← The Zach Lowe Show
The Zach Lowe Show
Cavs on the Ropes, Thunder and Nuggets Trade Blows, and Potential Giannis Trades With Rob Mahoney
01:29:13
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- [00:00]
Zach Lowe
You're listening to the Zach Lowe show sponsored by FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook has made it easier than ever to get in on the action during an NBA playoff game. That's right now, even after tip off. Just look for the live SGP tab on the FanDuel Sportsbook app and build your bet slip. Then sit back, relax and track the outcome of your parlay right in the app. And if you don't already have it, download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more the ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 and over in President Select State's gambling problem. Call 1-800- GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com you want control of your financial future and Schwab knows that. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, we give you more choices like full service, wealth management and advice when you need it most. You can also invest on your own and trade on thinkorswim, our powerful, award winning trading platforms. Plus, you'll get low costs, transparent pricing and 247 live help. Because at Schwab, we understand it's your financial journey and we believe you should have choices in how you invest. Visit schwab.com to learn more. All right, coming up on a loaded Zach Lowe show, we got Rob Mahoney on the lottery. The new Giannis news courtesy of espn. Woo Thunder Nuggets developing into a classic. Cavs, Pacers, not so much. All things playoffs. Giannis Lottery coming up with Rob Mahoney, the one and only on the Zach Lowe Show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. It's Monday morning, I'm in Chicago, the lottery is tonight. And the lottery got a whole lot Interesting about 30 minutes ago when Sham Strania at ESPN dropped what really sounds like a Giannis trade request soft launch, reporting that he is open to considering a future that best fits him outside of Milwaukee. Hasn't made any decisions yet. Look, we've been down this road with Giannis before. He's tiptoed to the edge twice at least and tiptoed right back when the Bucks made game changing trades for Jrue Holiday and then Damian Lillard. The difference now, as we have talked about before Rob Mahoney is that I don't see a game changing trade that exists now. That Dame has sadly torn his Achilles and is almost 35 years old. Rob Mahoney waking up early on the west coast to join us. How are you?
- [02:28]
Rob Mahoney
I'm doing great. I'm just happy for you, Zach. You know, really, whatever icebreakers you had planned for the lottery room, you can throw them in the trash. You know, you get your easy material right here asking every, anyone and everybody about Giannis and his future and what's going to happen here. And it's, I think what makes it exciting is that it's anybody's guess.
- [02:44]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, it's going to be Giannis talk over turkey sandwiches and a little bit of pasta salad. Maybe they bring in there sometimes. It's not. It's not a terrible spread. There would be coffee if you want coffee at 6pm you can have some coffee maybe. And then we'll all watch together as someone gets their heart broken on live television and someone is elated. Look, we talked about this after the Dame injury two weeks ago. Exactly. And it's just a matter of Giannis and the Bucs, the Bucs and Giannis, whatever order it happens in, just both coming to grips with the fact that it's over. He cannot win big, big, big in the near to medium term future with the Milwaukee Bucks. And the only question that matters is, does he care? If he cares, do the Bucs care? They surely see the writing on the wall. They surely know in some part of their soul what would be ideal for their long term situation. Even though it's going to be tricky to get any of their own picks back and thus tricky to tank in a time when they should tank. Even if they trade Giannis, that's going to be tricky. And then there's just a conversation to be had. Do we care? Do you care? Are you okay with this? Am I okay with that? Do I demand this? Do I demand that? This is a pretty big trickle out there that we are heading in that direction. It's lottery day. The lottery could, you know, it's going to be interesting. Like, does Houston move in to the top four? They have the Phoenix pick. Do the spurs move into the top four? Just keep their two picks. They have their own pick and Atlanta's pick. Would they dare dip their toe into the honest waters? Who the hell knows what else could happen? But. But the lottery could. Could infringe on this as well. I mean, I don't know. I was going to ask you just first reaction. I'm guessing your first reaction is like, okay, this like, totally tracks with the NBA offseason calendar. Like, big news event happening today. Cooper flag lottery. A really, a really pretty strong top Five, six in the draft. Big news. Semi scoop, moving the football a little bit down the field. And now we all talk about it. None of it is shocking, right?
- [04:48]
Rob Mahoney
It's not shocking. I will say this one does feel materially different from those last times that Giannis has sort of walked to the precipice a little bit and as you said, ultimately walked back like this feels because of the lack of alternatives for the Bucks, like Giannis ringing the bell for the opening of the market, a little bit of willingness to at least explore these other possibilities. This isn't like fully, Giannis and the Bucks mutually agree to part ways, but it's maybe as close to something like that as we're going to get. And I think it is meaningful in that way. Right. This is an honest invitation to the rest of the league to say, let's talk about this. Let's think about what these best situations could be, because Giannis is one of these players who has the same conundrum many superstars do, which is by the time you can get enough stuff together to trade for him, what will be left of your team and what will be left of the championship contention that he's so clearly after and we have to give our salute to. Inshoms Report. I'm just so glad that Thanasis podcast Finalysis could get the official Giannis quote for such an occasion. It's just an incredible gift for the.
- [05:51]
Zach Lowe
I missed this. I skimmed the bottom half of it. What. What is. What is the quote? Well, it's just happened.
- [05:56]
Rob Mahoney
The. The only quote from Giannis in the story is from Thanasis podcast, basically saying, from Giannis, I. I want to compete for championships, et cetera, et cetera. It's pretty boilerplate stuff, but, you know, you got to go straight to the source for these things.
- [06:09]
Zach Lowe
When did that happen? Is that an old podcast or is that, like, out today? Is this all morning?
- [06:13]
Rob Mahoney
This is not a media front. I think it may be a couple weeks old at this point.
- [06:18]
Zach Lowe
Okay, well, props to Thanasis, who good get up until now has just been talking shit to everybody from the first row in Milwaukee and annoying everybody and exchanging some. Some fun banter. Well, you'd hit the nail on the head. I mean, this is the dilemma for every team, right, that, that every time a superstar gets traded. We talked about it with Durant is you, you gotta go. This is a win now situation like, yeah, cool. Charlotte gets the number one pick and trades Lamello ball in a million picks for Giannis. Like, what good Giannis, nothing. So Lottery or no lottery, I think we can like outline the general landscape of teams. And by the way, not only does the lottery matter, the playoffs matter. And you and I both are like absolutely salivating to talk about this delicious Thunder Nuggets series that is now 2:2. And when it looked like the Thunder were reeling in the third quarter of that game before their bench guys bailed them out with zone threes. Huge game for those guys. We'll talk about it, please. I started kind of just think, you know, playing in the podcast, like if they lose this series, what doors does that suddenly open up for them with the biggest trove of assets in the league.
- [07:27]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [07:27]
Zach Lowe
Now we kind of table that for a day because they, they got an absolutely enormous gut check. Road win. But okay, just here are the teams. Houston, they're in the lottery today. We, we know they just lost in the first round. They can talk about continuity all they want. Giannis is Giannis. Brooklyn, like Houston, Brooklyn has a million picks and a million picks that are on other teams too. So Milwaukee can bet against as many teams as it can, which is their best case scenario if they can't get back any of their own picks. Miami. I've said before, I don't know that Miami has enough to realistically compete with these teams if they all get into it. New York has been mentioned. Talk about the playoffs mattering. They are currently up 2:1 against the Celtics who remembered how to shoot and run a functional NBA offense in game three. Game four is tonight. We'll talk about it later. The towns thing has been mentioned. Yeah, unless there's like a three or four team trade, I don't really understand what the point of that is for Milwaukee, but whatever. We'll mention the Knicks, Orange and blue skies, etc. Celebrities galore, Timothy Chalamet, the whole thing. Lottery relevant. The spurs just throwing it out there. Yep. Wemby and Giannis on the same team. I don't really understand what would happen. I don't, I don't like if the space time continuum would like break in two. I don't know. Oklahoma City, I mentioned Toronto has been mentioned. They've been linked to Giannis before. They were actually my sneaky favorite Durant theoretical team when the Durant trade request first broke just because of the Scotty Barnes piece of if I'm the Nets. That was the one asset I was going to go try to get because Toronto at that point still had their veteran guys and you could say if they get Giannis plus Anunoby plus Siakam Whatever. That could be a real team. Give me Scotty Barnes on the pick. Who knows? Strike your fancy at all? Who would be most Giannis ready? I mean, you could sit here and nitpick like Giannis and Sengun. Is that a great fit? Giannis and Wembanyana, is that a great fit? At some point it's like, well, it is Giannis and he is a two time mvp. His aging curve is going to be a little bit more uncertain than superstars of his level because of his shaky jump shot. But it's Giannis. And sometimes you just have to say, we'll figure those questions out later for sure.
- [09:32]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, many of those teams strike my fancy because Giannis with any team is going to be really exciting to see. The there's two teams I have not seen mentioned much and I'm curious to get your take on them, if they have any place in this conversation at all. One of them is a new entrant based on current events. If you're the Cleveland Cavaliers, do you have to have a talk about Darius Garland? About. And I say this knowing that this is invoking a curse that I don't want in my life, but do you have to have a conversation about Evan Mobley? Like if you're looking at the timeline of your team and saying, all right, we have Donovan Mitchell, we feel really good about what he's bringing to the table ultimately this season, if it unravels in similar fashion as we've seen over the last 24 hours, do you have to have a conversation about that? And similarly, in reference to current events, does John Morant get you anywhere in this conversation? If you're the Memphis Grizzlies, is he appealing at all? If you're in Milwaukee, I thought about.
- [10:25]
Zach Lowe
Memphis because they're clearly at a crossroads, right? They're at a crossroads in multiple different ways. You know, The Jaron Jackson Jr extension is coming up. Ja had an ass season by his standards. They had an A finish to the season, drama, coach fired, coach hired, all that stuff. I just don't. That doesn't feel like a thing to me. Giannis going to the Memphis Grizzlies doesn't feel like a thing to me.
