First Round Analysis with Kevin Pelton
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post Podcast. It's Monday. I'm in Los Angeles. The Clippers won. The playoffs are underway. Home teams won 8-0. We had two and a half close games. I'll give the Lakers partial credit for hanging with the Nuggets until, you know, the Nuggets just decided, eh, we're going to win.

We're done with this. Lots to analyze. We're going to hit every series rapid fire fashion. We have a coaching hire in Brooklyn, Jordy Fernandez. Lots of stuff going on. Kevin Pelton, how are you?

I'm doing well. I'm a little annoyed that the home teams went 8-0 because I started looking up what was the record for home teams in past years because it felt like it was a dramatic change. I looked this up when it was like five home wins, and then everyone looked it up when they went 8-0. So now my notes are not as interesting as they might have seemed if it was 6-2 or 7-1. Well, and we were one C.J. McCollum, 5-0.

botched case and wallace poked away dribble pull up three-pointer away from this being irrelevant and having it be seven in one but would you like to deliver any stats anyway about eight no and chalk going across the board

So I think people know it's now the first time since 2013. It's the fifth time in the 16-team playoff format. Though one interesting thing, especially if you're expecting upsets, because what I think made the dominance of home teams so interesting is our buddy Dan Feldman of the Daily Dunks had a note. If you go back, Sports Odds History has this through 1988. If you go back, this was the lowest ever odds on average for the higher seeds entering a first-round series. Wow.

like the most expected upsets. It seemed like we were going to have all sorts of parody going into this weekend. But the last time that this did happen, 2013, three lower seats still ended up winning the series even after losing game one.

Okay, well, much to look forward to. The statistical nuggets, always KP is bringing them. We're going to go rapid fire through the series that are resuming tonight, plus Miami-Boston, which is, I think, going to be a dud. It's already 9.30 in the morning here in LA, so 12.30 Eastern. There's no point in going super deep into the series that are coming back tonight. But let's start Sixers-Knicks. The Knicks win an exciting game in Game 1. Actually, the slow pace of the game kind of

Kind of obscured that both teams put up very good offensive ratings. The headlines were New York, 52% offensive rebounding rate. Some of that bad rebounding by the Sixers. Some of that, the risks of playing his own defense. Some of that, just the risks of ignoring Josh Hart, who's going to maraud into those open spaces and get offensive rebounds. The other headline, Joel Embiid, just...

I screamed, KP. I screamed. It was this continuous scream that evolved from gleeful astonishment to horror when he freaking did a self-pass off the backboard dunk. Joel.

Just chill, man. Just play. I'm a little worried. I don't want the crazy highlights. And then he went down. He was in pain. He left the game. He came back in halftime. Looked great in the rest of the game. Sixers plus 14 in 37 minutes with Embiid on the floor. Minus 21 in 11 minutes without Embiid on the floor. Give me just one headline thing you're looking at game two.

Yeah, I mean, I think it probably has to be the Knicks offensive rebounding because, I mean, you listed a number of factors there. And I think Joel Embiid's, you know, fatigue level or, you know, his energy at that end of the court probably was an element. Stan Van Gundy was on that game, right? No, that was our game. So I forget who highlighted that. KP, four games a day, two straight days. By game number eight,

Which turned out to be one of the most exciting games of the weekend, the rock fight between the Thunder and the Pelicans. My brain is like, all right, we need to tap out a little bit here. So you're forgiven for forgetting the freaking announce crew. It was Doris and JJ. We're on that game. So one of them pointed that out. The other element is this is what the Knicks do. This is how they won the series against Cleveland last year. Like the first shot offense for the Knicks has not been very good in the playoffs the last couple of years.

And one of the ways they compensate is by just completely dominating the offensive glass. And, you know, this is a series that, you know, looked like one of the closest ones on paper. I think we were split on this one. I took the Sixers. You had the Knicks, right? I took Knicks in seven.

And I think now you have to be feeling good about the Knicks based on what we saw in game one. And then just that element of, you know, Paul Reed has had a pretty solid season, has had really good moments in last year's playoffs. But this Sixers playoff story, this is how you know JJ Redick was on the game because he was reliving in real time the game seven against Toronto from 2019 and that whole series. You know, the one time I went on JJ's podcast this year, we did a home and home.

I actually just hijacked the whole podcast at the end and I was like, all right, so can we just get into like what happened to the Clippers in 2015 against the Rockets? I just like the JJ has lived all of this agony, like the most unthinkable basketball agony between that, all the Clippers heartbreaks, the Kawhi shot, all of it. And he just has to constantly, it's like Bobby Marks constantly having to relive the net Celtics straight because it gets brought up all the time. This is why this is what happens when you go into media. Um,

I don't know what we were talking about. Oh, Knicks, first shot offense, offensive rebound, this is what they do, etc. Paul Reed, you know, you risk, KP, really igniting the anger of Sixers fans who love Paul Reed. I think he might be the second most popular player on the team, maybe the third most popular player on the team. I mean, I don't think it's Paul Reed's fault. And it's interesting that Nick Nurse mentioned one possible adjustment in terms of that offensive rebounding is playing bigger and whether that could mean Paul Reed and Joel Embiid together.

I wonder how long Tobias Harris is going to be in the starting five and how quickly he's going to get pulled for Nick Batum in some of these games because he's just not bringing enough on either end of the floor. The two things that I'm looking for, number one, look, I mean, Doris mentioned this on the broadcast when Joel went out and came back in and looked fine. She said that, I guess she's talked to him or they've talked to him in media sessions and he's mentioned how

This is scary for him coming back from this surgery like this. And whenever he feels a little something, a little pain, a little tweak, a little something wrong in the landing, he gets worried, which is the most relatable human thing about Joel Embiid possible. And...

You hope that that's all it is because this is twice in a week, first in Orlando against Orlando now here where he's left a game after pretty similar kind of landings, like stiffy landings and come back in. And you just hope that it's that and that this is not,

Some sort of ticking time bomb. And look, I'm not in the room. I'm not the six or seven million doctors on this. Like no one is going to clear Joel Embiid to play. I don't think if there's a major long-term risk here, that's number one thing. You just hope knock on wood that he can play the series and be okay. Number two, I'm looking at the Josh Hart minutes, 42 minutes in game one.

Knicks were minus five in those minutes. Obviously, Josh Hart played out of his mind and made like two ridiculous threes down the stretch of the game against his own defense, including a pull up three more more than worth the trade off of the fact that the Sixers are completely ignoring him on the perimeter. And again, part of that is offensive rebounding.

It does get much easier for the Knicks offensively, and particular for Jalen Brunson to isolate one-on-one, and he can get any matchup he wants. Like, he wants Tyrese Maxey, it just takes one screen, you got Tyrese Maxey. He wants Tobias Harris, it takes one screen, you get Tobias Harris. He can't really cook the way he likes to cook with Kyle Lowry just planted in the paint, or whoever planted in the paint, not guarding Josh Hart, and...

There was the only stretch Josh Hart rested really was the second quarter and they got good shots almost every trip down the down the court, including one of the only pick and rolls where they got the Sixers in the blender because their spacing was so good and someone got a corner three that they missed. But again, Josh Hart is amazing. I am like Josh Hart, super fan number one. I just think that's an interesting pivot point. Rapid fire series number two.

They don't resume tonight, but the Heat are just drawing dead in this series against Boston. I don't even really know what's interesting to say about it. I thought Boston played well. They took a lot of threes, but I thought they were good threes. They worked inside, then out. They picked at mismatches. They picked on Hero. Even against the zone, they were going into the middle of the zone and then out of it for threes. They fed Horford on mismatches. They fed KP on mismatches.

I just don't see how Miami has any shot here with Butler out. And even if Rozier comes back and Duncan Robinson can get back to being Duncan Robinson, I just... Honestly, Kevin, the only interesting thing about this series is if Butler's out for the whole playoffs and if this series is short, he's going to be. Like, he's getting toward his mid-30s. He's extension eligible in the offseason. He has a player option for 25-26, but...

This is one of the last teams in the league that could have afforded kind of like a lost playoff opportunity because the timeline on the Butler heat is ticking toward the end. And those extension talks, which can come this summer, Bobby Marks has written about this. Those could get spicy. And it's just such a bummer that the heat – is there anything interesting here? I mean, I picked the Celtics in four. I just don't know how the Heat win a game other than just voodoo Eric Spolstra stuff.

