Five Big Questions as Spurs-Thunder Hits Reset. | Group Chat

Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Varyer and joining me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle Mann, Brighton Early on this Memorial Day. Happy Memorial Day. Are you looking for some leaf blowers, Rob? Like, what do we got going on here? How are you celebrating? Not by buying a leaf blower. You know, not all of us can flex our property owning privilege like you can't Justin. It may be nice for you out there, but the rest of us are just scraping by. We're just trying to make ends meet. I have a leaf blower. Justin, you have one as well. Are we in the club? I bought a corded one. So when you're at the plug and into the wall, and I've regretted it ever since. Well, in your yards, that's small. You can probably get a wire. I don't at least an extension cord. I tell you guys, hey, man, your money goes further out here in Louis. We're more space here. I would say that. But I also am of the mind of like, you know, selling the virtues of life here. But also, I kind of like when people talk trash because then that means they won't come here. That's what I was going to say. So I'm all about that. You're keeping Louisville. When people go and shit on it, they're just like, oh, Louis, I'm like, no, it's fine. Don't come. We like it. We like it. Chill here. We don't want to turn into Nashville. We're not interested in that. But I was going to say Memorial Day is this funny thing. It has it in common with, you know, like Labor Day or Fourth of July, where I go through this annual cycle of realizing I want a grill on those days. And they're not thinking about it. The other the rest of the year. And then going off full calendar and coming back and be like, man, it'd be nice to grill today. But well, I don't know that we're ever going to break out of that cycle. Well, this is the difference between you and me, Kyle, is I have reached a point in my life where I spend 80% of my waking moments wanting a grill. So it's just, it's just a constant background thought. And today it is unfortunate that I have to confront it more over early. But, you know, we'll figure out a way to get some wings or hot dogs or burgers going in our own right. It just may take a little maneuvering. So what are you doing steady? You got like a hot plate situation going. I mean, I do, I do have a grill pan, but it's not the same. No one can pretend it's the same. Well, speaking of being char broiled, we got to talk about the Cleveland Cavaliers a little bit later. But first we got to talk about the big old series that is now tied to two spurs thunder. But first, let's take a break. The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Fandall. The conference finals are here. Think you know how it'll go down. Take your shot with Fandall and get closer to the action. Fandall is the best place to bet the teams players and plays during the NBA postseason. Build a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout or try live betting and jump into the action after tip off. Download the Fandall sports book app now and play your game. 21 plus select states 18 plus DC can tuck your Wyoming gambling problem call 1-800 gambler call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. All right. We're broadcasting to you live to tape. Monday morning after a big game for so we have a chance now to reset. I feel like we've gotten lucky of late every Monday or every couple Mondays. It's been like the end of a round. We get a chance to do some variables action. But right now we have just a blank slate in spurs thunder. Three games to decide this whole thing. Rob, how you just feel in general about this entire series? Which is like your big picture of you of what's going on here. A little bummed I think as many of us are by some of the injury specifics. But overall lived up to my expectations. It's been a super fun series to watch. We're seeing just like the challenging and ascendance of some of the great stars in the game. I don't know that you can ask a lot more of a conference final than this, especially when you flash across to the east and you see everything that sometimes a conference finals can be as far as like how how quickly and unceremoniously some teams get dismissed. Yeah. We're seeing on the other side how bad it can be like Rob is saying, but there are a ton of different storylines going on. It's just fun to see this team. This defending champ be met with these problems that they're being met with. You know, the ascending wind media, the ascending Stefan Castle, who was, you know, we'll talk more about him, who was forged in the fires of hell, that guy, that demon. I was struck last night watching the speed and the athleticism of this game. And it kind of flashed me back to like 2010, 2011, OKC. That's what it most reminds me of in terms of like the young athleticism that's ready ahead of schedule. It's like this spurs team really does remind me of that Harden Westbrook Durant thing. And it's kind of a one to one analogue in an interesting way, except the Durant in this situation is seven foot four, seven foot five. Yeah. Well, it's funny. Yeah, because we don't ever have the whole like, well, it'd be Russ or Harden with any of the guards going on with the spurs. Perhaps you moved along. But right, maybe we just haven't gotten to that point yet. I'd like to believe that perhaps we're more evolved as a discourse. But if anything, we're probably the exact opposite. We're worse than ever. But I have five big questions on the docket for you guys as we kind of turn the page reset and kind of look forward. Just before we dive into the questions, I need to understand your mind. Like what to you separates a capital B capital Q big question from a variable. Just the appropriate framing. It's just marketing a little bit. Yeah. No, I would say variables tend to be specific themes or bigger picture sorts of things. These are just like questions that are about the series and associated questions as we've learned along the way. One's maybe like a 10,000 foot view. One's more of like a 10 foot view. You know, 10 foot view. I thought we're at least getting up in the air a little bit. We're at least like a drone. Well, for us, 10 feet is a lot. We're not all seven two over here, buddy. You know, it's a point. I was trying to think last night when we were watching the game because there was a play where Wimby had like a really casual dunk where he didn't jump. And I was like, what's the height of the basketball goal? Because that it would have to be for me to operate the Wimby does. And I was like, is it a seven foot? Because I was like, I think it's seven feet. My friend was like, dude, if you put your arms in the air, it's like, you know, you're going to get to seven feet. I was like, it still might be seven feet. I got it. I don't really have a problem bigger. I definitely had that thought process during the game last night. So it's hanging on the net too. I'm always like, is that a casual hang on the. Yeah. That was like, what on earth? It's just a flex. You know, it's just a, you know, a little reminder that, hey, I'm out here. I am indeed this tall. This is this easy for me. Right. He does it with the ease of someone who's like taller than someone and they put their arm over their, their head and rest on it. Just like kind of big boy them. That was me with the two of you as we did all of our group chat, like promotional photo shoots. That was an awful day. I never considered the they asked for it. They demanded that I do that to the two of you. So maybe they big boys and more than I did. Could we not get some like force perspective? Justin I should have insisted on some like Peter Jackson, like, you know, let's make some happening make it. Let's, let's even it out a little bit. It was just, that was, I never considered the leg extension surgery until that day. That was I thought about it briefly or at least get like the De Niro shoes. Like do you remember the scenes from behind the scenes of the Irishman and they were all wearing like 10 foot platforms in order to be the same size. Anyway, all right. Five big questions. Big ones. Not just normal ones as Rob is alluding to. First and foremost, other than star power. So we're going to talk about Wendy. We're going to talk about Shay, but I'm talking about anything beyond that. What's kind of going to be determining this series? Like one word for it. I'm actually going to nominate myself here. Can I go first? Please. Because I do think a lot about depth. Just in general, both with the series, but also with the thunder in their kind of run over the past couple of years. So even in this game, before it got to garbage time, they played 11 guys. And that's without J Dubb without AJ Mitchell. They have played their most used lineup. This playoffs only has 70 minutes thus far. And we're already in midway through the conference finals. It is at times like their biggest strength. And I have to wonder if we're looking for counters, which we'll do later, like what can Mark Dagnall go to? There are a lot of options here in order to figure things out. And so I have faith that the thunder can figure something out still. On the other hand, this is the first game I felt like the depth just wasn't enough. And perhaps what they actually needed was some of those more traditional star qualities because they lacked J Dubb. They lacked AJ Mitchell and all of a sudden, they single guard SGA. And they put a little bit more emphasis and guarding some of the kickout shooters and everything else. And all those guys seemed a little bit more pedestrian and you're wondering where is this big old next wave going to come from? Where is the help going to come from for SGA? More of a typical like conversation around a star who isn't meeting our expectations. And I mean, we can make this a check conversation. We can make this a bunch of different ways around. But overall, I'm thinking depth, like will this be a strength for the thunder or have the spurs found away to almost play it to a point where it isn't enough because they have the horses in order to come on top of this? Yeah. I mean, I think the thunder probably have more guys they can play just like period than any other team in the league, like more good NBA players who you could throw into the playoffs and feel fine about their minutes. But do they have enough of the right things? And this kind of alludes to what you're mentioning there, Justin, where it's