Howard Beck (3:10)

And.

Zach Lowe (3:10)

And it was such an interesting game because OKC gets off to a very skittish start. Everyone's missing threes. Jalen Williams has a bad turnover, dribbling under the basket, getting caught with nowhere to go, kicks it out to nobody. Kayson Wallace, short arms, a floater, wide open floater, short arms at almost an airball. And you're like, oh boy, the moment's here. And the experience tested. Veteran team looks ready. And Aaron Gordon, I mean, just I guess all, not, I guess all the props in the world to Aaron Gordon. I was legitimately worried about his health and the consequences of playing a game like that with a grade two hamstring. You would have guessed that he was limited, but you would not have guessed that he was playing with an injury like that. He was moving pretty well, he hit the boards, he made threes. Just an, just an all time gutsy performance by a guy who has emerged as one of the feel good stories in the NBA and the clutch player of these playoffs. And no one should forget, despite the margin, what he went through to play in that game. And then second, then OKC comes back, gets it within five. At the end of the first. Second quarter starts David Adelman, which with I think the first real blunder of his brief and mostly very good coach, head coaching stint with the Nuggets. And I think he will and should get this job on a non interim basis after this playoff run. Sits Murray and Jokic at the same time to start the second quarter. I couldn't believe it. I understand trying to maximize their minutes together and steal some rest when you can. I thought it was a bad decision. I put it in my notes right away, like, oh my God, wheels fall off. Oklahoma City takes the lead. And there's a moment there with like seven, eight minutes left where it felt like the game was there to grab for Oklahoma City. And they didn't. Denver sort of steeled themselves, got back in the game. I think it was 41, 40. And then the Thunder grabbed the game and they grabbed the ball over and over and over again. Caruso grabbed every inch of Jokic, his body now and then, and. And hey, look, physicality is here. Refs all season, all decade, have let little guys get away with murder against big guys in the post. It's a very smart strategy by the Thunder, who by the way, they lose the free throw battle all the time. And so you had this sort of Twitter referendum yesterday. Well, how can Denver be complaining about the officiating when they take way more free throws in this game and in this series in Oklahoma City. That's all baked into how to Thunder play. They know they're going to lose the free throw battle. Their whole construction is we're going to lose the free throw battle because we're going to try to steal the ball every single time and we're going to get a lot of steals. And, and those steals and the value of those live ball turnovers are going to outweigh the free throw differential, which by the way, will never be as big as it maybe should be because the refs can't call everything, and we know that. And then the game just spiraled out of control and that was it. And now we are left to contemplate lots of different things. The MVP still not announced. I hope the league didn't forget that they have to award the MVP at some point. But the future of the Denver Nuggets, who are out first round picks this year, 2027, 2029, and have not a lot of tradable pieces that could re easily reorient their team around the best player in the world. And a conference finals between the Thunder and the Wolves. Anthony Edwards against Shay Gilgis, Alexander, two of the best young guards. Two of the best guards, period in the league. USA versus Canada. How you like that? Neighbors to the north, love Canada. Sorry, Maple Leafs. Just a. Just a downer for them. Where do you want to start with this game? I mean, it was a blowout and it was garbage time and all that, but it's the Caruso game for me. It's the Caruso game.

Howard Beck (6:58)

Yeah. I mean, that's fair. Like you, I got lulled into the possibility in the early minutes of Ooh, ooh, Thunder. Maybe little tight. Ooh, the youth showing. Here we go. And probably a foolish notion to have. You're right, obviously, that the tenor of things changed with Adelman leaving his two Best players on the bench to start the second, start the second. Right. But I also just thought, like, it was almost like Oklahoma was just kind of feeling their way into this, or maybe they were a little tight and they just need to loosen up. Whatever it was when they just started to crank up the defensive intensity and just started to really get after it, and with jumping passing lanes and grabbing everybody and poking the ball away, and then it's just run out after run out. And to me, it was just so much about their, their aggression, which is who they are, and they come, come at you in waves, and the Nuggets have no waves. They have, you know, four and a half guys, three and a half guys. With the way that Aaron Gordon was limited, I didn't think Aaron Gordon was going to play. From everything I had heard in the, in the preceding couple of days, it sounded really bleak. And then Shams had the report that this is going to be weeks. And I, I think his report was basically like, he's not playing, he's just out. And then suddenly as, as the game got closer, it was, no, he's, he's starting, he's going to give it a go. And like you, I, I was really worried that we were going to see something terrible. Like, you, you, you know, you and I aren't doctors or, or trainers, but like, a guy goes out with a grade 2 hamstring strain trying to play through it, and you could see a couple of times where, you know, he came down and immediately rubbed it or it, you could just see how much it was limiting him and how awkwardly he was moving.

Zach Lowe (8:48)

Well, there, there was the possession where as the game was spinning out of control a little bit. He's bringing the ball up, which I, I, it's, it's like I can't believe he was ringing the ball and dort put pressure on him. And there was a little contact, but I didn't see any egregious foul or anything. And he just kind of fell over on the sideline. You're like, is, he just doesn't, I mean, predictably, there's certain things he can't really do.

Howard Beck (9:08)

Yeah. And just, I mean, but all the respect and all the credit in the world, Darren Gordon, for even trying. A lot of guys would have just said, well, that's it. And I can't take a chance of, like, you know, ripping my hamstring to shreds. I'm just done. But, like, I think we know this about Aaron Gordon by now. Like, that guy is like a true pro A lot of. A lot of pride. Nobody would have blamed him if he didn't play. Like, I'm not saying like, you know, that that would put him in a bad light at all, but the fact that he gutted it out, tried to give them whatever he could, I think is amazing. I mean, the guy's been through like, what a. What a year. Obviously, you know. You know, he lost his brother the off season last year. That was awful. He was playing with a heavy heart all season. He had just an incredible playoff run with the dunk with 0.0001. Whatever.

Zach Lowe (9:56)

Is there a name for that play yet? Like Vali oop got coined instantaneously. That play needs a name because it is unlike, literally unlike any play in the history of the NBA. And as I said before, I still don't really understand what happened and the degree of like millisecond breaking down we had to go through to make sure that the basket was good and like his hands are in the. Like. I just don't really understand what happened. It needs a. It needs a name. Whatever. I don't have a suggestion. I'm too dumb for that. But it needs a name.

Howard Beck (10:26)

It does need a name. Shame on all of us collectively for not coming up with one sooner. I don't understand what happened either. And I don't. I don't think I need to understand it. Zach. Like, I'm. I'm content with. As somebody who has kind of become very anti replay. I'm tired of all the replay. I don't think the goal of the game is to get everything 100% correct all the time. We are chasing a perfection that does not exist. Adam Silver, just get over it. Human error exists. Reel back the replays. I don't even like having all the coaches challenges. But on that play, like, I'm fine with whatever happened happened. It's just like with 0.4 with Derek Fisher, which I was there for, and there was a lot of after the fact. Oh, and this was in San Antonio. Did the scorekeeper hit the button in time or was there a lull? Or did somebody else create a lull from when they hit the button? And then it was all this stuff. I don't care. Like the shot happened. It existed. The game was won. We, whether it was Fish or Aaron Gordon. But for his season to have to go to end that way, for the nugget season to have to end that way, really a shame and perhaps not unexpected. We've all been talking about for all season and for the last Two years. The just slow erosion of the Denver Nuggets rotation since the championship, right. You lose Bruce Brown and Jeff Green, then you lose kcp, which was one that the first two you couldn't help because of cap issues. The KCP one you could help, you would chose to let him walk away. We had Calvin Booth talking about, you know, how much he loved the youth they had drafted and how much they needed to play them. That's the source of a lot of the tension between him and Michael Malone. They're both gone. I mean, the Nuggets have just gone through almost everything you could imagine. But since the championship, it's just been this slow erosion to the point where when you are the veteran team with championship experience, but with so few capable bodies left against one of the deepest young teams we've ever seen at this stage of the playoffs in the Thunder, this felt sort of inevitable. And it's, it's incredible that it got to a Game 7 at all. And I, I hope the takeaway, I don't think it will be but I would hope the takeaway in Denver, whether it's fans, front officer, anybody else is not going to be. Well, you know, hey, we got to a game seven, therefore we're still that close. Like I don't think anybody would think that way but you, you definitely can't.

Zach Lowe (12:39)

I don't, I don't think that's a crazy take. They got to game seven against a team that is now, I think the clear favorite to win the NBA championship. They earned that way to game seven. I like, I think the Thunder should have won in six. Game one was a game they let get away. Game three was a game that they had control of late. I don't, I'm not going to say they let it get away because Denver made some great plays to take it to overtime and then destroyed them in overtime. But this is the second straight year the Nuggets lost in Game 7 in this same round. One at home, one on the road now. But I mean, and when you consider Aaron Gordon Ltd. At the end, Michael Porter Jr. A total non factor for six of the seven games of the series, basically playing with one arm. You know, we're going to talk about the future of the Nuggets. The roster has issues, but I don't think it's unreasonable for them to say that the core three to four guys are so good together that we are this close. But we're going to talk about that Thunder just you mentioned J Dub, great bounce. What, what a bounce back game I mean, you want to have the cliche of the young team growing up in the hot house of the playoffs, responding to the stress that hits them in the face first and getting back off the mat and all that. This was it. This Jalen Williams game was it. Chet had a decent finish to the series after some shaky games too. And Caruso, I mean, Caruso and Hardenstein, it's going to go down as an all time off season for Sam Presti. Those guys, and we've all been saying it since the moment it happened, they were totally additive to this team. Hartenstein especially filled voids that were preexisting. He took nothing away and rounded out the team and filled holes in their sort of schematic and strategic resume. And Caruso just, I mean, I'm watching this game, looking to the next round and being like, Caruso on Randle is going to be a thing. And I don't know that they're ever going to be a point where they start Caruso over Hartenstein as they did in the second half of this game for this particular reason. But I don't know how often Alex Caruso can just play a game like that where he's going toe to toe against a giant person and a very physical person. But we're going to see that in the next round. And Julius Randle better get ready because Alex Caruso is going to try to knock away the ball on every dribble, on every catch. He's got all the tricks of the trade. Like there was one turnover late in the second quarter with the Nuggets wanted a foul. And it's just really subtle. Like the ball comes in, Caruso has his hand on Jokic, his hip and just kind of just pulls him back a little bit. Enough, very hard to see, knocks him off balance, steals the ball, they're off to the races. It was an awesome performance by the Thunder and their offense has been just okay in. Was. Was just okay in this series. I just love that they have leaned all the way into our offense can be just okay and we can still win even against elite competition because our defense is that good. We are banking on our defense every single night. This is one of the greatest defensive teams in the entire history of the NBA. They've been on another planet from everyone in the regular season. They have moved into their own universe in the playoffs. You like you look at their numbers in the playoffs, obviously the Grizzlies series was a walkover. Whatever. They're just outrageous. And I said before the series, this was the biggest challenge that Nikola Jokic had ever faced. A team with so many swiping arms and schematic options and guys in passing lanes and just different things they could do to him and cloud his post ups. And the Thunder kind of won that battle. Like, Jokic had a good series, but not a great one. And that's the margin for Denver. They can't win when Jokic is good by his standards and not great by his standards. And this defense is like, no one's really had an answer yet. Denver had some answers in the regular season. They didn't carry over into the playoffs what they did to Jokic and the Nuggets for the bulk of this. I mean, like, he couldn't get the ball yesterday. He literally could not get him the ball. And for the series, he posted up 12, 12 post touches per 100 possessions, which was below his average against the Thunder in the regular season. He was at like 0.9 points per possession on those post ups, if you like. That should be impossible to hold Jokic to fewer post ups and knock his efficiency to that level. And you saw how they did it. They're just going to. They're going to have swarming guys from every direction to help Caruso. They're going to give up threes to basically everybody, and they're going to confuse him and not be in a passing lane. And then suddenly they are in a passing lane. Oh, my God, there's a dunk. The other direction. It was a masterful performance by the best defense in the NBA. And the bottom line is, going forward, no one has found a way to score on them consistently enough to beat them 4 and 7. And I don't know that any team left in the playoffs can do that. I'm going to pick them over Minnesota in the next round. I would pick them over New York and Indiana. I think Minnesota has a chance to beat them. Minnesota is a legit, really good team with a lot of size and a lot of answers. I think this is going to be a super competitive series. I just got to see a team score on them consistently enough to win 4 and 7. And I'm not sure anybody can do it.

