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That's code hoops for new customers to get $300 in bonus bets. If your bet wins when you bet five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling Problem Call 100 Gambler in New York, call 8778-HOPE NY or text Hopeny to 467369 in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bet must win to receive reward. Minimum minus 500 odds. Required bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG Co/Audio. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Friday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great week. Well, game four In a series like this, when the team on the road steals, the home court advantage is typically where the series is decided. The team that wins. If you're the home team and you win, you go up 3:1. All of a sudden it's just a too big of a deficit for you to overcome. And then if you're the better team and you have home court advantage and you steal that game back in game four, it's two two. But you have all the momentum. You only need two more wins and two of the last three games are in your home building. And so this game is always the pivot point for most playoff series and the Thunder when push comes to shove, nobody seems to be able to score against this team. And that's what I will always remember about them. We're going to Break down this game from the perspective of both teams. At the tail end of the show, we're going to have Jackson come on the show. We're going to take questions from the chat so that you guys that have questions want to get into any specific details or angles on the series, you can bring them to the chat comments for the tail end of the show. And then remember, when we wrap up here tonight, we're going to be heading over to Playback. That's Playback TV slash Hoops Tonight. And we'll be taking callers, we'll watch some film, we'll dig into what happened in that crazy game tonight. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on twitter_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcast on Hoops Tonight, it's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. Last but not least, like I mentioned earlier, drop those mailbag questions in the chat and we'll get to them at the tail end of the show. All right, let's talk some basketball. So I have been pretty consistent with this Thunder team in this postseason run that the true star of this team, the strength of this team, the thing that I will remember most about this team is their defense. I thought J Dub had an awesome game tonight, especially relative to his age and experience, provided some pretty steady scoring for a team that was struggling to score, especially throughout the middle portions of this game. But I thought Shay was a disaster the majority of the game. I thought he looked generally disengaged and extremely fatigued to the point where, like, I was like starting to wonder if there was something bigger going on, like he was sick or something along those lines. And he made some plays late in the game, which we're going to discuss. But this team was dead in the water and unable to score when they needed to, even in that fourth quarter for the most part. But we saw a similar thing take place in the Denver series in the second round, where it's the fourth quarter, Denver's up, it's game four. They're on the verge of taking a 31 lead in the series. But something happened from that point forward through the end of Game 4 against Denver. The Denver Nuggets led by the greatest offensive player I've ever personally watched in Nikola Jokic. And they couldn't score. They couldn't score. The series was on the line, it was hanging in the balance and they couldn't score. Even when Denver managed to pull out a Game 6 to send it back to Oklahoma City for Game 7. What happened in Game 7? The Nuggets couldn't score. They couldn't even get the ball to Jokic where they needed to get it to come into this series. The Pacers kind of methodically generating quality shots even throughout the game tonight, like they had at least 25 points in every quarter through the first three quarters. Throughout the series, I've talked about how the Pacers have shown some ability to be able to break down the defense as long as they don't turn it over. And in this fourth quarter when everything was hanging in the balance, I think the Pacers led by as much as 7 or 8 in the fourth quarter. If I remember correctly, they couldn't score. When it came time to be able to pull this series into a 31 lead in a situation where they would be probably favored in Vegas to win at that point, they couldn't score. And that's what I'll remember about this Thunder team. They can leverage themselves athletically in a way that Indiana can't match. They can leverage themselves athletically as a team, defensively that nobody in the league can match. Even the best and most reliable offenses. Denver had the best offensive player possibly in the history of the game. Couldn't score. Indiana has the second or third best offensive engine in the NBA, surrounded by a good amount of cumulative ball handling and shooting ability. Couldn't score. That's where it all comes down to. I talked a lot after game three, if you guys remember. In all the content that we produced over the last few days, I explained to you guys why I still had Oklahoma City as the team I expected to win the series. I said they win game four. I said they win game five. I said they'd win one of game six or seven. So Oklahoma City in six or seven. And if you guys remember, the specific thing I said was that Oklahoma City had two semi reliable actions they could run to be able to generate offense. When things really bogged down and everything's on the line. I said Shea attacking Turner and pick and roll, which is not what they went to down the stretch of this game. And then Shea isos, which is exactly what they went to down the stretch of this game. Those were two actions that no matter what Indiana does, Oklahoma City can either get a good shot for Shay that he can make or draw a double team that leads to some sort