Mavs and Cavs Take Game 2s, Nuggets on the Ropes, Depleted Knicks, and Vogel Fired in Phoenix
01:39:31 Share

And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast. It's Friday morning. I just got off a get up. I am highly, highly caffeinated, which is very dangerous. Tim Legler, live from Minnesota. You're on Nuggets Wolves tonight. Woo!

What a plot twist that series has taken. How are you, sir? I'm great, man. I am great. I'm really looking forward to tonight, and I'm very curious to see what kind of response Denver has. If they're the team that I've been watching for the last two years, Zach, I would expect them to give their best punch. I'm just not sure that's going to be good enough based on what I saw in game two. Legs, this is my fourth coffee of the day. It's 10 in the morning. I am struggling today and also a little bit loopy.

Wolves, Wolves, Nuggets. Jokic just won his third MVP. They completely unraveled in game two. I talked about that earlier this week. I want to pick for tonight, and I want one thing you're looking for in the game tonight. Well, all right. Which one do you want first? I'll tell you what I'm looking for. Yeah, go there. Whatever you want. Here's what I'm looking for.

What I saw in primarily the first half of game two, but really throughout, but let's just talk about that first half because I've been doing this a long time, man. I played against some great defensive teams even when I was in the league. I've covered a lot of great defensive teams. I cannot recall a more suffocating, dominant, bullying defensive performance than I saw in the first half of game two.

Denver looked completely inept. And this is one of the best executing teams we've seen in recent memory. It's a team that's got a three-time MVP on it that has incredible continuity amongst their starters. And every single bit of space was taken away from them.

Dribbling space, shooting space, anything at the rim was contested by multiple guys. So it's very simple. What can Denver do to create some space and separation so that they can run their offense?

because that was just suffocating what Minnesota did to them. It was embarrassing, and Mike Malone said it. After the game, they were embarrassed and humiliated. So it's that simple, Zach, and I'm going to be sitting there courtside tonight talking about this, and I'm going to be looking in the first six minutes of the game, what is Denver doing to create some freedom for their ball handlers, some freedom for guys to receive the basketball in spots on the floor where they can run the next part of their set,

and just how strong they are with the ball because of all the strips and deflections and everything that we saw in that game. It's very hard to get it out of my mind. So that's what I'm looking for, plain and simple. What does Denver do to respond to what happened to them on that end of the floor in game two? I expect a great response. It'll be their best punch. It has to be. If they lose this game, I think they're going to get swept and

Um, do they have enough though, Zach, even with their best punch, the way Minnesota is playing right now, is it going to be enough? And Minnesota and I get their first home game in this series. I tend to lean toward Minnesota winning tonight and going up three. Oh, I'm picking the wolves to win tonight. I don't know if that means to sweep or it's the, the direct mirror image of last year's series where Denver went up three, one in Minnesota got game four. I just, I've seen this movie before.

I, you don't often see teams unravel completely like the nuggets just did a proud champion who is just unaccustomed to being bullied and beaten up like that. And their response was, I mean, Jamal Murray threw something onto the court. They just completely unraveled. Uh,

And so I think Minnesota will win a close game. What I'm looking for is exactly what you said. Offensively, and the interesting thing is, Gobert is back now. So it's like they've now played two completely different Minnesota teams, which means two completely different schemes defensively. A Gobert and a not-Gobert.

Now we go back to the Gobert and he's going to be lurking on that back line. And there are ways to finagle around that and get him moving around the floor with Aaron Gordon. But I'm looking at Murray floaters and Jokic floaters because those are the shots that are going to be there when they run the Murray Jokic pick and roll. And they just got to make a requisite number of those last thing. Incredible stat legs. The Denver starters, which were have been the best lineup in the NBA for two years.

are minus 15 for the playoffs. Not just this series, the entire playoffs in like 170 something minutes. No other lineup on the entire team has played more than 14 minutes in the playoffs. If that lineup doesn't get going, they're dead in the water. Okay, the other game tonight, Nick Spacers, what are you looking for? Who are you picking?

I like Indiana a lot in this game. And I picked the Knicks to win this series in seven games. And we know what these first two games have looked like. They could have gone either way, both of those games. And I think Indiana's got to be incredibly disappointed that they're leaving there without a win. When you look at how game one ended and some things that did not go their way, certainly in terms of the officiating. And then game two, you get Brunson out for a quarter plus. You get Ananobi, who was killing him, leave the game. And you're still not able to walk out of there with a win because you can't stop them.

So I think overall, very deflating to leave there, not at least 1-1. But at the same time, I think when you go look at the film, if you're Rick Carlisle on the Pacers, you know you've got to be better defensively if you can tighten some things up there. And I got some suggestions for Rick, if he would care to listen to me, that I think could help them in that regard. I think they feel very confident. Look, we're playing our pace. Offensively, we're fine. We're doing the things we need to do.

The offensive rebounding has been a mild factor in this.

Nominating factor to the series for the Knicks. So he has done a Halliburton got going. There are so many good signs now as you shift this series home and you got a shorthanded, even more shorthanded Knicks team. I think I feel really good about Indiana's chances, really not just to get one game. I feel really good that this thing goes back to New York to two. I think they're going to go home and hold home court, but the defensive adjustments are,

are key and his rotational things. And I think a lot of it starts with TJ McConnell and you've got to get them hard off Bronson off Bronson. He's that is not the answer for Jalen Bronson. And it seems like Rick Carlisle is married to that idea. If he does not loosen up his thinking around that and understand knee Smith needs to be on him more. And I think TJ McConnell has bothered him more.

Then Nembhardt, if you continue to allow Nembhardt to operate as many one-on-one places as he has in the first two games against Brunson, he's going to score 35 to 45 in every game in the series. And you're not going to give yourself a legitimate chance to win. So I'm looking for what do they do differently against Jalen Brunson? Because everything, there's a lot of things that they don't have to change. I don't believe.

That is the key to everything with the Knicks, particularly now that Ananobi Brunson is going to put more even more onus on himself to have a huge game in game three. What do the Pacers do defensively against Jalen Brunson? That is really what this entire game boils down to. I said after the first game, after the first game, you just can't leave Andrew Nampard on Jalen Brunson one-on-one and expect the results out of the Jalen Brunson going bananas. I also said I would try Nismith on him. I still think that.

I also said, I wonder if we'll ever see Siakam on him just for a change of pace. And with Ananobi out, and so Siakam's assignment, the guy you're worried about is out. I wonder if we'll see that. We'll see McConnell on him. And I do think the whole trapping thing is interesting because the Knicks are ready for the traps. They've been seeing it all year. They know how to play out of it. They've gotten good shots almost every single time the Pacers have trapped Jalen Brunson, whether it's on the pick and roll or just trapped him. But...

With Ananobi out, you lose one of your best shooters, your best corner three-point shooter to exploit those traps. You lose a guy who can come in for offensive rebounds from the wing, which is one of the things you risk when you trap. So if he starts cooking again, I think I would try that a little bit too, even if the Knicks have done well against it. But I'm picking the Pacers to win tonight. Not only that, I agree with you. Like,

The Knicks, the best thing they have going for them is they're up 2-0. They have a margin for error and defeat now that they would not have otherwise. I think the Pacers can come back and make this a series. I actually think they can win the series. I picked the Knicks in six. I don't change my picks. I still would pick the Knicks to win the series probably in seven today, knowing the injuries. But the injuries have reached like a crisis point for the Knicks. They're just running out of guys. Ananobi is just like this electrical current of helpful stuff

on both ends of the floor at all times with his shooting, his defense is rebounding. I think they're really going to miss him, obviously. So I think Indiana wins tonight. Wouldn't surprise me at all if we come 2-2. Let's put those games to bed because they're happening soon. Last night, okay, the number one seeds. Didn't work out for the number one seeds in either conference last night. We have to start with the Boston Celtics.

who for the second straight series followed up an emphatic game one win against a team that they should beat, I think, rather easily in a seven-game series with a deflating home loss. This one, a blowout. Cleveland wins by 24 points. They shot much better than Boston.

from three donovan mitchell and darius garland went off in the same game some incredible shot making someday finally got going against al horford's drop defense on the pick and roll i don't know what if if anything will see boston do they brought him up to the level of the screen a little bit closer to the level of the screen a couple times it didn't matter

And just, you know, look, you can point to Boston shooting poorly from three, eight of 35 from three. That certainly explains a lot of it. Everyone's harping, oh, they take too many threes. This is typical. They didn't take too many threes last night. They took actually a low, their fewest threes as a percentage of shot attempts of any game in the playoffs. They got to the rim more than they usually do. I thought legs, they lost everything.

because of their defense. I thought their defense was awful. Their transition defense was awful. They got back cut a bunch of times in the half court. Drew Holiday got lost a few times. Their defense just wasn't there. And the other thing for me,

It's not the threes. The volume of threes was actually they probably should have taken more. I just felt like game one, they came out and every single possession, it was where's Darius Garland? Darius Garland's on Derek White. We're just spamming Jason Tatum, Darius Garland, two-man game until you stop it. And we're going to get a switch. We're going to get you in rotation. We're going to get a good shot out of that every time. They got a good shot against Darius Garland every time in game two to the point that like the Cavs defense has looked

better, much better with him off the floor. That doesn't necessarily mean they're better without him. They need him. But I just felt like Boston completely lost the plot offensively throughout the game where they would just sort of be aimless. This is the Boston bad habit. You run one action and then it's just like, all right, there's 12 on the shot clock. Jason Tatum's just going to dance with Max Struess or Evan Mobley. We're like, well, you got Darius Garland over there. You have time to run a second action. You have time to run a lot of stuff. And they just... I just...

Those are the two things, defense and sort of hazy offense that bothered me last night. I'm not worried about Boston in this series. They should still win this series. But at some point, man, wouldn't you like to see them come out and just say, we're just going to have no drama, no frills, no drama. Like, we're just going to wipe this series away. What did you see?

