Wolves-Nuggets Game 7, Celtics Consternation, Cavs' Questions, and Mavs-Thunder
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast where it's time to be like Anthony Edwards and put up a seven, baby. Because this series, this Clash of the Titans, this battle of Western Conference powerhouses that have been eyeing each other all season since that competitive gentleman's sweep last year where the Wolves had their own eyes open to what they might be able to accomplish if they had been healthy.

Oh, Rudy Gobert on Aaron Gordon. That's interesting. That stressed him out a little bit. Imagine if we had Jaden and Nas and the Nuggets said, oh.

Yeah, we beat them in five, but they kind of stressed us out more than any other team we played in our run to our first title in franchise history over a bunch of low playoff seeds, be that as it may. And all the coaching and front office common denominators among them. We needed seven. John Krasinski, we have not had a classic game yet in this series. Game one was close.

Game 5 was classic from the point of it was just one of the finest offensive games you will ever see a single player play. It was the magnum opus of Nikola Jokic's career to date. Game 2 and 3 were blowouts. Game 6 in Minnesota last night. I'm going to be honest, Mr. Krasinski, with the Wolves season on the line,

I don't even know what the final score of the game was. I just know that they were ahead by like 50 at some point. I don't really even understand what happened, but I know this. We're going to game seven. You came on to preview this series. We all, me, you, and Adam Morris all had this series going seven games. You had Minnesota in seven. Adam and I had Denver in seven.

We're all right for now. In a couple days, one of us or two of us are going to be right. But boy, it must have been fun to be in the house last night because this series has taken so many wild twists and turns. Minnesota just stomping Denver in Denver in a way that no team has done in the entire Jokic era. Denver emotionally unraveling. Jamal Murray dealing with a calf injury. All the signs were like, oh,

I mean, you don't think a champion is going to let go of the rope, but they looked emotionally rattled, devastated, helpless on offense, heading into a hostile environment. And bam! Oh, yeah.

You all thought we were going to roll over? We're the champs and we have the best player in the world. Take this L, take this L, come back to Denver, take this Jokic masterpiece. We got control of the series. We're going to Minnesota. We don't want to go seven. Nobody wants to go. Oh, Minnesota wins by a thousand points, adjusts everything about their defense and proves that they are as versatile and long and tenacious a defensive team as there is. And now we're going seven. John Krasinski, how was it last night?

It was remarkable, Zach. You know, like you said, I mean, you, Adam, and I all picked this to go seven games. I don't think any of us anticipated it getting to seven this way. But here we are. And I'll tell you what, at the start of the game in Target Center, full boat, everyone was really excited. But you could feel it.

That Minnesota sports dread, man. You could feel what's going to go wrong, what is happening with us. And there was a lot of nervous tension in the arena. And when the Nuggets go up 9-2...

And it's time out. It's, oh, here we go again, Minnesota sports. This is the worst. I hate my life. Gary Anderson wide right. Exactly. All of the demons are coming back out. And instead, just the most emphatic response that you could ever imagine. 27-2 run. And the amount of...

electricity the volume in that place was just unbelievable I did not see it coming very few in there saw it coming when it was nine to two and here we go three three wolves up off the mat and feeling like anything can happen in game seven apropos of nothing you just mentioned the crowd

One of my takeaways from this postseason and all the towels and all the cheering, I don't think the Wolves can ever lose Nas Reed. I think Nas Reed could never leave. I think they have to re-sign him over and over again. They can never trade him. He has achieved...

an unusual level of like cult hero status in Minnesota and it's not even cult hero just heroes like they can't ever trade him like it's it's unbelievable the response he gets the towels are everywhere the shirts are everywhere his face is everywhere they go bananas when he comes in the game and last night I mean not to get too granular but I've been waiting all series for Nas Reed to get some post touches against all these little guards who they're hiding on him because they don't want Jokic to guard either of the shooting bigs if they can help it when it's

Cat and Nas, and he finally kind of played a little bully ball last night, a little lefty hook shot. Nas Reid, can't trade him ever. Sorry, Tim Connelly, you might have to max him out next time around if you're still the president of basketball operations. If this team has an owner, if I don't like hovering over all where we're all. I saw Laurie. They were all there, right? Laurie and A-Rod. Laurie was like, was he going to the white party at Michael Rubin's house after the game? Like, I don't know. A-Rod. Do you think A-Rod?

Given what we've seen in previous photo shoots and magazines, do you think A-Rod stands in front of his mirror before every game and practices his serious face? Like, this is a close game. Should I go like this? How about arms folded? Mmm.

Like, is that too mean? He's like so serious and intense. Like, I think he practices it. And Glenn Taylor was there too. They're all there. Do they talk? Do they acknowledge each other? Are people watching to see if there's any? Are there lawyers present? It's just only the wolves, John.

Only the wolves. Yeah. Only the wolves. They sit directly across from each other. Laurie and A-Rod on one side, Glenn Taylor and his wife, Becky on the other side. And literally they can just, they're in each other's direct line of vision, just in the way that the seats are juxtaposed. So it is awkward. Yes. Glenn has tried to go up and talk to Mark and Alex and, you know, it didn't go great. It didn't go great. Didn't go great, Zach. Um, yeah. And, and, uh, and so you have all of this hanging over it. Uh,

But that's kind of the Timberwolves way. It cannot be easy. It cannot be straightforward. It can't be drama free. There's got to be some sort of underlying or overlying amazing thing that is happening in the middle of all of this euphoria or else we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves around here. This is just the way it's got to be. I need a reporter.

whose entire job is to monitor their cross-court interaction if they advance and there are more Minnesota home games and just see like if there's an accidental itch and someone uses the middle finger on the forehead kind of thing. Okay, Denver, Minnesota. So to me, this game, game six, was a tribute to Minnesota's defense above all else. And obviously the game got out of hand and Denver let go of the rope and Luka Garza got in and did some stuff.

But and it was a tribute, bizarrely, to what Jokic did to them in game five. He he kind of broke their defense. And so the whole point of of Kat on one of the whole points of Kat on Jokic and Gobert on Gordon is if we have to send help in the post, if they post up Jokic on Kat.

And we have to send help. We don't want it to be from the perimeter shooters one and two passes away from Jokic. Because we have Rudy back there. Rudy is the help. Rudy on the back line is the help. If Aaron Gordon's in the corner, we don't really care. Like weak side corner, let him shoot threes. Rudy's the help.

His job is to step up and contest the Jokic post-up. And if we have to send extra help, it's the guy behind him so that the only pass Jokic has is to the weak side corner. And we can fly and rotate to that. We're not rotating one pass away, two passes away. That's too easy. And Jokic...

them so badly, whether it was Cat or Rudy or whoever, that they just said, to hell with that. We got to double him every time he touches the ball. It doesn't even matter who's on him. Rudy, Cat, doesn't matter where Rudy is, doesn't matter what defense we're in. We're doubling him every time, like the Lakers did, with such ferocity that

Not only are they doubling when the entry passes in the air The rotation to the guy that they're doubling off Is already in motion And the rotation behind that is already in motion We're just doubling every time And it felt like 9-2, whatever It felt like

It felt like he broke us. He beat us. He's solved every defense. Their pick and roll attack is solved to some degree. The go bear on the back line on Aaron Gordon gambit that the Wolves liked that

But it wasn't surrender. What it was was faith in their versatility, in their stamina, in their ability to double and rotate out of that with size and speed and make them swing and swing and swing and say, we're going to milk the clock and we're going to be there. You're going to make some shots against it. We'll mess up a couple of times, but we are going to make you earn it and we can play this way too.

And it was a phenomenal defensive performance, starting with Anthony Edwards on Jamal Murray. The whole game basically said, I'm taking this assignment. This is my assignment. The whole game. And by the way, Mr. Krasinski, one thing they did a little bit in this game, and I think they should do more in game seven, is one of the bonuses of that matchup is that Jamal Murray is sometimes stuck on Anthony Edwards when Minnesota gets the ball. And they're starting to hunt that and peck at that a little bit more. And I think they should do that. But I just want you to zero in on their defense because they're

This is the chess match of the playoffs. We beat you doing this. You got to do this. We beat you doing this. You got to do this. Here's the counter to this. Here's the counter to that. And at some point, you reach the point where all the moves have been, you think all the moves have been made and one team has won out in the chess match and the chess match is over. You've reached endgame. And this is just how the rest of the series is going to unfold. I think Oklahoma City, Dallas, maybe at that point, Tim McMahon's going to come out and talk about that shortly.

And this wasn't at that point. Minnesota said, oh, you got us backed into a little corner. I got some counter moves still. It was an awesome performance. And although none of the games have been down to the wire nail biters quite yet, I've enjoyed the hell out of this series and I'm glad it's going seven. It's been an amazing series with so many swings and momentum and getting to that defense that you're talking about, Zach, where I want to start first and foremost is Carl Anthony Towns. The way that he plays,

more than any of the other bigs that the Wolves have, the defensive player of the year included, succeeds in holding his ground against Jokic.

When Jokic is backing him down, I think it's been the most effective play that the Wolves have toward trying to start that double team action. What we saw with Jokic against Gobert in game five was that Jokic can move Gobert wherever he wants to move him, anytime he wants to do it. And the reason that the Wolves got into trouble is that Carl Anthony Towns was in foul trouble early, had to come out. No, no.

