← The Zach Lowe Show
The Zach Lowe Show
WELCOME TO… the NBA Finals: Pacers–Thunder Preview with Kirk Goldsberry, Plus the State of the Knicks with Ian Begley
01:54:51
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- [00:00]
Zach Lowe
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. All right, Coming up on a Monday morning edition of the Zach Lowe show, we are absolutely loaded today. Reacting to the Indiana Pacers eliminating the New York Knicks and making the NBA Finals Thunder Pacers. Kurt Goldsberry is going to come on. We dive into everything about how the Thunder went for or the Pacers went from chaos in 2021 to NBA finals. Today. We dig into the X's and O's of the matchup, the counters, the counters to the counters and everything with Kurt Goldsberry who's bringing some video, some cool cutting edge video of SGA and his shot selection. And then my old buddy Ian Begley comes on the Knicks. Was this a successful playoff run? A disappointing playoff run plus minus of zero total for the playoffs. What do they do from here? Do they do nothing? Tibbs Cat Bridges Is this a championship nucleus? Is it not a championship nucleus? Is the east so bad that you just run it back and see what happens? Ian Begley's got all the the intel you could ever want as a Knicks fan. So that's coming up after this break on the Zach Lowe Show. Hope you enjoy. You're listening to the Zach Lowe show presented by FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook has made it easier than ever to get in on the action during the NBA Finals. And with live betting, the tip off is just the beginning. Look for the live SGP tab on the FanDuel Sportsbook app and build your bet slip. Then sit back and enjoy the game as you track the outcome of your parlay right in the app. If you don't already have it, download the FanDuel app today and make every moment more the ringers committed to responsible gaming. Visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. Must be 21 and over in President select states or 18 and over in President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800- GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com foreign show It's Monday Morning. The N B A finals begin in three days in Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma City Thunder, 68, wins, 12 more in the playoffs, looking at a historic point differential for both the regular season and the playoffs. Looking at a finals. If they roll here, they're going to enter some very, very, very hallowed historical territory against the Indiana Pacers, who completed a remarkable half decade reinvention of their team and their franchise by blitzing through the Eastern Conference playoffs, foisting existential crises on every team they beat in their wake. Everything. Wait, the Pacers beat us? How did that happen? Tyrese Haliburton doing choke signs. Dancing. Pascal Siakam running everywhere, running out, running everyone. Depth. Aaron ne Smith hitting a million threes. TJ McConnell still buzzing around annoying people. The Indiana Pacers at the Oklahoma City Thunder. Game one of what should be a super fun series. A series in which the Pacers justifiably enter as massive underdogs. A series that on paper, if you're just going by point differential scoring margin record is a mismatch. And yet the Pacers have taught us time and again. Mismatch. Smish match. Pick against us at your apparel. We bring some stuff to the table that is very interesting in this series. We bring some stuff to the table that are frankly must haves if you want any shot at not getting run over by the Oklahoma City turnover machine. Kurt Goldsberry. I'm excited, you're excited. The finals are why we do this. I'd say this every year. This is why we do the trades, free agency, the fake GMing, all the stuff that gets the clicks. Like that's cool, that's fun. There's going to be some big trades, maybe a lot of big trades. The whole point of those trades is to get your team to this moment where there are only two of you left, where the whole world is watching you and you play for the thing that is the whole goal of being in this business if you work for a team. And that's the NBA title. So buckle up, forget about the trade speculation, shove it to the background and dig in to the basketball, baby. The Finals are here.
- [04:42]
Kurt Goldsberry
The Finals are finally here. Zach Lowe and I couldn't be happier. I think this is a long time coming for, for one of these two organizations and sort of like you alluded to a big surprise on the other side. But you know, nobody is going to doubt that the Indiana Pacers deserve to be here after what they did, especially to the Cleveland Cavaliers. They did not have an easy route and beating the Knicks in the most hype sort of Madison Square Garden scenes we'd seen in years. So a great finals are shaping up. Two incredible sort of young guards leading these teams. Two very different coaching styles. This is going to be great. And the only scene I thought that was missing from from your opening was Rick Carlisle shouting Pace from the sidelines over and over again. That's not what Rick Carlisle used to yell when he was in Dallas. He's completely and reinvented his coaching style to match the personnel and the ERA with this Pacers group and he's found something here. Is it going to be good enough to overcome the Death Star in the Oklahoma City Thunder? I'm not so sure. But again, credit to Carlisle. Credit to the Pacers. Halliburton Siakam what a run. What a run.
- [06:01]
Zach Lowe
Zach Lowe so I want to focus on the Pacers now because I did the Oklahoma City journey last week when they made the Finals. They made the finals first. They're going to be have been waiting around for a while to play game one. I did the journey from 2012 hard and trade till today and all the big moments there and we all know the big moments, the two that I thought have been underrated for them and I will reiterate it here are number one, the acquisition of Paul George and number two, because we all know what happened with Paul George going out and what came back for him. I don't think they've got enough credit for daring to acquire him on an expiring contract. And number two, obvious but perhaps not discussed enough is moving up from four to two in the Chet Holmgren draft and getting Chet Holmgren instead of a million other people that could have been number four and just all the injuries that submarine them after the hardened trade Russ's knee 2013 playoffs are the top seed 2014 Serge Ibaka, a series that's close to your heart misses the first two games of the Western Conference finals that the spurs end up winning in epic fashion and then Durant and Russ both get hurt the next year anyway, that's the Thunder. Rick Carlisle is a good name to invoke at the top of this podcast. A lot of people have already done the trade, the masterful transactions that the Pacers have used and hit to get from 2020, 2021 where they're in the wilderness until today. And a lot of that has focused on their Paul George trade which brought back Victor Oladipo and Domanta Sabonis and all the tentacles that extend out of that. The biggest and most important of which is Turning Sabonis into Tyrese Halliburton. Not a win win trade by the way. A win and win a lot less trade. And then Oladipo becomes Levert, becomes Nemhardt and Shepard and there's all other tentacles we can talk about. And then Pascal Siakam for Bruce Brown and three first round picks that look like they're going to be poo poo first round picks. Two of them have already conveyed there's more to it than that. And you just could not overstate the degree to which this franchise, which doesn't tank and has picked in the top 10 of the draft like three times since 1980 or something crazy like that was teetering. Teetering toward what for them would have been unprecedented chaos in the 2020, 21 season, which is like not that long ago. Kurt Goldsberry 4 years ago. Unprecedented chaos for a team that transitioned into. That found like a Paul George Roy Paul George, Roy Hibbert, David west, all that transition into an era of conference finals, elite basketball play. Transitioned out of that by getting Oladipo and Sabonis and looked like okay, like they're going to stay afloat, it's not going to be a home run, but they've got something here. And then in 20, 20, 21, Victor Oladipo coming off an injury was not the same guy and was was going to leave the team in free agency the following summer. TJ Warren missed basically the entire season. Nate Bjorkren was the head coach of the team. People don't remember that. To call the Nate Bjorkern era a disaster is probably understating it. Golga Batadze and Greg Foster were fighting on the bench during the game. Had to be separated. But Greg Foster was a coach, was almost fighting a player during a game descending into chaos. With the Oladipo piece not turning into what they had hoped it would be long term mostly because of injury and then his sort of was going to leave in free agency. Sabon is good, not great. The Turner fit at that moment. It could have gone completely the other way where they're just in the wilderness for five, six, seven more years and they're in the NBA Finals. It's an incredible. And we can talk. We talked about Siak and we talked about all the little trades. It's just, it's an incredible story that in four years they went from there to. To hear because most teams in that situation, in that level of chaos are just in chaos. You blink and six years have gone by and you've just been in chaos the whole time.
- [10:18]
Kurt Goldsberry
I want to highlight the three biggest transactions quickly. Obviously bringing Carlisle in in 2021, bringing Halliburton in via trade that a lot of us reacted viscerally to in the moment. And then lastly obviously Siakam, which you outlined, those are going to stand apart. That's the core of this team. It totally reinvented the franchise in the 2000s, right? Like you outlined, they started this decade in disrepair and they are in the middle of the decade, as our friends Bill and Ryan were pointing out. Maybe one of the most well positioned teams in the entire Eastern Conference going forward. And that shines a light on Kevin Pritchard, the executive leadership of the Indiana Pacers. That's been pretty stable in a league that likes to fire everybody after anything disappointing happens. Indiana has let the food cook a little bit here, Zach, and continuity is the most underrated thing in this crazy business. And letting Kevin Pritchard build this out slowly is being rewarded. And sort of the fourth major transaction or group of transactions is the depth and Pritchard accumulating all of these complimentary pieces. When we're seeing teams like the Denver Nuggets try to play six or seven, maybe eight dudes in these playoff games, which could have cost them their season, not having depth around Nicole Jokic. Indiana's got depth and that is hard to come by in this crazy CBA era. But again, Pritchard has gotten Carlisle, gotten Halliburton, gotten Siakam, and then one of the best supporting casts around. Those guys built an offensive juggernaut. I think it's fair to say they're a little weak on the defensive side relative to some of the other top teams.
- [12:09]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, they're decent but not great.
- [12:12]
Kurt Goldsberry
But man, it's been a five year project and I think it's been terrific. And there's been a couple other teams that have done it. OKCs obviously done it. Houston has done a really nice job. We could go on, but Indiana has to be in the conversation of like who is. Who has run the 2020s the best from a front office point of view. They have to be in that conversation. And as you point out, I love that point. I forget who they had. They had one of their first top 10 picks ever a few years ago. I forgot that stat.
- [12:45]
Zach Lowe
The two guys they've gotten in the top 10 in recent drafts are Benedict Matheran, who's had moments in the playoffs and moments where he's gone to the fringes of the rotation, and Jerus Walker, who got hurt in Game 6 against Knicks. Knock on wood. He's, it's not serious, but two guys who are, you know, not among the top seven to eight contributors of this team. So yeah, they got two top 10 picks. Remember they traded, they flip flop with Washington, Koulibaly Walker in that draft. But yeah, it's, it's almost all plus or minus a one out of three games when Matheran goes off for 20 off the bench. It's almost all the loan holdover guys from four years ago, which I'll get to, and the guys they brought in via just super smart trades. We didn't even mention they got Obi Toppin for free from the Knicks. Yeah.
- [13:31]
Kurt Goldsberry
And you know, another sort of point to give some shine to Pritchard in the front office is like the level of difficulty doing this in a small market is unusually hard. Right. There are three ways you build a basketball team. The draft, free agency and trades.
- [13:47]
Zach Lowe
Right.
- [13:47]
Kurt Goldsberry
You're not going to get the free agents to move to Indianapolis. Not the marquee ones. Not. I'm taking my, I'm not taking my talents to St. Elmo. You know, I'm not doing that, going to see those guys go to the prestige markets in this era. So really that leaves you the draft and free agency. And as you pointed out the draft, they haven't been at the top of the draft. There's no J Dub, there's no Chet Home. We're in at the top three top four picks. They've done this with trades and being really savvy around the edges. So again, it's front office craft. That's what I would say. It's front office craft and we have to respect that at this moment. And we're saying how did the Pacers get here? Well, Kevin Pritchard did a great job.