Howard Beck (17:57)

I'm not either. It was watching them yesterday, I swear. There were moments, Zach, where I was like, you know, we all love. We love teams that really rely on the pass a lot. Ball movement, player movement, right up. Beautiful offense, all this. And there were moments yesterday where I'm like, don't stop passing. Just stop passing the ball. Because every time the ball was in flight, it Just looked like it was a turnover waiting to happen. They're that quick to it, they're that long. They're that just. Just the. That swarming nature of the Thunder defense. It just didn't look like there was any winning. Like, was Jokic supposed to just. I suppose he could just turn around and keep shooting over Alex Caruso because he's taller than him. That's not where the Nuggets are at their best. Is just Jokic shooting time and time again. He only had one field goal attempt in the third quarter. I don't think I realized that till long after the fact. I don't know exactly what to make of that. I have to go back and look. And was that him not getting the ball, just being able to get it at all, or was that just him not being impressed with the ball?

Zach Lowe (18:57)

Okay, so let's just do this now because apparently after the game there was this entire. I guess we're still doing this in 20, 25. Like 20 years, 15 years after zone defense was essentially allowed in the NBA and the illegal defense rules went away. I guess there was this whole like, well, they couldn't have done that against Shaq or Hakeem. And Shaq's going to put little Alex Caruso in the basket. And yeah, Shaq would put some people in the freaking basket. I am a Shaq is underrated guy. Shaq is historically underrated. Shaq was an all time. Like, there was nothing you could do against that guy except foul him. But any Hakeem Ewing, whatever, any discussion like this has to start with. The rules are completely different than they were when the Rockets could just be like, hey, Hakeem, go post up. It's either going to be a double team from all the way across the court or single coverage and that's it. Now Caruso can front Jokic. There can be dudes forming a triangle all around. Jokic blocking every passing angle possible, and they can't get him the ball. Jokic for the series, 28 points, 14 rebounds, six assists, four. 48% shooting, which is low for him. 54% on twos, 32% on threes. That's mortal. That's mortal great. Mortal great. Was not going to get it done for a Nuggets team that is paying Dario Sarich a lot of money to do nothing. That is paying Zeke Najee a lot of money to do nothing. That is paying Russ the veterans minimum to just go completely haywire. And this is the Russ experience. Like, it's good till it's not. And it was not in the first round last year and it was good in the first round this year. And the Clippers have to be like, I can't even believe that happened. And it was not again in the second round this year and is just not getting anything from the young guys except for Christian Brown. It feels like Christian Brown has graduated out of that conversation. He, like, he's not included with the young guys that Calvin Booth took a shot on. He is one of the young guys that Calvin Booth took a shot on. And that shot, his hit so dramatically that we don't lump him in with Pickett and Tyson and Najee and Strother who had one game. Strother. The Strother Straits were hopping grand opening, grand closing in record time for every bar on Strother Straits and all those guys. But it's a good series. But I'm just so tired of this. Like big man X from 1992 would have put this guy in the basket. Like we're really going to go at Jokic like this, who's already a three time mvp, already established himself as one of the greatest players of all time without even having a discussion about like how the rules are different, how little guys and this is across every team. If you're an undersized guy and you have the guts to guard a center like that, the refs are going to let you get away with stuff that they don't let big guys get away with. And that's complete. That's just normal. And I just like, this debate is so dumb and Jokic is so far above that and had a good enough, a good series. Not a great one, but a good series. And it's amazing that he's so good that 28, 14 and 6 is just like, well, you know, what else could he have done? The story of the series for Denver is that the rest of the team wasn't good enough and wasn't healthy enough. Not, not Jokic failing to put Alex Crusoe in the back. If Jokic could have put Alex Crusoe in the basket without running into 17 arms and risking offensive fouls and all that, he would have like that. It's, it's like he could put Chet Holmgren in the basket, puts all these dudes in the basket.

Howard Beck (22:19)

There's, you know, we would be remiss if we didn't mention, we've only alluded to it that despite everything, there's a world where If Michael Porter Jr's shoulder isn't wrapped in like, you know, 50 yards worth of medical tape and Aaron Gordon doesn't strain his hamstring. Who knows? I mean, maybe Game seven goes differently. Maybe the series doesn't get to a Game 7. Maybe the Nuggets wins. I think there's no question that as we've said, the Nuggets rotation not deep enough, not enough talent. They have had too many misfires. They have had this battle of attrition, of just losing guys since the championship. And look, I will say in Calvin Booth's sort of defense, nobody goes 100% on their draft picks. And when you, you know, take a group of, of Watson, Strother, Brown, whoever, and Brown hits and the others don't and there's a TBD on, on some of those guys that we can't write them off yet. Your hit rate is not usually like the, the Thunder's hit rate is ridiculous on everybody that they draft, wherever they draft them or sign them off the scrap heap or whatever. They just hit on everything, it seems like. But Sam Presti's had his misses too. Hitting on Brown was huge. But I, I, I think that there's a world here where if, if, you know, if Porter and, and Gordon aren't limited by their injuries, is this a little bit different? I, I don't know. I still think the Thunder win because the Thunder were just better. But I also think that this just underscores in the brightest possible ink the fact that the Thunder, that the Nuggets have allowed the roster to wither a bit. And the answer is not Russell Westbrook. It's definitely not Dario Sarge. As you mentioned, they didn't have a great off season and the last two have just been tough. And Jokic is finally sort of saying it out loud. This is not the kind of superstar who's going to start, you know, pounding the table and demanding trades or changes or I'm going to walk or I'm going to demand a trade. I don't think that's the way he's wired. They're fortunate for that. But they also shouldn't take him or that dynamic for granted. So, you know, this is a huge.

Zach Lowe (24:24)

Off season for them and I don't think they did. Bruce Brown was an un. There was no answer for the Indiana also. There was nothing he could do. No, Jeff Green is kind of like an assistant coach now. It's not like Jeff Green is going to come in and even give this depleted Denver Nuggets team 18 minutes of good play. Yeah, KCP had a bad year in Orlando. You could argue that he would have had a better year surrounded by the greatest passing big man and one of the greatest passers of all time in Denver. And that even bad KCP is better than everything else the Nuggets were throwing at the wall in this series. But look, to me it boils down to three problems. Problem number one is Calvin Booth made two separate trades where he traded away future picks. The Thunder benefited from both of them. Future picks for immediate picks. The bet being we just need to give in. What became the apron era. And I think a big difference between the Denver Nuggets and the Oklahoma City Thunder is that the Nuggets were built and their contracts were signed, their big ones, before it was clear what the apron was going to be. The Thunder, because of their youth and their foresight, a little bit of both are really well positioned, as well positioned as any team could possibly be to navigate the apron era. But Calvin Booth traded like 27 first rounder, 29 first rounder. Yeah, we'll kick those. We don't, we don't care about those. You can bet against us Thunder, those bets are looking a little better today than they were then. We need bites at the apple now. Give us first round picks now. And those picks netted, you know, Watson and Watson was one of them. I can't remember. Tyson was another picket. Strother Day. Ron Holmes I don't think was one of them. I think that was their own pick. Those guys and I think the Nuggets, some of those guys were like veteran college players. And the idea was they're going to be more ready to win today than the typical young player, typical first round draft pick. I think the Nuggets probably overestimated how quickly those young guys could be ready for moments like a Game 7 in Oklahoma City. And that overestimation was very predictable. That's problem number one. And some of those guys will get better and maybe some of those guys will be part of the next core down the line. Who knows? Problem number two and linked to that is while you're taking shots at the draft, you have these cap ups, exceptions and other little cap tools that give you shots at mid tier salary guys. And the Nuggets used to those bullets on Sarich and Najee and got zero from any of it. And you just now you can go and look at playoff rosters and say how many guys are getting anything out of a mid level exception level player? And it's going to be hard to find. But they could have, I mean obviously they could have gotten. You can't whiff on those while you are simultaneously taking a lot of shots in the draft that are unlikely to pay off in time for Jokic. His peak, peak, peak. And then number three. And I think this probably even trumps all of the roster building stuff that we're talking about. And it goes back to my point about the apron and how they built the team before the apron. They have two guys making max or near max money who are not producing at max or near max levels. Jamal Murray in this series, 20 points a game on 40% shooting, 30% from three, largely did not have a good enough season except for a couple months in the middle where he got hot. And Michael Porter Jr. Was not healthy, made a game, attempt to play with one arm, averaged seven points a game, was kind of a non entity. But even like healthy, Michael Porter Jr. Needs to play better, more consistently to live up to his monster contract. And by the way, these guys are under contract. Jamal Murray's extension starts next season and runs through 2029. Michael Porter Jr's contract runs through only two more seasons, 2027. Zeke Najee's contract runs through 2028. If those, if the max guys produce at max levels, I think that papers over a lot of the other problems and give those problems time to solve themselves. And they didn't. And the question for Denver is like, I don't even know what they're supposed to do. You think, like, people are like, oh, they should trade for Durant, trade for trade. What? Everyone just watched Michael Porter Jr. They know what his contract status is. Jamal Murray is a good player. He's also attached at the hip to Jokic. He's also making $57.5 million in four years in 2029. I don't know what trade value he has and I don't know how you trade him. You have to bring back another elite ball handler because you're trying to win the championship immediately. Where is that deal? And they have, they could in theory trade one first round pick if they like, unprotect all the other picks that they owe right now. They really can't do that. And it's like, I don't know what ammo they have. I don't know what options they have other than bring the whole thing back, hope the young guys are more ready, hope the max guys play more like max guys. And I do think that team has a chance to win the title again next year, make a deep run. But I just, I'm out of ideas. I got no ideas for them.