I think last night they played into the narrative, right, that everybody kind of has in the back of their mind. They lapped the field in the Eastern Conference. Like the margin by which they led the East was almost laughable. They didn't play a really meaningful game in terms of the conference seating in the last month of the season. And so yet, despite that,

We still are all kind of like on those given nights, whether it's a half or a game where you're kind of like, huh? I don't know. Like there it is. It surfaced and they did it again last night. And I completely agree with you. The notes that I took on the game, the very first thing that I was, that I was writing down, this was a defensive problem for the Celtics in this game. Their offense was,

Clearly, you know, wasn't like it normally is, but I think some of their issues offensively carried over to the other end of the floor. Guys were just guys look, they look distracted. Some of their, some of their miscommunications in transition, not finding guys on throw ahead passes or, you know, two guys on the ball and someone's running free for an open shot or an open catch and drive to the basket.

was really kind of alarming. Like, how can this be for a team like Boston that we just laud all the time about these two-way players they have and the versatility in their starting lineup in particular? How could that be? The other point that you mentioned, and I agree with this, I wrote down that they're treating 10 on the shot clock like it's three, right?

Like when you get down to, you know, teams typically will call red from the bench, which means you're getting low in the clock at about seven. And that means you've got time for multiple more passes. You've got time for like two more driving kicks. You've got time for two ball screens to take place. And the Celtics would get down to like in that 10 range and not even red territory,

And somebody would just go and end up with a really lousy possession. And then again, I thought from that point, their demeanor and body language getting back and matching up was terrible. They gave up 60 points in the paint to this team. I thought last night, by the way, was one of those times where you noticed Kristaps Porzingis not being on the court defensively because...

You know, he's a guy that can be a matchup problem at times with his shooting and his mid post turnaround jumpers over smaller guys. And it's a different level offensive player than Horford or Robert Williams in that spot. And we know what an upgrade that was. But defensively, this is the length that you have. This guy's been one of the best rim protectors in the league for a long time.

and just bothering guys, knowing he's back there. He covers ground pretty well. He tracks guys to the rim pretty well. I just felt like Cleveland had absolutely no fear of resistance if they could just get by their initial guy. They could get all the way to the paint, or they could hit a floater, and there wasn't just much back there as a deterrent. And they got really confident and comfortable, man. And their guards, you know, they're the key to everything. And...

They got very, very comfortable in the game. And Evan Mobley had a very good game offensively. Some nights he's kind of passive. He wasn't passive last night. He made his presence felt. I think Cleveland sensed it.

In that third quarter, they sensed that this was a night where they were going to be right to be beat. And then they kind of put their foot on the gas and they clamped down. And Boston just did not handle that very well from that point on. So give the Cavs credit, man. They played really, really well. And Boston was just not effective defensively against them at all. And that's where you're going to see probably the biggest adjustment of all when they head to Cleveland.

Yeah, the Cavs pushed a lot of the right buttons. Like, you know, they tried George Yang at center, realized that's a horrible idea. We're not going to do that anymore. They closed the game with what is probably their best offensive lineup right now. Garland, Mitchell, Levert, Struess at the four, and Mobley. And that's a lineup where, like, all five guys are...

dangerous. There's no Okoro. Now, Okoro's shot it pretty well this year, but they're guarding Okoro with Horford and just sort of ignoring him. In fact, I didn't think they ignored Okoro enough. There were a couple spread pick and rolls in the first half where Mobley just got the Celtics tried to play it two on two and Mobley just got easy like

Really, they unfolded really slowly at a million years to just hang around in the paint and wait for a little bounce pass. And Isaac Okoro was in the weak side corner and they were not helping off of him. I thought they could help more. But I thought that lineup worked for Cleveland. I also think it's

exploitable defensively for Boston without Okoro out there. And again, I just thought their offense was... I love the way you put it. Ten on the shot clock is not three. You can hunt Darius Garland and then continue to run your actual offense when you have Darius Garland in the matchup that you want. You can also... I mean, if Donovan Mitchell is over there on Jason Tatum, you shouldn't be isolating Jalen Brown on Evan Mobley. Sam Houser at one point took like

a pull-up three off a dribble handoff when Tatum had Donovan Mitchell on him. It's like, what are we doing here? I mean, see, that's not a bad shot for Sam Hauser, but it's a tough contested DHO three. I don't know, man. Boston just has these games where it's like you can chalk it up to shot luck if you like. They just didn't play well last night. And you just kind of wait for them to not, I mean, to their credit,

They swept Brooklyn two years ago in the first round, and they did win three straight against Miami to close it out after a game that was very much like this. That's in play now. They could win this series 4-1. It wouldn't surprise me. But you just don't want to... And Cleveland was awesome. Their guards made shots. Levert was active. Mobley, you talked about, was fantastic on both ends. They played well. It's just...

Like, Boston should not be losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers by 24 points at home under any circumstances. Boston is a 500 team at home in the last two playoffs. Like, that just isn't good enough. I still think they're going to win the series, but...

It might not be five now. Like Cleveland is a better team than Miami without Butler, Rozier, Hawkins by the end of it. Duncan Robinson was hurt. Cleveland could split these two games at home. It's two, two. And all of a sudden you're like, all right, I guess we're in for a long one. Like that's the cost. Anything else on the series going forward? Any other adjustment you're looking at?

Yeah, I think, I think, you know, one thing that kind of stood out to me in this game and it's just, should it be with a team that potentially has the, you know, a chance to win a championship, which obviously we all think the Celtics are on that level. You shouldn't be that you can shut off the water from the three point line and that should be enough.

And that's kind of what it felt like, right? They make eight threes in the game. It's such a – they have such a reliance on that shot, and I've described to them in the past couple of years really is that's how they end you. They end you with a barrage.

From there, they'll play with you. They'll mess around with you for a while. You go back and forth. They're in the game. And then all of a sudden, they'll go on one of those runs, right, where they hit four or five threes in a short period of time because they get great ball movement. They got so many guys that can make that shot at a high level. And they end the game.

And so that shouldn't be necessarily the only formula. On a night when Cleveland's doing a really good job of getting out to guys, because they were. I don't think this was a case where Boston was just missing a bunch of shots. They only took in the low 30s attempts. That's a really low number for them.

That's as low as like the lowest average for teams in this league that shoot the fewest. That's what they did last night in terms of attempts. That's not just because they didn't feel like shooting threes. Cleveland did a great job of covering ground and running to guys and making sure the rotations were on point to not allow that barrage to happen. But if you're a team like Boston, what 64 games,

That shouldn't be a dead end for you. Then there's got to be other ways and they have the guys to do it. They have great individual breakdown players. There's got to be another way to operate. And I felt like last night they weren't able to kind of turn that faucet on and it really stymied them and then it affected their concentration and their attention to detail and defensive end of the floor. So I think for Boston, if you're Joe Mazzola, I think that's one of your messages to them. Hey, look, all right, they did a great job guarding the free

point line is that all we are we've got to be able to utilize our talent and the versatility that we have the number of guys that can beat guys off the dribble and make these guys work more than we did even if we're not making threes that's like the next step in progression for boston win a game when you make eight threes because you hold the other team to 90 and you find a way to like score and get to the line and do other things like that's the challenge and when they have a game like that

And if they go to Cleveland in game three, check, and they make seven, eight threes, and they do what I'm saying, and they win a game 98-90, that is a step forward for the Boston Celtics because they're going to have probably some other games like that throughout this run that they're going to have to win on nights when they don't shoot the ball well from the three. And last night, they weren't very good on either end with that taken away from them.

I didn't think we'd see the Celtics lose a game by 20 plus points in the entire playoffs. Like the margin is shocking to your point about how it's as much a loss, if not more on their defense than on their offense. They did miss a lot of shots at the rim early and those shots turn into runouts. And if your transition defense isn't on point and it was not last night, it's just a cycle that feeds on itself. A couple of things, Jason Tatum,

22 points a game in the playoffs, 40.7% shooting overall, 27% on threes, 48.6 on twos. He's got to get going because that ain't good enough. Derek White has been – he had a bad game last night. Derek White's been the Celtics' best player in the playoffs. Drew Holiday, eight points a game in the playoffs. Okay, fine. He's not supposed to score a lot for this team. Okay, cool.

36% shooting, 32% on threes. And more than that, I feel like every other shot Drew Holiday has taken in the playoffs in both series has left me being like, why are you jacking this three off the dribble with 20 on the shot clock? Nobody under the rim. Like you're not Steph Curry. What are these shots you're taking? Right.

No, I agree. And look, Derek White clearly was a target for them last night. And I'll blame him because this guy, you know, saying the guy's been on a heater is an understatement the way he's been shooting the basketball. It's like a career-level offensive performance that we've been seeing out of Derek White. And so, you know, that continues. Who's beating them if Derek White's shooting the ball like that? And that was clearly a target for Cleveland. They did a great job in that regard. And there wasn't an answer. To your point about Tatum, I

I agree, man. Look, think about this. They played seven games in the postseason. He's had four games under 40% from the field. Four.

Two other games in the 40s. He's had one game over 50% from the field. And I was asked this question yesterday. Is it a concern yet? Jason Tatum's shooting struggles. I'm just going, yeah. Starting to get there a little bit. Because one of the great things about this team is there isn't the heavy reliance on him to be great every night to win. And especially with the emergence of Jalen Brown. Where Jalen Brown has taken his game offensively, if you look at the last two and a half months,

Who's won and who's won a, I don't know. Cause Jalen Brown's been every bit as good or not better than Jason Tatum has been offensively for a long period of time. And that's actually a good thing for Tatum in terms of winning a championship. Now it ended up hurting him in terms of how we view him in the MVP discussion, because he's like, he's gotten too much help now. So he's like out of the running for MVP. It's interesting. You know, they want 64 games, but,

But that's a good thing in terms of winning a title. It takes pressure off of him. There's less reliance on Jason Tatum to have big nights, but at the same time, Zach, this isn't close to good enough for what it's going to take to win the whole thing, assuming they win this series, assuming they beat either the Knicks or the Pacers in the next round. You're going to get a team coming out of the West that you're going to have to be a lot better than that. So I think, yes, we're at that point.

Where if you really want to calm down the Celtics fans, they need to see Jason Tatum not just have a night string together a couple games in a row. Right. Where he looks like Jason Tatum at his peak.

And we haven't seen that in the postseason. And so I think, yes, it's starting to get to the point where like, man, where's that signature Jason Tatum game? Even with all this help he has, where is that game? And it hasn't taken place. Maybe it's going to be game three in Cleveland and it's going to quell a lot of worries about Jason Tatum and how he's playing right now. Well, look, the Celtics are five and two in the playoffs, so it's not a crisis. But you look around and you're like, man,

It's a good thing they're in the East and Bede's out. Giannis and the Bucks are out. New York is like literally running out of players. Cleveland barely got by the Orlando Magic. Like, okay. I mean, I know Porzingis is hurt and that's a big deal for their team on both ends of the floor, but it's a good thing they're in the East.

