Jokic’s Masterclass, OKC’s Wake-Up Call & The Clippers’ Collapse

yo, it is tuesday, you know what time it is. Front runner podcast collective is back on the air. I am your humble host, vince, and we have just so much basketball, basketball to talk about. It is absolutely ridiculous. We had outstanding, outstanding competition this weekend and then it led into monday. We got to get into the weekend first. But before we get into all that, let's talk about three things. One, how did you guys spend your weekend Right now? Usually on a podcast that's another person talking.

You can now come into the podcast via social media twitter, blue sky email. However you would like to do that on twitter, it is at frontrunner pc. Also, the producer is at rea underscore funge frpc. Keep that in mind. Also, if you are a blue sky compatriot, you know you. This is where you want to go with. You have made a decision that you are blue sky, don't worry. At front producer frpc hyphen raya dot b sky dot social. So plenty of ways to get into, you know. Get in contact with us. Plenty of ways to say hey, are you talking about these things? Are you talking about shea gilgis, alexander, enough. Are you talking about my guys? Talking about Shea Gildas, alexander Enough. Are you talking about my guys, we will have prompts in this show For you guys to hit up on and then, for the best comments, they will be on Friday's podcast. I don't know how to make it more simple for you. Grab a vine, swing on into the jungle, drop your thought, drop your take. However you want to call it. I don't want hot takes. I want well informed a well a well position takes. We are trying to upgrade the brand here, and the only way to upgrade the brand is to have audience participation. That is where you come in, so as we go along and talk about all these incredible games that happen over the weekend and then get into the second round because that's where we are now we're in the second round, things about to get real heated. We had a couple games that we need to dissect and we will through this podcast, through this journey today, and I am glad that you are here with us. For sorea, the producer and our other, the rest of the crew, we are so excited for you to be here now.

This weekend was magical. I mean, was it all of what we expected it to be? Now? For some people, you probably really, really upset that your team is not in the playoffs anymore. I get that. I understand that the Lakers are no longer in the playoffs Eh, it is what it is.

But at this point, where do we go? What have we seen, and is there any information that we can glean from the first round and then extrapolate it out into the second and also going forward? I think there are a couple things, and we're going to get to it today. So what's on the docket?

Easy, we had a weekend warriors, absolutely incredible weekend of basketball. We had high intensity games. We had game sevens the two greatest words in professional sports win or go home, damn it. And we had those. We will talk about those. We will talk about the outcomes. We will talk about what is next for the team who is moving forward. We will talk about what is next for the team that now has to spend the rest of the offseason thinking were there minor things that we could have adjusted that could have let us continue our journey on this playoff run? We will get to that. We will also get to some other stuff that is going on in the league that we really need to get to.

There's some pressing news that has happened in the league that we got to get to, but we're going to start off here the weekend game sevens, everywhere you look. The first one that we need to start off with it starts off with yokich, and the reason why we always start off with yokich is this he's the baddest man on the planet today. You can call it whatever you want to call it. You can call him um, you know top three, whatever. We know. One thing about nicola yokich other denver nuggets we know that, uh, he is not just great, the level of what he plays with is generational. There are things that he is doing that we have not seen since wilt, so keep that in mind. Things that we have not seen since wilt.

Chamberlain and the funny part about it is is that in the clipper series, in the series that just ended and then we'll get into the OKC game as well that that Monday night was special. It was the others in game seven. Think about this. Think about some of the things that all happened in this series, in the Clippers Nugget Series Jamal Murray, pickpockets, james Harden, late Tone setter. Clippers explode by 34. Also, the Aaron Gordon game winner dunk at the buzzer. People forget about that one. Jamal Murray dropped with 31. And then the Braun Aaron Gordon explosion that happens in game 7. And some other things that happen that we really need to get to, and we will momentarily. Sometimes, when you are the best player in the world, everything is devised to stop you. Everything is look to slow you down and then we will worry about the others, the mere mortals, as we continue. This is what happened here and you'll say, well, is Yoki's all that 100%? Here's the thing that you need to know. Game 7.

I was really worried for denver. I thought the clippers were gonna find a way to win this series. I'm gonna be completely honest with you. Denver led in game seven 86 percent of the time. The clippers never cut the lead below nine. In the second half they closed them out. They packed them up efficiently. You know, like a business guy who is traveling all the time. He knows how to get in and out of the TSA lines and what have you. My guy is just rolling through, super efficient. Let's crack them up. We gotta go. Here's a serea note. It didn't feel like a back and forth. It just felt like denver calmly cutting off every la escape route. That is a good line. She is right on that. They didn't out talent la. They didn't outlast la, they outread them, they out trusted each other. That's a lot to go off of when you are talking about david adle adleman taking over as the interim coach for michael malone.

Michael malone, who won a championship with this pretty much this core, except for a couple other players that are not there anymore. Uh, specifically contabious caldwell poke, who was in orlando, and also bruce brown jr, who is now. He was in indiana. Then he went to what? Toronto, I think. He went to another team who's traded again. So what toronto? I think he went to another team who's traded again.

So I say all this to say what, when you have the greatest player on the planet? I understand what sga is. I understand what he's about to win. He's about to win a mvp. Congratulations to you. He's about to win a mvp. Congratulations to you. We also know that lebron was the greatest, was the best basketball player in the league when he didn't win some of these mvps. There was another guy who won a decent amount of mvps that probably could have won more. His name was michael jordan. Kobe ryan got a couple stolen away from him as well. So it doesn't matter whether you're the mvp. That does not make you the best player on the planet. What makes you the best player on the planet is how feared you are by that other team.

The clickers did everything in game seven to deny yokich and he kept cutting him up, kept cutting them up on assists, kept coming up, cutting them up on drives, kept cutting them up on um little floaters, everything like that. He wasn't offensively dominant, but the rebounds, the assist, the screens to get people open, he did all of those things. Now he had a little help, and when I say he had a little help, he had a little help from the clippers. And what I mean by that is that we're now here, it's now the end of the season, and you go. Well, what does this all mean? What it means is this james harton is still james harton. James hart did not show up in game seven. Yes, he had 13 assists, but when you only take eight shots, it's not great.

