Doris Burke

The low post is presented by Amazon music. Did you know you could be listening to this episode of the low post ad-free on Amazon music? And now the low post. Welcome to the low post podcast on Friday morning from beautiful Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the one and only Doris Burke and I were both in attendance for game six last night.

And it didn't go the way the very loud and very rockets Philadelphia 76ers fans hoped it would. It looked like it was going to go that way when they had stormed back from a 14 16 point deficit, bang, bang, Georgie, Yang hit some threes. Jo LMB was starting to get rolling. James Harden was missing everything.

But that's okay. Jo LMB was starting to get rolling. Then the wheels fell off in the fourth quarter. The Philadelphia 76ers scored three points in the last five minutes and 57 seconds of the game.

The big fella, the MVP, barely touched the ball and Jason Tatum shook off what was about to be an all time, postseason game. The game that would have thrust the Celtics into an uncertain, somewhat uncertain anyway, off season. And now, just like last year when they lost game five at home and won game six in Milwaukee, game seven of the second round is in Boston on I believe Sunday. Doris Burke, how loud was that crowd last night, by the way?

That was deafening. Oh my gosh, I hit the talk back button at the start of our broadcasting. This may be the loudest arena I have been in this year. They were ready to go.

And I saw Jalen Brown because I was amazed at sort of the stay of nature of the Boston Garden in game five. It sounded quiet and obviously the start didn't help. So Jalen Brown begging them to be as loud. But I just want to go back to what you said about Jason Tatum because I have so many friends in New England as you know, I spent hard to hear up there in Rhode Island and on.

I had a couple of Celtics fans in the business of TV. I had just New England friends who are big Boston Celtics fans saying he'll never shake this. This will be attached to his reputation forever. This is as bad as somebody can play in this scenario.

And for Jason Tatum to start one for 14 Zach and have the self belief that unshakable self belief that superstars have that I don't care if I miss you have to be willing. I think it was Paul Pierce who said something like you have to be willing to miss 20 straight shots and continue to shoot the basketball just an incredible response in the fourth quarter. And boy, boy, the one thing I'd say is I'm interested in something and I'm wondering if you're watching this at all. Where is that in between game of Jason Tatum?

The game where down the stretch and it's all sort of running together for me where he makes big shots to close the game. He had the fade away mid range jump shot. You got to make tough twos at this time of year. And he feels like, and I've got to get on, I don't know if you can pull up his shot chart right now, it's threes or rim.

And like sometimes we got to get to where he likes those spots. Am I crazy? No. And he airballed a layup in transition with his left hand.

I was contested. But when he airballed that layup, I was like, oh my God, is this like one of those games? And then like you said, it was threes at the end over Maxi, a couple of step back threes on switches. He worked a lot on his floater.

His floater was kind of two seasons ago, three seasons ago. It's kind of a joke among us and he comes and I'll take him floater that on this. And he got better at it. And last year in the playoffs, their best offense was like, hunt them mismatches with Tatum and Brown and shoot over guys.

And sometimes they kind of lose the plot a little bit. But yeah, he rescued, I mean, he didn't just rescue it. It was like he had more points in 90 seconds than he did in the entire previous 40, whatever minute to the game. It was like it was an avalanche all of his out of nowhere.

Yeah. In 40 seconds, I believe he had seven points and he had, or maybe it was six points in 40 seconds, whatever it was. He had had seven. So, so what a response and how about pulling the trigger on the switch to Robert Williams in the starting line of Projoma Zula.

And it's funny, you know, in talking to dog rivers and you know this, we're like 75 and 60 minutes or 90 and 75 minutes. We sit down with the coaches and I think Shams had already put it maybe out on Twitter or something that this might be a possibility. And you guys know these coaches don't miss anything. And you know, we wonder if they pull a trigger, we've been thinking that this might be coming here and sure enough of self to make that move.

And you know, boy, the rim protection that Rob provides the spacey jams up with our own outstanding with with Joelle. So on any spin, Robert's there. And the ability for him to fly out and contest just just pretty great stuff. I like the move.

I know Joe Missoula. I mean, if you listen to him talk, it's all spacing. It's all playmaking. It's all three points shooting.

And when we asked him pregame about the switch, the very first question Mark Jones asking is just like every other play by play by coach or starting line up for tonight or we had this series three game. So he says saying starting lineup and Joseph, no, actually we're making the switch. What'd you think? I thought it was long overdue.

The very first thing I said about this series before I believe before it was even cemented as a second round series was this feels it was like two or three weeks ago on this podcast, like this feels like a Robert Williams Al Horford series. And I specifically said Robert Williams on PJ Tucker to Rome, Horford on Embiid. It just makes sense. And this whole series, I've been saying, I just don't understand what's happened to the Boston Celtics big man rotation.

They never play the two bigs that got them to the finals. I should understand you want to go to this other look where it's worked for you all season with work for the five. It's a great look. It's like a core part of your identity.

And in this series, it forces Embi down to the paint. And so your driving attack has a lot more space to operate and that's their bread and butter. But to have it just excised completely really confused me, the great Williams thing is still completely baffling to me. I just don't understand what happened.

So to me, I've been waiting for this move the whole series that I wish people could see. I have an extensive like notes file on every series that I'm typing game to game and starting in game three, I start writing should they start RW. I abbreviate all the players for brevity's sake in my insane note taking on my Google docs because it was it was very obviously the only way the Celtics were going to get minutes, extensive minutes with him and PJ Tucker on the floor at the same time. Doc Rivers, as I've said all the last week or so has essentially played Robert Williams to the fringes of this series by not letting him be on the floor with one of their nonshooters who are really just Tucker and McDonald's who's not even playing anymore.

