Next Steps for Denver? Plus, Reaves’s Return, and Pistons on the Brink!

One series is over. The thunder has swept the suns. We'll talk a little bit about that and the sun's future, but lots still pending. Austin Reeves is coming back reportedly. Maybe for the Lakers in Game 5, Rob Mahoney and I will talk about that series.

“What that return means can the rockets actually pull this off?”

Denver stayed alive last night with a home win against the injury. Ravage has been a sort of temporal loaves that nuggets are injury ravaged to. I can't take any more injuries. And I was read spraying his ankle, but he came back in the game. I need now's read to be healthy.

We'll talk about what adjustments might come in that series. Can Minnesota hold on and squeak out one more win without Anthony Edwards and without Dante Diva and Shenzu. Would a Denver win feel hollow? What does Denver's future look like?

We get into all of that? Orlando Detroit. What a slug fest. Literally blood on multiple players at the end of the game. Jamal Kane Jamal Kane ended jail in Durin.

It happened. I couldn't believe it. Then he had another putback dunk. Detroit is on the brink.

What would a loss in the first round mean for their franchise going forward in terms of decision

making? Can they get back into the series? We'll talk a little bit about that. Toronto Cleveland, too, too. Uh-oh.

It's getting sticky for the calves. That series resumes tomorrow. Wednesday. We'll talk a little bit about that. And then some winners and losers of the offseason.

We'll talk about some trade possibilities, lottery reform, lots and lots of stuff. We're getting into everything with Rob Mahoney coming up. The Zach Low Show is brought to you by Bandool.

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Twenty-or-over in select states, 18 and over in DC, Kentucky Royalman gambling problem, called 1 in 100 gambling, called 1-888-789-777-777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Welcome to The Jamal King Show, I mean, the Zach Low Show. Rob Mahoney is here, there is a lot going on in the NBA, jail endurance remains, or splattered all over the floor, whatever the magic Serena is called, the pistons are down 3-1.

The nuggets are alive, Toronto and Cleveland are playing something that resembles basketball, and culinary boils is just swatting everything out of sight. We got a lot of room in form, we got a lot to get to, Mr. Mahoney, how you doing? I'm doing great, I know I was in the right place, because if we aren't leading which of ballcane, honestly, what are we doing here?

I mean, just let's take a second, that dunk was, I don't know if it was the dunk

of the year, because my brain is mush right now from the first round, I'm sure there was one in the regular season by some super duper star that was that good, that was sometimes dunking on someone, it's like a half dunk on someone, or they just start to jump over, it's like a half business decision, and they get out of it, this was straight up, jail endurance went for it, and he got jammed on so hard, and it wasn't like one of those

dunkstickets half disrupted in midair because of the shop block attempt, and so you just kind of squeeze it in, or eat it in, this was, that's just great of a dunk on someone's head as you will see in any kind of basketball game. And then at the end, they have to stop with the game, because Desmond Bane is like gushing blood out of the arm in jail and sucks as we are like, what's happening in this game? My God,

just the layered and dignity of being down three one, or going down three one, getting punked repeatedly by Wendell Carter Jr, and you can draw your inferences as far as his relation to jail endurance and what that means, and then Jamal Caine of all people who just came into this game, and really is coming to the series and been solid and legit and given the magic a lot of good minutes, but you don't expect to get jammed on by Jamal

Caine like that. If you are potential all in B.A. player, jail and dirt, and then you

“had like footnote, in fact, it put back dunk that no one will even remember, because”

it was just like kind of a regular, but awesome put back dunk. Anyway, we will get to that series. Tonight, we have resuming Boston, Philly, three one, I would expect Boston to close it out, and beat or no, and beat. It appears, and beat is a yes. We have Spurs Blazers, resuming Spurs up three one, I would expect a spurs to close it out, and then we have the biggest game of the night, Nick's Hawks at Madison Square Garden, Game 5, absolutely

pivotal game in part because Rob, we're we're going to pivot to the West in a second,

but just in general, I am very curious to watch Boston tonight, because before Game 4, when they just destroyed Philadelphia under, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, avalanche of threes and Peyton

it to be after losing Game 2. Those was a little too close for comfort for Boston, and it

“kind of had me thinking like, at that point, the mix were down to one, they end up tying”

this series of tune two against the Hawks team that's good, but like no one looks at the Hawksis, oh my god, this is the final steam. Sure. Number one seed in the east is down three one, the star studded Cavaliers are doing the same thing that the star studded Cavaliers do every season in the playoffs, which is have a ton of trouble with the team that they should not be having this much trouble with. And then the Celtics before that game for win looked

like good, but they're still the Tatum recovering thing and their centers are not a question mark, but just a little up and down sometimes, um, a Derek Whiteson is shooting something. It's like, is Orlando gonna win the east? Like, what's going on in the east? Does any, is that, and then they came out in Game 4 and I thought made his statement of like, no, no, yes, we are the best team in the east. And so I'm interested to see that one tonight. And then Nix Hawks,

look out, man, if the Nix go down three two, can you reel out? Woo! Mikhail Britt just might need protective detail if they go down three two. It's, it's getting, it's just such a weird

series, such an incredible series. Uh, but I have a hard time parsing where the dynamics are

right. Now, like the Nix obviously looked as impressive as they have this entire run so far, but I don't know that I would bet on that to stay. I don't know that I'm betting on a catchable double every night. I don't know that I'm completely sold. They're going to shut down CJ McCollum in the way that they were at least partially able to in Game 4. I'm afraid, I'm saying this, it is 11 a.m. Eastern time, 8 a.m. your time out in LA. So this could just be

the curse of all curses. I'm a little happy for Kat that if the Nix lose to this point, he is not the scapegoat or no problem. He's not even a place. And now I say that and God only knows what pit, what pit of hell I have opened for Kat. But we'll get to that. All that stuff later. Let's start with the games that are resuming Wednesday and on in the news of the morning, Shoms reporting that Austin Reeves is optimistic about returning for Game 5 of Lakers rockets.

A series that kind of became a forgotten series after the Lakers went up three o in the rockets. Pretty like in Fatty Coleman to say their season in Game 4. And I could tell on Sunday night Bill was so delighted and just wanted to fast forward this discussion to are the rockets going to do this? Are the Lakers going to be the first team ever to blow a three one lead? What are your thoughts on Austin Reeves? Well, first of all, Austin Reeves comes back. Yeah, you now I have a choice.

If he comes back, obviously that's helpful. The Lakers offense is kind of starting to legal oil a little bit. You do face a choice of who are we bringing off the bench now? Marcus Smart, Rui Hachimara,

“or Luke Canard. I think Smart has been too essential as a two-way player so that it becomes”

between Hachimara and Canard. Who would you bring off the bench and like do the rockets just big picture? Can they actually do this or is it too big of a hill? I wish I could believe that they could do this. But the rockets, I mean, they just play some of the dumbest basketball of anybody alive in the playoffs in terms of the decision making in terms of like the teetering edge of

when they are good versus when they are bad, always still so perilous and they're always so close to it.

The idea that they would have the precision necessary to pull off an unprecedented comeback. I just don't buy it. And so as things stand, Austin Reeves should help accelerate the Lakers through whatever is left of the series. I think for as amazing as he's been moving Luke Canard to the bench makes sense, just in terms of balancing the rotation, giving some of the oath that he's brought to the Lakers in the starting lineup. But now you can kind of stretch it out over the course of

the game. And if anything, in this potential close out effort, I thought we saw, you know, LeBron bumping up against some of the reasonable limits of what he can provide. And so the more you can augment what he's bringing and Reeves is bringing while cautiously easing back into

“the lineup with Canard off the bench, his like new reinvented form. I think that makes a lot of”

sense for them. I just it's hard to imagine to Houston rockets, given the state of their offense, winning four basketball games in a row against a good team. Now, a good team that has home court advantage over them. Yeah. There are defenses, holacious, and they will be competitive almost every game. And this could be a two two series if not for one of the all-time

incredible inexplicable collapses in game three. I still can't even believe that that happened.

I think the Lakers can believe it. I don't think anyone would have ball can believe it. But it just it would seem unlikely to me. But is there did you see anything in game four other than other than the rockets finally putting Luke Canard through the ringer on defense that yeah, that struck you as okay. That's interesting. That's something the Lakers might have to adjust to. I mean, to be honest, not particularly. I mean, I think it was a more

encouraging effort from Shane Goon overall, just in terms of the balance of his game and his playmaking. It like he has to be good, right? Like that's without Kevin Durant that is like the

flow and the operations of the rockets and think, oh, this is a team that's like really

figured some stuff out. It's like selective mismatch targeting. Obviously, like the more you can create turnovers and get out on transition, all the better for a team like this. But they're just one of these groups that gets by off of that athleticism and off that tenacity on defense. And otherwise, like I just don't trust their problem solving. And as you alluded to with the the implosion in game three, I just don't trick their like collective poise in a lot of these situations.

Michael Pina wrote about this already yesterday that the Durant situation. He has a year and then a player option left on his contract. I just think if they lose this series and history suggests apologies to their occupations that they will lose the series, I do think they face an interesting

like three-pronged decision. Decision number one, the choice path number one is stay the course.