- [10:44]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, it's probably not. I think I would like it to be a thing. Like if you can get a Giannis, Jaren Jackson, Desmond Bain Core, and that's a feasible thing, that's realistic, that would be unbelievable. But I think there's a reason you're not hearing these whispers out there literally anywhere, despite the fact that Memphis does have lots of stuff to trade.
- [11:02]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, Memphis has most, if not all of its picks and swaps and other swaps. They've got one of the Phoenix split its soul in 19 pieces. Swaps of swaps of swaps. The Beal swaps. I thought about it and again, they could put together a real package. It's just. Is that what Milwaukee wants? Cleveland is a great call, and I had thought about them in general terms because we're going to talk about that series later and it's already time to start talking about. Is there a pivot here if this goes this way? Because you could chalk it up to Garland's clearly not right with the toe. Mitchell doesn't play the second half after limping off the floor. DeAndre Hunter had the thumb injury, missed a game, and then just, you know, WWE shoved Benedict Mather into the floor somehow. Didn't get ejected. Great. And then pointed to his head like, yeah, the weakest and lamest. Like, I've outsmart. Like, I've done the Draymond where I'm playing chess, where, by the way, we're down like 20 and we're about to be down 50. But you go off. DeAndre Hunter. I don't know. We'll talk about them later. That's good. I don't. Look, we're gonna have all, well, at least a couple of months to do this. We don't need to do the eulogy for the Bucks. It sucks if this is where it ends up, but they got a title. Titles, Live Forever. Whatever. It's. Look, the lottery's in, like, seven, eight hours. I'm excited for the lottery. We're gonna learn more about the trade landscape there. But yeah, I mean, like, again, he's tiptoe around this before. He's had a say in coaches they've hired and then that they've been fired. He's had a say in everything, and we'll see what happens. I had a poll question. Well, first of all, do you have any further thoughts on this before I hit you with my crazy question?
- [12:45]
Rob Mahoney
I think the Oklahoma City one we're going to continue to revisit if that series spins out of control for the Thunder in any meaningful way, and I don't suspect that it will, but we're sitting kind of at the precipice of something else with them in this two, two series. And Sam Presti is not a reactionary sort of executive by any stretch of the imagination, but any information that you get shapes the way you think about your team. And shapes the way you think about its future. And so I think the rest of how this Thunder Nuggets series evolves, not just do they win or do they lose, but how they win or how they lose, that stuff is going to be really important. And they have so much draft capital at their disposal. There's plausible Thunder deals that could be made that don't involve J Dub or Chet somehow, with Isaiah Hardenshein's contract in there as well, to kind of make the mechanics of it work, and another.
- [13:31]
Zach Lowe
Team that owns picks from across the league completely.
- [13:34]
Rob Mahoney
And like, I think that ultimately is such a huge part of this. You mentioned it, too. Like, are you divested enough in terms of the draft capital? You have to make it so that the Bucks are not betting against Giannis because it's just not a smart bet. Historically, we know we've seen in the regular season, like, his teams are going to pile up wins, and if you're sending him to a team to compete for a championship, it's going to be even worse.
- [13:54]
Zach Lowe
Well, and you need to bet against other teams. There's also a scenario that several front office people have floated to me, like, say it is Oklahoma. I don't know, whoever it is, say you get nine first round picks in swaps. Can you trade some of those to get your own picks back? And the downside of that is the teams that have your picks, which is a conglomeration of New Orleans, Portland and Washington, are sharing one. They're split all over the place. Those teams are going to extort you because they know exactly what you're doing and they have the leverage of controlling your ability to rebuild. Yeah, Oklahoma City, we'll get to it. But for me, that question, what are we going to learn about Oklahoma City in the next two, hopefully three games of the series? Because we need seven of this. Those questions to me swirl around Chet Holmgren. That to me is the pivot point of the series for me. But we'll get to that. Okay, here was my crazy question for you. Today's lottery day. We're going to do a little fun lottery stuff. I said to you, is there any team in the lottery that would have to consider trading the number one pick if they win it for Giannis? Trading Cooper Flag for Giannis. I leave it to you.
- [15:05]
Rob Mahoney
I think if you're the spurs, you have to talk about it.
- [15:07]
Zach Lowe
They were on my. I had a couple. I had only two teams and they were one. So make the case, because I agree with. I mean, I think you. Yeah, you got to sit down, you got to have a meeting.
- [15:16]
Rob Mahoney
You got to have the meeting. I think it's two things. One, yes, I understand conceptually when you're franchise player is as young as Wemby is, the idea of passing up on someone like Cooper Flag to pair with him for the next, I don't know, 20 years potentially, if you can keep those guys together, seems a little crazy. But I think Giannis is among the best case front court pairings for Webb and Yama in the sense that he is such a downhill force and ultimately like plays with such will driving and going to the basket in a way that takes some of the pressure off of Wemby to do a lot of those things. And so you have potentially an amazing defensive pairing between the two. Roving and covering from each other from all conceivable angles opens up all sorts of schematic possibilities for how you want to run your defense, but ultimately gives you the sort of perimeter and downhill orientation that you were grasping at by trading for de' Aaron Fox in the first place, but really would hammer home in the most emphatic way possible by trading for Giannis. And ultimately the point is like Victor Wembanyama right Now is a top 10ish player in the league and if you have a top 10ish player in the league, you're accelerating like right the time to move forward is now ultimately. So I think they would have every reason in the world to at least get in the room, think about it and figure out if some combination of a couple of Hawks picks and swaps that they own plus their own stuff. And I think they would probably have to hit some lottery luck plus Stefan Castle and Devon Vassell or whoever would be necessary to get that deal done. If that's a plausible thing that Milwaukee would be into.
- [16:45]
Zach Lowe
I think absent lottery luck, I mean, I don't know, this doesn't seem like a Spurs thing to do like trading the farm for a 31 year old with a shaky jump shot. Even if he's the second or third best player in the league, let's say.
- [17:02]
Rob Mahoney
A shaky long range jump shot.
- [17:03]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, his mid range jump always good this year.
- [17:05]
Rob Mahoney
Have some respect for mid range Giannis.
- [17:07]
Zach Lowe
I will. I need another season of it to have like really deep, deep respect. But I would say, look, he's better than mid range Zach. So like who am I to talk? Although my jumper's looking good lately, I'm playing a lot with my. Playing a lot with my daughter. It's looking pretty good. It doesn't seem like A Spursy thing to do. My initial sort of nudges have been met with like, it seems pretty hasty. But you're right to think about Castle, because I think that's the name that ends up being the centerpiece of any theoretical. And boy, is this like wildly five steps ahead. Theoretical. But like, Vassell is bye bye. The picks are bye bye. Whatever other salary you need to put in is bye bye. You want to hang on to Fox, you want to hang on obviously to Wembanyama, and then it just becomes his Castle, you know, semi expendable, whatever, because. And that would be like if you got Cooper Flagg and Stefan Castle and whatever else for Giannis, that's not bad. You're in a great spot. If you put the Nerf gun to my head right now, I'm saying the spurs don't do it and they play the long game. But who knows the other team? Well, my. My other team was your beloved former hometown Dallas Mavericks.
- [18:20]
Rob Mahoney
Sure.
- [18:21]
Zach Lowe
If they win the lottery, don't they have to, you know, like, we're already sort of. We're already sort of, you know, down this Kyrie. Like Kyrie's injury messes everything up though, you know, but you've really, you know, gone all in for this short window. Well, I mean, I think they would be suicidal to do something like that, but if you're following, I mean, I. They've already done something that I would consider not necessarily in their best interest in a massive way. I don't know, just throwing it out there. It seems dumb to me, but, you know, look, once you trade Luca, it's like, I don't know what, like anything's possible.
- [18:53]
Rob Mahoney
It. It, for one, it nukes the market as far as expectations for like what a Giannis steel looks like. I don't know, man. Luca just got traded for a bunch of peanuts and Anthony Davis, like, it's crazy times we live. Ultimately, this would have been great to know if you're the Mavericks that Giannis was eventually going to potentially be on the market. That might be something you may have wanted to hold off for if you were going to trade your franchise player at some point, but given that you did, the Mavericks cannot win this lottery. I just don't think the basketball gods can allow it. If you get tier by making a franchise spiting trade and ultimately falling into the lottery because you bet on two guys who get hurt a lot, and one of them or both of them, it brings me no joy to say, got hurt.
- [19:35]
Zach Lowe
By the way, did I see that The Mayor of Dallas chimed in with an op ed over the weekend or something like.
- [19:40]
Rob Mahoney
I believe it was the former mayor. But you know, politicians out of the wood where everyone has a take.
- [19:44]
Zach Lowe
You know, it's unbelievable. Like the. And he had like. I saw snippets of it somewhere. He had like stuff about in the era of three point shooting and offensive efficiency. I was like, okay, mayor guy, go off. You're bringing it.
- [19:57]
Rob Mahoney
Let's talk shot diet. I just don't think the Mavericks can win this lottery. I don't think they should win this lottery. I just don't think it would be right given the way that the last couple months have been unfolded. And I say that with all, all due apologies and respect to the Mavs fans who have suffered as a result of it. It's just like it can't lead to this.
- [20:14]
Zach Lowe
When Mavs fans even, I mean they would be happy, but would there. There would also be a part of them that like really, you're going to bail out this team in this front office? Like this basketball gods, like they. We. We're happy. Like we're getting Cooper Flag and whatever. But like. Anyway. So that brings me to my next fun question. Before we get to the actual basketball games with the hoops and the nets and the players that actually matter, who is the. Okay, we talked about basketball gods and lottery gods. Dallas, maybe you've already made your case. I asked you who is the least deserving? If deserve's got anything to do with it, which it doesn't, who would make you the maddest if they won the lottery? Is it Dallas? Did you already answer the question?