like do you have just like the sufficient ball handling and secondary creation and like the exact skills that's you're missing with JW and AJ Mitchell not out there. That's so much harder to replicate. And it's particularly hard to replicate if you don't have the kind of flow and movement and like drive and kick rhythm that the thunder often rely on. And that's where single covering Shay isolating him and like really zoning out a lot of those shooters and a lot of that flow that the thunder would be getting into. I mean, it just kind of strangled the life out of what OKC was trying to do. And so I agree with you that there are a lot of different levers to pull. But none of them really say like, hey, give this other guy the ball a bunch. Like these just aren't really players who are conditioned or who are really even have the skill sets to handle that kind of thing. Yeah, I think it's the star thing, but it's exacerbated by the schematic stuff that St. Antonio did from games three to four. It's been talked about a lot. It's not that they stopped helping entirely on Shay. It's like, you know, Mitch talked to Mitch Johnson. We're on a first thing basis. Mitch does talk a lot about showing bodies, but not overcommitting. And I think it was pretty apparent with the way that they played in the gaps in between their guys in the corner and Shay. I mean, in game three, I went through and screenshoted a bunch of these where, you know, Shay would be in whatever it was like a dribble handoff and he comes around the corner. And there's somebody, there's one person in the corner, whether or not that's, you know, it would vary. Obviously because they have so many dudes, but it might be McCain. It might be Jalen and Jalen Williams. And you know, Arkansas Jalen Williams, that is. But they weren't sitting like, there were plays where like champagne would be all the way over into the gap, like stationary waiting for him at the elbow or be castle or whatever it was. It's like they were playing back a little bit more and not getting there as early. So not giving Shay that option, which is putting those guys, when you're catching the ball with a guy who's doing a shorter closeout on you, you kind of need to have more of a like, all right, that first shot is not there initially. And I have to kind of go have a little bit of boogie off the dribble and make something happen. I think that stress, that spot is where not having AJ Mitchell, not having Jaydub. Those are the two guys that Kason can give you a little bit of that. Those are the two guys that kind of have like multifaceted skill sets. Like they can dribble past shoot, make something happen. And when you have, you know, a guy, you know, some of those later guys like Adort or a Kason, you're just seeing the strain of that a little more. You're seeing like Jalen Williams take shots that aren't as open. You're seeing chat take shots that aren't as open. I think it's putting a strain on those guys who aren't there and making it obvious how much they missed those guys. As much as Jeremy Kane's been a revelation, I think health has just been such a huge thing tying it to the depth for OKC. - And a lot of that help you're talking about Kyle. Like that's that strong side corner kind of cheating into the gaps, which is, you know, historically, the spot you don't want to help off of that you don't want to over commit from. And yet, I think the combination of the spurs being such a good closeout team when they do gamble and edge into Shay's space a little bit. And also some of the shooters you're talking about, not only not having the sufficient level of boogie as you put it to attack the basket there, but a lot of them have a little bit of wind up to their shots too. Like Jalen Williams, Jay Will, is a very good shooter, but like many bigs, it takes him a sec to kind of load that thing up. And so you can, if you are champagne, you can recover back in time, right? If you are one of these spurs help defenders, you can close that. - Should he blocked him? Should he blocked it? - Yeah. - You know, Julian Champeni, not the best, like, go to stopper in the world, but man, he's had some amazing help side blocks at the rim, closing out to guys in the perimeter. Down to a man, the spurs are just really good at their collective managing of all of these, oh, they're kind of supplementary thunder threats on the floor. - Yeah, I know everything starts with when me being on the floor there, and he creates so many advantages, defensively for everybody else, just purely by standing there in the paint. But this is the first time I was marveling at the rest of the defense, and in particular, it's the Fond Castle. Like, everything was just so frenetic and chaotic for the thunder in a way that it hasn't been this series. And Castle, in particular, just like his defense overall, just marveling at that. He just has that rare combination of physicality, but also like, he marries the sort of intuitive sense he has offensively with his playmaking and his passing to his defense to the point where it's almost like, you're watching him mirror SGA and like beat him to spots, and because he's so physical and athletic, like he's able to do so much, and it's just like, to get that from a guy that you're counting on so much on both ends, it's just like, few teams have this advantage. It's just like, it's like watching Case and Wallis, but also having like a different player offensively out there. And so, I mean, if they're able to guard like that, going forward, this seems pretty difficult. - It doesn't really difficult. I mean, especially because the thunder shooters, in that alignment, just were not ready for the trickle down pressure that comes with having to make shots in tighter spaces, on faster timing, out of their normal rhythm. And that wasn't just the borderline guys. You know, like the Lou Doritz and the Case and Wallises who we usually talk about, even Chets kind of in that category, but even their good shooters weren't hitting against that level of kind of, I want to say pressure, but that kind of implies the hard doubling. And if anything, it's more of like a stay-at-home philosophy that is just making it harder to get any daylight for the thunder at all. But I suspect we're all going to circle around the same kinds of ideas as far as like, what is the defining factor in the series going forward? To me, death is a huge part of it. I had written down a trition just about like, how these teams are dealing with who is hurt, who is limited, who is available to go and who isn't. Again, kind of a similar idea, but really, the Spurs capacity to have Deer and Fox out from the start of the series, steal a game while he was out, how Dylan Harper leave the series and get both of those guys back quickly enough and in time. And with the confidence and quality of play that San Antonio has had every step of the way, I mean, that's a tremendous win. And then when you look at the other side of the ball, so much is going to be asked of Shay from this point forward. And having Stefan Castle not have to be the only guard on the floor where he's racking up turnover after turnover and guarding Shay for the full game, has unlocked him to be an even more like full balls to the wall defender against Shay in the first place and moderate what he's doing on the other side. So it's just, San Antonio has a healthier balance in part of because, in part because of who's available. And I don't know how the thunder really can fix that other than, you know, AJ Mitchell is going to be back when he's back and Jaydeb seems like it might be a longer timeline. I don't know if we're going to see Jaydeb again. I'm kind of wondering because of the fits and start to your man. It's like he came back and just went right back out. There's a lot of Jaydeb stuff in terms of like him being a scale to key for their lineup flexibility that we can get into, but I think we're all kind of circling the same thing, which is Rob, you said moderate. And I think that that, you know, the spurs have had the luxury to sort of moderate in a way where, you know, I was pulling up a one screenshot that I took here, tying into a couple of different things. You're like the speed of the shooting and things like that. The fact that they can toggle Devin Vaselle on to Shay a little bit too helps, helps castle at times where he's just not burning like a ton of calories having a guard, Shay, just every single possession. There was a play where Shay is attacking Vaselle towards the strong side corner. And you had Jared McCain on the wing. And then you had Chet in the corner. And castle is doing what we were talking about. He's playing in kind of center field, playing free safety. And he knows that he's playing off. He's not committing to the elbow like just sitting there, like showing them that kind of triangle that they were showing. Shay, when he would turn the corner, it'd be like the guy guarding him. And then just two people at the elbows. He knows that Chet shot is so slow that he can play off of him and have a longer closeout. But he was kind of, and then playing up and kind of mirroring the way that Jared McCain was playing because McCain could shoot the ball so much faster. So that's a really helpful thing for them. And then just overall, I mean, transition, man. I mean, they just, they really, really killed them in transition with this approach because the tougher shots means that they're missing more of them, which means that they're getting out in transition. 