You are the second option on that team. They need you, they need your scoring, they need your leadership. You can say well, the, the ball didn't find me. Or you could say well, the, you know, we were just running our offense, we were running the system. I remember a quote from james harden earlier in the season. He said he is the system. So which one is it, james? Which one is it?

Were you running the system, you couldn't get shots off. Or were you reluctant to get shots off because you didn't want, like your percentages and whatever to go down and you weren't really looking to score because it was just way too aggressive? So you said, okay, I'm gonna just pass this off to somebody else who's a lot less ready for this moment than you are, who has been a number one option in a lot of places that you've been at, my guy. So if anybody can handle 18 to 22 opportunities of shots and things of that nature, it should be you. But you passed on that. But you're not the only one. Oh no, seemed like kawaii in the first half, saw what was going down, and then in the second half and third quarter he let go of the rope as well. So it wasn't just one, there were multiple of this situation. Our guy Zubats couldn't grab a rebound to save his life. You know it was a tough call through the whole deal.

Sometimes chase the moment, sometimes teams chase the moment they, or sometimes they become it. Denver's already on to the next act. They won the championship. They know who they are, they know what they're trying to do and I gave them little chance of winning this series. I said hey, as soon as they let michael malone go, I was like this is your season. It's a rudderless ship. How are they gonna get by?

Nicola yokich is basically took ownership of this team. Yes, I know that david adleman is putting together and devising the game plan, but if you see the huddles, we see a very animated yokich. Now. He has said in his interviews that this has always been him and now the cameras are finding him because, because of all the upheaval that is going on, I don't agree with you, jokic. I think this is more. I think you are more, I think you're doing more and I think you're trying to Tamper down or Give little credence to what we're actually seeing. But we're seeing a leader just exalt his team To the very, very top Of what they can be. Now Jokic doesn't just provide leadership. Again, I have said it and I'll say it again Jokic is the best player in basketball and he showed you exactly why.

Last night, jokic dropped 42 points, 22 rebounds and 6 assists in an absolute master class against the oklahoma city thunder, who won 68 games this year. We've talked about the historical net rating and all of those things, but here's the thing that I want to talk about is that I was like, okay, they're going to be fodder for okc. You played seven grueling games with the clippers. I say good luck. Your prize for winning this series and going on to the next round is to get your head kicked in by okc.

Yokich murray, aaron gordon, russell Westbrook and Christian Brown had other ideas to the story that I was trying to narrate for them. Okc still has the best defensive coverages in real time. The Thunder had this game and then they blinked the one thing that we always talked about with the okc thunder and also with cleveland, but more with more. So with okc, young teams don't come together this quickly. They have to get the playoff abrasions on them. They have to get themselves a little dirty before they're able to win, because, as much as you want to say whatever human nature is this anytime? You know, last week we had that, what we had the gorilla and the hundred men.

Somebody brought up this point in that situation. I want to bring it also to basketball, and so I'm taking something that was on the internet last week. We should have talked about it. We didn't excuse me, but here's the thing that people need to understand the reason why I don't think 100 men can take the gorillas, because there's going to be somebody or multiple people in that group that are going to want credit. They're going to want credit for the leadership or whatever the heroism that they showed through in, you know, conquering the gorilla, that they're not gonna work as a team. That's why I always thought that the hundred people versus a gorilla was a stupid thing, because I was like yo the, when the first 10 get absolutely annihilated, I want to see how much. I want to see how much uh resolve they have after they see just the devastation that happens to the first 10th. I think you're gonna have a lot of apprehension and I thought, basically, this is what was going to happen to denver in this first game. You just came off the grueling seven games.

Okc has been off for a while. They have a great defense, they're physical, they're handsy, all these things. The one thing that we did talk about is their young. The one thing we did discuss is okay, we think that shea gilgis alexander is certified. We think that his game definitely translates to the playoffs. But what about the others? Do they have enough? And I'm not saying that we got a definitive answer in this first game. But what the questions that we had? They are all on display in game one. They are all on display in game one. So let's get to it.

Uh, okc was doing very well. The flow was impeccable, vibes, immaculate okc crowd, absolutely in a fever pitch. They're up by 14 in the second quarter. And then the deluge happened. They got outscored 71 to 59. In the second half jokic and gordon wrecked okc's front court. They combined for 64 points and 36 rebounds. I'll read that number again two guys, 64 points, 36 rebounds. I'll read that number again Two guys, 64 points, 36 rebounds. That's getting it done. Oh, here's the best part. Okc had not been in a bunch of close games. All year. They've been blowing people out. We've talked about their net rating the whole year, how historic it has been.

In clutch situations Against the Nuggets, okc was 2 of 9 field goals. Ok, 2 of 9. That's 22%, folks, if you can't do the math. So they were 2 of 9. In clutch situations, 6 of the 9 turnovers came in the fourth quarter. Most turned into Denver points.

So again, when people poo-pooed me, people said, oh, vince, you're just hating OKC. No, this basketball, we've been watching this thing forever. Young teams, it takes you Time To learn how to win. There is not a manual. You pick up and you say, oh, I got it. There's no cliff notes Version of this. You have to Learn the lesson. You have to learn the lesson, you have to figure out the lesson and then you have to master the lesson so when you get into the situation again it doesn't happen. Now this is one game. They can learn this lesson right, immediately and blow out Denver.

I have never said that I thought that OKC Was not a viable Western Conference champion, but what I did say is that we have to at least give room, that they at least give credence to the possibility that a team that is led by somebody who's 26 years of age his co-stars are all 22 and 23 years of age respectively and that is what is going to be a team of grown-ass men. Jokic is 31. He comes from Serbia. You don't think he's seen some shit. Aaron Gordon is 30. He was the face of the franchise in Orlando. They wanted him to be the number one option. He's come to denver and won a championship and found his role. He's gone through some stuff in the nba jamal murray, well documented, all the the naysayers, all the you know the whispers, and hey is, is it gonna happen? And he's. He's the most talented guy who's never been an all-star, all these things.

Denver is a veteran laden team that has the ability to block out the noise. To block out the noise. Okc is in OKC 1. They are insulated by the very sparse media situation, the sparse media contingency that usually develops that city. Now you got the whole national media on you because it's the playoffs. Lights are a little brighter. Media on you because it's the playoffs lights a little brighter. This wasn't just a comeback, it was denver slowing the game down to a crawl and daring okc to match them in the half court and they couldn't. They could not.