- [20:53]
Rob Mahoney
I think Dallas would be my answer if I need an answer. That's not Dallas. It's complicated because it's a team that is probably one of my favorite destinations, but also just like unquestionably not deserving of it. And that's the Charlotte Hornets, who I think would be super fun with Cooper Flag. But have they covered themselves in glory getting here? Have they done the things as a franchise that you'd want? Like, okay, you acclimated yourself well to these situations. You managed these assets leading up to this point in time. You're a well run, well functioning team. Maybe they've taken some baby steps in that direction over the last year, but not nearly far enough. And so they don't deserve Cooper Flag. Would I like to see it. I'm a sicko and I would. I have to admit it.
- [21:34]
Zach Lowe
My, my candidates for the I didn't think about Charlotte cause it just feels like, they haven't won a playoff series. What is it since 2003? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, boy, oh boy, give them something.
- [21:46]
Rob Mahoney
I. You say that and I agree. But, like, sometimes you get into business with Miles Bridges and you just deserve what you get. You know, like, things happen.
- [21:55]
Zach Lowe
My teams on that list were Chicago, who just should not be rewarded for trying to be 41 and 41 every year.
- [22:01]
Rob Mahoney
No.
- [22:02]
Zach Lowe
And I just, I can't. I can't deal. The two craziest scenarios are San Antonio, for obvious reasons. I can't deal with Philadelphia. I just. I can't do it. I can't do it. It's too crazy. Like, what's Embiid's health status? Paul George, Podcast P is going to shoot up the rankings. The last time you had the number one pick, you chose Markelle Fultz. It was like, well, maybe not the last. I can't remember the order of Fultz, Simmons, whatever. Your number one picks have not gone well. I just. Now, they are obviously the best subplot of the lottery because if they don't get into the top six, they lose their pick to Oklahoma City, another asset potentially in the Thunder's quiver. So those are my least deserving. Do you have a most deserving?
- [22:46]
Rob Mahoney
I think most or like most.
- [22:48]
Zach Lowe
Just like, I would feel like a nice warm feeling in my belly.
- [22:53]
Rob Mahoney
I think Houston would be one as a team that, like, has built a lot and cultivated a lot and kind of gone for it in an aggressive way where they're spending money, they're participating in the process, they're investing in their future, but they have yet to make that, like, big swinging move, I think. And Cooper would be such a fascinating piece for them because he doesn't actually solve their sort of like, inherent flaw. Right. Like, he doesn't bring them the half court killer that they need necessarily, but he amplifies everything they are in a way that would force you to reconsider the future of that team and reconsider the shape of that team. I would love to see Houston rewarded for the way it's steered into having a hyper aggressive defense, being a more professional outfit, spending on veterans and creating a different sort of path forward for teams like that.
- [23:40]
Zach Lowe
We didn't bring up Houston in our. Would you trade the number one pick for Giannis? Is that because in my mind they just have enough other stuff where you don't have to do that. But was that your thought process as well? I mean, between all their young guys and all their other picks I'm holding onto that and trying to have my cake and eat it too, and then have an ice cream sundae. And every afterwards, it's the full dessert bar situation.
- [24:00]
Rob Mahoney
I think you should go for that if you can get it. And look, Giannis on the spurs is no, like, more like. No more gluttonous than that ultimately. Like, I feel greedy even suggesting that possibility, but I think it's twofold with the Rockets. One, yes, they have a lot of irons in the fire already, a lot of mouths to feed in terms of, like, good, young developmental players. I don't want to mess with too, too much unless it is the exact perfect fit. And I think Giannis is a really good one because he's Giannis, but not as clean as a shooting option would be. And that's the other part of it, is you either give up Amen Thompson in a deal like that, or you're playing Amen Thompson and Giannis together for serious minutes for the foreseeable future. And that's like a little clunkier than I want. My big story.
- [24:39]
Zach Lowe
They've already gone totally against the grain and made this double center tag team thing, Bash Brothers a thing. Yeah. Let's just go. Let's go like Giannis Adams, Sengun Thompson, Tari Eason, and just beat the hell out of Everybody and get 9 million offensive rebounds. Let's go.
- [24:56]
Rob Mahoney
Jabari Smith was born to be a shooting guard. Like, let's just get him out there, let's run him through some curls. I think we got something.
- [25:02]
Zach Lowe
He can't really dribble, but can he play point guard on a team of just all centers and mean. Whatever. Amen. Thompson is mean, people. Okay. My most fun would be Portland, just because I like the friskiness of the last two, three months of the season. I like it. Let's. You know, they're a great fan base. Love the uniforms. Just, you know. And I do, I have to say, and this is going to make Utah fans mad because they're going to say, why not us? There's a big part of me that's like, can we save the Wizards? Can we just give the Wizards a nice thing? Because they don't.
- [25:37]
Rob Mahoney
Jordan Poole isn't a nice thing.
- [25:39]
Zach Lowe
He's a thing. I mean, Sar I thought was fine. I'm higher on. I think Saar's gonna be good. If that's the grand prize of the great post Bradley Beal tanking extravaganza, I don't think that's gonna be enough to get you where you wanna be without just like a asset management. And by the way, whatever they killed the Bradley Beal deal, I mean it was a good deal for them right away. And it was all swap based and stuff. And it was all. And obviously cp it has aged so well. Like to have gotten anything, let alone swaps that look valuable now is such a home run. So I just.
- [26:18]
Rob Mahoney
That said though, they also waited a year or two too late.
- [26:22]
Zach Lowe
I'm talking about this new front office, the new regime who inherited this situation made chicken salad out of. You know what? I don't know. Just give the Wizards something.
- [26:33]
Rob Mahoney
I. I think it's fair. Like, look, I like some of the pieces. They're not just sorry, like I'm a Keyshawn George guy. I'm a Blockula Bali guy. I would like to not have to be the person, you know, standing on the parapet yelling down below like, look out for Bilal. Cool ball. It's just much easier self. I'm like, hey, Cooper, flag's coming. You know, ultimately it's just a more straightforward basketball pitch and, and like, Lord knows the Wizards just need some of those.
- [26:58]
Zach Lowe
George was solid. I think Bub Carrington is going to be something. You know, I like his defense. We'll see what he becomes on offense. He's got, he's got. Certainly got a lot of pop to his offensive game. Koulibaly got off to an awesome start and sort of tailed off, but he showed enough signs where I'm like, okay, he's very young. I'm interested. So those are my teams. Okay, enough lottery. This episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Growing a business can feel impossible. But HubSpot's customer platform can help. It's powered by a suite of AI tools called Breez. So you can generate more leads, close more deals and scale your service fast. With Breeze agents handling the busy work, customers are cutting sales cycles in half. That's a lot. And saving hours on work each week. Best of all, you can see the results in days, not months. Visit HubSpot.comai to learn more. We have officially won and hold. And we'll see what happens with New York Boston tonight. Maybe two potentially epic second round playoff series and Thunder Nuggets has lived up to the hype. The Thunder after. You know, look, you could argue they gagged away game one and game three of this series. And to come back on 36 hours notice from an overtime loss when they were up by three with the ball and 45 seconds left in regulation. Get out to a lead in Denver and then kind of begin unraveling with just aimless offensive possessions. Looked a little confused against Denver Zone. Denver played 60 possessions of Zone yesterday according to Second Spectrum. Their previous high for the season was 27. So they're all in on zone, which actually kind of bizarrely makes me a little bit optimistic about the Thunder's chances because it feels like Denver has cycled through a lot of answers on defense. The Thunder have seen all of them now and are beginning to adapt and in particular, I mean, almost to a fault. Whenever Denver's in man to man defense, Shay's eyes light up like, bring me Jokic on a pick and roll. And it almost cost them late in Game 4 when he went late yesterday, where he went way too early twice in a row. Missed the three. It's like, dude, settle down. You're up seven, you're up five, whatever you are. Missed the three. Chet Holmgren bailed that out with an offensive rebound around Jamal Murray, who is able to guard Chet Holmgren in crunch time of game three and game four with minimal punishment other than that. And then almost had a turnover with like a minute 15 left in the game. Driving anyway to get build the lead, kind of melt down. Missed threes, turnovers fall down. But what did they go down by? 7, eight at the most, something like that in the third quarter and then come back behind eight combined threes from Caruso Wallace and just massive Aaron Wiggins minutes, who's kind of been iffy so far in this series and hold the fort down the stretch. In a game in which Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren combined for, I think 18 points and didn't bring much to the table. Lou Dort played 19 minutes and took 10 threes. It's kind of like you're a little thirsty, like you're not that good of a shooter. Lou Dor, dial it back a little bit to come back and rally and hold on. That is just a massive gut check. We are here. Offense isn't going great. We got some imperfections on our team. Our secondary stars have been up and down. Jalen Williams is awesome in game three, not so much in game four. Chet has been a little iffy the entire series, but you know what? But there's something just throwback about people who want defense. And, oh, nobody plays defense in the modern NBA. It's all offensive efficiency and threes. The Thunder are like, look, defense travels. Defense is an every game thing. The threes may not fall. We are going to lock your ass down every single game and make Every possession difficult for you. They have a smart game plan. That wasn't. That was a. That was maybe the first game of the playoffs where I felt like it's go time now. Like, we're into serious NBA playoff time. That was an awesome win.
- [31:08]
Rob Mahoney
Completely awesome win. And I think it's exactly the sort of information we're talking about when we're talking about how do the Thunder think about their future? Do they believe in this core? Do they believe in its ability to navigate these sorts of moments? This is one of those moments. You have to be able to get your way through these nervous, haggard sorts of games. As you said, quick turnaround, often overtime, game. In Game 3, the stakes are what they are. You're feeling the tensions rise. And I think after the fact, we talk about a lot of playoff results as if everything was concrete and everything was self evident. And it's almost never the case. Like, usually in a run like the one the Thunder are trying to go on, like the one great teams have gone on before. Those are built on precarity. Those are built on moments where everyone's kind of looking around the room and it feels like it could go either way. You know, you have A Golden State versus Memphis in 2015. I think that was like Milwaukee against Brooklyn.
