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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast on a Tuesday morning. I hope everyone voted. And with that out of the way, it's time to bounce around the East and there's nowhere better to start bouncing.

even though they lost last night to the Atlanta Hawks without Trey Young. With the 8-1 Milwaukee Bucks, my pick to win the title at the beginning of the season, I weirdly somehow feel less good about that pick, but I'm sticking by it, even though they were undefeated until last night and there is no one, and I mean no one, in the sports media. Apologies to all the other people.

Who knows the Milwaukee Bucks better than Eric Name of The Athletic? I'm thrilled to have him on. Eric, how are you, sir? I am great. Thanks for having me. Let's just do the basics. Get him out of the way. The thing that should scare the entire league is that the Bucks are first in defense. And as you were, I think, the first person to point out in the preseason doing something they've never done before, which is care about opponent three-point shooting. And holy smokes, are they caring about it?

As a portion of opponent shot attempts, they've allowed the seventh fewest threes in the NBA. That was like 29th, 30th, just regularly teams are just chucking above the break threes, culminating in the crash and burn Grant Williams performance in game seven of last year. And you would think, Mr. Name, that maybe they've sacrificed something

to limit opponent threes. And you would be wrong. They're still allowing the fourth fewest shots at the rim. They don't foul. They get every defensive rebound. All the old Bucs fundamentals are still there with this one new Bucs fundamental. So that's great. All good. Offensively, no Chris Middleton, their number one ball handler. We know that. No Pat Connaughton, who's super underrated and important to their team. 18th in offense. Looks a little icky sometimes. Yeah.

And a shocking, and you're going to have to explain this one to me, shocking for a freight train team with a four steps to traverse the whole court superstar alien that we've never seen before. 30th in a 30 team league in transition offense, which is their bread and butter. So Eric, after nine games, eight and one,

Third best net rating in the league. 18th offense, first defense. Two of their, I would say, five to six best players are out. What's your temperature take big picture on the Bucs?

I think the biggest thing is what you mentioned about the defense. I thought going into this year, this was, this was something new that they were going to try. This is over the years. You know, I don't know how many times I asked Mike Booneholzer about how many three pointers he was giving up. And the answer was always, well, we don't want that, Eric, let's be clear. We don't want that to happen.

But you do have to make choices. You have to figure out what are the things that you're willing to sacrifice. And they were always willing to sacrifice above the break threes to average to above average shooters. It was never going to be the other team's best shooters. They were always going to do a good job on those players. But

if you were an average to maybe slightly above average shooter, you were going to get all the above the break threes that you wanted. Literally an endless supply of them. And it was a genius thing in some ways that when I close my eyes and think about it, the first, well, who's the first opposing shooter that comes to your mind when you close your eyes and think, disqualify Grant Williams since we mentioned him and it was a landmark game. When you close your eyes and think,

Oh my God, they're really doing this. Like when that realization hits you, who's the shooter you think of? Cause I have one. Al Horford in Boston. I think at a game you and I watched together.

Like it was the first, I think maybe the first time they lost under Budenholzer or at least the first time they really got scared under Budenholzer. And it was Al Horford just shooting up a bunch of threes. I think the Celtics shot 44 threes. And I think maybe like the eighth game of the Budenholzer era. And it was, oh, they're just giving that to Al Horford. And Bud knows Al Horford. He knows him very well. He knows exactly what he's capable of. And he's just like, OK, go for it. You want you want to win this game, Al?

Go right ahead. It's all you. Who are you thinking of? Miles Turner. When they just let Miles Turner shoot every pick and pop three he wanted. And after missing like three in a row. And this was the secret sauce of the scheme.

He would catch the ball and think, should I keep shooting? Am I just really going to take 12 threes again? I'm seven feet tall. Should I be taking this many threes? And that paralysis is what they were going for almost as much as anything else. And to be fair, the bet almost paid off in game seven against the Celtics. And they won the championship the year before. For sure. But even last year when it was, oh my gosh, how do they keep doing this?

It almost worked. Grant Williams passed up a bunch of looks. He was like, I think he was like two for eight, something like that. And then Imei Yudoka, to his credit, drew up a good play for him. Marcus Smart whipped him a pass, and it was...

Grant, that's going up. This play is for you for three. And then Grant Williams remembered, oh yeah, I shoot 40% from the corners. I should just go back to doing that. And then it was over, but they didn't have any other options without Chris Middleton. They didn't have enough offense. They didn't have enough size on the wing to actually, you know, switch everything. They had to play this gamble and it almost paid off because of that exact paralysis that you're talking about. So what,

What do you think if that was a last ditch gamble for a shorthanded team, almost punching above its weight, in my opinion, in that series going to seven, what, after so many years of stubbornness of doing it the same way, what drove them to make this change? Because when you watch them,

And you see that their perimeter defenders are, they don't even have a foot in the paint on the pick and roll. They got their feet outside the paint and you watch it unfold and you're like, well, this is kind of the whole point of having Brooke Lopez and Giannis as drop back centers is that this is how you should play. Why did they decide to get here this year?

I'm, I'm genuinely curious what happens last year. If Brooke Lopez ends up being healthy for that entire season, because, because Brooke Lopez plays the first game, let's be clear in the bucks, destroy the nets on ring night at night teams don't typically play all that well. Cause they're celebrating. They're having a good time. They destroyed the nets that night. And it was like, Oh my gosh, I guess the bucks are just going to keep this thing rolling. And then Brooke Lopez missed 60 games.

And I just don't, there's a lot of things that the Bucks are doing differently. We can get to the offensive end and what they're doing on the offensive glass here in a little while. But like, there's a number of things that they're doing this year that I'm curious if it would have happened last year. If maybe they didn't start the season with the idea that, hey, we're going to start taking away more threes. But if they could, you know, 40 games in be like, all right, enough.

enough is enough. We can do this. We can give this a try. I just think Brooke Lopez means so much. And, you know, I've heard Jeff Van Gundy on, on some of the ESPN broadcasts. And a lot of people talk about like, Hey, Brooke Lopez is pretty good. I don't know why people don't realize this outside of Milwaukee. And then if you,

talk to any Bucs fans, they're like, this dude's incredible. We don't ever want him to leave. Sign him to whatever contract you need him because he should be here forever. And you talk to the most important player on the planet at the moment, Yannis Adekumbo, and all he tells you is, oh my gosh, Brooke makes my life so much easier. He doesn't get every rebound, which would maybe be a problem.

but he boxes everybody out. He eats up three dudes on the glass and Giannis just swoops in for one handed rebounds. And then, as you mentioned about the transition attack, he's out on the run and he gets to do all the things that he's great at on defense. He doesn't have to be the rim protector. He doesn't have to deal with five men. He can just be this real,

roamer, free safety, whatever you want to call it, pterodactyl that we've never seen before. He gets to do all that because Brooke Lopez is there. And I'm really curious to see as the season goes along, it's going well right now, right? The shot profile makes sense. They're forcing teams in the mid range. They're not giving up as many shots at the rim as you would have thought. I think rather than like first, it's fourth or fifth. And then you go to the three point line and they're just not giving them up there.

I'm really curious to see one, if they continue to get better at this, if they continue to, you know, fine tune it. Also, it's a pretty heavy load on Brooke Lopez. I do think that's another part of this is that there might've been some genuine concern about how far can we push Brooke? How much can we ask him to do? Because over and over again, when you watch games this year, I've been tweeted out. Like I keep thinking to myself, why do teams keep trying Brooke?

You know what he can do. He's seven feet tall. He's 280 pounds. He's been blocking shots like this for all five seasons he's been with the Bucs. Why are you trying him? My alternatives are try Giannis, which seems horrible. Try Drew Holiday, which just seems like

It seems like it's like getting mugged on the street or something. It's just awful. Try Javon Carter. And I do think there's something to the fact that with Middleton out, they have started a total defensive specialist in the starting five. And we're going to get to that in a minute. There just aren't that great options. Yeah, but Brooke has been incredible.

If they need to limit his minutes a little bit, Ibaka just really hasn't looked great to me. I mean, he's playable, but that's about the best I can say. The Portis-Yannis combo has been consistently awesome for them at the four and the five, was critical during their title run. They can amp that up a little bit, but I look at this defense...