14 more transition attempts in this game for San Antonio. And they were just, they were hellians, man. I mean, the athleticism in this game was like making me feel fatigued just watching it, like it really, it's something else. Like it's one of the more athletic defensive like performances that I can remember. I don't know what you guys. Right, and then on the flip side, if the thunder aren't generating those transition buckets, they're not creating turnovers and castle has definitely limited those, especially coming from the, what was it? Like the NBA high of 20 over the first two games. Like it makes it a little bit tougher. And that's the problem with the thunder overall, where it's just like you have a lot of role players that excel so much at doing the things in between all the star play. Really, what they need is star play at this point. If Shay is going to be limited or bottled in the way that he was in this game. And so I ultimately think this is probably circling his back to chat, where it's just like, I know he's so good in so many different things. And defensively, he matters so much to this team. But you really need someone to fill that jade of void because I think Kyle is right. Like this is typically when you would just kind of hope that he steps up and as he did in the last postseason. But I'm just looking for like where the advantage are for him offensively. It's like the three ball has completely disappeared. He was shooting well this postseason going into this matchup. Isn't right now. I think he's only made one the past three games at the basket. Just like kind of a non factor because I think he's almost like he's typically used to having certain advantages. But now when he's there and it's just like he has more advantage on all the things he's typically good at. And then it's like kind of like he shell shocked a lot of the times. He seems to be I guess. So if I had to play Wembee, yes, I would definitely be shell shocked. But I would hope him someone who's kind of cast himself as sort of a foil to Wembee, you would come up. to this matchup, but it almost feels like he's kind of wilting in the face of consistently being like turned away in this sort of thing. And so I don't know, I just don't really know how to get him activated because I just don't see where the advantage is live for him against Wembee at this point, especially if he's going to not have that same sort of aggression that Wembee typically meets this matchup with. Yeah, it's really tough. I mean, I think for someone like Chad, just on a mechanical level, his best way of kind of creating an advantage of creating any kind of open shot, almost all of them depend on him like using a spin in some way or another either kind of like a half spin from like the elbow into a little turnaround or around the basket kind of like temporarily blinding himself to go on the other side of the rim or whatever it may be. That's of is so dangerous with Wembee and you can see Chad in his own head every time he has to turn away from where where Victor Webanyama is. If he has any hope of getting a shot up, the combination of having the slow three point release that we've talked about, he can't get to that mid range game. He is smothered inside, as you said, JV, and doesn't enjoy the same advantages there. It's just a really bad matchup for him. This is one area where he's going to need over time some more reliable faceup threat that can't be taken away by a defender like a Julian champagne sized wing. He doesn't really have that right now. It's one thing if you're going to be matched up with Victor on every possession and that is the case often enough, but he has to have something he can go to against wings who are checking him that doesn't feel so easy to neutralize just by this level of physicality. That's unfortunately where he is right now. Well, it's the quality of the ball pressure obviously is really, really stepping up here. If you look at a certain type of matchup, like a certain type of five, Chad does really well against the Aitens and the Osso Wigidoro, so it gets like that he does well against Luke Cornett. I don't know if it's like you stagger him more with Cornett and try to get him attacking and that, but he gets the Lakers, I mean, the average 20 and 10, one and a half steals, one and a half blocks, 60.8, field goal percentage and 38% from three, 38 and a half percent. I don't want to begrudge him that half percent there, but and there are two losses in this series though. He was two for seven and three for eight. I think in general, I saw a couple of different instances where he could have been a more aggressive cutter. There was that 45 cut, which is just further that the, you know, not where you do the diagonal across the elbow, basically the 45 degree angle where he just kind of waited and would typically see that as a spot-up opportunity, maybe it just means he's more aggressive attacking those situations where the defense has shifted and there's an opening and he just applies himself more. I mean, I'm assuming we all saw the, the Shay clip where there's the comically long. I had to go back and watch it to make sure that it wasn't created like because there's a lot of editing trickery. Damn, Shay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, at the post game press conference like, what can you do to get chat involved again? He kind of hemmed a nod, right? I don't even know that he hemmed. He didn't even get to the hemming in high. He was just fully silent, you know, which I appreciate. We appreciate any player who takes a beat to like really think about their answer, but I think the taking of the beat is indicative of this series of it. It's like, what do you do to tap into this almost purely off-ball score in a series where all of that connectivity feels gone? Yeah. I haven't, I mean, he had three field goals made in two of them or putbacks. And I think a lot of those opportunities come when when he gets out of position. And so like, perhaps you could be a little bit more like advantageous there and like look for that, but it does really narrow him in a way that you would hope wouldn't be the case because he has so many other things to offer there. And so I don't know, Kyle, do you see ways to get him involved more or I guess to ask you the same question they asked, SGA, like, you could chat more involved in that. Let me answer that for Shay. Yeah. I think what's, what is really problematic here is that a lot of the hypothetical things that we have gotten excited about with chat have always been this just extra icing that has never been like, okay, chat, we need you to do this shit now. Like it's always been, if chat does this, if you just think about the way that we've talked about the Thunder the last couple of years, it's like, oh, show it a little bit, a show it a little bit of a boogie off the dribble there got to his, you know, his spin his turn around got to the room, things like that. It's like, those things never truly ascended to we're depending on these things all the time. And I think J. Dubb took pressure off of him in that way in those lineups where if J. Dubb's catching in the corner, he absolutely can flow into a pick and roll or attack or get to his dribble pull up or get to the room, whatever it is. It's just that chat has never, it's never graduated from hypathy, not to be too scientific about it. Hypothetical to theoretical or, you know, I guess the law would be the last to place to go with that. No, I just, I think that's part of the problem and I don't really know. I don't like him operating like at the elbow, like trying to create his shot. I don't think that's going to work as the Spurs have great length and they're very bouncy. I don't, I don't really see like there being like a self creation button that they're going to be able to push in this series. Like I don't, do you guys, I mean, I don't. I don't. I mean, Chet, like for all the reasons we've just laid out is not a, oh, he just needs to be more aggressive type of score. It's not what he's built to do. It's not what his primary value is. It's not what his secondary and tertiary value is. Like, maybe he'll become that kind of player in time. I think the best thing they can do for him is find other ways to stress out this version of the Spurs defense. Now that the Thunder kind of know what they're walking into in terms of the defenders kind of staying home on some of these shooters, what Shay is going to be seeing. How do you unlock all of your off-ball movement, all of your, all like all of your kick out? How do you get momentum within this offense again? Because that's where Chet scoring is going to come from. And a lot of this is like the way all of these problems compound, right? It's like if, if Shay isn't able, if he's a little bottled up, if he's not getting into the pain and making the Spurs freak out with any consistency, not only are you not getting the kick out shots to the good three point shooters that result from that, but you're not getting some of those offensive rebounding opportunities you mentioned, Justin, because when B doesn't have to hard commit in the first place because, because Shay is kind of stifled in the lane before that's even necessary. So you need a little bit more movement. You need a little bit of like, this is where I think even having someone like Alex Caruso in the game more as a trigger man to have Shay moving off the ball, activating in different ways that may force the Spurs to overreact could be really helpful for them. Jason Wallace can do some of that too. Like they have enough guys who can initiate plays so that Shay can attack counter intuitively that hopefully you can unlock something from that. Can I attack something on that? Sure. Some to two though that's interesting is that they're trying to do this thing where they're blending Shay into actions where they're shuffling him into the deck where it goes so much. I think that what an advantage the Spurs have is that they're like, we know that you're just disguising something to get to the same place it essentially. And you saw this a couple times where they're running the high post thing and using Hardstein as the trigger guy. And he's sitting there and the Spurs are like, can we just cut the shit? We know that you're just trying to run Shay across a dribble handoff here. And he sat there for a second and castled back to at them and was going the other way. It's just like, I think that dynamism not to bring it back to Jada again. It's just like, if you're mixing in this approach, which this team is not somebody that it's not a team that typically runs through the high post a whole lot, the way that the nicks want to or the way the nuggets do or whatever it is. It's like they're missing dynamism or just options out of that. It's like in this Spurs clearly don't respect it. And then you have Wimby back there who can zone off of it. So they're going to have to find ways to have more options out of that because if they're just going to try to like run, run to dummy action, force it to Shay, that's predictable. And that's, that's, that's tough for the Thunder. The NBA playoffs are here and everything's on the line. Every possession matters. Every bucket swings the game. And tonight is your shot to boost your bet. That's right. All customers get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win hits bigger and Fandall is giving you better payouts on same game parlay's all NBA playoffs long. So looking ahead to tonight's game for In Cleveland, the nicks are down at minus two and a half. I got to be honest, even though a sweep is unlikely at the stage of the playoffs, I don't really have much faith that the calves can generate enough enthusiasm in order to bounce back in this one. So just give me the nicks minus two and a half in a sweep, the nicks go on to the NBA finals. How exciting. Back in your bets, boost your odds and make the playoffs pay off with Fandall official sports betting partner of the NBA at defandall.com/RingerMBA to get started, Fandall, play your game. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC can tuck your Wyoming opt in required bonus issued as none with drawable profit boost tokens gambling problem called 1 800 gambler call 1 8888787777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Well, we haven't talked about when be so let's talk about them now. I have down here question number two, believe it or not, this is only the second question. Is when be already the best player in the league? I think it's the question we've been asking at the very least for half a season, maybe this entire season. We're going to do a new top 100 rankings at the end of the finals and so it's something I've been thinking about, especially in this series because I think that kind of the task is either Shay or when be at this point and in good thunder performances, you want to lean towards Shay just to give him that sort of nod, obviously he won a VP and like, if you're the team on top, it's hard to go against that, right? But when when be has performances like this where he basically shuts down the game at half time or just a little bit after that and you see like the both sides sort of like Just the way he warps things. just by purely being out there, it seems kind of an arguable. I keep coming, this is the internal monologue in my head in most of these games, Robert. It's just like, well, I want to give Shay the credence because of like all this other stuff that he's done, the résumé and all this other stuff, but also when he's just kind of an arguable at a certain point. I'm going through the same mentor exercise. I think a lot of us are. I, in general, defer almost always to like, who are the guys we've seen do it? Who have proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt, who have gone on the championship runs, who have like the true bonafides to compare to, you know, the aspiration, the potential of the great young stars who are coming up in the league. Victor Webinyama just like takes all of those sorts of maxims and like throws them in the trash. Just like, he's a different kind of player. He's a different force to be reckoned with. And I think I'm at this point where I feel comfortable saying that he's the best player in the world. I feel I feel pretty convinced of that fact, despite all of my misgivings, despite all of my hesitations. And I feel more comfortable saying that off of game four than I would have off of game one, where it's very easy to come off of 41 and 24 and be like, holy shit, this guy's the best player in the world. I think the way you earn that title, the way you, you really rested away from someone like Shay or Nikola Yokech or whoever you thought the best player was, is by the way you respond and the way you adjust over the course of a series to prove that you are an undeniable force versus a guy who can come out and have a great game one. Lots of lots of young players can do that kind of thing, can be dominant for a game. What does it mean by the mid series mark where we're seeing role players kind of played out of the rotation for both sides. Shay tested in ways that he wasn't out of the gate. It's just, it's already a completely different competitive enterprise by game four. And here's Wembee having yet another dominant performance and doing it in a way that like, we haven't really seen for a very long time in terms of a player who doesn't have the ball in his hands and is this good and has this profound impact. I would think you would have to go back at least 20 something years probably if not more to find a player who is affecting the game this much without actually controlling the ball. I think the most, the three most dominant, you know, gravitational forces in basketball. The past three have been Shaq, you know, in the 2000s, that they're the 90s and then Steph. And now I think that the next plateau here is Wembee. You're talking about him not having the ball. I mean, he, yeah, him just running to the rim or has an incredible impact. Yeah. He just, you know, we had some version of this conversation. I think when we were talking about, maybe we did like an awards check in. It might have been in February. If you all remember, I had a really interesting experience where I just posited the idea that Wembee might actually be the MVP. I had a four or just an hour from that one starting to phone off. No, it's like, is there a difference between most impactful because he's definitely the most impactful? There's no argument for that. I don't really feel like. So it's like, what is quality if not impact? Yeah. So just the way that he's, and I agree, you know, we see super about the, about the proven thing or about the, the counters thing where it's like, we see a lot of guys have, I always say that like super stars are implied offense. It's like they have this thing that like, okay, they have this thing that they're not going to beat themselves. Like, Yannis is going to get down hill. You know, Steph is going to create tough shots. It's the question is, what do you, what do you do as a superstar when that's the difference between like this guy can go get you 30 on a given night to we overloaded how do you respond? You know, that, that's what gets you to the like the MVP ranks and it's like, I think that Wimby's kind of shown that he can do that. And on, on this stage, yeah, it's, I think he's the best player in the world. I don't, I don't really see any kind of, what did you guys do when he hit that half-court shot? What was your old physical reaction? I punched someone. You punched somebody. I went like, I did like a full-blown like, you can kind of feel it coming, but yeah, I definitely hit the person next to me when he hit. Well, it almost seemed like he pulled up from like behind the line. Almost as like a test to himself. Like, he just decided because my proportions are so different. Like, this to me is the three-point line and like, he just decided to challenge himself in a weird way. It was wild. Truly. I mean, I'm just at a like a shrug and laugh point with most of the plays that he makes. Like, he had an and one alley-oop finish in which he got fouled by both Lou Dord and Isaiah Hartenschein on each arm. And it's just like, oh, no problem. Here we go. The plays that he makes routinely are just obscene of insane. He the other night, the show I missed the last one. I came home. We were celebrating my wife's birthday. We came high. Happy birthday, Megan. We came home and late at night, I like the airpods. I hope she catches this like 30 minutes into this game. Six preview pod. Yeah. She said, you know, she's a real one. I'm just gonna let you know she's not a listener. So, uh, not interested basketball. But it was like late at night and I was watching it. She's reading her Kindle. So I'm watching the game with my airpods in and there was a play where Wimby drove. Well, he does this a lot. He'll drive and kind of have like the somebody's pushing on him. He'll just kind of put it up on the glass and then a lot of times he'll go tip his own miss. Yeah. But on this particular one, he just he put it pretty high up on the glass and came back with his right hand and tipped dunked his own miss. Do you remember this play? And I did a thing where it was almost I was like the guy from the ring who like that when the girl crawls out of the TV and he like is stumbling and falling back. I like, I like this, this, you know, and to Megan, this is totally dead silent. She's sitting next to me and she and she stopped me. She goes, what made you react like that? And I was like, so she was genuinely curious. So I rewound it and played it for didn't really register to her. But she was like quizzing me on it. She was like, I mean, how many people in the world can do like what he just did? I was like, no one. I'd be maybe young. He just does things that are just beyond everything. Yeah. Well, the other part of this whole discussion is I have to stop myself at times and remember that this is his third season in the league. And it's even less than that because obviously the last season was derailed by the blood clot issue. And so like I was trying to remember like which player you would seriously consider for the best player in the league before he got to his second contract. Like there have been guys who like I've been in the conversation of like MVP and everything like we go Shirley Lebron back in the day. Like Derek Rose, I guess like when he won MVP, like there have been guys. Yes. But that would not only be the guy, but also probably not relinquish it for the foreseeable future for like potentially the next decade. And but then I also think to myself having him for the post season, we get all these nice new anecdotes about when being one of them is just like you hear all these things about how he prepared himself for this moment. There was something with like Deer and Fox where he's like, yeah, nine o'clock hits. And he has the blue light glasses on because he refuses to have screen time after a certain amount of time. I'm just like it's aspirational. This guy's like he's a freak of nature physically, but also like a freak in terms of like how he approaches this stuff. Oh, yeah. I mean, all the great players or competitive psychos in different ways. His just comes out through like over preparing meticulousness. Like and I think going outside the box of what we consider to be normal athletic like practice, right? In terms of, oh, you just get in the gym. You do these shots. Oh, you do, you know, your dribble package. You unlock these things. You get to like your one dribble moves, your two dribble moves, like the half spin, all that stuff. It's more like a CEO. Look, he is he's definitely like Jay Shetty Pilled. Like there's some there's parts of this that are like a little less appealing and there are parts of this that feel like a lot, but it's hard to argue with the results and the comprehensive way