Round 1 Winds Down: Lakers Eliminated, Game 6 Previews, and More With Michael Pina

You're listening to the Zach Lowe Show, sponsored by FanDuel.

America's number one sportsbook has made it easier than ever to get in on the action during an NBA playoff game.

That's right now, even after tip-off.

Just look for the live SGP tab on the FanDuel Sportsbook app and build your bet slip.

Then sit back, relax, and track the outcome of your parlay right in the app.

And if you don't already have it, download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more.

The ringer is committed to responsible gaming.

Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details must be 201 and over in president select states gambling problem call 1-in-00 gambler or visit rg-help.com

This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K26.

Quick timeout.

NBA 2K26 is here and is looking sharp.

New motion engine, smoother catch and shoot, and rhythm shooting that actually feels natural like real basketball flow.

In my team, they've added the W.

So you can run Nafisa Collier, Tyrese Halliburton, and Tim Duncan.

It's his beautiful blend of spacing, IQ, and quiet dominance.

My career is also all new.

The city is more efficient, and the whole thing just plays faster and smarter.

NBA 2K26 is out now, and it's genuinely impressive this year.

If you haven't jumped in yet, now's the time.

Ball over everything.

All right, everybody, coming up, we got Michael Pina on all things NBA playoffs.

The Lakers are out.

Rudy Golbert had a game.

The Wolves are moving on.

The Rockets are alive.

Cavs, Pacers, preview.

Looking ahead to games this weekend.

Everything.

Heat offseason coming up with Michael Pina on the Zach Lowe Show.

Welcome to the Thursday edition of the Zach Lowe Show.

We're after a very interesting Thursday night of NBA Playoff Basketball.

We have a lot to discuss.

LeBron James.

Is he going to retire?

He's not sure.

I don't know what's going to happen.

We've got Thumbgate.

We've reached the point of the Warriors Rocket series where the Warriors, after whoop that trick game, the sequel, are complaining about the Rockets targeting Steph Curry's thumb.

And there's a photo of a swollen thumb and all of it.

A lot of whining going on in that series.

The Lakers are out.

What does that mean for their future?

Luka Doncic extension, LeBron player option.

He's sad.

He doesn't know.

He's got to sit down with his family.

We'll see what happens.

Michael Pina, how are you?

I'm good, Zach.

How are you doing, man?

I'm good.

I'm good.

But you know where we have to start, right?

Thumbgate?

Nope.

Nope.

We got to start here.

Yesterday I was doing some prep for the second round, trying to get ahead of it.

We're going to talk about Pacers, Cavs, which is set in stone shortly.

And I just started going through in my head, you know, all the interesting Warriors, Timberwolves, storylines, Jimmy Butler, Vengeance.

All the Draymond Reedy Go Bear stuff over the years.

Draymond, obviously, put him in the chokehold,

put him in the Ted Deep, put him in the million-dollar dream for a bit,

made fun of him multiple times for weeping upon not making the 2019 all-star game, brought it up again three years later to make fun of him, went on him as part of the TNT crew, just went at him like every single game.

And I'm thinking about that.

Then I watch Warriors Lakers, and boy, the lead up to that series.

I don't know, Rudy against the five-out lineup.

Like, you know, he could get played off the floor.

And I've been consistent on this dating to the end of the Utah Jazz, the Terrence Mann game, the Mavs series, when teams would go five-out against Gobert.

And everyone would, it happened this week with absolutely no evidence at all that Rudy Golbert was a problem defensively.

People were nitpicking Rudy Gobert's defense and saying, defensive player of the year,

he should be matchup proof.

And I said over and over again, dating to all those series, I've been consistent on it the whole time.

The problem was never his defense.

Any seven footer, yeah, it's not ideal when a team goes five out and a rim protector has to guard a shooter.

That's a problem for any big rim protector.

No one is going to be able to get from the corner to the rim and back when you're seven feet two.

It's just not, it's not.

It's it's not doable.

And yeah, it's not ideal when a team can do that to you and it can make you look a little awkward at times the problems were twofold number one the perimeter defenders on his teams stunk and got blown by over and over and over and left him out to dry on an impossible island to defend guess what the perimeter defenders on his team don't stink anymore and the main problem number two was offense he could never punish those teams on offense despite being by far the biggest player on the floor.

And that's what you need your center to do.

You need your center to get offensive rebounds, roll for dunks, and do big guy stuff so that they can't put Reggie Jackson on you and live with it, so that they have to put their big guy back in the game and sacrifice some of their shooting on offense to counter what you're doing to them on offense.

And he was never able to do that until last night.

Michael Pina, 27 points, 24 rebounds.

He looked like, is Gulliver big and the Lilliputians are small?

Whatever that is, that's what he looked like in that game.

It's the best game of Rudy Gobert's career.

He switched onto LeBron over and over and over.

They were fine with it.

Like, you want to go at him with LeBron?

He'll switch.

He'll contain him.

The only time he got beat, really, was on a backdoor cut.

His defense on Luca, the entire...

I read the stats on this podcast a week ago with John Krasinski when people were making fun of Rudy Gobert.

The stats said, and the eye test said, Minus one or two low lights.

He was doing great.

He got picked sixes against him.

He was great again last night.

What a moment for Rudy Gobert.

The NBA is punching bag, and he sends the Lakers home.

An incredible game that was a strange game because at halftime, the Wolves were up by 10.

It felt like they were up by 20.

The Lakers were doubling Anthony Edwards all over the floor, and he was just brilliantly, patiently, calmly not forcing it, not saying, I got to be the man.

Why are you putting two on me?

Make the simple read, let the offense take care of itself from there.

They had some Wolves haywire moments in the second half where they kind of forgot what was working for them.

And Rudy Gobert, every time the Haywire moments were coming, lob dunk, offensive rebound, lob dunk.

And the Lakers are out, and Minnesota moves on.

Rudy was phenomenal.

I should have known that you were referring to Rudy, and that's where we should start.

And

one of the first things in my notes watching the game early on was how his teammates were trusting him.

So very early on, Julius Randle had Luca.

Luca guarding Julius Randall, by the way,

in the back half of this series, which was kind of a disaster.

But, you know, they load up on the strong side.

Randall beats Luca off the dribble, finds Rudy cutting through the paint for a bucket.

They hit Rudy on a rim run.

He seals Luca, and Luca had to pick up his second foul, I believe, like five or six minutes into the game.

They gave Rudy the ball.

Exactly.

So

it felt like every time Dante DiVincenzo, who missed a million threes, every time he missed one, Rudy was there for a putback dunk.

You know, the Timberwolves doubled up the Lakers in second chance points, 20 to 10, 18 offensive rebounds to eight.

Rudy had nine himself.

It felt like he had 20.

Like, it just felt there was a stretch in the second half where it felt like it was the Rockets, where their best offense was just throw the ball up and Rudy will rebound the best.

Because, you know, they could seven of 47 on threes for a team that anytime they wanted, they stopped.

They kind of stopped hard doubling Anthony Edwards in the second half because they realized that the reads were too easy for him.

Yeah.

And they, and, and the Lakers kind of said, we're going to shade toward you, but we're not doubling you.

We're going to make you

outthink us instead of making your choices easy for you.

And it kind of froze up the Wolves.

Like he could get to the rim anytime he wanted, and they kind of stopped doing that.

And then Gobert would just rise above like just like a freaking, I don't even know what, like you just, all these bodies in the paint.

and then one of them would just go whoosh, and up he went, and out went the Lakers.

And by the way, Rudy's defensive rating, I know it's just one game, so whatever, but 95.9, which was by far the best on his team among people who were actually playing minutes.

And yeah, he was just absolutely phenomenal.

I was kind of stunned, frankly, that, you know, last time we spoke, I predicted the

Lakers in seven, and a large part of that was because I thought that,

well, Randall, Julius Randall, who

I've never seen a player completely 180 their perception for me personally in a playoff series than Julius Randle here.

He was like amazing,

really answered the bell in so many different ways on both sides of the floor.

That's like the it's like the Tobias Harris All-Stars you were talking with Rob in your last episode.

That's like the guys who completely have altered their reputation in this first round.

He's up there.

But yeah, I just,

you know,

the decision by J.J.

Reddick to put Maxie Kleber, his Lakers' debut, I don't know if we're going to spend a lot of time talking about that.

I was actually going to ask you, do you think Maxie Kleba knew that he played for the Lakers until he got into the game?

Do you think he was like, wait, me?

I'm on the team?

What's happening right now?

We're playing.

The first time he touched the ball, he forgot how to dribble momentarily it was it was really tough and then he put him back in the game with five minutes to go i couldn't believe it in crunch time like

one of the funniest one and this is not dan woikey's fault at all don't read this the wrong way but one of the funniest little subplots of these kind of playoff series are when like dan wakey writes this great article for the la times about the lakers banshee culture and how JJ Reddick got Jared Vanderbilt and Jordan Goodwin and Gabe Vincent to play like Banshees, and that was their mantra.

We're going to fly around and be problems.

And it comes out and it's this glowing, wonderful story.

And Jordan Goodwin's a great story.

I like Jordan Goodwin.

He's a good player.

And then it turns out, like, that day that comes out is the day JJ plays the five-man guy, the five-man lineup, the entire second half.

It's like, oh, great.

These Banshees, none of them can play.

Is Maxi Kliba available?

He's not a Banshee.

He wasn't in the story, but we need to play him.

It's the same way.

Like, I love ESPN published, essentially, they like, they were like, we got to get ahead of this.

They published Tim McMahon's Houston Rockets obituary, basically yesterday, which is like looking ahead to the offseason.

Do the Rockets need a star?

We got to get, let's get this out ahead of game five.

And then the Rockets roll in game five.

I love when stuff like that happens.

Yeah, Max and Kleba, Laker legend.

Unbelievable.

Yeah, quick aside.

I wrote a Rockets obit yesterday for about, it's been about two or three hours in my afternoon.

So that was cool watching that game unfold as it did.

But I thought that the Lakers, you know, they were obviously very small throughout the game.

And the double teams in the first half, in the second quarter, primarily off Ant, just felt very chaotic and they felt, you know, extremely desperate.

But at the same time, it's like, what else can they do here?

