What Happened in OKC? A Full Game 1 Break Down With Mo Dakhil. Plus, More Offseason Check-ins With Howard Beck.

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Oh boy, coming up on a special Friday edition of the Zach Lowe Show, game one of of the finals. Did that really happen?

Did I dream 19 first half turnovers for the Atlanta Pacers and they won the game? Did I dream that?

Tyrese Halliburton made another game-winning shot in another crazy road come from behind gut punch win. That happened? I think it happened, and we're going to talk about it.

And then we're going to talk about with Mo Takil, former video coordinator for two NBA teams. What's going to happen in game two? What adjustments are we going to see? What adjustments should we see?

What are the counters to those adjustments? All things NBA finals. And then my buddy Howard Beck, we do some house cleaning.

We revisit the Knicks' decision to fire Tibbs, their interest in Jason Kidd, other candidates, Knicks going forward, and a couple of Western Conference teams toward the bottom of the standings that I think are kind of sneakily interesting and both undergoing some organizational change at very high levels, Utah.

and Portland.

Portland a little ahead of Utah in the sort of rebuilding schedule, but both of those teams in interesting spots with a lot of interesting decisions that I don't think have been talked about a lot.

So why not take a little, take a little time to give some lottery teams some love? That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe Show.

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Welcome to the the Zach Lowe Show on a Friday, a third episode of the week. Yes, because it's the NBA Finals.
And when the Indiana Pacers do the damned thing again,

and when Tyrese Halliburton does his damn thing again

on the greatest clutch shooting run literally in the history of basketball, we do another episode. I blathered on Bill's podcast last night right after the game.
I don't even remember what I said.

I watched the game again this morning.

We have what is shaping up to be an awesome NBA Finals and an all-time Indiana Pacers team that, regardless of what happens from here on out, none of us are ever going to forget the throw ride they have taken us on.

Moza Kill, how are you? I'm doing great, Zach. I mean, that was such a fun game last night.
A little bit weird, but totally a fun game across the board.

And for it to end the way it did, it was just amazing. Except maybe

I said last night, I think it was the strangest game I've ever seen.

I mean, considering the stakes, I'm sure there have been, you know, tanky games in April that are a little like, why did Mark Madsen take nine threes kind of games?

I just, the turnovers on like number 13 in the second quarter, I actually was like had this moment where I actually felt like, am I really watching this?

Is this really what's happening in the NBA Finals?

I mean, the whole talking point coming into the series was, well, Indiana, the only reason they have a fighting chance is because they take care of the ball.

And that's like you're dead on arrival against Oklahoma City if you turn the ball over. 19 turnovers in the first half and they were still within striking distance.

I didn't really, my brain could not compute what was happening. And then it just stayed in that range of like 15 at the high end, six, back to nine, back to 12.
The Thunder couldn't put them away.

The Pacers couldn't quite get like within even two possessions, kind of. And then all of a sudden they did.

And then they won and then it was over and by the way one of the reasons why it felt so strange in a good way was from the 744 mark of the fourth quarter until there were 22 seconds left and there was that challenge there were no timeouts in the game there were stoppages there were fouls and all that but there was no time to really catch your breath and that adds a whole other layer of intensity.

I'm just freaking fired up, Mo. I'm fired up.
I love it. I love it.
This game actually reminded me of the one of my favorite scenes in Die Hard that I always quote in the playoffs.

I can't believe you're quoting Die Hard. I'm so excited for what's about to come out of your mouth.

It's the scene where John McClain's under the table, and I think it's an Italian dude that's shooting at the table and talking trash to McClain and going like, no table, pal. You've run out of table.

And next time you have a chance to kill somebody, don't hesitate. And that's kind of what happened in this game.

Like the Thunder were never able to put them away, just like this dude was never able to kill McLean and then gets shot through the table.

When he gives McLean advice, he's like, yeah, good idea, and shoots him through the table. You know what? Let's just abort the whole podcast and do a die-hard podcast instead.
In,

let's go. R.I.P.
By the way,

to why am I forgetting his name? Alan, who plays Hans Gruber? I can't believe Snape.

Rickman. Alan Rickman.
Alan Rickman.

Hans Gruber. I read about it in Time magazine.

Just all time. Okay, I'm sorry.
I'm loopy today. Mo, we got to start with two things.

I re-watched the whole game today, and I started my day, as a normal person does, by logging on to my little video tool and watching all 25 Pacers' turnovers because I wanted to track how did this game not get out of hand?

So I tracked them. I watched every one.

14 of the 25 were live ball turnovers, were steals.

It's a lot of steals. If my tracking is correct, and I think it is,

the Thunder scored seven points of 14 live ball turnovers.

Seven points on 14 live ball turnovers. Let's put that in perspective.
While I went on cleaning the glass and I looked up some stuff, you ready to hear what I found? Let's go. Indiana

turnover rate last night, it's highest in any game this season, regular season or playoffs. In the other

seven or eight games in which they had a turnover rate above 18%, they lost every one except one against Brooklyn, who was probably trying to lose. And they won against the Thunder.

On the flip side, Cleaning the Glass has this thing where they calculate how many points you score in transition off steals and off rebounds.

Just isolating the steals in terms of an efficiency, points per possession, points per chance performance. This was the single worst performance of the Oklahoma City Thunders entire season.

To have those two things happen in the same game is unbelievable. Now, looking back and watching those turnovers, I have to give a couple things happen.

Number one,

the Thunder gave it right back on two or three occasions. Pass out of bounds by Chet Holmgren early in the game.
Caruso commits a charge. There's another poke away right off a McConnell turnover.

That happens. Number two, there's like four threes.
That in the run of play, I thought, ooh, that was kind of a greedy going for the kill three by Shay, one by J-Dub.

And re-watching them, I'm like, actually, they're kind of good shots. Number, they're okay shots.
They're not great shots, but they're okay shots. Number three,

Indiana's transition defense was super duper on point. I mentioned it last night with Bill.
Re-watching it hammered it home even more. They were ready to sprint back.

Sometimes even the shooter on a three was sprinting back instead of watching his own shot. The weak side guy in the corner was always looping up.
They were attentive.

They weren't like, oh, oh, there's a loose ball. Let me loiter around here and see what they were back.

And so all of those, and then there were two of the 14 live ball turnovers were within the last 10 seconds of the quarter. So the Thunder didn't have too much time.
And I had forgotten.

Remember, I think it was at the end of the second quarter where Caruso misses that layup right before halftime that spins out. It's like one of those forgotten moments.

What else was notable to you about like, obviously some of this is luck. 14 steals against the Thunder could be 21 points in game two.
But what else stood out to you re-watching those turnovers?

I think, you know, you touched on it at the end, the number of missed layups that the Thunder had.

I think they outshot the Pacers in the paint, like 14 shots more four feet from the rim than the Pacers in this game. Like, just there were so many things.

Chet Holmgren breaks the press in the fourth quarter and misses a layup. You know, you had a couple from J-W.

There was just so many times where it was like, man, like that's a layup. Like these are stuff that you're normally going to make.

And it just, like the Caruso one at the end, like just kind of rolls around the rim and rolls off. Like, I remember watching it in real time going, like, ah, it's going to fall now.
Oh, my God.

It fell out. Like, it's, it's a weird sort of thing.
That was one thing that really kind of stood out to me in terms of just the flow of the game and the way it played out for the Thunder.

Cause that's something that, like, you know, that you can't replicate that. That's probably going, those are going in way more than they're not when we go into game two.

You know, one of the reasons I wanted to watch them all again

was

I wanted to see where the ball was stolen on the floor

and

understand a little better, like, how were these just not complete jailbreak three on twos, two on ones?

And if you watch a lot of the turnovers, there are strips in the paint and under the basket or passes that are intercepted, high-low passes, entry passes, pocket passes that are intercepted or dropped.

My God, Obi Toppin had three horrific turnovers within like a minute of it during the game, but they're intercepted or dropped in like the middle of the paint.

And why that was interesting to me was: number one,

those are almost less damaging to the defensive integrity, your transition defensive integrity, than a missed shot at the rim. There's nobody falling out of bounds.

There's nobody really even under the rim except the guy who's losing the ball, who may be be at like the dotted line.

Number two, the Pacers usually have at least two guys kind of in the upper quadrant of the half court ready to get back.

They're not one of these teams that's like, well, it's a roller and two guys in the corner and our floor balance is going to be messy.

And it's almost part of the reward for the fact that like Halliburton is not a super high volume straight line driver to the rim.

So a lot of the turnovers were this like magic combination of like part luck, part team construction where they happen right in the middle of the paint with the floor kind of balanced.

And then you had a couple of jailbreaks, like the baseline out of bounds pass that was stolen and dunked, and a couple other ones like that. But a lot of them were for live ball turnovers.

Like, and I can't, I don't know if it's luck. I don't know if it's how the Pacers play.

I don't know how much of it is either that were like relatively controllable environments for the Pacers in ways that like Steals Against the Thunder are normally not.

I think there was an element of preparation from Carlisle and his staff: like, look, there's going to be live ball turnovers. This team is going to create them.
So, how do we handle that?

And I feel like the urgency, like you had mentioned, like the guys beginning to get back earlier than they normally would, not crashing so much from the corners.

Instead, we need to get back, you know,

in terms of those opportunities and not chasing a wild loose ball. If it's go for a maybe get a loose ball or get back on defense, it was get back on defense for the pacers.

