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The Zach Lowe Show
Game 5 Instant Reaction!! J-Dub’s Dominance, Haliburton’s Struggles, Trade Season Begins, and Much More With Kirk Goldsberry.
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- [00:00]
Zach Lowe
This episode is brought to you by Factor. Make this your best season yet with nutritious 2 minute meals from Factor. Eating well has never been this easy. Just heat up and enjoy, giving you more time to do what you want. Get outside instead of prepping and cooking indoors. Factor meals arrive fresh and ready to eat. Perfect for any active lifestyle. Get started@factormeals.com low L O W E 50 off and use the code low 50 off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box all right everyone. Coming up on a jam packed Zach Lowe show with Kurt Goldsberg, which was also a live show on YouTube. We get into everything that happened in game five of the NBA finals. The Oklahoma City Thunder one win away. A whole lot of steals, a whole lot of sga. An absolute all around masterpiece from J Dub that goes up in history with some of the greatest Finals games ever by some of the greatest individual players of the last 2025 years and a stinker from Tyrese Halliburton. What does it mean? How do we parse it when a naturally unselfish player nursing what appears to be a real calf injury has zero made field goals in an NBA Finals game? Obviously that is unusual and not good enough for a Pacers team who was game game like got within two in the fourth quarter and then a whole bunch of stuff happened and then it was a 17 point lead. We will also talk about the Desmond Bain trade. Holy cow was that fun on Father's Day. The Kevin Durant trade landscape as always and all the offseason drama that is ahead with Kurt Goldsberry. Hope you enjoy it. You're listening to the Zach Low show presented by FanDuel. America's number one sportsbook has made it easier than ever to get in on the action during the NBA Finals. And with live betting, the tip off is just the beginning. Look for the live SGP tab on the FanDuel Sportsbook app and build your bet slip. Then sit back and enjoy the game as you track the outcome of your parlay right in the app. If you don't already have it, download the FanDuel app today and make every moment more the ringers committed to responsible gaming. Visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. Must be 21 over in President select states or 18 and over in President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800- GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com welcome to the Zach Lowe show live. We're live on YouTube. Kurt Goldsberry, the Oklahoma City Thunder, one win away from completing one of the greatest, fastest, most emphatic turnarounds in the history of professional Sports with a 120109 win over the Indiana Pacers. The Indiana Pacers. Who will never say die. Who will never go away, who will bring T.J. mcConnell off the bench for a flurry of all kinds of TJ McConnell points? Who will suddenly be within two thanks to a Pascal Siaka masterpiece? It was 95, 93 and then a whole lot of stuff happened and it was 111, 97 and the game was effectively over. There are three main storylines to hate. Are you ready for them? Kirk?
- [03:03]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I'm ready for all three. Zach.
- [03:06]
Zach Lowe
Number one if you want to start. Negative. Tyrese Halliburton nursing what appears to be a bothersome calf injury. 0 field goals, 4 points, 6 assists, 3 turnovers. It is what it is. It was not a good game. He has had one of the greatest clutch shooting runs in the history of basketball. They are not here without him. They needed him tonight and he just didn't deliver. Number two, if you want to be positive. Jalen Williams with one of the finest all around performances you will ever see from full stop in an NBA finals game. Both ends of the floor scoring in every possible way. You need pick and roll buckets. You want them to be jumpers? I got those. You want them to be lefty layups off the glass? I got those. Do you want them to be leaning bankers off a Spain pick and roll with Shea as the back screener? How about we throw that in when our season's authentically on the line? Yeah, I'll make that. You want me to make a kick three off a Shay pick and roll or an offense rebound? I got that. Something in transition. I'll do that too. You want me to play pitter pat catch with Shay pump drive score? I. I got that. You want me to back cut for a dunk? How about I do that three times. Once in transition, once out of a baseline, out of bounce, at once out of a time. I forgot a masterpiece from Jalen Williams and connected to that for the first time in the series. It took five games. This is storyline number three for me. The Thunder got out of the mud on offense. Thanks all in part to the aforementioned Jalen Williams. Thanks in part to 15 steals that for the first time in the series actually led to stuff. And just thanks to some timely three point shooting. Aaron Wiggins. Four threes case. No Wallace, four threes Lou Dort. Three threes. Two in that fourth quarter, run off what I call trust passes from sga. I thought SGA was forcing it a little bit when the game got tight. Kind of just. I'm just, I'm just going into a crowd. Miles Turner stripped him once when he had Chet open in the corner. And to Shay's credit, calm down. Made the passes. Dort made the threes. Oklahoma City pours up 120 points on a massive offensive rating. Holds Indiana to about an average offensive rating. You pick Tyrese Halliburton? Yeah, I'm hesitant to say no show because the whole ethos of the team flows from him. But Tyrese Halliburton, not much show. Jalen Williams, all the show. Thunder offense off the charts. Where do you want to start?
- [05:28]
Kurt Goldsberry
You got to start with J Dub. That was, that was just an incredible performance, the game of his life. One of the reasons they've been able to do what you called the fastest or one of the fastest turnarounds or rebuilds in the league. And he had everything going tonight. He was the best player in that game. Best playoff game of his life. I mean, he, when he, when he gets going vertical, Zach, and he gets going to the rim, he's got this cool signature sort of scoopy shot on both sides now. And it's so cool to watch. You got to start with him. I agree with you. Tyrese Halberton was kind of a no show. He was making the right plays a lot of the time, but he has to score the ball if they're going to win on the road like that. And then the thing I'd add is like. And to steal a point from our boss, like the Thunder defense has this ability to go on runs by itself. And I, I felt like the key moment in the fourth quarter was really defined and you sort of alluded to it. 15 steals. This isn't normal. That's not a normal number of, of steals in an NBA game. But really, that Thunder defense goes on runs and explodes and, and just it seemed like every time Indiana was threatening to take a lead or get back into it, the OKC defense that we've been raving about for years now just showed up and made the big play. So aside from J Dub, I talk about that OKC defense just making play after play after play. So many lazy passes turn it into easy buckets the other way.
- [07:01]
Zach Lowe
Not just, not just lazy passes. Passes where they were kind of trapped. Like Nemhardt had a big one in the fourth quarter where he Picked up his dribble, and he was just. And just arms. Arms all around him. Where am I going to go with this? And he tried to go to Shea. He miscommunicated. Or he tried to go to Halliburton. He miscommunicated, threw the ball away. Steel goes the other way. And just. I thought their defense just hit. Not for the entire game. For portions of the game, early and late, particularly when Caruso was in the game. And they could switch one through four, sometimes switch one through five. I thought that's something they leaned into Bill and I talked about at the end of game four. Like, hey, worse. Worst comes to worse, just switch jet onto Halliburton. Let's not get ourselves in rotation. It's not what we want to do. Maybe it's what we have to do. And he did. Halliburton got him once on, like, an up and under where it took every ounce of craft and guile. Tyrese Haliburton has just to draw a foul, not to make a basket, because he didn't make any baskets to draw a foul. Other than that, Chet pretty well contained him. And those were the sequences when Indiana. You seldom see Indiana resort to, like, oh, Miles Turner has the ball with 10 on the shot clock, and he's just got to, like, dribble and do stuff. And N. Smith has a bailout shot at one point, and Haliburton has to take a long two with no traction, no momentum. They. They had him gummed up. And that's what they've been doing all season, and that's what they leaned on when it mattered. They got. I mean, I've got my notes over here. They just got a hail of turnovers and steals from all over the place. Holmgren got Halliburton in a pick and roll in traffic. Tyrese just kind of, like, lost the ball. How many turnovers did Tyrese have tonight?
- [08:35]
Kurt Goldsberry
Half a dozen.
- [08:36]
Zach Lowe
Not. Not egregious. Pascal6 got picked a lot of times in traffic. A couple turnovers in transition. But both of these teams, you sense that they're like, man, we're not getting much in transition. These. The other team is awesome in transition defense. I'm just going to go for the home run. I'm, like, trying too hard to, like, when I get an opportunity one on two, trying to thread needles that aren't there. Yeah, Just all around awesome performance by the Thunder. And look, if Halliburton can. Can get healthy with two days of rest or healthier, and he did not look all that bouncy or healthy or comfortable sort of pivoting around at times. Tonight, you can't. You can't just write the series being over now. The Pacers have earned too much respect for that. Right?
- [09:18]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah. And I thought they were gonna make us look like fools again. I mean, it seemed like that the Thunder were running away with this game and having their way on both ends of the court. And Here comes this TJ McConnell stint in the third quarter, and it was just this incredible moment. And I'm looking at the numbers because they had 45 points at halftime. The. The Pacers did, and they. They came out Zach. And they scored 34 points in the third, had 30 again in the fourth. No, you can't count them out. Because as good as that Thunder defense is, there's been phases of the series where the Pacers offense has outplayed that incredible Thunder defense. And this time it was as T.J. mcConnell making all the right plays, covering up for a lot of the gaps that Tyrese had left for somebody. And he is one of the best backup point guards, and he showed it tonight. But you can't count them out. You know, I think I had originally predicted hand up the Pacers were going to the last five games. I was wrong. They're much better than that. I expect them to put up a big fight in Game six, if not win it outright. And I would love to, as I'm sure you would, Zach Low for this, to have a historic seventh game back in Oklahoma City in a few days.
- [10:37]
Zach Lowe
Do you really. Do you think we're going to get there?
- [10:41]
Kurt Goldsberry
I would think the Thunder will be slight favorites going into Game 6, but I don't know. I. I love those Pacers fans, so I want it to happen so bad. I want. You were there, right?