This was a gap year. Katie comes back, Fred Vannevley comes back. That's about as, you know, I'm in Thompson gets better. Tarys and is a free agent. We got to figure him out. Jibari Smith Jr gets better. Everyone improves. Shengoon improves. This is like a pretty good team. And maybe

“actually the best way we can compete against Oklahoma City in San Antonio who are going to own”

discomforts for the foreseeable future. Path number two is like, oh, God, our team is a good enough trade. Shengoon and the net's pick and a ton of other stuff for Janis or another superstar and hope that Janis plus Durant plus Dan Vleet plus whatever is left over. Presumably on Med Thompson because you're not going to trade both of those guys. Shengoon and Thompson I would think not is enough. Whether the bucks do that or not. Holder story. I don't want to talk about the bucks.

Path number three, which is almost the most interesting one. And the least sexy one is, do you just trade Durant as like almost a timetable reset? Like all right, this disdain work. It got a little messy. There was a whole bon of a burner or phone thing that happened. That happened and could we trade him to any number of teams in the eastern conference who are like, hey, we're in the east. We got a shot. You guys have no shot. And just get some stuff for him.

He's still at the elite stuck there. But like just okay, let's reset a little bit around these young guys who are pretty good and see what we have and keep our nets picked from next year. Keep our sons draft as it's keep all that. I almost think that might be I actually might rank them in order of like what I would do. Standpad, Durant trade, Janis all in move. I might put Janis all in move like last of those three, which seems a little crazy to me because I don't

I don't know what which of any of those paths is putting me on the same level of the two best teams in the conference who are only going to get better. Yeah. Well, the standpad include the coaching staff as well. You know, I look, I I called emails game to coaching performance and I quote myself borderline insane. So I have not been a huge fan of his performance on the offensive end of the ball. His ability to build a culture and build a defense to like on impeachable. That's

that's just the thing. He's good at it. Agreed. I said in the middle of the season like let's start taking bets on who the Mike Dantonie style offensive oriented associate head coaches on the rocket's next year. I still think given the injuries, I would actually, I mean, this is really not based on what I've heard, but just my gut like I would actually be surprised if they moved on for me may. I don't think it would be completely outrageous or out of play, but my expert,

“I would bet that he stays as the coach. I think that's fair in terms of the sort of cover”

that coaches get in these situations. But if we're charting out those three those three possibilities with Emio Doka continuing as the coach, I don't know that I like really want to see that half torn down not Kevin Durant version of this team anymore. Like we saw that team run up against the wall last year. We know exactly what they can and can't do a little bit of incremental improvement from some of the young players involved helps, but I don't think it resolves any of their problems.

And to me, this boils down to like, do you see Kevin Durant as a sunk cost or do you see him as like a slightly open window? And I think at this point in his career, it's I think a slightly open window feels fair. If you can get him a little bit more flow, a little bit more help, even like a Fred Van Vleet amount of help within this offense would do wonders for the rockets. I think they are close enough that I would continue to lean into what they have. And honestly, like I'm maybe

just like just sour enough on the Shengoon long-term projection that I'm okay exploring some

“of those possibilities while keeping Kevin Durant that's what it came down to. I just don't”

know that I would bail on this so quickly even for as messy and as weird as it's been.

I think that's fair. I think Stampat is Stampat-ish, right? There's always going to be

they can play both sides of it pretty well. Okay, just looking forward a second, will you just do

me the luxury of thunder-lakers? Just I've started looking ahead to that matchup. If Luca could ever get back and I'm not sure what the time table is, it doesn't seem terribly optimistic. I actually think the jailin Williams injury, if he is also out, can really matter in this series because if Luca's back and Reeves is back, you have these three really good offensive players, Dortwood Guard one and jailin Williams would guard the other, and typically jailin

Williams would guard LeBron and Dortwood Guard Luka Dodgeich. If Luca's out, you just slide Dort over to LeBron and you figure it out. If they have all of them and the thunder don't have jailin Williams, it kind of gets, I mean, I would still pick the thunder with the series to be clear. It just

kind of gets fun in terms of the jigsaw puzzle of like, okay, is check in a guard LeBron? We actually

saw a little bit of that in the last matchup. Okay, if not check, if is Dortwood Guard LeBron, well, then who's guarding Luca to have to change my starting five, which right now is AJ Mitchell. Do I have to start a more defensive warrior to player in that spot? It kind of becomes like, you see at least a road map for the lakers to just slow this down, play old man, bully ball, luka centric, basketball, and like at least make it a competitive series. Like,

“I think the jade up, now we, he's weak to weak, Lucas, whatever to whatever. They could both be back”

neither of them could be back. I have no idea. I just think it's like kind of interesting to think about. It's definitely interesting to think about. As I think it's exactly what people like

us want out of a thunder playoff run. Like where are the points where they're really being

pressed and tested and forced to be something outside of what they would like to be. Like they would love to throw AJ Mitchell out there, but making it untenable makes the thunder more interesting. And to be honest, like a lube, there should be something illegal about coming back from injury and having to be guarded by Lou Dort in a playoff series. Why? Because you're going to you're going to get tripped within five minutes. You're at least going to be thinking about it,

non-stop. And for that reason alone, I think if you're, if you're going through the matchups from the thunder perspective, I would put Lou Dort on either Luca or Austin Reeves, just for like the psychic value of put Lou Dort firmly in their head every time they're thinking about the stability of their lower body. Like it's a it's a mean. I mean, it's the gamesmanship of the playoffs. What else are you supposed to do? Yeah. But I do think Chad would end up guarding Lebron a lot

“in that series. I think that would be a really fun matchup to see Lebron tried to leverage his strength”

against him. Like big, watery, rim, rim protector against like grizzled ultra clever playmaker trying to body him at every turn. Like that's the kind of matchup I want to see. You could also, you could do some really interesting things with heart and shine too when they have the book, both the bigs out there. You could put heart and sting on Lebron and just sort of sit back and see what happens and make chet the rim protector on it. And then they go one big. It gets,

then they go just one big. It's a little easier. Anyway, we're getting too far a flip. Some quick newsy things. Rob, did we win the rookie of the year argument? Because you were Cooper flag all long. And I flipped to Cooper flag before the play in tournament at the end of the season. Very close. Well, just, and it's, it's a matter of taste. I just, I went with flag in the end for reasons I've already articulated. It was very, it was very close. And it should, I was actually even closer

“than I thought it was. I thought calm was going to win and it was going to be close. I think”

to play in just destroyed cons, Ricky. Yeah. Like I think those two games or that one was, you know, those two games did him in. And I know that the NBA is not psyched that people may have changed their vote because of the play in tournament to which I say, sorry NBA, you created the problem. You created this appeals system that delayed everybody getting their ballots. And then you asked voters to do something that they couldn't do, which is tell their human brain with all

its vulnerabilities and vicissitudes. Hey, brain, shut off, what's the play in and analyze it? But shut off the awards part of yourself and all those neurons over there and don't consider it for the awards. It's not possible. It's the NBA's fault. And if the play in Swung the Race, which I believe it did. And then too bad NBA. Yeah, I was genuinely shocked. And maybe this is just because we're in a con echo chamber over here as far as, you know, who is getting votes and who is getting

carpool rides and whatnot. But I think we do we look, you either have to resolve the play in interim period and just get the votes in earlier or just let them count. Like, I don't even really see a problem. If we're allowing the NBA Cup championship, which is technically not a regular season game to factor into awards voting at a bunch of other different ways. Like, what is the harm in letting a play in game factor in? I think the you need to count the play games have to

games. Like, I was looking at jail and greens playoff stats. You're going to talk about the

sons at the end. And I'm like, oh, jail and greens playoff stats. They look a lot like jail and greens says, oh, he played really well on the plan. Can't find those stats anywhere. They don't exist. It didn't have the last bit of news. The lottery reform, which I don't want to belabor. But I said this a few weeks ago, standing in Gundy, that the one that has momentum and a systemic sort of reiterated this yesterday and his reporting, and they're because there's

a, I guess, a GM's called today is 18 teams get into the lottery. So the 10 that missed the playoffs, the 10 that missed the play in and the playoffs, the four losers from the play in and the four winters from the play in and the odds for the 10 worst teams are all flat. They all have the same odds at the

number one pick. And then the other eight teams, so the play in teams, including the ones that make the

playoffs, get a lesser portion of the odds. And beyond that, this specifics are TBD, like how many slots do you draw in all of this? Needless to say, this would have a huge impact on tons of team building decisions, on tons of picks that have already been traded. We're going to talk about Denver in a minute. My just general questions, you I don't want to get into all the different proposals and like this proposal that incentivizes winning and this credit space proposal that I reported

on a couple weeks ago, which is really interesting. Do you like this one? I like it fine. As usual,

“I don't think it solves all the problems. And as usual, I think it probably will just kind of shift”

the battleground of where the tanking occurs. Like I think we're just going to see teams like really valuing being in that like 10th worst record slot, as opposed to, you know, some of these play and births or some like the play and security of where you're seated in that particular bracket. So it's like, you get rid of some of like the most unseemly stuff and maybe that's worth it, right? Like the wizard's pulling guys and the jazz sitting guys and the

Pacers like hoping to God that no one looks too closely at what they're doing on a nightly basis. But does it really change a lot if you're just moving some of that to like a buck's warriors game or those two teams like jockying in the sandings to be slightly worse than each other to get like a flat 8% odd. I think their bed is teams are going to care about winning and the playoffs too much to tank out of the top six and into the play and out of the play and into the lottery.

