May 3, 2024 • 42 mins
The nerds preview the upcoming second round series between Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby and the New York Knicks against Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. They also react to the news that the Los Angeles Lakers have fired Darvin Ham and discuss what this means for LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Oh my god, how could he do that? No, don't
watch what Charles Darwin. The nerves is where it's at.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome everybody backward to Nerd Sessh. As always, I'm Garson
Brebern alongside me as Logan Camden, and today we are
going to be doing our series preview for Pacers Knicks,
now that that matchup is set in stone, and we
are also going to be reacting to the news of
the day around the association, that being that Darvin Ham
has been fired by the Lakers. Logan, but we'll start
(00:40):
with the Knicks Pacers preview, a good old fashioned rehashing
of a classic nineties rivalry, of course, will look very
different this time around, a Pacers team that not a
lot of people would have expected. In the second round,
of course, they got a favorable draw with the Bucks
very injured. What's the first key that stands out to
you in this series?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
The first key to Carson is can Jaylen Brunson continue
to hold up with this kind of offensive burden. He's
kind of had to be a superhero for the New
York Knicks man, and that's kind of how I viewed
Jaylen Brunson. Man. I think the guy is a bona
fide superhero. In the first round series against Philadelphia, Jayalen
Brunston attempted twenty nine point two field goal attempts per game.
(01:22):
The league leader this season was Luka Doncicic. He attempted
six more field goals per game in this series than
Luca did on average per game in the regular season,
and he had a thirty seven percent usage rate versus Philadelphia.
That's a five percent increase in the regular season where
he was and actually, fun fact, one point seven percent
lower than the league leader Joel Embiid. Obviously an abbreviated
(01:45):
season for Joelle, but as a remarkable number that Embiide
was doing that in the games that he was healthy.
But the bottom line with Brunson is we've seen something
concrete with him in this offense. He is the only
guy that can create himself or in anybody else in
this offense a good shot, point blank. And I think
about the coverages that Indiana is going to throw at him.
(02:08):
I think they're gonna try a lot of their guards.
I think you're gonna try some wing matchups Nemhard McConnell,
Halle Ni Smith. And in the regular season series, he
kind of got to where he wanted against everybody in Indiana.
You know, Brunson is so physical man, and that's one
of the things that I think translates to the playoffs
more than anything else is physicality strength. Guys that weaponize
(02:30):
that physicality better than other players, and it's just it's
an easy identifying trait that is going to make you
a good playoff player. He's just so physical, so strong
for all these guys, especially nem Hard, McConnell and Halley,
and then I think he's too quick for Nie Smith,
Like I think he's gonna bully these Indiana guards around Carson,
and I think it's gonna be on guys like Turner
(02:51):
or Jackson to really disrupt him on the backside. And
you know, consciously not overhelp off of Robinson and Hardenstein
because he's great at that too. Right, if you try
to help off in contesta Brunson shot, it opens up
something on the backside. Basically, I have full confidence in
Jalen Brunson getting anywhere and everywhere against Indiana. In the
regular season series, he put up thirty six points, three boards,
(03:14):
and four assists on forty nine to thirty two eighty
three splits, and against Philadelphia he's putting up thirty six
to five and nine a night. Like, I don't really
think anybody on this Indiana team can hold Jalen Brunson,
and I think he is far and away gonna be
the best player in this series. Man, I don't know
if there's anybody on Indiana they can really defend or
hold up against Jalen Brunson. Man. I think he's too physical,
(03:35):
I think he's too methodical. He's a genius basketball player
and he's a superhero. Man. I fully believe in Jalen Brunson,
and I have full confidence in him dominating this series
as the best basketball player in it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It is a significantly better matchup for Jalen than what
he just drew against the Sixers, a team that was
really quite well built to guard him overall and gave
him fits throughout the regular season and had a bunch
of really long athletes to throw at him on the perimeter,
particularly Kelly Oubre. But we saw but two mold up
in stretches. We even saw MAXI defend him solidly in
(04:10):
this series, and he got his rhythm going, but it
was a struggle out of the Gates. That dynamic is
different here, and Brunson has to be fantastic because we
may look at Indiana and say they're a six seed.
They were basically handed a first round win on a platter,
and I do not consider them an impressive playoff team.
I think they're one of the weaker teams in the field,
(04:30):
but they still have a significantly easier offensive formula than
the Knicks two and that they have two complimentary stars.
Even when Hallie isn't the threat as a score that
he was early in the regular season, he's still a
playmaking maestro. Siakam is a mismatch attacking nightmare for a
lot of teams to face. They play with pace, they
have shooters everywhere. Indiana's offense simply has more dynamicsm but
(04:55):
Brunson should be the best player on the floor and
that matters, but they need him to deliver consistently. I
expected to be more consistent and efficient in this series,
just because the options aren't nearly as intimidating. Nemhard is
a solid defensive guard, but I think it'll probably mostly
be Nie Smith. I just think having that size, having
(05:18):
that length is ultimately going to be more valuable for Indiana,
but it's a downgrade overall. Nie Smith isn't going to
be a game changer in terms of that matchup, and
it's really just the totality of the team defense. You're
just downgrading across the board. Turner is significantly less imposing
as a deterrent than Joel Embiid. Of course he's a
(05:38):
prolific shot blocker and he has been, but just in
terms of the size the pure imp protection, Like, people
actually shot pretty well around the rim against Miles Turner
this year, only about four percent below their average, which
when you're talking about a center, that's really a pretty
middling mark. Whereas MBAD you felt his presence as a
huge deterrent all series. So I just think there's going
(06:00):
to be an easier, healthier shot diet for Brunson. Indiana
was the worst pick and roll defense in the NBA
this year. Logan dead last and when they trapped, which
you think, all right, do they turn to that in spots?
We saw the Knicks turn to that in the closing
stretches of Game six. Just get the ball out of
his hands because we can't deal with him in single coverage.
Make other knicks, make decisions and knock down shots. They
(06:22):
allowed one point four points per possession this year. Ridiculous.
That's like allowing lay up efficiency every single time. I
just don't think they rotate well enough. I just don't
think they're disciplined enough defensively, so they're just the weakest
defense in the playoff field. They were twenty fourth in
defensive raiding this year. It is very rare that a
team wins a playoff series when they struggle to defend
(06:44):
like that. They're not gonna challenge you with physicality. They
just let the Bucks without Giannis and without Dame for
two games post a top five offensive rating in the playoffs.
So far, Brunton has to carry a crazy load, but
I think this is going to be a lot easier
for him than last series.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Was couldn't date or Man, I could not date the
Indiana Pacers. No.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
No.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
On the flip side of this, Carson, I think it's
interesting to look at the other star guard in this series,
and that's Tyrese Halliburton. I think that's the most interesting
matchup to me is watching these two guards go to battle.
And a big question that I have about Halliburton in
this series is how much can he legitimately create and
score for himself. Halliburton is a genius. I mean that
(07:27):
he is a you said a playmaking maestro earlier in
the show, Dude, he is a savant. I think Halliburton,
no matter what context it is in, he is a
positive offensive player. If he's not scoring the basketball at all,
if he is simply facilitating and playmaking, he is that
level of passer that it really doesn't matter. And what
(07:48):
I mean by that is in terms of positivity, him
being a positive to the offense. He's always gonna make
the right read, He's always gonna make a great decision,
and he's just fundamentally unselfish, Like if there's an open
guy and he can make the pass, he's going to
make it. But I do worry about him generating offense
for himself. He was a thirty nine percent percent title
(08:08):
pick and roll ball handler in the first series, and
it gets against Milwaukee. It's not against great perimeter defense.
And we've seen a staggering difference in Halliburton pre and
post injury. Pre injury, Carson Haliburton was averaging twenty four points,
four boards, and thirteen assists on sixty three percent true shooting.
(08:29):
Post injury, he's averaging seventeen points, four boards, nine assists
on six percent below that truth shooting. Another staggering difference
that I've noticed too, he was averaging six attempted shots
in the paint pre hamstring injury. Post hamstring injury, he's
averaging just four. That's not a huge difference, but to
a night like he's just significantly getting downhill less. He's
(08:52):
averaging thirty nine percent on pull up threes pre injury,
post injury, that's ten percent lower on two less shots
per game. And in the Middle Hockey series he's sixteen
point six boards on nine assists with fifty five percent
true shooting. Carson, he shot just twenty seven percent on
pull up threes in this series. That is a huge
part of his shot diet. He's taking basically six of
(09:14):
those shots per game. And I don't want to undersell it.
Like a lot of people, Carson have come out and
taken victory laps on Halliburton now in these playoffs as
a generator for himself and as a creator for himself,
I think Halliburn's a legitimately great shooter. I think he's
a legitimately great pull up shooter. I just don't think
he's a one hundred percent so I think it's dumb
to take a victory lap on that, But I think
(09:35):
it's important to contextualize that that's always going to be
a huge part of his shot diet, even with his
hamstring injury or not. He's not a guy that creates
a lot of downhill pressure. He's not a guy that
really gets into the teeth of the defense consistently. Obviously,
when he's fully healthy, he's doing it more. But Halliburn's
always going to be a guy that relies on his
pull up jumper, So when that's not falling, I'm just
(09:56):
really concerned about him manufacturing easy and consistent offense for
himself and as the lead offensive player for the Pacers,
they're just gonna need more from him in this series
against New York and it's been a really bad offensive series.
