Coming up, two game sevens. We got to do two parts, Nick's Pacers and a bunch of other stuff next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where we have a new episode of the Rewatchables coming for you on Monday night. We did Back to the Future, too. It is me, it is Chris Ryan. Special guest, Cousin Sal. Oh, yeah. I think this is like his third Rewatchables ever. Yeah, it's a really good one. We will be running eventually on the YouTube channel, the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. I hope you subscribe to that one. The whole podcast will be on there. Speaking of Ringer podcast, Fairway rolling, Joe House, Nathan Hubbard, who's brother, was in the top five after two days at the PGA. That ended as we were actually taping this podcast. I'm doing the intro after. Xander Shoffly won a dramatic... He fought off Beefe and Bryson at the tail end, made a clutch birdie put, and congrats to him. It finally happened. Listen to House and Nathan break all of it down on Fairway Rolling, a great golf podcast. Coming up on this one, part one, me and Ryan Roussel are going to talk about a very sad ending to the next season, a very happy continuation in the Pacer season, what the Knicks might do this summer.

Then we dove into OKC in Dallas, the tale of two teams and how they handled the trade deadline and how it manifested itself in a really fun series to watch. That's all next part one of the podcast. Part two will be later, later tonight, Denver and Minnesota after that game. This is part one. First, our friends from, Come to LA, Pearl Jam. We're taping this. It is 3:13 Pacific Time Sunday. The Pacers just crushed the Knicks. Where do you want to start? Indy, greatest game seven shooting day in the history of basketball or devastated day for the Knicks franchise?

How about this? I was expecting the Knicks to come back, so the Celtics faced the Knicks without Brunson with a broken hand.

I did have thought. Burks made a shot, and it got down to 12. I started getting ideas. I was like, This is great. Imagine that happens. I give up trying to understand game sevens anymore because this was the exact situation with a young team that we already saw look during the headlights in game five. And you figure MSG, crazy crowd, Knicks, they're going to get all the calls. I thought for sure the Knicks were going to win. I also thought OJ Adenobi was going to be able to play 25, 30 minutes. I thought Hart was healthier than he looked in the game, although he was given his best. And Hartenstein was a sneaky injury that I felt like the announcers didn't mention as much. So it was a compromised Knicks team. At the same time, the shot making from the Pacers was, from in the get-go, awesome. I think that's the best they can play, and they did in a game seven in MSG.

Yeah, they set a record, or at least the last 50 years, Kurt Goldsbury had to tweet out 101 points through three quarters of a game seven, most in the game seven in the last 50 years. After the first quarter, they were at 78%, and it actually went up to 81%, so they were 22 or 27. Halliburton, who I was a little worried about because of how bad he was in game five, he took nine total shots, and there were still two drives in the first quarter, specifically Basically, the second one where he was at the rim, and he just pirouetted in the air and threw it out. I'm like, Whoa, dude, what is going on with this? Because he had a couple of those plays in game five where I'm thinking, that just means you're just not comfortable once you're inside the paint. If anything, just take it and see if you get fouled. You're their best player. You have to go aggressively there. Then he finishes the quarter with 15 points. Yakem got off to a good start. They couldn't miss. They couldn't miss. A huge credit to a team that I had I had no idea, just like you, what to expect.

I was probably leaning towards, I don't know, man, some game five hangover stuff in there, and it wasn't even close. They were a completely different team.

Yeah. I think in-season tournament, stupid, but big game exposure with a big crowd, big audience, some pressure. Then I think that game five really helped them. Watching this game today, how bad they were in game five, and they just didn't understand the urgency of the game. I thought Halliburton, we talked about on this podcast, was a little deer in the headlights seat. Reading the stories about Carlyle coming out of that game, how he hammered them, made them watch the tape, all the loose balls that he didn't go after. I thought this was a great coaching job by him because they came out with a pace. He was clearly like, Andy Noby is going to play. He's not going to be 100%. Hart's not 100%. Brunson's banged up. Let's just go. Press the pedal. Go, go, go. If we're going to go out, let's go out like how we've played all year, which they did. And then they started making shots. You mentioned some of the They'd scored 39 in the first quarter, which was the highest in a game seven since 1998. At various points in the second quarter, they were 22 for 27 and 29 for 38.

They finished halftime 21 for 26 from 2 and 8 for 12 from 3, 76% total. It was the best playoff shooting half in 25 years. Then even end of the game, they finished at 67% for Cilla. I went back and I looked up the best game seven shooting percentages ever. The number one was Phoenix in... It doesn't say what year that is, but it was 61% against the Lakers. Okc was at 60.9, and Boston against Atlanta in 88 at 60.8. So nobody had even done 62%, and they did 67%. Now, some of that has to be the Knicks where Precious is two of a two-a-plan a ton of minutes. Berks is out there a ton of minutes, Hartenstein's compliment. You could tell the Knicks weren't flying around, but still, just from pure shot making, pretty crazy.

Yeah, and then TJ comes off the bench and makes everything. You could sit there and talk about the offensive part of it for the Knicks. It wasn't bad. It's not like their totals were necessarily bad at the halfway mark, and Brunson was still around. But we touched on it last week, you're not usually going to be successful as great as Brunson is. This is an incredible run. It's almost like in a storytelling version of it, fitting that his hand broke because you couldn't keep asking this person to physically do this and carry this team.

His shooting hand broke, too. Even better, just for the narrative. It was important it was the left hand.

Just to understand, too, obviously, I don't. But if you were writing out some story and it's like, Okay, he's going to play so hard that he actually breaks his shooting hand, you're not really built. Teams are not built to do this and be successful in the playoffs. That's what makes it this miraculous that we're even talking about a game seven. Who knows if he's still out there? A couple of calls go their way. They got two quick fouls. The Pacers did at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and I was like, Oh. I actually meant to ask you, can we add... Conspiracy Bill, if we're going game seven, nick Celtics love that market, what happens? Does this one not exist as evidence that it doesn't happen?

I was banking on it. I thought for sure. It's tough, though, because when the Pacers are just making every shot they take, I think it's tough to give some 50-50 calls to the other team. It never really came into doubt because it was so clear so early on. But yeah, Conspiracy Bill was very focused on that.

I just like to keep track of the ones where everybody will be like, game seven, MSG, Sunday afternoon, Boston, two markets. And then it's like, Pacers are now in the Eastern Conference finals. It's just weird, too, because making the Brunson point of if had come back, and then the Celtics get the Knicks without Brunson. It's like, okay, but on the other side, too, look what the Pacers have done. They faced Milwaukee with no Giannis and Dame, who missed two games. O'g, who was a non-factor. And you're right. When you saw him in the beginning of this game, and I know O'G takes... There's some stuff that came out when he had missed a bunch of games. It's like, he's in no hurry when he's like 50/50 to come back and play. So you're like, is he really going to do that? When he came out, you're like, okay, this guy is really hurt.

When he made He made a couple shots, and then they showed that wide shot from behind the basket of him being unable to shoot over on an open three when the Pacers had transitioned. They made it 1610. I wrote it down because I was like, Oh, he can't even jog to the right spot. He was just incapable of quick burst for eight feet. That was when you knew he was to come back.

Yeah, him making the second shot was all I needed to see. Because it was like, he took this fail Mary shot because he Actually, he couldn't get into his shooting pocket or whatever he wanted to do from that spot. It's like, I might as well just go straight up and turn around and see if this goes in. Then you watch them off the ball, and then they subbed him out right there, like six minutes to never be seen yet. That was it.

Time out, came back. When I mentioned the hottest shooting teams ever, it was the '06 Suns who had the record, the 2014 OKC, which was that great Durant team that really probably could have made the finals, and then the '88 Celtics, the last bird, Mikael. Run, and then the '05 Suns. So two of the top four were Nash Suns teams, which the Pacers play a little bit like. But I was so impressed by Hallibur in this game. I noticed the same thing you did when he kicked it out that maybe the second time, I was like, Oh, if they can get back.

