← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Hoops Tonight - THUNDER-SPURS REACTION: Wemby & Castle lead ALL-TIME Game 1 win vs. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & Caruso
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HealthC just got less painful. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosure is available at public.com disclosures what's up y'?
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All?
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Foreign welcome to hoops tonight here at the volume heavy Monday, everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your week. Well, one of the wonderful things that can happen every once in a while is you hype something up and it lives up to the expectations. This series so far through one games, I think it exceeded anything we could have hoped for in terms of the talent that was on the floor, in terms of the excitement, the crazy late game action. Just I literally don't know where to start tonight. That was one of the most incredible basketball games I've ever seen. You know, these two teams, let's just make it very clear. This is Warriors, Cavs in the middle 2010s. Everyone else can play for fun for 82 games and you can have your little series where you, you, you pretend that you have a chance. We're going to wait until these two teams play each other. These are the two best teams in basketball. Both of them are ascending. This isn't going to change. This dynamic isn't going to change. None of these other teams are close to the type of two way talent that these teams can bring to the table. That was unbelievable and I can't wait to watch the rest of it. We're going to dig into this series from every angle from tonight's game. And then at the tail end of the show, those of you guys who are in the chat, if you want to drop questions, Jackson's going to come on the show and we will take questions for, you know, 10, 15 minutes. At the tail end of the show. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel. We are on the pathway to 150,000 subs. It would mean a lot to me if you guys would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. If you're already subscribed, hit that like button and sign up for post notifications. That helps us a lot. All right, let's talk some basketball. So there's no, there's a hundred different angles that I want to get to in this, in this game, but we literally cannot start anywhere else other than with Victor Wembanyama. If you guys remember, after. God, I don't even remember which game it was. Was it game two? No, it was game three in Minnesota when Victor had that insane, you know, 35.15 rebound, whatever the hell game that he had to snatch control of that series against the Timberwolves. I talked about how one of my favorite parts of the experience of being an NBA fan is watching a basketball player reach heights that no other player can reach on the floor. And to achieve like a certain level of. Of just dominance in a stranglehold on a basketball game, that that kind of transcends the sport in a lot of ways. And it's kind of in the story of the NBA my entire life. It's a unique sport where it's very much a team sport, but compared to other team sports, it is a sport where one singular player can impact winning more than in football, more than in baseball, more than in hockey, or in any of our other major American sports. What Victor Women Yama did tonight was take that to another level. What happened in game three in Minnesota was one of the great playoff games that an individual basketball player can play in NBA history. A game that would be on Victor Women Yama's career highlight reel. It was impressive. Cause what was it, his seventh playoff game of his career or something like that eighth playoff game of his career tonight transcended that. That was quite simply one of the greatest basketball games that any human being has ever played in the history of the sport. Since James Naismith was throwing peaches in baskets or throwing a ball in a peach basket, right? This was a level of two way dominance. He was by far the best defensive player on the floor by a mile. He was by far the best offensive player on the floor by a mile. He was by far the best rebounder on the floor by a mile. He had this game by the throat and again, like it was a close game. Could have gone either way. We're going to dig into all those details, but he was plus 16 in this game. The only reason it was close late was because of some of the issues they had with their bench groups with Luke Cornett. But because of the lack of ball handling with Dear and Fox being out and Steph Castle being tasked with a high dose of ball handling responsibility that led to a lot of turnovers. Victor Weminyama, even in the face of that, strangled this game down the stretch and made every big play, including again, one of the craziest shots. Like this is a guy we're talking about that had a Shaquille O' Neal esque4020 game. And the defining moment of the game was him taking and making a 30 footer to tie the game and send it to double overtime with like 26 seconds left. He dominated the game like a center with 40 and 20 in. The defining moment was him pulling the Steph Curry in okc. There's so much to get into what he did tonight, but just to stay macro for a second, what you saw was the next great player in NBA history achieve a level of basketball that like I, I would be hard pressed to find other games where I was like that dude played better than Victor did in this game. I mean maybe it's a conversation for this off season. Certainly need to take a lot of time to start actually looking at all of the great playoff games in NBA history. But that, that is probably going to go down as one of the top two or three playoff performances by an individual basketball player ever. And to see it in that setting with the type of back and forth action that we saw down the stretch in the fourth quarter and overtime with the job that he was doing on both ends of the floor, exclamation point being just swatting the shit out of J Dub at the basket on a drive. It just was, it was, it was cinema. It was a pleasure to watch. Now the dynamic of this game was very fascinating because with Oklahoma City we talked about in the keys to the series, if you guys remember, there were several keys that I kind of dove in on. One of them was the Shay versus Deer and Fox clutch battle, like ball handling battle. That ended up being a non factor because it Deer and Fox was completely out of the game. Obviously it actually ended, it turned into like very much like there was a handful of plays made by guards, like a couple of big catch and shoot threes by guys like Julian Champagne and, and, and Devin Vassell. Dylan Harper had a handful of big drives, you know, Steph Castle had a handful of big drives. But the driving force of the offense late in the game was you can't guard Victor women, Yama on Seals around the basket. And one of the interesting things that we saw was like this dynamic where, you know, if Alex Crusoe was able to kind of push him out towards the elbows, it was tougher. But if they ran a ball screen with Steph and J Dub, then he could get J Dub kind of sealed on his top side and then the pass could go closer towards the basket. I thought J Dub was, I thought Victor looked way more comfortable against J Dub on those Seals than he did against Caruso. But even Then like there were plays where it was like, okay, now we're bringing Chet over off of Dylan Harper. Excuse me, off of Devin Vassell in the right corner. And Victor burned out a couple of times. They burned it with the drop off pass when, when Chet was guarding Dylan underneath the basket, he hit Dylan and Dylan just bodied him and got to his right hand. There was another one where they skipped the ball to the right corner and Devin Vassell hit the three. But like, again, everything that the, the spurs were able to get down the stretch for the most part was dictated by Victor in these inside seals. And the fact that the Thunder just can't do anything