Jason Timpf answers listener questions during an NBA Mailbag segment on Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and the Dallas Mavericks' Western Conference Finals win over Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns, and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Jason discusses Luka Doncic's run for best player in the world, how Dallas was able to exploit flaws in Minnesota, and why Anthony Edwards and the Wolves will be back next season.
Timeline:
04:00 - Introduction
07:03 - When Jason knew Game 5 was over
08:00 - Greatness from Luka Doncic
10:25 - How Luka conserves energy during games
11:52 - What future of center position looks like
16:41 - Anthony Edwards is still on superstar path
21:58 - Rudy Gobert issues
26:00 - Difference between Mavs & Nuggets vs. Wolves
29:26 - Dereck Lively's potential
30:34 - Can Wolves beat Nuggets without Gobert?
32:30 - The flaw Minnesota MUST fix
35:46 - Should Wolves trade Gobert?
38:03 - Best backcourt in NBA history
41:47 - Best landing spot for KAT
43:15 - Has playoffs been disappointing?
46:24 - Would Nuggets have beaten Mavericks?
48:44 - Is Ant to blame for Wolves' issues?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
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Speaker 1 (02:09):
Happy Friday, everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Hope all of you guys had a great week as
promise from last night, we're gonna do a mail bag today.
I'm actually recording three completely separate mail bags. We had
like one hundred mail bag questions in the YouTube video
last night, and so I divided them into three segments.
Today's mail bag is just going to focus on the
Western Conference Finals and fallout from that series for both teams,
(02:32):
some big picture topics about the Mavericks in a vacuum,
and some stuff about Minnesota heading into their offseason. Tomorrow,
the entire mail bag is going to be centered around
the NBA Finals, so a lot of Dallas Boston type
of topics, right, and then Sunday morning's mail bag is
going to be focused on the NBA at Large. So
I just kind of took all your guys's mail bags
(02:53):
question for all your mail bag questions from last night,
and just kind of filtered them into those three categories.
So Western Conference Finals today, NBA Finals tomorrow, NBA at
Large on Sunday. You guys know the drill before we
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You
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(03:13):
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podcast under hoops Tonite, and then keep dropping mail back
questions in those YouTube comments, and we keep hitting them
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(03:37):
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Game Time Today, Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So, first mail back question centering
around the end of the Western Conference Finals last night,
in which quarter did you start recording this episode? It
came out like five minutes after the buzzer. In reference
to the fact that our instant reaction came out pretty
(05:24):
quickly last night, it's funny. I had a conversation with
our producers last night and I went I started working
on the show right at halftime.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I knew that game was over.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And what's interesting, and there's a specific question about this
later on in the mailbag, but they were, you know,
a team that had come back from a large deficit before.
They were down twenty in the Western in the second
round series against Denver on the road, and they came
back to win that game. But I just I had
a feeling that game was just completely over. I thought
(05:53):
Luca had mentally dominated Minnesota, sat them of their confidence.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I thought it was over.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And so we just got started working on the pod
nice and early, and my wife was very appreciative as
we got to have a little night cap last night.
I'm glad you're making the points that you are. People
are going to talk about what happened to Minnesota, what
happened to their scheme, why they did not perform, et cetera.
But in my opinion, there's only one thing that happened tonight.
Greatness by Luka Doncic happened tonight.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Game summary done. The ninety eight Jazz were a championship
caliber team. The twenty sixteen Warriors were a championship team,
but they both just lost a greatness playing and simple.
We throw around the title of great way too much
in this league, but this is what it actually looks like,
and it doesn't happen often. I completely agree. You know,
I think that there's a desire. I've noticed this a lot,
especially from the analytics community. There's a desire to try
(06:41):
to like have a very clear answer, like a solution
to the problem, which I totally understand. That's the way
people like that are wired. And I'm wired like that
in a lot of ways too. Before I got into
playing basketball in college, I was an engineering student, so
I thought very much from a math perspective with things,
and like that was kind of that is kind of
the just the goal of everybody when they're looking at
(07:02):
a game, It's like, how can we solve this problem?
Where's the where's the simple and detailed explanation of why
this happened. And you guys know, like I love to
get into that sort of thing, and we do when
I think it matters, like whenever there we talk a
lot about adjustments, we talk a lot about the tactics
that are taking place on the basketball court, but at
(07:23):
the end of the day, there are sometimes there are
some situations where intangible things can have a greater impact.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And yeah, I one hundred percent agree. I didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I saw a lot of Mavericks fans in the comments
last night, like, oh, Lively was back, That's why we won.
And it's like, I know Lively is super valuable to
you guys. I'm not trying to minimize that. But no,
that's not why you won last night, and it's not
why you lost Game four. You lost Game four because
the Timberwolves went into your arena and they outplayed you.
And then in Game six or five, in particular, Luca
(07:54):
was so aggressive earlier scored. Luca personally scored on four
of the first six possessions of the game. He had
that run towards the end of the first quarter that
turned what an eighteen eighteen tie into thirty one eighteen
or something like that. If I remember correctly, that Luca
snatched their confidence at the start of that game, and
then Minnesota stopped executing. They started kicking the ball all
over the floor where they have nine turnovers in the
(08:15):
first half. None of them can make a shot. I
literally thought that was the game last night. There was
no tactical adjustment, There was no fancy explanation for what
happened other than Luca went into that arena and he
destroyed the Minnesota Timberwolves and they never had any chance
to regain their footing. How does Luca no wan to
effectively rest during an offensive possession every once in a while.
(08:36):
I feel like this has never talked about enough and
is so important to his game management given he is
in the top tier athlete one hundred percent agree. Rinds
me a lot of the dynamic he had that Kyrie
had with Lebron James. And there's two phases to this.
First shout out to Kyrie Irving because Kyrie Irving's ability
to kind of operate on an island by himself is
a very unique trait to him that I think makes
(08:58):
him super valuable to these do everything forwards like Luca
like Lebron James, even like in Nikola Yoki, Right, I
think Jamal Murray kind of plays that role for Denver
as well.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And to me, what it is is like this is
where Luca's ability to shoot the catch and shoot three,
which he really broke out over what game three in
Game five of this series in a big way. But
like him being able to just stand on the wing
twenty six twenty seven feet from the basket and hit
catch and shoot threes, that is an important part of
his ability to rest while having Kyrie go to work
(09:29):
because obviously, if you throw extra defenders at him, Kyrie's
got to make reads. But the unique thing with Kyrie
is he can dribble the ball out the floor against
ball pressure. He can use a ball screen or use
a guard guard screen to get a mismatch, and he
can go to work on an island, dribble twenty five
times in a possession and get a good shot for himself.
And it's a unique value for Kyrie. But again, the
important Piet is you got to the importantieces. You got
(09:51):
to be able to play off the ball, and that
requires you to be able to knock down, catch and
shoot jump shots, which Luca has been using a little
bit more frequently towards the end of this playoff run. Hey, Jason,
love the show our Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively examples
of what future of what the future of the center
position will look like, athletic bigs, solid defenders but with
low volume scoring. Love to hear your thoughts. So there's
(10:12):
multiple different constructs of NBA offense at this point, and
you know there's I'm not going to sit here and
pretend like Dallas doesn't have complications. They certainly do. We
talked about in Game four. Those you guys who watched
the film session are half of the film session because
YouTube picked us to pieces on that one was so annoying.
I was so frustrated. I spent like four hours on
that video. It was like fifty minutes long, and we
(10:33):
had to cut almost half of the video out. That
was really frustrating for me. But in that video, I
think we got to I never went back to watch
the edited portion, but I think we were able to
keep some of the stuff in the second half, and
I showed some of the examples of stack pick and
roll that Dallas was running, which is basically where you
have a shooter underneath the basket backscreen for the role
man as he's coming downhill, and they were doing some
(10:55):
damage to go Baar in that respect. So Dallas does
run some complications in their offense, but they are more
of what I would call a four out one in offense.
So there the two primary forms of offense that I
see around the NBA right now are four out one
in offense and five out offense. And the four out
one in offense is very simple, and it's play finishing
(11:15):
and play initiation.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So it's like.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Shooter in the corner, he's not moving, he's standing there.
He's taking a corner three. Shooter in the other corner,
he's not standing, he's staying there. He's taking a corner three,
or he's driving the clothes out right. Same thing for
the guy on the right wing, although that guy's usually
a secondary shot creator in case Luca needs to bail
out from a possession, right and then it's the guy
comes up and he sets a ball screen and Luca
just works in that ball screen right like that is
(11:38):
that to me is like the four out type of offense.
It's very like guys are set up to finish plays
a vertical spacer. The vertical spacer is your one in right,
and then you've got your shooters in the corners and
a shooter on the wing.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Another team who runs a lot of that kind of
stuff is like the Atlanta Hawks, for instance, They'll do
that with Trey Young, right. So, like, that's to me,
the four out kind of construct. Five out construct is
where the big man operates more as a dribble handoff
folkrum out on the perimeter. This is like Demonas Bonus
with the Sacramento Kings. This is Draymond Green with the
Golden State Warriors. This is Anthony Davis with the Los
(12:13):
Angeles Lakers this year, right Like, this is Nikola Jokic
with the Denver Nuggets, right Like, this is much more
of an offensive decision making role for the big man.