I was a really bad offensive series against Milwaukee. I
talk about the struggle on pull up threes. It wasn't
just pull up threes, it was all threes, which again
(10:16):
are a huge part of his shot. Died thirty five
percent on catch and shoot threes against Milwaukee, twenty seven
percent on open threes twenty seven percent on wide open
threes in that series. Like, the Pacers are just gonna
need him to do more, and I don't know if
we can expect that considering what we've seen out of
him post injury and seeing how we saw him struggle
(10:38):
against Milwaukee.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
He's absolutely key to this series, of course, and he
needs to be better. It was really underwhelming the volume
an efficiency last series. I do still want to give
him credit just for his decision making in his passing
and the value that that has at all times, the
ability when you're running pick and roll to constantly make
the necessary skip passes to hit the popper on time
(11:01):
and on target, to push and transition and create for teammates.
But specifically out of pick and roll, you mentioned his
scoring efficiency was only thirty ninth percentile. The offense he
created though, including passes, was still seventy second percentile. Now,
that is not the level we expect from Hallie. We
expect Halley to literally be like ninety fifth percentile maestro,
but it does still show how valuable he is offensively
(11:22):
even when he isn't knocking down his shots. That being said,
he obviously needs to be better as a pull up shooter,
and the shot quality has been a bit more difficult
just because there's really a limited thread of him getting downhill.
This year, he only averaged twelve drives per game, which
isn't a very big number, and that went down post Hamstring.
That has gone down yet another level to under ten
(11:43):
drives a game in this past series, meaning TJ. McConnell
drove more times than Tyre's Halliburton, Andrew Nemhar drove more
times than Tyrese Halliburton. And that's against the drop coverage,
where the whole idea is basically to keep him from
getting all the way downhill and to keep the roller
from getting all the way downhill. Or when Brooke wasn't
a drop, they'd switch and then double to basically force
(12:04):
the ball out of his hands. I do think you
will see New York play more up at the level
of the screen with Hartenstein and with Robinson. I think
both those guys are significantly more mobile than Brook Lopez,
and so they can guard there and they can basically
force Halle at least to try to turn the corner
on them and see if he can get downhill. So
maybe he isn't as pull up jumper reliant, but that
(12:25):
is his greatest weapon as a scorer, and that weapon
just hasn't been efficient and hasn't been effective as of late,
and the Nicks have much better defensive personnel to throw
at him. I think this could again be a big
Deuce McBride series, just because he's an awesome point of
attack defender and he's been playing well offensively get him
out there on the floor. There's no question Hollie needs
to be way better and I'm unfortunately just not that
(12:48):
confident that he will be, because, yeah, it was a
bad shooting series, but he's been in a shooting slump
for a good while now. And I thought coming into
the playoffs, like, if he's gonna get into rhythm, it's
gonna be against the Milwaukee Bucks, right playing a favorable
coverage against him without good defensive personnel. Like, if there's
a time to get him going, it's gonna be this series.
(13:08):
And instead, he's still struggled as a scorer. And as
much as I love Halle, I do think he's been
a different player post hamstring, and I'm not optimistic he
just does a one to eighty in this series.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And the most alarming thing to me about that Milwaukee
series is that he was getting a lot of open looks,
Like the Bucks were conceding so many wide open threes
that healthy Halle is frankly just making nothing is gonna
come easy against the Knicks, Like, I don't anticipate him
getting no we're close to as many wide open looks,
and I will say, shooters fluctuate, shooters go up and down.
(13:44):
Down the back half of this season, I emphasized how
bad James Harden had been, and then he opened up
the series and didn't miss. So there's always shooting variants, right.
Halliburton is an elite shooter. There's all the possibility in
the world that he can come out and just be
blazing because he's a great shooter. But I just don't
anticipate that with the track record that we've gotten from
Halle and with that Carson, I think there's a massive
(14:06):
burden on Pascal Siakam to also create for this offense,
and Halliburton's job gets significantly more difficult against a better defense,
as does Pascal Siakams. And I think the matchup to
watch in this series is two teammates going head to
head against one another and that's Pascal Siakam versus og Anobi.
That to me might be the X factor in this
series because we kind of know what we're gonna get,
(14:26):
or I won't say we know nothing is do we
really know anything? Carson, let's get philosophical today.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Man, it's such a great question. It's such a great question.
It reminds me of the nihilistic quote of Nick Nurse,
who said, what does it matter what we do? These
games are gonna come down to the wire no matter what.
Brunston scores forty seven down to the wire and Beads
scores fifty down to the wire. Profound stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
It's like that goalie that said, man, does any of
this really matter? Kind of.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Sports recently? That was a crazy quote.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
That was a crazy quote. So us nerds here, we
to know what we're gonna get out of Jalen Brunton
and Tyrese Halliburton. So there's gonna be a big burden
on Pascal Siakam to create and just go out and
score for himself. And in a lot of games in
this series when Halliburton was struggling, Siakam was able to
do a whole lot And I love his game. Man,
in terms of being a complimentary number two. You know,
(15:17):
I was skeptical with Siakam for a long time. I
was not a big Siakam guy when he was in Toronto.
I was critical of his defense, of his shooting, of
his decision making. He reminded me a lot of the
Tasmanian Devil, because you know, Siakam would just get into
the lane and spin, spin. Siakam's game has grown a
lot since then. I think he's much better as a
ball handler, as a decision maker, as a playmaker, and
(15:39):
he's just a lot more versatile as a score from
behind the arc. Is a guy even get down into
the teeth of the defense and finish through contact like
Seacom's really well rounded, and specifically in tandem with Halliburton
as a roller and as a pick and pop where
he just really works. Seacom's a really great number two
to have along with his physical traits, you know, being
a great athlete, a rebounder, a guy who can hold
(15:59):
up physically defensively. In this series, I think it's gonna
be on him to create when other guys aren't. And
I think it's a lot tougher here. You know, it's
not Milwaukee where there's a lot of mismatches on the floor.
There were so many times in this last series where
he's just turning the corner on Brook Lopez or Bobby
Portis and getting easy looks. I think he's gonna be
(16:22):
matched up with og Nnobi in the series, and I
can't stress how great og Nnobi is a defender.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Man.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
He's just one of the best defenders on planet Earth.
Watching how he performed against Joel embiid Man consistently in
matchups against him one on one. Is a helpside guy
in the series. On the perimeter, he's a defensive wreckord,
and I think that's one of the key matchups to
watch in this series. Siakam had a great one twenty
two points, nine boards and four assists on fifty five
(16:49):
percent of the field. Didn't shoot great twenty seven percent
from behind the arc. He's gonna have to shoot better,
but I just think it's a lot harder on him,
and that's another negative for Indiana in this category. When
I think about the hypothetical matchups, Siakam's likely going to
be matched up against Ognnobi all series long, and I
just think it's a lot tougher for him to manufacture
offense when Halliburton has been struggling like he has been, Uh,
(17:13):
it's gonna be a lot more. There's a lot more
burden on Siakam to create for himself and to generate offense,
and I just don't know how consistent he's gonna be
able to do that against a one of the best
defenders in the NBA and og.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Nnobe, it's a huge matchup and Siakam was phenomenal in
the first two games last series. He was leading the
playoffs and scoring with crazy efficiency. But his game is
very much predicated upon exploiting physical advantages. When Milwaukee tried
to match up Brooke with him for significant stretches earlier
in the series, he was just too quick for that matchup.
(17:45):
Whenever he had a winger reguard switched on to him,
he simply could abuse those guys with his size and
athleticism advantages and shoot over the top of them. When
you have a dude who physically matches up like an
ogn Andobi, then Siakam more prone to struggle and down
the stretch of last series, he just wasn't nearly as effective.
And I thought Bobby portis guarded him better than the
(18:06):
other options, just because he was the most physically equal
and Og is obviously a much, much, much better defender
than a Bobby Portis. So to me, this series is
gonna come down to Siakam trying to hunt those switches,
and I think that means running inverted pick and roll.
I think that means in transition, you get a cross match,
you go after it because all of the little guys,
(18:29):
and that's the reality with this NIXT team is they're
playing three guard sized dudes, Like shout out Josh Hardy
doesn't rebound like a guard, but he is still guard sized.
OG should be able to bully all of them. Hart
Duce McBride when he's on the floor, Jalen Brunson, Dante Vincenzo.
He's a ninetieth percentile post scorer. He averaged one point
four points per post up last series. He was phenomenal
(18:50):
and if Indiana wants to win, he has to be excellent.
I do think the OG matchup is a very challenging
one for him though, And if it comes down to
those two just going at each other, then I think
you will see a quieter Siakham series. He also came
out hot as a jump shooter against Milwaukee and then
struggled down the stretch. He was ten of thirty five
(19:10):
on jump shots over the last four games, so he
took a step back, and they ultimately just can't afford
that because when we look at these supporting casts, that's
absolutely gonna be key to this series as well. And
I think New York just has more really good basketball players.
Indiana has a lot of good offensive players, and that's
part of the beauty here. You have an awesome creator
(19:32):
like Hallie, but you have to give credit to the
dudes who finished the plays. Indiana didn't even have their
best shooting series against Milwaukee, but they shoot so many threes.
They led the league in attempts in this past series.
That's what they do. They get out and they pace
in space. It's that sort of prototypical high efficiency offense
that you get like that. But their value does swing
(19:54):
more with their shot making, whereas from the Knick supporting cast,
like I just know that I'm going to to get
consistent impacts because they're gonna win me extra possessions because
they are going to work to make your best players
uncomfortable because several of them are very good decision makers
and playmakers. That to me is just more inevitable. Like
(20:16):
you see what happens in Game one against Milwaukee, for example,
the spot up jumpers aren't following Indiana's getting good looks.