with them down there, like Steph Castle inverted or not inverted, regular standard ball screen that they don't want to switch drives down the lane. It dunks in in Shea Gilders Alexander's face. That's because of the gravity of Victor as a screener. The open three for, for Vassell in the corner, that's the gravity of Victor on those seals. The drop off to Dylan Harper under the basket. That's the gravity from Victor in the middle of the floor. I mean, even just something simple like San Antonio being as dominant on the glass as they were. They had 15 offensive rebounds as part of a game where they out rebounded the Thunder 61 to 40. And yes, Victor himself had nine offensive rebounds. But a big part of it is him being out there forces Oklahoma City to play without Isaiah Hartenstein on the floor, which forces them to go to a physical profile that is giving up size all over the floor to this team. Again, like there's a version of this series and this series is not over. And there's a version of this series where we leave thinking Shay is the best player. He had his opportunities tonight. And the version of it looks like every game is close and Shay just makes more big plays in close games. And that is still to this day one of the most valuable parts of winning NBA basketball games. Get it close late. We got a dude who's better in those situations, but let's stop kidding ourselves. Nobody is touching this dude in two way impact. Nobody is touching this dude in the value, the aggregate value between the offensive and defensive end of the floor. And it will require Shay to be better than Wemby in this series. It will require him being otherworldly at the end of these games. It will require him to make so many incredibly difficult shots. Because here's the thing, there's. We saw down the stretch of the game, Shea got to the basket Twice at the end of regulation, the foul that he drew on Castle and the layup, the inside hand layup that he got on on the play where Chet was in the opposite corner. Now, in the play that sent the game to overtime, it was a very simple Iverson cut, essentially meaning Shea cutting towards the strong side of the floor off of a screen and like, right around the elbows. And they cleared that left corner and they put Chet, the guy that Wemby was guarding, in the opposite corner, right. And that made Wemby want to stay home. And Shea was able to get a layup. But. And then similarly, Alex Caruso, right after he hit his seventh three, Victor, they kind of ran him. They ran Caruso to the right wing and went to a quick ISO off the left side. Shay went quick. Like, there are some things that the. The Thunder figured out in terms of, like, okay, if we clear the side and we put Victor, Victor's shooter in the opposite corner, we might be able to go quick and get Shay to a layup. But even then, it was very much Mitch Johnson being like, no threes, let him go for two. We don't want this game to be over. And so when they're in their setup game plan, the Victor Wembanyama at the rim thing is still winning in the aggregate. Again, guys like this should. This is terrifying for the Thunder in the sense that you force Steph Castle into 11 turnovers, you force 23 total turnovers for 28 points off of turnovers. Alex Caruso hits eight threes and has multiple plays where he drives closeouts and makes plays. As a team. You hit 17 threes at 38% and you lose a game because Victor women. Yama is able to transcend all of that. When we talked keys to the series, we talked, well, Fox versus Shea in the clutch. Well, Fox is out. Victor transcended that. Well, it's going to be about Alex Caruso knocking down open threes. Well, Victor transcended that. It's going to be about, can they force turnovers? Well, they did. Victor transcended that. All of the keys to the series that we Talked about went OKC's way and they lost tonight. I. I just, again, like, it just. I can't put into words enough just exactly what we witnessed. Just try as a thought exercise, start trying to think about better playoff games that you saw a basketball player play. You're going to have a hard time when you factor in what he did defensively in this game. There was a stat that went up on the screen pulling it up here because Jackson thankfully wrote it down for me. But there was a stat during the game that went up on the screen in the field goal percentage that the Thunder had when Chet was on the floor versus off. And the numbers were when Wemby was on the floor it was like 10 for 16 from the field when he was off the floor he was like 10 for 16 from the field and when he was off it was like 15 for 60. God, we Jackson and I were doing a lot of texting during this game. It was kind of insane. But the field goal percentage difference when Victor was on the floor and off the floor was shocking. It was jarring to see. I just can't say enough about what Victor did tonight. Let's dig into some of the basketball though. Lots to get into Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock Bet, Florida's sportsbook. The second round of the NBA Playoffs is here where the lights are brighter, the pressure is higher, and every possession can change a series. 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So a couple things that we saw right away from the opening tip of the game. They're trying to defend Victor and Steph with the J Dub combination with Lou Dort or the J Dub combination with Alex Caruso. The idea there being their ability to switch, right? What we saw was we saw Chet on, I believe, Julian Champeny to start and Isaiah Hartenstein on. We actually saw Isaiah Hartenstein start on Steph Castle to start this game. And they ended up moving off of that and putting Dort and J Dub and. And Caruso and J Dub throughout the rest of the game. But you could tell right away OKC's entire approach was, we are going to have Chet roam at the basket while Victor tries to attack these guys. This is where the dynamic of the. The spurs being able to hit just enough of those corner threes and they didn't even shoot particularly well tonight. They were 13 for 43 from 3, which is just 30%. But one of the things I noticed was when Victor was trying to attack Caruso straight up, he's just so good at pushing him off of his spots and forcing him out towards the elbows and not allowing him to really turn the corner or get any sort of rim pressure. Kind of a similar dynamic that we saw with him when. With Julius Randle at times and what we saw with him at like the. The big game against the Nuggets against Aaron Gordon. Right. But when they were able to set screens, what it does is it creates this dynamic where J Dub sometimes was getting caught on the top side that would create some inside feeds. And even when J Dub was able to get back around, Wemby was just way better at burying J Dub. Not just in those Seals, but also the offensive rebounds. He had a huge offensive rebound put back in double overtime that came out of one of those sequences. Again, the size dynamic favors the spurs substantially when they take Hartenstein off of the floor. And so it turns into this dynamic where, you know, Chet can help. But there's a little bit of a strength advantage too where if it's a Dylan Harper, he can kind of bury him underneath the basket and get to his strong hand. There was actually, you know, Chad had a rough game all around. But like, the biggest disappointing thing for me with Chet in this game is I just didn't think his rim protection was that impactful. There were a lot of plays where spurs guards were able to just kind of overpower him around the basket, which is a little bit concerning for the matchup. But the other thing there is those corner three point shooters. It's going to be champagne, it's going to be Devin Vassell and those are guys that are going to be able to knock down those shots in. You know, they didn't even shoot overly well today. There were six for 20 between those two guys. There's a version of that can, that can go even further against them. But the thing with Wemby is he makes the 13 from the top of the key, but he