May 19, 2025 • 35 mins
Jason reacts live after the Oklahoma City Thunder dominate Game 7 against the Denver Nuggets. He discusses huge games from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and OKC’s defense being too much for Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon.
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The volume.
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Speaker 3 (01:45):
Slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
the volume heavy sun, everybody off. All of you guys
are having a great weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Kind of a bummer that our game seven ended up
being a dut I kind of had a suspicion that
it would be just simply because as soon as Aaron
Gordon was hurt, even if they got out of this series,
it just there's very little chance for them to survive
two more playoff rounds. And as I always say, like,
you gotta have belief if you're a basketball team to
overcome great adversity, and it was always going to be
(02:23):
difficult to beat Oklahoma City on the road, and Denver
gave it a good punch there to start, but when
they started to lose control of the rope, they just
let go and Oklahoma City ends up blowing them out.
One of their interesting defensive adjustments in this game, going
to a lot of Alex Cruso on nikolea jokicen just
fronting the posts that really turned the game around. We're
gonna break that game down briefly from the perspective of
(02:45):
both teams, and then we'll talk about Oklahoma City looking forward,
and then we'll talk about Denver looking forward. Then we'll
take about ten to fifteen minutes of mailbag questions before
we call it a day. No playback today, just because
it's a Sunday afternoon, but we'll be back with our
usual playback after shit, starting with Game one of the
Western Conference Finals on Tuesday nights, So you guys are
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(03:06):
Hoops Tonight to get set up there for our usual
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(03:28):
you guys follow us there, and last but not least,
keep dropping mail bag questions in the chat so that
we can get to the mail bag at the tail
end of this show. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the start of this game looked very much like
the classic experience gap, right, Like the ESPN graphic that's
on the screen shows just the number of Game sevens
both teams have played in, and Denver's just been in
(03:50):
so many of them, and I think the total number
of combined Game seven appearances for OKC was three, and
that was lou Door Shay and Isaiah Hartenstein if I
remember correctly, and like Isai HARTENSTEI didn't think that was
last year. And then if I'm not mistaken, I think
the Dort shay Wan I think that might be the
James Harden blocked three in Game seven in the bubble,
(04:13):
if I remember correctly. But that's the only Game seven
experience that that group has had, right and that abundantly
was clear. At the start of the game, the Nuggets
looked like the far more comfortable and confident team. The
Thunder offense looked super tight. Guys were missing layups, guys
were missing jumpers. Denver's in control. Right from there, I
(04:34):
thought three distinct stretches flipped the game. Stretch number one
in the later third of the first quarter, Alex Crusoe
and Russell Westbrook check into the game, Alex starts denying Nikolea.
Jokic the catch at the high post, and just in
general using a really good three quarter front slash full
(04:55):
front to basically shut off passing angles into Jokic in
the post in the high post from there. None of
the Nuggets role players looked like they knew how to
make a high post entry. Russell Westbrook had a couple
of turnovers. He had a possession where he just said, screwed,
I'm gonna go to the rim and he got blocked.
Christian Brown ended up finally missing a three, and suddenly
that twenty one to ten lead was twenty six to
(05:16):
twenty one going into the start of the second quarter.
Just kind of felt like a different game, okaysee, kind
of had some momentum coming out of the end of
that first quarter. Then the second pivotal stretch, David Addleman
makes the critical mistake of leaving Nikola Jokic and Jamal
Murray both off the floor at the same time. In
(05:36):
Game seven, at the start of the second quarter, the
Thunder went on a six to zero run literally in
sixty two seconds, a minute, in two seconds, all of
a sudden, it's twenty seven to twenty six. All of
a sudden, the Thunder have a lead in the game
that the Nuggets controlled for you know, seven minutes, eight minutes.
(06:00):
I think it was actually nine minutes. It was less
than the total run from twenty one to ten to
twenty seven to twenty six, took less than five minutes
of game clock, just completely flipped the game. From there,
the Nuggets stabilize, Jamal Murray hits a little jumper, puts
the Nuggets back within one. Mark Dagenal calls the time out,
(06:21):
puts chet Holmgren back in, and over the final three
minutes of the first half, the Thunder closed it out
on an eighteen to five run, kind of an extension
of what we saw at the end of the first
quarter Alex Crusoe, but also j Dubb during the stretch
doing some great work battling for position against the Kola
Jogic denials, poor post entries, forcing turnovers, runout dunks, and
(06:45):
it basically ended the gate in a three minute stretch there.
So if you look at the first half in general,
for out of the twenty four minutes two thirds of it,
Denver looked completely in control, methought at half court bass,
methodical half court basketball, getting and making better shots. But
in these short bursts spanning just eight minutes of game clock,
(07:11):
the Thunder just completely dominate the game and Denver's never
able to regain control from there. There's some reality to
the difficulty of dealing with ball pressure guards. Any of
you guys who've played basketball and are kind of a
bigger player, you'll have some experience with this over the years,
where like a ball pressure guard will just get up
in your business and he's swiping at the ball and
(07:31):
grabbing and klawn and doing all that stuff. And what
you have to do is you've got to create space.
And the only way to create space is to use
to protect the ball, clear with your elbow, clear with
your shoulder, use your hips, use pivot moves trying to
clear out space against a smaller player. And it becomes
a very delicate balance because most guards or most guards
just naturally get a form of bias from officials because
(07:52):
they're smaller, and so they just get to get away
with more contact. And if you swing that elbow just right,
even though his face is like right here in your
personal space, the ref's gonna call that an offensive foul.
And so I was talking about it on Twitter earlier today.
It's like a form of gamesmanship and the same way
that foul drawing guards like what Shay does or Jalen
(08:13):
Brunson does or Austin Reeves does, In the same way
that those guys grift their way to the foul line.
On offense, there are defensive players who grift extra possessions
by doing that sort of thing. Ball pressure, ball pressure,
ball pressure. And what they do is they train themselves.
As soon as they get any sort of contact above
the shoulders, they just flop back and they're gonna get
a call. And it's just complicated dealing with ball pressure.
(08:35):
And it is what makes this Thunder defense so incredibly
difficult to deal with, is you survive the dort jw phase.
And here comes case On Wallace and Alex Cruso. They're
probably even better at it than the first two guys are.
And so it's just wave after wave. Aaron Wiggins gets
in on the action too. It's just wave after wave
(08:56):
after wave of big physical guard that's gonna get in
your business and be aggressive and physical, and the rest
aren't going to be able to call every foul and
they do some gamesmanship with their own and it just
is a overwhelming wave after wave of force on the
defensive end that wears you down. And that's Howlkloma City
won the series. Ultimately, they won this series with their defense.
(09:19):
Looking forward for Oka See, I thought they showed a
lot of growth throughout the series. Denver had them on
the ropes three different times and games that they ended
up winning just because they stuck to their identity and
trusted that it would eventually carry them across the finish line,
and it literally did. It took longer in game four,
it took longer in Game five, but eventually they did
(09:41):
wear down Denver's offense. Eventually they couldn't score the ball.
Eventually their downhill force did break through the barrier that
was Denver's defense. Alex Crusoe won you have playoff series.
I don't think you win this series without Alex Cruz.
I thought that was a really interesting thing in retrospect
looking back at that trade, I hope Chicago's enjoying Josh Giddy.
