Denver Survives! Suddenly Dramatic Playoff Weekend Alert With Rob Mahoney

24:01And so, the cascading effect to all the other Nuggets, those are guys I expect a little less of. Michael Porter Jr. kind of like needs to give them 20 to 30 playable minutes. And we're going to see if that's possible for him in Game 7 or not. I watch a lot of Nuggets. And Westbrook, there can be like he's chest out, maniac, screaming to the crowd, Westbrook. Or he can be, I'm in my own head, Westbrook, which we've seen at a lot of different end of the seasons. I don't think he's looked the same the last two games. I'm not even talking about how he's playing. And I really wonder if that Ramona Shelburne story in ESPN was a bad thing for him.

24:39Interesting. Because he's looked the last two games. As you know, I'm the body language doctor. I graduated in 1998. Do you have to recertify your boards or something? No, I just got the diploma. I just put it up. It's over there. You're done. Yeah, it's over there. I just think you should keep up with the most recent research on these subjects. You should have to go to a conference or something. Maybe I should go take a psychology seminar every once in a while. His body language the last two games felt a little last year on the LeBron Lakers-ish to me. Uh-oh. Or Clippers playoff-ish, just a little off the rails and not.

25:13I thought one of the cool things about, especially in the Clippers series, was he really brought energy and charisma and personality and passion and seemed like the teammates were in. You have these stories where you have unnamed teammates taking shots at you. I don't know. like he's a human being like if you read that or hear about that all of a sudden you have eyeballs in the back of your head but I thought it was I just think there's a strange vibe to him I don't know if the playing in OKC I think that part's also weird where he's you know the most popular OKC player ever he leaves they immediately replace him with a more popular player and a better team and you know it seems like he's got even in the first couple games of the series I felt like he was really taking that personally now he feels more like Clippers series last year, train wreck Russ, then additive Russ.

26:03The tricky thing with him is like, you want to give him credit and be forgiving of the energy he plays with, right? Like he is attacking these possessions in ways that is like undeniable and is valuable in series like the Clippers one at points in this series as well. But you're seeing a weird tension point with him, specifically with the Thunder, where the Thunder want to get out and run so badly. And Russell Westbrook wants to both drive and hit the offensive glass so badly. available. And he's going and he'll miss a lot of those opportunities. And great, those are opportunities he's creating out of thin air with effort.

26:34But then he ends up on the ground and two other nuggets are trying to hit the offensive glass. And now all of a sudden you have three on one for the Thunder going the other way. And so you have this like push and pull of, yeah, you want those energy and effort plays, but maybe not all the time and maybe not consecutively. I think end of the game was perfect when he when he broke the press and that was the clinching play of the game, basically. That was big. First quarter, he comes in, and there are like five straight rust possessions. Turnovers, misses. I think he gets to the free throw line one of those times.

27:03I swear that's happened 10 times, where for 90 seconds, it's the worst 90 seconds you've ever seen in your life. It's like four plays in a row where you're like, oh my God. Yeah. He had four turnovers and two missed layups in this game, in 16 minutes. You just have to hope that it offsets at some point, right? That the other plays swing the other way, and you get enough good rust to counteract the bad rust. but they're going to have to ride him regardless. He's going to have to play significant minutes in Game 7. He's going to play a role in Game 7. Hopefully, he does a little bit better on balance than he did in this one because I thought this was a rough, rough performance.

27:35OKC favored by 8 in Game 7. The case for them in Game 7, if we're going to play both sides, almost like how I would do for a football playoff game where I'm like, all right, if this team wins, here's how I think it goes. If this team wins, this is how it's going to go. If OKC wins, Shea will get his 31 to 33. Figure a solid to very good Jalen Williams game somewhere in there. Chet's probably in the 1911 range. Yeah. The key with game sevens, and you saw it last round, there's always a weird guy. There's a Grant Williams hitting six threes. There's Christian Brown in game seven who just catches fire from three.

28:12There's always a role player who has an awesome game. And OKC has a lot more candidates for this than Denver does. I mean, we could pick, you could go Lou Dort, you could go Caruso here. You can say Kaysom Wallace is going to come in and hit five threes. It could be one of those dudes. They're up by 18. Defense kicks in. And they're just comfortably ahead. I think if Denver wins, it's the classic. Jokic plays 44 minutes. They have the lead most of the game. They're up seven with nine minutes left. They're rolling the ball in. He's just killing clock. And he does that thing. He's literally the best ever at it.

