The Playoffs Are Here! Game 1 Takeaways With Howard Beck and Series Breakdowns With Steve Jones Jr.

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Playoffs Are Here! Game 1 Takeaways With Howard Beck and Series Breakdowns With Steve Jones Jr.

The Zach Lowe Show hosted by The Ringer dives deep into the exhilarating first weekend of the NBA Playoffs in the episode titled "The Playoffs Are Here! Game 1 Takeaways With Howard Beck and Series Breakdowns With Steve Jones Jr." Released on April 21, 2025, this episode offers comprehensive analysis, insightful discussions, and expert opinions on the initial playoff games, featuring guest Howard Beck and X's and O's specialist Steve Jones Jr.

Overview of Playoff Weekend

Zach Lowe sets the stage by highlighting the unpredictable nature of the first weekend, mentioning eight games with notable wildness in matchups like the Knicks-Pistons and Warriors-Rockets. He comments on the shooting brilliance of key players, such as Steph Curry and James Harden, while emphasizing Russell Westbrook's erratic performance:

"Russ threw the ball off James Harden's ass at the last possession of regulation for some reason and then made up for it with offensive rebounds. I don't know what's going on. Just a crazy weekend." [00:57]

MVP of the Weekend: Jimmy Butler

Howard Beck nominates Jimmy Butler as the Most Valuable Player of the weekend. Butler's stellar performance, including 25.7 rebounds, 6 assists, and 5 steals in the Warriors-Rockets game, was pivotal in setting the tone for a gritty Warriors' victory. Beck highlights Butler's ability to lead the Warriors even when Steph Curry was on the bench:

"He was a plus 14, second only to Pajemski among the warriors, who was a plus 17 for the game." [04:28]

Most Disappointing Player: Jalen Green

Both hosts agree that Jalen Green of the Rockets had a disappointing Game 1 performance. Green struggled offensively, shooting 3 of 15 with only 7 points and 2 assists, which contributed significantly to the Rockets' offensive woes. Lowe criticizes Green's isolation play against Curry:

"Jalen Green was a disaster for the Rockets. 3 of 15, 2 assists, 7 points, 04 on threes." [10:54]

Series Breakdown: Key Matchups and Strategies

Rockets vs. Warriors

The discussion delves into the Warriors' defensive strategies against the Rockets, focusing on Jimmy Butler's influence and Steph Curry's crucial three-pointers. Zach Lowe analyzes Curry's efficiency:

"Curry was on my list of potential MVP candidates. 31 points, 12 of 19, 5 of 9 on threes." [05:37]

Howard Beck and Steve Jones Jr. explore how the Warriors exploited the Rockets' poor half-court offense and forced turnovers, emphasizing the importance of offensive rebounds and defensive rotations.

Lakers vs. Wolves

Analyzing the Wolves' unexpected dominance over the Lakers, the hosts discuss Minnesota's preparedness and strategic execution. Steve Jones Jr. points out Minnesota's ability to keep the Lakers "in a box" defensively, limiting their offensive flow:

"Minnesota did a really good job keeping the Lakers in a box. Anthony Edwards making quick decisions was important because with the Lakers, when they can load up and then go boxes and elbows and bring it back to the 90s, they look pretty good." [58:32]

Clippers vs. Nuggets

The Clippers-Nuggets series is highlighted as one of the most intriguing matchups. Zach Lowe praises Nikola Jokic's performance and the effectiveness of the Nuggets' pick-and-roll:

"I screamed, Howard. I screamed to nobody in my office... It's just unbelievable." [28:49]

Steve Jones Jr. analyzes the Clippers' defensive adjustments and Jokic's pivotal role in orchestrating the Nuggets' offense, stressing the importance of sustaining offensive pressure.

Pistons vs. Knicks

The Pistons' collapse in the fourth quarter against the Knicks is dissected, with a focus on defensive lapses and offensive inefficiencies. Howard Beck reflects on the Garden's intense atmosphere and the Pistons' inability to maintain composure:

"They threw the ball all over the place, missing just wide-open shots, wide-open layups at the rim... It was a wild finish." [18:10]

Coaching and Strategic Adjustments

The episode delves into coaching decisions and necessary adjustments for game two across various series. For instance, Steve Jones Jr. advises the Lakers to implement selective trapping and aggressive defense to disrupt the Wolves' rhythm:

"Trap him on his first one. Trap him hard. See if that throws off his decisiveness." [73:57]

Similarly, adjustments for the Rockets involve increasing tempo and diversifying their half-court offense to counter the Warriors' defensive prowess.

Player Performances and Development

The conversation touches on player development, particularly emphasizing Jalen Green's need to evolve his game in the playoffs. Steve Jones Jr. emphasizes Green's regression under playoff pressure:

"He's got to understand and read when he has what shot. Are you creating an advantage? Are you finishing? Are you able to kick out of it?" [79:45]

Conclusion and Predictions

As the episode wraps up, Lowe and Jones Jr. make their playoff series predictions. Lowe anticipates:

• Nuggets winning their series in seven games
• Lakers vs. Wolves extending into five games
• Clippers resolving their series in six games
• Pistons potentially taking the Knicks to six games

Howard Beck opts for Clippers in six and anticipates a strong resurgence from the Knicks after their fourth-quarter comeback.

Final Thoughts

The Zach Lowe Show offers a thorough examination of the NBA Playoffs' opening weekend, blending statistical analysis with expert opinions. Quotes from participants are aptly timed to highlight pivotal moments and insights, making the summary valuable for both avid listeners and newcomers seeking an in-depth understanding of the playoff dynamics.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Russ gave the ball off James Harden's ass... Just a crazy weekend." – Zach Lowe [00:57]
• "Jimmy leads them on a 14 to 5 run... Really set the tone." – Howard Beck [04:28]
• "Jalen Green was a disaster for the Rockets." – Zach Lowe [10:54]
• "Trap him on his first one. Trap him hard." – Steve Jones Jr. [73:57]
• "He's got to understand and read when he has what shot." – Steve Jones Jr. [79:45]

This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions, strategic analyses, and expert opinions shared during the episode, providing listeners with a clear and engaging overview of the playoff excitement.

Transcript

[Zach Lowe]

You're listening to the Zach Lowe show presented by FanDuel. America's number one sportsbook is the best place to bet on the NBA because not only does FanDuel have all your favorite player props, but now you can even check out stats and recent performance trends right in the app before you make your picks. Just download the FanDuel sportsbook app today to get in on the action. The ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the numerous resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 or over in President Select States gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com.

[Howard Beck]

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[Zach Lowe]

All right, it's the playoffs coming up on the Zach Lowe Show. We are going to hit every series MVPs of the first weekend. Most disappointing players, things to watch in game two. Of all the most interesting series, we've got Howard Beck and Steve Jones Jr. To help us break everything down coming up on the Zach Lowe Show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. It's Monday at 9:30 in the morning, eight games down. The annual first weekend of the playoffs is over and really we only had two wild games. Well, two and a half I would say. Knicks Pistons got wild in the fourth quarter. Warriors Rockets was ugly, bruising kind of wild. Steph went bananas. Jimmy Butler went bananas. The Houston offense went completely off the rails. And then Clippers Nuggets had enough wildness for an entire playoff series in one game. Russell Westbrook had enough wildness in both directions and just like you could not even script a better Russ giveth, Russ taketh away. Russ threw the ball off James Harden's ass at the last possession of regulation for some reason and then made up for it with offensive rebounds. I don't know what's going on. Just a crazy weekend. Sunday was a chalk chalk chalk boring day until Warriors Rockets we have the Lakers pummeled in game one. Lots of stuff to talk about and it is time to say the three most anticipated words in niche basketball podcasting as we will do every other Monday at the very least.

[Howard Beck]

What up Beck what's happening, Zach? Three most anticipated words separated by one anticipated comma. That was a great intro. Did you notice Bob Myers at one point on the call? I didn't watch most of that game, the Clippers Nuggets, because I was, as you know, at the Garden. But I.

[Zach Lowe]

Big mistake. Big mistake.

[Howard Beck]

By the way, huge, huge tactical error by me on the first day of way too many games. Bob Myers at one point said something to the effect of, well, you know, that's Russell Westbrook. You know, he's going to do some great things for you. And then, and then, you know, that's his. And then he just like trailed off into something else or kind of repeated it like he wanted to say like best of Rush, worst of Russ, best of times, worst of something. And, and he, he couldn't bring himself to say that he's going to giveth and taketh away.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

He.

[Howard Beck]

He dropped the taketh away thing because I think he felt like he was going to be, I don't know, mean spirited or, or get aggregated or something.

[Zach Lowe]

I. One of the things I enjoy about Bob Myers when he calls Nuggets games is just unabashed love of Jokic. He. He cannot hide, and we've talked about this off camera, he cannot hide how much he loves Jokic, who was sensational in game one with 29, 12 and nine. Harden was sensational for the Clippers 32 and 11. Only two turnovers, 20 turnovers cost the Clippers the game. Kawhi had seven of them. We will talk about that and whether the Clippers indeed went too far away from the hardened Zubots pick and roll that was tearing the Nuggets apart for the first half of the game. But we're going to go big picture. To start with, I gave you a, a homework assignment. Your homework assignment that I also completed because I am a diplomatic host, was to pick an MVP of the first weekend, a most disappointing player or players or franchise of the first weekend, and a coach of the first weekend. So I will let you start and we'll go through our runners up because we're going to hit a lot of stuff. MVP of the first weekend. I will let you get first pick, Howard Beck. Who is it?

[Howard Beck]

A lot of ways to go, but I went with Jimmy Butler. Playoff. Playoff Jimmy who? Last week we saw play in Jimmy. I don't know if we've ever had. I mean there's been play in Jimmy before, but playoff Jimmy last night, the 25.7 rebounds, six assists, five steals. Not only all that, then got to the line six times, made four. He was a plus 14, second only to Pajemski among the warriors, who was a plus 17 for the game. But there was that moment, you know, the first quarter they're just getting battered on the boards. It looks like the size of the Rockets is going to bother them. And you know, they're, they're just looking a little bit on their heels. Steph's missed his first couple of threes at that point, I think. So they open the second with Steph on the bench and Jimmy leads them on a 14 to 5 run. Steph comes back and they're up 32, 26. And it's like, okay, like they, they can hang and they can hang without Steph, which is kind of the important part of having Jimmy in the first place is not just when they're both out there together, but having somebody who can run that second unit competently. So I thought Jimmy really set the tone for the warriors and for that, that ugly but somehow entertaining win.