Now a couple things that I want to bring to your attention that might. We're going to throw some actual criticism towards mark dagnall, the oklahoma city thunder head coach, and it's very rare that we do so on this program, because we love mark dagnell, we think mark dagnell is a really good coach. But I had a couple questions about some of the roster rotations and who ended up in games and who ended up not in games. So first thing is this caruso, alex caruso, who was traded to the ok, the Oklahoma City Thunder, in the offseason from Chicago and they traded Josh Giddey and I said at the time I was like wow, chicago didn't even get a first round pick for this deal.

Giddey had an incredible season, no doubt, but Caruso had himself a game. First of all, his uh box plus minus was plus 13. This dude had six steals, two blocks and he was benched the last six minutes of that game. I I don't know what you need to see from him, because when he was in the game I don't think denver had really a chance to come back. He blocked yogich, he blocked gordon, he stole the ball from multiple people. I think he got jamal Murray, I know he got Christian Brown a couple times and he definitely got Westbrook, but he was not in the game. Dagnock chose to go with, like the Hardenstein, chet, j-dub, sga Lou Dort lineup and I'm not saying that's a bad lineup to go with, but Caruso was playing so well.

I just questioned the decision that Mark Dagnall made. Now you can sit there and tell me well, hey, this is what the rotation's been the whole season. Listen, you watch okc 82 games a year. I might catch 25 okc games every year, maybe 35 depending on the year, but I think that at some point, especially in the playoffs, you, you gotta go, hey, man, we gotta win, and sometimes in winning you might hurt somebody's feelings. The truth will be told in the playoffs, guaranteed. I've said that. I said the excuse me, the biggest truth, biggest the way that you can sit there and you start to know how players are, how they're really thought of Around the league If you see how they're defended In the playoffs. When you see how they're defended in the playoffs, you start to realize what kind of player we're talking about.

And I thought that Mark Dagnall had a real First, real decision to be made, and I'm not saying he failed, I'm just I asked the question why, why not Caruso, who has been in championship situations With the Lakers, multiple playoff runs? Why on earth was Alex Caruso not in the closing lineup? Caruso was the best defender on Jamal Murray and you benched him. It was very risky. Now, our guyokic 42 points on a 15 to 29 shooting. We talked about the boards, 22, six dimes, but also drew a flagrant foul.

I like that part beat blitzes, ignore traps. He played chess in the post deep seals, counters, live dribbles, skip passes. You saw the whole array of what was going on with yokich. He was getting to his areas whenever he wanted to and that's going to be key. There were huge foul trouble on Chet, on Hardenstein I think Lou Dort had a bunch of fouls. So, at the end of the day, if you're going to get this type of Jokic, who is going to be this aggressive, okay, see, expect a long series. This is, this is going to go seven. I hope you are having fun. And if yokich is going to be shack with vision, this is a 4d checkmate performance okc, try coverage variations yokich red, every single one of them.

This dude was like a surgeon and I'm talking about like those high-level surgeons, right, the ones that they call in like from oslo, norway, right. This dude walked in to the operating room. He called out his tools okay, all of them right, pulled out his tools and said okay, scalpel please, because we about to surgically dissect this team. My man went in there to a 68 win, most dominant looking team in the NBA and said we are not, as we are not afraid of you. And and I'm gonna tell you right now if you don't give us our respect, we might embarrass you. Okc is a very good team. They have a lot of wins under their belt and they have future wins that are coming to them.

Shea is an absolute star and he is going to show up and show out in this playoff series and, and as long as they go in the playoffs, he's going to show up and show. But I will say we did ask does okc have enough? Are we sure about jalen williams? Are we sure about check? Even though I've coined them the big three of okc and I will not, I will not step down from that statement. I do believe that this is a special group. My whole point is Is that when the lights get bright, we don't need you guys to show up If you're going to be the pick three that we expect you to be, and you did not do that. You did not do that game.

One Gordon, at the five, the non-Yokic minutes. You know he was a positive 19 net. Westbrook, in 30 minutes was a positive four and christian brown, uh, earned his playoff stripes last night 13 rebounds, 13 rebounds, 13. And he deed up shea, he deed up j-dub, all of the dudes that you sit there and say, man, that dude's a problem, he was deeing them up. Do I expect okc to counter? Do I expect okc, okc to have a a answer to these? Yes, this is still really good team. Okay, see, had went with size, with hartenstein and also chat, uh what? Yoki still called them up.

I'm not saying that they will avert away from that. I wonder if they'll try the one big and try to allow the swings and the wings to get underneath yokey skin and be a little more uh what? Vibrant around the ball, a lot more energy, a lot more handsy things of that nature that just be more of a pest instead of a absolute like wall deterrent. Anytime that you can kind of slow down the processing of Jokic, you won. And I don't think with the two bigs you have that, you have that capability of doing so, I think, with a one big lineup and then the wings that are so active on defense, I think that's the way of going If you're going to try to really neutralize what nicola yokich of the denver nuggets is trying to do.

And here's the other thing with that, keep in mind, that is the de facto point guard. He is their leading rebounder. He sets the offense. He's also coaching the team. Now he also might can be the general manager of the team. Remember they fire calvin booth. He might actually be the general manager. I'm no, I'm kidding, but he's doing so much for that team and I think that we should celebrate that situation. Think that we should celebrate that situation. The gordon watson, peyton watson has big defensive upside.

Anytime that you can go ahead and have two guys who can switch on to smaller players and also guard the bigger guys on the team is a win-win. This isn't just a match-up, it's a philosophy test. Okay, see wants to be versatile. Endeavor went blunt force plus red red base iq. You know saying they just said hey, we're gonna, we're gonna look at the passing lanes and we're gonna get inside those passing lanes and we're going to make it extremely hard for you to make those skip passes to the corner. Anytime that you get into the lane and you make a decision that takes more than half a beat, we're going to go ahead and allow you to probably make that decision and see what we can do in the passing lanes. I saw a lot of that in that game. Okay, see also attempted to mirror Denver's tempo play style and it failed. They had no half court initiator when SGA was walled up.