- [10:53]
Zach Lowe
Like, I might go back. I'm. I'm contemplating a quick. A quickie return trip for game six.
- [10:59]
Kurt Goldsberry
Going into Game six, I mean, you were in that building. Do you think what it takes to get one more?
- [11:04]
Zach Lowe
You know, Bill and I and many others talked about it after Game four when it felt for three quarters like Indiana was going to go up three one, and the game was kind of trending their way, and Oklahoma City just could not get rolling. And then Shea does some Shay stuff, Oklahoma City comes back and takes that game on the road. And I had made a note going into that game and talking to people going into game four, so 2, 1 Indiana, it felt like game four might be the whole championship. Like whoever wins that game could win the series. It felt that Pivotal. And then Oklahoma City wins it. They win rather emphatically at home, so they're riding momentum back to back. Was it the first time the Pacers have lost consecutive games the entire playoffs? Neither of these teams has lost consecutive games in the playoffs until now. By the way, they just updated all the stats. The score of the series. Oh wait, no, that's not. Nevermind. I don't know what the score of the series is. I was reading the wrong column. We're live on YouTube. I. I feels like the Thunder can smell it. And I would probably pick them to win game six in Indiana. And I don't think Indiana will roll over or make it easy. They are relentless. They are deep. But I would pick the Thunder to win in game six.
- [12:14]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I think that's fair. We got to see what's going on with Halliburton's leg. If he's able to be full strength, there's definitely a path for them to force a game seven. It looked like tonight, as you said, Siakam cut the game, the lead to two there and I felt like they had a chance. But dude, ultimately Oklahoma City can win the series on both sides of the court. And I feel like Indiana can really only dominate on the one side of the court. And I thought like we said earlier, the Thunder defense was great, but J Dub and then the three point shooting they got from Wiggins tonight just. Was just. Just those little things. India's got to win the three point battle if they're going to win game six. They didn't do that tonight.
- [13:00]
Zach Lowe
So how about the Thunder going from 10 assists in game four to 24 tonight and three threes to 14 tonight? I mean that is. That is a massive one. Game change. Updated stats for the series. Thunder plus 24 total. So what is that, like five a game? Good math right there. That's good. That's some midnight math right there. 5:71 to 5:47. The. The advanced stats continue to paint this as a defensive series despite the fact that the Thunder bumped up its offense today. Thunder offensive rating for the series 114.7. That's like probably below average. If I looked up the. The total rankings, the regular season rankings, Pacers all the way down at 110, which is ghastly bad by their standards. So it's been kind of a defensive series, which credit to the Pacers, they've done it, dug in and made themselves a good defensive team. But I mean, did Jade in. In the event that they win, did J. Well, it's Probably. It's too early. I was going to say, did J.J. i know. Did J Dub play his way into the finals MVP conversation? Because the last two games have been just heroic finals performances, but they've also been pretty goddamn good performances by SGA, including all of crunch time in Game 4, which may prove the pivotal game. And just like, oh, I had 31 and 10 tonight. And by the way, four blocks. How about that? Four blocks for SGA.
- [14:31]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, dude. I think SGA's game four closing sequence is still the signature moment of the series, assuming the Thunder win one of the next two games. So. But yeah, J Dub made it at least a conversation on the Zach Lowe with. With the last two games he's played. But here's the dumb guy stat I was going to give you. The Pacers need to score 111 points. They. They are down 0 and 7. When they failed to do that, they got 109 tonight and they're 14 and oh in the playoffs and 2 and oh in this series when they score 11 or more. I know that's. That's not a great stat, but it does. It does speak to some of their limitations on defense and their. Their ability to win really hinges on their offense getting going to a certain level. That didn't happen tonight. You can't win with turnovers. And I know Kirk. Oh, my God. Yeah. They won with 25 turnovers in game one. That's never going to happen again. That's never. You're not going to win many NBA games with 25 turnovers. And what would they end with? Tonight's act.
- [15:32]
Zach Lowe
21, 22 turnovers.
- [15:34]
Kurt Goldsberry
22. You're not going to win with that. To me, that's the story of the game. But as we alluded to earlier, you're a tennis guy, right? Zach Lowe.
- [15:41]
Zach Lowe
I used to be. Not really anymore. I couldn't identify. What's his name? Sinner Skinner. Principal Skinner.
- [15:46]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yes. Yeah. Principal Skinner and Alcatraz. They had one of the best group French Open finals of all time the other day. You should have watched that match. That was an incredible match.
- [15:58]
Zach Lowe
I caught glimpses. I caught glimpses in the.
- [16:02]
Kurt Goldsberry
In the. In the tennis sport. They have four stairs and unforced errors.
- [16:06]
Zach Lowe
I'm aware of that. I mean, you could have just gone right there. I know what an unforced error is.
- [16:11]
Kurt Goldsberry
You were the one who brought up Principal Skinner or whatever you did. Where was I going with that? Turnovers, 22 steals are forced. Like the stealing thing is. Is. Is crazy to me. That's the Signature thing. I wrote an article early in the season calling these thunder defenders just straight up thieves. Zach. They. They force these turnovers. They don't. And then they turn them into points. And a lot of Jdub's points came in transition on. In that sort of chaotic moment that's fueled by the OKC thieves.
- [16:43]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, J Dub was feasting in transition earlier in the game, and I just have. I take little notes on. On paper during the game. It just the margins of a series like this. Second quarter, Halliburton gets Hartenstein on a switch and gets one of the. One of the good three he got. I think all four of his threes were pretty good looks and a couple of them were against switches. Misses, a good step back, long rebound, J Dub run out back cut dunk. And the crowd is starting to go crazy. It's just like three that, like that, that misses, and all of a sudden it's off to the races. There are all, all kinds of other sequences like that where just one shot goes in. It changes the whole game. How do we parse a Halliburton performance like this? Because you know what's going to be on television all day tomorrow is, oh my God, was this guy a fraud the whole time? Like, you can't be a superstar. Like, who's a superstar? You can't be a superstar, whatever that is in square. No field goals in a finals game. How do you parse a game like this? Because I am, I, I'm a huge fan of Tyrese Halliburton's. I think he's awesome. I think the conversation about him during, like I was at dinner in Indiana with about six or seven people and I said, we were talking about Halliburton and the media firestorm around him. This is between games three and four. And I said, you know, he made like a buzzer beater to win a finals game.
- [18:03]
Kurt Goldsberry
You.
- [18:03]
Zach Lowe
You think that buy you, you think that buy you a week? Like a week of just not being labeled not good enough for like some sort of fraud or not a superstar. You made the biggest possible shot you can kind of make. You'd think that would give you like a four days in the news cycle of not being labeled a fraud. But this game was up. I mean, they, they needed him to win this game and he wasn't there. And I, I, you know, without being there, the injury was clearly bothering him and he's just not a guy who's going to force up shot if he. There are games where he's going to force up Shots. We've seen him do it. We saw him do it in game four against the Knicks. We saw him do it in game three of this series. And there are games where he's just, he's. He's going to kind of just try to let the flow of the game dictate what he does. And I guess that's what people want is sometimes you have to be the flow of the game and that's just not how he plays. And there you can. You're going to have games like this. What, what else? I mean, he's made. How many shots has he made in this playoffs to save their season and to turn series? So I just don't know how to parse a game like this is what I'm saying. I want to be. What I want to be is generous to a player who feels as if he's earned the benefit of the doubt like 15 times over in the playoffs. But it is the finals, it is game five and he scored four points.
- [19:17]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah. And a lot of dudes are going to want to turn on the James Harden switch on the hot take machine tomorrow.
- [19:23]
Zach Lowe
Oh, that's gonna. James Harden. I mean, James Harden.
- [19:27]
Kurt Goldsberry
But they. Because, oh for six, Zach is just. That was a no show. You know, it was, it was there. Now there's the injury stuff, but it's sort of like you have this like hardness, style performance in a big game. But we also have this Robert Ori sort of resume of this postseason where he's just made the biggest shots of the postseason over and over and over again, including some crazy ones like the Cleveland one where he gets the free throw, Rebo dribbles out, makes this play. We can go on and on, but it's hard to parse. I think that's the thing. He, he defies the characterization machine that we're going to throw at him. He reminds me of Steve Nash at times where he can be orchestrating this offense with very little point production himself. And the Indiana Pacers will put up an offensive efficiency that's just mind boggling. And that's when he's got it all going. He's creating everything and transition and controlling the pace of the game. But you're exactly right. What you said there is like sometimes you need to assert yourself if you're going to be the all star point guard on your basketball team. He just didn't do it tonight. I keep going back to the injury though. What's going on there? What are we going to learn in the next 48 hours?