of quality look. And we saw an example of that where Nemar dug down on on Shay and got kicked to J Dub. J Dub drove the closeout and ended up generating a wide open three for Shea on the right wing. But ultimately Oklahoma City, when things really bogged down, had a couple of things they could go to that were going to generate good looks for Indiana on the other end. Dort is flying over the top of screens and not allowing Tyrese to free up. They finally get a good screen and he gets switched onto Chet and he's able to go to a step back three. But it's a step back three versus Chet. That's not a super high percentage look. The Pacers throughout this series have established a lot of cumulative success through their ball pressure, fatiguing Oklahoma City's ball handlers. I. I underrated. If I. If there was one thing that I underrated in terms of Indiana's chances to win this series, it's that Oklahoma City is really light on ball handling. Even though they're super talented roster, their talent comes in the form of quickness, athleticism, defense, a lot of different things that aren't necessarily dribbling the basketball in high level playmaking. And so they've been more susceptible to Indiana's ball pressure. They've been more susceptible to fatigue as Indiana's ball pressure has worn them down. But the pri. That weakness made this series more competitive. But even throughout that, as Indiana had their moments, as they got their offense going in various ways at various points in the series, they never established one single action or play type that they could go to. That's like this is going to get us a good shot. Every single time the Tyrese ball screens, it's like, well, what if Dort just doesn't get screened? Or if they switch now, it's a Tyrese ISO. We're not getting anything super reliable out of that. Siakam has had moments attacking out of the post in the series. It hasn't been something that has been super reliable generating great shots. They tried the Tyrese Siakam two man game at various points. They can switch it there have not there. The Pacers never established anything that they could really, really depend on. Down the stretch we saw a steady diet of Shay J. Dub two man game. One of the interesting subplots of the series is, you know, we talked about going in how like we didn't really get any opportunity to see N.E. smith spend some extensive time on Shea and Carlisle ended up making the right decision in going with Nemhard in this series. And Nemhard has done an incredible job on Shay throughout the series. J Dub has spent the majority, excuse me, NE Smith has spent the majority of the series on J Dub and J Dub has cooked his ass. Just cooked him. And down the stretch, instead of having J Dub go at N. Smith, they just ran two man game to get Neesmith switched on to Shay and Shay cooked him. Now I have some frustrations about the specific manner with which these situations led to points, which we'll go get to in a minute. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway with how good Oklahoma City's defense was. They were going to win this game, but they were able to get a triple threat ISO against Neesmith where he had his arm on Shay's left arm. And so Shea took a non basketball shot and got rewarded with two points for it. Then they went to that, that another ISO off of the right wing. NEM hard pinches down, it gets kicked back to J Dub, J Dub drives the closeout, both guys react. It's a wide open three for Shea, but that wide open three was generated by Shea because of his ability to draw the second defender in an ISO against Neesmith. And then the push off there along the baseline. Once again a bucket against Neesmith and then the step through move. I actually thought Neesmith played really good defense on this possession and kind of bailed Shea out. I thought Shea also traveled on the possession, so it was again kind of a questionable call. But all of the buckets down the stretch were Shay going at Nismith. They had a reliable action, they had something they could run. Shea is capable of getting his one on one game off against the majority of the guys on this roster. But he found a specific matchup in Indy starting five in their closing five that he liked to attack and he was able to get the buckets that he needed to put his team in position to win the game on the strength of their defense. Another huge element I thought in the fourth quarter of this game was the offensive rebounding of Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. We had a boatload of free throws down the stretch, so Oklahoma City ended up with 31 points, but it wasn't as easy breezy for them scoring throughout the majority of the fourth quarter. I thought Shea and J Dub jdub was pretty good throughout the night, but I, I thought Shea played pretty shitty half court offense the majority of the night. There were a lot of Misses in there. And in those misses, time and time again, Chet would just come flying in off that left wing for offensive rebound putbacks. He had, I think two that led to direct buckets. One where he tapped it out. In another, Shay ended up getting a bucket off of the tap out. And then Hartenstein had an offensive rebound put back. Just by my count, eight second chance points for the Thunder in that fourth quarter that bolstered their offense when they needed it. So like, when push comes to shove, when I think about this series, when I think about this team, when I think about them winning the championship, the best attribute of this team is their defense. When push comes to shove and it's time for them to win team, they just tighten the screws and teams can't score. And they were able to dominate the margins. Those huge offensive rebounds from Chet and Isaiah Hartenstein in the fourth quarter, the steals at half court. Dort got another big one down the stretch where he drew a foul. How many times in this game, like four or five times where they ripped a Pacer, usually Halliburton, right at half court, Almost every one of them led to buckets. We pulled the points off of turnovers here real quick. Yeah, we