Yeah, I mean, on the extension front, I think it depends how serious is Jimmy Butler about this and what is his recourse if Miami isn't willing to do an extension this summer? Because obviously we've seen this movie once in Minnesota several years ago, not a place, you know, he was thrilled, not a place he had gone to the finals twice. General Soreness made an appearance and then there was a certain practice that occurred which inspired an entire Game of Zones episode full of blood and bloodletting.

And inspired a classic Jeff Teague podcast. But can we make Jeff Teague a star? Does he have a regular podcast? Are there like regular episodes of it? Because every clip I see of Jeff Teague on a podcast, I'm like, this guy is...

He's almost too funny for television. Like they can't even put him on television because he's so profane and funny. He's incredible. Jeff Teague, come on the Low Post podcast. You're incredible. Open invitation to Jeff Teague. I think the interesting thing about this series is there's an element of Milwaukee against Miami in the first round in 2021 where even if the Heat are no longer the Heat, still the test and the preparation for it I think strengthens the Celtics. Even if the Heat are no longer the Heat,

even though they didn't know that this was going to be the matchup until Friday night. And that is, I think part of what happened in game one is, you know, new Orleans against okay. See, which we'll talk about later. They had 48 hours to turn around from their play and win to playing game one of their series. Miami had the compacted schedule of playing Friday night. And then the very first game on Sunday morning, which wasn't doing them any favors on top of the Jimmy Butler injury. But yeah,

Even though they didn't know that matchup was lacked in until Friday, it seems like Boston probably spent all week working on their zone offense. And I think there was like three possessions at the end of the first quarter. It was like, uh-oh, maybe this is going to be a slog a little bit again. And then Sam Houser started making threes. And from there, Miami did not really have any answers with that zone. Yeah, it's a bummer because watching the Heat manufacture wins, grind out wins, and

is one of the annual joys of the NBA postseason, and I just don't see how it can happen here against a team that's just loaded and came out firing on all cylinders as I thought they would. Last note on the Heat.

Even without Caleb Martin, who has a seven point something million player option for next season that he should probably decline to get a better deal. The Heat are already over the tax next year. And with Caleb Martin, they might be over the first apron, which, you know, again, like this is why the Butler extension talks loom as interesting. OK, series number three.

Resuming tonight, the uber predictable NBA TV special, the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Orlando Magic. An unwatchable offensive slog, particularly for the Magic in game one. The Magic put up an offensive rating in this game, KP, of 86.5 points per 100 possessions. The Cavaliers did not really bother to guard anybody. They went under screens against everybody, including Paolo Bancaro and Franz Wagner. Franz Wagner couldn't really get going.

The Magic played these bench units with two centers, Mo Wagner and Wendell Carter Jr., both of whom can shoot. Like, they're not bad shooters. And Markel Fultz and just not enough juice in those groups, not enough juice on the bench mobs, the full five-man bench mobs, which should not happen anymore. Cavs plus one in 23 minutes with Allen and Mobley together, won the other minutes with one big win.

uh, only much more dramatically, although they really only played seven guys in this game. Sam Merrill didn't really play in this at all after he didn't play at all after, after halftime. Um,

I don't know. I mean, the only interesting thing is like Orlando's got to find a pathway to points that's not Cleveland turning the ball over and Cleveland gave them some gifts in the first game. And this was the worry about Orlando from for the whole season. Like they just have not this team has not been a good offensive team in 12 years. They've been a bottom 10 offensive team every single one of those years, including this year. Their guards are.

Just don't bring enough to the table. Cole Anthony kind of had a weirdly not great last half of the season, and it was, I thought, awful in game one. He took two shots where I think on both of them, Paolo Bancaro was at the nail with Darius Garland on him, and Cole Anthony was like, no, it's my time. It's my time to shine. And Jamal Moses was like, yeah, now it's your time to come to the bench. They just need to find points. Maybe it's hunting Garland. Paolo Bancaro has got to win.

matchup against George Yang which I was actually surprised the Cavs guarded him with George Yang in those minutes and not with their centers and they just have to get more juice like the Cavs are just clogging the paint and they got no answers no one's cutting no flare screens no nothing anything here I mean I picked the Cavs to win this series I thought it would be a long series game one did not portend a long series yeah and you know that's a case where it can be misleading and I think this series will probably change shape you know we're

One of the things that could happen is if Orlando starts playing more offensive lineups to compensate for the fact that you go look at the box score and cleaning the glass, they were zero with percentile on overall points per possession, zero with percentile and effective field goal percentage, zero with percentile on half court.

So does that mean Bankaro at center potentially has to be, even though they have like a million centers on their team who are all better than their guards? I mean, I don't know what their offensive lineups even are. That's the fair question. Yeah. And Jonathan Isaac is so good that I don't know that I necessarily want to cut his minutes dramatically.

I, to that, to that extent, like Cole Anthony needs to play better and he needs to be the guard off the bench, like projecting the rotations before this series for the, the playoff previews I wrote on Saturday, you know, I had Joe Ingles and Markel Fultz is the, the guys getting their minutes cut in this series, not Cole Anthony. So, you know,

you know, I think he's propped up, especially the first half of the season. And last year propped up a lot of these Orlando second units offensively without a lot of other punch. And he just was not able to do that whatsoever for the reasons you outlined. Orlando's defense was fine. Um,

They have interesting dilemmas like when do we switch, when do we not switch, particularly when Isaac is on the floor. They actually had an easier time switching when the Cavs had both Mobley and Allen on the floor because they could kind of scram out of it a little more easily. When there was more shooting, they had more trouble switching. Their defense is going to be there every game. This is an awesome defensive team. That's great. That's a foundation for something going forward. They clearly have found something with these two forwards and this defense. This is a team that...

If this is a short series, and I'm not ready to say that yet because they're tough as hell and we've seen Cleveland kind of wobble a little bit at times in the past playoffs, although Donovan Mitchell I felt looked good, just bookmark it. This is a short series for the Magic and their offense is just completely out of its depth.

I think that's got to nudge them to be a little bit more aggressive in the offseason to find some perimeter shot creation that's better than they have. And they can't just sit on their laurels and say, well, we've got these two forwards. We don't want to take the ball out of their hands. Like that's a perfect is the enemy of good kind of analysis of your roster. But if they come back and make this competitive, who knows? OK, next quick hitter. Also resuming tonight, Lakers Nuggets headliner first round series defending champs against the most popular team in the world.

Um, another slow paced game, another Denver offensive onslaught. Didn't feel like it, but 121 points per 100 possessions. Um,

Again, it resumes tonight. I don't want to go too crazy. But I just feel like even I'm starting to get bored with like, it's close, it's close, it's close. Oh, it's not close. Maybe they can win the non-Jokic. Oh, they didn't win those by quite enough. And here comes Jokic. Oh, Denver's up by 15. Even the Lakers have to be bored. Even the Lakers are like, can we just lose by 30? I'd rather just lose Game 2 by 30 than live this same movie again. And I guess for things to watch in Game 2 quickly...

not a manual quickly, just quickly. They just, he would help the Lakers. He could. They just have no answer for Jokic. I mean, and they've tried pretty much every answer in the book. In game one, they started Rui Hachimura on him and had Anthony Davis's the rover off of Aaron Gordon. We've seen that movie a million times. We can talk about some of the counters Denver had to that and has always had to that. And,

And then when Rui went out of the game and Torian Prince slid in and it was a smaller lineup, they put Anthony Davis on Nikola Jokic. And although he held up pretty well on his own defensively against Jokic, when they pivoted into the Murray-Jokic pick and roll, you felt like, oh, wow, there's nothing behind Anthony Davis. And certainly Jamal Murray felt that. I just – and we've seen before –

If you put Anthony Davis on Jokic, Jokic is going to eventually put him in the basket. And yeah, AD's got long arms and hops, and he'll block some shots and challenge some shots. But I just don't... I mean, over and over, I didn't think the Lakers' offense was very good. One of the stats from that game that shocked me was they only ran 10 LeBron AD pick and rolls. I think that's got to be 20. It's got to be higher than that. They weren't effective when they ran them, but they've got to run something. Their offense wasn't great, but...