It was the second one.

If they can come back, maybe he'll get tight. But he went the other way. He started talking shit. When the guys start talking shit... Now, Tyson Furies is an example the other way. If he was talking shit, and then he got absolutely tagged, and all of a sudden, he was talking no more shit. But Halliburne, as this game was going, once he started talking to the courtside guys, I was like, Okay, he's good. I don't know what happened to him in game five. I don't understand it, but it's water under the bridge now.

Yeah, I think development-wise for him, the comfort level, I know we'll get to it, but I look at SGA differently, even though they lost that series. I look at SGA differently now, and it's a huge compliment. For Halliburton in this series, I know there's just been a lot that's gone on in his story for '23, '24. But as I was walking around today thinking about this game, I'm just going like, I don't know. I was like, Man, I hope I don't see that again. I hope I don't see him on the road. But they came out, they didn't miss any shots. So all of it was easy. It was never like a point. They got it to six at one point, and I went, Oh. And then just like that, it's like another 8:0 run. So there was never... Dallas and OKC had these extended stretches of those games because it was so tough at times where it was like, Oh, it's eight points. And then it felt like three days went by. It's like, Now it's six points. This game had two maybe moments If there were fires, they were immediately extinguished.

The big moment midway through third quarter, 77-70. Nick's got to stop with a little over six minutes left. Deuce had the cross-court pass turnover. Miles Turner, three, back up to 10. Brunson turnover, Tyrese lay up, five-second violation, bringing the ball back in. Neesmith lay up. It was 84:70 in under a minute. That was the next chance because the crowd was getting back into it. I wanted to see the Pacers put in a position of, Okay, you guys are going to get tight here? And it went the other way, and they were awesome. There was one point my buddy Hinch texted me, Neesmith, Nemhardt, and McDonal were 17 for 18 shooting at one point in the fourth quarter. When your bench is doing One of the things I liked about this Pacers team was that when McDonald... Mcdonald is the rare bench guy that comes in and just could not be less afraid and relished the moment. But it was nice to see my guy, Neesmith, who Brian Barrett texted me. He was like, Boy, it would have been nice if Neesmith played in the 2022 finals. Still a sore spot for the stealth loser Celtic fans like me and Brian Barrett.

I think that's a big- Eme Barrett, Neesmith.

I don't know. That's a big assumption. Neesmith was going to the difference against the Warriors two years ago.

No, just saying. It reminded me that they couldn't get him off the bench. It was a fair point.

Think about that exercise, though.

You're projecting that you get- This is what I knew with losses, Rusillo. Don't take this away from me.

You get 24 knee Smith, who up until, I don't know, it felt like for a week plus, I was like, Yeah, what happened on this guy's shooting? I think he watches Tom Emansky fouling videos, but they're put up by Kat. It's like Kat Emansky.

This offseason. From Tom Emansky and Carl Anthony Towns.

How to always be in foul trouble. Yeah, whatever. We're making some... But he was good. He was really good. He started seven at seven. What else can he ask for him? On top of there was some clear... There was two big coaching things throughout this where you were like, How come they can't get Burks a few minutes? And clearly, I don't know if the series goes the other way. If Tibbs is willing to trust a guy who actually has been around as a consummate pro. I had another team texted me while it was happening, being like, What the fuck? What's he doing? Yeah. This is stupid. If you know anything about Burks, he's been around enough that he's not going to freak out. I mean, as much as I love Miles McBride, he had a layup attempt today. We were like, Dude, have you not looked in the mirror? You weren't going to finish this layup at any point. It's hard to really point to anything other than when the other team shooting like that and Brunson goes down. What did anybody expect?

Birks has one of those jump shots that he's like the guy in pickup. You just can't believe it's going in. There's just no arc at all. It never goes in clean. It hits two, three parts of the rim. But when he started making it, he made a couple of those in the second quarter, and it was exactly what the Knicks needed. The Knicks got to 55 points in the first half, which is a nutty total when you think no Randall, barely any Ogie. Hardenstein wasn't getting any offensive rebounds. But going back big picture for the series, though. If I'm a Knicks fan, I'm torturing myself about all the ways that God hated us, basically. The Nemhardt game 3-3 is the first thing I'm going to think of when I think back in that series because they could have been up 3-0. That three was ridiculous. The whole play broke down. He was 31 feet from the basket. He lost the ball. He was one for six for the game. Nobody in the arena, literally not one person wanted him to take He made it, and Halliburton put his hands on his head, walking to the bench like Thomas Hill, the Thomas Hill, Christian Leightner game style, just in disbelief that it went in.

If it doesn't go in, I think the next win, they go up three nothing for the series, and no team in the history of basketball has blown a three nothing lead. To me, it starts with the Nemhardt three. The no show in game five was weirdly important because it allowed Carlyle to basically kick them in the ass. Then Oji starting and not being able to move, I think was big. In retrospect, I wonder, do you think they should have maybe brought him off the bench, used him as this lurking boogie man that you don't know where you're going to get? Because it was one of those things where they started him and within six minutes, it's like, Okay, well, he's not going to be a factor.

My guess would be whatever stuff they do pregame to get him ready, then they don't want him sitting on the bench for six minutes. You have to get him going.

Yeah, makes sense.

He couldn't move. I mean, there was a cut off the ball, and then there was another three where the one cut, he was screen, but he just was stuck. And then the other close. I mean, look, everybody watched it. I think he deserves credit for even trying to get out there.

Can we do the big picture on the Knicks fan base? The most lovable team they've had. I don't think that, personally, don't find the Carmelo, J. R. Smith, Tyson Chandler team. I don't think there's going to be a lot of Knicks fans bouncing their grandkids on their laps telling them about that team, even though they were successful. Raymond Felton. This was the most beloved Knicks team since the Cambi team. Then you think, I don't remember another basketball team just getting decimated like this as the play-offs were happening. Pretty unusual. You lose Randall, you lose Mitch, you lose Bogdanovic out of nowhere. Ogie gets hurt. Hart in game six, who was one of their super hour guys because he just played 48 minutes a game and it was like, Oh, no, he's fine. No, Tib's these guys, they're just conditioned to do this. Then he goes out. Difincenzo was the only one who didn't get hurt. But I just think if you're a Knicks fan. Small picture, that sucks. Thought we had a chance to play Boston. Big picture, the way the East was set with all the injuries you mentioned earlier, you're probably not going to get a better chance with this unit unless you make a trade, unless you can add a big ass piece to what you already have or some substantial piece, because next year, the East is going to be better.

I don't think this team, as constituted, I don't think it's realistic. The overachiever team is going to be probably less of a successful gimmick next year. Orlando will be a year older. The Celtics will be just as good. Milwaukee will be back. Philly will be different, but not what they were this year. They're going to have to do something, basically.

We talk about this a lot, and I do think it's a good exercise of how far a team makes it and then just like, Okay, is that who you think you are? Maybe Dallas getting there for a second time in three years puts more stock into them making the Western Conference Finals a couple of years ago. They beat a Phoenix team that on paper was statistically better than the team that had been in the finals the year before. They just humiliated them and took their souls, and the thing's never been the same since. But if you're thinking about the four or five best teams, I don't know that any of us really had Dallas in that group, but now you look at what they did this year and you're like, this feels way more real as a Western Conference Finals participant. So that depending on which way it goes, depending on who you get, feeling really good about their chances, no matter who they play against, just because they have a lot of pieces and it's all come together, the defense has been better. It's like, going into next year, I'll think about Dallas differently.

With this year on the other side of the Boston line, I don't know what I would have thought about the next. Well, I guess I could tell you what I would have thought about the next Pacers is that this was mess. It's a mess of a conference. And, you know, Boston is going to have all of this time off, and their starters are rarely going to have played together throughout all of this time. And we know the standards that they're held to, But do you look at the next differently going into next year? Will you look at the Pacers? Now, granted, who knows? Maybe the Pacers shock the world here and take the East. But based on what we've seen so far, it just was last man standing. And I'm not sure how much that'll change my ceiling thoughts on some of these teams.

