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I just returned home from Boston, Massachusetts on an Amtrak Nick Friedel just got to Miami, Florida from Boston, Massachusetts. We're tired, we're cranky, we're punchy, but as Michael Scott would say, ooh, how the turntables, wait a second, the Miami heat and the Boston Celtics. Oh baby, the Miami heat's three old lead feels like a distant memory now. It's bloody sock time in game six.
The Celtics have roared back into the series, the heats three point shooting extravaganza has fallen back to earth. The Celtics all of a sudden look like the deeper and more talented team that they were the entire regular season. The team that I had the poor guys at ESPN stats and info combed through all of NBA history to confirm my suspicion that the Celtics are on paper, on paper, by far, the best candidate in NBA history to come back from a three-out deficit given their seating, the heat seating, the fact that they have home court advantage, all of it. A Vincent's injury has taken the heat down below the critical mass of necessary rotation players, especially when they clearly have very little confidence left in Kevin Love and Cody Zeller, both of whom had their minutes reduced and or eliminated in the competitive portion of last night's shellacking in Boston.
And now, Mr. Friedel, now, the Miami heat find themselves in a situation quite similar to the Boston Celtics found themselves in all 13 years ago against your Orlando Magic, the 2010 Orlando Magic, who I thought were maybe the best team in the entire NBA, dropped the first three games of the conference finals against the number four seated underdog Boston Celtics, came back and won the next two and forced a very pressurized underdog home, game six, to try to stave off history in Boston. That's one of the Shrek and Donkey games of the Nate Robinson, Big Baby Davis, you're sorry to bring back memories. And that's what it's going to be like in Miami tomorrow night because obviously the Celtics have been bad at home.
But if they get this one in Miami, they're going to be feeling great. They're already feeling great. You queue up the Johnny Damon Grand Slam, Clips, my cousin Derek Lowe, throwing sliders and curveballs right by the Yankees in game seven in Yankee Stadium. F the Yankees, by the way.
Just have to get that out of the way. Mr. Friedel, you're back in Miami, my friend. And if they don't win Saturday night, Mr.
Lowe, I think that is a wrap. I would never say 100% for sure because Jimmy could have a crazy Jimmy game. But I think it's important for us to start right there. Jimmy looked human for the first time in the postseason in game five in Boston.
They really limited him. But as I've watched him in the series, he looks like he's tired. He really does look like all those minutes have caught up to him. So it is imperative for him now over the next 24 hours or so to recharge the batteries and do whatever he has to do to take a deep breath and pour everything that they've got into game six.
I would expect him to play all 48 or really, really close to it. And once the heat just push all the chips in to try and finish this thing because Boston is playing with a different level of confidence. And when you are not getting those shots that Max Drew said and Duncan Robinson hit and you're playing with out Gabe Vincent, his status for game six is still uncertain. And they're all those variables.
It has to come down to Jimmy. And if Jimmy is not putting up 40 plus points and carrying that whole team down the stretch, this heat team is in big trouble. Well, the tell for me last night was that there were several possessions on which he got the Derek White switch that he has brutalized through the first couple of games of the series. And forget the ones where Derek White kind of stood him up and didn't go for his pump fakes.
And Jimmy really didn't kind of mow him down other than one or two possessions. Like those are good defensive possessions. Derek White's going to do that every once in a while. He's going to block a shot every once in a while.
I thought it was telling that on some of those possessions he kicked the ball out one pass away and didn't ask for a repost. I thought it was even more telling on some of those possessions when he got the switch that he didn't get the ball or ask for the ball at all. There was one where he got it in the first half of the game in the second quarter. On the right wing, they ran an action to get him that switch.
And he just sort of faded over to the baseline. And then he were like, oh, let's just kick it around. And Caleb Martin ended up going one on one and drawing a foul because Caleb Martin has become a combination of Steph Curry and Michael Jordan in the series, I think. But I thought that was very telling.
And Jimmy has averaged 19 a game over the last three games. Now they didn't need him in game three. So chalk that went up to that. And then he had 29.
But a 29 that left you feeling a little wanting in game four. He missed a lot of bunnies in that game. And last night just didn't really get into the game. And the fourth quarter for most of the fourth quarter.
And said, yeah, we're done. We're going to rest for game six. And Bam was silent last night and has averaged 13 points a game in the last three games, 13 points. And I thought one of, if not the biggest stories of the game last night was, and you could see this brewing at the end of game five was Boston had started to switch more and switch in lots of different places, including Horford Antibutler and daring him.
We don't actually think you can beat Al Horford that badly. And he did not last night and putting everybody but Derek White onto Bam on Switches. And the heat looked caught off guard by that last night. They looked like they did not have a plan for it.
And by the way, credit Joe Missoula. Like we're sitting here talking about Boston making an adjustment. They caught Eric Spolstra maybe a little on the back foot. And they dumped it to Bam in the post.
Bam posted Bam at eight post touches last night, according to Second Spectrum. That's his most of the playoffs. His second most in any game this season. Would you like to hear the points per possession numbers that he generated on those eight post touches, Mr.
Friedell? I feel like there's a big yikes coming here. It's a yikes 0.286. That's a lot.
And it's because the Celtics wings, other than White, are very strong and hard to move. It's because Bam is not a great back to the basket player. And it's because for the first time in this series, the Celtics started to show the heat bodies when they had a match up that they liked the heat. So and it's not necessarily a hard double team.
It's just not standing in No Man's Land. It's not staying home. It's doing what the heat do, which is dig down a little bit, slide back, make you think zone up, get your hands out, get on your toes, get in between, be in No Man's Land kind of but be active in No Man's Land and make you think, make you uncertain, make you second guess. That's what the heat had been doing to Boston, the whole series.
That's what Boston did last night. It helped that Haywood Highsmith played and they didn't guard him and he made threes. But I thought their defense was really, really good. And I think going into game six, item one for Miami, other than Jimmy's just got to play a Jimmy game and Bam's got to play better is if those switches are coming and now you know they're probably going to come, what do you do to counter them?
And I think that's going to be an interesting subplot. I mean, you're spot on because when you watch that game and you were looking to see what Bam was going to give you, every time they switch, he just couldn't take advantage of what was coming. And Zach, if you're the heat and you have to get a certain level of performance from Jimmy and you have to get a certain level of performance from Bam, and that is the baseline for point out so many of these wins in the postseason. We haven't even got to the part where it's like, okay, well, is Robinson hitting shots or is Drew sitting shots or is Martin or Vincent's out there?
Who is that other person who helps? But Bam just has not played that well in these last couple of games. You know who it was not yesterday? Nick Friedel, Kyle Lowry.
And who's awful. And I came. I'm a fan of Kyle Lowry's is a lot of basketball nerds are and talking to the heat people the day of the game and the day before the game once it was clear, Vincent's availability was in jeopardy. There was kind of a sense of this is kind of what we've been saving Kyle for.
A moment like this is him. This is the moment. His minutes load this season because we made him a backup for legitimate reasons. Obviously, he's not been very high.
He's been good for the most part in the playoffs better than he was in the regular season. They were ready, I think, to dial him up to 30, 35 minutes last night without Vincent. And he just wasn't up to it. And he wasn't up to it right from the start.
And I mentioned the Celtic switching. That's one thing they didn't switch. They dropped it back against Kyle Lowry's pick and rolls. And we're like, we're going to chase you over the screen.
We're going to make you hit long twos. We're going to make you make decisions in space. And he just made a bunch of bad decisions. He would jump to shoot and then decide I don't want to shoot.
