The Full KAT Experience, Minnesota's Chances at a Comeback, Celtics Check-In, and the Future of the Pacers
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post Podcast. Chris Herring from ESPN.com. There will be a Game 5 in Minnesota, Dallas in the Western Conference Finals. There will be no Game 5 in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Eastern Conference Playoffs happened, I promise you. Giannis was not involved. Embiid was involved. The Knicks had a long moment, more than a moment. They're gone. The Celtics are in the finals, Chris Herring. I think they're off.

for 17 straight days for Kristaps Porzingis to heal his injury and come back and round out a team that has been dominant against a ho-hum field, which we will discuss. But Chris Herring, sometime...

If the world exists long enough, which is an if at this point, somebody is coming back from 3-0. It's going to happen. It almost happened last year when the Boston Celtics were clearly the best positioned team to ever have a chance to do it. A number one seed against a number eight seed, home court advantage, all of that. And they almost did it. They got it to 7-1 of only a handful of teams to ever do that. We're far from that. Far from that after Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony Towns.

Finally had a game where they outplayed the opposing stars of the Dallas Mavericks. Hit some big shots in the fourth quarter.

Wolves flirted with disaster, Chris. When that Luka four-point play opportunity went in, if he had made the free throw, would it cut it to two? I was like, this would be the most Wolves way ever to lose this game is if they somehow blow this and then Glenn Taylor and A-Rod get in a fist fight on the court after the game. But they sneak it out. Look, I'm just saying. I'm just saying, Chris. When it happens...

It's going to be a team that has home court advantage because having five and seven at home is your only realistic shot of doing this. Because if you win game four and you take care of business at home, you only got to win one road game. I'm just saying, I don't, I don't,

I don't think this is the year. Like the way that the Mavs have played, it is very hard to envision Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving and specifically Luka, who has been at the controls of this series, peak puppet master mode,

It's just tough to envision them losing four games in a row. That kind of player finds a way to control an entire game to his whims and bring it to a close. But we get a little more basketball. Chris, how are you? I am good, brother. I think you raise a really good point there that it seems like it, for obvious reasons, would be a lot easier to

With a really difficult task like this, at least a little bit easier for a team that has home court advantage to be able to make this happen. I think the other part that you didn't mention but is very obvious here after watching the Wolves finally pulling out is we're not used to saying it in a conference finals round, but a key rookie missing time who has had his fingerprints all over this series, that's the sort of thing that I think if and when this happens at some point, whether we're alive to see it or not,

could be a big factor in a swing like that where a team comes back from 3-0 as a major injury. And so we have a couple of those things at play. I'm kind of with you that I still don't quite see it shaking out that way. We did see a couple of schematic switches too in the last game that make it a little bit more doable. But again, to your point, is it enough to really just render Luka –

not great anymore. Kyrie not great anymore. The way that they were the last game where they both shoot less than 35%. I don't quite see it being the case for three more games. But all that said, the one thing I will say is whether we're allowed to see it or not,

With all the stuff that's happened to Twitter over the last year, year and a half, I hope that if we're alive to see it, that we get a chance to be on Twitter for it, to just see how Twitter explodes. Because I remember all the 3-1 jokes that were made, obviously, when LeBron came back against the Warriors. That was a pretty funny time on Twitter, funny jokes and funny memes that we still get to enjoy. So I feel like if that's the last fun hurrah that we get out of Twitter, then I'm all with it. But

But we'll see. I'm with you that I think it's still a really, really, really, really tough road. And I'm not sure it happens this time around. But I'm excited to see what has been a fun series continue. Now, he was only 7 of 21 last night. Did get 10 free throws. I'm talking about Luka.

He's just been so masterful in this series, controlling every aspect of the Mavs offense in the half court, answering every schematic adjustment that the Wolves try. And the greatest tribute to Luka is that the Wolves...

totally abandoned some of their base defensive principles at times, not always in this series. Blitzing, swarming, blitzing with Kat, blitzing with Rudy, trying everything. They went back to a more dropback defense more often with Gobert last night, but they started sending more help from Dallas' so-so shooters. And the whole point of a dropback defense is you're not supposed to have to help off of those shooters because you have Rudy Gobert there covering all the space two-on-two. And yet Luka is so

brilliant at manipulating that sort of that sort of like deliciously static situation when he's got a live dribble the whole floor seems frozen and he just uses his eyes and little fakes and you think you have the lob covered and then he baits you out an extra inch and bam finds somebody for the lob and to your point

That's why the lively absence is so big because half his lob third is gone. Kleba came back last night. I thought Kleba looked pretty good last night. A little reluctant to shoot, but you felt the effect of his spacing. But it's just a player as great as Luka just finds a way to win one of these games. I'll tell you though, it can get stressful real fast. We mentioned Boston-Miami last year.

Two years ago, remember Philly-Toronto? Philly wins the first two games in the first round at home, and Bede makes a sensational game-winning three-pointer to go up 3-0. You're like, all right, series over. Well, Toronto wins game four on the road in Toronto, at home in Toronto. Wins game five in Philly.

And all of a sudden, it's 3-2 going back to Toronto and the Doc Rivers stuff, the jokes, the memes, it's coming out. And you're like, now this is a reverse situation where the underdog, the trailing team did not have home courts. They were going to have to win game seven on the road. But that game six in Toronto was...

was DEFCON 2, not quite DEFCON 1, but if Philly had lost that game and they were going home for game seven, the level of media attention, scrutiny, tension, fear in the building would have been unbelievable. We will get some percentage of that tension if Minnesota finds a way to win game five and at least force Dallas to close it out at home in game six. That very quickly becomes a very high pressure game

For a team that in that situation, if Minnesota can win in game five, obviously not even close to a lock, it's a coin flip at best. For a team that was like five days removed from everyone's starting to watch Boston-Dallas film and talk about Luka Doncic's place in history, it's like, oh, we better win this goddamn home game or else this is going to get in the hot water real fast.

Yeah, I mean, you saw it a little bit. I mean, I think you don't want to overanalyze one moment, but Luka missing the free throw and then at the next break kind of chewing at his jersey, looking like he wants to just kind of rip it in half because obviously he realizes that. He hasn't been to the NBA Finals before, but has been to this round, and now you get a chance to close out a team. This is not a fluke Wolves team. They just knocked out the champs.

They had the best defense all year. They have a guy that is a number one guy that is ready to emerge, even if he struggled throughout the series, who, you know, by the way, is assisting better than he ever has. And that was a big key to last night. I think every one of Kat's threes in the fourth quarter was assisted by Anthony Edwards. This is a really, really, really good team. These games have been really, really close.

Really, what you've seen is kind of a little bit of what we saw in the Boston-Indiana series, which is quite frankly, one team has just fundamentally outplayed the other in the last couple minutes of each game. And that's been the difference in a really, really, you know, a razor's edge sort of series. So Luka understands that. Also, with Luka, the way he's been feeling throughout the playoffs, I imagine would really like the rest if he could have it. So there's all sorts of things that go into that. They're not...

They're not somehow not aware of that. Uh, something that they fully understand that those moments are fleeting to be able to just kind of take the series. It's much easier to do it at home. You would think that it would be on the road and, and Minnesota has got a couple of those left if, if they can extend the series. So,

It'll be interesting to watch. It'll be fascinating to see how Luka goes about figuring stuff out. Anthony Edwards was a different presence on him last game. And I think that that is something that, you know, will define kind of how much longer this series goes is does that bother him to some extent, Luka or not?

Does he figure it out within one game? If he does, then that might have been it. And we just see a five-game series here. And these are the kind of things how you know Minnesota is digging deep. They changed the matchups in Game 3 to put Ant on Derek Jones Jr. and try to give him a little bit of a break defensively. But that puts Mike Conley on Kyrie Irving. It's giving...

the matchup they've been hunting for, just giving it to them. And Kyrie has had his way with everybody, but Conley just doesn't bother him. And then they flip it again in game four and say, look, Ant, we can't have Mike Conley guarding one of these guys. You got to guard somebody. You want to try Luka and see how that goes. And the benefit of that for Anthony Edwards is he has Luka Doncic on a cross match sometimes. Dallas has been really good at getting out of that when it's been a problem and like rejiggering the matchups in transition. But,

but Ant found it a few times last night, attacked early on the shot clock. And that's the, that is the key for Ant is like when you can go early, I think it was game three. There was a play where 19 or 20 on the shot clock. Ant's bringing the ball up. He had some cross match might've been PJ Washington and not Luca. Nas Reed just sets a flat screen for him right over half court, flat screen, defensive guesses the wrong way. And Ant just goes same thing when they load up the defense on him, just like catch it early.

And go. And also in game, I think it was game three, a couple of things that I thought the Thunder did well with Shea Gildress Alexander. Another way of doing this is when Ant...

Gets a mismatch and they double him and he gives it up and the double goes away. Pass it right back to him and then he can attack with his head down one-on-one as the defense is like half retreating from its double team. That's another thing. Yeah, but he was good last night. Let's just take stock of where the series is before we talk about some of the specifics. Dallas is plus eight total points in four games. To your point, it's been...

a series really defined by a few big plays. Dallas's offensive rating for the series is 115.8. It seems like they're tearing Minnesota apart. That would have rated 14th or 15th in the regular season. Minnesota's defense has been okay. Not bad, not great.

Minnesota's offensive rating is a little bit below that, obviously. Offensive rebounds. Dallas has 39. Minnesota has 38. Dead even. Turnovers. Dallas has 51. Minnesota has 44. So Minnesota is actually turning the ball over less often than Dallas, but very close. Free throws. Dallas 75 of 91. Minnesota 65 of 92. One attempt difference in free throws. Three-point shooting.

Dallas is shooting 37.1%. Minnesota is shooting 37.3%. Similar number of attempts. The series has really come down to a few big plays and two-point shooting. Dallas is shooting over 56% on twos. Minnesota is shooting 52% on twos. 62% at the rim, which is very bad. Ant is shooting 50% at the rim. And he's missed some makeable layups in traffic still. Some makeable layups.

And obviously, the big plays at the end of game two, the step back three where Luka shouted very nasty things in the direction of Rudy Gobert. Or did he? By the way, you mentioned Luka chewing on his jersey. I'm picturing when Luka's thinking about what went wrong in this game and moments he regrets. In my head, I'm like, he's probably sitting there rolling around in bed thinking about the two times Rudy Gobert posted him up

And actually didn't get him, but drew a foul. I think both times he drew a foul. Rudy had some good offense last night. Just individual plays. I was really, really impressed with a couple of passes that he had. The Eurostep. There was some stuff there yesterday. It never looks great, even when it looks good by Rudy's standards. It never looks great. But honestly, when Rudy had the ball with his back to the basket against Luka...