Carl Anthony Townsend foul trouble? Who would have thought? Who would have thought? I know we say it every time. My man, you're going to commit some fouls on defense. Can you not...

Full court press for no reason and commit a foul. Can you not just like set the stupidest illegal screen? It's game seven, Kat. And he has stabilized in these last two games after kind of a hectic 5 of 18 performance. What was that, in game four? Yeah, on Mother's Day, yep. He's stabilized. I thought he only had 10 points last night, but I thought he played a really calm, nice game. Five assists, only one turnover. My man, just chill. One game, just chill out.

Yep, that's it. And Anthony Edwards said as much after the game. He's like, I cussed Kat's ass out.

for to not get in foul trouble. Cause when you get in foul trouble, we lose. When you are not in foul trouble, we win. And Ant has been saying that publicly a couple of times. He said it in the Phoenix series as well, but to have that as your base start where Carl Anthony towns there, he seems to hold his ground. Well, that, that pushes Jokic out on the first touch a little bit further, which makes it easier to double from the top.

And to bring, whether it's Ant, to bring the Keogh in on him, whatever it is. And then you get a defense that is very connected and communicates well, scrambling and rotating behind that double. And I don't think that the Nuggets have seen a defense that connected.

And so even if it's swing, swing, even if it's multiple passes, they can recover out to the spots and contest shots that normally other teams wouldn't. And it worked beautifully in that game last night. And so, yeah,

Jokic only had two assists. Now they missed a lot of shots that I think they would normally make. Jamal Murray missed a bunch. Porter Jr. missed a bunch. But part of it was a product of the Wolves being able to contest some of those shots a lot better in game six than they did game five, four, and of that nature. So this is how the Lakers played Jokic the entire first round series. They just were doubling you while the ball's in the air.

And it's jarring at first. And I think the Wolves, it's not a coincidence that it was a backs against the wall move for the Wolves because they know, like, as great as Jokic is, it's going to take him a little time and it's going to take the Nuggets a little time to suss this out. But he knows how to deal with this.

And you saw him, like, he's going to use pass fakes to try and get the rotations to, like, half start and bait them. They're going to repost the ball over and over again to see kind of if anyone messes up in the rotation. And even, like, when Jamal Murray was one pass away, the Nuggets got a bucket when Jokic just...

Hit Murray one pass away. And instead of making the swing pass that the Wolves expected, he faked the pass, got the defense to jump, and then drove into the lane, hit Aaron Gordon for a layup. There was one possession in the third quarter where Jokic had three post touches in like a six-second span. Post up, double, hit KCP, fake pass, repost, kick out, repost again. And the defense was all over it to the point that he had to go baseline and

and then hook this pass across the court to Michael Porter Jr., who missed a three. It's just a fascinating battle, and the Wolves are up to it. You mentioned Jamal Murray hurt his elbow early in the game. He's been banged up with the calf. Look, four of 18. He has seven free throw attempts the entire series. Michael Porter Jr. has 18 points combined in the last three games.

I want to say that again. Michael Porter Jr. has 18 points in three games on seven of 23 shooting. I mean, he's a good barometer for their team and they're going to, they've won two of those games, obviously, but they're going to need a Michael Porter Jr. game. And by the way, one of the reasons that frenzy double teaming worked was when the ball got to Michael Porter Jr.,

He was not ready mentally to make the right read in a snap. He had a couple of plays where one more pass to the corner and there was a corner three-point shooter that was open because Aaron Gordon was setting a flare screen and he kind of looked at it and hesitated, put the ball in the... And that's it. Like, that's it. The defense is reset. The possession is toast. They need more out of those guys. And by the way, I tweeted this last night. I X'd this last night.

Denver's starters in this series, the best starting lineup in the NBA for two years running, I'm giving them that credit over Boston starting five this season because they won the title, is minus 50 in 110 minutes in this series. And I understand Murray's dealing with some stuff. Lots of people are dealing with some stuff. I understand there's been a couple of fluky, weird blowouts, including last night. I never would have imagined there was any circumstance where

playing the freaking Monstars in Space Jam, playing the 92 Bulls, playing the 96 Bulls, playing whoever, the Globetrotters, that the Denver starting five could go minus 50 in 110 minutes, minus a point almost every two minutes. Never would have imagined it. And by the way, although it's extreme in this series, they're now minus 23 overall for the playoffs.

They were barely treading water against the Lakers in that series. And a lot of it is just Murray, who is shooting 39% in the playoffs, 31% on three. And he's made the two biggest shots of Denver's playoff run. But overall, that's the number one reason that this lineup is struggling. And MPJ has been up and down. That's a remarkable, it's a remarkable stat. And the flip side of it is,

Mike Conley's return last night was gigantic, and we can talk about how that unfolded. Minnesota in this series with Ant and Mike Conley on the floor, with their two best playmakers on the floor, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it's with that second playmaker around Ant that all of a sudden they can stress Denver's defense in a way that they could not in Game 5 without Conley. Conley and Ant plus 64 in 131 minutes.

What did you see? And Ant, I don't think it was a coincidence. First question out of the gate last night. I think you asked it. What changed? And tell people what he said for people who haven't seen the clip. We got Mike Conley back. Is there an F-bomb in there somewhere? Not in that one. There were plenty more that came later in the availability in the press conference. But you could see how much happier...

Ant was to have Mike Conley back. Because like you said, in game five, I bet Zach, I've never seen a defense double and as aggressively as

the nuggets did in game five. And they were, they were hell bent on getting the ball out of his hands and they did not have to worry about being beaten on the backside because of it, because the wolves did not have any secondary playmaker creator to really hurt Denver in those situations. And less, and less shooting. Yeah. Less shooting. Exactly. Jade McDaniels was missing shots. You know, cat didn't have a great game. Uh,

In game five, Nikhil Alexander-Walker, all those options just really played poorly in game five. And so even though Mike Conley was not 100% Mike Conley, he was still, you could see, moving a little slowly, being a little bit more tentative on that leg, on the Achilles. He was still able to do enough to give the Wolves some sort of threat

without when the ball was not in Anthony Edwards hands when you have a Conley Rudy pick and roll as another action to go to that is so reliable for the Wolves offensively and it makes the defense especially the Denver respect it and so that opened things up for Anthony Edwards to attack in a way that he never saw in game five and it made such a difference Ant got going I think he had

what was it, 11 or 14 points in the first quarter. Like he was just really going hard and being aggressive. And when he is able to get downhill and collapse the defense, the Wolves offense just looks so much better. And they just feel, you know, there was a moment after the game, Zach, where they were going back to the locker room and Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley are walking back to the locker room and Rudy said,

Mike, don't ever leave me again. And Mike said, don't worry, I won't do it again to you. So that's just how important this guy is from an organization standpoint, from a shooting and offensive standpoint. But he's just their safety blanket. He is the guy that calms everything down for them. He was enormous in that game six last night. Look, I'm not saying Minnesota is winning game seven. I picked Denver in seven. I'll stick to that. But my brain did begin wandering last night to –

If the Wolves and the Celtics played in the finals, we would be guaranteed that one of the beloved aging players in the NBA would get his first NBA title between Mike Conley and Al Horford. Who is the sentimental favorite among those two? Is it just someone's got to win? Anyway...

The other thing about Conley is I think, you know, if it's high pick and roll over and over again with Ant and Gobert in the middle of the floor, I think Denver has that down. Like Jokic comes up to the level of the screen. They're big behind it, rotating. Like they have that down. I think what you saw last night is –

and a little bit in game five toward the end, but mostly last night, is they're starting to put Ant in positions where he can attack in different ways than that. Sometimes it's attacking a closeout. Sometimes it's attacking on the side of the floor where it's more likely that if they run a pick and roll, it's kind of low and it might turn into like an isolation or a post-up. And then you have that string of possessions in the third quarter where they ran the Conley-Katt-Taylor

two-man game on the left side of the floor over and over and over again. And they got switches out of it, and Cat made a couple really nice calm – I'm starting to spell calm with a K because it's my way of remembering, like, calm Cat. Calm Cat. Keep the limbs like here. Like, you don't need to be flying everywhere. But what that also did was when they doubled their –

On that switch and cat got the ball moving. It found ant and it found him with a favorable matchup because the rotations had swung everybody around. Okay. I got Michael Porter jr. In front of me. No screener defense is scrambling. I'm just going to go. I'm going to dispense with any kind of screen. I'm just going to isolate and I felt like they put him in more positions to go one-on-one and

I'd like to see them even call more plays for him to catch the ball at the nail with KCP on him and sort of get back to a bully ball a little bit. But I thought they mixed it up in allowing him to attack without a screen. There was even one play where someone was coming to screen for him and he was like, no, no, I'm just going to go one on one. Another play, he saw the double coming from his left side and went away from it to his right and blew by in the first quarter for like a nice bank shot.