Howard Beck (29:24)

That's the thing Is. And so much of this, of course, has to do with the new system, with the second apron and first apron and all the limitations. A lot of it has to do with the fact that yes, they're out of picks because of all the deals you already mentioned. There just isn't a lot you can do. There's just not a lot of flexibility and a lot of it has to do with decisions already made. And look, Jamal Murray is a great player and you always have to overpay your own guys to keep them happy when they're stars. Even if he's never made an all star team or all NBA, we know he's an all star caliber player. And this is what teams do this. Like this is what you do. And Jamal Murray was sulking up until the point that they actually gave him the extension. And it was an issue overpaying Michael Porter Jr. Maybe you could have avoided that one. But once you've made those commitments, you know, pre apron, post apron, whatever, you make those kinds of, of extreme commitments because you're trying to keep together the core of your championship team. When it doesn't work out, if guys don't continue to get better or if they erode or if they get hurt, you just get stuck. And without picks to, to move, without much, without much move to operate within the whole system, it's not even just the Nuggets cap, It's the whole 30 team system where, well, if you want to loosen up your cap, you find a team that's under the cap, give away a guy and, and then you can trade for no, no returning salary or very minimal returning salary, there aren't that many teams who are under the cap to do that with in the first place. Right? So even if you're just trying to like balance the books, just reshuffle things a little bit, give yourself some more room to operate, to sign guys, I don't even know how they get there. And yeah, Michael Porter Jr. I don't know what the market is for him. That's, that's a negative contract. Jamal Murray is a great player, but with a contract that outstrips his play, Aaron Gordon is essential. You don't want to lose him and you probably don't want to lose Murray either, as you noted. So I don't, I don't know where they go from here either. I know you, you can't just stand pat. That's easy to say. You can't just run it back and expect to go deeper next season.

Zach Lowe (31:26)

But what you have to step one is Whatever cap exception you have, you need to nail it this time. And you're not going to get a star at whether it's whatever and they're apron. They're. They may not even have any, but whatever. They've got to get a ring chaser in there who can actually play minutes for them and not be a total zero like some of the other guys they have on the team. It look, Porter is not everyone's cup of tea and I get that he is a minus on defense, can be a little spacey, can have games where you're like, hey, can you just like play a little harder? It's the playoffs. And then the next game he'll get 13 rebounds and you're like okay, you realize it's the playoffs, right? Like that should be every game. His ball handling has developed a little bit. I thought he was much better this year attacking closeouts and stuff like that. But it's, we're long past the like this guy can run pick and rolls and post up and be that kind of offensive player. But I will say that people can, the critics and the critics have a lot of meat to pick at. With Michael Porter Jr. I think they underestimate six ten a plus plus shooter on the move against contests. That is a very rare thing. It fits very well with Jokic. And you have almost no three point shooting on the entire team other than him and your two best players who are running pick and roll together a lot. Like if you move that dude, you better get a guy who can freaking shoot because I wrote about it at the beginning of the season. Their three point shooting was already at DEFCON 1 critical levels when they let KCP walked and essentially replaced him with Russell Westbrook. And they were already at a threshold where it was like, I'm not, I just am not sure. Even with the best guy in the league, even with the best floater team in the league, even with all that, that you can beat four different playoff opponents four times in seven games with such a math problem on your hands. And whatever they do, the math problem cannot get more severe. And the ask of Jokic to make up for the math problem with his gym all around brilliance cannot get any bigger.

Howard Beck (33:35)

Quick point on kcp, by the way, before I forget it again, it might have been an overpay to keep him. And this is a team that, that hates paying the tax. They, they, you know, they're, they're generally a frugal ish franchise. That's certainly been the case with front office hires and others. I yes, Christian Brown popped. Christian Brown had a better season and maybe a better player now than kcp. But the point isn't.

Zach Lowe (34:01)

He also went. It also went 13 of 46 from 3 in this series.

Howard Beck (34:07)

But yeah, even if Christian Brown is now the better player, the point isn't that you, you had a guy ready to move into his role. The problem is the backfill issue. Christian Brown replaces kcp. Well, who replaced Christian Brown? Nobody. Like. So if you had kept kcp, and again, there are consequences potentially for that too. We just talked about all the cap issues and it would have complicated them further potentially. But the point is that when you lose a guy for nothing and the bets that you're now making in free agency are on lesser players, you have lost depth just by definition. If Brown's the better player, great would have been great to have this version of Christian Brown and KCP still there. Like that is. That is a something that is conceptually possible in this league. So it's, it's the ripple effect of letting a really what had been a very valuable player walk, even if he is not quite the guy he was a couple years ago. So anyway, I just wanted to note that before I, before I lost that particular train of thought because I think there's been a lot of like, well, you know, they were vindicated by Brown's emergence sort of, but you still did not have enough capable bodies.

Zach Lowe (35:12)

You needed one more guy.

Howard Beck (35:14)

Yeah, yeah, maybe that was KCP.

Zach Lowe (35:20)

SGA for the series plus 69 Thunder without SGA minus 5 it was almost a relief how little the series became a public referendum on the mvp. I think everyone kind of agrees both guys were very deserving. And although both had uneven moments in this series, I feel no different about either of them than I did coming into the playoffs, coming into this heavyweight clash. And I don't like I leaned at the very end toward SGA just. And I said, because I just think 68 wins has to be respected. And there was no real evidence that the Thunder had a sustainable offense to win anywhere near 68 games with like a replacement B plus level point guard in Shay Gildrich Alexander's place. And I think that's still the case now. Their best offense in this series other than Shay was their defense. And the second and third guys were rickety at times for most of the series. Frankly, I have no further MVP thoughts. I don't care who wins. Jokic is the best player in the world. SGA would be a deserving mvp. End of story.

Howard Beck (36:32)

I think we'll be hearing it soon. By the way, I imagine that maybe.

Zach Lowe (36:36)

At the award show. Remember the NBA awards show? That was a great run.

Howard Beck (36:40)

Great run among among the bigger misfires of the Adam Silver era, the awards show. Although I did attend one and I had a nice time.

Zach Lowe (36:46)

I do like how you mentioned. Anyway, never mind. This episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Growing a business can feel impossible, but HubSpot's customer platform can help. It's powered by a suite of AI tools called Breez, so you can generate more leads, close more deals and scale your service fast. With Breeze agents handling the busy work, customers are cutting sales cycles in half. That's a lot. And saving hours on work each week. Best of all, you can see the results in days, not months. Visit HubSpot.comai to learn more. Pick a conference finals. Which one do you want to preview?

Howard Beck (37:23)

We might as well just stick west as long as just a nice smooth segue from Thunder Nuggets to Wolves Thunder Minnesota, Oklahoma City.

Zach Lowe (37:35)

Awesome matchup. Lots to talk about. Very little useful regular season tape on these teams. They played four times. Three of them were in like an eight day span in which tons of guys missed games. Lots of interesting matchups, lots of interesting statistical oddities to this series. It begins what, Tuesday, Wednesday? Tuesday in Oklahoma City. They will obviously have home court advantage. Where would you like to start with this series?

Howard Beck (38:10)

I'm fascinated by Julius Randall. We're getting the ultimate referendum on both ends of that trade, right? Both teams are in the conference finals. The Knicks and the Wolves. The Wolves made the conference finals last year with Karl Anthony Towns as essentially their second best player and then traded him mostly for financial reasons. Maybe 99% for financial reasons. Has a team, Zach ever traded away a guy for any reason, especially financial reasons, and been just as good or maybe better? Immediately, I'm fascinated by this and by Randall's place in this series. Because living in New York, as you and I both do, or you're nearby in any case.

Zach Lowe (38:55)

Yeah, thanks. Rub it in that I'm a suburban loser dad now. I took the garbage out last night. I got to march it back in later this morning.

Howard Beck (39:01)

Do you not see the ad? Do you not see the ad campaigns all the time in the subway? It says never become a former New Yorker. I can't remember who's. It's one of the real estate companies.

Zach Lowe (39:10)

Okay, okay. Let's make a couple things clear. I lived in New York for 18 years, okay? I didn't put in some token stint in New York City. I know the subway by heart, I'm always a New Yorker. Number two, I took a walk around the neighborhood yesterday to get my steps in because I'm an old suburban loser now. And I saw one friend, a woman, gardening in her yard and across the street was her other friend and my other friend gardening in her yard. And they were like talking to each other across the street in their yards with their gardening gloves and their spades, digging things up and weeding. And I was like, this is too much. This is too suburban. I have to turn around and get away from you all immediately because I can't stomach that. This is now my life. But to your point, I am a lapsed New Yorker.

Howard Beck (40:00)

Didn't mean to hit a sore spot there on a Monday morning. You and I have seen a lot of Julius Randle the last few years in New York and Knicks fans had a really real love hate relationship with him. He made all NBA a couple of times. He was part of their rebirth, their reemergence. He was super, super frustrating at times and a black hole on offense at times and a ball dominant, you know, good lord, Julius, please. Pass player type sometimes. He also had like, was one of the, you know, leading assist guys for a couple of those seasons. So like when he was at his best, he was a really good passer, playmaker and his playoff performances were not great. He's having his best postseason right now and he's doing it on lower usage as he should. And I think he had a rough start with the Wolves or at least a bumpy start, an awkward start this season, and part of the Wolves turning things around when somebody people were like, wait a minute, where's this Minnesota thing coming from as they started to come on down the stretch of the season and into the playoffs? I think a lot of that was Julius Randle kind of finding his place with them in a comfort zone. And so look, I don't want to stipulate that we know what we'll get from Ant Edwards because I think as a young star he is still a little bit up and down too. But if you just assume that Ant Edwards, as you know, their, their North Star is going to be the one thing that you more or less count on. It becomes a matter of like, all right, who else is in is joining the party and there's nobody else who you look at on that roster as a go to scorer other than Julius Randall. And I think a lot's going to be on him. You mentioned the possibility of them putting Caruso on him. Or is it Hardenstein Is it like I assume he'll get all kinds of different looks. All that's going to be incredibly interesting. But I feel like to the extent that the Knicks and Wolves made a bet, whether it was financial reasons, whether it's competitive reasons, whether it was just opportunity, you swapped these two all star caliber power forwards and in this series, both of the series, those guys are going to take on incredibly important roles and we're going to sit here in the peanut gallery doing what we do and calling everything a referendum on something.