wasn't out there sinking a bunch of mid range jump shots. This was straight power on Seals going towards the basket. And the one, the one kind of wrinkle that I think Degnalt can kind of explore is he was very hesitant to put Chet Holmgren directly on Victor Wembanyama. And I, I'm not sure why he was hesitant to do it that often. He did it a handful of times and I thought Chet honestly defended him really well. And that might have to be the dynamic that they go for it. It comes with other downsides. Right. You know, every single time we talk about an adjustment, you know, there's this like kind of Monday morning quarterback thing that people can do where it's like, well, we should have just done this. And it's like, well, if you do that, it just opens up a different hole. And the thing is, is if you allow Chet Holmgren to defend Victor women Yama and you start allowing Victor women Yama to set ball screens, then you're going to have San Antonio's guards going at the basket where there's no Isaiah Hartenstein. And now you're having no rim protection against a bigger, more athletic spurs perimeter core. So like it comes with downsides. The advantage of having Victor guarded by a wing is it allows you to more frequently have Chet at the basket in help. And so it's more complicated than that. But I did think Chet held up really well against Victor one on one. And I wonder again if it's just something that we'll see them explore. One of the things we talked about before the series was that in the regular season matchups, the spurs were able to operate pretty comfortably with their ball handlers like the Thunder were not pressuring the ball at all. They were very passive in their pickup point and they were go like really allowing the spurs ball handlers to get comfortable. That could not have been further from the truth tonight. They were up in the basketball before it got across half court pressuring the hell out of those guys, which I really thought played a role into the fatigue element in forcing those turnovers. You know, there was this idea when, when, when Dear and Fox was ruled out where a lot of people were like, oh, well now you know, Dylan Harper's gonna have his shot and like they're bigger and they're more athletic and they're, they're going to be Better this way. And Dylan was fantastic, by the way. 24, 11 and 6. And his ability to overpower smaller guards is still just a massive asset in the NBA playoffs, especially against a team like Oklahoma City that depends so much on smaller guards to be able to defend in space. But one of the things that is again, just like we were talking about with the coverage thing earlier. Every single time you discuss something like that, there's trickle down effects that are, that are harder to quantify. And it's like, yeah, are they bigger and more physical defensively if Fox is off the floor and Dylan Harper's in that spot? Yeah, but they have less three point shooting. They have less ball handling. Like, Steph Castle has 11 turnovers. And some of them are classic Steph Castle turnovers. He's a little turnover prone. He will sometimes drive into the lane and try to flop and not get the call and turn the basketball over. He will drive into the lane sometimes and the team will swarm him and he'll throw a pass into someone's hands or force a bad cross court pass that ends in a turnover. But the ones that you saw tonight that were more a product of the Aaron Fox being out were like the lazy turnovers out more towards half court where you could just tell it's fatigue, like he's tired from having to bring the ball up the floor. And there's other trickle down effects. Like if, if you know Darren Fox had a 24% usage rate in this postseason run, you take him out of the equation. It foists more usage onto a guy like Steph Castle that saps his energy reserves. Now he's not as impactful defensively as he's capable of being. Like there's all sorts of trickle down effects and there's been all sorts of kind of lame discourse surrounding Deer and Fox with the spurs. And it kind of reminds me of some of the Tatum Brown discourse with the Celtics where everyone pretends like it's this, it's got to be one guy or the other thing where I just look at it as like the spurs having three awesome guards that can all dribble the basketball really well is part of what makes them so fucking hard to beat. And I think Darren Fox being out ended up being something that really hurt the spurs in this game, especially down the stretch where it turned into the only thing we could really go to was those Victor women, Yamah Seals on the interior. Now a couple other things I want to get into and then we'll get into the mailbag. There's so many angles to get into the series, and we'll get into more angles in the. In the mailbag portion. But like Victor guarding Alex Caruso, one of the things that stood out to me in the Christmas Day game in particular was it wasn't just that Caruso was missing. It's that they were, like, really wide open. They're, like, really, really wide open threes. And Caruso is just the kind of guy that I just trust to knock those shots down in any sort of big spot. He's not scared. He's, like, one of the most confident players in the league, and he also has the ability to drive closeouts a little bit, and he actually got Wemby in the first half with one of those, like, kind of driving finishes there. And, like, I just think there are some players that you could try putting Victor on in that spot that are a little bit more hesitant to. To, you know, a little bit less confident in their shot a little bit. You know, like, I think putting him on Lou Dort when he's on the floor is an option, like, late in the game, like, concede the shot to someone who's more out of rhythm, a guy like J Dub, like, on that last shot in overtime. Although J Dub did end up hitting a big shot earlier in overtime, you know, doing one of the things, you know, we talk about switching up coverages. You could do something similar with who Victor helps off of in the sense that you could go, you know, instead of having him just help off of Caruso all game, and he gets 11 wide open threes, maybe have him, like, go Crusoe for a few possessions, and then, you know, Case and Wallace for a few possessions and then AJ Mitchell for a few possessions, and just kind of mix it up in the sense that it allows you to disrupt rhythm in a different way by changing the way the team gets their shots. There was. I'm really. I really want to dive into the film on the zone look that they were going to at the end of the game, because sometimes, like, the. Like. Sometimes, like, zones like that can take a different feel because they're like, more of a matchup zone or more. It's like a strong side zone in Way. In the way that you're helping in the gaps. But I want to dive more into the. The film before I discuss the zone part of it. But that's another angle that they could go to. There's a. There. One of the things you have to be very careful of when you put Victor on a ball handler is running him through screens, right? We saw this with Terence Shannon in the Minnesota series. So that's another thing that OKC could try is essentially just have Alex Crusoe handle the ball up top and have Shea like go set a screen for him and see if he can't just get downhill to his right hand and make something happen that way. But the, the truth of the matter is, is it's a similar issue to what we talked about with Minnesota. Like OKC has a Victor Wembanyama problem and there's not a lot of great solutions. Like Shea goes 7 for 23 and do I think he can shoot better? Absolutely. He absolutely can shoot better. There were some shots, especially down the stretch, he got a couple of threes off the left wing that I thought were pretty good looks. But of those 23 shots, like 17, 18 of them are smothered, really heavily contested mid Rangers. And one of the things I talked about is in our series preview was the types of shots that Shea gets when Victor's behind him at the rim, when he's got a bigger athletic guard on him. They're not