- [20:45]
Zach Lowe
I mean, I'm sure they'll downplay it publicly, which is what every. Every team does, both for gamesmanship and pride purposes and secrecy purposes and all of that. And Jeff Van Gundy always says, if you're playing, you're playing, and if you're on the court, that was always his thing. I'm going to evaluate you based on the standards that you've set for yourself if you're on the court. And if you're injured, well, that's part of the deal. And everyone's injured at this time of year. And it wasn't good enough. It wasn't good enough. And I just don't know what else to say. I'm not going to, like, make a character judgment on Tyrese Halliburton based on one finals game. Even if it is the biggest game of Tyrese Halliburton's professional career. I'm not going to, like, knock him down five spots in the player rankings because he had a bad finals game. Guys have bad finals games. Some of the greatest players in the history of the league have had bad finals games. It's happened before. You know, he's just a hard player to. To really figure out based on the standards of what a superstar typically is in the NBA. That's why people keep bringing up Steve Nash as. As a comp. You know, I was. I was. I was hanging out with a player today for, like, several hours whose team has faced Tyrese Halliburton in the playoffs. And we were talking about the media coverage of Tyrese Halliburton, and this player was like, I don't. I don't get it, man. Like, I don't get it. And now, again, this is before. He made no shots in a finals game, but the player was like this whole superstar stuff, and the way. The way you guys talk about him, he was not saying you guys to me, just you guys in general is like, I played against that team. They're so hard to play against because of how he plays, because of how he gets off the ball and how he moves and how he gets everybody else to move. This player was like, that's why they're hard to play, and that's why. Did he score 30 points? Whatever. It doesn't matter to me because I played against it, and, like, he's the reason they play that way. That's why they're hard to play. So it's just a difficult thing, but there's no sugar coating it, man. You got to make a shot. You got to make a basket. And he didn't make any baskets and he only took six shots.
- [22:49]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, he had one spectacular play today where I think he missed the layup in traffic and he sort of saved the ball out of bounds and it was, it went from a good to great moment and it was this kind of Halliburton sort of controlled chaos and pace that it sounds like you're describing. As I said last time I was on the Zach Lowe show, he's the fastest player across half court in the NBA. When they're starting, either after a made basket or after a rebound, he gets vertical. He's, he, he seems to understand the side to side stuff, the core geometry better than any other point guard in the NBA right now. He is the reason this Pacers team is here, like make no mistake. And so I, I think he gets some grace period today. What do you got?
- [23:34]
Zach Lowe
No, I, I just, you know, I'm just looking at this, the, the box score from tonight and just probably, I mean, 31 and 10 for Shay. What, what stuck out to you about his performance? Which is going to be, you know, J Dub is going to get all the headlines. That's justified. Shay would still be, I think, not quite an easy front runner for Finals MVP, but coming into this game, he was averaging 33 a game. J Dub was averaging 22 a game. And again, you mentioned game for the 15 points in the last seven minutes or whatever it was five minutes. What did you think of his game today?
- [24:11]
Kurt Goldsberry
I mean, it's just. This is quintessential Shay, right? Like he had 31 points again and he had 14 free throws. He had a couple of just breathtaking drives where he stops on the dime and gets into his footwork and you know, Nemhard, I want to say, is doing a masterful job. And then you look up at the box score and it's another throw piece. It's crazy to say, but SGA was exactly what made him MVP tonight. He was everything. He had some great defensive plays, maybe that's where he was even better than expected. But I would say, you know, that was an MVP performance in a must win game. One of the biggest games in Thunder history. And he was one of the best players on the court, which we expected.
- [24:58]
Zach Lowe
And that's why the defense is why he is the mvp, because he's not a weak link that can be picked on. In fact, he is a playmaker who can. Oh my God. Obi Toppin has a jailbreak to the rim. I'm going to rotate from the left corner, block his shot and we're going to go out and run. What should be a dunk became, I think, a dunk for the Thunder or a three for the Thunder. I mean, those are the margins, right? Your. Your best player, your offensive fulcrum, makes an emergency rotation from the corner to the rim, blocks the shot of a big man, and you get two or three points instead of them getting two points or an. And one or two free throws or whatever it is. That's why he's the MVP and why he's sga. I thought. I thought he played an awesome game all around. The J Dub game is just. I mean, I don't want to invoke, you know, some of the. Some of the holier names in recent NBA history, But that's like 14 of 25, 3 of 5 on threes, nine free throws, six rebounds, four assists, one turnover, and elite defense across the board. I mean, that's on par with some of Kawhi Leonard's best games ever in the playoffs. That's on par with some of Kevin Durant and Jason Tatum's best games in the playoffs. Like, that's the level of that game.
- [26:13]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah. And I think Chad Holmgren was. Is great, too. And I think this is a good time to be like, all right, this is a big three. I mean, they're young. They all came up together. I know SGA obviously started as a Clipper, but they seem to fully coalesce. And I was looking at some stats earlier where if you look at the Thunder's defensive rating with homegrown on versus off in this series, it is incredibly different. Right. I think when he's on the court, the defensive rating is near 100, which, as you know, would be first in the NBA. When he's off the court, it's 118. That was coming.
- [26:49]
Zach Lowe
I thought it was gonna also be first in the NBA because it's the Thunder. It's like, encore. First in the NBA off court. Slightly better. First in the NBA.
- [26:56]
Kurt Goldsberry
I want to be clear, this is just in this series. And just to point out, the. Chet's being asked to do a lot out there. It doesn't always look. It doesn't always look dominant. He's got this peculiar way about him. But, dude, there was that play in the second quarter of this game where he caught Siakam at the rim like only other few players in the league could get that block. And then he goes coast to coast, misses his first attempt, gets his own rebound and finishes the second one. But to me, it's just like all Right. This is a big three. Now, Chet Holmgren is maybe this team's defensive mvp. I would ask you if you agree with that, because that's a tall, that's a tall task in this, in this group. But I keep coming back there with the shot defense, the paint defense with him, and then J Dub is sort of the two way guy. You know, he can do everything on both ends of the court. He obviously put up 40 tonight. And then Shea is the quarterback. So I think they, they're built for war. And tonight was a perfect example of that.
- [28:02]
Zach Lowe
I think Dort keeps the Thunder MVP championship belt for, for a while now after, after shutting out Tyrese Halberton tonight. And, but, but Chet is, I mean, if they're going to unlock the full perimeter skill set of Chet along with the shop blocking and, and, and say, like, hey, 10, 12 times a game, you can switch and we can see what happens and, and it works, then that becomes a conversation. And to wit, Caruso, just one of eight, didn't make any shots. And when the, when the Pacers started to get, get close, they missed a bunch of threes in a row. Just another plus eight off the bench for Alex Caruso. And that lineup with Caruso in place of Hartenstein as the fifth starter, has gradually found its footing as the series has gone on. I just looked it up. It's now, it's an even plus zero or minus zero. Whatever, zero, whatever. Have whatever you say for zero. And it had started minus, minus, minus. And that lineup just works with Chet at the five. And, and I just thought Oklahoma City also, like, their offense just flowed a little better tonight. I thought they paid much more attention to their spacing, their cutting, their ball movement. Like there, there was a possession in the first half where J Dub ran a pick and roll on one side of the floor in the middle, kick to Case and Wallace Kayson. Wallace drove a closeout, pitched the ball like an option quarterback to Lou Dort, who drove it up the wing, pitched it to J Dub. J Dub ran another pick and roll where he had his choice of homegrown on one side, Dort on the other. Chose Holmgren, got somebody on his hip. I think he kicked to somebody for a three. It's like, God damn, that's like more passing in one possession than they had for five straight minutes of like the last any of the first four games of the series. They just had a little, a little more pep to their step, as Doris Burke would say. And I think part of that is just being at home. Shea Looked fresher tonight. Like when they tried to deny him his handoffs and stuff. He was just not going to be denied. Like I'm going to go get the ball. Andrew Nemhardt, you're going to be you're pain in the ass and it's going to hurt and it's going to be physical. I'm going to go get it and stay in the play. They looked fresher, I thought. Some coaching tweaks, some schematic tweaks. They paid better attention to their spacing. Just an awesome message that was a championship level performance tonight from a team that is now one game away from the championship. What are your other takeaways from this game or stuff Indiana can can point to or other than the Halliburton play. Better adjustment for game six. What else should we look for?
- [30:25]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, it's nice to see Tony Bradley out there. Another piece of this roster that we hadn't seen in the series. That was cool. I don't think he played particularly great or anything, but it's just another nice option. He's large.
- [30:37]
Zach Lowe
He's very large.
- [30:38]
Kurt Goldsberry
Right. Maybe it's just a set of three or four fouls you can use but here I'll give you some random thing about Halliburton. He has yet to make a shot on the left side of the floor in this whole series.
- [30:51]
Zach Lowe
Oh wait, really?
- [30:52]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, like all of his made jumpers are on the right side of the floor. And I was, I just. I'll put it up on social media after we're done, but okay. It's crazy. So it's like there's this sort of geography, you know, I look at the game that, that I was like, how is this a thing, dude? Like everything is on the right. What do we need to do? We need to take care of the freaking basketball, dude. We need to, we need to stop giving them live ball turnovers. I would rather them just get a 5 second violation than throw some of these lazy passes that just go to the wolves and end up going the other way and being fast breaks. You cannot have the 22 turnover. So I would start there. Those turn into those J Dub layups and dunks. They turn into those open threes that they finally got going in Oklahoma City. So I would start with the turnover. Zach is the one sort of coaching emphasis that that group's going to have to figure out. Carlisle and company.
- [31:54]
Zach Lowe
It just doesn't feel like enough guys have played well in the same game for them. Like Turner's had a blast series. He was okay Offensively, he was okay tonight. Overall, they misses rim protection when he's not out there. You feel it when they go small with Siakam and toppin at the 4 and the 5. You know, Nemhardt had another kind of rough shooting game. Matheran had a rough shooting game. Shepherd disappeared in the second half. No Isaiah Joe, by the way, for the Thunder. They've just decided you're done that nice season. Maybe we'll see again if we need.
- [32:23]
Kurt Goldsberry
That's a luxury.