I'm going to do the Kyle Lowry thing where I do in the regular season, which is pass up shots that I should take. Four turnovers and four points. Just I hate to say it like this, but just a total no show in a game where they absolutely needed something from their point guards because that was a place where Boston was not as willing to switch or if they were, that's where you need to kind of a jitter bug point guard to reject picks to fool the switch, to split screens, to split two man games that they switched or they tried to blitz and that's what gave Vincent's been doing. And Kyle wasn't able to do it.
That can so many ways that game last night was over in about six or seven minutes. And it was a boring game, honestly. For a game of that magnitude, it was not only a game. It was very boring.
Is this going to get exciting at any point? And it didn't. But part of the reason it didn't is because Lowry came out in those first few possessions. He already had two turnovers.
And you're going, well, this isn't good. And to back up what you were saying, we got to shoot around yesterday morning. And Spencer didn't want to reveal exactly who would start in Vincent's place. But everybody figured, all right, it's got to be Lowry.
And he kept saying, this is our Hall of Fame quarterback. And to be able to put that guy in this lineup is exactly why he's here. Because he has the confidence of everybody having been through all these big moments before. He won the title in Toronto.
He referenced all the years that he's played in big games. He's shown up. He's delivered. I mean, go back to that Nick series from a couple of weeks ago.
He was really good. And he's hitting from the outside. Scoring points and also just doing all the annoying Kyle Lowry things, poking away rebounds. All over drawing charges, just like the like just all the boxing people out in a very annoying way, just being annoying Kyle Lowry.
And I mean, that is affectionately as possible. And once they didn't have that, everything unraveled from that point. And what you realize at this point where the heat is, is it's still within Lowry to have a big game sure. But the consistency that the heat and spoolster we're hoping to see is gone.
You just don't know anymore tonight, which Lowry's going to show up. And that makes Vincent's absence even more. But Zach, I had this point on. We started talking about BAM and the adjustments to Celtics made on him and how's Wolsters can have to bounce back.
But I thought it was interesting in BAM's brief press conference last night was he sitting there going, it's very clear what the Celtics are doing now. They are getting the ball and running as fast as they can up the floor. And they're trying to knock down shots from the outside. And once that happens and they found a little bit of a rhythm here in the last couple of games, the heater just going, oh, whoa, what do we do?
Because they wanted to slow everything down. And they wanted to defend and switch. And they caught a big break because Boston could not get it going from the outside. Well, now they have.
And the depth that everybody had discussed before the series started is becoming even bigger than we imagined at this point right now. With the one exception to monitor of Malcolm Brogdon, who did not play in the second half last night and has this elbow tendon thing reported first by Jared Weiss at the athletic. And you know, look, Boston has the perimeter depth with Stan that. I mean, that's an injury where that's a position rather where they can take a hit and survive, particularly against a team that's dealing with a ton of injuries already in Miami.
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We know we're three, too. The total score of the series is now Miami plus nine. Boston is plus 30 in the last two games, and they're still minus nine for the series. Some of the key areas that you would think, particularly a Jimmy team might win.
Boston has 16 more free throw attempts for the series. That's big. They have 14 more offensive rebounds for the series. And they're gang rebounding last night.
And that's how you have to rebound. If you're going to switch and you're going to put wings on BAM, you got to crash back on the glass. And I thought Tatum had a bunch of gritty box outs. Brown had a bunch of gritty box outs.
Smart is always just hitting people. Their gang rebounding was awesome. 14 more offensive rebounds in Miami for the series. Three fewer turnovers, including 12 fewer turnovers in the last two games.
The turnover, pension, and totally swung to Boston. Some of that is just Miami. I think feeling the weight of we don't have a lot of reliable creators right now, particularly with the Vincent out last night. And three point shooting, Boston has taken 43 more threes in the series than Miami.
They've only made four more. That's how bad they were shooting and how well Miami was shooting. Last two games, Miami's 17 to 55 on threes. So that's what, like, less than 33%.
And Boston 34 of 84. So they took almost 30 more threes combined in the last two games. And line up wise, Boston starters are now plus 22 in 50 minutes in the series. That has ultimately been the right call.
Joe Mizula stuck with it. And I thought it was less of a double big series. And it looked like they were going to waver on that. And then he went back to the small ball lineup and stuck with it.
And that's worked. The double big line ups, they are playing, which are exclusively Grant Williams line ups. They're not playing the rob out line ups. Took a turn for the positive in the last two games.
And it just feels like they're obviously they're getting a rhythm. They found something with this switching on defense. And the other thing is Miami came out last night after Boston in game four had found something with its ball movement when Miami blitzed the pick and roll and put two on the ball. And Boston made a decision.
We're going to bank on the pass. No one is going to force it. If we get two on the ball and Tatum, I thought was the leader of this for Boston in game four. If you put two on the ball, I'm passing it out right away.
I'm hitting the release valve right away. I'm hitting the corner guy. I'm not forcing it. We're going to rely on the pass.
We're going to rely on these connected sequences of pass, pass, pass. Sometimes they won't work because Miami is awesome. Sometimes I'm going to need to go one on one when I got gave ins and on me. We're going to do that.
And I'm going to make shots over him. But we're going to rely on the pass. In Miami last night, watch the film a game for it and said, we're going to do some stuff to try to take that simple read away from them. And it's stuff I talked about before the game.
It was very simple. Number one, we're going to switch more. And number two, we're going to play a ton of zone. And they did play a ton of zone.
And you know what? For the first time in this series, we've got to split it up in last night's game. 1.43 points per possession against the zone. And just really kind of effective, just some methodical ways to get corner threes, two-on-ones on the sideline, just a really purposeful performance by Boston.
And now, you just kind of don't know what Miami's defensive answer is going to be either. And that's the scary part, Zac. Because to the point about the extra pass and how Boston made it a focus to say, all right, we're going to just keep looking for that guy who's got to be open somewhere. Go back to the first quarter of that game.
How many wide open threes were the Celtics getting specifically? Marcus Smart hit several huge momentum building big threes early on and you you're looking at Miami's defense You want? Oh because not only were they getting beat to the punch in that regard by the Celtics decide and I we're gonna swing it And we're gonna make sure somebody has that open look Miami did have a defender anywhere near anybody. I mean it was like all right when they did Boston still made shots I think I was back to that the Derek White three at the buzzer of the first quarter where Max Drew's was like in his jersey Jalen Brown made a three in the second quarter against his own where they had nothing going He was just like dribbling the ball.
Oh, I got shoot and made it and that's the shot making thing like they just they made Tough shots and they got a lot of good shots and this goes back to the point that we've got a hammer home Which is it was so obvious before the series you looked at both rosters and you went okay? Who's got more guys who can create and make something happen offensively? And it's the Celtics over and over again and what we've seen in these last two games is a regression to the mean for the heat Where if they're not shooting the absolute lights out the kind of problems So in many ways everything has kind of evened out a little bit more But I would tell you all this and add the context of while it feels like Boston not only has all the momentum But it's building towards the biggest comeback that we've ever seen in the postseason Being around that heat team and being in the locker room last night. It felt like hey everything's okay Jimmy's walking up Zach to the podium and he's eating popcorn and he's going we're gonna find a way to win on Saturday We're going to make it up I saw him walk I'm so I'm walking out We said hello with his agent and his main kind of training guru walking out of the arena and that we kind of exchanged a joke about Just nothing but not the series and everyone was all chuckles and chuckles and popcorn chuckles and eating popcorn like he's certainly not gonna Invents any weakness that's one thing for sure about Jimmy No, and there was a reason why he's trying to exude the ultimate confidence because he knows that he sets the tone for everybody else in there But I thought one of the most intriguing answers was for spolster and he said in his experience It doesn't really carry over from game to game.