I guess there are other things you could do, but squeezing the ball from Anthony Edwards' hands and forcing everyone else to beat you is.

I guess better than switching Luka Doncic onto him and putting up the prayer hands emoji.

But yeah,

I'm kind of stunned that they won in five.

I'm not going to lie to you.

I looked at this and in hindsight, looking at the Lakers' roster and how it is built around Luca and just how inadequate it is.

And a lot of the pieces that he needs just weren't there.

It makes sense that they lost in five.

And it makes sense that they lost kind of the way they did.

I didn't expect Rudy to have 27 and 20 or whatever he did, but it makes sense for them to get pounded.

on the offensive glass and the boards and just to be overwhelmed by the athleticism and transition.

So, so yeah, it's

shout out to Rudy.

I don't even know what else to say.

Oh, I'll cop to it too.

I picked Lakers in seven.

I trusted their track record post-Luka.

I did not trust the Wolves to remain composed at key moments of the game.

And I did not trust Julius Randall.

And Julius Randall had a fantastic series on both ends of the floor.

Minnesota really, you know, a lot of good defense is the absence of events happening, the absence of mistakes.

So it's hard, it's hard to notice.

And you get to the end of these games and you're like, man, I didn't really see any of Randall falling asleep off the ball, Ant falling asleep off the ball, Ant missing a box out.

Like they really dialed in.

And Randall, every time they needed a bucket last night, when it felt like the offense was in the mud and things were going off the rails and they were hunting the wrong matchups, like for, you know, Reggie Miller called it out right away in the third quarter on the broadcast.

Like Luca can barely move after the Steven Cenzo hard foul and his back injury, and they're not going at him.

And Randall was the first one to go at him, and Randall settled them down every time the offense seemed to be going off the rails.

He would get a bucket.

He was awesome.

And it reminded me, this whole series reminded me of last year when I thought Phoenix was a problematic matchup for the Wolves.

And the Wolves were like, How about we're just bigger, nastier, meaner, and tougher?

And we're just going to beat the hell out of him.

Now, Phoenix rolled over and died in that series.

The Lakers fought until the end, but an awesome, awesome win for Minnesota and an awesome moment for Gobert, who, again, is a punching bag.

We don't need to get into it.

And when things go bad for him, they tend to go bad in the most spectacular way possible.

The Luca shot last year, France essentially, his own nation essentially benching him in the Olympics because it wasn't working.

And when things go bad, they go bad.

And this was a great night for him.

If you were the Wolves, who would you rather play in the next round?

I would would rather play the Golden State Warriors.

And

I say that with all due respect to Steph and Draymond and Jimmy and the championship pedigree.

I just don't want any part of the length, athleticism, and youth that Houston can throw at Anthony Edwards without helping, over-helping off the three-point line.

They don't need to send two at Ant 30 feet from the basket.

I mean, I'm sure we're going to talk about this game, but like the Houston Rockets played a lineup at the end of the first quarter that had, it was Jabari Smith Jr., Ahmed Thompson, Alperyn Shangoon, Stephen Adams, and Tari Eason.

And I was staring at my laptop screen, like, is this the biggest five-man unit I've ever seen in a basketball game?

And they got two straight stops out of their zone because Ahmed Thompson's closeouts are, I mean, he's like an apparition.

He's, his closeouts are one of, it's like, they're more entertaining than some players' dunks.

They're incredible.

He just devoured Moses Moody.

He makes Steph flinch.

He's amazing.

So,

yeah, I think the athleticism with Hughes, you know, all things aside about their offense, which looks okay when Fred Van Fleet shoots like 90% on pull-up jump shots.

I think I would go with, I would rather play the Golden State Warriors if I was the Minnesota Timber Bulls.

I disagree.

I would rather play the Rockets.

And

look, again, we've reached a stage of the Western Conference playoffs where it's no picnic no matter who you play.

I just,

I just,

the Rockets offense is in a state of affairs where their two-way ceiling, to me, just isn't as high as what the Warriors can reach when the Warriors are rolling.

The Warriors are smaller, less imposing.

prone to a dud now and then like they had last night in in game five.

A dud.

They had, I mean, Draymond said it after the game.

They might as well have been playing whoop that trick.

I was thinking about it the whole game.

It's the same loss they had in Memphis three years ago, up 3-1 with game six looming at home.

Dangerous game to play.

Dangerous game to play.

That's the Clippers.

Clippers Rockets.

2015.

Dangerous game to play.

Banking on that game six at home.

But, you know, I just.

Like, I look at the Rockets and they're big and physical and defense first and an incredible rebounding team.

And I look at the Wolves and they're big and physical and often defense first and a big rebounding team.

And I just feel like the Wolves can neutralize enough of what makes Houston difficult to play against.

And Houston cannot score enough to compensate for any marginal disruption of their strengths.

So I look, I think both would be a great series.

If I'm the if I'm Minnesota, I don't, I think I can beat both teams, but I think I would rather play the Rockets.

Let's talk about

Lakers.

You mentioned

the fact that

really when the Luca trade happened,

this season almost in the sort of afterglow of that trade, this season was almost an afterthought.

The trade was about the future, about a bridge to the post-LeBron era.

And yeah, this season's roster was incomplete.

They would have to address some of the holes in the offseason.

But the future had been set up for them, and that was the point of the trade.

And then as the team started winning, it was like, oh, Kay, kind of forgot that Luca and LeBron are like really awesome, and they've got some interesting supporting pieces around them.

This team can do some damage in the playoffs.

And I thought they could do some damage in the playoffs.

Obviously, that was proven incorrect.

It seems obvious what they need to do in the offseason.

Depending on LeBron's player option,

they're going to have very little flexibility to really do stuff in terms of free agency signings.

They could have the baby mid-level exception and stay under the aprons.

They're under the aprons, which is good.

Helps them make trades.

And then obviously they have all the stuff that they traded for Mark Williams.

They have the 2031 pick or 2032 pick.

They have a bunch of swaps.

They have Dalton Connect.

They have stuff they can aggregate and move for a center who can give Luca the passing target that he needs and shore up the defense.

Because my God, that small ball lineup, you could see Anthony Edwards digest it in real time as the series was going on.

He would drive and he would just, you could see his mind thinking, if I can just get by the first guy, I don't really even care who's who's next.

There was a, there was a drive where I can't remember who he beat at the point of attack.

And then two guys swarmed on him near the rim and he just went through them and laid the ball in.

And then you replay, it's like, oh, it's Gabe Vinson and Austin Reeves.

Like, of course, he doesn't care.

He's just going to go through those guys.

So it seems obvious that they'll come back with a better, more complete team next year.

I'm assuming LeBron is not going to retire despite the fact that we do this same dance after every time the Lakers get eliminated from the playoffs.

I don't know.

I'm not sure.

I've heard no buzz that he's going to retire.

No one in his orbit has flagged it for me.

Anything's possible, but I'm expecting him to come back and play.

The question then would be: does he do the thing that he did last year where he kind of waits and opens up the possibility of, yeah, like I'll opt out and maybe take a pay cut if you can find somebody with the middle, the big mid-level exception?

We'll see.

But there's only so much they they can do.

And the West is awesome and only going to get better.

The likelihood remains that this team will not win a championship in the next two or three years.

It's just going to be very hard, but they have Luca.

And if Luca can get in shape and get healthy and he's just,

it's one of my, I mean, he got fouled hard last night.

He got fouled hard and it hurt and he fell awkwardly and his back bent a little bit.

That hurts.

But he's always laboring.

Like when, like when it's Kevin Harlan, who is amazing,

Kevin Harlan is just killing all these games.

He's so good.

He's like, Luca's laboring up the court.

I'm like, it's like Luca is to laboring like Joel Embiid is to ramping up.

They're always doing it.

That's their just general state of existence, is he's laboring.

Yeah, so I guess, you know, just looking at their kind of cap situation right now, you have assuming LeBron opts in, as you said, or opts out, and he's going to be on the team next year, I guess, is the assumption.

You have the, I think, the big question is Luca Donchic's extension eligible and, you know, trying to figure out how you can obviously lock him up as long as term as possible

Austin Reeves I believe is also extension eligible but I don't think you you covered this I don't think it makes sense for him to

take one of take an extension right now given how low his or how much money he would be leaving on the table.

I'm just excited for any Austin Reeves extension drama, and there's not going to be any.

I would be absolutely baffled if he took any extension the Lakers can offer him.

I'm just excited for any reason for Bill to bring up the Spurs, not pursuing Austin Reeves in the offseason.

The Phantom offer sheet, yeah.

Um, uh, Maxie Kleber, extension eligible, you know, you got to take a long, hard look at that, see how many uh years you want to tack on there.

That's going to be a tough negotiation, but I think that uh, you know,

I'm looking at like kind of the centers just off the top, like the number one center, a couple centers who come to mind.

It's like, are you going to get a, like a Clint Capella type or a,

you know, Miles Turner's an unrestricted free agent and he's going to be way too expensive.

I don't know what it's going to look like.

Not a lot of teams have a cap space.

So if Turner was looking to leave, I know he's, they've flirted with him for years.

If they were to get him at the mid-level, but I think he's too rich for their blood.

Do you revisit Mark Williams?

Probably not, even though, I mean, like, we'll never know the answer to this, but I feel like Mark Williams would have been a potential difference maker in this type of series.

Um, and it was, it was kind of difficult not to have him on the court.

Um,

so yeah, I think that, you know, three-point shooting, uh, versatility, versatile wings.

You have Dorian Finney Smith, who has a player option at 15.3 million, and that's a really interesting number.

I have no no feel for whether or not he would opt into that.

I would like to be Dorian Finney Smith's agent.

Yeah, exactly.

There are not that, I mean,

like,

this is the sweet spot where negotiating is really fun.

Like, negotiating a max contract, there's a reason why some max players have just fired their agents.

They don't need any.

I could do a max contract.

35% give me the whole thing.

And then there's the rookie scale and all that.

Dorian Finney Smith is in a really interesting spot where if I were his agent, I would go to the Lakers and be like, hey, I want to opt out and I want a new deal.

And I want the new deal to look like this.

Because if you lose me,

it's going to be hard to replace me and my skill set.