So like, Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively to me, are
two very different types of centers. Daniel Gafford to me,
is a four out, one in type of center. He's
a guy that just wants to set ball screen or
is at his best when he's setting ball screens and
(12:33):
rolling hard to the rim. And as we know, he
can struggle a little bit dealing with making decisions in
the short role. Derek Lively can do both. Derek Lively
can operate as a four out one in center. He's
a good screen and roll big who can vertically space
the floor. He also can make decisions in a blitz
situations where he has to kind of operate as the
decision maker in the four on three. But I also
(12:55):
think if I picked up Derek Lively and dropped him
onto the Golden State Warriors, I think that he'd be
really effective in that five out system because his ability
to make read and react decisions with the ball in
his hands. But those, to me are the two very
different forms of offensive centers. As far as like the
future of the center position, it's all about what your
offense is, right, Like, there's a case to be made
(13:18):
that the Jokic Sabonis type of group, Nurkic type of group,
that that is the future of the center position for
five out offenses. Like a really good screener that can
knock down the occasional jump shot, that is a decision
maker in dribblehandoff situations out on the perimeter. So like,
I don't think that those guys are the future of
the center position. I think they're just an example of
what four out one in centers look like. And even then,
(13:40):
I think that's an oversimplification because I think Derek Lively
could operate in a five out system. Anthony Edwards is
the classic guy everyone falls in love with because of
his athleticism, but I agree, I don't know if the
decision making will ever develop to the level of Jokic
or Luka Doncic. So I want to have Anthony Edwards's
back here for a minute, because it's not just it's
(14:03):
not just the it's not just the athleticism. Obviously that's
an important part of it. I'm not gonna sit here
and pretend like Ann's athleticism isn't appealing to people, or
that that's not part of like kind of the the
energy that surrounds him around the league. I just think
that we're undertelling how good he was in this postseason. Again,
(14:23):
even after that nightmarish Conference Final series, he was twenty
eight points per game, seven rebounds and seven assists. Okay,
twenty eight, seven and seven. He was forty eight percent
from the field, forty percent from three in, eighty one
percent from the line. That in true shooting percentage is
sixty percent, So he was literally twenty eight seven and
(14:44):
seven on sixty percent true shooting. That's not just we're
buying the hype. That's not just Anthony Edwards is a
media darling. That's fucking awesome basketball. That's awesome basketball for
six weeks against Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker
and against the defending champs with the best player in
(15:04):
the world in Nikole Jokic. And while he was inconsistent
defensively in this postseason run, a big part of how
they won Game seven was his defense in the second
half against Jamal Murray during the entirety of the Minnesota
run in the second half where they went from down
twenty to up five, he held Jamal Murray scoreless. So again,
like there, obviously we're in love with his athleticism, but
(15:25):
there's more to it than that. The dude showed real
jump shot making ability once again. This is the three
third straight postseason where his jump shot has been resilient
into the Throughout the playoffs, he's been a really big
personality in his ability to kind of like just be
fun to watch on television to invigorate his teammates and
be a leader like I think I had it. I
(15:48):
was annoyed last night because this is something that happens
every year, by the way, every year there's like a
new team that kind of starts to have some success.
Like this year it's Dallas. Last year it was Denver.
The year before that, it was gold State, the year
before that was Milwaukee, the year before that, it's the Lakers.
Right In every single year, their fan base goes, actually,
we're the next great team and everyone else sucks and
(16:10):
we're amazing. And then we get to the next year
and then something happens, they lose, and a new team
takes that spot. And in that kind of energy from
that fan base, whoever that fan base is, there's this
desire to like put everybody else down, Right, Like every
Denver fan like just had victory laps on the on
the Suns and the Lakers for an entire offseason, right
and then it's like then they end up losing in
(16:30):
the second round this year. You know, Warriors fans lots
of victory laps after the twenty twenty two season, and
then the Lakers beat them in twenty twenty two, right,
Like at the end of the day, like this stuff
tends to be fleeting as a result of the fact
that the league is very, very deep. There are certain
teams that I think are resilient, Like I do think
Denver will be back, right, Like I think Dallas in
(16:52):
particular is built for some sustained success over the next
few years, so I think they'll be back. But like
the idea that these teams are just gonna rip off
three four championships in a row, that's just not how
this works. And like, for whatever reason, Dallas fans can't
just appreciate that they're having success and that they're gonna
get praise in the media. It has to be no.
But also, Anthony Edwards is a bum and that's just stupid.
(17:15):
He averaged twenty eight seven and seven on sixty percent
for shooting at twenty two years old in the NBA playoffs.
That kid deserves flowers too. As far as Anthony Edwards
in the big picture, I pointed this out on Twitter
last night. But in Lebron James's age twenty two season,
the Spurs embarrassed him. He shot like something crazy like
thirty six percent from the field in that series. He
(17:37):
shot twenty percent from three, he averaged six turnovers a game.
He was nightmarishly bad in that Spurs series. And guess
what now? Lebron is like unanimously regarded as at least
the second best player of all time, if not the best.
So like Anthony Edwards, is he as good as Luka Dancic?
Yet no, Luca badly outplayed him in the series and
(17:57):
clearly demonstrated a gap between the two of them. Specifically,
I think one of the things that this playoff run
emphasizes that Anthony Edwards lacks matchup versatility at this point.
If he's going against teams without athleticism on the perimeter
and rim protection, he's going to demolish you. But as
soon as he runs into matchups like that, it gets
a little bit more difficult. That's something he's going to
have to confront in the future. We're actually going to
(18:18):
get to that later on in this show. But don't
use this playoff run to bury Anthony Edwards. That's silly.
He's going to be back. If you're under the impression
that the twenty two year old that average twenty eight,
seven and seven in the conference finals to eliminate the
defending champs and that super team Sons team. If you're
under the impression that he's not going to be back
(18:39):
on this stage, you're fooling yourself. He's going to be back,
and he's going to be better, and that kid has
so much room to grow because of his supreme athletic tools.
I do think he's going to be by the time
he's Luca's age, by the time he's in that twenty five,
twenty six, twenty seven, I think he's going to be
on that tier with Jokic, with Luca, with Gianness. He's
(19:00):
not there yet, but I think he's going to get there.
This is a little context for this question. I ranted
at the end of the show last night about how
if you look back through NBA history, center like you
can't win a championship unless you're center is some kind
of offensive threat, either a legitimate like catching finish threat
(19:21):
or a perimeter threat, something along those lines, like the
last year, obviously Jokic, the year before that, Draymond Green.
He's an offensive folkrum in the five out system for
Golden State. Even though he has some limitations, he's a
much much better offensive player than Rudy Gobert. Twenty twenty one,
Brook Lopez twenty twenty two, Anthony Davis right, even in
their big looks, like Dwight Howard was like a much
(19:43):
better catch and finish player around the rim than Rudy
Gobert was twenty nineteen. You know, we had Serge Ibaka
and Mark Gasol, right, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green in
the seventeen eighteen, Kevin Love in twenty sixteen, Tim Duncan
in twenty fourteen. That we can go on and on on,
Chris bosh in two thousand, on the heat teams, Derk Novisky,
(20:04):
although that team with Tyson Chandler. Tyson Chandler was more
like Derek Lively, a much better type of a vertical
spacer and decision maker on the role.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So like in NBA history, you need a center that
has at least some offensive capability to win the title.
Mail bad question. The other difference between the Rudy build
and the Dallas build is that Dallas can win if
Lively is making decisions, They're gonna lose if Rudy is
getting a lot of offensive touches. Totally agree. Derek Lively
to me, is a substantially better offensive player than Rudy Gobert.
(20:36):
But the other piece of that too is like some
of his spacing limitations, like Lively not being a shooter
is not a problem because one Lively can make those decisions.
Two Lively is great hands and catches and finishes everything
around the basket. And then lastly, Luka Doncic is a
deeply manipulative passer that can get really high quality opportunities
around the basket. The problem for Rudy is he's not
(20:56):
playing with that level of playmaker and he has stone hands,
Andy can't make decisions on the role. It's like the
trifecta disaster for trying to score in the half court
against an elite defense. Minnesota clearly disintegrated under Luca's barrage
of points, but they were also down against Denver by
twenty and still found a way to come back. What
was different between Minnesota versus Denver Game seven and this
(21:19):
game and why wasn't Mina Minnesota able to compose themselves
like they did against Denver. Love your videos, by the way,
really simple to me. In the Denver series, Anthony Edwards
and this kind of you know, I was talking with
Adamatos about this last night because he pointed out fairly
Dallas or that Denver actually had a better defensive rating
against Minnesota than Dallas did. But some of the data
(21:41):
there is a little tricky because that was like two
different series, Like Minnesota dominated Denver outside of the middle
portion of the series. Like Minnesota in the four wins
whooped the shit out of Denver, right, and then you
look at the middle three games in Minnesota or in
Denver beat the shit out of Minnesota in those three games, right,
So the data is all wonky. And if you looked
(22:02):
at it, Denver had a one sixteen defensive rating against
Minnesota in their losses, but they had a one oh
six defensive rating in the wins. So like, if you
look at it, it's like in those three wins, in
game three, four, and five, Denver locked down Minnesota's offense.
That's great, but you got destroyed in the other four games.
The Dallas series was very different. In every single game
(22:25):
of the series, Dallas guarded Minnesota well, they held him.
It was like one twelve defensive rating in their wins
in one thirteen in the one loss. So in terms
of like consistently holding down Minnesota's offense, Dallas was way
better than Denver in the four losses. Denver just couldn't
get stops against Minnesota. Specifically, what stood out to me
(22:45):
on film, Anthony Edwards in the Denver series averaged seven
point one attempts in the restricted area per game. In
this series against Dallas, he averaged just five point eight
restricted area attempts per game, so that's one point three
few were attempts. He also shot nineteen percent worse in
the restricted area against Dallas than he did against Denver.
(23:07):
He shot fifty five percent in the restricted area against
Dallas seventy four percent against Denver. And so for me,
what stood out was every time there was a half
court situation, Anthony Edwards didn't really know what to do
against Dallas, whereas against Denver, he just felt like he
could get to his spots more easily at the rim
and debt. That's why Denver had to just start hard
(23:28):
doubling all over the place. Now, Dallas also did some
doubling against against Minnesota as well, but they have more
rim protection and athleticism on the back line, which allowed
them to rotate out of it better than Denver did.
Like they would load up the side against Ant and
then he'd swing, swing, and then all of a sudden,
nas Reed would be slashing a close out and Dallas.
Denver just didn't have the athleticism to hang on that backside, right,
(23:52):
And so like the Denver series, by the way, I'm
only talking about one side of the floor. The offensive
side was the same. Like in the Denver series, Minnesota
held them to something crazy like one hundred and six
points per one hundred possessions for the entire series, whereas
Dallas averaged like one hundred and eighteen points per one
hundred possessions. So Dallas's offense was way better against Minnesota's
(24:15):
defense than Denver's offense was. And so really in the
Denver series, it was like Minnesota actually was capable of
slowing down Denver's offense and they were actually able to score,
whereas against Dallas they couldn't do either. And so that's why,
even though there was another large deficit, I just never
felt like Minnesota had a shot to come back in
that game. My jaw dropped watching Lively at the level
(24:38):
of the screen stick with Ant as he tried to
string Lively out to attack the rim. He literally had
to reset the offense with his defense in space at
seven feet, his rim protection and a short roll passing.