One thing that's cool, and I don't know why teams don't do this more often when they're at least in the vicinity, was they made that Seahakam trade, right? They gave up a pick and they gave up some stuff. I was like, Okay, that's fun. They're pretty good now. They can potentially sign him long term and make him one of their three best players. He was really good in the game today, especially the first quarter. I thought he had real purpose and was trying to punish whatever the matchup was. In general, he's been in some big games from his Raptors days, and he was the one guy they had, unless you're going to say T. J. Mcdonald, who had at least been in some games where the hair in your arms are going to go up. But I look back at that trade and I feel like a lot of teams could add Siakam, and a lot of teams talked themselves out of it for a variety of reasons. I don't even know really who else was in that mix. Then he was like, Fuck it, we'll go get him. He's a top 60 guy, and he played really well today.

It makes me think like, if they're being aggressive like that, I would expect them to keep staying aggressive. Whereas, what does Cleveland do? Cleveland, to me, I don't know what's going to happen with him. It seems like Jared Allen is going to get traded, and it seems like Mitchell is going to get traded, and they'll rebuild around Garland, Moby, their shooters, and then whatever they get back in those trades. But that's a wild car team, and I think Orlando is a wild car team to me the East. I just assume the Knicks are going to go all in on somebody.

Orlando will have to be better. I would just be shocked if Orlando isn't better. I don't think Franz is going to be just a bad shooter all of a sudden. I think this year, I'm not telling you, he's Steph, but they have the cap space. They'll probably overpay somebody and get aggressive just to go ahead and add him. Cleveland has to break up the Mobile 8 Island thing. They have to. I don't know if it's a bit of fool's gold.

It sounds like the Garland Mitchell thing, too. If the reports were correct, that Clutch was basically like, Mitchell staying, you got to trade Garland. Publish report.

Yeah, no, you're right. I'm just trying to think, what would you rather do? Keep Garland or Mitchell?

I would keep Garland and Mobile, and I think Allen has real value that they could get a real piece back and maybe even a pick. Then I would trade Mitchell because I don't think he's going to stay. I just wouldn't believe him. I don't think he's going to stay.

If he said, Hey, I'll do the extension extension, you'd be like, Okay, but what does that mean? We're just going to do this a year from now.

Because he said that, though. He has not said that yet.

No, he hasn't said it. I'm just saying, What if he came to you and said, Okay, fine, I'll do the extension?

Would you be like, Okay. Under the Ryan Marcila rule of they're going to do the extension, and then a year later, be like, Get me the fuck out of here. I don't know. I don't know if I would trust it.

I just have to see what those other... We're all in love with trading all these guys. But I want to get back to your original thing on Siakim because I think it's worth diving into a little bit more. When the trade first happened, I was Okay, well, do you know that you're keeping him? And the word was, they knew that they were keeping him. So then when you look at the pieces, you're like, Okay, that's a no-brainer. I haven't always been the biggest Siakim fan because I think one year I had him... It may have been him and actually Donovan Mitchell is the last spot for an All-MBA team. But that's still, even whatever you think is wrong with Mitchell or whatever you think the limitations are for Siakam of closing a big playoff game, I think the franchise, maybe it's probably fan bases even more than franchises is just, okay, well, who do you want? You want somebody in the seven to eight range? You want somebody who's a top 10 player? So if you're the Pacers, you go, hey, we'll never probably get Siakam in free agency. So let's just go ahead and do this now.

And let's figure out if he's happy with our place and wants to sign here. And the price really isn't that bad. I don't think teams get enough credit for being way more practical about the player they can bring in. If you're Indiana, that's probably the best you would do.

I think we talked about this when it happened. There's 30 teams in the league, which means there's 60 top two player spots, which means you want to at least have two in the top 60. We do this Ringer 100 exercise that we vote on, and I think we did the last vote in April. I had Siakam as the 41st best player in the league. There's no context other than just rank the players. Right now, who do you think are the best players? They had number 41, and I had Halliburton at number 20. They have two of the top 45. Then you get some luck in the conference. Then you get your bench to show up. Then you have a really good coach, and all of a sudden, you're in round three. I think the one thing we've maybe learned from this year is that there's so much talent now that you can maybe sneak into round three. We're going to go through some of the stuff Dallas did that I didn't agree with half of it. But guess what? The I had Luca, they leveraged a bunch of different assets, and now they're two rounds away from winning the final.

So, yeah, when you look at the big list and you think like, the guys I had after Siakram were Jared Allen, Brandon Ingram, Trey Young, Jalen Green, Scottie Barnes, Darius Garland, De Rosen, Schengen, Drew Halley. Then you get into the '70s, all of a sudden you're looking at Grayson Allen and Terry Rozier and Jada McDaniels. It drops fast. So I like that they did it. I think they deserve a lot of credit for how they built the team. They didn't do that Turner heel trade. When everyone was trying to bully them, it's a trade in them, those two guys for the two first. They made a really smart Halliburton trade. The Neesmith, like getting Neesmith for Brogden, that worked out. A lot of their stuff worked out. They could have traded T. J. Mcdonal at any point this season to a team that needed a point guard that kept them. So they did a good job. And I thought Carlyle was outstanding in the series.

Yeah, I didn't love how late he went from Nemhardt to Neesmith because I just felt like it was obvious.

But at least he fixed stuff that wasn't working. We'll see some coaches just stubbornly be like, No, this is what we do. I like how he fixed 6 and seventh.

Yeah. You're right, though, because Turner was weird because he was available forever. And then- Forever. Because I remember when the Celtics had the Hayward signing trade possibilities, there was like, Okay, well, if it were Pacers because there was some interest there, can Turner then be flipped somewhere else? Then it was like, yeah, the trade market for him isn't really that good. They didn't just want to give him away. Look, they've done this without Matheron, who I know is probably a little too Single-minded at times. But man, if you need somebody to come off the bench-He's a rational confidence guy who would have helped in a game like today.

Yeah.

Yeah, because if you had other guys, like Siakam comes out in the third quarter and misses everything, which I think is still... I think Maybe it can be a little predictable with the way you have to defend him. And if Ogie had been healthy, then I think the Siakam story is a little different, even if I like ultimately the trade for all the reasons that we just brought up. I thought it was really interesting that Kulabali was like, he's easy to defend. I was like, Oh, wow.

I'm like, maybe- Yeah, that was one of the rare interesting player podcastings. Wait, we got to take a break. I want to keep talking about this. Let's flip it forward to the Pacers who are now somehow in the final four playing the Celtics. Looks like we're not going to get poor Zingas for about two games. Who do you think the Celtics were waiting for by the time we got to game seven, knowing Ananobi wasn't healthy, knowing Hartenstein was banged up, knowing Brunson was banged up. I mean, come on.

Brunson breaks his hand.

Are you saying before we do that? No, I'm saying before game seven.

I still think it's the Knicks. Yeah, I don't know. I think this team looked worn out, which is understandable.

Yeah. Well, when you're playing at the pace they played just to pull out that Philly series and then just to be in the position to be in game seven in Indiana, plus everything they did the second Half of the year. Based on just ball movement- I mean, that's sustainable.

Ball movement alone, if you're defensively, Boston, going, Hey, we have more big guys to throw at Brunson. We can go Drew, we can go Brown, we can even go some white Tatum. And then Hauser will come in and get switched to him twice, and he won't get past Hauser for the two times. And everybody's like, Oh, that's right. He doesn't suck on defense. So it would have to be New York. I would rather play a team that as great as Brunson is, say this guy's taking 30 shots a game. Okay, well, let's see what happens. They've been on this physical, grinded out pace now for a couple of weeks. Because the Pacers, you have to be locked in. They swing the ball, they move, the guys drive. There's a lot about their offense that I like, and there's not really a zero out there offensively.

