June 2, 2024 • 44 mins
Jason Timpf answers listener questions about the NBA Finals during a mailbag segment. Jason dives into his early predictions on Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, and the Dallas Mavericks' matchup with Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics. #Volume #Herd
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hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Saturday. Everybody'll love you.
Guys are having a great start. To your weekend. As promised,
yesterday we did the Western Conference Finals kind of fallout
mail bag. This episode is going to be all the
mail bag questions centered around the NBA Finals, so everything
having to do with Boston and Dallas against each other.
And then tomorrow morning we'll have one final mail bag
(02:29):
that's going over everything else that's around the league. Anything
that any question that I received that didn't have anything
to do with Dallas, Minnesota or Boston is going to
be in tomorrow's show. You guys know the joke before
we get started. Subscribe to our to the Hoops and
I YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys o't
show announcements, don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you
get your podcast on our Hoops tonight, and then keep
(02:51):
dropping mail bag questions in those YouTube comments so we
can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason.
All right, let's talk so basketball. So question number one,
why are you picking Boston in the finals. The MAVs
are better at playmaking shot making. They have the best
player in the series and the best duo call coaching.
(03:12):
Bbe basketball IQ, athleticism, size and length, chemistry and fit
a tie. Celtics are better defensively and have more talent
across the roster, but Dallas has more depth. Are you
expecting Boston to slow down don Jachenrving and their collective
offense to match the MAVs superstar duo? How would that work?
So I put this question at the beginning for a
specific reason, because we're going to get to a bunch
(03:35):
of specific topics in the finals today. But I haven't
done all my prep yet. So a couple things I
mentioned on the Cowhord podcast on Monday when he asked
me where are you leaning? And I am leaning Boston
before I go into my prep. But I haven't done
all my prep yet, and so I'm taking the weekend
off with my wife. I recorded this show on Friday,
taking the weekend off with my wife, decompressing for a
(03:57):
little bit. Monday morning, I'm hitting the film and we're
gonna do an entire episode centered around Boston on Offense
on Monday. We're gonna do an entire episode around Dallas
on Offense on Tuesday, and then I have two interview
style ones with the nerd sessh guys and Sam Vassini
for next week. That is gonna run on Wednesday morning
and Wednesday evening, flowing into the game one day, which
(04:20):
is on Thursday. Right, So we're gonna have a lot
of film in those two sessions. I'm going to give
you my actual pick, but yeah, I'm leaning Boston going in,
but I don't know what I'm gonna think after I
go watch the film. It's very possible that I flip
to Dallas. We'll see when we get to that point.
I'm not actually making my official pick until we get
into probably the Tuesday show next week. That also factors
(04:45):
in for some of the way I'm answering these questions
right now, Like I'm gonna reference some concepts that we're
gonna get into in more detail when we get into
the film next week. As far as all of the
specific details that he mentioned, we'll get into them in
some of this mail bag and some of them in
the film sessions next week. But I just wanted to
reference I haven't picked anybody yet. Yes, I'm leaning Boston,
but we'll see how that kind of shapes out after
(05:07):
we go into all of our prep. Next question, Hey, Jason,
love the show. I've been learning a lot from you
for over a year now. You're the best analyst I've
found by far. Greetings from Brazil. Thank you for the
kind words. Is porzingis the key for Boston to reduce
Dallas's bigs impact by pulling them out of the paint,
and we'll in giving Tatum and Brown clear lanes to
(05:27):
the basket. I'm a Dallas fan and I'm worried about
this dynamic. So what was the biggest lesson we learned
from the Minnesota Dallas series. It was a perfect example
of the fact that matchups dictate a lot when it
comes to playoff series. This is a I had a
big rant about this in the mail bag yesterday. As
it pertains the Dallas fans. Dallas fans are the latest
(05:48):
and a long line of fans Denver last year, the
year before that, Golden State, Milwaukee, the Lakers, even where
there's this feeling that, oh, we're winning now, that means
we're invincible, and that were you know, this awesome team
that no one's ever gonna stop. And there is not
a team like that in the league right now. The
last team that we had that was like that was
(06:09):
the Golden State Warriors in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, I
think out of all of the teams that I've seen
in this last kind of five year window, I think
Denver is the most capable of sustaining success a year
in and year out. They've got this perfectly constructed starting five,
a really deep group of starters, and then obviously Nicole
Jokich is with Luca right there at the top of
(06:29):
the league, if not at the very top of the league. Right.
But like, no one's invincible, and matchups do play a
big role in who wins. And we just saw a
Minnesota team beat my championship favorite going into the postseason, Denver,
the same Denver team that beat Boston twice, that won
the championship last year in convincing fashion, right, that team
(06:51):
had a lot of problems with Minnesota. Right. And then
that same Minnesota team walked into Dallas and it felt
to me like, six halves into this, or excuse me,
six quarters into the series, right around halfway through Game two,
I'm like, Oh, they can't beat these guys because of
the matchup, because of the perimeter athleticism, the interior defense piece. Right.
And we had a YouTube comment during one of those
shows where someone said, and I thought this was kind
(07:14):
of profound at the time. He's like, this is a
great example of how we can't look at playoff matchups
through the lens of who the best team is in
a vacuum. We have to look at it in individual
matchups and how these basketball teams face up against each other. Right,
Because I personally would have picked Denver to beat Dallas
had they faced in the conference finals, but they didn't
play each other because Minnesota was a bad matchup for Denver.
(07:36):
They were able to dispatch of Denver. Now we have
Dallas first Minnesota in the conference finals and Dallas wins.
By the way, I think Dallas would have had a
chance to beat Denver. I would have given them a
good chance. I just would have leaned slightly towards Denver
in that matchup. The point is matchups matter. So what's
different about this matchup compared to the Minnesota matchup? Right now,
(07:57):
there's in terms of defensive personnel, the Boston has more
good perimeter defenders. In terms of like, I think they've
four in their starting lineup that are all awesome, like
Drew Holliday's awesome Jalen Brown's awesome, Tatum's awesome, Derek White
is awesome. Right. Minnesota has really good perimeter defenders, especially
in Anthony Edwards and Jade McDaniel's right, But like the
other guys that they have that are good perimeter defenders
(08:18):
come off the bench, they have some offensive limitations, right. So,
like I think Boston's perimeter defensive personnel is at a
similar level to Minnesota, if not a little deeper. Right.
But the reality is is none of them are big
enough really to hang with with Luca, except for Jason Tatum, Right,
So that's an interesting matchup piece we're gonna look at.
We're gonna go into a bunch of different matchup pieces
over the course of this this mail bag, but I
(08:41):
want to zero in on one specific matchup, and that's
the Porzingis and Horford matchup. Right. So if we look
at Minnesota, they are they played Rudy Gobert the majority
of the minutes, so they had shooting big lineups, or
they'd have a shooting big at the center. But this
is gonna be very different in the in the sense
that you're gonna face forty eight minutes of a sh
shooting center the entire series, it's gonna be Porzingis for
(09:03):
probably right around you know, twenty seven to twenty eight minutes,
and it's gonna be Horford the remaining minutes. Right, So
you're gonna face shooting bigs the entire series, and they
are going to pick and pop. That's what they do.
They are a pick and pop, keep the floor spaced
type of team. And so if you run a deep
drop coverage or even a high drop coverage like Dallas
did for the most part against Minnesota, you're gonna leave
(09:25):
some guys open. Schematically, we've talked to this through before.
If in a drop coverage, the guard is chasing over
the top, so the offensive player's going downhill, the guard's
chasing over the top, trying to apply back pressure. Right,
you're trying to funnel them into your screen defender that's waiting.
He's either up at the level or he's a little
bit further back, but he's waiting on the other side
of that screen. What if the guy who sets the
screen instead of rolling into that same vicinity, pops to
(09:48):
the three point line. If he pops to the three
point line, he's gonna be open. He's gonna be open
unless you rotate from the weak side, which is gonna
cause other problems on the weak side of your defense. Right,
So that is a very unique piece in this series
from a matchup standpoint, that's very different than what we
saw from Minnesota. Again, Minnesota had shooting bigs, but they
did not lean into that for large portions of the series. Right.
(10:11):
This is where I think Maxi Kliba and him being
back in the lineup is an interesting kind of matchup
piece for Dallas. I think that we could end up
seeing more of the Kleiba Lively duo than we see
of the Lively Gafford duo in this series because Gafford,
while he's an awesome while he's an awesome rim protector,
(10:32):
and his rim protection was very valuable against Minnesota, Lively
is better on the perimeter and Kleiba's better on the perimeter.
And so I think what will end up happening a
lot in this series is Dallas is gonna have to
do some switching. They're gonna have to have lineups out
there with Kleiba PJ. Washington or Lively PJ Washington, with
Derek Jones Junior obviously Kyrie King guard on the perimeter
(10:52):
as well, and they're gonna have to do more switching
in those ball screens. My guess is that's not how
it will start. They'll start in their drop and they'll
leave Porzingis open to start the series, and basically they're
gonna be like, let's see if he hits them. In
my experience watching the NBA, every single team basically concedes
the pick and pop three until it becomes a problem.
(11:14):
Doesn't matter if it's Myles Turner, doesn't matter. If it
was Anthony Davis back in twenty twenty when he could shoot,
doesn't matter if it's Nicole Jokic. Nicole Jokic got left
open on pick and pops in the Minnesota series, right, Like,
it doesn't matter who it is. Most teams will favor
the ball handler in a pick and pop and leave
the popping big open until he starts making shots. Once
(11:35):
he starts making shots, that's when you'll see kind of
like what Boston did in the last round. Will they'll
switch Tatum onto Myles Turner, Right, That's that's what I
expect Dallas to do. I think they'll start in a
drop coverage and concede shots to Porzingis, but eventually Porzingis
if he starts hitting, and I mean like over forty percent.
If Porzingi starts hitting, that's when they'll start switching. And
(11:55):
that's when I think we'll see a lot more Lively,
a lot more Kleiba because Kliba can guard on the perimeter.
