Yeah, I, I feel like that sort of speaks to a bit like really shows the flaw in some of Tibbs thinking. It's like he hasn't even given. Not, not that you would if you were looking on paper, you would necessarily think guys like Delon Wright, Precious Achua and Landry Shamit would be playoff game changers. But it's sort of like the moment those guys came in, they were effective. It is a little. Not an indictment.
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Jason
It's not.
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Jackson
That's too strong of a word. I don't mean it that strongly, but it does sort of illustrate, I think, some of the issues that Knicks fans have with Tibbs if he plays his starter. Such heavy minutes doesn't necessarily give these other guys a chance to carve out a role for themselves because the moment those guys are given, the minutes, in the biggest moment of the season, they have been effective.
- [28:35]
Jason
There's a proven way to make basketball easy that Indiana and Oklahoma City have capitalized on too. What I mean by that is like, it's not like, if you, if you look at Indiana's roster, how many people were super high on Obi Toppin before he played for the Pacers? How many people were super high on Thomas Bryant before he played for the Pacers? Like, Ben Mather is a guy who's been integrated at various points throughout, throughout his young career as being kind of a shot chucker and an inefficient, you know, a guy who can't play off ball. When you put, when you put these guys into a system, a system that has simple rules, here's how we run, here's what we do on offense, here's the way we defend. When you, when you put these guys in situations where like any basketball player can be successful as long as they follow these basic rules and these basic reads, you can turn, you know, fringe NBA talent. I'm not trying to say these guys are fringe NBA talent, but relative to what we would consider to be like the types of rock solid playoff bench guys that we've thought about over the years, you know, like Bruce Brown with the Nuggets or you know, Livingston and Nigua with the warriors back in the day, whoever, like these guys are, are benefiting from the culture that comes from the top down. So like, to your point, like, if Tibbs started the season and said we're going to pick up full court and we're going to, we're going to deny and we're going to be super physical with our ball pressure and we're going to run in trans like crazy, then you get into a situation where you're running in 10, 11 man rotation from the start of the year. We might look at Landry Shammit and Delon Wright and these guys Precious Achua as like different basketball players in the big picture because they fit into like this scheme and it's like just Tibs went a different route. Tibs went the I want to lean on my top end talent as much as possible. So we're going to be a team that cuts corners on defense all year long. And so guess what? They've been inconsistent on defense in this postseason. It's kind of like, you know, if there's one thing that has stood out to me in a big way and it's, it's funny because this is something I've always believed. This is, this is something I've always believed. But I just, it's, at certain points I'll like undervalue it, you know, especially as we've been thinking more about offense recently. Getting a team to just play the right way on a night in, night out basis during the regular season matters. It just does. And we are looking down the barrel of most likely Indiana Oklahoma City Finals. And I would argue the Thunder played harder all season than anybody. And I'd argue the Pacers played harder over the second half of the season than anybody out east. And here they are looking sharper and getting more of that low hanging fruit and winning basketball games as a result.
- [31:27]
Jackson
Next question. Does Cats dominance in the back half of this series change your thought, your perspective on if the Knicks should trade him this summer?
- [31:39]
Jason
There's a little bit of a matchup related thing here going on with Indiana, which is like none of their dudes are big enough to handle him. So I think like there are versions of matchups that you could see on a series by series basis that like for instance, like let's say that the Knicks made it to the Finals. The Thunder are a more physical team with a, with a pretty, pretty strong front line defensively. Now with Chet and Isaiah Hartenstein, it's very possible that he looks ineffectual offensively in a series like that. So like I, I don't want to sit here and say that I don't want to sit here and undercut the work that Cat's done down the stretch of the series. He has found out that Indiana can't guard him and he's having a lot of success now bullying his way to the basket and that I think matters. But the flip side of it is, is that everything is matchup dependent and we just have so many examples over the years of Cat kind of struggling. And here's the thing, guys, let's see how Cat defends in game six. Like it's big important game on the road. Must win elimination game. Like if he goes out in game six and he defends the way that he needs to defend and he puts in, you know, 25 and 15, then yeah, we can start having a different conversation as he's now done it in a high stakes situation to put himself in a situation where he can go to the finals. But like, to this point, if we like really zoom out from this postseason, it's been a little bit more complicated than just here is points per game totals for sure.
- [33:02]
Jackson
Last question before we go over to playback. The DraftKings line on game six is Pacers -4. I'm going to put you on the spot. Who is going to win games? If you had to pick right now who is going to win Game 6?
- [33:13]
Jason
I think the Pacers will win and they'll cover. I think I didn't pick the Pacers over the Knicks because of like anti Knicks anything or any sort of like even matchup related stuff. I just think the Pacers are a better team. I think they're a better team on both ends of the floor because they're more, more consistently at their ceiling. I do think the Knicks can win that game, but I just think the Pacers are a safer bet because they've demonstrated that throughout this season. They have also just been consistently a. An absolute buzzsaw in like must win games at home. And I just think that, I just think that's going to be one of the most difficult games that you could ever ask a team to win is go on the road to Indiana. They get, they get to go to the finals if they win, like it's gonna, it's gonna be, it's gonna be rough. And so again, it's not that I don't think the Knicks can win. I just think the Pacers are far and away the safe bet. And I think it's more likely than not that they win big. Like I'd be looking at alternate spread bets in a game like that. All right, guys, that's all I have for tonight. Again, we're heading over to playback, so it's playback TV hoops tonight. We'll be taking callers and hanging out and having fun. Make sure you guys head over there. For those of you guys who are not following us, we'll be back on YouTube Saturday night. We've got, we've got 38 of the last 41 nights, but we are finally done going every night. So we will be back on Saturday night for game six of the Eastern Conference. Finals between the Pacers and the Knicks. I will see you guys then. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting 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. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it. The Volume AI is redefining what's possible for your business. With more unique challenges to solve and higher stakes than ever, Microsoft helps you stay ahead. Our trustworthy AI tools and guidance can empower leaders like you to drive greater impact. And with Azure's simplified platform management, we're helping businesses go further and faster by unlocking up to 150% improved output. Whatever challenges come next, let Microsoft help you keep pushing forward. For more details, visit Microsoft.com challengers this is an iHeart podcast.