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The second round of the playoffs is underway. In the biggest most anticipated series is now tied at 1-1. The Golden State Warriors makes some adjustments, go a little smaller overcome at illness to Kavon Looney and blow out the Los Angeles Lakers continuing a rather anti-climactic streak of home teams lose game one. Obviously home favorites who lose game one coming back and winning game two I believe that is the 16th straight such game to win for a home team down 1-0.
But we are 1-1 and that series will resume on Saturday. We get Sixers Celtics 1-1 after a boring game two blowout where James Harding came back to Earth and Joel Embiid didn't solve all the problems. And Nugget Suns is also tonight. That's the only two series.
Heatnicks, bloodbath, slugfest, old school, slow pace, bully ball, that resumes on Saturday. We'll talk about that. Bobby Marks. How are you?
How's it going? Going good. Ready to go. Big weekend of NBA.
Big weekend of NBA. I gotta tell you Bobby, last night only one game, 9 p.m. tip off which because it was on the glorious family of ESPN networks really means 9-17. And everyone's like, where's the game?
Can we just start the game? It's 9-17. Apologies to ESPN overlords. It's just a thing.
It's annoying. And I'm sitting there. And even though I'm not at the game, I'd normally be for a finals game. I had the butterflies in my stomach of a finals game because of the late tip off, because it was the only game on.
And just because you do have these moments where you sit back and you look at Steph Curry and LeBron James and Clay Thompson and Dremon Green, Anthony Davis maybe to a lesser extent. And you're like, man, these guys are still at it. I've lived these guys have been main characters in my life for a long time now at the absolute highest levels of the game. You look back at some of the old clips of, you know, Dave McMahon had that great essay we've been running, video essay of like the 15, 16 finals between Cleveland and Golden State.
And Curry just looks so young. And everybody looks so much younger. And here they are and it's just sort of megawatt names. And it's just, I got the butterflies going in my stomach and I had to remind myself, it's just second round game.
And maybe if I have like, I'm on a group text with some neighbor friends and none of them are real NBA fans. One of them just texted the group yesterday morning being like, did you guys know? Trivia fact, did you guys know? And she said, Zach probably knows.
But did you guys know, Steph Curry and LeBron James were born in the same hospital in Akron, Ohio? Like everyone is, people who don't follow the NBA are aware this series is going on. And it's now 1-1. And all the Golden State adjustments to open up the floor seem to work.
Anthony Davis after laying waste to the Warriors in game one had a quiet game two. And now we go back to Los Angeles. What did you see Mr. Marks before I go crazy about what I saw?
You know, it's funny. I saw it was something that JJ Redick said like a month ago. I think this was even before the playoffs started. When he looked at looking at kind of the Warriors off season as far as what needs to be addressed.
And this is kind of jumping once the playoffs are over. And he said, you'll basically drain on and loony together, basically hogs everything up, right? They didn't really have a space, you know, a stretch for, or a stretch or a big like Brooke Lopez that can shoot threes, stretch the floor. And what you saw last night is you put the drain on the five and you put your Michael Green at the four and it just kind of, it just opened, it just opened things up, you know, for a guy that, I mean, let's face it, really didn't play that much.
She didn't play it all really in the Sacramento series and it came out and had 15 points. But the reality is, I mean, this was a, this was a Laker team that was up, where they up eight in the second quarter before Golden State went on at run. And, you know, I know certainly Golden State was up, you know, going into the half here. I just thought the pace, I thought the, from like the eight minute mark of the second quarter on that Golden State just dictated the pace, right?
Like just even when they got into the half core, I thought, I dream I did a really good job pushing AD away from the basket. But man, the shot, the shot making, the shot making continually amazes me with Clay Thompson. Like those are not easy shots. What he made last night here.
And I thought what they did was they limited Jordan Pulls minutes a little bit here. They kind of rained him back. He was awful last night. Awful.
Even the five fouls he made. Yeah, I found. It was very fitting that the first Lakers free throws of the game were on Jordan Pulls just standing up straight in a non-stance, which I guess is a stance, a non-stance stance. Dennis Schrueder's like, oh, you're just gonna stand up flat foot all blow by you and Jordan Pull reaches and fouls him.
And that's why the Warriors have had foul issues all year, is they can't contain drill differentiation. And it's one of the reasons I picked the Warriors in seven in this series is that the Lakers don't really have those like blow by super fast guards who can just roast you off the dribble and like the way Malik Monk and D. Aaron Foxley able to do in the first round. I thought Jordan Pull like he had a very good game one.
And last night he just was just bad. I don't know why I felt the need to interrupt. No, because it felt like game one was like a litmus test, right? We're going to let you go, right?
We're going to do what you want to do here, right? I mean, I think you get 21 in that game. And here it was like, all right, now we're going to pull you back, right? Now we're going to maybe we're going to extend more minutes to Moses Moody.
We're going to play Dante even chance a little bit more here. And both those guys got you, they got 18 points. And I think that's the two players here. And it showed you that, you know, you don't need a 25-point game from Jordan Pull.
And I think certainly defensively there's concerns as far as him on the court here. I thought Wiggins was really good. I thought Wiggins like just little things with him. Like rebound in the ball, loose balls.
Like just like you didn't need to go out. I mean, he got you 11 points, but just a little, I mean, it was, I mean, say we want about plus minus, who's a plus 35 in the game, right? If you're going to play small and you're going to play Dremond at the center a lot and you're going to play a team with Anthony Davis, sometimes with Vanderbilt and Hachamara or like three of the LeBron Hachamara Davis Vanderbilt quartets, a big group. You're going to have to gang rebound.
Like everyone is going to have to contribute. And that's one of like, Curry's always been good at that. And I thought Wiggins was also tremendous. And I also still think they're leaving money on the table with Wiggins on offense.
They cannot let the Angelo Russell just sit there hiding on Andrew Wiggins. Like give me four Andrew Wiggins post-ups because you're going to have to send a double team. Give me a Curry Wiggins pick and roll to try and hunt the Angelo Russell and just let Curry cook. Like I think there's a little bits of Wiggins money that the Warriors, I mean, who had an amazing game plan for game two, I still think they're leaving a little money on the table.
