Indy Steals Game 1 in OKC … WTF Happened? | With Zach Lowe
01:16:52 Share

This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Summer is here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. A day in the sun, no. A bottle of rum, yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app.

for details. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I popped on the Prestige TV podcast this week. We talked about The Better Sister, did a Rewatchables on Monday. It was a really good one. We did Out for Justice, the Steven Scull classic. I had a great time. I think I'm turning this into New York month on the Rewatchables because we're doing Working Girl

on Monday, which is a great movie from the 80s. Harrison Ford's in it, Melanie Griffiths, Sigourney Weaver. It's a really, really, really, really good New York movie and just a good movie in general. It's dated in all the right ways. So that's coming Monday. So you have the weekend to watch it. I think it's on Hulu or Paramount. It's on one of those and it's all over the place. You'll be able to find it. So check out Working Girl. It's a really good one. And maybe we'll do New York Month.

Lots of movies filmed in New York. A lot of options left. You have to wait and see. Coming up on this podcast, Zach Lowe and I decided to do a live stream right after game one of the 2025 NBA finals. And we were assuming that OKC, who was nine and a half point favorites on FanDuel, that they were going to easily win and then game two would be the game. That's not what happened.

Indiana came back and it was awesome. And we jumped right on YouTube live after that. And everything we did was we recorded eight minutes after the game. So that's what you're about to hear. We're going to take a break. We're going to bring in Pearl Jam.

And then Zach Lowe and I breaking down an incredible game one of the 2025 finals next. Let's go. This episode is presented by State Farm. It's no secret that great teams need great teammates. I've been saying this for years. And when it comes to insurance, State Farm is there to help you find the right coverage for your home, car, and more. Whether you need an in-person or digital assist, they're ready when life hits you with a full court press. Get a game plan that helps fit your life. Talk to State Farm.

Today, State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability and eligibility vary by state. We were assuming it would be an OKC 20 point easy win. We would have to make weird OKC conversation because they're a hard team to talk about. And then Indiana was like, I can't even speak. Indiana was like, we're Michael Myers.

You thought we were dead. We fell out of the deck in the back and we landed on our back and you looked out there and all of a sudden we weren't there and we just keep coming and coming and eventually we get you and you don't know what happened.

I can't speak. I've come to the conclusion that I just don't get the Indiana Pacers. I don't get how they do this. I don't get how there's at least one game every series where they do this. It's Halliburton at the end of every game with the last shot emerging. I mean, like, the number of clutch shots he's made this season in this playoffs, this is like an all-time legendary crunch time heater. And he didn't even play that well in the course of the game. And all anyone's going to remember is the last shot. This is...

The Pacers are unbelievable. And this might be, I mean, look, we've all seen thousands of basketball games. No, don't say this was weirder than the Knicks game one. This might be the, it was weird because it was weird the whole time. It was weird. Like, how do they have 19 turnovers in the first half and they're not getting run out of the building? It's 11 and between 11 and 13, the whole game. I don't like, it just felt like,

The strangest, it's the strangest game I've ever watched, I think, start to finish. And then the finish puts it over the top. Like, I don't, I can't wait to rewatch the fourth quarter to see what happened to Oklahoma City's offense. I just can't believe Indiana won that game. It's unbelievable. We have a series. We did, we were, we're gonna, we got a series. 19 turnovers and Lou Dort had five threes, I think, in the first three quarters. And if you just told me those two things, I would have assumed OKC won by 25. Kyle LeBurton was really tentative.

it felt like Indiana was going to lose by 20 plus various points in the game. OKC was doing the thing over and over again where they're up nine, they're up 11, they're up nine, they're up seven, they're up 11. And you just wait for them to put together that last 10-0 run when they're up 21 and the game's over. And it just never happened. I think they got up to maybe 15, 15?

Right? 13 or 15 was the highest lead. And it just hovered. It hovered in that range from like 11 to 13, which is not really a range. It's just a small, small range. And they could never land the knockout punch. But then they'd be like, oh, it's back to eight. It's back to nine. It's back to six. It's back to eight again. And then all of a sudden, Indiana just won the game. You know what the moment was? The moment where it was like, wait a second. Turner. First of all, Indy made, I think, seven, eight.

crazy threes where you're like, that's not going in. Then it would go in. But Turner hit that three, the way you're stepped to the left and he banked it. When he did that, I w I was on alert after that. It was like, Oh, okay. All the, all the stuff I was working on for the rundown was Zach might be just going up in smoke, but, um, okay. So we took three field goals in the last four minutes of the game. Zach, that's weird.

I didn't... I mean, I can't wait to watch the game again because I need... I didn't like the feel of Oklahoma City's offense almost the entire game. I meant made, not take, by the way. Whatever. You know what I mean.

I didn't like the feel of their offense almost the whole game. A lot of that is credit to the Pacers. Their transition defense was unbelievable. To turn the ball over, I mean, it says 24 in the box score. I think that doesn't include a couple of other extra team turnovers or whatever. I think it was like 25 or 26.

and to not get just underwater from an avalanche of transition points. But I didn't like, I mean, Shea had 38 and it was just, I didn't love his shot selection for a lot of the game. And I thought it felt like he was just taking a lot of shots. Like he had 11 in the first quarter. What'd he end up with? 30? 30 shots in eight free throws. Yeah, that's too many. And some I didn't like. And it felt like they got... I thought Nembhard really, look, he had 38 points.

But I thought Nembhard was about as comfortable as I've seen anyone defending Shea. It was like one of those things where it looked like they've been playing against each other for 10 years. He kind of knew all his stop and start moves. Even in the end, when Shea got that last shot, that would have put him up by three and he missed it. Nembhard was right there the whole time with them, like pretty comfortable, I thought.

And I just thought they got slowed down a little bit and not a lot of flow to their offense. A lot of possessions were like SGA, ISO. All right, Nem Hart kind of stoned me, kicked to J-Dub, ISO, and just sort of just there wasn't a lot of flow. And I don't know if it's because

they were playing just one big the whole time. And I thought this was a good one big series for them. Clearly, they agreed. They start Case and Wallace over Hartenstein. But a lot of their best passing sequences are the big to big passing sequences. And they sort of got those out of their game by the lineup choice they made. Maybe it was the

The pressure, the defense, the stage, the unfamiliar lineups, like a lot of five out, not unfamiliar, but just they clearly rejiggered their rotation for this. I didn't like the way their offense flowed, but still, can we just like you mentioned the bank? Can we say one thing on that rotation thing? Yes. Because I think this is the key to the game. Did you look at the rebounds? It's okay. 56 to 39. I mean, it's not 56 to 39. Indiana.

So OKC goes one big instead of two. Indiana averages 39 rebounds a game in the playoffs. Like if you're going to say, what's the weakest part of their game? You'd say, oh, I'm worried about the rebounds, especially against a team that plays double bigs. OKC starts one big. Down the stretch, they go small ball completely and give up a couple big offensive rebounds to Siakam.

I just... Why is OKC changing with their... OKC is 80-18 heading into this game. Why are they changing their lineups like this? Why are they going super small at the end of the games? Like, they're the heavy favorites. They're home. Make... Why are you changing to conform to Indiana? I don't get that. So I was surprised... I mean...

I talked for two podcasts in a row about how I thought probably the one big lineups were going to be a little bit smoother for the Thunder. I mean, lots of people made this point too. It was not like an original point by me. Just because the Siaka matchup is a tough one for the OKC bigs and a better one for J-Dub or Caruso or whoever takes the matchup. But I still thought that they would start

like every team just starts how we start and you got to force us to adjust. And Richard Jefferson on the broadcast is making the point, like if you're Indiana, this is a win. Like they've adjusted to us already. And I was thinking the opposite way. I think it was like a cold blooded. We're going for the kill right out of the shoot in game one. We're not, it did not work. They got 19 turnovers in the first half.