[Zach Lowe]

It was one of the. I don't think the Golden State warriors, somewhat self proclaimed zealots of the beautiful game, could play an uglier game than the Rockets had them play last night. And the Rockets, we all knew the half court offense was the problem. It's the reason I picked warriors and seven. Oh my God, like they're the Houston's. And we're going to bring in Steve Jones later to talk about potential adjustments in this series. Because the big overarching question after game one is what it was after game zero, which is what? How is Houston going to score in this series? Because their best offense in this game was missing their own shots. That was the best offense they had was just throw the ball at the rim. We sometimes have both centers on the floor, Adams and Sengun. Even with just one of them. Our wings are gigantic. We'll get offensive rebounds. That's the only offense they had. They had 22 offensive rebounds, a 41% offensive rebounding rate that would have led the league by a mile. They led the league by a mile and they still scored 85 points in the game. Obviously you have to miss a lot to get that many offensive rebounds, but that's astonishing. 11 of 20 from the line didn't help. Amen Thompson. 0 of 4. And look, the Rockets live in terrible spacing when they play their two big guys together. And particularly when Thompson is on the floor. The warriors defense was too good for them to live in that terrible spacing in game one. There was just too many hands in passing lanes. Draymond was everywhere. Moody was great, Pajemski was great, Butler was great. And they just couldn't get out of their own way on offense. It couldn't generate anything resembling reliable half court offense and lost the turnover battle. Free throws were even if those things are even or tilt. Golden State. The Rockets are in a lot of trouble. Initially they couldn't even decide who to play. Sometimes they played two centers, sometimes they. They had Brooks and and Green on the bench for quite a bit of the fourth quarter. Jalen Green will come up soon, don't worry. And they had Jabari Smith Jr. Who I thought played pretty well. Sometimes they played him at the 3, sometimes they played him at the 5. That's the versatility of the Rockets. But it also felt like both teams were sort of struggling to figure out like the warriors were using lineup combinations they never used, including a double center lineup. But the bigger story was was Houston's just lack of offense. I think Butler is a great choice. Curry was on my list of potential MVP candidates. We might as well talk about him. 31 points, 12 of 19, 5 of 9 on threes. Three of those threes were absolutely bonkers. Just out of nowhere. One of them falling out of bounds. One of them a pivotal one in the fourth quarter after a botched out of bounds call that went the warriors way when the ball went off of there. I think Draymond on the sideline. Just an incredible game from Curry. Would you like some Curry stats in this game?

[Howard Beck]

I would love some Curry stats.

[Zach Lowe]

Second Spectrum tracking 24 pick and rolls for Curry. That's about average for him. 1.385 points per possession when they got a shot directly out of those plays. And I think they could actually go to it more. Obviously the Rockets are messing around with the matchups. And where is Shengun Sengun's guarding Moses Moody to start games, which is what I predicted they would do in my preview. Sometimes he's stuck on Draymond Green because of cross matching because Draymond's on Shenguan and boy is that just a wrestling match in the paint. And when they get that matchup I just go right to it in semi transition. Just go set a screen Draymond for Steph. Steph Cook against the big guy. Sometimes on Gary Payton, Steph GP2 pick and rolls are pretty good. And obviously the battle with the warriors is they're going to trap those force the pass to Gary Payton or Moses Moody or Draymond Green, try to force Draymond to pass it at the rim to who's ever in the dunker spot. And get the warriors in this battle of, like, your small, vertically jumping, vertically challenged guys are gonna have to finish over our gigantic athletic guys. And I just think the warriors are going to win that battle enough times, including sometimes it's really hard. There was that one play which proved to be critical. Steph Draymond, pick and roll. I think Draymond rolls into open space, drops it off to Moody under the basket. Moody looks up like, oh, my God, there's giant guys all around me. What am I supposed to do? Kicks it to Pajemski. Pajemski because the defense is in rotation. Pump fake drive. Draws a foul. Houston challenges the foul, loses the challenge, and then doesn't have it. So I think they could use even more. Steph Picken rolls. He was sensational. And you know what? Held his own on defense, too.

[Howard Beck]

He had to make some really tough those first couple threes I mentioned. I think he missed his first two in the first quarter. And then he started getting to the rim or not. I don't say getting to the rim. He got in the paint, and he had to convert some incredibly tough, acrobatic shots high off the glass. Like, it just. Every time he goes in there, it just looks like he might just get clobbered and like, there's no prayer. But Steph can do, like, his. His finishing ability and his manipulation of the ball in those kind of drives, I think has always been underrated. I mean, you know, no one's Kyrie Irving, but Steph made some really, really tough shots getting into the teeth of the. Of the defense. And I thought that was really important for them early on when they were having trouble scoring and his threes weren't going right off.

[Zach Lowe]

We might as well do my least valuable player choice now so we can dive into the series.

[Howard Beck]

I have a feeling we might veer to the same guy here, but Jalen.

[Zach Lowe]

Green was a disaster for the Rockets. 3 of 15, 2 assists, 7 points, 04 on threes. And I mentioned with Michael Pino last week that, you know, I don't know what Houston's answer in the half court is going to be other than Sengun has to have a monster series. And Sengun did everything he could in game one considering the defense he's facing. One of their answers against the warriors, and they played five times before this. This game last night has been trying to get Steph switched on to Jalen Green. And I said in my preview, I just don't think that's good enough. Like he's just not good enough of a one on one player. He's not powerful enough. He doesn't like slow down and draw help and make productive passes. And that was true last night. Every time he got that switch, it was just a tough shot, a tough two, a tough like flailing shot at the rim, a drive to nowhere. Defensively I thought he was actually all right. Like he's the weak link for the Rockets, but he's all right. Like he didn't get smoked on that end of the floor for the most part. Just offensively, look, van Vliet was 4 of 19, 2 of 13 on threes, had a lot of good looks. The difference is seven assists to two turnovers for Van Vliet. And I actually thought a lot of the shots Van Vliet took were just good shots that he missed and shots that he's going to have to take. I thought a lot of the shots Jalen Green took were just prayers thrown around the general area of the backboard that if you miss, the warriors are going to run. And the warriors were smart to run against the Rockets when the Rockets were playing double big when the Rockets were in. We're going to try to set up their zone. Run, run, run, run. Before you can set all that stuff up, obviously Jalen Green's not going to go 3 of 15 every game if, if he can't get going one on one against Curry. I just think they're going to, they're going to run short of answers on offense. I just thought he was a, he was overwhelmed by the moment and just a disaster in game one. And I was actually a little surprised that IME Odoka. Congratulations by the way. Coach Udoka. One of the three finals for coach of the year. I was surprised he brought him back late in the game. Just an awful. And amen Thompson could be a runner up for this like eight points. Just couldn't. They just. The warriors defense is just too good for them to get enough of. Like the, he's hanging around the dunker spot. Shen Gun finds him on a like little slick interior pass. A back cut here. They just couldn't find any of that. And if he's just standing 15ft from the basket in no man's land along the baseline, he's not of much use on offense other than rebounding. And if he's going to go for at the line, it's a disaster. Six offensive rebounds, fine. Six assists, fine was just a net negative spacing wise. But Jalen Green Woof. The Rockets by the way advanced stats in this, in this game Rockets. Let's see what they, what they managed here. 95.5 points per 100 possessions. By the way, interesting nugget Howard Beck. The slowest pace of play in the NBA for any team this year was Orlando at 96 and a half possessions per per game. 96 and a half is the magic number. Through game ones we have Boston, Orlando 87 pace, Miami, Cleveland 87 and a half pace, Lakers, Wolves 88 pace, Rockets, Warriors. What we're talking about now, 89 pace, Clippers, Nuggets 91 pace, Bucks Pacers, 97 and a half pace. So almost that's the third fastest series and it's almost those dead last regular season pace, Detroit, New York 99 pace almost you know like 20th in the regular season and then Memphis, Oklahoma City 108 and a half of just Oklahoma City running them to death. A very slow first round. Anyway, that's my end of my Jalen Green thoughts. He was sounds like he was your candidate as well.

[Howard Beck]

Yeah. The game slows down in the playoffs. Is that what we are told all the time? I guess those down in the playoffs.

[Zach Lowe]

We'Ll see how, how any of this holds up. Some of these teams are, are slow. So yeah, they're slow to begin with.

[Howard Beck]

Yeah. And the Rockets don't want to be slow. And the warriors seem quite pleased with themselves for playing a, you know, applauding game because they feel like they can take advantage of the fact that the Rockets don't have much of a half court offense. And, and it's interesting because the warriors, you know, throughout this entire era have been such a high turnover team. It's like it causes Steve Kerr a lot of agita their, their turnovers and they've been, they've been better with Jimmy.

[Zach Lowe]

They had some insane ones last night when Jimmy was on the bench in the second quarter especially was like have you guys lost your minds? Has everyone lost their minds in the game?

[Howard Beck]

Yeah, but if they can keep their turnovers down then they're getting, you know, they're keeping you know, the Rockets from getting out and running, getting easy baskets from, from Thomps, Brooks and Green and the rest of these guys like they like that was, it's funny to say for a team that we've always thought of as such a high powered offense, the warriors, but you know, grinding the game down to a halt is, is to their advantage for sure in this series. And Jalen Green.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah.

[Howard Beck]

Was my MDP of the weekend as well. I just thought, and look, everything you said, I, I agree with here, but I do think like Jalen Green, you're, you're, you're bigger than Steph Curry. You're younger, you, you know, you're matched up with him quite a bit. Like he should be able to attack that like he should. It seemed to me like he was settling for some like meh mid range stuff, you know, 18 footers. And I just thought like, you know, Jalen Green, you're like, you're this young spry gazelle, you know, why aren't you, you know, getting to the rack more here? And I didn't, you know, I didn't drill too far down replay anything, but it just seemed to me like he was settling. And I don't know whether this is one of those situations too where, okay, you know, we make a big deal out of youth versus experience and then they play their first game and a guy like Jalen Green craps the bed. And do you say, is this, is this just ok, his playoff debut? It's his first time out there. Is it the moment? Is it something else? Is it the warriors just being that good, you know, defensively against him, not getting, not letting him get where he wants to go? I don't know. But for one game, at least for one weekend, he is the mdp.

[Zach Lowe]

I do like when there's part of me, even though I tried to be a thoughtful analyst, I do like sometimes when conventional wisdom just, just flies off the screen and is proven wildly true. Like Detroit, we're not going to talk about Pistons, Knicks much because that resumes tonight and so there's just not enough time between the games. We'll talk about it more later this week. Detroit just like melting down into a puddle of nothingness in the fourth quarter on the biggest stage in basketball at msg, throwing the ball all over the place, missing just wide open shots, wide open layups at the rim. And it wasn't only just the young guys. Tim Hardaway Jr. Missed a bunch of shots and just, they just melted down into just a disaster. And the Knicks came back, scored 40 points in the fourth quarter and won that game. You were at that game. It must have been crazy.

[Howard Beck]

It was wild. I mean the Garden is just incredible in the playoffs. Like the last couple of years of going to Knicks home playoff games. The place is just so intense. I highly recommend people, if you ever get a chance to, although I will say so, I was up on the Chase Bridge. That's the, that's like the overflow press Area for the Garden.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. So you can bungee jump down to.