They just have not had an answer for Denver's offense, and I don't really know what they have. Like, what have they not tried? We saw – like, this time when they posted Jokic on Hachimura, they came with the double, like, while the pass was in the air to Jokic. It was one of the fastest double teams you'll ever see. And Jokic eventually kind of figured out ways around that with pass fakes, and even he would kick it out to the guy one pass away, and that guy would fake a pass, and then the Lakers' rotations would get confused. Like, I just –

They have any, any answers here? I thought this, I thought they had a chance to make this a six game series. That was the max I would go for the Lakers. Wait, did you see the graphic where a Nuggets fan photoshopped that it was a 15 of 16 of us had picked the Lakers to win this series? I did not see that. They only left McMahon's Nuggets in four untouched when in fact everyone picked the Nuggets to win this series. We were 16 of 16? Yeah. Uh,

I think if the Lakers are going to win this series, they're going to have to do better offensively than they did. And that means getting more from their backcourt because LeBron and AD were what you would have wanted them to be and what you would have hoped that they could be with this extended period of rest, even with the one play in game.

they won't have quite as much rest going forward. Although the first round is a little bit better for them from that standpoint, because it's not the every other day to start the series that you got last year in the conference finals. Like,

Austin Reeves was okay. And then D'Angelo Russell was, was awful as a shooter. And, you know, I don't think they have, they don't have the guy to replace him with this year. I, you know, Gabe Vincent was someone that the Lakers staff talked about to David Meneman for a story that we wrote about this jointly wrote about this Lakers net nuggets matchup last week. And he just didn't look ready. You know, he's, he's surely not a hundred percent coming off of that knee surgery and,

Spencer Dinwiddie has been a nice pickup for them, but is he going to be the guy in this series? Probably not. He took zero shots, I think, right? In game one? He's had a lot of 0 for 1 and 17 minutes kind of games for them. I mean, D'Angelo Russell needs to make shots. D'Angelo Russell was pretty good for them this season offensively, especially in the second half or after the first two months, I guess.

uh of the season which was part of the reason that they didn't make a big trade at the deadline and you know he's not probably going to go one of nine on threes every game like he's still going to create other issues for you in this matchup defensively and with his decision making but he just makes a few threes then you know maybe la has the offense to take the lead into that final stretch of the game as opposed to being close which you know we know historically like if you're if you're

when yokich comes back in the game in the fourth quarter you're not ahead you have very little shot of beating the nuggets yeah yeah yeah uh d lo it's happening again it's happening it's happening a quiet series two starring d'angelo russell um i haven't seen a quiet place two i only saw a quiet place one it was pretty good it was a good plane movie um

John Krasinski. Just what an unlikely career arc for John Krasinski. I would read a profile of like, how did this happen? He was the dude on The Office and now he's like blockbuster director guy. Pretty cool. Married to Emily Blunt too. That's not a bad outcome for him. I assume this is how people of a certain age felt about Ron Howard. True. Fair. Lakers. You got to give Denver credit defensively. They've become a good defensive team. I think they were ninth this season defensively.

And you could see the Lakers trying to run the LeBron Reeves pick and roll to target Murray, and they couldn't really get too much out of it. Like, Jamal Murray, first of all, held up on switches pretty well. He's strong and tough and an underrated defender. And second of all, when he hedges, like, their rotations behind that are really good, and they're really big, and...

They just kind of recovered out of it before the Lakers get anything going. On those LeBron AD pick and rolls, you can tell the Lakers are trying to script it so that the low man, the help man on Anthony Davis is either Jamal Murray or KCP, a smaller guy that he can just catch and finish over. And the Nuggets are still making that hard for them. They just got to find ways to do that, and D'Lo's got to make shots. I just want to highlight a couple of things. When they shifted Anthony Davis onto Jokic –

The Nuggets just start spamming you with Murray, Jokic, pick and rolls. And there are two plays from, I think one's in the third quarter, one's in the fourth quarter. No, they're both in the fourth quarter. One's about seven minutes left. To Murray, Jokic, empty side, pick and roll. So there's no help on the weak side. There's no weak side help defender. Murray drives, Jokic rolls.

And AD's like, uh-oh, there's nobody behind Jokic. Like, I got to get back to him because he's Nikola Jokic. And Jamal Murray just keeps going. And this is where you feel the impact of flipping the strategy for the Lakers. Jamal Murray just keeps going. He's like, oh, Torian Prince is the last line of defense now? Like, that's cool. Here's the layup. Three minutes later, same play, same action, same response by AD.

And LeBron's like, all right, I got to come help Torrey and Prince. Like, this is an emergency. Jamal Murray's going to get a layup. He's scrambled, flies in off Michael Porter Jr. And actually, I think one of the things the Lakers need to do is hunt Michael Porter Jr. a little bit more on defense, although he's improved. Flies in off Michael Porter Jr. Jamal Murray sees it, kick out Michael Porter Jr. 3, good night, game over. And the last thing I'll say on Denver, and then we can move on. Well, two more things. Number one, 34% offensive rebounding rate for the Nuggets. That's a quiet number.

quiet penalty for putting Hachimura on Jokic is he's going to get offensive rebounds. Number two, I'm beginning to think Jokic's floater is the most important shot in the NBA, like the most important championship swinging shot in the NBA, because when push comes to shove, if all else fails, whatever scheme you have, they can run a Murray Jokic pick and roll. And that's the shot that you're supposed to give up, like a mid-range 12-foot leaning, whatever,

39% of Jokic's shots this year were floater from floater range. That's like 99th percentile. Zero is the zero. If I would not a word, I think you just made that word up talking about the magic offense before the zeroth percentile. You know what? Jokic shot on floaters this year. Take a guess. Don't look.

58%? 62%. It is the third straight season he's been above 60% on floaters. It's just completely outrageous, and it's their fail-safe. It's their fail-safe shot. I think it's the most important shot in the NBA. Okay, enough. Do you have any other...

Lakers, Nuggets, thoughts? I thought it was interesting that Michael Malone went so deep into his bench in game one. And there was a moment I thought, you know, although the starters played a lot of minutes, that maybe he wasn't taking the Lakers quite seriously enough to, you know, be willing to go with five reserves. But, you know, he trusted that they were going to be fine and they weren't.

What do you think? What should they do with Jokic? I actually think that Hachimura on him and AD as a rover is probably their better answer. It just doesn't work. Like, I don't know what you're supposed to do.

Sometimes there is no right answer. I mean, they do just feel really small, even though you've got LeBron and AD out there when you've got Prince instead of Anji Mora as they did in the fourth quarter. Like the very first play of the game, very first Denver play of the game, Murray Jokic pick and roll, high pick and roll in the middle. Aaron Gordon is

is on the left side in the corner. Lifted a little high, but in the corner. Jamal Murray goes left. So Aaron Gordon is now the strong side corner, quote unquote, shooter. Jokic rolls down the right side of the lane, opposite Gordon. So Anthony Davis has to cover like 20 feet of space just to get into Jokic's general area. Can't do it. Like Denver was prepared for that from the start. They have a million different counters moving Gordon around, using him as a screener, as a ball handler. I don't know what the hell you're supposed to do.

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Next series. Now we're going to go in order of, I don't know if fun is the right word, but number one, Minnesota Phoenix, an emphatic Timberwolves win in game one. They go the double big lineups, particularly with Nas Reed, Rudy Gobert, Nas Reed, plus 18 and 13 minutes, Kat and Gobert minus three and 19 minutes. But that's actually fine because those, the sons had played those lineups out of the water in going three and oh, in the regular season. So,

I thought a super discouraging loss for the Suns. They got destroyed on the glass, and they're going to get destroyed on the glass. What they can't do is give the extra ones where like, oh, Bradley Beal just doesn't box out. Jada McDaniel's in the corner, and here he comes for a putback or a kickout three to Mike Conley. They can't give those away. Their offense was just kind of eh.

that the Wolves put Towns on Durant, which is not something they had done that much in the regular season. I don't think Towns can guard Durant, but I also don't think that it really mattered.

