← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
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Host
You're listening to an iHeart podcast.
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Jason
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Shane
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Dr. J
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Dr. J
The volume.
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Jason
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Download the DraftKings Sportsbook App and use code HOOPS. That's code HOOPS. H O O P S for new customers to get $300 in bonus bets. If your bet wins. When you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER in New York. Call 8778-HOPENY or text HOPENY to 467-369 in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bet must win to receive reward. 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 Wednesday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great, great start to your week. Just a absolutely bat crazy game in Madison Square Garden. I cannot believe what I just saw. I don't know what kind of voodoo the Indiana Pacers have been engaging in, but apparently you've got to beat him five times in two weeks to send him home. Because for the third consecutive series, trailing by at least seven in the final minute tonight, trailing by eight in the final minute, the Pacers have won a game out of the jaws of defeat. It I just cannot. I. I looked over at my wife as the last free throws were being shot by the Knicks and I looked at her and I said, there's no way they do this again. There's absolutely no way they do this again. And they did it again and in just comical fashion as Tyrese Halliburton is dancing in the middle of the floor and then just deciding to cover 15ft backwards towards the top of the key. The shot off the heel that goes way up in the air and the entire basketball world just freezes. And all of us were thinking the same thing. We're like, that kind of went straight up in the air. That's got a chance to come down and it came down and the pacers are up 1. Oh in the eastern Conference finals on a night I was talking with Shane. Shane's a works on our show. He's a Knicks fan. There is so much to be confident and excited about. If you were a Knicks fan coming out of that game and you lost, you're down 10 in the series. I can't believe it. It I so many interesting things to get into. 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 on our 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 for content throughout the year and then keep dropping mailbag questions in the YouTube comments. We're going to take about 10, 15 minutes of questions at the tail end of the show tonight. That's where you guys can decide which direction you guys want to go in terms of digging into some of the deeper details of the series. And then when we wrap up here tonight, we're going to be migrating over to Playback Playback TV Hoops Tonight where we have our after show. It's a lot more informal. We take callers, we take questions from the chat, we watch film, we hang out, we talk shit. It's just a fun basketball talking, you know, kind of hangout hour that we have after the show. So come hang out with us on Playback when we finish up later tonight. What a bizarre game. I feel like, you know, it's so funny. I joke with the people that, you know in my friends and family that asked me what my job is like. I always tell them, like the craziest thing is these live reaction shows because, like, you're trying to piece together all these things that happen in the game. And so obviously I prep a lot for my job, so I put together extensive Prep for how I'm going to tell the story of the basketball game. And then the Indiana Pacers, three times in this postseason have made me just rip that up and throw it away as they turn what looks like a very different game into a Pacers win. It's absolutely unbelievable. And everyone knows, everyone who's been following this Pacers team in this postseason run knows they literally never stop playing. You are not done with the Pacers until the final buzzer sounds. There is no relenting. There's no letting go of the rope. Every single time you make a basket or miss a basket, they're picking you up full court. Every single time you go get a basket, they're taking. Even if you make it, they're taking it out. And they're trying to push the ball ahead. First available kick ahead pass. First available advantage. They're hunting it. They're looking to attack quickly. Feeling as though their ball pressure will wear you down, feeling as though they will be able to win the large sample battle. And for the record, like, even though there was a lot of really encouraging stuff on the Knicks farm, we'll get into it. I thought Jalen Brunson looked exhausted in overtime. He had a couple. He had a couple of buckets. But he had a couple of Griffs that he got rewarded