Layup, it was a great Ant game. And I think Conley unlocks that kind of variety that they need to get him some touches that aren't just they're loading to the ball on the pick and roll over again, over and over again. Yeah, and one of the other things that it does, Zach, is it gives Ant license to be even more aggressive with his own shot. I think that in game five with Conley on the bench, and Ant said it as much after the game,

he felt an obligation to try and move the ball and get others involved and be the lead playmaker and get the offense moving in addition to looking for his own offense. And that's a lot for anyone, but especially a 22 year old who is still learning this whole game. And so when Mike Conley is in the game with Ant, he said, he's like, Mike's job is to get everyone else involved. I can just,

go. If the ball's coming to my hands, I'm going to get it and I'm going to go and I'm going to look for my shot. And I think that

That unlocks an aggression in Ant that is so important with his physicality, with the bully ball mentality, that the Nuggets have not been able to really find an answer for when he is in that mode. And so I think that there were times in game five where Ant was walking a line and straddling the fence between, okay, I got to move the ball. I got to get the good shots for my teammates and all of that.

And then I got to pick the right spots to go for myself. This time in game six, he was like, Mike's on the floor. He will get everyone involved. When the ball comes to me, if I have a flavor of matchup, I'm going. And that's what he did. And it was really effective. The other thing that's interesting and has really, it's a tribute to Denver that it hasn't been a bigger thing is I've talked a lot about, you know, Jokic is guarding Gobert on defense, which means after a lot of stops, Gobert is going to be on Jokic.

And I think Denver prefers that to the other way around, if only because Gobert is not in help position anymore. And they can start running the Murray-Jokic two-man game and get Rudy moving around in space. The flip side...

is that Kat is guarding Jokic. And so after stops for Minnesota, there should be more possessions when Jokic is stuck on Kat, which is a matchup that Denver wants to avoid because he don't want to be chasing Kat outside on the perimeter. And I zeroed in on this last night. I'm watching Gordon and Jokic after stops, crossbar,

crisscross all over the floor, sprint to their matchups. Denver has done an amazing job getting out of that cross match and getting Gordon back onto Cat and Jokic back onto Gobert. But I thought Minnesota was more attentive last night to when they couldn't get out of it. When Cat was on Jokic, or I'm sorry, when Jokic was on Cat, run Cat stuff, run Cat pick and roll, run Cat motion stuff, get him moving and see what opens up. And I think that's one of those things where

The margin of error in this series and at this level is so thin that every time they get that, they got to be really attentive to it and find something out of it. But Denver, to their credit, has really been good at getting Jokic out of that. And even, you know, like I said, he's ill-guarded Kyle Anderson or Jada McDaniels and Nikhil Alexander-Walker when it's the Kat-Naz-Reed combo. But that's an interesting little chess match amid a lot of

Interesting little chess matches. Yeah, and I think one thing that you can see in that regard is anytime that the Wolves think that they can draw Jokic out and make him work defensively, it's a win for them because...

this is a long game and they want to have some sort of physical element to add to the defense for Jokic because he is in such great shape and he played so many minutes. Is there a way to even try to wear him down a little bit? And that's a way. The other way, the other thing that they're clearly targeting offensively when they can is they believe that if they get to the paint, they are scoring. There is just not any rim protection there. Jokic doesn't want to do it. He doesn't want to pick up

any fouls around the rim. So if Jokic is the closest defender and they are going to the rim, it's usually a bucket for the Wolves. And they did not do enough of that or they couldn't unlock enough of that in five and sometimes struggled in three and four as well. But last night they were able to get to that sort of matchup

a lot and they, there was just no resistance at the rim and you can do a lot of damage there. And whether it is Jokic, whether it's like you said, Nas read on Jamal Murray, whether it's cat back in KCP down, like they, if they can get into that four or five foot range, they feel really good about being able to convert those possessions into points. Well, this is what, I mean, this is why we all do this job is, is, is to watch the,

Two teams of this level. And by the way, win or lose game seven for the Wolves. Like if they got to keep the team needs to be together, pay the tax, whatever it is. Like I don't, if they, I don't care if they lose by 40 in game seven, they have stressed the nuggets like nobody else in the NBA. Keep it together. But this is why we do this to watch two teams, two great teams push each other to the limit. And I mentioned how Minnesota tweaked its entire defense, overhauled its entire defense for game six, right?

You know, maybe that doesn't work as well in game seven when Denver's ready for it.

You're going to need every tool in the box now, every single tool in the box. It might be three possessions of this, four possessions of this. You need everything. You need every counter in the bag, and that's where you want a great playoff series between great teams to get to is where you need every – both these teams need to bring everything they've got, which brings me back to Gobert and the Gobert discourse after game six, which I'm not that interested in talking about. Jokic cooked him. There's no way around it. It is what it is.

They didn't send help. And that's what happens if you don't send help in the post against you. Okay, he's going to cook you. To me, the more interesting subplot of that is I think the Wolves know and Denver knows that

Their best defense is with Gobert on Gordon, not on Jokic. And that's not because Gobert is a stiff and he can't guard Jokic in the post. Nobody can guard Jokic in the post. It's because of how dangerous Gobert is as a helper along the baseline. And when they flip those matchups...

All the passes open up for Jokic. Like when, when Gobert's not back there, all of a sudden Gordon's getting dunks to help rotations are a little more frenzied. That, that base defense is to me, the best answer any team has had to Denver over the last two seasons.

And it's a tribute to Jokic that even in playing that base defense in game six, they still doubled him in the post against Cat from one pass away. But what you will see when they play that way is with Gobert on Gordon is when they run that Murray-Jokic pick and roll.

On a lot of those pick and rolls, and you saw it really to an extreme degree last night, they're just going to let Murray go. They're not going to help off of Jokic because they do not want him to catch the ball in the pocket with the defense in rotation. And then you have the cat and mouse game between Murray and Gobert on the back line. And Gobert won that game last night, forced some floaters, contested some layups. In games three and four, Denver was really good at getting enough separation play

That that pocket pass to Jokic was there. And then the cat and mouse game becomes Jokic versus Gobert. And that's where Jokic flipped the series on its head by saying, screw the lob pass. I'm not even going to think about it. You're thinking about it. You're trying to prevent the lob pass. I'm going to shoot. I'm the best floater shooter in the entire world. I'm going to shoot. And they started to win that cat and mouse game. And I thought...

The doubles and the frenzy of Minnesota kind of took Denver out of that a little bit. They only ran, I looked it up this morning, they only ran 12 Murray-Jokic pick and rolls the entire game.

They were very heavily focused early in the game on getting Gobert onto Jokic. So they tried to run a lot of Gordon-Jokic two-man game, and I thought Minnesota was ready for that. They went under screens. Even when Jokic was the ball handler, they went under screens. You could take a pull-up three. We're not switching Gobert onto you. Not because Gobert stinks. Not because he's a stiff. Not because Jokic cooked him a little bit because Jokic cooks.

them but because we want go bear on the back line and Denver didn't have the pivot that they had in games three and four okay we're gonna run the Murray Jokic pick and roll we're gonna run it hard we're gonna get separation and we're gonna win that cat and mouse game they couldn't quite get there and we're gonna see that play out again for portions of game seven because like I said we're

You need everything. You need every tool in the toolbox, both teams, and it's going to be awesome to see sort of what wins out. Yeah, and I thought that was the key point, Zach, that I wanted to get to and that you hit on was that a lot of times what they clearly were trying to do is run Jokic, Gordon, pick and roll to get –

Gobert switched on to Jokic and then Jokic feels a lot much more, a lot more comfortable attacking in, in any facet of it with Gobert there, but with Gobert dropping like he did and towns kind of fighting through, it was a lot harder for them to get to that matchup. And that was their adjustment. The wolves had not been playing that that way through the first five games of this series. And I think towns did a good job of moving his feet, uh,

and just kind of solidifying himself and, and again, pushing Jokic out a little bit further. So he couldn't just sit on the block and operate and pick, pick them apart either with the floaters or the passes. The second part of this Wolves defense that really has worked is when it's Jokic Murray pick and roll Jaden McDaniels ability to affect the play from behind the play is just incredible.

such a difference maker. Murray, even when he comes off of that screen and Jaden is a foot or two behind him, still has to think about that length. There was one play where Jaden came over the top of it and blocked him from behind. And whether Murray's a little bit slowed by his calf or whatever it is, he just didn't have that burst in game six. And so they have two days off. Maybe that will be enough for him to get a little bit of that burst back and that will be the difference. But in game six,

McDaniel's ability to affect the play from behind the play, I think is pretty unique among defenders in the league. And I think it gave Denver problems. Yeah. Look, I mean, again, both these teams are going to have to dig real deep for answers. Like,

If you're going to run the Murray-Jokic pick and roll, and Denver has done this a few times, I don't think enough times, they can do stuff before it leading into it. They've had success when they've run screen-to-screener actions, when someone hits Jokic's guy, Kat,

with a pick on Jokic's way up to set the screen for Murray. So there's a little separation. There's a little scrambling before you get into the meat of it. I thought this was like a random play. I mean, I'm talking random. But when Kyle Anderson, who's struggled horribly in this series, was in the game yesterday and he wasn't in the game long, there was one possession where he had Jokic on him

And they just improvised a Kyle Anderson ant pick and roll. Because if there's one switch you do not want to make, it's Jokic on the ant. And they made the switch to like, wait, what's going on here? And ant hit a corner three over Jokic. And it got me thinking again, like when Kat is stuck on Jokic, I mean, when Jokic is stuck on Kat,

Like, what other stuff can you do? You could run a cat-ant pick-and-roll just randomly and, like, get Jokic involved in the action that way. But that's, like, these are the lengths you're going to have to go to at this point. They're going to have to get... Like, before the series we talked about, I thought we would see more plays where...

