May 16, 2025 • 29 mins
The Pacers and Timberwolves are headed to the Conference Finals, just like everyone predicted, right? Trysta breaks down how both surprise teams pulled it off, why the Cavs are likely running it back after another great regular season but no playoff success, and what Steph’s injury means for a Warriors team that suddenly looks bad.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On this episode of the Heat Check, we officially have
to repeat conference finals teams. I don't think anybody had
these teams on their bingo card going to the Conference
finals again, especially the way that they both started out
this season. We break down the Pacers and the Timberwolves
(00:22):
and what they have done to get this far twice
in a row and white people counted them out. Then
we look at the fallout for the Cavaliers and the
Warriors flaming out so much to get to drop that
motherfucker beat that should be Rihanna Wyatt. You're you're listening
to the Hottest, the Hottest. It be a podcast out here.
(00:44):
I said what I said, it's the heat Chet Check Check.
Did anybody out that was a dog, that was a
puppy fighting in my fingers? Did anybody on the big
board at any time in this NBA season say, you
know who I think is gonna go to the finals
(01:05):
of the Conference Finals? The Pacers? You know who I
think looks really good right now, as fucking Julius Randall
was integrating like boo boo, I think the Timberwolves are
gonna be able to repeat again. Yeah. Here we are
very similar stories. Actually in terms of how they started
(01:26):
the season and in terms of how they've played in
these playoffs, neither team has even really barely broken a sweats.
If you look at the four seed four seeded Pacers,
people were like, oh, the Bucks, the Bucks rematch. Johannis
and Dame are both healthy. You don't want to see them.
(01:48):
Bucks were plus one fifty to win the series. I
don't think anybody expected what we saw, which was just
a lamb basting a curb stop American history X, A debo,
this is our bike, We'll just keep it at my
house kind of a situation. But that's what happened. That
(02:08):
is exactly what happened. Pacers then match up with the
Eastern Conference regular season champions, sixty four win team with
the defensive player of the year on it, a guy
in Donovan Mitchell who was playing at an elite level,
a Monster had the Coach of the Year, defensive player
of the year, Damn Near had the sixth Man of
(02:28):
the Year and Ty Jerome. You had an All Stars
on this team former All Stars too, and Jared Allen.
Then they made a trade to get another defensive minded
wing in DeAndre Hunter, who was third in six Man
of the year voting this season loaded, and as the
(02:49):
Calvs pretty much put pat Riley in the heat into retirement,
four zero clapped him up, put him in a suitcase,
winning the last two by eighty two points. No one
thought the Pacers had a shot except for me. All
twelve MBA personalities picked the Calves don't do that, That's
not what you want to do, and the Pacers stole
(03:10):
the lifet all the soul, stole the chain, took their shit,
went up into their house multiple times, took the TV
off the wall, let a pitbull inside the house, and
shit all over their living room. Basically just squatted on
him to nothing you can do about it. Okay, Darius
Garland's toe is never right. Donovan Mitchell is always dealing
(03:34):
with something because he's always putting the team on his back.
So he had an ankle thing and a back thing.
Evan Mobley had an ankle thing. DeAndre Hunter had a
dislocated thumb. That's bad luck for sure, But I don't
know necessarily if a healthy Calves team can beat this
Pacers team right now. As it stand, the Pacers are
(03:57):
not the team you think they are. Yeah, they play fast, absolutely,
no doubt about it. Probably the fastest playoff team you've
ever seen in your goddamn life. Yeah, everybody can play
fast in the regular season, but no, this thing. This
team's playing at mock ten in the playoffs. But then
they punch you in the fucking mouth literally. Ben Mathers swap,
(04:19):
James Johnson, swap swap. They got Tyrese Haliburton giving them
the bye bye bye. Like Damian Lillard. They're a physical
fucking team. Aaron Neith Smith is physical. TJ. McConnell will
get inside your Jim Schortz. Even Rick Carlile, the Pacers coach,
had some words of condolences for Kennie Atkinson, the Cavs
(04:42):
head coach, because at the end of the day, all
Rick Carlile did was slap a zone on him and say,
figure that one out. This is what he says. They
had a great year. I'm sorry that their season had
to end like this. In a way, Kenny did an
amazing job. They just kind of had the perfect season,
and then we came along and we were hot at
(05:02):
the right time. Hot is right fucking hot, and it's
not just Halliburton, although he's very hot as well. In
their close out, Game five, where you knew actually, even
though Cleveland was up, you're like, this isn't gonna last.
This is not lasting. Calves came out red hot. They
got a double digit lead early. They tried to muck
(05:24):
it up, play fucking slow as molasses, and they're like, Okay,
this is not gonna work. But they wore him down
to a nub. Donovan Mitchell he had thirty nine to
five and one. That's like thirty nine and above, and
three of the games that he played he was hobbled
the whole game. Darius Garland had eleven mode we had
twenty four, but it didn't matter. Halliburton had six threes.
(05:45):
Pacers as a whole shot forty three percent from three.
They built the second half leading. They said, deuces, peace up,
a town down, see you later. All five pacers starters
scored double digits are better. The lowest net rating was
plus ten for Pascal Siakam. They also played six bench players,
like I try to tell y'all this team so deep, well,
(06:06):
put your ass to sleep. Eleven total players played, which
was four short of Game four, when they played all
fifteen players, they hit six more threes in a game.
They won one fourteen one oh five, and that, it
turns out, was the difference what I'll say about the
Pacers in terms of why we didn't why a lot
(06:26):
of people, including me at times, didn't believe. Is Tyrese
Haliburton the start of the year look bad? And I said,
is he actually not good? Or is he still hurt?
Turns out, as I thought, he's not buns. This man
is still recovering from a hamstring injury in last playoffs,
in the in season tournament that he was struggling. He
(06:47):
had a little decline from the from the end season
tournament on that carried over and all of a sudden
we wondered whether he was not good any longer. No,
he is still good. You have all these players they
beginning of the season, we were wondering if this team
was even gonna be a playoff team at all. But boy,
oh boy, when they got their mojo back, when aaron
(07:09):
Ne Smith got healthy again, with Andrew Nemhar got healthy again,
when Tyrese Halliburn got healthy again, boy it showed what
we'll get into what's happening next for the Caves. But
right now, Rick Carlisle has this Pacers team playing like
it's swish watch just fearless. It's they're just running like
a German fucking train. Just TikTok, TikTok, everything's running on time.