What are we watching some horrifying fusion of Draymond and AD.
I wouldn't go that far. I feel like that's a
little early and a little bit hyperbolic. But I am
really really excited to see the tie of player that
(25:00):
Derek Lively becomes. I imagine him being like a Tyson
Chandler two point zero, like an evolutionary vertical spacer that
has the ability to run five out to operate more
in space. I actually think he's got good touch, so
I'm really curious to see over the years if he
adds a pick and pop element to his game. Like
I think Derek Lively can be very very good. But
(25:21):
like you're fusing Draymond and Ad is fusing the two
best defensive players of this era.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I would slow down a little bit on that.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I think we need to see him actually anchor a
defense for eighty two games, playing thirty two to thirty
four minutes a night before we start throwing him in
those conversations. But that certainly is potential that Derek Lively has,
and I'm really really excited to see if he can
meet that over the course of his career. The issue
with the idea of Minnesota moving away from their amazing
inside defense and focusing mostly on perimeter defense is that
(25:50):
you do not beat Denver in a seven game series
if you value perimeter D more than inside D and
without the double big man setup you cannot slow down
yolkis the te Wolves do not beat Denver if they
do not have Gobert at the five.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I actually disagree about this.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
As good as go Beart was in this playoff run
on the defensive end of the floor, and I do
think his defensive effort in this postseason was underrated based
on some of the low lights of him getting hunted
and just some of the narrative stuff surrounding him. I
thought the bigger factor in Denver struggling against Minnesota was
Naz reading Karl Anthony Towns, and it's because those guys
could hold up under the bully ball attack of Jokic
(26:24):
because of their bigger frames, right, Like I actually thought
Gobert got mostly fried by Jokic in that series, and
then by the end of the series, Jokic kind of
had figured out the stunting that Gobert was doing and
that was a big part of how Denver got back
into it because Jokic was just killing him in that
middle portion of the series. That like, obviously it's gonna
(26:46):
be tougher to beat Denver if you don't have Gobert,
but I still think they can because they'll have a
two big look with Naz reading Karl Anthony Towns. And
this is in this scenario that I've discussed, if they
pivot off of Go Bear, they would upgrade that power
forward spot to a really high level offensive player. And
let's not forget that during the stretches were Denver dominated
(27:07):
in that series, they really slowed down Minnesota's offense. And
so again, I think you can still build a team
that can beat Denver without Rudy Gobert. And it doesn't
matter if the Go Bear lineup can beat Denver, but
you get your ass kicked by Dallas because Go Bear's
stonehands and his inability to make decisions on the role,
then you're not in any sort of better position anyway.
It's not about beating Denver to win the title. You
(27:28):
got to be four teams to win the title, so
you might have to sacrifice a little bit of your
capability to beat Denver to make yourself more versatile to
beat the other teams around the league. Hey, Jason, love
your show. Such an enjoyment. To hear your breakdowns after
each playoff game helps appreciate the game at a whole
new level. Thank you for the kind words. Want to
hear your thoughts on the Wolves. People say defense wins championships. However,
(27:49):
when I look at the Timberwolves, it seems like they
really lack an offensive identity. How could it be fair
to expect the cat to play well when he could
get benched when Reid plays a bit better one night,
or his defense simply that much more important than knowing
how many shots or reps are going to get each night.
For example, Kat having dumbfouls versus getting consistent shots each game.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
So? I don't think that specifically has anything to do
with it. I think it's just about team construct. So Karl,
Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, what types of offensive players
are they? They are shooters and drivers. That's what they
do best, right, Neither of them are elite playmakers. They're capable,
(28:28):
and it's just averaged seven assists in a playoff run.
I'm not trying to act like they can't make plays,
but they are not Luka Doncz, Chris Paul Nikola, Jokic,
Lebron James level playmakers. That's not their game. Those guys are.
They're the entirety of their game is predicated on downhill
rim pressure and pull up shooting over the top. Right,
That's what they're built on, and so you need to
build the you need to build the roster around their
(28:51):
skill set. Let's not forget this team was seventeenth in
offensive rating all season. This team was had a one
hundred in four offensive rating in crunch time, they were
a god awful crunch time offense. This was a consistent
issue all year that two favorable matchups against Denver and
Phoenix made it look like their offense was better than
(29:11):
it actually was. Then they ran into a team with
rim protection and got strangled. So the reality is is
this team has a flawed offensive construct and they will
eventually run into teams. We talked last night about the
standings and looking at the different teams with rim protection,
and I mentioned OKC, and I mentioned the Lakers, and
I mentioned Dallas another big team I missed, and there's
(29:32):
Memphis Memphis could rejoin the picture next year. They will
rejoin the picture next year, and it's gonna be a
lot of Jaron Jackson and Brandon Clark on that frontline,
and they have guys that can guard on the perimeter,
Like it's going to be similar challenges if you run
into a Memphis. So like half of the playoff field
next year is going to be elite rim protectors again,
and so this is gonna be a problem that they
(29:54):
have to deal with in the future. And so to me,
they have to build a construct in this roster that
is less reliant on Cat and Anthony Edwards's ability to
pick apart the defense because it's not just the Rudy piece.
Like Rudy obviously is a problem because he can't catch
and finish consistently, but Dallas was throwing a lot of
late help and Cat meaning like Ant would drive and
(30:17):
then the low man would just bail out of the
corner and come over a wall up on Ant like
as he's getting into the lane. So he's not just
challenging Gafford or just challenging Lively, He's challenging multiple bodies
in there. And Ant is not the kind of player
like Luca or like those other playmakers I mentioned, who's
just gonna pick you apart by making those last second
reads really effectively. So you have to make things easier
(30:38):
on your stars. If you're gonna be built around Cat
and Anthony Edwards, you have to generate natural spacing so
they can have really simple shoot drive pass reads. You
have to make it very simple for them. That to
me is the direction that they have to go in
terms of their roster construction as the Wolves fan and
(31:00):
I find your argument about Edwards and Gobert's fit very coaching.
Something Ant can never seem to figure out is lobs
to Rudy, he has shown flashes, but can never put
it together when he needs it. I do wonder what
five would work best for him, maybe at Goberart For
Miles Turner trade, great analysis as always, thanks again for
the kind words. That's an example like go Behar and
Miles Turner, that trade probably won't ever happen, especially with
(31:20):
the dollar amounts. Gobert makes a ton of money and
that's going to make the trade difficult. As I said
last night, I actually think Gobert probably ends up staying
in Minnesota just by virtue of the realities of the contract,
and he's got a player option that he's almost certainly
going to accept. So Gobert basically has two years left
on his current deal, and it's very possible that he's
in Minnesota for both of those. But that is the
type of swap that would make some sense for me
(31:41):
in the sense that Miles Turner is a pick and
pop big, that would make for easy because like again
drop coverage like Dallas is running with Gafford and Lively.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
The perfect counter for that.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Is a pick and pop because that puts that big
in a really tough position where if he drops and
and just throws simple kickback passes, it's wide open threes
all night for Miles turn If he doesn't drop and
he stays home with the role man, then with the
popping big, then Ant can turn the corner and get
in the lane and there's no rim protection in there. So,
like a shooting center is ideal. But I think their
best bet there is to try to flip Rudy to
(32:14):
a team that is actually willing to aggregate the salaries
if they can, and target something more along the lines
of a power forward, and I have Kat be that
shooting big. I really do think that Kat if you
simplify his role as well, because again he's driving and
dealing with the Gobert problem just as much as Ant is.
And so for me, like if you if you could
(32:34):
get a Portland to trade you a Jeremy Grant for
a Rudy Gobert or something along those lines, if you
could are a three team deal that sends eight and
r Gobert to a different destination. If you could do
something like that, that to me is where I view
the ultimate version of this team is Ant and Kat
playing in a space floor surrounded by shooting guys that
(32:55):
can defend guys like Jada McDaniels, guys like Jeremy Grant.
If it ends up being Mike Conley different player in
the future, that to me is the direction I would
eventually go as far as go Bear though, yeah, like
I think he has to play on a team that
has an elite playmaker. I think that's the only type
of team that he would be able to actually win
at the highest levels with. With Dallas advancing to the finals,
(33:16):
there's a debate going around on who are the best backcourt?
Who is the best backcourt in NBA history? Growing watching
Golden State when I was in high school. I don't
think there's a better backcourt than Stephan Clay. I want
to know what rank do you have for them? If
there is one better backcourt than them, who would it be.
Thank you for your ANALYSI has been a huge fan
of you so far this year and a half that
I've been following you on YouTube. Thanks again for the
(33:37):
kind words and.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
For the support.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
This question is frustrating to me because I really don't
look at it as like backcourt. To me, it's like
permitter players, interior players. It's really that simple. Like, for instance,
Luca functions kind of like a point guard offensively, but
on defense, he's not guarding guards like Derek Jones Junior
is and Kyrie Irving is and so like to me,
like focusing on who the backcourt is is silly. It's
(34:01):
like Steph Curry. Like Steph Curry for the most part
is being hidden defensively as much possibly as he can
because he's got such a big offensive role, right, So
like to me, it's more like duos. And when you're
ranking duos, ranking Luca and Kyrie is a much more
complicated topic because you're looking against you know, hundreds of
duos over the course of the last few decades, right,
So like that's something that's more of something that we
(34:22):
get into in the offseason. But to me, I don't
really find the conversation around best backcourt even a relevant
here because I don't look at Luca as a traditional
backcourt player. To me, Luca represents where the game has changed,
which is and your best player has the ball in
his hands, you know, Like Lebron James plays power forward
(34:43):
for the Lakers, and he ran the point a lot
in this postseason run for the Lakers, right, but he's
not guarding point guards, right, So Like to me, I
don't look at them as a backcourt. I just look
at them as a star duo, the way I'd look
at Paul George and Kawhi Leonard for instance. Hi Jason,
I agree with your Gobert assessment, but Kat has more
(35:04):
trade value, So I think he'll be the one that
gets moved and Nas shifts to a starting power forward role.