Yeah, I agree. And I thought from the Lakers perspective, I thought there was a big missed opportunity in that second quarter there when they were up. I mean, they came down, I think there's two, Austin Reeves three in the corner that he was short on. There was another, I don't know, who there was another three in the top of the key.
Like they went for the kill. Like they went for the kill shot. Like in the middle and the beginning of the second quarter. And I thought, hey, post up AD, man.
Get him something easy around the basket or expand the lead. And I just thought they, you know, it was almost like a little bit of fool's gold there here. And that kind of, you know, missed three, long rebound. Golden State gets out in transition, gets out and runs either layups or open threes.
They were flying last night. To the point that I often thought they were like reckless in their desire to just hit the accelerator at all times. Which I think is smart because another reason I picked Warriors in seven in this series was I'm just not sure that LeBron and AD are gonna be able to hold up under the minutes burden that they're gonna have to play. Under the scoring burden that they're gonna have to carry.
Under the defensive burden that Davis is under. And I'm gonna talk about that later. This is an all encompassing assignment defensively for him. He has to literally be almost in two places at once over and over and over again on every single possession.
And by that, I mean, if he's guarding Draymond or Looney on a lot of possessions, he's gonna start even when Draymond's at center. He's gonna start in the paint because Draymond's gonna have the ball and there's gonna be split action and the cutters and his first job is gonna be if there's a cut, I gotta be in the paint. If there's dribble penetration, I gotta bet on my guards to get over the screen and get in the paint. But then I gotta zoom up to the point of attack if suddenly Clay's taking a dribble handoff or Steph's running a pick and roll.
And he was in the first half, I thought I called that the Golden State yo-yo. I gotta ride the yo-yo back and forth. I gotta ride the yo-yo. I thought he was tremendous in the first half.
In the second half, I thought you could start to see him wilt a little bit. Like he was a little bit late going on the upside of that yo-yo. And a couple of those Clay threes in the third quarter, there was too much space to him. And you know what?
Anybody would wilt a little bit under the pressure that he's gotta do that possession after possession after possession as the keystone of their defense. And so that's why I think the Warriors are smart to run even if it gets a little bit reckless. Well, I think too, even though they lost game one, I mean, I think they kind of set the tone a little bit of how they're gonna play when they got down. I guess it was 112, 98, right?
And at the end there, they went on like, they went small, put your aim out at five and they went all guards. And that, I mean, I was like, I was talking windy, I was like, man, I was like, Indiana 500. Pool party, they threw the pool party lineup, a lineup that Steve has lost faith in. You know, round by round in the playoffs last year, that lineup, which we all celebrated in the middle.
What should we call it? How about pool party? How about the last party? How about whatever?
How about death lineup? Four point nine, point two. And as the opponents got bigger and better, that lineup played less and less. And it was, I think it was the third most played lineup in the regular season, but that only ended up at like 150 minutes.
And even last night, it played, I think, a few minutes, but not much. But he busted it out at the end of that game. And it was like, oh my God, they are playing fast. And what you did was you just tweaked it.
You basically said we still need some size, right? So we're going to, you know, pool is going to be basically kind of the odd man out. We're going to put your Michael Green in with Draymond. And we're going to leave, you know, our other three starters here.
And that's kind of how we're going to, we're still going to play fast, but we still have a big body there that can defend and grab rebounds. Here's my concern for the Lakers. For the series through two games, they are now averaging, it's only two games, I realize. And garbage time was the entirety of the fourth quarter last night.
But they're averaging 107 points per 100 possessions. That would have ranked last in the regular season. For the entirety of the playoffs, which again is only eight games for them. So not a huge sample.
But this was not a good offensive team in the regular season for the most part, even after the trade deadline. They're averaging 109 points per 100 possessions. That would have ranked 29th in the regular season. The Lakers are in danger of becoming a one way team.
And as great as their defenses, and it's great. I mean, it is somewhat, it is very dependent on Anthony Davis, but it is great. And Vanderbilt has been tremendous chasing Steph Curry around and being a pain in the butt and being big. LeBron is still respected as a threat.
He knows where to be. I thought last night though, there were a couple of times where he just did not rotate to the rim. And one was a Dremon dunk. And I can't remember off top my head with the other one was but I re-watched it.
That's LeBron's rotation. And he was like, yeah, I'm not gonna do that. But I just don't think they can win this series. And they have loftier goals than that as a one way team.
And part of the reason that they're struggling on offense is there's, and part of the reason Anthony Davis struggled last night is there's just no room for him to get below and even to the dotted line. If you watch, I re-watched all the Anthony Davis picker rolls or he was a screener this morning. First of all, Dremon on Anthony Davis changed the total feel of that game. He's just so ferocious.
AD tried him in the post once in the second half and Dremon was having absolutely none of it. And on the pick and roll, he's dropping back and he plays the angle so well, he's never gonna let AD get behind him ever. They're gonna have to make ADs gonna have to make floaters and 18 footers, he's not getting dunks in rim runs. And he's not getting dunks in rim runs because they're just not going to guard anybody else.
They're not gonna guard Vanderbilt, obviously. And so you say, okay, do they're gonna have to take Vanderbilt off the floor to open up their spacing? Well, the trickle down effect of that is number one. You lose the guy you want defending Curry, even more than Schruter who's been fine.
And you lose size and you lose rebounding. But even when they take him off the floor, they're not guarding Hotchamara and credit Hotchamara, he's making him pay for it. They're not guarding Schruter. You watch some of these pick and rolls.
Steph Curry is in the middle of the paint, not the edge of the paint, the middle of the paint, clogging it up with Schruter in the corner. And they're not guarding LeBron at all. There was one pick and roll I re-watched, it was in the first quarter where Clay was on LeBron. And he was a D-Lo, Anthony Davis pick and roll.
And LeBron was at the top of the arc, very top. And normally would say, okay, Clay will be at the nail. That would be dramatic help if he's in the middle of the family. Clay was like in the restricted area.