had on 16 Pacer turnovers, 25 points for the Thunder going the other way. That's a huge margin there. The grifting drives me crazy, but it's, it's a way to win basketball games in the modern NBA. Like we could talk all we want. It got rewarded in this game and it's generally been rewarded. There have been a couple of like lane line bump fouls that Shay's gone for in this series that he hasn't gotten. But there's ultimately that's a margin. It's a, it's a competitive margin and it's a margin that Shea's really good at. And that has been a big part of how they were able to overcome a lot of mediocre half court offense in this game. Looking forward, as we talk about how this series progresses, do I think this has a good chance to go seven? Yeah, because Indiana especially in a non urgent situation for the Thunder where they're up 3, 2. Indiana at home is going to be tough to beat, like in that sort of situation. So I think the series has a decent chance to go seven. But whenever it happens, whether it's game five and the Pacers play hard and keep things close, but there's five minutes left and the Thunder need to tighten the screws or whether it's in game six in the fourth quarter, it inevitably ends up in a game seven in the fourth quarter when it really comes down to this next four or five minute stretch is going to determine who wins the finals. Oklahoma City is going to tighten the screws in Indiana's not going to be able to score. And that, that ultimately is what, is what makes them the champion when it's all said and done. And that's ultimately why I think Oklahoma City is going to win. It's the guards and their unwillingness to get screened, the physical switching. As bad as Shay was tonight, I thought he was very good defensively in the second half. Got a huge block on a setback three at the top of the key, had some steals and poke aways. He had like an over the top steal and a post entry. Even Shea gets involved in what they do defensively. Chet Holmgren, Chad's ability to switch in ball screens and like yeah, Hal Burns, gotten him a few times in the series, got him with a little scoop shot there in the fourth quarter or for the most part, Chet's ability to switch onto the perimeter and have success there makes their defense kind of impregnable in a lot of ways because their guards don't get screened and if they happen to get screened, they can switch just about anything. And that, that's the, that's the foundational trait that makes this under team a championship level team. Before we get to our mailbags, the grifty stuff at the end, I have to just speak up for just a second here. To be clear, the Thunder won this game with their defense. The Thunder would have won this game, I believe, even if these, one or two of these fouls didn't go Oklahoma City's direction. But one of the things I've talked about is with grifting, it's about the television product. I have no problem with Shay, Gilders, Alexander taking advantage of competitive advantages that are available to him. So for instance, if you're standing in the NBA and the guy's got his hand on his shoulder like, like just sitting there on Shay's right shoulder and you just go up and you like you're standing there in that position, you should just go up and throw your arms into his arm and try to shoot. Why? Because it's going to get rewarded with points. And so you're just taking advantage of a competitive advantage that's available to you. But it's not a good basketball shot. That shouldn't be a shot, it should just be a foul. Like if a guy's going to put his hands on you like that. First of all, it's kind of ridiculous considering how much handsiness takes place in every single one of these possessions. Look at how handsy Oklahoma City was on defense in the fourth quarter. But like, we don't want to see the finals get decided on a non basketball shot at the elbow. We don't want to see the finals get decided by niece Smith sliding his feet well in a Super bowl super physical possession that literally led to Shay traveling and him going into like a step through floater and bailing him out over some light forearm contact. And by the way, if that's the one call, no one's going to care. That sort of thing is going to happen here or there throughout the finals. But like that, in conjunction with the, with that little touch on the step through, I thought Halliburton got fouled worse on his drive, the one that he went into the lane, than Shay did on his little hand on the shoulder thing. And then the push off there right along the baseline. Like, if Shea has iconic playoff moments where he hits big, big shots getting separation from defenders, it'll go on historic playoff highlight reels that everyone will remember for all time. But when you see a guy like straight up, like doing the same grifty bullshit that he's been doing all season to win a finals game, it's not a fun television product. It's not fun to watch. And it just kind of was a buzzkill. You know, Jackson and I were talking in the middle of the fourth quarter. This was one of the most entertaining NBA Finals that we've ever seen. But my biggest fear in general with Oklahoma City and their success is just the, that grifty bullshit and how it just makes for an ugly television product. And I wasn't a huge fan of that down the stretch. It just kind of, just kind of felt like, like guys you don't like, you don't have to give them that call. Their defense is good enough. They're probably going to win. Shea is a good player. He can knock down shots. He might make shots here or there, by the way. Like, this is the thing with the push off. I don't care about the push off. If you don't call the grifty bullshit, let Shea push off, let the defenders use their hands. That's all I've ever asked for, is consistency in that regard. You can't reward Shay with free throws for non basketball shots or bad basketball and then also let him get super physical with defenders and shove them off to get to his spots. That's straight up not fair and I just thought that that was frustrating down the stretch of the game.

