Indy Steals Game 1 in OKC … WTF Happened? | With Zach Lowe

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Speaker 1 The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I popped on the Prestige TV podcast this week. We talked about the Better Sister.
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Speaker 1 You have to wait and see. Coming up on this podcast, Zach Lowe and I decided to do a live stream right after

Speaker 1 game one of the 2025 NBA Finals. And we were assuming that OKC, who was nine and a half point favorites on FanDuel, that they were going to easily win.
And then game two would be the game.

Speaker 1 That's not what happened.

Speaker 1 Indiana came back and it was awesome. And we jumped right on YouTube live after that.
And everything we did was we recorded eight minutes after the game. So that's what you're about to hear.

Speaker 1 We're going to take a break. We're going to bring in Pearl Jam.

Speaker 1 And then Zach Lowe and I breaking down an incredible game one of the 2025 finals. Next, let's go.
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Speaker 1 We were assuming it would be an OKC 20-point easy win. We would have to make weird OKC conversation because they're a hard thing to talk about.
And then

Speaker 1 Indiana was like, I can't even speak. Indiana was like, we're Michael Myers.

Speaker 1 You thought we were dead. We fell out of the, out of the deck in the back and we landed on our back and you looked out there and all of a sudden we weren't there.

Speaker 1 And we just keep coming and coming, and eventually we get you, and you don't know what happened.

Speaker 1 I can't speak. I've come to the conclusion that I just don't get the Indiana Pacers.

Speaker 1 I don't get how they do this. I don't get how there's at least one game every series where they do this.
It's Halliburton at the end of every game with the last shot emerging. I mean, like

Speaker 1 the number of clutch shots he's made this season in this playoffs, this is like an all-time legendary crunch time heater.

Speaker 1 And he didn't even play that well in the course of the the game and all anyone's gonna remember is the last shot it this is

Speaker 1 the pacers are unbelievable and this might be

Speaker 1 i mean look we've all seen thousands of basketball games no this might be this was weirder than the knicks game one this is this might be the it was weird because it was weird the whole time it was weird like how do they have 19 turnovers in the first half and they're not getting run out of the building it's 11 and between 11 and 13 the whole game i don't like it just felt like the strangest.

Speaker 1 It's the strangest game I've ever watched, I think, start to finish. And then the finish puts it over the top.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't, I can't wait to rewatch the fourth quarter to see what happened to Oklahoma City's offense. I just can't believe Indiana won that game.
It's unbelievable. We have a series.

Speaker 1 We were worried we're going to see we got a series. 19 turnovers and Lou Dort had five threes, I think, in the first three quarters.

Speaker 1 And if you just told me those two things, I would have assumed OKC won by 25. Kyle Aburton was really tentative.

Speaker 1 It felt like Indiana was going to lose by 20 plus various points in the game.

Speaker 1 OKC was doing the thing over and over again where they're up nine, they're up 11, they're up nine, they're up seven, they're up 11.

Speaker 1 And you just wait for them to put together that last 10-0 run when they're up 21 and the game's over. And it just never happened.
I think they got up to maybe 15,

Speaker 1 right? 13 or 15 was the highest lead and it just hovered. It hovered in that range from like 11 to 13, which is not really a range.
It's just a small range.

Speaker 1 And they could never land the knockout punch. But then they'd be like, oh, it's back to eight.
It's back to nine. It's back to six.
It's back to eight again.

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden, Indiana just won the game. You know what the moment was? The moment where it was like, wait a second, Turner.
First of all, Indy made, I think, seven, eight crazy threes.

Speaker 1 We're like, that's not going in. Then it would go in.
But Turner hit that three when he stepped to the left and he banked it.

Speaker 1 When he did that, I was on alert after that.

Speaker 1 It was like, like oh okay all the all the stuff i was working on for the rundown with zach might be just going uh up in smoke but um okay so only took three field goals in the last four minutes of the game zach

Speaker 1 that's weird i didn't i mean i can't wait to watch the game again because i need i i didn't like the feel of oklah oklahoma city's offense almost the entire game i meant made not take by the way uh whatever you know whatever

Speaker 1 I didn't like their the feel of their offense almost the whole game. A lot of that is credit to the Pacers.
Their transition defense was unbelievable.

Speaker 1 To turn the ball over, I mean, it says 24 in the box score. I think that doesn't include a couple of

Speaker 1 other extra team turnovers or whatever. I think it was like 25 or 26.
And to not get just underwater from an avalanche of transition points.

Speaker 1 But I didn't like, I mean, Shay had 38, and it was just, I didn't love his shot selection for a lot of the game. And I thought it felt like he was just taking a lot of shots.

Speaker 1 Like he had 11 in the first quarter. What did he end end up with 30? 30 shots in a three for

Speaker 1 20. And some I didn't like.

Speaker 1 And it felt like they could. I thought Nemhard really, look, he had 38 points, but I thought Nemhard was about as comfortable as I've seen anyone defending Shea.

Speaker 1 It was like one of those things where it looked like they'd been playing against each other for 10 years. He kind of knew all his stop and start moves.

Speaker 1 Even in the end, when Shea got that last shot, that would have put him up by three and he missed it. Nemhard was right there the whole time with them, like pretty comfortable, I thought.

Speaker 1 And I just thought they got slowed down a little bit and like not a lot of flow to their offense.

Speaker 1 A lot of possessions where it was like SGA, ISO, all right, Nem Hart kind of stoned me, kicked to J-Dub, ISO, and just sort of just, there wasn't a lot of flow.

Speaker 1 And I don't know if it's because they were playing just one big the whole time. And I thought this was a good one-big series for them.
Clearly, they agreed. They start Kaysen Wallace over Hartenstein.

Speaker 1 But a lot of their best passing sequences are the big big-to-big passing sequences, and they sort of got those out of their out of their game by the lineup choice they made.

Speaker 1 Maybe it was the pressure, the defense, the stage, the unfamiliar lineups, like a lot of five-out, not unfamiliar, but just they clearly rejiggered their rotation for this.

Speaker 1 I didn't like the way their offense flowed, but still, could we just like you make sure we can we say one thing about that rotation thing? Yes, because I think this is the key to the game.

Speaker 1 Did you look at the rebounds?

Speaker 1 Oh, uh, uh, it's

Speaker 1 56 to 39. I mean, it's not 56 to 39, Indiana.

Speaker 1 So OKC goes one big instead of two. Indiana averages 39 rebounds a game in the playoffs.
Like, if you're going to say, what's the weakest part of their game?

Speaker 1 You'd say, I'm worried about the rebounds, especially against a team that plays double bigs. OKC starts one big.

Speaker 1 Down the stretch, they go small ball completely and give up a couple big offensive rebounds to Siakam. I just, why is OKC OKC changing what they're they OKC is 80 and 18 heading into this game?

Speaker 1 Why are they changing their lineups like this? Why are they going super small at the end of the games? Like, they're the heavy favorites. They're home.

Speaker 1 Make wait, why are you changing to conform to Indiana? I don't get that. So I was surprised.

Speaker 1 I mean, I talked for two podcasts in a row about how I thought probably the one big lineups were going to be a little bit smoother for the Thunder. I mean, lots of people made this point too.

Speaker 1 It was not like an original point by me. Just because the Siaka matchup is a tough one for the OKC Bigs

Speaker 1 and a better one for J-Dub or Caruso or whoever takes the matchup.

Speaker 1 But I still thought that they would start

Speaker 1 like every team just starts how we start, and you got to force us to adjust. And Richard Jefferson on the broadcast is making the point: like, if you're Indiana, this is a win.

Speaker 1 Like, they've adjusted to us already. And I was thinking the opposite way.
I think it was like a cold-blooded, we're going for the kill right out of the chute shoot in game one. We're not

Speaker 1 going to not work. They got 19 turnovers in the first half.

Speaker 1 If you like,

Speaker 1 this is an all-time impossible outcome. 24 turnovers to six against the Thunder and the Thunder don't win the game is just absolutely bonkers.

Speaker 1 Plus 17 rebounds. Indiana somehow ends up at 24 assists.

Speaker 1 And it's notable that OKC has 13 because that's how it felt watching it. It felt like it was a lot of one-on-one stuff.
I didn't feel like they were running enough.

Speaker 1 I actually didn't think, like, I had all these separate notes. It was going to be, what can Indiana do better for game two when it seemed like they were going to lose?

Speaker 1 The number one thing was it didn't feel like they were running.

Speaker 1 I felt like the pace, I thought they were psyched out by the defense and the steals and the turnovers, and they weren't taking off on chances that they had.