In game one, and obviously Anthony Edwards just went nuclear in Kevin Durant's face, in everybody's face, shouting in everybody's face, went totally nuclear in the third quarter as they pulled away. Phoenix only shot 28 threes, 9 of 28 from three. On an ongoing theme of game ones, by the way, Phoenix won the shot quality battle. The shooting percentages say Phoenix had a higher shot.

shot quality profile that they quote unquote should have been at least close if shots had gone in. Congrats. You don't get any credit for that. Um, I don't really care all that much, although it is interesting. That's a theme in some other series like, uh, Mavs Clippers is, is like that as well. Um,

What are you looking for in game two? Obviously, it need not even be said that the stakes here are massive for both teams with the Wolves staring at a financial cliff after the season and the Suns having gone all in to form this team that is now down 0-1 after losing in the second round last year.

I think this was the single series that gave me the biggest stomachache to pick. I mean, there was certainly a lot of variables in other series, you know, Giannis' health, Kawhi's health in making those picks. But like, whichever team I picked here, if the other team won game one, I was going to feel like an idiot for not taking them because there's reasons to believe in both of these teams. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. That's me today. Yeah, and I...

For Minnesota to have won a blowout, basically, is tremendously shocking to me. I do think that the shot quality that you beat me to it, I do think it is important. I do think it is relevant because we're used to thinking the concept of make or miss league is, oh, that's the reason this underdog won the game. But it also can be the difference between a close game and a blowout. Now,

The reason that shot quality isn't necessarily going to save Phoenix in the series, besides the fact that it doesn't always even out is because one of the ways that you overcome shot quality is you have 13 offensive rebounds to three for Phoenix. The turnover game, the free throw differential was pretty even in this one, but that was where Minnesota made up a lot of ground. And if you layer that on top of shooting better from the field than Phoenix does, then you get a blowout. And

Kevin Durant did have a terrific offensive game against Cat where Minnesota won this game defensively. It was against Devin Booker going 5 of 16. He basically had the game in game one that Ann Edwards had had against Phoenix in all three of the regular season matchups, which is another theme of this weekend is Phoenix won the season series 3-0, had won on Sunday. The Pacers won five times or four out of five or whatever it was against the Bucs.

Neither of those translated over to game one. And that doesn't necessarily mean they won't translate the rest of the series, but we did not see them carry over whatsoever in game one. And whatever Phoenix had done to Ant in the regular season did not work on the playoff stage. No. And Ant was, I mean, let's just start on Ant. Ant was unbelievable. And my favorite part of his late third quarter eruption was,

Well, my favorite part was when he just talked to everyone within like a 20-foot vicinity of him, including Kevin Durant, who was like, okay. I mean, like, I got to respect it. I don't think it was like incidental that Kevin Durant was one of the guys he talked to. Oh, no. He rained fire in Kevin Durant's face and over Kevin Durant's seven-foot-plus wingspan and let him— And he called it one of the greatest moments of his life. I mean—

If I made a three over Kevin Durant, it would be the greatest moment of my – well, you know what? I should walk that back in case anyone in my family or friends of my wife listens to this podcast. It would be a top three moment in my life. Sorry, honey. I'm not going to ask you to rank those. Hope everything is good at home. Oh, the other – so the other fun thing about that, if you go back and watch the last two minutes of the third quarter, they start blitzing him and they start – the Suns start blitzing it.

And every single time except one, and on that one he made a step back three. So you can do whatever the hell you want if you're going to make a step back three. Every single time he made the simple release valve pass to like, okay, you're blitzing me. Here you go, Nikhil Alexander-Walker over here. Nas Reed up here on the wing. Whatever it is. And like they didn't even necessarily, other than one assist to...

Nikhil Alexander-Walker in the left corner. They didn't lead directly to shots. There were going to be hockey assists, and people on the back end of the hockey assists missed wide-open threes. I just love... This is...

Apex Anthony Edwards. When he's doing all the cool stuff and then also just making the simple play to keep the offense moving, get good shots for his teammates, and a lot of times the ball comes all the way back around the horn to him, and all of a sudden there is no blitz, there is no double, the defense is in rotation, there's a seam to the rim, and then he can just kill somebody at the basket with a hammer dunk. I just thought it was an awesome, calm, poised, wild,

way more poised and calm than you would ever expect for a 22 year old put into this kind of situation and this burden. He was unbelievable. No other observations, no notes.

When you get off the ball early, sometimes the open shot you create might be your own. The other thing you didn't mention about Apex Anthony Edwards in this game is also to take you on an extremely difficult defensive assignment because of the way that Phoenix's perimeter players test you. And everybody talked about Nikhil Alexander-Walker, who was awesome off the bench in this game, helped compensate for the fact that it wasn't a great shooting night for Mike Conley. But the other guy who, despite scoring...

uh, nine points in this one I thought was terrific was Jaden McDaniels defensively. And then with his presence on the offensive glass, creating some extra possessions there. And Phoenix is, Phoenix is going to funnel shots to him too on offense. He's going to have to make some threes eventually in this series. Um, so, I mean, we can talk about like, how does Phoenix bounce back? I think, I think a couple of things. Number one,

They just need to take more threes. They're not taking enough threes. They've never taken enough threes. They have to jack up their three-point volume. Number two...

I think Durant has to win the cat matchup by a lot and he won it in game one, but not by a lot. Cat cat was pretty good in the post. Did not have any of like the crazy cat offensive fouls or passes to nobody or hook overhead passes that hit the, like the basket stanchion. He was calm. He drew fouls, made some hooks. He was pretty good. Not spectacular, but pretty good. That matchup was close, close enough that,

and clean up the offensive glass. I just don't know what really what else to do. The thing they can't do, if Cat is on Durant and Mike Conley is on Grayson Allen, they cannot have any possessions in the half court. Not one.

When either Durant or Allen or both are not involved, like those, those possessions, just like, I don't want to see Bradley Beal like meandering on a pick and roll with Nurkic and cool. Like that can be step one, those guys and those defensive weak spots have to be picked at every single time. And I don't think they got picked at at all or enough with off ball actions on ball actions, anything in game one, I thought their offense was kind of stagnant compared to how it's going to have to be.

Some of their issues, I just like their backup center position is a disaster. I don't know if we'll see Thad Young at any point. I don't know that Thad Young is the answer. I've said all season, I do not believe that Durant at center can work for any extended period of time. I think it's just too small. The other team will play volleyball against you on the glass.

I don't even think Frank Vogel believes it. I think he just rolls it out there. He's like, all right, well, I just don't trust Eubanks. Don't trust Thad Young. Don't trust Bull Bull. I don't know what the hell else I'm supposed to do. Got to get something out of Eric Gordon. I don't know. Any other adjustments for the Suns? Yeah, you mentioned Grayson Allen getting only three shots up. He didn't make any of them either. But that's, I think, a quiet indicator in and of itself of how well things are working.

Okay, let's move on. 124 offensive rating for the Wolves, by the way, in Game 1. 99 for the Suns. But congratulations, they won the shot quality Olympics in Game 1. Hang a banner. Next most interesting series, a barn burner in Oklahoma City. The Thunders return to the playoffs. They win by two, surviving a C.J. McCollum buzzer beating three that was online-ish, despite Kaysen Wallace poking the ball away. A defensive slugfest.

Oh my god. The physicality in this game. Like, I felt like I could feel Lou Dort's

like muscles and arms and legs and just he's just a cinder block with arms through the screen and that's when you feel the trickle down like the the pelicans have been good all year without zion like their numbers without zion are good their numbers with zion are good their numbers without zion are good there's a lot of proof of concept of like if we just put trey murphy the third in the starting five have a bunch of wings and cj in the center like that works and it does it does work

You also just don't have your best player, and the trickle-down effect is, well, now there's no Zion Williamson for Jalen Williams to defend, and so Jalen Williams can defend CJ McCollum or Brandon Ingram, and Jalen Williams and Lou Dort are like...

a freaking WWE tag team defending CJ McConnell and Brandon Ingram. The physicality, getting around screens, like there was just no breathing room at all for the Pelicans. B.I. looked tired in the first quarter. You could see him at the end of the first quarter kind of lagging behind in transition defense, totally exhausted. He's just come back from injury. 5 of 17. I think there are some interesting adjustments for both teams to potentially make, but I found it

I'm pro whatever physicality is now being allowed all of a sudden in the last three months of the season. I found this game like absolutely riveting, a really good test for the Thunder in their first game, a really good test for SGA too, who had a hard time with Herb Jones as everybody does. And they responded and they found a way to,

Not a gut punch for the Pelicans. I don't think this is like, okay, now they needed that one. They had to steal that one. I think this could be a competitive series. I picked the Thunder in five. I don't know what your pick was, but I don't feel any better or worse about that after game one. I would have felt terrible about it had the Pelicans snuck it out, and they almost did.