I don't see any reason why this is unsustainable. They may be getting a little bit lucky with opponent shooting. I think they're allowing like the second best corner three percentage and a bottom 10, three point percentage, the second best mid range percentage. So the, the tons of mid range jumpers they're giving up on purpose or kind of on purpose are not going in. That'll change a little bit. But I don't, I mean, drew Giannis and Brooke Lopez are top 20 defenders in the NBA and Giannis is,

May make a run at defensive player deal, though he learned last night, Eric name. You better box out on Yaka Kongu or else he is going to leapfrog you and dunk it on your face. And you could tell that Giannis was a little frustrated by that last night. I mean, Okonkwo is so good. I again, I'm talking about the box. I'm not sure what the Hawks are doing. They should get him more minutes. He's really good. I really enjoy watching him play. And on the list of guys that make Giannis work.

he's pretty high. He he's, he's really up there. So if the Hawks do have, you know, ideas about what they're going to do in the playoffs, you're gonna have to go through Milwaukee. Having that guy on the floor for a whole lot and a whole long while is probably a good idea, but yeah, I mean, he was great. And honestly with the bucks defense, the thing that I think I keep coming back to about why teams try Brooke Lopez is when you used to get downhill on the bucks, uh,

you could just hit the release valve, right? Because there was going to be over help from the corners. There's going to be over help from the other side. There's going to be four people in the middle of the lane and you got one dribble. You got one step and it was like, oh, there's a wide open guy in the corner or, oh, there's a wide open guy on the wing. I'll

I'll just throw it there. I don't need to go try to climb Mount Lopez. Like I'm, I'm good. I'll just, I'll just make that splash mountain block mountain. I don't need to climb it. I'm good. I'm just going to pass it out there. And that pass isn't there this year because they're not helping in the ways that they use it. That pass is not there. So you get a step and you're like, um,

I guess I got to keep going. I don't have any other options. I'm going to go, and Brooke Lopez is still 70-to-180 pounds. A gigantic person is in my way. I misspoke, by the way. I read their offensive numbers. Their defensive numbers, though, the point stands. Sixth-best opponent, three-point shooting. Fifth-best at the rim. Seventh-best mid-range. Those are so seven-lowest. Whatever I misspoke before, it doesn't matter. It's very low across the board. It'll tick up a little bit.

But I just think they've been an awesome defensive team for essentially all of Bud's tenure other than last year they stepped back a little bit when Brooke was hurt. To me, that's locked in. It's solid. Whether they drop off a little bit here and there, they're going to be a good defensive team. Offensively, truthfully, I don't really care until Middleton comes back because he is the most important ball handler on their team. I am curious who starts when Connaughton comes back.

I know that they were sort of unnerved by how punchless they were against Boston switching, even without Middleton. And they wanted to sort of amp up the creativity a little bit, slip some screens, run some Spain pick and rolls with back screens and all this to make switching harder. Um,

Let me start, though. I haven't dug into the video. How are they last in transition? What's going on? They must have a bunch of turnovers and missed open threes or something like what's going on there. That's that's that's that would give me a reason for if they're just average, that takes them from 18th to like 11th and offense by itself.

Yeah, I'd be really curious just overall what happens offensively when they stop shooting like garbage. They've just been bad from the three point line. And that's not something that hasn't happened before. That was the 21st and threes that I mentioned before and second to last in corner three. So they are shooting horribly.

And once that comes up, I'd be curious if this offense just kind of automatically, even without Middleton gets to like 12, maybe 10 in offensive rating and everything looks a little bit less bad. But yeah, I mean, transition they've been overall, they've been sloppy with the ball. They just haven't been clean and they've missed a bunch of threes and the bucks, you know, the thing I've always tried to tell people over the years is like the thing you got to watch out for the bucks is like,

three pointers between 15 on the clock and about 18 on the shot clock. They love getting those things up. And oftentimes, as you mentioned, that's a transition shot. And the league will, the stats will struggle to figure out if it's semi-transition or transition, but those are a lot of transition opportunities. Transition with the Bucs is transition because you know, their bugaboo has always been our offense, our half court offense can be ground down a little bit. Let's run. So whatever it is classified as it's going to be live rebound, kick, run, shoot.

So a lot of the times, you know, if that three point percentage comes up, I think they'll be better in transition and overall offensively. You're right. They they were really kind of disappointed in what happened offensively when they saw those switches. They just didn't know really how to attack. And to be clear, Chris Middleton didn't play. Chris Middleton is very good.

in isolation he's very good as a ball handler pick and roll he's very good in really taking advantage of all of those opportunities where you get a step or you get a slight mismatch you know i've been posting a too small gif for people that get matched up on chris middleton when he gets on the you know on the right side for forever like if he gets if he catches the ball in the mid post it's over if you're not big enough he's just going to score there and the bucks have based their offense a

around this idea since Drew Holiday's come to town. In isolation, they have three guys that are great at. We always talk about the Nats and how good that team hypothetically could have been

If they ever played and whatever their, their whole thing, but those three guys, their whole thing, the whole thing, but all of it, all of it, literally all of it. But those three guys, we always talked about, oh man, they could be so great in isolation. When you look at drew holiday, Yonatan Akumo and Chris Middleton, you're looking at three of the, I believe when the trade was first made three of the top 15 or so players in isolation, that's what they're good at. So not having Middleton short-circuited anything they might try to do against the switch is

But you look at what they're doing this year. This is the most dribble handoffs of Mike Booneholzer offense has ever ran in with the Bucs. I would have to look back in Atlanta. I would guess even in Atlanta, it wasn't as high as it is right now.

So they're doing dribble handoffs more. Giannis is really focused on the screen, re-screen. I'm going to screen again. There's a sequence in the Philly game to start the season where he just did three times. It was Tyrese Maxey. And he's like, all right, Tyrese, I'm going to get it. I'm going to screen you. And I missed you. Okay. I'm going to screen you again. I missed you. Okay. I'm going to screen you one more time. And by the way, he doesn't get enough credit for...

completely buying all the way in to becoming a screen setter because this was a guy who, and he still has a little bit of this in him and it's probably good that he does.

well, Kevin Durant shoots jump shots and has a bag and LeBron has a bag and she's jump shots. Like I gotta be like that. And slowly, but surely he accepted reality. He accepted the coaching staff's wishes and went all the way into becoming like, he does a little bit of everything, but he does a lot of,

rim running or he's a rim running big man. And it's not, it is glamorous because he gets to dunk a lot, but, but he's gotten good at it. He's not just doing it to dunk. He's doing it because it's the best use of him for the team. It's he's doing it because the Middleton Giannis and drew Giannis pick and rolls are so good for them. Like he, he just doesn't, he, he doesn't get enough credit for that. Cause a lot of guys wouldn't have done that. I don't think.

Honestly, I think in the organization, they were worried going into the championship season. I mean, you think about all the pressures of that year, right? Like, is the Supermax going to happen? All that. That summer, they lose in the bubble. There was legit concerns with people I talked to around the organization. Like, is Giannis going to buy into screening more?

Is this something that he's willing to do? Because as you said, he's one of the best players on the planet. The best player on the planet doesn't set screens. He gets screens set for him. That's how this works. That's why I'm the best player on the planet. And he really did buy into it in that year. And he's gone out of his way to do it even better. And I was talking to Steven Silas at the start of the season, and he was like, Eric, he's not just

he's not just willing to do it. He's good at it. Like he's gotten really good as a screener where I think he, I think the player Steven Silas mentioned was Steven Adams. He's like, that's how hard of a screen Giannis is to get around at this point. He's so good at flipping the angle. He's so good at his footwork that you're right. Zach, he has totally committed to it and it's opened so much up for him offensively in ways where when he was just beating his head up against the wall, like,

It just wasn't going to happen. So that has been a huge tweak and they're using it a lot more. Like you said, there's some Spain pick and roll. There's some double high pick and rolls going on this year. A lot of stuff that you don't typically see in a Boone Holzer offense. They're literally trying to squeeze every single thing they can out of this offense. You mentioned ISOs. They're ISOing much less this year, but that's probably because in part because Middleton is out. Guess where they rank in points per possession on isolations on offense, according to Second Spectrum.

They're not somewhere in the middle 30th last. So that will come up as well with, with Chris coming back. Okay. Here's a question for you. This is a deep cut bucks question. So I've got the best person for this. I'm going to, I'm going to give you a list of names and you are going to tell me who among them you trust to be at least 10 minute a game players in the playoffs. Jordan, Laura, George Hill,

Let me just read the whole list. You instantly just rejected Jordan O'Rourke. Poor guy. Can't play defense. He's shooting 32% from three. He's got a little juice to him, though. George Hill, who shoots almost as often as I do right now. Wes Matthews. Kind of interesting they brought him off the bench to start the season. Serge Ibaka. Javon Carter. Joe Ingles. Man, as of today, the only one I can speak with any confidence is Wes Matthews.

Like there's no way that I think I can say any of those other players because I think the Bucs, if you talk to people on the Bucs, oh my gosh.

I don't know how many glowing anecdotes I've heard of Joe Ingles at this point. It's all anyone, anyone with the team. That's all they want to talk about. Man, Ingles is gonna be great. He's gonna be awesome when he gets on the floor. And I've seen Joe Ingles play. He's a pick and roll maestro, 40% three point shooter for much of his career. All that could be true.

He was also bad before he got hurt last year. And you have to try to figure out like, okay, was that just the ecosystem in Utah? And everything was kind of toxic at that point that he just couldn't have a good season or

Or was that the start of his decline? He's an older player and now he's coming back from an ACL. Who knows what happened? So I can't, I can't with confidence say Joe Ingles, even though I think the entire organization believes that dude is going to be a dude for us in the playoffs. He's going to play a bunch of minutes. He's going to open up the offense because he can do all of those things off of second side actions. He can be the primary ball handler, pick and roll with Giannis if we need to. He's going to be a problem. They believe that.

There's no way that any of us could believe that at this point, because how could we, we haven't seen him play Wesley Matthews. I think he works. He plays physical defense. I think you mentioned the idea that he's coming off the bench to start the season before the year. I asked Wes, I was like, Hey,

I don't know how Bud is going to put together a rotation. I don't. I never will. Bud won't even tell me the starters until they are officially announced 30 minutes before a game. He's going to be secretive about it. But I would guess they're probably going to try to manage your minutes this year. I would just guess that that's what's going to happen. And Wes looked at me and it was before the first preseason game. He's like, I'm ready.