Like, there's a level of discipline to that understanding of like, hey, when basically everything goes wrong, we need to make sure we get our guys back and slow them down.

And I think that was an important sort of focus that if we were to ask any of the Pacers coaching staff, you know, maybe after the series, they would say something along the lines of like, yeah, we accepted the fact of like, this is a reality.

They're going, this is going to happen in the game. How do we handle that? And I think that might have been one of their focuses in the leading up to the finals.

And at the same time, if one of those threes that I'm talking about goes in, the Thunder win the game.

If two of them go in, and by the way, one was a Shea three that hit the backboard. It was like, and it was not even that bad of a shot.
Like, I, again, I, I, I rewatched the whole game and I

feel the same way today that I did last night. Like, I didn't love a lot of the shots that Shea took in the game.
I didn't love the flow of Oklahoma City's offense for a lot of the game.

We'll talk about that later. But a couple of those step-up transition threes were like pretty good looks that just missed and missed badly in a couple of cases.
Okay, so talking point number one

was how in the hell do you turn the ball over that many times and not get run out of the building? We kind of answered that. Talking point number two, I think, was the lineup change

starting small, starting Kaysen Wallace over Isaiah Hardenstein.

And I had talked before the series, as did Caitlin Cooper, as did the group chat guys, as probably did you too, about how because of the Siaka matchup and because of the sheer speed of the Pacers, this felt like a better one-big series than two-big series for the Thunder.

I didn't think they would just scrap the two-big thing completely.

What I thought would happen was they'd start the way they start because that's what you do, and you sort of shift minutes a little bit.

So, if you play double big, 18 minutes a game, normally, that becomes 12, and single big becomes a little bit more, and five out, no big becomes a little bit more instead double big went away single big was permanent and no no big became more as we talked about and you know we can discuss the reasons behind that and the consequences for it you know

i would say

and i heard richard jefferson on the broadcast saying well that's a win for indiana right off the bat you feel like they're scared of us they're adjusting to us we didn't even do anything we just played some games in the junior varsity conference and they're already adjusting to us i didn't think of it that way.

I thought of it as like 30% fear/slash respect for Indiana, 30% respect for their speed, 30% fear of like, do we have a good matchup for Siakam with our two bigs on the floor?

And I keep mentioning this. A really underrated part of Indiana's team construction relative to this exact issue is there is no other safe place to put your big man in the starting lineup.

There's no Josh Hart. There's no Jaden McDaniels.
Everybody can shoot and everybody moves around and everybody can pass and dribble.

Neesmith is the closest thing and he's too good of a shooter, too fierce of a competitor. By the way,

great rebound by Neesmith to set up the Halliburton shot at the end of the game. I missed that last night and saw it on the res.
It's he comes in and it's a nasty gang rebound.

So I thought it was like 30% fear respected the Pacers and 70%.

puffing out our chest and being like, you know what? This is our best look.

We're going to try to lay the SmackDown right away. We're going to try to take your soul, steal your will, steal your confidence right off the bat.
We want to run you out of the gym. And

I guess it didn't work, but maybe it kind of worked. I still don't know if it worked or not, but it was very strange.
And I don't know what they do now going forward.

I thought it was absurd to start this way. When you've had all the success you've had throughout the course of the playoffs, like the toughest series you had was against Denver in a seven-game series.

Yeah, like the Minnesota one was a little bit tight, but you pulled out game four and then were able to roll in game five across the board.

Like this wasn't, and it wasn't like this was an adjustment they made through the course of the playoffs that they felt like, okay, this is one of those series we have to do it.

Like I agree with you, and like everybody's talked about, yes, there's going to be probably more of a one-big series than a two-big series, but it doesn't mean scrap it altogether.

Like, there are so many times, Zach, I was so confused, not just with the decision of it, but through the course of the game to never run it.

You're telling me you can't run double big when they have Obi-Toppin and Miles Turner out there.

You can't do it when it's Thomas Bryant and Obi Toppin out there, which, you know, was the end of the third quarter. Like, there's just,

I feel like this was one of those things where they overthought this. And this was a problem where you had eight days off, right? They beat Minnesota on a Wednesday.

They don't play till the next Thursday. And I feel like they created a problem that it was there, but they made it a bigger problem.
And then it opened up other things. It's like me.

It's like when my wife asked me to fix the garage door and I tried and I made it worse and I had to call the garage door company like, hey, my door's crooked and stuck now.

Can you come help me and take my money? That's what Mark Dagnall did. Mark Dagnall tried to fix the garage door.
That wasn't really even that broken. See, I've avoided that.

I've always told my wife from the beginning. By the way, that really happened.
She asked me to fix the garage door like a month into my unemployment. It was part of my my list of things to do.

And I was like, I don't, I can't really read the instructions. I'm going to start just like pressing buttons.
And one of these probably will work. And it ended up crooked and stuck halfway.

And I was like, ooh, that's not good. I made this worse.
But the problem, too, though, is that this opened up a nerve for them, right?

You saw it really early on where the Pacers were like, oh, they're small. Cool, we're going to get a switch.
We're going to get a guard switched on Siakam. He got his first two buckets off of Wallace.

The first one off of a post up on the block. The other other one when he gets a switch and then attacked him from the free throw line.

Like, sure, okay, maybe Chet can't guard Siakam, but we don't know that yet.

You know, we're not in that situation where if we put Hartenstein on Turner and put Chet on Siakam, let's see how he handles the sticks. And how does he deal? How does Siakam deal with this?

I feel like they opened up a nerve and just said, like, hit me here. Like, it'll hurt if you hit me here.
So, you know, and they did that. And I think that's started the problem.

And then again, to never run it, bring that out at any point in the game when there were clearly lineups that the Pacers had that you could do it, like run it against these guys.

And they didn't do it. I was really kind of confused by that whole strategy there.
And I felt like, again,

puffing the chest out, whether it's fear, whatever anybody wants to think it was, I thought it was a mistake to start that way. We've hit on some of the reasons why you would do it, right?

Mostly fear of Indiana's transition game and fear of Siakam and comfort level with J-Dubb on Siakam.

It also has the trickle-down effect of

allowing you to switch any Halliburton-Siakam two-man game between Dort and J-Dubb. That's a benefit.
But as you said, it has some knock-on effects that I think were helpful for Indiana.

Number one, it was easy to get Siakam a mismatch. Number two, Siakam can now guard Dort and roam into the paint.

and mess up your driving lanes and force you to kick the ball out to shooters that they're comfortable shooting with, including Dort, who've made made five threes, so whatever.

And not only that, and I don't think anyone really talked about this, Siakam on Dort created a cross-match situation that I think confused Oklahoma City's defense because

Indiana gets a stop. Dort and Siakam are going to be next to each other.
Dort's first instinct is going to be like, well, I'm guarding Halliburton. I got to find Halliburton.

He's the best player on the other team. And in that haze, the Pacers found little alleys, little open shots, little blips of confusion.

Nemhart hit a corner three when nobody was on him because they were trying to figure out how to match it up. And so ultimately, people harped on the rebounding last night.

I didn't think the rebounding was like that big of a problem.

The rebounding margin was mostly the product of how many more freaking shots the Thunder took than the Pacers because the Pacers threw the ball all over the gym. But I did think that,

and I also thought another knock-on effect was Halliburton gets to hide on Wallace.

And he's going to hide on Dort if you start big, but he hides on Wallace, and they successfully steered some of the early offense toward Wallace.

And I thought Wallace, with the exception of like three plays in the third quarter, was kind of out of control trying to go at Halliburton and took some bad shots and got in trouble in the paint.

And that's a win, too, for the Pacers. So all in all, it's at best a wash and at worst, a mistake that now creates 48 hours of talking.

about the potential mistake, 48 hours of deciding, do we go back to starting two bigs? But to your point, I'm watching the game again this morning.

I'm like, every second Siakram's not on the floor is an opportunity to go double big. Every second that McConnell is on the floor with any of your other big men is an opportunity to go double big.

You can put Chet on TJ McConnell. Chet's your third best player at worst.
Some nights, your second best player. He can't play 23 minutes.
in a finals game. It's that simple.

We can harp on the double big and this and that and what they lost and what they gained.

Chet Holmgren is the top three player on your team, a a top 25-ish player in the NBA, maybe top 30, maybe top 20, depending on your taste. He can't play 23 minutes in the NBA final game.

He's got to play 33 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever it is. And he could even guard Matherin, put him on Matherin, be like, drive at me, drive at me, go ahead.

We're going to see double big in game two.

I don't know if we'll see it at the beginning because that's a...

That's a herky jerky change. I would do it, though.
I would just say, like, screw it. We're going to go back to our starting lineup.
Forget game one. Watch the audio system.

Go back to our regular scheduled programming.

I'd have a lot of respect if they did it that way, because then it's acknowledging, hey, we messed up

and we shouldn't have done that in game one. We should, you know, whatever.
And

fix the mistake right away. Don't compound it and continue

trying to prove to everybody, no, no, this was the right decision, you know, and all that stuff.

I think the other side of it, too, is just like when you talk about Chet just playing 24 minutes or 23 minutes, I think the important thing to understand, like Chet didn't have a good game, shot two and nine from the field.

It's also hard to get in a rhythm with all that stuff. Also, when you were in the starting lineup, you also had Hartenstein with you.

You guys, the two of them have good passing with each other, little big to big action, whether it's, you know, vice either guy throwing to the other always seems to work for them.