And as evidenced by I had to play like the entire back half of the Minnesota Temper Wolves series.

If I were his agent, I would, I would opt out and make a new deal and more money.

And I would ring, I would squeeze the Lakers for everything they're worth.

He was essential in so many different ways for this team.

And his on-off numbers really reflect that.

And he has obviously a prior relationship with Luca going back to Dallas and their friendship.

So I would imagine that he stays in some form or another, but that's the type of player that you need around Luca, preferably a little younger, a little bit more athletic, but reliable behind the three-point line, reliable attacking closeouts if need be.

And you need, like, he craves, and he's said this so many times, he craves the

rim-running lob threat.

Like he loved playing with Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively.

And when they made the Gafford trade, he spoke about how he's been asking for this for years since he got into the NBA.

And so I don't know who it is.

I'm surprised they didn't get Gafford in the Luca trade.

Maybe they should have gone back at the last minute.

Say, you know what?

We're just not sure about this Luca guy.

Can he throw in Gafford as a sweetener?

Is there anyone that kind of comes to mind for you that would make sense here that is gettable that kind of fits this skill set?

It'll be a fungible guy, unless there's some move we don't see.

It'll be a Capella type where it's just sort of a fungible, like replacement level, decent guy.

And Mark Williams was a really interesting upside bet.

And I don't know what that physical showed.

I don't know what they saw.

I don't know if he would have been ready for this kind of stage defensively.

And they knew that in trading for him, that it was, there's a learning curve.

And he's obviously missed like half of his NBA games so far due to injuries.

So he doesn't have a ton of experience.

Going back to something I said before, I want to clarify this.

I said it's unlikely that the Lakers ever win a championship in the Luca LeBron era.

Yeah,

I believe that.

If they nail this offseason, is there a finals level ceiling for a team with Luca LeBron and better depth and a real big man?

Sure.

It's just wildly unlikely that with LeBron now passing 40, that they're going to win three or four playoff series.

It's just such a slot.

I mean, look how hard these series are.

And there'd be three, two left if they got by this one.

They won one game.

So, yeah, it's possible, but in this conference, it's just really, really hard.

All right, let's move on from the Lakers because they have moved on from our lives.

Although I did enjoy JJ's cranky pregame press conference yesterday where he walked out after a question about the substitution patterns and really took it as an affront.

I haven't done an episode since the Bucs collapsed and their season was over, and Giannis and Tyrese Halliburn's father got into it after the game.

And then Giannis did his annual, I'm going to give an incredibly thoughtful four-minute monologue about losing and the nature of losing.

I mean, look, I don't know even what to do with that collapse.

It's just absolutely an incredible sequence of events involving Gary Trent Jr.

turnovers and Andrew Nemhard hitting a quick three.

That, by the way, that Andrew Nemhard three and the fact that they end up winning the game is why you don't take the quick two.

You just have to take threes when you're in a situation like this.

And he did, and he got it into a manageable spot.

I don't know.

Do you have any hot takes on the John Halliburton versus Giannis

confrontation?

I can't honestly say Brian Clark on ESPN called for him to be banned from all future NBA games.

I was like, that's a all right.

We're getting scorchers on John Halliburton.

Seems very harsh.

The man apologized, and I think we can leave it at that.

I was more interested in the Giannis head grab of Ben Matherin, where it looks like he's, you know, it starts very amicable, and it seems like

he's whispering words of advice or

goodwill, and then all of a sudden they're like about to fight.

I thought that was more interesting to me, I guess.

But,

you know, Bill said this on his pod about

the

the whole aura of uh

this last Giannis game felt very similar to LeBron in 2010 in Boston, you know, ripping the jersey off walking into the tunnel.

And I kind of agree with that.

And I

think that, of course, this is up to Giannis in a lot of ways.

I also think that the Milwaukee Bucks as an organization should do their due diligence and make a really smart decision this offseason.

And

I don't say that lightly.

I know how important Giannis is to that community and that franchise, and he's one of the best players in the history of the sport.

But the future, if you hang on to him, is just particularly bleak, in my opinion.

So I don't know.

It'll be a fascinating summer for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Look, first of all, 30, 20, and 13 in a game in which his team was super undermined.

Just an awesome performance in 44 minutes.

And I did, you know, I recorded Monday after Dame's injury and all of that.

So I did this.

But, you know, just put it simply, there is no hope for this team to win big

as currently constructed.

There is no hope.

Trading Dame was the last pivot point that they could potentially maybe have to surround Giannis with a winning roster.

I already did this episode.

I'm not going to do it again.

And there is no, the one point I wanted to is

there's no path to reclaiming their own draft picks that have been traded in the Drew Holiday and Damian Lillard trades.

There is no path to getting those picks back, Nets style, and opening up a tank path.

That does also not include trading Giannis.

The only way to get those picks back is to trade Giannis for a shit ton of stuff and trade some of that stuff to the teams that have your own picks and get those picks back, along with hopefully picks from a team like Phoenix or something.

So you can triangulate your bets against lots of other teams.

So there's just no middle ground where, yeah, we keep Giannis.

We also get our picks.

We also have a deal.

There's no hope here.

And you said it's up to Giannis.

The Bucks should do their due diligence.

Look, I think the Bucs will never trade Giannis without telling him that they're going to do it.

They'll never even open up trade discussions, I don't think, without asking him, hey, can we do this?

And I don't know what's going to happen.

It's ultimately going to be up to Giannis.

And it's going to be up to Giannis and the Bucs who have to stare at this reality that it's over

as a championship contender in Milwaukee for the next X amount of years.

And what do you want to do about it?

What do we want to do about it together?

And I don't think anyone's going to begrudge anybody either way.

That's it on Bucs.

I have no hot takes on Tyrese Hallibrand's death.

Is it a little immature to wave a towel in Giannis' face and talk shit to him after he almost single-handedly beat your fully healthy Indiana Pacers team at home in an elimination game.

Yeah, it's a little immature.

Like, I like how Giannis was like, I might do that.

If my sons become good basketball players, I might be that guy.

I would hope I wouldn't be that guy.

It's not a great look, but

anyway,

that's all I have to say on John Halliburton.

Good moment for the Pacers.

The Zach Lowe Show is brought to you by FanDuel.

The NBA playoffs are underway, so don't miss your chance to bet on all the clutch shots and legendary performances with FanDuel, America's number one sports book.

FanDuel is the best place to find all your favorite player props, and now you can make a heads-up play with player performance trends.

That means whether you want to bet on a player to score 30 points or put up a triple-double, you can check out the latest stats and see who's hot without leaving the app.

Plus, after the game tips off, you can combine live prop bets into a same-game parlay for a chance to win big.

If you don't already have FanDuel, it's not too late to get in on all the playoff action.

You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins.

So just visit fan duel.com/slash low, my last name, L-O-W-E, to join today.

Make every moment more with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA.

Most of you, 21 or over in President Select States, or 18 and over in President D.C.

First online real money wager, only $5 deposit required.

Bonus issued is not withdrawable.

Bonus bets expire seven days after receipt restrictions apply.

See terms at sportsbook.fan duel.com.

Gambling problem, call 1-800-gambler or visit rg-help.com.

Warriors, Rockets.

Houston blows them out at home in game five.

Warriors banking on game six.

What did you see in this game that if you're a Rockets fan, you can say, okay, I can take that with me to Golden State, and

that is a sustainable thing.

As you said, like Fred Van Vliet shooting eight of 13, four of six from three may not be sustainable.

Dylan Brooks shooting seven of 13, Ahmed Thompson eight of 12, although

sensational game.

The shooting may not be sustainable, but what's something that happened in that game that could be sustainable?

I mean, their defense and their physicality will carry over for sure.

But honestly,

Zach, like, I think that this was way more about the Warriors than it was about the Houston Rockets.

And the Houston Rockets played a really great game, and

a lot of it was their shot making.

I think Steve Kerry said in his press conference that their effective field goal goal percentage at halftime was like 90-something percent, and it was the highest that he'd ever seen.

So their shot making was terrific.

I thought that just watching the game live, that from the jump almost in the first couple minutes of the game where Draymond Green commits a foul,

Steph commits a foul, Jimmy Butler commits a foul all in the first three-ish minutes, two and a half minutes.

That defensively they didn't have it.

They weren't locked in.

And then also offensively, I thought that it was kind of curious how committed they were to attacking Alpery and Shangoon with Steph Curry in the pick and roll, knowing that

Rockets are going to blitz that.

And if you keep doing it, the Rockets, you know, very smart defensive basketball team.

Their help will be early behind the play, and they don't really care about, you know, Jimmy Butler off-ball.

They don't care about Draymond Green off-ball.

And the spacing isn't great.

And so I was kind of, you know, they got good stuff like the first two times they ran it, and then they kept going to it.

And it was kind of, you know, in that first quarter when Houston was going on its run and making their shots.

And I was kind of just,

it was curious to me.

I don't know if you felt the same way.

No, I mean, I'm pro Steph attacking Shangun.

I'm pro him doing it off the ball too, like run him off screens with Shangoon's guy.

But what you're saying is true in this sense.

They're putting Shangun on Pajemski, and we will talk about this new Warriors starting five and whether it's a starting five that can work in the next round.

And it's the same concept of when they put

Stephen Adams on Quentin Post when those guys overlap.

Because there are other places to put Stephen Adams, like Gary Payton II, Moses Moody, whatever.

And putting him on a shooting center seems a little counterintuitive.

The reason they're doing it is to almost bait the Warriors into using that guy, Quentin Post, as the screener with no shooters around him so that the help can come from every direction.

But I'm still pro Steph attacking it.

Maybe just mix up how you do it because the Warriors can win a lot of those pass, pass, pass, four-on-three battles with Pajemski as the four-on-three guy, and they can mix it up.

I would like, like, Jimmy Butler is recovering from an injury.

He's probably back earlier than he would be.

It's a big factor in the series.

Just didn't feel his impact in the game hardly at all last night.

There were a few Butler Curry two-man game situations where I'd like them to lean more into that if Jimmy's physically up to it, because it's a way to get him on Fred Van Vliet, who's hard to move.

I get it.

uh or buddy heal or or not buddy here jalen green uh he had the he had the quarterback keeper in a two-man game with buddy healed and the the point of of that was to hunt Jalen Green, and he just fooled everybody.