- [32:25]
Zach Lowe
I do want to shout out Siakam, who just brings it every single game. And in, in the middle of game three or game four rather, when it looked like it might be three one Pacers, you start to plot out what are the talking points going to be. And one of them was like, is Siakam getting at finals MVP if they win? Like, that's how good he's been. And Halliburton is again the central engine of the team. He is the defining figure of the team. Everything flows from him. But Siakam has just been unbelievable the entire series. I know he had six turnovers tonight. He also had 28 points, six rebounds, five assists, three steals and two blocks. And just I've said it before, he's the electric current powering stuff in the background that even when you don't notice him, he's always doing helpful stuff on both ends of the floor. Just everywhere, all the time. Awesome game. And just like even the challenge that they won and then was instantaneously erased by Siakam stealing bounce backs and dunking on the other end. Like, this guy just doesn't stop. Just the quickest turnaround from, like, that was a really smart challenge. But Mark D. Oh, Pascal said, I'm just dunked on the other end. Very clear.
- [33:29]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, he was, he was the best player by far tonight.
- [33:32]
Zach Lowe
Wait, should we, should we also talk about how I, I think I blacked out at the end and Aaron Neesmith had a put back dunk that just did not make any sense. Like, what happened? I need to watch that again.
- [33:42]
Kurt Goldsberry
He jumped over Chad Holmgren and I think he was talking trash before he descended all the way back down. He was so high in the air.
- [33:50]
Zach Lowe
No one knew what happened. Like, even the players were like, wait, am I taking that out of balance?
- [33:53]
Kurt Goldsberry
Was that, was that a Doris Burke had to tell Mike Breen it was a converted field goal because like Caruso standing with the inbounds pass behind the baseline. I don't think Breen and like many of us realized what had just happened. It was A hyper athletic play by Neesmith. But yes, Siakam, dude, he's leaving it all out there. I think he ran out of gas at the end of game four. And that was a big reason why the Pacers offense just went away at that key stretch of game four. But man, he brought it. And you know, Oklahoma City, he. Let's say he landed a big punch or two. I love that pick six right after the challenge and he goes down, I mean, just like a perfect way to channel his frustration there. He was the one who scored the field goal that we talked about earlier that cut it to two. But yeah, he was the one bringing it. In the absence of Tyrese all night for them and I guess TJ McConnell too.
- [34:50]
Zach Lowe
And in the point when they took control of the game, the Wiggins and Wallace threes in the second quarter just felt massive. And keeping them separated and keeping them like we have a margin for something like a TJ McConnell run. And by the way, at least one and maybe two of those threes were set up by Hartenstein. Offensive rebounds, and he did not have a great game. Minus one. He had six offensive rebounds in 21 minutes. And one of the things about J Dub and those J Dub minutes, when Shay is not on the floor, there are moments when the offense looks a little gummy, like, oh, Caruso's isolating all of a sudden. That didn't go well. Lou Dort is dribbling like a lot and in random diagonal angles around the core. Like, I don't know if that's going to go well. J Dub's going to have to take tough shots sometimes. He's going to miss tough shots. Hardenstein's ability to get them second chance points in those stretches combined with the fact that, like, we're going to win some of these, like you can have. There are minutes when Halliburton and Siakam are on the floor and SGA is off the floor and Oklahoma City's like, we can win these minutes purely with defense and second chance points generated by just scrappiness and offensive rebound. I thought Hartenstein's offensive rebounds were all super timely and a lot of their best defensive stretches were in those minutes where it's like, hey, this might be a four minute stretch where the score is 6, 6 because of our defense. And we're cool with that. That's a W for us. If you have your two best guys on the floor and we don't have the mvp, like, that's a W for us. Yeah.
- [36:17]
Kurt Goldsberry
And it felt like, you know, I wasn't rooting for the Pacers. I was rooting for one lead change late in the game just as somebody watches this stuff. And it felt like every time they needed an offensive rebound, a big three point shot or a turnover. But Hardenstein was also one of the things that, that I was looking at. Zach is like SGA was also really marvelous in the pick and roll. The stats are going to bear that out when they come through. But I think him at homegrid, him and Hardenstein, him and J Dub were all very, very strong in the pick and roll. And so like sometimes the Oklahoma City offense in half court setting is not that great. And one of the things that went right and you said it earlier, that seemed like they had that rhythm. They were just getting the basic stuff really well tonight. And that starts with sga but everybody. And the old cliche about role players playing better at home, that was Wiggins tonight hitting those threes. But yeah, it was. It just felt like a game that, that OKC won in several different categories.
- [37:23]
Zach Lowe
For the series, the stats just updated. Shea 32.4 points, 47% from the floor, 30% on threes, five assists, five rebounds, 2.4 steals, 1.8 blocks. We got a root. What we have to root for is Shea going, getting four, getting two each of steals and blocks in a finals, averaging a two and two in steals and blood. That's like a Lajuan kind of stuff from a point guard. J Dub, 26 points a game, 44.7% shooting, five rebounds, four assists. Shay's the Finals MVP if they close it out. Unless J dub scores like 50 in game seven. But J Dub has made it a conversation. Just an awesome series so far for two and I think if you asked me to make a prediction. I don't like making predictions, but I do them because they're fun. I think Oklahoma City closes it out in Game 6 in Indiana. That's what it feels like to me. In my gut. I have underestimated the Pacers at my own peril before, so I will not be surprised at all if they win. But it feels like Oklahoma City is beginning to be rolling downhill a little bit in this series. Obviously as a neutral fan, I would love to a game seven right. But I'm gonna bet against it. Any final takeaways here?
- [38:40]
Kurt Goldsberry
You know, I thought nemhard he if there's some. Well, I say turnovers are the key here. You cannot, you cannot feed the turnover monster and nem hard. I think I'd circle on the box score with with some of the dumbest turnovers for for Indiana, the most correctable ones. Other than that, I'm perfectly aligned on your prediction. I think okc, especially in a world where Halliburton is limited, is going to win this Game six. But I've been wrong about the Pacers. Gleefully wrong. By the way, it's fun to be wrong, right, Zach? It's fun to be wrong in our profession, especially when a team like the Pacers.
- [39:15]
Zach Lowe
No, I insist on being right all the time, even when I'm wrong. And that includes in my marriage. I'm always right and never wrong. And that goes over super well in my in my. No, I'm actually always wrong and usually actually am wrong about almost everything in At Home the Zach Lowe show is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA Finals all come down to this, and FanDuel's turning the excitement up even more with an all customer profit boost for every game of the series. As if you needed another reason to root for Game seven. Come on, let's go. Use your profit boost to bet which team will win, who's going to drop 30? Or you can build a parlay for a shot at an even bigger payday. If your bet wins, you'll win even bigger and then you can do it all again for the next game. If you don't already have FanDuel, it's not too late to get in on the action. Just visit FanDuel.comlow l o w e to join today. That's FanDuel.comlow to claim your profit boost for each and every game of this NBA Finals. Make every moment more with FanDuel. The official sports betting partner of the NBA must be 21 over in President in select states or 18 and over in President in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt in Required bonus issued is non withdrawable profit boost tokens restrictions apply including any token expiration at max wager amount. See terms@sportsbook.fanduel.com Gambling Problem Club 1, 800- Gambler or visit RG Hulk help.com this episode is brought to you by HubSpot. In the playoffs, extra possessions are everything. Same goes for growing a business and HubSpot's customer platform gives you more chances to win. Breeze their built in AI automatically takes care of marketing, sales and service tasks so you can game plan for growth. It's easy, efficient and most importantly, it's effective. Customers are cutting sales cycles in half and getting hours back each week. That's like turning those contested jumpers into clean Looks at the rim. Visit HubSpot.comai to learn more. All right, let's talk about some other stuff that happened this week. You ready?
- [41:07]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, dude.
- [41:08]
Zach Lowe
I have not weighed in on the Desmond Bane trade. Father's Day trade. Rude behavior by 2. 2 presidents of basketball operations, both of whom are fathers of. Of children and rude. Just rude. And waited. Waited. They. But I think transitioning from a series in which Pascal Siakam is playing a critical role to this trade is. Is fitting because it's going to get comped to the Mikhail Bridges trade, it's going to get comped to the Gobert trade, it's going to get comped to one of or both of the Kevin Durant trades. And just in terms of how many picks the Orlando Magic forked over to acquire a player who has never made an all star team. I do think he probably would have made one Desmond Bain if he had been playing in the east this whole time and not in the West.
- [41:51]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yes.
- [41:52]
Zach Lowe
So four first round picks, one of which is what, number 16 in this draft, one of which is very likely to be Phoenix's pick next year. And then two future Magic picks and a pick swap top two protected. I believe the Magic picks are unprotected down in the out years. KCP goes from Orlando to Memphis, Cole Anthony goes from Orlando to Memphis. And the Magic now have Desmond Bain on their team. And I think the reaction, you know, I gauged the reaction yesterday and just sort of looked and wonder what are people thinking of this? And you knew right away it was going to be four picks for Desmond Bain. Well, Kevin Durant isn't going to go for four picks. And I look at it. Well, I'll actually. What did you think of the trade?
- [42:40]
Kurt Goldsberry
I was shocked by it. I mean real trades travel in silence. That's the j donde quote of a quote. But I love it. I had no idea coming. I had no idea this was coming. And at first my reaction was, oh my God, that's way too many picks. But then you start to think about it and you're like, actually no, I could talk myself into this. There's some out years on the Bain deal. This is not a guy who's got one year left. And then you're saying to yourself, what was the glaring weakness on this roster? On the stat sheet for the Orlando Magic, it is everything that Desmond Bain is reliable, three point shooting, flexible guard play. As soon as Suggs went out, the Orlando Magic's defense went from mediocre to awful. They just couldn't get it going. Desmond Bain, you know, we saw in Memphis with, with John Morant missing so much time, he could run the offense. I think this is a fair price to pay. And I'd go so far as to say I talked to somebody, Orlando today, Zach, and they said it's time. This is our chance. You know, we're not going to get a big free agent.