Speaker 1 But it somehow worked out anyway, and they won. I think there's things that they can do to be even better in game two.

Speaker 1 So when you say we have a series, like I bet Indiana thinks we have a series too, because they're like, we didn't really play that well. We got, we, we rebounded well.

Speaker 1 Nobody in our team was really awesome. I mean, Demhard, I thought, had a good all-round game, topping it some threes, but we weren't running like we should have.

Speaker 1 And we were really sloppy with the ball in the first half because honestly, they looked nervous. And Howard Burton even said in that mic thing, he's like, I'm finally getting my breath.
I'm fine.

Speaker 1 Like, it's nerve-wracking to be in the finals. You and I have been in the arena for those things.
It's a different kind of tension, energy. Everybody's out there for three hours.

Speaker 1 And when you're a young team, you feel it. They looked nervous to me and then they were fine.
We're going to be there soon.

Speaker 1 It's going to be exciting.

Speaker 1 Obi Toppin,

Speaker 1 five threes after a start in which he looked like a little bit overwhelmed for the first 90 seconds he was on the floor, ends up making a 2005

Speaker 1 versus two minutes.

Speaker 1 But you mentioned the bank shot three. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Which was, by the way, it was a play that the Celtics run a lot, where Miles Turner fakes like he's going to set a pin down for Halliburton, and then Halliburton switches it up and sets a monster like double pin down for Miles Turner.

Speaker 1 That's a play that Tatum and Horford run all the time. And he banks in the three.
There was a lane violation on a Siakam

Speaker 1 missed three.

Speaker 1 By the way, watching it in real time, I was like, that's Scott. That's a lane violation on somebody.
There's four guys in the paint right now.

Speaker 1 There's a tipped air ball, like an airball that's tipped in or put back in by Siakam.

Speaker 1 And by the way, and also you mentioned just the threes, like Neesmith makes one in the corner on like a broken play where Obi Toppin's dribbling around trying to find someone to give it to.

Speaker 1 Neesmith makes a three. I guess Neesmith in the last, in the fourth quarter of a desperate game, is just never, ever going to miss a shot again.
He's been lighting.

Speaker 1 And the Pacers shot 39 threes.

Speaker 1 44% of their shots were threes. That's way above their average.
And I think it's an absolute must for them to have any chance to win this series.

Speaker 1 Increase their three-point attempts against a defense that will give them up because they can test them pretty well, but they'll crowd the paint and make you shoot threes and take more, increase the variance.

Speaker 1 And they ended up taking, what, 39 threes compared to 30 for the Thunder. And the Thunder took a lot more field goals.
That's a big reason they won the game. 18 of 39, 46% on threes.

Speaker 1 Tell me if you agree on this.

Speaker 1 They were firing them with no hesitation. And I think it was part of their game plan, especially on the road where OKC has been such an absolute juggernaut.

Speaker 1 And I think Carlisle told everybody: if you have the three, shoot it immediately. Because you could see these OKC guys flying out on the corners, on the top.

Speaker 1 But they, but, and I didn't feel like a lot of those threes were uncontested, right?

Speaker 1 It wasn't like they, some of the corner threes, I guess, were a little open, but for the most part, it wasn't like they were wide open. It's 106.98 with three minutes left.

Speaker 1 Siakam misses two free throws in a row. Lane violation gets one.
SGA makes two free throws. Neese Smith hits the three you mentioned.

Speaker 1 J-Dub misses. Nemhart, heat check, hesitation, has he stepped back through.

Speaker 1 I got nothing going on. I'm just going to make something happen and make a three.
I think it was on Lou Dort, too. So all of a sudden they're down three.
SGA gets a two. They're down five.

Speaker 1 Nemhart gets free. Nemhart gets free throws.
Siakam blocks SGA.

Speaker 1 Unbelievable play. And somewhere in there, there's the Dort block where it feels like

Speaker 1 on Neesmith. Yeah.
Yeah, where it's like that might be the defining defensive play of the game. And then there's another defining defensive play of the game, 45 seconds.

Speaker 1 Siakam offensive rebound scores. All of a sudden, Indy's down one.
J-Dubb misses. Out of bounds play.

Speaker 1 I thought Siakam got fouled. That didn't cost.

Speaker 1 I thought that was a clear foul. I was surprised that not only did Indiana not win that challenge, but that it was decided fairly quickly by the officials.

Speaker 1 So OKC has the ball now, 22 seconds left with 14 on the shot clock. They go to SGA, who's been unstoppable this entire season and has always scored in this situation.

Speaker 1 Pretty much, it feels like 90% of the time. Nemhard plays good defense, gets the stop.
No timeout by Carlisle. And then Halliburton has one of those, I'm not sure what to do.

Speaker 1 And I'm going against an incredible defensive player and takes a long, long two double pump almost. So the semi-double pump, what was it? I got to, I haven't watched it again.

Speaker 1 I just went, I just fell out of my chair and logged onto the Zoom, and I don't really know what happened. It was ugly, but he made it.
And

Speaker 1 there we go. 14, 10, and 6 for Halliburton.
And I felt like he was pretty tentative for most of the game. That's a pretty nice outcome for him.
So, so you mentioned the J-Dub miss three.

Speaker 1 I want to go back to that.

Speaker 1 That is

Speaker 1 two minutes and 20 seconds left. Thunder by six.
Yep.

Speaker 1 If my notes are right and they're a little scribbly,

Speaker 1 SGA. Because you had a seizure.
I don't know what was going on. SGA SGA Dort pick and roll up top.
Probably because Halliburton is on Dort. I'm guessing.
SGA splits it clean. Like Halliburton hedges.

Speaker 1 I think it's Halliburton. Again, we're doing this live.
It might not be Halliburton, but it's whatever. No, you're right.
He's going down.

Speaker 1 It seems like he's going to do a net down here instead of layup.

Speaker 1 If you freeze it when he gets into the paint, and he had just gotten fouled, I believe, and made two free throws like a minute before, 30 seconds before.

Speaker 1 He gets in the paint. Every single other Indiana defender on the floor is just like, fuck it.
We're coming into the paint. Like, you are not shooting this shot, and we are also not going to foul.

Speaker 1 You have to pass the ball. Everyone, left corner, right corner, J-Dub on the wing.
He kicks it to J-Dub, and that's the knockout punch right there. I wrote that in my notes.
The KO punch won't come.

Speaker 1 He misses that shot. And that was the moment where I thought

Speaker 1 they might actually win this thing and go up 1-0. I have an important question.

Speaker 1 Did you think the shot was going in? Because I did not. The J-Dub shot or the Halliburton shot? The J-Dub shot.

Speaker 1 I wasn't watching the trajectory, to be honest. I was watching the release.
It looked funny.

Speaker 1 When it was clear, he was about to shoot. Did you think it would go in?

Speaker 1 If I'm remembering correctly, he has like a little pass fake where he might pass it to the corner and then he decides to keep it himself. That's always like a,

Speaker 1 I don't know, but I don't remember feeling strongly about it.

Speaker 1 You felt strongly about it, by the way. I forget what Denver game it was.
I think it was Denver.

Speaker 1 What was the one where he hit that huge three that I didn't think was going in? I think it was, it was one of the Denver games and it was the same situation and he actually made it.

Speaker 1 That time he did not make it.

Speaker 1 I got to say, the more I'm thinking about it, I'm stunned that OKC changed what they did so much in that game. I don't really fully understand it.

Speaker 1 I thought their biggest advantage was going to be the size and the rebounding and the and the rim protection.

Speaker 1 And I know you were making the case for one big at a time, but even then, like Chet played 23 minutes and Hartenstein played 17.

Speaker 1 And Isaiah Joe played 11 minutes. I mean, Isaiah Joe, he was fine.
He was plus three.

Speaker 1 He made two shots, but I felt like every moment when they had a swing out there that wasn't an absolute piranha defensively, you're giving Indiana like a little chance to breathe.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know. It was weird coaching.
I'm very interested to see what they do because I would have started the double big lineup and sort of just modified the rotation.

Speaker 1 So it's, if it's going a certain way, I go less double big, more one big. I thought the five out lineups, like the no-big lineups,

Speaker 1 looked incredible defensively. Like Indiana was just like, where are we even supposed to go? Right.
All these users, all the rebounding. But they lost too many of the rebounding.
It was like a night.

Speaker 1 It was like we did everything right and then couldn't close the deal. Yeah, yeah.
You had a key point, though, with the first part in the first quarter. They were clearly

Speaker 1 eschewing, oh, we're going to do this for six minutes and then here's the lineup we love. They're like, fuck it.