- [32:02]
Zach Lowe
Like, there's heat pacers back in the big three days.
- [32:05]
Rob Mahoney
Absolutely. And like, those could have, like, huge implications for the build of the team. Like, that's part of going through the paces. It's part of what this is all about. And what you want to see is some growth and some evolution and you want to see, like, who's built for these moments and who's ready to come up with, like, the massive, massive plays required. And I think Shay was such an interesting pull and pull, push and pull in that way because as you said, he, he made some weird decisions down the stretch and he also hit some huge shots. Like, I think he is indisputably a big time shot maker and he is in the process of figuring out what it means to be a big time decision maker because, you know, he's hitting those shots, but he's dribbling off his foot. He's gnashing through the lane and killing the entire shot clock.
- [32:47]
Zach Lowe
He wants, he wants the kill shot so badly at the end of these games.
- [32:52]
Rob Mahoney
Those threes were really emblematic of that.
- [32:54]
Zach Lowe
It's. It's hard. Now. He was. To your point, he was 1 for 8 in the fourth quarter of game three.
- [33:00]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [33:01]
Zach Lowe
Didn't take a shot in overtime. I think it looked like he took a shot, it was recorded as like a steal or something when you got stripped on the way up. And he was struggling in the fourth quarter of game four. And then he had three baskets in like a two and a half minute span from like the five minute mark to the two minute mark before he kind of got a little overeager again. But those three baskets, it's, it's just, it's. Those are the shots that he's been making all year. He's not getting nearly as many of the, you know, some might call it grifting, leaning, flailing foul calls, that like many, many players, he won't get as many in the playoffs as he does in the regular season. But he made those shots and he needed those shots. They needed him to make those shots. And it looked, it's. Denver has very clearly said zone, man, whatever. And sometimes they've switched up. What's also fun about this series, and I know you love this too, these teams are digging deep into the X's and O's game plan. They're doing stuff for one possession randomly, like, okay, we're going to put, you know, Lou Dort on Jokic for one possession and just sort of confuse them and then go back to your base defense. They are, it's, it's so they're like in the deep, deep depths of the playbook. But I don't, I forgot what I was going to say about that. But anyway, it was like he made some big shots they needed. They're just, they're very clearly like, they're just not going to let Shay get easy shots. Whether it's, man, whether it's zone, wherever he is on the floor, and I like him better in the middle of the floor than on the wing. They're just flooding everything toward him and saying, you're just not going to get comfortable one on one step back shots unless. And he's found some early in the shot clock before they can set their defense. But, but like we're just going to make you pass to all these other dudes who we don't believe in their three point shot. And enough of the bench dudes came through admittedly against the zone, but they're making it really hard for Shay.
- [34:53]
Rob Mahoney
They're making it super hard. I'm with you though, that I'm feeling more optimistic coming out of this game about Oklahoma City's execution against that zone. It's still a little sloppy sometimes. It's not as clean as you would want and we should say it's not just a zone, but there's a zone that's that are they'll bring two to the ball on Shay while playing zone and force the ball out of his hands.
- [35:13]
Zach Lowe
What defense is this? Is it zone that now you're just. It's just a straight trap with kind of his own behind. It morphs. It morphs.
- [35:20]
Rob Mahoney
It's really aggressive. And I thought they broke some stuff open using Alex Caruso as a screener for that zone, which was very like Andre Roberson coded to me, like let's bring our non shooting wing up and get him in the action. But that was able to. They were able to get Shay into the lane that way. And I asked him this. This wasn't the best J Dub game by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact that they're not hard doubling Jdub at the top of that zone in the way they are. Shay allowed him to get into the paint and I thought make some interesting plays. And so there's enough stuff for the Thunder to work and enough guys who can hit shots and you would trust on a given night, some of them will, some of them won't. Some of them are going to Lou Dort it and shoot their way out of the game. Some of them are going to be like Casen Wallace in this game, who I thought was just fucking nails down the stretch. Really, really important minutes. Huge shots for a guy who, admittedly I'm a huge case and Wallace supporter, is still kind of finding his way into games like this and figuring out like where he fits and what he needs to be doing. But they have enough good role players to cycle through to figure out who can play in this moment, who can fit against this zone on this night. And I thought, like Shane Jada, both are showing some evolution in how they're attacking it.
- [36:26]
Zach Lowe
Shay's averaging 27 and a half a game in the series, 47% from the field. 4 of 19 on threes, a 29 to 6 assist to turnover ratio. That's Oklahoma City. They are plus 20 or I guess minus 20 in turnovers. They have 20 fewer than Denver. Crazy JDub is averaging 19 a game on 37% shooting. 5 of 24 on threes. Had a great game three almost saved their asses. I give him some leeway. Let's talk about Chet. My first podcast for Spotify, the ringer. I was a guest on the Bill Simmons podcast, you may have heard of him. And we did a draft of the 25 most intriguing players for the last 20 games plus playoffs of the season. And I cheated right on pick number one. I picked Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren as one player because they were not ready for the moment against Dallas in the second round last year. And they're going to be have to be ready because this Denver team is as tough as it gets. Christian Brown and Aaron Gordon, it's just like one balls to the wall play after another. Kudos to and Jokic is Jokic and Murray is Murray.
- [37:32]
Rob Mahoney
There was a stretch of this game where Denver's best offense was just Christian Brown. Run as hard as you can in transition and that's literally the only way we're scoring for like four minutes at a time.
- [37:41]
Zach Lowe
That was the second quarter. Where by the way, how about 17, eight after the first quarter.
- [37:47]
Rob Mahoney
Nuts.
- [37:47]
Zach Lowe
But that was the second quarter and that's what I love about the playoffs. Nothing's working. You're facing the best defense in the NBA. All your pretty stuff not working. Murray, Jokic, two man game. They have a strategy for that. It's kind of taken a lot of what Jokic likes to do away. Jokic post ups. They're making it complicated. He has a negative assist to turnover ratio in the series. 21 assists, 23 turnovers. The pretty stuff ain't working. How are you going to score? And Christian Brown's like, I'm just going to throw myself at the rim really fast and get some free throws. And like that's what makes the playoffs awesome. You got to dig deep and win ugly and win grimy. Chet, 13 points a game in the series, 40% shooting, 3 of 15 on threes. I mentioned that they were able to put Jamal Murray on him down the stretch of Game 3, which allowed Michael Porter Jr. To hide on Lou Dort, which is a much more comfortable matchup for him. And Chet couldn't punish Jamal Murray.
- [38:42]
Rob Mahoney
No.
- [38:43]
Zach Lowe
Chet got benched at the beginning of overtime in game three for Alex Caruso. Chet had another game yesterday for the series. They have a 108 offensive rating with Chet on the floor. 104 defensive rating plus 5. Obviously skewed by the huge blowout. All these numbers are skewed by the huge Thunder blowout win without Chet. 116 offensive rating 94 defensive rating plus 32. The Chet Hartenstein is minus 6 in 65 minutes. And it's just been so interesting to watch Mark Dagnault try to figure out what do I care about in this series. And so many of those decisions pivot around Chet Holmgren and what he can and can't do. So he decided after game One where I thought, frankly, the Thunder overthought a lot of stuff in Game 1, including matchups and fouling at the end of the game. Much like I thought Cleveland overthought a lot of Game one of their series. They made a clear choice, like, we're just almost never going to play Chet as the only big man on the floor when Jokic is on the court. We thought we might get an offensive benefit out of that. And it turns out the drawbacks on defense and size and rebounding outweigh whatever offensive benefit he's able to provide. And not only that, putting him on Aaron Gordon after Game one, which is where I thought he belonged, allows them to sort of mimic the Timberwolves strategy of. Of double big, put your best shot blocker not on Jokic, but on the back line. That becomes much harder to do when Denver has all its best shooters on the floor or whatever. But when they take Chet out, they can't really mimic that strategy in any possible way. And so it's. You can see, but he's doing very little on offense. Like, he. It's become. It's become kind of an offense, defense trade off. So far for the Thunder, that is starker than I think they anticipated it would be. Starker than I anticipated it would be. And I'm not really sure what the answer is, other than he's just got to make some jump shots because you're only going to get so many of those. Hartenstein 2 Holmgren lobs against Denver Zone defense. It's been a very strange series for Chet so far. Defensively, he's awesome. He's a beast offensively. Like, he just hasn't provided that much.
- [40:53]
Rob Mahoney
I think a lot of that is that zone. And to your point, you do have to bust out of it one way or another. That big to big lob action, whichever way it's going, Chet to Hardenstein, Hardenstein to Chet. Like, that's really juicy stuff, but can really only work for them out of man. It's just. I don't think there's enough space for them to get that kind of momentum going against the zone. And so, yeah, Chad has to hit shots. He's just such a clunky fit against the way Denver's playing zone right now. I'll do credit to the Nuggets, who have been playing with the defensive energy and have been jamming up the gaps in a really inspiring way, in a way that negates whatever athletic disadvantages they have in this series. On balance, right? Like this Thunder team Should be looking really explosive and they look like they're stuck in the mud in a lot of these games. And Chet in particular just has no space to do anything. But a lot of that starts with, as you said, the fact that you can guard him in a, in a pinch with a guard with a wing, you can put a body on him and not be punished for it. In the way that just to flash forward a little bit, let's say the Pacers bigs are punishing the hell out of every single Cavalier small that tries to guard them. Chet doesn't have that in his game yet and it's a bit of a problem. And then even on the other side where you're getting the defensive benefits, I love Chad as a rim protector. Him roving in that style is not unrelated to Aaron Gordon getting seven offensive rebounds in this game. And ultimately, here's the thing, he can't do yet on defense what Hardenstein can, which is Hardenstein is bodying up Jokic, contesting the shot and as soon as it goes up, spins around, sticks his ass into Jokic, boxing him out immediately from the jump to keep him off the offensive glass. Chet hasn't he, he doesn't quite have that transition from hard contest into hard rebound just yet. And some of that is because he weighs like a buck 50 soaking wet. So like the, the physical stakes are just a little bit different. But he's, he's going to have to grow up in those ways. He's gonna have to grow up as a bitch if he's going to be a dominant postseason performer.