the same kinds of shots that he gets over the large sample when he shoots 58% from mid range over the large sample. And a lot of the minutes that OKC played against San Antonio in the regular season were with Victor off the floor. He was on a vic, he was on a minutes restriction in a couple of those games. He came off the bench in, in one of those games, like there's a certain amount of, it's just different the types of shots that he's going to get. And so, so much that pressure is going to be on Shea taking and making extremely difficult pull up jump shots against, you know, coverages that are overplaying the shot because Victor is back at the basket. Couple other things I want to dig into. You know, A.J. mitchell, one of the things we talked about in the last round was let's see how comfortable AJ Mitchell is working around these San Antonio guards before we start having big picture conversations about his fit on the team. Because it's just different when you're going against the lesser teams in Phoenix and in Los Angeles. And I thought the difference between J.B. dub and A.J. mitchell was readily apparent tonight in the sense that, okay, J Dub's ability to just be one of the bigger, more athletic players on the floor that can get to his spots in the mid range in traffic and knock down tougher shots in a bigger, more physical environment is just a reminder that it's like, okay, like I don't need to see any more. I texted a buddy of mine, like at half, I texted Carson like halfway through the game and I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I don't need to see any more. AJ Mitchell can't replace J Dub. J Dub does something completely different in terms of his size and physicality and what he can do defensively and, and just, it just is tough. And then like you can tell when they go to Jared McCain, when they go to some of these other guards, it just opens the door for them to get attacked. It's like, okay, Jared McCain's now getting physically overwhelmed by Devin Vassell on the glass. Now Dylan Harper is going right at Jared McCain and getting to his spots on the inside. Like it just create smaller matchups for the, for the spurs to attack with their guards, but not a lot of answers, not a whole lot that they can do. I, I like the cleared side stuff, but there's a, there's a, an adjustment there with the Spurs. Just have Victor Weminyama come over and help. And now we're playing in rotation. Good luck hitting threes against our contests in rotation. There's the, you know, you can try putting Alex Crusoe in action, but they're going to have solutions for that too. What if Victor just goes way under everything and just dares Alex to shoot off the triple threes? Right? Like, there's just a lot of really troubling dynamics and so many different things went OKC's way between the three point shooting, between the forcing of turnovers. It just, it just didn't matter because they have a Victor Weyama problem and I'm yet to see an NBA team really solve that problem on either end of the floor. All right, I know there's a hundred more angles to get into, but let's get into the chat and let's kind of work through it with you guys on that front.
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A
Habanero.
- [34:28]
B
More like habanero. Yes. Save the everyday with Amazon.
- [34:36]
C
Let's do it. What a game. We are going to start with some super chats. First one big big 20 super chat from Bryce. Thank you Bryce. He said, he said the WEMBY3 comes a decade after the step three in the same spot, same arena. The confidence to take that three for his first three of the game. This dude is going to be a legend. Not a question but a statement of fact.
- [34:57]
A
Yeah, you know it was interesting because on the previous possession they had just got a look for champagne off of a flare screen on the left wing that I actually thought was a pretty decent look. Like champagne and Castle got a lot of good looks in this game but it, it was one of those things where it felt like, it felt like their only chance to tie the game was going to be hitting a three and when one be caught it. Alex was dropping off and you could tell right away that he wanted to take it. And like again the confidence from the, from the super chat perfectly put the confidence to be like it. I'm taking this thing, you know and one of the things that can be really nice like those of you guys who have played any of you aggressive jump shooters out there. I know, I know we have a few of you guys in the chat if you're an aggressive jump shooter. There's something about a deep three that like there a regular standard catch and shoot three is such a refined muscle memory and it can be a touch short or a touch long based on just something being off in the chemistry of the. Or often like the, the energy transfer along the way that can leave a shot to be shorter, long. There's something about a deep three that it's like you just let it fly and you shoot it with a lot of power and not a lot of regret. And like it just was. You could just tell he got his lift and he just committed to it and he knocked it down and like quite literally one of the biggest shots in the history of the league. That was just, that was an insane shot.
- [36:24]
C
Insane shot. Insane shot. We got a multiple super chats just about Wemby in general. Wemby, let's, let's call it like it is. He's the best player in the world. We got someone saying is having Wemby unfair for the Spurs? A lot of Wemby discourse. Obviously I know you've sort of been vocal about the, the two way impact of Wemby, but can we, it's, it's official, right? I mean this is the best player in the world
- [36:49]
A
again. So let's, let's, let's. I said before the series to be clear that I wasn't going to determine who I thought was the best player in the world based on just who won the series. So for example, like let's say Shay does hit one of those step back threes late. Wemby so badly outplayed him in this game and he could have gone down 1 0. Now Wemby snatched it right back from him and that's, that's why. But like it's almost like to me you're, you're making the first turn in a race and Victor just has a massive lead. But ultimately if the Thunder can keep every game close and it Shade just is surgical in four of the games late and does a bunch of big time shot making in the spurs in the Thunder win this series anyway, like that's where I go back to the conversation that Jackson and I had. Jackson made this point and it, I think it's very fair. I think it's complicated but it's fair. Which is still the most valuable thing in the sport is we're in a close game late and who can like get us the better shots. And I would argue that like if the spurs lose this series because shay just hits 17 tough step back jumpers over the final six minutes of four different clutch games, that, that would be a pretty strong case for him in the context of being the guy who plays 75 games every year and that has a certain amount of reliability and you can push his minutes and all that kind of stuff. But like in terms of just two way overall impact, it's Wemby by a mile right now. I think it's going to be by mile. Like who's close? Like Jokic, nobody's close. Like Shay was getting subbed out on a key defensive possession late in this game. Like it's, it's, it's not close. And so to me, like what I mean what I said earlier, like, can Shea flip the script on this? Yeah, because I'm not gonna give anything out over Game 1 of a series, but he is going to have to be. Do you understand how good of a big shot, tough shot maker you have to be to. To overcome the type of two way impact that Wemby has? Like it's. And look at the difficulty of these shots. Like it's going to be extremely tough. And so I, yeah, like, I like it's, it ain't over but like it's one of those things where. Remember when we watched, what was it, Jake Paul fight the. The real boxer and like after round one you're like oh shit. That was kind of how I felt like after tonight I was like oh shit. Like, like Victor's just better than this dude.
