041924 400 The Best Damn Sports Segment Period

Chuck Cooperstein joins us to preview the Mavs playoffs!!! 

Episode Transcript

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Indeed it is the speakeasy on ninetyseven to one, the freak. All
right, this is a very veryheavy sports time in our fair Burgh,
maybe the likes of which we havenot seen before. As we were detailing
earlier in the presentation, not onlydo you have the World Series champion from

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a year ago trying to get intoshape to defend that lofty crown that they
wear on the heels of that,you have the Dallas Stars putting together a
tremendous season, just a wonderful,wonderful year in which they fairly early on

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in the season stated themselves as alegitimate contender and then did nothing accept strengthen
that. And then you have theDallas Basketball Mavericks, who sort of fiddle
farted along. Some of it wasgood, some of it was not so
good. That they made trades,got a couple of guys in here who

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who the Basketball day tripper probably didn'tknow anything about, and I including myself
in that number because I didn't knowanything about these guys either, And then
we saw the whole thing just cometogether. And now I think that the
Mavericks have as legitimate a chance toget to the NBA Finals as anybody out

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there. But as always, whatI think doesn't matter. What matters are
the thoughts of this man on thephone with us right now, because he
is the higher authority. The radioplay by play voice of the Dallas Basketball
Mavericks, the Great Chuck Cooperstein.Good afternoon, Old Gray Wolf, Good

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afternoon. Time for Jeffrey. Goodafternoon, Julie. Hi, how are
you? I'm good. I'm ready. It's been too long. Yes,
the work is done. The Hayesin the barn. I mean, let's
let's go do this already. Yeah, let's see what we got. See
just how full we've made this barnexactly, exactly. It's exciting times here,

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Ryan's I gotta tell you, thisteam, certainly, the way they've
played over the last twenty games,I mean, there's been nothing like this
since the championship season. And thatdoesn't mean that I'm calling for a championship
and saying that it's actually going tohappen. But as you opined at the
very end, they have put themselvesin position to make some serious noise,

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and that anyone who would say thatthe Mavericks you can reach the reach the
conference finals, and maybe even reachthe NBA Finals. They're not out of
bounds thinking that, given how thisteam has played since really since the beginning
of February, but they're really moreso since March seventh. Has anything surprised

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you about the way this thing hascome together? I mean, I got
to think that for you watching themnight in, night out, they make
those trades, and you probably thought, Okay, this thing's got a shot
to be a little bit better thanit was, maybe get in the playoffs.
But man, for me, thisthing is so far exceeded any kind
of normal bounds or any kind ofnormal expectation I might have had. It's

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not even funny. I mean,I'm right there with you, because let's
face it, how many times doin season trades at the deadline with basically
twenty five games to go in theseason, how often do they work?
I mean, you can count thenumber of trades the deadline that actually have
been impactful probably on one hand.And the last one that comes immediately to

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mind is Rashid Wallace back in twothousand and four when he went to Detroit,
you know, from Portland through Atlantaand then ultimately to Detroit, and
they won a championship that year.Now, you know, it may happen
in subsequent years, like for instance, you know, the Mavericks made the
trade for Kyrie, and it didn'thappen last year, but if it happened

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this year, you know, obviouslythat was a trade that was extremely helpful.
But in the short term, inthe immediate it hardly ever happens.
And it's astonishing, quite frankly,how this is happening. Rashid Wallace think
about it. I mean, hewas if not an All Star, then
certainly you know, on the cuspof being an All Star, and was
an incredibly versatile player. You know, PJ. Washington and Daniel Gafford.

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You know, they've been rotation players, but it's not like they've ever been
considered truly impactful. And certainly inthe case of Washington, he's played on
bad teams. I mean, thisis gonna be the first playoff games ever
played. It It's it's incredible tothink about that. Uh So, the
fact that they've been able to impactthis team the way they have is just

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completely off the charts. And andobviously on the defensive end is where it
has really manifested itself. I Mean, the Mavericks are always going to be
able to score. I mean,they can have Luke and Kyrie and you,
me and Jeff out there and they'regoing to score under eighteen points a
game. That's right, it's goingto happen. But defensively, you're you're
you're the sixth man of the year. Well, I mean, you know,

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they can't play six on the floors. It's not it's not Iowa women's
basketball where they're playing three on oneside and three on the other. Okay,
so that but but but your chance, but your chance is there?
Truly absolutely, I think I'm theonly one he gets that. I appreciate