But if they aren't knocking down those catches two threes,
like they get blown out of the water by a
Milwaukee team, downianisntent toakumpo. I do think New York is
just much more consistent, even though they're offense and they're
spot up shooting, and even Jalen Brunson wasn't super consistent
(20:37):
throughout this past series. It is that defensive foundation. It's
the fact that they grabbed thirty seven percent of all
possible offensive rebounds last series, and this Indiana team not
very good on the glass. They were twenty sixth in
defensive rebound rate. I just believe in that foundation by far,
by far, the better defense, more quality basketball players ultimately
(20:58):
who I trust. Even though the Indiana guy were awesome
in Game six, the supporting cast and the best player
on the floor. I like that formula a lot for
New York.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, I do too. That's the next real big key
is can Indiana out hustle New York. It is gonna
take a dogged effort for Indiana to compete on the
glass in this series. New York is huge, but they're
also just hungry. That team walts it man fifth and
rebounds per game. Number one in rebound rate was New
(21:26):
York in the regular season Indiana twenty eighth and rebounds
per game twenty third and rebound rate, like, I know,
Indiana's big too, like with Turner and Siakham, but there's
a different level of size with Indiana, and there's a
different level of intensity. And you talk about the offensive
difference too. I like the collective in the sense that
I know New York is gonna have guys cutting back door.
(21:47):
I know New York is gonna have guys in transition
getting to the hoop, finishing through contact like the Josh
Harts and the Devincenzos of the world. There is a
level of dynamism that I like a little bit more
with New York than Indiana. And in the regular season
matchup two, I think it's interesting. You know, Indiana handedly
wins the regular season matchup two to one. They post
(22:09):
an offensive rating of one to twenty four point nine
against the Knicks. Defensive rating of one to sixteen point eight.
They got a net rating of plus eight point one.
But we don't see og Anobe excuse me, or Mitchell
Robinson in the regular season series whatsoever with that dynamic
flipped on this on their head with two super physical
guys like that into the fold here. I really do
(22:31):
like that formula for New York, man, and I just
think it's a I think it's a lot to overcome
for Indiana, man, the battle on the glass, the defensive
intensity that they're gonna face. I just think that New
York's the more physical team. I like athletic, physical teams,
and I think the most significant battle is gonna be
how Indiana gets beat on the glass. Man. I think
(22:51):
it's gonna take them drastically outperforming expectations there. And I
wonder if their pacing space could hurt them in this series, Carson,
you know what I mean, Where if Indiana's not shooting
the ball well and New York is crushing on the glass,
I just wonder if they slow this game down and
really try to grind out, they make possessions super long
(23:12):
and try to keep Indiana from getting up tempo and
from getting out on the break. And creating a lot
of these high percentage shots. And on the flip of that,
if Indiana is missing shots, it's long rebounds. You're not
letting your defense get set up. I see a lot
more easy ways for New York to win this series, man,
and I just do like their formula more. But it
starts with that defensive foundation and how I think New
(23:32):
York is going to crush Indiana on the glass in
this one.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Pace is definitely going to be an interesting dynamic this
series because nobody likes to play slower than New York
and nobody likes to play faster than Indiana, and so
whoever dictates Pace will have some advantage there. But I
don't want to undersell Indiana's offense. Indiana's offense is awesome.
They were awesome even with this subpar version of Halle
post All Star Break, they were awesome with Siakam on
(23:58):
the floor and Howe off once they made that trade.
They posted an offensive rating of one to twenty six
with Siakham on the floor in Halley off. They were
awesome in this past series. Like they have a lot
of weapons, this is clearly just the better offensive team.
To me, there's too much of a burden on Brunson,
and the offensive skill from the supporting cast is too inconsistent.
And even if you do make this more of a
(24:19):
half court game, Indiana's a ninetieth percentile half court offense
in how He's gonna create a lot of good shots there.
So they are the better offense, But I just don't
think that offsets the fact that this is a really,
really weak defensive team. And again the consistency the effort.
New York was so impressive there against Philly, and Indiana
has a couple games where you just kind of throw
(24:39):
your hands up and you're like, dude, that's not gonna
cut it in the playoffs, So I'm going New York
in six. I do think Indiana has enough offensive pop
to where they will get two games. Like, I don't
think the gap is that massive, but I would be
quite surprised if they won, just because I believe in
the formula that we have from New yor I believe
(25:00):
they can make life harder on Indiana than they can
do vice versa.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
It is an interesting dynamic that the Knicks defense is
gonna go from a team that's very isolation dependent without
a lot of ball movement in Philadelphia, where a lot
of their possessions are you know, embiid, you know isolations,
him just touching the rock, and it can slow down Indiana.
The ball moves fast in Indiana. But I also don't
want to underste how disciplined this Knicks defense is too.
(25:28):
Like the Pacers offense is great, but I expect them
to generate some good shots. But this Knicks defense is
great too. I'm gonna take Nixon five Carson. I think
Brunson eats in this series. I think the Knicks dominate
the glass. I would honestly be surprised. I would be
shocked if Indiana won this series, actually shocked. I would
(25:50):
be stunned if they even stole two games. Man, I
think the Knicks are concretely the better basketball team.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I think they're the better team. But I can just
absolutely see a world in which Indiana gets forty three
is in a game and they make eighteen of them,
and like they could do that twice in a series.
They have that sort of offensive pot. But I agree,
putting it together for four out of seven is tough
for me to see. The eighty two game preseason is
in the books, and it's finally time for the real season.
(26:18):
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Speaker 2 (27:19):
All right, let's talk about this Darvinham news logan. Seems
that basically all Lakers fans have been crying out for
his head for quite some time now, and they have
gotten it. Do you think this was the right decision
by ALAA Fireham?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, I don't think Darvin Ham's a good basketball coach.
And me and my boys ended up calling at the
end of the season. Dude, we were calling him Darvin
haam Sandwich because that's what he looks like he's thinking
about on the sideline whole time.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah. There, make a shirt with that trademark that just
him sitting.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
With a Folt bubble and just a Ham sandwich up there. Man.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Oh whatever your creative vision is.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Good, old Darvinham sandwich man. And that's it symbolizes him
as a person. Man, he's just bland. Like when you
think of a ham sandwich, it's like, oh man, I
got to eat a Ham sandwich is really just you know,
playing white bread, not even toasted. Man. No mayonnaise, no
no lettuce, no no tomato, no cheet just a Ham
Sandwich man, good old Darvin Ham Sandwich dude. You know,
(28:18):
I don't think he's a great coach. I put this
squarely on his shoulders. The regular season shortcomings of the
Los Angeles Lakers, like that was one of my issues.
And maybe this goes back to the leaders of the
team and Lebron and Anthony Davis. Your job, more games
than not is to just get the team energized, prepared,
(28:41):
ready to go, ready to give one hundred percent, and
schematically to be ready right. I felt too many times
during this regular season the Los Angeles Lakers were lacking
an effort and were underprepared schematically, and too many times
they would put their heads down, they'd throw in the towel,
and they'd give up before the game was over. So
I have a huge issue with Darvin Ham and the
(29:01):
effort and energy department of getting this team ready to play.
Do I put that all on his shoulders? Not all
of it. I put some of it on the team's
leaders like Lebron and Anthony Davis, but I put a
lot of that on Darvin Ham. Another issue that I
have with Darvin Ham is his use of his personnel.
I empathize with Darvin Ham's situation in the sense that
I don't think the Lakers team was great and super
(29:22):
complimentary around Lebron and Anthony Davis. Right, A lot of
your bench is Jackson Hayes and gave Vincent and Cam
Reddish and Tari and Prince, and you're just simply asking
guys to play above their means. And I know they
dealt with some injuries Jared Vanderbilt gave Vincent, but that's
not the reason the Lakers sucked in the regular season.
(29:43):
It was the fact that Darvin Ham wanted to trut
Tari and Prince and Cam Reddish out there for so
many of the games, and he benched Austin Reeves for
a significant portion of the season.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Like I deal with and Dillo together for a stretch
and it's like.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Oh, yeah, let's bench both of our best shock creators
and the only guys that can reliably shoot from behind
the arc and in the mid range. Great work, Darvin.
So I'm not gonna put the fact that he didn't
have great personnel around him. I put that on Legim
and I put that on mister Rob Polenka. But I
do put on how he used his personnel on him.
And then my final gripe with Darvin his use of timeouts. Man,
(30:21):
there were just too many times during the regular season
in the playoffs where the other team is going on
a run and I'm screaming at my television Darvin ham Sandwich,
please call the time out. Your team is getting dogged
right now, brother, They need a breather and they need
to reconcile, and they let their leads evaporate and the
other team will be right back in the game. And
my final thing, this goes with the energy and effort category.
(30:43):
Just his demeanor. I don't know, man. I know Tibbs
kind of has the same demeanor sometimes, but Tim's looks
pissed off. Tim looks angry at his team, like good damn,
he's got that Bill Belichick thing going, Man, where it's
just I expect so much out of you guys, the
team gets it. Darvin looks like apathetic sometimes where it's
(31:04):
like it's gonna happen. I don't see enough fire in
kre with Darvin. Man. Ultimately, Man two, I don't really,
Carson know how much a Lakers head coach can really
impact the team, Like is Lebron the de facto head coach, Like,
is that the conclusion that is this even like a
(31:25):
position that you would want if you're a guy that's
gonna come into this situation. It's a really toxic head
coaching position, man, And it's a really hard job. Like
I even I wonder at this point, man, if this
is even a job that I would really want if
I'm a prospective candidate for the Lakers, Because at the
end of the day, if you lose and the Lakers
get eliminated in the first round and you underachieve in
(31:48):
the regular season, is there a silver lining? Like if
you win the title, it's whooped dee doo Lebron won
another ring. You know, nobody gives any credit to Frank
Vogel for winning that chip, And if you get balanced,
it's all on your I don't know, man, I don't
think Darvin Ham was a good basketball coach. I think
the Lakers made the right decision in firing him. But
it's not an enviable job, and I really don't know
(32:09):
if it's a job that I would want if I
was a prospective candidate for the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It's tough in that leash is obviously very short. Frank
Vogel experience that Darvin Ham was not a good basketball coach.