I had Thunder and five in my drafts going into the playing games on Friday night because, you know, I was going to be out after the games ended and knew I needed to prep for that. And then I switched it in my draft to Thunder and six after seeing how well the Pelicans handled Zion's absence and handled the Kings on Friday night. So, you know, I feel good about that as well. I mean,

Trey Murphy III, I don't know what the solution is next season as you project ahead, but he just has to be in the starting lineup. KP, I've been saying this since he came back from injury and even before that. He's going to have to start. You're going to have to figure it out. I don't know who gets traded, who comes off the bench, whatever happens. There's just no world in which Trey Murphy and Herb Jones are not starting on the wing next year. Zero. They both have to start.

If we're ranking their players, Tremorby III is no lower than third, and he's in the top three, and he might not be third. I guess let's put it that way. Ooh, KP bringing a little anti-Brandon Ingram spice right now. It was quietly a little spicy, but he made so many winning plays in this game, and unfortunately wasn't rewarded with the win ultimately. Also made baskets.

which are winning plays. Those are a little more obvious. The other thing that stood out to me about your first line is you mentioned everything that Lou Dorton, Jalen Williams did defensively in this game. And those guys were awesome. And they weren't the defender who made the biggest stop of the game, who's also awesome defensively and finished this game as a rookie in Kaysen Wallace, who's on ball defense. There's

There's just something about the style of on-ball defense that he plays that sets him apart with the way he's able to use his hands and his strength and his quickness. And that showed up on the final play in a big way. And then it's like, oh, okay, well, they're off the floor. Oh, no, here comes Aaron Wiggins, another guy who just shot 50% from three this year and defends every position. To that point...

I think New Orleans has to be a lot more predatory in where they direct their offense because where they're directing it, if there's a Dort and Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, you're just not getting anywhere. Other than like, it's interesting that Oklahoma City is more or less willing to absorb the Jonas Valanciunas post-ups. And like, they'll send help. And they did, they had a little, they did like the sneaky Spurs double team from the weak side baseline, sometimes sneaking behind there. But I think they're just betting like,

You can't win a playoff series that way in 2024. Like, you can go ahead and post him 25 times. You can even have a 37% offensive rebounding rate. And obviously, his offensive rebounding was a problem for the Thunder. You knew it was going to be. I do think it'll be interesting if we see the big Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren tandem together at some point in the series because of it. But I think...

to contrast the Thunder with the Suns, I think the Thunder are like, if he's the only guy getting offensive rebounds, we're probably going to be good in the aggregate. We can't give up the extra ones that the Suns are giving up to the Wolves. And they were pretty good about that in the game. But like if Giddey's on the floor and we'll talk about Giddey, like they just got to go at him. When Gordon Hayward's on the floor, they got to go at him.

SGA is an incredible defender. It reminds me of Steph. He's a much better defender than Steph has ever been, obviously. But I don't have any other good options to go to. Can I try to make him work defensively a little bit? Hayward, when he's in the game, you've got to hunt him. He looks kind of slow defensively.

Isaiah Joe, who's developed into a nice, frisky defender. But again, what are my other choices? I just got to be a little bit more calculated. The other pivot point to me, and I wonder what you saw here, is the combination of Giddey and the Pelicans deciding, somewhat surprisingly to me, to put Jonas Valanciunas on Chet Holmgren instead of putting him on Josh Giddey, where a lot of teams have done the opposite and put their centers on Josh Giddey. I think that...

I think that is more exploitable for the Thunder than they managed in game one. And I also think it's a very obvious adjustment for the Pelicans to make. And they may not want to make it because they want Giddey on the floor. Like, I can see them being like, we're not going to make that adjustment because we want Josh Giddey on the floor to not go at defensively, to not guard offensively, whatever.

That's exactly what I was thinking as you were saying it, because look, if they bring Kaysen Moise out there who is better defensively and a better shooter, is that a win for us? Have we succeeded in that? They were, in the same way that the Thunder were willing to live with Deval and shoot as post-ups on one against Chet Holmgren, they were very willing to live with Chet Holmgren shooting above the break threes off the pick and pop even.

shot six of them made two i on valentia's valentunas's offensive rebounding i think there was a difference in the second half even though he actually had more offensive rebounds officially he had five in the second half but four of them were off his own misses and that's a situation where it's because of the fact that he's not finishing that's creating those opportunities

And that's what we can live with rather than him cleaning up someone else's miss on the perimeter and turning that into a putback. Or a three. Trey Murphy got a couple kickout threes, at least one or two of which he made on Jonas' offensive. And the dude is just a beast. He's just too strong for Chet Holmgren. That's just the reality. The Thunder have been living with that reality all season long.

I forgot Bismack Biambo was on the Thunder, by the way. Theoretically, to maybe box out a guy like that, I don't think we're going to see Bismack Biambo. Maybe we will. Who knows? I don't know. I mean, they already went 11 guys deep in this game. Yeah, I was waiting for some Lindy Waters the third minutes. I don't know who else was going to play. I've been just so disappointed with Hayward. I thought he would give them a little something. He just hasn't yet. On Valanchunas on Holmgren,

It was interesting, and I think Oklahoma City spent a lot of the game kind of figuring it out, that on the pick-and-pops, they were not having Valanchunas try to recover to Chet Holmgren. They were having Valanchunas drop and then sending somebody from the near corner to fly up and switch onto Chet Holmgren, and Valanchunas would have to find somebody else to guard. I call that the third rotator scheme. And I think that is exploitable for the Thunder if they see it again. And you saw hints of it.

First of all, they only ran five SGA Chet Holmgren pick-and-rolls the entire game, according to Second Spectrum. Five.

It's not enough. Like, that's a place to go right away more in game two. But what they did do was they ran a bunch of Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, pick and pops and pick and rolls. And what they would do, what they figured out in the third quarter is they'd put Shea Gildress Alexander in the left corner, in the position where the Pelicans were going to have to have his defender fly off of him and take Chet Holmgren. Well, that's Herb Jones Jr. And if Herb Jones Jr. is no longer...

on Shea Gilders, Alexander. Somebody else is. And that somebody else is probably going to be a little easier pickings for SGA than freaking Herb Jones Jr. There was one possession in the third quarter, about seven and a half minutes left, where that defender was C.J. McCollum. And SGA went to work, hit a long two over him. I think...

I think it's exploitable in that way. I think they can figure out, okay, well, where did Valanchunas go? Is he on a player that can attack him somewhere? I think they can get some flare screens, some cuts, just to confuse the Pelicans when they're in motion. I think there are some ways that they can pick at that and then really test New Orleans and say, are you willing to make that adjustment and put Valanchunas on Giddey and then we can adjust off of that? Or do we see more Larry Nance minutes? And I thought...

They did not... The Thunder were not smart in figuring out how to attack the Pelicans with Nance. Obviously, they're going to switch a lot more with Larry Nance. And I thought they kind of force-fed Chet Holmgren in the post against wings and guards where it's like, can SGA just cook Larry... Not cook. Larry Nance is pretty good, but Shea Gillis, Doug Zinner, he's an MVP finalist. I thought they were...

Their problem solving was not as quick as I thought, but that's an interesting, that giddy Holmgren thing is a really interesting chess match part of the series. Well, the other adjustment that Oklahoma City made at the end of the game was we don't need Chet Holmgren to be the screener. We have, you know, this unique ability where everybody in our,

on our you know on the rotation has been trained to serve as the screener and that allows us to pick on cj mccollum and try to set up that matchup for shea which you know i think eventually was very profitable for them down the stretch uh a couple other things i had in my notes by the way they need they do need to go at cj more it's a good call yeah kind of just the random screening a couple other things i had in my notes uh number one is that

You know, Oklahoma City did not seem particularly scared of Herb Jones as a shooter in this one. And that's one of those cases where, you know, I think three point percentage is sometimes less important. His volume was way up this season, but, you know, that wasn't something they were like afraid of helping off of him whatsoever. And number two in a game that ended up being a one possession game.