It was so disrespectful. They're not guarding anybody on the team. And I don't really know what the solution to that is, other than those guys are going to have to make shots. And zooming out to the idea that the Lakers are a one way team, they're offensive rating with LeBron on versus LeBron off for the entire playoffs is about the same.
It's no better. It's actually like a minuscule hair worse with LeBron on the floor. And after last night's minus 27, for the playoffs, they are minus three with LeBron on the floor and plus 26 with LeBron off the floor. And he just has not been consistently able to assert his will in either of these series.
And I wrote it going into game two. It just feels like this is the official transition to Anthony Davis is the number one guy on the team. And that's fine. LeBron's 38 years old.
But this is the first time I can remember where the whole like is LeBron's game going to slip a little bit with age. I feel like I'm kind of watching it right now because even last night when you played bully ball, like he had a post up over Clay and a post up over Wiggins, it was when they were down 14 and 16. And it was kind of like, all right, I've had enough of this nonsense. Give me the ball, I'm going to post up.
And he just hasn't been able to do that consistently. We just haven't seen a lot of like the LeBron call up Curry's man to set a screen. Call up pool's man to set a screen. And when we have seen it and he's tried to engage that part of his game, the spacing hurts him too because he starts driving into lane.
There's four guys there. And I just, they're a one way team right now. And they can't win this series as a one way team. We can talk about some of their ways out of being a one way team.
But one of them is, and he made a lot of jump shots last night. He wasn't the reason they lost. But he, I think we're just going to need to see him try to dip into whatever that kind of physicality bully ball he has left in him because the Warriors are going to clog everything else up. And the Lakers just haven't been a good offensive team Well, yeah, I mean, what did 18 attempts last night, eight or threes, right?
Only 10 on twos. I think that, you know, as you said, By the way, I should, I should acknowledge he had a foot injury so serious that everybody but the LeBron of feet told him to get surgery. And I would be shocked if that were not impacting him to some degree right now. And it's admirable that he's playing through it.
If there's an it, I don't know, don't ask him about his foot anymore, but I assume it's something. I would, I would think. I mean, I think, I mean, as you said, like kind of a one way team, I think as you watch this team play, like there has to be close separation in these games, right? Like there can't, like it feels like we saw it a little bit in that Memphis series in game five, like letting go with the rope, right?
Like when you're down, when they're down 10 or 12, like it's almost like it's like 20, right? It's like it's because of how they, you know, hey, they're not, they're not going to stay. We're going to shoot a ton of threes and get back in it. Basically you're going to get everything around the paint.
You're going to get everything at the free throw line here. And I think the Lakers kind of go away from that a little bit. As I said, kind of looking for the home run, they went 10 for 34 from three last night, right? And kind of got away from how they played in, in game one here.
And I think for game three, they're going to have to set the tone, right? So far as going back to that style that, you know, got them up 12 in game one, right? Everything basically kind of, you know, put a barrier around the rim as far as, you know, penetration for, for, for Golden State, you know, everything for, for Los Angeles in the paint at the line here. And, but that's kind of like last night felt a lot like that game five lost to Memphis, right?
Where it was just like, you know what, we got down 12, we got our game, you know, we got our game already. And we just kind of like go with the rope a little bit. Well, yes, I mean, they didn't, they stole the game. They got the first game.
That's the game they needed. They got it. They have home court advantage. I think this is going to be a long series.
I think the Warriors will probably split in LA and come back to San Francisco to do, but who knows? But I do think that game and even the end of the first game have raised some issues about their offense and their spacing and conversely their ability to deal with the small, fast warriors. And that was the obvious adjustment that was the adjustment everyone was calling for was if Anthony Davis is going to lay back in the paint, that's all he's going to do. Don't let him do it.
And the way you don't let him do it is give him no choice but to guard, dream on green, right? So even in, even in, even in when they had both the greens on the floor, LeBron was on to Michael Green, and AD was on dream on green. And when they go smaller than that, there was no Gary Payton in the second, like if you want to stash AD over there, maybe you could, another non-shoot, or he didn't play essentially until Garb, not essentially didn't play until Garb, and then have dream on set screens for Steph Curry. Because then you got to come up.
And if you're up, then we can play four on three behind the plate like we've been doing for 10 years. And I don't know that there's a good answer. Like the pocket pass from Steph to dream on, AD was up high as he should have been. He wasn't blitzing, he wasn't trapping.
I don't know that a hard blitz is really the answer. He was kind of in a high drop. High enough that Steph couldn't just pull up for three, which is job one. But the pocket pass is there.
And I don't really know that there's a way to take that pocket pass away. Steph can throw it blindfolded. He probably would be tempted to throw it blindfolded the way they sometimes play. And Dremon knows all the reads from there.
And it just reminds you how one of a kind, dream on green is like there's been all this, we got to find this dream on green. And all that guy has to do is play four on three like dream on green. You just watch DeAndre eight and get the ball when they blitzed the rant. And it's like, okay, I got it, pause, think where.
And it's not like he's pretty good at it. And with Dremon, it's like bam, boom, turbo, hit the gas, you either confront me at the Rimmer, Duncan, or it's kick, kick, kick. And they ran 22 pick and rolls in game one for Steph. Only 23 last night.
So it wasn't like a sea change. I actually think they made second spectrum maybe under counting a little bit. But considering he didn't play the fourth quarter, it was actually 37 per 100 possessions versus 27 per 100 possessions in game one. Their points per possession were super, super high.
And there's just never been a great answer to Dremon roaring through open space in a four on three. And credit Steph for making the right pass. He had a bunch of assists last night. And the Lakers are going to have to figure out, what is our answer to that?
And they can join all the other teams that have tried to find an answer for that since 2015. 38 assists last night. I mean, that's the magic number. And I think if you said to me, Kerry's going to have 20 points.
And Golden State's going to win by 27. I would tell you your nuts. But as you said, Golden State has something unique that other teams don't. They have a guy who's playing basically center, but it's basically playing point guard.
Center on defense, point guard and offense here. I mean, even the play at the end of the second quarter, what if the C's parted for Dremon down the middle here? That was kind of like an indicator right there. But you're right.