- [39:26]
C
Yeah, I did think, at least in regulation I thought Shea led it and the Thunder definitely got better shots down the stretch. They definitely got better shots. And when, when we just, you know, they just made it, were able to send it to overtime, but they definitely got better shots on the stretch of regulation. I think that didn't. Wasn't quite as dramatic of a gap in the. In overtime. Obviously not in double over time. But I mean it's gonna be, it's gonna be interesting to see what shake and do in the clutch of these games. We just got another.
- [39:51]
A
Let's dig into that concept really quick. By the way, like I. How much do you think Deer and Fox being out affected the shot dynamic down the stretch? Just curious.
- [39:59]
C
I think it definitely, I think it definitely hurts. I think it definitely hurts. I don't know who he's like, they don't have like a real good mismatch to attack though. It's not like you're going to Fox isos. I. I Would not say so. I do think, I think the Fox stuff hurts more over in the, in the Grant in the 48 minutes or you know, 58 minutes of tonight than specifically like with one minute to go.
- [40:25]
A
I think so. I, I think it's complicated on a couple different levels because one, San Antonio did still win this game because Victor women Yama does bring a certain amount of indomitable. Indomitable inside seal stuff, dear. And Fox is a very different type of guard than Steph Castle and Dylan Harper, he's a speed guard and so I wonder if it turns into a matchup where by virtue of Deer and Fox being out there, if he is a little too fast for like J Dub or Caruso, if it forces them to guard him with AJ Mitchell or with Case and Wallace which then turns the two man game into something they can't switch. I'm not 100 sure that'll be the case, but I do think it'll flip the dynamic a little bit. Overall though, I do agree with you Jackson in the sense that like I don't think San Antonio is going to win this series by winning four clutch games.
- [41:21]
C
No, I don't think so.
- [41:23]
A
Yeah. Like I think, I think the way they win is they go back to San Antonio and they win by 10:15 in a couple of those games and
- [41:29]
C
like it's getting a clutch game was massive for them.
- [41:31]
A
Yeah. Oh, I 100% agree with you. And so I think, I think you, you make a good point there.
- [41:37]
C
All right, next one. We got a lot of super chats. We're not going to be able to get to all of them. Thank you guys so much. Please like the video, subscribe to the channel. This super chat from Ender Blazer, he said how good is Dylan Harper? Is he starting over Fox next year? A lot of, I mean Harper was, was really good tonight for the most part, but I, A lot of the chat discourse is trade Fox. Harper's the guy and I'm not sure I quite saw it that way. I'd be curious your. Your sort of take.
- [42:02]
A
Yeah, I, I don't see it that way either because Victor Wimanyama just kind of allows you to play multiple guards. I think, I think how this story ends is Harper becomes a better three point shooter and they move the cell to the bench and I think it's a three. I think they go three guards because Harper is a big physical dude who like defends. Like, like. Yeah, like we didn't even mention this by the way. I, I feel, I would feel remiss if I didn't mention this, I thought Devin Vassell's block on Chad Holmgren at the end was massive. It was unbelievable play. Unbelievable play, Unbelievable play.
- [42:43]
C
There were like 10 different unbelievable defensive plays and just plays in general. And that block was ridiculous.
- [42:52]
A
Like, he's been making similar plays like that this entire postseason, for the record. But that was, that was, that was outrageous. But I do think ultimately the. The. What happens is, is Victor Wembanyama gives you the flexibility to play three guard lineups.
- [43:08]
C
That.
- [43:08]
A
That's really the key. And what I envision the spurs being in the long run is Fox, Castle, Harper in this devastating dribble drive attack alongside Wemby and some four. Whether it's Julian Champagne in the long run or they make some deal to anchor that position in the long run. But I, I don't think, I don't view it as a downside. And like, I really do think in the modern NBA there's actually value in having tons of dudes on the floor that can put the ball on the floor. Like, I even take it a step further. Like, I thought some of the best shots the Thunder got down the stretch were on like multiple driving kick sequences where dudes are in rotation. And that opens up a window for Lou Dort to cut back door, you know, or multiple dudes are in rotation and now, you know, there is a lane for someone to shoot down and, you know, slip something in around the basket before Wemby can get there. You know what I mean? Let me real quick just share a couple stats with you because this is, this is crazy. The thunder generated 26 unguarded catch and shoot threes tonight. 26, okay. They made 15 of them. Wow. That's 1.73 points per attempt. So we talk about coverage beaters all the time. They beat the coverage all night long and it didn't matter. So.
- [44:31]
C
So 1.73 points for attempt. And what was their offensive rating for the game?
- [44:36]
A
Because then the offensive rating for the game, let's see, half court was. Yeah. By the way, remember how I was real quick, Remember how I was talking about how, like, I didn't think that was a zone? I thought it was like a strong side zone. Synergy didn't log that as a zone. I'm really interested to watch those possessions when we get into the. The tape later. Okay, so you had a half court advantage, 0.96 to 0.90 the overall.
- [45:01]
C
I. What I'm getting at is I. If you go 1 point, 1.73 for the wide open catch and shoot threes. That means every other possession they're at
- [45:11]
A
like you're getting nothing. 6.
- [45:14]
C
I don't know exactly what the math is there, but it's. Your offense is absolute garbage when you're not trying to beat the coverage. The way the coverage is, is what the coverage is giving you.
- [45:25]
A
103 was their offensive rating for the game. But yeah, like, like to your point, like they, they, they made every single open catch and shoot three that they could have made. Like relative to expectation, like more than they could have made. By the way, to the, to the spurs credit, they shot pretty well too. They were on 10 or 12 unguarded catching two threes. They got 1.25 points per attempt. I think that comes out to like 5 for 12. I have to look at the numbers again, but I think it's five for 12. So like they, they, they were shooting the ball really well themselves and but yeah, like San Antonio took 27 guarded catch and shoots, which is a credit to OKC's closeouts and I've noticed that on the film. I thought OKC's closeouts were really sharp. Like those corner threes that Vassell and Champagne hit down the stretch were heavily contested by Chad. Heavily contested. Big time shots.