Lively can guard on the perimeter. And whoever, the primary
round ball guy is Derek Jones Junior, they're gonna have
him sprint back out to Christops Porzingis sprint back out
to Al Horford. Now Porzingis presents another issue in the
sense that he's a switch beater. He will take you
down to the post and try to attack your guard
(12:17):
in an isolation situation there. However, that is something that
is easier to handle as a team than a wide
open three. So, for instance, I Porzingis is hitting forty
percent of his pick and pop threes. That comes out
to one point two points per possession. So if you're
giving up five of those a game, you can safely
assume you're gonna you're gonna give up one point two
points per possession for those five possessions. Right, what does
(12:41):
that come out to like seven points or something like that? Right, So,
like you that's that's what you can count on for
those five possessions. But if he goes down to the post,
it's more possible if you can offer backside help rotate
out of it, maybe you can hold him below a
point point of one point two points per possession. Right, So, like,
those are the types of decisions that the staff has
to make. What are we willing to concede? And again,
(13:03):
I believe they'll start by conceding the pick and pop,
But if Porzinga starts hitting half of them, that's when
they'll probably start switching and try to make Porzingis beat
post mismatches. Download. Now, we're going to get into more
of the other matchup examples, both in this mail bag
and when we get into the film session next week.
But throw everything out. Everything you saw about Boston in
(13:23):
the first three rounds, everything you saw about Dallas in
the first three rounds, throw it all out. It's all
about this matchup and how these guys line up. And yes,
this is a fundamentally very different offensive attack from Boston
than Minnesota, and it will challenge Dallas's defense in a
different way, in the same way that Minnesota's defense was
(13:44):
constructed to deal with Denver's interior size and passing, and
they locked up Denver, but they had very little success
slowing down Dallas. Dallas had a one to eighteen and
change offensive rating against Minnesota because they were a bad
matchup for Dallas's offense. Right, we have to throw all
that out and zoom in on just this particular series.
(14:07):
Better duo Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown or Luca and
Kyrie Irving. This is a tough one to me, and
I think it's very close to make it. On a
very simple level, I believe Jalen Brown is a bit
better than Kyrie Irving. Jalen Brown is a much better
defensive player, but Kyrie is a good defensive player. I
think Kyrie is a better offensive player, but Jalen Brown
is a very good offensive player. Right, So I think
(14:30):
Jalen Brown Jalen Brown. We'll see when we get into
the player rankings, but I think Jalen Brown's right around
the fifteenth best player in the world right now, and
Kyrie Irving is somewhere in that like seventeen to twenty
two type of range, right, probably a little high. I
think Kyrie's gained some ground in my book, so like
I would argue that, like we'll see when we get
into the offseason, but I'd put Kyrie closer to the
(14:50):
seventeen side of that. You know, he's having an amazing
offensive postseason run. Don't look at the box score numbers either.
It's about timely scoring. Like Kyrie has been passive in
a a lot of games as Luca's run the show
and then taken over late, that's obviously gonna manifest in
lower box score numbers. It's kind of like Jaylen Brown
he averaged what twenty three points a game this regular season,
He's capable of averaging twenty seven to twenty eight on
(15:11):
a good team if he's the number one option, right, So,
like everything is in context of their team situations. But
I do think Jaylen Brown's a little better than Kyrie Irving.
But I think Luka Doncic is a little better than
Jason Tatum. I think Luka Doncic is a bona fide
top tier superstar. I think Tatum is like near the
top of the next tier of players. And so from there,
why I lean towards Luca and Kyrie as a duo
(15:34):
is the fact that I think having the best player
in the series is a real advantage. And I do
think Luca is a better basketball player than Jason Tatum,
and so I do think Dallas is a better duo.
But that doesn't matter because the next three guys that
you're gonna name are all gonna be Celtics. It's gonna
be Derek White, Porzingis, and Andrew Holliday if you're ranking
players in the series. And so I don't think it
(15:54):
really matters much in this series. But I do think
Luca and Kyrie are the better duo. I'd argue it's
actual more important just to focus on Luca and Tatum.
Luca being better than Tatum is a more point, is
a bigger point of optimism for Dallas. What do you
think the pressure points will be for both teams? Defensively,
Let's start with Dallas on defense. The one of the
(16:15):
biggest difference between Boston and Minnesota is Boston is equipped
to attack you from every angle, whereas Minnesota has a
bunch of play finishers on the floor. Right like Ant
can run action, Cat can renaction. Conly can run action,
but ideally you don't want to run a ton through him.
But it's like Gobart is strictly a play finisher and
a bad one at that, And Jaden McDaniels is mostly
(16:36):
just a play finisher and he's not that great at it. Right,
this Boston team everyone is both a play finisher and
a offensive initiator in their own way, and so they
can target entry points easier than Minnesota could. So like
Minnesota had a hard time attacking Luca because even when
Luca would get on a switch, they just load up
behind him by ignoring Rudy Gobert and it would just
(16:58):
be gaffered or lively waiting under the if Ant did
manage to beat Luke off the dribble, which allowed Luca
to press up on Ant and take away the pull
up jumper. Right, this series is gonna be different in
the sense that Luca's gonna have to guard one of
those guys. We'll talk about the matchups later, but like
it's it's very possible that he ends up on a
Jlen Brown or on a Drew Holiday, and like you
will see, Boston will just give the let's say he's
(17:20):
on Drew Holiday, They'll just give the ball to Drew
and they'll start running action and they'll start looking to attack,
and like Let's say they bring Tatum into the action
and Luca just switches and allows you know, Derrek Jones
Junior or PJ. Washington to guard Drew Holliday. They're throwing
the ball right to Tatum on Luca, and it's not
gonna be Gafford or Lively parked in the paint on
the back line. It's gonna be Porzinga's spacing to the
(17:42):
le to the opposite wing, or to the opposite corner.
And so, like I do think and by the way
we saw this, like one of the things I thought
was really interesting about the Pacers series. Boston was relentless
attacking Halliburn. It was like every time down the floor,
and so that I think is a big matchup difference
in this series, especially from a fatigue standpoint. Luca got
to do a lot of standing around against Minnesota on
(18:03):
the defensive end of the floor. He obviously did his
job in that position, but he didn't have to engage
himself as much defensively. Boston is going to make Luca work.
He's an entry point. Kyrie irving for all of his
gifts as a size issue, so I think that teams
will look to attack him. I say, teams Boston. I
think Boston will look to attack him as well. But
Luca and Kyrie being forced to guard the ball against
(18:26):
Boston is going to be a very different type of
dynamic than the last series. On the opposite end of
the floor, I think that Luca is going to like
they might put Tatum, Boston will inevitably at some point
in the series put Tatum on the ballscreen big to
try to shut down ball screen actions. But it's just
gonna be the and I actually think we'll see less
of that because they're not a pick and pop team.
(18:47):
You might see that a little bit with Kliba, but
I doubt we'll see too much of it because they're
a pick and roll team more than a pick and
pop team. Right But even if Tatum, even if they
move guys around, Luca will find who never Porzingis is guarding,
even if it ends up being Derek Jones Junior. If
Boston puts Porzingis on Derek Jones Jr. Luca will bring
(19:08):
him up into the ball screen and he will look
to attack the exact same way that he attacks in
these other ball screen actions. Specifically, one of the things
I've noticed on film the size is an issue for Boston.
Lucas too big for most of their guys, but I
do think that they have a unique weapon in Jason
Tatum to unleash on Luca that most teams in the
(19:30):
league don't have, which is a really big, strong forward
that it can actually match Luca's physicality. That said, Boston's
entry points are gonna be Derek White and Drew Holliday.
Boston does a lot of switching, especially on guard guard actions.
My guess is Luca's gonna do a lot of dribbling
them off the floor, calling for a guard guard screen
to get either Derek White or Drew Holliday switched on
to him, and then put them in jail, trap them
(19:52):
on his backside, methodically work down the lane, try to
bait the rim protector one way or another, and either
shoot or pass out of there. So like again, I
think the pressure points or entry points for both defenses
will be For Dallas, it's gonna be Luca and Kyrie
just getting attacked on the ball by Boston, and on
the other end of the floor, it's gonna be the
smaller perimeter players I think struggling to handle Luca's size
(20:13):
and strength Hey, Jason, As you've spoken about on the show,
one of the MAVs key attributes that has led to
their Finals performances is rim protection. One thing we haven't
talked much about, however, is their perimeter defense, which ranks
among the bottom in the league this season. Although this
wasn't a factor in the Minnesota series due to Minnesota
not being a very good perimeter offense or jump shooting
team in general, do you expect this to be a
factor in how the Finals goes when considering Boston's elite
(20:35):
perimeter players and Derek White, Jason Tatum, etc. Love the
VIDs a couple things. First of all, I do think
Dallas has a good perimeter defense. I think that they
did demonstrate that over the tail end of the season,
this Dallas team. Do you remember how all year long
I kept talking about the mediocre teams, and that was
like Dallas, the Lakers, the Bucks, you know, the Warriors,
(20:57):
the like, all those teams that were like kind of
beneath the top tier. I said consistently the same thing.
They need like a fifteen to twenty game stretch sometime
before the end of the season where they build the
habits they need for the postseason. I kept referring to
that constantly with all of those teams. Dallas did that.
Dallas over the tail end of the season sharpened up
their defense. That's what they did. It was like almost
(21:18):
like a little mini training camp post trade deadline where
they got all that shit together and they're carrying that
into the postseason. I think Derek Jones Junior has been
one of the best perimeter defenders in this postseason run. PJ.
Washington has had his moments. He's better on pull up
shooters than he is on drivers. Is a little bit
slow foot laterally sometimes, but PJ. Washington can get defend
on the perimeter. Josh Green can defend on the perimeter,
and Kyrie Irving when he's locked in is an above
(21:39):
average perimeter defender in my opinion. I thought he had
some good reps on Anthony Edwards last night, so like,
I actually think they're a good perimeter defense team. However,
you're right about Boston's elite perimeter players in the sense
that it stretches your perimeter defense. So if you use
Derek Jones Junior. Let's say you use Derek Jones Junior
on Jalen Brown or Derek White, let's just say I
think I'll probably use him on Derek White. We'll see
(22:02):
if they use Derek Jones Junior on Derek White, and
they use PJ. Washington on Jason Tatum and they use
Kyrie Irving on Jalen Brown, that means that Drew Holliday
is gonna be guarded by Luka Doncic. And again, Jalen
Brown's gonna have a massive size advantage against Kyrie, and
we know how he likes to attack in the post,
which may cause them to switch that and Kyrie will
be on Derek White. But like, regardless of that those
(22:24):
matchups work out, Boston just stretches your perimeter defense just
because you need four good perimeter defenders to handle their
perimeter threats. Even with Lively going down and coming back,
do you think bringing in Maxi Kleiba into an obviously
working Dallas starting rotation in the Celtics series could be
a mistake as he's also a defense and rebounding liability
in comparison in coming back from an injury. First of all,
(22:45):
I think Maxic Cleeb was a good defender. I think
he's proven that over the last three years or so.