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With guardrails in place. Try Greenlight Risk free today at greenlight.com/I heart I'm off my soapbox, Jackson. Let's get into some mailbag questions and if there. Yeah, if there's like a Thunder fan out there that wants to cape for this shit, I want to hear it. I want to hear it.

Jason (24:43)

Yeah, there are some Thunder fans in the chat saying, you know, caping for the, for the grift, but we had a couple of questions about the, about the refereeing, so I don't know if you want to stay on that for a minute.

Ryan Seacrest (24:55)

Yeah, stay on the rest for a minute.

Jason (24:56)

Hey, Jason, I thought the refs tonight called the game much differently than the rest of the playoffs. And. But at least it felt like it was happening both ways. What was your take on sort of the zoom out of the refereeing, like, it being definitely different than earlier in the, in the playoffs. And then specifically, it felt like Scott Foster was kind of trying to, you know, put his hands on the game a little bit.

Ryan Seacrest (25:13)

Yeah, Scott Foster is one of the most performative refs I've ever seen. You can always tell just by like, the, the little extra flair that he puts on all the BS that he does. I, I was frustrated in general throughout the flow of that game because it's. It goes both ways because on the one hand, it's super physical. It's game four. The teams are starting to hate each other. They're starting to get a little chippy. So you gotta kind of keep things under control. But at the same time, when the Stoppages, and the reviews just get so excessive. It really bothers the flow of the game. My thing is one of the most consistent trends that has been frustrating for me watching the Thunder in this postseason. And it's the Chris Finch quote, they foul the shit out of you all game, and then the. Then you allow the grifty stuff to happen. I mean, I texted you before that Shay run when the Pacers built a little bit of a lead, and then we had a lane line bump, foul call for J Dub on a. On a. On a drive, and it's just, like. It just feels lame. It's like, here comes the Thunder run. We're headed to the foul line. Like, it just. It feels like that is the way with which they generated offense in a game, like, where they played bad offense. And that's the thing is, like, I'm a big believer in, like, I want good basketball to be rewarded, and I want bad basketball to be punished. And I thought that the Thunder played a lot of bad offensive basketball in this game that got rewarded with points.