They find opportunities for each other. So you're kind of taking an avenue in which Chet does play well.
You're taking a little piece off of that for him.

And then to your Wallace point, like, I think part of the problem, too, with that is Wallace is not a great screener, right?

Like, when he's setting the ball screens and things like that, and it's not his fault, it's not something he's used to or has done a ton of through the course of his career in the position he has.

Whereas, right, where if they're hiding Halliburton on Dort, Dort does a great job setting the screen, forcing the switch, and things like that. That's just not something Wallace does.

So, it allowed Halliburton to do things where, at times, I'm going to show and then recover. There was a great example I posted in the third quarter where Halliburton got switched onto Shea

off ball. And then,

again, through the action off-ball, the ball went to Hartenstein. Wallace is screening again

for Shea, and that allowed them to switch back and put Nemhard back on Shea.

And I think that sort of those things are going to happen more and more with that if you continue to have this sort of run, if that's going to be your starting lineup for game two.

So I think it's really kind of those things right there is enough for me to want to change the starting lineup and go back to what worked for us, what we know worked.

So a couple of things you just said that I 100% agree with. Number one, I mentioned with Bill last night in passing,

no pun intended, that I think the double big lineup unleashes some of their best passing sequences overall.

And one of the reasons that their offense looked stagnant last night and only recorded 13 assists was that they didn't have any double big minutes.

Those guys passing to each other is always a win for them. We saw that's how they beat zone defenses.

And when you have five perimeter guys playing together, which is great in a lot of ways, it's great for your defense. It's great for your shooting.

You don't have like a natural screen and dive threat. You don't have any vertical threat at all to sort of pierce the defense and get to mid-rotation.
I thought they missed it.

It's part of the reason why I kept saying this this year. I think Hartenstein's been at least as important for their offense as he's been for their defense because of his creativity in open space.

Number Number two, I thought their screening largely stunk in game one. And one of the reasons why they went at Halliburton a lot, as we knew they would.

They didn't get great dividends out of it is because Wallace's screening stunk. Joe's screening stunk in his limited minutes.
Even Caruso, who's a good screener, was a little bit uneven.

They got to mix up. Like, you just can't ghost these screens every single time.
Sometimes you got to hammer him and like see what the defense does. Number three, you mentioned it before.

I've been harping on it since before, not harping on it, but talking about it since before the series and again last night. The idea that Chet can't guard Siakam,

I don't know if Oklahoma City even believes that's true. I don't know why anyone would believe that's true.
Can I see it first? Because I like, yeah, Siakam is going to get under Chet.

Chet's real skinny, elbow him, get those jagged elbows going, move him backwards a little bit and get within eight, nine feet of the rim for his kind of pet turnarounds and stuff. And you know what?

Chet's still gigantic with gigantic arms and is going to contest those shots and i keep saying this too part of the reason i want to see them experiment with that matchup is it keeps chet close to the basket chet guarding miles turner he can do it he's great at it he's a great defensive player in space he's a great defensive player anywhere it's taking him away from where he's most effective.

And by the way, if it turns out he can't guard Siakam, guess who has plenty of experience guarding Siakam? Hartenstein. Put Hartenstein on Siakam.
Put Chet back on Miles Turner.

I just, I think overthinking is the right word. I think you hit the right word.
I think the other component, too, of having Chet on Siakam, he at least slows it up.

Siakam's attack at the rim slows him up for a second, which will buy time for the help to come. Like, that's the one thing I love about this Thunders defense is help always comes.

Somebody's always coming from behind. It happened a bunch last night.
Lou Dork coming up with steals, blocking Siakam from behind at the free throw line on one possession.

You know, there's help is coming. And if you're able to slow up the action, Chet might not get the block, but just being tall and big might get Siakam to slow down for a split second.

And that's enough time to get Dort over, Williams over, to get Hart and stuff. Like it just helps across the board with all that stuff.
And I think it's just missed opportunity.

It's really more, you know, when I think about it. You sound like Dumbledore, Mo.
Help will always be given at the Paycom Center to those who ask for it. Does it ask for it or deserve it?

I can't remember.

Overthinking. Can I just give you another, just a small little instance that bugged me of overthinking? And by the way, in a game you lost by one,

they all matter. End of the third quarter, McConnell has the ball, calls up Shay's man to screen for him.
The Thunder

acting as if Shay is Carl Anthony Towns or

Davis Burtans or some guy who has no shot defending TJ McConnell try to emergency switch Shay out of the pick and roll by coming off the corner. TJ sees it to his credit, to their credit.

He and Halliburton are the best at seeing this and whips it to, I don't remember who it was. I think it's Siakam.

It was Siakam in the corner. Hits a corner three, and I watch it.
And my first instinct is, it's a Pacers play. They make that play.
Those two point guards are so smart, they outthink the defense.

And then I was like, why are they doing that? What is the flaw? Like, Shake Ilgis Alexander can't sit there and guard TJ McConnell for three seconds at the end of a quarter.

There's three points out of thin air in a game you lose by one. Overthinking.
Not even that. Like there was another, it was later in the fourth quarter.
It was a Turner three.

And it goes back to my thing of you could have played both your bigs with Turner and Toppin on the floor.

Toppin rolls and Turner's on the strong side.

Hartenstein pulls off a Turner by two steps. It's Halliburton hitting Turner along the wing for another three.

Like, these were just, these were the plays where I was just like, yo, like, you can't give these things up. Like, there's just small moments.

And it was simple two steps from a Hartenstein, but that's all it takes. In the finals, the margin of error is the slimmest it's going to be at any point.

And that's, you know, you lost by one, and it's small stuff like that. And it was just amazing.

And, you know, like going back to just McConnell, he was huge for them in the first half, to be honest with you.

Like, it's, it's something the plus, minus or whatever does, that does stuff doesn't matter to me in an individual game. But him, he kept them in this game.

Like, I kept writing in my notes, they're within striking distance of being in striking distance. And I felt like it was guys like McConnell making plays.
It was Thomas Bryant and

Mathron. at the end of the third and start of the fourth making plays and opportunities.
Like there were so many, I have so many notes of these guys guys making.

I re-watched the game this morning as well, and it's just so many things that I saw where I was like, man, this is what, this is why they won.

All it led to, or put them in the position to win the game at the end was because of all these guys making these small plays at the most random moments.

McConnell at the end of the first quarter, spinning off Isaiah Joe and getting a layup.

Like, there's just so many of those moments right there that kept them in the game that allowed them to win it at the end.

Well, I mentioned these two guys last night, but Toppin and Matherin both caught off to absolutely nightmarish starts. Oh, horrible.

And I thought Matherin was actually going to get like the permanent hook at one point in the first half. And Rick Carlisle, because he's a genius, is like, you guys are good.

We're going to just play through it. And obviously, Obi makes five threes.

Matherin in the fourth quarter has a nice little pocket pass for an assist, has a drive for a layup, has a backdoor cut for free throws, like just important, like

just keeping us within 12, keeping us within 12. And then the other guy, Nemhart, was unbelievable.

And the and one he had through Caruso, through Alex Caruso, followed by a three that he single-handedly creates for top end. Like those are massive and his defense, but okay, enough, enough.

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Big issue number three.

I came out of that game feeling like OKC didn't have the usual juice in its half-court offense.

And I re-watched it, and I tried to chart. every possession in which there were no passes.
And

look, when you have an elite isolation player like SGA and a pretty good one-on-one player in J-Dub, who, by the way, had some major buckets at the beginning of the fourth quarter to keep them,

keep the cushion where it was when Shea was out, you're going to have some no pass possessions.

I thought there were, I'm not going to go through them all, but I thought there were too many possessions where there's 14 on the shot clock. There were two types of possessions I didn't like.

Number one, there's 15 on the shot clock. And you shoot a contested 18-footer just because you can.

More of those shots missed than usual last night, but I thought they could have worked for something better.

How I know they could have worked for something better is the one really nice out-of-timeout play that Mark Dagnall drew up last night was that back screen by Shay that got Kaysen Wallace a layup.

That calling that out of a timeout, it's not like a really thundery kind of play. Calling that out of a timeout was the coach saying, you guys need to get a little more flow into this offense.

Problematic possession number two was toward the end of the game, we're just going to walk it up and nothing is going to happen until there's 11 on the shot clock.

And then we're going to run something. Now, they missed some good threes out of that, which I'll get to.
But just as an example, if people want to go to like

when there was no juice in the Thunder offense,

the shot clock violation where the ball is in Caruso's hand as the shot clock goes off.

That starts with a Shea, Isaiah Joe pick and roll. They switch.
Shea passes to Isaiah Joe. And then nothing happens.
Like nothing.

Shea just stands there with a, with a, I think with Halliburton on him, just stands there. Isaiah Joe's like, cool, I don't really dribble a lot.
Hardenstein, can you take this?

Hardenstein takes it and just kind of like looks around. Like, is anyone going to come here for a handoff? Because I'm 20 feet from the room and I really don't want to shoot.

And then there's a shotgun violation. Similarly, remember Wallace's one-on-one finger roll over Halliburton? Yep.
That's another possession where they run SGA Wallace switch.

And then everyone stands around. Everyone just stands there.
And Kayson Wallace bails it out with a tough layup, but he bails it out. You can see him like, no one's doing anything.
I got to do this.

I'll do it. Fine.
It's Halliburton. I can do it.
It's just something was just off with them last night. And I wonder why that was.

It's, it actually goes to something that I complain about with a lot of teams.