Um, this series is a referendum on Jalen Williams now, is that fair? No, no, it's not, because what? This is third year in the league. There's no reason for us to sit here and make declarations on what Jalen Williams is going to be scars and and what have you. One of the things that we saw in, uh, some of these other series and things of that nature, you know, with some of the young teams, is that they just haven't had them yet, and okc is no different.

Just because we saw golden state do this a decade ago doesn't necessarily mean that history is going to repeat itself in this situation. I'm not saying that okay, see, it's not special enough to rise to the occasion, but also, I need to see it. That's always been. The thing that we've said is that we need to see it until till we have seen you kind of get over that mountaintop. We're gonna have questions now. This would go a long way into answering those questions if you could sit there and figure out. Figure out the actual mystery that is nicola yokich. I'll be a feather in your cap, no doubt.

But if FGA is going to get blitzed. The others are going to have to do something. Chet J-Dub, lou Dort, cason Wallace, aaron Wiggins, whoever you trust, is going to have to be able to initiate offense and understand that you have the numbers advantage and find your open guy. And it just becomes that simple if you can find the open guy, get him into the blender and then now you there. The ball moves faster than that.

What are some of the adjustments for game two? Very easy more blitzes on yokich. Let's put him, let's pressure him. Let's see what happens him. Let's see what happens. Let's see if Aaron Gordon can repeat the same workload that he did in game one, cuz you got to continue to test that. Sga needs some downhill touches late, he needs to be able to get into the paint and they have zero weak side relocators. After the third quarter they shot terrible from three.

Now what do you think? What do you think? Thunder up, fam. What do you think? Mile high basketball fam. What do you? What are your thoughts on game two? Nuggets fans, thunder fans. Let us know in the comments, also on twitter, at front runner podcast or app runnerbskysocial, and then also it's at frpc-rayugbskysocial. So we're there, y'all hit us up. Let us know what's going on. And now Y'all hit us up. Let us know what's going on. And now, hey, boston, what's up? What is up? How y'all feel Game 1 has happened.

Did anything newsworthy happen in Boston yesterday? Oh, oh, the Celtics were up by 20 and then blew the game. That's what happened. Let's get into it. The celtics were in control of this game. Uh, even though we had injuries on Christoph Porzingis we'll get into a little bit later. We had. Also, we saw that Jalen Brown was didn't have it as much as he usually does in this first game. Now, I don't expect that Jalen Brown will have these type of games the whole way through the playoffs whatsoever. That is not what I'm saying. But he did struggle in the first game. And let me tell you something that was key. They get up by 20 Celtics, everything's going great, we're feeling good.

And then OG Ananobi Happens Rewrote the script in the third quarter. This dude, he couldn't miss shots. He just kept, also not allowing the wings of Boston or the guards of Boston to score a basket. On the other end, we will get into Mikkel Bridges and what kind of manly situation he had. But the og ananogi third quarter experience was a sight to see. Dream up your favorite roller coaster, dream up your favorite uh video game, like, uh, I guess whatever like speed round video game situation that you love, that you can go into and kind of play in this real short, quick situation. And that was what og Ananobi was last night. He was everything that the Knicks needed, because he was like, hey, we're either about to get blown out or we're about to make this a game and I'm gonna do everything I can to make this a game. And he took it upon himself.

So let's get into what went on. Boston was up 61-41 in the second quarter. So that's the backdrop that I want you to have 61-41. The Celtics shot 6-29 from 3 in the second half. 6-29, that's 22%. 6 of 29 from 3 in the second half. 6 of 29. That's 22%. There's that number again, key number. So 6 of 29 from 3 in the second half and also an OT. Knicks closed with a switchable big lineup of Hart, og Bridges, cat and Brunsonson and it worked to a t.

The shift in third quarter is that hart and og and mikhail bridges brought bombs, corner bombs, and boston could not find any rhythm whatsoever. They couldn't hit a two, they couldn't hit a three, the step backs weren't working. It was all the things that celtics fans do not like some step back threes by jason tatum, some like quick shots in the in the shot clock situation. I mean, there was just stuff that you just sat there and going like do we not understand that it's the playoffs and we need to value the basketball? Like do we not understand that the the possession of the actual damn basketball is the most vile, is the most valuable commodity in this dumb game that we're playing? And it looked like Boston was just playing a regular season game. They look like just regular dudes out there. Hey, man, what's going on? Get some cardio in. Yeah, I'm just doing it.

And then it all fell apart because OG Ananove happened. Now here's the best part Tatum, who has played great all year. This has been the best Tatum season we've had. Let's be honest Five turnovers, no paint touches in the final three minutes. Six foot ten, 240 pounds. Five turnoversovers, no paint touches, final three minutes. We never saw the small ball. Look with tatum at the five. Okay, so this is a missoula deal.

The hauser, cornet, richard, uh triumvirate, overextended bench didn't pay off. Joe Mazzullo's rotation scream indecision. You need a clue. You needed a closer, and Boston had too many bystanders on the court. We needed some dudes who knew who are about it, about it. That's what we were looking for, and survey says big old x. You know, I'm saying big old x family for you style. You know how we do it. We talked about og and novi and what happened? What he did. The thing that I do want to talk about is how he kind of just he just engulfed jalen brown and also jason tatum. They were not able to get into any of their real actions that they wanted to.

I would have loved to seen some inverted pick and rolls with the guards, with drew holiday or with derrick white. We didn't see a lot of that. It was a lot of one-on-one type nonsense. And again, if you're not going to get into the paint, how are you going to be able to kick it out to threes? Then to threes that will be open. If you're just going to hang around the perimeter, it's going to be very easy to guard you. Brunson was brunson in the end. Now there were heroics about others and we'll get to that in one second. But brunson had 29 points, six assists.

Uh, deuce mcbride led a 11 11-0 run in the third quarter with heart, og and cat. But the big part of this game is the mikhail bridges experience in the fourth quarter and also in the overtime. And we'll get to that in one second because there is one other piece that we need to talk about. 13 minutes into the game, kristoff porzingis left and never came back. Now there was some sort of undisclosed illness. We still haven't gotten word on what actually happened. We are, we are efforting to get that information for you.