I think if you're Lakers, and I do agree that this is going to go pretty six or seven games here, that if you're the Lakers, you are a little bit concerned. And I'm interested to see what adjustments they make based off what you saw a little bit at the end of game one. And then basically what you saw up until things got a hand in the middle of that third quarter. I do think some of it, and Jeff Van Gundy said it during the broadcast in AD, said it after the game.
Some of it is like, some days AD just makes these 13 foot floaters, and some days he doesn't. And when he does, he scores 25 to 35 points, so when he doesn't, he might have a game like this. And the track record just in the last 10 games suggests he's just not going to score 30 a game. It's going to be a little bit more up and down than that.
His mid-ranger is just OK. And like I said, I thought his defense early was really good, like right in that yo-yo. There was one where he was back patrolling those split cuts, and then Jordan Poole went around the screen, and I think it was Looney was handling the ball. And AD, like a freaking phantom, jumped out, got his hand up, and Poole had an air ball that went out of bounds, and you could tell.
I was like, oh my god, he got out there that fast, but that's hard work. And Steph was tremendous just making the right play. And to me, the play of the game that shows that was like 8.20 left in the second quarter. It was a Steph Looney pick and roll.
So Dreamon was out, it was Looney is the only big man. And Vanderbilt was on Steph. Got hit by the pick a little bit. So AD comes up.
All right, job number one, done. I've come up, you can't shoot at three. Steph crossed over a little bit to the middle of the floor, and then stopped and reared back like he might shoot. Like a hesitation dribble, he's rising up.
And that convinced AD. All right, it's safe for me now to retreat to Looney. And then Steph put his head down, zoomed into the lane, made AD recommit deeper into the paint, and then bounced it to Looney for a layup. And it's like, this guy's just manipulating everything.
And it was a brilliant performance by him, and a brilliant performance by the Warriors. And I think the number one question that Lakers have to ask is how can we score more? And I don't know if you have any good answers for that, but yeah, I mean, how do you score more? You got to take advantage of it.
And it's almost like going back to the Sacramento series. Like you can have multiple empty possessions. Like you can't compete with this Golden State team. You can't have, you know, play good defense, hold them to, you know, hold them to the Golden State to no points.
And then basically have two or three possessions where you're not, you have to basically split the difference on every possession. Like that's kind of how, you know, and I think it's just making shots. You know, I mean, awesome, he's had an off night. I mean, the angel Russell had an off night.
Is that it? I mean, his shooter was, you know, I think he was 0 for three, I think last night. Shooter was here. You know, I mean, certainly the Golden State defense was a lot better here, but no, I mean, it's, you know, it's hard to kind of get in a mud fight with these guys, with Golden State here.
And that's basically how you're going to have to try to slow it down and almost kind of get into a half court, you know, game. And I don't even know if that's good enough, because as you saw when they do slow it down and Dremon is basically, you know, orchestrate in the offense, you're getting, sometimes you're getting easy baskets, or you're getting kind of wide open threes. I think they're going to have to, if the Warriors are not going to guard the bronze to the degree they're not guarding him. I think the Lakers might have to run a little bit more LeBron AD pick and roll and see if they can get some downhill traction with that, because the spacing will be better just because LeBron's handling the ball.
That might require Vanderbilt playing fewer minutes, which is a tough compromise to make. But the Warriors don't want to switch those plays. Now they can, and they have switched wagons onto AD here and there, but they don't want to. So AD can maybe roll a little harder to the rim, they can get some traction with that play.
I would like to see them try to get AD some post touches, like I'll set some cross-screens for him, get him some deep post touches. Like there are vehicles, the Lakers, I'd like to see AD even handle the ball now and then if he's up to it. I mean, there are vehicles they have, give you some screen, the screener plays for the, I don't know, they got a score more, but this is a really, this is just a star studed awesome series. Can I just, Remark, go ahead, you want to say.
No, I mean, I think you hit around ahead. I mean, I think what happens is that, if you're not getting anything easy at the basket, whether if you're posting up or you're spreading the floor with your shooters here, man, missed shots, and they are off and running, right? Like you're basically on your back heels on defense already and you're not going to be able to set up kind of your defense. I think we saw a lot of that in game two.
I just want to make a remark on a very little thing that people will forget about. I am generally team savior challenge for the end of the game. Never use your challenge early. Steve Kerr used this challenge.
On Wiggins charge. On Wiggins charge in the second quarter with about three minutes left and the Warriors up 57 to 50. And I just took a little mental note of that because if you talk to a lot of the analytics people around the league that work inside teams, they're big, they actually push back some of them on the team, save it for the end, stance and say, like I've had a couple of them tell me, how many points is it going to swing you, right? And so that's two free throws and then it ended up being three free throws as a technical unfilling in the middle of that.
And some of them would say, if you feel like it's a moment in a game where if you get two or three points out of it, it can kind of wrench control of the game towards your side. And I think if you ask Steve Kerr, I bet that's what he, I bet he would have thought, you know what, we're up seven. If we can get this to nine or 10, then we're one spurred away from getting it to 14. And maybe it just becomes a game we can control from ahead the whole time.
That's exactly what happened. And nobody will ever talk about that challenge being quote wasted in the second quarter because it worked and it was a blowout. I just bookmark that because I think there is something to the idea that if you just feel, this is a moment where we can seize the game. I do think there are times when, especially if it's a play where you're gonna get basically automatic points out of it to use your challenge early.
And I thought that was an interesting move that made sense. And again, I'm usually on team just don't use it until the end. Well, especially that, I mean, it would have been a, you know, you went up 10 because it's too free throws and then the technical, I mean, you don't, you know, you come down to come down to hit two or three, it's a four point game, right? I mean, that's a big swing.
I mean, I'd love to see, and I know we would be doing, and probably would be, these games would be longer and stuff like that. I mean, I'd love for teams to get their challenge back if you win. I know it. I'm anti.
I don't play offs. What about in the playoffs? I don't need more, I don't need more, I understand the logic behind it. Like you shouldn't lose your time at whatever it is.