It's a Murray Gordon two-man game to go at Gobert a little bit with Jokic and Michael Porter doing some screening action on the other side of the floor at the same time to try and unlock Porter. And you could see them trying to get Porter going, but the Nuggets haven't had a lot of these two things going on at the same time sets. I think both these teams are going to have to dig real deep in this game. These are two really good defenses. The best defense in the NBA by a lot against a top seven or eight defense when the chips are down.

And two, like one elite offense in Denver and one offense that's been better in the playoffs than in the regular season against Minnesota. I think this has just been...

Again, just a really fun chess match because of the uniqueness of some of these players. You have the best player in the world on offensive passer like we've never seen. You have the defensive player of the year. You have this seven-foot stretch whatever cat is. And you have Ant, you know, just doing Ant stuff. And thank God he didn't get hurt last night. Like that looked bad at first. Any last – man, we're game seven. We got a couple of days to breathe. Got a couple of days to breathe.

Anything we have not hit on, any player, any random part of this series that you want to hit on before I let you go? Yeah, I think one thing that I think really deserves attention, Zach, and...

Kind of building off what we've talked about, and you and Adam and I talked about at the start of the series with all the familiarity between these two teams, Jaden McDaniels was asked after the game, hey, Jaden, does it feel like you've played these guys 10 times? And he said, it feels like we've played 30 times, just with the division games, with the playoffs last year. Like, this is, they know each other so well, so you're right about them digging deep. And I thought Jaden McDaniels was a...

game saver in game six from an offensive standpoint. He has not shot the ball well at all, all playoffs really. Eight for 10 from the field, three for five from three, and being able to attack

off the dribble a little bit, get to the lane, get those makeable little pull-ups that he is able to do. That element was not there the earlier part of the series, and they are such a different offense. Chris Finch likes to say that Jaden McDaniels is a barometer. When he gets 10 shots, it's usually a great thing for this Wolves offense. And so he came through kind of out of nowhere last night. Of all the ways that I expected the Wolves to have success and win that game,

in game six jayden mcdaniel's 21 points and going 8 for 10 from the field was not it so we'll see if that's sustainable or not but um if they can get some that kind of aggression and production from him it just makes them so much harder to guard and and it gives them so another option that denver has to think about and so um it was just an enormous night from him well last sunday mother's day

I celebrated with a 6 a.m. flight to Chicago for the draft combine this Sunday. Not going to make up for it, honey. I'm going to sit down and luxuriate in game seven of Minnesota Denver. You're welcome to join me. Everyone's welcome to join me. It's game seven. Close the laptop. There's no game eight. There's no more adjustments to make. John, enjoy it. If your coverage has been amazing,

There will be more coverage of the Minnesota Timberwolves from you at The Athletic either way, win or lose, off-season questions, or on to the Western Conference Finals against the winner of Oklahoma City, Dallas. Thank you for your time. Thank you for everything. And I hope we get a classic. Enjoy Denver. Can't wait. My first game seven in 20 years on this beat. So I've waited a long time for it. So let's go.

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And truthfully, this is the closest maybe any team in NBA history has gotten to just getting a straight up bye to the conference finals. They got Miami without Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier and then a whole bunch of other people by the end of the series. And now they got Cleveland 4-1. Cleveland's done. Jared Allen out the whole series. Donovan Mitchell out the end of the series. Karis LeVert out the end of the series. Just a mash unit of guys. And so...

Yeah, Boston's in the playoffs. They're in the conference finals for the sixth time in the last eight years. And it's interesting, Boston. A lot of consternation about Boston and their performance in these series. Lost game two at home in both of them. They've had a habit of just...

up home games in the last two play-ups, three play-off runs, really. Just haven't been a good home team in the playoffs for whatever reason. And you'd like to see them put the pedal to the metal in those games. And then, you know, Game 5 in Cleveland without Donovan Mitchell was kind of a tense game. I'm sorry, Game 4. Game 5 in Boston was 88-85 in the fourth quarter without all those guys I mentioned. And...

There's a sense of frustration among Boston fans and even people, you know, we talk about that on the shows every day. Like, is this team a serious team? Like, why is this team? Why does it seem so unsatisfying? And it's weird because you look up.

Boston's 8-2. Their net rating so far in the playoffs is plus 12.8 per 100 possessions. Needless to say, that would essentially blow away pretty much every playoff team ever. Again, the competition has been what it is. But it's not as if they're eking out all of these wins. And that's with two kind of lopsided losses in the two losses that they've had. One to Miami, one to Cleveland. And it's funny because, you know,

I was on GetUp yesterday and Mike Greenberg saying, they were up only three. How is this a three-point game in the fourth quarter? And you tend to focus on that and not that it was a 15-point game at the end of the game when the game was over. It goes down as a pretty easy double-digit win. It's just a weird thing. And there's no denying that

There's there are periods of the game where they look really good and periods of some games where they don't look as good or as focused. And I think one of the differences between this playoff run and last year's playoff run is that for the most part, that has not been about defense. Their defense has been awesome pretty much the entire playoffs. And again, the competition is what it is. Donovan Mitchell had some big games against them, but there are not the warning signs yet for,

That there were against the Hawks in the first round last year. That something was fundamentally a little off kilter about their defense. They've been some blips here and there, but every team has those. And again, I don't think that they've really been...

Fully like focused and engaged in most of these games because they just haven't had to have been. And then when they get focused and engaged, there's stretches of these games, particularly in the Cleveland series, where they decide to turn it up on defense, often coming out of halftime. It's like, oh, oh my God. Even without Porzingis, their best rim protector, there's just nothing these teams can do. The defense has been there. That's a good sign.

Any consternation there is about Boston is obviously about their offense, which is weird because they were the number one offense in the NBA and the number one offense in the history of the NBA and their offense in the aggregate has been fine in these two series.

It's just sort of undeniable that there are periods of some of these games where they just Tim Legler put it so well on on last week's episode where he said they're the only team in the NBA that seems to think that the game ends with 10 on the shot clock. And that's the litmus test for Boston.

They don't run the prettiest stuff all the time, but they have impeccable spacing, particularly if and when Porzingis comes back and when Horford is on the floor right now. Not so much when Big Bird, Luke Cornett is on the floor, but he's been fine too. Their spacing is impeccable and they know what to run. They know their pet sets perfectly.

It against the Cavs. It was Derek White. You got Darius Garland on you. We're going to put you in every single action. Derek White, you're going to handle the ball a lot. You're going to screen a lot. He set 18 ball screens in game five. That's his most in any game this season. Double any other game. Actually, nine was his previous high according to Second Spectrum before that, which honestly feels low to me.

And by the way, nine came in games three and four against Cleveland. They were leaning into their best stuff. The litmus test is that's cool. You did that. First of all, can you do that with like 17 on the shot clock or 18 instead of 10? Can we get into it? And then when that action doesn't yield a shot and the ball gets back to Tatum or back to Brown, but especially back to Tatum with 10 on the shot clock,

Can you do something else? Can there be another thing? Because if the possession ends there and it's Tatum doing his Tatum thing or Brown doing his Brown thing against a decent defender, some nights those shots are going to go in. Some nights they're not. And you can just get better stuff. And I thought if you watch Game 5 against Cleveland, it doesn't have to be fancy. In that situation, over and over again...

There was a little lull, and then the ball would find... Let's say Jalen Brown had the ball. This happened a lot. Jalen Brown has the ball 10, 11 on the shot clock. First action hasn't gotten you anywhere. Jalen Brown holds it for... Again, it's not fancy. It's not like...

fluid but he's got it and he said okay you know what Derek White come up for another screen you got Darius Garland on you come up again let's just run the same thing and that's all it takes it doesn't have to be this complex beautiful choreographed everyone moving around running around doing fancy stuff the spacing is so good that it's just that and that gets you into action again Derek White rules you hit him he hits Horford in the corner blah blah blah it's just it doesn't have to be super complicated and

And this is really just like... Jason Tatum is a top 10 player in the NBA. I would have had him first team all NBA this year. I did not have him on my fake MVP ballot. He would have been sixth behind Brunson. He's a top 10 player, but he's closer to 10 than he is to five. And he's just...

He's not as good an individual shot creator as the very, very, very best guys in the NBA, as the guys that are going to stand in Boston's way if Boston makes the finals, almost no matter who it is. Whether it's even Ant, I think, is probably a better one-on-one shot creator, at least playoff Ant. Lucas certainly is. Jokic certainly is.

Brunson has been in the playoffs. We'll see if the Knicks can win that series and what happens. Indiana does not have someone on Tatum's level as a one-on-one shot creator. But he's just, he's not as good as those other guys. He's like a good shooter, but not a great shooter. He's a good passer, but not a great passer. He's a good finisher, but not a great finisher. They're just really tough shots. And all you got to do is just keep the offense moving and they'll be fine. But their margin for lackadaisical play

Offensive possessions for 20 out of 90 or 20 out of 70 if it's just isolating the half-court possessions being like eh possessions. The margin is about to go from here super wide to here and then if they make the finals right there. They got to be on it every possession. The gut feel I have on this Boston team is I think they know that. I think there's a self-awareness now to at least some degree. Now

We'll see. The test will be later. By the way, just on Cleveland, big offseason coming for the Cavs. I don't think the injuries are going to cloud Cleveland's decision making about J.B. Bickerstaff or Donovan Mitchell's decision. Really, he's got all the leverage in Cleveland. Obviously, they're going to offer him an extension.