[Howard Beck]

The court from there if one wanted to and was brave enough. It's an interesting vantage point, actually, but that is mostly fans up there. And I ended up having a conversation with a couple of fans who said they were visiting from. I think it was Mexico City tourists. They couldn't. They were really excited to be there. They're like, we paid $400 a seat for these on the bridge, like the cha. Like, this is. This is about as high up as you can get. $400 a seat. Anyway, I was chatting with a couple of. Actually, before I mentioned the Pistons people, I should just say I ran to a Doris Burke pregame, db, db. Said to say hello while I was milling about in the court pregame, doing our usual pregame schmooze fest. And I was chatting with a couple of Pistons people and we were just talking about this whole thing and like, okay, yeah, like, this is a very exciting moment for them. Their first playoff game. What a great breakthrough season and all this. And I just stream of consciousness and sticking my foot in my mouth, like, not really thinking about this. I talked about. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. And I remember, you know, Cavaliers Nicks a couple years ago and, you know, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley, you know, their first time just looked like deer in headlights or whatever. And like the Pistons person who I was talking to, immediately, I was cringing like I was possibly throwing out a bad omen here. And I said, no, that's not what I mean. I mean, I just mean that, you know, sometimes it's interesting to see how young players react and whatever. And I had to kind of backtrack, but. And then through three quarters, the Pistons looked like they were absolutely ready for the moment. They were fine until suddenly they weren't. That got out of hand very quickly and. But it was. It was a wild finish. Jalen Brunson, like, just a typical Jalen Brunson. Right. Like, I'm. I'm gonna fall down three times. Each time is going to look a little bit more scary than the last. Or he's going to take a little slow to get up, waving off his teammates. Don't pick me up yet. I need to catch my breath. And then he just goes and, you know, destroys you.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, I don't. I don't want to belabor this one. With it resuming so soon, Kat was on my list of MVP candidates, which it did. It's not a stat line that jumps off 23, 11 and 54 steals like maybe it is stat line. 10 of 14 only got off 3 threes. Made one in part because the the Pistons scrapped everything they did against the Knicks in the regular season and put Jalen Duran on Josh Hart and put a wing on Cat to try to snuff out his three point game. And I thought he made all the right adjustments. When the Pistons centers were on him, they spammed Jalen Brunson campaign, oh my God campaign and Cat picking pops and stuff and exploited the centers and when they had Tobias Harris on him or you know, other forward type players, he played his bully ball, he got in the post, he made some tough shots and the Knicks remembered late in the game, hey, just because you have a wing or a fast power forward on you doesn't mean we we can't run the Brunson Cat pick and roll. How about Brunson runs a little pre screen to get Malik Beasley on him and then we have Beasley and Tobias Harris defending this action. If you switch, you're in big trouble because Malik Beasley's on Cat and they exploited that. Cat had a little roll to the basket drop off to Josh Hart during the crazy 210 run in the fourth quarter. I just saw Cat Pitt played a nice calm defensively and don't love it and be interesting to see if the Knicks experiment with putting him on a Sar Thompson or Ron Holland if Ron Holland gets in the game again. But I thought Kat was good. You want to hear some other MVP candidates?

[Howard Beck]

Yes. Although I gotta say before I lose this train of thought, I thought for sure your most disappointing candidate was going to be Kyle Kuzma with the trillion line.

[Zach Lowe]

We'll get to him. And I'm trying to be. It's Monday morning. I'm on very little sleep. I'm trying to be a little positive to get through this. Okay, I'm going to go through the positives first.

[Howard Beck]

Let's go.

[Zach Lowe]

Other MVP candidates. The Jaden McDaniels, Nas Reed combo for the Minnesota Timberwolves who just picked apart the Lakers who looked old and slow. We'll talk about that one more later. Darius Garland, I just thought played an absolutely gorgeous game for the Cavs. Ty Jerome both tied. First of all, Ty Jerome just go off like Ty. Ty Jerome, he's not going to win six man of the year because I don't think he played enough minutes. He is one of the finalists. He did not make my fake ballot just because of minutes issues. I just, I can't. He is so fun to watch. Because he legitimately goes out there and he's like I'm the best player on the floor. Like I don't like who, who like Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley are going to make it all NBA team. I don't care. I'm tight. I'm Ty Jerome. Do you know who I am? I went to the University of Virginia. I, I'm a national champion. I'm tied. Jerome took over the game, tore apart the heat zone. Both Garland and Jerome, wherever Tyler Herro was, they found Tyler Herro, put him in a pick and roll and just got whatever they wanted. I thought Garland just great shot making, beautiful shot making Giannis just because no one else came along for the ride in the Pacers blowout. Andrew Nemhard, big ups to him. Derrick White, fantastic game for the Celtics. Paolo Banchero, one man band. Took everything Boston gave him in terms of jumpers and mismatches and made them all. No one else came along with him. But I think even though they, they play late tonight, I think we have to talk about Jokic to get a little bit into Denver Clippers because that was the game, that was the game of the weekend. Jokic would be on my list. Not a spectacular game by Jokic standards. A game I thought the Nuggets were pretty fortunate to win considering Michael Porter Jr. Just didn't do anything and got benched for Russell Westbrook and sometimes Peyton Watson. And I don't think the Nuggets can win four times in this series without Michael Porter Jr. Having a couple of big games. But they battled back and here's the stat for you that I just want to highlight this ahead of Game 2. Murray Jokic, 35, pick and rolls. That's number one in any game this season for the Nuggets. According to Second Spectrum, number two is 29. So obviously went to overtime and they played a lot of minutes but six more pick and rolls then they ran in any game this season. 1.3 points per possession when one of them shot out of the pick and roll or one pass away. 1.4 points per possession when you zoom out for the whole possession and I thought that was the. We're a little frazzled. The Clippers are big on the wing and Switchy and Zoo is Zeus plays him. Plays Joker in the post as well as anyone. I think Joker's going to get into a rhythm though in the post. He got into a little bit of rhythm when they left Zoo on an island, which they will do and I think as the series goes he's going to figure out some answers and I'm actually curious because of how dominant the Murray Jokic two man game was. Will the Clippers ever experiment with the old Rudy Gobert tactic of trying to put zoo on Aaron Gordon to get him out of the pick and roll and put like whoever Kawhi, I don't even know. They're too small probably to do it on Jokic, but their de facto defense on that play was very often start out in a drop and then depending how the Nuggets attack, kind of a late switch like a veer back switch where all of a sudden a guard is on Yokich and a big Zubots is on Murray and they just sort of picked that apart over and over again. Murray hit a 3 when he was dancing with Zubots. He hit Christian Brown on a backdoor cut when he was dancing with Zubots on the switch. And James Harden, who was ball watching a lot in game one and got smoked on the off glass because of it, was ball watching again. Jokic, they gave him the ball at the nail against Chris Dunn and other assorted undersized Clippers and he just went to work and found Aaron Gordon on threes and this and that. And that's when the Nuggets, the Clippers rather at the end of the game decided forget all that, we're just trapping. We're trapping Jamal Mur, we're trapping him when he crosses f core. We're going to force the ball to all these guys who can't shoot. But I just thought it was a very like calm down. Jokic may not put up all the numbers out of this pick and roll, but we're going to go back to the bread and butter that won us the championship and we're going to try to steal this game. And I really thought the Clippers have to be kicking themselves for that game because that was there for them. The Harden Zubots pick and roll was picking the Nuggets apart for the first half of the game. Kawhi was nine of 15. I thought he the Clippers is interesting because they were getting hammered including by Bob Myers for not running enough hardened Zubots pick and roll. I looked up the numbers. They ran it 24 times. So compared to 35 for Mura Jokic, that's actually the second most they ran it in any game this season. According to Second Spectrum 1.4 point. Here's the interesting part. 1.375 points per possession when that pick and roll produced a shot directly out of it. Either one of them Shoots or one pass away. Zoom out to the whole possession. That dropped to 1.18. That's a big drop. It's still a good number, but it's a big drop. And I think it shows you that when the Nuggets could force more than one pass, when it's like you have to pass to Chris Dunn over here or Chris Dun's in the dunker spot and Jokic sprints from Zubots to him. The finishing is just so so for the Clippers role players. And if you can force that, that's a win for the Nuggets. But I, I just thought I wanted to just highlight the Murray Jokic pick and roll. That was obviously the game of the weekend. I screamed, Howard. I screamed to nobody in my office. Went up by one with a three second difference between the game and the shot clock in overtime. Russell Westbrook was just like, you know what? I'm going for it. I'm taking the. They're not fouling me. I could probably run the clock almost all the way down or force them to foul me later. I'm going for the layup over James Harden. James Harden made a great defensive play. I'm like, oh my God, what is Russ doing? And then Aaron Gordon gets an offensive rebound, makes free throws, and then Russ steals or deflects the inbounds pass and it's over. Unbelievable game. I lost my mind like five times during that game.

[Howard Beck]

That was the only stretch of the game I got to see because as we previously established, I'm a doofus and went to the Garden. So I was either on the subway or, you know, running around the Garden pregame and missed most of that. So I got back to the press room, got to catch the end there, saw that play. I think I laughed. The only times I audibly laughed during basketball over the weekend, I think, was that rust play and Steph's ridiculous three last night where I just sat on the couch and just like laughed. It was just because it was so preposterous. I had a question for you though, because I didn't see most of this game and it's one of those things, you glance at the box score and the first thing that leaps out to me and James Harden has had a phenomenal year. He did make my all NBA ballot at the end of the day. I had agonized over that one quite a bit. But Harden taking 22 shots to Kawhi's 15 did something. What. What was going on in the course of that game where James Harden is your. Is A a bigger option than. Was it just all the pick and rolls with subac like don't I. I would guess or I would have thought ahead of time. Like you're like, you know, Kawhi is a little bit more of the thrust here, but maybe not what anything.

[Zach Lowe]

Some of it is the pick and roll. Some of it is that the Nuggets are switching a lot, as are the Clippers. And so Harden has his pick of the litter. Like he can isolate against Jamal Murray and he likes that matchup. Yeah, it's one of the reasons that Porter is going to be a wildcard in this series because Porter's got no chance of keeping Harden in front of him. He's got a better chance of keeping Kawhi in front of him because Kawhi doesn't operate with just sort of like straight up speed. But the Clippers are interesting because as much as people wanted them to spam even more of that pick and roll, I thought the Nuggets got a handle on it a little bit. As the game went on. They sort of settled into. They, they. They tried a bunch of different defenses with Jokic up to the level of the screen, Jokic dropping back. They were all just torn apart. Then they started late in the game. Having Jokic drop back and pulling in help defenders more aggressively off the non shooters like Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr. That worked pretty well. Well enough. But the Clippers are interesting because they have that element. You don't want to shove Kawhi too far to the side, especially since Kawhi can also probably pick out his matchup if he wants to and go at Jamal Murray in the poster, whoever. And then I thought they left a little bit of money on the table. Not that you want to tilt your offense too much toward Norm Powell, but Norm Powell has Jamal Murray on him to start games. He's got Michael Porter Jr. On him at times. I thought they could have ran him off. Pin downs and some other stuff for handoffs and just high flying. Norm Powell just get the ball straight line finish and. And they kind of view. But. But it's a challenge to get all those elements in alignment. Did any of my other most valuable player choices stick out to you? I mean, look, the three. There are three drawing dead series in the first round. Orlando, Boston dead. Miami, Cleveland dead. And Memphis, Oklahoma City. I mean, we can go through my, my least valuable choices. One of them was he's. He didn't play a horrible game. But Tyler Herro, I just thought did not do enough offensively, particularly he was being guarded by Sam Merrill a lot. And Sam Merrill stood up Tyler Herro and Andrew Wiggins at times, one on one. And I just thought Miami lost the plot on offense. Like, you've got to have Tyler hero set ball screens for Andrew Wiggins, use it more in a pick and roll. Maybe one on one isn't the answer. Kuzma, you mentioned just, just what the hell. And I just. LeBron and Austin Reaves I thought were both bad for the Lakers by their standards. And then I just wrote the entire Memphis Grizzlies. Hi, welcome. Welcome to the playoffs. You lost by a thousand points. Jaren Jackson Jr. I mean, look, he's. He's relegated to spacing duty on offense a lot when Zach Edie's at center and they didn't play him hardly at all at center. Jaren Jackson Jr. Is the only big man. They might want to try that. Not that it matters. He, he couldn't get anywhere posting up the army of just handsy marauding guards and wings that the Grizzlies can throw or their thunder can throw at him, you know, look, they're not going to win this series. I don't know if they're going to be competitive in this series, but if this goes like, it's not going to go 51 points. But if this goes just like you're, you're miles away and yeah, you don't have Brandon Clark and whatever. Like the Marcus smart thing was a disaster. Okay, fine. Canard didn't play until garbage time. That was weird. If this goes like this, I think we're going to get to the end of this and say, what do we actually have here? Like this. Morant, Bane, Jackson Jr. Who's eligible for an extension. Like, what does this amount to? There are three very good players. None of them. One of them made an all star team this year. He might make an all NBA team. Jaren Jackson Jr are we trending toward a situation where like, we have three guys who are like Bain probably won't ever make an all star team just because he's in the wrong conference and he's, he's right around that sort of like CJ McCollum, just really good guard, but not good enough to make an all star team level? John didn't make it this year. He doesn't play enough. Jaren Jackson Jr. You could see him making like one out of every couple of years. Maybe one out of every three years. Like, do we just have three guys who are somewhere around the 25th to 45th best player in the NBA instead of what we hope for, which is top 10 player, top 20 player, top 25 player. And if that's the case, and they're all going to have to make a ton of money, like what, what are we doing here? Because this team has talked a lot of shit. They've puffed their chest out a lot. They've been around now for a while. This is not like a fresh, new, cool like up and coming team anymore. And they're going to get rocked in this series and we're going to be four years into this or whatever and they're going to have one, one playoff series against an inexperienced Minnesota Timberwolves team. And then any time they've put up against a real team, a veteran team that's ready, they just don't, they don't have enough. And they had nothing for Oklahoma City. Nothing. I mean, in Oklahoma City the defense was absolutely terrifying, but the Grizzlies had absolutely nothing for them. And I'm just curious as to your thoughts, like big picture, what is getting. They get smoked in this series? What does this mean for them?

