Worst Preseason Takes and Draymond Green's Ejection with Doris Burke
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast. There is a lot to do in the NBA. Doris Burke, the Hall of Famer, the greatest to ever do it. We have a lot to talk about. Ostensibly, the subject of this podcast was we're going to revisit our worst takes and worst predictions from early in the season. And at the trade deadline, we are going to do that. But we have a whole giant pile of quick news to get to. Are you ready? How are you, first of all? Good.

Superb. Superb. And I don't have to make predictions, but I did. I was very honest with myself in reviewing the worst takes I've had. So we'll see where we both land.

Let's start before we embarrass ourselves. News item number one, Draymond Green was ejected last night in the first four minutes of the Warriors. Very important win in Orlando over a feisty Orlando team that benched its entire starting five early in the third quarter for quite a while. I sense just based on the TV in my background today that this has been quite a talking point.

uh throughout the day uh Draymond's obligations to the team Steph Curry's leadership has been brought into question in a few places which I hate and don't even want to like I just I hate that whole line of thought

The Warriors won the game without Draymond Green, without Jonathan Kaminga, with Andrew Wiggins playing maybe his feistiest game of the whole season, and with Steph Curry, after a quiet game, zigzagging in for a layup around Franz Wagner, then around Paolo Bancaro the other way, and then the night-night, night-night down the sidelines, night-night to the whole crowd, three to win the game. The Warriors are fighting like hell tonight.

One game ahead, holding off the Rockets, who just, I guess, will never lose again. I'll let you just take the floor on Draymond Green. Where are we with this? So I had a couple of reactions to it. I did not see it live, Zach. I was on my way back from Washington, D.C. And my first reaction to it was looking at Steph.

Because Steph, like most great players, though we see a lot of exuberance when he's happy, and in the last finals against Boston, we saw sort of some of that competitive toughness come out in different moments. But like most great players to me, Zach, Steph doesn't ever like to betray emotions that are negative or show fatigue or show any signs of weakness.

And what struck me most, and this goes back to something that I had a conversation with Steph about at an earlier part in the year. So I can't remember exactly when. It's during Draymond's suspension. So obviously the load on his shoulders, which is always weighty, is even more elevated.

And very casually in a pregame meeting with him, I happened to say, you know, watching the last game, you look tired. And his head sort of snapped back and he goes, well, that's not good. You know, that's not ever good if I'm showing that. And so I thought the reaction and the time it took for him to gather himself that moment where Steve kind of taps his back, I just thought it was telling. And I thought it was indicative of the year that it's been.

The suspensions, the move to the younger guys, all of these transitions unfolding, perhaps a glimpse into how thin they view their chances of perhaps contending and where they are when they get on a run. So that was one. The other one was Wiggins. You know, Wiggins carried them in the fourth. And I'm not in any way diminishing the contributions of Trace Williams.

or Gary or Brandon or any of those guys last night. They were brilliant. And then as you said, Steph made a number of plays. But Wiggins really impressed me with what he did.

In the fourth quarter in particular, and it was feisty. And then the other one was about the officials, you know, Ray Acosta gives him the tea appropriate. I thought he gave him a really long leash. In fact, too much so because we had the game Draymond came back or within the first couple and he got a quick tea. And I said, if we want to end this, that's the way to end it.

is to do it quickly and to say you're going to suffer consequences immediately. And it seemed to be moving. And then finally, you know, just Draymond. You know, I can't remember who I was discussing this with, Zach, but this was after the Rudy Gobert incident. And the observation was made to me that there is an unstated rule in the NBA that you never go and touch another player, which Rudy Gobert had done in trying to separate the action.

And I said, well, okay, that's fine. But those were the actions of somebody who was not in command of himself or his emotions. And so it's really for me going back to Draymond and just life beyond basketball. So many, many, many observations about it. And I'm not even going to give any credence to Steph and leadership because that's complete and utter just nonsense.

I won't say it, but you know what it is. It's ridiculous. What is he supposed to do? Say, get the guy off my team? I'm tired of it? This is a guy that's won four championships with him. Steph loves playing with him. He amplifies everything about Steph's game on offense and covers for everybody on defense. Draymond is still one of the 10 to 12 best defensive players in the NBA. I would put him on an all-defense team this year if he had reached the requisite number of games, which he's not going to. And look...

There's a chance. I don't know the whole Draymond chessboard within the Warriors. I do know that if he ever loses, Steph...

there's a good chance he will be off the team although I don't know what kind of trade value Draymond Green has the whole league has seen this happen I don't know that there's a whole lot of like rebuilding teams are like yeah well we're excited to pay that guy 25 million dollars a year over the next three years um so I don't really know what Steph's supposed to do I know that Draymond is a man in his mid-30s who knows what he's doing and this is not Steph Curry's responsibility to like

do everything for everybody at all times he's one of the great leaders in sports I don't know when this became something that we could question Andre Mond I think Steph said it well after the game he was emotional and he said look we need him we need him on the team like we can't have this happen anymore and that's as close as Steph will come to saying like we're kind of tired of this and I just want to revisit one thing that's been bugging me all year

Draymond is still really, really good. The Warriors are much better with Draymond Green on the floor. They are fighting like tooth and nail to hold off a Houston Rockets team that is young and fast and hungry and has won 10 championships.

games in a row. And they're lucky that they have banked the tiebreaker head-to-head on the Rockets already, although the Rockets at least have one game left to try to close the standings. The Rockets also have a tougher schedule. The Warriors' schedule is easier. The Rockets are, since I think March 1st, first in the league in offense, fourth in defense. They're just rolling through people. Amin Thompson is a revelation with all that space to work with.

Look, I've done the Jalen Green thing. I love Jalen Green. I've always liked Jalen Green. They're feisty. They get in a fight like every game. Jabari Smith Jr. is getting in a fight with somebody every game, an altercation with somebody. I love it. The Warriors have to fight like hell to hold these teams off, and they need Draymond Green. And I remember, Doris, when Draymond, the big suspension, the Nurkic suspension, however many games that ended up being, Steve Kerr kind of has to play Kaminga, finally. A lot of us have been lobbying for more Kaminga for a long time. He plays him, and he explodes.

Draymond comes back and tries to spin the suspension as, well, it actually ended up helping our team. It ended up helping the Warriors. We figured out some stuff about ourselves. And I understood what he was saying. It didn't help the Warriors. It hurt the Warriors. He's hurt the Warriors this year. If the Warriors miss the playoffs...

The lion's share of the quote-unquote blame should go to Draymond Green for missing all these games. Some of it should go to Wiggins. Some of it should go to Klay. Some of it should go to the coaches. Some of it should go to Steph being in a shooting slump for the last month, which they can't really survive anymore. I actually – a very cynical part of me last night, Doris, is this was happening. And I was watching the game live and I was texting you.

And I was watching the game live and I'm like, you could tell he was going to get ejected. He was not going to drop it. He was repeating the same thing in Ray Acosta's face a hundred times. Normally I would just like go pay attention to another game for five minutes while this gets resolved. I wanted to watch it because I knew he was going to get ejected and I knew he was going to deserve it. And...