If that happens, where do you think is the best
landing spot for Kat? Detroit has the cap space to
absorb him as the starting center. They immediately get a
go to score and a floor spacer to help Caden
Ivy a sar Can mimic the McDaniels role as well
as anyone. New Orleans is another option. The Pels get
their center, they could space the floor for Zion to
(35:24):
attack the rim and Ingram McDaniel's Gobar front court has
plenty of length. Any other spots that come to mind,
All those make sense to me. Another couple that I
looked at Milwaukee, like Carl Anthony Towns next to Giannis
would be a really interesting type of build Miami. I
think a huge lineup with bam Adebayo and Karl Anthony
Towns could be interesting. Oklahoma City was another one I
(35:46):
thought of, Like imagine Chet Holmgren as more of the
role Rim protector, basically just putting Kat next to a
shooting version of Go Bear, And that's the type of
situation you could have there. But like again, I wouldn't
trade Karl Anthony town simply because I think Gobar is
a much bigger issue and anytime you start flipping a
player like Cats really hard to replace his value, especially
(36:09):
considering like in a lot of postseason situations this year,
he was one of their more reliable scorers, and I
say that as he was still inconsistent, but in terms
of guys next to Aunt, he was probably the most
consistent scorer, certainly was the most consistent scorer of that group.
Three more questions. Dallas is playing out of their minds,
(36:29):
can't miss a shot? Fun to watch, looks like the
Serbian Slovenian Balkan brothers of Joki chu Luka will dominate
two years in a row. But overall, as a very
long term NBA fan, this year's playoffs have been disappointing.
I thought this was going to be one of the
most competitive playoffs ever, and it's been one blowout after another.
Even the Nuggets Wolves series that went seven didn't have
a single game that was really competitive or interesting. One
of the most boring playoff stretches I've ever seen. Hoping
(36:51):
the Dallas Boston series will actually be interesting and worth watching,
so I'm actually more optimistic about it. I think there's
an important piece of context that kind of throw all.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Of this in a mix.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Every year in the playoffs, there are competitive matchups and
there are bad matchups, right for instance, like even this
Western Conference final series that was five games, I thought
it was a highly entertaining five games because every game
was super competitive, right, Whereas like Minnesota, Denver goes seven,
but every game's a blowout. Right, that's normal. In the playoffs,
there are a series where teams where the games or
(37:23):
blowouts are. A series where every game is close like
that is typical. The problem is is we didn't get
as much of the competitive series because the Eastern Excuse me,
because of what happened in the Eastern Conference. And there's
two things that happened in the Eastern Conference. I thought
there were five good teams in the East this year.
I thought it was Boston, Milwaukee, Indiana, New York, and Philly.
(37:44):
Those to me were the good teams. Orlando, Cleveland, Miami
without Jimmy Butler after the injury, just not legitimate competitive
basketball teams.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
First of all, all three of those teams ended up
in Boston side of the bracket.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Problem number one.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Now Boston doesn't even have to play a real team
for four weeks, right. Second side of it, everyone got
hurt and Bee's playing on a bad knee at the
Knicks literally had like seventeen different injuries. Tyres Halliburton falls
apart at the end of the Pacer series in the
Conference finals, the one I'm missing, Oh Milwaukee, Giannis misses
(38:18):
the entire series, and Dame misses part of it. Right,
So like all, like if that had balanced better, Like
if two of the good teams were on the same
side with Boston and the other two were on the
other side and Boston had to play a real team
in the second round and everyone was healthy, I think
we would have had more competitive basketball games to kind
of balance everything out. But because the East was a
(38:40):
basically a shit show, the only real good series there
was like New York Philly, Right, the Indiana New York
series wasn't very entertaining because they were all blowouts after
the first three games. But like that, the East being
a shit show kind of made it so that we
didn't have as much competitive basketball. But I still thought
there were a lot of really inner retaining games that
(39:01):
Lakers Nuggets series. For a five game series, every game
was super entertaining, and we had two buzzer beating game winners.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I thought that Dallas first the Clippers was pretty entertaining.
I thought Dallas first Oklahoma City was a highly entertaining series.
Dallas versus Minnesota. A lot of that has to do
with Dallas there. We talked so much about Dallas and
Luca and Kyrie. Their defense is one of the primary
drivers of their success. That's a big part about how
all those games are close, right, I thought there were
plenty of entertaining basketball games. And also I think Dallas
(39:32):
vers Boston is going to be an awesome NBA final.
I'm very excited for it. Hi, Jason, big fan of
the show. I know it's a bit irrelevant, but I'm
just curious. If Denver had beaten the Minnesota Timberwolves in
Game seven and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, who
do you think would have won? Between Denver and Dallas.
I would have picked Denver over Dallas. There are a
couple of key specific matchups there that would have picked
that would have skewed towards Denver. First, Dallas's defensive personnel
(39:54):
is very much set up to handle a guy like
ant It's not very set up to handle a guy
like Nicole Jokis. Both Gafford and Lively struggle to handle him.
On an island, they would have been in double teams
the entire series. It would have been a problem. And
then on the other end of the floor, the problem
that Minnesota had is they never had a big, strong
enough perimeter defender to handle Luca. And that's literally what
(40:15):
Aaron Gordon's specialty is. I've seen him do it against Lebron,
I've seen him do it against Jimmy Butler. I've seen
him do it against Kevin Durrant. Aaron Gordon's one of
the best big foward defenders in the league. That would
have been a much better matchup for Denver in that series,
and so again it would have been close. I would
have probably picked Denver in six or seven games, but
I would have picked Denver, And as you mentioned, it's
irrelevant because Denver couldn't beat Minnesota. And that's just how
(40:38):
these Dallas fans are all super sensitive about this, similar
to what I talked about earlier, where it's like the
sensitivity surrounding like just needing to trash Anthony Edwards. The
other piece of it is like Dallas fans are super
sensitive about you saying that they got a good matchup,
and it's like no one ever won a title without
getting some good matchups along the way, Like there is
no such thing in this field as the ultimate dominant team.
(41:01):
I love this Dallas Mavericks team. They're a bona fide
championship contender. I had them third in my contender rankings
coming into this postseason run. Makes sense that if Denver lost,
they'd be the team that would get in. Right, one
hundred percent on the Dallas bandwagon, they were a five seed.
This is not this is not the seventy three win Warriors.
This is not the Kadie Steph Warriors. They're not just
(41:22):
gonna obliterate everyone who comes in front of them. They're
a Boston is a minus two to twenty favorite in
the finals according to DraftKings right now. So like, again,
everybody has to benefit from matchups unless you're one of
the all time great teams in NBA history. And as
good as this Dallas team is, they are not one
of the all time great teams in NBA history. And
(41:43):
so again, like it doesn't matter. Dallas is a deserving
NBA finalist. But like, yeah, if I personally would have
picked Denver if they made it to the Western Conference finals,
would have been close, but I would have picked Denver.
I don't understand the Gobert hate. My numbers could be
a bit fuzzy, but in this playoff run, the Timberwolves
allowed one hundred and ten points per one hundred possesions
(42:03):
with him on the court one thirty three with him off.
Why is this fringe player that is going to come
in and essentially make a plus twenty swing. The issue
is at not being good enough with the mediocre offensive
talent on the roster to overcome good defense. If you
actually think that Anthony Edwards is a bigger problem for
this Timberwolves team than Gobert, I don't know what.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
To tell you.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
The reality is is that you got your ass kicked
in the conference finals. So forget about the plus minus numbers.
When Rudy was on the floor, you couldn't beat Dallas.
That's the issue. It doesn't matter if you were worse
when he was off the floor. The problem isn't whether
or not Gobert is the best player to play on
this roster. That's not the issue, of course, that that's
(42:43):
the best option for this roster with this group of players,
you needed to play Gobert to give yourself the best chance.
What I'm saying is this is not a championship roster.
I said this last night. To me, this Minnesota Timberwolves
team is closer to the Lakers from last year than
they are to a real championship contender in the sense
that the Lakers got a couple of favorable matchups in
(43:04):
the first two rounds. Right, they faced a downhill threat
and John Moran in the first round so they could
protect the rim cause a bunch of problems. And then
they faced a Golden State Warriors team that has consistently
struggled with Anthony Davis over the last few years. They
got two favorable matchups. They beat the defending champs, and
then they ran into a real championship contender and got
their ass kicked. That's what happened to Minnesota. They got
(43:27):
a really favorable matchup in the first round. They played Phoenix,
a pull up jump shooting team that likes to attack
from the perimeter on an island, and they have all
the perimeter defenders to match up with those guys. They
locked them up. They kicked their ass. Right then they
ran into the defending champs. It was a bad matchup
because they have all this perimeter size they have to
throw at Jamal Murray. They have all this interior size
that throwt Nicole Jokic. They beat the defending champs. Now
(43:49):
that Denver team is way better than last year's Golden
State team. I want to be clear, so I do
think that they're better. I think this Minnesota team was
better than last year's Lakers. I'm just saying they're closer
to that than they are to a real champion. Then
they ran into a real championship contender, this Dallas Mavericks
team that actually could attack some of Minnesota's weaknesses, and
Minnesota got their ass kicked. So like again, like defend,
(44:13):
go bear all you want. You're not a championship team.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
So like you weren't.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Close, you weren't actually close this year. By the way,
I said the same thing about the Lakers last year.
I didn't come out of that run going Okay, next
year it's Denver, Boston in LA. No, that's not what
I said. I said that there's Denver and Boston and
then there's a gap. I think I put Milwaukee in there,
but I was like Denver, Milwaukee, Boston, and then there
was a gap before we got to the rest of
the teams, and I said, the Lakers have to make
(44:39):
a trade to get better. And I feel exactly the
same way about this Minnesota Timberwolves team. They are going
to run into Memphis, the Lakers, Oklahoma City, or Dallas
next year in the playoffs and lose again if they
everready go bear on the floor, because the issue is
their offensive players are slashers and pull up shooters, not
(44:59):
high level playmakers, and they can't handle the fact that
teams can really pack the paint when Rudy Gobert is
on the floor, and Rudy's not the kind of guy
that can easily catch and finish everything to kind of
make up for that type of flaw. So again, I
think that focusing on on off numbers from this series
is missing the plot. You got your ass kicked. You're
not a championship team, so that is the major issue.
(45:21):
All right, guys, that is all I have for today's
mail bag. I'm gonna be back to again. I'm gonna
record it right now, but uploading tomorrow morning. Will have
a mailbag focus on the NBA Finals, and then on
Sunday morning, we'll have a mailbag focus on the rest
of the NBA.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
I will see you guys. Then the volume
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
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responsible gaming resources. All right, welcome to hoop tonight here
at the volume.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Happy Friday, everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Hope all of you guys had a great week as
promise from last night, we're gonna do a mail bag today.