And that's I think that's pretty reasonable. I don't mind this proposal. Like here, here's what I mind. So this is a sentence from Sam Amick. And he, this is his words, but he's just parroting what you hear from teams who don't like this because it it's too flat and it's too disadvantages to the worst teams. He says, what might the league wide reaction be? For example, when one of those two lottery teams that actually took part in the playoffs gets lucky by landing

the number one pick, this stuff drives me insane. This is the stupidest possible sentiment out there about lottery reform because you cannot unless there's a middle ground that I'm missing and please tell me if there is, you cannot be alone tanking and be like, this is a scourge on the league, it's horrible and then be like, oh my god, but what if the 16th best team wins the lottery,

“what if a playoff team wins the lottery? You have to be willing to live with that kind of outcome”

if you want to eradicate tanking, unless there's another kind of solution that I don't see and we

could there's a million different ones that are out there. But if you're sticking with this sort of

format, you can't have everything. You can't have the perfect reverse order draft where the worst teams get rewarded and you can't also have, be angry about, oh my god, a mid tier team won the lottery. Yeah, you have to be willing to live with something and in the, and this is the short-term thinking of that everyone in the league. If you played out this system for 50 years, it would favor the worst teams in the aggregate slightly at least. And so it's just you just have to, what are you

willing to live with? If you're not willing to live with tanking, you have to be willing to live with a team that's in the playoffs or a team that's just in the end of the lottery winning the lottery in a year where the draft actually matters and Sam Sites, the Mavericks with Cooper Flag and other sort of recent big jumps up in the lottery. Yeah, it's already happening. Like right, I just, if that sentiment just drives me insane, the pro-pletching of like, won't someone think of the

“children? Like if you want to get rid of tanking, you're going to have to swallow some pain elsewhere.”

Well, especially when we're talking about playing teams. Like if you were to concoct a dream scenario, you get to hand-pick exactly who gets the number one pick next year. I would think on the grounds of ethical basketball alone, the sons would be like a good candidate, like they play, they played hard all year, they overachieved, they worked through defense, they took this roster and really made something of it relative to expectation. Like why would that not be the kind of

team that would be a great story to land the number one overall pick? Well, the only problem with that

great story donut. Okay, we'll get back to the sons. Let's talk about the events of the night and what's going on going forward. Before we do that, like, do you, if we're going to make dramatic proposals like this to the lottery system, I do think this is a great time for it because of the magic. Like because a play in team is having like real success pushing in, creating the competing motivation of should I be trying to tank for these flat and dogs or to get into this particular

flat and bracket versus maybe our team is talented enough and uneven enough to believe that we could push a number one or number two seed if given the perfect matchup. That's fair. It's a good point and they were a play in team, so this team would be in the lottery to your point under this proposal. Look, there's a billion different proposals. They all have issues. They all move the lines a little bit. It's just, it's, it's, it's just, it is, it is what it is. I just don't want to hear that.

And by the way, this, whatever this solution is, it's not, it's been made very clear in the competition committee meetings that it's not going to be a permanent solution necessarily. Like there's, it's going to be revisited in five, six, seven years and more radical solutions like that credit-based system could be on the table then. Okay. Let's talk about the playoffs. Minute soda Denver, Denver, you know, pretty emphatic home, when last night, despite no air

“and Gordon, no patent Watson, but a win that you should get when Anthony Edwards is out,”

and don't even chance to always out for the season and for a lot of next year, if not all

of next year. Now, the series that's diminished soda for game six, obviously there's going to be a ton of pressure on a short-handed wolf's team to get this thing over the finish line, which I think they can do, they proved it in game four that they can do it. I guess my, my first question to you would be, if Denver comes back to win this series, would it feel hollow to you? A little bit. I mean, I think you could see a bunch of very obvious and also very downstream

implications of not having answered Dante out there. Like a completely changes the entire shape of the wolves, it puts guys in roles that they're not used to being in. Even when you think about defensively, like the cat skating effect, once you go from Jade McDaniels to now your second

best defender on the perimeter is basically Iodesumu, who's good and active, but also like a

little spacey and a little unreliable in certain positioning ways, that's a dramatic change in tenor of the series. And so if you did have the nuggets roaring back to find a version of themselves the end to win the series, you'd want them to do it through Anthony Edwards to be going like through the resistance of the series and not you almost win not on technicality, but your path has been smooth to a degree that it's so much easier to find yourself.

“I think it would feel hollow. And I don't mean that as a slide to the nuggets because you can't”

apologize for winning and they're short handed to, they're just not this short handed like you take Anthony Edwards out. That's a different ballgame as great as Aaron Gordon is and as perfect as of a fit as he is and as good as Peyton Watson is. And by the way, I think fans who, you know, kind of tune in and out in the regular season may still think of Peyton Watson is this like cute seventh or eighth guy off the bench that he became a really, really good starter level player,

who is a sneaky, very important free agent this off season for both the nuggets and maybe the lakeers and a bunch of other teams. I think it would feel a little hollow, but again, you can't apologize for it. I have no idea if Aaron Gordon will play again in the postseason. He looked like really, really compromised in game for scarily compromised. I thought he looked like they were trying to get away with something. It's like how long can we have Aaron Gordon on the court before

the wolves realize they don't have to guard him basically at all. Which they did realize and

I a little bit of that happened with Nas Reed last night after he's praying his ankle. They started being like, oh, we can just put anybody on Nas Reed and like please Nas Reed be healthy. I can't take any more of these injuries. Oh, by the way, I won't get we'll get to that.

“I'll get back to that. But it would also, if Denver comes back to win, I think potentially”

forced all some pretty hefty decisions about this core and how to move forward if they had just gotten wiped out in five games in this series. And it didn't really look like those three games in a row and the two in Minnesota, like Minnesota had just busted their ass, like they had beat, like they had beaten them up. They had taken them out of their game. They had taken Yokech completely out of his game, like very frazzled and just out of it and exposed that without Gordon and Watson,

the nuggets just don't have enough talent around Murray and Yokech who neither of them was letting it up anyway. And I think if they actually scoundged this series in seven games and then let's say they put up a respectable effort against the spurs in losing six. I think you just end up being like all right, like maybe we have to salary dump Cam Johnson to keep Peyton Watson. I think that's the thing that could be on the map. But like largely what else are we supposed to do?

the thunder in the spurs, but we got to run it back. I think if they get wiped out in this series,

“it raises a lot of a lot of big issues and like that's what it turns on though.”

They would be deserved issues. I think the problem with where the nuggets are is there are only so many levers to pull that would actually make you in any way better. Like I understand the concerns about Aaron Gordon's health now given the way these last two seasons have gone. You're not going to find anyone out there who Aaron Gordon's better than Aaron Gordon.

Like that very particular skill set and role is so critical to them that I don't know that they're

going to find a demonstrative upgrade. Other than maybe they would trade Gordon for a different kind of player and just really prioritize an elevate Peyton Watson there. But even then he's like better at guarding wings and guards than he is like cross matching to guard fives, which doesn't alleviate the concerns about Nicole Yokech's defense. Christian Brown at this point like might be untradable if you don't attach something pretty juicy to get to that like 125

million dollar contract he's owed. Really, really disappointing season. Very postseason. And I don't remember if it's up my head what the specifics were in terms of like what was Peyton Watson asking for and this and that but like looks like they made the wrong choice if it was

really their choice and I'm not sure it entirely was but yeah very disappointing. Yeah and I can

understand some of the thinking right like betting on the cautious middle ground of this is a solid, reliable role player who is just coming off of a very improved season. We're going to take what feels like the safer bet versus the high end possibility of what Peyton Watson has become unfortunately Peyton Watson is kind of tapping onto that high end and Christian Brown may not have been as safe a bet as they thought and in particular that's a lot of money to place on even what

feels like a safe bet for what's going to be you know your fifth starter maybe fourth starter aspirationaly. It really if I mean they wouldn't I don't think it's unfair to if they lose if they lose this year is now to begin asking the question like is the window just shut on this court given how how great the top two seeds in the west are now and figure to be in the next few years. And if you think it is closed what do you do about it and Denver situation is like

pretty interesting so they owe their they have their first round pick this year they owe their

2027 pick with top five protection that rolls over multiple years to the thunder of the teams the freaking thunder and so let's if they they probably will give that pick it's hard to imagine the nuggets are picking in in the top five next in 2027 then they would have their 2028 pick but they can't trade it in the meantime they can trade it maybe at once they make that pick if if they owe their 2029 pick top five protected to guess who the thunder home of city

and these are trades that Calvin Booth made with the idea of we're going to trade out of the future to get extra bites at the apple now and you'll could just prime to get like more rookie