28:50of, I'm going to kill, I'm just going to shave seconds off this clock even before the 20. I'm going to make this a 35 second possession with all the, I think Murray has to come through. I think Brown needs to hit threes. Westbrook needs to be additive, not subtractive. I don't even, I'm not even going to say we need a Strother, Watson. I'm not expecting that. I don't think those guys show up. They need five guys. And I think Westbrook has to be one of them. What do you, what do you think? Five guys makes sense. I could easily see this being a Denver game where only six players for the Nuggets play considerable minutes.

29:23One of them, as we said, being Russ in addition to that starting five. On OKC's side, I am fascinated by the J-Dub element. I think Crusoe is someone I just don't bet against in games like this. Lou Dort, I really respect the way Lou Dort will fire. He's being challenged to hit shots. That's going to go whichever way it goes, whichever way the wind is blowing. His confidence, though, does not get shaken. And I think Oklahoma City needs some of that in this game, Sav. I feel like part of the issue with J-Dub and Chet both, you've seen both of those guys over these last two games airball throughs.

29:57Like, bad, bad misses. And you've seen a lot of Thunder players up and down the rotation, like missed dunks, missed layups, like very makeable stuff for them. Of course, if enough of those plays swing, they're going to win a game like this one. But moreover, they just need guys who are going to have nerves of steel. Like, I trust Shea in those moments. I trust Lou Dorton Caruso in those moments. I trust Isaiah Hartenstein in those moments. I think even though Jokic is having a Nikola Jokic series, Oklahoma City just isn't in this at all, I don't think, without Hartenstein playing him defensively the way he is.

30:29Wearing him down to the degree that one can has been so important. But I think they just need that kind of nerve that you're going to get from Jamal Murray. And on the Murray side, he almost was a scratch in this game because of an illness. Is Jamal Murray feeling better in 48 hours? Or is he at the start of something that's going to get worse in 48 hours? I have no idea. If I was a coach, I would plant those. I don't know if we're getting Jabal today. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see. Game time. And then Jabal's fine. Okay. He certainly looks fine. He's like, you're about Jabal? He's not going to play.

30:59Yeah. I know you said Chet's not guarding Jokic, but I still feel like he's one of the two people guarding Jokic, even though he's not really guarding. You know what I mean? Yes. Yeah, for sure. They're basically double. And Caruso is the other one. And so is three. And then there's the 10 Jalen Williams minutes. So I think Jalen Williams has outkicked his coverage in this series. It's been pretty solid. Yeah. Been a little feisty. One of the things with the Game 7, you know, some guys just, they just shrink from the moment. And it usually happens with the younger teams or the role players. Or like even, I know it wasn't a Game 6 yesterday.

31:37It was a game, or not a Game 7, it was a Game 5. But the role players can go sideways. is like you have like the Struis goes 0 for 9. Ty Jerome doesn't look like Ty Jerome anymore. It's funny. It's funny to hear some of the dialogue about that. I thought Indiana was just clearly better. And it's like, well, Cleveland had all these injuries. It's like, I don't know, did they? Like their role players fell apart. Were those guys hurt? That part was true. I think Garland was definitely a little hampered, but so they should lose in five and get killed in a couple of the games and just roll over at home in a must-win game?

32:11like that's because Garland's toe hurt? Like there was way deeper stuff going on with them. And I thought Indiana kind of broke them as the series went along. I think that has to be Denver's goal in Oklahoma City. It's a young team. Can you break them? Can you make them doubt themselves? Can you be super physical with them? And you have this just monolith at center who needs two guys to stop them at all times. And can he just elevate everybody? Nothing against them. That's definitely the model. Yeah, like the mental game has to be a huge portion of it for Denver. In the case of a Nuggets win, it is wearing them down.

32:45It is putting enough pressure on the Thunder where they have that second or third quarter swoon where they just go completely off the rails. I just think with OKC, that's pretty tough to do generally unless you see kind of, even in this game, like they weren't hitting shots, but I thought they stuck to their process. I thought they kept executing on defense. Like they are who they are for a reason in terms of their dominant regular season and the Nuggets who they are for a reason in terms of their ability to pull out series like this. And so I think the Thunder are a tough team to take off the tracks.