And Luka had kind of pulled the chair on him the game before and like taunted and like looked at the bench like, are you kidding me? You're going to pull this big dude up on me? I honestly thought like in my head, I was like, what is Luka going to do? Is he going to just like pants him and take the ball away? Is he going to untie his shoe? Like what way is he going to humiliate Rudy Gobert on this post? He hates Rudy. I don't know what it is. I don't know why. It doesn't make him different than a whole lot of people, which I –

I wish I could understand. I mean, I have so many thoughts about that, but neither here nor there. But yeah, it was interesting watching that. There was, again, a decent amount of offense that ran through him to the point where he, I think he connected with Cat a couple of times for pretty big baskets there. Just big, the big passing that was, again, in a really close game. All that stuff matters.

And speaking of digging deep, you know, there's been more Kyle Anderson in this series. Kyle Anderson has guarded Luca better than anyone else on the Wolves. And they have leaned a little bit into...

the gigantic lineup that has Ant, Kyle Anderson, and Jaden McDaniels all on the floor at the same time with two big guys. And that's a way to steal Ant some rest. Because if you have McDaniels and Kyle Anderson on the floor, Ant can actually go and guard a Derrick Jones Jr. and rest a little bit on defense. They've just been reaching for any possible thing. And last night, they finally made...

some big plays in crunch time. Anthony Edwards had a long two to kind of seal the game. He had an insane, like spinning, floating bank shot with about two minutes. That was a beautiful play. One of the toughest shots you will see anybody make.

And Carl Anthony Towns, welcome to the conference finals, Carl Anthony Towns. If you ever wanted a full distillation of the Carl Anthony Towns experience, last night was the absolute perfect game. He scores a bunch of points for the first time, shoots four or five from three, fouls out, and we had just...

The full array of insane Carl Anthony Towns fouls. And over the back, where he just climbs up on somebody like he's climbing up a stepladder, trying to climb over a fence, and then is astonished that he gets called for over the back. A charging call where he bowls over Maxi Kleba and is astonished that he gets called for a charge. The three-shot foul on Doncic late in the game, where he's aghast that he reached in and touched Luka Doncic's arm. And then the coup de grace.

The pump fake, I don't really know what I'm doing. There's PJ Washington. Let me bizarrely lean in his direction for some reason as I try to figure out some plan here and elbow him in the face. Just unbelievable. Fouls out of the game, but man, did he hit some big shots. Three threes in the last, between the 545 mark and 253 mark of the fourth quarter, hit three gigantic threes to help the Wolves build a lead. And after...

Some bad crunch time offense in game two and some horrific crunch time offense in game three. The Wolves made enough shots to get this to game five. What a bizarre cat game. I just can't. The fouls are just...

You see him coming, and you're still like, oh, my God, he did it again? Well, for sure, for sure. I mean, I look at my old notebook sometimes with stuff I've got in there, and I still remember. It was the greatest hits. Greatest hits of Cat. Play the hits, baby. One of the playing games they had a couple years ago, I remember just him bowing out, too. And it's just kind of like, man, you can't have this. Now the irony about all of it is that the one that he gets whistled on

to basically pull him out of the game, the one on Luca, the three-point foul, is one that, you know, probably should have been an offensive foul from the way that the rules read now and the whole idea of like, you know, that said, do you want Cat to be smarter? Which is like, you know, there's players that if you just tinkered around the margins just a tad and you kind of

He's lifted Kat's IQ just a little bit. Obviously, he's a very smart player. You can't do so much of what he does offensively. And he's gotten a lot better defensively than people give him credit for, even though he's not what we imagined he'd be when he came out of Kentucky as a number one pick. But he's improved there, too. But if you could just make him a little bit wiser defensively to where he's not...

at risk of fouling out in moments that are just back-breaking to you. So, you know, the fact that he was able to give them that performance, I will say definitively that I feel like

His progression to the mean in this series is a massive key to the Wolves having a chance to be the first team to ever pull this off. I don't see it as likely, obviously. I don't think they're going to. But if they somehow do it, it's going to be because Cat was so brutal in the first several games and even dating back to the last series, the last couple games of that series, that he...

you know, that he's just as great as he was terrible in the first few games and that he does that in the last few here. It's going to take, if they're going to do this and maybe it just has to be the next game, there's going to be a cat like seven of 10 from three kind of game where he just goes berserk and, and, and gets them over, um, gets them over the finish line. I also think like,

He's been kind of brutal on defense too. And one of the bellwethers in this series for me is that PJ Washington cat matchup. And you can see them...

the Mavs kind of pecking at Cat on defense. Like they'll run the Luka, P.J. Washington pick and pop because Cat gets out there and he's blitzing and he's all helter skelter and his feet are a mess and P.J. Washington pops open. And in game three, he made some shots. And not only that, he threw the right pass with the defense in rotation. I've talked about this before, but if Minnesota is going to send a third defender flying at P.J. Washington so he can't just take wide open threes,

The Mavs have to set that up so that rotation is coming off Kyrie Irving. And they did in Game 3. And P.J. Washington, after missing that pass earlier in the series, made it a couple times and pass-faked and drove. I thought that they got... A, he missed shots in Game 4. And B, I thought they got away from that. I think that's like a little game within the game that is very important. But yeah, Cat was good. And Ant made enough shots. It's just...

They've had so many hazy – hazy is my new word to describe the Timberwolves offense. They just go through entire possessions and sometimes three or four in a row where you're like, what were they aiming at there? And that's never a problem with the Mavs. The Mavs have a calculated purpose every single time they bring the ball, and that's because they have Luka and Kyrie. And –

There there's if they don't score you at least are like well, I understand exactly what they were doing and the kind of shot that they got in Minnesota responded this way and Dallas responded this way and that's the way the possession ended. Nice job. Everybody move on to the next one. Minnesota has these possessions where you're just like, I don't know what the hell you're doing. And by the way, and and at the end of the quarters at the end of these quarters, if you have the last shot,

Take the last shot. Stop throwing these passes out of bounds and into the stands and to the other team with like six seconds left. He did it again at the end of the first quarter last night. I don't know if you remember. He had the last shot. He threw the ball away to Josh Green. Josh Green got a run out and made two free throws. And it was the same thing that happened in the first game, game one, at the end of the first half when they were up six. He threw the ball into the stands. Kyrie got an and one, cut it to three. This is the kind of thing I'm – I mean, like if you –

Did you rewatch the last five minutes of – did you get a chance to watch the end of game three? I rewatched all Minnesota's offensive possessions today because I was like, I got to go back and see what they were trying to do. Have you gotten a chance to do that?

I did not go back and rewatch that one. No. To your point, you know, and not to knock what you're saying down, he did have the shot at the end of the third that he made right as the clock was expiring, basically. But even then, it's like I see what you're talking about, where I think, you know, they took the ball out of bounds with five seconds left in the third.

He kind of doesn't seem aware of how much time there is. Then all of a sudden you can kind of see when he's going and he realizes, oh shoot, this is going to be the last play of the quarter. I've got to get a shot up. They kind of gave him too much space right there at the free throw line and he puts down a two, which again, in a game of razor thin margins, a series of razor thin margins becomes really important. But I think a lot of what you're saying when you compare, contrast Luka and then also give the Mavs Kyrie,

you're putting largely the whole offensive responsibility on Kat. I'm sorry, not on Kat, but on Ant to figure out what you're doing. He's learning it in real time. And, you know, obviously, I don't think you're knocking him, but that's the difference in this series. And when you look at

you know minnesota's clutch time stuff throughout the regular season um and where they rated there which was always going to be one of the biggest questions of their playoff run you you kind of see it playing out like it's kind of true to form as far as what their weakness was and i imagine give it another year give it another playoff run i would imagine that that's something that as they straighten that out that they become scarier and scarier because they've got

To me, a lot of the hard stuff figured out, the defensive stuff figured out. Clutch time offense is not easy, but it's one of those things that with more reps that you can get better at. Another thing that I think is important that this isn't,

Kyrie and Lucas first time playing together, you know, their first season playing together. So they've had a chance to kind of work out these sorts of kinks where even if it's your turn, my turn, there's a rhyme and a rhythm to it. You can kind of see what they're trying to do. But I remember being at the first game that they played together and watching that. And it looks a lot different now than it did then. By the way, it is, you mentioned, you know, that Minnesota's got the hard stuff done and what they can build on going forward.

We all know that the financial crunch is coming for them, and they're just going to have a decision to make about do we want to eat whoever owns the team in this public embarrassment of an ownership battle is going to have to either eat a huge tax bill or make some painful decisions. And it's amazing how every week feels like a referendum on Carl Anthony Towns because of just how dramatic the swings in his game are. So they beat Denver. He has...

a very good series and finally seems to have kind of turned the corner on the postseason yips of fouls and bad shots and weird turnovers and just has consistently good performances. And they beat the defending champs on the road in game seven, beat them on the road three times. And you say to yourself, that's enough. They've proven enough.

This is proof of concept of how good this team can be. You have no choice but to keep this team together. And you cannot imagine a scenario in the Western Conference Finals so dramatically awful that in the span of a week, it would make you think...

Have they? And then the first three games happen and you start to think, you know, and I called people just to see, get their opinion on it. Like, has this been so bad that they might have to look at trading Cat in the offseason? And I don't really think that it has and I don't think that they should, but that's how bad it was. And then he has a game four and it's like, yes, Cat's back. The referendum flips the other way. It's just amazing how dramatic these Cat swings are. If you want to look at like that, that,

If they do indeed go on to lose this series, everybody will remember the Luka three over Gobert. The last five minutes of game three, I haven't had a chance to talk about it yet on the podcast.

Are so painful to watch. I mean, there's a couple good missed shots in there. Like Ant missed a shot at the rim on a pick and roll. Cat missed a decent three on a big, big pick and roll with Gobert. It was a little rushed, but it was decent. But there are some possessions where you're like, what is going on? Out of a timeout. This is one of the weirdest possessions I've ever seen in a high leverage moment. Out of a timeout with like three minutes left in crunch time. I don't remember what the score was. It was close, obviously. Minnesota runs this play that starts with Gobert.

holding the ball on the left sideline like 20 feet out from the rim as a trigger man for a Jaden McDaniels dribble handoff. And Jaden McDaniels takes the ball and dribbles all the way across the court toward Carl Anthony Towns in the right corner. Carl Anthony Towns backs away from Jaden McDaniels like, I don't know what's going on. And the possession just fritters. It's like, what are you doing? What's happening here? And that to me is why it's hard to trust Minnesota

It's hard to trust any team to win four games in a row. Obviously, it's never happened in the playoffs to come back from 3-0. But you just don't trust their purpose and their calculated approach on offense the way you trust the Mavs to at least ring the most mathematical probability out of every single possession because they have an all-time genius orchestrating it in Luka and an all-time great number two option in Kyrie. And by the way, I've eaten crow 100 times on the Kyrie trade. Lots of people have.