“scale contracts and as it paid off it's like they got paid in Watson I think with one of those trades”

it's like neither here nor there and so in the meantime they can't really move their 2030 or 2031 picks until all those obligations are extinguished and then they owe their 2032 pick unprotected to the nets in the cam Johnson Michael Porto Junior trade the top five protection is interesting because it does in theory give them some protection if they just decide it's over and we want to tank however the lottery odds changing really mitigates against that because right

now you can control your own destiny to a degree that you will not be able to if these flat lottery odds are actually passed and not only that being in the middle becomes more profitable for you and sort of I think maybe pushes teams to just say well you know if if we are a whatever team if we can trade Jamal Murray and do this and that and be like a good team but not a great team that's fine it's just did I spend time making up fake yolk it should Murray deals rub yes yes I did

because I think it's worth it's a fun thought exercise but I don't know it's interesting to think about like if you trade one should you just trade both or is there like a Murray trade out there that you know you just keep like you don't know what wants to trade Nicole Yoke it's right

“um but I didn't spend some time on it I think you have to for that reason like you outlined”

that one of their only means of relief is to just like dump cam Johnson somewhere else they just don't have a lot of other maneuvers to make except the big nuclear stuff yeah do you want to hear some I would love to what do you have I mean I didn't go too too deep because I think um I think it's a little early in a little hour ages um but I will say like Charlotte for either guy is interesting Toronto for either guy is interesting now the

make sense for the Raptors well as as I was going through the exercise of like who could fill the Aaron Gordon spot in a similar way to Aaron Gordon I mean Scotty Barnes is among the dream candidates but you're right it seems impossible that they would end up on the same team

“I mean you have to find a team that has a really good young player players”

surplus of potentially actually good first round picks and could reasonably say after we trade all of that stuff for one or both or one of these guys we can win immediately and it's a hard

needle to thread I really thought about Detroit sign and trade Jalen Dern and a billion other

things but unfortunately that the cap exists and there's basically your compensation rules and also the nuggets are probably going to be over the first apron and can't get a player in a sign and trade and then you have the teams like to what end Chicago to what end Brooklyn like if Brooklyn is supposedly an onionist why wouldn't they be in on your pitch like but to what end the lakeers everyone will want to sign and trade region came to get at the same thing applies to the

warriors same thing you'll hear warriors like the Murray won just alone like Atlanta could you could make an argument for either guy with in Atlanta with all the extra picks they have including this pelican spec I just these are the kind of teams that you had to at least think about I just don't know

that there's anything palatable for Denver but that window if it's not if it's not shut is

getting like pretty close because Minnesota kicked the crap out of them but now they're alive they're alive and they win this series I think get four stalls all this did you see like so what can Minnesota do without they're starting back core like did you see any glimpses of interesting stuff in that game last night I think it's pretty challenging and you could see the nuggets just with like slightly better and more precise and more active defense we're able to muck things up

and make things pretty challenging for Minnesota's playmakers it's just a lot to ask of io to sumo

“to go from like oh make the most of this like semi transition break to now you have to read”

multiple layers of defense or Julius Randall here now you have multiple bodies being thrown at you all the time Jade McDaniel's like your handle is so much improved now do something with it on a level it's gonna like carry everything that like ant initiating carries I think that part of it is really hard I do think that they can gum up the game enough though to make it more competitive than this and certainly was in the first half like so much of what Denver was able to accomplish

was diversifying who was handling the ball for them it was like getting camp johnson into situations where he was being more aggressive it was activating Spencer Jones in a way where you're like I think he was the first non-yokish marine nugget to put up 20 at any point in the series so far that stuff you can take away and certainly we've seen go bear like big yokages like a living hell enough to

know that it's not always gonna be like this isn't always gonna be as free flowing as it was for

the nuggets here um I think Randall has to just have one huge game and you could see them kind of twing with are there ways that we can get them switched on to smaller players like can we run an IO Randall pick and roll or Randall bones pick and roll like something to just get us a lever to pull to draw help in the half court there is something interesting when they have calmly and I when they have any two of calmly IO and bones on the floor of like you feel and this is not new

but it's now just more important you feel the change from kind of one alpha ball handler who's going to initiate everything to the ability to move from one side to the other a little bit um and that

“I think is important and then odds read it's so interesting how they use them how they use him”

we're going to see them play the three big guys together more we saw that we saw Kyle Anderson and two big guys more because two of their perimeter guys are out they tend to use knives read no matter who's on him whether it's a bigger guy or a smaller guy it's just like a gigantic guard like they'll run them off pin downs they'll run them in pick and roll so have them run off flair screens I like when they put him in the post against smaller players that said it's harder to

do when like Randall and go bear or Randall and Anderson like two pink cloggers are on the floor but I not as is going to have to have a big one and you mentioned go bear just I think one of the things I wanted to highlight how good he's been I mentioned this with Bill that I'm sure you have noticed this that Yokech's post touches are down and his rolls to the rim on the pick and roll are really down because they've just taken away that floater and I thought it was interesting

right away he got one of those floaters last night and I thought that was important but they because of the way they guard Murray and how great go bear has been he's just not even trying to get to it very often he's just popping out or hanging out around the perimeter and the wolves are thrilled with that and he's running way more pick and roll and I looked it up this morning regular season he ran 10 pick and rolls as the ball handler per hundred possessions in this series he's up

to almost 15 and you could just see like the wolves are making them stretch their playbook as far

sometime in the fourth quarter go dicey in the fourth quarter last night it did they ran a like a

“cross screen for him when he had Nas read on him and he got a deep post touching it was an easy”

end one like I just don't understand whenever anybody but go bear is on him and maybe minutes so to just has to tether go bear to him more like more permanently I don't understand why he they're just not feeding him in the post he might just be tired but I those are times when he's got to eat but I don't know man it's gonna be interesting game six you could see some of that stretching of the playbook you were talking about two just in terms of who the nuggets were trying to involve

in action right it's like it's one thing if Jade McDaniel's is on jemal Murray that's like the most scouted action in in terms of what's going on in the series the Yogich Murray's stuff I thought the nuggets that are really good job in this game of mixing it up to where Cam Johnson Spencer Jones like they were dragging instead of like oh let's bring Jade McDaniel's over to Nicole Yogich for this dribble handoff or pick and roll or whatever it was let's get my

conland there let's get bones highland and let's exploit some of those multiple guard lineups you

“mentioned I like when jemal Murray hunts those guys and posts them up and inverts the floor I think”

that should be a weapon for them too yep I think this is a coin to our series now it's also just a really depressing series given all the injuries um we'll fit it let's take a quick break and then a couple more thoughts on this matchup the Zack low show is brought to you by Fandool the NBA playoffs are here and everything's on the line every possession matters every bucket swings the game and tonight is your shot to boost your bet that's right all customers get a profit boost

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“terms apply i have two very important uh it takes from this game that aren't just you have to hear”

them number one if a player on the other team jade may Daniels calls out your entire team

basically said you're all bad at this part of the game they're all bad everyone's bad they're all

bad and you dunk on that player you get to point at them without getting called for a technical foul I understand the rest of them make sure there's no altercation and that's good Christian Brown pointed at jade may Daniels and got teed up you you should have carte launch to point at jade make you should be able to grab his crotch and point at jade may Daniels after what jade may Daniels said and I love the jade may Daniels said it bad technical boo no fun

I think we need to broaden it out Zach I think we just need to open our hearts to taunting again period I don't care about the altercations I think if you if you score in any way on somebody you get two seconds to do or say basically whatever you want short of like punching someone I just have a lot of allowance for basically any taunt if if Jamal can had run into the stands and shut the fans beer and run back onto the floor I would have been like straight no technical

foul game game continues let's keep moving take number two I'm really now going to sound like Abe Simpson yelling at a cloud in the second quarter of this game Bruce Brown led a four on one not a two on one not a three on one a four on one with Julian's rather on the right wing Cam Johnson on the left wing and two him hardaway junior running the lane kind of with him and Bruce Brown picked up his dribble on the pickaxe on the Denver Nuggets logo

and passed to Cam Johnson for a three that the basketball guys were never going to let go in

there was a breeze that came in blue it off course we need an intervention with these fast breaks that end in three pointers instead of layups and dunks it was a four on one if I were the David Adam and I would have find Bruce Brown for making that pass I would have find Cam Johnson for taking the shot well I would say that the the world found its equilibrium later in this game when Cam Johnson was leading a three on three break got a step and you could tell Cam Johnson has

spent days like looking in the mirror telling himself to let it fly telling himself to be more

when Cam Johnson a couple days ago would have definitely kicked it out to Tim Hardaway junior

“so I'll do credit to Cam I thought like really came to play for this one he did okay fine he”

gets it's neutral he gets he doesn't have to pay a fine but he didn't get anything extra Bruce Brown gets find also gets fine for shaving the good part of the Fumant shoe mustache just lasting on Denver I'm not gonna I'm not gonna just shut the window I want to see how this ends and what they do in the offseason but man 2021 and 2022 those lost years those hurt if you play out the NBA 50 times on a computer simulation in 2021 2022 or 2024 I bet they get

one of those rings and the entire conversation about yo kitches different and Murray is different and they're like it's a different but guess what they didn't they didn't get either of them and in 2024 that Minnesota series it's a great win by Minnesota and clearly they are now have the upper hand in this matchup by the tiniest margins game two that's the nuggets

lose the first two games at home and completely unravel and let go of the rope in game two that's

the jemal Murray throws the heating pack on the floor game and then game six when they go up 32