I was texting with Doc Rivers about them, and he was saying they were the best team in the league at defending the first half of the court before you get in your offense. He said this before the next game because he thought they were going to give Brunson trouble just putting Miles on him as he brought the ball up. I thought they got better at that as the series went along. By the time we got to game seven, even before Brunson got hurt, they were harassing him before he got the ball. They were harassing him as he dribbled the ball up. Turner would come up to mid-court, basically, to double him. So he had to think about that. And it felt like over and over again, they weren't even in their offense until the 14 second mark. It's the stuff that Celtics seem to take three, four games in a series to even figure out how to do little wrinkles like that. So we'll see if they can do it. Before we get Celtics Pacers, big picture on the Knicks. They have 24th and 25th pick this draft. They have all their own first. They have a top 13 protected Detroit first that the protection just dropped for the next three years after that.

They have a top 10 protected Washington first that drops to a top 8 and 26. And they have a Milwaukee first that's one through four protected. They have the ability with the Bogdanavich contract, they can team option that, put 20 million on that, they can add contracts to it, they could get nuts and put Randall in there. They have a lot of options. I really think they're going to get Mikael Bridges as the big target. I think that's who they want. I think they're going to try to overpay because I think they want those four Villanova guys together, and I don't think they want a major star. I think they want somebody like that. That'd be my prediction. Who else do you think they would potentially pursue?

Do you think the Nets would do that with New York?

I think if it's a 120 cents on the dollar, I just don't know why you want Mikael Bridges if you're going nowhere. That's a guy who should be on a good team. On a team like that, unless you feel like you can get Mitchell or Devin Booker, which they're not getting Devin Booker. Now you start talking yourself into Brandon Ingram and people like that, which is not going to take you very far. If I were them, I would trade Bridges for more than his worth and just start over with my Phoenix Picks and whatever I got with the next thing. But that's just me.

Do you think the 27 Unprotected Phoenix Pick is more valuable today than the number one pick Atlanta has in '24?

Why do you ask?

I just was looking at different trade stuff for Atlanta's pick, which is always an interesting exercise Because I think no matter however you do it, I always suck when I do them with you, too. I almost want to apologize after we tape them because you have more fun with it. Then as I work my way half through the fake trades, I'm like, That's stupid. Nobody would do that.

I like it that you're a glass half empty trade idea guy, and I'm a glass half full trade idea guy. That's why we work so well with those. You're just like, No, they won't do that. No, why would they do that? And I'm like, No, no, here's why they might do it.

I'm a glass overboard in a row boat with no sail, lost at sea. I don't know that... Well, first of all, I think the New York, Brooklyn thing is something you have to think about. And Bridges is awesome. I would love to have Bridges. I think his decline this year was like, All right, cool. You guys want to have Kam Thomas take a million shots? All right, whatever.

Yeah, right.

And when I thought about the Mitchell stuff with the Knicks, all the things in life that you want that you don't get and you should be happy, it just felt like they were finally going to get Mitchell. They didn't believe that there was another shooter. Cleveland comes in and it's like, Wait, somebody else wanted him. Then it opens up this Brunson story where it's like, well, that would have never happened. The most beloved nick since the '90s guys, some would argue even more so, which I think is a little aggressive. Now I don't want Mitchell anywhere near the Brunson thing, even though I default to-I feel the same way as you know. Hey, have more talent, have two on-ball creators. That's what you want. But I think Mitchell is a tough one because I think it would take so much away from Brunson, even if you'd love to see Brunson have another on-ball creator. That's what was so remarkable about this run is like, DiVincenzo can do some things. It's not like you're running the offense through him at any point. Heart's all complementary. O'gee had some incredible moments where even he surprised me. But I think the overall package with him is that you're not going to just let him freestyle for multiple possessions an entire game offensively.

What's that contract for you, by the way?

For O'G, I'm sure that's probably... I mean, it's going to be a huge, scary number. With his injury history alone. I guess I'm always surprised when people are a little taken back when I talk about some of the Ogie limitations on offense, where I'm like, Well, do not... You don't see it.

I think we did this a week ago talking about, I think he'd missed 120 games in the last four years. They dialed up his minutes in the playoffs, and he made it three weeks and got hurt. Some guys just get hurt more than other guys.

Well, that's been his deal going back to college. I mean, this is who he's been.

I always had that joke about LeBron. If he landed the wrong way and his leg came off his body, he would just go over and grab it and put it back on and then be back in the game. Some guys are just wired differently. I love that joke. Thank you.

I look forward to it every time.

Thank you. I think it's the fourth time I've made it. Brunson ends, even though he had a bad game today, he still ends in 13 playoff games, over 33 points a game for the playoffs. It just sucks that it had to end this way, but unfortunately, Personally, sometimes that's sports. Pacer Celtics, 3-2 was the series. They played five times because of the in-season tournament. So the Celtics lost twice. One time, no KP, the other time, no Tatum. Right, because Siakam only played one game. They haven't played in four months, and Siakam only played in one of them, so it's hard to do the season series thing. Just eye test, because I think I watched all of those games. The pace thing is a really good thing for... The pace thing that Indy tries to bring to the table, we're going to play with Pace. We're going to go. It's actually good for the Celtics because that's how they should play. When they get caught up into that, it unlocks some of the frustrating Celtic stuff of like, they're walking up again. Up, Tatum's 45 feet from the basket waiting for a pick for 15. It makes them go.

It's really good for them. It's not great for Porzingis. Coming off a calf injury, the pace would be the fear. But I think it's good for the Celtics. I think just from a talent standpoint, you're basically playing a team with Brunson and a bunch of role players to playing a team that has Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, Derek White, Drew Holladay, Porzingis when he comes back, Horford and a good bench. It's going to probably take Indiana a day just to be like, Whoa. They're playing Tuesday night. It's a tough one. It seems like an incredible break for the Celtics, but this play has taught us to not think anything too crazy.

One thing that has been apparent throughout this, too, is just, especially Cleveland, that he wanted to wear Horford out. Horford felt like he was in everything. Having to keep up with quick guards in a switch and then also figure out how to play two as one with Mowbley.

Mowbley did some really nice things. You went to He went to game five, right?

Yeah, and I was just watching it going, Dude, he's in everything. He's in everything here. Mowbley deserves a lot of credit for some of these numbers he put up, but not having Allen in the way. He was eating for free on a lot of this stuff, too. I would say two things about Probably. One is I still think the way I look at his offense, I was surprised by some of the buckets that he got on his own throughout the series. But there was also a lot of opportunity for his life to be really easy offensively because you'd either have a small guy from the corner coming over to help him on the roll or Horford trying to retreat. When I think about the Pacers part of it, I go, Okay, but is it something where it's better for him because he's not going to have to deal with Turner who's going to pop more on that stuff? Or the Pacer is going to say, Hey, based on what we saw against Cleveland, Turner, you have to be crashing hard off any of these high screens. But then on the other side of it... Go ahead.

Well, this is... The thing I talk to my dad the most about it that series because he went to the games, we just didn't understand this is a series, Boston is clearly going to win, right? Especially when Mitchell gets scratch for game five. I don't know why they didn't experiment with different small ball lineups. He was so determined to just put Al out there and have these big, giant Al minute games. We never saw Tatum playing small ball center. We never saw Berzett as a small ball center, right? We didn't really see that much Tillman. In general, I I think teams are going to try to go small against the Celtics if they're going to play Horford because they feel like they'll try to go up and down on them and just put him in the same stuff you saw on Wednesday. I don't know what he has against Berzett. I don't really understand it. Obviously, we're not there at the practices, but I have liked some of the Brissette stuff, and I think it's worth in a Cleveland series that you know you're going to win. Can we see a quarter of it just to see what it looks like?