He's like forget the momentum It doesn't really matter now I would tell you haven't watched enough of these series through time I think that there is something to be said for a team that gets hot and gets rolling and starts doing really good about itself But this team this Miami team still right now thinks okay Well, we got drilled these last couple games forget about it going to game six yet Jimmy rolling and Kevin Love was in there And he said we expect Jimmy Butler to be Jimmy Butler on Saturday night And if that's the case especially early you can knock down all this hike that's around Boston right now And you could just say hey we get the ball to Jimmy. He's gonna create space for other guys They're gonna get the same looks they've gotten throughout the series They just have to knock them down but anybody who's thinking oh no Miami's lost these two games and the sky is falling that is not what they were projecting after that game last night Well a couple of things you mentioned Kevin Love and I wrote this before before game 5 I Said bringing love off the bench might be too radical a move for a team That's up 3-1, but they've just got to get to Caleb Martin at the for more and earlier And I think now with them having brought love off the bench in the second half last night Depending on Gabe Vincent's health and whatever I think it might just be time to start your best lineup and write it as long as possible Maybe it was past time there's still plus 30 for the series in 73 minutes with Butler BAM and Martin on the floor who have been their three best players It might just be time to start that series and but the big man I mean the big man rotation other than BAM is just in complete shambles right now that you know now Boston the first five possessions every game is just wears Kevin Love on our foot We're hunting him down every time all the way Tatum got a an and one when Kevin Love abandoned his his dropper Might might have been it just a straight dunk I can't remember and then the next time same play Tatum or for pick and roll same thing Orford wide open for three Tatum kicks it to him trust the past they send the third guy up from the corner to like Flash it out and out swings it to jail Brown 3. Okay, we can't play Kevin Love they're picking on him All right, BAM needs to rest let's bring in Cody's L. Oh, no They're gonna go at Cody's L.
Oh, and the people every time with Rob Williams screening now and he's gonna and Rob has been really cagey Rob Williams Don't I see you flip disguising which which direction are gonna set that screen until the very last second and Cody Martin is Just like picking the wrong door every time like just picking the wrong side Just he's 10 feet out of the play. It's like he's just guessing randomly and guessing wrong every single time And so okay, we can't play Cody's L. Oh, what the hell are we gonna do? They're like running out of big guys to play a BAM and I bet high Smith will get minutes in in game six because he made shots And that's really what they need but you know, you know, you met like I Would pay and the stories will come out at some point and I don't know what the stories are I've heard a lot of different things.
I don't know what's true. What's not true. I Would have paid I would pay good amount of money to get in a time machine and be in the Celtics locker room at half time of game 3 and After game 3 because not only have we not seen a team Rally from 3-0 ever not only have we not seen a team rally to get to game 7 since 2003 the blazers 20 years ago By the way Damon Stottamier was on that blazer steam was the Celtics assistant coach for for until like February when he left for Georgia Tech Damon Stottamier if you were on the bench now he'd be getting asked this question every game by a report is not only We've not seen that in 20 years just a game 7 I just don't recall I know Kevin Pelton found examples of teams going down 3-0 and winning and losing in blowout fashion in game 3 and then coming back to win Game 4 There are blowout losses and there are blowout losses and that loss in game 3 was as blatant and obvious a we give up We're not playing together anymore loss as you will see a good team have and to come back from that and to come back This way and win to in a row this way and immediately snap back into togetherness is one of the rarest things that I can recall in the NBA and The Celtics like you you can sit here and say the Missoula thing and players You know like Gary Washburn had a tweet from the boss and glow who knows the steam as well as anyone about how jail and Brown's biting his tongue on the podium About stuff that's gone wrong this year. There's stuff.
There's stuff That's why I would have paid a lot of money to be in that locker room when some of this stuff was probably aired But it takes some strong backbone and culture to any moment go from that to this and by the way I'm making red socks jokes like bloody sock and they're they clearly are all saying, you know, don't let us get one like Kevin Oh, I said yeah, we had an idiot sign in there last night I've been told by several reliable people that this is not a coincidence that they are game-by-game Watching clips in the locker room or being showed clips in the locker room of what is it four days in October? I think was a 30 for 30 about that series So like now they'll watch the game six clips like it's not a coincidence that they are parroting this and on the one Sense I don't know that you want to really like embrace being down three oh, but they've embraced it and they're embracing the Boston thing And look I am not and was not a red socks fan ever. I was a die-hard Mets fan growing up I say this as affectionately as possible if Boston the city of Boston and it's very passionate sports fans get the first baseball 3-0 comeback ever and the first basketball 3-0 comeback ever the level of Boston Boston this is going to drive the rest of the world Absolutely crazy forever and ever like it's just gonna be I don't even know what the right word for it Because I will enjoy the theater of it But it's and by the way, you should like I've 19 years later My dad grew up in Peter Bruno Hampshire lifelong red Sox fan He told me as a young child do not be a red Sox fan pick another team It will just be pain if you're a red Sox fan like me, but you can't pick the Yankees You can't pick the Yankees pick a national league team So I pick the Mets in my local team and even so that 2004 I was working at night cops beat at a local paper then in Stanford Connecticut And I told my editors after they won that first game I was like not to be a bad worker be guy But I'm leaving early every goddamn night to watch like the last four innings of these games with my dad It's still one of the fondest memories I have as a sports fan and I'm not even a red Sox fan and never was a red Sox fan So own it but man if it's another Boston team. Oh my god.
I just love that over the course of what you described Zach you use the word culture and it wasn't in reference to the heat Culture's fine. You know it's he culture is just it's just steady and good and furious and all that but it's like you don't worry about it Fracturing really right not not post like on white side and the on waiters in that era of heat culture Well for as great as the heat of been during this run I think that the heat culture narrative is gonna take a little bit of a hit if all of a sudden they are up 3-0 and they drop four Straight games in the Eastern Conference finals that being said the interesting part about all of this as I watch this series unfold And I see the last couple months here is I'm never in all my years covering the league seen a team in Miami turn things around the way They did in this short of an amount of time when I left that play in game against the Hawks I was completely convinced and I was what six weeks ago now maybe I was convinced Milwaukee was going to shred them that looked like a team Were you convinced they were gonna beat the Bulls because I wasn't convinced Yeah, I was started from your years on the bull's sucky I found it the bull's suck me did me because I all I thought before that game was I don't care how close it is Jimmy Butler is not losing a game that means something to the Chicago Bulls and lo and behold it wasn't just a We bought remember Max 3 set 31 what team gave up on Max 3 a little early it looks like the Chicago Bulls So he also remember but that's the the part to me is that we've got the heat that have turned things around one more win They go to the finals. It's an incredible story. You've got a Celtics team that in game 3 looked like it was completely done You were gonna have to make potentially another coaching change and all these players You've got decisions on our our Brown and Tate of our core Do we believe in these guys if they can keep pushing this thing through and they can find a way to be the first team that comes all The way back from down 0 3 it's another I've never seen this before in this short of an amount of time And it speaks to not only what the red Sox did but the belief that still existed even after game 3 in that locker room And there are going to be the stories that pop out But what was so impressive to me is you hit the second half of game 4 Miami with one more push figured all right They're going to the finals they're gonna get some time off and they're gonna play the nuggets and it didn't happen And even if Miami goes and wins game 6 and they find a way through They absolutely screwed themselves because they didn't allow for all that extra time to rest prior to the finals You have added all the the intensity of these last two games all the minutes And now you're gonna walk into the finals against the Denver team has been off for a week and a half So in so many ways to me I think Miami is in trouble even if they get through this series because they put themselves at such a Disadvantaged the way they were unable to close the Celtics team that has belief now that didn't seem to exist a few days ago No disrespect to the heat I mean that not in the Richard Jefferson way that disrespect is going to follow me saying no disrespect They he have had a playoff run for the ages to be admired There's probably a better than 5050 chance that it will continue beyond this just because they have the 3-2 lead Denver's best case scenario I think is the heat sneaking out this series and having to really really gut it out and play a ton of minutes They keep home court advantage the Celtics are just they have ceiling that's way higher than Miami's and it's Inexplicable that they don't hit that ceiling for stretches of every single game at God forbid if we get down to game 6 And the Celtics are up by three with five minutes left what in the hell is gonna happen?