I'm actually recording three completely separate mail bags. We had
like one hundred mail bag questions in the YouTube video
last night, and so I divided them into three segments.
Today's mail bag is just going to focus on the
Western Conference Finals and fallout from that series for both teams,
(02:32):
some big picture topics about the Mavericks in a vacuum,
and some stuff about Minnesota heading into their offseason. Tomorrow,
the entire mail bag is going to be centered around
the NBA Finals, so a lot of Dallas Boston type
of topics, right, and then Sunday morning's mail bag is
going to be focused on the NBA at Large. So
I just kind of took all your guys's mail bags
(02:53):
question for all your mail bag questions from last night,
and just kind of filtered them into those three categories.
So Western Conference Finals today, NBA Finals tomorrow, NBA at
Large on Sunday. You guys know the drill before we
get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. You
don't miss any more of our videos, follow me on
Twitter and underscore JSNLT, so you guys don't miss show announcements,
(03:13):
don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your
podcast under hoops Tonite, and then keep dropping mail back
questions in those YouTube comments, and we keep hitting them
throughout the rest of the postseason and the last but
not at least before we get started, I want to
talk to you guys about game time. Try to get
out and see an NBA Finals game in person. Obviously
it's fun watching basketball on TV, but nothing compares to
the intensity and the stakes of witnessing that level of
(03:37):
basketball in person. Not to mention, we have a guy
who I think is playing like the best player in
the world right now in Luka Dancic, Jason Tatum making
his second appearance in the NBA appearance in the NBA Finals,
Kyrie Irving, Jalen Brown, Drew Holiday, Chris Hops, Porzingis, Derek White.
The stars abound. So get out and see one of
these games in person. Game Time has an incredible ticket
(03:58):
buying experience. I used them earlier this year to go
to a game at McHale Center to watch the University
of Arizona men's basketball team. It was a last minute ticket,
got a great deal on it, got a great seat
knew exactly what I was getting myself into. It was
just a great experience. I want you guys to check
it out. They've got all in pricings. You don't have
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Game Time Today, Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right,
let's talk some basketball. So, first mail back question centering
around the end of the Western Conference Finals last night,
in which quarter did you start recording this episode? It
came out like five minutes after the buzzer. In reference
to the fact that our instant reaction came out pretty
(05:24):
quickly last night, it's funny. I had a conversation with
our producers last night and I went I started working
on the show right at halftime.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I knew that game was over.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And what's interesting, and there's a specific question about this
later on in the mailbag, but they were, you know,
a team that had come back from a large deficit before.
They were down twenty in the Western in the second
round series against Denver on the road, and they came
back to win that game. But I just I had
a feeling that game was just completely over. I thought
(05:53):
Luca had mentally dominated Minnesota, sat them of their confidence.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I thought it was over.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And so we just got started working on the pod
nice and early, and my wife was very appreciative as
we got to have a little night cap last night.
I'm glad you're making the points that you are. People
are going to talk about what happened to Minnesota, what
happened to their scheme, why they did not perform, et cetera.
But in my opinion, there's only one thing that happened tonight.
Greatness by Luka Doncic happened tonight.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Game summary done. The ninety eight Jazz were a championship
caliber team. The twenty sixteen Warriors were a championship team,
but they both just lost a greatness playing and simple.
We throw around the title of great way too much
in this league, but this is what it actually looks like,
and it doesn't happen often. I completely agree. You know,
I think that there's a desire. I've noticed this a lot,
especially from the analytics community. There's a desire to try
(06:41):
to like have a very clear answer, like a solution
to the problem, which I totally understand. That's the way
people like that are wired. And I'm wired like that
in a lot of ways too. Before I got into
playing basketball in college, I was an engineering student, so
I thought very much from a math perspective with things,
and like that was kind of that is kind of
the just the goal of everybody when they're looking at
(07:02):
a game, It's like, how can we solve this problem?
Where's the where's the simple and detailed explanation of why
this happened. And you guys know, like I love to
get into that sort of thing, and we do when
I think it matters, like whenever there we talk a
lot about adjustments, we talk a lot about the tactics
that are taking place on the basketball court, but at
(07:23):
the end of the day, there are sometimes there are
some situations where intangible things can have a greater impact.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And yeah, I one hundred percent agree. I didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I saw a lot of Mavericks fans in the comments
last night, like, oh, Lively was back, That's why we won.
And it's like, I know Lively is super valuable to
you guys. I'm not trying to minimize that. But no,
that's not why you won last night, and it's not
why you lost Game four. You lost Game four because
the Timberwolves went into your arena and they outplayed you.
And then in Game six or five, in particular, Luca
(07:54):
was so aggressive earlier scored. Luca personally scored on four
of the first six possessions of the game. He had
that run towards the end of the first quarter that
turned what an eighteen eighteen tie into thirty one eighteen
or something like that. If I remember correctly, that Luca
snatched their confidence at the start of that game, and
then Minnesota stopped executing. They started kicking the ball all
over the floor where they have nine turnovers in the
(08:15):
first half. None of them can make a shot. I
literally thought that was the game last night. There was
no tactical adjustment, There was no fancy explanation for what
happened other than Luca went into that arena and he
destroyed the Minnesota Timberwolves and they never had any chance
to regain their footing. How does Luca no wan to
effectively rest during an offensive possession every once in a while.
(08:36):
I feel like this has never talked about enough and
is so important to his game management given he is
in the top tier athlete one hundred percent agree. Rinds
me a lot of the dynamic he had that Kyrie
had with Lebron James. And there's two phases to this.
First shout out to Kyrie Irving because Kyrie Irving's ability
to kind of operate on an island by himself is
a very unique trait to him that I think makes
(08:58):
him super valuable to these do everything forwards like Luca
like Lebron James, even like in Nikola Yoki, Right, I
think Jamal Murray kind of plays that role for Denver
as well.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And to me, what it is is like this is
where Luca's ability to shoot the catch and shoot three,
which he really broke out over what game three in
Game five of this series in a big way. But
like him being able to just stand on the wing
twenty six twenty seven feet from the basket and hit
catch and shoot threes, that is an important part of
his ability to rest while having Kyrie go to work
(09:29):
because obviously, if you throw extra defenders at him, Kyrie's
got to make reads. But the unique thing with Kyrie
is he can dribble the ball out the floor against
ball pressure. He can use a ball screen or use
a guard guard screen to get a mismatch, and he
can go to work on an island, dribble twenty five
times in a possession and get a good shot for himself.
And it's a unique value for Kyrie. But again, the
important Piet is you got to the importantieces. You got
(09:51):
to be able to play off the ball, and that
requires you to be able to knock down, catch and
shoot jump shots, which Luca has been using a little
bit more frequently towards the end of this playoff run. Hey, Jason,
love the show our Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively examples
of what future of what the future of the center
position will look like, athletic bigs, solid defenders but with
low volume scoring. Love to hear your thoughts. So there's
(10:12):
multiple different constructs of NBA offense at this point, and
you know there's I'm not going to sit here and
pretend like Dallas doesn't have complications. They certainly do. We
talked about in Game four. Those you guys who watched
the film session are half of the film session because
YouTube picked us to pieces on that one was so annoying.
I was so frustrated. I spent like four hours on
that video. It was like fifty minutes long, and we
(10:33):
had to cut almost half of the video out. That
was really frustrating for me. But in that video, I
think we got to I never went back to watch
the edited portion, but I think we were able to
keep some of the stuff in the second half, and
I showed some of the examples of stack pick and
roll that Dallas was running, which is basically where you
have a shooter underneath the basket backscreen for the role
man as he's coming downhill, and they were doing some
(10:55):
damage to go Baar in that respect. So Dallas does
run some complications in their offense, but they are more
of what I would call a four out one in offense.
So there the two primary forms of offense that I
see around the NBA right now are four out one
in offense and five out offense. And the four out
one in offense is very simple, and it's play finishing
(11:15):
and play initiation.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So it's like.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Shooter in the corner, he's not moving, he's standing there.
He's taking a corner three. Shooter in the other corner,
he's not standing, he's staying there. He's taking a corner three,
or he's driving the clothes out right. Same thing for
the guy on the right wing, although that guy's usually
a secondary shot creator in case Luca needs to bail
out from a possession, right and then it's the guy
comes up and he sets a ball screen and Luca
just works in that ball screen right like that is
(11:38):
that to me is like the four out type of offense.
It's very like guys are set up to finish plays
a vertical spacer. The vertical spacer is your one in right,
and then you've got your shooters in the corners and
a shooter on the wing.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Another team who runs a lot of that kind of
stuff is like the Atlanta Hawks, for instance, They'll do
that with Trey Young, right. So, like, that's to me,
the four out kind of construct. Five out construct is
where the big man operates more as a dribble handoff
folkrum out on the perimeter. This is like Demonas Bonus
with the Sacramento Kings. This is Draymond Green with the
Golden State Warriors. This is Anthony Davis with the Los
(12:13):
Angeles Lakers this year, right Like, this is Nikola Jokic
with the Denver Nuggets, right Like, this is much more
of an offensive decision making role for the big man.