A very cynical part of me was waiting for the postgame for Draymond to take credit for them winning the game. For Draymond to say, I inspired my team, we won the game. They need him. He's too good for this as a player, and he's hurting the team. And there is only so much rope that they are going to give him for this. Because this isn't a championship team anymore. This is a team that's trying to get 10th. 10th. That's what they're trying to do. Yeah.

And just to the Steph Curry, last 15 games, 21 points, 39% shooting, 34% shooting. And I guess my question to you, you know, is this the cumulative toll of the entire season? Is this, you know, sort of where he is from an age and years and miles and things? We just evaluate LeBron so much in this regard. As I've watched him, you know,

Because the style of play he plays requires so much physically, the conditioning and the commitment. And the officiating changes have made it harder in the last month for him. People are knocking him all over the place like a bowling pin. Yeah. So I don't know. I just was curious your reaction to his numbers the last 15 games and what you think they're indicative of. Probably everything what we just mentioned.

Yeah, I just, people go through slumps. He's in a slump. I think it's magnified now because they just can't withstand it. And what I mean by that is they're five and six in their last 11 games. It's okay. It's not bad. It's just like, eh. And when you go down the list, Chris Paul's back. He's playing pretty well. Klay's playing pretty well off the bench. Draymond, when he plays, is Draymond. GP2 has settled in to a role.

You know, Wiggins hasn't played well, but like Pajemski is playing well. Jackson Davis is playing well. Kaminga is Kaminga-ing all over the place. Like the machine seems to be working and yet it's not producing wins in a total that even makes them safe for the 10th seed. And I've watched most of these games and you want to draw a through line. Like usually there's a through line. Like they're bad at these two things. They're bad at them every night. This is why they lose. Right.

That's really not the case with the Warriors. Sometimes it's like, oh, their transition defense was pretty bad last night. One of the reasons for that is they have made a priority of getting offensive rebounds. They're number two or three in the league in offensive rebounding. The cost of that is you've got to be really on point with your transition defense or you're going to get roasted. Sometimes it's like that Minnesota game the other day. They lose in crunch time.

They just kind of botched a couple of Mike Conley side pick and rolls late in the game, going under screens, getting lost on screens. And then you throw in Wiggins and Steph and, you know, sometimes the turnovers that have been their bugaboo for so long, sometimes that comes back. And when you start to talk about a team like this, like it's just this thing this night, this thing that night, that end of the floor the next night.

sometimes it just means that you're not that good. Like what you're really talking about is a team that's just not that good. And the longer this goes, the more it's like, I don't know if they're going to recapture this magic that Steve Kerr keeps talking about. And it doesn't seem like it. Anyway, I don't want to talk too much about the Warriors. Do you have something more to say? So just one final point on this, and it only as it relates to the Draymond piece of it, Zach, and then we can move on to wherever we're going. But one final thought I had was,

First of all, I love Orlando and how damn hard they play and the sort of the growth you're watching unfold in real time. But, you know, you see the impatience of youth. The Apollo, he's got step on the post. And instead of inviting a double and being impatient, he gets impatient. Warriors go down the other end and score. Then very quickly, you know, it's a shot clock violation. Again, Warriors go down and score. I guess my point being,

Draymond is obviously, you know, getting a lot of attention today. I wonder how much worse it would feel inside the organization and the

going at him if they were not able to pull that win out. You know, this goes to narrative and the thin margins or nature of the little twist here, a little turn there in the NBA, and it feels so different. So that was just my final point. That's why I'm wrapping up Wiggins and not every page said. And,

And they're lucky that Orlando for the millionth consecutive year is a horrible offensive team who can't make a shot. Now they are a hellacious defensive team and that's where they hang their hat and good for them. But they had a cold game even by their standards last night and the Warriors benefited from it. They did win the game and I guess that will be sort of what gets remembered about last night. And I just want to be clear like

Draymond is one of my favorite players in the last 15 years. I've learned a lot about basketball watching Draymond Green play. One of my favorite things I've ever written, maybe my single favorite thing I've ever written was a piece before the finals in 2019 where I got to interview Draymond for a long, long time. And we went through 10 plays together from that playoff run that he was involved in. And he talked me through what he's seeing in those plays, what he's seeing in the

unremarkable plays some of them and but why I thought they illuminated what he is I've enjoyed talking to Draymond over the years like I don't I really really love him as a basketball player and I don't want to come off as like the guy on his high horse being like you're costing the Warriors a team and your legacy and this and that he just needs to be on the floor and there's there's just that's just it and I

Similar moment when I did a film session with him and just watching him cycle through the decisions he's making in real time, the speed, the multiple efforts. So couldn't agree more. It's why I mentioned his his personal life. Like that was what Steve touched on after the final big suspension. You just you just want his happiness because he has been great.

A couple of other news items to get to. Maybe you have no takes on them. Maybe I just want to say them now. From the department of you can't make this up.

for what seems like the 17th time, a deal that Glenn Taylor had in place to sell the Timberwolves has fallen apart. And now, Doris, there's arguing from a spoke. I'm just going to read John Krasinski, my guy at The Athletic, All Things Minnesota. I'm just going to read his Twitter account. A spokesperson on behalf of Mark Lurie and Alex Rodriguez, who were supposed to buy a controlling interest in the team, and apparently, according to them, secured the financing to do it, maybe in time, maybe not, who knows, was

Glenn Taylor just said the team's no longer for sale. Glenn Taylor then tells The Athletic,

We're just saying we had a contract with you guys. You've had your time and this is the end of the contract and we're just kind of go on running the way we've been run. I just think I built this team. We've got the players now and it appears to me that we should have a very positive run for a number of years and I want to be a part of that. I have nothing else to say other than the Timberwolves are one of the great teams

Soap operas in all of sports. It's a running joke I have with John Krasinski. Every time I have you on, something crazy is going to happen. It took a week. Something crazy happened. News item number three, LaMelo Ball, who has played 184 games in four years,

and 58 games in the last two years, according to the team and then Woj, is going to miss the remainder of the season, meaning he will have played, again, 58 games combined in his third and fourth seasons in the NBA. 22 this year. Um...

Any reactions to that Doris? Well, my first reaction to the wolves is I hate it given where they are in the standings and the year they've put together and the way they've comported themselves in the absence of Carl Anthony towns. I'm not going to get involved in the nonsense of the ownership. I just really liked the team. I like Chris bench. I've been in three without Carl towns, by the way, I've been loving the way Nas Reed is playing, um, to watch Anthony, uh,

You know, play is just a joy for me. You know, beyond the skill set, it's his charisma. It's everything about him. And so I just don't like that this is going to be a part of their story moving forward as we move to the playoffs. Lomelo, you're shocking me. I didn't realize how few games...

He had played over the last two years. And I thought you, you, I know you mentioned that to me. You go where you want to go with him. I'm just disappointed as a fan. I'm not exactly sure what's going on. Obviously he's injured and he suffered a very serious ankle injury. Wasn't just a sprained ankle was more than that for what I've been told.

