Fiery Bursts In The First Round (w/ Run The NBA) | Bullony Basketball – S 6 Ep 28

Fiery Bursts In The First Round (w/ Run The NBA) | Bullony Basketball – S 6 Ep 28

Yo, what’s going on guys? Welcome back to Bologna Basketball. As you can see, I’m here with my guy Devin, also known as Run the NBA. How’s it going? It’s going pretty good. Pretty good. Playoff ball is always a good time. Yes, sir. I know last season, you know, I had all the three-point weekly counterparts on separate, then brought you guys all back together. This season, you know, have you guys all together and then maybe one by one have you guys on separate. So, uh, you know, mixing it up there. But I think we’re going to recap the first round series. Um, we’ll just go one by one with each series. And I think we’ll start off with the Eastern Conference side of things. Um, so the one seed Cleveland Cavaliers and the eight seed Miami Heat. The Cavs steamrolled them in the last game, really most of the series other than I think game two. Um, but it was not really much of a series. So, I guess what do you make of this series here and then maybe the Heat as they go into the off season? Yeah, this was like you say it was ugly for sure. Game two gave me a little bit of hope that maybe Miami were going to be a little bit more competitive at home. Maybe they were going to be able to steal one somehow. But, uh, yeah, that that’s not exactly how it turned out to say the least. So, it was it was a rough showing for Miami. DaVon Mitchell will probably earned himself a good contract this off seasonason. I’ll give him that because he was rated in the series. He was a very lone bright spot for Miami in the series. Uh Hero was pretty good outside of game four, but after that, yeah, it wasn’t great. Hey, with Ty Smith was okay, but it it wasn’t great after that. I mean, it is what it is. Cleveland showed why they were the one seed and their death was great. Ty Jerome was great off the bench. DeAndre Hunter was great off the bench. Donald Mitchell did his thing. Max Stru had a good three-point shooting series. So they had what they do well working even with Garland missing half the series. So it’s what you expect from a 18 when you have the disparity of what is the top of the top in the east compared to what you see squeaking in through the playin in the Eastern Conference especially in what was going into the play at 10 seed on Miami. So may have been the first 10 seed to get in through the playin but uh didn’t exactly give a good showing for said 10 seeds for uh for feature chances in the playoffs. Yeah, I mean, like you said, it was, you know, what you’d expect from a 18 and really, like you said, also like a 110. Um, which is the only time we’ve ever seen something like that. So, it’s not a surprise. Um, but you do expect like if there’s anyone that’s like a 10 seed that could pull it off. Could it be the team that, you know, made the finals as an eight seed like two years ago and, you know, took a game from Boston without Jimmy Butler last year? So, I thought it would at least be competitive, but it really wasn’t outside of that one game. Um, you did mention DaVon Mitchell. I think not only in this series, but also especially in that Hawks game, like the last one that got them to the playoffs, like that was a huge, um, you know, that was huge for him potentially getting a bigger bag. Um, just looking at the Heat though, like you got big questions with Tyler Hero and it’s like, is he the guy that you could really, you know, invest in? And I know he was an all-star this year, but I mean just his performance throughout most of the series, especially the last game, like you’re start you have to start to think like maybe he can’t be our guy. He could be a second option. He could be a third option. Um but I think for the longest time like there were people that were rumored to go to Miami and he just didn’t want to deal off of Tyler Herro. So I think you got to look at that. You got to look at um I think Bam’s like uh press conference like after the playoff series, he basically said there’s going to be a lot of changes to come. So, you don’t know like where his mindset is at like with Miami. And then you know a guy like Andrew Wiggins who you got in there too. Like he just really seems like his time with the Heat had a lot of ups and downs in this season. Like I know he’s only been there for about 3 months, but it already feels like it’s been such a roller coaster where you know some games it looks like oh yeah like we traded Jimmy for the right guy. Other games it’s like where is this guy at? You know so that’s kind of like my mindset on the Heat. Um you know the Cavs I picked them to win but I did think the Heat would get one game. So I guess from that perspective I was a little disappointed in Miami. Yeah, it’s it’s definitely going to be interesting where Miami look to go moving forward. I mean, like you say, I think Hero in the role that he had when Butler was there and what was in terms of at least Miami performances, Jimmy Butler of old, he was in a relatively good role if he was still playing as well as he is now as opposed to some of the more lackluster performances he may have had at times back then compared to where he’s at in terms of being an all-star now. But yeah, it’s going to be interesting. I mean, Adabio’s just signed a new extension. He’s got four years still left on his deal. So, hard to see him going anywhere soon, but Hero extension eligible this summer. Wiggins extension eligible this summer. Terry Roier extension eligible this summer. So either we’re going to see them continue to commit down this core or which is probably more likely they’re going to start to realize that yeah we might need to hit a bit more of a more aggressive retool and potentially a soft rebuild because like you say Tyler Herro did have a good season. He did become an all-star but he’s definitely not a number one not on a team that’s going to cause any damage. So either they got to find that number one, which the assets for which are limited to do here, or what is probably more likely long term is they’re going to have to move off of a guy like Hero and go more of a long-term route to figure out where the future of Miami Bos Miami basketball is headed to. And names are always linked to Miami. So I mean, it seems like they’re going to be like a prime destination regardless. It’s just a matter of, you know, if Pat Riley, assuming he’s, you know, still going to be there. I know some people were saying like maybe he’s going to step down and stuff. Um, but assuming he’s going to be there because he still is currently, um, you know, it’s just a matter of like, is he going to, you know, pull the trigger on trading some of these guys rather than in the past where he didn’t want to trade Tyler Herro for like Donovan Mitchell? He didn’t want to trade Tyler Herro for Damen Lillard. Um, you know, so we’ll just have to see, I guess. But um another team that has uh you know a lot of guys that they’re paying and um they’re gonna have to make a decision this summer, but they did win this series as the Boston Celtics. Um won four games to one over the Orlando Magic. Um I know you’re a Raptor fan, but I know that you do also like the Orlando Magic yourself. So, what do you make of this series here and maybe what the Magic need moving forward? Yeah, like you say, this was definitely a tough series for Orlando, but at least they got a game. They’ll take it in game against Boston. But this series was about as I expected. This was the type of series where at home with Orlando’s tough defense, you can see them getting a win because of their defense, but you knew the offense was going to struggle. I mean, they only hit a 100 once and that wasn’t even the game they won. So, that continues to be the issue for Orlando. It’s it’s no secret. The defense is great. The physicality is there. The intensity is there. The coaching is there. It’s great. It’s just where can they get the offense and where can they get the shooting? The hope was was that KCP was going to help in that regard this year and then he just went and had a ster of a season. And at his age, don’t know if we’re counting on a bounce back or if this is just the new KCP. So that’s a bit alarming if you’re Orlando considering that was your splash while you had for agency cuz you don’t have cat space anymore now that you’ve got Paulo and Fron locked down. So that’s a concern. But beyond that, sure Jaylen Suggs was out, but it just isn’t going to make that much of a difference. And we’re still relying on Cole Anthony and Anthony Black to give us an offensive punch off the bench. It’s just not there. So I love the fundamentals, but something has to change. There has to be some type of trade to get them some type of creation from the guard spot and some type of three-point shooting from some of their other guys. How they go about that, hard to say, but one of Suggs or god forbid if someone amazing comes on the market that really helps. Maybe Fron is on the move, although that one’s probably less likely. But they certainly have some things to figure out. As much as their core is really good and really fun, the pieces around them are uh have got a long way to go. But Austin’s performance was really good. Uh Jason Tatum, especially in this series, was very good. One of the better playoff series I’ve had him have in recent memory, given in a first round match up against a seven seat, but a formidable defense. So certainly worth noting how good he was offensively, very good on the glass, good on both ends of the floor. And this was still when you had a little bit of injury concerns. Of course, Tatum missed the game, Drew Holiday missed a few games in this series, which Boston did noticeably miss him defensively a little bit. Paulo had a bit of easier time on the offensive end to an extent without him, but they still did more than fine because they could sell out on the guys who couldn’t shoot threes, which is most of the Orlando roster. Yeah. So, Boston were fine here and Tatum especially was the great thing. The only concerning thing for me in this series was Porzingis looked very bad in about every regard offensively. the three-point shot wasn’t falling, the post ups that he was so great and efficient at last season, useless in this series, even when he was getting switched on to Cory Joseph at times. He just didn’t look comfortable in them at all. So, that’s something to keep an eye on going forward. But other than that, I liked what I saw from Boston. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you think about um you know what you said with Porzingis there, it’s like him probably Drew Holiday, Al Horford um like Boston eventually is going to have to make a decision maybe this summer about one or a couple of those guys. Um just because of how much money they’re allotting. And I know that’s not something for this season because they’re still playing, but you know, you look at a guy like Porzingis in that series and if they manage to get eliminated later on in the playoffs, like that might be one of the things they look at like, well, he really didn’t help us in the championship last year and he didn’t really show up for us this year. Um, but with that being said, I do think the Magic still had a good chance in a lot of these games. Um, I think game two and game four were very winnable and then they um, you know, they just kind of fell apart down the stretch and that’s one of the biggest reasons why they do need like more offensive scoring punch like you said. Uh, preferably on the perimeter like I know Anthony Simons has been rumored there. I know that you know some people are saying maybe go after a LaMelo ball or something like that. Um, and I know like a guy like LaMelo isn’t known for his defense, but you have so many defenders around him and you know if maybe like he plays with like two other guys that can get their own potentially at some points like France Vagner, Paulo Bancer, he’s got a defense around him, you know, something to play for, I guess, because he doesn’t really have that in Charlotte a lot of the time. Um, it could do wonders, but I think that they have to do something. Um, what I’m, you know, it’s really interesting with their guard play because I know last year like they had so many guards and it’s like, well, what are they going to do? How are they going to change it? And then people thought, oh, they’re going to get rid of Gary Harris. They brought him back and then Markeel Folultz went out the door and then they still have Cole Anthony. They still have Jaylen Suggs. They have Anthony Black. like they still kind of have that question there, but they don’t really have that guy on the perimeter who they can go to. Like this team is so limited because if they’re ever down three points at the end of a game, I don’t trust them because they just they’re not going to be able to get a late shot to tie it and force overtime. Like it’s just over from there. Um, and there were a few games like that this year, but I just think in general you need a guy like that that can make you more of a threat in those situations, especially like when they start blowing leads late in games that they could have won. Like it’s I don’t think it’s too farfetched to say it could have been a two- two series. It could have theoretically been a 3-1 series, but that’s like a best case scenario. I think they could have got it to 2-2 though and then they just folded in the game five. Yeah. No, for sure. Like you say, they they just need someone on the perimeter. Three-point shooting preferably, but even just from a creation standpoint because everything is just Paulo Fron, Paulo Fron, Paulo Fron. And they are good creators for their position. Well above league average. But it’s just so much to ask of these guys night in night out. Okay, you got to score. You got to be elite defenders. you got to be our primary creators for everyone who can’t hit threes when you kick it out to them. Like it’s so much man. So ideally, like you say, it’s a lamelo. If Trey Young becomes available the summer, maybe you look at him. Ideally, that’s the type of guy you’re going for. But at least someone who can consistently shoot some amount of threes and create because currently it’s I mean Lord knows we had to play Cory Joseph starting in the playoffs in 2025 which great NBA career in 2025. That is horrifying. And then even Jaylen Suggs when he’s back again amazing defender. You guys have enough defenders on the team that you got to forego that for offense somewhere at some point. Mhm. They’ll cover up the slack in behind them. They have so much defensive talent. They got to just prioritize at least a guy at the guard spot and then hopefully over time you can get a couple of wings that can start to hit more threes. Maybe a Tristan D Silva improves his three-point shot a bit more and you can bring in another piece or two. But yeah, offense has got a ways to go. But they got the hard part. They got their two stars. So hopefully they can figure it out from there for sure. And you mentioned defense. I think we could, you know, move along here to this next series that had a lot of defensive firepower. Uh mostly because a lot of the games were low scoring and that was the Knicks and the Pistons. Um the Knicks ended up winning this series in six games. Um but it really did feel like a seven game series type of energy the whole time. So, I guess like what do you make of this battle between, you know, two hard-nosed teams that played 90s basketball and it was their first time facing in the playoffs since the 90s, too? Yeah, you hit it on the nose, man. This series felt like an old school battle. This this was a fun series to watch as someone who loves good physical defensive basketball, but it was fun right off the get-go, too, just from a scheme standpoint. I mean, a ton of crossmatching in this series. We saw uh in terms of the Carl Anthony Towns match up, we saw a bunch of Tobias Harris guarding him throughout the series. We see OG on Kate Cunningham a bunch and that was a really interesting matchup as OG just this pure strength that he has as such a good onball defender really was disturbing for Kate. As much as he tried to get things going in the series, that was really interesting to watch. We saw Brunson having to deal with the absurd length and athleticism of Assar Thompson. It was so many interesting matchups, not to mention the fact that it was just such tension and so many little scuffles that you saw throughout the series. It was very fun to watch. But ultimately, this was a series where Hade was everything for Detroit. As much as they had some guys step up, Schroeder very good series until the back end. Uh, and then from there it was a little bit more hit and miss. Malik Beasley struggled at times. Had a couple of games later on in the series and game one was okay. Tim Hardaway Jr. typical style, had a couple of good games, but then was useless for the rest of the series. About the only other consistent part was Tobias Harris. He was relatively good throughout the entire series, which was very much needed as about the only veteran on the team that actually gave them a steady veteran presence outside of Dennis Schroeder. But it was tough to see what we were getting with from especially Malik Beasley, someone that you would have hoped would have had a little bit of a better playoff showing as great of a season as he had. The threes just weren’t falling games two to four. And if you get a little bit more of his three-point shooting going the right way, especially in a game like game three where it comes down to that tough play at the end with Tim Hardaway. It’s not like games two and four weren’t close either. They were decided by a combined seven points. So, you know, it was there was some tight games in there too they obviously got, but three and four you would have liked to see if that would have potentially swung the tide, but it was tough for them. I mean, it’s a young group with a lot of them getting their first playoff experience and ultimately that’s the biggest thing for them here. Uh Jaylen Brunson, although inefficient, did what he needed to from a production standpoint. And after that, Carl Anthony Towns did his threes and OG continued to do what he does defensively on Cade and that was massive for them. Once Kade got those switches onto Male Bridges, much much easier for him to get what he wanted offensively. It’s just that added strength that OG has that was so difficult for Kade to deal with and so difficult for most guys to deal with, especially a guard, even though Kade is a bigger one. But the only other player I want to note for the Knicks silently and didn’t necessarily do anything flashy as he typically does but Josh Hart another great series just everything defense rebounding had a lot of high assist games in this series too even though they were pretty well sen off of him at times they had Duran on him at times so he could just sit in the paint but always productive for them and at the very least they didn’t even have to play a game seven in what would have been a series that probably would have gave them a few more nicks and bruises if they had to go another one. Yeah. No, I I agree. I think really with this series, um, you know, a guy like you said, Malik Beasley, first of all, he needs to just probably stay off social media. Uh, I think that’s part of the reason why he just was not doing too hot. Um, I mean, he played good the