And it's been my chief complaint about this Thunder team, as much as you can have a complaint about a 68-win team with the point differential they had.

Like, only I can be the jerk and be like, I have problems.

But

they never have a different way to play, right? Like, okay, this, this, whatever, we don't have the juice with this today. And that ATO was a great one.

I, you know, it's one of those things where you're going like, we can run some more stuff. Like, when you don't have that juice, run some sort of offense that gets the guys moving.

Hell, just run a flex screen, whatever. Just run something simple and whatever, just to get guys moving and get them going and force the defense to move and bounce around a little bit.

I think those are the things that, like, for me with this game kind of highlighted it. And I know it's crazy because again, they lost by one, right?

Like one of those threes go in or whatnot, it's a different story. Miles Turner doesn't bake in a miracle.
We're talking differently, but I just feel like they don't have a second offense.

They don't have a second offense to go to. They don't have anything else.
It's okay. Shea can't make it.
All right. J-Dub, you got to take it.

And he can in some nights. He didn't last night.
He had a real rough one last night. Then it's, you know, now it's, now it ends up in Kayson Wallace's hands.
It's going to end up in Hartenstein's.

Like you're going to be in weird situations when you just depend on that stuff. And I wish they kind of spent some time through the course of the season.

And maybe it's unfair because they were, they dealt so much with injuries that they kind of worked in a second offense to just, hey, let's just have a backup.

And I felt like this is the first time they needed it. I think they have stuff like that in the bag.

just they know how to get from one one place to another and one one shot to another in fact i thought,

well, they have it and it just wasn't there. I think they have it a little more than you're giving them credit for, but maybe I'm wrong.

The other thing, what did you think of their

Indiana's defense on Shay and in particularly on Shea pick and rolls?

I liked it. I thought the way they kind of played it was, hey,

I'm an advocate of Shay's going to get his points. You need to make him work, but you can't give up everything else.
Like, I think you can't overhelp too much.

And I think there's opera, there's times where teams tend to do that, and they give up buckets and clean looks to everybody else.

The others still got a lot of open looks. I don't want to take it away.
I know they missed a lot of open threes, but I felt like the way they handled it was Shay. I thought Nemhard did a great job.

I thought Neesmith did a great job, kind of fighting, continuing to battle with him, continuing to kind of whether it's fight over the top or where they went under, or they just clean straight up switch.

Like, I thought they handled themselves pretty well.

The only thing I had a problem with was when miles turner was in the action because i felt like he opened up too much space and it often allowed shea to split the double team there was definitely one in the first half where i was like what like i could have driven through that and thomas brian had thomas bryan had no shot top and has no shot no shot those the bigs are where i'm like okay

that's actually something if you're the thunder you need to go to more in game two instead of let's try to keep it and and one of the threes one of the threes they missed was a caruso corner three where it was shea hartenstein pocket pass to hartenstein help comes kick the carusos like i i i agree with you i thought they had good stuff when they went at the bigs i thought you know re-watching it i thought they did a nice job of

speeding shea up a little bit with pressure on his like staying on his hip staying on his shoulders so when he goes around the screen or even if he's isolating he's kind of got to go full speed into the paint it's uncomfortable for him to stop and start dancing with it for his mid-range shot.

And then he goes fast. And then when he gets into the paint, the swarm comes and you force him to kick it out.

And I thought that they did that particularly in crunch time when they needed to come back. And it was like, we can't give up free throws.
We can't give up twos. We need to get zeros.

We need to give up zeros. And our best shot at doing that is kick it out and hope they miss.
And J-Dog missed an open one and Dort missed an open one. And I thought that was smart.

I just thought they had Shay a little sped up in part of the game by pressing him. Like he's at half court and they're on him.

The Thunder are setting screens for him at half court, which I thought was smart. And they're just hounding him over those screens.
And all of a sudden, he's in the paint. He's in traffic bodies.

I thought the Pacers had like a nice, sound defensive game and defensive gameplay. And

I can't wait to see how the Thunder adjusts. And we've talked about some of the adjustments.
What other notes do you want to make from this game and ahead the game two?

Yeah, I think for the... I think the funny thing about the Pacers is I actually don't want them to do the full court press.

I think maybe it's a product of slowing it down but not being aggressive in the way they press because they when they pressed look i talked about chet missing a layup caruso got two layups and got to the free throw line one you know one time i thought they gave up open looks like i think dort had a three in the first half off of when they pressed because i feel like it kind of shakes them up a little bit and i think that sort of sets their defense a little bit in a in a rocky position with where they're at.

The Thunder are good. They're going to break the press.
I don't think you're going to force a ton of turnovers in the backcourt with your press the way you did in Milwaukee or Cleveland or New York.

I don't feel like that's where you're going to generate your turnovers. I'd almost rather they be a little bit more solid.

Like you can do a press, but you know, one of those where it's like, we don't really want to force a turnover. We just want to slow you down.
There were times whenever they tried to get aggressive.

I felt like the Thunder got good looks out of that. So for me, if I'm the Pacers, I'd probably want to dial that back.

Just a couple of random notes that I wanted to hit.

No zone defense from Indiana in game one.

Wonder if that's just a long view. Like, when we need it, we'll see.
Maybe, maybe, we, maybe we don't want to play it.

Um,

Halliburton plus 12, minus 11 with Halliburton on the bench. I don't like the Siakam plus four bench guys lineup.
It's worked here and there. Did not work.

Um,

did not work last night.

And I've said before, like, I kind of want a little bit more of a plurality of starters, even if it's just Nemhart or Turner, like one of those guys to have a little more offense.

On the flip side, the starters with topping for Siakam, so four starters and topping, plus 14 in seven minutes.

I'm not saying you got to keep four starters out there at all times, but I think four bench guys is risking it for Rick Carlisle. Miles Turner in the post i keep saying this like

he's not akemalanjuan he's not jokic he does enough against guards and even dort like he deep sealed dort a couple of times and dort is a cement block in there um good on him i just

and i'm fascinated by their pick and roll defense on shea and particularly when he hunts haliburton because on a lot of those plays Halliburton kind of half helped, like, just didn't really even hedge.

Just kind of, I'm going to move over a little bit, and then then I'm going to get back to my man. Sometimes

the screener defender did nothing and just let Shea turn the corner to the point of speeding him up and then crowding him into the paint. I wonder Oklahoma City will be ready for that.

Indy took a lot of threes, which I think they're going to have to do to win this series. Just, you just can't say enough about this team, man.
This is, I mean, I got a text.

This is a text I got from someone. Cold-hearted analytics dude who used to work in the NBA.
Sent me this text last night.

My phone, of course, is blowing up with like random NBA fans in my life texting me about the Pacers. See if I can find it.

I'm not joking when I say this. I think the Pacers this postseason have restored my love of the game.
This is incredible. I mean, this is like

it's an all-time playoff run. These comebacks, it's just,

I'm out of words.

It's just absolutely amazing. Like, it's so much fun.
This whole ride has been unbelievably fun. Like, the way they kind of have won these games which has been fascinating you know and and and

it's it goes back to you and bill had mentioned this i i think it was you talking about the season before where everybody was talking about everybody playing the same way or i think it was bill

it was last night around 12 05 eastern time as i was starting to get tired and i was listening to that at like 5 15 in the morning so just understand that i was also a little bit in a daze but

everybody playing the same way And you look at it, and I think this speaks actually for the whole season, but the Pacers are probably the face of it. They play so differently than everybody else.

Everything, pressing full court, playing incredibly fast. You know, the buckets that they get off of makes, you know, when they give up a bucket, how quickly they get the ball up the court.
I mean,

it's amazing.

It's so much fun to watch with that stuff. And they play such a different style.
And it forces you to contort to them.

And that's exactly what the Thunder did in game one with the lineup change right off the bat like it just forces you to change it forces you to think a little bit more as a team of like how are we going to deal with this onslaught and then it doesn't matter what the lead is they're gonna keep coming it's there it's it's i i know bill you called them uh michael myers i think you know it's it's they're just a horror movie every time you think they're dead they're not they're they're i'm gonna go back to diehard the dude that was hanging from the the the chain or whatever, and then at the end shows up and is trying to kill McClane.

And that's where

Carl Winslow kills, fires his father. First of all, it's Reginald Vell Johnson.

Let's go. You're right.
You're right.

Reginald. I was, listen, man, like Family Matters was big for me growing up, TGI Friday.
So for me, it's always, he's just going to be Carl Winslow. But like,

you know, but they're just never dead.

You absolutely have to make sure you see the body before anything else when you're thinking about it with the pacers and you have to take advantage of morbid i know morbid see the body mo

well i mean you know can we before you go can we just drill down on the last two shots of the game yes because i have the video up right now which is not fair i realize what did you think of shay's shot 110 109 okayc the shot that misses with like eight nine seconds left uh kind of shoves off nem hard shoots a what looks like a 12 13 footer over him kneesmith is in his lap and j dubb is wide open but there's there's four on the shot clock.

Do you have any major takes on that? I don't mind the shot itself. I just think the Pacers did a great job.

I think he really wanted to go up with it the first time before going into a fadeaway. And I think they did a good job stonewalling him.
And I just don't think he was like

fully in shooting position, squared up or comfortable when he was fading away. I felt like it was like, oh, crap, I got to get this shot off situation.
And I think that was the

thing. I don't mind the shot we've seen Shea hit these things.
Like, if you're saying, like, hey, he should have kicked it out to Dort or whatnot, I'm good with Shea shooting that one.