- [42:45]
Zach Lowe
And why so much pivots around him defensively is the Murray Jokic two man game has been the two man game in the NBA for years now. It's the championship two man game. And the Thunder have a very clear strategy for defending it, which I think is very smart, which is Jamal Murray. Go ahead and drive. We're not. Unless it's an emergency, we are not helping off Jokic. We're not our guys. Our biggest is going to stay on Jokic. Jokic, we're going to let you drive because you play so many non shooters around that play that people are going to be meeting you in and around the paint. From Russell Westbrook, from Christian Brown who's knocked down enough shots, from Aaron Gordon who is just a knockdown shooter at this point. I guess like it's just. We've made the full transition to like he's not even. He's a plus plus plus shooter, but we're just not giving Jokic the pocket pass. We're just not doing it. And I think that's the proper way to play it. It it's much. That strategy does not hold up as well without Holmgren on Aaron Gordon on the back line even when he's stuck on Michael Porter Jr. Because that's a matchup on the other end. It doesn't really work. It only works when they have that alignment in. And so if, if he gets played, if he is minutes dwindle. I'm just interested to see how that does that Murray Yokic two man game begin to sort of puncture them a little more. And you see like Murray to his credit is driving hard at those backline help defenders and drawing fouls. He tried to dunk on Chet in game three. He pulled up for a couple long twos like before the help could get there. Like he knows what to do, but they are just selling out on like Jokic is not getting the ball in the middle of the floor with a rotating defense around him, right.
- [44:20]
Rob Mahoney
And you can see Jokic. I wouldn't say he's like frazzled in this series, but he's clearly off balance and in a way that the Thunder defense, this is what they do to you is they get in your head, they make you think about every turn, every corner. And you can see Oklahoma defensive consciousness in terms of when Jokic does catch the ball at the elbow, whenever he starts to make his turn, whenever he starts to make his pivot, they want him to see that second or third or fourth guy in his peripheral vision hovering in his space, just, I think just making him wait a fraction of a second ultimately before he has to remap the floor. That can be enough to buy you a little time. It can be enough to buy you just a little bit of Jokic's focus at a time when it's really crucial in the possession. I just don't think it's a coincidence that as you're taking away Jokic's momentum and his space and his ease of play, he's also shooting like 30 something percent on mid range shots in this series. He just seems a little bit off his base and that you do need Chet on the floor for that stuff. You also need Alex Caruso on the floor for a lot of that stuff, who is absolutely everywhere on defense. And so here's the thing. If we want to talk about the chain reaction to this game, Lou Dort shoots his way off the floor. Floor doesn't seem viable offensively given the way things are going from beyond the arc, in comes Kayson Wallace to defend that Jokic Murray pick and roll. You can't switch that at all, Case. And Wallace cannot be on Jokic at any point in the possession. And so he's chasing Murray. But if there's any disconnect, and there honestly often was, because Jokic is a big ass screener, what would happen was Caruso is flying in from the weak side off of like usually Russell Westbrook, and all of a sudden he's bodying Nikola Jokic in the middle of the paint. He's throwing himself in front of this play in a way that I just don't think many wings in the world could possibly do. And yet here he is turning up plays not just like making possessions, but saving possessions in progress ultimately. Like saving the defensive shell from completely falling apart, buying time for rotations, buying time for all this stuff to work the way it's supposed to. I don't know how he's putting duct tape over so many holes at once. Because the Thunder gamble and they, and they, they're a really aggressive defense like by design, but holy hell, is he plugging a lot of holes right now.
- [46:31]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, you know, Josh Giddey had a nice last 40 games for the Bulls. Like, he's a very, he's a good basketball player, put up numbers, shot 38% from three this year, which was the big weakness that got him played off the court in the playoffs last year, which we were all talking about for like 18 months in advance. And the Thunder would be like, no, it's fine, we're all good. It's going to be great. Stop talking about Josh Giddy trades. It's not going to happen. And you know, I said at the time of that trade, there are going to be weeks, months when Josh Giddy puts up like 20, 10 and 10 and it's going to be like, wow, that was actually kind of a good trade for the Bulls. This is why it was always also a good trade for the Thunder. Maybe it ends up being a good trade for the Bulls despite getting no draft picks back, etc. Maybe, who knows? But, but like they, they traded a guy who could not play for them in the playoffs for a guy who is now essential and often closing games for them in the playoffs. And his ability to guard up in size is like, Giddy is a minus defender and Caruso is a plus plus, plus. I'm just going to be all up in your jersey and you're not going to be able to dribble around me defender. Okay, game Five back in Oklahoma City. Crowd's gonna be crazy. Give me. Give me something you are anticipating, looking for whatever. As we move to the pivotal game five.
- [47:50]
Rob Mahoney
Always pivotal. I think the rotation changes more on the Oklahoma City side. Denver's about maxed out. They're essentially running six guys. And you could even see like the no fucking around time with David Adelman in this game in terms of trimming down the rotation so that the non Jokic minutes are four starters and either Russell Westbrook or Peyton Watson. Like, that's basically all they're playing in those moments, and rightly so, given the stakes and the margins of the series for Oklahoma city. You're playing 10 deep and I love the depth, I love the camaraderie. It might be time to trim out what's not working.
- [48:26]
Zach Lowe
Well, Joe is getting marginalized already, right?
- [48:29]
Rob Mahoney
Well, this is kind of what I'm pointing at. Like, Isaiah Joe is an excellent shooter in theory, but he is entering Isaiah Joe Harris territory at this point where.
- [48:36]
Zach Lowe
It'S just like nothing is.
- [48:39]
Rob Mahoney
Nothing is cashing. I'm sorry. Nothing is cashing. And he's not exactly out there for anything else. And I get why it's tempting in a game where nobody can really shoot. Let's ride with one of our best shooters and see how it goes. I just don't know that you can get away with that for even as long as the Thunder have. So I would not be surprised with Wiggins now playing better with Casen Wallace showing up with Lou Dort, who's going to have better shooting games than certainly he did in game four at some point. And Crusoe, as we said, being so important to the rotation, like, you have other options.
- [49:08]
Zach Lowe
I just think this is a grimy, ugly, you gotta dig so deep in every possible way series. It's awesome. And like, just a small example, Jokic, pick and roll, ball handling. He ran 15 pick and rolls in games three and four each. Each which is the tied for the third most in any game this season. And he ran the most Murray Jokic, Murray inverted pick and rolls. Eddie did in any game this season in each of the last two, same amount in each, five each. I think that's just like there's. They got to stretch the offense in. They got to. They have to access every nook and cranny of their offense and every nook and cranny of the most creative and maybe most diverse offensive player on planet Earth's game just to scrounge 89 points against the Thunder, who again, like, could have won Game one could have won Game three chance. It's kind of like they probably should have won one of those two games and they'd be up three one. But they are not and we're getting a game five and I hope we get seven.
- [50:14]
Rob Mahoney
We should say that too about Jokic if this series is going to be we talked a lot about Oklahoma City strengths and what buttons they can press and how they can leverage things. If this series is going to be your MVP has to make stuff happen from the muck of the middle of the floor. That's a game that favors Denver and Nikola Jokic, like Shai is obviously a great one on one creator is going to make some hay in that situation. But you're right to point out like it's the variety of what Jokic can create from the ugliest possible situations that's just totally distinct. And we've seen what this Thunder team is when they get out of flow and it turns real stale really quickly.
- [50:48]
Zach Lowe
Jokic is so like every time like Shai or pretty much any player starts a game, a big playoff game like 1 of 8 from the field, the chirping starts. Like you can see, I can feel it coming out of my computer like oh, this is your mvp. One of eight. He's choking again. Jokic starts a game one of eight and like nobody cares. He's just earned such a benefit of the doubt in terms of his all around contributions and like he'll get it back. He's shooting 39% for the series. He's only averaging five assists a game, which is attributed to their defense. They're taking away the easiest stuff. And by the way, I'm not saying that he gets held to a softer, less fair whatever standard. He has earned that benefit of the doubt when he's one for eight. Everything is still orbiting him. The team is dead without him.
- [51:35]
Rob Mahoney
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- [51:37]
Zach Lowe
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Rob Mahoney
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Zach Lowe
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Rob Mahoney
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- [51:59]
Zach Lowe
By visiting lifelock.com podcast. Terms apply. Okay, speaking of dead, Cleveland, Indiana I blacked out for like five minutes and Miles Turner scored 9,000 points as Jared Allen was just kind of waving at him from a long distance away. You want to shoot again?
- [52:18]
Rob Mahoney
Well to be fair, he was in fucking Bloomington like Miles Turner was heat checking in the second quarter of this game in a way that I deeply appreciate.