first game, but that was really about it. And then, you know, a lot of those guys you said like kind of struggle like Tim Hardway Jr. was very hit or miss. Uh, but I mean, that’s kind of the story of his career. Uh, Assar Thompson was not really doing much offensively other than the one game. Um, so I mean like there was just a lot that they were missing out on. In fact, like it really was a homecourt disadvantage cuz they won two of the three games in New York. Um, which a lot of people I think were they were probably penciling in like the Knicks are definitely going to win these games, you know, or they’re going to win all but one of them or something like that. And then didn’t happen that way. Um, and now granted like you could argue the game like you said with the mis call on Tim Hardway Jr. at the end or you know really the game they should be looking at where they blew that lead and I think the Knicks went on like a 21 run like I know that was the first playoff game for a lot of people like but you just got to be able to, you know, pull it together there at least, you know, you can’t allow a run like that, especially in a lowscoring game that’s incredibly deflating. Um, but yeah, I mean Tobias Harris was good. Um, on the other side, I know like you said like Brunson and Cat really did their thing. Um, OG and Obi was huge, but um, you know, it it’s it was a really good series and I think honestly for the Knicks moving forward, it’s definitely prepared them for the worst because, you know, a team that’s like young, scrappy, and can play defense like that, like they’re probably already a little bit beat up in the first round. Usually you might see that from guys like in the conference finals and stuff, but um you know it seems like it might be like a little bit more downhill from here in that respect. Um you know going against like some other juggernauts of the east and then whoever comes out of the west if they get there it’s going to be tough. But I don’t know. I think that this was a good series. I was kind of hoping it would go seven games though. But um yeah, I think that the other thing is too, and I don’t know how what you’ll think about this, but I know Cade likes to play in pace and stuff, but I feel like he needs to get a little bit more like shifty with his ball handling. Um I think that was kind of a detriment. And I’m pretty sure at the very end of the last game, he lost the ball. Um, and it really cost him like that like final ch. Not the not the Malik Beasley play where he couldn’t catch the ball. But like before that, I think they were down one and they could have taken the lead and he just like lost the ball there. But there were other plays too throughout the series where I’m like I feel like if his ball handling was a little bit more sharp, he would be able to get to his spots a little better. You see that from guys like, you know, Luca’s not fast, but Luca can play a little bit shifty and do a little stopand go action. I think that if Kade can get a little bit more smooth on that, like moving forward, it’s going to be really hard to stop him. Yeah, for sure. But definitely still got a lot of skill on that area. But yeah, like you say, for someone who’s got a ton of volume on the ball like he does, such a high usage rate. Yeah, a little bit of extra acceleration and deceleration, bit of a tighter handle in those those types of situations. I think that’ll definitely help him. Another thing that I think would have helped them in general throughout the series is a lot of the series they just seem to be pure Kade beat OG and they didn’t really get Duran involved in as many ball screens as they would have liked. That might have helped a bit as well. Not that Duran has the most amazing hands that you would have necessarily got him a ton of scenarios in the role that you might have liked, especially with some of the length that the Knicks might have had than some of those matchups, especially when Mitchell Robinson was on the floor. But even still, just if it’s to get Kate a little bit freed up and get a little bit of space from there, I think that might have helped him a bit as well. Yeah, like even in um it was the first game, they said the first lob to it was like a pick and roll lob and then throw to Duran was in the third quarter and then I was watching like the second game, it didn’t happen till the fourth quarter. So, I know they won game two, but it’s that was kind of one of the main things that would work for them offensively throughout the year and they just weren’t really getting it. So, it’s tough. Um, you know, I think you definitely got to make adjustments, but um, you know, we’ll just see how they respond, you know, next year, especially, I’m sure they’ll probably be a playoff team, barring any like severe injuries or something, but um, you know, we could move on to the last series in the Eastern Conference. We got the Pacers and the Bucks. Um, this was probably seen as a closer series before it started. I think even from the start of game one, you kind of had a feeling. It’s like, okay, well, if Dame doesn’t come back and Dame doesn’t come back like like Dame, this is not even going to be a series. And he didn’t like he came back, but he didn’t look like Dame that was fully healthy and it was over in like five games. Um, granted, the Bucks should have still won that last game. That was a terrible choke job by any typical Doc Rivers team. Um, but what do you make of this series and really what the Bucks need to do next? Because some people are already like photoshopping Giannis and other jerseys and um, it’s just not looking too good for them on an aging team. Yeah, the aging part is definitely concerning. U, we’ll get to them and the, uh, great Doc Rivers and their game five show. Give a bit of credit to the Pacers first year. Um, Saken was great through this series. Full credit to him with regards to dealing with Giannis. Definitely can’t stop him. And Seakum, as good of a defender as he is, certainly doesn’t have quite the length and strength he’d like. But Giannis, although he was very good in this series, wasn’t exactly as uber efficient and as uber productive as some may have expected. So the fact that Takum as the primary guy, obviously Miles Turner and Aaron Nay saw some time on him as well, as the primary guy, he did very well here and yet still contributed on offense. And after that, it was just the absurd level of efficiency from the role players. Even in Milwaukee on the road where role players notoriously don’t show up in the playoffs, they were all hitting. Naymith, whether it be Nhard, McConnell had a few good games. Obby Toppin had some good games and some good three-point shooting. They were all just making it very, very nice for Indiana’s offense. It made it much easier for Hallebertton to create for everyone. People had to respect shooters and then that allowed him to get his game going a little bit more later in the series. So, credit to them for being as good as a shooter shooting team as they were and for all the role players for showing up. Now, as far as Milwaukee goes, um I could say a lot about their game five choke. What I will say that I’m most concerned about is that the change in the lineup didn’t happen until game five. Yeah, that was my biggest issue because it was clear as day in this series that Brook Lopez was not going to be able to be effective. that you needed Gary Trent to space the floor if you were going to be able to give Yiannis a chance to do anything and AJ Green was obviously a help in that. Now, at least Ryan Rollins got taken out of the lineup pretty early because he was very much a negative zero at best in this series. But they finally figured it out in game five. It just unfortunately took him four games and three losses to figure out that Ryan Rollins wasn’t going to do it when Stain wasn’t in. How are you going to replace that? Well, you would like to think that you would bring in your best shooter and probably your next best perimeter scorer, Gary Trent, but it took us a little bit too long to get him involved. Rick Lopez, who hit a few threes, made a few blocks, but if he had to step outside of the paint to defend at this point in his career, it was game over. So, that was just not going to work. Took you till game five to get Bobby Portoris a big enough role and get Brook Lopez out. That was my biggest concern because barring the choke, they looked like they finally had things figured out in game five. Now, Gary Trent, would he have probably done that again to that level? Probably not. But it would have been a hell of a lot better of what they would have been doing otherwise. The fact that it took us that long to figure that out is is the biggest issue I had with the Bucks. Now, obviously, game five was an issue at the end. But until then, I’ll give them credit for what they did in that game. AJ Grun and Gary Trent and KPJ, they were all doing what they needed to do outside of the typical Giannis production. But yeah, too long to make the changes and Doc Rivers has been coaching way way too long to be giving him the benefit of the doubt to be making those types of changes any sooner than that. But I’m not exactly expecting it from him because we know Doc Rivers isn’t exactly some adjustment Savant in the playoffs. So here we are with the Bucks losing in five. Yep. Um I mean you kind of hit it on the nail. There’s not a whole lot to add, but what I will say is, you know, just in general, I know you said like this wasn’t going to be a good series for Brook Lopez. I just don’t know if Brook Lopez is really a center like that anymore. I feel like his decline over the last couple years has really been glaring. Uh that’s not to say he can’t play in the NBA or something