Yeah, I can't complain about that. Look, I do think Shea spent a lot of the game trying to find the knockout highlight of the game and searching a little too hard for it, but that's a fine shot.

And then

their defense on Halliburton at the end, I'm watching it now.

He's got Wallace, Caruso kind of stunts at him on the right sideline like he's going to double him and then goes back to Siakam, who's wide open.

Dort is leaving Toppin on the left wing to account for Siakam.

But that's a tough cross-court pass with 2.5 seconds left as I freeze it. I mean, he makes a 21-footer.

He gets a good look at it, though. Like, I don't.
That's the thing about Halliburton. Like, the other team knows who Tyrese Halliburton is.

And if you double him, he is going to instantaneously find the right. He's not one of these, these like, I'm the alpha dog.
I'm taking the shot no matter what. He's going to find Pascal Cadem.

Like, I don't, it's, it's a pretty clean look for the circumstance, but I can't sit here and be like, well, horrible mistakes by the Thunder defensively, I don't think.

Yeah,

it's one of those situations. I actually was worried in real time going like, you guys got to go quicker.

You got to move. Like, I felt like they were a little bit slow in their process of all that stuff.
I think once he got, like, he got like half a step on Wallace, and this isn't anything on Wallace.

I think he gets it on anybody. I felt like, okay, they're in trouble.
Like, when he's got himself in the range where he's going to be able to pull up. And you know what's going in.
I'm sitting there.

He's going in. Like you know it's going in.

Well, it's, I think Tom Haberstrow has a stat where, you know, for the whole season, I think Shea or Tyrese is 13 of 15 in game tying or go-ahead scores, I think, in the final possession.

Something like that. I'm sorry, Tom, if I butcher it.
It's absolutely absurd. It's absurd.
It's just like, so it's like anytime he's shooting it.

He's going, if you want to laugh, Zach, like, you know, most people don't, I was in Portugal during the conference finals working, and I'm watching these games in the middle of the night in Portugal, and I'm watching game one of Nick's

pacers. And like, as soon as the ball went straight up in the air on that three in regulation or the two, I immediately just said, that's going in.
That's dropping right in. And just started laughing.

It's 4, 12 in the morning. in Portugal, and I'm laughing hysterically at this shot.
Every time he's shooting these now, I'm just like, okay.

Like, I'm almost like, get the ball completely out of his hands. Just double and live with it.
Last thing, game two, coming up.

The history of these games, home favorite loses, game one, is

a blowout in game two, or a disproportionately more likely blowout in game two.

Oklahoma City has now,

and particularly J-Dub and Chet, who were, I think, eight of 28 combined in the game,

have had this moment before in prior rounds, particularly down to one against Denver, game seven against Denver, the spotlight on J-Dub, even up to one against Minnesota on the road.

And they've responded every time. So I expect Oklahoma City to play well.
It's going to be nervy. It's nervy.
It's the finals, but I expect them to play well.

I don't, for some reason,

I don't feel the blowout coming. I think this is going to be a good game.
Like, Indiana turned the ball over a thousand times and still won game one.

I don't,

it doesn't, I, I, I, I've felt the game ones before was like, okay, that's a fluke.

The home team, like Denver, or like, like, Denver comes in and wins game one and is like, to some degree, we did our job, we're satisfied. Indiana is not wired like that.

Indiana is not afraid of any of this. They want every one of these games.
I think game two. Look, I could be wrong.
Obviously, we're just all these game-to-game predictions are silly.

I think it's going to be a close game again.

I feel like game one was supposed to be the blowout blowout.

When you have 24 turnovers, 19 or 18 in the first half, whatever it was, 18 more field goal attempts in the other team in the first half, that's the game that's supposed to be the blowout.

I feel like this was the one. I don't feel like game two is going to be a blowout only because through the Pacers, this is the best situation to be as a coach.
We won this game. We stole game one.

And we have a lot to work on. We have to improve our bigs defensively on the pick and roll, and we have to do a better job taking care of the ball.

Like, I can't imagine there's going to be another 20-plus turnover game for the Pacers. They do a good job taking care of the ball, even against the Thunder.
This is the most turnovers they had.

You know, it gave me one.

It was the theater of the absurd. It was every variety of turnover possible.
There was a moment. I'm charting the turnovers.
Where's my turnover sheet? I'm charting the turnover. I got it right here.

There's my turnover sheet.

From 440, between four minutes and 45 seconds left in the second quarter until two minutes and 30 seconds left in the second quarter. That's like two minutes and 25 seconds of time.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven turnovers in two and a half minutes. That's basically every time you got the ball for two and a half minutes, you turned it over.

And normally, that's when the Thunder go on that run and blow the game wide open. And I feel like, you know, we talked about why and some of it's luck, some of it's just

the way the focus of the Pacers, it didn't turn out that way. I just don't feel like we're going to see that type of night from the Pacers in terms of being so loose with the ball in that situation.

And I feel like that's why we're going to have a close game in game two. I don't know who's going to win, but I think it's going to be a close one.
We're going to win. The fans are going to win.

I cannot wait for game two. Mo Takil, the double dribble podcast with my buddy Jared Dubin.
How often are you doing that? We're doing that twice a week.

We were off to, listen, this is two idiots doing a podcast on their own and trying to figure out how to get this stuff up. So we're doing it twice a week.
We're doing them.

We're going to be trying to do them right after the finals, after the games for the finals, and then just keep the party rolling after that. And you're still on Twitch, right?

Which I'm not familiar with, but I know, I mean, I know what it is. I will never go on it.
I'm too old.

They won't even, I'll try to get on and a red button, a red like X will come on, like Family Feud, like you're too old.

Again, I say this about Steve Jones. I say this about you.
If you want to know what happened in the game, follow Moe to Kill.

If you want to actually know why one team won and what the strategy was and what they were trying to do, follow Mo. Thank you, Moe.
I'll see you. I'll see you soon.
Yes, sir. Thank you for having me.

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All right. Now, coming in live from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, it's time to say it.

What up, Beck?

What up, Zach? How are you? We miss you here in Oklahoma. I'll see you in Indiana shortly, before you know it, before you know it.

So we don't need the whole ringer crew there. You can hold it down.

I'm fine here.

Before we move on to some off-season matters, house cleaning, the house cleaning with Howard is the theme of this episode.

Just give me the last thing.

Give me one or two lasting memories from being in the building or walking out of the building or being in the hallway after the game from last night's epic game one, which I just broke down with Mo Takil for 45 minutes.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, I've lost track of how my finals count. So let's just call it 20-something.
So I've been at a lot of game ones of the finals.

I'll just say right off the top, I think that's by far the most memorable, the most incredible, the most dramatic, wildest game one I've been to.

And I was there when Iverson beat the Lakers in 2001, and it was, we're here to shock the world. And then, oops, they got stomped for the next four games.

Not predicting that's the way this one will unfold, just saying interesting reference point for a game one upset that nobody saw coming. That's the step over game.

So there's that. I just,

I cannot recall too many times where I left game one of the finals going, holy shit, what the hell just happened?

The second piece is, I hadn't been here for a while, Zach.

It had been a while since I needed to be in Oklahoma City for NBA Matters, or maybe it's my own fault for not finding reasons to come out here to cover anything.

I'd forgotten just how freaking loud it is in there. Just ear splitting.
And I've been to a ton of games at the garden. The garden's loud.

And maybe it's just the way that the building is built or how compact it is or whatever it is.

Last night was the first time in a while I can remember where I'm like, I really should have brought my earplugs out of abundance of caution for my own well-being and health.

And yet that shot goes, and that's just it. I wrote this for the ringer this morning.
Like it's.

It's as close as you're going to get to silencing a building that cannot be silenced, that is as raucous, as loud, as reverberating as you can possibly get. So that was rough.

And then, because I had to write, I was mostly in the press conference room, so I didn't get any fun back hallway observational stuff that we reporters like to do.

It wasn't a night for that for me last night, unfortunately. So no little aftermath and

no practice today. Friday's the off day with the two days off between games one and two.
So we've not seen anybody today.

It'll be interesting to see what the aftermath of that looks like on Saturday. But I will say, among the other things that struck me last night, sitting in all the Thunder press conferences,

you would have thought they had just lost game five of the season in late October. Or, you know, game three of a road trip in January.

And you can interpret that any number of ways, but I think the correct way to interpret it is that, like, as young as the Thunder are, we've seen all the whatever, 24.7, the youngest team, and da da da da da da da.

They don't act like it, man. They, whether it's winning or losing, these guys are as steady as hell.
I think that's a great trait to have to be able to shake this off.

Like, you wanted to walk in, you know, as a reporter, you're looking for like, ooh, are they going to be shell-shocked? Are they going to look like, oh my God, I can't, this gut punch?

We can't, how are we going to recover? And dude, there was just none of that.

They, they literally, it, it would have sounded the same as if you were interviewing them after a loss in January. So, what, what did you make a prediction for the series or not?

Yeah, me and 99% of the country said Thunder and Five. So, I said Thunder and Five.

If I were given the leeway to revise my prediction after every game, which I don't do, I still think the Thunder are going to win the series. Yeah.

I don't feel as definitive about it as I did, for instance, when Miami beat Denver in game one two years ago.

I was like, I think, or it was a game two, whichever game they split to make it 1-1 going back to Miami? I was like, I'm not worried. Denver is going to win the series.

