NBA Finals Adjustments with Tim Legler and the Lakers' Pursuit of Danny Hurley
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast on a lovely Saturday morning in Boston, Massachusetts. We have another day off and another long day tomorrow before game two of the NBA Finals. Thought it would be a great time to check in with the best in the business, the maestro of the iPad, Mr. Tim Legler. How are you? I'm great, man. I'm great. I'm disappointed, I gotta admit. I

I was so excited for this series to start. And all I really care about, Zach, like most people, I just want...

Give me some drama in the fourth quarter. I want to see guys under pressure. I want to see big shot making. And the way Boston blitzed them in that first quarter, the end of that first quarter, we didn't get any of that late in the game. So I'm a little disappointed by that. But other than that, I'm good. I think we're still going to end up with a really good series. I hope so. I'm just going to open any question to you. Boston obviously blew them out game one.

Won the math battle. They took more catch and shoot threes than Dallas took threes total. That is a bad formula for the Dallas Mavericks. Boston took 30 catch and shoot threes. The Mavs only took 13 catch and shoot threes, 27 total. And they did enough to confuse the pick and roll machine, the Luka pick and roll machine, mixed up coverages, mixed up assignments, and Dallas just couldn't get in a rhythm. So I will put this to you. It was a blowout.

Both ends of the floor tilted toward Boston. If you're Jason Kidd, if you're the Mavs going into game two and you've watched the film from game one, are you more concerned about your offense or your defense?

I'm much more concerned about my defense. They had a total inability to keep the ball in front of them. And it didn't matter who it was, really. Even their top perimeter defenders had a hard time keeping the ball in front. Boston is just going to come down and repeatedly run one ball screen and then attack whoever's in front of them. Too many times, Zach, they were in the paint, which led to a lot of the kickouts where now Dallas is chasing the ball. But it was a physical...

dominance at the point of attack. That would be my biggest concern if I were Jason Kidd and I watched the film. I think offensively, there's always going to be things you can do schematically to adjust to create better situations for yourself. I also think, you know, Luka is going to process this game, game two, a little bit differently than game one. I mean, he doesn't want to come out necessarily and have to go for, you know, 15, 18 in the first quarter. I think that might be what it's going to take from him to loosen them up a little bit.

on the perimeter and some of the lob stuff that he wasn't getting. He came into the paint early. I think he was kind of feeling it out, expecting some of these passes to be there that weren't.

They can adjust to that. Kyrie's going to be a lot better offensively. I think that offensively, I think they're going to be okay. I was very concerned about what I saw defensively from the Dallas Mavericks. Is that just going to be a mismatch personnel-wise the entire time? Dallas was a defense that I really came to admire as a championship-caliber defense, good enough with what they have offensively, and they certainly didn't look good enough in the first game. They were overwhelmed.

And so that for me is something that's more than scheme. That's personnel. And that's why I'd be more concerned about that end of the floor if I were Jason Kidd. So I was very curious what you were going to say. And I 1,000% agree with you. Having rewatched the game yesterday morning,

I think there's reason to be concerned on both ends. I think a lot of the focus of the analysis of game one has been on Lucas' one assist, the Mavs bogging down on offense. I came out of that game in real time right after the game with Brian Windhorst. We talked about it and doubly so yesterday. Really concerned about the Mavs' defense and what kind of answers they could possibly have. Boston's offense was very simple. They attacked...

the centers lively and Gafford, like part of the bonus of Tatum guarding their centers on defense, which is obviously to switch the Luca lively, Luca Gafford pick and roll that matchup carries over on offense for Boston. A lot that cross match carries over. And when it does, they're just going right to it. Like they don't even need a screen necessarily. If they do get a screen to get that switch there, I was surprised how easily Tatum and Brown beat lively off the dribble.

Awesome game from both Tatum and Brown. Statistically, it doesn't look spectacular. I thought they made smart decisions. I thought they did not dance with the ball. They just got it and got a matchup and went head down like no fancy stuff. Just go make the simple play. And then if they didn't target the centers, they targeted Luka. Luka is going to get blown by. That's the reality. And you could see, particularly in that third quarter run, when it went from 72-64 to 86-64, like in a blink,

Every possession was essentially some variant of what I just described. Tatum and Brown get a matchup they like, kill it off the dribble, and you see Dallas coming in to help. And if you freeze some of those possessions, it's like Luka's –

30 feet away from Derek White in the right corner. Like the help, if you freeze it when Tatum's in the lane, it's just too many easy options. I got this guy wide open in that corner, that guy wide open in that corner, drew a holiday and the dunker spot was really effective. It was just too easy. And you nailed it in your answer. Like I'm sitting there,

Well, what can they do? They can move Luka's assignment around. Maybe they have Luka guard Horford and Porzingis and put their centers on holiday. But that doesn't change the fact that you just, okay, let's go find those guys wherever they are. You can say maybe we shouldn't switch as much. Is that feasible? Not switching just puts you in rotation. You're going to put a two on the ball. Boston's passing is going to get unlocked. I'm interested to hear sort of what your ideas would be because I agree with you.