Zach Lowe (42:21)

Let's talk about Minnesota's offense and vis a vis Randall because obviously question number one for the series is can Minnesota score enough points on the Thunder? And one way they what's non negotiable for Minnesota are two things. Number one, they have to win the free throw battle by a lot. We mentioned earlier that Oklahoma City fouls a lot. Minnesota's decent at getting to the line and decent at avoiding decent at avoiding fouls. They need to be like a pretty like plus eight attempts per game kind of margin to win four games. Number two and what really worries me for Minnesota is they have to take care of the ball better than they have for years now and so far in the playoffs. If this is a high turnover series, they are dead on arrival. If this is an average turnover series, they have some minority chance to pull an upset. If this is a low turnover series for them, which is extremely difficult against the handsiest team in the league, they have a chance to win the series. But if it's a high turnover series, they're dead. They were 19th in turnover rate in the regular season and their turnover rate has been higher in the playoffs than it was in the regular season. That is death. If that sustains, they're not going to win. Okay, Randall. There are two ways the Thunder can match up and I think both are interesting and I think we'll see both of them. And I'm talking starters versus starters now. Okay. We can get into the other lineups later, the Nas Reed lineups and all that. The safest version, version number one is Hardenstein starts on Randall. Chet Holmgren starts on Gobert so he can man the back line and be the rim protector and J dub guards, J dub guards. Jada McDaniels as and sort of he can help and he can Rove and all that. I think we'll. That may be how they start. We'll see some of that. Dort is going to guard Ant, by the way, which is just like I don't even know what that's like it's like Mike Singletary trying to tackle John Riggins or something. Like I don't even know what is going to it's like we're going to hear that through the television screens. We're going to it's like there's going to be holes in the floor, wood is going to get warped. I don't know how that's going to.

Howard Beck (44:22)

Go versus all the millennials scrambling to NFL.com or NFL football reference.com or something.

Zach Lowe (44:29)

For their I'm sure there's sure there's a more modern.

Howard Beck (44:32)

You know, I appreciated it.

Zach Lowe (44:34)

Who's the Ravens running back Derrick Henry? Is that his name? He's a big giant guy. Him running into somebody like Mike Singletary. Version number two is you shift Hartenstein to go Bear. You put J Dub on Randall and J Dub has guarded Randall a fair bit and he's given up some size, but he's very tough and very phys and very pokey, pokey, pokey against a guy who can get loose with the ball. And Chet Holmgren gets the rover roll on Jada McDaniels instead. I think we'll see a little bit of both of those things. I will say Jaden McDaniels has been playing so well as to render that kind of strategy that we're just going to hide a big man on you strategy much more dangerous than it was two months ago, six months ago, a year ago. And if the Thunder dare that Jada McDaniels has to make a lot of threes and Jaden McDaniels has to attack closeouts and do something with them. And he has done both of those things so far in the playoffs and if he plays like that, Minnesota has a chance. Putting J Dub on Randle also allows them to switch any Ant Randle pick and rolls between J Dub and Dort. That's an interesting wrinkle. And then you have, you know, when it's Naz Reed and one of Randle or Gobert, obviously they're going to put a wing on Nas Reed and put whatever big man is on the floor on Randle. And I do think we will see some Caruso on Randle as evidenced by what we just saw. And more broadly I think with Jokic in the rearview mirror and Julius Randle is a good post player. He's not Jokic. I think this is a safer series for the Thunder to play Holmgren as the only big man on the floor than it was against Denver when they did that, only because they had put Caruso on the floor late in the series and they didn't do it for a lot of series. I think that's. And we'll see how effective that is. I mean, that's supposedly their best offensive lineup. Their offensive kill shot, like five outspacing homegrown pick and pop threes. Holgren pump and go drives. He hasn't played enough, well enough offensively in that role. And I think it's also safe for them to maybe dabble a little bit more than they did in playing five guards and wings together in their super small ball lineup. So I think the matchups when Minnesota has the ball are going to be really interesting. I think the variety of defenses they throw at Ant on the pick and roll is going to be really interesting. They're going to blitz him every now and then just to test his playmaking and boy, has he passed that test so far in the playoffs. Just make the calm, simple play. You don't need to hit the home run. You don't need to dribble it to the sideline and string it out every time. If someone's open, give them the ball. Trust the machine, trust the process. The ball will find the right player. It might even find you all the way around the horn. He's been up to that so far. There's also just kind of like unless Isaiah Joe's on the floor. It's the obvious thing about the Thunder. There's no easy place for Ant to like hunt. He's like to go after Holmgren a little bit and the Thunder will sometimes late switch Hart and send a homegrown on him and he's done well in those. But they're going to try to avoid those switches. I think like Kayson, Wallace is fine guarding him, Shea has switched onto him and Shai is a good defender and has done fine guarding him. I'm just interested to see how the Wolves try to solve the puzzle of the Thunder defense. And I think you were smart to pinpoint Randall because I think a lot of how the Thunder navigate this series and how the Wolves navigate the Thunder is going to start with who is on Julius Randle and how do they scheme for that.

Howard Beck (47:59)

The Wolves have a lot more shooting obviously than the Nuggets, so they at least have the luxury of, of decent spacing and of guys that, you know you're, you're taking a chance if you're the Thunder of, of leaving right like they will. And in both of their offensive hubs, Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle, you know, not elite playmakers, not, not Jokic level. Nobody is. But these are both guys who I think are very capable of making good, smart passes, intuitive passes. Again, this was, this was the roller coaster of Randall of the last couple of years, you know, in New York. At his best, guys flirting with triple doubles. At his worst, he's, you know, barreling into double teams or triple teams. And Anthony Edwards has had to go through the typical evolution of a young, dominant ball handling scorer who, his best attribute is just putting the ball in the hole and mostly getting the rack. And obviously his three point game has opened up a lot of everything else this season too. But yeah, Anthony Edwards and Randall too, in different ways, sometimes prone to bouts of impatience or indulgence. And this series is going to test them to the nth degree. And I think so much of this is just about your patience and intuitiveness in reading the defense because you will get yourself in a lot of trouble if you're trying to force the issue. So every time we see Anthony Edwards have a great game, a great series, it's okay, look, there's another step on the way. He's on his way. He's on his way to superstardom. He's, you know, and then occasionally, as young players do, there's a little bit of backslide. So I feel like this, this is by, I think, every definition his biggest test and we'll see if he can solve it.

Zach Lowe (49:50)

If you are playing the thunders defense in 2025, it's a very good chance this is going to be your biggest test as an offensive player. And I do think the key for Ant is make the simple play when you attack the Thunder bigs. And I think that's like the only place he can consistently go to get easy traction. And they're going to mix up coverages. Sometimes they'll do the thing where he'll call up Hartenstein's guy or Holmgren's guy to set a screen and they'll yank the Thunder, will yank the big guy out of the screening action, replace him with a guard and send the big guy somewhere else and say, hey, can you, can you make a play in that window where we're kind of in rotation in this triangular rotation? We don't think you're, we don't think you are as good a passer as that to like, you're not Tyrese Halliburton, who can see that coming before it happens. Memo to the Knicks and make the right pass. It's just, it's, it's an enormous test. And when he attacks Those big guys, sometimes they're going to blitz them, sometimes they're going to drop back, sometimes they're going to switch. They're never going to let him get comfortable with one defense for more than two or three possessions and it's just going to be tough sledding ants a superstar and the Wolves as you said have a lot of shooting. To wit Mr. Beck, they only five teams took more threes than the Wolves this year as a portion of their shot attempts. So they were 6 and 3 point rate. More succinct way of saying that The Thunder were 28th in three point rate against only two teams allowed more threes than the Thunder. They will let you let they will try to clog the paint and try to fly out to you and bet that A we're going to make the right guy shoot more than not and B if you think that's a myth and maybe it is, we are going to be flying at you with such a velocity that our contests are going to be better than your average contests on like semi open, semi contested threes. I think it's a fascinating series. Thunder offense versus Wolves defense is going to be really fun too. I don't know where you want to start there. Anything strike you good Shay? You know we're going to see Jada McDaniels on Shea a lot. Maybe full time. We'll see some, some ant on Shea and some McDaniels on J Dub. And I think I mentioned this last week Minnesota barely played zone in the regular season. I think they had 141 possessions of zone in the regular season. 52 of them came against the Thunder. Now the matchups were all funky. There was like a lot of Jalen Clark in these matchups for the Wolves to, to, to, to to point out how funky they were. I don't think that's an accident. It takes Shay's pick and roll rhythm and throws it out of whack a little bit. Takes J. Dubs pick and roll rhythm and throws it out of whack a little bit. And I'm sure they watched Denver, who is not a good defensive team, kind of get under the Thunder skin a little bit with his zone. And I'm going to be shocked if we don't see the Wolves throw a lot of zone at the Thunder early in the series and see can you beat this consistently or not. And if not, you know we have a team with Gobert should not have to resort to his own. And I don't think Minnesota would ever go full time But I think that's a card they're going to play in the series.

Howard Beck (52:55)

Yeah, I was wondering too, I was kicking this around yesterday is, you know, obviously you want Gobert down in the paint. Are you cross matching or is he having to. You don't want him sitting out there with Chet at the three point line. So I assume, I assume they're, they're switching up a lot of the, the assignments there and cross matching. Yeah, I, you know, I'm also wondering like after we saw what I would term the J Dub game yesterday, you turned it the Alice Caruso game. Like Jalen Williams has not been a consistent number two threat next to Shay in this, in this postseason. He's a great player and we, we saw the, the full capabilities of, of him yesterday and especially when he could get out and run and kind of get in a rh. I think they're going to need that. Like, obviously the Thunder have a lot of guys who can do something, but they are very, I think Shea centric when it comes to the offense and then a lot of shooting. But Jalen Williams is the other guy who can do a lot with the ball in his hands. And I think the time is going to come at some point in this series where they're going to need that consistent second threat and again, like it. These guys are really young. They've never been on this stage before. It's. It's going to be learn as you go and you know, but I am very like, I think this is a big series for J Dub in the same sense that it is for Randall with Minnesota.

Zach Lowe (54:28)

Shay, here's how I suspect Minnesota will match up to start the series. I could be wrong. Gobert and Hartenstein, if they play man when they play man. Gobert on Hardenstein, Randall on Holmgren, McDaniels on Shea, Ant on J Dub, which is a whole. That's a blast. And Conley hides on Dort. Now I think we'll see, as I mentioned, some ant on Shay a little bit and J double move. McDaniels move around. Shea has some places again in man to man that he can poke at in this series. They're going to hunt Conley relentlessly, as everybody does. And one of my favorite things about Chris Finch's performance so far in the playoffs is it feels like he's gotten exactly the right dose of Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert in every single game when they're rolling or it feels like Conley's sort of calm and pick and roll. Orchestrator Ness is Essential to like keeping their team away from haywire gear because Minnesota's a haywire team. He plays a little bit more and when he's getting picked out on defense or looks old or whatever, we see a lot more divincenzo, more Alexander Walker and similarly with Gobert. Gobert is going to drop back on the pick and roll if Shea starts getting easy. Mid Rangers shift to man or shift his own. Maybe a little less Gobert, a little more Randall Reed, maybe even a little more Jada McDaniels at the four and only one big man on the floor. He's pressed all the right buttons so far in the playoffs, but that's going to be a pain point. Conley Shea hunting down Conley. I think Shay can hunt is a strong word. I think he can get Randall on switches and do damage. I think definitely get Nas Reed on switches and do damage. I think Shay's got places to go in man to man defense in this series and I think that's interesting. And yeah, I mean I think this is a fascinating series. Minnesota is a great defensive team. They have a lot of answers too. They have a lot of good wing defenders, a lot of ants. This is a monster defensive series for ant. I think there's going to be a fun chess match in this series. Any other thoughts before we make a pick and move on to 90s throwback east finals?