with.4 foul shots in overtime that you could tell, especially on the last step back. Three, the one before the offensive rebound. He did not get a lot of lift on that shot and he left it way short. And that's the game that the Pacers play. It's a wear and tear game. It's a leaning on depth kind of game. Like, even with the overtime period tonight, only two pacers actually went over 40 minutes. They. They will wear you down. They never stop again. Ask Cavs fans. They had him dead to rights. Max Drew gets a huge three point shot. They're up seven. Doesn't matter. Game's not over. The Bucks, Gary Trent Jr. Three after three after three. It doesn't matter. Game's not over. They play with such a furious pace and they're so capable of getting insanely hot. Aaron Nesmith. That is one of the greatest Heat checks you will ever see in an NBA playoff game. Six threes in the final five minutes. Every single one of them was tough on the move. One of the things I've been talking a lot about with respect to Anthony Edwards is a trend that I expect to see really take over in the new NBA and the future of the NBA, which is seeing supreme athletes Become great shooters. It didn't used to be that way back in the day. Used to be the supreme athletes didn't work very much on that. It was even denigrated in the lower levels of basketball is settling. If you were a good athlete and you took a three, you were wasting an opportunity to use your athleticism going towards the basket. We are seeing guys like Ant rise and fire and hit tough shots because they have ridiculous athleticism. When you combine the shot making with the ability to get lift in separation, it's deadly. And it didn't matter what the Knicks did with Aaron Nesmith down the stretch. He just rose up, got his lift and then right at the top, just that flip of the wrist, that's where his muscle memory comes in. And I and Aaron Neesmith is one of several Pacers players that has just made these minuscule improvements year over year each of the last few years. And they're all just better basketball players now than they used to be. And then Tyrese Halliburton, we talked about it going into this playoff series. As great as Jalen Brunson has been and he's been the best clutch player in the NBA this postseason, Tyrese Halliburton has been right there behind him and he has a tendency to. It's been much lower volume than Brunson, but like just unbelievably high efficiency. He just keeps making every single big shot at the end of games that needs to be made. He seems to be very comfortable operating there in the middle of the floor. Oh my God. Just. I just can't believe it, guys. I just can't believe it. It. The game followed a very interesting flow. Obviously the Pacers come out red hot, hitting every single shot they take. I think they start the game 8 for 8. Then Mitchell Robinson checks into the game and is just a human wrecking ball. Grabbing a ton of offensive rebounds, providing some vertical spacing and ball screens is good. Great work on defense, throwing guys around with this physicality. The Knicks kind of regain control of the situation and they kind of stiff armed the Pacers in that, you know, three to seven point range for a good chunk of time. Going into that early fourth quarter stretch we did see as both offenses were very comfortable in the first half. We saw both defenses shift to a lot more switching in the third quarter, which got rid of some of the natural openings that were existing for both teams. And both teams started to struggle to score the basketball. And all of a sudden TJ McConnell drives on Jalen Brunson along the baseline Pump fakes, catches a swipe down on his right arm and picks up Brunson's fifth foul. And it's 94, 92 with about 10 minutes left in. The Knicks just completely took over the game from there. OG Anunoby given buckets to Ben Mather in a step back three. An aggressive move in the lane. Carl Anthony Towns draws a foul on a transition cross match from Aaron Neesmith as he's trailing the play in transition. Deuce McBride, a smart cut to the top of the key draws a foul. Carl Anthony Towns, another left shoulder hook over Siakam. He kicked Siakam's ass during that stretch. All of a sudden we look up and the Knicks are up by 16 points. It's 118 to 1. Oh two. Pacers don't really have anybody in rhythm. You know, the game's not over at that point, but at the same time the Pacers were or the Knicks were able to kind of stiff arm them until that five minute mark. And it looked like they were going to get out of there with the win. And then all of a sudden Aaron Neesmith just every single time down the floor. The crazy thing is, is the, the Knicks were getting buckets during that stretch. Brunson beating Ben Shepard straight ISO at the top of the key. Carl Anthony Towns, a nice little semi transition attack off the left wing, gets a layup. They were scoring and it didn't matter because the Pacers were scoring every