And Boston frontcourt unraveled after that. Because if you take Christoph Porzingis out of that lineup and you say, okay, al Horford, luke Cornette and the boys, well, that's impressive in the regular season, but now you're going up against the best of the best and luke cornet is not gonna cut it. He's just not. Not because he's. It's not because he's. He isn't a good player. He is a good player, but there's limitations to this, there's levels and Unfortunately we're. This might be a little bit outside His comfort zone. What we're about to go through now.

There was no rim protection, no vertical spacing, no clear counter, joe Mazzulla clothes with a 38 year old al horford, luke cornet, manning the paint a tough ask in an ot on an overtime playoff setting. Meanwhile, jalen brunson played through a lingering knee issue. He couldn't give them his the usual burst on switches and closeouts. That left the celtics scrambling on both ends and cat quietly punished them in the gaps with 15 points and nine boards. It wasn't him completely, it was og. It was hard getting into the paint and then kicking it out to spraying it out. For three point shooters it was all of those type of things, but the big thing is having not having porzingis in there. Porzingis being sick was just a sidebar issue, but boston's inability to cover for him. When your best athlete is at 75% and you're closing with Cornette at the rim, you're asking to be hunted. You're just asking for ass whoopings one-on-one ass whoopings all across the lineups.

At that point, the Knicks spacing mimicked the Raptors 2019 off-ball cutting. The Celtics looked lost in certain parts of this game. They just did not handle the pressure very well. Boston, who has been reluctant to use Tatum at the 5, might need to go ahead and break that out in key stretches in this series. Also. Jaylen Brown, get off ball and start making cuts to the basket if you can't do your one-on-one stuff and the stop start because your knee is hurt too much, get off ball, make some cuts, get open shots, get easy shots. So then, therefore, now you know you have made the defense think about other things while you're doing your deal. Boston is not in trouble.

This series can go long, but the one thing that the knicks have shown boston is that they're vulnerable, that this is not the same knicks team that they've been playing or what have you. This is a nick team that has matured, and this is also janning brunson's way of saying hey, if the game is close, I'm the best closer on the floor, and he likes those odds. And I don't know If the Celtics, faithful In times of Deep reflection, I wonder how they feel about that. Just a thought, just a thought. Alright, we're going're gonna move along to the cleveland cavaliers and that game and what happened there?

Now there's some backstory. Deris garland has a toe injury and you say well, vince, it's a toe injury. What are we talking about right now? No, no, this ain't, no, just normal toe injury. This is turf toe. Turf toe is debilitating. Uh, you can't cut off of it, and it's in his big toe, by the way, and the only way to basically fix it is rest and then you can go in for surgery. That's risky but you can go in for surgery and fisk it fix. It only thing is, obviously you don't have that time right now or the luxury to do that. So that's our kind of backdrop to the cleveland series.

So let's get into it, shall we? Let's get into how this is going to go. Donovan Mitchell does Donovan Mitchell things Drops? 33 points. Wow, this is great so far. What happened? What happened to them in this game? You can say a lot of things happened to them. The first thing is this the middle, third pick and roll, the secondary creation, the skip reads off. Weak side corners gone, all gone, and it wasn't coming back. Cleveland had 25 assists, but two came in the fourth quarter. They shot collectively 23.7 from three. Collectively they shot 20. They shot below 25. This is a team that shot 39 as a team from the three-point line. All year they shot 23.7 percent from beyond the three-point line in game one. Nothing was created, everything was forced.

Struth and merrill got zero rhythm looks and we saw the importance of garland. We saw the importance of his priority to make an imprint on paint, purposeful paint touches. You know I talk about it all the time, if you make purposeful paint touches part of your offensive diet, what it's going to do it's going to allow the defense to converge on the paint, leave it open your shooters. So now you can spray the ball out, and when you don't have that as an option in your offense and your in your offensive repertoire, you really are doing yourself a disservice. Now could donovan movan Mitchell do more of these things? 100% he could, and obviously that might be the adjustment for game 2. And we'll see Now how bad is the injury. We said it's turf toe. He's been out for a little while. Can it get better? Yes, problem is that as soon as he plays again, he starts cutting on it, he starts moving on it. It's gonna hurt. So We'll see how much pain tolerance he has. We'll see when, when we get Darius Garland in this series, but we will see.

Rick Carlisle didn't just prep for Cleveland without Garland, he hunted the gaps and that would Open up because of it. Early, early shot clock, isolation coverage on missile mitchell off, ball switching, killed off, uh, killed off. Weak side flares the bench lineups from mcconnell and matherin plus 12 in the second quarter run via matherin, plus 12 in the second quarter run via chaos and tempo indy switches, streusel merrill off curls, no advantage created, ends in a late clock iso that ended up in absolutely nothing. And this was in the second quarter. I want to say, with like 247 to go, in the second quarter, carlisle coached like it was game 7 and JV Bickerstaff coached like it was game 1. Donovan Mitchell was all of what Donovan Mitchell could be the 33 points on the 30 shots. That's that's. We're going to get to that in one second, because that's very important. I have a key stat to that situation 30 shots, one assist. This is utah jazz version of donovan mitchell. I thought we were done with this. I thought we were done with the hero ball.

All we talked about all year is how much he trusted his teammates. I told you and I'll continue to tell you, when you are stressed, when you are put in a stressful situation, your dna shows up. And he was put in a stressful position and we saw 30 shots and one assist. That's a problem that kenny atkinson must saw. By the way, shots out to kenny atkinson for winning coach of the year wasn't my vote. It wasn't my vote, but I think that kenny atkinson uh definitely deserve credit. Uh for the, for the people who did vote for him. I mean, I under there was no, there was no like, uh like bad choice. So kenny atkinson went in with what he would put together and and whatever. I have no problem with that. I chose dagnall myself, but I don't have a problem with our guy winning this award. Cleveland's offense asked him to do everything. Merrill missed early and vanished late.

Now here's the stat that I want to tell you. Donovan Mitchell is now 1-5 all time in playoff games where he takes 30 shots or more. He's also 2-12 when he takes 25 shots and has three, three or less assists. 2 and 12 25 field goal attempts, three or less assists. It's not a critique, it's a pattern high volume, high, burden, low. It's very great. It's a very good story that Donovan Mitchell was able to trust his teammates to bring them to this mid-60 win total throughout the regular season. Donovan Mitchell needs to continue to play that way trust his teammates, because if he doesn't and they start to get the inkling that he does not trust them, he will lose them and then they will lose this. They could lose this series.