in which I mean, Kyle, you talked about the implied offense of just like having a star on the floor. The idea of someone like Victor Webinyama, who is not initiating your offense, who is not running it, who isn't even like in a honest like way, being the engine of what drives you on the ball, putting up 30 and 13 on 52, 43, 88 shooting against the fucking thunder is insane. Like this is a crazy place for all of this to end up and I don't know how you watch that on what is his worst side of the ball and think this isn't the best player in the world. It's interesting because like you're right, he doesn't do that on offense. There are no situations like consistently where all eyes are on him like a set defense all looking at him. He doesn't give you that. So if you think about like looking away from Wimbee is a perilous thing to do in the half court on offense because he's such a lob threat and then it's it's inverted on defense where it's like your eyes are always kind of wondering where Wimbee is. So I just think that kind of pulls to or that just kind of speaks to the way that he pulls and bothers you just and just and that's go go ahead. Can we play out this mental exercise a bit because I was genuinely trying to think of the last player who was this good who was like the best player in the world during contention for it who had the ball this little in terms of actually controlling it for context. And during these playoffs, Shay has the ball in his hands about seven minutes a game on average. Yo-Kitch was about six minutes a game and was about five minutes a game. Wimbee is at two minutes a game having the ball. Even Steph when the warriors were rolling even Steph when they had Kevin Durant was like at six to seven for all that he played off the ball. Genuinely, who was the last time like when was last time there was a guy this good? I wouldn't have the ball this little like but Steph isn't even close. I mean we don't have tracking data for you know like past areas and so like I was thinking shack but even then he was controlling and initiating from the post so much. Maybe Tim Duncan and that like oh five kind of range might have fit this bill just because they were trying to triangulate their offense with Monu and Tony Parker so much but genuinely you might have to go back even further than that. This may be more of like an 80s 70s 60s kind of question to find like the closest comp. Well you're you're a question before that was interesting just about player who was the best in the league before you know you mentioned Eric Rose. I don't I a lot of appreciation for Eric Rose. I don't I don't think he was ever the best player in the league when LeBron. strong. No, not our best player. Lebron, I think it's a question of like when he, when did he enter that conversation because the, he, you know, Kobe, Kobe flexes muscles pretty early there. You know, he has that finals and then he comes back Kyle. And then Kobe, at no point during Kobe Bryant's career, was he the best player in the league? It just never, it just never happened despite what the marketing they have told you. Are we doing like the Tim Duncan Kevin Garnett thing? Is that what you're talking? There was always either a shack or a Duncan, like there was all Lebron, like it was just a straight handoff of other players as Kobe was like in the top five in the top three. Oh, two or three Kobe was pretty, pretty damn good is all I'm saying. Very good. Yeah. Not the best player in the world. Nothing anyone else is going to say this entire pot is going to matter because Rob just lit this entire thing on fire. Just, just put the gasoline all over the place and just like just set us a boys. Well, I don't disagree. It's just like it's a very fraught conversation. Well, I mean, look, no one is going to have a normal conversation about Kobe Bryant ever again. Like that, that ship has sailed. It is what it is, but I'm sorry, we fully deal real from the point. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. So Lebron's 0607 season, he was 22 years old. I mean, when did, when we see definitively the best in the league? I think it's probably somewhere in that 22 to 23 year old range. I think that's what we're talking about. And it's a short list of players. Steph wasn't in that conversation yet. I mean, Jordan, I mean, we'd have to get, we did to pull that out. But I, when, when do you think Lebron was definitively the best player in the league? I think it's probably right in that span of time. It's very similar, I think. Weirdly, I think it was before he ever won the MVP. Like there, there's always that little bit of a kick where those things tend to come maybe a year or even sometimes like half a season too late before the opinion really manifests around it. But like, I do think that 0708 season might be the one. Yeah, I just remember the next year in 0809 when they won 66 games when like they were just doing those like taking photos of each other, like they were posing before every game. That was when he like clearly had it by the throat and like clearly was dominating in a way that was like unimpeachable. So perhaps like he got at some point the previous season, but it's hard to remember this point. I'm talking about over a decade or two. Jordan in, well, Jordan at 23, I think it was pretty definitive. Well, he had the foot issue when he was 22. So he might have even announced himself even early because as we know, Jordan 86, 87 average 37.1 points per game, three steals in almost five assists. So he was pretty good. But I think that speaks to what we're talking about. We're just like, okay, who are the, who are the comparisons for when they were the best player in the league? We're like in the best examples we can come up with are LeBron James and Michael Jordan. So I think that just kind of speaks to the air that we're talking about here. And we'll be so different than those guys in the in the usage, you know, that you were talking about. Well, let's flip to the complete opposite end of the spectrum here, because down at number three, I have wondering whether or not Ludoord is is long for the thunder. And now I feel bad because the thunder's postseason has become an exercise almost as like a almost like survivor, where it's like, which one of these guys is going to last fastest because we need to get rid of one of these motherfuckers in order to bring in new players. But like we talked about it up top. Like the depth is what it is to the point where the only guy that didn't get on the court until garbage time was to put you obviously is still recovering from cancer. We got to put minutes. I was I threw my hands up. Wow, it was nice. It's good to see him. But like that's without two of their regular star players. So somebody's got to go eventually. It just like Ludo seems so insularied. Everything that's going on. Yeah, it just feels like they've outgrown him. And I really like Ludoord. Seven years with a team, especially your first team in the NBA is a great run. And he has been so important to the thunder's rise. But then you get to this stage. He's not their best perimeter defender anymore. Case and wall has just made all defense over him and rightfully so. And like overall this playoff run is just kind of reinforced all of the offensive limitations that come with Ludoord being on the floor. And this isn't even bigger issue without J. Dubb without A.J. Mitchell. Like with those two guys out, Ludoord feels I don't want to say unplayable, but he feels like he comes with a lot of baggage for what he's giving you on defense. Here's I think this is the more interesting question is which team in the league could really use Ludoord. That's the most I mean, what team is close though that adding Ludoord makes it like really interesting like you look at. I was going to say the calves. Yeah, possibly that might be the answer. I mean, calves are tough just because they're over the second apron right now. And so he probably have to come, you know, minimum or something incredibly convoluted. But like think of every team that has aspirations to be anything. Like he fits the the classic like we're a playing team trying to be a playoff team or we're outside the play and trying to be a playing team. Like let's say the Wizards all of a sudden hit their hit a stride and they're just like we're a playing team. We want to be more. Well, why don't we just like not play all the young guys get Ludoord in there and all of a sudden like we're even more serious than before. He's like that classic like level up sort of guy, but to a certain extent. I mean, even, I mean, you seem like the Lakers too. Good. Obviously use him. Any anytime you're entertaining. Oh, how do we get this other wing stopper? How do we get more like either athleticism or the ability to counter athleticism? I think Ludoord is a guy who neutralizes so many athletic threats on the wing. So many like highly highly potent scores. It just so happens that the thunder right now need other things more than that. I think that would be probably the counter is just that like where do they get the real size and strength on the wing? Because a lot of the guys that are the successors of the case and while it's mold, more of just the fast speedy like just shorter guys. And so you do want someone who could be just like a big wing guard. And like as we saw in his limited run this game, like Aaron Wiggins, not really that guy. Like who would be like the the six nine big wing defender if they had to go to it? I'm sure they could just conjure someone out of the thin air. Maybe they could draft someone Kyle, but like, yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Just to keep like fully investing at this possibility though. I mean, there is an incredible value to having Ludoord and just like eating regular season minutes in particular. Like we're at the stage right now, where it's just like, oh my god, Alex Crusoe as a playoff performer is its own kind of unique weapon to deploy against basically any score on the floor, any creator on the floor. But Alex Crusoe can't do that for you two games. And case and Wallace to your point about the larger like wings that he might have to guard, I mean, I don't know that that's a good use of his skills. I don't know that there's a good opportunity there for him. Jada can kind of do a lot of that stuff. And maybe that kind of solves some of the problem. But I do think Ludoord just in terms of absorbing defensive responsibility has done a tremendous