I'm ready tonight. And I was like, okay, yeah, I get it. Like he started to cut like a WWE promo on me. Like, I love it. I love it. I think I'm ready to go every night.

every single night. And I was like, all right, that's great. And I think the Bucks do believe that. So I do think Wes can give you 20 minutes again off the bench or starting however you want to do it. If you have a big wing that you want to throw at him to annoy, he's really good at that. He's been good on Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown. He can do that. So those are the two. Javon Carter is going to go through this problem, I think, all year long. There's just times where he doesn't shoot the ball.

And it's really hard to be an NBA playoff rotation player when you won't shoot. And he's a good corner three point shooter. He has been for the last three years. You just like on this team, his whole job is play defense and shoot corner threes. That's it. And he should like, I guess I just can't quit Javon Carter. He's so frisky. He's pressing people up and down the floor. He's tough. He's,

stronger than he looks. I can't quit him. He can shoot corn trees, just shoot man. And you'll be in the playoff rotation. That's all you got to do. I mean, that's really the big thing is, you know, there was a start this season. I think the fourth and fifth game, he took three shots combined one, one shot, one game, two shots, the next game. And I asked bud and pregame. I was like,

I know he's not out there for his offense, but does Javon need to shoot to play? And he was like, oh yeah, we've talked to him about it. And Javon to his credit shot 12 times that night. All right. That's what, that's all you need to do. Like you said, you just gotta be a threat. Just shoot the threes when you're open. And then all of a sudden, just imagine being an opposing guard and you get 48 minutes of true holiday.

Wesley Matthews and Javon Carter. You're having a bad time. The ice bath. You got to hit the ice bath. Whatever else you got to hit. The ice bath and beer at the end of the game. Whatever you need to get through it, it's going to be a long series. And I do think

that will help Javon play, but he has to keep shooting. So those are the three I'd feel comfortable with the rest of the guys. Yeah. You know, there's some guys getting up in age a little bit, trying to figure out how to still make an impact at the NBA level. I'm curious what George Hill can do across the whole season that that neck injury last year, they tried to rehab it this summer. It's been good thus far, but I'm out. I know, I know bud will sign George Hill

George Hill will be 52 years old and Bud will be like, we got to get him back. We got to get him back on a minimum, guys. Him and Thanasis, untradeable. We got to get them both back. I'm out. He just doesn't do anything. He's fine, which is he like runs around on defense and gets through screens. It's fine. He's a professional veteran, George Hill. He doesn't shoot. He's five of 20 on threes. I think as long as their core guys are healthy, and that includes Connaughton, I think they have like just enough depth

to do what I think they can do. I do know that they have, and I was the first to report this, sniffed around Jay Crowder, had interest in Jay Crowder. They have, I believe, a 2029 first round pick they can trade. They do. How, if they're cruising along at number one in the East, then my God, are they cruising. They're just watching all these fires burning all around the Eastern conferences. Hey, we're over here. Nobody covers us. We pretend like we're offended that nobody covers us, but we actually like it. They do.

How aggressively will they wield that stuff to try and get another piece in? Maybe, you know, they've never really found the next PJ Tucker. It hasn't hurt them that much, but the sort of bigger switchable three, four type that they kind of crave. That's why they were interested in Crowder. Maybe are interested in Crowder. How much do you think they're going to they're going to go that route? I think if not Crowder specifically, just like just we're going to be ultra aggressive for something. Another another guy.

I'll speak to Jay Crowder's start. I think if Jay Crowder makes the trade request in January, I think it's a done deal. I think the Bucs have already made the trade. They've figured out what's going to work and they've gone out and they've done it. I think part of the problem is the Bucs know they have, there's some stuff in the cupboard.

but there ain't a lot. You're reaching to the back of it. You're trying to find... It's like opening the freezer and being like, how long has this baking soda been in here? The package is kind of disintegrating before your eyes, and there's some frozen Brussels sprouts next to it, and it's like, I don't know. I don't remember when those came in. No, it

It's not empty. The cupboard is not empty. And to John Horst credit, he's always been good at this, right? He got Nikola Miritich for four second rounders. And I think two of the second rounders are made up. I think top 55 protected or something like that. Like what was Nikola Miritich's best moment on the Milwaukee Bucks?

What was a Nikola Miritich moment on the Milwaukee Bucks? Like one. The night Bud decided to start Miritich in Utah, he played a lineup of Middleton, Miritich. I remember this. Bobby. No, just wait. Who else? Gigantic. I'm trying to think who the other center was, but it was five dudes, all six, eight or taller. That was the most memorable moment. And I can't even remember it correctly, Zach. Miritich is probably right now at this exact moment.

if he's not playing, having a glass of wine on a beach somewhere in Barcelona and being like, man, the NBA sucks. I got punched. I got, my face got broken. I got traded a bunch of times. I was like, some of the places were cold. Food wasn't as good as it is here. Like I'm living life. This is great. Yeah. So I, I,

John horse will always be aggressive. He's shown again and again and again, he is going to make a move at the deadline. I think Crowder is going to be interesting. I just don't know if Crowder lasts all the way until then, because I think within the organization and, you know, kind of what they're thinking about is one shot, one shot that we have, we have a Grayson Allen. We have a George Hill to get us into the,

million range. If Joe Ingles comes back and doesn't work out, add six more, you get into the 18 to $20 million range. We got picks. We got 2029. If we really need to do this,

And that's, that's it. There's one shot. You got one shot to take. And I do think with the hope that they have for Joe angles, I think there might've been some concern around the team. Like, all right. So if we try for Jay Crowder, like, is he going to play? Like, is, is he playing in that small ball lineup that we want? That's the thing with when Connaughton comes back and angles comes back,

We haven't seen hardly any of Giannis at center this year. And maybe we shouldn't. If Portis and Lopez are two of your top six guys, maybe we just shouldn't. We also haven't seen any much of the triple big lineup with all three of them. But when they get all their wings back, they have more ammo to go. Giannis at center. If, if someone's in foul trouble, if that's just the way the game is flowing, then,

And maybe to your point, they don't need another guy if those two guys come back. And you mentioned it earlier, right? Like, I know the PJ Tucker memories are awesome, right? Like, that dude had unbelievable sound clips. He is just super fun. PJ Tucker is just fun. Pat Connaughton was their small ball option. Like, that was the lineup they used. It was rarely PJ. It was a lot more about Pat and what he was able to do as a three-point shooter. And I do think...

If you're trading for a guy like Jay Crowder or that other wing, I think you're going to wonder to yourself, do we actually need that? And right now, speaking to you on November 8th, I don't think they think they need that. Maybe Joe Ingles comes back around Christmas and it doesn't work out. And then you're like, all right,

Let's go find that big wing. Let's do it right now. I don't know that they think they need it. I do think there'll be aggressive. John horse is always trying to, if you have 15% championship odds, turn it to 16, even if it's 15 and a half, he'll try to make that move. He's always aggressive. He's always done that really throughout his career, but I don't think they're willing to take that shot just quite yet. And we'll see maybe more play. Victor Weminyana is,

unbelievable zach i i watch yannis on a nightly basis and i don't know that i've ever seen anything like victor women yanna like there's gonna be teams that are trying to find their way down to the lottery maybe some magical wing i don't know who it'll even be maybe some magical wing comes available and then that's the guy that the bucks go after but right now i just don't think they feel like they need it you're right there are going to be more teams whether it's like a charlotte or other teams that decide okay let's just let's just do it i'll wrap by saying this

I picked them to win the title because I thought their defense was going to be awesome. And most importantly, I just, I said over and over again, I think Giannis is coming for everybody's throat this year. I think he's, I think he's pissed at what happened last year. I think the whole team is pissed. He's the best player. He gets better and better every year. And you see it already this year. He's faster with the ball. He's more creative. He has more moves, drop steps, you know, all sorts of spins and stuff under the rim that you just get better at his passing gets better.

Nothing. The offense, it'll be, I think, good enough when they all get back, when Middleton comes back. I still feel pretty good about them as my title pick. Obviously, anything can change, but they look pretty legit, and they're just going to keep cruising along. I think they're just going to keep winning a ton of games and fly under the radar and be the Bucs. Yeah, and I will admit, I often feel bad when I talk to other people about the Bucs because...

Giannis is so good at this point that we just like don't really talk about it. It's just a given, right? Like you have the base of this team is Giannis being awesome. And then that leads to me spending time talking to you about their rotation players in eight through 12 on the rotation instead of being like, hey, everyone, Giannis is unbelievable. You should watch it as much as possible. They have because they have the best guy because

Because he's absolutely preposterous. You know, there was a game earlier this year. I think it's 43 against the Rockets, maybe 44. He didn't have a dunk. And as you know, that is Mr. Run and Dunk right there, Jan Stedekumbo. And I'm not trying to tell people he's shooting threes now or, you know, he's a great mid-range shooter. I'm not trying to tell you that.

The creativity that he has around the rim is absurd at this point. In that Rockets game, he had a scoop shot, right? Jumped off his right foot, finish it with his right hand on the left side of the basket. He flipped it up and in from about six feet. A total scoop shot. If Kyrie Irving made that move, we'd all lose our minds. Oh my God, this guy's the most unbelievable rim finish we've ever seen.