33:14I think that there are going to be times where, yeah, they show their youth more than others. I would be shocked if OKC gets like really shaken up to the point that they just fold. That just doesn't really seem to be in the DNA of this group. You know, when I went to that game four of the Clippers series, which was just the best game I've seen in eight years, and the Nuggets came out, it was clearly like a game seven for them. and they had all these things they wanted to do. And one of them was Gordon was just going to really, really attack Kawhi 94 feet and was really aggro physical. And Jokic was just a maniac yelling at the refs.

33:48And I think if they come out that way, I think they can win. I think if Gordon comes out, like I'm taking Jalen Williams out of this game. I think I can get into his head. I think I can bang guys around. I think I can control the boards with Jokic. I think we can get the rebounding advantage. I think we can talk shit. You get Murray talking shit. I don't know. Even though they were the champs two years ago instead of one year ago, I hate playing teams that have been in a lot of games like this. Of course. This is it. If OKC gets through this, they win the title. I just don't think anybody stops them if they win this game.

34:24I think that's what it is. I'm not sure if Denver is definitively the second best team or not, assuming that Oklahoma City is the best, if these are the top two teams or not. but if Oklahoma City can survive this then they are unquestionably good enough to win it all I mean I thought that regardless I picked them as my choice to win the title coming in I maintain that I think they will pull out game 7 but this is what you gotta do to do it I mean this is nut crunching time of the highest order a game 7 against the Nuggets and they're gonna have to prove it every possible way Indiana versus OKC if that ends up being the finals it's pretty good finals I love Indiana.

35:05I really think they know who they are, and I think they're really hard to play, and I think they're not afraid of anybody. We'll see what happens with that. All right, audible quickly to Celtics-Knicks. Yeah, how are you feeling? Tomorrow night. So, you know, I potted with Jacoby right after the game, and then I zoomed through the game this morning, and it was really interesting how different the Celtics were without Tatum. you know, when you, when you remove like all the points and the fact that he was the best rebounder on the team and he had the ball so much, how they kind of changed their style to play without him, which I think I realized when I was watching real time, but I didn't really catch until I watched it again.

35:43Um, they just played with more pace and it was intentional. There was more cutting. Um, and they did some stuff that I think is bad for the Knicks defensively because I don't think the Knicks, I don't think Towns wants to run back. I don't think he wants to worry about fast breaks. And I don't think people, they want to worry about back cutters and all the stuff the Celts were doing. The amazing thing though, is I just didn't know Jalen Brown had that game in him. That was awesome. Like basically doing a Tatum impersonation, but a little bit better in some ways because he brought the ball up faster.

36:18I think the biggest fault I think everyone has with Tatum is he's very deliberate and he'll walk the ball up and he'll just decide what to do. And there'll be eight seconds left in the shot clock and he'll get in the offense. The Celtics yesterday were like, go, go, go. Let's go, let's go, let's go. That was one thing. And then the other thing was Porzingis was just so bad, which we talked about last night. And then you look at the stats for the series and he's played 82 minutes. He has five field goals. He's like a minus 27 for 100 in his rating. And he's such luggage that I think just not playing him, I feel bad for him.

36:52He's like, Mazzola said he can't breathe. Yeah. But he kind of needed to bottom out like this. He needed to be so bad that they had to take him out. And they did. And they benefited immediately from the Luke Cornette minutes. And even if they play Kata, who I think, I was talking to my dad about this today because my dad likes Kata. And Kata's, you can only play him against certain teams. But Mitchell Robinson is the type of center that you can play him against. He needs to be against big guys that are near the basket because that's what he's good at. He's got long arms and he can defend the rim.

37:20So I think if you replace the Porzingis minutes with Cornette and a little Kata, they're just better off from a math standpoint. And then if they keep playing with pace, then you're putting at least some pressure on the Knicks. Because the real thing is the Knicks aren't playing well. They're falling behind 14 in every game. I looked it up. Bridges has zero free throws in the series. He's shooting 39%. OG hasn't done anything in four games. Towns has two threes the whole series. Brunson and Hart and Robinson are the guys playing the best for them. But the door's open. So if the Celts can play with pace and hang around, maybe.