Jason (26:27)

Yeah, it was. It's just. It's tough. It's. I understand the Thunder fans and the Shea fans saying, like, what do you want him to do? And it's. At a certain point, it's not Shay's fault. Like, I'm not saying it's. He. He's the one who's the problem here. But the. The ecosystem of the fouls and what is allowed on the other end, it's. It's challenging a little bit, I think.

Ryan Seacrest (26:46)

Do you agree with me that, like, the problem is you can't. Like. Like, you got to have one or the other. Like, you got to either let Shay push off and let these defenders put their hands on him, or you got to call the offensive foul in addition to calling the Griffey stuff.

Jason (27:00)

I think it's that combined with the. The physicality of the contact that's allowed on the other episode floor, which is not to take away from the way the Thunder play defense. I don't have a problem with the way the Thunder play defense, just like, I don't have a problem with the way that Andrew Nemhardt plays defense on shady Gilbert Alexander, for the most part. Right. Like, and I don't have a problem with Tyrese Halliburton leaning into chat when there's in the bonus to get it. You know, like, that's fine. That's basketball. But there's a certain. It. It becomes a. It becomes something else sometimes, I think.

Ryan Seacrest (27:26)

And it's just not fun to watch is the bottom line. Like, we, like, we don't want to see a huge iconic playoff game get decided like that. We don't like, we want to see the, like the, the action with that they ran that generated Shea, the wide open three at the top of the key. That felt like a huge playoff shot. That felt like just a massive playoff shot for Shay in a game where he had been pretty rough. The other stuff just felt like him exploiting loopholes.

Jason (27:50)

100. All right, next question. We can move off the ref so everyone in the chat can take a breather, do you think? Love to the chat. Of course. Do you think, Jason, that the Pacers now they have to win one game on the road if they want to win the NBA Finals?

Ryan Seacrest (28:05)

Yes.

Jason (28:05)

Have a better chance in game five or in game seven.

Ryan Seacrest (28:09)

Game five, for sure. I think there's always a natural kind of ebb and flow back and forth as these series kind of flow. I mean, we even saw Denver take a commanding nine point lead in the early fourth quarter of game five. It just, to me, it just doesn't matter because the Thunder could be down by 11 with nine and a half minutes left of game five. And, and I would just feel like they could tighten the screws and then Indiana would suddenly just go live. Like, this is legitimately crazy. It's a consistent trend. Like they just completely shut your water off. They shut your water off and there's nothing you can do. And again, I do believe their best chance to win is going to be game five. Like if the Pacers are going to win the series, they win the next two games. I just don't think, I think when, when all the stuff is on the line, I don't think anybody can score on this, this Oklahoma City team the way they need to. I think Indiana's one chance as Oklahoma City comes out really Flat in Game 5 and Indiana brings a ton of energy and all of a sudden it turns into a fourth quarter close game. But like, somehow Oklahoma City goes colder than Indiana does. That would be their one chance.

Jason (29:16)

Yeah, the, the, the Dort Caruso combination, plus the switchability and length of chat on the back end. Like, they have so many unbelievable athletes, unbelievable defenders, just a million ways to get stops and a million ways to create havoc. It's, it's really when they decide we're ratcheting it up right now, it is, it is startling to watch.