If they make the finals, regardless of what happens there, and they get... I mean, Kyrie is still in his prime. They get four to five more years of backcourt play at this level from these two guys. We're not only going to eat crow on the Kyrie trade. That trade, Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, and one first-round pick...

for this is going to go down as one of the greatest trades in the history of the NBA. If, if they can put together a half decade of play like this or get a championship this year or whatever, that's how good the value play of that trade is going to turn out to be. Any other thoughts on this, uh,

this mess of a series 3-0 Dallas on 3-1 now Dallas on the verge still of an improbable trip to the finals that doesn't look improbable anymore this team's just straight up awesome yeah not not a whole lot to add I mean I think it's interesting that it always feels a little bit too simplistic to just boil it down to like how did the two best players from each team shoot the best two offensive players shoot and

This feels like a game where that's accurate in part because of what you're saying, which is that Minnesota's offense doesn't tend to generate stuff as easily, even out of their ISO looks, what have you. It just looks cleaner and kind of more purposeful from Dallas, which is why I think it's a little bit hard to say that

There were obviously people last year that could have said, there's something here that looks like Boston has a real path. They were the better team going in and they just got caught up or a little bit caught in the headlights or a first-time coach, you name it. Obviously, they came back to at least force a game seven. This feels a little bit different for the reasons that we're laying out. For Kyrie, I mean, look, I hear you 100%. I think that

The flip side of it would have been an interesting what if. Obviously, I think the reason that a lot of people were critical of the Mavs was you let Brunson walk.

Or maybe you didn't let him walk, but you didn't. There's a whole, like, you're constantly chasing your tail on these plays, on these transactions. Sure, so there's context to it. I mean, I don't even think I have to get into the context to it, which is that there was a lot of criticism about picking up Kyrie for all sorts of reasons that had nothing to do with basketball. So I hear you, and I understand, like, I would have crow to eat from that standpoint, too. So you're not alone there. But I think the context is important. Nobody ever...

challenged whether the guy was a great basketball player. I think it was kind of a bigger question about the stuff around him and the decisions that he was making or not making that made it a more difficult choice. But it's very clear that

All that aside, you can't take away from the fact that he's a great basketball player and maybe in some ways a better sidekick than Brunson would have been or would have grown into from that standpoint. Brunson probably needed to be able to spread his wings more viably and more

Quite frankly, Kyrie has thrived and been at his best when he wasn't necessarily the best player on a team, but kind of a 1A, a 1B, I guess a 1B, the way he was in Cleveland. So, I mean, it has been a match made in heaven from that standpoint. And I think that not just that trade, but obviously the ones that they made this trade deadline to get Gafford and Kovacic.

And to get PJ Washington lively is still a massive factor in this series. And I imagine will be, you know, if we look ahead to the finals for them as well. Gafford, I know his plus minus is bad and lively is amazing and all that. I just want really important. Well, I just want to say like from an entertainment perspective, the dude only makes loud plays. Like every blocked shot is a complete highlight evisceration of somebody. A lot of loud places. I mean that ant dunk in game three, uh,

You will not see many dunks like that in a – it wasn't crunch time. It was the third quarter. But in a must-win, super tense kind of atmosphere, a guy that just rises up and is like, no, I'm actually going to try to kill you with this dunk. Flew through the sky. Unbelievable. By the way, I did want to get into the whole – just very quickly, the whole drop versus blitz debate that Stan Van Gundy has ignited on the broadcasts.

And it's a tribute to Luka that I just like, I think when they've dropped back, I kind of think their defenses look good and has done what it's supposed to do, which is limit the amount of threes that the Mavs get because you don't have to help so much on shooters. And I mentioned before that I think one of the adjustments they made in game four was when we drop back, we are also going

going to offer some extra help from Derek Jones Jr., for instance. And by the way, if you're going to do that, you got to really be perfect because there was one play where they did that and Nas Reed closed out on Derek Jones Jr. and closed out hard and ran him off the three-point line, which is not what you want to do. You want him to shoot a contested three and Derek Jones Jr. beat him off the dribble, dropped it off to Gafford for a dunk. The numbers are with Stan, though. I looked it up on Second Spectrum today.

Luka against dropback defenses in this series with Gobert as the defender on the pick and roll, 1.26 points per possession directly out of those plays. That's a massive number. Against the Blitz, with Gobert blitzing, it's down to 0.723 points per possession. Now, it's a very small sample of Gobert blitzing, but I looked at those numbers, man. I'm like, I'm surprised because I kind of like it.

how it looks when Gobert drops. It's just, Luke is such a genius that he makes defense that looks good for 18 seconds, look bad for 0.5 seconds. And the 0.5 seconds is all that matter. I will say, I didn't look up the blitz numbers when it's somebody other than Gobert blitzing when it's Kat or Nas Reed. I should have looked those up because I don't like the way that that looks so much because I feel like Luca is kind of picking that apart. And when Kat is the guy that's blitzing,

He sometimes doesn't seem to know who he has to rotate back toward and what assignment is his after blitzing, and they get open shots out of that. But I just think it's a tribute to Luka and Kyrie, but Luka's the main orchestrator that no matter what they do, it seems to be problematic. Yeah. I mean, to your point, I think the numbers from last night, our friend Matt Williams over at Stats and Info,

Gobert dropped 82% of the time.

on the on-ball screens that Luca had in game four. In games two and three, it was literally half that. It was 42.5%. Oh, I didn't read StatsWilliams' email. I'm glad my eyes were kind of right. For sure. I mean, you're talking about essentially twice as much. So it's interesting, though, to look at that stat and to kind of juxtapose it with what you said from the standpoint of which is more effective. Yeah.

I imagine that Minnesota is going to go back to what worked in game four, you know, all the way down to having Ant on Luca more and having McDaniels guard Kyrie, but also to that point and what we've been saying about Luca and the fact that he looks like a generational talent has been a generational talent.

Generally speaking, you can't just continue to throw similar looks, the same look at guys repeatedly, which again goes back to why if Minnesota wins four games in this series and wins the series, comes back from 3-0, there were going to be a lot of other things at play from catch shooting to, you know, Lively not coming back. There's going to be more to it than just how they guard Luka and how they guard Kyrie because I don't think that's going to be enough.

Sometimes it's the role players. Like Alexander Walker made a couple big shots last night, finally. He did. One where he made what I like to call the Danny Green cut, where he cut to the strong side along the baseline like a cat burglar sneaking behind the defense. And PJ Washington lost him. And Jaden Hardy has been just like, whoa, Jaden Hardy. Hello, Jaden Hardy. Goodbye, Tim Hardaway Jr. Dante Exum made a three and a crazy left-handed floater last night after Kyrie. These Kyrie lefty floaters are...

Man, you got to put these things long in the Smithsonian. I mean, it's like unbelievable. This guy's shot making Arizona football fans. Picture this. You bet on your favorite player to score the first touchdown and he throws an awesome block so his teammate can score instead. If this happens, BetMGM wants to give you another chance at the end zone with BetMGM second chance promotion. You'll get your stake back if your first touchdown scorer scores second instead.

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Bill Walton passed away this week and just, I'm not going to front. Like I know Bill Walton. I didn't. Obviously he's one of the all time great NBA characters. Just anytime you saw Bill Walton on television, on a podcast, heard him talking the joy for life is,

and basketball and music and just the fun he would have was a reminder of like yeah we can all take these broadcasts a little too seriously let's have some fun and nobody ever nobody watching a Bill Walton college basketball broadcast with Dave Pash nobody ever was like hey Bill can you start talking about the game again this tangent you're on is is getting a little out of control it was always let's get more out of control Bill Walton I want to hear more about how much

You enjoy life. We all know that he's one of the greatest winners in the history of college basketball at UCLA. We all know he won a title with the Portland Trailblazers in 1977 and was for a hot second, maybe the single best basketball player on earth, won the MVP the next year and that injuries are

to his legs and feet just submarine his career and frankly really affected his life. He's talked a lot about the depression he went through as his body was failing him and how many surgeries it took and how he dug himself out of a very, very deep wave of depression, just an all time beloved NBA character and a great, great player six man of the year for the 1986 Celtics. And Dan Shaughnessy has told the story before one of my favorite Walton stories, they win the title and,

And the Celtics in 86 talked a lot about how hard they partied after winning the title. And Sean, as he told this story in a documentary where they're partying somewhere and then they go home. I don't know if they were at Bird's house at any point, but they all go home and there's a knock on Larry Bird's door and his wife answers his door and it's Walton at God knows what time of the night after they win the title.

And he's just not ready to stop partying. Like this is according to Dan Shaunders. He's not ready to stop partying. And Larry's like, hey, man, it's late. Like we're kind of done for the night. And Bill Walton, after so many injuries, so much heartbreak, after being a great player on a championship team and just wanting one more time.

to feel the experience of being part of a team that wins is now a sixth man on a championship team just wants to keep the party going and the story might be apocryphal but the story is Larry Bird wakes up the next day and Bill Walton's still sitting on his doorstep waiting for the party to continue you however have an actual personal Bill Walton story if you would like to share it I am all ears I have no idea what it is you just said you had one

Sure. I didn't win a championship with the guy, so it's nothing like that. Mike Breen had a really touching story about his father with Parkinson's and just a wonderful gesture that Bill was able to make happen in time he was able to spend with Mike's father. So it's nothing like that. I met him all of one time. I was desperate to get in touch with him for a story that I was writing about

kind of about Kevin Durant and about the idea of height and why players lie about how tall they are because Walton was kind of alleged to have been someone that had done that in his own day and Kevin Durant you know if people remember I don't know what he's listed at now I think he's listed at 6'11 but he was listed at 6'9 for years and

in the NBA kind of by choice. And so anyway, I was looking to make a point to get around the people that had kind of been heightliers, so to speak, and I think had tried to reach out to Bill Walton, didn't get an immediate response. And then

you know, writer's dream. Sometimes you see that someone is doing a book signing or they're doing an appearance. He was going to be at the NBA store here in Midtown. And so I was like, well, that'd be a great time to go run in and just kind of try to float my question to him since I couldn't get in touch with him otherwise. And so I asked him, I said,

you know, Bill, how tall are you? I'm just curious because I'm working on a story about players who haven't been the most forthright about their height. He just starts laughing and that big laugh that he has, which is so wonderful. And he said, well, how tall do I look? He was sitting down, by the way, when he asked the question. So that was already funny enough. But the quote that he had that he kind of shared with me, and I already knew that he'd said it, he had been asked one time when he was playing Hakeem Olajuwon,

How is it that you're listed at 6'11 and Hakeem is listed at 7 feet, yet you're way taller than he is? And his response, and this is what he stuck to when I asked him, he's like, the floor was warped. And it's like, again, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. He was always a little bit sensitive to his height from the standpoint of being, you know, if you're 7 feet tall, people see you as a freak. And, you know, I've heard other people say that sort of thing before, but...

so rarely that you run into anybody that has anything bad to say about the guy. I haven't ever met anyone that has just a fun spirit and just a fun personality to be around even for three, four minutes at a time. And just really sad. I mean, it's one of those things that just kind of stops you in your tracks when you're reading through Twitter and you see that.