On offense, there's a bunch of little concrete things we could try and sets we can run and things we can do more diligently. On defense, I left looking at the film like, I'm kind of not sure what I would do. And the one thing they did do was play Kleba at the five and try to get into a more switchy lineup. And that didn't work either. Kleba got roasted off the dribble. All right, a few things here. First...

I thought Derek Lively was unbelievably undisciplined in this game. He looked almost like he was too amped, maybe. He was out beyond the three-point line, head and shoulders leaning forward, flailing at guys, using his arms. He had a play when Prezingis caught the ball in the first half and drove by him and dunked.

from like 28 feet. Derek Lively was so overextended and swinging at the ball as, as Przingis was holding it. And I'm just going, what are you doing? Why are you, why are you chest to chest with him at 28 feet? You're seven feet too. He's not just going to turn a shoot over you from that distance. First of all, it's hard to shoot over that, that distance. Like after you've caught the ball and you're in a jab step position, even over a guard, that's a hard shot without one dribble to take.

But Lively was so overextended, and it wasn't just then. It was in the second half, too, and he's fouling people for no reason. I don't know if that was just an adrenaline thing with him, but at some point, look, it's one thing to be active.

and long, and you're getting a lot of credit for your defense, that's great. But you've got to be smart. And I didn't think their closeouts were very good when Boston did get into the paint and kick it out. I thought the closeouts were terrible angles. They were giving up

baseline, like wide open baseline drives on closeouts because they weren't, you know, didn't have their body in front of the guy that caught the ball. So I think there are things that Dallas did that were a little bit atypical of what I've seen out of them defensively. So that's, that's the good news, I guess, for them, the personnel stuff, that's going to be tough. What you're going to hope is Porzingis doesn't have this kind of shooting night. Okay. That, that was a big part of this. And if you think about it, that six minute run at the end of the first quarter is when this game was decided. And,

And I know Dallas made a run later. They got it to eight. It kind of looked a little interesting. Luka was rolling a little bit. You know, he had the nod going, going to timeout. He was making some faces. He was making some Luka faces. Making faces. And there's nothing better than, like, in the finals, you know, you get that super high-def slow-mo head nod and the little wink, and you're going, okay, here we go. They came out of that timeout and went from eight to 20, like, in a blink of an eye. So, look, I'm...

The personnel thing is a real thing. Like the matchups were not great. They were winning every switch. I think Dallas contributed to it. I don't think they were very smart defensively at all. I think they've got to be better in that way. And they also have to expect that Krasingis and some other guys maybe won't have as good a shooting night as they had. I don't think Jason Kidd and that staff

We're remotely prepared for the impact that Christos Porzingis had in this game. How could you be? And I think that's where it really got away from them. And that obviously got the crowd into it, the emotion of the building. And then Dallas just kind of got swallowed up. One other point about this defense thing.

One thing that's going to help your defense, Zach, be better offensively. They were terrible offensively in the first half. That's going to help you. And some really bad – Luka had four turnovers, and they were all live ball steals, and three of them were pick sixes. Like, really? What, Hauser picked them one time? Like, really? The most damaging kinds of turnovers. Jalen Brown got them twice, and I don't know who the other one was, but you're right. And these were like – those aren't Luka plays. You might see that every now and again. You're going to see that three, four times in the same game.

Very surprising. Their offense has to be better early. Look, if they're in a game – they felt overwhelmed by the end of the first quarter, and then it got really out of hand early in the second. If they're in a 35-35 game, a 40-40 game, middle of the second quarter, I think they're going to feel like, okay, we're now in a game. We're more stabilized now, and that's what this is all about in this series. People that like Dallas – and I like Dallas –

You want this to just get into those one possession moments in the fourth quarter, because that's when Dallas has an advantage and they didn't, they never got there. So I think their offense can help their defense as well by Boston, taking the ball out of the net a little bit more and, and not turning the ball over, giving them the easy ones and,

I thought they were slow to get back after a couple of makes, too, where the ball got advanced behind them. Now they're scrambling back to the paint, all because they were in a jog mode. That state of readiness wasn't good enough. So there's so many ways Dallas can be better. That, I guess, would be the good news for Jason Kidd.

The one thing that he's probably still concerned about as we get ready to have another walkthrough today and get ready for the game tomorrow night is this personnel thing where can we keep the ball in front of us? Because we did a horrible job of that no matter who it was or who the defender was or who the ball handler was. It didn't matter. They were by us in the paint. That's probably the one thing that he's still bothered by, but I know that he's feeling like, my goodness, that is so far from our best defense

I know there's a lot more there for us to grab in game two. And that's where the contrast in the overall level of shooting, especially with Porzingis back for Boston at the five, really, really sings. Because on one end, when Dallas has the ball,

The one thing Boston will not do until they absolutely have to is blitz Luka. They're just not going to blitz Luka and give him the easy reads and get. And I think part of that is psychological. Like we don't want the other guys to get touches and get in rhythm. We want to make you play one-on-one, even when it looks like it's a, it's a bad matchup for us. So they switch Horford on him quite a bit. And if you, I rewatched all his pick and rolls this morning, he gets by Horford at least a little bit,

a decent number of times. He gets Horford on his back, and normally that's a version of what Boston is doing to Dallas on the other end of the floor. The difference is you got a big guy rolling to the rim on a switch, too, and that guy's defender will be Jalen Brown or somebody will step up just a little bit to kind of show Luka, like, hey, I'm going to cut you off if you get any further. And behind him is...