(10:03):
But Alex Crusoe is a veteran role player who came
in the only rotation player on this team over the
age of twenty six, and his ability to consistently knock
down spot up threes in this series while also being
a guy that not only was defending Jamal Murray extremely
well at stretches, but was also doing a great job
on NICOLEA. Jokicch for stretches. You could argue he was
(10:23):
the best defender that Denver used on Nikole jokicch in
the series. Just unbelievable output from a player that they
brought in during the summer. Isaiah Hartenstein, by the way,
to the job that he did on Jokic guarding his
strong hand. Like the trades made this summer by Sam
Presty to bring in Alex Crusoe, the decision to sign
(10:45):
Isaiah Hartenstein, they literally gave this team a championship ceiling
that would have been cut off at the knees right
here in the second round. They would not have beat
the Denver Nuggets had they brought last year's team back.
So shout out to Sam Presti for those moves. I
thought that was a nice bounce back game from j dub.
I thought he just showed a more of a propensity
(11:07):
to just attack the rim instead of settle for jump
shots early in the clock. He did take a couple
jumpers in the first half that he missed, but they
were after he was aggressive downhill towards the basket. Just
attack the rim and play defense and good things will happen.
That's a great way to get yourself out of a
slump is just play really hard and focus on the
things that don't depend on variants. Looking at the Minnesota
(11:27):
series again, I'm not going to have a prediction until tomorrow.
I'm working on it. First thing in the morning, I'm
to watch a ton of film. We'll have a full
series preview at sometime, probably doing the early afternoon tomorrow.
But it's a very interesting series. Two elite defenses with
elite rim protection, and both teams have a legit too
big look. Two elite on ball guards against two teams
(11:49):
that have a ton of good on ball defense options,
which should make for a very interesting series in the
sense that both Shay and j Dub and Julius everyone
should be on comfortable in this particular matchup. But there
are three major differences between the two teams. The Wolves
are bigger, while the Thunder are faster. I think that's
like a kind of They're both very athletic, but in
(12:11):
different ways. The Wolves, i think, are substantially more experienced
and ants secondary shot creator is a veteran forward in
Julius Randall, while Shae's backup shot creator is a younger
guard in Jay Dub, and Julius has been a substantially
more reliable offensive player. My initial gut feeling, and this
might completely change tomorrow after I watch a bunch of tapes.
So I'm not saying this is my pick, but my initial,
(12:34):
like just gut reaction looking at the series is I
trust Minnesota's offense to be able to score more over
the top in these ugly ass games. These games are
all going to be really low scoring, and I expect
it to be the kind of series where it turns
into can Ant make tough shots? Can Julius make tough shots?
Can nas Read make tough shots? Can Chet Homer and
(12:57):
Jay Dub shake GISs Alexander? And I just trust Julius
Randall and Chet home, excuse me, Julius Randall and Nas
Reed just a little bit more than I trust Chet
Holmgren and Jay Dub right now.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
And so my.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Initial gut reaction is to lean slightly towards Minnesota. But
again that might change after I watch the film more
intently tomorrow and start putting together that series preview. But
again we'll have I think both series are more or
less coin flips. Again, I picked Indy and I'm leaning Minnesota,
but I think we've got an excellent conference final awaiting
us between four pretty evenly matched teams at least respectively
(13:32):
in their matchups, and I'm hopeful that for the first
time since twenty twenty two, we get a good conference
final because we've had a couple of brutal ones in
a row. Denver, they had their chances man up eight
in Game four in the fourth quarter, up nine in
Game five in the fourth quarter. They'll be kicking themselves
(13:52):
for a little while for this one. I think Jokic
shall be kicking himself for Game four because that was
the last game out of a three game stretch where
couldn't make a shot, and if he would have been
able to make more shots, his team would have won
that game. I think Jamal Murray will be kicking himself
for Game five because he was so good for the
first three quarters and he just went cold in that
fourth quarter. But overall, I was impressed by Denver's championship
(14:16):
pedigree and their overall ability to make this into a
very competitive series. I want to shout out Aaron Gordon.
I couldn't believe he was gonna play, and as he
was running around, I couldn't believe he was playing and
there was a certain amount of like like they tried
to keep him on heart and sign a little bit
(14:36):
more so.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He's less defending in action.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
He's doing a lot of switching off of every little screen,
not really throwing a lot of effort in transition or
in closeouts. But obviously he couldn't move, but I thought
he was like positive impact on a Grade two hamstring strain,
and it just is insane, and like, you know, when
I think about Aaron Gordon, obviously I'm a little biased
because I'm a University of Arizona fan, but this last
(15:01):
three years for him in the postseason, I think he's
been one of the better, more reliable, more versatile role
players that I've seen. And to me, he's just a
champion and a legend and someone that I've got a
great deal of respect for. And he's got a long
career ahead of him. And I think that's a perfect
springboard to this next conversation, which is I want to
start this point of view from a very basic kind
(15:24):
of like position that I hold, which is I do think,
like without a doubt that Jamal Murray, Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon,
and Nikola Jokic is a Championship Corps. I think those
four guys can absolutely start at those respective four positions
(15:44):
and win the championship. They just badly need to upgrade
that Michael Porter Junior slot. That was a problem throughout
this postseason. Whether it was them not being able to
trust MPJ, not being able to trust Russ, not being
able to trust Peyton Watson, they just didn't have a
reliable fifth guy. Michael Porter Junior is going to be
a difficult player to trade, but he is the kind
(16:08):
of player that I'd be looking to move this offseason
for a defensive minded wing because of Aaron Gordon's development
as a shooter. Christian Brown again over the tail end
of the series got his jump shot figured out, and
also Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown are two examples of
defensive minded players that have become better shooters. I think
those dudes will probably get with whatever defensive minded wing
(16:30):
you get and friendly bully him into becoming a better shooter.
Like I would just be looking for someone in that
mold of the Herb Jones, Jaden McDaniel's type of player.
Obviously you're not gonna be able to get Jayden, but
I would be looking for that type of big, rangey
wing athlete that can basically fill in the baseline spacer
(16:51):
role off of Jokic as a cutter. Now that Gordon
and Brown can shoot the ball as well as they do,
and that raises your defensive ceiling and your overall at
the leticism substantially, which I think would be an upgrade.
And then the last thing I'll say about it just
Jamal's conditioning. I think I think he needs to come
into camp ready to go and maximize himself to the
(17:13):
point where he's a more reliably good player in these situations.
Jamal was bad tonight, but he was fantastic in Game six,
and he was really good in Game five until he wasn't.
And so I think there's a clear shot making ceiling
there with him that he will reach more consistently if
he just becomes the kind of player that maximizes what
(17:33):
he can get out of his body over the course
of a season. And so I think there's just I
think it's about maximizing what you have on board, making
an upgrade to that fifth starter spot at the small
forward position. I think there's a real opportunity there for
Denver to pivot and not have to ditch their continuity.
Like I was talking to Colin today and Collin's like, well,
do you think they should trade Jamal Murray?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
No, I don't.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
To me, Jamal Murray's continuity with Jokic in the two
man game is of substain value and you could get
a player who on paper is better than Jamal, but
it's not as good within this particular team in this fit.
And so I think I think it's I think you
bet on continuity and you just upgrade that fifth starter
spot go from there. You've got enough young talent with
you know, Jalen Pickett and and Peyton Watson off the bench,
(18:20):
Julian straw the had his moments in this series. They've
got They've got their opportunity to uh to get more
talent out of you, out of your young players. In
the big picture, I think they just got to upgrade
that fifth starter spot.