- [14:28]
Zach Lowe
Now all that said, and again, just to go through the flowchart, Paul George becomes. Half of the Paul George trades is Oladipo. Oladipo becomes Keras Levert. When the Rockets decide for James Harden they want Oladipo instead of they want Oladipo and not whatever else Levert from the Nets. Lavert then becomes the picks that become Nemhardt and Shepherd Brogdon becomes Neesmith and Julian Strother. Strother becomes one of the picks that they trade for Siaka. We could do all the flowcharts. We should mention Kurt Goldsberry that this front office that we are. There's a term for this now that the young people use when you talk up people like this. I don't remember what it is. They did offer Deandre Ayton a max offer sheet in the summer of 2022 and were bailed out by the Phoenix Suns being like, well, we just can't lose guy for nothing. And matching the opportunity. Just, just an interesting sort of what if that we need. We should mention. You should mention it was after the Sabonis trade, the Halliburton trade. And so, you know, who knows if there's like a Miles Turner going the other way in that trade, whatever it is, but it's just, just a little fork in the road.
- [15:40]
Kurt Goldsberry
All of these stories have that though, right? All of these stories have we almost did this. Thank God we didn't do that. Oh, we would have drafted this guy but the other team was. Was dumb enough to take him in front of us. Or there's, there's always. But yeah, that, that's a good point. It's a fair point to bring up. They've dangled Miles Turner, at least according to reports for longer than I can remember. As long as I've been doing this, I feel like Miles Turner's been in trade rumors. But yeah, I still think the signal is more significant than the noise when we.
- [16:13]
Zach Lowe
Oh yeah, it just needs to be said.
- [16:16]
Kurt Goldsberry
No notes. I agree.
- [16:18]
Zach Lowe
Here are, Here are the 9 players who played more than 35 games, 10 players rather who played more than 35 games for the 2020, 2021 Indiana Pacers who did not make the playoffs and fired their coach after firing Nate McMillan a year before. After giving Nate McMillan a semi fake contract extension. Just again, chaos. Chaos for a team that has never lived in chaos. The 10 players who played more than 35 games for the Indiana Pacers four years ago, not 10 years ago. Justin Holiday, T.J. mcConnell. Still here. Doug McDermott, Aaron Holiday, Damonta Sabonis, Malcolm Brogdon, Edmond Sumner, Miles Turner, Goga Batadze and Jeremy lamb. That's the 2021 Indiana Pacers with Laverta and coming in at 35 games from there to here is, is kind of crazy and I'm glad you mentioned Carlisle because I said this on Bill's pod last week we did a post game live well into the morning here in the East. He's, he's only won one championship, right? So like when you, when you talk about the coaches who made the top, what did they do? The top 15 all time coaches in conjunction with the 75 players. I don't think he was on it. It's all guys who have won multiple titles. SPO Riley, Phil like these are the Pop, these are the Golds, and even like Casey Jones from the 80s one multiple times, whatever. I'm not really like. And they're, they're going to be major underdogs in this series, right. So there's a good chance, the best chance of all chances that Rick Carlisle finishes his coaching girl at the one title he's going to be in. I don't even care about that. I care. But the conversations this guy belongs in now. The win count is climbing very high. He's sniffing around top 10 all time wins. The playoff win count is starting to get very high. Another Finals appearances here. The adaptability both in terms of style and his coaching style and coaching personality is notable. And I said this with Bill, you never. I don't think I've ever gotten to the end of a playoff series involving a Rick Carlisle team and had like, well, I wish they would have tried that or they did that too much or there's a lever I would have pulled that they didn't pull. They didn't try toggling the matchups that way. They do he. There's just, there's nothing, it's not even that there's nothing left on the table. It's that the table is constructed with the right food ingredients and almost from the beginning of a series. And the tweaks are just small. You just never, I don't know, I just never feel like I have anything to second guess, criticize, whatever. It's just, it's. He's just an awesome, awesome coach. He should make the hall of Fame and he's gonna, I think he should enter. I mean it's hard to put him like with the pops and the fills and all that, but he's gonna be in and deserves to be in some major, major historic territory regardless of what happens in this series.
- [19:26]
Kurt Goldsberry
I agree and I think, you know, he's a player who won a championship in Boston, at least one. I don't have his playing card up in front of me. But the 2011 playoff run where they sweep the Lakers out of the playoffs, they beat Oklahoma City 4 to 1 in the, in the Western finals. And then, you know, upend the Heatles in their first trip to the NBA Finals. And that series, what do you remember that series for? Zach Lowe.
- [19:55]
Zach Lowe
I'll know.
- [19:55]
Kurt Goldsberry
What I remember for is very strange rotations. Rick Carlisle famously using advanced stats at the time to inform his lineups in a way that is still sort of canonical when we talk about the history of basketball analytics in the 2000s, but just frustrating. A young LeBron James, making him sort of pout outside the three point line and getting an older Dirk Nowitzki, that incredible championship and we don't have to go down memory lane too much. All I'd say is like, this team is completely different. There's not this play. This team is almost like the 7 seconds or less Suns. This is a very different basketball team.
- [20:43]
Zach Lowe
Sometimes, like I told Bill, we need to come up with a nickname that's not X Seconds or Less because we need to have that be the Suns thing. And frankly, there were like made baskets in game six where it was like four Seconds or less after made baskets after Knicks made baskets. The shot clock is at 21 and Pascal Siakam is going up for his layup. It was like insane. By the way, just the 2011 match, talking about buttons that were pushed zone defense in the Finals, crazy comeback in game two of the series and just the playoff run. It's one of those classic playoff runs. Like there's the Peja Stackovic game, there's a Corey Brewer game. Like you need all of these guys on your team to win for a playoff series. 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. Let's talk about the other playoff series that is coming. The NBA Finals, Oklahoma City, Indiana Big picture the number one ingredient you have to have to have any chance against the Oklahoma City Thunder is to take care of the ball. The Pacers at least enter with that under their belt. They were third lowest turnover rate in the regular season and the Thunder forced obviously more turnovers than anyone. And they forced even more in the playoffs. Third lowest turnover rate. And the remarkable thing about Halliburton and Carlisle and the style they play is a lot of low turnover teams are low turnover teams because they are low risk teams because they play frankly like the Knicks play, which is just minimal passing a lot of ISO ball. That's the upside of playing a lot of predictable ISO balls. You don't pass it, you don't turn it over, you don't move that much, etc. The Pacers play frenzied offense in the half court and in the full court, and they still don't turn it over. So they at least have that going for them. The Pacers, you know, and I talked. I'm going to talk about this with Ian Begley in the second segment. They don't have an easy place to put your Chet Holmgren rim protector and just say, hang out there, but really just be a help guy. They don't have a Jaden McDaniels. They don't have a Josh Hart, which was made very clear because the Knicks could not find a place to put Karl Anthony Towns against them for a lot of the series. Their closest one, you might say, is like Neesmith. And Neesmith moves around like a madman, setting screens, just running around. And by the way, you talk to people with the Pacers, interesting sidebar, and I've hung out with a lot of them because they were in New York for a lot of the last couple weeks. They give a lot of credit for this. Not a lot. It's more like don't forget this guy kind of credit. They bring up the name Buddy Heald a lot in Indiana and his importance in inculcating a style of randomness in the half court where your shooting guard is not standing around, where he's running around, setting screens, curling off here just diagonally crossing the court. And how Neesmith watched and learned from Buddy Hield's example and adapted a lot of that just, just to sidetrack. So they don't have that kind of player for Chad Holmgret. Holmgren's either gonna have to guard Turner or Siakam or risk guarding an outside shooter. And so they have those things going for them. The Thunder have a lot of other stuff going for them. And the number one thing the Thunder have going for them, other than their defense, just even broader than that stylistically, is the Pacers have just caught every opponent off guard with the frenzied style in which they'd play, the maniacal pace in the full court, the constant flurry of movement and random screens and cuts in the half court and their depth combined with that frenzied style of play, wearing shallower teams down. If there is a team that is perfectly constructed to live in the frenzy with them, to say, you want to live in the frenzy, I'll live in the frenzy with you. It's the Thunder who have high iq, super high iq, super switchable defenders everywhere you look who are young and not tired and deep so they won't get tired and you know, and have, by the way, this is maybe the best transition offense in the league against the best transition defense in the league. And a lot of those easy buckets Indiana got against the Knicks are not going to be there against the Thunder. But I just love the. It's not a contrast in styles. It's like they kind of like to live in the same. Just the games vibrating with intensity and frenzy and speed. And the edge that Indiana has had against other teams, catching them off guard, walloping them, is not going to be there against the Thunder. That's just the big zoom out picture.
- [26:02]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I think, I think that's right. And when you look at when Indiana has the basketball, Zach, OKC is uniquely positioned to, to defend it. I think, you know, there's no shortage of sort of signature stats for this OKC defense. In fact, it's. There's so many they probably don't have one. But the one that jumped out to me all year long is they don't turn it over, but they'll force the most turnovers. And both of these teams, to your point, sort of thrive on this oxygen of chaos. Defense turning into offense, youth and depth helping us get down the court faster and finding easy fast offense. I missed the only one. The only Knicks Pacers game I got to go to was game two. Zach, I asked you if you were going to be there. You could not attend that evening. But I too spent some time with the Pacers and I asked one of their stat guys, I said, hey man, what's the signature stat of your team? What is the thing that you haven't heard talked about that really exemplifies what you guys are about? And do you want to guess?
- [27:13]
Zach Lowe
I mean, you could be digging in if it's you and another stats guy. It could be something so deep into the weeds that I'll never guess it. I'm gonna.
- [27:19]
Kurt Goldsberry
Okay, let me get.
- [27:20]
Zach Lowe
Let me guess, let me guess. Let me look at my notes. I'm guessing it's not turnovers because we already brought that up. Guessing it's not Pace because that's too obvious.
- [27:31]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, it's related to Pace. There's your hint.
- [27:35]
Zach Lowe
It can't be fast break points. That's too. Well, what is it? Just tell me what it is.
- [27:38]
Kurt Goldsberry
Well, Pace is complicated because of turnovers.
- [27:41]
Zach Lowe
Right.
- [27:41]
Kurt Goldsberry
But forget that. So it's related, by the way. Seven seconds or less. We need a better nickname for this team. Couldn't agree more. But I also love that this team is called the Pacers. I'm sure Other people have had this revelation, but it's like, has a team ever been perfectly named before? This team, this is perfect.
- [27:56]
Zach Lowe
And for their city, it's named after the pace cars of the Indianapolis 500, which just occurred, I guess.
- [28:02]
Kurt Goldsberry
Which just occurred. I mean, it's, it's all coming together. But the. The young man who I'm referring to said, hey, look at our time across half court. And I did. And so there's a couple ways we measure pace. It's number of possessions per game. That's what Dean Oliver said. I love that. But if you, if you're sloppy with the basketball, you sort of get more possessions. Another way to look at it is like, how fast do we get the ball down the floor? And other people have pointed this out, but whether it's Tyrese or Nemhard or whoever, they push it. They push the basketball. And out of all the teams in the playoffs, in the regular season, they are the fastest or among the very fastest to get the basketball from, whether it's a rebound or a made basket across, get into early offense, get the switch you want, and start working earlier and often to look at offensive opportunities. So at least internally, that's one thing they're really proud of. And we opened the podcast and I said, hey, Carlisle's yelling pace. You know, kind of like Tibbs used to yell ice. We have Carlisle over here yelling pace. Which again, is fitting for the Pacers. But to go back to your point, dude, I just don't know if those kind of cheap opportunities that this offense thrives on are going to exist against the best defense we've seen in a while. And that's one of the keys to this series. They lost both of the regular season matchups. I know you dove in and you have some takeaways here, but the headline is OKC was was 2 and, oh, this year against this team. Chet Holmgren didn't play in either of those basketball games. And I know you're going to get into this, but when you look at it at a very top line level, Zach, I'm curious what stuck out to you? For me, Tyrese Halliburton had his lowest usage of the entire season in the first matchup, and he only managed three assists in the second matchup. And if those kinds of stats persist here in the ultimate series in pro basketball, I just don't see a path. And again, a lot of that has to do with your point. The Pacers thrive on chaos frenzy. They want to live in the frenzy. Well, like you said, OKC's defense. Come on in.