So thinking about his family, thinking about people that knew him more personally than you and me did. But what a loss for the sport and just for people that want to have fun, people that want to watch a game and not take it too seriously. Because I remember watching him for the first few times I saw him on TV. I'm like, what is this guy talking about?

And then you realize, as seriously as we can take the sport, how fun it is to have somebody that injects that much personality into it. How much fun it always looked like he and Pash were having. So I definitely appreciate it. One of the things that's interesting about television is...

There are specialists who kind of train people how to be commentators on TV, whether it's commentating a game or being on talk shows or whatever. And I'm always kind of of the belief for... I worry sometimes that the training you get, the media training you get, kind of homogenizes everybody and makes everybody talk the same way. I'm of the... When I watch...

I want to see people be unabashedly themselves. I want to see people be different. I want to see everyone be the most authentic versions of themselves on TV, even if they are doing stuff that is not traditionally TV friendly or they don't sound as polished as perhaps the media training specialists would be. And that's why I've loved Bill Walton for that reason. Bill Walton was Bill Walton. Like you were not going to media train anything at Bill Walton out of him. And why would you want to?

And by the way, Jokic is the greatest passing big man of all time. That's done. It's over. Bill Walton is in the conversation right below him with Sabonis and some other guys. Bill Walton was an elite scorer. Bill Walton was first team all defense in the NBA before his body gave out on him. And you talk about...

People who were – he's kind of the Gale Sayers of the NBA where for – forget the college stuff where he was just so by far and away the best college player when he was there. He was at his peak and just it was a short peak. I think he's a two-time all-star, which is insane to think about in the NBA that this guy made two all-star teams. Maybe the best player in the world. Okay, one aside before we get to the Celtics.

Uh, there's been, you know, there are new, the rumors, the rumblings that are starting to come out about off season stuff and all that. We'll, we'll get to that coaching changes. The wizard's job, the Lakers job is a JJ Reddix to lose. I think it probably is JJ Reddix to lose, blah, blah, blah, uh, under the radar story. Whoa, Chad last week. Um,

extension talks have been tabled between Mike Brown and the Kings. And I had, I, I just shouted this out on the pod maybe two months ago. And I said, get ready for the extension talks between Mike Brown and the Kings. It's going to be interesting. This is what I was talking about. Look, I, it's not like I'm digging into Sacramento Kings minutiae every day. It's the playoffs. I'm focused on the playoff teams, but,

All year I've heard these rumblings. Oh, the Kings ownership is kind of disappointed with their season. Their offense dropped off a little bit. They didn't make the playoffs, lost in the play-in. They wanted to win a round. Mike Brown wants a lot of money. Saw these contracts that Spoh and Pop and Kerr and Monte Williams got. He wants a lot of money. I don't know how it's going to go. And the Kings, who knows? The Kings, listen to me. How many times are you going to relive history where you get a good coach who

that actually has a run of success with your dysfunctional franchise stabilizes it and then you start to second guess it and overthink it and move on with life and then you blink and five years and nine head coaches later you're still looking for a solution the Kings need to pay Mike Brown I'm not

friends with Mike Brown. I don't even know who Mike Brown's agent is. Mike Brown and I haven't talked in four months. We have a nice professional cordial relationship. I have no agenda with Mike Brown. His success or failure is immaterial to me. I'm talking about the Kings. Remember when Michael Malone

Had a nice run with the Kings. DeMarcus Cousins actually responded to him. They were over 500. DeMarcus Cousins got sick, I think. I feel like he had meningitis or something like that. And they sunk under 500. And Vivek Ranadive, in a fit of whatever, fired Michael Malone. And everyone was like,

What are you doing, man? This is the only guy who's brought any sense of stability, accountability, whatever, to your wayward franchise in a million years. You fire him over a losing streak and then you blink and it's like, coach, coach, coach, coach. Dave Yeager has a nice run for a hot second. Oh, there's organizational infighting, blah, blah, blah. Dave Yeager's out.

Pay Mike Brown what it takes because your franchise has been an embarrassment. You have a coach who immediately came in, established an identity, established accountability. Yeah, he's tough on players, whatever. The players seem to have responded to it fine. And you're going to nickel and dime this guy in a market of head coaches where he's probably not asking for curve money or pop money or spoil money because he hasn't earned that money. He's not on their level as a coach with a track record. Just be a normal team. Pay your good coach.

who was the unanimous coach of the year a year ago. And now after having success for two seconds, you're going to second guess it. I find that unbelievable. And yet, frankly, very believable at the same time. Okay, Chris, the Celtics are in the finals. The Eastern Conference playoffs have concluded. RIP to the Celtics.

Eastern Conference playoffs of 2023, 2024. The Celtics go 12-2, sweeping the Pacers in the conference finals. Three crunch time wins, somewhat improbable. All three of them comeback wins for the Celtics. They are plus eight.

11 per 100 possessions so far in the playoffs, which is an elite net rating no matter how you slice it. However, as you know, Mr. Herring, no Jimmy Butler in the first round and then no other Heat players toward the end of the series. No Jared Allen in the second round. No Donovan Mitchell for the last couple games of the second round. No Karis LeVert for the last game of the second round. And then no Tyrese Halliburton for the last two games of the conference finals.

This is the Celtics' second finals appearance in the last six to eight years. They've made six conference finals in eight years, so only two finals is, I think, somewhat disappointing. The stakes are very high for them, obviously. They have had many, many opportunities to shake up the Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum tandem, and...

sniffed around Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis, Jimmy Butler, on and on and over and over said, nope, we believe in this team. We believe that this window can stay open for a very long time. They have been proven right. The window has been open for a very long time. At some point, you got to jump through the window and get the thing that you're trying to get, which is the championship. And they have not done that yet. This will probably be their best chance in this era with the best team of this era, presumably

provided Porzingis comes back and looks somewhat like Kristaps Porzingis. But I will just ask you, the Rorschach test of the Boston Celtics 2024 playoff run, how are you feeling about them going into the finals? How do you feel they've played? How do you feel they stack up potentially against Dallas or Minnesota? But truthfully, I've spent more time thinking about the Dallas matchup, obviously. Just how are you feeling? What's your Celtics temperature check? Sure. I mean, I think that they came out of the East...

As dominant as they looked over the course of the season, they won these series as easily as a team that wins the East by 14 games should. Now, within that, there's context, obviously. I think that's what you're asking about.

Do we love the way they looked by barely squeaking these games out? To me, it kind of looked like a team that knew exactly how much rope they had and kind of was like, all right, let's stop playing around and had just enough, even though the Pacers had a 90% win probability in three of those four games. The Pacers lose all three of those games. The Celtics find a way to win them. It was the same thing in the Cleveland series.

repeatedly without Donovan Mitchell. And so it on some level does appear to be a team that kind of plays down to its competition. But that said, like, we're just not really that used to seeing teams look bored in the playoffs. And is that what it is for them? They're also missing their starting center.

who was impactful. You can't talk about lively and how big an impact he has in one game or by not being there and not talk about Porzingis having not been there for two whole rounds. I was covering the game where he got hurt against Miami. So that's, it's meaningful. It's not to say that it's not, but we've, we've seen the Celtics kind of do this before. So I feel good about them. I think they match up pretty well with anybody. My fear is,

is what does it look like to ramp up all of a sudden against a team that could be, will be at relative full strength in Dallas if they advance and Lively is back? If one, Porzingis takes some time to kind of knock off Rust.

Or two, if it just takes them a while to ramp up to the level of competition, this is not going to be Indiana without Tyrese Halliburton. It's not going to be Cleveland without Donovan Mitchell. It's not going to be Miami without Jimmy Butler. Dallas is a team that presents a completely different sort of challenge for all the reasons that we've talked about that make this difficult for Minnesota.

two ISO stars, a defense that despite what you thought of it early or even midway through the season now, it's completely legitimate. That makes life difficult on you that Kyrie and Luke are going to guard, you know, a team that has found something with its big men from Gafford to lively. Obviously we were talking about the impact he's had,

I just don't, you know, and also a team that probably has the best player in the series if you're playing against Dallas. So there's all sorts of things that just like this is not a team you want to ease into a single game with and that you can just take for granted that we'll turn it on in the last eight, nine minutes and get it done.

Good luck with that. And, you know, I just think that it's not to their advantage that they haven't been tested in the way that we're accustomed to seeing them tested. I know for me,

Up until OG was hurt and Brunson obviously fractured his hand, that I kept thinking that the Knicks might present more of a challenge just because they're so physical than Indiana would. And not to necessarily speak of talent, but just physicality. And does that make it equivalent to what you're going to see in the finals against a team like Minnesota or –

or dallas no but it just would have presented a challenge uh miami obviously is physical but even there it's like well they're playing without their best guy and rosier wasn't even available for that series either as we talk about that that's right i forgot the legendary rosier was out too hawk has missed the end of the series yeah so it's you don't get robinson was limited kevin love was limited on and on

Yeah, yeah. So that's where it's like any sort of challenge. I'm welcome. You know, I would welcome for Boston just because they didn't see a whole lot of it. And I don't think you can blame them for it. I just don't know that I'm ready to crown them the way I probably would have been ready to had they faced more challenges and still kind of mowed through the East the way they did. So that, you know, I'm a little concerned despite the fact that they still...

on paper, might be the best team in the league. That hasn't shifted. So let's be very clear. Both Dallas and Minnesota could beat Boston in a seven-game series, period. You said probably Dallas has the best player in the series against Boston. Scratch the probably. If they do have... If it's Boston-Dallas...