amount of good for the thunder and getting to this point. Even though once you get here, we have all of these caveats. Is that the ultimate thunder luxury that they could just be like, we'll just keep them just like, and if we don't have to play them, we don't really need to. But here's the thing is they can't keep everybody. There's a reason, as you said, Justin, that we keep having these conversations. They have three picks in his upcoming draft, including at 12 and 16. And so they're either going to have to consolidate those picks in a deal. They might consolidate those picks in a deal with Ludoord, who has a team option. Like there's a bunch of different possibilities they could kick around there. I just think they are due for some measure of consolidation, whether it's involving Dord or not. Yeah. Well, it will probably depend a lot on what happens through the series. And if they get into the finals, like if he's already, like, just hitting five, three's a game in the finals, which could happen because he has these sorts of just flashes of absolute brilliance. Like, it could be a completely different story, which probably brings us to question number four, which is what's the next counter move in game five for the thunder? We kind of talk through a lot of, is there anything you guys left on the table here? I think that maybe they should look for some more extreme options in terms of the lineups. Like, I would, I know this may seem premature. I know the thunder of a lot of reason to feel confident in what they do in the way they play. I would start Shay. I would continue to start case in Wallace as they didn't game four. I would start one of Isaiah Joe or Jared McCain, whoever you feel more comfortable with in that spot. Caruso at the four, Chad at the five. I just think the heart and shine door in the starting lineup with case in Wallace with Chad who can't create that's way too much pressure on Shay. Like, you need guys who can handle the ball. You need guys who can create any bit of space. And if you're going to open up any offense, like, this is sort of the only blueprint to do it within what the thunder have right now. Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit of a trade off, right? Because you're, you're really putting yourself into a position where the vertical threat of Wimbee and those lineups is going to be even more of a problem. Oh, it's terrifying in that respect. But, you know, what else is terrifying? Like trying to replicate what you just did in which you had one of the worst offensive performances in your playoff history against this spurs defense and just expecting something different to happen. Yeah, the tweaking of the health there. We needed just to tack on something from what we were saying earlier. Jalen Williams, Alex Crusoe and Jared McCain gave you 57 points in game three. And that adjustment that they that this burst made really, really dwindled that down. I was kind of in the same ballpark. I mean, I talked some of my chat talking points earlier, but it's it's going to involve him in some capacity, whether that means he's enabled more or he's off the court more. I'm kind of leaning towards maybe what you're saying here, Robert. It's just like if the, if the quandary of like of Wimbee's rim pressure is already at a point where it's like we're just, we're not really making a huge dent in it, making just crowding him. I've said that there's no really, there's no real fighting. fire with fire with wimpy because nobody is his size. Nobody can match up with him. It's just like, we're having to go to unconventional means. We're gonna crowd the catch. We're gonna get under and we're gonna bother him. You just lean into more of that stuff and then force them to play your style more. That's, if you're not gonna have J-Lin Williams, you're not gonna have AJ. I think you're forced to go to, you're not abandoning your identity so much as you're forced to get innovative here. And this is what really good series do. I'm glad I was bummed the last game because I told Rob, I was like, I feel like I wanted this series to go long and the adjustments. I was like, man, I kind of feel like it's gonna go five now or something. And the fact that Harper and Fox came back, I feel like it's gonna go longer. But overall, I think it's gonna, it's gonna come down to like how they use Chet whether or not they, you know. - What if they just had Heart and Stein do a push shot for every single possession? Like because the most effective shot they have going for them, just only push shots in the way that like an option offense in College Football only runs the ball, just only push shots. - I mean, so you just want them to be like Army's offense like historically always does so well, you know. Just pure run game. That was really the moment for me where it was like, the game opens eight straight minutes in which Isaiah Heart and Stein is the Thunder's only offense because the flow is kind of like taking the ball to him. Like that is the open spot. - Right. - Great for him to knock down those shots, a huge red flag that is kind of where the offense is leading, possession after possession after possession. It speaks to the way the spurs are playing the gaps, the way they know how to cheat off of just the right guys, but not over commit to the double in the process. I just think like you have to really, really shake things up offensively, including acknowledging the fact that Isaiah Heart and Stein, you've done a really solid work in this series, especially since game one, but you just can't be on the floor that much. If J. W. and AJ Mitchell aren't gonna be available, like I, I think it was very easy to come out of game four and think like, okay, you know, the thunder got bottled up, she had a really tough night in terms of the coverage as he was seeing and not grasp like the magnitude of how bad the thunder were from the field, creating literally anything at all. Like if you want to compare what the thunder just did to who the nicks are, Jalen Brunson could literally punt every third possession into the stands and they would have scored more than the thunder scored last night. So a lot needs to change. A lot needs to kind of be unburdened for the thunder to be a viable playoff offense against the spurs front. And I don't, I just didn't, I don't know how you're gonna do that with Heart and Stein and Dord out there. - Yeah, I mean, the Brunson part of it we can get to, but with the, when he made those floaters to start the game, I mean, Wimby was just flat out neglecting him at first and you solve what his impact does where Wimby was like, all right, I'm gonna take one step towards Heart and Stein. When you take in one step for Wimby is, I can't imagine what that must feel like and look like, but the arc that you're having to put on, I mean, it's like touching the moon when it comes down, it's ball's part got some frost on it. I like, yeah, that's the impact of Wimby just taking one step towards you and contesting a shot. It makes it that much more different. And he just took it away. - All right, we're already circling the Nick. So question number five of the big questions. So the big five questions, who are the next root and four? Presuming that they're gonna not just completely blow a 3L lead. It's gonna be Nick's versus somebody. Who would they rather see? - I think that's a safe presumption. As disrespectful as it may seem, I think they would be rooting for the Thunder because they would be rooting for the more depleted team. If we're operating under the assumption that Jay-Dub may or may not be available, that AJ Mitchell could miss more time. And I think, tether to those ideas, what it's gonna take from Shay to get out of this series, even if the Thunder, if the Thunder do win, Shay is gonna have to go to incredible lengths against Stefan Kassel and Victor Webb Minyama, the layers of Spur's defense in order to make that happen. On the other side of it, I think you'd be pretty taxed. And we've seen what the Knicks can do to tax teams. Like the calves have just like nothing in their legs right now, and are getting completely worked by these guys. The Thunder are a different caliber of team. I'm not trying to disrespect what they do. I think it speaks more to the way that these playoffs have kind of like worn on Oklahoma City overall and especially in this series. It just feels like the kind of thing you would want in a playoff opponent as opposed to, oh, how do we adjust to maybe the best player in the world and all of the layers of help and creation that are alongside him? - Yeah, for question one, you asked like other than star power, what'll determine the series? And I said poor health. And then for question five, who are the Knicks rooting for? The answer is also poor health. I think because either one of these teams at full strength, you're talking about the Spurs. I don't know if I agree that the Spur, that the Knicks would be producing more offense than granted cats. - Well, I don't mean against the Spurs. I mean, literally in their series against the calves if J.I.L. Brooks was ejecting the ball into the stands one every three times. They would still be scoring more than the Thunder just scored. - Yeah, it's so, you just can't even, the two matchups are just so awesome. - They're wildly different. - Off balance. I think it would probably be the Thunder, yeah, to say what Robert, because I think the rim protection part of it, you're kind of porting over a similar thing where it's like so much of what the Knicks do, it relies on Brunson, the way his style of play grit and but he's five inches shorter. I think the key variable here, though, that could work for them in their favor, is that Cat and the issues of driving the ball of the quick trigger from the five spot, Cat is a little bit of a different animal there as opposed to what the problems at Chet is causing the Thunder in terms of generating offense. Cat would be able to produce in those situations in the way that he would. - Yeah, I think health probably first and foremost is probably what would dictate their wants and needs. But if like independent of that, I do wonder like, you know, the cup win might resonate just a little bit. They're like, we got these guys now. That feels like it's 10 seasons ago. At this point, especially for a young team, that's just like come up and gone into so many different places that we weren't expecting. I mean, Harrison Barnes was a starter then. You know, a lot