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it. I very much appreciate it. But you know, they turned into
the best defensive team in the NBAover an eighteen games fan, I mean
really since March the seventh, they'renumber one in defense, they're number one
inefficiency, they're number one in fuelgoal defense, number five points allowed.
If all we ever asked in theMavericks is that they be average on defense,

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If they were averaged on defense withthe offense that they had, they
were gonna win a lot of games. Well they're going to be elite on
defense. Well, now we're takingit to an entirely different level. Now
you're going to get into this seriesand you know, you're not playing Charlotte,
you know, and you're not playingWashington, You're not playing you know,
the dregs of the NBA. You'replaying You're playing a team that's got

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four Hall of Famers on it.Now, they may be elderly, they
may not be quite what they were, say when the Mavericks played the Clippers
three years ago, and obviously hardand Westbrook or even there three years ago,
they may not be those players,but they're still pretty damn good.
And it's going to be a truetremendous test for the Mavericks defense. You
know, we're going to enough,very very quickly, just how good that

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defense is. How much of whatwe saw over the last eighteen to twenty
games of the season it has reallycarried over here and is really going to
be impactful here in the postseason.Coop, what is the status of and
how important is the status of KawhiLeonard? You're asking me an unanswerable question.

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Yeah, it seems like they're like, yeah, we think he's gonna
play, but he doesn't practice,He hasn't played a month, and it's
just like, yeah, I'll befine, you know, And the hell
they tried out Lawrence Frank their presidentof basketball operations, yesterday and say he's
doing everything he can to, youknow, to get back to play,
you know, but wouldn't mention thetreatment that he's been under. And just
you know the fact that he's stillnot played any five on five. It
would be hard to imagine him playingin game one, right yeah, wow.

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I mean again, I don't Ihave no inside information here at all,
but given that he's not practiced andhe's been out as long as he
has, it would be surprising tome if he played in game one.
Now again, you know, there'sonly one day off between game one and
game two, as opposed to alot of the other series. They'll have

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two games two days off between thefirst two games. So you know what
that means for the long term.I have no earthly idea, But what
is the impact? The impact isabsolutely huge because Kawhi Leonard has shown himself
to be just an incredible postseason playerand also frankly a player that the Mavericks
in thirteen games against the Clippers intwo playoffs series. Simply we're not able

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to stop in fact, not evencome close to stopping. He shot fifty
seven point six percent in thirteen gamesagainst the Mavericks and the last two games
of twenty twenty one in that series, when the Mavericks were up three games
to two lead going into the fourthquarter of Game six, and then he
winds up scoring forty five in thatgame, goes for a triple double nearly

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twenty nine, ten and ten inGame seven. I mean, he's one
of the truly elite players in thegame. And so if one of those
guys is not playing in this series, if it's Leonard or certainly, maybe
to a slightly lesser degree, PaulGeorge, but you know, if Luker
or Kyrie are out for any lengthof time in this series, if that
were to happen, I mean,you're talking about the same effect. So

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it's absolutely I think crucial for theClippers to have him, and if they
don't have him, that's very muchsomething I believe that's in favor of the
Mavericks. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't I don't remember exactly
how they how they played the Mavericksin terms of defensively, but at least
in my brain, I would thinkif you have Kawhi Leonard, well that's

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your guy that has the best chanceto at least try and chase Luka around,
and without him, that seems likeit's a lot tougher for them.
Well again, you know a lotof times they've started games with Terrence Man
they're off guard on Luca. Butyou know, the the notion of one
on one defense in the NBA isreally a misnomer because there is so much

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switching that goes on, and that'sreally one of the hallmarks of the Clippers.
I mean, if you look attheir team, they've got a lot
of like size guys that can justyou know, play multiple positions. Now,
I'm not necessarily a fan of theconcept of switching for the sake of
switching, because ultimately a lot oftimes what happens is that the Mavericks,
in this case with Luca, youknow, they'll bring up you know,

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they'll bring the center up the setof screen, and then the Clippers will
automatically switch, and that means thatit's Luca against the beats a Zubats.
Well, we know how that's gone. The last couple of a couple of
playoffs, the floor right off thefloor. So I mean to me again,
Hey, you know, I've nevercoached at that level. Hell,

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I've never coached any level. Butfor me, there's no way that I'm
ever switching. I'm having my guysfight over screens or you know, if
I have to go under occasionally,I'll I'll go under the screen. But
I don't want to switch now.When they got to Game six in the
fourth quarter in twenty one, Kawhidid spend quite a bit of time guarding

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Luca, And you're right in theorythat is the best opportunity for the Clippers
to slow Luca down, because justas the Mavericks have been unable to slow
down Kawhi, the Clippers have hadalmost no clue as to how to deal
with Luca. They've had a coupleof games, you know, they the
first playoff game they ever had,Luke had eleven turnovers in that game.