Virginia football fans, picture this. You bet on your favorite player to score the first touchdown and he throws an awesome block so his teammate can score instead. If this happens, BetMGM wants to give you another chance at the end zone. With BetMGM's Second Chance Promotion, you'll get your stake back if your first touchdown scorer scores second instead.

That's right. Bet on any pro football player to score the first touchdown of the game. If you're right, you win. If your player scores second, you get your stake back in cash. Everyone knows the most exciting part of football is the score. With BetMGM's second chance promotion, you have a chance to keep the fun going after the first player crosses the goal line. Place a first touchdown scorer wager today.

BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only. Virginia only. Existing customer offer. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards vary. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

This episode is brought to you by CarMax. Searching for your next car? Don't settle, thrive. At CarMax, it's easy to shop online or in person. With upfront pricing and tools designed to help, finding a car you love has never been easier. Plus, you can sell or trade in your current vehicle with an online offer in minutes. No strings attached. Start shopping now to find a car you'll love at CarMax.com. CarMax, the way it should be.

Let's go to the West. Oklahoma City, Dallas. Oklahoma City blew the Mavs out in game one. The Mavs, despite Luka limping around, despite Luka smashing his face on the floor, despite nine points only from Kyrie Irving, who I thought actually played a good game on both ends of the floor despite the scoring, get a huge lift out of P.J. Washington, Josh Green, and Tim Hardaway Jr., and even the series, 1-1, take home court advantage, and I think almost more importantly,

Get the Thunder to blink first by benching Josh Giddey in the second half, starting Aaron Wiggins in his place because the Mavs were putting Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively on Josh Giddey and ignoring him. Josh Giddey was minus 20 in 11 minutes. And look, we all knew this adjustment was the first obvious adjustment that the Thunder were going to have to make at some point.

I don't think they wanted to make it yet. I'm actually a little surprised they made it so dramatically, like not starting him in the second half, but it is, it, it, it is, it is a sign that they're a little bit worried about it. They were ready to do it. Um,

And then you, then you had the Mavs have to make a decision like, okay, so if Giddy's not there, where do we put our centers? And sometimes they put them on Shet, which is what they, what this whole scheme is designed to avoid. I don't think Oklahoma city exploited those instances quite enough. We can talk about that. And sometimes they put them on Aaron Wiggins and just said, we're going to treat Aaron Wiggins this,

the same way we treat Josh Giddey. I think the Thunder should make that not untenable, but should poke at that at least a little bit more because Aaron Wiggins is a much better shooter than Josh Giddey. When he's not on the floor and it's Case and Wallace or Isaiah Joe, then the Mavs are kind of out of places to do that. But considering Kaliba being absent, this was a great win for the Mavs. Luka looked like Luka.

Again, he started making threes. He had not made any threes. And this is this of all the series seems poised to be a seven game. Not maybe not classic, but I like the direction the series is heading. The chess match. It feels like it's going to be a competitive long series, a lot of back and forth. All right. I'm going to jump on a soapbox here for a second about. Oh, let's do it. OK, because here's I'm a little bit irritated today. OK, here's why. Here's why.

Everybody that's been listening to me since the trading deadline. And that's talking about all the stuff I do on ESPN, any pods I do, the all city pod that I do four times a week, talk about Dallas a lot. And I said at that time, the acquisitions of PJ Washington, Daniel Gafford, that I thought Dallas, if they avoided Denver side of the bracket, of course, I wasn't, I wasn't thinking it was, you know, this was the Minnesota team that I'm looking at right now to this level. I thought Denver was still the cream of the crop at that time in the West and

I said, as long as they can avoid Denver's bracket, I think Dallas now with those pieces can go to the conference finals and was saying repeatedly, if Luca had another 10 games, he was going to run down Jokic for MVP. Like this is how high I've been on Luca from the beginning. Now game one in this series,

I made a comment after the game. How does he look? I'll get up the next morning. How does he look? I say, he looks cooked. He looks cooked to me in this game. He was literally a shell of himself physically and,

The way he was moving, the body language, coming out of the game, sitting out, staring at his knee. It looked to me like a guy, again, look at his three-point shooting percentages to that point in the playoffs through seven games. He has no lift. The ball's not getting there. It's flat. The trajectory's not the same. He clearly, he's trying to push off that leg to get separation, and it's just not...

And if that's the case, they can't win the series. If Luka Doncic doesn't start making perimeter shots, they can't beat this team.

And, of course, people, oh, now they win the game. He plays pretty well last night, even though he didn't look a lot better physically after the first quarter. He still looks like he's got some issues physically. Oh, Legler, you bailed on Luka. That's what you get. You're trashing Luka. You turned your back on Luka. It's like, come on, man. Everybody, if you have half a brain and you watched him in game one, you had to have concerns. And I still have concerns. I still have concerns, despite Luka.

how he looked last night and he shot over 50%. He made some threes, like you said, but a lot of his damage was done in the first quarter. And then a couple of selective spots in the fourth that really helped them kind of big, big spots though. Big spots, but it was seven, eight. Yeah.

No question about it, Zach. But he still doesn't look right physically. He's not right physically. And I'm concerned for him, if you're a Mavericks fan, about the durability factor here, man. If this ends up being a really long series and then beyond that. So I'm still concerned about Luka. He was just able to have a great start. And then he had selectively picked some spots. It's weird because if you told me he was going to play exactly like he did last night, Zach, hot start out of the gate.

but then really not a whole lot in the second and third quarters. And then a couple shots in the fourth that mattered. I would have said, okay, well, they won the game. Oh, then Kyrie must've had 30.

Nope. Kyrie was a pretty much a non-factor offensively. And his credit continued to play really hard defensively, despite the fact that he was not getting opportunities offensively. No, they got a lot of help from other spots, man. Primarily PJ Washington, Gafford. They got, they got great help from other guys and they got, I think this is like their signature win of the post season, honestly, because there was a lot of concern about Luca. Yeah.

They couldn't guard them in the first game and they come out and their defense was really good. And they scored 119 points on a night when Kyrie wasn't a factor and Luca still doesn't look like he's close to a hundred percent. And they still scored 119 points on the road and got this thing to one, one phenomenal win for them. Still worried about Luca and the durability going forward, but he made some perimeter shots last night, Zach. And look that three points step back in this are such a huge part of his game and

If he's not making a decent percentage of those, I still believe they're not going to win this series. He did last night, and they got a win. Let's see what happens now going forward as they change venues and go to Dallas. Yeah, 18 of 37 from three.

They're not quite going to duplicate that. What they can duplicate, though, is they had 10 turnovers in the game. Oklahoma City also had 10. They lost the turnover battle dramatically in the first game. I think they had 15. Oklahoma City only had nine. That's a dead-on-arrival stat for the Mavericks. This is a turnover-forcing machine, the Thunder. And the Mavericks are a ball-protection machine. They need to win that segment of the possession battle they did last night. On the 18-47...

I think what Dallas, and maybe it was just Hardaway having his first good game in what it feels like forever, and P.J. Washington making seven threes, which is a little bit of an anomaly, but they were good looks. I think it was interesting to see them, as the game went on, tilt their lineups toward more shooting on the floor. Because I think without Kliba to play any minutes at the five, that was always one of their aces in the hole, was like, we can downsize and play Kliba at the five, have shooting everywhere, perimeter guys everywhere.

They're going to have to play lively and Gafford, probably one of them the whole game. That's what they've been doing so far. They could put P.J. Washington in center. We'll see. I think they discovered if we have a rim runner and Derek Jones Jr. and Josh Green or Dante Exum on the floor at the same time, we're just not going to be able to get enough space. And I know Josh Green made shots last night. They're going to dare him to make shots to his credit. He made them. Dante Exum only played six minutes. I thought that was...

the right adjustment now when you play luca kairi and tim hardaway jr together you're always sort of walking a fine line with your defense you're walking a little high wire act with your offense defense balance but it worked last night and i understood why they thought it was necessary um what are you i i think the more interesting chess match now is how the mavericks guard chet

on defense and where they put their centers on defense if you were Mark Dagnall would you start Giddey again in game three or are you like well we've made the move like I don't know if we can go back at this point and if there is no Giddey or minimal Giddey like if Giddey's off the floor most of the game and you're and you're the Mavs where do you put Gafford and Lively defensively yeah it's a it's a

At a point, I know a lot of coaches, they don't really like changing up something in terms of their starting lineup, unless they're just absolutely forced into it. They're just deep into the season when you're starting to get to all year. But I think, look, if this is how it's going to go, and I believe that this is how it's going to go with the limited minutes for him, then what's the point? What's the point of starting him? Really? I mean, everybody in the locker room knows the deal. Giddy knows the deal. The guys that are backing him up that are going to play, everybody knows the deal. So if that's the case...

I don't think you're worried about losing Giddey mentally. He played 11 minutes. He's not going to be a massive factor offensively in this series. His best quality probably he's going to bring is he's a good ball mover, and he connects people with his passing, and he's just really smart.

But it's not like he's going to come out there and have a 20, 25 point game. That's just not going to happen in this series. So you're not going to worry about that. So if you're going to play him 11 minutes, then use those 11, 12, 15 minutes, whatever it ends up being more selectively by putting them on the floor with guys that you want them out there to be able to guard. And that's what the luxury you'll have if you bring them off the bench.

rather than start him, have him get targeted or picked on immediately. It kind of sets the tone for your team. Potentially guys get off to a good start the other end of the floor. So I think despite the fact that coaches have this incredible reticence to doing that on the fly in a series, that would not surprise me whatsoever if they go in a different direction with the starting lineup in game three. As far as Chad Holmgren goes, I don't think –

Jason Kidd and the Mavericks are that worried about what Chet Holmgren does to them offensively. This series is going to come down to Shea and Jalen Williams and how hard you make them work for what they get and guarding the three-point line because the three-point line was a huge factor in the first game. Oklahoma City shot it above their pay grade a little bit in that game, but they showed you that they can if they get decent looks. They made a ton of threes in the second half of that game that really ended the game.

So guard a three-point line, and then how hard do you make Jalen Williams and Shea work for what they get? I don't know that Dallas is really worried about a lot of these other guys. They might have a basket here, a basket there, and Chet Holmgren is a really good player. Don't get me wrong. Chet Holmgren is going to be an all-star in this league, I believe. But right now, offensively, he's sort of selective about his shooting to the point where I don't know that you're that concerned about Chet Holmgren beating you. And if he starts to...

and your defensive coverages on him aren't good enough, and he gets really confident, makes a couple of threes, then he gets to drive, then you make an adjustment to account for him a little bit more. I don't think that is a massive concern for Jason Kidd and the Mavericks.