- [46:13]
C
I was thinking about the Cell stuff more as you were looking up those stats and I. His athletic in position I think is just so underrated like he is. Oh yeah, super, super, super athletic. That block on Chet, obviously that late offensive rebound tip out he had, he looked like oh my God, that was unbelievable how he tipped that back out. He does that a lot too. I think as you're talking about if they're going to start three guards going forward, I mean they're like pretty small if they send Champagne to the bench instead of the Cell. But like their best five players are Fox, Castle, Harper, the Cell and Wembanyama.
- [46:48]
A
Do you think? I think, you know, I think they could close with those four and one.
- [46:52]
C
I think they, I think they're going to close with those. With that. With that group once, once with it once. Once they get a more fully formed. Like not, maybe not this season but I think next season you're probably closing with Fox, Harper, Castle, the Cell, Wemby.
- [47:05]
A
That's how this series probably gets determined is Fox out there with the, with the three other young guards and like they're not giving up size with how big Steph Castle is and how big Dylan Harper is and like how athletic Devin Vasella is and dear Fox is one of the fastest players on the floor and like brings more ball handling. Like it just. This is like this is what makes this such a fascinating series is like OKC clearly has an experience advantage. They were way less mistake prone tonight.
- [47:34]
C
Way less.
- [47:35]
A
OKC clearly has the best perimeter player in the series by a mile. But San Antonio is such a unique combination of Victor plus athleticism on the perimeter that they're just a really difficult matchup for the Thunder.
- [47:49]
C
They are. And I do think to get back to the. We got another super chat question about Fox and Harper. We've gotten a lot of questions about that. Harper almost turned it over all over like four times in the last.
- [47:59]
A
Yeah.
- [48:00]
C
In like the last minute of regulation and then overtime and then double overtime.
- [48:04]
A
Like he looks a little shaky.
- [48:05]
C
He looks pretty shaky. Like he's a freak athlete and he's super strong but his handle is not like super, super, super, super, super tight. He's 20 years old. I'm not expecting it to be. But he's not. It's not super, super, super tight at this point. I mean going against the OKC defense at least. So I do think Fox at least for this playoff run and I still think going forward. I agree with you. Is still crucial for this, for this roster.
- [48:28]
A
Yeah, I don't think that that, that to me is like has been one of those classic like NBA Twitter topics. That's just a nothing burger to me. Every time I hear it I'm just like yeah, like I I want Fox on this.
- [48:41]
C
And it's not like Harper is in year four of. It's not. He's not extension eligible. Like he's in his first season. They just don't have to do anything right now. Why would.
- [48:48]
A
No.
- [48:48]
C
Why would they break this up right now? There's just no need to do it.
- [48:51]
A
I 100 agree. Like it's just not. And when. You know what like if. If with the way they've managed their assets, if there's a situation down the line where they need to shed his salary, they can do it and still maintain flexibility. Like I just. For sure it was. Trust me, as this series progresses, you're going to be glad dear. And Fox is on this team. And it was. What was the Deer and Fox move? We discussed this last last year the whole time. Victor Womenyama was so good last year that it became clear that you couldn't wait for everyone else to catch up. Now what made this year so fascinating is Steph and Dylan were so good so fast that they were able to kind of Meet the moment for Wemby, more than you thought. And I'd argue tonight is a great example. Like for, for the 11 turnovers that Steph had. He had 11 assists and some beautiful feeds across the court to beat Low man held unbelievable passes.
- [49:51]
C
Crazy dude.
- [49:52]
A
The, the late one, the last one at the end of the third quarter.
- [49:56]
C
Yeah.
- [49:56]
A
Or he just methodically put his defender in jail and went across the court. Insane pass. But like Deer and Fox was a move to attempt to bridge the gap between the young guys being ready and hopefully meeting Wemby's ability to compete right now. And now it's a luxury because like, like I, the whole game I'm sitting there watching like, man, if the spurs had one more ball handler, like this would make a huge difference.
- [50:24]
C
Right?
- [50:24]
A
So, like, I, I just don't. I think people overthink this stuff. Like, I, I like Big shock. You need more talented basketball players, not less.
- [50:34]
C
Right. Like, looking at the contracts, The Fox contract, 4 years, 222 million start kicks in next season. So that's. You have a, you have two more seasons minimum of this group before Harper is even extension eligible. And at that point you've cut the contract in half, making it way more tradable. And by the time the cap numbers rise, like it's a percentage, but still, like, it's not going to feel there's going to be more ways to match salaries. From a trade exchange standpoint, there's just no real rush. And the next season he's making 50 million. By 2030, he's making 60, which certainly feels emotionally harder for Dear and Fox, but I just don't think there's any sort of rush, personally.
- [51:16]
A
He's also like, this isn't Zach Levine, right? Like, good. He's a good basketball player. Like, he's an overpaid basketball player, but he's a good basketball player. And like, it just. And he's 28 years old. So like, there's not like there's going to be some team out there that also has some sort of like, bad expiring contract that puts himself in a position where they're like, we're like, I just don't think it's going to be an issue in, in the long run. And like San Antonio just has all these young players that are good that are on rookie contracts, like Carter Bryant. Like, look at the individual defense he played on Shake Eldritch Alexander tonight. He had a big three as well. He did have that one crazy play where he like ran up on Steph while He was like, isoing and then, like, tripped over him and then like, jacked up a three at the end of the clock. Yeah, that was. What was funny is like, the spurs made all sorts of young team mistakes tonight. Like all sorts of young team mistakes tonight. And it just, you know, Victor was just that good.
- [52:09]
C
We got a couple of chat questions. We could take a couple more about some X's and O's things, which we will do. I'm sure. We'll do a film breakdown on Wednesday, most likely.
- [52:16]
A
Yeah, we're gonna do film on Wednesday.