or be a backup big, but I just don’t think he could really be a starting big that can play huge minutes anymore for especially if you’re trying to compete for a championship and any team with Giannis and Dame is going to have that hope. Um now though, it’s just really concerning because I mean Dame is probably out all next season like so you don’t know what’s going to really happen with him. you know, this team the it’s like the most the hardest part is that like no one’s probably going to want to trade for him because you don’t know how he’s going to come back from that. Historically speaking, yeah, like recently there might have been guys who had an Achilles tear. The most notable one, you know, being Kevin Durant and it’s like, oh, he came back and he’s still playing like Kevin Durant. But it’s a little bit tougher, I think, for a lot of smaller guys just in general. Smaller guards have not had the same success coming off of it. Um, and I had a feeling even before the series, I know it’s not like directly connected, but I just felt like it was wrong for Dame to even be playing. The fact that he had like, you know, the blood clot thing, and I’m like, if he’s coming back that quick, it doesn’t feel right. I don’t want something to happen, and then it’s like they’re going to regret it. And sure enough, something did. Um, but with that being said, I just generally think like the Pacers were the better team like this season. Even if the Bucks were playing like at full strength, this was going to be a long series and even if the Bucks did win, they were going to win based on star power. They were not going to win based on their team because the Pacers just have a better team. you mentioned like N Smith was hitting shots like Ben Mathan, TJ McConnell, um you know all these guys really Obie Toppin was even hitting threes like all these guys really help out Hallebertton and make his job so much easier. Um you know it’s one of the deepest teams in the entire league. Uh and that’s why I feel like so many people think they’re like you know a sleeper team right now. Uh I don’t know. It’s just they definitely had the better team. I’m not surprised that they won this series. Uh and that’s why I picked them too. Like even when Dame was out to start it because even if Dame came back 100%, I feel like missing that first game or two was going to be the difference because you’re not going to be able to make that up with a team that you at best maybe play about even with like over the course of next few games. And wasn’t even really that close to say the least. Yeah. Yeah. I know it really wasn’t. Like you say, even even if healthy, I think the the Pacers are always going to have a very good chance in this series. But yeah, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with Milwaukee. I mean, like you say, Dame, it’s almost 35. What does the future look like for him? Gary Trent, you somehow fell into him being on what was essentially a minimum contract last year. If he’s back, he’s not back on that cheap of money and you can’t offer him that much more because they don’t have his bird rights. So, he’s probably out the door. Then you look at Brook Lopez, free agent. Now, do you want him to be your starting center? Probably not. But he still has some value, as you alluded to, even if it’s not as a starter these days. So, got to deal with him potentially walking out the door. So, do I think that Giannis is getting traded this summer? I don’t know. Probably not. But I think it’s definitely in the cards given given the fact that this roster is only getting older and probably worse going into next season. Yeah, I think especially too after, you know, the Luca trade, like a lot of people are still saying like that trade is going to have people looking at a like a different way at their teams and teams are going to be making like serious pitches for star players probably more than ever this summer. Um, I wouldn’t expect Giannis to get traded because I just don’t know where is the best fit for him right now. Um, but wouldn’t totally shock me, you know? So, you know, the next series we got wasn’t really much of a series either. Um, you know, first two games were blowouts. The third game was actually kind of interesting and then after like halftime, it quickly be became not interesting. Um, and then game four, it just felt like it was already over. Thunder and Grizzlies. OKC swept them. Um, what do you make of this series? What do you make of the Grizzlies going into the summer now? Like getting swept. You fired your coach the last couple weeks of the season and probably some questions about your core, too. Yeah, definitely some questions about the core in Memphis. Uh, and Jiren Jackson Jr. is an extension eligible and has one year left on his deal going into the summer. So, that’s going to be the most interesting part. And unfortunately for him, he did not look good at all in the postseason. The offense wasn’t great. the three-point shooting wasn’t great. Any mismatches he had, he didn’t really take advantage of and the DPOI performances of years past seemingly completely gone from existence and his rebounding still sucks. So, you know, there’s clear value here and obviously I don’t expect the entirety of his playoff history going forward to be that bad of a shooting performance, but it’s certainly worrisome and it certainly could cause some pause for thought for Memphis when you already have Jaw and Desmond being locked down and you’re potentially looking at giving this guy a max or near max contract this summer. So, I think there’s going to be a little bit more hesitation in the Grizzlies front office this summer with regards to paying Jiren or at least paying him as much as he wants compared to what they might have had pre-postseason and pre the end of the season. Does that mean they move him? Does that mean they look to move Desmond Bane? Does that mean they look to move John Morant? Remains to be seen. But I think at least going into maybe not next year, but at least a year beyond, I think it’s hard to imagine that all three of these guys are going to be on the roster. A because it’s a lot of money and B now they’ve had another postseason run where they haven’t quite gotten where they wanted to. Desmond Bane on the note of stars not playing well also didn’t really get comfortable at all in this series. The three-point shooting wasn’t there. The efficiency wasn’t there. It just it wasn’t anywhere near the production that they’re looking for from him. Jaw when on the floor and when he was healthy was quite good and was comfortably the best Grizzlies player in this series. Unfortunately, he then picked up that injury and and of course they then blew that game that he got injured in unfortunately. But outside of that, kudos to Zachi. He looked quite good in this series after he had a very good slashh horrible playing experience which was very hard for my brain to make out because he had great and horrific things going on. But he looked much more stably good in this series. So a good sign from him. Uh, and also Santi Alama had a very good series as well, which was a nice sign to see because they’re going to have to pay him this summer and they probably should based on what they saw from him. But definitely some bigger decisions in Santi Alama to be made in the next little bit from Memphis. As far as OKC, like you say, it was a a relatively dominant performance from them as you would have expected. Jaylen Williams was in my opinion by far the best player on the floor throughout the series. Uh, Caruso even offensively looked better than we saw in the regular season, which is kind of what you’d expect from a guy like Caruso. So, that was good to see in the postseason. The biggest concern for me was that SGA just never really looked comfortable offensively. I believe it was game three where he was a little bit more efficient, but he was really struggling to find a shot. Hopefully, that is just a first round thing for them and that’s not something that OKC continue to deal with. But, if it is going to be a problem because against Memphis, it’s not an issue. against future teams like Denver now might be more of an issue. Yeah. No, I agree. I think really just this series in general was like not super detailed, I guess, like for the fun elements of it, but you know, with the Grizzlies, I know you mentioned like with Jiren and with Desmond Bane, it’s like they’re definitely going to have to, you know, look at them and maybe a little bit differently this summer, but I even think maybe Jaw like they could. Um, I know Jaw is like really the face of their team like most would say. Um, and probably the best player like that could he could really be the star that takes over games. But you have to factor in too this is I’m pretty sure the fourth year in a row where he has not finished the season like he’s been hurt, you know, like I’m pretty sure he’s only he’s been in the play in playoffs or whatever for five of his six seasons and only once did he actually like make the playoffs and finish the year healthy and it was in 2021. Um I don’t know. I just think like eventually like you look at that like the same way that we were just talking about with Giannis and like how maybe they the other teams are looking at that ready to make a pitch like it’s Luca Donic being handled by Nico Harrison and he’s on the table and stuff like that. Um you know there’s it’s just going to be an interesting off season for them because they have so many questions. Um, and especially too, like I even felt a little bit more like questioning of this when, you know, Scotty Pippen Jr. played well in the series. Like they kept talking about him like, boy, he’s going to be a guy that like could be a really important