Look, at some point, he and everyone around him and the team and everyone involved is going to have to decide, like, is this going to be like a serious thing? Are we going to be like a serious team? And part of that is just going to have to be he's got to play more. This is two lost seasons for him. And the sad part about this for me, he was one of my most intriguing players for the season. I have this column every year I write before the season, my five or six most intriguing guys for the season. And he was in it.

Because I think he's been characterized in a lot of corners as just sort of a carnival act and not a serious basketball player. And I understand why. He's like a riverboat gambler on defense. He takes a gazillion threes. He hunts to highlight passes. All that. And the team stinks all the time. But I just, I look at him...

And you just can't find 6'7", 6'8", with that combination of vision and shooting ability. You just can't find it. It's very, very rare. Somewhere in there is a serious basketball player who can play winning basketball. If the right parts of his game are emphasized at the expense of others, if the right parts of his game are honed in the right degrees. And in the last nine games before he first suffered an injury on November 26th,

He got off to a slow start and then he had a nine game stretch where he averaged 32 points a game, nine assists, seven rebounds on 49% shooting, 44% on threes. Now the Hornets were three and six in those games, but the Hornets are basically three and six in every nine game stretch in perpetuity forever and ever. But it wasn't just the numbers. It was, and this is what I had talked about with O'Mello before the season.

He was getting to the rim at a much higher rate and into the paint with a live dribble, a prodding dribble, a slow searching for what's the defense going to expose from a dribble,

More than he had by far by the numbers and by the eye test in the previous two seasons. He wasn't converting shots at the rim very well. He's been a bad rim finisher his whole career, but he was not letting that deter him. Steve Clifford talked to me about it. He talked to me about it. He knew that he had been a little too one dribble and kick it before I even touched the paint. One dribble, first pass available. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes you want to do that, but he had leaned too far in that direction and

And not used his size and ability to manipulate and change a pace. And he was trying to do that more. And that seems like a long time ago, but I want to bottle those nine games and hope that that's what he looks like. But everyone involved in, in the Hornets needs to come together and be like, I just see your five next year. Like,

This can't be another lost season. Whatever we've got to do to get this guy healthy and on the court, we've got to do. Okay, let's go to bad takes. I add one thing to that, just because...

You know, and I think we're going to go bad takes. Maybe if I'm getting to pick first, it's going to be Oklahoma City. So this may be a natural transition anyway. You mentioned the size of Lamello and the manipulation of defense, touching the paint, what's opening up, navigating tight windows, slow, slow pace. I'm dictating here. Six, six shake. You'll just Alexander learn to do that. You may have done a story or maybe I had listened to a podcast about

where you had, I think, sort of drawn this very logical conclusion from. He's gone from playing the game to now in command of the game. And I think you saw just what you spoke to, saw that in LaMelo. Obviously, different circumstances, organizations, success rate, et cetera, et cetera. But to your point about size,

You know, it's like if Kyrie Irving were 6'6", you know, like, what the heck would you do with the guy? So anyway...

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Silly takes. Let's have it. Well, again, I just don't think in any way, shape or form I envisioned on what's today's date, March 28th, that the Oklahoma City Thunder would be playing beyond their years and would be in a race with Denver and Minnesota for the top seed in what has been a brutal West. They're 23 and a half years old based on playing time. I just would have never envisioned that.

Never. And, you know, I saw Shaq said SGA is his pick for MVP. The guy is averaging, what, 30 points. He goes off for 25 drives per game. I love the entire vibe of the team. I love how relentlessly they drive and kick. I love...

that Chet is way tougher than I ever expected him to be. And I think the first glimpse we got of that was the first exhibition when he and Wendy went at each other. Jalen Williams has been a revelation going back to last season. The size, the ability when Shay sits to give them ball handling, versatility, pick and roll action.

And I guess the one intriguing storyline about this team is the playoffs and what will it look like for them in the playoffs. I think we saw some of the challenges that they'll face. You know, we saw it in the Milwaukee game. The repeated driving into size became problematic. The rebounding that night was problematic. But I just love everything about this team. You know, the number of assignments Dort takes on.

And then the other part of this was the Josh Giddey numbers of late. And I had written it down. Maybe I won't find it. You know, they lose Wednesday, but career high 31 points. But since March began, what is the average? 15 points, 56% shooting, 40% from three, Zach.

And he's getting the most space on his threes of anybody in the league over nine feet of separation from the nearest defender. Will his shooting hold up in the playoffs? I really don't know, but I had this team a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday. And I just, I had, you know, been dying to have them in person. It's one thing to watch them when you're at home and you're, you're reviewing tape or whatever. But I love this team. And I'm curious what you think about,

about this notion that a young team like that cannot be successful in the playoffs. Do you believe this team has what it takes to be successful? Because I never expected them to be where they are right now. First of all, I shall do you one better on dumb takes, Doris Burke. I took the under on Oklahoma City's win total before the season, and I believe the line—

I believe it was 45 and a half, maybe 46 and a half, maybe 44 and a half. They have won 50 games already. I'll take the L on that one. Like Mike Malone, Michael Malone says, I'll take the L on your way out. Enjoy that L.

And I did it only because of their youth. I just couldn't imagine, even though all the ingredients, like some people called this, Bill Simmons most particularly was like, this is going to be a 50 something win team. I was just like, that just seems so far ahead of their skis. And now they're there and the number one seed is in play for them.

Which is big because, well, I think it's big because if I'm them and I'm looking at playoff opponents, I know the Lakers have played them pretty tough in the size and the toughness and the physicality. Phoenix and Dallas scare me more for them than the Lakers do. But to their credit, the question has advanced to the question you're asking, which is,

Wait, can this team make the finals or the conference finals? Can they make a real run or is there youth other than SGA who's 25 and has been in the playoffs before? Is it going to be the impediment that it generally is for most young teams? Most young teams don't even sniff this territory. This is like almost unprecedented. It's not unprecedented for this franchise. They have done this before with a team this young. Right.

I lean much more to like, this team's real. They've spent 72 games telling us how real they are. There's nothing about their style of play that I think would not translate to the postseason. Some people might say, well, are you going to force that many turnovers against really good teams? I think they'll force enough. Shea is Shea.

If there's anything that worries me about them, not worries is too strong. Cause I think this team can go second round, third round, whatever in the playoffs. I think they could also lose to Dallas or Phoenix in the first round. That's how good the West, by the way, the West it's interesting. Um,

We're having this setup in the West where like if the standings held as they are today, which we don't know, you could if you wanted to make a very strained comparison to last season where the number one seed is this, you know, everyone knows Denver's a juggernaut. Now people thought they were a pretty goddamn good team with home court advantage. Then number one seed don't want to play them. Numbers two and three would kind of be these like.

in Oklahoma City's case, inexperienced, in Minnesota's case, unproven. Like, oh, are those vulnerable? Are those teams vulnerable? Much like last year when people looked at Memphis at two and Sacramento at three, said, oh, they're vulnerable. Turned out they were vulnerable. Now, I would say that's apples to oranges because these teams, in terms of win totals, they're both going to blow past Memphis. They've already blown past Sacramento last year.