This is an all-time impossible outcome. 24 turnovers to six against the Thunder and the Thunder don't win the game is just absolutely bonkers. Plus 17 rebounds. Indiana somehow ends up at 24 assists. And it's notable that OKC has 13 because that's how it felt watching it. It felt like it was a lot of one-on-one stuff. I didn't feel like they were running enough. I actually didn't think...

Like I had all these separate notes. I was going to be, what can Indiana do better for game two when it seemed like they were going to lose? The number one thing was it didn't feel like they were running.

I felt like the pace, I thought they were psyched out by the defense and the steals and the turnovers. They weren't taking off on chances that they had, but it somehow worked out anyway and they won. I think there's things that they can do to be even better in game two. So when you say we have a series, like I bet Indiana thinks we have a series too because they're like, we didn't really play that well. We rebounded well. Nobody on our team was really awesome. I mean, Nembhard, I thought had a good all-around game, topping it some threes.

But we weren't running like we should have. And we were really sloppy with the ball in the first half because honestly, they look nervous. And how Bert even said in that Mike thing, he was like, I'm finally getting my breath. I'm fine. Like it's nerve wracking to be in the finals. You and I have been in the arena for those things. It's a different kind of tension, energy. Everybody's out there for three hours. And when you're a young team, you feel it. They look nervous to me. And then they were fine. We're going to be there soon. It's going to be, it's going to be exciting. Um, we'll be topping, um,

Five threes after a start in which he looked like a little bit overwhelmed for the first 90 seconds he was on the floor. He ends up making five threes. Two minutes. But you mentioned the bank shot three. Yeah. Which was, by the way, it was a play that the Celtics run a lot where Miles Turner fakes like he's going to set a pin down for Halliburton and then Halliburton

switches it up and sets a monster like double pin down for miles Turner. That's a play that Tatum and Horford run all the time. And he banks in the three. There was a lane violation on a Siakam mystery. I love that. By the way, watching it in real time, I was like, that's Scott. That's a lane violation on somebody. There's four guys in the paint right now.

there's a tipped air ball, like an air ball that's tipped in or put back in by Siakam. Just like, and by the way, and also you mentioned just the threes, like Nesmith makes one in the corner on like a broken play where Obi Toppin's dribbling around trying to find someone to give it to. Nesmith makes a three. I guess Nesmith in the last, in the fourth quarter of a desperate game is just never, ever going to miss a shot again in his life. And the Pacers shot 39 threes.

44% of their shots were threes. That's way above their average, and I think it's an absolute must for them to have any chance to win this series. Increase their three-point attempts against a defense that will not give them up because they can test them pretty well, but they'll crowd the paint and make you shoot threes and take more, increase the variance, and they ended up taking...

what, 39 threes compared to 30 for the Thunder. And the Thunder took a lot more field goals. That's a big reason they won the game. 18 of 39, 46% on threes. Well, tell me if you agree on this. They were firing them with no hesitation. And I think it was part of their game plan, especially on the road where OKC has been such an absolute juggernaut. And I think Carlisle told everybody, you had the three shoot immediately. Because you could see these OKC guys flying out

on the corners, on the top. But they, but, and I didn't feel like a lot of those threes were uncontested, right? Wasn't like they, some of the corner threes, I guess were a little open, but for the most part, wasn't like they were wide open. It's 106-98 with three minutes left. Siakam misses two free throws in a row. Lane violation gets one. SGA makes two free throws. Neesmith hits the three you mentioned. J-Dub misses. Nembhardt, heat check,

Hesitation, Hezzy, step back three. I got nothing going on. I'm just going to make something happen and make a three. I think it was on Lou Dort too. So all of a sudden they're down three. SGA gets a two. They're down five. Nembhard gets free throws. Siakam blocks SGA.

Unbelievable play. And somewhere in there, there's the Dort block where it feels like... The Dort block on Neesmith? Yeah. Yeah, where it's like that might be the defining defensive play of the game. And then there's another defining defensive play of the game. Siakam offensive rebound. Scores. All of a sudden, Indy's down one. J-Dub misses. Out of bounds play.

I thought Siakam got fouled. They didn't call it. I thought that was a clear foul. I was surprised that not only did Indiana not win that challenge, but that it was decided fairly quickly by the officials. So OKC has the ball now. 22 seconds left with 14 on the shot clock. They go to SGA, who's been unstoppable this entire season and has always scored in this situation. Pretty much it feels like 90% of the time. Nembhard plays good defense, gets the stop. No timeout by Carlisle.

And then Halliburton has one of those, I'm not sure what to do, and I'm going against an incredible defensive player and takes a long two double pump almost? Is it a semi-double pump? What was that? I haven't watched it again. I just fell out of my chair and logged on to the Zoom, and I don't really know what happened. It was ugly, but he made it. And...

And there we go. 14, 10, and six for Halliburton. And I felt like he was pretty tentative for most of the game. That's a pretty nice outcome for him. So you mentioned the J-dub missed three. I want to go back to that. That is two minutes and 20 seconds left. Thunder by six. Yeah. If my notes are right and they're a little scribbly. Because you had a seizure?

I don't know what was going on. SGA Dort pick and roll up top. Probably because Halliburton is on Dort, I'm guessing. SGA splits it clean. Like Halliburton hedges. I think it's Halliburton. Again, we're doing this live. It might not be Halliburton. No, you're right. And he's going down. It seems like he's going to do an SGA hero step layup. If you freeze it when he gets into the paint, and he had just gotten fouled, I believe, and made two free throws like a minute before, 30 seconds before.

he gets in the paint. Every single other Indiana defender on the floor is just like, fuck it. We're coming into the paint. Like you are not shooting this shot and we are also not going to foul. You have to pass the ball. Everyone left corner, right corner, J-Dub on the wing. He kicks it to J-Dub and that's the knockout punch right there. I wrote that in my notes. The KO punch won't come. He misses that shot. And that was the moment where I thought they might, they might actually win this thing and go up 1-0. I have an important question.

Did you think the shot was going in? Because I did not. The J-Dub shot or the Halliburton shot? The J-Dub shot. I wasn't watching the trajectory, to be honest. I was watching the release. It looked fine to me. When it was clear he was about to shoot,

Did you think it would go in? If I'm remembering correctly, he has like a little pass fake where he might pass it to the corner and then he decides to keep it himself. That's always like, I don't know, but I don't remember feeling strongly. I did not think that was going in. You felt strongly about it right away. I forget what Denver game it was. I think it was Denver.

What was the one where he hit that huge three that I didn't think was going in? I think it was, it was one of the Denver games and it was the same situation. And he actually made it that time. He did not make it. Um, I, I gotta say the more I'm thinking about it, I'm stunned that OKC changed what they did so much in that game. I don't really fully understand it. I thought their biggest advantage was going to be the size and the rebounding and the, and the rim protection.

And I know you were making the case for one big at a time, but even then, Chet played 23 minutes and Hartenstein played 17. And Isaiah Joe played 11 minutes. I mean, Isaiah Joe, he was fine. He was plus three. He made two shots. But I felt like every moment when they had a swing out there that wasn't an absolute piranha defensively, you're giving Indiana like a little...

chance to breathe. Yeah, I don't know. It's weird coaching. I'm very interested to see what they do because I would have started the double big lineup and sort of just modified the rotation. So it's if it's going a certain way, I go less double big, more one big. I thought the five out lineups like the no big lineups looked incredible defensively. Like Indiana was just like, where are we even supposed to go?

Right. But you lose all the rebounding. But they lost too many of the rebounding. It was like we did everything right and then couldn't close the deal. You made the key point, though, with the first part in the first quarter, they were clearly eschewing, oh, we're going to do this for six minutes and then here's the lineup we love. They're like, fuck it. We're going to try to blow you out of the arena in the first half, which they kind of did.