So I think that this was the right decision. But
I think this was more about the regular season than
it was the playoffs. The playoffs is what draws the
most attention, and I think a lot of Lakers fans
were done with Darvin already, but that was when I
(32:36):
was like, this guy is just clearly not a good
basketball coach. Frankly incompetent at times, way too many awful
effort stretches. And yeah, you can put that on the players, absolutely,
but like the head of the snake, the coach is
responsible for that as well. This was the worst effort
team in the league. That does not reflect well on
Darvin Ham. And then the various starting lineup combinations that
(32:58):
we saw just abutely disastrous. The stretch where both Reeves
and Dilo were coming off the bench like staggering their minutes,
starting one and benching the other is one thing. Do
I think it was right to bench Reeves and over Delo, No,
because I think Reeves is better, But to say, okay,
we need one shot creating, offensively oriented guard and then
(33:19):
we need one of our point of attack athletes, and
we want to pair them together in the backcourt. That
makes some sense, right to say, hey, what if we
took our two offensively oriented guards who are our third
and fourth best players, and we benched both of them
so we could start two offensively inept but athletic defensive
guards but who ultimately just aren't very good basketball players.
(33:41):
Like that was insane. That was a moment where I
was like, did an NBA head coach actually do this?
Like is there something we're not seeing here? But it
was just terrible coaching. Tory and Prince started a vast
majority of this season, started a lot more than Ruya
chi Mura, who didn't have a great playoff series. But
Rui's just better, He's bigger, he's more skilled offense, Prince
was getting killed on the glass. They were minus seven
(34:04):
on off With him on the floor, they were significantly worse.
Cam Reddish was playing a bunch and his defense was
fun for stretches, but offensively he was just way too
inconsistent and not at the level that they needed. And
he was again starting for a solid stretch this season,
playing over twenty minutes a game. So that's where I
feel like he cost the most, and that's where they
ended up in this position. You have to play the
(34:25):
Denver Nuggets in the first round. If they were a
better regular season team with more consistent effort and more
coherent lineups, then that probably wouldn't have been the case.
There were still postseason issues. I still think you saw
rotational stuff. Delo playing more minutes per game than Austin
Reeves is weird to me. When Dilo had some awful games,
neither of them were great, but Reeves was more consistent.
(34:47):
He was at least bringing some value defensively. Delo just
had some nightmare games. Vandal was available for Game five,
didn't play and maybe he didn't feel totally ready to
go or whatever in the moment. But Torrian gets nineteen
minut goes zero of five. Like, if Torrian Prince isn't
knocking his shots down, then I would rather have Jared
Vanderbilt out there every single day of the week. Starting
(35:08):
the series with ruy On Jokic to me was telling
because it's just like we've seen that this doesn't work
in the regular season. You got abuse like that, and
of course he moved off of it, and they tried
different looks and they ended up doubling more aggressively in
the final game and a half of this series, which
I think was the right decision, But it took a
while to get there, and the place that they started
(35:28):
was not good, so he got out coached. I didn't
think it was a disastrous series from Darvin Ham. I
think ultimately the Nuggets players soundly out played the Lakers
players down the stretches of these key games. Marie and
Jokic took things up a level. Anthony Davis didn't play
all that well, and that's what it comes down to.
That's where I was like, you want to put everything
on Darvin Ham. That's foolish, but he's not a good
(35:52):
basketball coach. It certainly seems like the players had just
kind of lost faith in him. The Anthony Davis quotes
about how we don't know what we're doing and just
don't have time to waste with thirty nine year old
Lebron James. So I think this is the right decision.
It annoys me when people, and this happens with the Lakers,
because they're so under a microscope, want to put it
all on one guy. Often it's the coach. But if
(36:15):
they had run it back with Darvin Ham next year,
I'd be like, why, what are you to gain from this?
What do you still have to learn? He is not
ready to be the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers
as they try to contend at least in the final
years of the Lebron eighty era.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I mean looking forward to that.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
One.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I just want your opinion, Carson, Like, what do you
think about this job as a whole? Would you want it?
And then two? What kind of head coach do the
Los Angeles Lakers need? Like is there anybody that can
step in here? And that's a difficulty? Is Like, That's
something I've always thought is troublesome about this is the
(36:55):
power dynamic between like a Lebron and the head coach? Like,
is there a good answer? Are there any potential candidates? Yeah? So,
I mean I guess those are the some of my questions.
Any potential candidates? Is this a job that you would
want as a coach? And what kind of coach do
the Lakers need?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
It's a good question. I do think it's a tough job. However,
it's not a bad job just because of the basketball
talent that you inherit. The first candidate who stands out
to me simply because he is the most proven and
the best head coach who currently is not a head
coach is Mike Budenholzer. Now, would there be frustrations with
him in LA, I'm sure he would get scapegoated some.
(37:35):
We know that he historically has been too rigid in
the playoff environments and that has cost the Milwaukee Bucks.
But he also coached them to a title, and he's
one of the best regular season coaches that we've seen,
and I do think you would have a very coherent
identity under him and you would ultimately be a better
basketball team. Phil Handy is another option who stands out
just because that's a Lebron guy. You can keep things
(37:57):
in house, you promote him, you would be prioritizing, like
the relationship aspect of it, saying, Okay, Lebron, we're gonna
go with a guy you like. But whoever Lebron wants
should definitely be a strongly considered, if not the favorite here.
The last guy who I had, who I don't know
if he's the best fit, but I'm just really intrigued
(38:17):
and I wonder if he gets a head coaching job somewhere.
Is Chris Quinn. The lead assistant for the heat, just
because that guy is always so active and it feels
like he is damn near a co head coach, and
just if anybody is soaked up that much Spoe knowledge
and he gets the identity that much, I would be
interested in taking that guy on. But also that's sort
of antithetical to this Lakers vibe right now. I don't
(38:40):
know if having a real heat ethos is matching up
with what they're doing. So it's a tough job. I
don't think that there's a perfect answer. I would just
try to get the best basketball coach. How about that.
That's where I would start. And I think that that's
probably Bud out of guys who are available right now.
But there could also be some young assistant who we
haven't really got to see shine yet.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Any credence to the JJ Reddick rumors.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Boy, wouldn't that be weird. I'm gonna go ahead and
say no to that. And that's the other thing with
an assistant. This isn't a job where you have training wheels.
This isn't a job where you have time to learn right.
You don't get a year or two of okay, we're
figuring stuff out together. No, the pressure in the spotlight
is on you immediately. And I can't imagine JJ having
(39:26):
no high level coaching experience wanting to step into that.
I also can't imagine Lebron even though JJ's his guy,
like he's older than JJ. Like that's just a weird
dynamic that doesn't seem feasible to me at all.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, I think it's a guy who steps in here,
sets the tone, sets the culture immediately, and and it's
a reality for the Lakers. Man, the clock is ticking,
window is almost shut. We gotta go make a We
gotta go make it happen next season. Man, you gotta
capitalize on whatever years you got left to Lebron in
ad And I think that's by get somebody who's ready.
(40:02):
And I know Coach Bud would be frustrating, but he's
got the experience. Man, that's probably huh my favorite candidate.
There's gonna be frustrated moments for short man. There are
with all Coach Bud teams. But the guy's been around,
he gets it. And he's not my Doc Rivers tire,
you know what I mean. Like he's yeah, he's he's
soundly out of the Doc Rivers tier. So I think
(40:23):
coach Bud would probably be my, uh my leading candidate.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
He'll also just have better, more versatile personnel, Like how
can you really get on him for playing brook Lopez
and drop no matter what when brook Lopez is built
to just play drop Like we saw Doc Rivers mix
it up some with switching and then doubling. But I
don't think it was super successful, Like he's just not
(40:47):
a versatile player. There's other stuff that we can look at.
Sometimes maybe you just shouldn't have played Brooke. Whatever. We
don't need to revisit Mike Budenholzer's career. I do think
he's a good basketball coach. But Lakers fans are gonna
get pissed at anybody. Lakers fans they're gonna blame anybody.
And that's where I look at this, And I just
think if you feel like, oh, we would have won
that series if not for Darvin Ham, I just disagree.
(41:10):
I disagree. I think you were fighting a really uphill battle,
and I think that the players were outplayed and that's
the deciding factor. And the Lakers players right now, although
they are good, they simply aren't one of like the
Tier one threats in the West. Right. The gap between
Denver and Minnesota and them is significant, and coaches don't
offset that. Eric Spolstra right, is a genius. He can
(41:33):
overcome that more than anybody else. Still needs his players
to ball out. You see what happens when he doesn't
have Jimmy Butler on the floor, right, Like, a coach
can only be so impactful, and especially a coach on
a Lebron led team. So I think generally we can
overstate the significance of this stuff at times. It'll be
interesting to see where they go. Though. That's gonna do
(41:53):
it for us here, folks. He'pe you enjoyed as always
if you did. The good news is there's plenty more
Nerds as content. We've been doing a bunch of shows
throughout the playoffs, bunch of reactions to games. We have
some in depth video breakdown video essay stuff. We have
our Timberwl's Nugget series preview out if you want to
check that out for that series that'll be getting started tomorrow.