As soon as Robert Williams comes in the game, Tucker out, and he and as soon as Robert Williams comes in the gang, it McDonald's out and he and him and whoever. And it was very obvious that the only way they were going to get those minutes was with Robert Williams starting in less. And that's the supply for the next game. Do the Sixers make a starting lineup change to get PJ Tucker out of the starting five.

That's a painful one even if it makes sense because he's been so core to their leadership, their identity, their toughness, their offensive rebounding. But to your question, I just couldn't believe it took this long and it makes me think and I think you and I have heard a little bit of this too. I think there was a fair amount of internal dialogue, let's say within the Celtics about this move. And I don't think I don't necessarily think the head coach was like the driver of making this move.

And that's not abnormal. Like all teams have debates and discussions and people are pulled in different directions. I just can't believe it took this long. Yeah.

Better late than never. 100% and it's just it's a striking contrast from a year ago with Emeo Doko who, who, to your point about Grant Williams and Robert Williams, felt like every string pulled by Emeo was defensively oriented where every string pulled by Joe seems much more about spacing. He likes the defensive side on Alboard where he thinks that helps their offense function. He likes playing making on the floor.

I agree with the Grant Williams thing. And here's here's one thing that you know, I mean, Robert Williams, who's averaging 18 minutes per game in the series prior to yesterday. And it's very hard when somebody doesn't start to get them to 28, 32, 35 minutes. I literally asked Joe once he told us the starting lineup switch, I said, you know, I'm trying to basically wrap my mind around what's gone on with Robert this year.

Obviously slow start because of the offseason, the surgery comes back starts where I believe 20 games gets the hamstring and then never makes it back into starting rotation. And therefore his impact had been limited. And after what we saw last year, you're thinking this young man's on the trajectory to grow and grow and grow. They start involving him a little bit more offensively, right?

With the drum handoffs and doing some things, you saw his threat as a vertical threat at the rim in a couple of moments last night. The smart Williams two man game was a little, when they were like wheezing, they got a dunk out of it. And I think free throws out of it too. And think about Marcus has a brilliant basketball game, but he made two lot passes that weren't on target or there could have been a couple more dunks for them.

So yeah, you know, I am fascinated and your point about PJ is so well, well taken because she and I want your perception on this. I think there's a minute and 52 left in the game. Philadelphia had a bad possession, but it's eight points with a minute and 52. You know this is an eternity.

And I just blurted out on the air because I was stunned by it. And being a hard and we're so frustrated that they stopped playing. They were walking up the board. And in defense of transition.

And I'm saying the game is not over. And they're walking up the floor and she gets those little moments where PJ and Tobias, you see the effort that diving on the floor that going to scrap out a loose ball where and the moment it'll go down in Philadelphia, Lord Zach, if Philadelphia can go on the road and win the moment in the game where Al Warford blocks. So I'm going back obviously a couple of games. The moment Al just blocked Joelle three times in the game.

I don't think Joelle was, you know, I felt like he had become passive all of a sudden I'm like, and he's getting blocked now as he is bothering him. And it took the PJ Tucker offensive rebound four and then getting the grill and beat and say, there isn't anybody who can guard you one on one. And one of the things I think, and I asked Dr. Sprey games act, one of the things I think Doc has had to do all year.

And this has nothing to do with X and no. He said, Doc, can you correct something if this is a misperception on my point? I said, I feel like one of your greatest jobs this year has been to convince this team that they have enough, but that this will be hard and that it's going to be little moments that decide what has to happen. And you know, he sort of humbly asked the question, but I believe that I believe 100% he has had to convince this group that they have enough to win a championship because you know this, there's moments in a playoff series when your opponent puts enough pressure on your things aren't going your way offensively or whatever, just the hard moments that inevitably come in a playoff series.

And he's had to convince them. And that emotional terrorism line, I freaking loved it. This is hard as hell. It's hard.

It's hard waiting in this league and as great as these players are, there are moments of doubt or weakness or lack of confidence or whatever. And you've got to flex your way through it. You've got to believe just like Jason Tatum did last night. So the possession you're talking about, and I just rewatched the last five minutes of the game to remind myself what in the hell was Philadelphia doing on offense in those five minutes.

And I saw that possession. I was at the game, so I wasn't listening to your call. And I heard you say you were a guest, a guest, and it came through on the broadcast. That possession was, walk it up because that's all they're going to do is always walk it up.

Hardin and Bead pick and roll. And Bead has 17 post touches in this game. That's his second most in any game this season and most in the playoffs. Zero of those 17 came in the last five minutes of the game.

Zero. I just rewatched all of them. Hardin and Bead pick and roll. Switch.

Switch. And Bead has jail and brown at the nail. That's his office. That's sweet spot.

And then on a switch. That's been a good battle. So Horford has had some wins and Hardin's had some wins, including in game one. And Bead, it was almost as if he knew he's not going to give me the ball or we've been just running the offense through James and Tyree's a little bit in these last five minutes.

He didn't really even try to get to seal Jalen at the nail. He kind of just let Jalen deny him the ball. And then in like a second, just kind of turned and faded to the rim for a potential offense to rebound. Hardin drove it.

Horford stoned him. I don't know if he blocked it or was just an ugly miss. It was something. And that's the possession you're talking about.

And that was Philly's offense down the stretch. I mean, Joel missed one pick and pop jumper. Melton and Tucker both missed wide open threes off that pick and roll that they're giving them. I mean, Melton and Tucker going two of 11 from three last night was more or less the game.