Speaker 1 We're going to try to blow you out of the out of the arena in the first half, which they kind of did.

Speaker 1 They did.

Speaker 1 And it was, I mean, I just couldn't, like, when the turnovers just kept happening, like every variety of turnover, entry passes, backdoor passes, lost it in the back court, dead ball turnovers.

Speaker 1 There was, I think the one that put them up 15, by the way, when you mentioned the biggest lead, was when they couldn't inbound the ball from the baseline. Jay McConnell inbound.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and J-Dubb dunked it. And that felt, again, that felt like a knockout punch.
Like, how many times have we seen this game? And the Pacers, man,

Speaker 1 they just keep on playing. They just keep playing.
It's really, they're just an up, they're an awesome, awesome team, and they just keep on coming. SGA had 18 shots in the first half.

Speaker 1 He was eight for 18 and plus 15.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to lie, I got a text from an assistant coach who was like, is he going to shoot 40 times in this game? Like, are we going to see a 40-shot performance by SGA?

Speaker 1 And it was not a compliment. I saw a stat

Speaker 1 today

Speaker 1 somewhere on social media that Shaq was the last scoring champ to win the title and it did make me pause for a second. I was like, wow, 25 years since that's happened.
Seems like a long time.

Speaker 1 Who,

Speaker 1 well, I'll do some of my notes that I still feel like we can still use because I was going to ask you this after OKC won, but now they didn't win. Who is the MVP of that game?

Speaker 1 If this was hockey, you're not a hockey guy. If this was hockey, who's the star of the game? Who's the guy who skates out last? Waves to the crowd.

Speaker 1 I think the guy who skates out last is Halliburton just because he made the shot at the end. I think the sneaky MVP of the game for Indiana, and it's just so befitting of how he plays, is Siakam.

Speaker 1 Just quietly 19 and 10, makes big plays, defends everywhere. You kind of don't notice him for a little while,

Speaker 1 but he's just a consistent positive force for them. Miles Turner was good in 28 minutes, and then the top in five threes.

Speaker 1 And McConnell kept them afloat during a couple stretches where it looked like it could get out of hand. Those were, that's, those are nine big points for TJ McConnell.
He's minus 13. I get it.

Speaker 1 It's not like a fantastic game, but those buckets felt huge.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I would say Nemhard

Speaker 1 because I thought there were a couple moments where if he didn't play with the confidence that he had down the stretch, I just think they immediately lose. But you could also talk me to Siakam.

Speaker 1 Siakam had 10 rebounds.

Speaker 1 It's interesting Halburn did too, because because I was looking at the props for this game on FanDuel before the game, and I had to do that Taylor Fade pick, which I ended up doing SJA 2-3s, which hit.

Speaker 1 But I was initially going to do Siakam rebounds because I was like, who's going to get rebounds on Indiana?

Speaker 1 And I went and I looked at his rebound game log, and he's really like four, five, six a game.

Speaker 1 This game, he had 10, and he had a couple big offensive rebounds, I thought, in traffic, like to keep plays alive. And in general, I just felt like they kept plays alive a couple of times.
So did OKC.

Speaker 1 Okay, had a couple good tapouts. But if I'm OKC, I'm

Speaker 1 screw this. Let's go big again.
We can't get, we can't go minus 17 on the boards at home.

Speaker 1 You know, it's interesting. One of the more eye-popping stats in the box score is Chet Homer's minutes, which you mentioned earlier is 23 and change.

Speaker 1 The second or third best guy in the team?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 some of it is probably because

Speaker 1 he's on Miles Turner, and that's fine. Like, that's not a bad defensive matchup or anything.

Speaker 1 But Miles Turner is a pick and pop big man, and Shay, I'm sorry, Chet has made his bones in the NBA and made Oklahoma City's defense superpowered by being at the rim all the time.

Speaker 1 And by virtue of how they are matching up in this series so far through one game, he can't be at the rim all the time.

Speaker 1 And I wonder if he just doesn't feel as useful to Dagnalt if he's not in that role. Like he's guarded Jada McDaniels.
He's guarded Aaron Gordon.

Speaker 1 He's guarded guys where he could just be at the basket all the time, which is why, you know,

Speaker 1 I thought that they would start big. And I said on my butt, I thought I would try him on Siakam.
And I realize that looks like a bad matchup for Chet. And Waz made this point on group chat this week.

Speaker 1 He's like, because Siakam can just kind of get under taller, skinnier guys and do his Siakam stuff. And I was like, I still would try it because he's got to finish over Chet,

Speaker 1 even if he backs him under the rim and i just like chet near the basket if chet's going to be on the floor i like him near the basket and i just wonder if maybe i'm crazy but i wonder if they do start double big if they match up that way hartenstein on turner and chet on siakum but yeah they went for they went for the juggler with that adjustment they were like we're not messing around and it it kind of worked and then nothing worked

Speaker 1 Can I extend your point? Yeah. I just want Chet in the court.
I think he's one of the 20 best guys in the league. Playing him 23 minutes in a finals game seems crazy to me.

Speaker 1 I don't understand why he wouldn't be out there. I mean, he was two for nine.

Speaker 1 Maybe they thought he looked nervous. I don't know.
You made a point. You kind of ruined,

Speaker 1 and you hurt my feelings earlier in the week when you did your Tibs, the thing you, the beginning of your pod yesterday.

Speaker 1 And you did the whole thing about when we complain about coaches and adjustments. And then you talk to a coach and you realize they're so much smarter than you.

Speaker 1 And I was like, don't lift the curtain for me, Zach. I want to feel like I'm as smart as these guys.

Speaker 1 Don't tell me how much smarter they are than me.

Speaker 1 What am I going to do? I'd like to second guess them. But my addendum to that would be, and I should have made it, and I'll make it here,

Speaker 1 is that even if they are aware of all of these criticisms and are five steps ahead of you, they still, and I think this is where Tibbs falls, they still will default.

Speaker 1 to what they feel most comfortable doing, even if some part of them is like, I should try this, I should try that, or some coaches will do that. I think Tibbs is like that.

Speaker 1 Tibbs could sit down and tell you 17 different counters to 17 different adjustments that you think he should do and why they wouldn't work and still be aware of like they might work, but he's going to lean on to what he knows.

Speaker 1 But anyway, go ahead. Well,

Speaker 1 so Carlisle, there's two, and I thought there was good mic'd-up moments in this game. Carlisle, they had in the huddle in the first half.

Speaker 1 Um, and he said,

Speaker 1 You can't dribble into a crowd against this team. You can't throw mid-bounce passes into the middle against this team.

Speaker 1 And which was actually a lot of information from a coach. Usually it's like, guys, play hard.
You got to move your legs.

Speaker 1 But he was basically like, you're entering the bowels of hell when you go into the middle and you're dribbling. Please don't do that.
I kept, I obviously have to bring the Celtics into this.

Speaker 1 It's been 20 minutes. I did think today about Jalen Brown and a couple of the other Celtics just dribbling into the middle in this game and how bad some of the plays would have gone.

Speaker 1 But then at halftime, they showed Carlisle too, talking to the team, and they showed in the third quarter. And he's like, hey, 19 turnovers.
We're not playing well. We're fine.

Speaker 1 Keep doing what you're doing. Keep like he clearly wasn't rattled by whatever he saw in the first half.

Speaker 1 And their strategy was like, as long as we don't turn the ball over, we're going to shoot threes. We're going to keep the pace.
I like the pace we're at.

Speaker 1 And we can kind of hang around because that was not how I felt at halftime. At halftime, I was like, they're going to lose by 25.

Speaker 1 No, at halftime, I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. For like the entire first half, I was like, is this a real game? Am I dreaming? How many turnovers do they have?

Speaker 1 And yet the score is only 12, 11.

Speaker 1 The whole game, I felt like I was hallucinating everything that was happening, including maybe right now. I don't know.
Did Tyrese Halliburn hit another last second shot? Like, what is going on?

Speaker 1 Well, so I had adjustments for game two that I did before

Speaker 1 the comeback. And the two adjustments I had for Indy was Indy has to run more, which I think they're going to do anyway.

Speaker 1 I think they're going to look at the tape and realize, like, we're not, we weren't aggressive enough off rebounds. The other one's interesting because his stats weren't good.

Speaker 1 And this is just an eye test

Speaker 1 and that isn't backed up by any actual information.

Speaker 1 I thought Matherin seemed athletically comfortable in this game. And I'm intrigued by what his upside is for them because OKC is so fast and so so athletic, and they're just at warp speed.