- [30:15]
Zach Lowe
The Thunder were raised in the darkness. Okay, let's talk about when Indiana has the ball because they're facing a juggernaut and I like to split up reviews this way. Let's. Let's just top level a couple of things. If they're going to have any chance to win four games in this series, they need to take care of the ball and the turnovers need to be even or they need to win. And this is a tall order for them because they're not a good rebounding team. But Oklahoma City is not a good rebounding team. They need to scrounge some rebounding second chance points. And we saw them do that in snippets against the Knicks. And they need to win the free throw battle. The Thunder were 28th in free throw rate on offense and 26th in free throw rate on defense. The Pacers are just like rebounding. They're a mediocre free throw team on both ends. They're sort of average. They just need to have like a plus 5 attempts edge in per game to have a fighting chance along with the turnovers. Now. Okay, Indiana with the ball. You mentioned Holmgren. We have not seen the Pacers play against the Double Big Thunder, a proper Double Big Thunder basically at all. And that's where the curiosity starts with me is how the Thunder match up. And another I think thing that is good for the Thunder in this series is this feels like a pretty safe one big series for them if they decide that the Double Big lineup is a little wonky matchup wise and we want to sort of de. Emphasize that. And up the minutes where either Chet is the lone big man or Isaiah Hartenstein is the lone big man. Or, and I think we'll see this, there is no big man. We can go five out and play all our wings against this team because J Dub can guard Pascal and we don't really, you know, we'll put guards and wings on Miles Turner and maybe it goes that way. And I think that's. And we. We've seen sort of as the playoffs have gone on that Shett as lone big man and Shett's setting in that role as the lone big man, setting like flat screens for Shea where he disguises what direction the screen is really going to be set or just let Shea pick or lets the defense get confused and make the first move and make the wrong move had become more and more of a weapon as the playoffs have gone on. But let's start with the double big stuff. Dort Just. Just going through everybody, just going through every tough matchup. Dort's going to guard Tyrese Halliburton.
- [32:44]
Kurt Goldsberry
And.
- [32:47]
Zach Lowe
You know, Hartenstein and Chet will split the Siakam Turner matchups defensively. If it were me, I would probably start with Chet on Siakam and Hartenstein on Turner. They have played a lot, and again, we haven't seen the double bigs, but they've. They've played a lot with Hartenstein on Siakam and Jdub on Turner. That's without Shett, and that makes a lot of sense. You put your center on Siakam. We've seen a lot of teams do that. Maybe they'll start that way. And it certainly makes sense to put a faster range year defender on Myles Turner and a bigger, bulkier defender on Pascal Siakam. Maybe they'll start that way. I like the idea of Chad on Siakam because I think his length can bother Pascal in the post, and I just like him closer to the rim. Maybe they get really funky and put Chet on Andrew Nevhardt or something crazy and be like, hey, deal with that surprise. But I think one of those areas is where you start and then you put, you know, J Dub and Shay will guard, Shea will guard one of the Neesmith Nemhardt duo and J Double guard the other. Anything in there strike you as a place that the Pacers can poke at?
- [33:56]
Kurt Goldsberry
No. I mean, honestly, no. This is. There's no poking. There's no poking on this team. There's like, who's the weak link on this team? And I'm glad you brought up Lou Dort because, like you, I dove into the regular season matchups, and as I sort of alluded to, Tyrese has played 89 times this season. Regular season, playoffs, and the two games against OKC have both been in the bottom 10 of his direct touches. In other words, he's been sort of passive. And I bring that up because that has a lot to do with Lou Dort. Among the 19 players who guarded Halliburton at least 50 times in the half court this season, nobody has held Tyrese Halliburton to a lower usage rate. I went back and watched, tried to make you proud, some video of their games. And I noticed, like Nemhard bringing up the ball a lot in spots where I would expect it. Tyrese to be bringing up the ball. A lot of times Tyrese is making the right play. I'm not saying he's being passive. He's getting the ball out of his hands quickly to a teammate. But ultimately, Tyrese Halliburt's going to have to be good. This is not a hot take for them to win this series. And because of Lou Dortmund, he hasn't been good in the first two games because of Lou Dort and some of his teammates. And we saw this with Minnesota. If you'll indulge me to go back in time here for a second, one of my pet peeves in NBA discourse is when a player like Julius Randle or Anthony Edwards suddenly appears passive, the hot take discourse goes into over gears. If you want to be a superstar and this, you're going to. You know who I'm talking about. Sometimes it's the defense. Sometimes. Sometimes this is what great defense does. Whether you're talking about Tim Duncan making somebody go away or Kevin Garnett, this is what great defense does. And one of the things this Thunder defense has done in his previous two matchups is reduce the effectiveness of Halliburton and Siakam. And just to give some shine to Lou Dort, he's been the primary defender. In the case of Halliburton, Holmgren hasn't even played. I agree with you. Holmgren probably will guard Pascal Siakam and Chet Holmgren for a second, by the way, in that Minnesota series. You could sort of see him waking up to his own power as a defender throughout that series. I can protect the rim as well as anybody. I can block shots that nobody else can, both on the ball and as a help defender. Who do you poke at? I'll ask you the same question, Zach. Who do you poke out if you're Rick Carlisle in this series?
- [36:39]
Zach Lowe
So I think the answer is almost easier. There's no easy answer, but the answer to me is at least clearer when the Thunder have two bigs on the floor. Because at the very least I can. I can poke at. What are you going to do if Hartenstein's on Miles Turner? How are you going to handle a Halliburton Turner pick and roll? Are you going to drop now? Are you going to do a high drop where you corral me high at the screen and then scramble back to Miles Turner? Probably. And maybe that's. Maybe that's good enough. Maybe Hardenstein is so good at that and Turner's not a high volume enough three point shooter that you live with six or seven of those kind of semi contested Miles Turner pick and pop threes. Maybe you do have to start stunting a third guy from the wing or from the corner to challenge Miles Turner on those threes. And Maybe that compromises other areas of your defense, but maybe not. Maybe you switched some. And if you go back and watch the film, they have dared to switch Hartenstein onto Halliburton and that's a mismatch. It's a bad matchup. Halliburton is going to have to dance and make some step back threes. He's going to have to fake the step back three and then blow by him off the dribble and create something good. And I think the Thunder are okay dabbling in that. Just like okay Pacers. Like, if you want to take your offense out of rhythm to ISO like that, we'll live with it. And one of the things the Pacers are great at is they don't take that bait. They keep the offense flowing even when Halliburton has a matchup like that. Here comes set. Obi Toppin, come set. A random screen for. Oh, you flared out of it and you're open for three. And the defense is doing this and that. They keep it rolling and they have to keep that balance of Tyrese. Sometimes it's going to be you and sometimes we're going to have the rhythm of our offense sustained. So I think, you know, and if, if Chet is on Siakam or wherever, if there's a big on Siakam inverted pick and rolls with Siakam and Halliburton, Halliburton, Siaka picking rolls. Test those big guys. Are they going to switch? Can they keep up with Pascal and drop whatever? It becomes a lot harder. Not harder, but when the Thunder goes smaller and J Dub is on Siakam or whatever, like, we'll see all kinds of different looks. Big, small, what the matchups are. But when J Dubs on Siakam and Dort is on Halliburton, that's just an auto switch. Like that's, that's, that's, that's a, that's, that's an auto switch and it should be an auto switch. And really what we're actually talking about here is there is no hunting ground when you play the Thunder. Like the Pacers have a hunting ground. And it's Tyrese Halliburton. And by the way, he has been adequate on defense in these playoffs, has made some plays on defense in these playoffs, has hedged his way out of trouble and out of switches that the other team wants. He has been good enough defensively. He's about to face the biggest challenge he's faced so far. But credit to Tyrese Halliburton. And if you Talk to people at the Pacers. That Boston series last year, I believe he got hurt in game two. They were relentlessly picking on Tyrese Halliburton, as you knew the Celtics would in a way that no team really had been just like, okay, it's going to be every possession, man. We're never letting you off the hook. And, you know, people within the Pacers will say, like, I don't wake up call is too strong of a word. But that was the teaching point where Halliburton realized, like, that's how it's going to be in the playoffs at the highest level. It's going to be every single possession, like, you're just going to have to be a little better. And you can't do that with Shay. You can try, and you might be able to get a favorable matchup size wise here and there. And he's just too big, too tall, too rangy, too handsy with too much help behind him. And so you run out of. You're sort of like by default going to try your little guys against their big guys to see if you can poke at their feet a little bit, get them off balance. But. But you know, it's going to be tough, obviously, like you've. You've said it's going to be tough.
- [40:30]
Kurt Goldsberry
And I know we're going to talk about the other side of the court here in a minute, but they have to look again. The only game Minnesota beat OKC in, they checked all the boxes. You said at the top of this little mini segment here, they. They won the turnover battle. They won the points in the paint, they won points off turnovers, they hit more threes. And it was sort of this weird anomaly in that route of a series. But I would give them the same prescription, right? You can't give OKC cheap points. You have to take care of the basketball. Remember, these aren't sort of. These aren't typical turnovers. I think another signature stat for OKC is their ability to get steals. They'll take it from you. They will take the basketball from you. I think Halliburton is pretty good with that. Siakam. When he gets into his bag, I'm a little bit more worried that somebody's going to come through and just wrestle the ball away from him when he gets into a spin cycle. They can't do that. They have to play near perfect. And the other thing that Minnesota was able to do in that win was their role players made all their shots. So we're going to need to see naismith we're going to need to see those off ball shooters when they get those chances, knock down those three point shots. And to their credit, they've been really good at that obviously throughout these playoffs. But it is a tall task. They need to be pretty perfect on offense both in terms of shot making and taking care of the basketball. And ultimately, Tyrese has to be more aggressive against that Lou Dort matchup than he has been in the previous two games.
- [42:09]
Zach Lowe
And I think he will. I mean, look, Tyrese is always in a seven game series. Just the nature of how he plays. He's going to have a game that's low usage, where it's like, was he too pass first? Did he not shoot enough? Like that's just how he is as a player. And I think he reminded us in game six when he closed the Knicks out in the fourth quarter with two point bucket after two point bucket. Nothing easy. I think he reminded us in game 6, don't go nuts when he has the 11 point low usage game and do the whole thing. Like every single game is a referendum on Tyrese Halliburton. Like there's a next game coming and he'll probably play pretty well. And he probably played pretty well in the game before that.
- [42:46]
Kurt Goldsberry
Wait, hold on. Is he a superstar though? Zach, would you say, is Tyrese Halliburton a superstar?
- [42:51]
Zach Lowe
I think I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing. A lot of these things are just like, I do have to say a lot of these, like, face of the NBA.
- [43:04]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah.
- [43:05]
Zach Lowe
I could not be more tired of face of the NBA. I don't even remember when this became a thing that we cared about. Is Anthony Edwards the face of the NBA? Is he ready to be the face of the NBA? Is this guy the face of the NBA? Is Jokic the face? Can any European person be the face of the NBA? Can. Whatever. A lot of that and a lot of the Izziest superstar or not conversation is just. Is quite frankly, quite frankly a substitute for talking about basketball. It's like we don't want to do it or think that the audience wants to hear it. So we're just gonna have these same conversations every day because they can be interesting if done right. And a lot of times they are done right. And because they involve just talking about the best players. And talking about the best players is what drives ratings and all that anyway. Yes, he's a superstar.