Howard Beck (56:38)

You're going to make me pick again, Zach, you.

Zach Lowe (56:40)

I'm going to pick. You don't have to pick. You can do whatever you want.

Howard Beck (56:42)

I'll pick.

Zach Lowe (56:42)

It's fine.

Howard Beck (56:43)

I'm all right.

Zach Lowe (56:44)

All right, I'll pick first. Thunder and six. Thunder make the finals.

Howard Beck (56:50)

I had the Thunder coming out of the west since last summer. That was not a unique or dicey pick at all. So yeah, I expect the Thunder to win this. I have enough respect for the Timberwolves that I will say Thunder and seven. Not saying you're disrespectful.

Zach Lowe (57:05)

That's a lot of respect. Thunder and seven.

Howard Beck (57:09)

I think there's just enough. There's just enough. Volatility is the wrong word. Maybe it's just the youth factor. There's just something about the Thunder where you don't. The Utes. I don't think they're just going to come out and blow the wolves away. I think the Timberwolves are more than solid at both ends and I just. Yeah, I think they're going to give him a handful and as should be the case in the conference finals, this will also be the Thunder's biggest test to date. So I think, I think this could go the distance.

Zach Lowe (57:45)

No, they just passed a pretty.

Howard Beck (57:47)

I know, but a semi broken Nuggets team. I know that Jokic is like, you know, Jokic is Jokic.

Zach Lowe (57:54)

Jokic is Jokic.

Howard Beck (57:56)

And the fall off from him to everybody else is what it is.

Zach Lowe (57:58)

And also what made that a big, big test, even bigger than a, you know, an experienced champion Nuggets core and the best player in the world is what happened in game one. The Thunder should have won game one. They should have been up 10 and they weren't. And they blew the game. They overthought the game and then from that moment on it was gut check time and they rose to the occasion.

Howard Beck (58:20)

Jokic is the best player that the Thunder have faced. Yes, but the Wolves are a better three point shooting team, a better defensive team and a deeper team by far than the Nuggets. So just before you get Nuggets fans all mad at me for not properly respecting them, I just, I do think this is a bigger test across the board, holistically.

Zach Lowe (58:40)

So to your point, on paper, you know their season long numbers. The Thunder's net rating. Thunder were third in offense, first in defense, plus 12.7, first in the league. Minnesota eighth in offense, sixth in defense, plus 5.0, fourth big difference in net rating since Randle came back. And they've been just on fire. They are plus 11 net rating in that span since Randall came back from injury. So this is a legit, very good team. They have a lot of answers. They have a lot of size. They have a lot of physicality and toughness. They have a chance to really hurt the Thunder on the offensive glass. Another area I think they have to win. They have Randall playing the best ball of his life and they have an ascendant superstar who can get buckets against anybody anytime. I think they have a chance to win the series. I just think the Thunder are. If they're. The thing that I trust most in the NBA playoffs is Oklahoma City's defense. It's just this baseline thing. I trusted completely in every game. I just think the defense is so good. They've been the better team all year. And I just worry that Minnesota is going to have like two games where they have 20 turnovers like the Nuggets did yesterday. And those games are just automatic wins for the Thunder. And so I'm going Thunder in six. I'll go six. I don't care about home road. Howard home court advantage is overrated in the NBA. No. For sure, starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into Sign up for your $1 per month trial@shopify.com SpecialOffer this.

Howard Beck (60:45)

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Zach Lowe (61:17)

Okay. Teenage me, teenage me. Teenage me hated the Knicks. I grew up in Knicks country and teenage me is. I'm born 1977, so mid-90s. Knicks is my coming of age as a sports fan. Basketball is my favorite sport, and boy, did I hate those teams. And part of it was I liked being a contrarian. I think all my friends were Knicks fans. I live in Knicks country. This is like Knicks, Rangers, 1994. Like, I could still hear let's go Knicks, let's go Rangers being chanted in the hallways during passing time in June 1994 when both teams are in the finals. And I was just stupid, like, like a stupid teenager. I brought into every stupid narrative, oh, the Knicks are bullies. They're violating the rules. They're playing football. This is. What is this stuff? And I remember when Ewing missed the finger roll in game seven of the second round in 1995. Down one game, winning finger, the C's parted game, winning finger roll. Bounce, bounce, clank. Knicks lose. Pacers move on to the conference finals where they lose to Orlando. I remember coming in and like a little asshole, little just snot asshole, miming the Ewing finger roll to all my Knicks fans. Oh, here comes Ewing for the win. Oh, here comes Ewing for the win. Oh, that's also.

Howard Beck (62:48)

Did you get the shit kicked out of you that year?

Zach Lowe (62:50)

No, because all my friends were nerds like me. No one knows how to fight. You think anyone. My friends who had a fight, I.

Howard Beck (62:56)

Mean, you might have you might have said it to the wrong guy at some point. You might have.

Zach Lowe (63:00)

No, I knew who and they. And look it's, it was all in good, in good fun and they had, I mean just the Mets, Yankees shit talk that was flying back and forth all the time. It was just part of our DNA as nerd sports fans. That was also the 8.9 second series, one of the greatest moments in the history of NBA basketball. That's 1995, 1994 Knicks won in the conference finals. 1995 Pacers win in the conference semifinals. 1999 is LJ four point play. Knicks without Ewing, eighth seed, win the Eastern Conference finals four games to two, break the Pacers hearts, make the Finals, lose to the spurs. And in 2000 the Pacers won the Eastern Conference finals. Obviously they played last year. This is an awesome rivalry and an awesome super interesting matchup. And I'm going to say right now, Howard Beck, it's 10:31am I still haven't made my pick yet. I'm just going to make it spur the moment when we get to the end of this segment. I cannot wait for this series. It's also. They were identical. Indiana and New York finished with identical ratings in defensive efficiency, tied for 13th in the NBA. Their defensive shot profile is like identical. Both teams allow very few threes and allow a decent to an alarming number of shots at the basket. Their effective field goal percentage, both expected and actually allowed, is like identical. Their paths to the playoffs are interesting. Indiana gets the Bucks essentially without Damian Lillard. I mean he comes back and he plays three games. I think he was 6 for 27 in the whole series. And then they get Cleveland, which by the way, we haven't talked a lot about Cleveland. And they win 41 against Cleveland. And the last game is like an or the game two is the one that swings. It is the game that Mobley, Hunter and Garland all sit and the Cavs should have won. And it's an incredible miracle comeback by the Pacers, culminating in Halliburton missing a free throw, getting a rebound on a lane violation and hitting a three. You know, Garland clearly was limited, could barely dribble without falling over or couldn't change directions as easily. Sometimes looked okay, sometimes not so much. Other than that one game, everybody played for the Cavs, they were banged up, but everybody, it's not. I think there was like this and I was guilty of it too. People digested that series is like, well, you know, you just got to move on to next year like blah, blah, blah, Everybody was injured. Like, everybody played. That was a shit series by the Cavs. It was another soft exit by the Cavs. And the Pacers roll along. The Knicks get a healthy and tough Pistons team and then a Celtics team that was healthy right until they weren't, but that was going to be 3:1 Boston or 3:1 New York, rather. So it's sort of eye of the beholder how you look at which team has had the, quote, tougher path here or how to evaluate Indiana's path. I think this is a really fascinating series, and I cannot decide who to pick. I think it's going to be a super even series.

Howard Beck (66:05)

At one point, to your point of how even it is and how tough it is to pick, at one point I was just like, you know, just stream of consciousness typing down notes and I'm like, well, if you want to beat the Knicks, just do not let it be close in the fourth quarter because Brunson's going to tear you apart. And then I thought, but wait a minute, it's close to the fourth quarter. Tyrese Halliburton might tear you apart. Like, yeah, either end of this, don't let it be close. I think if you want to win any game in this series, you're best served by being up by 20 or 30 points because these are two of the best clutch players in the league right now. Jalen Brunson, literally the clutch player of the year. I think he was top of my ballot. And Halliburton has just had some incredible moments. And they've both. Both these teams got here in part by like just, you know, shaking off 20 point deficits, just wiping them out. And they both are great on the road. The Pacers won Game 4 at Milwaukee to take the 3 to 1 lead in that series. They won Games 1 and 2, of course, in Cleveland and then 5 to close them out. They were always. I looked up last year's series, last year's series, Pacers, Knicks is not very helpful considering how many Knicks were not playing and also the Knicks having since swapped out a few guys. But The Pacers were 0 and 3 at the Garden last year in that series and then of course, won game seven there when the Knicks, of course, also had no bodies left. But the Pacers are just. The point being, Pacers are not daunted by anything or anywhere or anyone. I love that about them. They've got a swagger that's. That seems to, like, go just far, far, far outstrip their, Their resumes. They strut around like a team that's won three championships.

Zach Lowe (67:51)

They did. He did. Tyrese did the Cassell dance. He did the dance. And my favorite thing about that was the NBA just quietly deciding, okay, we're just going to let. We're just going to warn you on this one.

Howard Beck (68:04)

Didn't they find him?

Zach Lowe (68:05)

Did they find him? I thought they warned him. Yeah, no fines for that dance. I'm looking it up now.

Howard Beck (68:13)

I'm convinced that secretly, sometime over the years, the NBA named their deputy commissioner the church lady from Saturday Night Live. Like that. That's. Every time they're, like, cracking down on profanity. Every time they're cracking down on the big balls dance. It's. I just in my head.

Zach Lowe (68:28)

Tyrese Halliburton dance. He will not pay a fine. Damn right he won't pay a fine. Do it again and you might pay a fine, young man. Dare to do it again. Do it again. If you have a moment, do it again. Anyway, continue. Sorry.

Howard Beck (68:45)

The rivalry part of this is real. It doesn't matter that none of these players had anything to do with all of the wonderful moments in the 90s that you just took us down memory lane on. It's memory banked. It's in the DNA of New Yorkers and of Indianapolis.

Zach Lowe (69:02)

Indian coast versus no coast. Nobody was a city versus Midwest.

Howard Beck (69:07)

Hicks versus Knicks. Was that the Everybody. By the way, as preparation for the series, your homework, everybody, is to go watch Dan Cloroz's film. God. What was. What was the documentary was. I can't remember the name now.