Like I just don't, or you shouldn't lose your challenge. I don't want any more delays in the game. Like let's just keep the thing moving. I don't want any more replays.
I don't want any more delays. Any final Lakers, Warriors, Suts. Oh, I, this is gonna sound a little radical, Bobby. Oh boy.
If the Lakers end up really needing shooting, there is a shooter who used to be in their rotation and is not in their rotation anymore because they don't trust them defensively. And I understand why they don't trust them. Oh, I know. I know you're going.
It might be time to give Malik B's a little bit of a cookie. Just give him a little cookie. A little cookie at playing time. I just, I understand why they don't trust him.
He's a little bit of a wild card to be polite about it. But I've always been a Malik B. If you get shooting, you got a shooter. It's the same player we talked about before to trade that line, right?
I mean, the guy that had been playing pretty well in Utah, we thought that teams could maybe move a protected shooter. Would you take the shooter, Dremont, anything? I mean, I don't, I didn't really make, I didn't make much into it. I mean, I was surprised that the broadcast did not bring up the Jordan pool, John Moran, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which was very similar from last year's playoffs and became like this raging controversy because Moran appeared to maybe have been injured.
Although people thought maybe he was injured before that. Taylor Jenkins made a big stink about it in the most game media. Like, see what the league does from here. And nobody brought that up last night.
I thought that was interesting. The Warriors again, except it was reversed. You know, the Warriors were the victims of an e-grab. And I thought that an e-grab was actually like more obvious and blatant.
Like he kind of catapulted himself, slingshot himself. I don't know. I didn't think it should have, I wasn't like, well, it's a flagrant blah, blah, blah. I was kind of like, let's move on.
But anyway. Baseball fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional call.
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We got where the Nixi, we're the proper, we're the proper demographic for Nixi. CBS News at 6PM with Lester Holt, what network is Lester? I'm just making, I don't know what to work. Hey, you can do the game tomorrow and still get the early bird special, you know?
330 games on Saturday. You laugh at me, my friend. Yesterday was my wife in my wedding anniversary and 545 dinner special, baby. There you go.
There you go. I was hungry too. I was ready. 9PM game, I got all sorts of time.
Let's get some apps, let's get some guacamole. The finance bros were there for happy hours. Can we get these finance bros out of here? They're crowded in our seat, get them out of here.
And by 6.30 PM they were out of there. But we're really infringing on the finance bros happy hour, because we're sitting there for the early bird special at 545. Unapologetic. I don't care.
It's big down here in Naples, early bird special. Big down here in Naples. Nixi, one one. I almost spoke two and two existence.
Two, one one. First of all, we've learned nothing really from the first two games of the series, because Jimmy Butler missed game two and Julius Randall missed game one. So Jimmy Butler and Julius Randall played zero minutes together in this series. The total score after two games is Miami plus one.
The pace of the series is 92 possessions per game, which is so much slower than the slowest regular season team that it's just turning into this bruising slug fest. The heat after winning game one with Jimmy Butler spraining his ankle and they limped toward the finish line and got the job done, Kyle Lowry made a bunch of big plays. They almost grand theft heated that game two game. It was almost grand theft Miami like, OK, we're running out of players, bam picked up a foul five minutes of the game.
Let's just play zone and shoot a lot of threes and see if we can walk out here with a win. And they damn near almost did it until the Nix kind of sort of figured out how to play against his own a little bit. Josh Hart made a couple of threes. The heat have given no updates concretely on Jimmy Butler.
Based on what I know about Jimmy Butler, I'm expecting him to play tomorrow night Saturday in game three. And if so, assuming Randall plays and Brunson plays, we will finally get to see what is left of these two teams. I mean, the heater already missing players. What are you looking for in game three?
It seems like every round there's a series where we get to game three and four. It's like, it kind of feels like the series just started because of all these injuries. But it's starting now. Yeah, I mean, what I'm interested to see is, I mean, I thought, you know, certainly the role players.
And you know, like, as you said, like game two was I thought was the effort taken from Miami. I'm interested, can this be a continual pattern of the role players in Miami that gave Vincent's, the Max Strusas, like, is this one offs, right? You were running their entire offense through gave Vincent in punch time of being two. I'm sitting there like, gave Vincent all the credit to you, man.
I believe undrafted, G league, game two, the second round of the playoffs, like, hey, man, you gotta run the show for us. I'm interested to see how much of a leash do you have with Duncan Robinson? Because I felt like, man, when he was on the court, Jalen Brunson's eyes lit up defensively. Like he was searching for him.
Like, you couldn't I Duncan Robinson defensively. I'm interested to see that. Yeah, I just like, I mean, even though Miami lost game two, like to just continually, continually amaze me as far as what they have out there, right? Like it just, like as far as how much they're basically trying to squeeze out of this group, I would think it would be a major disappointment if New York doesn't win the series.
I do, I mean, I just think kind of where the heat are right now. And I can't go there until I see how Butler looks because if Butler is healthy, they have by far the best player in the series. Yeah, I mean, that's certainly fair. I mean, I think I'm interested to see like, you know, I didn't think quickly was good in game two.
Yes, but he hasn't been good essentially the entire playoffs. Yeah, I just thought there's like, he's just been so reliant on the three ball and it's been some bad shots here. So like, what do you get out of that, out of the next bench and how this, this tips even shortened, his rotation even shorter, right? Where you're basically, you know, playing that group, you know, 37, 38 minutes here.
So I mean, like, I mean, I think we're in for probably another, you know, a low, you know, probably a low scoring, you know, game here, you know, game three is the adjustment game, right? Like it's, you know, it's basically a best of five series right now. Except we haven't seen the real teams face off against each other. If they he'd had won that game two, they just should have run through the tunnel and like taking a getaway car to the airport and chartered a plane to get to hell out.
That's the degree to which that would have been just a total heist of a playoff game. I'm gonna start game three by looking at the big man matchups even more closely because with Randall back and Randall was pretty good at thought and game two. The heat kind of switched up the big man matchups, BAM, guards Randall, which makes a whole lot of sense because if Julius Randall wants to go ISO against BAM out of bio, go ahead, big fellas, not gonna work out for you. And then Kevin Love has to guard Mitchell Robinson.