piece of this team. And now you don’t want him to be like your starting guard necessarily. But if you have a guy like him in the meantime and you see like what deals you could get for Jaw and see like how that maybe transforms the team, I could see them maybe doing that. Um, will they? I don’t know. But I could see them at least like weighing their options and that’s why I think it’s going to be an interesting offseason for them. But with the Thunder, doesn’t surprise me that they won. They were just the better team. I predicted this would be a sweep, too. Um, you know, but that that game three does like the Grizzlies were not going to win the series in my opinion, but it does make it a little bit interesting because maybe they could have forced it to six games or something. I think they definitely would have won game three if Josh stayed healthy. I think we can agree on that probably, but for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um but yeah, I don’t know if you want we can move on here to this best to seven series that went to seven games between the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets. Um and you know the Warriors once again being the Rockets pretty much been a theme in history over the last decade. uh only this time it’s really a different Warriors and Rockets team, but at least the core of the Rockets is like vastly different than it used to be with, you know, Harden and Chris Paul and like those days and stuff. Um, you know, what are your thoughts on the Houston Rockets? You know, they were the second seed this year, winning 52 games, a huge turnaround. I think with for cores that like it’s their first time making the playoffs, usually it’s like a six, seven, eight seed that they get, you know? you’re looking at like Detroit like on the other side, Orlando still a fairly new playoff team. You know, they’re down there too and this team jumped all the way to second. Uh so I guess like what do you make of their season? What’s to come for them? And just, you know, the Warriors trying to fulfill Draymond’s promise that he said they’re going to win the championship and right now they still have a chance to do that. They sure do. But yeah, for Houston it’s interesting for them. like you say, it’s it’s a two seed and you’d expect a two seed to be more of a favorite and more of a team that can assert their dominance in a series, but a they’re a younger team like you mentioned. But I think it’s also important to note that this is very untypical of a two vers seven series that they weren’t even necessarily considered the favorite coming into this series and in many respects understandably so because the Warriors were one of the best teams in the league post trade deadline once they acquired Jimmy Butler. This was always going to be a very difficult matchup for them. This was not a standard two vers seven matchup, especially when you consider just how good the Western Conference was this year. There was very little separating some of those teams in the middle of the pack and the Warriors were very amongst among them. So, this was always going to be a difficult battle for them and considering their inexperience. Sure, they had a few pieces like a Fred Van Fleet who especially in the later half of this series had some very good games and Steven Adams who was very crucial especially to their absurdly productive red zone defense that caused a lot of problems for the Warriors throughout games four to six in the series but it was very very interesting to see this chess match. Shidoka and Kerr was a very good coaching matchup in its own right and I think Houston still did very well here despite how they did lose but with this youth I think just getting this experience is very valuable for them. Jaylen Green was the young guy that I was most alarmed by but for a younger guard who still has a little bit of a more unclear role in this team com compared to most of the other guys in this squad I can kind of live with that. Senon game seven wasn’t what you wanted but I think he still saw signs of him being able to perform in the postseason Thompson for a guy at his defensive physicality and his defensive tenacity. Foul trouble is going to be a thing that he’s going to have to continue to look at in the postseason but offensively he still got involved well and Jabari Smith and Tares and I thought were great off of the bench for the most part throughout the series. They hit a relatively good rate of their threes and they were amazing defensively. The fact that that was how they competed against a team that has as much experience as the Warriors. And although it is a very different Warriors team than years past is still a very good and productive and experienced one, I think it was a very good showing for them. As far as the Warriors go, some of their adjustments mid-seer when they were losing some of those games in the middle of the series were interesting. Uh Gary Payton Jr. in the starting lineup or Gary Payton second, I should say. Interesting. Not sure what the thought process was there on Steve Crew’s part, but Curry did his part for the most part. And shout out Buddy Heield, man. Buddy Heield showed up when they needed him. He was quiet through a lot of the series, but he showed up when they needed him. Yeah. No, he was really like the MVP, I would say, of game seven. Um, which is crazy because last year was like his first time in the playoffs and he didn’t really play all too hot and then this year he kind of just looked like Oklahoma, but he healed. Um, but no, I I agree. I think that, you know, the experience definitely like won out. Um, you know, the Rockets, you know, forcing it to seven games after being down 3-1 was pretty impressive. I kind of just thought they would fold in game five or at the latest game six. So, the fact they even got to a game seven at that point did surprise me and I was impressed. Um they just really maybe they need a vet that has um like just great shot IQ. Um because I feel like you know a guy like Fred Van Vleet who you know he’s a great player and he can hit like a lot of clutch shots. He’s shown it with your Raptors in in the 2019 finals. Um, but really he’s kind of like the only vet that’s kind of like a three-level threat. That rhymed. Uh, but he’s kind of like the only one that um I guess like can give these guys like tips on like you know where you need to be taking shots here and there. And I think they got carried away with the fast break, the transition even if it wasn’t like off a steal or if it was even after a made basket. Um, and it was leading to a lot of bad shots. I think I saw that a lot from from Jaylen Green, from Amen Thompson. Um, you know, I saw it a little bit from Jabari Smith. Like, it’s just you can’t afford that in the playoffs, especially against a team like the Warriors who are known for running and gunning and they have, you know, probably, you know, the greatest shooter ever and then one of the greatest shooters ever in Buddy Healed. Like, that’s just a recipe for disaster. and game seven Draymond Green who was playing like one of the better shooters ever the other night. Uh especially like he started off in two threes, but you just can’t afford that. Um you know, I think that they will be better, but that’s probably the guy they need more. So, I know that they’re saying like, “Oh, they should get Kevin Durant. They should get Giannis.” And they’re they’re rumoring every star to go there now. But I think that they need a guy who or a couple guys really because it can’t just be one that can, you know, sit down and have one-on- ons with these other guys and like get them to, I guess, taking more high quality shots cuz not everything is going to be a fast break or transition. It’s great when they get a steal, especially on the perimeter, but after a made basket and the defense is set, I think that’s what really hurt them the most because it allowed the Warriors to just like string together a lot of points. And then you look at like that was the difference in the game. So, yeah, for sure. I think guard at the or depth at the guard spot and having those guys that can control the game a little bit more, be a little bit more mindful of those situations. I think that’s like you say probably the biggest need for them because off the bench no guards other than a little bit of spot in holiday minutes. That was it. You see a big and you see two wings and after that sure you have technically three guards in the starting lineup but two of them are very young. Two of them are very run and gun and just pushing the pace running the floor fast break fast break fast break. And that’s the priority especially with Aman Thompson and still to a point Jaylen Green. So I think some of that certainly is something they need to address. one of it on the bench. Another one of it, if you look at does a Devin Booker become available, I think he slots in maybe directly for a Jaylen Green quite well. I don’t know if they’d be willing to part with him. I’d argue they probably should if you can get Deon Booker in return. But those are probably the types of moves you could potentially look at if you want someone who can be an ISO scorer at times, improve your three-point shooting even more and have a little bit more of a guy who’s willing to slow things down, have that playoff experience, work the in between game a little bit more as well. I think he’d be a good fit. But that remains to be seen what they’re going to do there. Nonetheless, the fact that they performed as well as they did, they fought back as well as they did, that’s the biggest green flag for me given where they were at down 3-1 and given the fact they were playing an experienced Warriors team. Yeah, I I think that could be