They did. And it was, I mean, I just couldn't like when the turnovers just kept happening, like every variety of turnover, entry passes, backdoor passes, lost it in the backcourt, dead ball turnovers. There was, I think the one that put them up 15, by the way, when you mentioned the biggest lead was when they couldn't inbound the ball from the baseline. And J-Dub dunked it. And that felt again, that felt like a knockout punch. Like how many times have we seen this game? And the Pacers, man,

They just keep on playing. They just keep playing. It's really, they're just an, they're an awesome, awesome team and they just keep on coming. SGA had 18 shots in the first half. He was eight for 18 and plus 15. I'm not going to lie. I got, I got a text from an assistant coach who was like, is he going to shoot 40 times in this game? Like, are we going to see a 40 shot performance by SGA? And it was not a compliment. I saw a stat.

somewhere on social media that Shaq was the last scoring champ to win the title. And it did make me pause for a second. I was like, wow, 25 years since that's happened. It seems like a long time. Who, well, I'll do some of my notes that I still feel like we can still use because I was going to ask you this after OKC won, but now they didn't win. Who's the MVP of that game? If this was hockey, you're not a hockey guy. This is hockey. Who's the star of the game? Who's the guy who skates out last?

Waves to the crowd. I think the guy who skates out last is Halliburton just because he made the shot at the end. I think the sneaky MVP of the game for Indiana, and it's just so befitting of how he plays, is Siakam. Just quietly 19 and 10, makes big plays, defends everywhere. You kind of don't notice him for a little while, but he's just a consistent positive force for them. Miles Turner was good in 28 minutes and then the top in five threes. And McConnell...

Kept them afloat during a couple stretches where it looked like it could get out of hand. Those are nine big points for TJ McCollum. He's minus 13. I get it. It's not like a fantastic game, but those buckets felt huge. So I would say Nembhard.

Because I thought there were a couple moments where if he didn't play with the confidence that he had down the stretch, I just think they immediately lose. But you could also talk me to Siakam. Siakam had 10 rebounds. It's interesting, Halliburton did too. Because I was looking at the props for this game on FanDuel before the game.

And I had to do that Taylor fade pick, which I ended up doing SGA two threes, which hit, but I was initially going to do Siakam rebounds. Cause I was like, who's going to get rebounds on Indiana. And I went, I looked at his rebound game log and he's really like four or five, six a game. This game he had 10 and he had a couple of big offensive rebounds. I thought, um, in traffic, like to keep, um,

plays alive. And in general, I just felt like they kept plays alive a couple of times. So did OKC. OKC had a couple of good tap outs. But if I'm OKC, I'm, screw this. Let's go big again. We can't get, we can't go minus 17 on the boards at home. You know, it's interesting. One of the more eye-popping stats in the box score is Chet Holmgren's minutes, which you mentioned earlier is 23 and change. The second or third best guy in the team. And

Some of it is probably because he's on Miles Turner and that's fine. Like that's not a bad defensive matchup or anything. But Miles Turner is a pick and pop big man. And Shea, I'm sorry, Chet has made his bones in the NBA and made Oklahoma City's defense superpowered by being at the rim all the time.

And by virtue of how they are matching up in this series so far through one game, he can't be at the rim all the time. And I wonder if he just doesn't feel as useful to Dagnall if he's not in that role. Like he's guarded Jada McDaniels. He's guarded Aaron Gordon. He's guarded guys where he could just be at the basket all the time, which is why, you know, I thought that they would start big. And I said on my pod, I thought,

I would try him on Siakam. And I realized that looks like a bad matchup for Chet. And Waz made this point on group chat this week. He's like, because Siakam can just kind of get under taller, skinnier guys and do his Siakam stuff. And I was like, I still would try it because he's got to finish over Chet

Even if he backs them under the rim. And I just like Chet near the basket. If Chet's going to be on the floor, I like him near the basket. And I just wonder if maybe I'm crazy, but I wonder if they do start double big, if they match up that way, Hartenstein on Turner and Chet on Siakam. But yeah, they went for, they went for the jugular with that adjustment. They were like, we're not messing around. And it, it kind of worked and then nothing worked. Can I extend your point? Yeah. I just want Chet in the court.

I think he's one of the 20 best guys in the league. Playing him 23 minutes in a finals game seems crazy to me. I don't understand why he wouldn't be out there. I mean, he was two for nine. Maybe they thought he looked nervous. I don't know. You made a point. You kind of ruined, and you hurt my feelings earlier in the week when you did your Tibbs, the beginning of your pod yesterday. Why? And you did the whole thing about when we complain about coaches and adjustments, and then you talk to a coach and you realize they're so much smarter than you.

And I was like, don't lift the curtain for me, Zach. I want to feel like I'm as smart as these guys. Don't tell me how much, don't tell me how much smarter they are than me. What am I going to do? I'd like to second guess them. But my addendum to that would be, and I should have made it and I'll make it here, is that even if they are aware of all of these criticisms and are five steps ahead of you, they still, and I think this is where Tibbs falls, they still will default

to what they feel most comfortable doing. Even if some part of them is like, I should try this, I should try that. Or some coaches will do that. I think Tibbs is like that. Tibbs can sit down and tell you 17 different counters to 17 different adjustments that you think he should do and why they wouldn't work and still be aware of like, they might work, but he's going to lean on to what he knows. But anyway, go ahead. Well,

So Carlisle, there's two... I thought there was good mic'd up moments in this game. Carlisle, they had in the huddle in the first half. And he said, you can't dribble into a crowd against this team. You can't throw mid bounce passes into the middle against this team. And which was actually a lot of information from a coach. Usually it's like, guys, play hard. You got to move your legs. But he was basically like...

you're entering the bowels of hell when you go into the middle and you're dribbling. Please don't do that. I kept, I obviously I have to bring the Celtics into this. It's been 20 minutes. I did think today about Jalen Brown and a couple of the other Celtics just dribbling into the middle in this game and how bad some of the plays would have gone. But then at halftime, they showed Carlisle to talking to the team and they showed in the third quarter,

And he's like, Hey, 19 turnovers. We're not playing well. We're fine. Keep doing what you're doing. Keep like, he clearly like wasn't rattled by whatever he saw in the first half. And their strategy was like, as long as you don't turn the ball over, we're going to shoot threes. We're going to keep the pace. I like the pace we're at and we can kind of hang around. Cause that was not how I felt at halftime and halftime. I was like, they're going to lose by 25.

No, at halftime, I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. For like the entire first half, I was like, is this a real game? Am I dreaming? How many turnovers do they have? And yet the score is only 12, 11. The whole game, I felt like I was hallucinating everything that was happening, including maybe right now. I don't know. Did Tyrese Halliburton hit another last second shot? Like, what is going on? Well, so I had adjustments for game two that I did before halftime.

before the comeback. And the two adjustments I had for Indy was Indy has to run more, which I think they're going to do anyway. I think they're going to look at the tape and realize like we're not, we weren't aggressive enough off rebounds. The other one's interesting because his stats weren't good. And this is just an eye test and that isn't backed up by any actual information. I thought Mathurin seemed athletically comfortable in this game. And I'm intrigued by what his upside is for them because OKC is so fast.

and so athletic, and they're just at warp speed. And I just thought he looked comfortable in the chaos in a way that I'm wondering, are we going to hear from him in this series?

With one of those games. You know when Matherin will have those games where he's like, he scored 27 points in 22 minutes. I feel like that. I feel like he's going to have one of those. So another sort of Rick Carlisle just pushes all the right buttons all the time. Toppin looks overwhelmed immediately and has a disastrous two minutes. Some coaches would be like, it's just not going to be his night. I'll try him one more stint if it doesn't work out. And he's like, we need you. Matherin, I think...

I thought started the game also really bad. He had a couple offensive possessions where he hesitated and the whole flow stopped and Carlisle yanked him quickly after one of those possessions and then put him back in the game. I thought we, I thought we might not see him again after that substitution, put him back in the game. It's not like he did anything amazing. He was one for five, but I thought he got to the line for four free throws and just looked again, comfortable. And he liked the speed. Yeah.