So like, Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively to me, are
two very different types of centers. Daniel Gafford to me,
is a four out, one in type of center. He's
a guy that just wants to set ball screen or
is at his best when he's setting ball screens and
(12:33):
rolling hard to the rim. And as we know, he
can struggle a little bit dealing with making decisions in
the short role. Derek Lively can do both. Derek Lively
can operate as a four out one in center. He's
a good screen and roll big who can vertically space
the floor. He also can make decisions in a blitz
situations where he has to kind of operate as the
decision maker in the four on three. But I also
(12:55):
think if I picked up Derek Lively and dropped him
onto the Golden State Warriors, I think that he'd be
really effective in that five out system because his ability
to make read and react decisions with the ball in
his hands. But those, to me are the two very
different forms of offensive centers. As far as like the
future of the center position, it's all about what your
offense is, right, Like, there's a case to be made
(13:18):
that the Jokic Sabonis type of group, Nurkic type of group,
that that is the future of the center position for
five out offenses. Like a really good screener that can
knock down the occasional jump shot, that is a decision
maker in dribblehandoff situations out on the perimeter. So like,
I don't think that those guys are the future of
the center position. I think they're just an example of
what four out one in centers look like. And even then,
(13:40):
I think that's an oversimplification because I think Derek Lively
could operate in a five out system. Anthony Edwards is
the classic guy everyone falls in love with because of
his athleticism, but I agree, I don't know if the
decision making will ever develop to the level of Jokic
or Luka Doncic. So I want to have Anthony Edwards's
back here for a minute, because it's not just it's
(14:03):
not just the it's not just the athleticism. Obviously that's
an important part of it. I'm not gonna sit here
and pretend like Ann's athleticism isn't appealing to people, or
that that's not part of like kind of the the
energy that surrounds him around the league. I just think
that we're undertelling how good he was in this postseason. Again,
(14:23):
even after that nightmarish Conference Final series, he was twenty
eight points per game, seven rebounds and seven assists. Okay,
twenty eight, seven and seven. He was forty eight percent
from the field, forty percent from three in, eighty one
percent from the line. That in true shooting percentage is
sixty percent, So he was literally twenty eight seven and
(14:44):
seven on sixty percent true shooting. That's not just we're
buying the hype. That's not just Anthony Edwards is a
media darling. That's fucking awesome basketball. That's awesome basketball for
six weeks against Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker
and against the defending champs with the best player in
(15:04):
the world in Nikole Jokic. And while he was inconsistent
defensively in this postseason run, a big part of how
they won Game seven was his defense in the second
half against Jamal Murray during the entirety of the Minnesota
run in the second half where they went from down
twenty to up five, he held Jamal Murray scoreless. So again,
like there, obviously we're in love with his athleticism, but
(15:25):
there's more to it than that. The dude showed real
jump shot making ability once again. This is the three
third straight postseason where his jump shot has been resilient
into the Throughout the playoffs, he's been a really big
personality in his ability to kind of like just be
fun to watch on television to invigorate his teammates and
be a leader like I think I had it. I
(15:48):
was annoyed last night because this is something that happens
every year, by the way, every year there's like a
new team that kind of starts to have some success.
Like this year it's Dallas. Last year it was Denver.
The year before that, it was gold State, the year
before that was Milwaukee, the year before that, it's the Lakers.
Right In every single year, their fan base goes, actually,
we're the next great team and everyone else sucks and
(16:10):
we're amazing. And then we get to the next year
and then something happens, they lose, and a new team
takes that spot. And in that kind of energy from
that fan base, whoever that fan base is, there's this
desire to like put everybody else down, Right, Like every
Denver fan like just had victory laps on the on
the Suns and the Lakers for an entire offseason, right
and then it's like then they end up losing in
(16:30):
the second round this year. You know, Warriors fans lots
of victory laps after the twenty twenty two season, and
then the Lakers beat them in twenty twenty two, right,
Like at the end of the day, like this stuff
tends to be fleeting as a result of the fact
that the league is very, very deep. There are certain
teams that I think are resilient, Like I do think
Denver will be back, right, Like I think Dallas in
(16:52):
particular is built for some sustained success over the next
few years, so I think they'll be back. But like
the idea that these teams are just gonna rip off
three four championships in a row, that's just not how
this works. And like, for whatever reason, Dallas fans can't
just appreciate that they're having success and that they're gonna
get praise in the media. It has to be no.
But also, Anthony Edwards is a bum and that's just stupid.
(17:15):
He averaged twenty eight seven and seven on sixty percent
for shooting at twenty two years old in the NBA playoffs.
That kid deserves flowers too. As far as Anthony Edwards
in the big picture, I pointed this out on Twitter
last night. But in Lebron James's age twenty two season,
the Spurs embarrassed him. He shot like something crazy like
thirty six percent from the field in that series. He
(17:37):
shot twenty percent from three, he averaged six turnovers a game.
He was nightmarishly bad in that Spurs series. And guess
what now? Lebron is like unanimously regarded as at least
the second best player of all time, if not the best.
So like Anthony Edwards, is he as good as Luka Dancic?
Yet no, Luca badly outplayed him in the series and
(17:57):
clearly demonstrated a gap between the two of them. Specifically,
I think one of the things that this playoff run
emphasizes that Anthony Edwards lacks matchup versatility at this point.
If he's going against teams without athleticism on the perimeter
and rim protection, he's going to demolish you. But as
soon as he runs into matchups like that, it gets
a little bit more difficult. That's something he's going to
have to confront in the future. We're actually going to
(18:18):
get to that later on in this show. But don't
use this playoff run to bury Anthony Edwards. That's silly.
He's going to be back. If you're under the impression
that the twenty two year old that average twenty eight,
seven and seven in the conference finals to eliminate the
defending champs and that super team Sons team. If you're
under the impression that he's not going to be back
(18:39):
on this stage, you're fooling yourself. He's going to be back,
and he's going to be better, and that kid has
so much room to grow because of his supreme athletic tools.
I do think he's going to be by the time
he's Luca's age, by the time he's in that twenty five,
twenty six, twenty seven, I think he's going to be
on that tier with Jokic, with Luca, with Gianness. He's
(19:00):
not there yet, but I think he's going to get there.
This is a little context for this question. I ranted
at the end of the show last night about how
if you look back through NBA history, center like you
can't win a championship unless you're center is some kind
of offensive threat, either a legitimate like catching finish threat
(19:21):
or a perimeter threat, something along those lines, like the
last year, obviously Jokic, the year before that, Draymond Green.
He's an offensive folkrum in the five out system for
Golden State. Even though he has some limitations, he's a
much much better offensive player than Rudy Gobert. Twenty twenty one,
Brook Lopez twenty twenty two, Anthony Davis right, even in
their big looks, like Dwight Howard was like a much
(19:43):
better catch and finish player around the rim than Rudy
Gobert was twenty nineteen. You know, we had Serge Ibaka
and Mark Gasol, right, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green in
the seventeen eighteen, Kevin Love in twenty sixteen, Tim Duncan
in twenty fourteen. That we can go on and on on,
Chris bosh in two thousand, on the heat teams, Derk Novisky,
(20:04):
although that team with Tyson Chandler. Tyson Chandler was more
like Derek Lively, a much better type of a vertical
spacer and decision maker on the role.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So like in NBA history, you need a center that
has at least some offensive capability to win the title.
Mail bad question. The other difference between the Rudy build
and the Dallas build is that Dallas can win if
Lively is making decisions, They're gonna lose if Rudy is
getting a lot of offensive touches. Totally agree. Derek Lively
to me, is a substantially better offensive player than Rudy Gobert.
(20:36):
But the other piece of that too is like some
of his spacing limitations, like Lively not being a shooter
is not a problem because one Lively can make those decisions.
Two Lively is great hands and catches and finishes everything
around the basket. And then lastly, Luka Doncic is a
deeply manipulative passer that can get really high quality opportunities
around the basket. The problem for Rudy is he's not
(20:56):
playing with that level of playmaker and he has stone hands,
Andy can't make decisions on the role. It's like the
trifecta disaster for trying to score in the half court
against an elite defense. Minnesota clearly disintegrated under Luca's barrage
of points, but they were also down against Denver by
twenty and still found a way to come back. What
was different between Minnesota versus Denver Game seven and this
(21:19):
game and why wasn't Mina Minnesota able to compose themselves
like they did against Denver. Love your videos, by the way,
really simple to me. In the Denver series, Anthony Edwards
and this kind of you know, I was talking with
Adamatos about this last night because he pointed out fairly
Dallas or that Denver actually had a better defensive rating
against Minnesota than Dallas did. But some of the data
(21:41):
there is a little tricky because that was like two
different series, Like Minnesota dominated Denver outside of the middle
portion of the series. Like Minnesota in the four wins
whooped the shit out of Denver, right, and then you
look at the middle three games in Minnesota or in
Denver beat the shit out of Minnesota in those three games, right,
So the data is all wonky. And if you looked
(22:02):
at it, Denver had a one sixteen defensive rating against
Minnesota in their losses, but they had a one oh
six defensive rating in the wins. So like, if you
look at it, it's like in those three wins, in
game three, four, and five, Denver locked down Minnesota's offense.
That's great, but you got destroyed in the other four games.
The Dallas series was very different. In every single game
(22:25):
of the series, Dallas guarded Minnesota well, they held him.
It was like one twelve defensive rating in their wins
in one thirteen in the one loss. So in terms
of like consistently holding down Minnesota's offense, Dallas was way
better than Denver in the four losses. Denver just couldn't
get stops against Minnesota. Specifically, what stood out to me
(22:45):
on film, Anthony Edwards in the Denver series averaged seven
point one attempts in the restricted area per game. In
this series against Dallas, he averaged just five point eight
restricted area attempts per game, so that's one point three
few were attempts. He also shot nineteen percent worse in
the restricted area against Dallas than he did against Denver.
(23:07):
He shot fifty five percent in the restricted area against
Dallas seventy four percent against Denver. And so for me,
what stood out was every time there was a half
court situation, Anthony Edwards didn't really know what to do
against Dallas, whereas against Denver, he just felt like he
could get to his spots more easily at the rim
and debt. That's why Denver had to just start hard
(23:28):
doubling all over the place. Now, Dallas also did some
doubling against against Minnesota as well, but they have more
rim protection and athleticism on the back line, which allowed
them to rotate out of it better than Denver did.
Like they would load up the side against Ant and
then he'd swing, swing, and then all of a sudden,
nas Reed would be slashing a close out and Dallas.
Denver just didn't have the athleticism to hang on that backside, right,
(23:52):
And so like the Denver series, by the way, I'm
only talking about one side of the floor. The offensive
side was the same. Like in the Denver series, Minnesota
held them to something crazy like one hundred and six
points per one hundred possessions for the entire series, whereas
Dallas averaged like one hundred and eighteen points per one
hundred possessions. So Dallas's offense was way better against Minnesota's
(24:15):
defense than Denver's offense was. And so really in the
Denver series, it was like Minnesota actually was capable of
slowing down Denver's offense and they were actually able to score,
whereas against Dallas they couldn't do either. And so that's why,
even though there was another large deficit, I just never
felt like Minnesota had a shot to come back in
that game. My jaw dropped watching Lively at the level
(24:38):
of the screen stick with Ant as he tried to
string Lively out to attack the rim. He literally had
to reset the offense with his defense in space at
seven feet, his rim protection and a short roll passing.