I think that he also because of his ability to
switch on too perimeter players makes him uniquely valuable in
a series like this against Boston. I think they have
to play him. I think they have to play lot.
I think is actually more likely that you see a
guy like gafferd get his minutes cut in a series
like this. Next question. Looking at this mav Celtics Finals,
(23:09):
one interesting dynamic is the personal motivators of the Dallas Stars.
Boston fans hate Kyrie and I'm sure he will be
extra motivated to beat this opponent more than any other.
Luca and Chrisops Porzingis didn't work out together, and I
think Luca could go into this psychopath tendencies to try
to torch him whenever he gets the chance. Do you
take these dynamics into account when previewing a series? I look,
Do I think Luca's indomitable personality and his ability to
(23:33):
dominate a game as a factor. Yeah, but I don't
think it has anything to do with Porzingis. Like Luca
got mad at a fan last night. Like the competitors
like him, they don't need motivation, They find motivation. It's
not hard for them. At this point. You're playing in
the NBA Finals with a chance to win the title,
and both teams are legitimately very good. I don't think
motivation plays a role at all in this series. I
(23:53):
think everybody's motivated by the Larry O'Brien Trophy. Jason. Question
for the mailbag, what's your take on the national media
being seemingly overly critical and negative on Jason Tatum. He
has always put up numbers and been the best player
on the league's best team. Would appreciate your insight, love
the work you do. So I've seen a lot of
this from Boston fans, and I really don't think it's
(24:15):
that complicated. I think there's a basic disconnect between where
Boston fans view Jason Tatum and want him to be respected,
and where most of the fans in the around the
league view him. So, for instance, Jason Tatum's team success
has been undeniably impressive. I mean, the guys this, He's
about to make his second NBA Finals appearance. He's been
(24:36):
to the conference finals a bunch of times. The dude's
played over one hundred playoff games already. He's had a
lot of big playoff moments. So there's like a lot
that like Tatum's already putting together a pretty long resume
of playoff success, right. But I don't think he's one
of the top players in the league. I think that
if you were ranking players, you're putting Jokic, you're putting Luca,
(24:59):
you're putting Young honest, and there's there's like a gap
before you get to the next tier. Now, when you
get to that next tier, the guys like you know,
Shag Gildas Alexander, the guys like Joel Embi, Jason Tatum.
You could argue Tatum's at the top of that list,
and we'll see how I end up ranking everybody when
we get into the offseason. But I don't think Tatum
(25:20):
is capable of doing what Luka Doncic did last night.
I don't think Tatum can completely mentally and physically dominate
an opponent and get them to lose their confidence. I
don't think Tatum has the ability to reach the heights
that the top players in the league can reach, Right,
And so the problem there is that that's where the
disconnect is. Boston fans desperately want Tatum to be regarded
(25:43):
as one of those guys, and what they point to
are his accomplishments but the rest of the fans in
the league are like, he's not one of those guys,
and we don't care about those accomplishments because one, the
Eastern Conference is super damn weak and two in the
time where the Boston like in the time since the
Eastern Conference has gotten stronger, and I do think in
(26:04):
the last few years the Eastern Conference is stronger at
the top, But in that stretch, Tatum has also had
by far the most talented roster in the conference. And
so what that's done is it's minimized some of those accomplishments. Right,
It's no different than the Lebron MJ thing. Lebron fans
are like eight straight finals, eight straight finals, He's been
to the finals ten times, and like, while that is
an accomplishment that when you factor in the weakness of
(26:26):
the Eastern Conference, is not going to sway an MJ supporter,
a Michael Jordan fan is not going to look at
Lebron's eight straight conference finals and be like, that's the differentiator.
They want to see titles, and that's kind of because
the title is undebatable, right, and even within the scope
of titles, every title is weighed differently, Like Lebron's title
(26:47):
in twenty sixteen with the Cavs is weigh differently than
his title in twenty twenty, when he had the best
team in the league all season long, when Anthony Davis
was also playing at a top five level, and when
they dominated everybody and did it look threatened at any
single point over the course of four rounds of the playoffs.
So guess what in the court of public opinion, the
time that he came back from down three to one
(27:08):
and had to achieve unbelievable level of play to steal
a series against a seventy three win team is going
to be weighed differently, right. That's the thing. Jason Tatum
winning the Eastern Conference this year, winning sixty whatever games
in that weak ass East against the terrible fucking opponents
they played in their three playoff rounds is not going
(27:29):
to sway the court of public opinion to raise Tatum
up to the level with those guys. The only thing
that is going to raise Tatum up to the level
of what Luka and Jokic and Jannis are regarded at
around the league is if he goes toe to toe
with one of those guys and badly outplays them in
a series. The last time he had a chance was
(27:50):
the last year against Jimmy Butler, and he lost the
year before against Steph Curry, and he lost in the
same season against Giannis. It was like they were heavily
favored going into that series because of the Chris Middleton
injury and Yannis out, Like Tatum had big moments in
that series, but Yannis dragged that series to seven games,
and Jannis was the best player in that series, and
(28:13):
so like that, that's the thing, is like what they want,
what everyone outside of Boston wants to see is Tatum
go into this Dallas series and just badly out play
Luca and be the reason why his team wins the title.
And by the way, if he does, I think he
will get recognition from that group. But that's the disconnect there.
(28:34):
Celtics fans are like, look at the resume, and everyone
else is like, that conference is weak as hell, and
ever since the conference got a little tougher. Now you
have the most talent in the league. You have five
thirty million dollars plus players. You have four of them
actually on those contracts, and Derek White is worth Derek
White's worth like thirty five million a year and will
get that the next time he's a free agent. So like,
that's just the reality of the way this stuff works.
(28:57):
Go ask any Kevin Durant fan, They're going to be like,
why isn't he regarded? Is this, this and this? And
everyone says the same thing. Why would we put Kevin
Durant on the level of Stephen Lebron when he won
two titles? When he jumped on to that Golden State Warriors,
seen that won seventy three seventy three games, and he's
lost everywhere else, Like, obviously those aren't going to be
(29:18):
regarded the same way. Like, it's just the reality of
the court of public opinion. How do I feel about Tatum?
I think he's somewhere in that, you know, fourth to
seventh best player in the world. I think that he's
perfect for that Celtics roster. I think his defensive versatility
is one of the most underrated things that we hear
about a superstar in the league. The dude is just
(29:40):
a dominant defensive player that flies completely underneath the radar.
He's a great, connective star, the perfect guy unselfishly to
tie all of that talent together. He's perfect for that
Celtics team. But he's not doing, especially not in terms
of degree of difficulty, what Lucas had to do in
the West, Jokic had to do last year in the West,
(30:01):
what Yannis has had to do in years past as well.
Jannis is playing like Giannis was doing one a title
with Drew Holliday, with Chris Middleton, right Like it's it's
just a different level of difficulty. It's a different level
of challenge for those stars. It's regarded differently in the
court of public opinion. And again, like I don't see
that gap closing. Celtics fans are going to continue to
want Tatum to get that regard and everyone else is
(30:24):
not going to give it to him until he finally
climbs the mountain top. And again like I'll be I
just need to prepare you, Celtics fans. If Boston wins
this series and Tatum averages you know, twenty six, ten
and five, and he shoots forty two percent from the
field and thirty two percent from three, it settles for
a bunch of bad jump shots and impacts the game
(30:45):
still and is a great defender and does all those things.
But Jalen Brown plays awesome, and Drew Holliday plays awesome,
and chrisops Porzingis plays awesome, and Derek White plays awesome,
and Al Horford plays awesome, and Pritchard and Howser hit
a bunch of threes and Dallas just looks overwhelmed by talent,
and all of a sudden, Tatum's hoisting the Bill Russell
Finals MVP Trophy. You guys need to be prepared for
(31:07):
the rest of the league to be like, yeah, it
kind of reminds me of when KD won in twenty
seventeen or twenty eighteen, right, and KD was like actually
considered one of the top guys, and like he didn't
get credit. So like, again, that's just the way this
all this, that's just the way this all works. But
if Tatum goes into the series and he guards Luca
and shuts him down and averages thirty and shoots forty
(31:29):
eight percent from the field in thirty seven percent from
three and is deeply and profoundly impactful and all these
other facets of the game, and the series goes six
and Tatum makes a bunch of big plays and then
he's hoisting the Bill Russell Trophy. Everybody in that other
camp is going to be like, damn, that might be
the best player in the world, And don't be surprised
if you actually see that group elevate Tatum to that level.
(31:52):
But that's what they want to see. They want to
see difficulty, They want to see rising against adversity. They
want to see you going toe to toe with the
best players in the world and beaten those dudes the
same way that Luca did in the last round to
get Aunt, the same way that he did in the
previous round against Shake Gildas Alexander, and the same way
he did in the round before that against Paul George
and James Harden. That's what people want to see. That
(32:13):
is what gets regarded in terms of the actual full
blown NBA wide fan base. Local fan bases all have
their different opinions about it, right, I'm a Lakers fan.
Lakers fans are a lot higher on Anthony Davis than
I am. Like that's kind of the way this stuff works, right,
Like it is totally normal. Like Warriors fans still think
Steph Curry is the best player in the world. Every
(32:35):
Denver fan has been in my mentions and YouTube comments
non stop complaining about how I have elevated Luca above
Jokic because of what he's doing in this postseason run,
because they're convinced their guy is still the best. This
is totally normal, but if you're gonna win the court
of public opinion, there has to be this undeniable evidence
to win that battle. One last note on that front, though,
(32:59):
like I do you feel bad for Celtics fans in
the sense that I do think Tatum has become a
bit underrated, in the sense that people I think don't
pay enough attention to the good things he does do
for that team. If Kyrie wins another ring, does he
s pass guards like Dame Westbrook and Harden, not in
a vacuum, but as a player who contributes to winning basketball.