Speaker 1 And I just thought he looked comfortable in the chaos in a way that I'm wondering, are we going to hear from him in this series with one of those games?

Speaker 1 One of those games, you know, when Mathurn will have those games where he's like, he scored 27 points in 22 minutes. I feel like that.
I feel like he's going to have one of those.

Speaker 1 So another sort of Rick Carlisle just pushes all the right buttons all the time. Toppin looks overwhelmed immediately and has a disastrous two minutes.

Speaker 1 Some coaches would be like, it's just not going to be his night. Like, I'll try him one more stint if it doesn't work out.
And like, he's like, we need you.

Speaker 1 Matherin, I thought, started the game also really bad. He had a couple offensive possessions where he hesitated and the whole flow stopped.

Speaker 1 And Carlisle yanked him quickly after one of those possessions and then put him back in the game.

Speaker 1 I thought we might not see him again. after that substitution.
Put him back in the game. It's not like he did anything amazing.

Speaker 1 He was one for five, but I thought he got to the line for four free throws and just looked again comfortable. And he likes the speed.

Speaker 1 The Pacers, when you talk to their people,

Speaker 1 they view these series like holistically. They are thinking,

Speaker 1 they try to hold adjustments in the bag for future games instead of... panicking and overdoing it right away.

Speaker 1 Like even if they're big underdogs like they are here, they're sort of playing in their head as if this is going to be a really long series.

Speaker 1 And I think trusting those guys to keep playing is like we're going to need them at some point in the series. Turned out they needed them today.
That's good.

Speaker 1 Thomas Bryant even comes in and scores five points, corner three at the end of the third quarter. Like just okay.

Speaker 1 His corner three is starting to look Ray Allen-esque. He's one where I think it's going in.
Yeah. When Thomas Bryant's lining up.
Lots more to discuss. We're going to take a break for the podcast.

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Speaker 1 Visit hubspot.com slash AI to learn more. So Halliburton.
Yes.

Speaker 1 What a roller coaster ride for this guy from a big picture standpoint. I think if they lose this game by 1215,

Speaker 1 Halliburton becomes on the TV shows the next day the,

Speaker 1 where's Tyrese Halliburton? He's got to step up. It's the finals.

Speaker 1 You love the step up. He's the step up guy

Speaker 1 because I thought he was a little tentative, And sometimes he's tentative because he's trying to feel out the game. In this case, he's going against like an actual fish tank of Piranha.

Speaker 1 And I think going from the speed of what he was going against, against the Knicks and just trying to hunt Jalen Brunson and Towns for two weeks. And then you see this team and you're like,

Speaker 1 who do I hunt?

Speaker 1 What do I do?

Speaker 1 But I thought he kept tossing the car case to Nemhard in smart ways.

Speaker 1 He didn't, you you know, they had all these turnovers. I think he only had three.
A lot of the turnovers were Turner and Neismith.

Speaker 1 And then those three top end and McConnell had a couple, but I don't know. I expect him to be a little more assertive maybe in game two as well.
I think they have some moves left.

Speaker 1 I think they have bullets in the Arsenal for the next game. Well, when you turn the ball over 25 times, you just like,

Speaker 1 that's one bullet in the Arsenal. It's just don't do stuff like that.
Care of the ball. So they had five in the second half, which is a good sign, too, if if you're in Dana.

Speaker 1 You're like, hey, let's play like we did in the second half. Another three, and I think it was in the fourth quarter, and I don't remember which one.
If we're talking about

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 everything's got to flip right kind of plays for you to come back and win a game like this, but there was one possession where Neesmith almost got stripped of the ball like four times in two seconds.

Speaker 1 He was in the paint. Then he was underneath the basket.
Somehow didn't lose the ball and found top end for a three. And that was also what I don't, I think that was in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 I was like, I don't understand. I just don't even understand what's happening anymore.
And they they just keep coming.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 there was a lot of talk last season

Speaker 1 about the sameness of the, of the styles and the teams. And

Speaker 1 by the way, there was talk on your podcast and my podcast about it. Are we heading toward a world where everybody has the same offense and plays the same way?

Speaker 1 And it's all about just hunting matchups and shooting threes and having two guys in the corner and four guys standing around. And then one guy comes over and sets a pick.

Speaker 1 And that's just going to be basketball.

Speaker 1 And OKC and Indiana, one of the reasons I think we had so much trouble wrapping our heads around game one as we were watching it was neither of them play like that.

Speaker 1 I mean, OKC was a little predictable with the SGA stuff, but for the most part, you have OKC's playing small ball down the stretch. Their defense is unlike anything anybody else has.

Speaker 1 Indiana is just a hodgepodge of I don't know what the fuck is going on. And

Speaker 1 there's just a natural chaos that both teams have that makes me think maybe this series is going to be better than we thought. I thought it was going to be OKC in four or five.
I picked five.

Speaker 1 I think you picked five too. I picked five, yeah.

Speaker 1 Not looking good for Indiana.

Speaker 1 Not looking good. OKC in five.
Well, because you figured OKC on the road's a little bit different, right? It's going to be a little more

Speaker 1 grueling for them. I mean, could this be like the Philly Lakers series in 0-1 where

Speaker 1 Philly steals the game in game one and then the Lakers just dispatch them after that over the next four? Maybe

Speaker 1 maybe it doesn't feel it does it right now in the wake of that game. It doesn't feel like that because

Speaker 1 Oklahoma City looked a little

Speaker 1 confused, is the wrong word. They just looked a little like

Speaker 1 off trying to figure out what to do against Indiana and how this

Speaker 1 different team that plays differently.

Speaker 1 Well, it was a little like the first Denver home game

Speaker 1 where they controlled the game for 44 minutes and then something weird happened to them. I also think they were going too slow and they stopped kind of looking.

Speaker 1 Sometimes this is obviously the all-time example of this were the last few years of the Celtics where they would have this lead and they would change how they played to kind of almost protect the lead and change their identity in four minutes.

Speaker 1 And I felt a little of that with them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I re I want to rewatch the

Speaker 1 fourth quarter because I think Indiana just began selling out to the paint. Like, we're just going to make you guys make threes.
We're not giving you thousand. We're not giving giving you layups.

Speaker 1 Um, but can you look for Chet Holmgren as you're re-watching the fourth quarter?

Speaker 1 He's always easy to spot when he's on the bench. He's very tall.
He's the guy on the bench going, looking at the coach over and over again, going, Am I going back in? I'm like the 19th.

Speaker 1 I was 19th of the Ringer 100.

Speaker 1 But when you, I mean, like, yes, Oklahoma City, I thought, play, I thought they played too slowly, almost in like a Knicks kind of way, where there were a lot of possessions where there was 13 on the shot clock by the time they just walked it up and there's 13 on the shot clock by the the time they did anything.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 like, part of the slowness

Speaker 1 for both teams, not you, you've suggested both teams run more. It's like, these are two of the three or four, if even that many, best transition defense teams in the league.

Speaker 1 Like, it's hard to run against these teams because they're super fast, super athletic, and super attentive to just like we're not giving up fast break points.

Speaker 1 But even just taking the ball out of the basket, I thought Indiana didn't play, or Oklahoma City didn't play with enough speed. Indiana will play with speed after you make a basket.

Speaker 1 They'll be underneath your basket in five seconds. And I think both teams have different tools they can play with to play a little faster.

Speaker 1 But I thought Oklahoma City kind of sunk into a, why are you guys walking it up like this? Let's go. Like, get, you're young and fast.
And that's not how you, that's not how you play.

Speaker 1 I guess that's, that's how I was feeling about Oklahoma City for a lot of this game, other than when they were forcing a million turnovers. Like, this doesn't feel like how you, it's too deliberate.

Speaker 1 It almost feels a little too deliberate for how you guys usually play.

Speaker 1 One thing about what you said about

Speaker 1 pushing the pace, but being nervous about OKC, it was interesting to watch both Halbert and Numhard when they're going up the middle and they were constantly doing this, looking left, right as they're going full speed, because, oh, there's no team like OKC that just comes diving in from the sides.

Speaker 1 Right. It's almost like you're driving on the highway and you just have cars like trying to basically spin you out on your left fender and your right fender.

Speaker 1 These guys are driving up and they seem rattled by it.

Speaker 1 Or right from behind, like if you get a rebound and you start pushing it up, like there was at least one or two where one was like Dort just comes up right from behind and takes the ball.

Speaker 1 And how about Dort, by the way? When Dort made his two back, he made like two consecutive threes. One was like the Nemhart one where he just was like, I'm just going to ISO this and launch a three.