In point differential, they're going to double up Sacramento and almost double up Memphis in some cases. Memphis was banged up on the front line. No Brandon Clark, no Steven Adams going into the playoffs. So those teams are distinct from last year's two and three teams. They're just better. On the other hand, 7-8-9 in the West are way better than 7-8-9 in the West were last year. So it's a very interesting conference. Now, what worries me about OKC, you mentioned Gideon. Gideon's on a run right now.

You mentioned Dort, and Dort is a cinder block with arms and legs and a jump shot that somehow has gone in from three-point range 39.7% of the time, despite the fact that it looks like it's going to leave the arena and go into the atmosphere when he throws it up. I worry a little bit about their –

I'll call it their pop quotient, their amount of pop that they have off the dribble once you get to their third best guy. So Shea is Shea. J-Dub is a stud. If Giddy's not being guarded, it kind of takes away what juice he has off the bounce. Dort can attack a really scrambling closeout, but he's not really an off-the-bounce guy.

And off the bench, they're not really bringing anyone who's got a lot of juice with the ball. Now, maybe it doesn't matter because your top two guys are so good and are going to do so much of the heavy lifting. Chet can pump and go and whatever, but he's not like he's in his first year and he's skinny and he's not like the fast. He's a center. He shouldn't be like the fastest ball handler in the world. That and the backup center.

roulette of today it's Jalen Williams 2.0 maybe it's Ken Rich Williams at the five here's Mike Muscala for a cameo I kind of forgot he was on the team and

One of the ways they overcome this is A, the greatness of Shea and then less so the greatness of Jalen Williams, who I love. And B, this unconventional offense they have where it's just guards setting screens for guards. And you have no idea who's going to set a screen, where it's going to come from. Oh my God, here comes Isaiah Joe, the best three-point shooter on the team. He's going to set a screen and fly out of it. I wonder how much that getting scouted and drilled for an entire playoff series changes their life.

but I love this team and I'm going to be hard pressed not to pick them into first round against some of these other teams who play well now and then, and then don't play well now. And then this team plays well now, then later all the time. And I was dead wrong taking the under that's my bad take. Yeah. So we, we both agree on that. Would you like to pick again? No, you can pick the next one. You can pick the next one. All right. I am going to take the L and,

Let's see, which of my bad takes would I like to... I'm not going to take this one because it's boring, but you may know this. I bet Tim Bontemps 100 bucks before the season that the Hawks would be a top five seed in the East. Yeah. That has not panned out. No. The Hawks are bad.

And the only reason why I want to bring them up now briefly is that I do find it interesting that they are 9-7 without Trey Young. Now, their schedule has been just eh. But they're 10th in offense and 16th in defense. And they've also missed – like Jalen Johnson, who's I think been their second-best player all year, has missed the last four or five games. I don't think that is worth –

overreacting to. Just like I think it's interesting that the Wolves are 7-3 with Karl-Anthony Towns. I think it's interesting that the Rockets have won like seven games in a row without Alper and Shengun. And I think people get tempted real fast to dive off the diving board of like, oh, Team X is better without this player whose contributions are 90% on offense. It kind of hurts our defense a little bit.

Um, I think what those numbers are more proof of is over a short sample and 10, 15, 20 games is a short sample, especially if the schedule breaks your way and you get an easy schedule and then you face this team without that player and that team without that player.

NBA teams are really, really adaptable. Like all these dudes are good. All 450 guys in the NBA are good. And over a short sample size, you can finagle a good record without someone who is nominally your best or second best player.

Now, if the database gets further than that 40, 50 games, it starts to raise, I think, not questions about, oh, is Trae Young overrated? Is Alper and Shingun not good? Like, whatever. I think Trae Young is a little bit overrated and I like Alper and Shingun fine. More just like team building questions. Do we have the right fit next to these guys?

And Trey Young and DeJounte Murray in like a thousand minutes this season, 1100 minutes minus 150 together. It just ain't working. I was dead wrong about that. I don't want to talk about the Hawks anymore. I'm going to humiliate myself with a second pick. It was too low by a lot on the Kristaps Porzingis trade.

Now, I picked Boston to win the championship this year. So you could ask me, Doris Burke, how could one be low on the Kristaps Porzingis trade and pick Boston to win the championship? The answer is I did not quite a 180, but like a 90 on the Celtics when they got Drew Holiday, when they followed up the Porzingis trade by trading Malcolm Brogdon, Robert Williams, the second and two first round picks for Drew Holiday. Because...

I thought, okay, in losing Marcus Smart, they lost secondary ball handling, unicorn level switchability and toughness on defense in terms of guarding up in size, down in size, doing whatever it takes. And they hadn't replaced that. And that makes me a little nervous. Oh, wait, they replaced it with like a better version of that guy. And I get to have Christoph Swarzingas is shooting at the same time. Now I'm in.

The reality is I should have been more in before. And that's even separating the fact that the Celtics somehow traded Marcus Smart for Kristaps Porzingis and two first round picks. Like forget the value proposition, which everybody knew right away. Like that's a killer trade in terms of asset management.

And I've watched Porzingis with the Wizards. I'm not one of these people who's not watching the Wizards. I can tell you about Corey Kispert's season, if you want. Sadly enough, I can tell you about it. Denny Avdia is in my 10 Things column tomorrow. It's a sad life that I lead. So I knew what he had done in Washington. I just thought Marcus Smart, not heart and soul stuff, but stylistically, was very integral into how the Celtics played defense. And they were trading him out, and in was becoming...

This on again, off again, injury question hadn't really played much high stakes basketball in the NBA. How is this? And was relatively one dimensional defensively in terms of like he's a rim protector and you don't want to move it around in space and switching all the time and all that.

I just, I remember saying to perk on TV and he agreed with me. Celtics are going to be awesome. Like I have no doubt that the Celtics can be really good. Even then, even before drew holiday, but I I'm just a little queasy. I think queasy was the word I use. I'm like a little queasy thinking about this poor Zingas thing. And I shouldn't have been the Celtics front office was three steps ahead of me. They knew exactly what they were doing. Introducing another quick trigger shooter. Uh,

a big man who would drag the opposing big man away from the rim on a team where the opponent has no other safe place to hide their big man. If they've got to guard Porzingis and run around that they would lean into his post-ups the way that they have. And more than that, they knew, I think, although they will not verbalize this, I don't think, and I've not really talked to them about it, but I've talked to Brian Scalabrini about it. I think they knew if we want Tatum and Brown to trust the pass and

and trust the movement and trust the motion offense, we need to know that they trust every single player they pass to to make the right play and not over-dribble and not hijack the offense away from us. And I think Marcus Smart was the last missing piece that they had to worry about. Like, are they going to trust? Now, sometimes they don't trust it. They just blew a 30-point lead against the Hawks because all it did was dribble, dribble, dribble, and shoot late in games. But I think there was a larger vision involved

even just isolating the Porzingis trade, even if you freeze it there and I still have Robert Williams and he's injured and I still have Malcolm Brogdon and he's injured and I don't have Drew Holiday, I was way too low on that trade. So it's that play, the post-up for them has been an incredibly efficient play, obviously. And they post them a lot against mismatches, but they'll also post them size to size. You know, and listen, we're never inside locker rooms or practices or any of that stuff.