“they just punted the game in Minnesota they lost but I think 45 points they clearly were like we”

have game seven at home we're fine you cannot do that in the playoffs you can't punt a game no matter how good you think you are what your lead is especially if it's three two and then they blew a 20 point leader whatever in game seven at home they will ruin the day because they would probably beat in Dallas the next round certainly and then finals against Boston is a interesting okay um kind of one more thing about this series before we move on Zach absolutely that's

why you're here uh jemal Murray I thought had like a good game not an exemplary jemal Murray game but a very necessary one and I thought just he just thought like hell at a time where that's exactly

what Denver needed and in particular there's a sequence in the third quarter where he was driving

he lost his footing he just like had to throw the ball away as he was falling to the ground and he got up like three times on one possession to get into a scrum for a loose ball to disrupt the wolves in the back court ended up drawing a foul in the play it's like at at the risk of belabering the like the playoffs are about getting off the mat metaphor here like this is genuinely what the nuggets needed in this sort of moment was like that sort of resilience that sort of

energy and I want to salute jemal Murray for it yeah it's just a playoff I mean you can feel the urgency of all these games we'll talk about Toronto and Cleveland later I mean the effort level that Scotty Barnes is putting forth on both ends of the floor and that series I mean I'm exhausted watching it um okay Orlando Detroit the magic who spent the entire year farting around using injuries as an excuse having passive aggressive aggressive aggressive aggressive coach player back

in fourths are up three one over the 60 win feel good Detroit pistons um we talked about jemal cane we talked about the blood we talked like there was a sequence with like three and a half minutes left

where Jalen Suggs got a break like broke full court pressure basically and when right there is

a steward at the room at full speed and tried to dunk on beef stew who had eight blocks last night he wasn't saying and that was one of them and then there was like a 22nd period where the entire game just blacked out and everybody was on the floor and there were like four more attempts to dunk on as they as steward none of which were successful people were falling over uh Robbie Humble on the broadcast just went oh my goodness and then Detroit got the ball and Tobias Harris missed a

wide open three danis Jenkins and missed another wide open three Kate cutting him is to pretty easy floater by his standards when the magic went over a pick and the pistons did not make a basket a feel go for like five straight minutes at the game until garbage time and now they are on the ropes the magic and the pistons rank 15th and 16th out of 16 playoff teams and offensive efficiency this has been a defensive physical nasty series Detroit has home court this is where you if you're

down three one it helps to have five and seven at home how can they get back into this series Mr. Mahoney I thought the most successful stuff they were doing by far offensively was anytime they were able to clear one side of the floor for a pick and roller dribble hand off it was like oh my god the seas have parted there's actual flow to this offense whether it is leading to a jail and during dunk on the roll or a kick out to like a very good clean three for an actual shooter

that stuff is really good if you can get to it more and that's so much easier said than done that is a route to good offense it's just so hard when you have multiple non shooters on the floor and

“so I think the answer honestly might be that some of these guys just have to play less like a”

star Thompson is a great candidate who is so important to their defense in theory is one of the best defense players in the league this season I don't think he has registered a positive impact

of him has been so disruptive it's why they can't enter the ball to jail and during when they say

“every kid during pick and roll and like I love us are I love the the high drama of the”

rebounds he's pulling down in the series is unbelievable like he's making plays the other people can't make but he's also forcing everyone around him to have to make similarly exceptional plays

basically all the time um it's it he's astonishing to watch when he gets up there it's but yeah

I mean look this is this is a Detroit nightmare scenario and one that like was not all together surprising in that they don't have enough secondary creation they don't have enough shooting and they have very stark tradeoffs on their roster to wit their offense looks just way looser and better when Duncan Robinson is the one running off those empty side pin downs and just involved over here on the other side of the floor drawing attention and the magic are hunting him so relentlessly

and I thought hunted him in very smart ways last night smarter like more precise than they had been in the previous three games um that JB bigger staff was like I just have to take you off the floor and go with Karis LeBurt who's a better defender but not in the same universe as a shooter and then Karis LeBurt came out they hunted Karis LeBurt too like they're like all right if that's the weakest link will on him then they brought the honest Jenkins in and they just this is what we all

feared about Detroit is that kid they can't decide who to play down the stretch and the offense defense tradeoffs are are so stark and but I agree with you like they just have to it's hard man the magic are a big nasty physical team and they're they're they're slowing everything Detroit wants to do down it's hard it's hard for them to execute anything they just see to introduce a little bit more dynamism into things that thought in game in game three

when they hunted uh but you know game game two rather that thought they've been better at like hunting Desmond Bay and hunting Hello bank care like Kate doesn't you don't have to stop when they switch

to first pick and roll and when do harder juniors on you and you can't enter the ball

to Durin because there's a swarm on him right you can go find another matchup you can run a second pick and roll like you just got to keep it moving a little bit more and it's just but it's hard to keep it moving when everyone on the other team is giant and and really engaged on defense very much so I do wonder if there might be like a little avenue if Frons ends up missing actual games in this series and not just having to sit at the end of this one but all due respect to Jamal Kane why thought

did a really good job on Kate cutting him in particular but Frons is easily their best offensive option against Kate in terms of the size and activity he provides he also does something really important which is as Detroit is trying to get into these like okay we're going to run a couple of layered pick and rolls to create that open side action sometimes they have to switch their way through it and Frons is ability to guard a jail in Durin is just totally different than when you're getting

from Kane and so it's like you know window can kind of like hang on Kate with help for moments at a time and Frons can hang in the middle middle with a big if you need him in that situation everything just gets a little more difficult if you don't have his size in particular in the mix and so I wonder with enough of this like misdirection if Detroit might actually be able to

“make some inroads that way I wouldn't write Detroit out of this series yet I think that's premature”

they have home court they're shooting 27% on threes which they're not a good shooting team but do you figure they do they have a game in another game in them when they shoot a they miss good looks last night like Tobias Harris missed a bunch of good looks Duncan Robinson miss some really good looks including one where a Sartamson to your point made himself much more useful off the ball by setting a flare screen that got Duncan Robinson wide open and like that's the kind of

stuff that Detroit's going to have to do more in addition to just like slipping to the rim even harder there was a point in game too where um during like stop even setting screens like you would come into the area where he would set a screen and then sprint out of it to the rim and they found him a couple of times and then he found a Sartamson a couple of times like they just need a little bit more of that and they have it they have an in him and their defense has been like awesome Detroit

defense has been legitimately awesome in the series um interesting subplot to this what does Detroit do in the offseason if they lose this series to address the shortcomings that we all worry about that have come to fruition well obviously a big storyline you know I think I don't they've made the parallel someone has made the parallel maybe bill to Oklahoma City like

let's get a taste to the playoffs first and then okay Giddy it didn't work let's make the move now

Detroit is not where Oklahoma City was as a team and as a core but if that's the parallel then

“okay you've learned the lesson you you do have to do something you have to do your version”

of that whatever that is um and that's interesting um and Jalen Durin is going to make all

going to make all NBA I would I would be very surprised if he doesn't devoting his clothes the balance

“are in um finalists are being announced yeah he's going to make all NBA and be eligible for up to”

30% of the cap instead of 25% of the cap I'm not sure we've had a player in this age cohort like the restricted free agency guys not the veteran guys who become eligible for the Supermax and their team is like we don't even want to offer you the regular max like can we like it's going to be a very interesting negotiation because he's had a nightmare series like that just absolutely nightmarish once they took away his roles to the rim he has not been able to figure out any other way to really

get involved well he doesn't have any in between game that doesn't rely on just like brute strength being able to power through people and window carters not having that and the pisses don't have enough space for him to create any momentum actually going to the basket when he tries to like catch and face up an attack and so then you end up with these possessions where he like tries to attack window carter and can't even get the ball out of his hands before it's blocked that abounds

I'm still betting on Jalen Dern and I feel like pretty good about the future of his game he's super young he's not there yet but you can see like the germs of a mid-range jumper the germs up and off the dribble game that could be more interesting and a little bit more dynamic he's very young he's super young like I look I don't want to give him a super max contract

“like I think that could really burden the books in a way that could be counterproductive for the”

pistons but he's still like I feel good about despite everything that's happening in the series and frankly if it was any team other than Orlando I just don't think this would be happening on quite the same level it's interesting that Ron Ron Holland is out of the rotation

they've just concluded we can't play another non-shooter I've always liked Marcus Sasser

I'm just he just never seems to get any traction and harder well you know harder one of harder or lever gets the you play the first half and then not the second half treatment every one of these games someone throughout the idea of like should they trade for Zack Levine in the off season I don't mind that you don't mind that I mean the only is when you're left on his contract that would be that would be the argument well I am I am historically like a

we can fix him Zack Levine guy so like I'm just waiting for him to end up on a team with real