What happens if the Celtics go small? What does that What does this look like? The Celtics didn't do enough of, What does this look like? In that they just tried to stay with whatever their system was. I didn't agree with it because I think they're going to get into other team trying to go small against them situation this round or next round.

I agree with you, but I'd still imagine the Pacer's default is going to be Turner and Siakam and then going like, Do we have an advantage there on the glass with some of that stuff? If you're giving those two big guys in, and Prisingis isn't back Yeah, but then I think about it on the other side, the Pacer's defensive options on the perimeter, Halliburne is not good. Mcconnell is a terror, but he's small. Nempart is a big effort guy. But when I start looking at the size difference compared to what you had with the Knicks, that might be your game on wake-up call of like, Oh, wait. All these guys aren't just 6'4 and under.

Well, and they're not going to be able to pressure them 94 feet the way because the Celtics have all these different dudes. I mean, if they see Jalen Brown, definitely pressure him. But Tatum, holiday, White, Prichard, it's just going to be a lot easier. The Knicks were basically like Brunson or Bust bringing the ball up. Anytime anyone Even when Alex Perks brought the ball, I'm really, Oh, no. But the Celtics, that's never been a problem for them. They have a lot of people throw at Halliburton. There's a Neesmith versus the Celtics piece that's going to be fun because He never really got a totally fair chance in Boston. They never really used him correctly. We used to talk about this on this pod a couple of years ago. They just put him in the corner. He clearly was something, but they never tapped into whatever that was. Every time he plays the Celtics, he's a maniac. He could not be more fired up to guard Tatum and Brown and try to go and hit threes and talk to the crowd. He just loves it. It's a pretty nice spot. You'll be happy to know I made a list of the worst teams ever to make a final four.

I'm not going to say the Pacers are on the list. I'll let you decide. 2021 Hawks, 41 and 31 made it to the ECF, lost to Milwaukee in six. Trey Young, Bogdanovic, Collins, Gallanari, Herder, and Capella. 2018 Celtics, 53 and 29, lost to Cleveland in seven. That would Kyrie and Hayward get hurt. They still had Tatum and Smart, Horford, Rozier, Jalen, and Morris. The year before, 2017, Celtics, 53 and 29, swept by Cleveland. That was the the Isiah Thomas season, which hopefully isn't being reenacted as the Brunson one-year season when then all the injuries happen after Horford Marta Lynet, Crowder, Bradley, Jalen. The worst team in the last 20 plus years to make the Eastern Conference Finals, ironically, was the Boston Celtics, who went '49 and '33 in 2002. They lost to New Jersey. I I think you and I met after one of these games. Piers, Antoine, the Batman, Tony Batte, Kenny Anderson, just about washed up, Rodney Rogers, and Tony Delke. They averaged 91.3 points a game in the playoffs for Cillo. 91.3. I think the Pacers had that at halftime. Just a couple more for you. 94 Pacers, 47 and 35, lost with Nixon, seven.

That was basically Reggie and the Davis brothers and Rick Smith, but still better than '02 Celtics team.

Pretty Jonathan Bender.

Right. 87 Sonics. Now we're really talking. Now we're talking. Sweat by the Lakers in the Western Finals. They were 39 and 43 in 1987. Dale Ellis, Tom Chambers, and a young Xavier McDaniel with Nate McMillan and Alton Lister. Somehow they beat Dallas. They upset them in round one in a best of five. They lost the first game by 22 and came roaring back, and all their scores just went off. So That's the worst team since last 37 years. The '87 Phoenix Suns went 41 and 41, somehow made the West Finals, lost the Lakers in six, Walter Davis, Larry Nantes, pretty solid. Then the Coup de Grand. I just did everything since the merger. The '81 Western Finals, which featured the '40 and '42 Rockets battling the '40 and '42 Kansas City Kings. The Kings had their best two players were Phil Ford and Otis Birtson, both hurt. Houston was basically Moses and that's it. That was enough. I think all the games were either taped or not showed. I'm not even sure there's more than one of these games on tape. Houston wins in five, makes the finals and the Celtics kill them. Out of everything I mentioned, are you willing to put the 47 and 35 Pacers in the vicinity of the teams I mentioned, or do you think they're a level up?

Look, a recent memory here, and I'm trying to remember the 40 because I was like, How many games did Moses play that year? And he actually played in 80 games.

Yeah, they were just bad.

Yeah. I thought that 17 team for the Celtics, this Pacers team is way better than that team.

That's how I feel as well. Because that was one of those sweeps that it felt like they were going to lose every game by 40 points against the Cavs.

Look, I still couldn't believe they beat the Wizards. That Wizards team, that was the first page of, What's up with these guys? Why are these guys all like... I used to watch them, and they always had these guys that were willing to bullshit and get into physical stuff, but it was always at the wrong time. It's like, Hey, I want you to show me this toughness when it matters in a huge possession. It was never that with them. And Considering the guys the Wizards had going up against one pencil it in for 30 score, and they lost. I thought that was one of the most embarrassing. The strangest thing is, weren't there even interviews from some of the guys of that group that were like, We would have beat Cleveland that year? It's like, Dude, you lost to Boston, okay?

That team, they were supposed to...

The whole funny thing about the Brad Stevenson thing in the beginning, it's like, I guess this guy's so good, they're going to win games, and we're not actually going to watch them rebuild. So what's going on here? When I think about the Pacers, and even when I think about Brunson this year in comparison to the Isaiah Thomas season, because I brought it up, especially with the MVP voting, this Knicks team is better than that team. That was just an incredible year. They shouldn't have beat the Wizards in the second round. It spoke more to who the Wizards were. And then everybody knew. Nobody thought they were actually going to compete. Even in your rosiest moment, you were like, Hey, no.

So you had to get smashed. So happy they made it. I was so happy they made the Eastern Finals. I think out of all those Celtics teams, I think the '02 Celtics were by far the worst because that was just basically them jacking up threes, and the league was bad. The league was worse. The year before the Sixers made it with basically Iverson and just role players.

It was a game seven with the Raptors in there. If you look at Philly's Path, it's not like they were smashing through everybody. That was one of the weirdest teams constructed ever with the way that they played. And Lair Brown is just like, Look, you can do whatever you want on offense as long as everybody else, the other four guys play defense.

To shoot 30 times. Yeah. And this '02, the Celtics, they beat that Pistons team. That was basically just Jerry Stackhouse jacking up shots with a bunch of rebounders. I think John Barry was on that team, but that team was bad, too. That would have been even worse than... I feel like that was probably the day there.

Didn't Fatale get hurt, too, right before the play house about to start? Yeah.

But the '87 Sonics, I wasn't prepared for I mean, that's the worst record that's made the conference finals. Needs to say, they got swept by LA. The Coutagra, though, is that '81 Western Finals. It's really great. I think the Pacers are better than every team we just mentioned. Now, the 18 Celtics, it's not fair because they didn't have Kyrie or Hayward. But the 21 Hawks is probably a decent parallel to them. They went 41 and 31. They had a guard that was a big offensive creator. They had some good role players. They had a certain style and identity. They took Milwaukee to 6 that year. It wasn't embarrassing.

No, but there's also another factor to that Atlanta run, and that's watching Ben Simmons crumble in real-time.

In real-time, yeah.

Right. So when you watch that Sixers series- The McAlice Ben Simmons. Yeah, right. Every time you turn in and just go, Okay, didn't the Sixers blow three 20-point leads in that series or something ridiculous, too? On top of everything else. When I look at the Pacers, okay, fine, the health part of it isn't compelling, but if they had Siakam for the entire year, if Halliburton doesn't have to fight through everything where clearly he was a different guy with the injuries there. I mean, they won 47 games. They easily would have won 50. This version of this basketball team easily would have won 50 basketball games. I don't think they're on this list.