(07:35):
How fearless are they? You ask? Here's your insane Tristan
Crieks out of the day. Cleveland was thirty six and
five at home this year against twenty eight other NBA teams.
That's an eighty eight percent win percentage, but zero to
five at the crib against Indiana. They lost as many
(07:57):
home games to Indiana as the rest of the entire
league combined. Cavs lost twenty two games this year, and
seven of those losses were against Indy. Tough. Indiana might
just be bored dangerous on the road because they have
these runs, those runs, you know what I'm talking about,
(08:19):
where you think you're gonna win the game, and then
all of a sudden, there's only forty seconds left, and
how could they possibly come back down seven? And then
all of a sudden, Tyrese Haliburn's giving you the bye bye.
They just take the home crowd completely out of it,
their shell shot. It happened against Cleveland, and of course
it happened against Milwaukee. We saw two stunning game winning
(08:41):
shots from Tyrese Haliburton. Like I said this, Aaron Smith
and Andrew Emhardt are the ones. Nie Smiths shooting forty
eight percent from deep Nemhard shot fifty percent from three
against the Bucks, excuse me and the Cavs while also
putting up nearly fifteen a game. You can always get
good play from Siakam. Gonna get good play if he's
(09:01):
healthy from Halliburn. Miles Turner has been playing so well
and he might not even be able to afford him
after this year. Ben matherin doing his thing, getting massive
contributions that have changed the course of this team. And
now they wait the winner of the of the Knick
Celtics series. They've already beaten the Knicks in the playoffs
(09:22):
last year. Now that was a different team. No mckel
bridges on that team, no Karl Anthony Towns on that team,
and then you had injuries to ogn and obn Jalen Brunson.
So I'm very very interested to see how that series
ends up. If that's the series that we get, but
the Pacers could be looking at an NBA Finals run
for the first time since two thousand. So then let's
(09:45):
talk about the Minnesota Timberwolves. Another team that started out slow,
another team where you were like, oh, man, with what
they did last year, was that just an anomaly? Was
that just a one time thing? Not a single ESPN
town took them to beat the Lakers, They barely broke
a sweat. They took out Luca for it one, putting
them in the semis against Golden State, and Nevers said,
(10:06):
ohoh's Golden State, Golden State. Oh, Jimmy Butler, even myself,
Jimmy Butler, Steph Curry, they're playing so well. Those two
together are clutch kings. How is this going to be
able to work? A lot of people had the Warriors
winning in six or seven. Golden State was about plus
one fifty to win the series as a whole, and
then the wheels fell off, Warriors lost Steph Curry even
(10:29):
though they won Game one, and the realization was that
Jimmy Butler was gonna have to be playoff Jimmy Butler
in a lot more if they were gonna win that series.
And Jimmy Butler did not deliver. Draymond Green did not
deliver all those antics, all those fucking weird just back
and forth with the Zebras. You had Brandon Pajemski looking buns.
(10:52):
You had our man Jonathan Kaminga thinking that he's Steph Curry.
You had Steve Kerr with his hand on his face,
face on his hand. It was bad, It was really bad.
Just like that for to one Wolves Night Night Sleep Mask,
go home, Steph Curry says, don't bother me the rest
of the summer. At some point we'll talk about the
(11:14):
future of the Warriors next segment. But the Wolves are
dangerous because of why. Aunt Edwards. Aunt Edwards, just like
jo Kich, just like Shay, is a star and when
the lights get bright, his game gets brighter. He's averaged
twenty six, eight and seven against the Warriors. They had
(11:36):
no answer. They just even when he has three in
the first half, thirty five for the game. He shot
fifty percent or better from three in their final three wins,
where he had five or more made threes in each game.
And then we got to put a little respect on
Julius Randall. No one has salvage their reputation more in
(11:59):
one month than Julius Randall. He hasn't looked good. Julius
Randall has looked fucking great. He has looked at times
the best player on the walls not named Aunt Edwards.
He's like looking like better than he did in his
most improved player season. He's looking like an All Star.
He averaged twenty five to seven and seven against Golden State,
(12:21):
and he had twenty three to five and four against
the Lakers. So he's up against Draymond Green, a gritty,
very physical, very intimidating guy, and he's up against Lebron James,
another physically intimidating guy. And he never backed down, never
back down. He said, come with it, come with it.
I don't give a fuck, so he said. He has
(12:42):
been excellent on defense. He has been tough on the boards,
great on offense. One of the most overlooked things he's
done is he's been more consistent than Ant Edwards. He
has been steady as fuck from the free throw line.
He went to the line twenty three times against Golden
State and he made twenty two of them. Man, Denver
Nuggets could use that right now. He shot eighty four
(13:04):
percent from the line against Los Angeles. That's just that's
what you need from a big hit, your fucking free
throws when you get fouled or We're not gonna do
the hack of Mitchell thing on you. And he's able
to stay out of foul trouble while still defending one
of the best players on the floor. On a night
to night basis, he's averaging thirty eight minutes per game,
(13:27):
only one minute less than Aunt Edwards. And then we
got to put a little loff, give a little flowers
to oh Ludi, Oh Ludi, you gober oh Bonge Rudy.
Two close out games this postseason, Rudy Gobert has averaged
twenty two and sixteen. I didn't know Rudy Gobert could score.
I didn't know you can't score seventy eight percent true
(13:49):
shooting and a plus thirty nine net rating. They are athletic,
they are defensive minded, and they are healthy. I don't
know how much okay Se will enjoy this year if
they play them. I know the Denver will not enjoy
it because they had it and they were up twenty
in the fourth quarter of a game seven at the
crib and they still went home. I don't think either
(14:12):
team is going to cause Minnesota to lose any sleep.