“defensive infrastructure and actual playmaking and low and behold the Detroit business do have”

those things yeah I mean they're they didn't do much of anything it's a trade line other than the harder trade and we knew that was kind of small potatoes compared to the lauri market injury and we all had at the beginning of the season but the time will come for them but I wouldn't count them out of this series yet any closing thoughts on this series where no one is really covered themselves and goes like thank you know it was four of 18 last night

it felt like he was bullying and he got a lot of free throws but like man it's not it's not no one is really making a lot of baskets no one's making a lot of baskets but in lieu of that I will take the beef stew block parade and especially I say a steward there just is not a more dramatic shot blocker out there because he literally has to hurl himself into the air to contest these shots in a way that makes me scared for his like physical health on a moment

to moment basis but boys at fun to watch okay also in the the winner of this series will face the winner of Toronto Cleveland that series is two two I the human brain is vulnerable to dumb things I feel I picked Cleveland and seven so I thought that this would be a tough series for

them the way they won the first two games felt to me like okay this is cabs and five like

you're the kind of team that goes to Toronto and gets one yep and they didn't get one game three was not particularly close in game four they had and then a series of events took place and like that included in eight second violation of Bizarro Donovan Mitchell attempted the end of the game that was perfectly defended by Colin Murray most thank god the rest did not call a cheap stupid foul well let me ask you this before we zoom past that in terms of inclusive moments of these

playoffs which to you is the most embarrassing what's it's not close it's not used in more than this particular stretch from the calves in which of better in team losses collective mind or like that five minutes stretch from the pistons which they literally could not hit a single shot yeah there would we have three very good candidates and the nominees are Tobias Harris Danice Jenkins and Kade Cunningham from missing seventeen open looks Jibari Smith Jr and Reed Shepherd for meltdown

turnovers good lord and it would just be this would just be called the James Hardin Award for playoff meltdowns and for the seven three James Hardin in the game for but what else have

to let me think about there's the eight second violation harden and Mitchell mysteries um yes like

one one possession where I've been multiply a bunch of offensive rebounds what else happened I believe

I think it was the it was the turnovers and really in particular that Jamal Shed Deon Sanders like lay out eight second violation that I know I know there have been great dunks I know there have been

“great shots honestly might just be the coolest single play of the postseason so far how about the”

two plays are earlier in the game that I will always remember Donovan Mitchell intentionally

fouling Scotty Barnes at the end of the third quarter I think it was the end of like in to do it was obviously on a stake like the rest of the players on the team were like what the fuck did you just do they were in the bonus right it's Scotty Barnes is an 80% free throw shooter this season he only made one of two I think there was that and then the James hard in one where he like lost his balance at half court and just fell backward like he looked like a gymnast falling off a balance

beam and just mid mid routine being like I guess I'm falling off and there's nothing I can do about it and it was a backward and he looked at the rough like you're just not going to build me out with a foul is going to be a backward violation um this series is a dismal offensive series for

both teams and Cleveland to be two two after winning the first two games with Toronto having

“not had manual quickly for the entire series no I think we're disqualifies as a crisis moment”

for the calves who traded a 26 year old all start point guard for a 36 year old all start point guard with a checkered postseason track record and find themselves in a dogfight with a team that I mean there's Toronto's good and they're presenting a lot of problems but so let's just start here yeah how can the calves loosen up their offensive a little bit more because right now their entire offense is hard in in Mitchell trying to hunt Brandon Ingram in RJ Barrett and like mostly

taking step back jump shots while Evan Mobile and Jared Allen have done like nothing offensively in the series I don't know an answer to this question that does not involve Evan Mobile and Jared Allen just being dramatically better through some form or another and we can like you can do that schematically and we saw moments where like okay we're gonna go to Evan Mobile against this very targeted mismatch and see what he's capable of that kind of had diminishing returns the like the

“persistent allowance the yaka hurdle is just going to be allowed to kind of switch around and be”

on the floor in the series feels like a real missed opportunity for Cleveland like they were so good going at him and I understand there's places you can hide them on the floor that make that more difficult but really you just can't be in a space where the the raptors are getting more shots at the rim more defensive rebounds more offensive rebounds in the series like that's inexcusable because once you once you kind of like body out the calves bigs and challenge the calves

ball movement this is a team that does kind of implode and adding James Harden clearly doesn't really change that the calves have taken 51 more of 3s than the raptors through four games and are in a two two series you know over the last three games they're shooting like 29.6% on those threes because a lot of it is just like Mitchell in Harden at the end of the clock or early in the clock trying to bail out a position that's not going anywhere. To your point in the regular season

30% of the calves 3.10 for pull-up threes we're off to dribble threes and that number stayed more or less the same when they got Harden in the playoffs 41% of their threes are pull-up threes they're a sixth rate the percentage of baskets that are produced via SS has dropped from 65% in the regular season which was around the league average to 54% in this series which is last in the playoffs. The raptors through switching through doubling through varying up their defense

through putting Scotty Barnes on either Harden or Mitchell almost every second that Scotty Barnes

is on the floor and just denying them the ball and I do think there are ways that now that Cleveland really knows that he's going to be you know top locking like playing on top of down to the Mitchell they try to use them as a backdoor cutter to use that again Scotty Barnes and Scotty Barnes is like cool you can cut back door I'm just going to block a shot at the end. I would like to see like use down to the Mitchell as a screener a little bit more because then

you can screen Scotty Barnes and another raptor's defender at the same time so there are some levers that they can pull but their offense is just completely solid and it's just you can't subsist on pull up threes and the raptors are not just giving them the Ingram and Barrett matchups they're sending hard doubles sometimes they're hedging and recovering they're mixing it up but to your point about Pertal um they are guarding at the start of these heads

mobly and Allen respectively this all star front court with Arjay Barrett and Yaka Pertal yep and it's like Jared Allen can't post up Arjay Barrett we can't get one deep seal of Arjay Barrett and then Evan mobly like discovered at the beginning of the second half

then they just never did that again because they switched the matchups and put Pertal elsewhere

and Barrett on mobly it's like you can't post up Arjay but like like we you can't run Pick and Rolls at whoever Pertal is guarding and get like get regular defensive rotations happening get lobs like you just can't do any of these things I don't understand and not just

“you can't do them you should do them every possession that he's on the floor like Yaka Pertal has”

shown you on tape on the on the court he cannot handle this Pick and Roll coverage like he is not equipped you step up to the level that you need to contain James Harden and Donovan Mitchell and yet he's just kind of like hanging out being able to make impact plays even in the capacity that he was when it looked like he was on the verge of being played out of this series I think that the cast are just at I mean I think you identified it with the crisis point

not just existentially but even when you just think about who they want to be in these games and the reason you hear from coaches and players as to why they don't do things like post up during outing it's Arjay Barrett is like it's not who we are it's going to take us out of the flow of what we do it's going to be like a distraction almost from the game planned objectives of our team the game planned objectives of your team are fucked like your offense is terrible right now

deviate please do deviate like they need to be digging into alternative options that don't look like traditional cavaliers basketball but fit the needs of what the series demands also Jared Allen can do that and that is part of your game plan when you're actually playing well Jared Allen's had a lot of big scoring games and it wasn't all just James Harden labs and pocket passes in the pick and roll he can duck in and get post ups again smaller guys I just they just feel a little

“rickety right now and I would expect him to win game five at home but I don't I think this is going”

to be a close series and it just makes me a little nervous that they seem a little uncertain about who to play in win so Allen and mobile have only played 51 minutes together in four games so they're averaging 12 minutes a game Mitchell and Harden have played 89 minutes together in four games so they're playing together much more so they have obviously much more trust than the two guards together than the two bigs the mobile solo minutes have been awful their minus 21 the Allen solo minutes have been good

they're plus 17 and then you have the the Sam Merrill minutes were massive as you did that

game because they finally found a way to get him looks and they finally discovered a guy that could

screen for Mitchell and Harden and the raptors were scared to either double off of him or hard hedge and try to recover him because he's such a good shooter and he they didn't make him pay the price defensively and he held up fine against Ingram I just wonder like you know can they replicate that Merrill game again if not can they get it from streuse I liked when they briefly had streuse weighed in Tyson out altogether like there's a lot of range in us in that lineup but just they can't

figure out when to play the two bigs and who the other guy the wing guys on the court should be but it's it's interesting especially because the raptors are a good defensive team and a really active defensive team but they're not on impeach we saw all throughout the regular season times in which they would go completely overboard selling out for turnovers their positioning would be all over the place that like weren't connected in the way that great great great defenses are connected

“but you have to give them something to chase in order to throw them off killed like that I”

think that's part of the reason why not just Sam Merrill hitting shots but that gravity was so important just like literally a distraction from the simplest execution of their offense I think can price some things lose for Cleveland if they lose this series and Detroit loses their series I think it's like a far bigger disaster for the calves than it is for the pistons just based on the the track record of this roster and the playoffs yep the asset cost of upgrading 10 years

in age to get James Harden like Detroit look I can swallow this if that's what it ends up being a sea young team and we're still figuring out what we have in some very young guys if Cleveland loses

to the raptors in the first round anything to me is on the table like literally anything

it just it would be an intolerable result Toronto's offense is not like lighting it up is there anything you think they can do to loosen up I mean this is a team that doesn't shoot three is very well in the beyond of the issues like anything else they can do other than like culinary boils is unbelievable yeah I mean he is genuinely unbelievable I mean they don't really have the personnel to move around a lot of things offensively especially without quickly like they're already jammed in terms of ball handling