All right, we got to do a Retraitables. The Retreatables segment brought to you by Workday. Get the whole band together with Workday, pair of finance and HR on one platform for an epic performance with Workday at the core. You make confident decisions faster than ever, and you'll drive flawless business and finance operations with an agile platform that constantly evolves to future proof your organization. Be a finance and HR Rockstar with Workday, visit workday. Com to learn more. I'm shifting us to OKC in Dallas and what Dallas did to get to the final four, which is basically this. They traded Bertons. They got rid of him with the 10th pick for number 12. Okc takes Kayson Wallace. Dallas gets lively. They use a top 30 pick swap to create enough cap space to pay Grant Williams. They then use Grant Williams and Rashaun Holmes and Bertrands, basically, and a top two protected 27 first, and a top two 2028 pick, and a top 30, I'm sorry, 2030 pick swap. And they turned that into Lively Gaffard and P. J. Washington. So a lot of assets, and I didn't agree with, at least the P. J. Washington trade.

I like the Gaffer trade. I didn't agree with the P. J. Washington trade wouldn't happen. A lot of assets for three guys, and then those three guys helped them make the conference finals. So in retrospect, pretty shrewd, Rasila.

Yeah, the lively thing didn't bother me a ton when it was happening.

No, because they got rid of Bertans. It was smart.

No, but I mean, just I The NBA world got really mad about something for 48 to 72 hours because it was right up to the very end. I like when Cuban blew up the championship team, he's like, Hey, this team isn't really that good. It was an awesome season.

You're saying about when they tanked? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't like it.

I know you didn't like it, and a lot of people didn't like it. I'm not necessarily saying, Hey, that's awesome, but it's something where it's like, Okay, fine. Everybody shoot their arrows. Nobody's even going to care about this or remember it. Then when you see Lively running around and playing with the effort that he's playing with, and you're like, Okay, well, that seems worth it. So are you guys going to jump on us for a couple of days until you're distracted by something else and no one's going to remember this down the road? And we just have a guy who at his worst is somebody who can switch.

He's 15 rebounds in a close-out game.

So the Gaffer thing is funny because I couldn't believe why would Chicago not want to stay in the Gaffer business for him? So then that one works. And then that pivots back to the OKC conversation we've had too many times this year.

But it just makes- Well, save that for after we do retrainables. The Gaffer trade was Holmes and a first-round pick they got from OKC to give up a 28-pick swap for Gaffer, and that was it. The question wasn't just why didn't OKC top that instead of giving them the pick to use it? But why didn't five teams top it? Why didn't anybody value Gaffard at a pretty good contract for the next couple of years? You look at everything they did and the grant thing was a disaster, but they got out of it. I mean, they paid to get out of it, but they got out of it. They ended up with three guys who came up huge in that OKC series. That's a good one for the Retradables. Thanks again to Workday for sponsoring this segment, Be a finance and HR rock star with Workday. To learn more, visit workday. Com. Okay, OKC Dallas. Let's try to do this in 15 minutes. Better win for Dallas or worse loss for OKC, if you had to start with one of those two?

The win. I'm positive on this one. Maybe it's because of OKC's age, and it's certainly just a gut punch there to be in that moment where you're up and then you get the call. But Steve Javi did, I thought, a really good job of explaining why it's actually still a foul because he had the ball and reset was then going into a shot. Because I think when the ball is hit first, there's contact after. It can be really confusing for all of us.

I hate the rule. I think the rule should be if you hit the ball first, then you could punch the guy in the face after. It's fine. Maybe next year, NBA. I don't know. I felt like he got the ball.

Yeah.

He stopped it. I don't I've never seen that more than five times in my life.

I like the call because if you're strong enough to hold the ball to stay in a shooting position with it, and then you're fouled after, then you fouled me on the shot attempt. What are we doing? Then PJ steps up, and then obviously, I think you had to challenge it. I think you had to, even though that cost them the time out with two seconds left. Now, all of a sudden, you're like, Okay, great. Then PJ misses the free throw. Everything was really smart there by Dallas at the end. I just think it's so huge for Dallas because of, Hey, is this Kyrie thing really going to work out? I also think there is a Kyrie conversation that we would have had had they lost this series. That it's like, Hey, awesome quotes, but can you shoot more or can you not take off the first 24 minutes every night? It's some cool calculated thing because I don't really understand that. But once he turned it on again, he was really good. But he was taking 11 shots a game going into game 6. So I think collectively for me, Bill, I didn't watch that game last night going, oh, Oh, my God, the Thunder have to be kicking their asses because there were so many moments where you could see why they were losing.

I just think it's a huge positive for Dallas for figuring out the pieces around Luca, the PJ part of it, the Gaffer part of it, the lively part of it, and then Kyrie feeling like much- The Derek Jones part of it. Yeah, right. But then just the Kyrie stuff is... For a season here, man, for a season, this has gone about as smooth as it's gone in years with him. I thought it was well deserved.

Well, We said, the retradables, they went all in on this. They either don't have picks from 27 to 30 or they're the worst part of a pick swap. They went in on Kyrie, which I don't think anybody else in the league was winding up to pay him. No. They clearly were like, We have this window with Luca and we can't fuck around, and we got to do everything possible. They identified the P. J. Washington piece that he was going to come in and be the guy that he's been, which I didn't see it. I didn't.

Well, no one saw him averaging 20 plus.

No, but just being this super comfortable corner three, rebounder defender, tough guy, not caring if he was going to score, selfless piece of a team. Didn't see it. I saw the Gaffer. That made sense to me. Lively being that good as a rookie, especially in a big game where he was dominant down the stretch. They had Rasillo. The last two games, they were plus 29 rebounding. But in the second-halves of the last two games, they outrebounded OKC 50 to 28. There's some OKC stuff. We have to go in there with that. But they had 16 rebounds in the fourth quarter of game 6. In OKC, I thought the whole series, I was like, I don't think Dallas's defense is that unbelievable. I think OKC is missing shots they made all year. Okc scored on eight of their last 11 possessions in game 6, and Shay had some fucking nut crunch shots. They still They lost. They lost because they couldn't get rebounds. But Lively and Gaffard were a 20 and 17 in game five and a 22 and 22 in game six. Chet and the other Jalen Williams had 10 rebounds total in the last two games, and that was basically it.

Okc couldn't get a rebound. It was over and over again. That one sequence when it was 105, 101, offensive rebound, another, misses the second free throw. They get another offensive a rebound in the three. And it was just like they just couldn't get rebounds. Dallas was better. I thought for the fact that Luka wasn't 100% and they were still able to do what they did, I thought it was a really impressive win by them. I was not a big believer in the Dallas team, but they certainly earned the respect of like, Hey, man, we don't know who's we're taping this before Denver, Minnesota. But they at least earned the respect of they're not going to be afraid of the next series and the next series will be a battle, Yeah, that's how I feel about them now because I just felt like there were so many times over the course of the series where I'd just be watching and go to my default like, Who's having an easier time?

Just real simple question I ask myself whenever I'm watching a game. It's like, Who's having an easier time?

Easier shots. It's easier paced, the whole thing.

It felt like SGA is just having to put the cape on all the time because all these guys around them fall apart, can't hit a shot in game five. An offense that was off the charts in the regular season. It's second best offense. You can argue it's the best shooting offense, depending on what you want to look at. But we knew the rebounding numbers were really, really bad. Getting to the trade part of it and all the stuff that we've talked about, we don't know who was actually available. People can look at the Presti resume now. It's like, Okay, so I get it, but you think he's bad? You think he's bad at his job? Of course not. I don't think anybody that's being reasonable would say he's bad at his job. We did the Trade Deadline show right before the Super Bowl, and we led with Bogdanovic and talked about how wily the Knicks were. That's how bad the trade deadline was because Bogdanovic was the headliner, unless you want to argue that the Thunder should have added somebody like a Siakam or somebody else.

I was What was that about OKC?