- [43:57]
Ian Begley
Whatever.
- [43:58]
Zach Lowe
I don't care.
- [43:59]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah.
- [44:00]
Zach Lowe
Is he a super duper star? Is he a superstar? Is he A megastar. Is he a. Does he face red giant? Isn't a red giant a kind of star or kind of a planet? I don't know.
- [44:09]
Kurt Goldsberry
Supernova?
- [44:09]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, is. He's not a black hole, I'll tell you that.
- [44:14]
Kurt Goldsberry
He's not a black hole.
- [44:15]
Zach Lowe
If we're talking about astrological bodies.
- [44:17]
Kurt Goldsberry
He's not a white dwarf. He's not a white dwarf. We know that.
- [44:20]
Zach Lowe
And he's not a black hole. What the hell are we talking about? Oh, Pacers offense. I mentioned poking at the bigs when it's available. Not that it's a great place to go like Hardenstein. Pretty damn good. Chet Holmgren you mentioned, by the way. I do think we're going to see that. Move Chet Holmgren around when possible. Like TJ McConnell. I think he's going to guard TJ McConnell here or there and quote unquote, guard him. Ben Shepard, Why not give it a try? Ben Matheran. I can see Ohm grin guarding Ben Matheran. Hey, drive at me. I know that's what you want to do, drive at me. But when, when they do poke at Hartenstein, Holmgren, whatever. I think again, like the ifs have to go Indiana's way. That's the nature of being an underdog. A lot of the ifs have to flip right for you. Obviously, Siakam's gonna have have to have a monster series, and he's been spectacular for them. But one of the ways in which he's gonna have to have a monster series is the rare chances he gets to post up a smaller guard. They've gotta find him and he's gotta make that work. But more than that, on the pick and pop game, when they don't switch and there's big man on him, he's just going to have to make enough threes and even more pointedly than that, pump go, drive past their big guys and make the next play. And Miles Turner. The most underrated part of Miles Turner's evolution as a player is him becoming proficient, posting up smaller players. Like, that's almost an automatic two points now. And it's going to have to be an automatic 2 points in this series. Those are just, you know, little, little pokes. And just more broadly, the frenzy, like you're going to have to out frenzy them. This when you're running your half court stuff, it's going to have to be a plus level, peak creativity, peak urgency. Like one of my favorite sets the Pacers run is Halliburton sprints the ball up and the guard who is being defended by the weakest defender. And Miles Turner set up a stagger screen for Halliburton. But instead of just like I'm going to do the thing where I do a slow pick and roll around two screens, Halliburton will whip the ball to Miles Turner and sprint at him. And the screens are like, they're not regular staggered screens. They're staggered like 12ft apart. So he'll. He might some like cut in between them or dribble in between them. There's all. And it's just so fast. Like it's going to have to just be peak level Indiana offense.
- [46:43]
Kurt Goldsberry
One more note. Isaiah Harenstein doesn't have to play. You kind of alluded to this and one of the other notes I had from their second game, the March 29 game where Oklahoma City did not have trouble scoring. And I know we're about to talk about that. Isaiah, Isaiah hartenstein only played 14 minutes. So depth. Everybody talks about depth. Depth means optionality when you have good coaches. Right? Depth means optionality. And you said this, but even if Harden's deed is played out of this series, the Thunder is still going to have an incredible defensive option. Whether it's J Dub and Chet up there. They can go small. You already alluded to this, so I'm not, I'm not taking credit for that observation. I just want to say they could play Hartenstein off the court. Dagnall could quickly realize that Hardenstein has a less of a role in this series. Cool. You just beat us with that. We can't keep up with these high velocity actions that you're running at Hartenstein. Cool. We'll just, we'll just go small. And that's the most underrated part of depth in the NBA playoffs is you have multiple looks to counter with in a situation just like that.
- [47:56]
Zach Lowe
And we've talked about Dort on Tyrese Halliburton. It goes without saying that that's also going to be Kayson Wallace. It's also going to be Alex Caruso. And God help you when Alex Caruso is even for an artist of Tyrese Halliburton's level, it's just not any fun to be guarded by any of these guys. Let's talk about the other end of the floor. Under the end in which we don't discuss as much with the Thunder because it's a lot of Shay and the defense is the headliner. But this is still a tremendous offensive team. They were the number three offense in the NBA in the regular season. They have answered the bell of zone defenses, of pack the paint defenses. It's been a little, it's, it's, it was a little jittery against Denver when the Threes weren't going down, but they've largely answered the bell and you know, Nemhardt has largely gotten the SGA assignment. I suspect Siakam will guard Chet Turner will guard Hartenstein. That's no, those are nice places to start. Halliburton will probably hide on Lou Dort. So there's no cross match there. And there's, you know, a lot of places the Thunder could go. Just but, but when you look at Indiana's defense against this offense, what, what answers do you see for a team that's become a good defensive team as the season has gone on? What, what, what matchups do you like or answers do you potentially see?
- [49:16]
Kurt Goldsberry
In short, this is where, this is where the series is going to be won or lost. And I don't see a lot of answers. Again, studying the team's tendencies, watching both of them go through the rounds. I'm sure you'll have better X's and O's analysis than me on this one, but looking at the resume, one of the dumb guy stats to take away from the March 29 game is OK. Ski scored 132 points and Nemhard tried his best. Again, this is an offense in OKC that doesn't need to get into fancy pick and roll actions. You know, SGA leads the league in a few categories that I think help explain what we're about to watch. He leads the league in isolations. He leads the league in drives. He leads the league in driving layups made. He leads the league in mid range field goals in the playoffs. This is going to be hey Nemhard, here you are on your island again. Can you stop this? And frankly, they don't have another player that they can try or they would have tried it in March 29th game.
- [50:19]
Zach Lowe
Well, Naismith would be another one. The ankle looms. Looms. Interesting. McConnell will get. McConnell will get chances off the bench. But yeah, I mean Shay, Shay is the mvp. I mean.
- [50:30]
Kurt Goldsberry
And yeah, I think it's a good time to plug my piece on theringer.com that'll have up tomorrow. I'm on deadline so I have a video. I'm going to challenge your incredible producers at the Zach Lowe show to get some of the video here because what we were able to do, Zach, for the first time was use the Hawkeye data that I know you're familiar with. But for the first time the Hawkeye data, the pose tracking data to really dive into Shays offense and you know he does so much, he doesn't need a lot of help. It is sort of an updated version of James Harden. He'll isolate at the top, he'll drive the ball and then he'll get into one of three things or four things really. He'll get to the rim, finish with a layup. Like I said, he leads the league in driving layups this year. He'll get into the mid range, we can get into that. He's a great passer, we know that. And then of course there's the free throw merchant stuff where he can get you in trouble as a, you know, guy who can draw a whistle. And I think those are the sort of four main branches that nobody has had an answer to. And with all due respect to the Pacers, OKC has already faced off against much more qualified defenses in these playoffs and they haven't had an answer. So I'm very skeptical Zach, about whether or not the Pacers defense can stop Shay Gilgis Alexander in a way that Minnesota didn't. I'm skeptical and ultimately this is the side of the court I'm looking at when I pick the Thunder to win this series decisively.
- [52:13]
Zach Lowe
Interesting thing about the Pacers is they played the 11th most zone defense possessions in the regular season. I've essentially not played zone other than a few out of time out possessions in the playoffs. Denver had its best traction playing zone against the Thunder and just saying, you know, the normal pick and roll rhythms that you're talking about are not going to be there for you. And I thought Minnesota would have played more zone against Oklahoma City than they did. And I'm going into this thinking we'll see Indiana play some zone, certainly more than the almost none they've played in the playoffs. And I do wonder if I'm looking at the Denver series the wrong way in terms of Denver, the simple way to look at it is Denver has success on zone in zone. Therefore you should also try zone against the Thunder. Well, number one, teams are often loath to play what is not their base defense right off the bat because it's a sort of a sign of weakness. It's a sign that you're telling your players we don't have the faith in your man to man defense to contain this team. Number two, I do wonder if Denver ruined this for everybody else that the reps the Thunder got playing against a good zone defense in the playoffs got them comfortable, got them Touches got them knowing how to get two on ones on the sideline where the diagonal gaps are just more comfortable playing against it. I wonder if Minnesota and now Indiana. Look at this. God damn Nuggets. Did you have to just throw the boat at them like that? Throw the kitchen sink of zone at them like that in the second round because now they're comfortable with it. So I don't know, I suspect we'll see some. I don't know how much you mentioned. Obviously SGA is the headliner and Nemhardt has gotten that assignment quite a bit and Halliburton will hide on Dort. And we all know that the Thunder credit to Mark Dagnall for this, it's three years into this now are the best guard guard screening team in the NBA. So if the Thunder conclude, hey, we're kind of in a slump. We want to hunt Tyrese Halliburton, Lou Dort, can you come set some screens for Shay, Gildish, Alexander or, you know, I think we'll see Shay being used as a screener, maybe not for Lou Dort, whose ball handling makes me nervous. But if Tyrese is hiding somewhere else, Kayson, Wallace, Alex Caruso, wherever Shay, you set a ball screen, that's a low hanging fruit. We'll see some of that. Maybe we'll see J Dub play a little bully ball if he gets them on switches and all of that. But you know that those are, those are sort of the simpler things. When they have Turner and Siakam in the game, they at least have a fighting chance to play competent pick and roll defense against Shay. You know, Miles Turner has toyed with against Shay coming up to the level of the screen. Sometimes he hard hedges and I don't like, I don't like that Shay turns the corner real easily against him or splits it real easily against him. And Siakam can just guard everybody. The one thing I will say about Siakam is he might not be as switchy onto elite, elite guards as he kind of seems like he should be given how rangy and fast he is. The Pacers tried very hard to keep him out of switching against Brunson and that surprised me a little bit. And then the few times where he got the switch, Brunson torched him. I was like, okay, that's why they're keeping him out of that switch. So you know, look, it's going to be a, it's going to be a tall order. And order number one is again, you just have to not give them turnovers and make Them play in the half court and other than that traditional ish pick and roll defense shrink the floor as much as possible and you just got to hope that the other guy shooters have a series like they did against Denver or Dallas last year and not like they just did against Minnesota where J Dub and Chet woke up from three and everybody else made enough too.
- [56:02]
Kurt Goldsberry
Great notes. I think Siakam off the court, the defense looks terrible.
- [56:10]
Zach Lowe
He's the guy plugging every hole in.
- [56:12]
Kurt Goldsberry
The dam just and one of the things that I noticed in the Game 6 win over the Knicks was Carlisle really tightened up his rotation, specifically Siakam's rests. I think traditionally Siakam comes out pretty early in the first, then again in the second, then again in the third. He plays less than 36 minutes like a lot of these Pacers guys, which is cool. But in those moments that that essentially one quarter of an NBA game, the Pacers defense has gone to really gone from good to bad without Siakam. And I'm not smart enough to know exactly why that's happening, Zach, but I'll tell you it's going to be really interesting to see whether Siakam plays more than 36 minutes in this series if they can survive those non Siakam defensive minutes. Because again the Death Star that is Oklahoma City has no gaps. We saw it when Denver tried to rest Jokic, right? Like dude, we don't need a rest. We're coming at you no matter who's on the court. We're good, we're competent. I might add, when Halle comes out too, Hal Burton comes out, their offense goes in the tank. So really that's where I'm interested to see if Carlisle could be as generous with his bench as he has been in these Eastern Conference series. But I think you were astute to point out the Siakam Turner thing because they are a good defense. I think I have them ninth in the playoffs, which isn't great, but isn't terrible. Ultimately, I think that's the side of the court that Oklahoma City has punished them the most on in the regular season. So again, that's where I'm at. Will, will they survive those non Siaka moments? Will Miles Turner be good enough to keep this Thunder offense, specifically sga, at bay and away from the free throw line? I'm not so sure about that, Zach.