37:59How do you see it? I appreciate you talking yourself into it. I'm not talking myself into it. I'm talking myself into the case for it. Okay, that makes sense. Keita is not going to save you. I want to put that off to the side right now. Over the corpse of Porzingis? I think the answer is neither. I think, to me, the takeaway from this last game was they just need to be comfortable with some of those smaller looks, like the three guards plus Jalen Brown plus one of the bigs. that was a pretty successful formula. And so as much as you can stretch those guys out, and that's going to be a lot of...

38:30Rob, we knew this before the series. That time was going to be a good lineup. We knew the two bigs, maybe it was a mistake. I think it works sometimes, but not others. Not in the series. Yeah, this is not the time for it, unfortunately. So yeah, I think whoever between Horford and Cornett is kind of better in that moment for the lineups on the floor. That's all great. And then otherwise, you're just trying to stretch out the guard minutes as much as you possibly can. you're also hoping for another like Derek White explosion which he's certainly capable of and is just one of the best shooters in the league so I'm never going to put that past him but the combination of incendiary Derek White game one of the best two-way games we've seen from Jalen Brown in quite some time a good Peyton Pritchard game a great Luke Cornette game like that's a lot of ifs that have already been stacked on top of each other just just to get here.

39:16Drew Holiday second half yeah like that the best he's looked in a while yeah they had a lot of guys playing really well. For sure. But the Knicks have a lot of guys not playing well. And that's the case. It's like, hey, these guys are trying to give us the series. We keep taking 14 point plus leads on them every game. Like, let's just kind of bang it home. Yeah, White's not going to go 7-13 again. Can they patch together Porzingis played 12 minutes? So Cornette's going to get those 12 minutes. Yeah. If he gets in any foul trouble, tired, whatever, then you're looking at Horford. If Horford looks tired, then some Kada, some backup, I think over Porzingis.

39:57Yeah. I think KD's got to be out of there. I don't think they can win the game unless Jalen plays close to where he was in game five. Yes. I think that's the one necessity. It's incredibly hard to do. Like he played with a level of calm and precision that is not a staple of his game. Did you think he had that in him? Because I did not. I've never, I mean, we've obviously never seen that level of playmaking from him before. This is a career high. So the high watermark is there. But just in terms of the way you approached it, as you described, where there's like an urgency to the way he's playing, there's a force of the way he's playing, but he really never felt out of control.

40:32And the Tatum contrast that you highlighted, I think is really interesting because you're right that he can be a little deliberate. And when you're winning, when you're going to titles, when you're having an incredible regular season, that deliberate pace feels like confidence. And when you're frittering away leads or you're blowing these games against the Knicks, it feels a little too delicate. It feels like a little too indulgent in terms of getting the offense set up. Like sometimes you just have to get out there and play in flow. And you have to understand that like with where the Celtics are, they can't leave anything out there.

41:01Like they can't leave anything on the floor as far as like options, easy baskets, quick transition, like quick striking plays. They need all of that shit. And so like they have to go fast and they have to play some more offensive oriented lineups relative to the two big stuff that we were talking about. Like they have to have that sort of Jalen Brown. And clearly he's capable of it, but asking him to do all of that again is a lot. I just want to say that. Well, and to rebound like they did in game five, because that's the other way. The ways this goes wrong is the Knicks control the boards. One of the two guards gets in foul trouble.

41:34Bridges, Oren and Obi. Yes. Catch fire offensively at least a little bit. I don't know if Towns... The rumor is that his hands hurt, and that's why he's not shooting threes, but Towns having two threes in five games in the series is just weird. Yeah. He was somebody that routinely would have two to four makes in a playoff game, and now he doesn't make anything. So, and there's a Deuce McBride coming in. I thought those were really good Deuce minutes, honestly. And they desperately needed that. He's had some real cold stretches in these playoffs, and so getting some positive momentum for Deuce, another team that just needs rotation players in the worst way, And one of them is Mitchell Robinson, who is in some cases getting fouled off the floor, in some cases going six of six from the line.

42:21We salute you, Mitch. They're desperate for bodies. Yeah. My dad said yesterday, my dad was there and he said, uh, the crowd was just awesome. And Jalen Brown said that after the game, he said he thought it was like one of the best crowds of the year. And it really meant a lot to them that, um, instead of being like, Oh, the season's over Tatum's hurt. All these people showed out and we're like, we're not losing. And they really fed off that. And that's what, when you have this series and the generations of fans that both teams have, you would think the same crowd would be there for the Knicks, but the stakes are a little different.