[Howard Beck]

I had the same thought just watching yesterday as it went from, you know, 20 to 30 to 40 to 50 to 55, whatever the, whatever that margin ended up being at its peak. And a couple quick things just to back up and they put themselves in this position by being a play in team. But going from the Friday night game just to qualify to get in to a noon local start on Sunday, kind of brutal.

[Zach Lowe]

Don't suck toward the end of the year. Don't fire your coat. Don't get in a position where you have to fire your coach with nine games left. When, when I did, I did say.

[Howard Beck]

They put themselves in this position. I'm just noting.

[Zach Lowe]

But you know what, they talk shit to everybody. So you know what, just back it up. Back it up then.

[Howard Beck]

Yeah, so there's that. By the way also though, because when you had, when you had texted me my homework and you were talking about the three drawing dead series, and all I could think was back to my, you know, proposal. Once upon a time when we used to do our Drunk with Power podcast, as you know, I love the best of five first round and in cases like this, I just think, my God, the sooner this series and the Miami series and the Orlando, like, the sooner these teams go away, with all due apologies and respect to those teams, the better. These are not interesting series. They're not going to be. This one is interesting because of the question that you raised. Right. Like Miami's in transition. They had to trade Jimmy Butler, you know, at the, you know, you know, under duress. They're in transition. Orlando is not healthy. They still need a point guard, blah, blah, blah.

[Zach Lowe]

We're going to talk about, we're going to talk about them in a second.

[Howard Beck]

Yeah, they're a team on the rise and I don't, I don't care if they get smoked in the first round. They're young and they're, they're still kind of forming themselves, but Memphis is already formed. These are their three guys. The curse of the term big three is that everybody then sits there and preens when they get, they find three really good players. Oh, we got our big three. And we're gonna have to max them all out now, by the way, and then deal with second apron issues potentially. Their big three are not big three enough. They're not big enough. I don't mean size wise. I mean, you know, although in John Moran's case, maybe size as well. And I was looking at it and it's not to get too reductive, but the fact is, and you alluded to this, in this league you're a contender if you've got certainly a top five guy, hopefully maybe a top 10 guy. And if you have one of those five, a top five or top 10, and then hopefully your second best player is top 15 or top 20. And these three guys in our own ringer, top 100, which neither you or I participate in.

[Zach Lowe]

No, I do now. They, they made me.

[Howard Beck]

Are you excellent? All right. I love not being part of it because one, I'm terrible at ranking and two, I have.

[Zach Lowe]

Now you're going to be you. Just you, you just you, you, you just asked for it.

[Howard Beck]

People complain about it and then I could say, you know, wasn't me. I, I send them all to Michael Pena in the Ringer's top 100, the highest ranked grizzly, Jaren Jackson Jr. At 22nd, Jaws at 29th currently, and Baines at 46th. People can quibble over it and, you know, maybe somebody should be a little bit higher or whatever, but like, that's the basic reality. They do not have a top 10 or a top 15 player at present. I don't know.

[Zach Lowe]

Can I say something crazy?

[Howard Beck]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

And I don't mean this the way it's going to come out. Like peak Jama Rant is awesome. Okay? Like peak John Moran is awesome. Pre all the shit John Morant was, was awesome.

[Howard Beck]

Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Hasn't been the same guy this year as a basketball player. Just not as aggressive a finisher, not getting to the line as as much, too many turnovers, et cetera. There have been too many games this year where I've watched Memphis and JA didn't play or Jaws resting because it's not resting. Like, jaw's just on the bench waiting to come back in where I'm like, they don't look that much worse with Scottie Pippen Jr. Running the offense. And like, that is not true. Let me be clear. Like, they are worse with Scotty Pippen Jr. Running the offense. But the fact that I can watch them and feel that now and then is a bad sign.

[Howard Beck]

I was, excuse me, I was defensive of Jaw a couple years ago when it was like, look how great their record is when it's just Tyus Jones and Jaws out. And I said, lynn, don't get too caught up in that. I know there's like a 25, 30 game sample the one season I said, but don't get too caught up in that. Like, you know, teams can do this in stretches and you can, like, you cannot replace or you cannot long term, you will feel the loss of a truly elite talent as Ja is. That said, as you just noted, like, there are times when you watched and I think part of this was, look, and I got in trouble for this, right? And get in trouble for it. I got aggregated in the aggregation. Got me in trouble. In February, Real Ones podcast, we did a live show at All Star Weekend. And I mentioned in the course of conversation that a couple drinks in.

[Zach Lowe]

Maybe a couple. Couple drinks in at All Star.

[Howard Beck]

We. We may or may not have been doing shots before the podcast.

[Zach Lowe]

Dangerous.

[Howard Beck]

May or may not.

[Zach Lowe]

You bet. You mentioned that Drunk with Power podcast that you, me and Rachel used to do. There was one we did where at the tiki bar. We're at beer number three. I almost said a couple of things and my brain was like, don't do it. And my. My dumb part of the drunk brain was like, do it, just say it. And luckily the smart brain won.

[Howard Beck]

You were drinking beer. I think I was actually doing like the fancy, ridiculous cocktails or whatever that had God knows what in them. That was a fun day.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm a real man. I'm a real man, Howard. Okay.

[Howard Beck]

Beer people say this about you all the time. I mentioned it All Star Weekend on the podcast on a live show, which then got aggregated that as a rival executive when I was just making the rounds after the Luca trade about what else was coming and what else to look for down the line. And what does it say about stars being traded? Blah, blah, blah, whatever. And someone said just keep an eye on Ja. And that was all they said. And then it got aggregated and it blew up and it was really annoying because aggregators are annoying. And it was out of context. But the reason that the person had said it to me at the time was as we know and as we've had seen a lot of hand wringing over because Taylor Jenkins then got fired. The offense this season had kind of de emphasized jaw. Jaw also de emphasized job by not being available for a good chunk of the season. But the offense was less pick and roll heavy, less jaw centric. And to your point about Scottie Pippen Jr. And non jaw lineups, they had an offense that could do other things that wasn't just so. So static or pick and roll dependent or jaw dependent, which is overall good for them for the non jaw minutes or the non jaw stretches when he's out injured. But it raised the question of how does this sit with ja? And I think we have learned since that maybe the person who I talked to was right to raise this as a concern. And they've now fired Taylor Jenkins and they fired the assistant coach who devised this offense, Noah LaRoche. LaRoche, thank you. And so there are concerns. There are some things to keep an eye on. As the rival exec said to me, it wasn't. He's definitely getting traded. We just keep an eye on. I think more than ever I'm keeping an eye on it, to be honest, because of the way the season has gone, because of the firing, because of where they are now and getting smoked yesterday. And they're certainly going to get thumped in this series and they do have to reevaluate and it's a smart front office led by Zach Kleiman. And I think, like they're not going to be. We saw this. There was no sentimentality when it came to Dylan Brooks. John Moran's not Dylan Brooks. But. But this is a franchise that I think is very pragmatic in the way it thinks about its team. And John may be beloved locally, and he is, but there are no sacred cows in this league. That was kind of the point of the LUCA exercise. Right. Huge mistake. But there are, you know, sentimentality and, and. And whatever fans love and everything. Like it's. There are times when nothing means anything. I would just the last. My last quick jaw thought. Jaw does not seem to be evolving as an individual or as a player as an individual. Because we've seen all the stuff with the finger guns and then his defiance of the league and grenades.

[Zach Lowe]

The grenade thing is, it's, it's so stupid that I almost admire how stupid it is.

[Howard Beck]

Yeah. But it, it's.

[Zach Lowe]

It.

[Howard Beck]

The thing is it gets like, I laugh, but it's also like, it's so immature. Like, like the point of this, of all of this that you've gone through is to show that you have thought about this and why it was a problem and you evolve and you stop doing these things.

[Zach Lowe]

Can we go? Can we go, Bazooka? Can we go?

[Howard Beck]

Like I said, I said this on the pod a week or two ago. He's just going to drive a tank on the court.

[Zach Lowe]

Is he going to duck and cover? Like lay down, like throw the grenade and lay down on the floor while the game is still going on? Like, where else can we go with this?

[Howard Beck]

But I, he's, he's a slightly built, incredibly athletic, smaller guard and still not a shooter. And he gets the. Kicked out of him or just, just, just gets beat up because he's constantly. These incredible drives that are why we watch because he's so much fun to watch. But he takes a beating a little like Iverson back in the day and that can shorten your career and it certainly can shorten your seasons as it has. He gets hurt a lot. So no, I'm not confident in this team's future as currently constructed. And I do think that at, you know, some point, maybe sooner than later, at least one of those three probably has to be swapped out for different pieces because this is not a big three that's going to make you a contender.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, I, I'm, I'm, I just, I'm going to go fast. I'm very excited about this topic. It's difficult because since you have three of them trading one and so here, here, just. Let's do the contract. Ja next season. 39 million following season 42, 27, 28, 45. Not that bad of a contract. It's going be 24% of the cap. Bain 36, 39, 42, 45. Jackson extension eligible after this season. We'll see what happens. But the challenge since you have three of trading one is does a rebuild deal, which is what you always. Which is the classic star deal. Does that make any sense when you have the other two left over? Like why am I trading whoever for three first round picks when I have these other two guys making $85 million or whatever, it ends up being number two. And Zach Kleiman did his Pound his fist on the podium. Like, we're not trading John Moran. All those rival executives can suck it. Okay, did I, I said this with Bill. Like, did I miss the parade of teams who are calling with monster offers for the dude who plays half the games and still is a non shooter and still struggles on defense? I like job, but like where. So then I was like I went through just rapid fire. Here are teams who theoretically, in some stretch of the imagination, make need a point guard. Okay. Make. Might need a point guard. Might conceive of themselves as in need of a point guard or just a shake up. Washington, too far, too far behind Charlotte. Bill has mentioned the Lamello ball, John Morant fake trade. Charlotte's not doing that. No. What if Atlanta decided to just dump Troy Young? Well, that doesn't make any sense. They're roughly equivalent players. Roughly equivalent ages, whatever. The Bulls. Well, Josh Giddy, Kobe White, that is there, that sort of combines into being a point guard. Milwaukee, Clippers down the line. If those two teams get old and shake it up, that's years. Well, maybe not years away. Brooklyn in a salary dump because they have cap space. I don't see that. Like Brooklyn. Sean Marks came out and said if we're going to go after a max level free agent, they got to be like a real game changer. That was code for like it's got to be a top five to top ten guy. Wink, wink, wink. The Pelicans. Imagine a job for ZION. Just, just 2019.