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Speaker 2 (19:06):
All right, let's bring Jackson on and take some questions.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Let's do it.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Let's do it. Just sort of sticking on this Denver
point for a second, do you think Denver's issues have
more to do with the small forward position or a
lack of depth?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So I I think like there's a certain amount of
depth that will come naturally through the development of their
young players. Like, I don't think the issue is having
Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther as you're you know, even
Russell Westbrook in this case, as you're six seven eight.
It's just not having a five. They just didn't have
a five. Like I feel like this. I feel like
if the Nuggets got reliable play out of Michael Porter
(19:46):
Junior in this series, they win.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I just think they do.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So, Like I think I think that is a more
achievable goal looking at it through the lens of one
piece and then understanding like there's going to be year
over year improved with your young talent. That's those guys
are going to have their opportunities next year to get
plenty of playtime. It's just you gotta have five guys
that you trust in a big spot.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, they they didn't.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
They definitely didn't have five guys they trusted in this series.
That's for sure. That is for sure.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Do you agree with me that the top four, though,
are good? I do? I do.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I feel like the relationship and the continuity you're describing
with Jamal and Jokicic feels very of the Steph and
Draymond conversation to me, where it's like, yeah, there might
be a better player than Draymond Green to pair with
Steph curR. Yeah, there might be a better player to
pair with Yogas and Jamal Murray. But the chemistry they
have on the court takes a long long time to develop,
(20:40):
and you're not Most teams aren't winning a championship without
some level of the sum is greater than the parts.
Even when those parts are amazing, you need the sum
to be greater. And that's where that chemistry I think
is really, really, really valuable.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That's a great point. Like we talk about this literally
all the time. Your value in a vacuum doesn't matter.
Everything value. The only value that matters is your value
on that basketball team. And the Draymond Steph partnership supersedes
any potential partnership of Steph with another big that doesn't
have that like seamless synergy that you get out of
(21:12):
those two, Like even with Anthony Davis, like if you
had to because I remember we had that Warriors fan,
it was like, well, what if we can get Ad,
Like if let's say you had to use Draymond as
salary filler in the AD trade. There's obviously massive upside
with AD. But one of the downsides would be Ad
is not as good of a processor and short role
player as Draymond is. And so even though AD's greatness
(21:33):
would supersede and I'm sure the Warriors would be better
with AD because he's the type of superstar player, but
the point is is it's more complicated. It's not just
as simple as attaching an in a vacuum talent like
Steph because he brings two to the ball twenty five
feet from the basket. Processing is like one of the
most valuable skills for a player playing alongside of him,
and that's one of the things that Draymond brings.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Yeah, one hundred percent. It's like, and there's obviously exceptions
to that, Like if you put Yannis with Steph curR, yes,
that's just enough of a talent gap where it's worth it.
And you put Steph Curry with Nikola Jokic, it's enough
of a talent gap to replace Tramal Murray.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
But you're not.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
It's it's gonna be challenging to have enough of a
talent gap to replace that chemistry that we're sort.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Of describing, I think exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Next question, Jason, what kind of defense do you think
Many will play against Oka see? Will they throw a
lot of zone out there? Okay, okay, so he did
have some trouble with his zone earlier in the series
before they sort of figured it out a little bit.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I think we'll see some zone. But I think this
is going to be a man de man series for
both teams. I think it's going to be a ball pressure,
load up the strong side, force you to move the
ball and shoot against the hard, close out.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Type of game.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Like I think I think we could see extended, ugly
stretches like extended ugly stretches from both Shay and and
in this series, like both of these defenses are perfectly
designed to deal with each other. Like it's like a
it's a real problem for both teams and the like
for as fast as Okay see is, they're going to
(23:00):
be dealing with Minnesota's length, And there's a certain amount
of like chasing over the top jump shooter who's going
to be shooting against length. But like, at the same time,
ant superpower is his quickness and his ability to beat
people off the dribble with speed, and and there's just
a lot of athletes that are going to be standing
right in his way throughout this entire series. And so
I think it's going to be very much a tough
(23:22):
shot making for the stars kind of series and a
catch and shoot three for mediocre role players type of
series out of main and demand sequences. And I think
I wouldn't be surprised if we had multiple games in
this series where neither team gets two hundred.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Yeah, it does feel like both teams have unique defensive
options to throw against the other team's best player, being
able to have Dork Caruso Cason Wallace to throw at
Anthony Edwards and to have Anthony Edwards and Jane McDaniels
to throw at and they got Both teams have a
lot of athletic defenders. Dante is super quick. Yeah, they
(23:58):
can throw, and they all have different sort of strengths
and types of defenders. They could mix up the looks.
What I think is you know, valuable as well. How
would next question? How would you rank the last four
teams in terms of championship odds?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
This is a really good question. I think Oklahoma City
should be a substantial favorite over both Indiana and New York.
Minnesota I would make a smaller favorite over Indiana and
New York, but I think i'd make them favored. But
(24:36):
I think that Minnesota okay Se could go either way,
if that makes sense. So like strictly speaking the matchups,
I view Minnesota okay See as a coin flip, but
going forward into the finals, I viewed Minnesota as more
susceptible to a loss to Indiana or New York than
I view okay See. I think okay See would dispatch
of the Knicks and the Pacers pretty quickly. It's just
(24:58):
a nightmare matchup for both of them to have to
deal with all that guard speed on the ball. So
with that being the case, I'm gonna go I would
rank the Thunder small gap Timberwolves, big gap Pacers, small
gap Knicks.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
That's how I'll put it.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
I think I agree, and DraftKings does not DraftKings has
I mean they agree with part of it. They have
OKAC as the heavy favorite minus one sixty five, and
then I think, probably just because you can only get
one of the two Western Conference teams in the finals,
that from an odds perspective, they have an Eastern Conference
team next the Knicks and.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Plus fo that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
Yeah, yeah, and then the Timberwolves are plus five point
fifty and the Pacers are plus seven hundred.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
See. You know what's interesting about that, though, is I
think it's I think it's substantially more likely that Minnesota
sneaks through OKC and beats who comes out of the
East than either of the East teams beating Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
See yeah I did too. Yeah. Like it's just.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Can you imagine Haliburton and Brunson and nemhard like just
dealing with the incessant wave of Cason Wallace and Alex
Caruso and lou Dord and yeah, like it just I
think it would just be too much for him. Like
I I view the Western Conference Finals as basically the
NBA Finals.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, I tend to agree. And this is not to
take shots at Tyre's Halliburn or Jalen Brunson, because those
guys deal with a lot of good athletic defenders all
the time. But you saw it, for for stretches in
Game five of the Knick Celtics series where when Jalen
Brown is like, I'm going to turn into a defensive
like demon right now. That caused some problems for Jalen
(26:34):
Brunson and not I mean, they obviously won the series,
it's not anything like that. But if you got three
different guys you can are always going to be fresh
ish to throw at Jalen Brunster Tyre's Halliburton. It's it
would be a challenge, I think against.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
A simple stat to kind of break this down. Denver
in the regular season with Nikolea Jokic on the floor
had a one twenty six offensive rating, okay for Denver
versus Okac in this round, they had a one oh
(27:08):
four offensive rating with Jokic on the floor, So Okac
was literally able to cut Denver's regular season offense production
by twenty two points per one hundred possessions.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
That's crazy like they are. It's crazy they are.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
You know, Like I saw our friend uh in colleague
Carson Breber talking about them as an all time great defense,
and I'm always hesitant to throw that phrase out until
we like get there, but like if if they're gonna
get there, this is what it would look like. Like
they're certainly in the process. It's kind of like it
reminds me of like watching Jokics in twenty twenty and
twenty twenty one, where you're like, this.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Guy might be the best you know this, yeah, yeah,
might be the best player.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Like this this defense from Okay see looks looks like
one of those special defenses in NBA history that can
really cause problems for teams. And the reason why Denver
had extended stretches of success against Okase is they had
this big mammoth human that could just run like some
of Jokic's drop step buckets through double teams today. Did
you see some of those today where he's just like
(28:09):
he just spins into traffic and just goes through like
three dudes and lays it up the Knicks, and the
Pacers just don't have that option against this Thunder team,
and I just think I think they'd be in some
real trouble.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
And it's sort of like we talked a lot about
Anthony Edward sort of being this like King King Slayer.