42:58The Celtics won the title last year. The Knicks haven't really had anything good happen to them since 1999. And, you know, this is, this would be a catastrophic 3-1 loss to be up with the best player in the other team going out. Everybody's already sinking in the next round. All of a sudden it falls apart in game five. now in game six, you're down to eight. The energy of the crowd will be really interesting. I think the crowd will be great, but it's also insane. It's going to get super nervous if this is actually a game. I agree with that. And you can see that, look, from a Celtics perspective, this game five, you're coming off of this catastrophic franchise-altering injury.

43:39There is a little bit of like a pride that kicks in, an adrenaline that kicks in, a collectivism of like, you got to go out and like make your group proud and your fans and your city, however far you want to extend that. Not in our house. It's a moment, right? Like the response game after the Tatum injury is a moment. Now all that energy has dissipated. You let down a little bit. You did the thing where you proved everybody wrong. You had this impressive game. Do it again at MSG. I think it's going to be just incredibly challenging. I think that place is going to be rocking. I fully expect, like I fully expect the Knicks to win it, to be honest with you.

44:15I just think that they're good enough. I think they will get enough from the OG-McHale combo, or if you want to extend it again, OG-McHale-Josh Hart. Two of those three guys have to have some kind of offensive game for them to win, usually. And I think they're going to get it in this one. The counter is the last six halves we've played. The Knicks have played one good half. Right? Game four, second half, they were incredible. I mean, that's in the running for best half anyone's played in the playoffs. I think they were 30 for 45. Yeah. shooting. They were just lights out, flame shooting out of their ass.

44:50They were awesome. So they have it in them. You didn't think their first, like the first half of game five, I thought they were pretty good. Yeah, they were pretty good, but it's, you know, when Josh Hart's making threes, it's like okay. I mean, sometimes you lose because Josh Hart made three. That's the way it goes. I was happy every time he took a three. I never thought they were going in. But I thought game four, they were just getting every shot they wanted, the ball was moving, and the crowd was just electric. The Celtics, people forget because Tatum got hurt, but they were about to go down nine in that game.

45:24They lost that game when Tatum was incredible. Tatum was on his way to a 50-point game, and they were going to lose anyway. So, do the Knicks have that again in them? My guess would be between game six and game seven, they're probably going to have one good game left in them. Do I think Jalen Brown can do that two more times? That seems more far farfetched. It does seem more farfetched. I think anybody would love to see it just in terms of any great player reaching those kinds of heights again and again and again as the games increase in stakes, as it becomes harder and harder to do it. That would be a Jalen Brown coronation moment for a guy who just came off a finals MVP.

46:00That would be incredible. I just don't see it. I don't think he has that much in the cards. Can I make the case? I would assume you would. I don't know if I see it either but here's the case and I've followed him for nine years and I really do think he cares about all this stuff and cares about his place in the hierarchy and really is one of those I'm not appreciated enough people don't realize how good I am he won the awards last year and even then it was like he didn't make the Olympic team you know Kawhi got sent home they called in Derek White there's always a lack of respect thing with him which I think is somewhat genuine it's Tatum's team team Tatum gets introduced last Tatum gets hurt season's over and I think the guy that I saw in game five was like you know and I Tatum and Brown love each other like it has nothing to do with the injury it's just like this is my team too I'm gonna fucking protect our house I really felt that in that game can he keep it going for two more days I have two more games I don't know but you know we do the ringer 100 he's always in the top 25 it's not like he's chopped liver like he's a really good player.

47:09He's an all-star. And he's somebody that is capable of having games like he had in game five. I've never seen him be that patient, be that good with the ball. He only had two turnovers. He actually could dribble the whole game, which was uncharacteristic. He really led the offense, and it was a side that I just... You see it sometimes when they'll restate him, and it's like, oh, Jalen Brown gets his own game, and he gets to run the offense. But, you know, if you're talking about guys who have the most to gain in the playoffs the rest of the way, if he could somehow bring the Celtics back and beat the Knicks, people would think of him in a totally different way, I think.