Ryan Seacrest (29:40)

They're the best defense that I've watched in, in my time covering the league. I, I just, I can't remember a time where I saw a team consistently strangle the life out of like truly elite offenses. There have been a lot of really great defenses that have come close. You know, like I think the 2019 Raptors was a very good defense. I think the 2020 Lakers was a very good defense. Even the warriors in 2022, very good defense. But I don't think any of those defenses come close to just the overwhelming like just physical oppressive ball pressure and unscreenable but still switchable. Like just they're, they're frightening it. I tweeted out right at the end of the third quarter. I was like this is where Oklahoma City is going to throw their best defensive punch and we're going to find out if Indiana can score and they couldn't score ultimately that's that we, we all knew it was coming. Everyone knew and it's like staring everybody right in the face but it's just as an unconquerable demon.

Jason (30:34)

And credit to Shay, you you said it earlier that he was bad most of the game offensively but he was very good defensively. In the fourth quarter he had the block on Howie. I think he had two different poke like steals when they were trying to do a post entry. He was very active and I think that is sort of what one of the things amongst the many things with their defense that contributes to them being an all time defense is they their worst guy that you're picking on is competent at worst?

Ryan Seacrest (31:00)

Yeah, no I totally agree. I the it's those last possessions in the game. It's like those are makeable shots. Like the Tyrese step back against Chad he got decent separation but that's a really long defender. He's shooting over the nem hard step back that he missed off the back room. Like that was a really good contest even though it was a decent look. Like yeah I I think the ones that you'll think back to if you're a Pacer fan are the wide open looks that Nith and Turner missed. There were there were a solid half dozen great three point looks that N. Smith and Turner got in this game and they just couldn't make them. Do you think Carlisle should have gone with like maybe a Ben Mather? Mather came in at the very end but like Matheran and and topping more down the stretch of this game.

Jason (31:44)

It's it's question. It's one of our questions. Why is that we got in the chat why does Miles Turner get so many minutes when he has been pretty bad for most of the series? And toppin has been so good and it's, it's hard because one of the things that they were getting killed on was the glass. And you know, in theory, Turner's a better, better player there on the glass than top of it. And Nismith had like nine rebounds. So it's, it's tough to, to, to, to say who they should go with, but it does feel like the, the top and Siakam front court minutes are the best ones for them. And I think Matheran, at least in, at least in Game three, it felt like he was doing a better job staying attached to some of these guards, Jalen Williams and SGA specifically, than Nisman. So I think if you're, if you're a Pacers fan or if you're Carlisle and you're looking for, what do we have a lot a desperation punch. Like, hopefully we're just in the game in general. We don't have to do that. But if we need to, if we're down seven with four minutes, what is our big swing? I think it's probably the math and toppin over N. Turner.

Ryan Seacrest (32:44)

I agree. I mean, N. Smith like, was. Fuck, he was hacking. He was hacking like on a bunch of, like he hacked Chet on a play where. And again, it's all like, it's good defense in principle until the very end, but it's like, especially with the way that game was getting officiated for Shea and, and like you, you can't be, you can't be as handsy as he was. And it just, it was frustrating. It felt, felt very much like a missed opportunity for Indiana. But like, the only reason why I, like, even with the stuff with like, let's say a couple more of those Turner threes go down or something like that, and Indiana's up by like, you know, 12 going into the fourth quarter instead of seven or whatever it was. I still, I still just feel like push comes to shove, this Oklahoma City team can tighten the screws and no one can score on them. And that really is. That's the thing that I'm going to remember the most about this team.

Jason (33:29)

Yeah, one, one. We got a couple more questions. One from me and then one from a super chat question to end with. I was thinking about the Nismith problem and a lot of the switches that they got for Shay at the end of the game were guard, guard screens where they were like, well, we can switch these. We don't need to chase over with network. We can switch these. How? If they don't want to switch? If we're saying that Neesmith is going to get cooked by Shay, or at least not every time. But you know, the majority of the time, what's the move there? Do you just chase over the top and hedge and hope that Jalen Williams isn't good enough on the back end to beat you? Like what's the, what do you do if you're the Pacers? That worked really well down the stretch to get switches.