Boston has gotten through the East playoffs without facing Giannis and without facing Embiid and therefore has gotten through the East playoffs without facing a team that has the best player in the series. I mean, you could argue Donovan Mitchell at his very, very best, maybe, and some nights is better than Jason Tatum. I think Jason Tatum is just a better player if it's close, whatever. This would be Dallas, the first series, and Boston's been thinking about this internally for a long time about where Tatum ranks in the league and

how to win a title when for one round, two rounds, three rounds, if it breaks wrong, you will not have the best player in the series. Well, they haven't had to face that yet. This would be one. The first time Luka Doncic would be indisputably the best player in the series. I think Boston's been fine. I understand everyone gets discontented when they let these teams hang around, but often they let a team hang around and then they ended up winning by 16 points. They're like, well, does it really matter if they let them hang around? They win by 16. Indiana was a different...

a different kind of series. And yes, I would have liked to have seen them beat the Pacers without Halliburton a little bit more convincingly, even if Indiana's defense is better without Halliburton. There's just no weak link to pick at. To me, their litmus test is going to be, and everybody talks about this ad nauseum, they had the number one offense in the league and the number two defense in the league.

I think what Boston has going for it, and not going for it, but to me, their defense is underrated and under-discussed because their offense is so scrutinized. Their shot selection, Tatum's shot selection, Jalen Brown's handle, their tendency to maybe stagnate now and then.

I think that is their make or break factor in the finals is they're going to have to approach every offensive possession or more of them than they did in the East playoff series with a determination that we are going to get the best shot possible that Jason Tatum, when there's 12 on the shot clock and you have Jones jr. On you, or you have PJ Washington on you, there's 12 on the shot clock. Let's do something else. Let's get into our next action. And,

And when you have a smaller guy on you, go to the basket. And I think he's been better at that this season than ever. And with the times he had Ben Shepard or Tyrese Halliburton, he was trying to take him mostly to the basket. But what the Celtics have going for them, other than the number one offense in the league is I think their defense is just, we, no one it's taken for granted how great they are defensively. And again,

I think they've been, I mean, you look at their defense, they're allowing 109 points per a hundred possessions in the playoffs. That would have been number one in the regular season adjust for competition. It's not quite that good. That's fine. But you look at the fundamentals of their defense, their first and opponent free throw rate, second and defensive rebounding rate for the playoffs, their defensive rebound rate would rate number one, their opponent shot selection has gotten even mathematically better. They're allowing fewer shots at the rim, more mid range shots in the post season. Um,

They're just a rock solid defense. That said, if it's Dallas and it's Luca, this is the first team that they'll face where it's hard. I mean, the only times they've been really hurt on defense in the playoffs is

is when a superstar ball handler, Donovan Mitchell, and to a lesser extent, Tyrese Halliburton, could hunt Al Horford and say, okay, there's one matchup where switching hurts you. This is the one. Let me peck at it. Well, here comes a super-duper version of that in Luka, and whether it's Porzingis or Horford in the starting five...

You know, you got to put those guys somewhere in the Celtics in the past against Dallas. I was rewatching some of their recent games have put Porzingis on PJ Washington have put. I think they will put him on Derek Jones Jr. and put wings on Derek Lively hoping and Daniel Gafford hoping to switch the main ingredient pick and roll of Dallas's offense and take away the lobs at the very least and

And force them to redirect their offense. If you want to hunt our big guys, you got to run Luca PJ, Washington pick and rolls or Luca, uh,

Derek's known junior pick and rolls. And guess what? Lucas seen all that a gazillion times, right? He knows how to solve it. He knows the workaround, but what it does do is it complicates your path to the lobs. And because if you're going to use those other guys as screeners and they roll, they're going to roll into Derek Lively's airspace and Daniel Gafford's airspace, but their defense has been awesome. And between Jalen Brown, drew holiday, Jason Tatum, and Derek white for elite wings and guards to throw, uh,

at all of these guys. And I do, I just, I'm not sure Minnesota would be able to muster enough consistent offense against them. Dallas though is a different story. But my point about Boston's defense is this. I think it's mostly been very good. And to your point about Boston's attention level and response when they're pushed and tested, I

I think you've been able to tell the difference in the playoffs between their defense at a nice B level and their, oh boy, we need to turn it up for five minutes to win this game defense. And that's when you sit back and watch them and you're like,

That's a gear that no one else in the league can hit, maybe Minnesota. And that's a gear that these three prior teams have had, like they can't get anywhere. There's no answer for it. And you watch and you're like, woo, okay. And those are the stretches that make me optimistic that Boston has kind of been

Not lazing through the playoffs, but has not been on a high alert in the playoffs and knows on some level internally they will have to be on high alert for 48 straight minutes against whoever they face. And they're ready for that. And I will tell you right now, I am going to pick them to win the finals. I picked them to win the title before the season, but they better be on high alert for 48 minutes, particularly on offense, because that is what whatever opponent they face is going to require of them.

Yeah, I mean, you raise a good point. And as you were talking, what it made me think about was, you know, the Warriors and like teams that have been here, been there, done that. The Celtics have from the track record you just laid out over the last eight years. Obviously, they were in the finals a couple years ago. The difference with them is that they haven't won it yet. And I think too much of our thinking in the NBA group think is like,

You know, oh, well, you know, this isn't going to happen or let's kind of pick on Jokic and how could he be an all time great when he hasn't won? And then the whole narrative shifts once they do win. So that could be the Celtics here. No question. They have been there and done that from the standpoint of the Eastern Conference. They've been the best team in the East over that span, even though they haven't won a title. What's interesting is that you normally see teams kind of take their foot on and off the pedal sometimes.

When they've won a title. And then they're that way. And then it's like. Well there's nothing more for us to really obtain here. Except to add to what we've already done. So if they're able to kind of. Wait until the finals. To really turn on the full jets. That would be different. I do worry just a little bit about.

You have to probably... Part of how you're able to make these comebacks with five, six, seven, eight minutes left, it's getting stops, but sometimes it's also forcing turnovers. And I think that it's tougher to do that with a team that is comfortable isolating as much as the Mavs are. They're not going to turn the ball over quite as much. I mean, we've seen some of the things that work against Luka from the standpoint of... There was a play last night. There tend to be at least one or two plays a game where...

Minnesota just bumps the guys so often. There was one possession in particular where he was just getting hit repeatedly, and I kept wondering, are they going to call a foul? He was wondering that, too. It was Jada McDaniels. You remember it. Yeah, and we've seen it a couple times now throughout the playoffs where that happens.

So we'll see. I mean, obviously the Celtics withdrew and Derek White, Tatum is no slouch. Brown is no slouch. Porzingis is a very, very good defender. So they have the ability to turn up the intensity and make life difficult for Dallas. But if Dallas works up a 10, 11 point lead and they're in the last 12 minutes of the game, I don't think they're going to relinquish that lead as easily as a team like Indiana in particular with or without Halliburton.

a lack of experience at this level. Dallas has some of that experience and they, you know, frankly, who they've had to play. I just trust kind of who they've had to play more to know what that intensity is and to keep it consistently. I don't love the idea that Boston would have to work its way to doing that for 48 minutes. But again, if we're talking about experience, I,

Boston has more experience at the finals level than this Dallas team does too, I guess aside from Kyrie. So I'm really interested to see it play out if it comes to that. At this point, I think just in terms of

I'd probably be more excited to watch a Boston-Dallas series just because I think that Luka and Kyrie are going to be such a handful, even for a great defense like Boston's. We're already seeing Minnesota, with the exception of this last game, kind of struggle under the pressure of these last few minutes, watching Ant's decision-making kind of progress just as a 22-year-old. But either way, I'm excited to see Boston play when Moore is on the line and they're faced with more of a challenge, whether it's offensively or defensively.

Yeah, we talk a lot about who guards who in these one-on-one matchups. And really, if it's Boston-Dallas...

it's going to be about where Porzingis and Horford are on the floor. And by the way, how often Boston plays them together. They had great success together this season, but it's going to be about like, like what I mean by that is Jalen Brown has done the bulk of the Luca assignment this season and the two games they've played. And in previous seasons too, and drew holiday has guarded Kyrie a lot along with Derek white. The reality is those matchups are going to switch possession by possession, screen by screen. And the real, the real McCoy is what pick and roll combination is Luca decided to go with and what defender is

um can he really go at and porzingis is huge i mean so here i mentioned boston's defense and you want to say okay so all these metrics are rock solid there are points allowed per possession or amazing are they getting lucky at all with opponent three-point shooting or opponent shooting in general and the data says no in fact they're getting a little bit unlucky opponents have shot better than expected according to both cleaning the glass and the tracking data

based on shot location and who the shooters are. When you break that down by types of shots, it's really interesting. So they're getting smoked on mid-range shots. Opponents have shot 45% on the mid-range. I don't think the Pacers missed a mid-range jumper for like three straight years. They were the best mid-range shooting team in the league, so that tracks. That's where the bulk of the quote bad luck is happening.

for the Celtics on defense and why opponents are exceeding their expected field goal percentage. Let's throw those out. On threes, opponents so far in the playoffs have shot 34.6% on threes against Boston. That's below average. Zero in on corner threes? No.

Opponents have shot 25% on corner threes against Boston. Now, Boston was elite all season at limiting corner three attempts and forcing above the break three attempts, forcing all your threes to be the longer variety. But 25% on corner threes accuracy-wise is crazy low. In the restricted area at the rim, opponents are shooting 71% in the playoffs. That's a very, very high number. And so you wonder...

If the threes swing and we know Luca produces better corner threes than anybody in the league and the rim stuff doesn't swing, is that a recipe for a small regression for Boston's defense against an elite, the first elite off? Well, no, not second elite offense. Pacers are an elite offense, but against an elite half court machine in Dallas, if it's Dallas, but that's 71% at the rim figure has a lot to do with poor Zingas too. If he's there, that number is lower.

And if he's there, you can play five out for the entire game. You don't have to play Tillman. You don't have to play Cornette. We all know he's a wild card, but he's a major wild card for them on both ends of the floor. If they have him...

I just think they're the best team. If they don't have him or they have a limited version of him, we'll see. I think they're vulnerable either way. I think Dallas could beat them either way, but I think Boston is the best team. But that's just a window into their defense and the importance of Porzingis overall. Chris Herring, any parting thoughts? We got a game off, a night off tonight, no games tonight. What are you going to do? No games tonight.

What am I going to do? I think I'm going to be studying for finals preview material. I'm working on a second book, so I might kind of try to do that a little bit. Don't jinx it. You start watching Mavs-Celtics film, all of a sudden it's going to be Game 7, Wolves-Mavs. You're going to be like, oh my God, that's all those hours out the window. I'll just stick to Celtics stuff in general and just try to look at what they've been doing defensively. Even that, you kind of have to toss out just because, like you said, Porzingis will probably be back and they've been playing the last few weeks. You mentioned...