[Howard Beck]

By the way, here's a job with Zion. There's a nightmare.

[Zach Lowe]

How about, how about this 2019 draft, six years later? Yeah. Would Darius Garland be the number one pick?

[Howard Beck]

Probably.

[Zach Lowe]

Probably. The order of the draft was Zion, Ja, Barrett, Hunter, Garland. I mean, that's crazy to think about.

[Howard Beck]

I mean, once you take into account availability and everything else. Yeah. And Darius Garland's also just really good. Yeah, I would say so.

[Zach Lowe]

So here are the other teams and this will lead us into a brief Orlando, Boston, thought, thought process. Sacramento, you had two great point guards, now you got zero. You, you seem to operate with just unending craziness. Why not Kang's? Miami? I don't see it. I don't think that's the star Miami will go for when they use their ammo and they inevitably will try to use their ammo, but they have ammo in their Miami. I don't, I don't see it. Orlando. I think if we're talking about Memphis in the fallout of this series, Orlando is going to get destroyed by Boston. Their offense isn't good enough. We knew their offense isn't good enough. Franz Wagner actually looked a little, a little like shook at times during the game. Like, oh, you're closing out short to me. And okay, like I'm not used to being treated this disrespectfully. They're missing Suggs, they're missing Mo Wagner. Like they have pieces that are missing. There just isn't enough there. We have more than enough evidence now that there isn't enough offense there. I don't like Bankero's awesome. Franz is going to make all star teams. There just isn't enough around them and they're not close to being good enough offensively. I think there are some things they could do better. Schematically, specifically in this series against Boston's switching defense. I don't really care to get into it because the series is not going to be interesting, but I think Orlando's reached a point where this summer, now is the time to go out and get a guard who can shoot and play, make and take the burden off of them. I don't think Ja will be that guy. But you watch them against Boston and it's just like Paolo is playing one on five and they, you know, I thought again, it doesn't seem like a super high scoring Celtics game. It doesn't seem like they got a lot of threes off. That's because the pace was really slow. They actually took 37 threes on 82 shots. I think that's a 45% three point rate. That would have been second in the NBA only to them. It's close to their regular season rate. They did a great job saying you're switching to take away our threes. We're still going to generate threes because of who we attack and where, and, and where we kick the ball to in the X's and O's of that are somewhat interesting. But Orlando just, there's just not enough here. And it's time, it's time to use the picks. It's time to use the young players. It's time like, is Jet Howard anywhere? Like, is he alive? It's time to get a real guy in here.

[Howard Beck]

I mean, haven't we had some version of this conversation for the last couple of years though? I mean, I, I, I think like we've, we come back this periodically. I'm trying to remember, like every so often there's been somebody, I don't know, maybe it was like the Fred Van Vliet summer or something when he went to Houston, like There've been a couple moments over the last three to five years where it was like, when are they going to go get a point guard? And, and, and the, the more prominent they've become or the more, the more Wagner and Bankero have evolved as this one, two punch it's become. I, I feel like more and more pressing. The Magic are, they're interesting because they spent a lot of years, Zach, where it looked like they absolutely needed the teardown and they waited forever to finally like, you know, blow it up and send out all these guys from the Vuch era, including Vuch himself. They've been really methodical. Would be the, the kind way of putting it in the, in the rebuild.

[Zach Lowe]

The unkind way of putting it is that Corey Joseph is starting for the Orlando magic and playing 26 minutes in a playoff game. And yes, I realize Jalen Sugg is hurt.

[Howard Beck]

Yeah, but Jaylen, but is Jalen Suggs a point guard? I mean it. I, that's, you know, we've had a lot of Cole Anthony and he's had some nice moments and, and Corey Joseph and like how many other different point guards who are all like Markel, the Markel Fultz era. It just feels like they're content to just keep dabbling and not make the big swing.

[Zach Lowe]

Pop quiz. Pop quiz. Who was the third leading scorer for the Orlando Magic yesterday with seven points in game one? Oh my God.

[Howard Beck]

I.

[Zach Lowe]

I, Cole Anthony, Jonathan, Isaac. Jonathan played 18 minutes as backup center, looked great on defense. And the Celtics best offense was actually, I don't, I, I thought their best offense was not attacking the littler guys like Corey Joseph and, and they, the other little guys are not that little. Anthony Black, Gary Harris. I thought those guys mostly forced Tatum and Brown into tough shots. It was attacking the big guys, attacking Wendell Carter Jr. Specifically and going at his feet and trying to get by him, get into the rim, start spraying it out for threes. And that's how they beat the switches with threes. Orlando's trying to depress their three point rate by switching everything and Isaac is the cure to that because they couldn't beat him off the dribble the way they could. He just can't play. I guess he just can't play more than 18 minutes. Like he just can't. And he's their third leading scorer. It just, I don't want to be enough. I don't like it's time there, there. It's been a fine season for them. I think they need to look at a total offensive. Just let's let's. They've got a lot of like good fail safe stuff like Paolo attacking Smalls in the pick and roll. That's a good fail safe thing. Fran. Same thing. I think they got to look at. We got to add layers upon layers to this in the off season and we just got to get a big talent upgrade. One more, one more pop quiz before we bring in Steve Jones Jr. To talk X's and O's. What is the more evil camera cutaway currently going through the NBA? Howard Beck. Is it the cutaways to Nico Harrison when Anthony Davis limps off the court or the cutaways to Nicola Jokic looking frustrated on the bench, which is meaner camera work?

[Howard Beck]

Oh, it's got to be Nico Harrison. I mean that was almost gratuitous the other night, but I, I think, I think we all kind of perversely enjoyed it. Social media very much enjoyed it. There were super cuts of every Nico Harrison reaction. There were split screens. There were, you know, there were, you know, curb your enthusiasm overlays. People were having a blast with it. Thank you NBA. Thank you network. Forget. Was that. I can't remember. It was ESPN or Turner. Thank you whoever for all the Nico Harrison close ups during various moments. His expression, to Nico's credit really never changed. It was just some form of like pensive consternation. Yeah, little. Maybe little, little growly little kind of. I, I might be aware that this camera keeps focusing on me. Get it the hell out of my face. I realize the whole world thinks I'm. I'm an idiot for trading l. Please.

[Zach Lowe]

Leave me alone now expression I make when my daughter or one of her friends farts in my face because they think it's. It's funny.

[Howard Beck]

Nico Harrison. By the way, somebody just tweeted out a little bit ago, Nico Harrison's got his end of season presser in a couple hours. I can't wait.

[Zach Lowe]

Can I get on a plane to Dallas now and make it in time? That's how bad these media availability. Are cameras allowed this time? I guess I was going to say. Yeah, just, just pens.

[Howard Beck]

Leave all your. Leave all of your instruments at home. No recorders, no TV cameras, no pens, papers, chisel.

[Zach Lowe]

They locked Patrick Dumont in a closet somewhere so that he can't get on the podium and say something stupid. Like the every media they do is I look. Tim McMahon wrote it today. One of the many, many, many longtime mavs that they jettisoned in this overhaul the franchise is Scott Tomlin, who was their PR guy for a Long time and is super close with Dirk and is an awesome, awesome PR guy. And he's got to be watching this, being like, y'all couldn't use my advice a little bit? Because this is not going great. Okay.

[Howard Beck]

And. And Scott. Scott's working for Dirk specifically. Like, he left the master work for Dirk. That was, I think, two seasons ago. And at the time, this is, I think, before Cuban had sold everything else. But, like, man, Scott pulled the ripcorded. Exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, I guess they did. They didn't jettison him, although they probably would have eventually, given the way that things are going. But he left on his own accord, along with just a bunch of people that Tim wrote about in his story and Mark Stein has written a lot about. I just think of him every time there's a disaster. Because Scooter, as everyone calls him, is fantastic at his job.

[Howard Beck]

And then let me just say this real quick, Zach. Like, you and I, we are not PR people. Thankfully, we are not PR people for the Mavericks specifically. And we have not worked in crisis management. I'll do it.

[Zach Lowe]

You want to hire me as a consultant? The ringer might let me. I'll do it right now.

[Howard Beck]

I was going to say, don't do.

[Zach Lowe]

What you're doing here. Give me $500,000.

[Howard Beck]

There's just so many unforced errors here. Like the trade itself is bad enough. You've made it and you have to live with it. But there are ways, there are better and worse ways to deal with this. Being defensive and pricklish. And pricklish. I think I just made up.

[Zach Lowe]

Prickly.

[Howard Beck]

Prickly. It's early for me, Zach. It's only 10:30 Eastern and I'm still waking up. You can handle this a lot better. Be at least a little bit more empathetic toward the fans who are hurting here. And when the media are sitting there in the room, and I know you're tense with them because of the way they're asking questions and they're asking pointed questions, and Tim McMahon has done a phenomenal job of putting on the spot, and so have the rest of the Dallas media. But the last thing you should do in a moment like this, when the whole world 99.9999%, believes you made a catastrophic error, is to sit there, double down, triple down, and on top of it, be snarly about it. So hire a better crisis management person. If you don't have one, go get one. Find somebody who can at least tell Nico Harrison if he's still doing this for the foreseeable future. And Dumont, you need to lead with some sense of acknowledgment of just how bad this looks. You can be. You have to be confident in what you did. You have to project confidence in the plan. I get that. But you can do it in a way that's a lot less dismissive and prickly or pricklish or some other term of the word that I now won't say because now I'll sound like an ass.

[Zach Lowe]

All right. On that note, by the way, that's the correct answer to the evil cutaway question. It is that. That's very evil in a Dr. Evil delicious way. On that point, let's pause, and we will bring in X's and O's guru, Steve Jones Jr. Of the Dunker Spot podcast to talk about adjustments in two series that are very interesting.

[Howard Beck]

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[Zach Lowe]

All right, let's bring in an X's and O's expert. One of the best. Follow him on Twitter. Listen to the Dunker Spot podcast. Steve Jones Jr. What's up, sir?

[Steve Jones Jr.]

Not much. Happy to be here. Excited to be here. Glad to be the Zach Lowe Show. Hey.

[Zach Lowe]

I hate. I hate the name. I like the name because it's my name. I just don't like saying my name.

[Howard Beck]

Do you know how many people have hit me, Zach, with various versions of. Why didn't they do low this, low that? What? Everybody wanted to make a pun with your name, and they're puzzled. I think they're a little disappointed. Not that they don't like your name. I think they love the puns.