single time down the floor. I did think in overtime that the Pacers started getting better shots now. The Knicks looked very much shell shocked. They legitimately looked shell shocked. I don't blame them. I was shell shocked and I wasn't even playing in the game. But like the Pacers did in overtime, get quality looks in their offense. The Knicks kind of degraded down to Jalen Brunson. ISO ball. I thought the, the play that Andrew Nemhard made on that kind of decoy action, the Knicks come out of a timeout. They run like a decoy action on the right side of the floor for Mikhail Bridges. And they have Brunson kind of fly all the way through to the opposite side. And Andrew Nebhar jumps it and just gets in the passing lane and deflects the ball. It ends up going off of Brunson's fingers out of bounds. You guys saw just how relentless Indiana's ball pressure is. There were two plays towards the end of regulation where they nearly turned the ball over. That play where Josh Hart kind of tripped and fell and he somehow managed to Recover to the ball. Jalen Brunson gets trapped on that first inbounds right by the baseline and while he's falling out of bounds, has to rifle a bounce into the back into play to try to give his team a chance. And thankfully OGN and Obi had to be there. But the Knicks kind of lost their composure against Indiana's ball pressure. And here's the thing, guys, it goes back to that point that I was making earlier as it pertains to the Pacers just never stopping. From the very first possession of this game, the Pacers weren't just full court pressuring Jalen Brunson. They were denying him on the inbound. They were trying to get in front and prevent him from getting the ball at all whatsoever. It is not like they started doing anything unique or different down the stretch in terms of their pressure. It's the same shit they were doing all game. A few more traps obviously in the backcourt when they got especially desperate. But most of it is just ball pressure, ball pressure, physicality, jumping passing lanes, trying to turn you over. And again, it is a 48 minute job. This is not the first time they've done this. Even if you pull away from the specifics of the last minute comeback, they have multiple large deficit comebacks in this postseason run. They, they game five in Cleveland, they were down what, 20, what, 48 to 24 or something like in the first half. They ended up losing that game. Like they just never stop coming at you. It is a, it is a team wide dynamic that manifests almost as though it goes beyond what you see on paper with the talent with this team. I, I, I just, I just was completely blown, blown away tonight. I think the dynamic that this series is going to swing on is the ability to contain the basketball. This is where I want to get into some of the stuff that there, there is some encouraging stuff. If you're a Knicks fan, you now have to beat the Pacers five times. That's going to be a pain in the ass. But you do have the tools with which to do so. I thought that with exception of really overtime, I didn't think the Pacers had any sort of extended stretch of defensive success against the Knicks. And again, over time, the Knicks were shook in the first half. A lot of traditional coverages. You guys want to know why Miles Turner sat out the majority of the second half of this game and then played all of what, 90 seconds in overtime before Carlisle pulled him again? The Pacers were running a lot of traditional coverages, especially to Start the game. And Miles Turner was doing a God awful job defending the screener and the ball. There was a play where Deuce McBride got an early layup in this game where he was like hugged up to Mitchell Robinson up at the top of the key. In general, the Pacers were trying to account for Cat and his catch and shoot threes by, by staying off of that, that ball handler and ball screens. And you were just seeing Brunson get downhill over and over and over again. Mikhail Bridges was getting into the paint whenever he wanted to. Brunson, you could tell, feels immensely comfortable against Nemhard and N. Smith relative to Drew Holiday. I think one of my big thoughts coming out of this game was some contender needs to be reading the tea leaves here and identify that Drew Holiday is one of the most impactful defensive players in the postseason and jump on that guy because he could come in and instantly raise the ceiling of your defense. Because Brunson and Nemhardt and Neesmith are two very good on ball defenders and Jalen Brunson is just too big and too strong for them. The big thing I noticed was in those ball screen actions when Brunson was going over the top, that automatically put the on ball defender into the sidecar or into the back position, right, Trailing or in that like kind of jail in the on the hip sort of position. And Brunson was just very easily able to kind of bump guys off in that position and get all the way to the