The championship or bust, whatever. Like, oh, this guy didn't win a ring, whatever. Look, it's been six years, whatever, of knocking on the door for the Celtics.

You're never guaranteed to win a championship. I hesitate to use it. They have to win. If they don't win, they want to blow an opportunity. Like these teams in the West are too good. They kind of have to win. Like this is set up so well for them and you're only going to get so many cracks at this. Even as these guys are just really in the meat of their primes, Tatum and Brown, they were, they were just beginning their primes two years ago when they lost in the finals to the Warriors. Um, a series where I didn't find it surprising or disappointing at all that they lost, um,

But again, half to win is kind of strong black and white language. But let's flip it the other way. If they don't win, if they're healthy and they lose this series, they lose this finals,

It's going to be one of the all-time most gut-punch finals outcomes for any team because they've been building everything to this moment. And the story would instantly become how many times can this team near miss before something has to happen or they just become the also-ran of the NBA over and over again. It's never going to set up better for them. Denver's out. The East rolled over.

They better win or else it's going to be an all-time regret outcome. But they have time now to sit and wait and rest and prep and watch the rest of the Western Conference Finals. Chris Herring, author of Blood in the Garden about the 90s New York Knicks, another forthcoming book, and all sorts of great stuff on ESPN.com. It's great to see you, bud. Thanks, man, for having me on. Let's enjoy these finals as they come up and the end of the Western Conference Finals. Church's original recipe is back. You can never go wrong with original.

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Milwaukee without Giannis, the Knicks, the remains of the Knicks by the end in seven thrilling games, and then the conference finals against Boston. I kept trying to think about, you know...

How should the Pacers regard themselves after a conference finals run? Given the injuries of their opponents, you know, the 2021 Hawks came up in a lot of conversations as a comp of a team that got a little carried away with itself. You know, internally, you're tested like this sometimes where, okay, do we have to take a cold, hard look? What is this team actually? What is it going forward? What did we learn about our team? And so now here we are, they get swept by the Celtics.

Three really close games. Three come from behind wins for the Celtics. Tyrese Halliburton doesn't play the last two. And so now the season is over and it's time to ask that question. How should we feel about the Pacers? How should the Pacers feel about themselves? There is no one, not anyone on earth, better qualified Pacers

to answer this question, at least outside the Pacers organization, then Caitlin Cooper, who writes basketball. She wrote on sub stack. I am a subscriber. You should be a subscriber. If you want to learn about the Indiana Pacers, you should subscribe. If you want to learn about tactical basketball, you should subscribe. Not just Indiana Pacers tactics, but tactics around the league. You should subscribe basketball. She wrote, wait, it's Patreon, not sub stack, right? Yeah. It's Patreon. Patreon.com slash basketball. She wrote.

Kaitlin Cooper, how are you? I'm doing very well. I think that if you look through the show log of every episode of this that you've done, I'm probably the most obscure guest you've ever had. So I already have that going for me.

I don't know if that's true, but your newsletter is quite popular, including among Tyrese Halliburton and some other members of the Indiana Pacers. He's a big fan of yours. And you just know, you know, this team better than I do. You watch every second. You watch every game multiple times. You know everything about the Pacers inside out, how they play, what they're about. So I will just put it to you. How do you feel about the Pacers after a conference finals run? What is this team? How good are they? Where are they going?

I think you kind of hit the nail on the head when you brought up the Atlanta Hawks and talked about, you know, maybe the Hawks got too caught up in it. I think yesterday during their exit interviews, when everyone was speaking to reporters, their general vibe was we're encouraged by what just happened, but we realize that we still need to take steps forward. Listening to Pascal Siakam virtually say that as somebody who's been to the mountaintop and saying, we still have work to do. Chad Buchanan saying, you know, this season was a great step.

But I think in the NBA, nothing's linear. Just because we went to the Eastern Conference Finals this year doesn't necessarily guarantee that we'll be back or that we'll be in the finals. And we know that there's things that we need to do and improve on. For me personally, I think that the injuries certainly played a part. The Pacers did get lucky to an extent in what opponents they were up against. But when you look at that Knicks series, I can also look at games six and seven and be

optimistic about things that they did in spite of those injuries for one yes like part of the adjustments in terms of how they were guarding Jalen Brunson and how they were capable of doing that they've switched from Andrew Emhart to Aaron Neesmith but behind Aaron Neesmith there was constantly Pascal Siakam in the shadows providing strong side help off of Precious Achua and off of Josh Hart if Ojean and Obi's healthy they're not able to do that defensive scheme in the same way

I can acknowledge that, but also I can watch Tyrese Halliburton and I can watch Pascal Siakam in game six, and I'm seeing them run an empty side pick and roll, and Tyrese is being guarded by Deuce McBride, and they pop Siakam to the elbow. It becomes a pop and get for Tyrese to try to get the handoff back, and Deuce McBride top locks him, and then Tyrese turns that into, okay, well, I'm just going to screen my own man and try to sandwich him between Siakam. Siakam rejects it. I remember that exact play. It gets to the rim. I think...

I think we highlighted it on NBA Today actually because it was such a high IQ play by both guys and such a selfless play by Tyrese Halliburton.

And it goes against what we've come to know of the Pacers. And this was something that I talked about throughout that playoff run, that you're watching them play two-man game. What we know of the Pacers' offense is it's very egalitarian, and that's good in a lot of respects. But also there are certain points where you just want your two best players to be able to engage in the same action and keep the ball on that side of the floor and do problem solving. And you also saw Siakam do a little bit of that with Andrew Nembhard in these past two games against the Celtics as well. So those were important steps, especially because Siakam never –

they were kind of like two ships passing in the night when he got traded to the Pacers. Tyrese wasn't fully Tyrese really, in my opinion, for the remainder of that season. So even though they did have some help in terms of what was going on with their opponents, I also think that there was very important steps that they made headed into next season where I agree with the Pacers. They should be encouraged by what happened, but they also need to be vigilant and still continuing to look for ways to improve, whether that's an off-season work and acquiring additional players or with their internal development. So Tyrese,

Their big move, obviously, was trading Bruce Brown and three first-round picks for Pascal Siak. We can boil it down to that. Two of the first-round picks will already convey this season. They will be whatever the Pacers pick is and then a low 20s pick. So, eh, picks. The third pick is a 2026 Pacers pick, and you would hope that that would also be an eh pick. If that's the case, it's a fine trade. That's a fine price to pay for an all-star-level talent.

Pascal Siakam. Now the bill comes due a max contract that could start at 42 something million a year, according to Bobby Marks and run up to $200 million over five years. How did you like the fit? Is that an investment they should make, even though probably they've already internally decided that they're going to make it? What did you think of the first 40 whatever games of the Pascal Siakam experience?

I think if you look at what happened to the Pacers a year ago when Tyrese Halliburton got hurt against the New York Knicks and they won

one and nine in those 10 games by virtue, by comparison to what they just did when Tyrese got hurt during the regular season, how they were able to get into the playoffs and how they were still competitive in games three and four without Tyrese Halpern. A lot of that is because of Pascal Siakam, what he did in game six against the New York Knicks, his persistence that he showed and posting those mismatches, getting the ball, because that was the important thing in game five. You know, Tyrese is being face guarded. He's being pressured.

94 feet by Deuce McBride. They're trying to play four on four. At times, Tyrese will stand very close to the logo and allow his teammates just to figure things out and make use of his spacing. They needed to get the ball to Siakam Moore, and they certainly did that in game six. And then in game one, when the Celtics made the adjustment to put Al Horford on the

to Pascal Siakam and Pascal is the most frequent screener for the Indiana Pacers. He's really hitting and sticking those picks. That was another important step for the Pacers to be able to do that because like I said, sometimes it can be hard to use Tyrese and Pascal as screening partners because Pascal is being guarded by the other team's best power forward. A lot of times Tyrese is drawing a good assignment opponent.

opponents switch that you're not necessarily gaining an advantage, but what Pascal was able to do against cross matches throughout these playoffs. And especially with regard to what that did for miles Turner, that's not something miles has had in his career. Like if you look back at the fours that played next to him, Thaddeus young, DeMontis Sabonis, even TJ Warren in the bubble, uh,

He needs to be a five defended by fives, and Pascal made that more feasible. You saw that in the Bucs series. For two games, he was guarded by Brooke Lopez. Eventually, the Bucs don't want to do that anymore because of what Pascal Siakam did against Brooke Lopez. So I'm comfortable with it. I think defensively, they still have a lot of things to figure out. It's telling that you're in game four against the Boston Celtics and Siakam's not guarding Jason Tatum or Jalen Brown. You could point to a lot of games like that that might make you raise an eyebrow and be like,

Hmm. Also raise an eyebrow, how much switching they had to do in that game and that they were not very good at switching in that game. But otherwise I think that them saying that he's 100% their top priority. I think he should 100% be their top priority. I, I like the fit as much as I thought I would when they made the trade. And I, I felt like they made progress every game Tyrese and Pascal. And like you said, they, they didn't get off to the best start because of Tyrese's health when the trade happened. Um,

And also, like you said, you have this other screener in Miles Turner who could also space the floor. And you have to figure out how to direct your offense most efficiently, whether it's Tyrese Pascal. I didn't think they did enough Pascal. Tyrese inverted pick and roll throughout the season. I bet we see a lot more of that next year. And as you're alluding to, a lot of it depends on who's guarding who. And when teams put their fives on Pascal, he was just too fast for him. And I think that sort of matchup

Masha Nation is something we'll see more of next year, but obviously the pace, they play at the same pace. They're going to learn each other's game in the half court. Pascal stepping up in the postseason, particularly without Tyrese, is just a killer one-on-one scorer from all the areas that the Pacers don't score that much from, at least individually.

in sort of traditional one-on-one sense, this is huge. Defensively, he covers a lot of holes. They're going to pay him. They should pay him. It's Indiana. It's not like they're going to get, you know, Anthony Edwards in free agency down the line or something like that. You just, this is, this is the best they're going to do with this cap space. And just before we get into the other questions about the team, I'm going to answer my own question because I should answer my own question. I know they got injury breaks in the first two rounds.

I know they got swept by Boston. I come away and like, again, there's no guarantee they even get out of the first round next year, but that's just not how the NBA works. I come away in the aggregate from this playoff run and particularly those last two games against Boston are going to stick with me. This feels sustainable to me that there's a, there's a toughness and a, a depth and a versatility to how they can attack on offense that feels real good.

and sustainable not necessarily like well this is a guaranteed conference finals team every year but this is a good team and the best compliment I can give them I've said this before is even if you're a great team like Boston or whoever you have to play well to beat the Pacers the Pacers are not going to beat themselves their floor is really high on offense every single game you have to play well to beat them and when I say tough and sustainable I guess I'm really talking about

A few guys. Miles Turner's offense has gotten better and better every season. I think his defense has slipped a little bit season by season, but you may disagree with that, and I would defer to you on that. Andrew Nembhardt and the way he played in the last two games, I've liked him all along. I think he's a good player.