And Melton missed some like, Oh my God, would you like to have those back kind of looks. And correct me from wrong, but he was 40% in series. He made 157 in the regular season career high. I think he's been such an important acquisition defensively, like his ability to stay in front of the ball and keep pressure on the ball is really something else.

Oh boy, oh boy, you are 100% right. PJ and D'Anthony had some looks. They're going to get looks right there. They're putting so much emphasis on Joel and James.

So those guys are going to get looks and they got to make their shots. And I got to say this, you know, it's been such an interesting series for Alboardford because you know, the conversation of calling himself a lead shooter and then watching the struggles. And again, he continues to be such a prideful, smart, tough individual defensive player that even when he's missing shots, he's having such an important effect on the series. And we caught this moment a couple of times and the way the game plays with some of the sponsorship elements and all the things you've got to do in the course of a broadcast, you can't always get back to some of the compelling video that we have.

And all game long, Zach and you know, credits to my director and our cameraman, we're just absolutely brilliant at what they do. We'll be in timeouts and they'll say, Hey, look at this Alboardford was as communicative on the bench and in the face of like, there's a play first half. Jason Tatum is, you know, lower, lower box. He's checking Maxie in the corner and he falls asleep and Maxie just straight line drives him dunk.

And it was when they had built that early lead and Philadelphia makes a push. And it's always those segments of the game, right? You've built the lead, but those two or three minutes segments, you just let him back in and take him out of sleep. The horrid gave them the business in the next time out.

And I am just so fascinated by those moments. You said something, I want to go back to it since you watched the last five minutes and I've spent the morning packing to go up to Rhode Island this morning. Well, look, there's a wall. Next to my hotel.

So I loaded up on coffee. I'm ready. Walla got me ready sponsored by walla. I get no money for this walla.

I don't know what they're slogan is. It's good. Oh, it's great. Why why why why why why why I'm in Philadelphia?

It's a big deal. I marvel my son loves walla. But down the stretch of the five last five minutes, how much did Maxie have the ball in that two man game in that final five and a half plus minute? Some not as much as hard and there was no force.

There was no force behind anything they did. There was no there was no North South fourth force behind anything they did. And Joelle just wasn't wasn't as involved enough. Hey sports fans.

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You mentioned Warford and that got me. Warford's urgency. I mean, he wants this. He wants a championship.

He also wants to be Philly the fan Tatum. It's like visceral. We got to just stop for a second and talk about like. This game on Sunday in Boston.

This is as big a game as exists in the second round of the NBA playoffs. These are two Titanic NBA teams. Two historic all time rivals. In a game seven knowing the winner of this series is going to be favored to win the conference finals against Miami or New York knowing Phoenix is out.

Memphis is out if you cared about Memphis. I mean, the West team we're going to talk about the West later is going to be really, really good. Like whether it's Denver, Golden State Lakers, that's going to be let's just call it a 50-50 series. Let's not look too far ahead to the finals.

Just say it's going to be a tough series. But it's there for these teams. Boston. Think about what's facing these organizations.

You're broke. Yeah, go ahead. Just got the all NBA news yesterday. Yes, they did $600 million.

And you are faced with a decision immediately. Supermax, Jalen Brown. Or what? Because there's not going to be a negotiation there.

I don't think that's a supermax or a. Philly, everyone in the league has been talking about James Harden going to Houston for a year. If they lose in a demoralizing way in game seven. I have no idea what the hell is going to happen with that team.

Nobody could possibly have an idea what's going to happen with that team. If Harden leaves, they don't have as of now the flexibility to go out and get Chris Middleton or something like that. If Harden leaves and they've lost again in this same round and again in a heartbreaking fashion, I mean, I don't dwell in beats under contract for quite some time. I don't know how he will feel about everything if his co-star and pick and roll partner walks out the door.

And they've lost. I mean, these are the stakes. And again, this is as big a game as can possibly happen at the stage of the playoffs. I mean, that's not that's just is.

No, these are the high leverage moments for organizations that believe they have enough to win a championship. And and it's funny as at our production meeting, you know, you talk like at the top of the show what do you discuss. And that was our discussion was like the loser of this series is going to have some foundational earthquakes moving under their feet because of, as you said, the rumors all year have been hard. Well, think about Philly.

They have a chance to win at home biggest game of their season. They have this incredible road win. And yeah, Boston shot horribly. They took that win in Boston.

Yeah. The crowd just bloodless last night. It was it was it felt like it was there. And then it wasn't.

Think about Boston. Imagine if they lose the series at home in game seven. That's bad enough itself losing at home and game seven. That hurts.

It's not bad. I mean, Philly can win game seven. It just hurts to lose games seven home. Then you look back and say, wait, game one without it.

Indeed, we lost game four up five with two minutes to go after hitting two just gut punch threes, gut punch, knock out, blow threes. We lose. We have the last possession fiasco where we don't get a shot off. We have the other last possession fiasco where we bizarrely guard and beat with Marcus Smart.

And he hits James Harden in for a go. Three think about like you never get over that. The only way you get over that is by winning the series. You never get over those things if you lose the series.

So I want to go back to something you said about Jalen Brown. Do you have any reservations at all about the pairing of Jalen and Jason? I mean, only in the sense of there is some degree of positional and skill overlap between those like like Tatum is unbelievable. It looks like he's going to top out is like a five or six assisted game kind of guy.

I don't know what he averages here. I'm guessing it's around there. Yeah. Jalen Brown is perpetually just one to one assisted turnover ratio.