Ryan Seacrest (34:05)

Yeah, all you can do is blitz or hedge. Those are really your only two options. And I mean there are variations of hedges you can like, you can do, you can do like a really soft like catch hedge where you're primarily just functioning to take away a drive if he turns the corner. But even then, like if you linger at all on the ball and J Dub slips out. We talk about baked in driving lanes a lot on this show. Basically to make a long story short, if you slip out of a screen or even if you're just in, in spot up, spot up situation on the opposite wing. So like balls on the right wing, you're standing on the left wing or you're slipping out of a guard guard screen to the left wing. If that defender is in nail help or if he's lingering in a hedge or doing anything along those lines, all you have to do is throw a swing pass and then rip to the left and then, and then you're in good shape. I think honestly, like if there was a, if there was a mistake made down the stretch from Indiana in terms of their defensive execution, it's the lack of double teams. Like they, they, they had a lot of success double teaming Shay throughout the game. I mean he had zero assists and then down the stretch they let him play one on one and they did dig down to the nail, but it's like you end up giving up closeouts anyway. Like, it's just, I, I would have liked to have seen a little bit more aggression thrown directly at Shea, but none of it matters if Indiana can't score on the other end. And that's what I keep coming back to.

Jason (35:22)

Last question. This one is a super chat question from jm Shout out to you JM Every game this series, it feels very similar to the OKC Denver series. OKC blows the fourth quarter leading game one. They won game two by a lot. It was a close game three, and then actually make the comeback to win game four. What is your take on that? Does it feel similar to you? And then does that mean that we're going to get seven in this series?

Ryan Seacrest (35:44)

So it's, it's. I don't think it feels similar in terms of like, the basketball, because the basketball dynamic in the two series is so different. You know, obviously Jokic was just straight up indomitable at times. Denver, their defense was much more of like a pack to paint. We're making, mixing in a lot of zone more passive, more contained, that kind of thing. Indiana's applying a ton of ball pressure. So there's a lot of like, differences in the schematics. The reason why it feels like the Denver series is that this is actually a very common series progression that we see in the history of the NBA, which is you have a massive favorite, or not even a massive favorite, just a favorite. Because I think we can all agree that Oklahoma City probably shouldn't have been favored by as much as they were now, like in, again, my big misjudgment, there was just Oklahoma City's lack of ball handling and not properly accounting for that with Indiana's ball pressure. But you have this progression that takes place where the underdog steals a game on the road. Whether it's game one or game two, it really don't matter. And then they come home and they're super excited. And game three has this like, buzz saw feel. And then you also have to keep in mind, like, even for the road team, it's still not really that desperate. It's just a one one series, you know, and so they end up getting game three. But game four always feels like the pivot point. The underdog always knows, like, if we do not win this game, we're probably not winning this series. And so it brings a level of urgency. And game four kind of takes the feel of a game seven in terms of, like, both teams know they desperately need that one, and the better team usually wins that type of game. Like, especially in the pros, like in college, there's a little bit more variance, and that's why the NCAA tournament is the way that it is. But in the pros there's a little less variance. And so it kind of feels like the better team tends to win that game for. And you know, from here it just comes down to whether or not Indiana has the pride to win one more of these games, especially game six at home. And we've seen teams that don't, you know, we've seen teams that come home in game six and just get rolled. I, I don't think the Pacers will get rolled. I think that'll be a good competitive game. But, like, it just to me, Oklahoma City was the better team and they got punched in the mouth by Indiana and it's definitely been more precarious than it looked on the surface because of the reasons we've discussed. But ultimately Oklahoma City is the better team and when the shit hits the fan and they need to win a game, they're going to be able to win a game against this team. All right, guys, that's all we have for YouTube tonight. As always, we appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. Head over to Playback TV slash Hoops. Tonight. We're going to be hanging out there, taking callers and watching some film. We'll see you guys over there in a few minutes. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to and supporting Hoops tonight. It would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.

Jason (38:30)

The volume.

Ryan Seacrest (38:35)

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Ryan Seacrest (40:41)

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