- [58:06]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, I mean obviously I'm not either. I do think Dagnall, going back to the one big versus two big question, I do think he's pulled all the right strings on that so far, not overdoing one look or the other feeling out when, yeah, maybe this isn't. Maybe this is a hardenstein plays 15 minutes game and we play chetmore and we go five out some. One of the reasons I think that look is good for them is when they do get Shea isoing against a favorable matchup or they do run guard, guards, pick and rolls where Caruso is rolling into the lane as the screener and they double Shay up top. All of those reads are easier when there's one big on the floor instead of two for Oklahoma City, the space is cleaner, particularly if it's homegrown and he's spaced out to the perimeter. On the flip side, like in the minutes they've shared together and I mentioned the zone and the reps they've got in the zone. They're killing people with backline lobs against the zone. They're killing people with Chet lobs to Hartenstein in the pick and roll. Like they've just found a comfort level with both looks. And I think we'll see both looks in this series. A couple other fun subplots, a lot of Canada versus Canada in this series. A big Canada finals. We got Dort and SGA against Matheran and Nemhardt. There may be other Canadians that I'm forgetting. I'm sorry if there are other Canadians I'm overlooking right now. We have two all time. Oh, my God. Do we regret not drafting them all stars in? Shay Gildas Alexander, the 11th pick by the Charlotte Hornets, and Tyrese Halliburton. We went through a lot of the what ifs, obviously with Tyrese Halliburton on Bill's pod. And just. So those are some fun angles. And I do think, you know, Indiana is obviously an underdog. Do you have a pick? Do you want to make a pick?
- [59:58]
Kurt Goldsberry
I have a pick. Can I do one more subplot?
- [60:00]
Zach Lowe
Yeah.
- [60:01]
Kurt Goldsberry
And then I'll do my pick. But, yeah. I was having breakfast with our old friend R.C. buford this weekend, and I made the point. I'm asking him, I said, hey, man, Sam Presti, huh? Like, tell me what's going through your head, rc. Because of course, Sam cut his teeth in San Antonio, like a lot of coaches and executives, but Sam is, like, really instrumental. R.C. was like, yeah, don't forget this guy helped start the system you ended up working on with our analytics and our computer system back in the 2000s. I mean, how good was Sam Presti? In his early 20s, he started sort of the spurs database. I think he gets credit for being one of the youngest assistant GMs the league's ever seen. Before he became a GM, I think he was an assistant GM at age 23, 24 winning championships in San Antonio as an assistant GM. He gets to Seattle as a 28 year old in 2007, Zach Lowe and becomes one of the youngest general managers in the sports history. You know, 18 years later, we're sitting here talking about him as somebody unquestionably as one of the better executives in that time period, one of the longest tenured executives. And he if we're going to give Pritchard all this love. Sam Presti has built such a great team within the confines of being in a small market with this new CBA out front office to almost everybody in terms of depth and youth. The Paul George trade that everybody's going to talk about this week, he deserves a lot of credit. But I think it's a great moment to just sort of think about Sam Prissy winning his first championship as sort of the head honcho of a front office.
- [61:44]
Zach Lowe
Well, I did the Thunder's journey and all the moves last week, which is why I don't want to I didn't want to overemphasize it again this week and I went through all of it. The journey from again 2012 finals where it feels like, well, they'll be here again to Harden trade that offseason and to injuries to Durant leaving and the cap spike, to acquiring Paul George pivoting off Paul George, the Chris Paul interregnum. The very only two bad years, only two down years, one of which yielded Chet, the other of which yielded Giddy, which is now Caruso. I went through all that. But yeah, there's one hole on the resume and this is as good a chance as they'll ever have to get it.
- [62:20]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yep. And I think that's great. It's also interesting to me. My first when we first met in 2012 at the Sloan Conference, I put my first sort of shot chart finals preview together for the New York Times before Bill called and changed my life. But you know, it was all hexagons and the shot charts back then, the old school Goldsbury shot charts. This year OKC is back in the finals and we have these Avatar shot charts that I'm really proud of on the ringer that we're going to show a lot of in this preview piece. So I think the fact that Sam's been there, OKC has been there has been a lot to me. So for my prediction, I think I have to say definitively out of respect for the way we look at the game statistically, this is such a great OKC team. I'm going to pick the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games, which is a shorter number than I almost always predict. And I do that out of respect to the Pacers, but ultimately out of respect because this is one of the best teams we've seen play. The blowout statistics, the net rating statistics, all the defensive metrics they lead in. And oh, by the way, they have the MVP and the scoring champion on the offensive end of the court. So I just don't see a way for Indiana to overcome all of that as good as they've been in these playoffs. So I'm taking the Thunder and five.
- [63:41]
Zach Lowe
Zach, any pick that's not Thunder and five or Thunder and six is, you think something interesting is going to happen in this series or something against the grand is going to happen. Any pick for Pacers win is an incredibly ballsy pick. Thunder and seven is, I think, a very large vote of confidence in the pacers. Thunder in 4 is a very large vote of no confidence in the Pacers. The two in between picks are the most logical picks. And if you want to give the Pacers two games and say OKC and six, they close it on the road, fine. I felt like that. That felt like. And I don't like to pick five and four unless it's like a 1-827- kind of obvious walkover, particularly for a team that has defied expectations like Indiana, that has proven over and over again that it is up for raising its level to where it needs to be. But given how I feel about the Thunder and home court and them getting over the hump against the Nuggets and then blitzing Minnesota Thunder and five felt like the most honest representation of how I feel about the series. And I will say this, forget the ratings, the network, the audience, I think this is going to be an awesome series to watch, basketball wise. It gets really awesome on one end and potentially maybe not that interesting on the other. If Indiana steals one of these first two games in Oklahoma City, right? If this is 2, 0 coming out of Oklahoma City, even if the games are close, I just feel like we're setting up for Thunder and five. They go, they get a split, Thunder come home. If Indiana can somehow steal one of these games and they have had a bank robbery in every single series, they've had the crazy comebacks, they've had one in every series. Just like get in the getaway car, drive away, go to the statue house, go to the layer, divide the money and go our separate ways. Never see each other again. Bank robbery. You know, when the heat's coming around the corner, you got to have nothing in your life that you care about for more than 30 seconds. Get out. If, if they steal one of these games, we will at least have this nice delicious three day period of like anything's possible. Anything's possible. Like they're going home. Like even if they just get a split at home, it's two, two, pressure builds, etc. If it's too. To me, the first game or two are going to define how the series feels. That if it's too okc, I'm going to be very worried that we're headed for a very predictable ending. So just as I was rooting for Knicks to Force Game 7, the neutral fan in me is rooting. We come out of Oklahoma City somehow, one way or another. One to one.
- [66:25]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, I agree. One sort of follow up note, but except for the Celtics last year, the Western Conference team has been favored in 10 of 11.
- [66:34]
Zach Lowe
45 straight playoffs, 45 straight finals.
- [66:38]
Kurt Goldsberry
Yeah, yeah. Once again we might not see the best series that OKC plays in in, in the final round. But that's an interesting note to me. Just for the gambling nuts, the thunder minus 700. That's a pretty drastic line for an NBA Finals. And again, I think it has a lot more to do with the unusual juggernautness of the 68 games.
- [67:04]
Zach Lowe
It's almost a 70 win team.
- [67:05]
Kurt Goldsberry
Like as opposed to this, this Pacers team, which, hey, everybody who does what I do or does what you do, loves the Pacers. They give us another Eastern Conference team that's fun to watch, fun to talk about. We needed that so bad. But ultimately, the way I look at the game, 68 wins, this net rating that continues to be double digits in the playoffs. Dude, a double digit net rating in the playoffs, that gets you.
- [67:30]
Zach Lowe
By the way, you finish with a double digit net rating in the playoffs, you're in a club of like. I mean I did the research last year for the Celtics who did not finish with double digit net rating. It's like a club of like four or maybe even fewer NBA champions.
- [67:44]
Kurt Goldsberry
Is that right? And that's with the seven game series against the Nuggets. So imagine if you just took out the Nugget series, I mean the Memphis series, does that count as the playoffs?
- [67:52]
Zach Lowe
Yes, it does. It all counts. When you're the number one seed, that's what you get. That's Your gift for being the number one seed even in the west, you get those kind of series. Kurt Goldsberry, this piece is coming up tomorrow on the ringer dot com. We'll have some video, hopefully in this podcast. It's wonderful to see you. I'm glad you got to catch up with RC Buford and hopefully I'll see you soon down the line, maybe at a finals game, maybe somewhere else. Maybe it's summer league, but I'll see you soon, buddy.
- [68:18]
Kurt Goldsberry
We'll get tacos in Vegas. See you, Zach.
- [68:22]
Zach Lowe
All right, it's time to bring in one of my old buddies, one of my other ESPN expats from sny, home of the New York Mets. By the way, the first place New York Mets, Knicks insider, NBA insider extraordinaire, host of the Putback, which you can listen to. You can watch it, watch it on YouTube. Ben Stiller was just on. Hey, Ben Stiller, throw me a bone. I had freaking Zach Cherry on for a deep dive on severance. Throw me a bone, buddy. Ian Begley. Ian Begley, how are you? The beard's looking great. How's life?
- [68:54]
Ian Begley
Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it. Let's dive right into Juan Soto, right? Let's get into the early season issues. Is he doing the Soto trot? Is he not? Is he happy? Is he not happy? We're get right into it.