[Zach Lowe]

My dad, when I was. When my mom was pregnant with me, came up with various pun names that he like. You could name me Hal, so my name would be Hallo and things like that. Low Hanging Fruit. All right, Steve Nuggets Clippers is a series of the first round that resumes tonight. So I don't. I don't want to get too far into that because the two will be. Will be a game two before we know it. So the two series that are in the west, both of them are. That are super Interesting and massive. Game two is coming up. I want to hit you on what to look for in game two. Starting with Minnesota Lakers. The Wolves go to la. No one's picking them. Literally, I think on ESPN every single person picked the Lakers, which I picked the Lakers in seven. So it surprised me that no one's. The Wolves are good and the Wolves have been quite good for a long time now and just destroyed the Lakers in game one. Made him look old, made him look slow, got every mismatch they wanted to get blue by Luca, sprayed the ball out for threes, looked bigger, stronger, tougher. What did you see and what do you expect the Lakers to try to do? You can pick either end of the floor. Honestly, you know, defensively the Lakers switched everything. I think the Wolves knew that that was coming and, and exploited it with just a certain calm and steadiness that I didn't necessarily expect from them. Or offensively when you know, look, the Lakers aren't going anywhere. If LeBron and Reeves combine for 35 points on 13 of 31 shooting, Luka with the quietest 37 points I can remember, one assist kicking into the floor, how do the Lakers get, get right here?

[Steve Jones Jr.]

Well, I think it's, it's interesting. I know it sounds random, but I go back to when the Lakers played Orlando and in my head I started to realize if a team can switch against the Los Angeles Lakers and keep the ball in front and then if they can attack the Lakers switches, it kind of puts the Lakers in a box. I think Minnesota did a really good job keeping the Lakers in a box. As far as you mentioned how prepared they were, Anthony Edwards making quick decisions. So the Lakers, they want to switch, they want to have activity, they want to show that early help, they want to close out and recover on those nights where the closeouts are now getting beat. The teams are able to get to drive and kick. They know where the shots are coming from. It can get tough for them because they're so activity based. And on the other end Minnesota was fine switching other things. I think the firepower of LeBron, Luka, Austin, Reaves is undeniable. But if you are able to just say, you know what, we're going to pick this poison of switching. We're going to make you make plays. We're not going to necessarily put two on the ball. That was the interesting part for me. So I think for the Lakers, you've got to find a way to find matchups that Minnesota doesn't like. You've got to find a way to get them in rotation, you have to find a way to kind of tilt it to where you can kind of get the shots you want. Because if Rudy Gobert can be in a drop and say, hey, this is going to be a late switch as soon as you drive, and then as Luka tries to back up and ISO him and Jamie Daniels is like, no, I'm going to come back and take that matchup. Now Rudy is able to be on the floor more. You know, not that you would get played off, but now we feel more comfortable throwing that at you. And then. So I think they got to get more passing cut. They got to be more decisive offensively, get the driving kick, get Luke and LeBron in the post, make Minnesota think about doubling or sending two, and then get back to, okay, we have you in rotation, we're good to go. Because if you're going to lean on small ball and Minnesota can just switch and they know you're switching on the other end, your. Your margin of error is pretty slim.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. Howard, one of my other homework assignments for you was to pick a coach. Coach of the weekend. Who did you pick? By the way, you're gonna hate me.

[Howard Beck]

For this, especially since we've now moved past when I thought we were going to do this. I went with Jeff Van Gundy for wrestling, Jokic for the ball.

[Zach Lowe]

I liked the choice. He held his own like, it was incredible. The claw, the finger strength, and the facial expressions were, yeah, this guy tangled with Zo a million years ago. He's not afraid for a little arm wrestling with the basketball.

[Howard Beck]

Jeff was dead serious in that moment. That was like, he wasn't messing around. He wasn't, like, being cutesy, like, smiling like this wasn't, like, being, like, mischievous. He was not letting go. His face was stern, like.

[Zach Lowe]

And Jokic is like, can anyone just let me play basketball? Like, I just want to. Can I just get the ball and start having fun? Like, why are all these people like Ishpia now? Jeff Van Gundy, they're taking the ball from me. What do I have to do? My choice was Chris Finch, and for a lot of the reasons Steve just said they were super well prepared for everything the Lakers were going to do. I thought starting the game with Conley on Rui Hachimura, which is a thing I mentioned in my preview, I wasn't sure if they were going to do. It was really, really smart because it put their three best perimeter defenders, Ant, Jaden and Randall, who passes for a perimeter defender, I guess in this matchup on the Lakers three best offensive players and forced them to say, look, if you're going to direct your offense at Conley, you're going to have to do it through Rui. And there was one bad Rui post up and that was pretty much it. Not only that, Howard, you mentioned the phrase earlier. No sacred cows. 24 minutes for Gobert, 22 minutes for Conley, 31 minutes for Reed, 25. DiVincenzo, 20. Alexander Walker, like, it's clear he's, he's going to play the guys he trusts to play. And if that means less minutes for Gobert because the Lakers are five out and that's somewhat problematic at times or just the Randle Reed combination is rolling. And Nas was awesome. Nas changed the game not only with the shooting, but bullying switches. Bullying Reeves on switches as another place the Wolves could pick at. Like Conley. You're the, you're the. Like, the Lakers want to attack small guys. Attacking big guys didn't work. Like LeBron got swatted at the rim by Reed and Gobert. Randle held his own. You want to attack small guys. We're going to make our small guys as big as possible. Like, DiVincenzo is no pushover. Alexander Walker is no pushover. Conley is at a massive size disadvantage against Luka and LeBron and even Reeves, and he played 22 minutes. The other guys are like, they're going to fight and hold their own and the Wolves are going to make you prove that we have to send doubles. But to your point, Steve, I think one of the lowest hanging fruit adjustments for the Lakers is good things happen when you put LeBron and Luka in the post. Even, even when they don't get switches. Like Luka got some fouls on Jada McDaniels in the post. He can get, he can get where he needs to go. Like good things are going to happen. Like DiVincenzo, Nikhil, Alexander Walker. Lean into those matchups and just sort of see how Minnesota responds. Force them to make some decisions. I think that what was one obvious one. What about, what about, what about defensively? Because as you said, if this is the game plan, just switch everything. Like Minnesota proved in game one. We can, we can exploit that. Like, we know where Luka is on the floor. We can get Ant onto him or Randall onto him. Randall was super disciplined. I had a rule for this series. You do not get to go one on one in the post unless you have a good matchup that you've generated via switch. He followed my Randall rule, the Randall rule. He followed it very well. Ant made the right passes and I thought their off ball movement for the most part, guys trading places, little flare screens like was enough to confuse the Lakers help and pop guys open. So like the Lakers game plan can't be. Let's just do the same thing. So what, what defensively are you going to look for?

[Steve Jones Jr.]

I think for me, I'm going to look for a little bit more nuance from the Lakers. I don't anticipate they'll go away from switching completely. Like, I don't think they're going to magically wake up and Jackson Hayes is two on the ball, but I think it's more, okay, we need to know when we need to send this help, when we need to show this help, how we need to show it, do our work early, maybe more ball pressure to just try and contain the drives a little bit better because it just felt automatic. And you could tell as the second half went on, Minnesota was like, let's actually just mess around with the spacing a little bit. Not only do they attack different matchups, they okay, we're clearing this swing, we're going quick on the move. That's why Anthony Edwards making quick decisions, Julius Randall making quick decisions was important because with the Lakers, when they can load up and then go boxes and elbows and bring it back to the 90s and they can just kind of hold it looks pretty good. They're pretty active. They can, they can disrupt you, but if you're able to just kind of flip it on them and they don't know where the help is coming from consistently they can't get to the second level. They got to close back out. That's tough. So for the Lakers, just, it's kind of the do better button to a degree, but it's also just they should be more prepared for a team that's going to look to drive. And so their help should be a little bit smarter. They should be able to contain the drive, make them make tough twos if they have, you know, don't be so automatic with pulling over and now you're opening up a driving kick and they're able to take the shots they want to. Minnesota was able to get high quality looks because they knew, hey, you guys are going to be in, we're going to make it happen contest, live with, make them live with some, some tough ones in the paint. I think that's probably the biggest one defensively because they're going to stick with this core group. I think you got to probably trust Jackson Hazel a little bit more.

[Zach Lowe]

Can't trust him. Less than 8 minutes or else he's just not playing. So that's like, you got to get something out of him. I, you know, and especially as offensively they missed a vertical, like just something slicing down the middle of the floor at a fast rate. I thought they missed that. Now, Jackson A's is no great shakes, but he should, you know, if he plays eight minutes a game, the Lakers are not going to win the series, I don't think.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

No, I think that's, that's where Minnesota did a good job with the drop and the switches of saying, hey, there's actually not going to be a role here. So two on the ball is not going to happen. Your Randall point was really good. And I think this is something I've liked about Randle for Minnesota. There's a lot of things you can say about him, but he's going to drive the basketball, especially if he has a matchup that he likes and he's going to force someone in the other jersey to come and help. Can you disrupt that? So Randle and Reed being able to be tall and dribble and attack the Lakers in different ways, I think they just need to do a better job on those two as well and just get a better rhythm. I think that's key.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, I thought to your point about tough twos, you could probably isolate three or four threes in the game where the Lakers helped panic, helped a little bit in the paint when they didn't need to. I mean, there was an obvious one where Nas Reed, you know, got an open three when Randall was posting up LeBron and Naz Reed was one pass away. And they're like, lebron doesn't need help. Just stay, stay home on Naz Reed. But Minnesota, like, can I tell you my favorite ant play? Can I tell you guys my favorite ant play from the whole game? He got Luka on him on a switch. Obviously that's a matchup the Wolves want. And for whatever reason, I can't remember exactly, it was in the second quarter. He just didn't have his, like, footwork and spacing where he wanted it to be, to, like, attack Luka right away off the dribble. So he passed it to somebody on the left wing, left sideline, and instead of like fading out toward half court and just getting the ball back, he suddenly like burst to the rim and kind of back cut Luka. And when Ant activates those parts of his game, it really, really just energizes the entire Wolves team and either got a layup or a dunk out of it was an awesome. They were just super, super decisive. Howard, what did you. What did you take away from this game? Obviously, we all watch. Watch that. This is one of the. The matchups of the first round. What'd you see?

[Howard Beck]

Just to get Steve up to date here, I was at the Garden Saturday night.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, that's right. I forgot that was a Saturday.

[Howard Beck]

So I missed. I missed most of it. I did want to pipe in on Randall for a minute, though, because there was just an observation here that I'm. I'm curious what both of you think of this, because it felt like Randall was an awkward fit early in the season, and it was because of Julia. Usual Julius Randle things, which was being a ball stopper, being a little slow to make decisions, and, you know, a little bit of tunnel vision. And I feel like this last part of the season, I'm not sure how far back to go, and I haven't looked this up quantitatively, but, like, it does seem to me like Julius Randall has been a smarter, more judicious player for them down the stretch here. And when they first got him, all I could think was, this is temporary. He's got a contract coming up. They're just going to plug in Nas Reed and move on. They'll flip him for something else. And I am. I am wondering, like, if this version of him actually makes more sense for them. But, you know, is this. Is this a reliable version of Julius Randle?

[Zach Lowe]

Take it, Steve.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

I think it is, and it fits this team because his driving ability is just an added layer to a team that can sometimes get slow or not put pressure on teams like, Minnesota's been an enigma for me all year in the sense that you've seen the good, you've seen the formula, and then they just haven't done it. Like, oh, my God, we got trapped. This is not a good game for us. Anthony Edwards wants to shoot the ball. Oh, wait. Anthony Edwards wants to make plays. You never know which version you're going to get. And so I think having Julius and his ability to make quick decisions kind of gives him that energy, and that takes less of the Burden On Jaden McDaniels, who now, you know, I think second half of the season had a lot better stretch offensively to where he understood, okay, this is how I am able to make plays. I can play off everyone else. So I think his consistency and his driving and his quick decisions helps this group in those moments where they can't necessarily find things in the half court. And so I've really thought he's been an important piece for Minnesota this year.