And that's an area that I think both teams can peck at a little bit. If I'm the Knicks, let me test Kevin Love's pick and roll defense a little bit. He wants to hedge that because they don't want him dropping back because if he's dropping back, he's just on an island and jail and Brunson's gonna go right through him. He wants to hedge.
Okay, let me just, can I get something out of that? I don't really trust Mitchell Robinson as like a playmaker in open space if he slips into open space, but can I make Kevin Love hedge two and three times and see what happens? And on the other side of the floor, if Mitchell Robinson ends up stuck on Kevin Love because they can't flip the matchups around, can I get something out of Kevin Love picking pops? Maybe?
Can I get the Knicks in a little bit of uncomfortable rotations? And just the general big man thing as bad as, not as bad, the offense has actually been okay in the series. It hasn't looked great. The Knicks again are beating the hell out of Miami on the offensive glass.
They've rebounded 36% of their own misses. It's been their best offense the entire playoffs. And at some point, some team is gonna have to try to figure out how to keep Mitchell Robinson off the glass and keep these guys off the glass. Can Kevin Love, one of the great kind of root guys out rebounder, but he's not as athletic as he used to be.
Is he up for that? That's where I'm gonna start. I'm gonna start my focus on those matchups. And then we know that both of these teams, it's gonna be a very simple, just brute force series.
The Knicks are gonna try to hunt favorable matchups with jail and Brunson and the Heat are gonna try to make them at hunt favorable matchups with Jimmy Butler. Whether that's trying to get switches in the pick and roll, whether that's calling some post-ups for Jimmy Butler. And is Jimmy up to that? Is his ankle gonna allow him to dominate the game that way?
Who gives those matchups up? Who exploits them the best? It's gonna be, if you like simplistic brutality, I think a lot of the series is gonna be good for you. Yeah, I mean, game two plus 16 rebounds, plus nine second chance points.
Kind of like a little bit of flavor from that Cleveland series, right? Like that's kind of how they dominated the four wins. It was basically kind of like loose balls. Like I said this, I was talking to somebody the other night about I said, like it felt like at the end of game two, like if you're using the hockey analogy, right?
Like didn't feel like New York was gonna power play. Like it was basically went up, offensive rebound, kick out. Like Miami couldn't get like the puck out of the zone. Like and that's kind of how New York is gonna beat you.
And it turns into an open three by Josh Hart there. And that basically kind of gives them separation here. So that is kind of New York's gonna win. That's kind of how, you know, they've shown it, right?
They've shown it in Cleveland series. They showed it in game two, fell in love a little bit with the three ball and game a lot in game one, going seven for 34. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, that's, I mean, it's gonna be a little bit of kind of bully ball as far as game three.
The other thing that I think what Miami is doing that is smart is if the Knicks are hiding Brunson on Struce or Duncan Robinson, but among the starters, it's been Struce. They are running Brunson ragged on defense. Struce will run off of a million pin downs, cut here, cut there. And I think that's always really smart.
When the other team tries to hide their most important guard on a shooter, a movement shooter, amp up that guy's movement, 25%. Just have him moving around, just for the sake of making jail and Brunson run around a lot. And yeah, there's just a lot of interesting subplots sort of yet to be settled in the series. I don't think the zone is gonna be a one-off gimmick for Miami.
I think they liked what they saw. I know the Knicks got some shots on it toward some good looks in the fourth quarter. I just, I didn't like their process against the zone for a lot of the game. I thought they just kind of mismatched haunted, which is fine, that's how they're built.
But it did kind of remind you, like, this is not a great passing team. They don't have a lot of like flash to the middle, cut, boom, bam, over here. That's not how they play. And they don't play any zone on defense.
It's not like they're super familiar in that sense. So it's gonna be hopefully a fun series, hopefully Jimmy and Randall and Brunson are all feeling good and ready to go. And yeah, man, Heatnix, like old times, four straight playoff series from 97 to 2000, Brawl's galore. I went down a heatnix rabbit hole yesterday that ended with me watching the, I think, 1993 brawl between the Suns and the Knicks when Greg Anthony came off the bench wearing a hideous shirt and sucker punch or tried to sucker punch, dunk clear on the video.
Kevin Johnson, when Kevin Johnson and Doc Rivers were fighting. And that was the reason the NBA implemented the rules about guys can't come off the bench. And the reason that in four years later, all the Knicks end up getting suspended in two consecutive games after the PJ Brown, Charlie Ward wrestling. I went down a rabbit hole of fights.
So in 2003, I got married and in August and Rod Thorne, who I worked for at the time and worked for a long time, you know, he was the head of, you know, he was the dean of this point, right? You know, just in the 90s. And he was the guy who levied the punishment for the brawl. You know, the, the, the, the, of course, Chris Shiles, PJ Brown, right?
The kind of, No, it was Charlie Ward, Charlie Ward into the stands here. And so that was like what, like five or six years later. And I'm in, we're at the reception. And I look in the corner and they're like my three buddies who are all Knicks fans and they got Rod in the corner.
Like basically having him walk through the punishment. Why the punishment? Why, you know, the staggered games as far as, you know, because there's so many guys that got suspended. They had to do it in alphabetical work.
They had to do it in alphabetical work. And I think, and I think, oh my God, I'm not my wedding. And my best friends are there basically berating my boss, right? And be the guy.
I'm sure he loved it. I'm sure he did. Oh, he did. I mean, the stories that Rod used to tell me about, those Knicks teams basically like, you know, they used to come over his house back in the night, you know, the Oakley days and stuff like that.
Because they would, they, in Mayce and they basically, they did Bitch alone. I mean, back then, they were so much of a two way street where like, you know, you had more of a dialogue, right? Like you could call, you could talk to Rod and say, you know, like, you guys are picking on me. And he'd be like, you know what?