If he takes it, great. You're thrilled. You're psyched. That puts off any painful decisions for a little while. If he doesn't take it, as Brian Windhorst said earlier this week on TV, the vultures are ready. The trade offers have been ready. It's not new. We're going to see the Lakers go after him. I think the Heat would get into it. I think Brooklyn would get into it. Brian mentioned Houston. I think that's smart. I mentioned New Orleans just because they've got the assets and I –

I think they've got a decision to make with Brandon Ingram. There will be others too. Team teams are ready for the Donovan Mitchell sweepstakes. And that could be one of the first dominoes in a very interesting summer of dominoes. Like what happens in Miami? If they get involved with Donovan Mitchell, what does that mean for Jimmy Butler? What does that mean for Philly? What is it? There's a lot of triangulation and you can do with all this stuff. We'll see. Donovan has, has all the, all the leverage. I will say almost no matter what happens,

I will be surprised if Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland are both on the Cavaliers next season. That just hasn't worked as well as I thought it would, as they thought it would. And whatever happens, like if Donovan Mitchell signs an extension there, I think there will be some Darius Garland trade talks. I mentioned the Spurs as a theoretical fit for Darius Garland. I like that.

Uh, he's going to get picked on defensively wherever he goes. That was revealed to the world in this series. But if you have Wemby on your team, it makes life a little easier. And again, that's theoretical. That's just me spitballing trades. The worst case scenario for the Cavs is imagine this. Wait, okay. So you fire Bickerstaff, you lose your coach. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. Whatever happens, happens there. Mitchell signs an extension. So, okay, we got that. It's trade Garland.

Get some picks back for that. Then Mitchell demands a trade in a year. You end up losing everything. That's your nightmare scenario. But changes are coming in Cleveland. Let's go back to Boston. We had this big debate this week on whether it's a failure if Boston doesn't win the title this year. And I said, this is two days. This is yes. This is Thursday before Minnesota shall act. Denver enforced that series to seven. I said, look, there's I think there's a difference between disappointment and failure.

You can be disappointed if you don't win the title. Boston is built to win the title. Everything's been leading to this moment in this season. Having just witnessed what Jokic did to Minnesota in Game 5 and given Denver's track record...

I said, you know, I think if you get – and by the way, Denver beat Boston twice this season. And all the talk after those games was Denver has reasserted themselves as the favorite over Boston. It's a bad matchup for Boston. And I said, like, if that's the finals – and now it's very unclear if that will be the finals as we wait on game seven in Denver –

And you lose a really competitive seven-game series to Nikola Jokic in the Nuggets or a really competitive six-game series. I understand the expectations. Failure, that feels a little strong. That said, the more vulnerable Denver looks, the more I would kind of begin to... On the continuum between disappointment and failure, the more I would sort of begin inching towards...

Maybe Denver is just a little rickety this year. I mentioned with Krasinski, their starting five is now minus 23 for the playoffs. Like this is... Jamal Murray's shooting 39%. This just isn't the same machine that it was last year. It can be that same machine and it was for three straight games against Minnesota. And if it's that for an entire series, then yeah, it's no great failure to lose to fully optimized Denver with fully optimized Nikola Jokic. But look...

The six Eastern Conference Finals for Boston, which is going to be parroted a lot now. 2017, that's the Isaiah Thomas year. They get rolled by Cleveland. That's found money. 2018, that's Tatum's rookie year. They lose to Cleveland in seven. That's found money. 2019, they lose to Milwaukee in the second round. Kyrie leaves. 2020 is the bubble. Kemba Walker, knee issues. They lose to the Heat in the Conference Finals. Disappointing. Disappointing. I'm not sure they would beat the Lakers in the finals that year. By the way, Tatum was like 22 or 23 at that point.

2021, they lose to the Nets in the first round. Jalen Brown's injured that series. I think the consternation is really about the next two seasons.

The whole, like, they've got to get over the hump. What a disaster it would be if they don't. It's almost less. And not only that, the concentration about how they played against Cleveland and Miami, the blips of just lackadaisical play. I think they're less about this season's team and more about the lingering disappointment of the 2022 finals against the Warriors, where there is this perception, I think, that Boston, quote, should have won that series. They were up 2-1. Curry goes crazy.

in game four. I don't buy that. And the Warriors have not been the same since. I don't buy that Boston should have won that series. First of all, I picked the Warriors to win that series in seven. Tatum was 24 and Brown was 25. Marcus Smart was a massive part of the offense and wildly up and down. You could see the turnover issues in the bad offense coming in that series and how the Warriors would exploit it. It's really to me about last season.

falling behind 3-0 to the Heat as good and tough as the Heat are and totally letting go of the rope in game three in Miami in embarrassing fashion. That's just totally inexcusable. There was just no world in which that should have happened. And great, they rallied to win the next three. Tatum got hurt right away in game seven. They lose. Should never have been in that situation. They were better than the Heat. They should have won that series. They didn't. They should never have. At the very least, they should never have fell down 3-0.

And so now they remake their team. Drew's in, KP's in, all the other guys out, Smart out. They're the best team in the league all season.

If you want to say it's a, like Tim Legler is big on the, it's a failure if they don't win. He also said, I might pick Denver in a Denver Boston finals. I don't know if you can do that, make that pick and call it a failure if Boston loses, but the way Denver's playing, I think it shifts the expectations a little bit. Obviously Boston has a massive money crunch coming in two seasons, 2025, 26, when Tatum's new deal will kick in. Derek White will be on a new deal. Drew just signed a new deal and,

That's why there's so much pressure on this season and next season. But this season, look, they've had a bye-bye.

They better start playing their A-plus level of ball now, and I think they can. But it's really their offense that everyone needs to zero in on is like, can they play with determination and precision for an entire game in the half court? Because at some point against some opponent, they're going to need to do that. Maybe it's the next round. Maybe it's not until the finals if they get there. But the failure-disappointment thing is interesting to think about given their history and

And if it's anybody but Denver in the finals and Boston is there, I do think it then transitions to failure. A lot of pressure on Boston. But yeah, there's your Eastern Conference playoff. Boston Celtics are indeed participating. Interlude, let's bring in Tim McMahon to talk Mavs thunder on the other side of the West.

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Ah, it's an unfortunate moment for one of the many Highland Park Scots in the sporting world, but probably about as much analysis as I have. All I know is that Shooter McGavin is not letting any cops stop him from getting onto a golf course. That's all I got. Mavs, Thunder, Tim McMahon, 3-2 Mavs. Game six is tomorrow, Saturday. Been an interesting series.

I picked Oklahoma City in seven, and I feel not very good about how my pick is going at this point. I called it a Josh Giddey sink or swim series because I thought game one from the jump we were going to see Daniel Gafford on Josh Giddey. It took a little bit longer than the jump, but we saw it pretty fast. And Josh Giddey has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. He is minus 25 in 65 minutes. And the story of the series to me is Dallas' defense. You know, we...

Last 20 games of the season, they were, what, number one or two in points allowed per possession. They looked good. They passed the eye test. They were playing for something. March and April basketball, you never know. Let's see how it works in the playoffs. This has been emphatic proof of concept. I think this team, the Thunder, are good, although they were an elite offensive team. It's a good matchup for Dallas' defense, but there is just nowhere for Oklahoma City to go.

There is no pathway to the paint at all. The Mavs are just everywhere rotating on a string. They're switching and...

rotating out of that. Derek Lively is sometimes playing kind of a one-man zone that I think has confused Oklahoma City a little bit. But even when they get matchups that are quote-unquote favorable, like, oh, Shea's got Luka on him. He's going to drive him. The help is there. The help behind the help is there. The help behind that help is there. All the arms are spread wide, and it's just like, there's just nowhere for me to... I got to kick it over to Dort for a contested three or Chet for a contested three. It's been a defensive masterpiece for the Mavs, and...

Honestly, Jason Kidd's got a lot of crap as a coach over the years. Some of it deserved for his interactions with players, for his schemes in Milwaukee when they were just too aggressive. This has been a really well-coached series for him. And tactically, the Mavs defense has been a step ahead of the Thunder offense. And now we head to Dallas for game six. You are going to be there. And the Mavs have a chance to make their second conference finals in three years, despite the

or because of, or whatever, almost the entire team around Luka Doncic turning over in that two-year span. They could be right back to where they were two seasons ago with, I think, maybe a better chance than they had against the Warriors in the conference finals two seasons ago. The way I've described this team is it's a supercharged version of that team that went to the Western Conference Finals two years ago. Kyrie, while he's been quiet offensively this series, is obviously...

a more skilled co-star than Jalen Brunson was at that point in his career. And I don't want to have the Brunson Kyrie conversation. That's just a simple fact. You know, you're talking about a 50, 40, 90 type of efficiency, you know, Kyrie throughout the regular season into the playoffs was scoring in the mid twenties per game. And then what they've done is they've just put, uh,

a extremely athletic group of complimentary players around those two. And look, Derek Jones Jr. obviously was huge in game five, hit shots, you know, catching lobs, 19 points on 7 of 9. Luca got cooking, you know, got him, got D. Jones rolling, five assists on those seven buckets, and

But he's by far their best on-ball defender. He's a guy who's positioned himself to get a really nice raise that the Mavericks hope to be able to give him. I think that'll end up working out. But you look at his on-ball defense, it's not like he shut down Shea. You don't shut down Shea Gildas-Houdsander, but he's done as good a job as anybody can be expected to do against SGA. P.J. Washington...