Zach Lowe (69:21)

On Reggie and Spike.

Howard Beck (69:22)

Yes. Incredible. That should be everybody's preparation, including mine, because it's been too long since I've seen it and I've forgotten too much of Was. It was. It was awesome. That was awesome.

Zach Lowe (69:31)

It's me for the. For the non YouTube people, it's me doing Reggie doing the choke sign at Spike Lee.

Howard Beck (69:37)

Tyrese Halliburton. I looked up my story from the elimination game last year. Tyrese Halbert Burton wore that on a T shirt to his post game interview after the Pacers eliminated the Knicks last spring. So that was. That was phenomenal.

Zach Lowe (69:50)

You got to give it to Tyrese Halliburton. He's a big pro wrestling fan and he brings that to the NBA and he does not care. Like, he wears that shirt. And now he's going to see this again. There was the whole. Was it Zerbiak who went at him and called him a fake all Star on MSG media?

Howard Beck (70:08)

Wally's Nick's Knicks employee Wally Zerbiak. Called him a fake All Star, which he later apologized for. I think that was because.

Zach Lowe (70:15)

No, don't apologize. Hold it, Wally Zerbiak.

Howard Beck (70:19)

Hold it.

Zach Lowe (70:19)

You said what you said.

Howard Beck (70:21)

And then we've got the athletic poll that. That called him overrated. Although our friend Rachel Nichols did a nice job of breaking down the math there. I think she determined that it was like nine players. Determined that he was the most overrated. Because if you took the number of players they actually got for the poll and then used the percentages that they listed, it's a really small number that actually called that, but it ends up a headline.

Zach Lowe (70:42)

He did the damn time. In Damian Lillard's face.

Howard Beck (70:44)

Which, by the way, if there's a.

Zach Lowe (70:47)

Player that I'm not super pumped to antagonize in big moments, it's Damian Lillard, the guy who's made two walk off series winning shots. But the cool thing about it is he does it. And if it gets blown back in his face, he's completely fine with that. He knows the risks, he knows the embarrassment factor, and he does it anyway because it lights a fire under him, under his teammates, and it's awesome theater.

Howard Beck (71:09)

And he doesn't get testy about it when he's then asked about it or when he's called out on it. Right? That's the thing. He definitely will just own it. He's. He's having fun with it. Are we gonna see him hit a big three and then. And like, like, do this? Is he gonna taunt Brunson?

Zach Lowe (71:23)

I don't know. I don't. I. I hope he taunts. I hope he taunts. Freaking Chalamet. I hope he goes after the whole, like, the whole.

Howard Beck (71:29)

Maybe.

Zach Lowe (71:29)

I hope he taunts all of them. Tracy Morgan. Is there a good Tracy Morgan taunt? I mean, I don't want to taunt Tracy Morgan. He's beloved NYC institution, but, you know, Stiller. Get Stiller.

Howard Beck (71:39)

Stiller out. Do not go after my guy. Ben Stiller. That's. I. That's where I draw the line.

Zach Lowe (71:42)

Line.

Howard Beck (71:43)

The friend of the real ones, Ben Stiller.

Zach Lowe (71:46)

This is New York. Fat Joe is fair game. Like, go at him. Who? Jerry Ferrara, Turtle.

Howard Beck (71:53)

They're also, like, the Knicks over the last couple of years have done this thing where they're bringing back, like, everybody. Like, Marbury's at every game. Tim Thomas is at every game. Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson. Like, if. If you spent five. When's Chris Dudley coming back? Like, they've brought back just about everybody.

Zach Lowe (72:12)

Okay. I love everything about this series. I Love that. We saw it last year. And one of the things I think we learned from last year is now, again, you can spin this any way you want. Jalen Brunson did not seem bothered by Andrew Nephard's defense. And Andrew Nebhardt is an elite defensive player, but he's kind of profile the guy that Brunson is not bothered by. Brunson's stronger than he is and can move him around. And mid series, they shifted Aaron Neesmith onto Jalen Brunson and put Nemhardt somewhere else. I expect that to be the de facto matchup, Neesmith on Brunson. To me, what's really interesting about this series is we have two, two very good one, the best in the whole league, pick and pop centers Towns and Miles Turner. And neither of these teams has of yet really in any sustained way experimented with the kind of inverting of the matchups that the Celtics just did to Carl Anthony Towns, where you put your big center on. If you're the Pacers, you put Miles Turner on Josh Hart and you put someone else on Towns. Now, if that's Neesmith, that means someone else has to guard Brunson and that someone else is going to be Nemhard. And we've seen how that's gone. If it's Siakam, that means someone else has to guard OG and Anobi, which you're probably okay with putting a smaller guy on OGN and ob. We have not seen the Pacers do that, almost hardly at all. And on the flip side, we have not seen the Knicks do that with Towns at all. They have guarded Miles Turner with Towns and they have done so. Semi traditional pick and roll coverage. Sometimes drop and risk a Miles Turner Open 3, sometimes come up to touch and like up to the level of the screen and pray that Carl Anthony Towns doesn't trip over his own feet and can help and recover without a crisis. And while you do that, if Miles Turner is open, well, someone's got to fly off of Josh Hart. Carl Townes is open. Rather, someone has to fly. No, Miles Turner is open. Someone has to fly off, you know, Josh Hart and cloud Miles Turner's line of vision. And then Tyrese Halliburton can pick that apart. We've seen all kinds of defenses. I suspect in this series that is going to change that one of these teams, if not both of them are going to sell out to stop Town shooting threes and Turner shooting threes, that the Pacers will at times much more than they have mimic what The Celtics and many other teams have done and put Miles Turner on Josh Hart and put someone else on Karl Anthony Towns. And I suspect that even the Knicks, the stodgy, stubborn, fib z Knicks who adapted last round by switching a ton more than ever, more than anyone could have expected against Boston, are going to do either that their version of that, and I don't know what their version of that is because one edge the Pacers have in this series is I think it's easier for them to move Turner around onto Hart than it is for the Knicks to move Towns around. Like who's Towns guarding? Aaron Neesmith. You want to risk Aaron Neesmith picking pop threes? Maybe Siakam. That might be the easy answer. But then I'm going right to the Halliburton Siakam two man game which might be just as dangerous as the Halliburton Turner two man game and seeing how you do that. Or they will actually try to switch Towns a little bit more than you would expect onto Halliburton and see if Halliburton, if and when Halliburton can punish him with step back threes, try to make Halliburton a driver. The Knicks have, have really kind of wanted to make him drive, prod into the lane, make him take floaters, make him go all the way to the rim. He wants to pass and he wants to shoot threes. Something is going to give on both sides of the ball where I think both teams are going to be dragged out of their defensive comfort zones. If not very quickly, then at some point in the middle of the series and that's pivot point number one and everything else kind of flows from there.

Howard Beck (76:10)

You know, the Knicks weren't the greatest defensive team for most of the season, the regular season and they have found another gear in the playoffs. And some of that I think has just been, you know, the teams that they have faced. Right. Obviously the Celtics are elite, the Pistons not, not so much. But I think I would, you know, as I was going over things yesterday, what something that struck me with regard to the matchups so far. I don't think the Knicks defense has truly been tested to the limit. You would think they would have been by the Celtics. But the Celtics really got bogged down in their three point shooting and ISO ball and stalled themselves out to an extent. I give the Knicks plenty of credit for creating the dynamics for that. But the Celtics, not a big ball movement team. Pistons, certainly not. Pacers. Pacers are averaging 337 passes a game in the playoffs, that's number one in the league. In the playoffs, they're averaging nearly 30 assists per game. In the playoffs, that's number one. The Pistons and Celtics were two of the lowest in the league in the postseason in passes per game. The Knicks, by the way, also among the lowest.253 passes per game. And the Pacers also lead the playoffs, as you would expect, in points off of assists. They're generating over 76 points a game off of assists. The Pacers, one of the things I love about them over the last couple of years is, is, you know, they don't profile like a big powerhouse team in part because, like, Halliburton's numbers don't just pop off the page. And Siakam's always been like a really good, you know, second wheel in Toronto and Indianapolis. But these aren't your prototypical superstars or, you know, perennial. All NBA. I think Halliburton's probably. I assume we're going to hear all NBA this week, too. MVP and all NBA are the things we're still waiting on, right? All rookie teams, maybe. So I think Halliburton will make all NBA for the first time. But these guys do not strike you as your prototypical dominant crush. You superstars who are just going to go out and drop 30, 35 on your head every night. I think part of that's the way that those two guys are wired. And I think part of that is just by design. This Pacers team is just a really selfless, fun ball movement kind of team. And I think that's going to test the Knicks defense in ways that they haven't been yet over the last six, seven weeks. Has it been six, seven weeks? Whatever. It's been a month. They're going to get tested. They're going to have to defend more actions. They're going to have to adjust more on the fly. Maybe not the highest individual offensive threats that they'll have faced, but collectively, I think this is a bigger challenge for them.

Zach Lowe (78:56)

What's happened with the Pacers is this kind of basketball magic where, and I don't want to give all the credit to Halliburton because this is a team full of selfless, smart, just kinetic players. Guys who like to pass and move and cut. But it all starts with Halliburton. It doesn't matter if you like to pass and move and cut if your alpha dog does not play a style that meshes with that. If you switch on the Pacers, Halliburton is not just going to sit there and dilly dally with the ball. Sometimes he will because he wants to get Cat off balance and jack a step back three. And he did that to Jared Allen a few times when Cleveland switched. But he's just as liable to give it up immediately and cut somewhere else, give and go, force Cat to move around and then everyone else. That style has sort of been imbued throughout the roster, and there's just an unpredictability to them that is the antithesis of how the Celtics played against New York. Switching defense and it's really hard to guard. I mentioned before that if they have Cat on Miles Turner and they run that Halliburton Turner pick and pop, which is just lethal, and Turner's open on the pop, and they send a third guy, a third rotator over to sort of contest Miles Turner on the catch. Tyrese Halliburton, I think, is the best guy in the league, the best period, at seeing that rotation, baiting it, anticipating it before it even happens, and skipping the ball to the guy who becomes open. When you make that rotation of Miles Turner, he's just so smart and so selfless that the simple stuff, he will pick apart. And I think that's an edge for the Pacers. And they're also very deep and very healthy. The Knicks are not. The Knicks are healthy, not as deep. And you wonder at some point, does the bill come due for all the minutes that these guys have played? Brunson's had a couple of ankle things flare up in the playoffs. I think that chess match offensively with the pick and pop centers is. Is. Is super interesting. And also, just like on a fundamental level, a lot of the. A lot of this will be, the Pacers are going to hunt Brunson when they have the ball, and the Knicks are going to hunt Halliburton when they have the ball. And there are all sorts of creative ways where they can do that. And, you know, Halliburton has made some big defensive plays in the playoffs in both series and kind of stood up a little better than he typically has when teams have gone at him that way. And Brunson stood up to the Celtics for the most part when they. When the Knicks finally were like, hey, you know what, we're just going to switch you on to Tatum and Brown and see and see what happens. And nothing much bad really happened. And so I think that is an interesting little chess match. And just there's the Mitchell Robinson factor. Mitchell Robinson has completely changed the playoffs for the Knicks. And if there is a weakness, is Too strong of a word. The Pacers are not a good rebounding team. Some of that is by choice. They don't get offensive rebounds. They want to get back on defense and at all costs. But they can be out physical by a mean, nasty team. And Mitchell Robinson is mean and nasty. And Carl Towns, I think he can get some post up momentum against Turner and I think if you put a smaller guy on him, he's proven that he can get a little traction there too. I think the physicality element with Mitchell Robinson is a big, big one and I guess we got to watch for hack a Mitch. The paces are deep enough where they can do that. Do you risk getting in the bonus? We saw this but like if he continues to not make free throws, we're going to see this, I think.