Derek White off of Josh Green or Derek Jones Jr. clogging up that blob pass to the roller. And Boston just has more options to sort of shade and help when it looks like, uh-oh, Luka's going to beat Al Horford up the dribble. And just every part of the big man universe, Boston won in game one. So we mentioned Porzingis and his run in

In the first quarter. Dallas is switching like the Tatum Porzingis. White Porzingis. Brown Porzingis. Because they don't want Porzingis to shoot pick and pop threes. So Boston wins both ends of that. Porzingis goes crazy on post-ups against smaller guys on switches.

I don't think he can make those same level of shots again. I mean, like those were crazy hard shots. They were fouling him. It was like, they were like 18 footers. And then Tatum on the other end of those switches is destroying lively and Gafford off the dribble Brown. Awesome game for jail and Brown all around every part of it, destroying those centers off the dribble.

On the other end of the floor, Boston puts its wings, Tatum mostly, on Dallas' centers. Dallas doesn't get offensive rebounds. They can't kind of figure out a great way to poke at that in the pick and roll. It's just the shooting. Boston's shooting, I think, was almost a shock to their system. Like, we can't play this same level of help against this team that we did against the Thunder and the Wolves because it's just 40% three-point shooters everywhere you look.

Yeah. And look, you know, you, one thing I said, I did the, I did a, the pregame radio show. The very last question they asked was one thing. If you had to focus one thing tonight, that's definitely something you're going to, you have to focus on and look at the disparity for one team or the other. I said, I said, Dallas has to be with an arm's reach from the three point line. Like they might not make as many threes as Boston in any game in this series, but

But you can't be minus 27. Like that to me is just, you can't overcome that. 27 attempts is an anemic number. Seven makes and two of those were late when the game was over. You know, five, really five made threes on the night. Can't happen. Now, how do we get those? So how do you get more threes? And this is what I said about Luka. Here's what I think. If I'm Luka,

I first, I don't think that any of these guys really individually, if they're not going to blitz him, I don't care who he, he can cook any of these guys, any of them. It doesn't matter who it is. Tatum Brown, white drew doesn't matter. He can get it to his spots. He missed 14 shots in the game. Uh,

Of those 14 shots, there were only a few where he was bottled up and just could not get off a clean look. He's getting his shots. I don't think he came into it thinking, I have to go be this raw scorer at the start of the game. I think that might be a way to loosen Boston up or to make them think. If Luka comes out similar to what he did when he kind of ended things against Minnesota,

come out and look, don't get me wrong, if he does that and he goes one for seven at the start of the game, they might be down 15 again. But I think that might be one way. Take advantage of the fact that you're getting single coverage and not be looking with your eyes blinded

around in other places until you start scoring and force them to commit something differently. Or they come earlier when you get into the middle area, the mid range area of the floor, that backline guy comes up higher because now you've hit two or three shots. Now, maybe you have a lot, maybe you have a cross court kick out three. It just felt like none of it was available. And it was too late by the time Lucas sort of got into that mindset, because I think that's going to be their strongest weapon is Luca as a scorer in this series is

and maybe then he'll have more passing options open to him once he starts getting on a roll and Boston's forced to commit something different to him because they're not going to let him get 45-50. If that's what it looks like he's going to do, that might be what it takes. And then look, I think Kyrie Irving, I just felt like

He got back. Remember the game one against Minnesota after, you know, Anthony Edwards had said his name at the end of game seven. And game one, Kyrie played so fast early off the ball, sprinting, coming off down screens, catching the ball, and then going right into it.

I don't think he did any of that in this game. He just felt like he was kind of feeling his way again. And I think you're going to see a totally different mindset out of Kyrie Irving as well. Look, you don't expect Kyrie Irving to have back-to-back wins.

bad offensive games at this level. He's too good of a player. I think he's going to have a response, and I think it's going to be, again, aggressiveness early in the clock, quicker, more decisive, because that's a tough matchup for those guys against Kyrie Irving. So I think that's the way you loosen them up. Your two best players have to win some matchups early.

and have the ball go in early. And I think that's going to force Boston to now react a little bit more to you, which could create some opportunities for other guys. But Boston got such a big lead early, Zach, that then you can just say, go ahead. You're down 20. Shoot as much as you want to where you're not going to allow these kick-out threes. We're not going to allow easy lobs. We're not going to allow it. If you guys want to make tough contested shots now, down 20, go ahead.

The start of the game, if you can get into a mode like that, I think it makes it a little bit more difficult on Boston in terms of making some decisions that are different than what they normally do on a given night against other teams.