They say, you know what, we already had our lumps
in the early part of the regular season, and we
figured some shit out. Chris Finch deserves respect as well.
When he took over, the Wolves were seven and twenty four,
and all he's done is playoffs, playoffs, Western Conference Finals,
(14:33):
Western Conference Finals. For a team that made the playoffs
once in the previous seventeen years, four years in a row,
Chris Finch goes to the playoffs. He has more playoff
wins already than all previous Wolves coaches combined. Man, he's awesome.
He's done in a remarkable job. He's a great adjuster.
(14:57):
He's figured out a way to integrate Julius Randall in
a way that we didn't know if it was possible,
based on the fact that he had experienced with Julius
Randall when Julius played for New Orleans. Remember and Chris
Finch was an assistant coach. And he has a plan
and that plan is fucking working. So kudos to the
(15:17):
unlikeliest of repeat winners, the Pacers and the Wolves. We
looked at the winning side, moving on, Moving on, we
looked at the winning side. That's my transition sound. There's
a lot more drama on the losing side. Starting in Cleveland,
(15:38):
the entire team fan base city there shook it. Donovan
Mitchell says he's watched Game five twice already and he
cannot sleep. I would watch that game bag personally. Dan
Gilbert posted a condolence message for the Cavs fans, saying,
I know it's heartbreaking, but the good news is we
have a talented young core that we'll learn from this
(16:00):
and continue to get better. We appreciate your incredible support
all season long. It's not how we wanted it to end,
but I promise you we will do everything humanly possible,
humanly possible, not humanly possible, humanly possible to address what
needs to be fixed and end in a much better
place next year. What is that and what's that gonna be?
(16:22):
Everything humanly possible. Here's the thing. They're gonna run this
team back. They are. They have to because we don't
know what they are really yet. Even if we know
what they are, we don't really know. We don't have
the evidence to say. Because this is how it goes.
When you've got excuses to be had to latch onto,
(16:43):
you're gonna latch onto them. Kolbe Autman is going to
say the truth of the matter is Darius Garland had
turf toe. He missed four or five games. The truth
of the matter is Donovan Mitchell had a bad back
and a bad ankle. The truth of the matter is
Evan Mobi, our defensive player of the year, was hampered
by a bad ankle as well. The truth of the
(17:05):
matter is our guy that we traded for at the
deadline and DeAndre Hunter he had a dislocated thumb. So
what are we really If we were fully healthy, we
could have made work light work out of these pacers.
Despite the fact, we know that's not true. We know it.
(17:25):
How do we know it because we've seen it before.
We've seen this story before. It's called the Utah Jazz
sixty plus win season. They get eliminated early. We've seen
it from the Portland Trailblazers. You can only go so
far with these little ass guard duos Damon CJ, Mike
(17:47):
Conley and Donovan Mitchell. You just can't do. It just
doesn't work. We've seen it now when you don't have
the wing support on defense and you've got a four
who should probably be a five and a five who
should probably be on another team. So they're gonna run
it back They're probably gonna win less games than they
(18:08):
did last year because there's gonna be a lot of
teams that have figured out how to defend them. And
the elephant in the room is Donovan Mitchell is the
centerpiece of the team, and he's never been to a
conference finals in his entire career, not one time. He
has never played on a team that has had less
than forty eight wins. The Cavs this year had sixty
(18:29):
four wins. Only twenty five teams in the history of
the NBA have won more games than his teams have won.
And yet every time Donovan Mitchell's getting injured, Donovan Mitchell
looks gassed, Donovan Mitchell runs out of steam, and his
teams get eliminated early. Kenny Atkinson, amazing coach. Give him
(18:53):
his flowers. He did an incredible job. Congratulations Kenny. You're
gonna have to change your entire offense next year as well,
because teams are gonna spend all off season learning how
to fuck your shit up, just like the Pacers did
Golden stew We'll move on to Golden State. They're another
problem all together. This team is like actually buns. The
(19:15):
Calves are like a good regular season team, but you
know they don't have it, have it. The Golden State
is just like a really bad regular season team that
if you need them to play sixteen games eight games,
they can sort of figure out how to get to
the finish line. The duo of Jimmy Butler and Golden
(19:37):
State were incredible. They really were. They were twenty four
and seven in the regular season when they played together.
But the truth is this bitches is old. Those bitches
is old. They're both in their mid to late thirties.
They're both starting to break down. You saw Steph Curry
have to scratch and claw just to get this team
(19:58):
into the playoffs. To get this team out of the plan,
you had Jimmy Butler do the same. He was suspended
from Miami, he goes to Golden State, he puts the
after burners on. All of a sudden, just like we've
seen many times before, Jimmy Butler gets injured again, pelvic contusion,
(20:19):
but contusion. Steph Curry had his first hamstring injury of
his entire career. I'm gonna say that is likely going
to happen moving forward again. It's probably not the reason
the Warriors lost to the Wolves. If the Warriors and
Wolves were both healthy, I think probably Minnesota wins is
six or seven instead of five. But it's certainly contributed.
(20:45):
If you're a Dubs fan, though, Let's be honest, let's
be real. When you see Steph not playing on this team,
what do you think about? Wow, when he retires, this
isn't gonna be any fun. We are not gonna be
any fun to watch. We really aren't. It's terrible. Brandon Pajemski.
(21:06):
That's what we've got to do with. That's what we're doing.
We've got Gee Santos, we got like Draymond's gonna retire,
We've got nothing for him, Like Trace Jackson Davis. Who
is on this team? Do you like at all? Gary
(21:26):
Payton the second Jimmy Butter's gonna retire When Steph retires,
this team is dead. Jimmy averaged only ten shots and
fifteen and a half points, didn't hit a three in
either Game four or Game five. He's taking a lot
of blame right now, and I think he just didn't
want to do the Miami Heat thing anymore. You know,
(21:47):
I didn't come here for this. I hadn't come here
to play on the Miami heat of the West where
I have to do everything with these fucking bumps. Are
you serious? Steph's not here. If I don't have Batman,
I'm not doing it. I'm injured, I'm old. I want
a title, and it's very apparent that without Steph we're
(22:07):
not getting one. Warriors owner Joe Lacob said the series
loss was disappointing. I really hope we could extend the series.