[Zach Lowe]

Let's, let's be clear. That trade was a calculated salary dump of Carl Anthony Towns. Calculated in the sense of we've gotten two players for one and a pick. And so we got, we got enough to justify the salary, though. We got enough for our future and we got enough for our present. And there were times this season when the present part of that bet didn't look like it was going to pay off and it took time. And I think Minnesota probably right now up 10 in this series, probably feels like we're comfortable with the decision that we made despite the hiccups, despite the lack of shooting that is going to come back to bite us at some point in these playoffs. But look at, look at the bracket we're in. If we can sneak out this series, we get winner of Warriors, Rockets and Clippers and Nuggets and Thunder. You can all hang out there on the other side of the bracket like there's a pathway here for us to get back to where we were last year. Long way to go. Lakers have game two at home. Steve, one last thing you mentioned you don't want them. They are going to keep switching the Lakers defensively and they will. I would like to see them hit ant with some blitzes. I would put two on the ball now and then and test his, test his willingness to make the easy pass, test Minnesota shooting around him, test their ability to make two or three snap reads in a row because I think that's been inconsistent this year and I just don't think they can sit back every single possession and just let them pick out whatever matchup they want. So I will expect selective trapping, blitzing, aggressive defense that we did not see much of in game one.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

You know, the, the, the smartest thing I think the Lakers could do, trap him on his first one. Trap him hard.

[Zach Lowe]

Just hit him, hit him right in the face.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

Hit him, hit him hard. See if that throws off his decisiveness. Is now, is he anticipating the trap? Is he thinking switch coming? I think especially this time of year, the best players need to see different things, especially some of the younger guards, younger wings. You've got to try and disrupt their rhythm that way. As far as, okay, once they know what's coming, they, they know exactly what plays to make the games. They're too smart these days. But if you can just give a little bit of doubt as to okay, we might trap you. This might be A drop. Now we take you out of your rhythm. Are you making the same automatic plays you made in game one? So I think that's a fair point.

[Zach Lowe]

Okay, onto the only semi exciting and yet gruesomely ugly game from Sunday's chalk chalk chalk fest until the middle of the night. Howard and I talked about Warriors, Rockets a lot already. Now we're going to spin it forward. We talked about Jalen Green and Fred Van Vliet missing every shot. We talked about Sengun, Draymond Green wrestling match. We talked about Steph's brilliance and Jimmy's brilliance and blah, blah, blah, all the different lineups that got trotted out in. In game one. My general big picture question for both of you. We'll start with you, Steve, because X is an O's guru that you are is the same question that I had coming into the series, only it's more urgent now. How are the Rockets scoring in the half court? Like if you're the co. If you're on the coaching staff of the Rockets and you're digesting film from game one and you're trying to pick out possessions where. Oh, we actually this alternative over here might have been better than the one we use. Like, there's only so many answers on this roster, right? Like Jalen Green isolating Steph. That didn't work. Van Vliet, Sengoon, pick and rolls, Jalen Green, Shengun pick and rolls. Like you can get some stuff out of that. But the warriors of Draymond's in the game are pretty good at playing that semi straight up. And like they're gonna live with sengun floaters from 15ft and Fred Van Vliet like 19 footers off the dribble. You can post Sengun and isolate him a million times. I just think with Draymond the math is not going to be good enough, as great as Shangun was to just spam that and make that our whole offense. And they're not going to start like trapping and exposing other stuff. And so I'm watching the game and I'm struggling. Like, what do I do here? What's the place that I go for half court offense other than miss my own shots and get rebounds?

[Steve Jones Jr.]

I think that as I was watching the second half and Houston was kind of making that comeback. Drive the basketball. You got to drive the basketball. You got to play faster. You don't have to necessarily play with the speed of the warriors, but your tempo has to be a lot better in the half court. You can't. You don't have the type of offensive talent to be this methodical. At every single point in time where you're starting with 15 on the clock and Golden State's able to load up, you gotta drive the ball. Give yourself the most opportunities to make Golden State have to guard. You know, make, make pods close out, make Steph close out. Like give yourself a chance. If you gotta throw Dylan Brooks and Jabari Smith some, some of those old school mid post ups, throw it out there, you know, give them one, give them two, see if it does anything, give yourself a mix, you know. But if you're just relying on Jalen Green, Fred Van Bleet to make a pull up in pick and roll, if you're relying on Shingoon to make enough baskets to make Golden State double, I don't know how much, how far you're going to get, but you've got to go quicker, you know, you've got to make Golden State do something else. And so I think that's the biggest thing. I mean, even early in the game they gave Dylan a post up against Steph Curry. Golden State was looking at him like, hey, what are you going to do? That's positive. So let's give a variety, let's play with a little bit more force in the half court, give ourselves a chance. When you're a team that isn't the strongest offensively, you can't hurt yourself by playing slow, you know.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. In my notes here and I, I take notes in every game I noted the Dylan Brooks post up of Steph and I think they got one more in the second half and got something out of it. Jabari Smith got either an and one or a basket over Steph in the post. I would even like if he's, if he's trying to hide on Amen Thompson or, or Tar Eason, like those guys can back him down and just. It's not the greatest answer, but it forces the warriors to make decisions and maybe slide some help toward those guys. Amen. Thompson scored over him in the post or he drew a foul or scored, I can't remember which. I think he scored. Tar Eason is a strong dude. He doesn't have like a graceful back to the basket game, but you can, you can do it. And the only other thing I saw was in the third quarter at some point they started running some like they emptied out the left side of the floor and ran a couple of like handoff pick and rolls between Shengoon and Van or one was Adams and Van Vliet and Adams got A dump off, layup out of it. One was Dylan Brooks and Adams, and Dylan Brooks got all the way to the rim, curling around and missed at the rim. Just a little more juice like that. But this was my big concern, and I just don't. I was sitting there struggling like, it's. It's my job to try to think of answers and pretend I'm in the coach's room and like, I just. These are the only answers I can come up with. Howard, what else did you notice in that game from Houston other than, again, 22 offensive rebounds, which is amazing. And the warriors are small and that's just going to be a problem the entire series? I. I just don't know, like, how many more off can you rebound? 60% of your own misses. Like, I don't think you can get much more than that.

[Howard Beck]

I don't know where else they go with that, but I do. I mean, you and I touched on this earlier in the pod and Steve just touched on it, too. But, like, yeah. Why aren't you leveraging your size and athleticism on the wings against this team? Where aren't you? You know, whether it's Jalen Green driving, Amend Thompson driving, it does feel like there are advantages there that they didn't really fully exploit. I am curious, Steve. Where are you on Jalen Green at this stage of his development or. Or lack thereof? Because it. He's. It feels like he should be. The answer to this question. No.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

Well, he certainly wasn't in game one, but I think his ability this year to grow as a driver has been good. The problem is in the playoffs, are those drives going to result in him being able to finish or get to the free throw line? And so he's now going to make that difference between the regular season and the playoffs. I like that he's trying to get downhill in the regular season. He's trying to initiate contact. That's fine. What's that look like now when the physicality is up and the help is up and now you're. You're taking wilder shots at the rim or in the paint? It's kind of like a regression to year one or two. Jalen Green. So I think it's. He's got to understand and read when he has what shot. And I like that he wants to get in the paint, but also what are you going to do when you get down there? Like, are you creating an advantage? Are you finishing? Are you able to kick out of it? So he has to be the answer for them to a degree. He's got to be able to get a switch on Stephen Curry and make a play. He's got to be able to do some of that because you know Fred Van Vliet's going to have a pull up game at some point. Dylan Brooks probably have a good game. But if Jalen Green can't force the issue to a degree and make Golden State have to think about doing something different, it gets hard. It gets really hard for Houston.

[Zach Lowe]

Let me hit you guys on one more series that we have been derelicted not talking about. And it does not resume until Tuesday, so we have some time tomorrow. Part of the reason it's difficult to talk about is because we don't know if Damian Lillard is coming back for game two for game three at any point. And obviously that changes the whole series. The Bucks are drawing dead in this series without Dame. Like they can't win the series without Dame. I don't think I said before I would have picked the Pacers to win the series with Dame healthy from game one. I just think the Pacers are a really good basketball team. Dame obviously changes the series. Game one just total nightmare for the Bucks. Total nightmare for anyone who's worried about Giannis looking at the roster and being like what? Anyone? This thing on Coos, Brook Lopez and there was like an alarming amount of Kevin Porter Jr. Going on like, like he's alarmingly essential to the Bucks all of a sudden. And the Pacers despite like a bad shooting game. And I thought a fine all around floor game from Tyrese Halliburton, but a bad shooting game. I liked every single three he took. He missed all of them. That's not going to happen again. Just blew the doors off the Bucks. Unbelievable Siakam game. Unbelievable Nemhardt game. Again, it's hard to talk adjustments without knowing what Dame's likelihood. Howard, did you catch a scam or No?

[Howard Beck]

I saw pieces of it before I ran out the door.

[Zach Lowe]

Anything strike you before we, we get to Steve on what to look for in. In. In game two?

[Howard Beck]

No. Go Steve.

[Zach Lowe]

Go Steve. What? What? I mean, I liked a lot of what Indiana did across the board. I, I think they could have leaned even more into Halliburton. Siakam two man game. And Giannis was unbelievable. Like I just don't know what else she's supposed to do other than shoot better than 8 of 15 from the line. But 36 and 12, no one else really coming along for the ride until it was kind of out of hand and AJ Green made some shots what do you just. In general, it could be a Pacers adjustment. Like what's. What are you curious about in game two? Dame. No, Dame. Whatever.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