Yeah, I don't know if the way they're inverting the matchups and putting their centers on Gady and P.J. Washington on Chet Holmgren. And by the way, Dallas, I think, was maybe the first team in the league to do this full scale to the Thunder this season. It's partly because they don't want to give Chet Holmgren wide open pick and pop threes or get themselves in rotation trying to fly at him with a third defender. And it's partly because they just want their big guys closer to the rim. And who can we ignore and stay closer to the rim? I do think.

I get what you're saying about Chet Holmgren. He's not like a super high volume score, super high volume shooter. He's a good three-pointer, not a great one, doesn't have the quickest release, whatever. I'm still going to poke at that if I'm the Thunder. Like if I see Gafford and Lively on Chet Holmgren when Dallas doesn't want them there, I want to see more Shea, Chet, pick and pops. Jalen Williams, Chet, pick and pops. See how they respond. See if those centers can get moving. A possession I would zero in on, like,

About 10 minutes left in the second quarter yesterday, game two. Giddey, I'm sorry, I think Lively or Gafford or whoever was in the game was on Giddey and Washington was on Chet.

And they ran a Chet Holmgren, Josh Giddey inverted pick and roll specifically to get the switch, to get the Dallas big man onto Chet. And unlike the Celtics, this is a useful contrast to Boston, they did not stop there. That was not the end of their action. Chet, now that I've got, let's say, lively on me, pitched it to Jalen Williams and said, now let's go into the exact pick and roll that they don't want to defend.

You, me, pick and pop with a big man on me. And I think Kyrie actually deflected the return pass to Chet Holmgren. It was a really nice defensive play. But I would poke at that a little bit more. And in the first game, it was interesting to see this. I went back and watched a little bit of the first game.

They would have, even when Lively, they would almost have Lively play like a zone, like a one-man zone for parts of the first game where he would hang near the paint. And every time the Thunder, he would nominally be guarding Chet, but he would kind of be hanging near the paint. And every time the Thunder would want to run one of their guard guards, pick and rolls, and the guard would roll, he would take that guy and point for someone else to go take Chet. And I think there's some counters there. I think that's the most interesting chess pass. You mentioned Shea and Jalen Williams. I know they're going at him,

a decent amount for me, the thunder cannot go at Luka Doncic too much. Like I would aim every single possession. And if you're going to switch him onto our best guys, like I'm just going to keep doing that. And I know he's big and he can move his feet decently. And sometimes he'll force a fadeaway jumper or whatever. I'm, I'm making him work every single time. And I understand like teams are hesitant to just sort of scrap,

their base motion offense all the time. But this is a case where this is a good defensive team. The Mavs are good. They're long. They fight hard. That's the spot. And Kyrie's fighting hard too. Like I'm picking on Luka every chance I get.

I agree with that. And look, that would be the case anyway, even though Luka has made great strides in his effort on that end. He's not as mobile as he needs to be right now. So I agree with that. You can't target him enough. Number one, he's never going to allow himself to get in foul trouble.

So you know that if he does have a foul, there's a good chance you're getting by him. Now, the one thing I'll say about Dallas in game two, I thought their protection of penetration was significantly better than it was in game one. Game one, the lack of that penetration

And sort of the late frantic trying to get there in time to help him or somebody laid it in led to the kickouts and the chasing of the ball that they never caught up to. And all these open threes in the second half, I thought their anticipation of protecting

protecting penetration in this game was significantly better. And Duke Dallas metrics were great. We all know that we've talked about it the last couple months of the season defensively. And you saw a lot more of that in game two than you did in game one. And you got to see like what, what they can be at their best. They've got length back there at the end of the drive, but they had other guys, uh,

consciously making sure that they were presenting enough traffic visually to the guys that were driving, that there was not these clean driving lanes to get all the way to the rim, get something up there and maybe get on the offensive glass. And after that, or a kickout because there's an overreaction to penetration because it's a miscommunication. I just thought they were on point with what they were doing on that end of the floor in game two. And it was, it was critical on a night when, you know, Kyrie was not really a factor, which is kind of takes me to game three where,

How much money you want to bet on? I don't know what the prop that's going to be a Kyrie Irving in game three. I'm taking the over. I think it's going to be a Kyrie Irving game. You know, he's not he's he's grown a lot, man. He's not the kind of guy now that's going to pout over getting eight shots. They won the game. I believe him now because how hard he's playing. And it's really fun to watch him compete defensively with his quickness the way that he is.

But the guy's a raw scorer, and he wants to have an imprint here sooner than later. Game three, I think, is a Kyrie game as they change venues. Well, given the way Luka's kind of not limping around, but he's banged up, and he seems to get banged up in the middle of every game again.

He's going to need Kyrie to have a Kyrie game at some point. And in fact, there were a couple possessions after Luka went on that run in the first quarter where they put Luka in the corner as kind of a spot-up guy. Now it was the weak side corner knowing you're not going to help off Luka Doncic. I also thought we finally saw...

just glimpses of it, but Kyrie and Luca together in two-man actions, both on and off the ball. And I'd like to see a little more. I feel like Dallas has kind of lost some of their creativity in their offense because the Clippers kind of grind you into like a one-on-one game. I feel like there was one play where they brought Luca off two screens, like a pin down and then a screen at the elbow and got him a catch on the move. Just a little bit more stuff like that. A couple other small notes on this game. I liked...

I liked strangely the double big look for Oklahoma city with big Jalen Williams and shed Holmgren together, which is something they rarely, rarely did in the regular season. It's not like they're doing it a lot, but if they're going to have to fill a giddy minutes void, I like how big they look defensively when they play those two guys together and the kind of stuff they can do defensively. I don't know if it's a heavy minutes thing, but Jalen Williams has shot at big Joe Williams has shot it pretty well. I, I, I kind of,

I'm not, that's not a break in case of emergency only for me. If I'm Mark Dagnall, that's something I might go back to. And I liked, it was a small thing, but I liked that they went at,

Shea guarding PJ Washington with a couple of post-ups for PJ throughout the game. Just make Shea guard, be physical with him, and I'm tempted if I'm Oklahoma City to move him onto Derek Jones Jr. and move somebody else onto PJ Washington. That would be Josh Giddey. Those are the matchups you'd flip, or Aaron Wiggins. If

If it's Isaiah Joe or case in walls, Wallace, you can't do that. They're too small, but that those are just a couple of things that I liked. I picked the thunder in seven to win this series before the series. I know. I think it's going to be a long series. I think this is going to be a fun chess match kind of series with just so much great talent on the floor. I picked Dallas to win this in six. I, I, you know, I think they're going to win the series. I picked them to win the series. It could have been seven because in a game seven, um,

that's one of the rare cases where I kind of go, okay, I still kind of like Dallas because of the Luca factor and the Kyrie factor in that kind of a spot yet, just trusting them to not wilt under that sort of pressure. So I like,

Dallas to win the series. I haven't changed that. I'm concerned about Luca and how this is going to go. And is he going to degenerate throughout the series with his mobility? If that's the case, it's going to be hard for them. But he found it in game five against the Clippers when he, the first four games, he definitely was not himself. First four games of that series, he missed 36 threes in four games. He missed 62 shots in four games to start of that series. And yet they were 2-2.

And game five, it looked exactly like, not exactly like last night, better than last night. He looked right. He looked strong. He was by far the best player on the court. And he shot over 50% from the field in that game. He controlled the entire game. And a game that they had to have to put them in a position to go home and close the series out. And he did it. And that's why I just have a lot of faith in him. He looked great.

A little bit better last night than he did in game one physically, but not a ton. And then he dealt with some other stuff as the game went on. So I think, Zach, a lot of this series is just going to depend for me on him and how he looks. And he doesn't have to be Luka, you know, mid-season form or Luka, you know, at his best in the regular season when he's fully healthy necessarily. But he's going to have to have

Like probably three of those games in this series like he had last night where he's good enough in the big spots to separate and then get more help from Kyrie than he got last night, obviously. So I still feel pretty good that the Mavericks can win this series, but I got one eye on Luke at all times to see how he's how he's looking, how he's moving his body language, those kinds of things.

He was number two, by the way, on my MVP ballot. I didn't have an official ballot this year, but if I had had one, he would have been number two. I would have voted for Jokic. I would have voted Luka over Shea given... I just...

I mean, Shea started better. Luka finished better. Shea's a better defensive player. I mean, you can't go wrong with either of them. I just like the combination of size and playmaking. Did you have an MVP ballot? I did not have one, but Luka would have been my second pick as well. And it was neck and neck. And like I said, the way the Mavericks were playing at the end of the year, the way Luka was playing,

I really believe he just ran out of time in trying to run Jokic down. When Embiid went down, it was kind of like, okay, it's wide open now. And then Jokic grabbed control of that. And the momentum of that he held for quite a long time to end the season. And I felt like he was being run down in the last lap of this race for MVP by Luka. And he just ran out of time. I think, look, you can't deny what a great year Shea had. I just feel like the way their team plays, it's more about the group.

Luka, it's all about him controlling everything for Dallas. Nobody generates more offense, really, historically, than Luka Doncic did for that team this year and what he does. So it's really – the reason I understood Jokic winning it and not Luka –

was because, look, if you've got other candidates that are clearly really good candidates and viable candidates and it's a debate and it's sort of a toss-up situation, the win gap matters. It just matters. That's the tiebreaker ultimately. You win whatever it was, six, seven more games, Denver won than Dallas. That's kind of a big deal to me when you're talking about breaking ties. It matters. Because Jokic is every bit as in control of his team as Luka is of his team.

So that matters. So a better regular season next year for Luka and the Mavericks, get into the one spot, the two spot, like be in, at least in the running for the top of the West late into the year. There's no doubt. Statistically, you'll be there. Maybe next year is the year that Luka breaks through and gets his first MVP, but you've got to have better regular season success as a team. When you have other candidates on this level that are right at the top of the Western conference.

For

$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. So, you want to be a marketer. It's easy. You just have to score a ton of leads and figure out a way to turn them all into customers. Plus, manage a dozen channels, write a million blogs, and launch a hundred campaigns all at once. When that's done, simply make your socials go viral and bring in record profits. No sweat.

Okay, fine. It's a lot of sweat. But with HubSpot's AI-powered marketing tools, launching benchmark-breaking campaigns is easier than ever. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Let's finish up with the other big news event of the last 24 hours, the Fiat 500.