rim. Then in the second half when they started going into more switching and there were still some traditional schemes there, both teams were still like trying not to switch if they could. But if anybody got hit by the screen, they were willing to switch in that second half. And in that second half, same sort of thing, it didn't matter who it was. Brunson was able to get to his spots against his primary defender. And so there's some encouraging stuff on the Knicks front where I do feel like they're going to be able to score the ball effectively and consistently in this series. On the flip side, I thought that they had some extended stretch of successful defense against the Pacers. So for instance, in that big run that the Knicks had while Jalen Brunson was off the floor, they had success in switching. And in their traditional schemes. You guys remember that play where Deuce McBride blocked Pascal Siakam on the dunk? Traditional coverage, Siakam slips pocket pass, Siakam takes off and there's a rotation from Deuce McBride off the baseline, A huge blocked shot Couple possessions later, they run like a little, you know, wedge screen to try to get Siakam a little separation before he sets the ball. Screen for Halliburton. Halliburton gets down into the lane. Josh Hart nail help off of Neesmith. Nice kick out. And Josh Hart just throws a crazy closeout at Aaron Neesmith and nearly blocks the shot and gets a stop. A few possessions later, they straight up switch a ball screen. Cat ends up on Halliburton. He gets a stop. They had some extended stretches where they were able to get stops against the Pacers in both their switching scheme and in their traditional scheme using just chaotic rotations. So again, when the Knicks hang onto the rope and they're very invested mentally and physically, they can be really physically overwhelming for this Pacers team in rotation, especially on the glass. A lot of interior matchup hunting. It wasn't just Cat going at Siakam or Cat going at Turner. There was a stretch there where OG Anunoby went at Ben Mather in a couple times in a row. Was just able to power right through him and get to where he wanted to go. And I mean, a lot of this comes back to what I said before the series about the Knicks, which is like, there is a reason why most Knicks fans I talked to after the Pistons series didn't really like the team. Most Knicks fans I talked to throughout the season were like, this isn't the same kind of, like, character team that we saw last year when it was, you know, Isaiah Hartenstein. It was a. It was. It was a different team right at that point in time. And the reason why was there was frustration with the Knicks and their ability to consistently execute on both ends of the floor, their ability to hang onto the rope mentally and physically. And in this game, it's these brief stretches where they're just not leveraging their gifts to the ability that they're capable of. And the Pacers will quite literally never let go of the rope. And so there's just so many different things there. There. There are so many different things there to learn from this game if you're the Knicks, which is that, like, you cannot let up even for a second in this matchup. Let's get into some other notes around the series. So a couple things. The Knicks rebounding, I think you could see a real perimeter size mismatch in this particular series. So, for instance, OG Anunoby, Mikhail Bridges, even when you get down to Josh hart and Deuce McBride, there is like, a size athleticism advantage in terms of just like Vertical ability on the perimeter for the Knicks. There's no doubt that the Pacers have speed and that that speed can be a problem in different ways. Mainly just the pace that they're able to play with just furiously throughout the entire game. But when it comes to some of those battles in the vertical plane, the Knicks can win a lot of those battles. And I thought that that was pretty clearly evident in game one. I did think that Brunson was more capable to. More capable of compromising the defense and getting into the paint over the lion's share of the game than Hilberton was. Even though we can acknowledge that Halliburton was better in the overtime period. I thought, I thought a classic Halliburton sequence in that overtime was that drop off pass to Nem hard cutting off of the slot. Just a reminder with Halliburton that he's going to score, but he will quite literally never miss a read if the read is there. It's just like programmed into his brain to play a certain way and he's going to hunt that read every single time he gets that opportunity. But I did think that there was a dribble penetration advantage for the Knicks. Mitchell Robinson, we did not see any sort of, I mean obviously they would grab him anytime he got, you know, right underneath the basket or anything like that, but we did not see a hack of Robinson at any point in the game. Ty Mitchell Robinson in 21 