Howard Beck (82:35)

Oh, for sure. I think I'm very curious to see both the matchups against Towns and then how Towns responds. I mean he did. There were moments where it looked like Towns couldn't handle like the, you know, Tobias Harris on him, you know, smaller, ish matchup in the first round. Towns is shooting efficiency both from 3 and from 2 are down markedly from the regular season. His assists are down. I think Towns has quietly had like just a solid but not spectacular.

Zach Lowe (83:06)

And to your point, he lit the Pacers up in the regular season precisely because the Pacers played traditional defense against him. And I don't know, we'll see some of that, but I think we'll see less of it in this series.

Howard Beck (83:19)

Yeah, I mean, this is his moment, right? Like this is the point of the exercise for the Knicks. You like, there were a lot of things that went into the deal for Towns, not least of which is that they had lost Hartenstein. They just. And Mitchell Robinson. They knew they were going to be without for months as they were, and they didn't know what he'd be like when he came back. They needed a center, they needed somebody to fill in the gap. The opportunity was there and Townsend is a more skilled player than Julius Randle. All of that fine. It doesn't really matter what the rationale was. Now is the moment. And this time last year we were talking a lot about like, okay, like Towns is on this stage for the first time in Minnesota. Well, different stage in New York. I think he's, he's really had a nice season. Knicks fans are behind him. This series is going to test him again. I don't want to keep going back to the referendum word, but like, this is the point of the exercise. This is why you went out and got him to be a little bit more dynamic, to give Jalen Brunson and an outlet, a co star, somebody else who can. Who can carry the load at times. There's nobody else, really. I think there's nobody else on this roster who's really going to initiate offense. And you mentioned it like, you know, Tibbs's rotation is. Is, you know, barely 6.

Zach Lowe (84:42)

More than enough to win the game will tell you what to do.

Howard Beck (84:48)

He actually smiled the other night after they finished off the Celtics. He actually, like, made a joke with.

Zach Lowe (84:53)

Dude, he's a man about town now. He's a freaking legend. The Knicks are in the conference finals for the first time in 25 years. Tibbs is a legend now. He's a made man. He's a man about town.

Howard Beck (85:01)

Build the statue now. Build the statue now. No, I mean, listen, like, the Tibbs era, no matter what happens next, is already a incredible success, despite the fact that at any given moment, there's about like a 40%, 50% even faction of Knicks fans that are ready to throw Tibbs overboard for, like, I mean, you could hear the hand wringing from a mile away the other night where they're up by 30 or whatever in the fourth quarter and the starters are all still in. It drives Knicks fans crazy. But, I mean, you can't argue with the results. I do. I agree with you in the large principle here, which is that we know at some point physics and physiology do matter. Minutes overall do matter. Fatigue is a thing. Fatigue can lead to soft tissue injuries. Like, you use the phrases of Bill, come do. This is a series where, you know, that's. I think that's looming. Jalen Brunson has turned that same ankle, I think, 15 times just since the playoffs began, by the way, and it never seems to affect him. It's always this moment where it's like, oh, my gosh, is he okay? Is he going to be able to. He go, he disappears. He comes back with, like, a different pair of shoes on, and then like, you know, makes his next seven shots in a row. But I do think this is. This is that moment where you wonder about their. Their resilience or their physical ability to continue.

Zach Lowe (86:30)

I want to talk about Siakam real fast because I feel like he gets glossed over a lot in talking about the Pacers, in part because there are games where he really feels like a fill in the blanks guy, where he just kind of finds offense. He finds spots to seal smaller guys under the basket randomly in transition. He fills every gap on defense, all that, I think he's got to be a major player and intentionality has to be put into making him a massive part of their offense for the Pacers to win this series. I suspect an Anoby will be guarding him a lot and that's a good matchup for the Knicks. He's not going to be able to hurt Anunoby much in the post, even as crafty as he is. But if Towns is on him, that unlocks a lot of stuff for their pick and roll attack. Even if, even when an obi's on him. Mikhail Bridges is going to guard Halliburton. He'll get the primary salmon on Halliburton. Can you dabble in a little bit of still but inverted pick and rolls? Halliburton, Siakam. Siakam, Halliburton. And see can Pascal hurt Bridges on switches a little bit? If Brunson is stuck on Halliburton, if there's some random cross match where that happens, Halliburton can ISO Brunson or you can bring Siakam into the play and have him sort of be a switch guy and attack Brunson on switches. I just think he's got to be a major intentional part of their offense. And that and part of that is like the more confusing you can make the pick and roll for Towns, the better chance you have of nudging him into a mistake. Screen the screener, staggered screens. And Tyrese is a master at like faking toward a pick and rejecting it and going the other way. And like Cat takes the bait on a lot of that stuff and lurches like totally off kilter way out of the play. I think this is an awesome, awesome series. It's time for me to make a pick. Well, do you want to make a pick first or no?

Howard Beck (88:26)

I am, I am. I am so on the fence on this one. This is a true toss up series. I absolutely could see the Pacers winning this series. As we established earlier, they are not afraid of any venue, any stage. They can win on the road. They can beat the Knicks at the Garden. The Knicks are in such a great groove right now and they just knocked out the defending champions for God's sake. Like, I. It's hard to bet against them. This series should go seven by like by everything that is right in the world. It should go seven. And if it goes down to the final seconds of game seven or even an overtime game seven, it would be absolutely the appropriate. Like that's. They're that close. Nixon7 I think I could see the Pacers winning it, but I just. You gotta. If you got. If I have to. If I have to pick, I'll just lean toward the team with the home court advantage.

Zach Lowe (89:32)

I'm going with the Knicks. Knicks in seven.

Howard Beck (89:37)

Is this to make it up to your grade school chums who you were taunting about Ewing missing the finger roll?

Zach Lowe (89:43)

Forget that. Forget them. I don't know.

Howard Beck (89:44)

Is this just guilt? Is this just decades of pent up guilt, Zach? Is that. I think this is what's happening.

Zach Lowe (89:49)

I don't live glory days like Bruce Springsteen and his friends. I've moved on in my life, okay? I don't know what any of those people are.

Howard Beck (89:54)

Bruce has caught enough strays in the last few days. I don't think you need to be bringing him into this.

Zach Lowe (89:59)

Okay? I made the case for the Pacers. It's easy to make the case for the Pacers. Yep, they're awesome. They've been better than the Knicks in the playoffs, period. Maybe against not quite as good competition, but even that is arguable. Given again that Cleveland was had all their guys available for all but one.

Howard Beck (90:17)

Game, 64 win team.

Zach Lowe (90:22)

They got a lot of answers. Miles Turner has become just such a splendid all around player that he's been able to hurt every kind of defense they throw at him, put small guys on him, he posts up and he's efficient. There's. They're just really hard to play against and they're really hard to guard. They've been better than the Knicks in the playoffs. They're deeper than the Knicks, they're healthier than the Knicks, they're faster than the Knicks. There's just something about the physicality and toughness of New York with Robinson back in particular that I just in my gut keep coming back to. I could just. I could. And I could see them sneaking this series out in seven on pure physicality, toughness, relentlessness. They're just a bigger, stronger team than the Pacers. And I don't necessarily think that's going to win out, but that plus home court, plus, I think a friendlier environment for Towns in this series. Obviously we talked about all the schematic adjustments that can be made and all that. I think like New York's offense has not been very good in the playoffs and that's worrisome to me. And that's a reason to pick Indiana. I think that's a lot about the opposition that they faced and I think they will be able to score more efficiently against the Pacers than they have against the Celtics or the Pistons. I'm going Knicks and 7i. Something about their physicality and ability to just sort of wear you down at every position appeals to me in this series. And. And the glass is a factor there too. I have no clue. I told you I was going to make a pick on the spot. My gut keeps saying Nixon seven. Nixon seven, Nixon seven. And so I'm going to say Nixon seven. Okay.

Howard Beck (92:07)

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Zach Lowe (92:40)

We've had now a week to digest the Jason Tatum injury and the Celtics subsequent elimination at the hands of the Knicks in just a total boat race in game six in msg. You wanted to talk about this topic, so I'll just cede the floor to you. What's interesting to you?

Howard Beck (92:54)

I'm just utterly fascinated, Zach, by this. We're going to talk ad nauseam for the next several weeks about seven champions in seven years in this age of parity in the NBA. All right, cool. Fine. There's all kinds of things that have happened to all these champions, but nobody's been in this position. The Celtics have the most fascinating situation in the entire league right now and maybe the most complex set of decisions and just big picture than certainly any other of the defending champs in recent years. Right. Like the warriors in 2019. Like you're. There's no decisions to make. Durant is leaving and he tore his Achilles and Clay is out and you're just. You just got to like weather the storm for a little bit and hope to get it back. The Lakers in 2020 decided to turn over their entire supporting cast for reasons we'll never understand. They never recovered. The Bucks in 2021.

Zach Lowe (93:41)

Well, they did recover. They have l now.

Howard Beck (93:44)

Okay. Fair didn't recover up until now. Maybe they'll recover. Unbelievable. Still unbelievable. The Bucks win it in 2021. Sporting cast around Giannis just erodes. They've never recovered. It's hard to.

Zach Lowe (93:58)

How have the sun's done since that finals.