Speaker 1 And then he made another one on the next session. I was like, well, tough one for Indiana.
Lou Dort's going to just go crazy from three, you know?

Speaker 1 Well, he was going to be my MVP if they won this game. He's also, it's funny.
I wrote this down and then they lost, but Jaden McDaniels was like this for Minnesota.

Speaker 1 Dort is the guy for OKC where if he's shooting the ball well on top of doing the defensive stuff, you just feel like they're completely unbeatable.

Speaker 1 Of course, they uh four steals and five threes for Lou Dort. Yeah, if his threes plus steals are approaching 10, that's usually

Speaker 1 a problem.

Speaker 1 So, I Googled like a lot of people at halftime the record for turnovers in a finals game. And they weirdly got it wrong on the broadcast.

Speaker 1 They said it was 34 with the 77 Blazers and it was 36 Golden State game three, 1975 finals, a game that they won by eight. And they had 36 turnovers.

Speaker 1 And I did a tweet joking about how, hey, you can do this, but I just thought that was so crazy that somebody turned the ball over 36 times and won.

Speaker 1 And now we have a game where somebody turned it over 24 times

Speaker 1 and won. All right.
So what are our fixes for OKC for game two?

Speaker 1 You had to make picks here. Play with more just juice in the half court.

Speaker 1 Play with more urgency, more speed. Like, I thought, I think they could probably hunt Halliburton a little bit more often and a little bit more effectively than they did.

Speaker 1 But part of that is like

Speaker 1 setting good screens. Like, I don't think they, like, Halliburton's guys screening for Shea, like, sometimes you got to hit the guy, force him to make a decision,

Speaker 1 force him to help a little bit more.

Speaker 1 And I thought some of their best offense was keep it simple.

Speaker 1 Like Shea going at the Indiana big men on the pick and roll, I thought was more effective than ISO ball, than getting cute, trying to do guard guard screens, hunting Halliburton, even though, as I say, that they could hunt him more effectively.

Speaker 1 I thought like Miles Turner did not really have a good game trying to contain Shea on the pick and roll. Top end couldn't do it.
Even Siakam on a switch once got burned.

Speaker 1 I thought like that's the simplest offense in the NBA, right?

Speaker 1 just have your big guy if there's one on the floor come screen get the other team center involved and and go from there and i thought halliburton actually had some success doing that too um on the other end those would be two i and and i think the rotation is a big one i even think like ken rich williams one minute that was weird i could i would play him more at the four maybe a little bit did not did not have the aj mitchell first half stint uh in my notes didn't see that one coming not really sure why that happened uh but it was just weird.

Speaker 1 Did you notice? It's always hard to tell through the TV, but sometimes you can kind of tell. Crowd got super tight the last three minutes.
Yeah, you can tell.

Speaker 1 You could feel it. That was a, we've never won the title.
What's going on?

Speaker 1 Oh, God.

Speaker 1 And it's interesting because I went to game one of the 2012 series against LeBron in the Heat,

Speaker 1 which, if I remember correctly, OKC,

Speaker 1 I thought should have won that game. Maybe they did win the game.
One of those first two games, Durant got one game. one, game one, and then game one, they won.

Speaker 1 Game two is the game you're talking about, where Durant gets fouled. Up Miami's up.
He's up sitting where he got fouled. Yeah, Miami's up too.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But yeah, that crowd is absolutely loud. Your head hurts when you leave.

Speaker 1 But they can also get a little tight. Well, and don't you think some of that is also like those fans know

Speaker 1 this team has done this to every team they've faced in the playoffs so far. Like if we let this game get away, we've seen Indiana in this movie before.
Like it's dangerous. A, it's dangerous.

Speaker 1 They're never out of the game. And B, if we give them momentum with a home loss like this, who the hell knows what could happen?

Speaker 1 Well, what's interesting, big picture, Indiana, who if they just get swept in the finals,

Speaker 1 just historically legacy-wise, you'd be like, oh yeah, that was a weird season. Indiana beat Milwaukee, then they shot Cleveland.

Speaker 1 They had all those comebacks, and then they beat the Knicks, and they fired Tibbs, and then they got killed in the finals. Yeah, I kind of remember that team.

Speaker 1 Now it's like, remember that Indiana team? Holy shit. You had to like chop their head off and decapitate them to get them out of the way.
What a crazy finals team that was.

Speaker 1 I mean, some, someone, some like Kevin Pelton stats kind of person is going to have to go through the database and study, is this the greatest clutch shooting season?

Speaker 1 It lasts two minutes, last nine seconds.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But even regular season, he was incredible, too. It's like he just is, Halliburton is making all this shit.
We didn't, you know what we did not hammer enough. We kind of hammered around it.

Speaker 1 We didn't hammer it enough. J-Dub and Chet eight of 28 combined from the floor.

Speaker 1 Chet made two baskets the entire game. The first was, to my earlier point about keep it simple, pick and pop, pump fake, drive by Miles Turner, layup.

Speaker 1 The second was a fast, a dunk on a breakdown on a double pick and staggered pick and roll. That's just like two baskets for Chet and eight of 28 for those two guys.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, that's when that's in game one or the finals. When Oklahoma City loses, the focus is often on those, the second and third guys.

Speaker 1 Because Shea, even when he has an eh game, and this is like as eh as I think a 38-point game could be, puts up numbers with some decent level of efficiency.

Speaker 1 And so the spotlight always goes to those guys. They weren't good enough.

Speaker 1 Well, the other thing about the finals that we love, the rhythm of these games where you have game one, and this is the only time you have the home game with

Speaker 1 the two days off and two days talking talking about it. And tomorrow people are going to go to Nemhard and be like, You've been going against SGA for a long time.
What's your secret?

Speaker 1 Just dying for him to say one dumb thing. You're Dagnal.

Speaker 1 What you guys are 80 and 18. Chet played 23 minutes.
Hartenstein played 17. Like, what are you doing? I mean, I'm sure that was in the press conference right now.
So a little bit of a pressure.

Speaker 1 And then on top of it, you have Indiana, which

Speaker 1 I think has a great crowd. And now they can decide the series at home if they want to.
And they would be.

Speaker 1 I think the most improbable finals champ.

Speaker 1 Easy. Easy.
Let's not do it yet. I'm trying to think: is there anybody, even if you said like the 77 Blazers or the 78 Sonics, like that era? Even

Speaker 1 I don't know. Talk about it.
They were 28 to 1 in the East before the playoffs. This would be the fucking craziest finals.

Speaker 1 If you were a Pacers fan right now and the basketball gods came to you and said, hey, we'll make you a deal. Would you sign up for 2-2 right now, going back to Oklahoma City 2-2 for game five?

Speaker 1 Would you take that deal? Or are you going to get greedy and think we can be up to the next one? I don't think I can win if it's 2-2. I think I have to win two of the next three.
Okay. All right.

Speaker 1 I assume I'm going to win game three.

Speaker 1 And then game four will be, you assume OKC will do the thing where they win by 38 in game two in one of those games. And then we'd be like, oh, India got the game they got.

Speaker 1 Then India will win game three. Then game four be the series.
I will say though, when you're a big underdog,

Speaker 1 I really like winning game one.

Speaker 1 I just feel like if the recipe to actually win a series when you're a massive underdog like that, now you only have to win three of the next six.

Speaker 1 By the way, these aren't like outstanding points by me. I'm just pointing out.
You lose that first game. Now you have to win four of the next six and you're the big underdog to begin with.

Speaker 1 Conversely, we've seen some teams where they blow that first game in a in a big series or even a finals.

Speaker 1 And it turns, you know, we just saw it with the Knicks series. You saw it in Orlando, Houston in 1995.
Sometimes there could be a devastating game one loss and the team can get rattled.

Speaker 1 I think OKC will be fine, though, because Chet will play more. J-Dub will be better.

Speaker 1 And I assume they're not going to get out rebounded by 17 again. Well, this is also where

Speaker 1 the Denver series and to a lesser extent, game four in Minnesota are just massively important for them because they've answered the bell already every time they face pressure, including being down 2-1 to Denver and specifically J-Dub, especially J-Dub in games, game seven of the Oak of the Denver series.

Speaker 1 So it's that

Speaker 1 this is no longer like

Speaker 1 it's uncharted because it's the finals, but they've kind of done this before, and this seems like a team who won't get too high or too low to use a cliche.

Speaker 1 I have down as a winner, Nicole Jokic,

Speaker 1 just because I think OKC is just an absolute beast. And you think, like,

Speaker 1 he

Speaker 1 takes Team USA to the brink, almost beats them, takes this OKC team to seven, and then you watch them in that first half and you're like, oh my God, this team's going to go 84 and 18.