I think this was the end of the second quarter. They sprung a trap on CJ McCollum in a last shot situation, and then New Orleans doesn't even end up getting up a shot. And that, you know, a little play like that ends up making a huge difference. I believe it was the end of the third quarter. And this is just one of those small coaching things. Spoh does this all the time.

When you have the last shot, he will spring random traps on you just to try to rush you into shooting early so they get another shot at the basket. And on that case, I believe Gordon Hayward made his only impactful play of the whole game. He blocked a shot. They ran out and got a corner three from Joe or somebody in the left corner. It was a huge swing. It was like a potentially a five point swing, at least a three point swing. It's the three points that they should not have got. They won by two.

We should talk about the last play, which I don't really know what the last play was supposed to be other than they inbounded the ball to CJ McCollum. He dribbled around for a while. I hate – look, this is where the Euro coaches are a little different than my philosophy on this. They will play for the last shot even when they're behind because they don't want you to get the ball back.

Maybe the math says that's right. You would know better than me. I just viscerally hate that. If I'm behind, I just have to freaking score. I have to score and I have to let my defense take care of it. Because if I don't score, if I don't get a good shot up, what is the point of this? And obviously they wanted to get a good shot up, but I think there were like 16, 13, 14 seconds left, something like that. They inbound the ball. He dribbled around. CJ did.

And it looked like he was about to go into whatever he was going to do, which, judging by the fact that no one else was moving, was just going to be going one-on-one with about six and a half seconds left.

You just have no margin for an off, very little margin for like an offensive rebound, an extra pass, like some surprise from the defense. I would just like to go a little earlier and then case in walls, poke them all the way. And then it's just a five alarm fire that ended up, they ended up with a good shot, but it's a, it's a, I, I don't know. I just, I don't like when they wait too long. Yeah. I thought it was 10 seconds, but it was actually 14 when they advanced the ball. So yeah, I mean, I, I feel the same way. I, who knows what was actually drawn up there, but yeah,

It took too long to develop in practice. This could be a fun series, but that defense, oh my God. Oh my God. Thunder defense is just, there's just no weak spots to pick at, and they're incredibly good at covering space. Like, they help without overhelping. They recover earlier on time. They're like everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They're very hard to deal with.

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Now we get to two series where the governing theme, one of them was the new guys, the new guards, the new guys that came in in the offseason. Well, they picked up the slack for injured superstars. And that is Kawhi Leonard with the Clippers, with James Harden having game one James Harden.

is here. You just better hope game seven, James Harden isn't, isn't warming up, warming up in the locker room, but game one, James Harden is here, had a huge game. Clippers blow the doors off the Mavs. Mavs won the shot quality Olympics. Good for the Mavs. They were 10 of 33 on threes. Um,

I thought they came out with no juice. They gave up offensive rebounds and transition opportunities in the first half like they were warming up into the series. But this is why you get James Harden. He had a great game. He relentlessly attacked Luka Doncic, as did Paul George, and reminded me a lot of Phoenix-Dallas Game 2 in the 2022 conference semifinals when Luka was embarrassed on defense and responded by playing much better on that end of the floor.

I just don't like throwing away games. And you can tell me it's just they missed shots, 10 of 33 on threes, blah, blah, blah. I just, like, this is a big, big loss for Dallas without Kawhi. Gives the Clippers a little margin to maybe ease him back, maybe take another extra game over how many games you expected it to be to bring him back. It felt like a lost opportunity. They better win game two. What did you see, Clips Mavs?

Yeah, so that 2021 series was, or 2022, I guess, was a series where they lost the first two games in Phoenix and ended up coming back to win the series. But, you know, you mentioned Game 7, James Harden. One thing that might make that easier to handle is if you have Game 7 Kawhi back in the lineup by that point to offset it. I think people got too down on James Harden based on his performance in the second half of the season. And...

The other thing that's a little hard to separate from that, I mentioned with the Lakers-Nuggets game one that it was LeBron and AD on a little bit more rest and the potential benefits of that. I think Harden probably with a week off probably benefited even more so, a week plus I think, because they were already locked into the four seed. There's probably a reason that his performance tends to slow down over the course of the series, but if you steal a game...

Just as they stole a game without Joel Embiid last year against Boston. That's still going to be really important for the series. I think this was a case where the shot quality metrics did not reflect what we were seeing on the court in terms of, as you said, Dallas just did not seem...

to come out from the start with the requisite playoff intensity. And, you know, the Clippers potentially knowing that they were without Kawhi and the importance of this game were on it from moment one. So it, it didn't reflect what we were seeing out there in terms of, it didn't feel like Dallas was creating a lot of good looks other than the threes. And it felt like they were really rushed and, and,

And, you know, like I have in my head a vision of Dante Exum several times, like awkwardly driving to the basket is the second side guy and just things that had been smooth for them for the last two months, basically. Yeah. I mean, look, I liked that they gave Josh Green a shot in the fourth quarter when it was out of hand, because I had in my notes, like, where is Josh Green? Like, why is he not getting any minutes here? Jaden Hardy is a step behind him, obviously, but

defensively, particularly if Kawhi comes back in the series, they're going to need a lot of minutes. And they already play this way, but with two of PJ Washington, Derek Jones Jr., Dante Exum, and Josh Green on the floor too. And we can talk about Kaliba later, but those guys are just going to have to make shots. And you mentioned how Herb Jones is sort of in prove-it mode for the Thunder.

Thunder making him prove it. That's Dante Exum for the Mavs. The Clippers don't care what Dante Exum shot from three in the regular season, which was very robust, particularly from the corners. They're going to make him make shots, and they sure as hell don't care whatever Derek Jones Jr. shots. They're going to make him make shots. And that's the challenge, particularly when Kawhi – I mean, without Kawhi –

It obviously changes the whole series, but it changes the entire defensive equation for the Mavericks in a way that should have helped them way more than it did in Game 1 because they can hide both Luka and Kyrie on Terrence Mann and Amir Coffey, respectively. And yeah, the Clippers can see that and say, okay, Terrence Mann, you come screen for James Harden. And they did that when Luka was on him or Kyrie was on him, but it just makes it a lot easier to do. What do you think...

And I say this because Ty Lue, who's always four steps ahead, like I did not have force feeding of Vita Zubats on my bingo card of things to look at in game one. And it, God damn it, it worked. Zoo had a monster game, totally overpowered Daniel Gafford, got him in foul trouble right away. By the way, Daniel Gafford committed his second foul after Dallas let Terrence Mann leak out in transition and someone just had to hit him to prevent him from scoring. That was Daniel Gafford. Whoopsie. Never got really back into the game after that, turned his ankle off.

I asked this around Zubat's framing. I do think Dallas seems a little undecided over what their best use of Kleba is. They play him at the four quite a lot with one of Lively and Gafford. It seems like Jason Kidd has...

like a comfort zone with Kleba at the five and neither Gafford nor Lively on the floor. And the numbers, like those lineups were good in the regular season, like plus 11 per 100 possessions. Those are the lineups that drove them to the conference finals against Golden State in 2022. It seems like they've designed their team to minimize those lineups. They have two good rim protecting centers. Kleba is a different kind of defender. What do you think of that balance for the Mavs?

Yeah, it kind of surprised me because Ryan Roko mentioned on the broadcast how good the numbers were with Kleba at five next to Washington. I guess I hadn't realized that because it seems like the biggest adjustment that they made going into this stretch was playing a lot bigger, going to Gafford for heavy minutes as a starter. Obviously Lively was out for a period of this time injured. And I think that's where a lot of those Kleba at five minutes were coming.

And, you know, you talked about a few weeks ago about kind of the robustness of the improvements that they made defensively after the all-star break, that it wasn't really about shooting, that it was mostly about or three-point shooting. It was mostly about how well that they were taking away shots at the rim with Gafford and Lively often giving them 48 minutes of legit rim protection there.

Maybe in this series that doesn't matter as much because that's not what the Clippers want to do anyway. And that could be one reason that Kliba is a more sensible option. The other thing I think at this point is, like, if you go back to the 2021 series, you know, I think that was the right year. They all run together. That's the second one. That's Clippers Mavs 2.0.