The Pacers, when you talk to their people, they view these series holistically. They are thinking...

They try to hold adjustments in the bag for future games instead of panicking and overdoing it right away. Like, even if they're big underdogs like they are here, they're sort of playing in their head as if this is going to be a really long series. And I think trusting those guys to keep playing is like we're going to need them at some point in the series. Turned out they needed them today. That's good. Yeah.

Thomas Bryant even comes in and scores five points corner three at the end of the third quarter. Like just okay. His corner three is starting to look Ray Allen-esque. He's one where I think it's going in. Yeah. When Thomas Bryant's lining up. Lots more to discuss. We're going to take a break for the podcast. We'll keep going on the YouTube here. Hey, sports fans. We got a big day games on Saturday. Fando wants you to make the most of it.

Right now, for one day only, America's number one sportsbook is giving all of its customers a 50% profit boost to use on any bet

across any sport on June 7th. We're talking baseball, WNBA, UFC. You can bet on Kevin Holland. You can bet against Sean O'Malley. Baseball, you can bet on Garrett Crochet to give up under two runs and then the Red Sox to blow a tie game in the ninth inning. I don't know how you bet that, but you can do that. Whatever you want, you get a profit boost. It's 50%.

And if you think you know what's going to happen, knock yourself out. This offer is only valid for June 7th. Don't miss your chance. Visit Fando.com slash BS.

to join today. Make every moment more with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. Must be 21 plus, president of select states, or 18 plus, president of D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt-in required bonus issued as non-tribe with profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wage or amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Growing a business, it can feel impossible, but HubSpot's customer platform

I promise, can help you. It's powered by a suite of AI tools called Breeze. So you can generate more leads, close more deals, and scale your service fast. With Breeze agents handling the busy work, customers are cutting sales cycles in half and saving hours on work each week. Best of all, you can see results in days, not months. Visit HubSpot.com slash AI to learn more. So Halliburton. Yes.

What a rollercoaster ride for this guy from a big picture standpoint. I think if they lose this game by 12-15, Halliburton becomes on the TV shows the next day. Where's Tyrese Halliburton? He's got to step up. It's the finals. You love the step up guy. He's the step up guy. Because I thought he was a little tentative. And sometimes he's tentative because he's trying to feel out the game. In this case, he's going against an actual fish tank of piranha.

And I think going from the speed of what he was going against, against the Knicks and just trying to hunt Jalen Brunson in towns for two weeks. And then you see this team and you're like, who do I hunt? What do I do? But I thought he kept tossing the car case to Nemhard in smart ways. He didn't, you know, they had all these turnovers. I think he only had three. A lot of the turnovers were Turner and Neesmith.

And then those three top end and McConnell had a couple, but I don't know. I expect him to be a little more assertive maybe in,

in game two as well. I think they have some moves left. I think they have bullets in the arsenal for the next game. Well, when you turn the ball over 25 times, you just like, that's one bullet in the arsenal. Just don't do stuff like that. Take care of the ball. So they had five in the second half, which is a good sign too if you're in Dan. You're like, hey, let's play like we did in the second half. Another three, and I think it was in the fourth quarter. I don't remember which one. If we're talking about...

just everything's got to flip right kind of plays for you to come back and win a game like this. But there was one possession where Neesmith almost got stripped of the ball like four times in two seconds. He was in the paint. Then he was underneath the basket. Somehow it didn't lose the ball and found top end for a three. And that was also, I don't know. I think that was in the fourth quarter. I was like, I don't understand. I just don't even understand what's happening anymore. And they just keep coming. So there was a lot of talk last season about,

about the sameness of the of the styles in the teams and and by the way there was talk on your podcast and my podcast about it are we heading toward a world where everybody has the same offense and plays the same way and it's all about just hunting matchups and shooting threes and having two guys in the corner and four guys staying around and then one guy comes over and sets a pick and that's just going to be basketball and okay say in indiana one of the reasons i think

we had so much trouble wrapping our heads around game one as we're watching it was neither of them play like that. I mean, OKC was a little predictable with the SGA stuff, but for the most part you have OKC's playing small ball down the stretch. Their defense is unlike anything anybody else has. Indiana is just a hodgepodge of, I don't know what the fuck is going on. And, and there's just a natural chaos that both teams have.

That makes me think maybe this series is going to be better than we thought. I thought it was going to be OKC in four or five. I picked five. I think you picked five too. I picked five, yeah. Out of respect for Indiana. Not looking good. OKC in five. Well, because you figure OKC on the road is a little bit different, right? It's going to be a little more grueling for them. I mean, could this be like the Philly Lakers series in 01 where...

Philly steals the game in game one and then the Lakers just dispatch them after that over the next four, maybe. Maybe. Right now in the wake of that game, it doesn't feel like that because Oklahoma City looked a little confused is the wrong word. They just looked a little off trying to figure out what to do against Indiana and how this different team that plays differently. Well, it was a little like the first Denver home game.

where they had they controlled the game for 44 minutes and then something weird happened them i also think they were going too slow and they stopped kind of looking sometimes this is obviously the all-time example of this for the last few years of the celtics where they would have this lead and they would change how they played to kind of almost protect the lead and change their identity in four minutes and i felt a little of that with them uh yeah i i want to re-watch the

the fourth quarter because I think Indiana just began selling out to the paint like we're just going to make you guys make threes we're not giving you fouls and we're not giving you layups but can you look for a Chet Holmgren as you're rewatching the fourth quarter

he's always, he's easy to spot when he's on the bench. Very tall. He's the guy on the bench going, looking at the coach over and over again, going, am I going back in? I'm like the 19th. I was 19th of the ringer 100. But when you, I mean like, yes, Oklahoma city, I thought play, I thought they played too slowly, almost in like a Knicks kind of way where there were a lot of possessions where there was 13 on the shot clock by the time they just walked it up. And there's 13 on the shot clock by the time they did anything like,

like part of the slowness for both teams, not you, you've suggested both teams run more. It's like, these are two of the three or four, if even that many best transition defense teams in the league. Like it's hard to run against these teams because they're super fast, super athletic and super attentive to just like, we're not giving up fast break points.

But even just taking the ball out of the basket, I thought Oklahoma City didn't play with enough speed. Indiana will play with speed after you make a basket. They'll be underneath your basket.

in five seconds. And I think both teams have different tools they can play with to play a little faster. But I thought Oklahoma City kind of sunk into a, why are you guys walking it up like this? Let's go. Like, you're young and fast, and that's not how you play. I guess that's how I was feeling about Oklahoma City for a lot of this game, other than when they were forcing a million turnovers. Like, this doesn't feel like how you... It's too deliberate. It almost feels a little too deliberate for how you guys usually play.

One thing about what you said about pushing the pace, but being nervous about OKC. It was interesting to watch both Halliburton and Nembhard when they're going up the middle and they were constantly doing this, looking left, right as they're going full speed because there's no team like OKC that just comes diving in from the sides.

right? It's almost like you're driving on the highway and you just have cars like trying to basically spin you out on your left fender and your right fender. These guys are jumping up and they seem rattled by it. Or right from behind. Like if you get a rebound and you start pushing it up, like there was at least one or two where one was like Dort just comes up right from behind and takes the ball. How about Dort, by the way?

When Dort made his two back, he made like two consecutive threes. One was like the Nembhard one where he just was like, I'm just going to ISO this and launch a three. And then he made another one on the next session. I was like, well, tough one for Indiana. Lou Dort's going to just go crazy from three, you know? Well, he was going to be my MVP if they won this game. He's also, it's funny, I wrote this down and then they lost, but Jada McDaniels was like this for Minnesota.