- [69:09]
Zach Lowe
Let me tell you something, Ian. One of the greatest moments of my parenting life occurred yesterday. Sunday afternoon. I was outside on the patio doing some yard work, whatever, and the Mets game was on in the living room. And I don't know if you saw, but I took my family to a Mets game against the Dodgers about a week ago. My daughter's first baseball game knows nothing about baseball. She had a blast. Awesome. And Mets treated us great. It was amazing. I talked about it already and I'm out on the patio and I just hear my daughter start screaming, daddy, home run, home run, home run. And I run in and the polar bear is trotting around third base. The apple's going up and I'm like, how did this happen in the span of 10 days? My daughter knows not one thing about baseball. Now she's screaming in excitement that Pete Alonso has hit a home run against the rockies, who are 9 and 51 or something. Just unbelievable. This is honestly, that's it. That's all. This is all I want out of life now. That's it. Okay. The Knicks. The Knicks. The New York Knickerbockers, whose fans damn near tore up Midtown after a Conference semifinal swing over. The Celtics are now out of the playoffs, having been dispatched by the Indiana Pacers amid a hail of Tyrese Halliburton 4th quarter buckets. Pascal Siakam doing Pascal Siakam just running. Just running. Pascal Siakam running is going to be one of the defining images of the Eastern conference finals of 2025. Josh Hart, Weird turnovers. Carl Anthony Towns, not so weird, actually, kind of characteristic defensive breakdowns. And as a result, the Knicks have become the kind of ultimate Rorschach test of the NBA of the last five or 10 years. They made the conference finals, there were four basketball teams left playing in the NBA and the New York Knicks were one of them. Seems great. Seems great for an organization who has frankly mostly been not very good for the better part of 25 years. Seems awesome. And yet the level of angst coming out of New York media, out of New York fans, out of like my buddies who are Knicks fans, which is most of my buddies around here, would be suggestive of a team that was like seated first and lost in the first round of the playoffs. And you can't entirely blame them. The knicks finish an 18 game playoff run 10 and 8 with a point differential of exactly zero, which is pretty remarkable. Mikhail Bridges for the playoffs, minus 69 with him on the floor. Pretty crazy. OG Anunoby, minus 33 with him on the floor. Kind of indicative that the starting five did not work, which was obvious because they changed it in the conference finals. Shifting Josh Hart out. Mitchell Robinson in. Josh Hart was making his threes in the playoffs until the Eastern Conference finals where he made two in six games, shot 2 of 11. Mitchell Robinson suddenly started that introduced a whole host of sort of trickle down effects and long term questions about the team. The Tibbs factor. Boy oh boy, lot of criticism of the coach, considering again Knicks are one of the four teams left playing basketball. And by the way, you can sit here and say, well, they drew the Pistons who were, you know, just kind of like happy to be there for the first time, inexperienced, whatever tough series they win drew the Celtics. Celtics lose their best player in game four catastrophe sending the Celtics spiraling for the better part of perhaps a season and a half. Knicks were already winning that series and on track to win that game and go up three to one. Do they finish it? I don't know. They don't have home court advantage. But pretty seems pretty likely. I mean the odds would certainly favor it. And yet lots of questions. And again, Tibbs, would it have been nice if you remember Landry Shaman and Delon Wright were on the team before like crisis DEFCON 1 level crisis in the conference finals. Yeah, sure. Would you like him to be more adaptable? Probably we can talk about whether he was adaptable enough in the playoffs. Cat oh, the Athletic published a big now you tell us story yesterday. Ian it might surprise you to know did it shock you? Were you shocked that there were internal concerns about Carl Anthony Towns defense throughout the season? Were you shocked about that? Because I was, I mean floored that a team with Karl Anthony Townes on it would have internal concerns and some players only meetings somewhat centered around Karl Anthony Town's defense. Not like it's been the defining weakness of his 10 year whatever career. Mikhail Bridges Mikhail Bridges extension eligible Are we sure we want to extend Mikhail bridges to whatever five year, 150 million, whatever it is. Doesn't shoot layups anymore, doesn't shoot free throws anymore. Offensive role comes and goes. Defense still pretty solid. Wasn't as good as he was in Phoenix. A lot of questions, a lot of like oh Kevin Durant's out there. Kind of sniffed around that a little bit during the season. Who goes out in that trade? Who would have to be out in that trade? Is it even possible there are multiple aprons involved? Ian Begley I just want to start by zooming out. Where are you on the New York Knicks 2024, 2025 Rorschach Test and where should the consensus be on whether this team was successful enough to continue as is going forward?
- [74:38]
Ian Begley
Zach I might be too close to it, but where I am is kind of what you were saying earlier. You know, first conference finals in 25 years, 51 wins in the regular season. You were one of the last four teams standing. You have the coach on an extension here. You have players, your core who Mikhail Bridges aside under contract for several more years. I think it makes sense to run it back. It doesn't really matter what I think. It matters what Leon Rose thinks. It matters what James I'm sure by.
- [75:12]
Zach Lowe
The way, I'm sure his exit interview press conference is coming soon. Leon Rose, right. It's usually like Presti style, two and a half hours digressions into hip hop music. I'm sure a forthcoming very transparent Leon Rose press conferences is is it scheduled for today? Do you have to go there right after this?
- [75:28]
Ian Begley
I haven't gotten the email yet. I'm just waiting with bated breath for it to come in. I don't look Leon, if he's giving his thoughts to anywhere, maybe he goes on the Roommates podcast. That's what I'm. I'm thinking that might be the landing spot. But anyway, we're not going to suggest.
- [75:45]
Zach Lowe
I'm going to suggest a hiatus. Just give me two weeks. Roommates podcast. Let it, Let it be. That's all.
- [75:52]
Ian Begley
I'll say this, they did not. This is not surprising. They didn't record anything during a series in the playoffs. I think they got one in maybe between series, but they didn't record during the series anyway. Neither here nor there, in my opinion. Your opinion? Zach, everyone's opinion is irrelevant. It's Leon Rose, it's Jim Dolan. And what I do know is, look, that, you know, teams usually conduct exit interviews, right? You come in, your players, talk to your execs, maybe the head coaches in there. Knicks are having that kind of evaluation period. But from my understanding, it's not like a traditional exit interview setting. You know, there's going to be the coaches being evaluated, including Tom Thibodeau and players being evaluated. And so my read on that is we don't know yet on Tom Thibodeau. We don't know.
- [76:46]
Zach Lowe
Hold up, hold up. I was sipping my coffee, I got distracted. We don't know how many he's got, how many years left he has.
- [76:54]
Ian Begley
I think, well, 30 plus million guaranteed on that extension. And I want to say three years, but it might be four, so don't quote me on that. Google it. But yeah, I, look, I'm just, I'm just here to say that we don't know because we don't know, you know, that evaluation period post mortem is going to happen this week. And look, until somebody comes out and says, hey, he's our head coach for next year, or says it off the record to somebody, we don't know. That's where I am. And it's based on just kind of conversations I've had in the aftermath of that game six loss. So that's my read on it at the moment in terms of.
- [77:38]
Zach Lowe
Let's, let's stop there for a second because the three big questions of the off season are Thibodeau, Towns, Bridges, and I don't know the degree to which either any of those are like actual questions or just like fan created questions. My assumption was Tibbs will come back because of his relationships with Leon Rose and James Dolan, because of the Knicks success, because he was frankly like by Tibbs standards, fairly adaptable in the playoffs, particularly against Boston, where he's like kind of scrapped the Knicks traditional defensive scheme and constructed something for The Celtics that worked less adaptable against the Pacers at least late now you're putting that into some uncertainty based on conversations you've had, as you put it in the aftermath. My question, my follow up question is always the most obvious one for the, for the Tibbs haters, which is okay, like who would you like to coach the team? Is there any answer to that question that you have heard that isn't just Michael Malone who is a Tibbs sort of ish, comes from the same coaching tree, A similar coaching tree. I haven't heard any other answers. I mean I'm sure you could. It's the Knicks, I'm sure. If, if anything were to happen to Tibs and if I'm betting, I don't know about you, if I'm betting, I'm betting Tibbs comes back because it's coach strict year. But if anything were to happen, I'm sure that like crazy names would come be thrown out from like college basketball royalty, whatever. But I, no one has given me a realistic answer to that question that makes me think the Knicks have a plan.
- [79:10]
Ian Begley
Yeah, there's no, there's no surefire answer out there. I don't see one. And I also haven't heard a name where you said oh, that makes sense. Like that's a clear answer if you're going to move on from Tom Thibodeau. So yeah, if I'm betting Zach, I too, I'm betting that he, he's back ultimately. But I, I could tell you, yeah I could tell you for sure that, that, that hasn't been decided at least to my knowledge yet. So Here we are 9:45am Monday morning. So yeah, I don't know, I like the obvious name is not out there. There's going to be, if they did decide to move on, the obvious one is going to be, you know, the J. Wright speculation. Malone is out there although as you said kind of has similar qualities to Tom Thibodeau. So I wouldn't really understand that one. There are other candidates but nobody who's obvious where you say that's the slam dunk, that's who we need, that's who we're going to go after if we make this coaching change.
- [80:07]
Zach Lowe
Zooming further out than just Tibbs and to the broader roster questions that encompass Tibbs as well. You know, the safest path, maybe not the safest, but the path of least resistance and every path in the Eastern Conference is a path of least resistance is basically just running it back, is saying, you know and running it back could mean a move on the fringes here or there. Maybe you let achieve a walk and you use the tax mid level or the. Yeah, the little mid level on somebody which caps you at the second apron, whatever. Because the east stinks. It's going to stink even worse next season. And again, you almost made the NBA finals. And for all the attention on Landry Shamit and Delon Wright and Tibbs is being maybe a little slow to play them. And the kind of disintegration in Game 6, the whole series to me is still Game 1. If the Knicks win Game 1, we're all going to Madison Square Garden tonight for game seven or this. Maybe the series is over, I don't know. But if the Knicks win game one, the series is going seven and they're at home in Madison Square Garden. That's the whole, that's the whole thing. You cannot lose that game. And they did. And so like we can sit here and say, well, you know, Brunson and Cat. Is there a hard ceiling on a team with two defensive liabilities at point guard and center? Is or is Cat even a center? Which we'll talk about later. It's like, wah, wah. The Knicks have. Poor Knicks. They have to build around two guys who just made second team all NBA. Wow, what a crisis for the New York Knicks. And they have to do it in the Eastern Conference where half the conference stinks and can't get out of their own way or is injured or maybe about to trade a superstar player. I just, I guess I'm a glass half full guy on the way this Knicks season. And I'm even a glass half full guy on catch in the playoffs. 21 points a game, 12 rebounds, 49% shooting. Even better than that in the conference finals. I know the defense. I get it. We'll talk about it. Plus 19 with cat on the floor. Minus 19 with cat off the floor was the most important player in game three, which temporarily saved their season against Indiana. Like, I don't, I guess I'm just coming out glass half full. I'm coming out just like if I can't find anything great, no brainer, whatever. And I understand Cat's got it. Is extension eligible. And that would be enormous and I think a mistake for the Knicks to just roll over and give him all the money. I just don't see like a ton. All these guys are in their primes for the most part. Like, I just don't see a lot a ton of like massive crises here.
- [82:40]
Ian Begley
I mean, I agree, I take that same look, the same view, the 30,000ft view of look where you are, look where you've been. Obviously bringing, bring everybody back. But I will say this like the prism through which everything is being viewed right now over there. And it's an obvious one to say, but I think it matters is do you get us to a championship? Do you not get us to a championship? And I mean every team is going to say that, but it's real there because of the commitments they made with the trades Towns Bridges, the financial favor Jalen Brunson did with that extension. Yeah. So that everything is about can you get us to a championship? Or if you can't, do we have to go somewhere else? So that. I just think that that's an interesting element to me because I don't think it. I don't think they're over there like having a pizza party about getting to the Eastern Conference finals and getting to where they got. I think the idea is we could have been better.
- [83:43]
Zach Lowe
Well, and there's some chance, probably a very good, a good chance to. Very good chance that the next 10 days to two weeks in the NBA is going to make it very clear that the bar, if the bar is championship, the bar is pretty goddamn high if you get to the finals and that beast in Oklahoma City is waiting for you in the Finals. Because that's a different animal than anyone the Knicks faced in the Eastern Conference this year, including a Boston team that was at old and then injured and out of sorts before they were injured. Let's drill down on Cat. If you had to peg the chances that Cat is on the Knicks next year, where would you go? Just percentage. Give me a blind percentage.
- [84:28]
Ian Begley
I mean.