What are we watching some horrifying fusion of Draymond and AD.
I wouldn't go that far. I feel like that's a
little early and a little bit hyperbolic. But I am
really really excited to see the tie of player that
(25:00):
Derek Lively becomes. I imagine him being like a Tyson
Chandler two point zero, like an evolutionary vertical spacer that
has the ability to run five out to operate more
in space. I actually think he's got good touch, so
I'm really curious to see over the years if he
adds a pick and pop element to his game. Like
I think Derek Lively can be very very good. But
(25:21):
like you're fusing Draymond and Ad is fusing the two
best defensive players of this era.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I would slow down a little bit on that.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I think we need to see him actually anchor a
defense for eighty two games, playing thirty two to thirty
four minutes a night before we start throwing him in
those conversations. But that certainly is potential that Derek Lively has,
and I'm really really excited to see if he can
meet that over the course of his career. The issue
with the idea of Minnesota moving away from their amazing
inside defense and focusing mostly on perimeter defense is that
(25:50):
you do not beat Denver in a seven game series
if you value perimeter D more than inside D and
without the double big man setup you cannot slow down
yolkis the te Wolves do not beat Denver if they
do not have Gobert at the five.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I actually disagree about this.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
As good as go Beart was in this playoff run
on the defensive end of the floor, and I do
think his defensive effort in this postseason was underrated based
on some of the low lights of him getting hunted
and just some of the narrative stuff surrounding him. I
thought the bigger factor in Denver struggling against Minnesota was
Naz reading Karl Anthony Towns, and it's because those guys
could hold up under the bully ball attack of Jokic
(26:24):
because of their bigger frames, right, Like I actually thought
Gobert got mostly fried by Jokic in that series, and
then by the end of the series, Jokic kind of
had figured out the stunting that Gobert was doing and
that was a big part of how Denver got back
into it because Jokic was just killing him in that
middle portion of the series. That like, obviously it's gonna
(26:46):
be tougher to beat Denver if you don't have Gobert,
but I still think they can because they'll have a
two big look with Naz reading Karl Anthony Towns. And
this is in this scenario that I've discussed, if they
pivot off of Go Bear, they would upgrade that power
forward spot to a really high level offensive player. And
let's not forget that during the stretches were Denver dominated
(27:07):
in that series, they really slowed down Minnesota's offense. And
so again, I think you can still build a team
that can beat Denver without Rudy Gobert. And it doesn't
matter if the Go Bear lineup can beat Denver, but
you get your ass kicked by Dallas because Go Bear's
stonehands and his inability to make decisions on the role,
then you're not in any sort of better position anyway.
It's not about beating Denver to win the title. You
(27:28):
got to be four teams to win the title, so
you might have to sacrifice a little bit of your
capability to beat Denver to make yourself more versatile to
beat the other teams around the league. Hey, Jason, love
your show. Such an enjoyment. To hear your breakdowns after
each playoff game helps appreciate the game at a whole
new level. Thank you for the kind words. Want to
hear your thoughts on the Wolves. People say defense wins championships. However,
(27:49):
when I look at the Timberwolves, it seems like they
really lack an offensive identity. How could it be fair
to expect the cat to play well when he could
get benched when Reid plays a bit better one night,
or his defense simply that much more important than knowing
how many shots or reps are going to get each night.
For example, Kat having dumbfouls versus getting consistent shots each game.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
So? I don't think that specifically has anything to do
with it. I think it's just about team construct. So Karl,
Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, what types of offensive players
are they? They are shooters and drivers. That's what they
do best, right, Neither of them are elite playmakers. They're capable,
(28:28):
and it's just averaged seven assists in a playoff run.
I'm not trying to act like they can't make plays,
but they are not Luka Doncz, Chris Paul Nikola, Jokic,
Lebron James level playmakers. That's not their game. Those guys are.
They're the entirety of their game is predicated on downhill
rim pressure and pull up shooting over the top. Right,
That's what they're built on, and so you need to
build the you need to build the roster around their
(28:51):
skill set. Let's not forget this team was seventeenth in
offensive rating all season. This team was had a one
hundred in four offensive rating in crunch time, they were
a god awful crunch time offense. This was a consistent
issue all year that two favorable matchups against Denver and
Phoenix made it look like their offense was better than
(29:11):
it actually was. Then they ran into a team with
rim protection and got strangled. So the reality is is
this team has a flawed offensive construct and they will
eventually run into teams. We talked last night about the
standings and looking at the different teams with rim protection,
and I mentioned OKC, and I mentioned the Lakers, and
I mentioned Dallas another big team I missed, and there's
(29:32):
Memphis Memphis could rejoin the picture next year. They will
rejoin the picture next year, and it's gonna be a
lot of Jaron Jackson and Brandon Clark on that frontline,
and they have guys that can guard on the perimeter,
Like it's going to be similar challenges if you run
into a Memphis. So like half of the playoff field
next year is going to be elite rim protectors again,
and so this is gonna be a problem that they
(29:54):
have to deal with in the future. And so to me,
they have to build a construct in this roster that
is less reliant on Cat and Anthony Edwards's ability to
pick apart the defense because it's not just the Rudy piece.
Like Rudy obviously is a problem because he can't catch
and finish consistently, but Dallas was throwing a lot of
late help and Cat meaning like Ant would drive and
(30:17):
then the low man would just bail out of the
corner and come over a wall up on Ant like
as he's getting into the lane. So he's not just
challenging Gafford or just challenging Lively, He's challenging multiple bodies
in there. And Ant is not the kind of player
like Luca or like those other playmakers I mentioned, who's
just gonna pick you apart by making those last second
reads really effectively. So you have to make things easier
(30:38):
on your stars. If you're gonna be built around Cat
and Anthony Edwards, you have to generate natural spacing so
they can have really simple shoot drive pass reads. You
have to make it very simple for them. That to
me is the direction that they have to go in
terms of their roster construction as the Wolves fan and
(31:00):
I find your argument about Edwards and Gobert's fit very coaching.
Something Ant can never seem to figure out is lobs
to Rudy, he has shown flashes, but can never put
it together when he needs it. I do wonder what
five would work best for him, maybe at Goberart For
Miles Turner trade, great analysis as always, thanks again for
the kind words. That's an example like go Behar and
Miles Turner, that trade probably won't ever happen, especially with
(31:20):
the dollar amounts. Gobert makes a ton of money and
that's going to make the trade difficult. As I said
last night, I actually think Gobert probably ends up staying
in Minnesota just by virtue of the realities of the contract,
and he's got a player option that he's almost certainly
going to accept. So Gobert basically has two years left
on his current deal, and it's very possible that he's
in Minnesota for both of those. But that is the
type of swap that would make some sense for me
(31:41):
in the sense that Miles Turner is a pick and
pop big, that would make for easy because like again
drop coverage like Dallas is running with Gafford and Lively.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
The perfect counter for that.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Is a pick and pop because that puts that big
in a really tough position where if he drops and
and just throws simple kickback passes, it's wide open threes
all night for Miles turn If he doesn't drop and
he stays home with the role man, then with the
popping big, then Ant can turn the corner and get
in the lane and there's no rim protection in there. So,
like a shooting center is ideal. But I think their
best bet there is to try to flip Rudy to
(32:14):
a team that is actually willing to aggregate the salaries
if they can, and target something more along the lines
of a power forward, and I have Kat be that
shooting big. I really do think that Kat if you
simplify his role as well, because again he's driving and
dealing with the Gobert problem just as much as Ant is.
And so for me, like if you if you could
(32:34):
get a Portland to trade you a Jeremy Grant for
a Rudy Gobert or something along those lines, if you
could are a three team deal that sends eight and
r Gobert to a different destination. If you could do
something like that, that to me is where I view
the ultimate version of this team is Ant and Kat
playing in a space floor surrounded by shooting guys that
(32:55):
can defend guys like Jada McDaniels, guys like Jeremy Grant.
If it ends up being Mike Conley different player in
the future, that to me is the direction I would
eventually go as far as go Bear though, yeah, like
I think he has to play on a team that
has an elite playmaker. I think that's the only type
of team that he would be able to actually win
at the highest levels with. With Dallas advancing to the finals,
(33:16):
there's a debate going around on who are the best backcourt?
Who is the best backcourt in NBA history? Growing watching
Golden State when I was in high school. I don't
think there's a better backcourt than Stephan Clay. I want
to know what rank do you have for them? If
there is one better backcourt than them, who would it be.
Thank you for your ANALYSI has been a huge fan
of you so far this year and a half that
I've been following you on YouTube. Thanks again for the
(33:37):
kind words and.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
For the support.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
This question is frustrating to me because I really don't
look at it as like backcourt. To me, it's like
permitter players, interior players. It's really that simple. Like, for instance,
Luca functions kind of like a point guard offensively, but
on defense, he's not guarding guards like Derek Jones Junior
is and Kyrie Irving is and so like to me,
like focusing on who the backcourt is is silly. It's
(34:01):
like Steph Curry. Like Steph Curry for the most part
is being hidden defensively as much possibly as he can
because he's got such a big offensive role, right, So
like to me, it's more like duos. And when you're
ranking duos, ranking Luca and Kyrie is a much more
complicated topic because you're looking against you know, hundreds of
duos over the course of the last few decades, right,
So like that's something that's more of something that we
(34:22):
get into in the offseason. But to me, I don't
really find the conversation around best backcourt even a relevant
here because I don't look at Luca as a traditional
backcourt player. To me, Luca represents where the game has changed,
which is and your best player has the ball in
his hands, you know, Like Lebron James plays power forward
(34:43):
for the Lakers, and he ran the point a lot
in this postseason run for the Lakers, right, but he's
not guarding point guards, right, So Like to me, I
don't look at them as a backcourt. I just look
at them as a star duo, the way I'd look
at Paul George and Kawhi Leonard for instance. Hi Jason,
I agree with your Gobert assessment, but Kat has more
(35:04):
trade value, So I think he'll be the one that
gets moved and Nas shifts to a starting power forward role.