- [43:51]
Zach Lowe
Freaking God, it's time. They haven't had a top 20 offense in the NBA since 2012. Is that one of my favorite stats in the NBA? They're the Joe DiMaggio of shitty NBA offenses. The top 20. There are only 30 teams in the NBA. You know how hard that is? How many years in a row is that? That's, that's 13 straight years of bottom 10 offenses. It's about freaking time.
- [44:13]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, that's a crazy stat. And, and recently that's been driven by anemic three point shooting. I think they were last in two of the three main categories of three point shooting last season.
- [44:26]
Zach Lowe
And so they're, you know what they're lasting. Clankish, clanking. Just clanks. Just. There's so many of their threes. Like, ooh, that one hurt to watch. Like, that hurt the rim. That hurt the backboard. I didn't even hit anything. Jonathan Isaac from the missed everything somehow they hurts my eyes. That's what they lead the league in, hurting my eyes while shooting jump shots.
- [44:46]
Kurt Goldsberry
And KCP is a character here. They thought this was their three point shooter and for whatever reason, it didn't work. He didn't make the exact same shots in Orlando that he'd been making in Denver. And so getting off of him, Cole Anthony. Okay, the Phoenix pick is the prize and I think maybe, you know, Orlando expects to be, hey, if you have any faith in Orlando, all the picks they gave up are 20 to 30. Right? And so I don't think it's that bad in terms of the picks out. And I love Desmond Bain for this team. So I, I came around in the last 24 hours being like, you know what? This is actually a pretty good deal for the Magic.
- [45:32]
Zach Lowe
I liked it right away and I don't regret liking it right away. It's a lot of picks. It's a lot of picks. It's all the picks pretty much like they.
- [45:41]
Kurt Goldsberry
How annoyed were you though, that this disrupted your father's day?
- [45:44]
Zach Lowe
I didn't care. It's fine. Like what, what is?
- [45:46]
Kurt Goldsberry
You were a little annoyed?
- [45:48]
Zach Lowe
I was. No, I'm jokingly annoyed. I, I, I, like, it's a Lot of picks. It's, it's, it's all the picks they can trade. Basically. They, they retain their own picks in the intervening years so they can trade swap rights on those picks which are not going to be valuable because the Magic are going to be good. And I think, you know, people throw around the, the term opportunity cost. Like what's the opportunity cost of this? And I think the opportunity cost is much less. Like who's the other great player that the Orlando Magic are going to acquire via trade? Who's it going to be? Desmond Bain is perfect for this team. He is an A plus plus plus shooter off movement off the dribble off movement in transition, right. With very little space required to get a shot off. He as, as John Morant's been injured a lot, has taken over the offense quite a bit in Memphis, expanded his pick and roll repertoire. He's, he's not someone you want to be a number one option. Guess what? The Magic have multiple people they'd like to be number one ish options, including Paulo Bancaro, especially Paul Ben Caro. They don't want one of those. They could have gone after Trae Young. They didn't really do that. He's not a defensive liability. I think he's a decent to good defender. That's what separates him from a guy like Anthony Simons who they definitely sniffed around and concluded this player at this higher price was better for their team. He is purely additive to everything that the Orlando Magic are and it is a lot of picks. But as you said, the reason I brought up Siakam is like three first round picks for Siakam. They're all crappy picks picks. All of them are crappy pick. It was Bruce Brown and three first round picks which is an interesting equivalent because Bruce Brown was not part of Indiana's long term future nor were KCP or Cole Anthony in this case. And that's a big deal too. They did not deal anything from there that they really cared about to be honest. With apologies to Cole Anthony I think was underutilized last year. And do you think the Pacers even remember the three first round picks they traded for Pascal Siakam? They don't care now. Four is one more than three. And then the a pick swap on there. It's a lot of picks. Desmond Bain is turning 27 I think quite soon. He's very young for a trade like this. It's one fewer pick than the Knicks gave up for Mikhail Bridges. Some of these teams just go get their guy and bet on themselves and I don't know who the other guy was that they were going to get that checked all these boxes. If there is an opportunity cost, I think it's the ability to do the little trades like the Celtics trading one first round pick and a swap for Derrick White. Like those kind of trades that pop up on the fringes and that turn into the trades that really make your team pop in the end. Those trades are hard to make and rare in their own ways. Like, I don't mind this at all. And you know, there are teams in the NBA who are ready before you realize they're ready. And I don't mind the Magic betting on themselves as one of those teams. Now I think they're going to still come into next year behind Cleveland, behind Indiana and probably behind New York just in terms of pure talent. But you like I saw someone throw around, well, they could be next year's Pacers. I like, I don't think they're going to make the finals next year, but I. We all know there's a void in the east now with Tatum and Jerry, and there's always a void in the East. The east is just a void in and of itself. It'll be. It might be a little better than people expect next year, but. And maybe the Magic believe they can step into that void to some degree. They are Pacer ish in the sense that they have an identity that is very hard to play against. It's the polar opposite identity of the Pacers, which is all, you know, happy, go lucky, pass and cut and move and be fast. The Magic's identity is just going to beat the shit out of you the entire game and it's going to be miserable to try and score points against us. I don't know. I don't mind it. This is the going rate for a player of this caliber and I don't. I don't mind it. You know, we'll talk about the Grizzlies end of it in a second, but anything else strike you about this one?
- [49:49]
Kurt Goldsberry
I think from Orlando's perspective, the thing that is also analogous with the Siakam deal is you don't have access to free agency in some of these markets. I always say that you have to be really aggressive in the trade market if you want to get a Desmond Bain or a Pascal Siakam to move to Indianapolis or Orlando. And. And so I think sometimes you have to overpay to get these guys. That's just the nature of the NBA marketplace right now. I love their starting Five. I love.
- [50:23]
Zach Lowe
Let's just go over it. So people remember Jalen Suggs, Desmond Bain, Franz Wagner, Paolo Banchero, Wendell Carter Jr.
- [50:31]
Kurt Goldsberry
I love them. I love.
- [50:33]
Zach Lowe
We should say that our love of this lineup is contingent on Jalen Suggs not missing half of every NBA season. That seems like a minor detail. It's being treated like a minor, minor detail. Like everyone in everyone's excitement, you kind of have to have the guy play at some point, right?
- [50:49]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, that's true. So in a vacuum where, where Jalen Suggs is playing and Paulo is, is doing his thing on offense and Franz is doing his thing and Wendell's getting the rebounds and Desmond Bain is now giving them some three point shooting. I like them winning a lot of games in the East. I'm with you. Cleveland and Indiana are ahead of them right now, but anything can happen and Indiana is proof of that. So I think they think they're ready. They told me today it's time and that's, that's what this move amounts to.
- [51:29]
Zach Lowe
You know, if anything, I think the bench is going to be very interesting for them because we just said they're starting five. Their bench is Anthony Black, who, who I really like. Yeah, really like needs to shoot it better. We all know that. But he does a lot of things that are very interesting. A good backup center, whether that's Goga or Mo Wagner coming off an ACL tear, everything else in between. That makes me nervous. And when I'm already kind of nervous about guys like seven to 11 on your team and you're talking about winning 50 games and one of your starters business, half of every, every NBA season makes me a little bit nervous. But the good news is a lot of those guys are young. So like, I like this the da Silva kid I thought showed some potential to be a good regular season player. They do have the 26 pick in this draft. Maybe they'll get somebody there. Isaac, I mean, I don't even know what to expect that. Isaac, is he physically capable of playing more than 15 minutes a game in 80 games? I have no idea. And, and you know, Jet Howard is still on the team, doesn't really ever play, so that makes me a little nervous. But you know, the interesting thing about these trades is Kevin Pelton and I did this over at ESPN a couple years ago there. There didn't used to be any trades like this with like three or four or five first round picks getting thrown around. There were, there were more. We did the research. There were more between 2012 and 2022, I think than there were in the entire history of the NBA prior to that or from the merger to that. And it's just kept going since then. And you think about some of the reasons why I think the shorter contracts in the player empowerment era, people, teams are like, we just have to win when we have a chance to win. And there's a sense that the league has been pretty open since the warriors broke up, since Durant left the warriors. There's a sense that between the play in and the lottery odds changes like that, the incentives have just generally skewed toward winning. And I think if everybody feels those same sort of pressures, and I've written about this before, if you fling away four picks in a deal like this, you probably think in the back of your head we can just do like the reverse to some other team that feels this aggressive in three years if this doesn't work out for us and recoup some picks. Maybe not our picks, but some picks. The RPG thing is a big deal, as we've seen with the Nets and now with theoretical Giannis. Stuff about like getting your own picks back. But it's just interesting how often we're seeing just massive amounts of picks going around. And for the most part it's teams that think they're going to be good, so their picks are not going to be very valuable. And I think Orlando is justified in thinking that of itself.
- [54:16]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, well, one more layer to that is, I think it's also the, and it's related to this marketplace idea that I have is that the, the glamour markets are more than willing to rely on free agency and the smaller markets know they can't. So there's like this economy of draft picks going from places like Los Angeles, the Lakers and the Clippers to a smaller market like Oklahoma City or Indiana, the New York Knicks sending them out. You know, teams that can reliably count on free agency to add big names, they have this disposable relationship with first round pick draft picks. And then the smaller markets know they don't have free agency. They need all those draft picks to either build with or use in trades like we just saw with, with Indiana sending three to get Siakam has been very important to them. And we just saw here with Bain. So I think there's a, there's a geography to this too, and we got to revisit that. That's. That's a good concept. Zach.