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underperformed from three. Kyrie missed three wide-open threes. You want to say, okay, he's not going to make all three of them probably, but he might make one, maybe two on a normal game. P.J. Washington's two threes were wide, wide open. You want to say, okay, he's not a great shooter. Maybe he makes one the next game. Luka missed a couple of them, but that's nine points that in a normal game they probably get. Doesn't make up for nearly the whole deficit. And so that's what I was going to ask you. I thought Dallas in game one

Got a little obsessed with Luka and

finding where the Boston centers were and having that guy come screen for him. And so when Boston can't get the matchups at once, or Zingas and Horford are on lively and Gafford, and they go into that two man game, which normally produces lobs, but did not produce any lobs in game one because of how a, how often Boston got out of that matchup to begin with and put Tatum on the centers and beach, just how good their defense was. Or, uh,

If the centers are on PJ Washington and Derek Jones Jr., which is what Boston wants, okay, we'll bring that guy up as a screener. And then your problem is, as I've said over and over again, if that guy rolls to the rim, he's rolling into Lively, he's rolling into Tatum, and it's a three-on-three game instead of a two-on-two game, and it's crowded. But I thought Dallas in game one kind of came in like,

We kind of don't know where else to go against this defense. We're just going to find that big guy over and over again and kind of see what happens. And Boston, by switching up its tactics and its matchups, just didn't give them much traction in that particular subset of offense. And I didn't think they looked...

elsewhere enough outside of that. And that's what I wanted to ask you. Like when you're talking about variety and counters and she sure that two man game is going to produce more fruit in some games, but I think you've got to have other stuff in the back. Part of that is just speed playing with. I think the doubt Dallas actually, it sounds counterintuitive. I think they might have to play a little faster, even though it looks like Boston is the better transition team, but I,

it's also speed and creativity in the half court. So if you're kind of tinkering in the lab and you say, okay, we have that part of our offense, we're going to use it. It's going to be a tent pole, Luca hunting their bigs. Maybe we overdid it in game one. It didn't produce enough. What are some other things you think they can go to? Well, one thing I'm curious to see, and I know that he hasn't played much lately. Tim Hardaway Jr. was your third leading scorer. Okay. I know that he missed a lot of times an injury, but I'm just, if you need shot making,

And he can, he's pretty good also at up faking a closeout defender. And that one, he likes to take that one escape dribble toward the rim and pull up from 18. He loves that shot. If you're going to play Josh Green and Maxi Kleba, 39 minutes,

and get virtually nothing out of those guys offensively, you might have to think about, hey, Tim Hardaway Jr., maybe they think he gets picked on a little bit more than Green defensively, but the guy's more of a threat to score. Now, it might, that might, I don't know. I don't know what their thinking is. They see him every day. Are they thinking they're past that point this season to do that? He played eight minutes in the game. He was 0-2 defensively.

Okay. He's been rusty. He is capable of stringing together some shots and he's much more of a threat than Josh Green. And Clebo looked incredibly uncomfortable to me. I don't know. I saw people like, like Dallas fans thinking like, Oh, you know, we got to go more with Clebo next game. I'm like, what, what, what did you see in game one that makes you think that he played 19 minutes? He took one shot. He had no rebounds in 19 minutes.

None. I mean, he had no – I had the same number of rebounds as Moxie Kleber did in that game. Nice job. Good effort out there, Tim. And I actually got my fingertips on a couple, Zach. I just couldn't quite corral them. Control tips? Couple control tips? Exactly right. He's a minus 15, 19 minutes. And I'm not trying to beat up Moxie Kleber. I like his game. But he's been out too –

And he hasn't been the same since he came back. And it's 19 minutes that you're using there. Josh Green got 20 minutes. He made one shot in 20 minutes and he's not, he didn't have a dramatic effect defensively. That's another thing maybe to look at defensively.

Do they maybe try to get a little bit more offense out there? They're playing faster. Absolutely. I was saying it during the game. They're playing too slowly. Boston's individual defenders, you're playing into their hands if you're going to allow them that much time to see every screen that's coming, every guy that you're calling out there to screen. And now we have all the time in the world to make the adjustment in terms of where our help guys are lined up.

It's got to be faster, quicker hitting, more decisive. I completely agree. And it may sound counterintuitive because Boston's such a good offensive team, but it doesn't matter. You have to play to your strengths too. And even if another team, you say, well, we play fast, they're better fast, doesn't matter. You can't change up who you are. And I thought Dallas was too slow in the game. Now, a lot of this, Zach, has to do with the fact the game got away in the first quarter.

That can't happen, obviously, because it changes everything. It changes the whole dynamic about how you're thinking on both ends of the floor.

You have a game plan coming in. It's gone. Just like, you know, was it Mike Tyson that said everybody's got to plan until you get punched in the face. That's what happened to Dallas in this game. It was, they were overwhelmed with shooting on the part of Boston, with the energy in the building, with their defensive pressure on the perimeter. And it just completely took them out of the game from the first quarter on. And it's,

Now we get to see their best punch, their best response, their best effort, game plan, everything against Boston in game two. And if they come with that and they get beat by 15-20, I think it's pretty clear to everybody they have no shot at winning this series. Even if they lose the game and it's tight late and for some reason they don't win, I think people would still have hope they could go to Dallas and win two games and get back in it. Absolutely. You can't lose this game handily.