If that happens, where do you think is the best
landing spot for Kat? Detroit has the cap space to
absorb him as the starting center. They immediately get a
go to score and a floor spacer to help Caden
Ivy a sar Can mimic the McDaniels role as well
as anyone. New Orleans is another option. The Pels get
their center, they could space the floor for Zion to
(35:24):
attack the rim and Ingram McDaniel's Gobar front court has
plenty of length. Any other spots that come to mind,
All those make sense to me. Another couple that I
looked at Milwaukee, like Carl Anthony Towns next to Giannis
would be a really interesting type of build Miami. I
think a huge lineup with bam Adebayo and Karl Anthony
Towns could be interesting. Oklahoma City was another one I
(35:46):
thought of, Like imagine Chet Holmgren as more of the
role Rim protector, basically just putting Kat next to a
shooting version of Go Bear, And that's the type of
situation you could have there. But like again, I wouldn't
trade Karl Anthony town simply because I think Gobar is
a much bigger issue and anytime you start flipping a
player like Cats really hard to replace his value, especially
(36:09):
considering like in a lot of postseason situations this year,
he was one of their more reliable scorers, and I
say that as he was still inconsistent, but in terms
of guys next to Aunt, he was probably the most
consistent scorer, certainly was the most consistent scorer of that group.
Three more questions. Dallas is playing out of their minds,
(36:29):
can't miss a shot? Fun to watch, looks like the
Serbian Slovenian Balkan brothers of Joki chu Luka will dominate
two years in a row. But overall, as a very
long term NBA fan, this year's playoffs have been disappointing.
I thought this was going to be one of the
most competitive playoffs ever, and it's been one blowout after another.
Even the Nuggets Wolves series that went seven didn't have
a single game that was really competitive or interesting. One
of the most boring playoff stretches I've ever seen. Hoping
(36:51):
the Dallas Boston series will actually be interesting and worth watching,
so I'm actually more optimistic about it. I think there's
an important piece of context that kind of throw all.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Of this in a mix.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Every year in the playoffs, there are competitive matchups and
there are bad matchups, right for instance, like even this
Western Conference final series that was five games, I thought
it was a highly entertaining five games because every game
was super competitive, right, Whereas like Minnesota, Denver goes seven,
but every game's a blowout. Right, that's normal. In the playoffs,
there are a series where teams where the games or
(37:23):
blowouts are. A series where every game is close like
that is typical. The problem is is we didn't get
as much of the competitive series because the Eastern Excuse me,
because of what happened in the Eastern Conference. And there's
two things that happened in the Eastern Conference. I thought
there were five good teams in the East this year.
I thought it was Boston, Milwaukee, Indiana, New York, and Philly.
(37:44):
Those to me were the good teams. Orlando, Cleveland, Miami
without Jimmy Butler after the injury, just not legitimate competitive
basketball teams.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
First of all, all three of those teams ended up
in Boston side of the bracket.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Problem number one.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Now Boston doesn't even have to play a real team
for four weeks, right. Second side of it, everyone got
hurt and Bee's playing on a bad knee at the
Knicks literally had like seventeen different injuries. Tyres Halliburton falls
apart at the end of the Pacer series in the
Conference finals, the one I'm missing, Oh Milwaukee, Giannis misses
(38:18):
the entire series, and Dame misses part of it. Right,
So like all, like if that had balanced better, Like
if two of the good teams were on the same
side with Boston and the other two were on the
other side and Boston had to play a real team
in the second round and everyone was healthy, I think
we would have had more competitive basketball games to kind
of balance everything out. But because the East was a
(38:40):
basically a shit show, the only real good series there
was like New York Philly, Right, the Indiana New York
series wasn't very entertaining because they were all blowouts after
the first three games. But like that, the East being
a shit show kind of made it so that we
didn't have as much competitive basketball. But I still thought
there were a lot of really inner retaining games that
(39:01):
Lakers Nuggets series. For a five game series, every game
was super entertaining, and we had two buzzer beating game winners.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I thought that Dallas first the Clippers was pretty entertaining.
I thought Dallas first Oklahoma City was a highly entertaining series.
Dallas versus Minnesota. A lot of that has to do
with Dallas there. We talked so much about Dallas and
Luca and Kyrie. Their defense is one of the primary
drivers of their success. That's a big part about how
all those games are close, right, I thought there were
plenty of entertaining basketball games. And also I think Dallas
(39:32):
vers Boston is going to be an awesome NBA final.
I'm very excited for it. Hi, Jason, big fan of
the show. I know it's a bit irrelevant, but I'm
just curious. If Denver had beaten the Minnesota Timberwolves in
Game seven and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, who
do you think would have won? Between Denver and Dallas.
I would have picked Denver over Dallas. There are a
couple of key specific matchups there that would have picked
that would have skewed towards Denver. First, Dallas's defensive personnel
(39:54):
is very much set up to handle a guy like
ant It's not very set up to handle a guy
like Nicole Jokis. Both Gafford and Lively struggle to handle him.
On an island, they would have been in double teams
the entire series. It would have been a problem. And
then on the other end of the floor, the problem
that Minnesota had is they never had a big, strong
enough perimeter defender to handle Luca. And that's literally what
(40:15):
Aaron Gordon's specialty is. I've seen him do it against Lebron,
I've seen him do it against Jimmy Butler. I've seen
him do it against Kevin Durrant. Aaron Gordon's one of
the best big foward defenders in the league. That would
have been a much better matchup for Denver in that series,
and so again it would have been close. I would
have probably picked Denver in six or seven games, but
I would have picked Denver, And as you mentioned, it's
irrelevant because Denver couldn't beat Minnesota. And that's just how
(40:38):
these Dallas fans are all super sensitive about this, similar
to what I talked about earlier, where it's like the
sensitivity surrounding like just needing to trash Anthony Edwards. The
other piece of it is like Dallas fans are super
sensitive about you saying that they got a good matchup,
and it's like no one ever won a title without
getting some good matchups along the way, Like there is
no such thing in this field as the ultimate dominant team.
(41:01):
I love this Dallas Mavericks team. They're a bona fide
championship contender. I had them third in my contender rankings
coming into this postseason run. Makes sense that if Denver lost,
they'd be the team that would get in. Right, one
hundred percent on the Dallas bandwagon, they were a five seed.
This is not this is not the seventy three win Warriors.
This is not the Kadie Steph Warriors. They're not just
(41:22):
gonna obliterate everyone who comes in front of them. They're
a Boston is a minus two to twenty favorite in
the finals according to DraftKings right now. So like, again,
everybody has to benefit from matchups unless you're one of
the all time great teams in NBA history. And as
good as this Dallas team is, they are not one
of the all time great teams in NBA history. And
(41:43):
so again, like it doesn't matter. Dallas is a deserving
NBA finalist. But like, yeah, if I personally would have
picked Denver if they made it to the Western Conference finals,
would have been close, but I would have picked Denver.
I don't understand the Gobert hate. My numbers could be
a bit fuzzy, but in this playoff run, the Timberwolves
allowed one hundred and ten points per one hundred possesions
(42:03):
with him on the court one thirty three with him off.
Why is this fringe player that is going to come
in and essentially make a plus twenty swing. The issue
is at not being good enough with the mediocre offensive
talent on the roster to overcome good defense. If you
actually think that Anthony Edwards is a bigger problem for
this Timberwolves team than Gobert, I don't know what.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
To tell you.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
The reality is is that you got your ass kicked
in the conference finals. So forget about the plus minus numbers.
When Rudy was on the floor, you couldn't beat Dallas.
That's the issue. It doesn't matter if you were worse
when he was off the floor. The problem isn't whether
or not Gobert is the best player to play on
this roster. That's not the issue, of course, that that's
(42:43):
the best option for this roster with this group of players,
you needed to play Gobert to give yourself the best chance.
What I'm saying is this is not a championship roster.
I said this last night. To me, this Minnesota Timberwolves
team is closer to the Lakers from last year than
they are to a real championship contender in the sense
that the Lakers got a couple of favorable matchups in
(43:04):
the first two rounds. Right, they faced a downhill threat
and John Moran in the first round so they could
protect the rim cause a bunch of problems. And then
they faced a Golden State Warriors team that has consistently
struggled with Anthony Davis over the last few years. They
got two favorable matchups. They beat the defending champs, and
then they ran into a real championship contender and got
their ass kicked. That's what happened to Minnesota. They got
(43:27):
a really favorable matchup in the first round. They played Phoenix,
a pull up jump shooting team that likes to attack
from the perimeter on an island, and they have all
the perimeter defenders to match up with those guys. They
locked them up. They kicked their ass. Right then they
ran into the defending champs. It was a bad matchup
because they have all this perimeter size they have to
throw at Jamal Murray. They have all this interior size
that throwt Nicole Jokic. They beat the defending champs. Now
(43:49):
that Denver team is way better than last year's Golden
State team. I want to be clear, so I do
think that they're better. I think this Minnesota team was
better than last year's Lakers. I'm just saying they're closer
to that than they are to a real champion. Then
they ran into a real championship contender, this Dallas Mavericks
team that actually could attack some of Minnesota's weaknesses, and
Minnesota got their ass kicked. So like again, like defend,
(44:13):
go bear all you want. You're not a championship team.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
So like you weren't.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Close, you weren't actually close this year. By the way,
I said the same thing about the Lakers last year.
I didn't come out of that run going Okay, next
year it's Denver, Boston in LA. No, that's not what
I said. I said that there's Denver and Boston and
then there's a gap. I think I put Milwaukee in there,
but I was like Denver, Milwaukee, Boston, and then there
was a gap before we got to the rest of
the teams, and I said, the Lakers have to make
(44:39):
a trade to get better. And I feel exactly the
same way about this Minnesota Timberwolves team. They are going
to run into Memphis, the Lakers, Oklahoma City, or Dallas
next year in the playoffs and lose again if they
everready go bear on the floor, because the issue is
their offensive players are slashers and pull up shooters, not
(44:59):
high level playmakers, and they can't handle the fact that
teams can really pack the paint when Rudy Gobert is
on the floor, and Rudy's not the kind of guy
that can easily catch and finish everything to kind of
make up for that type of flaw. So again, I
think that focusing on on off numbers from this series
is missing the plot. You got your ass kicked. You're
not a championship team, so that is the major issue.
(45:21):
All right, guys, that is all I have for today's
mail bag. I'm gonna be back to again. I'm gonna
record it right now, but uploading tomorrow morning. Will have
a mailbag focus on the NBA Finals, and then on
Sunday morning, we'll have a mailbag focus on the rest
of the NBA.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
I will see you guys. Then the volume
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