interesting, especially because he is a guy who’s, you know, known for being an efficient three-level scorer. Um, you add him in in place of a guy like Jaylen Green who hasn’t a guy with finals experience, too. Um, I think that that could be huge, but right now it’s like the Rockets definitely, you know, have a young core and they don’t need to rush, but I think there are some things they could tweak here or there to set them up better even just for next season. So, yeah. Um, but if you want, we can jump here to this next series with the Timberwolves and the Lakers. Um, everyone penciled in. I think the Lakers to win this series as the higher seed with Luca, with LeBron, with Austin Reeves. Um, and they did not. And it really was not. I I wouldn’t say it wasn’t close. So, some of the games were close, but you know, you look at 4-1 and it’s like, well, the Timberwolves kind of did their thing. So, what do you make of, you know, the way that the Timberwolves performed in this series and what the Lakers have to look at now in the offseason? There’s a lot to look at from this series. Uh and certainly they need to address some things. Most notably obviously the center that they obviously didn’t get at the last second or after the last second per se at the trade deadline. But the two things I want to point on is the center matchup uh and just the Lakers defense as a whole. That center matchup was probably the biggest thing in this series because a lot of the reasons that people were looking at the Lakers potentially to win this series outside of just the fact that LeBron and Luca are LeBron and Luca is that a Luca pick and roll whether it have been with Jackson Hayes who is a very good lob threat despite his many flaws that he sometimes has on the basketball court he is a good athlete he is a good lob threat and even if you get a Luca Lebron pick and roll still going to be very effective and the thought would have been that Rudy Eagle Bear may have struggled in that. Now, the Lakers just didn’t get that going. Part of which was they just didn’t do it often enough. There just didn’t seem to be any initiative for them to try and abuse that pick and roll and see if it could expose Rudy Goar in any capacity. No guarantee that it would have, but they didn’t really seem to try as much as I thought they would. It also didn’t help that they just played Jackson Hayes off the floor. It became very clear early on in the series that Jackson Hayes was not going to be overly effective and if they weren’t going to get him involved in pick and rolls out he went and in came Dorian Finny Smith and that saw see moments where the Lakers depth was exposed like when they played their entire five guys for an entire half hence their fourth end of the fourth quarter they were done hence they lost because the Timberwolves came back and took the win. We also see moments where game five of the series Jackson Hayes isn’t on the floor. Well, sure, Rudy Gobear might not have the most fancy of finishes and the greatest touch known to man, but he sure can finish over the tallest guy on the floor being 6’9 or sometimes the guy defending him being like 6’7. So, Rudy Goar is going to explode for one of his best offensive performances in his playoff career. So, that lack of a fiveman for the Lakers or any type of valuable size and being able to potentially look at Rudy’s weaknesses on the defensive end and getting him way out to the three-point line, they didn’t get to expose that either. So, they got the bad end of the matchup in potentially Rudy Gobear getting the size mismatch on the offensive end, whilst not getting to take advantage of his disadvantages on the defensive end and getting him pulled out to the three-point line, getting the pick and roll going. Without that, it was going to be tough for the Lakers to do anything here. I touched on the depth. Their depth is terrible. Jordan Goodwin, you’re an NBA player. Respect to you, my friend, but you should not be getting playoff minutes, but he did. And that’s part of the Lakers issue as well. Luca was solid. LeBron was solid. Their efficiency wasn’t amazing, but it was good. Austin Reeves was more of an issue. But the two main guys showed up. It was the fact that the center matchup was terrible for them. The depth was bad and the defense didn’t show up like it did down the stretch of the season, which given the personnel they have kind of checks out. But kudos to Minnesota, man. They showed up. Jaylen McDaniels was great. Julius Randall had one of his better playoff series. They certainly showed up. But I think it really exposed some of the weaknesses that this Lakers roster has even with LeBron and Luca on the team. Yeah, I think, you know, you touched on a lot of it. I think one of the biggest things is you see, you know, a lot of these teams face, you know, LeBron or Luca in the playoffs like separately, like before they were together. Um, and there’s always like something that teams could exploit one way or another. Like whether like LeBron teams like in the past like just maybe didn’t have much depth or didn’t have a big or like Luca teams, it’s like you exploit his defense on the perimeter and stuff. Um, and I feel like the Timberwolves are really like were zeroed in and they they basically exploited everything that the Lakers gave to them. Um, and that was kind of the difference in the series. I think they did it so well that that’s why the series was, you know, so quick. Um, I think people probably thought even if they did allow this or that, it was still probably going to go six or seven games and it really didn’t just because of that. Um, I mean, you you know that I’m I guess like not afraid to, you know, put blame on LeBron and stuff like that. And I know a lot of people are blaming Luca and stuff because of his defense. But, uh, to me, I think that the biggest miscue in the series, it falls on JJ Reic. Um, you know, I’ve said before the season I was not super confident in that choice as a coach. And granted, he’s only had one year under his belt, but it just seemed like he was very stubborn like playing those guys the whole second half. It’s one thing if you decide to do it, but I didn’t like how in the postgame press conference and that game, he basically said, “We made that decision at halftime.” You can’t make a decision at halftime for the rest of the game because you don’t know how the rest of the game is going to go. And especially there in game five, doesn’t play Jackson Hayes at all. And Rudy Gobear has the best playoff game of his career. I don’t I think that’s probably fair to say. And he’s he’s played about 70 or so games. Um you can’t you can’t just do that and like not make adjustments, especially when you’re losing in the series. If you’re up 3-1, that’s a different story because then you can keep rolling with whatever’s working. But if you’re down 3-1, you have to adjust things the right way. and putting in a guy who hasn’t played since January and had never played in a Lakers uniform. I’m talking about Maxi Cleber. Like that’s not the answer. Like he didn’t really do anything out there. Um and it’s kind of disrespectful I feel like to the guys who were playing like up until the end of the season when they had their best run. But I even said like earlier in the year it felt like a lot of their defense was just kind of, you know, catching the right days on people missing threes. The Timberwolves were actually missing a lot of threes in that last game, but most of the series they were hitting them. Um, that last game was terrible and it seems like they were already checked out from the game that they had to play five guys the whole time and they blew a lead. So that’s kind of like what it boils down to. Um, I think also in this series, you know, we see Austin Reeves, who throughout the season was one of the best at getting to the free throw line. They weren’t they weren’t buying it. The refs were not buying it in this playoffs. And that’s why he had such a bad series. Um, the Timberwolves, like I think that this was definitely a series where a few guys really um were trying to like get NBA fans apologies. Julius Randall and Rudy Goar specifically. Um because I’m not gonna lie, like Anthony Edwards had a great series, but in a way it almost felt like he could have done more, which is crazy to say, but it felt like he could have even had a better series. But the reason too that they also won is just cuz guys like Randall and Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobear like all stepped up. Dancenzo, Nas Reed was big. I’m pretty sure Nas Reed in the first round was like was he third or fourth in the league in like fourth quarter points or something like that. So, um, yeah, they all showed up and that’s what it takes to win in the playoffs, too, is like winning as a team, especially against a team with maybe you could argue one of the best duos in the league like the Lakers. So, definitely it’s definitely a good team showing. And the scary thing going into the next round for their opponents, not necessarily for Minnesota, was the fact that like Alexander Walker and Dante Denchenzo were no shows offensively in this series. So as much as they were very good in this series, there is still offensively room for them to grow. And the fact that they were able to exploit the Lakers weaknesses this badly, very good showing to Chris Finch and the coach and staff that they’re going to be able to do well through the rest of this run. And like you say, compared to a first year coach and JJ Reic, first year coach, first playoff series against an experienced coach and team in the Timberwolves. Not going to ring the panic bells yet, but certainly something to keep an eye on moving forward for them. I just know too with him is