But you said something really interesting there, which is the last piece of the puzzle as it relates to not hijacking the offense. And one of the first things Chris Tapps Porzingis said early in the year is, I really don't care who gets the shots as long as we're making the right play. And the way Chris Tapps Porzingis plays with a smile on his face, the bromance between him and Jalen, like, I know there are people of the belief that these kinds of things don't matter.

But having, you know, there are certain teams we cover an awful lot, Zach, obviously. And, you know, if LeBron's on a team, Steph's on a team, or you're in a market, we're going to cover you. And Boston is one of those teams. And one of the most notable things from the outset is that just the vibe felt fresher. It felt different. And I had the same anxiety about Marcus Smart. Because for so long, it felt like his soul permeated that team.

his willingness to absorb the tough assignments to, as you said, guard up, guard down. And it is amazing, like,

there's a ton of credit to their front office because you, it's like, so like a parent will tell you, you know your child better than absolutely anybody else. And if your instinct is telling you something, then you go with that instinct. And I would assume it is somewhat like that for front offices. You are there every day. You're watching body language. You're watching reaction between teammates. You're watching reactions between player and coach. And the other thing I feel like is totally different about the Celtic team is

And maybe I'm crazy and it's really just observational. It feels, it felt to me a year ago, like Joe Missoula, because of the timing of him being named was managing a season. And this year it feels like Joe is commanding the season. And those seem like two different things to me. Do you think I'm off base there? No, I don't. And I,

I've always thought Joe Bazzula is a good coach. I defended him last year. There were a couple of times where I didn't defend him and he heard about it. Most notably, I thought he waited too long to play Robert Williams, to start Robert Williams in the Philly series. And I think the timeouts thing is mostly a red herring that he waits too long to call timeouts. My only worry is, is he so didactic that...

it's going to become a situation where like we're going down if we're going down we're going down our way you guys think we take too many threes we're going to take more we're going to go down this way and i don't think that's going to be the case because they've actually had a fairly concerted effort to after a trough in the middle of the season in their rim shots to get it back up to what would be considered a normal level of rim shots for a team that should and does take a ton of threes

And Porzingis is important for the crunch time offense thing. It's not been great for Boston. It's not great for a lot of teams. They're not the only team in the NBA that gives the ball to their stars and gets out of the way late in games, for better or worse. The interesting wild cards for me in that are Porzingis and Derek White. Derek White is like the randomizer of their offense for me. And I mean that in a good way. Like if they're stalling out late in games like they did against the Hawks the other day,

If I'm Missoula, I'm like, look, I don't care if Jason Tatum, if you want to take, if you want to do this MJ stuff, like it's not working right now. Derek White, start running around and setting screens. Start setting flare screens. His two-man game with those guys as a screener has become the foundation of their offense. And the second one is Porzingis. Get in the game and go set a ball screen. And I think one of the interesting little games within the game for the Celtics in the playoffs will be

KP has been around average as a three-point shooter this year. I think he's up to 36%, 37% right now after a hot streak. He was down to 33%, 34%. I think they're going to come into a defense who kind of treats him like Miles Turner and just says, we're just going to kind of dare you, but we're going to let you take open above the break threes instead of, and this is what you'll see when the Celtics really get rolling,

You pop open for three, Kristaps Porzingis. Your guy's dropped back because he's a big galoot center. He can't get back out. The third rotator is flying at you from somewhere on the wing. And what Porzingis has been really good at is spotting that and throwing the next pass and just getting the machine moving. And I think teams are going to try to shut that machine off

by just being like, hey, let's see if you make them. Let's see if you make them, big fella. But when they melt down late in crunch time like that, that's one of the methods. Like if I'm Joe Mizzou, I'm like, get Porzingis and set. Let's go pick and pop. Let's just get it moving. Let's just get it flowing.

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This episode is brought to you by Honda. When you test drive the new Prologue EV, there's a lot that could impress you about it. There's the class-leading passenger space, the clean, thoughtful design, and the intuitive technology. But out of everything, what you'll really love most is that it's a Honda. Visit Honda.com slash EV to see offers. Okay, give me another bad take. Where do you want me to go? I got plenty. No, I'll give you one because I spent...

much of the entire season expecting Dallas to have a big time swoon and fall. And listen, the play-in is so fluid out there. But I did, I don't know why I had this feeling that at some point they were going to just hit a skid of seven, eight, nine, 10 games. And a couple of things strike me about them right now. And that is another pressure point at the rim with Gafford.

And, you know, Lively obviously connected quite early with Luka. Both guys, Luka and Kyrie averaging 25, five and five. Luka, 35 and five. Just absolutely absurd. He's responsible for 57.6 points per game alone. That is in historic pace. Yeah.

I think this was in Matt Williams' email that he sends out every day. 9-0 with Luka, Kyrie, Derrick Jones Jr., P.J. Washington, and Gafford as a starting lineup.

And that five-man lineup in limited minutes, obviously, has been really good. I don't know what it was about Dallas that had me doubting. And again, I'm not put in the position to make predictions or over-under. There was just this sense in the back of my head, I don't know that I fully believe in this team. And now I look at them with those two guards and the additions they've made and go, yeah, I don't want any part of that team in the playoffs. None. So I'm looking at my preseason column right now.

And I had Dallas about where they are, which is, well, I might have been a little lower on them. I had them fighting to avoid the play-in. And have finished. Somewhere in like the six to nine range, which is where they are. However, they're on my list of bad takes for two reasons. Number one, you can listen to the podcast last year that I did with Tim McMahon on the Monday after the Kyrie Irving trade.

And I said, look, I just, I wouldn't trade for him. Like if that would be my policy, I'm not going to trade for Kyrie Irving, let alone trade Spencer Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith and a lightly to unprotected, I think, first round pick. I'm just not going to do it. Nothing to do with his basketball skills, everything to do with the fact that he had been unreliable in terms of just being on the floor. And so far,

This has been a wildly successful partnership. In fact, I think one of the best stories in the NBA as a basketball story is watching these two guys play together because they're both ball dominant players, right? And so it's sometimes you wouldn't expect it to be artful. You would expect it to be your turn, my turn, your turn.

And sometimes it's that, but every game they find little subtle ways to play off of each other. They've learned each other's tendencies. Luka knows the way Kyrie likes to kind of drift away from the ball. Like when he spots a moment, no one's paying attention to me. Let me move five feet over here. Kyrie understands the pacing of Luka's game and how Luka will sometimes step back or no, I'm going to fake the step back and pass to you. And when my guy takes the bait on the step back, I'm going to dart to the rim and you're going to find me on a give and go. Like they've learned each other

In ways beyond just a pick and roll. They're 9-1 in their last 10 games. My bad Dallas take number two was I was on NBA Countdown a month ago when Daniel Gaffer was playing six, seven minutes a game as a backup.