This playoff run is like, okay, this guy could be part of the core and we've got to think about extending him this summer and what that means for his team option in a year and all that. We've got to figure that out. The Siakam piece is big and their depth is their depth. We know that's good. But Nembhard really just kind of opened up my eyes. And together with Toppin, we haven't seen Jairus Walker at all. I've liked the flashes that he showed this entire season. Matherin was out. There's a lot to like here, but...

People can nitpick this and say, oh, it's a fluke. They got this far. I get that. I come away with this. I'm like, this team's going to be a force to be reckoned with in the next couple of years. Like they are not going anywhere. I'm not sure how far they're going to go. They need to upgrade their raw talent level. And we could talk about how to do that. But to me, this is just a good team. And I feel very encouraged about them going forward. And those Nemhard games, I mean, you've written and talked about this and you tweeted about it too. If he emerges as a real player,

I guess I don't know what he is. Starting caliber offensive player who can create his own offense. That's a big, big deal for their team.

Absolutely. And a lot of people are asking questions because, you know, Nembhard did this when he was the primary ball handler. Tyrese wasn't playing and they're like, what does this mean when Tyrese comes back? How do they balance both things? And if anything, watching him do that and watching him in the prior rounds and the way that teams guarded Tyrese makes me more convinced of the pairing of them together. For as often as teams face guard and pressure Tyrese individually,

It helps him to have another guard on the floor that they can run offense through. Like being able to see, a lot of people talked about how often the Knicks were hunting Tyrese in that game five and true. That was true. Like he's being used as a screener defender 22 times.

In the end, there were some very loud mistakes that he made. In the second half, he got better. That was not particularly efficient offense for the Knicks. I think as I remember, it was like .778 points per chance on those screening actions. The bigger impact was what it did to him offensively and how he wasn't being used in the pick and roll. And when I look at other options on the roster that have started next to Tyrese over the course of the

this very segmented season. It's like, that's not something they could have done with Buddy Heald. That's not something they could have done with Benedict Matherin. And Andrew Nembhard just consistently got better as the playoffs went on. Because I would point out to people in the in-season tournament when the Pacers played the Celtics, Andrew Nembhard played four minutes.

He was playing behind TJ McConnell at that point in time. And I think that some of it too speaks to the fact that he missed the entire preseason with a kid, a kidney stone. He ended up hyper extending his knee in that in season tournament. And then he was dealing with back problems and it was kind of battling with his own handling to an extent during all that. He's not having an opportunity to work on his games because of the injury, but he's,

He's always been a wonderful passer. It was just the point where you got into the games against Boston and you could see that like from the beginning of the season when he started against Boston in November to being out of the rotation, he's seeing some of those same unders, but he's navigating it and figuring it out. Like there's times in November where he wouldn't even look at the rim against an under. He's getting off the ball and relocating with his back to the ball. Now in this series, he saw an under against Derek White and he literally dislodged Derek White from the under.

and got all the way to the rim or he's giving it to Siakam getting off the ball and immediately getting it back against Drew Holiday and attacking and applying that rim pressure. More of his shots on drives are coming near the basket and that's something that I know the coaching staff has talked with him about. So I just think overall and watching him late in the game of game three where, you know, it didn't get talked about much, but they finished that game with TJ McConnell on the floor. TJ McConnell's off-ball spacing, TJ McConnell might be the only player who can navigate TJ McConnell's off-ball spacing. Yeah.

because TJ was being guarded by Drew all day at the end of that game. And Drew all day is just playing free safety. And Andrew still found a way to get through all of that and draw a foul. And then by game four, they, they figured out what, you know, I thought was a, uh,

good hack or solution for it which was give pascal the ball at the elbow put tj in the dunker spot which is something the pacers really like to do is inverted spacing with guards in the dunker spot and that kind of provided a solve for them but yeah andrew if we can continue on this track like that's definitely a positive to be looking forward to in addition to what you just said that they had two lottery picks that did not play minutes of consequence in the playoffs right now

I think Walker is going to be good. Mathurin has just been, the Mathurin experience is kind of a roller coaster, but there's something there and we'll see what part of it gets tapped into. But look, the other big free agent is Toppin, who's going to be a restricted free agent this summer. And the finances are what they are. If they max out Pascal and re-sign Obi-Wan,

I just penciled in 15 million a year, a little bit above the mid-level exception, a little bit less than a contract that would, I think, be an eye-opening contract. They're going to be right at the tax. This team hasn't paid the tax in a long, long time. I've said before, look, it's not my money. I think Obi Toppin, I think they need to bring back Obi Toppin, even though he's blocking, he's kind of blocking Jarius Walker. I just think he was good. He fits their style of play. And if he is at that number, I,

That's a tradable number. And if you start thinking about this team going forward, I think it's a blessing and a curse for them that their bench was just as good as their starters. And by that, I mean depth is great. But if your bench, if like three of your guys off your bench are as good as three of your starters almost or two of your starters, you probably need one starter who's a little bit more of a high level guy between Tyrese and Pascal to

to really hit the next level. And realistically, the way they're going to do that is bundle a bunch of contracts and young players and draft picks, and they get control of all their picks but one as soon as this draft cycle is over to get some player down the line. So I want to get your take. Do you agree that they need that kind of talent injection? Do you want top and back? Everything I just said, I want your take on because this is your team. This is the thing you follow. So hit me with all of it.

I think that Obi Toppin definitely builds out their strengths. I think it was fairly obvious to most people. I was on a podcast with Dan Devine where he talked about earlier in the season that watching Obi Toppin was like watching somebody move upstate to a farm, only there really is a farm and they just get to run free. And I felt like that was probably the best comparison you could make in him changing teams from New York to Indiana. And certainly he improved as well. Like some of the things that he was doing in game six of that

Bucs closeout game where he's making quick reads off the dribble going uphill with his left and making a pass around Chris Middleton's year. He made his pass. He got as a role man and made a push shot in the paint. Like he still didn't do a lot as a screen and roller for the Pacers, but he is capable of doing that. He makes quick decisions and certainly his three point shot. He made pull. He made pull up threes. He's making pull up threes off the dribble going left. Yes. Uphill to his left.

And doing stuff in transition where I wasn't sure if he was going to, you know, build out his three point shot in transition as much as just being a rim runner, because he is very angular and his ability to stay balanced in those situations.

You mentioning transition reminds me that we should again repeat, even though I did mention this at the time, the guy dunked through his legs in a high leverage playoff game that if he had missed that dunk, Rick Carlisle might have murdered him on the court and be in prison right now. What a ballsy move that was. Obi Toppin dunking through his legs in a playoff game. You better make that dunk.

And he chose magic because there was a game where they played in New York and he tried that very same thing and he missed it. And then you could see like Julius Randall and other people really giving it to him after that happened. So credit to OB. Anyway, OB, OB, continue. But yeah, so as far as like his overall fit and what you just said about needing to put

potentially upgrade between Pascal and Tyrese. I think that this playoff still showed that they need to upgrade the defense and that I'm not entirely convinced that being able to do that is currently on the roster because with regards to OB and Miles Turner, to an extent, I pointed out that the Pacers switched more than they ever had in that game for against Boston, almost twice as many picks per 100 that they switched in that game by comparisons to games one through three, almost 10 times as many as they switched against the New York Knicks. And in part that was in

response to Al Horford, right? Because early in the season or in the series game one, there was some really kind of overzealous off-ball stunting going on against Al Horford. And I was kind of like, eh, maybe taper that back. And then in game three, Al Horford makes more threes than the Indiana Pacers. He made seven. The Pacers made five. So the Pacers' response to that was like, hey, we probably need to switch this. For me personally, I probably would have liked it better if they were going to switch it to continue the

funneling the ball to Miles and then let the on-ball defender veer back to Al Horford rather than just full-out switching out on it. But that gave Miles and Obi Toppin problems, and certainly during the closing minutes where they tried to pull Miles for a couple minutes, put Obi on the floor, and then it was just Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum taking turns kind of

Going at OB, OB also had like an off-ball defensive gap. There's a reason why OB didn't continue on as a starter from the beginning of the year, right? Like he was the starting four and it kind of started to be an indictment when you were seeing them play like

the Washington Wizards and Buddy Healds guarding Kyle Kuzma. Or you're playing the Milwaukee Bucks and Buddy Healds guarding Giannis Antetokounmpo and Obi isn't. So in that regard, Pascal will clearly be the top priority. I think that they would like to retain Obi Toppin. They've made that fairly clear. I felt yesterday that they were happy with what his performance was, but I still think, and to your point, that if there was an opportunity for them to find a wing-sized wing defender, that that still needs to be one that they should take this summer if that were to present itself.

Yeah, Neesmith is solid. Feels like he should probably be a backup on a truly contending team, but is a good player. What do we think of Miles Turner at this stage of his career? What is Miles Turner? How good is Miles? I've gone back and forth a million times on Miles Turner. He's entering the last year of his contract. His free agency after next season looms as the next big pivot point for this team because...

Their backup centers have been Isaiah Jackson, who's fine. I liked how he played in the playoffs. Is he ready to be a heavy-minute starter? I don't know. And Jalen Smith kind of fell out of the rotation. So it's a big question for them going forward. And I feel like his game, his strengths...

Everything about him is sort of oscillated in weird ways from year to year. Where are you on Miles Turner right now? It kind of even oscillated in weird ways throughout the playoffs and from series to series, right? So I will give him somewhat of a pass for game four because he and the team said afterwards that he had been hit in the back in the first half and that that was impacting him quite a bit. And

And I could notice that from being in the arena because he was in the tunnel on an elliptical every time he came out of the game and he was putting on the same back contraption that we've been seeing Tyrese use when he was dealing with the back spasms. That being said, what they were doing with him and what he was doing almost becomes a little bit more confusing with that knowledge because they were still having him switch that much

onto Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, despite the fact that they admitted that like he was dealing with back soreness and stiffness. And then also watching him in that fourth quarter, like really trying to duck in and kind of mucking up the spacing at times against Jason Tatum. When Siakam has the ball against certain cross matches, trying to do something, it's like, you know, if you were being limited, maybe just space in the corner in those situations, instead of kind of gunking it up a little bit. And like,

In part, what his performance was in this series had a lot to do with who was guarding him. Because he comes out like a house of fire in Game 1 in the first half, has 18 points, a lot of that coming against Luke Cornett in drop coverage. Then once the Celtics made the decision to switch those matchups and he's being guarded by wings, I don't need a lot of him trying to post up...

against wings. I did need more from him when he's being guarded by Derek White and a shot goes up and he can't get Derek White under the basket to try to even get an offensive rebound. Sometimes he's being pushed very far off the block by both Drew Holiday and Derek White. And I had really felt over the last year and a half that he had made some progress against switches and that really wasn't showing up. And then even more so in game four, they put Al Horford back onto Myles Turner and he popped a total of four times. Like, so sometimes I think some...