Speaker 1 And then maybe he's not as much of a winner. Well, wait, should it by that standard?

Speaker 1 Shouldn't one of the winners be like Tibbs and the Knicks? By that standard, like, you know, okay, talk about the Knicks really quick.

Speaker 1 They've got company now. You know,

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Learn about credit building and more at chime.com. Nick's Coach Drama.
Boy,

Speaker 1 boy, there's been some buzzing. Boy, there's been some tidbits and some

Speaker 1 things being talked about. Okay.
Sources are saying stuff. Well, what are they saying? I don't know.
It just seems that Knicks team was a lot more dysfunctional than I think. They heard hints.

Speaker 1 They heard rumors. But man, feels a little games that Game of Thrones-y over there.
Dysfunctional? Well, okay.

Speaker 1 So are you talking about players or like when you say Game of Thrones, you usually mean, you know, the upper echelon of managers. Here's my question for you.

Speaker 1 So Jalen Brunson's dad is one of the coaches of the team and worked with Tibbs for a long time.

Speaker 1 Dante DiVincenzo was yelling at him for some reason in that first home game and seemed like he had felt betrayed by him.

Speaker 1 And there's always rumors that he had an outsized voice with Leon and all those dudes.

Speaker 1 If you're the next coach, do you want your own staff or do you want to inherit this staff that felt like it got a little game of thronesy down the stretch there? Okay, so

Speaker 1 every coach wants his own staff. And

Speaker 1 there are some coaches for whom that's been a deal breaker when they are told during the hiring process, well, you got to keep this guy or you got to keep this guy or you got to keep these two guys.

Speaker 1 It's either it has been either a deal breaker or begrudgingly accepted by a coach who really wants a particular job with an eye on like, all right, I'll give it a year and then I'll exercise my power.

Speaker 1 This is obviously a much different situation since he is the father of the franchise player. And I think that is a discussion that has to include.

Speaker 1 lots of different parties to come to a if a if a change is made i think a lot of different people have to be involved in that and i don't when you talk to people around the league there's a lot of skepticism that there would be a change made because he is Jalen Brunson's father.

Speaker 1 But I think skepticism is underrating it. I think people think he will be on the bench.
Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But, you know, dysfunctional is like, it's a strong, it's a strong word.

Speaker 1 It's just like every team's got its stuff, right? Every team's got its stuff in the locker room. But

Speaker 1 a lot of leaks,

Speaker 1 a lot of maneuvering the story from the moment the season ended all the way through that athletic thing that we talked about on our podcast that came out almost right afterwards.

Speaker 1 The scapegoating, and that was really interesting. I've been following those.

Speaker 1 That was Kat. Kat was kind of hit harder than that one, and Tibbs, right? Called it out that night when I read the story.
I was like, all right, this is notable that these are the two scapegoats.

Speaker 1 Let's see how it goes. I'll be interested to see if Kat will be the other domino that falls with this.
But

Speaker 1 who wants this job?

Speaker 1 I assumed Johnny Bryant was going to get it because the son said there were two people left, him, the guy who got the job.

Speaker 1 Jordan Ott. Give Jordan some love, who apparently is married to somebody named Jordan.
Did you hear this? I did not, I have not both named Jordan. Interesting couple.
That's that's what I heard.

Speaker 1 I don't know if that's true. Wow.
Um,

Speaker 1 but uh, so Johnny Bryant.

Speaker 1 How many names? How many names could you do that with? Okay. You know,

Speaker 1 have the same, yeah. Right, do it have to be like Jordan, Kelly.
Yeah, Kelly's a good one.

Speaker 1 Anyway, Alex.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Alex is a good one. But so when Johnny was in the final two, and then all of a sudden the other guy got it, I just assumed he was the Knicks thing.

Speaker 1 I don't think Ben Gundy, that name got flown around, but he's. Which one?

Speaker 1 Jeff. He's friends with

Speaker 1 obviously really close with Tibbs. I don't see him being like, cool.
Yeah. You shanked my guy.
I'd love to take the job.

Speaker 1 Everything he's ever said publicly and privately would cut against him taking that job.

Speaker 1 So who's left? The only name that didn't really get mentioned that I was surprised.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're excited. Taylor Jenkins is a good coach.
I watched a lot of Memphis games going, man, they have a really good coach. And he's just kind of sitting there.

Speaker 1 Everyone was talking Mike Malone, but to me, that just feels like you're running back a different version of Tibbs.

Speaker 1 Taylor Jenkins, I thought

Speaker 1 you could make a pretty fair case with him that he

Speaker 1 had a really tough job the last couple years. He's a very good coach.
Taylor Jenkins is a very good coach.

Speaker 1 Memphis to New York as a market and as expectations faced is about as big of a jump as you can make.

Speaker 1 You go from Chris Vernon to 40 Chris Vernons. I mean, does James Dolan know who Taylor Jenkins is? So, like, start there.
Like, I'm not even being facetious. Like, is he aware that that's a coach?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure he's hiring the next coach. I think this is a Leon thing.

Speaker 1 But he's got a rubber. He's sign off on it.
Who do you think is going to be the next coach? I have no earthly idea. I mean,

Speaker 1 I've heard rumblings of

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 maybe they want an ex-player,

Speaker 1 an ex-NBA player. I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's true.
My favorite is Ron Artester and his hat in the ring was my number one thing that happened. He really wants to coach.

Speaker 1 He really wants to coach. I'm pretty sure he's not going to get it.
I don't.

Speaker 1 Has he come up on the list of

Speaker 1 the 20 best odds to coach the New York Knicks, where it's like the bottom one is the last one is like Stephen A. Smith.
Like they get really

Speaker 1 Joe House is right above him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I thought the name, I thought Frank Vogel might come up just because he's a New York guy.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 he's, you know, he's been in a lot of places now in a short amount of time. Look, the one,

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, he's, I saw that you, you, uh, you boosted his. Uh, I'm going to get more involved.
Watch out. I'm going to get more.
Ishpia. I'm going to get more involved.

Speaker 1 I wasn't involved enough, and I'm going to get more involved. Like, it wasn't his idea to throw Cam Johnson in the Kevin Durant trade and like one more pick and just be like, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 I love that Ishbier. You got him on your podcast right off the bat.
And now you're. I had no idea it was going to be as special as he was.

Speaker 1 I think he's not, he's not going to come back.

Speaker 1 I actually was, i was going to do this with you on the pod the most hilarious owner of each decade because he's clearly halfway there vivek was locked it down in the 2010s vec is coming in for a late a late 2020s route

Speaker 1 you can't count him out you can't really you can't

Speaker 1 you just can't he's i'm not saying hp has it locked up yet but he's he's in the lead and he's feeling good but vivek you know who knows but vivek won last decade and then i i think probably dolan won in the 2000s with all the crazy shit he did.

Speaker 1 He's not hilarious, though.

Speaker 1 It doesn't fit him. Doesn't fit him.
Who would you have in the 2000s? Sarver?

Speaker 1 No, nothing. They're malicious people.
They're not hilarious. Sarver did illegal stuff.

Speaker 1 Well, we didn't know that in the 2000s. It wasn't civil litigation anyway.
No, that was later. I'm saying 2000s.
2000s.

Speaker 1 When he basically hired Steve Kerr and it's like, you have to get under the luxury tracks, trade all our picks.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 he was, you know, who it is? It was Cuban from a hilarious standpoint.

Speaker 1 Some of the stuff where he was sitting on the bench, and remember the time he ran on the court during the fight to break up the court and then realized he shouldn't be on the court.

Speaker 1 He had some funny stuff. Ishby is the clear winner in the 2020s.

Speaker 1 I mean, I guess we can't blame.

Speaker 1 Well, we can blame, but it wasn't hilarious. Glenn Taylor for just overseeing the entire David Kahn experience in Minnesota.

Speaker 1 You know, this is why you're the best. Not only that, but he lost four picks for Joe Smith.

Speaker 1 But he was never hilarious. It was never hilarious.
He called, as we had in the Celtic City doc, he called Wick to congratulate him on winning the 2008 title because he was trading him Kevin Garnett.

Speaker 1 He had Kevin McHale as a coach and a GM at the same time and flips honors. Yeah, it's Glenn Taylor.
It's a great call.

Speaker 1 Well, wait, wait, wait, let's go back to the Knicks. We didn't like, who do you think is going to get the job?

Speaker 1 I find it hard to believe Johnny Bryant's going to be the head coach. The more I looked at it and thought about it, it just doesn't seem like he's experienced enough.