So when I look at like number two options who
primarily focus on scoring the basketball, who helped lead their
(33:22):
team to a championship, I think in recent NBA history,
I think guys like Paul Pierce in two thousand and
eight behind Kevin Garnett, who I thought was the best
player on that team. Jamal Murray for the Denver Nuggets
was a good example of that. Chris Middleton for the Bucks,
like he was the one who hit basically the game
winner in that NET series in Game seven when they
went into overtime. Like, those are guys that kind of
(33:42):
focused on shot making to complement their stars and they
led their teams. Now if he helped help their teams
win titles, Now if he does it twice, if Kyrie
does it twice, the next kind of peer that I'd
be looking at there for Kyrie is a guy like
Tony Parker, where it's like, clearly not the best player
on his team, but like a scoring ceiling Razer who
(34:07):
works at the guard position and is probably closer to
the top of the league than people realize. And by
the way, before you think Tony Parker is an insult
for Kyrie Irving, Tony Parker has made second Team All
NBA three times, Kyrie's made it once. Tony Parker has
a Finals MVP, so like, that's not an insult, that
is a compliment. I think Kyrie Irving enters into that
Tony Parker layer of like secondary scoring guard that just
(34:30):
helps lift a championship team to that level. Respect for work. Jason,
My question is do you see the Celtics mixing in
different coverages to throw Luca off like a box and
one or zones, or do you see them staying home
and trying to make and making him try to beat
single coverage and eliminating the other players. I think we'll
see a bunch of different coverages. I think we'll see
some blitzing, especially on Knights when Luca's got a going.
(34:51):
I think we'll see a lot of drop coverage. And
I think we'll see a lot of switching too. I
think we'll see a lot of like trying to force
Luca to score on an island. I think we're gonna
see everything and again, when it comes to to these
types of situations trying to slow down a superstar, it's
all about that variety and mixing up coverages and trying
to keep the offensive player off balance. Jason, are we
(35:12):
underestimating the Boston defense a bit? I think Holliday is
as strong as Dort will give Luca an issue. Derek
White is going to absolutely swallow up each of Kyrie's shots.
First of all, I do think we under a Boston's defense.
I think that they've demonstrated, especially in clutch time this
postseason run that when those four guys Brown, Tatum, White
in Holiday, when they all really lock in on defense.
(35:35):
I think that they can be frightening on the perimeter.
Right that said, I do not think Drew Holliday is
as big and strong as Lou Dort. I think that
like Lou Dort brings like another level of physicality that
Drew can't match. And just in terms of his size,
I don't think he's going to give Luca as many
issues as Lou Dort did. And Derek White is an
awesome guard defender, but no one's swallowing up each of
(35:57):
Kyrie's shots, Like, have some respect for your opponent here,
Like Luca and Kyrie are really really good. That said,
I do believe that Boston is capable of being a
better defensive team than Dallas, and I think that we'll
see some crazy defensive punches from Boston in this series.
Hello Jason, I have a question about Dallas defending Boston
with Porzingis Lively had some problems with him in the
(36:19):
one time porzingis played in this matchup. I just feel
like this is a potentially bad matchup for Dallas. How
does Dallas try to counter it if it proves to
be problem early in the series. If it proves to
be a problem early in the series. Thanks love the
show a couple of things. We talked a little bit
more about that pick and pop piece earlier in the show,
so I won't get into that again. I am excited
to look at the film and see what you're referencing
(36:41):
in terms of Porzingis and Lively's individual matchup. But like again,
I think it comes down to them running drop until
Porzingis starts making shots, and then switching if Porzingis starts hitting.
At that point, Jason said, Luca is going to be
the best player in the mav Celtics series. Is Kyrie
the second best player? Is Kyrie the second best player
in that series? No, Jayson Tatum is Again, like I think,
(37:04):
I think we're I think the NBA fan base at
large under rats Tatum a little bit. I think he's
a lot closer to Luca's level than people think. What
will it take for you to admit that Jason Tatum
is a better player than Luka Doncic. I understand that
Luca has better stats and is a better passer than Tatum,
but Tatum is a much lower usage rate due to
boston stacked roster. Tatum is bigger, faster, longer, stronger, and
(37:26):
a better athlete and a much better defensive player, a
better jump shot in my opinion, a very underrated passer,
no holes in his game, et cetera. He also tends
to outplay Luca whenever they play head to head, and
Boston has won the last four meetings. If Jayson Tatum
outplays Luca and Boston wins comfortably in five or six games,
will you finally admit that you've had Tatum too low
in your player rankings and that he's a better player
than Luka Doncic. This male back question is a perfect
(37:48):
example of what I was talking about earlier. That's how
most Boston fans viewed Tatum, and so that's the disconnect.
They view him as better than Luca and better than
the guys at the top of the league, and outside
of Boston people don't feel that way. They view him
in the tier below that right, couple things, I do
agree that Luca has the ability. I'm gonna take it
(38:09):
to the front portion of this question. What will it
take for you to admit that Jason Tatum is a
better player than Luka Doncic guard him in the series.
You're gonna need to guard him in the series. Lock
him up and do everything you can to help your
offense score on the other end of the floor, be
the better two way player, and lift your team to
win the title. It's literally that simple. But if he
(38:33):
doesn't take the Luca assignment and Luca shreds them, but
Boston just wins because they're more talented. Like that question
that Boston's won the last four meetings, Boston's best team.
Boston has the most talent in the league by far,
so like they should win most of the time, they
should win the title this year. They're minus two twenty
favorite in the series. Tatum is not viewed as a
minus two to twenty better player than Luka Doncic. That's
(38:55):
the roster. The roster is what's dictating that. As far
as the specifics, is Tatum bigger in terms of like
overall physicality, It's closer than you think. I'd probably give
the slight edge to Luca. Is Tatum faster, yes, Tatum longer, Yes,
tatums stronger. Tatum's leaner, but like more like defined muscle.
(39:18):
But Luca's a big, strong motherfucker, a better athlete. Definitely,
Tatum much better defensive player. Definitely tatum better jump shot,
Absolutely not. Tatum's jumper is very inconsistent. Lucas is more
like Luca hasn't shot particularly well in this postseason run
up until the last round, but from October to now,
Luca's been a better shooter. Very underrated passer. You're right,
(39:41):
Tatum is an underrated passer. I think he's one of
the best passers of all the forwards in the league.
Luca might be the best passer in the league. That's
just it's a different level. No holes in his game.
Totally disagree. I think Tatum in slow down half court
environments can struggle. Sometimes. He's better at it than he
used to be. He's better at it than a lot
of people think he is, but he is not the
same level of half court initiator as Luka Doncic. So again,
(40:02):
in terms of it has to be Tatum badly out
playing Luca and his team winning. It can't just be
the team wins, but Tatum and Luca just kind of
play each other to a draw at that point. I
think Lucas just accomplished more in this playoff run in
terms of degree of difficulty in what his team has
needed him to do to win. But I'm not going
to write that off like it's very possible that two
(40:24):
weeks from now we're talking about Tatum is the best
player in the world. I'm not saying he can't do it.
I'm saying I just don't think he's going to do it.
I think it's more I think the most likely scenario
in this series is that Boston wins and Tatum looks
more or less like he's looked through the other three
rounds of the postseason, like just another really good player
in the NBA. Do you think that Tatum has the
(40:45):
ability to lock up or at least make life difficult
for Luca to play well in this series. I personally
think that he can and will sacrifice his offensive production
to do so, leaving the rest of the Celtics to
pick up the slack offensively. Do you think that Dallas
has the personnel to guard the rest of the Celtics
starters effectively. So this would be the worst case scenario
for Tatum and whatever sort of public opinion sort of thing,
(41:06):
because the public is so focused on box score numbers,
But that is Boston's best pathway to victory. If Tatum
goes into the series from this jump and says I
am guarding Luka Doncic the entirety of the series. Everyone
else I will spot up in the corner and run
second side action whenever I have the legs for it.
But you guys are on the offense, I'm gonna focus
on Tatum. If Boston did that, I'd feel pretty strongly
(41:27):
that Boston's gonna win this series. It's just unlikely to
me that they do that. I hope. I think that
if they find themselves in some trouble, like if Dallas
is up to one in the series, I think we'll
see a lot more Tatum on Luca, especially if they're
struggling to guard him. But like that to me is
like then it's not the super exciting way to win
(41:47):
the series. But I think that that's an interesting direction
that Boston could go. That would be really difficult for
Dallas to deal with. Who needs this championship more. It's
a tough one. Boston's bringing everybody back next year. I
said this with Colin the other day, but the only
thing that would really freak me out if I was
Boston is if Tatum sucks. If Tatum goes into the
(42:10):
series like he did in the Warriors series and plays
abhorrently bad and Luca dominates the series and Dallas wins
in six games. That's a catastrophe because now it's like,
holy shit, Jason Tatum at age twenty six just cannot
go toe to toe with the best guys. And it
doesn't matter how talented of a roster we put around him,
They're just not good enough. Like that would be a catastrophe,
(42:35):
But any other outcome is great, Like if Tatum plays
great and you lose, you're bringing everybody back next year
and you'll probably and you have a much better chance
to get it done with another year of experience for Tatum,
right like, or if you win, right, Dallas has it's
just if they lose, it's just bad, no matter how
you slice it, because they've poured everything. The worst case
(42:55):
scenario for Dallas is if you get killed. If Boston
wins this series four games to one, that's rough because
now you've invested so heavily in this roster, which does
not have enough firepower to beat Boston, and that becomes
an issue. Right, And then you also didn't have to
play Denver in the Western Conference playoffs, which there's a
decent chance you have to the following year, right, So,
(43:17):
like it's kind of both teams will live to fight
again regardless of what happens. I'm gonna say Dallas needs
this championship more though, just simply because the West is
much harder to get through, and because they've invested so
much more in terms of draft capital into this particular
season and they have less ability to pivot than Boston does.
Boston has all these really good players, they can trade
really good players, you know, like Dallas has a lot
(43:39):
of play finishers that are valuable for them but maybe
less valuable elsewhere around the league. All right, guys, that
is all I have for this particular mail bag. We'll
be back tomorrow with another mail bag on the rest
of the league. I'll see you guys. Then the volume
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(02:08):
hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Saturday. Everybody'll love you.