I now think we're in for a longer series, and I would say Thunder in six or seven at this point, because I said this to Mo, like, I don't think the Thunder are going to be rattled for exactly

more rattled than they would be just in the finals. I thought they played a little bit rattled last night on that stage, but I don't think the result.

and manner of the result is going to rattle them for exactly the reason you just said for the test they've already already survived in these playoffs. However,

I said this to Mo, and I'm interested in your thoughts. The classic way these series unfold is: home favorite loses game one, comes out and wins game two by a lot.

There are a lot of blowouts in this scenario where because the road team has already, quote, done its job, gotten home court advantage. The home team is playing for its life.
They're at home.

Some luck variables maybe ship. I don't think it's going to be a blowout.
I think game two is going to be close. I think I'll pick the thunder to to win, but I think it's going to be a close game.

I feel the same. And I think there's also this thing where, you know, there are

people get too caught up in like all the sports talky bullshit of like disrespect and this, this kind of stuff. No one has a lack of respect for the Pacers.

They are just one of those teams that was hard to see coming, right? Nobody in October thought the Pacers were going to be in the finals.

Nobody on April 15th thought the Pacers were going to be in the finals. Very few people two weeks ago probably thought the Pacers were going to be in the finals.

And certainly nobody thought the Pacers were were going to be in the finals and up one after Tyrese Halliburton hit a shot with 0.3 seconds left in the game.

So, but we are, when you see a repeated pattern like this, where the Pacers are constantly exceeding our expectations, disproving whatever notions we had about them, getting down in games and coming back, wiping out 15-point deficits, 20-point deficits, making incredible shots, mostly by Tyrese Halliburton, over and over, although all due respect to Aaron Neesmith and that three-point explosion against the Knicks.

At a certain point, you start

think, like, okay,

maybe we need to reevaluate a little bit. And maybe even falling back on, oh, okay, well, they won game one.
So now it's Thunder in six instead of five almost feels like,

maybe we need to reevaluate entirely. I get it.
Like there are good reasons why everybody leaned Thunder so hard.

But the Pacers, like, listen, maybe it's just that

undefinable thing, some it factor.

I know we love to make everything about the granular and the analytics and all the tracking stats and the things that we can actually almost tangibly hold on to to define the gap between this team and that team in talent, in scheme and whatever.

Sometimes teams just have some other shit, just some other cool thing. And their cool thing is like Tyrese Halliburton is not afraid of any moment and

has an uncanny shot-making ability.

And he's not the greatest scorer of this era and probably will not be the greatest scorer of his time.

But he damn well is building a really quick, thick resume of being the best clutch shooter, the best big moment guy of this time. And he's put that together just in the last four weeks.

He's leaving a pile of rattled and broken teams in his wake, as are the Pacers. You mentioned silencing the building.

This is the fourth crazy comeback the Pacers have had in the playoffs, and they've had other less crazy comebacks. This is the fourth one, one in each series now.

I believe all four of them have been on the road,

which is itself crazy to think about.

And so here we are, Pacers. I don't want to talk about the finals.
I mean, I could talk about the finals for four more hours, but it's time for housekeeping with Howard.

Number one, I said last night on the post-game pod with Bill, Bill loves to do the thing where we talk about the finals and then it's 12.15 in the morning and he's like, so what about Tibbs?

I'm like, all right, I guess we're going there.

And we talked about, you know, Taylor Jenkins and Mike Budenhoser and Johnny Bryan and Frank Vogel, which is a name that I'm a little surprised to come up more.

And then we talked about the notion of trading for a coach.

And I said to Bill last night in the wee hours, I wouldn't take your eyes off the Jason Kidd thing. I wouldn't disqualify that as a non-starter.

And then sure enough, today, Mark Stein reports that the Knicks are planning to seek permission to interview Jason Kidd.

What do you think of that

vis-a-vis

the decision to move on from Tom Thibodeau? I mean, I don't know if Jason Kidd's, if the Mavs will give permission, if the Knicks have enough to trade the Mavs.

Nico Harrison and World Wide West go way back. I don't know how that factors into it.

So maybe it's an on-starter, but just what was your reaction to that as it relates to their decision to fire Tom Thibodeau after a conference finals run, the first in 25 years?

I,

on an unrelated story, I'd been making some calls yesterday. And then while I'm talking to to people, I'm asking a little bit about the Knicks.

Listen, I don't think any of us should be too confident in anything because there's just so much stuff out there in the wake of

moments like this. But I will just put out there or relay to you some of the things that

I think I know or I think I believe based on some of these conversations.

I don't believe the Knicks fired Thibodeau with another coach firmly in mind.

I don't like, this is not one of those guys with, oh, if you're going to fire the first coach to get you to the conference finals in 25 years, you got to damn well know who you're going to.

I don't think they did. I think they sat for a couple of days, realized this was the move that they felt was needed,

and

not with an absolute definitive replacement in mind. Ideas, perhaps, but it was more about, we think we've gone as far as we can go.
And I heard you on your podcast basically saying as much.

We've gone as far as we think we can go with this coach. We need a different voice,

different ideas, different offense.

And so

whether it becomes Jason Kidd, I don't think it was going to be some foregone conclusion at the moment that they fired Tibbs.

Whether Jason Kidd is the right move,

I think is a discussion. Who else is out there?

Taylor Jenkins is a name that came up a couple of times when I was poking around. And I think there's a lot.

There's a lot of a case to be made, I think, for Taylor Jenkins with the Knicks specifically.

I get the Jason Kidd ties, especially with Jalen Brunson and the most important relationship you're going to have on day one with a new coach because Tibbs and Brunson clearly had a strong relationship.

Tibbs and Rick Brunson have a strong relationship.

By the way,

there's a nice little subplot here, too, if you're negotiating for the release of Jason Kidd.

The Knicks got wrung up for tampering, and the Mavericks were none too happy about the whole Rick Brunson, Jalen Brunson, Allen Houston, and World Wide West sitting at their playoff games in the second row with Julius Randle, I think, was involved.

Am I remembering all this correctly? Yes, you are.

It wasn't that long ago that there was some kind of tension between these franchises.

The Knicks have traded most of their tradable first-round picks to the Nets. And the last time that we saw a coach, quote-unquote, traded for, it's technically not traded for.

You don't trade for the coach. It's just compensation for letting a guy out of his contract.
It's a semantic thing. But it was a first-round pick, I believe, from the Clippers to Boston, right?

For Dodge? Yes.

Yes.

So can the Knicks, whatever they have available to them, I haven't looked at the ledger lately, but whatever they have available to them, is that even a smart move?

You know, a wise use of your resources when you've got so little left to deal? Is there another way of doing it? Would the Mavericks actually,

given that Nick,

I don't want to overstate the case, but like, If Nico was confident enough to say, I can trade Luka Donchich at a time when nobody else in the universe thought that that was a good idea.

Maybe he just wants to let Kid walk too and just like remake this team in his own.

I don't think that will be an obstacle.

I think the compensation would be an obstacle. I was just wondering if he was eager enough to make a move that maybe he would just let him go without compensation, but that would be foolish, right?

But then again,

the Mavericks have not exactly

decorated themselves up. Well,

they could use some more future assets, even though they got some

from the Lakers. Just some.
They should extract something, of course.

I would be surprised if Taylor Jenkins got the job, but that's just, there's no reporting behind me saying that it's just me saying a young coach from a small market. I don't know if that's the move.

Maybe it is. I think Taylor Jenkins, to be clear, is an awesome coach.

And Jay Kidd,

Jay Kidd's a different coach than Tom Thibodeau. There's no question about that.
Different style, different personality, different minutes management. different schemes, all of that.

I'm not sure there's any real evidence that he's a better coach than Tom Thibodeau. I'm not even sure that there's any real evidence that he's a better proverbial ceiling raiser than Tom Thibodeau.

And this is a point I did not make in my little spiel about the Tibbs firing and floor raisers versus ceiling raisers and all that.

The idea that you have to be a classic tactical genius ceiling raiser to win an NBA championship is just, it's just, it's, it helps, it helps, but it's also just not true.

And so like, there are a whole pile of coaches who were criticized as exactly Tibbs-y floor raisers. Frank Vogel, Mike Budenholzer, Michael Malone, a name that has come up in this, who were

of that in different ways and different styles, questioned on do they have the adjustment acumen quarter for quarter, minute for minute, to go up against Spo and Pop, et cetera, and Kerr, et cetera, et cetera.

And the answer was, in the end, if they had the talent, yeah, they could win championships. There's no doubt that Tom Thibeto could win an NBA championship.

There's also no doubt that he is stubborn in some ways to a fault and is more of a

floor raiser, I think, than a ceiling raiser. That doesn't mean you can't be enough of both to win the NBA title, as all of those previous names evidence.

And Jay Kidd, I mean, he's made the finals. Tibbs has not as a head coach.

He's different. Is he better? Like, I don't know.
I don't know. Like,

it's a big, big, bold move by the Knicks. I understand it's been five years.
Five years is a long time in the NBA now for a head coach who's not Spo or Kerr or Pop.

It was no longer the coach in San Antonio. It's just, you know, we'll see.
I just wanted to address the kid thing because I said last night, like, I think there's some legs to that.

And I, and now it's been, the legs are moving a little bit. I will say that

obviously there's an X's and O's part of this. And as you say, whether it's, you know, you know, how Jason Kidd would scheme versus how Tibbs would scheme, is, is Kidd any better?