He's taken out all these you know, all time grades
on his way to on this playoff run. If the
Thunder end up winning the title, you know, the first
round is whatever. But being able to say we put
the clamps on Jokic, we put the clamps on a
Timberwolves team that just kind of shredded a great Golden
(28:41):
not shredded, but like had a lot of success against
a good, very very good Warriors defense.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
And then we put the clamps on Jalen Brunson or
Tyre's Halliburton's World win Pacers, like that would be a
pretty impressive defensive finals run.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I think I agree, And I think you're hitting on
another interesting thing, which is that I think Golden State
was a really good tune up for Minnesota to prepare
for Oka.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
See.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Can you imagine if Minnesota had gone straight from the
Lakers to Okay see that like I would have probably
picked Okac in a heartbeat, but getting that Golden State
matchup is like, here's a real fast, smart defense that
that'll throw you for a loop. The difference is is
you'll be facing real rim protection in this round.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Yeah, all right, let's see one more sort of kind
of abstract crazy question and then we can wrap up
for the day. I love the show. What do you
think of this trade? This is a this is a
this is.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
A blocky.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
The l A Lakers get Jared Allen, DeAndre Hunter, Isaaca Korro,
and Dean Wade, and Cleveland gets Lebron James.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Okay, read me the names one more time.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Jared Allen, Jared Allen, DeAndre Hunter, DeAndre Corro, Hunter, and
Dean Wade. And apparently this does work for the money,
according to the commenter.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Okay, let me let me conceptualize this for just a second.
So in this universe, the Calves would then run out
with Struce at the three with Lebron and Mobley and
they would lose the depth of DeAndre Hunter and Dean
(30:12):
Wade and the Lakers would get so it would be
Austin a Coro would be there.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Two I suppose, well.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
It's Luca Austin and DeAndre Hunter.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I think, yeah, you're right, Luca Austin and DeAnda Hunter
would be so it'd be Hunter and Ruie would be the.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Three, Hunter and Ruie and then Jared Allen.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And then Allen at the center and then and then.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
I mean, it's it's not the worst. It's an interesting,
stay competitive, but not but not punt on anything long term.
You're like Hunter or Allen are are still like in
their rising into their prime, if not in their prime,
they're not old by any means.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
They're also Yeah, to your point, there are also players
that like specifically struggled in the postseason and that Cleveland
fans are probably like, I'll drive you to the airport anyway.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Right, and sort of like both teams being like, damn,
I don't really want to trade these guys, don't I
never said I wanted to trade these guys, but if
you're asking for them, I'll listen to a phone call.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So so, so Cleveland basically gets to use Lebron as
like a one year rental slash.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
They can drop his money off the books eventually.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Right there there, there might have to be to do
a total vibe shift if they if they run it
back and lose again in the second round.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yea exactly next year.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
And I think we came out of that series looking
pretty clearly like, yeah, Mitchell and MOBILEI are their two guys.
Garland's a big question mark. Still man, That's a really
interesting trade.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
That's it. That's something that.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I would I like if if Lebron was dead serious
about being willing to go back to Cleveland, It'd be
an interesting trade to explore and look at some different
machinations in the sense that like, yeah, I I the one,
the one other thing those I wonder if Cleveland's going
to look to potentially trade Garland at some point if
(32:04):
like how many times are they going to is Garland
going to be basically useless in the postseason before that
they before they look to go a different direction there.
But that could be an entirely separate deal. This is interesting.
I'm not gonna say that I would do it because
I think the Lakers.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Here's my issue.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
If I'm the Lakers, DeAndre Hunting, DeAndre Hunter and Rui
are both redundant. There are big forwards that struggle to
defend on the perimeter, that are good catch and shoot
players that can put the ball on the floor and
attack and close out that can attack a mismatch. They're
but they're both better at four than they are at
the three. In my opinion, Jared Allen is not quite
(32:40):
the vertical spacer that Luca typically likes to play with,
but he is a very good like short like a
short range spacer, meaning like floaters and push shots and
stuff like that. He's a switchable big that I think,
which I think obviously JJ Reddick would like. And Isaacacorro's
a real athletic upgrade. But after all of them just
(33:02):
struggled in the postseason, I think you'd have a hard
time giving up Lebron for him. It's an interesting idea,
though I'm not gonna say I would do it or not,
but that is a is an interesting idea, And like
if Lebron, if Lebron decides that he wants to go
back to Cleveland, there are certainly some avenues there to
make that into uh into an interesting trade.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
What do you have any big picture thought on it?
Speaker 4 (33:24):
I mean, it's just it's kind of hard to to
wrap your head around, but I do feel I do
feel like it kind of.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
It.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
It's both teams are in a sort of we don't
feel like we have the roster clearly to be contenders.
There has to be some kind of shake up, it
feels like for both teams. But it's hard to part
ways with any of the guys that you would need
to to make a trade, Like if you're if you're
a Cavaliers fan, I think it's tough to be like
run it back, just exact same roster running back. That's
(33:50):
also like, who do we really feel confident about trading?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
The Jared Allen piece is the complicated one to me,
because you trade him, you instantly become a dramatically worse
regular season team. But this is he's been He's gotten
his ass kicked in the postseason multiple times in the
last couple of years. So like like Mitchell Robinson ate
him alive a couple of years ago, he got demolished
by Myles Turner in this round, Like there's a it's
(34:18):
just really hard to sell your fan base on the
idea like, hey, you guys, did you like that when
we won sixty four games? Well, without jarreed, we're gonna
get fifty one to fifty two wins. How does that
sound to you?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Guys?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
You know but then the way you cause, like, especially
with Lebron, Like, Lebron's not going to be some super
impactful regular season player. But I would argue that Garland, Mitchell, Struce, Lebron,
and Mobiley have a much better chance to win in
the postseason than that version does. And so that it's it's, it's, it's,
it's definitely worth exploring. All right, guys, that's all we
have for today. As always, we sincerely appreciate you guys
(34:49):
for supporting us and supporting the show. As I said,
we will be going tomorrow early afternoon ish with our
series preview on the Timberwolves and the Thunder. Very much
looking forward digging into that tomorrow. No playback today, but
we'll get back to our normal playback after shows on Tuesday.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Again.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
That's playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight for you guys
to get set up there. Again, we appreciate you guys
for rocking with us and we'll see it tomorrow. What's
up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to
and supporting Oops tonight. It would actually be really helpful
for us if you guys would take a second and
leave a rating and a review As always, I appreciate
you guys supporting us, but if you could take a
minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
The volume
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The NBA eighty two game grind is done, and now
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Speaker 3 (00:14):
I can't wait.