47:46I would agree with that. And I think as far as bigger statements go too, Jason Tatum has a long road ahead of him in terms of his rehab. And the Celtics have a lot of decisions to make as far as what this team is going to look like during his absence if they need to make radical changes sooner than later. I've been in some dark places, Rob. Understandably, it forces you to ask some really difficult questions about the construction of the team. If those questions start from a place of, holy shit, Jalen Brown just did something we didn't even know he could do. He occupied a role for our team. We didn't even know he was doing at that level that consistently.

48:19Okay, then we're getting rid of some of the darkness. You know, we're staving off a little bit of it. I think a lot of those questions still remain, but they become a little bit simpler. I said that to Jacoby last night, and I really meant it. he was so good in that game yesterday that I think it reminded people because the instinct when Tatum goes out and you think next year is done, I'm just like, all right, maybe it's time to trade Jalen Brown and break it up and try to do the quick rebuild for a year and then Tatum comes back. But then you watch him in a game like that last night. It's like, I don't want to trade that guy.

48:48No, this is, you know, one of the best 20, 25 players in the league and he's in his prime. What are we trading him for three quarters in the dollar? Why would we do that? Then the other thing, and this is what I mean by dark places, researching Achilles surgery and all the different times. And if you, if you do it in the morning, it might add three months, really might shave three months off your recovery, which is what they did. They did the surgery in the morning. Wait, in the morning it shaves time off your recovery? Yeah. Cause the whole, I guess the whole mindset and I think this is, somebody did this, maybe it was Kobe, but they found out about it.

49:22Um, it's before the swelling kicks in. If you do it as close as possible to when the injury happens, it saves three months of rehab. So they went, they sprung the next day. I'm just telling you, these are the deep dives I'm doing. How does it affect if Mercury is in retrograde? I think there's a lot of conditional factors here we're ignoring. I don't know what to tell you, Rob. They didn't have to get on a plane. It's bad to fly before the surgery. It's bad to go up and down. That makes sense. And the longer between the injury and when you have the surgery, there's less blood in your leg and then it swells up.

49:56So anyway, they did it in the morning and they felt really good about it. And now they're thinking like, shit, maybe he can be back in February. This could be a nine month injury. I will believe that when I see it. That's ambitious. I feel the same way. But I think the difference with him and like Kobe Bryant and Aaron Rodgers and some of his other people is he's 27 years old, he's in the prime of his career, he's going to heal faster. And they really do feel like they did everything. They got the best possible doctor. they did the surgery within 12 hours of the injury and they feel like it it went as well as it possibly could have gone so who knows so if you're thinking like and this guy's also a maniac like he will you know they're gonna have to like stop him from going too far and going going too hard and trying to rehab too hard so anyway if you feel like hey can we hang around in the East, which is going to suck.

50:47And could he be 90 % of what he was in April? And, you know, I don't know. I don't think he's going to be 90 % of what he was in April. I think that's too much to put on him. I think you're right. But where I was yesterday versus where I was today, at least I'm like, hey, maybe he'll be back in April. Yesterday, I was like, my whole decade's over. What are we going to do? We're getting rid of everybody. So I don't know. It's still as bleak as it could possibly be, but it's not, you know, when I hear nine months versus 18 months, I'm like, okay. It's true. We got you off the ledge. I can't also like knock the drink out of your hand.

51:23You know, like we're just trying to cope here ultimately. And I support you in that effort. Yesterday was hard. Yesterday was a harsh day because there was no information. Yeah. And then it's like, is this worse? Is it like torn ankle ligaments and an Achilles? It was just not great.

52:06Before we go, Do you feel better or worse or the same about the Minnesota Timberwolves? I think mostly the same, oddly enough. Look, anytime you're getting to the conference finals, especially in consecutive seasons, that's an incredible accomplishment that has nothing to scoff at. They did it by being the Wolves in every possible respect. Completely overwhelming in some moments. Like, completely baffling in other ones. And I say that, you know, Julius Randle included as part of that, even though he may well be the best player in the world or the second best behind Ant in some moments. Those guys are capable of incredible mistakes and miscues and passes that don't make any sense.