You just never know what their offense will Jason take them not touch the ball for five minutes Well, they forget all the purposeful stuff They did last night when it wasn't zone when it wasn't zeller when it wasn't love It was as soon as Duncan Robinson comes in the game and they try to hide him on Grant Williams Grant Williams pinned down for Jason What are you gonna do you gonna switch you don't want to switch so you're gonna chase him around the screen I'm gonna get open on the pop. I'm gonna drive. I'm gonna I'm gonna draw a foul Or I'm just gonna you're gonna leave me open for a three and I'm gonna make it max truce Jason Tatum just made a decision. I'm ruining your life the entire game wherever you are I'm finding you I'm getting you switched on to me and you can hang sometimes But I can also make top shots over you and sometimes you can't hang and the other thing about switching that people forget sometimes is Switching on defense like Boston was it crazy's up the match-ups It mucks up the match-ups and they had two threes I think in the first quarter where they got them because Struce I think both times was stuck on Tatum once and he'd remember he drove the corner and then smart replaced him And he flipped it back to smart for a corner three and then he was stuck on jail and Brown once because the match-ups are all nutty And you can't find your your guy and I do think the heat are gonna have to find counters to Boston switching and they'll and this is like Like posting up BAM with Jimmy one pass away Which is what happened because they would run a Jimmy BAM pick and roll that like that's not going to work because they're gonna dig off Jimmy And Spow and is gonna get in the lab with his assistants and find spacing and cuts And I think he found something on BAM running an inverted pick and roll as the ball handler that that seemed to catch them off Guard you got to dunk out of that so the coaching chess match is gonna continue to be really interesting But I thought Boston was purposeful on offense did not waste possessions did not attack the wrong guy and on defense We've talked about the switching and the digging but you go back and watch all the back screens that they run for their shooters Miami All the split cuts Boston was on point Sometimes that meant switching and the heat get creative and they they go up as if they're gonna set a screen And then they slip out of it Boston was on point No, we're not switching out.
We're gonna stick with you. They're chasing what they were on it last night And when they're on it on both ends of floor, they're just better It doesn't matter where the games are they're just better their problem is that they will go through six minute stretches where they just forget How to be on it and I think they are gonna need them to suffer through that kind of stretch at some point in these next two games To win one of them they have to it has to be that way because the Celtics when they are focused are just a cut or two above this 18, but that quit what's fascinating about where the heat are are Potentially headed is that the reason there was no outward panic from Jimmy Butler and this goes back the last few days It's because he said after that game forward. They didn't close it home He said we've been better all year when we've made a thinks tougher on ourselves But the issue is that they've run up against the team that is better in those situations than they are What team has risen to the occasion repeatedly now when it looks like up? It's just about over they have screwed up one too many times Philly's got game six at home if you get us all performance They're gonna win and and that didn't happen and now the Celtics are oh three They're left for dead are they gonna have to fire Missoula is anybody paying attention to what he's saying and they show up in the second half A game four and they win and they go home and absolutely dominate game five So in so many different ways the Celtics just do what they do better than what this he team does So in my mind you can go through any number of different scenarios heading into game six If Miami wants to win it needs the Jimmy Butler type game that we saw against the Bucks in that series a couple times And that we saw against the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals in game six last year They need him to take over and dominate because the Celtics look finally like they found their focus and they know how to protect it Now can they disappear for a few minutes at various points?
Absolutely and to what you're saying if mine is gonna win they're gonna have to but Boston has found something that works for them And I don't see that part of this changing in the short term with just how much confidence they're playing with right now So I'm gonna shot making like Derek white six threes some of them were tough some of them were open You don't really make six threes all that often But they have made shots and just briefly a couple other things I want to give love to Rob Williams has gotten steadier defensively as the series has gone on and I thought his positional defense last night particularly When guarding BAM sometimes switching sometimes not was just rock solid met BAM on the other end of those pick and rolls And said you're not gonna roll behind me for dunks All right, and you can see that they're scared of BAM's dunks because they've actually conceded a couple layups on the pick and roll Because they're worried about the lab to BAM Rob was rock solid and Tatum 11 assists I've mentioned the passing and getting rid of the ball earlier my favorite example from last night's game I just want to shout it out because it's just a simple little thing But every good team has possessions where you just pass for the sake of passing for the sake of seeing what happens If you force the defense to do stuff for the sake of making everyone feel like they're involved So Tatum had the ball It was I think 420 left in the third quarter dribbling the ball on the left wing Derek white's coming to set a pick for him Probably because Strucer Duncan Robinson is on him or somebody that Jason Tatum wants to beat up and he sees on the right wing The heat starting to like overload the paint off orford and jail and Brown in the corner and like BAM's way off Orford I think there might have been some confusion and Jason Tatum says you know what I'm a boarding plan a I'm just gonna slingshot this baby to orford on the other side of the floor and see what happens and what happened was Both the heat defenders on that side of the floor I think it was BAM and hate with Heisman close out on orford which left jail and Brown open in the corner orford hit jail and Brown Jail and Brown drove the baseline hit Marcus smart in the opposite corner Marcus smart swung at the Tatum all the way back around the horn to Jason Tatum and Tatum got the ball up top rotations and chaos nobody's on him drove and drew a foul That's passing just to do it It's passing just to keep it moving and as much as you want to hunt mismatches and there's a place for that and as much as you Got to figure out the zone sometimes you got to do that and make the heat make six rotations And the Celtics have done that much better in the last two games man You got to get some sleep before game six because I'm not gonna be there. You're gonna be there Perhaps I will see you on Memorial Day back up here in the northeast, but this is turned from Well, it was great theater of one kind after three games the theater of the car crash and like oh my god Can't look away and now it's at some point it's gonna happen and even game seven Like I said has it happened in 20 years and you can feel it you can feel the tension you can feel the history around the series So enjoy Miami don't go clubbing on South Beach too late because it's a big day tomorrow Mr. Friedel don't go to any velvet rope places where you got to wait outside, you know Just just take it easy down there, okay. I'm making one stop at Capitol Grill Oh, and and that will do it for me on South Beach.