Play a little bully ball.

I think that was an element that was a little bit missing.

I think the Warriors are going to win game six.

I feel like I've seen this movie dozens of times before, not just with the Warriors, but with a lot of teams.

It is dangerous to bank on game six at home.

I picked Warriors in seven.

I don't think they're really phased by playing on the road in any of these games anyway.

But I do feel like the Warriors just kind of didn't have it.

When Steve Kerr

talking, like

the TNT broadcasters are talking about how if the lead gets too big, Steve Kerr's already telegraphed that he's going to wave the white flag early.

Like, that's a tell to me that they're not surprised that they came out and laid an egg in this game.

I expect them to win game six.

And I've like, I feel like I've already seen the game.

Like, Warriors will be up by five, six, eight.

Houston will make a run and cut it to two with like three minutes left.

Steph will make a shot.

Jimmy will make a shot.

Warriors win by eight and they move on to the next round.

I I do not gamble ever, but this feels like as sure of a bet as possible.

I agree with you.

I think that the Warriors are going to win at home in game six.

And again, just going back to what we saw in game five, I thought that, you know, like Houston goes to their zone, and the Warriors, for some reason, acted like they'd never seen.

a zone before.

They were very hesitant.

They were second-guessing themselves.

There were a couple plays where they got it to the nail, sprayed out, got a spot up three.

But the zone gave them a lot of trouble.

They were way too lackadaisical with the ball.

There was one play Draymond just threw it off Quentin Post's face.

Yeah, that was a good one.

Ahmed Thompson had two pick sixes against Curry.

Yeah.

And then they threw the ball off Quentin Post's face.

That was a good one.

Yeah, and I also thought that

Jalen Green didn't statistically have a good game, but there was a sequence in there

or a couple sequences when they were running high pick and roll, and they were setting the screen for him really close to mid-court.

And Kavan Looney was on the court, and Kavan Looney was in drop, and Jalen Green was just kind of dancing and getting wherever he wanted for a couple minutes there.

I thought that Shingoon, again, didn't have the statistical profile, but I thought his game was like really solid.

And he showed patience in the pick and roll.

There was one play where he didn't settle.

He got it.

I think it was a similar play where he set a high screen for

Fred

and

caught it at the nail.

And Quentin Post was on him and giving him this huge cushion because the Warriors would love for him to shoot that little flamingo shot.

But instead of taking it, taking the bait, he threw it back out to Fred, ran another pick and roll, got a better angle, got behind Post and drew a foul.

So if you're looking for like...

things to hang your hat on, it's just

playing with more poise, playing with more patience, not getting sped up if you're Houston.

Those are really good things.

But I think at the end of the day, I fundamentally agree that their offense, particularly in the half-court, is just so reliant on offensive rebounding and

like really tough shot making.

So the pick and roll point you just made about the half-court picks and all that and the Shengun re-screen and hard roll is a really important point in the series because one of the reasons why Houston's half-court offense is just stalled out constantly, and there are many, many reasons.

It's an offense that's frankly in its infancy stylistically.

They just don't have counters, they don't do a lot of interesting things.

They do one thing, and if you stop that one thing, they don't really know what else to do.

But

another big reason is the Warriors are playing the Jalen Green Shangoon and Fred Van Vleet Shangoon pick and roll two-on-two.

Draymond is containing everything, keeping everything in front of him, and they don't have to send help from anywhere.

And Houston's big men cannot get behind Draymond on the roll.

Houston played with more ways to orchestrate that pick and roll in game five that forced the Warriors to send some help.

Dylan Brooks got a kick out three when they set it up at one point.

And Shen Goon, I think it was, got a little bit behind Draymond.

You just got to get some traction, whether it's playing with where the screen is, attacking it in different ways, setting a rescreen,

setting a screen for the screener on his way up to set the real pick so that there's some momentum going into it.

Just something to get the Warriors to scrunch in.

You mentioned the zone.

I looked it up this morning.

The Warriors against Houston zone, 0.91 points per possession so far in this series.

That is very bad for the Warriors and very good for the Rockets.

And

it's not just that it's the two centers.

It's just, as you pointed out earlier, everybody on the floor is gigantic.

they close every space super fast and another reason i think under the radar why the zone is is really working

you know they've dared to play it when steph is on the floor a little bit but they play it a lot when steph is off the floor and those are the jimmy butler minutes and it's harder for jimmy butler to just kind of pick his matchups and do jimmy jimmy butler hunting Jimmy Butler bully ball against his own defense.

And it's kind of confusing what the Warriors would like to be a simpler offensive process.

The one guy who's killing the zone is Pajemski.

He just moves into every open space.

He's constantly in motion.

He's been awesome against the zone.

Just

Adam Shengun together, plus 31 in 54 minutes, 48% offensive rebounding rate.

The Rockets' offensive rebounding rate for this series is 37%.

That would have been number one.

Houston has attempted 42 more free throws than the Warriors.

Now, they've made like half as many more free throws than the Warriors because they can't freaking shoot from the foul line.

And a couple other smart things I just wanted to highlight.

They have finally started to go at Steph in some creative ways.

Dylan Brooks sealed him for a high low.

Tari Eason sealed him for a high low.

And Ahmed Thompson,

games one to three, total 12 pick and rolls.

Games four and five total.

22 pick and rolls.

That's according to second spectrum.

He's gone at Steph one-on-one a little bit, and I expect the Warriors to be like, all right, look, this is cool.

We're not letting you do this anymore.

We're going to duck way under screens against you.

We're going to be a little more diligent against you in the pick and roll, but we'll see.

I mean, look, the Rockets are a tough team.

They're now plus six for the series overall, despite the Warriors winning garbage time last night and kind of fake getting back into the game.

They're a good team.

It just feels like a series where they're really going to rue the game for loss and they're going to lose in six, but stranger things have happened um fun game fun and not fun game last night the thumb stuff

for okay first of all did you see the press conference where where steve kerr talks about going after and dylan brooks what is your what is your reaction to this i don't uh

I don't know.

It's just me.

I'm not really interested in any stuff like this when I'm watching basketball.

I didn't know that this was a thing until I watched the press conference.

And I expected Steve, when I'm listening to the question being asked, I expected Steve Kerr to

be like, we're not worried about that and whatever.

We got to, you know, we're getting ready for game six.

And we played like crap tonight.

There's a million reasons that we lost.

And he didn't do that at all,

which I thought was really funny.

And called the league's reaction to it, or I guess like how it's not a foul.

but the league can call the refs can call a flagrant foul.

I guess he's referring to like the high five closeout, which is not a foul.

And I guess that the implication is, and you could see Steph motioning for it like four minutes into the game when Shen Goon and Dylan Brooks closed out on him, that

they're hitting me.

And I guess the implication is, I mean, this is not the first player to have a thumb injury.

And other players have, you know, like if he were a big man posting up, people would be swatting at his thumb.

But I guess the implication is they're getting over-exuberant with the high-five closeout in an attempt to knock at his at his thumb

Dylan Brooks didn't exactly deny it.

He basically said that he did it.

Yeah, he said, I have the quote right here.

If someone had an injured ankle, I would attack that ankle every single time.

So whatever they're saying on the broadcast, they can keep saying it.

Yeah, and that's, I think a lot of players have that mentality.

No, I particularly want to, does Dylan, I would have followed up with Dylan Brooks.

Like, do you mean you would just like go at the guy with a sprained ankle and make him defend in space?

Or do you mean you would, like, try to kick the guy's ankle and actually injure it?

I don't think that's it.

Would be the follow-up question.

Dylan, are you there behind your sunglasses that you always wear indoors for some reason?

Can you, hello?

I don't, Steve Kerr made it seem like the Coaches Association has had 14 meetings about this and they're like unanimous and they're preparing a very sternly worded letter and PowerPoint presentation to the league.

I I will say this arose because the Warriors broadcast pointed it out and said they've done this before.

There is no more Homer broadcast in the entire NBA, and for all I know, in the world of sports, than the Warriors broadcast.

You don't have to take what they say with a grain of salt.

You have to take what they say with a silo of salt.

And of course, they're going to bring it up and accuse the Rockets of nefariousness.

I just would also like to say:

you have Draymond Green on your team.

Right.

You don't think that dude is A, ultra physical to the point that he's borderline, like getting teed up or ejected from half the games?

And B, any dirty trick, not dirty.

I retract the word.

I use it in the facetious sense.

Any

bit of extra physicality and let me grab an arm.

Andrew Bogot used to be the master of just grabbing people's arms so they couldn't rotate on defense.

Like, okay,

I would just say, let's give it a rest, win game six, and move on, if you can, to face whoever you to face Minnesota.

And that would be,

you know, I, again, I was doing prep for that series.

That would be a really fun series.

And one of the questions I would have right away is, it's interesting how many lineups Steve Kerr is toggling through.

And he has now, for two games in a row, decided we're not starting Moses Moody anymore.

We need more shooting, more playmaking.

We need to make life more difficult for Alper and Shangun.

We need to give him no safe-ish places to hide and try to coax him toward guarding Draymond, which they don't want to do too often.

And so they're starting a very small lineup of Curry, Health, Pajemski, Butler, Green.

And you just start outlining the matchups in a possible Minnesota series.

And you're like, does that, who's guarding who?

Does that hold up?

Is there enough size there?

You know, because you've got to find guys to guard Ant and Randall and Gobert, who needs to be accounted for, as he just reminded us.

And Draymond and Butler can only guard two of those three players.

And so I wouldn't be surprised if they get to that series.

And Buddy Hield is now coming off the bench again.

And Moses Moody comes in.

He's guarded Ant a bit, or

Gary Payton the second has guarded Ant a bit in their prior matchups.

I don't know that that lineup stands up to Minnesota, but it's interesting that we get all the way to this point in the season and the Warriors are still just flying through lineups and trying everything.

They played a lineup last night: Curry, Moody, Moody, Butler, Guise Santos, and Kavan Looney that had played two possessions total, according to Cleaning the Glass, in the regular season and playoffs combined before that game.

And Guy Santos made a couple threes.

It's like, all right, Guise Santos.

I

don't even know.

Like, is it even worth bringing up?