If you want more of our content besides the full show,
(42:15):
you can check out our trivia on TikTok and Instagram
at nerd sash, Twitter at nerd Underscore, sesh. You can
check out our merch at the volume dot com. You
can join our discord if you want to talk to
the fellas, and Matthew spawn Hour is in fact in
there and that pretty much covers it. So with that
as always appreciate you guys. I've been Carson Brev, I
had been Logan Camden, and this was nerd Sash
Oh my god, how could he do that? No, don't
watch what Charles Darwin. The nerves is where it's at.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome everybody backward to Nerd Sessh. As always, I'm Garson
Brebern alongside me as Logan Camden, and today we are
going to be doing our series preview for Pacers Knicks,
now that that matchup is set in stone, and we
are also going to be reacting to the news of
the day around the association, that being that Darvin Ham
has been fired by the Lakers. Logan, but we'll start
(00:40):
with the Knicks Pacers preview, a good old fashioned rehashing
of a classic nineties rivalry, of course, will look very
different this time around, a Pacers team that not a
lot of people would have expected. In the second round,
of course, they got a favorable draw with the Bucks
very injured. What's the first key that stands out to
you in this series?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
The first key to Carson is can Jaylen Brunson continue
to hold up with this kind of offensive burden. He's
kind of had to be a superhero for the New
York Knicks man, and that's kind of how I viewed
Jaylen Brunson. Man. I think the guy is a bona
fide superhero. In the first round series against Philadelphia, Jayalen
Brunston attempted twenty nine point two field goal attempts per game.
(01:22):
The league leader this season was Luka Doncicic. He attempted
six more field goals per game in this series than
Luca did on average per game in the regular season,
and he had a thirty seven percent usage rate versus Philadelphia.
That's a five percent increase in the regular season where
he was and actually, fun fact, one point seven percent
lower than the league leader Joel Embiid. Obviously an abbreviated
(01:45):
season for Joelle, but as a remarkable number that Embiide
was doing that in the games that he was healthy.
But the bottom line with Brunson is we've seen something
concrete with him in this offense. He is the only
guy that can create himself or in anybody else in
this offense a good shot, point blank. And I think
about the coverages that Indiana is going to throw at him.
(02:08):
I think they're gonna try a lot of their guards.
I think you're gonna try some wing matchups Nemhard McConnell,
Halle Ni Smith. And in the regular season series, he
kind of got to where he wanted against everybody in Indiana.
You know, Brunson is so physical man, and that's one
of the things that I think translates to the playoffs
more than anything else is physicality strength. Guys that weaponize
(02:30):
that physicality better than other players, and it's just it's
an easy identifying trait that is going to make you
a good playoff player. He's just so physical, so strong
for all these guys, especially nem Hard, McConnell and Halley,
and then I think he's too quick for Nie Smith,
Like I think he's gonna bully these Indiana guards around Carson,
and I think it's gonna be on guys like Turner
(02:51):
or Jackson to really disrupt him on the backside. And
you know, consciously not overhelp off of Robinson and Hardenstein
because he's great at that too. Right, if you try
to help off in contesta Brunson shot, it opens up
something on the backside. Basically, I have full confidence in
Jalen Brunson getting anywhere and everywhere against Indiana. In the
regular season series, he put up thirty six points, three boards,
(03:14):
and four assists on forty nine to thirty two eighty
three splits, and against Philadelphia he's putting up thirty six
to five and nine a night. Like, I don't really
think anybody on this Indiana team can hold Jalen Brunson,
and I think he is far and away gonna be
the best player in this series. Man, I don't know
if there's anybody on Indiana they can really defend or
hold up against Jalen Brunson. Man. I think he's too physical,
(03:35):
I think he's too methodical. He's a genius basketball player
and he's a superhero. Man. I fully believe in Jalen Brunson,
and I have full confidence in him dominating this series
as the best basketball player in it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It is a significantly better matchup for Jalen than what
he just drew against the Sixers, a team that was
really quite well built to guard him overall and gave
him fits throughout the regular season and had a bunch
of really long athletes to throw at him on the perimeter,
particularly Kelly Oubre. But we saw but two mold up
in stretches. We even saw MAXI defend him solidly in
(04:10):
this series, and he got his rhythm going, but it
was a struggle out of the Gates. That dynamic is
different here, and Brunson has to be fantastic because we
may look at Indiana and say they're a six seed.
They were basically handed a first round win on a platter,
and I do not consider them an impressive playoff team.
I think they're one of the weaker teams in the field,
(04:30):
but they still have a significantly easier offensive formula than
the Knicks two and that they have two complimentary stars.
Even when Hallie isn't the threat as a score that
he was early in the regular season, he's still a
playmaking maestro. Siakam is a mismatch attacking nightmare for a
lot of teams to face. They play with pace, they
have shooters everywhere. Indiana's offense simply has more dynamicsm but
(04:55):
Brunson should be the best player on the floor and
that matters, but they need him to deliver consistently. I
expected to be more consistent and efficient in this series,
just because the options aren't nearly as intimidating. Nemhard is
a solid defensive guard, but I think it'll probably mostly
be Nie Smith. I just think having that size, having
(05:18):
that length is ultimately going to be more valuable for Indiana,
but it's a downgrade overall. Nie Smith isn't going to
be a game changer in terms of that matchup, and
it's really just the totality of the team defense. You're
just downgrading across the board. Turner is significantly less imposing
as a deterrent than Joel Embiid. Of course he's a
(05:38):
prolific shot blocker and he has been, but just in
terms of the size the pure imp protection, Like, people
actually shot pretty well around the rim against Miles Turner
this year, only about four percent below their average, which
when you're talking about a center, that's really a pretty
middling mark. Whereas MBAD you felt his presence as a
huge deterrent all series. So I just think there's going
(06:00):
to be an easier, healthier shot diet for Brunson. Indiana
was the worst pick and roll defense in the NBA
this year. Logan dead last and when they trapped, which
you think, all right, do they turn to that in spots?
We saw the Knicks turn to that in the closing
stretches of Game six. Just get the ball out of
his hands because we can't deal with him in single coverage.
Make other knicks, make decisions and knock down shots. They
(06:22):
allowed one point four points per possession this year. Ridiculous.
That's like allowing lay up efficiency every single time. I
just don't think they rotate well enough. I just don't
think they're disciplined enough defensively, so they're just the weakest
defense in the playoff field. They were twenty fourth in
defensive raiding this year. It is very rare that a
team wins a playoff series when they struggle to defend
(06:44):
like that. They're not gonna challenge you with physicality. They
just let the Bucks without Giannis and without Dame for
two games post a top five offensive rating in the playoffs.
So far, Brunton has to carry a crazy load, but
I think this is going to be a lot easier
for him than last series.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Was couldn't date or Man, I could not date the
Indiana Pacers. No.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
No.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
On the flip side of this, Carson, I think it's
interesting to look at the other star guard in this series,
and that's Tyrese Halliburton. I think that's the most interesting
matchup to me is watching these two guards go to battle.
And a big question that I have about Halliburton in
this series is how much can he legitimately create and
score for himself. Halliburton is a genius. I mean that
(07:27):
he is a you said a playmaking maestro earlier in
the show, Dude, he is a savant. I think Halliburton,
no matter what context it is in, he is a
positive offensive player. If he's not scoring the basketball at all,
if he is simply facilitating and playmaking, he is that
level of passer that it really doesn't matter. And what
(07:48):
I mean by that is in terms of positivity, him
being a positive to the offense. He's always gonna make
the right read, He's always gonna make a great decision,
and he's just fundamentally unselfish, Like if there's an open
guy and he can make the pass, he's going to
make it. But I do worry about him generating offense
for himself. He was a thirty nine percent percent title
(08:08):
pick and roll ball handler in the first series, and
it gets against Milwaukee. It's not against great perimeter defense.
And we've seen a staggering difference in Halliburton pre and
post injury. Pre injury, Carson Haliburton was averaging twenty four points,
four boards, and thirteen assists on sixty three percent true shooting.
(08:29):
Post injury, he's averaging seventeen points, four boards, nine assists
on six percent below that truth shooting. Another staggering difference
that I've noticed too, he was averaging six attempted shots
in the paint pre hamstring injury. Post hamstring injury, he's
averaging just four. That's not a huge difference, but to
a night like he's just significantly getting downhill less. He's
(08:52):
averaging thirty nine percent on pull up threes pre injury,
post injury, that's ten percent lower on two less shots
per game. And in the Middle Hockey series he's sixteen
point six boards on nine assists with fifty five percent
true shooting. Carson, he shot just twenty seven percent on
pull up threes in this series. That is a huge
part of his shot diet. He's taking basically six of
(09:14):
those shots per game. And I don't want to undersell it.
Like a lot of people, Carson have come out and
taken victory laps on Halliburton now in these playoffs as
a generator for himself and as a creator for himself,
I think Halliburn's a legitimately great shooter. I think he's
a legitimately great pull up shooter. I just don't think
he's a one hundred percent so I think it's dumb
to take a victory lap on that, But I think
(09:35):
it's important to contextualize that that's always going to be
a huge part of his shot diet, even with his
hamstring injury or not. He's not a guy that creates
a lot of downhill pressure. He's not a guy that
really gets into the teeth of the defense consistently. Obviously,
when he's fully healthy, he's doing it more. But Halliburn's
always going to be a guy that relies on his
pull up jumper, So when that's not falling, I'm just
(09:56):
really concerned about him manufacturing easy and consistent offense for
himself and as the lead offensive player for the Pacers,
they're just gonna need more from him in this series
against New York and it's been a really bad offensive series.