- [84:29]
Zach Lowe
85. I was going to say 85.
- [84:32]
Ian Begley
Oh, wow. Yeah. So, yeah, 85. I mean, the only scenario where it makes sense is if somehow number 34, Milwaukee says, Hey, I want out. Can you send me to New York? Milwaukee says, you've been great for us. We're going to send you to New York and we'll take back what they're going to put on the table and that's it. I mean, I don't see another scenario there where Carl Towns is not a nick next year. And look, things pop up that we don't foresee in the off season. Things will happen that we're not talking about today. So maybe something comes up, but I just don't see it. I think that the, the impetus to trade for it was so strong there. I don't think they're going to abandon ship. I Mean, it's the defensive questions are totally fair, but you knew what you were getting. I mean it's not like Carl Towns is a second year player. There's enough on tape for you to know exactly what you're dealing with when you trade for him. So I don't think that Knicks should be all that surprised about the defensive issues.
- [85:32]
Zach Lowe
Onionis 9:51am Eastern Time, June 2, hasn't requested a trade. Draft is in three weeks, three and a half weeks, something like that. It's going to be a big moment in the NBA, the draft. I do think it's not, I don't know Giannis. It's not like I call up Giannis and talk to him. I don't even call up Giannis's agent much and talk to him. I do think he's, if he ever requests a trade, I do think, think he is going to be sensitive to. Well, okay, first of all, I don't think there's any scenario if he's worried about it at all, if his people are worried about it at all. Where he comes out of this, if it goes this way, looking like a villain in Milwaukee because he won a championship, he stayed there for so long and I think the Bucks organization and the Bucs fans can realistically look at this roster, look at what happened to Damian Lillard, both taking him out of next season and erasing his trade value and understand like, yeah, he's 31, whatever he is, like there's just no pathway here in the medium term to win a championship. We get it, he won us one. That said, I do think he's going to be sensitive if again, if we're talking ifs Bucks fans, ifs because he loves Milwaukee. He everything he has said about Milwaukee being his home in America, the way they embraced his family, the way they embraced him and took care of it like that's all real, that's not fake, that's not pr. If he is to move on, I do think he's going to be sensitive to like I can't do the thing where I strong arm it so much that they take 30 cents on the dollar because I just nuked their entire trade market. And with apologies to Karl Anthony Towns who is what he's 30, 31, so about the same age as Giannis right now. Carl Anthony Towns earning a gazillion dollars and a Washington first round pick. That's not going to be a Washington first round pick. It's going to be two second round picks. It's top 10 protected next year. The Wizards are going to pick in the top 10 next year and like a couple of pick swaps which may not amount to anything either. Like that's 30 cents on the dollar, free, honest. And I just don't. We all know that There are like 10 teams who can destroy that trade offer if they want to. And I just don't, I just don't see that as a realistic path for the Knicks. Durant to me is the more realistic one. Look, I'm the one on this podcast who pitched, who pitched who, who into thin air created a Durant versus a bonus straight up trade where Durant would then get rerouted because Durant will fucking retire before he plays for the Sacramento Kings. A Durant for Cat trade is broadly similar in concept to that, except the Suns are a second apron team. The Knicks are flirting with being a second apron team right now. It's going to be tough for them not to be, but there are ways for it not to be. And two second apron teams trading with each other is like, I don't know what it's like. It's like impossible. Like you can't aggregate salaries, you can't take back more. And so I don't know how realistic that is either. And so, you know, I don't know. I'm assuming Cat's going to be on the Knicks next year.
- [88:43]
Ian Begley
Same, same here. And just quickly on Durant, you know, I'm sure the Knicks would explore what it is, what it would take to get kd. I'm sticking with what I said earlier in the season, which was I don't see it as a likely. Even if they go out and they trade for a star player, a player at Durant's level, I still don't see it as likely as that being the scenario that they end up with with. So until I hear differently, I'm going to stick with that.
- [89:13]
Zach Lowe
The funniest outcome would be the Suns accepting a trade package. Send it around bridges just like, yeah, we traded you and a million picks for Durant and now we're taking you and like not that much else back in the other end of the transaction. Okay, Cat, so the next, like the Timberwolves before them kind of concluded if we're going to compete at the highest level and we're one of the final four teams standing, you know, we, we need at least in this matchup a real center next to Carl Anthony Towns. Some of that's for defense, some of that's for a unique matchup where Mitchell Robinson could single handedly out rebound A bad rebounding team in Indiana. And some of that was about separating Hart and Robinson a little bit because the spacing issues that pile up when they're both on the floor. And so that has maybe foisted an identity crisis upon the Knicks which every other Carl Townseem Minnesota has faced before, which is, is he a 4 or is he a 5? And there are two ways to view that. One of which is, well, we brought him here to be a center. We brought him here to create this five out or four and a half out offensive machine that's totally unstoppable. And this was an elite offense the whole year because he is a five. And then when the rubber hit the road, we had to backtrack a little bit and play him some at the four where he spends a lot of possessions kind of just standing around the perimeter on offense hunting some post up opportunities. But you know, seeding the pick and roll game to Mitchell Robinson, which has some benefits for the Knicks too and sort of the variety of their offense. It unlocks Bridges, I think as a pick and roll ball handler a little bit more than Cat at the five lineups do where teams switch a lot and do stuff with the matchups. And I wonder if, if we can also look at that as like, well, wait, maybe this is actually like an ideal scenario for Cat where he can play a lot of five. But we also have this other card we can play with Mitchell Robinson where we, we become a completely different team on both ends of the floor, a much more viable defensive team. But Mitchell Robinson's never going to play 25 to 30 minutes a game consistently. It's much more likely that he's going to be like an 18 minute a game player. And so we toggle between these two different looks. I think that's workable to me if we're talking about like well, the Brunson Cat existential question of the team. It's a little bit of an identity crisis. And one perhaps you didn't want when you traded for Kat to play the five. But part of the reason you traded for Cats to play the fight was Mitchell Robinson was injured. Now he's not. I think there's a, there's a world in which that's actually the correct kind of model to have Karl Anthony Towns on your team.
- [91:59]
Ian Begley
To me that makes the most sense. What you laid out in terms of Cat at the five for significant stretches, but going to Mitchell Robinson at the five and Towns at the four and not hesitating to go to that because look, Mitchell Robinson you said it. Zach, he. He made a huge difference for this team in the postseason. And I do think that he's best at a 20 minute per game, 18 minute per game workload, because if you go beyond that, I mean, we know the injury history and it's not great, but yeah, he was very impactful for them in the playoffs. I think if nothing else, the postseason showed you that that is a good path for you to go if you choose to go that way. The one thing I would push back on Zach is, is the idea that this, the offense was. Was fantastic. Because I look at after January 1st, just with the starters, I think the net rating was minus 1.2, maybe that starting 5 go back to January 1st to the end of the regular season. That's not great. And then we know the numbers in the playoffs before they made the switch, I think they were being outscored by 50 in the post season. And, you know, I think what you saw teams do in that January stretch to the end of the regular season was they put a smaller player on Towns, they put the center on Josh Hart. And I think that's what caused a lot of problems for them offensively. And how do you address that? Is that, is that a different question that you need to address with Hart? I don't know, but I just wanted to throw that out there because the offense was not spectacular for a large stretch of the season.
- [93:33]
Zach Lowe
I'm glad you did because part of the reason again that the Knicks are like this fascinating Rorschach test. I'm not even sure I'm saying that right. It's been a long time since I took Psych 1 in college to get an easy. An easy. A great, great time. Psych 1. Part of the reason they are kind of a weird mystery box right now is through so recency is the Pacers just lighting them up, lighting them up in fourth quarters. Halliburton lighting them up. Choke sign Pacers throwing up a 119 offensive rating or whatever against the Knicks. Their defense failing in the conference finals. Transition defense, whatever. Their defense was not good enough in the first two rounds. Their offense was the part of the team that failed them. They won those first two rounds not necessarily with defense, but with actually pretty good defense. And just the Pistons are not a great offensive team. And the Celtics, when they got bogged down, were not a great offensive team. And the numbers were the Knicks got through those series with an offense that was kind of not working and I hope hammered it. You've hammered it. The Brunson Cat pick and roll just disappeared from the offense. Part of that was because of what you just outlined where teams put centers on Hart and Wings who could switch onto Brunson onto Cat rather. And by the way, you mentioned January 1st more teams started doing this and we talk about this all the time. This is not like some high level NBA black magic tactic. This is like the most obvious counter that existed to the Carl Towns Knicks. It's something we all talked about in the preseason. It's something the Celtics did in the very first NBA game of the season. Like it's not something that oh my God, the Pistons unearth this incredible counter which by the way they didn't. They gifted the Knicks putting Durin on Cat the entire series. I'm getting fired up. My mic's moving and and Tibbs didn't lean harder into the Brunson Cat picker role. Maybe Brunson and Cat just ad libbed out of it, I don't know. But their offense wasn't that good. And the other thing about cat at the 4 that's interesting is I talked about how he can get marginalized on offense a little bit and obviously if he's at the 4 the idea is defensively he's not going to be guarding the screener in pick and rolls. He's going to be off to the side a little bit. And yet it's not like opposing offenses are dumb. They can find Karl Anthony Towns and they can bring him into a pick and roll. Or I submit to you this, is he any less damaging to your defense running around with a stretch four running around with Pascal Siakam, a super creative, versatile offensive player. Is he any less damaging in that role than he is at the center of it as the 5? Probably a little less damaging, but it's not easy. And by the way, part of the strength of the Pacers and this is part of the challenge of winning four straight playoff series is there was no Josh hart or Jaden McDaniels or whoever on the Pacers where you can stick a guy like Cat and just be like be over there on the wing who doesn't really shoot threes well and like may not be super active on offense and just like be ready for him to cut or crash the boards and box him out. The Pacers don't have that kind of player. And newsflash, if you want to get to the finals and win a championship, you're going to face one or two teams who do not offer you that kind of player and it's going to raise all the same questions with Kat, no matter what position he is on defense.
- [96:49]
Ian Begley
The thing that I would say, Zach, your earlier point about, is it really that much better? Towns at the 4? Just putting Mitchell Robinson out there, I think makes a difference. You, you know, you talk about the strengths and weaknesses of Towns and they're still there. You're not getting rid of those. But I just think Robinson for what he brings, just being around the rim, pick and roll defense. You said a team could take him out of the pick and roll, but he's still there. He's still on the floor. So I do think that that does help you defensively. But, yeah, you know, you look at. I think you take a hard look at that starting five, the composition of it, and you're. When it came time to really, your backs are against the wall. You have to make a decision. The decision was to bring Josh Hart off the bench and put Mitchell Robinson in. And so I wonder, moving forward is, do you view Josh Hart as part of that starting lineup? Do you not? What does that mean? Because again, in your time of price and this moment of truth, you went away from it. And I think that told you a lot about what they were really seeing over the course of the regular season. And I just. That, to me, was an interesting decision. And I don't think it was one that you can just throw away because it was, you know, two, three games in a playoff series. I think that decision can kind of inform you a little bit about what they might do over the summer with the roster.
- [98:11]
Zach Lowe
And Josh Hart's a really good player. We are fans of Josh Hart on the Zach Low show. He's not so amazing that bringing him off the bench is like a third rail issue. Like, he has come off the bench before. He's perfectly malleable in any kind of role, including coming off the bench and still playing 30 minutes a game. Okay, so minor issues. Not minor, but further down the roster, there was a lot of clamoring for a starting lineup change or at least playing a lineup. And you saw the snippets of it here and there, mostly with Robinson at the five instead of Towns, of Deuce McBride in the sort of Josh Hart's spot. So five shooters, if Towns is on the floor, you know, basically the starters with the old starters, the Towns of the five starters with Deuce in Josh Hart's place or four shooters and Mitchell Robinson, do you think that lineup composition will get some studies in the off season? It was not. It was a card. They didn't want to play. And I understand that, like Josh Hart's a massive part of your team and Deuce McBride's a backup point guard who needs to play the non Brunson minutes. But do you think that's something they look a little harder at?