No,

Kaminga.

No, move on.

It's not worth it.

I've given up.

Sad times.

Sad times.

You've given up on Jonathan Kaminga?

No, I've given up on them playing.

It's sad times right now.

And what could we call the Kaminga?

It can't be an island.

I never think it could be an island.

I like alliteration, like Kaminga K.

Kaminga Keys.

Yeah, the Kaminga Keys.

It's rough right now.

It's rough.

Power's out.

Winds are heavy.

This podcast is brought to you by Carvana.

Got a car to sell, but no time to waste?

Hop onto Carvana.com to get a real offer for your car in seconds.

All you have to do is enter your license plate, answer a few quick questions, and if you accept the offer, Carvana will pay you as soon as you hand the keys over.

They even offer same-day pickup in many cities.

Save your time, score some cash, and sell your car the convenient way to Carvana.

Pickup times vary.

Please may apply.

This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card.

There's one thing I'm going to make sure I pack for my summer vacation.

It's my Apple Card.

I can earn up to 3% daily cash back

on every purchase, including fuel for my car and booking places to stay.

Plus, I don't have to worry about fees, including foreign transaction fees, which is perfect when I'm planning to travel abroad.

To get an Apple Card for your summer travels, apply on the wallet app on your iPhone today.

Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch.

Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 18.24%

to 28.49%

based on credit worthiness.

Rates as of July 1st, 2025, terms and more at applecard.com.

Pacers, Cavs,

preview this series after the Cavs.

I think the Cavs, the Cavs should just get to take a player from the Heat.

They should just, that's how much they embarrass the Heat.

The league should step in and be like, you know what?

Miami, you can protect two players.

The Heat, the Cavs get to pick any other player from your team.

And he now plays for the Cavs.

Starting now, starting in the playoffs now.

This is a really fun series.

I've heard, I mean, Bill has mentioned he would pick Cleveland in seven, but he thinks Indiana has a fighting chance.

Indiana has been a legit, very good team now for 55 games since Tyrese Halliburton had a slow start to the season, and thus so did they.

They're broadly similar teams.

Um,

small-ish back courts, two versatile, interesting big man pairings that are, you know, mobile Siakam are like, you know, versatile, sort of herky jerky players.

Allen Turner, not that similar in terms of three-point shooting, but rim protection on defense.

Both very low turnover teams.

And,

you know, both teams are going to play around with where do we hide our small guards on defense or

our defensively challenged guards?

Where do we hide Halliburton?

Who does Garland guard?

Both play fast.

Both have very deep benches.

And so it's an interesting clash in that sense.

I just keep coming back to

I just think Cleveland is...

does has like everything Indiana has and they're just better across the board talent-wise.

They also look incredibly fresh.

Like, you can tell,

you can tell that Donovan Mitchell's minutes load has been lower this season.

I mean, he just looks, he just looked like he was faster than everyone in the Miami games.

So, I'm going to pick Cleveland in the series, but I do think it's interesting.

Where would you like to start thinking about this matchup?

I mean,

I'll echo everything that you said just about the similarities between these two teams.

And I think that it's kind of, it feels like, I don't know if if you feel the same way, but a lot of these series have been a slog and kind of defined by the defenses and the physicality.

That's been a big theme in this postseason.

And I think that this series has an opportunity to give us just, you know, aesthetically breathtaking offensive basketball.

I don't know if it'll be up and down, particularly because Indiana's transition defense is very good.

And as you said, neither team really turns it over.

So there's limited opportunities there.

But the offenses are just tremendous.

They just constant moving, and cutting, and screening, and like warp speed, dribble handoffs, and all that sort of stuff.

I don't want to be reductive with where my head goes in the analysis from the top, but surface level, the first thing that I think about is

Tyrese Halliburton and his defense.

And I think about that because

it's not new, you know, this thing where if you're

an extremely talented offensive player who is not very, you know, you can't be played off the floor, obviously.

He's the engine of the team, but there are some limitations on the defensive end that teams will poke at kind of cruelly in a playoff series, as the Detroit Pistons are doing right now with Jalen Brunson.

And I watched, you know, the first round where the Cleveland Cavaliers publicly stated, Darius Garland publicly stated, called Tyler Hero out by name in terms of this is what we're doing.

This is our like our offensive game plan to put this guy in ball screens, make him defend, attack him.

And I think that it'll be really interesting.

You know, we don't have a big sample this season with Halliburton against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

He played in one game, one half, really,

a game that the Pacers won.

And then he got got hurt.

I think he pulled his hamstring, and it was like in January or something.

And then he played them again in April, but no one on the Cavs played in that game because it didn't mean anything to them.

So just thinking about, you know, how often are the Cleveland Cavaliers going to go at Tyrese Halliburton?

How much success will they have doing so?

And,

you know, what is the balance between just running our stuff?

You know, we run pick and roll anyway, a ton of pick and roll.

We have a lot of success with it.

We love pick and roll with our bigs.

We don't really want to, you know, we could obviously run multiple pick and rolls and, you know, get a switch that way or something like that.

But, you know, that we don't want to muck up our offense.

It's beautiful.

It produced 136.2 points per 100 possessions in the first round.

But I'm just curious, just

how central Halliburton's defense will be in this series.

So that's the primary thing I'm going to be looking at.

I think it's going to be central, like it will be for most teams the Pacers play.

On paper, and I think to some degree in reality, I mean, Indiana has been a good defensive team now for quite a while.

This is, I think they ended up middle of the pack, but last 50 games are probably eighth, ninth, something like that.

Nemhart and Neesmith are a very good Tucson

to put on Garland and Mitchell.

Halliburton will hide on Max Streus,

which means Max Struss is going to guard Halliburton some on the other end and might be the primary matchup anyway.

I mean, they haven't, you know, going back in even in previous seasons, you know, Garland will guard him a little bit.

Mitchell will guard him a little bit.

They've used Lavert on him, they've used, who's not on the team anymore, they've used Struss on him, Dean Wade, Dustin Wade, Isaac Okoro.

Isaac Occoro has guarded both Pascal Siakum and Tyrese Halliburton.

So, you know, we'll see.

But that's like a decent defensive setup.

And then you have, you know, Siakam Turner against Mobley Allen,

which is, you know, those guys are all very good players.

And they're going to put Max Struss into the action.

They're going to have him set ball screens for Garland and Mitchell and just see what you do.

You switch, we can go to work a little bit.

You hedge, which has been Indiana's de facto Halliburton thing, and now you're in rotation.

And that's the moment that scares me because

this team,

the Cavaliers are the poster team for pace is is not just a transition stat.

Pace is about how you run your half-court offense.

Everything they do is so goddamn fast.

Everything is full speed, full urgency, every cut, every handoff, every fake toward the screen and go the other way.

And once they start, once you get in that first rotation, they are just eating you alive and they're one step ahead of you the entire way.

And then

the Pacers bench, this is a big, big test defensively for Matherin, assuming he can play.

Shepard, if he's in the rotation, TJ McConnell, who hasn't quite been the same guy defensively this year, Obi Toppin, like I could see Obi Toppin having a rough defensive series, and that means more minutes for Jaris Walker.

It's a big, big test for them.

And there will be times where the Cavs just get good stuff from Mobley on switches or their traditional pick and rolls work because their guards are just so good.

It's a big, big challenge

Indiana's defense.

Now, Indiana's offense is going to present a massive challenge for Cleveland's defense, which we can get to.

But, you know, despite the matchups being good on paper when it's starters versus starters, and Nemhard and Nee Smith are a very good defensive tandem,

it's going to be, it's just, this offense is the number one offense in the NBA.

I mean, it's just a, it's a freaking machine right now.

Yeah, you know, I was watching some of

their past matchups and particularly I was looking at Miles Turner, who I consider to be a pretty big big X Factor in this series as well.

I've never been a huge fan of his, but

he's played great undeniably.

And he was fantastic, I thought, in the first round.

And obviously his pick and roll with Halliburton is lights out and incredibly efficient.

But I'm just curious watching him, how he can hold up defensively against the pick and rolls that the Cleveland will run at him.

He's going to probably be matched up from the start with Jared Allen, who is like this combination of Wilt Chamberlain and I don't even, like, he's shooting like 99.9% from the field in the playoffs.

Just absolutely incredible stuff from him and his decisiveness on like slips and rolls and screens and like flipping the screen.

The NBA just should have stopped game four after the first possession where he stole

an entry pass and went coast to coast.

That should have just been, you know what, game over.

We're done.

We're done here.

Should have been like,

that's it.

Yeah, that's all.

I was going to tell a parent sports story, but I don't have time.

But yeah, like, I just,

I'm curious how can Turner keep everything in front of him?

Because he's going to need to be like up.

That's how he's played them in the past and what you need to do when you're going up against Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell.

So if you're up and Allen gets behind you or you have a rotation, low man rotation,

like again, that's you're in rotation and that is when Cleveland is dominant.

And so

I don't know if this is like a

blasphemous thing, but I'm curious to see if in this series

Cleveland will make Indiana do defensively to it what Indiana made Milwaukee do, which is we have have to basically like switch everything.

This stinks, and our big is getting roasted every single time.

Brooke Lopez eventually got played out of that series, and it's because it's just so difficult.

As a, like, I'm not saying Miles Turner is plotting, I think he's got a little bit of, you know, he's not, he's not Brooke Lopez right now, but it's just, it's a tall task for him defensively.

So I think that his ability to hold the fort

and as a team collectively for them to kind of, you know, shrink the floor a little bit, but also, you know, stop the roll, but also

take away the corners at the same time.

I mean, like, similarly, on a much smaller scale, like, can Thomas Bryant play in this series, or is this a Siakam top in 4-5 backup center situation?