Come up to my house on Saturday and we're going to watch film together. And they would go, and he like those that group, like that Oakley Mason group went up there. I remember him telling me one morning Saturday morning, and they watched film together. I'm like all their antics on the court and why they were being, you know, basically not singled out, but being penalized here.
And nowadays you're not doing that here. But you know, it's one of the, you know, one of the great stories that stood with me. I was really hoping that story would be, would be like, Anthony Mason and Charles Locally egged by Thorne's house. That's where it was going.
Well, where the practice facility was then and where his house was wasn't too far away. That's what I'm saying. There's a story I was rereading, re-streaming book. I mean, Chris is Harry's book.
I mean, his was a, I mean, his late, I mean, there's those chapters in there that, you know, that he'd see her, you know, he nicks rivalry that really just sunk something up there. He was supposed to come on today, but he had internet issues. And so he woke up, we'll do it another time. But I had forgotten that the, the, the Knicks, I guess, working with the players union, tried to go to Manhattan District Court, I think, to get a temporary restraining order, blocking the suspensions of all their players in games six and seven of the 97, I think it's the second round series.
And the judge, Judge Ray Koff, I think, Jed Ray Koff is his name, who's a really famous judge. He was involved in a lot of the financial meltdown stuff in 28, 2008, as you over saw some of those cases. I don't know if he's a Knicks fan, but his wife is a huge Knicks fan and he got the case. And he sided with the league and said, look, the rules are like these guys broke the rules.
The league is totally fine to suspend them. Don't come home. Don't come home tonight. Your band.
It's a great story. I don't know what else I was going to say. I mean, I mean, hey, listen, I worked for the Nets in the 90s here. But one of my great stories that I never told anyone is, Dorn, we played the he in a regular season game.
And this was when I had Keith Askins and Vishon, like those guys were like some mean mother-effers. The standard is like my ultimate teenage me. I just thought that Sean Leonard was awesome. I don't even know why.
I just had really unreasonable faith and affection for Sean for Vishon Leonard. Yeah. And so what happened was we're playing them. I never told the story.
So I'll say now is that we're playing them on a Sunday afternoon. And we're actually having this one, Cal Pirates of the Code, we have a good team. And Keith and Horan went up for a layup. And basically if it was in this day and age, the Keith Askins would have been suspended like 30 games if this was now.
And I was so now standing in the corner of the arena. I got so mad, I tried to run on a court. And what happened was I got my pants stuck on like, there was like a chair. And my pant leg ripped off my pants, literally I had like one leg.
And the security guy grabbed me from behind. I tried to run on the court. So with that, it happened, you're not talking to me right now. So what is your, do you think you're going to fight?
Keith Askins like, what is your intention? I have no idea what would have happened if I ran on the court. It was not going to go well for you. No, no, no, no, I would not be in the league.
I would not be covering the NBA. But that's how much disdain I had for those heat teams back in the, you know, and those guys were some tough, you know, with Joe and that crew. I mean, that was a tough, Tim Hardaway Jr. I mean, like, those guys.
Oh, you didn't want to mess with it. I don't want to mess with Joe now. I mean, you, yeah, you would not, it would not have got your lucky that the security guard rescued you from, from that fate. Um, different times.
Different times. That is funny. Keith Askins. Not going to go well for you.
All right. Let's talk a little bit of, um, oh, front, front office executives, you rarely see them run on the court. That, that would have been, and it reminded me, do you remember Pacers Lakers this year in LA? Kevin Pritchett ran out after Nemhard hit the three, right?
Yes. And I'm watching that game and Nemhard hits this buzzer beating three to beat the Lakers. And there, there's like a gaggle of guys, everyone's on the floor. And I'm like, said Kevin Pritchett.
And I'm like, you never, and he's in the middle of the huddle, like jumping up and down like, like where did he come from? Where was he sitting in court side? You never see a GM out there like that. He just got caught up in the moment and he's out there with the C.
So it's just like a bunch of players celebrating. And there's, you know, gray hair and Kevin Pritchett are getting tackled on the floor. We all, we all get caught up in the moment. The carnal rule though, we'll talk about Boston filling in.
Is the carnal rule, Billy King told me this. This is what happened in Toronto during the playoffs is that don't turn around. Like if you're in a stands and people are heckling you, once you turn around and make eye contact, you're done. Like you are done because then it's going to be a full brought.
That's why I give Bob Myers all that credit. And if you've ever seen that clip in that Sacramento series, when the guy's like, he has like the cowbell and it's ringing and it's eager and Bob just stood there. Didn't even do it. It just stood there and watched the game there.
So it's, I mean, it's your range of emotions during these games when you're in, you know, from the front office perspective, because you have no control. You have no control over what goes on. I'm glad you brought up the words because I did want to say one thing. I remember in late October of this season, Clay Thompson gave this really impassioned monologue after Charles Barkley had said something that I don't remember exactly what Charles said, but it was essentially like Clay Thompson's not the same guy anymore.
It's not the same guy. And Clay talked about how hurt he was by Charles's comment that he's accomplished so much as a player that for the other all-time great players to sit there and nitpick him after what he's been through, tearing his ACL into finals and then rehabbing that and then tearing his Achilles, you know, pick up, I think a pick up game. Tearing his Achilles by itself, devastating. And so he comes into this season and he doesn't look great, right?
He doesn't look great. Defensively looks like he's lost a step. Well, like what people didn't know him what slowly came out was he didn't do a lot in the off season. He didn't play a lot in the off season between, by the way, averaging 20 points a game in there.
Championship run last year. And this season, he didn't do much. Part of the reason he didn't do much was he's kind of scarred by when he did a lot of pickup stuff. He suffered a really devastating injury.
And so he came in, not in the best shape of his career. And he said in that monologue, like, man, I'm gonna keep working, that's all I know how to do. And I think I'm gonna have a great season. He goes, bet on that and got off the podium.
And we did end the day the next day and they asked me for my reaction. And I said, I absolutely loved it. I said, it baffles me that people are nitpicking what this guy looks like after these two devastating injuries. Like, of course, he doesn't look like the same player.