I was a really bad offensive series against Milwaukee. I
talk about the struggle on pull up threes. It wasn't
just pull up threes, it was all threes, which again
(10:16):
are a huge part of his shot. Died thirty five
percent on catch and shoot threes against Milwaukee, twenty seven
percent on open threes twenty seven percent on wide open
threes in that series. Like, the Pacers are just gonna
need him to do more, and I don't know if
we can expect that considering what we've seen out of
him post injury and seeing how we saw him struggle
(10:38):
against Milwaukee.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
He's absolutely key to this series, of course, and he
needs to be better. It was really underwhelming the volume
an efficiency last series. I do still want to give
him credit just for his decision making in his passing
and the value that that has at all times, the
ability when you're running pick and roll to constantly make
the necessary skip passes to hit the popper on time
(11:01):
and on target, to push and transition and create for teammates.
But specifically out of pick and roll, you mentioned his
scoring efficiency was only thirty ninth percentile. The offense he
created though, including passes, was still seventy second percentile. Now,
that is not the level we expect from Hallie. We
expect Halley to literally be like ninety fifth percentile maestro,
but it does still show how valuable he is offensively
(11:22):
even when he isn't knocking down his shots. That being said,
he obviously needs to be better as a pull up shooter,
and the shot quality has been a bit more difficult
just because there's really a limited thread of him getting downhill.
This year, he only averaged twelve drives per game, which
isn't a very big number, and that went down post Hamstring.
That has gone down yet another level to under ten
(11:43):
drives a game in this past series, meaning TJ. McConnell
drove more times than Tyre's Halliburton, Andrew Nemhar drove more
times than Tyrese Halliburton. And that's against the drop coverage,
where the whole idea is basically to keep him from
getting all the way downhill and to keep the roller
from getting all the way downhill. Or when Brooke wasn't
a drop, they'd switch and then double to basically force
(12:04):
the ball out of his hands. I do think you
will see New York play more up at the level
of the screen with Hartenstein and with Robinson. I think
both those guys are significantly more mobile than Brook Lopez,
and so they can guard there and they can basically
force Halle at least to try to turn the corner
on them and see if he can get downhill. So
maybe he isn't as pull up jumper reliant, but that
(12:25):
is his greatest weapon as a scorer, and that weapon
just hasn't been efficient and hasn't been effective as of late,
and the Nicks have much better defensive personnel to throw
at him. I think this could again be a big
Deuce McBride series, just because he's an awesome point of
attack defender and he's been playing well offensively get him
out there on the floor. There's no question Hollie needs
to be way better and I'm unfortunately just not that
(12:48):
confident that he will be, because, yeah, it was a
bad shooting series, but he's been in a shooting slump
for a good while now. And I thought coming into
the playoffs, like, if he's gonna get into rhythm, it's
gonna be against the Milwaukee Bucks, right playing a favorable
coverage against him without good defensive personnel. Like, if there's
a time to get him going, it's gonna be this series.
(13:08):
And instead, he's still struggled as a scorer. And as
much as I love Halle, I do think he's been
a different player post hamstring, and I'm not optimistic he
just does a one to eighty in this series.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And the most alarming thing to me about that Milwaukee
series is that he was getting a lot of open looks,
Like the Bucks were conceding so many wide open threes
that healthy Halle is frankly just making nothing is gonna
come easy against the Knicks, Like, I don't anticipate him
getting no we're close to as many wide open looks,
and I will say, shooters fluctuate, shooters go up and down.
(13:44):
Down the back half of this season, I emphasized how
bad James Harden had been, and then he opened up
the series and didn't miss. So there's always shooting variants, right.
Halliburton is an elite shooter. There's all the possibility in
the world that he can come out and just be
blazing because he's a great shooter. But I just don't
anticipate that with the track record that we've gotten from
Halle and with that Carson, I think there's a massive
(14:06):
burden on Pascal Siakam to also create for this offense,
and Halliburton's job gets significantly more difficult against a better defense,
as does Pascal Siakams. And I think the matchup to
watch in this series is two teammates going head to
head against one another and that's Pascal Siakam versus og Anobi.
That to me might be the X factor in this
series because we kind of know what we're gonna get,
(14:26):
or I won't say we know nothing is do we
really know anything? Carson, let's get philosophical today.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Man, it's such a great question. It's such a great question.
It reminds me of the nihilistic quote of Nick Nurse,
who said, what does it matter what we do? These
games are gonna come down to the wire no matter what.
Brunston scores forty seven down to the wire and Beads
scores fifty down to the wire. Profound stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
It's like that goalie that said, man, does any of
this really matter? Kind of.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Sports recently? That was a crazy quote.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
That was a crazy quote. So us nerds here, we
to know what we're gonna get out of Jalen Brunton
and Tyrese Halliburton. So there's gonna be a big burden
on Pascal Siakam to create and just go out and
score for himself. And in a lot of games in
this series when Halliburton was struggling, Siakam was able to
do a whole lot And I love his game. Man,
in terms of being a complimentary number two. You know,
(15:17):
I was skeptical with Siakam for a long time. I
was not a big Siakam guy when he was in Toronto.
I was critical of his defense, of his shooting, of
his decision making. He reminded me a lot of the
Tasmanian Devil, because you know, Siakam would just get into
the lane and spin, spin. Siakam's game has grown a
lot since then. I think he's much better as a
ball handler, as a decision maker, as a playmaker, and
(15:39):
he's just a lot more versatile as a score from
behind the arc. Is a guy even get down into
the teeth of the defense and finish through contact like
Seacom's really well rounded, and specifically in tandem with Halliburton
as a roller and as a pick and pop where
he just really works. Seacom's a really great number two
to have along with his physical traits, you know, being
a great athlete, a rebounder, a guy who can hold
(15:59):
up physically defensively. In this series, I think it's gonna
be on him to create when other guys aren't. And
I think it's a lot tougher here. You know, it's
not Milwaukee where there's a lot of mismatches on the floor.
There were so many times in this last series where
he's just turning the corner on Brook Lopez or Bobby
Portis and getting easy looks. I think he's gonna be
(16:22):
matched up with og Nnobi in the series, and I
can't stress how great og Nnobi is a defender.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Man.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
He's just one of the best defenders on planet Earth.
Watching how he performed against Joel embiid Man consistently in
matchups against him one on one. Is a helpside guy
in the series. On the perimeter, he's a defensive wreckord,
and I think that's one of the key matchups to
watch in this series. Siakam had a great one twenty
two points, nine boards and four assists on fifty five
(16:49):
percent of the field. Didn't shoot great twenty seven percent
from behind the arc. He's gonna have to shoot better,
but I just think it's a lot harder on him,
and that's another negative for Indiana in this category. When
I think about the hypothetical matchups, Siakam's likely going to
be matched up against Ognnobi all series long, and I
just think it's a lot tougher for him to manufacture
offense when Halliburton has been struggling like he has been, Uh,
(17:13):
it's gonna be a lot more. There's a lot more
burden on Siakam to create for himself and to generate offense,
and I just don't know how consistent he's gonna be
able to do that against a one of the best
defenders in the NBA and og.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Nnobe, it's a huge matchup and Siakam was phenomenal in
the first two games last series. He was leading the
playoffs and scoring with crazy efficiency. But his game is
very much predicated upon exploiting physical advantages. When Milwaukee tried
to match up Brooke with him for significant stretches earlier
in the series, he was just too quick for that matchup.
(17:45):
Whenever he had a winger reguard switched on to him,
he simply could abuse those guys with his size and
athleticism advantages and shoot over the top of them. When
you have a dude who physically matches up like an
ogn Andobi, then Siakam more prone to struggle and down
the stretch of last series, he just wasn't nearly as effective.
And I thought Bobby portis guarded him better than the
(18:06):
other options, just because he was the most physically equal
and Og is obviously a much, much, much better defender
than a Bobby Portis. So to me, this series is
gonna come down to Siakam trying to hunt those switches,
and I think that means running inverted pick and roll.
I think that means in transition, you get a cross match,
you go after it because all of the little guys,
(18:29):
and that's the reality with this NIXT team is they're
playing three guard sized dudes, Like shout out Josh Hardy
doesn't rebound like a guard, but he is still guard sized.
OG should be able to bully all of them. Hart
Duce McBride when he's on the floor, Jalen Brunson, Dante Vincenzo.
He's a ninetieth percentile post scorer. He averaged one point
four points per post up last series. He was phenomenal
(18:50):
and if Indiana wants to win, he has to be excellent.
I do think the OG matchup is a very challenging
one for him though, And if it comes down to
those two just going at each other, then I think
you will see a quieter Siakham series. He also came
out hot as a jump shooter against Milwaukee and then
struggled down the stretch. He was ten of thirty five
(19:10):
on jump shots over the last four games, so he
took a step back, and they ultimately just can't afford
that because when we look at these supporting casts, that's
absolutely gonna be key to this series as well. And
I think New York just has more really good basketball players.
Indiana has a lot of good offensive players, and that's
part of the beauty here. You have an awesome creator
(19:32):
like Hallie, but you have to give credit to the
dudes who finished the plays. Indiana didn't even have their
best shooting series against Milwaukee, but they shoot so many threes.
They led the league in attempts in this past series.
That's what they do. They get out and they pace
in space. It's that sort of prototypical high efficiency offense
that you get like that. But their value does swing
(19:54):
more with their shot making, whereas from the Knick supporting cast,
like I just know that I'm going to to get
consistent impacts because they're gonna win me extra possessions because
they are going to work to make your best players
uncomfortable because several of them are very good decision makers
and playmakers. That to me is just more inevitable. Like
(20:16):
you see what happens in Game one against Milwaukee, for example,
the spot up jumpers aren't following Indiana's getting good looks.