The Phoenix Suns, despite everything being great and 26 GMs would trade places with our team and Frank Vogel did a terrific job, fired Frank Vogel and they appear, according to Woj, poised to hire Mike Budenholzer as his replacement. This has sparked a lot of controversy about, not controversy, a lot of talk about Kevin Durant and how many coaches Kevin Durant has had.

since leaving Steve Kerr and the Warriors. We talked a lot about that on Get Up. You can hit that if you want, but I just want your general reaction to the Suns firing another coach for the second year in a row and how you think Bud coming back to the league after a year away fits with this group, which is a very different group than either the Atlanta teams he coached up above, I think punched above their weight, or the Milwaukee teams with Giannis and Brooke Lopez and all that that won a title. Yeah, look, I think that...

Mike Budenholzer is probably the best hire you can make in this situation if you can't get Ty Lue in.

Um, because I think Ty Lou, I just think the connection he would have to the guys you got to connect with would be very strong from an X's and O's standpoint. I don't think there's going to be a whole hell of a lot of difference between Frank Vogel or Mike Bootholzer or just about anybody else you put in that spot with the personnel that they have. Um, but Mike Bootholzer has, has proven like what he did in Atlanta, what he did in Milwaukee, he's proven like,

It's beyond reproach what he's done in this league. Is it going to matter? No idea unless they change some parts of this roster. They need a point guard. They need somebody to organize them.

I just don't think it's fair to anybody there, Frank Vogel included, to ask three elite scorers to dribble the ball all the time and create offense and go get yours and set guys up and feed guys and everything else. It's a responsibility at that spot. And you don't have to get a high-value shot taker or a 20-point scorer at the point guard position, but you need somebody to help organize and make the game easier to take some of the ball handling pressure off of guys so that they get the ball in spots where they can attack more efficiently.

I think it's a big problem for them. So unless they address that and some of the fringe areas of their rotation, like better defensive wings, a little bit more length, guys that really want to get into you and get after you on the wing and a toughness, if they don't address those things, I don't know that it's going to matter. It's Frank Vogel, Mike Budenholzer, or whoever the head coach is. I feel bad for Frank because he's a great guy. He's one of my favorite coaches in the league as a human being, and he's a really smart guy. He's a good coach.

He was a scapegoat in this situation, man. It's the way it works with some of these jobs. You acquire the top talent. You have a very, very short window. You would think it's more than one year, but apparently not in some cases. And there's a sense of discontent.

There is a body language issue that you look at with your star guys and you go, okay, well, I guess the coaching changes the way to go. And let's see if we can get it right. I think Mike Bootholzer brings about all you can. So if they don't get it done next year and they get bounced in the first round, dying to know what the excuse will be then. Yeah. I don't think Frank Vogel did like a great job as the Phoenix suns head coach. Um,

I don't know that any coach could have made that a top 10 defensive team given how small they are and how dependent they are on Nurkic just to hold down the middle and hold down the glass. They were good on offense and they needed to be great on offense to get where they wanted to go. And you saw it in the playoffs. They were just disorganized.

they would sometimes just not remember that Kevin Durant was on the team or not remember that there was all this stuff in their playbook designed to get the offense moving, to hunt the right mismatches, to get the pieces moving. They would do it for a quarter and then not do it for three quarters. Is that on Frank Vogel? Is it on the players?

Is it on the construction of the team? It's probably on all of that. So I think Frank Vogel is not the reason that they disappointed. I don't think he was like an A-plus coach. He is a scapegoat, to your point. On Bud, I actually think the defense, I agree, Bud is a regular season wins machine. Like it's proven the guy will optimize your team

And he optimized two very different kinds of defenses in Atlanta. And Atlanta is like, all right, we don't have a big behemoth rim protector, but we have Al Horford and we have Paul Millsap. We're going to blitz. We're going to fly around the floor. We're going to use our speed to disrupt people. That worked really well. He gets to Milwaukee first thing he does, all right, Brooke Lopez, you're just going to hang in by the basket. We're going to be the best basket protection team in the league. We're never going to foul. We're going to get every kind of defensive rebound there is.

he doesn't really have either of those archetypes on hand in Phoenix. Like Nurkic is not a room protector in that sense where you're like, Oh, just sit back there and be go bear, be Brooke Lopez. He's not that guy defensively, but they also don't have the speed factor all the way across the board. Like you did in Atlanta. So I'm actually interested in like, what is Bud's vision for this team defensively? Um, but I, I agree with you, Frank Vogel. I don't know if the players checked out on them from outside in it. It certainly looked like that. Um,

But, you know, look, I don't, it's like, it's not his fault. Like he didn't build the roster and the team just, just failed. Do you want to say like, what do you think about the Durant part of this discussion? Like Durant, all these coaches Durant has had since leaving. Is that interesting to you at all? Yeah. I mean, look, it's, it's, I think it's part of your legacy as a player. I do. I think, you know, and, and, and in Kevin Durant's case,

Man, oh man, like, you know, is he going to get what ultimately I think everybody thinks that he needs to have? Look, no one's going to deny he's one of the greatest talents this league has ever seen. But when you start...

With this historical ranking, which is going to matter to these guys, and it's what we talk about all the time with these guys, when it's all said and done, 10, 15 years from now, the way things have gone for him, it's assuming that he stays in Phoenix, let's just say, and doesn't win, or he bounces around the other team and doesn't win, and that's how it finishes for Kevin Durant, playing with multiple All-Stars and just still doesn't win a title.

I'm sorry, but that's part of the immediate discussion and narrative around him when you start making decisions about how you rank guys historically. And that's really what the question is about Kevin Durant. That's always what comes up. Well, where is he? Who is he? Where do you rank him? How is he? Historical context. Where do you put him? And it would be easier...

If he had won it in Oklahoma City and stayed there and won it, it would be easier, even with the help of Harden and Kyrie, if he was able to do that in Brooklyn, a place that hadn't done it, and they came together and he was clearly the driving engine on a team that hadn't done it before. If he had gone to Phoenix or franchised it and never won it and done it there, it would matter a lot in that context. And now I think all of us are kind of...

kind of expecting that it's not going to happen. That the two rings he got in Golden State while he was a final MVP, and certainly they matter.

They will not carry the weight that winning in one of these other places would have for him. And if he doesn't get that, I think it makes it murkier for him historically when you start talking about, well, who are you taking off of the top 10 to put him in? Who are you taking off of the top 15 to put Kevin Durant in there? That's where the conversations get really interesting because a lot of those guys will have that thing that I think Kevin Durant so desperately covets.

that he has not been able to get. And it matters. And the coaching changes matter. And the reason I think the coaching changes matter, Zach, in this discussion is it makes it harder

When you, when you're, when there's a constant turnover in that regard, because his relationship with that guy really matters and it's hard to develop on in a short period of time. And so the fact that there are a lot of coaching changes tells you that he's not in a place that he's going to be comfortable enough to be able to pull that off. So they're all, there's, those things are connected to me. And ultimately I do think it's part of the discussion when you start talking about Kevin Durant, when it's all said and done.

All right, Tim Legler, you got to go to shoot around over there in Minneapolis. You're on the game tonight on ESPN Nuggets Wolves game three. Nobody better breaking down the game on television in various audio formats. Thank you for letting me some of your time. Go to shoot around. Honor to be on, Zach. Talk to you soon, brother. I just wanted to keep going for a few minutes. Tim had to go to shoot around the coaching thing in Phoenix.

Be coming about Durant. I should have seen it coming. I just should have seen it coming. It caught me a little bit by surprise that that was the number one topic today on GetUp about the Suns was not how do they go forward from here? How did they build this team? Was it Frank Vogel's fault? It was what does this say about Kevin Durant? At first, I was like, why do we have to make this about

Kevin Durant, like it's Matt Ishby as coach too. It's Devin Booker's coach. It's Bradley Beal's coach. The Bradley Beal trade didn't work out. This team is now completely hamstrung. Like it's about everybody. Why does it have to be about Kevin Durant? And Greeny was like, well, because exactly what Legler just said, he's like a top 15 player of all time. Like it, it just matters that it went from Kerr to Atkinson to Nash to Vaughn to Monty to Vogel to Bud, if that ends up being the case. Um,

And I just sort of like, first of all, Vogel is a really interesting common denominator between Kevin Durant and LeBron James as the Lakers change coaches yet again. They have not hired anybody to replace Darvin Ham. I thought Darvin Ham just did it. Like, I was...

on it right from the very beginning that he was not starting his best lineup from the jump that he should start reeves and hachimura together but i also just think that team was just a good team and i don't know that any coach was going to take them to greatness and now it's another coach for lebron whoever that ends up being and also illustrative of frank vogel won a title as an nba head coach four years ago like not long ago he's been fired twice

You just, with some, maybe the exception of Ty Lue, and I guess Spoh because he's lasted so long, the curse of LeBron is that you're just never going to get the credit for winning when he's on your team. Like Frank Vogel gets no credit for that. He's been fired twice. Like he's some kind of also ran. The guy won, was the head coach of a championship winning team. On Durant, I just continue to say, and it sounds ridiculous to say it, I kind of, I'm really starting to believe that the cap spike is,

was the worst thing that ever happened in his career because it's the only reason, this one-time-only complete anomaly with the cap and the TV deal, it's the only reason a team as good as Golden State, a 73-win team that just won the championship and then made the finals and lost, could sign outright

a player anywhere near the caliber of Kevin Durant, let alone actual Kevin Durant and add him to an unprecedented four star in their prime conglomeration of Steph, KD, Ray Maude and Klay Thompson. And they were essentially like as close to invincible when healthy as an NBA team in the modern era could be. And, uh,

I understand why he went there. I never begrudge. You can read the column I wrote the day that he went there. It's like he can go wherever he wants. He wants to live in San Francisco and play with these guys. Like who could blame him? It's freaking basketball utopia. He's free to make his own choice. That's what free agency is. He gave Oklahoma City eight years or whatever he gave them. That's plenty. That's the whole point for agency exists. I just go back to that time. And I wonder, like, he went there and he won two titles and he won two finals MVPs.

cemented his legacy as one of the greatest players of all time. Those accomplishments are irrefutable. No one can ever take them away. But Tim Legler is right. People are never going to give him the same kind of credit for those accomplishments. Again, not just titles, finals, MVPs. You were the best guy in the biggest series two times in a row.