And there were a couple of plays last night where they teamed up in a pick and roll and every time they do that I smile because you're like, all right, this is what we want. The two stars cooperating and blah, blah. And all it ends up doing is having PJ Tucker into bias here is switch and they're the two best Philadelphia defenders on the floor in a lot of these minutes. And over in the corner is Marcus Smart with Tyree Smackxianum and the other corner is Malcolm Brock with James Harden on.

You're like, I would like those guys to be involved instead of the guys you're involving. So just like tiny, but their track record is just one of enormous success. Like nothing's perfect. Right?

That's the risk you run in like doing these alternate visions of like what if we traded Jalen Brown for X, Y and Z? Okay. So what message is that going to send to Jason Tatum who is a first year, you might want to be a player who's ready to win right now. And yeah, it's, would you ideally, if you had to construct an ideal second player for Jason Tatum, might it be Joel and Bead?

Might it be Giannis? Might it be? I mean, I mean, those are obvious ones. But could it be like what everyone thinks Evan Mowgli will be in for you?

I mean, but this is pretty damn good. Like it's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. Right. All right.

So then one of the topics on, you know, Jason Tatum start, you know, I think Michael Jordan in 1997 and James Harden in 2019. He joined those guys in futility in the first quarter or first half of a playoff game. Is there a way, and we asked this to Joe, you know, do you try to get him to something? Jason Tatum early, you know, a physical rim finish, you know, something, even a mid post turnaround jump shot.

Have you ever seen this where a first quarter and three consecutive games has been back abysmal? And there's been times where Jalen Brown starts and matches an ability to score. Does that slow start in any way concern you for him? And if you are the coach, are you leveraging something, whatever your best play is to try to get him started or even run the offense through on because normally Jalen is super aggressive in that first period, right?

He straight line drives you, you know, where he gets to two or three on a catch and shoot situation. Do you think that is at all significant? Yeah, I'd like to see Jason Tatum going. I think they ran, they run their stuff, right?

And their stuff is, you know, on ball and off ball actions involving their best players and maxi or MB, they've been trying to get him beat involved and they've been handed and maybe in the first quarter you tell Jason Tatum, hey, instead of just sort of passing off to the next, you know, passing the baton to the next guy, if you have Tyree's maxi, just go for it. Or if you have a, I don't know, just, yeah, I would, I would put your right, Jalen Brown in first quarters is like, Michael Jordan Cross was Shaq for like five minutes and then it doesn't it doesn't let I know you have to go. Can we get into a couple of things really quickly? Sure.

I want to read you some stats to the degree that this has been a shot making series, like whoever shoots better wins wins. Yeah. Free throws for the series. You ready?

Philadelphia 130 attempts, Boston 129 attempts. Oh, turnovers for the series. Philadelphia 69 turnovers, Boston 71 turnovers. Off offensive rebounds for the series.

Boston 53, Philadelphia 50, like all the sort of other ingredients are absolutely dead even and Boston is just out shot. Philly, Robert Williams and Al Horford last night plus nine together in 19 minutes. And I want to go through with you the sequence of these games and why that substitution was important in game three. You were there.

You had the call. I think. Were you on game three, Philly? I was on game.

So I did. Yeah, because we did three and four. Yeah. So three is the Boston win and it's the game in which Boston kind of tweets, it's picking roll defense.

And then we basically say, we're staying at home unambied. We're not giving them easy nail catches. And James, we're giving you a driving lane. We're just giving it to you.

Like we're going to open up and give you a driving lane. And we're going to have who's ever on tucker ready to help is like a second layer of defense. Your guy's going to give you an alley. Orford's going to stay on an upbeat and we're going to dare you to beat us with the drive.

And you were astonished that it got in his head. He was passing out his stuff. He was headed. He became so indecisive that there was a moment where he turns the corner and he almost travels by hitting the ground before he makes just a god awful pass against that bounce.

It's James freaking hard. And it's indecision gloomy away. Sorry. In game four credit to James Harden.

Who by the way, can he just have a normal game? He said one normal game, one to transcend the games and three like, Oh yeah, that's James Harden in elimination game games. All he needs to do is be normal and the Sixers usually win. But anyway, in game four to his credit, he knew that defense was common.

He said, yeah, I wasn't great in game three. I'm going to take what you give me in game four. I'm going to take that driving lane and see what happens. And that right in Philadelphia in game four and game five.

And he realized if that second layer of defense is Marcus smart or jail and browner Jason Dain. I'm like, if I have momentum, I can get through those guys and get to the line. He's averaging seven free throws a game after slow start in the series. And that's when the Celtics made their change.

That second layer of defense is now going to be a seven foot guy who can jump out of the gym. And that was necessary. And it worked. And it hardened essentially forced their hand by playing better against that defense to his credit.

And now I'm assuming that line starts again in game seven and Philly will have tough decisions to make like Doc has had a quicker hook with Tucker playing three guards together more. We'll see what they do. But it's been a fun chess match, huh? Oh my gosh.

That's a good point because I was curious about this. The Embiid hard and pick and roll obviously the most productive pick and roll tandem by far James the most assist to Joel by far. You said they decided the free throw line in the nail was where Joel was going to operate. So in games two, three and four, they got a total of nine jump shots for Embiid.

Game five alone, they got nine jump shots for Embiid. So he makes the 10 free throws and all jumpers in a 30 plus win game and didn't have a score in the restricted area. And you know what they did? When you got rolling in that game and you saw it a little bit last night when you got one pick and pop jumper at the nail.