Dort is the guy for OKC where if he's shooting the ball well on top of doing the defensive stuff, you just feel like they're completely unbeatable. Of course, they are. Four steals and five threes for Lou Dort. Yes. If his threes plus steals are approaching 10, that's usually a problem. So I Googled, like a lot of people at halftime, the record for turnovers in a finals game.

And they weirdly got it wrong on the broadcast. They said it was 34 with the 77 Blazers and it was 36 Golden State game three, 1975 finals, a game that they won by eight and then 36 turnovers. And I did a tweet joking about how, hey, you can do this. But I just thought that was so crazy that somebody turned the ball over 36 times and won. And now we have a game where somebody turned it over twice.

24 times and won. All right, so what are our fixes for OKC for game two? If you had to make picks here. Play with more just juice in the half court. Play with more urgency, more speed. Like I thought, I think they could probably hunt Halliburton a little bit more often and a little bit more effectively than they did. But part of that is like,

setting good screens. I don't think they... Halliburton's guys screening for Shea, sometimes you got to hit the guy, force them to make a decision, force them to help a little bit more. And I thought some of their best offense was keep it simple. Shea going at the Indiana big men on the pick and roll, I thought was more effective than

then getting cute, trying to do guard guard screens, hunting Halliburton, even though, as I say that they could hunt it more effectively. I thought like miles Turner did not really have a good game trying to contain Shay on the pick and roll top and couldn't do it. Even see Akam on a switch once got burned. I thought like that's the simplest offense in the NBA, right? Just have your big guy. If there's one on the floor, come screen, get the other team center involved and, and go from there. And I thought Halliburton actually had some success doing that too. Um,

on the other end. Those would be two. And I think the rotation's a big one. I even think like Ken Rich Williams, one minute, that was weird. I would play him more at the four, maybe a little bit. Did not have the A.J. Mitchell first half stint in my notes. Didn't see that one coming. Not really sure why that happened. But it was just weird. Did you notice, it's always hard to tell through the TV, but sometimes you can kind of tell. Crowd got super tight the last three minutes.

Yeah, you can tell. You could feel it. That was a, we've never won the title. What's going on? Oh God. And it's interesting because I went to game one of the 2012 series against LeBron and the Heat, which if I remember correctly, OKC...

I thought should have won that game. Maybe they did win the game. One of those first two games, the rank game one, game one, game one, game two is the game you're talking about where Durant gets fouled up. Miami's sitting where he got fouled. Yeah. Miami's up to. Yeah. But yeah, that crowd is absolutely loud. Your head hurts when you leave, but they can also get a little tight. And don't you think some of that is also like those fans know that

This team has done this to every team they've faced in the playoffs so far. Like if we let this game get away, we've seen Indiana in this movie before. Like it's dangerous. A, it's dangerous. They're never out of the game. And B, if we give them momentum with a home loss like this, who the hell knows what could happen? Well, what's interesting, big picture, Indiana, who if they just get swept in the finals, just historically legacy wise, you'd be like, oh yeah, that was a weird season.

Indiana beat Milwaukee and then they shot Cleveland. They had all those comebacks and they beat the Knicks and they fired Tibbs and then they got killed in the finals. Yeah, I kind of remember that team. Now it's like, remember that Indiana team? Holy shit. You had to like chop their head off and decapitate them to get them out of the way. What a crazy finals team that was. I mean, some, someone, some like Kevin Pelton stats kind of person, uh,

is going to have to go through the database and study, is this the greatest clutch shooting season? Last two minutes, last 90 seconds. Greatest clutch playoffs. Yeah, but even regular season, he was incredible too. It's like he just is, Halliburton is making all the shots. We didn't, you know what we did not hammer enough? We kind of hammered around it. We didn't hammer it enough.

J-Dub and Chet, 8 of 28 combined from the floor. Chet made two baskets the entire game. The first was, to my earlier point about keep it simple, pick and pop, pump fake, drive by Miles Turner, layup. The second was a dunk on a breakdown on a staggered pick and roll. That's just like two baskets for Chet and 8 of 28 for those two guys. Like...

You know, that's when Oklahoma City loses, the focus is often on those, the second and third guys. Because Shea, even when he has an eh game, and this was like as eh as I think a 38-point game could be, puts up numbers with some decent level of efficiency. And so the spotlight always goes to those guys. They weren't good enough. Well, the other thing about the finals that we love, the rhythm of these games where you have game one, and this is the only time you have the home game

with the two days off and two days talking about it. And tomorrow people are going to go to Nemhard and be like, you've been going against SGA for a long time. What's your secret? Just dying for him to say one dumb thing. You're daggone. You guys are 80 and 18. Chet played 23 minutes. Hartenstein played 17. Like, what are you doing? I mean, I'm sure that was in the press conference right now. So a little bit of a pressure. And then on top of it, you have Indiana, which...

I think has a great crowd. And now they can decide the series at home if they want to. And they would be, I, I think the most improbable finals champ. Easy, easy. Let's not do it yet. I'm trying to think, is there anybody, even if you said like the 77 Blazers or the 78 Sonics, like that era, even, even,

I don't know. Talk about it. They were 20 to one in the East before the playoffs. This would be the fucking craziest finals. If you were a Pacers fan right now and the basketball gods came to you and said, Hey, we'll make you a deal. Would you sign up for two, two right now going back to Oklahoma city to two for game five, would you take that deal? Or are you going to get greedy and think we can be up? I don't think I can win if it's two, two. I think I have to win two of the next three. Okay. All right. I assume I'm going to win game three.

And then game four will be, you assume OKC will do the thing where they win by 38 in game two in one of those games. And then we'd be like, oh, India already got the game they got. Then India win game three. Then game four be the series. I will say, though, when you're a big underdog, I really like winning game one. I just feel like if the recipe to actually win a series when you're a massive underdog like that, now you only have to win three of the next six.

By the way, these aren't like outstanding points by me. I'm just pointing out. You lose that first game and now you have to win four of the next six and you're the big underdog to begin with. Conversely, we've seen some teams where they blow that first game in a big series or even a finals and it turns, you know, we just saw it with the Knicks series.

You saw it in Orlando, Houston in 1995. Sometimes there could be a devastating game one loss and the team can get rattled. I think OKC will be fine though because Chet will play more. J-Dub will be better. And I assume they're not going to get out rebounded by 17 again.

Well, this is also where the Denver series and to a lesser extent game four in Minnesota are just massively important for them because they've answered the bell already every time they face pressure, including being down to one to Denver and specifically J-Dub, especially J-Dub in games, game seven of the Denver series. So it's that this is this is no longer like unsure. It's uncharted because it's the finals. But

They've kind of done this before, and this seems like a team who won't get too high or too low, to use a cliche. I have Dan as a winner, Nikoli Jokic, just because I think OKC is just an absolute beast. And you think, like, he takes...

Takes Team USA to the brink, almost beats them. Takes this OKC team to seven. And then you watch them in that first half and you're like, oh my God, this team's going to go 84-18. And then maybe he's not as much of a winner. By that standard, shouldn't one of the winners be like Tibbs and the Knicks? By that standard, like, you know, OK. Can we talk about the Knicks really quick? They've got company now. Let's take a break and we'll do the Knicks really quick.

This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. What do I love about the NBA championship? Well, first of all, I love when the Celtics win, but that's not happening this year. But you know what I really love? The drama, the pressure. Everything goes to the highest level. Guys are injured. Guys are banged up. Guys are hungry. It just brings out the best of everything. And Michelob Ultra is helping you celebrate

Like a champion with a chance to win your own limited edition championship bottle. Just like those gifted to the NBA players during the championship parade. Enter now at michaelobulcher.com slash courtside slash champs bottles. Michelobulcher courtside Victor Solomon champs bottle sweepstakes. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Ends June 22nd, 2025. See official rules at michaelobulcher.com.

slash rules for free entry prizes and details. Message and data rates may apply. Avoid where prohibited.