Guys are having a great start. To your weekend. As promised,
yesterday we did the Western Conference Finals kind of fallout
mail bag. This episode is going to be all the
mail bag questions centered around the NBA Finals, so everything
having to do with Boston and Dallas against each other.
And then tomorrow morning we'll have one final mail bag
(02:29):
that's going over everything else that's around the league. Anything
that any question that I received that didn't have anything
to do with Dallas, Minnesota or Boston is going to
be in tomorrow's show. You guys know the joke before
we get started. Subscribe to our to the Hoops and
I YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos.
Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys o't
show announcements, don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you
get your podcast on our Hoops tonight, and then keep
(02:51):
dropping mail bag questions in those YouTube comments so we
can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason.
All right, let's talk so basketball. So question number one,
why are you picking Boston in the finals. The MAVs
are better at playmaking shot making. They have the best
player in the series and the best duo call coaching.
(03:12):
Bbe basketball IQ, athleticism, size and length, chemistry and fit
a tie. Celtics are better defensively and have more talent
across the roster, but Dallas has more depth. Are you
expecting Boston to slow down don Jachenrving and their collective
offense to match the MAVs superstar duo? How would that work?
So I put this question at the beginning for a
specific reason, because we're going to get to a bunch
(03:35):
of specific topics in the finals today. But I haven't
done all my prep yet. So a couple things I
mentioned on the Cowhord podcast on Monday when he asked
me where are you leaning? And I am leaning Boston
before I go into my prep. But I haven't done
all my prep yet, and so I'm taking the weekend
off with my wife. I recorded this show on Friday,
taking the weekend off with my wife, decompressing for a
(03:57):
little bit. Monday morning, I'm hitting the film and we're
gonna do an entire episode centered around Boston on Offense
on Monday. We're gonna do an entire episode around Dallas
on Offense on Tuesday, and then I have two interview
style ones with the nerd sessh guys and Sam Vassini
for next week. That is gonna run on Wednesday morning
and Wednesday evening, flowing into the game one day, which
(04:20):
is on Thursday. Right, So we're gonna have a lot
of film in those two sessions. I'm going to give
you my actual pick, but yeah, I'm leaning Boston going in,
but I don't know what I'm gonna think after I
go watch the film. It's very possible that I flip
to Dallas. We'll see when we get to that point.
I'm not actually making my official pick until we get
into probably the Tuesday show next week. That also factors
(04:45):
in for some of the way I'm answering these questions
right now, Like I'm gonna reference some concepts that we're
gonna get into in more detail when we get into
the film next week. As far as all of the
specific details that he mentioned, we'll get into them in
some of this mail bag and some of them in
the film sessions next week. But I just wanted to
reference I haven't picked anybody yet. Yes, I'm leaning Boston,
but we'll see how that kind of shapes out after
(05:07):
we go into all of our prep. Next question, Hey, Jason,
love the show. I've been learning a lot from you
for over a year now. You're the best analyst I've
found by far. Greetings from Brazil. Thank you for the
kind words. Is porzingis the key for Boston to reduce
Dallas's bigs impact by pulling them out of the paint,
and we'll in giving Tatum and Brown clear lanes to
(05:27):
the basket. I'm a Dallas fan and I'm worried about
this dynamic. So what was the biggest lesson we learned
from the Minnesota Dallas series. It was a perfect example
of the fact that matchups dictate a lot when it
comes to playoff series. This is a I had a
big rant about this in the mail bag yesterday. As
it pertains the Dallas fans. Dallas fans are the latest
(05:48):
and a long line of fans Denver last year, the
year before that, Golden State, Milwaukee, the Lakers, even where
there's this feeling that, oh, we're winning now, that means
we're invincible, and that were you know, this awesome team
that no one's ever gonna stop. And there is not
a team like that in the league right now. The
last team that we had that was like that was
(06:09):
the Golden State Warriors in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, I
think out of all of the teams that I've seen
in this last kind of five year window, I think
Denver is the most capable of sustaining success a year
in and year out. They've got this perfectly constructed starting five,
a really deep group of starters, and then obviously Nicole
Jokich is with Luca right there at the top of
(06:29):
the league, if not at the very top of the league. Right.
But like, no one's invincible, and matchups do play a
big role in who wins. And we just saw a
Minnesota team beat my championship favorite going into the postseason, Denver,
the same Denver team that beat Boston twice, that won
the championship last year in convincing fashion, right, that team
(06:51):
had a lot of problems with Minnesota. Right. And then
that same Minnesota team walked into Dallas and it felt
to me like, six halves into this, or excuse me,
six quarters into the series, right around halfway through Game two,
I'm like, Oh, they can't beat these guys because of
the matchup, because of the perimeter athleticism, the interior defense piece. Right.
And we had a YouTube comment during one of those
shows where someone said, and I thought this was kind
(07:14):
of profound at the time. He's like, this is a
great example of how we can't look at playoff matchups
through the lens of who the best team is in
a vacuum. We have to look at it in individual
matchups and how these basketball teams face up against each other. Right,
Because I personally would have picked Denver to beat Dallas
had they faced in the conference finals, but they didn't
play each other because Minnesota was a bad matchup for Denver.
(07:36):
They were able to dispatch of Denver. Now we have
Dallas first Minnesota in the conference finals and Dallas wins.
By the way, I think Dallas would have had a
chance to beat Denver. I would have given them a
good chance. I just would have leaned slightly towards Denver
in that matchup. The point is matchups matter. So what's
different about this matchup compared to the Minnesota matchup? Right now,
(07:57):
there's in terms of defensive personnel, the Boston has more
good perimeter defenders. In terms of like, I think they've
four in their starting lineup that are all awesome, like
Drew Holliday's awesome Jalen Brown's awesome, Tatum's awesome, Derek White
is awesome. Right. Minnesota has really good perimeter defenders, especially
in Anthony Edwards and Jade McDaniel's right, But like the
other guys that they have that are good perimeter defenders
(08:18):
come off the bench, they have some offensive limitations, right. So,
like I think Boston's perimeter defensive personnel is at a
similar level to Minnesota, if not a little deeper. Right.
But the reality is is none of them are big
enough really to hang with with Luca, except for Jason Tatum, Right,
So that's an interesting matchup piece we're gonna look at.
We're gonna go into a bunch of different matchup pieces
over the course of this this mail bag, but I
(08:41):
want to zero in on one specific matchup, and that's
the Porzingis and Horford matchup. Right. So if we look
at Minnesota, they are they played Rudy Gobert the majority
of the minutes, so they had shooting big lineups, or
they'd have a shooting big at the center. But this
is gonna be very different in the in the sense
that you're gonna face forty eight minutes of a sh
shooting center the entire series, it's gonna be Porzingis for
(09:03):
probably right around you know, twenty seven to twenty eight minutes,
and it's gonna be Horford the remaining minutes. Right, So
you're gonna face shooting bigs the entire series, and they
are going to pick and pop. That's what they do.
They are a pick and pop, keep the floor spaced
type of team. And so if you run a deep
drop coverage or even a high drop coverage like Dallas
did for the most part against Minnesota, you're gonna leave
(09:25):
some guys open. Schematically, we've talked to this through before.
If in a drop coverage, the guard is chasing over
the top, so the offensive player's going downhill, the guard's
chasing over the top, trying to apply back pressure. Right,
you're trying to funnel them into your screen defender that's waiting.
He's either up at the level or he's a little
bit further back, but he's waiting on the other side
of that screen. What if the guy who sets the
screen instead of rolling into that same vicinity, pops to
(09:48):
the three point line. If he pops to the three
point line, he's gonna be open. He's gonna be open
unless you rotate from the weak side, which is gonna
cause other problems on the weak side of your defense. Right,
So that is a very unique piece in this series
from a matchup standpoint, that's very different than what we
saw from Minnesota. Again, Minnesota had shooting bigs, but they
did not lean into that for large portions of the series. Right.
(10:11):
This is where I think Maxi Kliba and him being
back in the lineup is an interesting kind of matchup
piece for Dallas. I think that we could end up
seeing more of the Kleiba Lively duo than we see
of the Lively Gafford duo in this series because Gafford,
while he's an awesome while he's an awesome rim protector,
(10:32):
and his rim protection was very valuable against Minnesota, Lively
is better on the perimeter and Kleiba's better on the perimeter.
And so I think what will end up happening a
lot in this series is Dallas is gonna have to
do some switching. They're gonna have to have lineups out
there with Kleiba PJ. Washington or Lively PJ Washington, with
Derek Jones Junior obviously Kyrie King guard on the perimeter
(10:52):
as well, and they're gonna have to do more switching
in those ball screens. My guess is that's not how
it will start. They'll start in their drop and they'll
leave Porzingis open to start the series, and basically they're
gonna be like, let's see if he hits them. In
my experience watching the NBA, every single team basically concedes
the pick and pop three until it becomes a problem.
(11:14):
Doesn't matter if it's Myles Turner, doesn't matter. If it
was Anthony Davis back in twenty twenty when he could shoot,
doesn't matter if it's Nicole Jokic. Nicole Jokic got left
open on pick and pops in the Minnesota series, right, Like,
it doesn't matter who it is. Most teams will favor
the ball handler in a pick and pop and leave
the popping big open until he starts making shots. Once
(11:35):
he starts making shots, that's when you'll see kind of
like what Boston did in the last round. Will they'll
switch Tatum onto Myles Turner, Right, That's that's what I
expect Dallas to do. I think they'll start in a
drop coverage and concede shots to Porzingis, but eventually Porzingis
if he starts hitting, and I mean like over forty percent.
If Porzingi starts hitting, that's when they'll start switching. And
(11:55):
that's when I think we'll see a lot more Lively,
a lot more Kleiba because Kliba can guard on the perimeter.