- [55:16]
Zach Lowe
The interesting thing about the Magic is can they keep these four guys together salary wise? Because Suggs contract declines Because Franz is locked in, you know, to. To 25% of a cap that was, you know, as of this year. And his contract will not raise. Rise as much as the cap. And Bain's contract similarly was signed, you know, two caps ago now or whatever. Two cap years ago. They can pretty safely duck the second apron maybe this entire run together. In some years, the first apron is going to be dicey, but not un. Not like unduckable. You know, I think like even this year they could just dump Gary Harris and get out of the second apron danger. But they're going to be a tax team a lot of the time, and we'll see what their appetite is for that. And a big thing to watch is Paolo Banchero, whether he makes all NBA this coming year because. Because that. That really. And again, I've. I don't want to wax about this much more. It's nauseating to me that teams are put in positions in which they kind of have to root somewhat against their players achieving things. Because the Cleveland Cavaliers got hammered financially by Evan Mobley winning a fantastic honor that everyone should be proud of him for winning defensive player of the year. So that'll be interesting if they can keep those four guys together. The Memphis Grizzlies, on the other side of this trade decided that building around three gigantic salaries was just going to box them in. In too many ways. And I do think, you know, Matt Moore was. Was tweeting about this this week. I do think they're like, when. When there is like Dallas with Dallas pair Kyrie and AD with a. With Kevin Durant on a $50 million contract. You pull teams and they're like, man, it's just hard to have three contracts that big. It just makes it so hard. And I think that's why we saw the Grizzlies kind of bail out of this. And from everything I've heard, they want to keep JA. They want to renegotiate and extend Jaren Jackson Jr. And have two big salaries and some flexibility around it. That sounds great and I think it could work. It's a little depressing that you end it reminds me a little bit in some ways of when the Thunder traded Paul George, which obviously worked out quite well for them. And the Wolves trading Cat in that you just have to. And if you want to get out of jail. And for the Thunder, it was the jail of mediocrity. For the Wolves, it was money jail. You just end up defaulting to like, I like this guy. I don't want to trade him he's the most valuable guy on our team in terms of what he could bring us in trade value. But that's why we have to trade him. That's what this feels like with Desmond Bain. I just don't know where they go in the next five years, how they get back to where they seemed to be going in the Western Conference, but I'm interested to see if they can. Needless to say, Kirk, if Jaw is not even going to sniff being a top 10 player ever again, this is not going to work. But beyond that, like, what's interesting to you about the Grizzlies pivot here?
- [58:19]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, let me ask you this because I think your listeners want to hear you talk about this. Like, how do you connect the two big transactions in Memphis that we've seen over the last few months, right? The Taylor Jenkins firing, bringing in this finish coach, and now this. What, what is, what is, what is the combination of those two things signal to use?
- [58:45]
Zach Lowe
The happy answer would be, we're going all in around John Morant. John Moran didn't like the way we were playing offense. He wants to play a different kind of offense. We think this dude's European coaching track record suggests he can really optimize a shaky shooting, super fast, super athletic point guard who also, by the way, gets hurt a lot. The, the negative side would be, even if we thought we wanted to trade John Morant, we're not getting for John Morant what we just got for Desmond Bain. And so we're going to do this other thing instead and hope that it works. Works. That's. That would be my two Angel, Devil on the shoulder answers. What's your answer?
- [59:24]
Kurt Goldsberry
It just seems like it's. They might be heading towards a rebuild. I don't know. Like, it just seems like those two things, you have to look at them in tandem to really make sense of why you would do this other than the cap. So they could say, all right, we got Jaw, we got Triple J and Michael Pena had an article for, for the Ringer about this today. It's like, you know what? This is just flexibility around these two guys. We got a new coach, to your point, we got some new draft capital. We can move that and get better pieces in here that we need.
- [59:58]
Zach Lowe
I mean, they've tried to get better pieces for so long. That's what they were trying to do around these three guys. Can we get Anunoby, can we get Bridges, can we get Durant? Can we get any of these guys? And they haven't been able to get.
- [60:08]
Kurt Goldsberry
Them and then the other school thought is the Bill Simmons take from this week, which is like this is the white flag. This is just the beginning of them waving the white flag in the west that they don't think that this core group can compete over the next few years in the Western Conference. And so I, I think the Taylor Jenkins move is, is, is relevant here because to me it signals more of like we might blow this whole thing up, bring in the young coach and, and start from scratch. But admittedly that is a leap. I don't feel good about saying that. I feel like there's two ways. That's why I asked you in that way. What do you think about it?
- [60:49]
Zach Lowe
So I will say this. Brian Windhorse reported this today. I've heard the same. The plan, such as there is one, is to keep Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. I will tell you teams that talk to them about Bain and there were several, including a few of the teams that have sniffed around Durant came away less convinced that that was the case from their conversations. However, GMs all do these conversations differently and try to plant little seeds of doubt over here. And whatever the actions will tell us what they want to do. If we get a report in two days that John Morant is suddenly available in trade talks, we'll know. We'll know what the tea leaves are. It's not hard to read. And the easiest one to look at is Jaren Jackson Jr. Who's eligible for a raise, an extension, a very rare kind of transaction in the NBA. They need to clear out more cap space as of July 1st or when the next NBA fiscal year starts to raise him up to a level that's going to get him to sign that extension like this is not. They have to earn this extension with Jaren Jackson Jr. If they want him to sign it because he's a very good player who could wait a year and enter into, that's right, a rich cap space environment. You've got to make it worth his while, both as a basketball situation and a financial situation. And right now they don't have enough cap room even close to really make it worth his while. How much more do they need? Call Jaren Jackson junior's agent. I don't know if you see a John Conchar dump or even a Cole Anthony dump or some couple of big dumps that's going to tell you everything you need to know. But they want to do. But I want to throw a theory at you. Want to hear a theory?
- [62:32]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah.
- [62:33]
Zach Lowe
What if they're Waving the white flag for like a year or two. And. But. But in a way that is trying to disguise the color of the flag. So by that I mean we have Job, we have Jaren Jackson Jr. We have all these picks. We're staying competitive. Guys come to the games like, we got a star. Jaws. A star. Jaren Jackson Jr. Almost made all NBA really good players. We always punch above our weight. Santi Aldama, free agent this summer, by the way, sneaky one. He's a good player. He comes up, it comes off the bench and does stuff. G.J. jackson Jr. Is kind of cool. Like, we'll be good. Brandon Clark's always helpful. I don't know how many teams in the west that they're better than. And I know this. It's possible in the west to be competitive and also end up with like the fifth pick in the NBA draft because you could be competitive and 13th in the Western Conference real easily. And I wonder if they're like, if that's the downside for us is like being 38 and 44 and getting into the lottery with like the ninth best odds, and we've just seen what happens. Maybe we can have our cake and eat it too and be like a decently competitive team. And by the way, the upside is maybe we're 45 and 37 because we surprised some people. I don't know. And the upside is we can sort of hover in this nether world. Our fans won't realize we've raised a white flag for any period of time. And if we have, it'll be for shorter maybe than we think, because then we can convert all these pics. I don't know. I don't. The downside is we could go two years. You actually have raised the white flag and now you're trading John Moran. I don't know what's going to happen, but I could see that little, like, I mean, what was Dallas this year? 39 and 43 and end up. Up ended up getting the number one pick in the draft. Like I could. It's. It's possible.
- [64:24]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah. And, you know, and the other thing I like to do with this exercise is to look at where the arc has been. It's not that long ago they had Stephen Adams and Dylan Brooks and we're making deep runs in the playoffs and talking trash to the warriors and stuff like that. It just feels like there's this general direction downward of the Memphis ship.
- [64:42]
Zach Lowe
It's a good ship. Grizzly. Yeah.
- [64:47]
Kurt Goldsberry
So I don't know, man. Time will tell. But, you know, some have predicted this to be the most crazy off season we've seen in a long time. So maybe things are just getting started.
- [64:57]
Zach Lowe
Here's the Memphis Grizzlies last five years. Lots a lot of trash talking, some confrontations with LeBron.
- [65:02]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, a lot of.
- [65:03]
Zach Lowe
Lot of. Lot of, you know, some dollar bills on the floor. You know, a lot of that. Lost first round, lost Western Conference semis, lost first round, missed playoffs, lost first round. One playoff series in five years. That's all that noise. For all that noise. One.
- [65:24]
Kurt Goldsberry
And so what are we doing, right?
- [65:27]
Zach Lowe
Well, I don't know what we're doing. I. I think they what are we doing under. They had some health issues in the playoffs and all that. Okay, that's. I think that's it. On my bane. I don't mind it for the Magic at all. I kind of like it, actually. You know, it's a lot of picks. It's. It's like there were definitely executives from teams whose reaction was that's too many picks for Desmond Bay and just like it was too many for Mikhail Bridges and too many blah, blah. Are the Magic close enough to just like I thought the Knicks were close enough to justify an overpay for Mikhail Bridges? The Magic are not as close as the Knicks. They're certainly not as veteran as the Knicks. But I also think Desmond Bain is a more urgent and better fit for their team than Mikhail Bridges was for the Knicks. So interesting times.