But if they aren't knocking down those catches two threes,
like they get blown out of the water by a
Milwaukee team, downianisntent toakumpo. I do think New York is
just much more consistent, even though they're offense and they're
spot up shooting, and even Jalen Brunson wasn't super consistent
(20:37):
throughout this past series. It is that defensive foundation. It's
the fact that they grabbed thirty seven percent of all
possible offensive rebounds last series, and this Indiana team not
very good on the glass. They were twenty sixth in
defensive rebound rate. I just believe in that foundation by far,
by far, the better defense, more quality basketball players ultimately
(20:58):
who I trust. Even though the Indiana guy were awesome
in Game six, the supporting cast and the best player
on the floor. I like that formula a lot for
New York.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, I do too. That's the next real big key
is can Indiana out hustle New York. It is gonna
take a dogged effort for Indiana to compete on the
glass in this series. New York is huge, but they're
also just hungry. That team walts it man fifth and
rebounds per game. Number one in rebound rate was New
(21:26):
York in the regular season Indiana twenty eighth and rebounds
per game twenty third and rebound rate, like, I know,
Indiana's big too, like with Turner and Siakham, but there's
a different level of size with Indiana, and there's a
different level of intensity. And you talk about the offensive
difference too. I like the collective in the sense that
I know New York is gonna have guys cutting back door.
(21:47):
I know New York is gonna have guys in transition
getting to the hoop, finishing through contact like the Josh
Harts and the Devincenzos of the world. There is a
level of dynamism that I like a little bit more
with New York than Indiana. And in the regular season
matchup two, I think it's interesting. You know, Indiana handedly
wins the regular season matchup two to one. They post
(22:09):
an offensive rating of one to twenty four point nine
against the Knicks. Defensive rating of one to sixteen point eight.
They got a net rating of plus eight point one.
But we don't see og Anobe excuse me, or Mitchell
Robinson in the regular season series whatsoever with that dynamic
flipped on this on their head with two super physical
guys like that into the fold here. I really do
(22:31):
like that formula for New York, man, and I just
think it's a I think it's a lot to overcome
for Indiana, man, the battle on the glass, the defensive
intensity that they're gonna face. I just think that New
York's the more physical team. I like athletic, physical teams,
and I think the most significant battle is gonna be
how Indiana gets beat on the glass. Man. I think
(22:51):
it's gonna take them drastically outperforming expectations there. And I
wonder if their pacing space could hurt them in this series, Carson,
you know what I mean, Where if Indiana's not shooting
the ball well and New York is crushing on the glass,
I just wonder if they slow this game down and
really try to grind out, they make possessions super long
(23:12):
and try to keep Indiana from getting up tempo and
from getting out on the break. And creating a lot
of these high percentage shots. And on the flip of that,
if Indiana is missing shots, it's long rebounds. You're not
letting your defense get set up. I see a lot
more easy ways for New York to win this series, man,
and I just do like their formula more. But it
starts with that defensive foundation and how I think New
(23:32):
York is going to crush Indiana on the glass in
this one.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Pace is definitely going to be an interesting dynamic this
series because nobody likes to play slower than New York
and nobody likes to play faster than Indiana, and so
whoever dictates Pace will have some advantage there. But I
don't want to undersell Indiana's offense. Indiana's offense is awesome.
They were awesome even with this subpar version of Halle
post All Star Break, they were awesome with Siakam on
(23:58):
the floor and Howe off once they made that trade.
They posted an offensive rating of one to twenty six
with Siakham on the floor in Halley off. They were
awesome in this past series. Like they have a lot
of weapons, this is clearly just the better offensive team.
To me, there's too much of a burden on Brunson,
and the offensive skill from the supporting cast is too inconsistent.
And even if you do make this more of a
(24:19):
half court game, Indiana's a ninetieth percentile half court offense
in how He's gonna create a lot of good shots there.
So they are the better offense, But I just don't
think that offsets the fact that this is a really,
really weak defensive team. And again the consistency the effort.
New York was so impressive there against Philly, and Indiana
has a couple games where you just kind of throw
(24:39):
your hands up and you're like, dude, that's not gonna
cut it in the playoffs, So I'm going New York
in six. I do think Indiana has enough offensive pop
to where they will get two games. Like, I don't
think the gap is that massive, but I would be
quite surprised if they won, just because I believe in
the formula that we have from New yor I believe
(25:00):
they can make life harder on Indiana than they can
do vice versa.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
It is an interesting dynamic that the Knicks defense is
gonna go from a team that's very isolation dependent without
a lot of ball movement in Philadelphia, where a lot
of their possessions are you know, embiid, you know isolations,
him just touching the rock, and it can slow down Indiana.
The ball moves fast in Indiana. But I also don't
want to underste how disciplined this Knicks defense is too.
(25:28):
Like the Pacers offense is great, but I expect them
to generate some good shots. But this Knicks defense is
great too. I'm gonna take Nixon five Carson. I think
Brunson eats in this series. I think the Knicks dominate
the glass. I would honestly be surprised. I would be
shocked if Indiana won this series, actually shocked. I would
(25:50):
be stunned if they even stole two games. Man, I
think the Knicks are concretely the better basketball team.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
I think they're the better team. But I can just
absolutely see a world in which Indiana gets forty three
is in a game and they make eighteen of them,
and like they could do that twice in a series.
They have that sort of offensive pot. But I agree,
putting it together for four out of seven is tough
for me to see. The eighty two game preseason is
in the books, and it's finally time for the real season.
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Speaker 2 (27:19):
All right, let's talk about this Darvinham news logan. Seems
that basically all Lakers fans have been crying out for
his head for quite some time now, and they have
gotten it. Do you think this was the right decision
by ALAA Fireham?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, I don't think Darvin Ham's a good basketball coach.
And me and my boys ended up calling at the
end of the season. Dude, we were calling him Darvin
haam Sandwich because that's what he looks like he's thinking
about on the sideline whole time.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah. There, make a shirt with that trademark that just
him sitting.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
With a Folt bubble and just a Ham sandwich up there. Man.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Oh whatever your creative vision is.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Good, old Darvinham sandwich man. And that's it symbolizes him
as a person. Man, he's just bland. Like when you
think of a ham sandwich, it's like, oh man, I
got to eat a Ham sandwich is really just you know,
playing white bread, not even toasted. Man. No mayonnaise, no
no lettuce, no no tomato, no cheet just a Ham
Sandwich man, good old Darvin Ham Sandwich dude. You know,
(28:18):
I don't think he's a great coach. I put this
squarely on his shoulders. The regular season shortcomings of the
Los Angeles Lakers, like that was one of my issues.
And maybe this goes back to the leaders of the
team and Lebron and Anthony Davis. Your job, more games
than not is to just get the team energized, prepared,
(28:41):
ready to go, ready to give one hundred percent, and
schematically to be ready right. I felt too many times
during this regular season the Los Angeles Lakers were lacking
an effort and were underprepared schematically, and too many times
they would put their heads down, they'd throw in the towel,
and they'd give up before the game was over. So
I have a huge issue with Darvin Ham and the
(29:01):
effort and energy department of getting this team ready to play.
Do I put that all on his shoulders? Not all
of it. I put some of it on the team's
leaders like Lebron and Anthony Davis, but I put a
lot of that on Darvin Ham. Another issue that I
have with Darvin Ham is his use of his personnel.
I empathize with Darvin Ham's situation in the sense that
I don't think the Lakers team was great and super
(29:22):
complimentary around Lebron and Anthony Davis. Right, A lot of
your bench is Jackson Hayes and gave Vincent and Cam
Reddish and Tari and Prince, and you're just simply asking
guys to play above their means. And I know they
dealt with some injuries Jared Vanderbilt gave Vincent, but that's
not the reason the Lakers sucked in the regular season.
(29:43):
It was the fact that Darvin Ham wanted to trut
Tari and Prince and Cam Reddish out there for so
many of the games, and he benched Austin Reeves for
a significant portion of the season.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Like I deal with and Dillo together for a stretch
and it's like.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Oh, yeah, let's bench both of our best shock creators
and the only guys that can reliably shoot from behind
the arc and in the mid range. Great work, Darvin.
So I'm not gonna put the fact that he didn't
have great personnel around him. I put that on Legim
and I put that on mister Rob Polenka. But I
do put on how he used his personnel on him.
And then my final gripe with Darvin his use of timeouts. Man,
(30:21):
there were just too many times during the regular season
in the playoffs where the other team is going on
a run and I'm screaming at my television Darvin ham Sandwich,
please call the time out. Your team is getting dogged
right now, brother, They need a breather and they need
to reconcile, and they let their leads evaporate and the
other team will be right back in the game. And
my final thing, this goes with the energy and effort category.
(30:43):
Just his demeanor. I don't know, man. I know Tibbs
kind of has the same demeanor sometimes, but Tim's looks
pissed off. Tim looks angry at his team, like good damn,
he's got that Bill Belichick thing going, Man, where it's
just I expect so much out of you guys, the
team gets it. Darvin looks like apathetic sometimes where it's
(31:04):
like it's gonna happen. I don't see enough fire in
kre with Darvin. Man. Ultimately, Man two, I don't really,
Carson know how much a Lakers head coach can really
impact the team, Like is Lebron the de facto head coach, Like,
is that the conclusion that is this even like a
(31:25):
position that you would want if you're a guy that's
gonna come into this situation. It's a really toxic head
coaching position, man, And it's a really hard job. Like
I even I wonder at this point, man, if this
is even a job that I would really want if
I'm a prospective candidate for the Lakers, Because at the
end of the day, if you lose and the Lakers
get eliminated in the first round and you underachieve in
(31:48):
the regular season, is there a silver lining? Like if
you win the title, it's whooped dee doo Lebron won
another ring. You know, nobody gives any credit to Frank
Vogel for winning that chip, And if you get balanced,
it's all on your I don't know, man, I don't
think Darvin Ham was a good basketball coach. I think
the Lakers made the right decision in firing him. But
it's not an enviable job, and I really don't know
(32:09):
if it's a job that I would want if I
was a prospective candidate for the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
It's tough in that leash is obviously very short. Frank
Vogel experience that Darvin Ham was not a good basketball coach.