I don't really see a lot of avenues there are you seeing any like obvious levers for them to pull no I mean other than they're best offense and a lot of their in a lot of game four was just Scottie sprinting up the court as fast as possible and just um often just sick by the way we're really really well and hoping no one is paying attention like and I am a little surprised that

but they just haven't been able to get those switches because the yeah the calves are helping

away from all the shooters that they don't worry about and the calves should probably help even more that's another thing the raptors that they take like an extra step away from all the shooters you don't trust into the paint yeah I this game five is a really exciting it's not going to be pretty it's not going to be an attractive watch but it's it's very exciting all right let's take do you think if you had to guess game five do you think we get closer to the raptors have both the

single game high watermark for three point percentage in these playoffs and a single lowest one that's 61% and 13% do we get closer to a hot raptor's gamer a cold raptor's game I'm going to go cold raptor's game but normal cold like 31% for 29% and then it's a win-up and then it's a win-up game I mean a 13% is a win-up game apparently I know that's just unbelievable right let's take a quick break and wrap up with a couple more topics all right let's be at fair

well to the phoenix sons who got swept out of the playoffs by the thunder not unexpected at all really feel good season for the sons culture reset a lot of tough hard playing dudes one one more games and reasonably expected and just a fun watch all the way around here's where we are with them going into the off season they are right at the salary cap without any money for Colin

“Gillespie who I think they would love to bring back definitely or Mark Williams who I don't that didn't”

really after after a nice start to the season it's kind of not looking great I don't think he's going to have much of a market and like I don't think anyone is rolling out the brings truck and restricted

for agency from Mark Williams but they traded to likely bad first round picks for him but something

so and Dylan Brooks is extension eligible I think they would like to get something done with him I mean they just don't I don't know where the optionality is for them they don't have a lot of they don't control their pick until 2032 they do have a pick in 2027 it's the worst of a whole bunch of teams but they don't control their pick for a long long time model watch could be interesting yeah I like Fleming I was all surprised you didn't play at all

in the series until garbage time I don't know what's the road map for this team Robb is this just like are they just stuck in sort of all right we're going to be like a decent team with Devon Booker and like in the same conferences these other teams that's probably what we're going to be

“sadly I think so for is I think you're spot on this is a super fun season to watch and”

are really impressive one in a bunch of different ways and maybe one of the signature like breakout take away is like Jordan not can really coach like that was a really good hire for them but short of that there's not a lot of high-end talent just kind of waiting to pop model watch I agree as had really nice moments I'm not even sure he's going to be like a good productive winning player next season necessarily he looks so raw even still jailing green is just like so definitively not that guy and so the

roster they have is kind of the roster they have there's going to be incremental progress from you know you're also a good daros and guys like that but overall I just don't see what the launch pad is here in terms of how the sounds get dramatically better than this like they already kind of overachieved relative to what they have and the cute underdog plucky story plays a little bit differently when you pay mark Williams and you pay conglaspian now your luxury tax team I'm not sure they're going

to have to pay mark Williams that much with the apologies to mark Williams agents I think look if the lottery rules are changed to the point that being in the middle is a little bit more profitable I think suns fans would happily accept look we dug our we dug a deep deep hole with the rancher it and it's going to be very hard for us to make any kind of massive impact for move that vaults us up to the top top in our conference which is just too good but if we're a competitive

fun team and we maybe get lucky in the lottery one year not number one but maybe we move up a little bit whatever it is like that's and and flaming pops that's not a terrible outcome but to your point like Ryan done basically couldn't play in this series I think he's all right but they did and play him and I thought Bradley Biel was really productive off the bench making my $10

million a year for the next four years he gave him something like a little a little genus a

“quah you know like something a little indefinable but I think it was really important I like a good”

sorrow the interesting what is jail in green um 36 million next year 36 million player option in 2728 also extension eligible I would be just based on no until it all I would be pretty surprised if they had an extension for jailing green weird season did not play much in the regular season because of injury he averaged 18 points a game on 42% shooting 31% on three play in which disappeared from the record and doesn't count apparently he was great and then at the

issue 39% shooting 21% on three I don't know I don't I don't it seems like just a malignant of a season but every game that he plays I thought he I thought his defense an activity was a little tougher and a little bit more on point maybe you disagree than it has been

“in the past I think that's fair but every time he has a good game it just feels like he's just”

making the same hard shots that he's just normally not going to make this many of it and I don't really know what to do with him at this point I and I feel like I do know what to do with him and

it's I would not feel trusting the future of my team to a construction where he is a critical

part of it like he's entered into that zone of player where the more you rely on on jailing green the worse off your team is ultimately going to be so he's fine for now he's certainly productive in the capacity that he plays I'm with you that he's had moments certainly not just like breakout productive playing games for example but even kind of micro moments within them of exercising some demons of like this is the guy who you know when the rockets were playing the

warriors like couldn't break down Steph Curry one on one to save his life in critical games and all of a sudden he's having some of those kind of like opportunities again and he's he's making the most of the thing that he kind of struggled with last time around I just don't trust the larger body of work I don't trust the decision making I just think he's a guy who scores a

little bit and that's nice but ultimately doesn't give you a lot else to his game and if we're talking

about like slight upticks on defense as the saving grace of his season I just don't think that's enough yeah I mean look to the tier point about trusting him is a cornerstone you can't do that which is why I would be shocked if the sun's offered him any kind of contract extension that he would ever accept yeah and then you know I just don't know what his trade value is at this point and so maybe I just like maybe this year's a mall again yeah I'm happy of the glimpses of oh that was

“it he I can't remember which game it was at one point in this series maybe in one of the playing games”

he made a pass on the pick and roll that it was like a he kept his dribble alive and made like kind of a wrap around pass to a big guy but it was like really well timed and I was like I don't think I've ever seen him make that pass before and then you go five games without seeing a pass near that quality but he has these glimpses where if I'm the sun's I'm like you know what if he has not much trade value let's roll it back next year and see what happens I'm happy with how he's

adapted to our culture but yeah I don't know what the roadmap is except this was a fun team I enjoyed watching him pack that the sun's like Dylan Brooks was a lot of fun just getting into fricuses a lot fricuses there's been a lot of fricuses in these playoffs so far every nuggets wolves game is going to have a fricus and not a curse fall you know there's there's a lot of agita in the air oh what did you think of the I I haven't listened to group chat yet this week

have you did address the yoke it's going at McDaniel's unwritten rules thing I mean embarrassing like my general takers like don't get blown out and you don't need to worry about this stuff so I'm glad that the nuggets responded I mean for one like yeah all the crowd in Denver should absolutely boo James Daniels and you should be able to taunt him as we as we address with Christian Brown when the time is right but what are we doing like I don't think yoke it can play that game the way he did

and frankly the nuggets embarrassed themselves in the way they did and still have that moment at the end absolutely not I will once again as I did on Sunday throw all my praise to Mike Conley who threw the past the jadevic Daniels and when you did not have to throw the past at all yeah and I think he knew yeah I didn't he knew let's see what happens see what happened I'm going to disturb the shit a little bit I'm going to be a shit disturbing let's do an instigator Mike Conley

“he injured Chris Finch remember that he was in his first Finch was on the little wheelie thing”

for a while you know job to say and he did with you I saw that as after Jade McDaniels was getting booed every time he touched the ball in Denver I saw he had a quote after the game there's something to the effect of like whatever hate you felt there you're going to get a hundred times the love when we get back to Minnesota and that's why Mike Conley's one of the goats that's that's why he's the teammate that I would want oh and Jade McDaniels wants all of the smoke with

everybody you want to fight everyone you want to get in everyone said no I'm with you I just was like I thought it was loser behavior by the nuggets to mind about it by David Adam and by Yokech by everybody it's a layup man eight in dunk he didn't hot dog he didn't show about he didn't take the ball from anybody he didn't get a steal he didn't you know he just like someone passed in the ball and he like gently laid the ball up in and no one would have remembered it no I don't

think anyone really would have thought much about it had they not made a big deal out of it and Yokech made a big deal of it okay last thing very quickly I said let's each pick two winners and two losers from the playoffs so far I'm in a good mood today Rob on you pick a winner

I want to say first off the top we just did an extensive bit about the spurs as one of the

I'm going to put them off to the side that feels it doesn't need to be said any further

“I'm going to actually start with the raptors regardless of what happens in the series because”

I've just been so emboldened by Scotty Barnes and Colin Murray Boyle's as ten polls of what this franchise can be and getting Scotty to show up in big game big wing fashion of like looking kind of unguardedable at some particular moments in time being one of the best defense players in the world at the moment he feels like a tent pole guide that even when I was considering him for 13mb, I wasn't quite sure where his career was going to

net out but him delivering in these games and Colin Murray Boyle's turning into like god

not just an elite defensive prospect which he has been from the second he stepped on an NBA court

but his confidence growth as a finisher from day one of the regular season to now needs to be studied in a lab I don't understand what happened this guy who like wouldn't even take lay-ups he was so spooked of shot blockers and now he's going up against Evan Bowley against Jared Allen against all these guys zero fear in his eyes whatsoever and so if my franchise is banking on those two guys after what I've seen through these first four games I feel really good about

the future of the raptors really exciting part of the the reticence frame to shoot around the rim which was like almost yipsy in terms of you would get the ball and be like you see is some going is this like Rick and Kiel but for a big man yeah a thumb injury that was messing with his mind