Speaker 1 This is one of the biggest jobs in the league. I would bet on Tayor Jenkins, Frank Vogel, Mike Malone, one of those guys who at least has been in some situations.

Speaker 1 What about the

Speaker 1 can we trade for your coach, Gambit, that has been mentioned with Emei Odoka and Jason Kidd? Any of that interesting to you? Why would Houston trade trade Eme Odoka? Like, just throw him out. He's

Speaker 1 not getting rid of him. That's ridiculous.
I agree. And I don't think he would leave.
It's a great situation, even with the East being so much worse than the West. It's a great situation.

Speaker 1 And also, like, I know how Houston's GM Rafael Stone negotiates would just be like, you don't even have enough. You don't have enough.
I want three first-round picks, and you don't even have that.

Speaker 1 The Kidd one is interesting to me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because he's...

Speaker 1 I wouldn't think he didn't love the Luca one. I wouldn't take my eyes off it.

Speaker 1 That's all I would say now.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't disqualify it. I wouldn't take my eyes off it.
In part because as you and I are batting it around, we can't find another candidate that's like, oh,

Speaker 1 that makes a ton of sense for a team that has said in its press release announcing the firing of Tom Thibodeau, we are a championship roster, or at least we believe we are. That's the pressure.

Speaker 1 That's the expectations. That's why it's hard to imagine a first-time head coach walking into that job.

Speaker 1 I apologize to the friend who sent me this oh boy that i can't remember their name

Speaker 1 what kind of friend are you

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 made the point tibbs would have been the greatest atlanta hawks coach and that the best outcome would have been a quinn snyder for tibbs trade over firing tibbs because if you put tibbs on atlanta he basically just could have run the knicks offense with Trey as Jalen Brunson, but then had all of this defense and all of these wings and a Kongwu as the shop blocker and just done the Tibbs with that team and trey could have shot 36 times i again i really apologize to my friend who texted this but i thought it was great and then quinn snyder on the next bench with the red glasses just just being weird and handy

Speaker 1 he's got to get blue glasses then blue glasses or orange glasses right dark blue glasses i thought that was a really good one i think i think it's a guy with some pedigree the malone would be a weird one though because he's a little gruff like uh tibbs was but the guy won a title two years ago

Speaker 1 well so that's a great, this is a point I wanted to make, and I should admit it about Tibbs. And I'm going to make it again on my podcast this weekend.
Michael Mullen's a great name to bring up.

Speaker 1 Mike Budenholzer is a great name to bring up, not for this job, but for this purpose. Frank Vogel's a great name to bring up, not necessarily for this job, but for this purpose.

Speaker 1 The idea that Tibbs is not a championship coach, that you need a different coach to take your team. He's the floor raiser who can only take your team so far.

Speaker 1 I think there's some merit to the general idea of Tibbs as that, because he is indisputably an incredible floor raiser, incredible.

Speaker 1 And I don't think he's like a Carlisle Spo level, quarter for quarter, minute-for-minute adjustment guy that's your playoff dream coach, right?

Speaker 1 But I don't think any of those other guys were either. And like, that's why Mike Budenholzer got fired in Milwaukee.
He was too slow to adjust, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 Michael Malone was never thought of as like this incredible wizard of adjustments and all this stuff. And those guys won championships.
Like if you have the right talent and

Speaker 1 if you have the right talent, right year, right circumstances, like, yeah,

Speaker 1 I should have been clear about this. Like Tom Thibodeau can absolutely win an NBA championship, even if he is more of a floor raiser than a ceiling raiser.

Speaker 1 He's so good at getting your floor so high that he can get you into that spot. He can absolutely win a championship.

Speaker 1 And like, that's why that Michael Malone, Mike Budenhold, remember, Bud was like on thin ice several times in Milwaukee, mostly because of the idea that he was not as good of a playoff coach as someone like Eric Spolstra, who kind of exposed him a couple of times, and he won the championship.

Speaker 1 That's all.

Speaker 1 Well, I think it seems like it was time for Tibbs to go in New York after five years. Didn't you float?

Speaker 1 It felt like

Speaker 1 the core guys

Speaker 1 were good

Speaker 1 moving on with him. And you lose the core guys, it's a wrap in the NBA.
And that's why the longest tenured coaches in the league go back to 2020. Can we just the core guys?

Speaker 1 I know Katz had experience with Tibbs before. Maybe, so maybe this doesn't matter.
I knew that was Rocky from the get-go. I'm sure it was like, no, no, but he's fine now.
How do we

Speaker 1 Ananobi kind of just got there? You know, it's not like he's been there all five years with Tibbs. It's not like Towns has been there all five years with Tibbs or Hart has been there all five.

Speaker 1 He's been there all. McBridges just got there.
It's not like they've all been there for like

Speaker 1 four years of just like, oh my God, another shoot around with Tibbs. Like, you know, it's not like they've been there that long.

Speaker 1 Seemed a little, uh,

Speaker 1 seemed a little gamey. That's why I flagged it for you in April when you jerked backwards.
And I still like they made the conference finals. They did.
And the thing is,

Speaker 1 a lot of it has to come down to how do you view those first two games against Boston? Because

Speaker 1 they were before Tatum towards Achilles, they were about to go up 3-1, probably win that series.

Speaker 1 And you would think like, wow, what a feather in their cap that they're going to knock the defending champions out pretty honestly until that injury.

Speaker 1 Unless you think the first two games were more about Boston, just were like 75% choke, 25% comeback, and not 50-50.

Speaker 1 Can I give you 90-10? Yeah, whatever. I was trying to be nice to the Knicks.

Speaker 1 I was on a tech start about this two days ago because I was looking at the third and fourth quarter box scores from game one and getting mad all over again.

Speaker 1 The Celtics took, I think it was 34 shots in the second half and 27 of them were threes.

Speaker 1 They took 20 shots in the third quarter with a 20-point lead at various points and 19 of them were threes. They took zero free throws.

Speaker 1 And the whole thing is like after watching what Indiana did to the Knicks,

Speaker 1 to think that the Celtics just walked the ball up and just jacked up threes and that was their offense and what a giant favor they did for the Knicks in both of those games.

Speaker 1 And then the Knicks hung around and they grabbed the game, much like Indiana today.

Speaker 1 But to me, that was a Boston,

Speaker 1 just an absolute strategy collapse where you're just like, it was basically the opposite of OKC tonight, where OKC is like, actually, we're going to change our lineup.

Speaker 1 We think maybe this will be a little better for us. Boston was like, we do this.
This is all we do. We don't care who we're playing.
This is our formula. We're never going to deviate from it.

Speaker 1 And then you see how easy it was to just push the ball on the Knicks, get Towns or Brunson in any sort of switch, keep running,

Speaker 1 Run after made baskets. Just keep pushing the pace on them.
And they didn't do any of it. And they had the same kind of players Indiana has, better versions of them in some cases.

Speaker 1 Anyway, this episode is brought to you by Black Friday Game Day on Prime. It's Bill Simmons, Black Friday Game Day coming to Prime, and it will be an epic day of live sports.

Speaker 1 Black Friday football at the center of it all with the Chicago Bears taking on the Philadelphia Eagles at 3 p.m. Eastern.
This might be an actual round one playoff game.

Speaker 1 That's followed by the final night at Emirates NBA Cup group play

Speaker 1 and a doubleheader starting with the Bucks and Knicks at 7 p.m., Giannis in New York again, and the Mavericks and Lakers at 10 p.m. Boy, I wish those two teams had a history.

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Speaker 1 I have What's Utah up

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 written down as a topic? We're talking about the Utah Jazz at 12.15 a.m. Eastern Sunday.
My last one, because I haven't seen you since they hired Austin Ainge, gave him the car case.

Speaker 1 Then Austin Aing is like, we're not going to be tanking anymore. That got my attention.

Speaker 1 I have my eye on them. Everybody's telling me to have my eye on Toronto.
That's been the new catchy thing to say this month of watch out for Toronto. Nobody loves that more than the Raptors.

Speaker 1 They're in the Discourse. Yeah.
Watch out for Toronto. It's like, what am I watching out for?

Speaker 1 Well, what are they going to do? They're going to trade Scotty Barnes and all their picks for Giannis. Milwaukee's not doing that.
What are they going to do? They're not going to be.

Speaker 1 Why are you disqualifying that for Milwaukee?