And saying, and Brian Windhorst was on there agreeing with me and fighting with perk who ended up being right about this saying, why'd you trade a first round pick for this dude? He's a backup center to your, to your like star rookie. And you want to play Cleba at the five to Jason kid had been closing games with Cleba at the five. Like what, what I know it's, I know it's early. It's only been a few games since the trade deadline, but like, this doesn't seem to make any sense. Now it makes sense. This team's got to hit a level of consistency, right?

That maybe they're hitting now. Maybe this is what this 9-1 thing is. To really threaten, even without Towns or Towns Limited or Towns warming back up, whatever Towns condition he's in, if that's who they draw in the first round, they make it. To threaten the Thunder, despite the experience issues. This team's got to play really well all the time, particularly defensively. But they've been better on defense. Gafford has really helped.

P.J. Washington's a little overstretched. He's like, okay, you're going to be like our stopper guy along with Derrick Jones Jr. who like maybe we don't want to start, but it seems to work. They're still kind of solving the puzzle of who should be the three guys that close games next to the two stars. How does Kleba fit in? Does Josh Green fit in when he comes back? Does Exum fit in? Do we trust Tim Hardaway defensively? He's kind of been up and down as a shooter. I don't know. But this team's really good. And the fit between Luka and Kyrie has been awesome. And Gafford...

who made 9 million shots in a row and dunks like he wants to hurt you, hurt me, hurt the rim, hurt everyone in his immediate vicinity, has been sensational. I will go now. Are you ready? Yes. Yes, sir. I would like to offer a formal apology. When I talked about the Lakers all season, I urged Darvin Ham, urged him from before the season that his four best players, his best foursome together,

We're Austin Reeves, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Rui Hachimura. When he brought Austin Reeves off the bench for a little stretch there, I said, this is nonsensical. You've got to start him. I don't care that it worked for a little bit. Like he's one of your four best players. LeBron needs more ball handling around him. You got to start Austin Reeves. He's him. That's what he said. I'm him. And when Hachimura was playing like 18 minutes a game off the bench,

It's like, what are you doing, man? You paid this guy all this money. He couldn't miss a shot in the playoffs. He's a multi-positional defender. He's getting better all the time. What is he on the team for? Why is Cam Reddish and Torian Prince playing all these minutes? Where's Hachimura?

A name that I took for granted, a name that I never mentioned, a name that I mentioned if I mentioned him at all as a trade candidate, as a fungible piece of basketball player to get me a better piece of basketball player was D'Angelo Russell. And D'Angelo Russell shut me up, shut all these people up, at least for now. Now he got played off the floor against Denver and teams are going to target him defensively. He still does not get to the rim or the line very much.

But goddamn, the guy is shooting 42% on threes. He broke the Lakers franchise record for most threes. 46% overall. 18 points, six dimes. The Lakers are nine games over 500 all of a sudden. You want to laugh at the Lakers? We talk about the Lakers too much. They're a mediocrity. They're doo-doo like Perkz said. They're not doo-doo anymore. They're nine games over. That's not great, but it's also not mediocre. This looks like a good team. Their starting five is plus five per 100 possessions.

And D'Angelo Russell, look, he might not be your cup of tea. He might have some weaknesses in his games. In his game, he's going to get hunted on defense. The guy has done way more than his part and proven to be a big asset on a team that has found itself and found its offense, Doris, after four years of three years of pretty bad, mediocre offense.

They're number two in the league in offense for like the last two and a half months, and he's a big reason why. I've got to give him a ton of credit because, you know –

And then I'm probably going to like make a little bit of fun of him and D'Angelo, forgive me. I'm going to give him a ton of credit because these guys are human. He was in every trade scenario, as you said, he had to play through that. You know, I'm, I'm not necessarily buying, you know, the, the narrative out of Los Angeles that we were behind them the whole way. You know, I, I think. That's a thing that, that, that's a narrative that's happening. Well, there was a story, that big story that came out.

David did the big D'Angelo Russell and he was

pretty boisterous about his relationship with Darwin and how... I enjoyed that story quite a bit about Dennis Schroeder. Dennis Schroeder was like somehow the villain of this story, getting all this Dennis Schroeder catching with shrapnel from this. I was going to tease him because I had him the next day. I mean, I had him the day the story came out and he was like two for six and a non-factor in the game. I had him in, I believe it was at Sacramento without LeBron. I could be skewing the details here. But, you know,

And he's going to have to prove it, right? He's going to have to prove in moments that matter. Cause I've had him in stretches of games this year where I, I mean, I literally one time said, you have to watch D'Angelo's decision-making here. It's incident it's inside five. It's a crunch time game and he makes two mistakes in a row. And, and those are the things that people point to with D'Angelo. Can you trust him? Will he guard? Will he stand up defensively? Um,

but a ton of credit to him because there have been games without LeBron that he's had a heavy usage. He's delivered scoring. It is so critical that he and Austin Reeves take some of the pressure off LeBron, handle the ball for long stretches to give him enough rest. But I get the sense that this team is,

thinks about itself that it's built for the playoffs. And let's give some credit to Anthony Davis, who's had an all NBA level season. He's been absolutely tremendous. I don't, somebody, oh, it was, uh,

Somebody was talking about him defensively and just where he is all the time. He's had an incredible season and the availability of the two stars has been a critical aspect. We had them first game and I said their fortunes will rise and fall with the availability of A.T. and LeBron and to both men's credit, they've been that for the most part.

D'Lo's been everything they needed. I mean, before the season, I was like, should they just start Gabe Vincent? Is Gabe Vincent a better fit next to all these? Gabe Vincent hasn't played. Vanderbilt hasn't really played. You know, Christian Wood's been out for like, I'm AD. I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, I just wanted to ask you the Vanderbilt piece of it. Just in how critical the assignments were, he absorbed through their playoff run last year, like,

How dangerous do you really believe the Lakers are, Zach? And then do you believe that Vanderbilt has to be back in order to elevate that, that,

Well, I don't think this conversation really starts unless they make the playoffs. And right now their goal is catch the team that we're about to talk about, Phoenix, or maybe Sacramento for the eighth spot. We should mention Dallas and Sacramento are playing again tomorrow in the second game of a baseball series that is critical. If they draw Denver, they're out. Like they're not beating Denver. To have any kind of puncher's chance, they got to draw somebody else.

I think they could have a puncher's chance against some of those teams. They've played...

Oklahoma City well. I think Minnesota is a problematic matchup for them because Minnesota is like, oh, you're big in physical? Try this. Try us. And we've seen Anthony Davis with Domas Savonis and other physical centers. That's a challenge. That affects his ability to be effective, no question. But I keep saying this about the Lakers. Winning one series, it's great.