So I think that this was the right decision. But
I think this was more about the regular season than
it was the playoffs. The playoffs is what draws the
most attention, and I think a lot of Lakers fans
were done with Darvin already, but that was when I
(32:36):
was like, this guy is just clearly not a good
basketball coach. Frankly incompetent at times, way too many awful
effort stretches. And yeah, you can put that on the players, absolutely,
but like the head of the snake, the coach is
responsible for that as well. This was the worst effort
team in the league. That does not reflect well on
Darvin Ham. And then the various starting lineup combinations that
(32:58):
we saw just abutely disastrous. The stretch where both Reeves
and Dilo were coming off the bench like staggering their minutes,
starting one and benching the other is one thing. Do
I think it was right to bench Reeves and over Delo, No,
because I think Reeves is better, But to say, okay,
we need one shot creating, offensively oriented guard and then
(33:19):
we need one of our point of attack athletes, and
we want to pair them together in the backcourt. That
makes some sense, right to say, hey, what if we
took our two offensively oriented guards who are our third
and fourth best players, and we benched both of them
so we could start two offensively inept but athletic defensive
guards but who ultimately just aren't very good basketball players.
(33:41):
Like that was insane. That was a moment where I
was like, did an NBA head coach actually do this?
Like is there something we're not seeing here? But it
was just terrible coaching. Tory and Prince started a vast
majority of this season, started a lot more than Ruya
chi Mura, who didn't have a great playoff series. But
Rui's just better, He's bigger, he's more skilled offense, Prince
was getting killed on the glass. They were minus seven
(34:04):
on off With him on the floor, they were significantly worse.
Cam Reddish was playing a bunch and his defense was
fun for stretches, but offensively he was just way too
inconsistent and not at the level that they needed. And
he was again starting for a solid stretch this season,
playing over twenty minutes a game. So that's where I
feel like he cost the most, and that's where they
ended up in this position. You have to play the
(34:25):
Denver Nuggets in the first round. If they were a
better regular season team with more consistent effort and more
coherent lineups, then that probably wouldn't have been the case.
There were still postseason issues. I still think you saw
rotational stuff. Delo playing more minutes per game than Austin
Reeves is weird to me. When Dilo had some awful games,
neither of them were great, but Reeves was more consistent.
(34:47):
He was at least bringing some value defensively. Delo just
had some nightmare games. Vandal was available for Game five,
didn't play and maybe he didn't feel totally ready to
go or whatever in the moment. But Torrian gets nineteen
minut goes zero of five. Like, if Torrian Prince isn't
knocking his shots down, then I would rather have Jared
Vanderbilt out there every single day of the week. Starting
(35:08):
the series with ruy On Jokic to me was telling
because it's just like we've seen that this doesn't work
in the regular season. You got abuse like that, and
of course he moved off of it, and they tried
different looks and they ended up doubling more aggressively in
the final game and a half of this series, which
I think was the right decision, But it took a
while to get there, and the place that they started
(35:28):
was not good, so he got out coached. I didn't
think it was a disastrous series from Darvin Ham. I
think ultimately the Nuggets players soundly out played the Lakers
players down the stretches of these key games. Marie and
Jokic took things up a level. Anthony Davis didn't play
all that well, and that's what it comes down to.
That's where I was like, you want to put everything
on Darvin Ham. That's foolish, but he's not a good
(35:52):
basketball coach. It certainly seems like the players had just
kind of lost faith in him. The Anthony Davis quotes
about how we don't know what we're doing and just
don't have time to waste with thirty nine year old
Lebron James. So I think this is the right decision.
It annoys me when people, and this happens with the Lakers,
because they're so under a microscope, want to put it
all on one guy. Often it's the coach. But if
(36:15):
they had run it back with Darvin Ham next year,
I'd be like, why, what are you to gain from this?
What do you still have to learn? He is not
ready to be the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers
as they try to contend at least in the final
years of the Lebron eighty era.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I mean looking forward to that.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
One.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I just want your opinion, Carson, Like, what do you
think about this job as a whole? Would you want it?
And then two? What kind of head coach do the
Los Angeles Lakers need? Like is there anybody that can
step in here? And that's a difficulty? Is Like, That's
something I've always thought is troublesome about this is the
(36:55):
power dynamic between like a Lebron and the head coach? Like,
is there a good answer? Are there any potential candidates? Yeah? So,
I mean I guess those are the some of my questions.
Any potential candidates? Is this a job that you would
want as a coach? And what kind of coach do
the Lakers need?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
It's a good question. I do think it's a tough job. However,
it's not a bad job just because of the basketball
talent that you inherit. The first candidate who stands out
to me simply because he is the most proven and
the best head coach who currently is not a head
coach is Mike Budenholzer. Now, would there be frustrations with
him in LA, I'm sure he would get scapegoated some.
(37:35):
We know that he historically has been too rigid in
the playoff environments and that has cost the Milwaukee Bucks.
But he also coached them to a title, and he's
one of the best regular season coaches that we've seen,
and I do think you would have a very coherent
identity under him and you would ultimately be a better
basketball team. Phil Handy is another option who stands out
just because that's a Lebron guy. You can keep things
(37:57):
in house, you promote him, you would be prioritizing, like
the relationship aspect of it, saying, Okay, Lebron, we're gonna
go with a guy you like. But whoever Lebron wants
should definitely be a strongly considered, if not the favorite here.
The last guy who I had, who I don't know
if he's the best fit, but I'm just really intrigued
(38:17):
and I wonder if he gets a head coaching job somewhere.
Is Chris Quinn. The lead assistant for the heat, just
because that guy is always so active and it feels
like he is damn near a co head coach, and
just if anybody is soaked up that much Spoe knowledge
and he gets the identity that much, I would be
interested in taking that guy on. But also that's sort
of antithetical to this Lakers vibe right now. I don't
(38:40):
know if having a real heat ethos is matching up
with what they're doing. So it's a tough job. I
don't think that there's a perfect answer. I would just
try to get the best basketball coach. How about that.
That's where I would start. And I think that that's
probably Bud out of guys who are available right now.
But there could also be some young assistant who we
haven't really got to see shine yet.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Any credence to the JJ Reddick rumors.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Boy, wouldn't that be weird. I'm gonna go ahead and
say no to that. And that's the other thing with
an assistant. This isn't a job where you have training wheels.
This isn't a job where you have time to learn right.
You don't get a year or two of okay, we're
figuring stuff out together. No, the pressure in the spotlight
is on you immediately. And I can't imagine JJ having
(39:26):
no high level coaching experience wanting to step into that.
I also can't imagine Lebron even though JJ's his guy,
like he's older than JJ. Like that's just a weird
dynamic that doesn't seem feasible to me at all.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Yeah, I think it's a guy who steps in here,
sets the tone, sets the culture immediately, and and it's
a reality for the Lakers. Man, the clock is ticking,
window is almost shut. We gotta go make a We
gotta go make it happen next season. Man, you gotta
capitalize on whatever years you got left to Lebron in
ad And I think that's by get somebody who's ready.
(40:02):
And I know Coach Bud would be frustrating, but he's
got the experience. Man, that's probably huh my favorite candidate.
There's gonna be frustrated moments for short man. There are
with all Coach Bud teams. But the guy's been around,
he gets it. And he's not my Doc Rivers tire,
you know what I mean. Like he's yeah, he's he's
soundly out of the Doc Rivers tier. So I think
(40:23):
coach Bud would probably be my, uh my leading candidate.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
He'll also just have better, more versatile personnel, Like how
can you really get on him for playing brook Lopez
and drop no matter what when brook Lopez is built
to just play drop Like we saw Doc Rivers mix
it up some with switching and then doubling. But I
don't think it was super successful, Like he's just not
(40:47):
a versatile player. There's other stuff that we can look at.
Sometimes maybe you just shouldn't have played Brooke. Whatever. We
don't need to revisit Mike Budenholzer's career. I do think
he's a good basketball coach. But Lakers fans are gonna
get pissed at anybody. Lakers fans they're gonna blame anybody.
And that's where I look at this, And I just
think if you feel like, oh, we would have won
that series if not for Darvin Ham, I just disagree.
(41:10):
I disagree. I think you were fighting a really uphill battle,
and I think that the players were outplayed and that's
the deciding factor. And the Lakers players right now, although
they are good, they simply aren't one of like the
Tier one threats in the West. Right. The gap between
Denver and Minnesota and them is significant, and coaches don't
offset that. Eric Spolstra right, is a genius. He can
(41:33):
overcome that more than anybody else. Still needs his players
to ball out. You see what happens when he doesn't
have Jimmy Butler on the floor, right, Like, a coach
can only be so impactful, and especially a coach on
a Lebron led team. So I think generally we can
overstate the significance of this stuff at times. It'll be
interesting to see where they go. Though. That's gonna do
(41:53):
it for us here, folks. He'pe you enjoyed as always
if you did. The good news is there's plenty more
Nerds as content. We've been doing a bunch of shows
throughout the playoffs, bunch of reactions to games. We have
some in depth video breakdown video essay stuff. We have
our Timberwl's Nugget series preview out if you want to
check that out for that series that'll be getting started tomorrow.
If you want more of our content besides the full show,
(42:15):
you can check out our trivia on TikTok and Instagram
at nerd sash, Twitter at nerd Underscore, sesh. You can
check out our merch at the volume dot com. You
can join our discord if you want to talk to
the fellas, and Matthew spawn Hour is in fact in
there and that pretty much covers it. So with that
as always appreciate you guys. I've been Carson Brev, I
had been Logan Camden, and this was nerd Sash
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