Giannis is seven feet tall, 245 pounds, and that's in his bag. He's got wrong foot, wrong side, wrong hand, scoop shot layup. He can just do that. And if you just watch him on a night-in, night-out basis, the floaters are more real than they've ever been. The spin move is somehow sneakier than...

It's a hit through even tighter gaps. It's honestly, we get to a point where I feel bad that it took me this long to gush in this way about him because he is just that incredible.

Incredible that we do, I think, end up taking it for granted at times. Eric Name, you just do incredible work for the athletic. It's a pleasure to talk to you about the fight Milwaukee Bucks. Just let's get the offense a little cleaner, a little crisper and head into the playoffs because look, the East is no picnic. They're going to have multiple tough playoff rounds just to have a shot to get out of the East. You'll be there to chronicle it all. You can read all of Eric's stuff at The Athletic. Thank you for making a little time, my friend. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

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All right, there's a couple other Eastern Conference teams that I haven't really spent too much time on that I wanted to hit on today. And we have an Eastern Conference specialist here at ESPN.

He's all dressed up. Look at him. He's got the seaport in the background there. That's right. And it's a TV screen. It's a TV seaport. Tim Bontemps, how are you? I'm doing well, Zach. I told a friend who loves to listen to the pod that I was coming on today to talk about the East. And they said, I'm glad you're coming on and talked about the East because I'm tired of hearing how great the Western Conference is because it's not actually that good. This

this year. Just going right in with the East versus West ammo, just starting right off. What I think is funny is for the first time, probably in 20 years, maybe longer, maybe since the 90s, you can probably credibly argue that the East is deeper, pretty far down than the West. And I think it's just a sign of how finally things have shifted back in this direction where

I mean, we're going to talk about a few teams today that are not exactly at the top of the conference, and they're still really interesting. Yeah, we're going to talk about three teams that in the aggregate, I think, are playing well, but there's always teams we get to 10, 12, 15 games in, and no matter how many times I've watched them, I'm like, I still kind of don't, like, I don't know how to feel about this team. And we're going to go in order of confusion from least confusing to most confusing. We're going to hit three teams. We're going to hit the ref. Your level of confusion?

It's my podcast, my level of confusion. I got it. We were going to talk about the Raptors and how they're going to respond with Siakam out. Siakam just having a crazy good year, but we can save the Raptors, I think, for another day. They got smoked in Chicago last year. You're going to offend all of Canada now.

All right. They all think they all can ignore that. They had a big win over the bulls on Sunday to say they got blown out on Monday and we're just not going to talk about them. It's me. Notorious Raptors hater. Let's start with the defending champion or defending Eastern conference champion, Boston Celtics. That's right. Seven and seven and three beat the Grizzlies on the road last night. That's a quality win. Anytime you win in Memphis, that's a good win. The confusing part is, is the split first and offense.

One D third in defense after having not only a great defense last year, a historically dominant defense, obviously the most important, arguably pillar of that defense at the very least, the tallest and most shot blocky Robert time Lord Williams is out. And.

So seven and three is good. They're not blowing the doors off people. Their net rating is seventh in the NBA. That's good. Not great. Joe Missoula taking over under strange circumstances at the very last minute. So here's my takeaway from watching the team early.

Yep. The defensive numbers don't bother me. I don't really care. They haven't been as airtight as I would have hoped, even with their best players on the floor. They're actually minus four per 100 possessions with Tatum and Brown on the floor together. They're winning the solo minutes for each of them by quite a bit.

Just like weird, not Celtics-y mistakes, communication mistakes, two guys chasing one guy on a screening action, switches that are too late, too soft, just stuff you wouldn't associate with them. I just think that's all some combination of malaise, scheme confusion with the guy that they built their entire scheme in part around.

Last year being out, he'll be back at some point. It sounds like every time they give an update, it's later and later. Well, he just real quick. I actually talked to him on Saturday before they played the Knicks and he's back on the court. He's dunking. He's doing some running on the court. There is some real progression towards him playing. So at least he's

from a Celtics standpoint, obviously, if you get him back sooner rather than later, that would be a very good thing for their defense. And I think when it will be interesting to see when they get him back, because I do think Joe Missoula was a part of the discussions, a big part of them that led to them going to that scheme last year, where they put Robert Williams off the ball and switched everything on the ball. He just got to lurk on the back line is this roving, terrifying shot block. I think we'll see much more of that when he comes back. So my takeaway is I think

I think the defense will be there. The personnel is just too good. Even if they haven't looked quite as good so far this year, they're dead last enforcing turnovers. That's weird. I don't really know what's going on there. I would be more encouraged by how the offense looks than discouraged by how the defense looks. Because of course it was the offense that was there undoing in the finals and almost in the conference finals and almost in the second round of the playoffs, both seven game series for them to be first in offense. Yeah.

with just an unbelievable number and look the way they do taking tons of threes, very few mid Rangers taking care of the ball, which was again, one of their big bugaboos. I would be more encouraged by that than discouraged by the defense, but where do you net out on all this? Cause again, they've, they've been a team you watch them and it's, you know, they're missing a big piece and you know, they have a new coach, some two overtime losses to Cleveland been kind of a weird start, but seven and three is still seven and three.

I mean, look, I think they've generally played a fairly difficult schedule, right? They've already got games against, you know, Miami's obviously struggling, but they played Miami. They played Philly. They've played Cleveland. They played Cleveland twice, actually. They played Memphis. Like, that's a pretty tough stretch through 10 games. And I think to your point,

I'm not really concerned about them at all, because if you look at who they're rolling out there at the other big spot, I mean, Luke Cornett has been pretty good when he's been out there, but he's had limited minutes and he just had his kid. So he's been away. Yeah, I'm going to I'm not going to tolerate. I'm not going to tolerate any Luke Cornett.

Even implied slander, Tim Bond. No slander at all. He's been their second best big pretty clearly. But that's my point. There's been a lot of Blake. Blake Griffin's played 50 minutes. He's been a disaster when he's been out there. He cannot play at this point. And I mean, Noel Vonley's given them some decent minutes, but...

You know, if you replace the combination of Luke Cornett, Noah Vonley and Blake Griffin, most particularly Blake, with 30 minutes a game of Robert Williams, this team goes from being a bit of a suspect defensive team to a terrifying defensive team. And also we're early enough in the season. You know, the Lakers were, I think, fifth in defense before they played Utah and they dropped to 12th or 13th in a game. It only takes a couple of games for.

things to change pretty dramatically in this, you know, the Celtics got drilled by Chicago one game. So their numbers are a little wonky compared to where they would be. But I I'm with you. I think the most interesting thing and most important thing is that Malcolm Brogdon has fit in perfectly as the six men off the bench who can provide them the kind of downhill attacking, um,

creative option they didn't have, as you mentioned, particularly in the NBA finals. Everybody focused on what Steph did in that series. It was really that their offense just couldn't generate anything in that series against Golden State, and that's why they lost. It wasn't that Steph was going crazy at the other end of the court. Golden State didn't score that many points, but the Celtics just couldn't get anything going. So Malcolm Brogdon's been really good, and offensively, they've looked great. Grant Williams has hit a ton of threes. Tatum has taken another step forward. Jalen Brown looks great. So offensively, I think they look really good.

If Robert Williams is healthy, they've got a chance to win the championship. If he's not, they don't. So like, to me, it's really just that simple. If they keep Al Horford healthy, Robert Williams is ready to go. Their guys are ready to go in the playoffs. They're probably to me, the best or second best team in the league. And a lot of their season just is going to, you know, pretty much ride on how his knee, how Robert Williams knee comes back. So that's why I'm not really confused about him at all. I think they've been pretty good and sort of right where I would have expected them to be.

Yeah, Brogdon has been great. Exactly what they needed. They're plus eight per 100 possessions with him on the floor, which is interesting because the lineup that I think a lot of us were most excited about, the non-Time Lord lineup anyway, is Brogdon, Smart, Tatum, Brown, Horford. That lineup's been awful. Minus 28 in 29 minutes. That's 29 minutes is nothing. That's not off to a scorching start. And yet Brogdon is still that productive. In fact,

Everybody for them has a pretty good plus minus in their core group except Marcus Smart. And part of that is he's shooting 20-something percent from three, I think, maybe 30%. Whatever it is, it's bad. I had it in front of me and now I lost it. Defensively, he hasn't looked quite the same to me. But again, if you look at their defensive numbers,

They're allowing the six fewest threes, the third fewest shots at the rim, and the most mid-range shots in the league. Right. That's why I'm not worried about their defense. Their defense is fine. Tenth in free throw rate allowed. That's good. Tenth in defensive rebounding. That's good. I mentioned the turnovers, which is strange.

If they're just getting people, teams are shooting the lights out against them from three and on mid range jumper. So they're getting a little bit unlucky. I think their defense is totally fine. The smart thing is interesting. And, and just how they're going to choose to parse out their lineups. Like the grant Williams, Al Horford, four or five combination is a really good combination. Grant Williams is doing stuff off the dribble that we've never seen him do before. He's super switchable on defense. Which perimeter guy do you sit?