- [52:26]
Zach Lowe
So I rewatched this morning all of Cleveland's first half turnovers because I remember there was like a lot of ugly turnovers in that in the first half. Like again, Garland is, is. Doesn't have his balance, his whatever. Like there are a couple like that and then there are just like Jared Allen throws the ball into the crowd. There are, there are eight. I'm just exaggerating, but I mean how many interior passes can they throw at the feet of a seven foot player and expect that guy to catch it in the coffin corner almost and do anything with it. Illegal screens of all varieties. A McConnell that the cameras didn't even catch. A McConnell backcourt steal that somehow happened. Just a complete no show by the Cavs who are banged up and injured and whatever. But they went into a hostile environment after winning game three and just did not show up for the game. I mean they got completely punked from the beginning of the game by a Pacers team who is just really God damn good. Beautifully constructed and hard to guard. An incredibly high floor because of how good their offense is and a high ceiling when they start hitting shots like this. And by the way, by the way, kind of, you know, for fans who want like, you know, there's always complaints sometimes about lack of stylistic diversity in the NBA it's all threes and dunks and blah blah. The Pacers are the team for you. This is a shot making team. They don't take a lot of threes and they don't take a lot of shots at the rim. They take a crap ton of mid range shots and floaters and long twos and all year and last year too, like they cleaning the glass. Our buddy Ben Franklin, they have expected field goal percentage based on where your shots come from, right? Threes. You get extra stuff for the Pacers in the regular season. 24th in that metric. Actual effective field goal percentage. 5th. They're just a great shot making team across the board. They run, they're incredibly unselfish. And even when it seems like they're passing just for the sake of passing, that that stuff just gets heads turning and bodies moving. And that all flows from Halliburton that, that the Halliburton mindset has inculcated its way into the brain of every player on the team. And the ball just flies like if you're sick of Maury ball or whatever you deem the stylistic Homogeneity of the NBA. Watch the Pacers, they're awesome. And by the way, to your point earlier, they'll throw it to the big guys. They'll throw it to the big guys on switches. And Miles Turner, I had a little ode to him last week. Week he had more post ups against guards again in what was a non competitive game before he, he has evolved into this is the, the best. This is. He could not have become a better offensive player than this. This is the absolute ceiling of Miles Turner. He's inside, he's outside. And because they have Halliburton and other good supplementary playmakers, he has to do almost no hard passing or playmaking of any kind, which has never been his strong state. He has just become an awesome offensive player. You got to just give the, give it to the Pacers. They've been awesome. But that was an alarming, disgusting no show by the Cavs who if they lose this series, we talked about it earlier, like you should run it back with this group. By the way. They're over $200 million in committed salaries for next season. They're right at the first apron already. So I don't even know what the pivot would be. It has to be a win now. Pivot. Like they can't just trade whoever for draft picks. And by the way, Ty Jerome, just anytime you want to just wake up in this series and make a freaking shot, he is shooting. I wrote it down somewhere. I don't know, it's just 12 of 45, 12 of 45, 10 of 32 on twos.
- [56:15]
Rob Mahoney
And that's where like him hitting tough ass shots all season long kind of comes home to roost a little bit, right? Like those shots are even tougher now against this Pacers defense. There's even less room to operate. All of a sudden. Ty Drum is quiet as a church mouse in a way where they, they not only need his contributions, they need his verve a little bit. Like they need his edge because they, they absolutely folded in this game in a way that was so stark.
- [56:38]
Zach Lowe
Hey man, when he's rolling, he will tell you all about it. No doubt tell you all about it. And he's not talking about anything right now because he's not rolling, by the way. Like I think, I mean, just, you know, who really cares? But I think he's costing himself some money and I, I think given the Cavs cap situation, I just think if he doesn't rebound and play better in what remains of their season, like I think they just would say it was a great experience. You played great for us. Got some six man of the year votes. We can't bring you back. I don't know.
- [57:09]
Rob Mahoney
They might well, but I mean, the Cavs are in such a bad way, obviously. They were down 41 at halftime. They made eight shots in the entire first half. It was a putrid half for them. Ultimately, what this game and this series has sort of reiterated for me. I echo everything you said about Tyrese Halliburton, who to me is always going to be more than when he has like 11 points in a game like this is always going to be creating and instilling more in the team and the flow and the style they play with than a box score could really tell you if your team is not right and the Cavs are not right. But if you're not healthy and focused and playing your best lineups, whatever the best, most balanced version of your team is, Indiana's momentum is so tough to match and they will just be a wrecking ball and if you do not slow them down, they will tear through whatever it is you think you're doing. And they're going to do that because they have all these offensive principles we talked about because they do have so many good, varied players who are looking to share the ball because they have sneakily three bigs who can shoot and pass and make some plays here and there, nip and tuck and actually do some things off the dribble if you really need them to, but also just on defense. This is a team that takes away so much of the low hanging fruit. And this is a shot making team and this is a shot making series. And it's very tempting, especially in a game like this, to look at the first half where Indy is hitting 67% of its threes. Cleveland shot 26% on threes and say that's a wild three point swing. Not unlike we've seen from Boston, not unlike we've seen from other teams. I think all of that's true, but they're also indicators of where the wind is blowing in this series. And the wind is taking everything away from Cleveland's patent offense. And this was a team in the Cavs that was as buoyant a regular season team as we've seen in a long time.
- [58:48]
Zach Lowe
Not regular season. They like, they made Miami look like a G League team.
- [58:53]
Rob Mahoney
Absolutely. And they did all that because they were so locked into their principles. And now these guys are looking around at each other and they don't know what to do. Like Indian has completely taken Them out of their identity. And that is power.
- [59:07]
Zach Lowe
I can pinpoint exactly when it's like the Ralph Wiggum thing. Like, I pinpoint exactly when his heart broke. Snapped into on live TV in the second quarter. Miles Turner was at the free throw line, missed like four and a half minutes left in the game or something in the quarter and got his own rebound. And it wasn't a lane violation. The biggest surprise of the whole game. Another free throw rebound for the Pacers, and it was actually legal. And they ended up scoring. I can't remember what Cleveland disintegrating calls timeout. They come out of the timeout and they run something. I don't know what it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be like a Mitchell Mobley handoff into something. Mobley hands the ball to Mitchell, who's gutting it out and doing everything he can and throwing himself at the rim to get free throws and all that stuff. He's been sensational until last night when no one was sensational. And he comes off, he takes a couple dribbles and he's like, hey, Evan Mobley, aren't you supposed to, like, come back up here and set a screen for me? And Evan Mobley's like drifting over there, like, I don't know, maybe. And then Max Struus is like, well, maybe I'll come set a screen because nothing's happening. Then they both came up and set a screen at the same time from different sides. That's fine, Shonda. Mitchell took one drill dribble, picked up his dribble and was like, oh, this is just kind of going badly for an out of time out play. Who's around? Oh, Isaac Okoro. You're around. And let me tell you, Rob Mahoney, you know, an aftertime outplay has not gone well when it results in an Isaac Okoro grenade drive into nothing and a layup off the backboard. And at that point I was like, they are so out of sorts and so out of whatever rhythm that they were in that, that they're just lost as a team.
- [60:45]
Rob Mahoney
And somehow not the worst post timeout play of this game for the Cavs, who came out of a timeout and committed a five second violation trying to get the ball in.
- [60:53]
Zach Lowe
That's a good one. That's always a good sign. And they also like another. I don't know when, I don't remember when this happened, but McConnell on, I think a McConnell Turner pick and roll got the easiest layup you will ever see in a just stagnant half court set in an NBA playoff game. Like Dean Wade was on him and Jared Allen was guarding the screener, I think. And Jared Allen did nothing and Dean Wade did nothing and TJ McConnell just dribbled down the middle of the floor and no one did anything.
- [61:23]
Rob Mahoney
And Sam Merrill kind of briefly looked in his direction and thought, am I supposed to rotate over this? And decided against it.
- [61:29]
Zach Lowe
It honestly looked like a practice where the coaches like blew a whistle to stop the drill halfway through and the guy just kept going to lay the ball in for fun. Like, just like what is happening? And by the way, I don't know what the answers are for Cleveland, but I mentioned this on Twitter last night. Jared Allen sat for and Jared Allen was bad last night. He sat for like a million minutes as the game was getting out of hand. And a persistent question I've had about the Cavs all year long is, should they just play their starters more? Like are they over like this all this minute? And like I've had a lot of people from around the league, coaches, whatever, reach out and be like this is like Mike Budenholzer 2.0 of like your cute regular season rotations. Like you got to tighten it up a little bit in the playoffs. And I don't know if that's Schadenfreude or whatever, but I have all year said like should they just play Mobley and Allen together more? I know they want shooting and spacing, but like they are two of their four or five best players. They never play the lineup with Hunter at the three with the rest of their starters, they almost never play it partly cause Strus is really good and I have been thinking a lot about that. I'm not like, look, that doesn't change a gazillion point loss. It doesn't change the injuries, it doesn't change the whatever. But I have been thinking about it all year and more so as Jerome craps the bed, Okoro craps the bed, Merrill either gets open and makes threes or doesn't and holds up okay on defense. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?
- [62:50]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, I agree with you. I think part of the issue is like as the offense, like basically as the game is getting away from the Cavs, it's so tempting to clutch at offense in particular, not just your Q regular season rotation, but like, oh, we have to take one of our bigs off the floor. We have to get more shooting out there. We have to try to equalize the balance of this game. All of a sudden it got into desperation mode so quickly in Game four that I can understand why some of the swerving is happening in the way it is. But it didn't feel like the Cavs were very confident in what they were doing. It doesn't feel like they have a lot of resolve in even their rotation at this point. And frankly, again, you flash to the other side of the ball. Indiana's bench has been quite good. And like T.J. mcConnell against a zone is not a given proposition. Like T.J. mcConnell, as we like to say on group chat, McConnell izes every offense he touches. Like it becomes about him getting into the lane. It becomes, you know, kind of a. An uphill battle of him in space against all these bigs. And yet that stuff was working. Obi Dopin has just been incredible in this series and really incredible as a pacer. Like, his development into just a fluid offensive form has given them something that the Cavs don't have in anyone coming off their bench. So, yeah, if the options are trimming your rotation or potentially losing by this much or even more, I just don't see the downside other than the fact that Evan Mobley has a hurt ankle. Donovan Mitchell now has a hurt ankle. Darius Garland is out there limping around, fouling everything in sight because he can't actually move. And Jared Allen had a tough game.
- [64:18]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's going to be. If they lose at home and it's a 4, 1, 4, 2, whatever, they lose the series.