has changed. - And now he's the enforcer. Did you like that? Sure. - He was like, time issues getting in the way. I was like, come on, Harrison Barnes. - We're doing what he can. Well, I guess that's another reason to perhaps like maybe want the spurs because it's like youth. It's one thing in the midst of like a playoff run. It's another thing in the finals fish ball, which is a little bit different. I would say attention wise, media wise, especially at MSG. Now I say that, but also he's harking back to what we just said about Wembee, like if he had been taking sound baths in order to help himself for like the concoffeinated sounds of arena like MSG since he was 12. Wouldn't surprise me. But I don't know, there's a lot there. This also like the physical like just heft of the mix is a much different challenge than the thunder and I did feel like a given trouble the spurs did in that cup game. So like perhaps that's another thing. But like, I don't know, there's stuff there you could work with if it is indeed the spurs. - There is stuff there. I just think that the matchup has changed a lot since the cup. I mean, Wembee came off the bench and that game he put like 20 something minutes. It was not a usual spurs team. And even if it were, they'd grown up a lot since then. And Victor Webinyama has changed a lot as a player since then. I would be worried if it were Nick Spurs from the Nick's perspective about, you know, they guarded Wembee with Kat and Mitchell Robinson, pretty conventionally when they've played them. That's just like asking for foul trouble for two guys who tend to get in it. And if both of them get into foul trouble, literally what else are you doing? It's like OGN and OB. Congratulations. Here's your Pogo stick. Please guard Victor Webinyama. - OG is a good history on Wembee. Very good. - He's good against most bigs. But again, it's like what we've seen from Wembee in terms of his willingness to just like go to the rim when the matchup presents itself. That feels like a transformational shift in his game. And something that I think will make life significantly harder for even an all-world defender like Annanobi. - All right, why don't we take a quick break because I do wanna talk about the East part of this despite the fact that it's already three out. - Some of us are brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever find yourself scrambling to grab that special something for a last minute party, a spontaneous date, or even that impromptu game night at home? That's when Prime's same day delivery swoops in. That essential item you thought she'd miss delivered, the plan saved, the win, secured. Because with Prime's same game delivery, you can grab it and go before the moment passes you by same game delivery, it's on Prime. Visit amazon.com/prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas, terms apply. - All right, so we're recording this early West Coast time on Monday before game four between Cavs and Nixu. As you're hearing this, the Nix perhaps have already won the Eastern Conference. Finals, but is anybody else getting a little bit worried that everyone is completely discounting the Nix or whichever team comes out of the East? Like, I agree that it probably will be Thunder or Spurs who ultimately win. So the West is the de facto title game. Having said that, I'm a little bit worried that everyone agrees to that. You know, it's like, let me stop you there. Who are we discounting the Nix? No, not in that same framing, but you would probably say Spurs or Thunder over Nix now. - I mean, I need to see who's left at the end of the series, like who's left alive. And the Nix are just going to be chilling with their feet in an ice bath for a week. - I was like, is this every accusation as a confession? Is that what's going on there, Justin? - It could be, but no, I would say that's the popular sentiment is that the West was going to produce the title. And it's actually, it's like nine, if they win tonight, it would be nine days until finals game one. because it's on June 3rd, it's over a week that they would be showing as these two other teams are just fucking hammering each other for seven games. It's more likely that San Antonio is going to be close to full strength than would we agree on that? I mean, Harper's looked a little, he's not a spunky attack in the basket. I didn't think as he was in game one, but they're more likely to be full strength than OK, see, right? We say that, but then like every quarter or so, Deer and Fox will have someone fall in his ankle in a way that looks like it's going to require amputation. And then he manages to like gut it out and play through it, but I'm just worried about all of these guys at this point. Yeah. And everyone's lying about the injury report at this point, like J. W. is like day to day and it's just like, we'll find out a couple of weeks that like he's out for six months or something. Yeah. I'm just not fast forwarding through anything that involves the next. They've been the most dominant team in the playoffs. They deserve every benefit of the doubt. They will be healthier regardless of opponent by the time they get to the finals and I presume they will get to the finals. I just think they're going to give anyone a hell of a fight. And I don't know what we'll talk picks when we get there, but they have so many answers and so many responses and the best balance of any team in this postseason. I just I see no reason to think that they couldn't win the finals, which is a crazy thing to say given where they were, you know, five months ago. Yeah. I don't know that I'd say they have the best. I think the three teams with the best balance are still playing. I don't know that I would say it's like obvious that the nicks have the most. You think it's like, it's clear that they have the most balance. I think in terms of like, who has tapped into their one through five or one through six consistently with like an equilibrium that's really, really hard to take away. I think they've done that better than anybody in the playoffs. I don't know. Perhaps this is just like Pacers PTSD kicking in where it's just like everyone's counting out the Pacers every single series and all of a sudden here they are taking the thunder of just seven games. But like, just feels like there's so much of a shift in the different direction. I'm just like, God damn, we're going to miss this again. It's going to look stupid. But to get back to the to the calves part of this, I had kind of been percolating on the belief that whichever team lost these finals probably makes the most sense from a big picture storyline for LeBron to just try to work his way to that team. The Kevin Durant. Yeah, I guess so. So it's the inverse of Kevin Durant basing all of his moves off of what LeBron just did and now LeBron doing the same thing. I just don't think like LeBron is what the calves need, especially defensively in order to fill that three spot. I also don't know how he would get there because as we alluded to before, it's very difficult as long as the calves are into that second luxury tax apron. But I just feel like he needs a place to go to. And if one makes sense, it would be going homes where you started your career and where you grew up with a team that seems that the very least is going to be in the mix next year. Am I wrong? I mean, the writing is, okay, saying the writing is not on the wall, maybe over city, but like they've been linked forever for exactly this reason. LeBron going back to the calves makes a lot of sense narratively, historically, personally for LeBron. All of that is true. I'm in agreement with you that he doesn't provide exactly what they need specifically on the wing. But part of what they need is like a little bit of an attitude adjustment to be honest with you. Like you, you watch this game three. I know these things kind of always end ugly, but like this is just dispiriting a way to go out as the calves could possibly have had in these conference finals. Like they fought so hard to get here. And they are just like bailing on possessions midway through, not competing. Didn't have like a fast break point for three quarters of that game, like just inexplicable things in terms of the balance of like effort and execution of what it takes to play high level playoff basketball. LeBron teams don't really do stuff like that. Like yes, they have internal fighting sometimes. Yes, there are power grabs. Yeah, there's like lobbying for the team to trade this guy or get this guy or whatever. But like when push comes to shove, they do tend to show up and they do tend to compete. And I don't know. I don't know if like I want to give the calves some benefit of just like they are clearly exhausted. They are clearly on like tired, tired legs after fighting way too hard. Perhaps harder than they should have had to and that's their own doing against the raptors and the pistons to get here. But just seeing the state that the team is in, it's like they need emotional leadership. And like that is something that LeBron James does really well as you saw even in that series against the Rockets. Yeah. I mean, the calves are like clearly more talented than the pistons. But I think it shows it speaks to what you're talking about that they had to work a little harder than they should have because I think the pistons had a stronger cult of personality than the calves. It's just the calves had to sort of like claw and scratch and get to that point. And I just, is LeBron going to come in and solve that for them? It would help for sure. I think there's a lot of basketball questions that you would have to ask in pieces that would have to kind of move around to make the, make it even financially possible. But yeah, I'm with you. I mean, I kind of feel like that's the biggest, that's the biggest thing that they need to fix. Like the basketball stuff, it's, it seems like they have enough talent there and granted they need to like maybe make some moves in the margins like to get their second unit better. Like some more options there just overall, but are you just going to keep kind of running into these problems if you stick with, if you stick with a team that depends on Harden and Mitchell, is LeBron going to want to come in and, and be able to fix that? I'm skeptical. I am. I do feel like Harden, you know, weird way is probably the biggest obstacle at this point. Just like the half season of Harden ended up being like what spurred them to this point, but