Of your core guys, probably Brogdon and White both together, and you start the big three with those three. That's a good lineup. But I think the most important trend is their offense. And just sort of like, we all know Tatum is playing out of his mind. I mean, Tatum is here are the numbers. 31, 7, and 4.

a block and a half a game, a steal a game shooting. Well, you know what the most important number is 8.3 free throw attempts per game. That's that's the most important number. He's gotten much better at attacking. He's not settling as much. He's getting to the line a lot more. That was the thing that was always going to separate him from being a scoring champion and just a

you know, really good elite score in the league. If he starts averaging eight, nine free throws attempts a game, he'll lead the league at scoring might this year. Like that, that's always been sort of the one last thing from that part of his game specifically. And he seems like he's gotten that down this year. And he's just doing everything to rebounding the defense, the big defensive plays, the contested rebounds when they gang rebound.

Boston is an inconsistent gang rebounding team, but when their big wings make a concerted effort to come back and just at least get inside that foul line area to get the just-in-case rebounds, just in case it bounces here, and they start reaching over big guys because they're so long and they're so athletic, they become...

Instead of an average rebounding team, a really good rebounding team. And when they get rebounds and they get out and run, they have enough shooting and enough creativity that they're really good. I just like I like the way they played starting from the very first game of the season. Who they play Philly and Philly, right? They open with Philly played Philadelphia. Yeah. And then they played Miami in the second game. They they had a play where they posted up Marcus Smart on somebody small, probably Maxie.

And I like when they post up smart against little guys. He's not a bad post-up player. It's not, it's not something you want to do 10 times a game, but if you're, if you're just kind of searching for something, want to change it up and he's got a good matchup, like throw it to him. Same with the great Williams. Marcus is a really underrated passer. He's probably the best passer on the team. And like you said, you get him posted up like that. He can dime guys up for, for shots on the perimeter, especially when they've got, you know, if they've got a grant out Jason Jalen lineup around them,

If he's in the post, that's, you know, pretty much somebody is going to get left open if they come to help. And then there's an open shop for three. So they fed him the ball.

And they ran that Warriors action that the Warriors have just killed teams on for 10 years now, where they had a big guy and Tatum up near each other at the top of the arc, one pass away from Smart. And the big guy's defender went down to kind of help on Smart's post-up. And so the big guy with nobody on him set a screen for Tatum. Tatum runs around the screen. Nobody's there because the screen hits. He shoots a three. It missed, but it was like, that's the kind of stuff they need to do more. I think they realized last year,

that when they run any cooperative action involving Tatum and Brown split cuts, again, warrior style stuff off the ball, they get good stuff. Any screening action was smart as the ball handler or the screener. Cause he's going to have the littlest guy on him. And if you switch your toast that they get somewhere. And I think they've leaned in to all of that stuff. And that that's all, that's all a good sign for me offensively and defensively. I think they're going to be there. We mentioned smart.

They have the best offense in the league, and Smart's taking almost six threes a game and shooting 28%, and Jalen's taking seven and a half threes a game and shooting 33%. And they're both probably going to go up five or six percentage points as the season goes along. So their offense is pretty damn good. Yeah, Jalen has been, after a scorching hot start, just good. And everyone's kind of waiting for him to make the leap from...

fringes of the all NBA conversation to thick of the all NBA conversation. And it looked like this was going to be the year he would do that. And 25, seven and three, good. Three assists are just kind of sitting there. It doesn't look like that's going to move up much.

everyone always isolates these plays where it's like oh look at the work he did on his handle his handles tighter this year his handle size vision's tighter like yeah maybe and then you look at the numbers like oh 28 assists and 32 turnovers the one-to-one ratio actually a sub one-to-one ratio 45 shooting 34 on threes 52 on twos maybe this is just who he is like just an the 20th best player to 28 i was gonna say i was gonna i was gonna say that's a

really good player. I was going to say it's a pretty damn good player. No, look, he's going to get a max. He's an awesome player. He always seems to be on the verge of the putting it all together. Remember like three seasons ago, Tatum had the month. It was like November, December where right before the pandemic, I think where it was like, oh my God. Yeah, it was January. It was January 2020. He really played great. Yeah. Oh my God. Jason Tatum is here. Everyone keeps waiting for that with Jill and it hasn't happened. Horford

What a weird year for Orford. All of a sudden, 60% of his shots are threes. That's been, we know he's been evolving that way, but it's been like 35 or 40%. He has four free throws the entire year. And yet they're fine offensively. I still think the East still to me runs through Boston and Milwaukee and their head and shoulders, but everything else. Yeah, I agree. I agree completely. And the thing that people need to remember, the Celtics were,

I can't describe how good the Celtics were before Robert Williams hurt his knee in March. Those two months from late January to late March were

I would go to these games and they would just win every game by 25 points. It didn't matter who they were playing. They were obliterating people. And even in the playoffs, they never were quite the same team when Robert came back. Like he just didn't quite have the same bounce. And you saw it like there were games when his knee would feel good and they would wreck teams even in the playoffs. And then there were games where his knee didn't feel great and they would look

pretty sloppy and they would start to throw the ball around and lose. And your point about Jalen and his handles is important one. The Celtics are still a team as they were in the playoffs. They don't turn the ball over. They're practically unbeatable. And they're starting on the ball. They're fourth right now in turnover rate. I mean, fourth, right? If that settles into like 11th, that's a huge W for them. It's a huge thing. And look, they're seven and three without Robert playing and with two losses to the Cavs in overtime games that

you know, you are, they are easily could have won both games and they're sitting at nine and one. And one of them, Karis Laverde and Donovan Mitchell were just like making these insane step back threes over and over and over again. Karis Laverde has a game every year where he scores 40 plus against the Celtics. That was his at the garden too. And that was his game. You know, a couple of Fridays ago. So look, I think they're going to be fine. Robert Williams looks great. I shouldn't say it looks great. If he comes back and is healthy and looks good, then,

it's going to be them in Milwaukee. And I think they're the two best teams. Forget the East. I think they're the two best teams in the league. If he comes back in his healthy, it's amazing that a month ago, you don't get crisis, Robert Williams. Oh my God. He's going to be out for how long Gallinari is out for the season. Oh, by the way, we should say one thing. I, I'm not trying to say it's a good thing. It's it's, I wouldn't, I probably shouldn't say it's a good thing. Gallinari got hurt. Cause it's not obviously, but,

him getting hurt guaranteed a rotation spot for Sam Hauser, who is a good player and is a great three point shooter and might frankly just be a better fit for the Celtics to play than a mid thirties Danilo Gallinari. So I'm not trying to say Gallo getting hurt is good. It's not, but, but,

Sam Hauser playing, he's a good, solid rotation piece. And you talk about their offense. Whenever he's on the court and he gets going like he did against the Knicks the other night, I mean, you just expect him to make every single shot. And it's been a really good weapon for them to have off the bench. Yeah, my point was it was like, oh, my God. Off-season crisis. Look at the two finals from last year. One team had a post practice, wasn't even a brawl. It was a practice assault. Yeah.

and practice punch the other teams in crisis. The Udoka thing, it appears the players are fine. I mean, they've expressed some confusion when the Brooklyn reports surfaced a week ago. They expressed even more confusion. It doesn't appear to be affecting...

their play, the locker room, the culture. They really like Joe Mazzulla. Joe's a really good coach, and he has a great relationship with the players, and he has a very, very close relationship with the most important player on the team, Jason Tatum. That's right. Even during last year's playoffs, because Joe Mazzulla is from Rhode Island, so especially during the finals and late in the playoffs, there was a lot of talk about Joe Mazzulla questions because there were a bunch of TV features down there about, hey, the local kid's coaching the Celtics in the finals.

Jason Tatum's multiple times talked about him for two, three minutes extemporaneously at, at finals practices and conference finals practices. Like obviously you hear people talk about assistant coaches sometimes. And I know it was a coincidental thing that he's from Rhode Island, but like these guys really liked Joe a lot. And I think you've seen through these first 10 games or so,

He reminds me a lot of Brad Stevens and his demeanor and how he approaches things and how he's just very level-headed and calm all the time. And given the craziness that went on with this team over the couple months before or the month before the season started, I think it's been very good to have a guy with that kind of presence to sort of help stabilize things. The other thing, too, is these guys have just been through a lot. These guys aren't old, the Celtics players, but there was all the chaos with the Kyrie teams at the beginning of their careers.

Then they make the conference finals in the bubble. Then they have the terrible year after that when they finished seventh and get routed by the Nets. And it seems like things are going sideways. And then you have last year, like they've just been through a lot of stuff. And I think these guys sort of aren't phased anymore because they've just been through so many things, right?

in their NBA careers, even though, you know, Tatum's in his sixth or fifth season and Jalen's in his fifth or sixth or seventh season. Like, you know, Marcus, I think is in his eighth season. Like these guys haven't been around for that long, but in basketball lifetime, you know, ages, they've been around forever and they've seen just about everything. And I think that's helped a lot too. What Missoula and Hardy, Will Hardy are doing at age 34 is,

The Jazz are one of the most remarkable stories, period. I know we're not talking about the West, but this team being 9-3 and leading the West is incredible. What they're doing at age 34 and Missoula ascending to this job in the manner and speed with which he did when I was 34...