I honestly didn't even consider Thomas Bryant in my thought process for that reason because I thought that

I just think that you have to switch a ton against and not to get ahead of us, but like when if we get the eastern conference finals it's like that matchup is favorable i think defensively or team like the boston celtics is favorable because they're comfortable switching everything on the ball and off the ball boston

i'm not going to talk about boston a lot in this because they're just waiting for nicks pistons um

number one thing for boston is like a

i think the orlando series will end up being very good for them having to find workarounds to a team determined to take away their threes b they just got to get healthy i mean they're like yeah you know they need they needed they needed to close out that series they did i you know can we just can i just say that at least one of those bancaro fouls was just like to me i don't remember it was the i i don't there was one of them i think it involved jalen brown where it's like we're calling that now like this is a football series and we're calling that and then bancaro's if i were a magic fan i would have been really really pissed at those three fouls because at least one of them to me was like a total play on he gets out of the game they have to bring in fucking goga and the goga minutes are a disaster and the game just is over like it went from decent game to over so fast and i thought one of those calls sucked and that's all but boston just needs to get healthy okay um

so you're talking about cleveland's offense and what a machine they are and you know all the challenges they present the pacers offense is awesome too uh the calves don't have like a great matchup unless they're going to play a corolla a lot and and kenny atkinson is sort of telegraphed like i I don't want to play a coral a lot.

I'd rather over-index on shooting.

They don't have a great matchup for Halliburton.

Um,

I suspect they will try Struis on.

I don't know.

It wouldn't surprise me if they tried Garland on him.

And just, you know what, Darius, like, if you're healthy, if your toes, if your toes are good, like, we're not going to hide you.

We've said all year, you're not going to be a pigeon.

You're not going to be, you know, a target.

Like, let's go out and do it.

I would lean a little bit on Struis gets it to start with.

And the big men matchups are interesting because they have played around with putting Mobley on Miles Turner and Jared Allen on Pascal Siakam with the idea of putting your faster guy on the better three-point shooter, the pick and pop guy.

And like, my number one recommendation for facing Indiana is,

and credit to Miles Turner, he's become such a good shooter that this is hard to do.

I'm not overreacting to the Halliburton Miles Turner pick and pop.

That doesn't mean I'm just going to let Miles Turner shoot wide open threes, but

I'm not sending like a third guy scrambling to him because to on the pot, because Tyrese Halliburton is going to see that happening before you even do it.

And he's going to skip Miles Turner altogether and find the open man.

I'm going to drop, not like Brooke Lopez level, drop like a high drop and recover.

Maybe mix in a blitz here or there to make Miles Turner a playmaker.

But I'm not going to send a third guy flying at that pick and roll right from the start.

And I'm going to be interested to see how they react to that.

Honestly, Zach, I wouldn't be surprised if they switched that action quite a bit.

I mean,

Jared Allen and Evan Mobley have been

switch happy all season.

And I know that Jared Allen on Tyrese Halliburton is a problem for Cleveland.

Evan Mobley on Tyrese Halliburton is totally livable.

It's the other end of some of those switches that are interesting to me.

This is a major Pascal-Siakam series.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

If they're going to switch the Pascal-Tyrese two-man game, and I would run it both ways, run it both ways, try to get a small guy on Siakam.

They're going to switch that, or if I can generate switches on that, he's got to eat on those switches and draw help.

The who guards him when the Cavs go with one big guy, because you know they're going to stagger Mobile and Allen and play a lot with pick who's the four.

Sometimes it's Dean Wade, sometimes it's Akoro, sometimes it's even Max Struss.

They've got to win those minutes with Siakam.

He's got to win those matchups.

And

maybe it's DeAndre Hunter who.

by the way, DeAndre Hunter has these weeks where

he just makes every contested three.

Like, there's not even, there's no rotation.

There's no anything.

He's just like, I'm just going to take this three-no with you in my face.

And it went in like nine times in a row against, I don't understand it.

There are places the Pacers can poke for sure beyond just hunt Darius Scarland, which, you know, I always like when they ISO Halliburton on some of the, some smaller guards or bigger guys.

I think he's a very good isolation player.

Again, these teams are like very, not mirror images of each other, but they're very similar.

I think Indiana is going to be able to score an okay to decent amount in this series.

I agree.

I just think that Cleveland has more buttons to press and more options, and I like their depth more, and I trust their shooting more.

I really, you know, I hit in my notes, the Pascal Siakam is a huge player in this series, and whether it's an inverted pick and roll or whether it's sealing a guy in a cross match, I think that Indiana has to get

easy points.

They have to get their transition stuff and they can't give away anything.

They have to take care of the ball.

They have to get back and transition.

And those are things that are part of their identity and why they've made such a leap this year.

Part of why they made such a leap this year defensively.

I wonder if Indiana will go like way smaller than

they have before, really.

I was like tinkering around with some of the lineup combinations to see if TJ McConnell, Andrew Nemhard, and Tyrese Halliburton have played together this season.

And the answer is not really.

No, they have not.

But I think that you need juice.

And I don't know if defensively you like, you know, buying into kind of Kenny Atkinson's philosophy, which is like, we're going to lean into our offense and we're going to like prioritize spacing.

That's the important thing.

I think that for Indiana, potentially, as this series goes on, I think they really need to just juice their offense as much as possible.

I think that that could be

not an answer, but a step in the right direction.

All right, let's make picks.

I'm going to go first.

I don't like picking short series.

Okay.

It feels disrespectful.

I heard Bill and Ryan debating this series before it was even official.

Bill was, as I mentioned,

not quite toss-up, but expects a long series.

Russillo was a little surprised by that.

Didn't make a pick, but seemed to be like much more heavily calves.

I'm going Cavs in five.

I just think they're better.

The nice, cautious person to me would go Cavs in six just to, you know, six sounds like, yeah, Pacers put up a really good fight and they lost on their home floor in game six.

The logical thing is, if you're going to pick the Cavs, pick them at home.

I'm going Cavs and five.

I just think they're better.

I just think they're better.

I just think they're everything Indiana is, but better at everything else across the board, at almost every part of basketball league.

They're just a little better.

Indiana's awesome.

They're a legit, really good team.

Really good team.

I've been saying it, well, I haven't been saying it all year because I didn't have a job, but they've been like, they're a legit, very good team.

I just think Cleveland's better.

I'm going Cavs in five.

i'm going calves in six and part of that is i don't know the status of garland's toe and how he's gonna look because i do think that they will go at him and they will there's no dylan brooks here but they will test that toe my prediction is contingent on darius garland playing and i think i think if that heat series had been competitive i think he would have played

so

Yeah, that may be true.

Yeah,

I just like,

I think Indiana is very underrated.

Some of it is just not a lot of people have seen them play.

Not a lot of people are aware of the upgrades that they've made defensively.

And,

you know, my concerns for Halliburton, notwithstanding on the defensive end, you know, his individual offensive rating when he was on the floor after the all-star break was higher than basically every player in the NBA except Nicole Jokic and Chey Gildris Alexander.

So this offense is really good when he's on the court and he's going to have to play a lot of minutes.

So it's a test for him.

But the Pacers are like,

they're low-key feisty.

And, you know, I think that

I think like Ben Shepard will play probably over Matherin potentially in this series.

That would make a little more sense to me for defensive purposes.

So yeah,

but I'm going Cavs and six.

I just think like talent-wise, it's a kind of a joke how good Cleveland is.

Lubin is very, very good.

It's ridiculous.

You said said something about the pacers that piqued my interest and i forgot what it was um okay we should not uh move on

before uh

addressing the roadkill that is the miami heat we can't let that

yes it was a sweep yes it was a 1-8 you expect one to roll eight

that was

That was, I mean, game three, I waxed poetic about what Cleveland did to Miami in game three, how they just went to Miami and were like, We are extinguishing all hope immediately.

You have no hope.

We are taking your soul.

We're taking your arena.

We are burying you immediately.

Game four

was that on the Cleveland side, and a one-two-three Cancun game on the Miami side, the likes of which I don't know that I've ever seen the Heat play, and I don't know that I've seen more than three or four playoff games that were more like mercy rule than this.

The heat.

Look, I said this a couple weeks ago.

If Jimmy Butler's got any stock advice for me, financial advice, life advice, I'm taking it.

That dude is right all the time.

Every time he burns it to the ground, it ends up being right.

This was an alarming collapse for Miami.

And it raises the question of like, I think they can now look at this team and say, okay, bam, it's fine.

Tyler's fine.

Maybe the all-star team.

Got some interesting young pieces here.

Kalo, where's a big success story?

Not enough has been made about Jaime Hakez Jr.

going from jewel of a potential Damian Lillard trade to just not even able to get on the court over Pella Larson in the playoffs.

I think they need to sort of come,

this was a very clear message.

Like, you are not, this is the bar.

This is the bar.

You saw the bar and you are not even in the same room as the bar.

And this is a team that does not react well to being this far from the bar.

And that's how far they are.

And so I'm expecting a big, a big offseason for them.

I don't know what form that's going to take.

I think they'll try to butt into any superstar trade combination, conversations that come up.

I just, you know,

they've got stuff.

They just don't have that much stuff.

They have,

they can trade two first-round picks right now.

On draft night, they can trade a third.

They've got swaps.

Like, you know, they've got some stuff, but,

you know, like if the Giannis thing actually comes to bear, I did, I just don't see how they have any shot in hell at getting into that.

Durant is, is much more realistic to me.

They concluded at the trade deadline that the Suns were asking too much for Durant.

I expect those conversations to be a little different tone-wise on both sides, if and when they resume.

I don't know what other targets will emerge from them, but

they've got decisions to make with Davion Mitchell, who I think played his way onto a role with the team and a real contract with the team.

And they are not really slated to have like heat max level cap room until the summer of 2027.

Summer of 2026, assuming they re-sign some of these guys, Jovich is extension eligible, assuming Andrew Wiggins opts in, which is, you know, for 26, 27, which who knows what happens there.

It's not like they're super well positioned to just do the like, we'll get a max superstar in here in free agency, whoever that may be.

This team

has earned the benefit of the doubt.

This team transitioned from the LeBron thing to the next iteration, and then the Krish Bosch blood clot thing happens.

Then they go down this just purgatory of Deion Waiters and James Johnson and Hassan Whiteside and Justice Winslow.

And like, oh my God, we paid all these guys and Justice Tyler Johnson.

Remember Tyler Johnson?

Tyler Johnson's offer sheet.

And it looked like they were stuck in the mud.

And they dug their way out of it with smart draft picks and smart opportunistic where South Beach, where Miami, Jimmy Butler wants to come here and trades.

They've earned the benefit of the doubt.

Man, it's just

a slog for them.