- [66:18]
C
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- [67:07]
Zach Lowe
Okay, any thoughts on Kevin Durant who, you know, look, got to be talking about during the finals? I guess he's got a list. How many lists has he had? This is list number three at this point. Just making lists. The guy's just making lists at his house. Minnesota, you know what? Cross Minnesota. They're not my list. The list is the Sun. Is the Suns the place for the Suns? The list used to be the Suns. The list was the Suns and only the Suns.
- [67:33]
Kurt Goldsberry
That's right. Now the list time ago.
- [67:36]
Zach Lowe
Anybody but the Suns.
- [67:39]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, go ahead.
- [67:39]
Zach Lowe
No, go ahead. What you were talking. What are you talking about?
- [67:42]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, I got, I think I got some, some news. I, I know our friends in San Antonio think the price is too high and the original discussions, including the number two pick and or Stefan Castle, are not going very well on the spurs end of the telephone, I could tell you that. So everybody loves Kevin Durant, even though he's 36, soon to be 37. But the Phoenix Suns, my understanding is Zach Lowe is they're asking for a little too much. I had one Eastern Conference executive say the name is better than the game, which I thought was a little mean. I thought that was mean.
- [68:26]
Zach Lowe
It's Kevin Durant. You look at Kevin Durant's numbers last year and it's like the game's pretty damn good.
- [68:31]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I forget who had had the stats that it was like. Yeah, he, obviously he's, he's playing at a great level, but he's 36. And what's interesting to me is like somebody just like thought about strategizing in a front office. It's like the spurs and Rockets are all like 23 year old dudes, like, what are we doing? We're gonna add a 30. It's just from an aging curve. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Now you could say, oh my God, if the Rockets had Kevin, they would have won maybe a playoff series. They ended up losing and I'd listen to that. But generally when you're planning a team, you're trying to align some of these age curves and this guy's just at a different level in his career, different place in his career than, than Houston and San Antonio. What else is on his list? Houston is Miami. As he Miami.
- [69:22]
Zach Lowe
He's on the list, baby. Hashtag he culture.
- [69:25]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah.
- [69:27]
Zach Lowe
What you're really saying is that Kevin Durant is the kind of player that if you trade for him, you must be a championship contender immediately. And I think the spurs justifiably look at their team and are like, even if we get the price down to the point where Devin Vassell is the most harmful thing we have to give up or Devin Vesel and what do they have? The 14th big be Atlanta 14 and Harrison Barnes and some filler. And so we have Fox and Castle, the number two pick, and Kevin Durant and Victor Wembanyama and I'm probably forgetting somebody good. Are we actually good enough to win two to three playoff series in the West? And I think they're probably like, I'm not sure enough of that to start getting aggressive. And like, two, good luck, Castle. Again, the guy's going to be 37 years old on an expiring contract and maybe wants a two year, $112 million extension. That, by the way, like, I don't know if I'm psyched about that. Which is why the Minnesota thing remains interesting to me, because they're not on the list. He's made it known he would not want to go there. They are interested in him and would like to get him and are doing this dance of like, would we dare?
- [70:37]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah.
- [70:37]
Zach Lowe
If we're daring, is the price lower because we have no long term security or is like, do we even mind? Can we get the price down to the point where we don't even mind if he just comes and it doesn't work and he leaves? Or has he been so sort of emotionally unpredictable that even if he says he doesn't want to come here, maybe it'll go the opposite way because everywhere he says he wants to go, he ends up hating. Maybe we go the other way. He doesn't want to go here, he ends up looking. I don't know. I've said before, I think Houston is, is the most interesting fit because I think between Van Vliet and Brooks and Ishengun, who plays like an older player than he is, they would be a pretty interesting ready made fit for them. I just think, like, what are you trading if you're the Rockets for him? It starts with Jalen Green. Jalen Green has to be in the deal. If I'm the Rockets, I'm trying to go like Jalen Green, Jock Landale, Aaron Holiday as salary filler. Maybe, maybe. No, I'm not giving you Reed Shepherd. I just.
- [71:31]
Kurt Goldsberry
Too early.
- [71:32]
Zach Lowe
Maybe the number, maybe the number 10 pick and like you're going to ask me for Jabari Smith Jr. And my own pickback if I'm the Suns and I'm like, maybe you get none of those. You definitely don't get both. Like, it's a complex because I got to have enough in the kitty. Or maybe you got to get, you got to give me Royce o' Neill too, just to have a good eighth man on the team. It's a trickier, trickier negotiation.
- [71:57]
Kurt Goldsberry
And you know, the other thing that's relevant here is this is a new GM in Phoenix, Brian Gregory, you know, who's who's navigating this and this is very hard to do. And you have experienced GMs around the league like Miami, Miami and San Antonio are not easy to deal with if you're making that phone call from Phoenix. And some of the reporting, Zach, that I'm sure you've seen too, is that they want to recoup about as much as they gave to get him. Well, that's not going to happen. That's just not going to happen. He's a different stage of his contract. He's a different stage of his career. And I wouldn't doubt that they're asking Houston for Sengoon and shepherd and Jabari some ridiculous haul.
- [72:42]
Zach Lowe
If I trade those guys and I get Kevin Durant on my team, what is the point? We're not good enough. We have to be good enough now. And you know, again like it's, it's some their, their best assets are the not the best. Their best like realistically gettable assets for the Suns. So take Amen and Shen Gun and all those, all that stuff off the map are the Suns 2027 pick Jabari Smith Jr. The 10th pick in the draft and Jalen Green who just has to be in the trade. I'm not trading you Eason. I'm putting over here too. Maybe that's unrealistic. So that's four assets I just named. The bullshit you're getting from me is two. Two of those like and I'm not even sure I got to give you two. And if that breaks up the deal. That breaks up the deal. The Heat. I don't even know what the trade is, man. Like the trip Rozier and Wiggins are the salary. That's a fart noise for Phoenix, Hawkez and like three first round picks. Yeah, I'm not sure. That gets me excited. And I'm going to add they're obviously going to ask for Khale where and the Heat are going to say no on Khalil Ware. And even if I swing them into that trade, Kurt Goldsevere, even if I con them into not con them, even if they take that trade because it's the picks. Like the picks are valuable. My starting lineup is Hero Durant, Bam and who else is filling out the lineup? Is it like Davion Mitchell and yeah. Heywood Highsmith and then coming off the bench I got another like you know, I got Slow Mo and wear and Jovic and maybe Duncan Robinson, Pella Larson, the 20th pick in the it's like not, I don't know man, you got to think that hero kd, bam thing is like a legit big three. To really go all in on a trade like that.
- [74:27]
Kurt Goldsberry
I'm not sure that it is gonna happen here. Zach. How does this end?
- [74:36]
Zach Lowe
I. I don't. I legitimately don't know. I. I would say that's a great question. So you're asking me who gets him? Who gets Kevin Durant or just generally.
- [74:47]
Kurt Goldsberry
How, like, is it going to be? They're asking way too much right now. You got a player who wants to leave in part because he wants to compete for change.
- [74:56]
Zach Lowe
I'll make a predict. I'll make my prediction. Only if you agree to make a prediction.
- [75:00]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I'll make a prediction.
- [75:04]
Zach Lowe
If I. Look, let's be clear. This is just a stab not quite in the dark, but in the dusk. Okay. This is not a. Not a real, like, hard and fast prediction, so don't hold me to this, but you're asking me to name one team that gets Kevin Durant. That's the prediction. I think I'm just going to. I'm going to go Houston. And they find a middle ground that is palatable to the Houston front office, who I think is less excited about the prospect of it than the Houston coaching staff, because the Spurs. I just. I'm not. I just. I'm not sure I'm ready to do it if I'm the Spurs. Minnesota, it's. It's complicated on a number of fronts. Miami, I just went through. Maybe my. Miami always goes head over heels to these guys. Maybe it's them. Then there are the mystery teams. Your Toronto's, your Detroit. Sure. I'm sure. I'm forgetting somebody. I guess I'd go Houston, but none of these teams would, like. Surprised me.
- [75:56]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, New York, Boston, there's some super dark horses, but New York's out.
- [76:00]
Zach Lowe
I think New York's out.
- [76:01]
Kurt Goldsberry
They're out. They should be. I mean, I think Houston is the right answer. And they're going to start asking for five things and they're going to get whittled down to three or two or whatever it is. I think that's the right answer.
- [76:22]
Zach Lowe
And this is why I think you've. I mean, someone reported for. I can't remember who. And I'm sure this is true because it makes all the sense in the world is that Phoenix has already started back channeling. What could we get for Jalen Green? Because I don't think, like, Jalen Green plus Booker plus Beal. Like, I just don't understand what to make of any of that. And by the way, like Phoenix, Phoenix has to think about what, what helps us remain competitive in the near term future. And like, I mean that's why the Gobert thing was somewhat appealing because Gobert is one of the great floor raisers of the NBA. I just don't know what Minnesota's roadmap to a defense would be without him. A good enough defense, you know, they can talk themselves into it. We'll get Clint Capella at the minimum, Brooke Lopez with whatever biannual, if they even have that because of their apron situation. I don't know, it's, you know, it's tough sledding when you start going down that road. Replacing a four time defensive player of the year with those kind of guys and all five out lineup. Otherwise.
- [77:26]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, it's probably not good to dismantle a conference finalist whether you're New York or Minnesota for an aging superstar. I was thinking tonight, I was like watching this game, I was like, who's the oldest guy in this game? You know, who's the oldest guy out here making a difference? Was it Caruso?
- [77:46]
Zach Lowe
Milestone is much younger than I think his experience level. Yeah, this is a good idea.