They took Horford off of him and put smart on him or brown on him and said we're taking away your pick and roll. It's becoming too easy. We're going to switch and that looms and I know you got to go. That looms is maybe the other most interesting subplot of game seven is how often does Boston do that and how can Philly counter it?

Because the Celtics are bothering him with those guys fronting him and denying and killing the clock and it hasn't been as easy as him for him. Bronwyn, he's adding easier time with. But the other guys are like making it difficult for him. And I feel like if he gets a couple pick and pop jumpers early, we might see Boston go to that and say solve it.

All right, Doris Burke, you got a long drive ahead of you unless you have any final thoughts. I want you to get on the road. The Hall of Famer, the one and only, it's so wonderful to see you. I will see you during the next couple of rounds at Places TBD.

Thank you, Doris. And wait, thank you Zach. All right, Doris is gone on the road. I got to get on the road.

It's early in the morning. Unable to scramble a second guest for this. So you just got me. You're stuck with me for a bit here on Nugget Suns.

And for the second straight season, the Phoenix Suns season ends in an absolute humiliation at home in this round down by 9 million points, actually 30 at halftime without Chris Paul without the Andreating. And last year was game 70, she was game six. So traded a whole bunch of stuff for Kevin Durant. And I guess in a lot of ways got one game fewer, shorter, whatever in the playoffs.

And there is a lot of potential fallout from that. It's hard to lose that way two years in a row. Two different teams, two different circumstances, two of their big four, which was reduced to this series to a big 3.25 out. And you just can't, even with Booker and Durant as great as they are and Booker, his first kind of game of the playoffs last night has just been transcended the entire postseason.

As good as those guys are. If you're a thin team and you lose guys number three and four, it's hard. And you know why it's hard? Because everyone today is going to talk about the Suns and what a disaster it is ending their season this way.

How do they fix this? Was it Durant? A mistake? Is DeAndre Aiden gone?

What is Matt Ish? Are you going to do? What changes are going to be made? Oh my God.

You know why they lost? They lost mostly because the Denver Nuggets are awesome. And a lot of the national media has spent the whole year just kind of like patting the Nuggets on head. Hey, it's a cute team.

Look at that. I think the young Joe Kitch doesn't jump. He's the first player to all marry and do we trust Michael Porter and blah blah blah. And that was a mistake.

And even now I've heard skepticism including on our airwaves about the idea that the Denver Nuggets, this team and the Rocky Mountains could beat the Lakers or the Warriors in the seven game series in the conference finals. I got news for you. They're going to be favorites in that series, whoever they play. If you're sleeping on the Nuggets now, you are just so late to the party ended.

The party's over and you're knocking on the front door and people are telling you that your Larry David, the party was yesterday. I had the Nuggets in my inner circle of title contenders to start this season. And people who have listened to this podcast for a long time may remember that when Jamal Murray tore his ACL in I think April of 2021, I opened this podcast with like a 15 minute monologue about why that injury was so heart wrenching. And I said several times I was going to pick the Nuggets to make the finals that year at the start of the playoffs had he not got injured.

And it was only eight games. It was eight games I think when Aaron Gordon got traded to the Nuggets, Tim Connolly's last big move for that team. And I think it was eight games of Aaron Gordon, Yokech Murray, Michael Porter Jr. And their fifth starters are words like Will Barton.

And those eight games were so utterly dominant. The fit was so seamless with Aaron Gordon. I never shook those eight games ever. And it was a small sample and you don't want to read too much into eight games and I know that and I watched damn near all of them because I wanted to see what this team looked like.

And what I saw was jaw dropping. And I've mentioned before one of those games was against the Clippers. The team that Denver had humiliated in the bubble. The team, I mean, the Jamal Murray, Nicole Yokech, pick and roll is starting to rack up casualties now.

Starting to rack up casualties. Doc Rivers in Los Angeles. Casualty. Bobbed and weaved and jogged and cut and passed circles around the Clippers.

And then Jamal Murray got hurt. And yeah, I didn't pick the Nuggets to win the championship or make the finals this year. Pre-season I picked the Clippers. And before the playoffs, I picked the Suns.

I think I overestimated Denver's slump in the last six weeks of the season. I over-worried about it. Very clearly now they were a team that was not playing possum. But just like I got on one seat, I looked up, we're going to coast.

And I knew that on some level, but the fact that their slump was really driven by shaky defense and that was always the question about their team. I think I always worried about that. I picked the Suns in seven in this series. And look, we don't know how it would have been folded with CP and Aiden.

But this is how it unfolded. But preseason, my inner circle of contenders, had three teams from the Western Conference. Warriors Clippers, Nuggets. Over the Suns, over everybody else.

This team is really good. And it shouldn't be a surprise that they are here now. And first of all, all the Yolka skeptics that I've heard from for the last two years after voting in MVP each the last two years, easily, frankly. Not this season, I voted for MVP because of that last six weeks.

And I kept saying this and I kept writing this. Everyone, what is Yolka Chodun in the playoffs? What is Yolka Chodun in the playoffs? I'm like, did I miss when they got to the conference finals in the bubble?

Here are Yolka Chodun's playoffs now for his career. 27 points a game, 12 rebounds a game, 7 assists a game, 27, 12 and 7 on 53, 41, 59 shooting. Here are Yolka Chodun's stats from these playoffs. 31 points, 13 rebounds, 9.7 assists, 55% shooting, 48% from 3, 56% from 2.