minutes was even and was pretty successful as just a physical monster. Offensive rebounding, defending that vertical spacing like we saw in that lob off of the Jalen Brunson two man game. A lot of stuff for Rick Carlisle to look at, by the way. Just in general with their ball screen coverages and the job that Thomas Bryant and Miles Turner did. Those guys were getting absolutely fried everywhere on the floor tonight. And there are some real problems there that they're going to have to look at. Thomas Bryant was minus 11, Miles Turner was minus 3. And you end up winning this game. In the small ball groups. Though I did think that Knicks had some success with that overall size, especially with Cat who was really given the business to Pascal Siakam in those sequences. On the Pacers front, I thought that Siakam didn't do a good enough job punishing mismatches throughout the game, nor Miles Turner. That is a credit to the Knicks. They battled really well in those situations. But remember that was a huge part of this series last year was Siakam attacking, specifically Josh Hart and he, he did hit a little fade away. And he drew a double team on Josh Hart that led to a layup for Andrew Nemhard, but there was not enough of that punishing from Siakam from Turner against Switches in the late Turner got multiple deep catches on mismatches that he wasn't able to pay off and so I think there's some opportunity there. Neard was better in the second half, but I didn't think he did much to impact the game offensively early. Tyrese Halliburton kind of looked like he was off to another one of those funky starts in this game and then right around halfway through the second quarter he really hit the jets with his aggression and you could tell he's going to get looks because of the drop coverage that they're running with Carl Anthony Towns and when he gets switches against Carl Anthony Towns, he's going to be able to get to his three point shot. He he's just going to have to be able to knock it down consistently but really, really fascinating. Game one this is going to be a really entertaining series. Every game I feel like is going to come down to the wire just with the relentless never ending pressure of the Pacers and with how gifted of a crunch a crunch time scorer that Jalen Brunson is just an instant classic here in Game one of the Eastern Conference Finals. I'm really excited to get further into it. Blending Vice's signature dynamic storytelling with the high octane world of sports, Vice Sports brings an exciting and diverse range of programming that goes beyond the game. From action packed live events to gripping behind the scenes documentaries to hard hitting investigative pieces and in depth profiles of athletes, coaches, teams, Vice Sports captures the raw energy, drama and passion that makes sports truly unforgettable. Catch live events and other exclusive sports programs only on Vice TV.
- [26:13]
Host
Go to vice tv.com to find your cable channel.
- [26:18]
Shane
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- [26:48]
Dr. J
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- [27:17]
Taraji P. Henson
And It's Going to Take Us to Heal Us. It's Mental Health Awareness Month, and on a recent episode of just heal with Dr. J, the incomparable Taraji P. Henson stopped by to discuss how she's discovered peace on her journey. So what I'm hearing you saying is healing is a part of us also reconnecting to our childhood in some so you said I look how youthful I look because I never let that little girl inside of me die. I go outside and run outside with the dogs. I still play like a kid. I laugh. You know, I love jokes. I love funny. I love laughing. I laugh at myself. I don't take myself too seriously. That's the stuff that keeps you young and stops you from being so hard to hear. This and more things on the journey of healing. You can listen to just heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts at. And T connecting changes everything.
- [28:19]
Dr. J
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Taraji P. Henson
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- [28:52]
Dr. J
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- [28:57]
Taraji P. Henson
From probiotic drinks and gummies to face creams and pillows. Yep, we said pillows. The probiotic boom is everywhere. But how much of it actually works and what does it all mean for your gut, your skin, and even your mood? Join us on Dope Labs, where we break it all down in the lab. Like only we can listen to Dope Labs on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Jason
All right, we're gonna bring Jackson on. We're gonna take about 5, 10 minutes of questions and then we'll head over to playback. We'll do 10, 15 minutes of questions.
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Host
Let's do it. First question was, was this more of a Knicks choke job or a Pacers comebacks? Theft, Theft, steal, whatever.