I mean, I was like running to the bodega in my pajamas to get lunch that day. And we're not doing that now. No. And and afraid to like if you had told me I was going to have a podcast and do this stuff would have been. Well, that sounds so scary. He just stepped right in and was like, yeah, I'm 34. I've been I've been preparing for this my whole life. Both of them did.

And the circumstances under Missoula, though, the expectations and the circumstances for him to just step right in at his age is crazy for me. And the last Boston thought is like every broadcast. Now they point out the gum chewing to Joe Missoula gum chewing. It's time to take it to the next level. We need to know what kind of gum.

How much of it? Who's buying it for him? Is he buying it himself? Does he have a gum guy like the Seinfeld episode where it sounds like a 10? Sounds like a 10 things topic to me where Lloyd Braun had the gum guy in Chinatown and got Jerry, Jerry, 100 crates of the gum. I need to know the answers to that question.

Let's go to my second team, the Atlanta Hawks, who ended the Bucs undefeated season last night and did so without Trey Young. They, too, are seven and three. Their last two wins are against New Orleans and Milwaukee, both impressive wins at home. Before that, they had maybe the easiest schedule in the entire league and were five and three. And it was like, what are they five? Now they're seven and three. It looks better. They are 12th in offense.

11th in defense. So that's kind of like a man and man, just kind of like, okay, good, fine. 73, fine. 12th, 11th. That's good. They are plus 13 for 100 possessions with both of their all-star guards on the floor. Trae Young,

and new acquisition to janta murray that's a great sign when your best lineups are working that's great they have not had bogdan bogdanovich for one second this year aj griffin is starting to do a lot of stuff off the bench for them the last two games had a monster game last night against the bucks that's interesting that's interesting more wing depth more small ball options those are always good jalen johnson is kind of starting to do a little bit of something particularly on defense and on the glass and in the hustle categories that's interesting

All of those things are good. I don't want to say the red flag, but the interesting thing is they're offensively, again, they're 12th, 29th in free throws, and they're fouling a ton on defense. They're spotting the other team a bunch of points on the free throw line. 29th in free throws, first in turnovers. That's a Trey Young thing. Take care of the ball, except against Miami in the playoffs. You look at their shot selection.

29th in three point attempts is a percentage of shot attempts 21st in shots at the rim first in mid range shots and if you just did their effective field goal percentage based on the location of all their shots their last their 30th obviously they're out shooting that because they have good shooters but

trey's threes are down dejante's threes are up but his shots at the rim are down deandre hunter still doesn't take enough threes john collins has just kind of weirdly become a low usage lost in the shuffle kind of player for this team he's been the biggest sort of collateral damage of murray coming aboard and 11th in defense i guess feels feels right um

They might be getting a little bit lucky. Like opponents have shot really poorly from three and actually really poorly at the rim. So they're probably getting a little bit lucky even after these two wins. And then you look at their defense. So I mentioned they foul a lot. 21st enforcing turnovers, 28th in defensive rebounding, the shot selection stuff. I mentioned opponent shot selection. It's like, how are they 11th? What are they good at? I'm confused. How good is this team?

That's a good question. And I, I'm not sure. I mean, I think, you know, look, they, they beat, uh, you know, they, they did get the Milwaukee win. They got the, they got the new Orleans win. Um, but they did have an incredibly easy schedule to start. And look, I think it's, I think it's expected that there's going to be some growing pains adding a guy like DeJounte Murray. Um,

You know, Trey is shooting a little more. I think he's up from, you know, he's up, I think a little bit in terms of catch and shoot threes. So he's playing a little more off the ball. That's a good thing. But I do, you know, I, I do wonder, you know, Quinn Capella has had a bit of a slow start to the year. I do wonder if he's starting to lose a bit of a step. And you mentioned John Collins, you know, John Collins on a team where you've got two high usage guards who are going to be having the ball a lot in scoring.

I just don't know how useful he is as a third or fourth option on offense, right? If that's like mainly what he's going to be for you. I don't know if that is the best fit for what these guys are doing, which is partly why John Collins name has come up in a bunch of trade stuff over the past couple of years that he is kind of an awkward fit. But I also don't know necessarily who's going out to try to get a guy like John Collins in a trade either. He's sort of an archetype that we don't see in the NBA these days. You watch Hawks games right now.

And this is a guy who's averaged 20 a game in the league. Who's been a 40% three point shooter who can dunk you into oblivion. If you don't pay attention and you watch the Hawks right now, you can go an entire game and be like, wait, the John Collins play in the game. Like he didn't do it. He did nothing that I remember. He's averaging 13 points a game. It's his lowest number since he was a rookie. He has the usage rate of like Danny green.

It's just, I understand why you outlined all the reasons why like Deandre Hunter's even trying to take a, take a larger load and the Hawks are giving it to him. And it's just, it's just interesting because he's not going to be a good enough defensive player to sort of recalibrate. Okay. I'm going to become a dirty work guy, even though like when they made the conference finals, that's what he did. He doubled down on rebounding and defense and he was good enough at it to impact the game that way. I'd love to see that again, but yeah, he just feels like,

He just feels almost a little forgotten. And that is interesting. Can I read you a Trey Young stat? Yes. So the catch and shoot thing you mentioned is, is something to monitor all year, because obviously you don't, you don't want to like evenly split ball handling between Trey Young and DeJounte Murray, because Trey Young's just better. You just, they had the number two offense in the league last year, but their whole offense being just Trey Young do stuff.

But he does have to accommodate DeJounte Mayer a little bit because although DeJounte is shooting 39% himself on catch and shoot threes, which is great because teams are going to give him that shot around Trey Young. He's not as good of a shooter, not as good of a floor spacer. So here's a stat. For his career, Trey Young has about seven off-ball screens a game that he's used as the guy running off off-ball screens. Six, seven.

It's up to 11 this year. That's good. Not high enough. Like for perspective, someone like JJ Redick or Clay Thompson will be at like 45 or 40 per 100%. We're not asking Troy Young to get there. Ideally, he gets to 20. I was going to say that number has got to be like 18. Here are the numbers. When he shoots out of an action like that or passes to a teammate who shoots,

1.18 points per possession. That would have ranked top 20 last year among 300 guys who used at least like 50 screens or some minimal number. You zoom out, include the whole possession.

1.27 points per possession. That would have been like number one in the entire league. They need to do more of this. It doesn't have to get complicated. All it has to be is like a second side pick and roll where he runs off the screen, catches, goes, and they do it out of timeouts. You can tell they want him to do it because this is always a thing to watch with teams. It was a thing to watch with the first heat team with LeBron and Wade and Bosh.

Watch what they run out of timeouts. That's right. Because that will tell you what the coach wants and what is probably optimal. And watch how that action or if that action fades as the game goes from timeout to in the flow of the game. And that's what's happened with the Hawks right now. Every out of timeout play is Trae Young running off something and then it disappears in the game. They need to do it more and more.

I just think regardless, this team's going to have a really good offense. And if they get anything out of

The Griffin, Justin Holiday, Aaron Holiday, Bogdanovich comes back. Well, that's going to say he hasn't even played yet. Bogdanovich. They're going to have enough ammo. And what the Griffin kid is doing, he's big and strong. He comes off screens in the mid-range area and makes floaters. He's a good shooter like that. He is already, I think, vaulted ahead of Jalen Johnson, maybe in their rotation chart, even though Jalen Johnson fills a more pressing kind of positional need. I think their offense is going to be fine.

Defensively, DeJounte Murray has come in and done what they expected, which is it feels like he's getting nine steals every game and getting them out in transition. And this team didn't force any turnovers last night. 11th? Okay. Like I said, they're allowing a lot of threes. Not a lot of shots at the rim. That's good. But teams are shooting well from everywhere. That'll regress. I guess they're good. I guess they're fine. It's hard for me to know. I think they're going to be a good team. I just...

10 games in, I'm like, I just don't have a feel for it that much. Well, it's a lot of pieces that sort of interestingly fit together, right? Like, A.J. Griffin basically hasn't played this year until Monday when Trae Young was out against the Bucs, and then he played 31 minutes. He went 10 for 15 from the field. He played great, gave them a huge boost. You know, the bench, him and Jalen Johnson and Onyeka Okonga were the reason that they won that game. They really took over in the second half and played great. Oh, man.

A Congo just dunking all over Giannis. I know he's and, and, you know, remember a couple of years ago when they played in the conference finals, he was the best guy on the team at guarding Giannis. Like he is a really interesting player too. So they've got a lot of interesting pieces.

Bogdanovich hasn't played yet. You know, one thing I do think is a problem, like last night they took 17 free throws without Trey playing on the season. They're averaging 20 a game and Trey has nine attempts a game. Like they just don't put a lot of pressure on the rim. It's a lot of jump shooting. 29th in free throw in free throw rate after being like borderline top 10 the last two years. And obviously Trey by himself, you know,

was a free throw machine that took a hit with the, we're not going to give you the call every time you stick your butt out and someone falls into you. We're not going to give you that every time, but still. Trey's averaging nine a game. It's not like Trey's averaging five. No one else is doing anything. Nobody else is over three. So, you know, they are a bit of a tricky team. They feel like they're a team that's destined to make another deal, right? They've got a bunch of interesting players.

you know, John Collins, Bogdanovich, Klickapella. They've got all these young guys that are kind of interesting. They're sort of positioned to make another deal to then have a three guys, a setup of Trey, DeJounte and somebody else. And until then, I think they're in this really interesting middle group of teams in the East. You know, you've got Milwaukee and Boston, like you said, I think are clearly better than everybody else. And then there's some combination of Cleveland, Miami, Georgia,

Philadelphia, Toronto, Atlanta, those five teams, I think you could sort of put in a hat and they could come out in any order from three to seven. And that I think is going to be really interesting to watch over the course of the year because all those teams think they can host a playoff round and win a series. And obviously they're not all going to do that. And, you know, one of them is going to be in the playing tournament.