I'm pretty positive that if we had Steph, we would
have won this series. Joe Lacob, my man is Delulu.
That's what he is. He He's Dlulu. That twenty twenty
(22:27):
two NBA Championship continued his arrogance, and I am I'm
ready for the fall of our dubs. As much as
I love Steph and I love watching him, and I
love Jimmy Butler and I love watching him, I can't
stand Joe Lacob. What is not up for debate is
that this roster needs an overhaul, starting with Jonathan Kaminga
(22:50):
aka cum Buckets. The tea starting to spill. Joe Lacob
has a ton of skin in the game when it
comes to Cumbuckets, because over the course of two years,
the Warriors drafted Wiseman Kaminga, Moses Moody, and all three
are nonsense. All three are pretty valueless. We won't go
(23:14):
over who they could have drafted, LaMelo Ball for one,
but suffice to say they stuck too long with losing
players and they are in a pickle. They're trying to
figure out a way out, and I don't know what
the way out is. The latest from the athletic who
says it's nearly impossible to believe Joe lacub would let
Kaminga sign an offer sheet elsewhere and walk away for nothing.
(23:38):
Oh okay, this is the best solution. As Kamingo wants out.
The Warriors have no long term plans for him. Steve
Kerr hates him as a player, maybe not as a guy.
Probably not as a guy. He's a nice enough guy.
A sign in trade would maybe bring them back some size,
which is sorely needed. I just see it. As for Jimmy,
(24:01):
he's happy, he's comfortable, he got his joy back. He said,
he's very fortunate to be here. But we'll see how
long that lasts, right, We'll see. He's never been happy
long term anywhere. And the Warriors, I think the window
is cracked for one and only season, and I don't
think if they make any significant upgrades, they're cooked. Steph's
(24:24):
gonna be thirty eight. He can't win with pods and
trace Jackson Davis starting. You can't win with an older
Draymond Green who needs Jimmy Butler to give him a
battery in his backpack. No one can No one can
win with these bumps, not even Steph Curry. All right,
moving on for some news from around the league. Adam
Silver is still trying to address the All Star Game
(24:49):
and it's mountain of problems by moving it earlier in
the season. Speaking on Serious XM Radio, and Adam Silver
said that the game has creeped later and later over
the years, mostly in response to the Super Bowl coming
later and later maybe, and that as a result, players
look at the late All Star break as a breather
(25:11):
before the playoffs. Maybe there's an opportunity to move that
around to create interest at a different point in the
season where players could be fresher. Yeah. I always felt
like they always say the last the latter half of
the season after the All Star break, and it's not
the latter half of the season. It's like the ladder.
Third of the season, it's like thirty games left by
(25:33):
that point, thirty one games left, So I agree. I
thought that the All Star break should come at the
halfway mark, which is Mlkday, which would be fucking dope
MLK Day All Star game. That would be a perfectlution
and make it an important holiday for the NBAS. And
guess who never wants to do anything around Mlkday the NFL,
(25:55):
because they're happy to do other things. Moving on, less
than forty eight hours after the adrenaline I got from
hearing my Portland Trailbazers were getting sold get kicked in,
I have come back to Earth. Why do you ask?
Because I thought uncle Phil Phil Knight, not Phil Jackson,
(26:17):
was going to buy this team. And then he decided,
fuck Jody Allen, not paying that extra money, and I'm
old now sad he wanted to buy the team. In
twenty twenty, he put out a statement in response to
the Paul Allen estate announcing they were going to sell
the team, and he said, five years ago, when I
was a younger man, he wasn't that young then I
had a great interest in being part of the Portland Trailblazers. Franchise. However,
(26:39):
at my current age, I can confirm that no longer
I have interest in acquiring the team. Well that's nice
to know. That's nice to know, because what you were
gonna sell it in five years you're gonna be ninety.
But like, actually I just only wanted to own it
for a half a decade. We're probably gonna get some
lay mass private equity guy or some sound he prints
(27:00):
by on this team, they're gonna want to move us to, like,
I don't know, Nashville. That sucks. That sucks. I'm sad,
and I was hoping that we would be Nike you anyway,
Moving on, Jason Tatum officially had successful surgery to repair
his achilles injury more than less than eighteen hours after
the injury occurred. He actually had the night of his injury.
(27:23):
Why is that important? First, the doctors have reported that
there were no further issues found during the surgery. The
truth is, complications during these procedures are very common, so
the fact that that was routine was great news. No
further damage needed to be addressed. I am a medical
expert now because I've been watching the pit, so I
(27:45):
don't know if they had to do a crack or
what is it called a crikey on his achilles. Anyway,
they didn't have to incubate them or anything. These are
all words I know now. Second, as a source told
Boston Globe, the decision was made to operate immediately because
swift action following achilles injuries tends to lead more to
(28:07):
favorable outcomes. And now we're hearing that Jason Tatum might
be back in eight months, which means Tatum could see
the floor around March first, which is right after the
All Star break, in time for the last twenty games
of the season, which would be a miracle and one
that we would all love to see. Awesome stuff. Thanks
(28:29):
shout out to Wyatt. That's all the time that we
have for this episode of the Heat Check. Come back Tuesday.
I have an interview, conversation, whatever you want to call it,
with the Athletics Law Murray. Great conversation. Check out the
feed for past episodes and the occasional mini episodes which
might come at you unexpectedly, like a crank or an
intubation on the pit or a mass shooter at the pitfest.
(28:52):
Do not forget spoiler alert, Do not forget to follow
the Heat check all playoffs long. That means follow, so download, subscribe,
and tell your friends, even the ones you haven't talked
to in years, say, Hey, the heat Chick's pretty good.
You should probably listen. Follow us on TikTok at this
heat check. And if you don't follow us on TikTok,
I kind of understand, so definitely follow us on Instagram
(29:14):
and on Twitter and on threads. I'm very popping for threads.