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Jason
So me, Jackson and Shane were debating this on the, on the zoom call before we went live and as is always the case, it's both. It's never as simple as just one or the other. I'm really hesitant to just call it a Knicks choke when we have three completely different teams that have had this problem. Like at a certain point I want to give the majority of the credit to the Pacers just for their relentless never ending pressure. However, I thought that they, this has been a Knicks problem all year. Excuse me. They blew the game open by keeping the ball moving around and by playing through Deuce, through Cat, through OG Anunoby. And they've had a tendency in crunch time to lean entirely into Brunson. And Brunson has been amazing. Brunson's volume in the clutch has been amazing. His efficiency has been fine too, and he's won them a lot of games. So I don't want to sit here and pretend like it's it. It's like Brunson's doing something wrong necessarily. But there are some realities to the fact that when you play through one guy for extended stretches like that, the fatigue can play a role. And I thought Brunson looked tired in ot and I thought especially over the final minutes oot, it affected his ability to get separation. And so I think that's part of it. The missed free throws are part of it. I feel like there's a certain verve that Indiana plays with in transition during those late game sequences that the Knicks could probably do some damage to by trying to stop the ball a little bit earlier and prevent them from just knifing through them like hot, like, like a hot knife through butter like they do in those sequences. But I want to give most of the credit to Indiana, man. Like they did it to a 64 win team in the last round. They did it to Giannis and Tanakounmpo in the round before that. Like they just, they are, they are unlike any team I've ever seen. Jackson, I don't know, I don't know any other way to put it.
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Host
I think that's a good transition to a different question we got, which was, let me find it. If the Pacers don't win the title, do you think we will look back on this playoff run on these comebacks as Fluky comebacks or more of a sign of who the Pacers are as sort of a identity.
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Jason
I think Fluky is disrespectful to the fact that they won both series in five games. So I think that, I think that it's more complicated than just saying, you know, they, they, they're, you know, voodooing their way to the, to the finish line here. Jackson and I were talking before like kind of in the first, you know, it was either in the first quarter or the, or the second quarter. But I don't think the Pacers can beat Oklahoma City. I think Oklahoma City matches up extremely well with both of these teams because they're both teams that rely heavily on guard shot creation. And the, the, the Thunder just have a never ending line of elite defensive guards that can make life hell for guys like that. Um, so I mean, here's the thing, like if, let, let me re. Approach the question like this. If, if the Pacers beat the Thunder, it won't be Fluky, it'll be because they beat him at basketball. So like I'm not going to try to undercut anything they accomplish at this point. They beat. I thought that Cavs team was so good. I thought they had a legitimate chance to beat Boston towards the end of the season with how they were shooting the ball against Miami. So like, I think, I think this is, I, I'm a big believer in this Pacers team. I picked them to win this series. I think that they're just better than they were last year. I think Halliburton is one of the more underrated stars in the league. I like that even goes beyond the, the disrespect from his peers. I think even just in the media, people don't quite appreciate his advantage creation and the job that he does to grease the wheels of an elite offense. I think the Pacers are really good, man.
- [33:19]
Host
I agree. Next question. Seeing how both Julius Randle and Carl Anthony Towns are playing in the conference finals, we're only one game into the conference finals, but still looking back on the trade, how do you sort of feel about it from both teams standpoint?