Winning two, three, and four, you got to be so good, so consistently, and so healthy. And they haven't shown that yet. I'm glad you brought up Anthony Davis. The Lakers' two best wins of the season. By coincidence, please do not read this the wrong way. I think their two best wins of the season have both come without LeBron James. One came without LeBron James and Anthony Davis in Boston. The other was that double overtime game in Milwaukee the other night where Anthony Davis made a...

I am a first team all NBA player statement to the voters. I'm not saying I'd put him in that fifth slot for first team all NBA, but that was a statement over 52 minutes limping around dominating the game, swatting everything that the bucks tried to do in crunch time. One thing that was interesting in that game, Doris, I don't know how much this has been brought up. Yana set 45 ball screens in that game.

The most he has ever set in any game ever by nine. It's not even close. Yeah, wow. And I thought it was interesting because we've all been calling for more of that as the season went on.

And I think they overcorrected in that game. I was like, there's not, can we just get like, there was one position where he had D'Angelo Russell stuck on him and a cross match apologies to D'Lo. Here you are catching shrapnel again. And I, and, and they went into a pick and roll and I'm like, just throw the ball to the seven foot Greek dude with D'Angelo Russell on him. Don't go screen for Damian Lillard. And I thought the offense got a little away from him. The ball got a little away from him and it got a little jumper happy. And in a way,

I kind of think that's good for the Bucs because that's part of the growing process. Okay, we did this. We really leaned into it more than we ever had before, and we kind of lost the plot a little bit. I thought that was interesting. Can we talk about Phoenix real fast? Absolutely. Absolutely. That's my other. My inner circle of championship contenders before the season was Denver, Boston, Milwaukee, and Phoenix. Everybody was with you on that, though.

Was everybody with me on Phoenix? I feel like we were. Phoenix is currently 43-30 in seventh, two games ahead of the Lakers. The Lakers have the tiebreaker over Phoenix, 3-2. They played five times because of the in-season tournament. Yeah.

The Kings are in this picture as well. The Suns have a schedule down the stretch that is so hard, it almost looks like a cruel joke has been played on them. Every single game is ridiculous. I heard you say it last night on the game. Second hardest schedule by winning percentage to close a season in the last 30 years, Zach. And yet...

On paper, the hardest of those games, it doesn't get harder than at Denver. Now they got at Denver without Jamal Murray, which is a big deal, but they won and they won going away. And although their offensive numbers were only so-so in that game, it was one of those games, unlike the Spurs lost the previous game, where I thought the process was good.

And the process doesn't have to be like every single possession. They satisfy the basketball nerd in me by like running a Booker Durant two-man game after Durant comes off a pin down from Beal and all the players are working together in synergy and getting switches and mismatches. It can just be as simple as if we are going to run a Beal-Durant

pick and roll or a Booker Nurkic pick and roll, or in last night's case of Eubanks pick and roll, just make the decisions fast. So kick it to Grayson Allen, Grayson Allen, pump fake drives, kicks it over to Bradley Beal, pump fake drives, kicks it to the Eubanks dunk. It's the way that they can generate threes and shots at the rim. And I thought that process was good last night, along with Durant's defense, but

They would even, it just can be as simple as they kept running this one play with Booker taking a staggered screen, one from Eubanks and one from Durant. And Eubanks would roll and Durant would pop. And then Durant would like lift up a little bit, drift around the three-point arc into open spaces and they would find him up there. It's just like little stuff like that. It doesn't have to be rocket science, but...

It's hard to quit on a team with these three guys. But inner circle championship contender has now come to, for the love of God, can we avoid the play-in? And the schedule suggests they're not going to avoid the play-in, that they will have to come through the play-in. I just don't know what to make of this team. I would love to get your one minute, like, where is Doris Burke on the Suns? Well, so...

Number one, and maybe I'm crazy, but I thought everybody was sort of saying with that, with those three guys, particularly when, you know, the ads that they had that, that seemed significant, the Eric Gordon, the Grayson Allen, who's had one heck of a year around the stars. I think a couple of things concern me in games. I've sometimes watched where they've gotten punched in the mouth and you haven't seen, but they may be in control punch in the mouth. Have they responded to that necessarily with force and authority? No. Um,

You know, the early part of the year where before the Bradley Beal got injured, there were times where he felt disengaged. You mentioned that little subtle movement of KD lifting up into open space, moments where you're instead, you know, Beal or he is standing in the corner. So I think I'm like you. I have a hard time giving up on a team with that level of offensive ability. And there was a lineup last night that really intrigued me.

And it was, I think it was Gordon, Grayson, Devin Booker. So the three stars and Eric Gordon and Grayson Allen. And I asked Matt Williams, because I knew we were talking about Phoenix, how much time has Kevin Durant spent at the five spot? He said 9% of the time. And the numbers are pretty good. And that lineup in particular, will it hold up with the spacing of that intrigues me. You know,

I just, in the West, it feels like, to me, Denver, I don't want to say it's inevitable, but I like them in every matchup they have. And Phoenix isn't the team I thought. They haven't shown me, you know, just enough force or resilience or toughness necessarily consistently to inspire me. But again, they're loaded with talent. And so who knows? When they play right,

With force and decisiveness, they can beat anybody. I don't know if they can win multiple playoff rounds, but they have the goods to do that. It's just going to depend on their matchups and if they even get in. I don't believe in Durant at the five as a viable more than 10 minutes at a time. I just think the opposing offense is going to just destroy them on the glass. The only last bit of news that I know you have to go is –

At the end of just a wild Clippers win in Philly where they just might as well have robbed a bank and driven the getaway car away from the cops, Nick Nurse said they're hoping to have Joel Embiid back at some point in April. Philly's last five games are Memphis, San Antonio, Detroit, Orlando, Brooklyn. Chance to make a little bit of a run. Don't know what to make of this team. Don't know what condition Joel will be in, how it will look. I just think it's interesting that

With every passing day, the chances of Boston drawing either Miami or Philly in the first round, because they're 7-8 right now. So if that ends up being it, one will be 7 and the other will get a game to 8. That's spicy, Doris. That's spicy. It's spicy. Joel, to me, I mean, was at the highest level I had ever seen him. He was dominant defensively.

But you make a great point. How long has he been out? What was the date he went? What's his conditioning level? How quickly can they gel? One thing I would say about Philadelphia under Nick Nurse is in the absence of Joel Embiid, I've appreciated how hard they've competed. They have obviously fallen in the standings. But, you know, I just like I think about the Houston Rockets through all their losing games.

prior to this hot streak, they played their ass off. They just worked so hard. I have great appreciation when you're undermanned and you're willing to battle. And I like the pieces around them, Zach. You know, I had a recent Philly game and I was just extolling the virtues of Nick Batum. So many subtle little things he does. Oubre has that slasher. The growth of Maxie as decision maker. Yeah.

I really I thought Philly was a legit threat when Joel was with him and they were healthy. And I'm excited to see him back. It's just that I don't know in that short window, can they get where they need to be? There's no question they're a legit threat. Joel Embiid was having arguably the greatest scoring season in the history of the NBA. I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous what he was doing. Yeah.