I post there all the time. Anyway, we'll talk to
you soon, shout out and we'll see you later.
On this episode of the Heat Check, we officially have
to repeat conference finals teams. I don't think anybody had
these teams on their bingo card going to the Conference
finals again, especially the way that they both started out
this season. We break down the Pacers and the Timberwolves
(00:22):
and what they have done to get this far twice
in a row and white people counted them out. Then
we look at the fallout for the Cavaliers and the
Warriors flaming out so much to get to drop that
motherfucker beat that should be Rihanna Wyatt. You're you're listening
to the Hottest, the Hottest. It be a podcast out here.
(00:44):
I said what I said, it's the heat Chet Check Check.
Did anybody out that was a dog, that was a
puppy fighting in my fingers? Did anybody on the big
board at any time in this NBA season say, you
know who I think is gonna go to the finals
(01:05):
of the Conference Finals? The Pacers? You know who I
think looks really good right now, as fucking Julius Randall
was integrating like boo boo, I think the Timberwolves are
gonna be able to repeat again. Yeah. Here we are
very similar stories. Actually in terms of how they started
(01:26):
the season and in terms of how they've played in
these playoffs, neither team has even really barely broken a sweats.
If you look at the four seed four seeded Pacers,
people were like, oh, the Bucks, the Bucks rematch. Johannis
and Dame are both healthy. You don't want to see them.
(01:48):
Bucks were plus one fifty to win the series. I
don't think anybody expected what we saw, which was just
a lamb basting a curb stop American history X, A debo,
this is our bike, We'll just keep it at my
house kind of a situation. But that's what happened. That
(02:08):
is exactly what happened. Pacers then match up with the
Eastern Conference regular season champions, sixty four win team with
the defensive player of the year on it, a guy
in Donovan Mitchell who was playing at an elite level,
a Monster had the Coach of the Year, defensive player
of the year, Damn Near had the sixth Man of
(02:28):
the Year and Ty Jerome. You had an All Stars
on this team former All Stars too, and Jared Allen.
Then they made a trade to get another defensive minded
wing in DeAndre Hunter, who was third in six Man
of the year voting this season loaded, and as the
(02:49):
Calvs pretty much put pat Riley in the heat into retirement,
four zero clapped him up, put him in a suitcase,
winning the last two by eighty two points. No one
thought the Pacers had a shot except for me. All
twelve MBA personalities picked the Calves don't do that, That's
not what you want to do, and the Pacers stole
(03:10):
the lifet all the soul, stole the chain, took their shit,
went up into their house multiple times, took the TV
off the wall, let a pitbull inside the house, and
shit all over their living room. Basically just squatted on
him to nothing you can do about it. Okay, Darius
Garland's toe is never right. Donovan Mitchell is always dealing
(03:34):
with something because he's always putting the team on his back.
So he had an ankle thing and a back thing.
Evan Mobley had an ankle thing. DeAndre Hunter had a
dislocated thumb. That's bad luck for sure, But I don't
know necessarily if a healthy Calves team can beat this
Pacers team right now. As it stand, the Pacers are
(03:57):
not the team you think they are. Yeah, they play fast, absolutely,
no doubt about it. Probably the fastest playoff team you've
ever seen in your goddamn life. Yeah, everybody can play
fast in the regular season, but no, this thing. This
team's playing at mock ten in the playoffs. But then
they punch you in the fucking mouth literally. Ben Mathers swap,
(04:19):
James Johnson, swap swap. They got Tyrese Haliburton giving them
the bye bye bye. Like Damian Lillard. They're a physical
fucking team. Aaron Neith Smith is physical. TJ. McConnell will
get inside your Jim Schortz. Even Rick Carlile, the Pacers coach,
had some words of condolences for Kennie Atkinson, the Cavs
(04:42):
head coach, because at the end of the day, all
Rick Carlile did was slap a zone on him and say,
figure that one out. This is what he says. They
had a great year. I'm sorry that their season had
to end like this. In a way, Kenny did an
amazing job. They just kind of had the perfect season,
and then we came along and we were hot at
(05:02):
the right time. Hot is right fucking hot, and it's
not just Halliburton, although he's very hot as well. In
their close out, Game five, where you knew actually, even
though Cleveland was up, you're like, this isn't gonna last.
This is not lasting. Calves came out red hot. They
got a double digit lead early. They tried to muck
(05:24):
it up, play fucking slow as molasses, and they're like, Okay,
this is not gonna work. But they wore him down
to a nub. Donovan Mitchell he had thirty nine to
five and one. That's like thirty nine and above, and
three of the games that he played he was hobbled
the whole game. Darius Garland had eleven mode we had
twenty four, but it didn't matter. Halliburton had six threes.
(05:45):
Pacers as a whole shot forty three percent from three.
They built the second half leading. They said, deuces, peace up,
a town down, see you later. All five pacers starters
scored double digits are better. The lowest net rating was
plus ten for Pascal Siakam. They also played six bench players,
like I try to tell y'all this team so deep, well,
(06:06):
put your ass to sleep. Eleven total players played, which
was four short of Game four, when they played all
fifteen players, they hit six more threes in a game.
They won one fourteen one oh five, and that, it
turns out, was the difference what I'll say about the
Pacers in terms of why we didn't why a lot
(06:26):
of people, including me at times, didn't believe. Is Tyrese
Haliburton the start of the year look bad? And I said,
is he actually not good? Or is he still hurt?
Turns out, as I thought, he's not buns. This man
is still recovering from a hamstring injury in last playoffs,
in the in season tournament that he was struggling. He
(06:47):
had a little decline from the from the end season
tournament on that carried over and all of a sudden
we wondered whether he was not good any longer. No,
he is still good. You have all these players they
beginning of the season, we were wondering if this team
was even gonna be a playoff team at all. But boy,
oh boy, when they got their mojo back, when aaron
(07:09):
Ne Smith got healthy again, with Andrew Nemhar got healthy again,
when Tyrese Halliburn got healthy again, boy it showed what
we'll get into what's happening next for the Caves. But
right now, Rick Carlisle has this Pacers team playing like
it's swish watch just fearless. It's they're just running like
a German fucking train. Just TikTok, TikTok, everything's running on time.