Lively can guard on the perimeter. And whoever, the primary
round ball guy is Derek Jones Junior, they're gonna have
him sprint back out to Christops Porzingis sprint back out
to Al Horford. Now Porzingis presents another issue in the
sense that he's a switch beater. He will take you
down to the post and try to attack your guard
(12:17):
in an isolation situation there. However, that is something that
is easier to handle as a team than a wide
open three. So, for instance, I Porzingis is hitting forty
percent of his pick and pop threes. That comes out
to one point two points per possession. So if you're
giving up five of those a game, you can safely
assume you're gonna you're gonna give up one point two
points per possession for those five possessions. Right, what does
(12:41):
that come out to like seven points or something like that? Right, So,
like you that's that's what you can count on for
those five possessions. But if he goes down to the post,
it's more possible if you can offer backside help rotate
out of it, maybe you can hold him below a
point point of one point two points per possession. Right, So, like,
those are the types of decisions that the staff has
to make. What are we willing to concede? And again,
(13:03):
I believe they'll start by conceding the pick and pop,
But if Porzinga starts hitting half of them, that's when
they'll probably start switching and try to make Porzingis beat
post mismatches. Download. Now, we're going to get into more
of the other matchup examples, both in this mail bag
and when we get into the film session next week.
But throw everything out. Everything you saw about Boston in
(13:23):
the first three rounds, everything you saw about Dallas in
the first three rounds, throw it all out. It's all
about this matchup and how these guys line up. And yes,
this is a fundamentally very different offensive attack from Boston
than Minnesota, and it will challenge Dallas's defense in a
different way, in the same way that Minnesota's defense was
(13:44):
constructed to deal with Denver's interior size and passing, and
they locked up Denver, but they had very little success
slowing down Dallas. Dallas had a one to eighteen and
change offensive rating against Minnesota because they were a bad
matchup for Dallas's offense. Right, we have to throw all
that out and zoom in on just this particular series.
(14:07):
Better duo Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown or Luca and
Kyrie Irving. This is a tough one to me, and
I think it's very close to make it. On a
very simple level, I believe Jalen Brown is a bit
better than Kyrie Irving. Jalen Brown is a much better
defensive player, but Kyrie is a good defensive player. I
think Kyrie is a better offensive player, but Jalen Brown
is a very good offensive player. Right, So I think
(14:30):
Jalen Brown Jalen Brown. We'll see when we get into
the player rankings, but I think Jalen Brown's right around
the fifteenth best player in the world right now, and
Kyrie Irving is somewhere in that like seventeen to twenty
two type of range, right, probably a little high. I
think Kyrie's gained some ground in my book, so like
I would argue that, like we'll see when we get
into the offseason, but I'd put Kyrie closer to the
(14:50):
seventeen side of that. You know, he's having an amazing
offensive postseason run. Don't look at the box score numbers either.
It's about timely scoring. Like Kyrie has been passive in
a a lot of games as Luca's run the show
and then taken over late, that's obviously gonna manifest in
lower box score numbers. It's kind of like Jaylen Brown
he averaged what twenty three points a game this regular season,
He's capable of averaging twenty seven to twenty eight on
(15:11):
a good team if he's the number one option, right, So,
like everything is in context of their team situations. But
I do think Jaylen Brown's a little better than Kyrie Irving.
But I think Luka Doncic is a little better than
Jason Tatum. I think Luka Doncic is a bona fide
top tier superstar. I think Tatum is like near the
top of the next tier of players. And so from there,
why I lean towards Luca and Kyrie as a duo
(15:34):
is the fact that I think having the best player
in the series is a real advantage. And I do
think Luca is a better basketball player than Jason Tatum,
and so I do think Dallas is a better duo.
But that doesn't matter because the next three guys that
you're gonna name are all gonna be Celtics. It's gonna
be Derek White, Porzingis, and Andrew Holliday if you're ranking
players in the series. And so I don't think it
(15:54):
really matters much in this series. But I do think
Luca and Kyrie are the better duo. I'd argue it's
actual more important just to focus on Luca and Tatum.
Luca being better than Tatum is a more point, is
a bigger point of optimism for Dallas. What do you
think the pressure points will be for both teams? Defensively,
Let's start with Dallas on defense. The one of the
(16:15):
biggest difference between Boston and Minnesota is Boston is equipped
to attack you from every angle, whereas Minnesota has a
bunch of play finishers on the floor. Right like Ant
can run action, Cat can renaction. Conly can run action,
but ideally you don't want to run a ton through him.
But it's like Gobart is strictly a play finisher and
a bad one at that, And Jaden McDaniels is mostly
(16:36):
just a play finisher and he's not that great at it. Right,
this Boston team everyone is both a play finisher and
a offensive initiator in their own way, and so they
can target entry points easier than Minnesota could. So like
Minnesota had a hard time attacking Luca because even when
Luca would get on a switch, they just load up
behind him by ignoring Rudy Gobert and it would just
(16:58):
be gaffered or lively waiting under the if Ant did
manage to beat Luke off the dribble, which allowed Luca
to press up on Ant and take away the pull
up jumper. Right, this series is gonna be different in
the sense that Luca's gonna have to guard one of
those guys. We'll talk about the matchups later, but like
it's it's very possible that he ends up on a
Jlen Brown or on a Drew Holiday, and like you
will see, Boston will just give the let's say he's
(17:20):
on Drew Holiday, They'll just give the ball to Drew
and they'll start running action and they'll start looking to attack,
and like Let's say they bring Tatum into the action
and Luca just switches and allows you know, Derrek Jones
Junior or PJ. Washington to guard Drew Holliday. They're throwing
the ball right to Tatum on Luca, and it's not
gonna be Gafford or Lively parked in the paint on
the back line. It's gonna be Porzinga's spacing to the
(17:42):
le to the opposite wing, or to the opposite corner.
And so, like I do think and by the way
we saw this, like one of the things I thought
was really interesting about the Pacers series. Boston was relentless
attacking Halliburn. It was like every time down the floor,
and so that I think is a big matchup difference
in this series, especially from a fatigue standpoint. Luca got
to do a lot of standing around against Minnesota on
(18:03):
the defensive end of the floor. He obviously did his
job in that position, but he didn't have to engage
himself as much defensively. Boston is going to make Luca work.
He's an entry point. Kyrie irving for all of his
gifts as a size issue, so I think that teams
will look to attack him. I say, teams Boston. I
think Boston will look to attack him as well. But
Luca and Kyrie being forced to guard the ball against
(18:26):
Boston is going to be a very different type of
dynamic than the last series. On the opposite end of
the floor, I think that Luca is going to like
they might put Tatum, Boston will inevitably at some point
in the series put Tatum on the ballscreen big to
try to shut down ball screen actions. But it's just
gonna be the and I actually think we'll see less
of that because they're not a pick and pop team.
(18:47):
You might see that a little bit with Kliba, but
I doubt we'll see too much of it because they're
a pick and roll team more than a pick and
pop team. Right But even if Tatum, even if they
move guys around, Luca will find who never Porzingis is guarding,
even if it ends up being Derek Jones Junior. If
Boston puts Porzingis on Derek Jones Jr. Luca will bring
(19:08):
him up into the ball screen and he will look
to attack the exact same way that he attacks in
these other ball screen actions. Specifically, one of the things
I've noticed on film the size is an issue for Boston.
Lucas too big for most of their guys, but I
do think that they have a unique weapon in Jason
Tatum to unleash on Luca that most teams in the
(19:30):
league don't have, which is a really big, strong forward
that it can actually match Luca's physicality. That said, Boston's
entry points are gonna be Derek White and Drew Holliday.
Boston does a lot of switching, especially on guard guard actions.
My guess is Luca's gonna do a lot of dribbling
them off the floor, calling for a guard guard screen
to get either Derek White or Drew Holliday switched on
to him, and then put them in jail, trap them
(19:52):
on his backside, methodically work down the lane, try to
bait the rim protector one way or another, and either
shoot or pass out of there. So like again, I
think the pressure points or entry points for both defenses
will be For Dallas, it's gonna be Luca and Kyrie
just getting attacked on the ball by Boston, and on
the other end of the floor, it's gonna be the
smaller perimeter players I think struggling to handle Luca's size
(20:13):
and strength Hey, Jason, As you've spoken about on the show,
one of the MAVs key attributes that has led to
their Finals performances is rim protection. One thing we haven't
talked much about, however, is their perimeter defense, which ranks
among the bottom in the league this season. Although this
wasn't a factor in the Minnesota series due to Minnesota
not being a very good perimeter offense or jump shooting
team in general, do you expect this to be a
factor in how the Finals goes when considering Boston's elite
(20:35):
perimeter players and Derek White, Jason Tatum, etc. Love the
VIDs a couple things. First of all, I do think
Dallas has a good perimeter defense. I think that they
did demonstrate that over the tail end of the season,
this Dallas team. Do you remember how all year long
I kept talking about the mediocre teams, and that was
like Dallas, the Lakers, the Bucks, you know, the Warriors,
(20:57):
the like, all those teams that were like kind of
beneath the top tier. I said consistently the same thing.
They need like a fifteen to twenty game stretch sometime
before the end of the season where they build the
habits they need for the postseason. I kept referring to
that constantly with all of those teams. Dallas did that.
Dallas over the tail end of the season sharpened up
their defense. That's what they did. It was like almost
(21:18):
like a little mini training camp post trade deadline where
they got all that shit together and they're carrying that
into the postseason. I think Derek Jones Junior has been
one of the best perimeter defenders in this postseason run. PJ.
Washington has had his moments. He's better on pull up
shooters than he is on drivers. Is a little bit
slow foot laterally sometimes, but PJ. Washington can get defend
on the perimeter. Josh Green can defend on the perimeter,
and Kyrie Irving when he's locked in is an above
(21:39):
average perimeter defender in my opinion. I thought he had
some good reps on Anthony Edwards last night, so like,
I actually think they're a good perimeter defense team. However,
you're right about Boston's elite perimeter players in the sense
that it stretches your perimeter defense. So if you use
Derek Jones Junior. Let's say you use Derek Jones Junior
on Jalen Brown or Derek White, let's just say I
think I'll probably use him on Derek White. We'll see
(22:02):
if they use Derek Jones Junior on Derek White, and
they use PJ. Washington on Jason Tatum and they use
Kyrie Irving on Jalen Brown, that means that Drew Holliday
is gonna be guarded by Luka Doncic. And again, Jalen
Brown's gonna have a massive size advantage against Kyrie, and
we know how he likes to attack in the post,
which may cause them to switch that and Kyrie will
be on Derek White. But like, regardless of that those
(22:24):
matchups work out, Boston just stretches your perimeter defense just
because you need four good perimeter defenders to handle their
perimeter threats. Even with Lively going down and coming back,
do you think bringing in Maxi Kleiba into an obviously
working Dallas starting rotation in the Celtics series could be
a mistake as he's also a defense and rebounding liability
in comparison in coming back from an injury. First of all,
(22:45):
I think Maxic Cleeb was a good defender. I think
he's proven that over the last three years or so.