perhaps is undoing them slowly, but surely in the postseason where it's like you can only sacrifice one older, slower playmaker is brilliant of a playmaker, both of these guys are in order to build a credible defense or just, even to just like for them to coexist along with Mitchell. And so if Harden wasn't there, I think it would make a lot of sense at this point, for a lot of the reasons you're laying out there, I think a D benefited from allowing LeBron to being the emotional leader while he was just like probably the best talent at that time. And perhaps Mitchell could have some sort of version of that obviously Kyrie on the calves had the same sort of little like run there, perhaps not as the same talent level as where AD was. But it just seems very difficult to get to, if he plays on a minimum, then maybe that's it. I just don't know where else he goes. And so I don't know, things are aligning to where like perhaps the triangulation is getting us back to where we started. And maybe it is. I mean, look, the pen on that James Harden extension, like the ink is not dry yet. It may pull almost Booser just back out. Maybe something has been agreed upon. Maybe it hasn't. Maybe it's also being negotiated. I genuinely don't know. All of which is to say, if Cleveland, Cleveland Cavaliers got the opportunity to bring LeBron James home and needed to trade James Harden in order to do it. Can you not imagine that happening? Can you not imagine like them wanting to reunite with the greatest player who's ever played in their uniform? One of the greatest players, if not the greatest player of all time. I'd pun Harden for the chance to get even older LeBron. I mean, I don't think there's any question. I agree. I think it's just difficult. Like, where's that home? Because they also can't sign and trade because then they're hardcaps. So it couldn't be like, let's say Harden opts in. They couldn't have, they couldn't sign the Lakers, sign LeBron and then trade them for each other. Right. Because then they couldn't do that on the Cav side. So it's just incredibly difficult. I almost want them to like pause the CBA in the way they did for all NBA teams, just so we can get what we want here. I don't think that's going to happen. Probably not. Anything else from this series, though? It's tough to be like, are there any counters left for the Cavs when Donovan Mitchell just looks completely spent and realizes like that there really isn't much left for him? Yeah. This series felt like it ended with the next comeback in game one. Like that was the one that the Cavs absolutely had to have. It would have been a statement win. It would have been a declaration of some of like proof of concept. Like, our defense is working to a degree where we can win games in this series and they've just fallen apart since then. But can we talk briefly about Kenny Adkinson's quote of the day? Yeah, I don't know if you guys caught this or our listeners caught this. This is a quote from Kenny Adkinson coming out of game three analytically. We've won two out of three. We're two out of the three in the expected score. If you believe in process and all that, like, man, take that later, I don't throw that on them. Editor's note, I don't know what that means. I see it from myself and I have this feeling. I can go to our analytical table and be like, man, the expected score was like one point or two, a shooting way below expected, them shooting way over even he look, he even couched this by saying, I know this is not what anyone wants to hear and he's right. It's not what he wants to hear. I also understand the value of like you want to judge your approach on the merits, right? It's not all outcome based. All of that said, you can only do that with these like these players and this team so many times. If you're, if you're looking at James Harden's career, strictly from an expected score lens, you are missing the fucking boat like, and you could do the same thing with like the Cavs role players over the course of these last several years where it's like, Dean Wade is going to have games where he can't hit a thing. Dennis Schroeder is going to have games where he loses the plot completely. The other shooters you have on the floor are even guys who are like good percentage shooters. We've seen the playoffs go absolutely quiet at a certain point. It's not just like, oh, we are not living up to the shot quality we are creating. It's like, this is who these people are within the context of what you create. And if you want to hide behind what the expected score or the expected field group. percentage, I just think there's like a real danger in this sort of like in a lab zoomed out view of your execution when the players involved performed to this standard pretty consistently in these sorts of settings. Yeah. This is just the whole buddenhozer thing kind of playing out all over again is the flip side of of drilling an analytic mindset into like the guts of who you are like as a team identity wise, where it's just like in situations like this, you want to be more beholden to the math and like what's actually playing out, but in the series, you really need to be able to turn on a dime in order to pivot to something in order to solve problems that way. And so on the one hand, I understand it on the other hand, I just, it's just not how you can operate in the best coaches we've seen are able to blur that stuff or at the very least not make it so high in the mix that it almost like becomes who you are as a coach. And it does feel like Kenny at times can kind of lose sight of that. It's almost like the whole thing where you're like, you're flying and you don't know if you're upside down all of a sudden, he seems like he gets into these modes a little too often. And whereas the opposite, we get Josh Hart in the post game say that analytics are like a, what do you say? A lay post. You can lean on it when you're drunk, but it's not going to get you home, which I think is a warping of the actual saying, right? Isn't it something about like they're illuminating, but not something else? Well, there's like a bikini there, they were, they feel a lot, but not everything I've heard. And you're like, like you haven't heard that one. Yeah. And I, that was floating around for that one's like a, a Sloan conference classic, you know, one better way to open up your slide deck than that. Sure. Sure. Yeah. And, but the other thing too is that, you know, in the playoffs, it's, you get to a certain point where I had this written down about Mitch Johnson said something similar about where he was talking, these teams get to the point where they're so dynamic that you make one adjustment. They're probably not going to just roll over and die. They're the little intrinsic things like playing harder or, you know, the, the, the Pacers proof can go a whole, you know, can do a whole lot for you. And for the calves, it seems like that extra bit of just, you know, disconnect between like man, our projected score is really good. Why didn't we win? It's kind of paints the picture of the things that we're talking about, like why they would need a LeBron James. It's just like, well, why didn't we run a little harder on that sequence? Why didn't that guy see that back cut? And he make that effort for his teammate. Those are the types of things that I think are sort of under the bikini when it comes to these types of analytical kind of conversations. Sounds hot. We didn't really even touch on the incredible visuals. I just wanted to say in the, in the game, last, a lot of lasting images. I have a pretty good screenshot of, of Shea getting up off the floor and that woman holding the Oscar trophy, she brought an Oscar trophy with her to the game to, to hate it. And then an incredible spectrum of modesty in the game last night. We didn't touch on either where it was just boob city behind, behind Mitch Johnson and then, and then we have none. So on the other side of the spectrum, the none, wow, the none is a great bit. This is like, I fucking have just sucked this entire series. Let's just call Godden. Does he? If he could help me out here. He's a legend. Great bit. Yeah. Look, you need your blessings where you can get them. Some people are out here saging the court, some people are out here bringing in the nuns. It's, it's whatever it takes at this time of year. But Kyle, I would, I really undersold your ability to thread the needle between the nuns and the cleavage. But this is why you're one of our great-think-peacers, you know, like you just, you really understand how to find the cultural pulse. It was just pretty funny to go from, we see the nuns to the, to that, and I was, I was just kind of imagining if you were, if you were really low down, kind of like TV producer, I was imagining the director in the, in the video truck just being like, all right, let's get a wide shot of the action here. Back to Mitch Johnson here, close up. Now we need a slow mo of this highlight for Wimby. Okay. Back to Mitch Johnson. Like, dude, you keep going back. I don't, it was just, it's getting to be one of the funnier bits online to me. I think it's, I think it's because it definitely was a topic of conversation with the people that I was watching the game with, they were like, man, every time it's like, what is going on? Do we have fandoahs yet on whether those women will be on a reality dating show of some kind, have their own podcast, have a, have a memoir of Book Deal maybe? Like, what else, how else can they parlay this, do you think? Plus or minus six boobs in the shot. What? What? We're at four. Are we going to six? Plus 500 and just like, mood imagery, yeah. Absolutely. Look, this is what the playoffs have reduced us to. Maybe we sit the nuns in front, that'd be the move if you're saying, you want to get around this. You just put the nuns in front of them. Hold the crossup, you know, alright, why don't we cut it there? We'll be back on Wednesday. Thank you to Victoria Valencia, doing double duty today. We appreciate it. We'll talk to you next time. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas, Sarcassino, or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming, gambling problem called 1-800-Gampler or 1-800-MyReset, call 1-888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Help us here, visit gamblinghelplinema.org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8 hope-NY, or text hope-NY in New York, Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.