And the East, like I said, at the top, the East has just not had that kind of depth in a really long time. And it's, it's going to be really, I'm re I don't have a good sense at all. Like to your point, I can't tell you which of those teams is going to finish third and which is going to finish seventh. Like I really don't have any feel for that at all. Yeah. It's interesting because I watched the Hawks and by the eye test, I'm very confident in their offense. Again, they were number two last year being very good by the eye test.

Young and Murray. Yeah, there's going to be some hiccups like splitting ball handling duties. What's Murray going to do off the ball? Is Trey going to move it all off the ball? Or is he just going to do his thing where he stands there? Half quarter stands in the corners when he moves. As I said, it's really good.

But the numbers by the eye test, I'm like, they're fitting pretty well. All things considered. Like, I don't think I didn't buy that. It was going to be some complex fit for them. I thought it was going to be a little more complex than Garland Mitchell in Cleveland because of the shooting that both of them bring. And that has been obviously beyond expectations. And then the shot selection is just a little bit of a red flag for me. 29th and threes and 21st at the rim.

It's hard to sustain. It's hard to sustain a high level offense with that. Phoenix has done it the last couple of years. Everything else has to be just perfect for you to do that. I'd like to see that.

That's coaching. That's personnel. That's focused. That's all of it together. I think that stuff has to come up a little bit for them to be a real threat to make serious noise in the East, but I'll give that time. And can we finish with the team that you didn't mention among all your Eastern Conference teams? Tim Bontemps, how dare you? It's fine. I had them at best ninth in the East before the start of the season too. The six and six Chicago Bulls who are five and three with Zach Levine in the lineup.

which would make them one in three without him in the lineup. That's correct. Good math. Good math by me. And you want to talk about a confusing team. These guys are confusing team. I have absolutely zero idea what they are. Just, just none. So they're 20th in offense.

Okay, sure. Fine. I guess that makes sense. They've missed Levine a lot. Alex Caruso is shooting like 0%. And I, you know, I would assume new is sometimes effective, sometimes not. Pat Williams sometimes decides to participate in the offense and sometimes does nothing. That's fine. Sounds right. Fifth, 20th, rather fun. Fifth in defense. Oh, what? Fifth?

That doesn't seem... This team starts with DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucic and Zach Levine in their fifth? That seems a little weird. Okay, that's fine. Let's dig a little further. Let's see how the Levine, DeRozan, and Vucic trio is so far this year. They were outscored last year.

rather famously by a single digit amount, but still like if you're three best players that you traded a lot of draft picks to get or Jimmy Butler are outspored, that's probably bad. They must be doing better this year for the Bulls to be hovering, floating, surviving. I feel like you're building towards a point, Zach. Minus 37 in 161 minutes. Oof.

That's not great. What? And they're six and six Alex Caruso and Goran Dragic. Despite the fact that Alex Caruso cannot make a shot, Goran Dragic can make all the shots. Apparently in 143 minutes with those two on the floor, the bulls are plus 66 a

a point every every two minutes yeah it doesn't feel sustainable their whole bench everyone on the bench giovante green is coming in and making everything we'll play derrick jones jr at backup center come on in we don't lonzo ball we don't need lonzo ball the caruso dragic duo caruso will force enough turnovers for for our whole team by himself i don't understand any of this i don't understand any of it i don't know what to expect i know that if you told me

Levine would miss four games. Butchovich would be just good. I think he's been good this year. He's up to 38% from three. He's getting some offensive rebounds. He's getting to the line a little bit more by his paltry standards. DeRozan, a

a metronome, not scoring as many points, but 53% on long twos, like clockwork, like clockwork. If you told me those three were going to get outscored that badly and the Bulls would be 6-6 after 12 games, okay, that's impressive. Something interesting must be happening. Something interesting is happening. I just have no idea what it is or if it's a thing at all. Well, it feels like, I mean, look, I think we could say

What's not confusing to me is that Goron-Alex Caruso combo, that is not a sustainable way for this to go, right? That combo, it's hard to imagine, is going to be

outs quarantine is by a point every two minutes for the rest of the season. And as you said, last year, we already have a pretty decent sample size of the Levine, DeMar, Vooch trio, not playing very well together. And that's happening again. That seems to be a little more consistent to me, but I think the story of the bulls to me goes back to a guy. Tell me, because I don't know what it is. I'm going to hype up your work here before the year you wrote your five most interesting players in the league column.

One of the players was... Pat Williams. Patrick Williams. The Bulls' chance at being an upwardly mobile team in the East was on Patrick Williams taking a leap, right? So far this season, when he is on the court, the Bulls, in 296 minutes, are being outscored by 7 points per 100 possessions. When he's on the bench for 280 minutes, basically half the time, they're outscoring teams by 11.5 points per 100 possessions. In other words...

I'm a moron. Is that? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The point was, I agreed with you that he was an interesting player because he Patrick Williams is the swing piece for the Bulls. And I saw a couple of scouts. I was at the Sixers Suns game on Monday night. I saw a couple of scouts who were in attendance in Toronto for the rap, the first Raptors Bulls game that Toronto won. And they both said Javante Green should be starting.

And if Javante Green is, you know, Javante, when they, when Javante Green's been on the court this year, the Bulls are outscoring opponents by eight and a half points per hundred possessions. Like that, that's been a huge swing part of why the bench units have been better in the starting lineups has been bad.

And, you know, if Javante Green is going to clearly outplay Patrick Williams and he should be playing more minutes than him and starting over him, that's a long-term problem for the Bulls. Because like you pointed out before the season, they need him to be good. They drafted him fourth. He's the one young, you know, obviously I would assume was good. Dallin Terry is interesting, the guy that drafted this year. But like you draft a guy in the top five, you're looking at him as a guy who's going to be a building block for you going forward. And, you know, not too dissimilar than what's going on in Golden State with guys like Jonathan Kaminga and James Wiseman. Like,

You need him to be productive when he's on the court for you at this point. And if he's going to struggle like this and they're going to struggle with him out there, that opens up a lot of questions about where the bulls are headed. And, you know, to me, that's sort of the biggest thing to watch is like, what is his evolution going forward? Cause so far it has not been where they would have wanted it to be at all. Remember when Russell Westbrook said that Patrick Beverly was just tricking everybody. It's just tricking you all by running around doing stuff on defense. Yeah. And he had any, he, he,

I want to know where this is going. This is a wild turn from what we were just talking about. Look. The Bulls are really confusing. There was some substance to that because Patrick Williams does run around and foul the crap out of everybody and put his team in the bonus. He's also a good defense player. Patrick Beverly, you mean? You said Patrick Williams. Patrick Beverly. I don't know what the hell I said. Patrick Williams must be tricking me because I...

I cannot, I just can't quit him at all. He can have an entire game where he just hot potatoes the ball away every time he touches it, wants no part of the offense. And just because of his physical stature and sometimes real and sometimes theoretical shooting touch, he's down to 34% from three this year. I think he's going to become a good spot up three point shooter.

And the potential he shows when he's locked in defensively against some of the best guys in the league. I just can't give up on him. I can't quit him. He must be tricking me. And I will endlessly remind people, hey, here are like the next seven picks after him in the draft. Isaac Okoro, Okongwu, Killian Hayes, who cannot make a basket.

obi toppen denny avdia jalen smith and then you get to devin vasel and tyrese halliburton and it hurts a lot but i was gonna say yes those there those next few it's not like the it's not like you look at that pick and be like well the bulls just obviously whiffed there was someone they should have like someone who was in play there that they should have definitely said some people were lobbying for halliburton to be taking that high that was a real thing that was happening uh and

Patrick Williams, I wrote it in this piece. He's younger than

then I think eight or nine of the guys who were picked in the first round of the draft that just happened. Like it just, it's, if it's not immediate, if it's not happening by now in his third year, that doesn't mean the Patrick Williams leap is not going to happen. He's that young still, you know, who he reminds me of is Marvin Williams. Just as long as you don't say Kawhi Leonard, I will accept any answer. It's not, we need to put that one to bed. That's definitely put to bed. I think he's Marvin Williams who like for,

A long time was a very solid rotation forward could play the three and the four decent defender became a pretty good shooter, right? Like that. He looked apart, right? It was another very high pick, very young, raw toolsy forward became a very solid long-term pro, but wasn't a star. Wasn't close to a star was just fine.

And it's early. Like, look, I certainly didn't see Larry marketing becoming whatever he's become this year. I said, I said it last week or when I have, we talked about Utah.