Yeah, you were. I think it was a glaring problem in considering all the assets. Then when you factor in the Dallas part of helping facilitate that, that's the part where it looks really arrogant and seems to be a problem. I wonder, they clearly need an on-ball guy. They need a third guy beyond Williams, who for his first play off run, it's not shocking that he had some games where he had nothing there and just seemed to not be locked in. But they actually need another guy. I wonder if they thought Hayward was going to be that, but he was unplayable. I mean, if Dante Exman and Gordon Hayward played one-on-one, whoever had next would die because no one would shoot. You'd just be at the park, what happened? He'd be like, Oh, he had next with Hayward and Exum, and he just died because no one would shoot.

The weird thing is there's so many swingmen available. They had all these assets. The trade was basically... So the OKC trades, they traded 12 to Dallas for 10 in Bertons. And Bertons was clearly a trade contract. Then they traded Bertons, Michich, and Treyman. They turned that into Hayward. But then they gave Dallas- The Michich number two, because now they're 30 plus in cap space. Don't you think they could have given one of their 700 first or seconds to a team to take Michich and just... I don't feel like they had to do the Hayward trade to get rid of Mechich. I don't get that.

You, of course,. I feel like they could have done it.

They made seven million a year. It's not like he was at 40.

But I could just imagine Presti going, I don't want to have to pay some tax to move off of something. I wondered if they thought they'd get something from Hayward. But when you watched his minutes, you were like- I think they did. Yeah, he was like, You could tell right now. This guy doesn't want to play right now.

Everyone in Charlotte was like, This guy, he's washed. We were so Like, do we got anything for him? The Dallas thing, the irony of Dallas just not having a first to trade for Gaffard. Okay, see, helping them out for this pick swap four years from now, and then Gaffard ends up killing them. Also, what's Washington doing in that trade? Washington ended up with the 29th pick in the draft, this year's draft that is the worst draft in 11 years. Why not just keep Gaffard? I didn't understand that at all. But I went back I was looking at all the OKC picks. They have the 12th pick this year from Houston. They have all their own first through the decade, through 2030. They have a bunch of '25 stuff. They can swap for the best Eclipse or Houston. They can also swap for Affiliate top 6 protected. They have Miami's top 14 protected. 26, they have Houston top 4. They have a Clippers pick swap in 27. They have the Dallas pick swap. They have so much stuff. I just find it really hard to accept that they just felt like, Oh, no, this will be a learning experience this year.

We're happy to be here. We can't believe this young team of Upstarts made round two because for Cillo, they're fucking in this spot in the KD era. They did the exact same thing where they didn't try to upgrade the team in that 2011 to '14 stretch other than the Jeff Green Perkins trade, which was a lateral trade of younger guys. But they sat in their lead with the thing. They were like, We just want to be good every year. I don't think you could have that mentality. I really feel like they were one guy away from at least beating Dallas. They were guys short.

Okay, but does that mean you think they should have gone in for O. G? Should they have gone in for Siakam? Because once Toronto pulled the plug on it earlier, and I don't know if that caught some franchises by surprise, because the scattering part of Toronto has always been like, They flirt with you, they flirt with you, they flirt, and then they never want to do anything. Then maybe they felt a a little burnt on the Vanvleet thing where it's like, well, we can't have this happen again. We have two guys going to free agency, not getting any assets. Toronto is like, all right, let's just pull the plug.

Toronto wanted players, which I think OKC had the pick. I don't know if that works as well. But see, Occam is somebody they had the assets to get.

Yeah, it's back to the original thing of who do you want, but who's available? My guess is that Presti just looked around and was like, Well, all these guys that are available, it's not We're pretty good or whatever. But then it just looks brutal. It looks brutal. When you look at the rebounding numbers, it looks brutal when Jalen Williams is your only other big option to not have a third guy who's just big, who at least allowed you, if they had gotten through this, to go like, what the hell are they going to do against Minnesota? Minnesota wins tonight. What were they going to do against Denver. Can you imagine Jokić against Chet seven games?

Chet looked like he was 180 pounds by the end of round, too.

We all love Chet. We love Chet. But when you watch him closely around the rim, especially over the course of the game in a series, it's It's like run blocking. Hey, how come they're doing this? Or how come they're running this play? It's like, because these guys are paying a price now, a bill that's going to come due in the fourth quarter, and we need to keep running the football. We need to keep doing this. I always feel like whenever you're watching Chet around the rim, you just see him this toll that he has paid through the first two hours of the game, where it's asking him to do a lot as a rookie with his frame. It was nuts. We agree.

But if you flip Gaffard, if Gaffard is on OKC in this series instead of Dallas, that's a what if for me. If I'm an OKC fan, I'm thinking about that all summer. It's like, why the fuck didn't we get Gaffard? Instead, we helped Dallas get Gaffard. They beat us. It's a rough one. I have this whole thing I did that I'm not going to do in the pod. I went through every OKC the last seven years at Durant. Presty just doesn't make trades is the reality. It's very rare for him. He made that Perkins trade. He made the James Harden trade.

He- But the Harden trade, remember, too, is that ownership- It was a financial thing.

But I'm just saying that was an actual trade he made. Right.

They screwed that up, though, because they could have just wrote it out for another year, considering what they got back for Harden.

They absolutely blew it.

Right. None of us thought Harden was going to end up becoming a guy who won MVPs. I didn't.

But it was a dumb trade.

They should have just paid Harden. It still was a really stupid trade because you just go to ownership and go, Hey, I know what you don't want to do, but we just pay them and we'll figure it out later. Okay, we'll figure it out later because ultimately they were going to have to... I don't know, man.

That whole thing- But to me, it's like the Muki Betz trade where they liked what they got. That was part of the trade. They were like, We'll price hard on stats with Kevin Martin. We have this project with Jeremy Lamb. We're going to get this awesome pick, which turned out to be Steven Adams. They were like, We're going to be at least the same if we do this trade. That was the piece they missed.

I think I remember that, too, Darryl, he told me I told Zack Lo. I was like, Well, we told them we wouldn't have done this deal a year from now. It's like, Oh, yeah, no way.

Yeah, we definitely would turn out James Harding. In 2015, they traded a first for Deion Waiters. They traded Perk and Reggie Jackson and a first for Enus Cantor and DJ Augustine. And then in February 2016, they traded Augustine and Steve Novak for Randy Foy. Those were all the trades Presty made. During the last seven years, Durant was on the team. So he's a little more hesitant. What's interesting, though, the summer of 2016, before Durant left, that was when he traded Abaka to Orlando for Oladipo and the rights to Sabonis, which was a fucking awesome trade. I do wonder, if there's no Golden State cap spike and Katie He just signs a one-year deal to stay there in 2017. They would have had Ola Dippo and Sabones and Steven Adams and Cantor and Russ again. There's another slide in doors where that team might have been the best team in the league, but we'll never know.

Yeah, that's the thing is that you're saying Presti won't do it, but then he'll have these moments of boldness.

But why didn't he have the moment of boldness this year? He should have learned from the past. It's like, Shit, I have Gildas Alexander. He's the top four guy in the league.

When he did the Ola Dippo deal for Paul George, people were like, Okay, but what are you going to do? But then you don't realize Paul George, if you throw him a party on the night of free agency that he feels like he has to go to. He's going to stay for four more years. Then he's going to lead.

Can I give you one other thing from the series that I thought? Because it was like, man, Jones and Washington played really well. Then you look at the stats. P. J. Washington in the first four games, 87 points, 19 for 37, three-point field goal. The last two games, Derrick Jones had 41 points and was seven for 11 from three. Derrick Jones is a career of 31% three-point shooter. P. J. Washington is a career 32% three-point shooter. So if you're Dallas, you're like, Man, if we could just hit on this wing position, just one guy a game can come through. Just one. Ask them. Whoever it is, just please, can one guy come through? Just DJ and PJ, if you just take their best games for the six games, they were 21.3 points a game, 53% from three. That and the rebound swung the series for them. There's one other thing because we should have talked about them sooner. 64, 48. Okay, so he had a ton of momentum. Luka, just some of the shots he makes that are sometimes bad threes. Sometimes he's rolling into the lane like Jokuj. But he always has a sense of timing for this game, slipping away, I need to do something.