like you could kind of get the impression even before he was coaching that he’s very he’s very strong about his opinions, which is fine. You know, you want to believe in yourself, but you also don’t want to be close-minded. That’s why I also didn’t like his response. I’m sure you saw it when that guy asked about like, “Are you going to lean on any assistance?” And he basically like stormed out. Like, I feel like you can’t do that, especially when you’re losing the series, you know? Like, it’s I’m I’m sure he talks to the assistants a lot. Like, he’s around them all the time. But, you just can’t have something like that happening. Like, you got to be open-minded. And I think that’s going to be the biggest test for next year and the year after that is seeing how open-minded he is to trying new things, but also like not things that are going to ruin your team, you know, like playing Five Guys the whole half, especially Luca who just came off an illness. Like that that didn’t make any sense to me. Um, but yeah. Uh, yeah. Yeah, I don’t know if if you want though, we can we can move along here to the last series and then we got a little miniame of course. Uh this series was probably one of the more entertaining ones I would say. Um until the last game of the series, then it really was not. But the Nuggets and the Clippers, a four five matchup, it went seven games as you would expect. Uh and it was the Nuggets who came out on top. Um, me personally, I thought the Clippers would win this series just because, you know, the Nuggets fired their head coach at the end of the year. Um, you know, and just the Clippers had a really good defense throughout the year, too. But what do you, you know, make of this series and now what the Clippers have to do in the summer? Because I think they at least thought they were going to get through this series. Yeah, I think they thought so as well. I sure did. I thought it was going to be a battle, but I did think the Clippers were going to have the upper hand here. It was an interesting series for me in how they approached it. I think that a guy like Kawawaii should have got a lot more of the ball. Part of that is him just needed to be more assertive with it because he was great offensively in the series. I mean, 40% shooting from three in him in a series is great. Well over what you typically get from him uh in terms of efficiency in a playoff series from the field. He was great. problem was he didn’t even scratch 18 shots a night, which for a guy at Kai’s caliber probably isn’t enough. But I felt like I could have said this for a lot of guys throughout the series. I thought there was games where Norm Powell got it going where he wasn’t getting the ball enough. And there was probably games where Harden had it going where he probably didn’t have the ball enough. Now, there was also probably games where he was a little bit too involved when he was bad because the James Harden experience is very much parts of the ups and downs. But there was a lot of meds to feed here and I don’t know if they always were feeding the right medals at the right time. Who I will give the shout out to is Vika Zubot. He was amazing in this series offensively. Great. You can see the improvement on that end. But that is by far the best series I have and may ever see defensively against Nicole Joic. Jookic still did what Joic does to an extent but even in certain games in this series Joic didn’t actually do what Joic does which is crazy because that doesn’t happen. So shout out to Zubos for being as well as he was against Nicole Joic. He made him work for everything he got in this series and then Batum tried to do what he could off the bench but that was obviously a tough match up for him. But Zubot did what he could as far as the Nuggets go. Obviously, Joic did what he could, but he he struggled here against Zubot, which is fair enough. But shadow Christian Brown, I had doubts of him coming into now the starting lineup as they continue to lose death pieces over the last two years from Bruce Brown and now KCP, but he continued to be very good. Shout out MPJ for battling through a shoulder injury for having quite a few good games in this series. Aaron Gordon continues to be one of my favorite role players in the league. the cutting, the rebounding, abusing any of those mismatches that he has in the post. And Jamal Murray, not quite the playoff Murray still that we saw a few years ago, but in the moments, he can still sometimes show up and he did that when he needed to in this series, especially later on over those last few wins that they had in games five and seven. So, shout out to Jamal, shout out to the Nuggets. But for the Clippers, it’s it’s tough. They battled. Kawhi was healthy and they finally saw a glimpse of what that could be even without Paul George, but it still wasn’t enough. It’s hard to say you want to blow it up, but it still wasn’t enough. And that’s another year into the Kawhi Leonard era where you don’t even get a playoff win. It’s It’s tough to keep moving forward. Yeah. And with that point on Jamal Murray, I will say though, like it did feel like he had a lot more like pure shots in this series, like shots that were literally like barely touched the net, which you haven’t seen probably since the championship run. So, I guess that’s a good sign. Um, you know, but what I will say in general with the Clippers, um, you know, this was finally like a series that we could see and it’s like you can’t really make excuses, you know, like the last few years it’s like, oh, Kawhai’s not 100%. Oh, Kawhai’s out, Paul George is out. Um, you know, like we’re we’re missing our guys and stuff like that. But this time, you really couldn’t use that. Um, and granted I do think like I mean I don’t know about you, but I feel like really Kawhai was probably the best player in this series. And part of that is because Zubach played such good defense on Joic, but I really feel like Kawhai was the top player and they just didn’t give him the ball enough. Uh, sure he needs to demand it, but I also think he’s the ultimate safety net that they just need to defer to him a lot when times get tough. You know, I think they kind of tried doing that a little bit in the third quarter of that game seven, but then they quickly veered away from it and then that’s when the run exploded, but he hit like the first two shots of that quarter and then it was just all downhill from there. Um, I think that, you know, there’s definitely a lot of attention on James Harden and his playoff lapses more now than ever. Um, you know, Norman Pal like had a very up and down series. I would say more down than up, but uh, you know, he just didn’t really play like the guy who was nearly an all-star this year. Uh, and some of the role players were good, but I think mostly more than anything what this series boils down to, it’s kind of similar to the the Lakers series. Um, but I would say this one’s even worse because Tailoo got out coached by a guy who’s been a head coach for about eight or nine days. Um, or eight or nine games and that’s just really bad. I’ve been critical of Tailoo for the last couple years now. I’ve even met the guy and I still don’t buy it, you know, with him. I feel like he just doesn’t make changes that need to be made. I would argue he lost him the game in game four at the end there. Have a lineup in. You got Kawawaii, you got Zubach, but then you also have Norman Pal and James Harden in both those guys are guarding bigs down there. And like granted, no one could have expected Jokic would airball and then Aaron Gordon’s going to tip in for a dunk, but rebounding was such a critical part of why they lost this series. And in that situation, you can have two guys in there that aren’t going to get rebounds. Um, especially over an Aaron Gordon who’s a lob threat. He’s like a two-time should have been dunk contest champion. So that that’s and you could have had Chris Dunn in the game. He did not. He could have had Derrick Jones Jr. in the game who conveniently in that respect beat him in a dunk contest so he can get up. Um but he did not. And I feel like too with game after game seven, he said something like um I was looking at OKC, not vacation. Well, you have to look at like what’s in front of you right now. you can’t look past the Nuggets. Sound like they’re just going to roll over. They have the best player in the league and one of the better closers in the league when he’s at 100% Jamal Murray. Um like and a championship core. And then I think before game seven too, the other thing that irked me was he said he didn’t remember if he was starting Nicholas Batum or not. How do you not remember? Like even if like you can’t even say that as a joke because now that you lost the game, it’s just going to look even worse. So, I’m I don’t know. I’m almost to the point where I feel like they could very well move on from Tailoo and bring up one of those assistants to be the head coach. Um, that might seem a little bold just because he’s been there for so long and probably has a good connection with Steve Balmer and Lawrence Frank and stuff, but it there’s no excuse for Tailoo anymore either. So, yeah. I mean, unless it’s gonna throw a massive upset in Kawawaii and you still want to keep him around, I think there’s definitely an argument to do. So, I mean, like you say, he has been around and might have a connection. Can also make the argument he’s been around for a long time and they haven’t done anything since he’s been there. So, not to where the expectations have been at least. So, there’s certainly an argument where they could be looking to make a change there. I think you made a great point based on what we’ve seen in this series. There’s certainly an argument that there could be