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Speaker 3 (01:45):
Slash audio. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
the volume heavy sun, everybody off. All of you guys
are having a great weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Kind of a bummer that our game seven ended up
being a dut I kind of had a suspicion that
it would be just simply because as soon as Aaron
Gordon was hurt, even if they got out of this series,
it just there's very little chance for them to survive
two more playoff rounds. And as I always say, like,
you gotta have belief if you're a basketball team to
overcome great adversity, and it was always going to be
(02:23):
difficult to beat Oklahoma City on the road, and Denver
gave it a good punch there to start, but when
they started to lose control of the rope, they just
let go and Oklahoma City ends up blowing them out.
One of their interesting defensive adjustments in this game, going
to a lot of Alex Cruso on nikolea jokicen just
fronting the posts that really turned the game around. We're
gonna break that game down briefly from the perspective of
(02:45):
both teams, and then we'll talk about Oklahoma City looking forward,
and then we'll talk about Denver looking forward. Then we'll
take about ten to fifteen minutes of mailbag questions before
we call it a day. No playback today, just because
it's a Sunday afternoon, but we'll be back with our
usual playback after shit, starting with Game one of the
Western Conference Finals on Tuesday nights, So you guys are
gonna want to go over to playback dot tv slash
(03:06):
Hoops Tonight to get set up there for our usual
after shows that'll be starting back up on Tuesday. You
guys are the jope. Before we get started, subscribe to
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It's also super helpful if we leave a rating and
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social media feeds and Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Make sure
(03:28):
you guys follow us there, and last but not least,
keep dropping mail bag questions in the chat so that
we can get to the mail bag at the tail
end of this show. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the start of this game looked very much like
the classic experience gap, right, Like the ESPN graphic that's
on the screen shows just the number of Game sevens
both teams have played in, and Denver's just been in
(03:50):
so many of them, and I think the total number
of combined Game seven appearances for OKC was three, and
that was lou Door Shay and Isaiah Hartenstein if I
remember correctly, and like Isai HARTENSTEI didn't think that was
last year. And then if I'm not mistaken, I think
the Dort shay Wan I think that might be the
James Harden blocked three in Game seven in the bubble,
(04:13):
if I remember correctly. But that's the only Game seven
experience that that group has had, right and that abundantly
was clear. At the start of the game, the Nuggets
looked like the far more comfortable and confident team. The
Thunder offense looked super tight. Guys were missing layups, guys
were missing jumpers. Denver's in control. Right from there, I
(04:34):
thought three distinct stretches flipped the game. Stretch number one
in the later third of the first quarter, Alex Crusoe
and Russell Westbrook check into the game, Alex starts denying Nikolea.
Jokic the catch at the high post, and just in
general using a really good three quarter front slash full
(04:55):
front to basically shut off passing angles into Jokic in
the post in the high post from there. None of
the Nuggets role players looked like they knew how to
make a high post entry. Russell Westbrook had a couple
of turnovers. He had a possession where he just said, screwed,
I'm gonna go to the rim and he got blocked.
Christian Brown ended up finally missing a three, and suddenly
that twenty one to ten lead was twenty six to
(05:16):
twenty one going into the start of the second quarter.
Just kind of felt like a different game, okaysee, kind
of had some momentum coming out of the end of
that first quarter. Then the second pivotal stretch, David Addleman
makes the critical mistake of leaving Nikola Jokic and Jamal
Murray both off the floor at the same time. In
(05:36):
Game seven, at the start of the second quarter, the
Thunder went on a six to zero run literally in
sixty two seconds, a minute, in two seconds, all of
a sudden, it's twenty seven to twenty six. All of
a sudden, the Thunder have a lead in the game
that the Nuggets controlled for you know, seven minutes, eight minutes.
(06:00):
I think it was actually nine minutes. It was less
than the total run from twenty one to ten to
twenty seven to twenty six, took less than five minutes
of game clock, just completely flipped the game. From there,
the Nuggets stabilize, Jamal Murray hits a little jumper, puts
the Nuggets back within one. Mark Dagenal calls the time out,
(06:21):
puts chet Holmgren back in, and over the final three
minutes of the first half, the Thunder closed it out
on an eighteen to five run, kind of an extension
of what we saw at the end of the first
quarter Alex Crusoe, but also j Dubb during the stretch
doing some great work battling for position against the Kola
Jogic denials, poor post entries, forcing turnovers, runout dunks, and
(06:45):
it basically ended the gate in a three minute stretch there.
So if you look at the first half in general,
for out of the twenty four minutes two thirds of it,
Denver looked completely in control, methought at half court bass,
methodical half court basketball, getting and making better shots. But
in these short bursts spanning just eight minutes of game clock,
(07:11):
the Thunder just completely dominate the game and Denver's never
able to regain control from there. There's some reality to
the difficulty of dealing with ball pressure guards. Any of
you guys who've played basketball and are kind of a
bigger player, you'll have some experience with this over the years,
where like a ball pressure guard will just get up
in your business and he's swiping at the ball and
(07:31):
grabbing and klawn and doing all that stuff. And what
you have to do is you've got to create space.
And the only way to create space is to use
to protect the ball, clear with your elbow, clear with
your shoulder, use your hips, use pivot moves trying to
clear out space against a smaller player. And it becomes
a very delicate balance because most guards or most guards
just naturally get a form of bias from officials because
(07:52):
they're smaller, and so they just get to get away
with more contact. And if you swing that elbow just right,
even though his face is like right here in your
personal space, the ref's gonna call that an offensive foul.
And so I was talking about it on Twitter earlier today.
It's like a form of gamesmanship and the same way
that foul drawing guards like what Shay does or Jalen
(08:13):
Brunson does or Austin Reeves does, In the same way
that those guys grift their way to the foul line.
On offense, there are defensive players who grift extra possessions
by doing that sort of thing. Ball pressure, ball pressure,
ball pressure. And what they do is they train themselves.
As soon as they get any sort of contact above
the shoulders, they just flop back and they're gonna get
a call. And it's just complicated dealing with ball pressure.
(08:35):
And it is what makes this Thunder defense so incredibly
difficult to deal with, is you survive the dort jw phase.
And here comes case On Wallace and Alex Cruso. They're
probably even better at it than the first two guys are.
And so it's just wave after wave. Aaron Wiggins gets
in on the action too. It's just wave after wave
(08:56):
after wave of big physical guard that's gonna get in
your business and be aggressive and physical, and the rest
aren't going to be able to call every foul and
they do some gamesmanship with their own and it just
is a overwhelming wave after wave of force on the
defensive end that wears you down. And that's Howlkloma City
won the series. Ultimately, they won this series with their defense.
(09:19):
Looking forward for Oka See, I thought they showed a
lot of growth throughout the series. Denver had them on
the ropes three different times and games that they ended
up winning just because they stuck to their identity and
trusted that it would eventually carry them across the finish line,
and it literally did. It took longer in game four,
it took longer in Game five, but eventually they did
(09:41):
wear down Denver's offense. Eventually they couldn't score the ball.
Eventually their downhill force did break through the barrier that
was Denver's defense. Alex Crusoe won you have playoff series.
I don't think you win this series without Alex Cruz.
I thought that was a really interesting thing in retrospect
looking back at that trade, I hope Chicago's enjoying Josh Giddy.