You know, it cannot be. There's got to be meaningful possessions in the last five minutes of the game. And that's what, if they don't get there, then Boston's just too much for them. They're too much for everybody this year. But I have a lot, I still have a lot of faith in Luca. I have a lot of faith in what I've seen out of Dallas defensively the last few months. It'll be better. Just don't get blitzed so bad early that you're literally off your rails. And everything that you talked about is out the window now because that's what it kind of felt like to me for the Mavericks.

So the Kleba thing is really interesting. And before the series, I went on JJ's podcast and we answered a mailbag question. And the question was, okay, we know Boston's panic adjustment will be starting to blitz. We know they don't want to blitz. And if they blitz, it's a sign of, uh-oh, what's the equivalent for the Mavs?

And I couldn't really think of a good one because the Mavs are just sort of a steady team. They don't do anything crazy. There's not anything they won't do. Like, oh my God, when they do that, it's a sign. And the only thing I thought of was, you know, I know Kliba at the five in the past has been a very strong way to play for them. They got to the conference finals two years ago that way.

With Lively and Gafford, they've clearly telegraphed, like, we don't want to play that way too much. Like, we want to have rim runners. We want to have shop lockers. We want to have size players.

And I thought maybe that's the worry sign is more Kleeba at the five. And we saw that right away in game one. Part of it was Lively's foul trouble. Part of it, I think, was they wanted to see if they could get a switchable lineup out there, like someone who was more capable of switching one to five. And Kleeba has been that in the past. Maybe they wanted to try what life looks like with five shooters on offense, give Luka a little more space.

And it just didn't work. And I'm not saying it can't work going forward, but I'm saying for this particular Dallas team against this particular Boston team who's going to have more shooting than you and more speed than you no matter what lineup you play,

I just think the trade-offs in that are a loss for Dallas. The rebounding you lose on both ends, the shot blocking and rim protection you lose, I don't think you're gaining enough the other way to really make that the ace in the hole. As for Dallas' offense, I don't know. They just got to run two things in the same possession, like have a counter ready. I think...

I think getting Luka in the post is something I would look at. And I think Derek White,

Just because of the size advantage, that's the only place Luka can really go other than the Boston bigs in the starting five. And I'd like to see some Luka Kyrie two-man game on the ball, off the ball. Like when they're at their best, they run some split actions between them, get some switches, see if you can get Luka with Derek White on them, go to the block. Like they didn't run their double drag action really at all in game one. Like just kind of put Boston through some more stuff, some more paces. Yeah.

Because that one subset of your offense wasn't working well enough. I think Luka can operate pretty well against all those guys except Jalen Brown, probably. Jalen was awesome, by the way. At the point of attack and when he was on Gafford, it was like Rudy Gobert was on the back line. He was up there blocking shots above the rim. I mean, because he's got all three components. He's got the lateral quickness, the strength,

And then he's also got the bounce that you need to elevate. And, like, even if you're a half count behind when the shooter gets off the ground, he reacts so quickly, gets up so high, he can still bother guys. But the most important thing against Luka is strength. And Jalen Brown can hold his ground. Because Luka likes to get those rhythm dribbles, right, where he's bouncing and you're hitting him. He's hitting you in the chest and you're giving ground. And that was exactly what he did to the guys in Minnesota, all those guys. They just were not strong enough to hold their ground. Lou Dort was.

those guys weren't. Jalen Brown is. Drew Holiday is strong enough, but Drew Holiday is also shorter. Like, Luka can get to the lean back over him comfortably. Jason Tatum is not like a heavy guy. So I think Luka can bounce him backwards. Same with Derek White. Jalen Brown, I said it going in, Jalen Brown is the best physical profile to guard him. The thing you worry about with that is just foul trouble because Luka is clever with the up fakes

And then stepping in, he gets those little bump calls. It's a great point. Boston was very disciplined in game one, not committing a lot of the cheap fouling. Dallas had like 19 free throw attempts like that. That's a very good point because he can get you into foul trouble by himself. Yeah. And that's something that he's probably thinking about.

That's another way to control the game, and it helps your defense. You've talked about counters, like what can they do defensively? You and I kind of flushed out the Kaliba thing. I'm not in favor of that right now at this point. He doesn't look – it's one thing if he looked like a really confident offensive player. He does not at all. And he had a play – I don't know if you remember his play. It was in the first half.

They advanced the ball. Boston was sort of pressuring in the backcourt. They advanced the ball to Kleba. He caught the ball. He jumbled up toward the three-point line. There was nobody within literally 25 or 30 feet of him. There was one defender back. They were under the rim. I don't remember who it was. Maybe Porzingis. And, like, for Kleba, that's what you're on the floor to do. Shoot the ball. He didn't even look at the rim.

And it told me a lot. I'm just like, he's just not feeling it. He's not going to impact the game defensively against this team to the extent Gafford and Lively will. And he's not going to right now. He's not in the mindset to make threes. Look, I'm not saying guys can't snap out of that quickly. Maybe,

He has a practice today where he lights it up and he feels really good and he comes in tomorrow night feeling differently. We'll see. I don't think that's the solution. What about a little bit more zone? They didn't play much of it. I don't think they played a ton of it in a regular season. Is it something that if I had a week off,

to prepare for Boston and everything you have to cover with this team and all the versatility offensively. I'm telling you right now, I would have definitely spent, I'm not saying you're going to play predominantly zone, but you should be able to go to that for a two to three or four minute stretch in each half

Against certain lineups that Boston has out there, to be really effective, to slow you down. It also helps with your foul trouble. If you don't practice it a lot and you're not confident in it and those guys aren't bought in, then no, scrap it. Don't do it.