There you go But but I bring us full circle in this sense You were talking about the Celtics passing the past what is so evident in their games in the last two they trust each other and The trust that wasn't there at various points, especially in game three that just disappeared is palpable again on the floor When you're making those extra passes and you're seeing guys hit shots It makes you want to make the next pass and get the next guy involved And that is why Boston is feeling so good about itself And that's why it is gonna be very difficult for Miami to overcome the momentum that's been built up here recently You know what Nick I trust you I would pass you the ball I said you I said a pin down screen for you if you had a mismatch I trust you to keep the offense moving all right It's like we talked about a few weeks ago, but you just want somebody to believe in you in life And you need that belief and you need somebody and was Jalen Brunson A few weeks ago Is that part for Jalen Brunson was he couldn't trust anybody else on that next team and it really it really sucked at their growth as a group But both of these teams left Boston, Miami They're there they can trust each other But that's all we all need in life is somebody who believes in us So I appreciate that and I'd like to think that you got me the ball in the switch and knock it down You know as you were saying all that I was thinking about the word believe this is how my No sleep then I was thinking about Ted Lasso then I thought of the 69 Mets And you got to believe and how they bring that slogan back every time the Mets are good And you know what happened after that Nick Friedell I then thought of Armando Piedes blowing a save in game one of the 2000 world series And Timo Perez not running hard into home when the ball hit the top of the wall and I'm angry now because I I just I'll never get over the 2000 world series now my whole day is ruined Nick Friedell. Thank you sir enjoy Miami I seem to have a running theme on this show of pissy people off sacks It's not your fault my brain is broken Armando Piedes and Timo Perez and Roger Clemens and the sawed-off bat broke my brain forever And I will never get over it. Thank you, sir. I believe in you buddy.
It'll be okay And now boy am I excited to welcome in our next guest just sitting in Denver like the nuggets I mean you'll get chat time to go back to Serbia if you wanted to that's how long the nuggets are gonna be off the Denver Nuggets For the first time in their NBA history not in their franchise history But in their NBA history are in the NBA finals fresh off a sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers that had a close buddy of mine Shout out to Scott and his son who I will not name running through the streets of Denver lifelong nuggets man with brooms in their hands Shout out Scott. I miss you. I hope to see you soon Adam Mars of DnVR sports. How are you sir?
I'm doing great This was a season of first first time being the number one seat first time getting a sweep first time beating the Lakers in a playoff series And of course the first time in the NBA finals so a fitting season of first for the nuggets We have no X's and O's in strategy to talk about because we do not know who the nuggets are going to play So you can just luxuriate in a moment of unprecedented Almost triumph not quite triumph yet because this team is built to win the title obviously I Have not spent all that much time in Denver in my life I know enough to know that there's the Broncos and everything else And there's a huge gap between the Broncos and everyone else, but there's the Rockies There's the avalanche and there's the nuggets. I want me I want you to take me through in your lifetime where the nuggets have ranked on that hierarchy what this finals run means for the city in the franchise and Whether and how you can feel their status in the city changing as they get this far and they have this transformative Franchise player who's gonna go down as one of the greatest players in the history of the league Man, it's kind of a long I'm thinking of the long version of the short version here's like if you go back to the 80s You've got the broncos working, but you got the nuggets where the second team And it's a two sport town, you know, those are your two professional teams and the nuggets were very popular sold out You know there was enthusiasm for them the 90s were a really really bad era for the nuggets They had the 94 1 8 upset first 1 8 upset That's like a little blip and what was otherwise an atrocious 10-year run for the Denver nuggets that I think lost a lot of people And in that decade you pick up the Colorado Rockies and you pick up the Colorado avalanche who immediately win the Stanley Cup So Denver goes from the nuggets being a distant second But an important second to all the way down to fourth in a lot of ways Just because of how bad they were how the city changed and how those other teams arrived Avalanche win another Stanley Cup in 2001 they got two championships the Broncos have two championships in the 90s Which team are you paying attention to those are the teams that have the Hall of Famers? You get Carmelo Anthony and there's a little bit of a run there and then obviously at the end of that Decade things go dark again for a little while so the nuggets Yes, I've had this like up and down relationship with the city of Denver But certainly have been a third or fourth figure in the sport scene for the last 20 years if you said on aggregate But yes, this last run with Nikolea yokech who I think is gonna be on the Mount Rushmore if not already on the Mount Rushmore of Denver sports athletes This is a social air. So what's the round what is the Mount Rushmore L.
Way? He's the biggest lock You have to be a lot is an absolute lock who's number two? I'll give you the candidates here. You have Terrell Davis who's you know an MVP and one to two Super Bowls short window But was it was so high you've got Patrick Waugh who might be the greatest goalie and NHL history about Patrick Waugh and his head movements You've got Joe Sakke who you know one two championships here and it's just sort of a huge figure So I think those four guys probably default to it You could say Peyton Manning another short run and I just know I personally I wouldn't have him on there And then you have yokech so those are the six guys that I think are vying for that title and again all of those guys have championships Yokech is on the doorstep of one.
He's the only one with two MVPs. I just think he's gonna wind up there when it's all said and done so So let me just he's on it already. It's it's my producer Dan is saying Todd Helton got host I don't know what to make of the Rockies in the thin air and you know Larry Walker Don't they be shit like I just don't know what to make of it and I haven't followed by so closely since those guys were on the Rockies He's already on the Mount Rushmore. It's over and I'm gonna make what maybe I look I am not qualified to make this argument I don't know John always career stats and where he ranks and like who's the best quarterback of all time and this and that I find it hard to believe that if you'll get stay healthy He will not be on par in basketball with however John Elway is regarded in football And I know that football is number one in Denver But you know look there's been a lot of There's been a lot of talk in the last 48 hours about media coverage of the Denver Nuggets or lack thereof and whether the nuggets are a quote unquote interesting team And I think anybody who knows me and has listened to my podcast and read my stuff for the last six years know that I am a nuggets Um from afar of just super aficionado Um, but I can tell you like that's a that question is a real question that is being considered at the highest levels of national television Right now and the sub question of that is How do we make sure yolkich is not tim dunkin 2.0 where he just never resonates among casual fans and how can we get Casual not I hate the word casual.
How can we get fans who are Lakers fans warriors fans kids who are la mellow ball fans Who is the jersey? I see most commonly around my neighborhood is a freaking morning? It's jersey How can we get them to watch these games and under and fall in love with yolkich and as a basketball player And there are a lot of ways into that but to the Mount Rushmore point one of the things I've been saying is I think we need to just start like Looking at his his stats and projecting what his stats are going to be regular season He's already at 12,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, 4,000 assists Just project like six more healthy seasons and you're going to get into historic territory right away His career playoff averages, I believe are 27, 11 and 7 on like 53 percent shooting like Not not to be heretical but like that's on par with pretty much anybody in overall impact that has ever played basketball And so one way to sort of pitch like here's how we should talk about yolkich is if they win the title and he's a two-time MVP And he stays healthy for a decent amount of his rest of his career He's going to be not only a Mount Rushmore figure in Denver He's going to be I mean not on the four-person Mount Rushmore in the NBA But in like that pantheon of 10, 12, 15 guys to ever play the game. That's what we're talking about statistically I mean it sounds crazy only because you know We always look at the playoff success and oftentimes in a player's career that comes later It comes about now in their career when they start to turn 28 like three months ago So this is about the time where it's like okay, it's the schedule is you're ready for it So if he does that statistically, I think you're right and here's you ask like how can we get people interested?
I think the first step there's a lot of things here But the first step is to make sure we get the facts right because I've heard a lot of conversation in the last two months about he's never had a good playoff Run He's never That conversation is so ridiculous that I actually actively ignore it So you've actually you've actually I guess had to listen to it So tell me where where is this coming from? How is it possible that it exists? I don't know a lot of you know mostly television talking heads But influential television talking heads that are well He's never had a good playoff run this way He said nothing but good playoff runs One of the few players who puts up great numbers whose numbers have gone up in the playoffs You know the assist have gone down but the scoring the production and then the big moments He has a lot of big moments including a game winner and a game seven Over the defensive reigning defensive player of the year You know some monster triple doubles and a game seven So he has some big time performances he played 65 minutes in a play You're talking about Rudy go bear in the bubble by the way for you Remember I just wanted and just had a game winner in a series against LeBron and Anthony Davis And then I think you start to craft some of the narratives So one thing you compared him to Tim Duncan and Tim Duncan obviously a great player I think if you just said would you rather watch a Tim Duncan highlight reel or a nickel yolkich highlight reel It's not to me. It's not comparable.