some some reasons in terms of his postseason adjustments and postseason decisions that could certainly justify a change there. Are they going to do that? They seem to be pretty content with the status quo unless it involved giving money to Paul George. So, I’m not exactly uh betting on them making any drastic changes, but I think it’s certainly something they should be considering. Yeah. And they need shooting badly because they just did not have the shooting threats on the team. Um, you need like a guy like Luke Canard who they used to had. He he would have helped out tremendously I think in this series and Nicholas Batum had like so much weight on his shoulders because he had to do everything. He had to defend Jokic. He had to, you know, playmake. He had to set screens and he had to hit corner threes. Like it was just too much to ask for a guy who’s I don’t even know how old he is now. Like what what 36 37 like something like that. And yeah. So yeah. Okay. So yeah, if you want, we can keep it pushing here. Move on to the final topic here, which I call the roundroin roses miniame. Um, so this will be kind of a quick one that we’ll rattle through, but basically, you know, I have a little Derrick Rose themed. So Derrick Rose’s careerhigh in a first round series was 27.6 points per game. That happened his MVP season 2011 against the Indiana Pacers. We were just talking about Paul George. That was that team with Danny Granger, uh, you know, Roy Hibbert, some of those guys. Um, but basically what I’m gonna ask you is the leading score for all eight of the losing teams in the playoffs. Uh, I’m going to give you just the name of the scorer and you’re going to tell me if their scoring average was higher or lower than Derrick Rose’s highest output. Granted, you know, his prime happened in a lower paced era, so his scoring average might be lower than what mo some of the stars might be today, but we’ll see how you do here. So, are you ready? Let’s do it. All right. So, we’ll we’ll just go in the order of how we listed them in the show. So, the first series um with the Miami Heat, it was still Tyler Herro, but was his overunder Derrick Rose. Now, reminder, Dererick Rose averaged 27.6 six in that series for Tyler Hero. I don’t even know if he was over 20 in the series. If he was, I don’t think it was by much. So, we’re going to take the under on Tyler Hero. And you are correct. It is under uh under D Rose and under 20. So, you were double correct. Uh it was 17.8. Granted, if he had a decent game four, he might have been close. Maybe like 23 or something, but he had like four points in that last game. So yeah, it was rough. Um, okay. So the second question we got here, second person, Paulo Beno, was he higher or lower? Paulo Beno, he had a lot of volume in the series. Yeah, he had to do a lot. Got to the free throw line a fair bit. Somewhat efficient, especially from three compared to what you’d normally expect from him. And he was shooting a decent amount of them. I’m going to take the over here. and you will be over enthused that I can say you are correct. Um, yeah, he averaged 29.4 points per game. So, it was a it was a pretty high volume series indeed. Um, but right now you’re two for two. Third one. We’ll we’ll see how you do on this one, but it is Cade Cunningham. Over or under? Cade Cunningham. Again, a lot of volume from K, but probably not quite as much as Paulo. Really struggled from three at times in this series and at least had a little bit more help offensively. This is also a very lowcoring series. I think I’m inclined to take the under here for Kate Cunningham. And you’re three for three. You are correct. Um, his was a little bit closer. It was 25 right on the dot. So, okay, not too far away. Um, now number four we got for the Bucks, Giannis. Overunder. Oh, Giannis efficiency wasn’t quite as high as I would have expected, but he had some big games in the series. I got to take the over here. And you are correct. It is over. Um, averaged 33 points per game, the most in the first round actually. Um, okay. Which is kind of impressive because like you said, it wasn’t like an incredibly efficient, you know, series. Um, so right now you’re four for four. We’ll see how you end up here. So number five, we got actually a tie between two players, but those players being John Morant and Scotty Pippen Jr. Um, put their scoring average over under Derek Rose. Well, as much as Scotty Pippen Jr. did have a great playoff series. I don’t think he was quite touching the average of the best first round uh series average of Derrick Rose. So, I think we’re going to take the under on this one. If it was Scottie Pippen senior’s first round um high, then maybe we’d have a different conversation, but you are correct. It is under. Um I’d actually wonder what Scottie Pippen senior’s high is and if it’s higher than 27.6. It’s probably got to be close and it’s probably got to be that year that Jordan retired and stuff. So, um, okay. So, you’re five for five right now. If you get the last three, you will come out victorious. Eight for eight. So, are you ready for number six? Do it. All right. Number six. So, we got the Rockets. Alpin Shenon overunder. Alen Shenon a stinker or two in this series. volume wasn’t crazy and although he shot a few threes, wasn’t exactly at anywhere near a high volume. So unless you’re at Giannis levels of production, it’s tough without those threes, nor his free throw numbers that high. I think we’re taking the under here for Senon. And you are correct. It is under. Uh at 20.9 points per game. Um weirdly enough, for Derek Rose’s career first round average, he would have been barely over. It was because D Rose in his career in the first round, he averaged 20.82. So very close to that number, but for his high in the first round, he did not eclipse it. So you are six for six. You got two more left. Number seven with the Lakers, we got Luca Donuch. Over or under. Luca Donic. Again, you’re getting free throws with Luca, so that helps. Relatively efficient in this series. The defense, you could talk about it, but the offense was still there. I feel pretty okay saying that we’re going to take the over with Luca here. And you’re correct. It is over. Uh 30.2 points per game. So he was about two two and a half points above it. Um okay. So right now you’re seven for seven. It all comes down to this. Uh and it is the Clippers. Leading scoreer for the series was Kawhai. Was he over or under Derek Rose’s value? Wow. We were just talking earlier about Kawhi being efficient but not getting enough volume. I don’t think he had enough volume in this series to get that over. So, we are going to take the under on Kawhi Leonard. And that’s a fair assessment and a good assessment. You are correct. 25 points per game for Kawaii. Um, and like I said, D Rose is 27.6. six for his highs. So, yeah, clean sweep, eight for eight. How do you feel about that? We’ll take it. We will definitely take that. You know, some of those were uh were a little bit easier. You know, the likes of uh Scotty Pippen Jr. and uh and Tyler Herro, but you know, it’s a few debatable ones in there, so we’ll certainly take that. Yeah, I think the Paulo one, the Cade one, the Kawawaii, maybe you could argue Luca, but I think at least those three like for sure were probably like the hardest ones to figure out. Um, for sure. Maybe if I Well, I don’t even know. That still would have been hard to decide because he got hurt midway through a game. But I was going to say if I like only said Jaw’s name for like the Grizzlies, you still might have said lower though cuz he got hurt midway through game three. So, um, but yeah, Shenun seemed pretty fair. I mean, Tyler Herro, Giannis, like those are kind of lopsided one way or another, but eight for eight, it’s a pretty good performance. I got to give it to you. We’ll take it for sure. Yes, sir. But, um, with that being said, I think that’s going to wrap up the episode. Hopefully you guys enjoyed. If you did, be sure to like, comment, and subscribe. Got anything you want to add before we close this deal out? Hoping for a good rest of the postseason, man. First round was great. Just hoping for a good next three rounds and I can’t say go Raptors. So, go basketball, I guess, is where we’re at. There’s There’s not like one team in particular you’re like hoping for the most right now. I don’t think so. I think I’m pretty neutral at this point. I just I just want some give me a couple game sevens, some good series. I’m here for it. That’s fair. I would say for me it’s like, you know, obviously, you know, I like Donovan Mitchell, so the Cavs are going to be up there. I like Jokic, so the Nuggets going to be up there. Um although the Nuggets it’s a little bit harder because Westbrook makes me go crazy too. So um we’ll just see what happens. But hopefully it’s going to be a good playoffs like you said. And yeah, I think that’s going to do it for us again. Hopefully you guys enjoyed. Thank you guys for watching and we’re out. Peace.

On this week’s episode of Bullony Basketball, I’m joined by my guy Devin, also known as Run The NBA! While I had him on earlier in the season with 3-Point Weekly, I collab with Devin in this episode to recap the first round of the NBA Playoffs and play a fun minigame as well! Leave a like if you enjoy this video and stay tuned for future round recap episodes!

🏀 EPISODE TIME STAMPS 🏀

0:40 Cavs win 4-0 over Heat

6:32 Celtics win 4-1 over Magic

14:25 Knicks win 4-2 over Pistons

22:31 Pacers win 4-1 over Bucks

31:26 Thunder win 4-0 over Grizzlies

37:30 Warriors win 4-3 over Rockets

46:08 Timberwolves win 4-1 over Lakers

56:22 Nuggets win 4-3 over Clippers

1:05:23 ROUND ROBIN ROSES MINIGAME

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