- [52:18]
C
Game one of both series. But the questions tonight, you can sort of pick and choose which one you want to go with. First one was the spurs spammed the Castle Wemby pick and roll at the end of the game. Is that the right move? Obviously that calculus sort of changes when Darren Fox returns, but in general is sort of just spamming pick and roll with ball handler and Victor Wembanyama. The right way to go from a clutch offense standpoint. And then the second question is on the. Is still sort of on that side of the ball, but more of a thunder focus. Do you see or, sorry, do you see Chet being guarded guarding Wemby more full time next game? And do you see Wemby guarding Chet more next game? Like, do you see both of them sort of matching up with each other? Because it did feel like Caruso was beating the coverage and also attacking the closeouts.
- [52:57]
A
So you can sort of pick and
- [52:58]
C
choose sort of which end of the floor you want to go with first.
- [53:00]
A
But yeah, it was bizarre how little they were guarding each other. I did think that was fascinating because that's the obvious adjustment for San Antonio as well, which is like, we now they ended up leaving Alex Crusoe open in the left corner anyway at a strong side corner help from a guard late in the game. But Wemby Chet has a slower release that's a little bit more of a load up. And there's also, like, chat's not as confident as Alex. So, like, I think that would be something that Wemby could prey on a little bit. I think in general, that's. I think that's going to be the matchup over the course of the series that both teams have to lean on more because Wemby will have more ability to roam at the rim without giving up as many uncontested threes as they gave up. And then on the other end of the floor, like, it's just. And we didn't even talk. Like, we didn't even talk about how Victor just fucking dunked all over Chet's face at the end of the game off that.
- [53:53]
C
Chad had him early. Chad got multiple huge stops early. But that dunk and, and yell at Chad at the end was awesome.
- [53:59]
A
Oh my God. Ridiculous. But like, I think Chet gives them a better chance to fight that off. I think where it could get tricky is like one of the things that Chet did a great job of on his isos against Wemby defensively was he pushed him out and it turned into a face up game from like 15, 20ft. So he was able to beat him to spots and use his quickness. I think one of the things you'll see if they put Chet on Wemby full time or for more time is you'll see more of an effort to get Wemby deeper position. And there is a certain amount of like. And we did see this on a late possession against Chet and help where Wemby just powered through him with his left shoulder and got to the little bank shot with his right hand. But Wemby, I think if he gets deep position can overpower Chet in an, in a way that can be problematic too. So that again, like every time you make an adjustment, there's trickle down effects and things get more complicated. But like, I just thought out of all the looks tonight, that was the one that seemed to like actually make Wemby think about it in process and make some pretty ugly errors like those. The ISOs against chat weren't like, oh, he got good looks and missed like they were not good looks. Like he was rumbling, stumbling and throwing up. So like, I do think that that's something we'll see more of.
- [55:13]
C
Agreed. Okay. I feel like there's still like 50 things to talk about about this game. Like, I don't even know. I'm not sure if we should just talk more about it or. I mean, that was crazy.
- [55:22]
A
Let's go ten more minutes.
- [55:23]
C
That. That was. It was. It was crazy. I. I was surprised. I'm curious of your take about rotations. We can talk about the rotations a little bit. The spurs starters all played a heavy, heavy, heavy. I mean, it's a long game, but they played heavy percentage wise minutes more than the Thunder did. Do you think that that's a good. I mean, again, the Fox thing, it just sort of changes a lot of the spurs calculus a little bit. But I was a little bit surprised. Not, not that much. Keldon Johnson. And then I was curious about your take on the Thunder rotations. I thought the broadcast did a good job of pointing out Hardenstein basically matched Cornett for minutes after the early part of the game. Game rotations wise, what is your sort of big picture takeaways? But, you know, the Fox thing is tough. But aside from that, what is your takeaways on the rotations?
- [56:08]
A
I. I did think it was really fascinating how quick Dagnaut was to be like, all right, this is what we got to do. And he just, like, just changed. There was no around in this one. Like, came out early with his bigs. Defending perimeter players immediately was like, okay, Hartenstein can't be on the flight. Like, there was this hilarious video where, I don't know if you saw it, but Hartenstein was working on baseline floaters. And I had mentioned after an earlier. An earlier game this postseason, I was like, if I was this Thunder assistant coaches, I'd be, like, standing under the basket with a broom, just swatting head shots and just have their practice. There's literally a video of Hartenstein working on his lefty floater over a dude with like. Like. Looks like one of those pugil sticks. Like, a big stick with, like, a pad at the end, and he's just up there, like, swinging at the ball. It is so funny because he misses one at the beginning of the game, right? And then it's like, actually, Isaiah, none of that matters. We're just not gonna let you play against
- [57:03]
C
no more.