Maybe it's a controversial statement But I think yolkich he has magic Johnson passing like the the passing reel is is one of those ones where if you just watch the top 30 passes They're all will make your jaw drop So the highlight reel I think is is in a class that is worthy of you know Hey, this is a guy worth watching you never know what you're gonna get And then of course I think one of the things that have really popped for him in this playoffs is He's a really good tough shot maker in a unique way We often think of tough shot is spinning fall away looks beautiful Jordan with a leg out, you know and holds it Yolkich has all of these game winners tough shots clutch buckets that look like mistakes And if you see it once you might think my god, that's the luckiest thing But zenke you've watched him all this time. How many big shots does he have that look like what was that? Well, I mean jj redix said the words sean more shuffle on first take I think and I don't think enough people know what that is for him to say that on tv and that that's an issue in and of itself But one of the other things I pitched is if you let me do it I would like to go in my bank of yolkich stuff as we get to the finals and do a tv segment That's here are five signature nakola yolkich plays like the sean more shuffle and probably four passes that he makes Regularly now they're spectacular. So it's not like he's making them every possession But here are things to look for and here's why this guy special in the my my maybe my favorite one is one where he's just holding the ball 30 feet from the basket on the right wing not looking at anything and just whips the ball to the opposite corner And I just laugh every time and I think there is an appetite for that because in his way And I also think you'd mentioned magic johnson With with a guy like yolkich who's a quiet personality.
He's not quite he's funny and he's he's entertaining in his own way But he's not going out of his way to be on instagram and have means and engage with the media and that's fine That's his prerogative I feel like the discussions about him On a national scale are always like a year behind where he actually is as a player and that's been other So so like you hear sometimes like well, you know by the end of his career He might he might be like two or three years ago. It was like he you know He's in there running for best big man passer of all time. He's like no no he already is like that's over And now it's like you know if he keeps this up like you might mention him toward the end is in the same breath as jason kid And steve nash and magic johnson like no no that's that's for his that's what he is already He's already one of the best passers in any history like that's what he is when you break down it when you We go through skills we talk about the passing and maybe the post up or the size or this or that But there's a couple other micro skills that when you point them out you realize how impactful they are One of them is he has suction cups on his hands and I don't know how but he just grabs the ball and these weird like off rebounds or bad Pat like you give him a bad pass that you think there's no way he'll catch it Just somehow sticks to his hand and he lays it up and then he has the play you talk about signature plays This is a lame one But again you point it out you start to notice because he doesn't jump very high He rebounds so well sometimes by tapping the ball really quickly off of a rebound so that his second jump he can grab it So two players jump he taps it quickly comes down goes back up and grabs the second one and then finishes it all All quickly and it's something that happens Maybe every other game he'll get a rebound and a put back just off of that tapping it real quick He's probably the best floater zone shooter we've ever seen You know, I'm talking about all players he has the best touch on those so you start to break down these skills and you think okay Not only is he the best passing big man. He might be the best floaters on suit shooter He has arguably the best hands ever or at least the S tier He's tied for best hands ever of any player from any position And then he's an elite post-up player a great jump shooter and great screener And then reads the court in the S tier So these got all of these skills that add up to say if you're number one at four or five different things on a basketball court You're probably an all-time great.
I want to go back. I don't want to crown you okay pretty much early I just like what's the city like right now? Is it nuggets mania has he has he become As he ends up all Murray who's been spectacular the whole playoffs in their two-man game is as beautiful as basketball gets Is it like you go to a bar and people are talking about the nuggets? Is it you have friends who have never really been basketball fans who are like now asking you questions about the nugget?
Is all that happening right now? I've definitely heard from some people from high school that I haven't heard from for a long time You know, just knowing I'm doing this and having to reach out maybe follow on Facebook or this or that So yeah, there's some of that I will say and then yes to just the conversation You know nuggets is not a thing you talk about at the checkout counter It is a thing in the braco season, especially in their heyday They've been bad for a while but in their heyday where sunday after a big win Wherever you would go to the gas station. They're talking about hey man. Do you like that game?
It's not quite to that levels, but I will say there's an interest you see a lot more jerseys around I think it could be more though and one of the things is I would love to see a little bit more billboards I think the nuggets could do a little bit of this of like hey paint the city blue blue and gold for a little bit So I think it can be more but I'm curious to see what it looks like here in the next week Yeah, whether you get the first two games, which means Miami wins the east or you get three four six Which means boston wins the east you're gonna feel like when the the finals feels so much different than the conference finals It's staggering like walking to the seltics game yesterday in boston versus walking to a seltics game in the finals is when the weather is good It's just a completely different level of scene The world is going to descend on denver the sports world is going to descend on denver and it's just it's just different It just feels way way different than a conference finals game feels crowded media wise, but it doesn't feel like crazy It doesn't feel like you're just in a mob scene all the time and there's famous people all around like the finals feels like that I don't know how many people know that listen to this podcast know this but you took a whole crew with you DnVR did you and Harrison win and a couple other guys to Serbia last summer and you filmed a bunch of youtube episode You filmed a documentary about it that I haven't watched the whole thing of i'm dare elected doing that because my life is too busy But i'm gonna do it because i've been to Serbia and i go to the Balkans every every summer Like I want you to take me through why did you do that? And you went to sombore where you'll get just from and where you'll get has his horses and likes to go in the off season Why did you do that and what did you get out of it just take us through that a little bit because that's a that's a big undertaking You have children you have families. It's far away It's expensive. It's not like you're gonna go there and get like a two-hour sit down with yokas just because you came to sombore But that's a cool cultural experience.
I'm sure unlike anything you guys have ever done in your lives probably Well, what you got out of it we'd fill up the entire podcast with me talking about that But I'll you know the idea to go dn VR's any company. I'll say line item number one It was fun. It's a fun idea and at dn VR we're lucky enough that we get the luxury to do that to say hey man This would be really interesting We don't even know what we're gonna get from it But we just know we'll get something we trust ourselves that we go there something's gonna manifest itself and that'll be the story But number two we have a big following and survey. I mean that is a basketball nation It is a basketball nation.
So you we have a big following out there and hey, let's go meet some of our fans Let's go talk to them. They're all gonna What time will the games be on there if they're 8.35. They will they will If I could be in a bar in belgrade at tip off of one of those games It's going to be insane like it's not gonna be like people waking up and like I'll flip on the game in my living room The bars are gonna be open and they're gonna be crowded for these finals games And by the way exactly they've been doing this for 30 years I mean they first had their players arriving in the NBA in 1989 with ladi diva's So they've been doing this for a long time of hey, that's the rhythm of it Los angeles was even an hour back. So they would be up even an hour earlier, but um, you know So you have um so we want to go out there and meet our fans And then lastly to learn a little bit more about Serbian culture and Serbian basketball history Which I knew there was a history But I think like most people you know like okay, there's some players that come from that region I did not know Zach it's perhaps the basketball nation I said yesterday on a show us the basketball nation and then the soviet union with the wadia and I think I said then Serbia The hate mail I received for saying that they say no no no no We are at least number two don't like don't put us below anybody else And if you look at you this lab is a whole which of course formally comprised of all of those uh Croatia Bosnia and Serbia of all those nations They have a lot of gold medals They have a lot of history that goes back 100 years by the way 1923 was when basketball was introduced to Serbia from an american red cross workers We are on year 100 of basketball there perhaps not coincidental But they have this history and this infrastructure and this pride that they really purposely set out to make themselves into a basketball nation And as a result they had an incredible 20-year run of gold medals in international competition Including over the u.s multiple times Uh spain and france both now have a say in the number two conversation currently because they they just The players change and they just keep making the finals and the semi-finals of all the big european international tournaments But you know Serbia probably provided yolkich plays probably has the second best team on paper in the in the world But so who did you meet there?