Howard Beck (94:04)

Warriors in 2022 Outlier Championship can haven't come close since. But. But amazing that they got back Nuggets in 2023. We talked about undone by free agency, by new rules, everything else. And now the Celtics, they might not have gotten back anyway. Whether Tatum goes down or not, they were probably losing that game. Who knows, Maybe they would have come back in the series, but they already were facing this $500 million bill, this combination of payroll and luxury taxes, and then all the second apron shit that comes with it, and an ownership change and questions about whether or not the new owners would be as committed as what Grossbeck's group has been. And he'll still be in charge for a bit. But how committed were they? Well, now, you know, you win a championship, you win, you go back to back, fuck it, we're keeping everybody. You lose in the second round and your best player is now almost certainly missing all of next season. It's a different set of variables, of decision points, of considerations than you could possibly have imagined in your worst nightmares. And I think long term, you want Tatum and Brown to be together, right? Whenever Tatum comes back, you want Jaylen Brown there. Almost certainly. And Jaylen Brown was awesome in extending this series and not so awesome in the elimination game. And I can see by look on your face, you're already questioning whether or not. What are they next season? If you brought back just the key. Is Derrick White awesome. Third guy, fourth guy, whatever. Can Derek White be your co star to Jaylen Brown for a season? We've got this weird mystery illness thing with Porzingis, who just, just, he's. He, like, it was. It was interesting listening to him post game the other night. Like, he just. He's absolutely, like, baffled and troubled by this and he just didn't have any energy. What are they and not what are they next season? What are they a year and a half from now? And the decisions they have to make both financially and in terms of personnel and in trying to create something sustainable, presumably around Tatum, presumably around Tatum and Brown, but. Question mark? I just think it's absolutely fascinating. I don't like Zach. I do not think we've ever seen a situation quite like this. It's unique in a lot of awful ways, but not only because of Tatum. It is the financial pressures that they're facing as well.

Zach Lowe (96:32)

People will comp it to the spurs in the Duncan year and the warriors in the Wiseman year, and those are not. Those are like interesting comps. But the Celtics have knowledge going in that next year is going to be, in terms of championship contention, a totally lost season. Knowledge that those teams did not have at this Time in the calendar. The question is, and to your point, Tatum knowing that now gives them in a bizarre sense a certain freedom that they would not have had had they made the finals or won the championship. And the question they just have to ask themselves is very simple. Like in 2026, 2027 and 2027, 2028, is Jason Tatum coming off an Achilles injury? And I, I have no reason not to be optimistic that he's going to be Jason Tatum again. Is Jason Tatum at 28, whatever. Jalen Brown at 30, Derrick White at 32, Peyton Pritchard and whatever else is here. Is that nucleus two years from now with good management around it, good enough to win an NBA championship? If you think it is, your path is very, very simple. It's keep all those guys, see what you can get. For Jew holiday, who has 32, 35 and $37 million left on his deal and is 34 years old. And Kristaps Porzingis on an expiring contract, maybe you get something, maybe you don't get much. Like, do you like Porzingis? I don't even know if, like, do I have to attach something to get off Porzingis even on an expiring, do I have to take back long term salary? And if so, it better damn well be linked to someone or someone's that I think are good. And at least one of the Someones, if it's two or three players can help my team in 2027, 2028. If you don't think the answer to that question is yes, I think it opens a lot of doors. And door number one is you trade those guys and you get what you can get. I don't think you're going to get much. I certainly don't think you're going to get much that changes your long term outlook. Maybe Drew has more trade value than I think he's still a winning player. But the aging curve is hit hard now. The question then becomes like, if you trade one of Derrick White and Jalen Brown, does that get you enough stuff? Okay, let me go back. If the answer is no, you don't think that's a championship level nucleus in two years or you're dubious that it is, how do you get one? And one way to get one is trade one or both of Derrick White and Jalen Brown for a bonanza. All the picture you can get and salary relief that sort of resets your repeater tax clock, resets your cap sheet, resets everything. And I'm talking like, if I can get Four firsts. I think Jaylen Brown would have a market maybe a little more limited than Derek White's because of his contract. And Derek White is just usable on every team. But he would have a. There would be strong offers for Jalen Brown from a few places. Derek White, there'd be strong offers from like all over the league.

Howard Beck (100:01)

Yes.

Zach Lowe (100:02)

You combine those two, you get seven first round picks, four swaps, one or two good young players, and you go to Tatum and you say, hey, look, we can pull up a ray Allen KG 2.0. We'll have the most cap flexibility in the league. We'll have a ton of assets by that point. Houston will have maybe cashed in on some of its assets. Maybe Brooklyn has too. Maybe those cash in deals, other players shake loose from that and we sit in the catbird seat. Maybe Jayson Tatum says, I don't want to do that. I love these guys. Don't, don't trade them. Maybe he understands. Maybe his opinion is immaterial to you. That scenario is. Is there, it's sitting there. And it's a scenario where like people say gap year and they think tank, right? And tanking would be a part of that. But the key point to get in this scenario is that you are not doing any of this with an eye on the number one pick in the 2026 draft. Like, we have just seen that. You cannot plan your franchise's future on getting the number one or number two pick in any draft. You're doing it to accumulate the assets and reset your cap sheet. And if you get a great pick in doing so, that's a nice happy bonus. Then you have to hit on the other end of that and you have to hit immediately the way the Celtics hit with Allen and kg. And that's very hard to do, but, you know, doable and maybe worth the risk. If you think the answer to my overarching question is no, that's not going to be a championship nucleus anymore in two or three years without major luck and improvement. Then the question becomes, can you trade one and keep one and try to thread the needle of getting a lot of assets for one and still having either White or Brown? Let's posit. I don't, I don't even want to posit which one on board for when Tatum comes back, or does that scenario just leave you short on both ends of the path? Is it straddling two paths and really being on neither? Does it leave you? Yeah, we got a few more assets, but not enough for a game changing move. And yeah, we got a lot of talent still on the roster, but not enough proven talent still on the roster. I don't know the answers to those questions, but if I'm the Celtics, all of those things have to be discussed. All of them. I can't be precious about Jalen Brown. I can't be precious about Derrick White. I can't be precious about any of it. Because as you said, this is a borderline unprecedented scenario that the, that I'm not suggesting either path. I actually think the status quo is the most likely path given Brad Stevens general mindset. Given that a new owner I don't think wants to walk in there and be like, hey, your beloved players are going out the door. Sorry, Jason Tatum, sorry, fans, but I think you have to have all of these discussions, including like Jaylen Brown, what's the market? Where do we go? Is there a path? I think nothing should be off limits. Nothing.

Howard Beck (102:53)

No. You. At a moment like this, in part, you have the luxury of being able to have these conversations. And even the luxury, I would say, I know, like, it always looks terrible. New owner, old owner, anybody. When you blow up or start picking apart a championship roster, a recent championship. But you have the benefit now, if I can even call it that, of everybody knows next season is basically lost, right? I don't know. You run it back with everybody but Jason Tatum, who's hurt. I don't even know what the Celtics are next season. They're a playoff team, but how good of a playoff team?

Zach Lowe (103:29)

People say that. People say that. And I'm like, are you sure that they're a playoff team? Yeah, they, they looked great in winning a game. Yeah, they were plus 8.7 with, I mean, but like that plus 8.7 number that's going around, that's your number with your full roster not having a miso. But I'm just saying, like, so by playoff team, okay. Cleveland still here. Nick's still here. Pacer still here. Pistons rising, Magic rising. Hawks and Bulls are throwing a freaking party that the east has gotten even worse around their mediocre asses. Who the hell knows? Milwaukee, who the hell. No, I'm just saying it's like they could be a play in team for sure. And once you're a play in team, I don't know that you just pencil in like, well, they're tough, they're veterans, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Howard Beck (104:16)

I'm not, I'm not penciling them as a top five, but somewhere in that 6, 7, 8 range, maybe through the play in. Sure. Given Given good health and some luck, they're. They're at least that I'll give them that much respect. But, but to your point, and I think the way you framed it is, is the right way. You have to look out a couple years. What are their ages then? What are their salaries then? What's the cap sheet look like then? Because nothing matters next season. At best, you're a playoff team and not going very far. So it's not about next season. It is about the following season and beyond. Once Tatum is back and fully healthy and recovered from his Achilles, what do you want to be then? What is your potential then? What does your cap sheet look like then? And I think that that means everything is on the table, including Jaylen Brown for sure. Like those conversations have to happen. And Brad Stevens, Mike Zarin, that whole front office, super smart. They've made great moves in Brad's time as GM or president or whatever title he's got. I think they will, they will make smart decisions here, but these are going to be incredibly difficult and complex decisions because again, you are not moving on a year to year basis. Right now you're trying to figure out what is the best version of this team that we could have around Jayson Tatum starting in the fall of 2026, most likely and beyond. I just think that that's fascinating and difficult and emotionally wrought because if you do decide that our best way forward is to just like completely tear this all down around him so that we've got the best possible version a year and a half from now, and that might actually be the smartest way forward, but that's not an easy thing to do.

Zach Lowe (106:02)

It also depends what your goals are, right? If you think that the most likely outcome of the status quo is you have a very good team, but maybe not a championship upside and you're okay with that, that's fine, right?

Howard Beck (106:13)

But you still have the financial element, which you still have to deal with regardless, right? You don't want to be a $500 million payroll. Even a $400 million payroll is if you've concluded we're just good and not championship caliber, right? Sorry to interrupt.

Zach Lowe (106:26)

No, it's just, it just sucks because Tatum is just an awesome player who plays all the time and is a beloved teammate. He works his ass off. He's an awesome all around player. And you don't want to be having this conversation and you don't want to be in this position, but it is like a thought exercise come to life. Now in Boston. I have no parting thoughts on this. I'm just, I'm stoked for the conference finals. I'm stoked that we got some old school 90s rivalry and some new school, whatever, 2000 and 20s rivalry. Any concluding thoughts? Mr. Howard Beck?

Howard Beck (106:58)

No. Loved your regaling us with all the lottery room stories from last week when you were on with Bill. That was fantastic. So glad you were there.

Zach Lowe (107:08)

No, speaking of things I still can't believe happened, and I still can't believe that the Mavs traded Luka Doncic and have the number one pick in the draft. It's like unbelievable. You can't make any of this up. What a stupid, stupid league. And I mean that in a borderline affectionate sense.

Howard Beck (107:24)

Of course. It's all preposterous. I guess my only other parting thought is if the Knicks win this series and make it to the finals, I hope all of your grade school chums call to taunt you.

Zach Lowe (107:35)

I hope they do too. And if they do, whoever wants to come over from the Spotify ringer family, the low house is open. We got a swing set, we got a grill. We got alcohol in the fridge. Like a lot of off nights in the finals. Come out to the burbs. You can walk around and talk to the gardening ladies and help me take the garbage out. Spot some deer. All of it.

Howard Beck (107:57)

Teach me about the suburbs, Zach. I'll be there.

Zach Lowe (107:59)

Howard Beck thank you sir. Thanks to Jesse, Jonathan and Mike producing the show today. Thanks to everyone who tuned in on YouTube live. And we will see you on Thursday for our usual Thursday morning show talking about conference finals and God only knows what the hell will happen in the NBA between now and then. So thank you, Howard. See everybody Thursday must be 21 and over and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in President D.C. gambling problem called One Day 100 Gambler or visit FanDuel.com RG Cold 1-887-897777 or is it ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or is it mdg.org in Maryland? Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelp linema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 247 Sport in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-H O P N Y or text Hope NY in New York.