Here's another interesting stat for you the last 50 games of the year, the Cleveland Cavaliers were 35-15. The indiana pacers were 34 and 16. They're not that different. Yes, cleveland had got off to a great start and whatever. It took indiana a while to find his identity and things of that nature. And Tyrese Halliburton wasn't playing up to the level of what he was capable of.

But in that, that second part of the season, that last 50 games, again 35 and 15 for Cleveland, 34 and 16 for Indiana. Okay, so we have some other things that we our guy yo, in darius garland's absence, ty jerome 28 points, eight assists played well, but he was targetable defensively. They, they looked for him, they hunted that dude. They were like, oh my god, he's gonna play 30 minutes, let's go get him. Let's go get him or call and wave force into creator. Uh, adjacent roles, four combined assists, no squacing. Obviously mogli couldn't trigger anything from the elbow because there was no one rotating into his vision. There was a lot of standing around and fuck up, fuck up, fuck around and find out. That was basically what happened and they did. They found out.

Indiana is up to the task. Indiana is not here just to be here, they're here to actually play. And again, everybody knows the history and we scoffed at it. We said, hey, they got to the Eastern Conference Finals last year because teams got hurt. There were a couple breaks that went their way, and all of this.

Indiana does not care about our rhetoric, it does not care about our narrative and they do not care about what we think about their chances of winning in this series. They are here to play the game, they are here to bust Cleveland's ass as much as possible, and Tyrese Halliburton is absolutely relishing this fact. Can they get Garland back? I don't know, we don't. We have no idea, zero clue on whether they're going to be able to get this dude back or not. Um, if Ty, if Ty Jerome is is gonna have to start games, they are going to have to find ways and to get the other guys involved, and we cannot have 30 shots from devin, uh, from donovan mitchell. It is not a it's not a hero's quest to take it. It really isn't. It's just terrible, terrible, just All kinds of ball distribution issues that we need to fix In game 2.

Indiana didn't just win, they showcased their playoff ready model. 19 made 3's 10 different players hit 1. I say that again. 19 made 3rees 10 different players hit one. I say that again. 19 made threes 10 10 different individuals hit threes. Okay. Team Halliburton 22 points, 13 assists, one turnover, one whole game. Surgical. Neesmith and Nembhardt were absolutely fantastic on the defensive end and what they provided as far as connectors on the offensive end. I really enjoyed what I saw out of Aaron Neesmith and also Andrew Nembhard defensive control and elite shot selection from those guys.

Indy runs a new age offense with old school buy-in. Every shooter moves, every drive has a second read and that nightmare is when you are down a playmaker. So you don't have Darius Garland. These dudes are coming off cuts. They're moving all over the place. They don't give two shits about what you're doing. We're playing with house money and we are here to win and embarrass you money, and we are here to win and embarrass you.

Cleveland, better come to play a game too. They better come because if they don't tyrese, halliburton and nimhar and neesmith are the three type of guys that would say you know what? Let's go ahead and really crank the. You know just. You know, just tighten up the screws in them a little bit and win game two and see what happens. See, see, see if we can crack them.

Now garland is going to play hurt and let's assume he is. You can't game plan around him. Being actual, what we consider of darius garland, remember what he was like last year when he had the broken jaw and lost 20 pounds and whatever the case may be now. So what does that mean? Instead, let Mobley do his damage. Use your advantages that you have. Mobley is a seven foot one connector who also can score in different, various ways in, uh, various arrays of types of scoring. He can shoot the three. He can get into that mid, that mid high post. He can get on the block, he can take you off the dribble. Kind of a lot Anthony Anthony Davis style. A lot more Evan Mugley, less Donovan Mitchell. Offensive creation. Oh, by the way, play Jerome and Mitchell, but stagger them, don't play them side by side. I will say this this is going to be the ultimate chess match.

And here's the thing JB Bickerstaff got fired from the Detroit Pistons. Obviously it was not his fault. That team was mismanaged, it was absolutely. It was a derelict of duty on so many levels. So we do not chastise JB Bickaker staff for the detroit piston situation. What I will do is I will I will chastise atkinson and his role in this situation because, let's be honest about it. He was brought in to innovate this offense. Right, the offense was stagnant. Jb baker staff has taken them as far as they could go. That's what they told us and I'm not saying it's not true. But you can't tell me that one guy, one guy leaves your team for one game and your whole identity just floats out the window and donovan mitchell's out here looking like utah jazz, donovan mitchell circa 2020.

What are we doing Now? We need to Get to Sunday and you say, well, vince, today is Tuesday. Why are we talking about Sunday? Well, something very important happened on Sunday. What happens when a young team Full of talent Finally runs into a system that they can't speed up, they can't speed past? What do you do when your most explosive scorer can't read the defense, your best passer is suffocated at the elbow and the other team's six man drops 33 points on 12 shots without dribbling? Damn, this sound like 2017 golden state right to sound like 2017 golden state right here. It's not, but it does sound like it. When you hear 33 points on 12 shots and you say without real, minimal dribbles, who's the first person you think of? Well, damn, that sounds like Klay Thompson, doesn't it? No, it was Buddy Heald. Think about that. My buddy is now your buddy. He is also the Bay's buddy.

It wasn't just loss for the Houston Houston Rockets, it was a reveal. It was a reveal what that team was and what now in the future, what it's going to look like. Let me explain. On Sunday night the Rockets walked into their own emotional playoff pilot and the golden state warriors showed up like they were in syndicate. They're a syndicated veteran, you know what I'm saying tighter script, better timing, zero identity confusion. They just, you know, hey, what's up. We go, say warriors, we do things.

And then buddy hill showed up and went nuclear Curry connected the dots. He was kind of. They did everything they could to not allow Curry to beat them. Amon Thompson was absolutely fantastic until he got hurt and that's when Steph Curry got loose. It was only when Amin Thompson got the calf injury when Steph finally started to get a little just. He got a sliver more of room and that's all it took in the fourth quarter of that game.