- [33:33]
Jason
Oh man, this is an interesting question. I think it's a little bit more of a mixed results kind of conversation on the Knicks front because Carl Anthony Towns has had very high highs in this playoff run, but he's also had very low lows. Um, I thought for the most part tonight he was pretty good. So I don't want to break, I don't want to like disparage him specifically tonight. I think overall the totality of the off season worked out well in the sense that, like, if you make those sorts of moves, the McHale bridges move and the Cat moves you, you gotta make the conference finals, you've gotta beat a Boston in order to make that sort of trade worth it. And I think the Mikhail Bridges deal in particular was very uneven in the sense that he was not very good in the regular season compared to what he was capable of. But I think he's been great defensively in the postseason. And I think overall, the Josh Hart, Mikhail Bridges OG and an OBI trio between Brunson and Cat has made up for a lot of their defensive deficiencies. And I think Cat brings a lot of positives. I also think there are some realities to the fit with Julius Randle and like, how that would have been clunky to have Julius on this particular team. So, I mean, you could argue that not having a Dante DiVincenzo as a depth piece is probably the most painful part of that deal because Kat has brought, I would argue. Let me, let me spit this back to you, Jackson, before we talk a little bit about the Minnesota side of it. Do you think that Cat on the Knicks. Forget about the trade. Do you think that Cat on the Knicks is a better fit than Julius Randall on these Knicks?
- [35:16]
Host
I do.
- [35:17]
Jason
I think so too.
- [35:18]
Host
And I think Julius Randle is a better fit on the Timberwolves just in a vacuum than Carl Anthony Townsend. So in that sense, I think both teams made a move that was, you know, at least well intended.
- [35:27]
Jason
Yeah. To your point, I think the Timberwolves side of this deal was a slam dunk home run. And like I talked about this before the season, I said, if Randall goes with Randall going to Minnesota, I didn't like the deal, but I said there was an obvious upside. The obvious upside is Julius Randle is a better high post, low post shot creator than Karl Anthony Towns. He flat out is. And he's also a better defensive player. But that I think has been more of a revelation. I didn't. I didn't think Julius had that reputation before this year, but Julius is flat out a better high post, low post shot creator. And specifically within what Minnesota has needed in this postseason run that has been immensely valuable to them. So, like, that's been a home run. Dante in the depth has been a home run. There was a range of outcomes for the Julius Randle deal on the Minnesota front, and it has skewed heavily towards the high range of those outcomes. So it's like a slam dunk for Minnesota. I think it's a little more complicated on the Knicks front, but as we mentioned earlier, I think Cat is just a natural fit that Julius isn't in this system. So it might just be a rare example of a trade that kind of worked for both teams.
- [36:42]
Host
Yeah, I think I, I, I agree, I agree with all of that.
- [36:45]
Jason
There's really quickly. There's one other thing that's kind of interesting. I see these stretches kind of like this stretch when Mitchell Robinson was dominating in that late first quarter. I do think there's a version of this team that has a more defensive center, like an athlete center instead of Cat that's that that could potentially reach higher highs than this team. And I think that's the question they're going to have to ask themselves this summer, depending on what happens in the next four weeks.
- [37:15]
Host
Yeah, that's a good point. Next question. Jason, do you think that the Knicks can last playing at this pace with the Pacers over the course of the series? Especially considering the minute totals that those guys play compared to the Pacers guys?
- [37:29]
Jason
Here's the thing. They can last, but they can't afford to lose games like this. I mean like tonight like you play well enough to be cause here's the thing, guys like the Pacers didn't play as well as they were capable of during the majority of this game. Siakam was pretty bad. Nem Hard was pretty bad. There was Turner was good to start the game on offense, but was brutal in a bunch of other ways. They didn't get a ton of scoring pop off their bench the way they usually do. Like Ben Matheran has been their highest scoring player per minute in this postseason run. He had nine points in 21 minutes. Like there were a lot of things that didn't go their way. You gotta win that game. And that's where it gets discouraging. That said, the difference in the pace is like obvious just looking at the scoreboard. So they scored 135 points tonight. They scored 119 in game 56 against Boston, 102 in game 5, 121 in game 4, 93 in game 3, 91 in game 2, 108 in game 1. Like their score, they haven't scored over 121 points in any playoff game except for game 1 against the Pistons. So this is now we're all the way up at 138. So there's like a clear like just sheer number of possessions type of of dynamic at play as a matter of fact, I'm going to try to pull up the specific number of possessions. So The Knicks had 127 possessions tonight. Trim off the 14 and overtime, that's 1:14. And if we just pull like a random, I'm just going to pull like one of the Celtics WINS. Like game four against Boston. That game they had 104 possessions. So it's 10 additional possessions. So it's like it's more, but it's not dramatically so much more that it should cause that much of a problem. The main thing to me is just you can't afford like to me in playoff series, there's so much weirdness anyway. Like you're going to go on the road to Indiana. You could have a game where obi Toppin has 20 points. You could go and Ben Mather and could have 25 points. Like there are already these kind of weird variables in a playoff series. You can't afford to lose the game where you looked like the better team for the majority of the game.