And I'm sure they'll try everything.

And I don't know what answers are realistic for them other than buy low on Durant in the last year of a $50 million contract.

Lot to unpack there.

Well, first of all, like Andrew Wiggins, $30.1 million player option.

You don't think he's picking that one up?

Well, you know, who knows?

He could get traded by then.

I would assume he picks it up.

Did he score 30 points combined in the entire first-round sweep?

I don't know.

Speaking of 30-point something.

You do have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I think to a certain extent, I think,

like

there's a lot of, you know, obviously it's it's much more difficult to maneuver with the new CBA, just that the

ecosystem of the NBA makes it a lot harder to make the type of moves that Miami has historically to resurrect itself.

And,

you know, they've made some questionable moves and decisions in recent years that kind of will have you being like, okay, like if another team did something like that, like,

you know, I, the

hindsight is 2020, but giving a protected first for Terry Rogier that year.

I'm so glad you brought that up because it's

what

I mean, I don't even know what happened.

Like, obviously, there's been this like vague gambling probe hanging over him that, you know, has never led anywhere yet.

This is

like a complete for him to turn into a zero.

Like you have a first round.

I liked that trade for them.

He was averaging 20 plus points a game for the Charlotte Hornets.

Now, it's the Hornets.

Someone's got to score points.

But he was like a good NBA player and just vanished completely.

Like what a catastrophe.

It has not

gone how they thought it would.

to and you know i yeah it's like i'm not i don't mean to hate on terio rogier i didn't ex i didn't see this coming but I think more fundamentally, it's about, you know, one of the

great organizations really know what they are, who they have,

and what they're, they're realistic about their limitations and they're realistic about their goals and what is attainable.

And I thought at the time of that trade,

I didn't think Miami was like, like, that was very marginal to me in terms of an upgrade to give up that type of asset when

I didn't think like they want to win the championship, right?

That's like the type of, that's what it's in their head.

And then their defense, they have a track record at that point of making that trade-off, like, oh, we get really far in the playoffs, even when you don't think we will.

Very fair.

Very fair.

And I think that was the year Jimmy got hurt, right?

If I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, Jimmy got hurt.

And then, you know, and then it all went south from there.

Jimmy talked about how, you know, we're going to win game two and we're going to win the series.

And if I had been there, this and that.

And Pat Riley told him to be quiet and blah, blah, blah.

Right.

Well, and that kind of speaks to my point, which is, I mean, much more significant than the Terry Rogier fiasco is the handling of Jimmy Butler.

So, I mean, this is, and a lot of players around the league have kind of talked about this openly with how Pat Riley treats players.

And

I guess I don't want to say like in an antiquated way, but

some don't

smile upon it, I guess, is what I would say.

And

so, like, that could have obviously been handled better in various ways, particularly if you, I mean,

you just underestimated a guy who you should have had a better understanding of in terms of his motivations and all that sort of thing.

So,

I think this is one of the more respected for deservedly so organizations and franchises in the NBA and has been for 20 years.

And if they were to get Giannis

or whoever

this summer, I'm not going to be like stunned because it's the Miami Heat.

If they get Giannis, I would be stunned.

I don't see how that is possible, given what the market for him, when you talk about this, if there is a market, and we're not doing that.

Yeah, mostly speaking figuratively.

But yeah, if they make a move that is the equivalent of the Jimmy Butler trade, where it's like you give up whatever they gave, Josh Richardson and nothing for Jimmy Butler,

I wouldn't be shocked.

But at the same time, I don't expect them to get out of this.

I don't expect them to get out of this, to be honest with you.

And I don't think they have.

We can make the Butler thing about a lot of things, right?

Heat culture.

Did they bend heat culture to accommodate him?

You know, he was staying in different hotels now and then.

Did different rules apply to him for whatever?

And yeah, all that fine and true.

Let's let's just be simple about it.

If they had paid him, everything would be fine.

Like, I don't believe, I believe everything else is just noise.

Oh, my role in the offense changed.

This and that.

That was all, it's all just window dressing to, we didn't pay him.

He got pissed.

He wants his money.

He went to the Warriors and got his money.

He wanted to go to the Suns because he knew that he would get his money.

If Pat Riley had just said, hey, look, I know you missed a lot of games.

We've had a lot of success together.

Here's a two-year, three-year, whatever it is extension.

He'd be on the heat right now.

And the heat would probably still be out, but he'd be on the heat right now.

And by the way, the heat without him, obviously, they got rolled.

Obviously, the way in which they got rolled was alarming.

They just are so rudderless.

They have no identity.

They have lost.

They have lost whatever made them the heat, the cutting, the toughness, the ball movement, the system around it.

Like only when Duncan Robinson starts flying around a hero, they just don't have an identity anymore.

And I don't know what they're going to do do to fix it.

Okay, enough heat.

I don't want to do any parting thoughts on that.

I was just actually, this is a little

random.

I was going to say, you know, Bam touched on what you just said about

the randomness of the offense in the Cleveland Cavalier Series, where guys were just shooting shots and no one knew where it was kind of coming from.

And it didn't feel...

It didn't feel like the Miami heat.

And then my last thing that I wanted to say was this is completely random, but I really enjoyed the Draymond Green deep dive.

And in terms of amplifiers, one of the first guys that pops into my head is Bam Metaballo.

And

it is,

you know, it's a slight basketball tragedy to see him in a situation where he is not in the right role

because he is very, he's limited in certain ways, but he's so excellent in others.

And

he needs the type of player that Jimmy Butler is beside him to really, I think,

he's a better shooter and scorer than Draymond, but really needs that type of player to maximize himself.

Yeah, look, Bam,

everybody knows I love Bam.

He's a winner.

He was not good enough in this series.

17 points a game,

44% shooting.

Not good enough.

Not assertive enough.

It wouldn't have mattered.

And at some point, everybody just let go of the rope.

And he's going to have series where he's not, he doesn't give them enough offensively.

It's also just, it's, this is what Bam is.

He's not, everyone has been, I mean, I remember being in Miami for the finals in 2023 and having debates on NBA Today about, well, that Bam, they need him to score 25, 27, 28 a games.

Like, it's not going to happen.

Like, you need to just, that's just what, not what he's going to be.

And that's fine.

Different players can do different things.

He's never going to be a top 10 to 15 player for the most most part because of that.

He's still awesome, and you just need to realize that.

This episode is brought to you by Warner Brothers Pictures.

One battle after another is coming to theater September 26th.

Don't miss legendary writer, director, and producer.

My guy, Paul Thomas Anderson, teaming up with Leo DiCaprio for the first time ever.

Pretty exciting.

They almost teamed together in Boogie Nights, actually, alongside award-winning actors like Sean Penn, Tiana Taylor, and Benicio Del Toro in this hilarious action-packed adventure following Bob Ferguson, an ex-revolutionary on a mission to find his missing daughter and overcome the consequences of his past.

One battle after another.

Only in theater September 26th.

Get tickets now.

Rated R under 17, not admitted without parent.

Okay, let's do.

I don't love going deep on games that are happening the day a podcast come out.

So let's do quick hitters on tonight's games, starting with Clippers Nuggets.

One thing Michael Pina is looking for or thinking about as we go into the Clippers trying to save their season in game six at the wall.

First thing that pops into my head is, can Jamal Murray do that again?

That's it right there.

That's like the whole kitten caboodle for the Denver Nuggets if they want to win a championship.

He doesn't need to do that every night, but he needs to

hit really difficult shots and

decode and break down all the different things that the Los Angeles Clippers are throwing at him instantly.

And I thought that he was just so, I mean, I thought that that was the best game any individual has played in this postseason

in game five.

And

it was cool to see.

I love when he plays like that.

I called him championship shots in my notes when he makes a long two

on the pick and roll when Jokic is on the bench.

They're tough shots.

They're the championship shots.

They're the shots that help the Nuggets win the championship.

They need enough of those shots to go in because, God forbid, Jokic actually needs to rest for a few minutes.

The one thing I'm watching is broad, and it's interesting that we've arrived in the point of this series when, after three games and even after four games, the Aaron Gordon dunk buzzer beater,

it felt to most observers, including me, like the Clippers had been a better team in the series and that a lot of the variables, it just like they could have been up 3-1.

And now we've reached a point in game five after a fairly easy Nuggets win that got a little dicey at the end, but then undicey,

where it's interesting that the Clippers are now the team that has made the most adjustments, and it's not close.

The Clippers have

tried to play more lineups where they're.

What adjustments can the Denver Nuggets make?

Well, they can't.

I mean, part of it is that they can't make any because they can only play so many, but even schematically,

like the Clippers have,

A, they're playing more lineups with Zoo as the only non-shooter.

So they're leaning into their shooting more to stretch the Nuggets defense out.

They even played a little stretch of game five with all shooters.

No Zoo, no Simmons, no Jones, no Dunn, complete five out, spread the floor for Kawhi and let him cook.

And then they got not, I don't know if they got nudged to this, but Ty Lu has now leaned into the, we're guarding Jokic with Hardin or Kawhi, and we're putting Zubats on Aaron Gordon and

digest that.

Now, knowing Ty Lou,

he may go the other way to open game six and just say, you're prepping for that.

We're not doing that.

We'll spring it later in the game.

It felt like the Nuggets overthought

the entire process of countering that because there were just not enough possessions where they just said, how about we just give the ball to Jokic with James Harden on him?

Um, and we know why they're doing that, they're not the first team to do it.

There was the infamous like Rui Hachimura has solved the nuggets after one stretch of one game, the Lakers lost Hachimura on Jokic.

Um,

or just the Minnesota Timberwolves and their existence, and well, the Minnesota Timberwolves at least had one thing going for them, they were gargantuan across the board.

The Clippers are not gargantuan, um,

and I, I, you know, we'll see if that happens.

It just, it's, it's just interesting how we got to a place where the Clippers felt like the stronger, deeper, fresher team.

And then you blink and they're down 3-2 and they're trying a lot of stuff.

And the Nuggets are just like, we're kind of just doing what we do.

And we don't have a lot of choices.

Like, hey, Peyton Watson, can you give us six minutes, eight minutes, nine minutes?

Russ, can you just like hold the red?

And Russ made a ton of shots in game five.