I sold my Lowry marketing stock. I gave up on him. I just didn't think he was very good. Look, he's made me look foolish this year. He's been great. I have so many other people with the Jets. He's a veteran of the five most intriguing players column that was like three years ago. I think he was in that column. He and Wendell Carter Jr. were in it together. And

Both of them are now developing elsewhere outside of Chicago. Yeah. I mean, look, so again, like there's, there's time doesn't mean, like you said, his career isn't over, but if you're the bulls coming into this year, I thought, like I said, you re I thought you nailed it with him being on that list. Cause he's the kind of guy that had the chance to really be a swing piece. And if he's just this where Javante green probably should just be starting over him and playing more than him.

That's just not a great sign for a Bulls team. It's already got Lonzo Ball on the shelf with, you know, still doesn't, you know, Billy Donovan said the other day, he's not running yet. It does not seem like he's coming back anytime soon. Zach Levine is already missing games with some kind of issue with his knee from the surgery in the off season. You know, Nick Vucevic is an expiring contract. Amar is in his mid thirties. Like there's not, they're just kind of stuck unless he really takes a step and, and,

All the other stuff that's going on around them, that's really the one story that matters. And, you know, if I'm a Bulls fan right now, I'm looking at it and thinking, yeesh, you know, this is not what I'm hoping to see from this guy.

not yet the last the last week he's shown signs of life his first five or six games of the season he had a good game he had a good game here in Brooklyn that was probably the best I've seen him play like he he's he's had some flashes he the first five or six games of the season it was like oh my god is he gonna do he's gonna do anything yeah is he gonna just exist out on the court and count as you're like you were required to have five players on the floor he's gonna be our fifth guy it's just I I

I just, they're just a confounding team. Again, they're five and three with Levine and he hasn't been the same guy. 22, four and four on 43% shooting 44% from three and less than 45% a little bit from two. And that's the, Oh, that's the, Oh, he's shooting 45% at the rim. Zach Levine.

He's shooting 45% at the rim. You got to think that's going to improve. Well, you're either. So there are two ways to read that. Number one is the knee is troubling him and he can't elevate like he's used to. And there's been a lot of blown tires. Which he's basically said is true. Right. And that'll improve. And so this is for them to be six and six with that.

Is positive or is it going to be like that the whole season? If so, we're in trouble. I just think in the first year of a 200 plus million dollar five year contract. Yeah, that's true. I just I'm kind of, again, baffled, but also confused. I'm baffled, but also confused, baffled, but also but also they are confusing. But but I'm also impressed that they're treading water.

With all of this sort of injuries and noise and weirdness, there's a certain toughness about them that I kind of like. A lot of their players, like Caruso, there should be an all-star event where players try to execute a dribble handoff when Caruso is guarding the guy taking the ball because he will blow that thing up.

eight times out of 10. They have a lot of tough, scrappy guys. Yeah, Javante has been awesome. Derek Jones Jr. gets out there and mucks things up. And they play, even their guys who are not defensive players, DeRozan, Vucevic, Levine, they play with a certain swagger and confidence. Even Vucevic will just keep on tossing up threes when he's slumping. They just kind of have gutted out

six wins so far out of 12 games. I'm kind of impressed. Drogic is another guy with swagger. Goran Drogic is like

Y'all he plays like he's still squarely in his prime. Every Toronto, do you Toronto, the Toronto versus Goran Dragic rivalry is like the new most fun, random rivalry. Toronto fans blew him, hate him. It, it fuels him. There's the, there don't even know why they don't really like each other, except he didn't play there. And it was weird. Blah, blah. He, he plays like he's still with the confidence of prime, uh,

Goran Dragic, who was the proverbial whirling dervish, whatever the hell that is, when he was in his prime, they're just kind of, and I think Billy Donovan teams have always been like this. They're just tough and purposeful in how they play. And it's made me wonder, like, are they banking some of these wins on,

And if they get a little healthier and things start to click together, are these wins going to look important in retrospect? Or are they just sort of lucking their way into more wins than they should? And they're going to fade away. I don't know the answer, but I'm, I'm weirdly impressed that they're six and six. Yeah. I mean, look, they've, especially with Zach being in and out and no Lonzo, like they've gotten off to a decent start there. They're treading water, which is good. But I, I think the bigger thing is just where is this team going? Right? Like they trade Jimmy Butler to rebuild, they rebuild. And now like,

I mean, I think we both agree they're not in the top seven teams in the East. They're pretty clearly not in the top seven teams in the East.

So they're down in the mix with teams like whatever. But that's what I thought. Like I had them. I said, I wrote in my tears piece. It's hard to argue that they're better than any of the eight teams listed above them in that piece. Well, two of those teams were Miami who they're above in the standings. And Miami frankly has done nothing this season to suggest to you that they're just a sleeping giant waiting to explode. Now I think they're better than this, but they haven't inspired a ton of confidence and Brooklyn who are,

We don't even need to say anything further about Brooklyn. So maybe Chicago by default, the two sweetest words in the English language will be a top seven team. I, you know, I don't know. It's like, but there are other teams below them. Bob, Nick's the Knicks are competing. You know, my point is, my point is they're not, they're clearly not a team that we look at. At least I'd look at and think is going to win a playoff series anytime soon. And their core guys are all,

either in their late prime or in their prime, right? Zach, DeMar, Vooch. Vooch is a free agent. DeMar's in his early to mid thirties. Zach is in his prime, obviously has this knee issue to worry about. And I just, I just don't really know what the, like, are they just going to sort of settle in and be like what Washington has been? Like, is that sort of what they're destined to be? Yeah.

I just don't know. You and I have been united in that since they made the Vucevic and DeRozan transactions. You know, I immediately said, would I would, if you asked me, will they ever win more than one playoff series in any season while DeRozan and Vucevic are still here? I would say no. And you double, you triple down and said, how about it? Would they ever win one period? I might say no. I think we're all united in that. The long-term stuff has settled in. I think that's just sort of,

I think even their hardcore fans would accept that that's probably largely true, but can we enjoy it? Can we make maybe one longer than expected run while this, while this core is still sort of in their prime and DeRozan just seems like one of those guys who's going to be so good. He's just, it feels like he's just going to be like 42 years old and, and be like, yo,

You don't think I can get buckets anymore. Let me show you young kids how we used to do it when this, when this whole area of the court that you don't even set foot on used to be my prime scoring tour. You just feel like he's going to get buckets. And the way he's developed as a playmaker has been awesome too. Like he he's become a really, really good passer. He he's just super fun to watch. I mean, and look, their, their bench unit has been fun. You mentioned Billy Donovan makes on a great job, like maximizing what they have. I mean, they're,

Like you said, they're confusing to me because I'm just not sure what the... The point is kind of a strong word, but I just... It's hard to know exactly where they're headed. That's what's confusing. Yeah, we all... We were in alignment there. I'm...

I'm kind of saying maybe there'll be a little... This 6-6 start is maybe considered... Maybe there's a little sort of more gumption and toughness there. And maybe this experience along the way will be a little more fun. By the way, you know what my favorite DeMar DeRozan thing is? More than the pump fake, more than the mid-range shots, no one in the NBA is as committed to a bit of...

of comedy as DeMar DeRozan. And most people don't notice it as DeMar DeRozan is too. When he shoots the technical free throw and there's no teammates on the lanes, he will get invisible teammates, the high fives every single time, just high five and thin air. He is in stone faced. He's not laughing. He just, this is what happens when you shoot free throws. You give people high fives. There's nobody here. I'm going to get the high fives. I love it. All right, Tim Bontemps. What are you working on next? Where are you going to be next? What should we be looking out for you?

I wrote about the Warriors bench for the wind horse to collective column today. It's not going well. Is that the theme of the column? It's going badly. It's not going well. And do they have to think about making trades at some point? Wrote about that to collect the pod every Friday with our pal, Ben McMahon and Brian, and just bouncing around to Eastern Conference games just about every day. It's very fun right now to be in these. There's a lot.

going on. Well, I see you. There's a lot of fun games going on and then there's other stuff also going on. I should say. Well, I see you at what I used to playfully many years ago, 10 years ago, refer to as the toilet bowl tomorrow between the Knicks and the Nets. Yes, I will be at Knicks Nets, believe it or not. There's, there's nothing going on. You know, it's crazy before we go. It is amazing that you and I have both been in and around New York a long time. I'm finally back full time in the city. The Knicks being the boring, boring,

competent, functional NBA team in New York City has been an interesting development. I'll just leave it at that. You know what else is an interesting development, Knicks fans? A little teaser for the Knicks fans. All of us, you and me all together, who have been screaming for Tom Thibodeau to, dude, can you just try it?

Try the OB top and Julius Randall front court. Just, I know you need a rim protector. I know this is outdated. I know like Todd Gibson's like sitting there on the benches, your security blanket. He's in Washington now, obviously. I know you got Jericho Sims and Mitchell Robinson and Isaiah Hart. Just try it. And you know what?

They tried it. The last two games with Mitchell Roberts and Hurt, they tried it. They rallied behind it to win one game with a furious fourth quarter comeback. I can't even remember who it was against. They won Philadelphia on Friday. It was at both games. They played it again last night. Knicks fans, maybe. Three games in a row. Philadelphia, Boston, and Minnesota. Yeah, they got smoked by Boston. Maybe it'll last. Maybe it'll last. Tim Bontemps, I'll see you at the toilet bowl tomorrow. Sounds good. Thanks, man.