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But you know, there are thirteenplayoff games that he's played against the Clippers,
and he's scored forty or more infive of them. And he has
scored you know, he's played whattwenty or he's played thirty one games I
think against the Clippers overall, includingthe regular season, and he's got ten
games of forty or more, includinga fifty point game. They haven't stopped
him, and I don't know thatanything they do is really going to stop

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him here. I think what theClippers are probably counting on is trying to
get it out of his hands andhoping that the role players, the the
Derek Jones, the Tim Hardaway's uh, the PJ. Washington's uh, those
people are unable to hit their shots. That I think that's there, that's

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their hope. And if that doesn'thappen, well, the Mavericks are in
really good shape. So while allthat's going on and they're trying to figure
out what the best way to dealwith Luca is, what do they do
about Kyrie? And isn't that thebeauty of Kyrie in this situation? Right?

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Truly? Right? You can youcan take Luke out of the game
or uh, you know, andand then there's Kyrie doing ridiculous Kyrie things.
The one thing I'm interested to seewith Kyrie, uh, is just
how aggressive early in games he willbe, because there have been times,
especially when Luca goes off in thefirst half, like he is wont to

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do. Uh. The Kyrie justsort of kind of sits back and lets
it happen. But I would loveto see both of them just be have
the throttle fully open here, youknow, from the start of every game,
and not necessarily wait for fourth quarterKyrie to show up and listen,
fourth quarter, Kyrie is incredible,and that is one thing you know,
coming down the stretch of games,and one of the reasons why the Mavericks

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have the second best clutch record inthe NBA is that you have that closer.
But if Kyrie is off and runningfrom the very start of the game
and Lucas fonding him, he seesthat, you know, Kyrie's got it
going to when Kyrie s heat,that Luca is doing his usual Luca thing,
and the Mavericks are just about impossibleto stop. So I mean that

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he everybody always asks for an Xfactor and whatnot, But when you're playing
the Mavericks now as opposed to playingthem three years ago or heck, really
even you know, playing them earlierthis year, it's the fact that Kyrie
is playing and Kyrie is playing atthe level that he played at really,
you know, ten years ago whenhis team was winning a championship. So

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it sounds like coope that you feelpretty confident in the way that this specific
Mavericks team matches up with the Clippersand hopefully good things to come different than
what we've seen the past couple oftimes we've played the Clippers. Well,
you know, those two series werea great series. I mean the twenty

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one series with a classic series.It was certainly the best series of the
entire playoffs. And the Mavericks shouldhave won that series. I mean they
were up to nothing, they wereup three games to two, they had
Game six at home, and theylost it. They blew it and they
know they blew it. And thisteam is decidedly better than that team.

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Are the Clippers decidedly better today havingan older James Harden and older Russell Westbrook
then that team was in twenty twentyone on that ultimately got to the Conference
finals. I would suggest that theMavericks are far better now than they were
then. The Clippers may be slightlybetter. And the only advantage that I

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see the Clippers really having is aton of playoff experience. I mean,
you've got guys that have played wellover one hundred playoff games, and you
know, Kyrie has played the mostfor the Mavericks. I think this will
be a seventy fifth playoff game.On Sunday, Lucas played. Lucas played
thirty two. Max He's played thirtyfive. But the rest of these guys,
you know, have not played manyat all. Like Dade Gaffer's played

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five games. He played in oneseries for the Bulls against the Wizards in
twenty twenty one. Washington's never playedin the playoff game. I mean,
Derek Jones was a reserve on Miami'steam in the Bubble in twenty twenty,
but he hasn't played much in theplayoffs. Dante Xen has had minimal playoff
experience. Now, he's played insome really high pressure situations the last couple

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of years over in Europe in theboth years with Real Madrid and with the
Partisan in getting to the Earlyague Finalfour. Well his Partisan team that he
didn't because he got hurt in thefirst series. But you know, there's
not necessarily a lot of experience forthe Mavericks, but there is a lot