But I would have maybe thought about with this buzzsaw you're having to guard because that's what Boston can be. And they were the other night. They turn into a buzzsaw when they get rolling like that. Everybody feeds off of each other. Even, you know, at one point they go up 34-20. The very next trip, one pass to the corner and Hauser makes a ridiculously tough three right in front of their bench. Yeah, like everybody is feeling it. If that's the case, I think you need more clubs in your bag.

And if it's just, hey, let's just see what this looks like here for a couple of minutes and see what Boston does. Even if you're able to get three misses in a row out of that, and then they score a couple times, you get out of it. But that might be something else that they would consider doing because of the amount of times that they got beat in one-on-one situations off the dribble. Yeah, it's funny.

I just think Boston's got too much shooting. And I think, you know, they have struggled against the zone in the past against Miami, particularly in the bubble. But the bubble's a long time ago, and this is a different team. And I just, I think they'd be ready for it. But I don't, again, it's worth trying. And about Kliba, I mean, if you play Kliba at the four...

Boston got six minutes of Horford Porzingis together in game one. That's six minutes they don't have to play Cornette. That's six minutes they can cut the Hauser-Pritchard minutes if it's not going well. And those guys can both shoot threes. Like, that's a big deal. Okay, let's change court. You have any thoughts on game two before we move on? I got one more topic to ask you about. No, just look. This, to me, is just going to be a Luka Kyrie game.

They're going to have to be special and spectacular to get them through this moment. Again, the key is you can feel okay about yourself if this ends up being a really tight game and you lose and you go home for two. I think you can feel like we're very much in this.

This is going to have to be the tone's got to be set by those two players. And obviously you can't get blitzed that way with three point shooting early. Like you just can't get shot out of the gym in the first quarter. But your offense is going to have a lot to do with that. So I just think the response out of Luca early, the aggressiveness as a scorer and Kyrie, I think it's going to be a lot different than it was in game one. And that's going to that's to me, although so much more about this entire series by halftime.

of game two than I do right now. I mean, I saw a lot of the things I expected in game one, particularly out of Boston. I thought Dallas was so far below what I've seen them at their best. It's still hard for me to draw a conclusion because I, some, a lot of it had to do with Boston, but some of that was Dallas. They just didn't play very well. And there's going to be, there's going to be some things they're going to do differently. The mindset's going to be different and let's see what their best punch looks like. Find out if we have a series and I'll know at halftime, I think Dallas,

how this series is going to go, at least in terms of competitiveness. I'm expecting and hoping for...

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Okay, I love the finals so much that on our post-game podcast, me and Brian Windhorst, we forgot to talk about the Lakers trying to hire Danny Hurley away from UConn. Woj broke the basketball world with this news ahead of game one of the finals. All the focus had been on J.J. Redick and then James Brago. And all of a sudden, Woj reported yesterday Danny Hurley's in Los Angeles.

word of a gigantic offer. I mean, I'm not even going to say the money numbers that are floating around the league because I don't know if they're accurate. And the most successful coach in college basketball right now

being recruited by the glitziest franchise in the NBA with the biggest star in basketball on their team. It's almost too much to bear for the NBA media sphere. It's obviously very interesting on a million different levels what it means for college basketball, what it means for the Lakers. Can this fiery high school coach turn college coach who goes at fans, who goes at opposing fans, who's yelling all the time, who by his own admission is a little bit...

A little bit good, kind of crazy, Danny Hurley. Can that translate to the NBA? What's your general reaction to this? I don't know how much UConn you've seen over the years. A lot. But what was your first reaction? What's your general reaction now it's been a couple days? First reaction for me, Zach, I've always been of the belief that you are either wired, if you're coaching aspirations and you're in the profession, you're either wired for college or you're wired for the pros.

that's the way i've always looked at it to me danny hurley's wired for college now if you are gonna fly him out there and and like you make a great point about this these rumors about the money you know you automatically assume right without it even being said the lakers are going to offer a lot of money when you start hearing words like you know ginormous and humongous and like you're going wait a second we already knew it was going to be big what are we talking

For a team that has generally not paid its coaches these crazy salaries. No doubt about it. I know when the first job first opened and thinking about who could it be, I thought Budenholzer might be a good answer. They're not going to pay Budenholzer. The Lakers don't pay their coaches. I don't know what this money is going to be. Listen,

You're going out there. It's Lakers. It's all the banners. It's the franchise. It's LA. It's all that stuff, right? And all that money. And if you're Danny Hurley in the back of your mind, the one thing you know, if I don't like this,

or it turns out I'm not that good at it at this level. If those things happen, I'm not saying they were to happen. He's unfulfilled in some way. Guess what? It's all guaranteed. And you can go right back and who knows, maybe by that time, Kentucky's tired of Mark Pope. And now he's got the Kentucky job waiting on him. Who knows what it will be a $10 million a year job that he's going to take to go back to college if he ever wanted to do that. So it's almost like from a family perspective, it's,

Like, how do you say no? But having said that, is it as fulfilling as a guy like Danny Hurley wants it to be? Danny Hurley, you know, these guys that are successful at that level, Zach, they're all like have really big egos, right? And that's just part of the territory for guys that win at that level. He's so intense.