That should sing so loudly. And it's never going to because of the caps like created this not just super team, four star super duper team that people just expected. If you're healthy, you're going to win. Like no one's going to be. Who are we kidding here? It's just and that's fair. That's the price of that decision. It had a lot of benefits. That's the price. And I think.

I kind of think that maybe, I don't know. It seems like it kind of caught KD and his people a little bit off guard that, oh, I guess these titles are just not going to mean anything

to the general basketball public what the typical title might mean. And that has sent him off, in part at least, on this quest to find the right spot, which took him to Brooklyn. And another black swan event, a pandemic and a vaccination issue with Kyrie Irving, undid a team that I thought once they got hardened was easily, not easily, but was the best team in the NBA, a team that may well have won if they stayed healthy in 2021. And then it all fell apart. And then that took him to Phoenix, where...

And this season did not go well. And Bradley Beal missed the third of the season. They got 40 something games together with the big three. And again, that goes back to like, why is this Vogel discussion about Durant? Why is this Budenholzer discussion about Durant? And it seems unfair and it is unfair because it's really about everybody. It's about Matt Ishbia too. It's about Frank Vogel and the job he did or didn't do.

But, you know, when you talk about the Suns being a little bit hamstrung in terms of assets about trading for Bradley Beal because it was one of their only realistic ways of flipping the Chris Paul contract and whatever few assets, swaps of swaps of swaps that they had left to get somebody in the door who had undeniable talent and was not old yet.

Part of that is because they traded everything for Kevin Durant. Everything. Mikael Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jay Crowder, who's not done much since. All the picks, the one swap they had left. They traded for Kevin Durant. They traded for Kevin Durant because Kevin Durant demanded a trade out of Brooklyn. And look, it had already gone haywire by then with Kyrie and Harden. And you don't blame him for demanding a trade. But he did after requesting that the Nets fire Sean Marks and Steve Nash. And when he demanded a trade, he said, I want to go there.

and only there. And so Phoenix was like, all right, I guess we'll trade for Kevin Durant. And the team you have on the other end is a little duplicative in terms of star talent, older, totally bereft. Not totally. Once this draft comes, they can have two picks to move around. The guy they pick in this draft in, I think, 2031, not bereft of draft picks. Nobody's bereft of draft picks, even if you have...

swap out rights. You still get a pick. You just get the lesser of all these picks, but pretty asset stripped. And, you know, Kevin Durant's decision bears some of the responsibility for that. And look, he, he, he went to Brooklyn and he Atkinson got fired in part because of Deandre Jordan of all things. And now it's more coaches, more coaches, more coaches. And it just, I go back to that cap spike and I just wonder eight years later, if Deandre,

I mean, I, and again, I don't, there's no, there's no obvious place that he should have gone. He went where he wanted to go and he won. Did Boston was in the room. Oklahoma city was in the room. Miami was in the room. There might've been one other team in the room. He didn't really consider the Lakers. Didn't ever consider the KD to DC homecoming. I just think maybe today someone in Durant's position would have been like, wait a second. I don't have to go to a team with cap space. I can go anywhere I want. I can get signed and traded anywhere I wanted. What about there? What about there? What about there? And he's been searching for the, their, their,

Ever since I think the coaching discussion in Phoenix has been a little bit too much about Durant. Like he kind of just got there. It's it's it's other people's team more than his team. But it I understand why people it kind of attaches to him and his legacy. I think Bud will do fine there. I just he's a he's a he's a great coach. I think Frank Vogel is a good coach who got kind of a raw deal.

But he also gets to do nothing and get paid a crap ton of money if he wants to. That seems like a good deal to me. And Phoenix just keeps firing people. Monte Williams, Frank Vogel. Now here comes Bud. I think Bud will do really well there. Bud will maximize that roster in the regular season. There's no question about that. I'm just curious to see how he does it. But more than that, I'm curious to see if Denver can bounce back tonight. I'm curious to see if the Knicks...

uh have to play four players at one point because they're out of players and if indiana wins a five on four series the playoffs resume shortly thank you for listening to the low post podcast everybody have a good weekend enjoy the playoffs

All right. I'm really excited for my next guest. He just announced yesterday that he has written a book, a biography of sorts about the career and life of Nikola Jokic, who just won his third MVP this week, becoming the ninth player ever to win three MVPs. Exactly three is Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Moses Malone, and now Nikola Jokic.

This guy chronicled the rise of Jokic, the ascent of Jokic, the first championship of Jokic for the Denver Post. Mike Singer, how are you? I'm great, man. I appreciate you having me on. And you mentioned the Denver Post, man. None of this happens without the five years I spent covering the Nuggets for the Denver Post where I kind of established a relationship with Nikola. Because outside of that, there is no world where he is greenlighting any of this. Well,

Well, that was going to be my first question. So the book is coming out in the fall. It's called Why So Serious? I think it's a great title. You thought of the title, so I'm going to give you credit for that, obviously. And you just mentioned to me in a couple text messages that there's a lot of wild stories behind the reporting and the making of this book. But my first question was going to be, did Jokic talk to you? Did he? Because a lot of times...

If someone gets wind of a book about them and they don't want to cooperate or they don't want the book to happen, not only will they not talk, they will call their family and their friends and say, when this guy gets to you, shut him down. And so you can still do the book, but it's not the same. So what was the process like with Nicola? It was a very...

careful process. So last summer, I'm just going to pull back a little bit. Last summer during the finals, our guy Windhurst hits me and he says, you know, are you interested in doing this because there's interest on the publisher's end? Of course, man, that'd be amazing. Not a month later, I'm in Serbia after the Nuggets have won the championship. I'm in Serbia and I let Nicola know. I say, hey, man, I'm in Serbia. I'm working on a book. I didn't want you to hear it from anybody else. I didn't want this to...

come around a back channel, in which case he's potentially pissed off about it. Fine. I put it out there. Dude doesn't answer me. Okay. It's cool. I'm still in Serbia. And then I'm working with this translator who was a Serbian journalist, my friend Marco, who ends up driving me

All around Serbia, we go to Novosad, we go to Sambor, we're connecting with his old coaches, old teammates, everything. We go to Sambor, and I have no intention of trying to see Nikola. It's a very dicey dance, to your point. You don't want to invade his space, but does he respect what you're working on? All of that stuff goes into my thinking. I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of it, but I ran into Nikola in Sambor last

after telling him I was working on this and the reaction was so genuine and so awesome that I felt like I had like a rubber stamp to go, to go forward with the project and to pursue it. And never once did he shut down anything. And, uh, X amount of months ago, you know, in the middle of the season, he did sit down with me. He gave me, um,

He gave me a lot of time by Joker standards. And he was fantastic. Every question, everything I asked him, honest, insightful, candid. And the reason that was the case, and I know this because I had covered him so closely, is because I asked him things he'd never been asked before. And he was more than willing to indulge and give.

I mean, look, I'm interpreting it. I think he enjoyed it because at the end of it, he goes, man, you talk to the right people, you talk to the good people. And I kind of like that. So with that, you know, again, rubber stamp, green light, whatever. I felt emboldened on a lot of levels and to some degree he approved of it. But again, none of that ever happens if he doesn't trust me or if I just coming out of left field.

Okay, so let's be clear about a couple things. You're not in Serbia on vacation. You're going to Serbia to write a book about Nikoli Jokic, hoping to find and talk to Nikoli Jokic in Serbia, but if not, to visit with people who knew him, coached him, whatever. So you're not there for fun. And then where you go to Sombor, where he's from,

and where he goes in the offseason where do you run in to nicole yogich are you like stalking the horse track do you know what restaurants you go to or is it literally like oh crap there he is in the street

It was literally, oh, crap. And so let me make something clear. Again, I was not going there to touch base with him. Again, I'm really careful about church and state. I'm really careful about keeping him at arm's length. He's very protective of Sambores. We all kind of know. So I went there trying to talk to coaches, teammates, family members, just try to learn background stuff that has not been touched on. And are you worried in doing that?

because he has not responded to your initial inquiry yet. So is there a part of you that's worried in doing that, that it's going to get back to him and he's going to say, hey, man, I didn't even respond. Like, are you like it's delicate, right?

It's delicate for sure, but the way that this dude goes about this is if you were to actually ask him in person, which I did later in the season, hey, do you care what I'm writing? He was like, nah, I don't care. It would undermine his facade if he said that he cared. Maybe he would care and he wouldn't tell me. I wouldn't know that. But ultimately, he doesn't answer. We're with a mutual friend, and the mutual friend... Again, I'm not going to get into all of it, but the mutual friend is like, hey...

Joker's over there. Do you want me to, do you want me to go say something? And I said, not really. And ultimately the dude does, we have a very good interaction. And again, and that's what I felt in Bolden. I was like, all right, I trust our relationship.

I trusted it more after the fact than I did beforehand, but it was an extremely genuine, awesome interaction. And it's funny because in reporting this and talking to various players, and I'm sure we'll get into this, like I actually talked to Kevin Durant about a month ago and I told him what I was doing. And he goes, does Joker want you to write that book? And I was like, I don't know if he wants me to write it, but it's happening. And he has given his tacit approval to,

which was the most amazing part. So to have him not shut down stuff and, again, to be as transparent as possible with everybody you're talking to and to be able to say he knows about it, he's ostensibly cool with it, that means everything because people then can give you a modicum of trust as a result of Joker's awareness of it.

So he tells you toward the end of the process, you really talked to the right people. Who are the quote right people for Nicola? Who does he mean by that?

Well, so basically during the MVP press conference yesterday, he cited three people. It was pretty funny. He cited Jason Miller, who's his trainer. He cited Ogi Stojakovic, who is a developmental coach. And he cited Felipe Eichenberger, who's the strength coach. I talked to all three of them at length. Like I have very good relationships, I mean, with most of them and Jason a little bit less, but he was very helpful when I talked to him.