- [64:26]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [64:26]
Zach Lowe
In any kind of dispiriting way, it's going to be very tempting to start building fake Darius Garland trades and fake Jared Allen trades. And look, if I'm the Lakers, I'm calling about Jared Allen. Sure, sure. Like, if I'm the Magic, I'm poking around Darius Garland. I would. And the Cavs payroll situation is what it is, and I don't know, sort of what any pivot would be in a win. Now trade. Do you break them into two pieces? I don't know. I would be very cautious if I were the Cavs about overreacting too much to give it. They only know the health. They know the health stuff inside and out better than we do. But I would not do. I would be hesitant to do something really rash with a team that won 64 games and has a lot of good stuff going for it and has a lot of guys that are nicked up. But I would poke around at least, because, you know, if they got punked last night, they got punked by the Knicks two years ago. They had to gut out an uninspiring series against the Magic last year and then fought the Celtics. Okay. When they had a bunch of injuries in the second round. It has not been an inspiring three year playoff run. You could throw the previous two series away and say, well, we made a coaching change. Everything's totally different now. And this has been, you know, first round was great. This round not so good. I just, it'd be interesting to see how they would respond to something like that. McConnell, man, he's always got those bug eyes. Like he's so intense. Yeah. Does he walk around his house like that? Like making coffee? Like, here's the coffee, here's a coffee with his wife. He's got a newborn kid. Like, is he, you know, he's just like, he has always intense staring at the crowd, serious face, very fun to watch. I thought they did a good job getting Siaka more involved early in the game last night.
- [66:09]
Rob Mahoney
They were looking for him and all the bigs in transition. They really, they were looking for ways not unlike the Oklahoma City Denver series to beat, beat the zone down the floo floor to get around that 32 Cav zone with Mobley at the top, which was tough for them and just the most predictable development in all of these playoffs. A Rick Carlisle coach team not wetting the bed against the zone the way it did in game three and coming back with like every conceivable answer in order to attacking that zone defense.
- [66:33]
Zach Lowe
How about Rick Carlisle, like bringing back kind of a full court press in the NBA. Not really like a crazy full court press, but like, yeah, we're just going to hound you every time up the court. You're injured. Like, have fun with this. Have fun with this mean dude tracking you 94ft up the floor. Rick Carlisle is a Hall of Fame coach. Like, there's no, there is not a lot left to second guess or think about with his rotations, with his schematics. Like he. You don't come out of any of these playoff series being like, well, they should have tried that. They didn't try that. They should have tried that. Just a really, really good coach. Any. Oh, the Matheran Hunter thing.
- [67:12]
Rob Mahoney
How would you describe what happened? It was like a close fist arm extension, but not, not a punch. At least it didn't seem like a punch.
- [67:19]
Zach Lowe
Well, you got a flagrant 2, which I have to say watching, and maybe there's an angle that they didn't show that I didn't see. I was like, that's a fl like look, if Benedict Matheran hit me like that, I'd probably double over two. So I don't, I don't want to, you know, cast aspersions in any direction. It did not look to the naked eye like a flagrant two to me. And DeAndre Hunter just like, just straight up high school shove into the locker. Like, I was like, okay, he okay. Like that dead ball, just boom, not ejected. That whole thing was weird. And Matthew's been an agitator of the whole series and he obviously had the chase down on Hunter that caused the injury. So look, it was just a strange adjudication, by the way, way not for nothing. Lottery aside, the general managers have their annual meeting today at the combine. And they always talk about like the state of the league. And I've been told that a big topic of discussion is going to be the increased physicality of the playoffs. Sure. And you know, I think one of the league's points would be like, everyone, everyone is sort of talking about this, right? Like, the gap between regular season and playoff basketball is just. They're two different sports. Are we letting too much go? Is it dangerous? I've talked about it and I think the league is aware of that. They know that there are some obvious fouls that are not being called that probably need to be called. But they would also point out free throws are up. Like, there are more free throws in the playoffs than there were in the regular season. Probably not by. They're not up by as much as the physicality is up. And so or as like the fouls are up, but free throws are up. And you just come into this dilemma of like, how long do we want the games to be? Because game length is up significantly in the playoffs. These games are taking two and a half, two hours and 40 minutes. And the NBA has this stated goal of like, we want our games to be shorter. These games have been really long. The league has definitely took notice of it. It's just, I don't know what the right answer is because every lever you pull has a counter effect over here. Like, call more fouls, games are three hours long. Call less fouls, people get hurt. I don't know what the answer is. Maybe it's like, call the right foul and don't not call obvious. I don't know. But like, anyway, that's what's happening today in Chicago.
- [69:29]
Rob Mahoney
Well, especially because there are two different questions for the regular season in the playoffs, as you said, which are officiated completely differently. But also, do we, are we sure we want playoff physicality over 82 games, when guys are already getting worn down with the regular schedule, when there's already the level of injury that there is, there's just going to be a couple more fluky physical plays as a result of that. I'm okay with the playoffs being more physical. I think some of these games have gotten a little out of control, as we talked about before. And more importantly, some of them are just refereed inconsistently. Like, you just need to let guys know what's going on and they'll kind of acclimate to it. But I agree there's a weird line to walk and really two parallel lines that they're trying to walk simultaneously.
- [70:09]
Zach Lowe
We don't want the 82 games to be played like this because players would all be injured by the time the playoffs start. However, the key word in your statement, or hyphenated two words or whatever it is, is 80. That's obviously the overarching issue of, oh, it's just too many games. We all know it's too many games. Everybody knows it's too many games. And yet no one will ever actually dare to propose a real. Let's actually talk about this. In fact, let's add more games. By the way, congratulations to the Milwaukee Bucks again for winning the Emirates Cup. Really exciting accomplishment that all their fans will remember forever in Las Vegas.
- [70:45]
Rob Mahoney
Can I ask you this on that for like, I know there's no traction on shorting the season and it's never really gotten off the ground for a variety of reasons. If we're in congressional wheeling and dealing mode and the time for expansion comes up and we have these big, juicy expansion fees coming for Vegas and Seattle, is there a way to tether in an amendment to shorten the season in conjunction with expanding the league so that the financial offsets are a little more concrete?
- [71:11]
Zach Lowe
Well, maybe. And by the way, we shouldn't just make this like it's the league's fault and the teams are stubborn like the players also. So everyone's caution about this is if you trim 82 to 68 or whatever, the pool of revenue that we split 50, 50 shrinks. And that shrinks for the players and it shrinks for everybody else, too. And I think the bet would just be like long term with this new TV deal, with the expansion fees, with every regular season game meaning more. And maybe ticket prices go up. Maybe you can kind of recoup that over time if you're patient. But these guys just get to the end of the season and they're just.
- [71:44]
Rob Mahoney
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- [72:15]
Zach Lowe
C's apply okay two series resume tonight. I don't want to overdo them because they are resuming soon. I asked you for one overarching, not overarching, one thing, small, big, whatever that you will be watching in these two games tonight. And I'm going to start with Boston New York, which to me is the other most interesting series of the second round. Boston rebounds from two absolutely horrendous losses at home to the Knicks to win and make some threes in Game 3 and sort of maybe stabilize themselves. They have taken 47 more threes than the Knicks through three games, which is the math problem. Maybe this series will be long enough for it to tilt back to Boston's favor. One thing Rob Mahoney is watching for tonight in a massive like, New York wins this game, Boston's got home court. Boston and seven is still sitting there as like a decent possibility outcome. Winning three in a row against the Knicks is going to be tough.
- [73:14]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I think the big variable for me is can the Knicks triangulate enough offense out of OG Mikhail Bridges and Josh Hart to make this thing actually feel viable? Like they have scrapped their possessions, their defense has shown up. Jalen Brunson is gutting out just hard shot creation, hard bulk shot creation for many of these games and especially at the end of them, 7 points from OG over 2 games is just not enough. McHale sort of like floats in and out and it feels like they kind of forget he's out there sometimes in terms of his offensive involvement. And Josh Hart is always going to be more of a wild card as far as like scoring goes. But if he's tilting more towards the like 15 he's averaging for the series versus the 10 that he had in game three. That's like a meaningful difference in a game like this. And so I'm just wondering like those guys are all giving to, to be totally fair, amazing defensive play, next level hustle play. Like they are. They're getting after it. They're doing a lot of Their job. The problem is New York needs a little bit more than that. And I don't know that they can win a series with Brunson playing the way that he's had to play. Like, they. They just need a little bit more from those three guys in particular.
- [74:21]
Zach Lowe
And Brunson, obviously, you know, Boston is, for better or worse, making him work on every defense, possession. And I thought late in Game 4, the Knicks started just giving the Brunson switch instead of hedging it, and he held up okay. And I wonder if we see that a little bit more. It's a dangerous game, but it does bait the Celtics into more one on one kind of play. By the way, we didn't mention this. Like, Halliburton, he's a target all the time. He's got good days and very bad days on defense. He was decent in game four when they went at him, and he made big plays down the stretch of game one. Like just holding your own and not being a pushover is a big, big deal for. For these kind of players.
- [75:01]
Rob Mahoney
Also, Halliburton also closes out like crazy, as do all the Pacers. Like, they want to run you off the line. They're such a great contest team. But Halliburton's flying out at guys in a way that makes it an actual difference in games like that.
- [75:12]
Zach Lowe
My thing to watch is Boston running actual offense early in the shot clock, which I think they did. They ran more variety of plays. Like they ran some split actions that got them good stuff against the Knicks. And they ran. I have charted like this pick and roll with 20 on the shot clock. This pick and roll with 20 on the shot clock catches the Knicks backpedaling, catches them in rotation, gets a Pritchard three, a White three. Just go a little faster, have a little more variety, be a little more unpredictable. I thought they did that. Just a little Josh Arc tidbit for you. 29 ball screens in game four, highest number of any game this season. Shows you how much Boston, by putting their big on him, has kind of redirected New York's offense away from the cat pick and rules and toward the hard pick and rules. It would also help if Porzingis could make a shot. And obviously the virus is the virus Mystery is continuing. Okay. Less exciting just because of the MASH unit that is the warriors without Steph is Minnesota Golden State. Minnesota grinds out game three on the road to take a 21 lead. One thing Rob Mahoney is watching for tonight, in a game the warriors pretty much have to win.