He's just an all-time great player. And I'm sorry if you've doubted it because they lost to the Suns with Fakundo Campazo and Austin Rivers as their starting guards or they lost to the Warriors last year without Jamal Murray and the Warriors ended up winning the championship. The Nuggets have now won six playoff series in the last, now five seasons and counting. One in 2019, two in 2020, one in 2021, none last year and two this year, six playoff series in five playoffs.

That doesn't sound amazing and they haven't gotten to the finals. That's a lot of playoff series wins. You don't win that many playoff series if you're not equipped to win in the playoffs. And the ultimate testament of that is that same off season, the Clippers and the Nets made their huge giant off season slashes.

KD and Kyrie and Brooklyn, Coline PG in Los Angeles, in those same five playoffs, those two teams combined, combined won four playoff series. The Nuggets have won six. Chalk won up for continuity. And by the way, think about the Nets.

Durant out. Kyrie didn't get in. James Harden now has a game seven in Boston. If he's out, he'll be out.

And that one if in Brooklyn. I mean, when those three were together, they had it. They were the best team in the NBA. They were completely on guardable.

Go back and watch that Boston series. They won. And then of course, injury strike the next round against Milwaukee. Go back and watch that series.

It was like, oh my God. And now they're all elsewhere. And if Boston wins game seven and that's a 50-50 game of God knows I'm not going to try to do that. All three of them could be out in Yokich, in Murray, in Porter, in AG, roll on.

And you know who else rolls on? KCP, fantastic trade. Loved it immediately. And it's worked out even better than I thought.

Bruce Brown, loved the signing at the time by Calvin Booth. It's worked out even better than I thought. Christian Brown, they trusted him. They finally played Aaron Gordon in the backup center.

They have this roaring switching defense with those guys on the floor when Yokich is on the bench. And Murray and Yokich together, it's just magic. There's no antidote to it. You can't switch.

You can't switch because Yokich will match you in the post. You can't drop because Yokich will pop for threes or when you close out pump and drive them. And they just, there was one player in game three where Yokich, they're just so creative. Where Yokich didn't set a screen for Jamal Murray, he stood 15 feet away from Jamal Murray.

Like he was maybe going to set a screen and the sun, oh my God, something's happening. Someone, whoever was on Murray opened up his stance and Murray just like went hard. They got to switch. Murray did his little step back three and they just make magic in the dead zone of the mid-range.

You know, we watch pick and rolls now and it's all off the dribble three, hard roll to the rim, off the dribble three, hard roll to the rim, off the dribble three, pick and pop three, hard drive to the rim. These guys kill you with just little cuts. It's death by a thousand shoulder fakes and bobs and weaves and floaters and Jamal Murray gets into the lane and he's got a lot of dribble and Yokich is slow rolling, 18 feet from the basket. Jamal Murray's got you on a string.

All right, I can pull up here for a mid-range two or if I accelerate and go forward, that's going to pull Yokich's guy two more feet and get Yokich at eight foot floater. And by the way, here, Yokich from floater range in the last two years, last two seasons, so floater range is outside the restricted area inside the foul line. 62% shooting in each of the last two seasons, 62%. It's like bonkers.

You can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, shots that you can just be like, that's the shot we want to give up. You can't give up. It's like, it's like, it's almost a layup for him. Just a phenomenal performance in the playoffs so far for Denver.

Phenomenal roster building and Nicole Yokich has announced himself to anybody who was wondering. Yeah, he's not good and he's been this good for a long, long time. He deserved his two MVPs unquestionably. If you want to say he deserved this one and the playoffs approved it, I mean, I thought him beat with sensation all this year and he's largely been very good in the playoffs despite an injury, the annual Joel Embiid, like, do we have to have this happen?

The injury and the nuggets roll on and they will be favored so the next round and they should be favored in the next round. Whoever they play, they won't have to start power. They won't have the national profile. Doesn't matter.

They're that good. By the way, credit for Michael Malone too, who made all the right adjustments from the regular season to the playoffs and has pushed the right buttons with that team. Phoenix, oh my God. Look, I mean, when they made the trade, the first thing I said on this podcast was I will always think back to when the Clippers traded everything to unite Kawhi and Paul George, SGA, all the picks, all the swaps, whatever.

And somebody in the league who's very smart, who's not affiliated with either of those teams told me is I was seeking out opinions. And this opinion was like the consensus kind of opinion, but he put it most eloquently, I thought, it could go down. This is what he said about the Clippers trade. It could go down as one of the worst trades in the history of the NBA, but it's also a trade you have to make.

And I said, I thought about that quote again in the wake of the Durant trade, not to do it. I'd like worst trade, one of the worst trades. And like that, that was a little much. I mean, this is Kevin Durant, but I just think and everyone shouted back and I said still, like again, the clause two is it's a trade you have to make.

That's a way of saying, fine, make it. Like I can't say it's a bad trade. I can't even say it's not a good trade. It's Kevin Durant.

You have to make it. But I think in everyone's exuberance about trades like this, people overlook the downside. And the downside usually hits, like most of these trades don't work. If your standard is you have to win a championship or make the finals, which sons did, by the way, two years ago, and for better or worse, when you trade everything and the sun's traded everything, all the picks, the only swap it was tradable in this deal.

Michael Bridges, who's I think probably going to be like a two-time all-star. I don't think he's going to be an insane, like perennial all-star, but he's going to be a good player and can plug and play on any team. The standard is you got to win. You got to get to the finals and probably win the championship.

That's why the AD trade, which is I think the closest equivalent in terms of talent out and picks out is always going to be a success because the Lakers won one. And by the way, AD is the best player on their team. They got to shot at another because he's been that good. The Drew Holiday trade is another comp that comes up a lot.