I did not like the trade. I was wrong. That happens. Look, the three-point shooting in this series is an outlier. He was a 32% three-point shooter during the season, a little less than that actually with the Mavericks. But his length, his athleticism, and they lit a fire under him. He was not a good defensive player in Charlotte. And Nico Harrison called him out kind of in the introductory press conference basically saying, hey,

There's a lot more from him on that inner floor that we're going to demand from him. And P.J. loved that. Took it as a challenge and took it as belief in him. He's been a phenomenal fit. I mean, as much as anything, this has been the P.J. Washington series. He's consistently been outstanding defensively. The shooting comes and goes. But, again, athleticism. And they've got this – the big flaw a couple of years ago

was the center position. Maxi Cleave ended up playing most of the minutes at center during the playoffs. Now they've got this super athletic tag team tandem, you know, lively at 7'1". Gafford at a physical 6'10". Both those guys can really run, can fly. And they've got a group that

cares about defense and it's become their identity. And I tell you, as much as Kyrie has struggled, not even struggled, he's been quieted offensively in the series. He's not getting that many shots. Kyrie is playing the best defense of his career. I had one scout tell me they thought that Kyrie was actually the second best on-ball defender on the team. Like you'd look at

the way he's defended against the Clippers, against the Thunder, when he's competing like that defensively, that absolutely sets a tone. These guys respect Kyrie. They will follow Kyrie. And his effort defensively has been a huge part of this. All right. There's a lot to hit there. Number one, Derrick Jones Jr. I was dead wrong about it. I've always been a fan of Derrick Jones Jr. He was a Luke Walton All-Star a few years ago with Miami. I said at the beginning of the season,

I'm just not sure about his shooting around, particularly if you're going to play a rim-running center. I think the best version of the Mavs has Josh Green in that starting spot. Dead wrong. Derek Jones Jr. has been phenomenal the entire season. Offensively, his ability to make plays in the short roll in this series has been huge. And defensively, he just makes them giant. They're giant. Kyrie is the only quote-unquote small player on the floor. And he's not that small for his position. He's physical.

And he's physical. And I think one of the things about this series, you know, Sam Presley started the year. You wrote about this talking about how, you know, what was the, what was the, we haven't had the full meal yet or something. Can we, can we finish our breakfast? All right. So breakfast got finished. Lunch got finished. They're eating dinner now. And the dinner is like not going down so well. Like says shrimp might've been bad or something. And I think one of the things they've learned about themselves and why this is a good matchup for Dallas defensively is they're

They don't really have anyone with the kind of bully physical game that can hurt Kyrie because of a size mismatch. Shay can shoot over him now and then. I think that's a place they can go in game six. Shay looks comfortable when he's got Kyrie at the nail or Josh Green at the nail and can just rise and shoot and forget the paint. I can't even get there. There's too many arms there. But I think going forward...

They're going to need other ways to invert the floor and get the ball into the paint other than just drive, drive, drive. That's maybe Chet's going to have to get like Chet's going to have to be like, you can't put Tim Hardaway Jr. on me. I'm going to have to be able to. He's never going to be like a behemoth, but you just can't. You're not going to be able to do that. Jill and Williams is going to have to maybe develop a postgame. I wrote before the season like Josh Giddey.

For him to maintain a standing as like a plus starter in the NBA, which is starting to get a little shaky, obviously now since they benched him in game five, I think he's going to be able to have to post point guards. Like you're not going to, like if you're going to hide little point guards on him, he's going to have to post. And, and,

In this series, they haven't been able to do that. And so Kyrie's best asset as a defender is his speed. And that's really what you need against Oklahoma City is speed and attention to detail. He's been phenomenal. And they just, other than him, they're just gigantic across the board. And you mentioned Derrick Jones Jr. Putting him on Shea in this series, one of the benefits of that is when they switch whatever two-man game Shea runs, whether it's Shea, Chet, Shea, Dort, Shea, whoever...

That switch means Derek Jones Jr. is on the roller. And if that roller hangs around the rim, and I think one of the mistakes Oklahoma City made in games three and four, especially, although they won game four and some in game five was Dort and their guards rolling into the dunker spot and staying there is a spacing disaster. Like they just can't do any damage. Dallas is too big. And down the stretch of game five,

And for parts of game five, they kind of reorganized their spacing so that if there was someone in the dunker spot, it's Chet. It's a big guy. It's someone who can finish oversize. But having Derek Jones Jr. there has been huge. P.J. Washington, you know, I went back and I listened to a couple of the podcasts we did about the Thunder. And I listened to a couple of snippets of when I went on the Down to Dunk podcast with Andrew Schlecht because I remembered when I was sitting there thinking about

Okay, who could OKC trade for? Because remember, I wanted OKC to make a trade so bad. Make a win-now trade so bad. Oh, they did. They got Gordon Hayward. Oh, we'll talk about Gordon Hayward. I'm not sure we're going to see Gordon Hayward in the NBA next season. I'm not sure we've seen him in these playoffs. It's actually sad. He's clearly so in his head and lacking confidence that it's a little bit sad given the player he used to be. But anyway.

I remember going through the thought exercise. Okay, so you're Oklahoma City. You have a million picks. What do you need? Well, the ideal player is a big forward who can shoot and switch around on defense. Okay, but this is the thunder. They're not going to trade for an unrestricted free agent who might walk. Yeah. They're not going to trade for a player, even if they think they can resign him, who's going to demand $30 or $40 million because the salaries are going to get too heavy for them to do that. They're not going to trade for a player under that kind of contract for defense

three, four seasons because they need to get their books clean for when Jalen Williams gets a max and check gets a max to be around SGA's max. So can I find a player who plays that position whose contract isn't very long and whose contract in the meantime is like kind of affordable for what he is. And I kept the number one name I brought up over and over again was PJ Washington. And I brought him up for every team. I was like some team, I said it over and over. Some teams got to go rescue PJ Washington out of the morass of Charlotte. And, uh,

Not only did Dallas get PJ Washington and not Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City facilitated Dallas's acquisition of Daniel Gafford by getting a pick swap in 2028 from the Mavs. And that trade was the tell that Dallas or that Oklahoma City was keeping the long view. And then we're going to see how far we can get in these playoffs. But we're going to learn about what we are. We're not going all in. And I liked the Gordon Hayward trade for them. I thought Gordon Hayward would help them.

I had heard this, you know, that he was getting healthy and he was healthy shortly after they acquired him. He's done nothing for them. And so they're left with Isaiah Joe and Kaysen Wallace and Aaron Wiggins as a sort of giddy alternatives. And those guys have been good. But PJ Washington on both ends of the floor has been awesome. And you said you didn't like to trade. Well, no. So I thought. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I was lukewarm on the trade. I was warmer than you.

But I think even in not liking it, you argued, as did I, that it will make them a better team now. There's no question about that. These two acquisitions will help them now at the cost of not controlling their pick from 2027 to 2030 when Luka will be on a new contract somewhere, probably Dallas, I would assume, but you just never know. And it was just a matter of...

Does it help them enough now to be worth the cost? And I said, I don't know. We'll see. I'm a little skeptical. You were skeptical. If they get to the conference finals, I think that counts as yes, it helped them enough now to be worth it. There's no question about it. I don't care if somehow the Thunder come back and win this series because the question for me was, are they better enough now?

Because it was all about the downside of 27 and 28. And this is a team that at the time was sitting in the eighth spot, firmly in playing territory. Obviously, last year was a total disaster. Didn't make the playoffs. And 27, 28 is still a little bit out there. So, look, why did Oklahoma City, why was Oklahoma City willing to give up what ended up being the Clippers pick now for a 2028 swap?

Because they thought the percentages were high enough that Luka wouldn't be there, that 2028 swap could be of major value. I mean, you don't have to hear that straight from Sam Presti. That's just obvious logic there.

What I would say is they have been better enough despite Luka really struggling during these playoffs. And Kliba being out, which we can't – I'm guilty of it on this podcast. You can't just paper over that. That's a big deal. No, he's – one high-ranking math source told me –

It was the secret playoff weapon for them. I mean, you look at what he did in the West Farms, what he did in that Clipper series. And for them not to have him saps their lineup versatility. But, you know, they're still in position to close this out on Saturday. But again, Luca, by his standards, has really struggled during his playoffs. Was great in game five. I thought it was smart of him to listen to Jason Kidd, listen to Kyrie Irving, and stop –

spending so much energy going with the rest and you know play with the smile on his face like he said i'm sure that that is definitely going to be a lasting change we've seen the last of the complaining luca i'm confident this time this time i i wouldn't say that but i would say his his commitment to it paid off in game five and i thought it was i hate maturity but i i thought it was a

Pretty significant development. I don't expect him to have perfect citizenship moving forward. Anyways, the whole thing here is, hey, can you keep Luka happy and minimize the long-term risk? Because if Luka's on the roster in 27-28, last year's going to be an exception. If Luka's on the roster, they're going to be a playoff team.