(07:35):
How fearless are they? You ask? Here's your insane Tristan
Crieks out of the day. Cleveland was thirty six and
five at home this year against twenty eight other NBA teams.
That's an eighty eight percent win percentage, but zero to
five at the crib against Indiana. They lost as many
(07:57):
home games to Indiana as the rest of the entire
league combined. Cavs lost twenty two games this year, and
seven of those losses were against Indy. Tough. Indiana might
just be bored dangerous on the road because they have
these runs, those runs, you know what I'm talking about,
(08:19):
where you think you're gonna win the game, and then
all of a sudden, there's only forty seconds left, and
how could they possibly come back down seven? And then
all of a sudden, Tyrese Haliburn's giving you the bye bye.
They just take the home crowd completely out of it,
their shell shot. It happened against Cleveland, and of course
it happened against Milwaukee. We saw two stunning game winning
(08:41):
shots from Tyrese Haliburton. Like I said this, Aaron Smith
and Andrew Emhardt are the ones. Nie Smiths shooting forty
eight percent from deep Nemhard shot fifty percent from three
against the Bucks, excuse me and the Cavs while also
putting up nearly fifteen a game. You can always get
good play from Siakam. Gonna get good play if he's
(09:01):
healthy from Halliburn. Miles Turner has been playing so well
and he might not even be able to afford him
after this year. Ben matherin doing his thing, getting massive
contributions that have changed the course of this team. And
now they wait the winner of the of the Knick
Celtics series. They've already beaten the Knicks in the playoffs
(09:22):
last year. Now that was a different team. No mckel
bridges on that team, no Karl Anthony Towns on that team,
and then you had injuries to ogn and obn Jalen Brunson.
So I'm very very interested to see how that series
ends up. If that's the series that we get, but
the Pacers could be looking at an NBA Finals run
for the first time since two thousand. So then let's
(09:45):
talk about the Minnesota Timberwolves. Another team that started out slow,
another team where you were like, oh, man, with what
they did last year, was that just an anomaly? Was
that just a one time thing? Not a single ESPN
town took them to beat the Lakers, They barely broke
a sweat. They took out Luca for it one, putting
them in the semis against Golden State, and Nevers said,
(10:06):
ohoh's Golden State, Golden State. Oh, Jimmy Butler, even myself,
Jimmy Butler, Steph Curry, they're playing so well. Those two
together are clutch kings. How is this going to be
able to work? A lot of people had the Warriors
winning in six or seven. Golden State was about plus
one fifty to win the series as a whole, and
then the wheels fell off, Warriors lost Steph Curry even
(10:29):
though they won Game one, and the realization was that
Jimmy Butler was gonna have to be playoff Jimmy Butler
in a lot more if they were gonna win that series.
And Jimmy Butler did not deliver. Draymond Green did not
deliver all those antics, all those fucking weird just back
and forth with the Zebras. You had Brandon Pajemski looking buns.
(10:52):
You had our man Jonathan Kaminga thinking that he's Steph Curry.
You had Steve Kerr with his hand on his face,
face on his hand. It was bad, It was really bad.
Just like that for to one Wolves Night Night Sleep Mask,
go home, Steph Curry says, don't bother me the rest
of the summer. At some point we'll talk about the
(11:14):
future of the Warriors next segment. But the Wolves are
dangerous because of why. Aunt Edwards. Aunt Edwards, just like
jo Kich, just like Shay, is a star and when
the lights get bright, his game gets brighter. He's averaged
twenty six, eight and seven against the Warriors. They had
(11:36):
no answer. They just even when he has three in
the first half, thirty five for the game. He shot
fifty percent or better from three in their final three wins,
where he had five or more made threes in each game.
And then we got to put a little respect on
Julius Randall. No one has salvage their reputation more in
(11:59):
one month than Julius Randall. He hasn't looked good. Julius
Randall has looked fucking great. He has looked at times
the best player on the walls not named Aunt Edwards.
He's like looking like better than he did in his
most improved player season. He's looking like an All Star.
He averaged twenty five to seven and seven against Golden State,
(12:21):
and he had twenty three to five and four against
the Lakers. So he's up against Draymond Green, a gritty,
very physical, very intimidating guy, and he's up against Lebron James,
another physically intimidating guy. And he never backed down, never
back down. He said, come with it, come with it.
I don't give a fuck, so he said. He has
(12:42):
been excellent on defense. He has been tough on the boards,
great on offense. One of the most overlooked things he's
done is he's been more consistent than Ant Edwards. He
has been steady as fuck from the free throw line.
He went to the line twenty three times against Golden
State and he made twenty two of them. Man, Denver
Nuggets could use that right now. He shot eighty four
(13:04):
percent from the line against Los Angeles. That's just that's
what you need from a big hit, your fucking free
throws when you get fouled or We're not gonna do
the hack of Mitchell thing on you. And he's able
to stay out of foul trouble while still defending one
of the best players on the floor. On a night
to night basis, he's averaging thirty eight minutes per game,
(13:27):
only one minute less than Aunt Edwards. And then we
got to put a little loff, give a little flowers
to oh Ludi, Oh Ludi, you gober oh Bonge Rudy.
Two close out games this postseason, Rudy Gobert has averaged
twenty two and sixteen. I didn't know Rudy Gobert could score.
I didn't know you can't score seventy eight percent true
(13:49):
shooting and a plus thirty nine net rating. They are athletic,
they are defensive minded, and they are healthy. I don't
know how much okay Se will enjoy this year if
they play them. I know the Denver will not enjoy
it because they had it and they were up twenty
in the fourth quarter of a game seven at the
crib and they still went home. I don't think either
(14:12):
team is going to cause Minnesota to lose any sleep.
They say, you know what, we already had our lumps
in the early part of the regular season, and we
figured some shit out. Chris Finch deserves respect as well.