- [57:03]
A
Like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, this ain't gonna go. And, like, you could argue that Mark might have punted on it a little too early, and who knows? Maybe he'll experiment with Hartenstein, and maybe he'll just give him a longer leash in game two. One of the things that can happen, too, in, you know, as a series progresses is, like, if a game gets out of hand, then you can give a longer leash. So, like, let's say the Thunder come out just desperate, and they go up seven, eight points early in game two. You give Hartenstein a longer leash, maybe. You know, now, to be clear, Mark started Hartenstein on the bench in the second half, so maybe he just starts him on the bench to start game two. But the point is, like, if OKC gets a big lead and goes up by, like, 15, 20 points in game two, maybe they just give Hartenstein some burn against Wemby to see if he gets. Gets just a little bit more of, like, a. A feel for how to play with him on the court. But, like, the. The. The. The. The. The thing with the Caruso staggering, I thought was Fascinating because Wemby usually comes out, like, about five minutes left in the first quarter, five minutes left in the third quarter. They brought him out with, like, six and a half minutes left in the third quarter because Caruso checked in, which I thought was fascinating. So, like, there was a little bit of, like, a. Let's try to stagger Wemby without Alex Caruso out there, because Alex Caruso can be such a pain in the ass. But then Dagnal just immed Caruso out again. And then, like, you can see they're, like, kind of messing with the matchups as much as they can. Pushing the minutes is something that you can do or get away with under the circumstances that you're young and you're athletic and you can bounce back relatively quickly. I don't think Mitch Johnson would have pushed the minutes the way he did if he didn't view this as such a must win. Jackson text me with, like, couple minutes left in the. The first overtime, I think, and he's like, whoever loses this game, it's a disaster for. And it just is, like, a disaster. It reminds me of, like, when you're watching a big Major League baseball playoff game and it goes to, like, a 16th, 17th inning, and both team just, like, burns through their entire bullpen. And then you're like, oh, like, well, now we lost and our bullpen is gassed and we have a game tomorrow night. And it's like that. That dynamic can be. It's one of those things where, for the spurs now, even if everyone looks gassed and they lose game two, you did your job. You. You split the. The. The road games. Now you have a chance to go home and try to end this thing. But, like, on the. The Thunder front, let's be clear, like, they. They are deeper. Like, if you look at the guys that played and, like, obviously, like, Dort didn't play much and, you know, Jackson texted me this, and I wholeheartedly agreed. Any great matchup for Dort, He's. He's shorter than. Than both Caruso and J Dub. His lack of ball handling and shooting is, like, a legitimate problem in this matchup with the way they're being guarded and Hartenstein's not playing. So you'd have Chet Shea and J Dub, but, like, Alex Crusoe is a legitimate guy that can play closing minutes for you. Casen Wallace is a legitimate guy that can play closing minutes for you, and A.J. mitchell is a legitimate guy who can play closing minutes for you. So, like, they have, you know, in Hardenstein and Dort can close against most teams in the league. So this is the wonderful thing about having legitimately like eight starting caliber players is you just have the ability to kind of keep minutes down and manage this a little bit. But, I mean, Shea still played 51, and he's gonna have to bounce back and be ready to hit shots. He's ironically one of the older players in this series, like, with. With how long he's been around. And I, I just think the spurs made the right move going all in for the record too. Like, Kelden played well. Like, Kelden made a big mistake getting back cut by Dort, and we didn't see him again after that, if I remember correctly. But like, Kelden hit some massive threes in the early part of this game. Carter Bryant played some great defense. Like, the Cornet shifts were brutal, but, like, they were really bad at the beginning and they held up a little bit better as the game went along. I thought Cornette would look just like, shaky. Like, he had this literally one of the worst triple handoff passes I've ever seen. And then he had a play where he was. He was wide open on a slip and he like, just fumbled the basketball away on a play where he should have had a dunk. Like, Cornette was rough. Like, he could probably play better, but, like, this is worth having. Dear and Fox. Dear Fox is their sixth starter. Dear Fox is their sixth dude that can play in this series, in this moment. He could like, if. If Fox is out there. Champagne plays probably 39 instead of 44 minutes. You know, Vassell plays 44 minutes instead of 51 minutes. Harper instead of playing 47 minutes, plays 37 minutes. Like, everyone kind of has a more manageable role if. If Fox is out there.
- [61:34]
C
Yeah. It's funny looking at the. The minute totals because the, the when Cornet is on the floor, it just feels like everything is. The world is crashing down on the Spurs. Oh, it feels. It feels like it's taking forever for him to get off the court. And he only played nine minutes. It's like he didn't even really play that much. I am looking at the minute, just looking at the minute totals. I'm surprised only 10 minutes from Jalen Williams. Jay Will.
- [61:57]
A
Yeah, Thunder.
- [61:58]
C
I feel like because of. To your point about Chet's three point shot being a little slower, being a little less, like, aggressive, if there's a contest there, Jalen Williams does not have that problem.
- [62:09]
A
And.
- [62:09]
C
And it does feel like offensively is where they had more challenges than defensively. So I Would not be surprised if there's more Jalen Williams. I would play more Jane Williams.
- [62:18]
A
So I think one of the things that makes the Jalen Williams minutes less important in this matchup is when he's not guarding him. Like, he didn't shoot a 3 in his 10 minutes on the floor. If he's the guy that Wemby's daring to shoot, then it makes some sense. But like, instead it's like, he's not really like, because Wemby's guarding guards for the most part. Like, and one of the other things too that they can do with the geometry of the floor is like, you want to know why Victor came out of the timeout on the final player regulation, getting ready to guard Caruso, and then he decides to switch into go guard chat in the corner. The reason for that is he wants to be in low man position. And you'll see the spurs do this a lot where Victor will just kind of pre switch guys. He'll just point at guys like, hey, you go up, you go up. I'm staying on the guy in the corner. And like, there are some things that the Thunder can do in general to try to like, essentially force Victor to be in positions where he has a little bit of a harder decision because of the guy that happens to be in the corner. But like, again, like, I think, I think Jalen Williams, too, it just, he prevents. It presents another kind of target for the spurs to go out with their guards and ball screens too. So it's just tough. It's a tough matchup. And like, it's very clear that Mark Dagnan broke glass in case of emergency and said, we're playing small. We're playing small and I'm going fast and we're going to try to beat these guys with our small, fast guys. And to your point, I wonder in general, maybe it's not Jalen Williams, maybe it's. It's more Hartenstein. But I wonder if in general he goes like, let's try to be bigger at some point in the series. If he just says it, let's just go small ball the whole time. It's going to be interesting to see.
- [63:53]
C
That's going to be really interesting to see. Okay, I feel like we can call it a night. I feel like we can call it a night. I don't know. I'm still kind of vibrating from that game. That was. That was.
- [64:03]
A
All right, guys, that is all we have for tonight. As always, we sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We are going to do a film session on Wednesday morning that goes over just kind of the chess match from each of the first two games of the series and talk a little bit about the Eastern Conference finals at that point as well as always because again, I want to be able to hit both series in the film session. So those of you guys who are looking for some more film and some adjustments and stuff as we go into Game two, keep an eye on our feed on Wednesday morning. That video will be out nice and early and we'll have plenty of time to watch before we get into Game two. But again, that was epic. The Eastern Conference finals have a lot to live up to now, unfortunately, but let's see if Jalen Bronson, Donovan Mitchell and the guys can put on a show again. As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting with us, supporting us and rocking with the show. We will see you guys tomorrow night live on YouTube after the final buzzer of Knicks Caps.
- [65:02]
C
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- [66:48]
B
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A
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C
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B
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A
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