Clippers going small obviously was in their favor. That ended up being the series that beat Utah in the second round because they were just so deep in terms of perimeter players. With Kawhi out to start this series, I think actually that balance may tilt a little more into the Mavericks direction where if they can get Zubats and his rim protection off the court, it works in their favor. And that to me stood out as one of the big differences in

in this game is compared to the 2021 series. That year, they set 67 on-ball picks per 100 possessions according to second-spectrum tracking with Zubats as the defender and averaged 1.3 points per chance, which is like flames start to come out of your computer when you see that number, as you like to say. On Sunday, it was 51 per 100, and they produced 1.07 points per chance, which you can easily live with if you're the Clippers. That's interesting on a lot of fronts.

So you're seeing Kleba at the five as a way to play Zubats, not out of the series, but off the floor a little bit more. And it is interesting without, without Kawhi, the Clippers are really small. I mean, they're essentially playing four guards for almost the entirety of the game. They're very, very small. And they, and they, because the Covington Batum pieces are gone, the guys that are tweener forwards, they don't really have them anymore. And PJ Tucker's not in the rotation anymore.

I'm glad you looked up the stats because I had all over my notes watching the game, not enough pick and roll, not enough pick and roll, not enough pick and roll. And I actually looked it up today. Luka ran 41 pick and rolls as the ball handler. That's about average for him in terms of volume. I just – they took – the Mavs were out of rhythm. And I don't know why the Mavs were out of rhythm, but one thing that was interesting was –

You know, obviously you watch how are they going to defend Luka pick and rolls. And in the first three minutes, they did four different things. And so maybe that's one reason they're out of the rhythm. But they really settled into...

like an extreme drop back defense with zoo bots as their, as their base defense. Like we're not even coming anywhere near the level of the screen. I'm parking zoo below the foul line, counting on my guards to get over the screen intact and giving Luca a runway towards zoo bots. And it seemed to kind of like catch Luca a little bit by surprise, even though I went back and watched like the Clippers have done that to him before, uh,

But it was like Brooke Lopez style, like peak Brooke Lopez. Like we're not even bothering coming up above the foul line. You can have this runway. And you're like, this is Luka Doncic. Isn't that a little dangerous? But the other guys mostly stayed home on Dallas' shooters.

And Luka mostly settled for kind of like turnaround 18-footers over Terrence Mann with Zubats kind of lurking there. That was really interesting, and it's not what I expected. We've seen so many series where they force Zubats into a million switches. They force Zubats to blitz over and over again. And the Clippers, at least in Game 1, were like, we're going to go all the way the opposite direction. And it seemed to take the Mavs a little bit by surprise.

Yeah. And like Luca had a good game. Kyrie obviously had a terrific game offensively, but you didn't feel Luca in the same way. I think that you did over the last couple months when he made his way into the MVP, the top of the MVP discussion.

You know, and there are ways to counter that extreme drop back strategy. And I thought Luca kind of got a little better in the second half of the game. Just saying, all right, if you're going to give me this space, I'm going to take it. I'm going to get deep enough into the paint where I'm in floater range or you're going to send people. You're going to have to send helpers because now I've created a crisis and created a couple of corner threes out of that for his teammates.

I think, I don't know if it was Gafford or Lively, maybe it was Kleeba actually, set the kind of Marcin Gortat second screen under the rim. Like if you're just going to lurk down here, I'm going to hit you with the second screen and Luka's going to be able to get to the rim. Part of it is like, if they're going to play that way, then the screen just has to be better. Like you just got to hit Terrence Mann so Luka can get downhill. But here's the thing about the playoffs. The Mavericks saw that. They might be inclined to prepare for it. They might prepare for it and Ty Lue just may not do it at all.

In Game 2, he may totally pivot to another gambit. I also thought they should... You can post Luka up more. They were sending hard doubles at him in the post. That was another thing. But this is going to be a really... When you have Ty Lue and you have Luka Doncic, it's going to be an interesting chess match all the way through. Yeah, and I felt like...

You go back to that 2021 series where the Clippers were coming from behind the entire time. And it took in both that series and the Utah series a while for Ty Lue to settle on what his rotation was going to be. And maybe it's because they just don't have as many options this time around. They're not as deep, especially without Kawhi. But I thought that we might see Daniel Tice. We didn't see him at all. He was like a very settled eight-man rotation in this one.

And they came out, the Clippers, just ruthlessly. Like, there was no wasted possession. There was one possession where Paul George had Luka on him in a cross match. I was like, I wonder if they're going to give the ball to Paul. And, like, before the sentence even got through my brain, Paul George had the ball and was going at Luka one-on-one. Like, they just, there was a calculatedness to your point. Like, there was no warm-up into the series for the Clippers. They came out like, we got to get one of these games at home at least to buy some time. Okay, last one. Bucks, Pacers.

the Bucs blow the doors off of Indiana, who also wins the shot quality Olympics. They shot eight of 38 on threes. That does not seem replicable for the Bucs defense. Damian Lillard, 35 points in the first half, zero in the second half. But when you score 35 in the first half, you can add zero in the second half. And that's just fine. Kind of the opposite. Remember Curry,

In the 2019 series against the Rockets, had zero points in the first half and like 30-something in the second half to close out the Rockets in Houston. And I believe that that was the end of the James Harden, Chris Paul era in that game. I mean, the place to start in this game is Tyrese Halliburton just did nothing. Like seven shots, nine points.

Didn't really seem all that involved. 31 pick and rolls for him total. That is 40th in terms of volume for him in something like 70 games for the season, I think. And if you account for his playing more minutes, it's like 53rd out of 70 in terms of frequency per possession. Only 10 pick and rolls total with Miles Turner, which was their go-to play all year. And just a lot of possessions where...

He just gave up the ball, even with a good matchup, like Damian Lillard or Bobby Portis, and just didn't really seem interested in getting it back. And it just, I want to start there because if that's the Tyrese Halliburton we're getting, like they're dead. It's over. Like, I don't even know. Like, they're not dead and it's over because we don't know when Giannis is coming back.

But that was an extremely disappointing postseason debut for a guy who's talked about how excited he is to be in the postseason. And like they just I just don't think they can win with that. I mean, I don't know what was going on. Obviously, he's been dealing with the hamstring thing for a while, but he had multiple 25, 27, 24 point games down the stretch and was just kind of like, I'd rather have him go four of 21 and score nine points than four of seven. It's like, man, are you even involved in the game?

i mean i don't necessarily want him to have 21 shot attempts but it's just sort of kind of the combined assists and shot attempts and 15 is not even remotely what you want yeah it's interesting because

I've mentioned before the time off helping a number of older players, and maybe we can put Damian Lillard in that group in the first half as well. And you hoped that it would benefit Halliburton coming off that injury, and it did not in game one. And it was probably even more extreme in terms of his usage, because his usage wasn't down that much.

in the second half of the season compared to the first half. The biggest change was just that he wasn't making threes after shooting those at a 40% clip the first couple of months is he had the previous couple of seasons. And this one, yeah, they seemed content to just let

pascal siakam be the the primary option offensively because of the fact that milwaukee was defending him with brooke lopez and you know siakam was extremely good extremely efficient but you wonder if milwaukee feels like they they won you know won that matchup even by getting the ball out of halliburton's hands and into siakam so much even as well as siakam score yeah siakam long twos he made a lot of them they're good they're fine for him he's very good at that um

I'm more interested in like, can I get an inside out game going through Siakam? Like if Chris Middleton is on him and Chris Middleton was playing the four a lot in this game because Giannis is out and Jay Crowder only played whatever, 15, 18 minutes, whatever it was. 12 minutes. 12 minutes. I want him backing down Chris Middleton and then kicking the ball out. I want more. If Lopez is going to be on him.

I want more Tyrese Pascal pick and rolls with Miles Turner spacing the floor. I mean, that's how this team is designed to play when defenses invert the matchups. And that's not easy. Like, Brooke Lopez is really, really good. Pat Beverly is a pest on defense. But they can get Pat Beverly off of Tyrese Halliburton without much... Like, I'd like to see Tyrese Halliburton and Andrew Nebhart two-man game to try and get Dame involved in the action, kind of go at him a little bit. There's just...

They just didn't play well. Their defense was bad. Just missing cutters, just missed rotations, confused rotations. Just a bad playoff debut. What else did you notice of interest going forward from this game? It's kind of a dud. It wasn't a dud because Dame went off, which is always fun. But given the juice of this rivalry and all the noise and all the trash talk, it was kind of just an eh game.