52:43They're also capable of just bullying you and overwhelming you with scoring. And collectively as a group, their defensive acuity and the precision and the effort that they play with, I'm so impressed by. So I would say I was kind of feeling this way about them down the stretch of the regular season. They're like, okay, they were really pulling together. Julius Randle, this has been a building momentum now for a couple of months consecutively. and so they've been that kind of team. The question is, are they going to play the kind of opponent where all of those mistakes are going to catch up to them?

53:11This is something we were talking about on group chat too where it's like, they kind of know how to play the Nuggets. I'm not so convinced they know how to play the Thunder and so the fact that this thing is going to a Game 7 and will be a quick turnaround into a series for them, they could have to figure out how to address OKC very quickly. I feel slightly better because of Randall's now put together a little resume here. It's tremendous. What's crazy is like during the Lakers series, I went to a couple of those games and he was doing really well in the Lakers series. And it's like, ah, well, it makes sense.

53:43You know, LeBron, LeBron's 40. They don't really have a backup, but like he was kind of attacking. Sometimes it was smaller guys. His team was a good matchup for him. Yeah. And then you watch Golden State. You know, Draymond was guarding him. Yeah. We just saw what Draymond did to like Alper and Shang-Goon and locked him up, right? I don't know if I've seen somebody that comfortable against Draymond. It was alarming, honestly. And then they're throwing Kaminga at him, but he just had his way. So then you start thinking, okay, so what's the bad matchup for him? Because it seems like he's bully balling basically everybody who is from 6 '9 and under.

54:23So then I start thinking about them against OKC. I guess they would go double bigs, maybe. Maybe. Maybe they throw Hartenstein on him. That would be fascinating. I think they could probably get away with that in that matchup, right? Just because Rudy and Chet feels more viable. And then obviously for Denver, I think Aaron Gordon is a pretty good physical matchup. That's probably the best for him, yeah. But as you just alluded to, Draymond's a pretty good physical matchup. And he was just getting blown off his spot every time Julius dipped that shoulder and was just getting right into the lane, getting to easy looks.

54:51The combination for Julius Randle, and this has always been in his game, he was just doing a lot of wayward things and taking a lot of bad shots that were counteracting this stuff. He's nimble in a way that basically no one as strong as him is on offense. Like the way he's able to move and change directions very quickly, in addition to being that burly, an incredibly rare combination to have short of like LeBron James. Well, the other thing that's happened, there was always a weird, ah, should Nas Reed be getting these minutes over him? And what's their best lineup? And then that kind of shook out organically, I think, over the last month.

55:26And now Nas Reed is a bench player again. and Randall and Gobert and the fact that they can keep Gobert on the court, we'll see if they're able to do that against OKC. But I don't know, they're really good. And I'll say one thing with Edwards, he will feel like he's the best player in an OKC series, even if Shea is the MVP of that series. Very true. I do wonder, are they one of those teams that just kind of ebbs and flows with the opponent? Very possible. So it's like, oh, we're going to beat Golden State. They lose game one and they stunk. Right. I think that's the counterpoint is game one. And maybe it's like Steph leaving kind of takes the air out of it for them, but they weren't playing particularly well when Steph was in that game.

56:07Yeah. I don't know. I do think there is some of that, right? I think it's true of a lot of teams, especially one that's like Minnesota. We don't think of as a young team, but there are a lot of players in that group. They're still relatively early in their careers that are quite emotional as players that you could see the let, like the letdown of having Steph taken off the floor or having a subpar opponent. change the way that they think about attacking or kind of just like put the back on their heels a little bit where they're not quite going as hard as they need to. That's a group that has to go full bore to be as dominant as they ultimately want to be and as we've seen them be at their best moments in these playoffs.

56:42Did your Butler stock drop for you? A little bit. Game three was his game and they couldn't steal it. And that felt like he threw all his eggs into that basket and then he was a no-show in the last two. It's another one of those like, what do we expect? you know like he kind of is this guy where he doesn't want to have to score 30 he that's not the way he would prefer to play basketball and so when he's kind of forced to kicking and screaming dragged into it he can't just do it game after game after game and we saw even in his best case scenario by the end of that game he was kind of out of steam like he didn't really have what it took to finish it it's it's hard work putting up 30 plus and closing and bring like every crucial basket down the stretch specifically in a game like that where the Golden State role players weren't exactly all carrying their end of the bargain either.