- [76:23]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I think it's. Are we going to see Ant and the Wolves make actual progression in the way they break down Golden State's defense or are they just going to try to brute force it again, which is how they've had success in the series so far? I wouldn't say they've really cracked the code of an incredibly formidable defense. To be fair to the Wolves, they can probably win in either case, whether they make meaningful progress on that front or not. Like they can just overwhelm these guys at a certain point. You saw Ant especially just do that. And Julius Randall, who's been aces especially since game one in this series, really, really pulling it together.
- [76:57]
Zach Lowe
I like that you sound like a 20 newspaper.
- [77:00]
Rob Mahoney
It's my general vibe. More of a one page. I just think like Minnesota's mistakes are bigger and louder than basically any team that's as good as them. And you saw it in the fourth quarter with some of their turnovers. I would love to see a version of the Wolves that isn't just like hitting its head against the wall for 40 minutes. That does have some actual growth in it as far as the playmaking and execution against a high level defense goes. We saw some of that from Ant in the first round with a very specific and very different kind of problem. Golden State is a different beast. They're much more challenging, they're much more ferocious, they're flying around, they present a wider variety of defensive puzzles. I wouldn't say he's done great with it so far and if anything has kind of like had to really force his way through some of these games in terms of making himself like an impact creator and scorer against that defensive front. But I would love to a little bit of growth.
- [77:54]
Zach Lowe
It's been a big few days on a couple of my NBA territories. I have joked for years now about how for a while I was the only one on Julius Randall Hill trying to make fire with sticks. Just me and like Nate Jones, the agent, big Julius Randall fan of Just Two of Us, just trying to keep warm and forage for food.
- [78:16]
Rob Mahoney
Oh, it's booming. That whole neighborhood's been gentrified now. You know, there's just pop ups, mixed use space everywhere. It's crazy.
- [78:23]
Zach Lowe
A couple of Froyo stores just opened in. No, a couple of Froyo stores just opened in Kaminga Keys over the weekend. Hey, is maybe Jonathan Kaminga not horrible? Should maybe you have tried to nurture? I know he's not a Warriors kind of player.
- [78:35]
Rob Mahoney
He's not.
- [78:36]
Zach Lowe
He's not A beautiful game kind of player. He's not, he's not the most intuitive read and react guy. Now you need him and he's coming through for you. Maybe you should have like not crapped on him for like months and years because it's kind of like the warriors are kind of down to six guys that they trust. Pajemski healed Butler, Kaminga Green and GP2. Moody is like lost in space. Post gets played off the floor instantaneously. They had a lineup in game three that was like Spencer, Looney, Moody, Peyton ii. It was like what's happening right now? And then like Santos might have been in the. And so it's basically just those six guys and in your grab bag of centers like Jackson, Davis and Looney. And my big thing is like, does Jimmy have more games like game three in him? Because Jimmy threw everything he had at game three. Attacking mismatches, attacking Gobert, attacking Divincenzo, running a lot of pick and roll. Ended with 33 or 35, whatever he ended with. And it just felt like the more he scored and the more he was clearly pouring everything into the game as it was close and nip and tuck. It just felt to me like a game the warriors had to win because I don't know how many games like that he's got in him at his age and dealing with, you know, recovering from the injuries, recovering from and without Steph and you know, like if it, if it's another game too where it's like Jimmy has 16 and whatever. Like I just think they're drawing dead without a big, Big Jim and they're trying like these healed off ball actions and get switches and like, you know, there's just. They need Jimmy to be huge. I think every game they need him to be huge.
- [80:13]
Rob Mahoney
And even in that one, which as you said is kind of the ideal Jimmy Butler game under these circumstances, he was pressing in a way he doesn't really like to press. He's still coming up with all these random Jimmy Butler baskets as he is ought to do.
- [80:23]
Zach Lowe
The finagler.
- [80:25]
Rob Mahoney
The Finagler. TM really, really coming through for you in that moment. But he also ran out of steam down the stretch in that way in like a one on one creation at the end of the fourth quarter sort of way. And look, as I was saying, Minnesota was running sloppy offense too. It's not like everything was perfect. This was up for grabs. He just didn't quite have enough left. 33 points in and that's, that's where they are. And that's that's why. Look, I'm. I'm a little bit more of a Kuminga skeptic. I think Froyo is a good call because it's like I think Kuminga island is good for tourism but not necessarily for living there. And so him popping up for an occasional 30 point game feels like a good way to have a good time. Him being an instructive structural part of your offense may not be where you want to look live every day of the year. And so all due credit to him for performing in the way that he did. Do I expect it to happen again? I don't necessarily.
- [81:16]
Zach Lowe
I'm expecting 40. Let's go.
- [81:18]
Rob Mahoney
Let's double down from here. But the problem is no one else on the warriors can really do that. Really their only strength in terms of that kind of scoring and how they're going to survive without step has to be collective. It has to be team play. It has to be a game where you look up and six different warriors have 14 points, including Jimmy kind of leading the charge. And some of that is like Draymond has to find a way to be an actual scoring presence in this series. Guys like pods have to find ways to be more consistent and certainly to present more of a threat in a way where they're driving offense. But Minnesota's defense has been really good, again, not unlike Oklahoma City's about shrinking the gaps about like really challenging the team dynamics and the flow of the way that Golden State wants to play.
- [81:59]
Zach Lowe
Minnesota is such a strange team. You mentioned their propensity for loud mistakes. Sometimes I'm like in this matchup in particular, like is to they just clear the floor and get out of Anthony Edwards way and just let him go one on one. Because that seems to be kind of working for them, particularly when Gobert's not on the floor and the floor is a little clear. Like nobody on the warriors can stay in front of him. And he's obviously sent Kavan Looney into the oblivion dunk zone with one of the just great ant dunks. Three backdoor cut baskets for Ant in game three. I love an ant cut all off Randall.
- [82:34]
Rob Mahoney
I think too as being like the trigger man, if I'm not mistaken. That was a great combination and very.
- [82:38]
Zach Lowe
Good intuitive reads by Ant on like give it up and go. This is also the shot clock violation series. Like just dueling shot clock violations or end of clock heaves and a guy we should shout out that we have not mentioned yet. What a playoffs for Jada McDaniels Yes. I mean, 16 a game, 58% shooting, 40% on threes. And it just seems like every time he attacks a closeout and, like, doesn't even beat his guy off the dribble, but just kind of dribbles into him and decelerates and uses his height for a six footer, it like goes in every time. And the defense speaks for itself. He guarded Curry, now he's guarding Butler. Just. He's giving you everything you want living up to that. This Jada McDaniels is worth that contract.
- [83:22]
Rob Mahoney
He's been awesome. And I think in particular as far as, like, small things that ultimately are kind of representative of big things. Him not settling for the corner three and trying to leverage his eyes in exactly the way you described and driving, putting the ball on the floor, going hard to the basket. That decision and that skill set is what gets Draymond Green his sixth foul in this game and bumps him out. Like that doesn't happen. Frankly, the Lakers series does not unfold the way it did if Jaden McDaniels has not only improved as a shooter in some of those games and hitting, but like a dynamic, fully functional, fluid offensive player in a way that I think would have been inconceivable to even look at the outline of who he was two years ago and anticipate this. This has been incredible growth. And I think he's done something that's really, really difficult to do, which is he was a guy who was playing smaller than his size in a lot of ways as a purely spot up, sometimes like, flex transition option, and has become a burly, physical finish in the lane through contact kind of player. And you just really don't see that.
- [84:19]
Zach Lowe
That much awesome stuff from him. We'll see what happens tonight. Rob Mahoney, we got group chat. What are you writing this week? We got anything we can promote? What do we got?
- [84:28]
Rob Mahoney
Not writing currently. Actually, my hand is currently broken. So, like, literally broken.
- [84:33]
Zach Lowe
What happened?
- [84:34]
Rob Mahoney
Pick up basketball. It was a whole thing. Will not be playing anytime soon for that reason, but. So the writing is currently ticked, but we're potting like crazy. You know, we got group chat going on. We got some prestige TV stuff going on.
- [84:47]
Zach Lowe
Oh, yeah. What are we covering on prestige TV these days?
- [84:50]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, we got the last of us.
- [84:51]
Zach Lowe
What do we got?
- [84:51]
Rob Mahoney
We got the last of us. We got your friends and neighbors on Apple tv. You know, we're figuring it out. We got poker face starting up, so there's some exciting stuff happening.
- [85:00]
Zach Lowe
I don't know what poker phase is other than Natasha Lyon, isn't it? And it's apparently quite good. People like it.
- [85:05]
Rob Mahoney
Quite good. It's like a Columbo case of the week. Like shiny guest star every single episode, kind of, kind of enterprise. It's a great time.
- [85:13]
Zach Lowe
I'm loving your friends and neighbors. And it's giving me, as a resident of a suburban Connecticut, not quite in those stratospheres, but it's giving me ideas. If AI just takes over basketball media, it's giving me a good career backup. Career backup plan. Delightful show.
- [85:30]
Rob Mahoney
Art theft. That's what you're thinking.
- [85:33]
Zach Lowe
Just generally people just have stuff laying around. There's too much money and too much wealth in the world. Let me just take some and find a pawn shop and get on with it. All right. Rob Mahoney, you're the best. Thank you, sir. All right, thanks for listening. I'm off to schmooze with NBA executives in Chicago for six hours and then watch some ping pong balls fly around to determine the fate of multiple NBA franchises. My favorite night of the year. And then two more big playoff games tonight. We might be back tomorrow for a special lottery reaction playoff reaction mini episode TBD on that and definitely on Thursday. Thank you for listening to the Zach Close show. Must be 21 and over and present in select states. For Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in present in D.C. gambling problem called 1-800- gambler or visit FanDuel.com RG call 1-887-89-7777 or is it ccpg.org chat in Connecticut, or is it mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland? Hope is here. Visit Gambling Helpline M or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 Sport in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-H O P E N Y or text Hope NY in New York.