(10:03):
But Alex Crusoe is a veteran role player who came
in the only rotation player on this team over the
age of twenty six, and his ability to consistently knock
down spot up threes in this series while also being
a guy that not only was defending Jamal Murray extremely
well at stretches, but was also doing a great job
on NICOLEA. Jokicch for stretches. You could argue he was
(10:23):
the best defender that Denver used on Nikole jokicch in
the series. Just unbelievable output from a player that they
brought in during the summer. Isaiah Hartenstein, by the way,
to the job that he did on Jokic guarding his
strong hand. Like the trades made this summer by Sam
Presty to bring in Alex Crusoe, the decision to sign
(10:45):
Isaiah Hartenstein, they literally gave this team a championship ceiling
that would have been cut off at the knees right
here in the second round. They would not have beat
the Denver Nuggets had they brought last year's team back.
So shout out to Sam Presti for those moves. I
thought that was a nice bounce back game from j dub.
I thought he just showed a more of a propensity
(11:07):
to just attack the rim instead of settle for jump
shots early in the clock. He did take a couple
jumpers in the first half that he missed, but they
were after he was aggressive downhill towards the basket. Just
attack the rim and play defense and good things will happen.
That's a great way to get yourself out of a
slump is just play really hard and focus on the
things that don't depend on variants. Looking at the Minnesota
(11:27):
series again, I'm not going to have a prediction until tomorrow.
I'm working on it. First thing in the morning, I'm
to watch a ton of film. We'll have a full
series preview at sometime, probably doing the early afternoon tomorrow.
But it's a very interesting series. Two elite defenses with
elite rim protection, and both teams have a legit too
big look. Two elite on ball guards against two teams
(11:49):
that have a ton of good on ball defense options,
which should make for a very interesting series in the
sense that both Shay and j Dub and Julius everyone
should be on comfortable in this particular matchup. But there
are three major differences between the two teams. The Wolves
are bigger, while the Thunder are faster. I think that's
like a kind of They're both very athletic, but in
(12:11):
different ways. The Wolves, i think, are substantially more experienced
and ants secondary shot creator is a veteran forward in
Julius Randall, while Shae's backup shot creator is a younger
guard in Jay Dub, and Julius has been a substantially
more reliable offensive player. My initial gut feeling, and this
might completely change tomorrow after I watch a bunch of tapes.
So I'm not saying this is my pick, but my initial,
(12:34):
like just gut reaction looking at the series is I
trust Minnesota's offense to be able to score more over
the top in these ugly ass games. These games are
all going to be really low scoring, and I expect
it to be the kind of series where it turns
into can Ant make tough shots? Can Julius make tough shots?
Can nas Read make tough shots? Can Chet Homer and
(12:57):
Jay Dub shake GISs Alexander? And I just trust Julius
Randall and Chet home, excuse me, Julius Randall and Nas
Reed just a little bit more than I trust Chet
Holmgren and Jay Dub right now.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
And so my.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Initial gut reaction is to lean slightly towards Minnesota. But
again that might change after I watch the film more
intently tomorrow and start putting together that series preview. But
again we'll have I think both series are more or
less coin flips. Again, I picked Indy and I'm leaning Minnesota,
but I think we've got an excellent conference final awaiting
us between four pretty evenly matched teams at least respectively
(13:32):
in their matchups, and I'm hopeful that for the first
time since twenty twenty two, we get a good conference
final because we've had a couple of brutal ones in
a row. Denver, they had their chances man up eight
in Game four in the fourth quarter, up nine in
Game five in the fourth quarter. They'll be kicking themselves
(13:52):
for a little while for this one. I think Jokic
shall be kicking himself for Game four because that was
the last game out of a three game stretch where
couldn't make a shot, and if he would have been
able to make more shots, his team would have won
that game. I think Jamal Murray will be kicking himself
for Game five because he was so good for the
first three quarters and he just went cold in that
fourth quarter. But overall, I was impressed by Denver's championship
(14:16):
pedigree and their overall ability to make this into a
very competitive series. I want to shout out Aaron Gordon.
I couldn't believe he was gonna play, and as he
was running around, I couldn't believe he was playing and
there was a certain amount of like like they tried
to keep him on heart and sign a little bit
(14:36):
more so.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
He's less defending in action.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
He's doing a lot of switching off of every little screen,
not really throwing a lot of effort in transition or
in closeouts. But obviously he couldn't move, but I thought
he was like positive impact on a Grade two hamstring strain,
and it just is insane, and like, you know, when
I think about Aaron Gordon, obviously I'm a little biased
because I'm a University of Arizona fan, but this last
(15:01):
three years for him in the postseason, I think he's
been one of the better, more reliable, more versatile role
players that I've seen. And to me, he's just a
champion and a legend and someone that I've got a
great deal of respect for. And he's got a long
career ahead of him. And I think that's a perfect
springboard to this next conversation, which is I want to
start this point of view from a very basic kind
(15:24):
of like position that I hold, which is I do think,
like without a doubt that Jamal Murray, Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon,
and Nikola Jokic is a Championship Corps. I think those
four guys can absolutely start at those respective four positions
(15:44):
and win the championship. They just badly need to upgrade
that Michael Porter Junior slot. That was a problem throughout
this postseason. Whether it was them not being able to
trust MPJ, not being able to trust Russ, not being
able to trust Peyton Watson, they just didn't have a
reliable fifth guy. Michael Porter Junior is going to be
a difficult player to trade, but he is the kind
(16:08):
of player that I'd be looking to move this offseason
for a defensive minded wing because of Aaron Gordon's development
as a shooter. Christian Brown again over the tail end
of the series got his jump shot figured out, and
also Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown are two examples of
defensive minded players that have become better shooters. I think
those dudes will probably get with whatever defensive minded wing
(16:30):
you get and friendly bully him into becoming a better shooter.
Like I would just be looking for someone in that
mold of the Herb Jones, Jaden McDaniel's type of player.
Obviously you're not gonna be able to get Jayden, but
I would be looking for that type of big, rangey
wing athlete that can basically fill in the baseline spacer
(16:51):
role off of Jokic as a cutter. Now that Gordon
and Brown can shoot the ball as well as they do,
and that raises your defensive ceiling and your overall at
the leticism substantially, which I think would be an upgrade.
And then the last thing I'll say about it just
Jamal's conditioning. I think I think he needs to come
into camp ready to go and maximize himself to the
(17:13):
point where he's a more reliably good player in these situations.
Jamal was bad tonight, but he was fantastic in Game six,
and he was really good in Game five until he wasn't.
And so I think there's a clear shot making ceiling
there with him that he will reach more consistently if
he just becomes the kind of player that maximizes what
(17:33):
he can get out of his body over the course
of a season. And so I think there's just I
think it's about maximizing what you have on board, making
an upgrade to that fifth starter spot at the small
forward position. I think there's a real opportunity there for
Denver to pivot and not have to ditch their continuity.
Like I was talking to Colin today and Collin's like, well,
do you think they should trade Jamal Murray?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
No, I don't.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
To me, Jamal Murray's continuity with Jokic in the two
man game is of substain value and you could get
a player who on paper is better than Jamal, but
it's not as good within this particular team in this fit.