57:27And so Jimmy Butler is a great second best player on a team behind Steph. Like a great match, a great fit. I think they're going to be in a great position going into next season. They need to make some minor addresses to the rotation, ultimately get another team that needs a couple of more rotation worthy guys. But I love the way Jimmy Butler fits. I just don't love him as the defining option of a team without Steph. Well, the good news for them, Kamega now is signing trade potential. it's the one winner of the playoffs for them they now know they can trade him for something you think there's like enough proof of concept there for somebody to bite like yesterday he had yeah he had like 23 points in 29 minutes you know put him on some of those teams in the east and just kind of let him loose I don't know I would take a chance if you're a GM of like let's say you're the Pistons GM You're like, we're probably not going to get a massive free agent, but could we get one more scoring forward?

58:27Or you're Charlotte, or you're the Wizards. The East, I mean, this is a whole other story. What's going on? If Giannis gets traded to the West, this is another thing with Tatum. Can Tatum come back in April? The East is going to be awful. It's going to be like Indiana and New York. That's it. It's going to be nobody else. Maybe Orlando, maybe Detroit. It's a nightmare. I mean, you're seeing Indiana, New York seize on these opportunities, right? And there's going to be another version of that next year when somebody else gets injured or as we're saying, like maybe the Celtics will be at the highest end of that mix.

58:59Maybe they won't. I get why somebody would talk themselves into Kuminga. I think you phrased it the right way. It's, are you looking for a scoring forward? Because if you're looking for an athletic do-it-all forward, you're going to end up with the guy who's going to average like 16 and a half points and get two rebounds a game, despite the fact that he's 6 '8 and should be able to outjump everybody, but just does not. So if you can calibrate your expectations accordingly, that he will run the floor and run some possessions and put up some points for you, I think Kuminga can absolutely be that guy.

59:29Can he be anything else? I remain a little unconvinced. The case against him, and I think that's a strong case, is he put up stats and they got their asses kicked in those games. It often happens, unfortunately. And it's like, all right, he was out there a lot and they were losing by 10 to 15 every game. Yeah. Maybe that's something. All right. So your pick for OKC Denver is OKC. I'm going to take OKC as much as it pains me again to vote to pick against Jokic, pick against Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray. Like those are guys that you want to ride or die with in games like this. But I think the Thunder have enough and I think we're going to see it.

1:00:02We're going to get a moment from them in response. I'm going to make a rare semi cop out, but not totally a prediction. Are you allowed to do that? OKC either wins by 15. OK. Or Denver wins. That's two different predictions. but I think it's one or the other I don't think it's like a close game that I think OKC either comfortably wins and I think if it's close I think Debra wins so kind of a Celtics situation if it's close the Knicks have won those games and if this game is close the Nuggets would win this game you're saying yeah that's what I'm saying I could absolutely see it Nicole Jokic in crunch time is as good as it gets who are we to stand in the way of Aaron Gordon and one more potential game winner Clearly, he has it in him.

1:00:46I'm really going to miss Jokic. My daughter was asking, because I was reading for Denver, and she's like, what'd you bet on Denver? And I was like, I didn't bet on this series. I don't need to bet on Jokic. You bet your heart. It's just my heart. The Nuggets have my heart. I don't need to have money on them. I just want them to win. I like watching them. I don't want them to go away yet. I really enjoy it. They might not. We maybe have more Nikola Jokic left in this run. I like watching him unlock this fucking hornet's nest defense of multiple bigs throwing at him and these little gnats coming behind him and him just trying to navigate it and figure out what to do.

1:01:18I'm going to miss it. All right, Rob Mahoney, when's your next podcast? God, I don't even know. I think we're delayed because normally we do group chat on Saturday nights. Our first no playoff game day this coming Saturday. So we're moving our group chat to Monday. Wow, we might have to spend time with our loved ones. I don't even know how to do that anymore. I'm a shell of a human being, but I'm going to try to drag myself out of my apartment. What's your number one TV show right now? I think it's still the last of us right now. Although Poker Face is coming in quite strong. I'm enjoying the start of that.

1:01:47Oh, okay. Poker Face. Yeah. There you go. All right, Rob Mahoney, great to see you. Thanks to everybody who hung out with us on the YouTube stream. And thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. And I will see you on Sunday with Rosilla. We're going live after the OKC game. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, Bill.

1:02:12I don't have feelings with him.

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