“I think in that appears to you appears to be over that but yeah if you give him”

he's doing the thing where you know Evan Bowley slides a little bit off at him to to load up on somebody and he passed it to Colin Murray Boyle's and he's got a little bit of space to eat up and go into Evan Bowley he's going into Evan Bowley and through him and through Jared Allen it's been super impressive all right I'm going to pick a winner let's see I have a long list of potential winners Jamal Mosley's a potential winner definitely Jim Connelly and

Rudy Goberre potential winners I'm going to just go because we didn't talk about them much with Peyton Pritchard who is just outrageously good and his extension eligible the off season because of the extension rules the most that the Celtics can offer him and it would not start until

22829 I believe it's something like three years and 70 million dollars see like I would even take that

like it's a lot of money for a guy who hasn't been that much money but just been flat out awesome and when the Celtics have their four best guys on the floor it despite Derek White shooting cratering a little bit I trust Derek White they're just blowing people away and it doesn't even matter if the big guys Keta or Garza or Vuchovich and their center rotations make me a little bit nerfed a little bit there's a lot of Vuchovich going on there's like Keta stop fouling people

every second that he's on the floor so I'm going to help to play against you all the beat but now there's just so much Vuch going on that I'm a little bit unnerved by that but between between Pritchard and Tatum being outstanding I will call them my winners number one do you want to pick a

loser now or do you want to pick a winner I'll pick a loser I'm going to circle back to the rockets

who again even if they were to pull out this series what have to just be a totally different team than the one that we've seen and I would say it's the combination of the KD mess coming to a head and that was his like weird disappearance in the middle of this series the fact that what that disappearance of Vuchs as far as the general state of the team not great the returns on all of these

“young players I think like some of had their moments you know there's been encouraging”

again like little signs from reader from on men or from Jebari but overall you don't come out of the series thinking like this really is on end Thompson's time even though he's had some of those and the offense overall has just been so putrid like the rockets have 70 more shot attempts in this series than the Lakers and they're getting smoked I didn't even know that was possible it just seems like a really hard thing to do and I'm consistently impressed by I guess the way in which

the rockets are losing as much as anything I mean they're they're last time I checked their offensive rebound in real was like 44% and they were having it's it's hard to rebound that many misses and still have a horrible offense and yet they are doing it there are interesting parallels by the way and it's this is a low hanging fruit thing to make but between the rockets and the pistons with the Thompson twins just incorporating these these unique

talents who have just one massive glaring liability and happened to play on teams with very traditional paint-bound centers and what that does to each team on each time table so to your point about winners and losers I had Stefan Castle as one of my winners maybe doesn't shot it great from too but he shot it well from three and just looked comfortable like are you gonna put your centers on me no problem the blast it's gonna be great and I just the castle shepherd what if in that draft

is just gonna loom so large if the rockets get out of the next two seasons and just

four is gonna loom large but for my first loser tail bridges that TBD tonight I'm gonna pick the bulls just just there's just ex bulls doing fun things all over the place notably in Minnesota where you just decided like hey we have a good player you know it would be really smart not having a modern team would be really smart we don't use goodies young yeah he's productive lots teams are calling him about us why why why is our phone ring so much but I assume no what if what if instead

of a really good player you could have like four second round picks wouldn't that be a better outcome for you yeah but four second round picks because there's all kinds of optionality of the draft like a package it okay whatever um so I'll pick the bulls is my first so what if you pick two winners and two losers already are you out of things I've done one and one one winner one loser pick winner let me go back to winner LeBron James you may have heard uh yeah uh a 41 year old

superstar is giving his team a chance to get right again to last long enough in the playoffs four reefs to get back for hopefully to look for Luca to get back and like within that giving himself a chance to make another run at this thing where despite what LeBron's career would tell you like this is not an infinite resource like he only has so many playoff runs left and the fact that this one which just weeks ago look like it might be dead in the water could actually really

“mean something I think it's just a tremendous turn of events super impressive very fun to watch him just”

like mark Jackson Charles Barkley how long you're gonna let me back down like anyone on your

team like Tarys and you're pretty strong I'll back you down I'm Antonson one in a million athlete

I'll just put you under the basket and a walking nightmare for each shepherd who against a lot of other teams could sort of exist against his own team could sort of exist defensively like hiding over here and he's not involved in that play and like for 10 minutes you don't notice that he's hiding over here against LeBron it's just relentless it's every single puzzle you're on Rui now let's do something with Rui oh you're on Marcus smart now let me screen from Marcus smart you're the

two it's just absolutely relentless and a nightmarried shepherd must be going to bed just like why why of all the teams do you think LeBron gets any extra satisfaction out of hunting these like shadows of Steph Curry guards any guy who comes in with a jump shot like you know what like let's just let's just bring him up not only because I can but because I would really like to

“I think it's just I think his his brain and it's like a muscle reflex at this point like”

I this was four straight finals this is like 50% of our offense was this and I'm gonna just oh I know I remember how to do that and now he's just older and meaner and it is it's more fun all right my second winner You know I mentioned Tim Conley, Scoot Henderson in a bag game Paul George is on my list. I'm gonna go with Robert Williams time lord. Yeah

Who has been absolutely essential on both ends of the floor to the blazers to the point that there's a movement to start him over

Donovan Clingan rightly so and He's just been outstanding. I also Tip of the cap to Dave Pasch who was on play by play for their last game and obviously loves the nickname time lord because not only We call him time lord. He'll call him the lord of time. He'll do that version too He was a really good bench player all season. He just wasn't available very much

I just would love for him to have give me like a couple 60 game seasons because it's been a reminder He's he's really good and really impactful

“I think from my last loser. I have to take haven't mobiley unfortunately”

My list My list of all the questions that losing the series would raise. I think just like the indictments pointed at mobile Specifically as far as what mismatches he can't attack Just going these two games and shooting like 30 something percent from the field against an opponent like the raptors Unforgivable for a big like him like at this point in his career

Evan mobiley should have a little bit more of a go-to game at this point in his career He should be able to be at least a part-time five in line-ups that make sense Neither one of those things has been true and he's just been completely bodied out of the series completely worked out of this series I'm a huge Evan mobiley booster generally speaking, but I can't defend this It was to the point when he got those two big offensive rebounds late and game four that led to two mysteries

For Cleveland I was like oh Evan mobiley. Yeah, you're asserting yourself after being on the bench for almost the entire fourth quarter because the calves have concluded that right now Mobiley Allen like displacing is just not like you're hanging around the perimeter because there's no world's free to be and they're not guarding you there And your three hasn't come around and I'm with you like look the record will show

I never uttered the words Kevin Garnett or Tim Duncan that's sac religious

But I've been very high on Evan mobiley. I've kept all my Evan mobiley stock through all the unfavorable comparisons that were made

“I still would be hesitant to move him, but like this is”

he is About to turn 25 years old and just melts away in too many of these series where He shouldn't be melting away. He was on my list McHale bridge is as too easy. I don't mean this in a bad way. I'm gonna go with Chris Vernon and all fans

of the Memphis Grizzlies who had to tune into that magic pistons game last night and see

Jomerant and Jiren Jackson Jr. One guy who's gone good trade return like solid trade return, but like fun guy

“We all like him and one guy who's future with the franchise is tenuous to say the least”

Coming together in Orlando, Florida to watch Desmond Bane beloved Grizzly Play basketball for the Orlando Magic team of rant was apparently there I'm not sure where Marcus soul was or Tony Allen or Hamad Hadadi, but but I also just to poke Chris Vernon a little bit. I will pick him as my my other loser I am enough of a sap that this worked for me like sport great teammates. They're great

It's it's nice to see Men supporting other men emotionally and and all of that. I applaud all of it. Yeah, so they were on my They were on my list of losers. All right, Rob Mahoney. What have we got next for you? We got group chat We got prestige TV. What do we do in upper-steach TV besides the pit? I'm not gonna watch the pal. Give me something else We'll rest assured the pit is over and I have just the show for you as a father yourself sack

How about you for you? You know like let's let's really let's really get into teenagers and now young adults behaving badly I Don't think I'm ready for that I don't think that one's gonna be for me

“All right, well, I'll give something else to shot this right off. It is but yeah, honestly like we've reached a point of the first round where my brain”

At the end of every night is like Just images are swimming around it and it's very mushy and it's like why am I thinking about Mitchell Robinson right now and just is where we're at that point

So first round is just like a fever dream Rob Mahoney or the best. Thank you, buddy. Thanks, I appreciate it

All right, that's it for this act low show barring something insane. We will be back as usual on Thursday morning Thanks to the great Rob Mahoney for his time. Thanks as usual to Mike Billy and Jonathan on production Thanks to you all for listening to and/or watching on Netflix this act low show. We will see you on Thursday 21 or over in president's like states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 and over in president and dc You can tuck your Wyoming gambling problem call 1 in 100 gambler or 1 800 my reset call 1 888

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