Did you meet any yolkich family and friends? Did you see the horses did you see any of the horses did you get to ride in the harness with his horses? Did you get anything like that didn't get right in the harness? But I'll tell you this quick anecdote is that you know I wrote the cola before said hey We're going over we're gonna go to sombore is there anything off limits like I don't want to trudge That's his private space is there anywhere off limits and he said no but you won't find it So I made that a challenge I couldn't find out and as a result you know We did we went to kk joker which is the basketball club in sombore that he now owns kk joker and he operates We got to go there where he grew up playing the game and met his former coaches saw all of the infrastructure all the cool things that he has going on there We went to the horse stables.
Yes to the both the track the hippodrome and also to his stable where he received the mvp We were escorted there by one of his personal friends We went to his favorite restaurant had his favorite meal which by the way These are stories that when you're here, you know through the years you accumulate these little details But they don't make sense to you. What's his favorite? What's his favorite meal? So it's called he called it fish do but it's called popri-kosh So it's a and I didn't know this so you get that detail and you think okay Well, I'll look that up when I go there apparently it is in sombore.
That's what it's known for So he's an extremely locally proud person that sombore is known for popri-kosh And that's what we you know, that's his favorite meal But we got to have that in his favorite restaurant So all of those things like we went to sombore we got the full red carpet rolled out for us And then you know a bunch of other people former basketball players his agent People at the bass serving in basketball federation who really helped us through walk through the history of a basketball in Yugoslavia So there was no shortage of people I slept maybe four hours a day for eight days straight And those were conversations that started at eight in the morning and ended at four in the morning And basically just repeated every single day Did yolkich flee when he knew you guys were coming? We see like this is a great time for me to go see somewhere even more somewhere more remote than some more because these Are coming from america. I want no part of it I mean he sees us all year long so I'm sure there was an element of that But the thing that made the trip perfect and I mean this when I say that trip was perfect and everything worked out Unbelievably well is that he was with the national team that week So he wasn't actually around oh that right culminated with we spent one week there and it culminated that on the last day he played against jonnes and team greece team Servia vs jonnes and team greece in an important world cup qualifying game They needed that game to qualify for this year's world cup and it was it took place in belgrade Which I think yolkich has only played in the last since he became to the mba I think it's a second time playing in belgrade so for a lot of fans in belgrade That's the only time they get a chance to watch and play so it was a huge game and it was an unbelievable game Um, I went through the sort of five-year arc of this team a couple episodes ago and I just I want you as so many follows It day-to-day on the ground there um Just the journey from jamal mari tearing is ACL until now and obviously a lot of things change between Then and now in terms of personnel kcp roos brown jeff green all hand in glove fits for how the nuggets want to play Tweaks to their defensive style more variety in their defense going small with erin gordon at the five Which is something you and I talked about months and months ago a lot of things have changed Um erin gordon was already there and I want to talk more about him later But you know you have these two seasons after his injury that are successful seasons and they're mvp seasons for yolkich You win around one year lose to the champs the next year in the first round But did you as someone covering the team did the fan base? Was were their thoughts during that period of like yeah, this is cool But it's empty and did did we miss it is is this going to be it or was there always a faith that like This is we're just waiting for this team to be fully formed again and it'll be there I mean when we called it purgatory.
So I think that gives you a sense of what it felt like it felt like What is the story here? They're just we're just waiting we're all holding our breath and i'll say this You know if we go back the timeline that you're talking about you get erin gordon you talk about this on your show numerous times So you get erin gordon and there was a seven or eight game run there where the nuggets look like oh, it's time All right, this is what we've been waiting for let's go and right then murry, you know britain Terris ACL and it's all over You I will say when you ask about what was the value of that so you I think nuggets fans everybody knew that the nuggets weren't winning a title To murry came back and was 100 was that one year was that two turned out it was two but During that time it wasn't inconsequential because I think two things happened one the chemistry between yokech and erin gordon went through the roof By necessity erin gordon spent a whole season being the second best nugget so you're going to develop a chemistry there that is paying dividends now But more importantly and they by the way, they get along really really well on and off the floor They are they are very tight Personality wise it's underrated how much we talk about basketball fit and you know how do these plays play each other but personality fits important too and A lot of personality fits on this nuggets team But the most important thing to come out of the last two years is nacola has always been a reluctant score and he increased that even in his mv Pcs and murry got hurt at the end of that he won the mvp with murry for most of that But I think that going into that playoffs and then obviously spending the next season without murry or porter forced him to learn I think to be more comfortable being aggressive to score a lot more and so when those guys came back He perfectly and seamlessly went back to being more of a distributor the points went down a little bit But we saw a 53 point game in this playoffs. We've seen some big scoring outputs It's there now and he is so comfortable being a big game score and just flipping the switch That's one of the things about nicolas it's not i'll come in on tonight. I have to be aggressive tomorrow No, he just reads it and if it's oh they're guarding me this way 50 points the Gordon trade Is is a visionary move by tim connoli and oh my god what I love to have tim connoli on this podcast right now because this has to be Such a combination of emotions swirling within him that he left this team knowing what it might do To take a job in minnesota made a gigantic trade right away that hasn't worked and now is watching this with i'm sure a combination of pride Longing bitter sweet whatever But it was it was a trade that was in the works for a long time a player that they had looked at as A jerry grant replacement and a better fit to jerry grant on a lot of levels for a long time And it was a trade that just felt immediately when it happened before erring Gordon set foot there as not only A trade that was like basketball destiny for the nuggets But basketball destiny for erring Gordon who I had written about so many times in orlando as just miscast by the fault of the magic and by his own ambitions I think of being like a ball dominant three and never kind of Embracing really what he should be as a player which is I used to call it his version of dreemon green You know not as good of a playmaker not quite as good of a defender But a decent playmaker and an excellent defender and he found the guy to bring that out of him in yokich And now with muri even more so because he doesn't have to score as much and it's just as perfect as a fit could be and you could argue like Well, it's easy to fit around yokich and muri two brilliant players.
He's a perfect fit and I felt In game four against the Lakers, you know, there's a lot to process There's the awe of labron putting up 40 and playing essentially the whole game with a foot injury There's antony davis disappearing and then coming back and scoring 10 in the fourth quarter There's denver being on the verge on the verge on the verge of history yokich and muri finally getting there And I found myself also gravitating toward erin gordon who the Lakers were ignoring and daring to shoot threes putting antony davis on him And you could see some burblings on nuggets twitter of like well, we got to cut his minutes We got to get more shooting out there and they did cut his minutes in game four And I my response to that in private conversation with the nuggets people that I just gossip with and others was he's too good He's too good and too essential to just all of a sudden he's jared vander built and we have to limit his minutes and game four He made his open threes. They used him as a facilitator They used him as a screener on back screens which was the adjustment and it was like the fully formed erin gordon game that they're going to need more of To win the title. I found myself thinking about him almost more than any other player in that game I mean he was I'm glad he brought up that arc of it where game four he comes back in his game three was the one you close with jeff green game Four he comes. I'm sorry.