I just got to see it. And if I'm the Celtics, I don't care who I play. Bring me all the smoke. I want all of it. I want to get, let's, let's go through all the rivals as soon as we can. Doris, you've got to go. I want to talk a little bit about a Sixers Clippers, but you have to go. I could do that on my own. Go make your calls. Doris Burke needs no introduction, no salutations, nothing. I'll see you down the road, Doris. All right. Say goodbye to Doris. She's got to go. I wanted to spend five minutes talking about the Clippers Sixers game, which obviously Doris,

First of all, it gave us an all-time Kelly Oubre Jr. And real NBA heads will remember Larry Sanders pointing at all the rest with the thumbs up 10, 12 years ago. I don't know how long it was. Kelly Oubre, I think...

I think upgraded the Larry Sanders meme yelling at the refs for the non-call, which the refs later admitted was a bad non-call and that Kelly Ray should have shot free throws at the end of the game. But just to win that game, the Clippers needed a sensational, multiple sensational Kawhi Leonard defensive plays. Multiple Kawhi Leonard and ones.

Tyrese Maxey to fall over on an inbounds play with the lead in the last minute of the game leading to an Amir coffee steal one out of two at the line Sixers inbound the ball and it gets knocked out of bounds off Kelly Oubre by Paul George they review they overturn it just a million breaks for the Clippers to beat the Sixers and derail a Nick Batum revenge game by one point on the road we're talking about all these teams in the West and

The Lakers haven't shown it. The Warriors haven't shown it. By the way, I should have mentioned this with Doris. You can feel the Warriors kind of adjusting to, and I talked a little bit about this with Steve Jones the other day, to, all right, we have kind of two non-shooter-ish people in our starting lineup, Kaminga and Draymond Green. That lineup has worked really well, but there are times you feel the crunch. You feel the Warriors adjusting to all sorts of different lineup combinations that don't

haven't played much that have three non-shooters that have guys that are unfamiliar with each other it's it's not easy to do that um in in the regular you know gary payton trace jackson davison comingo all together with the splash brothers what does that look like how does that work i think that's part of the reason the warriors have been so um up and down but i

All these teams were talking about consistency. The Lakers, well, the Mavericks, they're starting to show it. The Kings have been up and down. The Suns have been up and down. Every time they, you know, they're 4-1 in their last five or whatever, but the one loss was really bad. The Clippers are the one team of all of these sort of old lions of the West, the Lakers, the Warriors. The Suns aren't like an old lion, but they've traded everything like most old lion teams have. And they have an all-time legend in Kevin Durant.

The Clippers are the ones among them who A, maybe have the most at stake of all these teams and B, the only one among them for a prolonged period of time, 30-something games, demonstrated a championship level of consistency. I think they were 26-5 over 31 games after the initial anti-honeymoon with Harden when they couldn't do anything. And that was when Ty Lue said...

A quote that I will continue to cite as one of the most incisive quotes of the season from any coach, as simple as it is, trying to diagnose why the Clippers were 0-5 with Harden, said we can't walk around on offense. Since that 26-5 stretch, they are under .500 by a game or two. I can't remember exactly what the record is at this point, but it's not good.

Part of that is Russ has been out of the lineup for a prolonged period of time and everyone else has missed two games here, three games there. Literally everyone has missed two games here, three games there. And so they're playing P.J. Tucker. Suddenly Bones Highland exists. Suddenly they're playing P.J. Tucker with the traditional center and Russ. That's never going to work. There's no shooting. They've lost something.

They've lost a pop and a flow and a rhythm that they had in that 26-5 stretch. This is never going to be the most dynamic offensive team. They have three guys, two guys really, who've always thrived playing one-on-one and controlling the ball and controlling the offense. Paul George can play any number of style, any kind of style.

But they found the right blend of like, all right, we're going to start with a hardened Zoo pick and roll. And Zoo's play has not been the same since he had a little quick stint out of the lineup. And that's kind of a big deal because I don't – they need to trust Zoo. And if they don't trust Zoo to play heavy minutes, the whole conception of the team –

Kind of falls apart. But, you know, hard and zoo pick and roll. Okay, maybe that gets zoo a dunk. Maybe that gets hard and a step back. Maybe it kicked the ball to Kawhi over here. Kawhi gets to attack a catch and shoot three, attack a closeout. Or we transition into a Kawhi whoever two-man game that gets him a mismatch. There was just more pop and flow running when they had the chance to run.

When they even just running their sets and you still see them do it, like they'll run their sets where we're just going to run a cross screen into a pin down screen. You got to run that with force. You got to run them fast. You got to hit the screens hard and you got to sprint off of them. And sometimes they do that. And sometimes they don't. When they don't, they're just relying on their talent and that's not going to win them two and three playoff series. When they do it with force, it's still...

Like predictable. And that's okay. The Clippers don't have like a lot of randomness in their offense, which they could use. But they just need whatever flow and chemistry they had, they've lost it. And I think it's tempting to just say, well, they can just flip a switch. They're a veteran team. They're all...

deep, deep playoff experience at the top of the roster. They know how to play. They have proof of concept in that 30-whatever-game stretch. They'll turn it on. I hope so because it's been a while now. In fact, it's been about as long in mediocrity as it was playing championship-level basketball. And that Sixers win...

which required so much luck and so much toughness at the end of the game was not encouraging to me in that sense. And they've got to get it together because they're staring at New Orleans in the first round and at home court in that series is kind of up for grabs and New Orleans has been playing great. And after that, it doesn't get any easier depending on how the matchups flow.

Clippers have a lot at stake and everyone's kind of a lot of people have kind of parked them over here. You know, they're not the sexiest team to talk about even with their stars. They're not the Lakers. They had this run where everyone kind of banked like, okay, that's the team. I don't know. I don't like the way they're playing. I still think if you ask me Nerf gun to the head to rank,

The Western Conference teams, who's number two in terms of actual threat to win the conference behind Denver, who's been my pick the whole season. I still think I would pick the Clippers just because that stretches in my head. But I'm much less convinced of it now, especially I'm looking at the standings, especially with Minnesota's play without Towns. The Thunder continue to play so well. The Pelicans continue to play well. Dallas is rising up.

I don't know. I just... Doris had to go and I had some Clippers thoughts. I didn't like... I haven't liked the way they've been playing. I think their defense hasn't been the same. Harden's defense has slipped a lot. He came and for 20, 25 games was like, I'm buying in. I'm all in. And it hasn't been there. Maybe it's just...

You know, Ty Lue is playing, I think, more lineups where it's just one of Harden, PG, and Kawhi on the floor. I think that's going to need to be two almost all the time when the games really matter. Hasn't been enough of Terrence Mann lately. I just feel like he's just a...

a jolt of energy for them all the time. It feels like they're searching a little bit more than I'd like them to be searching on March 28th. That's all. Okay. That concludes this rambling end of the low post podcast. Thank you to Doris Burke, the hall of famer, the one and only we will talk to you soon. Enjoy the March madness and a weekend of NBA basketball. For the first time, Monday night football streams exclusively on ESPN plus.

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