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever finish a movie and the next thing you know, you're totally obsessed? Like I'm talking about ordering a book about 70s film lighting or buying the soundtrack on vinyl. Kind of obsessed. Whatever it is, Prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into or getting into. Head to amazon.com slash prime and follow your obsession wherever it goes. Nick's coach drama. Boy, boy.

Boy, there's been some buzzing. Boy, there's been some tidbits and some things being talked about. Okay. Sources are saying stuff. Well, what are they saying? I don't know. It just seems that next team was a lot more dysfunctional than I think. I heard hints. I heard...

but man, these little games, Game of Thrones-y over there. Dysfunctional? Well, okay, so are you talking about players or like when you say Game of Thrones, you usually mean, you know, the upper echelon of management. Here's my question for you. So Jalen Brunson's dad is one of the coaches of the team and worked with Tibbs for a long time and...

Dante DiVincenzo was yelling at him for some reason in that first home game and seemed like he had felt betrayed by him. And there's always rumors that he had an outsized voice with Leon and all those dudes. If you're the next coach, do you want your own staff or do you want to inherit this staff that felt like it got a little Game of Thrones-y down the stretch there? Okay, so...

every coach wants his own staff. And there are some coaches for whom that's been a deal breaker when they are told during the hiring process, well, you got to keep this guy or you got to keep this guy or you got to keep these two guys. It's either, it has been either a deal breaker or begrudgingly accepted by a coach who really wants a particular job with an eye on like, all right, I'll give it a year and then I'll exercise my power. This is obviously a much different situation since he is the father of the franchise player. And I think

That is a discussion that has to include lots of different parties to come to a, if a, if a change is made, I think a lot of different people have to be involved in that. And I don't, when you talk to people around the league, there's a lot of skepticism that there would be a change made because he is Jalen Brunson's father. But I think skepticism is underrating it. I think people think he will be on the bench. Yeah. That's kind of what I meant. Yeah. Um,

But, you know, dysfunctional is like, it's a strong, it's a strong word. It's just like every team's got its stuff, right? Every team's got its stuff in the locker room. But a lot of leaks, a lot of maneuvering the story from the moment the season ended all the way through that athletic thing that we talked about on our podcast that came out.

Almost right afterwards, the scapegoating and that was really interesting. I've been following the league long enough. That was Cat. Cat was kind of hit hard in that one and Tibbs. Called it out that night when I read the story. It was like, all right, this is notable that these are the two scapegoats. Let's see how it goes. I'll be interested to see if Cat will be the other domino that falls with this. But who wants this job? I assumed Johnny Bryant was going to get it.

Because the son said there were two people left. Him, the guy who got the job. Jordan Ott. Give Jordan Ott some love. Who apparently is married to somebody named Jordan. Did you hear this? I did not. I have not. Both named Jordan. Interesting couple. That's what I heard. I don't know if that's true. But so Johnny Brian. How many names could you do that with? Okay. Not many. Right. It would have to be like Jordan, Kelly.

Yeah, Kelly's a good one. Anyway, Alex. Yeah, Alex is a good one. So when Johnny was in the final two and then all of a sudden the other guy got it, I just assumed he was the next thing. I don't think Ben Gundy, that name got flown around, but he's... Which one? Jeff. He's friends with... Yeah, I just don't think... Obviously really close with Tibbs. I don't see him being like, cool. Yeah. You shanked my guy. I'd love to take the job. Everything he's ever said...

and privately would cut against him taking that job. So who's left? The only name that didn't really get mentioned that I was surprised. Oh, you're excited. Taylor Jenkins is a good coach. I watched a lot of Memphis games going, man, they have a really good coach. And he's just kind of sitting there. Everyone was talking Mike Malone, but to me that just feels like you're running back a different version of Tibbs. Taylor Jenkins, I thought, you can make a pretty fair case with him that he

had a really tough job the last couple years he's a very good coach Taylor Jenkins is a very good coach

Memphis to New York as a market and as expectations faced is about as big of a jump as you can make. You go from Chris Vernon to 40 Chris Vernons? I mean, does James Dolan know who Taylor Jenkins is? Start there. I'm not even being facetious. Is he aware that that's a coach? I don't know. Probably not. I'm not sure he's hiring the next coach. I think this is a Leon thing. But he's got a rubber stamp. He'll sign off on it.

Who do you think is going to be the next coach? I have no earthly idea. I mean, I, you know, I've heard rumblings of, um, like they'd maybe they want an ex player, um, an ex NBA player. Uh, I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's true. My favorite is Ron Artestor and his hat in the ring was my number one thing that happened. He really wants to coach. He really wants to coach. I'm pretty sure he's not going to get it.

I don't, I see come up on like the, the list of like, you know, the, the 20 best odds to coach the New York Knicks where it's like the bottom one is the last one is like Stephen A. Smith. Like they get real Joe houses right above him. Yeah. I thought the name, I thought Frank Vogel might come up just cause he's a New York guy. But he's, you know, he's been in a lot of places now in a short amount of time. Look, the one. Yeah.

Yeah, well, I saw that you boosted his, I'm going to get more involved thing.

watch out. I'm going to get Ishbia. I'm going to get more involved. That wasn't involved enough and I'm going to get more involved. Like it wasn't his idea to throw Cam Johnson and the Kevin Durant trade and like one more pick and just be like, whatever it takes, let's get him. You're loving Ishbia. You got him on your podcast right off the bat and now you're like, yeah. I had no idea it was going to be as special as this. I think he's not going to come back on. I actually was, I was going to do this with you on the pod, the most hilarious owner of each decade.

Because he's clearly halfway there. Vivek was locked it down in the 2010s. Vivek is coming in for a late 2020s rally. You can't count him out. You can't. You just can't. I'm not saying Ishbi hasn't locked up yet, but he's in the lead and he's feeling good. But Vivek, you know, who knows? But Vivek won last decade. And then I think probably Dolan won in the 2000s.

With all the crazy shit he did. He's not hilarious, though. It doesn't fit him. So who would you have in the 2000s? Sarver? No, nothing. They're malicious people. They're not hilarious. Sarver did illegal stuff. Well, we didn't know that in the 2000s, though. He faced civil litigation anyway. No, that was later. I'm saying 2000s. 2000s. When he basically hired Steve Kerr and was like, you have to get into the luxury tracks, trade all our picks. I mean...

You know who it is? It was Cuban. From a hilarious standpoint, some of the stuff where he was sitting on the bench and remember the time he ran on the court during the fight to break up the court and then realized he shouldn't be on the court? He had some funny stuff. Ishby is the clear winner in the 2020s, though. I mean, I guess we can't blame...

Well, we can blame, but it wasn't hilarious. Glenn Taylor for just overseeing the entire David Kahn experience in Minnesota. But you know, this is why you're the best. Not only that, but he lost four picks for Joe Smith. That's right.

But he was never hilarious. He called, as we had in the Celtic City doc, he called Wick to congratulate him on winning the 2008 title because he was trading him Kevin Garnett. He had Kevin McHale as a coach and a GM at the same time. And Flip Saunders. Yeah, it's Glenn Taylor. It's a great call. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's go back to the next. We didn't like, who do you think is going to get the job?

I find it hard to believe Johnny Bryant's going to be the head coach. The more I looked at it and thought about it, it just doesn't seem like he's experienced enough. This is one of the biggest jobs in the league. I would bet on Taylor Jenkins, Frank Vogel, Mike Malone, one of those guys who at least has been in some situations. What about the can we trade for your coach gambit that has been mentioned with Ime Odoka and Jason Kidd?

Any of that interesting to you? Why would Houston trade him a Doka? Like just throw him out. He's not getting rid of him. That's ridiculous. I agree. And I don't think he would leave. It's a great situation, even with the East being so much worse than the West. It's a great situation. And also, like, I know how Houston's GM, Rafael Stone, negotiates would just be like, you don't even have enough. You don't have enough. I want three first round picks. You don't even have that. The kid one is interesting to me.