Speaker 1 I'm not doing that. I'm keeping Giannis.
If it's Scotty Barnes and some picks for Giannis, thanks. I'm going to keep Giannis.
Thanks anyway. I'll keep one of the 20 best players ever at age 30.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 So, do you want to talk about the Utah Jazz? Should we do a deep dive on Keontae George? Like, what are we doing here? I'm just wondering, are they going to get frisky over the next three weeks?

Speaker 1 Do I have to keep my eye on this? So, you love this idea of

Speaker 1 marketing for Paul George at number three.

Speaker 1 That's like your little pet. That's like a little pet over here.
You love that one. I have it in a cage.
I feed it some cage-free eggs and some

Speaker 1 spring water, and I try to grow it. I don't even know if that makes sense for Philly, but I just wonder if Philly's looking at trades like that with the third pick.

Speaker 1 I hate that trade for everybody involved. I think I do too.
I just thought it was a fun trade. I don't know.
What do you do with marketing and Joelle and being together? I don't know what that is.

Speaker 1 If you tell me I'm the Sixers, I know the Jazz, I can reroute Paul George somewhere else for something less damaging to my cap sheet for the next three years, and I get the numbers free pick, then it starts to be somewhat interesting to me.

Speaker 1 But like, marketing is pretty good, and the Paul George contract is not so good.

Speaker 1 Although I think it'll get rehabbed this year, I think we'll think differently of Paul George and about some of the things. Can I make the case for why I would think about this if I'm Utah?

Speaker 1 I wouldn't do it if I was Philly, but if I'm Utah and I have two, two stabs at a top five pick in this draft, which I think has a real, especially the top five has a chance.

Speaker 1 There might be somebody really special.

Speaker 1 Edgecombe, Trey Johnson, Harper, like one of those guys might end up being a top 10 or 15 guy in the league. Maybe two of them.
Who knows?

Speaker 1 And if I'm Utah, I get two swings at that apple if I can trade, keep my fifth pick and trade into the top three. But that would not be the trade I did if I was Philly.

Speaker 1 I would try to do three in Paul George. I would be shopping that around.
Like I would have offered that to Jalen Brown for Jalen Brown right now.

Speaker 1 Well, that's okay. So you're in the right age range then, because

Speaker 1 for Philly,

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, but I have to make decisions at this level based on a timetable that is not Joel Embiid's timetable.

Speaker 1 Like that's why if I really like the guys that are available at three and those guys have studied the draft a thousand times more than I have, if they hate, if they don't like those guys, it's a different conversation.

Speaker 1 If I like them,

Speaker 1 as a steward of that franchise, I can no longer mortgage major pieces of our future for the idea that I can win a title with Joellen Biet. I just can't do it.
I think you're right.

Speaker 1 I think that's the right. I think you have to a game number three.
It's obvious.

Speaker 1 I just don't know if. I don't know if

Speaker 1 you're not.

Speaker 1 So that's the thing about Utah and Frisky. That your little pet trade is at least the right idea of them being Frisky because otherwise, like, what am I going to do?

Speaker 1 I'm going to go out and trade for Trey Young or something. Like, why is that interesting to me if I'm Utah? Like,

Speaker 1 why am I cashing in chips? When Austin says they're not tanking anymore, it's it they don't have to tank to tank. Like, they could just play all all the players that they have on their roster.

Speaker 1 Maybe trade Sexton for a first or whatever, whoever gets you a first out of the Sexton, Collins, Clarkson group.

Speaker 1 And just don't do what you did last year where everyone has injuries that pop up mysteriously every third game or like last 40 games or whatever. Just play your roster.

Speaker 1 The West is so good that you'll finish 14th or 15th in the West anyway. And you'll have organically tanked, and everybody won't be so goddamn miserable anymore.
That's all.

Speaker 1 Especially Will Hardy.

Speaker 1 Well, that's hard.

Speaker 1 He's like, guys, I'm not a drinker, but I'm going to be starting if we're going to suck again because I can't do this a third year.

Speaker 1 But at least for Will Hardy's sake, he has leveraged their own misery into like, I think he's been extended 15 times in the last two.

Speaker 1 I think it's gotten to less than 2040 now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I think Utah is the fifth pick, and that might end up being a really good player. So maybe they're good.

Speaker 1 But Utah, Utah and Toronto, I think, are the two that people seem to be whispering about. That

Speaker 1 and then Atlanta, I think, is just interesting in general. I don't even know who would want Trey Young.
San Antonio, I think, keeps two. At least that's the word.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 there's been a lot of KD stuff this week. A lot of KD stuff.
And that seemed like a possible home for him. I still feel like pounds for KD is in play, too.

Speaker 1 By the way, one of my favorite things has been like how every time anyone says that KD's almost a lock to get traded, it gets aggregated as if it's some big story. Like Katie's getting traded.

Speaker 1 KD's not going to be on the Suns next year. Like we could, we could put that one to bed.
Just wait to see what the trade is. Well,

Speaker 1 the stuff that was this week about how Bradley Beal,

Speaker 1 they're stuck with him. They might have to buy him out.

Speaker 1 He's got two years left. I think at like 53 and 57.
My guess is they're not going to buy him out.

Speaker 1 Anyway, we'll see what happens. We have plenty of time to talk about this.
So we're going to be doing pods next week in

Speaker 1 the great state of Indianapolis after

Speaker 1 Naptown. We're coming.
Do people call it Naptown anymore?

Speaker 1 Jalen Rose does. That was the first time I'm good.
That's good enough for me. You know, I'm just going to throw this out here.
You would know this.

Speaker 1 You would not necessarily know this, but you would know how realistic of a question this is. I asked some of the Pacers people this when they were in New York up 3-1 last week.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's a near and dear question to your heart, and probably one that you've thought about and know the background of better than I do.

Speaker 1 Do we get a legend appearance in Indiana for one of the home finals games? I mean, if you want to get the crowd involved to bring the house down, I think it's a good idea.

Speaker 1 He lives in Indiana. Why wouldn't he? Well, he's in good health.

Speaker 1 He lives in Florida a lot. I don't know where he is day to day right now, but I know he's got a place in somewhere in Florida.

Speaker 1 If I'm the Pacers and I and it's 1-1 heading into game three, I'm trotting out every Indiana legend I have for game three.

Speaker 1 All

Speaker 1 Regional is in there. I've heard nobody bring this up yet.
Like,

Speaker 1 when the Pacers went up three, whatever in the conference finals, it was one of the first things that popped in my head.

Speaker 1 Are we going to get a Larry Legend appearance in Indiana if they make the finals?

Speaker 1 I was not given an answer. My laptop battery is about to run out, so we have to go.
Sweet.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry I brought up you, Ty. I didn't realize it was going to make you so angry.

Speaker 1 I'm not angry. I just,

Speaker 1 we just, we just watched an incredible finals game.

Speaker 1 I was still for an hour. I still don't really know what happened.

Speaker 1 I'm going to have to go back and. What do you think the line is on FanDuel for the series now?

Speaker 1 I don't speak gambling, so you're going to have to tell me what the, it was like minus 700 before the series. It sure was.
So I'm going to guess my totally uneducated gambling mind.

Speaker 1 I'm going to guess it's minus 375.

Speaker 1 See, look at you. Minus 330.
Okay,

Speaker 1 favorite. Okay C to win in five still in play.
Zeklo, pleasure. Are you doing a little mini game two preview pod, possibly?

Speaker 1 It was going to be a struggle if it was just Oklahoma City wins by 18. Now I'm doing a mini game two preview pod.
We'll either tape it tomorrow night or Saturday morning.

Speaker 1 And because this is the joy of having two days off between games, you get to really sink your teeth into these things. Keep it, keep

Speaker 1 it going because then you got Monday too.

Speaker 1 When we're in Indiana, I'm going to ask you to rank your favorite ringer people you've podded with so far. I'm just going to force you to do it.
It'd be great. Cause some team dissension a month in.

Speaker 1 Get the locker room. Zach doing rankings.
Yeah, get the locker room rankled. Zach Lowe, pleasure as always.
Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo for helping us with the live stream.

Speaker 1 Thanks for everybody for checking in. What a game.
We really lucked out. We'll see you next time.
All right. That's it for the podcast.

Speaker 1 Thanks to Zach and Eduardo and Gahal as well for helping us make it and go live on YouTube. That was super fun.
I'm going to be back on Sunday.

Speaker 1 Right after game two, we'll be doing this podcast with Brasillo, and we're going to do it live on YouTube like we did game one. And you have the weekend to watch Working Girl for the Rewatchables.

Speaker 1 That's coming on Monday. It's a great movie.
Watch it with the whole family. It's a good one.
Enjoy the weekend. I will see you on Sunday night.

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