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of talent. And I dare saythat the Mavericks, regardless of this series
or any other series that they playin this playoff, they've got the best
player on the floor, and thatgives them a tremendous chance to win.
This is the higher authority, thegreat Chuck Cooperstein, the radio play by
play voice of Dallas Mavericks basketball,with us here on ninety seven to one

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The Freak. Now, we talkedabout all these stars on both of these
teams and everything. Let's go downa level here. I want to know
some of the things that you aregoing to be looking at, looking for
and looking at that maybe aren't gettingquite as much play as what the stars
might be up to in this series. What's some of the other stuff we

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should watch out for. Well,I think it's conceptual more than anything else.
Number One, one of the greattransformations of this season has been the
Mavericks from a walking up the floorand really half court oriented team is they're
now a full courteam. They're inthe top seven in the NBA and pace
in the top eight and fast breakpoints. You know, Luca's willingness to

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play that way and his pass aheadgame is I think right now the best
in the NBA. And the Clippershave not always been great getting back on
defense, and again they're an olderteam now they they do run a little
bit themselves, but their transition defensehas not been good, and the Mavericks
really need to be able to attackthat and get themselves some easy baskets because

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the Clippers are pretty good defensively andTyron Leu, their coach, is an
excellent tactician. Know he's going tothrow the kitchen sink at Luca and to
a lesser de Greek Kyrie, butanything that results in an open court game
is something that is very much inthe Mavericks favor. And the other thing
to keep an eye on is DerekLively's return. What a fantastic year he's

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had, but certainly what a difficultyear he's now had between injuries and certainly
here in the last couple of weekswith the loss of his mom. You
know, number one, you knowhe wants to play and clear he's back
playing, but he's had a bunchof injuries too this year. This is
the fourth different injury that he's had. But when he's played alongside Daniel Gafford,

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the ability for the Mavericks to alwayshave a rent protector in the game
is just huge. You know,gafferd is in the top ten league in
block shots. You know Lively he'sshooting seventy He's shooting seventy five percent from
the floor basically dunks like Gafford.It's the highest percentage ever for a rookie
player, and the moment has neverseemed too big for him, even going

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back to Opening Night against Victor WebbinYama. He basically played Victor Webbin Yama
on Opening Night. But those twoguys, If those two guys are on
the floor for forty minutes or more, probably more like forty two minutes or
more, I think that's a greatsign for the Mavericks. That's I think
that's something that's really going to helpthe show. Where they are. Defensively,

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they'll have the rim protection, they'llwind up forcing some really difficult shots
from the Clippers. And frankly,they're a far better rebounding team now as
a result of having Gafford in Washingtonthere, and obviously Luke has always been
a great defensive rebounder. So thoseare really the two things that I'm looking
at, just again, can theMavericks get their fair share of fast break

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points, can get the game goingup and down, And can those big
guys stay on the floor and reallyhelp their team defensively. One thing we
know is that you will win theradio war because that's what you always do.
You don't lose radio wars, andyou won't end this series either.
Thank you for your time, mybrother, always great talking to you.

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I appreciate you having me just anda reminder, just everybody you know,
Sunday, Next Sunday, Game fourand in all likelihood Game seven. Those
are ABC exclusive games television wise,so there's no local television broadcast. So
if you want your Mavericks, ifyou want your Mavericks, this is where
you need to be with me andBrad Davis on home games. And I

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do believe we have a special surpriseworking with me in the two games out
in Los Angeles for Games one andtwo, that if you stay hard by
the channel, as you would sayRyan's, you will soon find out who
that is. And I'm really reallyexcited about this about George Clooney. Is
it George Clooney. Well, he'sa television guy. He looks good,

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does he sound good? No?See, you've been victimized by the devil,
like we so often are. Ihope you enjoyed that. I did
very much so did I miss somethinghere was there was a reference earlier in
the show. No, no,no, it just came. It just
came from out of the blue likeit always does. That shoopy being shoopy.

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That's it. Love you, Coop, good boys, all right,
Charles, see you man. Okay, there he is, the Great Chuck
Cooperstein. Yeah, awesome, gonnaget the whoop. The Clippers be tuned
in this Sunday two Thursday is gameone. It's gonna be lovely, all
right. Coming up next, Let'ssee what that fart knocker out there is

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up to. Mister Dallas will swingthrough. Make sure you stay up to
date and keep it moving. But