He likes getting the player into his program, whether it's a recruit or a transfer, and molding them into what he wants them to be. And he does that with some tough love. And he's also a supportive guy. He'll pat you on the back and hug you, but he's also going to have his foot up your rear end most of those 40 minutes. We see it. It's overt. He wears it on his sleeve how he's going to coach. And it seems to me that's part of the enjoyment of the coaching for him, to be able to do that. And

He won't be able to do it to that extent at that level. He just won't. Is it as fulfilling? And that's why I tell them being wired one way or the other. Some guys, they don't want to deal with all that other stuff. They don't deal with molding anybody. They want to show up and coach. Let the personnel people draft these guys, make the trades. I'm going to coach. You have to have a certain calm demeanor. It's 82, so you're not with your foot on the gas every night. Can Danny Hurley do that?

Can he do that? Can he make that transition to that level? He just did a podcast earlier this week with Mike Francesa where he basically said, they asked him, you ever want to coach in the NBA? This is before the rumors came out. And he said, yeah, one day, certainly, I think maybe testing myself at the ultimate level with a young team

and guys that will let me coach him the way I want to coach him. Like this was out of it. This was four days before this service. And I'm going, well, that's not the Lakers job. That's not what this is going to be. So there's going to be this conflict and I'm sure he's going to struggle with the conflict. Like what he's doing now is what he was meant to do and be at that level.

He has other aspirations to go do it at the NBA level. Hey, you got to go figure that out and sort it out. But you're certainly going to have to make some changes to the way that you carry yourself, the way you're, what your demeanor is towards your players, the amount of time you're putting in a player development, the stuff he loves. And that's going to be very difficult to do at that level. So he's got to ask himself that ultimately, but look,

If it's that kind of money, man, how could anybody really say no to that? And an opportunity to coach the Lakers and coach LeBron James for a couple of years. I don't know how you say no to something like that, but will it be internally fulfilling and rewarding at a place where he is really happy with all of it? That's my biggest question about it for Danny Hurley. So the reaction around the league for the last 48 hours, and particularly the day it came out,

and this includes like coaching agents I talked to have been at least on the periphery of this process with their clients was what? Like people did not hear a whisper of this. I didn't hear a whisper. These people didn't hear a whisper of it. Reaction number two was,

There is no doubt about Danny Hurley's tactical acumen on any, on any level. In game adjustments, big picture, creativity, philosophical creativity. The only question is what you and I have said about his intensity, scaling it down to fit the NBA rhythms and pace of an 82 game schedule. And, and like, I don't,

I don't know Danny Hurley. I've talked to him a few times here and there, interviewed him a few times, how he's wired, whatever. Like, I can just imagine you're sitting there like, all right, I'm the king of college basketball. I got a chance to three Pete. Nobody's done that since John wouldn't. This is, I got this job for my entire life. I could live here and have this job. And then, and, and I guess they have a top five team coming back next year. Um,

Over here, I can go to the Lakers. It's the Lakers. It's not... I'm not going to disrespect another average NBA team, but it's not an average NBA team. It's the Lakers, and it's LeBron James, and it's a ton of money, and it's Los Angeles, and it's beautiful there every single day. Love Los Angeles. But you can go there and...

It's the Western Conference. You're not winning a title. Not only that, you could go there and remember, we're five days removed from the Pelicans kicking the Lakers draft pick a year because they're shorting the Lakers in the Western Conference. They're shorting 40-year-old LeBron James. They're shorting Anthony Davis's reliability, even though he's been quite reliable the last couple years in terms of his availability.

Like you could go there, not only not win a title, if one thing goes bad, you can be like 42 wins, 38 wins, 44 wins. And then LeBron's gone because he's old and he retires. And it's like, there could be, it could, it could go just purgatory for a while. And you want to say, well, does some superstar will go there? Yeah, probably at some point we're not that far removed from the Lakers being bad.

Yeah. Like five or six years in a row. That's a great point. Totally right. Like, I'm just saying that's, I'm not saying that's going to happen. Right. I'm saying that's the downside. The other interesting thing about this is I was, I was sitting next to Woj for a lot of Friday or whatever, not whatever day game one was Thursday is we did like four hours of TV. And as those four hours went on, he got more and more, um,

He talked more and more about the Lakers potentially drafting Bronny James at 55 and kind of linked Hurley's potential hiring to that. Like we think this coach is good for that player.