And so I think I think it's I think you
bet on continuity and you just upgrade that fifth starter
spot go from there. You've got enough young talent with
you know, Jalen Pickett and and Peyton Watson off the bench,
(18:20):
Julian straw the had his moments in this series. They've
got They've got their opportunity to uh to get more
talent out of you, out of your young players. In
the big picture, I think they just got to upgrade
that fifth starter spot.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
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Speaker 2 (19:06):
All right, let's bring Jackson on and take some questions.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Let's do it.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Let's do it. Just sort of sticking on this Denver
point for a second, do you think Denver's issues have
more to do with the small forward position or a
lack of depth?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So I I think like there's a certain amount of
depth that will come naturally through the development of their
young players. Like, I don't think the issue is having
Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther as you're you know, even
Russell Westbrook in this case, as you're six seven eight.
It's just not having a five. They just didn't have
a five. Like I feel like this. I feel like
if the Nuggets got reliable play out of Michael Porter
(19:46):
Junior in this series, they win.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I just think they do.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So, Like I think I think that is a more
achievable goal looking at it through the lens of one
piece and then understanding like there's going to be year
over year improved with your young talent. That's those guys
are going to have their opportunities next year to get
plenty of playtime. It's just you gotta have five guys
that you trust in a big spot.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, they they didn't.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
They definitely didn't have five guys they trusted in this series.
That's for sure. That is for sure.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Do you agree with me that the top four, though,
are good? I do? I do.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I feel like the relationship and the continuity you're describing
with Jamal and Jokicic feels very of the Steph and
Draymond conversation to me, where it's like, yeah, there might
be a better player than Draymond Green to pair with
Steph curR. Yeah, there might be a better player to
pair with Yogas and Jamal Murray. But the chemistry they
have on the court takes a long long time to develop,
(20:40):
and you're not Most teams aren't winning a championship without
some level of the sum is greater than the parts.
Even when those parts are amazing, you need the sum
to be greater. And that's where that chemistry I think
is really, really, really valuable.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That's a great point. Like we talk about this literally
all the time. Your value in a vacuum doesn't matter.
Everything value. The only value that matters is your value
on that basketball team. And the Draymond Steph partnership supersedes
any potential partnership of Steph with another big that doesn't
have that like seamless synergy that you get out of
(21:12):
those two, Like even with Anthony Davis, like if you
had to because I remember we had that Warriors fan,
it was like, well, what if we can get Ad,
Like if let's say you had to use Draymond as
salary filler in the AD trade. There's obviously massive upside
with AD. But one of the downsides would be Ad
is not as good of a processor and short role
player as Draymond is. And so even though AD's greatness
(21:33):
would supersede and I'm sure the Warriors would be better
with AD because he's the type of superstar player, but
the point is is it's more complicated. It's not just
as simple as attaching an in a vacuum talent like
Steph because he brings two to the ball twenty five
feet from the basket. Processing is like one of the
most valuable skills for a player playing alongside of him,
and that's one of the things that Draymond brings.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Yeah, one hundred percent. It's like, and there's obviously exceptions
to that, Like if you put Yannis with Steph curR, yes,
that's just enough of a talent gap where it's worth it.
And you put Steph Curry with Nikola Jokic, it's enough
of a talent gap to replace Tramal Murray.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
But you're not.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
It's it's gonna be challenging to have enough of a
talent gap to replace that chemistry that we're sort.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Of describing, I think exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Next question, Jason, what kind of defense do you think
Many will play against Oka see? Will they throw a
lot of zone out there? Okay, okay, so he did
have some trouble with his zone earlier in the series
before they sort of figured it out a little bit.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I think we'll see some zone. But I think this
is going to be a man de man series for
both teams. I think it's going to be a ball pressure,
load up the strong side, force you to move the
ball and shoot against the hard, close out.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Type of game.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Like I think I think we could see extended, ugly
stretches like extended ugly stretches from both Shay and and
in this series, like both of these defenses are perfectly
designed to deal with each other. Like it's like a
it's a real problem for both teams and the like
for as fast as Okay see is, they're going to
(23:00):
be dealing with Minnesota's length, And there's a certain amount
of like chasing over the top jump shooter who's going
to be shooting against length. But like, at the same time,
ant superpower is his quickness and his ability to beat
people off the dribble with speed, and and there's just
a lot of athletes that are going to be standing
right in his way throughout this entire series. And so
I think it's going to be very much a tough
(23:22):
shot making for the stars kind of series and a
catch and shoot three for mediocre role players type of
series out of main and demand sequences. And I think
I wouldn't be surprised if we had multiple games in
this series where neither team gets two hundred.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Yeah, it does feel like both teams have unique defensive
options to throw against the other team's best player, being
able to have Dork Caruso Cason Wallace to throw at
Anthony Edwards and to have Anthony Edwards and Jane McDaniels
to throw at and they got Both teams have a
lot of athletic defenders. Dante is super quick. Yeah, they
(23:58):
can throw, and they all have different sort of strengths
and types of defenders. They could mix up the looks.
What I think is you know, valuable as well. How
would next question? How would you rank the last four
teams in terms of championship odds?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
This is a really good question. I think Oklahoma City
should be a substantial favorite over both Indiana and New York.
Minnesota I would make a smaller favorite over Indiana and
New York, but I think i'd make them favored. But
(24:36):
I think that Minnesota okay Se could go either way,
if that makes sense. So like strictly speaking the matchups,
I view Minnesota okay See as a coin flip, but
going forward into the finals, I viewed Minnesota as more
susceptible to a loss to Indiana or New York than
I view okay See. I think okay See would dispatch
of the Knicks and the Pacers pretty quickly. It's just
(24:58):
a nightmare matchup for both of them to have to
deal with all that guard speed on the ball. So
with that being the case, I'm gonna go I would
rank the Thunder small gap Timberwolves, big gap Pacers, small
gap Knicks.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
That's how I'll put it.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
I think I agree, and DraftKings does not DraftKings has
I mean they agree with part of it. They have
OKAC as the heavy favorite minus one sixty five, and
then I think, probably just because you can only get
one of the two Western Conference teams in the finals,
that from an odds perspective, they have an Eastern Conference
team next the Knicks and.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Plus fo that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
Yeah, yeah, and then the Timberwolves are plus five point
fifty and the Pacers are plus seven hundred.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
See. You know what's interesting about that, though, is I
think it's I think it's substantially more likely that Minnesota
sneaks through OKC and beats who comes out of the
East than either of the East teams beating Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
See yeah I did too. Yeah. Like it's just.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Can you imagine Haliburton and Brunson and nemhard like just
dealing with the incessant wave of Cason Wallace and Alex
Caruso and lou Dord and yeah, like it just I
think it would just be too much for him. Like
I I view the Western Conference Finals as basically the
NBA Finals.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, I tend to agree. And this is not to
take shots at Tyre's Halliburn or Jalen Brunson, because those
guys deal with a lot of good athletic defenders all
the time. But you saw it, for for stretches in
Game five of the Knick Celtics series where when Jalen
Brown is like, I'm going to turn into a defensive
like demon right now. That caused some problems for Jalen
(26:34):
Brunson and not I mean, they obviously won the series,
it's not anything like that. But if you got three
different guys you can are always going to be fresh
ish to throw at Jalen Brunster Tyre's Halliburton. It's it
would be a challenge, I think against.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
A simple stat to kind of break this down. Denver
in the regular season with Nikolea Jokic on the floor
had a one twenty six offensive rating, okay for Denver
versus Okac in this round, they had a one oh
(27:08):
four offensive rating with Jokic on the floor, So Okac
was literally able to cut Denver's regular season offense production
by twenty two points per one hundred possessions.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
That's crazy like they are. It's crazy they are.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
You know, Like I saw our friend uh in colleague
Carson Breber talking about them as an all time great defense,
and I'm always hesitant to throw that phrase out until
we like get there, but like if if they're gonna
get there, this is what it would look like. Like
they're certainly in the process. It's kind of like it
reminds me of like watching Jokics in twenty twenty and
twenty twenty one, where you're like, this.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Guy might be the best you know this, yeah, yeah,
might be the best player.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Like this this defense from Okay see looks looks like
one of those special defenses in NBA history that can
really cause problems for teams. And the reason why Denver
had extended stretches of success against Okase is they had
this big mammoth human that could just run like some
of Jokic's drop step buckets through double teams today. Did
you see some of those today where he's just like
(28:09):
he just spins into traffic and just goes through like
three dudes and lays it up the Knicks, and the
Pacers just don't have that option against this Thunder team,
and I just think I think they'd be in some
real trouble.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
And it's sort of like we talked a lot about
Anthony Edward sort of being this like King King Slayer.