- [99:22]
Ian Begley
I. I don't know the answer to that question, but what I would say is maybe one of the reasons they went Mitchell Robinson in the starting lineup as opposed to deuce McBride. Defensively, McBride, Brunson undersized. I wonder if that was a factor. But just in terms of the idea that, hey, could we start Miles for Bright, I think you look at that. Certainly if you're looking at potential starting lineup changes, I mean, it's obvious for you to look at that because you know Miles McBride, positive impact on the court for the most part in the postseason, not afraid to shoot it. I think he gets beat off the dribble, probably a little more than his reputation would suggest, but still a strong defender in other areas. But again, we're talking about is this a team that's going to win a championship? Because that's the prism through which it's being viewed over there. Miles McBride, Jalen Brunson backcourt. Does that prevent you from winning one? Does it get you there? To me, that's, that's the answer is probably it would prevent you. But I don't have to answer these questions. You know, the coaching staff I'm sure will take a look at it.
- [100:32]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, I think it's more a look you'd go to with Robinson at the 5 one way or another for that reason. Housekeeping on the bench, Campaign, free agent, Delon Wright, free agent Landry Shambit, free agent. Any of those guys have a chance to come back on the minimum or is it on Tibs now to see what they actually have in Tyler Colic and Pascal Daddy?
- [100:57]
Ian Begley
Well, look, I think both things could be true. Just to answer with the veterans, I would, I would assume the Knicks, you know, are going to take a look at what's out there in terms of a backup point guard. Who is it is, you know, where is, where is Ty Jones? You know, what's the market look like? Chris Paul, they like Campaign, but Campaign was not in the rotation at the end of the year. But which indicates at least something to you about how they really felt about him. And then, you know, you talk about Shamet, you're talking about Wright. I could see either of those guys being back or could be another veteran minimum coming back. I don't think there's a They're married to any of those guys, I would assume that they're going to take a hard look at the market and see what they could do there. As far as the younger guys go. Yeah, I think that. Well, I know that as in any NBA organization, people have different opinions about players. You know, some Nick people felt that, hey, we've, we've given the coaching staff some pieces here. Why isn't Kolik getting a little bit of time? Or why isn't Delon Wright or Shamet getting more time? Because we could, we could reduce the starters minutes if we went that route. So I think it's about, do you convince Tibbs that that's the way to go next season? Do you convince him to change a little bit? Then you might see a Tyler Kolik. But if it's, if things kind of remain as they were, I don't think you see a Kolik unless there's an injury or he really outplays somebody in the preseason.
- [102:30]
Zach Lowe
This is what the regular season is for. I understand that Tom Thibodeau thinks it's to win every single minute in every single game possible. And to some degree it is. The east affords you a little bit more leeway. And the point of the regular season and the point of drafting these players who are going to be second year players next year, not rookies, is can we work one of them to a point where we get into the playoff, playoff series and we're under some stress and we pull out Delon Wright or Landry Shammat to see if it works? Well, can one of those guys be a guy? You're like, okay, I actually trust this guy to come in and try to give us 10 minutes. That's all. That's all I'm asking. A couple of other things.
- [103:11]
Ian Begley
Zach, can I just say one other thing?
- [103:13]
Zach Lowe
Yes.
- [103:14]
Ian Begley
Which it's interesting to me because I'm 40. They were high on during the season and so team option next year, right? Yeah. If you're still there on him, what does that mean for Mitchell Robinson? I mean, because I don't think you're gonna carry those three. I guess you could carry those three guys. What do you think about that? Just, it just popped into my head.
- [103:35]
Zach Lowe
I mean minimum, essentially minimum salary team option. He showed enough for me to pick that up and try to give him some minutes in the regular season. And yeah, like Robinson, injury risk. I think there's room to carry all three of those guys. That probably means Achua is not on the team next year, which, like I'm okay. With that, use the tax mid level somewhere else. Have you heard the fire alarm story yet?
- [103:58]
Ian Begley
Please tell me.
- [103:59]
Zach Lowe
Apparently the night before Game 6 in Indiana, the fire alarm went off at the Knicks Hotel at about, at about 1 in the morning. There's some, there's some mystery over, over how that happened. I checked with a couple of agents who then checked with their players who then confirmed that yeah, the fire alarm went off but I don't think it was, I think 1am Someone told me 12:45. I don't think that's like a lot of players are probably still awake then. I don't think this is a kind of young team. I don't know that but I'm just digging on that a little bit, see what you hear.
- [104:29]
Ian Begley
I like that, I like that. Thank you Zach.
- [104:32]
Zach Lowe
Number two, the what ifs of Tyrese Halliburton have been told over and over again including by Bill Simmons, all the teams that missed on Tyrese Halliburton and you know, or in the COVID draft and all of that. That doesn't really apply so much here. The other point guard in the Finals, Shea Gilgis Alexander, if I recall correctly the Knicks were corners of the Knicks front office were very interested in drafting Shea Gilgis Alexander and they chose Kevin Knox I believe instead of eight. Was Kevin Knox the eighth pick? Shea is 12, I think so there are 11 team or maybe 11. Let me see when Shay Shay's either 11 or 12 and the Hornets draft him and flip him to the Clippers. There's a lot of Shea regret that doesn't get talked about as much because Halliburton is two years after that so it's a little bit more recent and Shea feels so established. Yeah, Shea's 11th pick by the Hornets Knicks pick knocks ninth actually do you remember Am I, do you remember that being a thing?
- [105:33]
Ian Begley
I do and I, I, I mentioned this before but you know, this like he wasn't really working out for teams. He was kind of hidden so to speak in the pre draft process. But the Knicks because of a relationship between one of their front office people and Shai's agent, they were able to get a private look at him. And yeah, that's, there were people who loved him. I don't know if they were the only team who got a private look at him, but they were one of a handful of teams if that who got a private look at him. So yes, certainly there were people there who you know, believed in what they saw from him and believed in his talent and you know, obviously Knox, I believe he's with Golden State and I think they like him. But wasn't the player the Knicks envisioned. The other thing that Zach, I don't want to jump off of this point if you want to go further, but Obi Toppin, I mean. Oh, yeah, he played big minutes and he had a big role in burying his former team in the.
- [106:31]
Zach Lowe
For two second round picks, I believe. Right.
- [106:33]
Ian Begley
Yes. Dumped. Because I, I think they did. They were worried about paying him and, and paying quickly and they didn't end up paying either of them. And so, yeah, sorry about a draft pick that missed. It's him and he comes back and he like, that's the last thing you want to happen. If you're a front office or an organization, you trade a guy who you didn't believe in for one reason or another, he comes back and he crushes you in a playoff series. I'm sure OB enjoyed every minute of that and he deserved it.
- [107:03]
Zach Lowe
Was it game one? I mean, so many insane things happened in game one. But was it game one where he missed a dunk on a fast break where there was. There's some OB dunk miss in the series where you can see him going up like this Is it this? I'm going to pulverize the rim at Madison Square Garden. And he missed. Is that that game?
- [107:19]
Ian Begley
I think it was game one. And then also game one, though he had the key put back when the Knicks didn't box him out late in the game, which I think gave either tied the score, gave Indiana a late lead and then he had. It wasn't an alley you. But he got free when the Knicks were supposed to foul him and then.
- [107:38]
Zach Lowe
Did foul him while he made a basketball.
- [107:42]
Ian Begley
Exactly. And so he had key moments there where he was involved in a successful way in really hurting New York.
- [107:49]
Zach Lowe
Oh, by the way, part parting shot number one, Game one. You can't say enough about the. The sliding doors moment of blowing that game.
- [107:59]
Ian Begley
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
- [108:01]
Zach Lowe
I will say this every time I bring this game up. It will be lost to memory other than the memory of hardcore angry Knicks fans in their front office and coaching staff. It will be lost to memory because it wasn't in the last two minute report and the Knicks lost the game. In all this.
- [108:16]
Ian Begley
I know what you're going to say.
- [108:17]
Zach Lowe
The goaltend that may or may not have happened on Jalen Brunson's layup that would have put the Knicks up six in overtime with like three minutes left or something like that. 2:52. I think was the exact timestamp. Something like that will be forgotten about. I forget about it sometimes. That's why it's coming up. 40 minutes into this podcast. I still haven't gotten it's on me because I stopped asking 48 hours later. I still haven't gotten a definitive answer from the NBA on whether they're sure they missed that call. I would bet a lot of money that that was a goaltend and they missed that call. And the refs should have at least called it to look at it because once you don't call it, you can't look at it.
- [108:53]
Ian Begley
Right?
- [108:54]
Zach Lowe
That one. All the moments that happened in game one, the Halliburton shot at the end of regulation, all the missed free throws. N. Smith just turning into like a fireball for 10 consecutive minutes of real time. That might have been the biggest one. I think they missed the call and then Nemhardt comes down and hits a three immediately and it's a one point game instead of a six point game. If that is called and it's a goaltend. And I think it was. This entire podcast might be a freaking game seven or NBA Finals preview. I'm just saying it.
- [109:27]
Ian Begley
Yeah, no, a thousand percent. Right. And I was talking to Stan Van Gundy. He did a small media thing after game one. He thought it was absolutely a goal 10 and he said what you said, like the refs oftentimes will make the call and then reveal review it. And they make the call just so they can review it. Obviously they didn't do it there and it was just massive. And we will probably forget about it, you know, five, 10 years down the line. But because the Knicks, they had, I think they had scored twice before then, so they had momentum too. And so you could easily see how if that goes their way, they close out the overtime. And yes, we're talking game seven or we're talking Knicks Thunder and we're not talking about, about, you know, Tom Thibodeau and, and votes of confidence, whatever.
- [110:13]
Zach Lowe
Any parting thoughts before you head off to do your actual job?
- [110:17]
Ian Begley
Man, I just, I'm very curious and I think he'll be back and you think he'll be back and it's logical for him to be back and. And all of that. I'm just curious to see how the Thibodaux situation plays out again. What time is it? 10:15 Monday morning. Maybe in five minutes somebody says he's back, he's safe, and it doesn't matter. I just think that it'll play out a little bit differently than that. If I had to guess, maybe it ends up him being back, but I think that there's a real evaluation period there right now for him, for his staff and for the players that will will shape this offseason for them.
- [110:57]
Zach Lowe
Ian Begley Nobody does it better. It's always a delight to see it at games. I'm sad I'm not going to see at a game tonight. Just as a neutral fan, game seven at the Garden was an a potential outcome. No one does it better. SNY the putback on YouTube, wherever you want to listen or watch it. You're the best, buddy. I miss you. I'll see you soon.
- [111:18]
Ian Begley
Miss you too, pal. Thanks for having me and look forward to seeing you.
- [111:23]
Zach Lowe
All right, thanks for listening, everybody, to the Zach Lowe Show. Thanks to Ian and Kirk. We will be back later this week, obviously reacting to Game one of the Finals. We'll see what else might happen in the NBA this week, but I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you to Jesse, Jonathan and Mike on production. That's the Zach Low show for today. See you next time. 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 100 Gambler or visit FanDuel.com RG call 1-887-897777 or is it ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or is it nice MDGamblingHelp.org in Maryland? Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLinema. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 Sport in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOP E N Y or text Hope NY in New York.