- [77:54]
Kurt Goldsberry
Even last in the last round. It's like, okay, there's not a lot of guys in Minnesota or New York that, that are, are older. And so it's just like the reality of it. I love Kevin Durant, but it's just.
- [78:10]
Zach Lowe
We don't even have to do that. We don't even have to do that dance where you're like, just reminder. Kevin Durant's awesome and is one of the 15 greatest players. Well that we all know. Like it's, it's. He's. You don't know when the wheels are going to fall off. But it's interesting. I was looking up some of like his athleticism stats or, or what passes for like testing the idea that his athleticism has declined. So I went on the on second spectrum or genius IQ or whatever we're supposed to call that now and looked up Kevin Durant drives per 100 possessions per season. This year was the Most drives per 100 possessions of his entire tracking data era career, which is like the last 10 to 12 years. And then on the flip side, you look at cleaning the glass, it was like his lowest share of shots at the rim pretty much ever in a healthy season. So he's driving a lot. But I don't know what the technical definition of the drive is there. I need to refresh my memory. But he's not getting all the way to the basket defensively. I thought after like a roaring first 20 games, he backslid a little bit. And you don't know how much of that is just the malaise of this ain't gonna work here. It just. You just gotta. And that's why Minnesota can't be counted out, even with, even with his disgruntlement, even without an extension, because they are a team I could look at and say like, they could look at him and be like, maybe we can get over the hump with, with this guy immediately. And that's what you have to be. You have to be that kind of team.
- [79:34]
Kurt Goldsberry
I can go there if you're telling me Randall is the piece out. And, and that's the main part. I, I'm not going there with you for Rudy Gobert, who is.
- [79:44]
Zach Lowe
Well, I mean, like. But Randall's got a player option, like he controls part of this process, and that's a very difficult variable to deal with. But yeah, sure, if I had my druthers, whatever a druther is, I would love to replace Julius Randall with Kevin Durant next to Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert and whatever else I got going on there.
- [80:01]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, and that's why the other part of this equation is so tricky because, yeah, you. Phoenix expects to. To get better out of this somehow. And dude, Julius Randall, with all due respect, had a good year, a couple good playoff series. He's not making you better than the West. Like, with, with Booker. Like, that's, that's not scaring anybody in this conference. So, yeah, nobody's scared.
- [80:23]
Zach Lowe
Nobody's scared of them now. So their net scare factor is beginning at zero. But you know, look like these, these trades that are getting thrown around for them, whether it's this Jalen Green trade I made up or your spurs, the. Not the spurs fantasy that Phoenix has, the actual trades the spurs might consider. That's a lottery team. Like, no brainer to me, lottery team in Phoenix left over there in that conference. Like, you know, I don't want to go through like, the west was a little fat in the middle this year, but it's still going to be a really good conference and I don't like Booker. Plus, what, like, what is left here that makes me think this is all of a sudden going to be a playoff team again? They weren't even playing team this year.
- [81:10]
Kurt Goldsberry
No, they're, they're not in good shape. But that's sort of my, my main point here is when you look at all the agendas from the Phoenix Suns as an organization to Kevin Durant wanting to compete for a championship play at a high level. You look at the new CBA as a character in this mess, and then you look at his preferred destinations and their agendas. These are younger teams with different aging situations. How are you going to get the Venn diagram, all these, these. These circles to, to overlap it all? I, I just don't see it. And again, you and I agree that Houston seems to be the most realistic one, but does that make. Does that. Check the box. Okay. Phoenix will get better because they're living in this world that way. They think they're getting better out of this deal.
- [81:57]
Zach Lowe
The bar. The bar is the team that's up 3:2 in the finals and won 68 games this season. That's the bar. If you're trading, like a lot of stuff for Kevin Durant to. That's the bar. The bar is not like, hey, maybe we could get into the second round. Clippers have tried to sniff around the Zubots piece. There is just. They're not moving Zubots. So that's why I've said before, could you triangulate the Nets into it? Because they have all the cap space this summer and they can throw Claxton in somehow, but then paying off the Nets and paying off the Suns and it's just becomes a difficult equation to solve. But the Nets are a wild card in all of these scenarios, and Claxton himself is a wild card in all these scenarios when centers are involved. But yeah, man, I don't know. It's going to be a fun offseason, though. I think, I think, I think the Bane. The Bane thing was indicative of a league where there's a high level of itchy trigger fingers and combined with a high level of angst, like, it's not working either it's really working and we need to move or it's not working and we need to move. And, you know, I think we're going to have a, gonna have a fun time in the next couple of weeks. You ready?
- [83:09]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I'm totally ready, Zach, and I, I'm very eager for the draft, too. I think there's going to be some fun movement around the NBA drafts. But, yeah, I love this draft class. I love the, the, the, the. The rumors of all the drama that's coming. Cooper flag at summer league. I mean, the NBA is just going to keep going after these finals.
- [83:28]
Zach Lowe
It's going to be gone by the time I get there. I don't get there till the 13th because I got some family obligations. So I'm gonna miss. I'm gonna miss. He's gonna be done. He's gonna play one game and it's gonna be over.
- [83:36]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, it's gonna be one or two games, but it's gonna be electric.
- [83:40]
Zach Lowe
But I love Vegas in July and I'm not even being sarcastic. I love Las Vegas in July. I like Indianapolis in June too. And I probably need to go look at plane tickets.
- [83:49]
Kurt Goldsberry
Go back, dude, for the people of Indiana. Demand it.
- [83:53]
Zach Lowe
I had a great time there. I had a great week there. Maybe I'll go back for game six. All right, Kurt Goldsberry, any parting thoughts on the finals, The Thunder, the Pacers, the trades, whatever else.
- [84:04]
Kurt Goldsberry
Basketball lover's dream. I don't want to hear about ratings. I don't want to hear about whatever people are complaining. This has been electric. I love the new faces on the biggest stage.
- [84:16]
Zach Lowe
I'm starting to think people should complain more because lo and behold, they did the dramatic thing tonight. Kirk, who could have ever have come up with this idea of showing the starting lineup introductions for an NBA Finals game on national television?
- [84:30]
Kurt Goldsberry
Oral history. Where did this start? Because I first heard this was a thing this week. Was this you?
- [84:35]
Zach Lowe
No, it wasn't me. But like I said, everybody loves starting lineup introductions. It makes the game feel March Madness games in the final four. You see the starting lineups. It makes the game feel big. I want to. I love everything about a starting lineup introduction. I want to see who sits where on the bench. I want to see who's fidgety. I want to see who's stone cold and just like whatever. I want to see who runs through the gauntlet high fiving everybody. I want to see who walks through Cooley. I want to see who doesn't even wait for his name to be called. I'd like every bit of the. I like when like they would do the thing like mascots would do bits where they'd be like reading a news like on a beach chair on a launcher, reading a newspaper during the away teams intro. I love all of it. Let's do it for every game. It's. It's like the wwe. The whole thing is the ring entrances. Let's, let's lean into that a little bit.
- [85:22]
Kurt Goldsberry
Last thing. Do you have any takes on the logo on the court? I'm sure your listeners while we're here, do you want the final script logo? Because you've done so many in depth pieces about court design. This was a controversy.
- [85:35]
Zach Lowe
I'll tell you where we're headed. I don't know how many years until it's going to be headed there where all the courts are going to be like the led courts from the All Star Game a couple years ago where you can do whatever the hell you want to the court and it's all whatever that is. I like the final script. I think the big trophy in the middle looks stupid and I don't want it there. But I like the final script. But I don't. I can't. I. You know what I like? I like when, and this is a big deal when you go back and watch old games on YouTube. I think it needs to be very clear for the sake of history. I need to be able to go on YouTube and know for like this is game three of the second round. I want all that info. I want it to be blaring like Eastern Conference semifinals, game two. I want that to be in the Chiron at all times when the scoreboard's up. I want clarity. So whatever, however we get clarity, I want clarity.
- [86:27]
Kurt Goldsberry
I co signed that. I co signed that a million times. I love that idea. I want to know where I am in the tournament. I want to know what game it is. Yeah. And I think that's not that hard to pull off, but. But yeah, I think we've landed in a great place.
- [86:43]
Zach Lowe
The number one takeaway from the Last Dance when it was the only thing we had to watch for two months was Michael Jordan's a Psycho. The number two takeaway from the Last Dance was the Bulls. Starting lineup introductions were and are the coolest thing in basketball. Why have we completely lost our love affair with this? Let's bring back starting five introductions. Let's make a big deal out of it. All right, Kurt Goldsberry, what do you got coming for us? You got some charts? You're gonna post some stuff on social media about Tyrese Halliburton who had no field goals tonight. What else are you gonna do?
- [87:11]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I got a hint. I've been up in Maine for the last week or two working on an NBA draft piece for the Ringer.com so I'm excited for it. I'm excited for it. It's a monster. It's 5, 000 words right now. I don't think my editor's gonna like it when I send it to them.
- [87:27]
Zach Lowe
Tomorrow, but that's their job. Tough. Kirk OLDER thank you for staying up late. It's 12:45 Eastern Time. Thank you to everybody watching on YouTube. I have no idea how many of you there are. Or if you've all left. But thank you for hanging out with us for a little while. Thank you to Jesse and Jonathan on production. That is it for our live show. This will also be posted as a podcast. Game six is on. I don't know what day. Thursday. Game six of the finals on Thursday. I'll be back at some point point later this week. Thanks Everybody. Must be 21 and over and present in select states. For Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in President 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 visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 Sport in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York.