How could he be the same player? But people just washed away because he didn't look good for two months. Washed away the fact that he came back last year and was a critical player on a team that won the NBA championship. And when he said, bet on that and got up, I said, man, I am betting on Clay Thompson all day.
It's never gonna be smooth. There'll be games where he's a little cold. Maybe he won't ever be the same defensive player. He was again, although he's looked pretty damn good the last few months.
But that shot, the roving shot, the quick release shot, that ain't going anywhere ever. And every time he has a game like he had last night, I think back to that monologue that people have probably forgotten about and how hurt he was. He was hurt. It was like visceral to see his reaction.
And I think he bet on him. I bet on him. The Warriors never lost any faith on him. And I think he was sensational last night.
Well, and I think about that a lot. Well, and there's part of me, certainly after they beat Sacramento and we don't know where the series will go, how far this team goes here. And there's part of me saying, with all these new rules and coming plays and the financial restrictions, it's like, there's part of me saying, you know what, Clay, a DREAM on step, those are the guys who should decide when this is over. They're the ones who should, I know ownership will in front of us will make that decision here as far as payroll and stuff.
For what they've been able to accomplish, they're the ones who should decide, you know, when this chapter of this team is over here. Let's talk real quickly about Boston feeling because they're playing tonight. So I don't want to overdo anything on a game that's going to happen in like eight hours or whatever it's going to happen. Obviously, disappointing performance by the Sixers in Joellen Beach return game, a game too easy win for Boston.
I think Boston has figured out that if they just drive to the rim and that their best players can get any match up they want at any time, whether it's maxi or harden, even to bias hairs, doesn't have the speed really to keep up with table and round, just put your head down, drive to the rim, draw help, kick, whatever it's going to be, you're going to get a three, another drive, whatever it is, they can get to that anytime I'm interested to see, you know, and I think that's why the double big push and pull for Boston is really interesting because I think Robert Williams have a major impact in this series, particularly when one of PJ Tucker and Jalen McDaniel's is on the floor for him, not to guard, but on the flip side, there is really something to Boston stretching and beat out on defense and just saying when we drive like that, he's on Al Horford in the corner and he can't get to the rim in time and we can kind of have our way. So I'm interested to see how they balance that out and two other things I'm just curious about. Hard and Embiid, 13 pick and rolls in game two, that's the sixth fewest in any game this season. Three of the five that are fewer than that were against the nets in the first round where they didn't even need to do anything because the nets just put three guys on Embiid every time they cross half court.
I just, the Celtics are going to sell out to take away Embiid's easy sort of pick and pop mid range or whatever it looks. They have six or seven different defenses they use to combat that play switching, scram switching, you know, trapping, when they'll mix in lots of stuff, they'll even kind of invite Hard and to drive a little bit and stick to Embiid and see if Hard and could beat him that way. I wonder if they were almost too respectful of Boston's defense or what happened there or just Joel's kind of feeling his way back into the series, obviously was a blowout too. The other thing that's interesting to me is you can see in the substitutions, Philly doesn't like when Robert Williams is in the game, particularly even when it's Robert Williams's Grant Williams, when it's not Robert Williams Alport in the spacings a little better.
And so every time Jalen McDaniel comes into game or PJ Tucker's in the game other than the starting five, here comes Robert Williams and Elaine gets all clogged and Robert Williams just ignores Jalen McDaniel's, Jalen McDaniel's, this is the three PJ Tucker misses the three. All right, here comes George and Ang. Then Robert Williams goes out of the game because there's no non-shooter for him to guard. And so I'm interested tonight how that chess match goes and whether the Sixers can survive defensively with neither of those guys on the floor.
And a lineup I've always liked for Philly and I'm watching for it tonight is Maxie Melton, Hardin, Harris, Embiid. So three guards, Harris, Embiid, No Tucker, No McDaniel's. I don't like it like that should be the starting five or that line up to play 20 minutes again, but I like it. I think it's played one minute in the playoffs, played 127 minutes in the regular season.
It's not like their defense with Tucker is lagging the world on Fireman. All Boston has to do is set one screen and they get Hardin on Jalen Brown and it's over. I just think that kind of group is worth a try to see how it might stress Boston's defense. But again, this is a series that had a landmark game won by Hardin and Bead didn't play and Bead comes back.
It doesn't look super, I mean, there's gonna be an integration period again for him. Like it's sneaking up on us now. These are huge games given what's at stake for these two franchises, given Hardin's impending free agency, given how many times well and Bead run into the same wall in this round before he just starts to wonder, like is this just my fate here forever and ever? You know, Jalen Brown is likely gonna be eligible for a Supermax in the off season.
What is the second round loss? If that's what happens here, do their decision making there? Like there's a massive amount at stake in this series. And really it's almost like the series now starts tonight.
Like both teams know the terms of engagement. Everybody's back. Let's see it. I would go to even further and say like, you know, the game three is probably one of the biggest that Philadelphia's had in recent memory just because I'm looking at the short turnaround to game four.
Right? I mean, you go from a Friday night and now you're playing 3.30 on a Sunday. You know, with Bead still not 100%, but you know, 80%, maybe 75% here. And where's he gonna be?
Right? Like where's he going to be on Sunday as far as four, you know, with his body here and yeah. I mean, I think that lineup that you mentioned, you basically kind of spread the floor and you have a Bead up top. I mean, that's kind of, you have got, I thought Melton played really well in that, you know, in game one, he's limited to 18 minutes in game two, one of five from the field.
You know, I understand Tucker, you know, what he can do for you defensively. It's a risk. It's a risk and I wouldn't have been saying they should lean too far that way and their defense will suffer without either of those two guys on the floor. Yeah, I mean, so that's why I say, you know, I mean, you, I mean, Philly loses game three.
I mean, like, I don't know, I mean, I don't know if we get back. I don't know if we get to a game six, you know, like it could snowball a little bit here. Well, I'm not going there. I mean, they got two home games.
You figure they should get at least one and it's going to be a war from there. But yeah, if they lose tonight, then all the pressure is on them because they can't fall down three one without home court advantage. I don't think. And game two, and game two, Jalen Brown, when he's attacking the basket, you know, when he's not settling.