- [39:48]
Host
As a Celtics fan, I know that quite well. Last question before we go over to playback. If it's Thunder Pacers in the finals, do you think teams will start putting depth and specifically speed, depth as a priority for roster?
- [40:04]
Jason
Absolutely. I think that, that, you know, I feel like that's been the story of this entire season dating back to back. Those of you guys who've been listening to the show for a while, you think back to the conversations we were having in October, November, what was the number one buzzword I was throwing around? Perimeter speed. Perimeter speed. Talked about it with Golden State. I was like, golden State is one secondary shot creator away from being good because they're loaded up with perimeter speed. Houston loaded up perimeter speed. Oklahoma City perimeter speed. Like it just because of the game being more in transition, because of the game being played more in rotation, because of the long rebounds that are coming off of these threes. Everything is a foot race and, and it's just turning into a situation where I think you've got to have a certain amount of speed and a certain amount of depth just to be able to handle the grueling realities of the NBA playoffs. I mean, even if we dig into it further, like there's a war of attrition aspect to all of this. Indiana has outlasted teams that have dealt with injuries. Now, multiple playoff runs in a row between the, you know, Darius Garland injury, last in the last round, Evan Mobley missed a game in the last round last year, the Donovan Mitchell injury, the Giannis injury. The Dame injury this year, Oklahoma City, even just withstanding a Job Moran injury, withstanding a Aaron Gordon injury in that the Michael Porter Jr. Injury. Like the. The Thunder and the Pacers look healthier than everybody. And it's because they're super deep. As I mentioned before the series there before tonight, and I'm not sure if tonight's numbers threw it off at all. There wasn't a single pacer averaging over 35 minutes per game. Like, they're just. They're able to dig deep into their bench and get production and keep everyone's minutes down. I think that's a. I think that's a huge part of. Of their ability to survive these deep playoff runs and pulling up the minutes stats in the postseason real quick for the Thunder. So for the Thunder, Shea is the only player playing over 35 minutes per game, 36.8 minutes. J. Dubs at 35. Every other Thunder player aside from Shay and J. Dub is playing less than 30 minutes per game in this postseason, less than 30. They're all playing about half the game. Chet 29.8. Lou Dort 26.8. Isaiah Hardenstein 25.3. This is all half the game. They're playing half a playoff game. Meanwhile, everyone else is like. Like J.J. reddick's like, we're playing everybody all 24 minutes in the second half. Tom Thibodeau is playing his guys massive minutes. I think there are some realities to the way that that depth is allowing them to survive the war of attrition in the postseason. All right, guys, that's all we have for tonight on YouTube at least. We're about to head over to playback, so again, that's Playback TV slash hoops tonight. Head over there right now. We'll hang out for another 45 minutes or so just, you know, taking callers, talking about the game, getting into some of the footage. Again, as always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. We will be having a film session tomorrow morning, so come back to YouTube tomorrow early, like right around noon. Ish. And we will have a film breakdown from game one of the Eastern Conference finals. I'll see you guys in playback. Otherwise, I'll see you guys tomorrow morning. 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 really 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.
- [43:30]
Dr. J
The volume.
- [43:34]
Jason
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- [44:02]
Host
You're listening to an iHeart podcast.