Yeah, because he's, he certainly didn't love the Luca one. I wouldn't take my eyes off it. That's all I, that's all I would say now. I wouldn't, I wouldn't take, I wouldn't disqualify it. I wouldn't take my eyes off it in part because as you and I are batting it around, we can't find another candidate that's like, oh, that's,

That makes a ton of sense for a team that has said in its press release announcing the firing of Tom Thibodeau, we are a championship roster, or at least we believe we are. That's the pressure. That's the expectations. That's why it's hard to imagine a first-time head coach walking into that job. I apologize to the friend who sent me this. Oh, boy. That I can't remember their name. What kind of friend are you? But made the point, Tibbs would have been the greatest Atlanta Hawks coach ever.

And that the best outcome would have been a Quinn Snyder for Tibbs trade over firing Tibbs. Because if you put Tibbs on Atlanta, he basically just could have run the Knicks offense with Trey as Jalen Brunson, but then had all of this defense and all of these wings and a Kong Wu as the shop walker and just done the Tibbs with that team. And Trey could have shot 36 times. I, again, I really apologize to my friend who texted this, but I thought it was great. And then Quinn Snyder on the Knicks bench, uh,

With the red glasses, just being weird and handsome. He's got to get blue glasses then. Blue glasses or orange glasses. Right, dark blue glasses. I thought that was a really good one. I think it's a guy with some pedigree. Malone would be a weird one though because he's a little gruff like Tibbs was, but the guy won a title two years ago.

Well, so that's a great, this is a point I wanted to make, and I should have made it about Tibbs. And I'm going to make it again on my podcast this weekend. Michael Malone's a great name to bring up. Mike Budenholzer is a great name to bring up, not for this job, but for this purpose. Frank Vogel's a great name to bring up, not necessarily for this job, but for this purpose. The idea that Tibbs is not a championship coach, that you need a different coach to take your team. He's the floor raiser who can only take your team so far. I think there's some merit

to the general idea of Tibbs is that because he is indisputably an incredible floor raiser. Incredible. And I don't think he's like a Carlisle, Spoh level, quarter for quarter, minute for minute adjustment guy that's your playoff dream coach, right?

But I don't think any of those other guys were either. And that's why Mike Budenholzer got fired in Milwaukee. He was too slow to adjust, blah, blah, blah. Michael Malone was never thought of as this incredible wizard of adjustments and all this stuff. And those guys won championships. If you have the right talent and...

if you have the right talent, right year, right circumstances, like, yeah, I should have been clear about this. Like Tom Thibodeau can absolutely win an NBA championship. Even if he is more of a floor raiser than a ceiling raiser, he can, he's so good at getting your floor so high that he can get you into that spot. He can absolutely win a championship. And like, that's why that Michael Malone, Mike Boone, remember, but was like on thin ice, uh,

several times in Milwaukee, mostly because of the idea that he was not as good of a playoff coach as someone like Eric Spolstra, who kind of exposed him a couple of times. And he won the championship. That's all. Well, I think it seems like it was time for tips to go in New York after five years. Didn't use. It felt like the core guys were good moving on with him.

And you lose the core guys. It's, it's a wrap in the NBA. And that's why the longest tenured coaches in the league go back to 2020. Can we just, the core guys, I know cats had experience with Tibbs before. Maybe, so maybe this doesn't matter. That was Rocky from the get go. I'm sure it was like, no, no, it's fine now. How do we end? No,

And Anobi like kind of just got there. You know, it's not like he's been there all five years with Tibbs. It's not like Towns has been there all five years with Tibbs or Hart has been there all five. He's been there a lot. McBridge has just got there. It's not like they've all been there for like four years of just like, oh, my God, another shoot around with Tibbs. Like, you know, it's not like they've been there that long. Seemed a little, seemed a little gamey. That's why I flagged it for you in April when you jerked backwards.

And I still like they made the conference finals. They did. And the thing is, a lot of it has to come down to how do you view those first two games against Boston? Because they were they were before Tatum towards Achilles. They were about to go up 3-1, probably win that series. And you would think like, wow, what a feather in their cap that they're going to knock the defending champions out pretty honestly until that injury happens.

Unless you think the first two games were about Boston, just were like 75% choke, 25% comeback and not 50-50. Can I give you a 90-10? Yeah, whatever. I was trying to be nice to the Knicks. I was on a text start about this two days ago because I was looking at the third and fourth quarter box scores from game one and getting mad all over again. The Celtics took, I think it was 34 shots in the second half and 27 of them were threes.

They took 20 shots in the third quarter with a 20-point lead at various points. And 19 of them were threes. They took zero free throws. And the whole thing is like after watching what Indiana did to the Knicks, to think that the Celtics just walked the ball up and just jacked up threes. And that was their offense. And what a giant favor they did for the Knicks in both of those games. And then the Knicks hung around and they grabbed the game, much like Indiana today. But to me, that was a Boston...

just an absolute strategy collapse where you're just like, it was basically the opposite of OKC tonight, where OKC's like, actually, we're going to change our lineup. We think maybe this will be a little better for us. Boston was like, we do this. This is all we do.

We don't care who we're playing. This is our formula. We're never going to deviate from it. And then you see how easy it was to just push the ball on the Knicks, get Towns or Brunson in any sort of switch, keep running, run after made baskets, just keep pushing the pace on them. And they didn't do any of it. And they had the same kind of players Indiana has, better versions than them in some cases. Anyway.

This episode is presented by State Farm. On the basketball court, the best players know when to pass and off the court, you still need teammates who are there when it counts. That's where State Farm comes in. With agents to help you find coverage that's right for you, you can focus on what really matters, whether that's hitting game winners or just getting through the day. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. State Farm coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state.

This episode is brought to you by Degree Original Cool Rush Deodorant. Remember last year, people got really mad when Degree changed their Cool Rush formula? One dude even started a petition. What was up with that guy? Well, guess what? Degree listened. They admitted they messed up. They're bringing back the original Cool Rush scent, and thank God.

You've got to love when a brand can own its mistakes. And it's in Walmart, Target, and other stores right now for under $4. Grab some. Find out why it's been the number one men's antiperspirant for the last decade. By the way, you should put that on, especially we're about to hit the summer. It's getting sweaty in the summers. The original degree cool rushes back and it smells like victory for all of us. I have the, I have What's Utah Up 2.

written down as a topic. We're talking about the Utah Jazz at 12, 15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time? This is my last one because I haven't seen you since they hired Austin Ainge, gave him the car keys. Then Austin Ainge is like, we're not going to be tanking anymore. That got my attention. I have my eye on them. Everybody's telling me to have my eye on Toronto. That's been the new catchy thing to say this month of watch out for Toronto. Nobody loves that more than the Raptors. They're in the discourse, baby. Watch out for Toronto. It's like, what am I watching out for?

Well, what are they going to do? They're going to trade Scotty Barnes and other picks for Giannis. Milwaukee's not doing that. What are they going to do? They're not getting Giannis. Why are you disqualifying that for Milwaukee? I'm not doing that. I'm keeping Giannis. If it's Scotty Barnes and some picks for Giannis, thanks. I'm going to keep Giannis. Thanks anyway. I'll keep one of the 20 best players ever at age 30. Thank you.

Well, okay. So do you want to talk about the Utah Jazz? Should we do a deep dive on Keontae George? Like, what are we doing here? I'm just wondering, are they going to get frisky over the next three weeks? Do I have to keep my eye on this? So you love this idea of...

You love this idea of marketing for Paul George at number three. That's like your little pet. That's like a little pet over here. You love that one. I have it in a cage. I feed it some cage-free eggs and some spring water, and I try to grow it. I don't even know if that makes sense for Philly, but I just wonder if Philly's looking at trades like that with the third pick.