When he took over, the Wolves were seven and twenty four,
and all he's done is playoffs, playoffs, Western Conference Finals,
(14:33):
Western Conference Finals. For a team that made the playoffs
once in the previous seventeen years, four years in a row,
Chris Finch goes to the playoffs. He has more playoff
wins already than all previous Wolves coaches combined. Man, he's awesome.
He's done in a remarkable job. He's a great adjuster.
(14:57):
He's figured out a way to integrate Julius Randall in
a way that we didn't know if it was possible,
based on the fact that he had experienced with Julius
Randall when Julius played for New Orleans. Remember and Chris
Finch was an assistant coach. And he has a plan
and that plan is fucking working. So kudos to the
(15:17):
unlikeliest of repeat winners, the Pacers and the Wolves. We
looked at the winning side, moving on, Moving on, we
looked at the winning side. That's my transition sound. There's
a lot more drama on the losing side. Starting in Cleveland,
(15:38):
the entire team fan base city there shook it. Donovan
Mitchell says he's watched Game five twice already and he
cannot sleep. I would watch that game bag personally. Dan
Gilbert posted a condolence message for the Cavs fans, saying,
I know it's heartbreaking, but the good news is we
have a talented young core that we'll learn from this
(16:00):
and continue to get better. We appreciate your incredible support
all season long. It's not how we wanted it to end,
but I promise you we will do everything humanly possible,
humanly possible, not humanly possible, humanly possible to address what
needs to be fixed and end in a much better
place next year. What is that and what's that gonna be?
(16:22):
Everything humanly possible. Here's the thing. They're gonna run this
team back. They are. They have to because we don't
know what they are really yet. Even if we know
what they are, we don't really know. We don't have
the evidence to say. Because this is how it goes.
When you've got excuses to be had to latch onto,
(16:43):
you're gonna latch onto them. Kolbe Autman is going to
say the truth of the matter is Darius Garland had
turf toe. He missed four or five games. The truth
of the matter is Donovan Mitchell had a bad back
and a bad ankle. The truth of the matter is
Evan Mobi, our defensive player of the year, was hampered
by a bad ankle as well. The truth of the
(17:05):
matter is our guy that we traded for at the
deadline and DeAndre Hunter he had a dislocated thumb. So
what are we really If we were fully healthy, we
could have made work light work out of these pacers.
Despite the fact, we know that's not true. We know it.
(17:25):
How do we know it because we've seen it before.
We've seen this story before. It's called the Utah Jazz
sixty plus win season. They get eliminated early. We've seen
it from the Portland Trailblazers. You can only go so
far with these little ass guard duos Damon CJ, Mike
(17:47):
Conley and Donovan Mitchell. You just can't do. It just
doesn't work. We've seen it now when you don't have
the wing support on defense and you've got a four
who should probably be a five and a five who
should probably be on another team. So they're gonna run
it back They're probably gonna win less games than they
(18:08):
did last year because there's gonna be a lot of
teams that have figured out how to defend them. And
the elephant in the room is Donovan Mitchell is the
centerpiece of the team, and he's never been to a
conference finals in his entire career, not one time. He
has never played on a team that has had less
than forty eight wins. The Cavs this year had sixty
(18:29):
four wins. Only twenty five teams in the history of
the NBA have won more games than his teams have won.
And yet every time Donovan Mitchell's getting injured, Donovan Mitchell
looks gassed, Donovan Mitchell runs out of steam, and his
teams get eliminated early. Kenny Atkinson, amazing coach. Give him
(18:53):
his flowers. He did an incredible job. Congratulations Kenny. You're
gonna have to change your entire offense next year as well,
because teams are gonna spend all off season learning how
to fuck your shit up, just like the Pacers did
Golden stew We'll move on to Golden State. They're another
problem all together. This team is like actually buns. The
(19:15):
Calves are like a good regular season team, but you
know they don't have it, have it. The Golden State
is just like a really bad regular season team that
if you need them to play sixteen games eight games,
they can sort of figure out how to get to
the finish line. The duo of Jimmy Butler and Golden
(19:37):
State were incredible. They really were. They were twenty four
and seven in the regular season when they played together.
But the truth is this bitches is old. Those bitches
is old. They're both in their mid to late thirties.
They're both starting to break down. You saw Steph Curry
have to scratch and claw just to get this team
(19:58):
into the playoffs. To get this team out of the plan,
you had Jimmy Butler do the same. He was suspended
from Miami, he goes to Golden State, he puts the
after burners on. All of a sudden, just like we've
seen many times before, Jimmy Butler gets injured again, pelvic contusion,
(20:19):
but contusion. Steph Curry had his first hamstring injury of
his entire career. I'm gonna say that is likely going
to happen moving forward again. It's probably not the reason
the Warriors lost to the Wolves. If the Warriors and
Wolves were both healthy, I think probably Minnesota wins is
six or seven instead of five. But it's certainly contributed.
(20:45):
If you're a Dubs fan, though, Let's be honest, let's
be real. When you see Steph not playing on this team,
what do you think about? Wow, when he retires, this
isn't gonna be any fun. We are not gonna be
any fun to watch. We really aren't. It's terrible. Brandon Pajemski.
(21:06):
That's what we've got to do with. That's what we're doing.
We've got Gee Santos, we got like Draymond's gonna retire,
We've got nothing for him, Like Trace Jackson Davis. Who
is on this team? Do you like at all? Gary
(21:26):
Payton the second Jimmy Butter's gonna retire When Steph retires,
this team is dead. Jimmy averaged only ten shots and
fifteen and a half points, didn't hit a three in
either Game four or Game five. He's taking a lot
of blame right now, and I think he just didn't
want to do the Miami Heat thing anymore. You know,
(21:47):
I didn't come here for this. I hadn't come here
to play on the Miami heat of the West where
I have to do everything with these fucking bumps. Are
you serious? Steph's not here. If I don't have Batman,
I'm not doing it. I'm injured, I'm old. I want
a title, and it's very apparent that without Steph we're
(22:07):
not getting one. Warriors owner Joe Lacob said the series
loss was disappointing. I really hope we could extend the series.