Like, there's all of that stuff. I think that that is only going to be a small part of this

process. And I say that even knowing that, yes, our buddy Mark Stein reported that they've asked for permission, which means that they're confident enough that Jason Kidd would fit this,

that they are pursuing this route. But

what has been suggested to me is that this hire is going to be as much about other aspects of a coach than simply the playbook. or their ability to adjust on the fly or

bench. Right.
So there's a personality aspect of this. There is a, you know, we talk a lot about in the modern NBA alignment.

You have alignment between, you know, coach and front office, front office and ownership, all the way down to, you know, to your star player, all that stuff.

I think they're looking for better alignment than what they had. I think Tibbs got better over time.
But as I understand it, there certainly were some tensions. By the way, not unusual.

Coach versus front office is as age-old as pro sports, but I do think they're that, and this is why I don't think Michael Malone will be the guy. Why is Michael Malone out of a job?

Because he and Calvin Booth blew each other up while not being able to work together.

If Tibbs has at times been difficult for a front office, by the way, not just in New York, but in Chicago famously,

I don't think that you're going to then go hire another coach whose most recent reputation was for bucking the front office, not playing the young players that they drafted that they wanted you to do to develop because you were leaning hard on your veterans.

Sound familiar? Because you wanted to win every game. I don't think that that would make much sense.
I have had Taylor Jenkins describe to me as somebody who's a little bit more of a,

you know, maybe, maybe a little easier to work with, has some Tibbsian qualities as well, but more modern version, more of a good, more of a relationships guy.

Tibbs is not considered a relationships guy. Take that however you want, people, but that's the way that he is viewed around the league.

I don't want to, I already did my whole Tibbs spiel the other day. People, people can listen to that.
Yeah. And I agree with pretty much everyone.

No one's going to feel

too much sympathy for Tibbs given his gruff exterior and all the money that he now has coming to him. You should know, like,

I haven't talked to him. I know some people have also tried to reach out to him and haven't gotten in touch with him.
I'm sure he's hurt. Yeah.

He's from Connecticut. This was his, he had time as a Knicks assistant under Jeff Van Gundy.
This is his dream job. And by any objective measure, he did it well.
Yes.

And to not have it rather suddenly after making the conference model, like they did not waste much time is probably a gut punch, no matter how much money you have coming to you and how nice your house is.

And so, just that is what it is. Um,

housekeeping.

Bill sprung this question on me last night, and it happened to be one that I've been thinking about since the jazz, again, rather abruptly, hired Austin Age, son of Danny Aing, as their president of basketball operations, when no one was really quite sure that there was a president of basketball operations job coming open.

I thought that was Danny's job, and it's like, no, he's CEO or something. It's a whole other Danny is just Danny.
Danny's just Danny, the Danny of Danny's. He's

executive VP of being Danny Ainge.

And it has raised some questions over, huh? What does that mean?

What does it mean that Austin Ainge at his introductory press conference was asked about lineup manipulation and tankery and rejected it out of hand?

It's been...

What does it mean, Howard? I have some theories, but what does it mean? What was your reaction to it? Because the jazz are,

you know, Bill keeps saying that he's here and everyone keep an eye on the jazz everyone keep an eye on the jazz and i understand why that is they've got a lot of assets and they don't have a lot of upside in the near the immediate future i've got some thoughts what are your thoughts

so

i i think

i'm not going to say that people are wrong to interpret it this way but i was surprised at seeing a number of people interpret uh austin ainge's

comments as being somehow a critique of what the jazz have been doing the last few years. It may simply be that we tried the tanking thing for a few years and it's time.

You can only do that for so long before you start to lose your audience, lose your fans, lose momentum, lose maybe your players too, because they might be tired of losing.

Like, there's a, there's always like a kind of a logical limit on how long you can be intentionally bad.

And so I didn't see it so much as a backward-looking critique as more of a forward-looking, like,

it's time to start building up again. You know, we tried this, and because of the

reformed lottery odds, it backfired, or at at least it didn't pay off in the way that they clearly hoped it would.

They also, by the way, never did a full commitment to the tank until this past season. They kept straddling the fence, like, oh, no, we've got Lowry Marketing and he's an all-star now.

We're competing. Like, oh, we're not going to sell off Jordan Clarkson and all these other veterans that we have because we're competing and our fans love us for it.

And meanwhile, we're just screwing up our draft position. Like, they needed, they were, I think they were straddling the fence for too long.

I,

the one part of this, and I'm curious to hear what you think because this is not one i've poked around on in the last couple of days

what does it mean that they specifically went out and hired austin aing aside from obviously the danny aing factor here but why did they need when you had danny as chief executive of being danny aing and justin zanik did you need another

top basketball executive sandwiched in there um i don't have an answer to that question i'm curious what yours is so a couple of interesting things have happened in utah in the last year uh number one they, for the first time, as you noted, just blatantly tanked.

Tanked to the point that the NBA fined them, takes to the point that they should be embarrassed about how naked it was. They should have fined more often than they were.
Yeah. Sooner.

Like John Collins.

Anyone seen John Collins like in six months?

What was his injury? What was his fake injury? Made-up injury? I don't know.

Lowry Markinen just plays one game out a week, plays another game. It was embarrassing.
We all know that. And they did that, and everyone was miserable.

Everyone, coaching staff, front office, ownership, miserable.

Then the lottery happens and they drop. They don't drop.
They finish fifth.

They finish in the most likely statistical slot for them, despite hopes of obviously Cooper Flag or number two or number three.

From what I have heard, Ryan Smith, the owner, was extremely emotional the night of the lottery. Not like weeping emotional, but just like it hurt.
It hurt a lot.

And I think there was some sense of what the hell was all this for? Like, what

did we do all this for? Everyone was miserable. The fans are miserable.
We're like kind of a laughing stock for a hot minute. We've never been a laughing stock.

We've been a fairly successful franchise for a long time in this market. Yeah.

What was it all for? And couple that with last year's lottery pick, Cody Williams, too early to declare him a bust, not too early to declare his rookie season incredibly alarming.

Coupled with Keontae George, is he a starter? I don't know. He wasn't a starter at the end of last year.

Isaiah Collier, cool. That's a nice little story.
Is he a starter? We don't know. Philipowski, we don't know.

Taylor Hendricks got injured. I like him a lot.
In other words, like Walker Kessler, nice player. It's trade rumors all the time.
What do we really have here? But particularly the Cody Williams pick.

The Jazz have also, I don't know if it's let go or didn't renew two of their main scouts in the last few weeks before Austin Ainge got there.

And I think that is also a sign of like, we're not happy with how things have been unfolding here.

And then Austin says what he says at the press conference, and people start thinking, like, oh, are they going to be aggressive? Are they going to like go after a guy? Are they going to go after

who is the guy? And I've said before at the Combine, I had people whispering Trey Young's name in my ear. And I've been told, no, we're not, that's not the guy we're cashing in chips for.

I don't know who the guy is they're cashing in chips for. In fact,

as of right now, if you had me bet,

I would say don't read too much into what Austin Ainge says. I think they're, unless something amazing falls into their lap, they would love, they would love to add A-level talent around Lowry Market.

They would love it. I don't know who that player is or if it exists or if they're under contract because they got it.
This is Utah. You're not going to trade for a guy on an expiring contract.

And failing that,

I kind of would expect them to remain patient and

just sort of, you know, like

they can tank. They are in the West, man.
This ain't the East. They can play all their dudes and finish 14th real easily in the West.

They can play Colin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson, John Collins, Lowry Marketing, whatever, and then trade, you know, whoever gets you a first-round pick or a fake first-round pick, trade that guy.

You can play all those dudes, go 29 to 53, go into the lottery in just about the same position you were a year ago, but everyone feels better because you actually tried to win and you played your guys.

I also think that as they do that, again, this is just me speculating,

but whatever. As they do that,

if they're not going to add,

if there's not a big opportunity to add,

something that really vaults them into like play-in territory, like we can make an honest run at eight, nine, seven, 10, whatever.

And someone comes to them and is like, here's the, here's the guy, maybe not the godfather, here's the, here's a strong offer for Lowry Marketen, who's, I think, 28 years old now.

I think they'd have to consider taking it and would consider taking it because does he fit their timeline anymore? What can we get for him?

And I don't think he's like, although they've paid him through 2029 now a lot of money, I don't think he's like itching to spend the rest of his prime on crappy Utah teams with a bunch of 20-year-olds.

So that, if you had to make me guess, that's the path that they, I would guess they go down.

Absolutely. And I said it last summer.
I like the extension, there were reasons for them and for Lowry Markin and to do that and immediately took that piece off the chessboard for the season, right?

They couldn't trade him by the trade deadline. They had to wait till this offseason.

But there were good reasons for both sides to do it. And My first thought was, okay, I guess he's there for this season.
I don't think it's going to help much.

And my second thought was, you should be trading him next summer. I don't, I have, I've seen nothing to change my mind on that.

Like, and when I say should, like, you know, listen, obviously, we're saying this in a vacuum. We don't know what the offers would be, and the offer has to be right to do that.

But for all the reasons you just stated, he's firmly in the middle of his prime. He had some of his best stretches of his career in Utah.

He's worth more today than he was at the moment that they got him.

And that means the rest of the league for the team that's like, you know, a supporting star away or that is trying to get from, you know, playing to playoffs, you know, to top four or something.

Mallory Marketing is going to hold a lot of value for a lot of teams that just need him as a co-star or as a third, you know,

third-tier type star.