I misspoke. I've got my games. I've got my game. Yeah, game three He was benched in the end kind of but but but the close it out and be back on the court was Was that was it was an interesting story arc to me as well and you're right he does all these things well But in the playoffs look it's no shame to say great players sometimes get played off of the floor for matchups at this level And I it's not a shameful thing to me.
It's hey this matchup and in this moment Not sometimes even a matchup. It's just hey last three minutes. We need to be able to do this one This lineups rolling this line up rolling we're sticking with it But you brought up the game for adjustments and I you never know how to credit these things But after the game michael milon called yokich coach yokich right he took over and I know milon well enough to know The offense in that series was great the nuggets I think once yokich on the court 125 offensive ratings So it's I think there's a reluctance to say hey We need to focus on how to attack them when they're not guarding erring gordon in my opinion I think that nuggets focused in on their defense and some of their other things But the offense for all the laughing about the ruby adjustment Oh, that's gonna stop him That actually is the best way to guard yokich if you have a four big enough and smart enough to just kind of keep him You know Make him work and then you have a roaming five that that has been where teams have found some success again If the bar is lower from 125 offensive rating, can we just get that down to 120? That's manageable Manage you get it down to like if we have a good offensive game we can win And so that's what that teams are trying to do and it did stymie denver and it's why Jeff green closed in game three But with erring gordon, I really suspect that yokich was the one in game four saying like no We need to solve this problem now in the clutch offensively and when you say using him as a screener to me That's the ultimate thing anti-davis was debt tired and he wasn't gonna go out on the perimeter to contest his jumper So either he's gonna hit four or five in the fourth or you're gonna have to use him differently And using him as the sort of flare screen setter on the weak side Knowing Anthony Davis isn't gonna provide any help on those actions to me as the best way They did that in game four with erring gordon and i'm hopeful that coach yogech and coach mola I don't want to take it away coach yogech has said hey This is what we need to do when and if teams do this and if so we're gonna really gain a rhythm in attacking it And i've talked a lot about the Lakers i did make minimum on two days ago So you can listen to that Lakers fans if you want about how competitive that sweep was and how this Lakers season was a success Regardless of how it ended and every game in that series It's a cliche to say every game tells a story Every game in that series was a story and kind of like a poetic one So game one lebron misses the tying three they play more cards than they think they're gonna play the Lakers to try to steal that game Game two i've talked about is like i watched that game and like oh that's a moment for the nuggets That's that's a prove it moment rallying from a deficit Getting on the verge of a two oh lead in a place that you've never gotten out of in the NBA And then having it start to unravel a little bit late and gutting it out even though it was starting to unravel Game three foul trouble all that stuff they find a way to win it on the road and then game four Just nip and talk the entire way this team is not going away We can't land a knockout punch and Rediscovering erring Gordon and and gutting it out and erring Gordon helping get the stop at the end of the game By the way, no one talked about this.
No i've given up on The nuggets get the ball back up to and a three and a half second differential between shot clock and game clock I guess nobody will ever do the thing where you just run the whole shot clock down and launch a three and end the game Like i'm screaming at Jamal Murray. Why are you shooting with like seven on the shot clock man? Just stop just even up. No one will i guess no one will ever do it Yeah, that's that's a funny detail Magic johnson had one by the way i've seen a clip of it where he gets a steal and he throws the perfect pass all the way down court So it rolls slowly to the corner and it weighs maybe seven seconds just rolling and then the buzzer sounds before it goes out of bounds I think that's the greatest throwaway pass I've ever seen but um to your point Here's one thing because I don't mind that these were all close games They all could have gone either way they were that close one thing though I pushed back on because I think Denver dominated the series and one reason is what would LeBron have had in game five?
Because Anthony Davis didn't have anything in game three and four and when going into the series one of the things I said was All right, the series is every other game the Laker the nuggets have the endurance And I and I think the toughness edge in this one and when I say toughness What I just mean is they're younger and yogic and Murray are both so good when they're exhausted They just are so good at pushing through it It's why they've come back from two three one desert It's one of the reasons they come back from two three one deficits and they've been so good in elimination games They have an incredible ability to play through those moments and that's how the series played out game one if he Davis was a monster Yogic obviously outplayed him that was an all-time performance game two you saw him run out of steam game three and four I think he had nothing left and that was part of the design is Yogic is one of the most exhausting players to go up against LeBron guarded him for a while empty the chamber guarded him quite well too And if there was a game five I just would have taken nuggets by 25 points And if there was a game six I would have taken them by 30 points I just Denver I think wore them out and was gaining an edge even with the wins if it went longer I think they were just building towards something later in the series So I almost started Watching film of nuggets heat previous matchups after the heat went up 3-0 and then I and I stopped myself because if there's one thing I hate in life It's wasted time time that ends up wasted and I stopped myself. She's like, you know what? I'm not gonna tempt the basketball gods with a comp like I'm not gonna do two hours of this and then the Celtics win in seven And those two hours will have been lit on fire. I'm gonna wait I'm gonna wait So I haven't done any of it yet and now I'm goddamn not doing any of it until that series is over whoever it ends Have you thought about match-ups yet?
I mean we talked about the heat earlier and the fact that you obviously get home court in Denver The nuggets do it if the heat went but if you thought about which team you I mean I don't have you just have you thought about it yet Well, let's start with the basics one you have home court advantage and the other you don't and Denver is incredibly good at home So automatically you look at there's a big difference there, but Miami I've always thought this Miami is the best match-up for Denver of all the good teams in the NBA I think of every good team That's the team that Denver has just had at least regular season dominance over and it starts with bam Adebayo is a phenomenal center against all but two or three players in the NBA one of them and probably most important is yogic He's too big. He's too tall and bam yogic is really good against defenders that play the positional type defense and put a hand up Because he doesn't care if you force him this way that way if you're not blocking his shot He's just shooting a comfortable jump hook and bam falls in that category on top of that Then you look at erring gordon who's one of the sneaky most important players because if you can't guard him with size and physicality Then if your defense is constantly having to collapse on the paint Well erring gordon has a great size matchup in that series So to me Denver has dominated the heat for the last several years and that matchup to me is one of the best ones The Celtics is a tough one They I just said it takes two bigs to guard him al horford with robert william's roaming is a really good You know on ball defender very crafty and then help side of shot blocker That's really tough and they have the perimeter defenders and mark a smart and jaylin brown to make things difficult on Murray So to me This is about as big of a gap between good and bad match-ups for the nuggets as you can get coming out of the ease Well, we'll see what happens. That's all the analysis. I'm doing.
I'm coming out of the east because I'm not doing any of it More anymore of it. I will see you soon one way or are you gonna travel to all the games? I'm not sure yet how it'll happen. Um, I really hope it everybody comes to Denver, but so either way You're gonna keep you've been saying for years now.
You're coming by the bar. I'm catching that check this this next Oh, no, no, no, if I get to Denver, I'm coming to the bar and um, it'll and I'm gonna bring some friends to the bar too perfect Um, look I just think The series ended really fast LeBron hinted at retirement Um, the east series is turned dramatic I just wanted to take half an hour and just sort of talk about the nuggets even though We're gonna have now two and a half more weeks to talk about the nuggets once the finals get rolling But your work covering the steam and various outlets has been I mean foundational to my Understanding of it in the nitty gritty and I think lots of fans and then transitioning to what you're doing now at the nvr Has been really fun to watch and um, I just I just one way or another win lose enjoy the finals because like the world is coming to Denver now I mean, that's what happens and so you've done great work. Thank you for indulging me yet again on this podcast and I'm sure we'll do it against I can't wait to thank so much