The Bucks won. The price just wasn't the same. The pick out lay was, and it shouldn't have been. It's true holiday and not Kevin Durant.

The pick out lay wasn't the same. And the talent out the door wasn't the same. There's only Kale Bridges that Milwaukee is trading in that trade for Drew Holiday. Most of these trades don't end up working.

It was obvious at the time. The risk of this trade was Kawhi and PG were 28 and 29 when the Clippers got him. Kevin Durant's 34. He's had a bunch of injuries in the last four years.

Chris Paul's 37 going on 38. He's injured in the playoffs every year. I said it at the time. If one of these guys gets hurt, there are teams where the Sixers within beat, where if their star player gets injured, it's like a free injury and you're like, well, that's just bad.

Look, what could we have done? We could never have foreseen that. The Suns, I said it then, if one of these guys gets injured during the playoffs, the Suns are not one of the teams who can say, well, we couldn't have possibly seen that coming. You could have seen it coming.

And it happened. And now the bill is going to come too. Again, I still think it's a trade you have to make because when you go through the paths that they could have taken, let's just outline them. Number one, trade Chris Paul and take a step back.

This was a mid-ling playoff team. A mid-wrong playoff, a good team, not a great team before this trade. So that's path one. They decided not to do that.

And I think that was totally justifiable. Go all in, on Durant, which was what they did. Make a smaller deal, an incremental deal where it's like some assets out the door, but not this many. And that was, I think, reportedly, what they were close to a deal for John Collins and say, does that deal make us good enough to win the West?

And it's kind of weird, open-ish season while preserving most of our asset base. And the Suns, I think, correctly concluded, makes us better, but not good enough. Even in this open year, there are just too many good teams. And even that scenario has to factor in the likelihood of Chris Paul getting injured too in the playoffs.

And that team's just not good enough. And then the other option is just stand completely pat. Do nothing, keep everyone, keep everything. All the picks, all the players.

Do what you do this season. Maybe it's the first round, maybe it's the second round. And move on with everything in the bank. And the Suns decided probably correctly.

Let's be clear, probably correctly, that all in was their best chance to win a championship, a singular championship, which is the entire point of the whole goddamn thing. That yeah, it sounds great to stand pat and keep bridges and keep Cam Johnson and keep all the picks and hope that that grows into something. Well, what is it going to grow into? Mikhail Bridges is really, really good.

He and Booker, that's a fantastic foundation. Chris Paul is getting old in every scenario. DeAndre Aiden is doing whatever DeAndre Aiden just did in every scenario. Yeah, you got all the picks and all the stuff.

So let's say you keep all that. Is that team just as is growing into a championship team? I think that might be a stretch and the Suns were correct to say that. Then you say, well, okay, but you can keep all that stuff and trade it for a star down the line when the team is quote unquote ready.

Well, that's what they did with Kevin Durant. If you're saying hoard everything for a star, that's what they did. And you can say, well, you got to wait for a star who's 28 or 27 or 26, a perfect fit with them and Booker and maybe doesn't cost you all this stuff and maybe they should have held down the game. I'm like, okay, is that going to happen?

Is that guaranteed to happen? So I think the Suns looked at those four paths. All deal, Stan Pat, Trey, Chris, Paul, go all in and said, hey, if our goal is to win one, this is the best. This is the best chance of doing it.

And I said at the time, it doesn't make them overwhelming favorites. It probably doesn't even make them favorites period. Neck and neck with Denver in the West is what I said. And then you get to the East and it's like a one monster team after another.

Is that enough? Is being one of the bunch, one of the favorites, neck and neck with the other team in the West, is that enough? Is that good enough to justify the outlay? Maybe it is.

Maybe it isn't. I thought probably it was considering, well, I don't know if that's probably it was, but considering again, where those other paths take you, it's reasonable for the Suns to say, yeah, even if we're neck and neck, it's worth it. And while that may give you the highest upside that path, the highest short term championship equity, it also gives you the highest risk and the worst downside. And I think that's undeniable.

Like that Stan Pat scenario, you can be good for a long time. If you're number one worry is I don't want to be bad. I don't ever want to be the Nets post-Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnet trade. That scenario insulates you from that.

But it's not going to maybe get you up here where the Durant trade got you. Look, I mean, and you want to say how could the Suns ever, and the Suns analysis was how could we ever become the Nets post-KG in Paul Pierce. Those guys were old. We have Devin Booker and Kevin Durant for two, three more years of the Rance Prime.

We have DeAndre Aiden. We'll be fine. And they're right in the sense that as long as they have Booker and Durant healthy, regardless of what happens with Paul, that should be a 51 team. Those two guys are that good.

One injury and all of a sudden it's like, ooh, and one of the reasons that it's like ooh is the eight and thing is now a disaster. And I can't believe how bad Aiden was in these playoffs. I can't believe how miserable everybody looked. I mean, if you go back and watch and perk nail this on NBA today when he did his little eye-spy segment, people back and watch.

There are like five plays in every one of these games where Aiden does something. And usually it's catch the ball at the rim in some traffic. Yeah. But with a little bit of an inside advantage and also being giant.

And instead of going up with it, puts it down, dribbles, spins away for a hook. There was one in-game. I'm going to forget what game it was. I think it was game five in Denver when he did that.

And if you zoom in on it, you can see Ishouane right on the bench and the guy sitting next to him. And he brings it down and he's oh, demonstrative. Like oh. And there's like five of those every game.