I hate that trade for everybody involved. I think I do too. I just thought it was a fun trade. I don't know. What are you doing with marketing and Joel Embiid together? I don't know what that is. If you tell me I'm the Sixers, I know I'm the Jazz. I can reroute Paul George somewhere else for something less damaging to my cap sheet for the next three years. And I get the number three pick. Then it starts to be somewhat interesting to me. But like marketing is pretty good.

And the Paul George contract is not so good. Although I think it'll get rehabbed in this year. I think we'll think differently of Paul George in about six months. Can I make the case for why I would think about this if I'm Utah? I wouldn't do it if I was Philly. But if I'm Utah and I have two stabs at a top five pick in this draft, which I think has a real, especially the top five has a chance. There might be somebody really special. Edgecombe, Trey Johnson, Harper, like one of those guys ended up being a top

10 or 15 guy in the league, maybe two of them. Who knows? If I'm Utah, I get two swings at that Apple. If I can trade, keep my fifth pick and trade into the top three, but I, that would not be the trade I did. If I was Philly, if I would try to do three and Paul George, I would be shopping that around. Like I would have offered that to Jalen Brown for Jalen Brown right now. Well, that's okay. So you're in the right age range then, because for Philly,

I'm sorry, but I have to make decisions at this level based on a timetable that is not Joel Embiid's timetable. That's why if I really like the guys that are available at three and those guys have studied the draft a thousand times more than I have, if they don't like those guys, it's a different conversation. If I like them...

As a steward of that franchise, I can no longer mortgage major pieces of our future for the idea that I can win a title with Joel Embiid. I just can't do it anymore. I think you're right. I think that's the right... It's not even... It's obvious. It's obvious. I just don't know if...

I don't know if that front office is wired that way, though. So that's the thing about Utah and Frisky. Your little pet trade is at least the right idea of them being Frisky because otherwise, what am I going to do? I'm going to go out and trade for Trey Young or something? Why is that interesting to me if I'm Utah? Why am I cashing in chips? When Austin says they're not tanking anymore, they don't have to tank to tank. They could just play all the players that they have on their roster and

Maybe trade Sexton for a first or whatever. Whoever gets you a first out of the Sexton Collins Clarkson group. And just don't do what you did last year where everyone has injuries that pop up mysteriously every third game or like last 40 games or whatever. Just play your roster. The West, the West is so good that you'll finish 14th or 15th in the West anyway, and you'll have organically tanked and everybody won't be so goddamn miserable anymore. That's all. Especially Will Hardy.

Well, that's why he's like, I think guys, I'm not a drinker, but I'm going to be starting if we're going to suck again, because I can't do this a third year. But at least for Will Hardy's sake, he has leveraged their own misery into like, I think he's been extended 15 times in the last two. I think it's 2040 now. Yeah, well, I think Utah is the fifth pick and that might end up being a really good player. So maybe they're good, but Utah. Yeah.

Utah and Toronto, I think, are the two that people seem to be whispering about. And then Atlanta, I think, is just interesting in general. I don't even know who would want Trey Young. San Antonio, I think, keeps two. At least that's the word. But there's been a lot of KD stuff this week.

A lot of KD stuff. Didn't that seem like a possible home for him? I still feel like Towns for KD is in play too. By the way, one of my favorite things has been how every time anyone says that KD's almost a lock to get traded, it gets aggregated as if it's some big story. KD's getting traded. KD's not going to be on the Suns next year. We could put that one to bed, just wait to see what the trade is. Well, the stuff that was this week about how Bradley Beal, they're stuck with him, they might have to buy him out.

He's got two years left. I think at like 53 and 57. My guess is they're not going to buy him out. Anyway, we'll see what happens. We have plenty of time to talk about this. So we're going to be doing pods next week in the great state of Indianapolis. That's right, baby. Naptown, we're coming. Do people call it Naptown anymore? Jalen Rose does. That was the first time I heard it. That's good enough for me. You know, I'm just going to throw this out here. You would know this.

You would not necessarily know this, but you would know how realistic of a question this is. I asked some of the Pacers people this when they were in New York up 3-1 last week. Yeah. This is a near and dear question to your heart and probably one that you've thought about and know the background of better than I do. Do we get a legend appearance in Indiana for a game for one of the home finals games? I mean, if you want to get the crowd involved to bring the house down, I think it's a good idea.

He lives in Indiana. Why wouldn't he? Well, he lives in Florida a lot. I don't know where he is day to day right now, but I know he's got a place in somewhere in Florida. If I'm the Pacers and it's 1-1 heading into game three, I'm trotting out every Indiana legend I have for game three.

All of them. Reggie Miller's in there. I've heard nobody bring this up yet. Like, when the Pacers went up three whatever in the conference finals, it was one of the first things that popped in my head. Are we going to get a Larry Legend appearance in Indiana if they make the finals? I was not given an answer.

My laptop battery is about to run out, so we have to go. Sweet. I'm sorry I brought up Utah. I didn't realize it was going to make you so angry. I'm not angry. It's just that we just watched an incredible finals game. We talked about it for an hour. I still don't really know what happened. I'm going to have to go back and rewatch. What do you think the line is on FanDuel for the series now?

I don't speak gambling, so you're going to have to tell me what the way it was like minus seven, 700 before the series. It sure was. So I'm going to guess my totally uneducated gambling mind. I'm going to guess it's minus 375. See, look at you. Minus 330. Okay. Okay. See the winning fives. Don't play. Zach Lowe.

Pleasure. Are you doing a little mini Game 2 preview pod, possibly? It was going to be a struggle if it was just Oklahoma City wins by 18. Now I'm doing a mini Game 2 preview pod. We'll either tape it tomorrow night or Saturday morning. Because this is the joy of having...

two days off between games you get to really sink your teeth into these things keep it keep it going because then you got Monday too when we're in Indiana I'm going to ask you to rank your favorite ringer people you've potted with so far I'm just going to force you to do it it would be great cause some team dissension a month in

Get the locker room rank. Yeah. Get the locker room rankle. Zach Lowe. Pleasure as always. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo for helping us with the live stream. Thanks for everybody for checking in. What a game. We really lucked out. We'll see you next time. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Zach and Eduardo and Gahal as well for helping us make it and go live on YouTube. That was super fun. I'm going to be back on Sunday.

Right after game two, we'll be doing this podcast with Priscilla and we're going to do a live on YouTube like we did game one. And you have the weekend to watch Working Girl for the rewatchables. That's coming on Monday. It's a great movie. Watch it with the whole family. It's a good one. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you on Sunday night.

Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat.

in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA.

What do I love about the NBA championship? Well, first of all, I love when the Celtics win, but that's not happening this year. But you know what I really love? The drama, the pressure. Everything goes to the highest level. Guys are injured. Guys are banged up. Guys are hungry. It just brings out the best of everything. And Michelob Ultra is helping you celebrate like a champion with a chance to win your own limited edition championship bottle. Just like those gifted to the NBA players during the championship parade.

Enter now at michaelobulcher.com slash courtside slash champs bottles. Michelobulcher Courtside Victor Solomon Champs Bottle Sweepstakes. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Ends June 22nd, 2025. See official rules at michaelobulcher.com slash rules for free entry prizes and details. Message and data rates may apply. Void.

We're prohibited. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. During the season, every baseball team plays 162 games. It's a true test of endurance. It's not enough to have a hot month or two. You need sustained dominance throughout.

While the same is true for your small business, it's not enough to have a great Q2 or even a great year. You want year-over-year growth that starts with better hires that'll be there for the long haul. To find those hires, use LinkedIn. LinkedIn has strong hiring data and insights that you won't find anywhere else to help pair you with the best candidates from unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses say that LinkedIn helps them find high-quality talent.

LinkedIn also lets you go beyond people who are actively applying in a given week. 171 million LinkedIn members aren't actively seeking jobs, but they are open to new opportunities. That's a big pool to miss out on if you're not hiring with LinkedIn. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Simmons. That's linkedin.com slash Simmons to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.