But before that it was the buddy hill show and we will not. We will not fake the funk on a nasty dunk on buddy hill because we need to give him his flowers. This guy's played in the league a long time. He's never had a really good playoff performance. So if my man is going to score 33 points on 12 shots, we are going to celebrate that. And also, jimmy butler was jimmy butler. He showed he might be the third man. No, he's not, because there was buddy hill comment. He. He called, uh, jimmy butler after the game, alfred, because jimmy has been talking about Steph Curry being his Batman and he's the Robin. Buddy screams across the locker room and says oh so you're Alfred and I'm Robin. And then you know Steph is still Batman, right? So good exchange there, love that. I thought that was pretty cool, especially in the moment of playoffs.

But this episode takes a turn. It's not about the Warriors, oh no, it's about the team in Houston that looks more like heel season one than any Western Conference playoff threat. Talented cast, good potential, heel season one did any Western Conference playoff threat talented, cast, good potential, but no clear lead, no direction and no one calling the match. We break down how the Warriors spaced Houston out out of their own structure, why you may, hadoka's line of collapse when it mattered, and what the rockets front office needs to ask before this show ends in dramatic fashion. So let's get to it. Faction, so let's get to it.

This was not the warriors of the past, this wasn't the beautiful game. This wasn't 300 past possessions. This wasn't a curry 40 piece. This was a team saying, hey, we are better than our collective parts and we're gonna get key performances from key individuals. And we're gonna have some surprise performances from individuals, because we need every last individual to help us win this game, every last individual to help us win this game.

Golden State opened this game with a five-out offense that bent Houston's coverage before the shot clock even hit 15. Draymond was the hub, not scoring threat, but movement orchestrator. You had heel flying off pin downs, butler playing off the gas and stuff. Basically, he was just basically being escorted individually by amon thompson all across the court. So wherever steph went 94 feet, amon thompson went okay. So I want you to get that visual steph is in the game, steph is on the bench.

Amon thompson wanted to sit on golden state bench. That's how close he wanted to be to steph. I think he even tried to bribe the hotel that golden state was staying at to see if he can get a room key to go and see if he could tuck step in tonight. He wanted to guard Steph as much as possible and he did. If Steph is not gonna have a 40 point game, what do you need? How do you win if Steph is not being the Steph that we know? He's not being that guy? That's the absolute baby face assassin that we are in love with. Well, you go back to what brought you to the dance, right. And I'm gonna say something to the golden state warriors fans, dumb nation.

Did we get strength in numbers last night? You bet your ass. We did on sunday night. We sure did. 18 made threes, 41.9 shooting, only seven turnovers. When have we known a golden state team to turn the ball over? Only seven times? That's the first question. They out assisted houston 24-14ilde, hit three, I mean hit four. Threes off pin downs, three catch and shoot above the great threes, the fast break points just two, or them Just two. They wanted to slow it down. Golden State didn't beat Houston with 10-well, they bludgeoned them. They bludgeoned them with space. They bludgeoned them with rotation. They bludgeoned them with shot profile. Trust, they just bludgeoned them. Draymond ran the show Also fouled a bunch of people. Shingun we will talk about that shot at the end, but Shingun, by the way, houston, we will talk about what you should do. It might not be in this podcast because I don't want to go too long, but we will talk about what you should do, probably on Friday.

Jimmy Butler's um coming to the Golden State Warriors has been a absolute revelation. So whatever you think of Jimmy Butler and his past and what he's done, all are valid, but we cannot take away from what the man is on the court and he's just a calming figure on the court. Don't let the quiet box score fool you. He wasn't just filling up space, he was creating tempo without the ball. It was drives, it was kicks, it was swings and finish. He had seven assists. He had one turnover. Three of those dimes came after houston bit on help rotations and left the weak side open, just to go ahead and have a skip pass thrown by jimmy butler to an open shooter waiting locked in ready to cock it and shoot.

The other thing that we need to get to is this Houston's defensive map was redrawn. They tried to take away Steph and it was working Until the guy who was assigned this Daunting task Pulled up lane with a calf injury. It's like dude. This guy's been going miles with steph the whole series and now he comes up with a calf injury that sucked for him. Steph loved it, though. He got open and and he got some nice shots in the fourth quarter. Which Golden State needed all of those?

The thing about the thing about Houston is this Is that they don't have a go to guy. Jalen Green, as talented as he is, is not Effective enough as a on ball creator, as somebody who can create offense for himself, and we just need a bucket. Can you get us a bucket? The answer is no, and I have a friend in my life who swore up and down that jaylen green was going to be this guy and unfortunately, I had never seen it. I never under. He's like you just don't see the vision. You know he he was maligned because you know he had silas here and you know silas wasn't really teaching them how to do anything and blah, blah, blah and all these things right.

So enter, email adoka, and what you first start seeing you may do is start pulling jalen green. Start pulling him like nope, this is, you're not. You're not valuing the basketball, you're not adhering to the defensive principles that we have put forth. You're going to sit on the bench. That was last year. Now we fast forward to the end of last year.

Right, shingun gets hurt, jalen green goes on, this magical run of multiple 30 plus game scores, multiple like six, seven assist games, highlight dunks, all of it. Right, we're saying here it is. And my friend who loves Jalen Green, loves him. He was like this is it, this is what we have been waiting for. And I said do a complete wet blanking on it, didn't you know? And I know he probably thought that I was doing that on purpose. I wasn't. I did bring up the point that it was march and it was early april. And we know what kind of happens in march and early april.

And if you're not familiar with the nba, what happens is is that teams that are going into the playoffs, they might take their foot off the gas pedal a little bit. Right, so they're going to throttle down the teams that are not going to make the playoffs. Well, they're also throwing, throttling down as well because they're trying to get the best pick that they can possibly get in the lottery. So there was a lot of games where you kind of scratched your head and said, well, that was a good game by jaylen green. That was a very good game by him. Are we sure it's going to translate to to the point where it's going to matter? That was always the question, and we got our answer in this series, because the playoff like we've always said, it's the biggest truth teller, tells you exactly who you are and tells you what you need to work on.