Um, and so it's really like the heart of the process, the meat of the process, how it happened and who were the people that were integral to his success. Those are the front facing people. I mean, kind of front facing people. And then on the back end, um, I talked to his earliest coaches. I talked to, um,

Zach, I have a five-page handwritten note from his dad that he sent in a PDF format in Serbian that my guy translated answering questions. The insight that I have uncovered with the people who have been instrumental in his growth, I think is unparalleled and

And to be able to, A, have that trust, but B, I mean, everyone's been asking me, what's it like throughout this process? It's both amazing and terrifying. Like, am I going to be able to write adequately to cover this dude and his improbable rise? And so I feel pretty confident that in talking to the earliest coaches who first recognized stuff, the people who gave him some freedom, the people who he butted heads with, all of those people, you kind of see his...

his maturation from this dude was stubborn. He was mischievous. He was extremely smart, extremely talented and needed to be motivated more than anybody ever knew. And so I talked to the people who were, who were instrumental in motivating him. You use the word wild to me about reporting the book. So I know you don't want to give away the best stuff of the, of the book before it comes out, but like in reporting it from your perspective, it's,

Is there a scene that not not a scene necessarily from Nicola's life in the book, but a scene that you're in or that you witness or something like that where you're like, you're always going to remember, like, I can't I can't believe I'm here. Like, what is happening right now? Well, like from your perspective, reporting the book, like what's it give us take us inside a couple of things or places where you'll be like, man, that was that was a great that was a flashbulb memory for me.

Right. Well, definitely one of them was the interaction with Nicola, which is the forward of the book. So I'm not going to share that part, but that was unbelievable. In Novosad, I'm sitting there with some of his like older Novosad coaches, which was the first team after he left Sambor.

And these dudes like are just chain smoking. They are like former basketball players, six foot nine guys were like bending into the into like their seats just to try to accommodate us. And the translator that I mentioned, I'm asking questions in English. He's translated them to Serbian. They're coming back in Serbian and he's telling me what he said. And so we're going back and forth trying to piece out and parse out what exactly happened when he was a young basketball player and becoming who this dude is.

And like one of the coaches slides a USB across the table, like all clandestine, like, and it is exclusive footage that no one has ever seen before of him playing. Like when he was 16 and 17 years old, I have eight full games of his that nobody has ever seen before that this dude slides across the table. If it was nothing. And I've watched these games and like, and I write about this.

he's the same player, the same body language, the same, like there's one scene from one of this USB, like one of the, one of the games where he passes to the corner, expecting a player, one of his teammates to be there. And when he's not, he like rolls his shoulders and shrugs his head and is pissed off that his teammate is not on the same wavelength as he is. So this dude has been the same for the last, you know, two decades, uh,

in terms of being demonstrative and being hilarious and being, I mean, I'm going to use the word a savant. Several players use the word savant to me. And so just, I,

How the hell am I in the middle of Serbia with these coaches who are sharing unbelievable information and unbelievable footage? That was definitely a touchstone moment where I was like, and the funniest thing is the book contract wasn't even finalized. I kind of went because I had all this momentum and I was like, I'm just going to go for it. What an amazing adventure. Who the hell knows what's going to happen? And it yielded.

Novi Sad, by the way, my wife was born in Novi Sad. I've been there. It's a, it's people, it's a very old Europe city. Like you really feel, uh, like you're not back in time, but you feel the age of the city in, in a good, in a good way. Uh,

It's a beautiful spot, and I can picture the scene exactly what you're talking about. I mean, Serbia is gorgeous. I don't know what people's impression is, but from Belgrade and Kalamegdan, the fortress is amazing, and Sambor is gorgeous. It's just like a... When you go there, and I bet you Aaron Gordon would say this because he's been to Sambor, like...

Aaron Gordon probably understands better than anybody why it's such a reprieve and such a peaceful place for Nikola. He can check out. I don't think he checks his phone for days on end during the offseason. He goes to the horse track. He wakes up early, works the horses out. He works out. Did you see the horses? Did you see him ride a horse? Did you see him ride in the hard? No. Okay. I did not do that. But I saw the Dreamcatcher stables. Yeah.

And it's funny because like his dad kind of has an office nearby and there's just like this one Porsche outside that's like doesn't fit the scene. And that was another reason why that was another reason why it was so obvious when I ran into him, there was a car that just didn't match the rest of the scene. And like,

look, man, you got untold money. Do what you want with it. I don't pass judgment on that. But to Joker's credit, he's leaned into it. He has a nice car and, you know, it stands out.

Now, we're taping this. It's Thursday afternoon. The Nuggets are down 2-0 to Minnesota, having gotten obliterated and really, I think, humiliated in Game 2 at home. It's sort of a team-wide meltdown, highlighted by the Jamal Murray throwing a heat pack onto the floor and Michael Malone erupting at the officials, among other things. It's the first, like...

It's the first moment of basketball adversity Jokic and the Nuggets have faced in quite a while. Even in the seasons they got eliminated a little earlier in the playoffs than they wanted. They were so injured with Murray out and Porter out that it didn't feel like, oh, this is a sort of...

A moment of this team's going to have to show us what they're made of like this does right now. Is there a moment like that in Jokic's basketball life? Is there a turning point? Is there a moment of adversity that you're going to reveal or talk about in the book that you can at least hint that now? Like something like that from his journey to here, to the NBA? Yeah.

Definitely. I'm just going to say this. It was no sure thing at all that this dude was going to play basketball. And he's admitted this. He said he quit for a few months and needed to be essentially lured back to basketball because he just cared more about horses at the time. He was a teenager. He was out partying with his friends. He was drinking. Basketball was not a priority when he was a young teenager.

And that story is just like It's eye opening, it's amazing And then there's all kinds of adversity When he has to deal with Conditioning Obviously his body wasn't a prototypical NBA prospect There's all sorts of

conflict and resistance and friction that he faced. I mean, this part, okay, you asked for a moment. This was amazing in light of what happened. When I was in Belgrade, I had a three-hour lunch with Dejan Milojevic, Deki, the former Golden State assistant,

And who tragically passed away this past January from a heart attack. And he was instrumental in Nicola's growth. And I had a two, three hour lunch with him, his family, where we're just BSing. We're sitting there talking. He's ordering like beers. He's inviting other people around like to come and join the conversation. It was like a pinch me moment because when the warriors came to town, I went up and I said hello to him and he was cracking up and he was like, get away from me, get away from me with that. Like we've already talked, we've already talked, but I,

Deki was so accommodating and so jovial and happy. And Nikola has said that he's kind of a role model in his life, more so when he wasn't his coach than when he was. But when he was his coach, he pushed him. He motivated him. He gave him freedom. He believed what he could become when a lot of people didn't. And so...

I was really fortunate to have talked to Deki for a long time and to kind of understand why, you know, what, what buttons he pushed in Nicola's journey, because I'm telling you, it was not a foregone conclusion that he was going to become what he became. And when Nicola is being sincere, when he thought he was going to top out at potentially the Euro league or potentially a big club in Europe,

He's being sincere. He never really thought that he was going to get to the NBA or get to certainly an all-star level, an MVP level. This was all completely far-fetched in his mind. And I'm not even lying to you, man. I know for a fact that even yesterday, he wins three MVPs. He still does not consider himself among that group that you read before. He still does not. There's still a level of aw shucks to his rise.

Well, let's just do the numbers real fast. I did this today. We might as well just do it now. Right now, Jokic has approximately 14,000 career points, 7,200 career rebounds, 4,700 assists. He's 29 years old, just turned 29, which is crazy. I said I'm going to project the next six seasons and I'm going to do it conservatively, semi-conservatively based on his last four years. I'm going to give him 1,700 points a season. He's been around 2,000, 1,900, 1,800 the last few years.

800 rebounds a season. He's been between 800 and 1,000 in the last few years. And 575 assists, which was conservative based on, again, his last few years. So let's assume maybe he doesn't play as much or whatever. That, after six more seasons when he'll be, what, 34, 35, 36 years old, he'd be at 24,000 points, 12,000 rebounds, and 8,000 assists.

Here are so 24,000, 12,000, 8,000. Here are the four players who are 20,000, 10,000, 5,000. Kareem, LeBron, Kevin Garnett and Karl Malone. That's it. The only person who's 20,000, 10,000, 10,000 is LeBron. Jokic has a shot to be the second guy ever to go 20,000, 10,000, 10,000. And he's going to be a wildly above that in points and rebounds. Like he may not conceive of himself in that conversation, but,

It came so fast that it's hard to – he's not even 30 to imagine where he's going to be. Obviously, those projections assume health and continued productivity and all of that.

you know, one championship doesn't necessarily get you into the Pantheon and, and this expected run at a repeat has hit more than a roadblock. It's hit like a gigantic wall right now, but three MVPs, a finals MVP, a championship, like those numbers are crazy. When you got a chance to be in a club and it's just you and LeBron,

And again, you can cherry pick these numbers any way you want, but it's pretty crazy stuff. Back to the book. Is there anyone that you really, really wanted to talk to that you couldn't get? Like, who's the number one, like, damn, I wish I could have got this person? Well...

I don't really know why. Like, Strahinja is Nikola's brother, and I have had a decent relationship with Strahinja. I don't know if you remember the at Jokic Brothers Twitter account in the wake of the Morris incident. So the way that that whole story broke is

They started the Twitter account and Strahinia texted me because nobody knew that it was actually them. Strahinia texted me and he said, can you share this on Twitter and, you know, essentially confirm that this is actually us? Yes, Strahinia, I can do that. No problem. So I did that. And OK, we have a decent relationship. Say what's up to him.

I don't know whether he didn't want to pull back the curtain. I don't know whether he wanted to keep the story for himself. I'm not really sure, but I asked him if he would talk. He didn't want to. It's okay. The reason why it's okay...

is because I asked a lot of other people, including Nicola, about Strahinja's involvement. And Strahinja's been more essential and more integral to it than anybody realizes. Like, this dude sacrificed a lot of his life to make Nicola happen. And I'm talking about in Novosad, in Belgrade. And I get into that, and I asked a handful of people about his involvement, and, like, they were unequivocal. Like, without Strahinja, this doesn't happen. So...

I mean, I would love to talk to him, but when I have Nicola addressing what role Strahania had, I don't feel like it's a glaring omission by any means. So he would have been fun, but all front office people, I had an hour-long conversation with Malone, who was amazing. He was insightful, candid, like...

In this book, there is news, there is insight, there is so much background and kind of stuff that has not been close to addressed on Joker. That's what makes it so exciting is I feel like I'm going to give people a different perspective to analyze him and to understand him. Because this dude was so smart that when he was young that he was a pain in the ass to deal with. There were times where he would just like...

He was opinionated because he was so smart. But he was also immature. And that is a significant – there are growing pains. And he never expected to become the face of the franchise, right? So by the second or third year, that's a lot to put on somebody who was the number 41st pick and didn't ever expect to be here.

Like, so there was a lot when you asked about like, you know, turning points or moments, there was a lot of resistance that he faced in getting to this point. And so I get into that backstory, I think more so than has ever been uncovered. And that part is super exciting as well. So to your point about that, I mean, I remember I went to Denver at the beginning of the 1718 season, I think. So that's six, seven years ago at this point.