I'm pretty positive that if we had Steph, we would
have won this series. Joe Lacob, my man is Delulu.
That's what he is. He He's Dlulu. That twenty twenty
(22:27):
two NBA Championship continued his arrogance, and I am I'm
ready for the fall of our dubs. As much as
I love Steph and I love watching him, and I
love Jimmy Butler and I love watching him, I can't
stand Joe Lacob. What is not up for debate is
that this roster needs an overhaul, starting with Jonathan Kaminga
(22:50):
aka cum Buckets. The tea starting to spill. Joe Lacob
has a ton of skin in the game when it
comes to Cumbuckets, because over the course of two years,
the Warriors drafted Wiseman Kaminga, Moses Moody, and all three
are nonsense. All three are pretty valueless. We won't go
(23:14):
over who they could have drafted, LaMelo Ball for one,
but suffice to say they stuck too long with losing
players and they are in a pickle. They're trying to
figure out a way out, and I don't know what
the way out is. The latest from the athletic who
says it's nearly impossible to believe Joe lacub would let
Kaminga sign an offer sheet elsewhere and walk away for nothing.
(23:38):
Oh okay, this is the best solution. As Kamingo wants out.
The Warriors have no long term plans for him. Steve
Kerr hates him as a player, maybe not as a guy.
Probably not as a guy. He's a nice enough guy.
A sign in trade would maybe bring them back some size,
which is sorely needed. I just see it. As for Jimmy,
(24:01):
he's happy, he's comfortable, he got his joy back. He said,
he's very fortunate to be here. But we'll see how
long that lasts, right, We'll see. He's never been happy
long term anywhere. And the Warriors, I think the window
is cracked for one and only season, and I don't
think if they make any significant upgrades, they're cooked. Steph's
(24:24):
gonna be thirty eight. He can't win with pods and
trace Jackson Davis starting. You can't win with an older
Draymond Green who needs Jimmy Butler to give him a
battery in his backpack. No one can No one can
win with these bumps, not even Steph Curry. All right,
moving on for some news from around the league. Adam
Silver is still trying to address the All Star Game
(24:49):
and it's mountain of problems by moving it earlier in
the season. Speaking on Serious XM Radio, and Adam Silver
said that the game has creeped later and later over
the years, mostly in response to the Super Bowl coming
later and later maybe, and that as a result, players
look at the late All Star break as a breather
(25:11):
before the playoffs. Maybe there's an opportunity to move that
around to create interest at a different point in the
season where players could be fresher. Yeah. I always felt
like they always say the last the latter half of
the season after the All Star break, and it's not
the latter half of the season. It's like the ladder.
Third of the season, it's like thirty games left by
(25:33):
that point, thirty one games left, So I agree. I
thought that the All Star break should come at the
halfway mark, which is Mlkday, which would be fucking dope
MLK Day All Star game. That would be a perfectlution
and make it an important holiday for the NBAS. And
guess who never wants to do anything around Mlkday the NFL,
(25:55):
because they're happy to do other things. Moving on, less
than forty eight hours after the adrenaline I got from
hearing my Portland Trailbazers were getting sold get kicked in,
I have come back to Earth. Why do you ask?
Because I thought uncle Phil Phil Knight, not Phil Jackson,
(26:17):
was going to buy this team. And then he decided,
fuck Jody Allen, not paying that extra money, and I'm
old now sad he wanted to buy the team. In
twenty twenty, he put out a statement in response to
the Paul Allen estate announcing they were going to sell
the team, and he said, five years ago, when I
was a younger man, he wasn't that young then I
had a great interest in being part of the Portland Trailblazers. Franchise. However,
(26:39):
at my current age, I can confirm that no longer
I have interest in acquiring the team. Well that's nice
to know. That's nice to know, because what you were
gonna sell it in five years you're gonna be ninety.
But like, actually I just only wanted to own it
for a half a decade. We're probably gonna get some
lay mass private equity guy or some sound he prints
(27:00):
by on this team, they're gonna want to move us to, like,
I don't know, Nashville. That sucks. That sucks. I'm sad,
and I was hoping that we would be Nike you anyway,
Moving on, Jason Tatum officially had successful surgery to repair
his achilles injury more than less than eighteen hours after
the injury occurred. He actually had the night of his injury.
(27:23):
Why is that important? First, the doctors have reported that
there were no further issues found during the surgery. The
truth is, complications during these procedures are very common, so
the fact that that was routine was great news. No
further damage needed to be addressed. I am a medical
expert now because I've been watching the pit, so I
(27:45):
don't know if they had to do a crack or
what is it called a crikey on his achilles. Anyway,
they didn't have to incubate them or anything. These are
all words I know now. Second, as a source told
Boston Globe, the decision was made to operate immediately because
swift action following achilles injuries tends to lead more to
(28:07):
favorable outcomes. And now we're hearing that Jason Tatum might
be back in eight months, which means Tatum could see
the floor around March first, which is right after the
All Star break, in time for the last twenty games
of the season, which would be a miracle and one
that we would all love to see. Awesome stuff. Thanks
(28:29):
shout out to Wyatt. That's all the time that we
have for this episode of the Heat Check. Come back Tuesday.
I have an interview, conversation, whatever you want to call it,
with the Athletics Law Murray. Great conversation. Check out the
feed for past episodes and the occasional mini episodes which
might come at you unexpectedly, like a crank or an
intubation on the pit or a mass shooter at the pitfest.
(28:52):
Do not forget spoiler alert, Do not forget to follow
the Heat check all playoffs long. That means follow, so download, subscribe,
and tell your friends, even the ones you haven't talked
to in years, say, Hey, the heat Chick's pretty good.
You should probably listen. Follow us on TikTok at this
heat check. And if you don't follow us on TikTok,
I kind of understand, so definitely follow us on Instagram
(29:14):
and on Twitter and on threads. I'm very popping for threads.
I post there all the time. Anyway, we'll talk to
you soon, shout out and we'll see you later.
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