I think that he also because of his ability to
switch on too perimeter players makes him uniquely valuable in
a series like this against Boston. I think they have
to play him. I think they have to play lot.
I think is actually more likely that you see a
guy like gafferd get his minutes cut in a series
like this. Next question. Looking at this mav Celtics Finals,
(23:09):
one interesting dynamic is the personal motivators of the Dallas Stars.
Boston fans hate Kyrie and I'm sure he will be
extra motivated to beat this opponent more than any other.
Luca and Chrisops Porzingis didn't work out together, and I
think Luca could go into this psychopath tendencies to try
to torch him whenever he gets the chance. Do you
take these dynamics into account when previewing a series? I look,
Do I think Luca's indomitable personality and his ability to
(23:33):
dominate a game as a factor. Yeah, but I don't
think it has anything to do with Porzingis. Like Luca
got mad at a fan last night. Like the competitors
like him, they don't need motivation, They find motivation. It's
not hard for them. At this point. You're playing in
the NBA Finals with a chance to win the title,
and both teams are legitimately very good. I don't think
motivation plays a role at all in this series. I
(23:53):
think everybody's motivated by the Larry O'Brien Trophy. Jason. Question
for the mailbag, what's your take on the national media
being seemingly overly critical and negative on Jason Tatum. He
has always put up numbers and been the best player
on the league's best team. Would appreciate your insight, love
the work you do. So I've seen a lot of
this from Boston fans, and I really don't think it's
(24:15):
that complicated. I think there's a basic disconnect between where
Boston fans view Jason Tatum and want him to be respected,
and where most of the fans in the around the
league view him. So, for instance, Jason Tatum's team success
has been undeniably impressive. I mean, the guys this, He's
about to make his second NBA Finals appearance. He's been
(24:36):
to the conference finals a bunch of times. The dude's
played over one hundred playoff games already. He's had a
lot of big playoff moments. So there's like a lot
that like Tatum's already putting together a pretty long resume
of playoff success, right. But I don't think he's one
of the top players in the league. I think that
if you were ranking players, you're putting Jokic, you're putting Luca,
(24:59):
you're putting Young honest, and there's there's like a gap
before you get to the next tier. Now, when you
get to that next tier, the guys like you know,
Shag Gildas Alexander, the guys like Joel Embi, Jason Tatum.
You could argue Tatum's at the top of that list,
and we'll see how I end up ranking everybody when
we get into the offseason. But I don't think Tatum
(25:20):
is capable of doing what Luka Doncic did last night.
I don't think Tatum can completely mentally and physically dominate
an opponent and get them to lose their confidence. I
don't think Tatum has the ability to reach the heights
that the top players in the league can reach, Right,
And so the problem there is that that's where the
disconnect is. Boston fans desperately want Tatum to be regarded
(25:43):
as one of those guys, and what they point to
are his accomplishments but the rest of the fans in
the league are like, he's not one of those guys,
and we don't care about those accomplishments because one, the
Eastern Conference is super damn weak and two in the
time where the Boston like in the time since the
Eastern Conference has gotten stronger, and I do think in
(26:04):
the last few years the Eastern Conference is stronger at
the top, But in that stretch, Tatum has also had
by far the most talented roster in the conference. And
so what that's done is it's minimized some of those accomplishments. Right,
It's no different than the Lebron MJ thing. Lebron fans
are like eight straight finals, eight straight finals, He's been
to the finals ten times, and like, while that is
an accomplishment that when you factor in the weakness of
(26:26):
the Eastern Conference, is not going to sway an MJ supporter,
a Michael Jordan fan is not going to look at
Lebron's eight straight conference finals and be like, that's the differentiator.
They want to see titles, and that's kind of because
the title is undebatable, right, and even within the scope
of titles, every title is weighed differently, Like Lebron's title
(26:47):
in twenty sixteen with the Cavs is weigh differently than
his title in twenty twenty, when he had the best
team in the league all season long, when Anthony Davis
was also playing at a top five level, and when
they dominated everybody and did it look threatened at any
single point over the course of four rounds of the playoffs.
So guess what in the court of public opinion, the
time that he came back from down three to one
(27:08):
and had to achieve unbelievable level of play to steal
a series against a seventy three win team is going
to be weighed differently, right. That's the thing. Jason Tatum
winning the Eastern Conference this year, winning sixty whatever games
in that weak ass East against the terrible fucking opponents
they played in their three playoff rounds is not going
(27:29):
to sway the court of public opinion to raise Tatum
up to the level with those guys. The only thing
that is going to raise Tatum up to the level
of what Luka and Jokic and Jannis are regarded at
around the league is if he goes toe to toe
with one of those guys and badly outplays them in
a series. The last time he had a chance was
(27:50):
the last year against Jimmy Butler, and he lost the
year before against Steph Curry, and he lost in the
same season against Giannis. It was like they were heavily
favored going into that series because of the Chris Middleton
injury and Yannis out, Like Tatum had big moments in
that series, but Yannis dragged that series to seven games,
and Jannis was the best player in that series, and
(28:13):
so like that, that's the thing, is like what they want,
what everyone outside of Boston wants to see is Tatum
go into this Dallas series and just badly out play
Luca and be the reason why his team wins the title.
And by the way, if he does, I think he
will get recognition from that group. But that's the disconnect there.
(28:34):
Celtics fans are like, look at the resume, and everyone
else is like, that conference is weak as hell, and
ever since the conference got a little tougher. Now you
have the most talent in the league. You have five
thirty million dollars plus players. You have four of them
actually on those contracts, and Derek White is worth Derek
White's worth like thirty five million a year and will
get that the next time he's a free agent. So like,
that's just the reality of the way this stuff works.
(28:57):
Go ask any Kevin Durant fan, They're going to be like,
why isn't he regarded? Is this, this and this? And
everyone says the same thing. Why would we put Kevin
Durant on the level of Stephen Lebron when he won
two titles? When he jumped on to that Golden State Warriors,
seen that won seventy three seventy three games, and he's
lost everywhere else, Like, obviously those aren't going to be
(29:18):
regarded the same way. Like, it's just the reality of
the court of public opinion. How do I feel about Tatum?
I think he's somewhere in that, you know, fourth to
seventh best player in the world. I think that he's
perfect for that Celtics roster. I think his defensive versatility
is one of the most underrated things that we hear
about a superstar in the league. The dude is just
(29:40):
a dominant defensive player that flies completely underneath the radar.
He's a great, connective star, the perfect guy unselfishly to
tie all of that talent together. He's perfect for that
Celtics team. But he's not doing, especially not in terms
of degree of difficulty, what Lucas had to do in
the West, Jokic had to do last year in the West,
(30:01):
what Yannis has had to do in years past as well.
Jannis is playing like Giannis was doing one a title
with Drew Holliday, with Chris Middleton, right Like it's it's
just a different level of difficulty. It's a different level
of challenge for those stars. It's regarded differently in the
court of public opinion. And again, like I don't see
that gap closing. Celtics fans are going to continue to
want Tatum to get that regard and everyone else is
(30:24):
not going to give it to him until he finally
climbs the mountain top. And again like I'll be I
just need to prepare you, Celtics fans. If Boston wins
this series and Tatum averages you know, twenty six, ten
and five, and he shoots forty two percent from the
field and thirty two percent from three, it settles for
a bunch of bad jump shots and impacts the game
(30:45):
still and is a great defender and does all those things.
But Jalen Brown plays awesome, and Drew Holliday plays awesome,
and chrisops Porzingis plays awesome, and Derek White plays awesome,
and Al Horford plays awesome, and Pritchard and Howser hit
a bunch of threes and Dallas just looks overwhelmed by talent,
and all of a sudden, Tatum's hoisting the Bill Russell
Finals MVP Trophy. You guys need to be prepared for
(31:07):
the rest of the league to be like, yeah, it
kind of reminds me of when KD won in twenty
seventeen or twenty eighteen, right, and KD was like actually
considered one of the top guys, and like he didn't
get credit. So like, again, that's just the way this
all this, that's just the way this all works. But
if Tatum goes into the series and he guards Luca
and shuts him down and averages thirty and shoots forty
(31:29):
eight percent from the field in thirty seven percent from
three and is deeply and profoundly impactful and all these
other facets of the game, and the series goes six
and Tatum makes a bunch of big plays and then
he's hoisting the Bill Russell Trophy. Everybody in that other
camp is going to be like, damn, that might be
the best player in the world, And don't be surprised
if you actually see that group elevate Tatum to that level.
(31:52):
But that's what they want to see. They want to
see difficulty, They want to see rising against adversity. They
want to see you going toe to toe with the
best players in the world and beaten those dudes the
same way that Luca did in the last round to
get Aunt, the same way that he did in the
previous round against Shake Gildas Alexander, and the same way
he did in the round before that against Paul George
and James Harden. That's what people want to see. That
(32:13):
is what gets regarded in terms of the actual full
blown NBA wide fan base. Local fan bases all have
their different opinions about it, right, I'm a Lakers fan.
Lakers fans are a lot higher on Anthony Davis than
I am. Like that's kind of the way this stuff works, right,
Like it is totally normal. Like Warriors fans still think
Steph Curry is the best player in the world. Every
(32:35):
Denver fan has been in my mentions and YouTube comments
non stop complaining about how I have elevated Luca above
Jokic because of what he's doing in this postseason run,
because they're convinced their guy is still the best. This
is totally normal, but if you're gonna win the court
of public opinion, there has to be this undeniable evidence
to win that battle. One last note on that front, though,
(32:59):
like I do you feel bad for Celtics fans in
the sense that I do think Tatum has become a
bit underrated, in the sense that people I think don't
pay enough attention to the good things he does do
for that team. If Kyrie wins another ring, does he
s pass guards like Dame Westbrook and Harden, not in
a vacuum, but as a player who contributes to winning basketball.