Jalen green was ineffective. There are a lot of drives that weren't purposeful at all. There were drives where he wasn't really looking to score. He was looking to get fouled and those foul calls never came. My God, you are not James Harden, you are not Steph Curry, you are not Trey Young, you are not Jimmy Butler. So you're not going to get those calls. You need to go to the basket with the intention to score, sir, and if you're not going to do that, that's why your ass is at home now. That's why you are now vacationing. Because you didn't go to score, you went to get fouled.

Now, coaching decisions we're building around armin thompson and shingo. Okay, that's I don't know about the coaching decision, but the front office decision is very clear. We build around armin thompson and we build around shingun and we go out and give us a reliable, 25 point per game, bucket getter, efficient, whatever you want to call it. We go out and get one of those. We got a plethora of young dudes and we got a plethora of picks. Let's go get it Now, okay.

Last thing I'll say about this and then we can close this one out Is that If you're sitting there and you're a Houston Rockets fan and you are Of the opinion that you were robbed in this series, first of all, you are ahead of schedule, sir. You're not supposed to. Well, you're supposed to be here in the playoffs. You aren't supposed to be a two-seed, okay, so that's foul money right there. Secondly, you had no playoff real experience going into this situation. Yes, fred and leet had played in playoff situations. A couple other people that you had on team did but other than that, you're the team, the guys that you're trying to develop into the rotation of the future for the rockets. That's going to be that next iteration of a championship team, the championship core. Well, this was their first foray into the playoffs. Pretty good, you know outing for them, but this was their first foray.

The same thing that we talk about OKC Is the same thing we're going to talk about Houston. Houston should not be disappointed In how they played in this series, or whatever the case may be. They were outmanned, they were outgunned in the sense of we don't have a go to scorer Now. You keep Shang-Goon, you keep Amin Thompson and you look for trades for other people. As far as that's concerned, now I don't know where you go from there we'll see but at the end of the day, houston got incredible playoff experience. They played against a really good team. They needed to play against a team like this and they they got all of what they needed. Now it's you go to the drawing board and you see what rafael stone and uh the fortitas are willing to do for the next iteration of what the houston rockets are going to look for.

Here's the one thing I will say to my houston rockets hashtag liftoff brethren out there. You're going to hear a lot of podcasts tell you about kevin durant. You're going to hear a lot of podcasts tell you about how getting somebody like kevin durant who is instant offense he's an offensive ecosystem onto himself, how this will be very beneficial to you as an organization. I want you, as a fan base, to not get married to this idea, not because of the fact that it could not happen. I'm not saying that it could happen. I want you to not get yourself so married to this idea, because I don't think this is the best idea for you. That's the reason why and it's not because I'm sour on KD we know how much I love KD I don't think he's the necessary piece that you're looking for. Yes, he is the scorer that you're looking for and, yes, you have enough defensive talent around him per se until we see what's in that trade. But I think there's a better way to go ahead, and you have a bunch of assets and you have. You have a way to asset allocate yourself into a very formidable bucket getter. So don't be enamored With the shiny Bobble. Don't do it, trust me. Look at what Phoenix has gone through, look at what Brooklyn has gone through. Tell me you want to sign up for that, okay.

Now, with that being said, what's on the docket for this week? Well, glad you asked. We got a lot of draft stuff that we need to get to on friday because, feel good, friday is coming, presented by vince and the fine, fine folks of front runner podcast collective. We will do big draft stuff coming friday. Mark my words. We will also talk about the teams that are now not in the playoffs. We will talk about the teams that are been sitting at home for a while. They weren't in the playoffs to begin with and we'll start breaking down what they need, how they need it, how they gonna get it. Do they have the assets for it? Do they have the cash space for it? Is there a trade to be made? Was there something at the trade deadline that we heard about? That might now manifest itself in the summertime? I have no perfectly clue, but you know when? We will know? It's Friday, because we're going to feel real good and we're going to bring you Nothing but heat.

So, with that being said, I would like to thank my incredible producer, soraya, who has held it down Through this Season of change and this season of change and this season of uh, of rediscovery and what we do. And the other thing that I want to do is take this time to let our audience know two things. One, we work so hard to to bring you this, and I know a lot of people will tell you that, right, a lot of people who do the podcasting thing, they, they love it whatever occasion it be, and I'm not saying they're worse than we are or whatever. They're not. Why do I think our podcast is for you? Two reasons. One, we're gonna try to have some fun, bring our own personality out and give it to you. Hopefully we can give you some real breakdown analysis that you can then talk to your friends about, and then hopefully we can give you something that is Kind of just easily digestible and what I mean by that is not that we're dumbing it down for you is that we are able to maybe give you some sort of analogy or some sort of like key clue that you can then just kind of lock that in to yourself and go. I know exactly what the hell this guy's talking about right now and he's making a lot of sense to me.

We do this because we love it. We do this because, uh, it was pre-ordained for us to do. Uh, we do this because of the fact that two times a week, there's nobody on this planet giving you entertainment, information, and then also the real nah, they want to kind of slow play. Oh yeah, laker fans, let me ask you a question. You're gonna hear a lot of names out there in this couple days. My god, you're gonna hear miles turner, right, I think I even heard rudy go garrett. I heard other names too. Are any of those realistic? Only are we gonna give you something. Yeah, we could sell you a bill of goods and try to get the ratings and try to get the stats up, and all those sort of things. We could do that. No, we're not gonna do that, no, no, no.

The reason why we're not gonna do that is because we care about you, the audience. We do not want to insult your intelligence in any way, and also the thing that we hope that we can bring to you is this is that we can provide a situation where we can almost enter into a relationship where we exchange ideas. You listen to ours, you give us feedback and say, hey, that was a good idea, or hey, that was a good observation, or that was a complete load of crap. And this is the reason why we want to be challenged and we want to be the best we can possibly be. The only way we can do that is with you.

So, with that being said, surround yourself with people who lift you up, push you forward and remind you who you are. And if you got folks like that in your life, celebrate them, text them, hug them, let them know that they absolutely matter to you, because growth hits different when you're surrounded by love, support and real ones. And hey, if you build the squad like that, you start with front runner podcast collective, you start with us because we always got a seat waiting here for you always. And, with that being said, we will see you on friday. Deuce Deuce.