And my brain has just not allowed me to dive into the Bronny James thing, the father and son thing. It just seemed far-fetched and a pipe dream. And not because Bronny's not good, just because like so many things have to flip right for that scenario to take place. And like, I'm not a Bronny James expert. I've seen him play a couple of times. I'm not going to like weigh in on his game. But at that, listening to Woj was the first time my brain flipped and was like, this

this could really happen? And I felt both shocked, like, okay, I guess this is going to be a real thing. And I do have to say, a little part of my cold Grinch heart was a little bit warmed by like, okay, it would be kind of cool. I'm willing to concede. It would be kind of nice. It would be kind of cool. Well, listen, here's what I said. I said this two weeks ago about this pick. They've got the 55th pick. And I'm saying to myself, what are the odds? I started looking up past 55th picks. Just

Just to have some fun. It's not great. Well, there are some guys. You can find some guys that are picked. I think Wiggins for Oklahoma City was the 55th pick. He's a solid player, a rotational player for them. You can get that. But more likely than not, you're not. And that guy is not going to have a long NBA career. He's not going to have a huge impact in the NBA. The most likely scenario is he never plays in the NBA for the 55th pick. You're right. And so my point with that is this, Zach. If that's the case...

Draft Bronny James. If that makes LeBron James happier and in a better place mentally, do it. Why wouldn't you do it? Why not? It's so funny because I was doing a show. I was doing first take. And Molly was setting up a segment on this question. And she was saying the latest mock draft. And I don't know what mock draft she was quoting. But she had Bronny James going 54th to the Boston Celtics. And I said, wait a second. Did you just say 54th?

that the Boston Celtics would take Bronny James one pick before LeBron James' team had a chance to draft Bronny James and said, there's no way in the world that would happen unless you want to revive the Cold War all over again. And we're going to start it off like this is Boston just digging at the Lakers. I'm like, if you're the Lakers and he's there, and I think he's a very good chance he's going to be there, draft him if that's what makes LeBron James happy. But the concept that Danny Hurley,

would be hired in some way, and that's linked with that, to develop Bronny James. Look, I'm not saying Bronny James. I don't know definitively that Bronny James can't stick in the league and won't have an NBA career. You're not bringing in a coach

Okay, with that in mind at all for a guy picked in that spot in the draft. This isn't a 6'11 foreign born player that like Jokic is picked in the 30s. Okay, would you go, hey, nobody really knows about this guy. He's 7'3 and we're going to draft him and just let him sit and try to develop. Maybe Hurley can help with that.

Right. That's not what this is, man. This is an undersized guard. He does. He's not necessarily a point guard in terms of his ball handling and distribution capabilities. He doesn't shoot it well enough or big enough to be like a big time to guard at best. He's going to end up being a three and D type of guy on a roster fighting for minutes.

You don't, that's not what Danny Hurley is going to be developing that spot. So I think that notion is silly that that would be any, have anything to do with why you want Danny Hurley. You'd want Danny Hurley because Danny Hurley has proven this is one of the smartest basketball coaches you're ever going to see. The stuff they run is great at Connecticut. His ability to connect those guys defensively, his ability to take, you know, patchwork quilt type guys from other programs and turn it in to something that looked like that.

And by the way, Zach, you said a top five next year. They're going to be top five every year that Danny Hurley's there because of how difficult it is now with, with other programs to maintain that greatness year in year out. He can do it because he's that good at what he does. So they're all, he might end up being the next John Wooden of college basketball. If he stays in college basketball long enough, who knows? I think he's that good. The pro level's different. The impact is less than,

It just is. It's less at the head coaching position in the NBA. To your point, he might go there. They might not be very good, not win a title. And guess what? What's the next iteration after LeBron? What do the Lakers look like post-LeBron? It might look like Mad Max Furiosa. All right? It might look like that.

I still haven't seen it yet. I'm trying to organize it. I haven't seen it yet either, but I'm going to. I've seen all the other ones. It might look like that, okay? Barron, man, where you're fighting for your life every day for scraps. Who knows who the next star is for the Lakers and how long that will take. To that point, it could look great. It could get lucky and star X, Y, and Z could go there. You just don't know. That's the point. You don't know.

Well, I know. So I'm as curious as you. I guess he went out there yesterday. I don't know, you know, what the what the results of that are going to be. I think Woj reported yesterday that they expect something to happen over the weekend or by Monday. So I guess we'll all sit back and know. But I mean, here's the thing. If Danny Hurley got on that plane to fly from Connecticut to L.A., if you even get on the plane with your wife and you fly there,

I had a feeling he's going to end up there because you already know what it's going to look like. Like, what would you possibly think you're going to see or hear that would turn you off of that situation? So to me, if you're having like any internal conflict,

You don't go at all because you know what that's going to look like. It's going to be almost impossible to say no with what they're going to put on him in the full court press he's going to get. And then just look at the money. So the fact that he got on the plane at all, I think, bodes and leans in the direction of Danny Hurley being the next Lakers coach. Well, maybe we'll find out soon enough. Tim Leggo, you've got to go spend some time with your family. Thank you for rolling with us today. I may go check.

You know, there's afternoon practices today, the Mavs and the Celtics practice. I may check if there's a little matinee of Mad Max Furiosa, just a little solo matinee. I've been so busy lately. I've got a couple of days now. I've got an afternoon off in D.C. when I'm down there for SVP, and I will probably be checking out a matinee of Furiosa for sure. Yeah, if you see a guy in the back row solo eating some popcorn in Boston today, it might be me. Tim Flegler, thank you, sir. You got it, Zach. Great job.

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