He's taken out all these you know, all time grades
on his way to on this playoff run. If the
Thunder end up winning the title, you know, the first
round is whatever. But being able to say we put
the clamps on Jokic, we put the clamps on a
Timberwolves team that just kind of shredded a great Golden
(28:41):
not shredded, but like had a lot of success against
a good, very very good Warriors defense.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
And then we put the clamps on Jalen Brunson or
Tyre's Halliburton's World win Pacers, like that would be a
pretty impressive defensive finals run.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I think I agree, And I think you're hitting on
another interesting thing, which is that I think Golden State
was a really good tune up for Minnesota to prepare
for Oka.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
See.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Can you imagine if Minnesota had gone straight from the
Lakers to Okay see that like I would have probably
picked Okac in a heartbeat, but getting that Golden State
matchup is like, here's a real fast, smart defense that
that'll throw you for a loop. The difference is is
you'll be facing real rim protection in this round.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Yeah, all right, let's see one more sort of kind
of abstract crazy question and then we can wrap up
for the day. I love the show. What do you
think of this trade? This is a this is a
this is.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
A blocky.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
The l A Lakers get Jared Allen, DeAndre Hunter, Isaaca Korro,
and Dean Wade, and Cleveland gets Lebron James.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Okay, read me the names one more time.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Jared Allen, Jared Allen, DeAndre Hunter, DeAndre Corro, Hunter, and
Dean Wade. And apparently this does work for the money,
according to the commenter.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Okay, let me let me conceptualize this for just a second.
So in this universe, the Calves would then run out
with Struce at the three with Lebron and Mobley and
they would lose the depth of DeAndre Hunter and Dean
(30:12):
Wade and the Lakers would get so it would be
Austin a Coro would be there.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Two I suppose, well.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
It's Luca Austin and DeAndre Hunter.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I think, yeah, you're right, Luca Austin and DeAnda Hunter
would be so it'd be Hunter and Ruie would be the.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Three, Hunter and Ruie and then Jared Allen.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
And then Allen at the center and then and then.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
I mean, it's it's not the worst. It's an interesting,
stay competitive, but not but not punt on anything long term.
You're like Hunter or Allen are are still like in
their rising into their prime, if not in their prime,
they're not old by any means.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
They're also Yeah, to your point, there are also players
that like specifically struggled in the postseason and that Cleveland
fans are probably like, I'll drive you to the airport anyway.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Right, and sort of like both teams being like, damn,
I don't really want to trade these guys, don't I
never said I wanted to trade these guys, but if
you're asking for them, I'll listen to a phone call.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So so, so Cleveland basically gets to use Lebron as
like a one year rental slash.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
They can drop his money off the books eventually.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Right there there, there might have to be to do
a total vibe shift if they if they run it
back and lose again in the second round.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yea exactly next year.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
And I think we came out of that series looking
pretty clearly like, yeah, Mitchell and MOBILEI are their two guys.
Garland's a big question mark. Still man, That's a really
interesting trade.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
That's it. That's something that.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I would I like if if Lebron was dead serious
about being willing to go back to Cleveland, It'd be
an interesting trade to explore and look at some different
machinations in the sense that like, yeah, I I the one,
the one other thing those I wonder if Cleveland's going
to look to potentially trade Garland at some point if
(32:04):
like how many times are they going to is Garland
going to be basically useless in the postseason before that
they before they look to go a different direction there.
But that could be an entirely separate deal. This is interesting.
I'm not gonna say that I would do it because
I think the Lakers.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Here's my issue.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
If I'm the Lakers, DeAndre Hunting, DeAndre Hunter and Rui
are both redundant. There are big forwards that struggle to
defend on the perimeter, that are good catch and shoot
players that can put the ball on the floor and
attack and close out that can attack a mismatch. They're
but they're both better at four than they are at
the three. In my opinion, Jared Allen is not quite
(32:40):
the vertical spacer that Luca typically likes to play with,
but he is a very good like short like a
short range spacer, meaning like floaters and push shots and
stuff like that. He's a switchable big that I think,
which I think obviously JJ Reddick would like. And Isaacacorro's
a real athletic upgrade. But after all of them just
(33:02):
struggled in the postseason, I think you'd have a hard
time giving up Lebron for him. It's an interesting idea,
though I'm not gonna say I would do it or not,
but that is a is an interesting idea, And like
if Lebron, if Lebron decides that he wants to go
back to Cleveland, there are certainly some avenues there to
make that into uh into an interesting trade.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
What do you have any big picture thought on it?
Speaker 4 (33:24):
I mean, it's just it's kind of hard to to
wrap your head around, but I do feel I do
feel like it kind of.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
It.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
It's both teams are in a sort of we don't
feel like we have the roster clearly to be contenders.
There has to be some kind of shake up, it
feels like for both teams. But it's hard to part
ways with any of the guys that you would need
to to make a trade, Like if you're if you're
a Cavaliers fan, I think it's tough to be like
run it back, just exact same roster running back. That's
(33:50):
also like, who do we really feel confident about trading?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
The Jared Allen piece is the complicated one to me,
because you trade him, you instantly become a dramatically worse
regular season team. But this is he's been He's gotten
his ass kicked in the postseason multiple times in the
last couple of years. So like like Mitchell Robinson ate
him alive a couple of years ago, he got demolished
by Myles Turner in this round, Like there's a it's
(34:18):
just really hard to sell your fan base on the
idea like, hey, you guys, did you like that when
we won sixty four games? Well, without jarreed, we're gonna
get fifty one to fifty two wins. How does that
sound to you?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Guys?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
You know but then the way you cause, like, especially
with Lebron, Like, Lebron's not going to be some super
impactful regular season player. But I would argue that Garland, Mitchell, Struce, Lebron,
and Mobiley have a much better chance to win in
the postseason than that version does. And so that it's it's, it's, it's,
it's definitely worth exploring. All right, guys, that's all we
have for today. As always, we sincerely appreciate you guys
(34:49):
for supporting us and supporting the show. As I said,
we will be going tomorrow early afternoon ish with our
series preview on the Timberwolves and the Thunder. Very much
looking forward digging into that tomorrow. No playback today, but
we'll get back to our normal playback after shows on Tuesday.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Again.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
That's playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight for you guys
to get set up there. Again, we appreciate you guys
for rocking with us and we'll see it tomorrow. What's
up guys. As always, I appreciate you for listening to
and supporting Oops tonight. It would actually be really helpful
for us if you guys would take a second and
leave a rating and a review As always, I appreciate
you guys supporting us, but if you could take a
minute to do that, I'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
The volume
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