He did that, I thought, over and over again, especially 6, just has a sense of like, They need me right now. I'm going to do it. That's why he's so dangerous in this next round. He has two playoff runs now of experience, especially on the road, where he knows it doesn't matter where we play. I'm not going to be afraid. I'll know where to get my spot. We'll see what happens with Denver, Minnesota, tonight. But I certainly, two weeks ago versus now, I feel definitely about this Dallas team.

Yeah, and I think Luka looked better as the series went along. You figured the three-point shooting had to get better. I also, I don't know when I did the numbers, it might have been after game five where I was like, Okay, well, wait. What's going on? Is Luca getting deep enough? There's so many times you look at him where you just feel like he can get really deep, and then he's just working. He can do the step back, he can do some up and under, he can throw it, he can skip it, or he can throw it to his corner. I don't know that I was seeing that from him enough. Look, I Oklahoma City did some really good things defensively. But once he knew Dora had five and they tried to get a couple of Caesan Wallace possessions against him, it was just like, okay. Look, I think he's the second best player in the world, and it's what you'd expect from him in closing this thing out. I feel like with Dallas here now, I can't wait to see what happens. I cannot wait to see what happens tonight. This series hasn't been close, but it's so much fun.

But we're due for That's a close one. Then you mentioned this earlier, but if you're okay, C, you leave that series and it's devastating, but you feel better about SGA as a real guy, especially those last couple of games where you go sideways unless he's like, Oh, I'm a top five guy in the world, too. I'll match these baskets. It's going to be interesting to see him in the Olympics because he, to me, now has the gravitas to be in any situation against any team and know he can get to the spot. I thought he got to the spots he wanted the whole series, and his team just wasn't consistently good enough around him. They never really figured out their five either, because if they need a little more scoring, it was Isiah Joe. They want a little more defense, they would put somebody else in. I thought they... It's weird to say this, but I thought they missed Gidey's rebounding. I know Gidey had become a sunk cost to them to some degree, but Gidey was like a seven rebounds a game guy. I wonder, did they handle that one correctly where they basically lost his...

They lost confidence in him and vice versa midway through the series.

They were scrambling. The problem is the Gidey thing just got worse and worse. They had talked about how, Hey, we're still getting good looks. Then there was one game, I remember some of the guys are saying, Hey, we still won the Getty Minutes or whatever. You're like, Okay, yeah, but how does it look? Trying to make SGA try to figure this out him out there. His game four deal, where they came back in that game, too, where they're down and they outscored him 35, 27. Sga goes were 34. He hit 10 of 14 mid-ranges, which is the most in a playoff game since Chris Paul did it five years ago. So there were just these things that SGA was doing. We're in an agreement because moving forward is like, All right, I know they lost in the second round, but it has nothing to do with him. Just a bunch of guys ended up with the ball in their hands that weren't ready. Wallace had hit a couple of threes, I think in game 4.

Game 4, yeah.

You were like, Okay, well, maybe there's something there. It's like, Okay, maybe there also isn't.

Maybe He's 20 years old.

Right. As good as he's been this year, and it looks like Presti hit on another pick. I can't get past some of the Jalen Williams moments where it's like, Dude, and maybe this is just his bad series. Brunson had a bad series early on with the Mavs. I brought up the SGA series with OKC when Chris Paul was there with Schroeder, and it looked like he wasn't entirely comfortable. Granted, the ball is going to end up in those other guys' hands a little bit more, and that's fine. But for this series, SGA, this depth, this shooting, and this offense around him didn't even look close. I still think as much as we all like Chet, you're not running a play for Chet. Maybe it's a lob, maybe it's him trailing something and hitting a three. I mean, he had the huge free throws and the huge three in that game four. So all of us should feel about it, but they got to do something because it'll be funny to see what happens this offseason.

Well, they're going to trade Getty. Getty will be traded. That's the one thing we know.

He's getting traded. I saw the mutual interest with Utah thing, which I was just like an awesome wording.

Yeah, that's almost like a Mad Libs. Can we mention... I should have mentioned this earlier because if I was an OKC fan, I'd be so mad about the Gaffer thing. The other thing I'd be mad about- You're mad about it as a non-fan. I'm mad. I don't even care. I literally don't care about OKC. The other thing that would drive me nuts, they played really good defense on Luka on that last play. They're up on. Luka ends up, can't get the shot he wants, and dribbles over to where P. J. Washington is and just throws it to him and basically fucks him. He's in the corner, right? And then P. J. Washington has to take the game-deciding shot of the game, right? He didn't even have a point in the first three quarters and takes a shot where SGA coming at him and is close enough to him that he can put his hand on the ball and block it and then hit him after. But what a crazy way to lose your season. You did everything right. Even SGA's play, he did that right, and then you still lose. That play would drive me nuts.

And so would that four-point sequence with four minutes left. I was just like, Oh, my God. But Dallas over and over again was making the plays. That's why they won the series. They All four of their games were pretty close at some point in the last 12, 10 minutes, and they pulled all of them out. Playoff experience, Rosillo.

Yeah, I got to tell you, man, the fouling on the three-point line with these guys, it was going to be such a tough shot, but it's so much to ask a player to just deny their instincts of contesting this shot, especially when it's a game winner to potentially eliminate you from the playoffs. You know you're going to... But it's like, make him make it, man. Make him make it. And he still was clean on top. But once Javi explained it, I was like, that actually makes a lot of sense because you shouldn't be able to foul him after he resets with the ball in his hands. But look, six games, it could have been five. If SGA doesn't go crazy in four, if Chet doesn't hit the corner three, these things have a way of balancing. But over the course of watching these two teams play six times, we did not get a result that wasn't deserving. Dallas was the better team, and I thought they just... They're The secondary guys were consistently better than OKC's. They make me, after this series, go, Okay, let's see what happens.

I'm with you. The better team won. Okc was freaking close and they'll think about it all summer. I want to see what they do. They got to figure out, is that Jalen Williams spot a real spot? Is that really going to be our backup center, rebounder guy, or we're going to try somebody else there? They got to figure out, can we turn Gideon to another wing? And then what do we do with these draft picks? Do we want to really go in on somebody? But it's funny. I'm frustrated that OKC didn't do enough. And yet Dallas, it's almost seemed reckless how much they did, and that was what paid off. And it was great. I mean, Dallas was all in. There was no outs with everything they did. If this didn't work. Now it's like we made conference finals. We have a real chance to potentially beat next round. This all worked. But that's why I got to go for it sometimes, Ursula.

If Kawhi is healthy and the Clippers get through them, which is not a crazy assumption, maybe Dallas still beats them. But how annoying we can all be after the result It's going to be like, Dude, and then they moved that, and then they paid for PJ. You didn't even get out of the first round. But I think they were desperate to prove something here to Luka, and here we are.

They did.

Yeah.

My last thing, PJ Washington, who had really not a ton of opinions on because I wasn't sitting around watching the Hornets over and over again for the last few years. He's just such a fun playoff guy. I love when guys turn into playoff guys when you have no idea out of nowhere. Deep and Chenja was like that, too, I think. These guys were in the lights with the pace and the intensity of a game, and certain guys, for some reason, they make more sense in games like that. He's definitely one for me. It was not somebody I would have expected, but they saw Kudos to them. All right, we're going to wrap up part one. Thank you to Steve Serrute and Kyle Creighton. As always, you'll eventually be able to watch some of this stuff on YouTube, youtube. Com/@bilsumment. We're going to be back after a hopefully awesome Minnesota-Dember game part two tonight. See you in a little bit, Lucilla. Bit, Masella.