So when I look at like number two options who
primarily focus on scoring the basketball, who helped lead their
(33:22):
team to a championship, I think in recent NBA history,
I think guys like Paul Pierce in two thousand and
eight behind Kevin Garnett, who I thought was the best
player on that team. Jamal Murray for the Denver Nuggets
was a good example of that. Chris Middleton for the Bucks,
like he was the one who hit basically the game
winner in that NET series in Game seven when they
went into overtime. Like, those are guys that kind of
(33:42):
focused on shot making to complement their stars and they
led their teams. Now if he helped help their teams
win titles, Now if he does it twice, if Kyrie
does it twice, the next kind of peer that I'd
be looking at there for Kyrie is a guy like
Tony Parker, where it's like, clearly not the best player
on his team, but like a scoring ceiling Razer who
(34:07):
works at the guard position and is probably closer to
the top of the league than people realize. And by
the way, before you think Tony Parker is an insult
for Kyrie Irving, Tony Parker has made second Team All
NBA three times, Kyrie's made it once. Tony Parker has
a Finals MVP, so like, that's not an insult, that
is a compliment. I think Kyrie Irving enters into that
Tony Parker layer of like secondary scoring guard that just
(34:30):
helps lift a championship team to that level. Respect for work. Jason,
My question is do you see the Celtics mixing in
different coverages to throw Luca off like a box and
one or zones, or do you see them staying home
and trying to make and making him try to beat
single coverage and eliminating the other players. I think we'll
see a bunch of different coverages. I think we'll see
some blitzing, especially on Knights when Luca's got a going.
(34:51):
I think we'll see a lot of drop coverage. And
I think we'll see a lot of switching too. I
think we'll see a lot of like trying to force
Luca to score on an island. I think we're gonna
see everything and again, when it comes to to these
types of situations trying to slow down a superstar, it's
all about that variety and mixing up coverages and trying
to keep the offensive player off balance. Jason, are we
(35:12):
underestimating the Boston defense a bit? I think Holliday is
as strong as Dort will give Luca an issue. Derek
White is going to absolutely swallow up each of Kyrie's shots.
First of all, I do think we under a Boston's defense.
I think that they've demonstrated, especially in clutch time this
postseason run that when those four guys Brown, Tatum, White
in Holiday, when they all really lock in on defense.
(35:35):
I think that they can be frightening on the perimeter.
Right that said, I do not think Drew Holliday is
as big and strong as Lou Dort. I think that
like Lou Dort brings like another level of physicality that
Drew can't match. And just in terms of his size,
I don't think he's going to give Luca as many
issues as Lou Dort did. And Derek White is an
awesome guard defender, but no one's swallowing up each of
(35:57):
Kyrie's shots, Like, have some respect for your opponent here,
Like Luca and Kyrie are really really good. That said,
I do believe that Boston is capable of being a
better defensive team than Dallas, and I think that we'll
see some crazy defensive punches from Boston in this series.
Hello Jason, I have a question about Dallas defending Boston
with Porzingis Lively had some problems with him in the
(36:19):
one time porzingis played in this matchup. I just feel
like this is a potentially bad matchup for Dallas. How
does Dallas try to counter it if it proves to
be problem early in the series. If it proves to
be a problem early in the series. Thanks love the
show a couple of things. We talked a little bit
more about that pick and pop piece earlier in the show,
so I won't get into that again. I am excited
to look at the film and see what you're referencing
(36:41):
in terms of Porzingis and Lively's individual matchup. But like again,
I think it comes down to them running drop until
Porzingis starts making shots, and then switching if Porzingis starts hitting.
At that point, Jason said, Luca is going to be
the best player in the mav Celtics series. Is Kyrie
the second best player? Is Kyrie the second best player
in that series? No, Jayson Tatum is Again, like I think,
(37:04):
I think we're I think the NBA fan base at
large under rats Tatum a little bit. I think he's
a lot closer to Luca's level than people think. What
will it take for you to admit that Jason Tatum
is a better player than Luka Doncic. I understand that
Luca has better stats and is a better passer than Tatum,
but Tatum is a much lower usage rate due to
boston stacked roster. Tatum is bigger, faster, longer, stronger, and
(37:26):
a better athlete and a much better defensive player, a
better jump shot in my opinion, a very underrated passer,
no holes in his game, et cetera. He also tends
to outplay Luca whenever they play head to head, and
Boston has won the last four meetings. If Jayson Tatum
outplays Luca and Boston wins comfortably in five or six games,
will you finally admit that you've had Tatum too low
in your player rankings and that he's a better player
than Luka Doncic. This male back question is a perfect
(37:48):
example of what I was talking about earlier. That's how
most Boston fans viewed Tatum, and so that's the disconnect.
They view him as better than Luca and better than
the guys at the top of the league, and outside
of Boston people don't feel that way. They view him
in the tier below that right, couple things, I do
agree that Luca has the ability. I'm gonna take it
(38:09):
to the front portion of this question. What will it
take for you to admit that Jason Tatum is a
better player than Luka Doncic guard him in the series.
You're gonna need to guard him in the series. Lock
him up and do everything you can to help your
offense score on the other end of the floor, be
the better two way player, and lift your team to
win the title. It's literally that simple. But if he
(38:33):
doesn't take the Luca assignment and Luca shreds them, but
Boston just wins because they're more talented. Like that question
that Boston's won the last four meetings, Boston's best team.
Boston has the most talent in the league by far,
so like they should win most of the time, they
should win the title this year. They're minus two twenty
favorite in the series. Tatum is not viewed as a
minus two to twenty better player than Luka Doncic. That's
(38:55):
the roster. The roster is what's dictating that. As far
as the specifics, is Tatum bigger in terms of like
overall physicality, It's closer than you think. I'd probably give
the slight edge to Luca. Is Tatum faster, yes, Tatum longer, Yes,
tatums stronger. Tatum's leaner, but like more like defined muscle.
(39:18):
But Luca's a big, strong motherfucker, a better athlete. Definitely,
Tatum much better defensive player. Definitely tatum better jump shot,
Absolutely not. Tatum's jumper is very inconsistent. Lucas is more
like Luca hasn't shot particularly well in this postseason run
up until the last round, but from October to now,
Luca's been a better shooter. Very underrated passer. You're right,
(39:41):
Tatum is an underrated passer. I think he's one of
the best passers of all the forwards in the league.
Luca might be the best passer in the league. That's
just it's a different level. No holes in his game.
Totally disagree. I think Tatum in slow down half court
environments can struggle. Sometimes. He's better at it than he
used to be. He's better at it than a lot
of people think he is, but he is not the
same level of half court initiator as Luka Doncic. So again,
(40:02):
in terms of it has to be Tatum badly out
playing Luca and his team winning. It can't just be
the team wins, but Tatum and Luca just kind of
play each other to a draw at that point. I
think Lucas just accomplished more in this playoff run in
terms of degree of difficulty in what his team has
needed him to do to win. But I'm not going
to write that off like it's very possible that two
(40:24):
weeks from now we're talking about Tatum is the best
player in the world. I'm not saying he can't do it.
I'm saying I just don't think he's going to do it.
I think it's more I think the most likely scenario
in this series is that Boston wins and Tatum looks
more or less like he's looked through the other three
rounds of the postseason, like just another really good player
in the NBA. Do you think that Tatum has the
(40:45):
ability to lock up or at least make life difficult
for Luca to play well in this series. I personally
think that he can and will sacrifice his offensive production
to do so, leaving the rest of the Celtics to
pick up the slack offensively. Do you think that Dallas
has the personnel to guard the rest of the Celtics
starters effectively. So this would be the worst case scenario
for Tatum and whatever sort of public opinion sort of thing,
(41:06):
because the public is so focused on box score numbers,
But that is Boston's best pathway to victory. If Tatum
goes into the series from this jump and says I
am guarding Luka Doncic the entirety of the series. Everyone
else I will spot up in the corner and run
second side action whenever I have the legs for it.
But you guys are on the offense, I'm gonna focus
on Tatum. If Boston did that, I'd feel pretty strongly
(41:27):
that Boston's gonna win this series. It's just unlikely to
me that they do that. I hope. I think that
if they find themselves in some trouble, like if Dallas
is up to one in the series, I think we'll
see a lot more Tatum on Luca, especially if they're
struggling to guard him. But like that to me is
like then it's not the super exciting way to win
(41:47):
the series. But I think that that's an interesting direction
that Boston could go. That would be really difficult for
Dallas to deal with. Who needs this championship more. It's
a tough one. Boston's bringing everybody back next year. I
said this with Colin the other day, but the only
thing that would really freak me out if I was
Boston is if Tatum sucks. If Tatum goes into the
(42:10):
series like he did in the Warriors series and plays
abhorrently bad and Luca dominates the series and Dallas wins
in six games. That's a catastrophe because now it's like,
holy shit, Jason Tatum at age twenty six just cannot
go toe to toe with the best guys. And it
doesn't matter how talented of a roster we put around him,
They're just not good enough. Like that would be a catastrophe,
(42:35):
But any other outcome is great, Like if Tatum plays
great and you lose, you're bringing everybody back next year
and you'll probably and you have a much better chance
to get it done with another year of experience for Tatum,
right like, or if you win, right, Dallas has it's
just if they lose, it's just bad, no matter how
you slice it, because they've poured everything. The worst case
(42:55):
scenario for Dallas is if you get killed. If Boston
wins this series four games to one, that's rough because
now you've invested so heavily in this roster, which does
not have enough firepower to beat Boston, and that becomes
an issue. Right, And then you also didn't have to
play Denver in the Western Conference playoffs, which there's a
decent chance you have to the following year, right, So,
(43:17):
like it's kind of both teams will live to fight
again regardless of what happens. I'm gonna say Dallas needs
this championship more though, just simply because the West is
much harder to get through, and because they've invested so
much more in terms of draft capital into this particular
season and they have less ability to pivot than Boston does.
Boston has all these really good players, they can trade
really good players, you know, like Dallas has a lot
(43:39):
of play finishers that are valuable for them but maybe
less valuable elsewhere around the league. All right, guys, that
is all I have for this particular mail bag. We'll
be back tomorrow with another mail bag on the rest
of the league. I'll see you guys. Then the volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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