It just, it's interesting.

I'm interested to see where that goes.

Okay.

I don't know who's going to win tonight.

I picked Nuggets in seven, so I don't even know how the hell they're up 3-2.

I don't still don't really know what happened at the end of game four, but they won.

So I could, maybe I don't know.

I'll stick with Nuggets and seven.

One thing you're watching for the Pistons Knicks Slug Fest combined score, Knicks plus five after five games.

Pistons very impressively stave off elimination in New York.

One thing you're looking for tonight?

I think that, you know, going back to the

conversation we were having about Halliburton,

I've just been so impressed with J.B.

Bickerstaff's commitment to making Jalen Brunson work on defense, which is something he did not do a couple years ago when he was the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Did it a little bit?

I thought he could have pressed that button a lot harder and more frequently in that series.

But he has Cade Cunningham now, and he didn't have Cade Cunningham then.

And I think Cade has been tremendous.

You know, not perfect turnovers or whatever, but his decision-making in the pick and roll when

they go at Brunson in a variety of different ways has been pretty excellent.

And I want to see Brunson's general mobility

and the ability of also

whoever he's guarding, if it's Tim Hardaway Jr., if it's Asar Thompson, to really, really capitalize.

And I thought both of them have done, it's been up and down,

but

they both impress me, I think, generally.

So that's what I'm looking for is Jalen Brunson's defense.

You mentioned the Jalen Brunson, who is he guarding dilemma.

Similarly, by the way, I should have mentioned with the Clippers.

If you're taking Chris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr.

off the floor, the who is guarding Jamal Murray question becomes urgent for the Clippers.

Sometimes it's Batum, sometimes it's Kawhi.

Like that's something to watch.

Jalen Brunson, it's a very interesting choice the Knicks face.

In most of the core lineups that are going to be out there for the Pistons, excepting some Schroeder possession where he guards Schroeder or Beasley.

It's a pretty stark choice between, in some lineups, between Tim Hardaway Jr.

and Asar Thompson.

Where are we hiding Jalen Brunson?

And there are pitfalls to both, and you can see them exposed if you watch carefully.

Obviously, Tim Hardaway Jr.

is a shooter.

If you're guarding Jalen Brunson on a shooter and you're hedging the Cade Cunningham, Tim Hardaway Jr.

picking roles, you're putting yourself in rotation.

Like Tim Hardaway Jr.

is going to pop for three.

There's going to be help there.

It's going to be downstream effects from that.

So put him on Asar Thompson.

That seems safer.

Asar Thompson kind of just sort of exists on offense.

The problem there is he hangs out near the rim a lot.

And so your last line of defense is Jalen Brunson instead of Josh Hart.

And the Pistons can make hay out of that.

And if there's one thing I'm watching, and maybe it's boring to watch, maybe it's the television show we know the outcome of already.

I don't think Katz pick and roll defense has been good enough in this series, considering that the level of opposition is not like this is not like an all-world offense.

He got torn apart for stretches of both game four and game five.

And the Pistons are making him think they're hitting him with a screen ahead of the Cunningham During pick and roll.

So someone will knock him near the foul line and get him behind the play.

Jalen Duran has been real cagey.

It's a good Jalen Duran series.

He's had his up.

I shouldn't say that because he's minus a lot, but he's had his ups and downs.

But offensively, I think he's proven himself a pretty cagey passer screener.

And he's doing something where he's flipping the direction of the screen at the last second.

And so it's like I'm going to set a screen to Cade's right.

Oh, no, it's to Cade's left.

And Cat just can't keep up with it.

He's lunging the wrong way every time.

He's wildly out of position, which just Cade turns the corner.

Other people have to step up because Jalen Duran is rolling open to the rim.

And that's how Asar Thompson gets dunk, dunk, dunk.

Just as an example, game five,

Cat was minus 12 and Mitchell Robinson was plus nine.

And I thought that was a game where those numbers actually reflected how they played.

For the series, when Cade Cunningham and Duran run a pick and roll and Cat is defending Duran, 1.22 points per possession for the Pistons.

When Mitchell Robinson is the defender, 0.571 points per possession for the Pistons.

So that's what I got my eye on because Looming, if healthy, is the second most explosive offensive team in the NBA, in the Celtics, who get to lick their wounds and wait

for whoever wins this series.

And at this point, I picked Nixon five.

I thought they would have an easier time with Detroit than this.

Detroit fans will very correctly point out we could easily be going for the closeout tonight if that call had been made on the Tim Hardaway three at the Buzzer

in game four.

It wasn't.

I don't know what's this is a game.

I got no feel, no feel for this one.

Like, absolutely no feel for what's going to happen, other than it seems like it's going to be close and nasty.

And Tobias Harris is going to be yelling at people.

I love this.

Uh,

and

I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm very excited.

This series has been fun, and I'm very excited to watch it.

Yeah, I had Nixon seven.

Um, yeah, you're closer to right on that.

If this ends, Nixon six, that your prediction wins over my prediction,

and you know, I

think Cade is the best player or has been and maybe is the best player in the series.

I don't,

I have to maybe think about that a little bit harder, but I just love Cade.

And I love Asar Thompson and I love his defense full court pressure on Jalen Brunson.

I think that's made a big difference in this series.

And I think that we're eventually going to have to rename the Dunker spot to like something after the Thompson Twins because they've expanded like the diameter or the radius or whatever of wherever the dunker spot is supposed to be on a basketball court.

Like they take off

and dunk it from like outside the paint.

It's just, it's so it's there are there are rim run,

there are drives where they raise up in traffic, both of them.

And they're like still going up.

and like changing, like moving the ball around in the air as defenders who jumped after them are going down.

And it's like,

I almost want, like, Pistons fans aren't going to like this, and I say it as a total joke.

Can we get them on the same team at some point, or would they just overlap so much that it wouldn't work?

I just want to see what it would be like to have two Thompsons playing together in the NBA.

Obviously, they've been together before at the same time.

But you mentioned making Brunson work.

I'd like to see the Knicks make Cade work a little bit more on defense.

Now, Cade's a decent defender who's big and strong, but they started going into some Ananobi Brunson two-man actions.

I would just like to take the starch out of him a little bit.

Yeah, that's a good call.

I will also say what's really impressed me about Cade is how comfortable he is going at Mikhail Bridges, too.

Like, he wants that matchup.

The only guy he doesn't want is OG for obvious reasons, but he'll get Cat coming up.

He'll get Mikhail on switches.

He'll wave Mikhail's guy over.

If Mikhail's on him, he'll wave away a teammate teammate who, who is, Tim Hardaway Jr.

has Jalen Brunson on him, he'll wave him away.

It's like, actually, no, I like this matchup.

So I just, I like that, I like the whole team's moxie and the fact that they're doing this without

Isaiah Stewart, who is one of the most important players throughout the regular season, is super impressive.

And he brings a whole lot of moxie.

Moxie, yeah.

To put it lightly.

So, so yeah,

I have really no feel either for this, for this series, but I would like to see the Pistons win at home and force this at game seven.

By the way, not everything can be a referendum on everything else, but

if the Knicks ever lost this series or if they struggle to win it and then get destroyed in the next round, and you're mentioning how Cade is like pretty comfortable with Mikhail Bridges,

wouldn't it be like an awesome combination of events for the Knicks to be, again, way behind the measuring sticks of the East?

With Mikhail Bridges having an up-and-down postseason, I think he's had a fine season.

Like, I'm not going to this sort of five first-round picks that's going to be in Anvil over his head.

That was a fairly unusual set of circumstances and it overpay for sure, but it also fairly, every trade is its discrete entity in terms of timing, identity of the players, all of that.

Um, but the combination of him being just okay

and the possibility, like, what if Minnesota gets farther than the Knicks and Randall keeps playing like this?

It's just going to be interesting to see how we get to the end of the Knicks season and think about

how do we actually feel about this core of players?

How do they actually feel about this core of players?

And if it's not as awesome as we had hoped,

is there anything to be done about that?

Because there's this fanciful idea that, well, Kat's contract is here because we can trade Kat for this player and that player and the guy in Milwaukee, whatever.

Kat's contract is like a big,

it's a big, it's a big thing.

But again, they're up 3-2.

I picked them to win the series.

I think they will win the series.

6-7, I don't know, but they'll be massive underdogs against the Celtics if they do win this series.

And the Pistons would also be obviously massive underdogs.

But interesting games tonight.

Clippers Nuggets has lived up to it.

It's been strange,

but it's lived up to it.

I'm hoping the Clippers win and we get a weekend game seven in that series.

But we'll see what happens.

Michael Pina, any parting shots here?

No, I appreciate you having me on again.

I will say that I got a lot of feedback from the

viewers and listeners about the Nikola Jokic poster that is over my shoulder when I appeared last time as we were talking about the MVP.

And Oklahoma City Thunder fans didn't really appreciate that.

And I will just say that it is a gift from my wife.

And the only thing she let me hang up.

My wife.

My wife, yes.

I'm not going to do that voice.

But the only, my lovely wife, very

wonderful.

Only thing she let me hang up in her home.

So it's going to be there.

And I love Jokic and it makes me happy.

So I can't wait.

I got basketball, but people can't really see the amount of basketball stuff.

I've got a jersey here, a jersey here, a thing here.

But Oklahoma City fans, I don't know if you can see there.

That's a Dort license plate right there.

Oh, wow.

After my lobbying that they should make novelty Dort license plates, they actually made one for me and he signed it.

And that's in the background there.

So, Oklahoma City fans, you get, you win some, you lose some.

The Thunder just sitting back and chilling right now, waiting for their next team.

Michael Pina, thank you, sir, and we'll talk to you soon.

Thank you, Zach.

All right, thanks for listening.

Everyone, we'll be back on Monday morning, per usual, on the Zach Lowe Show, looking ahead to the second round of the playoffs, digesting whatever happens over the weekend, big off-season questions, all the usual NBA chatter as the playoffs get deeper and deeper.

The Zach Lowe Show, thanks for listening and tuning in.

Must be 21 and over and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over and present in D.C.

Gambling problem?

Called 1-800-GAMBLBLER or visit fanduel.com/slash RG.

Call 1-88-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland.

Hope is here.

Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York.