Like the pick swap, you know, maybe it's from 28 to 20. But that's not a major price. What you're worried about is it being from 29 to 2. You know, you're worried about one of these Brooklyn Nets-style pick swaps. I would say the threat of that has been minimized. Luka, since they...

Got rolling, which, again, they came out of the trade deadline. Lost 5-6 with the worst defense team in the league during that stretch. Plugged Derrick Jones Jr. in for Josh Green. They also switched starting centers. Not that I thought Lively was the issue. By the way, Lively's been phenomenal in this series. But since then, they went on that 16-2 run. They won in the first round. Luka has been, no pun intended, giddy. I mean, he has been...

he's ecstatic with the direction of this franchise. And, you know, last, even last series, he felt like he was letting down. He said, you know, I feel like I'm letting down Kyrie because he was struggling. And so again, they are better enough to make Luca believe that he has a chance to compete for a championship.

That's the important thing. I underestimated P.J. Washington in particular. And I'll be honest with you, man. It's not like this was just purely my opinion pulled from outer space. My phone was getting lit up and I was, you know, from scouts and executives on other teams. What the hell are the Madrox doing? You know, I had one scout from a from a playoff team shortly after that trade tell me, man,

P.J. Washington's an 18-minute-per-game guy in the playoffs. Nico Harrison, in particular, saw something in P.J. Washington that was much more than what he had done for the Hornets and much more than what a lot of other people around the league saw. And this is a case, I think, of Nico's...

you know, experience as a Nike executive, as a guy who had a relationship with PJ dating back to, you know, the AAU circuit, you know, in his time in Kentucky, you know, he said, hey, I'd seen him guard the best players in the country and be a stopper. We hadn't seen an NBA, but, you know, he felt he knew that was in there. And, you

Again, you have to give Nico credit. This is paid off. And I tell you, the Gafford thing is really interesting. Lively has been better than him during the playoffs, especially this series. I do think next year you go back to Lively as a starter, and Gafford is just a really high-level backup, which is fine. At some point,

Sam Preston's probably going to stop doing business with teams he might run into during the playoffs, right? They're a number one seed that operated as a rebuilding team, and I don't mean that as criticism. It's just, I mean, they've literally had one bucket scored by a player older than 25 during this entire postseason. Tim, you could very easily make the case that right now, May 17th, 2024,

Every single player they traded for Gordon Hayward would be more productive for their team right now than Gordon Hayward. Vasily Michich would be helping their team. Trey Mann would be helping their team more than Gordon Hayward. I'm just saying, like, Gordon Hayward's a zero right now. Zero. Like, those guys can give you minutes. Those guys can give you minutes. Right. So, you know, they obviously weren't aggressive at all at the trade deadline. They wanted to see...

And it's not like this Giddy thing. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Giddy ended up not being a great fit in the playoffs. Who saw that coming? We've been talking about this for a year and a half, that this was going to be the inevitable adjustment that they were going to make at some point in the playoffs. And they were so patient, hesitant to do it. And look, it didn't work. But as far as game five, it's not like they pulled Giddy and off they went. They lost the game.

But they have to at some point get a power forward, get a modern power forward. And when they pulled Giddy, their options were

Cason Wallace, which I would have done now, having said that, to have a rookie make his first start in pivotal game five of the second round of playoffs. OK, I understand. Maybe you don't want to do that. But again, he's a small guard. Isaiah Joe's small guard. Wiggins, a smallish wing. They don't have that power forward option that this roster is crying for on the roster.

And by the way, I'm not like – I don't think it's like some great sin that Oklahoma City didn't go all in at the trade deadline because you have to ask yourself, who was out there for them? Like when I was going through the thought exercise, it was like, okay, P.J. Washington, I like that fit. And then after that, it's like Boyan Bogdanovich, Royce O'Neal,

Dorian Finney-Smith didn't get traded. People brought up Olenek. I mean, Olenek, they got a... Utah got a first-round pick for Olenek. You know, it's... Or any of those players. Now, Olenek would help their offense, which has been the issue in this series. I'm just not sure...

There really was a deal that makes a big difference out there for them. And that, and like, but who was the biggest name traded at the deadline? And like Siakam and Ananobi were traded before the deadline, but those are just, they're, they're not good. And Ananobi is a guy I mentioned is a great theoretical fit. Mikhail Bridges is a great theoretical fit. The Nets didn't really hold talks on him.

Like they're just not going to go all in for an unrestricted free agent who is going to demand a lot of money. And so this is this is what happens. I do. Let's let's talk before we get to other big picture stuff. Some numbers on Dallas's defense. They're allowing 110 points per hundred possessions in this series. That would have been number one in the league over the course of the season.

For the playoffs and for this series, they are, for this series, 28% of Oklahoma City shots have come in the restricted area. That's way down from Dallas's number in the regular season allowed and would have been number one in the regular season.

The cost is all mid-range shots. They're allowing more mid-range shots in the playoffs and in this series way more than it did in the regular season. Threes are stable. Part of that is because they played the Clippers mid-range team and Oklahoma City mid-range team. The Thunder are shooting just 33% on threes. So, you know, maybe a little lucky, but you don't watch these threes and be like, oh, that was a good in-rhythm catch-and-shoot three by a guy I'm really scared of. Like, they're not getting great threes.

And more than that, and this is what's carried over from the regular season, the Thunder are shooting 61% at the rim. That would have been, from a defensive perspective, the number one figure in the regular season. And that's what changed more than anything about Dallas' defense after the trades. They just barricade the rim and defend it really, really well. And Lively...

Lively has been sensational. I could not be higher on Derek Lively after this playoff run than I am. If you're going to tank embarrassingly to keep your pick, you better get it right. And Dallas got it right. They are plus 45 in this series with Lively on the floor in minus 46 with Lively on the bench. And it's not just the lob dunks. It's his sophistication on defense. He can switch, right?

He can play that one man zone where it's like you sometimes can't even tell who he's guarding. He starts off guarding this guy. Whoever cuts into the restricted area, that becomes his guy. He's playing a one man zone and he's playing it well. And it's confusing the thunder. His passing on offense, he's a better passer than Gafford. He's a better finisher in traffic than Gafford. He's just been sensational. And so I will ask you in game six,

Oklahoma city, if they're going to survive and force a game seven is going to have to get out of the mud offensively a little bit and find ways other than transition, which we know that they're just massively good in transition and

And Dallas, Oklahoma City has won the turnover battle in this series. They have 18 fewer turnovers than Dallas. They had to do it and they did. But Dallas is, I mentioned their speed. Their transition defense has been awesome in this series. They have not let Oklahoma City get out and run in a lot of advantage situations. So what can we look for, for like in the half court,

where Oklahoma City in this series, according to Cleaning the Glass, is scoring 95.5 points per 100 possessions. That would have ranked 27th in the regular season. Their number in the regular season was 106. So they're now they're 10, 11 down. What can we look for in terms of, you know, obviously they've already played one card, which is start a shooter in Giddy's place. What else can we look for?

Yeah, and you mentioned the paint defense, and that's the bigs, but that's also P.J. Washington's health defense. That's Derrick Jones Jr. swooping in some of the blocks that he gets. I mean, the guy is an insane athlete. And then getting out to three-point shooters, there is one play where the Mavs pack the paint, the ball gets sprayed out, it gets moved to Chet on the right wing.

And Derrick Jones Jr. went from the paint all the way out to the right wing. And Chet was a little slow on the release, but he blocked a seven-footers three-point shot when he was in the paint when Chet caught the ball, got all the way out there. So...

Again, the length, the athleticism, the desire for the Mavericks defensively, they are a tough, tough, tough team to score against right now. I think the biggest thing in this series, obviously, like, look, make a higher percentage of threes. And that's what I was talking about. He felt like they did get better looks, that they were happy with their looks, then certainly the scoreboard would indicate when they had the lowest scoring game of the season for them. So, you know, you...

Just a better three-point luck, if you want to call it that, is a great place to start. They've got to get Jalen Williams going. He has been the primary defender on Kyrie, so I don't want to say he's had a bad series because he has been really, really good on the defensive end. I've actually been in kind of a running discussion with our buddy Anthony Slater from The Athletic. I called J-Dub a top 22-way player in the league.

And he thought that was a bit rich. I stand by that. I define two-way players. You've got to be a top 25% defender in the league. I think he's a top 20 two-way player. Now, my argument is taking a hit because he's had a rough offensive series.

He did get going a little bit in the fourth quarter. I don't know, you know, carry over from game to game. I'm not sure how much that exists in the playoffs, but I think Jalen Williams is going to have to have his best offensive game of the series for the Thunder to get this thing back to Oklahoma City. You mentioned Chet's release that was a little slow and Derek Jones Jr. blocked it. Dort's got a ton of open threes.