And maybe it was 18-19. I can't remember which one. Well, 17-18 was the end of the game 82. So that part is important, whether it was the beginning of the playoffs. It was 17-18. And I was there for like three games to write about this team that was so interesting at the time. Like it was whatever. It was Millsap's first year with the team. They had signed Millsap in the offseason.

And I'm there for a few days and I get a text from someone with the Nuggets saying, hey, Nicola, Nicola almost got kicked out of practice yesterday. You should ask Coach Malone about that. And so and it was like he was kind of cranky in practice. He didn't want to get back on defense. His body language is bad. And Michael Malone shouted at him and said, man, you're like you're the guy now. Like Gary Harris is looking at you. Jamal Murray is looking at you when you behave like that.

When you don't go all out like that, they're going to take their cues from you. It was part of the process of him being like, this is what it means to be the guy. Did you talk to Nurkic? I didn't. That's a good one. I didn't talk to Nurk. It's funny because I have heard that I think that they're good. I don't know. I've heard to say I don't think they're bad. I've just it would be curious, like two guys from the same part of the world competing for the same spot. You know what I mean? It was an interesting dynamic.

It definitely was. But if they weren't good from the jump, which you can understand from Nurk's perspective, like he comes back from his injury and he's like trying. He was I think it was second team all rookie his rookie year. It's not like this dude was not a good big prospect to the Nuggets had unearthed.

And then who's this dude? This, you know, seven foot big from Serbia who was drafted 30 picks later than me. And he's just like whipping all these behind the back passes and lifting his teammates up. And it is a difficult position. And obviously they tried to play the four, five, the Balkan bigs when the cool at the four and they

They weren't optimizing him. Nicole had made first team all NBA as a center or first first team all rookie as a center. And then they moved him to the floor and it didn't work. And so there's this, you know, dramatic scene where Joker goes into Malone's office. He's crying. He's like, man, like, put me on the bench. Like, I can't take this. Let me let me be me. Let optimize me, which means put him at the five.

And the thing about that, that Becky conversation is, you know, what differentiates Nicole more so than anybody. It's his, in my opinion, it's his ability to handle as a five and to initiate in transition. And Becky unfurled that he, he encouraged him. He said, play in transition, get a rebound and go. And if you're not doing that, then you're not optimizing him. And if he's at the four, then he has to guard respective fours out on the wing, which isn't going to go well either. So, um,

I mean, Deion told me this is when I was still with the Denver Post and I wrote an MVP story. Deion told me that he had to convince NBA scouts that he was an NBA player. He had to convince them because they all projected him as a four. And at a four, he is, you know, at the power forward spot, he's not as enticing. But at the five, his skill set is so vastly divergent from what you're accustomed to seeing from a five that it works.

So that was a deck he had to convince people. And eventually he did. But he was he was huge in convincing the Nuggets to ultimately take him. You mentioned interviewing Durant, which indicates to me you probably interviewed sort of a wide range of basketball people just like about about Jokic.

Who was the most, I guess, of people that listeners may be already familiar with? Who was the most like surprisingly good interview? Like I didn't really maybe expect to get any amazing insight out of this person. But wow, what a great quote or what a great interview or what a great story this person had about Jokic.

There's a handful of people, man. Like I'm telling you. So I'm just going to give a little bit on the Durant interview. Cause that was amazing. I go up to Katie and I say, Hey man, I got a question about Joker for you. And he goes, I know what you want, man. You just want me to gas him up. You want me to, you want me to get, cause more people will say it. There's more weight to it. He's unstoppable. And I said, honestly, Kevin, like that's not the case. Like I'm way more interested in substance than flash is what I told him. So once I had his ear, um,

I'm not lying to you, Zach. It turned into a 15-minute debate with Kevin Durant over whether Nikola quote-unquote cares about things like MVP and individual scoring and all this stuff. And I go back. It was spirited. KD is like rolling his eyes at me when I'm trying to say that MVPs do not matter to him in the same way that –

Ultimately, KD and I settled on the fact that MVPs matter to Nikola in as much as they correlate to winning. That's...

And you can almost attribute that to all of the individual stuff. If they correlate to winning, cool. It's a subsidiary to the – it's a secondary thing to the winning. So we had this amazing debate back and forth. And by the end of it, KD's like, man, I can't wait to read this book. And I'm not lying to you. And I said, Kevin, come next fall. I'm going to give you a copy. And he was like, awesome. I can't wait. So KD was insightful. One dude, former Nuggets teammate who was incredible to talk to was Mason Plumlee.

He had a lot to say because he is a really –

like cerebral dude he he and he sat next to joker in the locker room obviously another big can see stuff from his perspective and just was kind of a veteran at that point because he'd been traded from portland so he had some miles and had some legs under him and and you know strongly cared about winning and it was kind of his job to you know keep poking nicole and keep pushing him and ultimately hold him accountable in some instances that are that are pretty awesome so mason kd i'm

And then one guy that I'm definitely grateful that he sat down and was unbelievably insightful was Nuggets GM Calvin Booth. I don't think people realize how smart this dude is. He has had some incredible just –

Like his perspective as a former player and being a GM and getting the right guys to, you know, ultimately push them over the edge for a championship last year and his conversations with Nicola. He was the one who went to Sambor when they gave him the max contract for

what was then the largest contract in NBA history. And so to have those intimate moments where Calvin will share what happened in those moments and those conversations when they're having like the Yogich family's having a moment, but outside of that, Calvin and him have some unbelievable conversations where they're just like,

Trying to decide. Nicola's telling him, how hard do I need to work to win a championship? I busted my ass this morning. Is that hard enough? We've never gotten this far. And Calvin's telling me, this dude is trying to figure out what does it take to become the Tim Duncans, the Kobes of the world, to win multiple championships. And Calvin is privy to those conversations, which are just like jaw-dropping, spellbinding conversations. And then finally you get Nicola.

Which is always, you know, I've never written a book before, but I've certainly written like big profiles where you interview tons and tons of people and then you get to the subject. And it's always stressful because...

You have all this material and you're armed with it. You got all this backstory stuff and you need good answers from the subject. But you also know he's probably going to tell me other stuff that I'm then going to have to go re-interview a lot of these other people. So like what was it like to finally sit down with him armed with all this stuff? And did it take you sideways down paths you didn't expect to go down because of some of the stuff that the subject of this book said? Yeah.

It's a great question. I don't think I slept the night before. I was like, all right, I need to reread everything I have. I need to optimize the best questions. I need to like, there are certain stuff that I was dying to ask him that I just didn't have time to that I just had to pick and choose. And again, cause you, I had the whole scope of what I, of what information I had. I knew which holes I needed to fill. Right. So I was like, all right, I got to ask you about this. I got to ask you about this. He was so, so good that he,

And I knew he was going to be. He wouldn't have agreed to sit down if he was going to be anything other than candid and awesome. So I asked him some questions, and I mentioned names and places and things that nobody has ever asked him about before. And he goes, good job. He gives me a good job. He's like...

He goes, good job. Like, you got it. You got the name right. You got the you know, you got the name of the place right. And so, again, with that, you're just establishing trust throughout the whole thing. He's like, all right, this dude did the requisite work and the preparation leading into this. And so, I mean, I asked him all kinds of mostly, you know, stuff from earlier in his career in Serbia, just because I felt like everything had been.

I had been there and covered everything throughout the last six years. Every single playoff game I've been to and all of his MVPs I've been there, I didn't invoke the word MVP or championship at all in our interview. The dude doesn't like talking about it. He rolls his eyes at legacy questions. He doesn't like statistical achievements. That's not what is interesting to him at all. He cares about the process. And

It becomes so patently clear with the people that I talked to those three guys that I mentioned, how important process is. He never allows himself to think like big picture because then it's like, I'm exhaling, I'm taking a deep breath. And I, and if I do that, then someone's coming and T wolves are coming. Then Ant-Man's coming. Like he doesn't allow himself to do that, which you, you asked about, you asked any other interesting guys. I talked to CJ McCollum who's repped by the same agency XL and,

And CJ and I just had this awesome conversation where he's talking, I'm asking about process again. And, and, you know, I brought up Kobe and how, you know, Kobe is hallowed as this maniacal worker with, you know, crazy work ethic wakes up at 3 AM and I contrast it to Joker's method. And CJ is just like, man, you've got to have a life balance or this stuff's going to drive you crazy. Like you have to have a life balance. And CJ goes crazy.

Just because Joker kills you with a smile on his face doesn't mean he's not a killer. There are different ways to go about the process. And this is the same thing that Mason Plumlee echoed, too. There are different ways to go about the process of being an all-time great. Kobe did it one way, but that mold does not hold water for all the other all-time greats. And it's a similar sentiment that KD told me, too. Like, Joker and what I'm...

Planning to show what I hope I show is that there are different methods to becoming this level of player. And Nicola has kind of ushered this new wave where it's okay to have some life balance. It's okay to not be caught up in social media. And it's okay to enjoy yourself in the offseason. And I know what all the videos suggest. Just because this dude, you know, parties and enjoys himself in the offseason does not mean he does not work hard. This dude works extremely hard. You guys just don't know it.

And I hope I can show that and pull back the curtain and again, change the perception a little bit about how much this dude cares and how hard he works. All right. Well, the book comes out in the fall. I can't wait to read it. Once I read it, we're going to do a sequel podcast episode where I then get to ask you all the questions about the cool stories and the meat of the book.

The book is called Why So Serious by Mike Singer. It is available for pre-order now, I believe, on Amazon, right? So go pre-order your copy about the now three-time MVP. And you might have to write some sort of epilogue if the Wolves kick the crap out of them in the next two games and a Nikoli Okic team gets at full strength. Not full strength because Jamal is obviously limited. KCP is a little limited. But they get wiped out in the playoffs. We'll see. Mike Singer, thank you, sir. I appreciate it, man. Thanks so much.

For the first time, Monday Night Football streams exclusively on ESPN+.

Jim Harbaugh makes his long-awaited return to the Monday Night Lights. Touchdown, L.A. And the Chargers add to their lead. As the Chargers meet rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. and the Cardinals in the down. Murray scrambling. Harrison, 60 yards, touchdown. Chargers-Cardinals. Monday, October 21st at 9 p.m. Eastern. Streaming exclusively on ESPN+. Sign up now at ESPN+.com.