Yeah, it was a disappointment in terms of the competitiveness level. I thought, similar to the Clippers, Milwaukee came out knowing, hey, we're down our star. We need to give him as much time as possible. And they were locked in from the start. And I thought the adjustment to have Patrick Beverly in the starting lineup late in the regular season paid off in this one. You knew that they were going to need him to defend Halliburton because none of their

former starting lineup was capable, was up to that task. I think the role for TJ McConnell in this series is going to be interesting. He was very important in keeping the Indiana offense afloat in the second half without the same kind of production from Halliburton. They had tremendous success with Halliburton and McConnell playing together in the backcourt after trading Buddy Heald and with Benedict Matherin's injury and the way that it's kind of left them short at shooting guard.

I do wonder like if McConnell was one of those guys, because he's such an unorthodox player and his weaknesses as a shooter are so extreme relative to his strengths is, you know, kind of, he's an incredible mid range shooter and is able to kind of tilt the game that way. He was awesome in the in-season tournament semifinals, uh,

help swing that game for Indiana. But I wonder if in a playoff setting where you can prepare for him every night, you know, go against him repeatedly, whether that exacerbates some of his weaknesses. And you think back to, he hasn't been in the playoffs like the Pacers since 2020, but the last two series or 20, yeah, 2020, the last two series he was in, he played under 10 minutes a game. And if he gets played off the court in this series, suddenly Indiana is a real low on options. Yeah. The Ben Shepard minutes were rough.

The Doug McDermott minutes were non-impactful. Step one is they just got to be better on defense. I thought their defense was really sloppy in the half court and in transition. Pat Beverly has been really, I mean, like one of the most important trade deadline pickups of the whole season was Patrick Beverly for a couple of second rounders, I think, right?

Yeah, I mean, how many guys played, you know, P.J. Washington Jr. played a ton, obviously, for Dallas, but guys who, you know, other than like the Siakam and Inobi pickups that were a little bit earlier, like how many deadline pickups actually played 30 minutes in game one of the playoffs and Ben Fulkey played 37? And he's been good enough offensively as just sort of a ball mover, screener, random body mover. And obviously that's where Tyrese Halliburton is going to hide.

I actually don't think Milwaukee went at Halliburton as much as they could or should. But, you know, Pat Bev is kind of a creative player. Like if he has the ball, they ran some Pat Bev, Chris Middleton pick and rolls.

Indiana probably should just go under everything on Beverly. They didn't on those plays, but Pat Bev is smart. They ran one, I don't know if it was a Pat Bev Lopez pick and roll that didn't go anywhere, and Pat Bev just kept the dribble, pitched it to Chris Middleton, and then set a random screen for Middleton where all of a sudden Pat Beverly's the screener, not the ball handler, can't go under on Chris Middleton, and Tyrese is in the action, switches on to Middleton, and Middleton cooks him for a long two. Chris Middleton looks good, by the way. That's a nice...

That's a nice feather in the Bucs cap. The Pacers should go at him a little more defensively too, but they just got to get out and run and get some stops. They just did not play very well. And maybe it was like a playoff debut kind of nervousness or whatever, but they did not look like this sort of rollicking team that they were in the regular season. Yeah, there was no juice, I would say. And I do think this was a weekend that reminded us of the importance of playoff experience. You know, Oklahoma City just...

Despite a rather flat game one effort, or maybe some nerves at the start of it, did end up winning. But Orlando, Indiana, both of those teams are going to shoot somewhat better than they did Indiana in particular. But the teams that had limited playoff experience very much looked at.

Well, everyone gets another shot in game two. Always be wary of overreacting to game one. All of these teams will shoot better and play better. And you have written about this before, but usually I think it's with home teams, right? Don't you have a whole like home teams who lose game one have some insane record in game two? Yeah, it was like 16 or 17 in a row, I think, before Miami won game two at Boston in last year's conference finals to take that en route to their 3-0 lead in that series.

So there definitely is a motivation effect in the playoffs. It's not as strong a benefit as you were saying for when the lower seed is down 1-0 on the road going into game two as it is when the home team loses game one. But the other thing to go back to the storyline at the top about all these home teams winning, they collectively shot 39% on threes this weekend. The road team shot 28%.

During the regular season, there was a very small advantage for the higher seeds. They shot 38%, but the lower seeds shot 37%. So they were way below what you would expect, and that will even out. And, you know, the other thing that my research has found in the past is that shot quality in Game 1 is pretty predictive of what's going to happen the rest of the series, much more so than the shot making in Game 1. Interesting. Bodes well for some of the teams that lost. You know, I would expect the veteran teams...

who lost to come out like a house of fire in game two like the Mavs the Suns like they just got to play with a lot more fire and a lot more toughness and I would expect that it's the newbies where I'm like is that just what Orlando is going to be like is that just what and Cleveland by the way should take nothing for granted based on what happened in the playoffs last year they should come out and play exactly the way they played in the first game um where they were physical and tough and Evan Mobley got going in the post a little bit um

And those are the teams like, all right, we'll see. We'll see what Orlando and Indiana do. But the veteran teams, like I expect them to come out like, all right, this is must win. We got to go all out. Total urgency that we did not see much of in the first game.

Yeah, I'm surprised. Minnesota is, I think, a bigger favorite in game two, the three and a half point favorites at ESPN bet than they were in game one. And I do think we saw that people kind of overcorrected a little bit to the three nothing head to head. And, you know, Phoenix's talent going into the series. I did ultimately pick Minnesota because they were the better team over the course of the season and even matched Phoenix record wise over the last 25 games when that was supposedly the sun's coming together and the Timberwolves being without cap.

But I still think that's going to be an extremely close, terrific series. And I like Phoenix's chances of, you know, evening it up or at least being more competitive in game two. Well, tonight Orlando gets a shot in game two. Wonder what their adjustments are going to be. The Lakers, at some point,

You either got to win a game or we just got to throw in the towel on this matchup between the Lakers and the Nuggets. But maybe that's tonight in Mile High City. And the Sixers-Knicks, we should have mentioned earlier, Tyrese Maxey is questionable with an illness. That would be a tough road to hoe for Joel Embiid without Tyrese Maxey. So hopefully he can give it a go. Kevin Pelton, what else are you working on? I haven't checked the site today. I've been grinding all day watching tape and re-watching games and taking notes. Have you anything up today from the weekend?

Not today, but I'm actually ready about the Clippers-Mavs series for Tuesday, and specifically the idea that record in the second half of the season often hasn't been predictive in the playoffs, and Dallas was so dominant for a stretch of a month plus going 16-1, and then 0-1 to start the playoffs. So, well, the Clippers were struggling in the second half, so it's an interesting matchup from that standpoint. It's funny you mention that because you said before how...

Perhaps there was too much read into James Harden's sort of limping toward the finish line of the regular season. This was one of the harder series to parse for me because of like it's just so strange to have a team be so dominant in like a middle portion of the season and so in the rest of the way and in ways that made you worry like.

James Harden not looking like much of a scorer for 20 straight games. Is that just now? Is he getting tired? Is that just endemic to what this team is? And then the other team looks totally unremarkable for the first whatever of the season and then looks unbelievable for the last 20 games of the season. It was hard to parse. I ended up picking the Mavs

in seven just because of the Kawhi variable and obviously that looks foolish after game one if had Kawhi I said in the previous episode I said if I knew Kawhi I would have picked the Clippers if I knew Kawhi was playing I'd pick the Clippers but I hope that that ends up being a good series as well but it's interesting that you mentioned that now that's a good primer for Tuesday's piece Kevin Pelton

Always producing awesome stuff. Thank you for your time. In three more games tonight, buckle up. Long way to go to crown the 2024 NBA champion. Kevin Pelton, everybody. Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me.

Jim Harbaugh makes his long-awaited return to the Monday Night Lights. Touchdown, LA! And the Chargers add to their lead. As the Chargers meet rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. and the Cardinals in the down. Murray scrambling. Harrison! 60 yards, touchdown. Chargers-Cardinals. Monday, October 21st at 9 p.m. Eastern. Streaming exclusively on ESPN+. Sign up now at ESPN+.com.