And the whole idea was, okay, worst case scenario, Duran against injured, worst case scenario, Duran ages poorly. We still have Booker and Aiden. What a backstop. And now it's like, do they have Aiden?

He got worse. Somehow he got worse. Defensively, he was back to making some of the mistakes that marked his rookie year where he didn't look like he understood the timing of big man defense, which is understandable and really hard. And he played a different system at Arizona.

He just, he didn't look good. And it seems like ancient history now, but that New Orleans series two years ago when Booker was hurt, like eight has a 28 and 17 game in that series and like a 23 and 10 and a 22 and seven. He looked like a guy in that series who could get you those kind of numbers. And obviously with Duran and Chris Paul, he's not going to get those and Booker, he's not going to get those kind of touches.

But the Suns were so thrilled two years ago that he had bought into this more limited role. He's going to be an unbelievable defender and rim run and finish. And he got worse at that this season. And of course, there was the whole thing about Monty Williams not communicating with him over the offseason.

Maybe everybody bears some, not maybe everybody bears some responsibility for the eight thing. Like the relationship seems to be bad across the board. There's obvious moments of tension during every game. The coach and the player admitted not talking to each other the entire all season after a disaster game seven.

It just seems bad and going forward, they either got a salvage of this, they got a salvage of somehow whether it's with Aiden or trading Aiden. And by the way, I hate to say it. The other 2019 is all watching the series. Like I keep having people in the league pitching me like, oh man Orlando should go get Aiden like Wendell Carter's Union for Aiden Orlando's got a lot of cast space.

I'm like, why is Orlando doing that? Wendell Carter's Union is really good. I know nobody watches the magic. He was probably better than Aiden this year.

And people are pitching me these trades like, well, Wendell in the first game got first. Just keep Wendell Carter Jr's on a great contract. That's the biggest takeaway, honestly, because once Paul got hurt and I know they won the two games without Chris and then Aiden gets hurt. And if you want to be the guy criticizing Aiden for not playing and criticizing Aiden for not playing, that's cool.

You do, do you. I'm not going to do it. Like if you're hurt, particularly ahead injury like Anthony Davis, I thought that dialogue was a little weird. That's the biggest, the biggest kind of big thing hanging over the franchise now.

And obviously they have a new owner and I saw Sun's fans last night wondering about the future of Monty Williams and the future of James Jones. And frankly, that seems a little much to me. I have voted Monty Williams coach of the year twice. It's a brand new team, but you just never know with new owners.

We'll see what happens. And lastly, the Durant stuff is going to be very, very loud. And they needed him to be transcendent in the series and he was just good. But, I mean, let's not, let's not like, let's not just dismiss 29.5 points a game, 9.5 rebounds a game, 5 assists a game.

Let's not like pretend that he shrank from the moment or just laid an egg. Those are real numbers. You have 30 points a game in the series. You have 29 for the playoffs on 48% shooting.

But 45% shooting overall in the series, 22% from 3, 51% from 2. I mean, that's below his standards. He struggled at times to get clean looks and he struggled to make threes. The whole series, good threes.

They needed him to make him and he didn't make him. 30 assists and 23 turnovers I think for the series. That's a lot of turnovers and last year against, against Broke against Boston, rather, he had like just a straight up like what's going on with Kevin Durant kind of series. Lots of puzzling turnovers in that series.

And yeah, I've been on the train of like, Durant's top 12 player of all time. And this is the kind of thing that at that level, a playoffs like this which is good. When they needed great coming off another playoffs that was short and not that good. Like it might knock you down a peg or two and you got to, you got to, I guess be better next time around it was they needed him to be transcended and he was just good.

And it does feel like there's, he's paying some sort of karmic price for the Warriors decision. It's just, it's just unbelievable. He'll never get the credit for the two finals MVPs. Two time finals MVP and people talk about him like, like those things don't count.

And frankly, like he and his people seem astonished that fans don't count those as much as they should. And they just don't count them as like equal to, you know, Dirk's finals MVP or something and Dirk's championship. And it is because the deck was to the degree it can ever be stacked in a swear where injuries and randomness and other great teams have a lot to say about it. And the Rockets almost beat the Warriors in their second year together with Durant.

Like the deck was heavily weighted and everybody knows that and everybody knew it at the time. And we can all reverse engineer like, well, what quote unquote should he have done? I'm not in the show business. You want to go to Golden State?

And he did. Any one championships? That's what he wanted. He had fun for some of that run.

That's what he wanted. He enjoyed their style. Sometimes that's what he wanted. He didn't go to Boston and the Celtics were really, really not confident, but they thought they had a shot to get the rant in 2016.

He didn't go any less places. He went to Golden State. Then he went to Brooklyn. That's an all-time disaster.

Now he's in Phoenix. And in the process of going to Phoenix, the Suns forked over a lot of assets to get him, which is going to make it very, very hard for them to really tweak this team. Bobby Marks says the whole thing. They're at the second apron already.

They may not get the tax-made level exception even. Their trade flexibility is going to be limited. All those new rules are coming into play. And if Phoenix ultimately just becomes this, becomes like second round exit, second round exit, what's the next thing?

It does unavoidably start to color your just... It's not perception of him as a player because I know what Kevin Durant is as a player. We all do. He's Kevin freaking Durant.

He's going to be like a top five all-time score in the NBA with borderline 50, 40, 90 efficiency, anti-seven feet tall, anti-sabergal defender and gun-good playmaker and all that. That what I just described is a top 10 to 12 player of all time. Physical stature, statistics, all of it. But there is going to just be something about his career that feels a little off.