I think for me the line has been. Can the Milwaukee Bucks sustain defense against the Indiana Pacers? I thought they did a good job of switching at times. They did a good job trying to contain the drives. Eventually they got to a point on a lot of possessions where, you know, there was a drive or there's a roll, whatever. They had to help. The ball was sprayed. Rotation, another pass, rotation, another pass. We're out of rotations. And that was just an overwhelming theme for me. And so I don't think if the Bucks can't sustain their defense, they're not going to have an opportunity because, I mean, giannis had what, 12 of the Bucks first 19 points. That's fantastic. The Pacers are shooting 70% and so you haven't got enough defense to make the Giannis pressure point matter. And now Indiana has this wiggle room and this margin for error and you're trying to figure out, okay, do we put Brook at the level, do we switch Brooke, do we go zone and Indiana is able to poke it, all of it. You get Giannis playing well. No one's making shots. You got 17 made field goals and eight assists at halftime. You haven't taken advantage of the honest game and you can't stop him. So when you got Pascal making the back breaking shots, Halliburton didn't even have to really shoot the ball. He was just able to be an engine. As far as pick and roll, I can reject, I can attack, I can open things up. And Milwaukee's going to be in rotation. And so if they can't get enough of that defensively and not just 15 seconds of defense, they need 18 to 20. It's like, I don't want to say it's like playing the spurs of old, but like the hardest part about playing teams like that who move the ball, it's not the first action, it's not second action, it's the third and fourth one that gets you. And with Indiana, the way they played as far as being committed to moving that ball, it put too much pressure on the Bucs defense. If they can't guard, it's five at best maybe.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, it was just easy for Indiana offensively. It was comfortable. And that's dam is not going to change that. If anything, it will get more comfortable. You know, I just thought it was easy for Halliburton, like, you know, if Brook Lopez is on Myles Turner and maybe they shift him to Siakam at some points. We've, we've seen them toggle that matchup back and forth. If he's on Myles Turner, that pick and roll, pick and pop and Miles Turner mixed in, I thought even too many roles, like too many short roles, but he made jumpers from 18, 19ft. When he pops to three, it's just an easy decision tree for Tyrese Halliburton. If he's wide open, just give him the ball and then he gets the ball. And if a third guy stunts at him, he knows where that's going from. And Miles Turner can make that pass. If Tyrese Halliburton kind of dribbles and hangs out with it a little bit and he sees that third rotator, that third stunt, they're coming, he just skips Miles Turner altogether and hits that guy's guy, Andrew Nempart. There's a pass that Tyrese made to Nemhard in the left corner in this exact situation. That was just a genius point guard thinking two steps ahead of the defense and saying, I, I see it, I see it, and it's over for you. And it was just too easy for them. And I don't know really kind of what answer you mentioned zone, you know, and every adjustment there's a counter for. And you know, look, the Pacers made some contested threes early in the game. Siakam Jarris Walker made one that there was really nothing going on. He just rose up and if you hit those shots, it's, it's just maybe, you know, not your day. But the other thing is five turnovers for the Pacers. The Bucks don't force turnovers. So the Pacers are going to get shots every single possession and if you just give them shots every single possession, they're going to score a lot of points. And the free throws were about even. And if the Bucks, if those are even, those two categories, the Bucks are not going to win this series. I don't know offensively anything. I mean, Giannis was awesome. And I thought their best offense was actually using Giannis as a screener. They just don't have enough dynamic ball handlers to really do that over. He said 15, 16 ball screens, 1.55 points per possession out of it. That's a monster number. And if Dame does come back, I think you just got to lean into that two man game as much as you can with shooting around it, because I don't know what else, what else the answers are.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

I mean, I think the honest Dame two man game improved this season, so that'd be huge. It's hard. You don't want to put it all on Dame, especially after coming back from this. But. But in theory, Dame helps their offensive flow in general. It felt like it was Giannis does something. Everyone kind of waits because the Pacers are just so decisive on. Are you a wing? Are you a ball handler? Are you Torian? Prince? We are going under. We're fine with this. So you have to kind of get.

[Zach Lowe]

That sudden aspect of are you Tori and Prince? I like that part of the decision tree. Are you a ball handler?

[Steve Jones Jr.]

Are you shooter?

[Zach Lowe]

Are you Tori and Prince? If yes, then do this.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

So I like the Giannis. Like, like he gets something and then it's like, oh, I don't want that person to guardianis so much. Maybe we can get two on the ball. Dame being back can help with some of that flow. And so I think that's probably where Milwaukee needs to get to, is just more sudden attacks. Try and move the ball, move Giannis around and hopefully that can sustain you in the half court. You get something from someone to make some shots and then defensively you just gotta, you know, be decisive and hope you can sustain. I try it.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't, I don't want to go big picture after one game. I don't want to. But the big picture has been the same for a while now and the, the Middleton Kuzma trade was obviously like, I tweeted it at the time even though I was unemployed. Just a massive vote of no confidence in Chris Middleton. Like it, you can, like Kuzma is whatever. Like I, I, you and I, Steve both, I think tweeted something to the effect of like, like the coups that played for the Lakers would actually help this team size, shooting, cutting defense, toughness on the boards. Like not he's not great defensive player, but he can be. This Kuz is not helping the team. But that trade was about like we just have no faith in Chris Middleton being healthy and bouncy and mobile enough. And it just the atrophy around Giannis and the roster just is what it is. I liked the Dame trade. The Dame trade has not worked, not the way that I expected it to work. And you just like Brooks a free agent after this season. He's old, you know, Giannis has two years left after this, guaranteed. So there's no rush on any of this. But they better get their asses back in the series one way or another because if this is another ugly loss and this time Giannis is healthy. I'm sorry, to Bucks fans, the questions are going to be unavoidable, but it's only one game. They haven't played at home yet. And as long as Giannis is on the floor playing for the Bucks, you cannot count them out of anything. But I don't know, like, Howard, anything, just. I don't know, I don't know how else to like, politely address this topic. The roster around him is getting worse and worse and worse, and there's not really anything in the young player cupboard coming up because the draft picks have missed and, or been traded.

[Howard Beck]

Kevin Porter Jr. Is not fixing this. Is that what you're saying? The week before Middle Middleton was moved, I was talking to a GM and we were going again, going through the list. So who, who's, who's actually getting moved out of all the guys we're, we're rumoring, rumor mongering about. And when he and he mentioned Middleton and I, and I was, I asking just, you know, the, the why he was so certain. He says Middleton's cooked and they know it like that. The medical concerns at that point, the health concerns were just so glaring that moving him just to get anything, anybody of use, who they could rely on, and it's just this was not, I want to make this very clear. This was not a value judgment on Khris Middleton as a player. His talent, his determination.

[Zach Lowe]

He's going to get his jersey retired in Milwaukee.

[Howard Beck]

Yeah, he was fantastic for them. They don't want a championship without him. But this has been a gradual erosion going on on years now. And they reached the point where they knew they just weren't going to be able to rely on him and they just needed to get something. It ended up being Kuzma. So I wasn't surprised that they moved off him. And I don't think it had anything to do with, you know, it wasn't so much about getting Kuzma. It wasn't so much about whether or not they like Khris Middleton. It was just like there's just a reality setting in here, but that reality has been coming into focus or has been kind of visible on the horizon for a few years now like this. That's the whole thing. Like, I know Giannis has been hurt in the playoffs and that's a lot of why they've been out early. But it's also been this slow erosion of, you know, you traded Drew Holliday, but Drew was, was, you know, getting older, Brook was getting older, Middleton was getting older, and Always hurt. And it's. This is not even a criticism of the way the front office has handled all this. It's really hard to adjust on the fly. You've got the core of a team around Giannis that helped him win a championship, figuring out when to start spinning off the older pieces and whether or not you can actually even get the right value for them. And the right fit is really hard. And it's gotten harder in the Second Apron era. So I sympathize. But the. But the reality is what it is, and I get it. Milwaukee fans are already fatigued of the national media speculating on Giannis's future discussion, but there's a reason it keeps coming around. And it keeps coming around because there are these inflection points where it looks like they've stalled out and it's going to be really hard to keep building a decent team around him. And we've hit another one. And yeah, there was a New York Post story a month ago about the Nets are lying in wait with all their draft picks and other stuff to try to get Giannis if he becomes available. And there's undoubtedly other teams doing the same. That's the way this league works. Every front office is just staffed with vultures. And if you don't have a superstar, you are waiting for one to ask out to be discontented, to hit a fork in the road or to hit a brick wall or whichever metaphor you want to choose. And it's kind of looking like another one coming up. Potentially. Yes, we're ahead of ourselves.

[Zach Lowe]

I will address the Nets only because you brought them up. My question with the Nets and Giannis and I talked about this on my old podcast before it went away, is like, that's cool. Like, you got a million picks. You got your own picks, you got lots of extra picks from lots of places. You got, you know, some guys. What's the, what's the plan? Like, who else is coming with Giannis? Because who is Giannis playing with? If you have to trade whatever you gotta trade plus your picks to get em, and they have salary cap space, so it's easier for them to not trade out of their roster. But like, so I'm Giannis, I'm looking around, it's like, okay, it's me and like Noah Clowney and maybe Cam Johnson, if he's still around. And Cam Johnson, a nice player. I like Cam Johnson, but. And the roster is like younger. It's like Drew, Timmy is Drew Timmy carrying me to, to, to the promised land. Like it. There's gotta be another shoe there because. And it's not like Giannis is of the age where he has two years for you to wait, to wait for you to drop the other shoe to get me the other guy to get me the. And he's good enough that he can elevate, you know, Cam Johnson plus Nick Claxton plus if Cam Thomas is still around and, you know, doesn't shoot every single time because Giannis is now on the team, he can elevate that team. But I just don't know. Anyway, enough. The Bucks can rally. I hope the Bucks rally. I hope this is a nice, long series. You said something else that interests me and I don't remember what it was. Okay, guys, there's only two games today, so we can really dig in. Detroit, New York, game two. My pick in that series was Knicks in five and. Yeah, five, that's right. Steve Jones, what did you pick? Did you make a pick?

[Steve Jones Jr.]

I think I went Pistons and six for the.

[Zach Lowe]

Ooh, I like it. I don't see it. But the Pistons played well for three quarters and then pooped all over the garden floor in the fourth quarter. And obviously Clippers Nuggets resumes tonight. That is the series of the first round. I picked Nuggets in seven. I don't know if either of you guys made picks in that series. Would you like to share them?

[Howard Beck]

Logan forced me to make picks, which I hate doing on the pod last week. Thank you, Zach. I appreciate the sympathy. I think I went Clippers in. I must have gone Clippers in six, but I might have said Clippers in seven. It was probably Clippers in six. I said Nicks in seven. I expected the Pistons to be feisty. I think we'll see a little bit better version of the Pistons tonight. And maybe they, you know, look, it is a young team, all cliches applying, but yeah, you know, they got that one out of the way. They. They had their moment and maybe they're a little bit more poised. The searing Garden spotlight tonight.

[Zach Lowe]

What was your Clippers Nuggets pick, Steve?

[Steve Jones Jr.]

I had Clippers and six, but this Nicole Jokic, Jamal Murray two man game just always does.

[Zach Lowe]

They're very good, I think. By the way, I picked Nuggets and seven. Clippers and six still very much on the table. Like, I don't feel confident in the Nuggets after that game, but I cannot wait. I may have to take a power nap today so I can stay up and watch that game because I don't think I have the patience to I mean it'll I, people are laughing at me. First of all, I'm old. Second of all, the game will end at like 1 in the morning. So. Yeah, that's late for me. Okay, that's true. I'm an old dad. That's late for me. I might have to take a p because I don't. I'm. It's that one has me tingling with anticipation. Okay, Howard beck of the Ringer.com can listen to him on real ones with Logan Roger. He writes, he does everything. He's a jack of every trade. Steve Jones, Jr. What's your, what's your podcast schedule? I've lost track of all in my, in my fun employment, I lost track. Every day was the same. So I don't know what days anything happens anymore.

[Steve Jones Jr.]

So we, we are, we are dropping on later this week, but usually it's, it's kind of pins on these days it's either Tuesday or Thursday, but it'll be Thursday this week, I think.

[Zach Lowe]

Thank you guys. Steve Jones Jr. At just one of a kind, if you want to know. I always try to bring people on. If you want to know what actually happened in the game and not who's got guts and who shrinks from the moment, this is one of the guys to follow. Howard, I'll see you soon, at least in a couple Mondays. Steve, I'll see you soon. Thank you guys. Enjoy the playoffs.

[Howard Beck]

Exactly.

[Zach Lowe]

All right. Thanks for listening. Enjoy the game twos tonight and later in the week. I will be back on Thursday and we will update you on everything that's happened. Get ready. The whirlwind of the playoffs is here. Must be 21 and over and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over and present in D.C. gambling problem called 1-800- gambler or visit FanDuel.com RG call 1-887-897777 or is it ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or is it mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland? Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800327 for 24. 7 Sport in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-Hopeny or text hopeny in New York.