I also think he needs to play

to it's not like I don't,

I still think he has positive trade value right now because he's of the right age and he has a great complimentary skill set.

He's also making 46 million, $46 million, $49 million, $53.5 million in the next four years.

Like, I think he's got to play and play well for a sustained period of time to elevate his trade value to where it needs to be.

It's another reason why I don't, they're not going to just do the tankery. So let's play this out for a second.

In the keep Lowry Marketing scenario, where we trade maybe a couple of these other pieces, these other veterans we've got, and we've got this shit ton of picks from the Mitchell and Gobert trades.

I don't think you're getting, I don't know who is going to be available that is going to catapult you into the playoff scenario in the playoff field.

And I don't know that that's worth doing that either, because you might get a temporary payoff, a short-term payoff, but

you're not really truly breaking through. Because if you look at the teams in the West, like you always, if you're on the outside looking in, you always have to look for who are we going to displace?

Who's falling out? Kings could fall out.

The Mavericks are teetering because of the lack of Kyrie. And who knows knows what Anthony Davis's health will be, and how quickly does Cooper Flag learn the NBA?

The Grizzlies are teetering a little bit, and there's questions about how they'll keep it all together. But most of the West, you look at and you think, like, who are you leapfrogging?

Who are you one trade away from leapfrogging? And so, the alternate scenario where you're trading Markinan, I think, makes more sense, and especially does for Lowry Markinen.

And if you get the right package, I think that that's the better path because whatever you're going to add to Lowry markinan

it might leap you past a couple of these teams but i don't think it even is is guaranteed to get you into the plan

the kings man

kings

it's just it's one of those like

are you watching your friends and neighbors i'm not i should be but i'm i have not been so john ham's whole like opening monologue which is referenced throughout the show is is sort of him saying like how did i get here Like, what happened in my life that I like arrived at this place?

That's the Kings. It's like you look at their roster and it's like,

how did this happen?

What's happening to us? Where are we going? Who would you? That's Kings fans, by the way. Kings fans are asking that every day.
I was just in Sacramento and had to talk a couple off the ledge.

Who says no to a straight up Trey Young for Zach Levine trade? Just for fun.

Same exact contract. The Hawks say no.

I would think so. If I have the Kings, I would do do that in a hot second, even if I have to pay Trey.

Well, that is the, I do kind of have to pay for it.

No disrespect to Zach Levine. I'd rather have Trey Young.

Disrespect. That was disrespect.

Last. By the way, are you morally obligated to watch Friends and Neighbors as a Connectican?

First of all, it takes place in Westchester, which is in a different state. I thought it was Connecticut.
No? I don't think that.

I think it's been shot in a few different places, but it takes place in Westchester.

Maybe just you as a suburbanite upstate of New York City

is the thing. Look, look,

you don't want to get me talking too much about where I live. It's not going to go well.

I'll stop.

I've told them.

Okay.

This is, let's just, this is just a teaser. We're not going to do the full thing right now.
Okay. But there's another team in the West.

In fact, in Utah's division, I know you have all the divisions memorized by the name of the division and who's in them. Is it the Smythe?

It's the

boy, I don't think I can name another Campbell. That was a conference, I think, in hockey.
The Campbell, I don't know.

That

A, I think is sneakily interesting. And B,

is undergoing its own organizational,

not trauma, but whatever change that I haven't talked about yet, which is that the Portland Trailblazers are for sale. Like, that's a big deal.
The Blazers are for sale, finally.

And I also think they're sneakily interesting after a pretty strong finish to last season, when they kind of like fake got into the play-in race for a little bit, they have DeAndre Ayton on an expiring contract, Anthony Simons on an expiring contract, Shaden Sharp is extension eligible.

I think that's going to take a while. I don't think we're going to get a deal there until the fall, if we get one at all.
Who knows, though? Things happen. Time Lord on an expiring contract.

Jeremy Grant three more seasons on a contract that is 32, 34, 36. Like it's

not great, but it's not as toxic as I think people think it is. I think they got a lot of balls in the air, just extended Shaunce Billips, just extended their front office, Joe Cronin.

I think they have more balls in the air than people realize and could go in more directions than people realize.

Now, I haven't heard Jack squat to go Chris Farley, Jack Squat, about Jeremy Grant and trades. So I don't know that there's any traction there.

I have pitched the fake trade of Aiton and some good filler for Sabonis. I think that's a good trade.
I think it's a fun trade. I think Sabonis in Portland, it makes a lot of sense.

And I think Sabonis' people would be cool with it. I don't know if anything's going on there.
I'll tell you who to keep your eye on, Howard Beck. Anthony Simons is eligible for an extension.

That feels like a rubber meets the road moment for the Blazers and Anthony Simons. And I think there'd be teams that would be interested in Anthony Simons.

The internet's fake trade, favorite fake trade for like three years has been Anfrony Simons to the Magic. Yes.
I don't think that's a, that's, I don't think that's a miss by the internet.

I think there's some re, some that that makes a lot of sense. And the other guy for the magic, and you mentioned that we mentioned the kings and point guards.

If I were one of these teams in need of a guard, I would be trying like hell to get Darius Garland. I would be playing it slow, just you know,

hey, what do you think, Cleveland? What about this? And just try to slow play it. I'm not going to give you my great offer right now.

Cleveland's obviously in a tough position where they're going to want actual win-now talent back, which makes which makes those kind of trades difficult.

But that's the but in Portland, I'm not sure that that's a fit because I think they want to see what they have and scoot. Your guys scoot.

But I just think, you know, Blazers, they're kind of been off the beaten path since the damn trade. No one really pays attention to them.
There's a lot of stuff going on in Portland right now.

There is a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff going on in Portland.
I have a good friend from college who's now moving to Portland, where I have various relatives who have somehow gotten there.

Everybody's going to Portland. We should, maybe that's what we should do, Zach.
Let's just relocate to Portland and we can be there for the rebirth of the Trailblazers.

I'm fascinated by them for this reason.

They don't have a clear direction yet. They don't have a clear North Star yet.

Is it Shaden Sharp? Is it Scoot?

I mean, Avdia was the,

I'm going to say the best player on the team for the last two to three months of last season. I think I'm comfortable saying that.
Yeah.

Great.

That was a nice swing by them.

Like there's, you can find just enough good things things happening there to think optimistically about the Trailblazers.

And yet, same problem as the Jazz ultimately, which is if you don't have the guy, where are you? And if you don't have the guy, do you have a path to get the guy? And

I think. And we're watching an NBA Finals right now where people didn't think one of the teams, the team that's up 1-0, had the guy, the top 10 to top 15 guy.

Sometimes they, yeah, sometimes they sneak up on you and then hit the ship. And also, sometimes it's just nice to get a lot of guys, like a lot of guys.

Like Pascal Siakam's not a guy, but he's a good guy. Yeah.
Miles Turner is a good guy. Got a lot of good players.
Absolutely. I mean, you know, various versions of the so-called middle build, right?

Where, you know, let's just keep plugging away, methodically adding good pieces. And then either somebody we have unexpectedly emerges, or maybe we get an opportunity to trade for the guy or.

whatever it may be. I don't know what the Blazers are yet.
I think they're still paying the price to some extent, Zach, for waiting way too long to figure out what to do about Dame.

Like they were, I thought they should have been, as long as they were holding on to Dame, they should have been trading the picks that became some of these guys.

They're young players, Scoot, Shaden, and others. You're either building

for what you've got left of Dame's career, or you're cashing out on Dame and you're going young and rebuilding, in which case you keep those picks. But they were straddling the fence.

I think you and I talked about this on your other podcast a year or two ago, where I said they were just like painfully straddling the fence.

And to an extent, I think they're still paying the price for that,

which makes this summer really interesting, right? Because they got to be more decisive now.

You mentioned all the guys who are up for either extensions or free agents and decisions that need to be made.

They kind of got to have some sense of who they are or who they want to be in the near term while they're waiting for their own Tyrese Halliburton to magically emerge.

I don't think they're going to rush anything. Like, I don't mean to imply that they're going to do something crazy or blockbuster or anything.

I just think they have a lot of interesting pieces and a lot of interesting decisions to make.

And an ownership, I mean, there's no more important thing in your organization than who runs the show and who has final say.

And that's going to be up for grabs at some point in the near to medium future. All right, Howard Beck, you're going to be in the building for game two of the NBA Finals.

Where else can we look for you this? I didn't see that you wrote today. I spent the whole morning watching a game again.
What did you write? Something about the game.

Just about the sucker punch that the Thunder just absorbed and what that means for a young team that kind of, you know, we all were ready to proclaim as not just champions, but like the team of the future.

And here they are now staring at an 0-1 deficit. So, yeah, writing stuffonthereringer.com.
Real ones, we were off today, Friday, but I will be back.

We will be back on this Tuesday, summing up wherever the hell we are in the finals as of Tuesday, two games in. We are officially at the point where nothing would surprise me with the Indiana Pacers.

Howard, back. I'll see you soon, and we will break bread, my friend.
Have fun.

See you in Indianapolis.

That's it for the Zach Lowe show on a Friday. We've got another couple of days before game two of the NBA Finals buckle up.
I'll be back after that from Indianapolis, Indiana on Monday.

Thank you to Jesse, Jonathan, and Brian on production, even though all or most of them are Dodgers fans and the Dodgers just beat the Mets yesterday in heartbreaking fashion.

We will see you next week. NBA Finals, baby, let's go.

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