And not done well on him. He's also got a bunch of contested ones, some of which have not hit the rim. And I think one of the things that Dallas has done in this series is

We're going to treat essentially everyone other than Isaiah Joe as a borderline non-shooter. And by the way, that includes Shea Gilders, Alexander, when he's off the ball, the Mavs will sag off of him. Yeah. Even if he's one pass away from a driver, because they know he's just not going to get up a three real fast. He's going to catch it and dribble and, and, and try to figure out where to attack next chat. They're not worried about shooting threes. Um, Dort, they're not worried about shooting threes. And so that's, that's been smart. Um,

As far as adjustments, go ahead. It's also playing against the percentages from the regular season, though, because Dort was almost a 40% three-point shooter. Chet, for a lot of the years, was in the 40s. I do think playing all 82 has caught up to Chet. I don't think he's got the same. His shot looks flat to me. Now, he hit two huge threes in the fourth quarter.

of game five. Dort also hit a huge three in that fourth quarter after, you know, Shea took over, kicked after the, you know, four straight shots Shea hit, kicks one out to check for the go-ahead one. A couple possessions later, kicked out to... In game four, game four, right? I'm sorry, game four, yes. But Jets only 5-20 from three in this series. Again, two huge ones in that fourth quarter. Outside of that is 3-18. Yeah.

So, so here's their hope to me. And I don't, I don't feel very hopeful about it from their perspective. If they're going to bench Giddey again, which I think they should, I think you should bring them off the bench again if they play him at all. And they're going to start a shooter in his spot. The Mavs said, okay, like we don't, for the most part, we're going to have our centers guard Chet, which is the point of our previous adjustment was to not have that so we can switch.

And I think, and they opened the game in game five like this, I think they just got to spam Shea Gildress Alexander, Chet Pick and Pops, and Jalen Williams, Chet Pick and Pops, and just see if they can get the Mavs defense moving in a way that's more like backpedaling, rotating, scrambling, and just see, like, can Chet make...

a couple of pick and pop threes that gets them to maybe send a third guy rotating at him. And then that opens up our rotations. Then you sneak in like, okay, I'm not going to take a three this time. I'm going to roll to the rim. And to Dallas's credit, they have defended that really well. Even when Gafford's been on chat, even when lively has been on chat, sometimes they've switched and said, okay, see if you can attack us this way. We still think we got enough long limbs around. Sometimes they've dropped and rotated around that and been fine. Like they, that hasn't,

hurt them the way that it hurt the Pelicans in the first round when they had Valanchunas on Chet Holmgren and it was just completely untenable for them to play that way um

And other, like, I talked about clearing out the dunker spot a little bit, at least of wings. I think they also have to just attack early in the shot clock. Like, when before all five Mavs are back, if they can get an early attack, that's fine. One thing I also like that they've done is when Shea gets Luka, right, and that's the only really weak matchup.

And Luke has been defending his ass off in this series, but Shea can beat him off the dribble. Well, especially when Luke is playing on a bad wheel. Yeah. And they load up to that, and then Shea's like, well, I can't get anywhere. There's just bodies everywhere. I got to pass the ball. You're allowed to pass it back to him once the defense rotates out of that. And they've done that. Like, when they pass it back to Shea and he attacks right away, they've gotten something out of that. But I don't think, like...

I've looked at Dallas's defense, the way they've played every game. It's just going to be hard. They're going to have to make a lot of tough shots and maybe some tweaks here and there. But this defense is legit. The Mavs have built a real defensive team. This is a real defensive team. And it's funny. It became a real defensive team as soon as they got Derrick Jones Jr. back in there. But obviously the trades for Gafford and Washington –

were huge, and these were two guys who were playing on historically horrible defenses in Charlotte and Washington that were actually statistically worse with them on the floor. But, look, you know, they both talked about this. Basically, you get to a situation where you actually have something to play for, and there's a different level of motivation. It's breathed life into them, and they've breathed life into the Mavericks. And, you know, J. Kidd is...

The only time J. Kidd has really been popular with Mavericks fans as a coach is when he told me to write some positive stuff. Picking on me is the only way he can be more popular. But we've got a proven track record right now. If J. Kidd has the pieces on his roster, the Mavericks are going to be a good defensive team.

A couple years ago when they made the run to Western Conference Finals, they were the number seven ranked defense in the league that season. And this year, after it being an issue for a lot of the season, again, last six weeks of the season, they were the number one defense in the league. And so he's proven he can, along with Sean Sweeney and the coaching staff, he can get

He can maximize good pieces defensively. And then he's got a great relationship with his stars, which you can ask Darvin Hamm and a lot of other guys. That's the most important thing in modern NBA coaching. So Jake Kidd's extension was phenomenal.

was well-deserved. And I do, I think the two out of three years, he's done a really, really good job coaching the Mavericks. It's just the other year was a disaster all the way around. They've been awesome on defense. And yeah, about relating to stars. I wonder if our colleague JJ Redick, I wonder if hosting, does hosting having a podcast rapport with the star help, help you at all? All right, JJ. Yeah.

You want that? All right. A couple other quick notes before we get to one big thing I want to hit with you. You got to go in two minutes. We can hit it. We can hit it on my own if need be. Number one, I've liked Oklahoma City's double big look with big Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren because if our offense is not going to be good anyway, well, let's just get bigger on defense. Number two... And J. Willis shot the ball. He's been one of their better three-point shooters in this series. You're not losing anything spacing-wise. Number two...

I've liked for Dallas, the Kyrie, Luca, Hardaway, PJ, Washington, foursome has survived defensively and they're very dynamic offensively without those four. And the last thing where you and I were both quite wrong, at least to date, was saying we wouldn't have traded for Kyrie under any circumstances. Oh, no, yeah, no. Kyrie. We've already we've already taken the L on that.

And he's averaging 14 points a game in this series. And I think he's played awesome. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't quite go with awesome. I do think there have been times that have been crying for Kyrie to take over, but he, you know what, down, down the stretch in game four, they went to him a few times and he missed some ISO shots, which is that's going to happen. Like, and it was a game three. He did take over a little bit down the stretch of the fourth quarter, but he has been patient. He hasn't forced anything, but again, I,

Kyrie, his effort, his competitiveness defensively is huge. Him and Luke are the leaders of this team, but Kyrie is the vocal leader. He's the voice of this team. I got to tell you, he has so much respect inside that locker room. I've actually been very... I ain't going to lie. When Kyrie got traded here, I was like, oh boy, my life's about to get complicated.

I've really enjoyed just on a professional basis,

you know my interactions with him my you know just having him on on you know in my home base um i think he there's an appreciation that kairi has for the opportunity he has and the respect that he feels within this organization you know he had a relationship with nico he had a relationship with jason kidd coming in that is i think really kind of provided him a comfort level then him and luca have developed this bond

really this year that it has been huge. And that relationship with Kyrie, obviously the trades and getting the pieces to fit around have been a big part, but Luca's relationship with Kyrie has been such a big thing for Luca in terms of just his mood, his happiness. And like he listens to him and this is as great as Brunson is now,

You know, this is the first time that Luca has had a legitimate, hey, I look over at that guy and know that's a future Hall of Fame co-star alongside him. The question is, how long can Kyrie last? You know, he told me he feels like he's just starting his prime at 32.

Says he sees somebody getting better at 39. I think that's a pretty obvious reference. He's in the best shape of his career. He's also missed quite a bit of games in the last five years, so maybe his legs are fresh. Yes, and I will say the games he missed this year, one, the heel contusion after the weird play where Dwight Powell fell on him, and then the other one was a sprained thumb. So they're not like age injuries. No, no, I wasn't referencing this season's missed games. But again, just the whole –

When they made the trade for Kyrie, you're like, uh-oh, here comes the chaos. And then obviously things fell apart last year, but it wasn't cause and effect. And a lot of people said, well, they got Kyrie, they fell apart. One led to the other. That wasn't the case. Kyrie has been such a huge part of the personality of this team. And I mean that in a very positive way. I've been surprised by that.

Um, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's like a fluky thing. I think it's, it's him as an opportunity he has and just feeling respected. And it's been a really good mix. Our skepticism and my skepticism for sure was nothing to do with basketball on offense offensively. Like this was going to be a hand in glove fit. You can go back and listen to what I said at the time. They're going to fit beautifully on offense. It's been even better, uh,

Then I thought this, maybe this is Kyrie's basketball destiny to go to like another LeBron kind of player and be the second guy. He's a massively quick release catch and shoot three point threat. And the two of them, you don't see it every game, but they have really good basketball chemistry. And just in that game five, this is my favorite version of their chemistry.

Luca to two plays from game five, one early in the game. Luca fakes a step back three jail and Williams bites at it. Luca kicks it to Kyrie cause he's picked up his dribble and then cuts into the lane. Luca likes that little give and go. Kyrie reads it, gives it right back to him. Luca hits lively for the lob later in the game. Same thing. Luca fakes that same cut moon walks back. Kyrie reads that and Luca gets an open three and then down the stretch,

You saw a whole bunch of Kyrie, Luka, two-man game because Kaysen Wallace was on Kyrie, and they're like, you don't want to switch Kaysen Wallace onto Luka. He's too big. He's too strong. And they feasted out of that. They have great chemistry together. I've said it over and over. It's been one of the best basketball stories of the season is those two guys playing off of each other. They're plus 21 in this series with those two guys on the floor and minus 22. And that's with him only averaging 38 combined per game.

Right. And Kyrie is averaging seven dimes a game, which is a lot considering how ball dominant Luka is. But it's been awesome. You got to go, Tim McMahon. Enjoy game six. We'll see what happens. But you may be covering some home conference finals games pretty soon in Dallas. We shall see. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you, brother. I love you. See you guys. For the first time, Monday Night Football streams exclusively on ESPN+.

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