Yeah, four times in that game, and he only took one shot against Al Horford in the pick-and-pick. So that was a little bit confusing for me. That should have been a clear advantage. And again, if some of it was the back issue, rather than tucking in against Jason Tatum there late once that was the matchup, why not be having him pop more and try to be impacting it that way in the same way that Al Horford was? So...

that's where the disconnect can be sometimes with him. Like the reads aren't fully there. And that can be the same with, with Benedict Mather. And sometimes it's a feel issue. And then other times you can watch him in the buck series and be like, okay, well this makes sense because he's solution. He's the solution for Tyrese Halliburton. When Tyrese Halliburton gets trapped, he can score at all three levels, but it comes and goes. And that's kind of been the case throughout his career. And to your point earlier about what you said about the defense, I do think that there's been, um,

a slight drop off defensively for him over probably the last year and a half as an overall rim protector. It was telling last season because there were a lot of games where they would put Aaron Neesmith on opposing five so they could switch ball screens and they were using miles more weak side corner. There wasn't really as a good way to do that against Boston, obviously, because if you put Aaron Neesmith on to Al Horford, who's miles Turner guarding, like you don't want him to just outright guarding Tatum or Brown or drew all day or Derek white. So yeah,

Well, that's the secret sauce of Boston and has been the whole season is your center has to guard their center because there's nowhere else to put them. Not even Marcus Smart is here anymore is sort of a workable fail safe for that solution. Miles Turner is it's such an he's such an interesting player because there are nights where the three I mean, he shot the three well in the playoffs. He shot the three pretty well the last couple of years.

And his post-ups, like you said, he's never, he never like just put somebody into the basket. It's always like, let me turn and shoot over this guy for a 12 footer. But he's like, okay at that. His pick and roll with Halliburton was the most high volume pick and roll in the league. And one of the most successful, it's probably more about Halliburton than it is about Miles Turner. But the fact that he can pop and shoot threes and space, the floor is a very useful thing. And yet he's kind of a frenetic player in a lot of ways. And he,

It's been well documented. The Pacers have had both incoming and outgoing trade calls on him over the years. There was like the whole Gordon Hayward, Miles Turner thing from a couple summers ago when Gordon Hayward ended up in Charlotte. His future is a bit – he's still – what is he, only 29, 28, 29? I don't think he's 30 yet. And yet I don't know – they don't really have a replacement for him. He's just a really interesting player and a big –

big pivot point maybe they're just banking on in a league no one is going to break the bank for Miles Turner in free agency as a 30 whatever a 30 year old center at that time so maybe we can get them on an affordable deal but I just you know they're satisfied with this year but I think all the people we haven't talked about Ben Shepard who I think for a rookie did quite well in the playoffs I mean up and down as most rookies are but he fits the template of a player a lot of teams would want and

I think this team's got another couple of big transactions in them over the next couple years. It's just a matter of waiting and seeing what becomes available. But they're in a good spot. And Myles Turner, that's a big... I mean, I don't know what your thoughts on their center position are beyond him, but I don't know that Jackson has shown enough that I'm ready to hand the job over to him. That was curious to watch throughout the season because I felt like in preseason that

Isaiah would have been in pole position as the backup big if he had performed better. Jalen Smith comes out like a house of fire and was at one point, you know, leading the league in three-point percentage, albeit on very small volume. The guy the Suns drafted over Tyrese Halliburton. Yeah, and then as the back end of the season went on, Isaiah started overtaking him again. Obviously, both in the first round against the Bucs did it

have great series. That's why they went to Obi Toppin and Pascal Siakam and shortened the rotation a bit. Isaiah had some good standout moments against the Knicks. I wouldn't be prepared for him to fully take that position over Miles Turner to this point. Rick did mention yesterday at exit interviews that he said he has a lot of love for Miles Turner, respects everything that he's been through with this franchise and how he's handled it.

professionally and how valuable it is to have somebody who can both pop and roll. And I know that that's something that Rick values in the offense is having that versatility with both screeners being able to do that. But like you said, like some of it's like autopilot with him too, right? Cause you talked about him using his touch in the post and that typically is what he's going to do. He's going to, you know, square up in mid range and shoot over the top and

And it was good in game three because they were looking and knew, like, we don't have Tyrese. Our advantages are going to be inside. He hits a couple of those. And then it's like, well, this has worked twice in a row. And he automatically assumes it's going to work again. And that's when Derek White blocks one of them because Derek White's like, well, I've watched you do this two other times and now you're going to do it again. So it's that type of a thing. I mean, I think they would feel comfortable keeping

Miles, and it was interesting too because Tyrese mentioned during the season that him coming over from Sacramento and having run pick and roll with Rashawn Holmes, that he always thought, which is something that I had written, that he was going to pair best with a rim roller because of what that does with the uncertainty of his ability to toy and play the cat and mouse game with taggers. It's a great point. His floater, his finger rolls, and in part, I think that that's why they went after and as hard against DeAndre Ayton as they did with the Suns.

DeAndre Ayton was one of the most frequent role men in the entire NBA, what he was as a play finisher. And Tyree said, now that I've played with somebody who can score on all three levels, I don't know that I would go back. I think it's something that he values as well. It's just a matter of how can Miles counter for certain types of things and how is every series going to be for him? And the Boston series wasn't so much for Obi Toppin and Miles Turner as the prior two series was. And that's why a lot of times the playoffs are about matchups. But certainly the rebounding thing is a thing, right?

Like the rebounding is still a problem for the Pacers because they gave up a key rebound at the very end of that game. And part why? Because miles was switched on to Jason Tatum. Aaron East Smith was like, Oh crap. Miles has switched on to Jason Tatum. I'm going to go blitz that. And then drew holiday was wide open. Nobody boxed him out and he was able to go in and get that rebound. And that was the conundrum throughout most of the next series. You can't double Jalen Brunson because they weren't a good enough rebounding team to support doubling Jalen Brunson. So, um,

Some of that just goes back to this has been a thing under every coach. I know people have mentioned with Rick, why can't he get more rebounding out of this team? And I can be like, well, Miles wasn't a good rebounder under Frank Vogel. He wasn't a good rebounder under Nate McMillan. He wasn't a good rebounder under Nate Bjorkren. And now this has kind of continued on. So that is an issue depending upon how else they surround out that starting lineup for the next few years.

Maybe he's just going to be like what Brooke Lopez was, was with the nets where he's in trade rumors every year and he just doesn't ever get traded and he survives and survives. And so I survived the Sabonis pairing. It turns Sabonis into Tyrese Halliburton, which is a great trade. Um,

Any parting thoughts on the Indiana Pacers? Anything we didn't hit that you think is critical from this playoff run and going forward? Maybe just the depth with Nembhard and Matherin and Ben Shepard and how they're going to exactly shake that out. I mean, we didn't talk about Matherin much. I know Rick said yesterday that he thinks that he still has a chance to be a star caliber player, but...

the quick decision making the defense, some of that's still going to need to come around. And I think that you saw that coming from Nembhard a little bit more from Mather. And although you can certainly point at inflection points, one being they came back after the end season tournament, Bennett,

Benedict Matherin played against the Pistons. I realize a lot of players probably have good inflection points against the Detroit Pistons, but he has 30 points and like eight assists in that game. And you could see them in the fourth quarter run the same play four times in a row. And he made four different reads out of it. And I'm like, you know, this is noteworthy. And partly it was noteworthy because they were running plays for Benedict Matherin in the fourth quarter with the bench next to TJ McConnell. And like,

To a certain extent, I still think that Ben plays best out of sets rather than in flow and read game, and the Pacers are very much a flow, read game type team. But it allows them to do that and emphasize him when he's playing with the second unit, and he also plays very well off of TJ McConnell. So how exactly they envision that with him being a lottery pick and with the steps forward that Andrew Nemr took, I think is definitely going to be something to continue monitoring and watching because certainly –

We didn't get to see Benedict Matherin compete in the playoffs. And there are things that he can do that nobody else on this roster can do. He made a shot when Tyrese was out against Boston or didn't make a shot but got fouled on a sideline out-of-bounds play where he got up a shot off of Kristaps Verzingis and Rick after the game. It's like nobody else on our team could have taken that shot. And it's true because I looked for every time the Pacers ran that play and every time a team switched against it and nobody else ever got that shot. So that's something that the Pacers are going to have to continue evaluating and look at.

Yeah, like there are with a lot of score first wings with shaky three point shots and and there's there are some warts to iron out in his game. But I think he averaged six free throw attempts a game as a rookie or something like that. And you cannot just wave that away. That's that's a big stat. He can do stuff.

That is hard to find and is interesting. But this all points to the fact that they've got a lot of interesting pieces to play with, both for their team and for the trademark. And we didn't even mention that TJ McConnell three months ago decided that he was going to become the best one-on-one scorer in the NBA, basically, like completely unstoppable. Kaitlyn Cooper, basketball she wrote on Patreon, must read for all basketball fans, not just Pacers fans. Honestly, I read your stuff and I'm like, man,

I got to step up my game. There are people, there are people watching that. There are people watching these games with even more of a fine tooth comb than I am. And you are, you are one of them. I appreciate your time and, and good. And are you going to do some fever, some fever stuff now that the fever are the hottest show in town? I can tell you what, that our names get confused a lot. And it's always far more complimentary for me when I get confused as Caitlin Clark, then when people call Caitlin Clark, Caitlin Cooper, but I tell everybody, you know,

Covering basketball for 12 months is a lot. And I want to enjoy the Indiana fever, but I have trouble continuing to be a fan of basketball the longer that I've covered it at the NBA level. So I really just want to be a fan of the Indiana fever and be able to just watch it and try to connect with that part again.

I think what you just said is incredibly mentally healthy. Like you just like, it's a job and it's work and it's awesome. Like go be a fan. All right. Caitlin Cooper. Thank you very much for your time. Not Caitlin Clark. Clark plays for the Indiana fever. Caitlin. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. For the first time, Monday night football streams exclusively on ESPN plus.

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